All posts tagged "immigration"

Pope sends clear message as Trump critics elevated to high-ranking posts

Pope Leo XIV has named prelate Evelio Menjivar-Ayala, a former undocumented immigrant, as bishop for deep red West Virginia — a move The Washington Post suggests is designed to send a direct message to Donald Trump about the church's stance on immigration.

Menjivar-Ayala, 55, migrated to the United States in 1990 and made history in 2023 when he became the first Salvadoran bishop in the country. Currently serving as auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Washington, he is believed to be one of the first U.S. bishops born in Central America.

According to the report, the bishop has been vocal in his criticism of Trump's treatment of immigrants, publicly calling on Catholics to speak out against the administration's immigration crackdowns.

The appointment appears to be part of a broader pattern by Pope Leo XIV to elevate U.S. clergy who are willing to challenge Trump administration policies. On the same day, Leo named Rev. Robert Boxie III, 46, as auxiliary bishop of Washington.

Boxie, who serves as chaplain at Howard University, has spoken extensively about racial progress and warned that Trump's attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts represent a dangerous "regression" in the nation's journey toward racial equality.

"It's really frustrating — especially this moment that we're living in. The attacks on 'DEI' — I don't even know what that means anymore. It's a term that's been hijacked. It means a lot of things to a lot of different people," Boxie told the Catholic news agency OSV.

The timing of Boxie's appointment comes just days after the Supreme Court significantly weakened the Voting Rights Act — a decision that has intensified concerns about racial progress in America.

Since becoming pope last May, Leo XIV and his highest-ranking U.S. allies have become increasingly direct in confronting the Trump administration on multiple fronts, including immigration policy, diversity initiatives, and the administration's war in Iran.

'Crazy loophole' exposed that keeps migrants locked up based on which judge they get

A lawyer is sounding the alarm on a "crazy loophole" in a law that allows judges to keep migrants jailed while other judges have ruled the law shouldn't apply.

"This is not a procedural quirk. It is a betrayal of the foundational promise of American law: that the rules apply equally to everyone," lawyer Alexander Urbelis wrote for Slate on Tuesday. "That is not justice. That is a lottery."

Urbelis described two incidents in which he represented a migrant detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. One was about to get out of jail in four days because Urbelis got him in front of a judge who had already ruled against a legal question of whether ICE can detain someone under a statute that "Congress never intended to apply to people already living in the United States," Urbelis wrote.

But another one of his clients is still detained after 11 weeks. That client was detained in the same Orange County jail and was tried in the same courthouse. The only difference, per Urbelis, was the judge; the second client was stuck with one who found that the aforementioned statute does indeed apply.

"Equal protection. Due process. The principle that the government cannot take your liberty without first showing cause and giving you a chance to be heard," Urbelis stressed. "They are the floor beneath which a constitutional democracy does not sink. When the government treats them as optional, it is telling you that equality under the law is a performance."

Urbelis said that the "crazy loophole" can be fixed with a "single decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit" and argued that "the Department of Justice is not a private law firm. Its lawyers do not represent a client seeking to maximize wins."

MAGA senator's call for Americans to 'do more work' immediately backfires

A GOP senator is catching flak for saying that Americans need to work more, prompting many to point out how his own party created the problem he's trying to address.

"As we have demographic challenges, as we have lower birth rates, an aging workforce, less immigration, we're going to need people to do more work," Sen. Jon Husted said in a clip shared by independent journalist Aaron Rupar.

Political observers immediately seized on the comment.

"So do we need to work longer and harder, or are the robots taking all of our jobs? Which is it?" columnist Chris Briem asked.

"Republicans running for the midterm elections by telling Americans they don’t work enough, that we should cut health care, and spend billions on wars in the Middle East," commented writer Zaid Jilani.

"Hey, Ohio, your senator @JonHusted doesn't think you're working hard enough," Ohio journalist Rachel Coyle wrote.

"Anyone else is sick and tired of well-off, pampered Republicans telling the rest of us to work until we drop dead?" the account @4humanunity asked.

