Latest news with #ImmigrationandNationalityActof1952
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Judges bring Trump's sweeping plan to deport foreign students to a standstill
President Donald Trump's sweeping bid to deport foreign students who have condemned the war in Gaza has been brought to a standstill by federal judges who have repeatedly ruled against the administration, according to an NBC News review of recent court filings. First, Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student, was arrested and transported hundreds of miles from his home. Then a graduate student at Tufts University in Massachusetts, Rümeysa Öztürk, was grabbed off the street by masked plainclothes federal agents. A third student, Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown University postdoctoral scholar and professor, was arrested at his home, while another Columbia student, Mohsen Mahdawi, was detained at his naturalization interview. Since then, though, federal judges have rejected the administration's arguments about court jurisdiction and the continued detention of three of the four students. Federal judges freed Öztürk, Mahdawi and Suri. And a ruling on Khalil's possible release is expected soon. In separate legal setbacks for the administration, federal appeals courts upheld lower courts' orders requiring the government to transfer Öztürk to Vermont for a bail hearing and to release Mahdawi. And late last month, a judge issued an injunction blocking the administration from terminating the legal status of international students at universities across the United States. The judges have been appointed by both Republican and Democratic presidents, including Trump. 'It has been very heartening to see the courts recognize the legal issues at play here and recognize that what the administration has been doing is unconstitutional,' said Esha Bhandari, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents several of the students. 'This reinforces just how important it is to have an independent judiciary that can protect individual rights and act as a check when the executive branch overreaches.' Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin predicted in a statement to NBC News that the administration would eventually prevail in court. 'These rulings delay justice and seek to kneecap the President's constitutionally vested powers,' she said. "We expect a higher court to vindicate us in this. We have the law, the facts, and common sense on our side.' The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment. The Trump administration's primary legal argument is that foreign students and scholars can be deported under an obscure provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. The law allows the secretary of state to remove noncitizens whose presence in the country would have 'potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.' Trump administration officials have argued that students who engaged in protests in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization, contributed to antisemitism on college campuses. Khalil and the other students have denied allegations of antisemitism and of providing support to Hamas or any other terrorist organization, and they say they have not participated in protests backing Hamas. None of the four face any publicly known criminal charges. The government has yet to disclose any evidence linking the students to Hamas or praising the group, which the United States designated a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. Attorneys representing the students have argued that their clients' detainment and the efforts to deport them are retaliation for constitutionally protected free speech and advocacy for Palestinian rights. Khalil, a legal permanent resident, played a key role in the student protests at Columbia University last year by leading negotiations between the protesters and university officials. The other Columbia student, Mahdawi, was a prominent organizer of the pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus. Öztürk, a graduate student, wrote an op-ed in her student newspaper at Tufts University that was critical of the university's response to the war in Gaza. Last week, a federal judge in New Jersey ruled against the administration's claim that Khalil's beliefs and speech had adverse consequences for U.S. foreign policy. It was the first time a judge has said the government's primary justification for deporting Khalil was most likely unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz said Secretary of State Marco Rubio failed to 'affirmatively determine' that Khalil's alleged conduct has affected U.S. relations with another country, adding that deporting Khalil under the provision would be 'unprecedented.' In response to a request for comment, a State Department spokesperson said, 'We don't comment on pending litigation.' Lora Ries, director of the Heritage Foundation's border security and immigration center, said the judges were unfairly blocking Trump. 'There have been a lot of activist judges issuing rulings against the Trump administration,' Ries said. 'There is a clear effort, beyond even what we saw in Trump's first term, to slow down a lot of the efforts to enforce immigration law.' Daniel Kanstroom, a professor at Boston College Law School, predicted that judges would continue to rule in international students' favor. 'I think the courts are going to view this period as one in which the judiciary should and needs to exert a little more force and authority than it might do in other circumstances,' Kanstroom said. 