The Take: Why is the Dominican Republic deporting Haitian migrants?
The Dominican Republic has deported nearly 150,000 people it claims are of Haitian descent since October 2024. Many of them are unaccompanied minors or people born in the Dominican Republic but stripped of citizenship in 2013. While officials say they are enforcing immigration laws, a recent Al Jazeera documentary points to a deeper history of anti-Blackness and anti-Haitian sentiment on the island.
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Episode credits:
This episode was produced by Tamara Khandaker, Sonia Bhagat and Ashish Malhotra, with Phillip Lanos, Spencer Cline, Khaled Soltan, Mariana Navarrete, Kisaa Zehra, Remas Alhawari, Kingwell Ma and our guest host, Manuel Rapalo. It was edited by Kylene Kiang.
Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editors are Hisham Abu Salah, Mohannad Al-Melhem and Kylene Kiang. Alexandra Locke is The Take's executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera's head of audio.
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Deported man Kilmar Abrego Garcia returned to US to face charges
A man the Donald Trump administration mistakenly deported to El Salvador has been brought back to the United States, where authorities say he will face criminal charges. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, 29, a Salvadoran immigrant who had lived nearly half his life in Maryland before he was deported in March, faces charges of transporting undocumented migrants inside the US, according to recently unsealed court records. US Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Friday that Abrego Garcia was returned to the US to 'face justice'. The indictment against him was filed on May 21, more than two months after he was deported in spite of a court order barring his removal. The charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop by the Tennessee Highway Patrol, which suspected Abrego Garcia of human trafficking but ultimately issued only a warning for an expired driver's license, according to a Department of Homeland Security report. Bondi, speaking at a news conference, said a grand jury had 'found that over the past nine years, Abrego Garcia has played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring'. She said Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele agreed to return Abrego Garcia to the US after American officials presented his government with an arrest warrant. Abrego Garcia had been sent to El Salvador as part of a Trump scheme to move undocumented migrants it accuses of being gang members, to prison in the Central American country without due process. Bukele said in a social media post that his government works with the Trump administration and 'of course' would not refuse a request to return 'a gang member' to the US. Al Jazeera's Rosiland Jordan, reporting from Washington, DC, said Abrego Garcia could face up to 10 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted. But 'that does not deal with the ongoing matter of whether or not he should be deported', she added. 'That's a separate legal matter.' Abrego Garcia will have the chance to enter a plea in court and contest the charges at trial. If he is convicted, he would be deported to El Salvador after serving his sentence, Bondi said. In a statement, Abrego Garcia's lawyer, Andrew Rossman, said it would now be up to the US judicial system to ensure he received due process. 'Today's action proves what we've known all along – that the administration had the ability to bring him back and just refused to do so,' said Rossman, a partner at law firm Quinn Emanuel. Abrego Garcia's deportation defied an immigration judge's 2019 order granting him protection from being sent back to El Salvador, where it found he was likely to be persecuted by gangs if returned, court records show. Trump critics pointed to the erroneous deportation as an example of the excesses of the Republican president's aggressive approach to stepping up deportations. Officials countered by alleging that Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang. His lawyers have denied that he was a gang member and said he had not been convicted of any crime. Abrego Garcia's case has become a flash point for escalating tensions between the executive branch and the judiciary, which has ruled against a number of Trump's policies. The US Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return, with liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor saying the government had cited no basis for what she called his 'warrantless arrest'. US District Judge Paula Xinis also opened a probe into what, if anything, the Trump administration did to secure his return, after his lawyers accused officials of stonewalling their requests for information.
