DHS Wants To Harvest Biometric Data From Anyone Helping A Foreigner Stay In This Country Legally

Privacy

from the eyeballs-please dept

We’ve always known the ultimate goal was to subject everyone to biometric collections, whether it’s at border crossings or international airports. At some point, the tech will move inland and become an annoying part of traveling from Point A to B because national security or whatever the fuck.

The acceleration was a bit more limited during the Biden years, but the desire to turn everyone into data points for government exploitation remained. Now that Trump is back in office, what was previously used to track inherently suspicious foreigners (that would be all the ones that aren’t white) will soon be used to track everyone.

This was first pitched by the DHS back in November, as “Papers Please” reports. Public comments are being accepted, but probably not being welcomed unless they’re sufficiently congratulatory of this expansion of surveillance power. Here’s what Papers Please has to say about it in its recent post:

As part of an array of proposals and rules issued by components of the US Department of Homeland Security to collect a widening array of biometric information and systems from widening categories of individuals, US Citizenship and Immigration Services  (USCIS) is proposing a new rule that would authorize collection of any form of biometric information or samples from anyone, including US citizens, “encountered” by USCIS or “associated with” any applicant for admission to the US, US residency, or US citizenship.

The proposed rule would give USCIS blanket authority, at its discretion, to order any such individual to report to any location worldwide specified by USCIS, and to submit to collection of facial images (“digital image, specifically for facial recognition”), fingerprints, palm prints, iris scans, retinal scans, voice prints, and/or DNA samples.

“Associated with” is a pretty broad term — one that could cover any business employing foreigners or any school accepting applicants with student visas. And that’s not Papers Please editorializing the DHS/USCIS proposal. That’s a direct quote of its Federal Register posting:

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) proposes to amend its regulations governing
biometrics use and collection. DHS proposes to require submission of biometrics by any individual, regardless of age, filing or associated with an immigration benefit request, other request, or collection of information, unless exempted; expand biometrics collection authority upon alien arrest; define ‘‘biometrics;’’ codify reuse requirements; codify and expand DNA testing, use and storage; establish an ‘‘extraordinary circumstances’’ standard to excuse a failure to appear at a biometric services appointment; modify how VAWA self-petitioners and T nonimmigrant status applicants demonstrate good moral character; and clarify biometrics collection purposes.

This means family members, friends, immigration lawyers, and the above-mentioned schools and businesses could all be expected to submit their biometric information to the DHS. There’s also the weird thing about “good moral character,” which presumably means someone’s character aligns with the current MAGA leadership, no matter its evident lack of good moral character. It also seeks to codify stuff it’s already doing and expand its power to do more of that same stuff elsewhere for other reasons and under other conditions.

The laundry list of people expected to bring their eyeballs, faces, and fingerprints to the DHS is described in a bit more detail later in the DHS proposal:

Using biometrics for identity verification and management will assist DHS’s efforts to combat trafficking, confirm the results of biographical criminal history checks, and deter fraud. Therefore, DHS proposes in this rule that any applicant, petitioner, sponsor, supporter, derivative, dependent, beneficiary, or individual filing or associated with a benefit request or other request or collection of information, including U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals and lawful permanent residents, and without regard to age, must submit biometrics unless DHS otherwise exempts the requirement.

If you ask me, this is less about a hunger for data than an attempt to dissuade people from assisting migrants, students, or temporary laborers from seeking a path to permanent residence. Our immigration processes have left us largely unaffected by terrorists or international criminal cartels, despite the government’s persistent (and consistently louder) claims otherwise. A vast majority of immigrants are hardworking, tax-paying people who commit fewer crimes than US citizens.

Then there’s this, which says the DHS will now be allowed to track/reject/kick out applicants based on their sexual identity:

Similarly, under this rule, DHS may expressly require, request, or accept raw DNA or DNA test results (which include a partial DNA profile) as evidence to determine eligibility for immigration and naturalization benefits or to perform any other functions necessary for administering and enforcing immigration and naturalization laws. For example, DHS may request DNA evidence to prove or disprove an individual’s biological sex in instances where that determination will impact benefit eligibility.

Neat. As if this whole shit show needed any more Nazi added to it. As was noted above, the public has been invited to comment on this proposal. But I can almost guarantee you the opposition will be ignored in favor of ensuring the GOP has a Fatherland to rule for the foreseeable future.

Filed Under: biometric collection, biometrics, dhs, ice, immigration, mass deportation, mass surveillance, mission creep, privacy, surveillance, trump administration, uscis

DHS Tells Reporter That Filming ICE Officers ‘Sounds Like Obstruction Of Justice’

Overhype

from the deliberately-wrong-about-the-law dept

ICE activity has increased exponentially since Trump’s return to office, bringing with it an exponential increase in rights violations committed by federal officers. Multiple lawsuits have been filed and, without exception, courts have safeguarded the rights of people to peacefully protest and document federal officers as they perform their duties.

Meanwhile, the people running DHS and its components continue to claim that merely recording officers is a criminal act. But it’s not. It’s protected by the Constitution whether ICE likes it or not. Under Trump, ICE and DHS are taking a bold new stance against recording officers, telling those with boots on the ground deliberately false things, like this:

[T]he guidance urges officers to consider a range of nonviolent behavior and common protest gear—like masks, flashlights, and cameras—as potential precursors to violence, telling officers to prepare “from the point of view of an adversary.”

Protesters on bicycles, skateboards, or even “on foot” are framed as potential “scouts” conducting reconnaissance or searching for “items to be used as weapons.” Livestreaming is listed alongside “doxxing” as a “tactic” for “threatening” police. Online posters are cast as ideological recruiters—or as participants in “surveillance sharing.”

That guidance was released to federal officers back in July. The rhetoric has only ramped up since then, with DHS officials publicly stating that they’re going to treat protected First Amendment activity as a crime. The responses delivered by these officials following this July reporting was indicative of their mindset:

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem told reporters in July that it was “violence” to be “doxing” and “videotaping them where they’re at when they’re out on operations.” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin reiterated the point in August that “videotaping ICE law enforcement and posting photos and videos of them online is doxing our agents.… And we will prosecute those who illegally harass ICE agents.”

