This Week in Democracy – Week 8: One Green Card Holder Detained, Another Allegedly Tortured

From attacks on migrants, to attacks on free speech and the press, Trump has again been busy dismantling democracy and keeping federal judges busy.

Note from our Editor-in-Chief:

The Trump people to quote Bond villain Steve Bannon, want “to flood the zone” with their anti-democratic and often illegal antics. Do so much, so fast, that you can’t keep up! That’s why we here at Zeteo created ‘This Week in Democracy,’ our ongoing project to document the day-by-day, week-by-week explosion of authoritarianism and, yes, fascism in the Trump second term. When we started this project, we hoped that as time went on, the lists would get shorter, but this week might be the longest one yet (and we didn't even add anything related to Trump's trade war)! Do share this resource with your friends and family and do please remember to support independent journalism by becoming a paid subscriber today.

-Mehdi

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Trump speaks at the Justice Department on March 14, 2025. Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Are you ready for a recounting of another week of legal, constitutional, and bureaucratic chaos? ICE detained a Palestinian green card holder, the Trump administration took the first step towards shutting down the Education Department, DHS employees are being polygraphed, and the US government made new plans to expel the Palestinians from Gaza. Here’s the full Zeteo accounting of what President Donald Trump, shadow president Elon Musk, and their allies did this week that harms the US democratic and constitutional order, academic freedom, free speech, and our free societies as a whole:

Saturday, March 8

• Trump immigration officers detained Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate who helped lead the school’s Gaza solidarity encampment, and took him from New York to an ICE detention facility in Louisiana. Marco Rubio personally signed off on Khalil’s arrest, using a narrow, little-used, Cold War authority given to the secretary of state. Legal experts question the constitutionality of the provision and targeting someone because of their speech.

• The Washington Post reported that the Justice Department removed at least three top national security officials from their positions. The move “amounts to a complete gutting of leadership in the highly sensitive National Security Division, which is charged with working with the FBI and other intelligence agencies to protect the nation from threats,” the Post wrote.

• NBC News reported that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is performing polygraph tests on employees to figure out whether they are leaking information about immigration operations to the media.

Sunday, March 9

• On ‘Face the Nation,’ Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said the government is planning to use the US army base of Fort Bliss as an immigrant detention center.

• On Twitter, Rubio shared a news story about Khalil’s arrest, writing, “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”

• Elon Musk called Sen. Mark Kelly, a Navy combat veteran and former NASA astronaut, a “traitor” after the Arizona Democrat posted a Twitter thread about his visit to Ukraine and the need for the US to stand with its ally.

Monday, March 10

• A federal judge temporarily blocked the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil while the court weighs a challenge to his detention.

• On Truth Social, Trump celebrated Khalil’s arrest, calling him, without evidence, a “radical foreign pro-Hamas student” and added, “this is the first arrest of many to come” for “antisemitic” and “anti-American activity.”

• A White House official, speaking anonymously to The Free Press, admitted that Khalil hasn’t committed a criminal offense: “The allegation here is not that he was breaking the law.”

• On Twitter, Rubio announced that the government is officially cancelling 83% of USAID programs. He added that, “in consultation with Congress,” the remaining programs intend to be administered by the State Department.

• A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from “unlawfully impounding congressionally appropriated foreign aid funds” owed to grant recipients and contractors by the State Department and USAID for completed work. At the same time, the judge declined to order the administration to restore thousands of foreign aid contracts and grants cancelled since Trump took office.

• DHS converted the app once used by migrants to seek asylum in the US into one where they can report their intent to self-deport.

• The Trump administration cut millions in federal funding from two cybersecurity initiatives, including one that helps state and local election officials.

• The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights sent letters to 60 colleges and universities it says are under investigation for alleged Title VI violations, warning them of “potential enforcement actions” if they do not fulfill obligations to protect Jewish students.

• The Trump administration froze millions in funding for the University of Maine System after Democratic Gov. Janet Mills refused to ban trans athletes from women’s sports.

• The DOJ’s pardon attorney was fired one day after refusing to recommend restoring gun rights for actor and prominent Trump supporter Mel Gibson, who lost them in 2011 as a result of a domestic violence conviction.

• The US was added to a global human rights watchlist “due to the Trump administration’s assault on democratic norms and global cooperation.”

• A federal judge ruled that the so-called Department of Government Efficiency is likely covered by the Freedom of Information Act, which opens the agency up to requests for internal government records.

