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    ‘I’m an American, Bro!’: Latinos Report Raids in Which U.S. Citizenship Is Questioned

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    A raid in Montebello, Calif., has stirred fears that federal agents are detaining and racially profiling U.S. citizens of Hispanic descent.They swept into the Southern California car lot last Thursday at 4:32 p.m. — masked and armed Border Patrol agents in an unmarked white S.U.V.One agent soon twisted Jason Brian Gavidia’s arm and pressed him against a black metal fence outside the lot where he runs an auto body shop in Montebello, a working-class suburb east of the Los Angeles city limits. Another officer then asked him an unusual question to prove whether he was a U.S. citizen or an undocumented immigrant.“What hospital were you born at?” the Border Patrol agent asked.Mr. Gavidia, 29, was born only a short drive from where they were standing, in East Los Angeles. He did not know the hospital’s name. “I was born here,” he shouted at the agent, adding, “I’m an American, bro!”A witness filmed video of a Border Patrol agent twisting Jason Brian Gavidia’s arm, while another agent asked him which hospital he was born at.Jonathan De JesusMr. Gavidia was eventually released as he stood on the sidewalk. But another U.S. citizen, Javier Ramirez, 32 — Mr. Gavidia’s friend and co-worker — had been forced facedown to the ground by two agents in the car lot. Mr. Ramirez was put inside a van and driven to a federal detention center, where he remains in custody. Mr. Ramirez’s lawyer said that officials at the detention center had denied his request to speak to his client.“I know enough to know this is not right at all,” Mr. Gavidia said in an interview. “Latinos in general are getting attacked. We’re all getting attacked.”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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      2 of 4 Men Who Escaped From Immigration Detention Center Are Caught

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      The men had been on the lam for three days after breaking out of the Delaney Hall Detention Center in Newark.Two of the four men who escaped from an immigration detention center in New Jersey on Thursday have been captured, federal authorities said on Sunday.The men, Joel Enrique Sandoval-Lopez of Honduras and Joan Sebastian Castaneda-Lozada of Colombia, were taken into custody after three days on the run, according to a spokeswoman from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was unclear on Sunday where or how the men were tracked down.The authorities are still searching for the other two men, Franklin Norberto Bautista-Reyes of Honduras and Andres Pineda-Mogollon of Colombia, the spokeswoman said.The men escaped from Delaney Hall Detention Facility in Newark, an overcrowded center where conditions in recent weeks have continued to deteriorate.Some detainees have been forced to sleep on the floor, and others were given slices of bread instead of a meal, immigration lawyers and family members told The New York Times. The detainees, they said, had become so frustrated with the conditions that they had begun to cover up the security cameras and smash walls and windows.The disorder has raised questions about the center and others like it around the country, where about 51,000 migrants are being held.The 1,000-bed facility is run by GEO Group, a private company that has come under public scrutiny for the building’s poor construction and bad management. GEO Group won a 15-year, $1 billion contract from the Trump administration in February to convert the building into a detention center.On Friday, Senator Andy Kim and Representative Rob Menendez of New Jersey, both Democrats, toured the center. After the tour, Mr. Kim said at a news conference that the men who escaped had punched a hole through an exterior wall, which was “essentially just drywall with some mesh inside.”“It shows just how shoddy construction was,” Mr. Kim added.In a news release on Friday, the Department of Homeland Security said that “there has been no widespread unrest at the Delaney Hall Detention facility” and that the “privately held facility remains dedicated to providing high-quality services.”Christopher Ferreira, a GEO Group spokesman, issued a similar statement and noted that the company offered services including medical care, family visitations and opportunities to exercise religious faiths.The men who escaped had been arrested on criminal charges in New Jersey. Mr. Sandoval-Lopez was arrested twice in Passaic, once on Oct. 3 on charges of unlawful possession of a handgun and once on Feb. 15 on a charge of aggravated assault, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Castaneda-Lozada was arrested in Hammonton on May 15 on several charges, including burglary.Mr. Bautista-Reyes was arrested in Wayne Township, N.J., on May 3 on several charges, including assault and illegal possession of a weapon, the agency said. Mr. Pineda-Mogollon was arrested on May 21 on burglary charges. More

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      Trump Shifts Deportation Focus, Pausing Raids on Farms, Hotels and Eateries

