homeland security

BATON ROUGE, La. — Women taken into custody by U.S. immigration agents while pregnant say they received inadequate care in a letter Wednesday that calls on the Trump administration to stop holding expectant mothers in federal detention facilities.

The letter to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is part of a broader campaign in recent months by Democrats and immigrant rights groups to draw attention to what they say is the mistreatment of pregnant detainees.

The Department of Homeland Security has defended its care, saying pregnant detainees get regular prenatal visits, mental health services, nutritional support and accommodations “aligned with community standards of care.”

In addition, Homeland Security Department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a written statement Wednesday that such detentions are “rare” and involve “elevated oversight and review.” The agency didn’t provide figures on the number of pregnant women in detention, a number Democrats have sought for months.

The letter sent by the American Civil Liberties Union cites accounts from pregnant women who say they were shackled while being transported, placed in solitary confinement for multiple days and given insufficient food and water while detained in Louisiana and Georgia.

The ACLU said that over the last five months it has met with more than a dozen females who were pregnant while in ICE custody — including some who had a miscarriage while detained. The women reported “gravely troubling experiences,” the letter states, including lack of translation during medical encounters and medical neglect. One suffered a “severe” infection after her miscarriage.

In an interview with the Associated Press, one of the women said she was kept in handcuffs while being transported to Louisiana — a journey that lasted five hours and spanned two plane rides. The woman, who has since been released from custody and given birth, spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of facing retaliation during her ongoing case.

An officer told her he considered taking off the handcuffs but worried she would escape. “How am I going to escape if I’m pregnant?” the woman said she responded.

She said she felt as if she’d been kidnapped and experienced dizziness, nausea and vaginal bleeding. During her time in detention, she said pregnant women were not offered special diets and described the food as horrible. She alleged that detainees had to “beg” for water and toilet paper.

The ACLU’s letter is the latest call for an investigation into the arrests and treatment of pregnant detainees.

Senate Democrats wrote Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in September, expressing concerns about the “prevalence and treatment” of pregnant, postpartum and nursing women in ICE custody. They demanded that the agency stop detaining such people unless there are “exceptional circumstances.”

“Proper care for pregnancy is a basic human right, regardless of whether you are incarcerated or not and regardless of your immigration status,” said Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, a California Democrat. She signed on to a Democratic Women’s Caucus letter to Homeland Security officials in July sharing concerns about the “treatment of women” and demanding answers — including how many have given birth while detained.

Kamlager-Dove said she’s working on legislation that would “severely restrict the use of restraints on pregnant, laboring and postpartum women who are in federal custody.”

ICE guidelines already say that agents “should not detain, arrest, or take into custody for an administrative violation of the immigration laws” people “known to be pregnant, postpartum or nursing,” based on a policy sent to the AP by Homeland Security. But the document does state that such people may be detained and held in custody under “exceptional circumstances” or if their release is prohibited by law.

The policy also prohibits using restraints on pregnant detainees, but here too there are exceptions — including if there is a serious threat that the detainee will hurt herself or others, or if “an immediate and credible risk” of escape cannot be “reasonably minimized” through other methods.

Cline and Gonzalez write for the Associated Press. Gonzalez reported from McAllen, Texas.

HARRISBURG, Pa. — A federal judge has concluded that the Department of Justice’s prosecution of Kilmar Abrego Garcia on human smuggling charges may be an illegal retaliation after he successfully sued the Trump administration over his deportation to El Salvador.

The case of Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who was a construction worker living legally in Maryland when he was wrongly deported to his home country, has become a proxy for the partisan struggle over President Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown and mass deportation agenda.

U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw late Friday granted a request by lawyers for Abrego Garcia and ordered discovery and an evidentiary hearing in Abrego Garcia’s effort to show that the federal human smuggling case against him in Tennessee is illegally retaliatory.

Crenshaw said Abrego Garcia had shown that there is “some evidence that the prosecution against him may be vindictive.” That evidence included statements by various Trump administration officials and the timeline of the charges being filed.

The departments of Justice and Homeland Security did not immediately respond to inquiries about the case Saturday.

In his 16-page ruling, Crenshaw said many statements by administration officials “raise cause for concern,” but one stood out.

That statement by Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche, on a Fox News program after Abrego Garcia was charged in June, seemed to suggest that the Department of Justice charged Abrego Garcia because he won his wrongful-deportation case, Crenshaw wrote.

Blanche’s ”remarkable statements could directly establish that the motivations for Abrego’s criminal charges stem from his exercise of his constitutional and statutory rights” to sue over his deportation “rather than a genuine desire to prosecute him for alleged criminal misconduct,” Crenshaw wrote.

Likewise, Crenshaw noted that the Department of Homeland Security reopened an investigation into Abrego Garcia days after the Supreme Court said in April that the Trump administration must work to bring back Abrego Garcia.

Abrego Garcia was indicted May 21 and charged June 6, the day the U.S. brought him back from a prison in El Salvador. He pleaded not guilty and is now being held in Pennsylvania.

If convicted in the Tennessee case, Abrego Garcia will be deported, federal officials have said. A U.S. immigration judge has denied Abrego Garcia’s bid for asylum, although he can appeal.

Abrego Garcia has an American wife and children and has lived in Maryland for years, but he immigrated to the United States illegally as a teenager.

In 2019, he was arrested by immigration agents. He requested asylum but was not eligible because he had been in the U.S. for more than a year. But the judge ruled he could not be deported to El Salvador, where he faced danger from a gang that targeted his family.

The human smuggling charges in Tennessee stem from a 2022 traffic stop. He was not charged at the time.

Trump administration officials have waged a relentless public relations campaign against Abrego Garcia, repeatedly referring to him as a member of the MS-13 gang, among other things, despite the fact he has not been convicted of any crimes. The government has provided no clear evidence of gang affiliation, and Abrego Garcia denies the allegation.

Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have denounced the criminal charges and the deportation efforts, saying they are an attempt to punish him for standing up to the administration.

Abrego Garcia contends that, while imprisoned in El Salvador — in a notorious lockup with a documented history of human rights abuses — he suffered beatings, sleep deprivation and psychological torture. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has denied those allegations.

Levy writes for the Associated Press.

One travel expert has offered handy advice for all visitors to the US

Travellers to the Unites States face paying a new £185 fee from today (Wednesday, October 1) – but many Brits won’t have to fork out a penny more. The US government announced the new measure in the summer, aimed at reducing visa overstays. It came into effect today, meaning Brits – and other foreign nationals heading to the States – could have to pay up before flying across the pond.

The new charge applies to travellers from non-Visa Waiver Program nations, who need to apply for non-immigrant visas. But, as one travel expert explains, the fee won’t apply to many of us travelling to hotspots like New York or Florida.

Brenda Beltrán, a travel expert at Holafly, says that the majority of travelers from the UK will not have to pay the $250 fee. She said: “The UK is part of the U.S. Visa Waiver Program.

“That means most Brits visiting for tourism or short business trips of up to 90 days will continue to use ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) and will not face this new $250 charge.” However, there are still circumstances in which the fee does apply.

Some British visitors to the USA will still have to pay up. If they apply for certain visas that are not included in the usual ESTA route, the charge applies.

For example, the following circumstances would incur the charge:

• Student visas (F-1, M-1)
• Work visas (H-1B, L-1, O-1, etc.)
• Extended stays beyond the 90-day ESTA allowance
• Specialist visa categories for exchange, journalism, or diplomatic purposes

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Brenda added: “For the average Brit heading to New York for shopping or Florida for Disney, nothing changes. But if you’re planning to study in the U.S., take up a job, or stay longer than three months, you should budget for the new $250 cost on top of existing visa fees.”

For the vast majority of British holidaymakers, nothing changes after 1 October 2025. ESTA remains the standard route for short-term visits, and the cost is currently $21.

The introduction of the Visa Integrity Fee is primarily aimed at travellers from countries outside the Visa Waiver Program. Therefore, it is unlikely to affect UK–US tourism levels.

Brenda continued: “This update sounds alarming at first glance, but most Brits won’t notice any difference. As long as you qualify for ESTA, which nearly all UK holidaymakers do, you won’t be hit by the new charge.”

How to get the fee reimbursed

As part of the new law, the US government will reimburse certain travellers the £185 cost. The legislation allows for the Secretary of Homeland Security to pay visitors back if they prove they complied with their visa.

As long as they have not tried to extend their stay without a relevant visa and left the USA within five days of the visa expiring, visitors may be eligible. They must also not accept unauthorised employment and have lawfully changed their nonimmigrant status.

Foreign Office guidance on travelling to the United States

The UK Foreign Office has specific advice on the entry requirements to visit the US. The government guidance on ESTA states: “ESTA is an automated system that determines the eligibility of visitors to travel to the US under the Visa Waiver Program (VWP).

“You can apply for an ESTA via the Official ESTA Application Website or using the ESTA Mobile app on android or on iOS. All Visa Waiver Program (VWP) travellers intending to enter the US by land, sea and air will be required to obtain an approved ESTA prior to application for admission at land border ports of entry.

“Individuals who are not eligible to travel under the VWP may apply for a visa at any U.S. Embassy & Consulates. Travellers whose sex on their passport differs from their sex recorded at birth should contact the US Embassy or a consulate in the UK for further advice.”

Those who may not be eligible for an ESTA visa waiver include those:

• who have been arrested (even if the arrest did not result in a criminal conviction)
• with a criminal record
• who have been refused admission into, or have been deported from, the US
• who have previously overstayed under an ESTA visa waiver

Furthermore, there are a list of countries that visitors must not have been in on or after March 2011 to apply for an ESTA waiver. These are Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

You also cannot apply for an ESTA visa waiver if you travelled to or were in Cuba on or after 12 January 2021. An ESTA may not be sufficient for all types of business travel – particularly if you are travelling on behalf of a US company.

