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International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group

Coalition pour la surveillance internationale des libertés civiles

April 26, 2025 - 26 avril 2025

Updated Election 2025: National Security Info Card

We sent our "Election 2025: National Security Info Card" in a standalone email last week. Since, the parties have published their official platforms and we have updated the info card consequently.

ICLMG 24/04/2025 - Here are a few of the new promises included in the parties' platforms:

Protecting places of worship

LIBERALS: Introduce legislation to make it a criminal offence to intentionally and willfully obstruct access to any place of worship, schools, and community centres. Make it a criminal offence to intentionally and willfully intimidate or threaten those attending services at these locations.

CONSERVATIVES: Protect places of worship and stop antisemitic riots with tougher sentences for religious property mischief and penalties for masked rioters.

ICLMG'S TAKE: Various sections of the Criminal Code already prohibit interference with private property and interference with religious services, as well as allowing for greater penalties if offences are motivated by bias, prejudice or hate (ie, ss. 430, 430 (4.1), 430 (4.101) and 170). Other federal, provincial and municipal laws and by-laws also allow for the regulation of protest and demonstrations. New laws are unnecessary and present a dangerous encroachment on free expression and dissent. 

Further, justification for these new laws are based on false accusations that protests against the genocide in Gaza and for Palestinian human rights represent hate and support for terrorism, and that these laws are necessary to combat terrorism in Canada and internationally. Laws (problematic in their own right) already exist for addressing support for terrorist organizations. Limiting or banning protests under the false pretence of addressing terrorism would be a clear violation of Charter rights.

Foreign threats

CONSERVATIVES: Direct CSIS to implement threat reduction measures, including communicating with Jewish communities about antisemitic threats, along with Chinese, Sikh and other Canadian communities targeted by foreign threats.

ICLMG'S TAKE: While there is a need to better communicate threats, including of transnational repression, with communities in Canada, we have raised concerns that, based on past actions, CSIS is not the ideal interlocutor for communicating threats with various communities. Moreover, CSIS’ secret threat reduction measures raise serious concerns about accountability and transparency, and should not be used more broadly or expanded.

NDP: Transnational repression is unacceptable. We are committed to working with communities, diaspora groups and with organizations on a comprehensive approach to tackle this head on. We will implement recommendations from the Hogue Commission to ensure more communication, coordination and transparency from security agencies in dealing with threats. We will take concrete action to protect Canada from misinformation and disinformation […] That includes supporting digital literacy, addressing online hate and discrimination, and holding those who spread false and harmful content accountable. Finally, we are committed to seeing a foreign agent registry put in place to help protect people and our democratic institutions.

ICLMG's TAKE: This is a positive commitment to address transnational repression by working with impacted communities. We would caution against solely relying on security agencies to communicate information or work with those affected by this issue, though. Efforts to address online harms must ensure that it is balanced with protection of privacy and free expression, and guard against government surveillance of online activities, as well as not be used to justify the expansion of rights-violating anti-terrorism measures.

The foreign agent registry, as adopted by parliament, continues to raise significant concerns about its impact on civil society groups that engage in international solidarity and cooperation work, and how it could be manipulated to punish organizations and individuals based on which countries or entities they work with.

Artificial Intelligence

LIBERALS: Will catalyze the construction and development of AI infrastructure […] Will cut red tape to make Canada the best place in the world to build AI data centres. Canada must have the capacity to deploy the AI of the future and ensure we have technological sovereignty.

ICLMG'S TAKE: While making bold promises to increase development and deployment of AI, there is no mention of regulation of AI or assessment for risks, including human rights and civil liberties impacts. Previously, Liberals planned to exclude any AI tools developed for national security purposes from their proposed regulatory framework.

Online protections

CONSERVATIVES: Protect Canadians online with new laws for AI deepfakes of intimate images, modernized laws against online harassment, and stronger child protection online […] without infringing upon the civil liberties of law-abiding Canadians.

ICLMG'S TAKE: The Conservative pledge to address online harms without infringing on civil liberties is welcome, given concerns with the previously proposed Online Harms Act’s provisions that raised privacy and free expression concerns. However, previous Conservative governments and language used by the party while in opposition raise concerns that they may still expand laws, including anti-terrorism laws, in ways that violate freedom of expression, freedom of association and privacy. Read more - Lire plus

Le Canada doit se dissocier du régime de sécurité nationale des États-Unis et protéger les droits, les libertés et les personnes vulnérables

This is the French and shortened version of the op-ed we published in the previous News Digest: Canada must disentangle from the US national security regime, and protect rights, freedoms and the vulnerable

CSILC 11/04/2025 - Lors de la présente campagne électorale, la question des tarifs et les menaces d’annexion de la part de Donald Trump et, encore plus important, le choix de la riposte du Canada, sont au cœur des débats.

Nous ne devons pas permettre que les prétextes avancés pour ces tarifs et ces menaces – soit la prétendue nécessitée de protéger la frontière nord, sur la base de craintes exagérées et de purs mensonges sur la contrebande de stupéfiants et la migration irrégulière, soient passer sous silence. Et nous devons contester les mesures d’urgences qui ont été mises en place pour y répondre.

La Coalition pour la surveillance internationale des libertés civiles (CSILC) a été formée dans la foulée de l’adoption précipitée de la Loi antiterroriste de 2001 et du déferlement de mesures de sécurité et de surveillance, du profilage racial et des violations des libertés qui ont suivi. Nous disons sans détour : cela a un air de déjà-vu et nous devons nous opposer au réflexe d’augmenter les mesures de sécurité et de d’intégrer encore plus profondément le Canada dans l’appareil sécuritaire des États-Unis. Nous ne serons pas protégé-es des menaces de Trump en sapant encore plus nos droits et libertés.

L’appareil de sécurité du Canada a systématiquement exploité nos peurs pour obtenir plus de pouvoirs et de ressources, ce qui a entrainé une explosion des pouvoirs de surveillance, la militarisation des frontières, la criminalisation de la dissidence et l’érosion de l’état de droit.

Dans le nouveau Plan frontalier du Canada, les migrant-es et les demandeur-es d’asile servent de boucs émissaires, et leur quête de protection et d’une vie meilleure est assimilée à la criminalité. L’approche sécuritaire du Canada occulte le fait que les migrations irrégulières et la contrebande de stupéfiants sont des questions de droits humains et de santé publique qui devraient être traitées comme telles à travers des programmes sociaux, et non au moyen de gardes frontaliers, d’espion-nes et d’hélicoptères Blackhawk.

Les mesures proposées par le gouvernement fédéral ne font qu’enchevêtrer davantage le Canada dans l’appareil sécuritaire des États-Unis à un moment où cela est plus dangereux que jamais.

Nous demandons au gouvernement de prendre les mesures nécessaires pour dissocier la sécurité nationale du Canada de l’autoritarisme en cours aux États-Unis et de mettre en place des mesures pour protéger les droits des personnes au Canada. Ceci implique de :

• Reconsidérer et restreindre les accords de partage de renseignements avec les États-Unis et d’autres agences de sécurité nationale étrangères, notamment les Five Eyes.
• Mettre fin aux négociations entourant le Canada-US CLOUD Act qui permettrait aux autorités policières des É-U d’émettre des demandes de données et de surveillance, directement à des entreprises au Canada, sans mandat et sans supervision judiciaire canadienne.
• Mettre fin à l’entente sur les tiers pays sûrs. On ne peut pas participer au refoulement aux É-U de personnes cherchant l’asile, sachant qu’elles font face à des procédures injustes, des violations de droits, des détentions abusives et probablement des déportations sans recours.
• Réallouer les milliards prévus pour la sécurité frontalière afin de répondre aux véritables besoins des Canadien-nes.
• Réviser les politiques canadiennes afin d’être protégé-es contre la surveillance étatique et contre les tentatives d’affaiblir le chiffrement, et afin de réglementer l’intelligence artificielle.
• Résister aux pressions visant à étendre le recours aux mesures antiterroristes. Cela inclut l’ajout récent d’organisations criminelles à la liste des entités terroristes discrétionnaire, politisée et violant la procédure régulière; ce qui élargit également de manière problématique la définition du terrorisme.
• Protéger la liberté d’expression et le droit à la dissidence, y inclus en dénonçant la répression au sud de la frontière et en corrigeant les lois canadiennes sur la « sécurité nationale » dont la portée démesurée permet la surveillance, le partage d’information, et les arrestations simplement pour avoir posé des gestes relevant de la liberté d’expression.
• Mettre rapidement sur pied le nouvel organe d’examen indépendant pour l’Agence des services frontaliers (ASF) et la GRC.

Compte tenu du nouveau contexte international, le gouvernement fédéral à venir devrait tenir une consultation publique sur ce que devrait être la politique de sécurité nationale du Canada.

La présidence de Trump est un avertissement retentissant des dangers que comportent un système policier et de sécurité nationale doté d’immenses pouvoirs. On ne sait jamais dans quelles mains il pourrait tomber.

Cela étant dit, nous ne devons pas laisser notre voisin hostile nous faire oublier les abus de pouvoir dans notre propre pays. L’appareil de sécurité du Canada a été utilisé à plusieurs reprises pour violer les droits des Canadien-nes. Cela va de la complicité dans la détention et la torture de Canadiens à l’étranger à la collecte illégale de données personnelles et la surveillance d’activités en ligne, au harcèlement et à l’arrestation de journalistes, de défenseur-es autochtones de la Terre et d’opposant-es au génocide, ainsi que l’utilisation de la reconnaissance faciale sans autorisation et sans contrôle.

Le temps est venu de tracer notre propre voie fondée sur les droits humains et les libertés civiles, en protégeant les personnes vulnérables et en investissant dans les programmes sociaux qui produisent une véritable sécurité humaine. Source

White House boasts of 'huge results' with Canada-U.S. border security but tariffs remain

Action: These Kids Need Their Moms: Canada Must Immediately Evacuate Doaa and Nariman from Gaza

Change.org 18/04/2025 - This is a heartbreaking story of two families forcibly separated by bureaucratic stupidity as they seek to escape a genocide.

On April 2, 2025, Zahed, 14, Abdalrahman, 12, and Joury, 7, faced the worst nightmare any child could face: they could leave the Gaza killing zone and come to Canada, but only if their mom, Doaa Z M Nashwan, stayed behind. Because of a heartless paperwork technicality that violates the Canada’s own Temporary Residence Visa program, when the kids and their Dad, Qasem Alyazji, were evacuated to Canada, Doaa was forced to stay behind.



Canada must stop playing Russian Roulette with the lives of Palestinians eligible to come to Canada and immediately evacuate Doaa as well as other families who have been cruelly separated as bombs and starvation face them down. Among those other families are Nariman and her three oldest children, whose story is also below. [...]

As we demand immediate evacuation of Doaa, Nariman and other forcibly separated family members, we are also demanding:

Immediate processing of all remaining 3500 Visa applications using Ukraine-level screening turnarounds of 14 days (and not, as in the case of Doaa and her family, 13 months). All should be completed no later than May 1. (In the first year of the Ukraine program, Canada processed 1,400 applications a day and welcomed 130,000. In the Gaza program, they have only done 2 applications per day, and hundreds have been killed waiting for approval as fewer than 1,000 have made it here. During that same time period, Canada approved over 8,000 visa for Israeli citizens. 

Canada must negotiate with Israel to allow for the immediate evacuation of all remaining applicants in Gaza no later than May 10. Other countries have been able to do this. Why not Canada?

Canada must charter flights to bring the 700 exiled family members languishing for over a year in Cairo to be reunited with their families here, and prepare flights for the remaining applicants.

Canada must issue specific instructions to end the racist harassment Canadian Border Services Agency officers are inflicting on traumatized genocide survivors when they get here. 

Canada must work with the provinces to end the confusion it has created with its patchwork program to that everyone arriving can work, go to school, and receive health care.

Reunite these desperate families with their loved ones. ACTION

Pro-Palestinian protesters call out Canadian arms transfers to Israel

Family of 4 jailed in U.S. for weeks after Canadian border guards turned them away

CBC 24/04/2025 - Aracely saw Niagara Falls for the first time on a cold Monday in March as she crossed the Rainbow Bridge toward Canada with her common-law husband and two daughters, aged four and 14, fleeing the immigration raids and sudden deportations sweeping across the U.S. 

She said they felt happiness and hope as they walked across the bridge, using their cellphones to capture a cloud of mist and spray from the falls in the distance above the Niagara River, still caked in ice. 

In a yellow envelope, Aracely carried documents she hoped would be the key to opening the gates to Canada for her family — birth certificates proving her relationship to her brother, who is a Canadian citizen. 