A memorandum issued at the beginning of December provided guidance for DOJ prosecutors seeking to punish people for utilizing their constitutional rights. According to the memo, people who follow officers to observe, record, or protest their actions are to be treated as criminal obstructionists, if not as actual domestic terrorists.

When reached for comment on this memo by CJ Ciaramella of Reason, the DHS doubled down on its decision to treat this right as a crime:

In response to a question from Reason asking if the department considered following or recording a federal law enforcement officer to be obstruction of justice, the DHS Office of Public Affairs said in an emailed statement attributed to an unnamed spokesperson: “That sure sounds like obstruction of justice. Our brave ICE law enforcement face a more than 1150% increase in assaults against them. If you obstruct or assault our law enforcement, we will hunt you down and you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Filming or even being in the general area of federal officers engaged in their public duties isn’t “obstruction.” Neither is identifying officers — officers who, by the way, should be wearing stuff that makes them identifiable, rather than the blend of army surplus and balaclavas that further separates them from accountability.

And, of course, the DHS refers to that especially meaningless stat (“1150% increase in assaults”), as though that somehow justifies its decision to use the Constitution as a door mat. All that actually means is that there have been 115 more “assaults” as compared to 2024. Back when the DHS was touting its “690% increase in assaults” as an argument against preventing ICE officers from wearing masks, it was comparing 79 alleged assaults through the first six months of this year against the 10 that had been committed from January-June 2024.

That’s just an empty stat that allows DHS spokespeople to trot out a gaudy number that will grab eyeballs but otherwise just allows the MAGA-cooked to continue to pretend “Democrat cities” are being destroyed by violent anti-ICE protests.

Even if it were true that it’s exceptionally dangerous to be an ICE officer at this point in time, that doesn’t justify pretending the First Amendment simply doesn’t exist. Actual assaults are criminal acts. Filming federal officers who don’t want to be filmed definitely isn’t.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, dhs, ice, kristi noem, mass deportation, rights violations, tricia mclaughlin, trump administration

Kristi Noem: ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ Says ICE Can Legally Thwart Congressional Oversight

Legal Issues

from the we-serve-no-one-but-ourselves dept

Whatever the stated reasons for doing this, we all know what this really is: another effort from the Trump regime to put as much distance between it and accountability.

Even before DHS head Kristi Noem decided it’s now suddenly legal to force congressional oversight to notify ICE of impending inspections, her agency was making public statements claiming it was going to start arresting visiting congressional reps for obstruction if they failed to comply with ICE’s unlawful refusals to provide access to detention centers.

Those assertions were followed almost immediately by ICE doing exactly what Noem and other officials promised: a middle finger to the law and its oversight. The following months brought more reports of ICE denying access to members of Congress, as well as other attempted arrests or threats of obstruction prosecutions.

Then it got quiet for a bit as ICE did other, far more awful things all around the nation, often while accompanied by CBP and Border Patrol officers, if not members of the US military. But now that ICE has once again lets its murderous impulses get the better of it, Kristi Noem is now pretending she has the legal authority to demand prior notice for detention facility inspections.

A day after an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem quietly ordered new restrictions on congressional visits to immigration detention facilities.

That order, put into effect Thursday by the Trump administration and revealed in court late Saturday, forces lawmakers to seek a week’s advance notice before conducting oversight visits to ICE facilities. That new policy appears to explain a conflict that unfolded Saturday, when three House Democrats from Minnesota were denied entry to a detention facility in the Whipple federal building in Minneapolis.

The order [PDF] isn’t actually an order. It’s just a memo saying Kristi Noem wants this to happen and thinks she has the legal authority to make it stick. Here’s the opening of the memo, which pretends ICE has been suffering such an onslaught of protests, this is the only way to make sure it remains intact in the future.

In June 2025, following significant and sometimes violent incidents at ICE facilities, I directed that requests by Members of Congress to visit an ICE facility be submitted at least seven days in advance of the visit. DHS also determined that because ICE field offices, including holding facilities, are not detention facilities, they are not subject to the same requirements as detention facilities. On December 17, 2025, in Neguse v. ICE, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia stayed this guidance, concluding that DHS’s policy is inconsistent with Section 527(b) of the Department’s appropriation.

First, no request needs to be made. Second, no request is legally subject to the DHS’s arbitrary seven-day waiting period. Third, the memo explicitly admits its policy is illegal under current law and court precedent.

Here’s where the memo gets particularly Trumpian:

I disagree with this decision, but as even the district court explicitly acknowledged, funds deriving from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) “are not subject to Section 527’s limitations.” Accordingly, effective immediately, and to ensure compliance with this court order, I am issuing this new policy.

There it is: Kristi Noem saying she’s going to start demanding seven-day’s notice because “I disagree with this decision.” It’s also a very selective quoting of the order by the DC Court, which made it clear that (1) DHS couldn’t pretend ICE field offices were subject to the same oversight inspection rules, and (2) that even though additional funding from the Big Beautiful Big might be exempt from Section 527’s oversight provisions, there was nothing on the record indicating this additional funding was being used to solely to fund detention centers. That means the funding is intermingled with funds covered by Section 527, which means ICE can’t claim its facilities are exempt from that funding’s requirements.

The end around Kristi Noem proposes is this: that any visits by congressional oversight should be logged so they any ICE expenses during these inspections are taken from the Big Beautiful Bill funding, rather than ICE’s regular budget. It’s a meaningless distinction, since it’s just ICE securing funds after the fact to justify the seven-day lead time demand. It’s a budget being reverse-engineered for the sole purpose of thwarting accountability efforts.

And because it’s just a dodge meant to head off future litigation and congressional action, it is of course couched in the us vs. them language this administration is so fond of:

The basis for this policy is that advance notice is necessary to ensure adequate protection for Members of Congress, Congressional staff, detainees, and ICE employees alike. Unannounced visits require pulling ICE officers away from their normal duties. Moreover, there is an increasing trend of replacing legitimate government oversight activities with circus-like publicity stunts, all of which creates a chaotic environment with heightened emotions.

