I heard about this today, things are weird in the US as this guy has a green card but it was being revoked for speech the government didn't like and apparently not anything criminal:
It's questionable whether his green card has actually been revoked either. Supposedly that requires proceedings to go through an immigration court and be approved by a judge, and as far as anyone knows that hasn't happened yet.
Which would mean he's just being detained without cause in some unspecified location on no basis
> It's questionable whether his green card has actually been revoked either. Supposedly that requires proceedings to go through an immigration court and be approved by a judge, and as far as anyone knows that hasn't happened yet.
News coverage seems to suggest immigrants can be detained while moved to revoke their green cards are made, but it’s incredibly troubling that no one seems to know what’s up, the government agents arresting him seemed to think he had a student visa and in general there is so little visibility
> Supposedly that requires proceedings to go through an immigration court and be approved by a judge, and as far as anyone knows that hasn't happened yet.
The administration is pretending to goof up following court orders or simply ignoring them, and is lying in court, repeatedly - claiming they "don't know" who is in charge at DOGE.
ICE was arresting people who turned out to be citizens, shuttling them across the country so make it harder for their lawyers to contact them.
Why are you expecting the administration to follow procedures for deporting someone here with a green card?
Hey, the government can decide whether something qualifies as grounds to revoke a green card or not, that's totally legitimate and I support it.
But, once they do, the guy is still entitled to a lawyer. Vanishing the guy and telling the lawyer that they aren't allowed to know where their client is or whether he's still alive is not legitimate.
> Hey, the government can decide whether something qualifies as grounds to revoke a green card or not, that's totally legitimate and I support it.
No, it can't. It must go through a process which affords the green card holder due process. There are specific grounds which are required to be met to remove someone's green card.
And it absolutely cannot be revoked because the government disfavors ones political speech. That's an absolutely fundamental violation of the first amendment and our right to free speech.
It's really not as simple as "hey, the government can decide." To have a green card revoked, the person must be an active member of a group at war with the US or have committed some kind of fraud. DHS must initiate it (not the State Department, despite Rubio's statements), and it must be approved by an immigration judge.
So far all we've heard about this process and the justification is "Contact the White House."
And what about the active hostilities towards trans people, who often can't get passports anymore (I personally know one person who has this problem) and can't update their names and gender entries anymore.
What about the demolishing of government agencies that DOGE is trying (and sometimes succeding) in?
You call it "termination of employees", but don't seem to consider that they tried to fire jugdes who restrained their power. This looks to me like a plain powergrab. I hope I don't need to tell you where something like this leads, but I am certain it's not going to be democratic or respectful of civic freedoms.
As a non-straight non-binary (neither cis-male or -female) person, the US is currently just about the last place I want to be. If the current trend continues, then I genuinely fear for the lives of some of my friends.
I don't see how terminating employees or ending foreign aid being a decline in Civic freedoms
Ask the question differently. What kind of administration guts 70-150k jobs in a few weeks and cuts foreign aid? So many want to say "don't draw a bridge between that question and to a decline in civic freedoms". Fine, I won't draw the bridge, it seems to appease many people's idea of themselves. We'll just keep waiting and reading about more and more evil.
> The decision to add the US to the first 2025 watchlist was made in response to what the group described as the “Trump administration’s assault on democratic norms and global cooperation”.
> The group cited several of the administration’s actions such as the mass termination of federal employees, the appointment of Trump loyalists in key government positions, the withdrawal from international efforts such as the World Health Organization and the UN Human Rights Council, the freezing of federal and foreign aid and the attempted dismantling of USAid.
> The organization warned that these decisions “will likely impact civic freedoms and reverse hard-won human rights gains around the world”.
Okay, so there's nothing to do with actual civil freedoms. I dislike orange man as much as the next person, but this article is garbage.
Nothing has changed about civic freedoms in the US with the new administration. If you read the article, their reasons are a bunch of things that have NOTHING to do with civic freedoms. It cites reducing the size of the federal workforce for example. This is just a political activist group that is falsely pitched as some kind of civic freedoms watchlist.
On the other hand the EU has serious issues with civic freedoms - censorship, suppression of political parties, cancelling elections with results they don’t like, and more. But I’m sure this group doesn’t mind those actual civic freedom issues.
Journalism is the art of massaging a press release (from a politically motivated organization that nobody has ever heard of and which doesn't actually do anything) into a statement of fact. The average person (who has a seventh-grade reading level, mind you) has absolutely no defense against this sort of low-effort appeal to "authority".
Readit News
https://x.com/TheFIREorg/status/1898841858983239814
More details: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-authorities-arrest-pales... and https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/3/9/mahmoud-khalil-stude... (This last article mentions his green card apparently being revoked.)
Which would mean he's just being detained without cause in some unspecified location on no basis
From this article: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/3/9/mahmoud-khalil-stude... it says "A US immigration enforcement agent said Khalil’s permanent residency was also being revoked, according to the protest leader’s lawyer."
The administration is pretending to goof up following court orders or simply ignoring them, and is lying in court, repeatedly - claiming they "don't know" who is in charge at DOGE.
ICE was arresting people who turned out to be citizens, shuttling them across the country so make it harder for their lawyers to contact them.
Why are you expecting the administration to follow procedures for deporting someone here with a green card?
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But, once they do, the guy is still entitled to a lawyer. Vanishing the guy and telling the lawyer that they aren't allowed to know where their client is or whether he's still alive is not legitimate.
No, it can't. It must go through a process which affords the green card holder due process. There are specific grounds which are required to be met to remove someone's green card.
And it absolutely cannot be revoked because the government disfavors ones political speech. That's an absolutely fundamental violation of the first amendment and our right to free speech.
So far all we've heard about this process and the justification is "Contact the White House."
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A trivial example: is criticism of Israel fair or antisemitism?
I would imagine the current US "crackdown on antisemitism" being the cause of being added to the watchlist, which is fair in my opinion
I don't see how terminating employees or ending foreign aid being a decline in Civic freedoms
What about the demolishing of government agencies that DOGE is trying (and sometimes succeding) in? You call it "termination of employees", but don't seem to consider that they tried to fire jugdes who restrained their power. This looks to me like a plain powergrab. I hope I don't need to tell you where something like this leads, but I am certain it's not going to be democratic or respectful of civic freedoms.
As a non-straight non-binary (neither cis-male or -female) person, the US is currently just about the last place I want to be. If the current trend continues, then I genuinely fear for the lives of some of my friends.
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Ask the question differently. What kind of administration guts 70-150k jobs in a few weeks and cuts foreign aid? So many want to say "don't draw a bridge between that question and to a decline in civic freedoms". Fine, I won't draw the bridge, it seems to appease many people's idea of themselves. We'll just keep waiting and reading about more and more evil.
> The group cited several of the administration’s actions such as the mass termination of federal employees, the appointment of Trump loyalists in key government positions, the withdrawal from international efforts such as the World Health Organization and the UN Human Rights Council, the freezing of federal and foreign aid and the attempted dismantling of USAid.
> The organization warned that these decisions “will likely impact civic freedoms and reverse hard-won human rights gains around the world”.
Okay, so there's nothing to do with actual civil freedoms. I dislike orange man as much as the next person, but this article is garbage.
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Citation needed?(and maybe a refresher on Chomsky's propaganda model)
On the other hand the EU has serious issues with civic freedoms - censorship, suppression of political parties, cancelling elections with results they don’t like, and more. But I’m sure this group doesn’t mind those actual civic freedom issues.
TL;DR: It's nonsense. They're manufacturing dissent.
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