'Just to bring the tone down a little bit and bring us back to a more normal interaction among the three branches.' In April, U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford ruled that Mahdawi, 34, a U.S. permanent resident who was born and raised in a refugee camp in the West Bank, should be released from a Vermont immigration detention facility on bail. Crawford said Mahdawi's continued detention would be likely to have a 'chilling effect on protected speech.' The government opposed freeing Mahdawi, citing law enforcement records that indicated he was 'involved in and supporting antisemitic acts of violence' and that he had 'an interest in and facility with firearms for that purpose,' according to court documents filed under seal but reviewed by NBC News. But in a court order, Crawford said law enforcement had determined that a Vermont gun shop owner's accusations against Mahdawi were unsubstantiated. In May, U.S. District Judge William Sessions III freed Öztürk from detention, writing, 'There has been no evidence introduced by the government other than the op-ed,' referring to the student newspaper op-ed in which Öztürk called on Tufts to acknowledge the war in Gaza. 'That literally is the case. There is no evidence here,' Sessions said. Sessions said Öztürk's continued detention infringed on her First Amendment and due process rights. He added that it might be justified 'if the government had presented a legitimate case for it, but it has not done so.' No cases involving the deportation of foreign students for their condemnation of the war in Gaza are before the Supreme Court, but they could be in the future. Conor Fitzpatrick, a supervising senior attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a nonprofit civil liberties group, said the Supreme Court has yet to address the intersection of executive power, immigration law and free speech. Until it does, the fate of foreign students and scholars in the United States remains uncertain. 'There is a real sense of unease for international students and international faculty about whether they can feel safe voicing their opinions,' Fitzpatrick said. 'They're worried about risking their immigration status, and that is a harm that is going to take a long time to undo.' John Yoo, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who served as a senior Justice Department official during the George W. Bush administration, said the cases will create a unique challenge for the Supreme Court. 'The two things that this court has been very supportive of are coming into collision,' Yoo said. 'The Roberts Court has been very deferential to the executive branch in general. On the other hand, this court has also been extremely protective of freedom of speech.' He added, 'It's going to cause a lot of tension at the court.' This article was originally published on
NBC News
5 days ago
- Politics
- NBC News
Judges bring Trump's sweeping plan to deport foreign students to a standstill
President Donald Trump's sweeping bid to deport foreign students who have condemned the war in Gaza has been brought to a standstill by federal judges who have repeatedly ruled against the administration, according to an NBC News review of recent court filings. First, Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student, was arrested and transported hundreds of miles from his home. Then a graduate student at Tufts University in Massachusetts, Rümeysa Öztürk, was grabbed off the street by masked plainclothes federal agents. A third student, Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown University postdoctoral scholar and professor, was arrested at his home, while another Columbia student, Mohsen Mahdawi, was detained at his naturalization interview. Since then, though, federal judges have rejected the administration's arguments about court jurisdiction and the continued detention of three of the four students. Federal judges freed Öztürk, Mahdawi and Suri. And a ruling on Khalil's possible release is expected soon. In separate legal setbacks for the administration, federal appeals courts upheld lower courts' orders requiring the government to transfer Öztürk to Vermont for a bail hearing and to release Mahdawi. And late last month, a judge issued an injunction blocking the administration from terminating the legal status of international students at universities across the United States. The judges have been appointed by both Republican and Democratic presidents, including Trump. 'It has been very heartening to see the courts recognize the legal issues at play here and recognize that what the administration has been doing is unconstitutional,' said Esha Bhandari, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents several of the students. 'This reinforces just how important it is to have an independent judiciary that can protect individual rights and act as a check when the executive branch overreaches.' Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin predicted in a statement to NBC News that the administration would eventually prevail in court. 