The remarks, which he made in the Oval Office in front of reporters, were Trump’s latest broadside against the judiciary, which he has said is inhibiting his deportation powers. Trump falsely claimed that countries like Congo and Venezuela had emptied their prisons into the United States and that he therefore needed to bypass the constitutional demands of due process to expel the immigrants quickly.

Constitutional Concerns Raised

“I hope we get cooperation from the courts, because we have thousands of people that are ready to go out and you can’t have a trial for all of these people,” Trump said. “It wasn’t meant. The system wasn’t meant. And we don’t think there’s anything that says that.”

He claimed that the “very bad people” he was removing from the country included killers, drug dealers and the mentally ill.

“We’re getting them out, and a judge can’t say, ‘No, you have to have a trial,’” Trump said. “The trial is going to take two years. We’re going to have a very dangerous country if we’re not allowed to do what we’re entitled to do.”

Backlash and Criticism

He made similar statements in a social media post on Monday in which he wrote, “We cannot give everyone a trial, because to do so would take, without exaggeration, 200 years.”

Trump’s remarks have drawn swift backlash.

Rep. Jonathan L. Jackson, D-Ill., wrote on social media: “‘We can’t give everyone a trial’ — excuse me, what?! That’s straight-up #dictator talk. Due process isn’t optional because it’s inconvenient. This is the United States, not a banana republic. If you want to shred the Constitution, just say so.”

Supreme Court Intervention

Trump’s comments came after the Supreme Court, early Saturday, temporarily blocked the administration from deporting a group of Venezuelan migrants it accused of being gang members under the expansive powers of a rarely invoked wartime law.

Trump issued a proclamation last month invoking the Alien Enemies Act as a way to deport immigrants he alleged were members of Tren de Aragua, a violent Venezuelan street gang. The law, which was passed in 1798, has been used only three times before in U.S. history, during periods of declared war.

The Supreme Court has ruled that those subject to the statute needed to be given the opportunity to challenge their removal.

The Trump administration has also been dogged by the case of a Salvadoran man living in Maryland who was deported because of an “administrative error.” The Supreme Court ordered the administration nearly two weeks ago to facilitate his return so he could go through the legal system in the United States, but the White House has so far not fulfilled that order.

The White House posted on social media that the man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, was “never coming back.”

—

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Luke Broadwater / Doug Mills
c. 2025 The New York Times Company

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“I just thought it was absurd,” the Austin, Texas, immigration attorney said.

It was an apparent glitch in the Trump administration’s dismantling of another Biden-era policy that allowed people to live and work in the country temporarily. U.S. Customs and Border Protection is quietly revoking two-year permits of people who used an online appointment app at U.S. border crossings with Mexico called CBP One, which brought in more than 900,000 people starting in January 2023.

The revocation of CBP One permits has lacked the fanfare and formality of canceling Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands whose homelands were previously deemed unsafe for return and humanitarian parole for others from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who came with financial sponsors. Those moves came with official notices in the Federal Register and press releases. Judges halted them from taking effect after advocacy groups sued.

CBP One cancellation notices began landing in inboxes in late March without warning, some telling recipients to leave immediately and others giving them seven days. Targets included U.S. citizens.

Timothy J. Brenner, a Connecticut-born lawyer in Houston, was told April 11 to leave the U.S. “I became concerned that the administration has a list of immigration attorneys or a database that they’re trying to target to harass,” he said.

Lack of Formal Notification

CBP confirmed in a statement that it issued notices terminating temporary legal status under CBP One. It did not say how many, just that they weren’t sent to all beneficiaries, which totaled 936,000 at the end of December.

CBP said notices may have been sent to unintended recipients, including attorneys, if beneficiaries provided contact information for U.S. citizens. It is addressing those situations case-by-case.

Online chat groups reflect fear and confusion, which, according to critics, is the administration’s intended effect. Brenner said three clients who received the notices chose to return to El Salvador after being told to leave.

“The fact that we don’t know how many people got this notice is part of the problem. We’re getting reports from attorneys and folks who don’t know what to make of the notice,” said Hillary Li, counsel for the Justice Action Center, an advocacy group.

