Federal agents swarmed a Dale City home March 27 and arrested 24-year-old Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos, charging him with possession of a firearm by a person who is in the country illegally.

The motion to drop the charge did not give a reason why, but The Washington Post reports sources familiar with the matter say it’s so they can fast-track Villatoro Santos’ deportation.

Santos’ newly-appointed public defender is asking the court to delay the dismissal for fourteen days in order to get his client immigration counsel.

He noted the “substantial risks” involved in his client’s transfer to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and recent deportations by the Trump Administration without due process.

Attorney General Pam Bondi described him as “one of the top leaders of MS-13” and “one of the top three for the entire country.” She said he is from El Salvador and will be deported.

News4 and Telemundo 44 spoke to Villatoro Santos’ mother, who shared copies of a federal search warrant affidavit showing agents seized multiple guns, ammunition, a letter from a jail outlining inmate “cliques” and immigration documents.

The front door of Villatoro Santos’ mother’s home was smashed from a battering ram. Her rear sliding glass door was smashed out.

President Donald Trump has blamed violence and gang growth on lax immigration policies. In his first term as president, Trump promised an all-out fight against MS-13, saying he would “dismantle, decimate and eradicate” the gang.

The announcement of the agreement came in a document filed late Monday in a case challenging the legality of the IRS sharing tax information with other agencies. The document was filed with several key parts blacked out.

“There is an agreement that calls for information sharing, which is a reversal of what IRS said in the past it would not share,” said Alan Morrison, an attorney at Georgetown School of Law who is of counsel on the case challenging the lawsuit. The attorneys in the lawsuit are asking the DHS to file a clean copy, without redactions.

The DHS has sought to use tax filing information to find people in the United States without legal status in support of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation operation.

Many people without legal status pay billions in taxes, filing under tax identification numbers. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimated that undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in federal, state and local taxes in 2022. According to its analysis, $59.4 billion went to the federal government and $37.3 billion to state and local governments.

It is illegal to release personal tax information and the IRS has long refused to share identities of undocumented taxpayers with other agencies.

But the law provides some specific exceptions, including information for investigations not related to taxes and involving claims the individual is in violation of or suspected of being in violation of federal criminal law.

Morrison said “so far as we can tell,” the deal is limited to that exception.

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“We are challenging whether they can share the information (by) trying to claim exception for criminal investigations,” he said. “But we think what they really want is location information and you need a court order for that.”

For months, IRS officials have resisted disclosing what has long been guarded information, but Trump has replaced the agency’s leadership with staff more friendly to his taxpayer information sharing plan.

“The government filed this at 11:10 last night. We have three days to respond. They hatched the agreement that they say is complete, but it is significantly redacted. It is impossible to tell what the impact is without knowing more,” Morrison told NBC News.

He said that when he first tried to read the DHS’ filing, “I couldn’t figure out what kind of words were missing … How can we possibly know what they are doing if we have not seen this?” he asked.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to an NBC News request for comment and for information on the redacted portions of the agreement.

According to the DHS’ court filing, ICE, in its requests to the IRS, must ask for the name and address of the person whose information it wants, the tax periods relating to its request, the federal criminal statute under which the individual is being investigated or relating to any nontax-related criminal proceeding involving the individual, and reasons why disclosing the information might be relevant to the nontax-related criminal investigation or proceeding.

He said the DHS has identified two possible crimes that would authorize the IRS to share the information with ICE. But he said the DHS hasn’t said what crimes it has identified or whether it has names of people who have committed or are suspected of committing those crimes, which it must have to get the information.

“One thing they said, so far at least as of yesterday, there were no pending requests for this information and if they do request it, they have to go through some processing,” he said.

The agreement was reached only after several months of upheaval at the IRS and pressure from the administration, including by Elon Musk’s DOGE operation.

The agreement is certain to generate more terror among immigrants, many of whom have paid taxes for years to ensure they were not violating U.S. law and jeopardizing potential future opportunities for legal status.

Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif., a member of the House Ways and Means Committee which has jurisdiction over taxes, said in a news release that “the IRS should never be weaponized to target immigrant families … No one should fear that filing their taxes puts their family at risk.” Gomez, whose parents are Mexican immigrants, added that he’ll try to stop the measure through the committee.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

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More than 900,000 people were allowed in the country using the CBP One app since January 2023. They were generally allowed to remain in the United States for two years with authorization to work under a presidential authority called parole.

“Canceling these paroles is a promise kept to the American people to secure our borders and protect national security,” the Department of Homeland Security media affairs unit said in response to questions.

Authorities confirmed termination notices were sent to CBP One beneficiaries, but did not say how many. They were urged to voluntarily self-deport using the same app they entered on, which has been renamed CBP Home.

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“It’s time for you to abandon the United States,” the Department of Homeland Security wrote to a Honduran family that entered the U.S. at the end of last year. The Associated Press reviewed the email received Sunday.

Others shared the same email on social media platforms.

Al Otro Lado, a nonprofit organization that provides legal aid to migrants, said some who received the revocation letters are from Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico.

CBP One was a cornerstone of the Biden administration‘s strategy to create and expand legal pathways to enter the United States in an attempt to discourage illegal border crossings. By the end of December, 936,500 people had been allowed to enter with CBP One appointments at border crossings with Mexico. President Donald Trump ended CBP One for new entrants on his first day in office, stranding thousands in Mexico who had appointments into early February.

Trump has ended and revoked temporary status for many who benefited under Biden’s policies. Homeland Security said Monday that Biden’s use of parole authority — more than any president since it was created in 1952 — “further fueled the worst border crisis in U.S. history.”

Homeland Security said last month that it was revoking another form of parole for 532,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who flew to the country at their own expense with a financial sponsor. It ends April 24.

The Trump administration has also announced an end to Temporary Protected Status for 600,000 Venezuelans and about 500,000 Haitians, though a federal judge temporarily put that on hold, including for about 350,000 Venezuelans who had been scheduled to lose TPS on Monday. TPS is granted in 18-month increments to people already in the U.S. whose countries are deemed unsafe for return due to natural disaster or civil strife.

In a bitterly divided decision, the court said the administration must give Venezuelans who it claims are gang members “reasonable time” to go to court.

But the conservative majority said the legal challenges must take place in Texas, instead of a Washington courtroom.

The court’s action appears to bar the administration from immediately resuming the flights that last month carried hundreds of migrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador. The flights came soon after President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act for the first time since World War II to justify the deportations under a presidential proclamation calling the Tren de Aragua gang an invading force.

The majority said nothing about those flights, which took off without providing the hearing the justices now say is necessary.

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In dissent, the three liberal justices said the administration has sought to avoid judicial review in this case and the court “now rewards the government for its behavior.” Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined portions of the dissent.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor said it would be harder for people to challenge deportations individually, wherever they are being held, and noted that the administration has also said in another case before the court that it’s unable to return people who have been deported to the El Salvador prison by mistake.

“We, as a Nation and a court of law, should be better than this,” she wrote.

The justices acted on the administration’s emergency appeal after the federal appeals court in Washington left in place an order temporarily prohibiting deportations of the migrants accused of being gang members under the rarely used Alien Enemies Act.

“For all the rhetoric of the dissents,” the court wrote in an unsigned opinion, the high court order confirms “that the detainees subject to removal orders under the AEA are entitled to notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal.”

The case has become a flashpoint amid escalating tension between the White House and the federal courts. It’s the second time in less than a week that a majority of conservative justices has handed Trump at least a partial victory in an emergency appeal after lower courts had blocked parts of his agenda.

Several other cases are pending, including over Trump’s plan to deny citizenship to U.S.-born children of parents who are in the country illegally.

Trump praised the court for its action Monday.

“The Supreme Court has upheld the Rule of Law in our Nation by allowing a President, whoever that may be, to be able to secure our Borders, and protect our families and our Country, itself. A GREAT DAY FOR JUSTICE IN AMERICA!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social site.

The original order blocking the deportations to El Salvador was issued by U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg, the chief judge at the federal courthouse in Washington.

Attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of five Venezuelan noncitizens who were being held in Texas, hours after the proclamation was made public and as immigration authorities were shepherding hundreds of migrants to waiting airplanes.

Boasberg imposed a temporary halt on deportations and also ordered planeloads of Venezuelan immigrants to return to the U.S. That did not happen. The judge held a hearing last week over whether the government defied his order to turn the planes around. The administration has invoked a “ state secrets privilege ” and refused to give Boasberg any additional information about the deportations.

Trump and his allies have called for impeaching Boasberg. In a rare statement, Chief Justice John Roberts said “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”

___

Associated Press writer Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this report.

The temporary order comes hours after a Justice Department emergency appeal to the Supreme Court arguing U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis overstepped her authority when she ordered Kilmar Abrego Garcia returned to the United States.

The court asked Abrego Garcia’s lawyers to respond by Tuesday at 5 p.m.

On Friday, Xinis gave the administration until just before midnight Monday to “facilitate and effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return.

“The district court’s injunction — which requires Abrego Garcia’s release from the custody of a foreign sovereign and return to the United States by midnight on Monday — is patently unlawful,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in court papers, casting the order as one in “a deluge of unlawful injunctions” judges have issued to slow President Donald Trump’s agenda.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit sided with Kilmar and denied the government’s request for a stay. Pending what the Supreme Court decides, the order to return him to the U.S. by just before midnight Monday still stands.

“The United States Government has no legal authority to snatch a person who is lawfully present in the United States off the street and remove him from the country without due process, the ruling by the three-judge panel says. “The Government’s contention otherwise, and its argument that the federal courts are powerless to intervene, are unconscionable.”

Abrego Garcia’s attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said the government has the power to bring his client back home.

“I don’t think there is anyone in this country who genuinely believes that if we didn’t just pick up the phone and make a good faith phone call, that we couldn’t get him back within a day or two,” he said on MSNBC on Monday afternoon. “I mean, the connections between our government and the government of El Salvador when it comes to these deportations, to this prison – they put Kristi Noem inside the walls of the prison and they got her back out. They can get him back out”.

The administration has conceded that Abrego Garcia should not have been sent to El Salvador because an immigration judge found he likely would face persecution by local gangs. But he is no longer in U.S. custody and the government has no way to get him back, the administration argued.

The Trump administration is separately asking the Supreme Court to allow Trump to resume deportations of Venezuelan migrants accused of being gang members to the same Salvadoran prison under an 18th century wartime law.

The federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, denied the administration’s request for a stay. “There is no question that the government screwed up here,” Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson wrote in a brief opinion accompanying the unanimous denial.

The White House has described Abrego Garcia’s deportation as an “administrative error” but has also cast him an MS-13 gang member. Attorneys for Abrego Garcia said there is no evidence he was in MS-13.

Xinis wrote that the decision to arrest him and send him to El Salvador appears to be “wholly lawless,” explaining that little to no evidence supports a “vague, uncorroborated” allegation that Abrego Garcia was once an MS-13 member.

Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran national who has never been charged or convicted of any crime, was detained by immigration agents and deported last month.

He had a permit from DHS to legally work in the U.S. and was a sheet metal apprentice pursuing a journeyman license, his attorney said. His wife is a U.S. citizen.

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In 2019, an immigration judge barred the U.S. from deporting Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.

A Justice Department lawyer conceded in a court hearing that Abrego Garcia should not have been deported. Attorney General Pam Bondi later removed the lawyer, Erez Reuveni, from the case and placed him on leave.

“The university was not notified by federal authorities of these status revocations and only became aware as a result of proactive checks in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) database,” wrote Chancellor Javier Reyes in a statement to the school community.

Reyes did not identify the students or provide the reasons for the revocations. He did say they would connect students with resources. He also noted that in the past, if a student’s visa was revoked their legal status in the United States was not immediately canceled. However in recent cases, statuses are being revoked within hours, leaving students at risk for deportation.

Students with a visa were warned that if it were to be revoked, notice would be sent to the email they used to apply, so they should monitor communications on those accounts, or if they used an agent or consultant, stay in touch with them.

The Trump administration has said they will target foreign-born students they view as a threat to national security, immigration provision that dates to the Cold War and gives the secretary of state the authority to deport noncitizens if their  activities pose “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.”  However, in several of the reported cases, detained students have not been charged with a crime and their offense appears to be activism. This includes the two high-profile cases of Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk and recent Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil.

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Suri, who was born in India and in the U.S. on a student visa, had been teaching a course on minority rights in South Asia at the university’s School of Foreign Service (SFS). A student and faculty members told NBC News that amid the shock of his arrest, Suri still kept his class at the forefront of his mind.

One of his students, Roudah, who requested to be identified by her first name out of fear of retaliation, said she spoke to his family not long after he was detained.

“As he was being arrested by these masked men in normal clothing who just pulled up in front of their apartment building, he told her, ‘Take care of my students. Make sure that they have someone to teach the class,’” Roudah said of his final conversation with his wife before he was taken away. “He wasn’t worried about what’s going to happen to him and his reputation. He was worried about his students.”Suri, whose attorneys filed a petition challenging his detainment, is currently being held in Texas at an ICE detention center. He was sent there after first being detained at a Virginia facility and then transferred to Louisiana due to a lack of space, according to court documents. The government this week filed a motion to dismiss or move his case to another jurisdiction. Attorneys for Suri have asked the court to return him to Virginia and release him pending the proceedings.

Suri, who has been a postdoc at Georgetown for the past three years, was accused by the Department of Homeland Security of “actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media.”

ICE did not immediately return NBC News’ request for comment. But assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin addressed Suri’s detention on X, saying that “Suri has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas.”

Suri’s wife, an American citizen who is originally from Gaza, is also a student at the university. Her father, Ahmed Yousef, is a former adviser to now-deceased Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. In an interview with The New York Times, Yousef said he left his position more than a decade ago. He has also been outspoken in his criticism of Hamas.

Suri’s attorney Hassan Ahmad previously told NBC News that he has never made any pro-Hamas or antisemitic comments, calling his detention “contemptible.”

Joel Hellman, dean of the School of Foreign Service, said in a statement last month that the school did not observe any threatening behavior.

“During his time on campus, I am not aware that Dr. Suri has engaged in any illegal activity, nor has he posed a threat to the security of our campus,” Hellman said. “He has been focused on completing his research.”

Roudah said Suri’s arrest has prompted a great deal of anxiety for the students in his tight-knit seminar of five. While another professor has helped pick up the course, she said it’s difficult to replace Suri and the connection he had with his students. Roudah said she and her classmates often looked forward to his weekly lectures that he’d deliver over two and a half hours without reading from notes.

“He’s one of the most academically smartest people I’ve ever met in my whole entire life,” Roudah said. “This class doesn’t count for any of my graduation requirements, and I fully took it just because of Dr. Badar.”

Roudah added that Suri encouraged students to ask questions. And though the students would often skip the class readings, Roudah said Suri wouldn’t put too much pressure on them to speak up, as he “wouldn’t want to embarrass us.”

“He’s 1,000% very laid-back. He’s very chill,” Roudah said. “He’s slowly but surely made his way into everyone’s hearts.”

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The first conversation that Suri had with his wife while in ICE detention also revolved around his students, worried about whether they’d be able to continue their studies, Dr. Fida Adely, a colleague of Suri’s, said.

“That was definitely one of his first concerns that he conveyed to her,” said Adely, who serves as the university’s director of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. “‘Do they know what’s going on?’”

Adely described Suri as a quiet person who was dedicated to becoming a successful scholar. At one point, Suri sought advice from her about getting his research published, she said. Outside the classroom, Adely said, he often attended Muslim events on campus with his wife and three children, mingling with community members.

