“A few days, right” eight year-old Maskim desperately pleaded to his parents, Evengy and Evgeniia. Evgeny and Evgeniia are Russian immigrants who fled to the United States in search of political asylum. However after their arrival to the United States, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) gave the couple a stark ultimatum: return to the dangerous, hostile environment they fled from or stay in U.S. custody while their eight year-old son would be taken off to a shelter for unaccompanied minors, separating the child from his support system and any sense of comfort. They chose to stay in the United States, saying goodbye to their son indefinitely. ICE officials approved an “interior separation” and young Maskim was left to the care of strangers at a mere eight years old. He was separated from his parents for months (Alzeaziz). Parents, like Maskim’s, are being put into positions in which they must choose between safety from potentially severe political persecution and maintaining contact with their children. These separated children face constant uncertainty of when, if at all, they will be reunited with their parents. Not to mention, they are forced to act as an adult and undertake tremendous responsibility as a mere child. Immigrant children still united with their parents too are living under extreme anxiety, in fear of this separation. How has our nation gotten to a place where this has become normalized? Historically, our country has not handled immigration in this manner, so what has fundamentally changed to bring us to this place? Although the written law itself has not changed, the executive branch–guided by President Trump’s ideology–has changed the way it interprets the law. These new interpretations have reshaped immigration enforcement systems and the American public’s access to basic civil liberties. Although the Trump administration argues it has remained within the bounds of the written law, it has exploited ambiguity in the Constitution and uprooted longstanding practice of immigration law to effectively usurp power from its counterpart branches, setting a precedent for vastly disproportionate power across American government.
The Trump administration has bypassed basic due process protections through its unprecedented use of expedited removal. Expedited removal is a provision in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) that allows immigration enforcement to deport undocumented immigrants without a full hearing before a judge, which is typically guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment. Historically, it has only been used to deport those who had recently entered the county. Muzaffar Chisti, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute and director of its office at New York University School of Law, explains, “Expedited removal is grounded in the legal argument that undocumented immigrants arriving either at the border, on planes or on ships are not entitled to the full scope of due process rights under the Constitution as those who have been living in the United States for a while and have put down roots in this country” (qtd. in Gonzalez). The practice of expedited removal has traditionally been executed only with the intention of preventing new people from entering the country, not extracting longtime members. Despite this, the Trump administration is indiscriminately applying expedited removal to large groups of people, completely disregarding their rights as longtime residents in the United States. They are retroactively applying it to asylum-seekers who entered the United States during the Biden Administration, stripping them of due process rights to have their asylum claims heard and decided by an immigration judge (Gonzalez). Furthermore, expedited removal was created to stop mass migration at the border. Although there is no longer mass migration at the border, it is still being used to the fullest extent of its authority, a scope far greater than ever before (Gonzalez). It would seem intuitive to lessen the scope of expedited removal as the cause for the provision’s operation lessens, however the Trump administration has enacted the opposite relationship. The Trump administration has used expedited removal to justify their actions, while ignoring the context for which it was created and how it has historically been practiced. The disregard of precedent and use of the provision to the fullest extent possible, even when unnecessary, has allowed the Trump administration to take expansive power over people’s civil rights. These actions set an unfortunate precedent in and of themselves, namely, that presidential power allows one to execute their will regardless of constitutionality.
ICE is also using administrative warrants to bypass due process and judicial intervention. ICE can issue an I-200 form which allows them to arrest people with an “administrative warrant.” These can be signed by ICE officials, as opposed to judicial warrants which must be signed by a judge. This is inconsistent with the concept of separation of powers because it enables someone who has a stake in the outcome to be the decision-maker. Additionally, administrative warrants are being used retroactively as justification for the arrests being made. Enforcement agencies have sent supervisors out into the field with ICE officers making arrests, so that they can sign administrative warrants immediately after an arrest (“How ICE went Rouge”). ICE agents are not entering a situation with an identified target, but rather going in to arrest and deport as many people as possible without predetermined reason. Administrative warrants are playing an entirely different role than they have historically. Previous administrations predominantly used administrative warrants for “collateral arrests,” a situation in which agents would search for one person already identified as violating immigration law, and would encounter others at the same location whom the agents had probable cause to believe were also violating immigration law (“How ICE went Rouge”). These warrants are now being used without the preparation and intention they formerly have been, which has led arrests to be carried out on an unprecedented and extensive scale. On an individual level, this behavior is reckless and could easily result in the arrest of innocent citizens. From a systemic standpoint, the elimination of involvement of the judicial branch essentially cedes total control over immigration enforcement to the executive branch. The convergence of diminished and redefined civil liberties and sole executive control ultimately leads to the expansive executive power that overrides constitutionally assured civil liberties protections, allowing the administration to interpret and enforce the law arbitrarily.