"We could see Canada, there, ahead, and behind us, the U.S.," said Aracely, who is originally from El Salvador. "New opportunity, a new life."

But Canadian border guards sent the family back to the U.S., where they entered a shadowy limbo — jailed in holding cells at the U.S. port of entry in Niagara Falls, N.Y., without a breath of outside air for nearly two weeks. She spoke with CBC News in Buffalo, N.Y., where she's currently staying while awaiting a decision from immigration authorities. CBC News is only identifying Aracely by her first name because she remains in a precarious situation in the U.S.

The Canada Border Services Agency's handling of Aracely's case and the family's treatment by U.S. border authorities is raising renewed questions about the Safe Third Country Agreement between the two countries. Under the agreement, refugee claims must be submitted in the country where people first arrive. For this reason, Canada turns away most asylum seekers who attempt to enter from the U.S. at land-border crossings, but there are exceptions to this rule. One of them allows people to seek asylum if they have an anchor relative who is, among other categories, a Canadian citizen, a permanent resident or has an accepted refugee claim.

'Not a safe situation'

The U.S. is the only place considered a "safe third country" by Canada. But some U.S. lawmakers say it's no longer safe there for immigrants under President Donald Trump. "The Trump administration has basically ended asylum in the United States," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat and member of the subcommittee on immigration and citizenship. 

"It's not a safe situation." Aracely and her common-law husband both lived undocumented for several years in the U.S. They decided to join family in Canada to escape the threat posed by the Trump administration's hardline immigration policies. "We were living in fear," she said. So they took the risk of exposing themselves to U.S. immigration authorities by attempting to make a refugee claim in Canada.

However, the joy the family felt on March 17 at the Canadian port of entry in Niagara Falls, Ont., slowly turned to dread when an official with the CBSA began reviewing Aracely's documents. She said the official seized on slight differences with their parents' names in the documents — Aracely's birth certificate listed her father with one last name, but on her brother's document, he was listed with two last names. While their mother's two last names matched on both records, there were variations on her first name, though each started with the same letter.

"They told me that the documents I presented did not convince them. I told them, 'I have a brother in Canada and we can call him right now,' " said Aracely. "But nothing could convince them not to deport us." She said border officials handed the family their backpacks and drove them back across the Rainbow Bridge. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) put them in a holding cell with cots, a couch and a television, where she said they stayed for three days. If they needed to use the bathroom, she said, they would have to bang on the door to be escorted to the facilities.

They were then moved to a windowless cell with four cots and a half wall that hid the toilet and sink at one end of the room. Aracely said she and her husband would wait until their daughters fell asleep before allowing themselves to cry. "But we drew strength from our children. We did not want them to see us like that. We tried to be strong for them," she said as she drew diagrams of the two cells on a notepad.

'Randomness and cruelty'

Family detention is a new and worrying trend along the northern border, according to U.S,.-based advocates. Jennifer Connor, executive director of Justice for Migrant Families, in Buffalo, N.Y., said she's received reports of children and families held for days and weeks at ports of entry in Detroit, Buffalo and Champlain, N.Y., located near the Quebec border. This is something that she says rarely, if ever, happened along the northern border, until Trump's second term.

"There's kids young enough to be in diapers and who are being locked up," she said, adding that it can be difficult to locate people who have been detained at ports of entry because regulations are unclear.  "That element of randomness and cruelty really increased," said Connor. "There is no system for finding people in a port of entry." According to a document outlining agency standards provided to CBC News by CBP, "detainees should generally not be held for longer than 72 hours in CBP hold rooms or holding facilities." The document said that "every effort must be made to hold detainees for the least amount of time." In some cases, it noted that individuals are held longer if there is no space available at detention facilities.

A thread of hope

Then, on March 28, they received word that CBSA officials would meet with them again. There had been frantic work behind the scenes by their family to authenticate their records and enlist the help of a Canadian lawyer and advocates on both sides of the border. "Again we walked across the bridge. We were feeling joy," said Aracely. "We were feeling certainty." But any hope they had was soon dashed. CBSA officials again told the family they didn't trust their documents. Aracely said it all happened very quickly. 

"They told us we had to be deported immediately to the U.S., that they had been very generous in entertaining our case a second time," she said. One CBSA official told them it would be better if they were sent straight back to El Salvador, she said. "[He] said the U.S. would deport us back to El Salvador anyway." The family returned to the cell at the Niagara Falls, N.Y., port of entry.

"I don't think it's something that Canada should be complicit in, turning children back to those kinds of conditions," said Heather Neufeld, the family's Ottawa based-lawyer. She said CBSA officers had the option of calling Aracely's brother, the anchor relative, and interviewing him, but chose not to. "I've never seen a determination before that was so nitpicky on discrepancies," she said. "The [CBSA] border officials did not take the time to fully think out how things work in El Salvador, the fact that documents don't always look the same as in Canada."

Lawyer seeks judicial review of CBSA decision

Neufeld has filed for a judicial review of the CBSA rejection with the Federal Court, but the case is up against a ticking clock in the U.S. On April 1, a CBP officer came to tell them that Aracely's husband was being taken to a detention centre in Batavia, N.Y., before a deportation hearing scheduled for May. The family was given three minutes to say their goodbyes. Read more - Lire plus

Asylum seekers turned away at Canadian border largely face detention, U.S. border agency says

Poilievre’s plan to deport residents under the pretense of hate crimes is not leadership. It’s dangerous politics

The Toronto Star 21/04/2025 - Over the years, as an immigration lawyer I’ve had the privilege of representing countless newcomers to Canada — refugee claimants, permanent residents and future citizens. And if there’s one thing these clients share, it’s a deep commitment to following the law. They know — often better than most — that their path to citizenship depends on it.

That’s why Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s recent threat to deport non-citizens involved in “antisemitic crimes” isn’t just alarming — it’s dishonest. It plays politics with people’s fears while ignoring the simple reality that Canada already has laws to deport non-citizens who commit serious crimes, including hate crimes. What Poilievre is proposing isn’t about protecting Jewish Canadians — something all decent Canadians support. It’s about expanding political power, eroding due process and creating a dangerous precedent where protest and dissent risk becoming deportable offences.

Under existing immigration law, if a non-citizen commits a serious hate crime — like vandalizing a synagogue or assaulting someone because of their identity — they can already be deported after conviction. No new law is required. In fact, the current law gives the government sweeping powers to deport non-citizens not just for criminal convictions, but even on suspicion of security threats or hate propaganda — using a low legal threshold of “reasonable grounds to believe.” And we should all be asking if this was truly about protecting Canadians from hate, why does his proposal only mention antisemitism?

Where is Poilievre’s commitment to tackling Islamophobia? Anti-Palestinian racism? White supremacy? Or attacks on Black, Indigenous or Sikh communities across this country? Hate comes in many forms. Real leadership confronts all of it — not just the parts that are politically convenient. So why is Poilievre campaigning on this? Because it’s not about the law. It’s about the optics of appearing “tough” — especially against pro-Palestinian protesters he has labelled part of “hate marches.” It’s a classic divide-and-conquer strategy: paint immigrants and racialized communities as the problem, then promise to punish them.

We don’t have to imagine where this kind of rhetoric leads. We are witnessing it in the U.S., where the Trump administration is weaponizing immigration laws and agencies to silence dissent. Take the recent case of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian-American student who was detained by U.S. immigration officials. His “crime?” Participating in campus protests critical of Israel and alleged (without proof) associations with groups deemed controversial. He was never alleged of a crime let alone be convicted. But the mere allegation — rooted in his political activism — triggered efforts to detain and deport him like a criminal.

This is what happens when politicians blur the line between hate crimes and political speech. It turns immigration enforcement into a political tool — bypassing the courts, due process, and basic fairness.

Make no mistake that hate crimes should be prosecuted — fully, forcefully, and through the criminal justice system. But what Poilievre is proposing would allow the government to sidestep that process. It would empower politicians to target individuals based not on proven crimes, but on suspicion, association, or dissenting views.

Today, it’s framed as a tool against antisemitism. Tomorrow, it could be used against those who protest pipelines, oppose government policy, or criticize the state of Israel. This is not hypothetical. It’s the creeping logic of authoritarianism: erode the systems of accountability in the name of fighting “hate” — then expand those powers when convenient. As a lawyer and as a Canadian, I find that deeply chilling. If we truly want to confront hate we already have the tools to do it. We need to enforce our laws consistently, prosecute crimes transparently and protect the fundamental rights that make Canada worth calling home. We do not need — and must not tolerate — politicians granting themselves the power to decide who stays and who goes based on their politics. Source

Poilievre backs Montreal candidate’s call to cut university funding over antisemitism

Antisémitisme : « Nous définancerons des universités », dit un candidat conservateur

Independent Jewish Voices: Jews say no crackdowns on our campuses!

“Unquestionably Unconstitutional”: Harvard Law Prof Slams Cuts as School Rejects Trump Demands

Canadian lawyers borrow from U.S. playbook to quash Palestine solidarity

The Breach 11/04/2025 - As Palestinian solidarity organizers face dramatic arrests and deportations in a sweeping crackdown on dissent in the United States, some Canadian lawyers are taking notes.

In the U.S., pro-Israel lawyers have worked hand-in-glove with the Trump administration to escalate attacks on academic and democratic institutions—weaponizing the courts to punish and silence criticism of Israel. 

Now, some members of Canada’s legal community are pushing to import those same tactics north—and they’re doing so in the name of fighting what they call “the new antisemitism.” 

This is lawfare in action: the strategic use of legal tools to suppress political opponents. 

In this case, lawfare is being deployed to control the narrative about Israel’s genocide in Gaza—branding as “antisemitic” criticism of Israel, support for international law, or even reference to Palestinian rights, speech, and culture.

Not all pro-Israel activists may support American tactics like abductions and deportations. But the underlying logic of lawfare is gaining ground among some Canadian legal professionals. 

Since October 7, pro-Israel lawyers have been at the forefront of a push to criminalize critics of Israel and to promote an anti-Palestinian agenda with the Canadian government. They have intervened in encampment injunction proceedings, sued universities on behalf of students, and lobbied municipal, provincial, and federal governments to ramp up penalties against Palestine solidarity protesters.

One clear articulation of this strategy came from criminal lawyer Mark Sandler in a recent webinar titled “Enough is Enough: How You Can Use the Law to Fight Antisemitism.” There, he laid out a national strategy for using lawfare to introduce harsher penalties and further criminalize Palestine solidarity. 

Sandler is the founder of the Alliance of Canadians Combatting Antisemitism (ACCA), which includes Lawyers for Secure Immigration and Lawyers Combatting Antisemitism. He has been the visionary behind coalition building since October 7 and is transparent about his strategy to influence policy and legislative agendas.

This new push for lawfare comes at a time when Israel’s actions are increasingly seen as indefensible around the world—including within Israel—leaving North American governments out of step with the global consensus.

In this context, aggressive censorship becomes a strategic necessity for the pro-Israel lobby. 

We break down the Canadian lawfare playbook below. [...]

Weaponizing criminal law 

Because the threshold for proving hate speech offences is so high, Sandler proposes a workaround: using other Criminal Code offences to suppress Palestine solidarity and criticism of Israel.

Instead of relying solely on hate speech provisions, Sandler recommends charges like intimidation for when a “hateful mob” takes over an intersection; mischief for interference on private and public property, to address “hate activities” on streets and campuses; and unlawful assembly to disperse hateful protests.

But what exactly counts as “hateful?” Protests in solidarity with Palestinians—amid an ongoing genocidal campaign—are routinely framed as hateful towards Jewish people, even when Jewish people are visibly present or even leading the demonstrations.

Sandler also casually shifts between describing Palestine solidarity demonstrations as “protests” and “Hamas protests.” While he claims lawfare efforts target “extremists,” distorted framings like his manufacture extremists to target.

Ironically, it is criticisms of these protests—rather than the protests themselves—that are motivated by racism. Labeling anti-war protests as “hatefests” that support “terrorism,” and branding attendees as terrorists, exemplifies anti-Palestinian racism.

Sandler goes further, labeling chants like “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” as “unequivocally” antisemitic. But this claim is deeply contested by experts in antisemitism, Middle Eastern politics, and criminal and constitutional law.

In contrast, pro-Israel rallies in Canada and the U.S.—which have been vocally pro-war during what the International Court of Justice, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have called either a “plausible” or proven genocide—face no such backlash.

Another key legal tool Sandler promotes is “bubble legislation.” Initially introduced in Canada to protect health care workers and people accessing abortion clinics from anti-abortion violence, bubble laws are now being pushed in relation to Jewish institutions. 