Writer Patrick Tomlinson argued that the "demographic changes" that Husted was listing off were all caused by GOP policies.

"Why do we have those things, Jonny? Who did that? Was it your party, Jonny?" Tomlinson wrote on X, adding, "Did your party spend decades shooting down paternity leave, universal pre-k, child care, and demonizing all immigrants?"

Sen. Jon Husted: "As we have demographic challenges, as we have lower birth rates, an aging workforce, less immigration, we're gonna need people to do more work." pic.twitter.com/6r9T7acuNh
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 28, 2026

'This is unamerican': Trump's new green card crackdown unleashes tsunami of backlash

Hearing that the Trump administration plans to deny green cards for immigrants who express their political opinions has commentators sounding the alarm.

Journalist Hamed Aleaziz reported on Saturday that migrants will be denied green cards by the Trump administration if they took part in pro-Palestinian campus protests, criticized Israel online or desecrated an American flag.

The report generated outrage on social media.

"This is unamerican. Republican fascism is unamerican," Bluesky account John Pettus wrote. "We need to drive these fascists from public life with prosecutions for crimes and ostracism for immorality."

"Every single one of these actions—protesting, posting, desecrating the flag—is protected under the First Amendment," the Bluesky account Two Arrows wrote. Other accounts likewise saw the move as an attack on free speech.

"What the United States government is doing is clearly breaking the Constitution that it is legally required to follow," writer Jón Frímann posted. "Only illegal governments don't follow the basic laws of its own country. I hope citizens of the United States can fix this situation."

Others saw it as overly restrictive immigration requirements. Author Patrick Chovanec argued, "If you’re not involved in terrorist activities, I think your views on Israel or any other ally are irrelevant to your immigration status. There are plenty of Irish who have no love for the U.K."

Immigration lawyer Elissa Taub described how the requirement will complicate her job and force her to tell her clients that they "can't say anything remotely critical" about Israel or Judaism.

"As a Jewish immigration lawyer, I don't even know what to do with this. It exhausts me," Taub wrote. "How do I answer clients' questions about this policy without sounding totally self-interested or worse, bigoted?"

Stephen Miller using ‘less visible’ immigration strategies after backlash: analyst

Stephen Miller's aggressive immigration policy has led to disastrous outcomes and criticism, forcing him to change course, an analyst explained on Tuesday.

The White House deputy chief of staff has had to develop a new strategy for the Trump administration's immigration policy, according to a new New York Times report and video featuring White House correspondent Zolan Kanno-Youngs.

Miller's different approach involves zeroing in on social services fraud and placing less emphasis on deportation raids. He recently joined Vice President JD Vance at a White House event on the anti-fraud task force centered on the administration's crackdown on immigrants who were abusing benefits and allegedly committing fraud, Kanno-Youngs reported.

"The people at this table are all united in absolute determination to stop this plague of fraud, criminality and abuse," Miller said at the event.

This move has been on Miller's mind all along, Kanno-Youngs explained.

"Miller has long tried to establish a link between immigrants and fraud, but there was a legitimate case of fraud in Minnesota that presented an ideal opportunity to ramp up these attacks," Kanno-Youngs said.

"However, the anti-fraud task force is also just one piece of a much broader effort that Stephen Miller is pursuing to make the lives of immigrants without legal status so uncomfortable that they end up leaving the country voluntarily," Kanno-Youngs explained. "This shift is largely the result of the political backlash that the administration faced after the deportation raids in Minneapolis. Stephen Miller is now focused on advancing policies that can target how immigrants access public housing."

Miller has also started questioning how immigrants use credit cards and has started working with different state officials, including Tennessee, to try and limit how immigrants access hospitals and social service agencies. In Texas, he's been asking how children of immigrants access public schools.

"These less visible policies are incredibly impactful," Kanno-Youngs added.

Seething MAGA base accuses Trump of 'betraying his biggest campaign promise’

Trump's hardline immigration zealots were seething and accusing President Donald Trump of betraying the core promise that got him elected, according to an Axios report published Monday.

A frustrated coalition of conservatives, led by immigration hawks from the Heritage Foundation and other GOP think tanks, is blasting the White House for softening its deportation rhetoric ahead of the midterms. They're furious that Trump appears to be caving to wealthy donors and big business lobbyists who want cheap labor over enforcement.

"The President has only gotten pressure in his face to tone down the enforcement," fumed Mike Howell of The Oversight Project. "A conscious decision was made to go after the worst first, which was a deviation from the central campaign promise of mass deportations."

"The people holding the signs on the floor, those are my people," Howell declared. "The people in the suites, those are not my people. That's who we're going up against."

The group, led by former head of ICE and Customs and Border Protection Mark Morgan, is demanding what they call "Phase 2" — a staggering one million deportations annually. They're convinced Trump is listening to the wrong advisors and claim Stephen Miller should be leading the effort, though the coalition hasn't met with him yet.

Only 350,000 ICE removals happened in fiscal 2025, compared to 271,400 under Biden. Trump's team boasts of "two million self-deportations," but ICE won't release its year-end report to Congress. Border Patrol refuses to share official figures either.

The White House denies any backtracking, but the deportation zealots don't buy it. They're circulating enforcement playbooks across Capitol Hill, determined to force Trump back on message before the base revolts.

"These are relationships that have been built over a decade or more," Morgan said. "We're trying to influence them not to back off, stay the course with what the president promised the American people."

Outrage grows after ICE tackles rape survivor after court hearing: 'This regime is evil'

Reactions were mounting on Monday as news surfaced about an incident involving two Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who tackled a rape survivor to the ground just moments after she testified in a New Jersey courtroom.

David J. Bier, Cato Institute Director of Immigration Studies, shared an excerpt from an Atlantic report on X about an incident last year involving a woman who had survived rape and told her story in court about her perpetrator and ex-boyfriend, who she was seeking a restraining order against after he put her in a chokehold and sexually assaulted her, causing her to lose consciousness. When she stepped outside the courthouse, she was suddenly tackled to the ground by two plainclothes ICE officers.

Several public figures and prominent voices online spoke out in response.

"Insane misogynist military cosplay," actor and activist Carrie Coon wrote on X.

"This regime is evil," Matt Kovach, economist at the Purdue Daniels School of Business, wrote on X.

"Mass deportations make us all less safe, as abusers and exploiters know that threats to call ICE will keep their victims silent," Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, wrote on X.

"Abolish ICE," Mehdi Hasan, founder and CEO of news outlet Zeteo, wrote on X.

'The world is watching': Analyst warns Trump against destroying American Dream ideals

Donald Trump could be judged harshly by the world if he breaks a promise at the heart of the American Dream, an analyst has claimed.

The president and his administration have cracked down hard on immigration in a way that could undermine the "credibility" of the country, Brent McKenzie argued. The Hill columnist considered the crackdown on immigration as a move that could shatter the American Dream in the eyes of the world.

"The process might be long and complicated, but immigrants who followed the rules would eventually find opportunity," McKenzie wrote. "The U.S. was not only a place where people could succeed; it also openly welcomed those willing to work, contribute and build a life. Increasingly, people outside the U.S. are beginning to wonder whether that promise still holds."

McKenzie went on to argue that the "cultural confidence" of the United States depends on immigration, and that the Trump administration is actively undermining the future of the country.

He added, "But recent policy decisions are testing that narrative. When lawful permanent residents are excluded from government programs designed to help small businesses grow, or when people deep in the legal immigration process are suddenly caught in policy pauses and reversals, the message is larger than any single rule.

"In recent years, that confidence has eroded. Immigration has become a central point of political conflict. Today, immigration is no longer just a policy debate. It has become a cultural and political dividing line. And for people watching from outside the U.S., that shift is impossible to miss.

"The question facing the U.S. today is not whether immigration policy should evolve. Every country revises its policies over time. The question is whether the larger promise that once defined the American experience still holds."

Trump's changes to immigration policy in the US could, McKenzie argues, change the tide in countries across the world. This, he believes, is the reason there is such a close eye on the president.

"How the U.S. answers that question will shape not only immigration policy but the country’s place in the world," he wrote. "If the U.S. wants the next generation of innovators, entrepreneurs and builders to continue choosing America, it must do more than defend its borders.

"It must also defend the promise that’s drawn them here for generations. The world is watching to see whether that promise still stands."

Pam Bondi's Fox News appearance immediately backfires: 'Dumbest thing ever said'

The internet reacted with uproar on Friday after Attorney General Pam Bondi appeared on Fox News, saying the Trump administration has focused on "citizenship fraud."

Bondi spoke to Fox News about the Trump administration's immigration policies and the escalating "aggressive denaturalization efforts," prompting a number of responses.

"Being a citizen in our country is a privilege, not a right. And Donald Trump is going to have everyone in this country who deserves to be here who is a citizen," Bondi said.

Plenty of people had thoughts following Bondi's comments, rebuking her statements and calling out the administration.

"If true, get this disloyal anti-democracy moron on the first deportation boat for White Trash Island," former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann and podcast host wrote on X.

"What the f--- is that supposed to even mean? Of f------ course it's a right if you're a citizen. That's the dumbest f------ thing anyone has ever said on Fox, and there's some pretty dumb competition," writer and political commentator Kelly Scaletta wrote on X.

"Calling citizenship a 'privilege' kinda/sorta/definitely ignores how the Constitution works. If you’re a citizen, that's a protected right - full stop, not something a president gets to hand out or take away based on who they think 'deserves' it," operations team lead Stacey Wernick wrote on X.

"It literally is a right.. and you mean white people is who Trump wants," liberal commentator Rodger Williams wrote on X.

"Given the Admin's position on birthright citizenship, it's hard not to see this as a direct message to the Supreme Court," reporter and host Grant Hermes wrote on X.

"I envy the confidence stupid people have to just go on the news and say s--- like this," software engineer Alex Jewell wrote on X.

Bondi: "Being a citizen in our country is a privilege, not a right. And Donald Trump is going to have everyone in this country who deserves to be here who is a citizen." pic.twitter.com/UHSJL7xdT1
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 27, 2026

Grim warning as Supreme Court weighs letting Trump rewrite what it means to be American

President Donald Trump's team will throw their weight behind a Supreme Court immigration case, an analyst has suggested.

A case set to appear before the legal body on April 1 will hear whether the president's executive order restricting birthright citizenship can remain in effect. Scott Titshaw, a professor of law, and Stephen Yale-Loer, a retired professor of immigration law practice, suggested that an unconstitutional precedent could be set if the Supreme Court sides with Trump.

Trump signed the birthright citizenship restriction executive order on Jan. 20, 2025. The Legal Defense Fund sued the president shortly after the announcement was made.

Writing in The Hill, Titshaw and Yale-Loer argued the stability of birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment had been called into question. The pair wrote, "The stakes could not be higher. If the court sides with Trump, the damage will ripple far beyond undocumented immigrants.

"It will affect legal visa holders, green-card holders and even U.S. citizens. It would also create an underclass of American-born children, some of whom would become stateless.

"For over 150 years, the Fourteenth Amendment has guaranteed that nearly everyone born on U.S. soil is a U.S. citizen. That guarantee, enshrined after the Civil War to extend citizenship to former slaves, has been a cornerstone of American identity. Trump’s order seeks to dismantle it by executive fiat."

The pair suggested the framing from the Trump administration on why a birthright citizenship ban has been acted on is insincere.

"The administration frames its order as a crackdown on illegal immigration," they wrote. "But the machinery it proposes would ensnare children of citizens, green card holders, and legal workers who built their lives here in good faith."

They also warned that it could create a "bureaucratic nightmare."

"For more than a century, birthright citizenship has provided a simple, stable rule that affirms a core American principle: the circumstances of one’s birth should not determine one’s place in the nation.

"If the Supreme Court allows that principle to be undone, the result will not be a tidier immigration system. It will be a more uncertain nation — one in which even children born on U.S. soil must prove, again and again, that they belong."