“We often have visiting scholars who are here just because they want to be affiliated with Georgetown, but aren’t necessarily very active community members,” Adely said. “He was a very active member in many ways, participating in our seminars, coming to our social events.

Suri’s supervisor, Nader Hashemi, similarly said that his students were a priority for him.

“He focused all of his time on his research and his teaching,” said Hashemi, director of the school’s Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.

The arrest came as a surprise, Hashemi said, as Suri was not particularly outspoken.

“He was not a public intellectual. He was just a humble young academic scholar,” said Hashemi, who was among the first people contacted by the family during the ordeal. “The shock and the trauma of this entire arrest … is just a reflection of the brutal authoritarianism of this Trump administration that is trying to inflict terror and trauma on society.”

As Suri and his family continue to push for his release, Roudah said she hopes people will understand one critical thing about her professor.

“I want people to humanize this case,” Roudah said. “These people have families. These people have lives. These people have people that care about them.”

Chloe Atkins contributed.

This article originally appeared on NBCNews.com. Read more from NBC News:

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Federal agents swarmed a Dale City home March 27 and arrested 24-year-old Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos, charging him with possession of a firearm by a person who is in the country illegally.

The motion to drop the charge did not give a reason why, but The Washington Post reports sources familiar with the matter say it’s so they can fast-track Villatoro Santos’ deportation.

Santos’ newly-appointed public defender is asking the court to delay the dismissal for fourteen days in order to get his client immigration counsel.

He noted the “substantial risks” involved in his client’s transfer to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and recent deportations by the Trump Administration without due process.

Attorney General Pam Bondi described him as “one of the top leaders of MS-13” and “one of the top three for the entire country.” She said he is from El Salvador and will be deported.

News4 and Telemundo 44 spoke to Villatoro Santos’ mother, who shared copies of a federal search warrant affidavit showing agents seized multiple guns, ammunition, a letter from a jail outlining inmate “cliques” and immigration documents.

The front door of Villatoro Santos’ mother’s home was smashed from a battering ram. Her rear sliding glass door was smashed out.

President Donald Trump has blamed violence and gang growth on lax immigration policies. In his first term as president, Trump promised an all-out fight against MS-13, saying he would “dismantle, decimate and eradicate” the gang.

On Thursday, Democrats and groups supporting the immigrant community protested the sheriff’s decision to take a new step to assist ICE.

“It concerns me because it’s aligning our county and our law enforcement with what’s going on on the national level, and I think it could be very much a slippery slope,” said Democratic Loudoun County Supervisor Juli Briskman.

Sheriff Mike Chapman said the agreement with ICE will improve public safety, but critics fear it will do the opposite, saying it betrays the public trust.

“I think there’s much ado about not a whole lot here, quite frankly,” Chapman said.

Unlike some other Northern Virginia jurisdictions, Loudoun County jail officials always notify ICE when someone with an ICE detainer is about to be released. Under past policy, ICE had to pick up that person on the day of release but often couldn’t make it in time.

“Typically, they would come out for people who have committed the more serious crimes, not something minor,” Chapman said.

In the last six months of 2024, there were ICE detainers on 245 Loudoun County inmates, but ICE only picked up 99 of them. This year, there have been 80 detainers with 42 picked up.

Under a new memo of agreement signed last week, a small number of jail deputies — about 10-20 — will get special training from ICE and become warrant service officers. It gives them the ability to serve the ICE detainer on the subject. Instead of getting a day or less to show up, ICE will get 48 hours.

“It’s good for us, because if we have to release them and they’re a danger to our community, that only adds to the lack of safety in the community,” Chapman said. “So, we need to make sure we’re doing everything we can to keep our citizens safe, and this will actually help us quite a bit.”

Opponents of the plan say it will make Loudoun County less safe, increasing fear in the immigrant community and leading to a reluctance to report crime.

“We are concerned that this will undermine trust between our community members and police,” said Sandra Benavente of advocacy group Ayuda.

Ryan Ruzic, a former prosecutor who’s now a defense attorney, worries with the longer holding time, ICE will be able to pick up more people, including those involved in minor offenses.

“It makes a huge difference in the number of people that could be affected,” he said. “And when the community understands that, it’ll make a difference in who reaches out to police and who’s too afraid to.”

The online ICE training of the deputies should be completed within a couple of weeks, the sheriff said. Then the new policy will be enforced.

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Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, was taken into custody as she walked along a street in the Boston suburb of Somerville on March 25. After being transported to New Hampshire and then Vermont, she was put on a plane the next day and moved to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Basile, Louisiana.

Justice Department lawyers said Ozturk had been moved to Vermont by the time U.S. District Judge Denise Casper in Boston ordered authorities to keep her in Massachusetts, and that there was no available “bedspace” for her to stay in New England. They said Ozturk’s lawyers had to file her original petition in Vermont, the jurisdiction where she was confined at the time of the filing, or in Louisiana, where she was being held when they amended their petition.

“Place of confinement cannot be swept away as a long-standing rule,” Assistant U.S. Attorney told Judge Denise Casper.

But Ozturk’s lawyers said at the time they filed the petition, they had no way of knowing where she was. They also noted the petition was filed while Ozturk was in a vehicle within the control of Massachusetts-based ICE officials, making the Boston court the appropriate venue.

“That person in control did not change when the vehicle that Ms. Ozturk crossed state lines,” attorney Adriana Lafaille argued.

Ozturk’s lawyers said that if the judge disagrees, the case should be moved to Vermont. They have said her detention violates her constitutional rights, including free speech and due process. They’ve asked the judge to order that she be immediately returned to Massachusetts and released from custody. Casper took the issue under advisement.

Outside the court building Thursday, protesters marched and held up signs on her behalf. Earlier, nearly two dozen of Ozturk’s colleagues and Tufts University submitted letters to the court backing that request, describing her as a gentle, compassionate and cherished member of the Tufts community.

Ozturk is among several people with ties to American universities who attended demonstrations or publicly expressed support for Palestinians during the war in Gaza and who recently had visas revoked or been stopped from entering the U.S. She was one of four students who wrote an op-ed in The Tufts Daily last year criticizing the university’s response to student activists’ demands. The student activists were demanding that Tufts “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,” disclose its investments and divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.

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Ozturk defended writing as a peaceful way of addressing inequality in a statement dictated to an attorney and shared by the ACLU.

“Efforts to target me because of my op-ed in the Tufts Daily calling for the equal dignity and humanity of all people will not deter me from my commitment to advocate for the rights of youth and children,” she said.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed the termination of Ozturk’s visa last week. The official said investigations found she had engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group, but did not provide any evidence of that.

Hamas militants invaded Israel in a surprise attack on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and seizing about 250 hostages. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 50,000 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, and destroyed much of the enclave.

Associated Press writers Kathy McCormack and Holly Ramer and NBC10 Boston staff contributed.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia had just finished work March 12 and was on his way to a bus stop to pick up his children when he was pulled over by ICE and arrested.

Abrego Garcia’s wife says he was taken to Baltimore, where he was questioned about his alleged ties to the gang MS-13, according to an affidavit. He was then taken to Texas and put on the third deportation flight to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act — a 1798 law invoked by President Donald Trump — despite having the legal status of withholding of removal.

“This is unfair,” his wife told News4 two weeks ago. “You don’t just randomly pick up people and sending them and putting them on a plane.”

On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said — without citing evidence — that Abrego Garcia was involved in human trafficking, and despite the error that sent him to El Salvador, he is not returning to the U.S.

“They admit that they made a mistake in this case,” said Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, Abrego Garcia’s attorney. “Obviously, the evidence is so airtight that they couldn’t possibly deny having made a mistake. But now that they’ve made this mistake, their attitude towards this case is, ‘Well, we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of options. He is in El Salvador’s hands, now. You got a problem? Go talk to them.’ We don’t accept that.”

Sandoval-Moshenberg said he has never seen the government take such a hardened stance.

“We’re going to court on Friday afternoon,” he said. “We’re asking the judge to order that the U.S. government ask nicely, right? That’s the first step; that’s gotta be the first step. Our government has ties to the Salvadoran government up and down, right? We’re in constant communication and coordination with them.”

News4 asked the Department of Homeland Security what evidence it has showing Abrego Garcia was in a gang and involved in human trafficking.

“The judge found he was in MS-13 and then granted him protection from a rival gang,” a DHS spokesperson said.

“The basis for that allegation in 2019 was a confidential informant, you know, one of these anonymous tips,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said. “There was never any concrete evidence produced.”

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The government says the order to send Abrego Garcia to El Salvador was an “oversight” and was done “in good faith” and that there was a final order for his removal.

In the past when the government made a mistake in an immigration case, it tried to correct it, Sandoval-Moshenberg said.

Abrego Garcia was given the status of withholding of removal in 2019, according to attorney Lucia Curiel. A document she provided shows the status was granted and cites a clause that provides restriction on deportation but has exceptions in which the person can be removed, such as reasonable grounds to believe the person is a danger.

Curiel said Abrego Garcia was accused by Prince George’s County police of wearing a gang shirt in March 2019. The claim wasn’t substantiated, she said, but she believes that may be the reason he was targeted for deportation.

Abrego Garcia was suspected of being a gang member after he was seen wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie, a lawsuit says. A confidential informant advised he was an MS-13 member, according to the document.

In an ICE document, Robert Cerna, an acting ICE field office director, said Abrego Garcia was arrested because of his “prominent role in MS-13.” Cerna said elsewhere in the document that he was removed because of his “purported membership in MS-13.”

A hearing will be held Friday afternoon in federal court in Greenbelt.

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Kilmar Abrego Garcia is being held in a notorious prison, Trump administration officials said for the first time Tuesday. NBC Washington reported on March 18 that his wife and lawyer argued he was wrongfully detained and then disappeared.

In court documents, Robert Cerna, an acting ICE field office director, called Abrego Garcia’s removal “an oversight” that was “carried out in good faith” based on his alleged involvement in the gang MS-13.

Abrego Garcia was deported from Maryland under the Alien Enemies Act — a 1798 law invoked by President Donald Trump — according to his wife. She told NBC Washington he is not part of any criminal organization.

Abrego Garcia was on one of three U.S. Department of Justice deportation flights to El Salvador on March 15, according to court documents. Cerna wrote he was not part of the original list to be on the flight. Abrego Garcia was an “alternate” and was put on the plane after others were removed for various reasons.

When asked about the error, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said ICE made a clerical error. She levelled new accusations.

“It was an administrative error. The administration maintains the position that this individual who was deported to El Salvador and will not be returning to our country was a member of the brutal and vicious MS-13 gang. That is fact number one. Fact number two: We also have credible evidence proving that this individual was involved in human trafficking.”

Leavitt provided no evidence to back up the human trafficking claim.

In a lawsuit filed last week in federal court in Greenbelt, a complaint says the government has never come up with an “iota” of evidence that Abrego Garcia was a member of MS-13.

A sudden arrest and deportation

ICE detained Abrego Garcia, 29, on March 12 near IKEA in College Park. His wife, Jennifer, told NBC Washington he had just left the house with their young son and was heading to a bus stop to pick up their two other kids.

“When they put him in the vehicle, they still took me to the vehicle and opened the door and told me to say goodbye to him,” Jennifer said.

“He just told me to take care of my kids, and I told him everything is going to be fine,” she said, fighting tears. “You’re going to come back, because you haven’t done nothing. You have your work permit.”

Jennifer snapped photos of her husband sitting on a curb with his hands behind his back, wearing a neon work shirt. He was a sheet metal worker and began an apprenticeship program.

Abrego Garcia was transferred to Baltimore, then Louisiana, then Texas, then Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, court documents say.

Abrego Garcia’s wife had no idea where her husband had been taken. She tried tracking his location through ICE’s online detainee locator tool.

Finally, she recognized him in a video El Salvador’s president posted to X, showing men in white uniforms being frog-marched and having their heads shaved. In a photo, of detainees, she recognized his tattoos.

Trump administration Mar 27

Top MS-13 leader arrested in Northern Virginia, feds say

Immigration Mar 18

Wife of man deported from Maryland says he has protected status, isn't in a gang

NBC Washington repeatedly asked ICE, the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department what happened to Abrego Garcia. The government provided no information until Tuesday that they had deported him.

After the deportation flights, the White House press secretary was asked at a press briefing how Trump administration officials determined everyone they detained and deported had a criminal record.

“I can ensure the American people that Customs and Border Patrol and ICE and the Department of Homeland Security are sure about the identities of the individuals who were on these planes and the threat that they posed to our homeland,” Leavitt said.

NBC Washington found no local criminal record for Abrego Garcia – not even a traffic ticket.

Abrego Garcia’s status and what’s next

Abrego Garcia was given the status of withholding of removal in 2019, according to attorney Lucia Curiel. A document she provided shows the status was granted and cites a clause that provides restriction on deportation but has exceptions in which the person can be removed, such as reasonable grounds to believe the person is a danger.

Curiel said Abrego Garcia was accused by Prince George’s County police of wearing a gang shirt in March 2019. The claim wasn’t substantiated, she said, but she believes that may be the reason he was targeted for deportation.

Abrego Garcia was suspected of being a gang member after he was seen wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie, a lawsuit says. A confidential informant advised he was an MS-13 member, according to the document.

In an ICE document, Cerna said Abrego Garcia was arrested because of his “prominent role in MS-13.” Cerna said elsewhere in the document that he was removed because of his “purported membership in MS-13.”

Sen. Cory Booker spoke about Abrego Garcia while speaking on the Senate floor.

“We were told that the president said that he was going to be focusing on criminals,” Booker said. “Cruelty: This is not who we are.”

Abrego Garcia’s attorneys requested that the Salvadoran government return him to the U.S. The Trump administration said U.S. courts lack jurisdiction to order his return.

Maryland Judge Paula Xinis scheduled a hearing Friday in Greenbelt to address his case.

For now, all Jennifer and her three young children can do is wait.

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Federal agents swarmed a Dale City home March 27 and arrested 24-year-old Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos, charging him with possession of a firearm by a person who is in the country illegally.

The motion to drop the charge did not give a reason why, but The Washington Post reports sources familiar with the matter say it’s so they can fast-track Villatoro Santos’ deportation.

Santos’ newly-appointed public defender is asking the court to delay the dismissal for fourteen days in order to get his client immigration counsel.

He noted the “substantial risks” involved in his client’s transfer to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and recent deportations by the Trump Administration without due process.

Attorney General Pam Bondi described him as “one of the top leaders of MS-13” and “one of the top three for the entire country.” She said he is from El Salvador and will be deported.

News4 and Telemundo 44 spoke to Villatoro Santos’ mother, who shared copies of a federal search warrant affidavit showing agents seized multiple guns, ammunition, a letter from a jail outlining inmate “cliques” and immigration documents.

The front door of Villatoro Santos’ mother’s home was smashed from a battering ram. Her rear sliding glass door was smashed out.

President Donald Trump has blamed violence and gang growth on lax immigration policies. In his first term as president, Trump promised an all-out fight against MS-13, saying he would “dismantle, decimate and eradicate” the gang.

Federal agents swarmed a Dale City home March 27 and arrested 24-year-old Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos, charging him with possession of a firearm by a person who is in the country illegally.

The motion to drop the charge did not give a reason why, but The Washington Post reports sources familiar with the matter say it’s so they can fast-track Villatoro Santos’ deportation.

