By Melanie Nathan, June 10, 2025
I CANNOT FIND MY WORDS: I just got off a press Zoom with advocates and attorneys regarding the cruel unlawful chilling and horrific detentions and disappearances that are happening in our Federal Buildings and Courts to immigrants. I am sure much press will follow.
This is truly shocking and beyond your comprehension. Beyond what you have seen reported so far.
If anyone refuses to see this as a NAZI-LIKE trajectory – you have failed “NEVER AGAIN.”Pre
Whatever you see on your feeds, I urge you to find the courage to share – widely.
Press will soon be reporting on this.
Please find courage to share without fear especially if you are not an immigrant – because that is all we have.
The Courts and Federal Buildings where people report have become TRAPS! People are being ambushed while attending their regular due process, in terms of their lawful rights.
We know the following is happening in 11 states and 16 cities.
Pending Interviews/ Due Process/ Appeals:
The following is happening to people who are here for asylum, who are showing up for lawful green cards through marriage, marital visas, visa renewals, and general hearings, regular interviews, people who have lawful withholding of removal orders.
Cursory reflections from call-
1. Families are being torn apart.
2. Mother collapses to floor after showing up to check in on her due process and ongoing case. She is put in cuffs. Six ICE officers jump on her when she collapses to floor. She is screaming for her child – who has no one to come home to after school. The mother is disappeared. Attorney cannot find her. The mother is the only caregiver to the child. Trump’s ICE, did not care!
3. People in Immigration waiting rooms are having panic attacks and collapsing in fear.
4. People are damned if you do and damned if you don’t: If you show up as required of you under your lawful and rightful process- your cases are dismissed by a Judge – in collaboration with ICE – instead of being HEARD AS REQUIRED BY LAW. The minute it is dismissed – you are detained, held in awful conditions and then deported asap to place where you sought protection from or even a foreign place. If you do not show up for the case, even out of legitimate fear, the Judge issues an order for REMOVAL and you will be found and deported.
5. People are signing docs they do not understand and being deceived: People told they are signing documents to request a lawyer while they are signing their own deportation orders.
6. Lawyers cannot access their clients – they are being purposely prevented
7. Members of Congress and lawyers were attacked with sprays while they stood at gates – to prevent them seeing people being taken from trucks into the venues.
8. The conditions are deplorable – detention are over crowded – ICE is overwhelmed. People fed with packets of chips every 14 hours and minimal water. No access to bathrooms. Some in outside tents. Children getting packet chips every few hours – no real nutrition. No showers. No change of clothes. No medications.
There is fear. There is confusion. There is cruelty. It is escalating. It must Stop!
———-
Of the many disturbing press conferences that I have experienced this is beyond distressing -This feeling of helplessness is overwhelming. While this erodes the institutions that keep us all safe. It denies the very existence of our Constitution. Which means we are all at grave risk. You CANNOT- afford to be quiet even as you fear speaking out – because collectively we do still have the power!
If you want to share please go timeline by clicking on my name. This cannot be shared from the private group.
I will be posting more with links in my updates. I will post articles that are published here as updates.
UPDATES: Here we go…. Corroborating my report above:
On the call and as noted above – we heard that the Trump Admin were telling immigration Judges to dismiss cases. So when people showed up for their cases they were actually ambushed by no chance of a hearing – and immediate detention. Some people had waited years to be heard. Establishing lives in the meantime. Others were already in detention. Essentially that is interference with a person’s right to to present their case. This has life and death consequences for asylum seekers. It is in my opinion circumventing their due process – by asking a Judge to be complicit in denying access to the law. So when they summarily dismiss – the get to simply put the cuffs on – there is no case to appeal and the person is deported!
Trump admin tells immigration judges to dismiss cases in tactic to speed up arrests
A recent memo to immigration judges obtained by NBC News provides fresh insight into how the Trump administration is pulling off a new tactic — dismissing pending immigration cases, then immediately moving to arrest the immigrants — that is part of its bid to quickly increase the number of immigrants it is detaining.
In the memo, the Justice Department instructs immigration judges, who report to the executive branch and are not part of the independent judiciary, to allow Department of Homeland Security lawyers to make motions to dismiss orally and then move quickly to grant those dismissals, rather than allow immigrants the 10-day response time that had been typical.
“Oral Decisions must be completed within the same hearing slot on the day testimony and arguments are concluded,” says the memo, which is dated May 30. It also tells the judges that “[n]o additional documentation or briefing is required” to grant the dismissals.