This is the Trump regime cliché: anything it doesn’t like is just a “stunt” being pulled by the people it considers to be its political inferiors, if not inferior human beings. The Trump administration is nothing but a string of political stunts, punctuated occasionally by illegal actions and acts of unjustified violence. There’s no irony being lost here. This is a post-irony presidency. This is hypocrisy at scale, perpetrated by people who are leaning into this hypocrisy as hard as they can because they honestly don’t care what anyone thinks as long as they’re able to get what they want.

Filed Under: authoritarian bullshit, detention centers, dhs, ice, kristi noem, mass deportation, oversight, trump administration

Following Murder Of Renee Good By ICE Officers, ICE Blocks Congressional Reps From Its Detention Facility

Legal Issues

from the rule-of-law-party-at-it-again dept

ICE killed a US citizen in broad daylight for the apparent crime of not being sufficiently intimidated when surrounded by ICE officers. Renee Good was shot by ICE officer Jonathan Ross, who selectively leaked his recording to a right-wing news outlet in apparent hopes of shoring up the administration’s swiftly crumbling narrative.

The wagons are circling even tighter — a metaphor that ICE has made extremely apt now that it’s just the extension of the administration’s xenophobic id: an invading force that’s meant to rid America of anyone not sufficiently white enough to “deserve” to live in the United States.

It’s back on its old bullshit, continuing to pretend it’s not legally obligated to allow members of Congress to tour its detention facilities. DHS and ICE have claimed (without legal support) that they need advance notice, citing unspecified “security” concerns of the “national” variety. The government continues to place obstacles in the path of congressional representatives who are engaged in acts that are supported by law and legal precedent: oversight of ICE operations.

To be sure, there are plenty of reasons ICE doesn’t want congressional reps touring its detention facilities. First and foremost, ICE doesn’t seem all that interested in treating its indefinite detainees humanely. Even when confronted by courts about these constitutional deficiencies, ICE has flat out refused to comply with court orders demanding a full accounting of detainee conditions. Not only that, but visiting reps are more likely than not to come across the occasional US citizen who’s being denied their rights while ICE decides whether or not to believe the citizenship documents it’s been provided.

Last December, the DC Circuit Appeals Court ruled against ICE, upholding Congress’s right to inspect immigration detention facilities. Not that it matters to ICE and other federal components (and it’s pretty much all of them) involved in Trump’s mass deportation program. And I’m sure the DHS will just pretend that ruling has no bearing on its recent obstruction efforts in Minneapolis, Minnesota, even though the federal law it’s violating is effective everywhere in the nation — not just in places where the government has been successfully sued.

Here’s how things look in Minneapolis, one of the more recent targets of Trump’s vindictive, anti-Democratic party wrath:

Three Democratic members of Congress from Minnesota, including House representative Ilhan Omar, were blocked from entering an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center located near Minneapolis on Saturday morning.

[…]

During a press briefing, Omar explained that they were initially allowed inside the facility but were soon told to leave. “Shortly after we were let in, two officials came in and said that they received the message that we were no longer allowed to be in the building and that they were rescinding our invitation to come in and declining any further access to the building,” she said.

First of all, Congress has a right to perform unannounced inspections. No one needs an “invitation.” Since congressional reps don’t need an invitation, ICE doesn’t have the option of “rescinding” something it never had the right to offer in the first place.

Following that by kicking out the people who oversee your work and vote on your budget is so fucked up that it boggles the mind. It’s like a tenant evicting a landlord. Things just don’t work that way and these reps should have called ICE’s bluff and bore witness to any efforts made by officers to restrict access and/or force these representatives to leave the building. So, while it’s nice to have this flouting of the law on the record, the end result looks like a missed opportunity to further expose the administration’s utter disrespect for the rule of law.

At least we have whatever the hell this is to take with us from this secondhand experience:

Omar and her colleagues said they were informed the reason for the denial of access was because the facility’s funding came through the Big Beautiful Bill Act, and that this funding source was being used to justify restricting their visit.

Do what now?

ICE is claiming that because the facility was funded with federal funds derived from a federal budget bill members of the federal government who voted for (or against) this funding bill were not allowed on the premises. Never mind the thing I said about evicting the landlord. There’s nothing in the common vernacular that’s analogous to this bizarre assertion by the government.

Unfortunately, the party in power will make sure violating the law remains the status quo. Court orders are being ignored and violated regularly by federal agencies and officers. And the Democratic party still seems unwilling to deploy some of its more nuclear options, either out of fear of failure or a fear of jeopardizing their own political futures. But we’re well past the point of considering these tactics to be optional. If they’re not willing to sacrifice themselves to save a nation, they’re in the wrong business.

Filed Under: angie craig, dhs, ice, ilhan omar, kelly morrison, mass deportation, minneapolis, minnesota, trump administration

Judge Tears Into ICE Over Its Inhumane Facilities, Insane Amount Of Lying

Failures

from the tiny-evil-pinheaded-fuckwits dept

This ruling was released in the middle of last month and I really wish I had gotten to it sooner.

Let’s not pretend this will change anything about how this administration full of white Christian nationalists will treat detained migrants. And it definitely won’t change anything about how the American government in general treats anyone who is incarcerated, even if they’re just stuck there awaiting trial.

But it still needs to be seen to be believed. The baseline disregard for detainees health and well-being is nothing new. Neither are the attempts of law enforcement officials to lie their way out of a lawsuit. But the absolute stupidity of the lies and the complete lack of effort of those attempting to shield themselves from accountability goes past the normal ghoulishness we associate with the people doing the imprisoning.

There’s a new level of contempt on display here — one that indicates these people have nothing to fear from the courts because this administration will never consider these acts and the lies used to cover them up as something in need of punishment.

The background of the case is this: Erron Anthony Clarke arrived in the United States in 2018 on a work visa at the request of a US employer. He remained in the country after his visa expired but married a US citizen which put him on track to obtain permanent residency. He picked the wrong time to pursue his legal options, as the New York Times reports:

On Nov. 6, Mr. Clarke applied to become a permanent resident, noting in his application that he had worked in the United States without authorization. As part of his application process, he arrived on Dec. 5 for a fingerprinting appointment at an ICE office in Hauppauge, N.Y. He was pulled over and arrested by immigration enforcement agents shortly after leaving the facility. ICE immediately began proceedings to deport him.

