MSNBC: Trump says ICE targets the ‘worst of the worst.’ Reality tells a different story.
Reply
Tag Archives: deportation
Raw Story: ‘We’ll move it!’ Trump threatens to relocate FIFA World Cup matches
President Donald Trump told a group of reporters on Thursday that he is considering forcibly relocating 2026 World Cup matches out of cities if he believes they are “dangerous” — even though he is not in charge of FIFA and doesn’t have the authority to relocate World Cup matches — and specifically mentioned Chicago as a potential example, even though Chicago is not scheduled to host any World Cup matches in the first place.
“If I think it’s not safe, we’re going to move it out of that city,” said Trump. “If, like, the governor of Illinois, who is, look, you know, last week, between last week and the week before, 11 murders, and 38 people were shot. And he gets up and says, ‘this is a very safe,’ and then he says crime is better.”
“The reason crime is better is because Kash [Patel] put, about five months ago, a whole team of FBI there to get ready for when we go in, and they’ve lowered it a little bit,” he said. “You know, 20, 25 percent, which isn’t good enough, but it’s a good start. But that was only put there because they’re preparing for us to go in. And they’ve done, by the way, they’ve done a good job. So then Pritzker gets up, ‘We’ve lowered crime 25…’ It’s because the FBI was there.”
“So, no, if any city we think is going to be even a little bit dangerous for the World Cup, or for the Olympics, you know, when they have Olympic overthrow, right, but for the World Cup in particular, because they’re playing in so many cities, we won’t allow it to go — we’ll move it around a little,” Trump continued. “But I hope that’s not going to happen.”
Trump has repeatedly cited the crime rate in Chicago — often wildly exaggerating it — as a possible pretext to sending in federal troops to keep order, much the way he did in Los Angeles to crack down on protests against his mass deportation policies.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has repeatedly condemned Trump’s threats against his state’s most populous city, and indicated he will strenuously oppose any military occupation of his state.
Fresno Bee: Fresno southeast Asians detained at ICE check-ins, advocates say
Southeast Asian residents are being detained at ICE check-ins in Fresno, advocates and an immigration lawyer say. In some cases, refugees are being deported to countries where they’ve never lived, they say.
It’s not immediately clear how many members from Fresno’s Southeast Asian community have been detained at ICE check-ins and deported since President Donald Trump launched what he says will be the largest deportation campaign in history. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to request for comment on this story.
Many of these individuals are refugees with minor criminal records from years ago that could subject them to deportation, advocates say. But they weren’t deported earlier because, as refugees, the countries they were born in don’t recognize their citizenship. Some were born in refugee camps and are considered stateless. Or, the U.S. didn’t have an agreement in place to deport them to their home countries. In lieu of deportation, they were required to have regular check-ins with ICE.
While these check-ins were a longstanding practice, now, some are of these people are being detained and forced to return to countries they and their families were forced to flee due to political persecution, war and genocide.
Fresno has a large Southeast Asian community, from countries such as Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. It’s also home to the second largest concentrations of Hmong people nationwide, many descendants of U.S. allies during the Vietnam War.
“A lot of them are refugees or children of these veterans (and) have committed a senseless crime when they were teenagers,” said Pao Yang, president and CEO of The Fresno Center. “And then now you’re sending these children of these veterans that fought with the U.S. back to a country that they were fighting against with you.”
During the first Trump administration, the government tried to put pressure on Southeast Asian countries to receive people with deportation orders to those countries. Those efforts have ramped up this year during Trump’s second term, said Tilman Jacobs, an immigrants rights supervising attorney with the Asian Law Caucus, the nation’s oldest Asian American civil rights advocacy group.
“These communities are being impacted in a way that we haven’t seen before,” Jacobs said. Individuals have been deported from ICE check-ins in Fresno, he said, though he didn’t have an estimate on how many had been detained.
Yang, the Fresno Center CEO, said he also knows of “many” Fresno clients that have been detained and transferred to the Golden State Annex ICE detention center in McFarland, where they are held as they await next steps in their immigration cases.
As of late August, Christine Barker, executive director of the refugee-serving nonprofit, Fresno Immigrant and Refugee Ministries, knew of at least five individuals of Laotian or Cambodian descent being detained at their ICE check-ins in Fresno.
“I also know from some of their family members, when they got to [the Golden State Annex ICE detention center in] McFarland, they were like, ‘there’s a lot of Asian people here,” she said.
While California’s Southeast Asian communities have experienced more sporadic immigration enforcement, other states such as Michigan and Minnesota have seen more high-profile enforcement activity. More than 150 Southeast Asians have been deported from Minnesota since May, according to an Aug. 18 report in the Minnesota Reformer.
Jacobs said the practice of detaining people at ICE check-ins was more common during the first five or six months of the administration, but he hasn’t seen as much of it recently in California.
“That doesn’t mean it’s not going to continue happening,” he said. “It’s definitely a real risk. But I also don’t want to overstate it.”
Hmong people are an ethnic group originating from China and that have their own language and culture. Because of decades of persecution by the Chinese government over their cultural and spiritual practices, the Hmong have constantly migrated to Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar. In the early 1960s, the CIA recruited Hmong people to help fight against North Vietnam and the communist party in Laos, known as the Pathet Lao. The operation, also known as The Secret War, lasted from 1962 to 1975. When the Pathet Lao took over Laos’s governance, thousands of Hmong and Laotian people sought refuge in the United States in 1975.
Barker said what’s happening to these refugees is a violation of human rights.
