Tag Archives: President Donald Trump

Newsweek: Trump administration announces major tourist visa change

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The State Department is proposing a rule requiring some business and tourist visa applicants to post a bond of up to $15,000 to enter the United States, a step critics say could put the process out of reach for many.

According to a notice set for publication on Tuesday in the Federal Register, the department plans a 12‑month pilot program targeting applicants from countries with high visa overstay rates and weak internal document security.

Under the plan, applicants could be required to post bonds of $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 when applying for a visa.

Why It Matters

This move marks a significant escalation in the Trump administration’s approach to immigration enforcement and revisits a controversial measure briefly introduced during Trump’s first term.

A previous version of the policy was issued in November 2020, but was never fully enacted due to the collapse in global travel during the COVID-19 pandemic. That version targeted about two dozen countries, most of them in Africa, with overstay rates exceeding 10 percent.

What To Know

The new visa bond program will take effect on August 20, according to documents reviewed by Newsweek and a notice previewed Monday on the Federal Register website. The Department of Homeland Security says the goal is to ensure the U.S. government doesn’t incur costs when a visitor violates visa terms.

“Aliens applying for visas as temporary visitors for business or pleasure and who are nationals of countries identified by the department as having high visa overstay rates, where screening and vetting information is deemed deficient, or offering citizenship by investment, if the alien obtained citizenship with no residency requirement, may be subject to the pilot program,” it said.

Under the plan, U.S. consular officers can require a bond from visa applicants who meet certain criteria. This includes nationals of countries with high visa overstay rates, countries with deficient screening and vetting, and those that offer citizenship-by-investment programs, particularly where citizenship is granted without a residency requirement.

Visitors subject to the bond will receive it back upon leaving the U.S., naturalizing as a citizen, or in the event of death. If a traveler overstays, however, the bond may be forfeited and used to help cover the costs associated with their removal.

Citizens of countries in the Visa Waiver Program are exempt, and consular officers will retain the discretion to waive the bond on a case-by-case basis.

What Countries Could End Up Being Affected

The U.S. government has not provided an estimate of how many applicants may be affected. However, 2023 data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows that countries with particularly high visa overstay rates include Angola, Liberia, Mauritania, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Cabo Verde, Burkina Faso, and Afghanistan.

The list of affected countries will be published at least 15 days before the program begins and may be updated with similar notice. In the 2020 version of the pilot, countries such as Afghanistan, Angola, Burkina Faso, Burma (Myanmar), Chad, Congo, Eritrea, Iran, Laos, Liberia, Libya, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen were included.

What People Are Saying

The public notice stated: “The Pilot Program will help the Department assess the continued reliance on the untested historical assumption that imposing visa bonds to achieve the foreign policy and national security goals of the United States remains too cumbersome to be practical.”

Andrew Kreighbaum, a journalist covering immigration, posted on X: “It’s getting more expensive for many business and tourist travelers to enter the U.S. On top of new visa integrity fees, the State Department is imposing visa bonds as high as $15,000.”

What Happens Next

Visa bonds have been proposed in the past but have not been implemented. The State Department has traditionally discouraged the requirement because of the cumbersome process of posting and discharging a bond and because of possible misperceptions by the public.

There’s always a country that wants your money — go where you’re wanted and the heck with Amerika!

Trump administration announces major tourist visa change
The State Department says the measure is intended to ensure the government does not incur costs if a visitor violates visa terms.

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-admin-visas-tourist-business-major-change-2108642

Latin Times: DHS Reopens Long-Closed Immigration Cases In Efforts To Meet Deportation Quotas: ‘It’s Been 10 Years’

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In efforts to reach ambitious deportation goals, the Department of Homeland Security is giving new life to long-time administratively closed immigration cases.

In efforts to continue stepping up immigration enforcement and reach ambitious deportation goals, the Department of Homeland Security is giving new life to long-time administratively closed immigration cases, even ones involving people who are dead.

Some lawyers have received dozens of motions to re-calendar— the first step to reopen old cases. If lawyers don’t succeed in opposing those motions, immigrants could wind up back in courthouses that in recent months have become a hub for arrests, a new report from Los Angeles Times details.

“It has been 10 years,” Adan Rico, a 29-year-old DACA recipient who has renewed his status at least four times, told the LA Times. “And all of a sudden our lives are on hold again, at the mercy of these people that think I have no right to be here.”

