Attention to the Unseen

CNBC reports: Federal authorities have arrested a former New Mexico judge and a Wisconsin judge in two separate cases, accusing them of interfering with Trump administration immigration enforcement efforts. Milwaukee Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested Friday morning and charged with obstruction for allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant evade arrest after he appeared in her courtroom last week. Dugan’s arrest came one day after federal authorities arrested a former New Mexico judge and his wife on charges related to…

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Nick Miroff writes: Late last month, three days after Abrego Garcia’s family filed its lawsuit over his deportation, government attorneys began discussing how to undo the mistake and bring him back. In their conversations, officials went so far as to float the idea of having the U.S. ambassador to El Salvador make a personal appeal to the country’s president for Abrego Garcia’s return. But first, the State Department’s legal team wanted more information from DHS about his alleged role in…

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Ryan Goodman writes: Earlier today, I discussed one of the “sleeper” immigration cases that had largely flown below the radar: D.V.D. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security. On Wednesday night, the Justice Department submitted a filing in district court in which it appears to openly describe steps the government took to essentially evade the court’s temporary restraining order. Keep your eye on the ball: Which department had custody of the individuals following the court’s order. On March 28, the court ordered the defendants in the case –…

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The Washington Post reports: The acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia sent a letter to the nonprofit that runs Wikipedia, accusing the tax-exempt organization of “allowing foreign actors to manipulate information and spread propaganda to the American public.” In the letter dated April 24, Ed Martin, said he sought to determine whether the Wikimedia Foundation’s behavior is in violation of its Section 501(c)(3) status. Martin, who was appointed to the post by President Donald Trump in January, asked…

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CBS News reports: The Trump administration conceded on Thursday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents did not have a warrant when they detained Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil in March, acknowledging it was “a warrantless arrest.” Khalil’s attorneys are asking an immigration judge in Louisiana, where their client has been detained by ICE for weeks, to terminate his deportation case based on the fact that he was arrested without a warrant. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, admitted…

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Politico reports: The Trump administration must seek to return a second man who was improperly deported from the U.S. to El Salvador in violation of a previous court order, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher, a Maryland-based Trump appointee, ruled that the administration deported a 20-year-old Venezuelan man last month in violation of a legally binding, court-approved settlement agreement reached in a lawsuit last year. Under that settlement, the U.S. agreed not to deport migrants who…

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NPR reports: A federal judge agreed to give the Trump administration another week to answer detailed questions about the illegal deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. A day earlier, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis issued a scathing rebuke of the administration’s response to her order for more details about its efforts to return him to the U.S. But the Trump administration asked for more time to respond in the case of the Maryland man who was deported to El Salvador last…

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Axios reports: Trump administration officials are suggesting their immigration crackdown could expand to include deporting convicted U.S. citizens and charging anyone — not just immigrants — who criticizes Trump’s policies. Why it matters: Such moves — described by officials in recent days — would show how U.S. citizens could be impacted by the growing number of tactics President Trump is using to, in his view, improve national security. They’d also be certain to ignite new legal battles over how far Trump’s team…

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The Washington Post reports: The wife of Kilmar Abrego García, the Maryland man mistakenly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador by the Trump administration, has been moved to a safe house by supporters after U.S. officials posted a court document on social media that included the family’s address. Jennifer Vasquez Sura said in an interview with The Washington Post that she began fearing for her safety and that of their three children — two of whom are autistic…

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Jamelle Bouie writes: The goal of [Senator Chris] Van Hollen’s journey to El Salvador — during which he was stopped by Salvadoran soldiers and turned away from the prison itself — was to bring attention to Abrego Garcia and invite greater scrutiny of the administration’s removal program and its disregard for due process. It was a success. And that success has inspired other Democrats to make the same trip, in hopes of turning more attention to the administration’s removal program…

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NEW: Read the resignation letter of three federal prosecutors who'd worked on the Eric Adams case: "Now, the Department has decided that obedience supersedes all else, requiring us to abdicate our legal and ethical obligations in favor of directions from Washington." static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics… [image or embed] — Joshua J. Friedman (@joshuajfriedman.com) April 22, 2025 at 3:36 PM

The U.S. flag flies above Department of Justice headquarters on Jan. 20, 2024, in Washington. J. David Ake/Getty Images By Cassandra Burke Robertson, Case Western Reserve University In the 1970s, President Richard Nixon tried to fire the Department of Justice prosecutor leading an investigation into the president’s involvement in wiretapping the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters. Since then, the DOJ has generally been run as an impartial law enforcement agency, separated from the executive office and partisan politics. Those guardrails are…

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Mark Joesph Stern writes: Shortly before 1 a.m. on Saturday, the Supreme Court issued an emergency order halting the Trump administration’s reported efforts to fly Venezuelan migrants to an El Salvador prison before they could challenge their deportation. The court’s late-night intervention is an extraordinary and highly unusual rebuke to the government, one that may well mark a turning point in the majority’s approach to this administration. For months, SCOTUS has given the government every benefit of the doubt, accepting the Justice…

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