Tuesday, March 11

• White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Columbia University “has been given the names of other individuals who have engaged in pro-Hamas activity.”

• As stock prices for Tesla plummeted, Trump, alongside his top donor Elon Musk, turned the South Lawn of the White House into a car lot, showcasing five Tesla vehicles, and told reporters he would buy one despite saying he’s not allowed to drive. A photo of Trump’s handwritten notes from the event appeared to read as a sales pitch.

• Asked by a reporter whether Tesla protesters should be labeled as domestic terrorists, Trump replied, “I will do that. I’m gonna stop them.” On Truth Social, Trump called the protests illegal.

• The New York Times reported that Musk has indicated he wants to donate $100 million to Trump’s political operation.

• A House foreign affairs committee hearing was abruptly adjourned after a Democratic lawmaker challenged the Republican chair for deliberately misgendering Rep. Sarah McBride, the first openly trans person elected to Congress.

• On Fox, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. downplayed the safety of the measles vaccine, falsely saying it “cause[s] deaths every year” and that “it causes all the illnesses that measles itself causes.”

• The Department of Education announced it was firing more than 1,300 employees as part of a reduction in force that will impact approximately half of the department’s workforce. Additionally, seven of the department’s 12 Office for Civil Rights locations are being shuttered. On Fox, Education Secretary Linda McMahon confirmed the mass firings were the first step toward a complete shutdown of the department.

• A group of unions challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to shut down USAID filed an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order after an agency official ordered staff to destroy a large volume of records, arguing the action violates federal record-keeping law.

• The Trump administration shuttered the Veterans Benefits Administration’s Office of Equity Assurance, which was created under President Joe Biden to address disparities and eliminate racial inequities for disability compensation to military service members.

• Bloomberg reported that DOGE canceled millions of dollars in federal contracts for affordable housing in more than 1,000 communities across the country after a review of non-profit websites and LinkedIn profiles for terms associated with diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Wednesday, March 12

• Trump’s border czar Tom Homan defended the ongoing detention of Mahmoud Khalil, saying “free speech has limitations.”

• Speaking to reporters, Trump attacked Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, saying, “Schumer is a Palestinian as far as I’m concerned … he used to be Jewish. He’s not Jewish anymore.”

• In a court filing, Citibank revealed that it was instructed by the FBI to freeze the bank accounts for organizations like Habitat for Humanity that received grants from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Biden administration. According to the filing, the FBI alleged the grant recipients are involved in “possible criminal violations,” including “conspiracy to defraud the United States” and wire fraud.

• A federal judge said Trump’s penalties on the law firm Perkins Coie sent “chills down my spine” as she ordered a temporary halt to parts of the president’s executive order.

• House Speaker Mike Johnson tweeted that Congress will investigate claims of “domestic terrorism to attack Tesla owners and their vehicles” and “help the DOJ & FBI ensure those responsible are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

• Yale University suspended Helyeh Doutaghi, the deputy director of the Law and Political Economy Project at the Yale Law School, after a news site, at least partially powered by artificial intelligence, alleged the scholar was linked to a pro-Palestinian group placed on the US sanctions list in 2024.

• Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner introduced a resolution to revoke a lease agreement for an independent theater for screening the Oscar-winning documentary, ‘No Other Land,’ calling the film “a false one-sided propaganda attack on the Jewish people…” (The documentary was made by both Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers.)

• The DOJ moved to dismiss a civil lawsuit against the largest provider of housing for migrant children related to allegations of sexual abuse and harassment of unaccompanied minors.

Thursday, March 13

• Hundreds of Jewish people and their allies took over Trump Tower in New York City to protest Mahmoud Khalil’s detention.

• Khalil’s lawyers also filed an amended habeas corpus petition challenging his detention by ICE, arguing the move violates his constitutional rights and exceeds the government’s legal authority.

• In a campus-wide email, Columbia University announced it had expelled, suspended, or temporarily revoked the diplomas of several students who participated in the occupation of Hamilton Hall as part of a pro-Palestinian demonstration in 2024.

• The announcement came on the same day the Trump administration sent a list of demands the university must meet in order to continue its “financial relationship” with the government, including suspending or expelling students for last year’s Hamilton Hall protest, implementing “time, place and manner rules,” enforcing a ban on some masks, addressing “anti-Zionist” discrimination and reforming the admissions process.

