https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/news/trump-appointee-deals-legal-blow-to-the-president/vi-AA1LYtO7
President Donald Trump’s administration is illegally seeking to deport hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans and Haitians to their conflict-stricken nations, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled Friday.
The people affected by the ruling have been living in the United States under temporary protected status, or TPS, granted to undocumented immigrants with no serious criminal record who would be endangered by war, natural disasters or other conditions in their homeland. Trump opposes TPS and contends it has been used to protect members of criminal gangs.
But U.S. District Judge Edward Chen said removing the protections from Venezuelans and Haitians would return them to “conditions that are so dangerous that even the State Department advises against travel to their home countries.”
“For 35 years, the TPS statute has been faithfully executed by presidential administrations from both parties, affording relief based on the best available information obtained by the Department of Homeland Security in consultation with the State Department and other agencies, a process that involves careful study and analysis,” the judge wrote. “Until now.”
He did not say how many immigrants were covered by the ruling, but advocacy groups said it would protect hundreds of thousands from each nation. Chen had previously halted the deportation of 350,000 Venezuelans with TPS status, but the Supreme Court froze his order in May and allowed the administration to seek their deportation.
Friday’s ruling “provides immediate relief to several hundred thousand Venezuelans who should not have been subjected to this lawless policy in the first place,” said their attorney, Ahilan Arulanantham, a UCLA law professor. “Sadly, today’s ruling comes too late for many Venezuelans who were detained and deported under that policy because the Supreme Court allowed it to take effect without giving any reasons. We are hopeful the rule of law will now prevail.”
In Friday’s decision, Chen said Trump’s Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, terminated TPS for both groups of migrants as soon as she took office, with “no meaningful review,” reversing extensive findings and decisions by her predecessors. He said it was the first such action in the program’s 35-year history.
The judge said Noem had made unfounded assertions that “Venezuela didn’t send us their best” but instead sent “criminals.” She referred to Venezuelan migrants as “dirtbags” in a Jan. 29 Fox News interview. Chen also cited Trump’s campaign claims that Haitian migrants were eating household pets in Ohio.
Such statements are evidence that the administration’s actions were “based on racial, ethnic, and/or national origin animus,” said Chen, who was appointed to the court by President Barack Obama.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/tps-protections-21033502.php
A normally raucous, colorful parade to mark Mexican Independence Day in Chicago turned quiet and nervous on Saturday as U.S. President Donald Trump signaled he intended to ramp up deportations in the nation’s third-largest city.
In a break from traditional celebrations, twirling folklorico dancers decked in glimmering jewelry and billowing, multi-colored dresses distributed “know your rights” pamphlets to sparse crowds in the city’s historically Mexican Pilsen neighborhood. Horses wore the colors of Mexico’s flag in their tails, while their riders wore neon-orange whistles around their necks in case they needed to alert attendees of Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents. Along the sidelines, volunteers also kept watch for ICE.
“This place would normally be packed,” Eddie Chavez, a lifelong Pilsen resident, said while waving a Mexican flag in a lone row of lawn chairs along the parade route. “Now it’s empty, like a ghost town.”
Trump alluded to immigration raids in Chicago in a Truth Social post that echoed the movie Apocalypse Now.
“I love the smell of deportations in the morning,” his post said, opens new tab, above an image of Trump in a military uniform juxtaposed against flames and Chicago’s skyline. “Chicago is about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”
Trump signed an executive order on Friday to rename the Department of Defense as the “Department of War.”
Illinois Govornor JB Pritzker, a Democrat and vocal critic of Trump, said on Tuesday he believed ICE raids would coincide with Mexican Independence day festivals scheduled for this weekend and next weekend. Some Mexican festivals in the Chicago area were postponed or canceled, opens new tab amid fears of immigration raids.
“We’re scared, but we’re here,” said Isabel Garcia, a dancer in Saturday’s parade wearing a marigold-yellow dress and multi-colored ribbons and flowers in her hair.
