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    U.S. Deports Migrants From Asia to Panama

    The move could herald a new front in the Trump administration’s plans for mass deportations, one that allows for more rapid removal of migrants whose home countries are reluctant to accept them.The Trump administration deported migrants from several Asian nations to Panama on Wednesday night, Panamanian and U.S. officials said, in a move that could signal much faster removals of immigrants who have remained in the United States because their countries have made it difficult to return them.The flight carrying the migrants, a military plane that took off from California, appears to be the first of its kind during the Trump administration. It came on the heels of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit last week to Panama, which has been under tremendous pressure from President Trump over how it runs the Panama Canal.The more than 100 migrants on the flight, including families, had entered the United States illegally from countries such as Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and Uzbekistan. It is often difficult for the United States to return migrants to those nations.President José Raúl Mulino of Panama, speaking at a news conference on Thursday morning, said 119 people of “the most diverse nationalities in the world” had arrived the night before on a U.S. Air Force flight at an airport outside Panama City.Mr. Mulino said they were being housed in a local hotel and would be moved to a shelter in Darién, a province in Panama’s east, a process managed by the International Organization for Migration. From there, he said, they would be repatriated.“We hope to get them out of there as soon as possible on flights from the United States,” Mr. Mulino said, adding, “This is another contribution Panama is making on the migration issue.”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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    Some Migrants Sent by Trump to Guantánamo Are Being Held by Military Guards

    Dozens of Venezuelan migrants sent by the Trump administration to the U.S. military base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, are being guarded by troops rather than civilian immigration officers, according to people familiar with the operation.While the Trump administration has portrayed the detainees as legally in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, military guards and medics are doing the work, the people said.The Trump administration has not released the migrants’ names, although at least two have been identified by their relatives through pictures released of the first flight.By not disclosing the migrants’ identities, the government has prevented their relatives from learning where they are being held and complicated lawyers’ efforts to challenge their detention.Spokespeople for the Homeland Security and Defense Departments have been unwilling or unable to answer detailed questions about what is happening to the migrants at the base.But The New York Times has obtained the names of 53 men who are being held in Camp 6, a prison building where until recently the military held Al Qaeda suspects. The Times has published the list.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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    Here Are the Names of 53 Migrants Taken to Guantánamo Bay

    The Times has obtained a list of the names of the men, whom the U.S. government has described as Venezuelan citizens under final deportation orders.The New York Times has obtained a list of 53 men whom the Homeland Security Department has sent from an immigration detention site in Texas to a prison building at the military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.The U.S. government has not released the men’s names but has described them as Venezuelan citizens under final deportation orders. By not disclosing the migrants’ identities, the government has prevented their relatives from learning where they are being held and complicated efforts by lawyers who want to challenge their detention.The Times is publishing the list. But we have not independently assessed the Trump administration’s characterization of the 53 men being housed in the prison, called Camp 6, as “high-threat illegal aliens” or violent gang members.The Times has found listings for 50 of the men in the U.S. immigration service’s Detainee Locator, which allows the public to search for people by name.Until recently, the men had been listed as being held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in El Paso. U.S. cargo planes began moving migrants to Guantánamo, and the agency switched their locations to “Florida.” Detainee operations at Guantánamo Bay are overseen by the U.S. Southern Command, which is near Miami, and the overall base is supervised by Navy headquarters in Jacksonville, Fla.As of Wednesday, the military had brought about 100 migrants to Guantánamo. The people who are not named on the list were being held in a separate facility.Two of the names subsequently showed up in a lawsuit, which was filed on Wednesday in part by their relatives, seeking legal access to the detainees. The relatives said they recognized the men in pictures from a transfer operation that the government had made public.Three of the names, marked with asterisks, did not appear to be in the locator system, which requires exact spellings.Here is the list:Acosta Carreno, Yonniel DanielAlviares Armas, Jhonatan AlejandroAzocar-Moreno, AlexandroBastidas Paz, JhoanBellorin-Cardiel, Javier AlejandroBermudez Gamez, JoseBriceno-Rojas, Adrian JoseCardozo Oliveros, CarlosCastillo Rivera, Luis AlbertoCeballos-Jemenez, Kleiber EduardoChirino Torres, JonathanChirinos Rodriguez, Edixon LeonelDuarte-Marin, AllinzonDuran-Arape, MayfreedEscalona Hernandez, Jefferson *Esteira Medina, Misael JoseGomez Lugo, Tilso RamonGuerrero Mejias, Bryan SleydherGuevara-Varguillas, Sergio GabrielGuilarte, Oswal YonaikerLiendo-Liendo, Endry JoseLindado Mazo, Ricardo JoseMarquez Sanchez, Jesus DavidMedina Andrade, Jose GregarioMendez Canas, Freddy JavierMendez Ramos, Jesus EnriqueMontes Fernandez, FranyerMundaray-Salazar, Argelis JoseOrelanna, Deiby Jose *Oviedo-Hurtado, Brayan AlbertoPalma-Osorio, Carlos DavidParedes Salazar, Jose AlejandroPrado Pirona, JesusPurroy Roldan, Yoiner JoseQuintero Quintero, YohandersonRios Salas, Luis AlbertoRivas-Rivas, Lorwis JoseRivero Pinero, BrayanRodriguez Diaz, KevinRodriguez Fermin, RafaelRojas Pena, JuniorSanchez Vasquez, JuniorSandovalascanio, Anthony YosmarSantana-Jara, AndresSimancas Rodriguez, JoseSulbaran D’Avila, Erick JohanTiberio-Pacheco, JulioUvieda Machado, AlexisUzcategui Uzcaegui, Diuvar *Velazquez-Penaloza, Julio JoseVillasana Villegas, Douglas JesusWullians Oropeza, DaimerYanes-Gonzalez, Ali Jose More

