The US seems to be following the path of authoritarian countries around the world in steadily abrogating the rights of people. One of the ways that this was done in many countries was to do away with such niceties as requiring warrants for the search of homes or the arrest of people.
Now the Trump gang is actually defying court orders, deporting people even after a federal judge ordered them not to.
The US deported more than 250 mainly Venezuelan alleged gang members to El Salvador despite a US judge’s ruling to halt the flights on Saturday after Donald Trump controversially invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law meant only to be used in wartime.
El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, said 238 members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and 23 members of the Salvadoran gang MS-13 had arrived and were in custody as part of a deal under which the US will pay the Central American country to hold them in its 40,000-person capacity “terrorism confinement centre”.
The confirmation came hours after a US federal judge expanded his ruling temporarily blocking the Trump administration from invoking the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime authority that allows the president broad leeway on policy and executive action to speed up mass deportations.
The US district judge James Boasberg had attempted to halt the deportations for all individuals deemed eligible for removal under Trump’s proclamation, which was issued on Friday. Boasberg also ordered deportation flights already in the air to return to the US.
“Oopsie … Too late,” Bukele posted online, followed by a laughing emoji.
Soon after Bukele’s statement, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, thanked El Salvador’s leader.
The law is just a joke to these people, to be ignored if they do not like it.
Then take the case of Mahmoud Khalil. He is of Palestinian descent. He is a graduate student at Columbia University and a legal permanent resident of the US. His wife is a US citizen and eight months pregnant. He was involved in the protests against the horrific actions of Israel in Gaza and the Trump gang seems determined to make an example of him.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents handcuffed her husband on Saturday in the lobby of their university-owned apartment building in Manhattan. Khalil’s arrest is one of the first efforts by President Donald Trump, a Republican who returned to the White House in January, to fulfill his promise to seek deportation of some foreign students involved in the pro-Palestinian protest movement.
Earlier on Wednesday, Abdalla, a 28-year-old dentist in New York, sat in the front row of a Manhattan courtroom as Khalil’s lawyers argued to a federal judge that he had been arrested in retaliation for his outspoken advocacy against Israel’s military assault on Gaza following the militant group Hamas’ October 2023 attack. They told the judge that was a violation of Khalil’s constitutional free speech rights.
…On Sunday, the Trump administration transferred Khalil from a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement jail in Elizabeth, New Jersey, near Manhattan, to a jail in rural Jena, Louisiana, about 1,200 miles (2,000 km) away.
He was taken away in a scene eerily reminiscent of the behavior of authoritarian regimes in Latin America and in the darkest times in Sri Lanka, with people taken away by unnamed people in unmarked vehicles.
Mahmoud Khalil felt as though he was being kidnapped when he was handcuffed and shackled and rushed from New York to immigration detention in Louisiana last weekend, his lawyers wrote in an updated lawsuit demanding that the Columbia University graduate be released from custody immediately.
The activist has told his lawyers that agents who arrested him at his university housing last Saturday night, in front of his eight-month pregnant wife, never identified themselves.
Video of his detention – released on Friday – showed several plainclothes agents arresting Khalil in what appeared to be a residential building.
In the footage, which was taken by Khalil’s wife, Noor, the agents refused to share their names, speak with the family’s attorney or specify for which agency they worked.
At one point in the video, one of the agents raises his voice to Khalil and repeatedly says: “Turn around, turn around.”
“We have you,” someone can be heard saying in the video. “You’re going to have to come with us.” Khalil is then shown being escorted by the agents across the street and into a car.
As Noor asked for the agents’ names, one asked: “Go back please. Go over there.” Another person can be heard saying: “We don’t give our names.”
The Trump gang seeks to deport Khalil but a judge has temporarily blocked them from doing so.
Columbia University has, of course done nothing on Khalil’s behalf, part of its shameful complicity with the Israel lobby in the US of taking aim at anyone who criticizes Israel’s indefensible actions. But faculty, including Jewish ones, have come out strongly on his behalf.
The resulting uproar over the manner and legitimacy of Khalil’s arrest has been accompanied by accusations from Jewish groups and others that Trump is exploiting justified concerns over antisemitism as cover for a much broader assault on universities, dissent and diversity programmes.
