It’s Not the Shameless Executive Power Grab in Plain Sight, It’s the Attempt to Retcon It Afterwards
This, from Steve Vladeck, is a helpful piece on the plight of Mamoud Khalil, the Columbia student detained by ICE the other day whom Trump is trying to deport. As he describes, the case is clearly an attempt to police speech, but (as many things are in a counterterrorism frame) the Trump administration might well offer up some plausible legal justifications to defend their actions.
[A]lthough what the government has done to this point is profoundly disturbing, and is, in my view, unconstitutional retaliation for First Amendment-protected speech, I’m not sure it is as clearly unlawful as a lot of folks online have suggested. And that’s a pretty big problem all by itself.
[snip]
Third, what is the legal basis pursuant to which the government is seeking to remove Khalil?
This brings us to the central “merits” question. What is the exact basis on which Khalil, in the government’s view, is subject to removal from the United States? Suffice it to say, President Trump’s social media post is not exactly specific here, nor has Secretary of State Rubio provided much additional clarity.For what it’s worth, my best guess (and it is only a guess) is that the government is going to rely upon one or both of two very specific provision of immigration law.
The first, 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(4)(C), provides that “An alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable.” There’s a caveat protecting such a non-citizen from removal “because of the alien’s past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations, if such beliefs, statements, or associations would be lawful within the United States,” but only “unless the Secretary of State personally determines that the alien’s [continued presence] would compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.” Thus, if Secretary Rubio makes (or has made) such a personal determination, that would provide at least an outwardly lawful basis for pursuing Khalil’s removal—so long as Rubio has also made timely notifications of his determinations to the chairs of the House Foreign Affairs, Senate Foreign Relations, and House and Senate Judiciary Committees required by 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(3)(C)(iv). (I’ve seen no evidence that he’s done so, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t.)
The second provision is 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(3)(B)(i)(VII), which renders both inadmissible and removable any non-citizen who “endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support a terrorist organization.” Perhaps the argument is going to be that, insofar as Khalil was involved in organizing pro-Palestinian protests on Columbia’s campus, he was “endors[ing] or espous[ing]” terrorist activity (to wit, by Hamas).
I know there’s a lot of technical language here. The key point is that it’s at least possible that the government has a non-frivolous case for seeking Khalil’s removal under one or both of these provisions—especially if Secretary Rubio invoked § 1227(a)(4)(C). And insofar as the government is relying upon those provisions to pursue Khalil’s removal, that might bring with it a sufficient statutory basis for his arrest and detention pending his removal proceeding. We’ll see what the government actually says when it files a defense of its behavior before Judge Furman; for present purposes, it seems worth stressing that there may well be a legal basis for its deeply troubling conduct. [my emphasis]
I of course don’t question Vladeck’s legal analysis (some immigration experts were pointing to the same immigration law provisions as well).
I instead want to suggest that with this case, as with several others, it appears that the Trump Administration made a shameless power grab without doing their investigative work first. So what we see going forward may be nothing more than an attempt to retcon it, to change their story after the fact to adjust for new facts.
Here are some ways Trump has been retconning (or attempting to) in the 50 days of this short term already.
- After Elon Musk made exaggerated claims about NYC’s use of hotels to house migrants paid for by a FEMA grant, Kristi Noem loudly bragged that she had fired the people involved and had clawed back the money involved. In its lawsuit suing to get the money back, NYC disputes the underlying claim that the government had pointed to (that Roosevelt Hotel was being used to support crime and NYC knew it). One of the fired workers, Mary Comans, disputed Noem’s claim about her own firing in one declaration. And now she’s suing not just for her termination, but for the false claims made about her publicly. As that suit was being filed, a top FEMA lawyer was fired, and those involved suspect it had to do with a request that the lawyer make claims about the clawback to give it legal justification.
- After Elon and others repeatedly claims made in a Project Veritas video about efforts to fund the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund at the end of the Biden Administration, Lee Zeldin bragged that he would claw back that funding, in such a way that may expose him to legal claims. In an attempt to do that, Emil Bove and Ed Martin pressured a senior DC USAO prosecutor, Denise Cheung, to not just freeze the funds, but do so with a claim of probable cause based on the PV video. That led her to quit and release her resignation statement. Only after that, the FBI interviewed the guy in the PV video; according to his attorney, Mark Zaid, he had nothing to do with the disbursements in question. And since then, Ed Martin has been jurisdiction shopping attempting to pursue this case. Zeldin is trying to get the Acting Inspector General to invent justification for this after the fact. One of the entities involved, Climate Fund, has sued the EPA, Zeldin, and Citibank (there will be a hearing on its request for a TRO tomorrow).
