Washington Post: ICE crackdown imperils Afghans who aided U.S. war effort, lawyers say

Two former Afghan interpreters for U.S. forces face deportation despite following immigration processes, according to attorneys for the men.

One former interpreter for U.S. forces in Afghanistan was detained by immigration agents in Connecticut last month after he showed up for a routine green card appointment. A second was arrested in June, just minutes after attending his first asylum hearing in San Diego.

As the administration seeks to fulfill President Donald Trump’s pledge to carry out the largest deportation operation in U.S. history, attorneys for the men say their clients — Afghans who fear retribution from the Taliban for their work assisting the United States in its 20-year war in Afghanistan — have found themselves in the crosshairs of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The attorneys provided The Washington Post with military contracts and certificates, asylum and visa applications, recommendation letters and other records that described both men’s work on behalf of U.S. forces during the war.

After Kabul fell to the Taliban in August 2021, President Joe Biden’s administration moved to resettle Afghans who had worked for the U.S. government through the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program, which grants lawful permanent resident status and a pathway to U.S. citizenship. As of April, about 25,000 Afghans had received an SIV, and another 160,000 had pending applications, said Adam Bates, an attorney with the International Refugee Assistance Program who analyzed State Department data.

But the Trump administration is rolling back programs created to assist more than 250,000 Afghans — including the allies who worked for U.S. forces and other refugees who fled after the Taliban takeover. And while administration officials say SIV processing will continue, advocates for Afghans who served with U.S. troops fear the curtailment of programs they depend on, along with Trump’s ambitious deportation plan, jeopardizes those still vying for SIV protection.

They point to the arrests of Zia, 36, and Sayed Naser, 33, whose attorneys argue they followed proper immigration processes. The Post agreed to withhold the last names of both men because of the ongoing threats to their lives from the Taliban.

“Zia is not an outlier,” his attorney Lauren Cundick Petersen said during a news conference last month. “We’re witnessing the deliberate redefinition of legal entry as illegal for the purpose of meeting enforcement quotas.”

Matt Zeller, an Army veteran whose Afghan interpreter saved his life in a 2008 firefight, co-founded the nonprofit No One Left Behind to help resettle Afghans. He said he fears the immigration crackdown will unwind that effort.

“The Trump administration knows what’s going to happen to these folks. They’re not stupid. They understand that the Taliban is going to kill them when they get back to Afghanistan,” Zeller said. “They just don’t care.”

In response to questions from The Post, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the administration’s top immigration enforcement priority is “arresting and removing the dangerous violent, illegal criminal aliens that Joe Biden let flood across our Southern Border — of which there are many.”

“America is safer because of President Trump’s immigration policies,” she said.

All King Donald and his cronies care about is deporting foreigner, any foreigners.

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

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/08/03/afghanistan-immigrants-trump-deportations


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ice-crackdown-imperils-afghans-who-aided-u-s-war-effort-lawyers-say/ar-AA1JOsYf

Global News: 18-year-old detained by ICE told he had no rights, despite U.S. citizenship

A high school senior who was detained by ICE in Florida in May while his mother was driving him and two of his teenage colleagues to work is speaking out about the violent altercation in which he was told — despite being an American citizen — that he had no rights.

Footage of 18-year-old Kenny Laynez’s violent arrest, reportedly captured on his cellphone, shows an officer telling him, “You got no rights here. You’re an amigo, brother.”

Laynez was born and raised in the United States.

Speaking to CBS News, he said, “It hurts me, hearing them saying that I have no rights here because I look like, um, you know, Hispanic, I’m Hispanic.”

According to Laynez, the car was pulled over because there were too many passengers riding in the front seat, and two passengers, his co-workers, were undocumented, he said.

Footage shows officers using a Taser while detaining the teens, both of whom Laynez says he has not been able to contact since.

“We’re not resisting. We’re not committing any crime to, you know, run away,” Laynez said, recalling the incident.

The high schooler’s phone kept recording after he had been arrested and picked up a conversation between officers where they were discussing shooting the detainees.

