Newsweek: Man who came to US as young child faces deportation after over 30 years

Karem Tadros, who has lived in the United States for more than 30 years after immigrating from Egypt with his family, who are all U.S. citizens, faces deportation to an unspecified country following his release from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in New Jersey, he told Newsweek in a Friday phone interview.

His citizenship process was halted due to his 2006 conviction, telling Newsweek it was for “intent to distribute oxycodone.” He said, “I was on the right path. I made a terrible mistake when I was younger.”

He spent six days in a county jail and was released on bail, completing his probation afterwards, he said. “Because of that, I was detained at Hudson County facility for 13 months. And I was released by the judge on a court date with no supervision, no nothing. So 17 years go by, now it’s 2025, I haven’t seen a single ICE officer since I was detained back in 2008, 2009,” he added.

On June 16, Tadros was granted a Writ of Habeas Corpus, as U.S. District Judge for the District of New Jersey, Evelyn Padin, found the “petitioner has remained in perfect compliance with the conditions of release dictated in the April 9, 2009 Order of Supervision.”

The judge found it was “unlawful” for the government to keep Tadros detained and ordered his release.

The judge’s order stated that “ICE may identify a third country within thirty to sixty days of this order to which the Petitioner may be removed.” The judge denied the Trump administration’s request to place an ankle monitor on Tadros. He must stay within the tri-state area.

https://www.newsweek.com/man-faces-deportation-after-30-years-2088572

NBC News: Pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil released after months in detention

Minutes after the Columbia University activist was released, the Trump administration filed an appeal of his release.

Pro-Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil was released from detention Friday evening, ending more than three months of custody in a test of the executive branch’s power to unilaterally act against legal U.S. residents.

Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin lashed out at “rogue” U.S. District Court Judge Michael Farbiarz, saying he had no authority to order Khalil’s release.

“This is yet another example of how out of control members of the judicial branch are undermining national security,” McLaughlin said. “Their conduct not only denies the result of the 2024 election, it also does great harm to our constitutional system by undermining public confidence in the courts.”

Government attorney Dhruman Sampat had argued that Congress has given the executive branch sweeping powers to determine who could be removed from the county.

The courts should not have the authority to interfere, Sampat said.

With regard to permanent residents, this presumed “authority” is total b*llsh*t!

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/rcna214163

Washington Examiner: Judge blocks Trump administration from pulling states’ transportation funding over ICE cooperation

A federal judge blocked the Trump administration on Thursday from requiring 20 mostly Democratic states to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement in order to receive billions of dollars in transportation funding.

Chief U.S. District Judge John McConnell issued a preliminary injunction that barred the administration from enforcing the new immigration rules for “the States and their governmental subdivisions” while the lawsuit plays out in court. He said that requiring the states to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to receive congressionally appropriated transportation funding violated the Constitution.

“Congress did not authorize or grant authority to the Secretary of Transportation to impose immigration enforcement conditions on federal dollars specifically appropriated for transportation purposes,” McConnell wrote.

Newsweek: NYC mayoral candidate arrested by ICE says agents feel overworked

New York City Comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander has told Newsweek that ICE agents expressed feeling “overworked” shortly after detaining him at a downtown court earlier this week.

“I talked to the ICE agents afterward, and it’s clear to me they are being overworked,” Lander said in an interview on June 19.

“I asked what their shifts were. And they say, we really don’t have shifts anymore,” he added.

Poor crybabies should get respectable jobs.

Lander and other critics called the arrest further evidence of what they described as a drift toward authoritarianism by the Trump administration.

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told Newsweek: “Like many Democrat politicians before him, Mayoral Candidate Brad Lander seems to think obstructing federal law enforcement is his ticket to fame. Unfortunately, it’s just his ticket to being arrested.”

More often than not, these bogus “obstructing” charges are dropped. They are nothing more than harassment.

In response for comment to the suggestion ICE agents are being overworked, Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin: “Under Secretary [Bimbo #2] Noem, we are delivering on President Trump’s and the American people’s mandate to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens to make America safe.”

