Theme: rule of law
Legal and constitutional norms tested by the conduct of state power.
Read all stories in this theme →
-
The Memo That Said What ICE Already Did
The legal memo ICE used for more than a year to justify courthouse arrests does not, on its face, grant that authority — a fact ICE's own counsel has now confirmed in writing to the Southern District of New York.
-
Thirteen Thousand Sent Anywhere But Home
Thirteen thousand people have been removed under the third-country deportation framework — many under removal orders issued decades earlier that prior administrations would not have enforced this way.
-
Adding to the War Crimes File
Reading the Secretary of Defense's public statement that the mission would not be 'guided by rules rooted in the law of armed conflict,' former UN special rapporteur David Kaye flagged the declaration as material for any future war crimes prosecution.
-
Arrested for Silent Challenge
Aliya Rahman, who was violently dragged from her car by federal agents in January, was arrested again at the State of the Union — the cited reason being that she had silently challenged the president during the speech.
-
Trained to Disregard
ICE whistleblower Ryan Schwank, a former agency instructor and staff attorney, testified that field agents were trained to disregard constitutional rights — making rights violations a matter of policy rather than aberration.
-
When the Cameras Came Out
Federal prosecutions of protesters and others accused of 'assaulting' or 'impeding' federal officers have repeatedly collapsed when courtroom evidence — particularly video — contradicted the officers' sworn statements.
-
Eighteen Days for Being Latino
A 20-year-old lawfully present in the United States was arrested for being Latino and held for eighteen days in a Minnesota detention cell so cramped he couldn't sit down — an arrest the federal courts have since ruled unlawful.
-
Five Patterns of Defiance
Federal judges hearing immigration cases have begun to articulate a recurring playbook of administrative noncompliance with their orders — across detainee transfers, deadlines, release conditions, post-release treatment, and bond hearings.
-
The Sheriff Who Spoke Up
A day after Cumberland County, Maine sheriff Kevin Joyce publicly criticized ICE for arresting one of his corrections officers, ICE served the county with a subpoena demanding employment data on every person who had worked at the jail since January 2025; the agency separately ended its long-standing detention contract with the county.
2026
2025
-
Held for the Likes
Yaa'kub Ira Vijandre, a Texas photojournalist and DACA recipient, has been held in ICE custody for his Instagram posts and likes expressing support for Palestine; new court filings frame him as a political prisoner.
-
Tear Gas Almost Every Day
After U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis issued a temporary restraining order on October 9 limiting federal agents' use of crowd-control weapons against Illinois protesters, court filings allege that federal agents violated the order 'almost every day,' including a Halloween-eve incident in which children on their way to a school parade were tear-gassed.
-
Fifty-Plus Cases That Fell Apart
A ProPublica investigation methodically tracked over fifty cases of US citizens detained by immigration agents on charges that were either dismissed in court or never filed at all — including a woman accused of an assault that wasn't on video and a charge listing the injury as 'the thumb of an ATF Special Agent.'
-
What the Cold War Did to Passports
Historian Julia Rose Kraut, author of 'Threat of Dissent,' surfaced the Kent v. Dulles precedent on Bluesky in response to an Intercept report that Secretary of State Marco Rubio — who has already sought to punish immigrants for their speech — would have new legislative authority to extend that punishment to U.S. citizens; in 1958 the Supreme Court held that the right to travel cannot be conditioned on a citizen's political speech.