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US Immigration Crackdown
Two planes carrying Venezuelan migrants out of the US were midair on March 15 when a federal judge in Washington ordered the Trump administration to turn them around. Instead, the planes landed in El Salvador hours later, touching off an extraordinary power struggle between the judicial and executive branches of the US government over what happened and why the judge's order went unexecuted. That fight entered a critical phase on Friday when US District Judge James Boasberg relaunched an investigation to determine whether the Republican administration deliberately ignored his instruction, letting the planes continue onto El Salvador. The judge previously concluded it did and threatened to have the responsible official or officials prosecuted on a contempt charge. The administration has denied any violation. But an appeals court threw Boasberg's decision out. The contempt probe appeared dead until, in yet another twist, a larger panel of judges on the same appeals court ruled on ...
The Trump administration on Thursday opened a civil rights investigation into the hiring practices at George Mason University, expanding a national campaign against diversity policies to Virginia's largest public university. The Education Department said it is responding to a complaint from multiple professors at George Mason who accuse the university of favoring those from underrepresented groups. The complaint takes aim at the university's president, Gregory Washington, saying he issued guidance that favors faculty candidates based on diversity considerations rather than their credentials, according to the department. It marks an expansion of the Trump administrations campaign to reshape higher education, which until recently focused on elite private institutions like Harvard and Columbia universities. George Mason is the second big public university to face scrutiny in recent weeks, following a Justice Department investigation at the University of Virginia that prompted the ...
The government of El Salvador has acknowledged to United Nations investigators that the Trump administration maintains control of the Venezuelan men who were deported from the US to a notorious Salvadoran prison, contradicting public statements by officials in both countries. The revelation was contained in court filings Monday by lawyers for more than 100 migrants who are seeking to challenge their deportations to El Salvador's mega-prison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT. The case is among several challenging President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. In this context, the jurisdiction and legal responsibility for these persons lie exclusively with the competent foreign authorities, Salvadoran officials wrote in response to queries from the unit of the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The UN group has been looking into the fate of the men who were sent to El Salvador from the United States in mid-March, even after a US judge had ordered
Kilmar Abrego Garcia said he suffered severe beatings, severe sleep deprivation and psychological torture in the notorious El Salvador prison the Trump administration had deported him to in March, according to court documents filed Wednesday. Abrego Garcia was living in Maryland when he was mistakenly deported and became a flashpoint in President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. The new details of Abrego Garcia's incarceration in El Salvador were added to a lawsuit against the Trump administration that Abrego Garcia's wife filed in Maryland federal court after he was deported. The Trump administration has asked a federal judge in Maryland to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that it is now moot because the government returned him to the United States as ordered by the court.
A transgender woman who says she was raped by Mexican cartel members told an immigration judge in Oregon that she wanted her asylum case to continue. A Venezuelan man bluntly told a judge in Seattle, "They will kill me if I go back to my country." A man and his cousin said they feared for their lives should they return to Haiti. Many asylum-seekers, like these three, dutifully appeared at routine hearings before being arrested outside courtrooms last week, a practice that has jolted immigration courts across the country as the White House works toward its promise of mass deportations. The large-scale arrests that began in May have unleashed fear among asylum-seekers and immigrants accustomed to remaining free while judges grind through a backlog of 3.6 million cases, typically taking years to reach a decision. Now they must consider whether to show up and possibly be detained and deported, or skip their hearings and forfeit their bids to remain in the country. The playbook has becom
After weeks of lawsuits and human rights criticism, Panama on Saturday released dozens of migrants who were held for weeks in a remote camp after being deported from the United States, telling them they have 30 days to leave the Central American nation. It thrust many like Hayatullah Omagh, a 29-year-old who fled Afghanistan in 2022 after the Taliban took control, into a legal limbo, scrambling to find a path forward. We are refugees. We do not have money. We can not pay for a hotel in Panama City, we do not have relatives, Omagh told the Associated Press in an interview. I can't go back to Afghanistan under any circumstances ... It is under the control of the Taliban, and they want to kill me. How can I go back?" Authorities have said deportees will have the option of extending their stay by 60 days if they need it, but after that many like Omagh don't know what they will do. Omagh climbed off a bus in Panama City alongside 65 migrants from China, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Ir
Republican state lawmakers seeking to aid President Donald Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration are threatening local officials who resist with lawsuits, fines and even potential jail time. Lawmakers in more than 20 states this year have filed legislation targeting so-called sanctuary policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities, according to an Associated Press analysis using the bill-tracking software Plural. Some of those states already ban sanctuary policies but are now proposing to punish mayors, council members and other government officials who violate the prohibition. The goal is to provide teeth to those who are being aggrieved by local governments and local officials who are not abiding by Georgia immigration law, said Republican state Sen. Blake Tillery, whose legislation would allow lawsuits against anyone who implements sanctuary policies. His bill recently passed the Senate and is now in the House. Opponents have raised concerns that the ..
Top Trump administration officials, including border czar Tom Homan and the acting deputy attorney general, visited Chicago on Sunday to witness the start of ramped-up immigration enforcementin the nation's third-largest city as federal agencies touted arrests around the country. Few details of the operation were immediately made public, including the number of arrests. But the sheer number of federal agencies involved showed President Donald Trump's willingness to use federal law enforcement beyond the Department of Homeland Security to carry out his long-promised mass deportations. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it made 956 arrests nationwide on Sunday and 286 on Saturday. While some of the operations may not have been unusual, ICE averaged 311 daily arrests in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove said he observed immigration agents from the DHS along with agents from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of ...