People being detained and "exported" by ICE #2

[Lilibet]

I really do care, do you ?

ICE Deports 3 U.S. Citizen Children Held Incommunicado Prior to the Deportation | American Civil Liberties Union

Families disappeared and isolated without legal access; one child with cancer deported without medication and pregnant mother deported as well

www.aclu.org

Absolutely! See previous posts about this. But it bears repeating this shocking information.

 

[Lilibet]

Some good news this week…

April 25, 2025

Today’s major stories must be seen in the context of President Donald Trump’s dramatic losses in court and his plummeting poll numbers.

heathercoxrichardson.substack.com

As Jacob Knutson of Democracy Docket wrote, Trump suffered at least 11 legal setbacks this week as judges blocked Trump from gutting the Voice of America media outlet, blocked the administration from removing people in Colorado and New York under the Alien Enemies Act, ordered the administration to comply with discovery requests from Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s lawyers, told the Department of Education not to implement anti-DEI measures, blocked Trump’s executive order about elections, stopped the administration from impounding money from cities that don’t comply with its mass deportation orders, and blocked the administration from ending collective bargaining rights for federal workers.

BBM

 

[Lilibet]

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, nationally recognized expert on autocrats, has posted a series of articles that discuss the steps that have led to the United States’ rapid slide toward and to autocracy that none of us living here can believe.

Feb 2

A New Kind of Coup: Trump and Musk are Updating the Autocratic Playbook

The assault on our democracy seen through the lens of authoritarian practice

lucid.substack.com

It seems like the plot of a political thriller. We are living through a new kind of coup in which Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, has taken over the payment and other administration systems that allow the American government to function, and has locked out federal employees from computer systems.
<snip>
What is happening now builds on classic authoritarian dynamics as I described them in Strongmen and in many essays for Lucid. There is always an “inner sanctum” that really runs the show, with its mix of family members and cronies, some with histories of working with or for foreign powers. And there is almost always a purge of the federal bureaucracy. That is now being carried out on a mass scale.

Feb, 11

Out of Chaos and Corruption, a Revelation and a Reckoning

Welcome back to Lucid

lucid.substack.com

The hostile takeover of the United States government we are now living through, with the full collusion of the Republican Party, reflects years of effort by Trump, a convicted felon, to create an environment propitious to smash-and-grab governance. The vehicle for this plunder is Musk, who may be the richest man in the world, but presents as an infantile being puffed up with grandiose fantasies of possession and the domination of everything.


Elon Musk at an Alternative for Germany party conference in Halle, Germany, Jan. 25, 2025. Hendrik Schmidt/dpa/Picture Alliance via Getty Images.

The allure of the Trump-Musk-Peter Thiel* partnership is the chance to make the United States a laboratory of freedom from every kind of ethical and professional norm that might restrain behaviors of individuals, political entities, and corporations. For that, you need to replace American democracy with some form of autocratic governance.

*Here is Peter Thiel again, JD Vance’s former employer and mentor.

March10

Trump and Musk's Power-Sharing Agreement Innovates the Authoritarian Playbook

What Each Party Gets out of the Unorthodox Power-Partition

lucid.substack.com

Here I focus on how the Trump-Musk administration is innovating the global authoritarian playbook, starting with the structure and use of executive authority. Trump has a novel power-sharing arrangement with an unelected private citizen who is essentially executing a hostile takeover of the U.S. government to capture data, neutralize investigations into his private companies, and use our country as a laboratory for a new form of authoritarian techno-governance that requires the wrecking of democracy.

March 16

We Are Living Through Moral Collapse. How Democrats Can Strike Back

Moral deregulation and moral collapse can inspire a new democratic politics that leads with values of justice, solidarity, equity, and accountability

lucid.substack.com

Authoritarianism is a political system built on a logic of betrayals: betrayals of others and betrayals of self. It cultivates, and rewards, a state I call moral deregulation: a rolling back of civic and ethical norms against defrauding, silencing, bullying, and physically harming others.
<snip>
When moral deregulation advances because violence and corruption have been institutionalized, including in the behavior of national leaders, then a society can experience moral collapse.

April 21

Is America an Autocracy Now?

The stakes of naming, and the reality of process

lucid.substack.com

Now we are 100 days into the second Trump administration. Whether it is public health policy, economic policy, national security, foreign policy, media-government relations on the democratic model, or the everyday business of governance, America is becoming unrecognizable to allies abroad and to many Americans.

When U.S. legal residents are rounded up and deported to a foreign gulag without the semblance of due process; when U.S. citizens with no criminal record receive letters from the government telling them "It's time for you to leave the United States"; when the executive power makes clear it no longer believes that court decisions should constrain its actions; when the leader has a personality cult that resembles those of autocracies: these are all signs that a shift away from democracy has taken place in government that is affecting everyday Americans.

