News Summaries in May 2025

 

“Over a Barrel: Lack of Sugar Throws Cuba’s Rum Industry Into Crisis,” The Guardian, May 30 2025

A tiny sugar harvest in Cuba is casting doubt over the future of its rum industry. “You have to go back to the 19^th century to find numbers this low,” said Michael Bustamante, a University of Miami professor. Although Cuba has been importing sugar to feed people, the regulations of the rum industry are such that producers can only use sugar grown in Cuba. Cuba’s state-run monopoly Azcuba is only likely to produce an estimated 165,000 metric tons of sugar this year. In the late 1980s harvests averaged 8 million tons annually. “It is particularly worrying because the island’s rum industry has been a rare bright spot in its economy,” said Guardian reporter Ruaridh Nicoll. “Big international luxury brands are involved, competing in world markets with distinctive Cuban spirits.” Over the years the Cuban government has chronically underinvested in the machinery needed to produce sugar, something it blames on the U.S. embargo. At the time of the 1959 Cuban revolution, 133 mills were operating. Now only 14 mills exist and just 6 of them are operating. The decline in sugar production has been particularly rapid in the  last five years. “I think it’s just as clear a signal as you can get that of the dire straits of the economy overall,” said Bustamente. 

Posting out of chronological order. 

“Mexico’s Sewage Pollutes a California Beach Town,” New York Times, May 29, 2025

Once an idyllic  town on the coast of Southern California, Imperial Beach “is now the center of one of the nation’s worst environmental disasters,” writes Times reporter Soumya Karlamangla. “Every day, 50 million gallons of untreated sewage, industrial chemicals and trash flow from Tijuana, Mexico, into southern San Diego County. “ More than 1,100 Navy recruits have experienced gastrointestinal illnesses training in area waters and almost half of the 40,p00 households have experienced health problems such as migraine headaches, rashes and shortness of breath. “It’s a public health ticking time bomb that isn’t being taken seriously,” said Paloma Aguirre, Imperial Beach’s mayor. “We need help.” In the 1990s, the United States built a plant on its side of the border to treat sewage from Tijuana carried by northbound ocean currents into San Diego beaches. Mexico built a sewage treatment plan in Tijuana. But explosive population growth has occurred since then in the city – 2.3 million people live there now – “spurred in part by American companies that built factories there for cheap labor,” according to Karlamangla. The treatment plants haven’t been able to keep up. “My biggest concern as mayor is that the reputation as ‘the toilet of Mexico” starts to kick in at some point and really hurts us,” said John Duncan, mayor of the wealthy enclave of Coronado, also hit by the flow of sewage. Sewage also flows northward in the Tijuana River, emptying into Imperial Beach. In recent years the river has become essentially an open sewer running through southern San Diego neighborhoods and near schools. Expansion of the sewage treatment plants on both sides of the border is in the works but the work is expected to take a number of years. In Imperial Beach, “the surfers who once prepared for big wave competitions are gone,” says Karlamangla. “So are the tourists who built intricate sand castles and licked ice cream cones on the pier.” 

Posting out of chronological order.

“Haiti Engages a Private Army to Fight Gangs,” New York Times, May 29, 2025

Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater Worldwide and a prominent supporter of President Trump, has signed a contract with the government of Haiti to conduct lethal operations against the gangs terrorizing the country.  The agreement with contractors including Prince includes deploying drones to kill gang members. Prince, whose sister Betsy Devos was Education Secretary during the first Trump administration, “has also been scouting Haitian American military veterans to hire to send to Port-au-Prince and is expected to send up to 150 mercenaries to Haiti over the summer,” reported David C. Adams, Frances Robles and Mark Mazzetti of the Times. “He recently shipped a large cache of weapons to the country, two experts said.” Drone attacks targeting gang members have killed more than 200 people since they began in March, said Pierre Esperance, who runs a human rights organization in Port-au-Prince, the capital. Blackwater, which ran into legal problems operating in places like Iraq, no longer exists. However, Prince owns other private military entities. The Times said in 2020 he recruited former spies to help conservative activists infiltrate liberal groups in the U.S.  After the U.S. ended its occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, entities like Blackwater took a big revenue hit and are looking for new opportunities in places like Latin America. “It’s always worth noting where Prince is going, because it’s sort of a barometer of where he thinks Trump world might end up, and he wants to make a buck from it,” said Sean McFate, a professor at the National Defense University. Because of widespread gang violence, a million people in Haiti are homeless. Port-au-Prince is at risk of falling under gang control. The Times reporters said “the situation is dire enough that officials and civilians alike say they are eager for any overseas help, particularly after a $600 million international police mission started by the Biden administration and largely staffed by Kenyan police officers failed to receive adequate international personnel and money.” Rod Joseph, a Haitian-American U.S. Army veteran who owns a Florida company that trains security officers, expressed concern that hiring private contractors to fight gangs won’t do anything to improve the skills of the Haitian police and military. 

“Supreme Court Allows Trump Administration to End Temporary Protections for Some Migrants,” Wall Street Journal, May 30, 2025

 

An estimated 532,000 immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela are facing deportation under a ruling handed down May 30 by the U.S. Supreme Court. The unsigned order stops a lower court injunction that prevented the administration from ending temporary protections for the immigrants under a parole program while a case on the issue proceeds. The Biden administration had granted temporary parole to large numbers of immigrants from the four countries who met certain criteria. Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor dissented publicly from the high court ruling. Jackson said the consequences of revoking the protections “would be sharply disruptive to the people affected,” wrote Journal reporter Mariah Timms. “She said such disruption argued in favor of maintaining the status quo until the underlying legal issue was fully resolved.” Instead, Jackson wrote, “the Court allows the Government to do what it wants to do regardless, rendering constraints of law irrelevant and unleashing devastation in the process.” Lawyers arguing for the injunction said that revocations could be considered case by case. Otherwise the lives of hundreds of thousands of people would be upended, causing “widespread social and economic disruption to employers and communities across the country in one fell swoop,” the lawyers said. In a separate case earlier this month involving a group of Venezuelans living in the U.S., the Supreme Court also allowed the Trump administration to move ahead with ending another type of temporary protection from deportation pending a court challenge. 

