Trump Calls For Judge’s Impeachment as Courtroom Battles Over Deportations Escalate
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From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Scott Schaefer in for Alexis Madrigal. As the Trump administration tests the limits of its power around immigration and deportation, they're getting pushback from civil libertarians, legal scholars and judges, including Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.

The president used a law from 1798, the Alien Enemies Act, to deport men accused of being in a Venezuelan prison gang. A federal judge ordered the deportation to stop. Now the judge wants to know why his order was ignored.

That, plus the attempt to deport a Columbia University student who participated in pro-Palestinian protests, even though he was a legal resident with a green card, is testing the boundaries of presidential authority. We'll examine the issues next on Forum after this news. Good morning and welcome to Forum. I'm Scott Schaefer in today for Alexis Madrigal. And this hour, the legal fight over President Trump's efforts to test the limits of power over issues of immigration and deportation.

This morning, the Trump administration faced a deadline from a federal judge who's trying to determine if the administration ignored his order to stop the deportation of hundreds of men, allegedly members of a Venezuelan prison gang. Meanwhile, attorneys for Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil are trying to stop his expulsion from the country after the Trump administration revoked his green card, which gave him permanent resident status.

Many of these issues are likely to wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court as Trump tries to flex his political muscle, even as courts rule against him. Joining me this hour, Ted Hessen. He's an immigration reporter for Reuters. And Deep Gula Sakram. He is professor of law and director of the Byron White Center for the Study of Constitutional Law at the University of Colorado Boulder Law School, where he teaches constitutional and immigration law. Welcome to both of you.

Thank you for having me. Deep, let me begin with you. Let's just to set the table here, this law that the Trump administration is using, the Alien Enemies Act, to deport these men who are allegedly in the country illegally, also members of this Tren de Aragua gang. What is the law? How has it been used in the past? Yeah, thank you for having me. So this is a 1798 law.

This was passed at the same time, same month as the Alien and Sedition Acts, which many people who went to school in the United States would have studied in some government class in high school. And the law says whenever there is a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation,

or any invasion or predatory incursion is attempted by a foreign nation or government, it gives the president powers to, among other things, remove those alien enemies. And so this is the law that the president is purporting to use against these alleged gang members. It's a law that has been used in the War of 1812.

Again, in World War I and then again in World War II, all of them declared wars against foreign nations and governments. And so this is a use of the law that it has never been used in this way, nor is there currently any invasion by a foreign government. And just to be clear, the use of that in World War II led to the internment, right, of Japanese, I guess some Italian and some Germans who were in the country?

Yeah, to the extent there was the removal of people who are non-citizens of the United States or their detention, this law would have been invoked. Just to be clear, Japanese internment was mostly of Japanese United States citizens. Of the 110,000 people incarcerated of Japanese descent during World War II, 70,000 of them were United States citizens.

would not have been applied to that particular situation. But yes, you're right. In situations where German nationals were held, for example, it would have been underneath this authority. So in this case, these men who have been now deported to El Salvador against the judge's orders, what were they accused of doing and what evidence was there?

Right? I think this is the real underlying concern in this case and frankly should be a concern to everybody in the United States, citizens and non-citizens alike, or anybody who simply believes that the Constitution guarantees due process. Essentially, what the president and his Department of Homeland Security decided was that the

These individuals were members of this gang, Trendi Aragua, and this gang was pursuant to this statute, the equivalent of an invasion by a foreign nation or government, and then had them deported. There are, of course, at least two problems with that. One, the administration has presented no evidence that in fact,

fact these individuals were members of this organization. And two, it's not clear why this law would apply, this Alien Enemies Act, because it's not clear that Trendyaragua is a representative of a foreign nation or government. Those are the types of things that you have courts to determine.

And what the federal administration has done is to essentially bypass all courts and decided that they themselves are both the enforcer and the adjudicator. So, Ted, I want to bring you in in a moment. But, Deep, just one more question here. This is obviously a test case. The administration sees this as a test. What exactly do you think they're trying to what boundary are they pushing against?

Yeah, this is boundaries of constitutional norms that have existed in the United States for 225 years. The idea that the executive can make their case for enforcement, but ultimately it is the courts of the United States that make the decision whether the executive has actually presented sufficient evidence to carry out whatever enforcement action the executive wants. And it's worth pointing out that even during the war on terror post 9/11,

Federal courts, including the Supreme Court, stepped in to say it's not enough that the executive, even the Department of Defense, decide or say that somebody is an alien enemy combatant and hold them at Guantanamo Bay. Even in those situations, the court in a number of cases said you have to have a tribunal, you have to have some process by which people can contest the government's claim that they are enemy alien combatants.

