Reading Time: 15 minutes

This story was originally published by The 19th.

MILWAUKEE — When Yessenia Ruano walks through the door of her home after work, her husband, Miguel, is in the kitchen, shredding chicken with two forks, and her twin daughters are in the living room, playing on an iPad. The sound of “Primer Impacto” fills the background. 

Ruano opens the fridge to keep the dinner prep going. On the top shelf, there are more than 150 corn tortillas lying flat in their plastic bags. On the bar counter, near unopened mail and trinkets, is a pack of zinnia seeds waiting for the last frost to pass before Yessenia and the girls plant them in the patio across the driveway. 

This doesn’t look like the home of a family on the verge of being uprooted, until Ruano and her husband — one rolling chicken into tortillas over hot oil, the other tending to a pile of dishes on the sink — start talking about the questions suddenly pressing on their everyday lives. 

In February, during a check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agent told Ruano that the government would accelerate plans to deport her. Save for a change in her immigration status, the agent said, she should report back to ICE in two months with a plane ticket back to El Salvador set for 50 days out. 

It’s April now; her next appointment with ICE is coming up in just a few weeks. “She said I should buy just one plane ticket,” Ruano, 38, tells her husband, recalling a conversation with a colleague at the local public school where she works. Her colleague reasoned that if Ruano bought a fare for everyone in the family and her deportation was averted, they’d be throwing a lot of money in the trash.

“I’ve always thought we should buy four tickets,” Miguel tells her, hunched over the sink. A few months ago, Ruano went on a ladies’ retreat with her church for two nights and left him and their two children to fend for themselves. The girls cried and cried and barely slept. Their dog — a fluffy, white Bichon Frisé who was named Snowflake before the family adopted him and is now named Copito, short for snowflake in Spanish — barely ate. 

Ruano agrees that the family should stay together, but most days, she’s convinced they’ll never use any of the plane tickets in question. Ruano, for 14 years, has clung onto hope that the immigration powers that be will eventually see that she belongs in the United States. She has checked in with ICE 17 times, worn a GPS monitor. She’s also built the life she shares with her husband and their Milwaukee-born daughters, a job at a local school and volunteer work at her local Catholic parish. 

Through it all, she has searched for ways to create roots in the United States. Recently, she petitioned for a visa created for human trafficking victims, based on her experience of forced labor when she first entered the country. That petition is stuck in the growing backlog at the agency that handles visa applications, one that has accelerated since the start of the Trump administration.

“Of course, practically speaking, they can do whatever they want,” Ruano says. “If they’re a little human, then I can prove I belong here. If they just care about detaining people to meet a certain quota and deport them — if I’m just another number — then I can already hear them saying, ‘Ma’am, I don’t care about your case. We’re so sorry, but we’re going to send you back to your country.’” 

Ruano is among the millions of immigrants living in the United States who are facing deportation as the Trump administration ramps up the removal of people with no permanent immigration status. That includes immigrants who, like Ruano, have been in the country for more than a decade and have no criminal record, and whose ties to the country include young children — some of them U.S. citizens — and also careers and community. 

Ruano’s precarious situation isn’t entirely the product of Trump-era policies. Like millions of immigrants living in the United States, she entered the country at the southern border, lured by the promise of safety and stability. Like thousands of others, she asked for asylum and was allowed to stay as she waited for a resolution on her petition, as long as she followed the law. Even after her petition was unsuccessful, the U.S. government allowed her to remain in the country provided that she checked in regularly with immigration officials. 

Under the United States’ broken immigration system, one in which laws that haven’t been updated in decades no longer align with the reality of immigration patterns, the country’s reliance on the immigrant labor force or even the government’s ability to enforce such laws, immigrants like Ruano have always lived at the discretion — at the whim — of whoever is in power, from the president down to the ICE officer who is looking at their case that day. 

When President Donald Trump was inaugurated in January, that dynamic changed again, fueled by an agenda that seems to be taking shape day by day. 

Ruano remains in this limbo, bracing for her life to be upended while fighting for a different outcome. She follows the countless news stories about people who are in ICE detention, or who have been swiftly deported back to their home countries. Hundreds of thousands more are living just like her, navigating the shifting sands of American immigration policy. 

---

Ruano’s day usually starts early, and by 6:15 a.m., her daughters Paola and Eli, 9, are in the dining room, ready for their mom to brush their hair. Back in El Salvador, Ruano didn’t think she would ever have children. The world seemed dangerous and broken, and life was expensive. “With the cost of living, I always thought, how?” she said one morning while brushing Eli’s hair and finishing it with a braid.

Ruano and her husband went to high school together in El Salvador and reconnected again in Milwaukee at the frozen pizza manufacturing plant where they both worked. Eventually, they started dreaming of growing their family. Soon there were four of them. Juggling two babies was hard, but they both landed steady work and were able to buy the duplex they live in, an older home they’ve improved slowly. Here, they are watching Eli and Paola thrive. 

Eli loves art. She loves to take clay-like dirt from the backyard and shape it. In their living room, Ruano points to a little bowl made of coiled clay, brown and crumbly and beautiful. A bucket holds dozens of small figurines made with air-dry clay, detailed and complex. 

Paola is much more interested in building with Legos, and Ruano says proudly that she is ahead of her peers in math. Barely older than her sister, Paola has also taken on a caretaking role in the family that Ruano says came to her naturally.

Ruano’s daughters have been learning the violin and the viola. They’ve been debating whether to keep going with the string instruments or move on to another extracurricular activity.

“All of those special skills and talents, we can’t really tend to them in my country,” Ruano said. “It’s like they’re trying to rip away my dreams, and also those of my two girls.”

Eli and Paola are U.S. citizens. Their lives would be significantly different in El Salvador, where economic opportunity, gender-based violence and more could alter the course of their lives. Their father, Miguel, has no legal immigration status. The 19th is not publishing his last name to protect his privacy and employment.

Both times Ruano has appeared before ICE this year, agents have alluded to her daughters. During her February appointment, the agent said Ruano should buy plane tickets for her girls as well because she “would hate to see the family separated,” Ruano recalls. During her April appointment, Ruano’s lawyer at the time recalled that the agent scanned Ruano’s plane ticket and asked why she hadn’t bought plane tickets for the girls.

Ruano has spent time talking to each daughter about the different possibilities ahead for their family, including a new life in El Salvador. 

“I tried to focus on the positive things, things I liked as a girl,” Ruano said. Ruano explained that the school day in El Salvador would be shorter — the country has one of the shortest school weeks in the world. There would be more time for play. 

“I told them that they’d see mango trees, orange trees,” Ruano said. “Things we don’t have here.” 

They’d still get to sleep next to each other, as they do in Milwaukee.

---

Ruano has a trove of files documenting her immigration journey in the United States, but one piece of paper worn thin from years of use tracks every check-in she’s had with ICE since she entered the United States from Mexico in 2011.

At the time, Ruano petitioned for the only form of relief she was told she was eligible for, a form of asylum called “withholding of removal,” which requires immigrants to prove that there is at least a 51% likelihood of suffering persecution in their home country. 

When her case finally came up for review a decade later, a judge told Ruano that her petition would be denied and said Ruano could withdraw it to avoid having the denial on her record. During the hearing, the judge told Ruano through her then-lawyer that the U.S. government wasn’t actively deporting people like her, who had no criminal record. She could explore other avenues for legal status. 

By 2024, she was running out of alternatives and time. ICE placed her in a monitoring program called Alternatives to Detention, or ATD, and told that her deadline to file for a different path to legal status was near. 

ICE advertises the ATD program as having been designed for immigrants who were “thoroughly vetted” and deemed not a risk to public safety. To enroll someone in the program, ICE officers consider their ties to the community and status as a caregiver or provider. Ruano checked all of the boxes. 

Ruano’s participation in the program left a mark: She has a band of pale skin around her wrist, where ICE secured a GPS device. 

The device tracked her location, had facial-recognition software for regular check-ins with ICE, and had messaging capabilities between the agency and Ruano; “Please call your officer” was a regular prompt. Ruano could swap the batteries to make sure the wrist monitor was powered at all times. Sometimes the backup battery wouldn’t work, so she was left to plug the monitor — still attached to her wrist — directly into a wall outlet. When it became loose and couldn’t read her pulse, it would blare loudly. “I would be in the classroom with kids, trying to fix it,” Ruano said. 

At home, Ruano pored over the internet and eventually found a firm in Chicago that helped her file for a T visa as a victim of human trafficking. 

The application was almost complete when Ruano was asked to report to ICE for a check-in on Valentine’s Day. Ruano’s lawyer at the time told her that she feared there was a better-than-90% chance she would be detained. Ruano felt that the time she was promised to finish her application had been suddenly taken away.

She spent most of the week of the appointment working furiously to make sure her T visa application was in the hands of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, that her personal documents were in order, that there was a care plan for the girls beyond Miguel. She did all of that while juggling calls with reporters and advocates from Voces de la Frontera, the local immigrant advocacy group supporting her. She watched herself get to the brink of an emotional breakdown. The voice inside her head begged for surrender: “I’m done. I can’t keep going. I’ll go back to my country and start over, from zero. The fight is over.”

It’s a shift from her default, a hope and belief that things will work out. 

“It’s been 14 years and I’ve suffered a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety. Every week before one of my hearings with a judge or a check-in with ICE, those are nights of no sleep,” Ruano said. “I’ll wake up at one in the morning needing to vomit.” She’s had 17 appointments over that time span, and 17 sleepless weeks.

Unlike many immigrants without authorization to permanently live in the country, Ruano has not and does not live in the shadows. The U.S. government knows exactly who she is, where she lives, where she works. Ruano said she was not — and is not — willing to defy a deportation order.

“It wouldn’t be worth it,” she said. “I would rather go back to my country, whatever may happen there. Because when I think about living in the shadows, not being able to use my real name, never being at peace … I don’t want to live in hiding, waiting for the day they knock on my door.” 

---

At the bilingual public school where she teaches, in Milwaukee’s heavily Hispanic South Side, the chaos of Ruano’s immigration limbo dials down. 

“I feel like I’m in my own world,” Ruano said. “My problems stay back home.” When she walks into a classroom full of kindergarteners, she tells herself, “Vamos a echarle ganas a este dia.” Let’s do this. 

It’s an easy place for her mind to wander to the version of the future she has dreamed for herself. She’s an assistant teacher supporting the youngest learners with the most challenging needs. “I’m always thinking about getting my teaching license,” Ruano said, “so I can have my own classroom.” 

Milwaukee has for years struggled with a shortage of teachers, falling victim to the nationwide teacher shortage. The district’s superintendent announced recently that the next school year would start with 80 vacant teaching positions, and that’s with a recent decision to thin the district’s central office by moving more than a fifth of its administrative staffers with teaching certifications into classroom positions. 

In El Salvador, Ruano graduated from high school and worked her way through college to become an upper-grade teacher. She looked for work in education and wound up cleaning houses instead, joining other teachers with training but no place in the workforce. “You just end up having to do other work,” Ruano said. “I got here and saw that there’s so much opportunity. Here, they need teachers.”