“We’re Mexican. We have to celebrate, and they’re not going to stop us.”
ICE has not responded to requests for comment on whether it sent more agents to Chicago, and residents said they had not seen significantly stepped-up immigration enforcement so far.
A large protest against ICE was expected later on Saturday in Chicago, after thousands turned out for a Labor Day protest on Monday.
Trump last month deployed National Guard troops to Washington, saying they would “re-establish law, order, and public safety.” In addition to Chicago, he has suggested the possibility of deploying troops to Democratic-run Baltimore in Maryland.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/chicago-ice-fears-turn-mexican-parade-into-ghost-town-2025-09-06
A legal aid group has sued to preemptively block any efforts by the U.S. government to deport a dozen Honduran children, saying it had “credible” information that such plans were quietly in the works.
The Arizona-based Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project (FIRRP) on Friday added Honduran children to a lawsuit filed last weekend that resulted in a judge temporarily blocking the deportation of dozens of migrant children to their native Guatemala.
In a statement, the organization said it had received reports that the U.S. government will “imminently move forward with a plan to illegally remove Honduran children in government custody as soon as this weekend, in direct violation of their right to seek protection in the United States and despite ongoing litigation that blocked similar attempted extra-legal removals for children from Guatemala.”
FIRRP did not immediately provide The Associated Press with details about what information it had received about the possible deportation of Honduran children. The amendment to the organization’s lawsuit is sealed in federal court. The Homeland Security Department did not immediately respond to email requests for comment on Friday and Saturday.
The Justice Department on Saturday provided what is perhaps its most detailed account of a chaotic Labor Day weekend involving the attempted deportation of 76 Guatemalan children. Its timeline was part of a request to lift a temporary hold on their removal.
Over Labor Day weekend, the Trump administration attempted to remove Guatemalan children who had come to the U.S. alone and were living in shelters or with foster care families in the U.S.
Advocates who represent migrant children in court filed lawsuits across the country seeking to stop the government from removing the children, and on Sunday a federal judge stepped in to order that the kids stay in the U.S. for at least two weeks.
The government initially identified 457 Guatemalan children for possible deportation, according to Saturday’s filing. None could have a pending asylum screening or claim, resulting in the removal of 91. They had to have parents or legal guardians in Guatemala and be at least 10 years old.
In the end, 327 children were found eligible for deportation, including 76 who boarded planes early Sunday in what the government described as a first phase, according to a statement by Angie Salazar, acting director of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement. All 76 were at least 14 years old and “self-reported” that they had a parent or legal guardian in Guatemala but none in the United States.
The Justice Department said no planes took off, despite a comment by one of its attorneys in court Sunday that one may have but returned.
Children who cross the border alone are generally transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which falls under the Health and Human Services Department. The children usually live in a network of shelters across the country that are overseen by the resettlement office until they are eventually released to a sponsor — usually a relative
Children began crossing the border alone in large numbers in 2014, peaking at 152,060 in the 2022 fiscal year. July’s arrest tally translates to an annual clip of 5,712 arrests, reflecting how illegal crossings have dropped to their lowest levels in six decades.
Guatemalans accounted for 32% of residents at government-run holding facilities last year, followed by Hondurans, Mexicans and El Salvadorans. A 2008 law requires children to appear before an immigration judge with an opportunity to pursue asylum, unless they are from Canada and Mexico. The vast majority are released from shelters to parents, legal guardians or immediate family while their cases wind through court.
Justice Department lawyers said federal law allows the Department of Health and Human Services to “repatriate” or “reunite” children by taking them out of the U.S., as long as the child hasn’t been a victim of “severe” human trafficking, is not at risk for becoming so if he or she is returned to their native country and does not face a “a credible fear” of persecution there. The child also cannot be “repatriated” if he or she has a pending asylum claim.
The FIRRP lawsuit was amended to include 12 children from Honduras who have expressed to the Florence Project that they do not want to return to Honduras, as well as four additional children from Guatemala who have come into government custody in Arizona since the suit was initially filed last week.