“When you’re a refugee, the world is supposed to protect you from ever having to return to the country you fled,” she said. “These are uncles, these are grandpas, these are old, old convictions from the 80s and the 90s.”
Deported to Laos, Cambodia
Families, lawyers and nonprofits are scrambling to support individuals that have been deported to countries such as Laos and Cambodia.
Thao Ha, runs Collective Freedom, an organization that supports “justice-impacted” individuals from Southeast Asian communities. In recent months, her organization has had to pivot to provide support on the ground in Laos and is helping families track down their deported loved ones.
“We didn’t think they were going to go this hard, this fast, or at all,” she said. The community had assumptions that people couldn’t get deported to Laos, or that only a few here and there would be deported, Ha said.
Laos doesn’t have a formal repatriation agreement with the U.S., according to the Asian Law Caucus. But the Trump administration has pressured Laos to accept deportees — including people who were not born in the country and whose parents fled the country — by threatening to withhold business and tourist visas to Lao citizens.
When people are deported to Laos, they are detained upon entry in Laos for multiple weeks, advocates say. Those with a local sponsor are released more quickly. Those who don’t have a sponsor will be detained longer until the government can process them.
Ha said there’s no official repatriation process in Laos, meaning there’s little infrastructure to help people with housing, work, or cultural adjustment.
“There’s not an agency, so to speak,” Ha said. “We’re just trying to rapid response and mutual aid at this point.” Several groups have “popped up” to try to fill the gaps, but none are formal non-governmental organizations.
The “number one challenge” for people with their loved ones being deported to Laos is that they don’t have family there, Ha said. “If they don’t have family and don’t have a sponsor, where do they go? What do they do? Are they just roaming the streets?”
For some deported to Laos, especially those born in refugee camps, they have no relationship to the country, language skills or community knowledge. “For Hmong folks who grew up in the U.S., they may never learn Lao,” Barker said.
Barker also said there used to be programs to help people from the Khmer Indigenous ethnic group acculturate in Cambodia.
“Those programs disappeared when USAID was gutted,” she said.
Fleeing war, genocide, persecution
Jacobs of the Asian Law Caucus said his organization works with Southeast Asian refugees who are facing pending deportation, oftentimes from very old convictions.
“Many of the people that we work with have consistently followed all of those terms with their release and continue to do so,” Jacobs said. “And I know that there is a lot of anxiety right now around these check-ins.”
Many of the organization’s clients were fleeing civil war, genocide and persecution and carry memories of trauma associated with the unfamiliar country, he said.
“In many cases, there are countries that don’t really want to receive people who left so long ago, and what a lot of them are facing in real terms, is statelessness where they’re not recognized as citizens of those countries,” he said.
For example, he said, Hmong people in Laos are given some kind of residency status, but they are not citizens. And this sense of not belonging can have lingering legal, emotional and psychological impact.
Yang said many in the Southeast Asian immigrant community are quiet and scared because many come from a country where the government targets people. Earlier this year, there was a rush of people seeking legal services, but now, especially after the start of the June immigration crackdown in Los Angeles, he’s noticed a “huge drop” in people seeking assistance.
“We have a lot of folks, even legal resident aliens, that are in hiding, that are afraid,” he said.
Guardian: ‘The dungeon’ at Louisiana’s notorious prison reopens as Ice detention center
Critics condemn reopening of ‘Camp J’ unit at Angola in service of Trump’s nationwide immigration crackdown, noting its history of brutality and violence
There were no hurricanes in the Gulf, as can be typical for Louisiana in late July – but Governor Jeff Landry quietly declared a state of emergency. The Louisiana state penitentiary at Angola – the largest maximum security prison in the country – was out of bed space for “violent offenders” who would be “transferred to its facilities”, he warned in an executive order.
The emergency declaration allowed for the rapid refurbishing of a notorious, shuttered housing unit at Angola formerly known as Camp J – commonly referred to by prisoners as “the dungeon” because it was once used to house men in extended solitary confinement, sometimes for years on end.
For over a month, the Landry administration was tight-lipped regarding the details of their plan for Camp J, and the emergency order wasn’t picked up by the news media for several days.
But the general understanding among Louisiana’s criminal justice observers was that the move was in response to a predictable overcrowding in state prisons due to Landry’s own “tough-on-crime” policies.
Though Louisiana already had the highest incarceration rate in the country before he got into office, Landry has pushed legislation to increase sentences, abolish parole and put 17-year-olds in adult prisons.
Advocates swiftly objected to the reopening of Camp J, noting its history of brutality and violence. Ronald Marshall served 25 years in the Louisiana prison system, including a number of them in solitary confinement at Camp J, and called it the worst place he ever served time.
“It was horrible,” Marshall said.
It turns out, however, that Landry’s emergency order and the renovation of Camp J was not done to accommodate the state’s own growing prison population. It was in service of Donald Trump’s nationwide immigration crackdown.
Earlier in September, Landry was joined by officials in the president’s administration in front of the renovated facility to announce that it would be used to house the “worst of the worst” immigrant detainees picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents.
“The Democrats’ open border policies have allowed for the illegal entry of violent criminals,” Landry said. “Rapists, child-predators, human traffickers, and drug dealers who have left a path of death and destruction throughout America.”
Numerous studies have shown that undocumented immigrants commit serious crimes at lower rates than US citizens – and that increased undocumented immigration does not lead to higher crime rates in specific localities.
The rollout highlights the way the Trump administration and conservative officials are seeking to blur the legally clear distinction between civil immigration detainees and people serving sentences in prison for criminal convictions – this time by utilizing a prison with a long history of violence and brutality, along with a fundamentally racist past.
