Tag Archives: Maryland

Fox News: Trump admin cutting $20M in DC security funding after federal law enforcement ordered to increase presence

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‘If D.C. doesn’t get its act together, and quickly, we will have no choice but to take federal control of the city,’ Trump said

The Trump administration plans to cut millions in security funding for Washington, D.C., despite the president also directing federal law enforcement to increase its presence in the city because of its “totally out of control” crime.

In a grant notice posted last week, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said that D.C.’s urban security fund would receive $25.2 million, a 44% year-over-year reduction.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, said on Friday it slashed funds to multiple cities to be consistent with the “current threat landscape.” Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Jersey City also had their security funds cut, but the decrease in D.C. was the largest for any urban area that received funding from the program last fiscal year.

DHS has “observed a shift from large-scale, coordinated attacks like 9/11 to simpler, small-scale assaults, heightening the vulnerability of soft targets and crowded spaces in urban areas.”

Violent crime in D.C. dropped by 35% between 2023 and 2024, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. said in December, stating that there were 3,388 incidents last year compared to 5,215 incidents the year before.

Crimes that saw significant drops last year included homicide, which was down 30%, sexual abuse down 22% and assault with a dangerous weapon down 27%. Robberries and burglaries slightly dropped to 8% for both.

The federal funding covers security needs in the National Capital Region, which includes D.C. and surrounding cities in Maryland and Virginia.

FEMA has $553.5 million to spend to support cities across the U.S. to boost security. It is unclear how much of the National Capital Region’s total security budget comes from that program.

In the past, local officials have used federal funds for hazmat training, hiring officers and replacing fiber in their emergency communications network, according to a 2016 report from D.C.’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency.

On Thursday, Trump directed federal law enforcement to increase their presence in the nation’s capital, following a string of violent crimes, including an incident in which former DOGE staffer Edward Coristine, nicknamed “Big Balls”, was beaten in the city’s streets earlier this week.

“Crime in Washington, D.C., is totally out of control,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Local ‘youths’ and gang members, some only 14, 15, and 16-years-old, are randomly attacking, mugging, maiming, and shooting innocent Citizens, at the same time knowing that they will be almost immediately released. They are not afraid of Law Enforcement because they know nothing ever happens to them, but it’s going to happen now!”

The president said that the nation’s capital “must be safe, clean, and beautiful for all Americans and, importantly, for the World to see.”

“If D.C. doesn’t get its act together, and quickly, we will have no choice but to take Federal control of the City, and run this City how it should be run, and put criminals on notice that they’re not going to get away with it anymore,” he continued. “Perhaps it should have been done a long time ago, then this incredible young man, and so many others, would not have had to go through the horrors of Violent Crime.”

So King Donald and his suck-ups are whining about crime in D.C. (which has actually been decreasing significantly!) while they cut security funding for D.C.? Go figure!

Trump admin cutting $20M in DC security funding after federal law enforcement ordered to increase presence
The Trump administration plans to cut $20 million in security funding for Washington, D.C., according to a grant notice.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/trump-admin-cutting-20m-dc-security-funding-federal-law-enforcement-ordered-increase-presence

Washington Post: He left Iran 40 years ago. He may be deported to Romania. Or Australia.

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The withholding of a removal order that Reza Zavvar felt protected him from deportation is now being wielded by the Trump administration to send him to a country he doesn’t know.

Sharp knocks on the front door interrupted Firouzeh Firouzabadi’s Saturday morning coffee. On the porch of her suburban Maryland home were two law enforcement agents and a very familiar pit bull mix named Duke.

“Can you take this dog?” Firouzabadi recalled one of the men saying. “I said, ‘This is my son’s dog. Where is he?’ They wouldn’t say.”

At that moment, her adult son, Reza Zavvar, was handcuffed in the back of an SUV parked two houses down in the Gaithersburg neighborhood where the Iranian-born family has lived since 2009 — apprehended, he later said, that late June day by at least five federal immigration agents in tactical gear who told Zavvar they had been waiting for him to take Duke out for his regular morning walk.

More than a month later, Zavvar, 52, remains in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody,part of a surge of arrests of immigrants with standing court orders barring their deportation to their native countries.

The Trump administration has increasingly turned to sending people to third countries. In court papers, ICE said it plans to send Zavvar to Australia or Romania. He has no ties to either place.

