Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 2h

The answer to that is... complicated. Here's what a @nipnlg.bsky.social practice advisory says on the situation.

Sometimes, multiple grounds of deportability could apply to the same conviction. For example,
a person could be convicted of a drug sale crime. Such an offense is both a controlled substance
conviction and an aggravated felony drug trafficking crime. Even though the pardon will remove
the aggravated felony ground of deportability, it will not remove the controlled substances
ground, and the person would still likely be subject to deportation. Because aggravated felonies
render people ineligible for several forms of relief from deportation, a pardon in this case could
still potentially benefit them, even if it did not completely shield them from being deportable.

Reposted by Aaron Reichlin-Melnick

Julie DiCaro @juliedicaro.bsky.social · 7h

So Kilmer Abrego-Garcia will not challenge a deportation to Costa Rica, who has agreed to for him residency, but DHS won’t agree to send him there because it’s not cruel enough.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/u...

For weeks, Mr. Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who is married to a U.S. citizen, has made clear that he would not challenge his deportation if he were sent to Costa Rica, which has promised him legal residency and guaranteed that he would not be sent back to El Salvador.

But the Trump administration has refused to deport him to Costa Rica, and in an earlier hearing this week, Judge Xinis pressed the administration to consider the option or clarify why it was unacceptable.

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Reposted by Aaron Reichlin-Melnick

derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 5h

This two-parter below is exactly why it's hard to make clothes in the United States.

Let's look at how much it costs to produce a button-up shirt in the US. 🧵

Someone on Twitter replies to me: "meh. buy american or stfu."

Two hours later, in a separate thread, the write: "$30 for a single button-up is ridiculous unless it is decent quality silk."

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Reposted by Aaron Reichlin-Melnick

Caitlin G. DeAngelis @caitlindeangelis.bsky.social · 5h

ICE kidnapped a 7th-grader with a pending asylum claim and spirited him out of state without notifying his parents, seemingly with the cooperation of the local police in Everett, MA.

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/12/m...

Everett 13-year-old arrested by ICE and sent to Virginia detention facility
By Marcela Rodrigues Globe Staff,Updated October 12, 2025, 44 minutes ago

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A 13-year-old boy was arrested by ICE in Everett and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by ICE in Everett and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Everett after an interaction with members of the Everett Police Department and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia, according to his mother and immigration lawyer Andrew Lattarulo.

The boy’s mother, Josiele Berto, was called to pick her son up from the Everett Police Department on Thursday, the day he was arrested. After waiting for about an hour and a half, she was told her son was taken by ICE, Berto told the Globe in a phone interview.

“My world collapsed,” Berto said in Portuguese.

From the police department, the boy was taken to ICE’s holding facility in Burlington on Thursday evening, where he spent a night before being transferred by car to the Northwestern Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Winchester, Va., on Friday morning, his mother said. The juvenile facility is more than 500 miles away from Everett.

The boy is a 7th-grader at Albert N. Parlin School in Everett, his mother said. The teen and his family, who are Brazilian nationals, have a pending asylum case and are authorized to work legally in the United States, Lattarulo said.

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 5h

Shining laser beams in the eyes of pilots is a felony crime because it can cause crashes.

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 5h

Never go full Jacksonville.

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 5h

And if you are planning to do illegal stuff against ICE, do not do this particular illegal thing because it is incredibly goddamn stupid.

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 5h

Co-sign. Under no circumstances should you EVER consider doing something so insanely reckless, dangerous, and illegal.

I hope this is a false flag; if not, whatever person did this thinking that they were striking a blow for justice is a moron.

Jake @jakeythesnakey.bsky.social · 6h

This is such an astoundingly bad idea that I kinda think it’s a false flag or an op of some sort

Merits aside, it is insanely easy to be caught if you do this and the punishment for doing this is much more severe than you’d guess.

(@faineg.bsky.social often writes on stuff like this)

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Reposted by Aaron Reichlin-Melnick

Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · 5h

I really wouldn’t be shining lasers at helicopters if I were you. It’s illegal and could cause an aircraft to crash - and that could kill a LOT of people, in the air and on the ground.

And the ICE goons appear to be *salivating* at the chance to claim people that they arrest were doing this:

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 5h

Pretty much, yes! All of this was established in the late 19th century around the Chinese Exclusion Acts, so rooted in some pretty ugly history.

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 5h

I actually think he’s got a good argument for 212(c) but he’d be mandatory detention for the whole case.

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Reposted by Aaron Reichlin-Melnick

Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 12h

Sens. Schumer, Merkley, Murray, and Peters are calling for the resignation of OMB Director Russell Vought.

