Rod Price recounts ‘frantic’ call he received from Sarah Shaw after her detention at US border while returning from Canada
The father of a New Zealand woman who has been held in a US immigration detention centre for three weeks with her six-year-old son is hopeful the pair will be released by the end of the week.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detained Sarah Shaw and her youngest son after they attempted to re-enter the US from Canada on 24 July.
Continue reading...Under Joseph Humire, the thinktank tracked alleged crimes by the Venezuelan gang in the US. A non-profit found multiple false entries
A senior official appointed to the defense department led a thinktank that promoted fake news about the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang, according to InSight Crime, a non-profit analyzing organized crime.
Joseph Humire was appointed this summer to be the head of policy focusing on the western hemisphere within the office of the under secretary of defense for policy. He was previously the executive director of a conservative thinktank focused on global security. Humire’s appointment comes as the Trump administration is ramping up its aggressive strategy against organized crime in Latin America and the Venezuelan government, which it accuses of working with TdA.
Continue reading...Officials in Mason voted to convert prison to Ice facility run by CoreCivic, US’s second-largest private prison operator
Officials in a rural Tennessee town voted on Tuesday to approve agreements to turn a former prison into an immigration detention facility operated by a private company, despite loud objections from upset residents and activists during a contentious public meeting.
The five-member board of aldermen in Mason, along with the mayor, Eddie Noeman, and vice-mayor, Reynaldo Givhan, met in a fire station garage to discuss converting the closed West Tennessee detention facility into a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention center run by CoreCivic Inc, America’s second-largest private prison operator.
Continue reading...Justice department accuses Joshua Schroeder of ‘reckless misrepresentations’ and seeks financial penalties
The US Department of Justice is seeking sanctions against a lawyer who sought to block the deportation of his client, in another sign the Trump administration is ramping up its efforts to enact mass deportations.
Earlier this year, Joshua Schroeder, a California-based attorney, was able to briefly delay the deportation of his client, a Hmong man from Laos, through several court filings.
Continue reading...Trump removed Billy Long from post months after agency said it couldn’t release information on some taxpayers
The removal of the Internal Revenue Service commissioner Billy Long after just two months in the post came after the federal tax collection agency said it could not release some information on taxpayers suspected of being in the US illegally, it was reported on Saturday.
The IRS and the White House had clashed over using tax data to help locate suspected undocumented immigrants soon before Long was dismissed by the administration, according to the Washington Post.
Continue reading...Roland Beainy from Lebanon, who opened chain of restaurants in support of president, says charges ‘not true’
The owner of a Donald Trump-themed hamburger restaurant chain in Texas is facing deportation after immigration authorities under the command of the president detained him.
Roland Mehrez Beainy, 28, entered the US as “a non-immigrant visitor” from Lebanon in 2019 and was supposed to have left the country by 12 February 2024, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) spokesperson told the Guardian.
Continue reading...The actor will be sworn in ‘ASAP’ amid the federal agency’s recruitment drive and unprecedented immigration raids that have sparked protest across the US
Former Superman actor Dean Cain has announced he has signed up to join Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), in order to support US president Donald Trump’s anti-immigration agenda.
The federal law enforcement agency has aggressively ramped up immigration raids since Trump’s return to the White House and was recently awarded $75bn in extra funding as part of his “big beautiful bill”, which includes billions for hiring an additional 10,000 Ice agents by 2029.
Continue reading...Deal follows deportations to South Sudan and Eswatini despite concerns about international law breaches
The Rwandan government has said it would accept up to 250 migrants from the US under a deal agreed with Washington but gave no details on who could be included.
The Trump administration’s deportation drive has included negotiating arrangements to send people to third countries, among them South Sudan and Eswatini.
Continue reading...In May reports revealed that White House officials had set goals for Ice agents to arrest 3,000 people per day
In a new court filing, attorneys for the Trump administration denied the existence of a daily quota for immigration arrests, despite reports and prior statements from White House officials about pursuing a goal of at least 3,000 deportations or deportation arrests per day.
In May, reports from both the Guardian and Axios revealed that during a meeting with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) leaders on 21 May, the White House adviser Stephen Miller and the Department of Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, demanded that immigration agents seek to arrest 3,000 people per day.
Continue reading...‘Brave and heroic Americans’ campaign seeks investigators, officers and lawyers after agency gets funds from Congress
The agency responsible for carrying out Donald Trump’s mass deportations is launching a recruiting campaign to entice “brave and heroic Americans” to serve as new deportation officers, lawyers and investigators as the government gears up for a major expansion of immigration enforcement thanks to a recent infusion of money from Congress. The icing on the cake: a promise of up to $50,000 in signing bonuses.
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement campaign, which rolled out late Tuesday, recalls recruiting posters from the second world war with images of Uncle Sam and the words “AMERICA NEEDS YOU.” There also are photos of the US president and top homeland security officials with the words “DEFEND THE HOMELAND” across the images.