Santos’ newly-appointed public defender is asking the court to delay the dismissal for fourteen days in order to get his client immigration counsel.

He noted the “substantial risks” involved in his client’s transfer to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and recent deportations by the Trump Administration without due process.

Attorney General Pam Bondi described him as “one of the top leaders of MS-13” and “one of the top three for the entire country.” She said he is from El Salvador and will be deported.

News4 and Telemundo 44 spoke to Villatoro Santos’ mother, who shared copies of a federal search warrant affidavit showing agents seized multiple guns, ammunition, a letter from a jail outlining inmate “cliques” and immigration documents.

The front door of Villatoro Santos’ mother’s home was smashed from a battering ram. Her rear sliding glass door was smashed out.

President Donald Trump has blamed violence and gang growth on lax immigration policies. In his first term as president, Trump promised an all-out fight against MS-13, saying he would “dismantle, decimate and eradicate” the gang.

Federal agents swarmed a Dale City home March 27 and arrested 24-year-old Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos, charging him with possession of a firearm by a person who is in the country illegally.

The motion to drop the charge did not give a reason why, but The Washington Post reports sources familiar with the matter say it’s so they can fast-track Villatoro Santos’ deportation.

Santos’ newly-appointed public defender is asking the court to delay the dismissal for fourteen days in order to get his client immigration counsel.

He noted the “substantial risks” involved in his client’s transfer to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and recent deportations by the Trump Administration without due process.

Attorney General Pam Bondi described him as “one of the top leaders of MS-13” and “one of the top three for the entire country.” She said he is from El Salvador and will be deported.

News4 and Telemundo 44 spoke to Villatoro Santos’ mother, who shared copies of a federal search warrant affidavit showing agents seized multiple guns, ammunition, a letter from a jail outlining inmate “cliques” and immigration documents.

The front door of Villatoro Santos’ mother’s home was smashed from a battering ram. Her rear sliding glass door was smashed out.

President Donald Trump has blamed violence and gang growth on lax immigration policies. In his first term as president, Trump promised an all-out fight against MS-13, saying he would “dismantle, decimate and eradicate” the gang.

Rumeysa Ozturk, a student from Turkey, was transported to Louisiana after plainclothes agents apprehended her in an encounter that was caught on video. The incident has prompted concern from the Tufts community, lawmakers and advocates.

Ozturk’s attorney said she maintained a valid F-1 visa, which has now been terminated.

After she was detained, the Department of Homeland Security accused Ozturk of engaging in activities supporting Hamas, saying, “a visa is a privilege not a right. Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated. This is commonsense security.”

The government has not provided evidence or explained how Ozturk supported the group, with students believing she was targeted because of an article she wrote in the school paper, along with three classmates, calling for the school to divest from companies with ties to Israel.

Responding Friday to a petition filed by Ozturk, Judge Denise Casper of the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts said the government can’t deport her while the court is considering the case.

“To allow the Court’s resolution of its jurisdiction to decide the petition, Ozturk shall not be removed from the United States until further Order of this Court,” Casper said.

Citing a ruling in another case regarding the Trump administration’s efforts to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia student who protested against Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, she quoted, “[t]o preserve the Court’s jurisdiction pending a ruling on the petition, Petitioner shall not be removed from the United States unless and until the Court orders otherwise.”

Casper gave respondents, including acting Director Patricia Hyde of the ICE Boston Field Office, until Tuesday to respond.

“This is a first step in getting Rumeysa released and back home to Boston so she can continue her studies. But we never should have gotten here in the first place: Rumeysa’s experience is shocking, cruel, and unconstitutional,” her attorney, Mahsa Khanbabai, said in a statement Friday evening. “Criticizing U.S. foreign policy and human rights violations is neither illegal nor grounds for detention. For nearly 24 hours, we could not locate her, and despite a court order to prevent the government from taking her out of Massachusetts, we finally learned the Trump administration had shipped her to Louisiana. The government must immediately release Rumeysa to continue her studies and rejoin her community.”

“This is a critical next step, and we will continue to work to ensure Rumeysa is returned to her friends and community in Massachusetts,” ACLU of Massachusetts Legal Director Jessie Rossman said in a statement.

U.S. lawmakers are also demanding answers for Ozturk, with the state delegation leading the charge.

In a letter addressed to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Acting ICE Director Lyons, more than two dozen members of Congress call for transparency in the case. This comes after Rubio addressed criticism of the situation on Thursday.

Rubio defended the move by ICE to detain Ozturk earlier this week.

And he said the Trump administration will continue to deny visas to those who – quote – “lie to us” and “participate in that sort of activity,” referring to protest movements on college campuses. DHS has accused Ozturk of acting in support of Hamas, though they have not specified what type of support they are claiming nor provided evidence of the allegation.

The Massachusetts delegation, along with several other members of Congress, accuse the Trump administration of targeting Ozturk instead for the op-ed she wrote with three other students, regarding the Gaza war.

They also demand a specific timeline as to when and how she was moved out of Massachusetts, since the federal government asserts she was not in the Bay State when her attorney was granted a court order to keep her here. She was taken to an ICE detention facility in Louisiana.

The letter says in part, “We are calling for full due process in this case and are seeking answers about this case and about ICE’s policy that has led to the identification and arrest of university students with valid legal status,” the letter reads.

“The Administration should not summarily detain and deport legal residents of this country merely for expressing their political views. Absent compelling evidence justifying her detention and the revocation of her status, we call for Ozturk’s release and the restoration of her visa,” it continues.

“We are working very closely with Tufts University and local authorities to get answers. She is not charged with a crime. The fact that she was taken off the streets and we are not exactly sure of her location, is something that should be deeply concerning to everyone who cares about our rights of free speech,” U. S. Rep. Katherine Clark, D, Mass. 5th District, said.

Meanwhile, the ACLU has joined Ozturk’s legal defense.

“She has not been charged with any crime,” Rossman told NBC10 Boston. “Her detention does not have any legitimate basis.”

“Rümeysa Öztürk’s unlawful arrest and detention is yet another escalation of this administration’s efforts to silence speech. No person, regardless of their immigration status, can be arrested, detained, or deported as punishment for their political views. Ideas – and certainly op-eds – are not illegal. The First Amendment protects all of us,” Carol Rose, executive director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, wrote in a media statement.

Students and community leaders continue to protest and rally support for Ozturk on and off campus.

Read the letter from 28 members of Congress

More on this case

Trump administration Mar 27

New details about the case of the Tufts University student detained by ICE

The legislation is part of an effort by some lawmakers to counter President Donald Trump’s deportation efforts. The bill’s supporters said they want to protect those who live in Maryland no matter where they’re from.

The bill’s sponsor, Maryland Del. Nicole Williams, D-Prince George’s County, said the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts create fear.

“I have constituents in my district who are not sending children to school because they are afraid of what might happen if they confront an ICE officer,” Williams said.

House Bill 1222 would ban 287(g) programs, which allow ICE to collaborate with state and local law enforcement officers to perform specified immigration officer duties under the agency’s oversight.

In Maryland, the programs are partnerships between sheriff’s offices and ICE, which can lead to the agency arresting and deporting undocumented inmates. The bill, which is called the Maryland Values Act, states law enforcement may not enter into an immigration agreement.

Williams said the bill also lays the framework for how cooperation between local law enforcement and ICE should work.

“Local law enforcement officers and our local corrections officers will contact ICE 48 hours prior to the release of any individual that had been convicted of any of those heinous or serious crimes,” Williams said.

Critics of the bill said the ban could make communities less safe.

Three county sheriff’s offices in Maryland, including Frederick County, have 287(g) programs. Frederick County Sheriff Charles Jenkins said about 1,800 people have been removed through his program since 2008. He said losing it would make the county less safe.

“It will invite criminals, criminal gangs, increase criminal activity, which now basically stays out of Frederick County because of the program,” Jenkins said.

Jenkins joined several sheriffs from across the state in Annapolis to oppose the legislation ahead of its state Senate hearing. The bill has already passed the Maryland House of Delegates.

“I don’t think there’s anyone who would agree that making sure criminals do not get released back into the community is not a public safety issue,” Maryland ICE Director Matt Elliston said at the news conference.

In Maryland, the cooperative agreements allow deputies to ask questions and check the status of anyone detained in the local jail to see if there is a detainer. If there is, law enforcement notify ICE.

Georgetown University Mar 20

Georgetown postdoctoral fellow detained by ICE amid free speech concerns

Immigration Mar 20

Sen. Warner seeks answers on why ICE detained a US citizen in Manassas

Trump administration Mar 27

New details about the case of the Tufts University student detained by ICE

Williams fought back on claims that ending the agreements would make it harder for ICE enforcement. Williams referenced the February ICE arrest of a man, who was allegedly a high-level leader in the gang MS-13, in Hyattsville as an example.

“ICE is still able to effectively do their job without these agreements,” Williams said.

Harford and Cecil counties also have 287(g) programs. If the legislation passes, existing agreements must end by July 1.

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Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced the arrest.

Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos, 24, was arrested in Dale City. Bondi described him as “one of the top leaders of MS-13” and “one of the top three for the entire country.”

Villatoro Santos was charged with federal crimes including possession of a firearm by a person who is in the country illegally and racketeering.

“Because of operational security, we won’t get into too many details about this individual,” Patel said.

Bondi said he is from El Salvador and will be deported.

News4 and Telemundo44 spoke exclusively to Villatoro Santos’ mother. She shared copies of a federal search warrant affidavit. It shows agents seized multiple guns and ammunition, a letter from a jail outlining inmate “cliques,” and immigration documents.

The front door of Villatoro Santos’ mother’s home was smashed from a battering ram. Her rear sliding glass door was smashed out.

Neighbors said they didn’t suspect any criminal activity.

“I haven’t seen any funny activity or anything. No traffic going in or out. Nothing strange,” one woman said.

Immigration Mar 26

House committee approves bill mandating DC comply with federal immigration laws

Trump administration Mar 25

Trump administration stops processing some green cards ‘to do more vetting'

What Gov. Youngkin said about arresting undocumented immigrants

Youngkin spoke in support of the law enforcement operation and the arrests of undocumented immigrants.

“It’s time for us to recognize that Virginia is not a sanctuary state,” the governor said. “[…] We are working to get the bad guys out of here.”

In his remarks, Youngkin accused Fairfax County of being a so-called sanctuary city.

“… Like Fairfax County, that has seen county leadership not pursue the necessary steps in order to fight this crime,” he said.

News4 reached out to Fairfax County Board Chairman Jeff McKay, who snapped back at Youngkin.

“There is no Fairfax County policy that prevents ICE from enforcing federal immigration law. We will comply with all valid judicial warrants,” he said in part.

Youngkin mentioned an amendment he made to Virginia’s state budget to withhold state funding from localities that don’t cooperate with ICE detainers. The amendment is likely dead on arrival to the Democratic-controlled General Assembly.

“With all the talk of backing the blue and protecting law enforcement, the governor wants to defund the police over that. He doesn’t want to give them collective bargaining rights,” said state Sen. Scott Surovell. “The governor talks out of both sides of the mouth when it comes to law enforcement. It’s really kind of mystifying.”

Democrats applauded the arrest but noted Youngkin appears more in lockstep with President Donald Trump than ever before, after having notably distanced himself from Trump during his campaign and first couple of years in office. Youngkin now praises Trump and gives the administration all the credit for the arrest Thursday.

A Homeland Security task force made up of local, state and federal officials began an operation on March 3 to identify and arrest people who they say are violent gang members, Erik Siebert, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia said at the announcement. So far, they have identified 575 targets and arrested 342, he said.

At the White House, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt cited Villatoro Santos’ arrest, calling it “a good day for our country.”

Trump has blamed violence and gang growth on lax immigration policies. In his first term as president, Trump promised an all-out fight against MS-13, saying he would “dismantle, decimate and eradicate” the gang.

Maryland woman says her husband was wrongly deported

As Trump officials deport people accused of having gang affiliations, some of their families say they were wrongly arrested.

A Maryland woman says her husband was picking up his kids in College Park earlier this month when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested him. She spotted him on video inside a notorious Salvadoran prison and says he did nothing wrong.

“When they put him in the vehicle, they still took me to the vehicle and opened the door and told me to say goodbye to him,” the man’s wife said.

“He just told me to take care of my kids, and I told him everything is going to be fine,” she said. “You’re going to come back, because you haven’t done nothing. You have your work permit.”

The man’s lawyer said, “I have never heard of anything like this happening, and any other lawyer that I talked to is also, I mean, the reaction is just one of shock, because this really is just a flagrantly ignoring the law,” she said. “This is completely illegal by any stretch of the imagination.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Stay with NBC Washington for more details on this developing story.

One major issue is whether federal authorities defied the court order to keep Rumeysa Ozturk in Massachusetts, as it was issued just hours after her arrest Tuesday night.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani initially issued an order giving the government until Friday to answer why Ozturk was being detained. Talwani also ordered that Ozturk not be moved outside the District of Massachusetts without 48 hours advance notice.

In a response to a new judge’s order to explain her relocation, the U.S. Attorney’s Office seemed to suggest she was moved quickly before the courts got involved, saying, “…Petitioner was detained outside of Massachusetts at the time the Petition was filed and the Court’s Service Order was issued.”

The government said in its response Thursday that it “will set forth the timeline” of Ozturk’s arrest and transfer from Massachusetts.

The facility where she’s being held is one of nine in Louisiana that house immigrants waiting for legal proceedings or deportation, according to a 2024 report on ICE’s website. It’s situated on the outskirts of a rural town about 50 miles northwest of Lafayette.

“A woman who is detained in Massachusetts, if ICE wants to keep them in detention, almost by definition, has to be transferred out of the state,” noted American Immigration Council Senior Fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick.

Reichlin-Melnick said the Bay State does not have an ICE detention center for women — most are in southern states like Louisiana, a state where the traditionally conservative Fifth Circuit Court presides.

“In immigration court, the judicial precedent of the immigration judge will be applying is Fifth Circuit precedent, and that may make it harder for her to actually, ultimately, win her case and stay in the United States,” he added.

Video shows Ozturk, a Tufts University PhD student from Turkey, screaming as plain-clothes agents surrounded her and grabbed her on a Somerville sidewalk just off campus before taking her away on Tuesday night.

Ozturk’s attorney, Mahsa Khanbabai of Khanbabai Immigration Law, said she maintained a valid F-1 visa – that’s now been terminated.

On Tuesday, a federal court judge ordered that Ozturk not be removed from Massachusetts without notice. Yet, according to her attorney, they couldn’t locate her for hours. It wasn’t immediately clear when she was moved to Louisiana — if it was before or after the judge’s order blocking her removal. Khanbabi detailed her client’s version of events in a statement:

“Over twenty-four hours after her arrest, Rumeysa was processed at her final detention facility after being driven to multiple government offices in New England and flown to Louisiana on early Wednesday morning. Throughout that period of time, my client was not charged or given the opportunity to speak with a lawyer. I had the opportunity to speak with Rumeysa on Thursday late night and she was grateful to finally get an explanation of what was happening to her and to learn of all the community support she has.”

She goes on to say that Ozturk has not been charged with any crime and that it appears she was targeted based on her free speech.

“We should all be horrified at the way DHS spirited away Rumeysa in broad daylight. No person, regardless of their citizenship status, should be targeted over their views, especially in support of human rights,” Khanbabai said.

She said she is now working to get her client released before she is removed from the country.

