Mohammed Ibrahim, a 16-year-old Palestinian American, has been held in Israeli prison without contact with his family since being illegally detained in February. His relatives and rights groups are calling for his release, citing his worsening health and lack of due process.
Published On 27 Aug 202527 Aug 2025
WASHINGTON — This year’s most far-reaching immigration case is likely to decide if immigration agents in Los Angeles are free to stop, question and arrest Latinos they suspect are here illegally.
President Trump promised the “largest mass deportation operation” in American history, and he chose to begin aggressive street sweeps in Los Angeles in early June.
The Greater Los Angeles area is “ground zero for the effects of the border crisis,” his lawyers told the Supreme Court this month. “Nearly 2 million illegal aliens — out of an area population of 20 million — are there unlawfully, encouraged by sanctuary-city policies and local officials’ avowed aim to thwart federal enforcement efforts.”
The “vast majority of illegal aliens in the [Central] District [of California] come from Mexico or Central America and many only speak Spanish,” they added.
Their fast-track appeal urged the justices to confirm that immigration agents have “reasonable suspicion” to stop and question Latinos who work in businesses or occupations that draw many undocumented workers.
No one questions that U.S. immigration agents may arrest migrants with criminal records or a final order of removal. But Trump administration lawyers say agents also have the authority to stop and question — and sometimes handcuff and arrest — otherwise law-abiding Latinos who have lived and worked here for years.
They could do so based not on evidence that the particular person lacks legal status but on the assumption that they look and work like others who are here illegally.
“Reasonable suspicion is a low bar — well below probable cause,” administration lawyers said. “Apparent ethnicity can be a factor supporting reasonable suspicion,” they added, noting that this standard assumes “lawful stops of innocent people may occur.”
If the court rules for Trump, it “could be enormously consequential” in Los Angeles and nationwide, said UCLA law professor Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the Center for Immigration Law & Policy. “The government would read this as giving immigration enforcement agents a license to interrogate and detain people without individualized suspicion. It would likely set a pattern that could be used in other parts of the country.”
In their response to the appeal, immigrant rights advocates said the court should not “bless a regime that could ensnare in an immigration dragnet the millions of people … who are U.S. citizens or otherwise legally entitled to be in this country and are Latino, speak Spanish” and work in construction, food services or agriculture and can be seen at bus stops, car washes or retail parking lots.
The case now before the high court began June 18 when Pedro Vasquez Perdomo and two other Pasadena residents were arrested at a bus stop where they were waiting to be picked up for a job. They said heavily armed men wearing masks grabbed them, handcuffed them and put them in a car and drove to a detention center.
If “felt like a kidnapping,” Vasquez Perdomo said.
The plaintiffs include people who were handcuffed, arrested and taken to holding facilities even though they were U.S. citizens.
They joined a lawsuit with unions and immigrants rights groups as well as others who said they were confronted with masked agents who shouted commands and, in some instances, pushed them to the ground.
However, the suit quickly focused not on the aggressive and sometimes violent manner of the detentions, but on the legality of the stops.
U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong said the detentions appeared to violate the 4th Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.
It is “illegal to conduct roving patrols which identify people based on race alone, aggressively question them, and then detain them without a warrant, without their consent, and without reasonable suspicion that they are without status,” she said on July 11.
The crucial phrase is “reasonable suspicion.”
For decades, the Supreme Court has said police officers and federal agents may stop and briefly question persons if they see something that gives them reason to suspect a violation of the law. This is why, for example, an officer may pull over a motorist whose car has swerved on the highway.
But it was not clear that U.S. immigration agents can claim they have reasonable suspicion to stop and question persons based on their appearance if they are sitting at a bus stop in Pasadena, working at a car wash or standing with others outside a Home Depot.
Frimpong did not forbid agents from stopping and questioning persons who may be here illegally, but she put limits on their authority.
She said agents may not stop persons based “solely” on four factors: their race or apparent ethnicity, the fact they speak Spanish, the type of work they do, or their location such as a day labor pickup site or a car wash.
On Aug. 1, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to lift the judge’s temporary restraining order. The four factors “describe only a broad profile that does not supply the reasonable suspicion to justify a detentive stop,” the judges said by a 3-0 vote.
The district judge’s order applies in the Central District of California, which includes Los Angeles and Orange counties as well as Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo.
The 9th Circuit said those seven counties have an estimated population of 19,233,598, of whom 47% or 9,096,334 identify as “Hispanic or Latino.”
Like Frimpong, the three appellate judges were Democratic appointees.
A week later, Trump administration lawyers sent an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court in Noem vs. Perdomo. They said the judge’s order was impeding the president’s effort to enforce the immigration laws.
They urged the court to set aside the judge’s order and to clear the way for agents to make stops if they suspect the person may be in the country illegally.
Agents do not need evidence of a legal violation, they said. Moreover, the demographics of Los Angeles alone supplies them with reasonable suspicion.
“All of this reflects common sense: the reasonable-suspicion threshold is low, and the number of people who are illegally present and subject to detention and removal under the immigration laws in the (the seven-county area of Southern California) is extraordinarily high,” wrote Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer. “The high prevalence of illegal aliens should enable agents to stop a relatively broad range of individuals.”
He said the government is not “extolling racial profiling,” but “apparent ethnicity can be relevant to reasonable suspicion, especially in immigration enforcement.”
In the past, the court has said police can make stops based on the “totality of the circumstances” or the full picture. That should help the administration because agents can point to the large number of undocumented workers at certain businesses.
But past decisions have also said officers need some reason to suspect a specific individual may be violating the law.
The Supreme Court could act at any time, but it may also be several weeks before an order is issued. The decision may come with little or no explanation.
In recent weeks, the court’s conservatives have regularly sided with Trump and against federal district judges who have stood in his way. The terse decisions have been often followed by an angry and lengthy dissent from the three liberals.
Immigration rights advocates said the court should not uphold “an extraordinarily expansive dragnet, placing millions of law-abiding people at imminent risk of detention by federal agents.”
They said the daily patrols “have cast a pall over the district, where millions meet the government’s broad demographic profile and therefore reasonably fear that they may be caught up in the government’s dragnet, and perhaps spirited away from their families on a long-term basis, any time they venture outside their own homes.”
If a major hurricane approaches Central Florida this season, Maria knows it’s dangerous to stay inside her wooden, trailer-like home. In past storms, she evacuated to her sister’s sturdier house. If she couldn’t get there, a shelter set up at the local high school served as a refuge if needed.
But with accelerating detentions and deportations of immigrants across her community of Apopka, 20 miles northwest of Orlando, Maria, an agricultural worker from Mexico without permanent U.S. legal status, doesn’t know if those options are safe. All risk encountering immigration enforcement agents.
“They can go where they want,” said Maria, 50, who insisted the Associated Press not use her last name for fear of detention. “There is no limit.”
Natural disasters have long posed singular risks for people in the United States without permanent legal status. But with the arrival of peak Atlantic hurricane season, immigrants and their advocates say President Donald Trump’s robust immigration enforcement agenda has increased the danger.
Places considered neutral spaces by immigrants such as schools, hospitals and emergency management agencies are now suspect, and advocates say agreements by local law enforcement to collaborate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement make them more vulnerable and compel a choice between being physically safe and avoiding detention.
“Am I going to risk the storm or risk endangering my family at the shelter?” said Dominique O’Connor, an organizer at the Farmworker Association of Florida. “You’re going to meet enforcement either way.”
For O’Connor and for many immigrants, it’s about storms. But people without permanent legal status could face these decisions anywhere that extreme heat, wildfires or other severe weather could necessitate evacuating, getting supplies or even seeking medical care.
