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Federal agent in Massachusetts smashes car window of El Salvador couple.
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Home Growns Are Next

In a "breathtaking departure from the rule of law" - and facing multiple legal routs - Trump and his fascist flunkies continue to lie, stall and gaslight on their right to disappear a Maryland sheet metal worker and other brown-skinned migrants to an El Salvador gulag with zero evidence of wrongdoing, even as ICE Gestapo still run rampant - Smashed Windshields 'R Us - and oh yeah U.S. citizens may be next. Take note, says historian Timothy Snyder: "This is the beginning of an American policy of state terror."

The escalating legal standoff over the wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia has in turn become a "political flashpoint" on an already fiercely divided Capitol Hill. To most of us, the case symbolizes a racist crackdown that threatens the basic rights of us all, while the regime's increasingly flagrant violations of court orders threaten the very rule of law. Dug into an alternate reality, the regime argues it's nobly fighting for "the safety of American citizens" against raping, murdering "illegal aliens," "foreign criminals," and "terrorists" like Garcia, who came here from El Salvador without papers at 16, has never been charged with a crime, was granted protection under a 2019 court order due to a "credible fear" of violence from gangs back home, is now a union member and father of three married to a U.S. citizen, and is alleged to be a member of the MS-13 gang because he wore a Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie "indicative" of gang membership, and a detective - since suspended for being a lying scum bag - said he was.

Despite what one judge politely calls their "flimsy" evidence, the cabal of miscreants is so desperate to prove their racist, rapey case they launched a propaganda campaign of smears and lies against Garcia. This week, it culminated in a sordid set piece that saw the self-proclaimed "world's coolest dictator," El Salvador's Nayib Bukele, and America's mob boss and "deteriorating carnival clown" happily "bond over human-rights abuses" in an Oval Office now transformed into a gaudy, blinged-out "Golden Office for the Golden Age" awash in tacky faux-gold gimcracks - on fireplace, mantle, reportedly doorway - evidently bought online from China's Guangzhou Homemax Decorative Company as part of their "High-density Home Decoration Polyurethane Appliques Ornament" line. FYI, one enterprising journalist found, they're still available, cheap. From Guangzhou: "Hello Sir. Yes we have this model. Do you need gold color, please?” Maybe with hacksaws?

In the squalid pageantry of the meeting, "a microcosm of everything bad about Trump ll," Bukele eagerly brown-nosed the mad king: "What you're doing with the border is incredible!" Then, in exchange for a hefty chunk of blood money, he offered to use his "iron fist" tactics against America's alleged criminals just like for his own, three-year war against gangs, in which tens of thousands of his people have been disappeared into brutal prisons "without even the illusion of due process." Bukele achieved this goal by declaring a "State of Exception" that was supposed to last 30 days but which has been extended 37 times. Historically, it's a key strategem of Soviet and Nazi fascists, who accurately reason that if they can convince their populace these are exceptional times, they will be more inclined to accept the growing lawlessness. For Trump, a vengeful, aspiring autocrat who's never had any use for due process and only seeks to escape, not follow the law, it's a perfect, ghastly model; it's also state terror.

Before the presser but with cameras rolling, Trump pulled his new fascist bestie aside to happily confide, "Home-growns are next...You're gonna need to build about five more places." Contented grins all around. His suggestion that his next target will be American citizens he doesn't like was, like so much that's come before, both shocking and unsurprising. He's previously said his pretend A.G. Pam Bondi was "studying the laws" to see if they can get away with deporting "really bad people" who also happen to be citizens. "If it's a homegrown criminal, I have no problem with it," he's said. "If we can do that, that's good." In his confab with Bukele, he again blithely confirmed "I'd like to go a step further." Asked if that means he's okay with rounding up Americans who might disagree with him, in this case about half the country, to a gulag in El Salvador, he babbled, "If they are criminals and they hit people with baseball bats over the head (or) rape 87-year-old women, yeah, that includes them."

The exchange was just one of many during a hair-raising shitshow in which the regime's assembled ghouls and flunkies dutifully snickered, groveled, showboated and lied; inexplicably, video of the grisly spectacle appeared on a split screen with ads for obscure products like Angelpaste Miracle Cream: "Experience the miracle at angelpaste.com." Bondi's stonefaced, talking-points pablum on state-sponsored disappearances: "It's a legal question the president is looking into...He has given us a directive to make America safe again." The issue of Garcia's life or death is "foreign policy" and out of their hands, intoned Marco Rubio, who just announced the closure of the State Dept.'s agency for fighting disinformation, though he called it “Protecting and Championing Free Speech." Sternly nodding along was Barbie Dress-up Noem, who's spending $200 million on glam photo-ops, including her $9 million war-crime appearance at CECOT, funded by the now-shuttered DHS Office for Civil Rights, to tell migrants to "Leave now."