Continue reading...Mexican president said citizens held at controversial Florida immigration jail ‘should be repatriated immediately’
Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has said that the country is demanding the repatriation of at least 30 of its citizens currently being held in the controversial Florida immigration detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz”.
The Mexican leader said on Wednesday that a note had been sent to US authorities “demanding that any Mexicans who might enter this detention center should be repatriated immediately”.
Continue reading...Congresswoman says she ‘can think of nothing more American’ than Ice dragging people out of court
Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace has claimed she cruises the web for videos of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents dragging people into custody, saying she “can think of nothing more American”.
“I have to tell you – one of my favorite things to watch on YouTube these days are … court hearings where illegals are in court and Ice shows up to drag them out of court and deport them,” the South Carolina representative said during an appearance on Sunday on Fox Report Weekend.
Continue reading...Venezuelans back home under Maduro-Trump deal tell of isolation, beatings and dirty water – ‘a living nightmare’
Venezuelans that the Trump administration expelled to El Salvador’s most notorious megaprison endured “state-sanctioned torture”, lawyers for some of the men have said, as more stories emerge about the horrors they faced during capacity.
When José Manuel Ramos Bastidas – one of 252 Venezuelan men that the US sent to El Salvador’s most notorious mega-prison – finally made it back home to El Tocuyo on Tuesday, the first thing he did was stretch his arms around his family.
Continue reading...Blow to US president as judge rejects claim that sanctuary policies ‘thwart’ federal efforts to enforce immigration laws
A judge in Illinois dismissed a Trump administration lawsuit Friday that sought to disrupt limits Chicago imposes on cooperation between federal immigration agents and local police.
The lawsuit, filed in February, alleged that so-called sanctuary laws in the nation’s third-largest city “thwart” federal efforts to enforce immigration laws.
Continue reading...Footage shows people sleeping on floor next to toilets in facility that agency says is not a detention site
Two videos have surfaced shedding light on what is happening behind closed doors at a New York federal building where people are being confined after being seized by officers on their way out of immigration court on the 12th floor, with the footage offering a rare look inside a controversial and closely guarded space that is part of Donald Trump’s anti-immigration crackdown.
The filming, shared by the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), captures one of several rooms at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan, on the building’s 10th floor, where accounts have emerged of people being detained in wholly unsuitable conditions with few basic provisions, but there had been no public access to direct evidence.
Continue reading...The department said in a statement that Ice never arrested or deported Luis Leon to Guatemala, and that the reports were a ‘hoax’
Confusion swirled around the fate of a Chilean resident of the US after the Department of Homeland Security called reports of his deportation to Guatemala a “hoax”.
On 18 July, the Morning Call newspaper of Allentown, Pennsylvania, reported that the family of the man, Luis Leon, said he was handcuffed after showing up at to immigration office on 20 June to report a lost green card. They said he was first sent to a detention facility in Minnesota, then to Guatemala, where they said a Chilean relative informed them he was in a hospital.
Continue reading...Homan vows to escalate Ice operations after off-duty officer allegedly shot by undocumented person in New York City
The Trump administration is targeting sanctuary cities in the next phase of its deportation drive after labelling them “sanctuaries for criminals” following the shooting of an off-duty law enforcement officer in New York City, allegedly by an undocumented person with a criminal record.
Tom Homan, Donald Trump’s hardline border czar, vowed to “flood the zone” with Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (Ice) agents in an all-out bid to overcome the lack of cooperation he said the government faced from Democrat-run municipalities in its quest to arrest and detain undocumented people.
Continue reading...Top US university returns to court to fight against funding freeze that halted major research efforts
Ever since Donald Trump began his second presidency, he has used an “invented” national energy emergency to help justify expanding oil, gas and coal while slashing green energy – despite years of scientific evidence that burning fossil fuels has contributed significantly to climate change, say scholars and watchdogs.
It’s an agenda that in only its first six months, has put back environmental progress by decades, they say.
Continue reading...Legal advocates and attorneys general argue practice poses accountability issues and contributes to a climate of fear
The head of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) said on Sunday that he will continue allowing the controversial practice of his officers wearing masks over their faces during their arrest raids.
As Donald Trump has ramped up his unprecedented effort to deport immigrants around the country, Ice officers have become notorious for wearing masks to approach and detain people, often with force. Legal advocates and attorneys general have argued that it poses accountability issues and contributes to a climate of fear.
Continue reading...Under new policy, such immigrants would not be able to request bond from immigration judge before deportation
The Trump administration is reportedly seeking to bar millions of immigrants who allegedly arrived in the US without legal status from receiving a bond hearing as they try to fight their deportations in court.
The new policy would apply during removal proceedings, which can take years, for millions of immigrants who entered the country from Mexico in recent decades, according to a report from the Washington Post, which reviewed documents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).
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