Tag Archives: refugees

CNN: Trump is creating new universes of people to deport

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The full scope of the Trump administration’s mass deportation plan – which has been evident in theory – is only just starting to come together in practice, and its scale has come as a surprise to many Americans.

This week, the Supreme Court blessed, for now, the administration’s effort to deport people from countries such as Cuba and Venezuela to places other than their homeland, including nations halfway around the world in Africa.

In Florida, construction began on a migrant detention center intended to be a sort of Alcatraz in the Everglades.

And CNN reported exclusively that the administration will soon make a large universe of people who had been working legally after seeking asylum eligible for deportation.

I went to the author of that report, CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez, and asked her to explain what we know and what we’re learning about how the different stories are coming together.

One thing that stuck out to me is how the totality of the administration’s actions is turning people who had been working legally in the US into undocumented immigrants now facing deportation.

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The plans that the administration has been working on are targeting people who came into the US unlawfully and then applied for asylum while in the country.

The plan here is to dismiss those asylum claims, which could affect potentially hundreds of thousands of people and then make them immediately deportable.

It also puts the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the federal agency responsible for managing federal immigration benefits, at the center of the president’s deportation campaign, because not only are they the ones that manage these benefits, but they have also been delegated the authority by the Department of Homeland Security to place these individuals in fast-track deportation proceedings and to take actions to enforce immigration laws.

This is a shift that is prompting a lot of concern. As one advocate with the ACLU put it – and I’ll just quote her – “They’re turning the agency that we think of as providing immigration benefits as an enforcement arm for ICE.”

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You’re right to say that coming into this administration, Trump officials repeatedly said their plans were to target people with criminal records.

That is a hard thing to do. It requires a lot of legwork, and their numbers in terms of arrests were relatively low compared to where they wanted to be.

The White House wants to meet at least 3,000 arrests a day, and you just cannot do that if you are only going after people with criminal records.

Analysis: Trump is creating a new universe of people to deport | CNN Politics
The puzzle pieces are starting to come together for Trump’s master deportation plan

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/26/politics/immigration-deportations-trump-asylum-seekers

New York Times: Trump Declares Dubious Emergencies to Amass Power, Scholars Say

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In disputes over protests, deportations and tariffs, the president has invoked statutes that may not provide him with the authority he claims.

To hear President Trump tell it, the nation is facing a rebellion in Los Angeles, an invasion by a Venezuelan gang and extraordinary foreign threats to its economy.

Citing this series of crises, he has sought to draw on emergency powers that Congress has scattered throughout the United States Code over the centuries, summoning the National Guard to Los Angeles over the objections of California’s governor, sending scores of migrants to El Salvador without the barest hint of due process and upending the global economy with steep tariffs.

Legal scholars say the president’s actions are not authorized by the statutes he has cited and are, instead, animated by a different goal.

“He is declaring utterly bogus emergencies for the sake of trying to expand his power, undermine the Constitution and destroy civil liberties,” said Ilya Somin, a libertarian professor at Antonin Scalia Law School who represents a wine importer and other businesses challenging some of Mr. Trump’s tariffs.

Trump Declares Dubious Emergencies to Amass Power, Scholars Say
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/10/us/politics/trump-emergency-powers-invasion.html?unlocked_article_code=1.N08.tEO-.S_2DmAE6Yws9&smid=url-share

USA Today: State Department could have an ‘Office of Remigration’: What is it?

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The Trump administration last week formally notified Congress of its plans for a sweeping reorganization of the State Department, which could include the establishment of an office focused on returning migrants living in the U.S. to their countries of origin.

It is one of several overhauls spearheaded by Secretary of State Marco Rubio as he marches forward with a broad reorganization of the State Department, first announced in April. It would also include a cut to thousands of jobs, refocus the agency’s human rights bureau on “Western values” ….

Rubio didn’t mention the Office of Remigration in his statement, and the office is not listed on a new chart on the department’s website. However, reporting from CNN and Axios say there is a proposal within a more detailed notification for an “Office of Remigration,” with both outlets independently reporting that it is described as a “hub for immigration issues and repatriation tracking.”

The proposed office would be one of three new “functional offices” formed from the existing Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, the outlets reported, all consolidated under a (Deputy Assistant Secretary of State) for Migration Matters. The three new offices are to “actively facilitate the voluntary return of migrants to their country of origin or legal status,” according to the reporting.

What is the term ‘remigration’?

The proposed name draws on a term increasingly associated in Europe with the far-right and the rise in ethnonationalist immigration attitudes, especially in Germany and Austria, that calls for mass deportation of primarily non-white immigrants. It has become a shorthand to refer to policy proposals triumphed by some European right-wing parties, extremists and neo-Nazi activists that call for forceful mass deportation of migrants.

It attracted buzz in 2023 after a jury of German linguists named in “non-word” of the year in its annual ranking of misleading or inappropriate words that are used to discriminate or gloss over issues. While it has become a euphemism for forced repatriation in several Western and Central European countries, it is a largely unfamiliar term in the American political lexicon.

In the final weeks of his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump used the term remigration in a post to the social media site X.

“As President I will immediately end the migrant invasion of America. We will stop all migrant flights, end all illegal entries, terminate the Kamala phone app for smuggling illegals (CBP One App), revoke deportation immunity, suspend refugee resettlement, and return Kamala’s illegal migrants to their home countries (also known as remigration),” he said in the post.

