Trump Shreds the Constitution to Better Hound Immigrants and Eviscerate Universities
2025-04-25T09:00:00Z
Sasha Abramsky
In his first three months in office, Trump’s ire has been particularly ferocious on two policy areas: immigration and higher education.
The post Trump Shreds the Constitution to Better Hound Immigrants and Eviscerate Universities appea…
Politics / Trump Shreds the Constitution to Better Hound Immigrants and Eviscerate Universities In his first three months in office, Trump’s ire has been particularly ferocious on two policy areas: immigration and higher education.
Protesters hold signs as they march toward the White House during a “Hands Off!” protest of President Donald Trump’s policies and executive actions in Washington, DC, on April 19, 2025.
(Richard Pierrin / AFP via Getty Images)
Over the last three months, the Trump administration has taken a blowtorch to constitutional limits in two policy areas in particular—that of immigration and that of the federal government’s relationship with institutions of higher education.
On immigration, Trump 2.0 has used extraordinary measures, such as invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, to deport people without any due process. Trump recently posted on Truth Social that he is “entitled” to deport people alleged to be criminals even if they have not been tried. Despite growing opposition from the courts, the administration has barreled ahead, sending alleged gang members to the CECOT super-max prison in El Salvador. The White House has made it clear that it has no intention of seeking the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was sent to CECOT despite a court order prohibiting his return to El Salvador. And the Trump administration has even canceled the Social Security numbers of legal immigrants by declaring them dead—a particularly Orwellian action since it knows they are very much alive. Trump has further militarized the US border, and is toying with the idea—thankfully, so far not implemented—of invoking the Insurrection Act to allow the military a more direct role in policing that border and arresting those trying to cross into the United States from Mexico.
Should Trump start posting on Truth Social about the need for that act to be invoked, no one ought to expect the feckless Peter Hegseth, at Defense, or the endlessly opportunistic Pam Bondi, at Justice, to push back.
On higher education, Trump 2.0 lost no time in strong-arming Columbia University into accepting a shameful deal that gives the government an oversight role over large parts of the university. It has used the withdrawal of valuable federal grants in the sciences to try to bludgeon Harvard, Yale, Brown, the University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins, and many other elite universities; it has threatened to sic the IRS on Harvard by withdrawing its tax-exempt status; and, with Harvard’s administration refusing to bend the knee, has intimated that it may seek to punish the university further by withdrawing the credentials that allow it to accept international students.
In many instances—as with the imprisonment in immigration detention facilities of activists such as Mahmoud Khalil and the revocation of student visas for people protesting the war in Gaza—it has overlapped its twin obsessions, marshaling ICE and other immigration agencies in an orchestrated campaign to instill fear on the campuses and stifle dissent. This is, of course, straight out of the authoritarian playbook of aspiring dictators like Vladimir Putin in Russia and Viktor Orbán in Hungary.
GOP state legislatures have been taking cues from the White House and are similarly clamping down on academic freedom and the due process rights of immigrants. They’re also taking cues from Florida, which, along with Texas, has become something of a beachhead for the implementation of awful policy ideas. In 2023, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis orchestrated a takeover of the board of trustees of New College of Florida. When Trump returned to the White House, he took Florida’s assault on New College as his model. Now, in turn, the feds are egging on Florida to further eviscerate student rights and other states to follow their example.
This month, in a chilling development, many Florida campus administrations have, at the behest of the state government, signed memoranda of understandings with ICE essentially deputizing campus police to help identify undocumented students and enforce immigration laws.
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