Tag Archives: Trump Administration

Raw Story: ‘Family separation on steroids’: Expert lays into Trump plan to target newborn babies

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President Donald Trump’s administration has drawn up a draft of guidelines to block non-U.S. citizens from having children on U.S. soil and becoming citizens.

The Constitution details “birthright citizenship” in the 14th Amendment, saying that anybody born on American soil belongs to the nation. The Trump administration has tried to block that with an executive order.

Speaking to MSNBC, Slate legal analyst Mark Joseph Stern said the guidelines are a backdoor effort to reinstate the family separation policy from the early days of the first Trump administration. In that case, the government took children from their parents when they came into the U.S. In some instances, the children were given to a host family, while others were thrown in a “detention center.”

“For months, federal courts have prevented the U.S. government from even beginning to plan the implementation of this executive order, finding that it violated the 14th Amendment,” said Stern, noting that the Supreme Court then stepped in to allow it.

“What we see is that this administration doesn’t plan to give any kind of grace period to the children of undocumented immigrants. It will render them noncitizens and deportable from the moment of birth,” clarified Stern.

“The administration has also repealed a 14-year-old rule that barred ICE from entering and committing enforcement actions in and around hospitals. So, the government now has a setup where it can send ICE agents into maternity wards, as you said, to monitor births to demand papers from new mothers and fathers, and to potentially take away and deport their children, their infants, from the moment they’re born. If the parents can’t prove citizenship to their satisfaction.”

Under the new memo, there are about a dozen new classifications of people who will have their U.S. citizenship taken away.

“In fact, the trump administration has already started to quietly reintroduce family separation by relaxing restrictions that had been imposed over the last few years to prevent it from happening,” Stern noted. “The government seems ready to take away infants from their parents if they deem it necessary to effectuate immigration laws. And if this order takes effect, that baby would be deportable upon birth.”

Worse, he said, those infants could be taken, denied citizenship, and under Supreme Court rulings, they could be deported to a third-party country in which they or their parents haven’t set foot.

“This would be like family separation in the first administration on steroids, with a hugely disproportionate impact on the youngest and most vulnerable among us,” he characterized.

‘Family separation on steroids’: Expert lays into Trump plan to target newborn babies

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-family-separation

CBS News: Kristi Noem says “Alligator Alcatraz” to be model for ICE state-run detention centers

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Perhaps coming soon to Arizona, Nebraska and Louisiana?

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says “Alligator Alcatraz” will serve as a model for state-run migrant detention centers, and she told CBS News in an interview that she hopes to launch a handful of similar detention centers in multiple airports and jails across the country, in the coming months. Potential sites are already under consideration in Arizona, Nebraska and Louisiana. 

“The locations we’re looking at are right by airport runways that will help give us an efficiency that we’ve never had before,” Noem said, adding that she’s appealed directly to governors and state leaders nationwide to gauge their interest in contributing to the Trump administration’s program to detain and deport more unauthorized migrants. 

“Most of them are interested,” Noem said, adding that in states that support President Trump’s mission of securing the southern border, “many of them have facilities that may be empty or underutilized.”

The Department of Homeland Security strategy builds on the opening of a 3,000-bed immigration detention center at a jetport in South Florida last month. Dubbed Alligator Alcatraz by state and federal officials, the makeshift facility will cost an estimated $450 million to operate in its first year. Up and running in just 8 days, the tents and trailers at Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport are surrounded by 39 square miles of isolated swampland, boasting treacherous terrain and wildlife  

Last month, President Trump toured the facility, seeing rows of bunk beds lined up behind chain fences and encircled by razor wire. Mr. Trump joked to reporters there that “we’re going to teach them how to run away from an alligator if they escape prison.” Asked if the temporary facility would be a model of what’s to come, the president said he’d like to see similar operations in “many states.”

The Arizona’s governor’s office told CBS News it has not been approached about a state-run facility. 

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen’s office said in a statement that his administration “continues to be in communication with federal partners on how Nebraska can best assist in these efforts,” but added that for now, “it is premature to comment” and the governor would “make details public at the appropriate time.”

For her part, Noem called the Alligator Alcatraz model “much better” than the current detention prototype, which largely contracts out its Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention capacity to for-profit prison companies and county jails. ICE is an agency that falls under DHS. This model relies on intergovernmental service agreements (IGSAs) negotiated and signed between ICE and individual localities. She called the Florida facility — with an eventual price tag of $245 per inmate bed, per night, according to DHS officials — a cost-effective option. “Obviously it was much less per-bed cost than what some of the previous contracts under the Department of Homeland Security were.”

According to the Office of Homeland Security Statistics, the estimated average daily cost of detaining an adult migrant in fiscal year 2024 was about $165, though the actual cost of detention typically varies based on region, length of stay and facility type.

