sending people to Libya who aren't Libyan is not deportation
— Eric Budd (@ericmbudd.com) May 6, 2025 at 10:21 PM
Sure, ‘disappearing’ inconvenient not-white people to some distant sh*thole seemed like a very Trumpian solution, but… “Judge warns Trump administration against Libya deportations” [gift link]:
A federal judge warned the Trump administration Wednesday that it cannot deport immigrants to Libya, Saudi Arabia and any other country where they are not citizens without due process, saying such a move would violate standing court orders intended to shield people from being expelled to countries where they could be harmed or killed.
U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy in Boston, writing in a swift, stern response to an emergency request from lawyers for a number of immigrants, said he had already barred the Department of Homeland Security from deporting someone to a third country without having given them a chance to challenge the removal and seek protection in the United States.
Lawyers representing immigrants with final deportation orders as part of a class-action lawsuit against the Trump administration had asked Murphy for the emergency order earlier Wednesday, after reports indicated that U.S. immigration officers were preparing to deport people from Vietnam, Laos and the Philippines to Libya. The troubled North African nation is “notorious for its human rights violations, especially with respect to migrant residents,” their emergency motion says…
Asked about the reports of a deportation flight to Libya, President Donald Trump said he did not know about it and referred the reporter who asked the question to the Department of Homeland Security.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, however, derided the judge’s ruling. “Another judge puts himself in charge of the Pentagon,” he wrote on social media. “This is a judicial coup.”…
The judge’s declaration followed a frantic 24 hours during which lawyers for the potential deportees scrambled to confirm media reports indicating that the migrants were being readied for removal to Libya via the U.S. military. At the Pentagon, officials appeared uncertain whether such an action was imminent, and several said they had been told to refer questions about the possibility to the White House.
Any removal of U.S. deportees to Libya would mark a significant expansion of the Trump administration’s already aggressive deportation program, which has sent hundreds of people to countries in Latin America and far smaller numbers to Africa and Central Asia, despite highly charged legal challenges in U.S. courts.
Libya’s rival governments, meanwhile, each issued sharp public statements indicating that they would reject any deportations from the United States…
Ugly:
Why Asian and Mexican #immigrants, moments away from being deported to #Libya, never left the U.S.
The immigrants were woken up at 2:30 a.m. and boarded on a bus to wait for hours outside a military plane in Texas. They were then sent back to solitary confinement.
www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news…
— Lee West (@whodat35.bsky.social) May 8, 2025 at 7:03 PM
Just, perhaps, coincidentally…
Libya and Trump administration discussed sharing billions of dollars in frozen funds, sources say – https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/libya-and-trump-administration-discussed-sharing-billions-dollars-frozen-funds-sources-say
— Middle East Eye (Unofficial) (@middleeasteye-rss.bsky.social) May 8, 2025 at 2:36 PM
Libya’s Tripoli-based government and the US have held talks about sharing billions of dollars in frozen Libyan state assets if the Trump administration helps unlock the funds, two sources familiar with the secret discussions told Middle East Eye.
The Trump administration would help in unlocking around $30bn, which have been frozen since the former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was toppled by a Nato-backed uprising, a western official and one Arab source familiar with the talks told MEE.
In exchange, the US would obtain around $10bn to reinvest in Libya, eyeing infrastructure and energy projects, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
US companies Halliburton and Honeywell International both announced energy projects in Libya in 2023, but they have been slow to develop…
Elizabelle
This Trumpanzee administration is just crazy.
Believe our next big protest day is June 14?? They give us new slogans for protest signs, every single day. I cannot bear to read the news sites anymore.
Snarki, child of Loki
Judge prohibiting “extradition to Libya” needz moar “Okay, DOJ lawyer, you will be chained up in my chambers, and summarily executed if this order is violated”.
Nerf-bat/gun-fight, etc etc.
Steve LaBonne
Every day I grow more convinced that Miller is the one actually running the government. Which is probably the only thing that could be worse than Trump running it.
Ella in New Mexico
More and more it’s becoming evident Trump is not the President. It’s the not so secret cabal that’s running things. They don’t even bother to fill him in anymore, even for appearances sake.
Man, we have a WHOLE lotta work do to…
Steve LaBonne
@Ella in New Mexico: But Joe Biden is old and Kamala Harris is a Black woman so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
different-church-lady
“The judge said we can’t deport immigrants. The judge didn’t say we can deport citizens…”
different-church-lady
@Steve LaBonne: “Plus, I love cheap eggs! It’s a shame I have to give them up, but if expensive eggs are what it takes for Trump to give us cheap eggs, then it’s worth it!”