And Ted Hessen from Reuters, there was a deadline set this morning by this federal judge for the administration to respond to some of the questions. What happened?

Well, what I saw just about 10 minutes ago is that there was a court filing from the judge saying that he's given the administration another day to produce basically details about several flights that left the U.S. bound for El Salvador carrying Venezuelans, Venezuelan immigrants who had been detained.

deported under this authority. And this all stems back to Saturday, which is when the White House rolled out this proclamation. Shortly after, the judge issued a temporary restraining order saying that the policy should be frozen for 14 days, at least, while he considers whether it could potentially be put on hold for longer. And what we realized after that is that

two planes were already in the air at the time of the order and that essentially the Trump administration made the argument after the fact that those planes didn't need to be turned around because, well, one, the judge's written order did not appear on the docket until somewhat later after he made it orally at a hearing. And then also because they had left U.S. airspace. So now this judge is pressing that issue. It's kind of a secondary issue to the actual

law itself and whether the use of the law here is legal. And the question is, when he issued this temporary restraining order saying no one should be deported under this law, did the Trump administration abide by that?

Is it my imagination or are some of these orders and not just around immigration and deportation, but several of these executive orders are happening late on a Friday? You mentioned Saturday. I mean, times when courts are not usually in session or when maybe people aren't paying as close of attention as they might be during the week. I mean.

Some of that is happening. I mean, it's been a very busy time just generally for this administration and specifically on the issue of immigration. So to be honest, we've seen policy changes, you know, on various days of the week. I think, you know, I can't speak to why this one was rolled out on a Saturday. There could even be an argument that potentially it would get more attention because there's fewer things in the news on a day like that.

And what we saw afterwards, you know, along the lines of that is that with this, as I mentioned, these were Venezuelans and they were sent to El Salvador. And that in itself was novel and not something that had been regularly happening. I mean, the Trump administration has been trying to send migrants to third countries in the region. So, for instance, if they're Venezuelan and it's difficult to remove them to Venezuela because of COVID,

the frosty relations with the US and Venezuelan government. They could be sent to other countries

countries in the region. So that in itself was novel. And what we noticed on Sunday morning was that Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced this, and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele also announced it. So I don't know if we could say that there was a desire for less attention. I think, if anything, they were promoting it heavily on Sunday morning. And just to be clear, these men are accused of being in a Venezuelan prison gang. Were any of them

in prison? Had they been convicted of any crimes? I mean, what was their status when they were, you know, rounded up and deported? So in this case, initially, there was very little information about the people who have been deported, and there still isn't very much information. But that said, in a court filing this week, an official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, said that many of the people deported did not have

criminal convictions in the U.S. And some of them did have convictions in other countries, including Venezuela. But this official was conceding that they didn't necessarily have a criminal basis. But that being said, the official said that ICE does have a process to identify alleged members of this gang, Tren de Aragua, and that they followed this process.

In the same declaration, this official also said that there were about 250 other alleged members of the gang that ICE had identified as police.

possibly being subject to deportation. So it gives you a sense of just the number of people that may be on their radar through the process that they're using. And Deep, the administration in some ways seems to be thumbing its nose at the judge. And I'm not sure what your definition of a constitutional crisis is, but does this moment seem to qualify?

Well, I think that if you ask commentators about this, the idea of a constitutional crisis is most clearly defined as the point at which

one of the coordinate branches, in this case the executive, is willing to openly defy a court order. And at that point, there is a constitutional crisis. As the reporter was just saying, in this case, there is still some murkiness as to whether the administration had removed the individuals already by the time the court order was issued.

But that is, in a sense, that's sort of a technical side concern here because the statements of the president and his designates like Tom Homan within the Department of Homeland Security are very much the type of statements that

precipitate or are indicative of a constitutional crisis. Their claim is that they don't have to respect the rulings of a federal court and that they have an authority that derives from the simple fact that they were elected as the president of the United States. And that claim, that the president has authority, ultimate authority, even over the actions of a coordinate branch of the government,

And we should say that this judge, James Boasberg, I think I'm saying that correctly, was appointed by President Obama. He was confirmed by something like 96 to 0 in the Senate. I think Marco Rubio, who was in the Senate at the time, supported that confirmation. And this is the judge who Trump called on social media to be impeached.

impeached. We'll get into that after the break. We're going to continue talking about the legal battles over President Trump's recent immigration actions with our guests, and we would love to hear from you. Give us a call at 866-733-6786. Again, 866-733-6786. You can also email your comments to forum at kqed.org, or you'll find us on social media, Blue Sky, Instagram. We're at KQED Forum, or you can join our Discord community as well. More to come.