Still, Noem argued that the new venues, all with close proximity to airports or runways, will help ICE to cut costs by “facilitating quick turnarounds.” 

“They’re all strategically designed to make sure that people are in beds for less days,” Noem said, adding that some of the facilities being considered are still undergoing vetting by the department and subject to ongoing negotiations. “It can be much more efficient once they get their hearings, due process, paperwork.”

Unlike Alligator Alcatraz, which uses funds from a shelter, food and transportation program run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Noem said the state-based initiative will tap into a new $45 billion funding pool for ICE prompted by President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”, which was signed into law last month. The pool of money is allocated specifically to the expansion of ICE’s detention network and will nearly double the agency’s bedspace capacity of 61,000 beds, based on cost analysis. As of Saturday, ICE was holding just over 57,000 individuals in its detention network in more than 150 facilities nationwide.

Noem — who has implemented a department-wide policy across DHS of personally approving each and every contract and grant over $100,000 — said keeping ICE detention contracts to a duration of under five years is now “the model we’ve pushed for.” For instance, she added, Alligator Alcatraz is a one-year contract that can be renewed. 

“For me personally, the question that I’ve asked of every one of these contracts is, why are we signing 15-year deals?” Noem said. “I have to look at our mission. If we’re still building out and processing 100,000 detention beds 15 years from now, then we didn’t do our job.”

The new policy is a departure from earlier agreements made under the Trump administration. In February, ICE signed a 15-year, $1 billion deal with the GEO Group, a private prison company, to reopen Delaney Hall, a two-story, 1,000-bed facility that ranks among the largest detention centers in the Northeast.

Still, Noem said she doesn’t feel the U.S. is moving away from a private detention model. “I mean, these are competitive contracts,” she said. “I want everybody to be at the table, giving us solutions. I just want them to give us a contract that actually does the job — a contract that doesn’t put more money in their pockets while keeping people in detention beds just for the sake of that contract.”

But Alligator Alcatraz has also come under fire from attorneys claiming that both the Trump and DeSantis administrations are holding detainees without charge or access to immigration courts, violating their constitutional rights. Attorneys argued in a legal filing last month that unauthorized migrants held at the Florida-run site have no legal recourse to challenge their detention. 

Lawyers and experts have also called into question the very legality of a state-run immigration detention center, given the federal government’s authority over immigration enforcement. Opening the detention center in the Everglades under Florida’s emergency state powers marked a departure from the federal government’s role of housing migrant detainees, an option typically reserved for those who’ve recently entered the country illegally or those with criminal convictions. 

A U.S. district judge last week ordered state and federal officials to provide a copy of the agreement showing “who’s running the show” at the Everglades immigrant-detention center. 

“Florida does not have the legal authority to detain undocumented immigrants in the absence of a contract with ICE,” said Kevin Landy, the director of detention policy and planning for ICE under President Barack Obama. “A state government can’t do that.” 

Detainees held at Alligator Alcatraz have also claimed unsanitary and inhumane conditions, including food with maggots, denial of religious rights and limited access to both legal assistance and water. Florida officials have denied the accusations. 

Still, tucked away in the Florida Everglades 45 miles west of Miami, if its location sounds treacherous, Noem concedes, that’s kind of the point. “There definitely is a message that it sends,” the secretary said. “President Trump wants people to know if you are a violent criminal and you’re in this country illegally, there will be consequences.”

Noem offered that deterrence is an effective strategy based on U.S. gathered intelligence “from three letter agencies, from other intelligence officials throughout the federal government and in a lot of the Latin American and South American countries” that indicates “overwhelmingly, what encourages people to go back home voluntarily is the consequences.”

“They see the laws being enforced in the United States,” Noem said. “They know when they are here illegally and if they are detained, they’ll be removed. They see that they may never get the chance to come back to America. And they’re voluntarily coming home.”

The DHS secretary met with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum in March. “One of the questions I asked President Scheinbaum when I was in Mexico is, ‘Do you have any idea how many people may have come back to Mexico that we may not know about,'” Noem said. 

“[Sheinbaum] said 500,000 to 600,000 people have come back to Mexico voluntarily since President Trump’s been in office,” Noem continued, explaining that the Mexican president believes her reluctant citizens fear losing the chance to return to the U.S. on a visa or work program.

It’s a datapoint she solicits from many of the foreign leaders she meets with, including Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa, who shared a 90-minute lunch with the DHS secretary in Quito, last Thursday. “I asked him the same question,” Noem recalled. “He doesn’t have as many illegal immigrants in the United States as in Mexico and Venezuela, but he said he thinks over 100,000 of his citizens have come back to Ecuador. And that’s a huge number.” 

