Tag Archives: Trump Administration

Newsweek: ICE detains green card holder returning from vacation after 23 years in US

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A Filipino immigrant and green card holder with prior criminal charges for distributing controlled substances was detained at an airport and is currently in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody.

Sonny Lasquite was detained after a vacation in the Bahamas by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on July 28 at Charlotte Douglas International Airport in Charlotte, North Carolina, according to relatives who spoke with GMA News Online.

Why It Matters

Lasquite’s arrest was due to a red flag in the federal system linked to a 2012 narcotics case. ICE records reviewed by Newsweek show Lasquite currently being held at the Stewart Detention Center in Stewart County, Georgia.

Lasquite’s detention illustrated how lawful permanent residents could face immigration enforcement after arrests at ports of entry, raising questions about the consequences of past criminal convictions for long-term residents and the humanitarian impact on families that rely on detained relatives for financial and caregiving support.

What To Know

Lasquite reportedly lived in the U.S. for 23 years and worked as a banquet server in Las Vegas.

From roughly December 2010 to about August 2012, Lasquite “intentionally and knowingly” possessed with the intent to distribute Schedule IV narcotics, including diazepam, alprazolam, zolpidem and carisoprodol, according to court records in the Southern District of New York reviewed by Newsweek.

But records indicate that he promptly took responsibility for his actions and cooperated with the federal government in identifying charged and uncharged co-conspirators. A 2014 sentencing memorandum by former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said that Lasquite helped stop narcotics distribution practices and led to the prosecutions of others.

“You are, as the government points out, the only defendant who cooperated,” Bharara said on September 9, 2014. “You did that at some risk to yourself. I think there needs to be recognition of that and proportionate sentencing between you and the other defendants.

“I feel pretty confident that you’re not going to commit any crimes in the future, and I join the government in wishing you well and hopefully being able to put this behind you.”

The court ultimately sentenced Lasquite to time served and no additional prison time, ordering him to pay $200.

Lasquite has put that time of his life behind him, according to family and friends, who created a GoFundMe on Saturday to raise $30,000 for legal representation, filing fees, and “essential expenses to fight for Sonny’s right to remain in the U.S. and reunite with his family.”

As of Monday morning, nearly $11,600 had been raised from 56 donations. The fundraiser was started by Vivian Hirano, of Las Vegas, who writes that Lasquite “has had no further legal troubles and has been a law-abiding, contributing member of his community” since his 2012 criminal conviction.

Newsweek reached out to Hirano via the GoFundMe page for comment.

“Sonny Lasquite is more than a name—he is a beloved son, brother, uncle and friend whose kindness has touched countless lives,” the GoFundMe says. “For decades, Sonny has lived peacefully in the United States, working hard, caring for his elderly mother, and always putting others before himself. He is the kind of person who never hesitates to help, greet you with a warm smile, or offer comfort when you need it most.”

Aside from Lasquite’s detention causing his mother’s health to “decline under the weight of this stress,” his own health is reportedly taking a toll. Lasquite has purportedly faced medical neglect during detention, including delayed access to his blood pressure medication and proper care for his recent fever, according to Hirono.

What People Are Saying

Immigration attorney Rosanna Berardi told Newsweek on Monday that cases like these are “not new and have been happening for decades.”

She said: “Under current U.S. immigration law, lawful permanent residents—even those who have lived in the country for most of their lives—remain vulnerable to removal proceedings if they are convicted of certain drug-related offenses. This is true regardless of how much time has passed since the conviction or how significantly they have contributed to their communities in the years afterward.

“Because of this, we strongly encourage our clients to pursue U.S. citizenship as soon as they are eligible. Naturalized citizens cannot be deported for criminal convictions in the same way, providing a crucial safeguard against the devastating consequences of removal.”