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And welcome back to Forum. I'm Scott Schaefer here this hour for Alexis Madrigal. We're talking about the legal battles over President Trump's recent immigration actions with Ted Hessen, immigration reporter for Reuters, and Deep Gulasekram, professor of law and director of the Byron White Center for the Study of Constitutional Law at the University of Colorado Boulder Law School.

What questions do you have about the Trump administration's immigration policies? What do you think of the Trump immigration actions and how has it affected your community? Give us a call at 866-733-6786. Again, it's 866-733-6786. You can also email your comments and questions.

If you prefer to forum at KQED.org or find us on social media, Blue Sky, Instagram, we're at KQED Forum. And of course, you can always join our Discord community as well. Deep, just before the break, I mentioned that President Trump had on social media called for the impeachment of this judge who was asking all these questions about the deportation

of these alleged gang members. What do you think is the significance of what he said? And also the response from Chief Justice John Roberts, who doesn't often step out into the political sphere as he did yesterday, or maybe it was the day before in response to what Trump said. So I think this relates to the question we were talking about before as to whether this is a constitutional crisis.

It is highly unusual and certainly not in accord with the 200 plus years of practice in the United States for presidents to engage in that sort of ad hominem attack against a federal judge.

who's simply doing their job. It's very clear the president does not like the response he got from this particular judge, but that's nothing new. Federal judges for the entirety of the existence of the United States have sometimes issued opinions that the executive has disagreed with,

And as Chief Justice Roberts points out, the real recourse for the administration is to appeal and to press their case and to make a legal case to the appeals court and then perhaps to the Supreme Court. My sense is that I think these ad hominem attacks by the president and his designates

are really indicative of the weakness of their actual legal case. And therefore, this is an attempt to discredit and delegitimize the federal judicial process rather than actually engage as part of that process. And what do you make of the chief justice's comments? I mean, does it he did something similar. I think it was in 2017 when Trump referred to Obama judges and he said there are no Obama judges or Bush judges. There's just judges.

Yeah, I mean, first of all, I should point out, as you correctly pointed out, this current judge, Judge Boasberg, was appointed to the federal bench by President Obama. He was actually appointed to a D.C. Superior Court bench by Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, so had Republican support as well at that time. You know, I think that this is obviously a very rare thing for the Chief Justice to do, but it's rare in general because presidents in general don't

Do not act in this way. And so these sorts of extraordinary times call for extraordinary responses. And that's what you saw with with Justice Chief Justice Roberts. He didn't actually say anything that dramatic. He simply described what is the general constitutional process prescribed by Congress and statutes for how cases get through the federal judicial system. Is that do you interpret that as kind of a brushback pitch?

As somebody who said he only calls balls and strikes as the umpire, as I recall, when he was being confirmed. Well, I think it's just a reminder to the president that the federal government, as set up by the Constitution of the United States 235 years ago, sets up three co-equal branches of government, and that the entire purpose of the Constitution was to not have a king. And I think that really is the subtext here, and that the

executive is allowed to press their case for enforcement forcefully, robustly in front of courts, but ultimately it is the judicial department's responsibility to make determinations as to whether the executive has met their burden underneath federal statutes and the Constitution.

I do want to go to the phones in just a moment, but I also want to, Ted Hessen, bring in, remind everybody about this other, one of the other big cases, which is the one involving Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University grad student who has been threatened with deportation over his role in campus protests at Columbia. Remind us who he is. And there was a judge's action this morning ordering him brought back to, I think, New Jersey from Louisiana, where he was taken.

That's right. He is a pro-Palestinian activist and also a Columbia University student who was arrested earlier this month by U.S. immigration authorities. And it's really become a case where the idea of free speech and what he was entitled to do under his immigration status is being questioned. He was a green card holder. He had entered the country in 2022 on a student visa, but last year obtained a green card, which

historically has been viewed as a very secure immigration status. When we looked at the document that we obtained, his notice to appear in immigration court that spelled out the grounds that they were arresting him for, it really stemmed from a novel use of a 1952 immigration law that allowed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to essentially say that he posed a

potential threat or was believed to be a threat to US foreign interests.

And whether that will hold up in court remains to be seen. There'll be obviously litigation is ongoing over that. But it's just another example where the Trump administration is digging out these old statutes that have not been used in a modern context and seeing how they could be applied to what is an aggressive immigration agenda. We should also say that in addition to being a green card holder, he's married to an American woman who I think is eight months pregnant. Do you know if they've been able to even talk?

