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      A Timeline of the Trump Administration’s Use of the Alien Enemies Act

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      In the 36 days since President Trump invoked a powerful wartime law to deport Venezuelan migrants accused of gang membership, a complex and high-risk legal battle has played out in the federal courts.The Supreme Court has weighed in twice, issuing orders limiting the government’s use of the law, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. The court’s latest order, which came around 1 a.m. on Saturday, blocked the deportations of Venezuelans held in Texas hours after the American Civil Liberties Union said the Trump administration was preparing to expel them without due process.At times, the Trump administration has been accused of disregarding judicial orders as it proceeds with its immigration policies and deportation efforts, deepening legal scholars’ concern that the country could be facing a constitutional crisis.Here is a timeline:March 14: The Trump administration issued an executive order invoking the Alien Enemies Act, but the order was not immediately made public. The proclamation said that the government was targeting the violent Venezuelan street gang Tren de Aragua, which it said was threatening an invasion of the United States. The Alien Enemies Act allows the government to detain and expel immigrants age 14 or older without a court hearing when the United States is invaded or at war. It is the fourth time the law has been invoked in American history.March 15: Fearing that the Trump administration was preparing to immediately expel Venezuelans in custody without hearings, the A.C.L.U. filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington seeking to block the president from invoking the law. The same day, the administration published the executive order. In a hastily scheduled virtual hearing, a federal judge in Washington, James E. Boasberg, was told by the A.C.L.U. that planes were leaving the United States with Venezuelans. He ordered the government not to deport anyone under the law and to return any planes that had already taken off, “however that’s accomplished.”March 16: On social media, El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, published a video of men being led off a plane in handcuffs and taken into a prison in his country. Mr. Bukele posted an article about Judge Boasberg’s order and wrote, “Oopsie… Too late.” The Trump administration insisted it did not violate Judge Boasberg’s order. The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said in a statement that federal courts “have no jurisdiction” over the president’s handling of foreign affairs.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in US Politics

      Kilmar Ábrego García ‘traumatized’ by threats in prison, Maryland senator says

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      Wrongly deported Salvadoran man Kilmar Ábrego García has been held incommunicado and faced threats in prison that left him “traumatized”, a Democratic senator said Friday after returning from meeting him in El Salvador.Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the state Ábrego García had been living in with his US citizen wife and son until he was deported last month in what the Trump administration conceded was an “administrative error”, traveled to the central American country this week to see his constituent. After initially rejecting his request to meet Ábrego García and preventing him from traveling to the prison where he was being held, president Nayib Bukele’s government on Thursday facilitated a meeting at Van Hollen’s hotel.“His conversation with me was the first communication he’d had with anybody outside of prison since he was abducted. He said he felt very sad about being in a prison because he had not committed any crimes,” Van Hollen said at a press conference at Dulles international airport outside Washington DC.He recounted speaking to Ábrego García about his wellbeing, and informing him of the controversy caused by his arrest and Donald Trump’s refusal to let him back into the United States, in spite of a supreme court ruling saying the president should “facilitate” his return.The senator said Ábrego García told him about how he had been arrested by federal agents after a traffic stop while driving with his five-year-old son, who has autism. He was taken to Baltimore, then Texas, where he was shackled and placed with other deportees on an aircraft where they could not see out the windows. The plane flew to El Salvador, where, Ábrego García said, he was taken to the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot) and put in a cell with about 25 other people.“He said he was not afraid of the other prisoners in his immediate cell, but that he was traumatized by being at Cecot and fearful of many of the prisoners in other cell blocks who called out to him, and taunted him in various ways,” Van Hollen said, adding that Ábrego García otherwise appeared to be in sound health.Just more than a week ago, Ábrego García was moved to another prison in the city of Santa Ana, where conditions are better, but he still has no contact with the outside world, Van Hollen said. He has also not been told whether he is being charged with a crime, or how long he will be detained.“They haven’t told him anything about why he was sent or how long he would be there,” the senator said.Van Hollen described himself as motivated to make the trip both out of a desire to relay Ábrego García’s condition to his family, and outrage that the Trump administration had deported him despite a judge granting him protection from removal, over a “well-founded fear of future persecution” from gangs in El Salvador, and was now refusing to bring him back.“This case is not only about one man, as important as that is. It is about protecting fundamental freedoms and the fundamental principle in the constitution for due process, that protects everybody who resides in America,” Van Hollen said. “This should not be an issue for Republicans or Democrats. This is an issue for every American who cares about our constitution.”On Thursday, the federal appeals judge James Wilkinson, an appointee of Republican president Ronald Reagan, wrote an opinion blasting the administration’s conduct in the case as litigation over Ábrego García’s deportation continued.“The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order,” he wrote.The Trump administration has countered the criticism by claiming that Ábrego García was a member of the MS-13 criminal gang, with the White House posting on social media that he was “NOT coming back”.Trump administration officials also seized on a claim from Bukele that Van Hollen and Ábrego García drank margaritas during their meeting, which the senator took pains to refute, saying the drinks had been placed on their table by a Salvadoran government employee.“Let me just be very clear: neither of us touched the drinks that were in front of us,” he said, adding that the glass placed in front of Ábrego García contained less liquid, as if trying to create the impression that he had drunk from it.“But this is a lesson into the lengths that president Bukele will do to deceive people about what’s going on. And it also shows the lengths that the Trump administration, or the president, will go to, because when he was asked about a reporter about this, he just went along for the ride.”Van Hollen was joined at the airport by Ábrego García’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, who brushed away tears as the senator described meeting her husband. At the White House earlier in the day, Trump had read from a domestic violence protective order Vasquez filed in 2021, which she has said stemmed from a rough patch in their marriage that they later worked through.“When I asked him, what was the one thing he would ask for in addition to his freedom, he said he wanted to talk to his wife,” Van Hollen said of his meeting with Ábrego García. “I told him I would work very hard to make that happen.” More