Federal and state agencies have said little on whether immigration enforcement would be suspended in a disaster. It wouldn’t make much difference to Maria: “With all we’ve lived, we’ve lost trust.”
Efforts by Trump’s Republican administration to exponentially expand immigration enforcement capacity mean many of the agencies active in disaster response are increasingly entangled in immigration enforcement.
Since January, hundreds of law enforcement agencies have signed 287(g) agreements, allowing them to perform certain immigration enforcement actions. Most of the agreements are in hurricane-prone Florida and Texas.
Florida’s Division of Emergency Management oversees building the state’s new detention facilities, like the one called “Alligator Alcatraz” in the Everglades. Federal Emergency Management Agency funds are being used to build additional detention centers around the country, and the Department of Homeland Security temporarily reassigned some FEMA staff to assist ICE.
The National Guard, often seen passing out food and water after disasters, has been activated to support U.S. Customs and Border Protection operations and help at detention centers.
These dual roles can make for an intimidating scene during a disaster. After floods in July, more than 2,100 personnel from 20 state agencies aided the far-reaching response effort in Central Texas, along with CBP officers. Police controlled entry into hard-hit areas. Texas Department of Public Safety and private security officers staffed entrances to disaster recovery centers set up by FEMA.
That unsettled even families with permanent legal status, said Rae Cardenas, executive director of Doyle Community Center in Kerrville, Texas. Cardenas helped coordinate with the Mexican Consulate in San Antonio to replace documents for people who lived behind police checkpoints.
“Some families are afraid to go get their mail because their legal documents were washed away,” Cardenas said.
In Florida, these policies could make people unwilling to drive evacuation roads. Traffic stops are a frequent tool of detention, and Florida passed a law in February criminalizing entry into the state by those without legal status, though a judge temporarily blocked it.
There may be fewer places to evacuate now that public shelters, often guarded by police or requiring ID to enter, are no longer considered “protected areas” by DHS. The agency in January rescinded a policy of President Joe Biden, a Democrat, to avoid enforcement in places like schools, medical facilities and emergency response sites.
The fears extend even into disaster recovery. On top of meeting law enforcement at FEMA recovery centers, mixed-status households that qualify for help from the agency might hesitate to apply for fear of their information being accessed by other agencies, said Esmeralda Ledezma, communications associate with the Houston-based nonprofit Woori Juntos. “Even if you have the right to federal aid, you’re afraid to be punished for it,” Ledezma said.
In past emergencies, DHS has put out messaging stating it would suspend immigration enforcement. The agency’s policy now is unclear.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in an email that CBP had not issued any guidance “because there have been no natural disasters affecting border enforcement.” She did not address what directions were given during CBP’s activation in the Texas floods or whether ICE would be active during a disaster.
Florida’s Division of Emergency Management did not respond to questions related to its policies toward people without legal status. Texas’ Division of Emergency Management referred The Associated Press to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s office, which did not respond.
In spite of the crackdown, local officials in some hurricane-prone areas are expanding outreach to immigrant populations. “We are trying to move forward with business as usual,” said Gracia Fernandez, language access coordinator for Alachua County in Central Florida.
The county launched a program last year to translate and distribute emergency communications in Spanish, Haitian Creole and other languages. Now staffers want to spread the word that county shelters won’t require IDs, but since they’re public spaces, Fernandez acknowledged there’s not much they can do if ICE comes.
“There is still a risk,” she said. “But we will try our best to help people feel safe.”
As immigrant communities are pushed deeper into the shadows, more responsibility falls on nonprofits, and communities themselves, to keep each other safe.
Hope Community Center in Apopka has pushed local officials to commit to not requiring IDs at shelters and sandbag distribution points. During an evacuation, the facility becomes an alternative shelter and a command center, from which staffers translate and send out emergency communications in multiple languages. For those who won’t leave their homes, staffers do door-to-door wellness checks, delivering food and water.
“It’s a very grassroots, underground operation,” said Felipe Sousa Lazaballet, the center’s executive director.
Preparing the community is challenging when it’s consumed by the daily crises wrought by detentions and deportations, Sousa Lazaballet said.
“All of us are in triage mode,” he said. “Every day there is an emergency, so the community is not necessarily thinking about hurricane season yet. That’s why we have to have a plan.”
Angueira writes for the Associated Press.
LINCOLN, Neb. — Nebraska announced plans for an immigration detention center in the remote southwest corner of the state as President Trump’s administration races to expand the infrastructure necessary for increasing deportations.
The facility will be dubbed the “Cornhusker Clink,” a play on Nebraska’s nickname of the Cornhusker State and an old slang term for jail. The alliterative name follows in the vein of the previously announced “Alligator Alcatraz” and “Deportation Depot” detention centers in Florida and the “Speedway Slammer” in Indiana.
Republican Gov. Jim Pillen said Tuesday he and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had agreed to use an existing minimum security prison work camp in McCook — a remote city of about 7,000 people in the middle of the wide-open prairies between Denver and Omaha — to house people awaiting deportation and being held for other immigration proceedings. It’s expected to be a Midwest hub for detainees from several states.
“This is about keeping Nebraskans – and Americans across our country – safe,” Pillen said in a statement.
The facility can accommodate 200 people with plans to expand to 300. McCook is about 210 miles west of Lincoln, the state capital.
“If you are in America illegally, you could find yourself in Nebraska’s Cornhusker Clink. Avoid arrest and self deport now using the CBP Home App,” Noem said in a separate statement.
Noem’s agency posted a picture on social media showing ears of corn wearing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement hats, standing in front of a prison fence.
The governor said later at a news conference in McCook that the center will have the advantage of being located at an existing facility and near a regional airport. He told reporters he didn’t know if the center would house women as well as men or if children could be held there. He said he first learned the federal government was interested in the facility on Friday.
Pillen also announced he would order the Nebraska National Guard to provide administrative and logistical support to Nebraska-based immigration agents. About 20 soldiers will be involved. And he said the Nebraska State Patrol would allow six troopers to help federal immigration agents make arrests.
The Trump administration is adding new detention facilities across the country to hold the growing number of immigrants it has arrested and accused of being in the country illegally. ICE centers were holding more than 56,000 immigrants in June, the most since 2019.
The new and planned facilities include the remote detention center in the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” which opened last month. It’s designed to hold up to 3,000 detainees in temporary tent structures. When Trump toured it, he suggested it could be a model for future lockups nationwide.
The Florida facility also been the subject of legal challenges by attorneys who allege violations of due process there, including the rights of detainees to meet with their attorneys, limited access to immigration courts and poor living conditions. Critics have been trying to stop further construction and operations until it comes into compliance with federal environmental laws.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced last week that his administration is preparing to open a second facility, dubbed “Deportation Depot,” at a state prison in north Florida. It’s expected to have 1,300 immigration beds, though that capacity could be expanded to 2,000, state officials said.
Also last week, officials in the rural Tennessee town of Mason voted to approve agreements to turn a former prison into an immigration detention facility operated by a private company, despite loud objections from residents and activists during a contentious public meeting.
And the Trump administration announced plans earlier this month for a 1,000-bed detention center in Indiana that would be dubbed “Speedway Slammer,” prompting a backlash in the Midwestern state that hosts the Indianapolis 500 auto race.
Corrections director Rob Jeffreys said the 186 inmates currently at the McCook work camp will be transferred to other state facilities over the next 45 to 60 days. The repurposed facility will be run by the state but will be paid for by the federal government. He said it’s already set up and accredited to hold prisoners, so detainees won’t be housed in tents or other temporary quarters.