- With a great many DOGE activities (but most obviously with the USAID closure), the government initially claimed that it had stopped funding pursuant to Trump’s first-day Executive Orders, but after providers got Temporary Restraining Orders, the government (as laid out in a series of court declarations by Pete Marocco, in the USAID case) claimed, instead, that everything was shut down pursuant to a contract review involving Marco Rubio. The shutdown of contracts by itself may be totally legal (or at least defensible), but the way they did so raises real questions about whether the government was lying about Rubio’s personal involvement in the review process, and therefore its legality. (I’ll return to this example, and Rubio’s agency — double entendre intended — more generally, in a follow-up.)
With all of these things, like the Khalil detention, there might be some legal argument that it was legal.
But along the way, because the government didn’t have their story straight when they took action, they subsequently took actions that may cause, at the very least, legal friction going forward, if not legal liability themselves. Noem made allegedly false claims about Comans. A FEMA lawyer resigned, potentially available to offer conflicting testimony about what happened. Cheung resigned, loudly, exposing her opinion that Martin didn’t have criminal probable cause to pursue the clawback. Martin jurisdiction shopped. Marocco has made claims in declarations that defy credulity (and even conflict with a tweet Rubio posted yesterday).
More judges have gotten dragged in, with the kinds of fact sets that tend to piss off judges.
In Khalil’s case, there are several details that suggest the Trump Administration may be trying to retcon their basis for detaining him.
First, there were several right wing groups who first doxed and then targeted him. As with the PV video, right wingers are running with allegations regardless of the evidence. Last year after Columbia booted Khalil, they reversed the decision for lack of evidence. A right wing dossier on Khalil doesn’t actually include examples of antisemitism — but it dies invoke Hamas relentlessly. More recently, State has been doing AI searches to target people; thus far, anything this government has done with AI has had ridiculous problem. So there’s good reason to believe there was shitty information that went in the front end of this effort.
Further, it appears that ICE didn’t know that Khalil was a Green Card holder when they came to arrest him. The habeas petition claims that the agents “looked confused” when he provided proof of status.
15. On the evening of March 8, 2025, at approximately 8:30 p.m., [redacted] and his wife were returning to their Columbia University-owned apartment from a friend’s home. When they arrived at their apartment building, [redacted] and his wife were approached by approximately four people who were dressed in plain clothes. All of them entered the lobby of the apartment building.
16. When the people approached and his wife, they asked, “Are you [redacted]? When [redacted] answered in the affirmative, the men identified themselves as being with the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) and that they have to take into custody. The agents told [redacted]’s wife to go up to her apartment, and that if she would not leave they threatened to arrest her, too.
17. [redacted]’s wife retrieved s immigration documents to show the agent that is a lawful
permanent resident. She handed the documents to the agent, who was talking to someone on the
phone. The agent looked confused when he saw the documents and said, “He has a green card.”
[redacted]’s wife heard the agent repeat that they were being ordered to bring in anyways.[snip]
Attorney Greer identified herself as s attorney and asked who she was speaking with. The agent identified himself as Special Agent Elvin Hernandez of Homeland Security. Attorney Greer asked if Agent Hernandez had a warrant, and he answered in the affirmative, stating that [redacted]’s student visa had been revoked by the U.S. Department of State and therefore they were detaining him. Attorney Greer advised Agent Hernandez that is a lawful permanent resident and has the right to due process. Agent Hernandez responded that the Department of State had revoked [redacted]’s green card, too, and that he would be brought in front of an immigration judge. The agent stated that he would be taking to 26 Federal Plaza.