Some children have parents who are already in the United States.
The lawsuit demands that the government allow the children their legal right to present their cases to an immigration judge, to have access to legal counsel and to be placed in the least restrictive setting that is in the best interest of the child.
Border Czar Tom Homan has noted that the administration plans to deport Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, an illegal immigrant with alleged gang affiliations. Homan labeled Garcia a “significant public safety threat” due to his connections with MS-13 and past human trafficking charges. The action has been proposed despite a court ruling that temporarily blocked Abrego Garcia’s deportation to allow for a hearing.
Homan said, “I’m giving you my word. He will be deported from this country. I got my teeth in this thing. I’m not letting it go.” He added, “Abrego Garcia’s deportation to El Salvador wasn’t a mistake.”
Homan stated, “I don’t accept the term ‘error’ in Abrego Garcia.” He added, “There was an oversight, there was a withholding order.”
Homan added, “But the facts surrounding the withholding order had changed. He is now a terrorist, and the gang he was fearing, from being removed from El Salvador, no longer exists.”
Homan expressed confidence in proceeding with the deportation despite legal challenges. Judge Xinis ruled that the process should be paused pending an evidentiary hearing.
Department of Justice (DOJ) documents linked Abrego Garcia to MS-13 and highlighted domestic abuse allegations from his estranged wife. The Trump administration has questioned the validity of Abrego Garcia’s asylum claims, arguing that he has not provided sufficient evidence of persecution.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “I will tell you what the president of El Salvador told you in the Oval Office: El Salvador does not intend to smuggle a designated foreign terrorist back into the United States.”
Leavitt added, “He is an El Salvadoran national. That is his home country. That is where he belongs.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/news/trump-appointee-deals-legal-blow-to-the-president/vi-AA1LYtO7
A Guatemala-born woman who has lived in the U.S. since age 9 was nearly deported by ICE after a routine traffic stop in Phoenix, despite three decades of residence and three U.S.-citizen children. Knewz.com has learned that a federal judge later blocked her fast-track removal and ordered her case to be shifted into standard deportation proceedings.
Routine traffic stop escalates to ICE detention
According to court documents, Mirta Amarilis Co Tupul, 38, was pulled over by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer while driving to work at a laundromat in a Latino neighborhood in Phoenix. Her lawyers argued that the stop violated her constitutional rights because officers lacked reasonable suspicion. Following the stop, Co Tupul was transferred first to the Florence Processing Center and then to the Eloy Detention Center, which is about 65 miles from Phoenix. Within days, her attorneys were informed that she had been placed in expedited removal proceedings and could be deported in as little as one to three weeks.
District court judge blocks expedited deportation
The detainee’s legal team submitted vaccination records, affidavits and other evidence to prove her nearly 30 years of continuous presence in the U.S. They also argued that expedited removal did not legally apply to her and that bypassing a court hearing violated her due process rights. Earlier this month, a U.S. district court judge granted an emergency request blocking her deportation. The government agreed in writing not to pursue expedited removal again and moved her into standard removal proceedings, where she will have the opportunity to make her case before an immigration judge.
Attorneys celebrate ruling
Eric Lee, one of Co Tupul’s attorneys, wrote on X, “Good news: Our demand that the court halt Trump from deporting Ms. Co Tupul without due process was just GRANTED by U.S. Dist. Ct. for District of Arizona!” However, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons defended enforcement actions more broadly on Fox News, saying, “I don’t think the American public as a whole realizes just exactly who ICE is going after every day.”