A number of municipalities have already enacted or are considering enacting this legislation around synagogues and Jewish community centres in response to Palestine solidarity activism. But context is essential here. This push to “protect” Jewish institutions was triggered by protests led by Jewish groups outside synagogues, targeting events for real estate pitches in the illegally occupied West Bank of Palestine.

Civil liberties groups have expressed deep concern about the constitutional violations posed by such bubble laws, particularly regarding freedom of expression and assembly. Even Ontario Solicitor General Michael Kerzner, from the Progressive Conservative Party, has conceded these laws are likely unconstitutional and should not be adopted—despite Premier Doug Ford’s support. [...]

This attempted demonization of pro-Palestinian speech and action sets a dangerous precedent in a dangerous time. Though these strategies have largely failed under legal scrutiny so far, they have created a chilling effect on free speech. And the recent lawfare successes in the U.S. point to a tightening control on all political positions that challenge colonial and imperial power.

In Canada, we mimicked the “war on terror” to our own peril. We risk repeating that mistake now, in a new imperial war on freedom of speech, expression, assembly, and, most importantly, Palestinian freedom. In addition to Palestinian solidarity activists, those who will bear the brunt of this new wave of repression will be those already most impacted by increased police powers and surveillance, such as Black and Indigenous peoples—two groups that have long traditions of solidarity with the Palestinian struggle.

We must prepare for the inevitable onslaught of pro-Israel lawfare already being planned in the legal community. We must prepare our own coalitions of resistance and meet this challenge on the streets, in the courts, in our classrooms, and in our workplaces. Read more - Lire plus

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow and City Council: Vote against any anti-protest "bubble" bylaw

The following letter was signed by 58 member organizations of the Coalition for Charter Rights and Freedoms

CCRF 17/04/2025 - Dear Mayor Olivia Chow, City Councillors and City Manager:

We, the undersigned coalition, are writing to strongly oppose the development of a bylaw restricting demonstrations/protests in Toronto, as directed by City Council on December 17-18, 2024.

Our Fundamental Freedoms and Rights Are at Stake

The type of bylaw that the City of Toronto is currently considering threatens the fundamental freedoms and equality rights enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Irrespective of how it is designed, any bylaw restricting protest near locations defined as “vulnerable institutions” risks effectively banning protests anywhere in downtown Toronto. It is unacceptable that our City Council, who bears the duty to enhance participation in civic life for all, are instead working to restrict our ability to have our voices heard.

Protests Are Essential to Democracy

As community members seeking justice and equity, we know protest is critical for achieving change, as demonstrated by Toronto's rich history of social movements. These protests have confronted injustice, built community power and improved conditions for all.

The framing of the public consultation process on demonstrations that the City of Toronto is currently conducting implies that protests are not in the public interest. It assumes that this form of civic expression threatens society, rather than being a foundational and constructive part of our democratic process. This framing could not be more detached from reality, particularly at this moment when rights and freedoms are being drastically eroded for our neighbours in the United States.

If we don’t fight for our rights, we risk losing those we already have and further eroding those that are inadequate.

Canada was built on the suppression of Indigenous peoples’ inherent rights, broken treaties, and the enslavement of Africans. It has perpetrated rights abuses of peoples here and abroad, since its founding. We know that the Charter has not provided equal protection to all people. Demonstrations, in all forms, and in all settings, are a necessary tool for addressing historical harms and moving Canada’s democracy forward toward full realization.

Existing Laws Are Sufficient to Protect Public Safety

The Criminal Code already addresses illegal activities during protests, including mischief (Section 430), public incitement of hatred (Section 319), and causing a disturbance (Section 175). New tools to suppress speech or assembly are unnecessary when existing frameworks address public safety concerns without infringing on Charter rights. Reduction of discomfort or distaste from people encountering protests should not be a driver of new bylaws.

Silencing Palestinian and Allied Voices is Discriminatory

We must be clear-eyed about the context and timing of the bylaw that the City of Toronto is currently considering and others like it. This measure appears deliberately designed to silence Palestinians and their allies who have been exercising their democratic rights to protest against ongoing genocide (as identified by many human rights and international law experts and organizations), and the complicity of Canadian governments, institutions, and individuals. Demonstrations on other issues have not been met with similar calls for suppression. This selective targeting of specific political expression contradicts Canada's commitment to pluralism and the Ontario Human Rights Code, which prohibits discrimination based on ancestry, ethnicity, place of origin, and creed. This targeting is inconsistent with Toronto's vision statement on Access, Equity and Diversity, which commits to “creat[ing] an environment of equality in the government and in the community for all people.” Instead, the City should undertake public education about democratic expression and participation to enhance understanding and acceptance of demonstrations. [...]

Shielding Institutions from Protest Prevents Accountability for Misdeeds

The institutions that the City of Toronto has indicated it is considering as “vulnerable” have been responsible for mistreatment and discrimination, historically and recently. Restricting protests near these institutions would shield them from accountability. For example, there are very productive critiques of psychiatry being articulated by former patients of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Hospitals and schools have long histories of perpetuating harms against racialized and low-income populations. Religious institutions operated most residential schools, where they perpetrated cultural genocide, a high incidence of physical and sexual abuse of children, systematic starvation and denial of healthcare, leading to numerous deaths.

Recently, climate change activism and social equity demands have been led from classrooms — this would also be constrained by limits on protests in proximity of schools. Criminal Code Sections 423.2, 430.4.1 and 176.2 already address illegal activities of intimidation, and obstruction or interference of access to health care, mischief relating to religious or cultural institutions, schools, and daycares motivated by bias, prejudice or hate, and disturbing religious worship, respectively. A municipal bylaw is unnecessary.

Labour and Collective Bargaining Rights Would Be Compromised

Workplaces must remain potential, uncontestable sites for demonstration in all its forms to uphold association and collective bargaining rights. From shop-floor action, to strikes, to support rallies, we submit that all must be available to all workers, without interference from the City. The Ontario Labour Relations Act protects the right to strike, and the Supreme Court in Saskatchewan Federation of Labour v. Saskatchewan recognized striking as protected under the Charter. Any proposed “carve out” in an anti-protest bylaw for strike pickets (as was created in the Vaughan bylaw) is not of interest, and not consistent with our full rights. [...]

Broader Implications for Canadian Democracy

The right to protest has driven social progress throughout Canadian history. Saying no to an anti-protest bylaw in Toronto is not just about protecting our Charter rights in our city; it’s about protecting the rights of all Canadians. Looking at the United States, we can see in real time how the incremental erosion of rights leads to more severe eradication of basic freedoms. We must put a stop to this threat now.

Our Call to Action

We call on Mayor Olivia Chow and City Council to vote against any anti-protest bylaw. Read more - Lire plus

NEW ACTION Tell Toronto Council: Protect Our Canadian Freedom to Protest

EVENT Defend Dissent: Bursting the Bubble By-law Panel on May 12th in Ottawa

Green Party deputy leader and Fairy Creek land defender appealing to the Supreme Court of Canada

Ricochet 15/04/2025 - In a case that highlights the complex intersection of Indigenous rights, environmental activism, and the Canadian legal system, land defender and Green Party deputy leader Angela Davidson, continues her legal battle after being sentenced to jail for her role in the Fairy Creek forest protests. 

Davidson, also known as Rainbow Eyes, a member of the Da’naxda’xw First Nation from northern Vancouver Island, and is the current Green Party’s candidate for the Northwest Territories, was sentenced to 51 days in jail by the B.C. Court of Appeal last week. However, she was released just 24 hours after being taken into custody on April 10th as her legal team filed an application to appeal the case to the Supreme Court of Canada.

In a statement on Thursday, the Green Party says it stands by Davidson. “As Rainbow Eyes is a nominated candidate for the Northwest Territories, the Green Party of Canada is honoured to have a courageous Indigenous land defender as deputy leader.”

The sentence stems from Davidson’s participation in the Fairy Creek protests between 2021 and 2022, where more than 1100 people were arrested for defying court orders that were aimed at protecting logging operations. Davidson was convicted of seven separate offences between May 2021 and January 2022, where she violated various court and bail orders as part of her commitment to protecting the ancient forest.

Her lawyer, Benjamin Isitt, who has represented Davidson for the past two and a half years, explained the recent developments in the case. “She was sentenced by Chief Justice Hinkson of the B.C. Supreme Court. Yesterday, that sentence was thrown out,” Isitt said. 

The appeal court then conducted its own analysis and reduced her sentence from 60 to 51 days, agreeing that the sentencing judge had erred, but said jail time was necessary to “discourage” others from taking similar actions, according to last week’s decision by Justice Joyce DeWitt-Van Oosten.

When asked about the grounds for the appeal, Isitt explained they will argue that the appeal court did not give enough weight to the Gladue factors that have played a role in her life and role as an Indigenous land guardian. The Court, he said, “didn’t properly account for her lower moral culpability arising from her circumstances as a land guardian.”

Gladue reports are specialized pre-sentencing reports for Indigenous offenders that can include the impacts of colonialism, not just for the individual, but also for the family and wider community. Despite having two completed reports for Davidson (one in 2022 and another in 2024), Isitt argues that the judges erred in how they applied these considerations to Davidson’s sentence.

At the heart of Davidson’s defense is the recognition of her Indigenous identity and responsibilities. “The Gladue arguments are all based on that in terms of Rainbow’s obligations arising from her Indigenous identity as a person and her specific obligation as a land guardian, who was trained in accordance with customs, and then trained under the colonial system at Vancouver Island University,” Isitt explained.

When asked about his broader perspective on Indigenous land defenders navigating the legal system, Isitt emphasized that “the court needs to give proper effect to Indigenous laws in dealing with allegations of breaching court orders.” He added that “much more action needs to be taken to reconcile Indigenous laws with the colonial laws.”

[Davidson stated] "The whole system is screwed up… the fact that any land defender needs to sit in a cell for standing up for the forest and Mother Earth is so wrong.” Read more - Lire plus

Israel Is Using Suicide Drones to Target Displaced Palestinian Families Sheltering in Tents

Drop Site News 24/04/2025 - The Israeli military is using so-called suicide drones—highly precise attack drones—in strikes on displacement camps in Gaza that have killed at least 30 Palestinians, including 14 children, according to photos, videos, and eyewitness testimony obtained by Drop Site News.

In at least five separate strikes over the past week, including one in Jabaliya refugee camp, one in Beit Lahia, and three on families sheltering in Mawasi Khan Younis, Israel deployed attack drones called SkyStrikers, which are manufactured by Elbit Systems, the largest private defense contractor in Israel. Mawasi Khan Younis is designated as a “humanitarian zone” that the Israeli military has ordered Palestinians in Gaza to displace to yet has nevertheless repeatedly bombed. Photos and video of the drones’ remnants were reviewed and identified by Trevor Ball, a munitions researcher and a former U.S. army explosive ordnance disposal specialist.

“One-way attack drones are effectively missiles, and under most technical definitions they are considered missiles,” Ball said. “Effects-wise, these are pretty similar to the bombs and missiles they were using to strike tents and schools before. The biggest difference is these are loitering munitions, where they can circle a target for a period of time before engaging.” Loitering munitions—also referred to as suicide drones or kamikaze drones—are outfitted with warheads and are designed to hover and locate a target before crashing into it at high speed.

According to promotional material from Elbit Systems, the SkyStriker “is a fully autonomous loitering munitions (LM) that can locate, acquire and strike operator designated targets with a 5 or 10 Kg warhead installed inside the fuselage, enabling high-precision performance.” The SkyStriker is powered by an electric engine that “offers a low acoustic signature, allowing covert operations at low altitude.” The Israeli military recently released a separate video showing suicide drones striking targets in Gaza.

Elbit, which first unveiled the SkyStriker in 2017, highlights the precision capabilities of the drone to “strike targets with pinpoint accuracy.” The company also points to the relatively low cost of “loitering munitions” for their ability to “carry out precision attacks without the high costs associated with expensive ammunition like guided missiles and rockets.” A promotional video by the company also showcases the SkyStriker’s capabilities, including hitting the exact center of relatively small targets.

Under a section titled “Minimizing Collateral Damage,” Elbit states, “The SkyStriker also has the rare ability to abort missions if necessary. If the situation on the target seems to be changed – such as the sudden appearance of non-involved civilians – the operator can command the munition to return to loitering mode before hitting the target, ready to re-engage when conditions are right.”

“I'm not sure why we are seeing them now,” Ball said about their use in Gaza. “They could be wanting to test them in a ‘real world’ environment, or it could be a change in how they are conducting strikes. It might be more efficient now for them to use these drones compared to other platforms (Hermes/Apache/Jet), especially with the smaller geographic areas people in Gaza are allowed by the IDF to occupy.”

