EXCLUSIVE: Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears rebuked a plan announced Wednesday by her 2025 gubernatorial opponent Abigail Spanberger to rescind an executive order that gives law enforcement and jailers authority to work with ICE in particular circumstances.
“Well, we know she won’t be able to do that because she’s not going to win,” Earle-Sears quipped in a Wednesday interview.
“The people of Virginia are going to vote for me because [Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s order is] common sense and is keeping them safe. They have been safe since we’ve been in office,” she said.
Earle-Sears said she and Youngkin have overseen a one-third drop in statewide crime, and she dismissed Spanberger’s remarks — first made in a Virginia Mercury interview — as “dangerous ideas” that are “all theory; no practical usage.”
Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va.(Getty Images)
Youngkin’s order sought to “maximize collaboration” with DHS and “us[e] all available methods to facilitate the arrest and deportation of inadmissible and removable criminal illegal immigrants.”
To that end, Earle-Sears said Spanberger’s pledge ignores major developments in the battle against illegal immigrant gangs and the like.
“The number three MS-13 [was captured] right here in Manassas under her nose in her former neck of the woods,” Earle-Sears said of Salvadoran national Henrry Josue Villatoro-Santos, who is alleged to be a top ranking member of the transnational gang.
Villatoro-Santos, 24, was arrested in March in Dale City – a middle-class suburb along I-95 between Fredericksburg and Washington – in an operation overseen by the FBI’s Manassas Field Office from the other side of Prince William County.
Spanberger previously represented the area in Congress – in a seat now held by Democrat Yevgeny “Eugene” Vindman, the twin brother of high-profile Trump impeachment figure Alexander Vindman.
In breaking the news earlier Wednesday, Spanberger said, “I would rescind [Youngkin’s] executive order, yes.”
Spanberger said the Youngkin-Sears effort pulls local law enforcement away from their regular duties and wrongly encourages the state to dabble in federal roles.
The Democrat called the U.S. immigration system “absolutely broken” and said allowing cops to help “tear families apart [is] a misuse of … resources.”
Earle-Sears said officials in Richmond cannot focus on economic development and other top concerns of Virginians unless those constituents live in a safe environment.
Therefore, she said, separating themselves from DHS is counterproductive and “dangerous” to both the citizenry and the federal agents conducting the immigration operations.
The Republican nominee emphasized that she, too, is an immigrant — stressing that she came to the U.S. legally — and contrasted her story with that of many illegal immigrants arrested with criminal records, noting that her family came from Jamaica in search of opportunity and a better life.
“These criminal illegal immigrants, they come here for an opportunity to prey on us, and they prey on the very population that they’re a part of,” she said.
“We don’t want that.”
Youngkin also responded to the news, asking rhetorically if November’s “choice could be any more clear.”
“In her very first act as governor, [Abigail Spanberger] promises to turn Virginia into a sanctuary state for dangerous illegal immigrants,” Youngkin said on X.
“[Earle-Sears] promises to keep dangerous criminals off our streets,” the term-limited governor said.
Charles Creitz is a reporter for Fox News Digital.
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Charles covers media, politics and culture for Fox News Digital.
Charles is a Pennsylvania native and graduated from Temple University with a B.A. in Broadcast Journalism. Story tips can be sent to charles.creitz@fox.com.
Instead, it handed the project on a military base to Acquisition Logistics LLC, a small business that has no listed experience running a correction facility and had never won a federal contract worth more than $16 million. The company also lacks a functioning website and lists as its address a modest home in suburban Virginia owned by a 77-year-old retired Navy flight officer.
The mystery over the award only deepened last week as the new facility began to accept its first detainees. The Pentagon has refused to release the contract or explain why it selected Acquisition Logistics over a dozen other bidders to build the massive tent camp at Fort Bliss in west Texas. At least one competitor has filed a complaint.
The secretive — and brisk — contracting process is emblematic, experts said, of the government’s broader rush to fulfill the Republican president’s pledge to arrest and deport an estimated 10 million migrants living in the U.S. without permanent legal status. As part of that push, the government is turning increasingly to the military to handle tasks that had traditionally been left to civilian agencies.
A member of Congress who recently toured the camp said she was concerned that such a small and inexperienced firm had been entrusted to build and run a facility expected to house up to 5,000 migrants.
“It’s far too easy for standards to slip,” said Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat whose district includes Fort Bliss. “Private facilities far too frequently operate with a profit margin in mind as opposed to a governmental facility.”
Attorney Joshua Schnell, who specializes in federal contracting law, said he was troubled that the Trump administration has provided so little information about the facility.
“The lack of transparency about this contract leads to legitimate questions about why the Army would award such a large contract to a company without a website or any other publicly available information demonstrating its ability to perform such a complicated project,” he said.
Ken A. Wagner, the president and CEO of Acquisition Logistics, did not respond to phone messages or emails. No one answered the door at his three-bedroom house listed as his company’s headquarters. Virginia records list Wagner as an owner of the business, though it’s unclear whether he might have partners.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth approved using Fort Bliss for the new detention center, and the administration has hopes to build more at other bases. A spokesperson for the Army declined to discuss its deal with Acquisition Logistics or reveal details about the camp’s construction, citing the litigation over the company’s qualifications.
The Department of Homeland Security, which includes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, declined to answer questions about the detention camp it oversees.
Named Camp East Montana for the closest road, the facility is being built in the sand and scrub Chihuahuan Desert, where summertime temperatures can exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit and heat-related deaths are common. The 60-acre (24-hectare) site is near the U.S.-Mexico border and the El Paso International Airport, a key hub for deportation flights.
The camp has drawn comparisons to “Alligator Alcatraz,” a $245 million tent complex erected to hold ICE detainees in the Florida Everglades. That facility has been the subject of complaints about unsanitary conditions and lawsuits. A federal judge recently ordered that facility to be shut down.
The vast majority of the roughly 57,000 migrants detained by ICE are housed at private prisons operated by companies like Florida’s Geo Group and Tennessee-based CoreCivic. As those facilities fill up, ICE is also exploring temporary options at military bases in California, New York and Utah.
At Fort Bliss, construction began within days of the Army issuing the contract on July 18. Site work began months earlier, before Congress had passed Trump’s big tax and spending cuts bill, which includes a record $45 billion for immigration enforcement. The Defense Department announcement specified only that the Army was financing the initial $232 million for the first 1,000 beds at the complex.
Three white tents, each about 810 feet (250 meters) long, have been erected, according to satellite imagery examined by The Associated Press. A half dozen smaller buildings surround them.
Setareh Ghandehari, a spokesperson for the advocacy group Detention Watch, said the use of military bases harkens back to World War II, when Japanese Americans were imprisoned at Army camps including Fort Bliss. She said military facilities are especially prone to abuse and neglect because families and loved ones have difficulty accessing them.
“Conditions at all detention facilities are inherently awful,” Ghandehari said. “But when there’s less access and oversight, it creates the potential for even more abuse.”
A June 9 solicitation notice for the Fort Bliss project specified the contractor will be responsible for building and operating the detention center, including providing security and medical care. The document also requires strict secrecy, ordering the contractor inform ICE to respond to any calls from members of Congress or the news media.
The bidding was open only to small firms such as Acquisition Logistics, which receives preferential status because it’s classified as a veteran and Hispanic-owned small disadvantaged business.
Though Trump’s administration has fought to ban diversity, equity and inclusion programs, federal contracting rules include set-asides for small businesses owned by women or minorities. For a firm to compete for such contracts, at least 51% of it must be owned by people belonging to a federally designated disadvantaged racial or ethnic group.
One of the losing bidders, Texas-based Gemini Tech Services, filed a protest challenging the award and the Army’s rushed construction timeline with the U.S. Government Accountability Office, Congress’ independent oversight arm that resolves such disputes.
Gemini alleges Acquisition Logistics lacks the experience, staffing and resources to perform the work, according to a person familiar with the complaint who wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity. Acquisition Logistics’ past jobs include repairing small boats for the Air Force, providing information technology support to the Defense Department and building temporary offices to aid with immigration enforcement, federal records show.
Gemini and its lawyer didn’t respond to messages seeking comment.
A ruling by the GAO on whether to sustain, dismiss or require corrective action is not expected before November. A legal appeal is also pending with a U.S. federal court in Washington.
Schnell, the contracting lawyer, said Acquisitions Logistics may be working with a larger company. Geo Group Inc. and CoreCivic Corp., the nation’s biggest for-profit prison operators, have expressed interest in contracting with the Pentagon to house migrants.
In an earnings call this month, Geo Group CEO George Zoley said his company had teamed up with an established Pentagon contractor. Zoley didn’t name the company, and Geo Group didn’t respond to repeated requests asking with whom it had partnered.
A spokesperson for CoreCivic said it wasn’t partnering with Acquisition Logistics or Gemini.
___
Goodman reported from Miami. AP reporter Alan Suderman in Richmond, Va., contributed to this report.
NEW YORK — The Rev. Al Sharpton will lead a protest march on Wall Street to urge corporate America to resist the Trump administration’s campaign to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
The New York civil rights leader will join clergy, labor and community leaders Thursday in a demonstration through Manhattan’s Financial District that’s timed with the anniversary of the Civil Rights-era March on Washington in 1963.
Sharpton, in a statement, called DEI the “civil rights fight of our generation.”
In response, Sharpton’s civil rights group, the National Action Network, has encouraged consumers to avoid U.S. retailers that scaled backed policies and programs aimed at bolstering diversity among their employees and reducing discrimination against members of minority groups, women and LGBTQ+ people.
Earlier this year, Sharpton met with Target’s CEO as groups called for a boycott of the retail giant, which joined Amazon, Walmart and other major retailers in foregoing DEI initiatives.
The civil rights leader has also called for “buy-cotts” in support of companies such as Costco that have stuck by their DEI principles despite the conservative backlash.
“Corporate America wants to walk away from Black communities, so we are marching to them to bring this fight to their doorstep,” Sharpton said in a statement ahead of Thursday’s march.
The march is expected to start around 10 a.m. in Foley Square, located in downtown Manhattan near the African Burial Ground that’s the largest known resting place of enslaved and freed Africans in the country.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been detaining migrants during their routine appearances at the immigration court located there. A federal judge earlier this month also ordered the Trump administration to improve conditions for migrants jailed there.
Marchers are expected to make their way past Wall Street’s famous Charging Bull statue before the event ends with a speaking program.
New York City mayoral candidates, including incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, state Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani, and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, are among those expected to join the demonstration.
More than 5,000 illegal immigrants have been arrested in the Los Angeles area since June, according to the Department of Homeland Security, including some of the “worst of the worst” violent offenders.
The detainees highlighted by DHS include citizens of Mexico, El Salvador, South Korea, Vietnam, China and Eritrea.
“DHS law enforcement has made over 5,000 arrests in Los Angeles. That’s more than 5,000 criminal illegal aliens, gang members, child predators, and murderers taken off our streets. Precious lives saved,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement.
Some of the illegal immigrants highlighted by the agency have criminal histories that include violent offenses such as murder, theft and sexual abuse, including against children.