These are the conditions he dealt with while being detained by ICE: he was placed in a 6′ x 6′ cell with eight other people. The cell’s temperature dipped below 30 degrees and occupants were forced to sleep on the floor next to an open toilet. The lights stayed on 24 hours a day. The only reprieve from these conditions came when ICE moved him to other detention centers in order to prevent him from appearing in court.

For 12 hours that night, Mr. Clarke was detained in the tiny room in the federal courthouse. On Dec. 6, he was moved to an ICE detention facility in East Meadow, N.Y., only to be brought back to the squalid conditions three days later.

After petitioning for his release, Mr. Clarke was again transferred on Dec. 10 to an ICE detention facility, this time in Newark. After the agency initially ignored his order to present him for a hearing, he appeared on Dec. 11 before Judge Brown, who ordered him immediately released. Yet Mr. Clarke was held for another night in Newark.

New York federal court judge Gary Brown isn’t happy to have found this sort of thing going on almost literally under his nose in the Islip (New York) courthouse detention facilities. He’s even less happy to have been repeatedly lied to by federal law enforcement officers, whose contempt for the rule of law meant they couldn’t even be bothered to lie semi-competently.

From the decision [PDF] (that I’ll be quoting extensively):

The ICE agent swears that “[b]ased on that investigation, Acting Supervisory Detention and Deportation Officer John T. Keane executed a Form I-200, Warrant for Arrest of Alien.” Yet the documents submitted do not fully support this. The arrest warrant is unsigned and dated December 5, 2025 – the date of Clarke’s biometrics appointment and ensuing arrest – and bears no time notation. That warrant offers check boxes to indicate the basis of probable cause; the only box marked states the warrant emanated from “biometric confirmation of the subject’s identity and a records check of federal databases.” Thus, the warrant was issued after the biometric appointment.

Crucially, in issuing the warrant, the officer did not indicate that removal proceedings had been commenced, even though there are two boxes to so indicate. At the Court’s direction, ICE also supplied a Notice to Appear (NTA) – the charging document that commenced removal proceedings. The NTA is also dated December 5, 2025, again without a timestamp. There remains a serious question as to whether the NTA preceded Clarke’s arrest; if not, then ICE improperly arrested him. ICE’s declaration offers no insight into this question.

Also, the alleged “investigation” apparently occurred on the same day that Clarke’s spouse filed the paperwork to convert him to a full-time resident due to his marriage to her. That means ICE was doing nothing more than running searches on anyone expected to appear at the court in hopes of finding people it could detain and remove. This action had nothing to do with Clarke or his pending legal residence status and everything to do with expelling him from the country before his application for permanent residence was processed.

Then there’s the matter of the holding facilities, which were their own violation of Clarke’s rights. The court demanded answers from ICE. It did get ICE to talk. But all ICE had to offer was another set of lies.

First, it defied the judge’s oral and written order demanding Clarke be released immediately on December 11. The government received both before 3 pm on December 11, but ICE held Clarke for another night before finally releasing him on December 12.

Then it produced a endless string of lies when the court demanded the full records of Clarke’s detention (and movements to and from the Islip holding cell), along with photos of the cell Clarke had been held in.

Not only did the government ignore most of the court order, the stuff it sort of complied was a blend of lies and preposterous assertions:

In response, the Government filed a declaration from Supervisory Detention Officer John C. Diaz, based entirely on ICE records and conversations with other officers.

In addition to being rank hearsay, the information presented in the Diaz Declaration proves evasive and demonstrably false. For example, Diaz swears that Clarke “was booked out of NCCC at 3:45 p.m., and into CIHR on the same day at 3:53 p.m.” Given that the two facilities are more than twenty miles apart, requiring a drive of 35 minutes or more, it is physically impossible that ICE officers moved Clarke from one facility to another in eight minutes. Even more preposterous is Diaz’s sworn statement that Clarke was “booked out [of the Central Islip hold room] on December 10, 2025, at 8:30 p.m.” and then “transported to Delaney Hall Detention Facility (“DHDF”) [in Newark. N.J.] where he was booked in at 9 p.m.” Since that journey of about 60 miles consumes, depending on traffic, more than 90 minutes to as much as three and a half hours, it is again objectively impossible that the transport was completed in 30 minutes.

Time-keeping at ICE detention facilities appears to be deliberately sloppy:

These misstatements of fact serve to undermine the information presented and the reliability of the records maintained by ICE. Moreover, the declaration contains material misstatements. Clarke’s stay at the NCCC provides a powerful example. Diaz presents a series of booking times and concludes under oath that Clarke spent a total of under 65 hours at the NCCC. (stating that Clarke “spent two days, sixteen hours and forty-five minutes at NCCC.”). This is important, Diaz emphasizes, “because NCCC does not house DHS detainees for more than seventy-two-hour periods.” However, examination of the NCCC booking times presented by Diaz in his declaration – from December 6 at 11 a.m. to December 9 at 3:45 p.m. – reveals that Clarke spent about 77 hours at NCCC.

It also lied about the rooms people were being held in — or, at the very least, refused to answer any questions about them truthfully.

While there are other misstatements in the Diaz Declaration, of greater concern isICE’s failure or refusal to provide information ordered by the Court. First, though ICE provided its approximate measurements of the Central Islip hold rooms (four rooms measuring, according to Diaz, about 10’ x 7’ or 8’), nowhere in his declaration does he provide the capacity of those cells, a critical question here. Id.

While even that could be seen as a convenient omission, ICE has flatly refused to provide the requested photographs of the facilities. (“DHS is not prepared at this time to provide photographs of CIHR.”). Though legally immaterial – DHS was ordered to provide such photographs – part of the expressed rationale proves revelatory. Diaz avers that:

CIHR is populated 24/7 by detainees, and taking photographs while detainees were present would create privacy concerns for those detainees. [ ] Moving detainees out of CIHR for the purpose of taking photographs is also challenging, because those detainees would have to all be transported to a different facility.

If ICE is incapable of clearing a cell for the split second it takes to snap a photograph, it raises – or perhaps answers – other questions, such as ICE’s ability to clean, inspect and maintain the Central Islip hold rooms.

