A protester stands in front of a row of mock body bags outside of the Trump International Hotel on April 23, 2020 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Oct 02, 2020
Contrary to the notion that the coronavirus "snuck up" on President Donald Trump just as it did far less powerful people across the U.S. and around the world, Trump's announcement Friday that he tested positive for Covid-19 was--according to progressive critics--a direct and foreseeable consequence of the president's months of lying, callous disregard for public health, and catastrophic mishandling of the federal government's pandemic response.
"Trump's diagnosis is the culmination of six months of recklessness and failure, the ultimate, inevitable end of his administration's disastrous response to a global pandemic."
--Alex Shephard, The New Republic
In a tweet Friday morning, author and environmentalist Naomi Klein drew a striking analogy in an effort to place Trump's diagnosis in the broader context of his administration's failure to take the steps necessary to combat the pandemic--a failure that has resulted in more than 200,000 dead Americans and counting.
"Trump getting Covid is the epidemiological equivalent of a mass shooting where the shooter opens fire on a crowd and then turns the gun on himself," Klein wrote. "Not a tragic accident--a crime scene."
Klein repeated her argument in an interview on Democracy Now! and warned that the U.S. public must be "prepared for the president using the fact that he's having to cancel campaign events for two weeks to try to further delegitimize elections."
Watch:
Since the coronavirus first began spreading at a rapid pace throughout the U.S. in March--forcing entire swaths of the economy to shut down and throwing countless lives into chaos--Trump and members of his administration publicly minimized the threat posed by Covid-19 and dispensed with the safety recommendations of experts, refusing to take simple life-saving steps like wearing face coverings and avoiding large gatherings.
Instead, the president did the opposite, knowingly spreading misinformation about the pandemic to the public, questioning the effectiveness of masks, and holding large indoor campaign rallies that threatened the health of the thousands in attendance as well as those they later came in contact with.
"Trump's diagnosis is the culmination of six months of recklessness and failure, the ultimate, inevitable end of his administration's disastrous response to a global pandemic," The New Republic's Alex Shephard wrote Friday. "Above all, his actions over the past six months reflect his extraordinary selfishness and cruelty. Other people get the virus. People in blue states get it. People of color get it. The elderly get it. Donald J. Trump doesn't get it--he can go about his life, however he pleases, ignoring the devastation around him."
"Trump has spent his entire life avoiding the consequences of his actions, from his business failures to his toxic politics. That changed on Thursday evening," Shephard continued. "No one would wish Covid-19 on anyone, not even Trump, but the president has spent the last six months desperately attempting to change the subject. Now, with less than a month before the election, he's paying the price."
Hours before announcing that both he and First Lady Melania Trump tested positive for the coronavirus, Trump said during a dinner at the White House Thursday evening that the "end of the pandemic is in sight"--echoing a sentiment he has expressed repeatedly since late February, when he wrongly predicted that the number of U.S. cases would be "close to zero" by the end of that month.
"That's a pretty good job we've done," Trump said at the time, a rosy assessment of his own performance that the president doubled down on late last month even after the U.S. coronavirus death toll topped 200,000.
In a statement Friday afternoon, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said her "thoughts are with the president, first lady, White House staff, and anyone else who may have come into contact with the president, and I wish them all a quick and safe recovery."
"My thoughts are also with millions of other Americans who have survived Covid-19 or are still sick," said Warren. "With the more than 200,000 Americans that we've lost, including a disproportionate number in Black and Brown communities. With the millions of Americans who can't get the help they need and worry about how they'll pay their bills."
"The president spent months undermining the work of our doctors and scientists, while he failed to help states and communities contain the outbreak. He mocked people for wearing masks and held super-spreader events that disregarded the health of thousands," Warren continued. "Today's news should serve as a reminder that listening to scientists, wearing a mask, washing hands, and social distancing are our best tools to fight this horrific disease."
News of Trump's positive coronavirus test touched off frenzied speculation as to who the president may have infected after he possibly contracted the virus from his close aide Hope Hicks, who tested positive Thursday after showing symptoms on Wednesday--facts the White House tried and failed to keep hidden from the public.