The Department of Homeland Security released a statement accusing Ozturk of engaging in activities in support of Hamas, saying in part, “a visa is a privilege not a right. Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated. This is commonsense security.” They have not provided any evidence or explained how Ozturk supported the group.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration has revoked the visas of at least 300 people, including Ozturk: “We do it every day.”

“We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist, to tear up our university campuses,” Rubio told reporters during a stop in Guyana.

Tufts students say they believe Ozturk was targeted for an article she wrote with three other students, calling for the university to divest from companies directly tied to Israel.

“It’s not just cause you want to write op-eds, but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus, we’re not going to give you a visa,” Rubio said.

The government has not provided any evidence suggesting Ozturk took part in any such activities at Tufts.

“Once you’ve lost your visa, you’re no longer legally in the United States, and we have a right, like every country in the world has a right, to remove you from our country,” Rubio said in a message to other foreign visitors to the U.S.

“A lot of them are being censored the way they are recently when it comes to their political beliefs,” Boston-based immigration Attorney Giselle Rodriguez said of foreign students.

The clients Rodriguez represents include international students with visas. She’s beginning to advise her clients to be mindful of what they say and do despite freedom of speech protections in the country.

“Whatever they do now, it will carry on with them forever,” she warned.

“Why she was transferred to Louisiana despite the courts order is unfathomable,” said one Tufts student supporting Ozturk.

“We need to call what happened to Rameysa by what it is — state-sanctioned political kidnapping,” an attendee at a rally on behalf of Ozturk said Wednesday night.

“I think it’s atrocious, I think it’s awful,” said Tufts student Liz Graham.

“I’m sure everybody is fearful. Especially international students,” said Rohan Bhatia, a sophomore at Tufts.

“I think what we saw with the abduction of a neighbor by federal agent was just really disturbing and brought home the crisis that we are seeing across the country. This national attack on immigrants, on people of color, on people for their political beliefs,” said Zac Bears, president of the Medford City Council.

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell called the arrest “disturbing.”

“Based on what we now know, it is alarming that the federal administration chose to ambush and detain her, apparently targeting a law-abiding individual because of her political views,” Campbell said. “This isn’t public safety, it’s intimidation that will, and should, be closely scrutinized in court.”

Both the university and the attorney general say they’re working to ensure she has due process.

The university notes that it has a protocol to notify the Tufts University Police Department and inform the dispatcher in the event of “government officials who arrive on campus for an unannounced site visit.” People are urged to call 617-627-3030 to report such an incident.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

H.R. 2056, introduced by Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., would mandate the District cooperate with immigration enforcement, specifically when noncitizens are held in D.C.’s jail.

“My bill enforces the District of Columbia into compliance with federal law,” Higgins said at the committee meeting. “It nullifies any statute, ordinance, policy or practice of the D.C. government which restricts any entity or official from providing citizenship or immigration status to federal state and local law enforcement.”

Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., led the Democrats’ opposition.

“The bill nullifies D.C. laws and policies that — like those of other jurisdictions — are in full compliance with federal law. They do not obstruct ICE from carrying out its duties,” Connolly said in the meeting.

D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton spoke on behalf of District residents.

“I strongly oppose this undemocratic, anti-immigrant bill, which would nullify duly enacted laws, policies and practices of the District of Columbia,” she said.

Higgins pushed back and called D.C. a sanctuary city. — a term D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has distanced herself from since President Donald Trump was elected for a second term.

“Our nation’s capital should not reflect a refusal, in fact, a mandated denial of compliance with federal immigration law,” Higgins said in the meeting.

Trump administration Mar 25

Trump administration stops processing some green cards ‘to do more vetting'

Immigration Mar 21

International travel worries some green card holders

The committee voted along party lines to approve the legislation after less than 30 minutes of debate.

The Republican-controlled House would likely approve the bill, but it would face a tougher time getting through the Senate with a narrower GOP majority.

The Senate has yet to act on a bill the oversight committee approved last year that would block D.C. from allowing noncitizens from voting in local elections. District leaders believe H.R. 2056 will have the same fate.

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The student was identified by her attorney as Ph.D. candidate Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national.

University officials said Wednesday that they had no prior knowledge of Ozturk’s detention and did not share information with federal authorities. They said they’ve also been told the student’s visa has been terminated.

Video shared with NBC10 Boston shows Ozturk’s detainment, the woman’s attorney, Mahsa Khanbabai of Khanbabai Immigration Law, confirmed.

The video shows Ozturk scream as she’s approached on a sidewalk by a man who grabs her. She’s eventually surrounded by seven plainclothes agents.

The attorney called for Ozturk’s release.

“Rumeysa was heading to meet with friends to break her Ramadan fast on the evening of March 25th when she was detained near her home in Somerville, MA by DHS agents. We are unaware of her whereabouts and have not been able to contact her. No charges have been filed against Rumeysa to date that we are aware of. I filed a habeas petition requesting that she not be moved out of the District of MA which was granted by Judge Talwani last night. We hope Rumeysa will be released immediately,” Khanbabai said in a statement, adding that Ozturk was maintaining valid F-1 visa status.

She later emailed NBC10 Boston that, “nearly 20 hours after her detention, there are still no charges and the government has not told us where she is. This is very bizarre and incredibly concerning.”

Ozturk was found to have supported the terrorist organization Hamas, a senior Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told NBC News in a statement.

“Rumeysa Ozturk is a Turkish national and Tufts University graduate student, granted the privilege to be in this country on a visa,” the statement said. “DHS and ICE investigations found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans. A visa is a privilege not a right. Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated. This is commonsense security.”

The statement didn’t say how Ozturk allegedly supported Hamas.

A U.S. District Court judge on Tuesday issued an order blocking the Trump administration from removing Ozturk from the state of Massachusetts without notice.

The order says that the “petitioner shall not be moved outside the District of Massachusetts without first providing advance notice of the intended move. Such notice shall be filed in writing on the docket in this proceeding, and shall state the reason why the government believes that such a movement is necessary and should not be stayed pending further court proceedings.”

Ozturk was listed Wednesday afternoon in the ICE Online Detainee Locator System as being at the agency’s Basile, Louisiana, processing center. It wasn’t immediately clear when she was moved to Louisiana — if it was before or after judge’s order blocking her removal.

Asked about Ozturk being moved to Louisiana, Khanbabai confirmed she was told about the transfer, adding, that she believed federal authorities would have been made aware of the order.

“Why she was transferred is beyond me,” Khanbabai said.

Reaction to Tufts student’s detention in Somerville

One neighbor told NBC10 Boston that he called, 911 thinking it was a kidnapping. Another neighbor says there had been agents staked out in the neighborhood for two days.

They were shocked to see the video.

“As a woman being approached by anybody is so scary and then to not know where you’re going, to have them touch you, like it’s, you feel less than, and I can’t imagine how scared she is,” said Ava Gupta, who lives nearby.

“We are really alarmed that this is happening in our neighborhood and that people are being targeted like this. Nobody should be afraid going about their business, nobody should be afraid of speaking their mind, and that this is happening in Somerville in our neighborhood is alarming and disturbing,” Dipak Naker, another neighborhood resident, said.

Tufts is one of several Massachusetts universities facing a federal investigation in response to complaints of antisemitic discrimination due to protests over the war in Gaza.

Tufts University President Sunil Kumar said in a statement, “We realize that tonight’s news will be distressing to some members of our community, particularly the members of our international community. We will continue to provide information, support, and resources in the days ahead as more details become available to us.”

Kumar and other school leaders issued another statement Wednesday night after confirmation that Ozturk was detained and is in Louisiana.

“We recognize how frightening and distressing this situation is for her, her loved ones, and the larger community here at Tufts, especially our international students, staff, and faculty who may be feeling vulnerable or unsettled by these events,” the school leaders said. “As noted by the Massachusetts Attorney General in her statement today, the footage of Rumeysa’s arrest is disturbing. We stand with our Muslim students, especially during their observance of Ramadan, as we recognize that Rumeysa was on her way to an Iftar gathering with friends at the Interfaith Center when she was detained.”

The school also said it has a protocol to notify the Tufts University Police Department and inform the dispatcher in the event of “government officials who arrive on campus for an unannounced site visit.” People are urged to call 617-627-3030 to report such an incident.

A rally in support of Ozturk was held in Powderhouse Park Wednesday afternoon. Hundreds of people gathered around the town’s colonial-era powder house.

Mass. lawmakers react to Ozturk case

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said her office was closely monitoring the “disturbing” arrest.

“Based on what we now know, it is alarming that the federal administration chose to ambush and detain her, apparently targeting a law-abiding individual because of her political views,” Campbell said. “This isn’t public safety, it’s intimidation that will, and should, be closely scrutinized in court”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren called the student’s detention “an attack on our Constitution and basic freedoms” in a statement Wednesday.

“This arrest is the latest in an alarming pattern to stifle civil liberties. The Trump administration is targeting students with legal status and ripping people out of their communities without due process,” she said.

In a statement, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, who represents Somerville in Congress, called the incident “a horrifying violation of Rumeysa’s constitutional rights to due process and free speech,” and said she had to be released immediately, adding, “And we won’t stand by while the Trump Administration continues to abduct students with legal status and attack our fundamental freedoms.”

Recent federal immigration activity in Massachusetts

The arrest follows the recent slew of ICE arrests in the greater Boston area at the direction of border czar Tom Homan.

Gov. Maura Healey spoke yesterday, prior to the detention of this Tufts international student, about Homan’s criticism of the Bay State’s cooperation with these raids.

“I’m just going to continue to do my job as governor. I mean, I’m not sure what they’re looking for. As I say, we have been cooperating. We’ll continue to cooperate. I, as governor and as a former attorney general, always do everything in my power and interest to make sure that we’re taking care of public safety in our neighborhoods and in our community,” Healey said.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the part of the Department of Homeland Security that handles citizenship, legal status and other immigration benefits, has suspended processing some applications for so-called green cards to do more vetting of the applicants, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.

Trump’s executive order, signed Jan. 20, titled “Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats,” called for agencies to “vet and screen to the maximum degree possible all aliens who intend to be admitted, enter, or are already inside the United States, particularly those aliens coming from regions or nations with identified security risks.”

CBS News reported Tuesday that USCIS has directed its staff to conduct the additional vetting of refugees or people who were granted asylum and have applied for legal permanent residency, or green cards.

The agency said in a statement attributed to a DHS spokesperson that it is “placing a temporary pause on finalizing certain adjustment of status applications pending the completion of additional screening and vetting.”

The statement did not address which applications were affected, whether the pause would affect spending at the agency, how long it would last and other questions asked by NBC News.

Vetting on top of vetting

For refugees and those who have been granted asylum in the United States, it would be a vetting on top of a process that had already occurred, one that is quite rigorous for refugees who are usually vetted overseas before they can set foot in the United States.

“There’s a certain amount of documentation you have to provide as a refugee as well as an asylee,” Laura Collins, director of the Bush Institute-SMU Economic Growth Initiative at the George W. Bush Institute, told NBC News. “All of these people who are approved for resettlement or to remain in the United States, that’s because the United States government already approved them to be here.”

People who are granted asylum or admitted to the United States as refugees must wait one year before they can apply for green cards.

Collins said it remains to be seen how the vetting will be carried out and how long the pause will last. She said that in the first Trump administration, USCIS made sure every single blank on a form was correctly filled out.

“So if you didn’t have a middle name … they would send your application back and say, ‘Well, you didn’t fill in your middle name portion,’” Collins said. She said it’s possible USCIS will check social media, “things they probably already vet, but asking for another set of eyes or a slightly longer look at it.”

Trump took similar steps in his previous presidential term. In his first term, USCIS was directed to go through every application “with a fine-tooth comb,” disrupting agency operations, Collins said.

“In slowing down those applications, because USCIS is fee-funded, if you’re not processing as many applications, you are not taking in as much money, which means you don’t have the capacity to maintain all the contractors and other staff you have, so you start to shrink the agency,” she said. “I don’t know if that is their ultimate goal.”

The Migration Policy Institute reported in 2020 that a drop in the number of applications and an increase in spending on vetting and enforcement were central to the agency’s $1.2 billion shortfall in 2020.

From 2016 to 2020, spending on vetting nearly tripled, from $53 million to $149 million, according to MPI, an immigration think tank that has supported immigration reform that includes enforcement as well as a path to citizenship for people in the country without legal status.

People are also vetted during the process of becoming legal permanent residents, or what is known as adjusting their status. From the time they’re in the United States through the process of getting green cards, authorities check that they don’t have criminal records or something else that would disqualify them from getting legal permanent residency, she said.

The pauses are being implemented just as USCIS has been making headway in its workload. It said in a report on its website that it reduced its backlog of petitions 15% in 2023, the first time in a decade it had cut its backlog. It decreased again last year, by 11.2%.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

• Trump stands by national security adviser Mike Waltz despite disclosing military plans, saying he’s ‘learned a lesson’
• Trump’s top intelligence officials claim no classified information was shared in group chat that included a journalist
• Consumer expectations plunge to their lowest level in 12 years as recession signal blares

Federal agents swarmed a Dale City home March 27 and arrested 24-year-old Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos, charging him with possession of a firearm by a person who is in the country illegally.

The motion to drop the charge did not give a reason why, but The Washington Post reports sources familiar with the matter say it’s so they can fast-track Villatoro Santos’ deportation.

Santos’ newly-appointed public defender is asking the court to delay the dismissal for fourteen days in order to get his client immigration counsel.

He noted the “substantial risks” involved in his client’s transfer to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and recent deportations by the Trump Administration without due process.

Attorney General Pam Bondi described him as “one of the top leaders of MS-13” and “one of the top three for the entire country.” She said he is from El Salvador and will be deported.

News4 and Telemundo 44 spoke to Villatoro Santos’ mother, who shared copies of a federal search warrant affidavit showing agents seized multiple guns, ammunition, a letter from a jail outlining inmate “cliques” and immigration documents.

The front door of Villatoro Santos’ mother’s home was smashed from a battering ram. Her rear sliding glass door was smashed out.

President Donald Trump has blamed violence and gang growth on lax immigration policies. In his first term as president, Trump promised an all-out fight against MS-13, saying he would “dismantle, decimate and eradicate” the gang.

Social media posts have generated fear among some green card holders about whether or not they risk losing their permanent residency status by traveling outside the U.S.

“In our communities, we are always trying to connect with our families and just going outside the U.S. and traveling to other countries, visiting our families,” D.C. resident Laura said.

She said the new administration has her second-guessing whether it’s a good idea to visit her family.

“We always want to connect with them, but nowadays, it’s hard and you have to think twice if you want to go see them, because maybe the coming back and the getting back here is going to be a little more difficult, a little bit more stressful, and just adding steps towards that already maybe confusing process or maybe not confusing but just struggling process of too many steps to come back to your home,” Laura said.

Katherine Canto, who specializes in immigration law, said the first thing to know is anyone whose immigration cases have not reached a conclusion should not travel outside the U.S. and expect to be able to return without potential issues.

“Someone who has a pending residency or a green card, they shouldn’t travel, I mean, unless they have an emergency, just because of the situation that we are living at at this point,” Canto said.

Felix Contarero, who says he has been in the U.S. for almost 20 years, thinks some may choose to take that risk.

“It’s like a challenge for people,” he said. “They try to get out traveling and they don’t have concluded the paperwork or the visa … and if they do, they decide.”