The Foreign Office says: “Please check the rules on the ESTA website carefully. If you are not eligible for an ESTA, you must instead apply for a US visa. Travelling on an ESTA when ineligible can lead to detention and deportation by the US authorities.”

Brenda’s expert tips for travelling to the US

• Apply early for ESTA: it’s valid for two years and covers multiple trips, so don’t leave it until the last minute.
• Double-check eligibility: if your circumstances don’t fit the Visa Waiver rules (e.g. long-term study or work), be prepared for the additional cost.
• Stay updated: Immigration rules evolve regularly, so always check official guidance before booking flights.

A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily halted a Trump administration plan to reduce disaster relief and anti-terrorism funding for states with so-called sanctuary policies for undocumented immigrants.

U.S. District Judge Mary S. McElroy granted the temporary restraining order curtailing the cuts at the request of California, 10 other states and the District of Columbia, which argued in a lawsuit Monday that the policy appeared to have illegally cost them hundreds of millions of dollars.

The states said they were first notified of the cuts over the weekend. McElroy made her decision during an emergency hearing on the states’ motion in Rhode Island District Court on Tuesday afternoon.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta cheered the decision as the state’s latest win in pushing back against what he described as a series of unlawful, funding-related power grabs by the Trump administration.

“Over and over, the courts have stopped the Trump Administration’s illegal efforts to tie unrelated grant funding to state policies,” Bonta said. “It’s a little thing called state sovereignty, but given the President’s propensity to violate the Constitution, it’s unsurprising that he’s unfamiliar with it.”

Neither the White House nor the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the funding and notified the states of the cuts, immediately responded to a request for comment Tuesday.

Sanctuary policies are not uniform and the term is imprecise, but it generally refers to policies that bar states and localities — and their local law enforcement agencies — from participating in federal immigration raids or other enforcement initiatives.

The Trump administration and other Republicans have cast such policies as undermining law and order. Democrats and progressives including in California say instead that states and cities have finite public safety resources and that engaging in immigration enforcement serves only to undermine the trust they and their law enforcement agencies need to maintain with the public in order to prevent and solve crime, including in large immigrant communities.

In their lawsuit Monday, the states said the funding being reduced was part of billions in federal dollars annually distributed to the states to “prepare for, protect against, respond to, and recover from catastrophic disasters,” and which administrations of both political parties distributed “evenhandedly” for decades before Trump.

Authorized by Congress after events such as Sept. 11 and Hurricane Katrina, the funding covers the salaries of first responders, testing of state computer networks for cyberattack vulnerabilities, mutual aid compacts between regional partners and emergency responses after disasters, the states said.

Bonta’s office said California was informed over the weekend by Homeland Security officials that it would be receiving $110 million instead of $165 million, a reduction of its budget by about a third. The states’ lawsuit said other blue states saw even more dramatic cuts, with Illinois seeing a 69% reduction and New York receiving a 79% reduction, while red states saw substantial funding increases.

Bonta on Tuesday said the administration’s reshuffling of funds based on state compliance with the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement priorities was illegal and needed to be halted — and restored to previous levels based on risk assessment — in order to keep everyone in the country safe.

“California uses the grant funding at stake in our lawsuit to protect the safety of our communities from acts of terrorism and other disasters — meaning the stakes are quite literally life and death,” he said. “This is not something to play politics with. I’m grateful to the court for seeing the urgency of this dangerous diversion of homeland security funding.”

Homeland Security officials have previously argued that the agency should be able to withhold funding from states that it believes are not upholding or are actively undermining its core mission of defending the nation from threats, including the threat it sees from illegal immigration.

Other judges have also ruled against the administration conditioning disaster and public safety funding on states and localities complying with federal immigration policies.

Joining California in Monday’s lawsuit were Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, as well as the District of Columbia.

The company behind the wildly popular Pokémon franchise says it doesn’t want its characters used for propaganda.

The Department of Homeland Security uploaded a Pokémon-themed montage of various ICE raids to social media earlier this week.

The connection to the beloved franchise was clear, as the recognizable theme song played, the original animation appeared and even its signature blue and yellow text materialized.

The video angered many fans. The Japanese gaming company said the federal agency was not authorized to use its original content.

“We are aware of a recent video posted by the Department of Homeland Security that includes imagery and language associated with our brand,” wrote the Pokémon Company International in a statement to The Times. “Our company was not involved in the creation or distribution of this content, and permission was not granted for the use of our intellectual property.”

The Pokémon-inspired video is still live on the agency’s X account.

The posted video included the anime theme song, with the lyrics “Gotta catch ‘em all,” playing over segments of federal agents handcuffing people and imagery of a Pokémon character and the Pokéballs used to capture monsters in the game.

It concluded with several mock-ups of Pokémon playing cards with photographs of detainees, which included their full names, crimes they have committed and details about their convictions and sentencing.

The DHS’ social media feeds are full of provocative imagery and videos that borrow from popular media.

It used Jay-Z’s “Public Service Announcement” last month. It reportedly received a copyright violation complaint and had to be taken down.

In July, the DHS X account posted a video montage, which used audio from 2022’s “The Batman” and displayed a Bible verse onscreen. Paintings, from artists like Thomas Kinkade, Morgan Weistling and John Gast have also been utilized by the federal agency.

Comedian Theo Von recently complained about being used in one of these videos. DHS used a video of him saying, “Heard you got deported, dude,” as he nods his head in disappointment, in one of their video edits.

On Tuesday, he posted on X, saying, “And please take this down and please keep me out of your ‘banger’ deportation videos. When it comes to immigration my thoughts and heart are a lot more nuanced than this video allows. Bye!”

The video has since been taken down.

In the push to expand as quickly as possible, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is aggressively wooing recruits with experience slapping handcuffs on suspects: sheriff’s deputies, state troopers and local cops.

The agency even shelled out for airtime during an NFL game with an ad explicitly targeting officers.

“In sanctuary cities, dangerous illegals walk free as police are forced to stand down,” the August recruitment ad warned over a sunset panorama of the Los Angeles skyline. “Join ICE and help us catch the worst of the worst.”

To meet its hiring goal, the Trump administration is offering hefty signing bonuses, student loan forgiveness and six-figure salaries to would-be deportation officers.

ICE has also broadened its pool of potential applicants by dropping age requirements, eliminating Spanish-language proficiency requirements and cutting back on training for new hires with law enforcement experience.

Along the way, the agency has walked a delicate line, seeking to maintain cordial relations with local department leaders while also trying to poach their officers.

“We’re not trying to pillage a bunch of officers from other agencies,” said Tim Oberle, an ICE spokesman. “If you see opportunities to move up, make more money to take care of your family, of course you’re going to want it.”

But despite the generous new compensation packages, experts said ICE is still coming up short in some of the places it needs agents the most.

“The pay in California is incredible,” said Jason Litchney of All-Star Talent, a recruiting firm. “Some of these Bay Area agencies are $200,000 a year without overtime.”

Even entry level base pay for a Los Angeles Police Department officer is more than $90,000 year. In San Francisco, it’s close to $120,000. While ICE pays far more in California than in most other states, cash alone is less likely to induce many local cops to swap their dress blues for fatigues and a neck gaiter.

“If you were a state police officer who’s harbored a desire to become a federal agent, I don’t know if you want to join ICE at this time,” said John Sandweg, who headed ICE under President Obama.

Police agencies nationwide have struggled for years to recruit and retain qualified officers. The LAPD has only graduated an average of 31 recruits in its past 10 academy classes, about half the number needed to keep pace with the city’s plan to grow the force to 9,500 officers.

“That is a tremendous issue for us,” said Brian Marvel, president of the Peace Officers Research Assn. of California, a professional advocacy organization.

A person walks near the stage during a hiring fair by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Aug. 26 in Arlington, Texas.

(Julio Cortez / Associated Press)

ICE, too, has long failed to meet its staffing targets. As of a year ago, the agency’s Enforcement and Removal Operations — it’s dedicated deportation force — had 6,050 officers, barely more than in 2021.

As of Sep. 16, the Department of Homeland Security said it has sent out more than 18,000 tentative job offers after a summer recruitment campaign that drew more than 150,000 applications.

It did not specify how many applicants were working cops.

At an ICE career expo in Texas last month, the agency at times turned away anyone who didn’t already have authorization to carry a badge or an honorable discharge from the military.

“We have so many people who are current police officers who are trying to get on the job right now and that’s who we’ve been prioritizing,” one ICE official at the event said.

But the spirited pursuit of rank-and-file officers has sparked anger and resentment among top cops around the country.

“Agencies are short-staffed,” said David J. Bier, an immigration expert at the Cato Institute. “They are complaining constantly about recruitment and retention and looking every which way to maintain their workforce — and here comes along ICE — trying to pull those officers away.”

Law enforcement experts say that outside of California, especially in lower income states, many young officers take home about as much as public school teachers, making the opportunity for newer hires to jump ship for a federal gig even more enticing.

Some fear the ICE hiring spree will attract problematic candidates.

“The scariest part keeping me up at night is you hear agencies say we’re lowering standards because we can’t hire,” said Justin Biedinger, head of Guardian Alliance Technologies, which streamlines background checks, applicant testing and other qualifications for law enforcement agencies.

At the same time, the Trump administration is finding ways to deputize local cops without actually hiring them.

The Department of Homeland Security has dramatically overhauled a controversial cooperation program called 287(g) that enlists local police officers and sheriff’s deputies to do the work of ICE agents.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks at a news conference at the Wilshire Federal Building in June in Los Angeles.