Noem reasoned that her Ecuadorian counterpart’s rough estimate is based on two factors — a strengthening Ecuadorian economy and a DHS television campaign launched across Latin and South America, warning prospective migrants not to enter or remain in the U.S. illegally. 

“He was very proud of the fact that he’s doing better with his economy. So there’s jobs,” Noem recounted. “But he said, you know, our ads are running in Ecuador. We’re telling people that, if you have family in the United States that are there illegally, it’s time to come home.”

Kristi Noem says “Alligator Alcatraz” to be model for ICE state-run detention centers
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says possible new locations include Arizona, Nebraska and Louisiana.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alligator-alcatraz-model-kristi-noem-homeland-security

Washington Examiner: Judges get emotional on Trump efforts to end temporary immigration programs

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The Trump administration has faced various legal setbacks in its efforts to implement sweeping deportations and immigration policies, with some of the judges issuing orders accusing officials of racism and unfavorable comparisons in dramatic opinions.

Judge Trina Thompson, a Biden appointee on the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, offered the latest lengthy opinion, aimed at the morals of Trump administration officials trying to end temporary immigration programs for foreign nationals.

Challenges to revoking TPS bring racism allegations by judges

In a 37-page opinion Thursday blocking the administration from ending Temporary Protected Status for Nepal, Honduras, and Nicaragua, she accused officials of “racial animus” based on their statements about criminal migrants.

“By stereotyping the TPS program and immigrants as invaders that are criminal, and by highlighting the need for migration management, [Homeland] Secretary [Kristi] Noem’s statements perpetuate the discriminatory belief that certain immigrant populations will replace the white population,” Thompson wrote in her opinion.

Thompson wrote in her rejection that she “shares” the “concern” of those suing the Trump administration regarding the president’s ability to end TPS at his discretion. The Biden-appointed judge added that her court “does not forget that this country has bartered with human lives” and included a lengthy footnote discussing the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

“The emancipation of slaves saw the same pattern, but in reverse. Many whites were uncomfortable with the idea of free non-white people in their communities, even if they had lived in the United States for generations,” Thompson wrote in her opinion. “Plaintiffs’ allegations echo these same traditions.”

Thompson also alleges that ending TPS for the three countries and requiring those who had the temporary status to return to their home country is the equivalent of freed slaves being removed from the U.S. and sent to Africa.

Earlier this year, Judge Edward Chen, an Obama appointee on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, blocked the Trump administration from ending TPS for Venezuela and accused the Trump administration of similar claims of racial animus in his 78-page opinion.

“Generalization of criminality to the Venezuelan TPS population as a whole is baseless and smacks of racism predicated on generalized false stereotypes,” Chen wrote in his March order.

The Trump administration’s official reasons for ending the Temporary Protected Status for the countries have been that the reasons outlined for initially granting TPS are no longer applicable, and conditions have improved.

Other decisions bring emotional responses

While many dramatic opinions from federal judges blocking the Trump administration’s policies have come in TPS lawsuits, judges have also made fiery accusations in other issues. A ruling by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Friday made another unfavorable comparison about the Trump administration’s policies.

Judge Jia Cobb, a Biden appointee on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, compared the president’s policies blocking the administration from rapidly deporting people who had previously been paroled into the country to the countries that illegal immigrants have fled in her order.

“This case’s underlying question, then, asks whether parolees who escaped oppression will have the chance to plead their case within a system of rules,” Cobb wrote. “Or, alternatively, will they be summarily removed from a country that, as they are swept up at checkpoints and outside courtrooms, often by plainclothes officers without explanation or charges … may look to them more and more like the countries from which they tried to escape?”

Among the various rulings against the Trump administration in district courts, a case regarding the administration’s cancellation of diversity, equity, and inclusion grants at the National Institutes of Health brought another dramatic racial discrimination claim.

“I’ve never seen a record where racial discrimination was so palpable,” U.S. District Judge William Young said in his ruling in June. “I’ve sat on this bench now for 40 years. I’ve never seen government racial discrimination like this.”

While the Trump administration has faced dramatic and blistering opinions at lower district courts, it has racked up several wins on the Supreme Court’s emergency docket on various issues, including terminating TPS.

The Supreme Court’s order allowing the administration to proceed with various policies, including immigration policies, has typically been accompanied by fiery dissents from the liberal minority on the high court.

The judges are seeing right through the Trump regime’s disgusting racist agenda!

