Latest news with #dueprocess
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Lawyer for Venezuelans deported to El Salvador prison arrested
The head lawyer of a human rights group representing the families of Venezuelan immigrants imprisoned in El Salvador after being deported from the United States has been arrested. Ruth López, an outspoken critic of President Nayib Bukele, was detained late on Sunday under an order from the prosecutor's office which accused her of 'embezzlement' when she worked for an electoral court a decade ago, the human rights group Cristosal said in a statement. The prosecutor's office confirmed the arrest in a post on X. López runs Cristosal's anti-corruption and justice division and has been a vocal critic of Bukele's sweeping arrests of 85,000 mostly young men without due process under the state of exception that began in 2022. Neither López's family nor her legal team knew where she was taken after police removed her from her home shortly before midnight on Sunday. 'The authorities' refusal to disclose her location or to allow access to her legal representatives is a blatant violation of due process, the right to legal defence and international standards of judicial protection,' Cristosal said in a statement. The arrest is part of an accelerating government crackdown on civil society and the free press as Bukele is apparently emboldened by his close relationship to the Trump administration, which is paying El Salvador to hold deported immigrants in its prison system. Related: Venezuelans deported by Trump are victims of 'torture', lawyers allege Earlier this month, seven journalists from the investigative news outlet El Faro, who had exposed details of Bukele's alleged deals with the country's gangs had to leave the country after they were tipped off that the government was preparing arrest warrants for them. Many other journalists and activists had already fled. In 2023, El Faro moved its business and legal operations to Costa Rica. Last week, after protesters gathered outside Bukele's house, he accused NGOs of 'manipulating' them and proposed a bill to tax 30% of all contributions to NGOs, echoing a law passed by Nicaragua's autocratic government to silence its critics. Shortly after López's arrest, Andrés Guzmán, Bukele's presidential commissioner for human rights and freedom of expression, announced his resignation, without giving a reason. In a statement, international organisations said they were 'deeply concerned at the increasingly pervasive environment of fear that threatens freedoms in the country' and called on 'US policymakers and the diplomatic community at large to urge President Bukele to cease all attacks against human rights defenders'.
CBS News
12-06-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Federal judge in Colorado transfers immigration case for family of Boulder terror attack suspect
A federal judge in Colorado has decided to transfer the immigration case involving the wife and children of the suspect in the Boulder terror attack. Days after authorities said Mohamed Soliman attacked marchers with Molotov cocktails while they were holding a peaceful walk to bring awareness to Israeli hostages in Gaza, Soliman's wife, Hayem El Gamal, and five children were taken into ICE custody. Soliman and his family migrated to the U.S. from Egypt in August 2022. The Department of Homeland Security said he overstayed his visa and had filed for asylum that September. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said his family was set for expedited removal, but a federal judge temporarily blocked immigration officials from deporting them. They are currently being held in an ICE facility in Dilley, Texas. A hearing was scheduled for June 13, which was vacated on Thursday. Judge Gordon Gallagher maintained the restraining order on deporting the family but transferred the case to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. The judge raised concerns about the family receiving due process, stating, "If Respondents had resorted to expedited removal and summarily deported Ms. El Gamal and her children to Egypt (as the Government expressly threatened to do), Respondents likely would have violated Ms. El Gamal's and her children's due process rights. But the Government is constitutionally obligated to provide due process."
Fox News
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Appeals court grants Trump short-term win over Boasberg in immigration ruling
A U.S. appeals court agreed to pause a lower court order requiring the Trump administration to provide due process to hundreds of Venezuelan migrants deported from the U.S. to El Salvador under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act in a near-term victory for the Trump administration. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit granted the Justice Department's request for an administrative stay, putting on hold a lower court order handed down last week by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg. Last Wednesday, Boasberg ruled that the migrants deported solely on the basis of the Alien Enemies Act immigration law did not have prior notice of their removals or the ability to challenge their removals in court, in a violation of due process. He ordered the Trump administration to provide migrants deported under the law the opportunity to seek habeas relief, and the opportunity to challenge their alleged gang member status that the administration had pointed to as the basis for their removal. Boasberg had given the Trump administration through Wednesday to submit to the court plans for how it would go about providing habeas relief to the plaintiffs in CECOT, the maximum security prison in El Salvador. This week, lawyers for the Trump administration filed an emergency motion to stay the ruling in both the U.S. District Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Tuesday, one day before that plan was due, seeking additional time to respond to the underlying merits of Boasberg's ruling. Justice Department officials argued that Boasberg did not have jurisdiction in the case, as the migrants are detained in El Salvador, and said his order interfered "with the president's removal of dangerous criminal aliens from the United States." Boasberg's final order last week did not attempt to determine who had jurisdiction. Instead, he set the matter aside, and said the individuals could remain in custody at CECOT, so long as the government submitted plans to the court for how they would be provided a chance to challenge their removal under the Alien Enemies Act. The Trump administration still took umbrage with that ruling, which it blasted earlier this week in their appeal as "unprecedented, baseless and constitutionally offensive." "The district court's increasingly fantastical injunctions continue to threaten serious harm to the government's national-security and foreign-affairs interests," they told the circuit court. The court "correctly ruled that the United States lacks constructive custody over the aliens held at CECOT and therefore that this Court lacks jurisdiction over their habeas claims," attorneys for the Justice Department said in their motion. "That should have been the end of this case." That order sparked fierce backlash from senior Trump officials, who have blasted Bosaberg and other federal judges who have ruled in ways unfavorable to them as "activist judges." Boasberg, however, was the first federal judge to try to block Trump's attempt to use the law to summarily deport certain migrants to El Salvador earlier this year, putting him squarely in the crosshairs of the Trump administration. On March 15, he granted a temporary restraining order attempting to block the first wave of deportation flights to El Salvador, and ordered the administration to "immediately" return to the U.S. all planes that had already departed. That did not happen, however, and the planes landed hours later in El Salvador. In the months since, Boasberg attempted to hold various fact-finding hearings to determine who knew what, and when, about the flights. He later found probable cause to hold the administration in contempt of the court, citing the government's "willful disregard" for his March 15 emergency order, though those proceedings were later halted by a federal appeals court.
