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The Independent
11 hours ago
- Politics
- The Independent
ICE detains green card holder on return from Japan where he was visiting his Air Force member son
A 66-year-old green card holder is in custody in Bakersfield, California, after he was apprehended by ICE last month following a trip to Japan. Victor Avila, who first received his card in 1967, was arrested as he arrived in San Francisco with his wife after the pair had been in Asia to visit their son, a serving member of the US Air Force, according to a GoFundMe page that has been set up. In an interview with ABC San Diego, Vila's daughter, Carina, said that her mother, a US citizen, was allowed to pass through immigration control, but he was kept behind. Carina said that her father was first kept in an ICE office in the airport, 'in a room, sleeping on chairs.' He was later transferred to Bakersfield, some 230 miles from his home. His daughter added that her father received his green card immediately after first legally immigrating to the US with his family from Mexico. Avila, a legal assistant at a workers' compensation law firm, has a minor criminal record stemming from a 2009 arrest for DUI and drug possession, which saw him spend some time in prison. 'Two misdemeanors. Served all his time, paid all he had to pay. Since then, he has been a good man and a hard worker. Hasn't gotten into trouble, not one time. He's dedicated himself to his family,' Carina said. His green card has been renewed twice since then. His family has launched a campaign to secure his release, involving letter-writing and crowdfunding efforts. 'I've visited him several times. There are days he's hopeful, optimistic. Then there's days he mentally prepares himself for the worst. I want my dad back. I want my dad home,' Avila faces a court hearing on July 15. At the time of writing, Avila's GoFundMe page has raised $21,500. According to the most recent update on the page, ICE has initiated deportation proceedings against Avila. Protests over federal immigration enforcement raids have been flaring up around the country. Opponents of Trump's immigration policies took to the streets as part of the 'no kings' demonstrations Saturday that came as Trump held a massive parade in Washington for the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army. Saturday's protests were mostly peaceful. But police in Los Angeles used tear gas and crowd-control munitions to clear out protesters after the event ended. Officers in Portland, Oregon, also fired tear gas and projectiles to disperse a crowd that protested in front of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building well into the evening.
Forbes
4 days ago
- Politics
- Forbes
Immigration Restrictions Mount Against Americans And Legal Residents
People hold U.S. flags while attending their Naturalization Oath ceremony for US citizenship in Los ... More Angeles, California, on May 25, 2022. Americans and lawful permanent residents who want close family members and others to join them in the United States face mounting legal immigration restrictions. (Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images) Americans and lawful permanent residents who want close family members and others to join them in the United States face mounting legal immigration restrictions. While the Trump administration characterizes the travel ban as against specific nations, the measure prohibits previously lawful actions by Americans and lawful permanent residents. Analysts say the travel ban uses data in less than legitimate ways, including citing overstay rates for temporary visas to justify barring people from obtaining a green card, also known as permanent residence, a status that people cannot overstay. On June 4, 2025, Donald Trump issued a proclamation banning the entry of persons issued immigrant visas at a consulate (but who are not yet lawful permanent residents) and the entry of persons with temporary visas from 12 countries: Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. The proclamation also bans the entry of persons issued immigrant visas and limits the entry ban on temporary (nonimmigrant) visas to tourists and business travelers and students and exchange visitors for an additional seven countries: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela. On June 7, Secretary of State Marco Rubio further suspended the issuance of visas to people in the targeted countries and categories. The Trump administration crafted the new proclamation to overcome legal challenges and negative news stories. The travel ban issued in September 2017, which went into effect after Supreme Court approval, included blocking the Immediate Relatives of U.S. citizens from the affected countries and generated a slew of news stories about Americans separated from spouses. Immediate Relatives are the spouses, children and parents of U.S. citizens. After the 2017 travel ban, admissions for the Immediate Relatives of U.S. citizens dropped significantly from the affected countries. A waiver in the proclamation helped little. A National Foundation for American Policy analysis shows between FY 2016 and FY 2019, the annual admission of the Immediate Relatives of U.S. citizens from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen declined by 67%. The new proclamation includes an exception for the spouses, children and parents of U.S. citizens. However, U.S. citizens must overcome a new standard: 'clear and convincing evidence of identity and family relationship (e.g., DNA),' according to the proclamation. 'This standard is higher than the preponderance of evidence standard that exists presently for U.S. citizens to claim their relationship to relatives they wish to sponsor for permanent residence,' said immigration attorney Cyrus Mehta. 