Judges get emotional on Trump efforts to end temporary immigration programs
The Trump administration has faced various legal setbacks in its efforts to implement sweeping deportations and immigration policies, with some of the judges issuing orders accusing officials of racism and unfavorable comparisons in dramatic opinions. Judge Trina Thompson, a Biden appointee on the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, offered the […]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/judges-get-emotional-on-trump-efforts-to-end-temporary-immigration-programs/ar-AA1JOuJ5

Fresno Bee: Some Californians carry passports in fear of ICE. ‘We’re being racially profiled’

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With the Trump administration’s directive that federal immigration agents arrest 3,000 people per day as part of a massive deportation campaign, some U.S. citizens are taking the extraordinary step of carrying their passports to avoid being profiled and detained.

For some Fresno residents, it’s an obvious choice. They say it’s the simplest way to prove citizenship in case of encounters with U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement agents.

For others, the decision is rooted in fear and distrust of the federal government and law enforcement due to being erroneously profiled for being Latino in the past.

“This is the first time I renewed my passport not for travel but for proof of citizenship,” said Fresno resident Paul Liu.

There’s growing concern about how ICE is ensnaring citizens in its deportation operations. A 2021 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that, between 2015 to 2020, ICE arrested 674 U.S. citizens, detained 121 and deported an estimated 70 citizens.

Liu’s passport expired in January 2024. He renewed in February one month after Trump took office.

Liu, 52, said his decision is inspired by his family’s experience in China. His great-uncle sympathized with the Nationalist Party that opposed the Communist Party of China. As far as Liu’s family knows, his uncle was disappeared by the government and wasn’t seen until 30 years later by a sister who recognized him working on a chain gang in the city.

“I see what an oppressive regime has done to our family,” he said. “I’m just convinced that now, the onus is on anyone who’s not white, male and MAGA to prove they belong in this country.”

The REAL ID or a valid passport is required for domestic travel as of May, but American citizens are not otherwise required to carry a national form of identification.

To avoid potential detention and arrest, immigration lawyer Olga Grosh of Pasifika Immigration Law Group, LLP said people can consider having evidence of valid immigration status handy, or a copy of these documents in your wallet if concerned about about loss or theft.

“But does a citizen have to live in fear of being kidnapped by their own government?” Grosh said. “There has been a shift from it being the government burden to show to a judge that a person should be detained under the law, to citizens proving that they shouldn’t be detained by unidentified agents.”

…

Click the links below to read the rest of the article:

Some Californians carry passports in fear of ICE. ‘We’re being racially profiled’

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/some-californians-carry-passports-in-fear-of-ice-we-re-being-racially-profiled/ar-AA1JPvLq

Daily Beast: Trump Praises ‘Very Nice’ Loomer as Her Body Count Grows

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He calls the far-right activist, who set up an anonymous tip line to help get federal workers disloyal to Trump fired, a patriot.

A one-woman Islamophobic & bigoted security threat:

The far-right Trump mega fan has taken credit for the firings of at least 16 people who she said were not sufficiently loyal to the president. She calls it being “Loomered.”

So far, her body count includes assistant federal prosecutor Maurene Comey, National Security Agency directors Timothy Haugh and Wendy Noble, Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, and Jen Easterly, who led the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency under President Biden.

Loomer, who is known for anti-Muslim rhetoric and claiming the 9/11 attacks were an “inside job,” has also set up an anonymous tip line to help her find people who are disloyal to Trump and get them fired.

Donald Trump has called conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer a “very nice person” as she wages her personal war to clean house in the Trump administration.

The far-right Trump mega fan has taken credit for the firings of at least 16 people who she said were not sufficiently loyal to the president. She calls it being “Loomered.”

So far, her body count includes assistant federal prosecutor Maurene Comey, National Security Agency directors Timothy Haugh and Wendy Noble, Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, and Jen Easterly, who led the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency under President Biden.

Loomer, who is known for anti-Muslim rhetoric and claiming the 9/11 attacks were an “inside job,” has also set up an anonymous tip line to help her find people who are disloyal to Trump and get them fired.

On Sunday, the president was asked about his relationship with Loomer and the kind of influence she has over him.

“She’s very nice,” Trump told reporters.

“I mean, I know she’s known as a ‘radical right,’ but I think Laura Loomer is a very nice person. I’ve known her for a long time.”

Trump also seemed to explain her motivation for recommending that staff in his administration be “Loomered.”

“I think she’s a patriot, and she gets excited because of the fact that she’s a patriot,” Trump said. “And she doesn’t like things going on that she thinks are bad for the country. I like her.”

Last Thursday, Trump called Loomer “a very strong person” and “a great patriot” but dismissed her role in getting people in his administration fired.

“She makes recommendations on things and people, and sometimes I listen to those recommendations, like I do with everybody. I listen to everybody, and then I make a decision,” Trump said.

“She always has something to say, usually very constructive… she recommended some people for jobs.”

