Haq Talks to CNN About US Citizens' Confidence in the Justice System

November 12, 2025

CNN

Nayyera Haq

Maxwell in Washington, D.C.

Crime & Violence

Federal

Law

U.S. Immigration

United States

CNN

Professional portrait of a smiling individual in a yellow blazer.

Nayyera Haq

Does the Trump administration have a credibility problem in the courts? Federal judges have expressed skepticism of government claims and called them untrue and not credible, while a jury acquitted a man who threw a sandwich at a Border Patrol officer.

“Part of this challenge is there are people who feel empowered and emboldened to just make bald-faced lies and then there's people like this young man who was the security guard at a farm where there were undocumented workers on the farm, and he's like here's my passport. Let me just get it for you, I'm a U.S. citizen,” says Nayyera Haq, assistant dean of Washington programs.

“And they didn't care. They just dragged him out and brought him and put him in custody. He was detained for two or three days. So those of us who have to now prove that we are legitimately U.S. citizens don't feel that confidence that the American justice system is going to be treating all of us equally,” she says.

Watch the full interview: “Federal judge: Border Patrol official in Chicago admitted he lied.”