The Angola facility – which Trump’s White House dubbed the “Louisiana lockup” – follows the opening of other high-profile facilities with alliterative names by states across the country, including in Florida, Nebraska and Indiana. It will have the capacity to house more than 400 detainees, officials said.
Recently, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a list of 51 detainees it said were already being held at the Angola facility and who allegedly have prior criminal convictions for serious charges. But while the Trump administration similarly claimed that the Florida lockup dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” would house only the worst criminal offenders, a report by the Miami Herald found that hundreds of people sent there had no criminal charges at all.
Ice has long utilized former jails and prisons as detention facilities. But there are few prisons in the country with the name recognition of Angola. And the decision to use Angola appears to be as much about trading on the prison’s reputation as it does about security or practicality.
At a 3 September news conference, the DHS secretary, Kristi Noem, called the prison “legendary” and “notorious”.
Once a plantation with enslaved people, the rural prison occupies nearly 30 sq miles of land on the banks of the Mississippi River about an hour’s drive north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana’s capital. Throughout the 20th century, it gained a reputation as one of the country’s worst prisons – due to the living and working conditions, abuse by guards and endemic violence.
In 1951, dozens of prisoners slashed their achilles tendons to protest against brutality at the facility.
Medical and mental healthcare at the prison has likewise been abysmal. As recently as 2023, a federal judge found that the deficiencies in treatment at the facility amounted to “abhorrent” cruel and unusual punishment, resulting in untold numbers of avoidable complications and preventable deaths.
The prison has also maintained clear visual ties to its plantation past by continuing to operate as a working farm, where mostly Black prisoners pick crops under the watch of primarily white guards. Today, there is ongoing litigation attempting to end the practice of forced agricultural labor at the prison, which is known as the “farm line” and is required of most prisoners at some point during their sentences. Some prisoners can make as little as two cents an hour for their labor, and some are paid nothing at all.
Civil rights attorneys have argued that the farm line serves “no legitimate penological or institutional purpose” and instead is “designed to ‘break’ incarcerated men and ensure their submission”.
Nora Ahmed, legal director at the ACLU of Louisiana, said that the Angola immigration detention facility seemed like a clear attempt by the Trump administration to use the prison’s name recognition to further their goal of associating undocumented immigrants with criminals.
“Angola’s history as a plantation and the abuse and allegations that have surrounded Angola as an institution is meant to strike fear in the American public,” Ahmed said. “It’s the imagery that is deeply problematic.”
The Angola facility is also in some ways the natural result of aligning local, state and national trends and policies related to incarceration, immigrant detention and deportations.
Louisiana has become a nationwide hub for immigrant detention and deportations. Sheriffs across the state have signed contracts with Ice in recent years to let them use their local jails as detention facilities. And Louisiana now has the second largest population of immigrant detainees in the country – after Texas. A small airport in Alexandria, Louisiana, has been the takeoff location for more deportation flights during Trump’s second presidency than anywhere else.
It’s also not the first time the state has utilized Angola for something other than housing state prisoners.
In 2022, Louisiana’s office of juvenile justice moved dozens of juvenile detainees to a renovated former death row facility on the grounds of Angola, a move that was met with litigation and outcry from youth advocates. While state officials made assurances that they would be kept separated from the adult population, youths at the facility reported being abused by guards, denied education and kept in their cells for long stretches of time.
Eventually, a judge ruled that they would need to be moved, calling the conditions “intolerable”.
Louisiana also briefly utilized Camp J in 2020 to house incarcerated pre-trial detainees from local jails around the state who had contracted Covid-19.
Pictures and videos from the new immigration facility during a tour given to reporters show that while the facility may have been renovated, it still looks decidedly prison-like. Cells have single beds with metal toilets and bars in the front. There are also a number of outdoor metal chain-link cages at the facility, resembling kennels. It is unclear what they will be used for.
In an email to the Guardian following the initial publication of this story, DHS’s assistant secretary, Tricia McLaughlin, said that detainees at Angola were not being held in solitary confinement or in the outdoor cages.
“These are just more lies by the media about illegal alien detention centers,” the statement read. The statement also said “smears our contributing to … Ice law enforcement officers” facing an increase in reported assaults against them.
The Louisiana department of corrections did not respond to emailed questions.
The former Camp J is now emblazoned with “Camp 57” – after the fact that Landry is Louisiana’s 57th governor. Photos captured by Louisiana news station WAFB showed the area had been painted with a sign reading “Camp 47” in a nod to Trump, who was sworn into office in January as the 47th US president. But officials evidently changed their minds about that name and then touted it as Camp 57 when it was unveiled.
Marshall, now the chief policy analyst for the advocacy organization Voice of the Experienced, said much of what made Camp J so bad were guards that staffed the facility, who promoted a culture of abuse, violence and desperation. But he said that he had little optimism that the conditions would improve under Ice leadership.
“Camp J has that reputation,” he said. “It has a spirit there – like it possesses those who are in control or have authority.”
Marshall also said that when he was in Camp J there was a sense that prisoners could at least attempt to appeal to the federal government to get relief from the brutal conditions. Now, that’s no longer the case. “You can’t cry out to the federal government for help, because the federal government is actually creating the circumstances,” Marshall said.
The problem with conflating civil immigration detention with prison is not only that it sends a message to the public that undocumented individuals are all criminals, Ahmed said – but also that they are entitled to all the legal rights that people being held in the criminal context are entitled to.
“By attaching criminality to people in immigration detention, the suggestion to the American public is also that those individuals have a [constitutional] right to counsel,” she said. “Which they do not. This is civil detention, and people are not entitled to have an attorney to vindicate their rights.”