In a video posted to social media, state Sen. Megan Hunt, an independent, blasted a lack of transparency about plans for a detention center, citing her unfulfilled request to the governor and executive branch for emails and other records.
She urged people to support local immigrant rights groups.
“The No. 1 thing we need to do is protect our neighbors, protect the people in our communities who are being targeted by these horrible people, these horrible organizations that are making choices to lock up, detain, disappear our neighbors and families and friends,” Hunt said.
Around a half-dozen protesters sat in the hallway outside the governor’s office Tuesday afternoon making signs that said, “No Nazi Nebraska” and “ICE = Gestapo.”
Maghie Miller-Jenkins of Lincoln said she doesn’t think an ICE detention center is a good idea, adding the state should tackle problems like child hunger and homelessness. “This state has numerous things they could focus on that would benefit the constituents,” she said.
Funk writes for the Associated Press. AP reporters Steve Karnowski in St. Paul, Minn., Jack Dura in Fargo, N.D., and Scott McFetridge in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this story.
MIAMI — A federal judge in Miami dismissed part of a lawsuit that claimed detainees were denied access to the legal system at the immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz” and moved the remaining counts of the case to another court.
Claims that the detainees were denied hearings in immigration court were rendered moot when the Trump administration last weekend designated the Krome North Processing Center near Miami as a site for their cases to be heard, U.S. District Judge Rodolfo Ruiz said in a 47-page ruling Monday night dismissing a 5th Amendment count.
The judge granted the state defendants a change of venue motion to the Middle District of Florida, where the remaining claims of 1st Amendment violations will be addressed. Those include allegations of delays in scheduling meetings between detainees and their attorneys and an inability for the detainees to talk privately with their attorneys by phone or videoconference at the facility whose official name is the South Detention Facility.
ACLU lawyer Eunice Cho, the lead attorney for the detainees, said the federal government reversed course only last weekend and allowed the detainees to petition an immigration court because of the lawsuit.
“It should not take a lawsuit to force the government to abide by the law and the Constitution,” Cho said. “We look forward to continuing the fight.”
The judge heard arguments from both sides in a hearing earlier Monday in Miami. Civil rights attorneys were seeking a preliminary injunction to ensure detainees at the facility had access to their lawyers and could get a hearing.
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration raced to build the facility on an isolated airstrip surrounded by swampland two months ago in order to aid President Trump’s efforts to deport people who are in the U.S. illegally. The governor has said the location in the rugged and remote Everglades was meant as a deterrent against escape, much like the island prison in California that Republicans named it after. The detention center has an estimated annual cost of $450 million.
The state and federal government had argued that even though the isolated airstrip where the facility is located is owned by Miami-Dade County, Florida’s Southern District was the wrong venue since the detention center is located in neighboring Collier County, which is in the state’s Middle District.
Judge Ruiz had hinted during a hearing last week that he had some concerns over which jurisdiction was appropriate. Attorneys for the detainees had argued that Ruiz’s court was appropriate since the detainees were under the oversight of federal officials in the Miami regional office. Any transfer to another venue would cause a delay in a court decision.
Ruiz noted the facts in the case changed Saturday when the Trump administration designated the Krome facility as the immigration court with jurisdiction over all detainees at the detention center.
The judge wrote that the case has “a tortured procedural history” since it was filed July 16, weeks after the first group of detainees arrived at the facility.
“Nearly every aspect of the Plaintiffs’ civil action — their causes of action, their facts in support, their theories of venue, their arguments on the merits and their requests for relief — have changed with each filing,” the judge wrote.
The state and federal government defendants made an identical argument last week about jurisdiction for a second lawsuit in which environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe sued to stop further construction and operations at the Everglades detention center until it’s in compliance with federal environmental laws.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami on Aug. 7 ordered a 14-day halt to additional construction at the site while witnesses testified at a hearing that wrapped up last week. She has said she plans to issue a ruling before the order expires later this week. She had yet to rule on the venue question.
Detainees at the facility have said worms turn up in the food, toilets don’t flush, flooding floors with fecal waste, and mosquitoes and other insects are everywhere.
Civil rights attorneys also said officers were going cell to cell to pressure detainees into signing voluntary removal orders before they’re allowed to consult their attorneys, and some detainees had been deported even though they didn’t have final removal orders. Along with the spread of a respiratory infection and rainwater flooding in tents, the circumstances had fueled a feeling of desperation among detainees, the attorneys wrote in a court filing.
Fischer, Schneider and Frisaro write for the Associated Press. Frisaro reported from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Schneider reported from Orlando, Fla.
The ‘Lone Star Lockup’ is the latest migrant detention centre in the United States.
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Greece has suspended processing of asylum applications from people arriving by sea from North Africa since July.
More than 120 refugees and migrants have been intercepted off the island of Crete, according to Greek authorities, the latest in a series of arrivals of people making perilous journeys to Europe from North Africa despite a suspension of asylum claims and a concerted push for tougher detention rules.
Two boats, carrying 58 and 68 people and believed to have departed from Libya, were stopped on Monday, and their passengers were placed under guard at temporary shelters. More than 100 other refugees and migrants arrived on Crete over the weekend after strong winds eased.
Greece’s conservative government last month suspended all asylum claims for migrants arriving by sea from North Africa, a move it argued helped deter crossings that peaked in July at more than 2,500 in a single week.
The ban passed in parliament amid a surge in asylum seekers reaching Crete and after talks with Libya’s Benghazi-based government to stem the flow were cancelled acrimoniously in July.
It also marked a further hardening of Greece’s stance towards refugees and migrants under Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s government, which has built a fence at its northern land borders and boosted sea patrols since it came to power in 2019.
The government remains at odds with regional authorities in Crete over a plan to build a permanent transit facility on the island. It is preparing draft legislation that would mandate imprisonment for people whose asylum claims are denied and require ankle monitors during a 30-day compliance period before deportation.
Earlier this month, at least 26 people died after two boats sank off the southern Italian island of Lampedusa.
That disaster, also involving people travelling from Libya, was the latest to befall refugees and migrants making the perilous Mediterranean crossing from Africa to Europe.
Rights groups and United Nations agencies have also documented systematic abuse against refugees and migrants in Libya, including torture, rape and extortion. In February, Libyan authorities uncovered nearly 50 bodies from two mass graves in the country’s southeastern desert, in the latest horror involving people seeking to make it to Europe through the North African country.
Since the beginning of this year, 675 people have died in the central Mediterranean while trying to make the crossing, Filippo Ungaro, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Italy, recently said.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration is preparing to open a second immigration detention facility at a state prison in north Florida, as a federal judge decides the fate of the state’s holding center for immigrants at an isolated airstrip in the Florida Everglades dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.”
DeSantis announced Thursday that the new facility is to be housed at the Baker Correctional Institution, a state prison about 43 miles west of Jacksonville. It is expected to hold 1,300 immigration detention beds, though that capacity could be expanded to 2,000, state officials said.
After opening the Everglades facility last month, DeSantis justified opening the second detention center, dubbed “Deportation Depot” by the state, by saying President Trump’s administration needs the additional capacity to hold and deport more immigrants.
“There is a demand for this,” DeSantis said. “I’m confident it will be filled.”
Payne writes for the Associated Press.
Local officials and advocates for the homeless are fearful that President Trump will take draconian action against homeless people, including pushing them into detention camps, when Los Angeles hosts the Olympic Games in 2028.
In recent weeks, Trump has appointed himself head of an Olympics task force and has seized control of local policing in Washington, D.C., declaring that homeless people will be given places to stay “FAR from the Capital.”