Fear and Confusion Among Recipients

President Donald Trump suspended CBP One for new arrivals his first day in office but those already in the U.S. believed they could stay at least until their two-year permits expired. The cancellation notices that some received ended that sense of temporary stability. “It is time for you to leave the United States,” the letters began.

“It’s really confusing,” said Robyn Barnard, senior director for refugee advocacy at Human Rights First. “Imagine how people who entered through that process feel when they’re hearing through their different community chats, rumors or screenshots that some friends have received notice and others didn’t.”

Attorneys say some CBP One beneficiaries may still be within a one-year window to file an asylum claim or seek other relief.

Notices have been sent to others whose removal orders are on hold under other forms of temporary protection. A federal judge in Massachusetts temporarily halted deportations for more than 500,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who came since late 2022 after applying online with a financial sponsor and flying to a U.S. airport at their own expense.

Maria, a 48-year-old Nicaraguan woman who cheered Trump’s election and arrived via that path, said the notice telling her to leave landed like “a bomb. It paralyzed me.”

Maria, who asked to be named only by her middle name for fear of being detained and deported, said in a telephone interview from Florida that she would continue cleaning houses to support herself and file for asylum.

Salomon reported from Miami. Associated Press writers Rebecca Santana in Washington and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed.

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The visit was the latest bid by Democrats in Congress to amplify the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man whom Trump administration officials have admitted to erroneously sending back to his home country, and hundreds of other immigrants the administration has hastily deported.

Reps. Robert Garcia of California, Maxwell Alejandro Frost of Florida, Yassamin Ansari of Arizona and Maxine E. Dexter of Oregon met with William H. Duncan, the U.S. ambassador to El Salvador, at the embassy in San Salvador on Monday morning. They urged the ambassador to raise the issue with Salvadoran officials and to press for transparency about Abrego Garcia’s detention.

Meeting With US Ambassador

The lawmakers said they had not been permitted by Salvadoran officials to meet with Abrego Garcia.

After their meeting, a U.S. Embassy official said the lawmakers’ concerns had been relayed to the Salvadoran government.

Related Story: Supreme Court Blocks, for Now, New Deportations Under 18th Century Wartime Law

Concerns Relayed, Meeting Denied

The official said it was the first time the embassy had raised questions to President Nayib Bukele’s administration about the treatment of more than 250 Venezuelan migrants now being held in Salvadoran custody.

At a news conference after the meeting, the Democrats denounced the Trump administration’s failure to comply with court orders, including a Supreme Court decision instructing the administration to take steps to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States.

“We left that meeting with absolutely zero indication that this administration is going to facilitate, or wants to facilitate, the return of Abrego Garcia back to the United States so he can go through due process,” Frost told reporters.

The lawmakers’ visit follows that of Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who traveled to El Salvador last week. After two days of resistance from Bukele’s government, Salvadoran officials allowed Van Hollen to meet with Abrego Garcia face-to-face, delivering him unexpectedly to the senator’s hotel for a meeting that appeared staged to emphasize how well he was being treated.

—

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Robert Jimison and Annie Correal/Daniele Volpe
c. 2025 The New York Times Company

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In a brief order, the court directed the Trump administration not to remove Venezuelans held in the Bluebonnet Detention Center “until further order of this court.”

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented.

The high court acted in an emergency appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union contending that immigration authorities appeared to be moving to restart removals under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. The Supreme Court had said earlier in April that deportations could proceed only if those about to be removed had a chance to argue their case in court and were given “a reasonable time” to contest their pending removals.

Related Story: Senator Slams ‘Margaritagate’ Stunt During Deportee Visit

ACLU Files Emergency Appeal

“We are deeply relieved that the Court has temporarily blocked the removals. These individuals were in imminent danger of spending the rest of their lives in a brutal Salvadoran prison without ever having had any due process,” ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt said in an email.

On Friday, two federal judges refused to step in as lawyers for the men launched a desperate legal campaign to prevent their deportation, even as one judge said the case raised legitimate concerns. Early Saturday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also refused to issue an order protecting the detainees from being deported.

The administration is expected to return to the Supreme Court quickly in an effort to persuade the justices to lift their temporary order.

Related Story: Trump Officials’ Defiance Over Abrego Garcia’s Deportation Is ‘Shocking,’ Appeals Court Says

Historical Context of the Alien Enemies Act

The ACLU had already sued to block deportations of two Venezuelans held in the Bluebonnet facility and sought an order barring removals of any immigrants in the region under the Alien Enemies Act.