'Normally, the standard only escalates to the clear and convincing standard in situations involving suspected fraud, such as when a respondent in removal proceedings marries a U.S. citizen or when there have been instances of prior fraud.' Under the proclamation, the federal government prohibits U.S. citizens from sponsoring an adult child (married or unmarried) or a sibling from the listed countries. That represents a significant immigration restriction against American citizens. The proclamation also bars lawful permanent residents from sponsoring a spouse, minor child or unmarried adult child from the 19 countries. 'There seems to be a strategy to prevent immigration and future citizenship from these mainly African countries,' said Mehta. He considers the ban on lawful permanent residents sponsoring their spouses or children 'draconian.' New developments may support Mehta's view that the Trump administration is motivated by a desire to ban many Africans from coming to the United States. The Washington Post reports the administration may add 36 more countries to the travel ban, including 25 African countries. That would mean, with limited exceptions, nationals from 35 of the 54 countries in Africa could be banned from immigrating, visiting or studying in the United States. 'While it may be difficult to challenge the entire proclamation on its face as unconstitutional under equal protection or First Amendment principles after Trump v. Hawaii, plaintiffs may try to take shots at challenging narrower provisions such as the provision rendering it harder for U.S. citizens to sponsor immediate relatives from the banned country,' said Mehta. Donald Trump speaks during a rally at Greenbrier Farms on June 28, 2024, in Chesapeake, Virginia. ... More (Photo by) During the 2024 presidential election campaign, Donald Trump vilified three nationalities: Haitians, Venezuelans and 'people from the Congo,' making statements journalists found untrue about each nationality. Trump accused Venezuelan gangs of 'attacking villages and cities all throughout the Midwest.' He claimed Haitians were eating their neighbor's pets in Springfield, Ohio. Trump also asserted that the government of 'the Congo' had opened its jails and sent prisoners to the United States to commit crimes. Under the travel ban proclamation, Venezuelans, Haitians and individuals from the Republic of the Congo are, with limited exceptions, banned from obtaining immigrant and temporary visas. The proclamation criticizes Haiti, Venezuela and Afghanistan for lacking a reliable or functioning government. However, the Trump administration terminated Temporary Protected Status for the three countries and claimed it was safe for Haitians, Venezuelans and Afghans to return, citing improved conditions in each nation. The inconsistencies in the proclamation indicate Trump officials worked backward by first identifying nationalities they wished to block from the United States and then seeking a rationale to list them in the travel ban. The travel ban will harm immigrant communities in Florida and elsewhere. 'The travel ban is catastrophic for many U.S. citizens from Haiti and Cuba, as well permanent residents from those countries,' said attorney Ira Kurzban, chair of the immigration department at KKWT in Miami. 'It doesn't allow people to reunify with family members, and it forces people to remain in or be deported to conditions that the United States and the rest of the world have recognized as absolutely horrific.' Kurzban points out that the Trump administration's policy permits the government to deport Cubans and Haitians to Rwanda, Libya, El Salvador or other places to which they have no connection and where they might be imprisoned if they can't be returned to Cuba or Haiti. 'Instead of being deported, many of these people could be doctors or nurses in the United States,' he said. The travel ban harms U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents sponsoring family members in several ways. First, the Trump administration bars U.S. citizens from the 19 countries from gaining approval for new applications to sponsor their siblings or adult children, even though immigration law permits it, and prohibits lawful permanent residents from sponsoring a spouse or child. That forces a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident to leave the United States if they wish to be with their family. Second, the ban stops people who may have waited 10 or 15 years to immigrate legally from arriving in the United States while the travel ban remains in place. Third, Kurzban notes that the State Department has barred issuing immigrant visas, meaning initial filings and paperwork will not take place to sponsor family members. The State Department could have allowed processing to continue while the ban on entering the United States remained in effect. 'The entry ban is supposed to be temporary, but that's just a mirage, because not issuing the visas and ending the visa process means starting that backup will take substantial time,' said Kurzban. 