Trump administration Mar 21

Homeland Security revokes temporary status for 532,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans

Immigration Mar 21

Judge vows to determine if order blocking deportation flights was ignored

Immigration Mar 20

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While experts recommend checking with an immigration attorney before making any travel decisions, Canto said green card holders should be fine, as long as it’s up to date.

“For any other green card holder that wants to travel, if they don’t have any of these issues, they will be able to travel safely,” she said. “One thing to remember is that any green card holder has a limited time that they can be outside without any issues.”

Those who have a green card should not spend more than 12 consecutive months outside the U.S. or their status may be compromised. 

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The order applies to about 532,000 people from the four countries who came to the United States since October 2022. They arrived with financial sponsors and were given two-year permits to live and work in the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said they will lose their legal status on April 24, or 30 days after the publication of the notice in the Federal Register.

The new policy impacts people who are already in the U.S. and who came under the humanitarian parole program. It follows an earlier Trump administration decision to end what it called the “broad abuse” of the humanitarian parole, a long-standing legal tool presidents have used to allow people from countries where there’s war or political instability to enter and temporarily live in the U.S.

During his campaign President Donald Trump promised to deport millions of people who are in the U.S. illegally, and as president he has been also ending legal pathways for immigrants to come to the U.S. and to stay.

DHS said parolees without a lawful basis to stay in the U.S. “must depart” before their parole termination date.

“Parole is inherently temporary, and parole alone is not an underlying basis for obtaining any immigration status,” DHS said.

Before the new order, the beneficiaries of the program could stay in the U.S. until their parole expires, although the administration had stopped processing their applications for asylum, visas and other requests that might allow them to remain longer.

The administration decision has already been challenged in federal courts.

A group of American citizens and immigrants sued the Trump administration for ending humanitarian parole and are seeking to reinstate the programs for the four nationalities.

Lawyers and activists raised their voices to denounce the government’s decision.

Friday’s action is “going to cause needless chaos and heartbreak for families and communities across the country,” said Karen Tumlin, founder and director of Justice Action Center, one of the organizations that filed the lawsuit at the end of February. She called it “reckless, cruel and counterproductive.”

The Biden administration allowed up to 30,000 people a month from the four countries to come to the United States for two years with eligibility to work. It persuaded Mexico to take back the same number from those countries because the U.S. could deport few, if any, to their homes.

Cuba generally acceptedabout one deportation flight a month, while Venezuela and Nicaragua refused to take any. All three are U.S. adversaries.

Haiti accepted many deportation flights, especially after a surge of migrants from the Caribbean country in the small border town of Del Rio, Texas, in 2021. But Haiti has been in constant turmoil, hampering U.S. efforts.

Since late 2022, more than half a million people have come to the U.S. under the policy, also known as CHNV. It was a part of the Biden administration’s approach to encourage people to come through new legal channels while cracking down on those who crossed the border illegally.

—-

AP editor Elliot Spagat and writer Tim Sullivan contributed to this report.

Chief Judge James Boasberg is trying to determine if the administration ignored his turnaround order last weekend when at least two planeloads of immigrants were still in flight.

“I will get to the bottom of whether they violated my order, who ordered this and what the consequences will be,” Boasberg said during a hearing for a lawsuit challenging the deportations.

Earlier Friday, the Justice Department informed the judge that top leaders in President Donald Trump’s administration are debating whether to invoke a “state secrets privilege” in response to the district judge’s questions about the deportation flights.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a court filing that there are “ongoing Cabinet-level discussions” about Boasberg’s demand for more information. Boasberg ordered the Trump administration to either provide more details about the flights or assert a claim that disclosing the information would harm “state secrets.”

The Republican administration has largely resisted the judge’s request, calling it an “unnecessary judicial fishing” expedition. Boasberg dismissed its response as “woefully insufficient,” increasing the possibility that he may hold administration officials in contempt of court.

The Trump administration has transferred hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador under the 18th century law. Flights were in the air last Saturday when Boasberg, orally from the bench, issued an order temporarily barring the deportations and ordered planes to return to the U.S.

The Justice Department has said that the judge’s oral directions did not count, that only his written order needed to be followed and that it couldn’t apply to flights that had already left the U.S.

Trump and some Republican allies have called for impeaching Boasberg, who was nominated by President Barack Obama, a Democrat. In a rare statement earlier this week, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”

During Friday’s hearing, Boasberg said the Trump administration’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan immigrants carries “incredibly troublesome” policy ramifications.

The act allows noncitizens to be deported without the opportunity to go before an immigration or federal court judge. Trump’s Saturday proclamation called the Tren de Aragua gang an invading force.

“Why was this law essentially signed in the dark and these people essentially rushed onto planes?” Boasberg asked. “It seems to be that you only do that if you know it’s a problem and you want to get them out of the country before lawsuits can be filed.”

Boasberg pressed Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign to explain how Venezuelan immigrants covered by Trump’s proclamation can challenge their deportations before they are removed from the U.S. The judge pointed to the U.S. Supreme Court’s finding that people imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were entitled to challenge whether they had any ties to al-Qaida.

Immigration Mar 19

Judge wants answers from DOJ on deportation flights to El Salvador

Trump administration Mar 19

Families of deported Venezuelans are distraught their loved ones were sent to El Salvador

Immigration Mar 18

Wife of man deported from Maryland says he has protected status, isn't in a gang

Ensign said the Department of Homeland Security is complying with the law during deportations, and people could file challenges individually in Texas, where they were held before being sent to El Salvador.

American Civil Liberties Union attorney Lee Gelernt said the government set up an administrative hearing board during World War II to give people a chance to contest their removal.

“There was not these kind of summary removals,” added Gelernt, an attorney for the deported immigrants.

News4 sends breaking news stories by email. Go here to sign up to get breaking news alerts in your inbox.

Correction (March 24, 2025 12:51 p.m.): An earlier version of this story contained a video that incorrectly stated ICE’s requirements around attorney notification when arresting individuals. ICE is required to give an arrested person access to an attorney or a list of attorneys they can call.

Jensy Machado, who says he voted for President Donald Trump, told Telemundo 44 that on March 5, ICE agents blocked in his pickup truck not far from his Manassas home as he headed to work with two other men. He said the agents initially refused to let him show his REAL ID-compliant Virginia driver’s license, proof of his lawful status in the U.S.

“They didn’t ask me for any ID,” he said. “I was telling the officer if I can give an ID, but he said to just keep my hands up and not moving. And then after that, he told me to get out of the car and then he put the handcuffs on me. And then he went to me and said how did I get into this country and if I was waiting for court or do I have any case? And I told him I was an American citizen, and he looked at his other partner, like, you know, smiling, like saying, ‘Can you believe this guy?’ Because he asked the other guy, ‘Do you believe him?’”

Machado said he was uncuffed and released after showing his driver’s license.

Video shows a “Trump 2024” sticker on his truck.

Warner’s letter to federal officials says, “U.S. citizens interacting with ICE who seek to prove their identity with identification or other documents that would assist ICE in determining their identity and immigration status should be permitted to do so.

“In this case, it is clear that the ICE agents misidentified this U.S. citizen, wasting valuable time and resources, and damaging ICE’s public image in the process.”

Immigration Mar 6

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Georgetown University Mar 20

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Immigration Mar 18

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Machado said that during the traffic stop, the agents said the name of a man they were seeking for a deportation order, someone who had given Machado’s home address.

Machado said he told them that was not his name and he did not know anyone by that name.

In response to News4’s request for information, ICE said the officers engaged Machado to verify his identity based on reasonable suspicion, including a likeness to the description of the target of the removal order.

Warner’s letter follows up with a series of questions: 

• Did ICE agents identify themselves as law enforcement? If so, how?
• Did they do so prior to drawing their weapons?
• What information about the person of interest did ICE have prior to stopping the U.S. citizen?
• If there is a photograph of the person of interest the agents mistook for the U.S. citizen, please provide it.
• And, were the ICE agents involved in the U.S. citizen’s detention counseled or disciplined?

Warner’s letter says the handling of the incident has raised concerns for the safety of Virginians and law enforcement officers both.

News4 emailed DHS and ICE for comment on Warner’s letter and is awaiting a reply.

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Their families and lawyers fear there will be no recourse for them to return to the United States for scheduled immigration hearings or even return to their native Venezuela — all while those who spoke to NBC News continue to insist their loved ones and clients have no criminal histories or gang ties.

The Trump administration has said those who were sent to El Salvador had ties to the Venezuelan gang known as Tren de Aragua.

“We have no idea if there is any legal process by which we can challenge this, either in El Salvador or the United States,” said Lindsay Toczylowski, an attorney who represents a Venezuelan man in his early 30s who was seeking asylum from persecution for being gay and for his political activism against Nicolás Maduro’s government. “This is the grossest human rights violation I have seen.”

She and other attorneys said they have been completely unable to reach their clients and fear they have disappeared into a prison system notorious for mass detentions, abuse and a lack of due process. 

Toczylowski said that her client is not a gang member and that he was deported without her knowledge, adding that days later, she was told he had been sent to El Salvador. She now fears he faces indefinite detention in “a potentially extremely dangerous situation.”

Toczylowski, who is the CEO of Immigrant Defenders Law Center, a law firm that works with immigrants, asked that her client not be named out of concern for his safety. He is scheduled to have a hearing next month in his ongoing immigration case to remain in the United States and has no criminal history, she said.

The Trump administration over the weekend invoked the rarely used Alien Enemies Act from 1798, which allows the president to deport noncitizens during wartime. It announced that it had removed hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants it alleged were members of a gang, flying them from the United States to El Salvador, where they were taken to a notorious megaprison. 

According to the Salvadoran government, the immigrants were sent to a megaprison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, for a one-year term that is “renewable.” The Trump administration has said it would pay El Salvador $6 million to imprison about 300 people it alleged were members of the Tren de Aragua gang for one year.

Trump administration Mar 19

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Trump administration Mar 16

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The White House said in a statement Tuesday that it was “confident in DHS intelligence assessments on these gang affiliations and criminality,” referring to the Department of Homeland Security, adding that the Venezuelan immigrants who were removed had final orders of deportation. The Trump administration has not released evidence that those sent to El Salvador have criminal histories or gang ties. 

Some families and attorneys strongly deny that the Venezuelan immigrants are connected to Tren de Aragua. They say their family members have been falsely accused and targeted because of their tattoos. 

Toczylowski said she has been unable to reach her client. She said Immigration and Customs Enforcement told her this week it would not facilitate communication between her and her client, nor would it facilitate his return to the United States for his ongoing asylum case.

ICE did not immediately respond to requests for comment about those claims and whether it was helping facilitate communication or assistance for anyone sent to El Salvador who had open immigration cases and thus did not have final orders of deportation.

The exact conditions for those imprisoned in CECOT are widely unknown, as human rights groups are not permitted into it and the media is rarely granted access.

Last year, CNN reported during a visit to CECOT that cells appeared built to hold roughly 80 inmates and that men were held there for 23.5 hours a day. CNN added that the cells had tiered metal bunks with no sheets, pillows or mattresses, as well as open toilets and plastic buckets for washing.

Human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have documented extreme crowding, torture and other issues at the prison and others in the country.

The groups have documented years of human rights abuses in the Salvadoran prison system, as well as indefinite detention without access to due process. In recent years, President Nayib Bukele has used emergency powers to suspend certain fundamental rights and allow the arrests of tens of thousands of people suspected to be members of street gangs. More than 80,000 people have been arrested since the order.

Last year, the human rights organization Cristosal reported that at least 261 people have died in Salvadoran prisons since 2022.

Bukele has bragged about his country’s system of mass incarceration. “World’s highest incarceration rate / safest country in the Western Hemisphere It’s not rocket science,” he wrote on X in February 2024.

Juanita Goebertus Estrada, the director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch, said, “We can very firmly say that the Salvadoran prison system is no place for migrants.” The organization, which has been doing field work in El Salvador for years, published two recent reports on prison conditions there.

“We’ve documented cases of torture, of ill treatment, of malnutrition, of lack of access to medical services,” she said. “We have documented very severe cases of restriction to due process. In CECOT in particular, people that have gone in have not come out.” 

Bukele and his administration have promised to make sure anyone who enters CECOT would never return to their communities.

The experts and lawyers say they are gravely concerned that the immigrants will be denied due process, both in terms of how they were removed from the United States and in their ongoing immigration cases in the United States, and about their fates as they remain in El Salvador. 

Ana María Méndez Dardón, the director for Central America at the Washington Office on Latin America, said that “the judiciary system in El Salvador has collapsed” and that it lacks the independence to even properly deal with the issues facing the country’s own citizens, let alone due process concerns for the Venezuelan immigrants recently sent to El Salvador.

“For Bukele, justice means just mass incarceration,” she said.

Goebertus said that because there was no judicial independence in the country and because of the state of emergency, “these people have no recourse in El Salvador.”

Martin Rosenow, an immigration attorney in Miami, said he believes that a Venezuelan asylum-seeker he represents was quietly removed from the United States and is now most likely in the Salvadoran prison system. 

“We have not been able to find him anywhere. All signs indicate that he’s there at the CECOT prison. We have no access to him, and we don’t know what’s going on,” he said. 

Franco Jose Caraballo Tiapa, 26, a barber and father of two, was in the United States seeking asylum because of political persecution and has no criminal history, Rosenow said. Caraballo Tiapa had been released into the United States with his wife before he was detained after an immigration appointment in February.

Then, on Friday night, he called his wife crying and desperate, saying he was going to be deported, Rosenow said. Rosenow said Caraballo Tiapa’s name disappeared from the list of ICE detainees, which would happen only if his client was released from detention or deported. 

The Trump administration has yet to tell Rosenow where his client is or the circumstances around what happened to him.

ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Caraballo Tiapa’s case and whether he was deported and sent to El Salvador. 

“My hope rests exclusively on our judicial power to have the enforcement arm of bringing these people back — and I don’t even know if that’s possible,” Rosenow said.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

• Georgetown, Columbia and Brown scholars targeted for deportation by Trump administration
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U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles in Alexandria, Virginia, ordered that Indian national Badar Khan Suri “shall not be removed from the United States unless and until the Court issues a contrary order.”

Suri’s attorney wrote in an earlier court filing that Suri was targeted because of his wife’s “identity as a Palestinian and her constitutionally protected speech.”

The filing said that federal authorities have provided no evidence that he’s committed any crimes and that his detention violates his free speech and due process rights. Suri, who has no criminal record, holds a visa authorizing him to be in the U.S. as a visiting scholar, and his wife is a U.S. citizen, according to the motion.

“The Trump administration has openly expressed its intention to weaponize immigration law to punish noncitizens whose views are deemed critical of U.S. policy as it relates to Israel,” wrote Hassan Ahmad, Suri’s Virginia-based attorney.

Trump administration Mar 20

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Suri was accused of “spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media” and determined to be deportable by the Secretary of State’s office, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said late Wednesday on X, formerly known as Twitter. Suri’s case was first reported by Politico.

Suri was arrested Monday night outside of his Virginia home by masked officers who identified themselves as Department of Homeland Security agents and told him his visa had been revoked, according to the filing by Suri’s lawyer.

Suri and his wife, Mapheze Saleh, “have long been doxxed and smeared,” Suri’s lawyer wrote. Critics have published Saleh’s photograph online along with information that includes her former employment with Al Jazeera and her birthplace in Gaza City “as support for her alleged ties with Hamas.”

His lawyer didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking further comment Thursday.

Nader Hashemi, a professor of Middle East and Islamic politics at Georgetown, told The Associated Press that Suri was intensely focused on teaching and research that centered on religion and peace processes in the Middle East and South Asia.