"A small group of White House officials knew by Thursday morning that Hicks had contracted Covid-19," CNNreported Friday, "but Trump still took a trip to New Jersey for a fundraiser, and press secretary Kayleigh McEnany still held a news briefing at the White House on Thursday."
\u201cCompletely irresponsible. He endangered the life of everyone he came into contact with.\u201d— Renato Mariotti (@Renato Mariotti) 1601644672
Asked about the possibility that the White House coronavirus outbreak has spread to members of Congress, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters Friday, "We don't know. It can sneak up on you as it did with the president and the first lady. So we're keeping an eye on everyone."
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) immediately rejected McConnell's narrative, tweeting, "Let's be clear... Covid didn't sneak up on the president."
Just before noon Friday it was reported that Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) had also tested positive for the coronavirus.
"Since the spring, the White House has had multiple positive cases, including several people who have direct contact with Trump," Murphy added. "And yet he didn't wear a mask at public events or private meetings at the White House."
Jeet Heer, national affairs correspondent at The Nation, argued Friday that Democrats, including Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, "should not shy away from using news of Trump's Covid test to hammer home the lesson that he has bungled the crisis."
"Now is not the time to be euphemistic about Trump's recklessness. His disregard for basic health protocols has been bad not just for himself and his staff, but also for countless Americans," wrote Heer. "A president contracting a disease thanks in large part to his own rashness is a political fact as well as a personal one. We can express, if we are so inclined, sympathy on a human level for Trump, but his thoughtlessness has wider consequences that need to be called out."
This article has been updated with a statement from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
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Contrary to the notion that the coronavirus "snuck up" on President Donald Trump just as it did far less powerful people across the U.S. and around the world, Trump's announcement Friday that he tested positive for Covid-19 was--according to progressive critics--a direct and foreseeable consequence of the president's months of lying, callous disregard for public health, and catastrophic mishandling of the federal government's pandemic response.
"Trump's diagnosis is the culmination of six months of recklessness and failure, the ultimate, inevitable end of his administration's disastrous response to a global pandemic."
--Alex Shephard, The New Republic
In a tweet Friday morning, author and environmentalist Naomi Klein drew a striking analogy in an effort to place Trump's diagnosis in the broader context of his administration's failure to take the steps necessary to combat the pandemic--a failure that has resulted in more than 200,000 dead Americans and counting.
"Trump getting Covid is the epidemiological equivalent of a mass shooting where the shooter opens fire on a crowd and then turns the gun on himself," Klein wrote. "Not a tragic accident--a crime scene."
Klein repeated her argument in an interview on Democracy Now! and warned that the U.S. public must be "prepared for the president using the fact that he's having to cancel campaign events for two weeks to try to further delegitimize elections."
Watch:
Since the coronavirus first began spreading at a rapid pace throughout the U.S. in March--forcing entire swaths of the economy to shut down and throwing countless lives into chaos--Trump and members of his administration publicly minimized the threat posed by Covid-19 and dispensed with the safety recommendations of experts, refusing to take simple life-saving steps like wearing face coverings and avoiding large gatherings.
Instead, the president did the opposite, knowingly spreading misinformation about the pandemic to the public, questioning the effectiveness of masks, and holding large indoor campaign rallies that threatened the health of the thousands in attendance as well as those they later came in contact with.
"Trump's diagnosis is the culmination of six months of recklessness and failure, the ultimate, inevitable end of his administration's disastrous response to a global pandemic," The New Republic's Alex Shephard wrote Friday. "Above all, his actions over the past six months reflect his extraordinary selfishness and cruelty. Other people get the virus. People in blue states get it. People of color get it. The elderly get it. Donald J. Trump doesn't get it--he can go about his life, however he pleases, ignoring the devastation around him."
"Trump has spent his entire life avoiding the consequences of his actions, from his business failures to his toxic politics. That changed on Thursday evening," Shephard continued. "No one would wish Covid-19 on anyone, not even Trump, but the president has spent the last six months desperately attempting to change the subject. Now, with less than a month before the election, he's paying the price."