ICE is sliding headfirst towards a contempt holding. And even if that will just become another thing ICE (and the administration overseeing it) chooses to blow off, at least all of this will be on the public record:

ICE’s failure and, in at least one instance, flat out refusal, to comply with the Court’s directives along with its provision of demonstrably false evidence, requires some comment. While this matter was necessarily conducted in haste, and the Court believes that the assigned AUSA struggled to handle these matters in a reasonable fashion, ICE’s transgressions which include (1) failure to produce the Petitioner for the hearing, (2) failure to provide the holding capacity of the Central Islip hold rooms, (3) refusing to provide photographs of the Central Islip hold rooms and (4) ignoring this Court’s order providing for Clarke’s immediate release, cannot be overlooked.

Of these failings, perhaps the most indefensible is the agency’s refusal to provide photographs consistent with this Court’s order. A party who believes that a court order is unlawful – or in this case, unduly burdensome – does not have the right to resort to self-help. That party has legal alternatives – like a motion for reconsideration (which certainly would have been entertained here) or an interlocutory appeal – but cannot just simply refuse to comply.

Remember this the next time some government official is complaining about ICE being treated like a pariah or anonymous officers are bending reporters’ ears to tell them they’re just trying to do the right thing by enforcing immigration laws. They’re not. And they are the villains people think they are. This is what came to light as the result of a single detainee filing a complaint about the conditions of his incarceration. Imagine what could be exposed if people with actual power got involved.

Filed Under: bigotry, dhs, ice, mass deportation, rights violations, trump administration

Abrego Garcia Asks For Sanctions As Gov’t Officials Continue To Publicly Attack Him Ahead Of His Trial

Legal Issues

from the admin-motormouths dept

Whether the Trump administration likes it or not, the right to a fair trial still exists. And even the person the government is now subjecting to what looks a whole lot like a vindictive prosecution is still a beneficiary of this right.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador’s infamous CECOT earlier this year along with another hundred-plus deportees the country’s dictator agreed to take off the United States’ hands in exchange for a few million dollars.

Garcia kept fighting this deportation, arguing that it had violated his due process rights. The administration kept fighting to keep Garcia silent and locked in a foreign hellhole. The administration lost. A court ordered his return to the US. Nothing got much better once Abrego Garcia returned. The government whipped up an extremely questionable criminal case against him in order to keep him jailed. Then it offered him the unpalatable option of pleading guilty to a bunch of criminal charges or being deported to other countries with similarly miserable histories of human rights violations.

The judge handling the case finally released Abrego Garcia over the recent holiday season and demanded the government try to convince it that it isn’t engaged in purely vindictive prosecution of someone who has angered it by successfully evoking his constitutional rights.

The government won’t have to provide that answer for another couple of weeks yet. In the meantime, though, it no longer has a trial date to look forward to. That’s been set aside as the court awaits the govenrment’s explanation for its actions. The government has also been hit with a gag order that is supposed to prevent government officials from further disparaging Abrego Garcia with public comments and social media posts.

It violated that gag order almost immediately, with DHS sub-boss Tricia McLaughlin reposting a far-right podcaster’s declaration that Abrego Garcia was a “MS-13 terrorist.” This is the sort of thing the administration has been doing ever since it was forced to respect Abrego Garcia’s rights.

The government definitely shouldn’t be doing this, especially those involved with his arrest, deportation, detainment, or otherwise expected to possibly testify against Abrego Garcia in court. Now, as Politico’s Josh Gerstein points out at Bluesky, Abrego Garcia is seeking sanctions because another government official with a penchant for blatantly ignoring court orders — Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino — is doing the sort of thing this court order [PDF] explicitly forbids.

Once again, the government has responded to a Court order with which it disagrees by pretending it doesn’t exist. Mr. Abrego moved for sanctions based on senior DHS official Gregory Bovino’s flagrant violation of this Court’s October 27 Order (Dkt. 183, the “Order”) governing extrajudicial statements relating to this case. (Dkt. 271). The government’s brief opposing that motion largely ignores the Order.

[…]

Nor, in any event, can Mr. Bovino’s statements seriously be characterized as ones “that a reasonable lawyer would believe [are] required to protect a client from the substantial undue prejudicial effect of recent publicity” or “limited to such information as is necessary to mitigate the recent adverse publicity.” Far from being “meek,” as the government ludicrously characterizes them (Dkt. 282 at 7), Mr. Bovino’s statements include descriptions of Mr. Abrego as “an MS-13 gang member…ready to prey on Americans yet again,” “a wife-beater,” “an alien smuggler,” and someone who “wants to…leech off the United States.” Mr. Bovino went on to describe the judges presiding over Mr. Abrego’s civil and criminal cases as “activist” and “extremist.”

Abrego Garcia’s continue to press the case for sanctions against the administration, adding to the mix the comments DHS Undersecretary made late last week in apparent violation of the still-standing gag order:

On December 27, 2025, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin shared a post on X stating: “MS-13 terrorist Kilmar Abrego Garcia was released by a rogue judge and is now making TikToks.” Ms. McLaughlin added: “So we, at @DHSgov, are under gag order by an activist judge and Kilmar Abrego Garcia is making TikToks. American justice ceases to function when its arbiters silence law enforcement and give megaphones to those who oppose our legal system.” Neither Mr. Bovino’s nor Ms. McLaughlin’s statements “protect” the government—they defame Mr. Abrego, this Court, and the Federal District Court for the District of Maryland.

On top of asking for sanctions this court has yet to deliver, Abrego Garcia wants to know who’s handling what in the upper echelons of the administration, since it’s become apparent that not even high-ranking officials appear to be concerned that they’re violating court orders.

The Court should grant Mr. Abrego’s requests that the government be ordered to disclose (1) whether and how the prosecution provided relevant DHS employees with a copy of the Order, (2) who authorized Mr. Bovino and Ms. McLaughlin to speak about Mr. Abrego’s case, and (3) what guidance that person or persons gave Mr. Bovino and Ms. McLaughlin about what they could and could not say on national television or social media, as well as all communications between counsel for the government and Mr. Bovino, Ms. McLaughlin, or DHS regarding Mr. Bovino’s and Ms. McLaughlin’s statements, including any attempts to obtain a retraction or apology, so that the Court may determine the appropriate course of action.