Suri felt strong solidarity and sympathy for Palestinians, but was not outwardly political on campus, the professor said.

“We’ve organized dozens of events since Oct. 7, when the Israel-Gaza war began, and I don’t recall seeing him in any of those events,” said Hashemi, who directs the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, where Suri is a post-doctoral fellow. “That’s not who he was.”

Before his arrest, Suri and his wife had been targets of right-wing campus groups, in part because Saleh’s father is Ahmed Yousef, a former adviser to Hamas, Hashemi said.

Yousef confirmed to The New York Times that Suri is his son-in-law, adding that Suri wasn’t involved in any “political activism,” including on behalf of Hamas.

Yousef, who has publicly criticized the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, told the newspaper that he left his position in the Hamas-run government in Gaza more than a decade ago and does not hold a senior position with the militant group.

Georgetown’s Alwaleed Center said in a statement that Suri’s arrest was part of a “campaign by the Trump Administration to destroy higher education in the United States and punish their political opponents.”

Suri was later taken to a detention facility in Louisiana, according to a government website. His lawyers are seeking his immediate release and to halt deportation proceedings through their habeas motion filed Tuesday against the Trump administration.

Suri’s detention more than 1,000 miles (about 1,600 kilometers) away from his family and attorney is “plainly intended as retaliation and punishment for Mr. Suri’s protected speech,” his attorney added.

Separately, Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil, a legal U.S. resident with no criminal record, was detained earlier this month over his participation in pro-Palestinian demonstrations and is fighting deportation efforts in federal court. And Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a kidney transplant specialist who previously worked and lived in Rhode Island, was deported over the weekend despite having a U.S. visa.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Beyer, whose district includes the county where Suri was detained, said in a Thursday statement that the scholar’s detention was illegal, urging the court to consider Suri’s case.

“The ‘justification’ given for these violations of Mr. Suri’s right to due process is another violation of the Constitution: a blatant attack on the First Amendment,” Beyer said in a statement. “Mr. Suri and his family are unfortunately the latest victim of President Trump’s assault on the freedom of speech.”

Suri’s lawyers say he hopes to become a university professor. A Georgetown webpage said that he earned a doctorate in India while studying efforts to introduce democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq, and he has traveled extensively in conflict zones in several countries.

Education Mar 11

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Georgetown University Mar 20

Georgetown postdoctoral fellow detained by ICE amid free speech concerns

The university said in a statement Thursday that Suri was “duly granted a visa to enter the United States to continue his doctoral research on peacebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

“We are not aware of him engaging in any illegal activity, and we have not received a reason for his detention,” the school said. “We support our community members’ rights to free and open inquiry, deliberation and debate, even if the underlying ideas may be difficult, controversial or objectionable. We expect the legal system to adjudicate this case fairly.”

The U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement detainee locator website lists Suri as being in the custody of immigration officials at the Alexandria Staging Facility in Louisiana.

Federal agents swarmed a Dale City home March 27 and arrested 24-year-old Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos, charging him with possession of a firearm by a person who is in the country illegally.

The motion to drop the charge did not give a reason why, but The Washington Post reports sources familiar with the matter say it’s so they can fast-track Villatoro Santos’ deportation.

Santos’ newly-appointed public defender is asking the court to delay the dismissal for fourteen days in order to get his client immigration counsel.

He noted the “substantial risks” involved in his client’s transfer to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and recent deportations by the Trump Administration without due process.

Attorney General Pam Bondi described him as “one of the top leaders of MS-13” and “one of the top three for the entire country.” She said he is from El Salvador and will be deported.

News4 and Telemundo 44 spoke to Villatoro Santos’ mother, who shared copies of a federal search warrant affidavit showing agents seized multiple guns, ammunition, a letter from a jail outlining inmate “cliques” and immigration documents.

The front door of Villatoro Santos’ mother’s home was smashed from a battering ram. Her rear sliding glass door was smashed out.

President Donald Trump has blamed violence and gang growth on lax immigration policies. In his first term as president, Trump promised an all-out fight against MS-13, saying he would “dismantle, decimate and eradicate” the gang.

The government motioned Wednesday for more time to answer Judge James Boasberg’s questions about the deportation flights, calling the judge’s queries “a picayune dispute over the micromanagement of immaterial fact finding.”

The government also said, “The court’s actions to date represent grave usurpations of the president’s powers under the Aliens Enemies Act.”

In its filing, the government said the state secrets privilege — which allows the government to protect national security information in civil litigation — was under consideration.

 “The secretary of state has revealed many operational details of the flights, including the number of people involved in the flights, many of their identities, the facility to which they were brought, their manner of treatment and the time window during which these events occurred,” Boasberg replied.

The back-and-forth escalated Wednesday at the White House, where Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called Boasberg an activist.

“Under the Alien Enemies Act, the president has this power, and that’s why this deportation campaign has continued,” she said. “And this judge, Judge Boasberg, is a Democrat activist. He was appointed by Barack Obama, his wife has donated more than $10,000 to Democrats and he has consistently shown his disdain for this president and his policies, and it’s unacceptable.”

Boasberg was first appointed to the bench by former President George W. Bush and later elevated to federal district court by former President Barack Obama.

Last week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested a Maryland man whose wife believes was on one of the flights to El Salvador. ICE referred questions to the White House or State Department.

According to his attorney, Lucia Curiel, the man, who News4 refers to as Armando to protect his identity and his wife’s, had what’s called withholding of removal — a legal status signed by an immigration judge in 2019.

“It is illegal for the government to deport him to El Salvador because the judge has found that he met the standard for withholding of removal, meaning his life would be in danger if he were deported to El Salvador,” Curiel said.

His wife said Armando had a job as a sheet metal worker and a work permit. She has not heard from since Saturday.

She said he is in prison in El Salvador. She said she recognized him in a video and photos posted to social media by the country’s president.

In a court filing Monday, ICE said several of the people deported last weekend and flown to El Salvador did not have criminal records. But ICE argued the lack of a criminal record does not indicate the people pose a limited threat, arguing that they are “terrorists” that the U.S. lacks a “complete profile” on.

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The Alien Enemies Act allows the U.S. government to detain and deport nationals of an enemy nation during war or an invasion.

The man, who News4 refers to as Armando to protect his identity, is in prison in El Salvador, according to his wife and attorney.

Over the weekend, El Salvador’s president posted a video to X that Armando’s wife says shows her husband being frog walked by guards. His wife had no idea where her husband was until she recognized him in the video. She also recognized his distinctive tattoos in a photograph.

“This is unfair,” she said. “You just don’t go randomly picking up people and sending them and putting on a plane.”

According to Armando’s attorney, Lucia Curiel, 29-year-old Armando was given the status of withholding of removal in 2019. A document she provided shows the status was granted and cites a clause that provides restriction on deportation but has exceptions in which the person can be removed, such as reasonable grounds to believe the person is a danger.

Curiel says he is not a danger and has routinely checked in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“I have never heard of anything like this happening, and any other lawyer that I talked to is also, I mean, the reaction is just one of shock, because this really is just a flagrantly ignoring the law,” Curiel said. “This is completely illegal by any stretch of the imagination.”

News4 found no local criminal record for Armando, not even a traffic ticket.

However, Curiel said Armando was accused by Prince George’s County police of wearing a gang shirt in March 2019. The claim wasn’t substantiated, she said, but she believes that might be the reason Armando was targeted for deportation.

“I don’t know why they noticed me,” Armando told News4 through an interpreter in December 2020. “Perhaps because of my Latino race, they labeled me as a gang member, which I have never been. And I have no criminal record in my country or in the United States.”

ICE picked up Armando March 12 near IKEA in College Park. According to his wife, he had just left the house with his young son and was heading to the bus stop to pick up his older kids.

“When they put him in the vehicle, they still took me to the vehicle and opened the door and told me to say goodbye to him,” Armando’s wife said.

“He just old me to take care of my kids, and I told him everything is going to be fine,” she said. “You’re going to come back, because you haven’t done nothing. You have your work permit.”

In a recent interview with the News4 I-Team, the director of ICE operations in Maryland said everything ICE does is highly targeted.

Curiel believes Armando was on one of three flights that left from Texas last week. Trump said the flights had “bad people on them.”

“These were bad people,” Trump said. “That was a bad group of, as I say, hombres.”

A spokesman for ICE in Baltimore referred questions about Armando to the White House or State Department.

In Monday’s White House press briefing, reporters asked White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt how they determined everyone they detained had a criminal record.

“I can ensure the American people that customs and border patrol and ICE and the Department of Homeland Security are sure about the identities of the individuals who were on these planes and the threat that they posed to our homeland,” she said.

The only recourse now may be a lawsuit, Curiel said.

“Because the government of the United States has clearly violated his rights by deporting him to El Salvador and violated U.S. law by deporting him to El Salvador,” she said.

A DHS spokesperson declined to provide any criminal records or details but sent a statement in response, saying, “We are confident in DHS intelligence assessments on these gang affiliations and criminality. This administration is not going to ignore the rule of law.”

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After hours of surveillance, a team the News4 I-Team witnessed made its third arrests of the day.

“We’re with immigration. We have a warrant for your arrest,” one of the agents told a 47-year-old Venezuelan man stopped as he approached his work van. ICE said he had a history of drug and weapons convictions, but no pending criminal charges.

“So, eventually he did end up leaving his house, and we were able to apprehend him before he took off,” explained Matt Elliston, Maryland’s ICE director. “We don’t have any reason to suspect the wife’s here illegally.”

They left the man’s car keys in the mail drop box because his wife didn’t open the door.

It already had been a busy day for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations team. The I-Team watched as agents met up at 4 a.m. in a shopping center parking lot.

“Today we’re going to have three targets,” one of the agents said to the group, which was joined by
members of Homeland Security Investigations and members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

“We look for public safety threats, right? Gang members, sex offenders, felons,” Elliston said.

According to ICE, all the targets on this day had final orders for removal, meaning an immigration judge ordered them to be deported. They used what is called administrative warrants to make the arrests.

“If we’re unable to arrest them in a public area, we’ll try to get a criminal warrant from the U.S. attorney’s office so we can break the door down,” Elliston said.

Elliston said early mornings are better for his team since most of the targets leave their homes early for work.

“Arresting someone where they’re half-asleep at 5 o ‘clock in the morning is less – there’s, statistically, there’s less likelihood they’re going to fight back,” he said.

As for who they target: “All we do is targeted enforcement. We use intelligence-driven leads. We know the targets that we’re going after. We don’t do dragnets. We don’t go door to door. That’s never something that ICE has done,” said Elliston.

But there is a difference from previous administrations: Elliston’s team can make what’s called collateral arrests of undocumented immigrants they come across who are not facing additional criminal charges.

“We’re still targeting that worst of the worst person, you know, except now if we come across someone who’s standing next to him, who’s also here illegally, we’re going to take that person too,” said Elliston.

That happened after agents waited for more than two hours near the home of a man from El Salvador. ICE said he was convicted of DUI and negligent manslaughter. The stakeout was something they could not have done last year due to a 2011 policy that limited them from targeting people near sensitive locations such as schools and churches. That policy was rescinded in January by DHS.

“This is a great example of why we changed the sensitive locations policy, because this building behind us is a Baptist church, you know. Despite us not doing anything at the church, like, we wouldn’t even be allowed to be parked in a parking lot. Really, anywhere within like a two-block radius of here,” said Elliston.

Elliston said he’s constantly fielding calls asking about possible ICE enforcements at schools. He said that has not happened in Maryland.

After agents pulled over the man from El Salvador, they also detained his brother, in a collateral arrest.

“We also know that his brother was prior deported. So, he’s been removed from the United States previously,” said Elliston.

News4 I-Team Mar 12

‘Like living in a dark room': Inside overcrowded ICE detention centers

Immigration Mar 4

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Immigrant advocates raise concerns

Some immigrant advocates tell the I-Team they’re worried these stepped-up arrests are unfair to some.

“This is a total change and an escalation in how immigrants are being treated,” said Michael Lukens with AMICA Center for Immigrant Rights, which works to help detainees know their rights.

“I think what really concerns me is, you don’t look at someone who was born in the United States, who had a criminal background, and say, ‘Well, they are a criminal forever.’ Right? You don’t label them a criminal and make them a second-class citizen. Why is it OK to do that for an immigrant?” he asked.

Ama Frimpong is the legal director of CASA.

“Tensions are definitely much, much higher. I think that there is there is a lot of concern within the immigrant community right now,” she said.

Part of that fear, according to Frimpong, is for families who might lose a parent or breadwinner to deportation.

“I see, you know, moms, right? Who are trying to console their kids. And, you know, trying to tell them that everything will be OK when truly they don’t know whether everything will be OK,” she said.

When asked by the I-Team why immigrants are willing to risk deportation, she answered: “Because for a lot of people, this is a better life.”

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“I think the real danger here is that immigration advocacy groups are telling people, don’t cooperate. Don’t come to the door. Don’t stop your vehicle. You know, all of these things that could then lead to criminal prosecutions,” said Elliston.

But advocates say immigrants do have the right to remain silent and not open their door unless the agents have a signed criminal arrest warrant.

“Correct. Correct. And now, the difference is … it is a much easier process for us to obtain that warrant signed by a judge,” said Elliston.

While Elliston hears the concerns about ICE, he said his team is following the law. During one of the arrests on the day the I-Team watched, a woman in a car drove by cursing at his agents.

“It’s really a lack of education. So, the average person, no matter where you fall on the political spectrum, if they would stop and say, ‘Hey, like, who is this person? Like, why did you guys arrest him?’ And I’d say, ‘He just did 12 years in prison for, you know, dealing narcotics here in Hagerstown. This guy’s spreading poison on the streets.’ This is not a political issue; this is a public safety issue. The people of Maryland are safer today because of what we did,” Elliston said.

Reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot by Steve Jones and Jerry Lawlor, and edited by Steve Jones

Federal agents swarmed a Dale City home March 27 and arrested 24-year-old Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos, charging him with possession of a firearm by a person who is in the country illegally.

The motion to drop the charge did not give a reason why, but The Washington Post reports sources familiar with the matter say it’s so they can fast-track Villatoro Santos’ deportation.

Santos’ newly-appointed public defender is asking the court to delay the dismissal for fourteen days in order to get his client immigration counsel.

He noted the “substantial risks” involved in his client’s transfer to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and recent deportations by the Trump Administration without due process.

Attorney General Pam Bondi described him as “one of the top leaders of MS-13” and “one of the top three for the entire country.” She said he is from El Salvador and will be deported.

News4 and Telemundo 44 spoke to Villatoro Santos’ mother, who shared copies of a federal search warrant affidavit showing agents seized multiple guns, ammunition, a letter from a jail outlining inmate “cliques” and immigration documents.

The front door of Villatoro Santos’ mother’s home was smashed from a battering ram. Her rear sliding glass door was smashed out.

President Donald Trump has blamed violence and gang growth on lax immigration policies. In his first term as president, Trump promised an all-out fight against MS-13, saying he would “dismantle, decimate and eradicate” the gang.

Federal agents swarmed a Dale City home March 27 and arrested 24-year-old Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos, charging him with possession of a firearm by a person who is in the country illegally.

The motion to drop the charge did not give a reason why, but The Washington Post reports sources familiar with the matter say it’s so they can fast-track Villatoro Santos’ deportation.

