“The Trump administration is planning to transport a group of immigrants to Libya on a U.S. military plane, another sharp escalation in a deportation program that has sparked widespread legal challenges and intense political debate,” the New York Times reports.

“The nationalities of the migrants were not immediately clear, but a flight to Libya carrying the deportees could leave as soon as Wednesday.”

“A federal judge on Tuesday refused to withdraw her order requiring the Trump administration to seek the return of a Venezuelan man deported to a notorious high-security prison in El Salvador in violation of a legal settlement,” Politico reports.

“Hackers have targeted GlobalX Air, one of the main airlines the Trump administration is using as part of its deportation efforts, and stolen what they say are flight records and passenger manifests of all of its flights, including those for deportation,” 404 Media reports.

“A newly declassified memo released on Monday confirms that U.S. intelligence agencies rejected a key claim President Trump put forth to justify invoking a wartime statute to summarily deport Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador,” the New York Times reports.

“The memo states that spy agencies do not believe that the administration of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, controls a criminal gang, Tren de Aragua. That determination contradicts what Mr. Trump asserted when he invoked the deportation law, the Alien Enemies Act.”

“American military forces have taken down some of the tents they hurriedly set up on an empty corner of the U.S. naval station at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, three months after President Trump ordered preparations to house up to 30,000 migrants at the base,” the New York Times reports.

“No migrants were ever held in the tents, and no migrant surge has ever occurred. On Monday, the operation was housing just 32 migrants, in buildings that were established years ago.”

“The Trump administration says it is going to pay immigrants in the United States illegally who’ve returned to their home country voluntarily $1,000 as it pushes forward with its mass deportation agenda,” the AP reports.

“Rwanda is in the early stages of talks to receive immigrants deported from the United States,” CNN reports.

“Rwanda has in recent years positioned itself as a destination country for migrants that Western countries would like to remove, despite concerns by rights groups that Kigali does not respect some of the most fundamental human rights.”

“President Donald Trump had a meltdown Saturday after a federal judge banned him from using a centuries-old wartime act to deport men without due process,” the Daily Beast reports.

Wrote Trump: “Can it be so that Judges aren’t allowing the USA to Deport Criminals, including Murderers, out of our Country and back to where they came from? If this is so, our Country, as we know it, is finished!”

“The president’s temper tantrum comes less than two days after U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr., whom Trump appointed during his first term, struck down his use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to expel hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador.”

“The White House border czar warned Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers over his guidance to state workers who encounter federal immigration officials on the job, suggesting the Democratic governor could face felony charges if the Trump administration believes its immigration efforts are impeded,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

“A six-day immigration sweep in Florida last week resulted in the arrest of 1,120 people across the state, an operation that state and federal officials described as the largest of its kind to date and a ‘warm up’ for future immigration enforcement operations,” the Miami Herald reports.

Said Gov. Ron DeSantis (R): “We believe this is just the beginning. The best is yet to come.”

“The Trump administration has been examining whether it can label some suspected cartel and gang members inside the US as ‘enemy combatants’ as a possible way to detain them more easily and limit their ability to challenge their imprisonment,” CNN reports.

“The ‘enemy combatant’ designation could also be applied to suspected narco-terrorists outside the US, the people said, as a way to potentially give the US a justification to conduct lethal strikes against them.”

A Trump-appointed judge ruled the Trump administration cannot remove migrants under the Alien Enemies Act, saying the administration’s invocation of that law in the context of Tren de Aragua was “unlawful” because there is no “declared war,” “invasion” or “predatory incursion.”

“The Trump administration has discussed with Libya and Rwanda the possibility of sending migrants who have criminal records and are in the United States to those two countries,” CNN reports.

“The proposals mark a dramatic escalation in the administration’s push to deter people journeying to the United States and remove some of those already here to countries thousands of miles away, some of which have checkered pasts…”

“In addition to sending migrants with criminal records, Trump officials are also hoping to enter formal negotiations with Libya to strike a so-called safe third country agreement, which would allow the US to send asylum seekers apprehended at the US border to Libya.”

At President Trump’s first rally since his inauguration, his team played a video “of Venezuelan migrants being deported to El Salvador, shackles and forced head-shavings and all,” Politico reports.

“And yes, the crowd went wild. It’s one thing being pleased that your government is deporting undocumented immigrants. This felt like something else entirely.”

A new CNN poll finds 52% of Americans say President Trump “has gone too far in deporting undocumented immigrants, up from 45% in February.”

“A similar 52% now say that Trump’s immigration policies have not made the US safer. And most, 57%, say that they do not believe the federal government is being careful in following the law while carrying out deportations.”

“Trump’s overall approval rating for handling immigration now stands at 45%, down from 51% in March.”