“Based on everything that has happened so far … I think you would have to be irrational not to worry about a worst case scenario [during the Games], where federal troops are effectively forcing poor people on the street to relocate to what is essentially a detention center somewhere out of sight,” said Gary Blasi, a professor emeritus at UCLA School of Law and a leading homelessness researcher.
On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that for now, D.C. police and federal agents will clear homeless encampments in the capital and give people the option of accepting shelter beds and services or facing fines and jail time. The administration, she said, is also exploring how it can move homeless people far from the city.
The White House did not answer questions about whether it has a plan to address homelessness in L.A. in preparation for the Olympics. But White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said, “The people of Los Angeles would benefit tremendously if local officials followed President Trump’s lead to make the city safe and beautiful, especially as they prepare to welcome 15 million people from around the world as the Olympics’ host city.”
When hosting the Olympics, local officials typically try to present the best image of their city, which can include refurbishing landmarks and sports venues or cleaning up areas where homeless people congregate.
“The eyes of the world will be on Los Angeles,” and officials don’t want “people coming to the city and see this visual problem manifest right in front of them,” said Benjamin F. Henwood, director of USC’s Homelessness Policy Research Institute.
French authorities bused homeless people out of Paris before the 2024 Games, and in 1984, the Los Angeles Police Department used mounted horse patrols to scatter homeless people into less visible areas of downtown.
This time, L.A. city and county officials said they will not deviate from their efforts to place homeless people in interim and permanent housing locally.
Last year, in an interview with The Times, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said that unlike during previous Olympics, she would not bus homeless people out of the city and instead would focus on “housing people first.”
Similarly, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors has ordered county staffers to develop an encampment plan for upcoming sporting events, including the 2026 World Cup and the Olympics, that will emphasize permanent housing solutions.
But the supervisors also noted that encampments near Olympic venues will need to be “addressed,” in part to “establish adequate security perimeters.”
In D.C., in addition to taking over the city police department, Trump has deployed the National Guard to, as he put it, “reestablish law and order.” He has threatened to resend the Guard and the military to the Los Angeles area, where they were stationed this summer during federal immigration raids, if needed to maintain safety during the Olympics.
In a statement, Supervisor Janice Hahn said that federalizing local law enforcement and sending the U.S. military to American cities is “what tyrants do.” She also noted that the Trump administration has cut social safety net programs and is seeking to withdraw support for policies that prioritize placing homeless people in permanent housing before addressing other issues such as substance abuse and mental health.
“What the President is doing in DC should concern everyone,” Hahn said. “If he really wants to solve homelessness, he needs to get us the resources we need to get people housed and keep them housed.”
Nithya Raman, chair of the L.A. City Council’s housing and homelessness committee, said in a statement that given the region’s homelessness crisis, “the repercussions of similar actions as they are threatening in DC would be staggering.”
In her own statement, Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said that despite the Trump administration’s plan of “dehumanization,” the county “will keep doing what’s right — focusing on humane, lasting solutions to homelessness.”
Katie Hill, a former Democratic member of Congress who now runs Union Station Homeless Services, said she fears the Trump administration is working on “mass institutionalization of some kind” for homeless people during the Games, similar to federal immigration detention facilities, where there have been reports of inhumane conditions.
“He doesn’t care about the rules or the norms,” Hill said of Trump. “There is a lot of federal facilities and land that they could use potentially as a detention facility.”
Unlike D.C., which is a federal district where the president holds special powers, Blasi said that in Los Angeles, the federal government cannot legally lock up people for living on the streets but could “make life so miserable for unhoused people” that there are no other options besides “a camp somewhere.”
Blasi said the Trump administration could try to invoke emergency laws to incarcerate people but doubted that courts would approve.
Since she was elected in 2022, Bass has made homelessness her signature issue. In her marquee Inside Safe program, before an encampment is cleared, residents are all offered housing and services, which are voluntary, with no fines or jail time if the person rejects the help, said Bass spokesperson Zach Seidl.
Seidl said the mayor is “laser-focused on addressing homelessness through a proven comprehensive strategy” and that “this is progress she would’ve made regardless of the Games.”
Homelessness in both the city and county has dropped in the last two years, particularly the number of people who are unsheltered, which has fallen 14% in the county and nearly 18% in the city since 2023, data show. About 47,000 people live on the streets in L.A. County.
Eric Sheehan, a member of NOlympics, which opposes holding the Olympics in L.A., said he is concerned about how the Trump administration will act during the Games. But he said the federal approach to homelessness may not differ much from what local officials are already doing.
Sheehan pointed to the city of Los Angeles’ no sleeping zones, encampment cleanups monitored by police and interim housing he characterized as jail-like.
“I don’t think there is a version of this Olympics that doesn’t hurt Angelenos,” Sheehan said.
Amy Turk, chief executive of the Downtown Women’s Center, said that using the police and military to address homelessness is “an expensive intervention that is just moving someone from one place to another place.” She is particularly concerned about the impact on people fleeing domestic violence.
To mitigate the damage the Trump administration could do, Turk said it’s important for nonprofits like hers to keep working to find people permanent housing and services.
One hurdle is funding.
State and local budget constraints have reduced funding for homeless services this year, including for a temporary housing subsidy that officials said was key in reducing homelessness in the last several years.
Hill said more funds are needed so L.A. County can tackle homelessness on its own terms, not those of the Trump administration.
“Where is the money going to come from to set up something that is more humane?” she said.
WASHINGTON — A dozen Democratic House members — including four from California — sued the Trump administration Wednesday after lawmakers were repeatedly denied access to immigrant detention facilities where they sought to conduct oversight visits.
The lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Washington, says each plaintiff has attempted to visit a detention facility, either by showing up in person or by giving Homeland Security Department officials advanced notice, and been unlawfully blocked from entering.
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for Homeland Security, said in a statement that visit requests should be made with enough time to prevent interference with the president’s authority to oversee executive department functions, and must be approved by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. McLaughlin said a week’s notice suffices.
“These Members of Congress could have just scheduled a tour; instead, they’re running to court to drive clicks and fundraising emails,” she wrote.
Among the plaintiffs are California Reps. Norma Torres of Pomona, Robert Garcia of Long Beach, who is the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Jimmy Gomez of Los Angeles, and Lou Correa of Santa Ana, the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement.
Also included are Reps. Adriano Espaillat of New York, who is the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus; Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, who is the ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee; and Jamie Raskin, of Maryland, who is the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee.
In an interview with The Times, Gomez said there was always an understanding between the executive and legislative branches about the importance of oversight. Under the Trump administration, that has changed, he said.
“We believe this administration, unless they’re faced with a lawsuit, they don’t comply with the law,” he said. “This administration believes it has no obligation to Congress, even if it’s printed in black and white. That’s what makes this administration dangerous.”
In a statement, Correa said that, as a longtime member of the House Homeland Security Committee, his job has always been to oversee Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Until this summer, he said, he fulfilled that role with no issues.
Reports from immigrant detention facilities in recent months have included issues such as overcrowding, food shortages and a lack of medical care. U.S. citizens have in some cases been unlawfully detained by immigration agents.
The lawsuit demands that the Trump administration comply with federal law, which guarantees members of Congress the right to conduct oversight visits anywhere that immigrants are detained pending deportation proceedings. The lawmakers are represented by the Democracy Forward Foundation and American Oversight.
ICE published new guidelines last month for members of Congress and their staff, requesting at least 72 hours notice from lawmakers and requiring at least 24 hours notice from staff before an oversight visit. The guidelines, which have since been taken down from ICE’s website, also claimed that field offices, such as the facility at the Roybal Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles, “are not detention facilities” and fall outside the scope of the oversight law.