In an emergency filing early Friday, the ACLU warned that immigration authorities were accusing other Venezuelan men held there of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang, which would make them subject to President Donald Trump’s use of the act.

The act has only been invoked three previous times in U.S. history, most recently during World War II to hold Japanese-American civilians in internment camps. The Trump administration contended it gave them power to swiftly remove immigrants they identified as members of the gang, regardless of their immigration status.

Following the unanimous high court order on April 9, federal judges in Colorado, New York and southern Texas promptly issued orders barring removal of detainees under the AEA until the administration provides a process for them to make claims in court.

But there had been no such order issued in the area of Texas that covers Bluebonnet, which is located 24 miles north of Abilene in the far northern end of the state.

Related Story: Judge Finds Probable Cause to Hold Trump Admin in Contempt for Violating Deportation Order

Legal Battles Continue Across Jurisdictions

U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix, a Trump appointee, this week declined to bar the administration from removing the two men identified in the ACLU lawsuit because Immigration and Customs Enforcement filed sworn declarations that they would not be immediately deported. He also balked at issuing a broader order prohibiting removal of all Venezuelans in the area under the act because he said removals hadn’t started yet.

But the ACLU’s Friday filing included sworn declarations from three separate immigration lawyers who said their clients in Bluebonnet were given paperwork indicating they were members of Tren de Aragua and could be deported by Saturday. In one case, immigration lawyer Karene Brown said her client, identified by initials, was told to sign papers in English even though the client only spoke Spanish.

“ICE informed F.G.M. that these papers were coming from the President, and that he will be deported even if he did not sign it,” Brown wrote.

Gelernt said in a Friday evening hearing before District Judge James E. Boasberg in Washington, D.C., that the administration initially moved Venezuelans to its south Texas immigration facility for deportation. But since a judge banned deportations in that area, it has funneled them to the Bluebonnet facility, where no such order exists. He said witnesses reported the men were being loaded on buses Friday evening to be taken to the airport.

With Hendrix not agreeing to the ACLU’s request for an emergency order, the group turned to Boasberg, who initially halted deportations in March. The Supreme Court ruled the orders against deportation could only come from judges in jurisdictions where immigrants were held, which Boasberg said made him powerless Friday.

“I’m sympathetic to everything you’re saying,” Boasberg told Gelernt. “I just don’t think I have the power to do anything about it.”

Boasberg this week found there’s probable cause that the Trump administration committed criminal contempt by disobeying his initial deportation ban. He was concerned that the paper that ICE was giving those held did not make clear they had a right to challenge their removal in court, which he believed the Supreme Court mandated.

Drew Ensign, an attorney for the Justice Department, disagreed, saying that people slated for deportation would have a “minimum” of 24 hours to challenge their removal in court. He said no flights were scheduled for Friday night and he was unaware of any Saturday, but the Department of Homeland Security said it reserved the right to remove people then.

ICE said it would not comment on the litigation.

Also Friday, a Massachusetts judge made permanent his temporary ban on the administration deporting immigrants who have exhausted their appeals to countries other than their home countries unless they are informed of their destination and given a chance to object if they’d face torture or death there.

Some Venezuelans subject to Trump’s Alien Enemies Act have been sent to El Salvador and housed in its notorious main prison.

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The classified assessment from the National Intelligence Council, released this month, is more comprehensive and authoritative than an earlier intelligence product released Feb. 26 and reported last month by The New York Times, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the assessment. They were not authorized to address the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The new assessment draws input from the 18 agencies that comprise the intelligence community. It repeatedly stated that Tren de Aragua, a gang that originated in a prison in Venezuela, is not coordinated with or supported by the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, or senior officials in the Venezuelan government. While the assessment found minimal contact between some members of the gang and low-level members of the Venezuelan government, there was a consensus that there was no coordination or directive role between gang and government.

The assessment provided support and extensive sourcing for those assertions, according to the officials. Of the 18 organizations that make up the U.S. government’s intelligence community, only one — the FBI — did not agree with the findings.

It is not uncommon for intelligence agencies to differ in their assessments on matters of great public interest. But the latest assessment was significant for its near unanimity.

