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"We are witnessing an authoritarian takeover of the U.S. immigration court system by the Trump administration."
A dozen immigrants and their legal advocates on Wednesday launched a class action lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's campaign of courthouse arrests "designed to strip noncitizens of their rights" and expedite deportations.
"We are witnessing an authoritarian takeover of the U.S. immigration court system by the Trump administration," said Keren Zwick, director of litigation at the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC), one of the groups behind the new suit. "People who attend their hearings to seek permission to remain in this country and comply with U.S. immigration law are being rounded up and abruptly ripped from their families, homes, and livelihoods."
"Meanwhile, the administration is issuing directives telling immigration judges to violate those same immigration laws and strip people of fundamental due process rights," Zwick added. "We must continue fighting to overcome the administration's escalating attacks on the U.S. Constitution and rule of law."
The suit—filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by NIJC, Democracy Forward, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area (LCCRSF), and Refugee and Immigrant Center for Legal Education and Services (RAICES)—aims to end the "unlawful" arrests and strike down related guidance from the administration.
"For years, both the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) had policies limiting civil immigration-related arrests in immigration courts," explains the complaint, filed on behalf of 12 people identified by their initials as well as the groups American Gateways and Immigrant Advocates Response Collaborative (ARC).
"These policies were rooted in the commonsense recognition that such arrests hamper the fair administration of the immigration process and create a palpable fear that disincentivizes people from appearing for their hearings," the complaint explains. "But in the first few days of the Trump administration, defendants repealed those policies, exposing individuals who properly appear for their hearings, including to seek asylum and other relief, to the imminent threat of arrest and indefinite detention."
Defendants include DHS, DOJ, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Executive Office for Immigration Review, and leaders in the administration who have been working to deliver on President Donald Trump's promise of mass deportations.
@skyeperryman.bsky.social of @democracyforward.org said the Trump administration is ‘weaponizing’ immigration courts and chilling participation in the legal process.”apnews.com/article/immi...
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— Melissa Schwartz (@mschwartz3.bsky.social) July 16, 2025 at 6:01 PM
"The egregious and unprecedented coordination amongst government agencies that we are witnessing not only inflicts irreparable harm upon infants and adults alike for seeking refuge in the U.S., but also establishes a chilling precedent in which law and order are abandoned in favor of stoking widespread panic and fear—leaving the entire American public at risk, regardless of immigration status," warned Faisal Al-Juburi, chief external affairs officer at RAICES.
Jordan Wells, senior staff Attorney at LCCRSF, declared that "these directives forsake any notion of immigration courts as a neutral forum, weaponizing them into a trap for immigrants who show up in reliance on the American promise of a fair process before a judge, only to be met instead with handcuffs and shunted into a fast-track deportation process controlled by ICE agents."
Priyanka Gandhi-Abriano, interim CEO for Immigrant ARC, said that "our friends, neighbors, and families are told to 'do it the right way'—to follow the legal process. They're doing just that—showing up to court, complying with the law. Despite this, they're being arrested and detained."
"This isn't justice," Gandhi-Abriano stressed. "It's a deliberate attempt to intimidate and disappear people before they can be heard. We're defending the integrity of the legal system, protecting every person's right to due process, and holding the Trump administration accountable for their deeply harmful practices aimed at the most vulnerable communities."
The filing follows a Friday letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons—all defendants in the new case—in which two dozen U.S. Senate Democrats wrote that "we are extremely concerned by reports of a recent initiative to arrest and detain noncitizens at their immigration court hearings, and in many cases, dismiss their immigration cases without advance notice and while hiding the government's intent to arrest them."
"This manipulation of existing laws to enact this administration's mass deportation agenda is creating chaos in our immigration system while doing nothing to make our communities safer," asserted the lawmakers, led by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), and Alex Padilla (D-Calif.). They also demanded answers to a list of related questions by July 25.
As ICE has sent masked agents to round up mostly innocent people, the Democratic senator from Pennsylvania said they "are just doing their job."
U.S. Sen. John Fetterman's strange lurch to the right continued this week as he jumped in to defend Immigration and Customs Enforcement amid criticisms about its lawless and authoritarian behavior.
ICE's indiscriminate roundups have shifted into overdrive recently as part of President Donald Trump's "mass deportation" crusade, resulting in video after disturbing video of unidentified masked agents brutalizing and detaining migrants, the majority of whom have no criminal records.