Parfigliano
Trump admin says “fuck you Judge”. Judge does what…..nothing. Congress and Supreme Court shrug.
Prediction: The first time a DEM admin says “fuck you Judge” it will be an immediate Constitutional crisis and Congress and Supreme Court suddenly care and take action.
japa21
Hate the term “deport” being used in these situations. This is human trafficking, pure and simple.
Ruckus
@Steve LaBonne:
Does not look like very many sane, rational, non assholes are in charge of much of anything in DC these days.
I drew a paycheck back a few decades from the federal government, military segment, and know that even back then there were issues but nothing like what we are seeing here and now. I’ve often wondered what rampant insanity might look like, and now we know.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
hrprogressive
@Parfigliano:
Bold of you to assume there will ever be another Dem Administration.
rikyrah
Sigh
Sigh
Sigh
The United States incarcerates more of its population than any other country on Earth.
We have Max and SuperMax prisons.
We have prisons that could handle the architects of 9-11.
But, the American prison system can’t handle some gang members?
🤔🤔🤔🤔
Phuck kind of nonsense this has ALWAYS BEEN 😡😡😡
We have the space to handle criminals.
But, we are trying to ship people with NO PHUCKING DUE PROCESS TO LIBYA 😡😡😡
different-church-lady
@rikyrah:
You’re assuming these two actions have any connection to each other. They’re not interested in shipping criminals away, they’re interested in showing us they can ship anyone they want to away.
Sure Lurkalot
@japa21:
I agree. I also think some of our fellow citizens would have no problem if the death penalty applied to undocumented immigrants. They use the words “invasion” and “infestation” with the hope they can convince others.
Soprano2
@rikyrah: The whole point of this is to scare people into leaving and not coming at all. That’s why they won’t bring Garcia back even though they can. I don’t know about the whole government but Miller is definitely running the immigration and deportation program. This is his wet dream.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Sure Lurkalot:
Gee, where have we heard that kind of language before?
Stephen Miller, ‘Murka’s* Favorite Himmler is called that for very good reasons.
* 77 million voters
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Barney
As people may presume, Libya is still divided by a civil war, and no place to send anyone to:
Libyan authorities have accused aid groups of plotting to change the country’s ethnic make-up by encouraging African migrants to stay there, and has ordered some of them to close their offices.
Ten groups were criticised – including Doctors Without Borders, the UN refugee agency, and Norwegian Refugee Council.
…
Both nations sit on the Mediterranean coast and are key transit points for African migrants crossing the sea to Europe.
Since the overthrow of Libya’s leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 there has been a breakdown in government, allowing armed militias and human-traffickers to proliferate.
The country has been divided into two, each run by a rival administration.
Militiamen have been accused of running detention centres where migrants are beaten to death or starved, and the Libyan coastguard is accused of sometimes filming people in the sea rather than rescuing them, external. The Libyan authorities have not commented on these accusations.
Thursday’s order to expel the aid groups was made by the internationally recognised government based in the capital, Tripoli.
Libya kicks out aid groups accused of ‘African’ population plot – BBC News
Baud
@Parfigliano:
Backed by NYT reading Democrats.
p.a.
tRump & admin so incompetent they even eff-over (by accident) their very biggest supporters: the private prison/copaganda complex!
Betty Cracker
@Ella in New Mexico:
You’re right. I just saw where a reporter on Bsky highlighted an article that says Trump has only sat for a dozen or so “daily” presidential briefings during his first 100 days. I mean, that’s important shit! Who’s receiving that info? Susie Wiles?
Trump ran to stay out of jail, not to be president. So he’s not doing the job. He’s golfing, live-tweeting Fox News and collecting bribes full time.
As far as I can tell, Stephen Miller is running domestic policy, and Musk is in charge of hoovering up everyone’s data and breaking the government’s ability to regulate any industry in which Musk has business interests.
jimmiraybob
@hrprogressive: “Bold of you to assume there will ever be another Dem Administration.”
This I believe is the heart of it. Once they establish the unitary presidency, unbound by the Constitution and law, they would never ever let the opposition have that power.
If the courts can’t hold we will be celebrating the 250-year anniversary of a dead promise.
schrodingers_cat
Hey but look at the bright side, we don’t have to hear Biden’s stutter or see his halting gait. That’s a win for our press.
jimmiraybob
“…the Department of Homeland Security.”
I think we can now just start calling it the Department of Homeland Purity.
