Donald Trumpretook the White Housevowing to stage“the largest deportation operation in American history”. As previewed, the administrationset aboutfurthermilitarizingthe US-Mexicoborderandtargetingpeople requesting asylum andrefugeeswhile conductingraidsand deportations in undocumentedcommunities, detaining and deporting immigrants and spreadingfear.
Criticsareoutraged, if not surprised. But few expected thenew legal chapterthat unfolded next: a multipronged crackdown on certain people seen as opponents of the US president’s ideological agenda. This extraordinary assault has come in the context of wider attacks onhigher education, thecourtsand theconstitution.
Here are some of the most high-profile individual cases that have captured the world’s attention so far because of their extreme and legally dubious nature, mostly involving documented people targeted by the Trump administration in the course of its swift andunlawfulpowergrab.
In recent weeks, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) teams suddenly began arresting and detaining foreign-born students and academics on visas or green cards. In most cases the government has cited their roles in pro-Palestinian campus protests overIsrael’s war in Gazafollowing the7 October 2023 attack. Claims that they “supportHamas” are invoked as justification for wanting to deport them, even though they have not been charged with any crimes. Those taken include:
Mahmoud Khalil
A recent graduate student of Columbia University in New York,Mahmoud Khalil, 30, is a Palestiniangreen card holderwho was a leaderduring protestslast year. He was arrestedwithoutdue process in front ofhis pregnant wifeand has been in a detention centerin Louisianasince mid-March, denied release to attendthe birth. Hetoldan immigration judge that he and hundreds of other detainees were being denied rights the court itself had claimed to prioritize: “Due process and fundamental fairness.”
The governmentis usingobscure immigration law to makeextraordinary claimsin cases like Khalil’s that it can summarily detain and deport people for constitutionally-protected free speech if they are deemed adverse to US foreign policy. A far-right group hasclaimed creditfor flagging his and others’ names for scrutiny by the authorities.
Rümeysa Öztürk
US immigrationofficialsencircled and grabbedthe Tufts University PhD student near Boston and bustled her into an unmarked car, shown in onlooker video. Öztürk, a Fulbright scholar and Turkish national on a visa, hadco-written an op-edin the student newspaper, criticizing Tufts’ response to Israel’s military assault on Gaza and Palestinians. She was rushed into detention in Louisiana in apparent defiance of a court order. Öztürk, 30,says she hasbeen neglected and abused there in “unsafe and inhumane conditions”.
Mohsen Mahdawi
Mahdawi, a Palestinian green-card holder and student atColumbia University,was apprehendedby Ice in Colchester, Vermont, on 14 April, as firstreportedby the Intercept.
He was prominent in the protests at Columbia last year. During his apprehension he was put into an unmarked car outside a federal office where he was attending an interview to become a naturalized US citizen. The administration’s arcanejustificationis that his activism could “potentially undermine” the Middle East peace process, citing a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). He is detained in Vermont. Democratic lawmakers have visited Khalil, Öztürk and Mahdawi butfailedto secure their release.
Yunseo Chung
Another Columbia student, Chung, 21,suedthe administration fortrying todeport her, and has goneinto hiding. She is a pro-Palestinian campaigner and was arrested by the New York police in March while protesting, as first reported by theNew York Times. She said a government official told her lawyer they want to remove her from the country and her residency status was being revoked. Chung was born in South Korea and has been in the US since she was seven.
Alireza Doroudi
The Democrats on campus group at the University of Alabama saidof the arrestof Doroudi, 32, an Iranian studying mechanical engineering: “Donald Trump, Tom Homan [Trump’s “border czar”], and Ice have struck a cold, vicious dagger through the heart of UA’s international community.”
He was taken to the same Louisiana federal detention center as Khalil. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has said he is a threat to national security, without providing details, and the state department had revoked his visa, while an immigration judgerefusedto release him.
Badar Khan Suri
More than 370 alumni of Washington DC-based Georgetown University joined 65 current students there in signing on to aletteropposing immigration authorities’detention of Dr Badar Khan Suri, a senior postdoctoral fellow at the institution’s Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU).
The authorities revoked his student visa, alleging the citizen of India’s father-in-law was an adviser to Hamas officials more than a decade ago – andclaiminghe was “deportable” because of his posts on social media in support of Palestine. He was taken to Louisiana and thendetention in Texasand was givencourt dates in May.
