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Terrifying abuse of power by this administration -- must read, must join ACLU today
An American illegally detained in Iraq by the U.S. military for more than a year has finally won his freedom.
On Sunday, after a long court battle, the Trump administration let our client go. Under a settlement agreement, he was released in a third country, where he will once again be a free man. Parts of the agreement are confidential, and he is officially remaining unidentified for his safety and privacy.
From the moment the American was imprisoned, his own government tried to deny him his constitutional rights. It kept his detention secret, denied his requests for a lawyer, and attempted to forcibly transfer him to a dangerous war zone.
Fortunately, the courts fulfilled their role and upheld his due process rights. What the Trump administration tried to do was unprecedented, and a series of historic court rulings forced the government to respect the Constitution at virtually every turn. The end result: Unwilling to justify our client’s detention to a court, the government had few choices but to set him free.
In September 2017, the American was fleeing violence in Syria, where he had traveled to research and document the ongoing conflict there. He was seized by Kurdish forces and handed over to the U.S. military, and the Trump administration labeled him an “enemy combatant” and held him without charges.
His story might have ended there, with him secretly detained indefinitely, if not for the reporting of The Daily Beast, which revealed his existence to the public.
Still, for four months, the government blocked the American’s access to a lawyer and the courts, despite his request for an attorney. The ACLU filed a habeas corpus lawsuit on his behalf in court in Washington, demanding that the government justify his detention and let him have an attorney. Over the Trump administration’s objections, we ultimately secured a court order enabling us to represent him.
Sunday’s release comes after months of continued litigation as we demanded that the government either charge or release our client. In response, the government claimed the power to imprison him indefinitely without charge, accusing him of being an ISIS fighter. Our client not only contested the allegations, but also maintained that the government had to prove its allegations in a trial if it wanted to continue holding him.
Instead of doing so, the government sought to transfer the American to the custody of a foreign country over his objection. In fact, the government said that it could spirit him away in the dead of night, without even informing the judge or his lawyers beforehand. But the district court rejected this assertion of unfettered government power over an American’s rights and blocked the government’s proposed transfer.
...permission to use more than 4 paragraphs obtained from the original source
6 replies
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kavanaugh. 