On Saturday, Loomer posted on X, “There is a CIA Coup of the Trump admin taking place right now,” adding, “Something is terribly wrong.”

Speaking on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast on Saturday, Loomer said she has “intel agencies” inside the White House helping her find “deep state” members who have managed to “sneak inside” the FBI, Department of Defense, and the National Security Council.

Loomer said there should have been an “executive mandate” on the first day of the new Trump administration to clean house.

“If you worked for Obama or Joe Biden and you are in this administration you have 48 hours to resign or else we are going to fire you,“ Loomer told Bannon of what she believed should have been done.

“It seems like every single day I have to flag this information to the Trump administration,” Loomer said.

“I guess now the mainstream media has decided to portray me as President Trump’s Rasputin,” she added of the comparison to the Russian peasant who closely influenced the last imperial dynasty to rule Russia.

“They think that I’m some kind of villain because I’m trying to protect President Trump from all these traitors who have somehow found a way to stay inside his administration.”

Loomer said anyone following the MAGA agenda will pass her vetting system.

“If you are actually serving the president and you are doing what you’re supposed to be doing, you have nothing to be afraid of,“ she said.

“But if you are subverting the president and trying to hide your Obama holdover buddies so they can get jobs, you should be afraid because you’re going to get found and you’re going to get Loomered.”

Unfortunately Loomer and the infamous Stephen Miller are what pass for the “brains” of King Donald’s administration.

Trump Praises ‘Very Nice’ Loomer as Her Body Count Grows
He calls the far-right activist, who set up an anonymous tip line to help get federal workers disloyal to Trump fired, a patriot.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-praises-very-nice-laura-loomer-as-her-bodycount-grows

Washington Post: ICE crackdown imperils Afghans who aided U.S. war effort, lawyers say

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Two former Afghan interpreters for U.S. forces face deportation despite following immigration processes, according to attorneys for the men.

One former interpreter for U.S. forces in Afghanistan was detained by immigration agents in Connecticut last month after he showed up for a routine green card appointment. A second was arrested in June, just minutes after attending his first asylum hearing in San Diego.

As the administration seeks to fulfill President Donald Trump’s pledge to carry out the largest deportation operation in U.S. history, attorneys for the men say their clients — Afghans who fear retribution from the Taliban for their work assisting the United States in its 20-year war in Afghanistan — have found themselves in the crosshairs of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The attorneys provided The Washington Post with military contracts and certificates, asylum and visa applications, recommendation letters and other records that described both men’s work on behalf of U.S. forces during the war.

After Kabul fell to the Taliban in August 2021, President Joe Biden’s administration moved to resettle Afghans who had worked for the U.S. government through the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program, which grants lawful permanent resident status and a pathway to U.S. citizenship. As of April, about 25,000 Afghans had received an SIV, and another 160,000 had pending applications, said Adam Bates, an attorney with the International Refugee Assistance Program who analyzed State Department data.

But the Trump administration is rolling back programs created to assist more than 250,000 Afghans — including the allies who worked for U.S. forces and other refugees who fled after the Taliban takeover. And while administration officials say SIV processing will continue, advocates for Afghans who served with U.S. troops fear the curtailment of programs they depend on, along with Trump’s ambitious deportation plan, jeopardizes those still vying for SIV protection.

They point to the arrests of Zia, 36, and Sayed Naser, 33, whose attorneys argue they followed proper immigration processes. The Post agreed to withhold the last names of both men because of the ongoing threats to their lives from the Taliban.

“Zia is not an outlier,” his attorney Lauren Cundick Petersen said during a news conference last month. “We’re witnessing the deliberate redefinition of legal entry as illegal for the purpose of meeting enforcement quotas.”

Matt Zeller, an Army veteran whose Afghan interpreter saved his life in a 2008 firefight, co-founded the nonprofit No One Left Behind to help resettle Afghans. He said he fears the immigration crackdown will unwind that effort.

“The Trump administration knows what’s going to happen to these folks. They’re not stupid. They understand that the Taliban is going to kill them when they get back to Afghanistan,” Zeller said. “They just don’t care.”

In response to questions from The Post, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the administration’s top immigration enforcement priority is “arresting and removing the dangerous violent, illegal criminal aliens that Joe Biden let flood across our Southern Border — of which there are many.”

“America is safer because of President Trump’s immigration policies,” she said.

All King Donald and his cronies care about is deporting foreigner, any foreigners.

Click one of the links below to read the rest of the article.

