The Sunday Subject: April 13, 2025
Week sixteen: ICE arrests elected officials, Trump advisor suggests removing yet more constitutional rights.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka Detained By ICE
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau arrested Newark mayor Ras Baraka for entering a detainment center that had been opened illegally in New Jersey’s largest city. Baraka and three members of Congress, all Democrats, arrived to conduct oversight to, “ensure the facility was not violating any building safety ordinances.” ICE did not see it that way, arresting the mayor for trespassing.
Acting US attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba — formerly the personal lawyer to convicted felon Donald Trump — released a statement saying that Baraka, “has willingly chosen to disregard the law. That will not stand in this state.”
Willingly disregarding the law has, in fact, stood in the state, as a law signed by current Governor Phil Murphy outlawed private immigration detetion centers anywhere in the state. The Governor released a statement reinforcing that fact, supporting Mayor Baraka, and calling for his release. He was in fact released on XXXday, but the Trump administration is now threatening to arrest the three members of Congress who accompanied Baraka, although, as Representative Rob Menendez pointed out, “we have a legal right to conduct oversight at any DHS facility with prior notice, as we have already done twice this year.”
Baraka’s arrest, as well as the threats against Menendez and his colleagues, raise fears that Trump will continue using ICE to target political opponents. The agency has already swept up legal immigrants in its dragnet of undocumented workers, and has unconstitutionally deported US citizens.
Trump Wants To End Habeus Corpus
Convicted felon Donald Trump spent his first term in office violating the Emoluments Clause, which prohibits the President from accepting taxpayer money apart from his salary, or accepting money from foreign powers. He left office violating the Insurrection Clause, attempting to overturn a Democratic election. And last year he openly campaigned on eliminating birthright citizenship, a fundamental right guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.
Trump’s latest constitutional target is habeus corpus — a bedrock legal principle that prevents the legal system from arresting people without charges, and gives someone in custody the right to hear the charges against them, and the right to affirm that they’re being detained legally. Given the administration’s fondness for detaining people illegally (see previous news item), eliminating this basic constitutionally-guaranteed freedom would be very much in line with Trump’s agenda.
Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller — one of Trump’s closest advisors, and one of the few members of the current administration who carried over from the previous Trump White House — announced on Friday that eliminating habeus corpus is “an option we’re actively looking at” with regards to “detained migrants,” although the latter phase has already been expanded to include American citizens and ICE’s political opponents (see previous item).
Apart from the obvious issue that the President shouldn’t be able to eliminate parts of the Constitution at a whim (Article I, Section 9, Clause 2 guarantees habeus corpus, “unless when in cases of Rebellion or Invasion”), the net effect of eliminating habeus corpus would be an administration that could arrest anyone, for any reason or no reason, without charges, or legal due process. The move would attack not only fundamental Constitutional principles, but even more funadmental legal principles like “innocent until proven guilty,” or even the very idea that the government exists to enforce the law, rather than the whims of a tyrant.