One of President Donald Trump’s defining moments during his first term was a travel ban against Muslim-majority countries.
That announcement came on the heels of the administration’s assault on international students, banning them from enrolling at Harvard University.
The Trump administration deported these men within roughly 24 hours of the president signing an executive order invoking the Alien Enemies Act.
International Students Are the Latest Trump Target The Trump administration has been pulling all the levers it can find to limit entry of international students at college campuses around the country.
The Trump administration retaliated by announcing it was cutting off Harvard’s ability to enroll international students.
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Donald Trump’s pledges to deport illegal immigrants with criminal histories helped him win the presidency. However, his initial executive orders, which attempted to revoke birthright citizenship and halted important refugee programs, made it apparent that he also intended to target lawful immigrants. The Trump administration’s efforts to keep an increasing number of people out of the American experiment will be followed in our new series, Who Gets to Be American This Week?
A travel ban against nations with a majority of Muslims was one of President Donald Trump’s most notable policies during his first term. He has now reinstated that policy in his second term, enacting a new travel ban on Wednesday night that prevents citizens of 12 nations from entering the United States. S. beginning on Monday. Following the administration’s attack on international students, which resulted in their exclusion from Harvard University, that announcement was made. In addition, the State Department is considering canceling the visas of Chinese students and postponing all interviews with foreign students who are expected to arrive in a few months to study here.
A Maryland man who was wrongfully sent to El Salvador is now returning to the United States, while the government’s legal defense has been severely weakened in the case of the migrants who were deported illegally. S.
This week, we’re watching the following immigration-related news.
The New Travel Ban Was Discontinued.
following an instruction to the secretary of state to compile a list of nations that threaten American national security. A. Trump formally announced the new travel ban. Beginning Monday, entry into the United States will be restricted for citizens of Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. A. Additionally, entry into the country will be partially restricted for citizens of Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.
According to the order, admitting citizens of these nations would be “detrimental” to the United States. S. . interests for various reasons: It asserts that they have a high “visa-overstay rate,” “significant” terrorist presence, “deficient” vetting and screening information of their citizens, and they refuse to cooperate when the U. S. The government deports its citizens. The president posted a video on Truth Social outlining the new travel ban and mentioned the recent incident in Colorado where an Egyptian man threw Molotov cocktails at protesters taking part in a march for Israeli hostages. An Egyptian national who had overstayed his visa and filed for asylum was the suspect. The travel ban list does not include Egypt. His wife and five children, who are all Egyptian nationals who were involved in the same asylum application, were also detained by immigration officials with the goal of deporting them; however, a federal judge has temporarily halted that action.
Athletes visiting the United States, dual citizens, and green card holders are among the exceptions. S. for the Olympics and World Cup, Afghans employed by the U. A. government, have a special immigrant visa, and are immediate family members of U.S. S. . diplomats and family members. Over 475 million people live in the 19 nations included in the travel ban, according to the American Immigration Council’s estimate. Mostly Muslim and African, they are reminiscent of Trump’s 2017 travel ban, which was contested in court before the Supreme Court finally upheld an amended version.
The director of Columbia University’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic and clinical law professor Elora Mukherjee stated that the most recent travel ban will have disastrous effects on tens of thousands of people. causing the deaths of potential international students who planned to study in the United States, causing family divisions, and injuring refugees and asylum-seekers. S. . to chaos. “.”.
A new chapter is being written in the legal battle over migrants sent to El Salvador Megaprison.
More than 260 immigrants were forcibly deported to El Salvador more than two months ago without any prior notice, proof, or court hearing after being accused of belonging to foreign gangs. This week, the tumultuous legal battle in which the Trump administration has been defending their deportation took a new turn: U. S. . The federal government must provide a court hearing to every deportee, per District Court Judge James Boasberg’s order.
Within about 24 hours of the president issuing an executive order under the Alien Enemies Act, the Trump administration deported these men. With Boasberg’s most recent order, these men can still sue the Trump administration for violating their due process rights, even though they are no longer in the United States. This is noteworthy because the Trump administration has maintained throughout this legal dispute that the men are now fully in El Salvador’s custody and that the U.S. S. . The government is powerless.
