Judge Gives Powerful Warning While Freeing Pro-Palestine Protester

The Vermont judge who on Wednesday ordered the release of a Columbia University student arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement gave a grave warning about the Trump administration’s McCarthyist crackdown on free speech.

In his sharply worded 29-page decision ordering Mohsen Mahdawi’s release, Judge Geoffrey Crawford wrote that in addition to the fact that the graduate student was not a flight risk and presented no danger to his community, the judge had also considered the “extraordinary setting” in which his arrest was made in the ruling.

Legal residents—not charged with crimes or misconduct—are being arrested and threatened with deportation for stating their views on the political issues of the day,” Crawford wrote. “Our nation has seen times like this before, especially during the Red Scare and Palmer Raids of 1919-1920 that led to the deportation of hundreds of people suspected of anarchist or communist views.”

He referred to judicial decisions that had helped bring “an end to the moral panic that gripped the nation and its officials.”

“Similar themes were sounded during the McCarthy period in the 1950s when thousands of non-citizens were targeted for deportation due to their political views,” he said, referring to a 1950 Supreme Court dissent that condemned the “menace to free institutions” presented by such cases.

“The wheel of history has come around again, but as before these times of excess will pass. In the meantime, this case … is extraordinary in the sense that it calls upon the ancient remedy of habeas to address a persistent modern wrong.”

Crawford presented a strong defense for Mahdawi’s speech, writing that “even if he were a firebrand, his conduct is protected by the First Amendment.

“The court is aware that he has offended his political opponents and apparently given rise to concerns at the State Department that he is an obstacle to American foreign policy. Such conduct is insufficient to support a finding that he is in any way a danger as we use that term in the context of detention and release,” Crawford added.

Mahdawi, who had committed the heinous crime of activism and founded Columbia University’s Palestinian Student Union, offered a sharp condemnation of the very kind of antisemitism of which he stood accused, during an interview on CBS News’s 60 Minutes in December 2023. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly invoked vague “antisemitic activities” as justification for the arrests of several students who have committed no crimes and whom the government hopes to deport.

Green card holder Mahmoud Khalil, who missed the birth of his child while being detained in Louisiana; Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk, who was detained over an op-ed, even though the State Department determined that the Trump administration had no evidence linking her to antisemitic activity; and Georgetown scholar Badar Khan Suri, who is now held in a Texas detention center, all remain in custody.

Just one day after his commerce secretary claimed that the American dream is a return to multigenerational factory serfdom, President Trump stated that parents might have to buy fewer toys for their kids while his destructive tariffs on China take effect.

“[China] made a trillion dollars with Biden, a trillion dollars, even a trillion and one with Biden, selling us stuff,” Trump said, referring to the gargantuan Chinese import market in the United States. “Much of it we don’t need. Ya’ know, somebody said, ‘Oh the shelves are gonna be open.’ Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.”

The Trump administration has been trying for weeks now to gaslight Americans into thinking these tariffs will only be a temporary rough spot, that each country we’ve levied them on will fold, and that the man who penned The Art of the Deal will work his magic once again.

The reality of the situation is bleaker than they can imagine. The country’s gross domestic product fell by 0.3 percent in the first three months of the year, the first time in years that the economy has shrunk, while Trump blamed it entirely on former President Joe Biden.

Meanwhile, the whole world is bracing for impact, Americans who were already struggling are feeling deeply anxious, and Trump—whose very name is associated with opulence—has the nerve to tell the populace to buy fewer toys for their kids. Who is buying 30 toys at once?

The U.S. Postal Service is now helping the Trump administration with its mass deportation efforts.  

The Washington Post reports that the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the law enforcement division of the postal agency, is cooperating with immigration agencies to help locate people suspected of being in the U.S. illegally by investigating data from mail and packages. The USPS officers have joined a Department of Homeland Security task force that focuses on finding, detaining, and deporting undocumented immigrants.

Thanks to the USPS’s cooperation, immigration officials now have access to photographs of the outside of envelopes and packages, as well as the postal service’s surveillance systems, including mail tracking, IP addresses, online account information, credit card data, and other financial information. 

While DHS has partnered with other agencies in areas such as taxes, housing, and public health, enlisting the USPS means that mail delivery is now part of immigration enforcement. The postal service has 1,700 law enforcement officers, whose main tasks in the past were to keep the mail system safe, investigate threats and attacks on postal facilities and workers, and keep illegal items out of the mail. 

The Postal Inspection Service’s leaders signed on to immigration efforts in part because of fears that the White House could tighten its control of the postal service. President Trump issued an executive order that includes all federal law enforcement agencies in the administration’s deportation efforts. 

“We want to play well in the sandbox” is how an Inspection Service email described a recent meeting with immigration officers, according to the Post. The service is now even participating in immigration raids and arrests. 

Aside from focusing more and more of the federal government on deportations, the move is another way that the White House is turning government services necessary to daily life into a trap. Immigrants have to use the mail and pay taxes like anyone else living in America, and now that could get them deported. 