I'm not sure about that. I know that the issue in the case was that she wasn't able to visit him. He's currently being held in an ICE detention center in Louisiana, and because she was eight months pregnant, was not able to go there and visit. So I know that that was part of the legal rationale to move his case back to the area, and it will be moved to New Jersey, as you mentioned. Okay. Let's go to the phones. Again, the number, if you want to join us, 866-733-6786.

And let's go to Robert in Redwood City. Welcome.

Yes, good morning. Is there any credibility to that the U.S. is paying El Salvador something like $20 million to take these men? Ted Huston, have you heard anything about why El Salvador had the incentive to do this? There have been news reports, credible news reports, about the U.S. paying them to house up to 300 migrants who were sent there. And we do know that Secretary of State Rubio went to El Salvador once Trump took office and met with

Salvador and President Nayib Bukele, and they came out saying that they had an agreement on deportations. And in fact, El Salvador's President Bukele said that he would take any criminal migrant into his jails, you know, and really boasted about them. And he also even said he would take U.S. citizens if the U.S. would like to send them.

So we know that they were very open to the idea of taking immigration detainees. And it was expected at some point that they were going to kick off something like this. Any significance in particular to El Salvador? And I'm thinking back to after 9-11 when there were some alleged terrorists rounded up in the Middle East and sent to Egypt for questioning, which, of course, 9-11.

Not exactly a democracy. There was not a lot of transparency. Do we have a similar situation now with El Salvador? Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, once immigrants are leaving the U.S., they're no longer entitled to those same protections they have while they're here. And I think what we saw, for instance, as they were brought to the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay a few weeks ago, I mean, that's another similar initiative by the Trump administration where they were brought

bringing plane loads of migrants starting with Venezuelans and then other nationalities to Guantanamo Bay and holding them there in what the American Civil Liberties Union said was an incommunicado state where they just couldn't reach lawyers and weren't able to contact anyone. Eventually they did get in touch with the ACLU and

At least at least I was aware of the migrants have been moved out of Guantanamo. But certainly there's an effort to move them outside of the sphere of the sphere of the U.S. And as I mentioned before, for nations that national whose nationals are harder to deport, there's also an effort to find countries who might take them. And El Salvador appears to be one of them. All right, Robert, thanks so much for that. Let's go now to Berkeley and Liz. Welcome. Hi.

Hi, thanks for covering this. I just wanted to share that as an attorney for Palestine Legal, I authored a report 10 years ago with the Center for Constitutional Rights, who are Mahmoud Khalil's attorneys now, and it's called The Palestine Exception to Free Speech.

And yes, 10 years ago, we documented just systematic erosion of First Amendment protections, violations everywhere targeting political dissent on Palestine. So violations perpetrated by universities, courts, federal agencies. Yes, it was already systematic 10 years ago, teeing up the constitutional crisis that we face now. So yes, you know, Palestine is a canary in the coal mine, obviously.

For listeners concerned about the rule of law, it's really important to see if they take you in the morning, right?

They will be coming for us that night, James Baldwin quote. We know Mahmoud Khalil is a political prisoner. He released a statement from prison saying as much yesterday. And essentially for decades, beginning with under the Clinton administration, enforced by the Obama administration, the creation of laws to criminalize specifically Palestinians,

Fighting for their survival is what has teed up this constitutional crisis now. Yeah, Liz, thanks for that. Deep, you know, I don't want to get too dramatic about this, and there have been a lot of comparisons made with what happened in Nazi Germany in the 30s. But I wonder if there isn't a better analogy, which is what happened here in the late 40s and 50s and even the 60s with McCarthyism.

Yeah, I think that's a relevant comparative point where you have people within the federal administration, federal government, I should say, including McCarthy, people in the FBI, in the Attorney General's office, who are essentially engaging in enforcement against

a whole host of people, including United States citizens, based on ideological difference. That is an attempt to tamp down on political dissent, political viewpoints that a majority or maybe a significant portion of the federal government did not agree with. And that's exactly, I think, what's happening again. So I think that comparison that you just made is quite apt. The speech that Mahmoud Khalil engaged in

certainly might be the type of speech that the administration disagrees with, but this is core, very core protected political speech. It is the exact type of speech that the First Amendment was placed into the Constitution to protect and has been one of our hallowed protections for the time that the United States has existed.

In the 1950s, in response to some of these tamp downs and a sort of a hegemony with regards to how people should act, the United States Supreme Court said in a very famous case that no official, high or petty, meaning in this case the president or a lower level official, gets to determine what orthodoxy there is in opinion in the United States. Unfortunately, that's exactly what the administration is doing right now.

