Tag Archives: united states

Politico: Military contractors pitch unprecedented prison plan for detained immigrants

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Erik Prince wants to cut a deal to transport detainees from the US to El Salvador.

If you think things can’t get much worse, think again!

Former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince and a team of defense contractors are pitching the White House on a plan to vastly expand deportations to El Salvador — transporting thousands of immigrants from U.S. holding facilities to a sprawling maximum security prison in Central America.

The proposal, exclusively obtained by POLITICO, says it would target “criminal illegal aliens” and would attempt to avoid legal challenges by designating part of the prison — which has drawn accusations of violence and overcrowding from human rights groups — as American territory.

…

The proposal would ultimately put Prince in charge of an extraordinary privatization effort that would use his company to handle logistics, including ferrying tens of thousands of detainees from American holding cells to El Salvador’s prison.

Military contractors pitch unprecedented prison plan for detained immigrants
Erik Prince wants to cut a deal to transport detainees from the US to El Salvador.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/11/military-contractors-prison-plan-detained-immigrants-erik-prince-00287208

USA Today: Tourists detained by ICE say they were treated like ‘the worst criminal’

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Uncommon detainees are bringing new attention to the U.S. immigration detention system

A British backpacker. A Harvard researcher. A Canadian actress. An Australian mixed martial arts coach. Dozens of international college students.

The Trump administration’s sweeping immigration-and-visa crackdown has begun ensnaring a class of people long-accustomed to being welcomed with open arms into the United States.

And those uncommon detainees are bringing new attention to the often-harsh U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention system, where people can be held without charge indefinitely, sometimes in shocking conditions, or abruptly removed from the country.

This type of treatment has long been the case in ICE detention, but the people held by the government often didn’t have the resources ‒ the access, language or middle-class expectations ‒ to denounce the conditions.

Now, with President Donald Trump’s crackdown, native English speakers, people with PhDs, and others are getting the word out to a broader public about a system they describe as arbitrary and punishing ‒ although ICE detention is not supposed to resemble prison.

“It’s insane how easily someone can take away your freedom, lock you in a federal prison, without a clear reason. No explanation. No warning,” ….

Tourists detained by ICE say they were treated like ‘the worst criminal’
Uncommon detainees are bringing new attention to the U.S. immigration detention system

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/04/12/ice-tourist-detention-border-trump-immigration/82740260007

CNN: It’ll be tough for Trump to dig his way out of this one

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With his chaotic trade policy, President Donald Trump is digging himself into an economic and political hole so deep, it may prove impossible to climb out.

On Wednesday morning, just after markets spent a day reeling from Trump’s on-again-off-again threat to levy extraordinary energy, steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada and to destroy the country’s auto industry, Trump placed tariffs on all steel and aluminum imported from every country around the world, a policy that could drive up prices on a broad range of consumer and industrial goods for Americans. Europe immediately retaliated, adding pressure on a variety of American industries.

Wall Street has grown nervous about the damage Trump’s policies could inflict on America’s still-strong but increasingly wobbly economy. Stocks have plunged, with the Nasdaq falling into correction (a decline of 10% from its recent high) and the S&P 500 flirting with that inauspicious territory.

It’ll be tough for Trump to dig his way out of this one | CNN Business
With his chaotic trade policy, President Donald Trump is digging himself into an economic and political hole so deep, it may prove impossible to climb out.

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/12/economy/recession-tariff-trump/index.html

Washington Post: They fled authoritarian countries. Here they’re experiencing déjà vu.

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All had left authoritarian countries to build new lives in the United States, a place they believed would be different. But they now see ominous patterns repeating and democratic norms eroding — and feel a duty to warn Americans.

“It honestly feels like I just switched rooms on the Titanic,” said Miguel Mendoza, a former political prisoner in Nicaragua who lives in Orlando.

The Washington Post spoke with 12 people from six authoritarian countries — some who fled left-wing regimes and others right-wing ones. They described an unsettling feeling of déjà vu in the initial months of the Trump administration: the attacks on courts and the press; the threats to universities and law firms; the hollowing out of agencies; the scapegoating and mass deportation of immigrants; the marginalizing of transgender people.

They fled authoritarian countries. Here they’re experiencing déjà vu.
Immigrants from six nations where democracy was eroded say they see the same patterns emerging during the Trump administration — and want to warn Americans.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/they-fled-authoritarian-countries-here-they-re-experiencing-d%C3%A9j%C3%A0-vu/ar-AA1CJw4n

Associated Press: Supreme Court says Trump administration must work to bring back mistakenly deported Maryland man

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The Supreme Court on Thursday said the Trump administration must work to bring back a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to prison in El Salvador, rejecting the administration’s emergency appeal.

The court acted in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who had an immigration court order preventing his deportation to his native country over fears he would face persecution from local gangs.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis had ordered Abrego Garcia, now being held in a notorious Salvadoran prison, returned to the United States by midnight Monday.

“The order properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador,” the court said in an unsigned order with no noted dissents.

King Donald has been slapped down 9-0!

Supreme Court says Trump administration must work to bring back mistakenly deported Maryland man
U.S. District Judge had ordered Abrego Garcia, now being held in a notorious Salvadoran prison, returned to the United States by midnight Monday.

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-maryland-deportation-trump-9f46dd62890befdc321ed1ab56107470

Irish Star: Trump’s Treasury Secretary’s stunning two-word response to historic Chinese tariffs

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The stupendous response of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent regarding the extreme tariffs imposed on our (formerly) #3 trading partner:

… so what?

As our stock markets collapse, retirement accounts dwindle, and recession beckons, all this arrogant fool can contribute to the discussion is:

… so what?

Trump’s Treasury Secretary’s stunning two-word response to historic Chinese tariffs
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had two words for China as he shrugged off the country’s new retaliatory tariffs

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/trump-s-treasury-secretary-s-stunning-two-word-response-to-historic-chinese-tariffs/ar-AA1CBD81

New York Times: Inside Trump’s Plan to ‘Get’ Greenland: Persuasion, Not Invasion

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The island’s population might not be easily convinced as the president tries to clinch one of history’s greatest real estate deals.

Mr. Trump’s advisers have already begun making their public case, arguing that Denmark has been a poor custodian of the island, that only the United States can protect it from encroachment by Russia and China, and that America will help Greenlanders “get rich,” as Mr. Trump has put it.

Given how King Donald has trashed our own economy the past 2.5 months, Greenlanders would be nuts to wish the same upon themselves.

The Trump administration is also studying financial incentives for Greenlanders, including the possibility of replacing the $600 million in subsidies that Denmark gives the island with an annual payment of about $10,000 per Greenlander.

Denmark provides them with a comprehensive health care system. Why would they trust the bozo who plans to destroy Medicaid?

Some Trump officials believe those costs could be offset by new revenue from the extraction of Greenland’s natural resources, which include rare earth minerals, copper, gold, uranium and oil.

Trump officials argue that American capital and industrial might can gain access to the island’s largely untapped mineral wealth in a way that Denmark cannot. “This is about critical minerals,” Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Waltz, told Fox News in January. “This is about natural resources.”

Those natural resource belong to the people of Greenland, not to Trump and his billionaire cronies. Only the people of Greenland can decide their future and how to share the wealth, if they even choose to share it.

Trump is drooling over a land that isn’t his and never will be.

http://archive.is/gc3A7#selection-951.0-1026.0

Raw Story: ‘Blatantly lying’: Economists whack Trump official’s attempt to blame Biden for turmoil

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Justin Wolfers, an economist at the University of Michigan, took a far less measured approach to objecting to Bessent’s statement and simply said, “Transparently lying won’t calm markets, businesses, or consumers.”

Non-economists also piled on Bessent’s attempts to blame Biden.

“Lying in such a cartoonishly obvious way comes across as extremely stupid hard to believe he’s this bad at public advocacy for the administration he serves,” observed journalist John Harwood.

“Scott Bessent essentially resorting to ‘I know you are but what am I?'” wrote progressive commentator Matthew Sheffield. “This guy is a total clown.”

Writing on BlueSky, the Daily Kos’s Oliver Willis posted a simple chart showing a boom in manufacturing construction that occurred during Biden’s presidency and said sarcatically, “Look at how hard manufacturing was hit under socialist Sleepy Joe.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/after-tariffs-french-business-lobby-says-it-got-it-wrong-on-trump/ar-AA1CAaFT

Students’ “Student and Exchange Visitor Information System” records being secretly terminated

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Now there are multiple reports in multiple states of international students having their Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) records terminated by USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) with no notice to either the students or to the schools.

No notice, no hearing, just terminated, and presumably the students will soon be *poof* disappeared as well.

Records for international students at 2 more universities terminated; schools say they weren’t told beforehand

Why has Trump revoked hundreds of international student visas?

Students react to nearly 50 international students’ visas being revoked, records being removed across Utah

118 international students’ immigration statuses revoked across Texas universities

Federal officials are quietly terminating the legal residency of some international college students

ICE Deletes Post About Stopping ‘Illegal Ideas’ From Crossing Border

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Contrary to their claims, there was no mistake. “Intellectual property” just doesn’t fit the context. The problem for ICE, our newly self-appointed thought police, is the enormous public backlash coming back at them.

ICE deletes post about stopping ‘illegal ideas’ from crossing border
The agency acknowledged it made a mistake with the wording.

https://www.newsweek.com/ice-illegal-ideas-border-security-social-media-post-2058217

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/10/ice-speech-censorship-007886

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/ice-pledges-stop-illegal-ideas-1235314913