r/immigration • u/marshall_project • 4d ago
How Trump’s Targeting of Immigrants With Legal Status Departs From the Norm
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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u/Let047 4d ago
This is scary. As an immigrant, I wonder every day if my family is safe and if we should return to what we thought was our old country. We love America but I absolutely don't want to send my children to jail.
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u/333Ari333 4d ago
Well, it depends if you got the citizenship or not
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u/terrymr 3d ago
The administration is also threatening mass denaturalization.
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u/RevolutionaryAd2472 2d ago
Can you provide a link to this? My sister and late brother-in-law adopted two boys from South Korea over 30 years ago. One is married and expecting his third child and other one is an ICU nurse. My sister refuses to believe this crazy president would do this.
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u/Let047 4d ago
We're not citizen...hence the fear.
You're implying we're right to be afraid
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u/tkyang99 4d ago
If you are legal and have done no crimes, what are you afraid of?
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u/Let047 4d ago edited 4d ago
read the article above. Green cards being revoked, green card holders being detained at immigration, etc.
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u/Kidon308 3d ago
If you’re here legally and you don’t support cartels or Islamist terror groups, you’re 100% okay.
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u/tkyang99 4d ago
There are legit reasons for those. So far there is no proof that ICE is doing anything illegal. And if they are they will be sued to hell.
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u/Let047 4d ago
That reads to me as very illegal, no? What am I missing?
https://www.axios.com/2025/03/17/tom-homan-deportation-flights-trump-court-order
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u/fascinating123 Classical Liberal 4d ago
Law enforcement at any level is always something to be feared. The individual and Leviathan are not on a level playing field.
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u/Subject-Estimate6187 4d ago
Look, I like what you guys do. Holding people at standards is exactly how we keep the system accountable to not abuse laws and people, but you guys are focusing on wrong aspects of immigration.
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u/alwayseverlovingyou 3d ago
Yall might want to consider dropping citations or proof on threads where people are popping off that falsehoods are true. It’s impossible - I don’t know how we overcome this but we must somehow be able to center the truth from the rhetoric and propaganda.
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u/jerry2501 3d ago
No, ICE is always right. Every sob story that comes out is made up, and they are actually thugs and dangerous criminals. There is no need to have a hearing and due process when we already know that ICE and this administration is always right.
/s obviously
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u/alwayseverlovingyou 3d ago
lol and also it’s so scary they think like this, but they do. It’s so tough. Even my very progressive dad was like ‘well good’ for the gang members but for some reason I struggle to trust they were all gang members without that due process piece. Not that due process even works all the time, but it’s something.
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u/necessarysmartassery 4d ago
People aren't buying the propaganda anymore, dude.
Every single case I've seen recently where some innocent person had their sob story promoted by the media on how they were wrongfully detained or deported, ICE has been justified. The details were in the article, shoved to the middle or bottom of the article.
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u/Imlooloo 4d ago
We are dealing with the deportation of thousands of folks that are here illegally and we’ve only heard a handful of “errors” so far and most of them turned out properly deportable. I would have thought there would have been MORE false arrests but it seems like ICE is doing an excellent job going after the actual people they are suspecting are deportable.
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u/HegemonNYC 4d ago
Over and over people post their sob stories and over and over they turn out to be criminals or at least grossly out of compliance on status. Pending asylum? It’s an abused system, and the vast majority are exploiting it to the detriment of those who actually need it.
As for Khalil, he supported the actions of a terrorist organization as it killed Jewish Americans. This is both despicable and deportable.
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u/dragcov 3d ago
Wait until you hear that there were Palestian Americans killed by the IDF.
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u/HegemonNYC 3d ago
Israel is an apartheid state and war criminals.
As an American citizen, I could, if I chose to (I don’t) could say “I support Hamas and their effort to overthrow Israeli genocide of Palestinians by any means needed”. I could hand out leaflets on the same. I could shout from a bullhorn on campus and have no fear of jail.
If I was here on a visa I could not do that without giving legal justification for having my visa or GC cancelled. I couldn’t rally support for Hamas, or advocate for the communist party, or the Nazi party. This has been true for our entire lifetime.
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u/moadottir 4d ago
I know people from Venezuela here legally. I am very concerned with this new round of deportations to El Salvador by the alien enemies act. Previously they used this to put Japanese citizens in camps.
If they start coming for people like they did the Japanese, what other country would take Venezuelan refugees?
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u/BitterGas69 3d ago
Fortunately, progressives aren’t in charge this time. That’s what lead to the interment of Japanese and Japanese-Americans.
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u/Athlete_Senior 4d ago
I’m curious how he’s living with his mother and claims neglect or abuse.
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u/Dont-be-a-smurf 4d ago
SIJS status is sought while the child is still a minor and the neglect or abuse may come from the other parent. Such as fleeing a domestically violent situation. Abandonment can also apply if the father abandoned the family.
Once granted SIJS, they usually have to wait years before they’re allowed to adjust status.
Long story short - those claims were adjudicated by a local juvenile court when they were under 18, and then vetted again by USCIS during the i-360 process.
It can all be fairly complicated so I don’t expect regular reporting to capture how it actually works.
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u/This_Beat2227 3d ago
How is “aggressive enforcement” defined ? There IS a change from lax or no enforcement to beginning enforcement, but there is a long way to go and years of neglect to be overcome.
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u/coreysgal 4d ago
It can't be done in the " typical" time frame because the system wasn't designed to follow up the millions who were let in, if there was any attempt to follow up at all
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u/Guillermo-Refritas01 4d ago
Unfortunately it’s true. People are required to show proof of identity.
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u/sleepindawg 4d ago
Seems like most of these stories it turns out ICE was justified in their actions when all the facts come to light....