The Trump Administration’s Crackdown on Legal Migrants
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From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Marisa Lagos and for me, I'm Kim. Coming up on Forum, the Trump administration is carrying out its immigration crackdown on multiple fronts, many of them aimed at people in the U.S. legally. Tens of thousands of immigrants allowed to temporarily live and work in the United States were told to leave last week, while the administration is trying to strip away the legal status of thousands of other migrants from war-torn countries.

Thousands more have had their social security numbers effectively canceled, while hundreds of Venezuelans deported from the U.S. are still renditioned in a notorious prison in El Salvador. We'll check in with New York Times reporter Hamed Aliaziz, who has broken a number of these stories. That's next after this news.

This is Forum. I'm Marisa Lagos and Fermina Kim. President Donald Trump campaigned on cracking down on immigration and he stayed true to his word. In fact, the administration is pursuing so many different avenues to deport migrants, those here both legally and without documentation, and to encourage self-deportation that it's become difficult to keep track.

Many of the administration's actions are testing the boundaries of executive power and constitutional law, and some of their moves are raising concerns about whether American citizens could become collateral damage. Today we have with us one of the reporters who is following all of this closely day in and day out. Hamed Eliaziz is a reporter for The New York Times. He previously worked for The L.A. Times, The San Francisco Chronicle and BuzzFeed. Hamed, welcome back to Forum.

Thank you for having me. Well, we're thrilled to have you. And I got to ask because, you know, you have been covering immigration since the first Trump administration. And before we get into some of the day to day, hour to hour machinations of what's happening, can you talk about how this time compares to the first time around? Have there been big surprises in terms of a change of approach and tenor?

Definitely. You know, we saw this in day one, the difference with this administration, the last administration. There was so much policy packed into the initial slew of executive orders on January 20th. It basically encompassed the first four years of the first Trump administration. You had border shutdown policies, refugee shutdown policies,

Everything was thrown against the wall on that first day. And it's just continued with that pace week after week with new provisions and statutes used that reporters and experts were not expecting. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, a lot of this, as I said, and you just alluded to, is not just trying to, you know, undergo these mass deportations of what, you know, they say are criminals or even just folks who are here undocumented. They're going aggressively after people with legal status. I mean, why do you think that is? What is the ultimate goal here? Well, when it comes to I mean, I think there's generally a

few different things happening. One, you have people being targeted who are here under student visas and green cards who were involved with protests. And these protests clearly made the Trump administration upset. These were protests focused mostly on the Israel-Gaza conflict and

And in the administration's view, they have framed these protests and that activity as anti-Semitic behavior, and they're looking to deport these individuals. And I think it's a way, in a sense, to act as a deterrent to other students, other international students in this country to scale back their potential protesting and other activities on college campuses.

And then elsewhere, you have the Trump administration targeting these legal programs set up by the Biden administration in which hundreds of thousands of people were able to enter the United States, trying to strip that status from those individuals.

And that's because ultimately the Trump administration and many Republicans believed those programs were illegal on its face and they should never been put into place in the first, you know, when they first started. So they're just attacking all these different interview avenues that they feel are misguided. Yeah.

We are talking to Hamed Aliaziz. He covers immigration and the Department of Homeland Security at The New York Times. You know, this morning you were part of a story outlining more details on who these, I think, 278 migrants that have been sent to a really brutally notorious prison in El Salvador are.

The nation's president there was in the Oval Office with Trump yesterday. They didn't talk about the sort of broader issue of these men, but they were asked about one man in particular, Kilmar Armando Abrego-Garcia. This is a Maryland man who was wrongly deported despite a judge's previous order saying he should not go back to Venezuela. Can you just catch us up on what you reported this morning and how, if at all, Abrego-Garcia fits into that?

Yeah, definitely. You know, our reporting, we went back and looked at the individuals who were deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration in mid-March. The Trump administration has not released the names of these individuals. We were able to obtain their names through a government list.

