THE SET-UP: Remember “enhanced interrogation”? That was the George W. Bush Administration’s euphemism for torture. Lest we forget, they tortured people (or “some folks”) under the guise of expanded war powers. Or, if you are a U.S. citizen, we tortured people. I know some bristle at that because they didn’t support W or the Iraq War or the Global War On Terror. But, IMHO, that’s the collective bargain of a representative democracy … when it’s done by the Federal Government, it’s done in all our names.
That’s why We, The People cannot just wash our hands when a President we don’t like and didn’t vote for does something that challenges the very compact upon which the government is built. And that’s why we should be very concerned about “enhanced vetting.” As you will see from the first excerpt below, that’s the pointed euphemism the Trump Administration (“regime”) is using to intimidate legal immigrants and tourists—yes, tourists from the U.K. and Canada and Germany—who have run afoul of the regime.
I say “run afoul" because we don’t have an actual legal rationale for a small, but growing number of “enhanced vetting” cases. As D.C. Chief District Judge James Boasberg is finding out, Trump’s Goon Squad doesn’t think it has to explain itself, let alone comply with a lawful order from the bench. They also don’t feel particularly compelled by the Fourth Amendment, nor do they feel compelled to reveal the facts upon which they based the deportation of “criminal alien gang members.” They don’t think they have to reveal to us or to the court what, if anything, they discovered during the “enhanced vetting” of people they sent to a prison in another country.
We are, however, finding out that some of the Venezuelan gang members sent to El Salvador were not, in fact, in Tren de Aragua gang members. Or criminals. But cut off from their families and legal assistance, they’ve been essentially disappeared. And let’s be clear, this is just the beginning. Trump has opined about paying El Salvador to imprison U.S. citizens convicted of violent crimes … and today he pondered adding Americans who attack Teslas to the growing list of enemies he’d like to see rotting in the Central American supermax prison.
Sounds a bit like extraordinary rendition, doesn’t it?
It also sounds like we’d best not take our Constitutional protections for granted … particularly since Trump’s regime is building all of this on the premise of wartime powers. That’s the implication of the Alien Enemies Act … and if that predicate is ultimately validated by the Supreme Court, that will embolden Trump to act like a wartime President writ large. And if that happens, history may look at back at a these flights to El Salvador as this nation’s Reichstag fire. - jp
TITLE: As Trump Broadens Crackdown, Focus Expands to Legal Immigrants and Tourists
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/us/politics/trump-immigration-visa-crackdown.html
EXCERPTS: The Trump administration has opened a new phase in its immigration agenda, one that goes well beyond the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants.
U.S. border officials are using more aggressive tactics, which the administration calls “enhanced vetting,” at ports of entry to the United States, prompting American allies like Germany to update their travel advisories. At the same time, the administration is targeting legal immigrants who have expressed views that the government believes threaten national security and undermine foreign policy.
The tactics have unnerved foreign tourists and sent a chill through immigrant communities in the United States, who say they are being targeted for speech — not for breaking any laws.
On his first day back in office, he signed an executive order that aimed to empower border officers by directing the administration to “identify all resources that may be used to ensure that all aliens seeking admission to the United States, or who are already in the United States, are vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible.”
Customs agents have wide latitude to search cellphones or computers of travelers crossing into the United States. According to Customs and Border Protection, however, such searches have typically been rare. In 2024, less than 0.01 percent of arriving international travelers had their electronic devices searched, the agency said.
Homeland security agents also have access to a large database called the National Targeting Center to detect risks among visitors to the United States. With the help of other nations sharing information about residents traveling to the United States, the database allows agents to flag visitors when they enter the nation’s ports.
When it comes to scrutinizing people already living in the United States, investigators for Immigration and Customs Enforcement who typically focus on long-term inquiries have been searching videos, online posts and news clippings of campus protests against the Israel-Hamas war. They have then compiled reports on their findings for the State Department.
The government also appears to be getting information from private groups like the Middle East Forum, a conservative think tank. The group said in a statement that it had more than 15 active investigations on “national security issues” and would share results about “terror-aligned individuals and organizations with the relevant government agencies.”
A spokesman for the forum declined to answer questions about its communication with the Trump administration. But the statement from the group said it had a “three-decade history of sharing the results of our work with the appropriate government and law enforcement agencies on all issues where U.S. national security is concerned.”