'These rulings delay justice and seek to kneecap the President's constitutionally vested powers,' she said. "We expect a higher court to vindicate us in this. We have the law, the facts, and common sense on our side.' The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment. Rarely used provision The Trump administration's primary legal argument is that foreign students and scholars can be deported under an obscure provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. The law allows the secretary of state to remove noncitizens whose presence in the country would have 'potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.' Trump administration officials have argued that students who engaged in protests in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization, contributed to antisemitism on college campuses. Khalil and the other students have denied allegations of antisemitism and of providing support to Hamas or any other terrorist organization, and they say they have not participated in protests backing Hamas. None of the four face any publicly known criminal charges. The government has yet to disclose any evidence linking the students to Hamas or praising the group, which the United States designated a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. Attorneys representing the students have argued that their clients' detainment and the efforts to deport them are retaliation for constitutionally protected free speech and advocacy for Palestinian rights. Khalil, a legal permanent resident, played a key role in the student protests at Columbia University last year by leading negotiations between the protesters and university officials. The other Columbia student, Mahdawi, was a prominent organizer of the pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus. Öztürk, a graduate student, wrote an op-ed in her student newspaper at Tufts University that was critical of the university's response to the war in Gaza. Last week, a federal judge in New Jersey ruled against the administration's claim that Khalil's beliefs and speech had adverse consequences for U.S. foreign policy. It was the first time a judge has said the government's primary justification for deporting Khalil was most likely unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz said Secretary of State Marco Rubio failed to 'affirmatively determine' that Khalil's alleged conduct has affected U.S. relations with another country, adding that deporting Khalil under the provision would be 'unprecedented.' In response to a request for comment, a State Department spokesperson said, 'We don't comment on pending litigation.' Lora Ries, director of the Heritage Foundation's border security and immigration center, said the judges were unfairly blocking Trump. 'There have been a lot of activist judges issuing rulings against the Trump administration,' Ries said. 'There is a clear effort, beyond even what we saw in Trump's first term, to slow down a lot of the efforts to enforce immigration law.' Daniel Kanstroom, a professor at Boston College Law School, predicted that judges would continue to rule in international students' favor. 'I think the courts are going to view this period as one in which the judiciary should and needs to exert a little more force and authority than it might do in other circumstances,' Kanstroom said. 'Just to bring the tone down a little bit and bring us back to a more normal interaction among the three branches.' Detention losses In April, U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford ruled that Mahdawi, 34, a U.S. permanent resident who was born and raised in a refugee camp in the West Bank, should be released from a Vermont immigration detention facility on bail. Crawford said Mahdawi's continued detention would be likely to have a 'chilling effect on protected speech.' The government opposed freeing Mahdawi, citing law enforcement records that indicated he was 'involved in and supporting antisemitic acts of violence' and that he had 'an interest in and facility with firearms for that purpose,' according to court documents filed under seal but reviewed by NBC News. But in a court order, Crawford said law enforcement had determined that a Vermont gun shop owner's accusations against Mahdawi were unsubstantiated. In May, U.S. District Judge William Sessions III freed Öztürk from detention, writing, 'There has been no evidence introduced by the government other than the op-ed,' referring to the student newspaper op-ed in which Öztürk called on Tufts to acknowledge the war in Gaza. 'That literally is the case. There is no evidence here,' Sessions said. Sessions said Öztürk's continued detention infringed on her First Amendment and due process rights. He added that it might be justified 'if the government had presented a legitimate case for it, but it has not done so.' Legal struggle ahead No cases involving the deportation of foreign students for their condemnation of the war in Gaza are before the Supreme Court, but they could be in the future. Conor Fitzpatrick, a supervising senior attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a nonprofit civil liberties group, said the Supreme Court has yet to address the intersection of executive power, immigration law and free speech. Until it does, the fate of foreign students and scholars in the United States remains uncertain. 'There is a real sense of unease for international students and international faculty about whether they can feel safe voicing their opinions,' Fitzpatrick said. 'They're worried about risking their immigration status, and that is a harm that is going to take a long time to undo.' John Yoo, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who served as a senior Justice Department official during the George W. Bush administration, said the cases will create a unique challenge for the Supreme Court. 'The two things that this court has been very supportive of are coming into collision,' Yoo said. 'The Roberts Court has been very deferential to the executive branch in general. On the other hand, this court has also been extremely protective of freedom of speech.' He added, 'It's going to cause a lot of tension at the court.'
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
President Trump moves to bar Harvard's international students from entering the U.S.