State Department could have an ‘Office of Remigration’: What is it?
The office is tied to a reorganization plan of the State Department to focus on removing immigrants, taking its name from a far-right European term.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/06/02/office-of-remigration/83989772007

Reuters: State Dept overhaul will cut thousands of jobs, push ‘Western values’

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  • More than 300 bureaus and offices to be reorganized or eliminated
  • Agency’s domestic workforce to be reduced by 3,448
  • Offices will pivot to promoting Western values and free markets

The Trump administration on Thursday formally notified Congress of its plans for a major overhaul of the State Department, which will cut thousands of jobs, refocus the agency’s human rights bureau on “Western values” and reorient the refugee bureau toward returning migrants to their countries of origin.

Eh? People become refugees because life in their countries of origin has become dangerous or unbearable. Returning them to their countries of origin only continues their misery. It’s also a violation of international treaties regarding refugees.

The shake-up comes as part of an unprecedented push by President Donald Trump to shrink the federal bureaucracy and align what remains with his “America First” priorities.

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The role of a top official for civilian security, democracy, and human rights will be eliminated, along with the offices that monitored war crimes and conflicts around the world.

A new Senate-confirmed role of under secretary for foreign assistance and humanitarian affairs will oversee the new Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, which is to be reorganized to “ground the Department’s values-based diplomacy in traditional Western conceptions of core freedoms” and headed by a deputy assistant secretary for “Democracy and Western Values.”

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Within the new bureau, an Office of Free Markets and Free Labor will promote free-market principles and an Office of Natural Rights will work on what the Trump administration sees as “free speech backsliding in Europe and other developed nations.”

Rubio on Wednesday said foreign officials who the Trump administration deems to be involved in censorship will be banned from visiting the U.S.

The Bureau for Population, Refugees and Migration will also be “substantially reorganized to shift focus towards supporting the Administration’s efforts to return illegal aliens to their country of origin or legal status,” the summary said.

As Reuters reported earlier this month, the refugee bureau will also take responsibility for the U.S. response to major disasters overseas.

In other words, whites only and refugees need not apply. 🙁

State Dept overhaul will cut thousands of jobs, push ‘Western values’
The Trump administration on Thursday formally notified Congress of its plans for a major overhaul of the State Department, which will cut thousands of jobs, refocus the agency’s human rights bureau on “Western values” and reorient the refugee bureau toward returning migrants to their countries of origin.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/state-dept-broad-reorganization-plan-submitted-congress-2025-05-29

Wired: The Trump Administration Wants to Create an ‘Office of Remigration’

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“Remigration”—a far-right European plan to expel minorities and immigrants from Western nations—may soon have a dedicated office following a Trump administration reorganization of the State Department.

As part of a sweeping reorganization of the State Department, the Trump administration is creating an Office of Remigration. Remigration is an immigration policy embraced by extremists that calls for the removal of all migrants—including “non-assimilated” citizens—with the goal of creating white ethnostates in Western countries.

The details of the plan are contained in a 136-page notification document sent by the State Department to six Congressional commitees—including the House Foreign Affairs and Appropriations Committees and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—for approval by July 1, according to a copy reviewed by WIRED.

“The Office of Remigration will serve as the [Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration]’s hub for immigration issues and repatriation tracking,” the document reads. “It will provide a policy platform for interagency coordination with DHS and other agencies on removals/repatriations, and “for intra-agency policy work to advance the President’s immigration agenda.”

The notification says that the Office of Remigration “will also actively facilitate the voluntary return of migrants to their country of origin or legal status,” which is a key aim of remigration ideology.

There are three phases to “remigration”:

On [Martin Sellner’s] site, he lays out a three-phase plan to implement remigration. The first phase, dubbed the “Immediate Stabilization of Asylum Chaos,” has striking similarities to Trump’s current immigration policies.

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The second phase of Sellner’s plan, following the initial removal of undocumented immigrants, includes the removal of “migrants who entered the country legally and have a residence/work permit, or temporary visa, but are an economical, criminal or cultural burden.”

The final phase targets citizens who are seen as “non assimilated,”and it involves passing laws to “target parallel societies with economic and cultural pressure” and entice citizens to migrate abroad with the use of loans, payments, and other assistance. The plan, Sellner claims, will allow “the wounds of multiculturalism to heal.”

This is like Hitler’s Mein Kampf, all laid out in writing and scarcely anybody is paying attention.

The Trump Administration Wants to Create an ‘Office of Remigration’ to Kick Immigrants Out of the Country
“Remigration”—a far-right European plan to expel minorities and immigrants from Western nations—may soon have a dedicated office following a Trump administration reorganization of the State Department.

https://www.wired.com/story/trump-office-remigration-state-department-europe-far-right

Western Journal: Ruling South African Party Furious After White Refugees Escape to US; Want ‘Accountability for Historic Privilege’

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The Episcopal Church rejected the Trump administration’s request for assistance, saying it would not help the 59 South African refugees that arrived in the U.S. on Monday.

The church’s presiding bishop, Sean Rowe, took it a step further and said the Episcopal Migration Ministries would be terminating its 40-year-old partnership with the U.S. government, according to a statement from the church published Monday.

“In light of our church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we are not able to take this step,” Rowe’s statement read.

“Accordingly, we have determined that, by the end of the federal fiscal year, we will conclude our refugee resettlement grant agreements with the U.S. federal government,” Rowe said.

In January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order largely suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, a program the church participated in, to control the immigration crisis created by the Biden administration.

“Then, just over two weeks ago, the federal government informed Episcopal Migration Ministries that under the terms of our federal grant, we are expected to resettle white Afrikaners from South Africa whom the U.S. government has classified as refugees,” Rowe said in his Monday statement.

Ruling South African Party Furious After White Refugees Escape to US; Want ‘Accountability for Historic Privilege’
After 40 years, in which it settled nearly 110,000 refugees, the Episcopal Church ended its refugee agreement with the federal government.
Ruling South African Party Furious After White Refugees Escape to US, Wanted to Impose ‘Accountability for Historic Privilege’