Jackie
@Steve LaBonne:
I am 100% sure of this. FFOTUS is president in name only. Dutifully signs documents in between golf outings and is available for pomp and circumstances.
Old School
Hereby, deportation to Libya is legal.
jimmiraybob
Trump aide Stephen Miller, working out of the Joseph Goebels* wing of the White House, heads up a group that is attempting to bring the federal courts under the jurisdiction of the White House, thus ending separation of powers.
The linked article is by Marc Elias of Democracy Docket who has been singled out and condemned by Donald Trump.
I don’t usually post links here but it seems relevant.
democracydocket.com/news-alerts/trump-ally-stephen-miller-sues-john-roberts-control-courts/
Jackie
@japa21:
And doesn’t deportation mean kicking the deported off the plane at an airport for them to fend for themselves? NOT immediately being imprisoned in a foreign country?
jonas
@p.a.: Of course they can be detained here. The whole point is to remove them from US jurisdiction so some court can’t intervene, like they’re doing in El Salvador.
jonas
Yes, and usually in the country they’re from. Not some random part of the world where they have no legal status, no language skills, no way to get home, or anything. WTF does Libya think they’re going to do with these people?
Professor Bigfoot
Put them to work, of course. “Abeed.”
lowtechcyclist
@Jackie:
Yeppers. At the very least, what they did in the El Salvador ‘deportations’ was to sentence these people to imprisonment for an indefinite period of time, quite potentially a life sentence, without even the merest hint of due process, let alone a trial.
And given the complete denial of any communication to or from the outside, it’s cruel and unusual punishment right there. And that’s even without taking into account the possibility of forced labor (which would raise it to human trafficking) or torture.
I expect that the Libyan deportation won’t happen, if only because both sides of its civil war are saying they won’t let the plane land. But even if it’s a ‘get off the plane, you’re free to go wherever’ deportation, it would be a deportation into the middle of a war zone. They’d have to come up with a new word for that.
Peale
@Jackie: we’ve made working without a visa a crime with a life sentence without parole.
schrodingers_cat
Every action taken by this version of the Orange Reign is to handicap the economy.
Attacks on the rule of law
Tariffs
Attacks on immigrants and visitors.
Destruction of our scientific edge.
Attacks on universities
They want a fresh start, a do over to make America in their image.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Ella in New Mexico: You don’t suspect this president is simply lying? He does enjoy dodging responsibility for his regime’s rampant incompetence and lawbreaking. You know this president also claimed he did not sign the executive order invoking the Alien Enemies’ Act?
On the other hand, this president cannot remain awake at the pope’s funeral. So, you may be right.
Chetan Murthy
@HopefullyNotcassandra: This. He’s doing what Mafia dons did before him: argue that he didn’t do it, didn’t know about it, his lawyers told him to do it, etc. It’s standard stuff. He did it during his first admin too. It’s not a sign that he’s checked-out: it’s just S.O.P. for a mafioso.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@rikyrah: good morning.
Geminid
@Jackie: I think Miller is being allowed to drive policy in the area of immigration, and it just seems he’s running the whole government because that’s the area that a lot people are rightfully focused on right now.
I don’t see Miller exerting much if any influence over tariffs, the Congessional budget bills, environmental policy, or negotiations over Ukraine, Gaza and Iran’s nuclear program. Same with energy policy and agriculture policy. I don’t think Miller is deciding if the Defense Secretary stays or goes.
I have seen speculation that Miller will be the next National Security Advisor, but it hasn’t happened yet and might never.
Now, I’m sure Steven Miller would love to run the whole government, but I think he’ll have to persuade Trump to ditch Susie Wiles first. Wiles is the Chief of Staff and Miller is a Deputy, and Wiles is not someone who’ll let a deputy take over her job without a fight.
laura
I’m reading a book All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days, by Rebecca Donner about a relative of hers; Mildred Harnack; who moved to Berlin at 27, saw the meteoric rise of Hitler and started the largest underground resistance movement. It is gripping and I have to put it down and walk away to just let it soak in. Fun fact, it is happening here, right now. The only thing currently missing is a law of security detention which would render anyone liable for arrest, detention, imprisonment and death with zero rights attached. Zero Rights. No lawyers, no judges, no trial, no appeal, no nothing. Miller et al are trying out this theory in the absence of a law on alleged “criminal terrorist illegal aliens” and I’m under no illusions that this will be adopted de jure or de facto to citizens. So when Miller spouts his propaganda about suspension of habeas corpus and communist judges, why wouldn’t one believe that protective custody isn’t where he intends to go, and Chief Justice John Roberts bears so much of the blame for this.