“The Inspection Service is very, very nervous about this,” an unnamed source told the Post. “They seem to be trying to placate Trump by getting involved with things they think he’d like. But it’s complete overreach. This is the Postal Service. Why are they involved in deporting people?”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio outright bragged Wednesday about his unwillingness to comply with court orders. 

During an especially effusive Cabinet meeting, Rubio balked at a question about complying with the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding an order to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whom the government mistakenly deported last month. 

“Have you been in touch with El Salvador about returning Abrego Garcia, has a formal request from this administration been made?” a reporter asked.

“Well, I’ll never tell you that. And you know who else I’ll never tell? A judge,” Rubio said. “Because the conduct of our foreign policy belongs to the president of the United States and the executive branch, not some judge.” 

“So we will conduct foreign policy appropriately, if we need to. But I’ll never discuss it, and no one will ever make us discuss it, because that’s how foreign policy works,” Rubio said. 

But Rubio’s claims that the administration’s unlawful deportations are issues of “foreign policy” are just a blatant excuse not to comply with orders to turn over information about Abrego Garcia’s case. The Trump administration has fought hard against the efforts of U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis to receive information about the government’s work to return the Maryland resident.  

Xinis denied the government’s motion for a stay on discovery in the Abrego Garcia case Wednesday, after she granted a week-long pause in discovery last week that would have expired at 5:00 pm. It appears that Xinis heard arguments for the motion in a proceeding that was placed under seal. 

In a new order, Xinis said that expedited discovery must be completed by no later than May 12, and the government would be forced to respond by May 14. Discovery would include a deposition from ICE official Robert Cerna, who gave the initial sworn statement that Abrego Garcia’s removal had been the result of an “administrative error.”

But evidence is mounting that Rubio, and the rest of the Trump administration, are simply making excuses about a horrific situation that has spiralled out of control.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele had outright rejected a diplomatic request from the U.S. government to return Abrego Garcia, after having received $6 million from the U.S. government to hold 239 Venezuelan deportees, as well as the return of several high-ranking MS-13 members Bukele personally requested. Some believe the U.S. government’s request was not made in good faith, and simply an excuse to say they tried to get him back and failed. 

In an interview on ABC News Tuesday night, Trump claimed that he could get Abrego Garcia back with just a phone call, but then said he wouldn’t because he was “not the one making this decision, we have lawyers who don’t want to do this.”

Donald Trump has happily taken credit for the stock market’s success in the past but suddenly can’t explain the market’s current second-quarter downturn, weeks after his roller-coaster tariff proposals rattled the economy.

“You frequently took credit for the stock market highs, you said it was a reflection of how well you were doing in the polls,” said The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg at a White House Cabinet meeting Wednesday. “And then after you were elected, you said the stock market highs were a reflection of how well the transition was going and the American people’s confidence in your upcoming administration.”

“Now the stock markets are not doing so well, and you’re saying it’s the Biden stock market. Yet you are the president. Can you explain that?” asked Feinberg.

But Trump couldn’t.

“I’m not taking credit or discredit for the stock market,” Trump said, before again diverting blame toward the Biden administration.

“I’m just saying that we inherited a mess,” he said, referring to immigration as an example.

“You can look at every single one of the people here, and no matter who it is, they are doing better and they are far superior to what took place four years before us,” Trump continued, surrounded by his Cabinet members—several of whom have already found themselves at the center of seismic scandals just a handful of months into the term.

Unfortunately for Trump, former President Joe Biden’s economy was fruitful by a number of metrics. His tenure in the White House saw historic job gains, curated business development, and decreased unemployment. Biden’s stability in office also aided the market’s steady growth, helping it repeatedly defy negative forecasts and grow gross domestic product by 12.6 percent, which the last administration celebrated as a “historically robust expansion.”

Meanwhile, a 100-day report on Trump’s economy found that GDP in the first quarter decreased by 0.3 percent, a startling drop from 2024’s fourth quarter, which saw GDP increase by 2.4 percent.

“Compared to the fourth quarter, the downturn in real GDP in the first quarter reflected an upturn in imports, a deceleration in consumer spending, and a downturn in government spending that were partly offset by upturns in investment and exports,” the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Wednesday.

That’s in large part thanks to Trump’s machinations in the White House, including releasing (and stalling) a sweeping and vindictive tariff proposal plan that economists argue will crush U.S. businesses, the majority of which depend on global supply chains. Experts observed (and the White House eventually confirmed) the tariffs were developed using bad math.

Earlier this month, the White House promised to make 90 deals in 90 days to drive down predicted costs and erase the trade war, a pledge that economists argue is no less than a monumental task. An unidentified White House official confirmed to Politico that the administration is scheduled to speak with 18 different nations over the next three weeks to coordinate possible deals.

But that hasn’t stopped Trump from hyperbolizing his metrics to thwart negative press: Last week, Trump claimed that he had already cut deals with 200 nations around the world—five more countries than actually exist.