In a Washington Post op-ed written from the LaSalle Detention Center, the Palestinian American activist and Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil described “the breakneck speed” with which an immigration judge decided that the Trump administration would be allowed to deport him. He also questioned the basis of the case against him: “Why should protesting Israel’s indiscriminate killing of…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
A federal judge has placed a hold on the U.S. government’s plans to deport a number of immigrants to Libya, following allegations from immigrants, their families and their lawyers that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials told them they would soon be sent to that country. The injunction placed by U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy states that the Trump administration’s actions…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
To mark the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s second term, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a press release on April 30 titled “100 Days of Fighting Fake News.” At the top of the list, the Trump administration rails against the media for “FALSELY” — in all caps — reporting that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been deporting U.S. citizen children. “In both cases,”…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
As President Donald Trump tries to bar almost all refugees from entering the country, his administration is planning to use federal funds reserved for sick, elderly, and at-risk refugee populations to facilitate an influx of white South Africans within days, according to a government source and an internal memo viewed by The Lever. The first group of Dutch-descended Afrikaners is scheduled to…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
President Donald Trump’s second term has swung a wrecking ball at diversity, equity, and inclusion policies and programs throughout the country. Few writers seem better suited to explain this unique moment in America than Nikole Hannah-Jones.
A New York Times journalist and Howard University professor, Hannah-Jones has spent years studying and shaping compelling—and at times controversial—narratives about American history. In 2019, she created The 1619 Project, a Pulitzer Prize-winning series of stories and essays that placed the first slave ship that arrived in Virginia at the center of the US’ origin story. Today, the Trump administration is pushing against that kind of historical reframing while dismantling federal policies designed to address structural racism. Hannah-Jones says she’s been stunned by the speed of Trump’s first few months.
“We haven’t seen the federal government weaponized against civil rights in this way” since the turn of the century, Hannah-Jones says. “We’ve not lived in this America before. And we are experiencing something that, if you study history, it’s not unpredictable, yet it’s still shocking that we’re here.”
On this week’s episode of More To The Story, host Al Letson talks to Hannah-Jones about the rollback of DEI and civil rights programs across the country, the ongoing battle to reframe American history, and whether this will lead to another moment of rebirth for Black Americans.
Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Digital producer: Nikki Frick | Interim executive producers: Brett Myers and Taki Telonidis | Host: Al Letson
Read: Trump Shuts Down Diversity Programs Across Government (Mother Jones)
Listen: 40 Acres and a Lie (Reveal)
Read: The 1619 Project (The New York Times Magazine)
This post was originally published on Reveal.
The Trump administration on Monday announced what it called “historic travel assistance and stipend for voluntary self-deportation,” prompting one expert to issue a warning to undocumented immigrants who may consider the offer. “If you are here illegally, self-deportation is the best, safest, and most cost-effective way to leave the United States to avoid arrest…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
An interview with Dara Lind and Omar Jadwat on immigration policy in the second Trump administration.
This post was originally published on Dissent Magazine.
The political problem of the border arises from a broader crisis of legitimacy of the state.
This post was originally published on Dissent Magazine.
Sanctuary activists face new challenges under Trump’s second term—but their work has always entailed great personal risk.
This post was originally published on Dissent Magazine.
The Trump administration has created a human rights crisis with its draconian, made-for-TV campaign of mass deportation. As arrests ramp up across the country, three people died inside immigration jails and detention centers in April alone, bringing the total number of people to die in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody since Trump returned to office to at least seven…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
As the cases of international students and activists facing deportation begin to play out in the courts, Georgetown professor Nader Hashemi visited an ICE jail in Texas to speak with his colleague Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown professor who was snatched by the Trump administration back in March. Suri is married to a U.S. citizen of Palestinian background. Once Hashemi arrived at the prison…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Nearly 15 years after Anastasio Hernández Rojas’ wife began pushing for justice in her husband’s killing, an international human rights commission found that U.S. border officials were responsible for his death — and that they tortured him before he died. Officials beat and shocked Hernández Rojas with a Taser while they were deporting him to Mexico through the San Diego border in May 2010.
Shortly after the Trump administration took office, the State Department warned international scholars and students — people who had come to the U.S. to teach, conduct research and learn — that it planned to revoke visas based on allegations of antisemitism or for their purported support for groups like Hamas or Hezbollah. What happened was far more expansive — a sweeping termination of…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The U.S. government is activating a suite of algorithmic surveillance tools, developed in concert with major tech companies, to monitor and criminalize immigrants’ speech.
This post was originally published on Dissent Magazine.