Elbit Systems supplies hundreds of products to the Israeli military, including munitions, drones, guided rocket systems, reconnaissance capabilities and other systems. Israel’s war on Gaza has boosted its earnings, with the company last month reporting stronger quarterly profits, due in part to higher revenues from the war, and expecting continued growth in 2025 amid a spike in global defense spending. Read more - Lire plus

Israeli airstrike hits hospital entrance in Gaza, killing medic and wounding 9 other people

Leaked Data Reveals Massive Israeli Campaign to Remove Pro-Palestine Posts on Facebook and Instagram

On 50 days of the aid block in Gaza - Joint statement on behalf of the Foreign Ministers of France, Germany and the UK (E3) (22 April 2025)

Why Does “National Security” Always Mean More War, Not More Health Care?

Truthout 13/04/2025 - On March 17, 2025, DefenseScoop reported that Congress approved $141 billion for Pentagon research and development — an amount larger than the budgets of most federal agencies, and close to the size of the seven next largest military budgets around the world. Yet, as usual, there was little debate. Instead, military leaders and lawmakers lamented that the figure was $7 billion less than last year due to budget caps set under the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, as if anything short of perpetual increases is a crisis.

Meanwhile, how many times have we heard that there’s no money for universal pre-K? That expanding Medicare is too expensive? That raising the minimum wage would hurt the economy? In the United States, “national security” has become an unquestioned justification for endless military spending — even as millions of Americans struggle with medical debt, housing instability and underfunded schools. The real crisis isn’t that the Pentagon’s budget decreased — it’s that our leaders continue to prioritize war over human well-being.

Despite years of record-high military budgets, politicians and defense officials act as if the Pentagon is perpetually underfunded. This year’s defense topline is still $892.5 billion, with major allocations going to the Department of Defense, Oversees Contingency Operations and nuclear weapons activities through the Department of Energy — and yet, Washington claims that even this isn’t enough.

This trend of ever-expanding military budgets spans administrations and party lines. In April, President Donald Trump reportedly floated a $1 trillion military budget, a move that was met with fierce criticism from peace advocates and policy experts who called it a “profound moral failure” — especially in a nation where millions struggle with housing insecurity, medical debt and food instability. While the details of Trump’s proposed plan were vague, the fact that such a number was even considered illustrates how normalized excessive military spending has become. Whether it’s $892.5 billion or $1 trillion, the result is the same: a militarized state that funnels public resources into war readiness rather than community care.

What gets lost in these conversations is that real national security isn’t about military dominance — it’s about ensuring that people have stable lives. Yet we are conditioned to accept that security means an arsenal of hypersonic missiles, autonomous war drones and next-generation cyberwarfare capabilities — not affordable housing, debt-free education or accessible health care. Consider what $141 billion — the Pentagon’s research and development budget alone — could fund instead: universal pre-K for every U.S. child for over five years, free school meals for 10 million students for a decade, tens of thousands of affordable housing units and full Medicaid expansion in every state that refused it.

Instead, these billions will be spent developing new weapons, artificial intelligence-driven warfare and military space technology, ensuring that military contractors remain flush with taxpayer dollars. When it comes to funding war, we are always told that “we must do what is necessary.” But when it comes to funding the basic needs of Americans, we hear a different story: Expanding health care? Too expensive. Free community college? Unrealistic. Paid family leave? Who will pay for it? Climate resilience? No room in the budget.

This contradiction is not accidental — it is by design. The same lawmakers who eagerly approve nearly a trillion dollars in military spending claim that helping working people is fiscally irresponsible. Even within the military budget itself, it’s not troops or veterans who benefit most — it’s military contractors. The Pentagon continues to waste billions on weapons systems that go unused or overbudget, all while companies like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman rake in massive profits.

For example, the ongoing war in Ukraine has led to heightened demand for Raytheon’s defense systems. Specifically, their Patriot missile defense systems have been in greater demand as countries bolster their defense capabilities. Northrop Grumman reported a 4 percent increase in net sales for the fiscal year 2024, reaching $41 billion. This growth is attributed to rising geopolitical tensions and the corresponding demand for military equipment.

But this year’s Pentagon budget isn’t just about war abroad. Recent developments have intensified the U.S. military’s role in domestic operations, particularly concerning immigration enforcement along the southern border. This shift reflects a strategic move towards increased militarization within U.S. borders.

At a recent press conference, military officials framed immigration as a security threat and announced that the U.S.S. Gravely is being sent to patrol the Gulf of Mexico. The administration is seeking “100% operational control” of the southern border, further blurring the line between national defense and domestic militarization. The U.S.S. Gravely is tasked with intercepting unauthorized maritime activities, including unauthorized immigration and drug smuggling. Admiral Daryl Caudle, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Northern Command, stated that this deployment significantly strengthens the nation’s border security framework.

Similarly, the U.S.S. Spruance has been deployed to patrol the West Coast, contributing to a coordinated Department of Defense response to achieve operational control of the border. Beyond naval deployments, approximately 10,000 active-duty troops and 2,500 National Guardsmen have been stationed along the U.S.-Mexico border. These forces are equipped with armored fighting vehicles, helicopters and advanced surveillance technologies, including spy planes and drones, to monitor and deter unauthorized border crossings. This represents a significant escalation in the militarization of border enforcement.

These actions have raised concerns among legal experts and human rights advocates. The deployment of military forces for domestic law enforcement purposes may conflict with the Posse Comitatus Act, which limits the use of federal military personnel in civilian law enforcement roles. The current administration’s approach emphasizes a militarized response to immigration, prioritizing force and surveillance over addressing the root causes of migration — climate change, economic instability and violence exacerbated by past U.S. interventions.

The endless cycle of military expansion ensures that every crisis — whether global or domestic — is treated as an excuse for bigger military budgets. What if we defined security not as military supremacy, but as people having what they need to live stable, dignified lives? What if, instead of spending billions on war technology, we invested in a health care system where no one goes bankrupt over medical bills, a living wage and universal paid leave, schools that don’t rely on GoFundMe for supplies, infrastructure that doesn’t crumble at the first sign of disaster?

True national security starts with collective well-being. When people don’t have access to housing, education, medical care and basic stability, the entire society becomes more vulnerable — economically, emotionally and politically. A secure nation is one where people are not living on the edge. When everyone has what they need to thrive, we are all safer. The truth is, we already have the money. We just choose to spend it on war instead of on people. Source

Trump Directive Calls for Turning Border Strip Into ‘Military Installation’

ACLU: Trump's Expanded Domestic Military Use Should Worry Us All

Pete Hegseth Is Gutting Pentagon Programs to Reduce Civilian Casualties

The Intercept 15/04/2025 - been slowly dedicating more resources to killing fewer civilians in recent years, following a long drumbeat of damning investigations of civilian casualties by the press, nongovernmental organizations, government-supported think tanks, and even the U.S. military itself.

But now, under the control of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, the Department of Defense is reversing course.

The Intercept spoke with five current and former Defense Department officials familiar with its Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response, or CHMR, efforts, who say that the Pentagon is in the process of eliminating or downsizing offices, programs, and positions focused on preventing civilian casualties during U.S. combat operations.

On the chopping block are the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response office, which handles policies that reduce dangers to noncombatants, and the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, which is focused on training and tools for preventing civilian casualties.

The Army also recently announced it will make law of war training — which covers basic battlefield ethics, prohibited acts, and rules of engagement — optional, in an effort to remove “unnecessary distractions” and increase focus on “decisive action in combat.” 

This comes as Hegseth trumpets an overwhelming emphasis on “lethality” and cuts to programs that run afoul of Trump administration priorities. Hegseth also reportedly plans to overhaul the entire JAG Corps, which is essential to ensuring adherence to the rule of law and upholding the Uniform Code of Military Justice, after firing the judge advocates general of the Army, Navy, and Air Force.

Trump has also rolled back constraints on American commanders to authorize airstrikes and Special Operations raids outside conventional battlefields, broadening the range of people who can be targeted. After Trump relaxed targeting principles during his first term, attacks and reports of civilian casualties in war zones like Somalia and Yemen spiked.

“There is an overt and ongoing effort to completely shut the Center down and to remove CHMR across all the commands,” said Wes Bryant, who until recently served as the chief of civilian harm assessments and senior analyst and adviser on precision warfare, targeting, and civilian harm mitigation at the Pentagon’s Civilian Protection Center of Excellence. “Basically, they are wiping DoD of anything related to Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response.”

The four other officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution or to preserve their ability to lobby behind the scenes, expressed varying levels of concern over how the demise of CHMR would affect combat operations and what Hegseth’s priorities might mean for the world. One of them mused that “lethality” might prove to be only meaningless jargon, but worried that it could indicate something far worse: eschewing military professionalism in favor of “wanton killing and wholesale destruction and disregard for law.” Read more - Lire plus

Can a U.S. Citizen Be Deported? Trump’s Comments Raise Legal Alarms

TIME 15/04/2025 - If the government can deport an immigrant without due process by claiming he’s a gang member, what’s stopping it from doing the same to a U.S. citizen?

That’s the question legal experts were grappling with Monday, after President Donald Trump said he was exploring whether U.S. citizens convicted of violent crimes could be deported to El Salvador.



“We also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways, that hit elderly ladies on the back of the head with a baseball bat when they’re not looking, that are absolute monsters,” Trump told reporters inside the Oval Office while hosting El Salvador President Nayib Bukele. “I’d like to include them in the group of people to get them out of the country.”

Trump offered no specifics about how his Administration would deport "homegrown" criminals, or if he was only referring to naturalized citizens who were born outside the U.S. But he said that Attorney General Pam Bondi was studying the legality of such a proposal. Deporting U.S. citizens would mark a dramatic escalation of the Trump Administration’s already aggressive approach to immigration and criminal justice, and has raised immediate legal and ethical questions from constitutional experts, who tell TIME that even suggesting the removal of U.S. citizens crosses a line long considered inviolable.

“It’s constitutionally very problematic, if not illegal,” says Amanda Frost, an immigration law expert and University of Virginia law professor. “It's a baseline right of citizenship that you can remain in the country.”

Trump’s suggestion appears to build on a deal struck earlier this year between Washington and San Salvador that allowed for the transfer of more than 200 Venezuelan nationals—many of them asylum seekers or convicted criminals—from U.S. detention facilities to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a sprawling prison complex that has been condemned by human rights organizations for its harsh conditions.

Bukele, a populist leader with close ties to Trump, has embraced the idea of taking in foreign detainees in exchange for compensation, calling it a chance to “outsource part of [America’s] prison system.” The prison, designed to house alleged gang members under extreme surveillance, has become both a symbol of Bukele’s crackdown and a flashpoint for global human rights groups.

“We’re studying the laws right now,” Trump said of sending U.S. citizens convicted of violent crimes to El Salvadoran prisons. “If we can do that, that’s good. And I’m talking about violent people. Really bad people. Every bit as bad as the ones coming in.” He also suggested that Bukele should build “five more” prisons to make room for Americans.

Legal experts say such comments risk normalizing the idea that U.S. citizenship can be revoked through executive action—an idea with little basis in law and potentially dangerous precedent. Courts may also find it cruel and unusual punishment to send Americans to prisons in El Salvador, where human rights groups say around 350 people have died since Bukele began his “war on gangs” in early 2022. Critics of the Salvadoran prison system say inmates are often held without charge, denied medical care, and subjected to overcrowded, inhumane conditions.

Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration law expert and retired Cornell Law School professor, called the proposal an attempt to “sow chaos and fear even if the Administration’s actions are not legal.” He warned that forcibly transferring U.S. citizens to foreign custody could be unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. “When U.S. citizens get convicted of a crime, they serve time in either a state or federal jail, and then they get released,” Yale-Loehr notes. “They're not supposed to be deported.”

Legal scholars say there is no constitutional or statutory authority for deporting U.S.-born citizens under any circumstances. While federal law does allow for denaturalization—the revocation of citizenship—it can only be pursued in rare cases, typically involving fraud during the naturalization process. Simply committing a crime, no matter how serious, is not grounds for stripping someone of their citizenship.

Frost pointed to the Supreme Court’s 1967 decision in Afroyim v. Rusk, which held that the government cannot revoke someone’s citizenship without their consent. The ruling came in response to efforts to strip Americans of their citizenship during the Cold War for engaging in certain political activities, like voting in foreign elections or joining the Communist Party.

If Trump were to attempt to strip citizenship from people who were naturalized lawfully, legal experts say it would almost certainly be struck down as unconstitutional. And deporting someone who retains their citizenship, whether naturalized or born in the United States, is plainly forbidden under existing law.