“Ex-Convict and Cartel Lawyers Vie for the Judiciary in Mexico,” New York Times, May 30, 2025

More than 7,000 candidates are expected to vie for 2,681 judicial posts June 1 as Mexico switches to a popularly elected judiciary from the current system based on appointments. While supporters say the new system will counter nepotism and corruption, critics fear it will erode the judiciary and expand the power of the ruling Morena party. There’s also concern about cartels. “Criminal groups have already infiltrated local governments, security forces and large sectors of the economy in Mexico,” reported Paulina Villegas and Emiliano Rodríguez Mega of the Times. “That candidates with criminal ties will appear on the ballot has fueled further fears that organized crime has found ways of ‘ensuring that its tentacles will reach into the judicial system,’ said  Amrit Singh, a Stanford Law School professor. ‘It’s very easy to imagine a situation where organized crime would get to influence the elections, directly or indirectly, and the votes that a judge receives.’” It’s unclear how well screened the candidates are. The new system requires a candidate to have a law degree, some professional experience and a clean criminal record. Election committees assembled by each branch of the government identify the most qualified candidates. But some tainted candidates have slipped through. The leaders of the Mexican Congress have asked electoral authorities to exclude 18 candidates for failing to meet the requirement to have a good reputation. Four of the candidates have been investigated for sexual abuse or organized crime activities. Two others were lawyers for cartels. One spent more than five years in a U.S. prison for trying to smuggle methamphetamine. Another was involved in a scandal in which journalists were shot and killed. “The problem lies not in the facts that we know about these problematic candidates,” said Alberto Zinser, a leading criminal defense lawyer. “It is what we don’t know about the thousands of candidates we will be voting for.” The Guardian noted in a  May 30 story (“A Blind Date With Democracy”) that “unlike in other elections, parties cannot support candidates, nor can candidates openly profess a partisan affiliation.” It added that “radio and TV spots are also banned, meaning largely unknown candidates are limited to handing out flyers and posting on social media.”

“Migrant Boat Capsize Kills Seven in Spain’s Canary Islands,” Agence France-Presse, May 28, 2025

 

Four women and three girls died when their migrant boat capsized just before reaching Spain’s Canary Islands May 28. A Red Cross spokesman said there could be more than 100 people on the boat but was unable to provide a figure for the number of missing. Rescuers were using a helicopter to try to save people. “Public broadcaster  RTVE aired footage of rescuers throwing lifebuoys to people clinging onto an overturned boat and treading water” off the Island of El Hierro, the wire service said. “Spain takes in each year tens of thousands of Europe-bound migrants who arrive in the Canary Islands from west Africa – with Mali, Senegal and Morocco the most common nationalities,” it said. “Strong ocean currents and ramshackle vessels make the long crossing dangerous.” At least 10,457 migrants died or disappeared trying to reach Spain by sea between Jan. 1 and Dec. 5, 2024, said the non-governmental organization Caminando Fronteras. Almost 47,000 “irregular arrivals” reached the Canary Islands in 2024. This year the figure for Jan. 1 through May 15 fell 34 percent compared to the same period in 2024. Local authorities repeatedly warn that they lack the resources to cope with the influx of migrants but don’t get enough help from the rest of Spain. “Once again we witness the harshest face of immigration which those far away fail to appreciate in its true measure,” said Fernando Clavijo, Canary Islands’ regional leader. “Please listen to us!”

“What to Know About the Deportees the U.S. is Trying to Send to South Sudan,” New York Times, May 27, 2025

 

Trump administration officials appear willing to risk conflict with several judges in order to put deportees in unusually dangerous circumstances in countries other than their own -- the better to frighten other undocumented immigrants from coming into the United States and to scare those already here into self-deporting.

U.S. law does allow some people to be sent to countries other than their own, but this has been done rarely. But Mattathias Schwartz, Abdi Latif Dahir and Amanda Taub of the Times reported that the Trump administration “is attempting to do something more expansive: potentially sending large groups of people to dangerous places like South Sudan, Libya or a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, with little or no due process, even if their countries of origin are willing to take them back.” The latest example is the administration’s deportation of eight men it aims to send to South Sudan despite the ruling of a federal judge that they be given at least 15 days notice before being sent to a country other than their birth country and the chance to tell a court whether they feared torture or persecution at their destination. The men were flown by the Department of Homeland Security to Djibouti on their way to South Sudan, an unstable country on the brink of civil war.  The judge, Brian E. Murphy of the Federal District Court in Boston, said “the department’s actions in this case are unquestionably violative of this court’s order.” He said Trump officials responsible for the deportations could face criminal sanctions. The deportees are being held in Djibouti because Murphy ordered the administration not to take them on to South Sudan. Federal law bars sending deportees to countries where  they could be tortured or their lives threatened. The deported men now in Djibouti come from countries including Vietnam, Cuba and Mexico. A New York Times review of court records found that the eight men have been convicted of violent crimes. Their “criminal backgrounds are in stark contrast to the backgrounds of more than 100 Venezuelans who were deported to El Salvador” the Times reporters said. Most of those men, sent to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador, had little or no criminal records in the U.S. or elsewhere. Among the men now in Djibouti is a Laotian who shot and killed a German tourist in 1994. The daughter of the tourist, upon learning the Laotian man could be sent to South Sudan, said the eight men “are all criminals convicted of heinous crimes.” But that did not excuse violating their right to due process, she said. “If we consent to ignore the fundamental rights of some people, then who is to say these rights will apply to us and who decides when and for whom rights apply?” 

“Venezuela’s Government Claims Win in Vote Boycotted by Opposition Leader,” New York Times, May 27, 2025

 

Venezuela’s electoral council declared late May 25 that the party of Nicolás Maduro, the country’s authoritarian president, won an overwhelming victory in regional and legislative elections.  Because Maduro falsified presidential election results last year to stay in office, leading opposition figure María Corina Machado called for people to abstain from voting in the latest elections. “No independent vote monitors were present and critics called the election a performance designed to rubber-stamp a government approved by Mr. Maduro,” said Times reporter Julie Turkewitz. She described streets in major cities as “eerily quiet” on election day. Unlike in elections before 2024, results were not posted online. Parties aligned with Maduro won more than 80 percent of the votes cast for legislative seats. Previously, four states had governors not aligned with Maduro but after the elections only the state of Cojedes in central Venezuela has such a governor.   Among the positions lost by the opposition was that of the governor of Zulia, the most populous state and the center of Venezuela’s oil wealth. 

“Judge Orders Trump Officials to Seek Return of Guatemalan Man to U.S.,” New York Times, May 24, 2025

 

A federal judge ordered the Trump administration May 23 to facilitate the return of a Guatemalan man it had deported to Mexico even though he said he had been raped there and expressed fear he would be persecuted on his return to the country. Now in hiding in Guatemala, the man, known as O.C.G,. is gay. He said in a sworn declaration that he is living in “constant panic and fear.” He said “I can’t be gay here, which means I can’t be myself.” The judge in the case, Brian E. Murphy of the U.S. District Court in Boston, said O.C.G. was likely to “succeed in showing that his removal lacked any semblance of due process.” Times reporter Mattathias Schwartz said “the decision added another flashpoint to the high-stakes battle over President Trump’s deportation policies.” Schwartz  said “a string of judges has faulted the administration for a lack of adequate due process or otherwise carrying out deportations in a way that exceeds the president’s authority.” For their part, Trump and his aides “have questioned the authority of the courts to hear such cases and even called for the impeachment of judges who rule against them.” 

