Latest news with #familyseparation
Al Jazeera
3 days ago
- General
- Al Jazeera
Why Trump and Bukele are destroying Kilmar Abrego Garcia's life
In March, the United States government deported to El Salvador 29-year-old Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who had lived and worked in the US for almost half his life. Little did he know that he would soon be the face of US President Donald Trump's sinisterly exuberant mass deportation campaign. Married to US citizen Jennifer Vasquez Sura, Abrego Garcia was detained while driving in Maryland with the couple's five-year-old autistic son, who got to witness his father's capture by the US forces of law and order and has apparently been severely traumatised as a result. In a subsequent court affidavit, Vasquez Sura said her son, who cannot speak, had been 'very distressed' by the 'sudden disappearance of his father', crying more than usual and 'finding Kilmar's work shirts and smelling them, to smell Kilmar's familiar scent'. Of course, tearing families apart and traumatising children has long been par for the bipartisan course in everyone's favourite 'land of the free', although Trump has certainly made more of a sensational spectacle out of it than his Democratic predecessors, Joe Biden and Barack Obama. Anyway, there is nothing like sowing a bunch of fear and psychological trauma in the name of national security, right? Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador along with more than 200 other people, who shared the honour of serving as demonised guinea pigs in the Trump administration's current experiments in sadistic countermigration policy. The deportees were swiftly interned in the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), the notorious mega-prison built by Nayib Bukele, El Salvador's self-described 'coolest dictator in the world'. The facility houses thousands of people arrested under the nationwide 'state of emergency', which was declared in 2022 and shows no sign of abating. Under the pretence of fighting a war on gangs, Bukele has imprisoned more than 85,000 Salvadorans – over 1 percent of the country's population – in an array of jails that often function as blackholes in terms of indefinitely disappearing human beings as well as any notion of human and legal rights. And now that incoming US funds and deportees have boosted El Salvador's international carceral clout along with Bukele's tough-guy image, there is even less of a rush to end the 'emergency'. Meanwhile, the case of Abrego Garcia in particular has provided both Trump and Bukele with an extended opportunity to showcase their mutual passion for sociopathy and disdain for the law. As it so happens, Abrego Garcia's deportation to El Salvador occurred in direct violation of a 2019 ruling by a US immigration judge, according to which he could not be deported to his native country on account of the dangers that such a move would pose to his life. Indeed, Abrego Garcia fled to the US as a teenager, precisely out of fear for his life following gang threats to his family. And although the US government was quickly forced to acknowledge that his deportation in March had occurred 'because of an administrative error', the Trump-Bukele team remains determined not to rectify it. After all, this would set a dangerous precedent in suggesting that the possibility of recourse to justice does in fact exist, and that asylum seekers in the US should not have to live in terror of being spontaneously disappeared to El Salvador by 'administrative error'. As per a recent New York Times article exposing the details of the debate within the Trump administration over how to manage the PR side of the Abrego Garcia blunder before it became public, officials from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) 'discussed trying to portray Mr. Abrego Garcia as a 'leader' of the violent street gang MS-13, even though they could find no evidence to support the claim'. But a lack of evidence has never stopped folks who are not concerned with facts and reality in the first place. Trump officials have continued to insist on Abrego Garcia's affiliation with MS-13, while the president himself has unabashedly invoked a doctored photograph of tattoos on the man's knuckles. The administration has also relied heavily on the fact that, in 2019, the police department in Prince George's County, Maryland, decided that Abrego Garcia was a gang member because he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat, among other oh-so-incriminating behaviour. To be sure, the frequency with which US law enforcement outfits cite Chicago Bulls merchandise as alleged proof of gang membership would be laughable given the US basketball team's massive domestic and international fanbase – if, that is, such preposterous profiling tendencies did not directly translate into physical and psychological torment for Abrego Garcia and countless other individuals. In April, the US Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to 'facilitate' Abrego Garcia's return to the US. In addition to thus far failing to comply with that order, the administration has gone to ludicrous lengths to defy a separate order from US District Judge Paula Xinis that it provide details about what exactly it is doing to secure Abrego Garcia's release. Apparently irked by Judge Xinis's pushiness, Trump administration officials then went with the good old 'state secrets' excuse, which would enable the withholding of information regarding Abrego Garcia's case in order to safeguard 'national security' and the 'safety of