19. The agents then handcuffed and brought him outside where there were multiple vehicles
waiting. [redacted]’s wife asked for the names of the agents, their contact information, and how to
reach them to follow up on her husband’s detention, but they only advised her that would be
taken to 26 Federal Plaza, and otherwise refused to speak with her. They left her no business card
or any information at all as to how to find out where her husband will be taken, on what grounds,
or who she can contact. [my emphasis]
If the backup to the warrant to detain Khalil was premised on him being a student visa holder (this Tweet targeting Khalil directly asks Rubio to strip his visa), then it’s almost impossible that Marco Rubio would have done the concerted review that stripping him of his Green Card would require (much less the notice to Congress, which Vladeck laid out above), just as it’s “implausible” that Rubio really reviewed the USAID contracts that got shut down.
That is, the ICE agent’s representation that State had stripped Khalil’s visa when they detained him may not yet have been true, whatever else State tries going forward.
Finally, while it is normal for ICE to whisk people off to Louisiana like they did Khalil and normal for it to take a day or so to show up in the system (meaning, he wasn’t specifically disappeared, but rather, America’s detention systems work in this Kafkaesque way normally), the current record suggests that ICE moved Khalil after his attorneys had submitted the habeas petition. As Vladeck notes, that should help Khalil to retain the jurisdiction in SDNY, before Jesse Fruman and in the Second rather than Fifth Circuits.
Kahlil is currently being held in Jena, Louisiana—which is in the Alexandria Division of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana (and, as importantly, the Fifth Circuit). It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the government tried to argue that the New York federal courts lack jurisdiction over Kahlil’s petition—because they lack jurisdiction over his “immediate custodian,” i.e., the head of the ICE detention facility in Jena. Indeed, this is the exact argument on which the Bush administration prevailed in the Supreme Court in the Jose Padilla case in 2004—when a U.S. citizen detained in South Carolina as an “enemy combatant” sought to challenge his detention in Manhattan, which is where he had last been before he was transferred to military custody.
But there are two potential grounds on which Padilla can be distinguished. First, in Padilla, the habeas petition wasn’t filed until after Padilla had been physically removed from the Southern District of New York. Here, Khalil’s lawyers have represented that they filed before he was transferred to Louisiana (at 4:40 a.m., no less!). If that’s true (and there’s no reason to believe that it isn’t), that would make this a very different case. After all, a different line of Supreme Court precedent provides that the federal government can’t defeat jurisdiction in a habeas case by transferring the petitioner after the petition is filed.
But it also raised questions about whether ICE was trying to whisk him away to defeat the legal proceeding that was pending as soon as that petition was filed.
There’s that old adage, which seems inoperative since Nixon, that it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up. With Trump and under expansive authorities of Article II, it often looks like it’s not the initial power grab that might create legal problems. It’s the attempt to retcon that power grab after it becomes clear the facts were not what Trump or others believed when the Administration took action.
Over and over, Trump 2.0 has taken aggressive steps based off bullshit, much of it coming from Elon or other far right propagandists. And over and over, Trump’s top people keep creating problems for themselves as they try to adjust the (legal) narrative to match their evolving understanding of the facts.
So as we go forward with discussions about Khalil, don’t necessarily assume that legal justifications that the government could have used were yet the legal justifications they may argue going forward.
Thanks for the “retcon” link, Marcy. I hadn’t bothered to look it up before, thinking that it merely meant the rejiggering of a strategy. Turns out, it means the rejiggering of an *already fictional* narrative to fit a newly concocted story-line. Seems like that’s a go-to term for the continuous morphing of the lie-riddled, lawless abomination of our democracy that we’re living through right now.
With that in mind, should your title have a “just” inserted between the “not” and the “the?”
I’ll also point to the ongoing case in SF, American Federation Of Government Employees, AFL-CIO v. United States Office of Personnel Management.
Head of OPM is being asked to testify directly. Normally USG could get out of this but I’d say in this case his personal testimony may be necessary.
Likewise, I don’t see how you can’t avoid Rubio testifying in front of Judge Ali with the facts laid out.
This is what happens when you run government by Twitter, and not the federal register.
One could also include the who’s-in-charge shenaningans around DOGE as another example of the administration’s retcons-in-progress.
Perhaps it is a feature of the Trump/Musk executive action model that following rash action, liberal legal commentary attempting to make sense of it is monitored for the most plausible or defensible theory raised and that!