There are still unanswered questions about the facility – including who paid for the renovations, whether or not it is being managed by a private prison contractor, or what the conditions are like for detainees. But in these early stages, the Trump administration is already touting the facility as a national model.
“Look behind us, Louisiana,” the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, said at the press conference in front of the new facility. “You’re going to be an example for the rest of this country.”
Guardian: ‘The dungeon’ at Louisiana’s notorious prison reopens as Ice detention center
Critics condemn reopening of ‘Camp J’ unit at Angola in service of Trump’s nationwide immigration crackdown, noting its history of brutality and violence
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/18/louisiana-angola-prison-trump-ice-immigration
Miami Herald: Sweeping ICE Arrests Spark Outrage
Trump-era deportation practices have impacted numerous long-term U.S. residents, with many having lived in the country for over a decade. The Kino Border Initiative found that many targeted individuals entered under previous administrations, raising concerns of family separations and a lack of due process.
Local and state law enforcement has contributed significantly in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)’s efforts, with over a third of deportations being triggered by police stops.
The Kino Border Initiative stated, “According to our survey responses, 57.2% of people deported were living in the U.S. at the time of their detention, compared to only 5% of deportees that KBI served in 2024.”
The Kino Border Initiative added, “Many of these individuals have deep roots in their communities, including U.S.-born children, spouses, and other dependents.”
Nearly 1,700 deportation flights by Global Crossing Airlines relocated thousands, with multiple transfers between detention centers creating what advocates have labeled a “purgatorial” state.
Human rights groups have criticized these practices as overly harsh, citing the hardship on families. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) defended its procedures, saying transfers follow guidelines and immigrants are kept informed. Democratic lawmakers have called for reforms, emphasizing non-criminal cases.
DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said, “Parents, who are in the US illegally, can take control of their departure. Through the [Customs and Border Protection] Home App, the Trump administration is giving parents illegally in the country a chance to take full control of their departure and self-deport, with the potential ability to return the legal, right way and come back to live the American dream.”
McLaughlin added, “Rather than separate families, ICE asks parents if they want to be removed with their children or if the child should be placed with someone safe the parent designates.”
Sweeping ICE Arrests Spark Outrage
Trump-era deportation practices have impacted numerous long-term U.S. residents, with many having lived in the country for over a decade. The Kino Border Initiative found that many targeted individuals entered under previous administrations, raising concerns of family separations and a lack of due process. Local and state law enforcement has contributed significantly in Immigration andContinue reading “Sweeping ICE Arrests Spark Outrage”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/sweeping-ice-arrests-spark-outrage/ar-AA1N0v8l
Morning Rush: Columbia Grad Student Faces Deportation Over Undisclosed Activities [Video]
Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student and pro-Palestinian activist, has been ordered by an immigration judge to be deported from the United States. Khalil, who has been detained in Louisiana since his arrest in March, is facing deportation to either Syria or Algeria, despite not being charged with any crime. As a legal permanent resident, his deportation comes as a result of failing to disclose connections to a campus anti-Israel group on his green card application, according to court documents. This case has sparked discussion on the transparency requirements for immigration applications and the rights of permanent residents in the U.S. Khalil’s situation underscores the complex intersection of immigration law and activism, raising questions about the balance between national security and individual freedoms.
Columbia Grad Student Faces Deportation Over Undisclosed Activities
Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student and pro-Palestinian activist, has been ordered by an immigration judge to be deported from the United States. Khalil, who has been detained in Louisiana since his arrest in March, is facing deportation to either Syria or Algeria, despite not being charged with any crime. As a legal permanent resident, his deportation comes as a result of failing to disclose connections to a campus anti-Israel group on his green card application, according to court documents. This case has sparked discussion on the transparency requirements for immigration applications and the rights of permanent residents in the U.S. Khalil’s situation underscores the complex intersection of immigration law and activism, raising questions about the balance between national security and individual freedoms.
Newsweek: Trump administration asks Supreme Court for new emergency order
The Trump administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to let it move forward with ending protections for more than 300,000 Venezuelan migrants. The Justice Department is seeking to block a San Francisco judge’s ruling that found the administration acted unlawfully when it terminated Temporary Protected Status for the group.
A federal appeals court declined to halt U.S. District Judge Edward Chen’s decision while the case proceeds.
In May, the Supreme Court had already overturned another Chen order affecting about 350,000 Venezuelans, without explanation, as is typical for emergency appeals. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices the earlier ruling should guide them again.
Why It Matters
The Trump administration has taken a hardline stance on Temporary Protected Status, arguing that the protections are meant to be temporary but have been abused by consecutive administrations. Immigration advocates have countered, saying that conditions in Venezuela and other countries have not improved enough to send people home.
What To Know
Friday’s plea by the Trump administration continues a cycle of court orders and challenges around the attempts by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to end TPS for two groups of Venezuelans.
“This case is familiar to the Court and involves the increasingly familiar and
untenable phenomenon of lower courts disregarding this Court’s orders on the emergency docket,” the administration wrote in its submission to the Supreme Court.The argument is that Chen’s final order in the case rested on the same legal basis that had been stayed by the Supreme Court just months earlier.
This back-and-forth has left around 300,000 Venezuelans in limbo, alongside thousands more in a second group also facing the potential loss of their legal status.
Under TPS, immigrants from designated countries are allowed to remain in the United States without fear of deportation. They are granted permission to work while in the U.S., and can sometimes travel out of the country.