The circumstances under which warrantless arrests occur have also changed under the Trump administration. ICE and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) can arrest someone without a warrant if they have probable cause to believe the person is in the United States illegally, and it can be determined that they are “likely to escape” if not immediately arrested. Historically, “likely to escape” has been equated to being a “flight risk,” meaning that the person would likely avoid immigration enforcement and fail to appear for immigration proceedings. The current administration has redefined “flight risk” to consider anyone who may not wait for an administrative warrant to be created at the scene of an encounter to be “likely to escape” (“How ICE went Rouge”). This redefinition of “flight risk” essentially ensures that ICE and CBP can deport individuals arbitrarily, as they will either be arrested under an administrative warrant, or if they refuse, will be declared a flight risk and therefore will be arrested without a warrant. Suspected unauthorized immigrants are entirely at the mercy of immigration enforcement officers; these changes have given them the power to arrest people at their whim, as they require no substantive reason to make an arrest.
Additionally, it is not assured that ICE or CBP officers would be able to establish probable cause, which, according to Cornell Law School, “exists when the facts and circumstances within an officer’s knowledge would lead a reasonable person to believe that a crime has been committed” (“Probable Cause”). The IIRIRA provided that those apprehended entering the country at an instance other than as designated by immigration enforcement is subject to a civil penalty (8 U.S.C. § 1325). Therefore, because it cannot immediately be determined whether a suspected unauthorized immigrant’s entry constitutes a civil or criminal offense, probable cause likewise cannot be established at a moment’s notice. Since a lawful arrest would require probable cause of a criminal offense, the legality of such an arrest depends on facts, such as the individual’s circumstances of entry, that are not readily apparent at the moment of detention. The Trump administration has both redefined long-established “flight risk” practice and arrested individuals under false pretenses for administrative efficiency.
Edward J Markey, U.S. Senator representing Massachusetts, has posed concerns about the lawfulness of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement methods in relation to the Fourth and First Amendment. In his Op-Ed in the Boston Globe, Markey noted that immigration authorities have created massive databases of sensitive information on citizens and noncitizens alike. The Fourth Amendment protects all residents of the United States from unreasonable search and seizure, regardless of immigration status, as supported by the 1903 Supreme Court case Kaoru Yamataya v. Fisher (“Aliens in the United States”). Markey wrote about ICE methods that pose a threat to these protections, and detailed that ICE has deployed a “digital dragnet” that collects vast amounts of data on both citizens and non-citizens through license plate readers, facial recognition apps, social media monitoring, commercial databases, and more. The data can be used to monitor, track, and target individuals. These technologies have been implemented to increase efficiency in deporting unauthorized immigrants, with complete disregard for not only the privacy rights of the immigrants whom they seek to deport, but also the U.S. citizens. The executive branch has forsaken constitutionally protected rights for administrative ease and meeting quotas. Furthermore, the data collected by these systems remains even after the ICE operation ends, allowing ICE and DHS to store sensitive information and potentially share it across multiple federal agencies (Markey). This extends the implications of the privacy breach far beyond immigration enforcement, because it allows the federal government access to sensitive information that could be used against anyone, citizen or not, for any purpose at a later date. This is a direct violation of the Fourth Amendment, justified under the guise of immigration enforcement. Markey also outlines the indirect threats these systems have on freedom of speech, a right protected by the First Amendment. He includes that knowledge of ICE’s vast access to personal information may cause us to self-censor and refrain from attending a protest, criticizing a policy, and more. Unknowing and fearful of ICE’s response to opposition to the Trump administration’s actions, citizens will likely be hesitant to publicly demonstrate that opposition and will refrain from exercising their constitutionally protected right to free speech and the right to petition their government.