 

[Izzylizzy]

'Trump Appears Unaware Supreme Court Ruled 9-0 Against Him: ‘That’s Not What My People Told Me’​

“I leave that to my lawyers,” Trump said when asked if he is actively facilitating Garcia’s return. “I give them no instructions. They feel that the order said something very much different from what you’re saying. But I leave that to my lawyers. If they want — and that would be Attorney General of the United States and the people that represent the country. I don’t make that decision.”

cont

Trump Appears Unaware Supreme Court Ruled 9-0 Against Him: ‘That’s Not What My People Told Me’

President Donald Trump claims his lawyers have told him that the Supreme Court's ruling on Kilmar Abrego Garcia does not mean he needs to bring him back.

www.mediaite.com

 

[Kudzuu]

If you dive into the relationships of Peter Theil, JD Vance, Musk and Trump you will find the authoritarian philosophy we are now living has been promoted for at least a decade. The scary part is 3 of these men are leaders in government who are lauding the placement of loyalists in strategic government agencies. They are implementing project 2025. Step by step.

 

[Lyanna]

'Trump Appears Unaware Supreme Court Ruled 9-0 Against Him: ‘That’s Not What My People Told Me’​

“I leave that to my lawyers,” Trump said when asked if he is actively facilitating Garcia’s return. “I give them no instructions. They feel that the order said something very much different from what you’re saying. But I leave that to my lawyers. If they want — and that would be Attorney General of the United States and the people that represent the country. I don’t make that decision.”

cont

Trump Appears Unaware Supreme Court Ruled 9-0 Against Him: ‘That’s Not What My People Told Me’

President Donald Trump claims his lawyers have told him that the Supreme Court's ruling on Kilmar Abrego Garcia does not mean he needs to bring him back.

www.mediaite.com

Makes the piss poor decisions that got the US Government in this awful mess though, but when it comes to trying to resolve it, it's someone else's problem. Stand up guy there.

Moo

 

[slowpoke]

I mentioned a short film video that is played at the Manzanar Historic Site’s Visitor Center. I located the video on YouTube.

If memory serves me correctly, I believe the video was not long after the 9-11 attacks, at a time when fear and discrimination towards Muslim Americans in the US was happening; the Japanese Americans saw parallels to their experience during WW2.

Transcrpt of the ending part:

(From 19:31 in the video)
Ms. H: We don’t have a king.
We don’t have a queen, you know.
We have a Constitution,
and when we violate that Constitution,
we begin to unravel as a nation.
Mr. O: “The right of the people to be secure
in their persons, houses, papers, and effects…”
Ms. S: “…against unreasonable searches
and seizures shall not be violated.”
Mr. B: I think today that Americans
need to be so alert,
because the individual rights of people
have got to be preserved.
Ms. N: “No person shall be deprived
of life, liberty, or property…”
Mr. T: “…without due process of law.”
Mr. B: Are we going to make the same mistake that
we did with a whole group of my family and friends?
I really worry about that.
Mr. K: I still think this is the best country
in the world, hands down.
It’s just up to everybody to see that it stays that way.
===

^ I bolded the sentence that feels so especially pertinent and poignant to today, to me. jmo

LINK to video source, by Manzanar National Park Service

 

[Izzylizzy]

'Matt Gaetz visited El Salvador's mega-prison and saw people drained of hope. He then pitched it to Stephen Miller'​

Source: The Independent

Friday 25 April 2025 16:47 BST


"Matt Gaetz visited the El Salvador mega-prison last summer and pitched the idea of sending migrants there to Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, according to a report. Trump’s failed nominee to lead the Justice Department was invited on a diplomatic visit by El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele in July 2024, TIME reports.

Bukele made Gaetz an offer during a dinner that he would be willing to imprison migrants that Trump wanted removed from the U.S. inside El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT, according to the outlet. The next day, Gaetz was given a tour of the facility, which human rights groups have described as a “tropical gulag” rife with abuses.

“The conditions had zapped the inhabitants of any will to fight,” Gaetz told TIME. “It’s tough to see the state of the human condition drained of hope.” Gaetz then pitched the idea of sending migrants to the mega-prison to immigration hardliner Miller, a source told the outlet, who then presented it to Trump.

“One of the reasons I like it is because it would be much less expensive than our prison system, and I think it would actually be a greater deterrent,” Trump said in an interview with TIME.'

Read more: Matt Gaetz visited El Salvador mega-prison in 2024. He pitched it to Stephen Miller

 

[Herat]

Here's another DHS arrest of a long-term greencard holder and long-term US resident:

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/california-woman-faces-deportation-20295051.php

 

[Snoopster]

I saw someone post this comment on social media and it connected with me.

"You can’t say criminals don’t deserve due process when due process is the thing that decides if they're criminals. Otherwise you're just kidnapping people you don't like."

The lack of due process is EVERYTHING. That's how fascists work. JMO.

 

[Lilibet]

'Matt Gaetz visited El Salvador's mega-prison and saw people drained of hope. He then pitched it to Stephen Miller'​

Source: The Independent

Friday 25 April 2025 16:47 BST


"Matt Gaetz visited the El Salvador mega-prison last summer and pitched the idea of sending migrants there to Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, according to a report. Trump’s failed nominee to lead the Justice Department was invited on a diplomatic visit by El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele in July 2024, TIME reports.