Zavvar left Tehran alone when he was 12, arriving in Virginia in 1985 on a student visa secured by his parents as a way to escape eventual conscription into the Iranian army. He eventually received U.S. asylum, and then a green card.

His family joined him and they settled in Maryland, but in his 20s, Zavvar’s guilty pleas in two misdemeanor marijuana possession cases jeopardized his immigration status. In 2007, an immigration judge issued a withholding of removal order, determining it was unsafe for Zavvar to return to Iran. He built a life, went to college and has been working as a white-collar recruiter for a consulting firm.

…

So he pleaded guilty 27 years ago to a couple marijuana possessions charges (legal today in 24-40 states, depending on purpose of usage) and now ICE wants to deport him to a third country (possibly Romania or Australia).

Click one of the links below to read the rest of the article.

He left Iran 40 years ago. He may be deported to Romania. Or Australia.
Handcuffed outside his Maryland home while walking his dog, Reza Zavvar is among a surging number of immigrants arrested with standing court orders barring deportation to their native countries.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/08/03/immigration-arrests-third-country-removals

He left Iran 40 years ago. He may be deported to Romania. Or Australia.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/he-left-iran-40-years-ago-he-may-be-deported-to-romania-or-australia/ar-AA1JOsY5

Newsweek: Pastor in US over 20 years held by ICE after failing to obtain green card

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A Maryland pastor who has lived in the United States for more than two decades was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for overstaying his visa, prompting protests from his community and calls for his release.

Daniel Fuentes Espinal, 54, was taken into custody on July 21 while driving to work in Easton, Maryland. ICE said he entered the country legally in 2001 on a six-month visa but never left.

“It is a federal crime to overstay the authorized period of time granted under a visitor’s visa,” the agency said in a statement to Newsweek.

Why It Matters

President Donald Trump has ordered the government to carry out what Republicans call the largest deportation operation in United States history.

In addition to people living in the country without legal status, immigrants with valid documentation, including green cards and visas, have been detained. Newsweek has documented multiple cases involving green-card holders and applicants who were swept up in ICE raids.

What To Know

Fuentes Espinal, a Honduran citizen and father of three, has spent 15 years serving as a volunteer pastor at Iglesia del Nazareno Jesus Te Ama, or Church of the Nazarene Jesus Loves You, in Easton. Known for offering food, shelter and clothing to those in need, friends describe him as a man who “never expects anything in return.”

“Pastor Fuentes Espinal is a beloved pillar of the Easton community, known for giving shelter to those who need a place to sleep and for providing food and clothing to people at their most vulnerable,” family friend Len Foxwell wrote in a GoFundMe campaign that has raised more than $45,000 to help the family and cover legal fees.

Fuentes Espinal was first taken to a detention facility in Salisbury, Maryland, then transferred to Baltimore before being moved to the Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield, Louisiana.

The pastor’s family said he has been trying for years to obtain a green card, spending thousands of dollars and navigating what they called a “bureaucratic nightmare.”

“They have felt for years as if the deck is stacked against them, despite having spent a considerable amount of money and time and effort” seeking permanent residency, Foxwell told CBS News.

Supporters have mobilized quickly. Members of the Easton community gathered Friday carrying signs and American flags demanding his release.

“It’s devastated our community. It’s shocked our community,” Foxwell told CBS Baltimore.

Maryland lawmakers have joined calls for his release. In a letter condemning his detention, Representatives Sarah Elfreth and Glenn Ivey described Fuentes Espinal as “a beloved pillar” of Easton and said that “his arrest and detention by ICE does nothing to further your stated goals of making America safer.”

Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said his team is also working with Fuentes Espinal’s family.

What People Are Saying

A spokesperson for Republican Representative Andy Harris of Maryland, in a statement to CBS News: “Congressman Harris believes due process within the immigration enforcement system is important and that facts should be clear before making any further public comment.”

Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland told CBS News: “The Trump administration is snatching up anyone they can find as they pursue their mass deportation agenda.”

Family friend Len Foxwell told CNN: “This is a family man, a man of faith, a small businessman who was literally just going to work to put in a full day’s work to feed his family.”

What Happens Next

Fuentes Espinal is awaiting a bond hearing. His family says they will continue to fight for his release.

Pastor in US over 20 years held by ICE after failing to obtain green card
Honduran citizen was detained in Easton, Maryland. ICE said he entered the U.S. legally in 2001 on a 6-month visa and never left.

https://www.newsweek.com/pastor-us-over-20-years-held-ice-after-failing-obtain-green-card-2107091

CNN: A Marine veteran’s wife, detained by ICE while still breastfeeding, has been released

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A Marine Corps veteran’s wife has been released from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention following advocacy from Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican who backs President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration crackdown.