Diego Fernandez-Martinez (left) and Juan Carlos Marin-Hipolito (right) were arrested by ICE during raids in Los Angeles.(DHS)
“Families protected. American taxpayers spared the cost of their crimes AND the burden of their benefits. Thank you to our brave law enforcement officers. Make no mistake: if you are here illegally, we will find you, arrest you, and send you back. This is just the beginning,” she continued.
Diego Fernandez-Martinez, from Mexico, has convictions for carjacking, vehicle theft, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of a controlled substance for sales, robbery and prisoner in possession of a weapon, according to DHS. The agency also said he is a member of the Surenos gang.
Mexican national Juan Carlos Marin-Hipolito was convicted of murder and sentenced to 50 years to life in prison, DHS said.
Jaime Sarinana-Rodriguez, also from Mexico, is a registered sex offender convicted of continuous sexual abuse of a child and was sentenced to 16 years in prison, according to the agency.
Mexican woman Martina Zacarias is a convicted sex offender convicted of lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 and was sentenced to eight years in prison, DHS said.
Jaime Sarinana-Rodriguez (left) and Quoc Dung Pham (right) were arrested during ICE raids in Los Angeles.(DHS)
Edgar Isaac Lopez, also from Mexico, was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, child cruelty resulting in injury or death, assault by a prisoner, unlawful display of a fake or fraudulent ID card or permit, and trespassing, according to the department.
Omar Guzman-Rodriguez, a registered sex offender, has convictions that include burglary, possession of check or money order to defraud, taking vehicle without owner consent, vehicle theft and possession of stolen vehicle, and lewd acts with a child under 14, DHS said. He is also from Mexico.
Joel Benjamin Reyes, from El Salvador, is a registered sex offender convicted of first-degree rape by forcible compulsion and incest engaged in sexual conduct with a related person, DHS said.
Yohannes Zerai, from the African country of Eritrea, is a registered sex offender and was convicted of robbery, battery with serious bodily injury, assault to commit rape, sexual penetration with a foreign object with force, assault with a deadly weapon that is not a firearm, petty theft with priors and failure to register as a sex offender, according to DHS.
Hong Jing (left) and Martina Zacarias (right) were both arrested by ICE during immigration raids in Los Angeles.(DHS)
South Korean national Justin Chung has convictions for murder and shooting at an inhabited dwelling, DHS said, and was sentenced to 75 years in prison.
Quoc Dung Pham, from Vietnam, is a registered sex offender convicted of kidnapping, rape with force, sodomy in concert with force, oral copulation in concert with force, robbery and assault with intent to commit rape, possession of a controlled substance, DHS said. He was sentenced to 64 years in prison.
His brother, Bo Quoc Pham, is a registered sex offender, convicted of rape with force, arm or weapon sex offense, rape in concert with force or violence, oral copulation and was sentenced to 118 years in prison, according to DHS.
Chinese woman Hong Jing was convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol, aiding, abetting and engaging in sex trafficking of an individual, as well as racketeering.
The arrests come amid federal immigration raids that began in June in the Los Angeles area, which also took place at local businesses and sparked weeks of protests against ICE arrests and the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts.
How many undocumented immigrants have left the U.S. this year? – CBS News
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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed earlier in August that 1.6 million immigrants without legal status have left the U.S. since January. But is that figure accurate? CBS News Confirmed data journalist Julia Ingram dug into the numbers.
New bodycam footage has been released showing illegal immigrant truck driver Harjinder Singh struggling with limited English after he was pulled over by police for speeding in New Mexico last month – a detail that has since become a major talking point in the case.
The footage shows Singh — the suspect accused of jackknifing his 18-wheeler while making an illegal U-turn in Florida that killed three people — being stopped by a New Mexico State Police officer on July 3 for allegedly driving 60 mph in a 45-mph zone.
During the interaction, Singh appears apologetic as he receives a ticket from the trooper. He initially communicates without issue until after signing paperwork and preparing to leave, when the officer struggles to understand what the trucker is saying.
Bodycam still shows Harjinder Singh holding paperwork as a New Mexico State Police officer issues him a speeding ticket during a July 3 traffic stop.(New Mexico State Police bodycam)
“What’s that,” the trooper says, before Singh speaks again.
“I’m sorry, I guess I don’t understand what you’re saying,” the trooper replies.
“Maybe in this, this my ticket, on my license, how many years,” Singh says to the officer in broken English.
The officer then appears to understand the question and explains to Singh that he thinks the ticket will remain on his license for five to seven years,
Singh’s limited English has drawn sharp scrutiny since the Department of Transportation (DOT) said he failed an English Language Proficiency (ELP) assessment following the deadly crash in Fort Pierce, Florida. The DOT said that Singh provided the correct responses to just 2 of 12 verbal questions and only accurately identified 1 of 4 highway traffic signs, raising questions as to how and why he was driving a commercial truck in the first place.
Additionally, during the July 3 stop, Singh was not subjected to an English language proficiency test, which the DOT said was required by law beginning on June 25. State police or highway patrol officers are required to carry out such checks during routine roadside inspections.
“A driver who can’t understand English will not drive a commercial vehicle in this country. Period,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in May while announcing the new enforcement guidelines.
Bodycam still shows Harjinder Singh signing paperwork on a New Mexico State Police vehicle after being pulled over for speeding on July 3, 2025.(New Mexico State Police bodycam)
On Tuesday, New Mexico State Police Chief Troy Weisler pushed back on claims by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy that the state was not properly enforcing the new English language requirements.
Weisler said federal officials had mischaracterized New Mexico’s Commercial Driver’s License policy and compliance with the law, noting that while general guidelines were issued on June 25, no standardized testing procedure was provided.
“When State Police sought clarification, the response received was simply, ‘You know when somebody doesn’t speak English,’” Weisler said, adding that New Mexico developed its own compliance process and trained officers to apply it consistently.
Weisler also argued that New Mexico had kept federal regulators informed with updates in late July and mid-August — before the Florida crash occurred.
Regarding Singh’s July 3 stop, Weisler said an ELP test would not have been triggered even if the new rules had already been in effect.
“Both the Federal guidelines and today’s statements by the U.S. Department of Transportation make clear that ELP assessments are only required when there is a challenge in communication,” Weisler said.
“As the video of the traffic stop demonstrates, there were no communication issues between Mr. Singh and the officer. Therefore, there would have been no reason to initiate an ELP assessment.”
Harjinder Singh, 28, is accused of making an unauthorized U-turn in Florida that resulted in a crash that left three people dead, officials said.(St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office)
Singh, who crossed into the United States illegally in 2018 via the southern border, has been charged with three counts of vehicular homicide and was extradited to Florida to face charges after traveling to California in the aftermath of the crash.
According to the DOT, Singh was issued a regular full-term commercial driver’s license in the state of Washington in July 2023, but illegal immigrants are not allowed to obtain this type of license.
A year later, Singh was issued a limited-term/non-domiciled commercial driver’s license in California. The DOT is investigating further whether the issuance of that license followed federal regulations.
Fox News’ Peter D’Abrosca contributed to this report.
Michael Dorgan is a writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business.
You can send tips to michael.dorgan@fox.com and follow him on Twitter @M_Dorgan.
President Trump recently issued an executive order directing the Justice Department to penalize jurisdictions that allow cashless bail, by withholding federal funds from them:
On Monday, President Donald Trump, who has called cashless bail a “government-backed crime spree,” signed an executive order to end the policy nationwide. The order restricts the allocation of “Federal policies and resources” to jurisdictions and states with cashless bail policies for “crimes that pose a clear threat to public safety and order.” It tasks Attorney General Pam Bondi with creating a list of such jurisdictions within 30 days, at which point the federal funds of these jurisdictions may be suspended or terminated.
Like a number of other Trump policies, this is simultaneously an attack on federalism and an attempt to usurp Congress’ spending power. Supreme Court precedent – most of it authored by conservative justices – holds that only Congress can impose conditions on state and local governments receiving federal grants, and those conditions must be clearly stated in the statutes allocating the funds. There are a number of other constitutional constraints on grant conditions, as well.
This issue has come up most often with Trump’s efforts to use grant conditions to coerce sanctuary cities, which limit state and local law enforcement assistance to federal immigration enforcement operations. See my Texas Law Review article on the numerous defeats Trump suffered in his first term, on this issue. That has continued with several court decisions ruling against similar attempts to coerce sanctuary cities in his second term (see my analyses here, here, and here).
As noted in my November 2024 post on sanctuary cities and conditional grants, longstanding Supreme Court precedent holds that conditions on federal grants must 1) be enacted and clearly indicated by Congress (the executive cannot impose its own grant conditions), 2) be related to the purposes of the grant in question, and 3) they must not be “coercive.”
All of these constraints apply to Trump’s attack on cashless bail, as well. Few, if any, federal grants have congressionally enacted conditions restricting cashless bail. And if we are talking about grants that are not closely linked to law enforcement purposes, imposing such conditions would violate the relatedness requirement. And if Trump wants to pull all or most grants from such jurisdictions, that is likely to violate the admittedly vague “coercion” constraint.
In addition, this is an attempt to insert the federal government in a core traditional area of state and local authority. Few powers are more central to state and local autonomy than control over state criminal law enforcement. I’m old enough to remember a time when conservatives cared about limiting federal intrusion on areas of state autonomy. This is a pretty blatant example.
This order should also be seen in the context of Trump’s broader assault on Congress’s fiscal authority. The Constitution clearly gives Congress, not the executive, power over taxation and spending. Yet Trump has sought to impose unilateral executive conditions on grants, withheld funds allocated by Congress, usurped authority over tariffs on a massive scale, and imposed unconstitutional export taxes. This bail measure is yet another usurpation.
The Framers of the Constitution rightly wanted to avoid giving power or taxation and spending to any one man. They remembered the abuses of monarchs such as Charles I. We would do well to heed that wisdom, too.
The courts have, in many cases, curbed Trump’s fiscal power grabs. But Congress should also act. Sadly, the GOP congressional leadership has largely either ignored Trump’s usurpation of legislative authority or actively applauded them.
Unlike in the case of sanctuary cities, which I have long defended on a variety of grounds, I don’t have much in the way of strong views on bail policy, and am not an expert on the subject. But the issue of when to grant bail or deny it is one the Constitution leaves to the states, at least when it comes to state crimes.
I will only add that there is a significant civil liberties angle here. In a free society, there should be a strong presumption against detaining or imprisoning people who have not been convicted of any crime. The presumption might be overcome in cases where a suspect poses some grave threat to public safety or cannot otherwise be prevented from fleeing the jurisdiction. But overcoming it should at least require a compelling showing that there is a grave threat or a flight risk. Requiring payment of bail is not as coercive as pretrial detention without bail. But there may be little difference between the two in cases where the suspect is indigent or does not have ready access to cash.
If the defendant is convicted, time spent in pretrial detention may count against his or her sentence. But that is little consolation if the suspect is acquitted or if they are sentenced to a fine or probation.
In sum, I am not sure what the optimal bail policy is. But there is reason to be wary of sweeping rejection of cashless bail. There is even more reason to be wary of this administration’s ongoing assaults on federalism and attempts to usurp Congress’s fiscal authority.
