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- Health
- The Intercept
Children Are Starving in Gaza, as Soldiers Kill People Looking for Food
Support Us © THE INTERCEPT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Doctors trying to save starving children and parents trying to feed their families spoke with The Intercept. A child receives treatment for malnutrition at the Patient Friends Benevolent Society hospital in Gaza City on May 29, 2025. Photo: Huda Skaik In Gaza's clinics and overwhelmed hospitals, doctors and nutritionists face a haunting, daily reality: children wasting away before their eyes, unable to stand and play, who can hardly breathe. Israeli troops are massacring people at food distribution sites every day. On Tuesday alone, soldiers killed at least 70 people and wounded hundreds seeking food at the distribution site set up by Israel and the U.S. They shot people with tank shells, drones, and machine guns as they tried to get food. Malnutrition is no longer a looming threat; it is a full-blown humanitarian emergency exacerbated by relentless genocide, siege, and the systematic breakdown of Gaza's health care infrastructure. As the genocide on Gaza grinds on after Israel's breaking of the ceasefire, doctors and mothers across the Strip describe an unfolding catastrophe: a severe and accelerating child malnutrition crisis that, left unchecked, could claim thousands of lives. Israel's 80-day blockade that has enforced a strict closure of crossings and blocked aid deliveries has resulted in nearly 330 deaths, most of them children. To learn how malnutrition is affecting the children of Gaza, I spoke to three nutritionist doctors and one mother struggling to feed her baby in Gaza. Baby Eleen on February 26, 2025. Photo: Batoul Abu Ali Batoul Abu Ali gave birth to her daughter, Eleen Hallak, on May 21, 2024, amid the chaos of war. Now just over a year old, Eleen is already showing signs of malnutrition. 'She used to be healthier,' Batoul says. 'Now her diet lacks fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy — everything a child needs. I can only feed her twice a day: maybe some tomato, zucchini, potato, lentils, or fortified biscuits.' Batoul struggles most with finding milk for her baby. 'No one can watch their child go hungry. I do everything I can to find food, but it's never enough.' Batoul has received some guidance from specialists and is prescribed nutritional biscuits and peanut butter paste for Eleen, but access is inconsistent. 'I've fallen into depression. I just want to keep my little lovely baby Eleen alive,' she says. Mothers like Batoul are left with impossible choices, to try to keep their children alive while waiting for the crossings to open. Dr. Suzan Ma'rouf is a clinical nutritionist at the Patient Friend's Benevolent Society in Gaza City. 'Children are losing weight rapidly,' she says. 'They show all the signs: wasting, yellowing skin, thinning hair, brittle nails.' Dr. Ma'rouf describes a sharp increase in malnutrition cases since the beginning of the war, worsened further by the closure of border crossings since March. 'Even when food is available, the prices are astronomical. Most families, especially large ones, simply cannot afford to feed their children nutritious meals,' she explains. 'Newborns and their mothers are especially vulnerable due to the severe shortage of infant formula, hygiene products, and maternal supplements.' At the Friend's Benevolent Society, Dr. Ma'rouf is currently following over 3,500 children regularly, with more new cases emerging daily. She notes that both moderate and severe forms of malnutrition are rampant, with children suffering from vitamin and mineral deficiencies. In this condition, their bodies begin consuming their own nutrient stores, leading to exhaustion, stunted physical, and cognitive growth. Treatment is nearly impossible for malnutrition in Gaza. 'With the blockade, we don't have access to therapeutic food, fortified biscuits, or medical-grade nutrition. Even when we catch cases early, we don't have the supplements to stop them from worsening,' confirms Dr. Ma'rouf. Read our complete coverage A baby receives treatment for malnutrition at Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat on May 31, 2025. Photo: Courtesy of Nader Garghon/Al-Awda Hospital Dr. Rana Zaiter is chief of clinical nutrition at Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat in the middle of the Gaza Strip, which has a specialized department to treat severe acute malnutrition in children under 5. She paints a bleak picture: 'We are overwhelmed. Every day, we see more children arriving with extreme weight loss, anemia, and symptoms of immune deficiency. Children are too weak to fight infections. They have constant gastrointestinal illnesses, are lethargic, dizzy, and often can't even play or stand. Some are developing bowed legs — a clear sign of rickets and calcium deficiency.' Dr. Zaiter attributes the explosion in cases to the ongoing famine, closure of crossings for over 80 days, and soaring poverty. 'Mothers cannot breastfeed properly due to their own poor nutrition. Their milk is insufficient and unfulfilling. Babies cry constantly from hunger,' she says. 'Pregnant women are giving birth prematurely, to underweight babies, because their bodies can no longer sustain the burden of pregnancy.' Dr. Zaiter adds that nearly one-third of all pediatric cases at Al-Awda now involve moderate or severe malnutrition. The hospital follows treatment protocols from WHO and UNICEF, but a dire lack of supplies— including therapeutic foods, fortified biscuits, high-energy peanut butter, and infant formula — has crippled their ability to treat patients effectively. 