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Category: Human rights/civil liberties

Trump administration considers sending migrants to Libya and Rwanda, sources say

Trump administration considers sending migrants to Libya and Rwanda, sources say

CNN reports: The Trump administration has discussed with Libya and Rwanda the possibility of sending migrants who have criminal records and are in the United States to those two countries, according to multiple sources familiar with the talks. The proposals mark a dramatic escalation in the administration’s push to deter people journeying to the United States and remove some of those already here to countries thousands of miles away, some of which have checkered pasts. President Donald Trump signed an…

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‘They disappear them’: Families of the detained liken Trump’s America to Latin American dictatorships

‘They disappear them’: Families of the detained liken Trump’s America to Latin American dictatorships

The Guardian reports: Neiyerver Rengel’s captors came one sunny spring morning, lurking outside the apartment he shared with his girlfriend and pouncing as soon as he emerged. The three government agents announced the young Venezuelan man had “charges to answer” and was being detained. “Everything’s going to be OK,” the man’s girlfriend, Richely Alejandra Uzcátegui Gutiérrez, remembers the handcuffed 27-year-old reassuring her as she gave him one last hug. Then Rengel was put in a vehicle and vanished into thin…

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Gaza on brink of catastrophe as aid runs out and prices soar, groups warn

Gaza on brink of catastrophe as aid runs out and prices soar, groups warn

The Guardian reports: Soaring prices of basic foodstuffs, diminishing stocks of medical supplies and sharp cuts to aid distribution threaten newly catastrophic conditions across Gaza, Palestinians and international aid officials in the battered territory are warning. Humanitarian organisations including the World Food Programme and Unwra, which supplies food and services to more than 2 million Palestinians across Gaza, have now distributed the last of their stocks of flour and other foodstuffs to the dozens of community kitchens in the territory…

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‘Build bridges, not walls’: Pope Francis held a moral mirror to modern politics

‘Build bridges, not walls’: Pope Francis held a moral mirror to modern politics

NBC News reports: Even in death, Pope Francis’ moral voice rang out across the world. With 40,000 packed into Vatican City’s St. Peter’s Square, another 250,000 in the surrounding streets and millions more watching on TV and online, world leaders, including President Donald Trump, were reminded of Francis’ central messages during his funeral Saturday. “‘Build bridges, not walls’ was an exhortation he repeated many times,” Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re said during the homily for the late pope. “His gestures and…

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We visited Rumeysa Ozturk in detention. What we saw was a warning to every American

We visited Rumeysa Ozturk in detention. What we saw was a warning to every American

Sen. Edward J. Markey, Rep. Jim McGovern and Rep. Ayanna Pressley write: A young woman walked casually down a public street only to find herself suddenly surrounded by masked law enforcement officers in plain clothes. Without explanation — and in the absence of criminal charges and any due process — she was forced into a waiting vehicle and vanished into the labyrinth of the state security system. Sound familiar? You’d be forgiven for thinking we’re recounting what happened to the…

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A Georgetown beneficiary of the Scholars at Risk program never imagined the U.S. would pose a risk

A Georgetown beneficiary of the Scholars at Risk program never imagined the U.S. would pose a risk

Nader Hashemi writes: In March, Badar Khan Suri, an Indian postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University, was arrested by federal agents. The nature and circumstances of his detention parallel the cases of Mahmoud Khalil at Columbia University and Rumeysa Ozturk at Tufts. I am the academic director of the center at Georgetown that hosted Badar Khan Suri as a postdoctoral fellow — the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. I recently went to visit him at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement…

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Detained then disappeared. ICE is silent on the fate of Venezuelan man

Detained then disappeared. ICE is silent on the fate of Venezuelan man

The Miami Herald reports: A Venezuelan man has disappeared into the U.S. immigration system. His family is looking for answers. Where is their brother? Where is her boyfriend? Neiyerver Adrian Leon Rengel, 27, was admitted into the U.S. in June 2023, after crossing the southern border through a scheduled appointment with immigration authorities — part of a digital portal created under the Biden administration to manage the flow of migrants entering from Mexico. In his hand, he carried a phone….

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Despair in Gaza as Israeli aid blockade creates crisis ‘unmatched in severity’

Despair in Gaza as Israeli aid blockade creates crisis ‘unmatched in severity’

The Observer reports: Gaza has been pushed to new depths of despair, civilians, medics and humanitarian workers say, by the unprecedented seven-week-long Israeli military blockade that has cut off all aid to the strip. The siege has left the Palestinian territory facing conditions unmatched in severity since the beginning of the war as residents grapple with sweeping new evacuation orders, the renewed bombing of civilian infrastructure such as hospitals, and the exhaustion of food, fuel for generators and medical supplies….