Until this week, Mexican national Paola Clouatre had been one of tens of thousands of people in ICE custody as the Trump administration continues to press immigration officers to arrest 3,000 people a day suspected of being in the US illegally.

Emails reviewed by The Associated Press show that Kennedy’s office put in a request Friday for the Department of Homeland Security to release her after a judge halted her deportation order earlier that week. By Monday, she was out of a remote ICE detention center in north Louisiana and home in Baton Rouge with her veteran husband, Adrian Clouatre, and their two young children.

Kennedy’s constituent services representative, Christy Tate, congratulated Adrian Clouatre on his wife’s release and thanked him for his military service. “I am so happy for you and your family,” Tate wrote in an email to Adrian Clouatre. “God is truly great!”

Kennedy’s office proved “instrumental” in engaging with the Department of Homeland Security, according to Carey Holliday, the family’s attorney. Kennedy’s office did not provide further comment.

Another Louisiana Republican, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, also intervened recently with the Department of Homeland Security to secure the release of an Iranian mother from ICE detention following widespread outcry. The woman has lived for decades in New Orleans.

Kennedy has generally been a staunch supporter of Trump’s immigration policies.

“Illegal immigration is illegal – duh,” Kennedy posted on his Facebook page on July 17, amid a series of recent media appearances decrying efforts to prevent ICE officers from making arrests. In April, however, he criticized the Trump administration for mistakenly deporting a Maryland man.

Senator’s office requests mother’s release from ICE custody

The Department of Homeland Security previously told The AP it considered Clouatre to be “illegally” in the country.

An email chain shared by Adrian Clouatre shows that the family’s attorney reached out to Kennedy’s office in early June after Paola Clouatre was detained in late May.

Tate received Paola Clouatre’s court documents by early July and said she then contacted ICE, according to the email exchange.

On July 23, an immigration judge halted Paola Clouatre’s deportation order. After Adrian Clouatre notified Kennedy’s office, Tate said she “sent the request to release” Paola Clouatre to DHS and shared a copy of the judge’s motion with the agency, emails show.

In an email several days later, Tate said that ICE told her it “continues to make custody determinations on a case-by-case basis based on the specific circumstances of each case” and had received the judge’s decision from Kennedy’s office “for consideration.”

The next working day, Paola Clouatre was released from custody.

“We will continue to keep you, your family and others that are experiencing the same issues in our prayers,” Tate said in an email to Adrian Clouatre. “If you need our assistance in the future, please contact us.”

Back with her children

Paola Clouatre had been detained by ICE officers on May 27 during an appointment related to her green card application.

She had entered the country as a minor with her mother from Mexico more than a decade ago and was legally processed while seeking asylum, she, her husband and her attorney say. But Clouatre’s mother later failed to show up for a court date, leading a judge to issue a deportation order against Paola Clouatre in 2018, though by then she had become estranged from her mother and was homeless.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Clouatre’s release.

Adrian Clouatre said he wished the agency would “actually look at the circumstances” before detaining people like his wife. “It shouldn’t just be like a blanket ‘Oh, they’re illegal, throw them in ICE detention.’”

Reunited with her breastfeeding infant daughter and able to snuggle with her toddler son, Paola Clouatre told AP she feels like a mother again.

“I was feeling bad,” she said of detention. “I was feeling like I failed my kids.”

It will likely be a multiyear court process before Paola Clouatre’s immigration court proceedings are formally closed, but things look promising, and she should be able to obtain her green card eventually, her attorney said.

For now, she’s wearing an ankle monitor, but still able to pick up life where she left off, her husband says. The day of her arrest in New Orleans, the couple had planned to sample some of the city’s famed French pastries known as beignets and her husband says they’ll finally get that chance again: “We’re going to make that day up.”

A Marine veteran’s wife, detained by ICE while still breastfeeding, has been released | CNN
A Marine Corps veteran’s wife has been released from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention following advocacy from Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican who backs President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration crackdown.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/29/us/mother-released-ice-marine-veteran-husband

USA Today: ICE deported teenagers and children in immigration raids. Here are their stories.

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Several students who attended K-12 schools in the United States last year won’t return this fall after ICE deported them to other countries.

An empty seat.