Prof Marianne Hirsch, a member of Columbia Jewish Faculty Group, said that “it should be obvious to everyone that what is happening on this campus, or to this campus, is not about protecting Jews”.
“My committed Jewish faculty colleagues and I have warned that the false characterisation of [Columbia University] as a hotbed of antisemitism would be used as an alibi for what’s actually at stake for the Republican establishment and now the Trump administration: strict control of speech, of protest, and of higher education at large,” she said.
But there are other Jewish groups that are actively working with the Trump gang and its allies in Congress to attack protestors calling for their expulsion, if not from the country, then at least from universities.
Ross Glick, a pro-Israel activist who previously shared a list of campus protesters with federal immigration authorities, said that he was in Washington, D.C., for meetings with members of Congress during the Barnard library demonstration and discussed Khalil with aides to Sens. Ted Cruz and John Fetterman who promised to “escalate” the issue. He said that some members of Columbia’s board had also reported Khalil to officials.
…Glick, the activist who discussed the Khalil case with Senate staffers, was until recently connected to a far-right Jewish group called Betar, which began compiling a list last fall of international students involved in the protests and shared the database with the Trump administration.
…“None of this would have happened if the university’s administration did its one job: enable students to go to class,” said Ari Shrage, a founder of the Columbia Jewish Alumni Association.
The alumni group posted a lengthy thread on X defending the government’s arrest of Khalil, saying it was “exactly exactly what needs to happen to restore order to campuses like Columbia and our country.”
“A green card is a privilege that millions wait years for. So is studying at Columbia,” the group said. “Khalil threw them away. His actions prove he neither respects nor deserves the shot he was given. No one should feel sorry for him.”
Victor Muslin, a Columbia graduate who helps run several groups focused on fighting antisemitism, compared student protesters to cockroaches in WhatsApp messages that leaked in February and March. “Ignoring roaches in one’s house is possible but who wants to live that way?” he said in one message obtained by the Columbia Daily Spectator.
The University of Chicago and other campuses are also capitulating in the Trump gang’s crackdown on Gaza protestors..
The US is but a short step from where it is now to the creation of the infamous ‘death squads’ that existed in so many countries in which opponents of the government are mysteriously ‘disappeared’, taken away in darkness by unknown people wearing ordinary clothing in unmarked vehicles, only to turn up dead some time later.
What would have once seemed unthinkable has become a very real possibility. But other things that just a short while ago would have been deemed unthinkable have happened. With the Trump gang, nothing is unthinkable
This is how authoritarian regimes work. The keep shredding liberties one by one until they are all gone.
We all owe a big “thank you” to the various judges in the last 2 years that demonstrated to Turnip that being held in contempt is no threat.
The point is not lost on me that the people quoted in the last blockquote are using their right of free speech to criticize and dehumanize Khalil by calling him a cockroach for the “crime” of standing up and using his right of free speech to say killing entire populations of people so Jared can sell beachfront condos for billionaires is wrong.
Also, the Palestinians are indeed a Semitic race. So isn’t discriminating against them and slaughtering them en masse *also* antisemitism? The gall of a Caucasian with a European genotype howling against antisemitism while calling for the extinction of an entire race of Semitic people!
I’ve asked this question before, but here goes again: to anyone who isn’t Maga or Maga-adjacent -- just how bad are you going to allow it to get before you start to make plans to move to somewhere safer?
The impression I get here is that most otherwise ostensibly intelligent people will be in the process of being herded into camps before they get the message that this shit is coming for them too.
Thank you Joe Biden for not trying to increase the number of supreme court judges (I know this would be difficult, but Biden and the Democrats did not even try).
Thank you Chuck Shumer for kicking the can down the road. Everybody knows giving away the Sudetenland will prevent future harm.
Than you all the voters who stayed at home.
Thank you establishment Democrats who did as little as possible in the period since 2008.
@sonofrojblake
Where exactly do you suggest we go? It’s certainly possible for some people to get resident or asylum status in other countries, but for a lot of us the first isn’t something we have the resources for and no country, AFAIK, currently accepts the idea that US citizens could legitimately be considered refugees.