Santos’ newly-appointed public defender is asking the court to delay the dismissal for fourteen days in order to get his client immigration counsel.

He noted the “substantial risks” involved in his client’s transfer to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and recent deportations by the Trump Administration without due process.

Attorney General Pam Bondi described him as “one of the top leaders of MS-13” and “one of the top three for the entire country.” She said he is from El Salvador and will be deported.

News4 and Telemundo 44 spoke to Villatoro Santos’ mother, who shared copies of a federal search warrant affidavit showing agents seized multiple guns, ammunition, a letter from a jail outlining inmate “cliques” and immigration documents.

The front door of Villatoro Santos’ mother’s home was smashed from a battering ram. Her rear sliding glass door was smashed out.

President Donald Trump has blamed violence and gang growth on lax immigration policies. In his first term as president, Trump promised an all-out fight against MS-13, saying he would “dismantle, decimate and eradicate” the gang.

Federal agents swarmed a Dale City home March 27 and arrested 24-year-old Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos, charging him with possession of a firearm by a person who is in the country illegally.

The motion to drop the charge did not give a reason why, but The Washington Post reports sources familiar with the matter say it’s so they can fast-track Villatoro Santos’ deportation.

Santos’ newly-appointed public defender is asking the court to delay the dismissal for fourteen days in order to get his client immigration counsel.

He noted the “substantial risks” involved in his client’s transfer to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and recent deportations by the Trump Administration without due process.

Attorney General Pam Bondi described him as “one of the top leaders of MS-13” and “one of the top three for the entire country.” She said he is from El Salvador and will be deported.

News4 and Telemundo 44 spoke to Villatoro Santos’ mother, who shared copies of a federal search warrant affidavit showing agents seized multiple guns, ammunition, a letter from a jail outlining inmate “cliques” and immigration documents.

The front door of Villatoro Santos’ mother’s home was smashed from a battering ram. Her rear sliding glass door was smashed out.

President Donald Trump has blamed violence and gang growth on lax immigration policies. In his first term as president, Trump promised an all-out fight against MS-13, saying he would “dismantle, decimate and eradicate” the gang.

Federal agents swarmed a Dale City home March 27 and arrested 24-year-old Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos, charging him with possession of a firearm by a person who is in the country illegally.

The motion to drop the charge did not give a reason why, but The Washington Post reports sources familiar with the matter say it’s so they can fast-track Villatoro Santos’ deportation.

Santos’ newly-appointed public defender is asking the court to delay the dismissal for fourteen days in order to get his client immigration counsel.

He noted the “substantial risks” involved in his client’s transfer to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and recent deportations by the Trump Administration without due process.

Attorney General Pam Bondi described him as “one of the top leaders of MS-13” and “one of the top three for the entire country.” She said he is from El Salvador and will be deported.

News4 and Telemundo 44 spoke to Villatoro Santos’ mother, who shared copies of a federal search warrant affidavit showing agents seized multiple guns, ammunition, a letter from a jail outlining inmate “cliques” and immigration documents.

The front door of Villatoro Santos’ mother’s home was smashed from a battering ram. Her rear sliding glass door was smashed out.

President Donald Trump has blamed violence and gang growth on lax immigration policies. In his first term as president, Trump promised an all-out fight against MS-13, saying he would “dismantle, decimate and eradicate” the gang.

U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg issued an order Saturday temporarily blocking the deportations, but lawyers told him there were already two planes with immigrants in the air — one headed for El Salvador, the other for Honduras. Boasberg verbally ordered the planes be turned around, but they apparently were not and he did not include the directive in his written order.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, in a statement Sunday, responded to speculation about whether the administration was flouting court orders: “The administration did not ‘refuse to comply’ with a court order. The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist TdA aliens had already been removed from U.S. territory.”

The acronym refers to the Tren de Aragua gang, which Trump targeted in his unusual proclamation that was released Saturday

In a court filing Sunday, the Department of Justice, which has appealed Boasberg’s decision, said it would not use the Trump proclamation he blocked for further deportations if his decision is not overturned.

Trump’s allies were gleeful over the results.

Protests Mar 15

Nationwide protests planned after arrest of former Columbia activist by immigration authorities

Immigration Mar 12

Immigrant detention centers are at capacity, Trump admin officials say

Immigration Mar 12

Immigration accounted for all U.S. population growth in 2022-23, first time since 1850

“Oopsie…Too late,” Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who agreed to house about 300 immigrants for a year at a cost of $6 million in his country’s prisons, wrote on the social media site X above an article about Boasberg’s ruling. That post was recirculated by White House communications director Steven Cheung.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who negotiated an earlier deal with Bukele to house immigrants, posted on the site: “We sent over 250 alien enemy members of Tren de Aragua which El Salvador has agreed to hold in their very good jails at a fair price that will also save our taxpayer dollars.”

Steve Vladeck, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, said that Boasberg’s verbal directive to turn around the planes was not technically part of his final order but that the Trump administration clearly violated the “spirit” of it.

“This just incentivizes future courts to be hyper specific in their orders and not give the government any wiggle room,” Vladeck said.

The immigrants were deported after Trump’s declaration of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which has been used only three times in U.S. history.

The law, invoked during the War of 1812 and World Wars I and II, requires a president to declare the United States is at war, giving him extraordinary powers to detain or remove foreigners who otherwise would have protections under immigration or criminal laws. It was last used to justify the detention of Japanese-American civilians during World War II.

Venezuela’s government in a statement Sunday rejected the use of Trump’s declaration of the law, characterizing it as evocative of “the darkest episodes in human history, from slavery to the horror of the Nazi concentration camps.”

Tren de Aragua originated in an infamously lawless prison in the central state of Aragua and accompanied an exodus of millions of Venezuelans, the overwhelming majority of whom were seeking better living conditions after their nation’s economy came undone during the past decade. Trump seized on the gang during his campaign to paint misleading pictures of communities that he contended were “taken over” by what were actually a handful of lawbreakers.

The Trump administration has not identified the immigrants deported, provided any evidence they are in fact members of Tren de Aragua or that they committed any crimes in the United States. It also sent two top members of the Salvadoran MS-13 gang to El Salvador who had been arrested in the United States.

Video released by El Salvador’s government Sunday showed men exiting airplanes onto an airport tarmac lined by officers in riot gear. The men, who had their hands and ankles shackled, struggled to walk as officers pushed their heads down to have them bend down at the waist.

The video also showed the men being transported to prison in a large convoy of buses guarded by police and military vehicles and at least one helicopter. The men were shown kneeling on the ground as their heads were shaved before they changed into the prison’s all-white uniform — knee-length shorts, T-shirt, socks and rubber clogs — and placed in cells.

The immigrants were taken to the notorious CECOT facility, the centerpiece of Bukele’s push to pacify his once violence-wracked country through tough police measures and limits on basic rights

The Trump administration said the president actually signed the proclamation contending Tren de Aragua was invading the United States on Friday night but didn’t announce it until Saturday afternoon. Immigration lawyers said that, late Friday, they noticed Venezuelans who otherwise couldn’t be deported under immigration law being moved to Texas for deportation flights. They began to file lawsuits to halt the transfers.

“Basically any Venezuelan citizen in the US may be removed on pretext of belonging to Tren de Aragua, with no chance at defense,” Adam Isacson of the Washington Office for Latin America, a human rights group, warned on X.

The litigation that led to the hold on deportations was filed on behalf of five Venezuelans held in Texas who lawyers said were concerned they’d be falsely accused of being members of the gang. Once the act is invoked, they warned, Trump could simply declare anyone a Tren de Aragua member and remove them from the country.

Boasberg barred those Venezuelans’ deportations Saturday morning when the suit was filed, but only broadened it to all people in federal custody who could be targeted by the act after his afternoon hearing. He noted that the law has never before been used outside of a congressionally declared war and that plaintiffs may successfully argue Trump exceeded his legal authority in invoking it.

The bar on deportations stands for up to 14 days and the immigrants will remain in federal custody during that time. Boasberg has scheduled a hearing Friday to hear additional arguments in the case.

He said he had to act because the immigrants whose deportations may actually violate the U.S. Constitution deserved a chance to have their pleas heard in court.

“Once they’re out of the country,” Boasberg said, “there’s little I could do.”

_____

Cano reported from Caracas, Venezuela.

Federal agents swarmed a Dale City home March 27 and arrested 24-year-old Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos, charging him with possession of a firearm by a person who is in the country illegally.

The motion to drop the charge did not give a reason why, but The Washington Post reports sources familiar with the matter say it’s so they can fast-track Villatoro Santos’ deportation.

Santos’ newly-appointed public defender is asking the court to delay the dismissal for fourteen days in order to get his client immigration counsel.

He noted the “substantial risks” involved in his client’s transfer to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and recent deportations by the Trump Administration without due process.

Attorney General Pam Bondi described him as “one of the top leaders of MS-13” and “one of the top three for the entire country.” She said he is from El Salvador and will be deported.

News4 and Telemundo 44 spoke to Villatoro Santos’ mother, who shared copies of a federal search warrant affidavit showing agents seized multiple guns, ammunition, a letter from a jail outlining inmate “cliques” and immigration documents.

The front door of Villatoro Santos’ mother’s home was smashed from a battering ram. Her rear sliding glass door was smashed out.

President Donald Trump has blamed violence and gang growth on lax immigration policies. In his first term as president, Trump promised an all-out fight against MS-13, saying he would “dismantle, decimate and eradicate” the gang.

Federal agents swarmed a Dale City home March 27 and arrested 24-year-old Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos, charging him with possession of a firearm by a person who is in the country illegally.

The motion to drop the charge did not give a reason why, but The Washington Post reports sources familiar with the matter say it’s so they can fast-track Villatoro Santos’ deportation.

Santos’ newly-appointed public defender is asking the court to delay the dismissal for fourteen days in order to get his client immigration counsel.

He noted the “substantial risks” involved in his client’s transfer to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and recent deportations by the Trump Administration without due process.

Attorney General Pam Bondi described him as “one of the top leaders of MS-13” and “one of the top three for the entire country.” She said he is from El Salvador and will be deported.

News4 and Telemundo 44 spoke to Villatoro Santos’ mother, who shared copies of a federal search warrant affidavit showing agents seized multiple guns, ammunition, a letter from a jail outlining inmate “cliques” and immigration documents.

The front door of Villatoro Santos’ mother’s home was smashed from a battering ram. Her rear sliding glass door was smashed out.

President Donald Trump has blamed violence and gang growth on lax immigration policies. In his first term as president, Trump promised an all-out fight against MS-13, saying he would “dismantle, decimate and eradicate” the gang.

Khalil, 30, was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the middle of the night last weekend, prompting outrage in recent days. Khalil, an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent, helped lead pro-Palestinian demonstrations against the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas at Columbia University last spring. 

Protests calling for his release will be held in cities including New York City, Boston, Phoenix, Charlotte, Oklahoma City, Miami and Indianapolis on Saturday and Sunday.

To justify Khalil’s arrest, the Trump administration cited an obscure foreign-policy clause that allows the federal government to deport foreign nationals who are deemed national security threats. The Department of Homeland Security alleges that Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.” 

On Monday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from expelling Khalil, a legal permanent resident, from the country as he challenges his deportation.

Khalil filed an amended petition and complaint in federal District Court in Manhattan on Thursday, stating he was the target of “retaliatory detention and attempted removal of a student protestor because of his constitutionally protected speech.” Khalil finished his classes at Columbia in December 2024 and was expected to graduate in the spring, according to the filing.

Immigration authorities are holding the 30-year-old in Louisiana and his lawyers have petitioned for him to be returned to New York City. His wife, an American, is eight months pregnant. 

“I urge you to see Mahmoud through my eyes as a loving husband and the future father to our baby,” she said in a statement through Khalil’s defense counsel on Monday. “I need your help to bring Mahmoud home, so he is here beside me, holding my hand in the delivery room as we welcome our first child into this world.”

Trump administration targets campus protesters

Khalil’s arrest marks the first fulfilled promise of President Trump’s campaign pledge to deport international student protestors who sided with Palestinians on campuses across the country last spring. 

On Tuesday, a doctoral student from India who DHS accused of supporting Hamas, self-deported to Canada. And on Friday, another Palestinian student, identified by the Department of Homeland Security as Leqaa Kordia, who took part in Columbia’s protests last year was arrested for overstaying her student visa, according to DHS.

“It is a privilege to be granted a visa to live and study in the United States of America,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement on Friday. “When you advocate for violence and terrorism that privilege should be revoked, and you should not be in this country.”

DHS agents also raided two Columbia dormitories on Thursday evening, but made no arrests, according to a statement by the university. Commenting on the raids on Friday, Todd Blanche, U.S. deputy attorney general, said that the Justice Department was “looking at whether Columbia’s handling of earlier incidents violated civil rights laws and included terrorism crimes.”

Civil rights groups and protestors have denounced the federal government’s actions at Columbia as an infringement on free speech. Protestors staged demonstrations this week at both the university and inside Trump Tower, located in Manhattan. 

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Columbia’s international students have expressed fear, with several telling NBC News on Friday that they are increasingly hesitant to criticize the Trump administration due to fears of repercussions. 

The university’s journalism school said its staff and students are “witnessing and experiencing an alarming chill.”

“One does not have to agree with the political opinions of any particular individual to understand that these threats cut to the core of what it means to live in a pluralistic democracy,” the journalism school said in a statement issued Friday. “The use of deportation to suppress foreign critics runs parallel to an aggressive campaign to use libel laws in novel — even outlandish ways — to silence or intimidate the independent press.”

Columbia University in the glaring spotlight

The arrests are part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to “root out anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on college campuses.” And perhaps no other college campus in the country drew more attention for its pro-Palestinian demonstrations last year than Columbia. 

For weeks last spring, student activists staged daily protests, occupied a university building and established an encampment of several dozen tents on university lawns, inspiring similar setups on college campuses across the country. Fueled by frustration over the violence in Gaza, students pushed for their universities to divest from companies linked to the Israeli government. The activism sparked intense debates on campuses, with some students expressing concern over antisemitism. 

In the week before the arrests, the Trump administration singled out Columbia, announcing that it would cancel approximately $400 million in federal grants to the university. The administration cited “the school’s continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” 

The move marked an unprecedented intervention by the federal government into the affairs of a private university. 

Columbia responded by pledging to work with the federal government to restore its funding.

“We take Columbia’s legal obligations seriously and understand how serious this announcement is and are committed to combatting antisemitism and ensuring the safety and wellbeing of our students, faculty, and staff,” a university spokesperson told NBC News last week.

On Thursday, the university said that it suspended or expelled some of the students who participated and temporarily revoked diplomas of some graduates. 

This article originally appeared on NBCNews.com. Read more from NBC News:

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Federal agents swarmed a Dale City home March 27 and arrested 24-year-old Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos, charging him with possession of a firearm by a person who is in the country illegally.

The motion to drop the charge did not give a reason why, but The Washington Post reports sources familiar with the matter say it’s so they can fast-track Villatoro Santos’ deportation.

Santos’ newly-appointed public defender is asking the court to delay the dismissal for fourteen days in order to get his client immigration counsel.

He noted the “substantial risks” involved in his client’s transfer to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and recent deportations by the Trump Administration without due process.

Attorney General Pam Bondi described him as “one of the top leaders of MS-13” and “one of the top three for the entire country.” She said he is from El Salvador and will be deported.

News4 and Telemundo 44 spoke to Villatoro Santos’ mother, who shared copies of a federal search warrant affidavit showing agents seized multiple guns, ammunition, a letter from a jail outlining inmate “cliques” and immigration documents.