“They’re starting to resist more. We’re gonna end up shooting some of them,” one officer says to another.

“Just remember, you can smell that too with a $30,000 bonus,” another officer responded.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection told CBS in a statement that Laynez and his co-workers “resisted arrest” and claimed that immigration agents are experiencing a rise in assaults on the job.

The statement did not mention that a U.S. citizen had been detained, the outlet added.

Laynez recalled events as Florida prepares to deploy 1,800 more law enforcement officers to execute immigration raids ordered by the Trump administration.

Mariana Blanco, the director at the Guatemalan Maya Center, an advocacy group opposing Florida’s pursuit of immigrants, told CBS that, “laws are just… they’re no longer being respected.

“Deputizing these agents so quickly it is going to bring severe consequences,” she added.

Laynez is just one of a handful of young people to be arrested by ICE, seemingly without cause.

In June, students and staff at a high school in Massachusetts staged a post-graduation protest after U.S. immigration authorities detained a pupil who was scheduled to perform with the school’s band during the ceremony.

Marcelo Gomes Da Silva, 18, was driving his father’s car to volleyball practice the day before the ceremony with some of his teammates when he was pulled over by immigration authorities.

Officers said they were looking for Gomes Da Silva’s father, who, according to Todd Lyons, acting director of ICE, is residing illegally in the U.S.

During the stop, authorities determined that Gomes Da Silva was also unlawfully in the country and detained him. According to his friends, Gomes Da Silva was born in Brazil but has attended Milford Public Schools in the Boston area since the age of six.

The teen’s arrest coincided with the final day of a far-reaching, month-long illegal immigration clampdown in Massachusetts, coined Operation Patriot, that saw nearly 1,500 people deemed “criminal aliens” detained.

Gomes Da Silva returned home after several days in ICE detainment after a judge released him on a $2,000 bond.

USA Today: 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.

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:

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


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

Alternet: ‘We have been seriously hit’: The Trump economy is coming for your coffee

The New York Times reports a coffee brewer in Maine has lost its fight against President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

“Our bean prices will be increasing within the next week,” posted Rock City Coffee chief executive Jessie Northgraves on Facebook.

Northgraves said her company had tried to keep prices stable, but they are now forced to raise prices on new, more expensive inventory coming in from offshore, courtesy of Trump’s additional tax on many imports. Trump vowed in July to impose a 50 percent tariff against Brazil, which directly goes to U.S. coffers, despite coffee brewers already having to pay more for beans due to droughts in Vietnam and Brazil.

Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently announced his giddiness at Trump’s tariffs generating $100 billion in new revenue, but it is U.S. businesses like Rock City Coffee that are paying that revenue. The Times reports small businesses in high competition markets, including coffee suppliers, have less cushion and are loathe to raise prices and discourage customers.

“I thought maybe it would be temporary,” said Northgraves. “We were kind of trying to ride it out the past few months, not change our prices and just kind of absorb it as much as we could.”

She told the Timers she had tried to ignore the president’s on-again/off-again tariff threats, but her profit margins kept slipping with the cost of beans doubling. Trump’s tariffs even hit the price of the company’s Chinese-sourced coffee bean packaging.

“We have been seriously hit by the tariffs in coffee-exporting countries, and must raise the prices of our beans,” she wrote in an accompanying Facebook post. “Please know that we wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t totally necessary.”

While compiling a script to explain the higher prices to customers, Northgraves took care to include the reason behind the hikes. She says linking them honestly to tariffs rather than “quietly” raising prices gives her customers a much deserved explanation.

“It just felt better to be upfront about it,” she told the Times.

50% increase in price of coffee beans plus higher tariffs on packaging sourced from China, all of which King Donald thinks will just somehow magically pay for itself!

https://www.alternet.org/trump-tariffs-coffee

USA Today: Lawyer details ‘horrendous conditions’ faced by 11th grader detained by ICE

“This kid has been sleeping on a cement floor for five days, no access to a shower; he’s brushed his teeth twice,” said Marcelo Gomes da Silva’s immigration attorney.