ICE crackdown imperils Afghans who aided U.S. war effort, lawyers say
Advocates fear President Donald Trump’s ambitious deportation plan jeopardizes Afghan interpreters and other allies who worked for U.S. troops during the war.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/08/03/afghanistan-immigrants-trump-deportations

ICE crackdown imperils Afghans who aided U.S. war effort, lawyers say
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ice-crackdown-imperils-afghans-who-aided-u-s-war-effort-lawyers-say/ar-AA1JOsYf

Washington Post: He left Iran 40 years ago. He may be deported to Romania. Or Australia.

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The withholding of a removal order that Reza Zavvar felt protected him from deportation is now being wielded by the Trump administration to send him to a country he doesn’t know.

Sharp knocks on the front door interrupted Firouzeh Firouzabadi’s Saturday morning coffee. On the porch of her suburban Maryland home were two law enforcement agents and a very familiar pit bull mix named Duke.

“Can you take this dog?” Firouzabadi recalled one of the men saying. “I said, ‘This is my son’s dog. Where is he?’ They wouldn’t say.”

At that moment, her adult son, Reza Zavvar, was handcuffed in the back of an SUV parked two houses down in the Gaithersburg neighborhood where the Iranian-born family has lived since 2009 — apprehended, he later said, that late June day by at least five federal immigration agents in tactical gear who told Zavvar they had been waiting for him to take Duke out for his regular morning walk.

More than a month later, Zavvar, 52, remains in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody,part of a surge of arrests of immigrants with standing court orders barring their deportation to their native countries.

The Trump administration has increasingly turned to sending people to third countries. In court papers, ICE said it plans to send Zavvar to Australia or Romania. He has no ties to either place.

Zavvar left Tehran alone when he was 12, arriving in Virginia in 1985 on a student visa secured by his parents as a way to escape eventual conscription into the Iranian army. He eventually received U.S. asylum, and then a green card.

His family joined him and they settled in Maryland, but in his 20s, Zavvar’s guilty pleas in two misdemeanor marijuana possession cases jeopardized his immigration status. In 2007, an immigration judge issued a withholding of removal order, determining it was unsafe for Zavvar to return to Iran. He built a life, went to college and has been working as a white-collar recruiter for a consulting firm.

…

So he pleaded guilty 27 years ago to a couple marijuana possessions charges (legal today in 24-40 states, depending on purpose of usage) and now ICE wants to deport him to a third country (possibly Romania or Australia).

Click one of the links below to read the rest of the article.

He left Iran 40 years ago. He may be deported to Romania. Or Australia.
Handcuffed outside his Maryland home while walking his dog, Reza Zavvar is among a surging number of immigrants arrested with standing court orders barring deportation to their native countries.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/08/03/immigration-arrests-third-country-removals

He left Iran 40 years ago. He may be deported to Romania. Or Australia.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/he-left-iran-40-years-ago-he-may-be-deported-to-romania-or-australia/ar-AA1JOsY5

AFP: Trump’s crackdown leaves LA’s undocumented migrants on brink of homelessness

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When her husband was arrested in an immigration raid near Los Angeles last month, Martha was abruptly separated from the father of her two daughters. But she also lost the salary that allowed her to keep a roof over their heads.

“He’s the pillar of the family… he was the only one working,” said the undocumented woman, using a pseudonym for fear of reprisals.

“He’s no longer here to help us, to support me and my daughters.”

Los Angeles, where one-third of residents are immigrants — and several hundred thousand people are undocumented — has been destabilized by intensifying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids under the Trump administration.

Since returning to power, US President Donald Trump has delivered on promises to launch a wide-ranging deportation drive, targeting undocumented migrants but also ensnaring many others in its net. 

After her husband’s arrest, 39-year-old Martha has joined the ranks of people barely managing to avoid ending up on the streets of Los Angeles County — a region with prohibitively high housing prices, and the largest number of homeless people in the United States outside New York. 

Her 700-square-foot apartment in Buena Park, a suburb of the California metropolis, costs $2,050 per month. After her husband’s arrest, she urgently found a minimum-wage night job in a factory to cover their most pressing needs.

It pays just enough to keep them afloat, but has left Martha unable to cover a range of obligations.

I have to pay car insurance, phone, rent, and their expenses,” she said, pointing to her six- and seven-year-old daughters, who need school supplies for the new academic year.

“That’s a lot of expenses.”

– ‘Bigger storm brewing’ –

How long can she keep up this punishing schedule, which allows her barely three hours of sleep on returning from the factory before having to wake and look after her daughters?

“I couldn’t tell you,” she said, staring blankly into space.

Los Angeles has seen some of the worst of the ICE raids. Squads of masked agents have targeted hardware stores, car washes and bus stops, arresting more than 2,200 people in June. 

About 60 percent of these had no prior criminal records, according to internal ICE documents analyzed by AFP.

