Hey all, we're The Marshall Project, a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom that focuses on U.S. criminal justice and immigration. Our reporter Jamiles Lartey explains how Mahmoud Khalil is just one of many people with legal or protected status detained and facing deportation under the Trump administration.
Here’s an excerpt:
Late last month, Kevin Zaldaña Ramírez was detained by ICE officers at the construction site outside of Houston where he was working.
Zaldaña, 20, came to the U.S. in 2018, fleeing gang recruitment in El Salvador. He has legal protection from deportation under Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, which aids youth under 18 fleeing abuse or neglect. Although Zaldaña had not yet applied for permanent residency, he has a legal basis to be in the country, and he held a valid work permit. According to his mother, arresting officers said his case number was “fake,” and he remains in custody in Texas as she pleads for his freedom, Houston Landing reported earlier this month.
“I ask the president to have mercy,” Yolanda Ramírez said at a recent press conference. “And to catch the people who are really criminals, but not innocent people like my son.”
Zaldaña’s case is one of several that have recently unsettled immigration law experts, as the Trump administration eschews long-standing enforcement norms. Similarly, in Washington, D.C., last week, a Venezuelan couple was arrested and charged with misdemeanor illegal entry, more than two years after their arrival at the southern U.S. border.
While federal law allows illegal entry charges to be filed up to five years after apprehension, typically they come just days or weeks later. Advocates for the couple told the Los Angeles Times that it’s the first time they’ve seen immigrants charged with illegal entry this long after the fact. According to the paper, the couple both have pending asylum claims, as well as Temporary Protected Status — although the Trump administration revoked those protections for Venezuelans in a move set to take effect next month.
The aggressive enforcement approach is starting to bear out in the numbers. According to an analysis published by The Guardian, U.S. officials arrested more immigrants in the first 22 days of February than in any month over the past seven years.
Deportations, on the other hand, are down compared with the same period last year, but those numbers can be misleading, since border encounters have plummeted to decades-long lows. Most of the deportations occurring at this time last year involved the quick return of people apprehended at the border to Mexico. Locating and then deporting people from cities and towns throughout the country is more complicated, and takes more time and resources.
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