And me and a team went through and did an investigation into their backgrounds, and we found that most of these men that were sent to El Salvador actually do not have criminal records in the U.S. or elsewhere in the region. And it's unclear, you know, very few of them, I would say at this point, appear to have any clear links to El

this gang, this Venezuelan gang known as TDA. And as part of that deportation flight, of course, there was Mr. Abrego Garcia, who was sent to El Salvador.

He had an order from an immigration judge that blocked his deportation to El Salvador. This was something that was granted to him in immigration court. It restricts his deportation to El Salvador based on fear of persecution in that country. But despite that he was deported to El Salvador, the government has recognized that it was an administrative error

But now they are saying that despite that, and despite federal court order and a Supreme Court order pushing the Trump administration to at least facilitate his return, that at this point, it's El Salvador's decision to release him and that it's out of the hands of the Trump administration.

So it strikes me that this particular case could be slightly different in the sense that he was sent back to like repatriated to the country that he came from. But has that even come up? I mean, it seems like what the Trump administration is saying is, hey, we handed off custody of all these people to, you know, the El Salvador president, Nayib Bukele. And now he's now he's in the driver's seat. Is that kind of the argument they're making?

Well, the main issue here is that the immigration judge found that he should not be deported to El Salvador. And despite that, he was still sent to El Salvador. And that's where the problem comes. That's where, you know, that's how we can say that he was wrongfully deported as the government recognized and as the judges have recognized. That's the main issue.

Issue here and despite that they're now saying that the Trump administration is now saying well look he's there now He's a citizen of El Salvador. This is El Salvador's decision because it's one of their nationals and hey by the way He shouldn't have even gotten that protection because he is connected to MS-13 which has been recognized by President Trump as a terrorist group So they're kind of building different arguments

around this idea of he cannot return to the United States. And we should say that it seemed we don't know really all the details of what they're saying links him to MS-13, but there's evidence on the other side that he is not a gang member and has lived a crime

a crime-free life here in the United States. I believe he's the father of three children. Noel writes on Discord, what is going on is destructive. The Trump administration is just declaring a migrant a terrorist, deporting them to El Salvador and using the excuses that El Salvador has jurisdiction and mistakes happen, using the Social Security death list to declare someone dead is another step in dehumanization. That comment, Hamed, is in regard

regards to another story you broke, you've been on quite a roll lately, where you reported this just recently that the Social Security Administration under Trump has listed thousands of migrants as essentially dead. Can you talk about why and what's at play here?

Yeah, the idea here is to effectively cancel their Social Security numbers and to cut off people from financial services like bank accounts and credit cards and access to government benefits. The idea here, ultimately, it's in line with something that the Trump administration has talked about a lot recently. It's this idea of self-deportation.

This administration is just not going to be able to hit the millions of deportations that President Trump promised unless something changes drastically. The resources that are available for the government to go after millions of undocumented immigrants

It's very limited. And so one idea around that is to say, OK, let's make life so uncomfortable for people who are here who are undocumented that they'll decide to self-deport. And you see Trump administration officials, including the DHS secretary, including the borders are Tom Homan and others saying,

constantly say that people should self-deport. They should leave this country before ICE comes and finds them. They've even built an app that allows people to actually mark when they're leaving the country. It's called CBP Home. And this is a main objective of this administration, to hit the numbers they so desperately want to hit. All right.

Another listener on Discord writes,

Another listener on Discord writes, 10 more people were sent to El Salvador this weekend, still without due process. The Trump administration is brazenly showing it doesn't care about laws or legality. Just about a minute left before our break, Ahmed, but I do want to ask you, I mean, the Supreme Court has seemed very reticent to dive into these immigration cases too strongly. As you said before, they've sort of...

ordered the administration to facilitate this man's return, but not actually ordered them to bring him back. Is that the sense you get and your colleagues covering the court is that they're really trying to avoid a standoff with the executive branch? I mean, that order is really striking in the sense that it leaves a lot to be considered. And that that room is something that the Trump administration is taking advantage of.

