FOR THE WEEK OF APR 28, 2025
Summarize fresh news on this topic, in the paper almost daily.
Quote a defender or critic of the White House actions. Tell why you agree or disagree.
Share a fact or comment showing the impact in your city or state.
Immigration officials have escalated efforts to remove people from the United States, a policy President Trump vowed to carry out during his campaign. As of last week, 258 deportation flights took off since the Jan. 20 inauguration, The New York Times calculated from an independent database. The administration has used military planes, pressured countries to retrieve their citizens, sent people to third countries far from their homes and used a wartime law to remove migrants without legal hearings.
A particularly visible flashpoint involves Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old married father of three taken from his Maryland home and sent to a notorious terrorist prison in El Salvador on March 15. The Trump administration at first acknowledged an "administrative error" by overlooking a 2019 immigration judge's directive that he be allowed to stay because of credible threats that a Salvadoran gang was "targeting him and threatening him with death" before he came here at age 16. Abrego Garcia hadn't been arrested since arriving around 2011 and checked in annually with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as required. When the Department of Homeland Security issued him a work permit, he joined a union and worked full time as a sheet metal apprentice.But now the government says he deserved deportation and "is never coming back," despite a 9-0 ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court to "facilitate" his return. Attorney General Pam Bondi calls him a dangerous and violent man, a leader of the MS-13 gang, though no court has seen proof. "Every day Mr. Garcia is detained is a day of irreparable harm," says U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, who's handling the case in Greenbelt, Md. In a follow-up last week, she declared that the Justice Department's failure "to respond in good faith . . . can only be viewed as willful and intentional noncompliance."
Deportations are paused, but the Supreme Court says they can resume as long as those being ejected get advance notice and can challenge removal in court – what's called legal due process. Judges in lower courts also are pushing back. Federal District Judge James Boasberg said in mid-April that the "hurried removal" of Abrego Garcia and hundreds of other alleged Venezuelan gang members after he had issued a temporary restraining order to turn back two flights to El Salvador demonstrated "a willful disregard for the Order, sufficient for the Court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt." He added: "The Constitution does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial orders — especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it." Those removed never had legal hearings.
Most recently, the Supreme Court delivered an emergency decision after midnight on April 19 that blocks the administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans held in Texas. That law was adopted way back in 1798, just 22 years after our country declared independence from England and its king.
Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin recently urged "my Republican colleagues to step up," adding: "You must join Democrats in responding to this madness and demanding that Mr. Abrego Garcia is returned to the United States immediately." Another Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, says: "We don't have a rule of law in America or anywhere else without due process." Yet there are no signs deportations to the El Salvador prison will slow down: That country's president plans to double the detention center's size, according to U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. The U.S. government pays El Salvador $6 million a year to hold deportees.
President says: "We cannot give everyone a trial, because to do so would take, without exaggeration 200 years. We would need hundreds of thousands of trials for the hundreds of thousands of illegals we are sending out of the country. Such a thing is not possible.” – At his Truth Social site last week
Senator says: "This is not a case about just one man whose constitutional rights are being ignored and disrespected. When you trample on the constitutional rights of one man — as the courts have all said is happening in this case — you threaten the constitutional rights of every American." – Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who visited his constituent Abrego Garcia in El Salvador
Blogger says: "When the Supreme Court convenes literally in the middle of the night to stop the government from spiriting away Venezuelans in apparent contradiction of their instruction to give every individual a meaningful opportunity to oppose their deportation, the 'constitutional crisis' has arrived." – Jennifer Rubin, former Washington Post columnist
Common Core State Standard
SL.CCS.1/2/3/4 Grades 6-12: An essay of a current news event is provided for discussion to encourage participation, but also inspire the use of evidence to support logical claims using the main ideas of the article. Students must analyze background information provided about a current event within the news, draw out the main ideas and key details, and review different opinions on the issue. Then, students should present their own claims using facts and analysis for support.