“Global Red Alert: Forest Loss Hits Record High – and Latin America Is the Heart of the Inferno,” The Guardian, May 23, 2025

 

Global forest loss reached new highs in 2024,  with forest loss in Boliva and across Latin America a major part of the worldwide trend, according to new data released by Global Forest Watch, a part of the World Resources Institute. Global forest loss in 2024 almost doubled that of the year before, with the area lost larger than the size of Ireland. For the first time, fire was the leading cause of the loss of tropical primary forest. “Wildfires engulfed vast swathes of South America last year, devastating ecosystems, closing schools and grounding flights,” wrote Benjamin Swift of The Guardian. “With its worst fire season on record, Bolivia was especially hard hit.”  It is now viewed as a major driver of the global climate crisis. Various factors made it easy for fires to spread out of control. The climate crisis plus El Niño weather patterns fueled drought. Weak governance of the environment contributed to the problem. Many people were left to battle fires with little more than small shovels and water bottles, said Swift. Following drought and forest loss from fires, record-setting rainfall in Bolivia flooded towns and destroyed crops. Brazil has lost the most tropical primary forest of any country. Primary forest loss in the Amazon biome more than doubled, because of fire and agricultural expansion. Nicaragua lost nearly five percent of its primary forest in 2024. Elizabeth Goldman of Global Forest Watch said the data in the report is “a global red alert.” Peter Potapov of the University of Maryland said “if this trend continues, it could permanently transform critical natural areas  and unleash large amounts of carbon – intensifying climate change and fuelling even more extreme fires.” 

 

Posting out of chronological order. 

 

“Bukele’s Crackdown Pushes Top Salvadoran Journalists to Flee,” Washington Post, May 18, 2025

 

Emboldened by his close ties to U.S. President Donald Trump, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele appears to be escalating his authoritarian ways, observers say. El Faro, the nation’s leading independent investigative news outlet, fears that seven of its journalists are  about to be hit with arrest warrants. They have all now fled the country. His threats against El Faro (Spanish for “lighthouse”)  show that Bukele is no longer trying to be discreet in his attacks on the press, said Juan Pappier of Human Rights Watch. “The main investigative journalism outlet is telling you they cannot have journalists in the country. It is a game changer.” El Faro appears more vulnerable than ever following its publication of convincing evidence that Bukele’s rise to political power went hand in hand with criminal organizations, said Post reporter Samantha Schmidt. Gang leaders told El Faro on camera that Bukele’s political party paid gangs a quarter of a million dollars in his 2014 mayoral race to get him votes in the areas they controlled. And when Bukele became president, the leaders said the gangs helped him by improving homicide figures, partly by hiding the bodies of their victims. El Faro had reported such stories before but never coming from gang leaders on camera. Bukele has begun publicly attacking the journalists. Overwhelmingly popular because the public feels much safer following his massive crackdown on gangs, Bukele boasts that he is the world’s coolest dictator. But his approach to improving public safety has trampled due process and other rights, Schmidt writes. “Bukele has changed the constitution to control the presidency beyond the single term it allowed, consolidated power in the executive branch, and dismantled democratic institutions to create a de facto one-party state,” she adds. When the heads of bus companies this month refused an order by Bukele to offer the public free rides for one week, he ordered the arrest of several, and one died in state custody. When hundreds of people gathered outside of Bukele’s house to protest an eviction order, he accused non-governmental organization of manipulating them and proposed a 30 percent tax on donations to the organizations in order to silence them. El Faro is among the only ones left to counter the narrative of the dictatorship, says its founder Carlos Dada. But it has moved its operations to Costa Rica and three of its journalists recently traveled to Guatemala for safety. Charges against them could include apology for crimes and illicit association, El Faro said.   “Interviewing a gang member doesn’t make me a criminal,” said Victor Peña, one of the El Faro journalists. “Just like interviewing the pope doesn’t make me a saint, and interviewing a corrupt politician doesn’t make me corrupt. But our job is to do those interviews.” A Bukele official said journalists in El Salvador “can say whatever they want, including lies. Here no one is in danger, except people who commit crimes. If any person, journalist or otherwise, commits a crime in El Salvador…they need to pay the consequences.”

“Mexico Mourns Two Navy Cadets Killed When Ship Crashed Into Brooklyn Bridge,” The Guardian, May 20, 2025

 

An investigation of the May 17 crash of a Mexican sailing ship into the Brooklyn Bridge is ongoing and could take up to a year, reported Guardian correspondents Michael Sainato and Marina Dunbar.  Mexico is grieving the deaths in the crash of two Mexican navy cadets, they said. Twenty-two other crew members were injured, three of them critically. The body of 20-year-old América Sanchez was scheduled to be transferred May 19 to the naval academy in her home state of Veracruz. “She was a warrior, a soldier who didn’t give up, who always fought for her goals,” said her mother, Rocío Hernández. Twenty-three-year-old Adal Jair Maldonado Marcos, from the coastal town of San Mateo del Mar in Oaxaca had dreamt of following in his father’s footsteps and becoming a sailor. New York police said the sailing ship, the Cuauhtémoc, had lost power and was dragged into the Brooklyn Bridge by the current. It reportedly had a local harbor pilot familiar with the water conditions there guiding the ship, along with an area docking pilot. The ship was on a training cruise scheduled to visit 15 countries. 

“Supreme Court Ruling on TPS Stuns South Florida, Leaves Venezuelan Families in Fear,” Miami Herald, May 20, 2025

 

A May 19 Supreme Court ruling grants an emergency request from the White House to override a lower court ruling continuing temporary protected status (TPS) for about 350,000 Venezuelans. “Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans could now be at risk of being sent back to a homeland deep in the throes of political repression and economic collapse,” the Miami Herald reported. “Many TPS holders came to the U.S. to flee life-threatening dangers in Venezuela, including government prosecution.” An estimated 225,000 TPS holders living in Florida are Venezuelans. The Trump administration in moving to end protection for Venezuelans from deportation under the TPS program said that Venezuela had seen notable improvements in its economy, public health and crime. But Betsy Diaz, a Venezuelan-American in Hialeah, Florida, noted that a recent U.S. State Department advisory warned Americans not to travel in the country because of a high risk of wrongful detention, torture, terrorism and kidnapping, in addition to crime, civil unrest and a poor health infrastructure. Diaz has two daughters, five grandchildren and several other relatives who will lose TPS protection. The ruling sent shock waves throughout the Miami area and across Florida, the Herald said. “That the U.S. would terminate protections for Venezuelans now, when nothing has improved back home, is just unbelievable,” Diaz said. The loss of TPS protection is generating fear of family separations and the loss of jobs. Another 300,000 Venezuelans have protection under a separate 2021 designation but it’s set to end in September. The Herald said the Trump administration hasn’t officially ended that protection but is almost certain to do so in the coming year. The Supreme Court said deportations can occur even though courts could ultimately uphold TPS for Venezuela. Even if that happens it won’t make much difference for those deported because the Supreme Court lifted the lower court judge’s order continuing temporary protected status, community leaders said. 