Noem and her predecessors hold the power to grant and revoke TPS per country. Status is renewed every 18 months, and the first Trump administration made similar attempts to revoke it but also faced legal challenges, which continued until President Joe Biden took office in 2021.
Part of Noem’s reasoning is that conditions in Venezuela have improved significantly, meaning it is safe for immigrants to return home. This has not necessarily aligned with the broader Trump administration’s views on the South American nation and its leader, Nicolas Maduro.
Trump Admin Moves to Revoke TPS for Syria
Also on Friday, the DHS moved to revoke TPS for another country: Syria.
In a Federal Register notice, the DHS reiterated that conditions had improved in the country, indicating that TPS was no longer necessary. Protections are set to lapse on September 30, 2025.
Protections were first introduced in 2012, at the height of the unrest in the Middle East at the time.
What People Are Saying
The Trump administration, in its filing to the Supreme Court Friday: “Since the statute was enacted, every administration has designated countries for TPS or extended those designations in extraordinary circumstances. But Secretaries across administrations have also terminated designations when the conditions
were no longer met.”Adelys Ferro, co-founder and executive director of the Venezuelan American Caucus, told Newsweek on August 29: “We, more than 8 million Venezuelans, just didn’t leave the country just because it’s fun, it’s because we had no choice…Venezuelans with TPS are not a threat to the United States.”
What Happens Next
The Supreme Court must now decide whether to take up the appeal.
Reuters: US immigration judge orders Khalil deportation, his lawyers say separate ruling protects him
- Mahmoud Khalil was detained for over 100 days earlier this year
- Trump has cracked down on pro-Palestinian protest movement
- Rights advocates have raised free speech, due process concerns
A U.S. immigration judge ordered pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil be deported to Algeria or Syria over claims that he omitted information from his green card application, court documents showed on Wednesday.
Khalil’s lawyers said they intend to appeal the deportation order while saying a federal district court’s separate orders remain in effect that prohibit the government from immediately deporting or detaining him as his federal court case proceeds.
Immigration judge Jamee Comans said Khalil “willfully misrepresented material fact(s) for the sole purpose of circumventing the immigration process and reducing the likelihood his application would be denied.”
Khalil’s lawyers submitted a letter to a federal court in New Jersey overseeing his civil rights case and said he will challenge Comans’ decision.
Khalil, a 30-year-old permanent U.S. resident of Palestinian descent and a Columbia University student, was detained by U.S. immigration authorities for more than 100 days earlier this year as the Trump administration sought to deport him.
His wife, who is a U.S. citizen, was pregnant at the time and Khalil missed the birth of their child while in jail.
He was released on June 20. U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz of New Jersey said at the time, while referring to Khalil, that punishing someone over a civil immigration matter was unconstitutional.
President Donald Trump’s administration has cracked down on pro-Palestinian protesters such as Khalil, calling them antisemitic and supporters of extremism.
Protesters, including some Jewish groups, say the government wrongly equates their criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza and its occupation of Palestinian territories with antisemitism and their advocacy for Palestinian rights with support for extremism.
“It is no surprise that the Trump administration continues to retaliate against me for my exercise of free speech,” Khalil said.
“When their first effort to deport me was set to fail, they resorted to fabricating baseless and ridiculous allegations in a bid to silence me for speaking out and standing firmly with Palestine, demanding an end to the ongoing genocide.”
Rights groups raise free speech and due process concerns over the deportation attempts and federal funding threats to universities where protests occurred.
Columbia was at the heart of last year’s protests that demanded an end to Israel’s war and a divestment by universities of funds from companies that support Israel.
New York Times: He Raised Three Marines. His Wife Is American. The U.S. Wants to Deport Him.
After three decades in California, Narciso Barranco was arrested by agents while weeding outside an IHOP, stirring outrage and a fight to stop his deportation.
Before dawn on June 21, Narciso Barranco loaded his weed trimmer, lawn mower and leaf blower into his white F-150 pickup. He had three IHOP restaurants to landscape and then seven homes. His goal was to finish in time to cook dinner with his wife, Martha Hernandez.
It was a cool Saturday morning in Tustin, Calif., about 35 miles south of Los Angeles. After wrapping up work at the first IHOP, Mr. Barranco stopped to buy a wheel of fresh white cheese. He returned home and left it on the kitchen counter for Ms. Hernandez before driving seven minutes to an IHOP in Santa Ana.
He paid no attention to the Home Depot across the parking lot. Later, he would wish he had been more aware.
Migrants for decades have gathered outside the big-box stores, hoping a contractor or homeowner might offer a day’s work. But under President Trump’s immigration crackdown, Home Depot has become a prime target for federal agents under pressure to round up undocumented people like Mr. Barranco, who slipped across the border from Mexico more than 30 years ago.
Mr. Barranco, 48, was weeding between bushes when men in masks descended on him. He raised the head of his weed trimmer as he retreated. The authorities would say they believed he was attacking them; Mr. Barranco’s family said he was scared and just trying to move away, not to harm anyone. But in a tweet, the Department of Homeland Security would cite that moment to justify what happened next.
Mr. Barranco’s memory of his arrest is fragmented: the blinding sting of pepper spray; beefy federal agents taking him down and pinning him to the pavement; their relentless blows; the pain radiating from his left shoulder.
He didn’t dispute that he was in the country unlawfully. Still, he pleaded his case to the agents as they wrenched his arms behind his back.
“I have three boys in the Marines,” he recalled blurting out in English.
Surely that would count for something?
Who Should Be Deported?
Mr. Trump’s mass deportation project is forcing many Americans to confront the question of what kind of country they want.