“You can imprison U.S. citizens, you can even execute them—but you cannot remove them from the country,” Frost said. “That’s the foundational right of citizenship.”

While the Trump Administration has not released any legal memo outlining how such deportations might work, rights advocates say even floating the idea could have a chilling effect, particularly among immigrant communities and naturalized citizens who may fear arbitrary detention or removal.

“I think people should be alarmed,” Yale-Loehr says. “I think before people were saying, ‘well, I'm not an immigrant, so I don't have to worry.’ And now with this proposal, if he goes forward with it, we all have to worry.”

Trump’s idea has landed with a thud among Democrats on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers warned it could set a dangerous precedent for abusing presidential power. “Donald Trump is a convicted criminal—can he be deported?” Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, asks TIME.

“We're talking about millions of people who have criminal convictions,” adds Raskin, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee. “A criminal conviction is not a license to destroy the rights and dignity of a person. And one would think that Donald Trump, of all people, understands that, or should understand that.”

Since returning to office, Trump has authorized a series of moves that expand scrutiny to naturalized citizens, green card holders, legal visa holders, and even U.S. citizens suspected of speech or behavior deemed threatening to national security.

Federal agents have detained pro-Palestinian protesters, arrested legal residents on suspicion of spreading “Hamas propaganda,” and turned away foreign scientists at airports for expressing views critical of Trump Administration policies. In one instance, a French scientist was denied entry to the U.S. after officials reviewed his private messages criticizing Trump’s science agenda. In another case, Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a kidney specialist and professor at Brown University, was deported despite holding a valid visa and a court order blocking her removal. Federal agents cited social media posts and funeral attendance as evidence of ties to Hezbollah.

The Administration has defended these actions as national security measures. “Those who violate these laws will be processed, detained and removed as required,” said Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin.

But to many legal scholars, the cumulative effect of these actions is a calculated effort to redefine who belongs—and who doesn’t—within America’s legal and political framework. Both Yale-Loehr and Frost say that Trump’s comments, taken collectively, suggest an effort to redefine citizenship as a conditional status—revocable for those deemed undesirable. “First Trump came out with an executive order trying to restrict birthright citizenship,” Yale-Loehr says, “and now, if he goes ahead and deports U.S. citizens to foreign countries, that's another way of stripping someone of their citizenship.” 

It’s a pattern, Raskin says, that reveals a broader authoritarian impulse: expanding the boundaries of presidential power by testing legal norms. “Everybody can see where this is going,” Raskin says. “First he violates the rights of undocumented people, then he violates the rights of documented legal residents, and then he attacks the rights of citizens. So this is a sliding scale of constitutional injury, and Trump is seeing how far he can go before he’s stopped.” Source

Palestinian Student Leader Was Called In for Citizenship Interview — Then Arrested by ICE

If Trump flouts the Abrego Garcia rulings, the Constitution is done

The Hill 22/04/2025 - April, with the “sweet showers” Chaucer told about, is winding down. But April, as T.S. Eliot wrote, can be “the cruelest month,” as it has been for Kilmar Abrego Garcia and other migrants who have been illegally rendered by the Trump administration to El Salvador — 90 percent of whom, unlike the incumbent president, have no U.S. criminal record and their alleged ties to gangs are not at all evident.

Abrego Garcia was illegally deported in March to the infamous CECOT prison in his home country of El Salvador, flouting a 2019 U.S. court order barring his deportation to that country due to fear of persecution. The Holocaust Encyclopedia defines a concentration camp as a place of imprisonment “of unlimited duration … not linked to a specific act, and not subject to any judicial review.” CECOT prison fits the bill neatly.

The Supreme Court has unanimously ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release from custody so that he can have a hearing. But the administration has so far defied the court, hiding behind the autocratic government of El Salvador, which it claims is unwilling to send him back. I expect that a phone call from the White House would return Abrego Garcia to his family, who just happen to be American citizens. But Trump has vowed never to do even that much.

In El Salvador, authorities fobbed off Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) who travelled there for a meeting or a phone call with Abrego Garcia, who is Van Hollen’s constituent. Van Hollen reported that when he asked Salvadoran officials why El Salvador was continuing to imprison Abrego Garcia when it had no evidence he was a gang member, they answered that the Trump administration is paying millions to hold him. I wonder what Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency have to say about that.

After cooling his heels for 24 hours, the meeting occurred. Van Hollen reported that Abrego Garcia was “traumatized” with fear over his imprisonment at CECOT. The good news is that he had been transferred to another prison, and that he is alive and apparently well. The courts have been responsive to Abrego Garcia’s predicament. The Supreme Court held 9-0 that the administration must take steps to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s “release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”

Trump appealed, demanding clarification. In a sizzling opinion, conservative Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, joined by two other judges on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, rebuffed the administration’s request to stay a lower court’s attempt to implement the Supreme Court’s guidance in the case, warning Trump not to reduce the rule of law to lawlessness. “‘Facilitate’ is an active verb,” Wilkinson wrote. The Supreme Court’s instruction that lower courts respect the executive’s primacy in foreign affairs, he said, does not “allow the government to do essentially nothing.”

Wilkinson was referring to the administration’s attempt to wiggle around the meaning of “facilitate.” Attorney General Pam Bondi argues that all the government must do is “‘remove any domestic barriers to [Abrego Garcia’s] return.’” Not so, wrote Wilkinson, in light of the Supreme Court’s command. “Perhaps” Abrego Garcia is a gang member, Wilkinson wrote, “but perhaps not. Regardless, he is still entitled to due process,” the sacred right to notice and hearing before deprivation of liberty. After doesn’t count.

Wilkinson continued: “If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home? And what assurance shall there be that the Executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies?” Trump has already raised the possibility of deporting criminals who are American citizens.

“Now the branches come too close to grinding irrevocably against one another in a conflict that promises to diminish both,” Wilkinson wrote. “The judiciary will lose much from the constant intimations of its illegitimacy … The executive will lose much from a public perception of its lawlessness and all of its attendant contagions.” It is all about politics. Trump thinks what he is doing to Abrego Garcia plays well to his MAGA base. There are reports that the White House has “heavily encouraged” Republican lawmakers to lean into the idea of Abrego Garcia as an example of the dangerous criminals they insist Democrats want to bring to America.

In a separate case, Federal Judge James Boasberg, whom Trump trashed as “radical left,” filed an opinion stating that the administration’s “hurried removal” of certain men to El Salvador — after Boasberg had issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting them from doing so — demonstrated “a willful disregard of its order, sufficient for the court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the government in criminal contempt.”

“The Constitution does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial orders — especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it,” Boasberg wrote. If the government decides not to try to purge itself of contempt, Boasberg says the court will identify the individuals responsible for making the judgment to ignore the court. Then he will ask Bondi to prosecute the contempt, but if — as is likely — she refuses, Boasberg says he will then appoint a private prosecutor to mount the case, as he is entitled to do.

The Abrego Garcia case, like the cases of the other illegally deported migrants, presents an assault on the entire constitutional system, where the courts have the obligation to make the executive branch comply with the law. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor put it in a separate statement, “the Government must comply with its obligation to provide Abrego Garcia with ‘due process of law,’ including notice and an opportunity to be heard, in any future proceedings.”

Former U.S. Attorney and legal analyst Joyce White Vance said it all: “These cases are about making sure that, American citizen or not, criminal or not, peoples’ right to have the day in court that the Constitution guarantees them is honored. That’s all. But it’s everything.” Source

Judge Orders Administration to Seek Return of Another Deported Migrant

Bush’s ‘War On Terror’ Helped Create Trump’s Terrifying War On Immigrants

FBI arrests Wisconsin judge and accuses her of obstructing immigration officials

What is a ‘criminal’ immigrant? The word is an American rhetorical trap

The Guardian 17/04/2025 - Last month, the Trump administration flew 238 Venezuelan immigrants to a brutal prison in El Salvador. Federal officials alleged that the detainees were members of the Tren de Aragua gang, calling them “heinous monsters” ,“criminal aliens”, “the worst of the worst”. The federal government has also revoked visas for a thousand international students over their alleged participation in protests against Israel’s genocide in Palestine. Some were abducted, like Mahmoud Khalil, who has spent more than a month incarcerated in one of the worst jails in the US. Officials alleged that Mahmoud “sided with terrorists … who have killed innocent men, women, and children”.

Media reports quickly revealed that the Trump administration is lying about “innocent” people to justify abducting them. But this raises a more important question: if Trump’s victims weren’t “innocent”, does that make them disposable? I worry that emphasizing the innocence of victims creates a rhetorical trap. It’s like carefully digging a pit that the fascists can shove us into.

Instead, we should interrogate the fact that the Trump administration chose to target “gang members” and “terrorist supporters” in the first step of its ethnic cleansing project. Criminals and terrorists are the bogeymen animating bipartisan racism against Black, Latino and Arab people, and Trump is weaponizing these myths because many liberals have already written them off as less than human. The political context that enabled US residents to be shipped to El Salvador’s Cecot facility is a bipartisan project more than 50 years in the making, largely unquestioned by people who are rightfully horrified by recent escalations.

Allegations of criminality have long been an effective pretext for anti-Black violence in the US – this is the “war on crime”. So long as there are “criminals” to fight, vicious police brutality becomes politically palatable. This is true in blue and red states alike. The gang member is the latest symbol used to dehumanize Black and Latino people, replacing the “superpredator”. In practice, police and prosecutors invoke the specter of monstrous gangs to continue targeting entire neighborhoods while evading allegations of explicit discrimination.

You can be added to a gang database because of your tattoos, the color of the clothing you wear or even for using certain emojis on social media. These lists are riddled with errors, sometimes naming toddlers and elders. More commonly, gang databases index the thousands of people – often children – swept up by police because of where they live or whom they socialize with. The consequences of gang policing are devastating: it can lead to federal prosecution or potential deportation, not to mention a lifetime of state harassment.

Gang membership isn’t the only tool the Trump administration can use to portray its victims as guilty. When the “war on crime” morphed into the “war on terror”, Arab and Muslim residents suffered from discriminatory surveillance and repression – the “terrorist” category matches the “gang member” category in that it justifies racist dragnet policing practices. The “counter-terrorism” net has already widened, targeting Stop Cop City activists in Atlanta. This problem is not limited to Republicans – liberal politicians and university stakeholders laid the groundwork for Trump’s deportation efforts. Last year, the Anti-Defamation League’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, called student Palestine activists proxies for Iran, and New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams, smeared us as terrorist supporters to justify an incredibly violent police raid.

The widening net of who is considered a criminal not only chills dissent among immigrants and activists. It further dehumanizes and renders disposable people who have genuinely committed harm. We must defend the rights of people who do have criminal records. No one deserves to be whisked away to a brutal prison that deprives them of basic human rights – no matter if it’s in El Salvador, Louisiana, California, Pennsylvania or New York. Criminal records and bona fide gang membership don’t turn human beings into monsters. If Trump goes through with his plan of sending citizens to El Salvador, he could initially target people convicted of heinous crimes. This would allow federal officials to ask: “Why do liberals care about pedophiles and murderers?”

We should be prepared to defend the basic rights of all of Trump’s targets with our full strength. If a single person becomes disposable, anyone could become the next target. Last week, Trump said he “loved” the idea of sending American “criminals” to El Salvador, and law professors are sounding the alarm about citizen student activists being subjected to terrorism prosecutions. First it will be the “migrant gang member” or “terrorist on a student visa” sent to Cecot. Next it will be the domestic gang member and the terrorist-supporting citizen. Eventually, perhaps any political opponent could be construed as a criminal-terrorist.

Trump may not even need to rely on the justice department to criminalize his enemies – dozens of local cops joined the 6 January 2021 putsch at the US Capitol, and local prosecutors have eagerly charged student activists with felonies. This is another reason to avoid the innocence trap: many police love Trump, and law enforcement can very easily make their adversaries seem like criminals.

The innocence trap is dangerous because allegations of criminality have always been deployed to justify state violence. If we only defend the “innocent”, the fascists will argue that their victim “was no angel”. An anti-fascist rhetoric that carves out exceptions for imperfect victims is a gift to our opponents. Source

OFAC Alert on Cartel Designations: Growing Risks to Nonprofits from the Expanded Use of Counter-Terrorism Frameworks via FTO Designations

C&SN 22/04/2025 - On Mar. 18, 2025, the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued an “OFAC Alert: International Cartels Designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists”. The alert highlighted heightened sanctions and criminal liability risks following the United States (U.S.) Department of State’s Feb. 20, 2025 designations of eight international cartels as both Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) and Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs). These designations were issued pursuant to President Trump’s Jan. 20, 2025 Executive Order (EO) 14157, “Designating Cartels and Other Organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists.” 