Vivian Hirano on Sonny Lasquite’s GoFundMe page: “Sonny is the primary breadwinner of his family, providing both financial and emotional support to his loved ones. His income helps cover essential expenses, including his elderly mother’s medical needs and daily living costs.”

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Friday in Illinois called allegations of ICE detaining immigrants without criminal convictions “false,” according to NewsNation: “I’m here today because elected leaders in Illinois are ignoring the law. In fact, they’re being obstructionists when it comes to getting dangerous criminals off of their streets. They’re deciding that dangerous criminals that are murderers, rapists, money launderers, have committed assaults, and that are trafficking children are more important than the families who live in the communities here.”

What Happens Next

Lasquite’s case was pending in immigration custody, and his legal options were constrained by immigration statutes that treat certain controlled-substance convictions as grounds for removal.

ICE detains green card holder returning from vacation after 23 years in US
The Filipino immigrant helped the government over a decade ago to arrest narcotics co-conspirators, receiving a reduced sentence and monetary fine.

https://www.newsweek.com/ice-illegal-immigration-filipino-detained-criminal-2111738

Another article:

Outrage Sparked Over ICE Detention Conditions

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/outrage-sparked-over-ice-detention-conditions/ss-AA1KGVSw

MSNBC: ICE is now the highest-funded law enforcement agency. That’s bad news for our democracy.

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Trump is building a police force that is more politically loyal, unencumbered by standards and largely shielded from democratic accountability.

The Department of Homeland Security has put its Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s recruitment efforts into overdrive. As ICE attempts to boost its numbers to carry out Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, the agency is carrying out an ad blitz. According to 404 Media, DHS is looking to run ads on streaming services like HBO Max and Hulu.

The landing page on the Join.ICE.gov website features an image of Uncle Sam with the all-capped headline “America Needs You.” Underneath, it eerily states: “America has been invaded by criminals and predators. We need YOU to get them out.”

When it comes to hiring requirements, the immigration agency is lowering the bar. Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced that the agency would be eliminating the age cap for new hires, allowing people older than 40 and as young as 18 to join ICE’s ranks.

DHS is not only making it easier to become an ICE agent, but more financially attractive as well. The agency’s website touts that prospective agents could be entitled to signing bonuses of up to $50,000, the possibility of up to $60,000 in student loan repayment, and 25% premium pay.

The recruitment push is working. We know that it has brought in at least one new high-profile agent: 59-year-old actor and vocal Trump supporter Dean Cain, who once played Superman on TV. He shared on social media that he plans to become an ICE officer to “save America.”

Superman, literally an undocumented alien — like an actual alien from outer space — is now an ICE agent. You can’t make this stuff up.

Jokes aside, this drive to hire more personnel seems to be ideologically driven. ICE used to require employees to have an undergraduate degree, but not anymore. Apparently, you don’t even need a uniform. So many of the arrests we’re witnessing are being carried out by masked plainclothes officers.

The only real requirements to becoming an ICE agent these days seem to be a beating heart and an alignment with Trump’s deportation crackdown.

It’s almost like the president is building an army of sycophants — and he has the money to do it. Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act set aside nearly $170 billion for immigration enforcement and border security efforts, including $75 billion in extra funding for ICE specifically, making ICE the highest-funded law enforcement agency in the federal government.

Just to put this into perspective: ICE now receives more funds and resources than most national militaries. It’s rapidly becoming the nation’s largest domestic police force, its size and power doubling that of the FBI.

It seems like the Trump administration is building up ICE to be an alternative force that’s bigger, more politically loyal, unencumbered by standards and largely shielded from democratic accountability.

Ali Velshi: ICE is now the highest-funded law enforcement agency. That’s bad news for our democracy.
Trump is building a police force that is more politically loyal, unencumbered by standards and largely shielded from democratic accountability.

https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/ice-recruitment-trump-police-force-rcna224319

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

Independent: Trump team weighs releasing Ghislaine Maxwell’s interview with DOJ officials over Epstein case: report

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It was not previously known that such a recording existed, but a final decision in whether to release it or not has yet to be made

The Trump administration is considering publicly releasing an audio recording of an interview with Ghislaine Maxwell and senior officials from the Department of Justice about Jeffrey Epstein, according to a new report.

