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    Chris Krebs, Ex-Leader of Cybersecurity Agency, Is Under Investigation, Trump Officials Say

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    The disclosure came three weeks after President Trump directed the Justice Department to investigate the former agency leader, Chris Krebs, in an act of score settling.Trump administration officials said on Thursday that Chris Krebs, who debunked President Trump’s lies about the 2020 election as head of the federal cybersecurity agency, lost his membership in an expedited customs program for travelers because he is facing a federal investigation.The officials declined to specify why Mr. Krebs was under investigation, nor did they indicate which agencies were conducting the inquiry. The disclosure came three weeks after Mr. Trump, in an act of score settling and intimidation, directed the Justice Department to investigate Mr. Krebs.“Chris Krebs is under active investigation by law enforcement agencies,” a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. “That is a fact disqualifying him for global entry.”The department offered no further explanation about the inquiry into Mr. Krebs, who was appointed to lead the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency by Mr. Trump in 2018. Asked about the suspension of Mr. Krebs’s Global Entry travel program status, a White House official supplied a similar statement, offering no other details. The official did not respond to a follow-up question. It is unusual for a government law enforcement agency to confirm or deny an open investigation. Mr. Trump has cited comparable breaches of protocol in accusing law enforcement of trying to smear him during various investigations into his conduct.The Global Entry program, administered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, a division of the Homeland Security Department, allows low-risk travelers who have passed a clearance process to avoid time-consuming screening procedures at airports.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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      Behind Trump’s Deal to Deport Venezuelans to El Salvador’s Most Feared Prison

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      As they addressed reporters inside the Oval Office in mid-April, President Trump and his Salvadoran counterpart appeared to be operating in lock step.The United States had just deported more than 200 migrants to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, and President Nayib Bukele said his country was eager to take more. He scoffed at a question from a reporter about whether he would release one of the men who a federal judge said had been mistakenly deported.“I mean, we’re not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country,” Mr. Bukele said.But weeks earlier, when the three planes of deportees landed, it was the Salvadoran president who had quietly expressed concerns.As part of the agreement with the Trump administration, Mr. Bukele had agreed to house only what he called “convicted criminals” in the prison. However, many of the Venezuelan men labeled gang members and terrorists by the U.S. government had not been tried in court.Mr. Bukele wanted assurances from the United States that each of those locked up in the prison were members of Tren de Aragua, the transnational gang with roots in Venezuela, according to people familiar with the situation and documents obtained by The New York Times.The matter was urgent, a senior U.S. official warned his colleagues shortly after the deportations, kicking off a scramble to get the Salvadorans whatever evidence they could.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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      ICE Agents Arrest Migrant Who Climbed Tree to Evade Them

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      The hourslong standoff ended when the man, a 29-year-old Guatemalan, surrendered to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in San Antonio.After a roughly eight-hour standoff, ICE agents arrested a man identified as Raul Ical, a 29-year-old from Guatemala. A neighbor urged him not to come down, and an activist told him to not sign anything.Edgar Sandoval/The New York TimesU.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in San Antonio arrested a man said to be an undocumented immigrant after a roughly eight-hour standoff that unfolded on Tuesday in a backyard where he tried to evade arrest by climbing a tree.The man, who immigration officials identified as Raul Ical, a 29-year-old from Guatemala, attracted a large crowd of residents and journalists.“You don’t have to sign anything,” yelled Jose Montoya, an activist with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, a local advocacy group, as Mr. Ical climbed down a ladder that federal agents had placed in the backyard.When Mr. Ical surrendered, looking defeated, he was quickly handcuffed by agents.Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, said the episode was part of the Trump administration’s efforts to combat illegal immigration.“You can run, but you can’t hide,” she said in a statement. “Whether in a tree or harbored in an activist judge’s house, if you are here illegally, ICE will find you, arrest you and you will be deported.”ICE said that deportation officers in San Antonio and state police tried to serve Mr. Ical what the agency described as a “criminal warrant” on Tuesday morning before he left his vehicle and fled on foot. He ran into a backyard and climbed a tree, where he remained for hours, the authorities said.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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      ICE Arrests Nearly 800 in Florida in Operation With Local Officers