Naturally, Bukele joined the tawdry Oval Office pageant. Asked if he plans to return Garcia, he scoffed, "How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? Of course I'm not going to do it. We're not fond of smuggling terrorists into our country. The question is preposterous." Cue Trump nodding, smirking, twisting the question into another ugly WTF attack on the assembled press: "Well, they'd love to have a criminal released here. They would love it. These are sick people." (Pot/kettle). In another exchange, he suggested the press doesn't "want to put out good figures because I think they hate our country actually." Besides, Trump added, those torture porn videos of hunched-over prisoners at CECOT are just what's needed: "People eat it up, that’s what people want to see.” Bukele, author of the brutality, nodding sagely: "Mr President, you have 350 million people to liberate. But to liberate 350 million people, you have to imprison some."

The grotesque twisting of language into an Orwellian, up-is-down reality - justifying Garcia's exile under a wartime rule to say he's part of Venezuelan gangs "invading" us though they're not, nor is he Venezuelan or a gangster, crushing free speech and academic discourse in the name of fighting anti-Semitism - is integral to their dystopian mission. On Tyranny''s Timothy Snyder notes that for a state to commit "criminal terror" against its people," it must dehumanize victims by inverting meanings - Stalin called his targets "criminals" and "terrorists, Hitler, "vermin" and "traitors," all clearly unworthy of protection. MAGA's language continues to warp and spiral: Wingnut "counterterrorism" flunky Sebastian Gorka now claims a regime that illegally expels masses of people without due process "loves" America - "We have people who love America, the president, his Cabinet" - and "then there (those) on the side of the cartel members, the illegal aliens, the terrorists, and you have to ask yourself, are they technically aiding and abetting them?"

The evil overlord of depraved language is mountingly hysterical Stephen Goebbels. In the Bukele meeting, he ranted reporters "want foreign terrorists in the country who kidnap women and children." On Fox News later, he melted down, shrieking at host Bill Hemmer he had it "all wrong," and actually "we won the Supreme Court case" (lost, 9-0), to return Garcia "would be "kidnapping" and "an unimaginable invasion of El Salvador," the lawyer who said his removal was "an error" (as did several White House officials) was "a saboteur, a Democrat" who has been suspended and then fired cause that's how Stalin rolls. "Nobody was mistakenly deported anywhere," he screamed, his voice higher and higher. No mistake was made...He’s an illegal alien from El Salvador! This was the right person sent to the right place!" Then, he furiously bellowed at Hemmer, “So Bill, you tell me what country should we deport him to? Tell me!" To this, fact-checker Daniel Dale declared his claim of "some lefty saboteur at the DOJ" was "nonsense."

On regime actions lawyers have almost universally deemed "pretty obviously illegal and unconstitutional,” the courts have echoed him. That goes from the unanimous (brazenly defied) Supreme Court ruling the government must “facilitate Garcia’s return, to a lower court ruling blasting his deportation as illegal, to Wednesday's bombshell ruling by Judge James Boasberg - who Trump obviously wants to impeach - finding probable cause to hold the administration in criminal contempt for ignoring everything he's told them to do. "The Constitution does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial orders - especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it," wrote the long-stonewalled Boasberg, mildly noting the government has "defied the Court's order deliberately and gleefully.” Once again, he gave them some slack, time and options they didn't deserve; once again, they appealed, but briefly because c'mon we all know they have zilch in the way of new facts or arguments to offer.

As a result of these manifold atrocities, argues Thom Hartmann, "The old American order is dead. It ended on April 14, 2025, when a Latin American strongman sat in the Oval Office and discussed sending U.S. citizens to foreign concentration camps with the American president while they jointly defied the Supreme Court." As sorry proof, he cites all the basic tenets of U.S. constitutional law defiled - habeas corpus, due process, right to trial and counsel, no cruel or unusual punishment - that echo Jefferson's critiques of King George, a "history of repeated injuries and usurpations...submitted to a candid world." That mad king "refused his assent" to laws for the public good, obstructed justice, made judges dependent "on his will alone," transported us "beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses," thus rendering him "a Tyrant...unfit to be the ruler of a free people.” Today, he says, "Everyone who is not part of the authoritarian regime is a member of the dissident movement now. The sooner they realize it, the better."