Ruano’s workday begins outside the school, where her job is to welcome kids getting dropped off by their parents. On a frigid April day — she does this same job on frigid January days, too, just with extra gear — most of the interactions are quick hellos and good mornings. One little boy in a Minecraft backpack is refusing to walk in. He’s sad, and he’s asking for his mom. Ruano leans down to chat with him for a minute, a hand on his shoulder, a warm smile beaming. Eventually, he decides to go inside. 

Ruano’s job at this public school has anchored her firmly in this community. As part of Ruano’s public plea to immigration officials, teachers and parents from her school have written letters about the value she brings to her community. One parent wrote that their child had been upset for days, worried about the fate of his favorite teacher. Ruano read one of these letters during a news conference before she walked into her February check-in, surrounded by TV cameras and supporters from Voces de la Frontera. Within 48 hours, they collected 2,800 signatures in an online petition supporting Ruano.

When Ruano walked out of the courthouse that day, she went to the school to drop off her girls. Students filled the hallways and stairwells, erupting in cheers, relieved that she had not been detained. 

“What was really sweet was that she led them in singing our school song. They’re usually quiet and shy when we sing it during our school assemblies. That day they were not,” said Brenda Martinez, who helped found the school and acts as its principal. Martinez has been worried about Ruano’s case and said the school can’t afford to lose her. 

“She has a lot of patience to work with the littlest learners. That’s who she is,” Martinez said. “To lose her is like losing a member of our family.” 

---

One of the most remarkable aspects of Ruano’s journey, she’ll say herself, is her own outlook in the face of so much upheaval. “La esperanza no se me quita,” Ruano said. For the most part, she can’t shake the hope that someday, things will inevitably work out. 

When she reached a point of desperation earlier in the year, she said the thought that pulled her out was a Bible verse she’d memorized. “I could hear Joshua 1:9 in my head: ‘Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.’”

Ruano and her family are devout Catholics and also involved with a local Evangelical church. Faith runs through their lives, though the urgency with which Ruano prays lately is new. 

During a recent Spanish-language Mass at the parish the family attends — the large hall filled quickly to capacity — the Rev. Javier Bustos opened the service with a prayer that asked God for “justice for the nation’s immigrants.” Bustos said in an interview that since the start of the Trump administration, fear has become palpable in his community, and Ruano’s family is just one of the many whom he prays for. 

In many ways, Ruano’s journey to the United States is not unique. She watched violence escalate in El Salvador, and grieved when her brother was kidnapped and later murdered. Her fear for her safety, combined with economic uncertainty, made a future in her home country look grim. 

Her first attempt to enter the United States resulted in her immediate removal. She tried again less than a year later, paying a group of coyotes to guide her way into the country safely. Once in the United States, Ruano said, she became trapped in a filthy home and forced to work for her captors. She was eventually released after they extorted more money from her family back home. This forms the basis for her claim for a T visa, which requires her cooperation with law enforcement. 

Bustos, Ruano’s priest, said in an interview that every immigrant’s story is different, but that losing closely knit members of this church community feels the same: “Like losing an arm, or a limb.” 

Ruano is an active member of the church’s prayer group and volunteers during Mass. This Sunday, she was tasked with a Bible reading in front of the several hundred gathered, including her husband and daughters, who smiled watching her walk up to the lectern. 

Later, she attended a training for members hoping to work with young children, focused on keeping them safe. Ruano is part of a group of members who have committed nearly every Saturday for the next two years to walking a group of children through an intense curriculum in the Catholic faith, up to their First Communion. 

Ruano already started the rigorous curriculum with her group of students. She hopes to be around to watch them reach the rite of passage.

---

There’s a single Salvadoran restaurant in Milwaukee. Its owner, Concepcion Arias, says business has changed since Trump was elected. Fewer customers are coming through the doors, and even some of the regulars are asking for their meals to go. “People don’t want to be out and about,” she said. 

But Ruano and her family are here on a Sunday after church, one of their regular spots for a meal after Mass. Paola orders a plate of fries with ketchup, while Eli goes for traditional pupusas. 

On the cover of the menu is a picture of a beach in El Salvador. “That’s where my uncle lives,” Ruano says. The girls glance at the small photo of the sunny tropical landscape. When Ruano was a teenager, she moved to this coastal town to work at her uncle’s hotel, a job that helped her pay for school. The girls agree the beach looks beautiful, but then Paola chimes in: “I’m really scared I’m going to die on a plane.” She’s thinking about the prospect of ever traveling to El Salvador, a place she only knows through her parents’ stories. 

Little moments like this one remind all four that the threat of removal hangs heavily over their lives. When lunch is over, the family heads back home, and then Miguel goes out to meet with a contractor. Their home’s roof is overdue for a replacement — one of dozens of to dos that are suddenly urgent. Miguel is worried about leaving their home in less than good shape if Yessenia is removed to El Salvador.

Under the Biden administration, a pending T visa application would typically halt removal proceedings, but that guarantee no longer exists under the Trump administration. At the end of the Biden administration, the wait time for USCIS to confirm it had received a visa application averaged about four weeks. On the day of Ruano’s February check-in with ICE, the Trump administration fired 50 employees from USCIS. Within a few weeks, immigration lawyers were reporting that the wait time for visa application receipts had started to grow. When Ruano called USCIS to check on her case in early April, an agent said the average wait time was 10 weeks. When she checked in with USCIS in early May, they told her the wait had grown to four months.

Her lawyer, Marc Christopher, who has spent years working on immigration cases in the Milwaukee area, said he’s not sure why ICE hasn’t fast-tracked her deportation, but that in a multi-tiered system where so much is up to discretion, it’s not clear who will have the final say on her case.

She is due back for another appointment with ICE at the end of May. In an interview Tuesday, Ruano said she remains hopeful. She’s also started to sell household items they no longer use on Facebook Marketplace, a small step toward resignation. She hasn’t bought flights for her husband or daughters and hopes she won’t have to. The zinnia seeds are now one-inch sprouts.

Ruano’s daughters will turn 10 in early June. This year, they’re most looking forward to celebrating their birthday at school, with cupcakes in class, surrounded by their friends, their mom nearby. 

Ruano’s flight is scheduled to leave the United States the next day.

This story was originally reported by Mel Leonor Barclay of The 19th. Meet Mel and read more of her reporting on gender, politics and policy.

Fourteen years in Wisconsin. A one-way ticket to El Salvador. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday, May 16, 2025, that the Trump administration's attempt to deport a group of Venezuelans under an 18th-century wartime law "does not pass muster." (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday kept in place a block on the Trump administration’s efforts to deport 176 Venezuelans in Northern Texas under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

A majority of the justices found that President Donald Trump’s administration violated the due process rights of Venezuelans when the administration tried to deport them from North Texas last month by invoking the 18th-century wartime law. Conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented.

“Under these circumstances, notice roughly 24 hours before removal, devoid of information about how to exercise due process rights to contest that removal, surely does not pass muster,” according to the decision.

The justices did not determine the legality of the Trump administration using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans 14 and older with suspected ties to the gang Tren de Aragua.

On his social media platform, Trump expressed his disapproval of the ruling.

“THE SUPREME COURT WON’T ALLOW US TO GET CRIMINALS OUT OF OUR COUNTRY!” he wrote on Truth Social.

The justices found that the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals “erred in dismissing the detainees’ appeal for lack of jurisdiction,” and vacated that order, sending the case back.

The Trump administration on Monday asked the high court to remove the injunction, arguing that detaining suspected members of Tren de Aragua poses a threat to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and staff.

In a Wednesday response, the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the suit, warned that if the Supreme Court lifts its injunction, “most of the putative class members will be removed with little chance to seek judicial review.”

In Friday’s order, the justices noted that because the Trump administration has used the Alien Enemies Act to send migrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador, careful due process is needed.

“The Government has represented elsewhere that it is unable to provide for the return of an individual deported in error to a prison in El Salvador…where it is alleged that detainees face indefinite detention,” according to the order, noting the wrongful deportation of Maryland man Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.

“The detainees’ interests at stake are accordingly particularly weighty,” the court continued.

Other rulings

On April 18, the ACLU made an emergency application to the high court, asking to bar any removals under the Alien Enemies Act in the Northern District of Texas over concerns that the Trump administration was not following due process.

Several federal judges elsewhere have blocked the use of the wartime law in their districts that cover Colorado, Southern Texas and Southern New York.

A federal judge in Western Pennsylvania Tuesday was the first to uphold the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act, but said those accused must have at least three weeks to challenge their removal.

Maryland Democratic U.S. Rep. Glenn Ivey, who represents the district where Kilmar Abrego Garcia and his wife live, led the chant “bring him home” outside the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland shortly before a hearing in Abrego Garcia’s case on Friday, May 16, 2025. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

GREENBELT, MARYLAND — A federal judge said Friday the Trump administration has “pretty broadly” invoked the state secrets privilege to withhold information on its efforts — or, the judge indicated, a possible lack of effort — to return a wrongly deported Maryland man from a prison in El Salvador.

President Donald Trump’s administration moved last month to invoke the so-called state secrets privilege to shield information about its process to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States after a top immigration official admitted his removal to a prison in El Salvador was an “administrative error.”

The judge handling the case, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, granted an expedited discovery process after she found last month that “nothing has been done” by the administration to return Abrego Garcia.

She did not make a public order regarding the state secrets privilege Friday afternoon before closing her courtroom to the public to discuss sensitive matters with attorneys for Abrego Garcia and the Department of Justice.

The state secrets privilege is a common-law doctrine that protects sensitive national security information from being released. The Trump administration has argued the need to invoke it in this case to protect diplomatic relationships.

‘He’ll never walk free in the United States’

During the public portion of Friday’s hearing, Xinis pressed the Department of Justice attorneys about Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s comment that Abrego Garcia “will not return” to the U.S.

“That sounds to me like an admission that your client will not take steps to facilitate the return,” Xinis said. “That’s about as clear as it can get.”

DOJ attorney Jonathan D. Guynn disagreed and said the Trump administration is complying with court orders. He said Noem’s comment meant that if Abrego Garcia was back in U.S. custody he would be removed either to another third country or back to El Salvador.

“He’ll never walk free in the United States,” Guynn said.

He added that the Trump administration is “currently complying and we plan to comply.”

Xinis said she disagreed, and then she clashed with Guynn over the legality of Abrego Garcia’s removal.

Guynn said that he was lawfully deported.

Xinis answered that she found months ago that Abrego Garcia was unlawfully detained and removed from the U.S.

Few documents produced

One of the attorneys for Abrego Garcia, Andrew J. Rossman, said the Trump administration has invoked the state secrets privilege for 1,140 documents relating to the case. From that request, Rossman said his team received 168 documents, but 132 were copies of court filings and requests made by him and his team.

Xinis seemed visibly stunned by Rossman’s report and had to clarify that his team had only received 36 new documents, which Rossman confirmed.

Rossman said that none of the documents for which the government is invoking the state secrets privilege are classified.