President Donald Trump moved to bar Harvard University's international students from entering the U.S. and asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio to consider revoking the visas of Harvard students already in the country in a new proclamation Wednesday night. A Harvard spokesperson called the restriction 'illegal' in a statement to The New York Times, adding that the university would 'continue to protect its international students.' The proclamation is the latest action against Harvard by the Trump White House in its ongoing feud with the university over its rebukes of the administration's attempts to reshape it, but it is the first time the president has taken direct action against Harvard using the powers of the presidency. In the proclamation, the president asserts that Harvard is admitting international students from countries that are hostile to the U.S. while failing to comply with the Department of Homeland Security's requests for information about students it suspects may pose a threat. As a result, federal officials have concluded that 'Harvard University is no longer a trustworthy steward of international student and exchange visitor programs,' according to the proclamation. 'When a university refuses to uphold its legal obligations, including its recordkeeping and reporting obligations, the consequences ripple far beyond the campus. They jeopardize the integrity of the entire United States student and exchange visitor visa system, compromise national security, and embolden other institutions to similarly disregard the rule of law.' President Trump has determined it is now necessary to suspend entry into the U.S. by foreign nationals whose purpose for being here would be 'solely or principally to participate in a course of study at Harvard University or in an exchange visitor program hosted by Harvard University,' he wrote. The president is authorized to issue such a restriction under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, according to the proclamation. Historically, this law has been used to block people from foreign countries with ties to human rights abuses or corruption from entering the country, The New York Times reported. It is unclear how the proclamation's directive would be applied at the border so as to prevent Harvard students with valid visas from entering the U.S., but the proclamation includes other details about how it should be implemented. Firstly, it includes the stipulation that the Secretary of State, Secretary of Homeland Security and members of their staff can permit entry into the country by a foreign national who would be otherwise be barred if they determine that doing so is 'in the national interest.' Secondly, it states that the proclamation's directives will expire in six months if not renewed. Within three months, the U.S. Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security are to make a recommendation to the president as to whether the restriction should be extended or allowed to expire. Last week, a federal judge in Massachusetts said she would issue a preliminary injunction to stop the Trump administration from preventing Harvard from enrolling international students while a court makes a final decision on the matter, but the judge has yet to actually issue the injunction. Mayor Wu defends calling ICE 'secret police' after Mass. US attorney's criticism 'Cooperating witness' in Harvard Law Review racism probe now works at the White House Massachusetts House votes to overhaul Cannabis Control Commission 'I did the humane thing': Worcester city councilor stands by actions at ICE arrest Mass. Sen. Warren has a few questions — OK, 66 of them — for Trump's Ed. Department boss Read the original article on MassLive.
USA Today
24-05-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
I joked about getting deported. In Trump's America, it's not funny.
I joked about getting deported. In Trump's America, it's not funny. | Opinion The secretary of State, under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, can trigger the deportation of any noncitizen if their presence is deemed harmful to U.S. foreign policy interests. Show Caption Hide Caption Moment Tufts University student was detained caught on security camera The moment Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk was detained by ICE was captured on a home security camera. When times are tough, I like to remind myself that I live in a country where I'm protected by an ironclad constitution from arrest without charge. Whatever hardships arise, at least I cannot be snatched up by government henchmen or hooded goons because of something I said, or wrote. Not without redress. Not without lawsuits, news coverage, protests, firings or prosecution for abuses of power – the guardrails of American freedom. That assurance is simply not available in much of the world. And the certainty of those protections, right here in the land of the free, seems to be fading in and out like the photograph of Marty McFly's siblings in 'Back to the Future.' Eerie familiarity My parents were not born in a place where they were free to have their say. Political imprisonment and suppression of dissent were common where they grew up in Syria, much like many countries from which families emigrate to the U.S. I'd be lying if I said that was the reason my parents immigrated. Their motivations were more about economic opportunity – the chance to raise children in a place where their futures would be secure. But freedom of speech, due process rights and the unequivocal rule of law aren't just added perks. They are the foundations on which the world's strongest economy was built. So I have a certain duty to deeply appreciate and make the best of what my parents did for me: leaving their families behind, walking away from everyone and everything they knew and traveling to the opposite end of the world to give me a life of freedom and opportunity. But over the last two months, images of hooded and masked agents of the United States government stalking and arresting students – apparently for their political views – has thrown every notion of American comfort and security I've ever had into question. Meanwhile, there's strange new leadership back in Syria, too. It's a mess. Decades of dictatorship have finally given way to a fledging new government that is trying to dismantle and rebuild myriad government institutions from the ground up. The country is several years away from its next election. Arrests with ambiguous justification that may be political in nature are still common. And the country's new leaders are struggling to build and hold the trust of the populace every step of the way. Sounds familiar. Far too familiar. Opinion: This liberal influencer calls Democrats 'smug, disinterested.' He's right. My April Fools' ICE prank went wrong It was a silly, lighthearted joke, I thought. 