Detained pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil missed the birth of his son on Monday after US authorities refused a temporary release, his wife said.
A graduate student at New York’s Columbia University who was one of the most visible leaders of nationwide campus protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, Khalil was arrested by immigration authorities on March 8.
He was ordered deported even though he was a permanent US resident through his American citizen wife, Noor Abdalla.
Abdalla said that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) denied a request to release Khalil temporarily for the birth of their child.
“This was a purposeful decision by ICE to make me, Mahmoud and our son suffer,” she said in a statement.
Monthly Archives: April 2025
Associated Press: US and global economic outlook deteriorates in Trump trade war, IMF says
The outlooks for the U.S. and global economies have significantly worsened in the wake of President Donald Trump’s tariffs and the uncertainty they have created, the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday.
The IMF said that the global economy will grow just 2.8% this year, down from its forecast in January of 3.3%, according to its latest World Economic Outlook. And in 2026, global growth will be 3%, the fund predicts, also below its previous 3.3% estimate.
Mediaite: House Republican Comes Out Swinging Against ‘Amateur Person’ Pete Hegseth and Calls for His Ouster
Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) became the first House Republican to suggest that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is no longer fit to keep his job, in scathing comments made to Politico’s Rachel Bade on Monday.
“I had concerns from the get-go because Pete Hegseth didn’t have a lot of experience,” Bacon told Bade, following the bombshell revelations over the weekend that Hegseth had shared national security details in a second Signal group chat – this time one that included his wife.
Bacon, a retired Air Force general, added, “ … I find it unacceptable, and I wouldn’t tolerate it if I was in charge,” …,
MeidasTouch News: White House Initiates Search for New Secretary of Defense, Report
In a stunning turn of events, NPR is reporting that the White House has begun the process of seeking a new Secretary of Defense, according to a U.S. official who spoke under condition of anonymity. This development follows a rapidly escalating crisis within the Department of Defense, as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth faces mounting scrutiny and calls for his resignation amid a series of scandals and growing dysfunction at the Pentagon.
I guess the drunken wifebeater isn’t working out?
Indy 100: Al Gore compares Trump administration to Nazi Germany in scathing analysis
Al Gore has compared the Trump administration to Nazi Germany in a scathing analysis of the current political climate in the US.
On Monday (21 April), former vice president Gore gave a speech at an event at the beginning of San Francisco’s Climate Week.
Within it, he slammed the current US president Donald Trump and suggested his administration was blurring the line between truth and lies and “trying to create their own preferred version of reality” in a way similar to the Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party in the 1930s and 1940s.
Newsweek: Republican Support Collapses Under Donald Trump
An April 16 poll of 1,000 registered voters conducted by RMG Research, a public opinion research firm founded by conservative pollster Scott Rasmussen, for Napolitan News Service found that if an election for Congress were held today, 48 percent would vote for the Democrat on their ballot, while 44 percent would vote for the Republican.
When including those who would lean Democratic or Republican, the Democratic lead increased to 50 percent, while Republican support increased to 45 percent.
This marks a seven-point swing since February, according to the pollsters. Before Trump was inaugurated on January 20, Republicans had a seven-point lead of 51 percent to the Democrats’ 44 percent.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/republican-support-collapses-under-donald-trump/ar-AA1DnerZ
Associated Press: Colorado fights Trump administration bid to help imprisoned loyalist Tina Peters
Trumps politicized Dept. of Justice is trying to insert itself into a local Colorado case where it has absolutely no business intervening:
Colorado officials say President Donald Trump’s administration appears to be wielding its “political power” to give unprecedented help to a former county election clerk who was convicted of allowing Trump supporters to access election equipment after his 2020 defeat.
…
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser wants Magistrate Judge Scott T. Varholak to block the Justice Department from getting involved. Lawyers from Weiser’s office said the Justice Department has not given any good reason why it should intervene and has just repeated Peters’ arguments.
“Tina Peters was not prosecuted because of any political pressure; she was prosecuted because she broke the law. And just as they did not prosecute her for political reasons, her prosecutors will not accede to any political pressure to give her preferred treatment in sentencing or terms of confinement,” lawyers from Weiser’s office said in a filing.
Union-Bulletin: Multiple Venezuelan men arrested by ICE disappeared from system
At least two Venezuelan immigrants who were detained by ICE and deported from the U.S. have completely disappeared, their families said Tuesday.
Relatives of Neiyerver Adrian Leon Rengel, 27, spoke with the Miami Herald, while family and friends of Ricardo Prada Vasquez, 32, told his story to the New York Times.
Leon Rengel arrived in the U.S. in June 2023 and was allowed to remain in the country while his immigration case was considered, the Herald reported. But on March 13, ICE agents stopped him at his apartment in the Dallas suburb of Irving and hauled him away.
Prada Vasquez was similarly permitted to stay in the U.S. while his immigration case was handled, according to the Times. However, he made a wrong turn from Detroit into Canada in January and was sent to immigration jail.
Both families suspect Leon Rengel and Prada Vasquez were on one of three deportation flights on March 15 from the U.S. to El Salvador, where suspected gang members were sent to a mega-prison in the capital city of San Salvador.
However, neither Leon Rengel nor Prada Vasquez have any criminal history of gang involvement. Prada Vasquez had no record in the U.S., while Leon Rengel paid a single fine for marijuana possession in Texas, the Herald reported.
Both men were no longer listed in the U.S. immigration system, and federal officials confirmed both had been removed from the country. However, family members in Venezuela haven’t been able to find either man.
New York Times: A Venezuelan Is Missing. The U.S. Deported Him. But to Where?
The immigrant does not appear on a list of people sent to a prison in El Salvador, and his family and friends have no idea of his whereabouts. He has essentially disappeared.

In late January, Ricardo Prada Vásquez, a Venezuelan immigrant working in a delivery job in Detroit, picked up an order at a McDonald’s. He was heading to the address when he erroneously turned onto the Ambassador Bridge, which leads to Canada. It is a common mistake even for those who live in the Michigan border city. But for Mr. Prada, 32, it proved fateful.
The U.S. authorities took Mr. Prada into custody when he attempted to re-enter the country; he was put in detention and ordered deported. On March 15, he told a friend in Chicago that he was among a number of detainees housed in Texas who expected to be repatriated to Venezuela.
That evening, the Trump administration flew three planes carrying Venezuelan migrants from the Texas facility to El Salvador, where they have been ever since, locked up in a maximum-security prison and denied contact with the outside world.
But Mr. Prada has not been heard from or seen. He is not on the list of 238 people who were deported to El Salvador that day. He does not appear in the photos and videos released by the authorities of shackled men with shaved heads.
Raw Story: ‘Nonsense numbers’: Washington Post delivers math lesson to smash Trump claims
As President Donald Trump’s tariffs begin to kick in around the world, The Washington Post analyzed two of his claims: “we were losing $2 billion a day [under President Joe Biden], and “now we’re making $3 billion a day.”
In an analysis, Glenn Kessler wrote, “both the Treasury Department and the data released by Customs and Border Protection show Trump is way off the mark.”