It’s a long shot and the government is sure to insist that pretty much everything listed here is a privileged communication between lawyers and government officials. But there’s a chance some of this might actually make its way into open court, which will allow the American public to see how this administration operates when it clearly feels it doesn’t have to answer to anything but its basest urges.

Filed Under: abrego garcia, border patrol, cecot, dhs, doj, gregory bovino, ice, mass deportation, tricia mclaughlin, trump administration, vindictive prosecution

Appeals Court Tells Trump California National Guard Members Are No Longer His To Use And Abuse

Legal Issues

from the martial-law-efforts-sent-to-the-back-burner dept

Given the recent Supreme Court ruling that (surprisingly!) said Trump did not have the executive power to commandeer National Guard troops to aid and abet law enforcement/deportation efforts in Illinois, this ruling [PDF] from the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court was, perhaps, inevitable.

If it’s illegal to do it in Illinois, it’s equally illegal in California (as well as Oregon and any other state the administration has targeted). It may still be legal in Washington DC, but it’s probably only a matter of time before that deployment of National Guard troops (especially those from other states) is declared equally illegal.

The extremely short order by the Appeals Court vacates the stay it had placed on the lower court’s ruling in favor of the rule of law (which is, of course, a ruling against the Trump administration), allowing it to take force. It only runs two pages, but it does contain at least one surprising element: capitulation by Trump’s DOJ.

On December 23, 2025, this court issued an order directing defendants to file a supplemental brief “explaining why the partial administrative stay should not be lifted” in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. Illinois, No. 25A443 (U.S. Dec. 23, 2025).

Defendants filed their supplemental brief on December 30, 2025. Defendants represented that “[w]ithout prejudice as to any other arguments defendants may present, defendants do not oppose lifting of the partial administrative stay and hereby respectfully withdraw their motion for a stay pending appeal.”

Trump, meanwhile, continues to operate in his usual fashion, sporting the sort of reckless “never say die” attitude that usually results in death by misadventure.

Earlier on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said he was, for now, abandoning his efforts to deploy the Guard in Los Angeles, Chicago and Portland, Ore. But he suggested that the administration may deploy them again the future.

“We will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again — Only a question of time,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social.

There’s the patented Trump bravado — something that runs on a clean blend of bigotry and ignorance. Because this loss came at the hands of SCOTUS, administration officials are unable to deploy their usual “activist judge” bitching since the activist judges in the Supreme Court are mostly MAGA-cooked.

And they can’t claim this is the “liberal” Ninth Circuit going rogue, since its ruling is based entirely on the precedent set by the nation’s top court. All that’s left to do is the sort of social media sour grapes shit Trump is known for. At least until the administration decides to break every pane of glass in the Overton Window and just start turning every “Democrat” city into the Kent State campus.

But until that happens, the threats of bringing “liberal” states to heel by commandeering their National Guard are as empty as the heads of the administration’s most powerful members.

Filed Under: 9th circuit, california, dhs, doj, gavin newsom, ice, martial law, mass deportation, national guard, trump administration

Judge Catches DOJ Lying, Tells It To Turn Over More Documents To Kilmar Abrego Garcia

Legal Issues

from the administration-seeing-if-it-can-get-NO-RAGRETS-tattoo-removed dept

It’s hilarious that a single Salvadoran migrant has made the Trump administration look so pitiful. During one of its first purge efforts, the administration deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia and another 100-plus migrants to El Salvador’s infamous CECOT prison.

Since then, the administration has done nothing but lose when it comes to Abrego Garcia. He not only managed to get returned to the US, but he’s successfully pushing back against the bullshit prosecution the DOJ cooked up to punish him for daring to stand up for his rights.

At this point, the DOJ is almost out of options. The Tennessee judge overseeing the attempted prosecution has not only allowed Abrego Garcia to go free on bail, but has taken setting a trial date completely off the docket until the government can provide an argument for engaging in the prosecution that isn’t just “because he pissed us off.”

The timeline of this prosecution strongly suggests the government can’t contradict Abrego Garcia’s vindictive prosecution allegations. Abrego Garcia’s first experience with US law enforcement happened in November 2022 when he was pulled over for speeding by Tennessee Highway Patrol officers. The locals referred the case to Homeland Security Investigations based on “suspicions of human trafficking.” Garcia, however, was free to go and didn’t even get a speeding ticket.

On March 12, 2025, he was arrested and interviewed by HSI. The decision was made to deport him. Although the 2022 traffic stop was discussed, Abrego Garcia still wasn’t charged with any crime beyond being in the country illegally. HSI closed its human trafficking investigation on April 1, 2025. Again, no charges were brought.

Three days after that, a Maryland court ordered Abrego Garcia returned to the US because his due process rights had been violated. More litigation ensued with the Supreme Court finally weighing in on the issue on April 10. Then this happened:

[O]n May 21, 2025, a Middle District of Tennessee grand jury presented a two-count indictment against Abrego arising from the November 30, 2022 traffic stop. An arrest warrant issued, prompting the United States to return Abrego from El Salvador. Abrego was arrested on June 6, 2025, and was brought to this District.

So far, the government has turned over 3,000 pages to the court. Abrego Garcia hasn’t seen many of these because the government claims almost everything it has provided are privileged communications. The court says that may be true in some cases, but it hardly matters because what it has seen so far undercuts the sworn statements the DOJ has previously made in this case. The government has argued (not very convincingly) that this can’t possibly be vindictive prosecution because the acting US Attorney Robert McGuire did all of this on his own without any input from the rest of the administration.

Not true!, says the court [PDF]:

The central question after Abrego established a prima facie case of vindictiveness is what information in the government’s control sheds light on its new decision to prosecute Abrego, after removing him from the United States without criminal charges. These documents show that McGuire did not act alone and to the extent McGuire had input on the decision to prosecute, he shared it with (Associate Deputy Attorney General Akash] Singh and others.

