Latest news with #OpenBorderPolicy
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump Tries to Blame the Colorado Attack on ‘Open Border' Policies
After the firebomb attack in Colorado that injured 12 people on Sunday, President Donald Trump blamed his predecessor's 'ridiculous Open Border Policy' for allowing the entry of Mohamed Sabry Soliman, the Egyptian national now charged with a federal hate crime. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller denounced 'suicidal' U.S. immigration policies, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced that Soliman's wife and five children had been taken into immigration custody and would be swiftly deported. The attack, for Trump and his top aides, quickly became an opportunity to convert an act of anti-Semitic violence into a justification for the president's mass-deportation campaign; they depicted the incident as another example of American lives threatened by permissive immigration policies. But the reality of Soliman's arrival to the United States and his immigration status—based on what has been publicly revealed by the administration so far—isn't as straightforward as Trump officials have made it sound. The administration's labeling of Soliman as an 'illegal alien' is a mischaracterization of the gray area he inhabited in the U.S. asylum system, in which applicants can spend years in legal limbo waiting for their case to be decided. He arrived in 2022 not over the southern border, as Trump suggested, but on a visa that was also widely given out to Egyptian nationals during Trump's first term. The administration has not said what exactly it believes the Biden administration failed to catch in vetting Soliman's visa application. Trump cited the Colorado attack yesterday when he announced a ban on travelers from 12 countries—a list that did not include Egypt. 'The recent terror attack in Boulder, Colorado, has underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted, as well as those who come here as temporary visitors and overstay their visas,' Trump said in a video message. 'We don't want them.' [Bruce Hoffman: The Boulder attack didn't come out of nowhere] Months before the Boulder attack, Trump had already ordered U.S. consulates to intensify screening of visa applicants, including scouring their social-media accounts, for evidence of anti-Semitism and 'anti-American' beliefs or opinions, citing the threat of acts like the one Soliman is accused of committing against a group of demonstrators marching in support of Israeli hostages. Whether Soliman arrived with hateful views or adopted them during his time in the United States will be part of the investigation. After he was taken into custody—shirtless, ranting, and reeking of gasoline—Soliman told FBI agents that he'd been wanting to carry out the attack for a year but waited until his daughter graduated high school. Soliman, 45, entered the United States on a B-2 visa—typically for tourism or family visits—then promptly applied for asylum with his wife and children, according to the Department of Homeland Security. With a pending claim in U.S. immigration court, Soliman received U.S. work authorization, joining millions of others who entered the United States during the record migration influx of President Joe Biden's first three years in office. (Camilo Montoya-Galvez of CBS News reported on Tuesday that the Trump administration is now considering blocking asylum seekers from getting work permits.) The number of visitor visas issued by the State Department at the time was still low relative to pre-pandemic levels and building back up from its nadir in 2021. The United States issued 52,400 nonimmigrant visas to Egyptian nationals during the 2022 fiscal year, government records show, fewer than the roughly 62,000 a year granted during the pre-pandemic years of Trump's first term. The year Soliman arrived, it was relatively easy for Egyptian applicants to secure a visitor visa. About 23 percent of Egyptian applications for nonimmigration B visas were rejected in 2022, lower than the roughly 32 to 34 percent average during the pre-pandemic years of Trump's term. That changed over the course of Biden's term, and by the 2024 fiscal year, the rejection rate for Egyptian applications was 40 percent. When a foreign visitor arrives with a short-term visa such as the B-2 and fails to depart, the State Department counts it as an overstay. The overstay rate for Egyptians has been about 2 to 4 percent annually, State Department records show. That rate jumped to 8 percent in 2022, the year Soliman arrived—amid a broader surge in visa overstays that year—then returned to 4 percent in 2023. Noem ordered an 'urgent crackdown' yesterday on overstays of visas issued during the Biden administration, declaring in a statement that this was an effort to remove 'the rest of the world's terrorist sympathizers.' Soliman and his family lived in Kuwait for 17 years prior to his arrival, and it's not clear whether he applied for a visa as an Egyptian or a Kuwaiti. Kuwait is a far more prosperous and stable country than Egypt, and the overstay rate for Kuwaiti nationals is only about 1 percent. DHS officials did not respond to questions seeking additional information about Soliman's immigration record. Soliman's work-authorization document expired in March, according to DHS, and it's not clear why he failed to renew it. The lapse meant that it would have been illegal for Soliman to work, but the change would not have affected his immigration status, which was tied to his pending asylum claim and not to the work document, according to Paul Hunker, the former lead counsel for ICE in Dallas. Hunker told us that someone like Soliman, with a pending asylum claim, would not have been a priority for ICE during previous administrations, including Trump's first term, absent a separate criminal arrest. 