Attorneys handling these proceedings say the government is overwhelming the courts and immigration lawyers by dredging up cases, many of which are a decade old or more. In several of them, clients or their original lawyers have died. In other cases, immigrants have received legal status and were surprised to learn the government was attempting to revive deportation proceedings against them.

That was the case of Rico, a father who is studying to be an HVAC technician in the Inland Empire. The attorney who originally helped him with his immigration cases has since died, making the revival of his case even more confusing and surprising.

“If it wasn’t for his daughter calling, I would have never found out my case was reopened,” he said. “The Department of Homeland Security never sent me anything.”

A similar case occurred with construction worker Helario Romero Arciniega. Seven years ago, a judge administratively closed his deportation proceedings after he was severely beaten with a metal sprinkler head and had qualified for a visa for crime victims. This year, government officials filed a motion to bring back the deportation case even though he had died six months ago.

“They don’t do their homework,” Patricia Corrales, an attorney representing Romero Arciniega and Rico, said of the government lawyers. “They’re very negligent in the manner in which they’re handling these motions to re-calendar.”

Likewise, Mariela Caravetta, an immigration attorney in Van Nuys, said that since early June about 30 of her clients have been targeted with government motions to reopen their cases. By law, she has to reply in 10 days. That means she has to track down the client, who may have moved out of state.

“It’s bad faith doing it like that,” said Caravetta, who accused the federal government of flooding the immigration courts in an effort to meet its deportation quotas.

“People aren’t getting due process,” she said. “It’s very unfair to the client because these cases have been sleeping for 10 years.”

When asked about the government’s push to restart old proceedings, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin declined to address questions about the administration’s change in policy or respond to attorneys’ complaints about the process. She released a statement similar to others she has offered to the media on immigration inquiries.

“Biden chose to release millions of illegal aliens, including criminals, into the country and used prosecutorial discretion to indefinitely delay their cases and allow them to illegally remain in the United States,” she said. “Now, President Trump and Secretary Noem are following the law and resuming these illegal aliens’ removal proceedings and ensuring their cases are heard by a judge.”

DHS Reopens Long-Closed Immigration Cases In Efforts To Meet Deportation Quotas: ‘It’s Been 10 Years’
In efforts to reach ambitious deportation goals, the Department of Homeland Security is giving new life to long-time administratively closed immigration cases.

https://www.latintimes.com/dhs-reopens-long-closed-immigration-cases-efforts-meet-deportation-quotas-its-been-10-years-588230

Idaho Statesman: Smashed windows. Missing court dates. How ICE is changing its tactics

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Charles Hicks was at the gym when his husband called from the car to say he was being followed, Hicks recalled. His husband pulled over by their home, and Hicks watched on FaceTime as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent smashed his husband’s window.

He rushed to his Meridian apartment, but by then his husband was gone. Hicks, a U.S. citizen, already had started the process to get his husband legal status, he said. He and his husband had talked about the possibility of immigration enforcement, but Hicks said it still didn’t make him ready.

The Statesman is not naming the husband because Hicks said his husband fears repercussions for his case.

“I was not really prepared to watch that or to hear that,” Hicks said by phone. ICE agents screamed and yelled at his husband in the car, he said. “The No. 1 feeling that I had was just a pit in my stomach.”

Being in the United States without authorization is enough grounds to start the deportation process, and some immigrants who are here legally can also be removed. But under President Donald Trump, ICE agents in Idaho have been changing their tactics and using some strategies more often, according to local immigration lawyers. That includes smashing car windows, like with Hicks’ husband.

ICE did not respond to a request for comment sent via its official media email.

ICE agents also have conducted more arrests at ICE check-ins, which are routine meetings for agents to keep tabs on people going through the immigration process. Agents have also focused more on workplace enforcement, lawyers said. ICE isn’t necessarily going out to farms, but agents have been going to businesses to look for people employing undocumented immigrants, according to Neal Dougherty, a Nampa lawyer and partner at Ramirez-Smith Law.

The Owyhee County Sheriff’s Office and the Idaho State Police also have signed cooperation agreements with ICE, known as 287(g) agreements.

Overall, immigration arrests have increased over 900% in Idaho since Trump took office, according to The New York Times.

