Category: Trump

TRUMP IS NOT DEPORTING ‘THE WORST OF THE WORST’

Posted on by newyorkvisalawyer_o0id8f

Only 5% of immigrants arrested by ICE under Trump have been convicted of a serious crime. 73% of those detained by ICE have no criminal record at all.

The Trump Administration and the partisan hacks heading up all of its agencies (one of whom a Federal Judge found to be lying about CBP operations) have been relentless with their anti-immigration propaganda. ICE has been out in full forth conducting rather violent raids and traffic stops. There were several days where ICE teams were being spotted all over Long Island and Queens, and there was the raid on Canal Street in Manhattan earlier this year. A man died in ICE custody on Long Island under suspicious circumstances and there has been no official investigation conducted.

Only 5% of immigrants arrested by ICE have serious criminal convictions

The message from the Administration has been consistent this entire time–DHS is arresting and deporting “the worst of the worst.” ICE Barbie, Kristi Noem, has insisted that these are “targeted operations” and “we’re arresting murderers, rapists, gang leaders, and drug kingpins.”

The data that has been made available clearly shows that what is being said is not true. The President, the Secretary of DHS, and the Director of ICE and CBP are lying to the American people. According to the data less than 5% of the people detained by ICE in these recent operations had a criminal record.

Less than 5% of the people detained by ICE in their recent targeted operations had a criminal record.

The Daily Beast has an article going over the data collected and published by the Cato Institute and exposing the truth about Trump’s deportations.

They look at the number of people actually deported from the US in November 2025 and discover that 43% had no criminal record and another 27% only had pending charges and a mere 30% had a conviction but that included minor traffic offenses and immigration offenses.

The administration and the people who support these mass deportations will claim that immigrants have caused a massive increase in crime in the US and try to blame immigrants for all the ills of the world. This is not true and it has been known for decades that immigrants actually commit crime at a significantly lower rate than US born citizens.

These raids and mass deportations were predicated on a lie and now they are lying to keep them going and to keep people on board with spending tens of billions of dollars on deportations that will cause massive harm to the economy and have no impact on the crime rates. None of the reasons for these deportations are true. People think that his will help them find a job or make their city safer but it will have the exact opposite effect and we know that from looking at the data.

The administration continues to fire Immigration Judges during this surge too but you can read that article if you want to learn about that.

Thanksgiving Policy Advisory

Posted on by newyorkvisalawyer_o0id8f

The Trump Administration was busy this Thanksgiving drafting a new Policy Advisory titled, Additional National Security Measures for Immigrants Including Consideration of Country-Specific Factors. The details of the new policy are in the Policy Alert: Impact of INA 212(f) on USCIS’ Adjudication of Discretionary Benefits (PA-2025-26).

Countries Impacted: Afghanistan, Burma, Burundi, Chad, Republic of Congo, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Laos, Libya, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Togo, Turkmenistan, Venezuela, and Yemen.

This announcement comes just a day after the shooting of two National Guard service members in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, November 26, 2025, by an Afghan national. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued new guidance allowing for negative, country-specific factors to be considered when vetting aliens from 19 high-risk countries. This guidance comes after the Trump administration halted refugee resettlement from Afghanistan and the entry of Afghan nationals in its first year of office.

The updated guidance, including consideration of country-specific factors such as a country’s ability to issue secure identity documents is being touted as the furthering of President Trump’s Presidential Proclamation (PP) 10949, Restricting the Entry of Foreign Nationals to Protect the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats. It will allow USCIS officers to more meaningfully assess whether an alien is a threat to public safety and national security. This policy guidance is effective immediately and applies to requests pending or filed on or after November 27, 2025.

On June 5, 2025, the President issued PP 10949 to exercise his INA 212(f) authority and suspend the entry or admission of aliens from nineteen countries. See 90 FR 24497 (imposing a partial or full suspension of and limitation on entry on aliens from the following countries, based on a finding that such entry would be detrimental to the interests of the United States for country-specific reasons: Afghanistan, Burma, Burundi, Chad, Republic of Congo, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Laos, Libya, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Togo, Turkmenistan, Venezuela, and Yemen).

IMPORTANT: USCIS will treat the existence of country-specific factors (such as those specified in PP 10949) as significant negative factors in the adjudication of discretionary benefit requests.

This new policy is going to be controversial and will likely be challenged in the Courts as soon as the first person is denied an immigration benefit based on this new policy.