Liz, thanks so much for that call. We've got a lot of listener comments as well, including one who writes, how do we know that all of the deported people were gang members? They could have shaved all their heads for the photo. Ted Hessen, I think we said earlier that there's really very little information about these guys. There was no due process. There was no hearing before they were taken, right?

That's right. And we don't necessarily know. I mean, we have the government's word that they view these people as alleged gang members, but they're not presenting evidence that proves that. And that's fairly typical in the immigration context that people may be labeled that way publicly, but there might not be a criminal charge underlying it. And as I mentioned in this court

court filing, it actually conceded that many of them did not have criminal charges in the U.S. And as for the shaved heads, I mean, what we viewed on a video that was shared by El Salvador's president on Sunday morning actually showed heads being shaved as they came into the facility. So, I mean, that seems like it's a standard protocol there and, you know, kind of maybe gives them the look that they have now. But it's a uniform practice that seems to be applied to all the detainees there.

Another question from Leslie and Deep, I'll put this one to you. Can your guests explain what, if any, is the recourse and when the administration defies the courts? What is the recourse?

It's a great question. It's one that my students asked me in my constitutional law class just yesterday. And the real answer is we don't know, and partly because our system is partly based, our constitutional system is partly based on good faith actions by members of the coordinate branches of government, all of whom have sworn an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States.

and those constitutional norms have included respect for the rulings of federal judges. So in one sense, the answer to your question is we have avoided having to answer these hard questions because there's been, for the most part, compliance with federal court orders. Certainly there have been times in American history where there's been tension. Andrew Jackson, for example,

in ordering aspects of tribes to do certain things and to leave their native lands was initially opposed by the Supreme Court setting up what was then a constitutional crisis. Eventually, the Supreme Court, perhaps not in its finest hour, came back to...

facilitate and acquiesce to some of Andrew Jackson's needs and wants. At other times, there have been disputes between the president and Congress. Generally, those have not risen to this high-pitched, high-stakes battle because Congress often has ways of retaliating or returning fire against the president, for example, by not funding the president's agenda. But this sort of place where we're headed now is, in modern times,

and I think quite dangerous. Yeah. All right, let's go back to the phones now, and we'll stay in the East Bay. Antonio and Concord, welcome. Thank you.

Good morning. Thank you for having me, and thank you for covering this topic. I run a small construction company out of the East Bay, and since Trump took office, there's been multiple days, if not weeks, where some of my employees who are from the San Jose area have witnessed either family members or friends getting detained and deported and have physically refused to physically leave their homes.

uh... to come to work and as at its peak i think the the worst that we've seen it uh... we had a gentleman step on a nail which is a very unfortunately common thing in the construction industry and i had to beg and plead with him just to take him to the hospital because he was so scared that you know the police at the hospital we're going to detain him uh... and keep in mind that these are all people that have citizenship uh... you know we're we're with their employees of the company they're not

But the fear remains nonetheless. And I think that, you know, for a president that's saying, I want to get people back to work, he's had a significant impact on the industry that I work in. And it's quite toxic and it's terrifying for them and it's palpable for us as business owners. And I think that's something they really need to start considering is

fear is quite toxic in this industry and it spreads very quickly. And Antonio, I'm not looking to get you or anybody else in trouble, but what is their immigration status? Are they afraid just because they don't know what's going to happen if they go to the hospital or to a clinic? What is the basis of their fear? I mean, it seems obvious, but

you know, what would you say? All of them at least have their green cards. Most of them are actual citizens, but they've heard stories and I, you know, I can't confirm if they are or not true that even people who have been, you know, I think the expression is naturalized or whatever, you know, they call it with,

you finish your green card process and become a citizen of the United States, they're afraid that, you know, either their criminal history, some of them do have light criminal history, nothing violent, you know, or if they have an outstanding, have an employee who had a bench warrant for a speeding ticket,

And he was scared that that was going to get him deported. So I think it's all quite, you know, it's things that I think that, you know, you and I would just go pay the fine and deal with the ticket. But for people from South America and Mexico that are in my employee, they are terrified. They don't want to be in any sort of office that will have a government official in it.

They don't want to be at a hospital that could have potentially a police officer in it. And it's just, it's heartbreaking. Yeah, and very understandable as well, given what's been happening. Antonio, thank you so much for sharing that with us.

We're going to continue this conversation about Trump, the Trump administration's actions around immigration and deportation. Please give us a call. We'd love to hear from you. 866-733-6786 is the number. Again, 866-733-6786. Or you can email your comments and questions to forum at kqed.org or find us on social media, Blue Sky, Instagram. We're at KQED Forum. Of course, you can also join our Discord community as well.