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    Bondi Announces Lawsuit Against New York Over Immigration

    The attorney general, citing a law allowing New Yorkers to get a driver’s license regardless of citizenship or legal status, accused the state of “prioritizing illegal aliens over American citizens.”The Trump administration sued New York on Wednesday over its migrant policies, accusing state officials of prioritizing “illegal aliens over American citizens,” as Washington ramped up its political and legal battles with states over deportations.Attorney General Pam Bondi, in her first news conference, specifically cited New York’s “green light” law, which allows people in the state to get a driver’s license regardless of citizenship or legal status.Ms. Bondi, flanked by federal agents in raid jackets, vowed to put an end to those practices.“It stops,” Ms. Bondi said. “It stops today.”The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Albany, said New York state law was the most egregious in that it requires state authorities “to promptly tip off any illegal alien when a federal immigration agency has requested his or her information.”That, the lawsuit said, was “a frontal assault on the federal immigration laws, and the federal authorities that administer them.”Gov. Kathy Hochul’s spokesman, Avi Small, said the governor “supports deporting violent criminals who break our laws, believes that law-abiding families should not be targets and will coordinate with federal authorities who have a judicial warrant.”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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    Court Blocks U.S. From Sending Venezuelan Migrants to Guantánamo

    A federal judge barred the U.S. government on Sunday from sending three detained Venezuelan men to the Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, according to a lawyer for the migrants.Lawyers for the men, who are detained at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in New Mexico, asked the court on Sunday evening for a temporary restraining order, opening the first legal front against the Trump administration’s new policy of sending undocumented migrants to Guantánamo.Within an hour of the filing, which came at the start of the Super Bowl, Judge Kenneth J. Gonzales of the Federal District Court for New Mexico, convened a hearing by videoconference and verbally granted the restraining order, said Baher Azmy, the legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is helping represent the migrants.Immigration and human rights advocates have been stymied in immediately challenging the Trump administration’s policy of sending migrants to Guantánamo, in part because the government has not released the identities of the roughly 50 men it is believed to have flown there so far.But the three Venezuelan men were already represented by lawyers, and their court filing said they had a credible fear that they could be transferred.According to the filing, the men are being held in the same ICE facility, the Otero County Processing Center, where previous groups of men who were flown to Guantánamo in recent days had apparently been held. The men recognized the faces of some of those detainees from government photographs provided to the news media, the filing 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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    A Tent City Is Rising at Guantánamo Bay