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This case is not just about one man; it’s about protecting the constitutional rights of everybody

This case is not just about one man; it’s about protecting the constitutional rights of everybody

I went to El Salvador hoping to meet with Kilmar & check on his well-being, and I had the chance to do that last night. Our courts have been clear: this was an ILLEGAL abduction. I’m speaking now about my meeting with Kilmar & our work to bring him home: https://t.co/0tZjVonkUF — Senator Chris Van Hollen (@ChrisVanHollen) April 18, 2025 Politico reports: Chris Van Hollen has spent nearly a decade as an under-the-radar lawmaker. But the Maryland Democrat, who gave…

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Court says White House, if it values the rule of law, must play more active role in freeing Abrego Garcia

Court says White House, if it values the rule of law, must play more active role in freeing Abrego Garcia

The New York Times reports: A federal appeals court in Virginia reaffirmed on Thursday that the White House needed to play a more active role in seeking the release of a Maryland man who was deported last month to a prison in El Salvador, despite a court order expressly forbidding that he be sent there. In a sternly worded ruling, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit expressed exasperation at the Trump administration’s continued…

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ICE director, Todd Lyons, wants Amazon-like mass deportation system: ‘Prime, but with human beings’

ICE director, Todd Lyons, wants Amazon-like mass deportation system: ‘Prime, but with human beings’

Nick Miroff writes: The Trump administration is working hard to convince the public that its mass-deportation campaign is fully under way. Over the past several weeks, federal agents have seized foreign students off the streets, raided worksites, and shipped detainees to a supermax prison in El Salvador using wartime powers adopted under the John Adams administration. The tactics have spread fear and created a showreel of social-media-ready highlights for the White House. But they have not brought U.S. Immigration and…

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A Columbia peace activist trod the Middle Way on Gaza. Then he got snatched by ICE

A Columbia peace activist trod the Middle Way on Gaza. Then he got snatched by ICE

The New York Times reports: As Columbia University’s student protest movement careened toward the center of the nation’s political discourse last year, one of its most ardent leaders suddenly fell quiet. Mohsen Mahdawi had been a key organizer of pro-Palestinian demonstrations, but he said he walked away from that role in March 2024 — well before the rallies reached a fever pitch as students set up encampments and broke into a campus building. A fissure had been growing. By the…

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Wajahat Ali and Norman Ornstein: The contempt of a fascist regime

Wajahat Ali and Norman Ornstein: The contempt of a fascist regime

  Norman Ornstein: “Every student of history — of the history of the growth of tyranny — said over and over again: you need immediate resistance. And the strongest resistance from every entity in the society — from the business community, from the education community, the intellectual community, the scientific community, the press community, the elected officials — have to resist. And if you don’t do it right from the start, they will gobble up more territory until it’s too…

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Members of leading British Jewish body condemn Israel’s latest actions in Gaza

Members of leading British Jewish body condemn Israel’s latest actions in Gaza

The Guardian reports: Members of the Board of Deputies, the largest body representing British Jews, have said they can no longer “turn a blind eye or remain silent” over the war in Gaza. In a significant break with the board’s customary support for the Israeli government, the 36 signatories to an open letter published in the FT say “Israel’s soul is being ripped out”. Since the war began after the terrorist atrocities committed by Hamas against Israelis on 7 October…

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The flimsy basis of Abrego Garcia’s alleged ties to MS-13

The flimsy basis of Abrego Garcia’s alleged ties to MS-13

Roger Parloff reports: In multiple filings, the government has conceded that it wrongfully removed Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia from the United States to a notorious prison for terrorists in El Salvador on March 15. On April 7, accordingly, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered—with no recorded dissents—that the government “facilitate” his return. But rather than try to right its wrong, the Trump administration has, for weeks, been resisting bringing him back and downplaying the gravity of its error. Both strategies have hinged on the administration’s dubious…

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Trump claims Abrego Garcia’s fate is outside his control. The case of Muneer Subaihani proves otherwise

Trump claims Abrego Garcia’s fate is outside his control. The case of Muneer Subaihani proves otherwise

The New York Times reports: In August 2018, during President Trump’s first term, an Iraqi immigrant named Muneer Subaihani went missing. A refugee who had been living in the United States for nearly 25 years, Mr. Subaihani was among hundreds of Iraqis who had been protected from deportation under a federal court order. His lawyers figured he was still in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, where he had been placed after he was swept up in an ICE…

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