• Later, the university announced that DHS agents had entered Columbia’s campus to serve two search warrants, but “no one was arrested or detained.”

• On Truth Social, Trump attacked the Wall Street Journal, calling the publication “globalist” and saying it “has no idea what they are doing or saying.” In another post, he called CNN host Kaitlan Collins a “third rate, low rated reporter.”

• The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump family has had talks to make a business deal with crypto exchange company Binance. Meanwhile, the company’s billionaire founder, Changpeng Zhao, has been pushing for Trump to pardon him after he pleaded guilty to violating anti-money-laundering requirements and agreed to pay over $4 billion in fines.

• The Trump administration filed a series of emergency appeals asking the Supreme Court to allow the president to move forward with plans to end birthright citizenship.

• The Guardian reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is expected to overhaul the corps made up of US military lawyers in the coming weeks in an effort to make the military less restricted by the laws of armed conflict.

• The White House withdrew Trump’s nominee for the director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Dave Weldon, a former Republican congressman who espoused misinformation about vaccines.

• Two federal judges ordered the Trump administration to rehire thousands of probationary workers who were part of mass firings across multiple agencies.

• Elon Musk ”threw a tantrum” and called for those judges to be impeached.

• News organizations reported that the Trump administration is planning to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, a sweeping wartime authority that’s been rarely used since it was passed in 1798. The act, which was used to justify Japanese internment, allows the federal government to arrest and deport certain noncitizens without due process.

• ABC News reported that the White House quietly ordered the FBI to stop conducting background checks on dozens of Trump’s top staffers, transferring the process to the Pentagon.

• Speaking to reporters alongside the Secretary General of NATO Mark Rutte, Trump said he’s willing to use the “extraordinary powers of the federal government” to push through a deal to build a pipeline from Pennsylvania’s drilling fields to New York. The project was canceled in 2020 after opposition from New York politicians and environmentalists.

• CNN reported that DOGE has proposed reducing the IRS workforce by 20% by May 15.

• Nearly two dozen Democratic attorneys general filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its efforts to dismantle the Department of Education, claiming the agency’s mass firings are unconstitutional.

• A US Southern Command spokesperson said there are no immigrants being held at Guantanamo Bay after 40 people were transferred back to the US on Tuesday. The move comes as federal lawsuits challenging the legality of holding immigrants at the offshore military station continue.

Friday, March 14

• On Truth Social, Trump repeated baseless claims that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged & crooked,” adding, “the people who did this to us should go to jail.”

• AP, citing American and Israeli officials, reported that the US and Israel reached out to Sudan, Somalia, and Somaliland to discuss resettling Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. While Sudanese officials said they rejected the idea, officials from Somalia and Somaliland told the AP that they were not aware of any contacts.

• DHS announced that a Columbia University student from India, who the agency claimed without evidence “was involved in activities supporting Hamas,” had her visa revoked and was subsequently self-deported.

• Mahmoud Khalil’s family shared a video of his arrest by immigration authorities dressed in plain clothes. The video shows the agents refusing to give their names or agencies, using unmarked cars, and ignoring requests from Khalil’s wife to speak with his lawyer.

• Asked by a reporter whether the Trump administration will comply with court orders to reinstate fired federal workers, Leavitt called the orders unconstitutional, saying, “You cannot have a low-level district court judge filing an injunction to usurp the executive authority of the president.”

• Delivering remarks at the DOJ, Trump bragged about pardoning Jan. 6 insurrectionists, his 2017 firing of then-FBI director James Comey, and revoking the security clearances of those who pursued charges against him.

• He called CNN and MSNBC “corrupt” and said he believes “what they do is illegal.” He added that “newspapers are really no different than a highly paid political operative, and it has to stop … it just cannot be legal.”

• He also attacked the non-profit organization Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington, calling their staffers “scum.”

• Two parents and a national disability rights group filed a lawsuit to stop Trump and McMahon from firing civil rights investigators and lawyers from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

• New Hampshire Public Radio reported that a New Hampshire man with a green card was detained by immigration officers at Logan Airport and, according to his mother “‘violently interrogated’… stripped naked, put in a cold shower…placed on a mat in a bright room with other people at the airport, with little food or water, suffered sleep deprivation, and was denied access to his medication for anxiety and depression.” Immigration agents allegedly pressured Fabian Schmidt to give up his green card.

Missed the first few weeks? Catch up here.

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