Bukele made Gaetz an offer during a dinner that he would be willing to imprison migrants that Trump wanted removed from the U.S. inside El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT, according to the outlet. The next day, Gaetz was given a tour of the facility, which human rights groups have described as a “tropical gulag” rife with abuses.

“The conditions had zapped the inhabitants of any will to fight,” Gaetz told TIME. “It’s tough to see the state of the human condition drained of hope.” Gaetz then pitched the idea of sending migrants to the mega-prison to immigration hardliner Miller, a source told the outlet, who then presented it to Trump.

“One of the reasons I like it is because it would be much less expensive than our prison system, and I think it would actually be a greater deterrent,” Trump said in an interview with TIME.'

Read more: Matt Gaetz visited El Salvador mega-prison in 2024. He pitched it to Stephen Miller

Evil, evil people. All of them.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Evil, evil people. All of them.

They're definitely on the wrong side of history.

 

[Lilibet]

Here's another DHS arrest of a long-term greencard holder and long-term US resident:

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/california-woman-faces-deportation-20295051.php

We’ve made a point about people with brown skin being targeted by saying they “aren’t Irish.” Well, here’s one who’s at least half Irish as I am. Unfortunately, unlike blue eyed fair skinned me, she made the “mistake” of having brown eyes and darker skin. She also has an expunged criminal case from 20 years ago for which she paid the penalty. But she’s had a green card for 30 years, so why is ICE after her now?

 

[Ontario Mom]

They're definitely on the wrong side of history.

I couldn't possibly disagree more.

 

[sapphire blue]

We’ve made a point about people with brown skin being targeted by saying they “aren’t Irish.” Well, here’s one who’s at least half Irish as I am. Unfortunately, unlike blue eyed fair skinned me, she made the “mistake” of having brown eyes and darker skin. She also has an expunged criminal case from 20 years ago for which she paid the penalty. But she’s had a green card for 30 years, so why is ICE after her now?

Why? To create fear for people who migrated decades ago. Maybe she’s said something on socials that isn’t favourable to the current administration.

Realistically there is no logic to what ICE is doing, as evidenced by the way they are going after people with zero or expunged cases. Logical would be to have a starting point eg any migrant who have served sentences of say 5 years or more. Instead what is happening is illogical, they aren’t targeting those with criminal convictions, they are going after easy targets so the public are fooled into thinking they are being tough on immigrants.

Of course we haven’t yet heard of any of trumps Mara Lago temporary staff being detained, arrested which sounds like it’s very much the old one rule for ye but not for me.

 

[sapphire blue]

I couldn't possibly disagree more.

You don’t agree with people receiving due process?

If we don’t learn from history then we are doomed to repeat it…

 

[Ontario Mom]

You don’t agree with people receiving due process?

If we don’t learn from history then we are doomed to repeat it…

I don't agree with the assertion that the folks mentioned are "evil" and I don't agree that they're on the wrong side of history, as insinuated.

 

[sapphire blue]

I don't agree with the assertion that the folks mentioned are "evil" and I don't agree that they're on the wrong side of history, as insinuated.

If not evil then what would you call their disgraceful actions?

History tells its own story, some have the sense to learn from it… some don’t

 

[Snoopster]

I don't agree with the assertion that the folks mentioned are "evil" and I don't agree that they're on the wrong side of history, as insinuated.

So you're ok with people being sent to essentially concentration camps in another country without due process? I just want to understand.

 

[Lilibet]

I mentioned a short film video that is played at the Manzanar Historic Site’s Visitor Center. I located the video on YouTube.

If memory serves me correctly, I believe the video was not long after the 9-11 attacks, at a time when fear and discrimination towards Muslim Americans in the US was happening; the Japanese Americans saw parallels to their experience during WW2.

Transcrpt of the ending part:

(From 19:31 in the video)
Ms. H: We don’t have a king.
We don’t have a queen, you know.
We have a Constitution,
and when we violate that Constitution,
we begin to unravel as a nation.
Mr. O: “The right of the people to be secure
in their persons, houses, papers, and effects…”
Ms. S: “…against unreasonable searches
and seizures shall not be violated.”
Mr. B: I think today that Americans
need to be so alert,
because the individual rights of people
have got to be preserved.
Ms. N: “No person shall be deprived
of life, liberty, or property…”
Mr. T: “…without due process of law.”
Mr. B: Are we going to make the same mistake that
we did with a whole group of my family and friends?
I really worry about that.
Mr. K: I still think this is the best country
in the world, hands down.
It’s just up to everybody to see that it stays that way.
===

^ I bolded the sentence that feels so especially pertinent and poignant to today, to me. jmo

LINK to video source, by Manzanar National Park Service

The video was both heartbreaking and inspiring. Heartbreak for the losses and terrible treatment the Japanese endured and inspired by the dignified way they endured. When we visited Manzanar, I don’t remember seeing this video. But just walking around and seeing the conditions was shocking. Of course the gardens they planted are long gone. The only beauty you see are the magnificent Sierra Nevada mountains.

This is a tragic injustice that I fear will be repeated in a large way, and not “just” for immigrants.

JMO