Trump’s anti-immigration offensive is taking an added toll on Latino workers, who were already among the worst-affected victims of the region’s housing crisis, said Andrea Gonzalez, deputy director of the CLEAN Carwash Workers Center, a labor rights non-profit.

“A bigger storm is brewing. It’s not just about the people that got picked up, it’s about the people that are left behind as well,” she said.

“There is a concern that people are going to end up on the streets.”

Her organization is helping more than 300 struggling households whose incomes have plummeted, either because a family member has been arrested or because they are too afraid to return to work.

It has distributed more than $30,000 to help around 20 families who are unable to afford their rent, but covering everyone’s needs is simply “not sustainable,” said Gonzalez.

– ‘An emergency’ –

Local Democratic Party leaders are trying to establish financial aid for affected families.

Los Angeles County is planning a dedicated fund to tackle the problem, and city officials will also launch a fund using philanthropic donations rather than taxpayer money.

Some families should receive “a couple hundred” dollars, Mayor Karen Bass said last month.

But for Gonzalez, these initiatives do not “even scratch the surface” of what is needed, representing less than 10 percent of most affected families’ rent requirements.

She called for a “moratorium on evictions” similar to one introduced during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Otherwise, Los Angeles’ homeless population — currently numbered at 72,000, which is down slightly in the past two years — risks rising again, she warned.

“What we’re living through right now is an emergency,” said Gonzalez.

Maria Martinez’s undocumented immigrant husband was arrested in June at a carwash in Pomona, a suburb east of Los Angeles.

Since then, the 59-year-old has had to rely on help from her children to pay her $1,800 monthly rent. Her $1,000 disability allowance falls far short.

“It is stressful,” she said. “We’re just getting by.”

Trump’s crackdown leaves LA’s undocumented migrants on brink of homelessness
When her husband was arrested in an immigration raid near Los Angeles last month, Martha was abruptly separated from the father of her two daughters. Maria Martinez’s undocumented immigrant husband was arrested in June at a carwash in Pomona, a suburb east of Los Angeles.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/trump-s-crackdown-leaves-la-s-undocumented-migrants-on-brink-of-homelessness/ar-AA1JNxWp

LA Times: Contributor: Under Trump, U.S. returns to treating violence against women as a ‘private matter’

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The U.S. has been waffling for decades over whether women have a right to refugee protection when fleeing gender-based violence. Under different administrations, the Department of Justice has established and reversed precedents, issued and repealed rulings. But the latest flip-flop by the Trump administration is not just another toggle between rules.

In July, the Trump administration’s high court of immigration, the Board of Immigration Appeals, issued a deeply troubling decision. The ruling held that a “particular social group” — one of the five grounds for refugee protection — cannot be defined by gender, or by gender combined with nationality. The ruling, in a case known as Matter of K-E-S-G-, is binding on all adjudicators across the country.

The legal reasoning is both unpersuasive and alarming. It seeks to return refugee law to an era when violence against women was dismissed as a private matter, not of concern to governments or human rights institutions. It is part of a broader, ongoing assault by the Trump administration on women’s rights and immigrant rights — in this case, attempting to turn back history to 1992.

It was in 1993, at the Vienna Conference on Human Rights, when the catchphrase “women’s rights are human rights” gained global prominence. This was a response to the long-standing focus on the violation of civil and political rights by governments, while much of the violence against women was committed by nonstate actors. Women and girls fleeing gender-based violence were considered outside the bounds of protection. But the Vienna Conference marked a turning point, leading to transformative change in how governments and international bodies addressed gender-based violence — because much of the violence in this world is targeted at women. Laws and policies were adopted worldwide to advance women’s rights, including for those seeking refugee protection.

Under international and U.S. law, a refugee is someone with a well-founded fear of persecution linked to that person’s “race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion,” which are commonly referred to as the protected grounds. Gender is not explicitly listed, and as a result, women fleeing gender-based forms of persecution, such as honor killings, female genital cutting, sexual slavery or domestic violence, were often denied protection, with their risk wrongly categorized as “personal” or “private,” and not connected to one of the protected grounds.

To address the misconception that women are outside the ambit of refugee protection, beginning in 1985 the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees issued a series of guidance documents explaining that although “gender” is not listed as a protected ground, women could often be considered a “particular social group” within a country. The commissioner called on countries that were parties to the international refugee treaty — the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol — to issue guidance for their adjudicators to recognize the ways in which gender-based claims could meet the refugee definition.

The United States was among the first to respond to the call. In 1995, the Department of Justice issued a document instructing asylum officers to consider the evolving understanding of women’s rights as human rights. The following year, the Board of Immigration Appeals issued a watershed decision, granting asylum to a young woman fleeing genital cutting. The court recognized that claims of gender-based violence could qualify under the “particular social group” category.