Sleeping on a cement floor in a windowless room. Only brushing your teeth twice in five days and never getting to shower. Being mocked by a guard.

These are among the “horrendous conditions” that Massachusetts high school junior Marcelo Gomes da Silva endured while being held by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, according to his lawyer Robin Nice.

Gomes Da Silva, 18, was arrested by ICE agents on May 31 when he was stopped on his way to volleyball practice with friends in his hometown of Milford. Federal officials said they targeted da Silva’s father, Joao Paulo Gomes-Pereira, who they say is an undocumented immigrant from Brazil, but they detained Gomes da Silva − who came to the United States at the age of 7 with his parents − when they realized he had overstayed his visa.

According to Nice, Gomes Da Silva was subsequently detained for five nights in cells that are intended to hold detainees for hours before being transferred. The cells lack access to basic amenities like beds and showers.

“The Burlington (Massachusetts) facility is not a detention center, it’s a holding cell,” Nice told USA TODAY after a June 5 hearing in Gomes da Silva’s case, which has drawn nationwide attention and fervent local opposition to his detention and possible deportation.

“It’s deplorable,” she added.

Nice first raised the issue in a federal immigration court hearing on whether he would be granted bail.

“He’s being held in just awful conditions no one should be subjected to: sleeping on a cement floor for just a few hours per night,” Nice began, before she was cut off by Immigration Judge Jenny Beverly, who noted the hearing was not the proper venue to raise the issue.

Shackles, teasing, and solitary confinement

Nice provided more details on her client’s confinement in a press conference after the hearing, in which the judge set a $2,000 bond for Gomes da Silva’s release, and in a subsequent interview with USA TODAY.

“This kid has been sleeping on a cement floor for five days, no access to a shower, he’s brushed his teeth twice. He’s sharing a room with men twice his age,” Nice said at the press conference outside the Chelmsford, Massachusetts federal immigration court.

At one point, Gomes da Silva was taken to a hospital emergency room because he was suffering severe headaches and vision loss stemming from a high school volleyball injury days earlier. When he was transferred to and from the hospital, he was handcuffed and kept in leg shackles and then moved to a different room, Nice said.

“He got back to the holding facility at 4 am and then was put in what I would refer to as solitary confinement: it was a room without anyone else, and all of these rooms that people are held in, there is no window,” Nice said. “There is no yard time, because it’s not set up for that.”

“If you are detained in the Burlington ICE facility, you do not see the light of day,” she said. “You don’t know what time it is.”

The isolation that da Silva subsequently endured made him so “desperately lonely” that he took to banging on the walls of his cell to get someone to come talk to him, Nice told USA TODAY. The guards, who he said mostly ignored him, nicknamed him “the knocker” in response.

When Gomes da Silva was held in the room with a larger group, one of the guards played a cruel practical joke on the detainees, Nice said:

“He said when ICE opens the door it means either someone’s coming in or someone’s getting released, so everyone perks up when they open the door. So he sees in a little slit in the door window, one ICE officer motion to another and says ‘watch this,’ and so one ICE officer opens the door to the cell and just stands their for a minute and then says, ‘psych!’ And closes the door. And everyone had just perked up,” Nice recounted.

The isolation in the ICE holding facility extended beyond its walls, Nice said. There was no way for her to call her client there, and he could only make one call for two minutes per day − and not even every day.

Nice wasn’t able to get in to see Gomes da Silva until the fifth day of his confinement. He was so shut off from the outside world that he didn’t know his varsity volleyball team had lost in the semi-finals of the state tournament, even though the match drew media coverage.

ICE did not respond to USA TODAY’s request for comment on Nice’s allegations.

In a statement on June 2, Patricia Hyde, acting field director for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations’ in Boston defended Gomes da Silva’s detention and said the agency intends to pursue deportation proceedings.

“When we go into the community and find others who are unlawfully here, we’re going to arrest them,” Hyde said. “He’s 18 years old and he’s illegally in this country. We had to go to Milford looking for someone else and if we come across someone else who is here illegally, we’re going to arrest them.”

