ReportWire

Tag: Immigrants

  • How Trump Is Still Deporting People Wherever He Wants

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    In March of 2025, the Trump Administration was widely criticized for sending more than two hundred Venezuelans to CECOT, a notoriously brutal mega-prison in El Salvador. Yet, over the past eleven months, the Administration has continued the practice of deporting large numbers of noncitizens to so-called third countries, or countries to which the deportee typically has no connection. This is often because many immigrants living in America have judicial orders that prevent the government from sending them to their home country owing to the risk of persecution. This third-country practice has continued, however, despite the fact that a number of deportees have been sent back to their home countries after arriving in the third country. (Others remain stuck in prisons.) Recently, the Administration sent nine people of various nationalities to Cameroon, where most of them are now being held in detention until they agree to return to their home countries.

    I recently spoke by phone with Ahilan Arulanantham, a law professor at U.C.L.A. and the faculty co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy there. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed how judges have tried to limit the Trump Administration’s use of this third-country loophole by demanding that it bring wrongly deported immigrants home, the legal process that allows this type of deportation, and how the Supreme Court’s unwillingness to rein in the Trump Administration has strained federal courts.

    Early in Trump’s second term, there was a lot of concern about the degree to which immigration authorities would start removing people from America and sending them to third countries. A year later, how prevalent is this?

    I think it’s important to distinguish between third-country arrangements that result in the deportees being imprisoned in a foreign country, and other kinds of third-country arrangements, where, for example, Mexico has agreed to take in people who are not from Mexico and then, in some way or another, encourage those people to go back to their home countries. I would say that, in the case of the latter, the deportations to countries where people are just left at sea have happened on a massive, really unprecedented scale.

    The former, which are these deportation-to-prison arrangements, obviously happened with El Salvador, and then in other places like Ghana, and they’re also very troubling. But the total number of them is small. It’s probably less than a hundred, if you leave out the ones to El Salvador.

    In January, the Trump Administration secretly deported nine people to Cameroon, where none of them are from, according to the Times. It seems like when the Administration is legally prohibited from deporting people to a country where they may be persecuted, they send people to a third country, and then essentially throw up their hands and say, “Well, if the third country is going to send them to the country that they’re not supposed to be sent to, we can’t do anything.” Some legal observers argue that this workaround is just as illegal. How do you see it?

    I think it’s clearly illegal for two different reasons. The Administration’s recent arrangement with Cameroon resulted in the imprisonment of these nine people in Cameroon, and, at least in the reporting that I’ve read, most of them will be imprisoned unless they agree to go back to their home country. So that’s punishment. When you send somebody to a place to be imprisoned, that is imprisonment without trial. And so that, I think, is unquestionably illegal.

    Separate from that, even in cases where they’re being sent to these places, and it’s not necessarily resulting in imprisonment, but it’s resulting in a follow-on deportation, that is illegal—absent the person having had an opportunity to challenge that arrangement in the United States in immigration court. The law requires deportees to receive notice of the country to which they are going to be removed, and then an opportunity to raise any claims against that decision in court. This was challenged in Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D. last year, a class-action lawsuit challenging the government’s practice of sending people to third countries without providing any notice or opportunity to challenge the legality of that arrangement. A lower court held a hearing, took evidence, and issued a ruling declaring that procedure unlawful and requiring the government to provide notice in such situations. But the Supreme Court then stayed that order in mid-April without real explanation. They didn’t say that the lower court was wrong. They just said that the government can keep doing third-country deportations while the case is pending.

    Is the Court going to come back and provide an explanation for why it stayed the order at some point?

    The way the Supreme Court handles stay orders requires that the case come back to the Supreme Court, and then the Court has to either agree to take it or not. And if they decide not to take it, then the stay expires at that point. So you’re right that every time the Supreme Court stays an order in these cases, it means that the case will return to the Supreme Court, but it’s not like that happens immediately. That can take months and months, and there is, in my view, a direct line from the Supreme Court’s stay order in the D.V.D. case to the months of third-country removals that we’ve been seeing without people having any opportunity to contest the legality of that practice.

    So is the lack of any opportunity for the deportees to have the Supreme Court rule on the challenge to third-country removal before they were flown away the reason that you think this was illegal?

    The law on this is that a noncitizen gets to elect the country to which they will be deported in the event of an order of removal after a deportation hearing. The immigration judge asks the person to elect which country they wish to be removed to. In that case, the government has to try to send the person to their requested country. But if they can’t, for whatever reason—and one reason might be because the immigration judge has said, “You’ll be tortured there,” and barred it—then the government has to go through a whole list of other possible places to which they can send the person, like places where the person transited through or any other place where the person held any residency status. If none of those places agree to take them, they can be deported to any other country that accepts the person. But in that case they have to tell the person, We’re going to send you to this country. And because that wasn’t the subject of the original removal proceeding, they have to be given the opportunity to challenge the removal to that country.

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    Isaac Chotiner

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  • A Theology of Immigration

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    When I was working with refugees in Lebanon and Turkey and the Iraqi crisis, Rwanda, other places—you know, when everything’s taken away from you, God is all you have left. So we need a way to speak about who God is and who we are before God, and I think theology gives us a way of doing that.

    I’ve noticed something similar in debates around homelessness and immigration: the church does enormous amounts of work on the ground, but theological questions seem to have been pushed out of the broader public discourse.

    I did my graduate work at Berkeley, so when I was in California, I can remember one day I woke up and, literally, on the other side of the bed where I slept, outside the window, was a homeless person. And for me that began a long journey of trying to understand theology from the other side of the wall—not just from the perspective of a library or a room but from the streets and from the people who are living on the edge.

    What you see in the church’s teachings called the seamless garment of life runs through homelessness, runs through immigration, runs through the elderly, runs through all other life issues. When I spend time speaking to migrants at borders around the world, I often ask them, What is it that you would want people to hear? Or if you could preach on Sunday, what would you want people to know? And often it’s about dignity. It’s about saying, We’re human beings here, and you’re treating us like we’re dogs.

    The issue is these people have become nonpersons. I mean, they’re just not even seen. And I think part of the work of the church is saying, Actually, these people belong in a human community, and they belong to be seen, and therefore they belong in the discourse as well.

    You make this core argument that all people are created in the image of God, Imago Dei. That’s something that many people would say they believe. But when you see the news right now, the horrific videos coming out, the responses to them—do you feel that idea is in crisis?

    What we’ve also included in that understanding is that in the fall, we lost the likeness, but we never lose the image. There’s a deep core within us that’s indestructible—our worth and our value before God.

    One of the things I often say is that if we can’t see in the immigrant or in the homeless or in people who are considered different from us something of ourselves, we’ve lost touch with our humanity. So I think that’s what’s at stake. We’ve deported our own soul, if we’ve really lost touch with our own humanity.

    You argue that every person should have everything necessary for living a truly human life. What does that look like in practice if it’s not simply open borders?

    The church recognizes that nations have the right to control their borders, but it’s not an absolute right. It’s subjugated to a larger sense of what’s called the universal destination of all goods. And what does the church mean by that? In practice, that everything belongs to God, and when we die, we’re gonna have to give up everything anyway. So there’s a way in which we’re, at best, stewards in this life, not owners of anything in an absolute way. And even our nationalities and our national identities have only a relative importance in light of a larger vision of what the kingdom of God is about.

    The question is, what’s the narrative that shapes our consciousness on this? If the narrative is, This is my stuff, this is my country, this is where I belong, this is what I own, and I have to defend it and protect it—that’s one way of understanding it. But if the narrative is, Everything I have is a gift, and when I die, I’m going to give everything up, that I’m a steward and not an owner, and I can be judged by how I use what I’ve been given—that’s a different way of inhabiting the world. If the narrative is about how do we move closer to communion with God, and in closer connection with each other, with a life and a faith that does justice, in terms of caring for one another, that’s a very different way of inhabiting the world.

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    Jay Caspian Kang

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  • Trump’s $45 billion expansion of immigrant detention sites faces pushback from communities – WTOP News

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    A proposed ICE facility just north of Richmond, Virginia, drew hundreds of people last week to a tense public hearing of the Hanover County Board of Supervisors.

    A man takes photos of a warehouse as federal officials tour the facility to consider repurposing it as an ICE detention facility Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Belton, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)(AP/Charlie Riedel)

    With tensions high over federal immigration enforcement, some state and local officials are pushing back against attempts by President Donald Trump’s administration to house thousands of detained immigrants in their communities in converted warehouses, privately run facilities and county jails.

    Federal officials have been scouting cities and counties across the U.S. for places to hold immigrants as they roll out a massive $45 billion expansion of detention facilities financed by Trump’s recent tax-cutting law.

    The fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti during immigration enforcement actions in Minnesota have amplified an already intense spotlight on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, increasing scrutiny of its plans for new detention sites.

    A proposed ICE facility just north of Richmond, Virginia, drew hundreds of people last week to a tense public hearing of the Hanover County Board of Supervisors.

    “You want what’s happening in Minnesota to go down in our own backyard? Build that detention center here, and that’s exactly what will happen,” resident Kimberly Matthews told county officials.

    As a prospective ICE detention site became public, elected officials in Kansas City, Missouri, scrambled to pass an ordinance aimed at blocking it. And mayors in Oklahoma City and Salt Lake City — after raising concerns about building permits — announced last week that property owners won’t be selling or leasing their facilities for immigration detention.

    Meanwhile, legislatures in several Democratic-led states pressed forward with bills aimed at blocking or discouraging ICE facilities. A New Mexico measure targets local government agreements to detain immigrants for ICE. A novel California proposal seeks to nudge companies running ICE facilities out of the state by imposing a 50% tax on their proceeds.

    The number of ICE detention sites has doubled

    More than 70,000 immigrants were being detained by ICE as of late December, up from 40,000 when Trump took office, according to federal data.