'Guys, there are ICE agents outside the building asking about me. What do I do? Hide me!' It was April Fools' Day. I was in the mood for some pranking, and a little social experimentation. I'm a Michigan-born U.S. citizen. Most of my friends and co-workers – certainly my family members – know that. It would be absurd, previously, to imagine Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to be on the hunt for little old me. But the prank was fairly consistently met with genuine horror. Some were angry with me afterward. And then the reality set in. This is no joke. Opinion: Trump's detention policies hurt kids. We know, we're pediatricians. In addition to seeking comfort in the Constitution, I cope with calamity by turning to humor, and I make no apologies for the prank. But the joke didn't land, for good reason. Our president has sought to end birthright citizenship and has expressed interest in sending 'homegrowns' – whatever that means – to a prison in El Salvador. Citizens being targeted by U.S. immigration agents is no longer such a farfetched possibility. It all started with Mahmoud Khalil It started with Mahmoud Khalil, the Trump Administration's inaugural political detainee, a legal permanent resident married to a U.S. citizen who was arrested because he organized and participated in protests at Columbia University. The secretary of State, under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, can trigger the deportation of any non-citizen if their presence is deemed harmful to U.S. foreign policy interests – a provision the Trump Administration is interpreting very loosely. The case is making its way through the courts, but Khalil, who's never been charged with a crime, is still behind bars, more than 50 days after his March 9 warrantless arrest. He missed the birth of his first child during his inexplicably lengthy detention. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a memo seeking to make Khalil deportable despite his permanent resident status, declared 'I have determined that the activities and presence of these aliens in the United States would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest.' The memo accused Khalil of 'condoning anti-Semitic conduct and disruptive protests in the United States.' The government has not elaborated on its characterization of antisemitic conduct. The 1952 law that grants Rubio the authority to make such a determination was once declared unconstitutional, back in 1996. Then-U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher, under President Bill Clinton, was seeking to extradite Mario Ruiz Massieu to Mexico, despite multiple court rulings that prosecutors lacked probable cause to suggest Massieu had engaged in criminal activity. 'Absent a meaningful opportunity to be heard, the Secretary of State's unreviewable and concededly 'unfettered discretion' to deprive an alien, who lawfully entered this country, of his or her liberty to the extent exemplified by this case is, in this court's view, unconstitutional,' wrote U.S. District Judge Maryanne Trump Barry. Yes, that's President Donald Trump's late sister. Barry's ruling was overturned months later by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in an opinion written by Samuel Alito, now a U.S. Supreme Court justice, who found that the district court lacked jurisdiction on the matter: 'If plaintiff wished to challenge the efforts to deport him, he was required to exhaust available administrative remedies (in immigration court) and then petition for review in this court.' In 1999, after four years of awaiting a resolution while under house arrest, Ruiz Massieu killed himself. In 1944, the Supreme Court said internment camps were constitutional Another heartbreaking historic court ruling seems relevant to the abhorrent trend of indefinitely detaining immigrants. In the 1944 case Korematsu v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to uphold the constitutionality of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Dissenting Justice Frank Murphy, a former Detroit mayor and Michigan governor, found the ruling abhorrent. 'This exclusion of 'all persons of Japanese ancestry, both alien and non-alien,' from the Pacific Coast area on a plea of military necessity in the absence of martial law ought not to be approved. Such exclusion goes over 'the very brink of constitutional power,' and falls into the ugly abyss of racism,' Murphy wrote in his dissent. 'To infer that examples of individual disloyalty prove group disloyalty and justify discriminatory action against the entire group is to deny that, under our system of law, individual guilt is the sole basis for deprivation of rights. Moreover, this inference, which is at the very heart of the evacuation orders, has been used in support of the abhorrent and despicable treatment of minority groups by the dictatorial tyrannies which this nation is now pledged to destroy. 'To give constitutional sanction to that inference in this case, however well-intentioned may have been the military command on the Pacific Coast, is to adopt one of the cruelest of the rationales used by our enemies to destroy the dignity of the individual and to encourage and open the door to discriminatory actions against other minority groups in the passions of tomorrow.' Immigrants with legal status are being snatched Since Khalil's March arrest, more immigrants with legal status have been snatched from their communities and face indefinite detention pending potential deportation. Rumeysa Ozturk, an international student from Turkey who co-wrote an op-ed for the school newspaper at Tuft's University, was arrested March 25 by plainclothes agents while walking in a Boston suburb. 'We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist, to tear up our university campuses,' Rubio told reporters after the arrest. Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian international student who took part in protests last year at Columbia University, was taken into custody at a Vermont immigration office after being summoned for what he initially hoped would be a final interview before gaining U.S. citizenship. And Rubio moved to revoke the visas of at least 1,000 international students, including students at least five colleges in Michigan. In the face of numerous lawsuits filed by students, with courts showing signs of losing patience with the administration, the administration reversed course on those revocations last week. But the damage has been done. Some of the students whose visas were threatened have already left the country. And the images of three foreign students being handcuffed and hauled away to immigration detention centers, where they remain, are sure to discourage families across the world from sending their children to study in the U.S. As the administration explores how far it can go, many, like my co-workers on April Fools' Day, are fearfully anticipating word that a rabble-rousing U.S. citizen has been plucked from their community and threatened with deportation. Amir Makled got a taste of what that might be like earlier this month. The Detroit-born civil rights attorney, who is representing a University of Michigan student charged with resisting arrest during student protests last year, was detained for nearly two hours at Detroit Metro Airport on April 6 as he returned from a family trip to the Dominican Republic. 'I was targeted because of the work I was engaged in,' Makled told me. '… It could not have been a routine search. They were waiting for me. They knew I was an attorney. They knew my client list. They were telling me about me.' Federal agents demanded, without warrant, to search Makled's cellphone. He refused, but ultimately allowed the agents to view his contacts, leading to his release. He regrets making that concession. 'In hindsight, now I know a lot more about how far they can go,' Makled said. He believes the government needs an actual indication of a real national security threat to confiscate a traveler's phone. Makled wears the experience like a badge of honor, proud to be in a position to fight for upholding civil rights. 'I'm not going to be intimidated in this setting," he said. "This is not something that puts me in a position of being scared." He is, however, afraid for the future of constitutional civil rights in the U.S. 'This is the death of democracy and due process,' he said. 'The message they're sending is: 'Stay quiet, or else.' This is exactly how free speech gets killed.' We have to to be the guardrails of our own rights There are those who are indeed choosing to stay quiet, to store away their soapboxes and protest signs and wait for safer times. And there are those, like Makled, who are only getting more fired up to fight. It's the latter who'll keep our constitutional rights from fading out of the picture. It'll be the lawyers with the courage to fight for their own rights and those of their clients in the face of unprecedented federal retaliation against opposing attorneys. It'll be the preachers, educators and block club leaders who are willing to go out on a limb to inform and warn their communities of the threats coming from the White House. It'll be the local elected officials who manage to find balance between fighting back and making compromises to protect municipal budgets from federal cuts. It'll be the remaining federal workers who risk their jobs to document everything they possibly can. And yes, it will be those protest activists, of all sorts and stripes and causes, of varying degrees of righteousness and courage, who demonstrate despite being monitored and targeted like never before. Because we are the guardrails. Our laws, it seems, can't stand alone. We the people, who believe in the Constitution, need to be the ones who keep our rights intact. Those of us who cannot afford to take our constitutional rights for granted, because they're being pressed to their limits, those who actively cherish and are willing to work to protect free speech and due process – we must be the guardrails. Khalil AlHajal is deputy editorial page editor of the Detroit Free Press, where this column originally published. Contact: kalhajal@
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Mother of three US citizens hit with $1.8m ICE fine over her failure to leave the country
A woman living in southern Florida who first entered the United States illegally 20 years ago has been fined $1.82m by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for failing to leave the country. The mother of three gave an emotional on-camera interview to CBS News Miami, in which she was identified only as 'Maria,' to express her shock. The 41 year-old appealed for clemency, particularly on behalf of her children, all of whom are American citizens, who she said would suffer if she were to be deported. Maria said she was originally from Honduras but had entered California without the proper documentation in February 2005. After failing to appear at a scheduled immigration hearing two months later, she was ordered to return home but instead settled in Miami-Dade, Florida, where she has lived for two decades and raised her children, now teenagers. Then, on May 9 this year, she received a letter from ICE informing her that, under the seldom-used Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, she was being fined $500 for every subsequent day she had spent in the U.S., a penalty that now stands at $1,821,350, which she was given just 30 days to pay. 'Ever since that day I live with anxiety,' Maria told the CBS affiliate. 'I can't sleep… I don't feel. I don't want to go back. 'It would be extremely painful to be separated from my children, this is their country, this is all they know. Please have mercy. I want to stay with them.' On her decision not to attend her hearing back in 2005, Maria said: 'I told the immigration officer I didn't have any family in this country or a specific place to stay. I never received any document and they did not know where I was going to be.' Michelle C Sanchez, her attorney, called the fine 'absolutely nuts' and argued that her client was never properly informed of the consequences of her actions. Presenting the letter informing Maria of the fine, Sanchez said: 'They're supposed to say on [here] the date that she was advised and this is blank because they never advised her of the penalties. So that's going to be my argument.' She added that she plans to appeal Maria's case. Sanchez also warned that Maria's children would suffer 'extreme and exceptionally unusual hardships' if their mother were forcibly returned to Honduras without them. The Independent has contacted ICE for its response. The episode is just the latest in a series of dramatic stories to have emerged as a result of President Donald Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration since he returned to office in January, which he has touted as the largest mass deportation push in American history.