That truth is especially urgent, argues Jonathan Last, given the savage spectre of CECOT, where 90% of inmates have never been convicted of a crime, 75% haven't even been arrested, and none will likely get out. "This is not incarceration; it is liquidation," he writes of an "arbitrary, opaque" political act where, "There is only power." Democrats should be "on the ground every day until Garcia is brought home," and before more innocents land there, in the fierce mode of Poland's Solidarity or Navalny’s People’s Alliance. Maryland's Dem Sen. Chris Van Hollen tried. He flew to El Salvador to meet with Garcia, his constituent; he was initially turned away but finally did, without offering any updates, though Bukele posted a "death camps" jibe. In contrast, West Virginia GOP Rep. Riley Moore was both allowed into CECOT and got to join the MAGA torture porn trend by posting selfies - inane thumbs up! - before caged "brutal criminals" who made him "even more determined to support (Trump's) efforts to secure our homeland." One local headline: "Moore Gives CECOT Two Thumbs Up."

MAGA thugs have stubbornly clung to their talking points: Tom Homan called Dem demands for due process "disgusting," and Barbie Press Secretary sneered that, judging from their "sensationalism, you'd think we deported a candidate for Father of the Year." Still, it's becoming clear, per one pundit, that, "Disappearing innocent immigrants into foreign slave-labor gulags - and then promising to do the same to American citizens - is a losing issue for Republicans." At rowdy town halls, Iowa's Chuck Grassley drew jeers and angry queries like, "You going to bring that guy back from El Salvador?", and Klan Mom MTG faced a barrage of hostile questions she responded to by sneering, lying, and sending thugs to remove or tase several constituents. MAGA also lost bigly in court on their appeal of a judge's order to "facilitate" Garcia's return, with a Reagan-appointed Court of Appeals judge issuing a scathing rebuke of their shocking," "extraordinary" defiance and failure to "perceive the rule of law as vital to American ethos."

Meanwhile, the state terror goes on. Two weeks ago, Elsy Noemi Berrios, a 52-year-old Salvadoran mother of four with a work permit, pending asylum application and no criminal record, was taken into custody in Maryland as she and 18-year-old daughter were driving to work; federal agents in tactical gear stopped their car, refused to provide a search warrant when she asked, and instead smashed her driver's side car window before handcuffing her behind her back as her daughter Cruz screamed, “Mommy, no. Mommy.” She is still being held at a Pennsylvania prison, but her lawyer says DHS has yet to offer any evidence or even arrest warrant. Her daughter says her mom works hard to support her and her siblings, and "has done everything right." A DHS lackey says Berrios "has been identified as an associate of the vicious MS-13 gang, Americans can rest assured she is off our streets and locked up, and the media (should) stop doing the bidding of gangs that murder, maim, rape, and terrorize Americans."

In March in Massachusetts, ICE "enhanced enforcement operations” detained 370 "criminal aliens"; in New Bedford, they included three workers at the Minit Man Car Wash, one at Bob’s Tires, and two men inside their house after agents battered down the door and pointed their guns at children eating breakfast before school. Monday, agents also arrested Juan Francisco Méndez, 29, a Guatemalan with no criminal record in the final stage of his asylum case; his wife Marilu and their 9-year-old son have protected status. Mendez was detained after three carloads of agents in bulletproof vests blocked the car he and Mariu were driving in; as Marilu began recording, he called their lawyer Ondine Galvez Sniffin, who told them to stay put until she arrived. Marilu asked to see a warrant; an agent stared dumbly. Then he shattered their rear window with a pick axe - Marilu gasps - and dragged them out. When Sniffin got there, agents had bustled Mendez to prison. Marilu said they kept calling Juan "Antonio," the name of another man who lives in their building: Your government at work. "My clients were within their rights, and they were met with brutality,” Sniffin said. "I'm ashamed of what this country is becoming." She is not alone.

Update: Twenty-year-old Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, a U.S.-born citizen, was detained by ICE in Florida Wednesday and charged with illegally entering the state as an "unauthorized alien." Lopez-Gomez was a passenger in a car pulled over by a state trooper who said the driver was going 78 mph in a 65 mph zone. Following public pressure and protests, he has now been released. Still: "The leap from disappearing the undocumented to disappearing visa holders to disappearing green-card holders to disappearing naturalized citizens to disappearing natural-born citizens is no leap at all, but a series of tiny steps."

- YouTubewww.youtube.com




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Emissions are seen from a smoke stack at the Phillips 66 Refinery
News

'This Executive Order is Illegal': Trump Attacks Half-Century of Environmental Protections in One Fell Swoop

Numerous environmental protection groups were preparing to file lawsuits Friday after President Donald Trump directed federal agencies to repeal what he called "unlawful regulations" aimed at protecting the public from pollution, oil spills, and other harms—sharply curtailing the process through which rules are changed as he ordered agencies to "sunset" major regulations.