The agency says it has discretion to deny or reschedule a visit if an emergency arises or the safety of the facility is jeopardized, though such contingencies are not mentioned in federal law.
The lawsuit calls ICE’s new policy unlawful.
A federal statute, detailed in yearly appropriations packages since 2020, states that funds may not be used to prevent a member of Congress “from entering, for the purpose of conducting oversight, any facility operated by or for the Department of Homeland Security used to detain or otherwise house aliens.”
Under the statute, federal officials may require at least 24 hours’ notice for a visit by congressional staff — but not members themselves.
The lawmakers say congressional oversight is needed now more than ever, with ICE holding more than 56,800 people in detention as of July 13, according to TRAC, a nonpartisan data research organization.
Ten people have died in ICE custody since Trump took office. Earlier this year, the administration moved to close three internal oversight bodies at Homeland Security, but revived them with minimal staff after civil rights groups sued.
Gomez said members of Congress have a duty to determine whether the administration is fulfilling its obligations to taxpayers under the law. The administration’s position that holding facilities inside ICE offices are not subject to oversight is a slippery slope, he said.
“What happens if they set up a camp and they say ‘This is not a detention facility but a holding center?’ For us it’s that, if they are willing to violate the law for these facilities, the potential for the future becomes more problematic,” he said.
OCHOPEE, Fla. — Deportation flights from the remote Everglades immigration lockup known as ”Alligator Alcatraz″ have begun and are expected to increase soon, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Friday.
The first flights operated by the Department of Homeland Security have transferred about 100 detainees from the immigration detention center to other countries, DeSantis said during a news conference near the facility.
“You’re going to see the numbers go up dramatically,” he said.
Two or three flights have already departed, but officials didn’t say where those flights headed.
Critics have condemned the South Florida facility as cruel and inhumane. DeSantis and other Republican officials have defended it as part of the state’s aggressive push to support President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
Building the facility in the Everglades and naming it after a notorious federal prison were meant as deterrents, DeSantis and other officials have said.
The White House has delighted in the area’s remoteness — about 50 miles west of Miami — and the fact that it is teeming with pythons and alligators. It hopes to send a message that repercussions will be severe if U.S. immigration laws are broken.
Trump has suggested that his administration could reopen Alcatraz, the notorious island prison in San Francisco Bay. The White House also has sent some immigrants awaiting deportation to a detention lockup in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and others to a megaprison in El Salvador.
The Everglades facility was built in a matter of days over 10 square miles. It features more than 200 security cameras and more than 5 miles of barbed wire. An adjacent runway makes it more convenient for homeland security officials to move detainees in and out of the site.
It currently holds about 2,000 people, with the potential to double the capacity, Florida Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie said Friday.
DeSantis wants the U.S. Justice Department to allow an immigration judge on site to speed up the deportation process.
“This was never intended to be something where people are just held,” he said. “The whole purpose is to be a place that can facilitate increased frequency and numbers of deportations.”
Critics have challenged federal and state officials’ contention that the detention center is just run by the state of Florida. Environmental groups suing to stop further construction and expansion demanded Thursday to see agreements or communications between state and federal officials and to visit the site.
Seewer writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Mike Schneider contributed to this report.
GREENBELT, Md. — A federal judge in Maryland has prohibited the Trump administration from taking Kilmar Abrego Garcia into immediate immigration custody if he’s released from jail in Tennessee while awaiting trial on human smuggling charges, according to an order issued Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the U.S. government to provide three business days’ notice if Immigration and Customs Enforcement intends to initiate deportation proceedings against the Maryland construction worker.
The judge also ordered the government to restore the federal supervision that Abrego Garcia was under before he was wrongfully deported to his native El Salvador in March. That supervision had allowed Abrego Garcia to live and work in Maryland for years, while he periodically checked in with ICE.
Abrego Garcia became a prominent face in the debate over President Trump’s immigration policies after his wrongful explusion to El Salvador in March. Trump’s administration violated a U.S. immigration judge’s order in 2019 that shields Abrego Garcia from deportation to El Salvador because he probably faces threats of gang violence there.
The smuggling case stems from a 2022 traffic stop for speeding, during which Abrego Garcia was driving a vehicle with nine passengers. Police in Tennessee suspected human smuggling, but he was allowed to drive on.
U.S. officials have said they’ll try to deport Abrego Garcia to a country that isn’t El Salvador, such as Mexico or South Sudan, before his trial starts in January because they allege he’s a danger to the community.
A federal judge in Tennessee has been considering whether to release Abrego Garcia to await trial, prompting fears from his attorneys that he would be quickly expelled by ICE.
In an effort to prevent his deportation, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys asked the judge in Maryland to order the U.S. government to send him to that state to await his trial. Short of that, they asked for at least 72 hours’ notice if ICE planned to deport Abrego Garcia.
Abrego Garcia’s American wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, is suing the Trump administration in Xinis’ Maryland court over his wrongful deportation in March and is trying to prevent another expulsion.
U.S. officials have argued that Abrego Garcia can be deported because he came to the U.S. illegally around 2011 and because a U.S. immigration judge deemed him eligible for expulsion in 2019, although not to his native El Salvador.
Following the immigration judge’s decision in 2019, Abrego Garcia was released under federal supervision, received a federal work permit and checked in with ICE each year, his attorneys have said.
The Trump administration recently stated in court documents that they revoked Abrego Garcia’s supervised release when they deemed him to be in the MS-13 gang and deported him in March.
Finley writes for the Associated Press.
Democratic members of Congress who saw Florida’s new immigration detention centre, Alligator Alcatraz, said they witnessed dozens of people in metal enclosures, bugs and mosquitos in bunk areas, indoor temperatures above 80 degrees and people screaming for help.
Republicans who also toured the facility tell a different story, describing the space as safe, clean and well-run. The federal Homeland Security Department, which oversees immigration detention, has called characterisations of inadequate conditions at the state-run Alligator Alcatraz “false”.
Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem was asked about Democrats’ accounts during a July 13 interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press”. She said the Florida-run facility is “held to the highest levels of what the federal government requires for detention facilities”.
“Our detention centres at the federal level are held to a higher standard than most local or state centres and even federal prisons,” Noem said. “The standards are extremely high.”
White House border tsar Tom Homan also touted the nation’s immigration detention standards as being a cut above those for prisons and jails.
When a reporter asked Homan about a 75-year-old Cuban man who had been living in the US for 60 years before he died in detention in Miami in June, Homan defended federal facilities.
“People die in ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] custody,” he said, before saying ICE has “the highest detention standards in the industry. I’ll compare an ICE detention facility against any state prison against any federal facility. I’ll go head-to-head with any of them. … People say, ‘The detention centres are horrendous.’ Go look for yourself then come back and talk to me.”
Isidro Perez was the 11th person to die in ICE custody, almost six months into Trump’s second term. Twelve people died during former President Joe Biden’s last fiscal year in office.
ICE detention centres have standards akin to prisons. But it’s difficult to assess blanket statements about the standards of immigration detention compared with state, local or other federal facilities for a few reasons.
Several government watchdog agencies, advocacy organisations and news reports have long documented inadequate conditions at immigration detention centres.
In May, human rights group Amnesty International reported “physical abuse by guards, use of solitary confinement, unsanitary and overcrowded living spaces including dysfunctional toilets, inadequate medical care and poor-quality, expired food” at an El Paso detention centre.
Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein, a Duke University associate professor who studies the health impacts of the criminal legal system, called Homan’s statement “very misleading”.