Specifically, the government’s documents may contradict its prior representations that the decision to prosecute was made locally and that there were no outside influences. For example, Singh contacted McGuire on April 27, 2025, to discuss Abrego’s case. On April 30, 2025, Singh asked McGuire what the potential charges against Abrego would be, whether the charging document would reference Abrego’s alleged MS-13 affiliation, and asked for a phone call before any charges were filed. In a separate email on April 30, 2025, Singh made clear that Abrego’s criminal prosecution was a “top priority” for the Deputy Attorney General’s office (Blanche). He then told McGuire to “sketch out a draft complaint for the 1324 charge [making it unlawful to bring in and harbor certain aliens].”

On May 15th, McGuire emailed his staff that “DAG (Blanche) and PDAG would like Garcia charged sooner rather than later.” Then, on May 16, 2025, counsel of record Jacob Warren emailed Singh and reported, “if the DAG (Blanche) does want to move forward with the indictment on Wednesday, we think it would be prudent to loop in the press office ASAP.” Finally, on May 18, 2025, Singh emailed McGuire and others, and instructed them to “close[ly] hold” the draft indictment until the group “g[o]t clearance,” to file. The implication is that “clearance” would come from the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, not just McGuire.

The upshot is this: the government can assert all the privilege it wants to, but the system of checks and balances means it can’t bypass constitutional rights just by denying criminal defendants access to anything that might support their arguments.

The Court recognizes the government’s assertion of privileges, but Abrego’s due process right to a non-vindictive prosecution outweighs the blanket evidentiary privileges asserted by the government.

For now, the government is barely managing to hang onto a case it’s probably going to end up losing. All the power of the government — especially this government which has repeatedly expressed its disdain for courts, judges, and orders it doesn’t like — is meeting an unexpectedly immovable object. And if Abrego Garcia walks away from this a free man, he’s going to make it clear that even the cadre of thugs currently inhabiting White House cabinet positions still have soft, white underbellies that can be exposed.

Filed Under: abrego garcia, dhs, doj, donald trump, el salvador, mass deportation, todd blanche, trump administration, vindictive prosecution

Court To Trump: Just Chanting ‘Alien Enemies Act’ Doesn’t Make Due Process Rights Disappear

Legal Issues

from the still-got-some-America-left-in-us dept

Nothing this administration does is subtle. Nothing about its anti-migrant purge has been anything less than brutish. As if to drive the point home that the bigots were running the shop, Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act to justify the stripping of due process from people whose only crime was usually just a civil infraction: being undocumented. Anyone who knows the history of that Act knows it was last used for the same purpose: to round up a bunch of non-white people and imprison/deport them.

As fast as it could, the administration rounded up anyone that looked Latino, tossed them on airplanes, and sent them to whatever country would take them. For more than 100 deportees, the final destination was El Salvador’s infamous CECOT prison, known mainly for its inhumane abuse of anyone unfortunate enough to end up there.

Judge James Boasberg has seen plenty from this administration already. He’s the judge who was received one of the first fuck you’s from the Trump anti-migrant machinery. The administration blew off his order to stop sending migrants to El Salvador, pretending it couldn’t do anything about the flights it had hurriedly sent airborne the moment it seemed Boasberg might issue an injunction.

Boasberg continues to thwart the administration’s unlawful actions. And because he’s chosen to do his job (rather than slip himself into Trump’s pocket like too many members of the Supreme Court), he’s been targeted personally by the administration. Earlier this year, Trump’s team filed a completely bogus misconduct complaint against him because he expressed very legitimate concerns about the current administration during a US court system judicial conference: that there was far more than a non-zero chance Trump’s administration would simply refuse to comply with court orders.

It wasn’t just a legitimate concern. This has actually happened more than once. Judge Boasberg has personal experience with the administration’s refusal to comply with the letter and/or spirit of his court orders.

Here’s another ruling the administration will probably choose to ignore if it can’t get SCOTUS to slide it a mash note under the table during the next shadow docket drop.

A federal judge on Monday said the U.S. government denied due process to the Venezuelan men it deported to a prison in El Salvador in March after President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act.

[…]

Chief Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in his order agreed that they deserved the right to a hearing — whether by bringing them back to the U.S. or allowing them to pursue legal remedies from abroad.

“On the merits, the Court concludes that this class was denied their due-process rights and will thus require the Government to facilitate their ability to obtain such hearing. Our law requires no less,” Boasberg wrote in his opinion.

Lest we forget (as the Trump administration definitely wants you to), this is how this all began. I quote directly from the ruling [PDF] because this document ensures the government can’t claim ignorance of its own bullshit as this case continues to move forward:

These men were given “no advance notice of the basis for their removal,” nor were they informed that they could challenge their designation. The only reason that this Court was made aware of these impending removals was because a few of the men moved to El Valle had been able to contact their lawyers the day before, who rightly surmised that such a Proclamation either had secretly issued or was about to issue and thus filed this action at 1:12 a.m. on March 15. The Court granted the five named Plaintiffs’ request for a temporary restraining order that same morning, which enjoined their removal, and it scheduled an emergency hearing for 5:00 p.m. that day to consider the Motion to Certify a Class.

Just an hour before the hearing, the Proclamation was made public. Less than two hours after the Proclamation was published, and while the emergency hearing was ongoing, the Government flew 252 Venezuelan men, including 137 putative class members, out of the United States.

The Trump administration thought if it violated due process rights fast enough, no one would be able to do anything but offer up a resigned shrug. Boasberg has refused to do this. He saw this happening and moved on it. The administration efforts to stay ahead of easily foreseeable adverse rulings may now result in a lot of deportations being undone.

As for the government’s last-ditch argument that the Court has no jurisdiction because the hastily deported people are no longer in the custody of US federal officers, the court has this to say:

In a statement to the U.N. Office, El Salvador expressly disclaimed responsibility for the detainees, contending instead that “the jurisdiction and legal responsibility for these persons l[ay] exclusively with the competent foreign authorities.”

So, it’s no use pretending the people denied their due process rights are still not under the control of the United States government. On top of that, there’s plenty of documentation on the public record that shows the Trump administration not only asked El Salvador’s government to accept whatever people it chose to dump into CECOT, but paid it nearly $50 million to offset whatever expenses El Salvador might rack up while violating the human rights of Trump’s deportees.

And the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act doesn’t change anything. Only under very narrow circumstances can due process rights be nullified. None of that is happening here. To pretend the government’s vague assertions about foreign powers and threats to national security are all that’s needed to negate the constitutional rights extended to anyone who happens to reside in this country, no matter how temporarily.

