Citizens are Now Arrested and Likely Deported.
It was predictable, as the sun also rises, because every dark episode of mass deportations has seen this. I have said this before. What the Trump administration wants and deeply desires is the ethnic cleansing of the United States. They want a white Christian country.
The photo from the White House regarding Kilmar Abrego Garcia is also a marker of fascism. This is not early fascism, this is not proto-fascism. This is it. The disdain for courts and their political opponents is not a good place to be.
Yesterday, the rumors I had heard through Facebook contacts were confirmed. Mind you, these rumors involve agricultural workers and their children, who were picked up while working in the fields. One specific rumor involves an American tourist in Cabo San Lucas coming across one of these individuals. Immigration, so the rumor goes, did not believe the American passport was genuine. They threw the document away, and off to the border you go. This young man does not expect to return until after this administration is over, if ever.
So here is this story. It's all that, and it's confirmation of these rumors because it follows the same pattern:
A U.S.-born American citizen was being detained at the request of immigration authorities Thursday despite an advocate showing his U.S. birth certificate in court and a county judge finding no reason for him to be considered an “illegal alien” who illegally entered Florida.
Juan Carlos Gomez-Lopez, 20, was arrested Thursday evening by Florida Highway Patrol and charged under a state immigration law that has been temporarily blocked since early this month. Details of Gomez-Lopez’s arrest and detention were first reported by the Florida Phoenix news site.
After inspecting his birth certificate, Leon County Judge LaShawn Riggans said during the hearing that “this is indeed an authentic document,” but that she did not have jurisdiction beyond finding no probable cause for the charge.
…
Nonetheless, he remains detained locally at ICE’s request, said Thomas Kennedy, a spokesperson at the Florida Immigrant Coalition who attended Thursday’s hearing.“Everything tracks for him being sent to an ICE detention center,” he told NBC News in a phone interview.
So let’s spell this in plain English. None of us is safe. You don’t look like the ideal of a US citizen; you will be deported. We saw this under both the Hoover and Eisenhower administrations. What Stephen Miller and Tom Homan want to carry out is the ethnic cleansing of the United States. The president is on board.
We know they have also detained tribal members, and as usual, here are receipts:
Recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids have raised the alarms for Tribes whose citizens are being unjustly detained and questioned. The Trump Administration claims raids target illegal immigrants with criminal histories, however, at least some agents are making judgments based on appearance, including the skin color and language of an individual rather than concrete information about immigration status or criminal record.
There have been reports of Native individuals being detained by ICE based upon their appearance and ICE officers limited or non-existent understanding of the status of Natives as U.S. citizens. Both Navajo and Mescalero tribal members have been reportedly stopped.
To have Native people be harassed by immigration officials, have their citizenship status questioned, or be mocked by online trolls saying to “send them home” speaks to the lack of education about Indigenous peoples by a large portion of the population. Proposed plans to eliminate or overhaul the education system in ways that would ignore accurate history around Native Americans won’t help this situation.
There is nobody who has deeper roots in this land than members of any tribe. Many of the Mexican Americans targeted also have deeper roots in the United States, as they come from the Spaniards, Criollos, and Mejicanos who settled the region in the 1700s. Yes, I am using the older spelling for Mexicans on purpose.
Here is another example of civil rights abuses via Facebook:
Yesterday, I saw a post on facebook where a Hispanic in New York was arrested by ICE. Someone pointed out to one of the officers that the person was a US citizen and a second officer replied, “Take him anyway.” I want to point out that this is happening more often than you realize.
Recently one of my former students mentioned that a classmate of his was arrested by ICE officers and was put in a van and taken to Oklahoma City for deportation processing. It was in Oklahoma City that it was determined that the boy was a U.S. citizen so they released him. Now mind you, they did not send him back to Kansas City. He had to find his own way back to Kansas City. I was also told that the parents had filed a Missing Person’s Report not thinking that he might have been picked up by ICE because he was a U.S. citizen.