The Trump administration has used “invasion” rhetoric to justify its extreme immigration enforcement actions. Despite President Trump’s overreach, his claims of a surge in unauthorized immigrants are legitimate; according to the Pew Research Center, the United States reached 14 million unauthorized immigrants in 2023–a record high (Passel and Krogstad). However, the sheer volume of immigrants in the United States does not constitute claims of an “invasion.” In a letter to President Trump responding to his proclamation “Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion,” Senator Richard Durbin, Senator Alex Padilla, Representative Jamie Raskin, and Representative Pramila Jayapal wrote “As a legal matter, migration is not an ‘invasion.’ As courts have consistently held, an ‘invasion’ under the constitution requires ‘armed hostility from another political entity, such as another state or foreign country that is intending to overthrow the…government.” Although there are far more immigrants in the country at present than there have been historically, the lack of military force and lack of coordination by a foreign power prohibits the label of an “invasion.” Rich Lowry, editor in chief of the National Review, adds to this point by noting the fact that the United States is eager to deport but it is inconceivable that the nation would respond militarily. This signals that the purpose of the “invasion” declaration was to pave the way for far-reaching executive power, not to defend the nation. The U.S. reaction to the alleged invasion in and of itself invalidates any invasion rhetoric, as the U.S. has not acted with organized and offensive military force. The situation does not resemble the level of armed hostility that an invasion would entail. Furthermore, in his proclamation President Trump cited the court case Knauff v. Shaughnessy to justify his executive actions. However, this case set the precedent that Congress can delegate questions pertaining to immigration to the president, not that the President can violate immigration laws made by Congress (Durbin et al.). The Trump administration’s interpretation of the case served as an expedient to acquire more authority and sidestep authorization by Congress, rather than as a means to meaningfully and lawfully manage immigration issues. Ultimately, the purported legal basis upon which it justifies sweeping executive power is unfounded and legally inaccurate.
The Trump administration has reinforced its invasion rhetoric by linking unauthorized immigration to crime. These connections are vastly overstated. In their letter to President Trump, members of Congress state, “Experts have found no connection between increased migration and crime, and studies have shown that for the past 150 years, immigrants have been convicted of crimes at a far lower rate than U.S.-born citizens” (Durbin et al.). It is duplicitous to claim that immigrants are a danger to the nation due to their criminal tendencies, while ignoring the far greater tendencies of the American citizens themselves. The Trump administration also has consistently framed ICE and CBP targets as the “worst of the worst,” such that they are only removing real threats to the nation’s safety. However, in 2025 77% of immigrants in deportation proceedings had no criminal conviction. Furthermore, of those convicted of a crime, more than 40% of the convictions were traffic or immigration offenses (“Worst of the worst?”). The Trump administration is simply taking aggressive immigration enforcement action without sufficient grounds to justify them.
This reality is illustrated in the experiences of ChongLy Scott Thao, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Hmong origin with no criminal record (Coleman). Louansee Moua, Thao’s sister-in-law, writes about his experiences in a GoFundMe page to raise money for his legal fees: “ChongLy was taken outside in freezing weather wearing only underwear and Crocs, placed into an SUV, and driven around for nearly an hour while being questioned.” She adds, “They don’t care if he’s a U.S. citizen. They don’t care if he’s not a criminal. They’re just basically profiling him” (qtd. in Coleman). Despite the Trump administration’s widely stated claims of ensuring domestic safety, its conduct of such aggressive enforcement actions on a citizen with no criminal record belies that claim. By using expansive power granted under invasion claims to target non-threats to this country, the Trump administration undercuts its rationale that these measures are necessary for public safety. Immigration enforcement is predominantly being used as a mechanism to obtain power, not to remove dangerous criminals, in turn leaving many U.S. citizens vulnerable to wrongful detention.
The Trump administration has also invoked language of domestic terrorism in the broader context of immigration enforcement to justify invasion claims and associated levels of force. As stated by federal law, the term “domestic terrorism” refers to activities that “involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States” and “appear to be intended to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion” (United States, Congress, title 18, section 2331). There is no evidence to support the claim that immigrants or immigrant-rights activists and advocacy groups satisfy these requirements. Despite this, the Trump administration has categorized numerous individuals and agencies as domestic terrorists. This label functions operationally to portray them as extraordinary threats, thereby rationalizing aggressive counteraction.