Hours before announcing that both he and First Lady Melania Trump tested positive for the coronavirus, Trump said during a dinner at the White House Thursday evening that the "end of the pandemic is in sight"--echoing a sentiment he has expressed repeatedly since late February, when he wrongly predicted that the number of U.S. cases would be "close to zero" by the end of that month.
"That's a pretty good job we've done," Trump said at the time, a rosy assessment of his own performance that the president doubled down on late last month even after the U.S. coronavirus death toll topped 200,000.
In a statement Friday afternoon, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said her "thoughts are with the president, first lady, White House staff, and anyone else who may have come into contact with the president, and I wish them all a quick and safe recovery."
"My thoughts are also with millions of other Americans who have survived Covid-19 or are still sick," said Warren. "With the more than 200,000 Americans that we've lost, including a disproportionate number in Black and Brown communities. With the millions of Americans who can't get the help they need and worry about how they'll pay their bills."
"The president spent months undermining the work of our doctors and scientists, while he failed to help states and communities contain the outbreak. He mocked people for wearing masks and held super-spreader events that disregarded the health of thousands," Warren continued. "Today's news should serve as a reminder that listening to scientists, wearing a mask, washing hands, and social distancing are our best tools to fight this horrific disease."
News of Trump's positive coronavirus test touched off frenzied speculation as to who the president may have infected after he possibly contracted the virus from his close aide Hope Hicks, who tested positive Thursday after showing symptoms on Wednesday--facts the White House tried and failed to keep hidden from the public.
"A small group of White House officials knew by Thursday morning that Hicks had contracted Covid-19," CNNreported Friday, "but Trump still took a trip to New Jersey for a fundraiser, and press secretary Kayleigh McEnany still held a news briefing at the White House on Thursday."
\u201cCompletely irresponsible. He endangered the life of everyone he came into contact with.\u201d— Renato Mariotti (@Renato Mariotti) 1601644672
Asked about the possibility that the White House coronavirus outbreak has spread to members of Congress, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters Friday, "We don't know. It can sneak up on you as it did with the president and the first lady. So we're keeping an eye on everyone."
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) immediately rejected McConnell's narrative, tweeting, "Let's be clear... Covid didn't sneak up on the president."
Just before noon Friday it was reported that Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) had also tested positive for the coronavirus.
"Since the spring, the White House has had multiple positive cases, including several people who have direct contact with Trump," Murphy added. "And yet he didn't wear a mask at public events or private meetings at the White House."
Jeet Heer, national affairs correspondent at The Nation, argued Friday that Democrats, including Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, "should not shy away from using news of Trump's Covid test to hammer home the lesson that he has bungled the crisis."
"Now is not the time to be euphemistic about Trump's recklessness. His disregard for basic health protocols has been bad not just for himself and his staff, but also for countless Americans," wrote Heer. "A president contracting a disease thanks in large part to his own rashness is a political fact as well as a personal one. We can express, if we are so inclined, sympathy on a human level for Trump, but his thoughtlessness has wider consequences that need to be called out."
This article has been updated with a statement from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
Contrary to the notion that the coronavirus "snuck up" on President Donald Trump just as it did far less powerful people across the U.S. and around the world, Trump's announcement Friday that he tested positive for Covid-19 was--according to progressive critics--a direct and foreseeable consequence of the president's months of lying, callous disregard for public health, and catastrophic mishandling of the federal government's pandemic response.
"Trump's diagnosis is the culmination of six months of recklessness and failure, the ultimate, inevitable end of his administration's disastrous response to a global pandemic."
--Alex Shephard, The New Republic
In a tweet Friday morning, author and environmentalist Naomi Klein drew a striking analogy in an effort to place Trump's diagnosis in the broader context of his administration's failure to take the steps necessary to combat the pandemic--a failure that has resulted in more than 200,000 dead Americans and counting.