Martir Garcia Lara’s fourth-grade teacher and classmates went on with the school day in Torrance, California without him on May 29.

About 20 miles north of his fourth grade classroom, United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested and detained the boy and his father at their scheduled immigration hearing in Downtown Los Angeles.

The federal immigration enforcement agency, which under President Donald Trump has more aggressively deported undocumented immigrants, separated the young boy and his father for a time and took them to an immigration detention facility in Texas.

Garcia Lara and his father were reunited and deported to Honduras this summer.

Garcia Lara is one of at least five young children and teens who have been rounded up by ICE and deported from the United States with their parents since the start of Trump’s second presidential term. Many won’t return to their school campuses in the fall.

“Martir’s absence rippled beyond the school walls, touching the hearts of neighbors and strangers alike, who united in a shared hope for his safe return,” Sara Myers, a spokesperson for the Torrance Unified School District, told USA TODAY.

Trisha McLaughlin, assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, said his father Martir Garcia-Banegas, 50, illegally entered the United States in 2021 with his son from the Central American country and an immigration judge ordered them to “removed to Honduras” in Sept. 2022.

“They exhausted due process and had no legal remedies left to pursue,” McLaughlin wrote USA TODAY in an email.

The young boy is now in Honduras without his teacher, classmates and a brother who lives in Torrance.

“I was scared to come here,” Lara told a reporter at the California-based news station ABC7 in Spanish. “I want to see my friends again. All of my friends are there. I miss all my friends very much.”

Although no reported ICE deportations have taken place on school grounds, school administrators, teachers and students told USA TODAY that fear lingers for many immigrant students in anticipation of the new school year.

The Trump administration has ramped up immigration enforcement in the United States. A Reuters analysis of ICE and White House data shows the Trump administration has doubled the daily arrest rates compared to the last decade.

Trump recently signed the House and Senate backed “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which increases ICE funding by $75 billion to use to enforce immigration policy and arrest, detain and deport immigrants in the United States.

Although Trump has said he wants to remove immigrants from the country who entered illegally and committed violent crimes, many people without criminal records have also been arrested and deported, including school students who have been picked up along with or in lieu of their parents.

Abigail Jackson, a spokesperson for the White House, says the Trump administration’s immigration agencies are not targeting children in their raids. She called an insinuation that they are “a fake narrative when the truth tells a much different story.”

“In many of these examples, the children’s parents were illegally present in the country – some posing a risk to the communities they were illegally present in – and when they were going to be removed they chose to take their children with them,” Jackson said. “If you have a final deportation order, as many of these illegal immigrant parents did, you have no right to stay in the United States and should immediately self-deport.”

Parents can choose to leave their kids behind if they are arrested, detained and deported from the United States, she said.

Some advocates for immigrants in the United States dispute that claim. National Immigration Project executive director Sirine Shebaya said she’s aware of undocumented immigrant parents were not given the choice to leave their kids behind or opportunity to make arrangement for them to stay in the United States.

In several cases, ICE targeted parents when they attended routine immigration appointments, while traffic stops led to deportations of two high school students. School principals, teachers and classmates say their absence is sharply felt and other students are afraid they could be next.

Very long article, read the rest at the links below:

ICE deported teenagers and children in immigration raids. Here are their stories.
Several students who attended K-12 schools in the United States last year won’t return this fall after ICE deported them to other countries.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/07/27/ice-student-deportations-trump-school-communities/84190533007

ICE deported teenagers and children in immigration raids. Here are their stories.
Several students who attended K-12 schools in the United States last year won’t return this fall after ICE deported them to other countries.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ice-deported-teenagers-and-children-in-immigration-raids-here-are-their-stories/ar-AA1JndT7

Fox News: ‘Lawless and insane’: Trump admin readies for fight after judges block Abrego Garcia removal for now

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In Nashville, U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw on Wednesday ordered Abrego Garcia’s release from criminal custody pending trial, writing in a 37-page ruling that the federal government “fails to provide any evidence that there is something in Abrego’s history, or his exhibited characteristics, that warrants detention.” 

He also poured cold water on the dozens of allegations made by Trump officials, including by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem in Nashville last week, that Abrego Garcia is an MS-13 gang member.

“Based on the record before it, for the court to find that Abrego is member of or in affiliation with MS13, it would have to make so many inferences from the government’s proffered evidence in its favor that such conclusion would border on fanciful,” he said. 