I believe this was gamed out. Khali was transferred to Louisiana because it is a difficult location to travel to, and it creates a dispute about judicial districts. This will be fought out in the court system, meanwhile Khali is in detention. The legal fight could be drawn out for a considerable time, maybe years, during which Khali will have a choice of dropping his case and being deported, or remaining in a situation that amounts to an indefinite jail term. They have him, and they aren’t going to let go.
Importantly, as EW mentions, Louisiana is in the Fifth Circuit. The Fifth, presided over by Chief Judge James (“the other”) Ho, is notoriously the most reactionary so-called “conservative” district in the country.
Is it me or does this Khalil case have a vibe like the putin-Navalny thing?
Except Navalny was an opposition leader who ran for office against Putin.
Khalil was merely exercising his First Amendment rights as far as we can tell from reported information, and his complaints aren’t aimed solely at the U.S. government since Gaza is not the direct purview of the U.S. One might wonder if Netanyahu had any role at all in this case.
Agree with you @quickbrownfox — more distracting kayfabe and using anything/everything for props, no matter the consequences.
@Rayne — March 11, 2025 at 4:49 pm: And before Navalny, Boris Nemtsov and countless others were murdered by the KGB serial killer. A miracle happened last fall when he released Vladimir Kara-Murza, a brilliant historian. https://youtu.be/Q8uXUv-yP8M
Netanyahu had better watch his back.
I’ll go ahead and ask the rhetorical questions, just for the sake of completeness. Has anyone been able to produce a copy of the warrant that the government allegedly had for this guy? And is it standard procedure to simply display a copy of an alleged warrant on your phone?
And we haven’t even gotten to the part where someone claims that at some point, Mamoud Khalil lied to a federal agent. That’s often the next phase of this playbook. Good luck getting that into the FD-302s. It looks like Greer documented the events in excruciating detail. It’s going to be hard for them to go back and rewrite the history here.
The Guardian is reporting that Judge Fruman has blocked the deportation. They have a link to his order, and he does not appear to be amused.
Ah, the War on Terror, the gift that will never stop giving thugs and con artists a Go Directly To Jail card for all enemies, foreign and domestic, real and imaginary. All nice and legal-like.
Those of us who have not studied law should have figured out by now that virtually any action can be spun as lawful or unlawful, given a skilled and motivated enough lawyer. We are drowning in evidence of the proposition. A judge may need convincing but there are a lot of Aliotos and Cannons out there. And there are always appeals. In short, even when retconing doesn’t work, it muddies the waters and slows the legal system down, which is close enough to a win for government work.
The “patriot act” the gift that keeps on giving. Surely this will be used against democrats in the future, or anyone that isn’t redhat wearing maga.
RE: “Patriot Act” I remember thinking we were toast, when this post-birth abortion of so-called “legislation” showed up some 3 weeks after 9-11 occurred. That told me someone (probably from PNAC) had it ready to go in the event of something like 9-11.
The Bush administration sat on what became 9-11 for some three months (US pilots were initially informed mid-June, the US AG quit using Commercial aircraft a week later)
It is almost like “they” wanted something like that to happen.
Of course, it was several years later that Ms. Rice said, “…but we never thought they would fly into buildings.”
It is like Israel sitting on information about Hamas practicing invasion for a year prior to their actual horror show.
When did the 1st Amendment get repealed?
(AIUI, the protests were on behalf of Gaza residents and ending the war against them – they didn’t elect Hamas.)
Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the group Khalil was affiliated with, called for “liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance.” and praised the October 6th attack:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/israel-hamas/2024/10/10/columbia-university-students-armed-resistance/75602932007/
Now the First Amendment should protect pro-Hamas opinions. And you can definitely argue that Khalil might not share the same beliefs as CUAD. But it’s fair to describe the Columbia protests as pro-Hamas.
If Rubio signed off on this with the expectation this was a student visa, is the arrest ultra vires?
Having been subject to some retcons back in the day, I can say I found them both startling and daunting. The lengths to which some people went to manage and maintain appearances was odious. And, even when someone in a key position of power realized and admitted to others that it had been unwise to listen to those people who created the retcon, the retcon persisted. Circling the wagons is not just a cliche.
So, I believe that Mamoud Khalil has a long road of challenges ahead. But I also think there is a good possibility that he may eventually prevail.
