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President Donald Trump is taking a lot of heat for the military operations he launched unilaterally as Commander in Chief of the U.S. armed forces against the Iranian pirates/terrorists: (1) striking Iran militarily, (2) closing tshe Strait of Hormuz to Iranian oil exports, and (3) aiming (I expect successfully) to force Iran into capitulation. In fact, what President Trump is doing today with Iran is nothing more than a long overdue exercise of U.S. military power, of the sort that Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison engaged in, without congressional approval, against the Barbary Pirates from 1801 to 1815.

The Barbary pirates were an early 19th century analog of the modern-day Iranian terrorist regime. They preyed on American and European trading ships and enslaved their crews. It is estimated that over 1 million American and European sailors were sold into slavery by the Barbary pirates during the centuries in which they preyed on American and European shipping. Robert Davis, British Slaves on the Barbary Coast BBC (February 17, 2011). The Barbary pirates sailed out of Libya and North Africa generally until France conquered Algeria in 1830.

Congress never declared war against the Barbary pirates, but Presidents Jefferson and Madison rightly used their executive Commander-in-Chief powers unilaterally to cause American ships and marines to subdue them with the use of U.S. armed force. This defeated the Barbary pirates, and the Framing generation, which was still mostly alive from 1801 to 1815, acquiesced in the constitutionality of this unilateral presidential use of military force. The United States has fought only five declared wars in our history since 1789—the War of 1812, the Mexican American War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, and World War II. But U.S. Presidents, acting as Commanders in Chief, have unilaterally deployed our armed forces many other times.

Presidents have deployed the U.S. military without congressional permission on at least 125 occasions like the one that subdued the Barbary Pirates (1801-1815). Some of those engagements have been quite bloody such as the Korean War (33,700 deaths in battle), the Vietnam War, for which congressional authorization was withdrawn from 1971 to 1975 (3,246 deaths in battle), and the overthrowing of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi by President Obama, in 2011 (4 deaths including of a U.S. Ambassador). These engagements were not authorized but were paid for by Congress. John C. Yoo & Robert J. Delahunty, The President’s Constitutional Authority to Conduct Military Operations Against Terrorist Organizations and the Nations that Harbor or Support Them. In addition, the U.S. has fought four undeclared wars with congressional authorization in my lifetime: the Vietnam War (1964-1971), the Gulf War (1991), the Afghan War (2001-2021), and the Iraq War (2003-2011). The gloss of history on the constitutional text supports everything that President Trump is now doing.

It is settled constitutional law after 237 years of practice that presidents have the power to use the U.S. military without Congress’s permission to subdue pirates, and terrorists, like the now dead Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who was quite simply a modern-day pirate. Iran has been a huge problem for the U.S. since its Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Iran captured and held hostage the U.S. Ambassador to Tehran and more than 50 American embassy personnel from November 1979 to January 20, 1981. It killed 241 U.S. Marines with a terrorist attack on a U.S. military base in Lebanon on October 23, 1983. And for the last half-century, Iran has funded a host of Islamic terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East including Hezbollah (in Lebanon), Hamas (in the Gaza Strip), and the Houthis (in Yemen), all of which have attacked Israel and Saudi Arabia, who are American allies, as well as attacking U.S. military personnel in the Middle East.

The Ayatollah Khamenei appeared to be planning to destroy Israel with a nuclear weapon, and Iran has been developing ballistic missiles that could hit Europe today and eventually, perhaps, the United States. The Ayatollah Khamenei routinely led crowds that denounced America as the “Great Satan” and led chants of “Death to America.” Continuing to kick the can of dealing with Iran down the road as a problem was unwise behavior on the parts of the second President Bush, President Obama, and President Biden.

President Trump is the first President since 1979 who has had the guts to stop Iranian terrorism, which is a modern-day form of piracy in the Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint in the global oil supply. He should be loudly praised for doing so. The American blockade on Iranian oil exports is likely to eventually cause Iran to surrender unconditionally, which will cause the much-needed end of Iran’s nuclear program and its efforts to charge tolls for ships passing in international waters off the Strait of Hormuz (something Iran of course has no right to do). China’s Xi Jinping agreed at the just-concluded summit with President Trump that (1) Iran could not be trusted to have nuclear weapons, (2) Iran cannot charge tolls on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, and (3) Iran should immediately end its blockade of shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. The two most powerful militaries on earth are in complete agreement here.

