Ben-Ghiat is right."Holy crap," he said on Saturday. "The DOJ is arguing that the President can unilaterally deport anyone he wants without ANY statutory authority, just on his inherent authority as President over national security. That is a terrifying claim to make and has never been recognized before in US history."
Reichlin-Melnick added, "While of course deporting citizens is unlawful, I see nothing specific in the argument that would purport to limit that claim to noncitizens, since it's based on membership in a gang. But this is also a badly written brief with a stupid and unlawful argument at its core."
Authoritarianism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat also flagged the appeal, writing on social media, "Everyone who thought he was joking about being a dictator, are you waking up now?"
And this confrontation is going to escalate.