From classifying immigrants as dead to deportation: A guide to actions on Trump immigration policies

Posted/updated on: April 12, 2025 at 4:51 pm

President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda is playing out in numerous ways Friday, from hearings in key cases on the government’s power to deport people to the start of a registry required for all those who are in the country illegally.

And on Thursday, immigration developments came on multiple fronts as federal officials work on the president’s promise to carry out mass deportations and double down on his authority to do so. The Supreme Court ruled in the case of a mistakenly deported man, and the administration’s classification of thousands of living immigrants as dead came to light.

Here is a breakdown of some of what has happened so far and what is ahead.
Judge says Mahmoud Khalil, Columbia student arrested over Gaza protests, can be deported

An immigration judge in Louisiana decided Friday that Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil can be kicked out of the U.S. as a national security risk.

Immigration Judge Jamee E. Comans presided over a hearing over the legality of deporting the activist who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

The government’s contention that Khalil’s presence in the United States posed “potentially serious foreign policy consequences” was enough to satisfy requirements for his deportation, Comans said.

Lawyers for Khalil said Khalil will appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals, and that lawyers can also pursue an asylum case on Khalil’s behalf. And a federal judge in New Jersey has temporarily barred Khalil’s deportation.

Khalil, a legal U.S. resident, was detained by federal immigration agents on March 8 in the lobby of his university-owned apartment, the first arrest under Trump’s promised crackdown on students who joined campus protests against the war in Gaza.
Judge orders daily updates on US plan to return man who was mistakenly deported

The Supreme Court on Thursday said the Trump administration must work to bring back a Maryland man mistakenly deported to a prison in El Salvador.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran citizen who had an immigration court order preventing his deportation to his native country over fears he would face persecution from local gangs. But Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported him anyway to El Salvador, where he’s been held in a notorious prison.

At a Friday hearing, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said it is “extremely troubling” that a government lawyer couldn’t explain what, if anything, the Trump administration has done to arrange for Abrego Garcia’s return. The U.S. attorneys told Xinis they haven’t had enough time to review the Supreme Court ruling and struggled to provide information about Abrego Garcia’s exact whereabouts.

“I’m not asking for state secrets,” Xinis said. “The government was prohibited from sending him to El Salvador, and now I’m asking a very simple question: Where is he?”

Xinis ordered daily updates on plans to bring Abrego Garcia back.
Judge refuses to block immigration enforcement at places of worship

Also Friday, a federal judge sided with the Trump administration in refusing to block immigration agents from conducting enforcement operations at houses of worship.

U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich found that there have been only a handful of such enforcement actions and that the plaintiffs — more than two dozen Christian and Jewish groups representing millions of Americans — hadn’t shown the kind of legal harm for a preliminary injunction.

The groups argued that the policy violated the right to practice religion. They said attendance has declined significantly since Trump took office.

But Friedrich said they didn’t show the drops were linked to the church policy.
‘I screamed’: Turkish student detained by ICE speaks out

A Tufts University doctoral student from Turkey said she was talking to her mother on her phone at the time she was detained by immigration enforcement officials.

Rumeysa Ozturk said in a document filed Thursday by her lawyers in federal court that she had just left her Massachusetts home on March 25 when she was surrounded by several men, and “I screamed.”

Ozturk, 30, has since been moved to a detention center in Louisiana. Her lawyers say detention violates her constitutional rights, including free speech and due process.

Ozturk is among several people with ties to American universities who attended demonstrations or publicly expressed support for Palestinians during the war in Gaza and who recently had visas revoked or have been stopped from entering the U.S.
Temporary reprieve for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans a
nd Venezuelans?

A federal judge said Thursday that she will prevent the Trump administration from ordering hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans with temporary legal status to leave the country later this month.

More than 500,000 people came to the country under the Biden-era program. They were facing an April 24 deadline by which their work permits would be terminated, and they could be subject to deportation.

The program was launched as the Biden administration was generally trying to alleviate pressure on the southern border by creating new pathways for people to come to the U.S. and work, usually for two years on humanitarian parole.

The government is likely to appeal.
Temporary restraining orders to stop the removal of Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act broadened

Federal judges in New York and Texas ruled Friday that temporary restraining orders to stop the removal of Venezuelans from the U.S. would expand to protect more people in those states.

The rulings come in class-action lawsuits filed to halt the government from removing Venezuelans accused of being gang members under the Alien Enemies Act. The judges granted temporary restraining orders earlier this week that prevented the U.S. government from removing Venezuelans held at a detention facility in Raymondville, Texas, and those held within the federal jurisdiction of the Southern District of New York.

On Friday, Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. in Texas broadened his ruling to protect all Venezuelans detained in his judicial district, which includes the cities of Houston and Galveston, among others. Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein in the Manhattan federal court changed his order to include protection for “individuals subject to the Presidential Proclamation who are in state or local custody.”

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled the administration can resume removals under the Alien Enemies Act, but detainees first must be afforded due process, including reasonable time to argue to a judge that they should not be removed.
The start of a registry for people in the country illegally

Friday marks the launch of a requirement for people who are in the country illegally to register with the federal government.

Homeland Security announced Feb. 25 that it was mandating all people in the U.S. illegally register with the federal government, and said those who didn’t self-report could face fines or prosecution. People will be required to carry registration documents with them.

Opponents sued to stop the registry from taking effect, saying the government should have gone through the more lengthy public notification process, and that it’s enforcing this simply to facilitate Trump’s aim of mass deportations.

On Thursday, a federal judge sided with the administration. Officials had argued they were simply enforcing a requirement that already existed for everyone who is in the country but isn’t an American citizen and have emphasized that going forward, the registration requirement would be enforced to the fullest.

The Trump administration has said between 2.2 million and 3.2 million people could be affected.
Classifying immigrants as dead?

In an effort to make more migrants voluntarily go home, the Trump administration is classifying more than 6,000 immigrants — who are alive — as dead. Officials are canceling the immigrants’ Social Security numbers and effectively wiping out their ability to work or receive benefits in the U.S. That is according to two people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the plans had not yet been publicly detailed.

The move will make it much harder for those affected to use banks or other basic services where Social Security numbers are required.

The officials said stripping Social Security numbers will cut the immigrants off from many financial services and encourage them to “self-deport.”

It wasn’t clear how the immigrants were chosen. But the Trump White House has targeted people in the country temporarily under Biden-era programs.

Earlier this week, the departments of Homeland Security and Treasury signed a deal allowing the IRS to share immigrants’ tax data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to identify and deport people illegally in the U.S.

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Associated Press reporters Rebecca Santana, Jake Offenhartz, Will Weissert, Fatima Hussein, Mark Sherman, Michael Kunzelman, Lindsay Whitehurst and Michael Casey contributed.

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