    In a little over a year, the number of detention facilities used by ICE nearly doubled to 212 sites spread across 47 states and territories. Most of that growth came through existing contracts with the U.S. Marshals Service or deals to use empty beds at county jails.

    Trump’s administration now is taking steps to open more large-scale facilities. In January, ICE paid $102 million for a warehouse in Washington County, Maryland, $84 million for one in Berks County, Pennsylvania, and more than $70 million for one in Surprise, Arizona. It also solicited public comment on a proposed warehouse purchase in a flood plain in Chester, New York.

    Federal immigration officials have toured large warehouses elsewhere, without releasing many details about the efforts.

    “They will be very well structured detention facilities meeting our regular detention standards,” ICE said in a statement, adding: “It should not come as news that ICE will be making arrests in states across the U.S. and is actively working to expand detention space.”

    Detention site foes face legal limitations

    State and local governments can decline to lease detention space to ICE, but they generally cannot prohibit businesses and private landowners from using their property for federal immigrant detention centers, said Danielle Jefferis, an associate law professor at the University of Nebraska who focuses on immigration and civil litigation.

    In 2023, a federal court invalidated a California law barring private immigrant detention facilities for infringing on federal powers. A federal appeals court panel cited similar grounds in July while striking down a New Jersey law that forbade agreements to operate immigrant detention facilities.

    After ICE officials recently toured a warehouse in Orlando, Florida, as a prospective site, local officials looked into ways to regulate or prevent it. But City Attorney Mayanne Downs advised them in a letter that “ICE is immune from any local regulation that interferes in any way with its federal mandate.”

    Officials in Hanover County also asked their attorney to evaluate legal options after the Department of Homeland Security sent a letter confirming its intent to purchase a private property for use as an ICE processing facility. The building sits near retail businesses, hotels, restaurants and several neighborhoods.

    Although some residents voiced concerns that an ICE facility could strain the county’s resources, there’s little the county can do to oppose it, said Board of Supervisors Chair Sean Davis.

    “The federal government is generally exempt from our zoning regulations,” Davis said.

    Kansas City tries to block new ICE detention site

    Despite court rulings elsewhere, the City Council in Kansas City voted in January to impose a five-year moratorium on non-city-run detention facilities. The vote came on the same day ICE officials toured a nearly 1-million-square-foot (92,903-square-meter) warehouse as a prospective site.

    Manny Abarca, a county lawmaker, said he initially was threatened with trespassing when he showed up but was eventually allowed inside the facility, where a deputy ICE field office director told him they were scouting for a 7,500-bed site.

    Abarca is trying to fortify Kansas City’s resistance by proposing a countywide moratorium on permits, zoning changes and development plans for detention facilities not run by the county or a city.

    “When federal power is putting communities on edge, local government has a responsibility to act where we have authority,” he said.

    Kansas City is looking to follow a similar path as Leavenworth, Kansas, which has argued that private prison firm CoreCivic must have an operating permit to reopen a shuttered prison as an ICE detention facility.

    As other ICE proposals have surfaced, officials in Social Circle, Georgia, El Paso, Texas, and Roxbury Township, New Jersey, all have raised concerns about a lack of water and sewer capacity to transform warehouses into detention sites.

    Nationally, it remains to be seen whether local governments can effectively deter ICE facilities through building permits and regulations.

    “We’re currently in a moment where it is being tested,” Jefferis said. “So there is no clear answer as to how the courts are going to come down.”

    New Mexico targets existing ICE facilities

    The Democratic-led New Mexico House on Friday passed legislation banning state and local government contracts for ICE detention facilities, sending it to the Senate. Similar bills are pending in Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island.

    The Otero County Processing Center, 25 miles (40 kilometers) from downtown El Paso, Texas, is one of three privately run ICE facilities that could be affected by the New Mexico legislation. The facility includes four immigration courtrooms and space for more than 1,000 detainees. The county financed its construction in 2007 with the intent to use it as a revenue source, and plans to pay off the remaining $16.5 million debt by 2028.

    Otero County Attorney Roy Nichols said the county is prepared to sue the Legislature under a state law that prevents impairment of outstanding revenue bonds.

    Republicans warned of job losses and economic fallout if the legislation forces immigrant detention centers to close.

    But Democratic state Rep. Sarah Silva, who voted for the ban, and said her constituents in a heavily Hispanic area view the ICE facility as a burden.

    “Our state can’t be complicit in the violations that ICE has been doing in places like Minneapolis,” Silva said. “To me that was beyond the tipping point.”

    Copyright
    © 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.

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    WTOP Staff

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  • Miami’s Haitian Community Braces for Deportations

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    The first documented arrival of Haitian refugees in South Florida dates to 1972, when a wooden sailboat, the Saint Sauveur, ran aground off of Pompano Beach, carrying sixty‑five asylum seekers fleeing the ruthless dictatorship of Jean-Claude Duvalier. Many Haitian families gravitated to Lemon City, one of the oldest settlements in Miami, developed in the late eighteen-hundreds and, at the time, largely populated by lemon-grove workers from the Bahamas. As more Haitians arrived in the area in the nineteen-seventies and eighties, they opened businesses, churches, markets, and cultural centers. Viter Juste, a businessman and activist who’s often called the father of Miami’s Haitian community, coined the name of the neighborhood in the early nineteen-eighties, and it stuck.

    Today in Little Haiti, a seven‑foot bronze statue of Toussaint Louverture, one of the leaders of the Haitian Revolution, stands in a small plaza known as the City of Miami Freedom Garden. The plaza sits across from a gas station and bakery, surrounded by rows of modest homes, some purchased decades ago by newly arrived Haitian immigrants, before gentrification began to reshape the neighborhood. Since the statue’s installation, in 2005, three years after I moved to Miami, and a little more than a year after the bicentennial of Haitian independence, the spot has become a neighborhood gathering place. On January 1st, Haitian Independence Day, people stop by to take photos while area churches and neighbors share bowls of soup joumou, “freedom soup,” eaten to commemorate that day. Some afternoons, elders sit on the green benches surrounding the statue to talk or look out at the neighborhood, as they might once have done from their front porches back in Haiti. Occasionally, a group of tourists passes by, led by a tour guide dressed in a traditional blue denim karabela shirt and a straw hat, pausing to look up at the Haitian and American flags perched on tall flagstaffs, before reading the English translation of Louverture’s most famous declaration, at the statue’s base: “By overthrowing me, you have cut down the trunk of the liberty tree of the Blacks in Saint Domingue. It will grow again from its roots for they are numerous and they run deep into the ground.”

    On January 12th, at the foot of the statue, a group of elected officials and community members gathered to commemorate the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti in 2010, killing more than two hundred thousand people and displaced 1.5 million. The event has been held annually for the past fifteen years, but this year there was an extra layer of sombreness to the proceedings, which the overcast skies seemed to reflect. On February 3rd, the Trump Administration is set to terminate Temporary Protected Status (T.P.S.) for Haitians in the United States, placing some three hundred and thirty thousand men, women, and children at risk of deportation. T.P.S., granted to certain immigrant populations when the conditions in their home country make safe return impossible, does not provide a path to citizenship, but gives recipients the crucial ability to work legally in the U.S. and, in many states, to obtain a driver’s license. After the 2010 earthquake, Haitian community leaders successfully appealed to the Obama Administration for T.P.S., and it has been extended ever since. Under Donald Trump, though, several countries with T.P.S. status, including Venezuela and Somalia, have recently had their designations terminated, and Haiti’s status is in limbo, as a pivotal lawsuit before the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., challenges the Trump Administration’s decision to revoke it. During hearings in early January, the presiding judge, Ana C. Reyes, questioned the government’s assertion that it would be safe to return to Haiti, pointing to the fact that the F.A.A. has restricted civilian flights over the capital of Port-au-Prince, and the State Department has warned against travel to Haiti. Reyes’s ruling is expected on February 2nd, one day before the T.P.S. designation for Haitians is set to expire.

    According to the U.N., Haiti is facing one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. Since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, in 2021, armed groups have assumed control of large portions of the capital and surrounding areas, terrorizing civilians and causing 1.4 million people, including seven hundred and forty-one thousand children, to be displaced. Friends and family members of mine have moved from neighborhood to neighborhood to escape the violence. Some have had to abandon their homes, with all of their belongings still inside, only to find out later that those houses were burned to the ground. Displaced families often spend weeks, sometimes months, in makeshift dwellings, including public squares and deserted government buildings, while children lose months or even years of education as schools close or become inaccessible owing to gang activity. Sexual violence against women and girls has been on the rise as a tool of control by gangs. Five million and seven hundred thousand Haitians, close to half the population, are now facing high levels of food insecurity. Since Moïse’s assassination, Haiti has had no elected officials. The country’s interim governing body, the Transitional Presidential Council, has been mired in infighting and corruption allegations, and though its mandate ends on February 7th it has yet to reach consensus on who will lead the country or what form the next government will take.

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    Edwidge Danticat

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  • Do Federal Officials Really Have “Absolute Immunity”?

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    On Saturday, agents with U.S. Border Patrol killed a man named Alex Jeffrey Pretti, the second person who has been shot dead by federal personnel in Minneapolis since President Donald Trump launched an immigration-enforcement operation in the city earlier this month. After the first killing, of a woman named Renee Good, who was shot behind the wheel of her car by an ICE agent, federal officials made clear that they had little interest in conducting an impartial investigation into the circumstances of her death. During a press conference, Vice-President J. D. Vance said that federal officials have “absolute immunity” in performing their duties. In the aftermath of Pretti’s death, which has prompted even some Republican officeholders to call for an investigation, state officials have accused the federal government of blocking access to the scene of the shooting. Multiple members of the Trump Administration have called Pretti a “domestic terrorist” and falsely described what occurred when he was gunned down, which was captured on video. On Saturday night, a federal judge ordered the government not to destroy or alter evidence after a lawsuit was filed by Minnesota authorities.

