DHS: Detainees in Texas threatened ICE agents, barricaded themselves
The Department of Homeland Security has levied new allegations against a group of accused Tren de Aragua gang members who were held in Texas' Bluebonnet Detention Facility, where detainees arranged themselves to spell out 'S-O-S' in April. NewsNation's Xavier Walton has the latest live on 'Morning in America.' #Texas #TrenDeAragua #DHS
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Wall Street Journal
an hour ago
- Wall Street Journal
How Can Congress Keep American Jews Safe?
Your editorial 'The Intifada Comes to Boulder' (June 3) rightly states that the recent violent attacks against American Jews, in Colorado and Washington, 'are intended to terrorize the Jewish diaspora.' You advise that this will get worse 'if it isn't denounced by all political sides.' That's true, but it mustn't be the end of the discussion. Republican and Democratic politicians have condemned these heinous attacks. What the American Jewish community needs now are concrete steps to keep us more safe and secure. Congress has underfunded the Nonprofit Security Grant Program—the largest federal program to support security at synagogues and other Jewish sites—administered by the Department of Homeland Security. For 2025, Congress appropriated $275 million for NSGP grants. Last year more than $900 million in applications were submitted. Congress should appropriate at least $500 million for NSGP grants for the coming year.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trump targeting of Mahmoud Khalil is baseless and has caused extreme psychological harm, lawyers say
NEW YORK — Attorneys for detained Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil in new filings say the Trump administration has damaged his reputation and severely undermined his ability to pursue a career in international diplomacy and human rights 'by baselessly identifying him as a risk to the foreign policy of the United States' based on his advocacy for Palestinians and criticism of Israel, 'marking him and his family as targets for harassment and notoriety.' '(The) longer the determination stands, the more reputational damage it does,' Khalil's legal team wrote. The New Jersey federal court filing came in support of Khalil's motion for a preliminary injunction in his habeas corpus case, which seeks his immediate release from custody. Lawyers are also calling for the vacating of Secretary of State Marco Rubio's determination as to why he should be deported, and — more broadly — an injunction stopping the federal government from enforcing a policy of arresting, detaining, and removing noncitizens who engage in speech supporting Palestinian rights or criticizing Israel. The Trump administration has not alleged Khalil broke any laws. It has sought to revoke his green card and deport him based on a rarely-used provision of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, which empowers Rubio to expel someone from the country if their activities and beliefs are considered adverse to U.S. foreign policy interests, which in Khalil's case, pertains to U.S. support for Israel. Khalil's case in New Jersey challenging the legality of his detention is playing out separately from his immigration case in Louisiana. In April, the immigration judge ordered his deportation in finding the government had met its burden, a decision he intends to appeal. The federal New Jersey judge, Michael Farbiarz, has said he cannot be deported while his habeas corpus matter plays out. Agents from the Department of Homeland Security took Khalil into custody on March 8 as he arrived home to his Columbia-owned apartment with his wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, from an iftar dinner. He was brought to lower Manhattan's 26 Federal Plaza for processing, driven to a facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey, overnight, and transported more than 1,000 miles away to Jena, Louisiana, the next morning, a Sunday, where he has since remained incarcerated at a detention center. In a ruling last week, Farbiarz, who is yet to rule on the legality of Khalil's detention, said the government's reasoning for seeking to deport him is likely unconstitutional. 'Our law asks about an 'ordinary person.' Would he know that [the rarely-used provision] could be used against him based on his speech inside the United States, however odious it might allegedly have been — speech that has not been affirmatively determined by the Secretary to have an impact on U.S. relations with other countries? The Court's answer is no,' Farbiarz wrote. In Khalil's parallel immigration case, the judge, Jamee Comans, last month heard testimony from the student activist and several experts who said his deportation could result in his kidnapping, torture, or even death due to his prominent criticism of Israel. Comans denied a renewed motion to end the deportation proceedings based on agents' failure to provide a warrant upon his arrest, The New York Times reported, and reserved issuing a decision on his bid for asylum. In the filings made public Thursday, Khalil's lawyers asked for permission to file under seal an expert declaration outlining the extreme psychological harm he's endured from the 'shock of unjust arrest and continued detention and family separation,' which they say 'will inevitably severely worsen absent release.' A judge gave government lawyers until Friday to object to filing the assessment under seal. 'These harms include the loss of Mr. Khalil's liberty; the chilling of his First Amendment protected activities; the separation from his family, particularly his wife and newborn child; and psychological harm specific to his arrest and detention,' Khalil's lawyers wrote. A Palestinian who was raised in a refugee camp in Syria, Khalil came to the U.S. in December 2022 on a student visa, married Abdalla, who's from the Midwest, in November 2023, and became a lawful permanent resident in 2024. He completed his Master's degree at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs in December and would have graduated last month. Abdalla accepted his diploma on his behalf a month after giving birth to their first child, a baby boy. With experience working for a British embassy and interning with the United Nations in New York, Khalil was selected to play the role of a mediator and negotiator between the university's administration and students during campus protests last year against Israel's war on Gaza and Columbia's ties to the Israeli regime. Donald Trump and his Cabinet members have repeatedly characterized Khalil's advocacy and criticism of Israel in general as antisemitic and inherently supportive of Hamas. The Trump administration has since targeted hundreds of international students for their advocacy for Gazans and criticism of Israeli military activity. Khalil has denounced antisemitism, and in his public-facing role speaking to media on behalf of protesters before his arrest, he repeatedly maintained that the movement should advocate for justice and equality for all groups, telling CNN in April 2024, 'As a Palestinian student, I believe that the liberation of the Palestinian people and the Jewish people are intertwined and go hand-by-hand and you cannot achieve one without the other.' _____