La joven de 18 años de Houston iba a comenzar clases este otoño en la Universidad de Texas en Tyler, donde le habían concedido una beca de 10.000 dólares al año. Esperaba que eso le permitiera alcanzar su sueño: un doctorado en Química, seguido de una carrera como profesora o investigadora.
“Y entonces se produjo el cambio en la matrícula estatal, y fue entonces cuando supe con certeza que tenía que dar un giro”, dijo Ximena. (The Hechinger Report se refiere a ella solo por su nombre de pila porque ella teme represalias por su situación migratoria).
Aunque Ximena pasó sus primeros años en el norte de México, la mayoría de sus recuerdos son de después de mudarse a Estados Unidos con su padre. Ha asistido a escuelas en Estados Unidos desde el jardín de infancia y, para ella, el 12.º grado consistió principalmente en explicar conceptos avanzados de química a sus compañeros de clase y dirigir laboratorios como asistente de enseñanza.
Pero en junio, los sueños de Ximena se vieron truncados cuando la oficina del fiscal general de Texas y la administración Trump colaboraron para poner fin a las disposiciones de una ley estatal que ofrecía a miles de estudiantes indocumentados como ella tasas de matrícula más bajas en las universidades públicas de Texas. Los funcionarios estatales y federales argumentaron con éxito ante los tribunales que la política vigente desde hacía mucho tiempo discriminaba a los ciudadanos estadounidenses de otros estados que pagaban una tasa más alta. Ese razonamiento se ha replicado ahora en demandas similares contra Kentucky, Oklahoma y Minnesota, como parte de una ofensiva más amplia contra el acceso de los inmigrantes a la educación pública.
En la UT Tyler, la matrícula y las tasas estatales para el próximo año académico ascienden a un total de 9.736 dólares, frente a los más de 25.000 dólares que pagan los estudiantes de fuera del estado. Ximena y su familia no podían permitirse el elevado coste de la matrícula, por lo que la joven se retiró. En su lugar, se matriculó en el Houston Community College, donde los costos para los estudiantes de fuera del estado son de 227 dólares por hora semestral, casi tres veces más que la tarifa para los residentes en el distrito. La escuela solo ofrece clases básicas de química de nivel universitario, por lo que, para prepararse para un doctorado o para trabajar en investigaciones especializadas, Ximena seguirá necesitando encontrar la manera de pagar una universidad de cuatro años en el futuro.
Su difícil situación es precisamente lo que los legisladores estatales de ambos partidos políticos esperaban evitar cuando aprobaron la Texas Dream Act o Ley de Sueños de Texas, una ley de 2001 que no solo abrió las puertas de la educación superior a los estudiantes indocumentados, sino que también tenía por objeto reforzar la economía y la mano de obra de Texas a largo plazo. Con esa ley, Texas se convirtió en el primero de más de dos docenas de estados en aplicar la matrícula estatal a los estudiantes indocumentados, y durante casi 24 años, esta política histórica se mantuvo intacta. Los legisladores conservadores propusieron repetidamente su derogación, pero a pesar de los años de control de un solo partido en la legislatura estatal, no hubo suficientes republicanos que apoyaran la derogación, incluso esta primavera, días antes de que la oficina del fiscal general de Texas y el Departamento de Justicia federal decidieran ponerle fin.
Ahora, a medida que se acerca el semestre de otoño, los estudiantes inmigrantes están sopesando si darse de baja de sus cursos o esperar a que se aclare cómo les afecta el acuerdo de consentimiento firmado por el estado y el Departamento de Justicia. Los defensores de los inmigrantes temen que las universidades de Texas estén excluyendo a posibles alumnos que se encuentran en situación legal y siguen reuniendo los requisitos para pagar la matrícula estatal a pesar de la sentencia judicial, incluidos los beneficiarios del programa de Acción Diferida para los Llegados en la Infancia (DACA), los solicitantes de asilo y los que tienen Estatus de Protección Temporal o TPS, porque el personal de la universidad carece de conocimientos sobre inmigración y no ha recibido directrices claras sobre quién debe pagar exactamente la matrícula más alta.
En el Austin Community College, que presta servicio a un área tan grande como el estado de Connecticut, los miembros del consejo de administración no están seguros de cómo aplicar correctamente la sentencia judicial. Mientras esperan respuestas, hasta ahora han decidido no enviar cartas a sus estudiantes solicitándoles información confidencial para determinar las tasas de matrícula.
Una valla publicitaria que promociona el Austin Community College en español se encuentra en una autopista que conduce a Lockhart, Texas. Credit: Sergio Flores for The Hechinger Report
“Esta confusión perjudicará inevitablemente a los estudiantes, porque lo que vemos es que, ante la falta de información y la presencia del miedo y la ansiedad, los estudiantes optarán por no continuar con la educación superior o se esconderán en las sombras y se sentirán como miembros marginados de la comunidad”, afirmó Manuel González, vicepresidente del consejo de administración del ACC.
Por su parte, los expertos en políticas públicas advierten de que la mano de obra de Texas podría verse afectada, ya que los jóvenes con talento, muchos de los cuales han cursado toda su educación en el sistema de escuelas públicas del estado, ya no podrán permitirse los títulos de asociado y licenciatura que les permitirían seguir carreras que ayudarían a impulsar sus economías locales. En virtud de la Ley Texas Dream, los beneficiarios estaban obligados a comprometerse a solicitar la residencia permanente legal lo antes posible, lo que les daba la oportunidad de mantener puestos de trabajo relacionados con sus títulos. Sin la condición de residentes, es probable que sigan trabajando, pero en empleos peor remunerados y menos visibles.
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“Es una visión muy cortoplacista en lo que respecta al bienestar del estado de Texas”, afirmó Barbara Hines, antigua profesora de Derecho que ayudó a los legisladores a redactar la Ley Texas Dream.
A principios de siglo, casi dos décadas después de que los niños indocumentados obtuvieran el derecho a asistir a la escuela pública en Estados Unidos, los estudiantes inmigrantes y sus defensores seguían frustrados porque la universidad seguía estando fuera de su alcance.
Para el mayor general retirado de la Guardia Nacional del Ejército Rick Noriega, un demócrata que en ese momento formaba parte de la Legislatura de Texas, esa realidad le tocó de cerca cuando se enteró de que un joven trabajador de su distrito quería matricularse en el community college local para estudiar mecánica aeronáutica, pero no podía permitirse pagar la matrícula fuera del estado.
Noriega llamó a la oficina del rector de la escuela, que pudo proporcionar fondos para que el estudiante se inscribiera. Pero esa experiencia le llevó a preguntarse: ¿cuántos niños más de su distrito se enfrentaban a las mismas barreras para acceder a la educación superior?
Así que colaboró con un sociólogo para encuestar a los estudiantes de las escuelas secundarias locales sobre el problema, que resultó ser muy frecuente. Y el distrito de Noriega no era una excepción. En un estado que durante mucho tiempo ha tenido una de las mayores poblaciones de inmigrantes no autorizados del país, los políticos de todos los partidos conocían a electores, amigos o familiares afectados y querían ayudar. Una vez que Noriega decidió proponer la legislación, un republicano, Fred Hill, pidió ser coautor del proyecto de ley.
Para los defensores de la Ley Texas Dream, el mejor argumento a favor de la matrícula estatal para los estudiantes indocumentados era de carácter económico. Después de que el estado ya hubiera invertido en estos estudiantes durante la educación pública K-12, tenía sentido seguir desarrollándolos para que, con el tiempo, pudieran ayudar a satisfacer las necesidades de mano de obra de Texas.
“Habíamos gastado todo ese dinero en estos jóvenes, y ellos habían hecho todo lo que les pedimos —en muchos casos, eran superestrellas, los mejores de su promoción y cosas por el estilo— y luego se topaban con este obstáculo, que era la educación superior, cuyo costo era prohibitivo”, dijo Noriega.
La legislación fue aprobada fácilmente por la Cámara de Representantes de Texas, que en ese momento estaba controlada por los demócratas, pero el Senado, liderado por los republicanos, se mostró menos complaciente.
“Ni siquiera pude conseguir una audiencia. Me dijeron rotundamente: “No, esto no va a salir adelante””, afirmó Leticia Van de Putte, la entonces senadora estatal que patrocinó la legislación en su cámara.
Las nubes cubren el cielo detrás de la torre de la Universidad de Texas en Austin. Credit: Sergio Flores for The Washington Post via Getty Images
Para persuadir a sus colegas republicanos, añadió varias restricciones, entre ellas la de exigir a los estudiantes indocumentados que vivieran en Texas durante tres años antes de terminar la escuela secundaria o recibir un GED. (Se estimó que tres años era el tiempo medio que tardaría una familia en pagar suficientes impuestos estatales para compensar la diferencia entre la matrícula estatal y la matrícula fuera del estado). También incluyó la cláusula que obligaba a los estudiantes indocumentados que accedían a la matrícula estatal a firmar una declaración jurada en la que se comprometían a solicitar la tarjeta de residencia tan pronto como pudieran.
Van de Putte también recurrió a los grupos empresariales de Texas para insistir en los argumentos económicos a favor del proyecto de ley. Y convenció a la comunidad empresarial para que pagara los autobuses que llevarían a pastores evangélicos conservadores latinos de Dallas, San Antonio, Houston y otras zonas del estado a Austin, para que pudieran llamar a las puertas en apoyo de la legislación y rezar con los senadores republicanos y su personal.
Después de eso, la Ley Texas Dream fue aprobada por abrumadora mayoría en el Senado estatal en mayo de 2001, y el entonces gobernador Rick Perry, republicano, la promulgó como ley al mes siguiente.
Sin embargo, en 2007, incluso cuando los defensores de los derechos de los inmigrantes, los grupos religiosos y las asociaciones empresariales formaron una coalición para defender a los inmigrantes contra las políticas estatales perjudiciales, la legislatura de Texas comenzó a presentar una serie de propuestas generalmente contrarias a los inmigrantes. En 2010, las encuestas sugerían que los tejanos se oponían de manera abrumadora a que los estudiantes indocumentados pagaran las tasas de matrícula estatales.
En 2012, un nuevo grupo de políticos de derecha fue elegido para ocupar cargos públicos, muchos de ellos opuestos filosóficamente a la ley y muy críticos al respecto. La defensa de la política por parte de Perry se volvió en su contra durante las primarias presidenciales republicanas de 2012, cuando su campaña fue objeto de críticas después de que, durante un debate, dijera a los oponentes de la igualdad en las matrículas: “No creo que tengan corazón”.
Aún así, ninguno de los muchos proyectos de ley presentados a lo largo de los años para derogar la Ley Texas Dream tuvo éxito. E incluso el gobernador Greg Abbott, un republicano partidario de la línea dura en materia de inmigración, se mostró en ocasiones ambiguo sobre la política, y su portavoz afirmó en 2013 que Abbott creía que “el objetivo” de la matrícula estatal independientemente del estatus migratorio era “noble”.
