Justices grant homeland security request to end temporary protected status while appeal proceeds in lower court
Donald Trump’s administration can end legal protections that have shielded about 350,000 Venezuelans from potential deportation, the supreme court ruled on Monday.
America’s highest court granted a request by Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, to revoke temporary protected status (TPS) for the Venezuelans while an appeal proceeds in a lower court.
Continue reading...Administration’s appeal to quickly deport Venezuelans under Alien Enemies Act rejected with two dissenting
The supreme court has rejected the Trump administration’s request to remove a temporary block on deportations of Venezuelans under a rarely used 18th-century wartime law.
Over two dissenting votes, the justices acted on an emergency appeal from lawyers for Venezuelan men who have been accused of being gang members, a designation that the administration says makes them eligible for rapid removal from the United States under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
Continue reading...Secretary of state says opponents of Maduro have left diplomatic compound in Caracas and are ‘safely on US soil’
Five members of Venezuela’s political opposition have left the Argentinian diplomatic compound in their country’s capital, Caracas, where they had sheltered for more than a year to avoid arrest, and were in the United States on Tuesday, US secretary of state Marco Rubio said.
Rubio did not provide details of the group’s movements to reach the US, but he described the event as a rescue operation.
Continue reading...Daniel Lozano-Camargo, 20, was deported in March in violation of a legal settlement over his asylum application
The identity of a second man illegally deported from the US by the Trump administration in defiance of a court order and now in detention in El Salvador has been revealed.
Daniel Lozano-Camargo, a 20-year-old Venezuelan, was deported to El Salvador’s notorious Cecot terrorism confinement facility in March under the White House’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, Politico reported.
Continue reading...Neighboring Guyana has also laid claim to the mineral rich Essequibo, and Venezuela plans to elect officials to govern it
Venezuela’s government has said it “categorically” rejected a ruling from the U N’s top court ordering the South American country to refrain from holding elections for officials who supposedly would oversee a resource-rich region in neighboring Guyana that both countries claim as their own.
The government of Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan president, in a statement underscored its historical position to not recognize the jurisdiction of the international court of justice and asserted that international law does not allow the body to “interfere” or “attempt to prohibit” an election.
Continue reading...Justice department calls on court to hold judge’s order against ending temporary protected status for 300,000
The Trump administration asked the US supreme court on Thursday to intervene and assist in its attempt to strip temporary protected status (TPS) from more than 300,000 Venezuelan migrants in the US, a move that would clear the way for their deportation.
The justice department asked the supreme court justices to put on hold a federal judge’s order from March that halted the decision of the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, to terminate the temporary legal status that previously was granted to some Venezuelans.
Continue reading...Men at Bluebonnet fear deportation to El Salvador under wartime law despite maintaining they do not have gang ties
Detainees at the Bluebonnet immigrant detention center in the small city of Anson, Texas, sent the outside world a message this week: SOS.
With a Reuters drone flying nearby, 31 men formed the letters in the dirt yard of the facility on Monday.
Continue reading...Salvadorian president denounced as ‘tyrannical’ as he floats trading 252 prisoners with fellow authoritarian regime
The families of prisoners being held by the authoritarian governments of El Salvador and Venezuela have condemned President Nayib Bukele’s offer to swap 252 Venezuelan detainees sent to his jails by the Trump administration for the same number of political prisoners incarcerated by Nicolás Maduro’s regime.
Nelson Suárez, whose brother was among the Venezuelan immigrants sent from the US to a notorious maximum-security jail in El Salvador last month, said he was desperate for the release of his brother, from whom he has heard nothing in five weeks.
Continue reading...Nayib Bukele offered to exchange 252 Venezuelan migrants deported to El Salvador for 252 prisoners in Venezuela
Venezuela’s chief prosecutor has accused El Salvador’s president of being a “tyrannical” human trafficker after Nayib Bukele offered to exchange the 252 Venezuelan migrants deported to his country’s prisons by Donald Trump for the same number of political prisoners in Venezuela.
Bukele made the offer on Sunday night in a message addressed directly to his authoritarian counterpart Nicolás Maduro. “I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that includes the repatriation of 100% of the 252 Venezuelans who were deported, in exchange for the release and delivery of an identical number … of the thousands of political prisoners that you hold,” El Salvador’s leader posted.
Continue reading...Venezuela’s chief prosecutor hits back at ‘cynical’ offer by ‘neofascist’ Salvadoran leader and demands rights for Venezuelan prisoners
El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, has proposed sending 252 Venezuelans deported from the US and imprisoned in his country to Venezuela, in exchange for “political prisoners” held by Venezuela.
On Sunday, Bukele asked that the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, hand over 252 “of the political prisoners you are holding” under his proposed deal.
Continue reading...Judge also warned he could name independent prosecutor if White House stonewalled contempt proceedings
A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that there was probable cause to hold Trump officials in criminal contempt for violating his temporary injunction that barred the use of the Alien Enemies Act wartime power to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members.