"By impounding billions of dollars … and aggressively pursuing the illegal use of pocket rescissions, Vought has done everything in his power to gut the federal government piece by piece."

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 12h

Can and should!

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 12h

Yep, that’s immigration law for you!

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 12h

Nope. Congress could pass a law tomorrow declaring that having paid a parking ticket is a ground of removability and it would apply retroactively to any noncitizen who had ever gotten a parking ticket and received it, without violating the Ex Post Facto Clause.

incapotomus.bsky.social @incapotomus.bsky.social · 12h

No ex post facto clause in immigration law either?

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 12h

He was 19 at the time, he probably was pressured into pleading guilty. But that doesn’t really matter for the question at issue; why is ICE detaining him?

And if you want even more frustration; at the time he pled guilty (1980), the law which made his offense an aggravated felony didn’t even exist!

Frances Larina @franceslarina.bsky.social · 12h

Really? And you don't think he might have been pressured to plead guilty? I raise the question because the government has already shown in his case that it cannot be trusted. Yet, you are trusting...the government's story. Do better, please.

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 12h

Shockingly, no! Deportation has no statute of limitations. One of my first ever clients when I was doing removal defense from 2014-2016 ended up being placed into immigration court because of a conviction from 1988 that CBP flagged on his reentry to the country after a trip back home.

C E, a.k.a. Cletus @69cletus.bsky.social · 12h

Forgive me for asking, but isn’t there a statue of limitations on this offense?

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 12h

I didn’t write this thread to suggest we should be satisfied with what is going on with his case. I wrote it to explain that here, there IS a legal explanation for his detention, and to spark thoughts about a system that permits deportation for a small-time drug deal committed 40+ years in the past.

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 12h

So when we try to fit what’s happening to Mr. Vedam into the broad arc of immigration law, I attribute more to the long hand of the War on Drugs than to ICE under Trump being especially cruel.

That said, given the exoneration, other admins would *potentially* have granted discretionary release.

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 12h

Controlled substance trafficking as defined in immigration law is any dealing-related offense, including even selling a joint to a friend for $20.

Thanks to the War on Drug, trafficking was one of the first three crimes deemed “aggravated felonies” in the 1980s, which bar relief from deportation.

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 12h

In short, the government had two separate grounds when it ordered him deported years ago:

1. The murder conviction
2. The controlled substance trafficking conviction.

The second one may be what dooms him to deportation — despite the 43 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 12h

Okay, I’m going to take a mea culpa on this one, as initial reporting suggested he was ONLY facing removal because of the murder conviction he’s been exonerated from. But there’s more; at 19, he pled guilty to dealing LSD. And in immigration law, that’s its own “aggravated felony” ground of removal.

Lynn Becker @cmgiulini.bsky.social · 1d

After spending 43 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, evidence hidden by the prosecution reversed his conviction. Rather than finally enjoying freedom, ICE abducted him for deportation

Depraved.

www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

He was wrongfully imprisoned for 43 years. Moments after being released, ICE took him

Subramanyam “Subu” Vedam now faces deportation.

www.miamiherald.com

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Reposted by Aaron Reichlin-Melnick

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 13h

a key thing about vought — and all of these guys — is that they have a totally top down and hierarchical vision of the world. they believe that the cultural changes they hate can be turned off by destroying the federal government because they can’t imagine that they emerged bottom-up in society

Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 14h

What he’s railing against is a profound shift in culture, status… He’s obsessed with the idea that America is controlled by a leftist “ruling elite” - but “elite” isn’t defined socio-economically or by political power, it means something like: Getting to define “real America” and who gets to belong.

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 1d

This is as much a legacy of the War on Drugs than anything else. He has a controlled substance conviction separate and apart from the exonerated murder conviction.

Lynn Becker @cmgiulini.bsky.social · 1d

After spending 43 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, evidence hidden by the prosecution reversed his conviction. Rather than finally enjoying freedom, ICE abducted him for deportation

Depraved.

www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

He was wrongfully imprisoned for 43 years. Moments after being released, ICE took him

Subramanyam “Subu” Vedam now faces deportation.

www.miamiherald.com

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Reposted by Aaron Reichlin-Melnick

Michael Derby @michaelsderby.bsky.social · 1d

“The Sun-Times has documented four unmarked cars carrying federal officers without required plates, offering another way to shield their identities. Federal officials say they’re meeting regulations.”

Federal immigration officers wear masks, no name tags — now some drive cars without license plates

The Sun-Times has documented four unmarked cars carrying federal officers without required plates, offering another way to shield their identities. Federal officials say they’re meeting regulations.

chicago.suntimes.com

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