On Thursday, ICE launched another massive raid on two farms in Southern California, which was met with protests by hundreds of community members. Federal officers responded by beating protesters and assaulting them with tear gas, including children.
Many Democrats have at least criticized the agency's unprecedented tactics. Last month, Democratic House members introduced the "No Secret Police Act," which would require agents to identify themselves when arresting people. Many also criticized the agency's aggressive display on Thursday.
But not Fetterman (D-Penn.), who issued a full-throated defense of the agency in a post on X.
"ICE performs an important job for our country," Fetterman said. "Any calls to abolish ICE are 💯 inappropriate and outrageous."
Earlier in the week, after an ICE detention facility was allegedly ambushed by armed attackers, Fetterman told Fox News that it was "absolutely unacceptable. Terrible. Awful."
"ICE agents are just doing their job, and I fully support that," he added. "For me and people in my party, you know, to abolish it or treat them as criminals or anything, that's inappropriate and outrageous. ICE performs an important, an important job for our nation."
These comments drew the attention of Trump, who praised what he called "the new John Fetterman."
"He's right, he's right," the president said of the Pennsylvania Democrat.
Fetterman responded with glee, telling The Daily Mail that getting praise from Trump made his Fox News-watching parents "proud."
Critics have noted the stark change in rhetoric for Fetterman, who once embraced various progressive policies and campaigned fiercely against Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric.
Nick Field, a writer for The Penn-Capital Star, posted an excerpt from an interview in 2018 in which Fetterman—then the mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania—agreed with a host who said ICE was "an American Gestapo."
"I agree," Fetterman said. "It's unconscionable. I don't know how they sleep at night. I really don't."
"These are all law-abiding citizens," Fetterman said about undocumented immigrants rounded up by ICE. "These are people that want a better life for themselves, and in the process, a better life and a more rich society for us all. And to try to demonize them or try to turn them into some kind of problem, that this is what's wrong with America, it's evil."
Others pointed out that Fetterman's own wife, Gisele, was herself an undocumented immigrant from Brazil. She's now a U.S. citizen.
Annie Wu Henry, who ran the social media accounts for Fetterman's 2022 Senate run, and has since apologized for her involvement in his election, posted a campaign video in which he spoke about his wife's immigration status.
"I was asked, 'Your wife's family broke the law, what do you think of that?'" Fetterman said in the video. "I said, 'Well I'm so grateful that they did because if they didn't have the courage to take that step I wouldn't have the three beautiful children that I have today.'"
Fetterman also drew the ire of his opponent in the 2022 Democratic primary, former Rep. Connor Lamb (D-Penn.). When they faced off three years ago, Lamb was ironically considered the more conservative of the two. But on Thursday, he lit into Fetterman, who called for ICE to "round up and deport the criminals."
According to immigration data from June 29, 71% of the people currently in ICE detention have not been convicted of any crimes. Most of those who have were only convicted of minor offenses, like traffic violations.
"Hey [Senator Fetterman], they didn't give ICE more money than the Marine Corps and all other law enforcement to just go after criminals," Lamb retorted, referring to the massive increases to ICE funding in the GOP's recent megabill. "You aren't fooling us into thinking that is what's going on."
The systems operating in Gaza and across the U.S. do not exist to keep people safe. They exist to manage, displace, and contain populations deemed problematic.
The crisis in Gaza is no longer limited to military operations backed by U.S. weapons and diplomatic support. American involvement now extends into the structure of the siege itself, including the use of private contractors, control over humanitarian aid, and the deployment of surveillance systems.
Meanwhile, a separate security campaign is unfolding inside the United States. The Department of Homeland Security, through Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), is deploying biometric devices to monitor and track individuals. At the same time, it is targeting safe spaces such as residential neighborhoods and carrying out mass deportations that resemble a coordinated population removal effort.
Since May, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a U.S.-based organization backed by the State Department, has overseen food distribution in military-controlled areas of Gaza. United Nations agencies have described the operation as part of a broader effort to weaponize food, using aid as a tool of control rather than relief. American contractors guard their sites under firms like UG Solutions and Safe Reach Solutions. Contractors have reported frequent, systematic use of live ammunition, stun grenades, and pepper spray against people trying to collect food. The firms currently deny these allegations.
Cable news networks have mainly avoided framing the destruction in Gaza as part of a broader strategy to depopulate the area and reshape it under the pretext of security.