In a scathing 46-page opinion, James Boasberg, the chief US district judge for Washington, wrote that senior Trump officials could either return the people who were supposed to have been protected by his injunction, or face contempt proceedings.
Continue reading...Merwil Gutiérrez sent from New York to El Salvador prison although family says he has no criminal history or gang ties
A 19-year-old Venezuelan in New York City reportedly was apprehended by Trump administration immigration authorities and deported to El Salvador despite agents’ realizing he was not whom they meant to arrest in a targeted operation.
Merwil Gutiérrez, whose family opened an asylum case after arriving in the US, was deported from the Bronx to the notorious Cecot prison in El Salvador despite his relatives’ insistence that he has no gang ties or criminal history, according to Documented, a newsroom dedicated to telling the stories of immigrants in New York City. The Gutiérrez family says it has been left without information or answers.
Continue reading...‘Average man from Derbyshire’ shocked to find photo of tattoo celebrating child’s birth was used to deport migrants
A British man was shocked to discover that a photo of his tattoo was included in a US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) document used to identify alleged members of a notorious Venezuelan criminal gang, Tren de Aragua (TdA).
Earlier this week, 44-year-old Pete Belton, who lives in the English county of Derbyshire, told the BBC that he was stunned to find a photo of his forearm tattoo featured in a DHS document among nine images of tattoos intended to assist in “detecting and identifying” TdA members.
Continue reading...Actions allow the detained men to fight the government’s attempt to remove them under rarely invoked law
Federal judges in New York and Texas on Wednesday took legal action to block the government from moving five Venezuelans out of the country until they can fight the government’s attempt to remove them under a rarely invoked law that gives the president the power to imprison and deport noncitizens in times of war.
The men were identified as belonging to the Tren de Aragua gang, a claim their lawyers dispute.
Continue reading...US president had previously called for the impeachment of James Boasberg after the judge blocked his deportation flights
The US judge set to hear a new lawsuit over the Signal fiasco is the same judge whom Donald Trump has argued should be impeached for blocking him from using wartime powers to deport Venezuelan migrants.
James Boasberg, a district judge in Washington, was assigned on Wednesday to a lawsuit alleging Trump officials violated federal record-keeping laws by using a Signal group chat to discuss looming military action against Yemen’s Houthis.
Continue reading...Move takes effect on 24 April as president weighs also stripping parole status from some 240,000 Ukrainians in US
Donald Trump’s administration will revoke the temporary legal status of 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans in the United States, according to a Federal Register notice on Friday, in the latest expansion of his crackdown on immigration.
It will be effective on 24 April.
Continue reading...One detained man’s lawyer says he is gay artist who had fled persecution in his home country, not a gang member
A lawyer for one of the Venezuelan immigrants sent from the US to a notorious mega prison in El Salvador has accused the Trump administration of waging a “sickening” campaign of psychological warfare against asylum seekers and migrants.
“In my 15 years of representing people in removal proceedings in the United States, this is the most shocking thing that I’ve ever seen happen to one of our clients,” said Lindsay Toczylowski, a California-based lawyer for the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef) group.
Continue reading...Administration claims it didn’t stop flights despite judge’s instructions because he did not write it in the formal order
The Trump administration claimed to a federal judge on Monday that it did not recall deportation flights of hundreds of suspected Venezuelan gang members over the weekend despite his specific instructions because that was not expressly included in the formal written order issued afterwards.
The administration also said that even if James Boasberg, the chief US district judge in Washington, had included that instruction in his formal order, his authority to compel the planes to return disappeared the moment the planes entered international airspace.
Continue reading...Trump administration used Alien Enemies Act to deport about 250 alleged gang members to El Salvador
The White House has denied allegations that it engaged in a “a blatant violation” of a judge’s order by deporting about 250 Venezuelan alleged gang members to El Salvador on Saturday, with the US border czar appearing to contradict the denial on Monday by declaring: “I don’t care what the judges think.”
The US district judge James E Boasberg has scheduled a hearing for Monday afternoon to demand an explanation about why his Saturday order temporarily blocking the deportation flights had apparently been ignored.
Continue reading...John Feeley launches stinging critique of US president’s bully-boy approach to Latin America
The former US ambassador to Panama has launched a stinging critique of Donald Trump’s approach towards Latin America, comparing his conduct to that of the ruthless and egotistical fictional mob boss Tony Soprano.
In the first month of his presidency, the US president has shocked some observers with his aggressive focus on a region many expected him to largely ignore. Early steps have included threatening to “take back” the Panama Canal, accusing Mexico’s government of being in cahoots with narco-traffickers, sending an envoy to meet the Venezuelan dictator, Nicolás Maduro, and clashing with Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, over deportation flights.
Continue reading...