“In most respects, ICE facilities operate with less consistent oversight and legal accountability than state or federal prisons or local jails,” Brinkley-Rubinstein said. “ICE detention facilities and people that run them tend to be much less transparent about their operations.”
Several federal agencies and private companies run immigration detention facilities. ICE, the main agency tasked with immigration detention, has standards that all its detention centres are supposed to abide by.
For example, facilities have to be sanitary and have potable water. Detainees must have access to medical and mental healthcare, including getting prescription medications. Physical force should only be used when “necessary and reasonable” and not as a punishment. And detainees must be able to meet with their attorneys confidentially.
There are different sets of standards for facilities that hold immigrant detainees and other non-immigration-related detainees, such as local prisons, and for facilities that exclusively hold immigrants.
The standards for centres that also hold non-immigrant detainees “were based on jail standards in use by many jails”, University of Michigan law professor Margo Schlanger said, describing them as “the most stripped down version of jail standards”.
It’s unclear what standards Alligator Alcatraz is held to. The centre is state-run even though courts have repeatedly held that immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility. However, in a court declaration, Thomas P Giles, an ICE official, said the agency had toured the facility “to ensure compliance with ICE detention standards”.
Both sets of immigration standards are periodically updated, but there’s no timing coordination between ICE standards’ updates and other facilities’ updates. Standards are individually negotiated and implemented in separate contracts leading “to varying degrees of protection across detention facilities”, a 2021 Harvard Law Review article about immigration detention said.
Additionally, detention standards aren’t codified into law, making their enforcement difficult. Detainees’ complaints about the facilities’ conditions have little legal support to stand on because the industry is largely self-regulated, one immigration scholar argued.
“Standards are often merely guidelines and largely unenforceable. They are pliable and weak,” David Hernández, a professor at Mount Holyoke College who specialises in detention and deportation policy, said. “Very few facilities lose their contracts due to failing standards, or even deaths of detainees.”
The Homeland Security Department is largely responsible for conducting inspections to ensure detention centres are meeting ICE’s standards. However, for years, government watchdog agencies and advocacy organisations have questioned the efficacy of these investigations, pointing to several instances of facilities not complying with ICE standards.
In 2020, Congress created the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman to conduct unauthorised investigations of detention centres and to allow immigrants to file individual complaints for the office to review.
In March, the Trump administration tried to close the office. A civil rights group sued the administration. In response, DHS said in a declaration that the office would stay open but with a smaller staff. Immigration experts said this decision has severely limited oversight of detention centres.
News outlets and advocacy organisations have warned of inadequate immigration detention conditions, including overcrowding. The Trump administration is currently detaining about 60,000 people – that’s 20,000 more people than it has congressional funding to detain.
The external reports describe detainees in different locations being denied medical care, being placed in solitary confinement after complaining about conditions, not having access to legal resources and being targeted for being Venezuelan. Catholic University immigration law professor Stacy Brustin said these stories “mirror accounts” she and her students witnessed when visiting several detention centres.
“We heard shocking descriptions of overcrowding, sewage leaks, inoperable toilets, water running down cell block walls, insufficient access to water, spoiled or inedible food, inability to move freely in cell blocks for prolonged periods, and substandard medical care for individuals with serious, life-threatening conditions,” Brustin said. “All of these conditions violate ICE detention standards.”
For example, ICE standards say centres must provide detainees “a nutritionally balanced diet that is prepared and presented in a sanitary and hygienic”. Spoiled food is a violation.
Some states have codified standards that their detention facilities are required to follow, others don’t. Some facilities are accredited by the American Correctional Association, which has its own set of standards.
All facilities have to comply with the US Constitution – particularly the 8th Amendment prohibiting “cruel and unusual punishments” in criminal cases and the 14th Amendment protecting people against deprivation of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”. Prisons and jails must also abide by federal laws related to sexual violence, inmates’ access to religious facilities, and people with disabilities.
“Courts have ruled that people who are incarcerated in these facilities have the right to care, safety, and humane treatment,” Brinkley-Rubinstein said.
Generally, prison and jail standards have similar provisions to the ones for immigration detention, such as access to healthcare and legal resources and having sanitary facilities.
Oversight practices also vary based on the facility. Some places are subject to independent oversight; others rely only on internal oversight.
The consequences for prisons and jails that don’t follow standards also vary.
“If the facility is under a consent decree and court supervision, the judge may require regular reports, appoint an independent monitor or a manager or even a receiver to operate all aspects of the facility,” said Andrea Armstrong, Loyola University New Orleans professor and prison conditions expert.
Some places may lose their contracts depending on the severity of the situation, Schlanger said. In other cases, facilities may face lawsuits.
Immigrants have more restrictions when trying to access courts to claim detention facilities are not upholding their standards. That’s because immigration detention is a civil rather than criminal form of detention.
That classification “creates a dangerous loophole where people can be held in carceral conditions without the constitutional protections that apply to those in the criminal legal system,” Brinkley-Rubinstein said.
July 11 (UPI) — Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for 104 days has filed a complaint against the administration of President Donald Trump for $20 million.
“It was a very, very dehumanizing experience, for someone who was not accused of any crime, whatsoever,” Khalil told CNN. He is a green card holder who had no formal criminal or civil charges against him.
His administrative complaint, which is a precursor to a federal lawsuit, alleges that he was falsely imprisoned, maliciously prosecuted and smeared as an anti-Semite. The U.S. government tried to deport him because of his leadership of campus protests at Columbia University.
His arrest felt like a kidnapping, he told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. He was on his way home from dinner with his wife Noor Abdalla, who was pregnant at the time. Agents followed him into the lobby of his apartment building, and they threatened his wife with arrest if she didn’t separate from him, he said. The ICE agents did not have a warrant for the arrest.
The government held Khalil, 30, in an ICE facility in Louisiana, alleging he supports Hamas. The administration hasn’t shown any evidence of this, and Khalil’s legal team has rejected it.
“(The complaint) is just the first step of accountability, that this administration has to pay for what it’s doing against me or against anyone who opposes their fascist agenda,” Khalil told NBC News Thursday.
Khalil, a recent graduate of Columbia, has said he either wants $20 million or an apology from the administration.
“My goal is not self-enrichment. I don’t want this money just because I need money. What I want is actual accountability. Real, real accountability against the injustices that happened against me with the malicious prosecutions that I was targeted for all this.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has said it acted properly.
“The Trump Administration acted well within its statutory and constitutional authority to detain Khalil, as it does with any alien who advocates for violence, glorifies and supports terrorists, harasses Jews, and damages property,” DHS posted on X before his release in June. “An immigration judge has already vindicated this position. We expect a higher court to do the same.”
The complaint names the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the State Department. He filed it under the Federal Tort Claims Act. The immigration case against him continues in the courts.
The Center for Constitutional Rights is representing Khalil. It said he would use the money to “help others similarly targeted by the Trump administration and Columbia University.”
Mahmoud Khalil, a former student activist imprisoned for more than three months, has filed a wrongful detention claim against the administration of President Donald Trump, seeking $20m in damages.
Thursday’s court filings allege that the Trump administration smeared his reputation, maliciously prosecuted Khalil and unlawfully imprisoned him.
The claim names the United States Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of State as defendants.
In an interview with The Associated Press (AP), Khalil said he hopes his claim will show that the Trump administration cannot bully activists into silence.
“They are abusing their power because they think they are untouchable,” Khalil said. “Unless they feel there is some sort of accountability, it will continue to go unchecked.”