'ICE could try to deport the person, but they could go to immigration court and assert protection, and a judge would make the decision,' Hunker said. Hunker added that it is unusual for ICE to arrest an offender's spouse and children in response to a crime and to threaten immediate deportation. The agency cannot use its fast-track deportation authority known as 'expedited removal' to remove those who entered the United States with a visa, he said. DHS did not respond to questions about its plans to deport Soliman's wife and children. The October 7, 2023, terrorist attack by Hamas—and the devastation of Gaza by the Israeli response—occurred after Soliman had reached the United States and sought asylum. Since then, Jewish Americans have faced a surge of anti-Semitic rhetoric and a recent series of violent attacks. Prosecutors have not said whether they've found social-media posts by Soliman threatening violence, and investigators say that he was not on the radar of local police. On Sunday, Soliman disguised himself as a gardener to approach his victims, they said, and had fashioned crude firebombs using glass jars and garden tools that included a pump sprayer filled with gasoline. As Trump and his aides assessed what to say and do after the Boulder attack, they decided to use the incident to push the administration's case for an aggressive mass-deportation campaign, White House officials told us. In recent weeks, Trump's poll numbers on immigration—arguably his signature issue—have slipped, as courts blocked some of his policies and many Americans deemed his administration's in-your-face tactics, including sending migrants to a hellish megaprison in El Salvador, too extreme. Trump has been frustrated that deportations are not on pace to set records, as he'd promised. Miller, the architect of his immigration crackdown, has ordered ICE to increase arrests more than fourfold, to a minimum of 3,000 people a day. [Read: We're about to find out what mass deportation really looks like] Trump was updated on the Colorado attack in real time, much like he was on two other high-profile recent incidents of anti-Semitic violence, according to two White House officials. But his public reaction was strikingly different when the alleged perpetrator was an immigrant. Shortly after the shooting of the two Israeli-embassy staffers near the Capital Jewish Museum last month, Trump took to Truth Social to extend condolences to the victims' families and condemn the attack, writing, 'These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW! Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA.' A month before that, after an arson attack at the Pennsylvania governor's mansion on the first night of Passover, Trump's response was delayed and muted. He made no Truth Social post, waited a week to call Governor Josh Shapiro—a Democrat angling to be one of the party's leading Trump critics–—and dismissed the suspect as 'probably just a whack job' without assigning any sort of blame. That response was not atypical for Trump, who has been slow to denounce political violence against Democrats (such as the attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband, an assault that Trump later turned into a punch line at his rallies) or committed in his name (the January 6 insurrection). After the Colorado incident, he waited until the following morning to post on Truth Social and, instead of focusing on the apparent anti-Semitism behind the attack, opted to return to his favorite political hobbyhorse, immigration. The choice was revealing: Throughout his political career, Trump has cited the dangers posed by migrants to argue for closed borders and hard-line policies. [Juliette Kayyem: The deadly virus of anti-Semitic terrorism] A White House official and an outside political adviser told us that Trump is not concerned about being criticized for not showing sufficient sympathy for fearful Jewish Americans. He believes that he has already proved his strong support of Israel, even though cracks in his relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have grown evident in recent months. They claim that Trump has the political winds at his back again; his poll numbers are recovering from their trade-war-driven decline and Republicans in the House of Representatives have passed a sweeping budget bill. With Soliman's family in custody on Tuesday evening, the White House posted on X: 'Six One-Way Tickets for Mohamed's Wife and Five Kids. Final Boarding Call Coming Soon.' Yesterday, in Colorado, U.S. District Judge Gordon P. Gallagher blocked the Trump administration from immediately deporting Soliman's wife, Hayam El Gamal, and their children, ordering ICE to follow standard due process. Gallagher, a Biden appointee, has scheduled a hearing for June 13. ICE records show that El Gamal and her children are being held at a family-detention center in Dilley, Texas. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