(Luke Johnson/Los Angeles Times)

As of early September, according to the program website, 474 agencies in 32 states were participating, up from 141 agencies in March.

Some states such as Georgia and Florida require their agencies to apply for the program. Others, including California, forbid it.

But that, too, could soon change.

The administration is exploring ways to force holdouts to comply, including by conditioning millions of dollars of funding for domestic violence shelters, rape crisis hotlines and child abuse centers on compliance with its immigration directives. In response, California and several other states have sued.

Even in so-called sanctuary jurisdictions such as Los Angeles, where local laws prohibit cops from participating in civil immigration enforcement, police officers have found themselves tangled up in federal operations. The LAPD has drawn criticism for officers responding to the scenes of ICE arrests where confrontations have erupted.

“We get called a lot to come out and assist in providing security or making sure that it doesn’t turn violent,” said Marvel, the police advocacy organization president.

“The vast majority of peace officers do not want to do immigration enforcement because that’s not the job they signed up for,” Marvel said. “We want to protect the community.”

Among the agency’s most vocal critics, the push to beef up ICE is viewed as both dangerous and counterproductive.

“Punishing violent criminals is the work of local and state law enforcement,” said Ilya Somin, law professor at George Mason University and a constitutional scholar at the Cato Institute. “If we were to abolish ICE and devote the money to those things, we’d have lower violence and crime.”

The cash and perks ICE is dangling will inevitably draw more people, experts said, but some warned that newly minted deportation officers should be careful about mortgaging their future.

The potential $50,000 hiring bonus is paid out in installments over several years — and the role may lack job security.

At the same time Trump is doubling ICE’s headcount, he’s also rewriting the rules to make it far easier to ax federal workers, said Sandweg, the former Obama official.

That could come back to haunt many agency recruits four years from now, he said: “I think there’s a very good chance a future Democratic administration is going to eliminate a lot of these positions.”

Zurie Pope, a Times fellow with the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, contributed to this report.

CHICAGO — A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot a man who officials said tried to evade arrest Friday in a Chicago suburb by driving his car at officers and dragging one of them.

The shooting just outside the city follows days of threats by the Trump administration to surge immigration enforcement in the nation’s third-largest city and less than a week into an operation labeled “Midway Blitz” by federal officials targeting the so-called sanctuary policies in Chicago and Illinois.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a news release that the officer was trying to arrest a man who had a history of reckless driving, but he refused officers’ orders and instead drove his car at them. An ICE officer who was hit and dragged by the car felt his life was threatened and opened fire, the department said.

ICE said both the officer and the driver from the shooting in the Franklin Park suburb, about 18 miles west of Chicago, were taken to a hospital, where the driver was pronounced dead.

“We are praying for the speedy recovery of our law enforcement officer. He followed his training, used appropriate force, and properly enforced the law to protect the public and law enforcement,” said spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, said he is aware of the shooting and demanded “a full, factual accounting of what’s happened today to ensure transparency and accountability.”

Video from the scene shows police tape and traffic cones blocking off parts of the street where a large food distribution truck and gray car can be seen from a distance. Multiple law enforcement vehicles were surrounding the area.

Erendira Rendón, chief program officer at a local advocacy group called the Resurrection Project, said the shooting “shows us the real danger that militarized enforcement creates in our neighborhoods.”

“A community member is dead, and an officer was injured,” Rendón said in a statement. “These are outcomes that serve no public safety purpose and leave entire communities traumatized. … When federal agents conduct unaccountable operations in our communities, everyone becomes less safe.”

Chicagoans, meanwhile, have been preparing for weekend Mexican Independence Day celebrations that include parades, festivals, street parties and car caravans, despite the potential immigration crackdown.

McLaughlin said that “viral social media videos and activists encouraging illegal aliens to resist law enforcement” have made the work of ICE officers more dangerous.

Santana and Fernando write for the Associated Press. Santana reported from Washington.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Five men deported by the United States to Eswatini in July have been held in a maximum-security prison in the African nation for seven weeks without charge or explanation and with no access to legal counsel, their lawyers said Tuesday.

They accused the Trump administration’s third-country deportation program of denying their clients due process.

The New York-based Legal Aid Society said that it was representing one of the men, Jamaican national Orville Etoria, and that he had been “inexplicably and illegally” sent to Eswatini when his home country was willing to accept him back.

That contradicted the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which said when it deported the five men with criminal records that they were being sent to Eswatini because their home countries refused to take them. Jamaica’s foreign minister has also said that the Caribbean country didn’t refuse to take back deportees.

Etoria was the first of at least 20 deportees sent by the U.S. to various African nations in the last two months to be identified publicly.

Expanding deportation program

The deportations are part of the Trump administration’s expanding third-country program to send migrants to countries in Africa that they have no ties with to get them off U.S. soil.

Since July, the U.S. has deported migrants to South Sudan, Eswatini and Rwanda, while a fourth African nation, Uganda, says it has agreed to a deal in principle with the U.S. to accept deportees.

Washington has said it wants to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose case has been a flashpoint over President Trump’s hard-line immigration policies, to Uganda after he was wrongly deported to his native El Salvador in March.

Etoria served a 25-year prison sentence and was granted parole in 2021, the Legal Aid Society said, but was now being held in Eswatini’s main maximum-security prison for an undetermined period of time despite completing that sentence.

The U.S. Homeland Security Department said that he was convicted of murder. The agency posted on X in reference to a New York Times report on Etoria, saying that it “will continue enforcing the law at full speed — without apology.”

It didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from the Associated Press.

The Legal Aid Society said that an Eswatini lawyer acting on behalf of all five men being held in prison there has been repeatedly denied access to them by prison officials since they arrived in the tiny southern African nation bordering South Africa in mid-July.

The other four men are citizens of Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and Yemen.

‘Indefinite detention’

A separate lawyer representing the two men from Laos and Vietnam said that his clients also served their criminal sentences in the U.S. and had “been released into the community.”

“Then, without warning and explanation from either the U.S. or Eswatini governments, they were arbitrarily arrested and sent to a country to which they have never ever been,” the lawyer, Tin Thanh Nguyen, said in a statement. “They are now being punished indefinitely for a sentence they already served.”

He said that the U.S. government was “orchestrating secretive third-country transfers with no meaningful legal process, resulting in indefinite detention.”

U.S. Homeland Security said those two men had been convicted of charges including child rape and second-degree murder.

A third lawyer, Alma David, said that she represented the two men from Yemen and Cuba who are also being held in the same prison and denied access to lawyers. She said she had been told by the head of the Eswatini prison that only the U.S. Embassy could grant access to the men.

“Since when does the U.S. Embassy have jurisdiction over Eswatini’s national prisons?” she said in a statement, adding the men weren’t told a reason for their detention, and “no lawyer has been permitted to visit them.” David said all five were being held at U.S. taxpayers’ expense.

Secretive deals

The deportation deals the U.S. has struck in Africa have been secretive, and with countries with questionable rights records.

Authorities in South Sudan have given little information on where eight men sent there in early July are being held or what their fate might be. They were also described by U.S. authorities as dangerous criminals from South Sudan, Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar and Vietnam.

The five men in Eswatini are being held at the Matsapha Correctional Complex. It’s the same prison where Eswatini, which is ruled by a king as Africa’s last absolute monarchy, has imprisoned pro-democracy campaigners amid reports of abuse that includes beatings and the denial of food to inmates.

Eswatini authorities said when the five men arrived that they were being held in solitary confinement.

Another seven migrants were deported by the U.S. to Rwanda in mid-August, Rwandan authorities said. They didn’t say where they are being held or give any information on their identities.

The deportations to Rwanda were kept secret at the time and only announced last week.

Imray writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from carrying out speedy deportations of undocumented migrants detained in the interior of the United States.

The move is a setback for President Trump’s efforts to expand the use of the federal expedited removal statute to quickly remove some undocumented migrants without appearing before a judge first.

Trump promised to engineer a massive deportation operation during his 2024 campaign if voters returned him to the White House. And he set a goal of carrying out 1 million deportations a year in his second term.

But U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb suggested the administration’s expanded use of the expedited removal of migrants is trampling on due process rights.

“In defending this skimpy process, the Government makes a truly startling argument: that those who entered the country illegally are entitled to no process under the Fifth Amendment, but instead must accept whatever grace Congress affords them,” Cobb wrote in a 48-page opinion issued Friday night. “Were that right, not only noncitizens, but everyone would be at risk.”

The Department of Homeland Security announced shortly after Trump came to office in January that it was expanding the use of expedited removal, the fast-track deportation of undocumented migrants who have been in the U.S. less than two years.

The effort has triggered lawsuits by the American Civil Liberties Union and immigrant rights groups.

Homeland Security said in a statement that Cobb’s “ruling ignores the President’s clear authorities under both Article II of the Constitution and the plain language of federal law.” It said Trump “has a mandate to arrest and deport the worst of the worst” and that ”we have the law, facts, and common sense on our side.”

Before the administration’s push to expand such speedy deportations, expedited removal was used only for migrants who were stopped within 100 miles of the border and who had been in the U.S. for less than 14 days.

Cobb, an appointee of President Biden, didn’t question the constitutionality of the expedited removal statute or its application at the border.

“It merely holds that in applying the statute to a huge group of people living in the interior of the country who have not previously been subject to expedited removal, the Government must afford them due process,” she wrote.

She added that “prioritizing speed over all else will inevitably lead the Government to erroneously remove people via this truncated process.”

Cobb earlier this month agreed to temporarily block the administration’s efforts to expand fast-track deportations of immigrants who legally entered the U.S. under a process known as humanitarian parole. The ruling could benefit hundreds of thousands of people.