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LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. And welcome back to our conversation. I'm Scott Schaefer here this hour for Alexis Madrigal. We're talking, of course, about legal battles over President Trump's recent immigration actions with Ted Hessen, immigration reporter for Reuters, and Deep Gulasekram, professor of law and director of

the Byron White Center for the Study of Constitutional Law at the University of Colorado Boulder Law School. We'd love to hear from you. Any questions or comments that you have about what the Trump administration is doing around immigration and how they've affected your community. We just heard from Antonio over in Concord about how it's affecting his company. Give us a call at 866-733-6786. Again, 866-733-6786.

Or you can email your comments and questions to forum at kqed.org or find us on social media, Blue Sky, Instagram, and so on. We're at

We've got some more listener comments here. This one listener writes, use the correct term for deportations to El Salvador. It's rendition or extraordinary rendition. Trump is doing this in order to instill fear and terror in the population at large of what can happen if they run afoul of this policy.

his thin skin? And what, if anything, do we know about the conditions in that prison? How do we know people aren't being tortured there? What is the oversight and accountability? Ted Heston, you alluded to some of these things earlier. What are you and some of your colleagues, do you have colleagues at Reuters down in Central America trying to get answers to questions like that?

We do. And at the moment, we don't have answers to many of those questions. We know that the men who were sent there, according to El Salvador's president, will be held for one year, but that could be renewed. But we're not aware that they're facing any charges in El Salvador. And I believe I mentioned this before, or they may not have convinced

convictions or charges in the US either. So we don't necessarily know what the conditions look like. What we know is this particular prison is a 40,000 person prison and it was opened under Nayib Bukele and really held up as something that alleged gang members should be afraid of. It was part of his pledge to really crack down on gangs in his country, MS-13 in particular, but also other violent gangs.

And, you know, it's a sprawling facility. When you Google it, it's known as, in English at least, as a terrorism confinement center. And you'll see that it just has cells at times that have many people inside them and is, you

is, you know, feared not just in his country, but I think internationally. And Ted, is it fair to say that it's not a coincidence that these particular folks, these men accused of being gang members were targeted? They're not particularly sympathetic, as say, you know, Khalil is over at Columbia University, Mahmoud Khalil.

Is there a political strategy here, do you think, in that Democrats and civil libertarians and others are kind of in the position of defending people who may not be that sympathetic?

I think that's right. And I mean, but one thing you do hear and I've heard in court, the ACLU has said, well, first of all, they say that the Trump administration has overstated the criminality of people in multiple different cases that they're working on. And in this case, as I mentioned, ICE itself has said many did not have criminal records in the U.S. And several we've interviewed as well, their relative or

We've interviewed relatives of several people who are believed to have been sent there who also said that their relatives didn't have

criminal records. So I do think, but that being said, when you do hear that it's a gang member being sent somewhere, it's just looked at differently from the public. I mean, I think, of course, no one is promoting the sort of crimes that this gang is known for, right? Human trafficking, extortion, in some cases, contract killings. I mean, these are serious crimes. So I think that that is

part of what's at play here. Yeah. All right, let's go back to the phones now, and we go up to Sonoma County. Ruth in Sebastopol, you're next. Welcome.

Hi. I just wanted to suggest the man who called in that has workers who are afraid to go to the emergency room, there are great urgent care facilities all over the area, and they're much faster than emergency rooms, and they're not the same way handled. So that's where I go when I have an emergency. I don't go to the emergency room. I go to these urgent care places. They take you right in, and they just help you.

So that may be a way that he could help his employees. Yeah, although I do wonder what their insurance status is in terms of health insurance. You know, even if they're on... Pardon me? Even with a lot of emergency care places, you don't need insurance. I mean, sometimes they'll just take you in because that's what they do. Yeah, okay. Well, thanks for that suggestion. Maybe Antonio is still listening. Let's go back to San Francisco now. And Victor, you're next.

Hi, everyone, and thank you for covering this subject. Echoing Antonio from before and about the fear in the immigration community, even in

even with legal status, I am myself a citizen, naturalized citizen of this country. I actually work in law enforcement. And I recently, I'm in San Francisco, and I recently traveled to New York for pleasure. And my TSA pre-check was not showing up on my boarding pass.

And that had me freaking out, and I was afraid. And I ended up going, I ended up flying, and ended up realizing that it was due to an error while making my reservation. But I was very afraid that...

Me being vocal on social media against the current administration and what I consider injustice, unjust practices and just abuses when it comes to the police.