The order was issued a week-and-a-half before the deadline set by another presidential action in February, when Trump required agencies to identify "unconstitutional" and "unlawful" regulations for elimination or modification within 60 days.

Those restrictions, under Wednesday evening's order, can be repealed without being subject to a typical notice-and-comment period.

Trump named the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement among several agencies affected by the order, and listed more than two dozen laws containing regulations that must incorporate a sunset provision for no later than September 30, 2025.

The laws include the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, the National Appliance Energy Conservation Act of 1987, and the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982.

Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, suggested the order was Trump's latest push to benefit corporate polluters.

The Trump corporate regime orders agencies to ‘sunset’ environmental protections, as part of an effort to make it easier for industry to pollute. thehill.com/policy/energ...

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— Hans Kristensen (@nukestrat.bsky.social) April 11, 2025 at 7:14 AM

Brett Hartl, government affairs director for the Center for Biological Diversity, said it was "beyond delusional" for Trump to attempt to repeal "every environmental safeguard enacted over the past 50 years with an executive order."

"Trump's farcical directive aims to kill measures that protect endangered whales, prevent oil spills, and reduce the risk of a nuclear accident," said Hartl. "This chaotic administration is obviously desperate to smash through every environmental guardrail that protects people or preserves wildlife, but steps like this will be laughed out of court."

In a memo, the White House wrote that "in effectuating repeals of facially unlawful regulations, agency heads shall finalize rules without notice and comment, where doing so is consistent with the 'good cause' exception in the Administrative Procedure Act."

"That exception allows agencies to dispense with notice-and-comment rulemaking when that process would be 'impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest,'" said the White House.

As climate advocates scoffed at the suggestion that regulating nuclear power and pollution-causing energy infrastructure is "contrary to the public interest," legal experts questioned the legality of Trump's order.

"If this action were upheld, it would be a significant change to the way regulation is typically done, which is through notice and comment," Roger Nober, director of George Washington University's Regulatory Studies Center, toldGovernment Executive. "If the agencies determine that a rule is contrary to the Supreme Court's current jurisprudence, then [this order says they] have good cause to remove it and [they] can get around notice and comment. That's certainly an untested and untried way of implementing the Administrative Procedure Act."

Georgetown University law professor William Buzbee toldThe Hill that the Supreme Court "has repeatedly reaffirmed that agencies seeking to change a policy set forth in a regulation have to go through a new notice-and-comment proceeding for each regulation, offer 'good reasons' for the change, and address changing facts and reliance interests developed in light of the earlier regulation."

"Adding a sunset provision without going through a full notice-and-comment proceedings for each regulation to be newly subject to a sunset provision seems intended to skirt the vetting and public accountability required by consistency doctrine," he said. "Like many other attempted regulatory shortcuts of the first and second Trump administration, this [executive order] seems likely to prompt legally vulnerable agency actions."

Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert suggested that the executive order is the latest example of Trump's push to govern the U.S. as "a king."

"He cannot simply roll back regulations that protect the public without going through the legally required process," Gilbert told Government Executive. "We will challenge this blatantly unlawful deregulatory effort at every step to ensure it doesn't hurt workers, consumers, and families."

Michael Wall, chief litigation officer at the Natural Resources Defense Council, called the order "a blatant attempt to blow away hundreds of protections for the public and nature, giving polluters permission to ignore whatever is coming out of their smokestacks while developers disregard endangered species protections and Big Oil no longer heeds the reforms put in place after the Deepwater Horizon disaster."

"This executive order is illegal," he said. "Congress passed these laws, and the president's constitutional duty is to carry out those statutes; he has zero power to rewrite them."

"There's no magic wand the administration might wave to sweep away multiple rules on a White House whim," Wall added. "Any changes to the rules the president wants rescinded would have to be justified, rule by rule, with facts, evidence, and analysis specific to that rule. He cannot do this by fiat."

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Organic eggs on sale for $14.99 per dozen
News

Under Trump, Egg Prices Smash Record for Third Straight Month

For the third straight month, U.S retail egg prices have hit a record high, despite falling wholesale prices, no bird flu outbreaks, and President Donald Trump's campaign promises—and recent misleading claims.

On Thursday, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index (CPI) reported the average retail cost of a dozen eggs rose from $5.90 in February to $6.23 last month.

Egg prices continue to increase despite bird flu outbreak slowing finance.yahoo.com/news/egg-pri...

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— Yahoo Finance (@yahoofinance.com) April 10, 2025 at 6:22 AM

Earlier this week, Trump claimed that "eggs are down 79%" due to his administration's work, a possible reference to the wholesale price, which does not reflect retail cost due to the role that profit-hungry industrial producers and grocery cartels play in inflating prices.