'The decision to not only ban entry, but to ban the whole process of getting the visa, having it put in your passport, or if you're an immigrant, going through the whole immigrant processing, is now, in effect, shut down.' Under the proclamation, the federal government also will prohibit family members from traveling to the United States for a visit, wedding or funeral. In the travel ban proclamation, the Trump administration cites overstay rates for temporary visas in countries to prohibit people from immigrating and staying permanently. It is impossible to overstay an immigrant visa since people are allowed to remain in the United States permanently on such visas. Analysts point out the U.S. government has banned one set of individuals for actions taken by a different group of people that bear no relationship to joining a spouse or other close family member to live in America. The travel ban also bars employers from sponsoring people outside the country for permanent residence from the 19 nations. The proclamation uses statements such as, 'According to the Overstay Report, Turkmenistan had a B-1/B-2 visa overstay rate of 15.35 percent and an F, M, and J visa overstay rate of 21.74 percent. (ii) The entry into the United States of nationals of Turkmenistan as immigrants . . . is hereby suspended.' (Emphasis added.) Similar statements are used for most of the countries listed in the proclamation. The overstay rates in the DHS reports are suspect since the documents include many unrecorded departures that may not be actual overstays. DHS has problems with its systems correctly identifying individuals who changed status inside the U.S. or left the country, which renders its reports inappropriate for policy purposes. That is particularly the case with students. The 'suspected in-country overstay' rate for student and exchange visitors in FY 2018 dropped by 60% over a year, from 2.11% to 0.84% 12 months later, according to DHS, as the agency's systems caught up. People from countries experiencing violence may not have overstayed their visas but applied for asylum, received Temporary Protected Status or remained in the country via other lawful means, such as marriage. DHS systems may record and treat them as overstays. Experts note the State Department can address overstays by denying visas to individuals they think will overstay a visa, a far less draconian approach than banning everyone in that country from entering the United States. The most recent DHS overstay report lists Iran and Venezuela as having low overstay rates for F-1 student and exchange visitor visas. Nonetheless, the proclamation bans nationals from the two countries from obtaining student visas. The travel bans and the refugee suspension prevent U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents from sponsoring or reuniting with close family members. U.S. employers are also mainly prohibited from hiring individuals from the 19 countries. Immigration measures against those outside the United States often translate into restrictions on U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents. Ira Kurzban said, 'I think most Americans fail to realize that when you harm immigrants, you are hurting their American citizen or lawful permanent resident families.'
CBS News
13-06-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Trump administration can keep Mahmoud Khalil jailed for allegedly lying on green card application, judge says
Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil can remain in federal detention on allegations he lied on his green card application, a federal judge ruled Friday. U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz said days earlier the Trump administration cannot detain or deport Khalil based on Secretary of State Marco Rubio's determination that he could harm foreign policy. The New Jersey judge wrote that Khalil had shown his detention was causing irreparable harm to his career, family and free speech rights. But the judge acknowledged Friday his earlier ruling did not address the Trump administration's other stated basis for holding Khalil, that he allegedly left out information about his career and prior associations on his green card form. Farbiarz said it is now up to Khalil to ask for bail from the immigration judge overseeing his case. In a filing Friday, the government argued that Farbiarz never said it would be "unlawful" to detain Khalil over concerns about his green card application, even as the judge noted in his Wednesday ruling that evidence suggested that legal permanent residents are virtually never detained for such reasons. Khalil, for his part, disputes that he wasn't forthcoming in his application. He maintains, among other things, that he was never employed by or served as an "officer" of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, as the administration claims, but completed an internship approved by the university as part of his graduate studies. In a letter to Farbiarz, Khalil's lawyers said he had satisfied all of the court's requirements to go free and that the government's lawyers missed a Friday morning deadline to challenge the judge's Wednesday ruling. After Farbiarz's ruling Friday, Khalil's legal team criticized his continued detention. "Mahmoud Khalil was detained in retaliation for his advocacy for Palestinian rights. The government is now using cruel, transparent delay tactics to keep him away from his wife and newborn son ahead of their first Father's Day as a family," said lawyer Amy Greer, an associate at Dratel & Lewis. Khalil was detained on March 8 at his apartment building in Manhattan over his links to pro-Palestinian demonstrations. His was the first arrest under President Trump's crackdown on students who were connected to campus protests, typically citing a law that allows people to be removed from the U.S. if the secretary of state finds their presence could pose "adverse foreign policy consequences." Khalil's lawyers say the Trump administration is simply trying to crack down on free speech. Khalil isn't accused of breaking any laws during the protests at Columbia. The international affairs graduate student served as a negotiator and spokesperson for student activists. He wasn't among the demonstrators arrested, but his prominence in news coverage and willingness to speak publicly made him a target of critics.