Los observadores legislativos afirman que algunos republicanos del estado siguen apoyando la política. “Es una cuestión bipartidista. Hay republicanos que apoyan la matrícula estatal”, afirmó Luis Figueroa, director de asuntos legislativos de la organización sin fines de lucro Every Texan, dedicada a la investigación y la defensa de políticas públicas. “Pero no pueden decirlo públicamente”.
Mientras tanto, a medida que el tema se volvía más controvertido políticamente en Texas, la Texas Dream Act acabó amplificando un debate más amplio que finalmente condujo a la creación del DACA, el programa de la era Obama que ha dado a algunos inmigrantes indocumentados acceso a protecciones contra la deportación y permisos de trabajo.
Incluso antes del DACA, muchos inmigrantes trabajaban, y los que siguen sin papeles a menudo siguen haciéndolo, ya sea como contratistas independientes para empleadores que hacen la vista gorda ante su estatus migratorio o creando sus propios negocios. Un estudio de mayo de 2020 reveló que los residentes no autorizados constituyen el 8,2 % de la población activa del estado y que, por cada dólar gastado en servicios públicos para ellos, el estado de Texas recuperaba 1,21 dólares en ingresos.
Pero sin el permiso legal inmediato para trabajar, los graduados universitarios indocumentados que se habían beneficiado de la Ley Dream de Texas se vieron limitados a pesar de sus títulos. A medida que la lucha por la equidad en las matrículas se extendía a otros estados, también lo hacía la lucha por una solución legal que apoyara a los estudiantes beneficiados.
Cuando estos jóvenes, cariñosamente apodados “soñadores o dreamers”, pasaron a primer plano para defenderse más públicamente, su difícil situación despertó simpatía. En 2017, el mismo año en que Trump comenzó su primer mandato, las encuestas dieron un giro y mostraron que la mayoría de los tejanos apoyaba las matrículas estatales para los estudiantes indocumentados. Más recientemente, las investigaciones han indicado una y otra vez que los estadounidenses apoyan una vía para que los residentes indocumentados traídos a Estados Unidos cuando eran niños obtengan la residencia legal.
Pero los argumentos en contra de la matrícula estatal, independientemente del estatus migratorio, también ganaron popularidad: los críticos sostenían que la política es injusta para los ciudadanos estadounidenses de otros estados que tienen que pagar tasas más altas, o que los estudiantes indocumentados están ocupando plazas en escuelas competitivas que podrían ser ocupadas por estadounidenses.
El Departamento de Justicia se apoyó en una retórica similar en la demanda que acabó con la igualdad en las matrículas en Texas, alegando que la ley estatal queda invalidada por la legislación federal de 1996 que prohíbe a los inmigrantes indocumentados acceder a la matrícula estatal basada en la residencia. Ese argumento se ha convertido en un modelo, ya que la administración Trump ha presentado demandas para desmantelar las políticas de matrícula estatal de otros estados para los residentes indocumentados.
En Kentucky, el fiscal general del estado, el republicano Russell Coleman, ha seguido los pasos de Texas y ha recomendado que el consejo estatal que supervisa la educación superior retire su normativa que permite el acceso a la matrícula estatal en lugar de luchar por defenderla en los tribunales.
Al mismo tiempo, la administración Trump ha encontrado otras formas de recortar las oportunidades de educación superior para los estudiantes indocumentados, revocando una política que les había ayudado a participar en programas de formación profesional, técnica y para adultos, e investigando a las universidades por ofrecerles becas.
En Texas, el repentino cambio de política con respecto a las matrículas estatales está causando caos. Las dos universidades más grandes del estado, Texas A&M y la Universidad de Texas, están utilizando diferentes directrices para decidir qué estudiantes deben pagar las tasas fuera del estado.
“Creo que las universidades son las que se encuentran en esta situación realmente difícil”, dijo Figueroa. “No son expertos en inmigración. Han recibido muy poca orientación sobre cómo interpretar el decreto de consentimiento”.
En medio de tanta confusión, Figueroa predijo que es probable que surjan futuras demandas. Los estudiantes y organizaciones afectados ya han presentado mociones ante los tribunales para defender tardíamente la Ley Texas Dream contra el Departamento de Justicia.
Mientras tanto, los jóvenes estudiantes se enfrentan a decisiones difíciles. Una estudiante, que pidió permanecer en el anonimato debido a su condición de inmigrante indocumentada, estaba leyendo las noticias en su teléfono antes de acostarse cuando vio un titular sobre el resultado del caso judicial del Departamento de Justicia.
“Me eché a llorar porque, como alguien que ha luchado por salir adelante en sus estudios, ahora que estoy en la educación superior, ha sido una bendición”, dijo. “Así que lo primero que pensé fue: “¿Qué voy a hacer ahora? ¿Hacia dónde va mi futuro? ¿Los planes que tenía para mí tendrán que detenerse por completo?””.
La joven, que vive en San Antonio desde que tenía 9 meses, se había matriculado en seis cursos para el otoño en la Universidad Texas A&M-San Antonio y no estaba segura de si abandonarlos. Sería su último semestre antes de obtener sus títulos en psicología y sociología, pero no podía imaginar pagar la matrícula fuera del estado.
“Estoy en el limbo”, dijo, como “muchos estudiantes en este momento”.
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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — One of the nation’s leading operators of automated license-plate reading systems announced Monday it has paused its operations with federal agencies because of confusion and concern — including in Illinois — about the purpose of their investigations.
Flock Safety, whose cameras are mounted in more than 4,000 communities nationwide, put a hold last week on pilot programs with the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection and its law enforcement arm, Homeland Security Investigations, according to a statement by its founder and CEO, Garrett Langley.
Among officials in other jurisdictions, Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias raised concerns. He announced Monday that an audit found Customs and Border Protection had accessed Illinois data, although he didn’t say that the agency was seeking immigration-related information. A 2023 law the Democrat pushed bars sharing license plate data with police investigating out-of-state abortions or undocumented immigrants.
“This sharing of license plate data of motorists who drive on Illinois roads is a clear violation of the state law,” Giannoulias said in a statement. “This law, passed two years ago, aimed to strengthen how data is shared and prevent this exact thing from happening,”
Flock Safety’s cameras capture billions of photos of license plates each month. However, it doesn’t own that data. The local agencies in whose jurisdictions the cameras are located do, and they’re the ones who receive inquiries from other law enforcement agencies.
Langley said the company had initiated pilot programs with Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations to help combat human trafficking and fentanyl distribution. The company is unaware of any immigration-related searches the agencies made, but Langley said parameters were unclear.
“We clearly communicated poorly. We also didn’t create distinct permissions and protocols in the Flock system to ensure local compliance for federal agency users,” Langley said.
The revelation comes two months after Giannoulias announced that police in the Chicago suburb of Mount Prospect had shared data with a Texas sheriff who was seeking a missing woman. The woman’s family was worried because she had undergone a self-administered abortion.
Although the sheriff in Johnson County, Texas, said he was simply trying to help the family locate the woman, Giannoulias demanded more vigilance from Flock Safety because of the abortion connection.
In addition to halting the pilot programs, Flock has tweaked its system so that federal inquiries are clearly identified as such. And federal agencies will no longer be able to make blanket national or even statewide searches, but only one-on-one searches with particular police agencies.
Asked when the federal agency had accessed Illinois data, a Giannoulias spokesperson said the investigation was ongoing.
After the June incident, Flock Safety responded to Giannoulias’ request that its system reject searches that includes terms such as “abortion,” “immigration” or “ICE” (for Immigration and Customs Enforcement). Those flag terms have been in effect since late June, a Flock Safety spokesperson said.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia surrendered to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Baltimore on Monday, just days after his release from jail. ICE alerted his attorneys on Friday that he could be deported to Uganda and was ordered to report to authorities.
BALTIMORE – Kilmar Abrego Garcia surrendered to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Baltimore on Monday, just days after his release from jail. ICE alerted his attorneys on Friday that he could be deported to Uganda and was ordered to report to authorities.
The father, who was deported to El Salvador in March despite a judge’s order protecting him from removal, reunited with his family over the weekend.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia surrendered to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Baltimore on Monday, just three days after his release from jail. ICE notified his attorneys Friday that he could face deportation to Uganda and was ordered to report in person.
Abrego Garcia’s case became a flash point in Trump’s immigration crackdown, after he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March despite a judge’s ruling that he faced a “well-founded fear” of violence there.
Under court pressure, the Trump administration returned him to the U.S. in June, only to detain him on human smuggling charges stemming from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee. Police pulled him over for speeding and noted nine passengers in the vehicle. Though officers voiced suspicions of smuggling, Abrego Garcia was released with a warning. He has pleaded not guilty.
Faces deportation
A longtime Maryland resident with an American wife and children, Abrego Garcia was granted pretrial release last month. But he remained in jail at his attorneys’ request, fearing he could be deported again if freed.
Federal officials argue he remains eligible for deportation because he entered the country illegally and was ordered removed by an immigration judge in 2019, though not to El Salvador.
Images of Kilmar Abrego Garcia as he reported to the ICE detention center in Baltimore on Monday, just days after his release from jail. ICE alerted his attorneys Friday that he could be deported to Uganda and was ordered to report to authorities.
The Source: Information in this article comes from The Associated Press and previous FOX 5 reporting.
Since the outset of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign, Carolina Reyes, the director of the Arco Iris Bilingual Children’s Center in Maryland, had to start having conversations with parents about whom she should contact in case they disappear in an ICE raid.
“I had to say, ‘You need to have a plan. I know it’s difficult, but you need to have a plan,’” Reyes told Salon. “I know it’s difficult, but you need to have a plan. And then they were like, ‘No, I don’t want to talk about it.’ I was like, ‘I understand, but you have to because, unfortunately, you don’t know if you go to work and something happens, who’s going to take care of your child? What is going to happen? What do I have to do?”
According to Reyes, this is only one of many difficult conversations she has had since the beginning of the Republican mass deportation campaign earlier this year.
“We had a meeting with my teachers where we need to prepare if ICE comes. As a school, we are not allowing anybody to come into our school. We close the door and we lock down a little bit, if that’s the case. We are not going to release anybody, not to, particularly ICE or anything like that. We call parents too. We talk about it, and if we see ICE or any situation where we feel uncomfortable, parents will be notified,” Reyes said.
From 2011 until the beginning of Trump’s second term, child care facilities had been off limits for ICE raids. Trump ended the protection afforded to child care facilities and other sensitive locations in January, telling immigration officers to “balance a variety of interests” when conducting operations in or around such locations.
While it’s not clear whether ICE has conducted any raids on early childhood education centers yet, the rule change earlier this year and the administration’s readiness to detain children and families have left providers across the country in a state of anxiety with organizations advising that providers prepare for potential raids.
The potential for direct raids on facilities isn’t the only issue impacting parents and children since the beginning of the GOP mass deportation campaign. For many of the families Reyes has worked with, parents are afraid to go to work because they’re worried that they, or one of their family members, might be targeted by ICE. At the same time, Reyes said, ICE had targeted those seeking food assistance at places like local churches, which left families of mixed immigration status with nowhere to turn.
“Here in Maryland, ICE was going to those places too, to arrest people, so we started our own food program a little bit here, asking our own families to donate food so that families didn’t have to go to those places,” Reyes said.
