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immigrant rights
Don't Wait for the Supreme Court to Put the Brakes on Trump's Fascism
The court has given the country sparse assurance that it will push back on Trump’s unique claims of expansive presidential powers.
Dec 01, 2025
The “F-word,” fascism, has recently seen increasing use in American public discourse—and for good reason. Some critics claim that the word, fascism, has been overused—and wrongly applied to the behavior and propaganda of President Donald Trump and his regime. They are wrong. Even though other words do describe Trump’s behavior, such as authoritarian, corrupt, cruel, vindictive, racist, or misogynistic, they do not wholly capture the political essence of Donald J. Trump. “Fascist” clearly does.
What are the classic hallmarks of fascism? The analyses of several historians and other experts, such as Ruth Ben-Ghiat (Strongmen), Timothy Snyder (On Tyranny), Jason Stanley (How Fascism Works) and Umberto Eco ("Eternal Fascism," 1995 article in the New York Review of Books) describe fascism as including these features: mythologizing the past; persecution of racial, religious, or ethnic minorities and celebrating violence against them; pseudo patriotic and militaristic spectacles; big business capture of government; suppression of civil liberties, including free speech; white supremacy, combined with a sense of victimhood; and male dominance. Without any doubt, Trump and his regime qualify as fascist, or at the very least, incipient fascist.
Only recently, the Trump regime issued a memorandum (NSPM-7) in which Trump directs his officials to investigate supposed incidents of “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism and anti-Christianity.” Trump falsely claims that leftists and other “antifa” activists use violence to accomplish their political goals. The memorandum facilitates Trump’s threat to go after “the enemy within”—which is anybody who opposes his policies or toxic rhetoric. The “enemy within” designation was widely used by Hitler’s Nazi regime to denigrate Jews. The similarities between the propaganda and legal distortions of that regime and those of the Trump administration are chilling. (See, Hitler’s Justice: The Courts of the Third Reich, by Ingo Müller). Trump has also announced that he will use the military to enforce the criminal laws throughout the country—despite the prohibitions contained in the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.
What hope can we have that the Supreme Court of the United States will put the brakes on Trump’s fascist policies?
Will the Republican majority on the Supreme Court—embracing the unitary executive theory—eventually approve of Trump’s twisted and vindictive use of political prosecutions to silence his political foes?
The starting point toward venturing an answer to this question has to be the court’s 2024 decision in Trump vs. United States, in which it held that a president has absolute immunity for “official acts” taken in the performance of his presidential duties. That shocking decision constituted not only a “get-out-of-jail-free” card for Trump in the prosecutions the court was then reviewing; it also cloaked him with immunity for any crimes he might commit in the future as president. As a practical matter, that immunity will probably include any US murder charges which might have been brought for his having ordered alleged drug smugglers to be killed on boats in the Caribbean, since he was arguably acting as commander-in-chief of the armed forces when giving the orders. (International jurisdictions might not go along with the Supreme Court’s immunity grant).
With the exception of the April 2025 decision which the Supreme Court issued in the deportation case of Kilmar Albrego Garcia, (holding that the government had violated the immigrant’s due process rights by deporting him to El Salvador, and that the government had to “facilitate” his return to the US), the court has given the country sparse assurance that it will push back on Trump’s unique claims of expansive presidential powers.
In its emergency (“shadow”) docket rulings during Trump’s second administration, the Supreme Court has granted stays or reversals in the vast majority of cases in which the administration has appealed against US district court decisions that had slapped down various unprecedented power claims asserted by Trump. When those cases are eventually decided on their merits, the court may well embrace the “unitary executive” theory upon which many of the administration’s claims have rested. Should that come to pass, Trump’s descent into fascism may well be accelerated. Unfortunately, there is no space to elaborate on those shadow docket decisions here.
Most recently, Trump threatened on social media six Democratic members of Congress with “execution” and “death” for alleged “sedition,” that is, their having had the nerve to make a video reminding military officers and enlisted personnel that they have the right, and in some cases, the duty, under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, to refuse obedience to illegal orders. Those threats inspired at least hundreds of anonymous death threats against those Democrats in the ensuing days. That was one of Trump’s most crazy and reckless capers. It was also one of his most fascistic.
Trump’s placement of incompetent sycophants into top positions of the Justice Department and his directing them to prosecute his political rivals and critics is one of the most destructive of American norm-busting actions undertaken by Trump. Will the Republican majority on the Supreme Court—embracing the unitary executive theory—eventually approve of Trump’s twisted and vindictive use of political prosecutions to silence his political foes? Nobody knows, but the prospects are not very encouraging.
The resistance to Trump’s fascism must come from us.