    On Friday a military cargo plane transported deportees from El Paso, Texas, to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. They are among the latest arrivals in the Trump administration’s week-old migrant relocation operation.Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, is the first senior member of the Trump administration to visit the migrant mission on the base.So far, none of the first arrivals have been taken to an emerging tent city that has been set up for migrants. Instead, they have been housed in the military prison.A Tent City Is Rising at Guantánamo BayThe Trump administration has moved more than 30 people described as Venezuelan gang members to the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, as U.S. forces and homeland security staff prepare a tent city for potentially thousands of migrants.About a dozen of the men were brought in from El Paso, Texas, on Friday, as Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, arrived at Guantánamo. She is the first senior member of the Trump administration to visit the migrant mission on the base in southeastern Cuba.Ms. Noem was taken to the rooftop of the base’s aircraft hangar and observed as U.S. security forces led the deportees down the ramp of a C-130 military cargo plane to an awaiting minibus. Maj. Gen. Philip J. Ryan, the army commander overseeing the migrant mission, stood beside her in combat uniform, and a Chinook transport chopper could be seen in the distance.“Vicious gang members will no longer have safe haven in our country,” Ms. Noem said on social media, calling the men “criminal aliens.”Ms. Noem and a soldier watch from a distance as U.S. security forces take migrants off a cargo plane at Guantánamo Bay on Friday. An ICE policeman in civilian attire stands beside one recent arrival while other security personnel staff the arrival of the cargo plane, which came from El Paso, Texas.

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    Newsom Signs Bills to Fight Trump, Including Legal Aid for Immigrants

    Two days after meeting with President Trump at the White House to seek disaster aid, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California signed legislation on Friday that authorized $50 million in state funds intended to counter the president’s agenda.Half of the money was dedicated to legal aid, including for undocumented immigrants who have faced deportation threats from the Trump administration, and the other half was intended to cover additional state litigation costs as California spars with the federal government in court.Mr. Newsom signed a pair of bills with no news cameras, bringing to a quiet end an effort he launched with vigor two days after the election. Three months ago, he asked state lawmakers to move quickly to defend the state from presumed incursions by Mr. Trump and called for a special legislative session.The governor seemed to be positioning himself as a national leader of the Democratic resistance in the days following the election. But he has treaded more cautiously in recent weeks after the president threatened to withhold disaster aid from California. On Wednesday, he met with Mr. Trump for more than an hour in the Oval Office.The bills signed by Mr. Newsom passed on a party-line vote, but proved trickier than first thought in the state’s Democratic-led Legislature as Mr. Trump and Republican state lawmakers have tried to distinguish between the deportation of criminal undocumented immigrants and others they say they are not targeting for now.Democratic lawmakers, in an attempt to inoculate themselves from arguments that they were using state dollars to help violent offenders, added a message to clarify that the state legal aid was not meant to help immigrants with criminal backgrounds — a clear acknowledgment of Republican criticisms and the mood of the electorate.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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    How Biden Should Spend His Final Weeks in Office

    The days are dwindling to a precious few before President Biden relinquishes his tenancy at the White House to Donald Trump. Four years ago, in his inaugural address, Mr. Biden promised to “press forward with speed and urgency, for we have much to do in this winter of peril and possibility.” The peril remains, but so do the possibilities.Last week he announced that he was commuting the sentences of nearly 1,500 people and pardoning 39 others convicted of nonviolent crimes. Eleven days earlier, in a decision widely criticized, Mr. Biden pardoned his son Hunter, who was awaiting sentencing on gun possession and income tax charges.There is still much the president can do before he repairs to Delaware. He can spare federal death row prisoners from the fate some almost certainly will face when Mr. Trump returns. He can make the Equal Rights Amendment a reality after decades of efforts to enshrine it in the Constitution. He can safeguard magnificent landscapes that might otherwise be desecrated. He can protect undocumented immigrants facing deportation, alleviate crushing student debt facing millions of Americans and protect the reproductive rights of women. And more.New York Times Opinion contributors share what they hope President Biden will accomplish during his remaining time in office.Yes, time is running out for Mr. Biden’s presidency, but he can still repair, restore, heal and build, as he promised he would do on the January day four years ago when he took the oath of office. Here are a few suggestions:Commute the sentences of the 40 federal inmates on death rowBy Martin Luther King IIIBy commuting all federal death sentences to life, Mr. Biden would move America, meaningfully, in the direction of racial reconciliation and equal justice. In 2021 he became the first president to openly oppose capital punishment. Since his inauguration, the federal government has not carried out a single execution.If Mr. Biden does not exercise his constitutional authority to commute the sentences of everyone on federal death row, we will surely see another spate of deeply troubling executions as we did in the first Trump administration. A majority of those executed — 12 men and one woman — were people of color; at least one was convicted by an all-white jury and there was evidence of racial bias in a number of cases; several had presented evidence of intellectual disabilities or severe mental illnesses. The same problems were features in the cases of many of the 40 men on federal death row today, more than half of whom are people of color.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