An immigration judge has announced she could rule as early as Friday on whether the Trump administration can continue to detain Mahmoud Khalil, the former Columbia University student protest leader incarcerated at an immigrant detention center in Louisiana. Khalil, a legal permanent resident of the United States, was seized by federal agents on March 8 and told his green card had been revoked. His case comes as many legal scholars say the country is facing a constitutional crisis on a number of fronts — from the Trump administration’s threats to ignore judicial decisions, to its targeting of law firms, to its use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to expel Venezuelan immigrants without due process. Trump “is trying to neutralize the opposition,” says David Cole, professor at the Georgetown University Law Center and former ACLU national legal director. “He wants to violate the law with impunity.”
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