Cecilia directed immigrant rights giving among philanthropy for over a decade. She ran Obama's immigration policy/political strategy for a full eight years, and she was the lead on Biden's domestic policy transition team. But, sure, anti-deportation activists are to blame for how we got here. Right.

There are almost no cases about this provision, but the few imm court cases suggest the IJ would treat the Secretary's determination as almost immune from review. That makes it very very hard to challenge in immigration court, but strengthens the constitutional args against the statute itself.

It has never been applied to cases involving people already admitted to the United States, so applying it here would involve a fairly radical change to the constitutional law in this area.

Yes exactly. Why haven’t I heard anyone say this in the press yet? You can’t remove people before they have a removal order. Also can’t remove them to Cuba without Cuba’s consent. This is not complicated.

But there are cases that construe that particular regulation to say that it codifies a probable cause requirement. People cannot be arrested by immigration agents on less than probable cause.

Actually courts read "reason to believe" to mean probable cause. Sorry I can't give you a cite rn... It's implicit in the constitutional rule from Brignoni Ponce, which says "detention or search must be based on consent or probable cause," except for brief inquiries during car stops (like Terry).