While acknowledging this, Boasberg upheld the federal government’s obligation to “correct its legal wrongs” because none of the plaintiffs were given the constitutional right to habeas corpus, which allows anyone to challenge the validity of their detention, prior to being flown onto a plane and sent to El Salvador. Even the Supreme Court declared that immigrants are entitled to due process under the Fifth Amendment and ruled that the Trump administration had violated those rights.
Boasberg’s directive will compel the Trump administration to present all available evidence to a judge that each deportee is, in fact, a member of a foreign gang. (Court documents show that the evidence is extremely weak. ().
An additional significant development occurred on Friday, when ABC News revealed that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who the Trump administration acknowledged was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, was returning to the United States. A. His release from El Salvador’s custody has been ordered by the Supreme Court, which has placed him at the center of the Trump administration’s legal battle over the Alien Enemies Act.
That difficult moment came on Friday, but concurrently, Abrego Garcia was charged with two counts of indictment. He is accused of being involved in a plot to bring illegal immigrants into the United States. S. . however, Abrego Garcia has not yet addressed the fresh accusations.
Trump’s Latest Target Is Foreign Students.
Throughout the nation, the Trump administration has been using every tool at its disposal to restrict the number of foreign students who can enroll in universities.
The president has been targeting Harvard ever since it sued the federal government and refused to comply with a set of demands from the administration. In response, the Trump administration declared it would stop allowing Harvard to accept international students. This order was blocked by a federal judge and is presently being negotiated in court.
In a sudden statement, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he had told U. S. International embassies and consulates will no longer be accepting new appointments for student visas. It’s unclear if new guidance has been released yet, but Rubio stated in an internal cable seen by Politico that the State Department is reviewing the current student visitor screening procedure and would create new guidelines in the next few days.
Rubio also declared that he would “aggressively” revoke the visas of Chinese students, particularly those who are enrolled in courses in the United States. S. . aimed at “individuals studying in critical fields or having ties to the Chinese Community Party.”. There were more than 1 million international students in the United States during the 2023–2024 academic year, according to a letter sent to Rubio by more than 30 higher education organizations in response to the new action. A. which had a $44 billion economic impact on the country.
Targets Across the Nation Are Immigrants Attempting to Comply with the Law.
The Trump administration has adopted a new approach in recent weeks to further the president’s mass deportation objectives. Undocumented immigrants will appear in court to try to comply with the regulations and figure out how to stay in the United States. S. lawfully. However, the government has dropped their immigration case, and they find out this information as they stand before a judge. They are immediately arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who ambush them on their way home.
In order to promote adherence to correct immigration procedures, ICE has historically avoided conducting immigration enforcement at and near courthouses, particularly when it comes to noncriminal proceedings. On the other hand, they are legally permitted to make arrests in federal courthouses. And that is precisely what has been occurring repeatedly across the nation, including in Phoenix, New York City, San Francisco, and Chicago. An undocumented immigrant from Hong Kong named Carol Mayorga, whose legal name is Ming Li Hui, experienced a similar circumstance. Mayorga visited the U.S. A. She came here 20 years ago on a tourist visa and has stayed ever since. In a small farming town in rural Missouri, she became a mother to three children and works as a waitress at a neighborhood diner.
Mayorga was held for hours during a routine appointment to renew her work authorization before being shackled and taken to a jail in Missouri. For more than a month, she stayed there while her community mobilized to demand her release. The New York Times reported that the largely Trump-supporting community was challenging Trump’s deportation policies in situations like Mayorga’s, after the diner where she worked raised over $20,000 for Mayorga and her kids. “Almost everyone here, including myself, voted for Donald Trump,” a friend of Mayorga’s said. However, no one cast a vote to deport mothers. We all believed that we were merely removing the gangs and the large number of visitors. “”.
After ICE decided that Mayorga qualified for the Deferred Enforced Departure program, which is available to some Hong Kong residents, she was finally allowed to leave jail this week. Mayorga still has a deportation order against her, and it is only good until February 2027.