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
'Have mercy': Families plead as migrants arrested at routine DHS check-ins
Outside a nondescript building in downtown Manhattan, Ambar was pleading to God and immigration authorities that her husband Jaen would not walk out the doors of the Elk Street facility in handcuffs. "It's the only thing I ask of God and them, to have mercy for his family. I don't have anyone else. I'm alone with my daughter, I don't want to be separated from him," Ambar told ABC News with tears welling up as her daughter Aranza kept herself distracted on an iPad. But her prayers were not answered. That afternoon, Jaen and two other men were brought outside by masked agents in plainclothes and quickly ushered into unmarked vehicles, with Ambar wailing and making a last plea. Aranza, 12, tried to push past the agents to prevent them from leading him toward the vehicles, tears streaming down her face. ABC News observed the emotional moments as an uncontrollably distraught Ambar threw herself on the ground pleading for her husband to be released. The masked individuals did not respond to multiple questions asked by ABC News regarding what agency they belonged to, why they were covering their faces, and which authority was being invoked to detain the men. But Jaen's lawyer, Margaret Cargioli, says his detention follows a growing pattern of migrants being detained during check-ins with the Department of Homeland Security and being quickly deported under expedited removal. DHS did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment. In 2023, ABC News did a sit-down interview with the Colombian-Venezuelan family about their tearful reunion after being separated at the border by U.S. authorities in Texas. Jaen, Ambar and Aranza made the dangerous journey from Colombia hoping to seek asylum in the U.S. "[It was] traumatic," Jaen said during the interview. "It was a risky decision. We knew we had someone to take care of, our daughter. As a family, we felt we didn't have another option." MORE: In a new tactic, ICE is arresting migrants at immigration courts, attorneys say Once they reached the border the family said they were separated and were placed in different types of removal proceedings. Ambar and her daughter said they were eventually released and placed on a bus to Los Angeles, funded by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's Operation Lone Star. Jaen was issued a removal order under the expedited removal process, but Cargioli and other attorneys with Immigrant Defenders Law Center were able to successfully challenge the separation and he was released on humanitarian parole for one year. Cargioli says Jaen has petitioned for asylum, a renewal of parole and a stay of removal but all are pending. Jaen was scheduled for a check-in on June 16 as part of the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP) — an alternative to the detention program run by ICE -- but was unexpectedly told to come in on June 3 or 4, Ambar told ABC News. That raised major red flags for his legal team, who has been monitoring increasing incidents of the Trump administration detaining migrants in the interior of the country and placing them on "expedited removal." The process allows the government to remove migrants in a streamlined manner without requiring them, in some cases, to go before a judge. Under the Biden administration, the process applied to migrants who had entered the U.S. within 14 days and within 100 miles of the border. Under the Trump administration, it has been expanded to apply to migrants anywhere in the interior who have arrived within two years. Jaen and his family entered the United States on June 4, 2023, exactly two years before his latest detention, leading Cargioli to fear he's being placed in expedited removal. Despite asking the ISAP officers where he was going to be detained, and if it was through expedited removal, the attorney says she has not received an answer. Jaen spoke with Ambar on the phone after his detention and said he did not know where he was, but that he was being held at a facility close to where he was detained, Ambar said. MORE: Families separated by Trump's 'zero-tolerance' policy at risk due to lapse in legal services, ACLU argues Ambar and Aranza have an asylum hearing scheduled for June 2028. Cargioli believes Jaen would be with his family if they had not been separated at the border. "If he had not been separated from his family at that stage and put into expedited removal, he would have his case in immigration in New York, in immigration court with her, with both of them," she told ABC News. ISAP check-ins are carried out through a government contractor called BI Incorporated, according to DHS reports. Jaen has been regularly checking in at the Elk Street office since his initial detention, Ambar said. Families with loved ones checking in stand outside the facility hoping they will not be detained. On Wednesday, ABC News saw one woman cry with joy when a relative and her baby walked out with no handcuffs in sight. Another woman was shocked to see her mom being quickly led into one of the vehicles waiting outside the building. "Mom what happened, what is this," the woman asked. The masked agents did not respond to her repeated questions about why her mom was being detained. "I don't understand," the woman yelled. "She didn't do anything. She has a work card." "Who do we speak to…what is going on," she asked as the agents closed the car door and drove off with her mother.