It was not previously known that such a recording existed, and officials are currently discussing whether or not to release a transcript of the discussion between the British socialite and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.

Maxwell, 63, was the disgraced financier’s ex-girlfriend, and is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence after her 2021 conviction for her role in a scheme to sexually exploit and abuse multiple girls. Her attorneys have taken an appeal of her conviction to the Supreme Court.

The interview between the socialite and the DOJ came following ongoing pressure on the administration to be more transparent over the Epstein case, following a July 6 memo which stated that convicted pedophile died by suicide in 2019 and there was no evidence to support the existence of a so-called “client list.” Such claims caused uproar among the MAGA faithful.

Sources told CNN that the audio recording was currently being transcribed and digitized, but that some parts that may reveal sensitive information – like the names of victims – would need to be redacted.

The outlet reported that as of Tuesday morning, a final decision on whether to release the recording and the transcript, had not been made.

CNN also reported that, per its sources, some within the administration were concerned that making details from the interview public would bring the Epstein controversy back into the public spotlight, when many officials close to the president believe the story has largely died down.

When asked for comment by The Independent, the administration denied that any such decisions were being made about the transcript, and that Trump had already addressed the issue.

In a statement, Steven Cheung, White House Communications Director, said: “This is nothing more than CNN trying desperately to create news out of old news. He already addressed this issue in an interview with Newsmax, a real news outlet that routinely gets better ratings than CNN.”

Discussions about the recordings and transcript come after the DoJ admitted that the grand jury transcripts in Maxwell’s criminal case, contain mostly publicly available information.

Trump previously asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to make public “any and all pertinent” grand jury transcripts in both the Epstein and Maxwell cases, in order to stymie the ongoing furore.

A judge overseeing Maxwell’s case asked the government to provide more information to the court. The department provided a version of the transcripts that identifies which information is not publicly available. However, Bondi admitted in a Monday filing that “much” of the information in the transcripts was already made publicly available.

Trump weighs releasing Ghislaine Maxwell’s Epstein interview with DOJ: report
It was not previously known that such a recording existed, but a final decision in whether to release it or not has yet to be made

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/ghislaine-maxwell-doj-interview-epstein-b2802282.html

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

CBS News: Border agents directed to stop deportations under Trump’s asylum ban, sources say

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U.S. border agents have been directed to stop deporting migrants under President Trump’s ban on asylum claims, following a federal court order that said the measure could not be used to completely suspend humanitarian protections for asylum-seekers, two Department of Homeland Security officials told CBS News.

The move effectively lifts a sweeping policy that had closed the American asylum system to those entering the U.S. illegally or without proper documents. It’s a measure the second Trump administration has credited for a steep drop in illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, where officials last month reported the lowest monthly level of migrant apprehensions on record.

Mr. Trump’s asylum crackdown was unprecedented in scope. The proclamation underpinning it, issued just hours after he returned to the White House in January, gave U.S. border officials the power to summarily deport migrants without allowing them to request asylum, a right enshrined in American law for decades. 

Mr. Trump said the extraordinary action was necessary due to what he called an “invasion” of migrants under the Biden administration, which faced record levels of illegal crossings at the southern border until it too restricted asylum last year. 

On Friday, a federal appeals court lifted its pause on a lower judge’s ruling that found Mr. Trump’s decree violated U.S. asylum laws. While the appellate court narrowed the lower court’s order, saying Mr. Trump’s proclamation could be used to pause access to the asylum system, it also ruled the U.S. government could not disregard other laws that bar officials from deporting migrants to places where they could be tortured or persecuted.

