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Axios
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Axios
3 ways Trump's immigration crackdown could hit U.S. citizens
Trump administration officials are suggesting their immigration crackdown could expand to include deporting convicted U.S. citizens and charging anyone — not just immigrants — who criticizes Trump's policies. Why it matters: Such moves — described by officials in recent days — would show how U.S. citizens could be impacted by the growing number of tactics President Trump is using to, in his view, improve national security. They'd also be certain to ignite new legal battles over how far Trump's team can go in fighting illegal immigration and responding to dissenters. Zoom in: Here are three tactics the administration has teased that legal analysts say would challenge Americans' rights: 1. Sending convicted U.S. citizens to prisons abroad. This has been floated as a spinoff of Trump's deal with El Salvador, where a high-security prison is holding about 300 U.S. immigration detainees that the administration says are suspected criminals and gang members. "Homegrowns are next," Trump said during an Oval Office meeting with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele last week, referring to sending Americans convicted of crimes to serve time in foreign prisons. "We always have to obey the laws," Trump said, "but we also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways, that hit elderly ladies over the head ... I'd like to include them in the group of people to get them out of the country." Trump's suggestion — echoing a similar proposal Bukele made to Secretary of State Marco Rubio in February — drew a storm of criticism from legal advocates, who called it unconstitutional. 2. Putting critics of the administration's policies in jeopardy. Some officials say U.S. citizens who criticize administration policies could be charged with crimes, based on the notion that they're aiding terrorists and criminals. "You have to ask yourself, are they technically aiding and abetting them, because aiding and abetting criminals and terrorists is a crime," White House senior director for counterterrorism Seb Gorka said in an interview with Newsmax. Trump's team also has questioned the legality of civic groups providing immigrants with "know your rights" trainings on how to respond to federal agents. Border czar Tom Homan suggested that such seminars help people evade law enforcement. "They're trying to use terrorism laws to attack people for their speech and for their political activism, and that's an authoritarian effort," said Kerri Talbot, co-executive director of the Immigration Hub, an immigration advocacy group. 3. Questioning the authority of court orders. The administration's resistance to returning Kilmar Abrego Garcia — who was legally in the U.S. with an order not to be deported back to El Salvador, but deported to the prison there anyway — has raised questions about how far Trump's team can go in trying to skirt court orders. The White House says the decision to return Abrego Garcia rests with El Salvador because the U.S. Supreme Court told the administration only to "facilitate" his return, not "effectuate" it. Advocates worry the resulting confusion has laid the groundwork for Trump's team to send a U.S. citizen to a foreign prison, then claim that person couldn't be returned. A federal judge raised this concern in Abrego Garcia's case. " If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home?" wrote Judge Harvie Wilkinson III. "And what assurance shall there be that the Executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies?" What they're saying: Michelle Brané, former executive director of the Biden administration's Family Reunification Task Force, echoed Wilkinson. " If they can send a noncitizen to a prison in El Salvador without due process ... why would a U.S. citizen be safer?" The White House didn't respond to a request for comment. But officials have argued that they have an electoral mandate for stricter immigration enforcement, and that opposition to their policies is against the will of voters. Trump's handling of immigration polls well in public surveys. But sending immigrants to El Salvador's prison without criminal convictions or due process does not — about 60% were opposed in a recent YouGov survey. Between the lines: U.S. citizens have been mistakenly detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) before, including cases this month in Arizona and Florida.
