Summary
Immigration officials detained a US citizen for nearly 10 days in Arizona, according to court records and press reports.
On 8 April, a border patrol official found Hermosillo “without the proper immigration documents” and claimed that the young American had admitted entering the US illegally from Mexico.
On 17 April, a federal judge dismissed his case. “He did say he was a US citizen, but they didn’t believe him.”
“Under the Trump administration’s theory of the law, the government could have banished this U.S. citizen to a Salvadoran prison then refused to do anything to bring him back,” Mark Joseph Stern, a legal analyst for Slate, wrote on Bluesky. “This is why the Constitution guarantees due process to all. Could it be more obvious?”
Fascist don’t need your help, especially if you just have conjecture on your side.
I think his point was that they worded the question to make reasonable answers possible to be interpreted wrong to their benefit. In other words, they likely were trained to asked trap questions.
Even so, the guy said he told everyone he was a citizen. If someone asks me if I’m here on a visa and I respond “no” and then they arrest me and I’m like “I’m a citizen” you can’t then act like they were using trick questions for plausible deniability. The second I say I’m a citizen that goes out the window regardless of what I was asked. If the guy answered every question with “I’m a citizen and (answer)” I don’t think the result would be any different, so allowing them to hide behind “trick questions” obscures the fact that they are lying to get POC rounded up. They are lying and they don’t need “trick questions” because they don’t care what your answer is. You could answer the trick question “correctly” and still be rounded up. Anything suggesting that the fault lies in anything but the institution and its officers is a distraction imho. So I feel like “trick question” is a deflection/distraction and I have not read anything to even suggest that’s the case. It seems like they 1) didn’t believe him and 2) lied to cover it up. I have not read anything that suggests the citizen in question answered a question that may have been suspicious but I have read that he was not believed.
I’m not saying they “should” be able to get away with that. Just that they probably will. I am on the side of it should be illegal for cops to lie to you during an interrogation. Even attempting to use a trick question falls into the same boat in my opinion.