There aren’t increases in ICE’s resources or agents, said J.J. Despain, managing attorney for Wilner & O’Reilly’s Boise office, but ICE has lowered the bar on who it wants to deport and changed their strategies.

“Some of those are happening by surprise,” Despain told the Statesman.

The criminal justice system

In early April, a man failed to show up for his pretrial conference in Canyon County, perplexing his lawyer.

The lawyer, with the Idaho Public Defender’s Office, had been working with his client, who was charged in December 2024 with driving with a suspended or revoked driver’s license.

“I don’t know why he isn’t here today,” the lawyer told the judge in court audio obtained via a records request.

The next day, Immigration and Customs Enforcement posted a picture of the man being detained in Nampa by federal officers.

When ICE picks up people mid-case, they can face default judgments and parole or probation violations for failing to appear in court. When or if individuals ever return to the United States, there can already be a warrant out for an immigrant’s arrest, said Dougherty.

ICE picked up people while their Idaho criminal cases were ongoing before the new administration took office. But it’s happening more often now, Dougherty and Despain said, with potential consequences for the immigrants and any victims.

These aren’t all minor cases like driving with a suspended license. In one instance, a 27-year-old man from Mexico was arrested in Pocatello for child sexual abuse, child enticement and kidnapping. ICE posted a picture of him the day before his preliminary hearing, at which he failed to appear. He has since been deported, ICE spokesperson Alethea Smock said in an email. The case is listed as inactive and pending after the state asked to keep the case open.

Wood River Valley lawyer Justin McCarthy said immigrants in Idaho’s criminal justice system should finish their sentences in the Gem State.

“They should be held accountable here. … You don’t get to skate on the sentence,” McCarthy said. “What about victims? What about the victims’ families? … That person could come back, and they often do.”

An immigrant from El Salvador

Hicks had been with his husband for about five years by the time he was detained by ICE in late June. The couple married in 2023, according to a petition filed by his husband’s lawyers.

Hicks’s husband is originally from San Salvador, the capital of the Central American country of El Salvador. He came to the United States in 2018 to support his family and has worked in construction, Hicks said. His husband sends money to his mother, sisters and nephews back home, Hicks said. He hasn’t been able to see his family in years.

In 2021, his husband pleaded guilty to driving under the influence and received a withheld judgment. He was required to undergo alcohol education and was placed on unsupervised probation, according to court records. On June 5 of this year, he was found guilty of driving while using a cellphone, according to online court records.

After his arrest, the husband was sent to Elmore County first. Now he is detained in the Nevada Southern Detention Center west of Las Vegas, according to an online ICE detainee locator tool.

Hicks can’t go visit his husband in detention. The couple can conduct phone and video calls through the jail, Hicks said.

Lawyers for Hicks’ husband filed a petition in federal court to get him out of detention, arguing among other things that ICE agents didn’t show a warrant when they broke into his car and that an immigration judge was unfairly keeping him detained.

Hicks filed a petition earlier in 2025 for his husband to get residency, he said. But it will take four to six years, Hicks said.

“You should enter (the U.S.) with permission,” Hicks said. “But also, the whole process is just broken. It shouldn’t take someone five or six years to possibly get residency when they’re married to a U.S. citizen.”

Smashed windows. Missing court dates. How ICE is changing its tactics
“I was not really prepared to watch that or to hear that,” the husband of a local immigrant said.

https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article311591857.html

Kansas City Star: Court Upholds Restraining Order in Blow to ICE

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Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has criticized President Trump’s aggressive ICE raids, arguing they harm the city’s economy by spreading fear among immigrants. She notes significant business losses in Latino neighborhoods like Boyle Heights. Bass condemned the use of National Guard and Marines to quell protests, calling it excessive.

Earlier this month, a federal court upheld a restraining order against indiscriminate ICE arrests in Southern California. Bass joined a lawsuit to stop the raids, highlighting their impact on families, while adopting a bolder leadership approach amid recovery from January 2025 wildfires and her 2026 reelection campaign.

…

Bass said, “Let me just say that, because we are a city of immigrants, we have entire sectors of our economy that are dependent on immigrant labor. We have to get the fire areas rebuilt. We’re not going to get our city rebuilt without immigrant labor.”

