From WNYC Studios. I'm Brian Lerer. This is my daily politics podcast. It's Thursday, May 1st.

We will lead with attention between deportation and the Constitution. There was so much at stake.

There is so much at stake, and not just

for the deportees. President Trump was elected in part on a promise that a large majority of

Americans in polls said they support, agree with, that he would deport violent criminals who

were in the country illegally back to their home

country as his first immigration and deportation priority, right?

But he's gone so much further than that, as you know, deporting people who they identify

as criminals or gang members who haven't been convicted of anything or in many

cases haven't even been charged with anything in this country or their countries of origin.

And they've been trying to deport young adults with student visas or even green cards based on

their participation in pro-Palestinian protests, claiming those students impede the U.S.

from carrying out its foreign policy by organizing and expressing their views.

There were significant developments yesterday in at least two of these cases in court.

We'll get into details. But remember the underlying issues, which is why we keep coming back to this topic.

Do basic constitutional rights apply only to U.S. citizens or also to others who are here?

If the government flouts court orders in cases like these, what about other cases not having

to do with immigration? The concern about authoritarian rule, call it Victor Orban,

type rule perhaps, is front and center in these cases. The judge, in the Mosin Madawi case that

we'll talk about in a sec, liken the government's actions to McCarthyism. The judge called

it that, not a lawyer or an activist or a politician.

Again, that was in the case of Columbia student, Mosah Madawi, a green card holder for the last 10 years, with no criminal record, and detained for deportation when?

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