The Feds’ Legal Arguments for These Deportations Are Laughably Weak
The Trump administration maintains that more than 200 people deported last weekend to a prison in El Salvador were criminals with ties to a dangerous Venezuelan gang.
But legal documents filed in federal court as part of the government’s attempt to clarify the legal basis for those deportations seem to raise more questions than they answer—and indicate that some, if not many, of the deportees were not the threats that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) claims they are.
In some cases, those individuals were deported simply for being in the same car or house as other suspects. In others, a Trump administration official admits that there is little specific evidence tying some deportees to any crime—and then, incredibly, argues that the lack of evidence should be taken as proof of criminality.
“The lack of a criminal record does not indicate they pose a limited threat,” wrote Robert L. Cerna, an acting field office director for ICE, in a sworn affidavit filed in federal district court in Washington, D.C., on Monday night. Cerna goes on to write that “the lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose. It demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile.”
That’s a laughably we
Article from Reason.com
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