Bass added, “And it’s not just the deportations, it’s the fear that sets in when raids occur, when people are snatched off the street. And I know you are aware that even people who are here legally, even people who are U.S. citizens, have been detained.”

Bass stated that “what I think we need is comprehensive immigration reform. I served in Congress for 12 years.” She stressed the importance of immigrant labor in post-crisis recovery and noted that ICE raid fears impact both undocumented residents and U.S. citizens.

,,,,

Court Upholds Restraining Order in Blow to ICE

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/court-upholds-restraining-order-in-blow-to-ice/ss-AA1Khr9r

Newsweek: ICE detains woman in green card process and son at Canadian border

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A New Zealand woman and her youngest son, living in Washington, were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on the Canadian border after dropping her other children off in Vancouver.

Sarah Shaw, who is waiting for a green card, and her son Isaac, 6, were arrested despite having some immigration documents. She is now being held in a detention facility in Texas.

Newsweek reached out to ICE and Shaw’s attorney for comment via email Monday morning.

Why It Matters

Since President Donald Trump‘s return to the White House in January, ICE has been seen to take a tougher stance on immigration enforcement, including against those with legal status. This has led to increased uncertainty around international travel for green card holders and those with other long-term visas.

What To Know

A GoFundMe page set up by Shaw’s friend, Victoria Besancon, explained that the mother of three had fully prepared for a quick trip across the U.S.-Canadian border on July 24 to drop off her two eldest children at Vancouver’s airport. They were headed back to New Zealand for a visit with their grandparents.

While crossing into Canada had been fine, on the return trip, immigration officials detained Shaw and Isaac.

Originally entering the U.S. sponsored by her ex-husband, Shaw is now in the process of seeking a green card independently under a domestic violence survivor’s provision. According to the GoFundMe, Shaw had work authorization but not travel permissions just yet, as part of what is known as a “combo card”, while her son did.

Her attorney, Minda Thorward, told NBC King 5 news that under previous administrations, Shaw would likely have been quickly paroled back into the U.S. by Customs and Border Protection (CBP), but that this had clearly shifted under Trump.

Despite Isaac having travel permissions, ICE still holds him in detention, with Shaw also held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas.

Besancon wrote on her GoFundMe page that Shaw works for the Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) and was set to begin grad school soon. The funding, sitting at over $33,000 Monday morning, was to cover legal fees and essentials, after she was forced to burn through savings for legal representation.

Shaw’s case is not the first of its kind, with multiple legal residents reported to have been detained by ICE in recent months. While some have known criminal records or histories, which can be reason to withdraw visas, others have claimed that they simply made mistakes with paperwork and should be released.

What People Are Saying

Victoria Besancon, Shaw’s friend, speaking to NBC King 5: “Sarah had been waiting on some travel documents to be approved. But once her visa and her children’s visas were cleared, she felt comfortable taking them to Canada. We assumed everything was fine.

“The main thing Sarah has expressed throughout this ordeal is just absolute shock and devastation. She truly believed she had done everything that was required of her.”

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, in a recent statement on immigration enforcement: “The fact of the matter is those who are in our country illegally have a choice—they can leave the country voluntarily or be arrested and deported. The United States taxpayer is generously offering free flights and a $1,000 to illegal aliens who self-deport using the CBP Home app. If they leave now, they preserve the potential opportunity to come back the legal, right way. The choice is theirs.”

What’s Next

Shaw is yet to show up on ICE’s inmate detainee locator, with her friends and legal team urging the agency to release her and her son.

ICE detains woman in green card process and son at Canadian border
The mother of three thought she had her paperwork in order when making a quick trip to Vancouver.

https://www.newsweek.com/domestic-violence-survivor-detained-ice-us-canada-border-2111838

Newsweek: Green card applicant arrested by ICE while driving to grocery store

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A Los Angeles doctor has told how she watched on FaceTime as her husband, a Tunisian musician with a pending green card application, was arrested by federal immigration agents on what she called “probably the worst day of my life.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents pulled over Rami Othmane while he was driving to a grocery store in Pasadena on July 13, the Associated Press (AP) reported, before he pulled out paperwork he was carrying.

His wife, Dr. Wafaa Alrashid, who is a U.S. citizen and chief medical officer at Huntington Hospital, told the AP she watched events unfold over the video call, “They didn’t care, they said, ‘Please step out of the car,” she recalled.