It just made me feel afraid. And again, I'm a U.S. citizen. I actually work in law enforcement, and I was afraid. So I can only imagine what someone with a green card or in the process of obtaining a green card or with asylum or undocumented,

might be feeling like right now. Yeah, Victor, sorry you're going through that. I know there are many other people I've heard just anecdotally stories from people, friends, friends of friends, and so on. Deep, you know, not to belabor this McCarthyism thing again, but fear is the point, isn't it? I mean, to instill fear on people, whether it's in Victor's case, you know, just the simple act of traveling, even though you're perfectly...

legally able to do that. It's just, it's terrifying. And it's also, as this continues, there is an aspect of it being normalized. Isn't there at least a danger of that? I think that's right. I mean, we were talking earlier about the Khalil, Mahmoud Khalil arrest, and then of course the mass deportation of people just on the say-so of the executive that they're members of this gang. I think all, as you've

earlier pointed out, these are test cases to push the boundaries so that the administration then can establish very broad powers to essentially enforce law in the way that they want. And of course, this is going to strike fear into lots of people.

Partly because of their own status, but a lot of people, even if they're citizens, most people are in mixed status families. That is, families of citizens, green card holders, students, non-immigrants, plus also people maybe of liminal or dubious immigration status.

In addition, the Trump administration has said that they're going to look to denaturalize individuals who've become citizens of the United States looking for technical defects in their applications. And so I think all of this is a way of creating fear

amongst not just the non-citizen population, but the citizen population as well. I think this is where, if you are a citizen of the United States, and even if you voted for President Trump, and even if you support the policy ends of the Trump administration, you have drank the juice, you've drank the Kool-Aid, you truly believe in it, I hope that you still believe in a rule of law, and in our case, the rule of law, the Constitution of the United States,

And violating those norms has consequences for our constitutional order, everyone in our constitutional order going forward. Yeah. Victor, thank you so much for sharing that with you. Wish you all the best and hope things work out for you and your family. Ted, it does seem that, you know, there is this fear and anxiety.

Obviously, a lot of questions about how this is all going to work out. What are you looking for, both in the case of, well, all these cases, really? And there's just so much, and this is very much a strategic thing. Steve Bannon talked about flooding the zone, so that there are so many things out there that it's impossible for the media or individuals to really

grasp and follow and take in, you know, what's happening. It's just so much and it's incredibly dangerous. Well, I want to, I'll start off by actually offering the Trump administration perspective as well. And they are coming with this sort of multitude of different ways to crack down on immigration, both legal, illegal, increased border security. And they're saying that the reason for that, and President Trump himself has said this, is that record numbers of immigrants were crossing the border illegally illegally.

under former President Joe Biden and also coming in through legal entry programs that Biden had created that Republicans broadly think are not lawful. So there's a sense, you know, that they want to restore the rule of law. And they've really stuck to this argument that Biden allowed this crisis to happen and that all he needed to do was enforce the laws that are on the books. So there is this view that they say, look, here's the law.

Biden just didn't use it. Here's how you can use it. You know, and I think we've seen some of that argument in that they have made some pretty dramatic changes. I mean, we saw in February, the number of migrants caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border was about 8,300 or so, which was the lowest monthly total on record, first of all. And then if you looked at monthly averages, and that record goes back to 2,000, the monthly records that are published.

- And just for comparison, how high did it get under Biden or anybody else? - In December, 2023, we saw it get to about 250,000 in a month.

So, I mean, yes, they very quickly got the numbers low. And I will say they were trending down under President Biden already. He himself, Biden himself, was cracking down on border crossings, making it harder to claim asylum. But also, from his administration perspective, offering more legal ways to come. So kind of a two-pronged approach, whereas the Trump administration approach is

is one way that people should not be crossing the border illegally, that if they do come, they should be using the legal immigration system. And then as we've seen, their view of the legal immigration system is that that in itself has been too liberal and that there needs to. And, you know, we've heard Marco Rubio say this and we've also heard other Trump officials say that a visa is not a right. It's a privilege. And even in their words, a green card.

place in the same category. So I'm just offering that perspective here as they go into this. Yeah, absolutely. Let's go to another caller who may sort of echo what you just said. Ted, let's go to Hayward now, and Thomas, you're next. Welcome. Boy, the timing was good on that one. Thank you, everybody. Love this program. Yeah, my main question is, I'm not very happy with what's going on, so please, but for

40 years ago, I guess 39 years ago, bipartisan law was passed that Reagan signed in on the whole idea of a amnesty for the people that needed it at that time. And certainly not to try to paraphrase too much what Reagan said at the time, but I do remember, you know, now that we have done what's right, in so many words, we must enforce our laws. And