That's something that this administration is saying, well, look, actually the Supreme Court said the judge needs to clarify her order and that the judge can't direct us on our foreign affairs policymaking and handling. And because of that opening there, there's a lot to be left on whether or not

That is Ahmad Ali Aziz. He covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy for The New York Times. And we are talking about the strategies the Trump administration is using to tell migrants to leave the U.S. and to.

remove them themselves. We want to hear from you. What is your reaction to what's happening in the White House? Have Trump's actions on immigration affected you or your community or somebody you know? And what questions do you have for our guest, Hamed, about the Trump administration's immigration policies and where they stand? You can email us at forum at kqed.org. Find us on social media at KQED Forum or give us a call.

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Welcome back to Forum. I'm Marisa Lagos in today for Mina Kim. I am speaking this morning with Hamed Ali Aziz. He is a New York Times reporter covering the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy. And we are talking about all of his recent reporting about what the Trump administration has been doing on immigration and

I mean, yesterday you reported that tens of thousands of migrants who entered the country since 2023 using this app that was created by the Biden administration have been told. And this app was to help facilitate their asylum and immigration cases. They've essentially been told by the Trump administration that their legal status is ending and they should deport voluntarily. Tell us a little more about this action and why it appears to be happening.

Yeah, like I said earlier, the Trump administration has long been critical of two programs set up by the Biden administration. These programs included CBP1, which allowed more than 900,000 immigrants to enter at ports of entry. They would schedule a time to show up at a port of entry on the app that you mentioned, CBP1.

And they would enter the United States and they would have some time to live in the country and try to remain in the country long term through asylum or other means.

And the Trump administration has believed that that effort was misguided, illegal, and was allowing people that otherwise had no legal basis, no way to enter the United States, an entryway to America. So they've attacked this program from day one. They shut it down.

The CBP won no longer allowing people to schedule appointments to enter the United States. And now we're seeing the second part of this effort, which is actually stripping of status of people who entered that way. And many immigrants are receiving these notices and are now obviously kind of wondering what's next for them. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, you spoke to immigration attorneys, some of whom also got this notice, ironically. I guess their email or phone numbers were associated with some sort of application. What was their advice? Like, do they think because a lot of these folks do have pending asylum applications. Right. Which is not a process that the Biden administration just created out of whole cloth. That's something that has been created by Congress. So what's the best advice in terms of how people should be responding? Yeah.

Well, I think, you know, obviously that's a case-by-case basis. But, you know, oftentimes when people...

don't have status and they are not in immigration court, they can become potentially liable for targeting by ICE. And when you have somebody like these people who have provided their information to the U.S. government, they could potentially become targets because the government knows where they are.

Like you said, some of these people are in immigration court and are actively seeking asylum. So there's a long process for those folks, but certainly a lot of uncertainty in that community. Sure. Well, I do want to

to go to some of your other reporting. As I said, you've been very busy. But we're getting a lot of questions about the Abrego Garcia case, this El Salvadoran man who was sent along with hundreds of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador.

really without any due process. And one listener writes, if the government can deport somebody they claim is an illegal alien without due process, they can deport a citizen by claiming they're an illegal alien without due process. There's no way to prove someone or isn't a citizen. This is a terrifying situation. Can we talk a little bit more about this 9-0 Supreme Court decision? Yeah.

What I sort of characterize as they said facilitate this man's return. Can you give us any more details on sort of what the court said and didn't say?

Yeah. The court said that, um, that the Supreme court said that the federal court was right in saying that the government should facilitate his return, but they also wanted clarification from the federal court judge on, you know, what, what they meant, what the judge meant by effectuate his return. And, uh,

And the Supreme Court said that when that clarification is made, there should be deference to how the executive branch handles foreign policymaking, dealing with foreign partners. So there's a lot of wiggle room there that I think that this administration is taking advantage of. And as we move forward, I think some of these hearings in federal court are

are going to be incredibly important. How this federal court judge responds to the Trump administration saying, look, we can't just pull him out willy-nilly. It'd be effective kidnapping of him. This is El Salvador's national crime.

And whether or not, you know, one wonders whether or not we could see this back in the Supreme Court and kind of force the Supreme Court to give a clear ruling on what to do. Yeah. I mean, what's your response to the listeners concern that, you know, because these hundreds of men, including Abrego Garcia, were sent there without a hearing to sort of ask the government to prove that they were members of a gang or, you know, to even confirm that they were deportable, that this

could result in American citizens being caught up and potentially deported. Yeah, look, I mean, this is something that has been a main concern for a lot of people, a lot of advocates and lawyers and others, that the lack of due process that is a part of the Alien Enemies Act is potentially a

an avenue for people to be mistakenly rounded up and deported. And obviously we see with the Sabrina Garcia case, an individual who has protection to remain in the United States is wrongfully deported. ICE has wrongfully deported people before. So this is not something that is

random or has never happened before. This is something wrongful deportations have happened before. So when you put in place a policy where people can be deported so quickly without due process, there is major concern on potential mistakes happening. But I think it's really important to also recognize that why would the Trump administration want to use this policy? When we think about

Deportations, they take a long time. It's a long process when you go through the formal deportation process. There are multiple hearings. There's a long detention process. There are appeals.

Using the Alien Enemies Act allows this administration to quickly deport people to and potentially to help them hit those numbers they so desperately want to hit. And the Supreme Court did essentially give them its blessing to use the Alien Enemies Act. Right. They said that even though I mean, we have not declared war against Venezuela, that that tying these folks to the gang there is legal, essentially. Right.

Well, the Supreme Court said that, yes, but they also said that people should have the ability to challenge their deportation under the Alien Enemies Act, that they should have an individual ability to appeal that deportation. And that's adding more process, which is something that the Trump administration is not fond of because process, more process means more time. Yeah.

We are talking about immigration under the Trump administration with Hamed Ali Aziz, who covers this issue for The New York Times. We want to hear from you if you have a reaction or questions for our guest about what the Trump administration is doing here. You can give us a call. 866-733-6786 is the number. That's 866-733-6786. You can also email your comments and questions to forum.org.

at KQED.org or find us on Blue Sky Facebook Instagram threads we're at KQED forum Steve on Discord writes I strongly suspect at this point they aren't quote defying the order but claiming their hands are tied and they're unable to comply because of foreign jurisdiction this is clearly a wink and nod routine between Trump and Bukele but it gives the Trump administration and the fig leaf a plausible deniability

And a question for you, Ahmed. Why are the immigrants or the migrants not being returned to Venezuela where they were originally from? Is Venezuela not accepting its citizens back? You know, Venezuela has long been a, at least for the last several years, a country where it's been very difficult to deport migrants to. This is because of the strained relations with the regime there, the Maduro regime.

But actually in recent weeks, the Trump administration has been able to deport people to Venezuela, and Venezuela has taken back their nationals. In this instance...

We can obviously speculate on the reasons, but one of the main things that the Trump administration is often trying to communicate is this idea of deterrence. This is something that the DHS secretary, Kristi Noem, has mentioned repeatedly and actually visited the El Salvador prison where these individuals were being held, where she said, if you cross into our country illegally and, you know, and you...

come to our country illegally, you can end up here, you can also end up in Guantanamo Bay. These are ways for this administration to show people considering crossing into this country illegally that

that there is a major deterrence, and that deterrence is you might be sent back to an El Salvador prison. You might be sent back to Guantanamo Bay. You might be sent to another country that you've never been to before. All kinds of consequences await you if you cross into our country without authorization. All right. We have a question from a caller now. Anthony in San Jose. Anthony, go ahead.

Hi, thank you for your reporting on this, especially about the Venezuelans who were sent there. And my question is, has

Has anyone raised the question of whether or not the Trump administration is guilty of human trafficking by sending people to a foreign prison for any reason, even if their deportation was lawful? What is the legal basis for sending them to a prison without a trial, without

in a country of which they had no connection. To me, this is obviously human trafficking. And since we know that Berkeley has already said that they are going to be there and be put to hard labor, why is this not also slavery? And why isn't the Congress doing anything?

