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      Venezuelan Families Fear for Relatives as Trump Celebrates Deportations to El Salvador

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      Mirelis Casique last spoke to her 24-year-old son on Saturday morning while he was being held in a detention center in Laredo, Texas. He told her he was going to be deported with a group of Venezuelans, she said, but he didn’t know where they were headed.Shortly after, his name disappeared from the website of U.S. immigration authorities. She has not heard from him since.“Now he’s in an abyss with no one to rescue him,” Ms. Casique said on Sunday in an interview from her home in Venezuela.The deportation of 238 Venezuelans to El Salvador this weekend has created panic among families who fear that their relatives are among those handed over by the Trump administration to Salvadoran authorities, apparently without due process.The men were described by a spokeswoman for the White House, Karoline Leavitt, as “terrorists” belonging to the Tren de Aragua gang and “heinous monsters” who, she said, had recently been arrested, “saving countless American lives.” But several relatives of men believed to be in the group say their loved ones do not have gang ties.On Sunday, the Salvadoran government released images of the men being marched into a notorious mega-prison in handcuffs overnight, with their heads newly shaven.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 a Columbia Student Fled to Canada After ICE Came Looking for Her

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      Ranjani Srinivasan’s student visa was revoked by U.S. immigration authorities. That was just the start of her odyssey.The first knock at the door came eight days ago, on a Friday morning.Three federal immigration agents showed up at a Columbia University apartment searching for Ranjani Srinivasan, who had recently learned her student visa had been revoked. Ms. Srinivasan, an international student from India, did not open the door.She was not home when the agents showed up again the next night, just hours before a former Columbia student living in campus housing, Mahmoud Khalil, was detained, roiling the university. Ms. Srinivasan packed a few belongings, left her cat behind with a friend and jumped on a flight to Canada at LaGuardia Airport.When the agents returned a third time, this past Thursday night, and entered her apartment with a judicial warrant, she was gone.“The atmosphere seemed so volatile and dangerous,” Ms. Srinivasan, 37, said on Friday in an interview with The New York Times, her first public remarks since leaving. “So I just made a quick decision.”Ms. Srinivasan, a Fulbright recipient who was pursuing a doctoral degree in urban planning, was caught in the dragnet of President Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrators through the use of federal immigration powers. She is one of a handful of noncitizens that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has targeted at Columbia in recent days.In the week since that first knock at the door, Ms. Srinivasan says she has struggled to understand why the State Department abruptly revoked her student visa without explanation, leading Columbia to withdraw her enrollment from the university because her legal status had been terminated.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 Administration Moves More Migrants to Guantánamo Bay

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      The military transported about 15 immigration detainees from Texas to the U.S. base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on Sunday, bringing in new migrants who have been designated for deportation days after it cleared the base of its first group of deportees.No new migrants had been sent to the base since the Homeland Security Department cleared it of 178 Venezuelans on Thursday.A brief announcement did not identify the nationalities of the newest arrivals. Nor did it give exact figures. But a government official said they were in the category of “high-threat illegal aliens,” and therefore were being held in Camp 6, a prison that until last month housed detainees in the war on terrorism.Last week, the Trump administration delivered 177 Venezuelan men who had been designated for deportation from Guantánamo to the Venezuelan government on an airstrip in Honduras.It is unclear why those men had to be taken to Guantánamo on 13 military flights from El Paso from Feb. 4 to Feb. 17, and then shuttled to an air base in Honduras on two chartered U.S. aircraft. On Feb. 10, Venezuela sent one of its commercial airliners to El Paso for 190 other Venezuelan citizens the United States wanted to deport.Juan E. Agudelo, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official who is based in Miami, said in a court filing on Thursday that the administration was using Guantánamo to “temporarily house aliens before they are removed to their home country or a safe third country.” Mr. Agudelo was unable to predict the length of the average stay for a migrant before deportation beyond “the time necessary to effect the removal orders.”Sunday’s transfer happened without advanced notice. The U.S. government declined a request last week from a consortium of U.S. civil liberties lawyers that asked for 72 hours’ notice before more people in homeland security custody were sent there.The government said in a filing that it had made arrangements for would-be deportees being held there to speak by phone with lawyers. Three of the men who were sent home on Thursday had one-hour calls with lawyers who had sued for access to the migrants and specifically named those three. More

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      Can Trump Legally Transfer Migrants to Guantánamo Bay? Here’s What to Know

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      Lawsuits are challenging President Trump’s abrupt decision to send men awaiting deportation to the American military base in Cuba.The Trump administration has started sending migrants from the United States to the American military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, raising a series of legal questions over the government’s authority to do so and the basic rights of detainees.More than 150 Venezuelans, so far, are believed to have been taken there. Already at least three lawsuits have been filed related to aspects of the policy, and rights groups are expected to mount a broader challenge. Here is a closer look at some of the major legal issues.Can migrants lawfully be transferred there?It is unclear whether the government has legal authority to transfer migrants from the United States to Guantánamo, which is an odd and ambiguous place for legal purposes.The base sits on Cuba’s sovereign territory, but the United States has exclusive jurisdiction and control over what happens there because of a perpetual lease and the rupture in relations between the United States and Cuba’s Communist government.Normally, transfer authority comes from the Immigration and Nationality Act, which empowers the government to detain migrants who have final removal orders and are awaiting deportation.There is no dispute that Immigration and Customs Enforcement can transfer them among its different holding facilities inside the United States while they await their removal from the country. But the act defines the geographic territory of the United States as the 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands. It does not include Guantánamo.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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      Eric Adams Highlights Coordination With Trump’s Border Czar on Fox News

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      If Mayor Eric Adams of New York City wanted to dispel fears that he was beholden to the Trump administration in exchange for its maneuvering to have his criminal case dropped, his appearance on “Fox and Friends” on Friday morning seemed to have the opposite effect.In the joint appearance with President Trump’s border czar, Thomas Homan, the two described their newfound collaboration on Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown. It led to some uncomfortable moments for Mr. Adams, a Democrat.The mayor, who is facing vigorous calls to resign, reiterated his support for working with Mr. Trump to detain and deport immigrants who are accused of crimes. Then Mr. Homan warned that he would make sure Mr. Adams complied.“If he doesn’t come through, I’ll be back in New York City, and we won’t be sitting on the couch — I’ll be in his office, up his butt, saying, ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?’” Mr. Homan said.Mr. Homan pressed for further cooperation from Mr. Adams and attacked Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is facing growing pressure to use her power to remove Mr. Adams from office.“Governor Hochul, she needs to be removed,” Mr. Homan said. “The one who needs to be removed is her. She supports sanctuary policies.”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

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      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

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      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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      Court Blocks U.S. From Sending Venezuelan Migrants to Guantánamo

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      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