    To talk about what state officials can and cannot do to investigate and prosecute crimes allegedly committed by federal officials, I spoke by phone with Steve Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown who writes a newsletter on legal issues called “One First.” During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed why the law on these questions is so unsettled, how the Trump Administration could try to sabotage potential state actions, and how the Supreme Court might view future cases that feature a clash between executive power and states’ rights.

    Tell me if this is helpful—there are two different ways it can be difficult for states to investigate or prosecute federal officials. One of them has to do with the law itself as defined by the courts, and the second has to do with the Trump Administration trying to throw up every roadblock it can. Those seem like different things.

    I think that’s very helpful. There’s both the question of whether the law would allow a prosecution and whether as a matter of pure logistics, the prosecution is viable. We haven’t usually had to worry about the second one, but we certainly have to worry about it right now.

    So then let’s start with the first one, which relates to why it could be complicated for state officials to charge federal officers with crimes in a state such as Minnesota. What is the primary legal roadblock?

    The primary legal roadblock is the doctrine that’s become known as supremacy-clause immunity. This is a not-very-well-developed idea dating back to an 1890 Supreme Court decision, which basically says that federal officers are immune from the consequences of state law for actions they’re performing in the legitimate exercise of their federal duties. And the idea, which I think is actually relatively uncontroversial, is that federal officers who are lawfully acting within their federal duties are necessarily acting in a way that has to override contrary state laws. It’s analogous in that respect to the doctrine that’s generally known as preëmption—that valid federal laws will always displace valid state laws.

    So the idea here, in the best case, is that if federal officials are trying to enforce desegregation at a school in the South in the nineteen-fifties, for instance, then state and local officials cannot mess with them?

    That’s exactly right. You can’t prosecute federal officers for trespassing, for example, for enforcing a court order on a public school in the civil-rights era.

    Was the thinking behind the decision so high-minded, though, back in 1890?

    Actually, it was. So, the 1890 decision is this remarkably colorful case about the attempted assassination of Justice Stephen Field, and the question was whether his bodyguard, who was a deputy U.S. marshal, could be prosecuted by California for the murder of the Justice’s would-be assassin. And that was a context where I don’t think it’s especially surprising that the Supreme Court was of the view that the federal officer was immune from prosecution under state law for protecting one of their colleagues.

    What other decisions have come up about these questions since 1890?

    The biggest problem is that there really haven’t been that many cases, and virtually none that have gone back to the Supreme Court. Most of the development of the doctrine has actually been in lower courts. And one of the things I think is unhelpful is that, even when lower courts held in at least some of these cases that prosecutions could go forward, they were often dropped by the prosecutors before they produced a verdict. So we actually have a very, very tiny number of examples of successful state prosecutions of federal officers in American history. Of course, one might also say we don’t have that many examples in American history of what’s been happening in Minneapolis over the past three weeks.

    Has the Supreme Court ruled that Congress needs to provide authorization for states to go after federal officials? Am I understanding that correctly?

    The Supreme Court has never said that. There are other contexts in which the Supreme Court has said that Congress needs to specifically authorize, for example, [civil] damages suits before federal officers can be sued for violating the Constitution. But we’ve never quite had that ruling in the context of criminal prosecutions. And that’s because these cases have been so few and far between.

    The real development in case law has been trying to figure out exactly where the line is between the officer who was immunized because he was acting in good faith and the officer who went too far and should have known that he was going too far. There is a 2006 ruling in the federal appeals court in Denver, which was written by Michael McConnell, a very highly regarded and pretty right-of-center federal appeals judge. And McConnell says you can prosecute federal officers if it wasn’t necessary and reasonable for the officer, in the carrying out of their federal duties, to do what they did.

    And that ruling has held?

    I think the best that can be said is it’s the law of the Tenth Circuit right now. Minnesota is in the Eighth Circuit. So we’re in a place where there’s no obvious binding authority on this issue for state or local prosecutors.

    But let’s say that state or local prosecutors in Minnesota decide that that’s a good standard that you laid out from McConnell. Could you potentially have a situation where the question of whether what the federal officials were doing was “necessary and reasonable” would go to court?

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    Isaac Chotiner

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  • Revisiting Minnesota’s “Open House” Exhibition in the Age of ICE

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    Twenty years ago this week, the Minnesota History Center, in Minneapolis’s twin city, St. Paul, launched an interactive exhibition called “Open House: If These Walls Could Talk.” It was the most elaborate show the museum had ever attempted. Five thousand Minnesotans came out in the frigid January cold on opening weekend to see an actual house that had been reconstructed inside the museum, like a ship in a bottle. Successive generations of Americans—more than fifty families, across more than a century—had lived in the house, at 470 Hopkins Street, wave after wave of newcomers and immigrants, travellers who made Minnesota, and the U.S., their home. The exhibition told their story as the story of America. It won awards, broke records, and changed how museums tell stories. It is also an archive of a lost America.

    This weekend, on the streets of Minneapolis, masked agents of the federal government’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency shot and killed another American, a thirty-seven-year-old nurse, Alex Pretti. He, like the poet Renee Good, who was shot and killed by ICE earlier this month, was among thousands of Minnesotans who have taken to the streets, even amid brutally cold temperatures and a howling snowstorm, to protect immigrants in their state from assault, arrest, separation from their families, and deportation. U.S. immigration policy had become a travesty under the Biden Administration. But nothing about repairing that policy justifies the Trump Administration’s savage, vengeful, and unconstitutional “surge” deployment of ICE agents in American cities, their lawless, masked and wanton violence, or their immunity from prosecution. All over the Twin Cities, immigrants, whether they’re in the U.S. legally or not, have been hiding in their houses, afraid to leave, afraid, even, to peer out a window. Is America still home?

    “Open House” was spearheaded by the Minnesota History Center curator Benjamin Filene, who is now the deputy director of public history at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. “The original idea was that we should do an exhibit about immigration,” Filene says. But he and the design team wanted to put visitors into an actual place and allow them to hear actual voices of actual people. He decided that place should be a house: a container of families and stories and artifacts. He found the house, which is still standing, in a neighborhood called Railroad Island. “No one famous ever slept there,” Filene says. Only ordinary Minnesotans slept there, and sleep there still, if there is still sleep to be had.

    Filene and his colleagues tracked down and interviewed everyone they could find who had lived at 470 Hopkins, or who was descended from anyone who lived there, across more than a century. They recorded oral histories; they fabricated period rooms. And then, inside the museum, they built a reimagined version of the house, in which each room featured the furnishings, and the stories, of a different generation of immigrants and newcomers. Two Germans, Albert and Henriette Schumacher, built the house in 1888. You could meet them, and hear their stories, in the sitting room. Then came waves of railroad workers—Scandinavian, Irish, especially—renting rooms in an ever-altering house, subdivided into two units, then three; even the house number changed.. Filene found them in city directories: James Doyle, depot foreman, Northern Pacific Railroad; Frank Appleton, night watchman. Harry and Eva Levey: Mother tongue: Jewish. In the kitchen, if you opened up the oven, you could listen to Michelina Frascone, who immigrated from Naples, in 1931, at the age of eleven, talk about raising seventy-five chickens in the basement. Frascone’s father had worked on the railroad for ten years to save up the money to bring Michelina and her mother to America. Then came the Rust Belt migrants, African Americans who had moved to the Twin Cities from Gary and Chicago and Detroit in the nineteen-eighties, and, finally, the Hmong refugees who had fled postwar Laos, some of whom were still living in the house when its near replica opened in the museum, two miles away.

    Every room in the house had interactive features triggered by motion. When you sat down at the dining-room table, Michelina Frascone started telling you the story of her uncle, Filomeno Cocchiarella, who had to go out on Thanksgiving night to repair the railroad tracks. “Please don’t go,” she’d begged him—and he’d got sideswiped, and killed, by a train. In the bedroom, when you sat down on the bed, you heard a man of Scandinavian descent who had married an Italian woman tell the story of how, one night, the bed collapsed—and, as he was telling it, the bed suddenly buckled beneath you. Pang Toua Yang and his wife, Mai Vang, who appeared on a television in the living room, told the story of fleeing Laos with their six children, crossing the Mekong River, and spending years in Thai refugee camps until, four years later, they arrived in Minnesota. Their daughter appeared in the exhibition, too; she became a go-getter realtor, selling homes to more new Americans.

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    Jill Lepore

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  • Want to start a business? Work on your personal finances first – MoneySense

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    For many immigrants, the idea of launching a business is part of the dream of independence and success. After all, the entrepreneurial drive runs deep—in a recent TD survey, half of newcomers said they were interested in starting a business even though 62% said they lacked enough information about financial products that support business owners. 

    That gap between ambition and readiness isn’t surprising. Building a business without first securing your personal financial footing can leave you vulnerable, however, not just to economic uncertainty, but to stress and burnout.

    In this article, I explore why it’s important to establish personal financial stability before launching a business, and offer actionable advice for newcomers who want to build a resilient financial base first.

    Why personal finances matter before starting a business

    When you’re self‑employed or running a business, your income can fluctuate wildly, especially in the early years. Without a solid foundation—such as savings, manageable debt levels, and an established credit history—you may find yourself tapping expensive forms of credit or compromising your long‑term goals just to keep your business afloat.

    And newcomers already face financial challenges: more than half (55%) report having difficulty managing their finances since arriving in Canada, with many struggling to understand the Canadian financial system.

    This isn’t just about money; it’s about confidence. The same survey found many newcomers lack a clear understanding of how Canadian banking, investing, and personal financial planning work, which contributes to anxiety about taking big financial steps like starting a business. 