Those laws require the U.S. to grant legal protections — known as “withholding of removal” and protection under the United Nations Convention Against Torture — to migrants who prove they would likely face persecution or torture if deported to their home countries. Unlike asylum, those protections do not allow recipients to get permanent U.S. residency or protect them from being deported to a third party country.

Officials at Customs and Border Protection were instructed this weekend to halt deportations under Mr. Trump’s proclamation and to process migrants under U.S. immigration law, which affords foreigners on American soil the right to request humanitarian refuge, the two DHS officials said, requesting anonymity to discuss an internal directive.

CBP officials received instructions to process migrants through different mechanisms, including through a fast-track deportation procedure known as expedited removal, according to the DHS officials. While expedited removal allows for relatively quick deportations, migrants processed under the policy are also allowed to apply for asylum if they convince officials that their fears of being harmed if deported are credible.

For months, U.S. border agents had been using Mr. Trump’s asylum ban to swiftly deport those crossing into the country illegally to Mexico, their home countries and, in some cases, third party nations that had agreed to accept them. Internally, officials have dubbed those deportations “212(f) repatriations,” in reference to the legal authority Mr. Trump invoked in his proclamation.

While the lifting of Mr. Trump’s order may reopen the U.S. asylum system, those caught crossing the southern border illegally will likely remain detained while officials vet their claims. The Trump administration has largely stopped the practice of releasing migrants into the U.S. while they await their court dates, limiting releases to cases involving extraordinary circumstances. 

The Justice Department could also try to get Friday’s court order suspended by the Supreme Court, in a bid to revive Mr. Trump’s asylum ban.

In a statement to CBS News late Monday, CBP said Friday’s court order affirmed “the President’s authority to deny asylum to aliens participating in an invasion into the United States.”

CBP said the Trump administration is “committed to ensuring that aliens illegally entering the United States face consequences for their criminal actions.”

“This includes prosecution to the fullest extent of the law and rapid removal from the United States,” the agency added. “CBP will continue to process illegal/inadmissible aliens consistent with law, including mandatory detention and expedited removal.”  

After soaring to record levels in late 2023, illegal border crossings dropped sharply in former President Biden’s last year office, following increased efforts by Mexico to interdict U.S.-bound migrants and an order issued by Biden in June 2024 to restrict access to the American asylum system. But they have plunged even further since Mr. Trump took office for a second time.

In July, Border Patrol encountered just 4,600 migrants along the southern border, the lowest monthly tally ever publicly reported by the agency. It’s also a figure the Biden administration recorded in 24 hours on many days.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/border-agents-directed-to-stop-deportations-under-trumps-asylum-ban-after-court-order

Raw Story: Supreme Court used wrong statute to make monumental birthright citizenship ruling: expert

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Conservative legal scholar Jack Goldsmith revealed that the U.S. Supreme Court relied on an incorrectly cited statute to justify its shocking birthright citizen ruling.

Goldsmith, a former United States Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel under the George W. Bush administration, wrote that the decision written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett contained a key error, as Slate legal reporter Mark Joseph Stern summarized.

“Justice Barrett’s opinion in the universal injunction case rests on an error: For the purposes of historical analysis, she looked at the wrong statute and got the relevant date wrong by nearly *a century,*” wrote Stern on Bluesky Tuesday.

Goldsmith’s analysis looked at 18 interim orders that deal specifically with President Donald Trump’s administration. Notably, he specified that the cases involving a kind of ban on universal injunctions came amid lower courts’ efforts to temporarily pause Trump’s executive orders from going into effect until after they can be litigated.

The ruling in June stated that injunctions should only affect those involved in legal challenges, and shouldn’t be applied over huge swathes of the public.

It specifically referred to injunctions involving challenges to Trump’s attempts to limit birthright citizenship — a Constitutional law that states anybody born in the U.S. is a citizen. It said injunctions could only affect individuals or groups involved in the legal action, not the nation as a whole.