'When the crossings briefly reopened in late May, only a tiny fraction of the needed supplies made it through — barely 1 percent of actual demand,' said Dr. Zaiter. 'We are operating in lifesaving mode. We need urgent international action to open the crossings and flood Gaza with nutritional aid before it's too late.' From Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, I spoke to a pediatric nutrition specialist, who requested anonymity. They highlighted the systematic breakdown in services across Gaza: 'Many malnutrition clinics have shut down following the collapse of the ceasefire and displacement of entire neighborhoods. The most common cases we now treat involve iron-deficiency anemia and rickets — both preventable if children had access to basic nutrition.' Malnutrition affects more than the body. 'Iron deficiency causes loss of appetite and long-term developmental delays. Severe or moderate malnutrition also severely impacts a child's mental health and cognitive development,' they say. Access to treatment is a growing concern. 'Many families live far from functioning clinics, and there's no transportation to come to the clinics and check on their children,' they say. 'The clinics that remain are understocked and overstretched. On top of that, many children refuse to take nutritional supplements, and we have no alternatives.' In Gaza, keeping a baby alive is now an act of resistance, of endurance. Doctors, nutritionists, and mothers alike are calling and appealing for the crossings to open, for aid to be allowed in, for the massacres to stop. Otherwise, Gaza's children continue to waste away, their futures starving before they have had a chance to begin and draw the first steps of their lives. Join The Conversation
The Intercept
09-06-2025
- Politics
- The Intercept
The Intercept Appoints Maia Hibbett as Managing Editor
Support Us © THE INTERCEPT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED The Intercept welcomes back Maia Hibbett, who is returning to the publication as managing editor. In this position, Hibbett will shape The Intercept's distinctive coverage and oversee newsroom operations. 'We are thrilled to welcome Maia back to The Intercept. Her experience and skills will help us take on powerful interests and produce journalism with real impact,' said Ben Muessig, The Intercept's editor-in-chief. Hibbett was most recently the politics editor for Gothamist & WNYC, where she directed coverage of the ongoing scandals surrounding New York City Mayor Eric Adams and expanded a statewide coverage network. Before that, she was managing editor at New York Focus and participated in ProPublica's Investigative Editor Training Program. Hibbett served as an associate editor on The Intercept's politics team from March 2021 to October 2022. At The Intercept, she oversaw award-winning reporting on the poultry industry's mass culling practices during bird flu outbreaks, edited investigations on topics from Sen. Joe Manchin's coal investments to the killing of Honduran environmental activist Berta Cáceres, and reported on controversial research that drew scrutiny during the Covid-19 pandemic. Her reporting and editing experience spans the globe, covering political developments in Asia and Latin America. 'For years, I've admired The Intercept's fearless reporting and commitment to holding the powerful accountable — no matter who is in office,' Hibbett said. 'I'm so excited to return to The Intercept and help this team draw attention to the scandals and injustices that would otherwise go unexposed.' Join The Conversation
The Intercept
28-05-2025
- Politics
- The Intercept
The Rising Death Toll of the U.S.–Israel Aid Distribution Plan in Gaza
Support Us © THE INTERCEPT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Palestinians carry boxes containing food and humanitarian aid packages delivered by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a U.S.-backed organization approved by Israel, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on May 27, 2025. Photo: Abdel Kareem Hana/AP When the Trump administration unveiled its plan to put a fledgling nonprofit with no humanitarian track record in charge of distributing aid to Palestinians in Gaza earlier this month, the outcry among aid groups was widespread. Under the plan, which has the backing of the U.S. and Israeli governments, civilians would be concentrated into southern Gaza in so-called 'sterile zones' controlled by the Israeli military. The new nonprofit, led by a former U.S. Marine, would be the sole distributor of aid from a handful of locations. American contractors would provide security, including one group run by a former senior CIA officer. The humanitarian community worried the Israeli government would use the new aid plan as a weapon against Palestinians, who are currently facing mass starvation under Israel's 11-week blockade. Some aid experts likened the zones to a 'concentration camp' or an 'internment camp,' saying the plan would further displace Palestinians. Some Israeli officials said they hoped the plan would permanently expel Palestinians from Gaza. Such fears proved prescient Tuesday, when the aid plan, led by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, went forward in the Tel Al-Sultan neighborhood of Al-Mawasi, Rafah. Thousands of Palestinians were forced to walk miles to the site, where the large crowds packed into fenced-off corridors as private American security contractors, armed with assault rifles, guarded boxes of aid. During the distribution, guards initially subjected recipients to intense searches but later loosened security, two sources monitoring the distribution told The Intercept. At that point, the crowd began to storm the distribution site, attempting to receive the aid. Gunfire rang out at the site, prompting crowds to flee. At least three people were killed and 47 others were injured amid the gunfire and overcrowding conditions, according to reports citing Gaza officials. An additional six people were killed and 15 others were wounded by gunfire on Wednesday while attempting to receive aid at a site north of Rafah, according to officials. Elsewhere in the strip, in the Qizan Rashwan area, airstrikes killed six who were headed further south to receive aid, officials also said on Wednesday. Geneva-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor confirmed on Tuesday the death of one individual and said the 47 injured were wounded by bullets fired by both Israeli military and the U.S.