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      The abrupt pivot on an issue at the heart of Mr. Trump’s presidency suggested his broad immigration crackdown was hurting industries and constituencies he does not want to lose.The Trump administration has abruptly shifted the focus of its mass deportation campaign, telling Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to largely pause raids and arrests in the agricultural industry, hotels and restaurants, according to an internal email and three U.S. officials with knowledge of the guidance.The decision suggested that the scale of President Trump’s mass deportation campaign — an issue that is at the heart of his presidency — is hurting industries and constituencies that he does not want to lose.The new guidance comes after protests in Los Angeles against the Trump administration’s immigration raids, including at farms and businesses. It also came as Mr. Trump made a rare concession this week that his crackdown was hurting American farmers and hospitality businesses.The guidance was sent on Thursday in an email by a senior ICE official, Tatum King, to regional leaders of the ICE department that generally carries out criminal investigations, including work site operations, known as Homeland Security Investigations.“Effective today, please hold on all work site enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and operating hotels,” he wrote in the message.The email explained that investigations involving “human trafficking, money laundering, drug smuggling into these industries are OK.” But it said — crucially — that agents were not to make arrests of “non criminal collaterals,” a reference to people who are undocumented but who are not known to have committed any other crime.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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      The President Is Playing With Fire, Which Is Just How He Likes It

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      It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the Trump administration is spoiling for a fight on America’s streets. On Saturday, after a protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests degenerated into violence, the administration reacted as if the country were on the brink of war.The violence was unacceptable. Civil disobedience is honorable; violence is beyond the pale. But so far, thankfully, the violence has been localized and, crucially, well within the capacity of state and city officials to manage.But don’t tell that to the Trump administration. Its language was out of control.Stephen Miller, one of President Trump’s closest advisers and the single most important architect (aside from Trump himself) of the administration’s immigration policies, posted one word: “Insurrection.”Vice President JD Vance wrote on X, “One of the main technical issues in the immigration judicial battles is whether Biden’s border crisis counted as an ‘invasion.’” That statement set the stage. He wants courts to believe we’re facing an invasion, and any disturbance will do to make his point. “So now,” Vance continued, “we have foreign nationals with no legal right to be in the country waving foreign flags and assaulting law enforcement. If only we had a good word for that …”Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, posted his own screed on X, declaring that the Department of Defense “is mobilizing the National Guard IMMEDIATELY to support federal law enforcement in Los Angeles. And, if violence continues, active duty Marines at Camp Pendleton will also be mobilized — they are on high alert.”Trump posted on Truth Social, “If Governor Gavin Newscum, of California, and Mayor Karen Bass, of Los Angeles, can’t do their jobs, which everyone knows they can’t, then the Federal Government will step in and solve the problem, RIOTS & LOOTERS, the way it should be solved!!!”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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      Trump Targets Workplaces as Immigration Crackdown Widens

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      Many industries have become dependent on immigrant labor. Some workplace raids have been met with protest.The chaos that engulfed Los Angeles on Saturday began a day earlier when camouflage-clad federal agents rolled through the garment district in search of workers who they suspected of being undocumented immigrants. They were met with protesters, who chanted and threw eggs before being dispersed with pepper spray and nonlethal bullets.The enforcement operation turned into one of the most volatile scenes of President Trump’s immigration crackdown so far, but it was not an isolated incident.Law enforcement during a protest in California on Saturday.Eric Thayer/Associated PressLast week, at a student housing complex under construction in Tallahassee, Fla., masked immigration agents loaded dozens of migrants into buses headed to detention centers. In New Orleans, 15 people working on a flood control project were detained. And raids in San Diego and Massachusetts — in Martha’s Vineyard and the Berkshires — led to standoffs in recent days as bystanders angrily confronted federal agents who were taking workers into custody.The high-profile raids appeared to mark a new phase of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, in which officials say they will increasingly focus on workplaces — taking aim at the reason millions of people have illegally crossed the border for decades. That is an expansion from plans early in the administration to prioritize detaining hardened criminals and later to focus on hundreds of international students.“You’re going to see more work site enforcement than you’ve ever seen in the history of this nation,” Thomas D. Homan, the White House border czar told reporters recently. “We’re going to flood the zone.”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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      Return of Abrego Garcia Raises Questions About Trump’s Views of Justice