“The Court stated that Section 11 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 ‘endowed federal courts with jurisdiction over ‘all suits . . . in equity,’ and still today . . . ‘is what authorizes the federal courts to issue equitable remedies,'” the article cites the ruling.

However, he noted, it appears the Court didn’t look at the text or context of Section 11 when making its ruling.

“The Court’s claim that equitable remedies are authorized by Section 11 and thus ‘must have a founding-era antecedent’ is novel,'” the article continues, meaning that it’s new or unusual. “It [is] also questionable since Section 11 cannot have authorized equitable remedies in CASA.”

That’s when Goldsmith drops the hammer, saying “Section 11 is a jurisdictional statute” and that the jurisdiction in the CASA case was “based on federal question jurisdiction and suits against the United States. Neither head of jurisdiction is mentioned in Section 11, because neither existed until the last quarter of the nineteenth century. And none of the three heads of subject matter jurisdiction in Section 11 has any legal connection to CASA.”

So, under the Supreme Court’s logic “that jurisdictional statutes authorize equitable remedies, it should have looked to the state of remedies beginning in 1875, when the federal question jurisdiction statute was enacted, not 1789.”

So it seems that Amy Coney Barrett is not much brighter than the fascist who nominated her in 2020.

Supreme Court used wrong statute to make monumental birthright citizenship ruling: expert

https://www.rawstory.com/supreme-court-amy-coney-barrett

Guardian: Trump administration cuts New York City’s anti-terrorism funding days after skyscraper attack

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Federal Emergency Management Agency says city will receive $64m less this year from its urban area security fund

The Trump administration said it would cut terrorism prevention funding for New York City, according to a grant notice posted days after a gunman killed four people inside a Manhattan skyscraper.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) stated in a grant notice posted on Friday that New York City would receive $64m less this year from its urban area security fund. The amount was listed in a single line of an 80-page Fema notice on the grant program.

US Congress created the program to help cities prevent terrorist attacks.

“It makes absolutely no sense, and no justification has been given to cut NY’s allocation given the rise in the threat environment,” a spokesperson for the New York state division of homeland security and emergency services said in a statement on Monday afternoon.

Manhattan has been the site of two attacks on high-profile corporate executives in the last year. The most recent attack came from a gunman armed with an assault-style rifle in late July, who killed four people inside an office building that houses the headquarters of the NFL and several major financial firms.

New York governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, highlighted the attack in her late July letter to the US homeland security secretary Kristi Noem, asking why the Trump administration had not announced the amounts each city would receive from the program this year. Fema is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

Noem’s office did not respond to two messages from Reuters asking why the federal government cut New York’s funding.

In December 2024, the chief executive of insurance giant UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, was shot dead on the street in Manhattan in a targeted attack. And security has been particularly tight in New York City ever since the al-Qaida terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, which killed almost 3,000 people in lower Manhattan when Islamist extremists flew hijacked passenger jets into the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

Fema uses “an analysis of relative risk of terrorism” to decide how much money cities will receive, according to the grant notice posted on Friday. The agency may change the amounts later, according to the notice.

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In 2023, the agency considered city visitor counts, population density and proximity to international borders, among other factors, to determine the totals, according to a report signed by then Fema administrator Deanne Criswell.

Fema has been decreasing terrorism prevention money for New York City each year since at least fiscal year 2022. The drop is much more drastic this year at 41% year-over-year.

The New York City police department has used the funding in the past to pay for the Domain Awareness System, a network of cameras, license plate readers and detection devices, according to a 2016 statement from the former mayor Bill de Blasio’s office.

Trump administration cuts New York City’s anti-terrorism funding days after skyscraper attack
Federal Emergency Management Agency says city will receive $64m less this year from its urban area security fund

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/05/new-york-city-anti-terrorism-funding-trump-cuts

NBC News: Stanford student newspaper sues Trump officials over immigration law that they say led to chilling of free speech

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The Stanford Daily accused the administration of using immigration provisions to threaten deportation, leading to censorship and violating First Amendment rights.