And there’s also so many of us. No country has the resources to accept a significant population of the United States as immigrants of any sort. Anyone leaving knows they’re leaving behind millions of people who can’t get out, who will need help, support, and protection. Under the circumstances, leaving may save your own skin, but at the cost of abandoning your fellow citizens.
Katydid, we already were there. Antisemitism is about hating and discriminating against people of *Jewish* ancestry. That’s how it was coined and that’s how it is still being used.
@ anat, sorry, I must have missed that discussion. Now that I’m aware it’s a thing, I find it really offensive that a reality-based term can ONLY be defined narrowly to the benefit of one group. That’s like saying that the only language that can be called a Romance language is Romanian. Italian, the language of the people whose ancestors spoke Latin and have lived in the area ever since, are not *real* Romance language speakers, unlike those oh-so-special Romanians. See how ridiculous that is?
When the USSC gave POTUS effective immunity people talked about how the court had given Trump immunity. But Biden was POTUS at the time. He had time to do something radical -- like order the arrest of the 6 right wing justices -- for the purpose of demonstrating the dangers of allowing anyone -- particularly someone with vast power -- to be above the law.
But no, Biden and the Dems were and mostly still are acting like they are living in our good old rule-of-law America. A drastic change in the battlefield should call for a change of strategy and tactics but no. It is as if Robert E. Lee’s army at Gettysburg pulled out machine guns but General Meade refused to use his stock of RPG’s.
Etymology is not meaning, and arguing against the use of “antisemitism” to specifically mean “hatred of Jews” because they are not the only technically Semitic people is roughly equivalent to arguing that we shouldn’t use “homophobia” to refer to hatred of LGBTQ people because “homo” just means “the same” and anyway it’s not technically a phobia.
The meaning of words is defined by usage, whether you like it or not.
I’m old. I’m not going anywhere. I am busy contemplating when it will be useful to get arrested. I have plenty of examples to lean on of old women using that power.
@3 sonof…
just how bad are you going to allow it to get before you start to make plans to move to somewhere safer?
So it never occurred to you that some people simply can’t emigrate for a variety of reasons, while others believe it is better to stay and fight for what they believe rather than flee? It might turn out to be a lost cause, but it’s our cause and we’ll fight for it, thank you very much.
For what it’s worth, the terms for bigotry directed against Arabs are arabophobia and anti-arabism. In many cases this can be difficult to distinguish from bigotry directed against Muslims, i.e. islamophobia, but there are some clear instances, such as the Zanzibar massacres. I suspect that in Israel arabophobia is more prevalent than islamophobia.
@sonofrojblake
I moved to the US because my then to be spouse wanted to study for her masters here. Back in those days we did have birthright citizenship so both my children are American citizens , identify as Americans and have mainly only known American life -- they dont know any Indian language and I doubt they would do well in the Indian school system (where I’d guess they’d need atleast a couple of years to adjust). They dont think of themselves as Indian or even perhaps Indian origin.
So yes we did consider what next ? India isnt an option due to the children right now (and Im sure I am not the only one)- nor does my practicing Catholic spouse think that moving to a now very much right wing Hindu state is a good idea -- Things were different some decades ago where people mostly didnt resort to acts of violence in the areas we lived in. Now its not the case.
Another English speaking country could have been a possibility but that would mean the immigrant fracas all over again (I avoided evil companies and their over the top benefits which would have let me buy my way) -- its not like Europe is showing signs of becoming a liberal bastion. And the UK ? Well you’ll did think Boris Johnson is a good idea and perhaps you may consider Badenoch/Farage next -- given that Starmer is trying his best to make that happen.
And besides we are in California , so hopefully we may have some time in case anything worse happens.
And also i think , if I wont stay and fight my children , what will I fight for ? The question is what does that “fight” mean though? Im not yet a citizen so there is a risk here.
Not only that, but the long arm of federal taxation will follow you wherever you go. One doesn’t simply “sign on the dotted line” to renounce one’s citizenship. So while you’re kicking back drinking margaritas on a beach in southern Spain or wherever, you will continue to fund the fascist suppression and killing of your less fortunate compatriots back home.
@sonofrojblake
Are you aware of exactly how hard it is for most people to move internationally? It costs a lot of money, and a lot of countries won’t let people with criminal records, disabled people or people with ongoing health complications immigrate.