In that case the judge said Homeland Security exceeded its statutory authority in its effort to expand expedited removal for many immigrants. The judge said those immigrants are facing perils that outweigh any harm from “pressing pause” on the administration’s plans.

Since May, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have positioned themselves in hallways to arrest people after judges accept government requests to dismiss deportation cases. After the arrests, the government renews deportation proceedings but under fast-track authority.

Although fast-track deportations can be put on hold by filing an asylum claim, people may be unaware of that right and, even if they are, can be swiftly removed if they fail an initial screening.

Madhani writes for the Associated Press.

As the Trump administration continues to ramp up immigration enforcement actions, a group of lawmakers is suing Immigration and Customs Enforcement for placing restrictions on detention center visits — obstructing Congress’ role in overseeing government functions.

Twelve House Democrats filed a lawsuit challenging new guidelines that require advance notice for oversight visits and render certain facilities off-limits. “No child should be sleeping on concrete, and no sick person should be denied care,” said Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles). “Yet that’s exactly what we keep hearing is happening inside Trump’s detention centers.”

These lawmakers are right to seek access to detention facilities. Detention centers have long been plagued by poor conditions, so the need for oversight is urgent. With record numbers of migrants being detained, the public has a right to know how people in the government’s custody are being treated.

The U.S. operates the world’s largest immigration detention system, at a cost of $3 billion a year. This money is appropriated by Congress — and comes with conditions.

Under existing law, none of the funds given to Homeland Security may be used to prevent members of Congress from conducting oversight visits of “any facility operated by or for the Department of Homeland Security used to detain or otherwise house aliens.” In addition, the law states that members of Congress are not required to “provide prior notice of the intent to enter a facility.” So ICE’s attempt to place limits on oversight appears to be illegal.

The restrictions are also problematic because they claim to exempt the agency’s field offices from oversight. However, migrants are being locked up in such offices, including at the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in Los Angeles, and 26 Federal Plaza in New York City. In the former, one detainee reported being fed only once a day, at 3 a.m. In the latter, as many as 80 detainees have been crammed into a single room amid sweltering summer temperatures. These offices were never set up to house people overnight or for days or weeks. If they are functioning as de facto detention centers, then they must be subject to inspections.

Congressional oversight of immigration detention is vital right now. The current capacity for U.S. detention facilities is 41,000. Yet the government was holding nearly 57,000 people as of July 27. That means facilities are far over capacity, in a system that the Vera Institute of Justice describes as “plagued by abuse and neglect.”

No matter who is president, conditions in immigrant detention are generally abysmal. Migrant detention centers have been cited for their lack of medical care, poor treatment of detainees, and physical and sexual violence. In 2019, the federal government itself reported that conditions in detention were inhumane. At least 11 people have died in detention since January. This reality cries out for more transparency and accountability — especially because Homeland Security laid off most of its internal watchdogs earlier this year.

The ranks of detainees include asylum-seekers, teenagers, DACA recipients, pregnant women, journalists and even U.S. citizens. Most of the detainees arrested lately have no criminal convictions. These folks are often arrested and moved thousands of miles away from home, complicating their access to legal representation and family visits. A visit by a congressional delegation may be the only way to ensure that they are being treated properly.

In response to the lawsuit by House Democrats, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for Homeland Security, said: “These members of Congress could have just scheduled a tour. Instead, they’re running to court to drive clicks and fundraising emails.” She added that ICE was imposing the new limits, in part, because of “obstructions to enforcement, including by politicians themselves.”

McLaughlin might have been referring to a May scuffle outside a Newark, N.J., detention center that led to charges being filed against Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) and the arrest of the city’s mayor. But this incident would not have occurred if immigration officials had followed the law and allowed lawmakers inside to survey the facility’s conditions.

Indeed, the acting director of ICE, Todd Lyons, told a congressional hearing in May that he recognized the right of members to visit detention facilities, even with no notice. And the notion that any government agency can unilaterally regulate Congress runs afoul of the Constitution. The legislative branch has the right and obligation to supervise the executive branch. Simply put, ICE cannot tell members of Congress what they can or cannot do.

The need for oversight in detention facilities will only become greater in the future, as Congress just approved $45 billion for the expansion of immigrant detention centers. This could result in the daily detention of at least 116,000 people. Meanwhile, 55% of Americans, according to the Pew Center, disapprove of building more facilities to hold immigrants.

ICE’s new policies violate federal law. No agency is above oversight — and members of Congress must be allowed full access to detention facilities.

Raul A. Reyes is an immigration attorney and contributor to NBC Latino and CNN Opinion. X: @RaulAReyes; Instagram: @raulareyes1

OLD ORCHARD BEACH, Maine — A Maine police officer arrested by immigration authorities has agreed to voluntarily leave the country, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Monday.

ICE arrested Old Orchard Beach Police Department reserve Officer Jon Luke Evans, of Jamaica, on July 25, as part of the agency’s effort to step up immigration enforcement. Officials with the town and police department have said federal authorities previously told them Evans was legally authorized to work in the U.S.

An ICE representative reached by telephone told the Associated Press on Monday that a judge has granted voluntary departure for Evans and that he could leave as soon as that day. The representative did not provide other details about Evans’ case.

Evans’ arrest touched off a dispute between Old Orchard Beach officials and ICE. Police Chief Elise Chard has said the department was notified by federal officials that Evans was legally permitted to work in the country, and that the town submitted information via the Department of Homeland Security’s E-Verify program prior to Evans’ employment. Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin then accused the town of “reckless reliance” on the department’s E-Verify program.

E-Verify is an online system that allows employers to check if potential employees can work legally in the U.S.

The town is aware of reports that Evans plans to leave the country voluntarily, Chard said Monday.

“The town reiterates its ongoing commitment to meeting all state and federal laws regarding employment,” Chard said in a statement. “We will continue to rely on the I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification form and the E-Verify database to confirm employment eligibility.”

ICE’s detainee lookup website said Monday that Evans was being held at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, Rhode Island. However, a representative for Wyatt said Evans had been transferred to an ICE facility in Burlington, Massachusetts. ICE officials did not respond to requests for comment on the discrepancy. It was unclear if Evans was represented by an attorney, and a message left for him at the detention facility was not returned.

ICE officials said in July that Evans overstayed his visa and unlawfully attempted to purchase a firearm. WMTW-TV reported Monday that Evans’ agreement to a voluntary departure means he will be allowed to leave the U.S. at his own expense to avoid being deported.

Whittle writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s border czar Tom Homan visited Capitol Hill just weeks after Inauguration Day, with other administration officials and a singular message: They needed money for the White House’s border security and mass deportation agenda.

By summer, Congress delivered.

The Republican Party’s big bill of tax breaks and spending cuts that Trump signed into law July 4 included what’s arguably the biggest boost of funds yet to the Department of Homeland Security — nearly $170 billion, almost double its annual budget.

The staggering sum is powering the nation’s sweeping new Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, delivering gripping scenes of people being pulled off city streets and from job sites across the nation — the cornerstone of Trump’s promise for the largest domestic deportation operation in American history. Homeland Security confirmed over the weekend ICE is working to set up detention sites at certain military bases.

“We’re getting them out at record numbers,” Trump said at the White House bill signing ceremony. “We have an obligation to, and we’re doing it.”

Money flows, and so do questions

The crush of new money is setting off alarms in Congress and beyond, raising questions from lawmakers in both major political parties who are expected to provide oversight. The bill text provided general funding categories — almost $30 billion for ICE officers, $45 billion for detention facilities, $10 billion for the office of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem — but few policy details or directives. Homeland Security recently announced $50,000 ICE hiring bonuses.

And it’s not just the big bill’s fresh infusion of funds fueling the president’s agenda of 1 million deportations a year.

In the months since Trump took office, his administration has been shifting as much as $1 billion from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other accounts to pay for immigration enforcement and deportation operations, lawmakers said.

“Your agency is out of control,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told Noem during a Senate committee hearing in the spring.

The senator warned that Homeland Security would “go broke” by July.

Noem quickly responded that she always lives within her budget.

But Murphy said later in a letter to Homeland Security, objecting to its repurposing funds, that ICE was being directed to spend at an “indefensible and unsustainable rate to build a mass deportation army,” often without approval from Congress.

This past week, the new Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Andrew Garbarino of New York, along with a subcommittee chairman, Rep. Michael Guest of Mississippi, requested a briefing from Noem on the border security components of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, or OBBBA, which included $46 billion over the next four years for Trump’s long-sought U.S.-Mexico border wall.

“We write today to understand how the Department plans to outlay this funding to deliver a strong and secure homeland for years to come,” the GOP lawmakers said in a letter to the homeland security secretary, noting border apprehensions are at record lows.

“We respectfully request that you provide Committee staff with a briefing on the Department’s plan to disburse OBBBA funding,” they wrote, seeking a response by Aug. 22.

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to The Associated Press the department is in daily discussions with the committee “to honor all briefing requests including the spend plan for the funds allocated” through the new law.

“ICE is indeed pursuing all available options to expand bedspace capacity,” she said. “This process does include housing detainees at certain military bases, including Fort Bliss.”

Deportations move deep into communities

All together, it’s what observers on and off Capitol Hill see as a fundamental shift in immigration policy — enabling DHS to reach far beyond the U.S. southern border and deep into communities to conduct raids and stand up detention facilities as holding camps for immigrants.

The Defense Department, the Internal Revenue Service and other agencies are being enlisted in what Kathleen Bush-Joseph, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, calls a “whole of government” approach.

“They’re orienting this huge shift,” Bush-Joseph said, as deportation enforcement moves “inward.”