A prevalent example of this is captured in the experiences of Renee Good, a woman fatally shot by an ICE agent. According to the Washington Post video analysis, the confrontation escalated within seconds. ICE agents initially approached her stopped SUV, ordered Good to get out, and tried to open the door through the window. Good drove the vehicle backward and then pulled forward. An agent immediately stepped aside and fired gunshots at the SUV as it passed him, creating a dispute over whether he was actually injured by the car. In the aftermath, former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi L. Noem said that Good had committed an act of “domestic terrorism,” in both disobeying officers’ commands and weaponizing her SUV by attempting to “run a law enforcement officer over.” President Trump stated the woman “violently, willfully and viciously” ran over the ICE officer (Davis and Baran). Classifying Good’s actions of maneuvering her vehicle away from the ICE officer as an act of “domestic terrorism” is a baseless claim. There is no evidence that she intended to harm another human being; in fact the video analysis determined that she was trying to disengage from a precarious interaction. Whether her choice to move her car was the most effective way to disengage or not is not relevant to the discussion of her intent to commit acts harmful to human life. There is also no basis for the claim that her actions were intended to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion. The Trump administration in turn used Good’s label as a domestic terrorist to justify her death at the hands of a federal ICE agent. The Trump administration has used unsubstantiated language to describe its political opponents, thereby legitimizing the use of unwarranted force upon them.
Beyond manipulating language to excuse unwarranted violence, the Trump administration has further centralized its power by bypassing the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) through a broad categorization of “foreign affairs.” Malcolm Russell-Einhorn, a research professor of International Affairs at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, provides context on the APA: “When it was adopted in 1946, the APA was viewed in many quarters as a quasi-constitutional compact, whereby the President, Congress, and the Supreme Court conceded broad delegations of regulatory authority to agencies on the condition that such bodies be transparent in their policymaking, procedurally constrained, and subject to judicial oversight.” The Trump administration has largely overlooked these stipulations in its immigration enforcement through claims of extended presidential control. Russell-Einhorn notes a case in which “Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s order claiming that virtually all immigration and trade matters constitute otherwise narrowly construed ‘foreign affairs functions,’ thereby exempting them from notice-and-comment procedures despite the fact that courts have previously rejected such a broad interpretation.” This baseless extension of presidential power is being used as a means to excuse ICE and CBP from federal regulations that would hinder their processes. Rubio’s order disregards Congress’s role in foreign affairs, and gives immigration agencies unfounded control by associating them with the presidential duty of carrying out foreign affairs issues. However, constitutional presidential authority is to execute the laws of the United States; although he is the commander in chief of the military, his other powers are generally subject to oversight from Congress, review by the courts, and feedback from the American people. There is nothing in the Constitution that authorizes him to conduct mass deportations without judicial oversight. The President’s tenuous argument is unsupported and has been rejected in court (Russell-Einhorn). The Trump administration is making strained interpretations of the law to excuse obviously unlawful immigration enforcement actions under the guise of “foreign affairs.”
The Trump administration has circumvented the Posse Comitatus Act and deployed the National Guard through claims of an invasion. In California, the federalized National Guard has accompanied immigration enforcement, like ICE, in crowd and traffic control, riot response, and security patrol. This activity is usually prohibited by the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the use of military force in civilian law enforcement, unless expressly approved by Congress (Nunn). The Trump administration claimed that the Posse Comitatus Act did not apply in this case because the National Guard was federalized under a law that permits the president to do so to repel invasions or suppress rebellion. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer rejected the Trump administration’s interpretation of the law, arguing that it strayed from the longstanding practice and understanding of it, and that it would “create a brand-new exception to the Posse Comitatus Act that nullifies the Act itself” (qtd. in Nunn). The use of invasion rhetoric is unfounded in and of itself, and the use of it to bypass a long-established protection is deeply problematic. The Trump administration has sacrificed long-established principles for administrative ease, and vastly extended executive power in the process.