Yahoo
26-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
After Trump ends protections, Haitians in Florida brace for what's next
Biko Joseph fled his native Haiti for Chile to escape danger. A radio journalist, he became a target after exposing government corruption in 2016. From Chile, he was able to bring his family from Haiti. Four years later, they moved to the United States and applied for temporary protected status, a designation afforded to refugees who cannot return home safely. Peace and stability seemed possible until President Donald Trump's administration moved to revoke protections for approximately 500,000 Haitians this month. Now, they could face deportation by August. 'It's very disappointing,' said Joseph, 34. 'We came here to start a new life.' Haiti has had temporary protected status since 2010, following a 7.0-magnitude earthquake that killed more than 300,000 people. By last year, 521,000 Haitians had this type of status, making them the second-largest number of temporary protected status beneficiaries after Venezuelans. Federal officials now say the system had been exploited and abused for decades. Three weeks ago, the Trump's administration revoked protections for about 600,000 Venezuelans. 'President Trump and I are returning (temporary protected status) to its original status: temporary,' Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement. The order to cut protections for Haitians reverses an 18-month extension that former President Joe Biden's administration granted last July, which expanded the protections through February 2026. Advocates decried the decision and warned that Haiti was still far from solving its internal crisis. 'This reckless decision doesn't just harm them; it destabilizes the very businesses, families and local economies that rely on them,' said Beatriz Lopez, co-executive director of the Immigration Hub, a national pro-immigration group. According to the International Organization for Migration, more than a million people are displaced in Haiti. Half of them are children. In the capital, Port-au-Prince, there are 108 shelters, which lack essential services such as food and water, the organization said. Many schools there have closed to serve as refuges for displaced Haitians and their families. Gang violence is another component. Armed groups control 80 percent of the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area and have expanded into remote rural areas. According to the United Nations, 5.5 million Haitians required humanitarian assistance last year. Violence also disrupted food production and distribution. Half of all Haitians suffer from hunger, said the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The violence has forced the closure of 63 health facilities across the country. Last year, less than a third of healthcare centers in the capital remained operational. Joseph said the situation in Haiti worsens every year. Under those circumstances, he sees no chance of going back. 'We are going to fight to stay,' he said. 'We have a life in this country, a home, a family.' Joseph and his family lived in Tampa until a couple of years ago. Then, he moved to upstate New York to work with a cousin and give his family a better life in a state more welcoming to immigrants. But anxiety and misinformation didn't go away. Negative rhetoric about immigrants kept spreading, such as the false claim, repeated by Trump, that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating pet dogs and cats. Kéto Nord Hodges, a math and special education teacher and well-known member of Tampa Bay's Haitian community, said the situation in Haiti is chaotic. The ongoing violence and political instability have left many people feeling hopeless. 'It is very dangerous to be on your own in Haiti,' said Hodges. 'Haitians came to the U.S. following a legal process and the majority of them are not here illegally.'
Yahoo
21-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump betrays another community he previously vowed to ‘champion'
As Donald Trump prepared to exit the White House the first time, the then-president shielded most Venezuelans in the United States from deportation, agreeing that the situation in their country was 'catastrophic.' His Democratic successor agreed: Joe Biden extended the Temporary Protected Status designation to nearly 350,000 Venezuelans who are in the U.S., and the protections were supposed to remain in place through the fall of 2026. Two weeks into his second term, Trump reversed course, ended the protections and put the Venezuelans at risk for deportation. The community, especially in Florida, was outraged. 'Betrayed. We feel betrayed. More than betrayed. Beyond betrayed,' Adeyls Ferro, executive director of the Venezuelan American Caucus in Doral, Florida, told NBC News. Two weeks later, the Republican president did it again. NBC News also reported: The Trump administration on Thursday canceled an extension of Temporary Protected Status for Haitians, the latest move by the president targeting the form of immigration relief for people coming from countries facing political upheaval and natural disasters. In June, amid the island's violent domestic turmoil, the Biden administration announced the temporary immigration protection was extended for Haitians until February 2026. The protections will now end in August. 'The Trump administration is ripping stability away from half a million Haitians who have built their lives here — children, workers, parents, and neighbors who have become integral to American communities and contributed to our economy,' Beatriz Lopez, co-executive director of the Immigration Hub, an immigrant advocacy organization, said in a statement. 'Deporting people to a country plagued by violence and political turmoil is unconscionable, and stripping them of legal status will only force working families into the shadows, inflicting fear in children and their loved ones and leaving industries like healthcare, construction, and hospitality scrambling for workers.' It's easy to forget, but in 2016, when Florida was still seen as a battleground state, Trump campaigned in Miami and spent some time at the Little Haiti Cultural Center, stressing the 'common values' he shared with Haitian Americans. 'Whether you vote for me or not,' the then-candidate said at the time, 'I really want to be your biggest champion.' A year later, he scrapped temporary status protection for Haitians who were allowed entry to the U.S. following a devastating earthquake in 2010. A year after that, the Republican hosted a White House meeting and referred to Haiti as a 's---hole' country. Six years after that, Trump based part of his 2024 presidential campaign on racist and false claims about Haitian Americans in Ohio eating household pets. And now Trump is again betraying the community he vowed to 'champion.' This post updates our related earlier coverage. This article was originally published on
