Tag: illegal immigration

Trump wants some illegal migrants to stay in US and help farmers pick crops – proposes they self-deport and return legally: ‘Going to give them a stipend’ 

President Trump proposed Tuesday that illegal migrants who self-deport would get priority consideration for legal status if they still want to live in the US — even saying the government would provide them a plane ticket and cash to speed the process along.

“We’re going to give them a stipend,” Trump, 78, told Fox Noticias host Rachel Campos-Duffy in an interview aired Tuesday.

“We’re going to give them some money and a plane ticket, and then we’re going to work with them,” he added. “If they’re good, if we want them back in, we’re going to work with them to get them back in as quickly as we can.”

Trump insisted that the administration’s priority is still deporting migrant criminals — not those who merely crossed the border illegally.

“We want our great people to stay,” he said in response to a question from Campos-Duffy about an illegal migrant who had been in the US for 20 years and built a family.

Keep reading

Jeb Boasberg’s “Criminal Contempt” Finding Makes Mockery of Separation of Powers

Jeb Boasberg, the chief judge of the D.C. District Court, sure has a knack for timing.

As the national conversation this week revolves around accusations the Trump administration is defying court orders by refusing to return an illegal El Salvadoran, er “Maryland father,” back to the U.S., Boasberg swooped in Wednesday afternoon with a lengthy opinion accusing the administration of “criminal contempt” for ignoring a set of orders he issued on March 15. (I first wrote about Boasberg’s contempt trap on March 19.)

In a series of hasty decisions that day, Boasberg, in another instance of fortuitous timing for foes of the Trump administration as I explained here, halted the deportation of illegal Venezuelans covered by the president’s Alien Enemies Act (AEA) proclamation, which Trump had been signed the night before. Boasberg issued two written temporary restraining orders—one prohibiting the deportation of five unnamed illegal Venezuelans represented in the lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and another one turning the five plaintiffs into a class action suit protecting anyone in custody subject to the AEA.

And during an emergency hearing held that Saturday evening, Boasberg also issued what he describes as an “oral command” at around 6:45 p.m. to return planes carrying the newly-designated class of illegals. “[Any] plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States,” Boasberg told the Department of Justice attorney present at the hearing. “However that’s accomplished, whether turning around a plane or not embarking anyone on the plane or those people covered by this on the plane, I leave to you. But this is something that you need to make sure is complied with immediately.”

The problem, as Boasberg appears to have known at that time, is that two planes carrying the AEA subjects had already departed and were out of U.S. territory. His “oral command” was impossible to obey or to enforce. (Complicating matters further is Boasberg did not include the “oral command” in his written order published about 40 minutes later.)

The alleged defiance of the two written orders—which were both vacated on April 7 by the Supreme Court after a majority concluded Boasberg’s courtroom was the wrong jurisdiction and the ACLU sought the wrong type of relief—and his “oral command” represent the basis of Boasberg’s contempt allegations. And Boasberg appears prepared to name a court-appointed attorney if the Trump DOJ refuses to bring charges against the yet-unidentified officials he accuses of contempt.

Keep reading

President Trump Signs Executive Order Barring Illegal Aliens From Receiving Social Security

President Trump on Tuesday signed a flurry of executive orders.

One executive order is aimed at banning illegal aliens from getting Social Security benefits.

Earlier this month DOGE executive Antonio Gracias, the founder of Valor Equity Partners, revealed shocking information on how illegal aliens and even violent illegal aliens are accessing government benefits and even voting.

“We mapped it through to the benefit programs. We found in the benefit programs that every benefit program that was being accessed by these people, 1.3 million of them are on Medicaid right now, today. And by the way, it’s just ramping. It’s just starting. Just to give you a point. And then out of curiosity, I woke up at 2: 00 in the morning. I couldn’t sleep. My mind was running on this. I sent the individual note saying, Hey, guys, let’s just look at the public voter rolls who we find in some friendly states. And we looked at the voter rolls, and we found that thousands of them were registered to vote in a handful of states. And then we went in further with those friendly states and found that many of those people had actually voted. It was shocking to us,” Antonio Gracias said on a podcast interview.