05-06-2025
- Politics
- Atlantic
Trump Tries to Blame the Colorado Attack on ‘Open Border' Policies
After the firebomb attack in Colorado that injured 12 people on Sunday, President Donald Trump blamed his predecessor's 'ridiculous Open Border Policy' for allowing the entry of Mohamed Sabry Soliman, the Egyptian national now charged with a federal hate crime. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller denounced 'suicidal' U.S. immigration policies, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced that Soliman's wife and five children had been taken into immigration custody and would be swiftly deported. The attack, for Trump and his top aides, quickly became an opportunity to convert an act of anti-Semitic violence into a justification for the president's mass-deportation campaign; they depicted the incident as another example of American lives threatened by permissive immigration policies. But the reality of Soliman's arrival to the United States and his immigration status—based on what has been publicly revealed by the administration so far—isn't as straightforward as Trump officials have made it sound. The administration's labeling of Soliman as an 'illegal alien' is a mischaracterization of the gray area he inhabited in the U.S. asylum system, in which applicants can spend years in legal limbo waiting for their case to be decided. He arrived in 2022 not over the southern border, as Trump suggested, but on a visa that was also widely given out to Egyptian nationals during Trump's first term. The administration has not said what exactly it believes the Biden administration failed to catch in vetting Soliman's visa application. Trump cited the Colorado attack yesterday when he announced a ban on travelers from 12 countries—a list that did not include Egypt. 'The recent terror attack in Boulder, Colorado, has underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted, as well as those who come here as temporary visitors and overstay their visas,' Trump said in a video message. 'We don't want them.' Bruce Hoffman: The Boulder attack didn't come out of nowhere Months before the Boulder attack, Trump had already ordered U.S. consulates to intensify screening of visa applicants, including scouring their social-media accounts, for evidence of anti-Semitism and 'anti-American' beliefs or opinions, citing the threat of acts like the one Soliman is accused of committing against a group of demonstrators marching in support of Israeli hostages. Whether Soliman arrived with hateful views or adopted them during his time in the United States will be part of the investigation. After he was taken into custody—shirtless, ranting, and reeking of gasoline—Soliman told FBI agents that he'd been wanting to carry out the attack for a year but waited until his daughter graduated high school. Soliman, 45, entered the United States on a B-2 visa—typically for tourism or family visits—then promptly applied for asylum with his wife and children, according to the Department of Homeland Security. With a pending claim in U.S. immigration court, Soliman received U.S. work authorization, joining millions of others who entered the United States during the record migration influx of President Joe Biden's first three years in office. (Camilo Montoya-Galvez of CBS News reported on Tuesday that the Trump administration is now considering blocking asylum seekers from getting work permits.) The number of visitor visas issued by the State Department at the time was still low relative to pre-pandemic levels and building back up from its nadir in 2021. The United States issued 52,400 nonimmigrant visas to Egyptian nationals during the 2022 fiscal year, government records show, fewer than the roughly 62,000 a year granted during the pre-pandemic years of Trump's first term. The year Soliman arrived, it was relatively easy for Egyptian applicants to secure a visitor visa. About 23 percent of Egyptian applications for nonimmigration B visas were rejected in 2022, lower than the roughly 32 to 34 percent average during the pre-pandemic years of Trump's term. That changed over the course of Biden's term, and by the 2024 fiscal year, the rejection rate for Egyptian applications was 40 percent. When a foreign visitor arrives with a short-term visa such as the B-2 and fails to depart, the State Department counts it as an overstay. The overstay rate for Egyptians has been about 2 to 4 percent annually, State Department records show. That rate jumped to 8 percent in 2022, the year Soliman arrived—amid a broader surge in visa overstays that year—then returned to 4 percent in 2023. Noem ordered an 'urgent crackdown' yesterday on overstays of visas issued during the Biden administration, declaring in a statement that this was an effort to remove 'the rest of the world's terrorist sympathizers.' Soliman and his family lived in Kuwait for 17 years prior to his arrival, and it's not clear whether he applied for a visa as an Egyptian or a Kuwaiti. Kuwait is a far more prosperous and stable country than Egypt, and the overstay rate for Kuwaiti nationals is only about 1 percent. DHS officials did not respond to questions seeking additional information about Soliman's immigration record. Soliman's work-authorization document expired in March, according to DHS, and it's not clear why he failed to renew it. The lapse meant that it would have been illegal for Soliman to work, but the change would not have affected his immigration status, which was tied to his pending asylum claim and not to the work document, according to Paul Hunker, the former lead counsel for ICE in Dallas. Hunker told us that someone like Soliman, with a pending asylum claim, would not have been a priority for ICE during previous administrations, including Trump's first term, absent a separate criminal arrest. 