"Trump getting Covid is the epidemiological equivalent of a mass shooting where the shooter opens fire on a crowd and then turns the gun on himself," Klein wrote. "Not a tragic accident--a crime scene."
Klein repeated her argument in an interview on Democracy Now! and warned that the U.S. public must be "prepared for the president using the fact that he's having to cancel campaign events for two weeks to try to further delegitimize elections."
Watch:
Since the coronavirus first began spreading at a rapid pace throughout the U.S. in March--forcing entire swaths of the economy to shut down and throwing countless lives into chaos--Trump and members of his administration publicly minimized the threat posed by Covid-19 and dispensed with the safety recommendations of experts, refusing to take simple life-saving steps like wearing face coverings and avoiding large gatherings.
Instead, the president did the opposite, knowingly spreading misinformation about the pandemic to the public, questioning the effectiveness of masks, and holding large indoor campaign rallies that threatened the health of the thousands in attendance as well as those they later came in contact with.
"Trump's diagnosis is the culmination of six months of recklessness and failure, the ultimate, inevitable end of his administration's disastrous response to a global pandemic," The New Republic's Alex Shephard wrote Friday. "Above all, his actions over the past six months reflect his extraordinary selfishness and cruelty. Other people get the virus. People in blue states get it. People of color get it. The elderly get it. Donald J. Trump doesn't get it--he can go about his life, however he pleases, ignoring the devastation around him."
"Trump has spent his entire life avoiding the consequences of his actions, from his business failures to his toxic politics. That changed on Thursday evening," Shephard continued. "No one would wish Covid-19 on anyone, not even Trump, but the president has spent the last six months desperately attempting to change the subject. Now, with less than a month before the election, he's paying the price."
Hours before announcing that both he and First Lady Melania Trump tested positive for the coronavirus, Trump said during a dinner at the White House Thursday evening that the "end of the pandemic is in sight"--echoing a sentiment he has expressed repeatedly since late February, when he wrongly predicted that the number of U.S. cases would be "close to zero" by the end of that month.
"That's a pretty good job we've done," Trump said at the time, a rosy assessment of his own performance that the president doubled down on late last month even after the U.S. coronavirus death toll topped 200,000.
In a statement Friday afternoon, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said her "thoughts are with the president, first lady, White House staff, and anyone else who may have come into contact with the president, and I wish them all a quick and safe recovery."
"My thoughts are also with millions of other Americans who have survived Covid-19 or are still sick," said Warren. "With the more than 200,000 Americans that we've lost, including a disproportionate number in Black and Brown communities. With the millions of Americans who can't get the help they need and worry about how they'll pay their bills."
"The president spent months undermining the work of our doctors and scientists, while he failed to help states and communities contain the outbreak. He mocked people for wearing masks and held super-spreader events that disregarded the health of thousands," Warren continued. "Today's news should serve as a reminder that listening to scientists, wearing a mask, washing hands, and social distancing are our best tools to fight this horrific disease."
News of Trump's positive coronavirus test touched off frenzied speculation as to who the president may have infected after he possibly contracted the virus from his close aide Hope Hicks, who tested positive Thursday after showing symptoms on Wednesday--facts the White House tried and failed to keep hidden from the public.
"A small group of White House officials knew by Thursday morning that Hicks had contracted Covid-19," CNNreported Friday, "but Trump still took a trip to New Jersey for a fundraiser, and press secretary Kayleigh McEnany still held a news briefing at the White House on Thursday."
\u201cCompletely irresponsible. He endangered the life of everyone he came into contact with.\u201d— Renato Mariotti (@Renato Mariotti) 1601644672
Asked about the possibility that the White House coronavirus outbreak has spread to members of Congress, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters Friday, "We don't know. It can sneak up on you as it did with the president and the first lady. So we're keeping an eye on everyone."
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) immediately rejected McConnell's narrative, tweeting, "Let's be clear... Covid didn't sneak up on the president."
Just before noon Friday it was reported that Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) had also tested positive for the coronavirus.
"Since the spring, the White House has had multiple positive cases, including several people who have direct contact with Trump," Murphy added. "And yet he didn't wear a mask at public events or private meetings at the White House."