Thursday’s claim is likely to be the precursor to a full-fledged lawsuit under the Federal Tort Claims Act.
Khalil, who served as a spokesperson for the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, said he plans to use any money he receives from his claim to help other activists whose speech Trump has attempted to suppress.
He also told the AP he would accept an apology and a revision of the Trump administration’s deportation policies. Khalil himself continues to face deportation proceedings as a result of his activism.
Born to Palestinian parents in Damascus, Syria, Khalil was a face for the Palestinian solidarity movement in the US after the start of Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023.
United Nations experts and human rights groups have warned that Israel’s tactics in Gaza are “consistent with genocide”, and Columbia University became the epicentre for global, student-led protests.
“I’m one of the lucky ones who are able to advocate for the rights of Palestinians, the folks who are getting killed back in Palestine,” Khalil told Al Jazeera in May 2024.
But Trump campaigned for a second term on pledges to crack down on immigration to the US and stamp out the antiwar protests, which he described as anti-Semitic.
Upon taking office in January, Trump issued executive orders setting the stage for the removal of foreign nationals deemed to have “hostile attitudes” towards the US or who were accused of supporting “threats to our national security”.
One of the orders instructed federal authorities to take “actions to remove such aliens” from the US.
“To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you,” Trump wrote at the time. “I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.”
Khalil was the first major arrest in Trump’s crackdown on the student protesters. Video shot by his pregnant wife, Noor Abdalla, on March 8 shows plain-clothed immigration officers handcuffing Khalil and leading him out of his university apartment complex in New York City.
He was swiftly moved from New York to New Jersey and then to Louisiana, where he was held at the LaSalle Detention Center in Jena ahead of his planned deportation.
Lawyers for Khalil, however, swiftly filed two challenges: one against his deportation and one against his detention, in what is called a habeas corpus petition.
Because of the swift and clandestine nature of his departure to Louisiana, Khalil’s lawyers have said they did not know where their client was in the initial days after his arrest. Khalil is a permanent US resident, and his wife a citizen.
To justify his deportation, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked a rarely used provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. That provision allows the secretary of state to remove any foreign nationals he believes to have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States”.
Khalil has not been charged with any crime. The US, however, is a close ally of Israel and has provided military support to its campaign in Gaza, which has killed at least 57,762 people.
On March 9, shortly after Khalil’s arrest, the Department of Homeland Security also issued a statement accusing Khalil of anti-Semitism, citing Trump’s executive orders.
“Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization,” the statement said. “ICE and the Department of State are committed to enforcing President Trump’s executive orders and to protecting US national security.”
Trump himself called Khalil a “Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student” and a “terrorist sympathizer”.
“This is the first arrest of many to come,” the president wrote on social media. “We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.”
But Khalil and his legal team have accused the Trump administration of violating his constitutional rights to free speech.
Since Khalil’s arrest, other foreign students have been arrested too, including Mohsen Mahdawi and Rumeysa Ozturk, who was reportedly imprisoned for writing an opinion article in her student newspaper against Israel’s war.
On June 20, a judge in New Jersey ordered Khalil’s release. He missed the birth of his first child while incarcerated.
NEW YORK — On a recent afternoon, Mahmoud Khalil sat in his Manhattan apartment, cradling his 10-week-old son as he thought back to the pre-dawn hours spent pacing a frigid immigration jail in Louisiana, awaiting news of the child’s birth in New York.
For a moment, the outspoken Palestinian activist found himself uncharacteristically speechless.
“I cannot describe the pain of that night,” Khalil said finally, gazing down as the baby, Deen, cooed in his arms. “This is something I will never forgive.”
Now, weeks after regaining his freedom, Khalil is seeking restitution. On Thursday, his lawyers filed a claim for $20 million in damages against the Trump administration, alleging Khalil was falsely imprisoned, maliciously prosecuted and smeared as an antisemite as the government sought to deport him over his prominent role in campus protests.
The filing — a precursor to a lawsuit under the Federal Tort Claims Act — names the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the State Department.
It comes as the deportation case against Khalil, a 30-year-old recent graduate student at Columbia University, continues to wind its way through the immigration court system.
The goal, Khalil said, is to send a message that he won’t be intimidated into silence.
“They are abusing their power because they think they are untouchable,” Khalil said. “Unless they feel there is some sort of accountability, it will continue to go unchecked.”
Khalil plans to share any settlement money with others targeted in Trump’s “failed” effort to suppress pro-Palestinian speech. In lieu of a settlement, he said he would also accept an official apology and changes to the administration’s deportation policies.
In an emailed statement, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, called Khalil’s claim “absurd,” accusing him of “hateful behavior and rhetoric” that threatened Jewish students.
A State Department spokesperson said its actions toward Khalil were fully supported by the law. Inquiries to the White House and ICE were not immediately returned.
The filing accuses President Trump and other officials of mounting a haphazard and illegal campaign to “terrorize him and his family,” beginning with Khalil’s March 8 arrest.
On that night, he said he was returning home from dinner with his wife, Noor Abdalla, when he was “effectively kidnapped” by plainclothes federal agents, who refused to provide a warrant and appeared surprised to learn he was a legal U.S. permanent resident.
He was then whisked overnight to an immigration jail in Jena, La., a remote location that was “deliberately concealed” from his family and attorneys, according to the filing.
Inside, Khalil said he was denied his ulcer medication, forced to sleep under harsh fluorescent lights and fed “nearly inedible” food, causing him to lose 15 pounds. “I cannot remember a night when I didn’t go to sleep hungry,” Khalil recalled.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration publicly celebrated the arrest, promising to deport him and others whose protests against Israel it dubbed “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.”
Khalil, who has condemned antisemitism before and since his arrest, was not accused of a crime and has not been linked to Hamas or any other terrorist group. “At some point, it becomes like reality TV,” Khalil said of the allegations. “It’s very absurd.”
A few weeks into his incarceration, Khalil was awoken by a fellow detainee, who pointed excitedly to his face on a jailhouse TV screen. A new memo signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged Khalil hadn’t broken the law, but argued he should be deported for beliefs that could undermine U.S. foreign policy interests.
“My beliefs are not wanting my tax money or tuition going toward investments in weapons manufacturers for a genocide,” Khalil said. “It’s as simple as that.”
By then, Khalil had become something of a celebrity in the 1,200-person lock-up. When not dealing with his own case, he hosted “office hours” for fellow immigrant detainees, leaning on his past experience working at a British embassy in Beirut to help others organize paperwork and find translators for their cases.
“I’m pretty good at bureaucracy,” Khalil said.
At night, they played Russian and Mexican card games, as Khalil listened to “one story after another from people who didn’t understand what’s happening to them.”
“This was one of the most heartbreaking moments,” he said. “People on the inside don’t know if they have any rights.”
On June 20, after 104 days in custody, Khalil was ordered released by a federal judge, who found the government’s efforts to remove him on foreign policy grounds were likely unconstitutional.
He now faces new allegations of misrepresenting personal details on his green card application. In a motion filed late Wednesday, attorneys for Khalil described those charges as baseless and retaliatory, urging a judge to dismiss them.
The weeks since his release, Khalil said, have brought moments of bliss and intense personal anguish.
Fearing harassment or possible arrest, he leaves the house less frequently, avoiding large crowds or late-night walks. But he lit up as he remembered watching Deen taking his first swim earlier in the week. “It was not very pleasant for him,” Khalil said, smiling.
“I’m trying as much as possible to make up for the time with my son and my wife,” he added. “As well thinking about my future and trying to comprehend this new reality.”
Part of that reality, he said, will be continuing his efforts to advocate against Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. On the day after his arrest, he led a march through Manhattan, draped in a Palestinian flag — and flanked by security.
