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A former FBI counterintelligence agent, prominent legal commentator Asha Rangappa knows the proper way to effectuate an arrest, and it’s not the “disorienting and alarming” way she says the Trump administration has been going about it with student protesters.
“When you get trained as a law enforcement agent, the most obvious thing is … you have to identify yourself immediately, and that's actually for your own safety and for the safety of others,” Rangappa said in a 30-minute Substack Live.
In multiple viral videos, undercover immigration officers have blindsided and swarmed Ivy League student green-card holders in or near their homes to arrest them without a warrant.
Rangappa explained why that approach is dangerous from a law enforcement perspective.
“If that person thinks you're a rando trying to attack them — and they get a hold of your weapon — this is bad news for everyone,” she said.
Earlier on Monday, Ronald Reagan-appointed U.S. District Judge William Young said he was “not accustomed” to the manner of the students’ arrests. Neither was Rangappa.
“I think it's very disrespectful to law enforcement generally because when you erode trust in one law enforcement entity, you're essentially making it harder for everyone to do their job,” she said.
For Rangappa, the videos were reminiscent of “two minutes hate” from George Orwell’s “1984” — or “Latin America circa 1970s,” the time of forced disappearances.
Those were just two of the literary and historical references at Rangappa’s disposal during the conversation, which touched upon Trump’s “Alice in Wonderland”-style retaliation against Harvard University. In Trump’s anti-Harvard decrees, she saw the Red Queen’s credo: “sentence first, verdict later.”
An assistant dean at Yale University’s Jackson School of Global Affairs, Rangappa gave advice about how to support academic freedom from the administration’s attacks: “It pains me as both a Princeton and Yale grad to have to root for Harvard,” she quipped.
She also analyzed the latest in litigation over Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, with a mixed ruling today blocking the administration from whisking Venezuelan immigrants out of the country from California. She explained why she told The New York Times she believes Trump’s relationship with El Salvador’s strongman Nayib Bukele may be impeachable.
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