Confirming the arrest, Department of Homeland Secuity’s (DHS) assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Newsweek via email on Monday that Othmane’s “B-2 tourist visa expired more than nine years ago. He will remain in custody at ICE’s Eloy Detention Center pending his removal proceedings.”

Alrashid said her husband has since been subjected to “inhumane treatment.” The DHS told California news station KABC in a statement that detainees recieve “proper meals, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with lawyers and their family members.”

Newsweek contacted the family via GoFundMe for comment on Monday.

Why It Matters

The administration is pushing forward with plans to carry out widespread deportations as part of President Donald Trump‘s immigration crackdown.

In addition to people living in the country without legal status, immigrants with valid documentation, including green cards and visas, have been detained. Newsweek has documented dozens of cases involving green card holders and applicants who were swept up in the ICE raids.

What To Know

Alrashid told the AP her husband has lived in the U.S. since 2015, and though he overstayed his initial visa, a deportation order against him was dismissed in 2020. They married in March 2025 and Othmane promptly filed for his green card, Alrashid said.

On learning her husband had been stopped, Alrashid got into her car and tracked his location on her phone, the AP reported. She reached the scene just in time to catch a glimpse of the outline of his head through the back window of a vehicle as it drove away, the agency said.

“Agents blocked his car, did not show a warrant and did not identify themselves,” Othmane’s family said in a GoFundMe set up to raise financial support.

The family said Othmane suffers from chronic pain and has an untreated tumor.

Othmane remains in federal custody at an immigration detention facility in Arizona.

“When they took him, he was wearing shorts and a t-shirt and flip-flops,” Alrashid told a rally of fellow musicians, immigration advocates and activists outside the facility more than a week after his arrest.

“So he was freezing. Also, there are no beds, no pillows, no blankets, no soap, No toothbrushes and toothpaste. And when you’re in a room with people, bathrooms open, there’s no door. So it’s very dehumanizing, it’s undignifying, the food is not great either.”

What People Are Saying

Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Newsweek in an emailed statement on Monday: “Rami Jilani Othmane, an illegal alien from Tunisia, was arrested by CBP on July 13. His B-2 tourist visa expired more than nine years ago. He will remain in custody at ICE’s Eloy Detention Center pending his removal proceedings.

“President Trump and Secretary Noem are committed to restoring integrity to the visa program and ensuring it is not abused to allow aliens a permanent one-way ticket to remain in the U.S.

“The fact of the matter is those who are in our country illegally have a choice—they can leave the country voluntarily or be arrested and deported. The United States taxpayer is generously offering free flights and a $1,000 to illegal aliens who self-deport using the CBP Home app. If they leave now, they preserve the potential opportunity to come back the legal, right way. The choice is theirs.”

Dr. Wafaa Alrashid wrote in a post on GoFundMe: “This is not just an immigration issue—this is a human rights crisis happening in downtown Los Angeles. My husband has been subjected to 12 days of inhumane treatment in a federal building. He is not a criminal. He is a kind, peaceful man with an open immigration petition. He should be with his family, not sleeping on a concrete floor without medical care.”

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement to KABC: “Any allegations that detainees are not receiving medical care or conditions are “inhumane” are FALSE. All detainees are provided with proper meals, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with lawyers and their family members.”

What Happens Next

Othmane will remain in ICE custody, pending further removal proceedings.

Green card applicant arrested by ICE while driving to grocery store
Rami Othmane’s wife, a California doctor, told how she watched it happen over FaceTime.

https://www.newsweek.com/green-card-applicant-arrested-ice-grocery-store-california-2108413

Newsweek: Justice Department Issues Birthright Citizenship Update

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The U.S. Department of Justice has released an update confirming that it plans to ask the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of President Donald Trump‘s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship.

The announcement was disclosed in a joint status report filed Wednesday, August 6, 2025, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.

Why It Matters

The Justice Department’s plan to seek a Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship—entitled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship”—marks a critical juncture in the national debate over immigration and constitutional rights.

Signed on January 20, 2025, it directs the federal government to deny citizenship documents to children born in the U.S. to undocumented or temporary immigrant parents.

