BOSTON—Below are highlights from today’s proceedings in the trial before Judge William G. Young in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in a case challenging the Trump administration’s policy of ideological deportation.

  • Four ICE agents who oversaw the arrests of Rümeysa Öztürk, Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi, and Badar Khan Suri testified today. Some of these agents told the court that they had never been asked to conduct an arrest based on similar legal or factual grounds. And some reported that they were instructed to prioritize the arrests by senior ICE officials.

    • William Crogan, then an agent at ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) unit in New England, recounted his participation in Mahdawi’s arrest. He stated that, before Secretary Rubio’s determination of removability for Mahdawi, he had never seen a document determining a noncitizen removable on similar legal grounds in his 20-plus years at HSI. He testified that he had never seen a noncitizen removed from the United States based on similar factual allegations. And he explained that his supervisors both gave him advance notice of Secretary Rubio’s determination and instructed him to prioritize the case. Crogan was cross-examined by Alexandra Conlon of Sher Tremonte LLP.

    • Patrick Cunningham, an agent at HSI’s Boston field office, testified that, before Öztürk’s detention, he had never seen an arrest based on similar factual or legal allegations, and that he was instructed by his superiors to prioritize the case. Cunningham was cross-examined by Michael Tremonte of Sher Tremonte LLP.

    • Darren McCormack, an agent at HSI’s New York field office, testified that the request to arrest Khalil was unusual, that it came from high-level officials at ICE, that he received advanced notice of Secretary Rubio’s determination, and that it was relayed to him that Secretary Rubio and/or the White House were interested in Khalil’s case. McCormack was cross-examined by Alexandra Conlon of Sher Tremonte LLP.

  • The ICE agents also testified that there is no uniform agency policy on whether and when officers may wear masks when conducting arrests, but that they have allowed the officers under their command to wear them.

  • Tomorrow, July 16, is a day off. Trial will resume on Thursday, July 17.

A transcript of today’s testimony will be available shortly here.

The trial began on Monday, July 7, 9:00 am ET and is expected to end on Friday, July 18, 1:00pm ET.

Read daily trial updates here.

Members of the press need to register daily to access the trial livestream here. 

Read more about the case here.

Lawyers on the case include Ramya Krishnan, Jameel Jaffer, Alex Abdo, Scott Wilkens, Carrie DeCell, Xiangnong (George) Wang, Talya Nevins, Jackson Busch, and Stephany Kim for the Knight First Amendment Institute, Ahilan Arulanantham, Michael Tremonte, Noam Biale, Alexandra Conlon, and Courtney Gans for Sher Tremonte, and Edwina Clarke and David Zimmer for Zimmer, Citron & Clarke.

For more information, contact: Adriana Lamirande, [email protected].