According to polls, Americans strongly agree that immigrants without legal status should be deported if they have been convicted of a violent crime. But support for Mr. Trump’s immigration sweeps begins to erode when people are asked about the much larger group of undocumented immigrants with no police record who have worked and raised families in the United States.
The arrest of Mr. Barranco, a Latino man doing a job that many other Latinos in California do, quickly became a rallying point for those who believe enforcement actions have gone too far. A slight man with a reserved demeanor, Mr. Barranco had built a life in the shadows, tending the lawns and flower beds of Southern California’s suburban homes and commercial properties. He had no criminal record.
All three of his sons are United States citizens, having been born in California. Alejandro, 25, was a combat engineer who deployed to Afghanistan to assist with the U.S. withdrawal. Jose Luis, 23, was released from military duty last month and plans to study nursing. Emanuel, 21, is still in the Marines, based in San Diego. The sons could have sponsored him for a green card but were discouraged by the time it would take and the thousands of dollars it would cost.
Ms. Hernandez, Mr. Barranco’s wife and the stepmother of the three young men, is also an American citizen.
Walter Salaverria, the IHOP operations director who hired Mr. Barranco, described him as “humble, hardworking, not just about the money.”
He added, “If I had 50 restaurants, I would give them to him.”
For years, many Americans have relied on immigrants to do the jobs they avoided — cleaning, building, picking fruits and vegetables, manicuring lawns and gardens. Under previous Republican and Democratic administrations, undocumented people who worked hard and stayed out of trouble could largely expect to be left alone.
Now that masked federal agents are pepper spraying these people and tackling them in the streets, some Americans are thinking of them differently — or perhaps thinking of them for the first time.
A Tearful Voice Mail
After the agents subdued Mr. Barranco, they shoved him, hands shackled behind his back, into an unmarked vehicle. He was soon transferred to a van with another immigrant who said he had been snatched as he left the Home Depot.
Mr. Barranco said an agent flung water on his bloody face and head. He said he pleaded with the agent to tie his hands in front of him because his shoulder hurt. “I was crying,” he recalled. “I said, ‘I won’t run. Just tie my hands in front; I can’t stand the pain.’”
By nightfall, he was crammed into a constantly lit basement in downtown Los Angeles with 70 other men. The air was thick with stench and despair. There was one exposed toilet. Some men slept standing, he said.
Mr. Barranco left a tearful voice mail message for Alejandro, informing him that he had been arrested and didn’t know where he was being held. His wallet and cellphone were still inside his truck outside the IHOP. Could someone retrieve them?
Two days later, after locating his father, Alejandro drove to Los Angeles and waited nearly four hours to see him, only to be turned away, like dozens of others, when visitation hours ended.
When Alejandro finally laid eyes on his father the next day, Mr. Barranco was disheveled and dirty, still in the same long-sleeve shirt and jeans he was wearing when he was arrested. Father and son met across a glass partition.
“My father looked defeated,” recalled Alejandro, who kept his composure as he tried to assure his father that the family was “taking care of everything.”
Sergio Perez, executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, had agreed to escort Alejandro and was allowed to meet Mr. Barranco without a barrier. Mr. Perez asked Mr. Barranco if he could hug him since his son could not.
“No,” replied Mr. Barranco. “I smell so badly. I haven’t been able to shower.” The lawyer embraced him anyway. Mr. Barranco wept.
The next day, Mr. Barranco was transferred to a privately run detention center in the high desert, about two hours away.
A New Country
Mr. Barranco was born in a village in Mexico, one of five children of campesinos who subsisted on the maize, beans, squash and tomatoes that they grew.
In 1994, he trekked through the desert to the border and sneaked undetected into Arizona. He made his way to California and began taking whatever work there was, in construction, restaurants, landscaping.
“I planned to save and return to Mexico,” Mr. Barranco said.
He married, and three boys came along, the first in 1999.
“I decided that if I took my kids to Mexico, they’d end up like me,” he said. “I thought, Here, I can work and ensure they have a better life.”
By 2002, Mr. Barranco had landed a job with a large landscaping company that offered benefits like health insurance. He began filing taxes.
The company trained him to properly prune trees, among other skills, and he became certified as an irrigation technician working on sprinkler systems. He was sometimes dispatched to Disneyland late at night to trim hedges. He later struck out on his own and built his client roster.
As his boys moved through elementary and middle school, Mr. Barranco, who only has a few years of formal education, took parenting workshops to support their success. In 2012, he received a Certificate of Congressional Recognition for his “faithful commitment and hard work” on behalf of his children’s education. That same year, after completing a nine-week “parental involvement program,” he earned a certificate guaranteeing that his sons would be admitted to any California state college after high school.
“Any opportunity to do something good to help them, I tried to take advantage,” he said.
Mr. Barranco and his first wife divorced in 2015. A few years later, he met Ms. Hernandez, then 58, at a Public Storage facility in Santa Ana where he kept some of his tools. He helped her haul a bed that she had kept there, and he gave her his number. Two weeks later, he helped her move more furniture and then called to check in on her. A friendship flourished.
“I was lonely, he was lonely,” said Ms. Hernandez, a widow whose children were grown. “We enjoyed each other’s company.”
On Mother’s Day in 2021, he joined her family for brunch. Mr. Barranco’s shrimp ceviche was a hit with her two sons and her parents. So was he.
“He was quiet at first,” her oldest son, Rigo Hernandez, now 40, recalled, “but there was a warmth about him that spoke louder than words.”
On Feb. 18, 2023, with the Pacific Ocean as their backdrop, they were married in a small ceremony officiated by Mr. Hernandez.