Telling people they should be leaving is just victim blaming (especially when you consider the demographics of the people who voted for Trump)
Have the courts started writing arrest warrants yet?
canada sure don’t want us, and makes it hard as hell to move there. maybe when tfxnp tells them to tighten border security, he’s actually trying to keep us from escaping…
Just to be clear sonofroj, how many beds exactly are you providing, and where do people send the bill for travel expenses?
#3 sonof
Some people stay because they have no choice, detailed above by many; others with choice do so because they are fighting to improve the place they consider home. Leaving means giving up.
A furious reckoning with the ineffective Democratic leadership.
“The Real Story Behind Trump’s Recent Poll Numbers”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=QvW_kGw5XIE
This guy is channeling my rage, and being more eloquent than I can ever be.
For people who are interested in joining the fight, one place where you are likely to be effective is https://www.teslatakedown.com/
(They organize protests at Tesla showrooms and dealerships, even charging stations. The goal is to bring down the value of Tesla by convincing people the brand is toxic.)
Also, see your local Indivisible chapter. If you live close to a state capital, try 50501
You don’t have to do all things, just find something that works for you.
@5: Where do I suggest you go? Away. Where would you have suggested Jews living in Germany go in 1938? I do feel for those people who lack the resources… but then, take a look at the people bafflingly pouring in through your southern border -- they’re not exactly flush with resources either. Rather the point is, they’re desperate. Are you going to wait until you’re that desperate, or worse? So it seems.
No, not yet. But equally, few countries you might want to migrate to regard you as an actively enemy country… yet. Think about that, because your President has been in power less than two months and already many of your ostensibly closest allies are actively planning for when you lot are not our allies any more. It’ll be harder to persuade them to let you in by that point… and that point, on recent performances, might be later this year. I mean, it sounds ridiculous now, but on this very blog I was ridiculed for warning that Trump might yet be the CANDIDATE, much less th President, and here we all are.
That’s a laudable sentiment. See if your kids thank you when you’re being rounded up.
@7:
The difference is, nobody gives a shit what Romanians think. No major media organisation is owned and run by Romanians. No Romanian is producing or directing multiple major Hollywood movies about Romanian history. Western governments aren’t full of representatives of Romanian origin, have legal professions stuffed with Romanians, or are financed by banks largely run by Romanians. No Romanian owns a global social media network with huge reach. And so on. Give it up. Anti-semitism means what Jews say it means, move on.
@11:
Good for you. The best of luck to you, sincerely. History suggests it will get many, many of you killed, but as you say, that’s your choice. Not a choice I’d make for me or my children, but you do you -- I’d sooner live than take a chance on my fellow citizens turning away from fascism.
@13:
I’m guessing you’ve not spent much time here. I’d rather live in ANY EU country (aside from Hungary) than in ANY US state, even if I were from an ethnic minority. In fact, especially if I were from an ethnic minority. Yes, right wing parties are doing better than they have for a while in some spots, but nobody next to the top of government in any of those countries is going doing Nazi salutes in front of TV cameras.
@14:
All the more reason to detach yourself from the regime asap. What are they going to do, extraordinary rendition? (Don’t joke about it.)
@15:
I’m aware of how hard it was for Jewish people to get the fuck out of Germany in the 30s when they saw the writing on the wall. I’m aware of how hard it was for people living in East Berlin to get the fuck out in the 60s when they saw the wall on the… wall. I’m not saying it’s easy. But people do it when the alternative is living under dictatorship. All these comments just answer my question of “what will it take?” with “more than this”. But if I were you I’d be asking right now where you’d draw the line, and think about whether when you reach that line it will already be too late, like it was for a lot of Jews in Germany in 1939…
@18: Leaving means giving up, fair enough. But there comes a point where not giving up -- laudable as it may be -- might literally kill you. And if you’re up for that, as I said -- good for you. But really, people with any sense of self-preservatin ought at this point to AT LEAST be making plans. Nobody here seems to be even on the page of thinking about it, which just baffles me. How much worse does it have to get before you start to consider it? Is the good old US of A really worth fighting to the death for, when it’s other USAians you’ll be fighting (and losing to, let’s face it -- they’ve got ALL the guns).
