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US Immigrant Detention
Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been released from an immigration detention centre in Pennsylvania following an order from a federal judge issued on Thursday, according to his attorney's office. Abrego Garcia's attorney confirmed he was released just before 5 pm Thursday and told The Associated Press he plans to return to Maryland, where he has an American wife and child and where he has lived for years after originally immigrating to the US illegally as a teenager. Attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said he is not sure what comes next, but he is prepared to defend his client against further deportation efforts. US District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland earlier Thursday ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement to let Abrego Garcia go immediately, writing that federal authorities had detained him again after his return to the United States without any legal basis. The judge gave prosecutors until 5 pm EST to formally respond to the release order. The ruling marked a major victory for the
Sami Hamdi, a British political commentator, was being held Monday by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement after he was detained by ICE officers at San Francisco International Airport, according to federal officials. One senior US official said the detention was related to comments he has made about the Middle East. Hamdi, who is Muslim, was on a speaking tour in the US and on Saturday had addressed the annual gala for the Sacramento, California, chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR. Earlier this morning, ICE agents abducted British Muslim journalist and political commentator Sami Hamdi at San Francisco Airport, apparently in response to his vocal criticism of the Israeli government during his ongoing speaking tour, the group said in a Sunday social media post. The detention is the latest in the Trump administration's ramped up efforts to identify and potentially expel thousands of foreigners in the United States who it says have either fomented or ...
A federal judge on Thursday ordered a temporary halt to construction at an immigration detention centre built in the middle of the Florida Everglades and dubbed Alligator Alcatraz as attorneys argue whether it violates environmental laws. The facility can continue to operate and hold detainees for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but workers will be barred from adding any new filling, paving or infrastructure for the next 14 days. US District Judge Kathleen Williams issued the ruling during a hearing and said she will issue a written order later Thursday. Environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe have asked Williams to issue a preliminary injunction to halt operations and further construction. The suit claims the project threatens environmentally sensitive wetlands that are home to protected plants and animals and would reverse billions of dollars' worth of environmental restoration. Plaintiffs presented witnesses Wednesday and Thursday in support of the injunction, wh
The Department of Defense is expanding a militarised zone along the southern US border where troops are authorised to detain people who enter illegally for possible federal prosecution on charges of trespassing in a national defence area. The Air Force announced Monday the annexation of a serpentine 250-mile (400-kilometre) stretch of the border in Texas amid a buildup of military forces under President Trump's declaration of a national emergency at the border. A Defense Department official said the Navy also has been instructed to establish a new national defence area at the border. The official didn't provide further details. The newly designated national defence area on land and water along the Rio Grande spans two Texas counties and runs alongside cities including Brownsville and McAllen. It will be treated as an extension of Joint Base San Antonio. The Air Force said it's prepared to install warning signs immediately against entry to the area. The military strategy was pioneere
The wife and five children of an Egyptian man accused of throwing Molotov cocktails at people in Boulder demonstrating for the release of Israeli hostages, injuring 12 of them, was taken into custody Tuesday by US immigration officials who are investigating whether they knew about his plan. The family of Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, was taken into custody by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and could be deported as early as Tuesday night, the White House said in a post on X. Soliman, who was disguised as a gardener, had 18 Molotov cocktails and had planned to kill all of the roughly 20 participants in Sunday's demonstration in downtown Boulder but apparently had second thoughts and threw just two while yelling "Free Palestine," police said. Soliman, who federal authorities say has been living in the US illegally, didn't carry out his full plan because he got scared and had never hurt anyone before," police wrote in an affidavit. The two incendiary devices he threw were enough to
More than 100 immigrants suspected of being in the US illegally were taken into custody early on Sunday following a federal raid at an illegal after-hours nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, authorities said. Video posted online by the Drug Enforcement Administration showed agents announcing their presence outside the building and ordering patrons to leave with their hands up. Other videos showed dozens of people fleeing the building through its entrance after federal agents smashed a window. Later, dozens of suspects were shown in handcuffs standing on a sidewalk waiting to be transported. During his second stint as US president, Donald Trump's unprecedented campaign of immigration enforcement has pushed the limits of executive power, and he has clashed with federal judges trying to restrain him. The crackdown has included detaining more than 1,000 international college students, some of whom have seen their legal status restored, at least temporarily. The policies have slowed
As hundreds of migrants crowded into the Krome Detention Centre in Miami on the edge of the Florida Everglades, a palpable fear of an uprising set in among its staff. As President Donald Trump sought to make good on his campaign pledge of mass arrests and removals of migrants, Krome, the United States' oldest immigration detention facility and one with a long history of abuse, saw its prisoner population recently swell to nearly three times its capacity of 600. There are 1700 people here at Krome!!!!, one US Immigration and Customs Enforcement employee texted a co-worker last month, adding that even though it felt unsafe to walk around the facility nobody was willing to speak out. That tension comes amid a battle in federal courts over whether the president's immigration crackdown has gone too far, too fast at the expense of fundamental rights. At Krome, reports have poured in about a lack of water and food, unsanitary confinement and medical neglect. With the surge of complaints,