Repeating a lie doesn’t make it true. Arresting and deporting non-criminal aliens does nothing to make America safe.

https://www.newsweek.com/brad-lander-ice-agents-2088020

Washington Post: As Trump shuts out migrants, Spain opens its doors and fuels economic growth

As the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants and asylum seekers brings tear gas, protests and raids to the streets of the United States, Spain is positioning itself as a counterpoint: a new land of opportunity.

In this nation of 48 million with long colonial links to the New World, an influx of predominantly Latin American immigrants is helping fuel one of the fastest-growing economies in Europe. The Spanish economic transformation is unfolding as the center-left government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has streamlined immigration rules while offering legal status to roughly 700,000 irregular migrants since 2021.

A landmark bill now being negotiated in the Congress of Deputies could grant legal amnesty to hundreds of thousands more — most of them Spanish-speakers from predominantly Catholic countries in Latin America. Those newcomers often enjoy visa-free travel to Spain, even as Madrid controversially works with Morocco, Mauritania and other countries to block irregular arrivals from the African coast, though Sánchez has also called for tolerance toward migrants fleeing poverty and violence in Africa.

Spain’s approach is attracting at least some migrants rejected or barred from the United States, including Venezuelans who are now subject to President Donald Trump’s travel ban.

Yet the legislative amnesty push came not from a government plan but a grassroots effort backed by civil actors including small-town mayors, companies, migrant advocates and the Catholic church. Spain also has a history of normalizing irregular migrants who can prove steady work, with the last large-scale amnesty under the center-left government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in 2005.

Should Sánchez survive the corruption crisis — and Spain’s economy continue to thrive — his policies could set up this nation as the antithesis of Trump’s America: a migrant-friendly progressive paradise.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/as-trump-shuts-out-migrants-spain-opens-its-doors-and-fuels-economic-growth/ar-AA1H5Kjo

Wall Street Journal: Trump Is Losing Political Ground on Immigration

The Trump administration’s aggressive deportation program is testing the political bounds of what Americans will tolerate, spurring a backlash from voters and some Republicans and testing the administration’s resolve.

Federal officials in recent weeks have stepped up raids on worksites and farms, seeking to fulfill President Trump’s pledge of mass deportations. The move has sparked alarm in immigrant communities and street protests in Los Angeles and other cities. Last weekend, Trump directed that arrests be paused at farms and hotels, only to reverse the directive days later.

Republican members of Congress from California, Texas and Florida have publicly urged the White House to give priority to deportations of criminals rather than migrants who have resided in the U.S. for long periods and have otherwise obeyed the law. The chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson (R., Pa.), called the farm raids “just wrong.” The co-founder of Latinas for Trump, Florida state Sen. Ileana Garcia, wrote on X that the administration’s actions were “unacceptable and inhumane” and “not what we voted for.”

“I may have voted for Trump, but I can’t stay silent about what’s happening with ICE in LA,” Ryan Garcia, a former interim lightweight boxing champion who endorsed Trump last year, wrote on X. “We can have borders without losing our humanity.”

Presidents of both parties have historically hesitated to pursue large-scale immigration enforcement in the country’s interior precisely because it tends to be politically unpopular. Trump’s push for deportations far from the border has begun to trigger a backlash in public opinion, with polls showing his approval rating on immigration and deportations—formerly one of his strongest issues—has now turned negative.

Quinnipiac poll earlier this month found that just 43% approved of Trump’s performance on immigration while 54% disapproved. On deportations, 40% approved while 56% disapproved. In the polling average maintained by the analyst Nate Silver, Trump’s immigration policies were popular on a net basis until earlier this month—but are now more unpopular than popular by a 3-point margin. 

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-is-losing-political-ground-on-immigration-20de43bc

Also here:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-is-losing-political-ground-on-immigration/ar-AA1H5df5

Slate: Trump Promises to Keep Terrorizing Blue Cities. It Might Come Back to Haunt Him.