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      in US Politics

      ‘Shocking to the sense of liberty Americans hold dear’: the impassioned US court order in the Ábrego García case

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      Upon review of the government’s motion, the court denies the motion for an emergency stay pending appeal and for a writ of mandamus. The relief the government is requesting is both extraordinary and premature. While we fully respect the Executive’s robust assertion of its Article II powers, we shall not micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge attempting to implement the Supreme Court’s recent decision.It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all. The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done.This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.The government asserts that Abrego Garcia is a terrorist and a member of MS-13. Perhaps, but perhaps not. Regardless, he is still entitled to due process. If the government is confident of its position, it should be assured that position will prevail in proceedings to terminate the withholding of removal order. Moreover, the government has conceded that Abrego Garcia was wrongly or “mistakenly” deported. Why then should it not make what was wrong, right?The Supreme Court’s decision remains, as always, our guidepost. That decision rightly requires the lower federal courts to give “due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs”. That would allow sensitive diplomatic negotiations to be removed from public view. It would recognize as well that the “facilitation” of Abrego Garcia’s return leaves the Executive Branch with options in the execution to which the courts in accordance with the Supreme Court’s decision should extend a genuine deference. That decision struck a balance that does not permit lower courts to leave Article II by the wayside.The Supreme Court’s decision does not, however, allow the government to do essentially nothing. It requires the government “to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador”. “Facilitate” is an active verb. It requires that steps be taken as the Supreme Court has made perfectly clear. The plain and active meaning of the word cannot be diluted by its constriction, as the government would have it, to a narrow term of art. We are not bound in this context by a definition crafted by an administrative agency and contained in a mere policy directive. Thus, the government’s argument that all it must do is “remove any domestic barriers to [Abrego Garcia’s] return” is not well taken in light of the Supreme Court’s command that the government facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador.“Facilitation” does not permit the admittedly erroneous deportation of an individual to the one country’s prisons that the withholding order forbids and, further, to do so in disregard of a court order that the government not so subtly spurns. “Facilitation” does not sanction the abrogation of habeas corpus through the transfer of custody to foreign detention centers in the manner attempted here. Allowing all this would “facilitate” foreign detention more than it would domestic return. It would reduce the rule of law to lawlessness and tarnish the very values for which Americans of diverse views and persuasions have always stood.The government is obviously frustrated and displeased with the rulings of the court. Let one thing be clear. Court rulings are not above criticism. Criticism keeps us on our toes and helps us do a better job. Court rulings can overstep, and they can further intrude upon the prerogatives of other branches. Courts thus speak with the knowledge of their imperfections but also with a sense that they instill a fidelity to law that would be sorely missed in their absence.“Energy in the [E]xecutive” is much to be respected. It can rescue government from its lassitude and recalibrate imbalances too long left unexamined. The knowledge that executive energy is a perishable quality understandably breeds impatience with the courts. Courts, in turn, are frequently attuned to caution and are often uneasy with the Executive Branch’s breakneck pace.And the differences do not end there. The Executive is inherently focused upon ends; the Judiciary much more so upon means. Ends are bestowed on the Executive by electoral outcomes. Means are entrusted to all of government, but most especially to the Judiciary by the Constitution itself.The Executive possesses enormous powers to prosecute and to deport, but with powers come restraints. 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? And what assurance shall there be that the Executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies? The threat, even if not the actuality, would always be present, and the Executive’s obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” would lose its meaning.Today, both the United States and the El Salvadoran governments disclaim any authority and/or responsibility to return Abrego Garcia. We are told that neither government has the power to act. The result will be to leave matters generally and Abrego Garcia specifically in an interminable limbo without recourse to law of any sort.The basic differences between the branches mandate a serious effort at mutual respect. The respect that courts must accord the Executive must be reciprocated by the Executive’s respect for the courts. Too often today this has not been the case, as calls for impeachment of judges for decisions the Executive disfavors and exhortations to disregard court orders sadly illustrate.It is in this atmosphere that we are reminded of President Eisenhower’s sage example. Putting his “personal opinions” aside, President Eisenhower honored his “inescapable” duty to enforce the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education II to desegregate schools “with all deliberate speed.” This great man expressed his unflagging belief that “[t]he very basis of our individual rights and freedoms is the certainty that the President and the Executive Branch of Government will support and [e]nsure the carrying out of the decisions of the Federal Courts.” Indeed, in our late Executive’s own words, “[u]nless the President did so, anarchy would result.”Now the branches come too close to grinding irrevocably against one another in a conflict that promises to diminish both. This is a losing proposition all around. The Judiciary will lose much from the constant intimations of its illegitimacy, to which by dent of custom and detachment we can only sparingly reply. The Executive will lose much from a public perception of its lawlessness and all of its attendant contagions. The Executive may succeed for a time in weakening the courts, but over time history will script the tragic gap between what was and all that might have been, and law in time will sign its epitaph.It is, as we have noted, all too possible to see in this case an incipient crisis, but it may present an opportunity as well. We yet cling to the hope that it is not naïve to believe our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos. This case presents their unique chance to vindicate that value and to summon the best that is within us while there is still time.In sum, and for the reasons foregoing, we deny the motion for the stay pending appeal and the writ of mandamus in this case. It is so ordered.

      This was excerpted from the order by the US court of appeals for the fourth circuit in Kilmar Abrego Garcia v Kristi Noem. It has been edited to remove some legal citations More

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      in US Politics

      Wife of Kilmar Ábrego García speaks as White House defiant over US return

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      Jennifer Vasquez Sura, the wife of Kilmar Ábrego García, the man the Trump administration has admitted it mistakenly deported, expressed relief to learn he is alive after a Democratic US senator managed to meet with him in El Salvador – as the White House posted on social media that he is “never coming back” to the US.“It was very overwhelming – the most important thing for me, my children, his mom, brothers was to see him alive, and we saw him alive,” Vasquez Sura told ABC in an interview.Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen revealed on Thursday evening that he had met with Ábrego García at the maximum security prison in El Salvador known as Cecot, where the autocratic regime holds prisoners without due process. Ábrego García was arrested by immigration agents in Maryland, last month, where he was living and working.Despite being undocumented, Ábrego García had been afforded a federal protection order against deportation to his native El Salvador, which the Trump administration ignored last month when it flew him and more than 200 Venezuelan deportees to El Salvador without warning or a court hearing, in a move that has fallen foul of judges in the US right up to the supreme court.In court filings Friday, lawyers for detained Venezuelan nationals said their clients were being loaded onto buses in anticipation of new wave of deportations, for which there had been less than 24 hours’ notice. They asked US district judge James Boasberg for an immediate restraining order requiring 30 days’ notice, as Politico’s Kyle Cheney first reported.Van Hollen posted a picture of himself with Ábrego García in what appeared to be a cafeteria-style setting in the hospital wing of the prison, and the senator said he would provide a full update upon his return to the US. The previous day he has failed to be given access to the prison or his constituent after flying to El Salvador pledging to try to bring him back.Vasquez described her spouse as “a very loving husband, an amazing father” adding they were just parents “trying to live the American dream”.The Trump administration claims Ábrego García is a member of the Salvadorian violent gang network MS-13. But his family and the head of the sheetmetal workers union that represents the trade in which he is an apprentice, have said he is not connected to a gang. He has not been charged with any crimes in the US or El Salvador and the government admitted in a court filing that he had been deported in error, but since has refused to work to secure his return to the US despite court orders to do so.View image in fullscreenFederal judge Paula Xinis has rebuked the Trump administration for resisting the court’s instructions to have the father returned and has said that the government has not submitted any evidence to her court that Ábrego García is a gang member or criminal.The US president posted on social media criticizing the senator and the press in characteristic Trump language, saying Van Hollen “looked like a fool yesterday standing in El Salvador begging for attention from the Fake News Media, or anyone”.Hours later in the White House, Trump reeled off unsubstantiated allegations against Ábrego García as “an MS-13 member, an illegal alien and a foreign terrorist, I assume”. He also read from a domestic violence protective order Vasquez filed against him in 2021 over allegations of domestic violence, describing him as violent and hitting and scratching her. Such a record is normally confidential unless the alleged victim chooses to release it, but the US president read excerpts to reporters.Having previously said it was a bad period in their marriage that they worked through, with counseling, and forged a stronger partnership, Vasquez in the ABC interview declined to discuss the protective order further. “I’m happy he’s alive, and that’s all I can say,” she said.Meanwhile, Vasquez said on Friday that Garcia had been picked up by federal agents as he was pulled over while driving in Maryland. “What we thought was a regular traffic stop, turned out not to be a regular traffic stop,” she said, and reiterated denials that Garcia was a member of MS-13 or any other gang.“He’s not,” she added.Hours later on Friday, the White House made a sensational post on X, mocking the New York Times and Van Hollen and saying that Ábrego García is “never coming back”.In scathing court order, a US court of appeals for the fourth circuit on Thursday denied the administration’s effort to appeal an earlier order from a federal judge in Maryland requiring the government to facilitate Ábrego García’s return, and the judge issued a stark warning about US constitutional democracy, as Donald Trump continues to defy courts’ orders on numerous fronts.The court said the administration’s claim that it can’t do anything to free the father from the prison and return him “should be shocking” to the public.The blistering order further ratcheted up the escalating conflict between the US government’s co-equal executive and judicial branches.Judge James Wilkinson said: “The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order.”“Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done,” he added.The panel emphasized that Ábrego García is entitled to due process. “If the government is confident of its position, it should be assured that position will prevail in proceedings to terminate the withholding of removal order,” the panel said.“The judiciary will lose much from the constant intimations of its illegitimacy, to which by dent of custom and detachment we can only sparingly reply. The executive will lose much from a public perception of its lawlessness and all of its attendant contagions,” the judges said.Meanwhile, federal judge Brian Murphy on Friday barred the Trump administration from implementing a new policy allowing it to rapidly deport hundreds if not thousands of migrants to countries other than their own without giving them a chance to show they fear being persecuted, tortured or killed there.Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Denied, detained, deported: the most high-profile cases in Trump’s immigration crackdown

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      Donald Trump retook the White House vowing to stage “the largest deportation operation in American history”. As previewed, the administration has set about further militarizing the US-Mexico border and targeting asylum seekers and refugees while conducting raids and deportations in undocumented communities, detaining and deporting immigrants and spreading fear.Critics are outraged, if not surprised. But few expected the new legal chapter that unfolded next: a multipronged crackdown on certain people seen as opponents of the US president’s ideological agenda. This extraordinary assault has come in the context of wider attacks on higher education, the courts and the constitution.Here are some of the most high-profile individual cases that have captured the world’s attention so far because of their extreme and legally dubious nature, mostly involving documented people targeted by the Trump administration in the course of its swift and unlawful power grab.Students and academics hunted and ‘disappeared’In recent weeks, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) teams suddenly began arresting and detaining foreign-born students and academics on visas or green cards. In most cases the government has cited their roles in pro-Palestinian campus protests over Israel’s war in Gaza following the 7 October 2023 attack. Claims that they “support Hamas” are invoked as justification for wanting to deport them, even though they have not been charged with any crimes. Those taken include:Mahmoud KhalilA recent graduate student of Columbia University in New York, Mahmoud Khalil, 30, is a Palestinian green card holder who was a leader during protests last year. He was arrested in front of his pregnant wife and has been in a detention center in Louisiana since mid-March.View image in fullscreenThe government is using obscure immigration law to make extraordinary claims in cases like Khalil’s that it can summarily detain and deport people for constitutionally-protected free speech if they are deemed adverse to US foreign policy. A far-right group has claimed credit for flagging his and others’ names for scrutiny by the authorities.Rümeysa ÖztürkView image in fullscreenUS immigration officials wearing masks and hoodies encircled and grabbed the Tufts University PhD student in a suburb of Boston and bustled her into an unmarked car, shown in onlooker video. Öztürk, a Fulbright scholar and Turkish national on a visa, had co-written an op-ed in the student newspaper, criticizing Tufts’ response to Israel’s military assault on Gaza and Palestinians. She was rushed into detention in Louisiana in apparent defiance of a court order. Öztürk, 30, says she has been neglected and abused there in “unsafe and inhumane conditions”.Mohsen MahdawiView image in fullscreenMahdawi, a Palestinian green-card holder and student at Columbia University, was apprehended by Ice in Colchester, Vermont, on 14 April, according to his lawyers and a video of the incident, first reported by the Intercept.He was prominent in the protests at Columbia last year. During his apprehension he was put into an unmarked car outside a federal office where he was attending an interview to become a naturalized US citizen, his lawyer said.Yunseo ChungView image in fullscreenAnother student at Columbia, Chung, 21, sued the Trump administration for trying to deport her, and has gone into hiding. She is a pro-Palestinian campaigner and was arrested by the New York police in March while protesting against the university’s punishments of student activists, as first reported by the New York Times. She said a government official told her lawyer they want to remove her from the country and her residency status was being revoked. Chung was born in South Korea and has been in the US since she was seven.Alireza DoroudiView image in fullscreenThe Democrats on campus group at the University of Alabama said of the arrest of Doroudi, an Iranian studying mechanical engineering: “Donald Trump, Tom Homan [Trump’s “border czar”], and Ice have struck a cold, vicious dagger through the heart of UA’s international community.”Less is known about the federal government’s claims against Doroudi but it is understood he was taken to the same Ice processing center in Jena, Louisiana, where Khalil is behind bars, NBC reported.Badar Khan SuriView image in fullscreenMore than 370 alumni of Washington DC-based Georgetown University joined 65 current students there in signing on to a letter opposing immigration authorities’ detention of Dr Badar Khan Suri, a senior postdoctoral fellow at the institution’s Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU).The authorities revoked his student visa, alleging the citizen of India’s father-in-law was an adviser to Hamas officials more than a decade ago – and claiming he was “deportable” because of his posts on social media in support of Palestine. He was taken to Louisiana and then detention in Texas and was given court dates in May.Kseniia PetrovaThe Harvard Medical School research scientist was stopped at Boston’s Logan airport by US authorities on her way back from France in February, over what appeared to be an irregularity in customs paperwork related to frog embryo samples. She was told her visa was being revoked and she was being deported to her native Russia.When Petrova, 30, said she feared political persecution there because she had criticized the invasion of Ukraine, she was taken away and also ended up in an overcrowded detention facility in Louisiana.Student visas revokedMore than 1,300 international students from at least 200 colleges across the US have had their “legal status changed” by the state department, including the revoking of visas, between mid-March and mid-April, Inside Higher Education has reported. The specialist publication called it “an explosion of visa terminations”.The schools and students have been given little information, but secretary of state Marco Rubio has lambasted protesters and campus activists as “lunatics”. Some have been cited for pro-Palestinian views, others concluded they must have been targeted because of minor crimes or offenses, such as a speeding ticket. Some can find no specific reason why their visa would be revoked. Many are from India and China, the Associated Press reported, and panic is setting in on campuses.High-profile cases include:Felipe Zapata VelásquezView image in fullscreenThe family of University of Florida student Felipe Zapata Velásquez, 27, said he is “undergoing a physical and emotional recovery process” in his native Colombia after police arrested him in Gainesville in March for traffic offenses and turned him over to Ice. He agreed to be deported, to avoid lengthy detention and legal battles. Democratic congressman Maxwell Frost accused authorities of “kidnapping” Velásquez.Momodou TaalTaal, a dual citizen of Britain and Gambia, was pursuing a PhD at Cornell University’s Africana Studies and Research Center, and was an outspoken activist on the Ivy League campus. He was suspended last year for his role in anti-Zionist protests. He sued the Trump administration over labeling foreign student protesters anti-Semitic and was told to surrender to immigration officials. He has since left the country.Deported by (admitted) mistakeKilmar Ábrego GarcíaView image in fullscreenThe Salvadoran man was deported to El Salvador by mistake, which the Trump administration admitted. But then it essentially defied a US supreme court order to “facilitate” his return to his home and family in Maryland from a brutal mega-prison in the central American country. Ábrego García was undocumented but had protected status against being deported to El Salvador. He was flown there anyway, without a hearing. The administration accuses him of being a violent gangster and has abandoned him, infuriating a federal judge and prompting warnings of a constitutional crisis. He has not been charged with any crimes but was swept up with hundreds of Venezuelans also deported there. Sheet metalworkers union chief Michael Coleman described Ábrego García as an “apprentice working hard to pursue the American dream” and said he was not a gang member. Trump said he was eyeing Salvadoran prisons for US citizens.Deported to a third country, without due processThe US deported more than 230 Venezuelan men to the mega-prison in El Salvador without so much as a hearing in mid-March despite an infuriated federal judge trying to halt the flights, then blocking others. Donald Trump took extraordinary action to avoid due process by invoking the 1798 Alien Enemies Act (AEA), a law meant only to be used in wartime, prompting court challenges led by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). John Roberts, the US chief justice, rebuked the president when he threatened the judge. The justices, by a majority, did not stop Trump from using the AEA but the bench unanimously reaffirmed the right to due process and said individuals must be able to bring habeas corpus challenges.Most of the men are reportedly not violent criminals or members of violent gangs, as the Trump administration asserts, according to a New York Times investigation.Many appear to have been accused of being members of the transnational Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua partly on the basis of their tattoos, with their families speaking out, including:Andry José Hernández Romeroskip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionView image in fullscreenHernández, a 31-year-old makeup artist and hairdresser, entered California last year to attend an asylum appointment, telling the authorities he was under threat in Venezuela as a gay man. But he was detained and accused of being in Tren de Aragua because of his tattoos, then suddenly deported under Trump, deemed a “security threat”.Jerce Reyes BarriosThe former professional footballer, 36, has been accused of gang membership by the Department of Homeland Security, seemingly because of his tattoos, including one of a crown sitting atop a soccer ball with a rosary and the word “dios”.“He chose this tattoo because it is similar to the logo for his favourite soccer team, Real Madrid,” his lawyer, Linette Tobin, said, adding that her client fled Venezuela after protesting the government and being tortured.Francisco Javier García CasiqueView image in fullscreenRelatives were shocked when they spotted Francisco Javier García Casique, 24, in a propaganda video from El Salvador showing scores of Venezuelan prisoners being frog-marched off planes and into custody there. He is a barber in his home town of Maracay and is completely innocent of gang involvement, the family said, adding that Francisco and his brother Sebastián have matching tattoos quoting the Bible.Migrants seeking asylum removed to PanamaA US military plane took off from California in February carrying more than 100 immigrants from countries as far flung as Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, China, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Pakistan, dumping them in Panama. They were shackled and deported to a third country because their nations of origin refuse to accept them back from the US. Shocking scenes unfolded of the people locked in a hotel in Panama City, signaling and writing on the windows pleading for help.The people, including children, were then moved and held at a facility deep in the dense jungle that separates Panama from Colombia. They were later reportedly freed and were seeking asylum from other countries, their futures uncertain. One of those deported from the US was:Artemis GhasemzadehView image in fullscreenGhasemzadeh, 27, a migrant from Iran, wrote “Help us” in lipstick on a window of the hotel in Panama City, as a desperate way of alerting New York Times reporters on the street to her and fellow detainees’ plight. She had thought that, especially as a convert from Islam to Christianity who faces danger in Iran as a result, that she would be offered freedom in the US, she told the newspaper while still in custody.Americans questioned and threatenedAmir MakledView image in fullscreenMakled, a Detroit-born attorney, was questioned at the airport on returning from vacation. He was flagged to a terrorism response team, kept behind and pressured to hand over his phone, then give up some of its contents. The Lebanese American represents a pro-Palestinian student protester who was arrested at the University of Michigan. Experts said the incident was evidence of a weakening of fourth amendment constitutional protections at the border against “unreasonable search and seizure”.Nicole MicheroniView image in fullscreenThis Massachusetts immigration lawyer, a US-born American citizen, spoke out after receiving an email from the Trump administration telling her “it is time for you to leave the United States”. She said it was “probably, hopefully, sent to me in error. But it’s a little concerning these are going out to US citizens.” She told NBC she thought it was a scare tactic.Visitors detainedJasmine Mooney, CanadaView image in fullscreenCanadian Jasmine Mooney was shackled and ended up in Ice detention in the US for two weeks over an alleged work visa irregularity while on one of her frequent visits to California. She spoke out about the harsh conditions and the information black hole and how outraged she was that so many other detainees she met, who helped her, are stranded without access to the kind of resources that ultimately got her out.Rebecca Burke, UKView image in fullscreenThe British graphic artist was stopped at the border when she headed from Seattle to Canada as a backpacker and, because of a visa mix-up, she became one of 32,809 people to be arrested by Ice during the first 50 days of Trump’s presidency. Almost three weeks of grueling detention conditions later, she smuggled out her poignant drawings of fellow detainees when she was released.Jessica Brösche, GermanyThe German tourist and tattoo artist, 29, from Berlin was detained by US immigration authorities and deported back to Germany after spending more than six weeks in US detention, including what she described as eight days in solitary confinement. Her family compared her ordeal to “a horror film”.Fabian Schmidt, GermanyView image in fullscreenThe 34-year-old German national and US green card holder was apprehended and allegedly “violently interrogated” by US border officials as he was returning to New Hampshire from a trip to Luxembourg. His family said he was held for hours at Boston’s Logan airport, stripped naked and put in a cold shower, then later deprived of food and medicine, and collapsed. His case is being investigated and as of mid-April he was in Ice detention in Rhode Island.Sent back‘Jonathan’A man with a US work visa provided his anonymous account to the Guardian of being denied entry into the US after a trip to his native Australia to scatter his sister’s ashes. He was pulled aside on arrival in Houston, Texas, and accused, variously, of selling drugs and having improper paperwork. After being detained for over a day he was put on a flight back to Australia even though he has worked on the US east coast for five years, where he lived with his girlfriend.Denied entry – for criticizing Trump?Alvin Gibbs, Marc Carrey and Stefan Häublein of band UK SubsView image in fullscreenMembers of the punk rock band UK Subs said they were denied entry and detained in the US on their way to play a gig in Los Angeles, after being questioned about visas. Bassist Alvin Gibbs said: “I can’t help but wonder whether my frequent, and less than flattering, public comments regarding their president [Trump] and his administration played a role.” He and the two band mates were kept in harsh conditions for 24 hours then deported back to the UK.French scientistA French scientist, who has not been publicly named, was denied entry to the US after immigration officers at an airport searched his phone and found messages in which he had expressed criticism of the Trump administration, according to a French government minister. The researcher was on his way to a conference in Texas.“Freedom of opinion, free research, and academic freedom are values ​​that we will continue to proudly uphold,” Philippe Baptiste, France’s minister of higher education and research, told Le Monde. More

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      Trump Administration Blames Boasberg for Escalating Tensions Between Courts and White House

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      After attacking judges and repeatedly sidestepping their orders, the Trump administration has accused a federal judge in Washington of escalating tensions between the judicial and executive branches by seeking to hold the White House accountable for its courtroom behavior.The accusation against the judge, James E. Boasberg, came in a court filing early Friday morning by the Justice Department. In it, department lawyers asked the federal appeals court that sits over Judge Boasberg to prevent him from opening an expansive contempt inquiry into whether the White House violated an order he issued in March to stop flights of Venezuelan migrants from being sent to El Salvador under the authority of a powerful wartime statute.Much of the filing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia read like a normal legal brief, laying out the government’s challenge to a judicial order it did not like. But in its opening line, department lawyers made clear that they believed Judge Boasberg’s recent threat to open criminal contempt proceedings in the deportation case represented another salvo in an increasingly bitter battle between the White House and the courts.“‘Occasions for constitutional confrontation between the two branches should be avoided whenever possible,’” the department lawyers wrote, failing to mention their own role in fostering such confrontations. “The district court’s criminal contempt order instead escalates the constitutional stakes by infringing core executive prerogatives.”The Justice Department’s attempt to blame Judge Boasberg for raising the temperature came as another federal judge, in another deportation case, has opened her own high-stakes inquiry into whether the administration has violated court orders.In that case, Judge Paula Xinis announced on Tuesday in Federal District Court in Maryland that the administration in the next two weeks would have to answer questions about why it had so far apparently failed to comply with directions from the Supreme Court to “facilitate” the release of a Maryland man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, from the same Salvadoran prison to which the Venezuelan migrants had been sent.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in US Politics