-based private security firms. The group said Israeli military soldiers had entered the site to fire on the crowd. The monitor relied on its field researchers who confirmed the wounded had been seen at Al-Najjar Hospital and a Red Cross hospital. The group also received reports from three families who said their loved ones had left to get aid at the distribution hub but never returned. 'Aid is being used as a weapon, not a lifeline.' Videos posted to social media showed thousands of people rushing toward the distribution site. The crowds scrambled away for safety along dirt trenches and downed fences as gunfire rang out, footage shows. In one video, a man dragging a box of aid behind him said he had walked more than six miles to the distribution site, where he watched a young man killed in front of him. 'This is what happens when you try to replace the humanitarian system with a political agenda,' said Abdalwahab Hamad, Gaza office manager for the Palestinian humanitarian group Juhoud. 'Those thousands of Palestinians, starving and desperate, stormed the distribution center, not because they're violent, not because that people are hungry, but because aid is being used as a weapon, not a lifeline.' In a statement to The Intercept, the Israeli military disputed field reports and downplayed any mention of violence, saying its soldiers had 'fired warning shots in the area outside the compound' before gaining control of the site. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation did not immediately respond to The Intercept's requests for comment. The foundation told other outlets its armed security did not fire on the crowd but 'fell back' when the crowd ran toward the aid before returning to the site. Oren Marmorstein, spokesperson for Israel's foreign ministry, minimized Tuesday's chaos, claiming the foundation had delivered 8,000 packages of aid to Palestinians, posting images of cardboard boxes filled with flour, pasta, and oil. 'Humanitarian aid to people in Gaza, not to Hamas,' he captioned the photo posted on social media. The pretext for this new aid distribution regime is the theory, espoused by Israel and the American government, that Hamas has been stealing aid to enrich itself and control the people of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated the unsubstantiated claim on Tuesday during the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Conference, saying that he needed to move Gaza's population to the south 'for its own protection' from Hamas. Neither Israel nor the U.S. has provided evidence to support such claims. Israel, however, has weaponized access to aid throughout the current war on Gaza, and the practice stretches back to at least the 1990s, but intensified in 2007 once Hamas was elected to control the Strip. The practice continued throughout Israel's latest invasion into the Strip after Hamas's October 7 attacks. Since Israel imposed its latest total blockade on Gaza on March 2, famine risk has spread across the region, with 1 in 5 Palestinians in Gaza facing starvation. More than 9,000 children have already been treated for acute malnutrition this year. Over the past week, 29 children and elderly people have suffered starvation-related deaths, Gaza health officials said. During the first week of Israel's latest offensive, code-named Operation Gideon's Chariots, more than 180,000 Palestinians have been displaced, the United Nations said. More than 600 Palestinians have also been killed in ongoing Israeli airstrikes. Just as the new assault launched, Netanyahu announced the government would allow 'minimal' or a 'basic amount' of aid into Gaza to avoid further international backlash. After U.N.-led groups were able to deliver small amounts of aid to Palestinians, some World Food Programme bakeries in southern Gaza reopened last week, only to close again after three days due to a shortage of flour. Ramy Abdu, chair of Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, the watchdog that has tracked and opposed Israel's targeting of civilians in Gaza, said the recent restrictions on aid evoked a 2008 Israeli military study which calculated the precise minimum number of calories a Palestinian needed to avoid malnutrition, which critics said was proof the government had been illegally limiting aid into the territory. 'We are talking about starvation or hunger management and/or hunger engineering,' Abdu said, 'which in the end serves the Israeli agenda and purposes.' Read our complete coverage Israel's aid plan sidesteps the United Nations, which has a staff of more than 13,000 workers in Gaza and has been largely responsible for delivering supplies to Palestinians throughout Israel's war in Gaza. Aid groups criticized the plan, saying they did not want to be complicit in the displacement of thousands of Palestinians. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF, had been headed by a former U.S. Marine sniper Jake Wood, who led aid missions to Haiti and other disaster sites around the world with his other organization, Team Rubicon. Wood resigned earlier this week before the new plan went into effect, saying the foundation would not be able to adhere 'to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, which I will not abandon.' GHF, which is operating on $100 million in funding, pressed forward on Monday without Wood, loading up its aid hubs for distribution on Tuesday. Armed contractors with private security firms, Safe Reach Solutions, based in Wyoming, and UG Solutions, based in North Carolina, manned the aid sites. Safe Reach Solutions is led by Philip F. Reilly, a former CIA officer who trained right-wing Contras in Nicaragua in the 1980s and deployed early to Afghanistan in 2001, eventually becoming station chief in Kabul before moving to the private sector, according to a New York Times investigation. 'You cannot replace a humanitarian system with a checkpoint and expect peace.' Hamad called Tuesday's incident 'a punishment dressed as a charity' and called on the Israeli government to allow the U.N. to retake control of the aid distribution process. 'Aid in Gaza should not be political, it should not be conditional. It only works when it is protected, when it is neutral, and is being led by organizations such as the United Nations,' Hamad said, adding that Palestinians in Gaza have built trust with U.N.-backed groups and that the U.N. already has the infrastructure to clearly identify and address needs. 'You cannot replace a humanitarian system with a checkpoint and expect peace,' he said, 'because this is a military-controlled charity, and people have been there just out of desperation.' Join The Conversation
The Intercept
15-05-2025
- Politics
- The Intercept
Trump Is Building a Global Gulag for Immigrants Captured by ICE
Support Us © THE INTERCEPT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Photo collage: Fei Liu / Photo by Alex Pena/Anadolu; JAWASHI/AFP via Getty Images The Trump administration appears to be laying the groundwork for a global gulag for expelled immigrants. In addition to using longtime U.S. detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, the Trump administration is seeking more far-flung locales to hold deported people, regardless of their countries of origin. The U.S. is already using the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, in Tecoluca, El Salvador, and has its sights set on numerous other countries, including many that the State Department has excoriated for human rights abuses. The U.S. has reportedly explored, sought, or struck deals with at least 19 countries: Angola, Benin, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Eswatini, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Kosovo, Libya, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Panama, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. 'These are the plans of an authoritarian regime. They want to spend likely billions of taxpayer dollars to send asylum-seekers into war zones or to countries rife with human rights abuses,' Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told The Intercept. 'It's truly alarming that this administration doesn't view people fleeing persecution or torture as human and that the United States government is even discussing this obviously illegal proposal. It's deeply un-American, will make all Americans less safe, and will, without a doubt, result in the loss of human life,' Murphy said. 'It's deeply un-American, will make all Americans less safe, and will, without a doubt, result in the loss of human life,' The State Department refused to provide a complete list of countries with which the U.S. has made agreements to accept deportees from other countries — often referred to as third-country nationals — citing the sensitivity of diplomatic communications. But the Trump administration is planning a major increase in deportation flights in coming weeks to destinations across the globe, according to a government official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, as well as published reports. In remarks outside the White House on Friday, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller offered a glimpse of the global scope of deportations. 'We send planes to Iraq. We send planes to Yemen. We send planes to Haiti. We send planes to Angola,' he said. 'I mean, ICE is sending planes all over the world all the time. Anyone who came here illegally, we're finding them and we're getting them out.' The White House did not respond to a request for clarification about which countries are receiving third-country nationals. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller speaks to press outside of the White House on April 14, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Photo:In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the George W. Bush administration created a worldwide network of secret prisons and torture sites as part of its global war on terror. Its crown jewel, the Guantánamo Bay detention center, was established in January 2002 as a place for the United States to hold so-called enemy combatants. The U.S. government chose the U.S. Naval Station Guantánamo Bay because it was seeking a site where neither U.S. nor international law applied — a legal black hole where they could disappear people indefinitely. Over time, Guantánamo became emblematic of gross human rights abuses. 