The Trump administration has used 10 U.S. Code § 12406 as the sole rationale for its deployment of the National Guard, disregarding its long-established use in conjunction with the Insurrection Act. 10 U.S. Code § 12406 allows the President to federalize the National Guard if the United States is invaded or in danger of invasion by a foreign nation, if there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the government, and if the president is unable with regular forces to execute the law. Historically, presidents have not relied on § 12406 alone to deploy the National Guard. Instead, they have considered it a supporting statute used in conjunction with the Insurrection Act: § 12406 allows the president to bring the National Guard under federal control, while the Insurrection Act has traditionally supplied the broader authority to use that force domestically. Therefore, the two authorities have typically been invoked together in the deployment of the National Guard (Goitein). Despite the longstanding practice of 10 U.S. Code § 12406 as part of a larger legal framework, President Trump has argued it can be used as a sole authority, and has deployed the National Guard under that premise. Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program, explains:
In federalizing and authorizing deployment of the National Guard, Trump appears to be either relying on § 12406 as a stand-alone authority or, alternatively, pairing § 12406 with a claimed inherent constitutional power to deploy troops to protect federal personnel, property, and functions…In authorizing deployment of active-duty armed forces, Trump is ostensibly relying solely on a claim of inherent constitutional power, given that § 12406—unlike the Insurrection Act—does not authorize deployment of active-duty armed forces.
The administration has exploited the ambiguous interplay of § 12406 and the Insurrection Act to access extensive executive authority, consequently shifting § 12406 from a supporting mechanism to an independent source of sweeping power.
Immigration courts are functioning as a means to extend the Trump administration’s power over immigration beyond enforcement and into adjudication. Immigration courts are unique in that they are housed under the Justice Department and are part of the executive branch. However, cases can be appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals and the case could work its way up to the Supreme Court (Matusek). Immigration courts being housed under the executive branch already give the Trump administration more influence over adjudication than they would have in ordinary court proceedings. However, the scope of the administration’s influence extends beyond this. Lory Rosenberg, a former appellate immigration judge who now mentors lawyers, defines the immigration court system as being “undermined” and “lacking impartiality.” She notes in an interview that the appellate board has aligned itself with the Trump administration’s position that more immigrants should remain detained while their cases are pending. She also criticizes the administration for restricting asylum eligibility for individuals fleeing domestic violence (Matusek). The appellate board’s conformity to the Trump ideology further expands its influence and control, by removing the neutral check on executive immigration policy. In fact, it allows the administration’s priorities to shape the court structure itself, further consolidating executive power in an area that should be subject to independent review.
The Trump administration has deliberately defied injunctions to carry out its agenda and retroactively justified their actions by labeling them as “foreign affairs” matters. In April of 2025, the American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward sued the Trump administration for its use of the Alien Enemies Act in deportations, arguing that it violated due process rights. Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia ordered an immediate pause to any deportations under the Alien Enemies Act. Despite this, the Trump administration proceeded with deportations to El Salvador. Judge Boasberg stated that while his temporary block was in effect “those individuals were on planes being flown overseas, having been spirited out of the United States by the Government before they could vindicate their due-process rights by contesting their removability in a federal court, as the law requires” (NPR Staff). Not only did the Trump administration neglect to provide the civil liberties assured by the constitution, but it undermined the structure of the U.S. government by neglecting to uphold checks and balances. Due to these failures, Boasberg wrote “The Court ultimately determines that the Government’s actions on that day demonstrate a willful disregard for its Order, sufficient for the Court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt” (NPR Staff). The White House immediately appealed to the Supreme Court, saying that Judge Boasberg had no role in conducting foreign policy (NPR Staff). The Trump administration invoked “foreign affairs” as a pretext for retroactively justifying its plainly unlawful actions. These claims essentially function as a means to eliminate judicial oversight, as they assert that solely the president conducts foreign affairs, therefore discrediting Judge Boasberg’s verdict and prohibiting future intervention. This use of foreign affairs is ungrounded and is merely a vehicle for sweeping executive power.
The Trump administration has been derelict in its duties to the American people. The obligation of the U.S. government is to serve the people, as the Founding Fathers determined in the establishment of our nation. The White House has operated with complete disregard for that duty, often acting to the detriment of the American people. Through immigration enforcement, it has denied citizens basic civil liberties, disrupted communities, separated families, fostered fear in schools and workplaces, exposed individuals to wrongful detention, and weakened public trust in legal institutions. The Trump administration has created a reality in which the executive branch is seemingly above the law and can disregard the other two co-equal branches of government. It has undermined the very principles this country was built upon. Such a disproportionate concentration of power in the executive branch is far removed from the system of balanced government our nation’s founders worked to create. The Trump administration has used this immense power to deprive residents of the United States not only of civil liberties and due process, but of basic human dignity and protection. By prioritizing unchecked executive authority over constitutional checks and balances, the administration has ultimately compromised both the democratic ideals and the basic human rights it was sworn to protect.
Works Cited
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