When regime change happens in Iran, as I expect it will if the U.S. persists, the U.S. can help Iran to pump much more oil and natural gas, as the U.S. is now trying to do in Venezuela having seized former Venezuelan President, Nicholas Maduro. And when that happens oil prices will likely tumble to $40 a barrel or so, which may cause Vladimir Putin’s vicious and corrupt regime to end in Russia, thus ending the Ukrainian War on terms favorable to Ukraine. Americans need to be patient and to give the blockade time to work. Iran cannot live without 90% of its budget, which comes from oil and gas sales in the long run.

The Constitution says that the executive power shall be vested solely in the President, as is the Commander-in-Chief power. From President George Washington’s use of the army to put down the Whiskey Rebellion, to President Jefferson’s and Madison’s use of the navy and marines to put down the Barbary Pirates, to President Abraham Lincoln’s use of the army and navy to win the Civil War, to President Harry Truman’s use of the U.S. military to win the Korean War, to President Barack Obama’s use of our air force to overthrow the terrorist regime of Muhammar Gaddafi in Libya, we Americans have from the outset construed presidential war powers to generally allow the President to take military action without prior congressional approval to put down terrorist threats or threats from pirates.

Congress’s powers to (1) declare war and (2) grant letters of marque and reprisal are powers to trigger the international treaty obligations of our allies as a matter of international law, and to grant privateers the power to seize enemy ships as prizes. They do not block the President from commanding armed forces to engage in the behavior discussed above. It would be unconstitutional for one or both of Houses of Congress to pass an Act to stop the Iran hostilities, given that the President alone has the executive power, which includes the Commander-in-Chief power. For more on the constitutional arguments in this post, see Robert Delahunty & John Yoo, Making War, 93 Cornell Law Review 123 (2007), as well as their other writings on presidential war power.

Congress could, of course, constitutionally stop what President Trump is doing by cutting off funding for military actions related to Iran. But, for the practical reasons given above, this would be a foolish thing for Congress to do. Yes, domestic gas prices are temporarily high right now. But if President Trump sticks with the blockade, we will likely get regime change in Iran, and much lower oil and gas prices very quickly for the foreseeable future. Still, Congressional restriction of funding, unwise as it may be, would at least be within Congress’s powers; a Congressional Act purporting to order the President to stop hostilities or to prematurely end the blockade would be outside Congress’s powers. And it would wrongly end an important struggle with a group of pirates and thugs who do not have the support of the Iranian people.

The post President Trump Doesn't Need Congressional Approval for His Actions as to Iran appeared first on Reason.com.

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How long should it take an innocent person to get confirmation that they will be compensated after the government destroys their home? Should, of course, is subjective. Some such victims will never get that confirmation.

For Vicki Baker, it came today from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, almost six years after her house in McKinney, Texas, was destroyed by a SWAT team in pursuit of a fugitive who had barricaded himself inside.

The scene that followed was chaotic. As I wrote in 2021:

Prior to the SWAT showdown, Baker’s daughter, Deanna Cook, gave officers a key to the home, as well as a garage door opener and the back gate code. Agents took a different route. They smashed six windows. Instead of using the code, they maneuvered a BearCat armored vehicle through her fencing. Instead of using the clicker, they detonated explosives to blow off the garage entryway. And instead of using the key, they drove right on through her front door.

Baker’s insurance declined to cover the damage, as it was caused by the government—a common stipulation. But the government countered that it was not responsible either, as she did not meet its definition of a victim. “I’ve lost everything,” Baker told me over five years ago. “I’ve lost my chance to sell my house. I’ve lost my chance to retire without fear of how I’m going to make my regular bills.”

The legal argument the government relied on is a surprisingly common one. The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment promises “just compensation” when private property is usurped for public use. Community safety is, after all, a public benefit, which is typically shouldered not by the individual but by the whole. To evade paying out such claims, however, some municipalities have said that constitutional pledge is not absolute, particularly as it relates to property that is destroyed in the exercise of police powers.

Many innocent property owners have failed to overcome that in court. Baker, meanwhile, was able to rack up a rare win—if you can call it that?—after completing what can be accurately described as a federal courts–themed game of human pinball.

What exactly did Baker’s game—er, legal experience—look like? Her home was left in ruins in July 2020. After the government refused to pay her, she filed suit in March 2021. The city tried to stop her from suing; a federal judge declined to dismiss. In 2022, a jury awarded her about $60,000 in what seemed like a major victory. Yet in 2023, the 5th Circuit reversed, ruling her claim was doomed because police acted by “necessity during an active emergency.” In 2024, the Supreme Court rejected her appeal. Last year, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas affirmed she could recover damages—$60,000 plus interest—under the Texas Constitution as opposed to the U.S. Constitution. The government naturally appealed, which brings us to 2026.

So Baker, who is in her 80s, will finally get her payout. She is more fortunate in that way than several others. Yet one wonders how much money local officials spent fighting this lawsuit instead of paying the judgment that was handed down almost four years ago.

The post A SWAT Team Destroyed an Innocent Woman's Home. She's Been Waiting 6 Years for Justice. appeared first on Reason.com.

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A South Florida immigrant detention center that’s been the subject of numerous allegations of poor conditions and abuse was the national leader in using physical force against detainees, according to leaked incident reports.

Use-of-force data published by The Washington Post in conjunction with a May 4 story show that staff at the Krome North Service Processing Center, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center on the western edge of Miami-Dade County, reported more uses of physical force against immigrant detainees than any other detention center over a two-year period.

The Post culled the data from hundreds of internal ICE emails, called the “Daily Detainee Assault Report,” which summarizes incidents of physical force against detainees. The reports covered 98 ICE detention facilities from January 2024 to February 2026, covering the last year of the Biden administration and the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term in office.

The data show that Krome reported 176 uses of force over 26 months, accounting for 12 percent of all 1,460 documented use-of-force incidents captured in the data. Reported use of force at Krome appeared to have decreased between the last year of the Biden administration and the first year of Trump’s second term, dropping from 109 reports to 62.

However, that drop coincides with a nationwide documentation collapse that occurred several months after Trump took office. Biden-era reports often contained short narratives of the incidents, including the circumstances and types of force used, but those narratives largely disappear from ICE reports in 2025, replaced by boilerplate language.

Detainee injuries are still reported, but not their exact cause. For example, a September 2025 report notes that a Bahamian detainee at Krome “sustained several contusions and a lacerated lip,” but all other details are omitted.

Katie Blankenship, an attorney at Sanctuary of the South, an immigrant legal aid organization that is involved in several lawsuits challenging conditions at South Florida immigration detention centers, is not surprised by the numbers.

Blankenship says Krome is the largest ICE facility in the region. The data also don’t cover county jails and other holding facilities that aren’t subject to the same reporting standards.

“Lack of transparency is the norm,” Blankenship says. “Are these numbers troubling? Absolutely, because just what they self-report is terrifying, so imagine what’s actually happening.”

Krome was also a significant outlier in its use of four-point restraint chairs, one of the most extreme methods of restraining someone.

During the Biden administration, 23 incident reports from Krome mention the use of four-point restraint chairs. There are only 38 restraint-chair uses total in the dataset, meaning that Krome accounts for 61 percent of all documented uses of restraint chairs during the two-year period. The Trump-era reports never mention restraint chairs, although that is probably due to the previously mentioned switch to boilerplate language.

“I don’t know why this is, but for some reason Krome has been using these four-point restraint chairs for years,” Blankenship says. She says she had a client at Krome during the Biden administration “who suffered basically complete nerve damage from the restraints on this chair.”

“It’s not typically used as restraint,” Blankenship says. “It’s used as corporal punishment, which is forbidden in civil detention. They shouldn’t be doing that at all.”

In one 2024 incident included in the data, a wheelchair-bound detainee in Krome’s medical unit was placed in restraints after becoming agitated: “While being transported in a wheelchair, the detainee resisted [Krome] staff, refused…instructions, became aggressive, and attempted to eject himself from the wheelchair, prompting them to use a calculated use of force to put him in a four-point restraint chair and spit mask.”

Krome has been the subject of numerous reports by civil rights groups and news outlets. A report published last July by Human Rights Watch, Americans for Immigrant Justice, and Sanctuary of the South, found that staff at Krome and two other South Florida immigrant detention centers “subjected detained individuals to dangerously substandard medical care, overcrowding, abusive treatment, and restrictions on access to legal and psychosocial support.”

The report echoed multiple news stories that similarly documented allegations of overcrowding, filth, and negligence at the Krome detention center.

As the number of people in federal immigration detention has swelled due to the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign, deaths in ICE custody have reached an all-time high, and allegations of abuse and neglect continue to pour out of federal detention centers.

“You’re just seeing this level of apathy and cruelty that’s literally killing people,” Blankenship says.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The post A Florida Detention Center Was the Harshest in the Country. Then ICE Stopped Tracking Details on Use of Force. appeared first on Reason.com.

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