By updating its Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List (the “SDN list”), OFAC has effectively implemented these designations on its end. While the majority of these entities were previously designated by OFAC, the designations expand the use of counter-terrorism (CT) authorities to encompass transnational criminal organizations traditionally dealt with through counter-narcotics and organized crime enforcement frameworks. This results in increased legal and operational risks for human rights and social services organizations and nonprofits who must interact — intentionally or not — with these groups. The conflation of the CT, counter-narcotics, and organized crime enforcement frameworks is concerning, as it risks expansion of already overbroad CT measures into spaces that have prior existing legal frameworks better suited to deal with aligned issues. Importantly, this conflation also raises concerns around abuse of how CT measures will be wielded under this administration. [...]

Anticipated Impacts 

For civil society actors, the combination of dual FTO/SDGT designations and the absence of reliable exemptions creates a chilling effect, where legal ambiguity and the threat of prosecution may deter even lawful humanitarian and peacebuilding activity. This has long been an issue for civil society organizations (CSOs) operating in conflict-impacted contexts where FTO and SDGT entities operate. The designation of these eight cartels will expand these issues to organizations operating at the U.S.-Mexico border and to U.S. organizations operating in areas where these designated cartels also operate. 

Financial institutions’ (FIs) hesitancy to continue providing financial services or relationships in areas where FTO-designated entities operate means there is a strong likelihood of de-risking, which will impede populations in need of receiving aid or assistance, who happen to live in areas where these cartels operate. This hesitancy will likely be increased by the OFAC Alert reinforcing that foreign and U.S. FIs, organizations, and companies operating in or transacting to “high-risk” jurisdictions, especially in areas impacted by these new designations, “should assess their existing sanctions compliance programs to ensure controls are sufficient to minimize sanctions exposure for interacting with such designated terrorist organizations.”

The Broader Pattern of Executive Overreach

The use of EO 14157 to escalate criminal cartel enforcement into the realm of CT marks yet another example of how executive power is being expanded through sweeping, often vaguely defined, legal instruments. According to constitutional law experts at UC Law San Francisco (SF), the Trump administration issued over 70 EOs in its first 30 days, and there are serious concerns about their breadth, constitutionality, and the potential erosion of Congressional oversight and civil liberties.

EO 14157 exemplifies these concerns. Its language broadly defines cartels not only as criminal enterprises but as insurgent entities “threatening the stability of the international order,” thereby justifying their treatment as foreign terrorist threats. The accompanying rhetoric — describing cartel activity as “predatory incursions” that may warrant invocation of the Alien Enemies Act (50 U.S.C. § 21) — signals an alarming shift toward justifying wartime powers in peacetime contexts. This framing effectively collapses the distinction between national security threats and public safety challenges, opening the door to expansive surveillance, indefinite detention, and the suppression of civic actors under the guise of CT.

Such moves have raised alarm across sectors, particularly among legal experts and civil society advocates who warn that these precedents could be used to target a broader set of actors — including journalists, aid workers, or even dissenting voices critical of U.S. foreign policy. More than 90 lawsuits have already been filed challenging this wave of executive action.

Worrying Trends & What They Mean

These new designations raise a host of concerns. First, the Trump Administration’s designation of transnational criminal organizations blurs the lines between CT, counter-narcotics, and organized crime enforcement frameworks, expanding and conflating the use of already overbroad CT measures. This action primes these measures to be ripe for abuse in the immigration space, where we have already seen CT narratives and language be weaponized in harmful ways. The Mahmoud Khalil case is one illustrative example, among many. 

Second, the cartel FTO designations represent a dangerous precedent for this administration to underestimate the severity of these designations, and overestimate their utility and use. While designations have always been inherently political, the previous administration had more restraint in imposing these. Biden’s de-designation of the Houthis as an FTO (and SDGT) in Feb. 2021, following Trump’s designation as both as a last action during his first Presidential term is evidence of this. While the Biden administration re-designated the Houthis as an SDGT in Jan. 2024, they steered clear of the FTO designation, largely due to this enabling humanitarian carve-outs and to the impacts it would have on greatly exacerbating the already dire humanitarian crisis Yemen is facing. On Mar. 4, 2025, the Trump administration reinstated the FTO designation on the Houthis. These actions indicate a worrying trend and alarming precedent of wielding FTO designations in non-traditional and expanded contexts. 

Third, the cartel FTO designation has wide-ranging impacts and implications for how “terrorism” is defined and used by the Trump Administration. The impacts of this designation signal this administration’s intent to use the U.S.’ so-called “Global War on Terror” in sweeping new ways: further securitizing U.S. borders by military means; increasing the risk of prosecution for NPOs and other actors who provide assistance and support to migrant and asylee communities; and increasing the risk that payments made by asylum seekers while traveling through migrant routes where cartels operate will be deemed as “financing terrorism”.  

Charity & Security Network condemns the Trump Administration’s expanded use of CT frameworks via FTO designations, and urges immediate reversal of this worrying precedent. Read more - Lire plus

By Weaponizing Arrest Records and Suspending Due Process, the Trump Administration Has Targeted Over 1,000 Foreign Students

Drop Site News 19/04/2025 - *Names changed to protect their identity.

On April 4, Lina*, a foreign citizen and recent graduate working legally in the U.S., got a call from her former university. Her student visa status had been terminated. Lina had been working on the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program, availing herself of a path afforded to F-1 student visa holders to pursue work opportunities in the U.S. for up to a period of three years post graduation. That day, the school official who had called notified her of an update. They had spotted a termination notice in her record on the Department of Homeland Security’s Student & Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) database. “Individual identified in criminal records check and/or has had their VISA revoked. SEVIS record has been terminated,” her record read.

Lina had an arrest on her record from more than a decade ago. Back in 2013, she was arrested after a verbal argument with a friend. She was released soon after her arrest, she told Drop Site, and the case was dismissed in court. “I never had any conviction,” Lina said in an interview with Drop Site. “I didn’t do anything wrong. And all of a sudden, the country of free spirit is against me? For what? I still don't know.” At the time she was informed of her status termination, Lina had received no communication whatsoever from the federal government about it, though she has since received an email stating that her visa has been revoked.

Lina is one of hundreds of foreign students and recent graduates in the United States to have their visas revoked or status terminated in recent weeks and are facing potential deportation. Drop Site interviewed several students and recent graduates, who testified to how the federal government appears to be terminating the status of student visa holders based on arrest records—not criminal convictions—regardless of what happened following that arrest. Many of the students whose visas have been revoked or statuses terminated spoke to Drop Site News on the condition that their identities be protected. Due to the ongoing threat of further action by immigration authorities, some of their names have been changed. The sources we spoke to are individuals on student visas, including some whose current or future employers had submitted applications for them to transition to the H1B work visa, and who had been selected in the H1B work visa lottery results announced in March.

More than 1,000 current students and recent graduates in the US have reportedly had their visas or statuses revoked this year, according to university statements and spokespersons. This is taking place alongside the crackdown on pro-Palestine advocates across the country, from the arrests of Mahmoud Khalil to Mohsen Mahdawi, prominent Palestinian activists at Columbia University and green card holders, as well as Tufts student and Turkish national Rümeysa Öztürk and others. Their arrests sparked a firestorm of controversy, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio claiming the arrests are a measure to protect U.S. foreign policy goals. Similarly, the State Department revoked the student visa of Momodou Taal, citing his prominent participation in pro-Palestine protests, and he left the country just days later.

Less media attention has focused on the federal government targeting student visa holders who are not involved in political activism. What began as a concerted crackdown by the State Department on pro-Palestine protesters now includes efforts attempting to revoke hundreds of F-1 visas for international students—seemingly over past arrest records—often intimidating them into leaving the country on their own with the fear that they may otherwise be deported. [...]

Recently, a U.S. District Court filing has shown that a senior Homeland Security official informed the court that "Terminating a record in SEVIS does not terminate an individual’s nonimmigrant status in the United States." But immigration attorneys say this statement obfuscates how SEVIS terminations are being used to change visa status and how that could determine the potential deportation process. Speaking to Drop Site, Nathan Yaffe, an immigration attorney working with international students, said, "ICE is entering this declaration for the express purpose of evading judicial scrutiny of their lawless actions. By claiming that SEVIS record termination does not cause loss of status, ICE can argue students have no basis to sue over the record termination."

U.S. consulates, nevertheless, have been emailing students whose statuses have been terminated saying the expiration dates on their visas have been amended. Moreover, they urge these individuals to leave the country, threatening them with possible deportation by immigration authorities if they don’t. One such email from a U.S. Consulate, which Drop Site reviewed, noted that the visa holder was told that they might not even be sent back to their own country: “Please note that deportation can take place at a time that does not allow the person being deported to secure possessions or conclude affairs in the United States. Persons being deported may be sent to countries other than their countries of origin.”

Weaponized Arrest Records

Lina’s prior arrest has never posed a problem for her visa before. “I've disclosed this information every single time I apply for a visa,” she said. “I also crossed the border multiple times after the case was dismissed. There was no issue.” Drop Site spoke to several impacted students and recent graduates across the country who had been arrested previously and found instances where cases were either dismissed, charges expunged, or otherwise completely resolved through the justice system—leading to visa revocations that immigration attorneys are decrying as deeply unjust.

Joseph Murphy, an immigration attorney in Pennsylvania who is representing one such student, says, “They want to get these guys to leave, they want to make a spectacle, and they want to incentivize self-deportation. So they're doing this kind of lawless behavior to do what—prevent lawlessness?”

“Trump's promise was that, ‘I'm going to deport all the criminals,’” said Rajiv Khanna, immigration lawyer based in Washington, D.C. with more than three decades of experience. “They didn't find very many criminals. So, then, they created criminals.” Read more - Lire plus

Universities Told Students to Leave the Country. ICE Just Said They Didn’t Actually Have To.

“The Doxxing-to-Deportation Pipeline”: Update on Abduction & Jailing of Tufts Student Rümeysa Öztürk

Trump’s Social Media Surveillance: Social Scoring by Another Name

Tech Policy Press 21/04/2025 - My friend Nadine tells me the apple trees have been blossoming in Ramallah. She sends me a video of her yard, where she weaves red and black thobes, traditional Palestinian dresses adorned with red stars of Bethlehem. She also embroiders keffiyehs, the now-ubiquitous symbol of Palestinian resistance. If I share Nadine’s photos on my social media, will they get me deported from the United States?

In March 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio launched an AI-fueled "Catch and Revoke" effort to cancel the visas of foreign nationals who appear to support Hamas or other designated terror groups. This program relies on the AI to scrape people’s social media to revoke visa applications of people who have been protesting Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. As of early April 2025, at least 600 people have apparently had their visas revoked because of this AI monitoring, a massive incursion into people’s right to free speech, freedom of assembly, and the right to protest.

The speed with which social media monitoring is growing is staggering. As of March 2025, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) has been working with web-scraping contractor ShadowDragon to pull data from over 200 different sites, social networks, apps, and services across the web to map out a person’s activity, movements, and relationships.

On April 9, 2025, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services also announced that it will begin monitoring immigrants’ social media accounts for perceived antisemitism. On April 16, 2025, 404 Media reported ICE contracted with tech-giant Palantir Technologies for tens of millions of dollars to modify its powerful database and search tool to allow “complete target analysis of known populations” and to update the tool’s targeting and enforcement priorities to support Trump’s detention and deportation machine.

Later that day, Politico obtained a State Department cable stating that US consulates around the world must “conduct social media vetting for all visa applicants with presence in the Gaza Strip” since January 1, 2007, applying equally from aid workers to diplomats, under the guise of identifying terrorists and national security threats.

On April 17, 404 Media reported that the full leaked dossier of internal Palantir slack chats and message boards show that Palantir is now a “more mature partner to ICE,” actively helping to find the locations of people flagged for deportation, while downplaying a Palantir employee’s concerns surrounding the ethics of making these tools available to fuel Trump’s deportation machine.

History of social media surveillance

However, this type of social media scraping is nothing new. As I show in my book The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, these practices have been used before. Previous examples include the Extreme Vetting Initiative during the so-called Muslim Ban, which was introduced by the first Trump Administration, where risk profiles were created on a person based on their online activity under the guise of anti-­ terrorism and security operations.