Fox News
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Abrego Garcia lawyers seek sanctions on Trump officials over stonewalling, defying court orders
Attorneys for Kilmar Abrego Garcia asked a judge in Maryland on Thursday to sanction Trump officials with severe fines and other penalties for what they said was an "egregious" defiance of court orders. The attorneys said the Trump administration misleadingly told a judge for months that it could not retrieve Abrego Garcia from El Salvador, where authorities mistakenly deported him in March. But the administration's decision to return him to the United States to face criminal charges in Tennessee last week proved they had the power all along to bring him back, the attorneys argued. "The Government's defiance has not been subtle," Abrego Garcia's attorneys wrote in court papers. "It has been vocal and sustained and flagrant." Abrego Garcia's family sued the Trump administration in March after the Salvadoran man, who entered the country illegally around 2012 and was living in Maryland, was abruptly deported to a Salvadoran terrorist prison. An immigration judge ruled in 2019 that he could be deported, just not to El Salvador. Department of Justice attorneys told the court his deportation to the prison was a mistake, but they insisted for months that the Trump administration could not reverse the error because it had no control over El Salvador. Abrego Garcia's attorneys argued their client, an alleged member of the MS-13 gang, had not received sufficient due process. A lower court and the Supreme Court agreed and ordered the Trump administration to "facilitate" Abrego Garcia's return so that his case could be handled in a manner consistent with immigration laws. The lower court judge, Obama appointee Paula Xinis, ordered the Trump administration in April to return Abrego Garcia as quickly as possible and to inform Abrego Garcia's family, through depositions and other discovery, of all the steps it was taking to facilitate his return. The Trump administration responded by asserting various privileges instead of handing over the discovery and repeatedly told the court it could not return him. On Thursday, Abrego Garcia's attorneys cited dozens of remarks that Trump officials made outside of court that showed they were not planning to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in April, for instance, that Abrego Garcia "is not coming back to our country. . . . There is no situation ever where he was going to stay in this country. None, none." "The Defendants' defiance of judicial orders has been accompanied by misrepresentations, stonewalling, and even questioning of this Court's authority," Abrego Garcia's attorneys wrote. Abrego Garcia's deportation became a lightning rod as the Trump administration has attempted to carry out its immigration agenda swiftly and aggressively. The Salvadoran national became the first known example of the administration fumbling over due process, to which illegal immigrants are entitled in a limited capacity. Abrego Garcia's attorneys suggested Xinis sanction Trump officials involved in the alleged court defiance with hefty fines, civil contempt of court, and by requiring they pay back court fees. On June 6, the DOJ announced a grand jury indictment against Abrego Garcia, charging him with three counts of trafficking illegal immigrants and conspiracy. The defendant made an initial appearance in court in Tennessee soon thereafter, marking the first sighting of him in the United States since he was deported to El Salvador. DOJ attorneys told Xinis they plan to ask her in the coming days to toss out the Maryland civil case entirely, because now that Abrego Garcia is back in the country, the case is moot.
Reuters
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Abrego Garcia seeks sanctions against Trump administration in wrongful deportation case
WASHINGTON, June 12 (Reuters) - Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man wrongly deported from Maryland to El Salvador before being returned to the United States on migrant smuggling charges, is seeking sanctions against the Trump administration for allegedly stonewalling an inquiry into efforts to secure his return. The case has become a flashpoint over President Donald Trump's hardline immigration policies. Critics have held it up as an example of the administration's willingness to deny due process and evade court orders in its push to deport migrants. Lawyers for Abrego Garcia argued in a court filing late on Wednesday that a judge should punish the federal government for failing to provide meaningful information about steps U.S. agencies took to comply with court orders to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return to the U.S. 'The Government's defiance has not been subtle. It has been vocal and sustained and flagrant,' Abrego Garcia's lawyers wrote in the filing. The filing asked U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis to conclude that the Trump administration did not take all available steps to bring about his return. It also seeks an unspecified sum in fines and to compel U.S. officials to turn over documents they have previously withheld, citing legal privileges. Spokespeople from the U.S. Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the filing. The Trump administration has argued it satisfied court orders by bringing Abrego Garcia to Tennessee last week to face a federal criminal indictment accusing him of transporting migrants living in the U.S. illegally to destinations around the country. Abrego Garcia's lawyers have denounced the charges as 'fantastical' and argued that the indictment should not end a separate lawsuit over his wrongful deportation in March. Abrego Garcia is set to appear for a detention hearing in the criminal case on Friday. The Trump administration has accused Abrego Garcia of being a member of the MS-13 street gang, a charge his lawyers deny. The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return after U.S. officials conceded he was mistakenly deported to his native El Salvador despite a prior court order barring him from being returned there. Administration officials initially said they had no way to compel El Salvador to return Abrego Garcia, who had been held in a Salvadorian prison, to U.S. custody. Xinis, who is presiding over the lawsuit, rejected those arguments and in April allowed Abrego Garcia's lawyers to question U.S. officials and seek documents on any steps the Trump administration had taken to secure his return. The Trump administration raised several legal privileges, arguing it did not have to divulge information that could impact U.S. national security or complicate diplomatic negotiations.