DOGE has also launched an unprecedented cleanup operation after it was revealed over 7 million supposed Social Security numberholders aged 120 and older were receiving benefits.

On Tuesday President Trump signed an executive order to ensure ineligible aliens are not receiving funds from Social Security Act programs.

Keep reading

The ‘Maryland Man’ Hoax Is Designed To Criminalize Immigration Enforcement

The propaganda press’s latest manufactured sob story isn’t just another hit piece targeting President Donald Trump — it’s part of a manufactured, strategic campaign to guilt Americans out of supporting immigration enforcement and delegitimize the very concept of national borders.

Last month the Trump administration deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an illegal alien and alleged MS-13 gang member from El Salvador — to a prison in El Salvador.

Abrego Garcia crossed the border illegally in 2011 and was detained in March of 2019. He was charged with removability and was later denied bond when an immigration judge concluded that evidence “show[ed] [Abrego Garcia] is a verified member of MS-13” and found that he failed to prove “that his release from custody would not pose a danger to others.” As explained by Will Chamberlain, senior counsel at the Article 3 Project, Abrego filed an asylum claim six months later. In turn, a judge ruled Abrego Garcia could not be deported to El Salvador. As Chamberlain explained, “Any third country would be sufficient.”

Following legal challenges, “The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a lower court’s decision to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia from an El Salvador prison,” as reported by Fox News.

El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, said he had no plans to send Garcia back to the United States. “How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?” Bukele told reporters on Monday. “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”

But reading the headlines from the left-wing media, one would think the administration snatched a soccer dad off the streets of Baltimore.

The Associated Press’s Seung Min Kim and Marcos Alemán wrote, “El Salvador President Bukele says he won’t be releasing a Maryland man back to the US.” Politico’s Myah Ward and Eli Stokols wrote, “El Salvador won’t return wrongly deported Maryland man.” The New York Times’ Zolan Kanno-Youngs wrote, “El Salvador’s Leader Says He Won’t Return Wrongly Deported Maryland Man.” And NBC News ran the headline “El Salvador won’t return Maryland man to the U.S …”

This “reporting” wasn’t sloppy journalism; it was a deliberate reframing designed to erase the distinction between criminal deportation and family separation, between illegal alien and U.S. citizen. And it isn’t just the left-wing legacy media spreading the misinformation — Democrats joined in, treating the alleged MS-13 member like some long-lost neighbor.

Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen said he “intend[s] to go to El Salvador this week to check on Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s condition and discuss his release.”

“Kilmar was illegally ABDUCTED and deported by the Trump admin. He must be brought home NOW.”

But it was Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s post on X that said the quiet part out loud: “If President Trump can wrongly deport a Maryland father to a prison in El Salvador and then defy a 9-0 Supreme Court order to facilitate bringing him home, who’s next?”

“This threatens the rights and freedoms of everyone in the United States,” she continued.

And there it is. The entire “Maryland man” hoax isn’t about the single deportation of an illegal alien illegally residing in the United States — it’s simply being exploited by the left in their psychological operation designed to gin up opposition to Trump and terrify Americans into ceding their right to reclaim their sovereignty and deport foreign nationals.

Keep reading

Liberal media distorts immigration enforcement to attack Trump’s policies

Mainstream media outlets are scraping the bottom of the barrel in their attempts to portray the Trump administration’s enforcement of the Immigration and Nationality Act as racist and immoral. The corporate newspapers and the “Big News” online outlets are awash in sob stories about migrants who are now facing deportation because they broke American laws.

Every one of these articles suffers from two common flaws: They deliberately omit key facts and intentionally misrepresent the state of U.S. immigration law to create the impression that foreign lawbreakers are hapless victims of an unjust system.