Kseniia Petrova
The Harvard Medical School research scientistwas stoppedat Boston’s Logan airport by US authorities on her way back from France in February, over what appeared to be an irregularity in customs paperwork related to frog embryo samples. She was told her visa was being revoked and she was being deported to her native Russia.
When Petrova, 30, said she feared political persecution there because she had criticized the invasion of Ukraine, she was taken away and alsoended upin an overcrowded detention facility in Louisiana. Her colleagues say her expertise is “irreplaceable” andPetrova saidforeign scientists like her “enrich” America.
More than1,400 international studentsfrom at least 200 colleges across the US had their “legal status changed” by the state department, including the revoking of visas, in what specialist publication Inside Higher Educationcalled“an explosion of visa terminations”.
Amid scant information andrising panic, secretary of state Marco Rubio lambasted protesters and campus activistsas “lunatics”. Some were cited for pro-Palestinian views, others concluded they must have been targeted because of minor crimes or offenses, such asa speeding ticket. Some could find no explanation. Then in the face of multiple court challenges, the administration in late Aprilreversed courseand restored legal statuses that had been rescinded en masse, but said it was developing a new policy. Uncertainty prevails.
The legal rollercoaster came too late for this high-profile case:
Felipe Zapata Velásquez
The family of University of Florida student Felipe Zapata Velásquez, 27,said he is“undergoing a physical and emotional recovery process” in his native Colombia after police arrested him in Gainesville in March for traffic offenses and turned him over to Ice. He agreed to be deported, to avoid lengthy detention and legal battles. Democratic congressman Maxwell Frostaccusedauthorities of “kidnapping” Velásquez.
Kilmar ÁbregoGarcía
TheSalvadoranmanwas removedto El Salvador by mistake, which the Trump administration admitted. But it isessentially defyinga US supremecourt orderto “facilitate” his return to his home and family in Maryland.Ábrego Garcíawas undocumented but had protected status against being deported to El Salvador. He wasflown there anyway, without a hearing, to abrutal mega-prison, then later transferred to another facility. The administration accuses him of being a violent gangster and has abandoned him,infuriatinga federal judgerepeatedlyand promptingwarningsof a constitutionalcrisis.
He has not been charged with any crimes but was swept up with hundreds of Venezuelans deported there. He has begged to speak to his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, who insistshe is nota criminal. Sheet metalworkers union chief Michael Coleman described Ábrego García as an “apprentice working hard to pursue the American dream”and saidhe was not a gang member. Trump said hewas eyeingSalvadoran prisons for US citizens.
The USdeported morethan 230 Venezuelan men tothe mega-prisonin El Salvador without so much as a hearing in mid-March despite aninfuriated federal judgetrying to halt the flights, thenblockingothers. Donald Trump took extraordinary action to avoid due process by invoking the1798 Alien Enemies Act(AEA), a law meant only to be used in wartime, prompting court challenges led by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). John Roberts, the US chief justice,rebukedthe president when he threatened the judge. The justices, by a majority,did not stopTrump from using the AEA but the benchunanimously reaffirmedthe right to due process and said individuals must be able to bring habeas corpus challenges.
Most of the men are reportedly not violent criminals or members of violent gangs, as the Trump administration asserts, according to a New York Timesinvestigation.
Many appear to have been accused of being members of the transnational Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua partly onthe basis of their tattoos, with their families speaking out, including:
Andry José Hernández Romero
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Hernández, a 31-year-old makeup artist and hairdresser, entered California last year to attend an asylum appointment, telling the authorities he was under threat in Venezuela as a gay man. But he was detained and accused of being inTren de Araguabecause of his tattoos, thensuddenly deportedunder Trump, deemed a “security threat”.
Jerce Reyes Barrios
The former professional footballer, 36, has been accused of gang membership by the DHS, seemingly because of his tattoos, including one of a crown sitting atop a soccer ball with a rosary and the word “dios”.
“He chose this tattoo because it is similar to the logo for his favourite soccer team, Real Madrid,” his lawyer, Linette Tobin,said, adding that her client fled Venezuela after protesting the government and being tortured.
Francisco Javier García Casique
Relatives were shocked when they spotted Francisco Javier García Casique, 24, in a propaganda video from El Salvador showing scores of Venezuelan prisoners beingfrog-marched off planesand into custody there. He is a barber in his home town of Maracay and is completely innocent of gang involvement,the family said, adding that Francisco and his brother Sebastián have matching tattoos quoting the Bible.
A US military plane took off from California in Februarycarrying more than 100 immigrantsfrom countries as far flung as Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, China, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Pakistan,dumping theminPanama. They were shackled and deported to a third country because their nations of origin refuse to accept them back from the US. Shockingscenes unfoldedof the people locked in a hotel in Panama City, signaling and writing on the windows pleading for help.
The people, including children, were then moved andheld at a facilitydeep in the dense jungle that separates Panama from Colombia. They were laterreportedly freedand were seeking asylum from other countries, their futures uncertain. One of those deported from the US was:
Artemis Ghasemzadeh
Ghasemzadeh, 27, a migrant from Iran, wrote “Help us” in lipstick on a window of the hotel in Panama City, as a desperate way of alerting New York Times reporters on the street to her and fellow detainees’ plight. She had thought that, especially as a convert from Islam to Christianity who faces danger in Iran as a result, that she would be offered freedom in the US, shetold the newspaperwhile still in custody.
Amir Makled
Makled, a Detroit-born attorney,was questioned at the airporton returning from vacation. He was flagged to a terrorism response team, kept behind and pressured to hand over his phone, then give up some of its contents. The Lebanese American representsa pro-Palestinian student protesterwho was arrested at the University of Michigan. Experts said the incident was evidence of a weakening of fourth amendment constitutional protections at the border against “unreasonable search and seizure”.
Nicole Micheroni
This Massachusetts immigration lawyer, a US-born American citizen,spoke outafter receiving an email from the Trump administration telling her “it is time for you to leave the United States”. She said it was “probably, hopefully, sent to me in error. But it’s a little concerning these are going out to US citizens.” Shetold NBCshe thought it was a scare tactic.
Jasmine Mooney, Canada
Canadian Jasmine Mooney was shackled andended upin Ice detention in the US for two weeks over an alleged work visa irregularity while on one of her frequent visits to California. Shespoke outabout the harsh conditions and the information black hole and how outraged she was that so many other detainees she met, who helped her, are stranded without access to the kind of resources that ultimately got her out.
Rebecca Burke, UK
TheBritish graphic artistwas stopped at the border when she headed from Seattle to Canada as a backpacker and, because of a visa mix-up, she became one of32,809 peopleto be arrested by Ice during the first 50 days of Trump’s presidency. Almost three weeks of grueling detention conditions later, she smuggled out her poignant drawings of fellow detainees when she was released.
Jessica Brösche, Germany
The German tourist and tattoo artist, 29, from Berlinwas detainedby US immigration authorities and deported back to Germany after spending more than six weeks in US detention, including what she described as eight days in solitary confinement. Her family compared her ordeal to “a horror film”.
Fabian Schmidt, Germany
The 34-year-old German national and US green card holder was apprehended and allegedly “violently interrogated” by US border officials as he was returning to New Hampshire from a trip to Luxembourg. Hisfamily saidhe was held for hours at Boston’s Logan airport, stripped naked and put in a cold shower, then later deprived of food and medicine, and collapsed. His case is being investigated and as of mid-April he was in Ice detention in Rhode Island.
‘Jonathan’
A man with a US work visa provided hisanonymous account to the Guardianof being denied entry into the US after a trip to his native Australia to scatter his sister’s ashes. He was pulled aside on arrival in Houston, Texas, and accused, variously, of selling drugs and having improper paperwork. After being detained for over a day he was put on a flight back to Australia even though he has worked on the US east coast for five years, where he lived with his girlfriend.
Alvin Gibbs,Marc Carrey and Stefan Häublein of band UK Subs
Members of the punk rock band UK Subs said they weredenied entry and detainedin the US on their way to play a gig in Los Angeles, after being questioned about visas. Bassist Alvin Gibbs said: “I can’t help but wonder whether my frequent, and less than flattering, public comments regarding their president [Trump] and his administration played a role.” He and the two band mates were kept in harsh conditions for 24 hours then deported back to the UK.
French scientist
A French scientist, who has not been publicly named,was denied entryto the US after immigration officers at an airport searched his phone and found messages in which he had expressed criticism of the Trump administration, according to a French government minister. The researcher was on his way to a conference in Texas.
“Freedom of opinion, free research, and academic freedom are values that we will continue to proudly uphold,” Philippe Baptiste, France’s minister of higher education and research, told Le Monde.