'Forever prisoners' of the war on terror are still being held there today. Others caught up in America's counterterrorism dragnet were detained at torture prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq or kidnapped and 'rendered' to CIA black sites — secret prisons in at least eight countries around the world. As the Trump administration has expanded the Bush and Obama-era terrorism paradigm to cast immigrants and refugees as terrorists and gang members, it has reconceptualized rendition and even pressed Guantánamo Bay into service as a way station for Venezuelan men expelled to El Salvador. Read our complete coverage 'In many ways, this is a retread of some of the practices of the second Bush administration in terms of extraordinary rendition abroad; the RDI program, rendition, detention, and interrogation — the formal name for their torture program,' said Brian Finucane, who worked for a decade in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the Department of State where he advised the U.S. government on counterterrorism and other military matters. 'Using the counterterrorism model, the Trump administration believes it provides it with broad authority to ride roughshod over civil rights.' In March, the Trump administration used the Alien Enemies Act to deny due process to more than 250 Venezuelan and Salvadoran men, transferring them to El Salvador despite the objections of a federal judge. El Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, disappeared the men into the country's shadowy prison system, which is rife with abuse, torture, and other human rights violations, according to human rights groups. The Trump administration's suspension of rights mirrors Bukele's own violation of democratic norms. Since 2022, the country has been under a state of emergency where most civil rights have been suspended to conduct mass arrests to crack down on the country's gangs. The dragnet has led to the arbitrary imprisonment of thousands of people wrongfully accused of being gang members. In similar fashion, the Trump administration accused the expelled Venezuelan men of being members of a gang called Tren de Aragua with little to no evidence. Even Bukele had reason to doubt the evidence provided by the Trump administration, according to a New York Times investigation. Other media investigations have also revealed the vast majority of the men did not have criminal records. The Supreme Court has already ruled unanimously that it was illegal for the Trump administration to send one of the men, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, to CECOT, and ordered his release and return to the U.S. The Trump and Bukele administrations have ignored this decision. Garcia is now being held at another facility in El Salvador. Prison officers check belongings at the maximum security penitentiary CECOT on April 4, 2025 in Tecoluca, El Salvador. Photo:In addition to imprisoning third-country nationals in El Salvador, the U.S. has also expelled hundreds of African and Asian immigrants to Costa Rica and Panama, including people from Afghanistan, Cameroon, China, India, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. Uzbekistan, for its part, received more than 100 deportees from the United States, including not only Uzbeks but citizens of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, according to a statement by the Department of Homeland Security released late last month. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum also said her government had accepted roughly 6,000 non-Mexicans from the U.S., since Trump took office again, for 'humanitarian reasons.' Unlike in El Salvador, people expelled to these countries are likely not being held indefinitely in detention centers, but details on the fate of many are scant. The Trump administration is currently seeking more countries in Asia to accept expelled immigrants from elsewhere in the world, according to Sean O'Neill, the senior bureau official for East Asian and Pacific Affairs at the Department of State. 'We do have discussions with other countries who agree to take third country national deportees,' he said at a press briefing last week, noting that the U.S. is 'working closely with countries in the region who are willing to accept third-country nationals with final orders of removal — in other words, folks who are not actually from that country.' A State Department spokesperson also told The Intercept that 'U.S. partners and regional leaders are working closely with us to end the crisis of illegal and mass migration.' One area of collaboration seems to be finding dangerous places to send vulnerable people. Last week, the Trump administration was poised to send immigrants from the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, and Mexico, among other countries. to Libya and possibly Saudi Arabia. Experts say that the plan to deport immigrants to Libya – a war-ravaged nation that descended into violence after the U.S. helped to overthrow its government in 2011 and is known for widespread mistreatment of migrants and refugees — would represent not only a gross human rights violation but also a brazen act of defiance toward the federal judiciary. 'It seems like they're actually removing them to a country with the intent of causing harm.' 'There are provisions in immigration law to send somebody to a third country. We've done that in the past. We've made arrangements with Ecuador, for example, to take Palestinian nationals who we can't send back because they're stateless, with assurances that they are not in danger in that third country,' said Michelle Brané, the former Immigration Detention Ombudsman at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. 