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“ Neither Congress nor the courts have meaningfully checked presidents or held them accountable for their expansive and spurious claims of war authorities, national security powers, and counterterrorism mechanisms to justify harmful and discriminatory practices against noncitizens and especially against people of color.”
Elizabeth Beavers, Widener University Delaware Law School assistant professor and author of The“ Terrorizing Migrants” report
logical conclusion by framing migration itself as terrorism. And nearly 25 years after its post-9 / 11 creation, ICE has been unleashed and empowered to roam American streets, snatching and disappearing people they perceive as unlawfully present, often based solely on race, and often without verifying their immigration status.”
The second precedent Beavers explored is“ expanded and politicized‘ terrorist’ designation lists.” She noted Trump’ s invasion of Venezuela and abduction of its president, Nicolás Maduro, as well as his boat-bombing spree allegedly targeting drug traffickers in international waters.
The expert also dove into“ deporting people as‘ terrorists’ without proving actual violent conduct,” flagging Trump’ s“ reverse migration” pledge after an Afghan man allegedly shot two National Guard members in Washington, DC, along with the administration’ s decision to“ hold and review” asylum applications for people from“ high-risk” countries.
That review, she warned,“ could result in mass removal from the country of‘ terrorist’ noncitizens who involuntarily paid money to cartels at some point in their lives, whose family remittances have crossed hands with cartel-controlled actors, who have family members or other connections to a designated cartel but no involvement themselves, or who have unwillingly been pressed into service of a cartel at some point.”
The fourth precedent examined in the analysis is“ indefinite detention, torture, and rendition of noncitizens.” Beavers began the section with the detention camp at US Naval Station Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, which she called“ perhaps one of the most notorious features of the US government’ s post-9 / 11‘ War on Terror.’”
“ It is both a place where every post-9 / 11 president has detained Muslim men in connection with the post- 9 / 11 counterterrorism wars, but it is also a place where unauthorized migrants are sometimes held,” she wrote.“ More than 700 migrants have been sent to and from Guantánamo in President Trump’ s second term, detained there by ICE with support from the military.”
The expert also highlighted Trump’ s deportation of hundreds of men to El Salvador’ s infamous Terrorism
Confinement Center( CECOT)— based on often dubious claims that they belonged to the gang Tren de Aragua, which the president designated as a terrorist organization— as well as the“ practice of disappearing people into secretive immigration detention” within the United States, and reports indicating that“ abusive treatment in those facilities may amount to unlawful torture.”
The final precedent Beavers explored is the“ anti-democratic concentration of executive national security powers.” She wrote that“ the second Trump administration has made prompt use of this latitude” from federal courts since 9 / 11.
“ This has included: manipulating the‘ terrorist’ designation lists in novel ways to include drug cartels without needing court approval, which has expanded the scope of people who can be deported as‘ terrorists’; claiming a maximalist version of its immigration powers, daring courts to intervene; invoking the state secrets privilege to avoid accountability in cases challenging its deportation orders; and indefinitely detaining and torturing migrants,” Beavers continued.“ They have taken each of these actions without fear they will be meaningfully held accountable in court.”
Based on her review, the professor concluded that“ indisputably, administration officials are weaponizing the law in new and particularly indefensible ways to effectuate a widespread harassment and mass deportation campaign that is more akin to ethnic cleansing than routine immigration enforcement.”
“ Neither Congress nor the courts have meaningfully checked presidents or held them accountable for their expansive and spurious claims of war authorities, national security powers, and counterterrorism mechanisms to justify harmful and discriminatory practices against noncitizens and especially against people of color,” she stressed.“ In these and many other ways, US policymakers on a bipartisan basis built and sharpened the legal weapons that President Trump is now utilizing against immigrants.”
Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams. This article was originally published by Common Dreams.
44 x The Trial Lawyer