“There’s ways to do this right, and they haven’t done it,” he said, noting that he has attorneys on his team who have security clearances and can review classified and sensitive information.

Rossman said that he and his team are seeking answers to three questions: the status of Abrego Garcia, what steps the Trump administration has taken, if any, to facilitate his return, and the steps the federal government will take, if any, to comply with court orders.

Guynn said the Trump administration received an update from El Salvador on Thursday that Abrego Garcia was in “good health” and had “even gained weight.”

The U.S. Supreme Court ordered that the Trump administration must “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia.

Rossman, said that it’s “deeply disturbing” that administration officials, including the president, have made public statements that contradict court orders directing the government to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S.

President Donald Trump has said he could easily pick up the phone and order El Salvador to return him but won’t because he believes Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang.

Noem was pressed at a May 14 congressional hearing about a photo that appears altered to add letters across Abrego Garcia’s knuckles to indicate his inclusion in the gang. She said she was unaware of it.

A federal judge in the District of Columbia, in a separate case regarding Trump’s use of an archaic wartime law for deportations, questioned Department of Justice attorneys on the president’s claim that he could order Abrego Garcia to be returned. The attorney admitted that the president sometimes overstates his influence abroad.

El Salvador prison

Abrego Garcia has had protections from deportation since 2019, but he was one of nearly 300 men on three mid-March removal flights to a notorious prison in El Salvador known as CECOT.

Abrego Garcia has been moved to a lower security prison, according to Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who traveled to the country last month to meet with Abrego Garcia and inquire with Salvadoran officials about why he is being held there.

Those officials said Abrego Garcia was being held because of the agreement between the United States and El Salvador.

The U.S. has a $15 million agreement with El Salvador’s government to house immigrants removed from the U.S., mostly Venezuelans removed under the wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

The Trump administration has argued that Abrego Garcia is a national of El Salvador and in that country’s custody and the U.S. cannot force another government to return him. 

Hours before Friday’s hearing, dozens of protestors gathered outside the court, calling for Abrego Garcia to be returned to the U.S., as well as criticizing the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. 

U.S. Rep. Glenn Ivey, who represents the area in Maryland where Abrego Garcia and his family live, appeared outside the court and led chants calling for the release of Abrego Garcia from El Salvador.

“The president has to obey the orders of the Supreme Court,” Ivey said. “The Supreme Court has spoken here, and it’s time for him to follow it and bring him home.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, some of them masked, work alongside Harrison County, Miss., sheriff’s deputies to make arrests in an investigation into illegal immigration and cockfighting in early May. States are increasingly setting policy for sheriffs on how much they can cooperate with ICE at local jails. (Photo by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)

Local sheriffs are on the front lines in deciding whether to participate in the Trump administration’s mass deportation plans. But states increasingly are making the choice for them.

More and more, sheriffs’ hands are tied no matter whether they do — or don’t — want to help with deportations, though they often get the blame when conservatives draw up lists of sanctuary cities.

“‘Naughty lists,’ as we call them, are not super helpful here,” said Patrick Royal, a spokesperson for the National Sheriffs’ Association. “We all know there are places like Colorado where you can’t [help with deportations], and places like North Carolina where you have to.”

Cooperation between sheriffs and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement lies at the heart of the Trump administration’s immigration detention policy. The administration plans to punish noncooperative jurisdictions with funding cuts — though many legal experts agree that cooperation is voluntary unless state or local laws say otherwise.

Sheriffs, who typically run local jails, must decide what to do when faced with immigration detainers — requests from ICE to hold onto incarcerated people up to two extra days so ICE officers can show up and arrest them. ICE issues those detainers when the agency reviews fingerprints sent electronically for background checks as part of the jail booking process.

Otherwise, arrested suspects who post bond or are otherwise released by a judge might go free despite their immigration status, prompting ICE in some cases to pursue them in the community.

In North Carolina, Sheriff Garry McFadden ran on a platform of limiting cooperation with ICE  when he was elected in Mecklenburg County, home to Charlotte, in 2018. But today, McFadden must comply with detainers because of a state law passed last year.

In a now-retracted Facebook post, U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis in late April accused Mecklenburg and several other North Carolina counties of “shielding criminal illegal immigrants” as sanctuary jurisdictions. Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, said in the post he was writing federal legislation to prosecute sanctuary jurisdictions.

“You can’t say we’re a sanctuary county and have state laws that say we have to work with ICE. You can’t have both,” McFadden said. He added that he’d like more choice about whether to comply with detainers. A federal funding cutoff would endanger important jail programs such as rape counseling, he said.

“Everybody’s focused on immigration like that’s the biggest fire, and nobody wants to address the other things. The losers will be the prisoners who need all these services we provide,” McFadden said.

Conservative sheriffs in Democratic-controlled states also can be frustrated by state policy on detainers. Sheriff Lew Evangelidis of Worcester County, Massachusetts, said he’s been criticized for releasing prisoners wanted by ICE but sometimes has no choice: A 2017 state Supreme Court ruling prohibits holding prisoners based on detainers.

“If they [ICE] want this person and consider them a threat to public safety, then I want that person out of my community. I want to keep my community safe,” said Evangelidis. He supported a Republican-sponsored effort in the state legislature to allow 12-hour holds for ICE if a judge determines the prisoner is a threat to public safety, but the amendment was voted down in April.

States act on detainers

Many experts agree that ICE detainers can be legally ignored if states allow sheriffs to do that.

“That detainer request is just that, a request, it’s not a requirement,” said Cassandra Charles, a staff attorney at the National Immigration Law Center, which is opposing Louisiana’s lawsuit to reverse a court-ordered ban on cooperation between Orleans Parish and ICE.

The general counsel for the North Carolina Sheriffs’ Association, Eddie Caldwell, agreed that the detainers are voluntary under federal law.

The association supports a state bill now under consideration that would require not only the 48-hour detention but also a notice sent 48 hours before release to let ICE know the clock is running. The proposal has passed the House.

The notification matters, Caldwell said, because there can be criminal proceedings that take weeks or months, so ICE in many cases doesn’t realize the 48-hour window has started.

Tillis’ office said the senator’s disagreement with McFadden, a Democrat, and other sheriffs is about that notification.

“It’s not necessarily that [sheriffs] are breaking the law, but rather making it as difficult as possible for ICE to take prisoners into custody by refusing to do some basic things. Notification is important,” said Daniel Keylin, a senior adviser to Tillis.

States including California, Colorado and Massachusetts ban compliance with the ICE detainers, on the general principle that it’s not enough reason to hold people in jails when they’re otherwise free to go because of bail or an end to their criminal cases. Those three states have made recent moves to defend or fine-tune their rules.

California’s attorney general also has issued guidance to local jurisdictions based on a 2017 state law limiting cooperation with immigration authorities. That law withstood a court challenge under the first Trump administration.

Colorado has a law against holding prisoners more than six hours longer than required, and a new bill sent to Democratic Gov. Jared Polis last week would specify that even those six hours can’t be for the purpose of an immigration detainer.

Iowa, Tennessee and Texas are among the states requiring cooperation with detainers.

And Florida has gone further, requiring sheriffs to actively help ICE write detainers though official agreements in which local agencies sign up to help enforce immigration laws.

Cooperation boosts arrests

Such cooperation makes a big difference, experts say — jails are the easiest place to pick up immigrants for deportation, and when local sheriffs and police help out, there are more arrests.

“A larger share of ICE arrests and deportations are happening in places where local law enforcement is cooperative with ICE,” said Julia Gelatt, associate director for the Migration Policy Institute’s U.S. Immigration Policy Program, speaking at a recent webinar.

“A declining share of arrests and deportations are happening from places like California, where there are really strict limitations on local law enforcement’s cooperation with ICE,” she added.

ICE is making about 600 immigration arrests daily, twice the rate as during the last year of the Biden administration, said Muzaffar Chishti, an attorney and policy expert at the Migration Policy Institute, speaking at the same event.

Reports on deportations are incomplete, Chishti said, but he estimated the current administration is on track to deport half a million people this year and is trying to get that number higher.

“The Trump administration has not been able to change the laws that are on the books, because only Congress can do that,” Chishti said. “It’s going to take congressional action for the Trump administration to achieve its aim of higher [arrest and deportation] numbers.”

President Donald Trump has added more pressure, last month requesting a list from Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem of sanctuary cities, which he says would face funding cuts. The administration also has sued some states, including Colorado, Illinois and New York, over their policies.

Asked for comment on the legality of funding cutoffs for sanctuary policies, Bondi’s office referred to a February memo in which she promised to “end funding to state and local jurisdictions that unlawfully interfere with federal law enforcement operations.” The memo cites a federal law saying local officials “may not prohibit, or in any way restrict” communication about immigration status.

Local jurisdictions in Connecticut, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington joined a February lawsuit led by the city and county of San Francisco and Santa Clara County in California against a Trump administration executive order calling for defunding cities with sanctuary policies, calling the order “illegal and authoritarian.”

In April, a U.S. district court in California issued a preliminary injunction in that case preventing any funding cutoff over sanctuary policies to the cities and counties in the lawsuit. And on Friday, the federal judge, William Orrick, ruled that the injunction applies to any list of sanctuary jurisdictions the administration may target for funding cuts.

Trump’s new executive order seeking the list cannot be used as “an end run” around Orrick’s injunction, the judge wrote, while he decides the legality of detainer policies and other issues.

“The litigation may not proceed with the coercive threat to end all federal funding hanging over the Cities and Counties’ heads like the sword of Damocles,” Orrick wrote.

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem arrives for a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on Thursday, May 8, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  — The top Democrat on a U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee panel Thursday slammed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for her handling of her agency’s funding and the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Sen. Chris Murphy warned Noem that DHS is at risk of running out of its $65 billion in funding by July – two months before the end of the fiscal year – and therefore close to triggering the Antideficiency Act, a federal law prohibiting government agencies from spending funds in excess of their appropriations. 

“Your department is out of control,” the Connecticut Democrat told Noem. “You are running out of money.”

Noem, who appeared before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, was also grilled by Democrats about the high-profile case of a wrongly deported Maryland man sent in March to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

The White House’s “skinny” budget proposal suggests $107 billion for DHS starting Oct. 1, and assumes that Republicans pass the reconciliation package under consideration to allocate a massive $175 billion overall in border security.  

“If we now live in a world in which the administration spends down the accounts that were priorities for Republicans and does not spend down the priorities that were priorities for Democrats, I don’t know how we do a budget,” Murphy said.

Sen. Patty Murray, top Democrat on the full Senate Appropriations Committee, slammed Noem for not following “our appropriations laws.”

She was critical of how immigration enforcement has caught up U.S. citizens and immigrants with protected legal statuses.

“Your crackdown has roped in American citizens and people who are here legally with no criminal record,” the Washington Democrat said. 

She also criticized Noem for spending $100 million on TV ads that range from praising the president to warning migrants not to come to the United States or to self-deport.

Noem in addition launched this week an initiative to provide up to $1,000 in “travel assistance” to immigrants without legal authorization to self-deport, which would amount to $1 billion if President Donald Trump’s goal of deporting 1 million people is met. The source of those funds in the DHS budget is unclear. 

Murray asked Noem about more than $100 billion in DHS funds not being used or re-programmed elsewhere for immigration enforcement, and called it “an illegal freeze.”

She then asked Noem when DHS would unfreeze those funds.

Noem did not answer and instead blamed the Biden administration, and said the previous administration “perverted” how the funds were used.

Murray said she did not think it was “credible that $100 billion is used to break the law.”

“I am very concerned that DHS is now dramatically over-spending funding that Congress has not provided,” Murray said. “We take our responsibility seriously to fund your department and others. We need to have answers, we need to have accountability, and we need to make sure you’re not overspending money that you were not allocated.”

Abrego Garcia deportation

Noem got into a heated exchange with one of the Democrats on the panel, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who traveled to El Salvador to speak with wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia. The Trump administration has admitted his deportation was an “administrative error.”

The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Trump administration must “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia, who was sent initially to brutal CECOT but is now housed in another prison.

Van Hollen asked Noem what DHS has done to bring back Abrego Garcia, who had a 2019 court order barring his return to his home country of El Salvador for fear he would be harmed by gang violence.

Noem did not answer what steps the Trump administration was taking and said that because Abrego Garcia is a citizen of El Salvador, he is in that nation’s custody and cannot be brought back.

Trump has contradicted his own administration, stating that if he wanted to bring back Agrego Garcia he would, but won’t because he believes Abrego Garcia has gang ties.

While Trump officials like Noem have alleged that Abrego Garcia has ties to the MS-13 gang, no evidence has been provided in court and federal Judge Paula Xinis, who is presiding over the case, called the accusations “hearsay.”

Noem then questioned why Van Hollen was advocating for Abrego Garcia in the first place.

“Your advocacy for a known terrorist is alarming to me,” she said.

Van Hollen said that he was advocating for due process, which the Trump administration has been accused of skirting in its deportations. A federal judge in Louisiana next week plans to hold a hearing to determine if the Trump administration violated due process in deporting a 2-year-old U.S. citizen and her mother to Honduras.

Murphy also pressed Noem on the issue and asked how she was coordinating with El Salvador for Abrego Garcia’s release.

“There is no scenario where Abrego Garcia will be returned to the United States,” she said.

Noem then said that even if Abrego Garcia were returned to the U.S., “we would immediately deport him again.”

GOP worried about students, TPS holders

Some Republicans on the panel, including the committee chair, raised concerns with Noem about how the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown is affecting students with visas.

“There are so many others who do deserve scrutiny,” said Chairwoman Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, who said she was worried about students from Canada who attend school in her home state. “But these are dually enrolled Canadian students, and they’ve been crossing the border for years without trouble.” 

She said Canadian students are being stopped by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and given intense screenings.

“They have student visas, but they’re being subjected to extensive searches and questioning,” she said to Noem. “I don’t want us to discourage Canadian students from studying at the northern Maine institutions that we have for education.”

Noem said she would look into it.

Alaskan Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski raised the issue of paperwork not being processed for those with Temporary Protected Status in her state. TPS is granted to those who come from a country that is considered too dangerous or unstable to return to due to war, natural disasters or other instability.

Murkowski said several groups of immigrants in her state with temporary protected status and humanitarian protection are at risk of losing their work protections, such as Afghans, Haitians, Venezuelans and Ukrainians.  

“The majority of these folks are just truly valued members of their new community,” Murkowski said. “They’re helping us meet workforce needs and really contributing to the tax base here. They’ve expressed great concern about their status and work authorizations that may be revoked or allowed to expire.”

She said that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has not processed TPS or humanitarian protection renewals for up to five months.

Noem said that those with TPS are being looked at, and admitted that some Ukrainians got an erroneous email that notified them their status was revoked.

She said DHS has not made a decision on whether or not to renew TPS for Ukrainians, who were granted the status due to Russia’s ongoing invasion of the country.

“Some of these TPS programs have been in place for many, many years, but the evaluation on why TPS should be utilized and when it can be utilized by a country is the process that the administration is going through,” Noem said. 

Prison officers stand guard at a cell block at maximum security penitentiary CECOT  on April 4, 2025 in Tecoluca, San Vicente, El Salvador.  (Photo by Alex Peña/Getty Images)

BALTIMORE — A federal judge in Maryland Tuesday will for 48 hours pause her own order to require the federal government to facilitate the return of an asylum seeker mistakenly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador, while the court waits for the Trump administration’s anticipated appeal of her decision.

“I am simply skeptical that we’re going to get … compliance or facilitation based only on this court’s order without allowing it to go to the next level,” said U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher, nominated by President Donald Trump in 2018, at a hearing. She also indicated she was concerned the asylum seeker was denied due process, a major question as lawyers challenge Trump administration deportations.

Richard Ingebretsen, arguing on behalf of the Department of Justice, said the Trump administration plans to appeal Gallagher’s earlier order to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.

It’s the second case of a wrongly deported man sent to El Salvador’s brutal Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, prison, following the high-profile case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. The Maryland man was erroneously deported there despite a 2019 court order barring such action.

That case is now in closed proceedings before U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Greenbelt, Maryland, as discovery and depositions from officials interviewed under oath about the case continue. The Department of Justice and the White House have strongly fought the return of Abrego Garcia.

Earlier agreement protected asylum seeker

In the case heard in Maryland on Tuesday, the 20-year-old man who was sent to El Salvador is referred to by the pseudonym “Cristian” in court documents. In 2019, he came to the United States as an unaccompanied minor from Venezuela to apply for asylum.

Under a settlement agreement at the time, Cristian, along with a class of other asylum seekers, could not be deported until their cases were decided by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. His asylum case has not yet been decided.

But Cristian was taken from the U.S. on one of three deportation flights to the CECOT prison in mid-March.

Two of those flights contained Venezuelan men deported under a 1798 law known as the Alien Enemies Act. The Trump administration invoked the wartime law to apply to any Venezuelan national 14 and older who is suspected of having ties to the Tren de Aragua gang.

Ingebretsen argued that Cristian has ties to the gang, and Tuesday’s hearing for a period was closed to the public — put under seal— so Gallagher could be shown that evidence.

In a declaration, Acting Field Office Director for Enforcement and Removal Operations at Immigration and Customs Enforcement Robert Cerna said Cristian was subject to the Alien Enemies Act because in January he was convicted of possessing cocaine.

Judge issued order for return

Gallagher wrote in an April 23 order that the case before her relates to that of Abrego Garcia and that “like Judge Xinis in the Abrego Garcia matter, this court will order Defendants to facilitate Cristian’s return to the United States so that he can receive the process he was entitled to under the parties’ binding Settlement Agreement.”

Gallagher added in her order that the federal government must also show “a good faith request to the government of El Salvador to release Cristian to U.S. custody for transport back to the United States to await the adjudication of his asylum application on the merits by USCIS.”

Ingebretsen said that the State Department has been made aware of her order, but he did not give any details on steps taken to facilitate Cristian’s return.

“The government’s view is that further compliance should be put on hold,” Ingebretsen said.

Attorneys, on behalf of the 2019 class, are pushing for declarations from the federal government on steps taken to facilitate Cristian’s return, citing concerns he’s been in CECOT for almost two months.

List of detainees

Kevin DeJong, one of those attorneys for the class, asked Gallagher to require the Trump administration to produce a list of the class members, to determine if any more of them have been wrongly deported.

DeJong said another class member — separate from Cristian — has been removed.

“If we don’t know if a class member has been removed, and we don’t know about it, there’s nothing we can do to bring a motion to enforce,” he said.

He is asking the court to order the federal government to provide a list because the Trump administration’s DOJ will only notify migrants’ lawyers of class members removed under Title 8 deportation. Cristian was removed under the Alien Enemies Act, or Title 50.

“We need to know if any class members have been removed for any reason other than Title 8,” DeJong said. “We’re concerned that there are more.”

Gallagher seemed skeptical that she had the authority to do so, as the settlement does not mention a way for a list to be made up.

“It is an unusual settlement agreement in that we don’t have a defined list of class members, a defined way of identifying who is and is not a member,” she said.

Gallagher added that the settlement agreement was “drafted with some degree” of “trust that the government would be acting in good faith and would maintain this list itself.”

‘Process is important’

In the Abrego Garcia case, the Trump administration has argued that because he is a national of El Salvador, he is in that government’s custody and cannot be returned, despite the U.S. paying up to $15 million to El Salvador to detain roughly 300 men at CECOT.

Experts have raised concerns that U.S. foreign assistance funds to El Salvador from the State Department violate the Leahy Law, which bars financial support of “units of foreign security forces” — which can include military and law enforcement staff in prisons — that face credible allegations of gross human rights violations.

However, the president has contradicted his own administration, arguing that he has the ability to order Abrego Garcia returned to the U.S. Trump has said he is not willing to do so because he believes Abrego Garcia has gang ties, an argument repeated by multiple members of the administration.

In DOJ filings, government attorneys argued that because Cristian was designated for removal under the Alien Enemies Act, he could no longer be part of the 2019 class settlement and the government is therefore not violating the settlement.

On Tuesday, Ingebretsen added that if Cristian were returned to the U.S., his asylum application would be denied by USCIS.

Gallagher rejected that argument and said that based on the settlement, Cristian was allowed a certain form of due process to remain in the U.S. while his asylum case was pending.

“This is not a case about where or not Cristian will receive asylum, the issue is of process,” Gallagher said. “Process is important. We don’t skip to the end.” 

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem walks past reporters after doing a TV interview with Fox News outside of the White House on March 10, 2025 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced Monday that the agency will provide $1,000 in what it called “travel assistance” to people in the United States without permanent legal status if they self deport.

It’s the latest attempt by DHS to try to meet the Trump administration’s goal of removing 1 million migrants without permanent legal status from the country. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem touted the option as cost-effective.

“If you are here illegally, self-deportation is the best, safest and most cost-effective way to leave the United States to avoid arrest,” Noem said in a statement. “This is the safest option for our law enforcement, aliens and is a 70% savings for US taxpayers.”

It’s unclear from which part of the DHS budget the funding for the travel assistance is coming, as it would roughly cost $1 billion to reimburse up to $1,000 to meet the goal of removing 1 million people.

DHS did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.

President Donald Trump gave his support for the move Monday afternoon, according to White House pool reports. 

“We’re going to get them a beautiful flight back to where they came from,” the president said.

Self-deportation would be facilitated by the CBP Home app, which was used by the Biden administration to allow asylum seekers to make appointments with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The payment would apparently not be made in advance. DHS said that once those who use the app to self deport arrive in their home country, they will receive a travel stipend of $1,000.

According to DHS, the Trump administration has deported 152,000 people since taking office in January. The Biden administration last year deported 195,000 people from February to April, according to DHS data.

DHS said already one migrant has used the program to book a flight from Chicago to Honduras.

“Additional tickets have already been booked for this week and the following week,” the agency said in a statement.