'But not only do these current cases fall outside of that category, but it seems like they're actually removing them to a country with the intent of causing harm.' Immigrant detainees form an SOS in the courtyard at the Bluebonnet Detention Center on May 12, 2025 in Anson, Texas. Photo:Libya operates numerous detention facilities for immigrants on behalf of European nations. Amnesty International called these prisons a 'hellscape' in a 2021 report, saying it had found evidence that adults and children were subjected to 'arbitrary detention and systematically subjected to torture, sexual violence, forced labour and other exploitation with total impunity.' The most recent State Department report on human rights in Libya criticized its 'harsh and life-threatening prison conditions' and cited numerous analyses which found 'migrants routinely experienced unlawful killings, arbitrary detention, torture, sexual exploitation, and other abuses'; that perpetrators included 'state officials'; and that 'various U.N. entities documented human rights abuses committed against migrants in detention centers throughout the year.' The European Union, and member states like Italy and France, have long provided assistance to Libya to thwart immigration to Europe, including support for its network of brutal immigrant prisons. 'Libya has served as a detention center for countries in Europe, Italy in particular. So the U.S. may be looking at that for a model,' said Finucane, who worked on U.S.-Libyan security cooperation for the State Department and is now the senior adviser for the U.S. program at the International Crisis Group. 'It has, of course, a terrible reputation in terms of human rights treatment of immigrants, and there's been reporting on this from the U.N. and many others. But based on this administration's use of CECOT in El Salvador, brutal prison conditions may be the point.' Last month, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy (no relation to the senator) issued a preliminary injunction barring the Trump administration from deporting noncitizens to third countries without due process and without allowing them to demonstrate whether they are in danger of persecution, bodily harm, or death if they are sent. In the face of reports of impending expulsions to Libya, Murphy followed up last Wednesday with an order clarifying that 'the allegedly imminent removals, as reported by news agencies and as plaintiffs seek to corroborate with class-member accounts and public information, would clearly violate this court's order.' 'The Trump Administration's plan to send migrants to Libya is unconscionable, cruel, and blatantly illegal. This decision flies in the face of basic morality. Sending migrants to a country that they didn't come from and where they could face torture and inhumane treatment is appalling and criminal,' said Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. 'No human being should be subjected to these horrific conditions. There is no doubt that these migrants will have their lives put at severe risk.' During a Senate subcommittee meeting with DHS Secretary Kristi Noem last week, Sen. Murphy tore into the reported Libya deportation plans. The country is considered too dangerous even for U.S. diplomats, he observed, and American citizens are advised not to travel there. 'Libya is in the middle of a civil war,' he said. 'Sending migrants with pending asylum claims into a war zone just because it's cruel is so deeply disturbing.' President Donald Trump claimed not to know whether he planned to deport hundreds of immigrants to Libya, amid reports that his administration was poised to do so. When asked whether the administration was sending migrants to Libya last week, Trump said, 'I don't know,' then instructed reporters to ask the Department of Homeland Security. Multiple requests for comment by The Intercept to DHS, citing Trump's advice, went unanswered. Libya is not the only war zone that the Trump administration has eyed as a suitable site for immigrant expulsion. Earlier this year, the administration asked Ukraine to accept third-country nationals, according to reporting by the Washington Post. There is no indication that Ukraine agreed to this extraordinary request, however. The State Department refused to offer clarification, claiming — falsely — that they do not discuss diplomatic communications with other governments. The Trump administration is also combing Africa for nations that will accept third-country nationals, including Benin, a West African nation that is increasingly beset by Islamist militant violence, and Equatorial Guinea, a notorious kleptocracy led by a brutal tyrant. Read Our Complete Coverage Further east, the U.S. is courting another government led by a strongman. Rwanda's foreign minister, Olivier J.P. Nduhungirehe, recently disclosed that his country was in 'early stage' talks with the Trump administration to accept expelled immigrants from America. 'These talks are still ongoing,' he told Rwanda TV, the state broadcaster. The U.S. made a one-time payment of $100,000 to the Rwandan government last month to accept an Iraqi national with the proviso that the African nation would admit 10 more third-country nationals as part of a 'durable program' for accepting other expelled immigrants, according to reporting by the Washington Post. Rwanda has a long history of taking in refugees from Africa and elsewhere and striking deals with European nations, like Denmark and the United Kingdom, to accept deported asylum-seekers and immigrants. While Rwanda frames the policy as altruistic, many experts say it is rooted in efforts to profit financially and geopolitically and induce Western governments to ignore Rwanda's antidemocratic government, its support for a brutal rebel group and illegal mining in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, and the nation's woeful human rights record. The most recent State Department report on human rights in Rwanda details significant issues including 'extrajudicial killings; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest or detention; [and] political prisoners or detainees,' among many other violations. The State Department refused to comment on ongoing negotiations with Rwanda. 