To deport people living in the United States with green cards or valid visas, the Trump administration has invoked a rarely used provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that gives the secretary of state sweeping power to expel foreigners who are seen as a threat to the country’s foreign policy interests.
Using that authority, ICE agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate who has Palestinian heritage and took on a prominent role in the pro-Palestinian protests at the school, and Badar Khan Suri, an Indian citizen who has been studying and teaching at Georgetown.
Mr. Khalil has a green card, which means he is a legal permanent resident. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, has accused him of “siding with terrorists.”
Ms. McLaughlin has accused Dr. Suri of “spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media,” without providing evidence.
According to an official familiar with Dr. Suri’s case, the State Department justified his deportation by arguing that he engaged in antisemitic activity that would undermine diplomatic efforts to get Israel and Hamas to agree to a cease-fire. He is in the United States on a visa for academics.
Dr. Suri’s wife, an American citizen of Palestinian descent, is the daughter of Ahmed Yousef, the former adviser to a Hamas leader who was assassinated last year in Iran.
According to a court filing from his lawyers, Dr. Suri was surrounded by masked homeland security agents outside his home in Virginia on Monday night, arrested and placed in an unmarked S.U.V. A judge has temporarily blocked his removal from the country.
Lawyers for Mr. Khalil and Dr. Suri argue that the administration is punishing them for speaking out for Palestinians. Neither man has been charged with a crime. They are being detained while their lawyers fight against their deportations.
In another case, the department stopped and detained Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a kidney transplant specialist and professor at Brown University who was trying to return to the United States after visiting relatives in Lebanon. The administration deported Dr. Alawieh despite her having a valid visa and a court order blocking her removal. Federal authorities said in a court filing that they found “sympathetic photos and videos of prominent Hezbollah figures” in her phone and that she attended the funeral for the leader of Hezbollah in February.
This month, a French scientist was prevented from entering the country. France’s minister for higher education said U.S. Border Patrol agents found messages in which he expressed his “personal opinion” to colleagues and friends about Mr. Trump’s science policies.
Two German tourists said they were stopped separately at border crossings at San Diego and Tijuana and sent to a crowded detention center, where they reported being denied a translator and being put in solitary confinement. A Canadian national said she was detained and put “in chains” when officers flagged her visa paperwork.
Homeland security agencies have not answered questions about either case.
TITLE: Will ICE Use the Alien Enemies Act To Enter Homes Without Warrants?
https://reason.com/2025/03/21/will-ice-use-the-alien-enemies-act-to-enter-homes-without-warrants/
EXCERPTS: Just a few days after President Donald Trump took office in January, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) carried out a workplace raid in Newark, New Jersey, that alarmed local officials and immigrant advocates.
ICE agents detained "undocumented residents as well as citizens, without producing a warrant," said Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka in a January 23 statement. "This egregious act is in plain violation of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees 'the right of the people [to] be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.'"
The Trump administration could be gearing up for broader warrantless immigration enforcement. Lawyers for the administration "have determined that an 18th-century wartime law the president has invoked to deport suspected members of a Venezuelan gang allows federal agents to enter homes without a warrant," The New York Times reported on Thursday, which would effectively set "aside a key provision of the Fourth Amendment that requires a court order to search someone's home."
The "18th-century wartime law" in question is the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which gives the president broad authority to detain and deport noncitizens during times of war. Trump invoked the law earlier this month to justify deporting alleged members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang. Members of the gang had "unlawfully infiltrated the United States and are conducting irregular warfare" against Americans, Trump explained in an executive order.
"All such Alien Enemies, wherever found within any territory subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, are subject to summary apprehension," the order continued. Senior Justice Department lawyers believe that language and the Alien Enemies Act's historic applications mean "the government does not need a warrant to enter a home or premises to search for people believed to be members of that gang," the Times reported.
The administration should think twice about acting on that interpretation, given the fallout over last weekend's Alien Enemies Act–related deportations. An ICE official's sworn affidavit "paint[ed] the picture of a Trump administration and ICE management that were determined to deport as many people as possible, no matter how tenuous the connection to Tren de Aragua or any crime," wrote Reason's Eric Boehm. Reports on the deportees suggest that many may have been sent to a Salvadoran prison for extremely flimsy reasons, including innocuous tattoos. It would've been far better for the government to assess those grounds for deportation in court hearings rather than whisking people out of the country and potentially making grave, life-altering mistakes.