Several years ago, under former Director Christopher Wray, the FBI assessed that the COVID-19 pandemic most likely originated from a lab leak, though that was hardly the uniform consensus. The position got recent support from a CIA assessment declassified in January.

Asked for comment, the White House shared a statement on Friday from the office of the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.

“President Trump took necessary and historic action to safeguard our nation when he deported these violent Tren de Aragua terrorists,” the statement said. “Now that America is safer without these terrorists in our cities, deep state actors have resorted to using their propaganda arm to attack the President’s successful policies.”

The Assessment Comes Amid a Court Ruling on the Alien Enemies Act

The intelligence assessment’s findings come as the Supreme Court ruled last week that the Trump administration can use the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 wartime law, to deport Venezuelan migrants — but that the migrants must get court hearings before they’re taken from the United States.

Tren de Aragua has been linked to a series of kidnappings, extortion and other crimes throughout the Western Hemisphere. Those activities are tied to a mass exodus of millions of Venezuelans as their country’s economy unraveled over the past decade.

The Alien Enemies Act was created to give the president wide powers to imprison and deport noncitizens in time of war. Until now, it has been used just three times, most recently eight decades ago during World War II to justify the detention of Japanese-American civilians.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which has filed legal challenges to the Trump administration’s use of the law, contends that Trump does not have the authority to use the Alien Enemies Act against a criminal gang rather than a recognized state.

Trump Says Tren De Aragua ‘Infiltrated’ Maduro Government

President Donald Trump invoked the act in March, declaring in a proclamation that Tren de Aragua “is closely aligned with, and indeed has infiltrated, the Maduro regime, including its military and law enforcement apparatus.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi repeated that assertion Monday night in an interview on Fox News Channel. Bondi defended the invocation of the wartime law and called Tren de Aragua “a foreign arm of the Venezuelan government.”

“They are organized. They have a command structure. And they have invaded our country,” she said.

Last month, the Trump administration used the Alien Enemies Act to fly more than 130 men accused of being members of the gang to El Salvador, where the U.S. has paid for the men to be held in a notorious prison. The Venezuelans deported under the act received no opportunity to challenge the orders, and attorneys for many of the men have said there is no evidence they are gang members.

The Trump administration has argued that the gang has become an invading force and designated it, along with seven other crime groups, as “foreign terrorist organizations.”

The latest intelligence assessment was first reported Thursday by The Washington Post.

Associated Press writers David Klepper and Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

The post US Intel Contradicts Trump Claims Linking Gang to Venezuelan Government appeared first on GV Wire.

And that argument is precisely the one that Donald Trump wants to have.

This dichotomy is playing out as Democrats double down on their defense of Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man mistakenly deported and imprisoned without communication. They’re framing his case as a threat to individual rights to challenge President Trump’s immigration policies.

The effort comes as the Trump administration pushes back harder, turning this deportation into a test case for his crusade against illegal immigration despite a Supreme Court order saying Abrego Garcia must be returned to the United States.

In trying to shape public discourse against Democrats, White House officials are accusing them of defending a foreigner who they’ve claimed is a gang member based on testimony of an informant — and whose wife admitted she once filed a protective order against him despite now advocating for his return.

“Due process and separation of powers are matters of principle,” Democratic Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said Thursday. “Without due process for all, we are all in danger.”

Related Story: Trump Officials’ Defiance Over Abrego Garcia’s Deportation Is ‘Shocking,’ Appeals Court Says

Democrats Began the Year Without Unity on Immigration

The opposition started the year splintered on its immigration strategy, especially after an election season where Trump led Republicans to victories by harping on illegal border crossings and vowing to conduct mass deportations.

But now many Democrats are latching onto the Abrego Garcia case, with a senator trekking down to El Salvador and a number of House representatives working to organize official visits to the Salvadoran prison. On Thursday evening, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen posted photos of himself meeting in El Salvador with Abrego Garcia. The lawmaker did not provide an update on the status of Abrego Garcia, whose attorneys are fighting to force the Trump administration to facilitate his return to the U.S.

Trump responded Friday with a social media post saying Van Hollen “looked like a fool yesterday standing in El Salvador begging for attention.”