Country-specific inquiries for issues such as the liability of government documents are reasonable and it there are legitimate reasons why it would be necessary. Not all foreign governments’ documents are reliable. There are some countries where obtaining official government documents like birth certificates or marriage certificates is a trivial task that could be accomplished by anyone. Some governments are notorious for having unreliable documents even when the person is trying to obtain accurate documents.

The US Department of State already has policies addressing this though. This policy seems unnecessary and more concerning, it seems like this administration may use this policy as a way to discriminate against foreign nationals from certain parts of the world. This administration has been acting in bad faith in many instances, but on this issue they would not have to. The policy announcement states that it is being made in response to yesterday’s shooting in order to put stricter scrutiny on a list of specific countries.

People should be concerned about this since the isolated incident that occurred yesterday cannot possibly justify this. We have no information indicating that the shooter had bypassed our existing process by using fraudulent documents or that Afghanistan failed to provide information about criminal records or terrorist affiliation. This seems to be reactionary or even opportunistic. There is an old saying that a government should never let a tragedy go to waste because they are the most effective way of getting people to eagerly sacrifice some of their liberty for the illusion of safety.

Stephen Miller has been hyper-aware of the power of fear and has been quick to exploit tragedies to push his political agenda (the core of which is ending all immigration from South and Central America, and Africa, and limiting to the largest extent possible the immigration of any non-Christians from Asia). You might remember the “Muslim Travel Ban” from Trump’s first term in office, which was authored by Miller and is an example of him doing this. He did this after a young woman was murdered by an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador last year and again during the first month that Trump was back in office. Most recently, he has been using the assassination of the right wing provocateur, Charlie Kirk, which I’ve written about before.

Read the Full Policy Advisory.

DHS Press Release Boasts they Removed More than Half a Million People from the US in 2025

Posted on by newyorkvisalawyer_o0id8f

On October 27, 2025, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced “record-breaking statistics with more than 527,000 illegal aliens removed under the leadership of President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.”

“The Trump Administration is on pace to shatter historic records and deport nearly 600,000 illegal aliens by the end of President Donald Trump’s first year since returning to office. More than 2 million illegal aliens have left the U.S. including 1.6 million who have voluntarily self-deported and over 527,000 deportations,”

Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin

The post ends with the following paragraph:

“lllegal aliens can take control of their departure with the CBP Home App. The United States is offering illegal aliens $1,000 and a free flight to self-deport now. We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right, legal way to live the American dream. If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return.”

DHS continues making videos and online posts with claims that people who leave on their own will have the ability to reenter legally while those who are arrested and deported will never be allowed to return. This is not true. In many cases, such as those where the person had previously had contact with immigration officials, the outcome of them leaving on their own will be exactly the same as if they arrested and removed by DHS.

You should not assume what they say is true and should make sure you check with an immigration attorney before making any sort of decision like that.

Screenshot of @ICEdeports Instagram page

DHS is using so much hyperbole, politically charged language, and outright misinformation that it is basically operating as a propaganda department. They even have multiple new social media accounts like this new Instagram account with the username “ICE Deports” where they post videos every day bragging about how ICE agents are willing to arrest pregnant women, won’t hesitate to hit a blind man, and don’t care if there are kids in the car when they smash the windows for no apparent reason. I was shocked when I learned the account was run by the government. It is really wild to see the US Government posting this kind of North Korea-style propaganda. It’s even more shocking to see that the majority of the comments are people cheering them on or thanking the ICE agents. It’s like waking up in an alternate dimension.

In that post Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin claims that “this is just the beginning. President Trump and Secretary Noem have jumpstarted an agency that was hamstrung and barred from doing its job for the last four years. In the face of a historic number of injunctions from activist judges and threats to law enforcement, DHS, ICE and CBP, have not just closed the border, but made historic strides to carry out President Trump’s promise of arresting and deporting illegal aliens who have invaded our country. Illegal aliens are hearing our message to leave now or face the consequence: Migrants are now turning back before they even reach our borders. Migration through Panama’s Darien Gap is down 99.99%.”

In an interview on 60 Minutes on November 2, 2025, President Trump said that he thought ICE hasn’t gone far enough and that he wishes they could do even more but the Judge’s are holding him back. These are pretty crazy times so be safe out there.

