“Lawyers at the so-called Justice Department made this request to his attorneys within hours of us having asked the court to stop them from doing precisely that,” Lee told the Guardian. “It’s very difficult to explain how unprecedented this is.

“This is something that should shock everybody. The most fundamental right in a democracy is the right to seek redress for grievances against the government,” Lee added. “God knows where they would send [Taal], simply because he decided to access the federal courts with American citizen colleagues to challenge whether what Trump is doing is legal or not.”

The timing is designed to send a very clear message that anyone criticizing Trump is risking imprisonment and/or deportation. And we are hearing more stories now about officers asking people for their views on Trump at the border, and searching people’s phones for anti-Trump sentiment. It’s remarkable how quickly US law enforcement has jumped onto the dictatorship bandwagon.