Anthony, thank you so much for the questions. I mean, yeah. What is the sort of legal rationale? Do we know is there case law around this? I mean, I do know that, you know, the immigration system is not the exact same as our legal system, although constitutional rights still do apply in most cases.

Yeah, the Alien Enemies Act is not something that's been used very often and was used decades ago during wartime. In this instance, the Trump administration has labeled the gang TDA as a terrorist group.

They have created a guide to spot people that they believe are members of this gang. And they say that TDA has created

been a part of an invasion in this country and is a threat to this country. Therefore, they are alien enemies and should be removed immediately. Obviously, that's being challenged in court, and the court challenges remain because of that provision the Supreme Court put in place saying that these individual appeals need to be allowed.

So I think I read somewhere that there was like a one year contract with El Salvador for this prison. I mean, has the administration telegraphed sort of what their longer term intent is here? You know, taking a step back.

The Trump administration has long wanted to use third countries to send nationals to as a form of deterrence. And so El Salvador put their hands up, you know, at the beginning of this administration as a country that would take back

nationals not of their own. There are several other countries that have agreed to do the same, like Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala. And the Trump administration is in discussion with countries across the globe about this idea of sending people to countries that are not their own. It's a form of deterrence. It's an idea that

you know, makes it so if you cross our country illegally and you are in our country illegally, we'll send you far away and make life harder for you and maybe make other people reconsider coming to this country illegally. Well, and I think it's important to note that Trump and President Bukele have also mused about sending American prisoners to El Salvador as well.

Yeah, definitely. That is something Trump was saying yesterday. This homegrown people could be sent there too. The worst of the worst that were homegrown. But

That feels like it would be immediately challenged in court and there would be a tough climb for this administration to to win on that. But but again, you know, this administration has been willing to do a lot and anything should be expected. Yeah. They don't seem intent on necessarily following all the court orders. Also, we have another caller, Amy from Berkeley. Amy, go ahead.

Yes, hi. I'm a U.S. citizen born here. My husband is naturalized, and we'll be traveling shortly. We both, in particular, have taken part in protests against the genocide in Gaza, posted about it. The group that I'm touring with is telling us to either wipe our phones clean or get a burner phone. What have you seen so far? What can you predict could happen to a U.S. citizen, either naturalized or naturalized?

here if they have content on their phone that's considered against Trump administration.

Thanks, Amy. That's a great question. And I think it's, you know, one, we have heard stories about citizens being detained and other questions because you really don't have the same sort of rights when it comes to searches when you're crossing into the United States, right, at a port of entry or any sort of border. The Border Patrol does have a lot of latitude, right, Ahmed, to search your phone and other belongings. Yeah.

Definitely. And this is something that's long been an issue that people have challenged. You know, this idea of the border patrol, the CBP having a, the ability to read your electronics, read your phone. U S citizens cannot be denied entry for not, you know, handing over their, their phones. But again,

Anytime you get into a situation where you're at the airport and you're trying to enter the United States, it can definitely bog down the time that it takes you to

return home. And we've already seen a more aggressive approach by the CBP officers at airports. There's lots of reports of people trying to enter with visas who have been turned back or detained and deported. So it certainly seems that there is a stricter approach at the border. Yeah.

Patrick asks, can you discuss the public sentiment related to so many people coming across the border during the Biden years? That's given he says that's giving Trump political cover for many deportation actions, even extremely questionable deportations. I mean, have we seen any recent public polling? Like, where is the public when it comes to what's been a really aggressive crackdown? Again, not just Trump.

what Trump promised on the campaign trail in terms of immigrants who were accused of crimes, but really going after folks who have gone through the legal system as well. Yeah, this is a topic that really needs specific polling because it is true that the American public in poll after poll was dissatisfied with the way the Biden administration handled immigration, in particular the southern border.

Those images from the southern border of masses of people crossing without authorization just were a huge political liability for former President Biden. I think as a point of reference, in December 2023, more than 100,000 migrants crossed illegally. This past month in March, around 7,000 people crossed illegally. So,

I think a lot of Americans view that as part of the immigration approach that President Trump is taking, and they like that, that the general polls have showed support for President Trump's immigration policies and his idea of deporting people who are here without status. But I think it's important, as the weeks and months go on, to try to get more specific polling on immigration.

How do people feel about those with visas, those people who are international students here legally picked up for deportation? How do people feel about that? Those are important questions. That is Hamed Eliaziz. We have him until the end of the hour from The New York Times talking about Trump's immigration policy. Excuse me. I'm Marisa Lagos in for me and Kim. We will be right back.

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Welcome back to Forum. I'm Marisa Lagos. And today for Mina Kim, we are speaking with Hamed Aliaziz. He covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy at The New York Times. And we are talking. Well, we've been talking a lot about this, these deportations to a Salvadoran prison. But I do want to return to some of your other reporting, Hamed. So back on this issue that you and your colleagues broke around canceling the Social Security numbers of more than 6,000 migrants.

How do they identify these folks and who are they? Yeah, the initial names are people that the administration has said are convicted criminals and suspected terrorists. But definitely the 6,000 initial folks that they have put on this list are

But that list included a 13-year-old and seven other minors. And that's something that has caused a lot of fear inside the Social Security Agency around how this list could be, you know, misused or putting people that shouldn't be on this list. It raises kind of that specter of fear.

people could be thrown in to this list and have their financial lives ruined for no reason. The administration has definitely indicated that that 6,000 number could grow to other people who are in this country unlawfully. So what's the goal here? Like, why do this? What does it do to these people's lives and what impact could it have? I think anytime you are unable to

you know, in a normal way, like through the ability to get loans, to, you know, use bank accounts, to access government benefits. Life becomes harder here. And I think that is one of the ideas, which is,

causing people to consider the option of leaving voluntarily, leaving the country on their own accord, and adding to the deportation numbers that this administration wants to hit. And one way to do that is through

methods like this. I mean, this is not the only way to do this. Another is to do the ice operations that they're conducting across the country where people who are not necessarily targets of the ice operations but are around the targets are also swept up. So all these different factors, right, of people the

The Social Security aspect, the ICE operations. They have now said that undocumented immigrants need to register with the government or face potential criminal liability. All these things, I think, are aimed at making people feel uncomfortable in the United States and uncomfortable living here for a long time. Yeah.

John asks, isn't it a felony to tamper with individual Social Security data? Could California's attorney general file charges if one of the 6,300 people is a California resident? And if the Trump administration can get away with this, he says they can do it to anyone for no reason. It's another weapon against perceived enemies. Have there been any legal challenges yet, Hamed? Do you expect them? Not yet. But yeah, I would think that this is something that

lawyers are examining. We've already seen politicians come out and say, Democrats in particular, come out and say that, you know, what's happening here is quite concerning. And this is something that I think the groups will take a look at as well.

Can you talk a little bit about how this Social Security, you know, sharing the putting them on the death list essentially coincides with Elon Musk's role and Doge, his effort to cut government spending?

Yeah, well, Social Security is full of people who are part of Doge. And these are people who have a wide mandate to help the government in all kinds of matters, including this idea of government efficiency.

And certainly they were involved with this effort as well. One of the software engineers for Doge was actually the one who sent the head of Social Security the list of names of these 6,300 people who they identified as wanting to be placed on this death list.

I know this has happened to the past, I believe to citizens, maybe not purposefully. What does happen to people who are mistakenly enlisted as dead on the Social Security list? Yeah. I mean, suddenly you are unable to use services like bank accounts and credit cards. You can't get government benefits.

Your social security number goes away. And one of the former social security leaders said it was basically like a financial death. And so I think the way it should be viewed is it just makes your life worse.

miserable on the financial end of trying to live in this country like others. Yeah. In the shadows. You said that this was a surprising new tactic in your story. Is this not something that had been telegraphed before? This is this was not something that, say, immigration advocates expected to see happen?