And the fear in the community goes beyond just noncitizen residents.
“I did have some families who were concerned and worried, even though they had legal status in the United States, you know. But they’re immigrants, so we look like immigrants and Latinos, and some of them were concerned about that too,” Reyes said.
Reyes’ experience is only a keyhole view into the dramatic effect that Trump and the GOP’s policies are having on the child care industry and the families that rely on it in the United States.
The child care and early childhood education industry is among those most impacted by Trump’s immigration policies. According to the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at Berkeley, around 500,000 workers in the industry are immigrants, accounting for about 21% of the industry’s workforce nationwide.
The percentage of child care workers born outside the United States varies widely by state as well. In Florida, for example, 38% of early childhood educators were born outside the United States, while in a state like Vermont, the number is closer to just 3%.
Beyond statistics, there are some communities in which immigrants maintain a critical role in terms of child care. The 19th detailed in a report this year the detention of Orozco Forero, a worker who cared for children with Autism and was the only provider who would take some children in her community.
One child care provider located near Columbus, Ohio, who wished to be identified only as Ann, told Salon that since Trump’s mass deportation campaign began, they’ve been having a hard time finding new workers.
“I have two who, in the middle of the hiring process, disappeared, or they no-showed. And then I found out from other trusted sources who know them that they are involved in immigration proceedings,” Ann said. “Even today, there’s one woman who was supposed to start with us — I don’t know the correct immigration or political term — she’s got clearance to be in the US. She’s originally from Mexico. Her father’s here, but they were able to get her immigration status made legit, if I can say it that way. But she’s disappeared for two weeks, and then I found out today that she’s had to travel to Cleveland for a court proceeding. I said to the other person who knows her, I just asked her, ‘is she okay?’”
Ann said that the new problems haven’t been limited to hiring workers either. She told Salon that immigrant families have recently had problems getting financial benefits through Ohio’s Publicly Funded Child Care program for their children, who are American citizens.
“Now what’s happening is I have immigrant families who have immigrant children, and U.S.-born children, we are having a hard time getting the families care and benefits for their entire family, including the U.S.-born child, and that’s when I start losing all hope in this,” Ann said.
In the past, Ann said, she would be able to appeal the decision made by the county government to the state government with a high success rate. Now, however, she says families are increasingly being denied at the state level, too.
According to Arabella Bloom, a researcher at the center, the mass deportation campaign, which impacts parents, children and the people who staff child care centers, is hitting a system that was struggling to begin with.
“I think something important to note about childcare is that the system that we currently have right now — it’s kind of generous to call it a system,” Bloom said. “It’s very patchwork. Programs are happening in public schools, but programs are also happening in people’s homes. And so there’s not like a cohesive early childhood system. It’s a lot of programs kind of operating on their own. You know, many early childhood programs are for-profit, but they’re barely making ends meet.”
Bloom said that, even for those workers who are not immigrants, there is a “real fear about interacting with immigration,” especially among Hispanic workers and other people of color.
The pressure from Trump’s mass deportation campaign comes in addition to more direct attacks on immigrants’ access to early childhood education from his administration and the Republicans in Congress.
The Trump administration announced in July, for example, that it would be making undocumented immigrants, who are already largely ineligible for federal benefits, ineligible for Head Start and that administrators for Head Start would be checking for eligibility based on immigration status.
“This decision undermines the fundamental commitment that the country has made to children and disregards decades of evidence that Head Start is essential to our collective future,” Yasmina Vinci, executive director of the National Head Start Association, told the Associated Press at the time.
Bloom explained that some changes in the recent GOP budget also stood to have an outsized impact on the workers in the early childhood education industry, especially cuts to SNAP and Medicaid.
“We know that roughly 43% of early educators rely on public benefits to make ends meet because pay is so low, so it’s kind of just a like a perfect storm of at the same time that immigration efforts are ramping up, and that’s obviously going to be very impactful for the one in five early educators who are immigrants,” Bloom said.
The GOP attacks on public benefits and immigration policy “threaten the supply of care that’s already hard to find,” Rachel Wilensky, a senior analyst on child care and early education at the Center for Law and Social Policy, told Salon.
Wilensky cited a CLASP study from 2018, which found that immigration actions like those being carried out by the Trump administration this year, and those that were conducted in the first administration, left a lasting impact on the physical, social and emotional development of young children.
“Good nutrition, regular health care, a stable and healthy living environment, and nurturing care are necessities for children to grow and learn and ultimately do well in school, in their jobs, and throughout their lives,” Wilensky said. “When children don’t have their basic needs met—or when they experience hardship and distress—it undercuts their growth and development and can have enduring effects. Immigrants have been central throughout our nation’s history, and their experiences matter for our future. The success of the United States is tied to the health and well-being of immigrants, as well as their success in school and later careers.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials arrested Kilmar Abrego-Garcia Monday morning, shortly after he arrived for a check-in at the agency’s field office in Baltimore, Maryland.
Abrego-Garcia’s legal fight for months has dominated U.S. headlines, after he was deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador in violation of a 2019 court order. He faces a possible second deportation, this time to Uganda.
Shortly before his arrival Monday morning, immigration advocates, faith leaders, and other community members massed outside the field office at sunrise for a vigil, organized by two immigration advocacy groups.
The Trump administration returned him to the U.S. months after sending him to El Salvador, under orders from a federal judge and from the Supreme Court.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, right, and his brother Cesar Abrego Garcia, center, arrive at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Baltimore, Monday, Aug. 25, 2025.(AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
He was arrested upon return to the U.S. on human smuggling charges stemming from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennesee. He remained in federal detention until Friday, when he was released from U.S. custody and ordered to return to Maryland, where a judge said he could remain under electronic surveillance and under ICE supervision while awaiting trial.
ICE officials notified Abrego-Garcia’s attorneys shortly after his release on Friday that they planned to deport him to Uganda, an East African nation that reached a deal with the U.S. last week to accept migrants deported by the Trump administration.
The notice, sent by ICE’s Office of the Principal Legal Adviser, said it was intended to “serve as notice that DHS may remove your client, Kilmar Armando Abrego-Garcia, to Uganda no earlier than 72 hours from now (absent weekends).”
Trump’s border czar Tom Homan told Fox News in an interview Sunday night that Abrego-Garcia was “absolutely” going to be deported from the U.S,, and said Uganda is “on the table” as the third country of removal.
“We have an agreement with them. It’s on a table, absolutely,” Homan said in an interview on “The Big Weekend Show” Sunday evening.
“He is absolutely going to be deported,” Homan reiterated.
For now, he said, Abrego-Garcia “can enjoy the little time he has with his family. And for the person who says we’re not going to separate family, his family can go with him, because he’s leaving.”
This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates.
Breanne Deppisch is a national politics reporter for Fox News Digital covering the Trump administration, with a focus on the Justice Department, FBI, and other national news.
BALTIMORE — Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose case has become a flashpoint in President Donald Trump’s aggressive effort to remove noncitizens from the U.S., was detained by immigration authorities in Baltimore on Monday to face renewed efforts to deport him after a brief period of freedom.
What You Need To Know
Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been detained by immigration authorities in Baltimore and faces efforts by the Trump administration to deport him to Uganda
However, a blanket court order automatically pauses any effort to immediately deport Abrego Garcia and other immigrants who are challenging their detention
Abrego Garcia became the face of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies when he was wrongfully deported in March to El Salvador
He was returned to the U.S. in June, only to face human-smuggling charges that his lawyers have called preposterous
He was released from jail on Friday to await trial
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys quickly filed a lawsuit to fight those removal efforts until a court has heard his claim for protection, stating that the U.S. could place him in a country where “his safety cannot be assured.”
The new lawsuit triggered a blanket court order that automatically pauses deportation efforts for two days. The order applies to immigrants in Maryland who are challenging their detention.
Crowd yells ‘shame!’
Abrego Garcia, a 30-year-old Maryland construction worker and Salvadoran national, spoke at a rally before he turned himself in.
“This administration has hit us hard, but I want to tell you guys something: God is with us, and God will never leave us,” Abrego Garcia said, speaking through a translator. “God will bring justice to all the injustice we are suffering.”
Roughly 200 people had gathered and prayed in front of the Baltimore field office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Some held signs with messages such as “Stop Detaining Our Neighbors” and “Free Kilmar.”
With Abrego Garcia and his wife standing before them, the crowd spoke in unison: “The people united will never be defeated.”
The crowd waited outside after Abrego Garcia entered the federal building. When his lawyer and wife walked out without him after his detainment, the crowd yelled “Shame!”
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on X that Abrego Garcia was being processed for deportation. But Abrego Garcia’s lead immigration attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said lawyers will fight the administration’s removal attempts.
“I expect there’s going to be a status conference very promptly, and we’re going to ask for an interim order that he not be deported, pending his due process rights to contest deportation to any particular country,” he said.
Reunion with family
Abrego Garcia was wrongfully deported in March to a notorious prison in his native El Salvador. He was returned to the U.S. in June, only to face human smuggling charges that his lawyers have called preposterous and vindictive.
The Trump administration has said it is trying to deport Abrego Garcia months before his trial is scheduled in Tennessee, alleging that the married father is a danger to the community and an MS-13 gang member. He has denied the gang allegation, pleaded not guilty to smuggling charges and has asked a judge to dismiss the case on ground of vindictive prosecution.
Abrego Garcia was released Friday afternoon from a jail in Tennessee and returned to his family in Maryland. Video released by advocates of the reunion showed a room decorated with streamers, flowers and signs. He embraced loved ones and thanked them “for everything.”
‘Hold Abrego Garcia accountable’
Immigration officials have said they plan to deport Abrego Garcia to Uganda, which recently agreed to accept certain deportees from the U.S. He declined an offer to be removed to Costa Rica in exchange for pleading guilty to human smuggling charges.
Filings in federal court show the Costa Rican government saying Abrego Garcia would be welcomed as a legal immigrant and wouldn’t face detention.
In a statement, Justice Department spokesperson Chad Gilmartin said the criminal charges underscore how Abrego Garcia presents a “clear danger” and that he can either plead guilty or stand trial.
“Either way, we will hold Abrego Garcia accountable and protect the American people,” Gilmartin said.
The U.S. mistakenly deported Abrego Garcia to El Salvador in March, despite a judge’s earlier determination that he faced a “well-founded fear” of violence there. Facing a court order, the Trump administration brought him back to the United States in June, only to detain him on human smuggling charges.
He pleaded not guilty and asked the judge to dismiss the case, calling it an attempt to punish him for challenging his deportation to El Salvador. His lawyers have argued that the threat to deport him to Uganda is more proof that the prosecution is vindictive.
The smuggling charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee for speeding. There were nine passengers in the car, and officers discussed among themselves their suspicions of smuggling. Abrego Garcia was allowed to continue driving with only a warning.
Abrego Garcia has an American wife and children and has lived in Maryland for years. Although he was deemed eligible for pretrial release last month, he remained in jail at the request of his attorneys, who feared the Republican administration could try to immediately deport him again if he were freed.
A recent ruling in a separate case in Maryland required ICE to provide 72 hours’ notice before initiating deportation proceedings — time to allow a prospective deportee to mount a defense. An email from ICE sent to attorneys at 4:01 p.m. on Friday refers to that decision.
“Please let this email serve as notice that DHS may remove your client, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, to Uganda no earlier than 72 hours from now (absent weekends),” it states. Uganda recently agreed to take deportees from the U.S., provided they do not have criminal records and are not unaccompanied minors.
Federal officials have argued that Abrego Garcia can be deported because he came to the U.S. illegally and because a U.S. immigration judge deemed him eligible for expulsion in 2019, just not to his native El Salvador.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man who was mistakenly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador, will meet with immigration officials Monday under the looming threat of a second deportation, this time to Uganda.
Abrego’s case — a flashpoint in the Trump administrations crackdown on immigration — is now at a major crossroads.
But the Trump administration has doubled down on its resolve to deport Abrego, alleging he is a member of the violent gang MS-13 — a claim his attorneys have repeatedly denied.
Abrego had been deported in March in what the White House called an “administrative error” and after a tedious legal saga, was returned to the U.S. in June. But he was immediately detained again, this time on human smuggling charges in Tennessee. He pleaded not guilty to those charges.
Minutes after his release, immigration authorities notified Abrego that they intend to deport him to Uganda. Separately, the Trump administration offered Abrego a plea deal that ensures his eventual deportation to Costa Rica.
On Friday night, the government informed Abrego that he has until “first thing” Monday morning to accept a plea in exchange for deportation to Costa Rica, “or else that offer will be off the table forever,” Abrego’s attorneys wrote in a filing as part of their efforts to get the charges in Tennessee dropped over what they consider to be a “vindictive” and “selective” prosecution.
Here are how Monday’s appointment may play out:
Monday’s ICE check-in
Abrego will have a check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Baltimore on Monday as part of the conditions of his release from federal custody on parole.
Typically, such ICE check-ins are brief meetings with an officer from ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations to review case status, provide updates, and confirm where a person is living. Usually, a person is released until the next scheduled check-in.
But Abrego’s attorneys told NBC News they expect he will be taken into ICE custody during the check-in, given the Trump administration’s notice of their intent to deport him.
A judge ruled in July that the government had to provide 72 hours notice, excluding weekends, if it intends to deport Abrego to a third country, which the Justice Department provided on Friday afternoon.
Abrego’s lawyers have said he illegally immigrated to the U.S. when he was 16 to join his brother in Maryland to escape gang violence in El Salvador.
His deportation to El Salvador violated a 2019 court order that protected him from being deported to his home country due to concerns that he’d be persecuted by violent gangs. But, that order doesn’t prevent his deportation to any other country.
What may happen from here?
There are several paths that could unfold from here: Abrego could take the plea deal and eventually be deported to Costa Rica, he could refuse to and be deported to Uganda, or his lawyers could fight against Uganda as a deportation option.
If Abrego does not change his plea in the Tennessee federal case, he could be deported from the U.S. to Uganda as soon as Wednesday.
However, Abrego could not face the criminal charges of human smuggling brought against him by Department of Justice in that case if he is removed from the country. His trial is set for January in Nashville.
Last week, Uganda agreed to a deal with the U.S. to take deported migrants, as long as they don’t have criminal records and are not unaccompanied minors. Uganda’s foreign ministry said the nation prefers that migrants sent there be of African nationalities.
Abrego’s attorneys could also try to prevent his deportation to Uganda altogether, and try to convince an immigration judge within 72 hours that Abrego is likely to experience persecution or torture there. An immigration judge would have to agree to prevent his deportation to the African nation.
On Saturday, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of Abrego’s attorneys, accused the government of “punishing” Abrego for “exercising his constitutional rights.”
“It is preposterous that they would send him to Africa, to a country where he doesn’t even speak the language, a country with documented human rights violations, when there are so many other options. This family has suffered enough,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said outside Abrego’s brother’s home.
He said they intend to “fight tooth and nail” against deportation to Uganda, South Sudan, Libya and “any other completely ridiculous country that they can come up with.”
What if Abrego takes a plea deal?
Alternatively, Abrego could take a plea deal offered by the Trump administration earlier this week.
That deal requires him to plead guilty to both counts of the criminal indictment against him in Tennessee, serve time, and then be deported.
Should he plead guilty or be convicted by a jury, the charges against Abrego carry a sentence of up to 10 years in federal prison. Under either scenario, U.S. District Judge Wesley Crenshaw in Nashville will determine how much time Abrego will serve.
If eventually deported to Costa Rica, Abrego would be welcomed as a refugee and live as a free man, the Costa Rican government said in a letter submitted to the court by one of Abrego’s attorneys as part of the filing in the Tennessee case.
In that filing, attorney Sean Hecker said that the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and ICE were “using their collective powers to force Mr. Abrego to choose between a guilty plea followed by relative safety, or rendition to Uganda, where his safety and liberty would be under threat.”
Sandoval-Moshenberg on Saturday called the Costa Rica plea deal offer “pretty reasonable,” noting “Costa Rica makes sense. It’s a Spanish speaking country. It’s proximate to the United States. His family can visit him there easily.”
Abrego’s case has sparked heated debate and intense scrutiny over the Trump administration’s immigration policies including the race to deport people — at times without due process, aggressive ICE raids and sordid detainment facility conditions.
Julia Ainsley contributed.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia is an El Salvadoran immigrant at the center of a legal battle that could reshape American immigration policy. Here’s what you need to know.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man who was mistakenly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador, will meet with immigration officials Monday under the looming threat of a second deportation, this time to Uganda.
Abrego’s case — a flashpoint in the Trump administrations crackdown on immigration — is now at a major crossroads.
But the Trump administration has doubled down on its resolve to deport Abrego, alleging he is a member of the violent gang MS-13 — a claim his attorneys have repeatedly denied.
Abrego had been deported in March in what the White House called an “administrative error” and after a tedious legal saga, was returned to the U.S. in June. But he was immediately detained again, this time on human smuggling charges in Tennessee. He pleaded not guilty to those charges.
Minutes after his release, immigration authorities notified Abrego that they intend to deport him to Uganda. Separately, the Trump administration offered Abrego a plea deal that ensures his eventual deportation to Costa Rica.
On Friday night, the government informed Abrego that he has until “first thing” Monday morning to accept a plea in exchange for deportation to Costa Rica, “or else that offer will be off the table forever,” Abrego’s attorneys wrote in a filing as part of their efforts to get the charges in Tennessee dropped over what they consider to be a “vindictive” and “selective” prosecution.
Here are how Monday’s appointment may play out:
Monday’s ICE check-in
Abrego will have a check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Baltimore on Monday as part of the conditions of his release from federal custody on parole.
Typically, such ICE check-ins are brief meetings with an officer from ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations to review case status, provide updates, and confirm where a person is living. Usually, a person is released until the next scheduled check-in.
But Abrego’s attorneys told NBC News they expect he will be taken into ICE custody during the check-in, given the Trump administration’s notice of their intent to deport him.
A judge ruled in July that the government had to provide 72 hours notice, excluding weekends, if it intends to deport Abrego to a third country, which the Justice Department provided on Friday afternoon.
Abrego’s lawyers have said he illegally immigrated to the U.S. when he was 16 to join his brother in Maryland to escape gang violence in El Salvador.
His deportation to El Salvador violated a 2019 court order that protected him from being deported to his home country due to concerns that he’d be persecuted by violent gangs. But, that order doesn’t prevent his deportation to any other country.
What may happen from here?
There are several paths that could unfold from here: Abrego could take the plea deal and eventually be deported to Costa Rica, he could refuse to and be deported to Uganda, or his lawyers could fight against Uganda as a deportation option.
If Abrego does not change his plea in the Tennessee federal case, he could be deported from the U.S. to Uganda as soon as Wednesday.
However, Abrego could not face the criminal charges of human smuggling brought against him by Department of Justice in that case if he is removed from the country. His trial is set for January in Nashville.
Last week, Uganda agreed to a deal with the U.S. to take deported migrants, as long as they don’t have criminal records and are not unaccompanied minors. Uganda’s foreign ministry said the nation prefers that migrants sent there be of African nationalities.
Abrego’s attorneys could also try to prevent his deportation to Uganda altogether, and try to convince an immigration judge within 72 hours that Abrego is likely to experience persecution or torture there. An immigration judge would have to agree to prevent his deportation to the African nation.
On Saturday, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of Abrego’s attorneys, accused the government of “punishing” Abrego for “exercising his constitutional rights.”
“It is preposterous that they would send him to Africa, to a country where he doesn’t even speak the language, a country with documented human rights violations, when there are so many other options. This family has suffered enough,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said outside Abrego’s brother’s home.
He said they intend to “fight tooth and nail” against deportation to Uganda, South Sudan, Libya and “any other completely ridiculous country that they can come up with.”
What if Abrego takes a plea deal?
Alternatively, Abrego could take a plea deal offered by the Trump administration earlier this week.
That deal requires him to plead guilty to both counts of the criminal indictment against him in Tennessee, serve time, and then be deported.
Should he plead guilty or be convicted by a jury, the charges against Abrego carry a sentence of up to 10 years in federal prison. Under either scenario, U.S. District Judge Wesley Crenshaw in Nashville will determine how much time Abrego will serve.
If eventually deported to Costa Rica, Abrego would be welcomed as a refugee and live as a free man, the Costa Rican government said in a letter submitted to the court by one of Abrego’s attorneys as part of the filing in the Tennessee case.
In that filing, attorney Sean Hecker said that the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and ICE were “using their collective powers to force Mr. Abrego to choose between a guilty plea followed by relative safety, or rendition to Uganda, where his safety and liberty would be under threat.”
Sandoval-Moshenberg on Saturday called the Costa Rica plea deal offer “pretty reasonable,” noting “Costa Rica makes sense. It’s a Spanish speaking country. It’s proximate to the United States. His family can visit him there easily.”
Abrego’s case has sparked heated debate and intense scrutiny over the Trump administration’s immigration policies including the race to deport people — at times without due process, aggressive ICE raids and sordid detainment facility conditions.
Julia Ainsley contributed.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia is an El Salvadoran immigrant at the center of a legal battle that could reshape American immigration policy. Here’s what you need to know.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man who was mistakenly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador, will meet with immigration officials Monday under the looming threat of a second deportation, this time to Uganda.
Abrego’s case — a flashpoint in the Trump administrations crackdown on immigration — is now at a major crossroads.
But the Trump administration has doubled down on its resolve to deport Abrego, alleging he is a member of the violent gang MS-13 — a claim his attorneys have repeatedly denied.
Abrego had been deported in March in what the White House called an “administrative error” and after a tedious legal saga, was returned to the U.S. in June. But he was immediately detained again, this time on human smuggling charges in Tennessee. He pleaded not guilty to those charges.
Minutes after his release, immigration authorities notified Abrego that they intend to deport him to Uganda. Separately, the Trump administration offered Abrego a plea deal that ensures his eventual deportation to Costa Rica.
On Friday night, the government informed Abrego that he has until “first thing” Monday morning to accept a plea in exchange for deportation to Costa Rica, “or else that offer will be off the table forever,” Abrego’s attorneys wrote in a filing as part of their efforts to get the charges in Tennessee dropped over what they consider to be a “vindictive” and “selective” prosecution.
Here are how Monday’s appointment may play out:
Monday’s ICE check-in
Abrego will have a check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Baltimore on Monday as part of the conditions of his release from federal custody on parole.
Typically, such ICE check-ins are brief meetings with an officer from ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations to review case status, provide updates, and confirm where a person is living. Usually, a person is released until the next scheduled check-in.
But Abrego’s attorneys told NBC News they expect he will be taken into ICE custody during the check-in, given the Trump administration’s notice of their intent to deport him.
A judge ruled in July that the government had to provide 72 hours notice, excluding weekends, if it intends to deport Abrego to a third country, which the Justice Department provided on Friday afternoon.
Abrego’s lawyers have said he illegally immigrated to the U.S. when he was 16 to join his brother in Maryland to escape gang violence in El Salvador.
His deportation to El Salvador violated a 2019 court order that protected him from being deported to his home country due to concerns that he’d be persecuted by violent gangs. But, that order doesn’t prevent his deportation to any other country.
What may happen from here?
There are several paths that could unfold from here: Abrego could take the plea deal and eventually be deported to Costa Rica, he could refuse to and be deported to Uganda, or his lawyers could fight against Uganda as a deportation option.
If Abrego does not change his plea in the Tennessee federal case, he could be deported from the U.S. to Uganda as soon as Wednesday.
However, Abrego could not face the criminal charges of human smuggling brought against him by Department of Justice in that case if he is removed from the country. His trial is set for January in Nashville.
Last week, Uganda agreed to a deal with the U.S. to take deported migrants, as long as they don’t have criminal records and are not unaccompanied minors. Uganda’s foreign ministry said the nation prefers that migrants sent there be of African nationalities.
Abrego’s attorneys could also try to prevent his deportation to Uganda altogether, and try to convince an immigration judge within 72 hours that Abrego is likely to experience persecution or torture there. An immigration judge would have to agree to prevent his deportation to the African nation.
On Saturday, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of Abrego’s attorneys, accused the government of “punishing” Abrego for “exercising his constitutional rights.”
“It is preposterous that they would send him to Africa, to a country where he doesn’t even speak the language, a country with documented human rights violations, when there are so many other options. This family has suffered enough,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said outside Abrego’s brother’s home.
He said they intend to “fight tooth and nail” against deportation to Uganda, South Sudan, Libya and “any other completely ridiculous country that they can come up with.”
What if Abrego takes a plea deal?
Alternatively, Abrego could take a plea deal offered by the Trump administration earlier this week.
That deal requires him to plead guilty to both counts of the criminal indictment against him in Tennessee, serve time, and then be deported.
Should he plead guilty or be convicted by a jury, the charges against Abrego carry a sentence of up to 10 years in federal prison. Under either scenario, U.S. District Judge Wesley Crenshaw in Nashville will determine how much time Abrego will serve.
If eventually deported to Costa Rica, Abrego would be welcomed as a refugee and live as a free man, the Costa Rican government said in a letter submitted to the court by one of Abrego’s attorneys as part of the filing in the Tennessee case.
In that filing, attorney Sean Hecker said that the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and ICE were “using their collective powers to force Mr. Abrego to choose between a guilty plea followed by relative safety, or rendition to Uganda, where his safety and liberty would be under threat.”
Sandoval-Moshenberg on Saturday called the Costa Rica plea deal offer “pretty reasonable,” noting “Costa Rica makes sense. It’s a Spanish speaking country. It’s proximate to the United States. His family can visit him there easily.”
Abrego’s case has sparked heated debate and intense scrutiny over the Trump administration’s immigration policies including the race to deport people — at times without due process, aggressive ICE raids and sordid detainment facility conditions.
Julia Ainsley contributed.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia is an El Salvadoran immigrant at the center of a legal battle that could reshape American immigration policy. Here’s what you need to know.
This is part of Reason‘s 2025 summer travel issue. Click here to read the rest of the issue.
Last year I honeymooned in Rome, which was a long day trip from the tiny 2,500-year-old village in the Campania region of Italy that my maternal grandparents left in the 1910s. Of course I had to go—it was surely my only chance to see where that side of my family had come from.
It’s a very American thing to travel to ancestral hometowns, especially if your ancestors were fleeing poverty or political repression. Perhaps more than ever, as America grows less sure of its exceptionalism, we want to be reminded that we are lucky to have grown up in the glittering New World rather than the tarnished old one.
Photo: Sarah Rose Siskind
But the best sort of travel is that which confounds our expectations rather than confirms our prejudices. And that’s what I experienced on a drizzly day in Fragneto Monforte, population 1,700, known for a relic of the 3rd century martyr Saint Faustina, for an ancient and revered tiglio tree in the town square, and, go figure, for a hot air balloon festival that started sometime around the turn of this century.
I had heard only fleeting references to this speck of a town throughout my childhood, and the stories always drove home how backward, stultifying, and impoverished the place was, even for notoriously poor southern Italy. My mother and her siblings rehearsed a particular narrative about why their parents had emigrated; it was persuasive if uncheckable even before my grandparents died in the 1980s. (They didn’t speak English; I didn’t speak Italian.) The story went like this: There was no future in Italy back then, especially for peasants like my ancestors. Everyone who could leave, did.
Incredibly, my wife had tracked down a relative of mine via Facebook groups and Google Translate. Part of me worried that we were being scammed—I’ve seen the second season of White Lotus, where Italian-Americans seeking to connect to their roots in the old country are suckered on multiple levels. We took a surprisingly efficient and well-appointed high-speed train from Rome to nearby Benevento (post-Mussolini, it seems, the trains still run on time) and then a cab to Fragneto Monforte, where Pasqualino, my previously unknown second cousin, met us. He was a tall, strapping 50-something construction engineer. He met us with his wife and daughter, who was training in Rome to become a doctor. With his daughter translating, he explained that he was the grandson of my grandmother’s sister and his own mother was still alive at 93.
They gave us the grand tour, which took less than an hour, showing us the houses where my grandfather and grandmother had grown up. I searched for my grandfather’s initials in the bricks surrounding the tiglio tree. (Family lore had it that he’d scratched them in before he left for America as a teenager.)
I was eager to meet Pasqualino’s mother Anna, a cousin my mother had never known or spoken of before dying in 1999. She was spry for a nonagenarian—and though she spoke no English, her gestures, expressions, and sounds instantly reminded me of my mother and grandmother. She lived in a beautiful house that had been in the family for generations; truth be told, it was far nicer than the house I grew up in, or those of my Italian-American relatives, which occasionally veered into plastic-covered couches, mirrored walls, and gold-foil wallpaper. She brought us drinks and snacks and showed me photos from the ’70s, when my grandparents had visited.
Photo: Sarah Rose Siskind
I told her I was taught that my grandparents (her uncle and aunt) had left for economic reasons and to avoid war. No, said Anna, they were all doing pretty well, even during World War I and World War II and the rebuilding afterward. They and one other were the only family members who left, she said, and it was never clear why.
Did she ever wish her parents had gone to America? No, she answered: This was always a good place to live.
As I hugged this ancient woman with whom I share a real but tenuous connection and whom I will never see again, I felt for a second like I was hugging my own mother one last time. I was also saying goodbye to family stories that may or may not have ever been true.
COLORADO SPRINGS — Administrators at the University of Colorado’s campus in Colorado Springs thought they stood a solid chance of dodging the Trump administration’s offensive on higher education.
Located on a picturesque bluff with a stunning view of Pikes Peak, the school is far removed from the Ivy League colleges that have drawn President Donald Trump’s ire. Most of its students are commuters, getting degrees while holding down full-time jobs. Students and faculty alike describe the university, which is in a conservative part of a blue state, as politically subdued, if not apolitical.
That optimism was misplaced.
An Associated Press review of thousands of pages of emails from school officials, as well as interviews with students and professors, reveals that school leaders, teachers and students soon found themselves in the Republican administration’s crosshairs, forcing them to navigate what they described as an unprecedented and haphazard degree of change.
Whether Washington has downsized government departments, clawed back or launched investigations into diversity programs or campus antisemitism, the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs has confronted many of the same challenges as elite universities across the nation.
The school lost three major federal grants and found itself under investigation by Trump’s Education Department. In the hopes of avoiding that scrutiny, the university renamed websites and job titles, all while dealing with pressure from students, faculty and staff who wanted the school to take a more combative stance.
“Uncertainty is compounding,” the school’s chancellor told faculty at a February meeting, according to minutes of the session. “And the speed of which orders are coming has been a bit of a shock.”
The college declined to make any administrators available to be interviewed. A spokesman asked the AP to make clear that any professors or students interviewed in this story were speaking for themselves and not the institution. Several faculty members also asked for anonymity, either because they did not have tenure or they did not want to call unnecessary attention to themselves and their scholarship in the current political environment.
“Like our colleagues across higher education, we’ve spent considerable time working to understand the new directives from the federal government,” the chancellor, Jennifer Sobanet, said in a statement provided to the AP.
Students said they have been able to sense the stress being felt by school administrators and professors.
“We have administrators that are feeling pressure, because we want to maintain our funding here. It’s been tense,” said Ava Knox, a rising junior who covers the university administration for the school newspaper.
Faculty, she added, “want to be very careful about how they’re conducting their research and about how they’re addressing the student population. They are also beholden to this new set of kind of ever-changing guidelines and stipulations by the federal government.”
A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Misplaced optimism
Shortly after Trump won a second term in November, UCCS leaders were trying to gather information on the Republican’s plans. In December, Sobanet met the newly elected Republican congressman who represented the school’s district, a conservative one that Trump won with 53% of the vote. In her meeting notes obtained by the AP, the chancellor sketched out a scenario in which the college might avoid the drastic cuts and havoc under the incoming administration.
“Research dollars –- hard to pull back grant dollars but Trump tried to pull back some last time. The money goes through Congress,” Sobanet wrote in notes prepared for the meeting. “Grant money will likely stay but just change how they are worded and what it will fund.”
Sobanet also observed that dismantling the federal Education Department would require congressional authorization. That was unlikely, she suggested, given the U.S. Senate’s composition.
Like many others, she did not fully anticipate how aggressively Trump would seek to transform the federal government.
Conservatives’ desire to revamp higher education began well before Trump took office.
They have long complained that universities have become bastions of liberal indoctrination and raucous protests. In 2023, Republicans in Congress had a contentious hearing with several Ivy League university leaders. Shortly after, the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania resigned. During the presidential campaign last fall, Trump criticized campus protests about Gaza, as well as what he said was a liberal bias in classrooms.
His new administration opened investigations into alleged antisemitism at several universities. It froze more than $400 million in research grants and contracts at Columbia, along with more than $2.6 billion at Harvard. Columbia reached an agreement last month to pay $220 million to resolve the investigation.
When Harvard filed a lawsuit challenging Trump’s actions, his administration tried to block the school from enrolling international students. The Trump administration has also threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status.
Northwestern University, Penn, Princeton and Cornell have seen big chunks of funding cut over how they dealt with protests about Israel’s war in Gaza or over the schools’ support for transgender athletes.
Trump’s decision to target the wealthiest, most prestigious institutions provided some comfort to administrators at the approximately 4,000 other colleges and universities in the country.
Most higher education students in the United States are educated at regional public universities or community colleges. Such schools have not typically drawn attention from culture warriors.
Students and professors at UCCS hoped Trump’s crackdown would bypass the school and others like it.
“You’ve got everyone — liberals, conservatives, middle of the road,” said Jeffrey Scholes, a professor in the philosophy department. “You just don’t see the kind of unrest and polarization that you see at other campuses.”
The purse strings
The federal government has lots of leverage over higher education. It provides about $60 billion a year to universities for research. In addition, a majority of students in the U.S. need grants and loans from various federal programs to help pay tuition and living expenses.
This budget year, UCCS got about $19 million in research funding from a combination of federal, state and private sources. Though that is a relatively small portion of the school’s overall $369 million budget, the college has made a push in recent years to bolster its campus research program by taking advantage of grant money from government agencies such as the U.S. Defense Department and National Institutes for Health. The widespread federal grant cut could derail those efforts.
School officials were dismayed when the Trump administration terminated research grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Defense Department and the National Science Foundation, emails show. The grants funded programs in civics, cultural preservation and boosting women in technology fields.
School administrators scrambled to contact federal officials to learn if other grants were on the chopping block, but they struggled to find answers, the records show.
School officials repeatedly sought out the assistance of federal officials only to learn those officials were not sure what was happening as the Trump administration halted grant payments, fired thousands of employees and shuttered agencies.
“The sky is falling” at NIH, a university official reported in notes on a call in which the school’s lobbyists were providing reports of what was happening in Washington.
There are also concerns about other changes in Washington that will affect how students pay for college, according to interviews with faculty and education policy experts.
While only Congress can fully abolish the U.S. Department of Education, the Trump administration has tried to dramatically cut back its staff and parcel out many of its functions to other agencies. The administration laid off nearly 1,400 employees, and problems have been reported in the systems that handle student loans. Management of student loans is expected to shift to another agency entirely.
In addition, an early version of a major funding bill in Congress included major cuts to tuition grants. Though that provision did not make it into the law, Congress did cap loans for students seeking graduate degrees. That policy could have ripple effects in the coming years on institutions such as UCCS that rely on tuition dollars for their operating expenses.
DEI and transgender issues hit campus
To force change on campus, the Trump administration has begun investigations targeting diversity programs and efforts to combat antisemitism.
The Education Department, for example, opened an investigation in March targeting a Ph.D. scholarship program that partnered with 45 universities, including UCCS, to expand opportunities to women and nonwhites in graduate education. The administration alleged the program was only open to certain nonwhite students and amounted to racial discrimination.
“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news UCCS is included on the list” of schools being investigated, wrote Annie Larson, assistant vice president of federal relations and outreach for the entire University of Colorado system.
“Oh wow, this is surprising,” wrote back Hillary Fouts, dean of the graduate school at UCCS.
UCCS also struggled with how to handle executive orders, particularly those on transgender issues.
In response to an order that aimed to revoke funds to schools that allowed transwomen to play women’s sports, UCCS began a review of its athletic programs. It determined it had no transgender athletes, the records show. University officials were also relieved to discover that only one school in their athletic conference was affected by the order, and UCCS rarely if ever had matches or games against that school.
“We do not have any students impacted by this and don’t compete against any teams that we are aware of that will be impacted by this,” wrote the vice chancellor for student affairs to colleagues.
Avoiding the spotlight
The attacks led UCCS to take preemptive actions and to self-censor in the hopes of saving programs and avoiding the Trump administration’s spotlight.
Emails show that the school’s legal counsel began looking at all the university’s websites and evaluating whether any scholarships might need to be reworded. The university changed the web address of its diversity initiatives from www.diversity.uccs.edu to www.belonging.uccs.edu.
And the administrator responsible for the university’s division of Inclusive Culture & Belonging got a new job title in January: director of strategic initiatives. University professors said the school debated whether to rename the Women’s and Ethnic Studies department to avoid drawing attention from Trump but so far the department has not been renamed.
Along the same lines, UCCS administrators have sought to avoid getting dragged into controversies, a frequent occurrence in the first Trump administration. UCCS officials attended a presentation from the education consulting firm EAB, which encouraged schools not to react to every news cycle. That could be a challenge because some students and faculty are seeking vocal resistance on issues from climate change to immigration.
Soon after Trump was sworn in, for example, a staff member in UCCS’s sustainability program began pushing the entire University of Colorado system to condemn Trump’s withdrawal from an international agreement to tackle climate change. It was the type of statement universities had issued without thinking twice in past administrations.
In an email, UCCS’s top public relations executive warned his boss: “There is a growing sentiment among the thought leadership in higher ed that campus leaders not take a public stance on major issues unless they impact their campus community.”
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AP Education Writer Collin Binkley in Washington contributed to this report.
Immigration officials said they intend to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Uganda, after he declined an offer to be deported to Costa Rica in exchange for remaining in jail and pleading guilty to human smuggling charges, according to a Saturday court filing.The Costa Rica offer came late Thursday, after it was clear that the Salvadoran national would likely be released from a Tennessee jail the following day. Abrego Garcia declined to extend his stay in jail and was released on Friday to await trial in Maryland with his family. Later that day, the Department of Homeland Security notified his attorneys that he would be deported to Uganda and should report to immigration authorities on Monday.His attorneys declined to comment on whether the plea offer had been formally rescinded. The brief they filed only said that Abrego Garcia had declined one part of the offer — to remain in jail — and that his attorneys would “communicate the government’s proposal to Mr. Abrego.”Abrego Garcia’s case became a flashpoint in President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda after he was mistakenly deported in March. Facing a court order, the Trump administration brought him back to the U.S. in June, only to detain him on human smuggling charges.He has pleaded not guilty and has asked the judge to dismiss the case, claiming that it is an attempt to punish him for challenging his deportation to El Salvador. The Saturday filing came as a supplement to that motion to dismiss, stating that the threat to deport him to Uganda is more proof that the prosecution is vindictive.“The government immediately responded to Mr. Abrego’s release with outrage,” the filing reads. “Despite having requested and received assurances from the government of Costa Rica that Mr. Abrego would be accepted there, within minutes of his release from pretrial custody, an ICE representative informed Mr. Abrego’s counsel that the government intended to deport Mr. Abrego to Uganda and ordered him to report to ICE’s Baltimore Field Office Monday morning.”Although Abrego Garcia was deemed eligible for pretrial release, he had remained in jail at the request of his attorneys, who feared the Republican administration could try to immediately deport him again if he were freed. Those fears were somewhat allayed by a recent ruling in a separate case in Maryland, which requires immigration officials to allow Abrego Garcia time to mount a defense.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. —
Immigration officials said they intend to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Uganda, after he declined an offer to be deported to Costa Rica in exchange for remaining in jail and pleading guilty to human smuggling charges, according to a Saturday court filing.
The Costa Rica offer came late Thursday, after it was clear that the Salvadoran national would likely be released from a Tennessee jail the following day. Abrego Garcia declined to extend his stay in jail and was released on Friday to await trial in Maryland with his family. Later that day, the Department of Homeland Security notified his attorneys that he would be deported to Uganda and should report to immigration authorities on Monday.
His attorneys declined to comment on whether the plea offer had been formally rescinded. The brief they filed only said that Abrego Garcia had declined one part of the offer — to remain in jail — and that his attorneys would “communicate the government’s proposal to Mr. Abrego.”
Abrego Garcia’s case became a flashpoint in President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda after he was mistakenly deported in March. Facing a court order, the Trump administration brought him back to the U.S. in June, only to detain him on human smuggling charges.
He has pleaded not guilty and has asked the judge to dismiss the case, claiming that it is an attempt to punish him for challenging his deportation to El Salvador. The Saturday filing came as a supplement to that motion to dismiss, stating that the threat to deport him to Uganda is more proof that the prosecution is vindictive.
“The government immediately responded to Mr. Abrego’s release with outrage,” the filing reads. “Despite having requested and received assurances from the government of Costa Rica that Mr. Abrego would be accepted there, within minutes of his release from pretrial custody, an ICE representative informed Mr. Abrego’s counsel that the government intended to deport Mr. Abrego to Uganda and ordered him to report to ICE’s Baltimore Field Office Monday morning.”
Although Abrego Garcia was deemed eligible for pretrial release, he had remained in jail at the request of his attorneys, who feared the Republican administration could try to immediately deport him again if he were freed. Those fears were somewhat allayed by a recent ruling in a separate case in Maryland, which requires immigration officials to allow Abrego Garcia time to mount a defense.
A Florida judge on Saturday denied bond to Rajinder Singh, an illegal migrant trucker from India accused of causing a deadly crash in Fort Pierce that killed three people.
St. Lucie County Judge Lauren Sweet ruled that Singh is an unauthorized alien and a substantial flight risk.
Sweet also found probable cause for all six charges against Singh and classified them as forcible felonies under Florida law.
Harjinder Singh, a 28-year-old illegal alien from India who was arrested on Aug. 16, 2025, allegedly attempted to make an unauthorized U-turn in Ft. Pierce, Florida resulting in a crash that killed three people.(United States Marshals Service)
“There are no conditions of release that will ensure your appearance at trial,” Sweet said. “Therefore, sir, I’m setting your bond on each charge at no bond.”
Singh, who appeared virtually from the St. Lucie County Jail, with the help of an interpreter, was arrested on two warrants charging him with three counts of vehicular homicide and three counts of manslaughter for the deadly Aug. 12 crash.
Investigators say Singh attempted an illegal U-turn in his semi-truck, causing his truck to jackknife, blocking the northbound lanes of the Florida Turnpike. A minivan then slammed into the trailer, killing all three people inside.
Judge Lauren Sweet is seen in court on Saturday morning in St. Lucie County, Florida, where she denied bond for Rajinder Singh, accused in a deadly Turnpike crash.(St. Lucie County Court)
Sweet said that both arrest warrant affidavits were previously reviewed by a judge. Each judge found probable cause at that time for each of the six charges.
“This court finds there is probable cause to believe you committed a forcible felony for all six charges,” Sweet said.
Singh hesitated when asked if he wanted an attorney before Sweet provisionally appointed the public defender’s office to represent him.
Harjinder Singh is escorted onto an airplane by Florida Lt. Gov. Jay Collins and law enforcement on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025, in Stockton, Calif. (Benjamin Fanjoy/AP Photo)
Singh was arrested in Stockton, California, last week and extradited back to Florida.
Harjinder Singh, who crossed into the United States illegally in 2018 via the southern border, obtained a commercial driver’s license in California. He attempted to obtain work authorization, but it was rejected by the first Trump administration on Sept. 14, 2020, according to Tricia McLaughlin, Homeland Security assistant secretary for public affairs.
Michael Dorgan is a writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business.
You can send tips to michael.dorgan@fox.com and follow him on Twitter @M_Dorgan.