CBS News
12-06-2025
- Business
- CBS News
President Trump touts $5 million "Trump card" on social media, says waitlist is open
President Trump's $5 million pathway for wealthy immigrants to achieve legal U.S. residency now has a website where aspiring visa holders can join a waitlist for what he's calling the "Trump card." In a social media post late Wednesday, Mr. Trump said that "thousands have been calling and asking how they can sign up to ride a beautiful road in gaining access to the Greatest Country and Market anywhere in the World," referring to the United States. "FOR FIVE MILLION $DOLLARS, THE TRUMP CARD IS COMING," he wrote in the post. The president first unveiled the new pathway in February, when he termed it a "gold card" that would be aimed at wealthy foreigners who want to bypass the typical pathways to earn legal residency. The term is a play on the permanent residency card, colloquially known as a "green card," which allows non-citizens to live and work permanently in the U.S. In his Wednesday post, the president included a link to the card's new website, whose landing page reads, "The Trump Card is Coming." The site instructs applicants to enter their personal information in order to be notified "the moment access opens." The website also features an image of the gold card, which is decorated with images of Mr. Trump's face and the Statue of Liberty, the term "5M" and Mr. Trump's signature. How do you apply? At applicants are instructed to provide their first and last names; indicate whether they are applying for the card as an individual, business, or other entity; and whether they are applying for themselves, or on behalf of their spouse, family or someone else. They're also asked to choose from a list of eight regions that they're from, which include: Europe Asia (including the Middle East) North America Oceania Central America South America Caribbean Africa Potential applicants are also asked to submit an email address to be added to a waitlist. In a March speech, Mr. Trump had described the $5 million card as being "like the green card, but better and more sophisticated. And these people will have to pay tax in our country." Like the green card, the new card could help holders achieve citizenship, Mr. Trump said at the time. "It's a road to citizenship for people — and essentially people of wealth or people of great talent, where people of wealth pay for those people of talent to get in, meaning companies will pay for people to get in and to have long, long term status in the country," he said earlier this year. However, there are questions about whether Mr. Trump has the authority to issue such cards because any new visa program must be approved by Congress through legislation, according to immigration law firm Herman Legal Group. The Trump administration could use an immigration authority called "parole," which was used by former President Biden to allow many immigrants to enter the U.S. legally, the Cato Institute noted. "[H]is administration has taken the position that this type of 'categorical' parole is unlawful," the Cato Institute noted. "It is doubtful that wealthy people would pay $5 million for something with dubious legal standing or a temporary status that could be rescinded at any time." How much money could the Trump card raise? The Trump administration has said it intends for the Trump card to replace the EB-5 visa, which was launched in 1990 and allows non-citizens to obtain a residency visa in exchange for investing in the U.S. and committing to creating jobs for U.S. citizens. Earlier this year, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in remarks at the Oval Office that the EB-5 visa program is "full of nonsense, make believe and fraud." In his March speech, Mr. Trump also said that he believes the U.S. could sell roughly 1 million of the cards, and raise $5 trillion.
The Sun
08-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
I'm a 42-year-old divorced virgin – the real reason I've never had any sexual experiences with men despite being married
A 42-YEAR-OLD virgin has revealed the real reason why she's never had sex, despite being married. Rhasha was married to a man for 10 months, but revealed that she never had any sexual experiences with her husband. 2 2 She describes herself as a "late bloomer" and explained that her lack of confidence has stunted her in the bedroom. "I wasn't attracted to guys till I was like in my mid-20s," she told TLC show Virgins, in a clip seen by the Daily Mail. "I think it was just being overweight and not having confidence in myself." Rhasha revealed that she has always struggled with her weight, and believed that men wouldn't be attracted to her because of her size. Opening up about her marriage, she told a professional on the show that her ex-husband was an international student from South Korea. She explained that they never met up, but spent four years texting each other. "He was so sweet and made me laugh, so when he told me that he didn't want to go back to his home country, I didn't want him to either", she said. She said that she was completely in love with the man, but revealed that he only ended up marrying her for a green card. Rhasha is now determined to lose her virginity, but said that her ordeal with her former nupitals has put her off getting wed again. "I have so much love to give and I'm such a nurturing person, but I don't know if I want to get married because I was before and that was a debacle", she said. Moment virgin has sex on Virgin Island with surrogate partner The new TLC show sees four adult virgins aim to finally have sex. Alongside Rhasha, the reality series features Deanne, a 35 year old with high standards, Alex a 34 year old living in his mum and dad's loft, and Sonali, a 37 year old who has practically never dated. Describing the show, TLC said it's a "wild, warm, and wonderfully awkward ride with four adults who have yet to experience sexual intercourse, as they navigate love, intimacy, and self-discovery in their 30s and 40s." "After years of missed connections and dating horror stories, these late bloomers are done playing it safe," the synopsis continues. "They're stepping outside their comfort zones and taking big swings to finally go all the way, emotionally and physically. "From navigating awkward first dates to exploring a bondage class and working with an intimacy partner they're putting it all on the line in hopes of finally sealing the deal." Virgins is set to air on TLC tomorrow, June 9.