Co Tupul’s case raises concerns
The Donald Trump administration expanded expedited removal in January, allowing immigration officials to apply the process nationwide to undocumented people unable to prove two years of continuous residence. Originally, the procedure was designed for recent arrivals encountered near the border. In Co Tupul’s case, her lawyers said that a deportation officer told her that ICE had a “new policy” to apply expedited removal at an immigrant’s first contact with the agency, even if that person had lived in the U.S. for decades. Attorneys said that this interpretation goes far beyond what federal law permits. Co Tupul’s case underscores concerns from civil rights groups that long-term residents risk being deported without hearings when expedited removal is used aggressively. Advocates warn that immigrants without lawyers may be particularly vulnerable. Co Tupul currently remains in custody at the Eloy Detention Center while her case proceeds.
https://knewz.com/ice-nabs-woman-in-us-for-nearly-three-decades-in-routine-traffic-stop
A federal immigration officer was attacked and injured while trying to take a man into custody in Florida, according to local authorities.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said the incident unfolded Tuesday morning in Lakeland.
Two Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers had followed Denis Corea Miranda, 21, because he had a warrant for deportation, according to the sheriff’s office.
Authorities said Miranda was in a vehicle with two other people, who were also allegedly in the country illegally. Miranda was in the passenger seat of the vehicle.
An ICE officer walked to the passenger side of the car and informed Miranda that they were going to take him into custody. It was at that point that a fight began, Judd said.
“I’m told that the fight lasted about five minutes,” he said, later emphasizing that five minutes is a “very long tussle.”
Officials said Miranda was on top of the ICE officer when the second officer sprayed Miranda with pepper spray. Miranda then ran into the woods, according to Judd.
The ICE officers chased after Miranda but said they lost him in the woods. The Polk County Sheriff’s Office was then called to assist, launching a helicopter, drones and sending out K-9 teams.
“They were just overwhelmed. The issue is ICE needs help,” Judd said, explaining that the officers were also monitoring the two other people in the car.
The ICE officer who got into a fight with Miranda was taken to a nearby hospital to be treated for a shoulder injury and is expected to recover.
“To my knowledge, this is the first time we’ve had an ICE agent injured in the line of duty, and he was significantly injured, he had to go to the hospital,” Judd said.
An employee at a nearby business eventually encountered Miranda hiding among several steel drums, according to officials. Judd said Miranda asked the employee for water, but the employee felt something was off.
The employee went inside and called 911, alerting law enforcement officers to Miranda’s location. Authorities said Miranda was arrested soon after.
An employee at another nearby business told NewsNation affiliate WFLA she saw deputies with their guns drawn.
“You could tell that it was kind of like a manhunt situation,” she said. “So my first response, honestly, was like we need to lock the doors.”
Judd referenced a photo showing deputies taking Miranda, who was smiling, into custody.
“We have him under arrest. He’s smiling,” the sheriff said. “I bet we’ve wiped the smile off his face.”
According to the sheriff’s office, Miranda faces a slew of charges, which all have been upgraded to more serious felonies due to Florida’s recently passed immigration legislation.
The charges include battery of a law enforcement officer, resisting with violence, resisting without violence, false imprisonment, and burglary of an occupied structure.
Judd said the two other people who were in the car with Miranda cooperated with law enforcement and were taken into ICE custody.
The employee said she is glad the situation wasn’t worse, and also glad Miranda didn’t come into her business.
“That’s scary to think about because he chose violence with cops. If I wouldn’t have let him in or if he came in before we lock the doors, what would happen, you know?” she said.
According to officials, Miranda, who is from Nicaragua, is believed to have entered the country in 2021. Judd said he was stopped by Border Patrol and was later released with a court date.
Miranda was arrested in July 2024 in Galveston, Texas, for DUI, but was released and never showed up for court, according to authorities.
“This guy just wanted to get away, and he was going to do whatever he needed to do to get away,” Judd said.
https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/immigration/ice-officer-attacked-florida-arrest
Juan Rivera voted for President Donald Trump, hoping that the president’s efforts to rid the United States of illegal immigration would improve safety in the Southern California city where the 25-year-old content creator lives.
Neighborhoods near Rivera’s home in San Marcos that used to be frequented by migrants with “violent tendencies” do feel much safer now, he said. But he also said he’ll “never forget” seeing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pull over a truck of Latino workers and haul the men into their cars without asking for identification, leaving the empty truck behind.