    Without confidence in your own personal finances, it’s easy to delay business plans indefinitely or, worse, launch prematurely without the cushion you need to weather the early uncertainty of entrepreneurship.

    A personal perspective

    When my family and I moved to Canada, we were ambitious and optimistic. I had entrepreneurial experience from overseas, and I dreamed of building something meaningful here. But our first priority wasn’t launching a business, it was laying down a foundation: understanding the Canadian banking system, building credit, creating an emergency fund, and learning how taxes and retirement plans work here.

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    In those first years, I had to learn lessons the hard way. I was frustrated when my Canadian credit history didn’t reflect my financial past. Even with my background, I was initially approved for a low-limit credit card and had to slowly build trust with financial institutions. Over time, as my credit improved and I understood tax planning better, I gained the necessary confidence and structure to consider business ownership.

    That foundation gave me stability. When I finally did start my business, I could focus on growth, not survival.

    Compare the best bank accounts for side hustles

    7 ways newcomers can build their financial foundations 

    Here’s a practical road map to help you build a financial base you can be confident in before you make the jump into entrepreneurship.

    1. Create a personal emergency fund

    Before your income becomes unpredictable, save for at least one year of basic living expenses. If possible, aim for two. There are mixed messages out there on what the ideal rainy-day fund should be; some say three to six months but, as a serial entrepreneur, I always recommend erring on the side of caution. This fund offers breathing room when things are uncertain, and it prevents you from turning to high‑interest debt.

    2. Build and monitor your credit score

    A strong credit history is often needed for both personal and business finance. In Canada, newcomers frequently find it hard to build credit, even when they understand its importance before arriving here. In fact, according to the survey I quoted earlier, 79% of newcomers who applied for credit said it was difficult to start building a credit history. 

    Start small, use a secured credit card responsibly, pay off balances each month, and regularly check your credit reports. This will help when you eventually need business financing or better loan terms.

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    Vickram Agarwal

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  • From Selma to Minneapolis

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    On March 16, 1965, a thirty-nine-year-old woman named Viola Liuzzo got into a late-model Oldsmobile and drove eight hundred miles from her home in Detroit, Michigan, to Selma, Alabama. Days earlier, following the Bloody Sunday protests, where voting-rights demonstrators had been tear-gassed and beaten, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., had issued an appeal to people of conscience across the country to come to Alabama and participate in what had already become one of the most consequential theatres in the movement for equality. Liuzzo, a white woman who’d been born in Pennsylvania, moved to Michigan, where she eventually married an official with the Teamsters and became active in the Detroit N.A.A.C.P. She told her family and friends that she felt compelled to do something about the situation in Alabama, arranged child care for her five children, and drove south.

    On March 25th, the third attempt at marching from Selma to Montgomery, the state capital, proved successful, and King delivered one of his least noted but most significant speeches on the ways in which disenfranchising Black voters had been key to gutting interracial progressive politics across the South. “Racial segregation,” King pointed out, “did not come about as a natural result of hatred between the races immediately after the Civil War.” Rather, he argued, it had evolved as part of a larger campaign to destroy the nascent alliance between former slaves and dispossessed whites that emerged during Reconstruction. Afterward, Liuzzo, who’d volunteered to transport activists between the two cities, drove toward Montgomery with Leroy Moton, a nineteen-year-old Black organizer. They never made it. Liuzzo’s car was intercepted by one carrying four men associated with the Ku Klux Klan. Bullets were fired into Liuzzo’s car, killing her. Moton, covered in Liuzzo’s blood, pretended to be dead, then set off to find help after the men departed.

    The murder sent shock waves through the movement and across the nation. The civil-rights workers Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner had been murdered in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the previous summer, and that February, Jimmie Lee Jackson, a twenty-six-year-old marcher, was fatally shot by an Alabama state trooper after a voting-rights demonstration. Two weeks before Liuzzo was attacked, the Reverend James Reeb, a Unitarian minister and a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference from Boston who also volunteered in the voting-rights campaign, had been beaten to death. Nonetheless, Liuzzo’s death—and, specifically, the fact that the movement’s antagonists were willing to kill a white woman—pointed to a broader conclusion. Forces arrayed against the movement did not simply represent a threat to African Americans, as was the popular perception. They were a mortal danger to anyone who disagreed with them, regardless of the person’s race, background, or gender.

    Recent events have given renewed pertinence to the circumstances of Viola Liuzzo’s death. In Minneapolis, on January 7th, Renee Good, a thirty-seven-year-old poet and mother of three from Colorado, was killed by Jonathan Ross, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who fired at her car as she attempted to drive away. Good, who had just dropped her youngest child off at school, had been attempting to block the street as part of a protest against a sweeping ICE crackdown that has besieged Minneapolis for weeks. Superficially, the circumstances of the two deaths, separated by more than sixty years, bore some resemblance: two white women of similar age, both moved by conscience to come to the defense of vulnerable communities, both killed in their vehicles amid a much larger societal conflict playing out around them.

    Yet the more disturbing similarities lie in what happened after their deaths, and in what they conveyed about the crises in which they occurred. Liuzzo’s funeral, in Detroit, drew the leaders of the movement, including King and Roy Wilkins, the executive secretary of the N.A.A.C.P., as well as luminaries from organized labor, such as Walter Reuther and Jimmy Hoffa. Nonetheless, J. Edgar Hoover’s F.B.I. immediately launched a smear campaign against Liuzzo, falsely alleging that physical evidence suggested that she had used heroin shortly before her death and implying that she’d been drawn to Alabama not by deeply held principles but by the prospect of sex with Black men. The Bureau was likely attempting to distract the public from the fact that one of the four men in the car when Liuzzo was killed was an “undercover agent”—a paid informant—who had evidently done nothing to prevent her death. Hoover may have decided that, if Liuzzo’s character could be sufficiently impugned, then any potential backlash to the Bureau’s connection to an incident involving the murder of a married white mother could be avoided.

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    Jelani Cobb

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  • Queens mother weeps for return of her teenage son taken by ICE – who threatened to deport her, too – amNewYork

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    Gina Vega wipes tears from her eyes and she pleads for the return of her beloved son detained by ICE.

    Photo by Dean Moses

    Gina Vega sat weeping in the living room of her basement apartment in Queens. It was eerily empty and quiet; the sound of her teenage son within its walls had vanished after he was detained by ICE last year, leaving her alone with her own despair.

    The Ecuadorian mother wiped away tears from her eyes as she thought of her 18-year-old boy, whom she has not seen in more than two months. Despite the overwhelming sense of anguish, she is fighting for his release from an immigration detention center in Virginia.

    Jorge David Delgado Videla was detained on Nov. 5 inside 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan, after arriving with his mother for what they believed to be a routine ICE check-in on the fifth floor.

    “They told me to take Jorge’s things and go,” Vega recalled. “I haven’t seen him since then. They said to be grateful they weren’t detaining me, too.”

    While homeland security officials continue to claim that ICE is apprehending “the worst of the worst,” meaning violent criminals, Videla has only one misdemeanor arrest to his name.

    Videla was arrested by the NYPD in August after he got into an argument with a man in the Flushing train station. According to Vega, the stranger began yelling at Videla, and they got into a verbal confrontation.

    Although the fight never got physical, the pair were arrested and charged with menacing, a misdemeanor offense. It was only months later when ICE sent a letter demanding that he appear at the fateful check-in.

    Detained Queens teen’s mom: ‘He is not meant to be locked up’

    Vega escorted Videla inside 26 Federal Plaza when an ICE agent suddenly pointed to the student and took him to another room, where they announced they would be taking fingerprints and photographs. It would be the last time she saw him.

    The female ICE agent then returned with Videla’s belt and headphones and said they would call her later. ICE agents then confiscated her passport as well, without explanation.

    Both Vega and her son had applied for asylum in the United States after escaping a threat from an Ecuadorian gang, “Los choneros or Aguilas,” that had unsuccessfully tried to recruit the teenager two years prior. Videla’s friends lost their lives to the same gang. He had been attending the Pan American International High School and had been scheduled to graduate in July 2026.

    Mother Queens ICE detainment son
    Gina Vega sat in the living room of her basement apartment in Queens. It was eerily empty and quiet; the sound of her teenage son within its walls had vanished after he was detained by ICE, leaving her alone with her own despair.Photo by Dean Moses

    That same afternoon of his detention, Vega received a call from her son confirming what she feared: that ICE was holding him against his will indefinitely. With a friend’s help, she later learned that her son had been transferred out of the Big Apple to another detention center in Virginia.

    Videla’s detainment on the fifth floor comes after amNewYork made a special report last year, outlining the rise of immigrant arrests in that particular area of 26 Federal Plaza. Access is restricted on the fifth floor, with all detainment activity taking place out of sight of the press and the public. 

    According to Vega, Videla is now being held in a cell with people much older than him, despite only being 18 years old. Detention officials allow him limited recreational time and access to a gym, but he refuses most meals and eats only instant noodles that the center’s staff provides.

    “He cries. He says he is not meant to be locked up; he is not a criminal. He asks why they keep him locked up,” Vega said, sharing what she has learned through the infrequent calls with her son.

    Mother Queens ICE detainment son
    Gina Vega shows a photograph of herself and her son Jorge David Delgado Videla.Photo by Dean Moses

    Since his detainment, ICE offered him a “voluntary departure” to Mexico even though he is of Ecuadorian descent and has no ties to Mexico. A court hearing is scheduled for Jan. 20, at which it will be determined whether he will face deportation.

    Other family members also spoke to amNewYork in defense of the young man.

    Jorge’s aunt, Yadira, describes her nephew as a calm, respectful person who always helps others. She also railed that the detention has been horrific for his mother since he is also the breadwinner for the family.