The flood of cash comes when Americans’ views on immigration are shifting. Polling showed 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a “good thing” for the country, having jumped substantially from 64% a year ago, according to Gallup. Only about 2 in 10 U.S. adults say immigration is a bad thing right now.

At the same time, Trump’s approval rating on immigration has slipped. According to a July AP-NORC poll, 43% of U.S. adults said they approved of his handling of immigration, down slightly from 49% in March.

Americans are watching images of often masked officers arresting college students, people at Home Depot lots, parents, workers and a Tunisian musician. Stories abound of people being whisked off to detention facilities, often without allegations of wrongdoing beyond being unauthorized to remain in the U.S.

A new era of detention centers

Detention centers are being stood up, from “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida to the repurposed federal prison at Leavenworth, Kansas, and the proposed new “Speedway Slammer” in Indiana. Flights are ferrying migrants not just home or to El Salvador’s notorious mega-prison but far away to Africa and beyond.

Homan has insisted in recent interviews those being detained and deported are the “worst of the worst,” and he dismissed as “garbage” the reports showing many of those being removed have not committed violations beyond their irregular immigration status.

“There’s no safe haven here,” Homan said recently outside the White House. “We’re going to do exactly what President Trump has promised the American people he’d do.”

Back in February, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the Republican chairman of the Budget Committee, emerged from their private meeting saying Trump administration officials were “begging for money.”

As Graham got to work, Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, the chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and a leading deficit hawk, proposed an alternative border package, at $39 billion, a fraction of the size.

But Paul’s proposal was quickly dismissed. He was among a handful of GOP lawmakers who joined all Democrats in voting against the final tax and spending cuts bill.

Mascaro writes for the Associated Press.

Since the start of President Trump’s second term, the Department of Homeland Security’s social media team has published a stream of content worthy of a meme-slinging basement dweller on 4chan.

Grainy, distorted mug shots of immigrants. Links to butt-kissing Fox News stories about MAGA anything. Whiny slams against politicians who call out la migra for treating the Constitution like a pee pad. Paeans to “heritage” and “homeland” worthy of Goebbels. A Thomas Kinkade painting of 1950s-era white picket fence suburbia straight out of “Leave It to Beaver,” with the caption “Protect the Homeland.”

All of this is gag-inducing, but it has a purpose — it’s revealing the racist id of this administration in real time, in case anyone was still doubtful.

In June, DHS shared a poster, originally created by the white-power scene, of a grim-faced Uncle Sam urging Americans to “report all foreign invaders” by calling Immigration and Customs Enforcement. On July 14, the DHS X account featured a painting of a young white couple cradling a baby in a covered wagon on the Great Plains with the caption, “Remember your Homeland’s Heritage.”

When my colleague Hailey Branson-Potts asked about the pioneer painting and the Trump administration’s trollish social media strategy, a White House spokesperson asked her to “explain how deporting illegal aliens is racist,” adding that haters should “stay mad.”

Now, behold the latest DHS salvo: a July 23 X post of a 19th century painting by John Gast titled “American Progress.”

A blond white woman robed in — yep — white, with a gold star just above her forehead, floats in the center. She holds a book in her right hand and a loop of telegraph wire that her left hand trails across poles. Below her on the right side are miners, hunters, farmers, loggers, a stagecoach and trains. They rush westward, illuminated by puffy clouds and the soft glow of dawn.

The angelic woman is Columbia, the historic female personification of the United States. She seems to be guiding everyone forward, toward Native Americans — bare breasted women, headdress-bedecked warriors — who are fleeing in terror along with a herd of bison and a bear with its mouth agape. It’s too late, though: Covered wagon trains and a teamster wielding a whip have already encroached on their land.

The white settlers are literally in the light-bathed side of the painting, while the Native Americans are shrouded in the dusky, murky side.

It ain’t subtle, folks!

“A Heritage to be proud of, a Homeland worth Defending,” DHS wrote as a caption for “American Progress” — a mantra you may soon find printed on the $20 bill, the way this administration is going.

Gast finished his painting in 1872, when the U.S. was in the last stages of conquest. The Civil War was done. White Americans were moving into the Southwest in large numbers, dispossessing the Mexican Americans who had been there for generations through the courts, squatting or outright murder. The Army was ramping up to defeat Native Americans once and for all. In the eyes of politicians, a new menace was emerging from the Pacific: mass Asian migration, especially Chinese.

Scholars have long interpreted Gast’s infamous work as an allegory about Manifest Destiny — that the U.S. had a God-given right to seize as much of the American continent as it could. John L. O’Sullivan, the newspaperman who coined the term in 1845, openly tied this country’s expansion to white supremacy, expressing the hope that pushing Black people into Latin America, a region “already of mixed and confused blood,” would lead to “the ultimate disappearance of the negro race from our borders.”

O’Sullivan also salivated at the idea of California leaving “imbecile and distracted” Mexico and joining the U.S., adding, “The Anglo-Saxon foot is already on its borders. Already the advance guard of the irresistible army of Anglo-Saxon emigration has begun to pour down upon it, armed with the plough and the rifle.”

This is the heritage the Trump administration thinks is worth promoting.

Vice President JD Vance, center, speaks next to officials including, from left to right, HUD Regional Administrator William Spencer, U.S. Atty. for the Central District of California Bill Essayli, FBI Los Angeles Asst. Director Akil Davis, U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino and ICE Field Office Director Ernie Santacruz at the Wilshire Federal Building in Los Angeles in June.

(Jae C. Hong / AP)

Administration officials act shocked and offended when critics accuse them of racism, but the Trump base knows exactly what’s going on.

“This is our country, and we can’t let the radical left make us ashamed of our heritage,” one X user commented on the “American Progress” post. “Manifest Destiny was an amazing thing!”

“It’s time to re-conquer the land,” another wrote.

DHS seems to be vibing with the Heritage American movement, now bleeding into the conservative mainstream from its far-right beginnings. Its adherents maintain that Americans whose ancestors have been here for generations are more deserving of this nation’s riches than those whose families came over within living memory. Our values, proponents say, shouldn’t be based on antiquated concepts like liberty and equality but rather, the customs and traditions established by Anglo Protestants before mass immigration forever changed this country’s demographics.

In other words, if you’re white, you’re all right. If you’re brown or anything else, you’re probably not down.

Our own vice president, JD Vance, is espousing this pendejada. In a speech to the Claremont Institute earlier this month, Vance outlined his vision of what an American is.

“America is not just an idea,” Vance told the crowd. “We’re a particular place, with a particular people, and a particular set of beliefs and way of life.”

Weird — I learned in high school that people come here not because of how Americans live, but because they have the freedom to live however they want.

“If you stop importing millions of foreigners,” the vice president continued, “you allow social cohesion to form naturally.”

All those Southern and Eastern Europeans who came at the turn of the 20th century seem to have assimilated just fine, even as Appalachia’s Scots-Irish — Vance’s claimed ethnic affiliation — are, by his own admission, still a tribe apart after centuries of living here.

Trump, Vance added, is “ensur[ing] that the people we serve have a better life in the country their grandparents built.” I guess that excludes me, since my Mexican grandparents settled here in the autumn of their lives.

The irony of elevating so-called Heritage Americans is that many in Trumpworld would seem to be excluded.

First Lady Melania Trump was born in what’s now Slovenia. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is the child of Cuban immigrants. Vance’s wife’s parents came here from India. The Jewish immigrant ancestor of Trump’s deportation mastermind, Stephen Miller, wouldn’t be allowed in these days, after arriving at Ellis Island from czarist Russia with $8 to his name. Even Gast and O’Sullivan wouldn’t count as Heritage Americans by the strictest definition, since the former was Prussian and the latter was the son of Irish and English immigrants.

But that’s the evil genius of MAGA. Trump has proclaimed that he welcomes anyone, regardless of race, creed or sexual orientation (except for trans people), into his movement, as long as they’re committed to owning the libs.

Americans are so myopic about their own history, if not downright ignorant, that some minorities think they’re being welcomed into the Heritage Americans fold by Vance and his ilk. No wonder a record number of voters of color, especially Latinos, jumped on the Trump train in 2024.

“American Progress” might as well replace red hats as the ultimate MAGA symbol. To them, it’s not a shameful artifact; it’s a road map for Americans hell-bent on turning back the clock to the era of eradication.

Like I said, not a subtle message at all — if your eyes aren’t shut.

WASHINGTON — President Trump says he wants to hire 10,000 new U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and 3,000 new Border Patrol agents, but experts and the history of law enforcement hiring sprees suggest the process could be challenging, lengthy and possibly result in problematic hires.

The massive funding bill signed into law this month by Trump earmarks about $170 billion for border and immigration enforcement, including tens of billions for new deportation agents and other personnel. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, in a statement to The Times, said that the agency will deliver on the president’s hiring directive.

“In June, our 2025 Career Expo successfully recruited 3,000 candidates and generated 1,000 tentative job offers — nearly double the 564 from 2023,” she wrote. “Our recruitment strategy includes targeted outreach, thorough vetting and partnerships with state and local law enforcement.”

During his first term, when Trump called for ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection to hire 15,000 people collectively, a July 2017 report by the Homeland Security inspector general found significant setbacks.

“Although DHS has established plans and initiated actions to begin an aggressive hiring surge, in recent years the Department and its components have encountered notable difficulties related to long hire times, proper allocation of staff, and the supply of human resources,” the report states.

The independent watchdog concluded that to meet the goal of 10,000 new immigration officers, ICE would need more than 500,000 applicants. For CBP to hire 5,000 new agents, it would need 750,000 applicants.