Highly recommend this book and the movie The Lives of Others for context and clarity about what is happen around us, and to us.
Another Scott
@Ella in New Mexico: They told us their plans more than a decade ago.
Hunter at DailyKos in 2012:
Except now they don’t even need a working legislature – they just need the SCOTUS, a few MotUs, a few “think tanks”, and enough people to stand back when some belligerent white guys come in and wreck the place…
47 has no idea what he’s signing, and he doesn’t care. But he loves the spectacle of the signing press conference and making the media broadcast it every day…
Grr…
Best wishes,
Scott.
Harrison Wesley
@schrodingers_cat: That image is going to look a lot like The Walking Dead.
Chetan Murthy
@Geminid: We shouldn’t forget Russell Vought either, right?
Ruckus
@Steve LaBonne:
I’d guess than no one that shitforbrains has any link to will be good in any way of actually running the government. They have their own agenda, which has ZERO to do with a democratic government.
WTFGhost
Ruckus
@Another Scott:
What you are saying is that this aging out child is playing a game. A game that he does not understand nor would he give a damn if he could. A game that will massively hurt a lot of people, most of which are not playing the game, do not want to play the game but are involved and getting screwed six ways from Sunday.
jimmiraybob
@laura: I would add that they are 100% likely to enact the 1807 Insurrection Act at some point. I remember a headline about trump consulting with his cabinet about it. And at that point, any opposition to the Trump/MAGA reign of lawless terror will be interpreted as treason leading to prison and/or exportation.
I’d also recommend, “In the Garden of the Beasts” with respect to the rise of Hitler and the NAZIs.
schrodingers_cat
@Harrison Wesley: TPTB think that they will emerge unscathed and their wealth and power will insulate them.
Another Scott
@lowtechcyclist: Plus, (IANAL, so grain of salt), even within the US, in actions between states, there has to be a legal extradition process for a state government to transfer someone to another jurisdiction. Habeas, indictments, arguments, Article III judge (a federal criminal court, not an immigration judge who operates in a civil court system) rulings, etc.
And AFAIK, the way the world transfers people in custody and legal jeopardy to another country is also via extradition. Snatching people off the street and sending them to a gulag in another country without any legal process is not “deportation”, it is kidnapping, false imprisonment, and a violation of about half of the Constitution.
It’s Unamerican.
And the people doing it need to be arrested and put on trial.
And the media reporting on this stuff needs to get their act together. The continued unwillingness to call out 47’s and his minions false framing of these actions and issues is causing great damage.
Grr…
Best wishes,
Scott.
jimmiraybob
@Another Scott:
And, if I recall the Norquist plan, it is too shrink government to a size that it can be drown in a bathtub.
Geminid
@Chetan Murthy: It sounds like Russell Vought got cut down to size a few weeks into Trump’s term, when he was told to stop trying to infringe upon the authority of Cabinet Secretaries over their personnel. I think Wiles settled that turf war.
laura
@jimmiraybob: they’re just waiting for the opportunity, but so far, the resistance has been peaceful, way old, and white. Agents provocateurs are limbering up and hydrating and we know it’s coming, like a storm, just over the horizon.
Steve LaBonne
@Another Scott: The media have their act perfectly well together. They are reporting the way they want to and especially the way their corporate / billionaire employers want them to. It ain’t gonna get better. But remember that people who actually consume traditional news media voted pretty strongly for Harris, and the low info voters who put Trump back in power are influenced by God knows what on the Internet, and so the latter problem is much more serious.
Glory b
@schrodingers_cat: Dont forget Kamala Harris laughing.
jimmiraybob
@laura: All the more reason to be out on the streets and resisting. The courts and the military need to know that they do not have to cave.
Cheryl from Maryland
My choices for what Stephen Miller is doing are either “purging” or “vanishing”. “Deportation” and “extradition have legal meanings which refer to those being taken away. The onus is on members of OUR government doing the taking.
schrodingers_cat
@Glory b: Yes of course. Podbros and Journobros were at it again after Biden’s interviews to the BBC and the View to piss on Biden’s legacy and KH’s campaign
But there are commenters who walk on water on this blog who will go to any lengths to refuse to acknowledge that racism played any part in KH’s defeat.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, for all the Virginia peeps, and everyone else… BlueVirginia.US:
He also makes the point that turnout may be even lower than usual because there’s no Governor primary (Spanberger has no opponent).
Every election matters. Show up! Bring your friends!!