    “It’s very hard for his mother,” Yadira said. “She’s depressed because he is her only companion here. Every day we pray for strength – that he can stay here and start his life again.”

    Mother Queens ICE detainment son
    Gina Vega is pleading for the return of her son.Photo by Dean Moses

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    By Dean Moses and Florencia Arozarena

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  • Protesters gather outside Orlando City Hall after ICE fatally shoots Minneapolis woman

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    Protesters gather outside Orlando City Hall after ICE fatally shoots Minneapolis woman

    AND THERE HAVE BEEN PROTESTS ERUPTING ACROSS THE COUNTRY AFTER THIS. THIS IS A LOOK AT DEMONSTRATIONS IN LOUISIANA AND NEW YORK. AND EVEN HERE IN CENTRAL FLORIDA. THE GROUP ORLANDO, 5150, RALLIED OUTSIDE OF ORLANDO CITY HALL TONIGHT PROTESTING THE MINNEAPOLIS SHOOTING. WESH 2’S TONY ATKINS IS THERE LIVE RIGHT NOW? TONY. THE GROUP ORGANIZED A PROTEST JUST HOURS BEFORE IT HAPPENED. YEAH. JESSE. TONIGHT THEY CALLED IT AN EMERGENCY PROTEST. ABOUT FOUR DOZEN DEMONSTRATORS GATHERED OUTSIDE CITY HALL HERE. IN RESPONSE TO THAT ICE INVOLVED SHOOTING. THAT HAPPENED MORE THAN 1500 MILES NORTH IN MINNESOTA. COCO TRUMP AND I HAVE GOT TO GO. HEY, HEY! HO HO. A GROUP OF DEMONSTRATORS GATHERED OUTSIDE ORLANDO CITY HALL DECRYING ICE AND ITS PRESENCE OVER THE COURSE OF THE PAST YEAR. TRUMP AND THE BILLIONAIRE CRONIES WILL STOP AT NOTHING FROM USING ICE AS A SWORD AGAINST THE WORKING CLASS. THE UPROAR COMES AFTER A 37 YEAR OLD WOMAN WAS SHOT AND KILLED BY AN ICE AGENT DURING A PROTEST WEDNESDAY. THE NEWS, EMOTIONAL FOR PASTOR SARAH ROBINSON, WHO JOINED THE ORLANDO DEMONSTRATION. YOU KNOW, IT’S THE REASON I BECAME A PASTOR. NO. KNOW I STAIN OUR STREETS TO LOVE PEOPLE. WELL, THERE’S NO PEACE TO CARE FOR OUR COMMUNITIES, TO MAKE THRIVING. FLOURISHING COMMUNITIES. WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW IS SO ANTITHETICAL TO THAT. STAND UP. FIGHT BACK. WEDNESDAY’S PROTEST WAS ORGANIZED 2.5 HOURS BEFORE IT HAPPENED IN DOWNTOWN ORLANDO. ORGANIZERS CALLING IT AN EMERGENCY PROTEST. THIS PERSON WAS SHOT AT POINT BLANK RANGE IN A HIGHLY STRESSFUL SITUATION, AND THE ICE AGENTS HAD NO JUSTIFICATION WHATSOEVER FOR THIS KILLING. EVERYONE IS HERE BECAUSE OF THEIR LOVE FOR OTHERS. THAT’S WHY WE’RE HERE. AND THIS IS OUR LOVE. OUT LOUD. AND ORGANIZERS SAY THEY’RE GOING TO CONTINUE TO DEMONSTRATE AS THEY CONTINUE TO PUSH FOR CHANGE FOLLOWING THIS DEADLY SHOOTING. I’M COVERING ORANGE COUNTY LIVE IN DOWNTOWN ORLANDO AT CITY HALL. TONY ATKINS WESH TWO NEWS. ALL RIGHT, TONY, THANK YOU. NOW, THIS SHOOTING, EXPERTS SAY, WILL HAVE IMPACTS ON IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT NATIONWIDE. THOSE ARE YET TO BE SEEN. OF COURSE, WE’RE GOING TO CONTINUE FOLLOWING ALL OF THIS

    Protesters gather outside Orlando City Hall after ICE fatally shoots Minneapolis woman

    Updated: 10:21 PM EST Jan 7, 2026

    Editorial Standards ⓘ

    A protest was organized outside of Orlando City Hall at approximately 5:45 p.m. on Wednesday, where people gathered to repudiate the fatal shooting of a woman in Minneapolis by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.Groups including Orlando 50501, The Family Support Network, the Immigrants Are Welcomed Here Coalition and the Hope Community Center, will be there.>> This is a developing story and will be updated as new information is released.

    ORLANDO, Fla. —

    A protest was organized outside of Orlando City Hall at approximately 5:45 p.m. on Wednesday, where people gathered to repudiate the fatal shooting of a woman in Minneapolis by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.

    Groups including Orlando 50501, The Family Support Network, the Immigrants Are Welcomed Here Coalition and the Hope Community Center, will be there.

    >> This is a developing story and will be updated as new information is released.

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  • Venezuelan singer-songwriter looks to the future for the US and his former homeland – WTOP News

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    For a singer-songwriter who came to the United States from Venezuela seven years ago, the news that the U.S. had removed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro from power was welcome news.

    For a singer-songwriter who came to the U.S. from Venezuela seven years ago, the news that the U.S. had removed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro from power was welcome news.

    Jonathan Acosta, who made his home in Virginia, told WTOP in an interview that when he initially heard the news, he was overjoyed.

    “The reaction was something like, ‘Oh, my God, we got it,’” Acosta said.

    He explained that, in his eyes, Maduro was a dictator.

    Acosta said there had been many human rights abuses under the Maduro regime. Maduro has also been accused of stealing elections.

    “We don’t have a regular government, a conventional government, a normal government in Venezuela,” he said.

    When he appeared in court to face charges of conspiracy and drug trafficking, Maduro said he was “captured” and pleaded not guilty.

    Some Venezuelans living in the U.S., as well as Americans, have been critical of the military action and the lack of consultation with Congress before President Donald Trump’s administration deployed U.S. forces into Venezuela.

    Acosta said if he were asked whether he would prefer Venezuela to be aligned with Russia, China or the U.S., “My response for you is very clear. I prefer the United States.”

    At the same time, Acosta said it’s disheartening to see how Venezuelan immigrants as a whole have been portrayed as gang members and criminals.

    “It’s true that Tren de Aragua came from Venezuela. That is true,” he said, while noting the majority of Venezuelan immigrants “are good people … working very hard.”

    Acosta has performed locally, including at the Kennedy Center, and sang the national anthem at a Washington Wizards game in September 2024. He described that experience as important, because he felt he represented Venezuelans and the Hispanic community to a broad audience.

    “I was singing to say ‘thank you’ to the United States,” he said of the experience.

    Acosta has released a new album called “Americano Somos,” a nod to the cultures of North America, Central America and South America. The music spotlights what Acosta said he wants listeners to recognize, that all residents of the continents are Americans.

    “With the music, we can bring hope, esperanza,” Acosta said. “That is my work, my job now.”

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    Kate Ryan

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  • What does Maduro’s capture mean for Venezuelans in the U.S.? We answer your questions

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    A man wipes his tears as members of the Venezuelan exile community gather in prayer during Sunday Mass led by Reverend Israel Mago, one day after the United States attacked Venezuela and captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, on Sunday, January 4, 2026, in Doral, Florida.

    A man wipes his tears as members of the Venezuelan exile community gather in prayer during Sunday Mass led by Reverend Israel Mago, one day after the United States attacked Venezuela and captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, on Sunday, January 4, 2026, in Doral, Florida.


    Carl Juste

    cjuste@miamiherald.com

    During a national television appearance on Sunday morning, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants in the U.S. who lost deportation protections under the Trump administration have the opportunity to apply for refugee status.

    “We need to make sure that our programs actually mean something, and that we’re following the law,” Noem said during an interview on Fox News.

    In the wake of the United States’s capture of Venezuela strongman Nicolás Maduro, the remarks generated confusion among Venezuelan immigrants. But even before the U.S. government carried out the dramatic military operation Saturday, Venezuelan immigrants were already living in vast uncertainty as high-profile targets of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

    The Trump administration has stripped over 600,000 Venezuelans of their work permits and deportation protections under Temporary Protected Status. He has also invoked an 18th Century law, the Alien Enemies Act, to deport Venezuelans to a notorious prison in El Salvador; ended a parole program that legally brought over 117,000 Venezuelans to the United States, and arrested asylum seekers at their court hearings.

    What’s next for Venezuelan immigrants in the United States? Here are answers to some key questions:

    Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said “every individual that was under TPS has the opportunity to apply for refugee status.” What does that mean?

    In a word: unclear.

    Under federal law, individuals must be located outside the United States to become part of the U.S. Refugee Program. They must also be referred by someone else for their applications to be considered.

    President Trump’s administration set a historically low cap of 7,500 refugees nationally for fiscal year 2026, down from 125,000 in fiscal year 2025 under President Joe Biden. Trump also directed the 2026 admissions to be largely allocated to Afrikaners from South Africa.

    The Department of Homeland Security rejected interpretations that Noem’s comments mean that the over half-a-million Venezuelans that lost TPS would now be considered for refugee admissions.

    “This is not what Secretary Noem said. President Trump is bringing stability to Venezuela and bringing to justice an illegitimate Narco Terrorist dictator who stole from his own people,” the agency said on social media. “Secretary Noem ended Temporary Protected Status for more than 500,000 Venezuelans, and now they can go home to a country they love.”

    Many former TPS recipients from Venezuela have pending asylum cases. And if a former TPS recipient had not applied for asylum, they might still have some time. Having TPS status stops the clock on the requirement to file for asylum within a year of arriving to the United States as long as the one-year-clock has not expired.

    But the Trump administration has made it harder for immigrants to apply for asylum, even asking immigration judges to close people’s cases in court and then arresting them after their hearing.

    “She made [the remarks] in the narrowest possible way. Anyone can apply for anything but there are no plans to grant them asylum,” said David Bier, director of Immigration Studies at the Cato Institute.

    The administration stripped over 600,000 Venezuelans of protections and work permits under Temporary Protected Status. What happens to them now?

    For now, nothing changes.

    The Trump administration stripped hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans from their immigration relief under TPS, which is granted to people already in the United States who came from countries in turmoil. The administration said that conditions like healthcare and crime had improved in Venezuela, making it possible for Venezuelans to return home. But they noted that regardless of conditions, Venezuela’s TPS designation was not in the best interest of the United States.

    For many former TPS holders, their only remaining pathway to stay in the United States is seeking asylum. But some experts think that it will be harder now for Venezuelan immigrants to claim asylum based on a claim of political persecution.

    “They have no status and the administration will argue that now that Maduro is gone, their persecution claims are invalid,” Bier said.

    What will happen to U.S. deportation flights to Venezuela?

    Between February and November 2025, the U.S. conducted 73 deportation flights to Venezuela, sending back 13,656 of its nationals, according to Human Rights First, which tracks removal flights.

    But the United States unilaterally suspended deportation flights to the South American country in mid-December, according to Venezuela’s government. That could soon change as part of any negotiations between Washington and Caracas.

    “Expect an increase in deportation flights to Venezuela as a condition that the U.S. will require Delcy Rodriguez to meet,” said Jason Marczak, vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council, in reference to Maduro’s vice president, who the Venezuelan Supreme Court ordered to be interim president. “These regular deportation flights have been one of the few points of cooperation with Venezuela over the course of the last year.”

    The U.S. used the Alien Enemies Act last year to deport to El Salvador hundreds of Venezuelans accused of being gang members. Could the administration try to invoke the act again?

    In March 2025 Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act against alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, saying they were trying to invade the United States. He sent about 250 Venezuelans to CECOT, a notorious prison in El Salvador. Public records later showed most of the men deported did not have criminal records in the U.S. and they were later sent back to Venezuela.

    The Washington Post has reported that Stephen Miller, White House senior advisor to Trump, has said that “a strong reaction from Caracas could provide the pretext to invoke the Alien Enemies Act to quickly deport hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants from the United States.”

    However, to invoke the Alien Enemies Act the United States would have to declare war against Venezuela. After the U.S. attack on Caracas, Trump and other officials have emphasized that no further military operations are planned. However, Trump did say the United States is “ready to stage a second and much larger attack.” although he mentioned it won’t likely be needed. And Congress has not voted on or approved a declaration of war.

    “They could try to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, but they are simultaneously arguing that we aren’t at war with Venezuela, so legally and politically, it wouldn’t make sense,” Bier said.

    This story was originally published January 4, 2026 at 5:10 PM.

    Syra Ortiz Blanes

    el Nuevo Herald

    Syra Ortiz Blanes covers immigration for the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald. Previously, she was the Puerto Rico and Spanish Caribbean reporter for the Heralds through Report for America.

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    Syra Ortiz Blanes

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  • New York is the 8th state found to have improperly issued commercial driver’s licenses to immigrants

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    By JOSH FUNK

    New York is the eighth state found to routinely issue commercial driver’s licenses to immigrants that are valid long after they are no longer legally authorized to be in the country, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Friday, and he threatened to withhold $73 million in highway funds unless the system is fixed and any flawed licenses are revoked.

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    Associated Press

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  • New York is the 8th state found to have improperly issued commercial driver’s licenses to immigrants

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    By JOSH FUNK

    New York is the eighth state found to routinely issue commercial driver’s licenses to immigrants that are valid long after they are no longer legally authorized to be in the country, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Friday, and he threatened to withhold $73 million in highway funds unless the system is fixed and any flawed licenses are revoked.

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    Associated Press

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  • Suspect identified as 2 National Guard members remain in critical condition after targeted shooting near White House

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    (CNN) — The Department of Homeland Security has identified the suspect involved in the Wednesday shooting of two National Guard members, who remain in critical condition.

    The suspect is Rahmanullah Lakamal, who came to the US from Afghanistan in 2021, DHS said in a statement late Wednesday. Officials said earlier the suspect is in custody.

    Multiple law enforcement officials briefed on the matter told CNN the shooter’s initial identification matches a man from Washington state who applied for asylum in 2024, which was granted by the Trump administration earlier this year.

    The two guard members had been performing “high visibility patrols” near the White House before the suspect appeared, “raised his arm with a firearm and discharged at the National Guard,” said Jeffery Carroll, the executive assistant chief of the Metropolitan Police Department, during a news conference earlier Wednesday.

    Bowser and FBI Director Kash Patel said during the news conference the two guard members are in critical condition.

    DC Mayor Muriel Bowser described the attack as a “targeted shooting” in a post on X and said the two guard members shot were part of the West Virginia National Guard.

    “To the American public and the world, please send your prayers to those brave warriors who are in critical condition and their families,” Patel said during the news conference.

    Carroll added during the presser “there is no indication” that there is another suspect, adding that the suspect in custody was taken to an area hospital.

    The shooting took place near Farragut Square — a tourist-heavy area located near a busy transit center and the White House.

    A source familiar with the investigation told CNN earlier Wednesday that law enforcement officials are not tracking any other victims of the shooting beyond the two National Guard officers and the suspect.

    Three law enforcement sources told CNN that the suspect approached the guardsmen and appeared to target them, firing first at one of the guardsmen who was mere feet away.

    One source said the suspect then fired at the other guardsman, who tried to get behind a bus stop shelter. The source added that the suspect is not cooperating with investigators and had no identification on him at the time of his arrest.

    What we know about the shooting

    Video from the nearby Metro station showed the shooting as it happened, law enforcement officials told CNN.

    The gunman approached three National Guard members who appeared to not see him until he began shooting, striking one guard member and then another, the officials said.

    The gunman then stood over the first victim and appeared to try to fire another round. That’s when the third guard member returned fire at the alleged shooter, the sources said.

    A woman who was near the scene of the shooting told CNN she heard gunshots and then saw a “bunch of people” administering CPR to people who were on the ground.

    Two law enforcement sources said earlier Wednesday the suspect was detained and transported away from the scene on a stretcher.

    Authorities ran the fingerprints of the man in custody and that’s how they got the initial name, one law enforcement official told CNN.

    Investigators recovered a handgun believed to have been used in the attack on the National Guard members and are working to determine when and how the suspect obtained it, law enforcement officials told CNN.

    US law restricts firearms sales to people who aren’t citizens or legal permanent residents and it’s unclear whether the alleged gunman could have legally bought the handgun, the officials said.

    Prior to the Wednesday news conference, there were conflicting reports about the condition of the guardsman after West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey posted on social media — and later corrected — that the guardsmen were believed to be dead.

    Earlier in the day, DC Metropolitan Police said on X that the scene is secure and one suspect is in custody. They advised people to avoid the area.

    Joint Task Force — DC, the National Guard office responsible for organizing the Guard mission to Washington, DC, confirmed in a statement Wednesday afternoon that “several” of its members “were involved in a shooting near the Farragut West Metro Station,” adding that it is working with DC police and other “law enforcement agencies.”

    A police car blocks a street in Washington, DC, following a shooting on November 26. Credit: Joe Merkel / CNN via CNN Newsource

    Trump addresses nation and calls for re-examining Afghan immigrants

    President Donald Trump identified the suspect as an Afghan national in a video from Mar-a-Lago posted late Wednesday and blamed the Biden administration for allowing him into the country.

    “I can report tonight that based on the best available information, the Department of Homeland Security is confident that the suspect in custody is a foreigner who entered our country from Afghanistan — a hell hole on earth,” Trump said in the video, adding that the suspect “was flown in by the Biden administration in September 2021.”

    “We’re not going to put up with these kind of assaults on law and order by people who shouldn’t even be in our country,” Trump added. “We must now reexamine every single alien who’s entered our country from Afghanistan under Biden and we must take all necessary measures to ensure the removal of any alien from any country who does not belong here or add benefit to our country.”

    Following Trump’s remarks, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services said in a post on X that the processing of all immigration cases related to Afghan immigrants “is stopped indefinitely pending further review of security and vetting protocols.”

    The Trump administration was already in the process of re-interviewing Afghan migrants admitted to the US during the previous administration, CNN reported earlier this week. Trump officials have repeatedly argued that the previous administration didn’t sufficiently vet the people who entered the US.

    In his video, Trump also reiterated his request to deploy 500 more National Guardsmen to Washington, DC, in response to the shooting, which was shared by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth earlier in the day.

    Shortly after the shooting, Trump weighed in on Truth Social, saying, “The animal that shot the two National Guardsmen … is also severely wounded, but regardless, will pay a very steep price.”

    Vice President JD Vance, during remarks at an event in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, called for prayers for the national guardsmen, who he said were in critical condition at the time.

    The shooting is “a somber reminder that soldiers whether they’re active duty, reserve or National Guard are soldiers are the sword and the shield of the United States of America,” Vance added.

    National Guard troops in nation’s capital since August

    National Guard troops from multiple states have been in Washington, DC, for months as part of President Donald Trump’s anti-crime crackdown in the nation’s capital, which has since expanded to other cities across the country.

    Trump mobilized the National Guard in August and the troops were authorized to conduct law enforcement activities.

    CNN reported last month that National Guard troops will remain mobilized in the city at least through February.

    However, last week a federal judge halted the mobilization of the National Guard in Washington, DC, ruling that Trump and the Defense Department illegally deployed the troops.

    In her ruling, the judge said there were “more than 2,000 National Guard troops” every day in the city.

    The judge did not immediately order the National Guard to leave the city, allowing the Trump administration some time to file an appeal, which it did Tuesday.

    The administration earlier Wednesday asked a federal appeals court for an emergency stay of the judge’s order to remove the National Guard from Washington, DC.

    This story and headline have been updated with additional details.

    CNN’s John Miller contributed to this report.

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    Zachary Cohen, Kaanita Iyer, Holmes Lybrand, Gabe Cohen, Evan Perez and CNN

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  • Democratic attorneys general sue to block USDA guidance that makes some immigrants ineligible for SNAP benefits

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    (CNN) — A coalition of 21 attorneys general have sued to block new guidance from the US Department of Agriculture that declares some immigrants, including refugees and those granted asylum, ineligible for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits.

    New York Attorney General Letitia James, who led the coalition of other Democratic attorneys general, said in a statement Wednesday that the Trump administration is illegally cutting off benefits for tens of thousands of lawful permanent residents.

    The USDA provided the new guidance to states narrowing SNAP eligibility last month, aligning with rollbacks of the program outlined in President Donald Trump’s domestic policy law that passed earlier this year.

    The attorneys general argue in the lawsuit that the memo goes beyond what the law prescribes since it would make anyone who entered the country through humanitarian protection programs permanently ineligible for SNAP benefits — also known as food stamps — even if they become legal residents.

    The group of attorneys general warn that the USDA’s guidance, which prompts a swift overhaul of eligibility systems, “threatens to destabilize SNAP nationwide,” and could put significant financial strain on states that would have to shoulder the cost of fines.

    The lawsuit asks a federal judge in Oregon to vacate and block the implementation of the USDA’s guidance.

    The filing comes just days after a federal judge in Virginia dismissed an indictment against James, whom President Donald Trump has viewed as a political opponent.

    A spokesperson for USDA declined to comment on “pending litigation.”

    This is a developing story and will be updated.

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  • Trump administration threatens Pa. over driver’s licenses ‘illegally’ issued to immigrant truckers

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    The U.S. Department of Transportation said this week it would withhold $75 million in federal funding from Pennsylvania if the state does not meet demands to address how it issues commercial driver’s licenses to immigrants.

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    Michael Tanenbaum

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  • Federal Judge Holds Pivotal Hearing on Termination of TPS for 60,000 Immigrants from Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua

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    On Tuesday, Nov. 18, advocates, families, and community leaders gathered outside the Phillip Burton Federal Courthouse as a federal judge considered the legality of the Trump administration’s termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 60,000 longtime U.S. residents from Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua. The hearing in NTPSA II v. Noem marks a decisive moment for TPS holders, most of whom have lived in the United States for more than 25 years under humanitarian protection.

    Earlier this year, despite the district court’s ruling that the terminations were likely unlawful, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit stayed protections issued by the district court and allowed the terminations to take effect, stripping tens of thousands of TPS holders of their lawful status and work authorization.

    At Tuesday’s hearing, the district court considered whether to issue a final judgment that would restore protections for these individuals while the case proceeds. The judge did not make a ruling on the parties’ summary judgment motions but indicated she intended to deny the government’s motion to dismiss the case.

    Outside the court, plaintiffs spoke about how their lives had been impacted by the TPS terminations.

    Inside the courtroom, attorneys presented documents and expert testimony showing that the decisions to end TPS for Honduras, Nicaragua, and Nepal were motivated by politics and bias rather than legal considerations.

    The judge questioned the government’s claims but did not specify when a ruling would be issued.

    Legal representatives emphasized their strong commitment to continuing the fight for TPS holders and their families. TPS recipients expressed fear and uncertainty due to the loss of lawful status, despite their decades-long contributions as workers, homeowners, parents, and vital members of their communities.

    Approximately 60,000 individuals, many of whom arrived in the U.S. in the 1990s, now face the threat of deportation and family separation, and most already are facing severe economic hardship. TPS holders are essential contributors to industries including construction, childcare, healthcare, and disaster recovery. Ending protections would destabilize families and weaken local economies across the country.

    “Families who have lived here legally for decades are now in limbo,” said Francis Garcia of the National TPS Alliance. “Today’s hearing is their chance at justice.”

    This case will determine not only the fate of thousands of TPS holders but also the strength of the United States’ humanitarian commitments and the rule of law. Advocates emphasized that the district court’s earlier findings were clear: the terminations were arbitrary, unlawful, and contrary to the purpose of the TPS program. They called on the court to restore TPS protections and urged Congress and the Trump administration to create a permanent legislative solution for all TPS holders.

    “We are here to defend our families and our futures,” said Jose Palma, closing the press conference. “TPS holders have built their lives in this country. Home is here, and we deserve stability and dignity.”

    The plaintiffs are the National TPS Alliance, which represents hundreds of thousands of TPS holders nationwide; and individual TPS holders from Nicaragua, Honduras, and Nepal who have lost their legal status due to DHS Secretary Noem’s TPS terminations. The plaintiffs are represented by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at UCLA School of Law, the ACLU Foundation of Northern and Southern California, and Haitian Bridge Alliance.

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  • Afghan man living in Lowell speaks about ICE detention

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    LOWELL — When Ihsanullah Garay was delivering food on Sept. 14, he found himself struggling to find the Starbucks he was being sent to pick up from in Methuen.

    He asked the first people he saw for directions, a man and a woman sitting in a car. The man pointed Garay in the right direction, he told The Sun Monday morning, and Garay thanked him and started walking away. Then, the two people started asking Garay questions about his nationality, and where he was born. Garay is from Afghanistan, arriving in the U.S. in the spring of 2021 on a student visa to get a doctorate in finance.

    “I said, ‘Brother, this is not related to you. You helped me, I said thank you, that’s it,’” Garay said.

    Garay then tried to walk away, but he said the man shouted at him, and continued questioning Garay’s nationality, while Garay maintained that he was in the country legally.

    After more back and forth, Garay said the man finally identified himself as a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, and ask him to produce identification, which Garay had in his car, along with an ID badge from a former job.

    Garay was soon placed in handcuffs, beginning a more than monthlong ordeal in ICE custody that brought him to three different ICE facilities in three states before he was released on bond last month. After he arrived back in Lowell, where he has been living with his cousin, Abdul Ahad Storay, Garay took some time to settle and work to get back on track with his ongoing treatment for brain cancer.

    On Monday, he sat down with The Sun in Storay’s computer store in Downtown Lowell to give his firsthand account of his experience.

    Garay said that when he was placed in handcuffs, he tried to explain his situation to the ICE agents, to no avail.

    “I said, ‘What are you doing? I have brain cancer. I have a work permit, I have Social Security, I have everything. What are you doing?’ He said nothing,” said Garay.

    Garay’s first stop was the ICE field office in Burlington, where many of those detained by the agency in Greater Lowell are being brought. Since the spring, allegations of extremely poor conditions inside the building have been made by detainees and their attorneys, as it is designed primarily as an office building, not a long-term detention facility.

    Garay could not speak much to the conditions inside, as he said he was only at the facility for roughly an hour before he was transferred to another facility in Rhode Island. In that short time, though, Garay said he was asked by ICE officials for proof that he has brain cancer, which he was able to show them through his MyChart app when they brought him his phone, which they had confiscated along with his ID and other belongings. When the ICE officials saw the medical documents, Garay said they seemed shocked he was telling the truth.

    While still in Burlington, Garay said he suffered a couple medical episodes which lasted about two minutes, though he was unsure whether these were seizures or something else stemming from his brain cancer.

    Garay spent about 28 days in the facility in Rhode Island, and at one point he said similar medical episodes would occur on a near nightly basis, bringing him to the point of needing a wheelchair to move around, but the medical care available at the facility was not sufficient, he said. After he was moved to Georgia, where he was given the Oct. 21 court hearing that resulted in his release, Garay said he experienced more of the same.

    “They have no neurosurgeon, they have no oncologist, they have no neurologist, nothing,” said Garay.

    Through all of this, Garay was missing key appointments in the course of his cancer treatment. He was supposed to start a new medication at a Sept. 24 appointment at Boston Medical Center, but he missed it while in custody and was not able to start the medication on time. Even after reaching out to his doctors, Garay said the medicine did not arrive before he was moved to Georgia. In the meantime, he said he was prescribed Keppra, an anti-seizure medication he was supposed to take in the morning and evening, but it was only ever brought to him for the night dose while he was in Rhode Island.

    In Georgia, Garay said he saw a slight improvement to that end, as they gave him both daily doses of the anti-seizure medication, though at that facility he still lacked the medical care he needed.

    After he was released on bond, the police brought Garay to the airport, where he was denied boarding because his identification had been taken by ICE in Massachusetts, despite reassurance from the police and ICE he would be allowed on the plane.

    After Storay called local police to help his cousin, Garay was brought to Jacksonville, Florida, where he got on a bus for the multi-day journey back north to Lowell.

    Now home, Garay is doing much better. He is able to walk around without the need for a wheelchair, and his cancer treatment is moving back on track after he met with his doctors at the end of October. His next appointment is an MRI at Boston Medical Center later this month, and he has multiple other appointments scheduled with his doctors before the end of the year.

    Still, his ICE ordeal continues with a court hearing on Dec. 11 in Georgia, but Garay and his attorneys are working on getting it moved up to Massachusetts. He hopes to remain in the U.S., not only because of his ongoing medical treatment, but also because both he and Storay, himself a U.S. citizen, would not be safe returning to Afghanistan, which fell back to Taliban control in 2021, months after Garay left the country.

    As his home country fell, and the U.S. completed the withdrawal of its military forces, Garay applied for asylum that August on top of his student visa, fearing what would happen to him if he were to return.

    “If the U.S. will give me nationality, I will accept it. If not, I will go somewhere else,” said Garay. “When the Taliban suddenly came, I had no choice but to apply for asylum.”

    Garay’s asylum case has been pending ever since. So when Temporary Protected Status was offered to Afghan citizens living in the U.S. the following spring after the Taliban retook control, Garay did not apply for TPS due to his open asylum case. TPS for Afghanistan was terminated in July this year.

    “They (ICE) told me my visa expired in September 2021. I asked them how this was possible when I came in April,” said Garay.

    Even without the Taliban, Garay said he could not return because Afghanistan lacks the medical infrastructure he needs to treat his cancer.

    Now that he is back in Lowell, Garay is looking for other work that is not food delivery.

    In addition to delivering food, Garay said he had been working at Lahey Hospital as a receptionist, but he left that job just a couple weeks before his arrest after they could not give him enough hours.

    Friends of Garay also left Afghanistan after he did, but some went to Canada, he said, and once there they asked him to join them.

    “I said no … I don’t want to be in some country illegally, so that is why I am here,” said Garay.

    Garay credited Storay for getting him back to Lowell.

    “He knows my situation. Nobody can even imagine my situation … He also knows what he has been spending on me. Only he knows,” said Garay.

    An ICE spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment Friday. When previously asked about Garay’s case in October, ICE Boston spokesperson James Covington said in a statement Garay is “an illegal alien from Afghanistan,” and claimed he lawfully entered the U.S. in April 2021 with permission to remain until Sept. 7, 2021.

    “However, he violated the terms of his lawful admission when he refused to leave the country. Garay will remain in ICE custody pending the outcome of his removal proceedings,” Covington said in the Oct. 11 statement.

    In addition to Garay’s current work permit, Storay was also able to show The Sun Garay’s original student visa, which was issued in April 2021 and expired one year later, seven months after Covington claimed it did.

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    Peter Currier

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  • HHS orders state Medicaid find immigrants in US illegally

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    The Trump administration has ordered states to investigate certain individuals enrolled in Medicaid to determine whether they are ineligible because of their immigration status, with five states reporting they’ve together received more than 170,000 names — an “unprecedented” step by the federal government that ensnares the state-federal health program in the president’s immigration crackdown.

    Advocates say the push burdens states with duplicative verification checks and could lead people to lose coverage just for missing paperwork deadlines. But the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Mehmet Oz, said in a post on the social platform X on Oct. 31 that more than $1 billion “of federal taxpayer dollars were being spent on funding Medicaid for illegal immigrants” in five states and Washington, D.C.

    Medicaid’s overall spending topped $900 billion in fiscal year 2024.

    It wasn’t clear from Oz’s statement or an accompanying video over what period the spending happened, and CMS spokespeople did not immediately respond to questions, either for an earlier version of this article or after Oz’s statement was posted.

    Only U.S. citizens and some lawfully present immigrants are eligible for Medicaid, which covers low-income and disabled people and the closely related Children’s Health Insurance Program. Those without legal status are ineligible for federally funded health coverage, including Medicaid, Medicare, and plans through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces.

    Several states disputed Oz’s comments.

    “Our payments for coverage of undocumented individuals are in accordance with state and federal laws,” said Marc Williams, a spokesperson for Colorado’s Department of Health Care Policy & Financing, which administers the state’s Medicaid program. “The $1.5 million number referenced by federal leaders today is based on an incorrect preliminary finding, and has been refuted with supporting data by our Department experts.”

    He added: “It is disappointing that the administration is announcing this number as final when it is clearly overstated and the conversations are very much in the education and discussion phase.”

    Illinois Medicaid officials blasted Oz’s comments.

    “Once again, the Trump administration is spreading misinformation about standard uses of Medicaid dollars,” said Illinois Medicaid spokesperson Melissa Kula. “This is not a reality show, and there is no conspiracy to circumvent federal law and provide ineligible individuals with Medicaid coverage. Dr. Oz should stop pushing conspiracy theories and focus on improving health care for the American people.”

    The Washington State Health Care Authority, which runs the state’s Medicaid program, was also blunt.

    “The numbers Dr. Oz posted on social media today are inaccurate,” said spokesperson Rachelle Alongi. “We were very surprised to see Dr. Oz’s post, especially considering we continue to work with CMS in good faith to answer their questions and clear up any confusion.”

    In August, CMS began sending states the names of people enrolled in Medicaid that the agency suspected might not be eligible, demanding state Medicaid agencies check their immigration status.

    KFF Health News in October reached out to Medicaid agencies in 10 states. Five provided the approximate number of names they had received from the Trump administration, with expectations of more to come: Colorado had been given about 45,000 names, Ohio 61,000, Pennsylvania 34,000, Texas 28,000, and Utah 8,000. More than 70 million people are enrolled in Medicaid.

    Most of those states declined to comment further. Medicaid agencies in California, Florida, Georgia, New York and South Carolina refused to say how many names they were ordered to review or did not respond.

    Oz said in his X post that California had misspent $1.3 billion on care for people not eligible for Medicaid, while Illinois spent $30 million, Oregon $5.4 million, Washington state $2.4 million, Washington, D.C., $2.1 million, and Colorado $1.5 million.

    “We notified the states, and many have begun refunding the money,” he said. “But what if we had never asked?”

    Washington, D.C.’s Medicaid director, Melisa Byrd, said CMS had identified administrative expenses for the district program that covers people regardless of immigration status that should not have been billed to the federal government and her agency has already fixed some of those areas. “We run a big program that is very complex and when mistakes or errors happen, we fix them,” she said.

    The program plans to pay $654,014 back to CMS by mid-November.

    All five states, plus Washington, D.C., are led by Democrats, and President Donald Trump didn’t win any of them in the 2024 election.

    In recent days, Deputy Health and Human Services Secretary Jim O’Neill began posting pictures on X of people he said are convicted criminals living in the U.S. without authorization who had received Medicaid benefits.

    O’Neill could not be reached for comment.

    “We are very concerned because this seems, frankly, to be a waste of state resources and furthers the administration’s anti-immigrant agenda,” said Ben D’Avanzo, senior health advocacy strategist with the National Immigration Law Center, an advocacy group. “This duplicates what states already do,” he said.

    As part of the administration’s crackdown on people in the U.S. without authorization, President Donald Trump in February directed federal agencies to take action to ensure they are not obtaining benefits in violation of federal law.

    In June, advisers to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ordered CMS to share information about Medicaid enrollees with the Department of Homeland Security, drawing a lawsuit by some states alarmed that the administration would use the information for its deportation campaign against unauthorized residents.

    In August, a federal judge ordered HHS to stop sharing the information with immigration authorities.

    State Medicaid agencies use databases maintained by the Social Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security to verify enrollees’ immigration status.

    If states need to go back to individuals to reverify their citizenship or immigration status, it could lead some to fall off the rolls unnecessarily — for example, if they don’t see a letter requesting paperwork or fail to meet a deadline to respond.

    “I am not sure that evidence suggests there really is a need for this” extra verification, said Marian Jarlenski, a health policy professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health.

    Oz made clear that the Trump administration disagrees.

    “Whether willful or not, the states’ conduct highlights a terrifying reality: American taxpayers have been footing the bill for illegal immigrants’ Medicaid coverage, despite many Democrats and the media insisting otherwise,” Oz said in his X post.

    In an August press release, CMS said it would ask states to verify eligibility for enrollees whose immigration status could not be confirmed via federal databases. “We expect states to take quick action and will monitor progress on a monthly basis,” the agency said.

    Leonardo Cuello, a research professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families, called the CMS order to states “unprecedented” in the Medicaid program’s 60-year history.

    He said the federal government may have been unable to verify certain individuals’ immigration status because names were misspelled or outdated, such as when a beneficiary is identified by their maiden instead of married name. The names may also include people helped by Emergency Medicaid, a program that covers the cost of hospital emergency services, including labor and delivery, for people regardless of immigration status.

    “CMS is conducting pointless immigration status reviews for people whose hospital bills were paid by Emergency Medicaid,” Cuello said.

    Oz noted in his post that federal law “does permit states to use Medicaid dollars for emergency treatment, regardless of patients’ citizenship or immigration status,” and that states can “legally build Medicaid programs for illegal immigrants using their own state tax dollars, so long as no federal tax dollars are used.”

    The states Oz mentioned all run their own such programs.

    The verification checks create an added burden for state Medicaid agencies that are already busy preparing to implement the tax and policy law Trump signed in July. The measure, which Republicans call the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, makes many changes to Medicaid, including adding a work requirement in most states starting by 2027. The law also requires most states to more frequently check the eligibility of many adult Medicaid enrollees — at least twice a year.

    “I fear states may do unnecessary checks that create a burden for some enrollees who will lose health coverage who should not,” Cuello said. “It’s going to be a whole lot of work for CMS and states for very little pay dirt.”

    Cuello said the effort may have “greater political value than actual value.”

    Brandon Cwalina, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, which runs Medicaid in the state, said the state already requires every Medicaid applicant to verify their citizenship or, where applicable, their eligible immigration status.

    However, he said, the directive issued by CMS “constitutes a new process, and DHS is carefully reviewing the list in order to take appropriate actions.”

    Oz did not name Pennsylvania, which Trump won in 2024, in his post.

    If a lawful resident does not have a Social Security number, the state confirms their legal status by checking a database from Homeland Security, as well as verifying specific immigration documents, he said.

    Other state Medicaid agencies said they also needed to regroup before reaching out to enrollees.

    “Our teams just received this notice and are working through a process by which we will perform these reviews,” Jennifer Strohecker, then Utah’s Medicaid director, told a state advisory board in August.

    Renuka Rayasam and Rae Ellen Bichell contributed reporting.

    This article first appeared on KFF Health News.

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