The Trump administration has rolled out several programs to facilitate mass self-deportations, such as a registry to require immigrants in the country without legal authorization to register with the federal government.

Immigrants who don’t register with the federal government could face steep fines and a potential prison sentence. 

U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., right, meets in El Salvador on April 17, 2025, with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland resident who was erroneously deported to El Salvador by ICE agents in March. (Photo courtesy Van Hollen's office)

WASHINGTON — Kilmar Abrego Garcia remains in prison in El Salvador after he was mistakenly deported more than a month ago, and Senate Democrats said Thursday they will file a privileged resolution that would require the State Department to report on human rights conditions in CECOT,  the brutal 40,000-capacity facility where Abrego Garcia was first incarcerated.

The resolution also would force the Trump administration to detail its steps to comply with court orders on the removal of Abrego Garcia and other immigrants from the United States.

The announcement of the resolution came after President Donald Trump, during an ABC News interview that aired Tuesday, acknowledged that if he wanted to, he could secure the return of Abrego Garcia from El Salvador.

However, Trump then refused to do so, alleging Abrego Garcia has gang ties. He pointed to an altered photograph of Abrego Garcia’s knuckles that showed them displaying the characters “MS-13.”

When ABC News journalist Terry Moran pointed out the photo was photoshopped, Trump argued that it wasn’t.

“Why don’t you just say, ‘Yes, he does,’” Trump said to Moran, referring to the MS-13 tattoo. Moran did not reply and moved to another topic.

The Department of Justice has claimed that Abrego Garcia is a leader in the MS-13 gang, but has not provided evidence in court of those connections. Abrego Garcia was granted deportation protections by an immigration judge in 2019 over concerns he would experience violence by gangs if returned to his home country of El Salvador.

The U.S. Supreme Court, an appeals court and a district court all have upheld that Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident who the Trump administration admitted was mistakenly deported to a notorious prison, must be returned.

“Donald Trump should stop trampling on constitutional rights of people who reside in America, and the government of El Salvador should stop conspiring with the Trump administration to violate the constitutional rights of those who reside in America, including Abrego Garcia,” Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen said at a press conference on the Senate resolution.

The Supreme Court last month ruled that the Trump administration must “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia, but stopped short of requiring it and sent the case back to a federal judge to clarify how the return could be “effectuated.”

The case is now in closed proceedings before U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland as discovery and depositions from officials interviewed under oath about Abrego Garcia’s case continue. Xinis on Wednesday denied the Trump administration’s request for another extension to provide information on Abrego Garcia.

$6 million payment 

The resolution, backed by Van Hollen, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, would require the State Department to issue a human rights report on El Salvador.

It also specifically asks for a report on the prison known as Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, where Abrego Garcia was initially sent in March, along with nearly 300 other men deported from the U.S.

The State Department issued a 2023 report on human rights conditions in El Salvador, which noted that there were reports of “systemic abuse in the prison system, including beatings by guards and the use of electric shocks.”

If the resolution manages to pass in the Republican-controlled Senate and House, and the State Department doesn’t issue a human rights report within 30 days, then any foreign assistance to El Salvador would be canceled, Kaine said.

The Trump administration has stated that it’s paying El Salvador $6 million to detain the men at CECOT.

Van Hollen said of that funding, the Trump administration has paid El Salvador about $4 million so far to detain the men and plans to pay as much as $15 million.

Experts have raised concerns that the foreign assistance funds to El Salvador from the State Department violate the Leahy Law, which bars financial support of “units of foreign security forces” — which can include military and law enforcement staff in prisons —  facing credible allegations of gross human rights violations.

Van Hollen meeting in El Salvador

Van Hollen also pushed back on the Trump administration’s insistence that because Abrego Garcia is in El Salvador’s custody, he cannot be returned.

Van Hollen, who traveled to El Salvador last month seeking a meeting with Abrego Garcia, said during that trip he spoke with El Salvador Vice President Félix Augusto Antonio Ulloa. Van Hollen said Ulloa told him “the only reason the government of El Salvador is holding (Abrego Garcia) is because the Trump administration is paying (El Salvador) to do so.”

Van Hollen was initially denied a visit with Abrego Garcia. But he was eventually able to secure an in-person meeting under the close supervision of Salvadoran officials.

Abrego Garcia appeared with Van Hollen in civilian clothes — a stark difference from a video released by the Trump administration that showed Abrego Garcia in a prison uniform and being roughly handled by Salvadoran officials.

In response to the in-person meeting, the White House wrote on its official social media account that Abrego Garcia “is NOT coming back.”

Van Hollen said he has not had any update on the condition of Abrego Garcia since the visit to El Salvador.

Message for Bukele

During El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s first-ever visit to the Oval Office in April, he declined to return Abrego Garcia. In that same meeting, Trump asked Bukele if he would take “homegrown” criminals, meaning U.S. citizens.

Kaine said that he had a message for the president of El Salvador if he accepts U.S. citizens for incarceration.

“You might think it’s cute right now to grab attention by a bromance with President Trump,” he said, adding in Spanish that any alliance with Trump will be short-lived, ending with the conclusion of his term in office. “If you think we’ll forget you violating the human rights of American citizens, you’re wrong,” said Kaine.

Van Hollen added that he, along with Kaine and Schumer, plan to introduce a bill to place sanctions against Bukele and “all those who are part of his government conspiring with Donald Trump to deprive residents of the United States of their constitutional rights.” 

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, joined by GOP Reps. Lisa McClain of Michigan and Troy Downing of Montana, speaks at a news conference following a meeting of the House Republican Conference on April 29, 2025. House Republicans began the process of approving a massive bill to support President Donald Trump’s priorities on the 100th day of second presidency Tuesday. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans on Tuesday kicked off their work to build consensus on “one big, beautiful bill,” to fund President Donald Trump’s priorities, including a major funding boost for immigration enforcement and border security. 

After returning from a two-week recess, House lawmakers started debating and amending the various sections of the bill with markups in the Armed Services, Education and Workforce, and Homeland Security committees.

Congressional Republicans are using reconciliation — a special procedure that skirts the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster — to put together one bill to fulfill the White House’s priorities on border security, tax cuts, energy policy and defense.

The Homeland panel’s bill, which would increase funding for border security by $70 billion, aligns with Trump’s second-term agenda, which has centered on an immigration crackdown.

The Homeland Security portion of the reconciliation package recommends $46.5 billion to construct a barrier along U.S. borders and $5 billion for Customs and Border Protection facilities, including $4.1 billion to hire 3,000 Border Patrol agents and 5,000 CBP officers. It would also set aside $2 billion for retention and signing bonuses for CBP staff.  

“It is critical that the Republican majority do what the people elected us to do, approve funds for effective border security and enforcement measures,” House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green of Tennessee said.

The bill also includes $2.7 billion in technology surveillance along U.S. borders and roughly $1 billion for inspection technology at ports of entry. 

The top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said Democrats were unified in their opposition to the proposal. He argued that roughly $70 billion in funding would only aid the Trump administration in its plans of mass deportation and not address border security.

“House Republican leadership is putting lipstick on this pig of a reconciliation package by pretending it’s about border security,” Thompson said.

Votes on all three committees’ bills, and amendments mostly from Democrats raising objections to the package, were expected late Tuesday or after midnight Wednesday. The committees are not expected to adopt any of the Democratic amendments.

Summer floor votes

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Tuesday he expects the House will spend the rest of this week and next week debating the 11 different bills in committee before rolling them all into one reconciliation package.

The full House will debate and vote to approve the legislation before Memorial Day, under the current timeline.

“I don’t know how long the Senate is going to take to do their piece,” Johnson said. “But I was very encouraged after the meeting yesterday, frankly. Leader (John) Thune and Sen. (Mike) Crapo are on point. The Senate Republicans have been working very hard together.”

Thune, of South Dakota, is the Senate majority leader and Crapo, of Idaho, chairs the tax-writing Finance Committee.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said the administration would like the package to clear Congress before the Fourth of July, though Johnson said he “hopes” to finalize a deal before that deadline.

Thune said later Tuesday that the reconciliation package’s final look will be decided by what policies have the votes to get through each chamber.

“Ultimately, what gets included in a reconciliation bill will be determined by what there are 218 votes for in the House and 51, or 50, votes for in the United States Senate,” Thune said.

Democrats object to deportations

Democrats on the Homeland Security panel introduced amendments to signal their opposition to the administration’s deportation agenda.

Louisiana Rep. Troy Carter was one of several Democrats to sharply criticize the recent deportation of three U.S. citizen children to Honduras during the Homeland Security Committee’s markup.

He noted that one of the children removed with his mother to Honduras, is a 4-year-old battling Stage 4 cancer.

“This is not border security,” Carter said. “This is state-sanctioned trauma.

Democrats introduced amendments to bar federal funds being used to detain immigrants at a foreign prison, following an agreement between the U.S. and El Salvador to detain more than 300 men in a notorious mega-prison. Experts have raised concerns the agreement could violate a law against funding foreign governments engaged in human rights abuses.

“This is not an idle possibility,” Democratic Rep. Seth Magaziner of Rhode Island said.

He pointed out that Trump asked El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele to consider taking “homegrown” criminals, meaning U.S. citizens.

“This is insane,” Magaziner said. “It is outrageous and every American should be terrified by this prospect.”

Several other Democrats introduced amendments related to the Trump administration’s use of the prison in El Salvador.

Boost for Pentagon

The House Armed Services Committee portion of the reconciliation package would bolster defense spending by $150 billion over the next decade.

That funding would be divvied up between numerous national security priorities, including $25 billion for Trump’s goal of having a countrywide missile defense system, similar to Israel’s Iron Dome.

The defense bill would appropriate $34 billion for shipbuilding and the maritime industrial base, $21 billion for munitions purchases, $14 billion for “initiatives to scale production of game changing new technology,” $13 billion for nuclear deterrence and $12 billion to enhance military readiness, according to a GOP summary of that bill. 

Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., said at the beginning of his committee’s markup that the bill would make a “generational investment in our national security.”

“It is clear we are no longer deterring our adversaries,” Rogers said. “The threats we face today from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea and others, are much more serious and challenging than we have ever faced before.”

Washington Democratic Rep. Adam Smith, ranking member on the panel, said there’s “no question that the Department of Defense has needs and there’s also no question that we as a country face threats.”

But Smith criticized Republicans for moving the defense funding boost within the massive reconciliation package, which will increase the deficit.

“We’re, once again, saying to the American people, ‘This is important but not important enough to actually pay for it.’ So the budget itself is a huge problem,” Smith said. “And you really can’t support the additional $150 billion for defense if you don’t support the overall reconciliation bill because that’s what this is. And the overall reconciliation bill, I firmly believe, is a disaster for this country.”

Smith criticized Republicans for proposing additional dollars for the Pentagon while it is run by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is under investigation for sending information about a bombing campaign in Yemen to a group chat that inadvertently included a journalist and a different group chat that included his wife, brother and others.

“They have not even begun to prove that there is a chance in hell that they will spend this money intelligently, efficiently and effectively,” Smith said. “Secretary Hegseth has proven himself to be completely incapable of doing the job of secretary of Defense.”

Cuts for Pell grants

The Education and Workforce Committee’s markup fell along similar partisan lines, with GOP lawmakers lauding the bill and Democrats rejecting Republicans’ plans seeking to overhaul federal spending.

Chairman Tim Walberg, R-Mich., said the legislation would cut $330 billion in federal spending over the next decade by reshaping federal student loan programs and Pell grants for low-income students, among several other changes.

“Dumping more federal money into a broken system doesn’t mean that system will work,” Walberg said. “In fact, government spending on higher education has reached record highs, yet millions of students benefiting from those funds will ultimately end up with a degree that doesn’t pay off or fail to finish school altogether.”

The GOP bill, he said, would “bring much-needed reform in three key areas: simplified loan repayment, streamlined student loan options, and accountability for students and taxpayers.”

Walberg scolded former President Joe Biden for not working with Congress to overhaul federal grant and loan programs for higher education, saying the former administration “was determined to keep pouring taxpayer funds into the abyss in a futile attempt to keep up with the unacceptable and unaccountable institutional prices.”

Virginia Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott, ranking member, said that Congress should look at ways to make college more affordable through reforms, but said the GOP bill “misses the mark.”

“This current reconciliation plan would increase costs for colleges and students. It would limit students access to quality programs, which would then reduce their likelihood of finding a rewarding or successful career,” Scott said. “And then take the so-called savings to pay for more tax cuts for the wealthy and the well-connected.”

Republicans “limiting the students’ access to Pell grants and federal loans,” he said, could increase the number of people who have to rely on “predatory, private loans” to pay for college.

“Put bluntly: The Republican plan will limit how much money middle- and low-income students can borrow from the federal government,” Scott said. “As a result, limiting the federal student aid that students can receive means that millions of students will not be able to access federal assistance that they need to complete their degrees. Moreover, this bill will force student borrowers into unaffordable repayment plans.”

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Anjan Roy was studying with friends at Missouri State University when he got an email that turned his world upside down. His legal status as an international student had been terminated, and he was suddenly at risk for deportation.

“I was in literal shock, like, what the hell is this?” said Roy, a graduate student in computer science from Bangladesh.

At first, he avoided going out in public, skipping classes and mostly keeping his phone turned off. A court ruling in his favor led to his status being restored this week, and he has returned to his apartment, but he is still asking his roommates to screen visitors.

More than a thousand international students have faced similar disruptions in recent weeks, with their academic careers — and their lives in the U.S. — thrown into doubt in a widespread crackdown by the Trump administration. Some have found a measure of success in court, with federal judges around the country issuing orders to restore students’ legal status at least temporarily.

In addition to the case filed in Atlanta, where Roy is among 133 plaintiffs, judges have issued temporary restraining orders in states including New Hampshire, Minnesota, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin. Judges have denied similar requests in some other cases, saying it was not clear the loss of status would cause irreparable harm.

International students challenge grounds for their status revocation

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last month the State Department was revoking visas held by visitors who were acting counter to national interests, including some who protested Israel’s war in Gaza and those who face criminal charges. But many affected students said they have been involved only in minor infractions, or it’s unclear altogether why they were targeted.

The attorney for Roy and his fellow plaintiffs, Charles Kuck, argued the government did not have legal grounds to terminate the students’ status.

He speculated in court last week the government is trying to encourage these students to self-deport, saying “the pressure on these students is overwhelming.” He said some asked him if it was safe to leave their homes to get food, and others worried they wouldn’t receive a degree after years of work or feared their chances of a career in the U.S. were shot.

“I think the hope is they’ll just leave,” Kuck said. “The reality is these kids are invested.”

An attorney for the government, R. David Powell, argued the students did not suffer significant harm because they could transfer their academic credits or find jobs in another country.

At least 1,190 students at 183 colleges, universities and university systems have had their visas revoked or their legal status terminated since late March, according to an Associated Press review of university statements, correspondence with school officials and court records. The AP is working to confirm reports of hundreds more students who are caught up in the crackdown.

In a lawsuit filed Monday by four people on student visas at the University of Iowa, attorneys detail the “mental and financial suffering” they’ve experienced. One graduate student, from India, “cannot sleep and is having difficulty breathing and eating,” the lawsuit reads. He has stopped going to school, doing research or working as a teaching assistant. Another student, a Chinese undergraduate who expected to graduate this December, said his revoked status has caused his depression to worsen to the point that his doctor increased his medication dosage. The student, the lawsuit says, has not left his apartment out of fear of detention.

Tiny infractions made students targets for the crackdown

Roy, 23, began his academic career at Missouri State in August 2024 as an undergraduate computer science student. He was active in the chess club and a fraternity and has a broad circle of friends. After graduating in December, he began work on a master’s degree in January and expects to finish in May 2026.

When Roy received the university’s April 10 email on his status termination, one of his friends offered to skip class to go with him to the school’s international services office, even though they had a quiz in 45 minutes. The staff there said a database check showed his student status had been terminated, but they didn’t know why.

Roy said his only brush with the law came in 2021, when he was questioned by campus security after someone called in a dispute at a university housing building. But he said an officer determined there was no evidence of any crime and no charges were filed.

Roy also got an email from the U.S. embassy in Bangladesh telling him his visa had been revoked and that he could be detained at any time. It warned that if he was deported, he could be sent to a country other than his own. Roy thought about leaving the U.S. but decided to stay after talking to a lawyer.

Anxious about being in his own apartment, Roy went to stay with his second cousin and her husband nearby.

“They were scared someone was going to pick me up from the street and take me somewhere that they wouldn’t even know,” Roy said.

He mostly stayed inside, turned off his phone unless he needed to use it, and avoided internet browsers that track user data through cookies. His professors were understanding when he told them he wouldn’t be able to come to classes for a while, he said.

New doubts about students’ future in the US

After the judge’s order Friday, he moved back to his apartment. He learned Tuesday his status had been restored, and he plans to return to class. But he’s still nervous. He asked his two roommates, both international students, to let him know before they open the door if someone they don’t know knocks.

The judge’s restoration of his legal status is temporary. Another hearing scheduled for Thursday will determine whether he keeps that status while the litigation continues.

Roy chose the U.S. over other options in Canada and Australia because of the research opportunities and potential for professional connections, and he ultimately wanted to teach at an American university. But now those plans are up in the air.

His parents, back in Dhaka, have been watching the news and are “freaked out,” he said. His father mentioned to him that they have family in Melbourne, Australia, including a cousin who’s an assistant professor at a university there.

AP reporters Christopher L. Keller in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this story.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

International students stripped of legal status in the US are piling up wins in court is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: < 1 minute

There’s no readily available evidence Susan Crawford has supported stopping deportations of illegal immigrants or protecting sanctuary cities, as a Republican attack ad claims.

Sanctuary communities limit how much they help authorities with deportations.

Crawford, a liberal, faces conservative Brad Schimel in the nonpartisan April 1 Wisconsin Supreme Court election.

The attack on Crawford was made by the Republican State Leadership Committee, a national group that works to elect Republicans to state offices.

The group provided Wisconsin Watch no evidence to back its claim. A spokesperson cited Democratic support for Crawford and Democratic opposition to cooperating with deportations, but nothing Crawford said on the topics. Searches of past Crawford statements found nothing.

The ad also claims Crawford would “let criminals roam free,” referring to a man convicted of touching girls’ private parts in a club swimming pool. Crawford sentenced the man in 2020 to four years in prison; a prosecutor had requested 10 years.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• Republican State Leadership Committee: "Crazy" ad
• Ballotpedia: Wisconsin Supreme Court elections, 2025
• Wisconsin Examiner: Wisconsin Democrats seek to prohibit state and local cooperation with ICE and deportation efforts
• Reuters: Trump deporting people at a slower rate than Biden's last year in office
• Wisconsin Watch: Did Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford sentence a child sex offender to four years after a prosecutor requested 10?
• Republican State Leadership Committee: Email, Feb. 25, 2025
• Wisconsin Republican Party: Crawford etched in stone, she’s a pro-illegal immigration and anti-ICE Democrat

Has Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford supported stopping deportations and protecting sanctuary cities? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 10 minutes

This story was originally published by ProPublica.

A blender, still in its box, won at a grocery store raffle. Framed photos from a child’s birthday party. A rabbit-hair felt sombrero and a pair of brown leather boots that cost more than half a week’s pay.

Box by box, the Nicaraguans who milk the cows and clean the pens on Wisconsin’s dairy farms, who wash dishes at its restaurants and fill lines on its factory floors, are sending home their most prized possessions, bracing for the impact of President Donald Trump’s mass deportations.

In the contents of the boxes is a portrait of a community under pressure. The Nicaraguans are as consumed as everyone else by the unfolding of Trump 2.0, wondering whether the bluster about deporting millions of people, most of whom live quiet lives far from the southern border, is going to mean anything in the Wisconsin towns where they’ve settled. For now, many are staying in their homes, behind drawn curtains, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible as they travel to and from work or pick up their kids from school. Few have given up on their lives in America, but they’re realistic about what may be coming. Methodically, they have begun packing their most cherished belongings into boxes and barrels and shipping them to relatives back in Nicaragua, ahead of their own anticipated deportations.

“We don’t have much, but what we do have is important,” said Joaquín, the man with the love of western boots and sombreros. He’s 35 years old and has worked over the last three years as a cook at the restaurant below his apartment. “We have worked so hard and sacrificed so much in order to acquire these things,” he added.

The packing is happening all across Wisconsin, a state that in recent years has become a top destination for Nicaraguans who say they are fleeing poverty and government repression. And it is happening among immigrants of varying legal statuses. There are the undocumented dairy workers who came more than a decade ago and were the first from their rural communities to settle in Wisconsin. And there are the more recent arrivals, including asylum-seekers who have permission to live and work in the U.S. as they await their day in immigration court.

Nobody feels safe from Trump and his promises; in just his first week back in office, the president moved to end birthright citizenship, sent hundreds of military troops to the southern border and launched a flashy, multi-agency operation to find and detain immigrants in Chicago, only a few hundred miles away.

Yesenia Meza, a community health worker in central Wisconsin, began hearing from families soon after Trump’s election; they wanted help obtaining the documents they might need if they have to suddenly leave the country with their U.S.-born children, or have those children sent to them if they are deported. When she visited their apartments, Meza said, she was stunned to discover they had spent hundreds of dollars on refrigerator-sized boxes and blue plastic barrels that they’d stuffed with nearly “everything that they own, their most precious belongings” and were shipping to their home country.

At one home, she watched an immigrant mother climb into a half-packed box and announce, “I’m going to mail myself.” Meza knew she was joking. But some of the immigrants she knew had already left. And if more people go, she wonders what impact their departures — whether voluntary or forced — will have on the local economy. Immigrants in the area work on farms, in cheese-processing factories and in a chicken plant — the kind of jobs, she said, that nobody else wants. She’s talked to some of the employers before and knows “they’re always short-staffed,” Meza said. “They’re going to be more short-staffed now when people start going back home.”