Jeet Heer, national affairs correspondent at The Nation, argued Friday that Democrats, including Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, "should not shy away from using news of Trump's Covid test to hammer home the lesson that he has bungled the crisis."
"Now is not the time to be euphemistic about Trump's recklessness. His disregard for basic health protocols has been bad not just for himself and his staff, but also for countless Americans," wrote Heer. "A president contracting a disease thanks in large part to his own rashness is a political fact as well as a personal one. We can express, if we are so inclined, sympathy on a human level for Trump, but his thoughtlessness has wider consequences that need to be called out."
This article has been updated with a statement from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
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LATEST NEWS
Hundreds Rally in Milwaukee Against Trump Admin's 'Unprecedented' Arrest of Judge
"We reject this lawless escalation against an immigration judge who appears to be showing a commonsense and humane approach to immigrants, and stands for due process for all," said one campaigner.
Apr 26, 2025
Hundreds of people rallied in Wisconsin's largest city on Saturday to protest the Trump administration's arrest of Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan on what critics called "baseless" charges of felony obstruction after she allegedly helped an undocumented immigrant evade arrest during an appearance in her courtroom.
FBI agents arrested Dugan, 65, on Friday following an investigation, accusing her of escorting an undocumented man and his attorney through her courtroom's jury door after learning that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents showed up to arrest him.
Protesters chanted slogans including, "No ICE, No KKK, No Fascist USA!" and "No Hate, No Fear, Immigrants Are Welcome Here!" They held signs with messages like "Liberty and Justice for All" and "Resist Fascism!"
HAPPENING NOW: A HUGE crowd of protesters march through the streets outside an FBI office in Milwaukee in support of Judge Hannah Dugan (Video: @unraveledpress.com)
[image or embed]
— Marco Foster ( @marcofoster.bsky.social) April 26, 2025 at 3:05 PM
"I have never heard of a state court judge being arrested by the federal government because she chose to control her own courtroom. This is unprecedented," Sara Dady, an immigration attorney who traveled more than 90 miles from Rockford, Illinois to attend the demonstration outside the FBI field office in Milwaukee, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Wisconsin state Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-19) told the crowd: "The judiciary acts as a check to unchecked executive power. And functioning democracies do not lock up judges."
"I hope that we can all be as brave as Judge Dugan was," Clancy added.
Janan Najeeb, one of the leaders of the Wisconsin Coalition for Justice in Palestine, told rallygoers: "The courtroom is not a hunting ground for ICE. It is a sanctuary. When our government turns our courtrooms into traps, they are betraying the very laws that they claim to defend."
Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights director Angelica Salas said in a statement that "in an unprecedented move against members of the judicial branch, the Trump administration is exercising authoritarianism to degrees that should alarm us all."
"We reject this lawless escalation against an immigration judge who appears to be showing a commonsense and humane approach to immigrants, and stands for due process for all, and against wanton disregard for our Constitution," Salas added.
Critics have called Dugan's arrest part and parcel of President Donald Trump's attacks on immigrants, the nation's system of checks and balances, and the rule of law.
"The Trump administration deserves zero benefit of the doubt here. It has evinced utter contempt for due process and the rule of law since inauguration day," Ryan Cooper, managing editor of The American Prospect, wrote on Friday. "It has deported numerous legal residents, most notably Kilmar Abrego García, to an El Salvador torture dungeon, and is openly disobeying a 9-0 Supreme Court decision to bring García back."
"The ongoing mass layoffs of federal workers and outright dismantling of legislatively mandated agencies being carried out by Elon Musk and DOGE is blatantly unconstitutional," Cooper added, referring to the Department of Government Efficiency.
Among those pushing back against Dugan's arrest are Wisconsin Circuit Judge Monica Isham, who wrote in an email to other judges: "Enough is enough. I no longer feel protected or respected as a judge in this administration. If there is no guidance for us and no support for us, I will refuse to hold court."