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      For the nearly three months before the Justice Department secured an indictment against the man, it had repeatedly flouted a series of court orders to “facilitate” his release from El Salvador.When Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Friday that Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia had been returned to the United States to face criminal charges after being wrongfully deported to a prison in El Salvador, she sought to portray the move as the White House dutifully upholding the rule of law.“This,” she said, “is what American justice looks like.”Her assertion, however, failed to grapple with the fact that for the nearly three months before the Justice Department secured an indictment against Mr. Abrego Garcia, it had repeatedly flouted a series of court orders — including one from the Supreme Court — to “facilitate” his release.While the indictment filed against Mr. Abrego Garcia contained serious allegations, accusing him of taking part in a conspiracy to smuggle undocumented immigrants as a member of the street gang MS-13, it had no bearing on the issues that have sat at the heart of the case since his summary expulsion in March.Those were whether Mr. Abrego Garcia had received due process when he was plucked off the streets without a warrant and expelled days later to a prison in El Salvador, in what even Trump officials have repeatedly admitted was an error. And, moreover, whether administration officials should be held in contempt for repeatedly stonewalling a judge’s effort to get to the bottom of their actions.Well before Mr. Abrego Garcia’s family filed a lawsuit seeking to force the White House to release him from El Salvador, administration officials had tried all means at their disposal to keep him overseas as they figured out a solution to the problem they had created, The New York Times found in a recent investigation.Cesar Ábrego García, left, and Cecilia García, center, the brother and mother of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, participated in a press conference with Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, following his trip to El Salvador.Allison Bailey for The New York TimesWe 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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      Map: See the Countries Under Trump’s New Travel Ban

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      <!–> –><!–> [–><!–>President Trump has targeted the citizens of a dozen countries as part of a new ban on travel to the United States and restricted travel from several more.–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [!–> <!–> [–> Afghanistan Republic of Congo Equatorial Guinea Sierra Leone Turkmenistan <!–> –> <!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> –>What happened […] More

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      Newark’s Mayor Sues a Top Trump Lawyer, Claiming Malicious Prosecution

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      The mayor, Ras Baraka, is suing Alina Habba, the interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, who dropped charges against him soon after his arrest near an immigration jail.Mayor Ras J. Baraka of Newark, a Democratic candidate for governor who was arrested last month outside an immigration detention center, filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday against Alina Habba, the interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, that argues that his arrest was motivated by political malice, not justice.The lawsuit also names Ricky Patel, a supervising agent with Homeland Security Investigations who led the arrest of Mr. Baraka on May 9 outside a 1,000-bed detention center near Newark Liberty International Airport that has become a flashpoint in President Trump’s immigration crackdown.Mr. Baraka’s lawsuit accuses the federal authorities of false arrest and malicious prosecution. It also accuses Ms. Habba of defamation.The suit comes as polling locations opened Tuesday for six days of early voting ahead of a June 10 primary that has pitted Mr. Baraka against five other Democrats.Last month, Ms. Habba, who was appointed by Mr. Trump to be the state’s top federal prosecutor, abruptly announced that she was dropping a trespassing charge against Mr. Baraka — a development that prompted a federal judge to publicly question the validity of the “hasty arrest” in the first place.“Your role is not to secure convictions at all costs, nor to satisfy public clamor, nor to advance political agendas,” the judge, André M. Espinosa, said in a rare and harshly worded rebuke of the U.S. attorney’s office that Ms. Habba leads and where he once worked as a prosecutor.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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      Aide to Rep. Nadler Is Handcuffed Amid Confrontation With Federal Agents

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      Captured on video, the episode occurred in the congressman’s Manhattan office, shortly after the aide observed agents detaining immigrants outside a courtroom.Federal officers entered Representative Jerry Nadler’s office in Lower Manhattan on Wednesday and handcuffed and briefly detained one of his aides. The confrontation happened shortly after the aide observed federal agents detaining migrants in a public hallway outside an immigration courtroom in the same building as the congressman’s office.The episode was recorded by someone who was sitting in Mr. Nadler’s office. In the video, an officer with the Federal Protective Service, part of the Department of Homeland Security, is shown demanding access to a private area inside the office. The video was obtained by Gothamist, which earlier reported the confrontation.“You’re harboring rioters in the office,” the federal agent, whose name tag and officer number are not visible in the video, says to a member of Mr. Nadler’s staff.There were no riots reported on Wednesday at the federal building on Varick Street, though protesters and immigrant rights advocates gathered inside and outside the building earlier in the day. The immigration court is on the fifth floor and Mr. Nadler’s office is on the sixth.The agents entered Mr. Nadler’s office because they had been told that protesters were there and were concerned for the safety of his staff members, according to a statement on Saturday from the Department of Homeland Security.When they arrived, “one individual became verbally confrontational and physically blocked access to the office,” the statement said. That person, an aide to the congressman, was detained so the officers could complete their safety check, according to the statement.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