The lowest common denominator administration continues to roll. It doesn’t care what’s legal or what’s proper. It just does what it wants because the shittiest people are in it and its basest of voter bases will feverishly clap their sweaty hands together in applause whenever it does whatever it wants to do.
It will be the most-sued administration of all time, once it’s finally resigned to the history books. Whatever isn’t malicious (in the legal sense of the word) tends to be retaliatory (also in the legal sense of the word). Ring up people for vandalism of a reflecting pool that substandard contractors fucked up? All cool with the boss. Bring felony charges against people engaged in journalism? Why the fuck not.
And if you can’t do the big legal thing, at least do what you can to make Trump’s opponents miserable. This directive may be unofficial and largely unspoken, but there can be no doubt that it exists. That’s why we’re seeing more of this now, which is — as the article explains — part of the administration’s daily SOP.
A Minnesota man who lost his Global Entry privileges after observing immigration agents has sued the Department of Homeland Security, alleging federal officials illegally retaliated against him and violated his First Amendment rights.
As HuffPost previously reported, Michael Khalili had a series of run-ins with federal agents while documenting their actions in Minneapolis during the Trump administration’s deportation surge earlier this year. Then, on March 18, a day after he says one agent screamed at him, Khalili received an email from DHS saying it had revoked his Global Entry status, which allows for expedited screening when entering the U.S.
This is why ICE and CBP officers are using unvetted facial recognition apps to identify protesters, observers, and journalists. This is why these same officers are asking local cops to run ALPR (automated license plate reader) searches for them. As the article notes, Khalili discovered (while preparing for this lawsuit) that his plate had been searched 55 times over the past few months. Prior to his run-in with federal immigration officers, it had only been searched twice prior to this year.
Also adding to the unconstitutional pattern-and-practice evidence of the government targeting people for engaging in First Amendment activities is this:
HuffPost reported a series of stories on observers who were pulled over or reprimanded by agents and then lost their Global Entry within a matter of days.
[…]
In July, three women who lost their Global Entry after observing agents filed a similar lawsuit against DHS, accusing the agency of illegally tracking and retaliating against people.
While the DHS can revoke Global Entry at its discretion, prior to this it has generally targeted people convicted of crimes or suspected of customs violations. None of these people fit this general description. Instead, they were all people who were observed observing immigration enforcement efforts by immigration officers. And whatever info was gathered by ICE, CBP, et al was apparently passed along to the DHS, which then decided to pull the plug on their travel privileges.
And here’s more evidence in favor of the “retaliation” legal theory, helpfully provided by the DHS itself:
[Khalili’s] privileges were restored shortly after HuffPost asked DHS what the basis was for the revocation.
There it is, the operative theory of immigration enforcement: be shitty and hope that you don’t get caught being shitty. If you do get caught, reverse course, say nothing, and move on to the next victim.
Some of this might seem circumstantial. But any judge actually paying attention will start asking questions the government would rather not answer honestly. Given what’s at stake here for the government, it might want to settle quickly rather than allow further discovery to proceed, even if it has tons of immunity options at its disposal and the always-handy “national security” pretense to deploy.
Because what this looks like is local operatives getting shitty about being watched and surveilling observers, journalists, and protesters in response to being seen doing questionable stuff in public. And there are at least a few someones with their fingers on travel privileges buttons more than willing to flip switches every time some random ICE officer complains about being “observed.”
That’s not how you run a government agency, at least not in terms of the United States. This is low-level employees trying to be the KGB they wish to see in the world. And they would have gotten away with it except they’re too myopic and stupid to get away with anything, just like the president they’ve chosen to treat as a king.