Best wishes,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid:
But this has the potential to BE the whole government. If there’s no due process for people they call “illegal immigrants”, and if Trump thinks he and ICE agents reserve the right to determine personally who is a citizen and who is an illegal immigrant… then *everyone* can be an illegal immigrant. If they don’t like you, they can turn you magically into an illegal immigrant with a wave of a wand, and off you go to the pokey or to El Salvador or Libya. It’s bootstrapping general totalitarianism from immigration law.
Matt
@Cheryl from Maryland:
I’m partial to the end of Braveheart, personally. I’d love to look that Nazi clown right in the eyes as I wave to the riders to start galloping.
Geminid
@Another Scott: I saw a poll of New Jersey voter and most of them did not not know about their primary even though the Democratic nominee for Governor will be chosen from among several contenders. I think that primary will be June 10.
Matt McIrvin
@Peale:
And if you do have a visa, it can and often will be annihilated on a whim at any time, so it’s really “being an immigrant who they decide they don’t like”. Such as an immigrant who engages in protest over Israel’s actions in Gaza, or an immigrant who opposes Trump in any way, or a person speaking Spanish in the general vicinity of an ICE raid.
So far, when they scoop up citizens off the street they seem to be letting them go after a short time. But I’m not convinced that’s going to persist; the fact that almost the very first thing Trump did was issue an EO rejecting birthright citizenship suggests they have bigger plans.
NotMax
@Steve LaBonne
Also too the scuttling in the background Cheung.
::spit::
Gretchen
@schrodingers_cat: Josh Barro was also out yesterday insisting that Harris’ defeat had nothing to do with sexism, and didn’t even mention racism, it’s just a mystery the Democrats will have to figure out.
It’s a mystery why Harris and Clinton « cackled » and no man ever has. Just one of those things, nothing to to with sexism.
NotMax
@Cheryl from Maryland
It’s human trafficking, if not outight slavery.
cmorenc
A significant part of Trump / Miller’s motivation for setting up deportations to cruelly harsh, isolating places like Libya is to terrifyingly intimidate any further would-be foreign citizens from sneaking into the US. That was their motivation during Trump term 1 for separating kids from parents and keeping the parents in cages. Another part is precisely to send undocumented folks as quickly as possible to places outside effective US Court jurisdiction. Another part is that they are sadistic, cruel people who take pleasure in inflicting pain and suffering on other people, and enjoyment from the power trip of exercising arbitrary power against people powerless to resist.
Gretchen
My grandson goes to a French Immersion charter school. Many of the teachers are recruited from former French colonies in Africa so that the kids learn from native speakers. I Hope they don’t go after those visas. Miller isn’t in favor of more Africans coming here.
Matt McIrvin
Also, the fact that these ICE guys are un-uniformed, unidentifiable and wearing neck gaiters makes me think it’d be really easy for copycats running simple extortion rackets to imitate them and just kidnap random people off the street under bystanders’ assumption that they’re ICE, and I’m a bit surprised I haven’t heard about any of that yet.
pajaro
@Peale:
If you entered the US legally, overstaying a visa is not a criminal offense. It’s civil, and you can be deported, by an Immigration Judge, but it has to be to a place where you aren’t going to be subject to persecution.
Miller is basing his actions on the laws relating to immigration and asylum that are in his head, not the ones that Congress has actually passed. I’m not making light of any of this, and people are sure to be hurt by what he’s trying, but I think his losing streak is likely to continue.
schrodingers_cat
@Gretchen: Not just Barro, Weigel and the podbros were at it too.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: I was speaking to the proposition that Steven Miller is running the government, not that that he potentially might. But yes, hMiller potentially could have anybody deported if he can act without constraint.
And here we just dodged a potential nuclear Armageddon with the India/Pakistan ceasefire. Out of the potential frying pan, into the potential fire!
Buggrit
@schrodingers_cat: Hit dogs holler, film at 11.
UncleEbeneezer
@schrodingers_cat: They have major misogyny blindspots but also, they really don’t wanna admit that Biden is right (and completely mentally competent.)
prostratedragon
Lebowitz Principle watch:
Citizen Alan
@NotMax: I think the reinstitution of slavery has been the GOP goal since 1980, if not earlier. It’s been the “conservative” goal since approximately 1866.
cmorenc
@Citizen Alan: No, the goal of the GOP is not the re-institution of slavery, but rather the model of glibertarian free-market capitalism found 100 years ago in which everyman with limited resources and political power had the freedom to negotiate a labor contract with a big business with deep pockets and huge political pull. That model made workers free in principle but serfs to their employers in practice, because the bargaining position between them is so grossly unbalanced.