@anat:
With regards to Tesla brand being toxic, I saw an EV ad just this weekend here in Canada that didn’t mention Tesla by name, but included:
So it was pretty obvious who they were targeting as their main opponent.
We who grew up believing in the ‘rule of law’ accord a special status to the law. We tend to obey it. The fascists and oligarchs simply believe in power. If you have the power to ignore the law, good on you.
The rule of law has always been about everyone with power playing by the rules. What we need to do to beat these thugs is use whatever power we have to fight back.
Israel just assassinated 400 more children and women in the Gaza strip about an hour ago against the peace treaty that they agreed to. But remember kids, it’s Israel who is the victim here! Because they say they are! And it’s totally okay to call Palestinians cockroaches, because it follows that it’s totally okay to violate the peace treaty and genocide them. Just like in Rwanda when a Hutu leader referred to the Tutsis as cockroaches!
Oh, wait, the USA deplores the later, shrugs at the former. Because no matter what atrocities it commits, Israel is always the victim. I’m sure those slaughtered babies were no doubt planning to…I dunno, but Israel had to act!
@sonofrojblake @13
2 years in England (London was fine , the rest not so much -- everyone thought Scotland and Wales were better in general , people wise -- no Info about Ireland) -- but I suppose you are located in the US , hmm -- or are you, like me, commenting about places you don’t actually live in ?
So Gioriga Meloni- meh -- Marine Le Pen- shrug, Geert Wilders -- , Tommy Robinson -- bah! But a Nazi salute by Musk ? Pack your bags!
I do not recollect, except for a brief period after Jan 6th when anyone on this blog thought that Trump was done and dusted.
@Deepak Shetty, 25:
You’re confused. I didn’t post@13, that was you. I posted @21 replying to your #13. Onwards.
You referred to Europe, and I said I guessed you hadn’t spent much time here, and you suppose I’m located in the US? Can you explain how that logic works, because I don’t get it? I would have thought it obvious that when I say “here”, I mean Europe.
What do you mean OR? If I were in the US, then I’d be in the US AND, like you, commenting on somewhere you don’t live.
Whereas in the real world, I am (I’d have thought obviously, given my phrasing), in Europe, where I live, AND, unlike you, commenting on somewhere where I do live and have always lived.
My next observation was that nobody adjacent to the top of government in Europe is going doing Nazi salutes on TV.
Your idea of a response is to list three politicians who’ve not done Nazi salutes on TV, or as far as I can tell even anywhere near a camera. Try it -- google each of their names and the words “Nazi salute”, and see what you get. Answer: not much, even though the press would dive on that kind of content like a flock of vultures.
Now google the name of the head of the United States Department of Government Efficiency, a man who has been repeatedly seen in the Oval Office since the inauguration and whom many have referred to as the real President, and the words “Nazi salute”…. if you need to bother. If you honestly think any of those odious (but elected) individuals is in any way as dangerous to the world as Phony Stark, you don’t seem to be paying any attention.
As for invoking the name of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, I’m frankly baffled what sort of point you’re trying to make. Yes, there are nasty right-wing arseholes in the UK. The difference between the US and the UK is that in the US the nasty right-wing arseholes are in charge, and in the UK the one you decided to use as an example has BEEN charged, found guilty, and is literally at this moment IN PRISON. See the difference?
Oh, well, if you don’t recollect it, it can’t have happened, eh?
The trivialising of Trump goes way back. Try here, from November 2015:
https://proxy.freethought.online/singham/2015/11/16/the-danger-of-negative-strategizing/
And specifically this quote:
Or this comment from someone called Nick Gotts, 2016: https://proxy.freethought.online/singham/2016/03/10/the-dump-trump-movement-tries-again-for-possibly-the-last-time/#comment-4331815
Or this:
https://proxy.freethought.online/singham/2016/10/10/reflections-on-the-second-presidential-debate-trump-swings-and-misses/
Which opens thus:
I could of course go on, but I don’t think I need to. You may wish to delude yourself that everyone here has always taken the threat of Trump seriously, but unfortunately the readily-searchable evidence of reality doesn’t back you up.
…
And that’s my three. Ta-ta.
@sonofrojblake @26
Risking my third, though its just spelling out the sarcasm.