Still, other high-profile Democrats such as Hillary Clinton, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders are making a public appeal by painting the case as an example of government overreach.

But even Newsom, who has presidential aspirations, recognized Trump’s ability to curry favor with the public.

“These are not normal times, so we have to call it out with clarity and conviction,” Newsom said in an interview with YouTube commentator Brian Tyler Cohen. “But we’ve got to stay focused on it so the American people can stay focused on it. Because his success is his ability to win every damn news cycle and get us distracted and moving in 25 different directions.”

Immigration was a relative strength for Trump in a March AP-NORC poll, which found that about half of U.S. adults approved of his approach to immigration. And he came into office with strong support for one component of his immigration agenda — deporting people with certain kinds of criminal histories. The vast majority of U.S. adults favored deporting immigrants convicted of violent crimes, according to a January AP-NORC poll.

There was far less consensus about how to handle deportations more broadly, though.

The January poll found that removing immigrants who are in the country illegally and have not committed a violent crime was divisive, with only about 4 in 10 U.S. adults in support and slightly more than 4 in 10 opposed. Along those lines, a Pew Research Center poll from late February found that while about half of Americans said at least “some” immigrants living in the country illegally should be deported, very few people in that group supported deporting immigrants who have a job or are married to a U.S. citizen.

Related Story: Maryland Sen. Van Hollen Denied Entry to the El Salvador Prison Holding Abrego Garcia

Trump Staunchly Defends His Administration’s Position

The Trump administration has acknowledged Abrego Garcia’s deportation was a result of “an administrative error,” saying immigration officials were aware of his protection from deportation. But Trump officials have described Abrego Garcia, who was living in Maryland, as a “terrorist” and claimed he is a member of the MS-13 gang, even though he was never criminally charged in the U.S. with gang involvement. “He is not coming back to our country,” Attorney General Pam Bondi has said.

In defending his administration’s position, Trump says he is doing what he was elected to do and justifying the need to deport millions, saying a “big percentage” of migrants who arrived during the Biden administration are criminals — an assertion for which there is no evidence. Studies show immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans.

And while it is not clear when Abrego Garcia arrived in the U.S., he began fighting against deportation proceedings in 2019 — before Democratic President Joe Biden took office.

“I was elected to get rid of those criminals — get them out of our country or to put them away, but to get them out of our country. And I don’t see how judges can take that authority away from the president,” Trump, a Republican, said Thursday.

Constitutional Concerns Arise

A three-judge panel from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Trump’s government is “asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order.”

While immigration is a relative strength, defiance of court rulings could put his administration in a trickier situation. A Washington Post/Ipsos poll conducted in February found that about 8 in 10 Americans think the Trump administration should follow a federal court’s ruling if it determines that the administration has done something illegal.

Rep. Glenn Ivey, a Democrat who represents the Maryland district where Abrego Garcia lived, told The Associated Press that no allegations brought up by Trump officials would change how he approaches the case. Ivey, who is more aligned with the party’s moderates, described the issue as about more than just immigration.

“On the one hand, it’s an immigration issue. On the other hand, it’s also a constitutional issue,” he said. “Yes, there’s an immigration component, but it’s rapidly growing into a separation of powers conflict that could actually end up taking on historic proportions.”

Gomez Licon reported from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim in Washington and Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix contributed to this report.

The post The Abrego Garcia Case Pulls Democrats Into the Immigration Debate Trump Wants to Have appeared first on GV Wire.

A three-judge panel from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously refused to suspend a judge’s decision to order sworn testimony by Trump administration officials to determine if they complied with her instruction to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.

Escalating Conflict Between Branches

Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, who was nominated by Republican President Ronald Reagan, wrote that he and his two colleagues “cling to the hope that it is not naïve to believe our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos.”

“This case presents their unique chance to vindicate that value and to summon the best that is within us while there is still time,” Wilkinson wrote.

The seven-page order amounts to an extraordinary condemnation of the administration’s position in Abrego Garcia’s case and also an ominous warning of the dangers of an escalating conflict between the judiciary and executive branches the court said threatens to “diminish both.” It says the judiciary will be hurt by the “constant intimations of its illegitimacy” while the executive branch “will lose much from a public perception of its lawlessness.”