the American people', as DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin put it. Bukele, for his part, has handled the Abrego Garcia situation with a petulant and vengeful machismo befitting the world's 'coolest dictator', taking to X to ridicule the wrongfully abducted and imprisoned man. During an April visit to his partner in crime in the Oval Office in Washington, Bukele made clear to reporters that he would not be lifting a finger on Abrego Garcia's behalf: 'How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?' Speaking of terrorism, it is worth recalling that, long before the current 'state of emergency' in El Salvador, the US had an outsized hand in supporting right-wing state terror in the country, where the civil war of 1979-92 killed more than 75,000 people. The majority of wartime atrocities were committed by the US-backed Salvadoran military and allied death squads, and countless Salvadorans fled north to the US, where MS-13 and other gangs formed as a means of communal self-defence. Following the war's end, the US undertook the mass deportation of gang members to a freshly devastated nation, paving the way for continued violence, migration, and deportation and culminating, of course, in the world's coolest dictatorship. As they say, nothing fuels the consolidation of power and evisceration of rights like a solid 'terrorist' enemy – and at the present moment, Abrego Garcia holds the dubious distinction of serving as that enemy for not one but two sociopathic heads of state. At the end of the day, though, Abrego Garcia is no Osama bin Laden; he is just a random guy whose calculated torment is meant as a warning to anyone who might be feeling too confident in the rule of law. Trump has already proposed sending US citizens to El Salvador for incarceration, as well – and to hell with any semblance of legality. To that end, the president has proposed that Bukele build more prisons, a project that presumably will not require much arm-twisting. Now, as the US government goes about annihilating the rights of foreign nationals and legal citizens alike, it is safe to assume that no one is safe. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.
The Guardian
21-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Mahmoud Khalil blocked from holding son for first time by Ice, lawyers say
Mahmoud Khalil, the detained Columbia University graduate and Palestinian activist, was not allowed to hold his newborn son after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officials refused to allow a contact visit between him and his family, his lawyers said on Wednesday. Instead, Khalil, 30, was forced to meet his month-old baby for the first time behind glass, after his wife, Noor Abdalla, traveled from New York to the Louisiana detention facility where he has been detained since March, his legal team said. Ice officials and a private prison contractor denied the family's request for a contact visit, citing the detention center's no-contact visitation policy and unspecified 'security concerns', lawyers said. Abdalla, a US citizen who gave birth to their first child last month while Khalil was in detention, said she was 'furious at the cruelty and inhumanity of this system that dares to call itself just'. 'After flying over a thousand miles to Louisiana with our newborn son, his very first flight, all so his father could finally hold him in his arms, Ice has denied us even this most basic human right,' she said in a statement. 'This is not just heartless. It is deliberate violence, the calculated cruelty of a government that tears families apart without remorse.' The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The department had previously denied Khalil's request to be at his wife's side to attend the birth of their son in New York, a move that Abdalla described as 'a purposeful decision by Ice to make me, Mahmoud, and our son suffer'. Instead, he was only able to experience his child's birth via a telephone call. Khalil, a legal permanent resident, or US green-card holder, was arrested in New York on 8 March in the first in a string of Ice arrests targeting pro-Palestinian students and scholars, and put in detention without due process. In a letter to his son published in the Guardian, Khalil wrote shortly after the birth: 'My heart aches that I could not hold you in my arms and hear your first cry, that I could not unfurl your clenched fists or change your first diaper.' 'My absence is not unique,' he continued. 'Like other Palestinian fathers, I was separated from you by racist regimes and distant prisons. In Palestine, this pain is part of daily life … The grief your mother and I feel is but one drop in a sea of sorrow that Palestinian families have drowned in for generations.' The current president of Columbia University in New York, Claire Shipman, where Khalil had been finishing up his graduate studies, was booed and heckled on both Tuesday and Wednesday by graduates at their commencement ceremonies who also were furious that Khalil was in detention. Many chanted 'free Mahmoud', as Shipman acknowledged their frustration. The Trump administration is using obscure immigration law to make extraordinary claims in cases such as Khalil's that it can summarily detain and deport people for constitutionally protected free speech if they are deemed adverse to US foreign policy. Khalil is Palestinian and was born in a refugee camp in Syria. His wife accepted a graduate diploma on his behalf at an alternative graduation ceremony in New York on Sunday, while holding their baby.
CBS News
21-05-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
ICE denied request for Mahmoud Khalil to hold his newborn baby, wife and ACLU say
ICE officials and a prison contractor have refused to grant a contact visit between Mahmoud Khalil and his family, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, denying him the chance to hold his newborn son. The boy was born last month while Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student and Palestinian activist, remained in ICE custody in Louisiana. "After flying over a thousand miles to Louisiana with our newborn son, his very first flight, all so his father could finally hold him in his arms, ICE has denied us even this most basic human right," his wife, Noor Abdalla, said in a news release from the nonprofit civil rights organization on Wednesday. "This is not just heartless. It is deliberate violence, the calculated cruelty of a government that tears families apart without remorse." The ACLU said the refusal by ICE and the prison contractor GEO Group came after multiple requests from Khalil's legal team pointing to federal policies that encourage contact visits between children and their detained parents. Officials, they said, cited "a blanket no-contact visitation policy at the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center (CLIPC) and unspecified 'security concerns' relating to the presence of a mother and newborn baby in an unsecure part of the facility." Khalil, a 30-year-old legal permanent resident, was taken into custody in early March at his Columbia-owned apartment in New York City. He was a vocal member of last year's campus protests over the war in Gaza. This is a developing story and will be updated. Sarah Lynch Baldwin Sarah Lynch Baldwin is a deputy managing editor of She helps lead national and breaking news coverage and shapes editorial workflows. and contributed to this report.
South China Morning Post
14-05-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
2-year-old girl reunites with mother in Venezuela after US deportation
A two-year-old girl arrived in Caracas on Wednesday to reunite with her mother after she was separated from her parents when they were deported from the US in what Venezuela denounced as a kidnapping. Maikelys Espinoza arrived at an airport outside the capital, Caracas, along with more than 220 deported migrants. Footage aired by state television showed Venezuela's first lady Cilia Flores carrying Maikelys at the airport. Later, Flores was shown handing the girl over to her mother, who had been waiting for her arrival at the presidential palace along with President Nicolas Maduro. 'Here is everyone's beloved little girl. She is the daughter and granddaughter of all of us,' Maduro said. The US government had claimed the family separation last month was justified because the girl's parents allegedly have ties to the Venezuelan-based Tren de Aragua gang, which US President Donald Trump designated a terrorist organisation earlier this year.
The Independent
14-05-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
2-year-old girl separated from parents by US deportation arrives in Venezuela
A 2-year-old girl separated from her parents by deportation arrived Wednesday in Venezuela where her mother was deported from the United States, a move that the South American country has repeatedly denounced as a kidnapping. Maikelys Espinoza arrived at an airport outside the capital, Caracas, along with more than 220 deported migrants. Footage aired by state television showed Venezuela's first lady Cilia Flores carrying Maikelys at the airport. Later, Flores was shown handing the girl over to her mother, who had been waiting for her arrival at the presidential palace along with President Nicolás Maduro. The U.S. government had claimed the family separation last month was justified because the girl's parents allegedly have ties to the Venezuelan-based Tren de Aragua gang, which U.S. President Donald Trump designated a terrorist organization earlier this year. The girl's mother was deported to Venezuela on April 25. Meanwhile, U.S. authorities sent her father to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador in March under Trump's invocation of an 18th-century wartime law to deport hundreds of immigrants. For years, the government of Maduro had mostly refused the entry of immigrants deported from the U.S. But since Trump took office this year, hundreds of Venezuelan migrants, including some 180 who spent up to 16 days at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been deported to their home country. The Trump administration has said the Venezuelans sent to Guantanamo and El Salvador are members of the Tren de Aragua, but has offered little evidence to back up the allegation. ____