At stake is the interpretation of the 14th Amendment, which has long been understood to guarantee citizenship to nearly all individuals born on U.S. soil. A ruling in favor of the order could reshape federal authority over citizenship, impact millions of U.S.-born children, and redefine the limits of executive power—making this one of the most consequential legal battles in recent memory.

What To Know

On February 6, 2025, the district court in Seattle issued a nationwide preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of President Trump’s executive order.

The case under review, State of Washington v. Trump, was just one of several ongoing legal challenges in which lower courts have largely rejected the administration’s legal theory. District courts in Maryland (February 5), New Hampshire (February 10), and Massachusetts (February 13), have each upheld that the order conflicted with constitutional protections and halted its enforcement in their respective jurisdictions.

One of those judges, U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin, an appointee of former President Barack Obama who sits on the federal bench in Boston, granted a nationwide preliminary injunction, affirming that the constitutional guarantee of citizenship applies broadly, and finding the policy to be, “unconstitutional and contrary to a federal statute.”

The government appealed the ruling and sought partial stays from the district court, the Ninth Circuit, and the Supreme Court. After the Supreme Court denied a partial stay, the Ninth Circuit requested further briefing and, on July 23, upheld the injunction.

The new update came in a joint status report filed August 6, 2025, in which the DOJ stated that Solicitor General D. John Sauer intends to file a petition “expeditiously” for certiorari—a legal term that refers to the process by which a higher court (most commonly the U.S. Supreme Court), agrees to review a lower court’s decision—in order to place the case before the Court during its next term, which begins in October.

This means the Justice Department has now formally indicated it will seek a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of President Trump’s executive order; though it has not yet chosen which specific case—or combination of ongoing cases—it will use as the basis for its appeal.

The parties plan to update the court further once those appellate steps are finalized.

Fourteenth Amendment At Stake

Since the adoption of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution on July 9, 1868, the citizenship of persons born in the United States has been controlled by its Citizenship Clause, which states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Courts have consistently upheld this principle for more than a century, most notably in the 1898 Supreme Court case United States v. Wong Kim Ark.

However, the Trump administration argues that the amendment should not apply to children of parents who lack permanent legal status, a position that has been repeatedly rejected by lower courts.

What People Are Saying

President Trump, during an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, December 8, 2024, said: “Do you know if somebody sets a foot—just a foot, one foot, you don’t need two—on our land, ‘Congratulations you are now a citizen of the United States of America,’ … Yes, we’re going to end that, because it’s ridiculous.” Adding: “…we’re going to have to get it changed. We’ll maybe have to go back to the people, but we have to end it. … We’re the only country that has it, you know.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters in June 2025: “Birthright citizenship will be decided in October, in the next session by the Supreme Court.”

DOJ attorneys wrote in the filing: “In light of the Ninth Circuit’s decision, Defendants represent that the Solicitor General plans to seek certiorari expeditiously to enable the Supreme Court to settle the lawfulness of the Citizenship Order next Term.”

Jessica Levinson, constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School, said: “You can’t ‘executive order’ your way out of the Constitution. If you want to end birthright citizenship, you need to amend the Constitution, not issue an executive order.”

What Happens Next

The Justice Department must decide which case or combination of cases it will use to challenge lower court rulings and bring the birthright citizenship issue before the Supreme Court. Once it makes that decision, the DOJ will file a petition for certiorari.

The Court is not required to accept every petition, but because this involves a major constitutional question, it is likely to grant review. If that happens, the Court could hear arguments in 2026 and issue a ruling by June of that year.

For now, the Justice Department and attorneys representing plaintiff states—including Washington, Arizona, Illinois, and Oregon—have agreed to submit another update once the appellate process is clarified or if further proceedings in the district court are required. Until then, the order remains unenforceable, lower court rulings blocking Trump’s executive order remain in effect, and current birthright citizenship protections continue to apply.

What part of Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment is so hard to understand? Only a Totally Retarded Dumb-Assed Idiot (TRDAI) could miss the meaning of it:

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Unfortunately there seems to be no shortage of TRDAIs in the Trump regime. 🙁

Justice Department Issues Birthright Citizenship Update
Fight over Trump’s order to deny birthright citizenship heads toward Supreme Court, with 14th Amendment protections at stake

https://www.newsweek.com/justice-department-issues-birthright-citizenship-update-2110176

San Francisco Chronicle: Trump asks SCOTUS to allow profiling in California ICE raids

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Any attorney who files or argues in favor of this appeal should be disbarred!