In 2017, ICE launched its much-lauded Extreme Vetting Initiative, a process of automated assessments that examined a person’s social media profile, risk profiles, travel records, and other factors to determine the probability that an applicant would be a “positively contributing member of society” and to national interests, and “predict whether they intend to commit criminal or terrorist acts after entering the country.” The AI system, which was developed after Trump’s executive order in January 2017 calling for strict screening rules and slashing travel from several majority-­Muslim countries—­the so-called Muslim ban—­was expected to flag thousands of people a year for deportation investigations and visa denials based on vague criteria of risk or crime prediction, without making the factors used for those determinations publicly available. After public outcry and various civil society groups writing an open letter arguing that this initiative was “tailor-­made for discrimination,” this initiative was shelved in 2018—until it reappeared in this new iteration in 2025.

Furthermore, people’s social media accounts have also been screened if they wish to enter the United States, depending on the visa on which they entered. As of April 2019, the US State Department requires visa applicants to disclose their social media account information for the past five years from the date of application. And in September 2019, DHS even tried to get this type of disclosure from people who are non-­ citizens that were already living in the US and applying for immigration benefits, including naturalization, permanent residence, and asylum.

Social media screening is troubling not only because it is highly intrusive, but also because of US immigration enforcement’s demonstrated track record of using social media information in a manner that disproportionately harms members of minority racial, ethnic, and religious groups. Even before the current ramp-up of AI-fueled surveillance, DHS had already falsely accused Black and Latinx youth of gang membership by exploiting social media connections, resulting in their detention, deportation, and/or denial of immigration benefits. ICE has also frequently combed social media to support gang membership allegations. In one case, the evidence DHS presented in its allegation of gang affiliation was a Facebook photo of an immigrant youth wearing a Chicago Bulls hat. Social media screening also disproportionately affects people belonging to or presumed to be of Muslim faith or Arab descent by creating an infrastructure rife with mistaken inference and guilt-­by-­association. Enlivened by the fears of further terrorist attacks after 9/11, and now allegations of anti-semitism since the start of the Gaza genocide, the importation of Islamophobia into immigration policy justifies increasingly broader surveillance under the guise of insecurity. And it may not even be your own social media that gets you in trouble. In 2019, CBP denied a Palestinian college student entry to the country based on his friend’s Facebook posts expressing political views against the US, even though he himself did not post such views.



But the US is also not alone in these practices. Various other jurisdictions, such as New Zealand, have experimented with using automated facial recognition technology to identify future so-called “troublemakers,” which civil society organizations opposed on the grounds of discrimination and racial profiling (this project has since been shelved, for now). Germany has also been leading the charge, monitoring people’s social media profiles for Palestinian sentiments, denying German citizenship to people for sharing Palestinian slogans, and deporting pro-Palestinian EU citizens. Last summer, while on a research fellowship in Berlin, I even noticed social media sites actively blocking videos of bombardments in Gaza and resulting protests in the streets of Berlin, forever loading until I switched on my Canadian VPN.

Beyond the immediate immigration repercussions, like being denied entry, detention, and deportation, this type of monitoring infringes several human rights. Monitoring social media activities can lead to unwarranted surveillance of individuals and communities, particularly those who have historically been marginalized, infringing on their privacy rights. If individuals and communities feel they are being monitored, they may also self-censor or refrain from expressing their thoughts and opinions freely, thus hindering their right to free speech. Monitoring of social media can also discourage people from organizing or participating in protests or assemblies due to fear of repercussions. If certain viewpoints are suppressed or censored based on monitoring practices, it undermines the public’s overall right to receive and disseminate information—crucial activities, particularly during times of major upheaval. Read more - Lire plus

Video: How Governments Spy On Protestors—And How To Avoid It | Incognito Mode | WIRED

The Unusual Nonprofit That Helps ICE Spy on Wire Transfers

NEW ACTION Tell Google: Stop Using Your AI for Genocide, Apartheid, and Border Violence

Guantanamo Judge Rules Government Cannot Use Confession Obtained Through Torture in 9/​11 Capital Case

DPIC 18/04/2025 - On April 11, 2025, Judge Colonel Matthew McCall ruled that con­fes­sions elicit­ed from Ammar al-Baluchi, accused of con­spir­ing in the September 11th ter­ror­ism attacks, were the result of tor­ture car­ried out by the CIA and as a result can­not be used against Mr. al-Baluchi in any legal pro­ceed­ing. According to Col. McCall, Mr. al-Baluchi invol­un­tar­i­ly incrim­i­nat­ed him­self in 2007 after exten­sive ​“psy­cho­log­i­cal con­di­tion­ing” through tor­ture and abuse dur­ing his deten­tion at the CIA’s over­seas pris­ons, known as black sites, between 2003 and 2006. The U.S. gov­ern­ment has been seek­ing a death sen­tence for Mr. al-Baluchi for more than twenty years.

According to CIA doc­u­ments cit­ed in the deci­sion, Mr. al-Baluchi was fre­quent­ly stripped naked and beat­en as part of an ​“enhanced inter­ro­ga­tion” pro­gram. ​“Student inter­roga­tors” repeat­ed­ly slammed his head into a wall, and at one point, Mr. al-Baluchi was shack­led at the wrists and ankles and made to stand naked, hood­ed, and sleep­less for 82 con­sec­u­tive hours. He endured ​“sim­u­lat­ed” water­board­ing as water was poured onto a tow­el cov­er­ing his face. By the time Mr. al-Baluchi was brought to Guantánamo Bay, he had endured at least 1,100 rounds of ​“enhanced inter­ro­ga­tion,” accord­ing to the ruling.

“Just as the C.I.A. psy­chol­o­gists had planned, [Mr. al-Baluchi] learned that he was help­less to resist the tor­ture, and that coop­er­a­tion meant a less­en­ing of abuse and an increase in rewards.…the goal of the pro­gram was to con­di­tion him through tor­ture and oth­er inhu­mane and coer­cive meth­ods to become com­pli­ant dur­ing any gov­ern­ment ques­tion­ing …The program worked.”

Judge Colonel Matthew McCall in his deci­sion regard­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Ammar al-Baluchi’s confession.

Federal pros­e­cu­tors have long argued that by the time that Mr. al-Baluchi alleged­ly con­fessed, he no longer feared those in charge of him and will­ing­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in three days of ques­tion­ing. No record­ings or tran­scripts of Mr. al-Baluchi’s inter­ro­ga­tions were made, how­ev­er. Instead, gov­ern­ment agents detailed his con­fes­sion in a 45-page memo. As the New York Times notes, this was Mr. al-Baluchi’s 1,120th inter­ro­ga­tion since 2003. Jeffrey Groharing, a fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor, told the court that Mr. Baluchi lat­er vol­un­teered plan­ners’ motives for the attacks.

Attorneys for Mr. al-Baluchi argued dur­ing the January 2025 hear­ing that even after being trans­ferred to Guantánamo Bay, Mr. al-Baluchi feared if he did not coop­er­ate with ques­tion­ing, he would be sub­ject­ed to fur­ther tor­ture, or even death. Alka Pradhan, a lawyer for Mr. al-Baluchi, told the court that he was a part of ​“non­con­sen­su­al human exper­i­men­ta­tion” that agency employ­ees likened to ​“a Nazi con­cen­tra­tion camp.” Ms. Pradhan praised Col. McCall’s rul­ing, not­ing that he has now rec­og­nized ​“the bru­tal tor­ture [Mr. al-Baluchi] suf­fered at American hands.” She called the rul­ing ​“a reminder to the United States that gov­ern­ments that com­mit crimes must be held accountable.” Source

From Atlanta to Kashmir, States Weaponize Counterterrorism Frameworks to Target Social Justice Movements

NYU Law Harbinger 03/2025 - Across the world, governments use the same tactics to repress dissent and dismantle social justice movements. Although counterterrorism frameworks have been and are misused to target and silence such movements, this Article focuses on only a few examples to highlight the impact of such measures.

As evidenced by the use of material support statutes, “Stop Cop City” in Atlanta, and the repression of human rights organizations in Palestine and Kashmir, these frameworks are used by governments to inhibit movements for social change.

Although the struggles in each respective region are different, there are overarching connections that draw them together, highlighting the importance of sharing tactics of resistance across movements and borders. For this reason, this Article ends with a discussion of cross-movement and cross-border strategy sharing and stresses the importance of connecting the dots to counter state repression of social justice movements. Read more - Lire plus

Tunisia: Crackdown on dissent intensifies with arrest of human rights lawyer following verdict in sham trial

Amnesty International 25/04/2025 - The Tunisian authorities must immediately and unconditionally release lawyer Ahmed Souab and drop all charges against him, as they stem solely from his exercise of his right to freedom of expression and his professional duties as a lawyer, Amnesty International said today.

Souab, a lawyer and former judge, was arrested on 21 April 2025, by the anti-terrorism brigade following comments he made criticizing the “conspiracy case” trial during a press conference held by lawyers outside the courthouse. On 19 April a Tunisian court sentenced 37 people including prominent opposition figures, lawyers, and human rights defenders, to prison terms ranging from four to 74 years following a sham trial. Amnesty International is calling for the verdict to be quashed and the charges against all 40 defendants in the case to be dropped.

“Ahmed Souab’s arbitrary detention is a blatant act of reprisal for his condemnation of flaws in the ‘conspiracy case’ trial. It also marks a further chilling escalation in the Tunisian authorities’ assault on justice and makes clear their determination to silence those who dare to speak out against the authorities’ repressive policies,” said Sara Hashash, Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.

“Like other lawyers, he is being targeted solely for exercising his right to freedom of expression and for representing his clients. He should be immediately and unconditionally released.”

Souab, who represents two of the defendants in the conspiracy case, Ghazi Chaouachi and Ridha Belhaj, had denounced the trial as a “farce” and highlighted numerous procedural violations and baseless accusations. His remarks, during which he used a figure of speech about the pressure on the presiding judge, were deliberately taken out of context on pro-government social media accounts, leading to calls for his arrest on false accusations that he had threatened the judge. 

Within hours of his arrest, the prosecution announced that Souab was being charged under counter-terrorism legislation, including preposterous accusations of “forming a terrorist organization,” “supporting terrorist crimes,” and “threatening to commit terrorist crimes” in addition to “disseminating false news,” according to Decree Law 54. Following his arrest, he was placed in police custody and initially denied access to his family and lawyers for 48 hours.

On 23 April, the investigative judge at the anti-terrorism judicial division summoned Souab for a hearing but imposed arbitrary restrictions on his legal representation, limiting the presence of his defense team to four lawyers despite dozens being present to represent him. Souab’s legal team boycotted the investigation in protest but the the judge proceeded to order his pre-trial detention for six months and Souab was transferred to the Mornaguia prison in Tunis. Another hearing session with the judge was scheduled for Monday 28 April.

The “conspiracy case” trial was marred by egregious fair trial violations. Lawyers highlighted that some defendants were never even formally notified of the indictment against them.

The first hearing on 4 March, proceeded without the defendants present after the court vaguely cited a “real danger” and insisted on online participation from prison, a decision vehemently opposed by the detainees and their lawyers. In the second hearing, on 18 April, observers from civil society, embassies, international NGOs, and independent media were barred from attending the session, with only one family member per defendant allowed entry.

The third and final hearing on 18 April lasted less than a minute, with no opportunity for the defendants to be heard, no statements from the defense lawyers or cross-examinations allowed. In an unprecedented move, during the session the judge removed the names of three defendants from the list of defendants in this case and deferred their trials.

Among those given exorbitant sentences were businessman Kamel Ltaeif (74 years), and opposition figures Noureddine Bhiri (43 years), Khayyam Turki (38 years), Jaouhar Ben Mbarek, Issam Chebbi, Ghazi Chaouachi, and Chaima Issa (all 18 years), Abdelhamid Jelassi, Sahbi Atig, Said Ferjani (all 13 years) in addition to human rights defenders such as Bochra Bel Haj Hmida (43 years) and Ayachi Hammami (eight years).

“The farcical nature of this trial, evidenced by the lack of respect of the presumption of innocence, the absence of the accused, the exclusion of observers, and the denial of any meaningful opportunity for defense illustrates a blatant disregard of human rights, including the right to a fair trial that Tunisia is obligated to uphold,” said Sara Hashash.

Amnesty International has documented a worrying trend of targeting lawyers representing members of political opposition groups, activists, and human rights defenders in Tunisia, including those involved in the defense of the conspiracy case detainees. Disturbingly, President Kais Saied himself appeared to interfere with the judicial process, publicly stating in February 2023 that history had proven the detainees guilty before the courts and warning against anyone who might exonerate them. Such statements undermine the independence of the judiciary and have a direct effect on the work of defense lawyers. 

“Undermining the independence of the legal profession and targeting lawyers who represent victims of human rights violations represents yet another serious setback to the right to legal defense and other fair trial guarantees in Tunisia,” said Sara Hashash. “Legal professionals should be able to carry out their duties and express themselves freely without intimidation, harassment, or fear of retaliation.” 

