Political Wire

Trump Issues New Orders Aimed at Birthright Citizenship

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“President Trump on Thursday signed two executive orders in his latest effort to refuse citizenship to some children born in the United States, after the Supreme Court struck down his earlier executive order aiming to end birthright citizenship,” CBS News reports.

Said Trump: “We had a very unfortunate decision in the Supreme Court concerning birthright, it was close. But a very, very unfortunate decision. So we’re making adjustments.”

Axios: Trump targets birth tourism and citizenship in new executive orders.

Trump Deportations Cost Taxpayers $2,358 Each

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“American taxpayers would pay about $2,358 each for President Trump’s mass deportation push, according to a new calculator tool from the Economic Policy Institute,” Axios reports.

“Why it matters: The estimate fuels debate over whether billions of federal dollars devoted to deportations could instead fund other public priorities such as food assistance, health care or housing.”

ICE Collected Nearly 1 Million People’s DNA Last Year

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“The vast majority of people in ICE custody have no criminal conviction, and residing in the U.S. undocumented is typically a civil, not criminal, offense,” Wired reports.

“Yet once the DNA profiles of detained people enter the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, law enforcement agencies across the country can compare them against evidence from unsolved crimes—and against crime-scene DNA collected years or even decades from now. The physical sample, which holds a person’s entire genome, sits in a federal laboratory indefinitely.”

How ICE Is Weaponizing Social Media Against Its Critics

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Wall Street Journal: “In recent months, ICE has deployed a round-the-clock digital dragnet to scour the public internet—from Facebook to Instagram to X—for speech that could endanger the agency’s mission. The government has paid millions to private contractors to surface everything from potential threats to agents to activities that could disrupt ICE’s operations.”

“The program has ensnared U.S. citizens and activist groups that alert community members about ICE activity. Contractors prepare daily reports and dossiers on threat actors, identifying the poster’s name, location, date of birth, workplace, Social Security number, vehicle registration and criminal history when possible.”

Trump Vents Public Has a ‘Two-Week Memory’

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“President Donald Trump lamented his second administration has done such a good job closing the Southern border and keeping illegal immigrants out that the American public has already forgot it was a big issue and moved on,” Mediaite reports.

“Trump told reporters inside the White House on Monday he would have been better off from a political standpoint stretching out his crackdown on illegal immigrants.”

He added that it would’ve been a shrewd political move, since the public often has a “two-week memory.”

Trump has always believed that if he can survive today’s headlines, yesterday’s disappear. Now he’s complaining about it.
Taegan

50,000 Cross Into Spanish Territory in Deadly Rush

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“Spain was scrambling Friday to contain a sudden border crisis after tens of thousands of people rushed into its North African territory, with dozens killed and political shock waves spreading across Europe,” NBC News reports.

“The dramatic events were ‘a violation of Spain’s territorial sovereignty,’ Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on a hurried visit to Ceuta, a tiny Mediterranean city at the tip of Africa that shares a border with Morocco.”

Bloomberg: Sanchez says Spain under “attack” after mass migration influx.

A ‘Zombie Court’ for Terror Cases Awakens

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New York Times: “There are good reasons that no earlier president had sought to use the court to deport accused terrorists, and they cut in opposite directions. One is that the court’s procedures, which allow the use of secret evidence that the defendant cannot see, are at odds with ordinary conceptions of due process.”

“Filing a case in the specialized court, then, gives the government great power but probably entails signing up for constitutional challenges akin to those over the military tribunals created after the Sept. 11 attacks, which gave rise to years of litigation.”

NPR: Alien Terrorist Removal Court to hold its first-ever hearing after 30 years.

Trump Considers $100K Fee On Foreign Graduates

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“The Trump administration is considering attaching a $100,000 price tag on international students’ ability to work in the U.S. after they graduate from an American university, according to people familiar with the matter, a move that would make it much less attractive for foreigners to study in the U.S,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“If enacted, the fee would significantly advance President Trump’s efforts to restrict nearly all forms of legal immigration. It would particularly harm universities, which rely on recruiting international students as a reliable source of revenue, as well as to top Silicon Valley and Wall Street firms, which disproportionately hire international college graduates to fill technical roles.”

Secretive Terrorist Removal Court Set for First Hearing

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“The Trump administration is testing a secretive, never-before-used deportation court for alleged alien terrorists with a case concerning the Afghan mother of a convicted terrorist, with the Justice Department accusing the Texas-based woman of having ISIS sympathies,” CNN reports.

“The Alien Terrorist Removal Court will have its first ever hearing Thursday at 11 a.m.ET, court documents made public Wednesday night revealed. The Justice Department is asking the court — which has lain dormant since it was created 30 years ago — to deport Nazira Haji Zada, whose son was convicted last year for an ISIS-aligned terrorist plot targeting the 2024 Election, according to the filings.”

ICE Arrests Surge at Airports

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“The Trump administration has begun arresting foreign citizens with expired U.S. visas as they travel through airports, including spouses of Americans — a tactic that opens up a vast new pool of people for deportation,” the New York Times reports.

“Immigration agents in plain clothes have whisked away targets at check-in counters and arrival gates, with enforcement actions in at least 15 airports in recent weeks.”

Trump Misses Deadline to Appeal Birthright Citizenship

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“President Donald Trump doesn’t appear to have followed through on his vow to launch a long-shot effort to convince the Supreme Court to reconsider its recent ruling on birthright citizenship,” NBC News reports.

“The 25-day window for filing a petition for the court to re-hear the case closed on Monday night, with the docket showing that nothing has been submitted.”

DeWine Warns Trump Deporting Haitians Is a ‘Big Mistake’

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“Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has a warning and a plea for President Donald Trump: Don’t deport the hundreds of thousands of Haitians who have been living in the U.S. sometimes for longer than a decade,” Bloomberg reports.

Said DeWine: “What good does it do to ship them out of the United States? And I think the answer is, ‘No, it does not do our country any good at all.'”

How Trump’s ‘Self-Deportation’ Machine Has Ramped Up

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“President Trump’s controversial ‘self-deportation’ program, which pays unauthorized immigrants to leave the U.S. is on pace to account for more than 200,000 departures,” Axios reports.

“Launched last year alongside a multimillion-dollar ad campaign, the initiative is virtually the only carrot in an aggressive immigration crackdown that has been long on sticks.”

Businesses Brace for Loss of Immigrant Workers

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“Around Washington, Salvadoran-born crews have helped renovate, rebuild and maintain the Capitol, the Pentagon and Arlington National Cemetery. In senior living facilities in Florida, Massachusetts and New York, Haitian caregivers assist aging Americans with daily activities,” the New York Times reports.

“These workers are among more than one million people who have been allowed to live and work in the United States under a decades-old humanitarian program, and who now face the prospect of deportation.”

Taegan Goddard

Taegan Goddard

Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.

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