One particularly egregious example is a piece recently published by The New York Times. Titled “‘Where’s Alex? A Beloved Caregiver Is Swept Up in Trump’s Green Card Crackdown,” the article tells the story of Luke, a severely autistic man from Falls Church, Virginia, and his caregiver Alfredo Orellana, a green card holder. Mr. Orellana has been arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and placed in deportation proceedings on the basis of a criminal conviction.

According to The Times, this is totally unjust because Mr. Orellana isn’t really a criminal, just a guy who made a small mistake while he was on drugs. Although the law says that “green card holders convicted of certain crimes can be deported,” The Times consulted unidentified legal experts who claim the “government has usually opted not to target those people unless they have committed particularly serious crimes.” Moreover, The Times claims the enforcement actions taking place are because “under Mr. Trump, the Department of Homeland Security has taken a sprawling view of who should be targeted for deportation.”

That narrative has a significant problem: It is utter, complete and total rubbish. Many criminal aliens were, in fact, given a pass by the Obama and Biden administrations. That wasn’t a policy decision; it was a willful, deliberate and patently unlawful refusal to comply with the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Keep reading

Here’s What You Need to Know: Trump Did Not Ignore a Supreme Court Ruling in El Salvador Deportation Case

The media would have you believe that President Trump defied a Supreme Court ruling in the deportation case of Kilmar Abrego García, an MS-13 gang member recently returned to El Salvador.

However, his gang affiliation was established by an immigration court back in 2019. The deportation itself is legal.

The only legal question is whether he should have been sent to El Salvador, given that he had “withholding of removal” status due to a credible fear of gang violence.

The Supreme Court has ordered the administration to facilitate his return from El Salvador—but President Nayib Bukele has refused to hand over one of his own citizens, and the United States has no authority to forcibly retrieve him.

The media has completely misrepresented this case, sparking outrage among liberals who claim the man is a victim. They keep referring to him as “a Maryland man,” implying that he is a U.S. citizen. But he is not.

He was a U.S. resident who happened to be living in Maryland. In reality, he is a citizen of El Salvador who entered the United States in 2011 at the age of 16.

In most cases, the U.S. deports individuals to their country of citizenship or, if that’s not possible, to the last country they resided in before entering the U.S. which both instances is El Salvador.

Keep reading

California Governor Signs $2.8 Billion Medi-Cal Bailout to Cover Soaring Costs, Including for Illegal Immigrants

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed emergency legislation that will close a $2.8 billion shortfall in the state’s Medicaid program, Medi-Cal, ensuring continued health care coverage through June for approximately 15 million low-income residents, including hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants.

Newsom signed Assembly Bill 100 into law on April 14, according to a statement from his office. The measure is part of a broader response to an estimated $6.2 billion budget gap in Medi-Cal, the state’s sprawling public health care program.

The shortfall followed California’s expansion of full-scope Medi-Cal benefits to all income-eligible adults in 2024, regardless of immigration status—a move hailed by progressives and criticized by conservatives.

The Medi-Cal expansion—implemented in January 2024 under a 2022 law—made California the first state in the nation to offer free, comprehensive health care to all low-income adults regardless of immigration status. The state initially projected that the policy would cost $2.7 billion annually and cover about 764,000 residents without lawful immigration status. Actual program costs have exceeded expectations, contributing to California’s budget crisis, according to state officials.

California state Rep. Carl DeMaio, a Republican, has called for an audit of Medi-Cal spending, saying that California cannot afford to provide free health care to illegal immigrants.

“This puts the health coverage for poor people, children, the neediest among us, at risk,” DiMaio told reporters, according to a video that he shared on social media. “Why? Because we’ve given away the store to noncitizens. We’ve given illegal immigrants free health care at taxpayers’ expense.”