"I have no intention of allowing anyone to be taken out of my courtroom by ICE and sent to a concentration camp, especially without due process as BOTH of the constitutions we swore to support require," Isham added. "If this costs me my job or gets me arrested, then at least I know I did the right thing."
DOJ Memo Shows Trump Admin Ordered ICE to Conduct Warrantless Home Invasions
"There's no Alien Enemies Act exception to the Fourth Amendment," said one law professor.
Apr 26, 2025
The U.S. Department of Justice dubiously invoked a centuries-old law in directing immigration agents to carry out home invasion searches without warrants, an internal memo revealed.
USA Today—which obtained a copy of the March 14 memo issued by the office of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi—reported Friday that the Trump administration ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to pursue suspected members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua into homes, sometimes without warrants, under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA).
The 1798 law has been invoked to deport hundreds of undocumented immigrants—the majority of whom have no criminal records in the United States—many of whom have been sent to the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a notorious super-maximum security prison in El Salvador, regardless of their nationality.
According to the memo:
As much as practicable, officers should follow the proactive procedures above—and have an executed warrant of apprehension and removal—before contacting an alien enemy. However, that will not always be realistic or effective in swiftly identifying and removing alien enemies... An officer may encounter a suspected alien enemy in the natural course of the officer's enforcement activity, such as when apprehending other validated members of Tren de Aragua. Given the dynamic nature of enforcement operations, officers in the field are authorized to apprehend aliens upon a reasonable belief that the alien meets all four requirements to be validated as an alien enemy. This authority includes entering an alien enemy's residence to make an AEA apprehension where circumstances render it impracticable to first obtain a signed notice and warrant of apprehension and removal.
The Trump administration's controversially broad interpretation of the AEA and questionable criteria for targeting immigrants has led to the arrest and wrongful deportation of individuals including makeup artist Andry José Hernández Romero and Kilmar Abrego García, both of whom were sent to CECOT. The Trump administration is defying a U.S. Supreme Court order to facilitate Abrego García's return to the United States.
Earlier this month, the ACLU and allied groups sued to block the Trump administration's AEA deportations, arguing that "no one should face the horrifying prospect of lifelong imprisonment without a fair hearing, let alone in another country."
On Friday, U.S. District Judge David Briones ordered ICE to free a Venezuelan couple detained in El Paso under the AEA, finding that the government "has not demonstrated they have any lawful basis to continue detaining" the pair. Briones also warned ICE to not deport anyone else it is holding as an alleged "alien enemy" in West Texas.
Lee Gelernt, the ACLU's lead counsel in cases challenging use of the AEA, told USA Today: "The administration's unprecedented use of a wartime authority during peacetime was bad enough. Now we find out the Justice Department was authorizing officers to ignore the most bedrock principle of the Fourth Amendment by authorizing officers to enter homes without a judicial warrant."
Monique Sherman, an attorney at the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, expressed alarm over the DOJ memo.
"The home under all constitutional law is the most sacred place where you have a right to privacy," Sherman told USA Today. "By this standard, spurious allegations of gang affiliation means the government can knock down your door."
As Georgetown University Law Center professor Steve Vladeck
said, "There's no Alien Enemies Act exception to the Fourth Amendment."
Cancer Patient Among 3 American Children Deported by ICE
A Trump-appointed judge ordered a hearing in the case of a 2-year-old girl based on his "strong suspicion that the government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process."
Apr 26, 2025
Federal immigration authorities deported three U.S. citizen children on Friday—including one with cancer who was reportedly expelled without medication—in a move that critics and one judge appointed by President Donald Trump said was carried out without due process.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) New Orleans field office deported the American children—ages 2, 4, and 7—along with their undocumented mothers, one of whom is pregnant. The ACLU said that both families were held incommunicado following their arrests, and that ICE agents refused or failed to respond to efforts by attorneys and relatives who were trying to contact them.
The ACLU said that one of the children has a rare form of metastatic cancer and was deported without medication or consultation with their treating physician, despite ICE being notified about the child's urgent condition. This follows last month's ICE deportation of a family including a 10-year-old American citizen with brain cancer.