Recently, on the eve of Trump’s inauguration, I traveled to Wisconsin along with photographer Benjamin Rasmussen to capture what sounded like the beginning of a community coming undone. We talked to Nicaraguans in their kitchens and bedrooms, and in restaurants and grocery stores that have sprung up to cater to them. Many of the people we met either were packing themselves or knew someone else who was, or both.

Some were almost embarrassed to show us what they were packing — items that might have been considered frivolous or extravagant back home. Nicaragua was already one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere before its government took a turn toward authoritarianism and repression, further sinking the economy. But thanks to their working-class jobs at American factories and restaurants, they could afford these things, and they were determined to hold on to them. Some of their belongings carried memories of loved ones or of special occasions. Other items were more practical, tools that might help them get started again in Nicaragua.

From the stories these immigrants told about their belongings emerged others, stories about what had brought them to this country and what they have been able to achieve here. They spoke about the panic that now traps them in their homes and keeps them up at night. And they shared their hopes and fears about what it might mean to start over in a country they fled.

What’s in the boxes

Yaceth’s guilty pleasure is shoes. The 38-year-old left Nicaragua nearly three years ago and works in the same restaurant kitchen as Joaquín. Her wages allowed her to buy a pair or so a month on Amazon, mostly Keds lace-up sneakers, though she also owns glittery stilettos and knee-high red boots. The boxes fill the top half of her closet. Some pairs have never been worn.

We stood along the edge of her bed, admiring her collection. “I’m a bit of an aficionado,” she said sheepishly. Like the other immigrants we spoke with, Yaceth asked not to be identified by her full name to lessen the risk of deportation.

Yaceth said she stopped buying shoes after Trump’s election, uncertain how her life, not to mention her finances, might change once he took office. By the time we met, she had already packed one box of belongings and sent it to her mother in Estelí, a city in northwestern Nicaragua. In the corner of her already crowded bedroom, she kept a blue plastic barrel, which is where she’d planned to put the shoes, hoping it would keep them dry and undamaged during the shipping. If she goes, they’re going, too.

She rents a room in the apartment of another family. They, too, are thinking about what it might look like to return to Nicaragua. Hugo, 33, is setting aside items that might help him make a living back in his hometown of Somoto, about an hour and a half north of Estelí. This includes a Cuisinart digital air fryer he bought with his wages from a sheet-metal factory. Hugo used to sell hot dogs and hamburgers at a fast food stand in Somoto. If he has to return, he envisions starting another food business. The air fryer would help.

‘Everything that Trump says is against us. It makes you feel terrible.’

We visited a new Nicaraguan restaurant in Waunakee, a village in Dane County that’s seen significant numbers of Nicaraguan arrivals in recent years. One diner, a 49-year-old undocumented dairy worker, told me he plans to send barber trimmers and other supplies for the barbershop he’d like to open up if he’s deported. As we spoke, his dinner companion called a friend who lives a few towns away and handed me the phone; that man, also a dairy worker, told me he is sending back power tools he bought on Facebook Marketplace that are expensive and difficult to find in Nicaragua.

Other immigrants expressed deep uncertainty about whether they might face jail time or worse if they are deported, due to their previous involvement in political activities against the Nicaraguan government. If you don’t toe the party line, said Uriel, a former high school teacher, “they turn you into an enemy of the state.”

Uriel, 36, said he never participated in any anti-government marches. But he worried that local party leaders had been watching him, that they knew how he spoke about democracy and free speech in the classroom.

He said he left Nicaragua almost four years ago both because of the political situation and because he knew he could make more money in the U.S. He has an ongoing asylum case, a work permit and a job at a bread factory. His wages have allowed him to buy a plot of land for his wife and two children, still in Nicaragua, and begin construction on a house there.

He’d hoped to stay in Wisconsin long enough to pay to finish it. But bracing for the inevitable, he’s got a barrel too. Soon, he plans to pack and send a used Yamaha guitar he was given as a gift a few years earlier. Uriel learned to play the instrument by watching YouTube videos and now plays Christian hymns that he said make him feel good inside.

This summer, he plans to return as well. His children have been growing up without him. He has been told his 6-year-old daughter points to planes in the sky and wonders whether her father is inside. He worries that his son, 11, will grow up believing he has been abandoned.

It has been hard to be separated from his children, he said. But he left in order to provide them a life he didn’t believe he could have if he had stayed — a reality he thought was missing from so much of the new president’s rhetoric on immigration. “We are not anybody’s enemy,” Uriel said. “We simply are looking for a way to make a living, to help our families.”

‘What we’re afraid of is getting picked up on the street and then not having a chance to send home all of the things that cost us so much.’

A life in hiding

It used to be that on Sundays, his day off, Joaquín would pull on his favorite boots and sombrero to drive somewhere — to a restaurant or to visit family and friends who had settled in south-central Wisconsin. But ever since Trump’s election, he doesn’t leave his apartment unless he has to. Some days, he says, he feels like a mouse, scurrying downstairs to work and upstairs to sleep and back downstairs again to work, always alert and full of dread.

The gray 2016 Toyota 4Runner that he bought last year, his pride and joy, sits mostly unused behind his apartment building. He’s too afraid of driving and getting pulled over by police officers who, by randomly checking his vehicle’s plates, could discover he doesn’t have a driver’s license. Joaquín doesn’t have the documents he needs to qualify for one. He worries that drawing the attention of police, even for the smallest of infractions, could get him swept into the immigration detention system and deported. “What’s happening now is a persecution,” he said.

On a recent Sunday, his apartment was filled with the sweet, warm smell of home-baked goods. Joaquín said he spent two hours making traditional Nicaraguan cookies called rosquillas and hojaldras, one savory and the other sweet. We talked over coffee and the cornmeal cookies. Half of his living room floor was covered with piles of clothes and shoes, and one tall, empty box. There were shirts, pants and sneakers for each of his three children, who remain in Nicaragua. Most of the clothes belonged to Joaquín: a crisp pair of tan Lee jeans, rarely worn; several pairs of boots; a box of sombreros.

Joaquín said he plans to send all of it to relatives in Nicaragua in February. It pains him to imagine being trotted onto a deportation flight and leaving everything he owns here to get tossed in a landfill somewhere.

Another day, I spoke by phone with an immigrant named Luz, 26. Like Joaquín, she said she rarely leaves her apartment anymore. The week Trump was inaugurated, she stopped going to her job at a nearby cheese factory, afraid of workplace raids. She now stays home with their 1-year-old son. A woman she knows picks up the family’s groceries so they don’t have to risk being out on the street.

Like many of her friends and relatives, Luz came to the U.S. as an asylum-seeker almost three years ago. She missed an immigration court hearing while pregnant with her son and now worries she has “no legal status here.”

“Those of us who work milking cows, we can’t afford to hire a lawyer,” she said. “We don’t even know what’s happening with our cases.”

After Trump’s election, she began packing some of the things she’d accumulated in her time in Wisconsin, including some used children’s clothes she’d received from Meza, the community health worker. She packed most everything in her kitchen: most of her pots and pans, some plates and cups, knives, an iron and “even chocolates,” she said, almost laughing. “It is a big box.”

Luz said she wants all of her household items to be in Nicaragua when she returns with her family. They hope to leave in March. “I don’t want to live in hiding like this,” she said.

‘My biggest fear is that they deport me and take my son away.’

Family separation redux

Isabel’s son cried as she filled her box. In went the shiny red car, big enough for the 14-month-old to sit in and drive. It had been a gift from his godfather on his first birthday. She added other, smaller cars and planes and stuffed animals. A stroller. A framed photo from the birthday party, the chubby-cheeked boy surrounded by balloons.

The 26-year-old mother knew her son was too young to understand. But she hoped he would if the dreaded time came when they had to return to Nicaragua.

And to make sure she wouldn’t be separated from him, she applied for his passport early last fall, when she became convinced that Trump would win the election. She could see his lawn signs all around her in the rural community in the middle of the state where she lives. Her husband, who works on a dairy farm, told her he’d begun feeling uncomfortable with the way people glared at him at Walmart. Sometimes, they shouted things he didn’t understand, but in a tone that was unmistakably hostile.

Their son was born in the U.S. to noncitizen parents — exactly the kind of child Trump says does not deserve citizenship here. Isabel got his passport both to secure his rights as an American citizen and to secure her rights to him. She wants to make sure there is no mistaking who the boy belongs to if she gets sent away.

We met Isabel about a week after she’d shipped off the box with her son’s red toy car to her mother’s home in southern Nicaragua. It was the morning of Trump’s inauguration, and Isabel welcomed us into her apartment, her eyes still red and bleary from an overnight shift at a nearby cheese-processing factory.

She said they were ready to go “if things get ugly” and the people around her start getting picked up and sent back. But there was another box, still flat and unpacked, propped up against a wall in the living room. That one, she explained, belonged to a neighbor with the same game plan.

I ask her what happens if they don’t get deported, but their most precious belongings are gone. Won’t they miss those things? “Yes,” she said. But it would be even worse to go back to Nicaragua and have nothing.

Additional design and development by Zisiga Mukulu.

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

Boxed up: a portrait of an immigrant community living under threat of deportation is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

During his campaign, President-elect Donald Trump vowed to use executive orders to implement stricter immigration policies, saying that he would “carry out the largest deportation operation of criminals in American history.”

Now with less than a week before Trump’s inauguration, members of Milwaukee’s immigrant community are bracing for the next four years.

“People are taking the (future) administration at their word,”  said Alexandra Guevara, communications director for Voces de la Frontera, an immigrant advocacy organization in Milwaukee.

Guevara said her organization has been fielding phone calls from worried residents.

Here are answers to five key immigration-related questions.

1. Who may be affected?

Unauthorized immigrants can be arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection and may be subject to deportation proceedings.  

Unauthorized immigrants include those who enter the U.S. illegally, overstay a visa or violate terms of admission.

It is unclear how stricter immigration policies will affect those with short-term protections, such as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and Temporary Protective Status.

“But I think the writing is on the wall for those” protections, said Marc Christopher, managing attorney and owner of Christopher & De León Law Office, a law firm based in South Milwaukee that practices immigration law.

Trump’s first administration expanded the use of expedited removal, which allows deportation of an unauthorized individual without appearing before an immigration judge.

Many advocates worry that this expansion will happen again, making people who are unable to prove at least two years of continuous physical presence in the country eligible for expedited removal, said Cain Oulahan, attorney with Oulahan Immigration Law.   

Because of the general confusion and shifting political landscape, Guevara worries that there will be an increased risk of racial profiling.

2. What can be expected from local enforcement?

ICE relies on local law enforcement to help carry out its duties, but the level of cooperation with ICE varies greatly depending on the area.

Milwaukee Police Department policy states it does not routinely inquire about immigration status during operations, emphasizing that most immigration violations are civil, not criminal.

However, Christopher thinks it is likely the Trump administration will begin to put more pressure on cities to comply with ICE.