"Currently, immigration agents without a warrant can do little more than knock on a door and ask to come in," noted the Times. "The Fourth Amendment applies to everyone in the U.S., not just individuals with legal status," Christopher A. Wellborn, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, told the paper. Removing that protection would be an "abuse of power that destroys our privacy, making Americans feel unsafe and vulnerable in the places where our children play and our loved ones sleep."
TITLE: Trump’s usage of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 sparks outrage
https://www.calonews.com/featured-topics/immigration/trump-s-usage-of-the-alien-enemies-act-of-1798-sparks-outrage/article_2d25da12-bb9f-4528-a5e3-48a181ed3884.html
EXCERPTS: On Tuesday, Nikkei Progressives, a grassroots community organization, held a press conference outside the Japanese American National Museum in downtown L.A.’s Little Tokyo, to condemn President Donald Trump for invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 (AEA) to deport Venezuelan nationals to El Salvador. This action reminded the Japanese American community and others of a troubling chapter in U.S. history when the law was last used during World War II, which marked the beginning of the arrest and incarceration of 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry. In 1988, Japanese Americans received an apology from President Ronald Reagan for this significant injustice.
Speakers from various organizations shared a standard message: Trump's latest actions are an attack on all marginalized communities. “We’ve seen the recent erasure of our community’s stories from government websites and documents, such as the National Archives, the U.S. Army, and Arlington National Cemetery. We are also witnessing the complete dismantling of diversity, equity and inclusion programs, literally turning the clock back at least by several decades,” reads the statement by Nikkei Progressives.
To understand how the Trump administration can get away with deporting hundreds of Venezuelans to the Terrorist Confinement Center in El Salvador, known for violating human rights, we have to understand the root of the law.
During the late 1700s, there was a possibility that the U.S. would go to war with France. [T]hen-President John Adams passed the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 amid the potential threat of war with France, giving the president full authority to invoke the Act to imprison and deport non-citizens during times of war or invasion. The law was part of the Four Alien and Sedition Acts and was used only three times in U.S. history.
Trump is using the term "invasion” and claiming that Venezuelans are “unlawfully infiltrating” the country. Under the pretense that the U.S. is at war with Venezuela, he is justifying the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans without allowing them the opportunity to have their cases heard by an immigration judge.
The last time the U.S. applied this law was in 1941 against Japan, due to Japan's attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawai’i, on December 7, 1941. This prompted the U.S. entry into World War II and enabled Franklin D. Roosevelt to utilize the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, since the country was at war.
The Venezuelan government has not attempted to overthrow the U.S. government or undermine our democratic processes, nor have they declared that they are at war with the U.S.
AND here’s a more “personal” EXCERPT from a story published today on AsAmNews:
Born in an incarceration camp, Satsuki Ina, 80, heard first-hand stories from her parents of being imprisoned for being Japanese American.
Her mom and dad talked of first being ordered to live at the Tanforan Racetrack near San Francisco.
She pictures her mother, Shizuko, pressing her nose against the fence. As Ina recalls, her mom watched to “see life go on for everybody else.”
That was life under the Alien Enemies Act- the 1798 law to detain or deport natives and citizens of an enemy nation during times of war. It’s the law used to justify the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Now President Trump has resurrected the law to deport Venezuelans he alleges are members of the gang, Tren de Aragua. He’s deported 200 Venezuelans Saturday who he says have declared war against the U.S. by invading its borders.
“We’re not going to forget this abuse of power,” said Dean Ito-Taylor of Nihonmachi Legal Outreach. “We cannot support or ignore a federal government that promotes racism. We will not forget what happened to our communities. and our families.”
About one dozen groups gathered at the Japanese American Citizens League in San Francisco to denounce the law. The mostly Japanese and Asian American groups don’t want it used to put anyone else behind barbed wire.
“I speak for Japanese Americans in San Francisco. We are ourselves descendants of immigrants and we know that immigrants are not our enemies. They are our friends. We’re proud to stand in solidarity with the Venezuelans,” said Jeff Matsuoka of Bay Area Day of Remembrance.
Jon Osaki, director of the JCYC, put it this way.
“There are moments in this country that silence is not an option. We need to speak up loudly.”
The JACL called for voters to contact their congressional representative in support of the Neighbors Not Enemies Act which would repeal the Alien Enemies Act.
“Congress needs to ensure that the president does not abuse and further desecrate our constitution,” said Joyce Nakamura of JACL.