Trump also said that egg prices "are going down more," a statement that contradicts not only recent trends but also his own administration's Food Price Outlook, which forecasts a 57.6% increase in egg prices for 2025, with a prediction interval of 31.1%-91.5%.

Recent record egg prices have largely been driven by an avian flu epidemic that has forced farmers to cull over 166 million birds, most of them egg-laying hens. However, no farms are currently reporting any bird flu outbreaks.

On Tuesday, Cal-Maine Foods, the nation's largest egg producer, announced quarterly profits of $509 million, more than triple its gains from a year ago. The Mississippi-based company, which produces around 20% of U.S. eggs, also enjoyed a more than 600% increase in gross profits between fiscal years 2021-23, according to the consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch (FWW).

Yet even as its profits soared, Cal-Maine still took $42 million in federal compensation for losses due to bird flu.

The top five egg producers own roughly half of all U.S. laying hens. The biggest of those corporations is Cal-Maine, which just announced quarterly profits of $509 million — more than 3x what it made a year ago. Corporate concentration + bird flu = a price-hiking free for all.
— Robert Reich (@rbreich.bsky.social) April 9, 2025 at 10:31 AM

Last month, the U.S. Justice Department's antitrust division launched an investigation of alleged price-fixing by the nation's largest egg producers, including Cal-Maine, which isn't even the largest recipient of avian flu-related government assistance. Versova, which operates farms in Iowa and Ohio, has been allotted more than $107 million in federal bird flu relief, The Washington Postreported Wednesday. Hillandale Farms, a Pennsylvania-based company sold last month to Global Eggs, received $53 million in avian flu-related subsidies.

"For those companies to be bailed out and then turn around and set exploitative prices, it just adds insult to injury for consumers," Thomas Gremillion, director of food policy at the Consumer Federation of America, told the Post. "Absolutely, it's unfair."

FWW research director Amanda Starbuck took aim at the corporate food system, saying Thursday that "the industry is proving itself effective at extracting enormous profits out of American consumers."

"We are all paying for it—at the store, with food shortages, and with the growing threat of the next pandemic," she continued.

"Restoring sanity to the grocery aisle will require immediate action to transform our food system," Starbuck added. "To lower egg prices, the Trump administration must take on the food monopolies, hasten and prioritize its investigation into corporate price fixing, and stop the spread of factory farms."

The fresh CPI figures weren't all bad news, as the index saw its first decline in five years, falling 0.1% mainly on the strength of lower oil prices. The 12-month increase in consumer prices also slowed from 2.8% to 2.4%.

However, the mildly positive CPI news was overshadowed by the economic uncertainty caused by Trump's mercurial global trade war, including a ramped-up 145% tariff on imports from China, one of the top U.S. trading partners, and ongoing stock market chaos.

"The only egg prices Donald Trump is lowering," Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin quipped earlier this week, "is our nest eggs."

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The Westcott Building ​
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'We Don't Have to Live This Way,' Says Teachers Union Leader After Florida Shooting

Following a deadly shooting at Florida State University on Thursday, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, vowed to redouble the union's efforts to push for gun safety reform.

"Campuses and classrooms must be safe and welcoming places, but they can become unsafe in an instant because of the ever-present threat of gun violence," said Weingarten, who noted that the shooting at FSU comes on the heels of a shooting at a Dallas, Texas high school on Wednesday and a shooting near a school campus in San Antonio, Texas also on Wednesday.

"We are the only country in the world that regularly deals with this—but we don't have to live this way," Weingarten said. "We should remove weapons of war from our streets and communities, fund community violence intervention programs, enforce background checks and safe-storage laws, ban high-capacity magazines, and pass more risk-protection laws."

"Lawmakers must urgently move to thwart these horrific events that result in terrifying and tragic real-world consequences," Weingarten concluded.

In a press conference Thursday afternoon, FSU Chief of Police Jason Trumbower said that two people are dead following the shooting—though they were not students. Six others were wounded. The gunman was also shot and is at the hospital.

CNNreported that the shooting suspect has been identified as 20-year-old Phoenix Ikner, who is the son of a Leon County sheriff deputy.

Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter was killed during the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in 2018, said he is not surprised by the shooting at FSU and that some of his daughter's friends are currently attending FSU.

"My daughter Jaime was murdered in the Parkland school shooting. Many of her friends who were lucky enough to survive that shooting went on to attend FSU. Incredibly, some of them were just a part of their 2nd school shooting and some were in the student union today," he wrote on X.

The Tallahassee Democrat also reported that a survivor of the Parkland school shooting was at the FSU campus Thursday.