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      The four-day operation came as the Trump administration has sought to enlist local authorities in an immigration crackdown.U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, along with state law enforcement officials, arrested about 780 immigrants in Florida in an operation this week, according to ICE data obtained by The New York Times.The operation began on Monday and targeted undocumented immigrants with final deportation orders, according to an ICE official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the operation. The officers picked up more than 275 migrants with final removal orders, the data showed.ABC News and Fox News earlier reported news of the arrests, which took place over four days.It was the latest move by the Trump administration to seek to accelerate deportations of undocumented immigrants, which have so far been well below the administration’s goals.Since President Trump took office, ICE officials have worked with various federal agencies to conduct raids across the United States. The effort this week in Florida was the first to be conducted as part of a formal arrangement with state law enforcement known as a 287(g) agreement, according to the official.The Trump administration has sought to recruit local authorities to help in immigration operations in an effort to speed deportations. The administration has resumed collateral arrests during such operations, which allows officers to pick up migrants who were not initially targeted but were around an individual who was sought by ICE.Generally, people must have received an order of removal from an immigration judge before they are deported, a process that can take weeks or stretch into years. But since the start of 2024, 70 percent of these removal orders were issued to someone who did not attend their hearing before a judge, according to a Times analysis of court records.“It’s going to break up families,” said Tessa Petit, the executive director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition, said of the arrests this week. “And that is not the welcoming state that Florida has been for immigrants for decades.”Given the scale of the operation, Ms. Petit said, there is a chance that many of those arrested were in the country on some sort of legal status and did not possess criminal records.The raids represented the biggest escalation of immigration enforcement in Florida since Mr. Trump took office, Ms. Petit said, adding that they were much more reflective of the president’s mass deportation promises.ICE operations in communities take an extensive amount of research and surveillance. They also require many officers, which is why the Trump administration has pulled in several other law enforcement agencies.Trump administration officials have increasingly turned to warning undocumented immigrants to leave the country.“President Trump and I have a clear message to those in our country illegally: LEAVE NOW,” said Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, in a statement on Monday. “If you do not self-deport, we will hunt you down, arrest you and deport you.”Orlando Mayorquín More

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      U.S. Says Tren de Aragua Charges Will ‘Devastate’ Its Infrastructure

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      Federal prosecutors charged six members of the Venezuelan gang and 21 members of a violent splinter group.New York City’s mayor and police commissioner and a top White House immigration official announced on Tuesday two indictments charging 27 people they said were linked to Tren de Aragua, a gang that the Trump administration has said poses a unique threat to America.“Tren de Aragua is not just a street gang — it is a highly structured terrorist organization that has destroyed American families with brutal violence,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a news release touting the charges, adding that the arrests “will devastate TdA’s infrastructure” in three states.Six defendants were named as members or associates of Tren, which the Trump administration has designated as a foreign terrorist organization. The other 21 people, prosecutors said, had broken away to join a violent splinter group called anti-Tren.Still, officials argued, in displaying dozens of seized handguns and rifles, the existence of both groups showed Tren de Aragua’s singular harm. Members of the gangs had engaged in murders and assaults, sex trafficking and human smuggling, according to the indictments.At a news conference, Thomas D. Homan, whom President Trump appointed as “border czar,” said the indictments showed the necessity of his immigration policies.“New York City — you’re a sanctuary city, you’re sanctuary for criminals,” said Mr. Homan, the so-called border czar.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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      A Columbia Activist Sought Middle Ground on Gaza. The U.S. Detained Him.

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      Mohsen Mahdawi was arrested at a citizenship interview in Vermont. He had spent a decade trying to understand the conflict that shaped his life, his supporters say.As Columbia University’s student protest movement careened toward the center of the nation’s political discourse last year, one of its most ardent leaders suddenly fell quiet.Mohsen Mahdawi had been a key organizer of pro-Palestinian demonstrations, but he said he walked away from that role in March 2024 — well before the rallies reached a fever pitch as students set up encampments and broke into a campus building.A fissure had been growing. By the fall of 2024 it had widened: Parts of the movement were becoming more radical, and some students were distributing fliers during a campus demonstration glorifying violent resistance. Mr. Mahdawi, meanwhile, was approaching Israeli students, hoping to find middle ground in the divisive Israeli-Palestinian conflict that, for decades, had unleashed horrors on both sides and in his own life.He told friends that he was being sidelined in part because he wanted to engage in dialogue with supporters of Israel, a stance many pro-Palestinian activists reject.His calls for compassion did not protect him from President Trump’s widening dragnet against pro-Palestinian student organizers on campus.At an appointment to obtain U.S. citizenship on Monday in Vermont, Mr. Mahdawi, who is expected to graduate next month from Columbia, was taken into custody by immigration police.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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      A Video From Tufts Captures the Fear and Aggression in Trump’s Crackdown

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      The tactics on display in the arrest of Rumeysa Ozturk were not new — plainclothes officers, faces obscured — but as ICE actions ramp up, scrutiny may increase.Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish citizen and a Muslim, was heading out to break her Ramadan fast with friends Tuesday night when she was detained by agents from the Department of Homeland Security.The security video looked like a scene from an undercover sting operation against a 30-year-old Turkish graduate student in her white coat and backpack.Rumeysa Ozturk was walking down a street in Somerville, Mass., on Tuesday when she was surrounded by federal agents wearing dark sweatshirts, some of their faces obscured by black masks. As they pulled off her backpack and handcuffed her, the terrified student let out a cry. One officer explained, “We’re the police.”As the Trump administration ramps up its deportation efforts, critics say tourists, foreign students and other legal immigrants are being subjected to aggressive arrest tactics usually reserved for criminal suspects. They have been swarmed by teams of masked agents in masks, zip-tied and bundled into unmarked vehicles.The tactics are not particularly new. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials declined to answer questions about tactics on Thursday, but former officials said federal immigration agents do wear street clothes to avoid giving away their presence before an arrest. They also can wear face coverings to avoid being singled out and doxxed online.Deborah Fleischaker, a former ICE chief of staff under the Biden administration, said that plainclothes ICE agents have long been allowed to detain undocumented immigrants, though they are required to show their badges when making such arrests.What is shifting are the targets — immigrants with valid visas and legal status. In Ms. Ozturk’s case, supporters say she appears to have merely been a co-author of an editorial in a student newspaper criticizing Tufts’s support for Israel.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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      What We Know About the Detentions of Student Protesters

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      The Trump administration is looking to deport pro-Palestinian students who are legally in the United States, citing national security. Critics say that violates free speech protections.Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the State Department under his direction had revoked the visas of more than 300 people and was continuing to revoke visas daily.Pool photo by Nathan HowardThe Trump administration is trying to deport pro-Palestinian students and academics who are legally in the United States, a new front in its clash with elite schools over what it says is their failure to combat antisemitism.The White House asserts that these moves — many of which involve immigrants with visas and green cards — are necessary because those taken into custody threaten national security. But some legal experts say that the administration is trampling on free speech rights and using lower-level laws to crack down on activism.Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday that the State Department under his direction had revoked the visas of more than 300 people and was continuing to revoke visas daily. He did not specify how many of those people had taken part in campus protests or acted to support Palestinians.Mr. Rubio gave that number at a news conference, after noting that the department had revoked the visa of a Turkish graduate student at Tufts University. He did not give details on the other revocations.Immigration officials are known to have pursued at least nine people in apparent connection to this effort since the start of March.The detentions and efforts to deport people who are in the country legally reflect an escalation of the administration’s efforts to restrict immigration, as it also seeks to deport undocumented immigrants en masse.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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      With New Decree, Trump Threatens Lawyers and Law Firms

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      President Trump broadened his campaign of retaliation against lawyers he dislikes with a new memorandum that threatens to use government power to punish any law firms that, in his view, unfairly challenge his administration.The memorandum directs the heads of the Justice and Homeland Security Departments to “seek sanctions against attorneys and law firms who engage in frivolous, unreasonable and vexatious litigation against the United States” or in matters that come before federal agencies.Mr. Trump issued the order late Friday night, after a tumultuous week for the American legal community in which one of the country’s premier firms, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, struck a deal with the White House to spare the company from a punitive decree issued by Mr. Trump the previous week.Vanita Gupta, who as a civil rights lawyer and a former Justice Department official has both sued the government and defended it in court, said Mr. Trump’s memo “attacks the very foundations of our legal system by threatening and intimidating litigants who aim to hold our government accountable to the law and the Constitution.”In response to criticism of the memo, a White House spokeswoman, Taylor Rogers, said: “President Trump is delivering on his promise to ensure the judicial system is no longer weaponized against the American people. President Trump’s only retribution is success and historic achievements for the American people.”The president has long complained that Democratic-leaning lawyers and law firms have pursued what he calls “lawfare” in the form of investigations and lawsuits against him and his allies that he claims are motivated by politics. Since being sworn into office he has targeted three firms, but the new memo seems to threaten similar punishment for any lawyer or firm who raises his ire.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