And that's now Trump's America:
[L]ate last week, immigration agents arrested a Lebanese doctor on a legal visa, despite a court order temporarily blocking her immediate removal. That followed the detention of German tourists, a former Columbia University graduate student with a green card and multiple immigrants who are married to U.S. citizens or have long lived in the United States.
And even as the administration targeted a group of Venezuelans this weekend who officials said are affiliated with the Tren de Aragua gang, they used an archaic, war-time law to round them up and then seemingly ignored a judge’s order to halt deportation flights.
The Lebanese doctor was legally in the country and working at Brown University. The Columbia graduate student was a legal perminent resident of the United States, entitled to his First Amendment rights, yet was seized by federal agents because of his lawful political speech and whisked away to a jurisdiction less likely to free him.
These are the actions of a lawless would-be tyrant. And just as the dragnet has expanded from criminals in the country illegally to professionals and students in the country legally, it will expand, before we're done, to citizens who exercise their constitutional rights. How far it will go in that direction will depend on many factors, including the courts, the Democrats, the remaining Republicans committed to the rule of law, and state authorities in the civilized states.
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