It doesn’t appear either goal was met. In 2017, ICE hired 371 deportation officers from more than 11,000 applications and took 173 days on average to finalize hires, the news outlet Government Executive reported. And Cronkite News reported that when Trump left office in 2021, Border Patrol had shrunk by more than 1,000 agents.

“The mere mechanics of hiring that many people is challenging and takes time,” said John Pfaff, a law professor at Fordham University who studies U.S. incarceration and has researched the hiring challenges ICE faces.

When the initial version of the funding bill passed the House of Representatives, it laid out a target of at least 10,000 ICE officers, agents and support staff, specifying a minimum of 2,500 people in fiscal year 2025 and 1,875 people in each subsequent year through 2029.

The legislation didn’t outline specific hiring goals for Customs and Border Protection, the parent agency of Border Patrol, though Homeland Security said that, in addition to the 3,000 Border Patrol agents, the funding will also support the hiring of 3,000 more customs officers at ports of entry.

The Senate modified the bill and on final passage, the law removed those hiring specifics, meaning ICE can use the funding for a variety of purposes. ICE has more than 20,000 law enforcement and support personnel. CBP has 60,000 employees, including about 19,000 Border Patrol agents.

Studies on accelerated hiring efforts have found that, in some cases, contracts were poorly managed. Ten months into a 2018 contract with the professional services firm Accenture, by which point CBP had paid $13.6 million, the inspector general found that just two people had accepted job offers.

Residents confront ICE agents and Border Patrol agents over their presence in their neighborhood on Atlantic Boulevard in the city of Bell on June 20.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Hiring thousands of employees would be an even bigger lift today, Pfaff said.

He pointed to the fact that since 2020, police departments nationwide have also struggled to recruit and retain officers. Immigration officer pay is lower than rookie salaries at big-city law enforcement agencies, such as the New York Police Department.

A job posting for a deportation officer offers a salary range of about $50,000 to $90,000. Pfaff compared that with NYPD, where officer salaries start at just over $60,000 and rise to more than $125,000 in less than six years.

Another recruitment push resulted in a wave of high-profile corruption cases.

During a Border Patrol hiring spree from 2006 to 2009, standards for hiring and training were lowered, about 8,000 agents were brought on. The Associated Press reported that the number of employees arrested for misconduct — such as civil rights violations or off-duty crimes like domestic violence — grew yearly between 2007 and 2012, reaching 336, or a 44% increase. More than 100 employees were arrested or charged with corruption, including taking bribes to smuggle drugs or people.

A 2015 report from an internal audit by a CBP advisory council said that “arrests for corruption of CBP personnel far exceed, on a per capita basis, such arrests at other federal law enforcement agencies.”

Josiah Heyman, an anthropology professor who directs the University of Texas at El Paso’s Center of Inter-American and Border Studies, studied the mid-2000s hiring spree. He said smuggling organizations have only gotten more sophisticated since then, as have security measures, so it’s more valuable for smugglers to “buy someone off” instead of attempting to bring in people or drugs undetected.

Beyond corruption, Heyman said he worries the drive to quickly increase Homeland Security staffing could lead to Americans being deported, as well as an increase of assault and abuse cases and deaths of detainees.

“Getting 10,000 [new employees] means basically hiring the people who walk in the door because you’re trying to hit your quota,” he said. “Rapid, mass-hiring lends itself to mistakes and cutting corners.”

The recruitment issues at Border Patrol led to reforms, such as the Anti-Border Corruption Act of 2010, which included mandatory polygraph testing for job applicants (though that requirement was not implemented for ICE applicants). The polygraph tests revealed some applicants had concerning backgrounds, including some believed to have links to organized crime.

The reforms also slowed hiring as two-thirds of Border Patrol applicants began failing the polygraph exam by 2017, the Associated Press reported.

If the government is not able to hit its hiring goals, it might turn to contractors, the U.S. military and local law enforcement to help carry out Trump’s aggressive crackdown on immigration. It is likely to continue its expansion of the 287(g) program, which deputizes local law enforcement to function as deportation agents. Homeland Security said the new budget will fully fund the 287(g) program.

Pfaff said that while using local police to make immigration arrests could help in the short term, many major cities and states, including California, have already banned the agreements or limited cooperation with ICE. Still, ProPublica reported that more than 500 law enforcement agencies have signed 287(g) agreements since January.

Jason Houser, who was ICE’s chief of staff under the Biden administration, said training new hires takes about a year and that classes are typically capped at 50 students.

Houser said another short-term workaround for permanent staff could be the use of contractors.

Most immigrant detainees are held in facilities that are run by private prison companies, including the Florida-based GEO Group and Tennessee-based CoreCivic.

But those companies have a limited inventory of detention space. CBP could also use its funding to erect soft-sided, temporary facilities on military bases within the 100 miles of the U.S. boundary, in which CBP has authority to conduct immigration checkpoints and other enhanced enforcement activities.

Houser said temporary facilities could be set up by October, and they could be staffed with National Guard or U.S. military personnel in administrative, nursing, food and sanitation roles.

Federal law generally prohibits the military from arresting civilians. But Homeland Security officials have said military personnel have the authority to temporarily detain anyone who attacks an immigration agent until law enforcement can arrest them.

But Houser worries that placing young service members, who aren’t trained to conduct civil detention, in charge of those facilities will lead to people getting hurt. He also worries that without other countries agreeing to accept more deportees, the number of immigrants detained for months could quickly balloon.

As of June 29, there were nearly 58,000 immigrants held in detention, according to TRAC, a nonpartisan data research organization. That’s far beyond the congressionally approved 41,500 detention beds this fiscal year.

“This is 9/11-style money,” Houser said. “Think about the money in counterterrorism post-9/11. It turns the entire apparatus toward this goal. Everything in government is going to turn to where the money is, and that’s the scary piece to me.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced last month that temporary protected status for about 5,000 Haitians would end Sept. 2, five months earlier than planned. The Trump administration has cited flawed and contradictory assessments of conditions in Haiti — which, make no mistake, remains unsafe.

Although a U.S. district court halted the action — at least temporarily — and reinstated the original termination date of Feb. 3, the administration is likely to challenge the ruling. The outcome of such a challenge could hinge on whether the courts receive and believe an accurate representation of current events in Haiti.

The administration asserts that “overall, country conditions have improved to the point where Haitians can return home in safety.” Nothing could be further from the truth. But few outsiders are entering and leaving the country lately, so the truth can be hard to ascertain.

In late April and early May, as a researcher for Human Rights Watch, I traveled to the northern city of Cap-Haïtien. For the first time in the several years I have been working in Haiti, violence kept me from reaching the capital, Port-au-Prince, where the airport remains under a Federal Aviation Administration ban since November when gangs shot Spirit, JetBlue and American Airlines passenger jets in flight.

In Cap-Haïtien, I spoke with dozens of people who fled the capital and other towns in recent months. Many shared accounts of killings, injuries from stray bullets and gang rapes by criminal group members.

“We were walking toward school when we saw the bandits shooting at houses, at people, at everything that moved,” a 27-year-old woman, a student from Port-au-Prince, told me. “We started to run back, but that’s when [my sister] Guerline fell face down. She was shot in the back of the head, then I saw [my cousin] Alice shot in the chest.” The student crawled under a car, where she hid for hours. She fled the capital in early January.

This rampant violence is precisely the sort of conditions Congress had in mind when it passed the temporary protected status law in 1990. It recognized a gap in protection for situations in which a person might not be able to establish that they have been targeted for persecution on the basis of their beliefs or identity — the standard for permanent asylum claims — but rather when a person’s life is at real risk because of high levels of generalized violence that make it too dangerous for anyone to be returned to the place.

When an administration grants this designation, it does so for a defined period, which can be extended based on conditions in the recipients’ home country. For instance, protected status for people from Somalia was first designated in 1991 and has been extended repeatedly, most recently through March 17, 2026.

Almost 1.3 million people are internally displaced in Haiti. They flee increasing violence by criminal groups that killed more than 5,600 people in 2024 — 23% more than in 2023. Some analysts say the country has the highest homicide rate in the world. Criminal groups control nearly 90% of the capital and have expanded into other places.

Perversely, the Department of Homeland Security publicly concedes this reality, citing in a Federal Register notification “widespread gang violence” as a reason for terminating temporary protected status. The government argues that a “breakdown in governance” makes Haiti unable to control migration, and so a continued designation to protect people from there would not be in the “national interests” of the United States.

Even judging on that criterion alone, revoking the legal status of Haitians in the U.S. is a bad idea. Sending half a million people into Haiti would be highly destabilizing and counter to U.S. interests — not to mention that their lives would be at risk.

The Trump administration has taken no meaningful action to improve Haiti’s situation. The Kenya-led multinational security support mission, authorized by the U.N. Security Council and initially backed by the United States, has been on the ground for a year. Yet because of severe shortages of personnel, resources and funding, it has failed to provide the support the Haitian police desperately need. In late February, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres recommended steps to strengthen the mission, but the Security Council has yet to act.

The humanitarian situation in Haiti continues to deteriorate. An estimated 6 million people need humanitarian assistance. Nearly 5.7 million face acute hunger.

On June 26, just one day before Homeland Security’s attempt to end Haitians’ protected status prematurely, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau described the ongoing crisis in Haiti as “disheartening.” He said that “public order has all but collapsed” as “Haiti descends into chaos.” Two days earlier, the U.S. Embassy in Haiti issued a security alert urging U.S. citizens in the country to “depart as soon as possible.” These are not indications that “country conditions have improved to the point where Haitians can return home in safety,” as Homeland Security claimed on June 27.

