Layla Maryam Razavi

Movement lawyer tweeting about immigrant rights, global migration & the Iranian diaspora. Frmrly @ACLU

[Layla Maryam Razavi @LaylaMRazavi]

A Reagan-era federal judge gave the most scathing rebuke to the administration - finding they violated the first amendment rights of Khalil, Ozturk, and other student protesters…. And sandwiched his decision into a reply to a note he received asking what he can do to stop Trump.

[Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @ReichlinMelnick]

I gasped when I saw the front page of this decision; Judge Young includes a postcard sent to him asking "Trump has pardons and tanks ... what do you have?"

He responds "Alone, I have nothing but my sense of duty. Together, We the People ... have our magnificent Constitution."

[Layla Maryam Razavi @LaylaMRazavi]

@kshahrooz I posted this video on my stories. They are total fascists.

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

Trump’s budget director Russ Vought is the most dangerous person you’ve never heard of.

And he just proposed turning every federal grant into a loyalty test.

His plan would make funding for cancer research, housing, transportation, and public health depend on one thing: whether it “advances the President’s policy priorities.”

Not whether it works.

Not whether Congress authorized it.

Whether it pleases Trump.

This is the appropriations power. It belongs to Congress and to the people.
To my Republican colleagues: where are you?

Congress passed this funding. You voted for it.

Vought is telling you to your faces that your votes do not matter, that he and his enablers will override the law whenever it suits them. Every day you stay silent, you give away the institution you were elected to defend.

Grow a spine.

This is not about left or right.

It is about whether Congress still exists as a coequal branch, or whether we have quietly surrendered the purse to an unelected hack who holds the Constitution in contempt.

History will remember who stood up and who looked away.
https://t.co/2yHKBTNLbj

[LongTime🤓FirstTime👨‍💻 @LongTimeHistory]

ICE deports mom of 2 little kids on Mother's Day—her baby is still breastfeeding.

She was holding her 4 year old son's hand—when 7 agents with guns surrounded them.

Her husband now feeds their 1 year old baby daughter—but she rejects store bought formula he's forced to use.

Anna Catherine Delgado originally filed a request for political asylum from Venezuela.

She verified that she attended all of her regular immigration appointments—and still doesn't know what triggered her sudden arrest.

"She called and said they were going to deport her to Venezuela on Sunday—Mother's Day."

San Antonio, Texas

[Democracy Now! @democracynow]

Guardian: ICE Hires Private Security Company Accused of Torture to Help Track Down Undocumented Children https://t.co/LUieJCagIq

[Mahmoud Khalil | محمود خليل @mahmoudkhalel]

This is the due process the administration is offering me, corrupt and unprecedented:

"Internal board documents obtained by The New York Times show that the case was considered high priority even before the board officially received it.

“Please process as quickly as possible,” said another note, from October. Another document shows that the court’s chair — its highest ranking member — oversaw the case from early on."

This story proves that the Trump administration's treatment of my case has always been corrupt and retaliatory. They put me through a sham immigration process while guaranteeing the outcome in advance.

https://t.co/Du8qyOWXoG

[Jesus Freakin Congress @TheJFreakinC]

🚨BREAKING: ICE agents in New York illegally surrounded two cars and demanded the people inside prove their citizenship.

Community members showed up and immediately started asking the questions ICE never wants asked on camera: “Do you have a warrant?”

The agents claimed they did.

But when people asked to actually SEE the warrant… they refused.

Because they didn’t have one.

That’s the constitutional violation right there. In the United States, federal agents cannot legally detain people, block their vehicles in, and demand proof of citizenship without lawful justification. The Fourth Amendment protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures. You don’t lose those rights because ICE decides to profile you.

And unless agents have a judicial warrant signed by a judge, or actual legal probable cause tied to a crime, they cannot just trap people in their cars fishing for immigration status.

ICE keeps counting on intimidation instead of law.

They surround cars with multiple agents, act aggressive, throw around words like “warrant,” and hope people are too scared to question them.

But the second community members demanded proof, the whole thing fell apart.

Both cars were eventually released… because ICE never had the legal right to stop them in the first place.

This is exactly why people recording matters. This is exactly why communities showing up matters. And this is exactly why constitutional rights matter… especially when federal agents are acting like they don’t apply to them anymore.

[LongTime🤓FirstTime👨‍💻 @LongTimeHistory]

18-year-old U.S. citizen dying from cancer begs to see parents one last time—ICE is keeping them detained.