No, I don't think so. You know, I almost relate it to what's happening with the students, student protesters and the Secretary of State Marco Rubio using this really rarely used provision to target these students for deportation. This provision that I had never heard of, that my understanding is the last time it had been used was in the mid-90s.

which basically says the Secretary of State can deem anybody deportable, any immigrant deportable, if they are said to be against the U.S. foreign policy interests, and that their continued presence in the United States could undermine U.S. foreign policy. This is something that I did not expect.

Much like the social security effort. And I think it just speaks to this administration looking through every nook and cranny for every part of the law that they can utilize to deport people and to, uh,

you know, try to get people to leave this country. Yeah. Another way that they're doing that is to attempt to strip something called temporary protected status from thousands of folks from places like Afghanistan, Cameroon. They've already tried to cut off Venezuelans and shorten the time Haitians can have these protections. This is a mechanism in immigration law that essentially gives people protection

what it says, temporary protected status to work and live legally while they are, you know, away from their home country, which is either at war or has been, you know, the victim of natural disasters. I saw this morning that a court did halt this latest attempt to cut off that status. Can you just talk a little bit about

About that area of immigration and how the administration is approaching that seems like in parcel with what we were talking about before, which is to try to just make it really uncomfortable for people, even if they went through the proper processes. Yeah.

Yeah, this is, you know, unlike some of the other things, a continuation of the first Trump administration. During the first Trump administration, they also tried to strip temporary protective status from people from Haiti, Sudan and other countries.

And it's this idea that they believe that temporary protected status is no longer temporary, that people who come that are allowed to stay in this country through temporary protected status are

are often allowed renewals and can end up in the country for years on end. There's this idea that this program has been abused in their view, and so it's time to crack down. And so they have tried to do this with multiple countries. I think we should expect more countries to have their TPS stripped. And I think that

This is something where the advocates, the immigrant advocates, have been quite successful in federal court in stopping the Trump administration. They stopped them already with the stripping of the Venezuela temporary protected status, and I'm sure the other countries will be challenged as well.

I mean, these are countries like Afghanistan that have been taken over by the Taliban, where women's rights are restricted quite infamously. In Venezuela, the conditions there due to the Maduro regime that the immigrant advocates point to and say are places where immigrants cannot be removed too safely.

So this is another immigration issue that I think will be played out in federal courts and potentially the Supreme Court. Yeah, and it struck me as sort of

It's surprising that they went after Afghani TPS holders because they've, you know, the general Republican Party and Trump himself really savaged the Biden administration for the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan and have used the sort of harm to, you know, people who worked for the United States, who are allies of the U.S. during our long occupation there as sort of evidence of that.

I don't know. Were you surprised that they went after Afghanis in particular?

I can't say that I was surprised just because I know that this administration is quite critical of TPS. And, you know, when you move to strip TPS from, um, Haiti, uh, you move to, to, to what they did was shorten the time that Haitians had TPS on Haiti is a country that has been in, uh, Tomalt for years now. Um,

then that was kind of a sign that other countries were liable to have their TPS stripped as well. But of course, you're right. I mean, Afghanistan became a flashpoint at the beginning of the Biden administration. And Republicans were quite critical of how the administration was handling and protecting Afghans who were left behind. I mean...

I can't imagine that, you know, somebody from one of these TPS protected countries would self-deport. But is there any evidence that people are self-deporting because of these various sort of mechanisms and pressure that the administration is, you know, applying?

Yeah, there has been some evidence that people have self-deported. Now, in what numbers, that's unclear at this point. Hopefully, we'll get some more transparency from this government to release numbers related to their app, CBP Home, that encourages people to self-deport. I think that'll be our best indication of

whether or not this strategy of making people uncomfortable is actually effective. Because you're right. I mean, people have been here. There are certain people who have been here undocumented for years, for decades, and know how to live in the shadows. And I think that it will take a lot to force some people to leave the country because we

What are they returning back to? And are they willing to uproot their lives in the United States to go back to a country that they fled in the first place? Right. You are listening to Forum. I'm Marisa Lagos and for me, I'm Kim.