‘Nobody deserves to be down there’

Later on June 5, Gomes da Silva himself addressed reporters after posting the $2,000 bond and being released.

“Nobody deserves to be down there,” da Silva told reporters. “You sleep on concrete floors. The bathroom  I have to use the bathroom in the open with like 35-year-old men. It’s humiliating.”

Gomes da Silva also said they were given only crackers for lunch and dinner. Nice told USA TODAY he was also fed what he described as an undefined “mush” that was “like oatmeal, but not oatmeal.”

A twice-weekly churchgoer, Gomes da Silva asked the guards for a bible but was not provided with one.

Beside him were U.S. Reps. Seth Moulton and Jake Auchincloss, both Democrats from Massachusetts, who said they returned from Washington, D.C., on Thursday to speak with da Silva and to inspect the detention center.

Consequences of an immigration crackdown

The Trump administration has sought to ramp up deportations of undocumented immigrants, including those like da Silva who were brought here as children and have no criminal record. ICE reported holding 46,269 people in custody in mid-March, well above the agency’s detention capacity of 41,500 beds.

USA TODAY has previously reported on allegations of conditions in ICE detention similar to what Gomes da Silva and Nice described.

In March, four women held at the Krome North Processing Center in Miami said they were chained for hours on a prison bus without access to food, water or a toilet. They also alleged they were told by guards to urinate on the floor, slept on a concrete floor, and only got one three-minute shower over the course of three or four days in custody.

The allegations come after two men at Krome died in custody on Jan. 23 and Feb. 20.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/06/05/marcelo-gomes-da-silva-ice-conditions/84057203007

Newsweek: Utah college student says ICE agent who detained her “knew it wasn’t right”

A 19-year-old student at the University of Utah says the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent who detained her repeatedly apologized and “knew it wasn’t right,” but his “hands were tied.”

Caroline Dias Goncalves was pulled over by police in Fruita, Colorado, on June 5 on the way to Denver. Shortly after being let go by the officer, Dias Goncalves was stopped again a few miles away in Grand Junction—this time by immigration agents.

“He kept apologizing and told me he wanted to let me go, but his ‘hands were tied.’ There was nothing he could do, even though he knew it wasn’t right. I want you to know—I forgive you,” Dias Goncalves said in a statement.

https://www.newsweek.com/caroline-dias-goncalves-utah-college-student-ice-agent-2089824

KREX: MCSO investigator placed on leave after ICE incident

This is an update to the previous post about Caroline Dias Goncalves, whose traffic stop by Mesa County Sheriff’s Office “Investigator” Alexander Zwinck resulted in her being detained by ICE and jailed for two weeks.

Mesa County “Investigator” Alexander Zwinck, big, dumb, stupid, and at least temporarily unemployed, thanks to whose courage and bravery above and beyond the call of duty, an innocent nursing student was detained for two weeks.

On Thursday, the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) announced that Investigator Alexander Zwinck, the officer who pulled over a 19-year-old Utah student, has been placed on administrative leave after an investigation.

Zwinck was the deputy who pulled over Caroline Dias Goncalves for a traffic stop on June 5. She was later detained by ICE shortly after the interaction.

In the statement, MCSO said any further repercussions for Zwinck will be determined after the investigation has been completed.

MCSO’s investigation includes reviewing communication between members of the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office and local, state, and federal partners through a Signal communication group chat. The investigation aims to see if MCSO’s deputies acted within the sheriff’s office’s policies and Colorado law after it was discovered that details about Dias Goncalves’ birthplace, Brazil, were allegedly released in the group chat and given to ICE.

Further investigation is being conducted to see if MCSO employees were aware that the information in the group chat, originally for drug interdiction efforts, was being used for immigration enforcement.

https://www.westernslopenow.com/top-stories/mcso-investigator-placed-on-leave-after-ice-incident

Daily Mail: Nursing student detained by ICE after cop noticed she had ‘a bit of an accent’ during routine traffic stop

A college student was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers after a cop noticed she had ‘a bit of an accent’ during a routine traffic stop.

