cross-posted from: https://50501.chat/post/206911
First, Trump issued an executive order to militarize domestic law enforcement. Now a new order has come out. Buried in Project Homecoming, the executive order just released by the White House, is the single most dangerous shift in American civil liberties in a generation.
The same man who empowered ICE with military-grade surveillance, armored vehicles, and counterterror tools is now pushing the legal justification to detain people indefinitely.
The administration is laying the legal groundwork to suspend habeas corpus, the constitutional right that protects people from being detained without trial. It’s the right to not be disappeared. It’s the foundation of due process. And they’re getting ready to tear it away.
How? They’re invoking the Suspension Clause of the Constitution, which only allows habeas to be revoked “in cases of rebellion or invasion.” Stephen Miller and the Trump legal machine are now planning to label undocumented immigration as an “invasion,” which would let them bypass courts and jail people without charges, trials, or legal representation. The administration is trying to reclassify undocumented immigration as an invasion to unlock those powers. That’s the strategy.
Let that sink in. They’re preparing to create a class of people who can be detained indefinitely without ever seeing a judge.
Ask yourselves, If anyone can just be disappeared off the streets without charges, without court appearances, without access to a lawyer then do we still have a democracy?
This is just the beginning, it won’t stop at immigrants. So let’s be clear about what this will look like.
Indefinite detention. No due process. No hearings. No legal protections. We’ve seen this playbook before in history—and it always starts with creating a legal exception for a specific group. In this case, it’s undocumented immigrants. But legal exceptions do not stay contained. Once the precedent is set, it expands. Always.
Ask yourself: who defines what an “invasion” is? Who decides who qualifies as a threat? Protesters? Activists? Whistleblowers? Once the right to challenge detention is suspended for one group, the door opens to expand it. That is how authoritarianism consolidates power.
While they call this “restoring order,” here’s what they’re really doing:
They’re tearing $96.7 billion out of the economy. That’s how much undocumented immigrants contributed in taxes in 2022, Specifically:
• $59.4 billion in federal taxes
• $37.3 billion in state and local taxes
• $33.9 billion toward social insurance programs they are banned from accessing
Again, these are people paying into Social Security, Medicare, and public infrastructure they’re not even allowed to use.
The source? The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Read it yourself. https://itep.org/undocumented-immigrants-taxes-2024/
California alone would lose $8.47 billion in annual tax revenue if these mass deportations succeed. Texas would lose $4.87 billion. New York? $3.1 billion. Every state would feel the economic gut punch. And don’t forget: these are programs undocumented workers pay into but cannot use. They’re helping hold up a system that offers them nothing in return.
Now ask yourself: who is going to make up that lost revenue?
You. The poor. The working class. Not the rich, who continue to dodge taxes with impunity.
The federal government has already slashed funding to the states. Wealthy elites are sitting on tax loopholes and lower effective rates than working people. The answer is obvious: the working class will be left to cover the difference. Your rent, your healthcare, your school funding—all of it will take the hit.
What we are watching is economic sabotage wrapped in xenophobic theater. It is designed to scapegoat immigrants, distract from billionaire tax breaks, and destroy civil liberties in the process.
We have reached a dangerous tipping point. A government openly discussing the suspension of habeas corpus is a government no longer pretending to be democratic.
Habeas corpus is the line between freedom and fascism.
If we let this fall, there is no turning back.
This is the moment where people either pay attention or pay the price. Be ready.
Read the order. Learn what’s happening. Sound the alarm. Talk to your communities. And above all, do not get used to THIS.
Originally Posted By
u/transcendent167At2025-05-10 10:37:42 AM| Source
Oh ok. So now you’ll have no problem saying that Harris should never have been the nominee and that the Democrats are supporters of unconscionable evil in the form of active genocide?
Also, I notice you’re pretending those criticisms didn’t exist prior to your arbitrary six month cut off. They absolutely did, and were still met with “it’s too close to the election to oppose genocide”
It seems like you are trying to trap me into some kind of ulterior conversation that has nothing to do with the present. Here is what I’ll say. I think that Harris was the best choice after a long line of poor decisions left us with few choices. I think that in the pantheon of Presidents she would have been a fairly benign presence. To say that she “never should have been the nominee” is beyond the scope of what was possible at the time. When Biden stepped down, there was little else that could be done, and nothing that would have had a better outcome. Harris was the safest bet in the moment, and that’s the only judgement I am able to make. Everything else is too clouded by variables.
Your second, and I would say more inflammatory topic on democrats being “supporters of unconscionable evil in the form of active genocide” is something that I’ll need you to provide some talking points for, because that is an impossibly broad topic that must be narrowed down before comment.
An edit for your untagged edit: I’m not pretending that the criticisms didn’t exist, but Biden was the presumptive nominee as the incumbent, and if there was going to a change to that, it needed to start with some higher power players than some people spouting bullshit in forums on the internet. For the most part other politicians that were aligned with the left were relatively happy with his actions and activities and were happy to let him take his second term while they make moves to bring in a more powerful player to follow. So, yes, there were complaints about it, but there weren’t any actions taken based on those because they were from a relatively small group. When the election machine started churning, disinformation and right wing talking points amplified that group to the national stage, where it snowballed and people joined just to join and have something to bitch about without thought to what their actions meant.
Ok. And why should anyone care about what someone who considers genocide “fairly benign” thinks?
You are really struggling with reading comprehension. My comment is that Harris would have been a fairly benign President. I hadn’t even begun to approach the secondary topic of genocide that you seem hell-bent on tripping me up with. Spoiler, you won’t.
Considering a president who commits genocide “fairly benign” = considering genocide “fairly benign”
Yeeeeeaaah, so, still, you have yet to actually say what you mean when you talk about genocide. What genocide are you referring to? Can you back up your statements with hard facts and figures of American soldiers under the authority of the President committing to the systematic and widespread extermination or attempted extermination of a national, racial, religious, or ethnic group?
Lol. Interesting how you go on and on about people criticizeing you beloved party, yet mysteriously you have never even heard of the central point of their criticism.
So I suppose my next question is why should anyone care what someone who plays dumb on purpose thinks?
I’m more concerned with the person that won’t state their case, but expects someone to defend against it. I’m not playing dumb. I’m playing smarter than you. I’m not going to walk into a verbal trap where you get to me to say something and you immediately take the opposite stance in an attempt to discredit me. Your trap isn’t well disguised. The fact that you won’t come out and plainly say what you mean tells me that you don’t have a stance of your own, and only seek to trap others in their words so that you can derive some power from telling them that they are wrong. So, that’s your choice, you can give me your side, and I can see if our views match, or you can keep on with how I’m “playing dumb” while simultaneously giving nothing of value to the conversation. You’re the one that keeps bringing up genocide, it’s weird you seem to not want to talk about it.
Lol. That’s some next level evasion. But sure, keeping playing dumb, I’m sure people will see you obviously and deliberately pretending you don’t understand and will take you very seriously.