Some of Rivera’s family members work for U.S. Border Patrol. Other relatives who are in the process of establishing legal residency in the United States “are scared of going to work because they fear that they’re going to get pulled over by immigration,” he said.
Overall, however, Rivera gave the Trump administration very high marks on its handling of immigration because “there’s a lot more public safety.”
Seven months into his second term, Trump’s signature issue – immigration – is still helping buoy his overall sinking approval ratings, making up for a downturn in support for his economic policies. A group of 20 Trump voters Reuters has interviewed monthly since February, including Rivera, illuminated the complex views behind the numbers.
Reuters asked the voters to rate the Trump administration’s handling of immigration on a scale of 1 to 10. Sixteen gave it a rating of 7 or higher, and none rated it below 5.
They universally support Trump’s tightening of U.S. border security to prevent further illegal immigration and his efforts to expel immigration offenders with violent criminal records. But there was less consensus about how Trump is going about the crackdown.
“President Trump was elected based on his promise to close the border and deport criminal illegal aliens,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson in an emailed statement. “The Trump Administration will continue carrying out the largest mass deportation operation in history.”
The 20 voters were selected from 429 respondents to a February 2025 Ipsos poll who said they voted for Trump in November and were willing to speak to a reporter. They are not a statistically representative portrait of all Trump voters, but their ages, educational backgrounds, races/ethnicities, locations and voting histories roughly correspond to those of Trump’s overall electorate.
Seven of the voters said they worried about the means Trump was using to achieve his goals, with some recoiling at the way authorities are rounding up immigrants for deportation.
“I agree that you have to have an immigration policy and enforce it. I don’t agree with kidnapping people off the street,” said Virginia Beach-based retiree Don Jernigan.
Jernigan, 75, said that footage of ICE raids he has seen on ABC and Fox News “reminds me of Nazi Germany. And you would rarely hear me say that name, Nazi, okay? But it does, the way they snatch people.”
Other voters, such as Will Brown, 20, a student at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, urged the administration to pursue even more ambitious deportation goals.
Brown, who said he “couldn’t be more of a fan of Stephen Miller,” the White House aide credited with designing Trump’s immigration policy, noted that the deportation rate of Trump’s second term so far lagged that of the last two Democratic administrations. “Honestly, I don’t think they’re doing enough,” he said.
REALITY DIVIDE
The voters’ attitudes towards traditional news outlets heavily affected their view of Trump’s immigration crackdown.
“If you get your information from one source, ICE is devils incarnate, and if you get it from another source, they’re superheroes,” said Gerald Dunn, 66, a martial arts instructor in upstate New York.
Dunn said he rarely reads or watches news from mainstream outlets because “everything is so exaggerated.” Instead, he browses headlines and watches YouTube videos to stay informed.
He has heard reports of ICE agents detaining non-criminal immigrants, but said such incidents are blown out of proportion.
“You’re going to arrest people wrongfully, and it turns out they shouldn’t have been arrested. That doesn’t mean you don’t arrest anybody.”
In the Chicago suburbs, municipal office secretary Kate Mottl, 62, said she is thrilled with Trump’s immigration policy. She does not believe news outlets that report immigrants without a criminal record are being swept up in raids.
Mottl was dismayed to learn that some immigrants without legal status she knows are afraid of being deported under Trump.
“I tell them, ‘you shouldn’t be worried about that because you’re not a bad person. You’re not committing crimes,’” she said, adding that she feared they were being misinformed by the news sources they watch.
CLEARER PATHWAY TO LEGAL STATUS
Fourteen of the 20 voters said they hoped Trump would improve the immigration system and vetting process to help deserving foreigners with the potential to contribute to the U.S. economy legalize their status more easily in the United States.
Like Mottl, Lesa Sandberg of St. George, Utah, said she knows undocumented immigrants “who are raising their families here, who are working, who are contributing to our economy and our society. And my heart goes out to them.”