'We do not discuss the details of our diplomatic communications with other governments,' a spokesperson told The Intercept. 'Ongoing engagement with foreign governments is vital to deterring illegal and mass migration and securing our borders, which are top Trump Administration priorities,' a State Department spokesperson told The Intercept by email. This engagement increasingly looks like an effort to frighten immigrants with the prospect of exile in far-off, and sometimes exceptionally dangerous, countries. Brané, the former Immigration Detention Ombudsman, says that the Trump administration is weaponizing the deportation process, wielding it as a cudgel as it also pushes a self-deportation scheme. In March, the Department of Homeland Security announced a program to induce undocumented immigrants to turn themselves in through an app and 'self-deport' in exchange for travel assistance and a stipend of $1,000, paid after their return to their home country. 'Transfers to third countries are not intended to be a punishment or a deterrent. But I think they're looking at it as a punishment, like retribution — punishing people, without having gone through due process. They're saying, 'You violate our rules, we're going to really make you suffer,'' Brané told The Intercept, referring to the Trump administration. 'They see these removals as a way to scare people, to deter them from coming, but also to move them toward self-removal or self-deportation. It's not a coincidence that they are pairing it with this campaign of 'Leave now or we'll come after you.'' Join The Conversation
The Intercept
14-05-2025
- Politics
- The Intercept
A Lawmaker Fights for Birthright Citizenship — With or Without the Supreme Court
Support Us © THE INTERCEPT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., talks with reporters outside the U.S. Capitol after the last votes of the week on March 6, 2025. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images As the Supreme Court weighs whether to allow the Trump administration to massively restrict birthright citizenship, Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., is attempting to use Congress's power of the purse to block the administration's attack on constitutionally protected rights. In January, Trump signed Executive Order 14160, which would prevent children born in the United States and its territories from automatically becoming U.S. citizens if their parents are undocumented immigrants or on a temporary visa, such as a work or student visa. Trump's order was immediately blocked by lower courts on the basis of the 14th Amendment, which guarantees citizenship for 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.' As the Supreme Court hears oral arguments on the case Thursday, Ramirez told The Intercept she will introduce a bill prohibiting the use of federal funds to carry out Trump's executive order and reaffirming birthright citizenship. This issue is personal for Ramirez, who is the only member of Congress born to parents who were undocumented at the time of her birth. 'My mother and father fled poverty in Guatemala, and my mother was pregnant with me when she came to this country, and I was born in Cook County Hospital in the city of Chicago. I still live in the same community,' said Ramirez. 'The idea that [Trump] would call to question who's American and who's not — it's absolutely, very personal to me.' Ramirez said it's clear that Trump's executive order isn't about immigration, it's about upholding white supremacy — a fact further evidenced by his administration's move to end temporary status for Afghan and Haitian immigrants, then immediately offer refugee status to white South Africans. 'It's pretty blatant that this is an attack that is seeded on white supremacy and racism,' she said. Read Our Complete Coverage The oral arguments before the Supreme Court involve a case challenging several lower court decisions blocking the executive order from going into effect nationwide. The Trump administration is arguing that lower court judges don't have the power to issue nationwide injunctions and that these rulings should be limited in scope, if possible, to the specific people who brought cases. Five pregnant women in Maryland brought cases against the Trump administration, fearing for the citizenship status of their future children. The administration is also challenging the ability of states to bring these cases on behalf of their residents. Four states have brought lawsuits against the administration's executive order: Washington, Arizona, Illinois, and Oregon. The consequences of the Supreme Court's decision in this case could prove wide-ranging for civil liberties in the United States and challenges to the Trump administration's sweeping agenda, legal experts said. 'No national injunction means that either we get checkerboard justice, where rights exist in some places and not in others,' said Margo Schlanger, a law professor at the University of Michigan Law School, 'or we get this huge tax on the organizations that are trying to vindicate [these] rights that makes them litigate all over the place.' Schlanger said the court may decide to weigh-in on the substantive issue of birthright citizenship, focus on the issue of nationwide injunctions, or both. Sam Erman, another professor at the University of Michigan Law School, thinks it's 'highly unlikely' the Supreme Court will issue a ruling on birthright citizenship at this stage. Erman noted that the court has not had a full briefing on the issue of birthright citizenship. 