“Supreme Court Issues New Halt on Trump Deportations Under Wartime Law,” Wall Street Journal, May 16, 2025

 

The Supreme Court for a second time barred the Trump administration from using an 18^thcentury wartime law to remove a group of Venezuelan migrants that government authorities claimed belong to a transnational gang. “While the court usually says little when ruling on emergency matters, Friday’s unsigned opinion made clear the justices' growing frustration with White House efforts to expedite deportations by bypassing migrants’ constitutional rights to a hearing before they can be removed,” wrote Journal reporter Jess Bravin. The unsigned opinion, opposed by justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, took note of the government’s resistance to a Supreme Court order to facilitate the return from an El Salvadoran prison of a migrant mistakenly sent there, Kilmar Abrego Garcia. “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 the detainees face indefinite detention,” the opinion said. Because the Venezuelan detainees face a similar fate, their “interests at stake are accordingly particularly weighty.” In April, the justices blocked the removals temporarily so lower courts could consider the arguments of the migrants that Trump improperly used the Alien Enemies Act to conduct deportations. The high court said May 16 that the efforts of the Trump administration to give detainees notice of pending deportations – a notice 24 hours before their removal with no information on their legal right to seek court review – “surely does not pass muster.” A New York Times account of the ruling noted that the justices sent the case back to a federal appeals court to examine the claim by the migrants that they could not be deported under the Alien Enemies Act, which affords little or no due process rights. The Times report said justices directed that the appeals court examine what kind of notice the government should be required to provide to allow migrants a chance to challenge their deportations. The high court said its order blocking deportations would remain in place until the appeals court ruled and the Supreme Court considered any appeal from that ruling, the Times said. 

“Venezuelans Deported by Trump Are Victims of ‘Torture’, Lawyers Allege,” Agence France-Press in The Guardian, May 16, 2025

 

Lawyers for the 252 Venezuelans deported by the Trump administration and imprisoned in El Salvador say the migrants are victims of physical and emotional torture.  A law firm hired by the Venezuelan government said it has been unable to visit the migrants in the mega-prison where they are confined. The Venezuelan lawyers said they asked for permission to interview the migrants either personally or virtually to seek “proof of life.” They also asked Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, to provide a list of the names of the 252 Venezuelans but were met with silence. The U.S. government hasn’t provided such a list either. United States judges have ordered the Trump administration without success to “facilitate” the release of two migrants mistakenly sent to the El Salvador prison. One of the Venezuelan lawyers said not a single one of the 252 migrants is being prosecuted for membership in the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, which Trump cited as the reason for their expulsion. The human rights chief at the United Nations, Volker Türk, said “families we have spoken to have expressed a sense of complete powerlessness in the face of what has happened and their pain at seeing their relatives labelled and handled as violent criminals, even terrorists, without any court judgment as to the validity of what is claimed against them.” 

“How Driving Lessons Are Helping Ohio’s Haitians: ‘Things Are Getting Better,’” The Guardian, May 13, 2025

 

Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are credited with ending labor shortages in the community and revitalizing its economy and tax base. But residents complain about vehicle accidents they say are caused by Haitians, many of whom came from rural areas with little driving experience. The Guardian’s Stephen Starr writes that “at one point last year, as many as 2,300 Haitians were thought to be driving without licenses in Springfield’s Clark County. The tragic death of an 11-year-old student whose school bus was hit by a Haitian man driving without a valid license in August 2023, played a major role in Haitians becoming a target for a national debate on immigration during last year’s presidential election campaign.” But significant efforts are underway to improve their driving skills, which in many cases they need to get to jobs in the community. Driving instructor Josue Pierre has been part of that, “calmly delivering guidance in Haitian Creole.” That helped them a lot when they failed the driving test and were sent to take abbreviated driver training online. John Whitacre, the owner of the driver’s education company that employs Pierre, said he was getting a lot of calls from Haitians asking if he offered courses in languages they understood. “Once we started looking into this, we found that there was nowhere in Ohio doing this,” he told The Guardian. “Almost 100 percent of the Haitian people [who have taken the driving lessons] come back and show us appreciation.” According to the Ohio state highway patrol, crashes in Springfield in the first four months of 2025 totaled 542, down from 598 in the same period in 2024. Aiding the effort was the installation of   ten driving simulators in six locations in Springfield,  including two at churches attended by Haitians. Also, the Ohio department of public safety added a Haitian creole translation of  the Ohio driver’s manual. An interactive Haitian creole version is also available online, along with Creole language versions of common Bureau of Motor Vehicles forms. But just as many Haitians are improving their skills to better adapt to the Springfield community, the Trump administration is ending legal visa programs such as humanitarian parole and temporary protected status. “Those on the latter program now find themselves being forced to leave the US by 3 August,” said Starr. 

“Pope Leo, Peru and Me,” Carlos Lozada, New York Times, May 10, 2025

 

Posting out of chronological order.

New York Times opinion columnist Carlas Lozada writes concerning the naming of Robert Prevost as the new pope of the Catholic church: “It  finally feels cool to be a Peruvian American former altar boy who went to Catholic high school and Catholic college. I knew someday my time would come.” The sense of kinship is strong. Both he and Leo had made the journey between Peru and the United States, but  in the opposite direction. “I was born in Lima but have spent most of my life in the United States; Leo was born in Chicago but spent most of his working life in Peru.”  As a journalist, Lozada wondered what the choice would mean for the divisions within the Catholic church, the moral leadership of the United States in the world, and for the legacy of Pope Francis. “But Leo’s status as a Peruvian [he obtained Peruvian citizenship] made me reach back. I thought of the faithful in Chiclayo, the coastal city in northern Peru where Prevost served as bishop, and the joy his old flock must feel at his ascent. I remembered the American priests, nuns and lay brothers in Lima who educated my sisters and me and, a generation earlier, my mother. ” And he recalled shouting at an open-air mass when Pope John Paul II visited Lima in 1985: ‘!Juan Pablo, amigo, el Perú esta contigo!’” Seeing Leo on the balcony as new pope “felt like an odd and unexpected validation for my straddling, my choices, my faith.” Leo “projects himself as Peruvian in a way,” said Lozada, quoting Times’ Rome bureau chief Jason Horowitz. “He very much sees himself as part of South America as much as North America.” Adds Lozada: “There are so many who feel the same way.” [I don’t pretend to the same depth of emotions as Lozada but will say that my own interest in Latin America reflects having been born in Caracas as the son of a United States Foreign Service officer and then having lived until the age of five in Argentina]. Lozada notes though that he’ll also watch the new pope as a skeptical journalist and as one who has had highs and lows in his relationship to the Catholic church. “And what can this believer and skeptic conclude so far? Only that if the new pope holds strong views on the plight and dignity of the world’s immigrants, as seems to be the case, these are convictions born not only of faith or compassion but also of experience, of knowing how it feels to adopt a new life and place as your own, to cross cultures and languages and territory, and to remain true to yourself even as your sense of self expands.” 