The front door of Villatoro Santos’ mother’s home was smashed from a battering ram. Her rear sliding glass door was smashed out.

President Donald Trump has blamed violence and gang growth on lax immigration policies. In his first term as president, Trump promised an all-out fight against MS-13, saying he would “dismantle, decimate and eradicate” the gang.

Federal agents swarmed a Dale City home March 27 and arrested 24-year-old Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos, charging him with possession of a firearm by a person who is in the country illegally.

The motion to drop the charge did not give a reason why, but The Washington Post reports sources familiar with the matter say it’s so they can fast-track Villatoro Santos’ deportation.

Santos’ newly-appointed public defender is asking the court to delay the dismissal for fourteen days in order to get his client immigration counsel.

He noted the “substantial risks” involved in his client’s transfer to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and recent deportations by the Trump Administration without due process.

Attorney General Pam Bondi described him as “one of the top leaders of MS-13” and “one of the top three for the entire country.” She said he is from El Salvador and will be deported.

News4 and Telemundo 44 spoke to Villatoro Santos’ mother, who shared copies of a federal search warrant affidavit showing agents seized multiple guns, ammunition, a letter from a jail outlining inmate “cliques” and immigration documents.

The front door of Villatoro Santos’ mother’s home was smashed from a battering ram. Her rear sliding glass door was smashed out.

President Donald Trump has blamed violence and gang growth on lax immigration policies. In his first term as president, Trump promised an all-out fight against MS-13, saying he would “dismantle, decimate and eradicate” the gang.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday on background, DHS officials said they are working with the Marshals Service, Department of Defense and Federal Bureau of Prisons to increase bed space as they ask Congress for more funding.

Arrested individuals are also being released from detention on a case-by-case basis using ICE’s Alternatives to Detention program based on medical or humanitarian concerns, they said.

The senior DHS and ICE officials also provided new arrest data cataloging Trump’s first 50 days back in office. According to DHS data, from Jan. 20 to March 10, 2025 ICE has arrested 32,809 individuals.

According to officials, of those, 14,111 were convicted criminals, 9,980 have pending criminal charges and 8,718 have only immigration-related violations.

“We expect these ICE arrests and removal numbers will only go up as we unleash an agency that has had its hands tied behind its back for the past four years,” said acting ICE Director Todd Lyons. “These ICE enforcement operations are not only removing criminals from the American communities, but they are also discouraging people from coming to our country illegally.”

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In terms of those with suspected ties to criminal organizations using the same time frame, officials said ICE had arrested 1,155 suspected gang members and 39 known or suspected terrorists.

DHS did not say on the call how many people have been deported under the new Trump administration.

On Monday, NBC News reported that the Trump administration had deported fewer people in February than the Biden administration had during the same month a year ago, according to data obtained by NBC News.

Since being appointed as White House border czar, Tom Homan has sought cooperation from local and state governments to assist ICE in immigration-related arrests. On Wednesday, Homan visited lawmakers in Albany, New York, and slammed so-called sanctuary jurisdictions that limit cooperation with ICE.

“So sanctuary cities are going to get exactly what they don’t want, more agents in the community and more collateral arrests, because you have forced us in the community, because you have failed to let us in the jail,” Homan said.

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That immigration growth has happened as U.S. birth rates have fallen, the Migration Policy Institute reported as part of its latest edition of “Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States.”

The immigrant population grew by 1.6 million people between 2022 and 2023, reaching a record high of 47.8 million in 2023, according to the analysis. That’s about a 3.6% population increase, the largest annual growth since 2010, the institute stated in its report.

However, the foreign-born percentage of the U.S. population is 14.3%. That puts it slightly below the 14.8% registered in 1890, MPI said.

Nearly three-quarters (73%) of immigrants in the U.S. are legally present and almost half are naturalized citizens, according to MPI.

In addition to naturalized citizenship, those with legal status include green-card holders (legal permanent residents), refugees, those who have been granted asylum, had long-term visas as students, temporary workers or other categories.

U.S. birth rates reached a historic low in 2023, falling 2% from the previous year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The fertility rate fell to 54.5 birth per 1,000 females of ages 15-44 in 2023, down from 56 in 2022.

The Census Bureau began collecting nativity data in 1850, when 2.2 million immigrants made up 10% of the U.S. population.

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The U.S. is in the midst of a major immigration policy shake-up, with the Trump administration making a number of moves to curtail it. Many of its efforts are focused on illegal immigration, but some legal immigration and naturalization programs and pathways are also being affected.

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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has more than 100 facilities around the U.S., many of which are privately run. More than 43,000 immigrants are currently in ICE custody, according to TRAC, a nonpartisan data research organization at Syracuse University. The number has increased over the past month.

The News4 I-Team spoke with experts and those who have been on the inside about what it’s like to be in the system.

At ICE’s Baltimore Field Office, the I-Team got a glimpse of how detained immigrants are processed. Officials there aim to process immigrants quickly, Field Office Director Matt Elliston said.

“We don’t want anyone here more than 12 hours,” he said.

But that’s not always possible.

“Yesterday, you know, we had 40 people we had to send to Denver, Colorado. That’s something that these people are going to be here for a couple of days before we can make that change,” Elliston said.

Immigrants facing deportation are no longer housed in Maryland because of the 2021 Dignity Not Detention Act, which prohibits governments there from entering contracts with ICE for detainees.

“I’m forced to separate them from their family and their attorneys and send them elsewhere throughout the country,” Elliston said.

Locals who are detained are often sent to facilities in Virginia, including Farmville Detention Center and Caroline Detention Facility, or Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania, if there’s space.

Experts and immigration attorneys say those spots are at capacity or nearing capacity. The I-Team reached out to ICE for total numbers of immigrants being detained locally, but we have not heard back.

Michael Lukens with Amica Center for Immigrant Rights is often inside detention facilities.

“It is supposed to be civil detention, but if you ever go to an ICE detention center, it is a jail. It looks like a jail,” he said.

Lukens helps those in custody understand their rights and says conditions can be challenging.

“The living conditions are pretty rough,” he said. “The food is not great. There’s no privacy. There’s very little contact with the outside world. It’s overcrowded.”

He said what is supposed to be a civil detention can often feel more criminal to his clients.

‘It was hard psychologically’

Abdoulaziz Moussa Djibril, who is now a legal resident, spent close to five months inside Farmville after being detained at Dulles International Airport in 2019.

“They asked me to wear a yellow jumpsuit,” he said. “And to be honest, that’s where my brain just shut off.”

He said he came to the U.S. seeking asylum from his home country of Djibouti, in Africa, where he worked as an attorney, judge and legal advisor.

“It was hard psychologically,” he said about staying in Farmville. “It was like someone who’s living in a dark room.”

What inspections of ICE’s Farmville detention center found

Farmville is one of the largest detention facilities in the area, originally built to hold more than 700 people. ICE started housing detained immigrants there in 2010.

It was one of four facilities a group of senators called to be shut down last year due to “well-documented horrific conditions.”

In 2024, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) made several recommendations after doing an inspection due to complaints including alleged inappropriate use of force. The CRCL ended up making 33 recommendations; ICE agreed with 21 of them and agreed to provide Farmville with training for different types of use-of-force incidents.

However, when searching for that memo detailing those civil rights concerns on DHS’s site, it’s not available. A DHS spokesperson told News4 the reports are currently unavailable for a compliance review from the president’s executive orders.

The I-Team also found an inspection of Farmville from December, part of an ICE compliance inspection, which noted multiple violations, including incomplete mental health evaluations, irregular welfare checks for detainees on suicide watch and lack of reporting of communicable diseases.

The I-Team reached out to ICE and Abyon, which runs Farmville, about those complaints but is still waiting on a response.

‘Very limited detention space’

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the conservative think tank Center for Immigration Studies, says detention has been a part of federal immigration policy since the beginning.

“Detention has been something that’s required,” he said.

Holding undocumented immigrants is more necessary now because of the large number, he said.

“Because of mass illegal immigration, which really wasn’t possible before transportation and communications became so cheap and easy, the numbers, the scale of detention was not large. But it has become so, inevitably because of changes and really changes in technology, ” said Krikorian.

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“We have very limited detention space here on the East Coast. We are all sharing the same detention resources,” ICE Field Office Director Elliston said.

That overcrowding, along with the alleged poor conditions, leads some detainees to choose to leave the country on their own, according to Lukens with the Amica Center.

“It is not odd for us to hear from clients that they are getting what we call detention fatigue because they just can’t take the isolation,” he said.

Reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot by Steve Jones, Jeff Piper and Jerry Lawlor, and edited by Steve Jones

Federal agents swarmed a Dale City home March 27 and arrested 24-year-old Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos, charging him with possession of a firearm by a person who is in the country illegally.

The motion to drop the charge did not give a reason why, but The Washington Post reports sources familiar with the matter say it’s so they can fast-track Villatoro Santos’ deportation.

Santos’ newly-appointed public defender is asking the court to delay the dismissal for fourteen days in order to get his client immigration counsel.

He noted the “substantial risks” involved in his client’s transfer to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and recent deportations by the Trump Administration without due process.

Attorney General Pam Bondi described him as “one of the top leaders of MS-13” and “one of the top three for the entire country.” She said he is from El Salvador and will be deported.

News4 and Telemundo 44 spoke to Villatoro Santos’ mother, who shared copies of a federal search warrant affidavit showing agents seized multiple guns, ammunition, a letter from a jail outlining inmate “cliques” and immigration documents.

The front door of Villatoro Santos’ mother’s home was smashed from a battering ram. Her rear sliding glass door was smashed out.

President Donald Trump has blamed violence and gang growth on lax immigration policies. In his first term as president, Trump promised an all-out fight against MS-13, saying he would “dismantle, decimate and eradicate” the gang.

District Judge Jesse Furman scheduled a hearing for Wednesday that all parties are required to attend — and in the meantime, Mahmoud Khalil cannot be deported from the country.

Khalil, who graduated from the university in December, was arrested Saturday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The Department of Homeland Security confirmed the arrest, saying it was a result of President Donald Trump’s executive orders prohibiting antisemitism. He has not been formally charged with a crime.

Khalil’s lawyer, Amy Greer, said the agents who took him into custody at his university-owned home near Columbia initially claimed to be acting on a State Department order to revoke his student visa. But when Greer informed them that Khalil was a permanent resident with a green card, they said they would revoke that documentation instead.

Federal immigration authorities also visited a second international student at Columbia over the weekend and attempted to take her into custody but were prevented from entering the apartment, according to a union representing the student. The woman has not been identified, and it’s not clear what grounds ICE had for the visit.

According to the Student Workers of Columbia, a graduate student union representing the woman, three ICE agents visited her university-owned residence Friday night and attempted to enter without a warrant.

“The agents were rightfully turned away at the door,” the student union said.

Over the weekend, the university circulated guidance to students about its policies for allowing federal authorities on campus. The guidance states that “in general, ICE agents must have a judicial warrant or subpoena to access non-public areas,” including housing.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a message posted Sunday on X that the administration will be “revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”

Khalil’s arrest is the first publicly known deportation effort under Trump’s promised crackdown on students protesting the war in Gaza.

The Republican president has argued that protesters forfeited their rights to remain in the country by supporting the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas that controls Gaza. But Khalil and other student leaders have rejected those claims, saying they are part of a broader anti-war movement that also counts Jewish students and groups among their supporters.

Khalil was being held in an immigration detention center in Louisiana after initially being sent to a facility in New Jersey, according to ICE’s online detainee database, which lists his birthplace as Syria.

A protest was scheduled for Monday in front of ICE’s offices in Manhattan.

Khalil was one of the most visible activists in last year’s protests, serving as a negotiator for students who erected a tent encampment on campus. Pro-Israel activists in recent weeks have called on the Trump administration to begin deportation proceedings against him.

Khalil was also among those being investigated by a new Columbia office that has already brought disciplinary charges against dozens of students for their pro-Palestinian activism, according to records shared with The Associated Press.

Khalil received a master’s degree from Columbia’s school of international affairs last semester. His wife, who is an American citizen, is eight months pregnant.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration last week pulled $400 million in federal funding from Columbia because of what it claimed was the Ivy League school’s failure to reign in antisemitism on campus.

Federal agents swarmed a Dale City home March 27 and arrested 24-year-old Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos, charging him with possession of a firearm by a person who is in the country illegally.

The motion to drop the charge did not give a reason why, but The Washington Post reports sources familiar with the matter say it’s so they can fast-track Villatoro Santos’ deportation.

Santos’ newly-appointed public defender is asking the court to delay the dismissal for fourteen days in order to get his client immigration counsel.

He noted the “substantial risks” involved in his client’s transfer to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and recent deportations by the Trump Administration without due process.

Attorney General Pam Bondi described him as “one of the top leaders of MS-13” and “one of the top three for the entire country.” She said he is from El Salvador and will be deported.

News4 and Telemundo 44 spoke to Villatoro Santos’ mother, who shared copies of a federal search warrant affidavit showing agents seized multiple guns, ammunition, a letter from a jail outlining inmate “cliques” and immigration documents.

The front door of Villatoro Santos’ mother’s home was smashed from a battering ram. Her rear sliding glass door was smashed out.

President Donald Trump has blamed violence and gang growth on lax immigration policies. In his first term as president, Trump promised an all-out fight against MS-13, saying he would “dismantle, decimate and eradicate” the gang.

Jensy Machado said he is a U.S. citizen and provided News4 documentation of his legal status.

Machado said he was driving to work Wednesday with two other men when he was stopped by ICE agents on Lomond Drive in Manassas, a short distance from his home. He said he was confused by what was happening, why agents surrounded the pickup truck. 

“And they just got out of the car with the guns in their hands and say, turn off the car, give me the keys, open the window, you know,” Machado told Telemundo 44’s Rosbelis Quinoñez, who first reported his story. “Everything was really fast.”

He said the agents said the name of a man they were seeking for a deportation order, someone who had given Machado’s home address. Machado told them that wasn’t his name — he didn’t know anyone by that name — and offered to show them his real ID compliant Virginia driver’s license.

“They didn’t ask me for any ID,” Machado said. “I was telling the officer, if I can give him ID, but he said just keep my hands up, not moving. After that, he told me to get out of the car and put the handcuffs on me. And then he went to me and said how did I get into this country and if I was waiting for a court date or if I have any case. And I told him I was an American citizen, and he looked at his other partner like, you know, smiling, like saying, can you believe this guy? Because he asked the other guy, ‘Do you believe him?’”

Machado said he was uncuffed and immediately released after showing his driver’s license.

The two men with him were taken into custody. He does not know why.

Machado said the experience shook his faith in the immigration enforcement efforts of Trump, for whom he voted.

“Because, like I said, I was a Trump supporter,” he said. “I voted for Trump last election, but, because I thought it was going to be the things, you know, like, … just go against criminals, not every Hispanic looking, like, that they will assume that we are all illegals.”

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“That’s what they’re doing, now,” Machado said. “They’re just following Hispanic people.”

Immigration lawyers advise residents and citizens to always keep ID with them.

In a statement to News4 on Saturday, ICE said, “ICE encountered an individual who matched the description of the subject of an operation while conducting a targeted enforcement action. ICE officers engaged the individual to verify his identity based on reasonable suspicion, including a likeness to the description of the target. ICE officers immediately determined not to detain the individual after confirming he was not the person of interest and not subject to removal.”

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