The gun violence prevention group Giffords reacted to the news of the shooting, writing on X: "What Florida doesn't have: Universal background checks, assault weapon restrictions, large-capacity magazine bans. What Florida does have: The latest school shooting in America."

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Protesters rally outside the Israeli Consulate in Chicago
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Democracy for Some 'Is No Democracy at All,' Writes Mahmoud Khalil From ICE Detention

For the second time since his abduction by immigration agents last month, former Columbia University student organizer Mahmoud Khalil published an open letter Thursday—urging the U.S. public, which has been confronted in recent days with a flood of news stories about President Donald Trump's deportation campaign and disregard of numerous court orders, to understand that their country is "a democracy of convenience."

Although he has spent the last several weeks in a detention facility on a remote road in Jena, Louisiana—a situation most Americans likely can't picture themselves in—Khalil warned that his life since Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents accosted him and his pregnant wife and took him away in an unmarked vehicle illustrates a basic fact about the United States.

"Rights are granted to those who align with power," he wrote in the letter published in The Washington Post's Opinion section. "For the poor, for people of color, for those who resist injustice, rights are but words written on water."

His ordeal also makes clear that the Trump administration and political establishment are afraid "of the idea of Palestine's freedom entering the mainstream"—a shift that has already been set in motion, with 53% of U.S. adults now expressing an unfavorable opinion of Israel in a Pew Research poll, up from 42% in March 2022, and a rising number of Americans saying they sympathize with Palestinians.

"Why else would Trump officials not only attempt to deport me but also intentionally mislead the public about who I am and what I stand for?" asked Khalil.

The letter came nearly a week after Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Jamee Comans ruled in a courtroom in Jena that Khalil can be deported, despite the Trump administration's admission that Khalil is not being accused of a crime and that his "past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations... are otherwise lawful."

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has claimed Khalil—a green card holder of Palestinian descent who has Algerian citizenship, can be deported under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which empowers the secretary of state to expel noncitizens who are deemed to be a threat to U.S. foreign policy interests.

Khalil was a leader of Columbia's student-led protests in support of Palestinian rights, and led negotiations with administrators regarding the protesters' demand that the school divest from companies that have profited from Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza.

During last week's hearing, Khalil wrote, "the government asserted on behalf of Secretary of State Marco Rubio that my beliefs, statements, and associations compromise its 'compelling' foreign policy interests. Like the thousands of students that I advocated with at Columbia—including Muslim, Jewish, and Christian friends—I believe in the innate equality of all human beings. I believe in human dignity. I believe in the right of my people to look at the blue sky and not fear an impending missile."

Khalil pointed to Ex parte Endo, a 1944 Supreme Court decision that found the U.S. government could not continue to detain Mitsuye Endo, a Japanese American woman who was incarcerated at an internment camp during World War II. Khalil's lawyers, he wrote, have noted that Endo's case might have bearing on his own.

"Her victory helped secure the release of thousands of others," wrote Khalil. "The incarceration of 70,000 American citizens of Japanese descent is a reminder that rhetoric of justice and freedom obscures the reality that, all too often, America has been a democracy of convenience."

Khalil's letter came a day after Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University student who was targeted by the Trump administration and abducted off a street in Somerville, Massachusetts last month for writing an op-ed criticizing U.S. support for Israel's war, was denied bond by an immigration judge. Khalil and Ozturk are among several students and others who have been detained and threatened with deportation for political speech.

"I write this letter as the sun rises, hoping that the suspension of my rights will raise alarm bells that yours are already in jeopardy," concluded Khalil. "I hope it will inspire your outrage that the most basic human instinct, to protest shameless massacre, is being repressed by obscure laws, racist propaganda, and a state terrified of an awakened public. I hope this writing will startle you into understanding that a democracy for some—a democracy of convenience—is no democracy at all. I hope it will shake you into acting before it is too late."

Read Khalil's letter in full below:

It's 3 am as I lie sleepless on a bunk bed in Jena, Louisiana, far from my wife, Noor, who will give birth to our baby in two weeks. The sound of rain hitting the metal roof masks the snoring of 70 men tossing and turning on hard mats in this detention facility run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Which ones are dreaming about reuniting with their families? Which ones are having nightmares about becoming the Trump administration's next"administrative error"?

Last Friday, I sat in a courtroom as animmigration judge determined that the government could deport me despite my status as a legal permanent resident and despite that the government's claims against me were baseless — much of its"evidence" lifted directly from sensationalized tabloids. The decision won't result in immediate deportation—aspects of my case are pending in other courts.