When asked by reporters Thursday afternoon if he believed Abrego Garcia was entitled to due process, President Donald Trump ducked the question.

“I have to refer, again, to the lawyers,” he said in the Oval Office. “I have to do what they ask me to do.”

The president added: “I had heard that there were a lot of things about a certain gentleman — perhaps it was that gentleman — that would make that case be a case that’s easily winnable on appeal. So we’ll just have to see. I’m gonna have to respond to the lawyers.”

Administration Defends Actions

The Justice Department didn’t immediately comment on the decision. In a brief accompanying their appeal, government lawyers argued that courts do not have the authority to “press-gang the President or his agents into taking any particular act of diplomacy.”

“Yet here, a single district court has inserted itself into the foreign policy of the United States and has tried to dictate it from the bench,” they wrote.

The panel said the Republican president’s government is “asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order.”

“Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear,” Wilkinson wrote.

Related Story: Judge Finds Probable Cause to Hold Trump Admin in Contempt for Violating Deportation Order

Supreme Court Weighs In

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court said the Trump administration must work to bring back Abrego Garcia. An earlier order by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis “properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador,” the high court said in an unsigned order with no noted dissents.

The Justice Department appealed after Xinis on Tuesday ordered sworn testimony by at least four officials who work for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department.

The 4th Circuit panel denied the government’s request for a stay of Xinis’ order while they appeal.

“The relief the government is requesting is both extraordinary and premature,” the opinion says. “While we fully respect the Executive’s robust assertion of its Article II powers, we shall not micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge attempting to implement the Supreme Court’s recent decision.”

Wilkinson, the opinion’s author, was regarded as a contender for the Supreme Court seat that was ultimately filled by Chief Justice John Roberts in 2005. Wilkinson’s conservative pedigree may complicate White House efforts to credibly assail him as a left-leaning jurist bent on thwarting the Trump administration’s agenda for political purposes, a fallback line of attack when judicial decisions run counter to the president’s wishes.

Joining Wilkinson in the ruling were judges Stephanie Thacker, who was nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama, and Robert Bruce King, who was nominated by Democratic President Bill Clinton.

White House officials claim they lack the authority to bring back the Salvadoran national from his native country. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele also said Monday that he would not return Abrego Garcia, likening it to smuggling “a terrorist into the United States.”

While initially acknowledging Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported, the administration has dug in its heels in recent days, describing him as a “terrorist” even though he was never criminally charged in the U.S.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said Wednesday that “he is not coming back to our country.”

Administration officials have conceded that Abrego Garcia shouldn’t have been sent to El Salvador, but they have insisted that he was a member of the MS-13 gang. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers say there is no evidence linking him to MS-13 or any other gang.

The appeals court panel concluded that Abrego Garcia deserves due process, even if the government can connect him to a gang.

“If the government is confident of its position, it should be assured that position will prevail in proceedings to terminate the withholding of removal order,” the opinion says.

Xinis also was skeptical of assertions by White House officials and Bukele that they were unable to bring back Abrego Garcia. She described their statements as “two very misguided ships passing in the night.”

“The Supreme Court has spoken,” Xinis said Tuesday.

___

Associated Press writer Will Weissert contributed reporting.

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The brief order by the justices was unsigned and gave no reasoning, as is typical in such emergency cases. But the move is a sign that the justices consider the matter significant enough that they would immediately consider it, rather than letting it play out in lower courts.

The justices announced they would defer any consideration of the government’s request to lift a nationwide pause on the policy until they heard oral arguments, which they set for May 15.

That means that the executive order, which would end birthright citizenship for the children of immigrants in the country without legal permission and foreign residents, will remain paused in every state while the court considers the case.

In three emergency applications, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to find that lower courts had erred in imposing bans on the policy that extended beyond the parties involved in the litigation. It did not ask the court to weigh in on the constitutionality of the executive order, which was challenged soon after it was signed.

Related Story: Next Phase of DOGE Is $5 Million Immigrant Visas

Trump’s Executive Order to End Birthright Citizenship

On Trump’s first day in office, he issued the executive order ending birthright citizenship, the guarantee that a person born in the United States is automatically a citizen, for certain children.