The decision to prematurely end temporary protected status is utterly disconnected from reality. The Trump administration itself has warned that Haiti remains dangerous — and if anything has become more so in recent months. The U.S. government should continue to protect Haitians now living in the United States from being thrown into the brutal violence unfolding in their home country.

Nathalye Cotrino is a senior Americas researcher at Human Rights Watch.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — The United States sent five migrants it describes as “barbaric” criminals to the African nation of Eswatini in an expansion of the Trump administration’s largely secretive third-country deportation program, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday.

The U.S. has already deported eight men to another African country, South Sudan, after the Supreme Court lifted restrictions on sending people to countries where they have no ties. The South Sudanese government has declined to say where those men, also described as violent criminals, are after it took custody of them nearly two weeks ago.

In a late-night post on X, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the five men sent to Eswatini, who are citizens of Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos, had arrived on a plane, but didn’t say when or where.

She said they were all convicted criminals and “individuals so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back.”

The men “have been terrorizing American communities” but were now “off of American soil,” McLaughlin added.

McLaughlin said they had been convicted of crimes including murder and child rape and one was a “confirmed” gang member. Her social media posts included mug shots of the men and what she said were their criminal records and sentences. They were not named.

It was not clear if the men had been deported from prison or if they were detained in immigration operations, and the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement didn’t immediately respond to requests for clarification.

Four of the five countries where the men are from have historically been resistant to taking back some citizens when they’re deported from the U.S. That issue has been a reoccurring problem for Homeland Security even before the Trump administration. Some countries refuse to take back any of their citizens, while others won’t accept people who have committed crimes in the U.S.

Like in South Sudan, there was no immediate comment from Eswatini authorities over any deal to accept third-country deportees or what would happen to them in that country. Civic groups there raised concerns over the secrecy from a government long accused of clamping down on human rights.

“There has been a notable lack of official communication from the Eswatini government regarding any agreement or understanding with the U.S. to accept these deportees,” Ingiphile Dlamini, a spokesperson for the pro-democracy group SWALIMO, said in a statement sent to The Associated Press.

It wasn’t clear if they were being held in a detention center, what their legal status was or what Eswatini’s plans were for the deported men, he said.

An absolute monarchy

Eswatini, previously called Swaziland, is a country of about 1.2 million people between South Africa and Mozambique. It is one of the world’s last remaining absolute monarchies and the last in Africa. King Mswati III has ruled by decree since 1986.

Political parties are effectively banned and pro-democracy groups have said for years that Mswati III has crushed political dissent, sometimes violently.

Pro-democracy protests erupted in Eswatini in 2021, when dozens were killed, allegedly by security forces. Eswatini authorities have been accused of conducting political assassinations of pro-democracy activists and imprisoning others.

Because Eswatini is a poor country, it “may face significant strain in accommodating and managing individuals with complex backgrounds, particularly those with serious criminal convictions,” Dlamini said.

While the U.S. administration has hailed deportations as a victory for the safety and security of the American people, Dlamini said his organization wanted to know the plans for the five men sent to Eswatini and “any potential risks to the local population.”

U.S. is seeking more deals

The Trump administration has said it is seeking more deals with African nations to take deportees from the U.S. Leaders from some of the five West African nations who met last week with President Trump at the White House said the issue of migration and their countries possibly taking deportees from the U.S. was discussed.

Some nations have pushed back. Nigeria, which wasn’t part of that White House summit, said it has rejected pressure from the U.S. to take deportees who are citizens of other countries.

The U.S. also has sent hundreds of Venezuelans and others to Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama, but has identified Africa as a continent where it might find more governments willing to strike deportation agreements.

Rwanda’s foreign minister told the AP last month that talks were underway with the U.S. about a potential agreement to host deported migrants. A British government plan announced in 2022 to deport rejected asylum-seekers to Rwanda was ruled illegal by the U.K. Supreme Court last year.

‘Not a dumping ground’

The eight men deported by the U.S. to war-torn South Sudan, where they arrived early this month, previously spent weeks at a U.S. military base in nearby Djibouti, located on the northeast border of Ethiopia, as the case over the legality of sending them there played out.

The deportation flight to Eswatini is the first to a third country since the Supreme Court ruling cleared the way.

The South Sudanese government has not released details of its agreement with the U.S. to take deportees, nor has it said what will happen to the men. A prominent civil society leader there said South Sudan was “not a dumping ground for criminals.”

Analysts say some African nations might be willing to take third-country deportees in return for more favorable terms from the U.S. in negotiations over tariffs, foreign aid and investment, and restrictions on travel visas.

Imray and Gumede write for the Associated Press. Gumede reported from Johannesburg. AP writer Rebecca Santana in Washington contributed to this report.

Early this month, the U.S. military and masked federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and from Customs and Border Protection invaded a park near downtown Los Angeles — ironically, a park named after Gen. Douglas MacArthur. They came ready for battle, dressed in tactical gear and camouflage, with some arriving on horseback, while others rolled in on armored vehicles or patrolled above in Black Hawk helicopters. Although the invasion force failed to capture anyone, it did succeed in liberating the park from a group of children participating in a summer camp.

The MacArthur Park operation sounds like a scene from “South Park,” but it really did happen — and its implications are terrifying. As Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol agent in charge, said to Fox News: “Better get used to us now, ’cause this is going to be normal very soon. We will go anywhere, anytime we want in Los Angeles.” And President Trump is sending the same message to every Democratic governor and mayor in America who dares oppose him. He will send heavily armed federal forces wherever he wants, whenever he wants and for any reason.

The United States stands at the threshold of an authoritarian breakthrough, and Congress and the courts have given Trump a lot of tools. He’s learned from Jan. 6, 2021, that he needs tight control over the “guys with the guns,” as retired Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley put it. And that’s what he got when Congress dutifully confirmed Trump loyalists to lead all of the “power ministries” — the military, the FBI and the Department of Justice, the rest of the intelligence community and the Department of Homeland Security.

As commander in chief, the president can deploy troops and, under Title 10, he can also put National Guard troops under his command — even against the wishes of local officials. Gov. Gavin Newsom challenged the legality of Trump’s exercise of this authority in Los Angeles last month, and we will see what the courts say — but based on its initial rulings, the Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit appears likely to defer to the president. Under the Posse Comitatus Act, the troops cannot currently enforce laws, but Trump could change that by invoking the Insurrection Act, and we have to assume that the current Supreme Court would defer to him on that as well, following long-standing precedents saying the president’s power under the act is “conclusive.”

Trump could send the military into other cities, but the most dangerous weapon in his authoritarian arsenal might be the newly empowered Department of Homeland Security, which has been given $170 billion by Congress to triple the size of ICE and double its detention capacity.

No doubt, this will put Trump’s “mass deportation” into overdrive, but this is not just about immigration. Remember Portland in 2020, when Trump sent Border Patrol agents into the city? Against the wishes of the Oregon governor and the Portland mayor, the president deployed agents to protect federal buildings and suppress unrest after the killing of George Floyd. Under the Homeland Security Act, the secretary can designate any employee of the department to assist the Federal Protective Service in safeguarding government property and carrying out “such other activities for the promotion of homeland security as the Secretary may prescribe.”

Under that law, DHS officers can also make arrests, on and off of federal property, for “any offense against the United States.” This is why, in 2020, Border Patrol agents — dressed like soldiers and equipped with M-4 semi-automatic rifles — were able to rove around Portland in unmarked black SUVs and arrest people off the streets anywhere in the city. Trump could do this again anywhere in the country, and with the billions Congress has given to immigration and border agencies, DHS could assemble and deploy a formidable federal paramilitary force wherever and whenever Trump wishes.

Of course, under the 4th Amendment, officers need to have at least reasonable suspicion based on specific, articulable facts before they can stop and question someone, and probable cause before they arrest. And on Friday, U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong issued a temporary restraining order blocking ICE and Customs and Border Protection from making such stops without reasonable suspicion, and further holding that this could not be based on apparent race or ethnicity; speaking Spanish or speaking English with an accent; presence at a particular location, such as a Home Depot parking lot; or the type of work a person does. This ruling could end up providing an important constitutional restraint on these agencies, but we shall see. The Trump administration has appealed the ruling.

However, this litigation proceeds, it is important to note that the DHS agencies are not like the FBI, with its buttoned-down, by-the-book culture drilled into it historically and in response to the revelations of J. Edgar Hoover’s abuses of power. DHS and its agencies have no such baggage, and they clearly have been pushing the envelope in Los Angeles — sometimes brutally — over the last month. And even if Frimpong’s ruling stands up on appeal, ICE and Customs and Border Protection will no doubt adapt by training their officers to articulate other justifications for stopping people on the street or in workplaces. Ultimately, these agencies are used to operating near the border, where, in the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist’s words, the federal government’s power is “at its zenith,” and where there are far fewer constitutional constraints on their actions.

These are the tools at Trump’s disposal — and as DHS rushes to hire thousands of agents and build the detention facilities Congress just paid for, these tools will only become more formidable. And one should anticipate that Trump will want to deploy the DHS paramilitary forces to “protect” the 2026 or 2028 elections, alongside federal troops, in the same way they worked together to capture MacArthur Park.

A fanciful, dystopian scenario? Maybe, but who or what would stop it from happening? Congress does not seem willing to stand up to the president — and while individual federal judges might, the Supreme Court seems more likely to defer to him, especially on issues concerning national security or immigration. So, in the words of Bruce Springsteen, “the last check on power, after the checks and balances of government have failed, are the people, you and me.” Suit up.

Seth Stodder served in the Obama administration as assistant secretary of Homeland Security for borders, immigration and trade and previously as assistant secretary for threat prevention and security. He teaches national security and counterterrorism law at USC Law School.

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.