Disappearing mothers and toddlers, denying them access to lawyers, deporting them without due process - this is not what a democracy does to its citizens and families and to their kids.
[image or embed]
— Vanessa Cardenas (@vcardenas.bsky.social) April 25, 2025 at 6:48 PM
According to court documents, the 2-year-old New Orleans native—identified as V.M.L.—was brought by her mother, Jenny Carolina Lopez Villela, to a routine immigration appointment in the Louisiana city on Tuesday when they were arrested.
A habeas petition filed on Thursday states that ICE New Orleans Field Office Director Mellissa Harper told V.M.L.'s desperate father on a phone call that he could try to pick the girl up but would likely be arrested, as he is undocumented. The petition argues that Harper was detaining V.M.L. "in order to induce her father to turn himself in to immigration authorities."
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty—a Trump nominee—ordered a May 16 hearing in Monroe, Louisiana based on his "strong suspicion that the government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process."
"It is illegal and unconstitutional to deport, detain for deportation, or recommend deportation of a U.S. citizen," Doughty wrote, citing relevant case law. "The government contends that this is all OK because the mother wishes that the child be deported with her. But the court doesn't know that."
The ACLU argued that ICE's actions "represent a shocking—although increasingly common—abuse of power," adding that the agency "has inflicted harm and jeopardized the lives and health of vulnerable children and a pregnant woman. The cruelty and deliberate denial of legal and medical access are not only unlawful, but inhumane."
When historians reflect on this regime, cruelty will be the word most often used to define it. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/25/u...
[image or embed]
— Robert Reich (@rbreich.bsky.social) April 26, 2025 at 6:44 AM
Teresa Reyes-Flores of the Southeast Dignity not Detention Coalition said in a statement Friday: "ICE's actions show a blatant violation of due process and basic human rights. The families were disappeared, cut off from their lawyers and loved ones, and rushed to be deported, stripping their parents of the chance to protect their U.S. citizen children."
Immigration Services and Legal Advocacy legal director Homero López Jr. said that "these deplorable actions demonstrate ICE's increasing willingness to violate all protections for immigrants as well as those of their children."
"These types of disappearances are reminiscent of the darkest eras in our country's history and put everyone, regardless of immigration status, at risk," he added.
The Trump administration—whose first-term immigration policies and practices included separating children from their parents and imprisonment in concentration camps—is once again under fire for its anti-immigrant agenda.
The U.S. Supreme Court recently blocked the deportation of undocumented Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and has also ordered the administration to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego García, a Salvadoran man wrongfully deported to a notorious prison in his native country. On Wednesday, a Trump-appointed judge ordered the administration to take action to return another Salvadoran deported to the same prison.
In a scathing ruling Friday, U.S. District Judge David Briones ordered ICE to free a Venezuelan couple dubiously held in El Paso under the Alien Enemies Act, finding that the government "has not demonstrated they have any lawful basis to continue detaining" the pair. Briones also warned ICE to not deport anyone else it is holding as an alleged "alien enemy" in West Texas.
ICE overreach and abuses—which include wrongful detention of U.S. citizens, arrests of green-card holders who defend Palestine, and warrantless home searches—have fueled renewed calls for the agency's defunding.
ICE abducted a man with a learning disability leaving a hospital after a medical emergency asking for help. They didn’t care that he was a U.S. citizen. They just lied and said he wasn’t. This isn’t “border security.” It’s white supremacy. popular.info/p/us-citizen...
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— Melanie D’Arrigo (@darrigomelanie.bsky.social) April 23, 2025 at 4:38 AM
"A government agency that sequesters and deports vulnerable mothers with their U.S. citizen children without due process must be defunded, not rewarded with an additional $45 billion to continue at taxpayers' expense," Mich P. González, a founding partner of Sanctuary of the South—which provides legal aid to immigrants—said Friday.
"These families were lawfully complying with ICE's orders and for this they suffered cruel and traumatic separation," González added. "If this is what the Trump administration is orchestrating just three months in, we should all be terrified of what the next four years will bring."
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