Any justice who votes in favor of this appeal should impeached and removed!

The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to allow officers to arrest suspected undocumented immigrants in Southern California because of how they look, what language they’re speaking and what kind of work they’re doing, factors that federal judges have found to be baseless and discriminatory.

Last month’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Maame Frimpong, upheld by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, “threatens to upend immigration officials’ ability to enforce the immigration laws in the Central District of California,” D. John Sauer, the Justice Department’s solicitor general, said Thursday in a filing with the Supreme Court. “This Court should end this attempted judicial usurpation of immigration-enforcement functions” and suspend the injunction while the case is argued in the lower courts, Sauer wrote.

The Central District, which includes Los Angeles County and six other counties, has nearly 20 million residents, more than any other federal court district in the nation. It became the focus of legal disputes over immigration enforcement after President Donald Trump took control of the California National Guard in June and sent thousands of its troops to the streets in Los Angeles to defend immigration agents against protesters of workplace raids.

A 9th Circuit panel upheld Trump’s commandeering of the National Guard, rejecting a lawsuit by Gov. Gavin Newsom. But Frimpong, an appointee of President Joe Biden, ruled July 11 that immigration officers were overstepping legal boundaries in making the arrests, and issued a temporary restraining order against their practices.

In a ruling Aug. 1 upholding the judge’s decision, another 9th Circuit panel said federal officers had been seizing people from the streets and workplaces based on four factors: their apparent race or ethnicity, the language they spoke or accent in their voice, their presence in a location such as a car wash or an agricultural site, and the type of work they were doing.

That would justify the arrest of anyone “who appears Hispanic, speaks Spanish or English with an accent, wears work clothes, and stands near a carwash, in front of a Home Depot, or at a bus stop,” the panel’s three judges said. They agreed with Frimpong that officers could not rely on any or all of those factors as the basis for an arrest.

But the Trump administration’s lawyers said those factors were valid reasons for immigration arrests in the Central District.

In April, U.S. District Judge Jennifer Thurston issued a similar order against the Border Patrol, prohibiting immigration arrests in the Eastern District of California unless officers have a reasonable suspicion that a person is breaking the law. The district is based in Sacramento and extends from Fresno to the Oregon border.

“You can’t just walk up to people with brown skin and say, ‘Give me your papers,’” Thurston, a Biden appointee, said at a court hearing, CalMatters reported. The Trump administration has appealed her injunction to the 9th Circuit.

The administration’s compliance with the Central District court order was questioned by immigrant advocates on Wednesday after a raid on a Home Depot store near MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, in which officers said 16 Latin American workers were detained. An American Civil Liberties Union attorney, Mohammad Tajsar, said the government “seems unwilling to fulfill the aims of its racist mass deportation agenda without breaking the law.”

There is ample evidence that many businesses in the district “unlawfully employ illegal aliens and are known to hire them on a day-to-day basis; that certain types of jobs — like day labor, landscaping, and construction — are most attractive to illegal aliens because they often do not require paperwork; that the vast majority of illegal aliens in the District come from Mexico or Central America; and that many only speak Spanish,” Sauer told the Supreme Court.

“No one thinks that speaking Spanish or working in construction always creates reasonable suspicion” that someone is an illegal immigrant, the Justice Department attorney said. “But in many situations, such factors — alone or in combination — can heighten the likelihood that someone is unlawfully present in the United States.”

The Supreme Court told lawyers for the immigrants to file a response by Tuesday. 

The case is Noem v. Perdomo, No. 25A169.

Trump asks SCOTUS to allow profiling in California ICE raids
The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to let officers arrest suspected undocumented immigrants in Southern California because of how they look.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/scotus-immigration-california-20809308.php

Irish Star: White House orders NASA to deliberately destroy two important satellites monitoring climate change

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NASA has been given orders by the White House to destroy two major satellites in space that are used by farmers, scientists, as well as oil and gas companies.

NASA has been given orders by the White House to destroy two major satellites in space that are used by farmers, scientists, as well as oil and gas companies.

According to NPR, the data from the satellites provides detailed information about carbon dioxide and crop health. The outlet stated that the objects are the only two federally used satellites that provide information built to specifically monitor planet-warming greenhouse gases.