'ICE could try to deport the person, but they could go to immigration court and assert protection, and a judge would make the decision,' Hunker said. Hunker added that it is unusual for ICE to arrest an offender's spouse and children in response to a crime and to threaten immediate deportation. The agency cannot use its fast-track deportation authority known as 'expedited removal' to remove those who entered the United States with a visa, he said. DHS did not respond to questions about its plans to deport Soliman's wife and children. The October 7, 2023, terrorist attack by Hamas—and the devastation of Gaza by the Israeli response—occurred after Soliman had reached the United States and sought asylum. Since then, Jewish Americans have faced a surge of anti-Semitic rhetoric and a recent series of violent attacks. Prosecutors have not said whether they've found social-media posts by Soliman threatening violence, and investigators say that he was not on the radar of local police. On Sunday, Soliman disguised himself as a gardener to approach his victims, they said, and had fashioned crude firebombs using glass jars and garden tools that included a pump sprayer filled with gasoline. As Trump and his aides assessed what to say and do after the Boulder attack, they decided to use the incident to push the administration's case for an aggressive mass-deportation campaign, White House officials told us. In recent weeks, Trump's poll numbers on immigration—arguably his signature issue—have slipped, as courts blocked some of his policies and many Americans deemed his administration's in-your-face tactics, including sending migrants to a hellish megaprison in El Salvador, too extreme. Trump has been frustrated that deportations are not on pace to set records, as he'd promised. Miller, the architect of his immigration crackdown, has ordered ICE to increase arrests more than fourfold, to a minimum of 3,000 people a day. Trump was updated on the Colorado attack in real time, much like he was on two other high-profile recent incidents of anti-Semitic violence, according to two White House officials. But his public reaction was strikingly different when the alleged perpetrator was an immigrant. Shortly after the shooting of the two Israeli-embassy staffers near the Capital Jewish Museum last month, Trump took to Truth Social to extend condolences to the victims' families and condemn the attack, writing, 'These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW! Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA.' A month before that, after an arson attack at the Pennsylvania governor's mansion on the first night of Passover, Trump's response was delayed and muted. He made no Truth Social post, waited a week to call Governor Josh Shapiro—a Democrat angling to be one of the party's leading Trump critics–—and dismissed the suspect as 'probably just a whack job' without assigning any sort of blame. That response was not atypical for Trump, who has been slow to denounce political violence against Democrats (such as the attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband, an assault that Trump later turned into a punch line at his rallies) or committed in his name (the January 6 insurrection). After the Colorado incident, he waited until the following morning to post on Truth Social and, instead of focusing on the apparent anti-Semitism behind the attack, opted to return to his favorite political hobbyhorse, immigration. The choice was revealing: Throughout his political career, Trump has cited the dangers posed by migrants to argue for closed borders and hard-line policies. Juliette Kayyem: The deadly virus of anti-Semitic terrorism A White House official and an outside political adviser told us that Trump is not concerned about being criticized for not showing sufficient sympathy for fearful Jewish Americans. He believes that he has already proved his strong support of Israel, even though cracks in his relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have grown evident in recent months. They claim that Trump has the political winds at his back again; his poll numbers are recovering from their trade-war-driven decline and Republicans in the House of Representatives have passed a sweeping budget bill. With Soliman's family in custody on Tuesday evening, the White House posted on X: 'Six One-Way Tickets for Mohamed's Wife and Five Kids. Final Boarding Call Coming Soon.' Yesterday, in Colorado, U.S. District Judge Gordon P. Gallagher blocked the Trump administration from immediately deporting Soliman's wife, Hayam El Gamal, and their children, ordering ICE to follow standard due process. Gallagher, a Biden appointee, has scheduled a hearing for June 13. ICE records show that El Gamal and her children are being held at a family-detention center in Dilley, Texas.