You located somewhere in the UK , are commenting about how people , in the US , are not so smart , because we are going to wait till we are lined up to be moved into the concentration camps before we decide to move from the US i.e. you located in some other country are able to deduce the state of affairs in the US by carefully evaluating various media and other reports (even though I already told you this option was considered)
I on the other hand , located in the US , cannot note the rightward shift in Europe too , because I haven’t spent much time there , right?
You think that a non elected billionaire , who has bought Trump , who currently the majority hates , can make a nazi salute on TV and thats a serious problem (What really do you expect people to do here? ). So serious that it is worse than Italy electing Giorgia Meloni , as the prime minister of Italy , erstwhile leader of “brothers of Italy” which has been described as a neo/post fascist party ? Somehow she is not in power ? i.e. effectively you think a Government adjacent figure has more weight than the actual government so long as the actual government doesnt perform literal salutes.
The rest of your notes are 2015 -- i thought we were discussing 2021-2024 i.e. the second coming.
For my third post:
@Katydid @7, another stewart @12, sonofrojblake @21:
Look, we could have had just one word, bigotry, for all the forms of hatred against all ‘others’, and saved many pages of dictionaries. But there are reasons to differentiate the various forms of bigotry, and the categories are usually determined by academics who study them. If you think different bigotries need to be classified as a single category you need to show how such reclassification is helpful to understanding rather than to point-scoring. I agree with another stewart that hatred of Arabs/people of Arabic origin is a meaningful category, that it is different from (though obviously overlapping with) Islamophobia, and correctly describes the animus and behavior of quite a lot of Israelis. (IOW they don’t care whether an Arabic person is Christian or Muslim; there is likely to be hesitation whether to include Druze people in the same group though.)
Katydid @24: Unfortunately there wasn’t a peace treaty between Israel and the people of Gaza, or the Hamas organization. There was a short-term cease fire that was originally supposed to expire on March 1st, and the fact that it lasted 2 weeks + beyond that is a (very) small miracle. The reasons for the timing of the current attack is simple: Netanyahu needed the support of the 2 more extremist right wing parties for today’s budget vote. One of the 2 parties left his coalition when the cease fire was agreed on, the second was threatening to bolt now. Meanwhile one of the Haredi parties (extremists in the religious sense, less so in the nationalistic sense) was threatening to vote against the budget if the government did not stop the attempts to recruit Haredi men to the military. If the budget fails to pass by the legal deadline (sorry, I don’t know the exact date) the government falls and elections need to take place in 3 months. By securing the support of the 2 most extremist nationalistic parties Netanyahu also defused the threat from the religious extremists. So there it is: The people of Gaza are dying for the sake of Netanyahu’s politics. (Other stuff BN is working on is preventing the establishment of an official committee of inquiry to investigate the events leading up to the war.)
sonofrojblake @21: As I said before, just going ‘out’ did not help many of Germany’s Jews in the 1930s -- plenty of them found themselves under German occupation anyway. Similarly, the comparison to people migrating to the US, often illegally or otherwise against the wishes of the current administration, doesn’t make your point so well. After all, many of them are sent back (or somewhere else) in short order, others live precariously until they are found and sent away. Neither option solves their individual problems, rather, the problems get worse.
Evidently, you did indeed miss it. What anat said @6 is historical and contemporary fact. If not actually coined (in the early 19th centurty) by antisemites, the term was quickly adopted by them, and what they meant was that they hated Jews and believed the various hostile stereotypes about them. And no, the Palestinians are not “a Semitic race”, and neither are the Jews. That’s because “Semitic race” itself is a term from 19th century racist pseudoscience. Modern academically respectable ethnology (but not of course modern racist pseudoscience) uses the term “Semitic” only for languages, and sometimes for ancient populations speaking those languages, not for modern populations. Hence, it’s best always to use the term “antisemitism” in that form, without a hyphen, as the latter suggests there are “Semites” to be anti. Anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism are of course as real as antisemitism, and it’s best to refer to them by those specific terms. The latter could be referred to as anti-Jewish racism, but “antisemitism” as a term has its own history which should not be forgotten, and antisemitism has (like other kinds of racism) its own particular “flavour”, the key belief being that in the “Jewish conspiracy”, by which, for example, Trotsky and the Rothschilds were alleged to be in league.