And what they're going to take for the United States of America to, you know, in the humanity here, it really, it's horrible to see this stuff going on. But when are we going to finally say we have laws and we're not going to let them get out of control again? And you're welcome to come by legal channels. My wife is of that way. You know, I lived overseas and she's a great citizen. And, you know, she is doing

doing fine. But the point is, it's not so easy for a lot of people to get here. So there's my question. When will we enforce our laws in the long term? Yeah, well, I think the big question as well is comprehensive immigration reform instead of doing it piecemeal. This is really a politics question, Ted Hessen, but it seems that both parties in different ways have tried to use the

lack of reform to their political benefit. Obviously, it has helped the Republicans most recently. But what is the real incentive, given the situation we have right now in Washington, for either side, especially the Republicans who have ran the table, to put forward any kind of true immigration reform that would perhaps include making the Dreamers legal and so on and so forth? Things like that that I think most people can agree on.

It's a very challenging environment on Capitol Hill. And I think the partisan divide that you mentioned is the reason for that. And Republicans have traditionally said that, you know, recently said that they don't want to pass a legalization or what they might call an amnesty until they've addressed the security issues. And that involves locking down the U.S.-Mexico border. And it's, as I mentioned, the number of

crossings appear to be very low right now, but I think they want to drive them lower. And then there's this question of people who are in the country illegally. I mean, Trump has said he wants to deport everyone who's in the U.S. illegally. I mean, we're talking in 2022, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said that was about 11 million people. And, you know, since then, some other projections have put it at 13 to 14 million people. You know,

For instance, in Trump's first month in office, 37,000 people were deported. So, I mean, without doing all the math here, we can say that it's a very challenging –

idea to deport upwards of 14 million people, not just operationally, but as people have mentioned on the call, the humanitarian concerns, the economic concerns, and everything that goes with it. So if that's the baseline for, and we don't know yet, but if this deportation initiative has to be completed before going through with broader talks, it's, you know, you can

be pessimistic about where things stand. Yeah. Yeah. Not to mention like all the benefits that immigrants bring to a place like California, but the United States more broadly in terms of paying taxes without being eligible for government programs. If they're here, you know, without documents, you know, we need more young people. The country is getting older and they're taking jobs that a lot of people just don't want to do. And all that, of course, gets lost in this. Let's go back to the phones now. And Jerry in Oakland, you're next. Welcome to Forum.

Hello. Good morning, Forum. Appreciate the program. Am I coming through? Yeah, go right ahead. Oh, excellent. Yeah. I just kind of wanted to offer just a little bit of like an interesting counterpoint in regards to the way Trump is being treated. Not necessarily being treated, but just kind of the perception that's being given out by

across a lot of the media outlets. And I'd like to start off by saying I didn't vote for Trump. I'm not a fan of Trump. And I really don't feel like he has any business being in the office that he's in. But what I just find interesting is that he's clearly anti-establishment. And the way he's going about things is very different

than let's say things are traditionally done in Washington and by career politicians like, let's say, Biden. Yeah. Jerry, I'm sorry. I don't mean to interrupt you, but we're almost at the end of the hour. Is there a quick question you want to ask?

Um, no, I just wanted to, just wanted to throw out the counterpoint, like, uh, real quickly, I had a few other things, but, um, you know, in regards to, uh, people who are immigrating here and are here, um, you know, in insecure statuses, there's a lot of people who've gone through the process, like a lot of people from Latin America, South America, Central America, who definitely personally to me expressed frustration about people who didn't go through the same process, process they did, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, no, exactly. Thanks very much. And there are many, uh,

Latino voters and Asian-American AAPI voters who, you know, I've heard that from where they say, look, my family came legally. And, you know, it's complicated. And there is, you know, these communities are very diverse with different points of view and different stories and family histories and immigration status and so on.

So complicated. And we had great calls and questions that we didn't have a chance to get to this hour. I want to thank all of our listeners for your thoughtfulness, the comments, the calls. And of course, thanks as well to our guest, Ted Hessen, immigration reporter with Reuters and Deep Gulisakram, professor of law and director of the Byron White Center for the Study of Constitutional Law at the University of Colorado Boulder Law School. Thanks to both of you. Thank you for having me.

I am Scott Schaefer in for Alexis Madrigal, and I invite you to stay tuned for another hour of Forum with Mina Kim. Funds for the production of Forum are provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Generosity Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Support for KQED podcasts come from San Francisco International Airport. At SFO, you can shop, dine, and unwind before your flight.

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