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Trump Officials Leave Out One Key Detail on Colorado Attack Suspect
Trump officials claim the suspect behind Sunday's attack in Boulder, Colorado, was in the United States. illegally. But they're leaving out one convenient detail: He had filed an asylum application. Mohamed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national, has been charged with a federal hate crime for attacking peaceful demonstrators calling for the release of Israeli hostages held captive in Gaza, leaving eight people injured. According to the Department of Homeland Security, Soliman entered the country on a B-2 tourist visa in August 2022. He filed for asylum the next month, and his visa expired the following year. Donald Trump and his entire administration seem to have seized on the expired visa as proof that an 'illegal' immigrant committed such a heinous crime. 'He came in through Biden's ridiculous Open Border Policy, which has hurt our Country so badly,' said Trump in his own statement on Monday, conveniently ignoring that Soliman entered the country on a tourist visa. 'This is yet another example of why we must keep our Borders SECURE, and deport Illegal, Anti-American Radicals from our Homeland.' 'The Colorado Terrorist attack suspect, Mohamed Soliman, is illegally in our country,' DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said. 'There's certainly a concern that the previous administration allowed way too many terrorists and illegal immigrants into the interior of our country,' said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. 'This individual, this terrorist, was allowed into the country by the previous administration, was foolishly given a tourist visa, and then was illegally allowed to stay.' But each of these statements seems to be obfuscating the truth: If you file for asylum, you are not here illegally until a judge denies that request. Until then, you have a pending asylum application. 'He entered the country in August 2022 on a B2 visa that expired on February 2023. He filed for asylum in September 2022,' McLaughlin said on X on Monday. But what happened next? If his asylum application was denied and he stayed anyway, why wouldn't she say so? Perhaps because that's not the case. Soliman entered the country legally, filed for asylum, and then very likely was living here while he awaited the decision. Asylum applicants who have been awaiting a response for longer than 180 days are typically granted work authorization, under laws passed by Congress decades ago. In other words, Soliman was not in the country due to Biden's 'open border' policy. But then again, Trump and co. have never liked sticking to the facts.