And we have been talking all hour with Hamed Eliaziz. He covers immigration for The New York Times. I mean, you know, a few minutes ago you mentioned student protesters. And one of the cases everyone's been watching most closely is that of Mahmoud Khalil. He was a legal he is a legal permanent resident and was one of the leaders of the Columbia University student protests for Palestine. Right.

I know an immigration judge agreed with the secretary of state and said he could be deported, but the legal case is not over because that was in an immigration court. And there's also challenges in the regular court system. Any updates on where that case stands?

No, not at this point. We are kind of awaiting the next steps in the federal court case. And that federal court case is going to be pivotal for Mr. Khalil. That case will probably be the deciding factor on his ability to stay in the United States, at least immediately. I think that is the area where...

The advocates and attorneys are really targeting to try to make this argument that the First Amendment protects Mr. Khalil's protest activities, that this underlying immigration charge exists.

to pick him up, detain him and deport him was not appropriately used and that he should be released and to live his life like he was before ICE picked him up. And I think that's going to have a major impact on other cases as well because Mr. Khalil is not the only one to be targeted under this provision. There are other students, other Columbia students, in fact,

including one woman who is 21 years old who has been in hiding for the last several weeks as ICE has targeted her for arrest under this provision. It'll have massive implications for her and for other people as well. Yeah. Have any of those student protesters actually been deported or are those all sort of working their way through the legal system?

They're all working their way through the legal system. There was a woman, an Indian woman who was here under a Ph.D. program who ICE targeted because she had been arrested on her way. She says she was arrested on her way home.

And she was kind of snaking her way through one of the protests on Columbia's campus and was caught in the crowd and the police arrested her and then, you know, dropped the charges.

But in any event, ICE targeted her for deportation. And as a result, and as she saw what was happening in the news with Mr. Khalil, she decided to leave the United States. And actually, the United States and the DHS Secretary, Kristi Noem, highlighted her self-deportation. And they viewed it as a success decision.

of their efforts in targeting her. Yeah. And I'm looking at the New York Times. You guys are reporting that another Columbia student with legal status here has been detained when he was going to an immigration meeting in Vermont. So we'll be following all of those. Before we end the hour, I do want to bring in another caller, Barbara in San Francisco. Go ahead.

Well, I just gave my little spiel to somebody, a young man. Yeah, that's our screener. Repeat what—tell myself and our guests what you wanted to say. I want to emphasize the fact that our due process is endangered, and the two examples were just—

And I want to give them the name of Dietrich Bonhoeffer so they can look it up. And that's the quote that ends with, and then they came for me, because he was fighting against Hitler's Nazism. The other thing is, three things. If they break up families by deporting the adults, what will happen to the children who have...

birthright citizenship. And the other thing is it will affect the labor market if we deport a bunch of people. They are doing work that our major population does not choose to do, like agricultural work, roofers, and truck drivers. All right. Thank you, Barbara. Really appreciate that call. Yeah, and Ahmed, we've seen this in California. There was a raid by not ICE, but Border Patrol, like 100 miles from the border or something in Bakersfield in...

right after Trump, or maybe before he was inaugurated, a lot of sort of fear within the industries about the broader impacts economically of all of this.

We're going to leave it there for today. Hamed Aliaziz covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy at The New York Times. His recent bylines include alien enemies or innocent men inside Trump's rushed effort to deport 238 migrants. And Social Security lists thousands of migrants as dead to prompt them to self-deport. You can find that and much more work on The New York Times website. Hamed, thank you so much for your time and all your reporting. Thanks for having me.

And that is going to do it for today. We really appreciate everybody's calls and comments. We will continue to follow this issue and many others. For today, I'm Marisa Lagos, in for Mina Kim. She will be back, I believe, next week. Thanks, everyone, for being here. Funds for the production of Forum are provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Generosity Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

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