Al Jazeera
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The Take: How the myth of democracy fuels the US forever wars
From Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan, US wars left not freedom, but ruin. In a recent book, co-authors Noam Chomsky and Nathan Robinson expose how American elites sell violence as virtue, using the myth of democracy to justify endless war. In this episode: Episode credits: This episode was produced by Marcos Bartolome, Haleema Shah, and Sonia Bhagat, with Manny Panaretos, Mariana Navarrete, Remas Alhawari, Kisaa Zehra, and our guest host, Kevin Hirten. It was edited by Kylene Kiang. Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editors are Hisham Abu Salah and Mohannad Al-Melhem. Alexandra Locke is The Take's executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera's head of audio. Connect with us: @AJEPodcasts on Instagram, X, Facebook, Threads and YouTube
Al Jazeera
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A ship called Madleen: Gaza's first fisherwoman inspires solidarity mission
Gaza City – As the Madleen sails towards Gaza to try to deliver life-saving aid to its people, little is known about the woman the boat was named after: Madleen Kulab, Gaza's only fisherwoman. When Al Jazeera first met Madleen Kulab (also spelled Madelyn Culab) three years ago, she had two children, was expecting her third and lived a relatively quiet life in Gaza City with her husband, Khader Bakr, 32, also a fisherman. Madleen, now 30, would sail fearlessly out as far as Israel's gunship blockade would allow to bring back fish she could sell in a local market to support the family. When Israel's war on Gaza began, the family was terrified, then heartbroken when Israel killed Madleen's father in an air strike near their home in November 2023. They fled with Madleen nearly nine months pregnant to Khan Younis, then to Rafah, to Deir el-Balah and then Nuseirat. Now, they are back in what remains of their home in Gaza City, a badly damaged space they returned to when the Israeli army allowed displaced people to head back north in January. Madleen sits on a battered sofa in her damaged living room, three of her four children sitting with her: baby Waseela, one, on her lap; five-year-old Safinaz beside her; and three-year-old Jamal – the baby she was expecting when Al Jazeera first met her – at the end. She talks about what it felt like to hear from an Irish activist friend that the ship trying to break the blockade on Gaza would be named after her. 'I was deeply moved. I felt an enormous sense of responsibility and a little pride,' she says with a smile. 'I'm grateful to these activists who have devoted themselves, left their lives and comforts behind, and stood with Gaza despite all the risks,' she says of the group of 12 activists, who include Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and Rima Hassan, a French member of the European Parliament. 'This is the highest form of humanity and self-sacrifice in the face of danger.' Khader sits on another sofa with six-year-old Sandy. He holds out his phone with a photo of the Madleen on it, flying the Palestinian flag. Madleen has been fishing since she was 15, a familiar figure heading out on her father's boat, getting to know all the other fishermen and also becoming well-known to international solidarity activists. In addition to bringing home the fish, Madleen is also a skilled cook, preparing seasonal fish dishes that were so famously tasty that she had a list of clients waiting to buy them from her. Especially popular were the dishes made with Gaza's ubiquitous sardines. But now, she can't fish any more and neither can Khader because Israel destroyed their boats and an entire storage room full of fishing gear during the war. 'We've lost everything – the fruit of a lifetime,' she says. But her loss is not just about income. It's about identity – her deep connection to the sea and fishing. It's even about the simple joy of eating fish, which she used to enjoy '10 times a week'. 'Now fish is too expensive if you can find it at all. Only a few fishermen still have any gear left, and they risk their lives just to catch a little,' she says. 'Everything has changed. We now crave fish in the middle of this famine we're living through.' After the air strike near the family home in November 2023, Madleen's family's first displacement was to Khan Younis, following Israeli army instructions that they would be safer there. After searching for shelter, they ended up in a small apartment with 40 other displaced relatives, and then Madleen went into labour. 'It was a difficult, brutal birth. No pain relief, no medical care. I was forced to leave the hospital right after giving birth. There were no beds available because of the overwhelming number of wounded,' she says. When she returned to the shelter, things were just as dire. 'We didn't have a mattress or even a blanket, neither me nor the kids,' she said. 'I had to sleep on the floor with my newborn baby. It was physically exhausting.' She then had to tend to four children in an enclave where baby formula, diapers and even the most basic food items were almost impossible to find. The war, she says, has reshaped her understanding of suffering and hardship. In 2022, she and Khader were struggling to make ends meet between Israel's gunship blockade and the frequent destruction of their boats. There was also the added burden of being a mother with small children and undertaking such physically taxing work. But now, things have gotten far worse. 'There's no such thing as 'difficult' any more. Nothing compares to the humiliation, hunger and horror we've seen in this war,' she says. Throughout the war, Madleen remained in touch with international friends and solidarity activists she had met through the years. 'I would share my reality with them,' she says. 'They came to understand the situation through me. They felt like family.' Her friends abroad offered both emotional and financial support, and she is grateful for them, saying they made her feel that Gaza wasn't forgotten, that people still cared. She is also grateful for being remembered in the naming of the Madleen, but she worries that Israeli authorities will not let the ship reach Gaza, citing past attempts that were intercepted. 'Intercepting the ship would be the least of it. What's more worrying is the possibility of a direct assault like what happened to the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara in 2010 when several people were killed.' Regardless of what happens, Madleen believes the mission's true message has already been delivered. 'This is a call to break the global silence, to draw the world's attention to what's happening in Gaza. The blockade must end, and this war must stop immediately.' 'This is also a message of hope for me. They may have bombed my boat, but my name will remain – and it will sail across the sea.'