Earlier that day, I sifted through letters from supporters. Two postage stamps displayed the American flag, one stating "liberty forever," the other proclaiming "justice forever." The irony is stunning, especially regarding what I've learned about how the administration exploits immigration law to enforce itsrepressive agenda. I think about the breakneck speed with which my case was heard and decided, running roughshod overdue process. On the flip side, I think about those I am locked up with, many of whom have been languishing for months or years waiting for their "due process."

During Friday's hearing, the government asserted on behalf of Secretary of State Marco Rubio that my beliefs, statements and associations compromise its "compelling" foreign policy interests. Like the thousands of students that I advocated with at Columbia—including Muslim, Jewish and Christian friends—I believe in the innate equality of all human beings. I believe in human dignity. I believe in the right of my people to look at the blue sky and not fear an impending missile.

Why should protesting Israel's indiscriminatekilling of thousandsof innocent Palestinians result in the erosion of my constitutional rights?

My lawyers have mentioned that acase called Endo might bear on my own. Days later, in my research at a law library, I uncovered the human story behind the legal abstraction. Mitsuye Endo, a Japanese American woman incarcerated during World War II, challenged her captors and brought her case to the Supreme Court. Her victory helped secure the release of thousands of others.

The incarceration of 70,000 American citizens of Japanese descent is a reminder that rhetoric of justice and freedom obscures the reality that, all too often, America has been a democracy of convenience. Rights are granted to those who align with power. For the poor, for people of color, for those who resist injustice, rights are but words written on water. The right to free speech when it comes to Palestine has always been exceptionally weak. Even so, thecrackdown on universities andstudents reveals just how afraid the White House is of the idea of Palestine's freedom entering the mainstream. Why else would Trump officials not only attempt to deport me but also intentionally mislead the public about who I am and what I stand for?

I pick up my copy of Viktor Frankl's"Man's Search for Meaning." I feel ashamed to compare my conditions in ICE detention to Nazi concentration camps, yet, some aspects of Frankl's experience resonate: not knowing what fate awaits me; seeing resignation and defeat in my fellow detainees. Frankl wrote from the lens of a psychologist. I wonder whetherHussam Abu Safiya, a renowned hospital director who was abducted in Gaza by Israeli occupying forces on Dec. 27 and, according to his lawyer from the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, has endured beatings, electric shocks and solitary confinement, will write about his ordeal from a medical perspective.

It's almost 4 am. Thunder crashes. A few rows away, one man hugs a bottle of hot water in a sock for warmth. His prayer mat serves as a blanket, and his head rests on his shoes. A detainee who was praying all night finally lies down. He was caught crossing the border with his pregnant wife and has never seen his baby, now nine months old. I try to convince myself that this will not be my fate, though Friday's ruling makes that possibility more real than I want to admit.

I write this letter as the sun rises, hoping that the suspension of my rights will raise alarm bells that yours are already in jeopardy. I hope it will inspire your outrage that the most basic human instinct, to protest shameless massacre, is being repressed by obscure laws, racist propaganda and a state terrified of an awakened public. I hope this writing will startle you into understanding that a democracy for some—a democracy of convenience—is no democracy at all. I hope it will shake you into acting before it is too late.

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Palestinians mourn over the shrouded bodies of 8 Red Crescent workers killed by Israel
News

Red Crescent Demands Investigation Into Israel Massacre of Gaza Paramedics

The Palestine Red Crescent Society is demanding an independent international investigation into what it called Israel's recent "deliberate killing" of 15 Palestinian first responders, including eight PRCS paramedics in southern Gaza, after video found on a phone buried with one of their bodies showed Israel lied about the incident and autopsies found that the men had been shot with "intent to kill."

"Accountability should not require video evidence. It should not take global outrage for the truth to be acknowledged," PRCS spokesperson Nebal Farsakh said in a video published Wednesday. This, after PRCS issued a statement Monday accusing Israel of a "massacre" and a "full-fledged war crime" that "reflects a dangerous pattern of repeated violation of international humanitarian law."

Citing the Geneva Conventions, PRCS called for "an independent international investigation and for all perpetrators to be held accountable," adding that "international silence in the face of attacks on humanitarian teams not only equates to a death sentence for Palestinians in Gaza but also poses a direct threat to humanitarian work everywhere."

On March 30, PRCS said it had recovered the bodies of 15 Palestinian first responders from a mass grave, including eight Red Crescent emergency medical team members, six Civil Defense personnel, and one United Nations worker. The first responders were killed by Israeli forces on March 23 while traveling "on duty" in five ambulances, a fire truck, and a U.N. vehicle in the al-Hashashin area of southern Gaza. One PRCS medic is still missing after apparently being taken prisoner by Israeli troops.