It is currently unclear why the Trump administration seeks to destroy the satellites, as they are state-of-the-art and were expected to last for several more years. In 2023, an official data review found that the data stored there was “of exceptionally high quality,” and they recommended continuing the mission for at least three more years. It comes after a chilling map revealed the US regions where 75% of people will die in a nuclear World War 3.

Both missions, known as the Orbiting Carbon Observatories, reportedly used identical measurement devices to measure carbon dioxide and plant growth around the globe. While the devices were identical, one of the satellites is actually attached to the International Space Station.

Should NASA choose to comply with the directive, the standalone satellite will burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere. The mission has since been dubbed Phase F, per David Crisp, a longtime NASA scientist who designed the instruments and managed the missions until he retired in 2022.

“What I have heard is direct communications from people who were making those plans, who weren’t allowed to tell me that that’s what they were told to do,” Crisp said to NPR. “But they were allowed to ask me questions.”

“They were asking me very sharp questions. The only thing that would have motivated those questions was [that] somebody told them to come up with a termination plan,” he added. According to Crisp, it makes no sense why Trump would order the termination of the satellites.

Crisp commented that it makes “no economic sense to terminate NASA missions that are returning incredibly valuable data.” According to the expert, maintaining the two observatories only costs $15 million per year, barely a dent in the agency’s $25.4 billion budget.

Two other NASA scientists have confirmed that the Trump administration had contacted mission leaders to make plans for the termination of other projects that would lose funding under Trump’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year.

Several scientists have expressed outrage at the proposal and argued that it could precipitate an end to the US’s leadership in space.To prevent this, lawmakers have attempted to draw up a counter to Trump’s plan to keep NASA’s budget roughly in line.

“We rejected cuts that would have devastated NASA science by 47 percent and would have terminated 55 operating and planned missions,” said Senator and top appropriator Chris Van Hollen, per Bloomberg. “Eliminating funds or scaling down the operations of Earth-observing satellites would be catastrophic and would severely impair our ability to forecast, manage, and respond to severe weather and climate disasters House representative and Committee on Science, Space and Technology ranking member Zoe Lofgren

“The Trump administration is forcing the proposed cuts in its FY26 budget request on already appropriated FY25 funds,” she added. “This is illegal.”

It comes after a Trump family member revealed his body is “rotting inside” as she delivered a terrifying update on the president’s health.

https://www.irishstar.com/news/us-news/white-house-orders-nasa-deliberately-35680658

Raw Story: ‘Please disregard!’ ICE kills lucrative bonuses within hours of reporters asking questions

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, announced this week that it was offering “cash bonuses” to help meet President Donald Trump’s quotas for deportation targets.

However, The New York Times reported Tuesday that once they started asking questions, the announcement was quickly withdrawn.

ICE announced Tuesday morning it would implement a 30-day pilot program, offering agents a bonus for deporting individuals more quickly. The agreement would pay $200 for each immigrant that a law enforcement officer can deport within seven days of being arrested. They’ll get $100 if they get the migrant out in two weeks, the memo said.

According to the memo, agents are encouraged to “maximize” their bonuses by “using a fast-track process known as expedited removal, which allows immigrants without legal status to be deported without court proceedings.”

It comes at a time when ICE is facing problems in the courts because they are alleging crimes but not allowing the accused the due process allotted to them in the courts.

It took less than four hours for ICE to kill the program.

“PLEASE DISREGARD,” said a follow-up email from Liana J. Castano, an official in ICE’s field operations division, the Times reported.

When the Times requested a comment from the national Department of Homeland Security, the spokesperson said that the program isn’t in effect. The email canceling it was sent out not long after.

The Times said the idea only draws attention to the struggle for the administration to meet aggressive targets. Already, the agency has offered $50,000 signing bonuses as it tries to hire another 10,000 agents.

Trump said during the 2024 campaign that he would only deport criminals, but the administration has done the opposite, arresting people off the street who look like immigrants. The CATO Institute revealed that one in five of those arrested has no criminal history.

In July, a lower court blocked ICE agents from racially profiling the people it was arresting. Last week, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to lift a temporary restraining order that blocks immigration officers from targeting a person based on their job or the language they’re speaking.

https://www.rawstory.com/ice-cash-bonus