( "We Fight Back" in San Francisco, Calif., on January 19, 2025. Photo: Jeremey Word)
It wasn’t a member of the “woke” left who just dropped a devastating ruling against Trump. Nope, it was a Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas who barred the Trump Administration from using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to kidnap and deport Venezuelan immigrants from the Southern District of Texas.
In a 36-page opinion, Judge Rodriguez rejected the rationalization, language, and interpretation of the Trump Administration’s use of the Act, which has been used thrice before during wartime, most notably to intern innocent Americans of Japanese descent in WW2. Like then, the government is currently engaged in scapegoating and fearmongering instead of providing any credible evidence that immigrants being kidnapped, detained, and deported are criminals or are “invading” the United States. Individuals like Abrego Kilmar Garcia just happened to be brown at the wrong place and at the wrong time, and under this White supremacist regime, it was enough for him to be sent to die in a foreign gulag in El Salvador.
The Trump regime was dealt another blow earlier this week after a judge ordered the release of pro-Palestinian activist and Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi from federal immigration custody two weeks after he was detained during his naturalization interview. Like Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeyza Ozturk, Mahdawi was guilty of committing a “thought crime” and detained without any criminal charges. While writing this piece, The New York Times just revealed a top Trump appointee at the Justice Department “ordered an investigation in the last several months of student protesters at Columbia University, raising anger and alarm among career prosecutors and investigators who saw the demand as politically motivated and lacking legal merit.”
This Trump regime won’t just stop at deporting immigrants. They just sent a 4-year-old citizen who is suffering from Stage 4 cancer to Honduras with her undocumented family. They are attacking the press, professors, activists, students, law firms, and even fellow Republicans, like Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor, who are deemed disloyal.
In this Chai Talk, I invite my friend Qasim Rashid of the excellent Let’s Address This with Qasim Rashid to breakdown why it’s necessary for the majority and Democrats to stand up for immigrants and the marginalized to defend our rights, our democracy, and defeat a fascist regime that will come after any and all of its critics.
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