The Gaza Health Ministry said that "some of these bodies were bound and shot in the chest" before being "buried in a deep hole to prevent their identification." The vehicles in their convoy were destroyed and buried along with the victims in what officials said was an unsuccessful attempt to conceal the massacre.

PRCS spokesperson Mahmoud Basal toldDrop Site News that one of the victims was "beheaded," and that "the least harmed among them had at least 20 bullets fired at him."

Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Col. Nadav Shoshani claimed troops opened fire in response to unknown vehicles "advancing suspiciously toward IDF troops without headlights or emergency signals."

Shoshani further contended that nine of the first responders were "terrorists from Hamas and the Islamic Jihad"—an accusation often made by Israeli officials against many of the thousands of medical professionals, humanitarian workers, and journalists killed or wounded by the IDF.

However, video found on the cellphone of 23-year-old Rifaat Radwan, one of the slain medics, revealed that the ambulances and fire truck were not only clearly marked but also had their emergency lights flashing when they were attacked.

Israeli troops can be heard in the video firing on the convoy and getting closer. Realizing he was about to die, Radwan said: "Forgive me, mother. This is the path I chose—to help people."

Speaking to Middle East Eye, Radwan's mother called the killing of her son and the other first responders "something horrific, beyond comprehension" and "a crime against humanity."

Radwan's video forced the IDF to admit that its version of events was "mistaken." British Tunisian journalist Soumaya Ghannoushi wrote that the slain medic's "voice from beyond the grave destroyed Israel's lie."

There was also the testimony of survivor Munther Abed, a 27-year-old longtime PRCS volunteer, who toldDrop Site News that the first responders "were directly and deliberately shot at" by IDF troops.

"The car is clearly marked with 'Palestinian Red Crescent Society 101,'" he said. "The car's number was clear and the crews' uniform was clear, so why were we directly shot at?"

Abed says he was kidnapped and tortured by IDF soldiers, and that he saw Assad al-Nassara, the missing medic, in Israeli custody.

"This is not the first violation and there have been many violations before," Abed said. "Where is our protection according to international humanitarian law?"

At least 30 PRCS workers and volunteers have been killed by Israeli forces since Israel launched the war in response to the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack. Such killings rarely make international headlines but sometimes do, like when two medics were fatally shot while trying to rescue Hind Rajab, a mortally wounded 6-year-old girl trapped in a car surrounded by dead relatives following an IDF attack in January 2024.

As Ghannoushi noted: "Palestinian medics say their uniforms don't protect them; they mark them for death. Symbols once sacred—the Red Crescent vest, the white coat, surgical scrubs—are now treated as targets."

"In Gaza, medicine is rebellion, and compassion is treason," she added. "To heal is to defy extermination."

The first responders' massacre has received widespread international media coverage, and even the staunchly pro-Zionist U.S. corporate media pressed Israeli officials for answers. Fox News chief foreign affairs correspondent Trey Yingst appeared skeptical of Israel's assertion that the slain first responders were terrorists: "Asked multiple times for evidence to support that claim, none was provided," he said during one report.

Jonathan Whittall, who heads the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Palestine, angrily rejected Israel's claim, saying the first responders were executed "one by one."

"We're digging them out with uniforms, with their gloves on," he said last week. "They were here to save lives. Instead, they ended up in a mass grave."

Whittall called the killings "very emblematic of the point we've reached in Gaza."

"What is happening here is defying—it defies decency, it defies humanity, it defies the law," he added. "It is a war without limits."

The U.S.-backed war—for which Israel is facing a genocide case at the International Court of Justice—continued for the 551st day on Wednesday, with scores of Palestinians reportedly killed by IDF airstrikes and shelling across Gaza. A strike on a multistory residential building in the Shejaiyya neighborhood east of Gaza City killed at least 29 people including eight children, according to local medical officials. More than 60 others were wounded in the strike and two dozen other people are missing beneath the rubble.

The IDF—which after the October 7 attack explicitly allowed an unlimited number of civilians to be killed in strikes targeting even one Hamas member, no matter how lowly his rank—claimed it bombed the homes in a bid to eliminate a "senior Hamas terrorist."

The Gaza Health Ministry said Wednesday that Israeli forces have killed 1,482 Palestinians in Gaza since unilaterally breaking a January cease-fire on March 18. This figure includes more than 320 children, according to the United Nations Children's Fund. The ministry said that at least 50,846 Palestinians have been killed, and more than 115,700 have been wounded, since October 2023. Upward of 14,000 others are missing and feared dead and buried beneath the rubble of bombed-out buildings.

Nearly all of Gaza's more than 2 million people have been forcibly displaced—often multiple times—and have suffered widespread and sometimes deadly starvation and illness fueled by Israel's "complete siege" of the coastal enclave.

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