      Maryland senator meets Kilmar Ábrego García in El Salvador amid battle over US return

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      The Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen met in El Salvador with Kilmar Ábrego García, a man who was sent there by the Trump administration in March despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation.Van Hollen posted a photo of the meeting on X, saying he also called Ábrego García’s wife “to pass along his message of love”.The lawmaker did not provide an update on the status of Ábrego García, whose attorneys are fighting to force the Trump administration to facilitate his return to the US.It was not clear how the meeting was arranged, where they met or what will happen to Abrego Garcia. El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, posted images of the meeting minutes before Van Hollen shared his post, saying: “Now that he’s been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador’s custody.”Bukele continued mockingly: “Kilmar Ábrego García, miraculously risen from the ‘death camps’ and ‘torture’, now sipping margaritas with Sen Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!” The tweet ended with emojis of the US and El Salvador flags, with a handshake emoji between them.The meeting came in the hours after Van Hollen said he was denied entry into an high-security El Salvador prison while he was trying to check on Ábrego García’s wellbeing and attempting to push for his release.The Democratic senator said at a news conference in San Salvador that his car was stopped by soldiers at a checkpoint about 3km from the Terrorism Confinement Center, or Cecot, even as they let other cars go on.“They stopped us because they are under orders not to allow us to proceed,” Van Hollen said.Donald Trump and Bukele said this week that they have no basis to send Ábrego García back, even as the Trump administration has called his deportation a mistake and the US supreme court has called on the administration to facilitate his return.Trump officials have said that Ábrego García, a Salvadorian citizen who was living in Maryland, has ties to the MS-13 gang, but his attorneys say the government has provided no evidence of that and Ábrego García has never been charged with any crime related to such activity.Van Hollen’s trip has become a partisan flashpoint in the US as Democrats have seized on Ábrego García’s deportation as what they say is a cruel consequence of Trump’s disregard for the courts. Republicans have criticized Democrats for defending him and argued that his deportation is part of a larger effort to reduce crime.White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt held a news conference on Wednesday with the mother of a Maryland woman who was killed by a fugitive from El Salvador in 2023.Van Hollen told reporters on Wednesday that he met with Vice-President Félix Ulloa, who said his government could not return Ábrego García to the United States.“So today, I tried again to make contact with Mr Ábrego García by driving to the Cecot prison,” Van Hollen said on Thursday.Van Hollen said Ábrego García has not had any contact with his family or his lawyers. “There has been no ability to find out anything about his health and wellbeing,” Van Hollen said. He said Ábrego García should be able to have contact with his lawyers under international law.“We won’t give up until Kilmar has his due process rights respected,” Van Hollen said. He said there would be “many more” lawmakers coming to El Salvador.New Jersey senator Cory Booker is also considering a trip to El Salvador, as are some House Democrats.While Van Hollen was denied entry, several House Republicans have visited the notorious gang prison in support of the Trump administration’s efforts. Riley Moore, a West Virginia Republican, posted on Tuesday evening that he’d visited the prison where Ábrego García is being held. He did not mention Ábrego García but said the facility “houses the country’s most brutal criminals.”“I leave now even more determined to support President Trump’s efforts to secure our homeland,” Moore wrote on social media.Missouri Republican Jason Smith, chair of the House ways and means Committee, also visited the prison. He posted on X that “thanks to President Trump” the facility “now includes illegal immigrants who broke into our country and committed violent acts against Americans”.The fight over Ábrego García has also played out in contentious court filings, with repeated refusals from the government to tell a judge what it plans to do, if anything, to repatriate him.Since March, El Salvador has accepted from the US more than 200 Venezuelan immigrants – whom Trump administration officials have accused of gang activity and violent crimes – and placed them inside the country’s maximum-security gang prison just outside San Salvador. That prison is part of Bukele’s broader effort to crack down on the country’s powerful street gangs, which has put 84,000 people behind bars and made Bukele popular at home.Human rights groups have accused Bukele’s government of subjecting those jailed to “systematic use of torture and other mistreatment”. Officials there deny wrongdoing. More

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      Cory Booker to visit El Salvador in effort to return wrongly deported man to US

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      Cory Booker plans to travel to El Salvador, a source familiar with the New Jersey senator’s itinerary said, as Democrats seek to pressure the Trump administration to return a wrongly deported Maryland resident.Booker’s trip to the Central American country would come after the Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen traveled there this week to meet with his constituent Kilmar Ábrego García, a Salvadorian national deported last month in what the Trump administration acknowledged was an “administrative error”. Despite a supreme court ruling saying his administration must “facilitate” Ábrego García’s return, Trump has refused to take steps to do so, and El Salvador’s government on Wednesday denied Van Hollen a meeting with the deportee.Ábrego García’s case has become a rallying cry for Democrats, who argue it is a sign of Donald Trump’s reckless approach to immigration enforcement and willingness to defy court orders. An immigration judge in 2019 had given Ábrego García protection from deportation, finding that he may face retaliation if he returns to El Salvador.Booker wrote on X earlier this week: “The Supreme Court was clear: the Trump administration must act to facilitate the return of Kilmar Ábrego García to the United States. There is no room for debate – yet Trump is refusing, in defiance of a lawful court order.“Every member of Congress should be standing up for the Constitution and demanding that the administration act to return Mr. Ábrego García to the U.S. and to his family.”Trump administration officials have countered by accusing Democrats of caring more about undocumented immigrants than US citizens. On Monday, the Republican congressman Riley Moore toured El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), where US authorities say Ábrego García is being held, and gave a thumbs up in front of a cell packed with inmates.Several other Democratic lawmakers have signaled they would like to visit El Salvador and Cecot, including Adriano Espaillat, chair of the Congressional Hispanic caucus, and Robert Garcia, Yassamin Ansari and Maxwell Alejandro Frost, all members of the investigative House oversight committee. Delia Ramirez of the House homeland security committee has also asked for a visit to Cecot.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBooker, who ran for president in 2020 and is viewed as a potential candidate again three years from now, has been particularly outspoken against Trump. Earlier this month, he delivered a speech from the Senate floor warning of the “grave and urgent” danger presented by his presidency that ran for 25 hours and five minutes – the longest such speech ever. More