Once their cases are dismissed, the immigrants in question may be put in expedited removal proceedings, which means they can be deported without a chance to make their cases for asylum before immigration judges.
The memo notes that people in expedited removal proceedings “are subject to mandatory detention” and can be taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which falls under DHS.
The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.
A source close to the immigration judges’ union said that the move is legal but that it is still upsetting to many immigration judges.
“They think it makes a mockery of the whole process and that it flies in the face of what Trump ran on. Immigration enforcement means it’s done in a fair manner … and this isn’t fair,” the source close to the union said. Immigration judges are not authorized to speak to the media except through their union.
The memo cites a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that sets out the conditions under which the government can move to dismiss an immigrant’s case. But it misstates the statute. The memo says, without quotation marks, that judges may grant motions to dismiss when “circumstances have changed to such an extent that continuation is no longer in the best interest of the government.” But the Immigration and Nationality Act’s wording is more specific; it states that cases can be dismissed when “circumstances of the case have changed to such an extent that continuation is no longer in the best interest of the government.”
Greg Chen, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said he believes the new guidance violates that provision of the Immigration Nationality Act and is not legal.
“The omission of the words ‘of the case’ is deliberate because DHS is trying to avoid having to speak to the individual case. The law requires them to provide particular reasons for their motion, and they are not doing that. The email is the written policy that contradicts the law,” Chen said.
Jason Houser, who was chief of staff at ICE during the Biden administration, said dismissing cases that way will allow ICE to arrest more people but will not really help it speed up deportations because it lacks enough space to detain those arrested before deportation.
The tactic of dismissing cases and then arresting people whose cases were dismissed “targets vetted migrants who were working and had legal status,” he said. “Flooding the system with thousands of noncriminals wastes time and resources when federal law enforcement should be focused on national security threats.”
As the agency steps up arrests, it faces an overcrowding issue. More than 51,000 immigrants were in ICE custody as of May 23, according to ICE data, though it is funded to hold only 41,500. Former ICE officials have said the agency can run over that allotment by only so much, and then only for a short amount of time, before it risks budget shortfalls and possible penalties from courts for living conditions that fall below court-mandated standards.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
6/10 4.49 PM EST
SAN DIEGO — Today, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers ambushed, arrested, and denied community members their right to due process in the hallway of the Edward J. Schwartz Federal Building immediately after their immigration hearings. As ICE arrests outside courthouses grip the country, members of the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium (SDIRC) witnessed these actions and arrests targeting individuals locally who showed up in good faith to comply with court requirements turning the courtrooms into traps. ICE agents attempted to arrest community members without warrants, even when their attorneys were present and could prove that ICE did not have warrants to detain them.
Some of the individuals arrested had their cases dismissed by an immigration judge. ICE officers arrested them before they would have been able to file their asylum case with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), denying them the opportunity to pursue their asylum cases. Instead of allowing individuals to go through the asylum process with USCIS, ICE is now seeking to use expedited removal, a fast-tracked process that allows them to deport individuals who have been in the country for less than two years without going before a judge, to deport them.
“We condemn the lack of due process. The right to seek asylum is a human right, and that must be respected and upheld,” said Ian Seruelo, Chair of the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium (SDIRC) and chapter leader of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA) San Diego. “This enforcement tactic creates a chilling effect on non-citizens who are exercising their right to defend themselves and their families in immigration court. This will discourage those in removal proceedings from showing up in court because of fear of being apprehended and detained.”
SDIRC members watched as several individuals were nearly collateral damage when ICE attempted to arrest them without checking to see if there was a warrant first. When attorneys pushed back against the arrests, the ICE agents discovered they had the wrong individuals.
“What’s happening in immigration courtrooms today is a disgraceful display of tyranny.
Asylum seekers – people who have fled persecution and are complying with the legal process – are being arbitrarily and maliciously arrested. This is not about justice or safety. This is about sending a message: that the U.S. government intends to make people’s lives so unbearable that they lose hope,” said Crystal Felix, Legal Representative for the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium (SDIRC) and American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) San Diego Chapter member. “These actions are a deliberate attempt to crush the human spirit and undermine the very principle that our asylum laws are meant to uphold. It’s also a staggering waste of court resources – cases are scheduled, prepared, and then gutted at the last minute, showing blatant disregard for due process and efficiency.” LINK HERE.
———————
O-blog-dee-o-blog-da 