Birthright citizenship has long been considered a central tenet of the United States. The 14th Amendment, ratified after the Civil War, declares that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”

In 1898, the Supreme Court affirmed that right in a landmark case, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, guaranteeing automatic citizenship for nearly all children born in the country. Since then, courts have upheld that expansive interpretation.

Some allies of Trump have argued that the 14th Amendment should never have been interpreted to give citizenship to everyone born in the country. Among them: John Eastman, a constitutional law scholar and former Supreme Court law clerk who was one of the architects of the scheme to create fake slates of pro-Trump electors in states that Joe Biden won in the 2020 election.

A number of legal challenges followed Trump’s executive order, and federal courts in Massachusetts, Maryland and Washington state issued temporary injunctions that put the order on hold for the entire country while courts considered the challenges.

Those temporary blocks, called nationwide injunctions, have been hotly debated for years, and the Trump administration focused its request to the Supreme Court as a challenge to such orders.

In a brief to the justices, Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that nationwide injunctions were a relatively recent phenomenon that had a “dramatic upsurge” during the first Trump administration “followed by an explosion in the last three months.” Sauer argued that those blocks on policies exceeded lower courts’ authority and “gravely encroach on the president’s executive power” under the Constitution.

“This court’s intervention is urgently needed to restore the constitutional balance of separated powers,” Sauer wrote.

Lawyers for those challenging the executive order urged the justices to reject the government’s argument.

In a brief filed on behalf of Washington state, Arizona and Oregon, lawyers called the focus on nationwide injunctions a “myopic request” that “fails this court’s rules for granting a stay.”

“Being directed to follow the law as it has been universally understood for over 125 years is not an emergency warranting the extraordinary remedy of a stay,” the brief from the group of states said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Abbie VanSickle

c. 2025 The New York Times Company

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It has done a lot more than that. But Wednesday, New York Times journalists Ryan Mac and Hamed Aleaziz reported that Elon Musk’s outfit is doing something entirely new: building a system to sell $5 million “special immigration visas.”

Musk, whose exact government job description remains unclear, has been working on building the software, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on a recent podcast. Musk and his team are trying to speed up the typical vetting process for immigrants so that rich applicants can obtain U.S. residency in a matter of weeks. They have been working with employees from the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to create the website and application process.

It’s a story that reveals how DOGE’s functional power has seemingly expanded, with the group going so far as to rework a corner of the nation’s immigration system. Ryan and Hamed noted that it also shows how the Musk outfit is not only trying to cut jobs and contracts but also generate revenue.

And it’s an example of how its staff members are building structures and systems that might outlast them.

Many DOGE Employees Considered ‘Special Government Employees’

Many of DOGE’s employees — and Musk — are “special government employees,” who are allowed to perform “important, but limited” services to the government for 130 days a year.

Eighty-six days into the Trump administration, the clock on those special government employees is ticking. Musk and Trump have both alluded to the idea that the tech billionaire’s time in government could soon wind down, though they are not expected to cut ties.

Musk and DOGE have made a lot of changes so far. Members of the department are building new systems like this one. They are leading an effort to consolidate government data more broadly, despite the objections of career staff members and national security experts.

They have pushed to cut tens of thousands of jobs and spur early retirements, which federal workers across the government say has sapped agencies of critical institutional knowledge. And they have kneecapped agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The State Department, which is trying to absorb the remains of that aid agency, offers an interesting window into the next phase of DOGE.

A DOGE staff member, Jeremy Lewin, 28, now has a top role in foreign assistance, the Times’ Edward Wong reported this week, which will give Lewin the power to oversee what’s left of USAID. The Associated Press observed Tuesday that his job amounts to one of the highest-ranking formal government positions for a member of Musk’s team.

The next round of changes the Trump administration envisions for the State Department, though, could be much harder. Edward and Karoun Demirjian obtained a copy of an internal memo outlining a plan that would cut the department’s funding almost in half. It proposes major cuts to humanitarian assistance and global health programs, eliminating almost all funding for international organizations like the United Nations and NATO, and much more.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been clear that he, not Musk or DOGE, is the one in charge of cuts to the State Department. But, as Edward and Karoun point out, he also needs the agreement of Congress to make them — and it’s not clear how seriously such cuts will be taken there.

—

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Jess Bidgood/Tom Brenner
c. 2025 The New York Times Company

The post Next Phase of DOGE Is $5 Million Immigrant Visas appeared first on GV Wire.