Keep reading

Trump’s Department of Justice Tells Judge They’re No Longer Amused Playing Her Silly Games

The Department of Justice’s response to a request by the attorneys representing El Salvadoran national Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia for a “show cause” holding the government in contempt didn’t go exactly according to the script the plaintiffs had in mind. It served notice on Obama-appointed federal judge Paula Xinis that she was mistaken if she thought the Department of Justice or the White House were shaking in their boots. It is the philosophical follow-up to the last response the DOJ sent to the judge; see Trump Admin Respectfully Tells Judge Xinis to Pound Sand in Abrego Garcia Case – RedState.

This case started when Abrego Garcia was picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in suburban Maryland and given a free plane trip to an anti-terrorism prison in El Salvador. What would have been an unremarkable deportation of an illegal immigrant with alleged gang ties and an active removal order became more complicated when it was discovered that the removal order said he couldn’t be removed to El Salvador because the bad blood between his gang, MS-13, and another gang might make him a target. Since then, the administration has been locked in a battle of will with a federal judge who seems hellbent on bringing an illegal immigrant back to the US so she can demonstrate her power.

The government summarizes the demands made by the plaintiffs this way: “In response, Plaintiffs moved for three categories of relief: (1) an order superintending and micromanaging Defendants’ foreign relations with the independent, sovereign nation of El Salvador, (2) an order allowing expedited discovery and converting Tuesday’s hearing into an evidentiary hearing, and (3) an order to show cause for why Defendants should not be held in contempt. 

Keep reading

Sotomayor’s Specter: No, the Alien Enemies Act Can’t Deport Americans

The ink was barely dry on the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision lifting the stay on deportations under the Alien Enemies Act when the legacy media began breathlessly quoting Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent—in apocalyptic tones. 

Her warning? That under the Court’s logic, an American citizen could be deported—stripped of rights, booted from the country, exiled without due process, never to return.

Cue the headlines. Cue the hashtags. Cue the hair-on-fire social media engagement from people who haven’t read the statute, the ruling, or a single line of immigration law in their lives.

One not-so-insignificant problem here is that her argument is legally incoherent, constitutionally unserious, and factually implausible. More than a few logical fallacies are also greasing this rabbit hole’s tunnel into Abaddon.

But that’s par for the course these days—especially when the audience isn’t fellow jurists but cable news anchors and social media bots.

Let’s be clear: the Alien Enemies Act applies to aliens, not citizens. The text refers explicitly to “subjects of a foreign nation.” It has never—not once in over 225 years of existence—been applied to a U.S. citizen. This isn’t a gray area. It’s not ambiguous. 

It’s a fundamental category error that wouldn’t pass a first-year law school exam.

Even worse, it wasn’t just made—it was practically shouted from the rooftop of the Supreme Court Building, seemingly to inflame and distort rather than interpret and clarify.

And it did precisely that. And that’s the real danger here: not that Americans might suddenly be deported under the Alien Enemies Act, but that the public is being misled about what the law says.

Sotomayor’s dissent also trots out the banner of “due process.” But here again, the analysis collapses. Due process means precisely that—you receive the process you are due. Under the AEA, that process is—and always has been—limited.

Keep reading

DOGE says illegal immigrants with criminal or terrorist records received public benefits under Biden

The Department of Government Efficiency revealed on Sunday that illegal immigrants with criminal or terrorist records received public benefits under former President Biden.

“Under the Biden administration, it was routine for Border Patrol to admit aliens into the United States with no legal status and minimal screening. So far, CBP identified a subset of 6.3k individuals paroled into the United States since 2023 on the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center watchlist or with criminal records. These paroles have since been terminated with immediate effect,” read a DOGE post on X.

“Despite having no other legal status, paroled aliens are able to file for work authorization and receive social security numbers,” the agency added.

DOGE found that of that group of 6,300 illegal immigrants, “905 collecting Medicaid (including 4 on the terrorist watch list); $276k was paid out – 41 collecting Unemployment Insurance, receiving $42k in benefits; 22 received federal student loans totaling $280k; 409 received {net} tax refunds (2024 only) for $751k; several (final number TBD) received SNAP (food stamp) benefits.”

Keep reading