'It would be a very hurried decision if they did it,' he said, 'and one where they would be sort of stripping themselves of a bunch of resources.' There's also the fact that this is largely considered a settled legal issue. In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the court established that children born in the United States to children of noncitizens are citizens. Wong Kim Ark, decided in 1898, is largely considered settled precedent. 'It's a pretty decided issue that the Supreme Court has itself basically presumed the result without giving it much thought in prior cases,' said Erman. 'The Supreme Court's precedent pretty much settles it. The history is all in one direction on it. The text is pretty clear.' But as shown by the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade, legal precedents can fall, said Kailin Wu, an attorney at Haynes Novick Kohn Immigration in Washington, D.C. 'The court is looking at opportunities to review previous decisions a lot more often now than they have been in the past, 'said Wu. 'I'm not going into oral arguments on Thursday feeling confident that this is going to come out in favor of maintaining the status quo.' Erman said it will also be worth watching how the court handles the secondary legal issue of nationwide injunctions. 'Some justices have been signaling for a while that [nationwide injunctions] ought to be reined in in some way,' said Erman. 'And this seems like a possible moment to do that.' 'One thing that's at stake is the separation of powers between the different branches of government.' On the flip side, justices could be concerned about maintaining the balance of power between the judiciary writ-large, Congress and the presidency. 'One thing that's at stake is the separation of powers between the different branches of government,' said Erman. 'In theory, it should be up to Congress to change the statutory scheme that grants birthright citizenship at birth, and it should only be the Supreme Court that gets to say what the constitutional law is.' Erman notes that outright banning nationwide injunctions, in this case, would get 'messy fast.' 'If they were to say, 'Well, now this only applies in the district where you filed,' you would suddenly have people filing in every district in the country all at once,' he said, 'or if you said this only applies to the individuals who filed, you'd get a flood of lawsuits by individuals seeking the same treatment.' This scenario, Schlanger said, would make it significantly harder for organizations to fight for civil rights because they would have to battle in every jurisdiction — potentially leaving the United States with a patchwork of different citizenship rules. 'There will be a bunch of states in which courts have said the birthright citizenship EO is illegal or ineffective … and then there will be other districts, other states, where that hasn't happened,' she explained. 'So you have different rules governing the citizenship rights of newborns depending on what state they were born in.' Wu said that his clients living in the U.S. on work visas are terrified about what the Trump administration's executive order could mean for their families. For example, Wu said that his clients on H-1B visas are sometimes here for 15 to 30 years before they receive their green cards. Now, it's unclear what could happen if they end up having children. 'Are their kids automatically going to get a [visa]? Are they going to need to apply for that? I think there are a lot of questions,' said Wu. 'You may end up in scenarios where people who are here on temporary status and who have kids who are born here are inevitably going to leave at some point.' Legal scholars said to watch whether justices ask more about birthright citizenship or nationwide injunctions as an indicator of which issue they're more likely to address. And as always, all eyes are on Chief Justice John Roberts, who is widely considered to be a swing vote on these issues. However, Erman said, regardless of how the justices eventually rule, it shouldn't be seen as an indicator that the Supreme Court is on the side of people fighting the administration. 'The administration is on very weak substantive ground here,' said Erman,'and so were the courts to uphold what the administration is trying to do. That's a strong signal that they're going to be, I think, deferential to lots of claims by the administration.' In Congress, Ramirez isn't holding out hope that her Republican colleagues will help her protect birthright citizenship. 'I've had some off-the-record conversations with a couple of them, who said, 'No, that's absolutely crazy, if you were born here, you're a United States citizen,'' she said. 'But the problem is, that has not actually been lived out in remarks or public statements.' Still, Ramirez thinks it's important to take a stand for this fundamental right. In addition to affirming the constitutional right of all children born in the United States to automatically obtain U.S. citizenship, the bill uses Congress's spending powers to block the administration's actions. The legislation would prohibit any federal funds from being used to carry out Trump's executive order. So even if the Supreme Court ruled that Trump could move forward implementing the executive order, his administration would be blocked from using federal funding to create new systems to identify who is or isn't a citizen, change someone's citizenship status, or deport them. If Ramirez's legislation can pass in the House and find backing in the Republican-controlled Senate, it would render Trump's campaign against birthright citizenship an order in name only. 'We're going to have a strong showing. Over 100 members of Congress are original co-sponsors to this bill,' said Ramirez. 'People are really riled up to fight back and understand that attempting to erode birthright citizenship is literally attempting to erode our democracy itself.' Join The Conversation