“Plotting a Comeback, Bolivia’s Ex-Leader Defies Arrest Warrant in Jungle Hideout,” The Guardian, May 8, 2025

 

Posting out of chronological order. 

Bolivia watchers are bracing for a presidential election showdown later this year that may pit the incumbent Luis Arce against the country’s fugitive former president, Evo Morales.   Destabilized by shortages of fuel and dollars, Bolivia is in a state of economic turmoil that has harmed the political prospects of both the 61-year-old Arce and the 65-year-old Morales, who has been hiding out in a coca-growing region 350 miles from the capital La Paz facing an arrest warrant based on the accusation that he fathered a child with a 15-year-old girl during his presidency in 2016. Morales, Bolivia’s first Indigenous president and its longest-serving leader, denies the charge and says it’s an attempt by the Arce government to destroy him politically and to even have him killed using imprisoned former police officers and military personnel. “Their sole task is to end Evo’s life,” he told the Guardian, referring to himself in the third person. “Former allies turned bitter rivals, the two may face each other in the August elections that will decide Bolivia’s next president – that is, if Morales manages to overturn the supreme court’s ruling that he has already exceeded the constitutional limit of one re-election,” reported Guardian correspondents Tiago Rogero and Tom Silverstone. The race, they said, will be shaped by a deep economic crisis including inflation that has “triggered long queues, road blockages and widespread protests.” Morales is hiding out in a radio station in the jungle, protected by hundreds of coca-growing supporters who brandish wooden spears and protective shields. The coca leaf is used legally as a digestive aid or treatment for altitude sickness but it’s also diverted for cocaine production. His supporters say they produce coca, not cocaine – “the green one, not the white one.” One said they’ll protect him until they “win the elections…because of everything this government is doing to us: there’s no gasoline, no dollars, nothing.” The economic decline started in the last years of Morales’ 2006-2019 administration after a decade of prosperity fueled by a natural gas boom that was followed by dwindling reserves. The economic model created by the left-wing Mas party founded by Morales and now led by Arce no longer works, said Fernanda Wanderley of the Universidad Católica Boliviana. “Everyone is always waiting for the next boom,” she said. Morales is planning to march soon in La Paz with his supporters in a bid to register his candidacy, despite the arrest warrant. Meanwhile, another challenger from within the Mas party has emerged – Andrónico Rodríguez, the 36-year-old president of the Bolivian senate. He’s been courted by both the supporters of Morales and Arce. “His decision to run could possibly revive party fortunes – but it could splinter it irrevocably,” said the Guardian story. 

“José ‘Pepe’ Mujica, Former Guerilla and Ex-President of Uruguay, Dies Aged 89,” The Guardian, May 13, 2025

 

José Mujica, who drew worldwide attention as president of Uruguay because of his simple lifestyle, progressive politics and guerilla past, has died at the age of 89 from metastatic esophageal cancer.  During his 2010-2015 presidency, Mujica “oversaw the transformation of his small South American nation into one of the world’s most socially liberal democracies,” the Guardian said. “He earned admiration at home and cult status abroad for legalizing marijuana and same-sex marriage, enacting the region’s first sweeping abortion rights law and establishing Uruguay as a leader in alternative energy.” Mujica “sparked global fascination by shunning the presidential palace to live in a tiny farmhouse and by donating most of his salary to charity.” As a leader during the 1960s of the guerrilla Tupamoros movement he co-founded, Mujica robbed from the rich to give to the poor. He escalated that into kidnappings, bombings, and assassinations. After his capture he spent all of the years of Uruguay’s 1973-1985 dictatorship in jail where he was tortured and kept for years in solitary confinement. Although badly weakened after cancer treatment, he reappeared in Uruguayan politics when he campaigned in the fall of 2024 for a left-wing coalition whose candidate Yamandú Orsi won the presidency.  “Life is a beautiful adventure and a miracle,” he said in a final interview. “We are too focused on wealth and not on happiness. We are focused only on doing things and – before you know it – life has passed you by.” 

“Detainees’ Families Sue Salvadoran Government,” New York Times, May 12, 2025

 

More than a dozen families are suing the government of El Salvador to win the release of their loved ones from the country’s notorious maximum-security prison known as CECOT -- Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo.  Filed on behalf of 18 Venezuelan nationals, the lawsuit requests that the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights order the government of El Salvador to release the 18 migrants, who were among the 288 or so deported by the U.S. government to CECOT in March. The exact number isn’t known because neither the U.S. nor Salvadoran governments has revealed their identities. The suit asks the government of Nayib Bukele to “facilitate their return either to the United States  or to another country where they would be safe,” writes Times reporter Emiliano Rodríguez Mega. The families of the imprisoned men haven’t received any news about them since  March. “They’ve all been deported without due process, excluded from any protection of the law and are in a situation of enforced disappearance,” said Isabel C. Roby of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, one of the groups that filed the suit. As part of the agreement to take the deported migrants, Bukele told U.S. officials “he wanted evidence that all the Venezuelan migrants were in fact members of the Tren de Aragua gang, a claim the Trump administration has used to justify the deportations,” said Rodríguez Mega. “But a Times investigation did not find any criminal record, or found only minor infractions, for most of the men.” Another lawyer filing the suit, Isabella Mosselmans of the Global Strategic Litigation Council for Refugee Rights, said “neither the Trump administration nor the Bukele regime have demonstrated any case where an individual has been determined by a court to be a member of a gang.” Even if the commission rules in favor of the plaintiffs, Salvadoran lawyers cautioned that it could be hard to pressure Bukele to do anything. “The Bukele regime couldn’t care less,” said one of the lawyers. “El Salvador is going to release these people only and exclusively if the United States authorizes it to do so.” 

Leo First Pope from Peru -- As Well  As From U.S. --Reprint from May 9, 2025 issue of Heather Cox Richardson's Letter From an American

[The following is a reprint of most of the free version. It covers the new pope's ties to Latin America and his views on what Catholicism teaches about the humanity of immigrants.]