The policy of the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Department does not completely shut the door on cooperating with ICE in certain scenarios where someone is detained for committing a crime and is also suspected of being an unauthorized immigrant.

On a practical basis, though, the nature of the crime in this scenario is likely to make a difference, said Ruby De León, staff attorney at Voces.

“It doesn’t seem like day-to-day traffic stops – I don’t believe they would prioritize contacting ICE over these incidents.”

NNS reached out to ICE for comment about its priorities and plans for Milwaukee but did not receive a response. 

3. What rights do people have?

Advocates stress that constitutional protections apply regardless of citizenship status, including the right to remain silent, the right to talk to a lawyer and protection from illegal search and seizure.

If law enforcement asks people to show immigration documentation, they have the right to remain silent or refuse to answer questions.

Law enforcement must have reasonable suspicion of unauthorized presence in the country to demand proof of immigration status, said R. Timothy Muth, staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin.

At the same time, if people are not citizens but have documentation that permits them to stay in the country – such as a green card – they are required to keep that documentation with them, Muth said.

If a person is approached at home, a warrant for deportation allows officers to enter a home only if it is signed by a judge.

“And you should ask to see it,” Muth said. “You ask them to slip it under the door or show it to you at your window. You have a right to see the warrant and look at the signature line.”

With potential immigration violations, people have the right to speak to an attorney. But unlike with criminal arrests, the government does not have to provide the lawyer, De León said.

Additionally, individuals with a legitimate fear of persecution or torture in their home country have a right to seek asylum or asylum-type protection, Oulahan said.

4. What should be avoided if approached by law enforcement?

Voces and the ACLU advise against signing documents without a lawyer, running away or lying.

Running away and lying can be separate criminal acts, Muth said.

If people suspect their rights are being violated, such as being unlawfully searched, then they should not physically intervene, Muth added. They should instead document what they can and clearly state that they do not consent.  

Voces and the ACLU also suggest taking photos or videos of agents, noting names and badge numbers.

5. What tangible steps can people take now?

Voces offers workshops to educate people about their rights.

Advocates recommend ensuring documentation is current, applying for passports for U.S.-born children and pursuing citizenship or legal status if eligible, perhaps through an employer or family member.

A city of Milwaukee municipal ID can serve as a form of identification for city residents who cannot get state identification.

Muth recommends carrying documentation showing continuous presence in the country for more than two years, such as a lease agreement, pay stubs or utility bill in a person’s name.

Voces also suggests completing power-of-attorney forms to plan for potential family separation.

Resources

Organizations like Catholic Charities Refugee and Immigration Services, International Institute of Wisconsin and UMOS offer free or low-cost legal assistance regarding immigration and citizenship.

Voces deems the following attorneys trustworthy: Abduli Immigration Law; Christopher & De León Law Office; Layde & Parra; Maria I. Lopez Immigration Law; Oulahan Immigration Law; and Soberalski Immigration Law.

Immigration Advocates Network provides a list of resources.

Immigrant Legal Resource Center provides a downloadable card listing people’s rights and protections.

We’re here to help

Do you have questions we can help get answered? Send an email to dblake@milwaukeenns.org.

News414 is a service journalism collaboration between Wisconsin Watch and Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service that addresses the specific issues, interests, perspectives and information needs identified by residents of central city Milwaukee neighborhoods. Learn more at our website or sign up for our texting service here.

A new Trump presidency raises questions for immigrants. Here’s what we know. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Fernanda Jimenez, a 24-year-old Racine resident, came to the United States from Mexico with her mother and siblings when she was just 5 years old. It’s the only home she can remember.

For almost a decade, Jimenez has been protected from deportation by the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, launched under the Obama administration. The program allows people who came to the country illegally as children to get work permits and continue living in America.

Earlier this year, Jimenez graduated from Alverno College in Milwaukee. She currently works as a grant writer, helping nonprofits apply for funding. But she’s also in the process of applying to law school.

“I like helping nonprofits get funding to do the work that we need in our country and especially our communities, but I’m more passionate about community organizing,” she said. “I’d like to eventually use legal skills after law school for community organizing.”

Jimenez has big dreams, but she says she’s been feeling a looming anxiety since former President Donald Trump won his bid to return to the White House in this year’s presidential race.

She was still in high school when Trump was first elected in 2016, but she says she still remembers feeling “terrified” about what his election would mean for her parents who don’t have permanent legal status and what it would mean for DACA’s future.

Those fears have come roaring back in recent weeks. 

“Our community is terrified. They’re uncertain of their futures, they’re concerned for their family members who are undocumented and not protected under DACA,” Jimenez said. “A lot of naturalized citizens are concerned as well. The mass deportation threat is being taken seriously.”

On the campaign trail, Trump promised to lead the largest deportation effort in U.S. history. Shortly after the election, he announced that Tom Homan, former acting director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, would serve as his administration’s “border czar.”

In interviews with Fox News last week, Homan said he would prioritize deporting people who threaten public safety or pose risks to national security. But he also told the network that anyone in the country illegally is “not off the table,” and the administration would perform workplace immigration raids. 

Immigrant rights group plans organizing efforts

Following Trump’s reelection, Voces de La Frontera, a Milwaukee-based immigrant rights group, has been holding community meetings in Green Bay, Milwaukee and Dane County to plan next steps, according to Christine Neumann-Ortiz, the organization’s founding executive director.

She said many of the immigrants in Wisconsin without permanent legal status are fearful of the prospect of mass deportations, but she doesn’t believe they will leave the country preemptively. Rather, she said they may leave Wisconsin for states that provide more protections to immigrants.

Neumann-Ortiz said Voces is using the regional meetings to brainstorm ways it can organize around protecting immigrants without permanent legal status. She said the group plans to raise awareness through mass strikes, protests and civil disobedience. 

“We really are going to have to very strongly be a movement that stands for human decency, solidarity, and we’re going to have to do that in the streets,” she said. 

Neumann-Ortiz also said she believes most Trump voters cast ballots for him because of economic concerns, not because they wanted to see people forcibly removed from their communities.

“I do think as things unfold, there’s going to be shock waves that are going to happen that are going to have many people open their eyes, regret their decisions and see what they can do to help,” she said.

David Najera, Hispanic outreach coordinator for the Republican Party of Wisconsin, does not share the concerns about mass deportations.

“My parents came from Mexico and Texas. They came the right way, and that’s the way I’d like to see people come,” he said.

Najera said he supports Trump’s immigration policies, citing concerns about crime, infectious disease and government resources.

“The immigrants are just overwhelming the hospitals, schools and everything else, and taking our tax money,” Najera said. “I’m not saying they’re all bad, but there’s a majority of them that are just getting out of their jails over there in different countries, and coming here with bad intentions.”

Multiple studies have shown immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans. And Wisconsin’s immigrants without permanent legal status paid $240 million in federal, state and local taxes in 2022, according to the American Immigration Council.

How are Wisconsin immigration attorneys advising clients?

Marc Christopher, an immigration attorney based in Milwaukee, represents clients in federal immigration court who are facing deportation or seeking asylum. Christopher said he doesn’t expect the Trump administration’s deportation effort to be limited to people with serious criminal convictions or those who pose security concerns.

He said he expects increased targeting of individuals who haven’t committed crimes or have been charged with minor offenses, like driving without a license. Immigrants living in Wisconsin without proof of citizenship or legal residency can’t get driver’s licenses.

“What I’m telling my clients to do is make sure that you follow the law to a tee,” Christopher said. “If you do not have a driver’s license, do not drive. If you can have someone else drive you to work or drive your children to school, make sure and do that because that’s the most common way that they get thrown into the immigration court process.”

Aissa Olivarez, managing attorney for the Community Immigration Law Center in Madison, said she expects the incoming administration to expand the use of “expedited removal.” It’s a process that allows the government to deport people without presenting their case to an immigration judge if the person has been in the country for less than two years.

“I’m also advising people to start gathering proof that they’ve been here for more than two years — phone bills, light bills, leases, school information — to be able to show in case they are stopped and questioned by immigration authorities,” Olivarez said.

Second Trump term reignites fears over DACA’s future, impact on mixed-status families

Christopher and Olivarez both said the DACA program, and other federal programs giving immigrants temporary protected statuses, could end in the coming years.

Trump previously tried to end the DACA program, but it was upheld in a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision with Chief Justice John Roberts siding with four liberal justices. The current court has a 6-3 conservative majority, meaning Roberts would no longer be the deciding vote.

“It’s (DACA) all but assuredly going to be found unconstitutional by the current Supreme Court,” Christopher said of the DACA program. 

Jimenez, the DACA recipient from Racine, said she’s afraid being a participant in the program will make her a target for deportation by the federal government.

“We have to provide, every two years, an updated information application of where we live, our biometrics, our pictures, and they have to be recent pictures,” she said. “They have our entire information. And that’s really where our fear is at. They know who we are. They know we’re undocumented.”

Immigrant rights advocates are also concerned that a mass deportation effort could devastate the estimated 28,000 families in Wisconsin with mixed-immigration status. Those families include households where one spouse may be a U.S. citizen married to someone who doesn’t have permanent legal status, or where the parents of U.S. citizen children lack legal status.

Jimenez said her brother is part of a mixed-status family. She says he is a DACA recipient, his girlfriend is a legal resident, and his children are U.S. citizens.

“If he is to be deported, his kids would suffer the most not having their father with them, and my parents, who I fear (for) the most, have no protection,” she said. “They have to work. They have to drive to work. They have to drive without a license.”

What could a second Trump term mean for asylum seekers in Wisconsin?

Christopher, the immigration attorney from Milwaukee, said individuals seeking asylum in Wisconsin are in the country legally as they wait to make their case to the government that they should be granted asylum in the United States. 

Under the last Trump administration, Christopher said the federal government narrowed the qualifications to be granted asylum. He said the previous Trump administration made it so those fleeing cartel or gang violence in their home country did not qualify and rolled back protections for those fleeing gender-based violence.

If Trump tightens restrictions on the qualifications on asylum again, Christopher said those new restrictions would apply to people already in Wisconsin waiting to make their case to immigration officials.

“You’re not protected by the rules at the time that you apply,” he said. “It’s going to be a major shift.”

Byron Chavez, a 28-year-old asylum seeker from Nicaragua, has been living in Whitewater since 2022. He applied for asylum and is waiting to make his case to the government. 

He said he fled government oppression and human rights violations in Nicaragua. Since coming to Wisconsin, Chavez said he’s fallen in love with Whitewater and wants to make it his permanent home.

“The community is very friendly. … You got everything you need and everything is close,” he said. “The diversity you have here, it’s what makes Whitewater a really nice place.”

If he gets an asylum hearing after Trump takes office, Chavez says he’s hopeful the government will hear him out and grant him asylum. 

“I’m a little bit more concerned because I think the immigration law will be stricter,” he said. “But other than that, I like to go by the book. I’m doing things the way they should, and hopefully that talks about my desire of being here. I want to do things the right way.”

This story was originally published by WPR.

‘Our community is terrified’: Wisconsin immigrants brace for threat of mass deportations is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.