A lot of legal professionals have to defend the indefensible as part of their jobs, but arguing that rampant lawlessness is legal — as government attorneys now do in many of the 240-plus lawsuits filed against the current Trump administration — requires a particular flair for impudence.

The effort to deport Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil offers a case in point. The Trump regime abducted Khalil, a green card holder, in the lobby of his New York apartment building in March, and has since held him in a sprawling U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana.