Will “mass deportation” actually happen (1 Viewer)

[superchuck500]

It’s so repulsive to see people cheering for what is basically 80% the same thing as the Holocaust - different end result but otherwise very similar.

Economists have said it would tank the economy and cause inflation - notwithstanding the cost.

Is it going to actually happen or is this Build The Wall 2.0?

 

[Optimus Prime]

Donald Trump’s administration has resumed a policy of deporting immigrant detainees to so-called third countries, starting with the tiny African nation of Eswatini.

But Tuesday’s removals of five detained immigrants surprised diplomats who only heard about the flight from social media, The Independent has learned.

Government officials in Eswatini say they intend to send those detainees back to their countries of origin — which the Trump administration says can’t happen.

Eswatini’s government is now working with the United Nations to send the men — who originally hail from Cuba, Jamaica, Laos, Vietnam and Yemen — back to their home countries, despite the Department of Homeland Security labelling them “depraved monsters” who are “so uniquely barbaric” that those countries won’t accept them.…….

Diplomats surprised by Trump plan to deport ‘monsters’ to tiny African country

EXCLUSIVE: DHS says the men are so ‘depraved’ they were sent to Eswatini. But the embassy was given no advanced notice of the plan

www.independent.co.uk

 

[LA 2 L.A.]

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal law enforcement agency primarily tasked with carrying out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda, now has a larger budget than most of the world’s militaries.

Through the president’s signature domestic policy, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, ICE’s annual budget is expected to increase from $8.7 billion to approximately $27.7 billion, with $75 billion allocated for the agency over the next four years.

The annual funding bump is an unprecedented amount for ICE. It surpasses the annual military budgets of Iran, Turkey, Spain, Mexico, Iran, and at least 23 countries in the top 40 military spenders, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

ICE’s new annual budget places the federal agency among the top 20 most well-funded militaries in the world, sitting between Canada, which spent roughly $29.3 billion in 2024, and Turkey, which spent $25 billion last year.……

ICE is now richer than most of world’s militaries thanks to Trump’s new funding

ICE’s annual budget increased from $8.7 billion to $27.7 billion

www.independent.co.uk

I don't think this is just about immigration. I think Trump, his Republican backers and his billionaire backers know they can't get the military to support a full military take over of the country, so they are trying to build their own army of people loyal to them.

I don't think they are going to be successful in building a big enough, strong enough, and competent enough ICE army to take full control and I think they would lose an armed conflict. Most of them would turn tail and run as soon as shots are fired back at them. Look at how four or five of these ICE goons turned tail and ran from an unarmed woman at a car wash.

The only way they win is by intimidating people not to stand up to them. I see the majority of us standing up to them already and I see that happening more as time goes on not less.

Let's also not forget that Trump, his Republicans and his billionaire buddies are going to suck a lot, and I mean a lot, of that money straight into their pockets. I expect that most of that money ever gets spent on street level ICE agents. Most of it's going to be spent on grift-graft, private grift and government graft.

 

[LA 2 L.A.]

Donald Trump’s administration has resumed a policy of deporting immigrant detainees to so-called third countries, starting with the tiny African nation of Eswatini.

But Tuesday’s removals of five detained immigrants surprised diplomats who only heard about the flight from social media, The Independent has learned.

Government officials in Eswatini say they intend to send those detainees back to their countries of origin — which the Trump administration says can’t happen.

Eswatini’s government is now working with the United Nations to send the men — who originally hail from Cuba, Jamaica, Laos, Vietnam and Yemen — back to their home countries, despite the Department of Homeland Security labelling them “depraved monsters” who are “so uniquely barbaric” that those countries won’t accept them.…….

Diplomats surprised by Trump plan to deport ‘monsters’ to tiny African country

EXCLUSIVE: DHS says the men are so ‘depraved’ they were sent to Eswatini. But the embassy was given no advanced notice of the plan

www.independent.co.uk

If they do help these people get back to their homes, then the government officials in Eswatini are better people than the government officials in Trump's administration and almost all of the Republicans in Congress.

American exceptionalism my arse.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Two weeks after it opened, a temporary migrant detention center in the Everglades is facing expensive logistical challenges: portable toilets routinely back up, sewage needs to be collected and trucked out, and swarms of mosquitoes attack detainees and staff alike.

Without permanent structures, electricity or running water, drinking and bathing water has to be brought in several times a day but is still in short supply, and rainwater leaks into the tents that protect detainees’ chain-link cells, according to interviews with three former guards and phone interviews with detainees.

Their accounts offer details of conditions inside the $450 million detention center, which has become a symbol for the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement policies and been dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” by Republicans. Five other states are considering using the site as a model, said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement prepares to double the nation’s immigrant detention capacity to 100,000 beds.

The location and the makeshift construction of the center has prompted an outcry from Democrats, environmental activists, local tribal leaders and immigration attorneys, who say it is inhumane and costly.

State officials, who have not permitted independent inspections of the camp requested by lawmakers, dispute the claims.

“The plumbing and sewage claims are false. The facility is in good working order, and detainees have access to drinking water, showers, and clean facilities for hygiene,” Stephanie Hartman, deputy director of communications for the Florida Division of Emergency Management, said in an email.

Three former guards at the facility said they were attracted to the job because of its pay — online ads and a hiring document reviewed by The Washington Post show they were offered $26 an hour plus generous overtime: $39 an hour.

The Post is not identifying them, as they cited fears of retribution or having signed nondisclosure agreements.

Two of the guards said they were hired by Critical Response Strategies, a Jacksonville, Florida-based consulting company, to work on a rotation of between 21 to 28 days, with seven to 14 days off in between, according to one hiring agreement reviewed by The Post.

Prison guards in Florida typically earn about $22 an hour, according to the state’s Department of Corrections.

One former guard said she left her job at another South Florida correctional facility because the pay at Alligator Alcatraz was so enticing. She quit after about a week because she grew upset about the conditions for staff and detainees.

Both of the former guards hired by CRS said they were asked to begin working the same day they applied online. CRS did not return a request for comment.

CRS has a $78 million contract to help manage the facility, including providing a warden, camp manager and correction officers, according to Florida’s contract website.............

Inside ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’ detainees report relentless mosquitoes, limited water​

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/07/16/alligator-alcatraz-conditions/

 

[Optimus Prime]

For what it’s worth
==============
An undocumented woman faked her own kidnapping and blamed it on Immigration and Customs Enforcement to generate sympathy and donations, the Justice Department has claimed.

The DOJ said in a press release Thursday Yuriana Julia Pelaez Calderon, a 41-year-old from Los Angeles, was taken into ICE custody and charged with conspiracy and making false statements to federal officers.

The case comes amid criticism of President Donald Trump’s mass immigration deportation efforts, which have brought a spike in immigration raids across the country.


Federal prosecutors claimed, citing court documents filed Wednesday, that an attorney representing Calderon’s family held a press conference on June 30 saying the woman was kidnapped five days earlier in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant in Los Angeles.

The lawyer claimed she was brought to San Ysidro near the southern border, where “she was presented to [a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] staffer” and “presented with voluntary self-deportation paperwork,” prosecutors said.……

Undocumented woman faked ICE kidnapping to generate donations, DOJ claims

Yuriana Julia Pelaez Calderon, a 41-year-old from Los Angeles, was charged with conspiracy and making false statements to federal officers

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Optimus Prime]

Some migrants are turning to the platform OnlyFans to raise money for their legal bills as they fight deportation proceedings.

A former Colombian model who is currently locked up in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Louisiana is raising money on the sex-centric content creator vehicle to fight for her freedom, USA Today first reported.

ICE funding has been supercharged because of President Donald Trump’s spending bill, and as a result, the administration is expected to dramatically expand immigration detention facilities and bulk up staffing over the next four years.

Migrants are taking drastic measures to raise the cash to pay for legal representation, including OnlyFans pages and public appeals on GoFundMe.

The unnamed woman’s husband, who is American-born, is running the OnlyFansaccount for her while she waits in detention, USA Today reports. “I’ve been hesitant about it because I don’t know where it’s going to lead, but I’m trying to do anything to come up with the money,” he told the outlet.

The account has only generated a handful of subscriptions, as her legal bills have already exceeded $15,000, said her husband, who works as a full-time Uber driver.…….

Migrants are turning to OnlyFans to pay for legal bills to fight deportation

Desperate people rounded up by ICE under Trump’s mass deportation push are taking the plunge into salacious content creation to raise cash for lawyers in bid to remain in America and get out of lockup

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Eeyore]

This is an interesting development. Will they be targeting nursing homes?

Trump administration hands over Medicaid recipients' personal data, including addresses, to ICE

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials will gain access to personally identifiable information for all of the nation’s 79 million Medicaid enrollees.

apnews.com

 

[LA 2 L.A.]

For what it’s worth
==============
An undocumented woman faked her own kidnapping and blamed it on Immigration and Customs Enforcement to generate sympathy and donations, the Justice Department has claimed.

The DOJ said in a press release Thursday Yuriana Julia Pelaez Calderon, a 41-year-old from Los Angeles, was taken into ICE custody and charged with conspiracy and making false statements to federal officers.

The case comes amid criticism of President Donald Trump’s mass immigration deportation efforts, which have brought a spike in immigration raids across the country.


Federal prosecutors claimed, citing court documents filed Wednesday, that an attorney representing Calderon’s family held a press conference on June 30 saying the woman was kidnapped five days earlier in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant in Los Angeles.

The lawyer claimed she was brought to San Ysidro near the southern border, where “she was presented to [a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] staffer” and “presented with voluntary self-deportation paperwork,” prosecutors said.……

Undocumented woman faked ICE kidnapping to generate donations, DOJ claims

Yuriana Julia Pelaez Calderon, a 41-year-old from Los Angeles, was charged with conspiracy and making false statements to federal officers

www.independent.co.uk

It's sad that I hesitated for a moment to believe the DOJ and that I had good reason for that hesitation.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s administration kept local officials entirely in the dark while rapidly constructing a sprawling immigration detention centre in the Everglades, newly obtained emails reveal.

The facility, dubbed ”Alligator Alcatraz,” was built at breakneck speed, with the state relying on an executive order to seize land and circumvent established laws and regulations.

More than 100 emails, dated from June 21 to July 1 and acquired through a public records request by The Associated Press, expose the extent to which authorities in southwest Florida were left unaware.

Local officials were reportedly still pursuing a "rumour" about the planned compound, even as state personnel were already on site, coordinating construction and sending vendors to the isolated airstrip.

The sheer speed of the project, designed to house thousands of migrants in makeshift tents and trailers, meant it was erected in a matter of days.

One local official, expressing frustration at the lack of communication, told the state agency director overseeing the build: "Not cool!"

The facility is located in Collier County, a wealthy, predominantly Republican area known for its white-sand beaches and the western stretch of the Everglades.

The executive order, originally signed by the Republican governor in 2023 and extended since then, accelerated the project, allowing the state to seize county-owned land and evade rules in what critics have called an abuse of power.

The order granted the state sweeping authority to suspend “any statute, rule or order” seen as slowing the response to the immigration “emergency.”……….

How Florida county officials were blindsided by plans for ‘Alligator Alcatraz’

More than 100 emails expose the extent to which authorities in southwest Florida were left unaware of plans to build a sprawling immigration detention centre in the Everglades

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Optimus Prime]

The family of a Maryland man who’s lived in the United States for decades is looking for answers after they say he was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents last month while walking his dog.

Loved ones said Reza Zavvar came to the U.S. from Iran as a student when he was 12, eventually got a green card and is now facing deportation to a country he has no connection to.

Firouzeh Firouzabadi, Zavvar’s mother, recounted the terrifying moments on June 28 when she said ICE agents took the 52-year-old into custody, just feet from their Gaithersburg home.

She said minutes after Zavvar left to walk his dog, Duke, strangers in uniform arrived at her front door holding the leash.

“I was shaking,” Firouzabadi said. “My brother was behind me holding me, and a lot of questions were coming, but the first thing that came to my mind was that maybe a car hit him and he’s on the floor, that’s why they brought him, Duke, to me. That was the first thing that hit me. It was hard.”

The mother said that was the beginning of their family’s nightmare.

“You just have to be a mom to understand what I’m talking about,” Firouzabadi said.

Zavvar's family said he was first taken to a facility in Baltimore, where he was questioned. He is currently being held at a detention center in Texas, according to online ICE detention records.

At last update, family members said the government has given orders to deport him to Romania or Australia, but gave no further explanation.

"I can’t sleep at night; I just can’t,” his sister, Maryam Zavvar, said.

She said they’ve spent the past two weeks trying to get answers. She said her baby brother came to this country from Iran legally about four decades ago...............

Maryland man detained by ICE in Gaithersburg while walking dog, family says

The family of a Maryland man who’s lived in the United States for decades is looking for answers after they say he was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents last month while walking his dog.

www.nbcwashington.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

Immigrant youths who faced neglect and abuse filed a lawsuit seeking class action status Thursday, challenging the Trump administration’s ending of a 2022 policy that automatically gave them protection from deportation and work permits while they waited to apply for green cards, a process that can take years because of backlogs.

The plaintiffs, several immigrant youths with Special Immigrant Juvenile Status and the legal service providers Central American Refugee Center and Centro Legal de la Raza, are asking the court to reinstate the 2022 policy.


Attorneys in the case say its termination last month by the Trump administration is unlawful and goes against what Congress intended in protecting young people who had faced trauma and neglect.

“This is a case about broken promises with devastating consequences,” an attorney for the plaintiffs, Rachel Davidson, the director of the End SIJS Backlog Coalition at the National Immigration Project, said in a statement. “State courts and the federal government have already found that it is not safe for these young people to return to their countries of origin, but their protection is now being callously stripped away. These young people have survived abuse, abandonment, and neglect only to be retraumatized now by the constant threat of detention and deportation from the same agencies that vowed to keep them safe.”

The SIJS classification, which Congress created in 1990 as part of the Immigration and Nationality Act, protects immigrant minors who have been victims of abuse, abandonment or neglect in their countries and gives them a path to permanent residency in the United States. They must be under 21 or under 18 in some states.

“Congress has agreed that this group of young people are particularly vulnerable and in need of protection. One form of that protection has been deferred action. The government wants to take away the protections. The law requires it to provide a good, reasoned explanation. It failed to do so here. So in order to protect these most vulnerable children, we’re filing this lawsuit,” Alexander Shalom, chair of the Lowenstein Center for the Public Interest, told NBC News...........

Rodrigo Sandoval, 17, just graduated from high school in South Carolina. He gets excited when he talks about what he'd like to do — he's interested in business administration, graphic design or joining the Navy — but his face becomes solemn when he talks about the future.

“I’ve noticed a lot of changes, especially in the Hispanic community. We live in constant fear of being deported, arrested and all that,” said Sandoval, who came to the United States at age 12, fleeing El Salvador because of gang violence that threatened his and his family's lives.

One of his earliest memories is when he was 5. “It’s one of my traumas because they put a gun to my head. All I remember is crying out of fear,” said Sandoval, who is a beneficiary of the classification.

Rodrigo Sandoval and his 20-year-old sister, Alexandra, have already been approved for SIJS but are on the waiting list to apply for permanent residency. Both of their work permits expire next year, and according to their lawyer, they still have three to five years to wait before their status can be adjusted.

Though they have protections under SIJS, Alexandra is still worried about what could happen. “If the police stop us and ask for our documents, it’s all over, because we risk being deported.”

According to Jennifer Bade, an immigration attorney based in Boston, once youths like Rodrigo and Alexandra are approved for special immigrant juvenile status, they’re put on a waiting list, which is very, very long. "We typically tell clients it’ll probably take more than four or five years,” she said..................

Abused and abandoned immigrant youths sue Trump administration over deportation fears

Beneficiaries of the Special Immigrant Juveniles program no longer automatically get work permits and protection against deportation while they wait for the green card process.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[Sendai]

The family of a Maryland man who’s lived in the United States for decades is looking for answers after they say he was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents last month while walking his dog.

Loved ones said Reza Zavvar came to the U.S. from Iran as a student when he was 12, eventually got a green card and is now facing deportation to a country he has no connection to.

Firouzeh Firouzabadi, Zavvar’s mother, recounted the terrifying moments on June 28 when she said ICE agents took the 52-year-old into custody, just feet from their Gaithersburg home.

She said minutes after Zavvar left to walk his dog, Duke, strangers in uniform arrived at her front door holding the leash.

“I was shaking,” Firouzabadi said. “My brother was behind me holding me, and a lot of questions were coming, but the first thing that came to my mind was that maybe a car hit him and he’s on the floor, that’s why they brought him, Duke, to me. That was the first thing that hit me. It was hard.”

The mother said that was the beginning of their family’s nightmare.

“You just have to be a mom to understand what I’m talking about,” Firouzabadi said.

Zavvar's family said he was first taken to a facility in Baltimore, where he was questioned. He is currently being held at a detention center in Texas, according to online ICE detention records.

At last update, family members said the government has given orders to deport him to Romania or Australia, but gave no further explanation.

"I can’t sleep at night; I just can’t,” his sister, Maryam Zavvar, said.

She said they’ve spent the past two weeks trying to get answers. She said her baby brother came to this country from Iran legally about four decades ago...............

Maryland man detained by ICE in Gaithersburg while walking dog, family says

The family of a Maryland man who’s lived in the United States for decades is looking for answers after they say he was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents last month while walking his dog.

www.nbcwashington.com

Well, this pretty much shows that ice is rounding up anyone with a deportation order.

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

Well, this pretty much shows that ice is rounding up anyone with a deportation order.

According to his lawyer, the deportation order was withheld in 2007 and he was allowed to legally remain and work in the US.

 

[Optimus Prime]

They are nurses, mechanics, sanitation workers and executives. They’ve fallen in love, bought houses and raised children. They’ve opened restaurants and construction companies, paid taxes and contributed to Social Security, living and working legally in the United States since 1999.

Now more than 50,000 Hondurans and Nicaraguans stand to abruptly lose their legal status as the Trump administration seeks to end their protections, in place since the Clinton era, under the temporary protected status program, or TPS. Amid a broader campaign to crack down on immigration, the Department of Homeland Security said that because “conditions have improved” in Honduras and Nicaragua, it is ending the program for natives of those countries in early September.

The decision, announced in early July, has been met with outrage from immigrant communities across the country, prompting a lawsuit by the National TPS Alliance, an advocacy group, and seven impacted individuals. The parties allege that the decision violated federal law by “relying on a predetermined political decision” and “racial animus,” while ignoring “dire” local conditions in those countries. Immigration advocates hope federal courts will step in to intervene. But in the meantime, the order has left tens of thousands of people grappling with the possibility that they will be forced to return to leave their families and U.S.-citizen children to return to countries where they have no immediate family, no community, no jobs — places that in some cases they haven’t seen in nearly three decades.

“My life has been here in the Bay Area,” said Jhony Silva, 29, a certified nursing assistant from Honduras, who is suing the Trump administration for ending the program. His parents brought him to the United States as a toddler in 1998.

“I’ve been doing everything the right way this whole time,” said Silva, who fears being separated from his 9-year-old child, a U.S. citizen. “I am very, very worried.”

President Bill Clinton established temporary protections for Hondurans and Nicaraguans after Hurricane Mitch devastated the Central American nations in 1998. Since then, the government has renewed the program every six to 18 months, but the Trump administration let it expire on July 5.

The administration has also moved to revoke TPS for as many as 900,000 people from Haiti, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Cameroon and Nepal living in the United States, arguing that the programs for nationals of countries facing conflict and environmental disaster was always intended to be temporary.

Hondurans and Nicaraguans have had temporary protections for much longer — in some cases decades more — than immigrants of the other countries.

Nearly 27 years after Hurricane Mitch, “Honduran citizens can safely return home,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem said in a statement about ending that country’s program. Of Nicaragua’s termination, a DHS spokesperson said the program “was never meant to last a quarter of a century.”

It’s not clear whether people affected will leave the United States voluntarily or try to lay low to avoid deportation. The average TPS holder from Honduras and Nicaragua is 48 years old and has been in the United States for more than 30 years, according to estimates from FWD.us, an immigration advocacy group.

TPS holders from Honduras and Nicaragua told The Washington Post they now identify as American.

Maria Elena Hernandez, 67, came to the United States from Nicaragua in 1996 and has worked as a cleaner at a university in Broward County, Florida, for more than 17 years. She stands to lose her job and her employer-sponsored health insurance, which covers medication for asthma and a heart condition.

“This news destroyed me,” said Hernandez, who is also suing the federal government. “I am going to be separated from my family. I’m going to lose my medical insurance. I have a medicine that I have to take for life.”

The Trump administration’s termination of multiple humanitarian programs could strip 3 million immigrants of their status and work authorization, according to some immigration experts. About 72,000 Hondurans and 4,000 Nicaraguans have temporary protections, although roughly 22,100 of those have received green cards, according to the Department of Homeland Security, and therefore will be able to stay.................

Here legally since 1999, thousands of immigrants have 60 days to leave​

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/07/17/trump-tps-honduras-nicaragua-deportations/

 

[Optimus Prime]

A U.S. Army veteran who was arrested during an immigration raid at a Southern California marijuana farm last week said Wednesday he was sprayed with tear gas and pepper spray before being dragged from his vehicle and pinned down by federal agents who arrested him.

George Retes, 25, who works as a security guard at Glass House Farms in Camarillo, said he was arriving at work on July 10 when several federal agents surrounded his car and — despite him identifying himself as a U.S. citizen — broke his window, peppered sprayed him and dragged him out.

“It took two officers to nail my back and then one on my neck to arrest me even though my hands were already behind my back,” Retes said...........

Army veteran and US citizen arrested in California immigration raid warns it could happen to anyone

A U.S. Army veteran arrested during an immigration raid at a California marijuana farm says he was sprayed with tear gas and pepper spray before being dragged from his vehicle on his way to work.

apnews.com

 

[Sendai]

According to his lawyer, the deportation order was withheld in 2007 and he was allowed to legally remain and work in the US.

The withholding only applied to Iran. So they can deport him to a third party country. The article mentioned Australia and Romania.

 

[Sendai]

Interesting twist.

“El Salvador sends detained Venezuelans home in swap for Americans”

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/el-salvador-sends-detained-venezuelans-home-swap-americans-2025-07-18/

El Salvador and US negotiate prisoner swap with Venezuela

Some 250 Venezuelans deported from the US to El Salvador were exchanged for 10 Americans held by Caracas.

www.bbc.com

 

[Dragon]

Interesting twist.

“El Salvador sends detained Venezuelans home in swap for Americans”

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/el-salvador-sends-detained-venezuelans-home-swap-americans-2025-07-18/

El Salvador and US negotiate prisoner swap with Venezuela

Some 250 Venezuelans deported from the US to El Salvador were exchanged for 10 Americans held by Caracas.

www.bbc.com

So let me get this straight — the U.S. through this prisoner swap is sending Venezuelans who fled persecution and were granted protection under international refugee laws… back to the very regime they fled from? As part of a prisoner swap? That’s not just a diplomatic twist — it’s a human rights betrayal.