Today, on the second day of the papal conclave, the cardinal electors—133 members of the College of Cardinals who were under the age of 80 when Pope Francis died on April 21—elected a new pope. They chose 69-year-old Cardinal Robert Prevost, who was born in Chicago, thus making him the first pope chosen from the United States. But he spent much of his ministry in Peru and became a citizen of Peru in 2015, making him the first pope from Peru, as well.

New popes choose a papal name to signify the direction of their papacy, and Prevost has chosen to be known as Pope Leo XIV. This is an important nod to Pope Leo XIII, who led the church from 1878 to 1903 and was the father of modern Catholic social teaching. He called for the church to address social and economic issues, and emphasized the dignity of individuals, the common good, community, and taking care of marginalized individuals.

In the midst of the Gilded Age, Leo XIII defended the rights of workers and said that the church had not just the duty to speak about justice and fairness, but also the responsibility to make sure that such equities were accomplished. In his famous 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, translated as “Of New Things,” Leo XIII rejected both socialism and unregulated capitalism, and called for the state to protect the rights of individuals.

Prevost’s choice of the name Leo invokes the principles of both Leo XIII and his predecessor, Pope Francis. In his own lifetime he has aligned himself with many of Francis’s social reforms, and his election appears to be a rejection of hard-line right-wing Catholics in the U.S. and elsewhere who have used their religion to support far-right politics.

In the U.S., Vice-President J.D. Vance is one of those hard-line right-wing Catholics. Shortly after taking office in January, Vance began to talk of the concept of ordo amoris, or “order of love,” articulated by Catholic St. Augustine, claiming it justified the MAGA emphasis on family and tribalism and suggesting it justified the mass expulsion of migrants.

Vance told Sean Hannity of the Fox News Channel, “[Y]ou love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then, after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that.” When right-wing influencer Jack Posobiec, who is Catholic, posted Vance’s interview approvingly, Vance added: “Just google ‘ordo amoris.’ Aside from that, the idea that there isn’t a hierarchy of obligations violates basic common sense.”

On February 10, Pope Francis responded in a letter to American bishops. He corrected Vance’s assertion as a false interpretation of Catholic theology. “Christians know very well that it is only by affirming the infinite dignity of all that our own identity as persons and as communities reaches its maturity,” he wrote. “Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups…. The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by…meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.”

“[W]orrying about personal, community or national identity, apart from these considerations, easily introduces an ideological criterion that distorts social life and imposes the will of the strongest as the criterion of truth,” Pope Francis wrote. He acknowledged “the right of a nation to defend itself and keep communities safe from those who have committed violent or serious crimes while in the country or prior to arrival,” but defended the fundamental dignity of every human being and the fundamental rights of migrants, noting that the “rightly formed conscience” would disagree with any program that “identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality.” He continued: “I exhort all the faithful of the Catholic Church, and all men and women of good will, not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters.”

The next day, Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, who said he was “a lifelong Catholic,” told reporters at the White House, “I’ve got harsh words for the Pope…. He ought to fix the Catholic Church and concentrate on his work and leave border enforcement to us.”

Cardinal Prevost was close to Pope Francis, and during this controversy he posted on X after Vance’s assertion but before Pope Francis’s answer: “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.” After the pope published his letter, Prevost reposted it with the comment: “Pope Francis’ letter, JD Vance’s ‘ordo amoris’ and what the Gospel asks of all of us on immigration.”

On April 14, Prevost reposted: “As Trump & [Salvadoran president Nayib] Bukele use Oval to [laugh at] Feds’ illicit deportation of a US resident [Kilmar Abrego Garcia], once an undoc[ument]ed Salvadorean himself, [Bishop Evelio Menjivar] asks, ‘Do you not see the suffering? Is your conscience not disturbed? How can you stay quiet?’”

The new Pope Leo XIV greeted the world today in Italian and Spanish as he thanked Pope Francis and the other cardinals, and called for the church to “be a missionary Church, building bridges, dialogue, always open to receiving with open arms for everyone…, open to all, to all who need our charity, our presence, dialogue, love…, especially to those who are suffering."

“Judge Wants More Facts on Migrant’s Removal,” New York Times, May 9, 2025

A federal judge May 7 put off a ruling at a hearing on a request by the American Civil Liberties Union that he order the return of 137 Venezuelan migrants deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador.  ACLU said the men had been unlawfully deported because they weren’t given due process rights to contest their removal before it occurred. The judge, James E. Boasberg of the Federal District Court in Washington, expressed skepticism about the contention by the Trump administration that the power to return the men was solely that of the government of El Salvador. Boasberg asked a Justice Department attorney about a statement by President Trump on ABC News that he could tell El Salvador to return a wrongfully deported El Salvador man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who was also sent to the El Salvador prison, but that he didn’t want to. The Justice Department lawyer said Trump sometimes thinks he has more authority  than he actually has and that the decision about releasing the Venezuelan men was solely that of the government of El Salvador. At the end of the hearing Boasberg “said that lawyers for the Venezuelan men  had made a decent case that the Trump administration had a least some responsibility for how they had ended up in Salvadoran custody,” wrote Times reporter Alan Feuer. In putting off a ruling on the return of the men from El Salvador, Boasberg “said that he intended to order the government to disclose more information about its arrangements with El Salvador by having it answer written questions and hand over a series of documents,” said Feuer.  

“Plotting a Comeback, Bolivia’s Ex-Leader Defies Arrest Warrant in Jungle Hideout,” The Guardian, May 8, 2025

Bolivia watchers are bracing for a presidential election showdown later this year that may pit the incumbent Luis Arce against the country’s fugitive former president, Evo Morales.   Destabilized by shortages of fuel and dollars, Bolivia is in a state of economic turmoil that has harmed the political prospects of both the 61-year-old Arce and the 65-year-old Morales, who has been hiding out in a coca-growing region 350 miles from the capital La Paz facing an arrest warrant based on the accusation that he fathered a child with a 15-year-old girl during his presidency in 2016. Morales, Bolivia’s first Indigenous president and its longest-serving leader, denies the charge and says it’s an attempt by the Arce government to destroy him politically and to even have him killed using imprisoned former police officers and military personnel. “Their sole task is to end Evo’s life,” he told the Guardian, referring to himself in the third person. “Former allies turned bitter rivals, the two may face each other in the August elections that will decide Bolivia’s next president – that is, if Morales manages to overturn the supreme court’s ruling that he has already exceeded the constitutional limit of one re-election,” reported Guardian correspondents Tiago Rogero and Tom Silverstone. The race, they said, will be shaped by a deep economic crisis including inflation that has “triggered long queues, road blockages and widespread protests.” Morales is hiding out in a radio station in the jungle, protected by hundreds of coca-growing supporters who brandish wooden spears and protective shields. The coca leaf is used legally as a digestive aid or treatment for altitude sickness but it’s also diverted for cocaine production. His supporters say they produce coca, not cocaine – “the green one, not the white one.” One said they’ll protect him until they “win the elections…because of everything this government is doing to us: there’s no gasoline, no dollars, nothing.” The economic decline started in the last years of Morales’ 2006-2019 administration after a decade of prosperity fueled by a natural gas boom that was followed by dwindling reserves. The economic model created by the left-wing Mas party founded by Morales and now led by Arce no longer works, said Fernanda Wanderley of the Universidad Católica Boliviana. “Everyone is always waiting for the next boom,” she said. Morales is planning to march soon in La Paz with his supporters in a bid to register his candidacy, despite the arrest warrant. Meanwhile, another challenger from within the Mas party has emerged – Andrónico Rodríguez, the 36-year-old president of the Bolivian senate. He’s been courted by both the supporters of Morales and Arce. “His decision to run could possibly revive party fortunes – but it could splinter it irrevocably,” said the Guardian story. 