King Donald’s pathetic band of idiots, suck-ups, and sycophants really needs to learn to quit when they’re behind, way behind in this case.

‘Lawless and insane’: Trump admin readies for fight after judges block Abrego Garcia removal for now
The Trump administration faces setbacks as judges in Tennessee and Maryland block the deportation of Salvadorian migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, with officials suggesting they may violate court orders.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/lawless-insane-trump-admin-readies-fight-after-judges-block-abrego-garcia-removal-now

Straight Arrow News: DOJ whistleblower says Trump appointee ordered defiance of courts

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“They’re putting attorneys who have dedicated themselves to public service in the impossible position of fealty to the President or fealty to the Constitution – candor to the courts or keeping your head low and lying if asked to do so,” Reuveni told The New Yorker. “That is not what the Department of Justice that I worked in was about. That’s not why I went to the Department of Justice and stayed there for fifteen years.” 

Shortly after three planes filled with alleged Tren de Aragua gang members took off for an El Salvador supermax prison in March, a judge issued a verbal order with a simple instruction to government lawyers:  turn the planes around. The planes, however, continued to El Salvador. 

Now, a whistleblower says a top Department of Justice (DOJ) official authorized disregarding the judge’s order, telling his staff they might have to tell the courts “f- you” in immigration cases.

The official was Principal Associate Attorney General Emil Bove, whom President Donald Trump nominated to be a federal judge. Leaked emails and texts from whistleblower and former DOJ lawyer Erez Reuveni, released during the week of July 7, came days before a Senate Judiciary Committee vote on Bove’s nomination to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. If the committee approves, Bove’s nomination will advance to the full Senate.

At Bove’s direction, “the Department of Justice is thumbing its nose at the courts, and putting Justice Department attorneys in an impossible position where they have to choose between loyalty to the agenda of the president and their duty to the court,” Reuveni told The New York Times.

Bove is perceived by some as a controversial choice for the lifetime position. He served on Trump’s defense team in the state and federal indictments filed after Trump’s first term in the White House.

In 2024, after Trump appointed him acting deputy attorney general, Bove ignited controversy over his firing of federal prosecutors involved in cases involving the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol and over his role in dismissing corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

Early this year, the federal government was using an arcane 18th-century wartime law – the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 – to remove the alleged gang members from the United States without court hearings. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of the District of Columbia ruled the removals violated the men’s right to due process, setting up the conflict with the DOJ.

The leaker’s emails and texts suggest Bove advised DOJ attorneys that it was okay to deplane the prisoners in El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act. 

The messages also cite Bove’s instruction for lawyers to consider saying “f- you” to the courts.

 When Reuveni asked DOJ and Department of Homeland Security officials if they would honor the judge’s order to stop the planes to El Salvador, he received vague responses or none at all.

While the email and text correspondence allude to Bove’s instruction, none of the messages appear to have come directly from Bove himself. The official whistleblower complaint was filed on June 24.

Bove denies giving that instruction. At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last month, Bove said he “never advised a Department of Justice attorney to violate a court order.”

The leak prompted outrage from both sides of the political spectrum. Some say deporting people without trial to a supermax prison in El Salvador violates due process rights and a  DOJ lawyer telling other lawyers to ignore a court order should put him in contempt of court. 

However, Attorney General Pam Bondi – who served as one of Trump’s defense attorneys during his first Senate impeachment trial in 2020 – responded on X, saying there was no court order to defy. 

“As Mr. Bove testified and as the Department has made clear, there was no court order to defy, as we successfully argued to the DC Circuit when seeking a stay, when they stayed Judge Boasberg’s lawless order. And no one was ever asked to defy a court order,” the attorney general wrote Thursday, July 10, when the emails and texts were released. 

Bondi was referring to the DOJ’s immediate emergency appeal to the D.C. Circuit of Appeals requesting a stay of Boasberg’s temporary restraining order. The DOJ did not turn the planes around, arguing that a verbal order by the lower court is not binding and that the planes had already left U.S. airspace.

On March 26, the DOJ lost its appeal, with the D.C. Circuit voting 2-1 to uphold Boasberg’s ruling. The DOJ appealed again, this time to the Supreme Court, arguing that the lower courts had interfered with national security and overreached on executive immigration power. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the DOJ, 6-3, and lifted the lower court’s injunction on April 9.

Bondi accused the whistleblower Reuveni of spreading lies. She said on X that this is “another instance of misinformation being spread to serve a narrative that does not align with the facts.” 