And, Marcy, I’m still thinking about Meirav Solomon’s testimony to Congress that you graciously shared with us (March 7.) As you stated:
“Solomon challenged the notion that you shut down antisemitism by policing campuses. Indeed, she focused instead on Trump’s cuts to Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. She pointed to the antisemitism of, “the President’s close advisors [who] raise their arms in fascist salutes.”
So, in the end, my Constitutional rights prevailed. If the evidence is in his favor, I hope the same will hold true for Mamoud Khalil. And I hope the John Roberts’ court supports the Constitution, as well. They swore an oath and have a duty to ensure that we honor the promise of the forthcoming Semiquincentennial of our republic.
Savage Librarian, I hope that Mahmoud Khalil possesses the same tenacity, courage, and perseverance that you summoned in your long fight for the truth. From what I’ve learned about him it seems he has fire in the belly, a creative and smart support system, and growing public awareness on his side. I pray he can forge the patience he will need to make it through this.
I have fought similar retconning by those in power. The hardest part was feeling alone in the struggle; isolation is the first weapon of bullies. These bullies are in fact retconning the “War on Terror” to institute a terrorist regime of their own. They are retconning the language, not just twisting but exploding the meanings of words.
Today my therapist told me she is advising her (anti-Trump) clients not to talk about him around their Alexas. She asked if I thought she was paranoid. Not when Musk and the Droogs are using AI to find wrongthink, I replied.
These are the kind of times when a fight like the one Khalil faces will have great meaning for all of us, especially those not paying attention.
Thanks for the spelling correction, Ginevra, and apologies to Mahmoud Khalil.
My experience was very solitary as well, like yours. But because of some very challenging childhood years, I took it upon myself to be self-reliant early in life. It may have helped me in the career challenges I faced.
But I knew then that it was best to keep my own counsel most of the time. It was not until I began commenting on emptywheel that I shared much with others. No Alexa for me. And no therapist. But I do value the opinions of a wide variety of people. And I agree, this is very important for many others.
Per Aaron Rupar on Bluesky
With link to video segment of K Leavitt press conference
“ Leavitt: “Secretary Rubio •reserves the right to revoke• the visa of Mahmoud Khali. Under the immigration and nationality act, the secretary of state •has the right to revoke a green card or a visa for individuals• who are adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests of the USA.”
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lk4lwsz7uc2o
My emphasis
There is an ambiguity in this explanation, does it mean that the SoS had not exercised either or both of these rights?
She is saying that the Executive can deport Khali , period. The SOS has the final say in the matter, and gets to call who is ‘adversarial to foreign policy and national security’, and that’s the end of it.
“the secretary of state •has the right to revoke a green card or a visa for individuals• who are adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests of the USA.”
BUT
She did not say explicitly that the SoS had revoked the Green Card, and that the arrest occurred in consequence.
So while she and others might imagine that is the end of it, whether it is the end of it remains an open question, doesn’t it?
That’s the way I see it, too, SteveBev. Just like you do. I believe he has legal recourse.
An ‘open question’ is the point. As is, how long will it take the judicial system to answer it, while being fought by the Executive every step of the way? Meanwhile, Khali is in detention, in what amounts to a prison.
Rubio tweeted about his intention to use his powers to revoke visas and or green cards in a Tweet at 6:10 pm EST (10:10 GMT) Sunday 9 March 2025, with a link to the original AP article describing Khalil’s arrest. AP subsequently updated the article.
Again, perhaps notably Rubio did not explicitly assert the basis for Khalil’s arrest.
Link to tweet via AP https://apnews.com/article/columbia-university-mahmoud-khalil-ice-15014bcbb921f21a9f704d5acdcae7a8
Responding to SteveBev, at 2:51:
That was the point of EW’s post, as I read it, including–especially–the reference to Vladeck’s analysis.
Ginevra diBenci
March 11, 2025 at 3:37 pm
Ye—-esss. Indeed.
Bu—uttt.
These points in this sub thread re
1 Leavitt and
2 Rubio’s tweet, serve to reinforce the points made by both EW and SteveVladek, don’t they?
Leavitt’s comment post date their respective comments.
And I don’t believe either mentioned the Rubio tweet.
You have my apologies if these little details seem to you, not to be worth mentioning.
Re
SteveBev
March 11, 2025 at 3:27 pm
Et seq
Apologies to all.