Caroline Dias Goncalves, 19, was pulled over on the Colorado Interstate 70 on June 5, accused of driving too close to a semi-truck.

The University of Utah nursing student complied with the officer, identified as Investigator Alexander Zwinck, by handing over all of her documentation and paperwork.

In bodyworn camera footage seen by DailyMail.com, Zwinck told Goncalves he would let her off with just a warning, asking: ‘Where are you from? You have a bit of an accent.’

Goncalves answered: ‘I’m from Utah.’ 

Zwinck asked how long she’d been living in Utah and whether she was ‘born and raised there’, to which she cautiously answered: ‘No. I was born in, um, gosh I always forget the town.. down in Brazil.’

‘My parents moved here,’ she added.

Zwinck appeared unfazed by her answer, moving on to ask her questions about her boyfriend, her weekend plans and her dreams of becoming a nurse.

Mistake #1: Personal questions are none of the pig’s business. Respectfully decline to answer any such questions.

After explaining to her once again that he was giving her a warning which would not require any following up, he sent her on her way, wishing her safe travels and urging her to give semi trucks on the road a little more space.

But minutes after the friendly interaction, Goncalves was pulled over again by ICE agents as she exited the freeway, and taken into custody.

The Mesa County Sheriff’s Office has since revealed that Zwinck was part of a group chat with local, state, and federal law enforcement partners which was used to improve multi-agency cooperation to stem the drug trafficking trade.

‘We were unaware that the communication group was used for anything other than drug interdiction efforts, including immigration,’ the statement read.

‘We have since removed all Mesa County Sheriff’s Office members from the communication group.’

Goncalves is now being held in Denver Detention Facility.

She is one of 2.5 million Dreamers in the United States, referring to undocumented migrants who were brought to the US as young children.

It is understood her family arrived in the US on a tourist visa, which they overstayed. Her father then applied for asylum, and that case is pending.

Goncalves earned a coveted TheDream.US national scholarship, which allows undocumented youth to help finance college.

While her asylum claim was pending, she had been granted temporary rights to work.

A GoFundMe set up by a friend to help Goncalves’ family cover legal costs associated with her detention has already raised $25,000.

‘Caroline has always followed the law, passionately pursued her education, and dreamed of a future full of opportunity,’ the fundraising page reads.

‘Yet she now finds herself unlawfully detained, frightened, and far from the safety and support she deserves.’

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14822749/college-student-caroline-dias-goncalves-detained-ice-traffic-stop.html

El País: The head of ICE defends his agents’ heavy-handed approach during raids: ‘They and their families have received death threats on social media’

Lyons has advocated for the agents, who operate in plain clothes with their faces covered and, often, in unmarked cars. “I’m sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks, but I’m not going to let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line, their family on the line because people don’t like what immigration enforcement is,” the official stated at a news conference in Boston, Massachusetts.

F*ck*ng liar! It has nothing to do with safety, everything to do with fear and intimidation. These Gestapo tactics must end! At the very least, any legitimate police officer should be identified by a badge or blazer with their agency name and a unique identifying number.

https://english.elpais.com/usa/2025-06-03/the-head-of-ice-defends-his-agents-heavy-handed-approach-during-raids-they-and-their-families-have-received-death-threats-on-social-media.html

NBC News: ICE arrest of H.S. student sends shockwaves through a Massachusetts town

The 18-year-old is in immigration detention after being arrested on graduation weekend in Milford, southwest of Boston, where he has attended school since he was 6, friends said.

An athlete, a musician, an exceptional high school student with an infectious smile.

This is how community members in Milford, Massachusetts, described Marcelo Gomes Da Silva, an 18-year-old high school junior who was arrested by immigration authorities and sent to a detention center this weekend.

Gomes Da Silva was driving his father’s car on his way to volleyball practice with some of his teammates Saturday morning when immigration authorities stopped him.

Immigration authorities made the traffic stop because they were looking for Gomes Da Silva’s father, who is unlawfully present

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/ice-arrest-high-school-milford-massachusetts-immigration-rcna210324