The ruling comes in a case brought by academic associations seeking to block the Trump administration’s policy of targeting and arresting noncitizens protesting Israel’s actions in Gaza. Judge [William G.] Young’s decision makes it absolutely clear that the First Amendment rights of students like Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk were violated when federal agents detained them and sent them to faraway immigration detention centers.
[...]
It was revealed that the Trump administration was relying on information from shadowy websites like Canary Mission to determine who to target.
The judge wrote that a hearing on how the government can remedy its unconstitutional conduct will be scheduled “promptly.”
But what sets the ruling apart is its mix of unapologetic evisceration of Trump and admiration for the rights he has trampled on.
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Young, who is 85 years old and was appointed to the bench four decades ago, begins by quoting a postcard he received on June 19 that reads: “TRUMP HAS PARDONS AND TANKS …. WHAT DO YOU HAVE?” Young replies in the ruling:
Dear Mr. or Ms. Anonymous,
Alone, I have nothing but my sense of duty. Together, We the People of the United States—you and me—have our magnificent Constitution. Here’s how that works out in a specific case—
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Young writes, the president has violated his “sacred oath” to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” That Trump is “for all practical purposes, totally immune from any consequences for this conduct,” Young adds, citing the Supreme Court’s 2024 immunity decision, “does not relieve this Court of its duty to find the facts.”
Despite the meaningless but effective “worst of the worst” rhetoric, however, ICE has nothing whatever to do with criminal law enforcement and seeks to avoid the actual criminal courts at all costs. It is carrying a civil law mandate passed by our Congress and pressed to its furthest reach by the President. Even so, it drapes itself in the public’s understanding of the criminal law though its “warrants” are but unreviewed orders from an ICE superior and its “immigration courts” are not true courts at all but hearings before officers who cannot challenge the legal interpretations they are given. Under the unitary President theory they must speak with his voice. The People’s presence as jurors is unthinkable.
Young is particularly disturbed by ICE agents’ use of masks [...] calling the government’s defense of the practice “disingenuous, squalid and dishonorable.” [...]
To us, masks are associated with cowardly desperados and the despised Ku Klux Klan. In all our history we have never tolerated an armed masked secret police.
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The final pages of the decision are as unorthodox as its first. They begin with a quote about how “[Trump] seems to be winning. He ignores everything and keeps bullying ahead.” The line, Young explains, comes from a “very wise woman.” Specifically, his wife.
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“The Constitution, our civil laws, regulations, mores, customs, practices, courtesies—all of it; the President simply ignores it all when he takes it into his head to act.”
Young wraps up by quoting Reagan’s lines about how freedom is a “fragile thing” that is “never more than one generation away from extinction,” and that, as a result, it must be “fought for and defended constantly.”
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I fear President Trump believes the American people are so divided that today they will not stand up, fight for, and defend our most precious constitutional values so long as they are lulled into thinking their own personal interests are not affected.
Is he correct?
Mother Jones+
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