@ICEdeports posting videos of their "officers" brutalizing non-violent women and young men who are not resisting
@ICEdeports posting videos of their “officers” brutalizing non-violent women and young men who are not resisting

these people are evil

eff ice

US revokes Colombian president’s visa over comments made about Trump

Posted on by newyorkvisalawyer_o0id8f

The United States announced it was revoking the Colombian President, Gustavo Petro’s, visa after he gave a speech urging U.S. soldiers to disobey President Donald Trump’s orders. President Petro was in New York City visiting the U.N. and gave a speech on the Street on Friday while he was at a pro-Palestinian demonstration.

The Department of State said that the President’s statements were ‘reckless and incendiary’ resulting in his visa being revoked.

“Disobey Trump’s order! Obey the order of humanity! As happened in the First World War, I want the young people, sons and daughters of workers and farmers, of both Israel and the United States, to point their rifles not toward humanity, but toward the tyrants and toward the fascists.”

President Gustavo Petro dismisses the US decision to revoke his visa and accused Washington of violating international law over his criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza.

“I no longer have a visa to travel to the United States. I don’t care. I don’t need a visa… because I’m not only a Colombian citizen but a European citizen, and I truly consider myself a free person in the world,” he said.

“Revoking it for denouncing genocide shows the US no longer respects international law,” he adds on a post on X.

The two presidents have been in a social media tiff since almost immediately after Trump took office. In February they were in a Twitter back and forth threatening each other with tariffs over Trump’s treatment of migrants.

Earlier this week on Tuesday at the UN General Assembly President Petro called for a criminal investigation against U.S. President Donald Trump and other officials involved in the month’s deadly strikes on boats in the Caribbean that the White House has said were transporting drugs for Venezuela, according to AP News which quoted him as saying:

“Criminal proceedings must be opened against those officials, who are from the U.S., even if it includes the highest-ranking official who gave the order: President Trump…the men were not drug traffickers; they were simply poor young people from Latin America who had no other option.”

President Gustavo Petro posted this longer message on Twitter Responding to the visa revocation:

His message translated to English reads:

I arrived in Bogotá and found out that I no longer have a U.S. visa. To go to Ibagué for the great Tolima convention for democracy, I don’t need a visa. Separating the U.S. from Colombia is what the mafias need. What the U.S. government is doing to me breaks all the norms of immunity on which the functioning of the United Nations and its General Assembly is based. There is total immunity for presidents attending the Assembly, and the U.S. government cannot condition the opinion of the U.S.

The fact that the Palestinian Authority was not allowed entry and that my visa was revoked for asking the U.S. and Israeli armies not to support a genocide, which is a crime against all of humanity, demonstrates that the U.S. government no longer complies with international law. The United Nations headquarters cannot continue to be in New York.

UPDATE

After returning to Colombia and learning of what the State Department had said, the President posted this to twitter, which indicates that he was voluntarily surrendering his visa.

Translated to English

Bogotá, Sep. 27/2025
DIGNITY YES, VISA NO
In my capacity as Legal Secretary of the Presidency of the Republic, I have decided to voluntarily RENOUNCE my United States visa.
I do so in solidarity with President Gustavo Petro and because I am convinced that the DIGNITY of Colombia is above any personal privilege. The sovereignty of our Nation is not conditioned or subordinated.
Colombia IS TO BE RESPECTED.
Augusto Ocampo
Legal Secretary of the Presidency of the Republic

Stephen Miller’s Disturbing Speech

Posted on by newyorkvisalawyer_o0id8f

White House senior policy adviser, Stephen Miller, gave a truly bizarre speech at Kirk’s memorial service which could have been a deleted scene from American History X. Most of it was being yelled and was accused of plagiarizing a portion of a Joseph Goebbels speech from 1932 because he so obviously took inspiration from it. He did not actually quote Goebbels but he used the same dog whistles as the fascist propagandist. You listen to his words and decide for yourself:

We are the storm. And our enemies cannot comprehend our strength, our determination, our resolve, our passion. The light will defeat the dark. We will prevail over the forces of wickedness and evil. Our lineage and our legacy hails back to Athens, to Rome, to Philadelphia, to Monticello… Our ancestors built the cities, the art and architecture, the industry…

To the enemy, I say this: You are nothing. You can build nothing. You can create nothing. They cannot conceive of the army that they have arisen in all of us. You have no idea the dragon you have awakened.

Joseph Goebbels addressed his fellow Nazis in 1932 and said, “Der Sturm bricht los” which would roughly translate to ‘the storm is loose.’ Fascist rhetoric often referenced ‘the storm’ as a symbol of their goal of cleansing and rebirth or the image of the German people ridding society of weakness to seize destiny. Michael Sellers wrote about this on his Sub Stack and he knows much more than I do, so if you are interested you should check that out.