As he poured Deen’s milk into a bottle, Khalil considered whether he might’ve done anything differently had he known the personal cost of his activism.
“We could’ve communicated better. We could’ve built more bridges with more people,” he said. “But the core thing of opposing a genocide, I don’t think you can do that any differently. This is your moral imperative when you’re watching your people be slaughtered by the minute.”
Offenhartz writes for the Associated Press.
Activists attend the ‘Stop Alligator Alcatraz’ protest in front of the entrance of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Fla., on June 28. Photo by Cristobal Herrera-Ulashkevich/EPA
July 5 (UPI) — Five Florida state Democrat lawmakers on Thursday were denied access to the state’s newly opened “migrant” detention facility that has been dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.”
State Representatives Michele Rayner, Anna Eskamani and Angie Nixon and Senators Carlos Guillermo Smith and Shevrin Jones were turned away while attempting to tour the facility, The Hill reported.
State law enforcement officers from several agencies stopped the lawmakers from entering the facility after showing up for an unannounced inspection of the facility that President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis toured on Tuesday and before detainees arrived there.
Safety concerns cited
Eskamani said they were told they could not tour the facility due to “safety concerns,” CNN reported.
“If it’s unsafe for us, how is it safe for the detainees?” Eskamani said she asked the general counsel for the Florida Division of Emergency Management.
The Florida lawmakers said they have the legal authority to inspect the detention facility.
“Florida law gives legislators the authority to make unannounced visits to state-run facilities,” Jones said in a post on X made on Thursday afternoon.
Jones said the group went to the detention facility “to inspect conditions and check on the well-being of the people inside.”
A group statement issued on Thursday accuses state officials of a “blatant abuse of power and an attempt to conceal human rights violations from the public eye.”
The facility received its first 500 detainees midweek and eventually will be capable of holding up to 3,000 detainees while undergoing deportation proceedings.
Not a federal facility
The detention facility is located in the Everglades along U.S. 41, about 70 miles west of Miami.
A local airport previously occupied the site, which Florida officials converted into a detention facility in eight days, DeSantis said while touring it with Trump on Tuesday.
Although Trump toured it, the facility is not a federal operation.
“The Department of Homeland Security has not implemented, authorized, directed or funded Florida’s temporary detention center,” DHS attorneys said in a court filing made on Thursday, the Miami Herald reported.
The filing is in response to a lawsuit challenging the detention facility’s purpose, which prompted the Department of Justice to defend its existence.
The DOJ “has defended President Trump’s immigration agenda in court since day one and we are proud to protect ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ from baseless, politically motivated legal schemes,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement issued on Thursday.
Florida officials are considering adding two more such facilities to help hold and process detainees who are undergoing deportation proceedings.
The Department of Defense is deploying 200 Marines to Florida to assist with logistical and administrative support.
Eight migrants in United States custody have lost a last-ditch attempt to avoid deportation to South Sudan, a country facing ongoing criticism for human rights abuses.
On Friday, Judge Brian Murphy of Boston denied the eleventh-hour appeal, which has been the subject of a flurry of legal activity throughout the day.
The appeal argued that repeated efforts under President Donald Trump to deport the men to South Sudan was “impermissibly punitive”. It pointed out that the US Constitution bars “cruel and unusual punishment”.
In the past, the US Department of State has accused South Sudan of “extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, torture and cases of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment”. It advises no American citizen to travel there due to an ongoing armed conflict.
But the US Supreme Court has twice ruled that the Trump administration could indeed deport the men to countries outside of their homelands. Its latest decision was issued on Thursday.
The US Department of Justice indicated that the eight men were set to be flown to South Sudan by 7pm US Eastern Time (23:00 GMT) on Friday. They hailed from countries like Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Sudan and Vietnam.
The last-ditch appeal was filed on Thursday night, shortly after the Supreme Court rendered its decision.
Initially, the case was assigned to US District Judge Randolph Moss in Washington, DC, who signalled he was sympathetic to the deportees’ request.
He briefly ordered the deportation to be paused until 4:30pm Eastern Time (20:30 GMT), but ultimately, he decided to transfer the case back to Murphy, the judge whose decisions helped precipitate the Supreme Court’s rulings.
Murphy had previously issued injunctions against the deportations to South Sudan, leading to successful appeals from the Trump administration. The eight men, meanwhile, had been held at a military base in Djibouti while the courts decided their fate.
Before he transferred the case back to Murphy, however, Judge Moss said it was possible the deportees could prove their case that the Trump administration intended to subject them to abuse.
“It seems to me almost self-evident that the United States government cannot take human beings and send them to circumstances in which their physical wellbeing is at risk simply either to punish them or send a signal to others,” Moss said during the hearing.
Lawyers for the Trump administration, meanwhile, argued that the deportation’s continued delay would strain relations with countries willing to accept migrants from other countries.
Murphy, who denied Friday’s request, had previously ruled in favour of the deportees, issuing an injunction against their removal to South Sudan and saying they had a right to contest the deportation based on fears for their safety.
The Supreme Court first lifted the injunction on June 23 and clarified its ruling again on Thursday, giving a subtle rebuke to Judge Murphy.
The Trump administration has been pushing for rapid removals as part of its campaign of mass deportation, one of President Trump’s signature priorities.
Opponents have accused the administration of steamrolling the human rights of undocumented people in order to achieve its aims, including the right to due process under the law.
But the Trump administration has framed undocumented migration as an “invasion” that constitutes a national security crisis, and it argued that its strong-armed efforts are needed to expel criminals.
The eight migrants slated to be sent to South Sudan, it said, were “barbaric, violent criminal illegal aliens”. It added that they had been found guilty of crimes, including first-degree murder, robbery and sexual assault.
“These sickos will be in South Sudan by Independence Day,” Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a news release on Thursday.
Donald Trump toured ‘Alligator Alcatraz’, a new temporary detention facility set in the middle of Florida wetlands.
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WASHINGTON — President Trump will visit a new immigration detention facility in the Florida Everglades on Tuesday, showcasing his border crackdown in the face of humanitarian and environmental concerns.
The trip was confirmed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday.
“When the president comes tomorrow, he’s going to be able to see,” DeSantis told reporters. He added that “I think by tomorrow, it’ll be ready for business.”
The governor, who unsuccessfully challenged Trump for the Republican presidential nomination last year, said he spoke with Trump over the weekend. He also said the site obtained approval from the Department of Homeland Security.
“What’ll happen is you bring people in there,” DeSantis said during an unrelated press conference in Wildwood. “They ain’t going anywhere once they’re there, unless you want them to go somewhere, because good luck getting to civilization. So the security is amazing.”
The facility has drawn protests over its potential impact on the delicate ecosystem and criticism that Trump is trying to send a cruel message to immigrants. Some Native American leaders have also opposed construction, saying the land is sacred.
The detention facility is being built on an isolated airstrip about 50 miles west of Miami, and it could house 5,000 detainees. The surrounding swampland is filled with mosquitos, pythons and alligators.
“There’s really nowhere to go. If you’re housed there, if you’re detained there, there’s no way in, no way out,” Florida Atty. Gen. James Uthmeier told conservative media commentator Benny Johnson.
He’s described the facility as “Alligator Alcatraz,” a moniker embraced by the Trump administration. DHS posted an image of alligators wearing hats with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s acronym.
State officials in Florida are spearheading construction but much of the cost is being covered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, which is best known for responding to hurricanes and other natural disasters.
Gomez Licon reported from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Megerian and Licon write for the Associated Press.