The actions by the federal government to terminate students’ legal status have left hundreds of scholars at risk of detention and deportation. Their schools range from private universities like Harvard and Stanford to large public institutions like the University of Maryland and Ohio State University to some small liberal arts colleges.

At least 1,024 students at 160 colleges, universities and university systems have had their visas revoked or their legal status terminated since late March, according to an Associated Press review of university statements, correspondence with school officials and court records.

In lawsuits against the Department of Homeland Security, students have argued the government lacked justification to cancel their visa or terminate their legal status.

Related Story: International Students at UC Merced, CSU Among Those Seeing Visas Revoked

Why Is the Government Canceling International Students’ Visas?

Visas can be canceled for a number of reasons, but colleges say some students are being singled out over infractions as minor as traffic violations, including some long in the past. In some cases, students say it’s unclear why they were targeted.

“The timing and uniformity of these terminations leave little question that DHS has adopted a nationwide policy, whether written or not, of mass termination of student (legal) status,” ACLU of Michigan attorneys wrote in a lawsuit on behalf of students at Wayne State University and the University of Michigan.

In New Hampshire, a federal judge last week issued a restraining order in the case of a Dartmouth College computer science student from China, Xiaotian Liu, who had his status terminated by the government. Attorneys have filed similar challenges in federal court in Georgia and California.

Homeland Security officials did not respond to a message seeking comment.

In some high-profile cases, including the detention of Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil, President Donald Trump’s administration has argued it should be allowed to deport noncitizens over involvement in pro-Palestinian activism. But in the vast majority of visa revocations, colleges say there is no indication affected students had a role in protests.

“What you’re seeing happening with international students is really a piece of the much greater scrutiny that the Trump administration is bringing to bear on immigrants of all different categories,” said Michelle Mittelstadt, director of public affairs at the Migration Policy Institute.

Related Story: US Colleges Say International Student Visas Are Being Revoked

How Do Student Visas Work?

Students in other countries must meet a series of requirements to obtain a student visa, usually an F-1. After gaining admission to a school in the U.S., students go through an application and interview process at a U.S. embassy or consulate abroad.

Students on an F-1 visa must show they have enough financial support for their course of study in the U.S. They have to remain in good standing with their academic program and are generally limited in their ability to work off-campus during their academic program.

Entry visas are managed by the State Department. Once they’re in the U.S., international students’ legal status is overseen by the Student and Exchange Visitor Program under the Department of Homeland Security.

In recent weeks, leaders at many colleges learned the legal residency status of some of their international students had been terminated when college staff checked a database managed by Homeland Security. In the past, college officials say, legal statuses typically were updated after colleges told the government the students were no longer studying at the school.

After Losing Legal Residency, Students Are Told to Leave the Country

Historically, students who had their visas revoked were allowed to keep their legal residency status and complete their studies.

The lack of a valid entry visa only limited their ability to leave the U.S. and return, something they could reapply for with the State Department. But if a student has lost legal residency status, they risk detention by immigration authorities. Some students already have left the country, abandoning their studies to avoid being arrested.

Higher education leaders worry the arrests and visa revocations could discourage students overseas from pursuing higher education in the United States.

The lack of clarity of what is leading to revocations can create a sense of fear among students, said Sarah Spreitzer, vice president of government relations at the American Council on Education.

“The very public actions that are being taken by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security around some of these students, where they are removing these students from their homes or from their streets, that’s not usually done unless there is a security issue when a student visa is revoked,” she said. “The threat of this very quick removal is something that’s new.”

Colleges Are Trying to Reassure Students

In messages to their campuses, colleges have said they are asking the federal government for answers on what led to the terminations. Others have re-emphasized travel precautions to students, recommending they carry their passports and other immigration documents with them.

College leaders spoke of a growing sense of uncertainty and anxiety.

“These are unprecedented times, and our normal guiding principles for living in a democratic society are being challenged,” University of Massachusetts Boston Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco wrote in an email. “With the rate and depth of changes occurring, we must be thoughtful in how we best prepare, protect, and respond.”

Suárez-Orozco said the legal residency status had been canceled for two students and “five other members of our university community including recent graduates participating in training programs.”

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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