These operations are not improvised. They follow a model of crowd management that treats aid like a security mission. Cameras and facial recognition systems operated by U.S. contractors are used to track “persons of interest,” with the data shared directly with Israeli forces. The result is hunger being managed by armed control, not alleviated by relief.
U.S. media is full of stories about American aid dropping into Gaza, emphasizing coordination and relief. Coverage declares that millions of meals have been delivered. What is seldom discussed are allegations that these operations employ the same tactics as military occupations, including armed checkpoints, surveillance, and restricted access to necessities.
Coverage of other civilian tragedies in Gaza, such as the bombing of a seaside café or the killing of Dr. Marwan al-Sultan while he was directing a hospital, is often sparse, brief, and presented without political context. Meanwhile, televised segments about aid distribution are framed as humanitarian triumphs. The result is a distorted picture that hides the U.S.’ role in transforming humanitarian aid into controlled violence.
Gaza’s healthcare system is collapsing. Dozens of medical workers have been killed in airstrikes, and hospitals have been reduced to rubble. The bombing of places like the coastal café, where families and children gathered, shows how civilian spaces are being deliberately erased. These are not military sites or areas of active combat. Their destruction appears intended to break down ordinary life and push people toward displacement. Dr. Marwan al-Sultan, a respected cardiologist and director of the Indonesian Hospital, was the 70th healthcare worker killed by Israeli strikes in just 50 days, according to Palestinian medical organizations.
In much of the U.S. media, these events are framed as accidents or isolated tragedies, often presented alongside official statements from the Israeli government and vague promises of investigation. Rarely are they balanced with independent or opposing perspectives, such as the claim that hospitals and civilian infrastructure are being deliberately targeted. While outlets like Reuters have published some reporting on these issues, such coverage remains rare among major U.S. media platforms. Cable news networks have mainly avoided framing the destruction in Gaza as part of a broader strategy to depopulate the area and reshape it under the pretext of security.
Inside the U.S. public sphere, a new wave of repression has emerged. What has been called the “Palestine exception” has taken hold, where pro-Palestinian speech on campuses, in academic work, and advocacy is regularly treated as suspicious or subject to punishment. At the same time, similar expressions on other issues are largely ignored.
Reports from Council on American-Islamic Relations show a record-high spike in anti-Muslim incidents in 2024, directly linked to backlash over the war in Gaza. This surge has also been reflected in the wave of Islamophobic rhetoric that followed Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York City’s Democratic primary for mayor.
Just as Palestinians in Gaza are placed at risk simply by going to food distribution sites, an act they are expected to perform, migrants in the United States face detention when attending immigration hearings or routine check-ins they are required to complete.
Against this backdrop, ICE has expanded its use of biometric surveillance tools, including facial recognition, mobile fingerprint scanners, and iris scans. These technologies closely resemble those used by U.S. contractors in Gaza to monitor aid recipients and flag individuals for Israeli forces. In both cases, the tools serve a similar purpose. They identify, track, and remove targeted populations under the justification of security.
Just as Palestinians in Gaza are placed at risk simply by going to food distribution sites, an act they are expected to perform, migrants in the United States face detention when attending immigration hearings or routine check-ins they are required to complete. Like reports of U.S. contractors deploying flash-bang grenades during aid distribution in Gaza, ICE has used the same tactics in residential areas during militarized domestic operations.
In both Gaza and the United States, forced displacement is rarely acknowledged for what it is. Media coverage presents it through isolated incidents—airstrikes, deportations, legal actions—detached from the larger pattern of population removal.
In Gaza, proposals to move Palestinians to Egypt or other countries are described as humanitarian efforts or part of rebuilding plans. These descriptions overlook the systematic destruction of homes, hospitals, and neighborhoods. The coverage treats these as consequences of war, not as part of a coordinated effort to make civilian life impossible.
In the United States, deportations are reported through legal categories. Media narratives focus on status or procedure, rather than the coercive structure behind them. The focus is on expulsion, not immigration reform or options for legal integration.
The systems operating in Gaza and across the U.S. do not exist to keep people safe. They exist to manage, displace, and contain populations deemed problematic. The primary beneficiaries are those who build and maintain these systems, such as defense contractors, private surveillance firms, border security consultants, and the officials who award them contracts.
The more threats these systems claim to identify, the more funding they receive. The more disorder it produces, the more authority it demands. From Gaza to cities across the U.S., the goal is not resolution. It is control. And control is profitable.