Maybe it is just a coincidence and Miller is just really into meteorology. He has been giving cringe speeches since he was a teenager though. You should see the speech he gave in high school about how he shouldn’t have to pick up his trash because the school has janitors for that.

Miller has an obsessive hate for immigration and he has found his way into power and a position that he is in no way qualified to hold. He is dangerous for many reasons but his hate and xenophobia is the reason why there are masked federal agents kidnapping people off the streets and locking them away in makeshift prison camps.

ICE Raids to Surge in NY

Posted on by newyorkvisalawyer_o0id8f

The White House border czar, Tom Homan, issued a warning on Friday, August 29, 2025, “you’re gonna see a ramp up of operations in New York” come Labor Day. He declined to elaborate on that and there is no information on ICE’s website about any formal plans to launch additional enforcement in NY starting next week.

The Trump Administration has already brought a lawsuit against New York City claiming that it was a “sanctuary city” that was breaking the law by refusing to cooperate with ICE to carry out immigration arrests or to share information about the whereabouts of potential immigrants.

The Intercept reported on disturbing raids that have taken place on Long Island where dozens of masked men with no badges or other identification have shown up in small towns totting assault rifles and entering private property without asking for permission or stating their intentions. The local police departments with jurisdiction over these communities are not even made aware of ICE’s presence resulting in terrifying situations in which no one knows who these armed men are that are kidnapping dozens of Latinos. Frankly, it’s concerning that the local police allow this to go on. Anyone who wears a mask and sunglasses can walk around with a gun abducting people in broad daylight since the police would assume they must be ICE officers and lack any one of confirming.

A dozen or more masked men, some with long guns, tried to enter a men’s homeless shelter without identifying themselves in a rural town with a long-standing immigrant community on eastern Long Island in New York. Officials from the local police department later admitted they didn’t know where the masked men came from — only adding to local residents’ concerns. – The Intercept

According to the Intercept, the masked men were also seen around Nassau County in Western Long Island parked at elementary schools, which greatly alarmed parents who in one instance confronted them asking what they were doing on school grounds if they were not parents and asking why they had their faces covered. In California there was an incident in which ICE was caught lying to school officials claiming that they had permission from the parents of a fourth grader to take her out of school when they did not. ICE officers are relentless in their efforts to apprehend school children, sending dozens of armed officers to stakeout an elementary school. They are willing to lie to parents, teachers, school administrators, and anyone else in order to make their arrest.

A 6-year-old girl from Queens was arrested and shipped two thousand miles to a Texas detention center after ICE agents grabbed her, her mother, and her brother, as they left a routine check-in at the NY Immigration Court. Dayra and her family members are being detained hundreds of miles from one another at different facilities. The family entered the US in 2022 from Ecuador. The Daily News reported further on the heartbreaking situation. Exactly one week after they were detained, Dayra and her mother, Martha, were put on a plane and deported to Ecuador, leaving behind two other children in New York.

Immigration authorities have detained more than 50 children under the age of 18 in the New York City area since Trump began his anti-immigrant crusade. It has been reported that there have been at least 38 of those children have already been deported.

Congress has given ICE $45 billion of taxpayer money to massively increase their detention efforts and increase capacity. Trump has moved to expand the government’s ability to hold families in detention. The administration also recently sought to terminate a decades-old legal agreement that mandates basic standards of care for children in custody, arguing that it limits expansion efforts.

Governor of Washington said on Thursday that his office was demanding an explanation from Border Patrol for their decision to arrest firefighters who were fighting a wildfire in the state. The Governor said in a statement that he was “deeply concerned” that the Trump administration had targeted firefighters trying to contain the Bear Gulch fire in Olympic National Forest, west of Seattle. This isn’t the first time ICE arrested a firefighter. ABC News reported that a volunteer firefighter in Westchester who had been living in the US for more than forty years was arrested by ICE earlier this month.

People are still being arrested every day at the New York Immigration Court as they are trying to abide by the law and attend their court hearings and scheduled appointments. It has been reported that the New York Immigration Court is a confusing disaster where families are being torn apart in the hallways despite being granted more time in the US by the Judge.

This is to say that ICE has already been aggressively enforcing the Trump immigration agenda in NYC for months. It is frightening to think about ICE “ramping up” those efforts after Labor Day. Perhaps the Border Czar is just talking big and there isn’t any actual plan to increase enforcement in NYC next week but it is something to be aware of in case they do have one.

Enjoy your day off, but watch out for ICE!