By then, all three of Mr. Barranco’s sons were in the Marine Corps.
“My father brought us up to respect this country and to appreciate the opportunities we would have,” Alejandro said.
‘I Never Thought This Could Happen’
Footage taken by bystanders of Mr. Barranco’s arrest went viral. The videos show several agents standing above him while others hold him down. One agent, kneeling at his side, strikes Mr. Barranco repeatedly in the head, neck and left shoulder as he groans. The agents force him into an S.U.V. with the aid of a metal rod.
The Department of Homeland Security posted a seven-second video of Mr. Barranco wielding the weed trimmer as agents pepper sprayed him. “Perhaps the mainstream media would like our officers to stand there and be mowed down instead of defending themselves?” Tricia McLaughlin, a department spokeswoman, wrote on X. The agency did not respond to a request for any additional comment beyond the post on X.
When Alejandro saw the videos, he flung his cellphone in anger.
The family gathered to make a plan. Alejandro, the only son released from active duty at the time, would take the lead in speaking out. Mr. Hernandez, Ms. Hernandez’s son, would contact federal and state lawmakers.
The family started a GoFundMe to raise money for a lawyer. The page featured photographs of the Barranco boys in uniform. In one image, Mr. Barranco is at a memorial service to fallen soldiers.
Alejandro began fielding news media requests. He tried to be measured in his comments. He said his father was a productive member of the community who hadn’t hurt anyone. The use of force by agents was excessive, unjustified and unprofessional, he said.
He said he felt betrayed by the country that he and his brothers loved and were willing to die for.
“There are many people in the military with immigrant parents like my dad,” Jose Luis said. “I never thought this could happen to him.”
The brothers expressed regret that they hadn’t managed to sponsor their father for a green card, which they were eligible to do as Americans and as servicemen.
“We saw a lawyer who wanted $5,000 just to start the process,” Alejandro recalled. He added, “Everyone was so busy in the military.”
Camaraderie Among Detainees
Mr. Barranco recalls being transported to the immigration detention center in Adelanto, Calif., with an Asian man, an African man and a fellow Latino. They arrived at the lockup, which can hold nearly 2,000 immigrants, before sunrise and waited all day to be processed.
In a barrackslike pod, he was assigned to I-33 “low,” the bottom bed of a metal-framed bunk. He received three blue shirts, two pairs of pants and one pair of underwear. His neighbor, in bunk I-32 low, eventually gave him an extra pair.
He counted 172 men in the room.
“I befriended several people,” Mr. Barranco said, producing a list with the names and cellphone numbers of eight detainees.
Mr. Barranco’s family deposited money into his account so he could make phone calls and buy items like chips, coffee and instant noodles to supplement the unappetizing institutional food, he said.
He shared both his phone and his commissary credit with detainees whose families did not know their whereabouts or who could not afford the expensive calls and items. One was an Iranian man whose wife was about to give birth.
One day, Mr. Barranco bought 10 packets of noodle soup mix and distributed them. Someone handed him a pencil. It gave him an outlet for his anguish, he said.
He began to scrawl on scraps of paper he found. Prayers. Feelings. Names.
A Path to Freedom
Mr. Barranco had no idea that his arrest had prompted protests and galvanized volunteers across Orange County.
Strangers delivered food, flowers and messages of support to his home.
Six days after his arrest, the Orange County Rapid Response Network, in coordination with his family, held a candlelight vigil and a peaceful march to honor Mr. Barranco and denounce indiscriminate immigration sweeps. Thousands of dollars flowed into the GoFundMe, enough to hire Lisa Ramirez, an immigration lawyer, to seek Mr. Barranco’s release, fight his deportation case and help him gain legal status in the United States.
Given that he is a father to a veteran, “Narciso could have been an American citizen by now,” Ms. Ramirez said.
Ms. Ramirez submitted a request to the government for “parole in place,” a program that allows undocumented parents of U.S. military members to remain lawfully in the country and work while they await approval for permanent residency.
Mr. Barranco’s wife, Ms. Hernandez, a U.S. citizen, offered another path, but one that would have required him to return to Mexico to complete the process. He would be separated from his family, likely for years, with no assurance he would be allowed to return.
Ms. Ramirez filed a motion for a bond hearing in immigration court. It included the birth certificates of his sons and proof of their military service, as well as the accolades from the school district and Congress for his parental involvement and other evidence of his good moral character.
Mr. Barranco had his hearing after 19 days in lockup. The government asked the judge to hold him without bond, as is common. Ms. Ramirez asked the judge to release him on the minimum bond of $1,500, arguing that he had three U.S.-born military sons and was not a flight risk.
The prosecutor requested a $13,000 bond. The judge set it at $3,000.
After his release five days later, Mr. Barranco stopped at an In-N-Out for a cheeseburger combo and vanilla shake.
Mr. Barranco made public remarks a few days after that at a news conference in downtown Santa Ana.
“To the community, I don’t have the words to truly express what I feel in my heart,” he said in Spanish, choking up. “So I can just say thank you for standing with my family and my children, for being by their side.” He also shared a message of hope for families of detainees.
A Working Man on Pause
Since his release, Mr. Barranco has mostly stayed home, venturing out on Sundays for church. Alejandro and Jose Luis, two of his sons, are covering his jobs.
He is alone while Ms. Hernandez is at work much of the day. His companions are Revoltosa, a cockatoo who has a predilection for perching on his right shoulder, and Snoopy, his small, fluffy white dog.
“They relieve my stress,” he said.
