In March, a group of scholars filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to block the government from detaining and deporting students and professors for speaking out about Palestine.
Now, as the case heads to trial in Massachusetts federal court in July, those professors and students worry they may be targeted by immigration officials for speaking out in the courtroom on the witness stand.
But the Trump administration is refusing to reassure them they won’t be subject to retaliation.
As attorneys for the scholars prepared to file a motion to protect their witnesses — many of whom are in the country under green cards or visas — from being detained or deported for testifying during trial, government attorneys refused to agree to such safeguards, according to recent legal filings in the case.
That would be because they will be subject to retaliation.
Trump is nothing if not petty and vindictive, and as with all the rest of his many and profound flaws and failures, he’s molding the rest of the government into his gross and detestable image.
And as with the rest of his brazen assaults on legal and ethical standards, nobody with any authority will do a single fucking thing about it.