Harsh conditions and an ‘absurd’ allegation

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.”

Deported for beliefs

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.”

Lost time

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.

United States immigration agents have detained prominent Mexican boxer Julio César Chávez Jr. and are working to deport him, with officials saying he has “an active arrest warrant in Mexico for his involvement in organized crime and trafficking firearms, ammunition, and explosives.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials arrested Chávez, 39, in Studio City on Wednesday and are processing him for expedited removal from the U.S., according to the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE.

A Homeland Security news release said Chávez had been flagged as a public safety threat, but “the Biden administration indicated in internal records he was not an immigration enforcement priority.”

Last year in January, officials said, the Los Angeles Police Department arrested Chávez and he was charged with illegal possession of an assault weapon and manufacture or import of a short barreled rifle. He was later convicted of the charges.

Chávez’s manager, Sean Gibbons, told The Times they are currently “working on a few issues” following the boxer’s arrest but had no further comment.

Michael A. Goldstein, a lawyer who has worked with Chávez in previous cases, said his client “was detained outside of his residence by 25 or more ICE and other law enforcement agents.”

“They blocked off his street and took him into custody leaving his family without any knowledge of his whereabouts,” Goldstein said. “The current allegations are outrageous and appear to be designed as a headline to terrorize the community. Mr. Chavez is not a threat to the community.”

The son of Mexican boxing legend Julio César Chávez, widely regarded as the greatest boxer in his country’s history, Chávez Jr. faced off on Saturday against influencer-turned-fighter Jake Paul and lost.

Two weeks before the Anaheim bout against Paul, Chávez held a public workout in Maywood, where he spoke to The Times. He revealed that one of his trainers had skipped the training session out of fear of immigration enforcement.

“I was even scared, to tell you the truth. It’s very ugly,” Chávez said. “I don’t understand the situation — why so much violence? There are a lot of good people, and you’re giving the community an example of violence. I’m from Sinaloa, where things are really ugly, and to come here, to such a beautiful country with everything… and see Trump attacking immigrants, Latinos, for no reason. Not being with God makes you think you know everything. Trump made a bad decision.”

He added: “After everything that’s happened, I wouldn’t want to be deported.”

When U.S. officials announced the arrest Thursday, they referred to Chávez as an “affiliate of the Sinaloa cartel.” The Trump administration has designated the Mexican drug trafficking group as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization.”

“Under President Trump, no one is above the law — including world-famous athletes,” DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

According to the Homeland Security news release, Chávez entered the country legally in August 2023, with a B2 tourist visa that was valid until February 2024. He had filed an application for lawful permanent resident status last year in April, officials said, based on his marriage to Frida Muñoz, a U.S. citizen, who U.S. officials said “is connected to the Sinaloa cartel through a prior relationship with the now-deceased son of the infamous cartel leader Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman.”

El Chapo, a known fan of Chávez Sr. during his fighting days, is now serving a life sentence in U.S. federal prison after a 2019 conviction for his leadership role in the Sinaloa cartel.

Muñoz was previously in a relationship with Edgar Guzmán Loera, El Chapo’s eldest son, who was killed in Sinaloa in 2008.

The couple had a daughter, Frida Sofía Guzmán Muñoz. Following Edgar’s death, Muñoz distanced herself from the family and moved to the United States, eventually beginning a relationship with Chávez. Their daughter, Frida Sofía, has recently launched a music career and frequently attends her stepfather’s fights, including the most recent fight in Anaheim.

Chávez has faced criticism over alleged associations with figures linked to drug trafficking. In lengthy social media videos, he has claimed friendship with Ovidio Guzmán, another son of El Chapo who court records show has agreed to plead guilty to federal drug trafficking charges in Chicago.

Last year, on Dec. 17, according to the Homeland Security news release, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services made a referral to ICE that Chávez was “an egregious public safety threat.”

“However, an entry in a DHS law enforcement system under the Biden administration indicated Chávez was not an immigration enforcement priority,” the release stated.

According to the release, Chávez was allowed to reenter the country on Jan. 4 at the San Ysidro port of entry.

“Following multiple fraudulent statements on his application to become a Lawful Permanent Resident, he was determined to be in the country illegally and removable on June 27,” the Homeland Security release stated.

Chávez has been in the boxing spotlight since childhood, often walking to the ring alongside his father. He began his professional career in 2003 and reached the pinnacle in 2011 when he won the WBC middleweight title against Sebastian Zbik. He defended the belt three times before losing it to Sergio Martínez in 2012.

However, his career has been plagued by discipline issues, substance abuse, and struggles with making weight. In 2017, he faced fellow Mexican star Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez, suffering a lopsided unanimous decision loss that marked a turning point in his career’s decline.

Nicknamed “El Hijo de la Leyenda” (“Son of the Legend”) or simply “JR,” Chávez Jr. has had legal and personal troubles in recent years. He was arrested on suspicion of weapons possession and later entered a residential rehab facility. His battle with addiction has frequently played out in the public eye, including viral social media disputes with his father, one of his most vocal critics, yet also his most steadfast supporter.

According to Homeland Security, Chávez was convicted in 2012 of driving under the influence of alcohol and was sentenced to 13 days in jail and 36 months of probation.

Goldstein, Chávez’s lawyer, noted that his client is a public figure who has been living and working in the U.S. without issue in recent weeks. Goldstein pointed to his recent fight, saying, “His workouts were open to the public and afforded law enforcement countless opportunities to contact him if he was indeed a public threat.”

“He has been focused on his own personal growth and mental health,” Goldstein said. “He is in full compliance with his mental health diversion and all court obligations. For this reason, we fully expect his only pending case to be dismissed as required by statute.”

In 2023, according to Homeland Security, a judge in Mexico issued an arrest warrant for Chávez “for the offense of organized crime for the purpose of committing crimes of weapons trafficking and manufacturing crimes.”

The release said the warrant was for “those who participate in clandestinely bringing weapons, ammunition, cartridges, explosives into the country; and those who manufacture weapons, ammunition, cartridges, and explosives without the corresponding permit.”

Mexican authorities, who typically do not reveal the full names of suspects in criminal cases, said Thursday that federal prosecutors had issued an arrest warrant for Julio “C” in March 2023 for organized crime and arms trafficking. A news release from Mexico’s equivalent of the attorney general’s office said U.S. officials had started the process of turning him over to face justice.

Mexico City bureau chief Patrick J. McDonnell contributed to this report.

A Central American asylum applicant arrested outside an L.A. immigration court is suing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security and the Trump administration for her immediate release and that of her two children, including her 6-year-old son stricken with cancer.

The Honduran woman, not named in court documents, filed a petition for writs of habeas corpus, challenging the legality of her and her family’s detention at a Texas facility. She is also asking for a preliminary injunction that would prevent her family’s immediate deportation to Honduras, as her children cry and pray nightly to be released from a Texas holding facility, according to court documents.

She and her two children, including a 9-year-old daughter, are facing two removal proceedings concurrently: a previous removal proceeding involving their asylum request and this recent expedited removal process.

The woman claims the government violated many of their rights, including the due process clause of the 5th Amendment.

Her attorneys noted that DHS determined she was not a flight risk when she was paroled into the country and that her detention was unjustified.

The woman’s lawyers also argued that she was not given an opportunity to contest her family’s detention in front of a neutral adjudicator.

They also argue that the family’s 4th Amendment right to not be unlawfully arrested were violated.

The Honduran mother is being represented by several groups, including attorney Kate Gibson Kumar of the Texas Civil Rights Project, the San Antonio-based Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Service and the immigrant advocacy group Raices Texas.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in San Antonio on Tuesday.

An after-hours email to the Department of Homeland Security was not immediately answered.

One of the focal points of the lawsuit is the fate of the woman’s son.

The youth was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia at the age of 3 and has undergone chemotherapy treatments, including injecting chemotherapeutic agents into his cerebrospinal fluid, according to court documents.

He began treatment in Honduras and completed two years of chemotherapy, at which point the mother believes he no longer has leukemia cells in his blood, according to court documents.

The son, however, needs regular monitoring and medical care for his condition, according to court documents.

Last year, the family fled to the United States to “seek safety” after they were subject to “imminent, menacing death threats” in Honduras, according to court documents.

They applied for entrance while waiting in Mexico and received a CBP One app appointment in October to apply for asylum. They presented themselves at an undisclosed border entry, were processed and were paroled in the U.S., according to court documents.

They were scheduled to appear before a Los Angeles immigration court and moved to the area to live with family.

Both children enrolled in local public schools, attended Sunday church and were learning English, according to court documents.

The trio arrived at court May 29 for a hearing for their asylum request and were caught off guard when a Homeland Security lawyer asked for their case to be dismissed, according to court documents.

The woman told an immigration judge “we wish to continue [with our cases],” according to court documents.

The judge granted the dismissal and the Honduran mother and two children were immediately arrested by plainclothes ICE agents upon leaving the courtroom in the hallway, according to court documents. The woman had a June 5 medical appointment scheduled for her son’s cancer diagnosis, which he couldn’t attend because of the arrest.

The family was detained for hours on the first floor before being taken to an undisclosed immigration center in the city, according to court documents.

All three “cried in fear” and the young boy urinated on himself and remained in wet clothing “for hours,” according to court documents.

The trio were placed on a flight to San Antonio along with several other families. The date of the flight was not available.

After landing, the family was transported to a detention center in Dilley, Texas, where they have since resided.

The children have cried each night and prayed “for God to take them out of the detention center,” according to court documents.

The mother claims that the federal government did nothing to monitor her son’s leukemia for days.

Her lawyers have also sought the boy’s release for medical treatment, a request that was not fulfilled.