Stanford University’s student newspaper sued the Trump administration Wednesday over two provisions in federal immigration law that it says the officials have wielded against those with pro-Palestinian views.

The Stanford Daily, in addition to two former college students, filed the lawsuit against Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, accusing the administration of using the provisions to threaten deportation and the revocation of visas. They say the situation has led to censorship and violations of free speech rights.

The paper’s staff members who are on visas have self-censored and declined assignments related to the war in Gaza, fearful that their reporting could jeopardize their lawful immigration status, the lawsuit said.

“In the United States of America, no one should fear a midnight knock on the door for voicing the wrong opinion,” Conor Fitzpatrick, an attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which is helping represent the plaintiffs, said in a statement. “Free speech isn’t a privilege the government hands out. Under our Constitution it is the inalienable right of every man, woman, and child.”

A senior State Department official declined to comment and directed NBC News to comments Rubio has about visa holders and complying with U.S. law.

In April, Rubio wrote in an opinion piece published on Fox News that he would be taking a “zero-tolerance approach to foreign nationals who abet terrorist organizations.”

“The Supreme Court has made clear for decades that visa holders or other aliens cannot use the First Amendment to shield otherwise impermissible actions taken to support designated foreign terrorist organizations like Hamas, Hizballah, or the Houthis, or violate other U.S. laws,” Rubio said.

Tricia McLaughlin, spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, described the lawsuit as “baseless.”

“There is no room in the United States for the rest of the world’s terrorist sympathizers, and we are under no obligation to admit them or let them stay here,” she said in a statement.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs take aim at the Deportation Provision and Revocation Provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act. The first provision allows the secretary of state to deport noncitizens if the secretary “personally determines that the alien’s admission would compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.” The second gives the secretary the power to revoke a visa or documentation at his or her discretion.

As the lawsuit points out, the Trump administration has cited the Deportation Provision as the basis for trying to deport Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil, who was arrested and detained for more than three months. Similarly, the administration used the Revocation Provision to detain Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk, who has also since been released.

Because of the administration’s use of the statutes, the lawsuit said, the Stanford Daily has received a number of requests from lawfully present noncitizens to have their names, quotes or photos removed from articles. Many international students have stopped speaking to the paper’s journalists, and current and former writers have asked for their opinion editorials to be taken down, the lawsuit said.

“The First Amendment cements America’s promise that the government may not subject a speaker to disfavored treatment because those in power do not like his or her message,” the lawsuit said. “And when a federal statute collides with First Amendment rights, the Constitution prevails.”

One of the unnamed plaintiffs appeared on the Canary Mission, the suit said. The website, run by an anonymous group, has published a detailed database of students, professors and others who it says have shared anti-Israel and antisemitic viewpoints. It has been accused of doxxing and harassment, in addition to launching personal attacks that depict pro-Palestinian activists as being in “support of terrorism,” the Middle East Studies Association of North America said. The plaintiff has stopped publishing and “voicing her true opinions” on the Palestinian territories and Israel, the suit said.

Canary Mission has told NBC News that it documents people and groups who “promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews” across the political spectrum. It did not respond to criticisms of its work.

The plaintiffs are asking the court to issue preliminary and permanent injunctions that block the officials from using the provisions against them based on engaging in what they consider protected speech.

“There’s real fear on campus and it reaches into the newsroom,” Greta Reich, the Stanford Daily’s editor-in-chief, said in a statement. “The Daily is losing the voices of a significant portion of our student population.”

Stanford student newspaper sues Trump officials over immigration law that has chilled free speech
The Stanford Daily accused the administration of using immigration provisions to threaten deportation, leading to censorship and violating First Amendment rights.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/stanford-student-newspaper-sues-trump-officials-immigration-law-rcna223477