Sandberg, 57, who runs an accounting business, rents properties and works for a former Republican congressman’s political action committee, said she is glad to see the administration cracking down on immigrants with criminal backgrounds.
But when it comes to the immigrants in the U.S. illegally she considers friends, she said, “I would never call ICE on them … [it’s] that whole concept of when we know people in the situation, feelings are different about it because we know how bad it is for them.”
David Ferguson, 53, a mechanical engineer and account manager in western Georgia, said some of the foreign students in his daughter’s graduate school program want to stay and work in the United States but fear they won’t be able to re-enter if they visit their home countries, despite having valid visas.
Some immigrants really do “want to have long-term residency and be productive members of our society. Let’s give them a path for that,” he said.
Ferguson said he doesn’t think an amnesty program is necessarily the solution. But Juan Rivera, the Trump voter in southern California, thinks it could attract wide support.
“It’s actually a really big sentiment I’ve been hearing from a lot of local Republican elected officials, that the Trump administration [should] offer amnesty the way that Reagan did,” said Rivera, who does Latino outreach advocacy for his county’s Republican Party.
His own father was able to become a U.S. citizen after former Republican President Ronald Reagan signed legislation in 1986 granting amnesty to about 3 million immigrants without legal status, according to Rivera.
He said he hopes Trump moves the country toward “an immigration system that balances security with humanity.”
The Trump administration is planning to remove nearly 700 Guatemalan children who had come to the U.S. without their parents, according to a letter sent Friday by Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, and the Central American country said it was ready to take them in.
The removals would violate the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s “child welfare mandate and this country’s long-established obligation to these children,” Wyden told Angie Salazar, acting director of the office within the Department of Health and Human Services that is responsible for migrant children who arrive in the U.S. alone.
“This move threatens to separate children from their families, lawyers, and support systems, to thrust them back into the very conditions they are seeking refuge from, and to disappear vulnerable children beyond the reach of American law and oversight,” the Democratic senator wrote, asking for the deportation plans to be terminated.
It is another step in the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration enforcement efforts, which include plans to surge officers to Chicago for an immigration crackdown, ramping up deportations and ending protections for people who have had permission to live and work in the United States.
Guatemalan Foreign Affairs Minister Carlos Martínez said Friday that the government has told the U.S. it is willing to receive hundreds of Guatemalan minors who arrived unaccompanied to the United States and are being held in U.S. facilities.
Guatemala is particularly concerned about minors who could age out of the facilities for children and be sent to adult detention centers, he said. The exact number of children to be returned remains in flux, but they are currently discussing a little over 600. He said no date has been set yet for their return.
That would be almost double what Guatemala previously agreed to. The head of the country’s immigration service said last month that the government was looking to repatriate 341 unaccompanied minors who were being held in U.S. facilities.
“The idea is to bring them back before they reach 18 years old so that they are not taken to an adult detention center,” Guatemala Immigration Institute Director Danilo Rivera said at the time. He said it would be done at Guatemala’s expense and would be a form of voluntary return.
The plan was announced by President Bernardo Arévalo, who said then that the government had a moral and legal obligation to advocate for the children. His comments came days after U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited Guatemala.
The White House and the Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the latest move, which was first reported by CNN.
Quoting unidentified whistleblowers, Wyden’s letter said children who do not have a parent or legal guardian as a sponsor or who don’t have an asylum case already underway “will be forcibly removed from the country.”
The idea of repatriating such a large number of children to their home country also raised concerns with activists who work with children navigating the immigration process.
“We are outraged by the Trump administration’s renewed assault on the rights of immigrant children,” said Lindsay Toczylowski, president and CEO of Immigrant Defenders Law Center. “We are not fooled by their attempt to mask these efforts as mere ‘repatriations.’ This is yet another calculated attempt to sever what little due process remains in the immigration system.”
Santana, Seitz and Gonzalez write for the Associated Press. Gonzalez reported from McAllen, Texas. AP writers Sonia Pérez D. in Guatemala City and Tim Sullivan in Minneapolis contributed to this report.