The remedy must thus adapt to meet the injury that has occurred. The Court finds that the only remedy that would give effect to its granting of Plaintiffs’ Motion would be to order the Government to undo the effects of their unlawful removal by facilitating a meaningful opportunity to contest their designation and the Proclamation’s validity. Otherwise, a finding of unlawful removal would be meaningless for Plaintiffs, who have already been sent back to Venezuela against their wishes and without due process. Expedited removal cannot be allowed to render this relief toothless. If secretly spiriting individuals to another country were enough to neuter the Great Writ, then “the Government could snatch anyone off the street, turn him over to a foreign country, and then effectively foreclose any corrective course of action.”

Those are the words of someone who not only knows the law, but respects it. These are words of the Trump administration:

“Once again Judge Boasberg issued an order that has no basis in law and undermines national security,” Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement to NPR.

Amazing. This death cult of an administration is also a murder cult and kidnapping cult. National security interests can still be served while respecting due process rights. It’s not either/or, no matter how many people we murder in international waters. But this initial statement makes it clear the administration will do everything it can to continue violating these rights, no matter what the courts say about the issue.

Filed Under: alien enemies act, cecot, dhs, doj, due process, james boasberg, mass deportation, rights violations, trump administration

Jury Dumps Criminal Charges Against Tow Truck Driver Who Towed An ICE Vehicle During An Arrest

Legal Issues

from the keep-losing,-losers dept

This administration runs on vengeance. If it’s not Donald Trump aiming the DOJ at his personal enemies, it’s the DOJ itself taking a shotgun approach to justice (read: filling it full of holes) by filing as many criminal charges against anti-ICE protesters as possible. The charges have been transparently bogus — an obvious attempt by the administration to intimidate protesters into silence. And juries — even extremely submissive grand juries — have refused to buy what the government can’t even be bothered to sell properly.

Every loss by this administration is a win for what’s left of America and its constitutional ideals. Here’s one to cherish, just because the DOJ decided to brag about this supposed slam dunk a couple of months before a California jury went Wembanyana and swatted this shot halfway across the court.

The story starts here, back in September:

A tow truck driver from South Los Angeles has been arrested on a federal criminal complaint alleging he illegally towed a government vehicle used by law enforcement during an immigration-related arrest. 

The U.S. Department of Justice issued a media release on Tuesday morning indicating that Bobby Nunez was charged with one count of theft of government property. 

An affidavit filed with the complaint states that on Aug. 15, Nunez interfered with federal law enforcement officers conducting immigration enforcement in downtown L.A. This particular case involved a 23-year-old Colombian woman named Tatiana Mafla-Martinez, whose vehicle was boxed in by two government vehicles, preventing her from getting away. 

Here are some more details about the case, albeit supplied solely by the government:

While the second man was being addressed by the officers, Nunez allegedly got into his tow truck and towed one of the government cars blocking Mafla-Martinez’s car. Per the DOJ, the car he towed had its keys inside and also had a firearm, although it was locked in a safe. 

“Addressed” of course means “arrested.” And while the officers were otherwise occupied, Nunez towed their vehicle away because it was blocking access to the apartments. Nunez apparently resided at these apartments. The government says it found the tow truck “parked in its assigned parking space” two days after this incident (August 17). Somehow, it didn’t get around to arresting him for another two weeks.

After the arrest, DOJ prosecutor Bill Essayli decided to get on the X and brag about the nailing of this alleged criminal:

“Apparently he thought it would be funny to interfere with our immigration enforcement operations,” he wrote on X in September. “Now he can laugh behind bars while he faces justice. Nunez is looking at up to 10 years in federal prison if convicted.”

Whether or not the tow truck driver, Bobby Nunez, thought this was funny remains (like the rest of the case) an unproven allegation. But it is objectively funny, as this recording clearly demonstrates:

Essayli should know better than to run his mouth in public. His career with the Trump administration has basically been a long run of failures in courts while pursuing federal charges against protesters, journalists, and anyone else the administration thinks needs to be vindictively prosecuted.

The last laugh belongs to Bobby Nunez:

The South Los Angeles tow truck driver who was arrested in September on a federal criminal complaint charging him with “stealing government property” after he towed a government vehicle whose occupants were making an immigration arrest in DTLA was acquitted last week, prosecutors say.

We see what Essayli said about this. Nunez’s lawyers — both public defenders — pointed out the actual facts of the situation:

Deputy Federal Public Defenders Rebecca Harris and David Menninger, argued that the law enforcement vehicle was blocking the driveway to the apartment complex and that their client moved it only one block away to stop the impediment of traffic in the high-density apartment complex. It was returned less than 15 minutes later, they argued.

The jury apparently agreed: no (lasting) harm, no foul. The government suffered some temporary embarrassment but it still managed to carry out its arrests even if one of its cars was now located a few hundred feet away from where officers had (deliberately and carelessly) parked it.

Bill Essayli managed to handle the loss with whatever grace he has left in his body, simply stating that Nunez had been found not guilty and that he had no further comment. Local abhorrent/Trump deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, of course, had to get up on his bitchiness horse and ride off into the sunset of his own humanity:

“Another example of blatant jury nullification in a blue city,” Miller wrote on X on Sunday. “The justice system depends on a jury of peers with a shared system of interests and values. Mass migration tribalizes the entire legal system.”

Good luck trying to parse whatever the fuck that is. I’ve tried multiple times and the best I’ve come up with is “Froth froth froth froth blue city froth.” Complaining about jury nullification is something someone does when they don’t like the outcome. And what makes this nullification more “blatant” than any other goes unexplained, although we all know it just means that it happened in Los Angeles.

If the DOJ is going to insist on being Trump’s vengeful marionette, things are never going to improve. Juries can be swayed easily, but they also tend to know when the government expects them to be the kangaroos in the court. The more extreme the government’s actions, the less likely they are to be complicit in obvious bullshit. No one in the administration is learning anything from this, which means they’re doomed to repeat their own recent history ad infinitum.

Filed Under: bill essayli, bobby nunez, california, dhs, doj, ice, mass deportation, stephen miller, trump administration