Int'l Business Times
02-06-2025
- Politics
- Int'l Business Times
Trump Blames Biden's 'Open Borders' for Colorado Terror Attack, Fails to Mention Antisemitism Despite Hate Crime Charges
President Donald Trump blamed President Joe Biden's immigration policies for terror attack in Boulder, Colorado, but omitted any reference to the antisemitic nature of the attack, despite federal hate crime charges filed against the suspect. "Yesterday's horrific attack in Boulder, Colorado, WILL NOT BE TOLERATED in the United States of America," Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday, claiming that the suspect "came in through Biden's ridiculous Open Border Policy." "Acts of Terrorism will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law," the post continued. "This is yet another example of why we must keep our Borders SECURE, and deport Illegal, Anti-American Radicals from our Homeland." Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, has been charged with a federal hate crime after targeting a Jewish group demonstrating in support of Israeli hostages taken during the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack. The FBI said Soliman shouted, "Free Palestine," as he used Molotov cocktails and a makeshift flamethrower in a premeditated attack that injured eight, including a Holocaust survivor, the BBC reported. Though federal authorities explicitly stated the attack was motivated by antisemitism and occurred on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, Trump did not mention the Jewish identity of the victims or the hate crime aspect in his statement. "We know that this individual, this terrorist, was allowed into this country by the previous administration, was foolishly given a tourism visa and illegally allowed to stay," Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday morning, echoing Trump's immigration-focused message. "These individuals are going to be deported and we're not going to tolerate such violence in our country." The Department of Homeland Security confirmed Soliman, a father of five, entered the U.S. legally in 2022 but remained after his visa expired. The attack comes just weeks after a young Jewish couple was shot outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington D.C. by a man who shouted "free Palestine." Originally published on Latin Times
Fox News
02-06-2025
- General
- Fox News
Trump says Boulder terror attack 'will not be tolerated,' deportations must continue
President Donald Trump reacted on Monday for the first time since an Egyptian national allegedly threw Molotov cocktails into a crowd of pro-Israel protesters in Boulder, Colorado, injuring eight people. "Yesterday's horrific attack in Boulder, Colorado, WILL NOT BE TOLERATED in the United States of America," Trump wrote on TRUTH Social. "He came in through Biden's ridiculous Open Border Policy, which has hurt our Country so badly. He must go out under "TRUMP" Policy. Acts of Terrorism will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law. This is yet another example of why we must keep our Borders SECURE, and deport Illegal, Anti-American Radicals from our Homeland." "My heart goes out to the victims of this terrible tragedy, and the Great People of Boulder, Colorado!" Trump added. An FBI affidavit unsealed on Monday brings hate crime charges against the alleged attacker, Mohammed Soliman, who is accused of shouting "Free Palestine" while throwing improvised incendiary devices that ignited in a crowd of peaceful protesters walking in support of the Israeli hostages who remain held by Hamas. Eight people were burned by the blasts. Law enforcement found 14 unlit Molotov cocktails on the scene, according to the affidavit. Soliman, who overstayed his tourist visa to be in the United States, allegedly told investigators that "he wanted to kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead," the affidavit says. The suspect also allegedly "stated he would do it (conduct an attack) again," the affidavit says. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Monday that Trump is committed to protecting Jewish Americans. "We have seen two horrific cases of antisemitic violence in our country in the last two weeks, and it is unacceptable to this president and this White House," Leavitt said. "And rest assured, to all Jewish Americans across our great country, this president has your back, and he's not going to allow anyone to take part in violent terrorism. It's acts of terrorism in our country. And that's what this case in Boulder, Colorado, is being investigated as." "Kudos to our FBI director, Kash Patel, for immediately calling this a targeted terrorist attack. That's clearly what it was," she added. The affidavit says Soliman told investigators he targeted what he described as the "Zionist Group" after learning they gathered for weekly walks in Boulder through an online search and planned the attack for a year. He allegedly said he was "waiting until after his daughter graduated to conduct the attack." He lives in Colorado Springs with his wife and five children, according to the affidavit. The Department of Homeland Security announced Monday it is revamping its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) tip line in the wake of the Boulder attack. "For four years, the Biden Administration allowed millions of unvetted illegal aliens—including terrorists, gang members, and other violent criminals—to pour into our country. Yesterday's terrorist attack by a suspect illegally in our country, underscores the importance of getting these illegal aliens out of our country," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem "is revamping ICE's illegal alien tip line to devote more resources and personnel to help remove these criminal illegal aliens from our country," McLaughlin said. "To report suspicious criminal activity, call 866-DHS-2-ICE (866-347-2423)— help President Trump, Secretary Noem and our brave law enforcement remove these public safety threats from our communities and to make America safe again." This is a developing news story. Check back for updates.