“This ‘whistleblower’ signed 3 briefs defending DOJ’s position in this matter and his subsequent revisionist account arose only after he was fired because he violated his ethical duties to the department,” Bondi wrote.

Reuveni worked at the DOJ for 15 years, mostly in the Office of Immigration and Litigation. Bondi fired Reuveni in April for failing to “zealously advocate” for the United States in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was accidentally deported to the El Salvador prison and whose return the Supreme Court eventually ordered.

Bondi and other Trump administration officials have fired many DOJ and FBI employees, saying the administration has broad constitutional power to do so. 

“They’re putting attorneys who have dedicated themselves to public service in the impossible position of fealty to the President or fealty to the Constitution – candor to the courts or keeping your head low and lying if asked to do so,” Reuveni told The New Yorker. “That is not what the Department of Justice that I worked in was about. That’s not why I went to the Department of Justice and stayed there for fifteen years.” 

DOJ whistleblower says Trump appointee ordered defiance of courts
A Trump judicial nominee told DOJ lawyers to ignore court orders to return planes carrying alleged gang members, a whistleblower claims.

https://san.com/cc/doj-whistleblower-says-trump-appointee-ordered-defiance-of-courts

Reuters: ICE may deport migrants to countries other than their own with just six hours notice, memo says

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U.S. immigration officials may deport migrants to countries other than their home nations with as little as six hours’ notice, a top Trump administration official said in a memo, offering a preview of how deportations could ramp up.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will generally wait at least 24 hours to deport someone after informing them of their removal to a so-called “third country,” according to a memo dated Wednesday, July 9, from the agency’s acting director, Todd Lyons.

ICE could remove them, however, to a so-called “third country” with as little as six hours’ notice “in exigent circumstances,” said the memo, as long as the person has been provided the chance to speak with an attorney.

The memo states that migrants could be sent to nations that have pledged not to persecute or torture them “without the need for further procedures.”

The new ICE policy suggests President Donald Trump’s administration could move quickly to send migrants to countries around the world.

The Supreme Court in June lifted a lower court’s order limiting such deportations without a screening for fear of persecution in the destination country.

Following the high court’s ruling and a subsequent order from the justices, the Trump administration sent eight migrants from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Sudan and Vietnam to South Sudan.

The administration last week pressed officials from five African nations – Liberia, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania and Gabon – to accept deportees from elsewhere, Reuters reported.

The Washington Post first reported the new ICE memo.

The administration argues the third country deportations help swiftly remove migrants who should not be in the U.S., including those with criminal convictions.

Advocates have criticized the deportations as dangerous and cruel, since people could be sent to countries where they could face violence, have no ties and do not speak the language.

Trina Realmuto, a lawyer for a group of migrants pursuing a class action lawsuit against such rapid third-county deportations at the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, said the policy “falls far short of providing the statutory and due process protections that the law requires.”

Third-country deportations have been done in the past, but the tool could be more frequently used as Trump tries to ramp up deportations to record levels.

During Trump’s 2017-2021 presidency, his administration deported small numbers of people from El Salvador and Honduras to Guatemala.

Former President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration struck a deal with Mexico to take thousands of migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, since it was difficult to deport migrants to those nations.

The new ICE memo was filed as evidence in a lawsuit over the wrongful deportation of Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.

ICE may deport migrants to countries other than their own with just six hours notice, memo says

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ice-may-deport-migrants-countries-other-than-their-own-with-just-six-hours-2025-07-13

Raw Story: DOJ lawyer ‘put his foot in his mouth’ in front of ‘righteously indignant’ judge

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The Justice Department’s lawyer “put his foot in his mouth the minute he started and never seemed to get it out” in a recent hearing, according to a former prosecutor.

Ex-federal prosecutor Joyce Vance highlighted a high-profile case in which, as the Washington Post put it, “a federal judge in Maryland sharply rebuked a Justice Department attorney” after “an immigration official could not answer basic questions about the Trump administration’s plans to deport Kilmar Abrego García if he is released pending trial on federal human-smuggling charges against him in Tennessee.”

In the Maryland hearing this week, “Judge Paula Xinis heard testimony from a witness she had directed the government to present, and it turned out that the testimony failed to answer some of the very basic questions she has about the case,” according to Vance. She said they were questions such as, “What do you plan to do with Mr. Abrego Garcia if he’s released, and in what country, other than El Salvador, where the government is currently prohibited from sending him, might you dump him?”