Yet the path forward was anything but smooth. In 1999, the same court denied asylum to a Guatemalan woman who endured a decade of brutal beatings and death threats from her husband, while the state refused to intervene. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno found the decision to be so out of step with U.S. policy that she used her authority to vacate it. And so women remained eligible to be considered a “particular social group” when seeking refuge in the U.S. The view was affirmed by a 2014 case recognizing that women fleeing domestic violence could indeed qualify for asylum.

But that progress was short-lived. In 2018, Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions took jurisdiction over the case of Anabel, a Salvadoran survivor of domestic violence to whom the top U.S. immigration court had granted asylum.

Sessions ruled that domestic violence is an act of personal or private violence, rather than persecution on account of a protected ground. This characterization of the violence as personal or private was in direct repudiation of the principle that women’s rights are human rights, deserving of human rights remedies, such as asylum.

The Biden administration sought to undo the damage. In 2021, Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland vacated that ruling and reinstated the 2014 precedent, restoring a measure of protection for gender claims.

Now comes the recent ruling from the immigration court under the Trump administration. Going beyond Sessions’ determination that gender violence is personal, the court is striking at the heart of the legal framework itself by barring gender or gender-plus-nationality as a valid way to define a social group. This erects an even higher barrier for women and girls fleeing persecution. It is a transparent attempt to roll back decades of legal progress and return us to a time when women’s suffering was invisible in refugee law.

The implications are profound. This ruling will make it far more difficult for women and girls to win asylum, even though their claims often involve some of the most egregious human rights violations. But it does not foreclose all claims — each must still be decided on its own facts — and there is no doubt the precedent will be challenged in federal courts across the country.

Another reversal is now sorely needed, to get the struggle for gender equality moving in the right direction again. Our refugee laws should protect women, because women should not be subject to gender-based violence. That is, in fact, one of our human rights.

Contributor: Under Trump, U.S. returns to treating violence against women as a ‘private matter’
Our refugee laws should protect women, because women should not be subject to gender-based violence.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2025-08-03/womens-rights-refugee-gender-human-rights

Explicame: Trump policies forced to pass thanks to Supreme Court

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A recent series of Supreme Court decisions has significantly reshaped the balance of power in the U.S. government, drawing attention from legal scholars.

The U.S. Supreme Court has increasingly played a pivotal role in enabling the Trump administration’s policy objectives, marking a pronounced shift in the dynamics between the executive and judicial branches. Through a series of recent rulings, the Court has upheld key Trump-era administrative actions, reinforcing executive authority and raising concerns about the long-term implications for constitutional checks and balances.

Over just six months in office, the Trump administration’s Department of Justice filed more than 20 emergency requests with the Supreme Court, surpassing the 19 total emergency filings submitted during the entirety of Joe Biden’s presidency. This aggressive use of the emergency docket has yielded significant policy victories and underlined a broader transformation in how executive power is being exercised, and supported, by the judiciary.

Among the cases that the Court has ruled in favor of the Trump administration are Trump v. CASA, Trump v. AFGE, McMahon v. New York, and high-profile dismissals involving the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Federal Trade Commission. These rulings have allowed the administration to fast-track deportations, eliminate certain migrant protections, freeze federal education grants, and access Social Security data, among other sweeping policy shifts.

In addition to these substantive decisions, the Supreme Court has moved to limit the ability of lower-court judges to issue nationwide injunctions that could block presidential actions. Critics argue this undermines a core function of judicial oversight. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissenting in one of the related cases, warned that curtailing universal injunctions could “threaten the rule of law.”

Chief Justice John Roberts has publicly emphasized the importance of judicial independence, rejecting the notion that disagreement with judicial decisions justifies impeachment. However, his leadership has also reflected a broader willingness to defer to executive authority in cases with broad constitutional implications.

Legal observers point to a trend: vague rulings, expedited decisions on the shadow docket, and a lack of clear legal reasoning have made it harder to track the boundaries of presidential power. Critics warn that this ambiguity may create the perception that the president can unilaterally restructure federal agencies, an alarming precedent for those who view judicial review as a safeguard against executive overreach.

As the Supreme Court continues to weigh in on high-stakes policy issues, the alignment between the bench and the executive branch under Trump’s leadership has redefined the limits of presidential authority. The consequences of this realignment are likely to shape American governance well beyond the current administration.

Trump policies forced to pass thanks to Supreme Court
A recent series of Supreme Court decisions has significantly reshaped the balance of power in the U.S. government, drawing attention from legal scholars.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-policies-forced-to-pass-thanks-to-supreme-court/ar-AA1JNnKh