Parents were denied humanitarian visa—so forced to cross border illegally.

Son is in hospice care—only wish is to hug mom and dad before he dies.

Willing to self-deport and sign any paperwork voluntarily just to be released from the detention center before it's too late.

"It’s very difficult because the processes are very slow," said their lawyer.

Meanwhile, Kevin faces the possibility of dying in just a matter of days far away from his parents.

"Please help me fulfill my last wish."

[Congresswoman Sara Jacobs @RepSaraJacobs]

The Trump Administration is traumatizing and punishing migrant children as young as 4 years old – putting up legal barriers so they don’t have due process, making them appear in court alone, and speeding up their deportation. It’s heartless and wrong.
https://t.co/axV2qsjEce

[Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @ReichlinMelnick]

WOW: here’s an email showing how a USCIS staffer was ordered to include claims in the TPS terminations that had zero empirical evidence.

She put her objections in writing to ensure that there would be written proof and because she knew it would open the up to lawsuits.

[Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein]

JUST IN: Judge blocks Trump administration's revocation of temporary protected status (TPS) for Yemen. Judge Dale Ho (Biden/SDNY) says then-DHS Secy Kristi Noem did not follow required process. Doc: https://t.co/pEvnnJ9yoi Same issues pending at SCOTUS https://t.co/t09lYLVnFn

[Amnesty Iran @AmnestyIran]

Cousins Peyvand Naimi and Borna Naimi, from Iran’s persecuted Baha’i religious minority, may be at risk of the death penalty in relation to the January 2026 protests. Their detention is arbitrary and they must be released immediately.
https://t.co/zHgMf55Qu9

[Nazanin Nour @NazaninNour]

Just sat in on a call a friend received from family in Iran.

They confirmed that the Internet is still not connected for the overwhelming majority of Iranians.

My texts to family aren’t being delivered on WhatsApp either.

For those who want U to believe people are connected.

[Ximena @Ximena_Bustillo]

Confirming: Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, who testified today before House lawmakers, has turned in his resignation.

His last day is May 31 and he moves on to an “opportunity in the private sector.”

[Katherine Clark @WhipKClark]

Donald Trump tried to deport an innocent Tufts student to fill Stephen Miller’s inhumane quota.

Now, he’s fired the judge who rightfully stopped him.

This is the stuff of dictators.

[Layla Maryam Razavi @LaylaMRazavi]

Yes, Trump views ICE as his secret police. They operate like the Basij in the Islamic republic. Or like the gestapo.

Perhaps the Dems should stop requesting “reasonable reforms” or demand to abolish ice as many of us have been doing for years

[Jared Ryan Sears @JaredRyanSears]

This move undermines every claim of the Trump administration.

First, having ICE take over airport security does nothing to restore pay for TSA agents. So there goes the narrative of focusing on getting workers paid.

Second, this administration says undocumented immigrants are a danger to the nation. Stopping immigration enforcement so that ICE can pat down airline travelers refutes that claim.

Third, Trump's use of ICE at airports as a threat, not a solution, shows that he views it as his secret police force, not federal law enforcement.

And all of this because Democrats want reasonable reforms to an agency that has terrorized communities, violated constitutional rights, and executed Americans in the streets.

The GOP has shown it can't govern and can't rein in Trump's worst behavior eight months before the midterms.

[Yashar Ali 🐘 @yashar]

Trump is threatening to place ICE agents at airports in place of the TSA and says they will arrest “illegal immigrants” entering the country — but people generally don’t arrive at airports without a visa or from a visa-waiver country.

Those who enter through airports typically come legally and then overstay.

Also, ICE agents would need to be trained — so that’s about 2-3 weeks.

[Congresswoman Delia C. Ramirez @repdeliaramirez]

Republicans in the Senate have rejected funding TSA 9 times.

Deploying ICE agents— whose lawlessness and racial profiling have put us all at risk— to the airports is another disaster waiting to happen.

Republicans need to fund TSA and other essential functions. We must abolish Trump's terror force, ICE, and dismantle DHS.

[Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @ReichlinMelnick]

A unsurprising but still shocking decision from the Trump-packed MSPB which would eviscerate over a century of civil service protections and allow political firings of any federal employee.

[Congresswoman Sara Jacobs @RepSaraJacobs]

I met toddlers at Dilley who were so anxious and depressed that they couldn’t eat, sleep, or go to the bathroom – let alone play. This is state-sanctioned child abuse and it needs to end now.
https://t.co/mfRhAsk6wl