Tunisian authorities must end the harassment and intimidation of lawyers and ensure they can perform their professional functions without fear of reprisal, in line with international standards, including the UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers. Authorities must also quash the unjust convictions and sentences in the “conspiracy case” and cease the politically motivated prosecutions of critics, political opponents, and human rights defenders. Source

Human Rights Watch: “All Conspirators” How Tunisia Uses Arbitrary Detention to Crush Dissent

UK student charged under counter-terror laws for protesting Gaza genocide

WSWS 13/04/2025 - Around 100 people rallied outside London’s Central Criminal Court on Friday for the preliminary hearing of a student charged under the Terrorism Act (2000) for speech opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Sarah, a student at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, was arrested in a dawn raid on her home by London’s Metropolitan Police in January 2024 after a speech she made on campus in October 2023 for the Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! (FRFI) student society, supporting the Palestinian right to self-determination.

Sarah was charged under the Starmer Labour government more than one year later, on March 5, 2025, with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) wielding Section 12 of the Terrorism Act, for allegedly inviting support for a proscribed organisation. UK Lawyers for Israel, a Zionist group, lobbied for the charges to be laid. In October 2023, Zionists tagged the Met police in a video of Sarah’s speech in which she defended Palestinians’ right to resist the illegal occupation, blockade, and military bombardment by Israel of Gaza. If convicted, she faces up to 14 years in prison. A second SOAS student was arrested on March 5 under the same counter-terror laws.

The SOAS 2 are being targeted as part of an escalating crackdown on the right to protest. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is pressing into service anti-terror laws introduced by successive Labour and Tory governments aimed at criminalising protest and free speech, this time in defence of the Palestinian people.

Friday’s protest was called by the Revolutionary Communist Group (RCG) and its student group FRFI. It was joined by organisations including the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network UK. Members of the Socialist Equality Party took part, distributing a statement issued by the International Youth and Students for Social Equality, “Oppose Starmer’s campus crackdown on Gaza genocide protest!”

Inside the Old Bailey, Sarah was arraigned and pleaded not guilty to two counts of inviting support for a proscribed organisation, Hamas. Specifically, for having expressed “an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation” and being “reckless as to whether a person to whom the expression is directed will be encouraged to support a proscribed organisation”. The two counts under Section 12 are being applied to a speech Sarah made at SOAS on October 9, 2023 and a post in a WhatsApp group on October 16, 2023. A trial was set for the week beginning February 23, 2026, and a pre-trial hearing for July 4 this year, to be held before Judge Sarah Munro KC. [...]

Sarah’s legal team requested that the bail condition requiring her to relinquish her passport be removed: she has family in France and has had to request her passport back from the police to visit them. They noted that Sarah has made no efforts to evade the legal proceedings against her since being bailed in January of last year, and intends to study for a Master’s and a PhD in the UK. Her request was denied.

After the hearing, Sarah addressed supporters outside the court: “My trial date has been set to February 2026 which… feels a long time away but it’s going to come really, really soon. I’ll have hearings between now and then I want you all to keep on showing up for me, but not just for me, for all the other activists, all the other protesters, all the other groups which are being attacked by the British state.” Read more - Lire plus

UK Counter terror police assessing Kneecap concert video

OTHER NEWS - AUTRES NOUVELLES

Anti-terror laws

Lois antiterroristes

Pakistan: Govt to charge deported beggars under anti-terror laws

Encryption

Chiffrement

Joint Letter on Swedish Data Storage and Access to Electronic Information Legislation

Apple's encryption row with UK should not be secret, court rules

Freedom of expression

Liberté d'expression

Europe Really Is Jailing People for Online Speech

Facebook Whistleblower Frances Haugen: Breaking Up Meta’s Monopoly Would Improve Service, Safety

Freedom of the press

Liberté de la presse

Trump Expands His War on the Press

Islamophobia

Islamophobie

New book: Homegrown Radicals A Story of State Violence, Islamophobia, and Jihad in the Post-9/11 World by Youcef Soufi

Police

De Fredy Villanueva à Abisay Cruz : la brutalité policière continue au Québec

Q&A: Alec Karakatsanis on the Media’s Role in Spreading ‘Copaganda’

Privacy and surveillance

Vie privée et surveillance

How to Protect Yourself From Phone Searches at the US Border

Spyware Maker NSO Group Is Paving a Path Back Into Trump’s America

Court document reveals locations of WhatsApp victims targeted by NSO spyware

Miscellaneous

Divers

A plea for Canada to help end Sudan’s nightmare

Dozens of DHS staffers, including top FEMA officials, given lie detector tests over alleged leaks

National Security Council rebuilding with aides aligned with MAGA agenda, sources say

DOGE Installs a Former Tesla Employee at the FBI

ICLMG ACTIONS DE LA CSILC

Canada: Abolish rights-violating terrorist entities list!

On October 15, 2024, the Canadian government placed the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network on Canada’s terrorist entities list. While ostensibly a tool to protect the safety and security of people in Canada and internationally, the list is an arbitrary political tool that undermines freedom of association, of expression and due process in the courts. Its effectiveness as a national security tool has never been demonstrated in a manner that justifies its use.

Due to these deep flaws, and more, the ICLMG has consistently called for the list to be abolished since the Canadian coalition’s founding in 2002. Please join us in urging the Canadian government to abolish the rights-violating terrorist entities list once and for all. Thank you!

Share on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram

Le Canada doit abolir la liste des entités terroristes! & partagez sur Facebook + Twitter + Instagram

CSIS isn't above the law!

In recent years, at least three court decisions revealed the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) engaged in potentially illegal activities and lied to the courts. This is utterly unacceptable, especially given that this is not the first time these serious problems have been raised. CSIS cannot be allowed to act as though they are above the law.



Send a message to Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino demanding that he take immediate action to put an end to this abuse of power and hold those CSIS officers involved accountable, and for parliament to support Bill C-331, An Act to amend the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act (duty of candour). Your message will also be sent to your MP and to Minister of Justice David Lametti.

Canada must protect Hassan Diab!

Send an email using ICLMG’s one-click tool and share widely!

Letter in English + Lettre en français

Sign and share the LeadNow petitions to protect Hassan from further injustice

Petition in English + Pétition en français

For more information on the case of Hassan Diab, read our webcomic, watch our animated version of the comic, or visit justiceforhassandiab.org.

Canada must repatriate all Canadians detained in NE Syria now!

On January 20, 2023, Federal Court Justice Henry Brown ruled that Canada must repatriate Canadians illegally and arbitrarily detained in northeast Syria. On February 6, 2023, the Canadian government filed an appeal and asked that the Brown ruling be set aside and placed on hold while the appeal plays out. This is unacceptable. 

Every day the government fails to bring these Canadians home, it places their lives at risk from disease, malnutrition, violence, and ongoing military conflicts, including bombing by Turkey’s military. United Nations officials have even found that the conditions faced by Canadians in prison are akin to torture. Please click below to urge the federal government to repatriate all Canadians illegally & arbitrarily detained in northeast Syria without delay.

Please share on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram

21 years of fighting deportation to torture: Justice for Mohamed Harkat Now!

December 10, 2023 - ironically Human Rights Day - marked the 21st "anniversary" of the arrest of Mohamed Harkat under Canada's rights-violating security certificate regime. For Mr. Harkat, it's been two decades of fighting deportation to torture, 16 years of harassment and intrusive surveillance, arbitrary detention, solitary confinement, secret trials, PTSD: enough is enough! We call for justice for Moe Harkat now! Watch - Visionnez

TAKE ACTION: Stop Moe Harkat's deportation to torture!

ACTION: Arrêtez la déportation vers la torture de Mohamed Harkat!

Reform Canada's extradition law now!

Canada’s extradition system is broken. One leading legal expert calls it “the least fair law in Canada.” It has led to grave harms and rights violations, as we’ve seen in the case of Canadian citizen Dr Hassan Diab. It needs to be reformed now.



Click below to send a message to urge Prime Minister Trudeau, the Minister of Justice and your Member of Parliament to reform the extradition system before it makes more victims. And share on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram. Thank you!

Version française: Le Canada doit réformer la loi sur l'extradition! + Partagez sur Facebook + Twitter + Instagram

Phone PM Justin Trudeau

TAKE ACTION: Justice for Hassan Diab!

Just Peace Advocates' action: Write a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau: Say “No" to a second extradition of Hassan Diab

Canada must protect encryption!

Canada’s extradition system is broken. One leading legal expert calls it “the least fair law in Canada.” It has led to grave harms and rights violations, as we’ve seen in the case of Canadian citizen Dr Hassan Diab. It needs to be reformed now.



Click below to send a message to urge Prime Minister Trudeau, the Minister of Justice and your Member of Parliament to reform the extradition system before it makes more victims. And share on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram. Thank you!

Regardez la vidéo avec les sous-titres en français + Agir

Protect our rights from facial recognition!

Facial recognition surveillance is invasive and inaccurate. This unregulated tech poses a threat to the fundamental rights of people across Canada. Federal intelligence agencies refuse to disclose whether they use facial recognition technology. The RCMP has admitted (after lying about it) to using facial recognition for 18 years without regulation, let alone a public debate regarding whether it should have been allowed in the first place. Send a message to Prime Minister Trudeau and Public Safety Minister Bill Blair calling for a ban now.

Thanks to the support of our members and donors in the second half of 2024 we have been able to work on the following:

• Bill C-20, the Public Complaints and Review Commission Act - which has been adopted and will finally create an independent watchdog for CBSA
• Bill C-27, Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2022 and the very problematic Artificial Intelligence and Data Act
• Bill C-63: The concerning Online Harms Act
• Bill C-70: The new and highly controversial Foreign Interference law
• Bill C-353: The Foreign Hostage Takers Accountability Act
• Palestine and the right to dissent
• Canada’s terrorist entities list
• Monitoring the implementation and review of the authorization regime for international assistance to vulnerable populations in areas controlled by “terrorist” groups
• Combatting Racism & Islamophobia
• Repatriation of all Canadians detained in Northeastern Syria
• Justice for Dr Hassan Diab
• Mohamed Harkat & Security certificates
• Work with the international Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Counter-terrorism
• The UN Counter-terrorism Executive Directorate (CTED) Canada assessment
• The UN Cybersecurity Treaty & the EU AI Convention

What we have planned for 2025!

The coming year will present many challenges, old and new. Much of our successes from this past year will continue to need follow-up, as we track the establishment of the new CBSA review body, and push back against new foreign interference laws and attempts to silence protest. There are also the challenges we will face with the incoming US government, which is already playing out its promises to increase the securitization of the US-Canada border with more police, drones and facial recognition surveillance. This will place the rights of all travellers, but especially asylum seekers searching for protection and better living conditions, at risk.

We’ll also have our own election in Canada this year, and ICLMG will be working to both make sure the public is aware of the parties’ track records on civil liberties and national security, as well as to secure commitments to protect our rights from candidates and the new government once it is in office.

We will continue our work on these issues and much more in the next year:

• Pressuring lawmakers and officials to protect our civil liberties from the negative impact of national security as well as opposing the discourse of “countering terrorism” to repress dissent, such as protests in support of Palestinian rights and lives
• Co-creating a mechanism to monitor how the new Countering Foreign Interference law is used, as well as continue pushing back against xenophobic fear-mongering
• Protecting our privacy from government surveillance, including facial recognition, and from attempts to weaken encryption, along with advocating for good privacy law reform
• Addressing the lack of regulation on the use of AI in national security, including proposed exemptions for national security agencies
• Fighting for Justice for Mohamed Harkat, an end to security certificates, and addressing problems in security inadmissibility
• Fighting for Justice for Hassan Diab and reforming Canada’s extradition law
• Monitoring the implementation of the authorization regime for organizations that provide international assistance to vulnerable populations in areas controlled by “terrorist” groups
• Pushing back on the false narrative depicting migrants and refugees as security risks, and advocating for rights protection and accountability for border agencies, including by monitoring the creation of a new CBSA and RCMP watchdog and complaint body
• The return of the rest of the Canadian citizens and the non-Canadian mothers of Canadian children indefinitely detained in Syrian camps
• The end to the CRA’s prejudiced audits of Muslim-led charities
• Greater accountability and transparency for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service
• Advocating for the repeal of the terrorist entities list, the Canadian No Fly List, and for putting a stop to the use of the US No Fly List by air carriers in Canada
• Keeping you and our member organizations informed via the News Digest
• And much more! Read more - Lire plus

Les opinions exprimées ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de la CSILC - The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the positions of ICLMG.