Donald Trump won the presidency in part on promises to deport immigrants who have criminal records and lack permanent legal status. But his earliest executive orders—trying to undo birthright citizenship, suspending critical refugee programs—made clear he wants to attack immigrants with permanent legal status too. In our series Who Gets to Be American This Week?, we’ll track the Trump administration’s attempts to exclude an ever-growing number of people from the American experiment.

President Donald Trump’s immigration raids have disrupted life in Los Angeles in a way the mayor is comparing to COVID; they’ve created a climate of fear that’s driving people into hiding and hurting local businesses. This week, the president promised to expand those raids in blue cities, all in a futile attempt to hit 1 million deportations by the end of the year. After suggesting last week that ICE would stop targeting the agriculture and hotel industries, which disproportionately rely on immigrant labor, the administration also walked back that guidance.

And a troubling trend is emerging: As Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts get more aggressive and reckless, several elected officials who attempted to conduct oversight or question what is being done have been arrested.

“Overwhelmingly, Americans do not want ICE raids that focus on those without criminal records. That’s why polls show that Trump is losing voter approval on these key issues,” Mukherjee said.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/06/donald-trump-brad-lander-ice-raid-los-angeles.html

Axios: Trump’s border czar: Immigration raids at farms, hotels to continue

Following a week of immigration whiplash, President Trump’s border czar Tom Homan confirmed Thursday that immigration raids will continue in the agriculture and hospitality industries.

While workers at places like farms, restaurants and hotels will be targeted, people with criminal backgrounds will be a priority for immigration enforcement officials, the border czar said.

Criminals will be a priority? That’s just lip service. All they care about are the numbers.

“We’re going to continue to do worksite enforcement operations, even on farms and hotels, but based on a prioritized basis. Criminals come first,” Homan told reporters.

https://www.axios.com/2025/06/19/trump-immigration-raids-farms-hotels-border-czar

Alternet: ‘Ineffective security theater’: Lawmaker blasts Kristi Noem ahead of Michigan visit

Michigan state senator Mallory McMorrow (D) strongly criticized Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem Thursday ahead of Noem’s visit to Michigan.

“Kristi Noem is headed to Michigan to fearmonger about border security with… Canada,” Mallory said on the social platform X.

“The Trump administration’s mass deportation boondoggle is nothing but security theater that actually make us LESS safe,” she added.

McMorrow continued: “All to the tune of an additional $1 TRILLION in your taxpayer dollars.”

In a video attached to her X post, the Michigan lawmaker said immigrants are being arrested even when they show up to their court hearings and try to follow the legal pathway to immigration. She called Noem’s immigration actions “ineffective security theater.”

McMorrow accused the Trump administration of going after people “who have committed no egregious crimes” “Like an 18-year-old student just three credits away from high school graduation here in Michigan,” she added.

On Wednesday, NBC reported that seven Senate Democrats who supported Noem’s confirmation as DHS secretary in January are now expressing regret and disillusionment with her performance.

https://www.alternet.org/kristi-noem-michigan

Style on Main: Home Depot Preps Staff as ICE Targets Over 30,500 Employees Nationwide

Recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids have targeted day laborers who congregate around Home Depot stores across the United States, disrupting a longstanding informal labor market. These raids are part of an intensified immigration enforcement campaign under the Trump administration, which aims to increase deportations beyond violent criminals to undocumented workers broadly.

Home Depot stores have become unique hubs where day laborers and contractors meet despite the company’s official policy against solicitation on its property. This informal system has provided mutual benefits for decades, but the recent ICE actions have created operational challenges and fear among workers and communities. Home Depot is now preparing its employees for potential encounters with ICE agents, emphasizing safety and reporting protocols as the raids unfolded nationwide.

The ICE raids have instilled fear among immigrant workers, many of whom now avoid Home Depot parking lots. This has led to significant drops in day laborer presence and disruptions to local labor markets. Workers staying home out of fear affects business operations and local economies dependent on their labor.

Community backlash has included protests and public outcry following arrests near Home Depot locations, particularly in Latino communities. These enforcement actions have strained relations between immigrant communities, local businesses, and law enforcement, amplifying tensions and uncertainty.