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Why It Matters That Mamdani Is an Immigrant Mayor
Mamdani will be there to lead his communicating in opposing the colossal, catastrophic war on immigrants being waged by the world's most powerful man.
Nov 30, 2025
It matters that the newly elected Mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, is an immigrant.
Not just for symbolic or sentimental reasons, although those are nice. It's fitting that the city of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty would put an immigrant in charge. As Mamdani put it in his Election Night victory speech, New York is "built by immigrants, powered by immigrants and, as of tonight, led by an immigrant."
Key word: Powered.
Mamdani's victory matters because of the colossal, catastrophic war on immigrants being waged by the world's most powerful man. From the beginning of President Donald Trump's second term, his administration has led a vicious, increasingly violent campaign against the foreign-born, especially in the states and cities led by Democrats and dominated by people of color.
Mamdan delivered. He defied the corporate establishment and billionaires' attack ads and galvanized a winning coalition–young, hopeful, restive, sick of the politics of stifled ambition, of dreaming small, of being resigned to an ever-higher cost of living.
And for all that time, immigrants have been seen as victims, pawns, prey—as bystanders to their own oppression. In recent years, newly arrived migrants have been rounded up at the border, bused across the country by Republican governors, dumped in shelters in Democrat-led cities. Under Trump, all immigrants, new or not, undocumented or not, have been endlessly vilified and slandered as gang killers, rapists, terrorists, job stealers, culture destroyers, eaters of cats and dogs.
And for months the administration has sent masked goons in battle armor to catch them all. They swarm immigrant neighborhoods in unmarked vans to bag their daily quota of deportees. Raids have brought chaos and terror to Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and to cities and suburbs between. The immigration-imprisonment archipelago is vast and growing.
If you believe the administration's threats, the anti-immigrant assault will likely get worse very soon in New York, Trump's hometown. And so it matters that an immigrant, Mayor Mamdani, will be there to oppose him.
Mamdani also said this in his victory address: "So hear me, President Trump, when I say this: To get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us."
Those are the words of a leader with the means and will to fight. It's about time. Scorned by MAGAs and pitied by liberals, immigrant communities have battled on their own to protect themselves, tell their own stories, to shape their own destinies, all the while defending bedrock rights for all of us. And while their efforts have been heroic—defending constitutional values for everyone—they have been insufficient to stop or even slow Trump’s torrential abuses of power.
Mamdani's victory goes a long way to turning the tide. It's hard to overstate the shock of a young state assemblyman, an immigrant with no money and no recognition, running a successful grassroots campaign in a crowded race against, among others, an incumbent mayor, Eric Adams, and a former governor, Andrew Cuomo.
Cuomo entered the race with a vast lead in the polls and tons of money. He was the candidate to beat, even though he had resigned, disgraced, as governor. He was well known as a bully, a sex pest, and a bumbler—accused of sexually harassment by several women who worked for him and credibly blamed for recklessly sending senior citizens to their Covid-19 deaths in nursing homes. His closing argument was to parrot Trump’s threats against the city as a form of political blackmail: Elect me, or Trump will make things worse.
Worse still, Cuomo had the establishment on his side. It's an understatement to say Mamdani did not.
New York is a city of skyscrapers and tycoons, a global seat of power for the financial, real estate, media, and entertainment industries. None of New York's leading power brokers had any desire to see a democratic socialist like Mamdani take City Hall, with his talk of free buses and lower rent. They spent millions to destroy him.
Mamdani came under editorial fire from the New York Times and the New York tentacles of Rupert Murdoch's media empire: Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post. Billionaires opened their wallets to denounce him with darkly doomful attack ads.
A Mamdani victory would destroy New York, said the power elite. The city as we know it will crumble, they said. We’ll have to move to Florida. Even the city’s supposedly liberal elite seemed to believe the doomsaying. Top New York pols, like United States Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and Sen. Chuck Schumer, dragged their feet on endorsing their fellow Democrat, or demurred entirely.
Mamdani confounded them all.
Or rather, the New Yorkers who voted for him did. A commanding cross section of Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Manhattan and the diverse sliver of Staten Island’s north shore came together to demand something–someone–different.
Mamdan delivered. He defied the corporate establishment and billionaires' attack ads and galvanized a winning coalition–young, hopeful, restive, sick of the politics of stifled ambition, of dreaming small, of being resigned to an ever-higher cost of living.
This wasn’t the New York that tourists think of, the New York of Trump Tower, the Plaza, the Times, the Wall Street bros and limo billionaires. It was the city of the working class and working poor, of bus riders and immigrants, ordinary people flexing their power in all its brownness and Blackness.
Mamdani put it this way: "For as long as we can remember, the working people of New York have been told by the wealthy and the well-connected that power does not belong in their hands. Fingers bruised from lifting boxes on the warehouse floor, palms calloused from delivery bike handlebars, knuckles scarred with kitchen burns: These are not hands that have been allowed to hold power. And yet, over the last 12 months, you have dared to reach for something greater. Tonight, against all odds, we have grasped it. The future is in our hands."