I see (belatedly) the Rubio tweet is the screenshot to this piece on the homepage.
I should make it my habit to navigate to latest EW post from there rather than from the page I leave open when I last visit.
Mea culpa
“That’s the end of it,” eh? Not a formulation much used around here.
At this moment, USAID employees are under orders to shred or burn all documents from ‘classified safes’, and ‘personnel’ documents.. I’ve attended enough ‘preservation of documents’ training to know that this is a direct violation of regulations. The destruction of classified documents, by itself, requires that the doc be cataloged, because without tracking there is no possible way to ascertain the chain of custody, including destruction. Personnel files must be archived and are not the property of the Agency which has custody.
But who is going to stop them, and how?
I’m not sure whether this counts as retcon, doublespeak or Baghdad Bobette banter:
“Tariffs are a tax cut for the American people” — Karoline Leavitt ”
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lk4n3ltaus2y
When that puzzler was followed up on KL doubled down and added “I think it is insulting you tried to test my knowledge of economics… I now regret giving a question to AP”
Karoline Leavitt is as unprofessional a press sec’y as has ever held the post. But her defensiveness about whether she knew anything about economics – that the question had to be asked is its own answer – is wildly so. Her response is what I would expect from Trump, were a reporter ballsy enough to ask whether he could read and, if so, at what grade school level.
Like hell they are – they’re a tax on imports, and WE pay it.
This is something that should have been learned in HS.
All of them, Katie.
A little mercy for a Trump Press Secretary, perhaps? They have all been chronic liars and confabulaters, out of the necessity of putting a serving face on ignorance, stupidity and chicanery. They probably have long forgotten where they left their soul and integrity and now are forced to wander the shadowlands in despair yet unrealized. Too bad they aren’t confined to a safe closet.
No.
OT The US agency that monitors weather will cut another 1,000 jobs, AP sources say
https://apnews.com/article/noaa-job-cuts-weather-forecasts-trump-doge-musk-7e35e9d5d757d8fc3f0f50b2bd71c87d
THIS is the most shameless of Executive power grabs.
According to CBS:
USAID remaining staffers receive an email over the name of Erica Carr — the acting executive secretary at USAID, ordering them “to clear out classified safes and personnel documents from the Ronald Reagan Building, where the agency is housed, and shred or burn the records”
” A union for U.S. Agency for International Development contractors asked a federal judge Tuesday to intervene in any destruction of classified documents after an email ordered staffers to help burn and shred agency records.
Judge Carl Nichols set a Wednesday morning deadline for the plaintiffs and the government to brief him on the issue.”
“The collection, retention and disposal of classified material and federal records are closely regulated by federal law. Improper handling or disposal can be charged as a crime.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/usaid-staff-instructed-to-shred-or-burn-classified-safe-documents/
https://www.cbs42.com/news/politics/ap-politics/ap-court-asked-to-intervene-after-email-tells-usaid-workers-to-destroy-classified-documents/
The people giving orders are neither intelligent nor educated.
They keep issuing orders that are illegal and immoral, and expecting everyone else to say “whatever” and follow them. (This says nothing good about their education and work experience.)
As I stated above….but “who will stop them, and how?” By the time the court appearance happens, hundreds, probably thousands of records will have been destroyed. As I’ve stated before, by the time the court acts, it is too late. The architects of this autocratic takeover know this. There is nobody left in DOJ to charge the perps with their crimes.
If a crime happens, and there is nobody to charge the crime, is it a crime?
Of course it is.
Once again, I am learning much from EW and the smart people who hang here. “Retcon” is a helpful expression for much of Donald Trump’s so-called ‘thinking’. He acts impulsively and does or says something stupid, and then his minions are left to pound a few square legal pegs into round holes to tidy up the mess, from a legal perspective. Given how far Trump has driven the American train off the legal rails domestically and internationally, Little Marco is going to have the most miserable job in the Universe for the next four years.
The arrest of a green card holder with the intent to deport the person, is a bit strange if there aren’t any crimes they can attach to the person. When the American news reported on this, my first thought was, is this the start of something and is it meant to scare people who oppose Trump/Musk, etc. I am still wondering why arrest him and detain him. Guess we shall see if there is a case against him. It will be interesting to see if they pull off another “arrest”.
The article and comments are interesting and I learnt a new word. Thank you.