This event troubles my spirit because some government officials are abusing their authority under the Trump administration because he has set the tone for not following the law. It started in his rallies where he encouraged his followers to “Knock the crap out them,” referring to his detractors. He also emboldened them by saying that he would get them out of jail if they went to jail for attacking someone. Later he refused to obey the peaceful transfer of powers by being the impetus for the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capital building. Today we see him defy the Supreme Court in exhibition of further lawlessness.
The problem here is that United States citizens should not be treated like they are criminals. We Blacks have seen this kind of action among government officials from the beginning of our existence in this country. We know that if laws are not in place to provide protection, some government personnel will allow their personal biases to combine with the directives of their jobs. We Blacks know and have always known that some government officers are very biased and some are very bigoted. These persons typically abuse their authority.
I am sure that Donald Trump is aware of this abuse and a simple command from his office could stop it. At the end of the day, abuses of this kind are his responsibility. If he is truly the law-and-order president, he should obey the law and expect and demand that all of his officers obey the law.
What is happening now in the land of the free and the home of the brave is akin to what we have seen in the regimes of past fascists and despots. Our country should never stoop to this level.
I have been keeping them in my notes, but it becomes difficult to share beyond a rumor until we have concrete evidence, as seen in a case like the one I am highlighting from Florida.
When all this started, I warned my readers this was coming. Knowing US history, I am surprised it took this long. No, having your real ID on you will not protect you. Having a passport will not protect you. This is worse than both Hoover and Eisenhower, since they will denaturalize those they deem internal enemies. They are under the delusion that the Constitution only applies to citizens. So, making you stateless, I wish I were kidding, is in the cards, especially if they deem you a threat to the present administration.
Since we mostly deal with Eastern Europe, Russia has been playing a similar game with citizenship. It's a tool of the authoritarian. Stateless people have no rights.
On the bright side, yesterday Senator Chris Van Holen was able to meet Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador. That proof of life means some of the fighting back is starting to have an effect. It is critical to raise voices now. Because if you don’t, nobody will be there for you. And let me close with this, also via Facebook. We have also heard of US citizens being detained at the border. So start putting this puzzle together:
As an attorney I’m deeply alarmed by an incident that occurred just this week and feel compelled to share it — to raise awareness of the legal and constitutional crossroads we are rapidly approaching.
A co-worker of mine (who is a judge), traveled by train from Montana to North Dakota for work this week. The train made a stop in Havre, MT, where ICE agents — armed and dressed in full military-style tactical gear — boarded the train. They walked the full length of the train and questioned every single passenger about their citizenship status. According to the conductor, who has worked nearly 40 years on that route, this was a first. In all his decades of service, federal agents have never boarded his train like this.
This is not a hypothetical. This is not a scene from a dystopian film. This happened this week to my colleague, on U.S. soil, to U.S. citizens, legal residents, and foreign tourists here on holiday, without a warrant, without probable cause — based solely on geography.
Under current law ICE has expanded authority to operate within 100 miles of any border. But HOW that authority is being interpreted and exercised has chilling implications for civil liberties, freedom of movement, and equal protection under the law.
This isn’t about politics — it’s about the erosion of rights we’ve taken for granted, and the slow normalization of military-style policing tactics in everyday spaces. Even if technically permissible, these actions reflect a disturbing shift in the balance between civil liberties and governmental authority. The normalization of militarized immigration enforcement in public spaces, without individualized suspicion, risks setting dangerous precedents that erode the freedoms we are sworn to uphold.
This is not about ideology — it is about the integrity of our legal system. I am compelled to speak up because there is no justification for circumventing the very rights and principles that define our democracy.
The question is not whether you “have something to hide.” The question is how much unchecked authority we’re willing to allow before we can no longer call this a free society.
We are not yet 100 days in. It's beyond time to be alarmed. And it's not like they hid it. All this was in Project 2025.
They are not just dismantling the government. They are also dismantling the Constitution. It always starts with outside groups. The deportations to El Salvador, which is a concentration camp, or do you prefer Gulag, are part of this process. We cannot hide the truth if we want to hide. Euphemisms are not going to work. Nor will they protect you.
There is another mass mobilization scheduled for Saturday, April 19, at this point, which is the assignment.