Vance went on to ridicule the DOJ’s position in the case.

“The government is taking a ridiculous posture, saying that unless and until he’s released from criminal custody in the Tennessee case, they aren’t making any plans at all—they just have some vague ideas about the possibilities,” she wrote. “Given that this is the same government we now know from the Erez Reuveni whistleblower case doesn’t feel compelled to comply with courts that rule against Donald Trump’s desired course of action, it’s easy to understand why the Judge was skeptical of the government, telling their lawyers she could no longer presume they were acting in good faith at one point. The presumption of regularity entitles the government to an assumption by the court that its actions are valid and in accordance with the law, placing a burden on any party challenging it to prove otherwise.”

Vance highlighted Xinis’ comment to the DOJ lawyer: “You have taken the presumption of regularity and you’ve destroyed it in my view.”

“The government acted like everything was business as usual and this was just an ordinary case. But this Judge understands that it is not. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers made such a modest request, functional due process, just a couple of days’ notice before their client is dropped in a hellhole like South Sudan,” she wrote. “The government’s lawyer put his foot in his mouth the minute he started and never seemed to get it out. For starters, the Judge had asked yesterday for basic paperwork, the detainer that ICE was using to hold Abrego Garcia. But it took them until midway through the hearing to provide it to her. That’s an inexcusable failure on the government’s part that fairly shouts disrespect to the court.”

The analyst continued:

“The government told Judge Xinis they can either deport Abrego Garcia to a third country of their choice or reopen withholding proceedings… But the government wouldn’t commit to either option or even hint at its thinking.”

She added, “The Judge was righteously indignant that the government wouldn’t say what it wants to do, maintaining the fiction that some randomly assigned desk officer will decide what happens on the fly if Abrego Garcia is returned to their custody, just like they would in any normal case. It’s ridiculous. The government is saying ‘f— you’ to the courts over and over again, and the courts seem to be getting the message.”

DOJ lawyer ‘put his foot in his mouth’ in front of ‘righteously indignant’ judge

https://www.rawstory.com/doj-lawyer-foot-in-mouth

Axios: Trump ramps up deportation spectacle with new stunts and ICE funding

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The MAGA movement is reveling in the creativity, severity and accelerating force of President Trump’s historic immigration crackdown.

Once-fringe tactics — an alligator-moated detention camp, deportations to war zones, denaturalization of immigrant citizens — are now being proudly embraced at the highest levels of the U.S. government.

  • It’s an extraordinary shift from Trump’s first term, when nationwide backlash and the appearance of cruelty forced the administration to abandon its family separation policy for unauthorized immigrants.
  • Six months into his second term — and with tens of billions of dollars in new funding soon flowing to ICE — Trump is only just beginning to scale up his mass deportation machine.

Trump on Tuesday toured a temporary ICE facility in the Florida Everglades dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” where thousands of migrants will be detained in a remote, marshland environment teeming with predators.

  • MAGA influencers invited on the trip gleefully posted photos of the prison’s cages and souvenir-style “merchandise,” thrilling their followers and horrifying critics.
  • Pro-Trump activist Laura Loomer drew outrage after tweeting that “alligators are guaranteed at least 65 million meals if we get started now” — widely interpreted as a reference to the Hispanic population of the United States.

Citing the millions of unauthorized immigrants who crossed the border under President Biden, Trump and his MAGA allies have framed the second-term crackdown as a long-overdue purge.

  • The result is an increasingly draconian set of enforcement measures designed to deter, expel and make examples out of unauthorized immigrants.
  • Some newer members of the MAGA coalition, such as podcaster Joe Rogan, have expressed deep discomfort with the targeting of non-criminal undocumented immigrants.

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Denaturalization of U.S. citizens — once a legal backwater — is gaining traction as Trump and his MAGA allies push the envelope on nativist rhetoric.

  • The Justice Department has begun prioritizing stripping naturalized Americans of their citizenship when they’re charged with crimes and “illegally procured or misrepresented facts in the naturalization process.”
  • But some MAGA influencers are pushing to weaponize denaturalization more broadly — not just as a legal remedy for fraud, but as a tool to punish ideological opponents.

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Trump ramps up deportation spectacle with new stunts and ICE funding
Once-fringe tactics — an alligator-moated detention camp, denaturalization of citizens — are now being embraced.

https://www.axios.com/2025/07/05/trump-migrants-alligator-alcatraz-denaturalize