“I have nothing to do with Project 2025,” Donald Trump said during last September’s presidential debate. “I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it purposely. I’m not going to read it.” Such disavowals were common on the campaign trail. But just 100 days into his second term, Trump has enacted many of the key policies laid out in the Heritage Foundation’s 922-page blueprint for a far right…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
President Donald Trump’s nominee to run Customs and Border Protection has been accused of participating in an alleged agency cover-up after officials killed a man in the process of deporting him in 2010. The family of Anastasio Hernández Rojas is waiting on a decision from an international human rights tribunal that conducted a yearslong investigation into his killing and alleged torture and…
The Trump administration has deported three U.S. citizen children to Honduras: a 4-year-old who was actively receiving treatment for a rare form of stage 4 cancer, his 7-year-old sister, and a 2-year-old girl who was separated from her father and expelled with her undocumented pregnant mother. The mothers were coerced into taking their U.S. citizen children and prohibited from communicating with…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
President Donald Trump has described his first 100 days in the White House in glowing terms, claiming the past three months have been some of the “best” in the modern era of presidential administrations — but poll after poll shows that most Americans disapprove of his actions and leadership style since taking office. In a recent interview with Time magazine about his time in the White House…
Hundreds of people rallied in Wisconsin’s largest city on Saturday to protest the Trump administration’s arrest of Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan on what critics called “baseless” charges of felony obstruction after she allegedly helped an undocumented immigrant evade arrest during an appearance in her courtroom. FBI agents arrested Dugan, 65, on Friday following an investigation…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Federal immigration authorities deported three U.S. citizen children on Friday — including one with cancer who was reportedly expelled without medication — in a move that critics and one judge appointed by President Donald Trump said was carried out without due process. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) New Orleans field office deported the American children — ages 2, 4…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
As the Trump administration is ramping up detentions and deportations of immigrants living in the United States, it is also revising and expanding contracts with private prison facilities. Prison companies can earn millions from the federal government by building and operating the facilities used to hold people before they are removed from the country. The most valuable private prison…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents did not have a warrant when they arrested Palestinian activist and green-card holder Mahmoud Khalil on March 8, according to court papers filed by the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday — an admission that elicited outrage from members of Khalil’s legal team. Marc Van Der Hout, an attorney representing Khalil, said Thursday that “DHS…
On Monday, April 21, US Customs and Border Protection raided Vermont’s largest dairy farm, detaining eight immigrant workers in the largest immigration raid in the state’s recent history. The next day, ten workers at a Home Depot in Pomona, California were arrested by immigration authorities.
Workers across the country are bracing for the possibility that many of their coworkers may fall victim to sudden kidnappings by federal agents in the name of carrying out Trump’s agenda of mass deportations. In a country where undocumented workers perform many of the most essential functions in the nation’s economy, escalating immigration raids could have enormous ripple effects.
The post Trump’s Mass Deportation Operation Escalates With Workplace Raids appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
For almost a decade now, Florida has served as a laboratory for hardline immigration policies that are later exported to other state legislatures across the country. The recent arrest of Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, a U.S.-born citizen who was mistakenly detained under an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) hold in Leon County, shows the threat that these persecutory laws pose for the civil…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Connecticut’s attorney general has sent his second warning in a month to the low-cost carrier Avelo Airlines, telling the startup it has jeopardized tax breaks and other local support by agreeing to conduct deportation flights for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Democrats in the Connecticut legislature, meanwhile, are working to expand the state’s sanctuary law to penalize companies…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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In an unusual move, the administration of President Donald Trump has canceled a $3.8 billion contract to build an immigrant detention camp in Fort Bliss, Texas, just days after issuing it.
That doesn’t mean the job won’t go forward. Sources told ProPublica the administration still intends to move ahead with the plan to build a tent detention camp at Fort Bliss. A site visit for interested contractors took place on Wednesday.
The job promises to be highly sought after as Trump officials plan to pour billions of dollars into building detention facilities as part of the president’s push to deport more immigrants.
Why the contract was posted and then canceled is unclear.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement awarded the contract on April 10 to Deployed Resources, a privately held company, according to data posted on a federal procurement website.
ProPublica published a profile of the company on April 11, describing its ascension from running facilities at music festivals into a government contracting juggernaut that, like other vendors, is pursuing billions of dollars in detention contracts planned under Trump. Company executives, ProPublica found, had hired more than a dozen former government insiders as it built its business over the years. Recent hires included some high-ranking former officials from ICE, the agency that would be tasked with carrying out Trump’s promises of mass deportation.
Then, on April 13, the administration reversed course and terminated the contract with Deployed Resources “for convenience,” according to data posted to the federal contracting site.
An ICE spokesperson confirmed that the award was made and then canceled, and that “a revised procurement action for Fort Bliss is currently active and ongoing.” The agency did not answer questions about why it reversed course.
Deployed Resources has not responded to requests for comment. On its website, the company says it is “dedicated to safely and efficiently providing transparent facility support and logistical services, anytime, anywhere.”
The awarding and cancellation of such a large contract to a company in such a short time is extremely unusual, according to a ProPublica review of contracting data going back a decade.
In solicitation documents, the government said it needs a facility with the capacity to hold thousands of immigrants before they are deported.
It’s possible, but not yet clear, that Deployed Resources could win the contract following a subsequent round of bidding. It likely is not the only bidder interested in the job, which could be broken up into two pieces.
Since mid-March ICE has housed detainees at a tent facility in El Paso, Texas, operated by Deployed Resources, that was previously used by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The Department of Defense awarded Deployed Resources a contract to run the site for ICE, an ICE spokesperson told ProPublica.
Current and former agency officials said holding ICE detainees in tent facilities — which in the past have generally held people for shorter periods of time — raises significant concerns about potential health and safety risks. An ICE official at a recent border security conference said Deployed Resources was adding more rigid structures within its tents, which could address such concerns.
Trump, upon returning to office in January, signed a series of executive orders declaring an emergency at the border and enlisting the military to help with immigration enforcement. In early April, the administration issued a request for bids on new detention facilities across the country that could be worth up to $45 billion.
The rush of immigration contracts comes as the Trump administration guts federal programs and fires thousands of workers in other wings of the government.
Joel Jacobs contributed data analysis.
This post was originally published on ProPublica.
Each year, thousands of unaccompanied children come to the United States, seeking protections from violence and instability in their home countries. However, last month, the Trump Administration cut funding to more than 80 legal services providers of a program that gives minors with free legal representation in immigration court proceedings. Advocates in New York and across the country warn the…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Border Patrol arrested and imprisoned a U.S. citizen with learning disabilities in Arizona for over a week earlier this month after he approached an immigration officer asking for help after a medical episode, he has said, contradicting the government’s account of the encounter. As Popular Information has reported, 19-year-old Jose Hermosillo was arrested on April 8 in Tucson.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.