To lots of rich New Yorkers, this future sounds new and scary.
But building power from the bottom up is a familiar story among immigrants. A popular phrase among immigrant rights defenders is "Solo el pueblo salva al pueblo.” Only the people save the people. The message can be seen as grim: No one else is coming to save us. Immigrants who use it prefer to see the words as brimming with hope: We are coming to save us. Or as my colleague Pablo Alvarado from the National Day Laborer Organizing Network says, “What we need is solidarity, not charity. Our community knows how to defend itself.” In a city that is powered by immigrants and now led by one, we are about to see what that looks like.
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![People gathered for a traditional Somali wedding in the banquet room at the Safari Restaurant and Banquet Center at 4th Ave. and Lake Street, Minneapolis, Friday afternoon, July 29th, 2011.] Bruce Bisping/Star Tribune.](https://www.commondreams.org/media-library/people-gathered-for-a-traditional-somali-wedding-in-the-banquet-room-at-the-safari-restaurant-and-banquet-center-at-4th-ave-and.jpg?id=62230790&width=1245&height=700&quality=80&coordinates=0%2C175%2C0%2C176)
In 'Political Attack,' Trump Revokes Protected Status for Minnesota Somalis
"This decision, fueled by harmful misinformation campaigns that we believe have external political motives, will tear families apart and send individuals to a country they have not known for over 20 years," one campaigner said.
Nov 23, 2025
President Donald Trump's Friday announcement that he was ending Temporary Protected Status for Somali immigrants in Minnesota prompted outrage and fear from Minnesota Somalis and their allies over the weekend.
In a Truth Social Post, Trump said that he was terminating the TPS program for Somalis in Minnesota "effective immediately," citing concerns about money laundering and gang activity.
“We are deeply disappointed that the administration has chosen to end the Somali TPS program in Minnesota, a legal lifeline for families who have built their lives here for decades," Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations-Minnesota, said in response. "This decision, fueled by harmful misinformation campaigns that we believe have external political motives, will tear families apart and send individuals to a country they have not known for over 20 years."
"This is not just a bureaucratic change; it is a political attack on the Somali and Muslim community driven by Islamophobic and hateful rhetoric. We strongly urge President Trump to reverse this misguided decision," Hussein continued.
"In a typical move, Donald Trump attacks our Somali community because he can’t think of anything else to do on a Friday night."
Minnesota has the nation's largest Somali population at over 26,000. Many have become citizens or are permanent residents, and only around 430 are in the Minnesota TPS program. Further, immigration law experts say that it would be difficult legally to revoke protections before they are already set to expire in March of next year.
"There is literally no legal means by which he can do this. It’s not a presidential power," wrote Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow with the American Immigration Council advocacy group, on social media. "TPS by law cannot be terminated early. Somali TPS is not set to expire until March 17, 2026."
He added that while the Department of Homeland Security "may make an attempt to do this... it would be immediately struck down."
Further, TPS would have to be revoked nationally, and not for a single state.
“There’s no legal mechanism that allows the president to terminate protected status for a particular community or state that he has beef with,” Heidi Altman, policy director at the National Immigrant Justice Center, told the Associated Press.
“This is Trump doing what he always does: demagoguing immigrants without justification or evidence and using that demagoguery in an attempt to take away important life-saving protections,” she said.
Despite this, the remarks sent many in the community into a "panic," local immigration attorney Abdiqani Jabane told the Minnesota Star Tribune.
People “are afraid that ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents may start rounding up Somalis. These are people who have lived and worked in the community for more than 20 years," Jabane said.
Somalis were first granted TPS status in the US in 1991 when civil war broke out following the removal of leader Said Barre. Since then, it has been renewed 27 times. Today, the militant group al-Shabab still controls parts of the country.
“Sending anyone back to Somalia today is unsafe because al-Shabab remains active, terrorist attacks continue, and the [Somali] government today is unable to protect anyone,” Jabane said.
Minnesota leaders took to social media to speak out against Trump's edict and stand up for the state's Somali community.
"It’s not surprising that the President has chosen to broadly target an entire community. This is what he does to change the subject, wrote Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) wrote: "In a typical move, Donald Trump attacks our Somali community because he can’t think of anything else to do on a Friday night. That’s who he is, but it’s not who we are."
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who is Somali herself, pushed back against people who used Trump's announcement to call for her deportation.
"I am a citizen and so are [a] majority of Somalis in America. Good luck celebrating a policy change that really doesn’t have much impact on the Somalis you love to hate. We are here to stay," she wrote.
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