“Libya Flights for Migrants Flout Court, Judge Says,” New York Times, May 8, 2025

A federal judge said May 7 that deportations to Libya would violate the court order he issued in March requiring that that migrants  have at least 15 days to challenge their removal to places other than their countries of origin if they had reason to fear being sent there.  U.S. officials said May 6 they were planning to transfer migrants to Libya on a U.S. military plane. It was unclear May 7 whether the Trump administration would go ahead with the flight, said Times reporter Zolan Kanno Youngs. Human rights organizations say prison conditions in Libya would be brutal (see next story). 

 “US Planning to Deport Migrants to Libya Despite ‘Hellish’ Conditions – Reports,” The Guardian, May 7, 2025

Published reports say the Trump administration is planning to deport a group of migrants to Libya, despite a  US State Department assessment condemning prison conditions in the country as life-threatening. Libya’s provisional government has denied the reports. “Amnesty International called these places a ‘hellscape’ where beatings are common and sexual violence are rampant,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council. “There  are reports of human trafficking and even slavery.” Reichlin-Melnick said “don’t look away. This is what Libya’s migrant detention facilities look like. This is what Trump is doing.” Sarah Leah Witson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now, said “migrants have long been trafficked, tortured and ransomed in Libya. The country is in a civil war. This is not a safe place to send anyone.” Guardian reporters Lorenzo Tondo and Edward Helmore wrote that “Libya is a major transit point for Europe-bound asylum seekers. For years, human rights organisations have documented how migrants trapped in the country are at the mercy of militias and smugglers. Tens of thousands of people from sub-Saharan Africa are kept indefinitely in overcrowded refugee detention centres where they are subjected to abuses and torture.” The US State Department report released last year said migrants are subject to “arbitrary arrest or detention” and that migrants including children “had no access to immigration courts or due process.”  Mirka Schäfer of the German organisation SOS Humanity said “Evidence from survivors on board our vessel Humanity 1, includes refugees with traces of torture on their bodies, gunshot wounds, pain caused by beatings, physical and psychological wounds while in transit, in detention camps in Libya, or fleeing Libya across the Mediterranean.” Luca Casarini of Mediterranea Saving Humans said the reported move by Trump was “an endorsement of the horror that has characterised his administration’s policies from the very beginning. Libya is one of the most hellish places on Earth, where mafias and smugglers operate with the complicity of the European Union.” Libya’s government said it has not accepted the use of its country as a destination for deporting migrants without their knowledge or consent. It said there was no coordination with the US government about receiving migrants. The Guardian quoted U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio as saying at a cabinet meeting, “We are working with other countries to say: we want to send you some of the most despicable human beings; will you do this as a favour to us? And the further away from America, the better.” Reuters reported that three unnamed US officials said the deportation to Libya could come as soon as this week. The New York Times also cited a US official as confirming the deportation plans, according to the Guardian reporters. A fourth US official said the administration had been looking at a number of countries where it might send migrants, including Libya. “Reports of planned deportations to Libya come as the Trump administration is expanding its efforts to negotiate the deportation of US migrants to third-party countries, including Angola, Benin, Eswatini, Moldova and Rwanda,” the Guardian reporters said. At least 238 Venezuelans already have been deported to a prison in El Salvador. 

“How the Loss of U.S.A.I.D. Funding Threatens a Nation’s Fragile Peace,” New York Times, May 7, 2025

 

Support from the U.S. government for a landmark 2016 peace deal ending decades of bloodshed in Colombia has vanished under the Trump administration. The United States was “the agreement’s biggest foreign economic backer” said Times reporter Jorge Valencia. Its dismantling of foreign assistance including the U.S. Agency for International Development “has undercut a deal designed, in part, to curtail the flow of drugs to the United States,” he said. U.S.A.I.D. spent more since 2001 on Colombia than any other South American nation, about $3.9 billion. The money helped Colombian officials fulfill the agreement while also giving farmers alternatives to cultivating coca leaves. Said Valencia: “In small towns and rural areas of Colombia where armed groups are still active, U.S.A.I.D. projects had been vital to helping maintain stability, according to interviews with 14 current or former agency employees or contractors based in  Colombia.” The agency also helped fund services in Colombia for 2.8 million Venezuelan migrants, a number that made it the nation in the world that received the largest number of people fleeing the political and economic crisis in Venezuela. U.S.A.I.D. and U.S. State Department money also helped fund a court viewed as central to helping Colombia cement a lasting peace after decades of civil war. The ”Special Jurisdiction for Peace” tries crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during the conflict, which left at least 450,000 people dead. The loss of funds will slow down the work of the court. U.S.A.I.D. money also helped Colombia map millions of acres in contested territories, an aid to peace. The mapping project also helped 230 families obtain titles to land in return for agreeing to stop farming coca leaves. The fighting in Colombia goes back for generations, reflecting frustrations over inequality and land distribution. Valencia said “it morphed into complex battle among leftist guerillas, right-wing paramilitaries, drug cartels and the government fueled by drug money and other illicit business.” New armed groups have gained strength and the International Red Cross said Colombia faces eight separate armed conflicts and is facing a humanitarian situation that has reached its most critical point since the signing of the peace deal. 