At 8 a.m. each day, he logs into a two-hour online English class. The ankle monitor he was fitted with before leaving Adelanto has since been removed. But three times a week, he must check in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
At 11:10 a.m. on a recent Thursday, during an interview for this article, his phone buzzed. His expression tensed as he entered a code and took a selfie, part of the monitoring protocol. Agents have also shown up at his door without notice.
He spends time in the garden, caring for his heirloom tomatoes, squash, peppers and cucumbers. A guava tree has recently taken root. He also tends the geraniums, jasmine and day lilies. In the kitchen, he puts his culinary talents to work preparing carne asada, ceviche and other dishes.
Mr. Barranco has also been keeping a journal. During an interview, he opened to the first page and read aloud. “At 4 a.m. on a Saturday, the routine of a poor gardener began. Then … ” His voice faltered and his face crumpled.
He tried to continue.
“Something happened that never could have been expected,” he said and then slammed the journal shut. “I can’t,” he said.
As of Tuesday, his lawyer had yet to receive acknowledgment from the government that his application for parole in place was under review.
He Raised Three Marines. His Wife Is American. The U.S. Wants to Deport Him.
After three decades in California, Narciso Barranco was arrested by agents while weeding outside an IHOP, stirring outrage and a fight to stop his deportation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/17/us/narciso-barranco-ice-deport-marines-trump.html
Reuters: Trump administration says it launched ‘Operation Midway Blitz’ in Chicago
- DHS says operation targets ‘criminal illegal aliens’ in Chicago
- Illinois governor say no advance notice or coordination provided
- Critics decry ‘Operation Midway Blitz’ as political theater
- Local officials say ICE sweep terrorizes Latino communities
After weeks of vowing to deploy National Guard troops to fight crime in Chicago, the Trump administration said on Monday it had launched a deportation crackdown in Illinois targeting hardened criminals among immigrants in the U.S. without legal status.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in an online statement that “Operation Midway Blitz” was being conducted by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, but details about its scope and nature were not immediately made clear.
It remained to be seen whether President Donald Trump would send National Guard soldiers into Chicago to accompany ICE and other federal law enforcement officers, as he has in and around Los Angeles and the District of Columbia.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, both Democrats, each said their offices had received no official notice from federal authorities about the operation, which they decried as a political stunt designed to intimidate.
Trump has been ramping up his rhetoric about expanding federal law enforcement and National Guard presence in Democratic-led cities and states, casting the use of presidential power as an urgent effort to confront crime even as local officials cite declines in homicides and other violent offenses.
DHS said its latest ICE operation was necessary because of city and state “sanctuary” laws that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the crackdown was aimed at convicted gang members, rapists, kidnappers and drug traffickers who she called “the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens in Chicago.”
The press release cited 11 cases of immigrants in the U.S. illegally, most from Mexico and Venezuela, who DHS said had records of arrest or convictions for serious crimes and were released from local jails rather than turned over to federal immigration officials.
City Alderwoman Jeylu Gutierrez, who represents the predominantly Hispanic 14th Ward on Chicago’s southwest side, said at least five members of her community had been detained in what she called a “federal assault.”
Among those arrested, Gutierrez said, was a flower vendor taken into custody on the job, while others were detained as they waited for a bus or walked on the sidewalk.
‘THIS ISN’T ABOUT FIGHTING CRIME’
“This was never about arresting the worst of the worst, this is about terrorizing our communities,” Gutierrez, a Mexican immigrant, told a press conference.
Pritzker, widely seen as a potential 2028 candidate for the White House, also disputed the crime-fighting rationale that Trump voiced last Tuesday when he said he would send National Guard troops to Chicago, the nation’s third most populous city and a Democratic stronghold.
“This isn’t about fighting crime,” Pritzker said on social media platform X on Monday. “That requires support and coordination — yet we’ve experienced nothing like that over the past several weeks.”
Pritzker has suggested Trump’s National Guard deployments might be a dress rehearsal for using the military to manipulate the 2026 midterm congressional elections.
Johnson said he was concerned about “potential militarized immigration enforcement without due process,” citing “ICE’s track record of detaining and deporting American citizens and violating the human rights of hundreds of detainees.”
In a post on Truth Social on Monday, Trump cited recent murders and shootings in Chicago and blamed Pritzker for making no requests for assistance from the Trump administration.
“I want to help the people of Chicago, not hurt them,” Trump wrote. “Only the Criminals will be hurt! We can move fast and stop this madness.”
In a separate post on Saturday, Trump posted a meme based on the 1979 Vietnam War movie “Apocalypse Now” that showed an image of the Chicago skyline with flames and helicopters, reminiscent of the deadly helicopter attack on a Vietnamese village in the film.
The Trump administration launched a parallel immigration enforcement operation in Boston in recent days, an ICE official confirmed on Monday.
ICE also said on Monday that its Houston-based agents had arrested 822 “criminal aliens, transnational gang members, child predators, foreign fugitives and other egregious offenders” during a week-long operation last month in southeastern Texas.
Previously, DHS said ICE had arrested nearly 1,500 immigration offenders during a month-long enforcement surge in Massachusetts in May and early June.
The latest ICE operation in Chicago was announced the same day that the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 6-3 decision allowing federal agents in Southern California to proceed with immigration raids that detain people on the basis of their race, ethnicity, language or accent, even without “reasonable suspicion” that they are in the country illegally.
Trump administration says it launches ICE crackdown in Illinois
After weeks of vowing to deploy National Guard troops to fight crime in Chicago, the Trump administration said on Monday it had launched a deportation crackdown in Illinois targeting hardened criminals among immigrants in the U.S. without legal status.