‘”Blocked from U.S., Migrants Face Challenge of Getting Home,” New York Times, May 5, 2025

There are at least 3,000 Venezuelans stranded in the city of Tapachula near the southernmost point of Mexico, once an entry point for U.S.-bound migrants entering from Guatemala. “Now, the movement is in reverse,” writes Times reporter Paulina Villegas. “One by one, people board buses, retrace their steps by foot, or float back across the Suchate River – back to Guatemala and their native countries.” They are part of a growing wave of people who, facing President Trump’s crackdown on the entry of undocumented migrants, are making the painful choice of returning to countries they fled to get away from violence, poverty, and the damage of climate change. The stranded Venezuelans are barred from leaving Tapachula under restrictions adopted because of pressure from the Biden and Trump administrations. And “they cannot easily get back to Venezuela, either,” says Villegas. They face hunger and despair. An estimated 8,000 to 10,000 migrants are living in similar conditions across the Mexican state of Chiapas in which Tapachula is located. Most are from Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti, people who hoped for a better life in the United States. The Venezuelans face the biggest obstacles, with no travel documents and no resources. “Mexico is no longer just a transit country – we’re becoming a destination,” said Eduardo Castillejos, a state official. “We need to adapt to that reality.” Mexico is making it harder for migrants to travel north because it’s trying to keep at bay tariffs threatened by Trump. Venezuelans willing to leave Mexico in many cases do not have valid passports, travel documents or identity documents. They wait hoping to get picked for a humanitarian flight to take them back to Venezuela but there are now thousands of people on the waiting list for such flights, and the Venezuelan government has to approve their return. Keila Mendoza, who is stranded with her two children and does menial labor in a local convenience store, says sometimes she doesn’t make any money and can’t feed her sons. “I want to go home, but there’s nothing waiting for me,” she told the Times. “How do you start a life again from nothing?” Among the Venezuelans encountered by Villegas was a group of 30 or so who were waiting for a bus to go to Guatemala. They had  just enough money to make the trip possible and a desire to return home. “I’d rather go hungry in my country than in a foreign land,” said 33-year-old Deisy Morales, before getting on the bus.

“Mexico’s President Says She Rejected Trump’s Plan to Send US Troops Across the Border,” Associated Press, May 4, 2025

 

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said May 3 that she declined an offer from U.S. President Donald Trump to send American troops into Mexico to help it fight drug trafficking. Sheinbaum reportedly spoke to Trump in a tense phone call in which he pressured her to accept a greater U.S. military presence in Mexico to combat drug cartels in that country. “He said, ‘How can we help you fight drug trafficking?” Sheinbaum told supporters in eastern Mexico. “'I propose that the United States military come in and help you.’ And you know what I said to him? ‘No, President Trump.’” She added that “sovereignty is not for sale. Sovereignty is loved and defended.” An administration official said Trump “has been crystal clear that Mexico must do more to combat these gangs and cartels….” The U.S. Northern Command has moved troops and equipment to the border with Mexico and increased manned surveillance flights to monitor fentanyl trafficking, among other measures. Trump also has designated many gangs and cartels smuggling drugs into the U.S. as foreign terrorist organizations, thereby mobilizing more law enforcement resources against them. 

“Trump Asks Justices to Lift Protections for Venezuelans,” New York Times, May 2, 2025

 

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court May 1 to allow it to end protections for Venezuelans under the Temporary Protected Status program.  An administration decision in early February would have terminated the protections “for nearly 350,000 people in early April and for hundreds of thousands more later this year,” said Times reporter Adam Liptak. The termination order overturned an 18-month extension of T.P.S. protection given by the Biden administration.  But the administration order was blocked in March by Judge Edward M. Chen of the Federal District Court in San Francisco. Chen ruled that the plaintiffs showed they were likely to succeed in showing that the administration actions were “unauthorized by law, arbitrary and capricious, and motivated by unconstitutional animus.” Further, Chen said ending the protection  would irreparably harm “hundreds of thousands of persons whose lives, families and livelihoods will be severely disrupted, cost the United States billions in economic activity and injure public health and safety in communities throughout the United States.” A federal appeals court turned down an administration request to pause Chen’s order. The administration then filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court to end the protections, which under the law allow migrants from countries experiencing various forms of extraordinary instability to live and work in the U.S., temporarily protected from deportation. D. John Sauer, the solicitor general, argued in the administration’s emergency application that the TPS law barred judicial second-guessing of administration decisions.  But Chen said that provision didn’t prevent him from deciding whether Homeland Security Department Secretary Kristi Noem had authority to end the protections. Sauer said Chen “wrested control of the nation’s immigration policy away from the executive branch and imposed the court’s own perception as to whether the government’s actions might contradict U.S. foreign policy…” Sauer also said the district court “entered nationwide relief supplanting Secretary Noem’s assessment of the national interest – an area into which a district court is uniquely unqualified to intrude.” He urged prompt action by the Supreme Court.

 

“Texas Judge Rules Use of Alien Enemies Act for Deportees is Illegal,” New York Times, May 2, 2025

 

A federal judge appointed by President Trump permanently barred his administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport from the southern district of Texas Venezuelans it had deemed to be criminals. The May 1 ruling said the administration’s use of the statute was illegal. The decision by Fernando Rodriguez, Jr., “was the most expansive ruling yet by any of the numerous jurists who are currently hearing challenges to the White House’s efforts to employ the powerful but rarely invoked law as part of its wide-ranging deportation plans,” reported Alan Feuer, Mattathias Schwarz and Charlie Savage of the Times. The Supreme Court previously ruled that any Venezuelan the Trump administration wants to expel under the Act must first be given a chance to challenge their removal in court. The Rodriguez ruling went beyond that by saying the Act couldn’t be used in this context because it applies when there’s an attack by military forces against the United States, not to the activities of a street gang like the Venezuelan gang Tren de Arugua, of which those deported were alleged by the Trump administration to be members. A New York Times investigation found that very few of the 238 Venezuelans deported on the basis of membership in Tren de Arugua had clear ties to the gang (see April 17 story below).  The ruling only applies to the southern district of Texas, which includes cities like Houston, Brownsville and Laredo, but could influence other cases involving the use of the Act. Six of eight lawsuits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in other parts of the country challenging the use of the Act to deport alleged Tren de Arugua members have resulted in provisional orders stopping its use. ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said the Rodriguez decision “correctly recognized that the president cannot simply declare there’s an invasion and invoke a wartime authority during peacetime. As the court recognized, Congress never intended this law to be used in this manner.” The Trump administration has claimed that even judges do not have the power to intrude on presidential decisions in matters of foreign policy, such as use of the Alien Enemies Act. But Rodriguez said judges still have the power to determine whether a president is using the Act correctly. Though largely able to stop the administration from continuing to use the Act to deport alleged Tren de Arugua members, the ACLU “has not been a able to bring back to the United States the first batch of nearly 140 Venezuelans who were removed under the law to El Salvador on March 15,” the Times said. “Those men remain in the custody of jailers at a notorious prison known at the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT.” Last week the ACLU asked a federal judge to order the administration to return the men to U.S. soil so they could get the due process they would have gotten had they not been rushed out of the country. ACLU noted that the Supreme Court determined the administration must “facilitate” the return to the U.S. of a man deported to El Salvador the administration admitted was mistakenly deported, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia.