Faces of Trump's deportation push: The people falling victim to the immigration crackdown
In his first 100 days in office, he has bent every part of the government toward that goal, cracking down on non-citizen activists, invoking emergency wartime authorities, skirting court orders to stop deportation flights, pulling humanitarian protections from hundreds of thousands, and attempting to ignore the Constitution and end birthright citizenship.
In a White House defined by chaos, immigration may be the only place where the Trump administration is consistent.
For the millions of immigrants across the U.S., this has meant consistent anxiety. Will they be detained and deported without warning? Do they still have rights to protest? Will the courts check Trump, and will Trump obey the courts?
Four different immigrants and their families told The Independent about what it's like living through this age of uncertainty.
The first sign that something was wrong came when Wendy Brito, an asylum-seeker from El Salvador, attended one of her regular check-ins with immigration officials in Louisiana last month. She called her fiancé, Kremly Marrero, and said she heard the sound of handcuffs nearby.
'I said, 'Don't worry, you're not doing anything wrong. You got permission to stay here,'' Marrero told The Independent. ''You applied for asylum. You should be alright, don't worry about it.''
Brito hasn't been home since. She was arrested and sent to an Immigration and Customs detention center in the city of Basile, Louisiana, nearly 200 miles away from where the couple live with their three children, just outside of New Orleans.
'My kids are not sleeping. My kids are constantly depressed,' Marrero, a U.S. citizen from Puerto Rico, said. 'They break down at school crying…They're constantly asking why their mother is in jail if she's not a bad person.'
And he's not sure what to tell them. He said he still doesn't know why Brito, who first applied for asylum in 2009, was suddenly arrested after nearly two decades. Marrero said he suspects it may have had something to do with a long-ago incident in which a neighbor called the police on Marrero and Brito during a domestic dispute in which neither sought charges.
Brito fled El Salvador after a gang killed her brother in the midst of an extortion attempt on the family, and her life has been turned upside-down once again.
The immigration officer who arrested Brito said it had something to do with the new administration, Marrero's lawyer told him, but that's about all he knows.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement acknowledged a request for comment about the case from The Independent but did not respond to questions.
'She went in for a routine check-in with ICE and never made it home,' Congressman Troy Carter, Democrat of Louisiana, said on April 22, after a delegation of representatives visited Brito and others held at facilities in Louisiana's 'deportation alley.' 'That's a tragedy. Due process was clearly denied…This is America. This is not some third-world country.'
In between four-hour nights of sleep, caring for the kids, and working in facilities at a local hospital, Marrero speaks with Brito on a prison video tablet. He said his partner has become unwell behind bars.
'I'm looking at her. I know you're not eating,' he said. 'She says, 'I don't want to. I just want to go home.' That breaks you. I don't care how strong of a man you are. You see your wife there and you can't do anything. I feel hopeless.'
While Brito has been in detention, a new crisis has hit the family. Marrero just found out he has liver cancer. He's still working to understand the severity of the diagnosis, but so far he has ignored his doctors' pleas to stay in the hospital, he told The Independent.
'I didn't have anyone to take care of the kids, so I had to leave. We're waiting for her to come home so I can get treated,' he said. 'It's been very tough.'
There has been one bright spot though. Marrero said Brito's bond has been approved, and the father is hoping to raise some of the $5,000 payment on GoFundMe so Brito can return home ahead of a May asylum hearing.
Ahwar Sultan, 25, a graduate student at Ohio State University, was sitting in an architecture lecture on April 3 when he got a notice that his record within the SEVIS government exchange student database had been terminated, jeopardizing his ability to study and work inside the U.S.
The government said vaguely that Sultan may have lost his visa or that his name may have appeared in a criminal records check, while the university said it hadn't gotten any notice from the government about the change.
The timing was hard to miss, though. The Trump administration had vowed to deport all non-citizen students who joined in widespread campus pro-Palestine demonstrations. It also said it would investigate universities for alleged antisemitism, including Ohio State. Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed in late March the State Department had begun pulling hundreds of visas.
Sultan had been a part of campus Palestine activism since 2023. The 25-year-old, who studies right-wing politics in India, felt compelled to join the movement out of a mixture of his academic background and a sense of solidarity with Palestinian scholars, who watched as Israel destroyed or damaged every university in Gaza.
Sultan may have come on the radar of authorities for an April 2024 incident where he was arrested as he attempted to protect a group of Muslim protesters at a divestment protest conducting evening prayers from advancing police. The resulting charges were later dismissed and expunged.
Still, the notice from the feds put him in a legal 'gray zone,' he said. He temporarily stopped attending class in person or conducting his duties as a teaching assistant. If he loses his ability to work for the university, he's not sure he'll be able to cover his bills, let alone stay in America.
'I don't feel safe being out and about, especially getting the news from everywhere around the country,' he told The Independent after his status was pulled.
On April 15, Sultan and a campus Palestine group sued the Trump administration, arguing its efforts to surveil and deport immigrants over their alleged views violated the First Amendment, and, in Sultan's case, due process and federal law as well.
Federal officials argued in court documents that Sultan's lawsuit was wrongly conflating canceling his status in the database with revoking his immigration status overall or beginning to deport him from the country, decisions he could contest in immigration court while being afforded full due process.
On April 24, Washington federal judge Tanya Chutkan ordered Sultan's status in the SEVIS database be temporarily reinstated, arguing the administration could 'point to no legal authority' for canceling it in the first place, while voicing doubt over the administration's larger treatment of the student.
'At this juncture, more than two weeks have elapsed since Sultan filed his Complaint and the court is highly skeptical of counsel's representations that Defendants are still waiting for ICE to confirm whether Sultan's presence in the United States is unlawful,' she wrote.
Despite the temporary win, Sultan isn't feeling very reassured. He got a letter from the U.S. Consul General General in Mumbai, informing him his F-1 visa had been revoked, meaning he may not be able to re-enter the country if he leaves it.
The grad student, who decided to pursue his studies in America to avoid the potential of government interference, now feels the U.S. is following Israel down what he sees as a path of lawlessness. Even if he gets some measure of reprieve in court, he feels the paradigm has shifted, noting that even his friends and colleagues without visa issues fear leaving the country.
'A pure sense of normalcy is not going to return. All bets are off,' he said. 'There might be ways to mitigate the uncertainty and try to push back against it. I don't really see how, with an administration that is turbocharging ICE and attacks on immigrants, any real sense of safety will return for most people.'
Ohio State declined to comment, citing the ongoing lawsuit.
Billy Elve, 32, is also waiting on the courts.
The Orlando, Florida, resident is originally from Haiti, and arrived in the U.S. in February 2024, granted temporary protected status and humanitarian parole under a Biden administration initiative.
He fled Haiti as gangs increasingly took control of the country and threatened his neighborhood.
'They forced their way into his house, tied up the husband, and went away with his wife,' Elve told The Independent of one neighbor. 'At that time my wife was pregnant, so we had to move.'
Elve managed to get approval to come to the U.S., but his wife Nehemie and daughter Villyncia's attempts were still pending as Trump took office.
The translator has felt a variety of emotions since — worry for his family, alarm at the Trump campaign's racist conspiracies about Haitians eating cats, and uncertainty after the administration sought to end the CHNV parole program in March, which covers some 500,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
A federal judge blocked the move in mid-April, prompting the Trump administration to appeal, and Elve doesn't know what will happen next. If he returns to Haiti he'll be marked as a target, an expat returning home from the wealthier United States, while if he stays in the U.S., there's still no guarantee his family can escape.
'It's very difficult to know what can be done next,' he said. 'There's a big question mark behind that.'
On Monday, he learned from immigration officials his wife and daughter definitely won't be able to get in on the same parole program as he did, which Homeland Security has taken to calling 'an unlawful scheme' from the previous administration.
Now he's considering joining his parents in Canada and seeking asylum, or pursuing a change of status in the U.S. to be a student or on a company-sponsored visa, whatever gets his family out of harm's way fastest.
'It was already a pain and now it's just adding oil to the fire,' he told The Independent.
Momodou Taal, a UK-Gambian grad student at Cornell and campus pro-Palestine leader, felt he couldn't wait on the U.S. courts for protection.
Taal sued the Trump administration last month with a group of fellow academics, alleging a pair of January executive orders had effectively made it illegal for non-citizens to protest the administration and its allies like Israel.
As the constitutional lawsuit proceeded, immigration officials told Taal to surrender immediately and officers circled near his residence.
Court documents later revealed that ICE was notified on March 14, a day before the suit was filed, that the State Department pulled Taal's visa, with officials claiming his protest actions had created a hostile environment for Jewish students. The threat raised the prospect he might be deported before a court could rule on his challenge.
Taal grew up in a political milieu, where family members served in The Gambia's post-colonial government, and told The Independent he saw his own Palestine activism as a way to continue their legacy of fighting colonialism. He said he has never supported antisemitism of any kind, pointing to a letter of support from Jewish Cornellians, and only advocates the right to resist what he sees as an illegal occupation of Palestine under international law.
Still, despite his faith in his convictions, he felt his leverage in the U.S. slipping away as he hid out in a friend's apartment in Ithaca, barely eating and avoiding communicating with family for fear of being tracked.
'Given that I dared to challenge Trump and challenge his executive orders, I felt they would make an example of me,' Taal told The Independent from an undisclosed location, as he prepares to return to the UK.
The Trump administration has defended its handling of the Taal case.
'It is a privilege to be granted a visa to live and study in the United States of America,' the Department of Homeland Security said after he fled the country. 'When you advocate for violence and terrorism, that privilege should be revoked.'
It wasn't an idle fear that something exceptional might happen in or outside of court. The same day as Taal filed his suit, the government invoked the wartime Alien Enemies Act to summarily deport alleged gang members, many of whom say they have no ties to criminal groups, and wrongly deported a man to El Salvador, despite a court order specifically barring his removal to the country.
And Taal had watched for months as Trump spoke more and more specifically about the mass deportation of non-citizen Palestine activists.
'I felt like it was only a matter of time until something happens to me, unless I triumphed in court,' he said. 'I didn't think it would be so quick.'
Now, as Taal works to finish his degree remotely, he said he gets messages from other activists asking when he knew it was time to leave America.
Every person has a different threshold, but it's clear that for the millions of immigrants in the United States something fundamental about the country has already changed.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

Yahoo
27 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Obama, sedition and Trump's urgent need to distract
To any American with an extremely short memory or perhaps a desire only to see the world through Donald Trump's eyes, the recent memo from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and the call from President Trump to investigate former President Barack Obama over the memo's claims of 'treasonous conspiracy' over claims of Russian interference in the 2016 election must be alarming. Talk of 'overwhelming evidence' and a 'yearslong coup,' 'seditious conspiracy' and 'treason' sure sound pretty serious. Well, they do until you quickly review your notes and recognize that A, President Trump has an urgent need for distraction given his ties to Jeffrey Epstein and the administration's failure to — despite big promises to the conspiracy-hungry during the presidential campaign — release details of the investigation into the late American financier and sex offender. And B, this is a subject that has been investigated to death with no fewer than four official inquiries, including a 2020 U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee report (written while the GOP had Senate control) and the special report authored by Trump-appointed special counsel John Durham that came out in 2023. And what did they find? There was ample reason to worry about Russian interference in the 2016 race, and it was clear the Kremlin didn't want Democrat Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office. Was then-candidate Trump complicit in these efforts? Nope, not in a manner those various investigators could prove. But Russian interference? There was ample evidence of computer hacking, of digging through emails and of using intermediaries to undermine Clinton (remember WikiLeaks?). Or how about simply remembering Robert S. Mueller III? The special counsel indicted a dozen Russians, none of whom has ever stood trial because they could not be extradited. Even then-U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (now Trump's U.S. secretary of state) observed that interference signing off on that 2020 report, which concluded 'the Russian government inappropriately meddled in our 2016 general election in many ways but then-Candidate Trump was not complicit.' Hopefully, most people aren't taking these claims of treason seriously. They serve only to diminish Trump and Gabbard. Think those criminal referrals Gabbard has sent to the U.S. Department of Justice will result in a successful prosecution? Even Las Vegas will surely refuse wagers on that long shot. Those who still harbor doubts can go peruse those various reports (and their thousands of pages of findings). The rest of us will just have to be content to recognize that the current president and his cronies lie like rugs when it serves their purpose. Peter Jensen is an editorial writer at The Baltimore Sun; he can be reached at pejensen@


Axios
29 minutes ago
- Axios
What are the Epstein files? All you need to know
Calls for the Trump administration to release the remaining Epstein files are growing. The big picture: Attorney General Pam Bondi released in February more than 100 pages of documents that she described as the "first phase of the declassified Epstein files," but she faced scrutiny over why the lack of significant new revelations — something she blamed on the FBI. The Department of Justice's handling of evidence in the case has triggered a rare conflict between President Trump and his MAGA base — and prompted a Republican-led House committee to pass a Democrat's motion to subpoena the Justice Department on the Epstein files. What are the Epstein files? The Epstein files are the evidence gathered by law enforcement working on investigations into the late financier and convicted child sex offender, and his associates. That includes Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence in Florida after being found guilty of sex trafficking and other charges in 2021. This collection of materials are referred to as the Epstein files, which includes the documents released by Bondi. Among the documents that Bondi released were flight logs, a redacted contact book and masseuse list and an evidence list, but other records remain under seal. More than 1,000 pages of documents were already unsealed by a federal court in January 2024. Does the Epstein client list exist? Bondi was asked on Fox News in February about whether the DOJ would release a list of Epstein's clients. "It's sitting on my desk right now to review," she replied. "That's been a directive by President Trump. I'm reviewing that." However, the DOJ and FBI announced this month they have no evidence he blackmailed powerful figures, kept a "client list" or that he was murdered, as many in MAGA circles have speculated. FBI deputy director Dan Bongino, who as a podcaster questioned official findings that Epstein died by suicide in his New York cell while awaiting charges of sex trafficking minors in 2019, clashed with Bondi over the handling of the files and took a day off work in response. What is Trump's connection to Epstein? Trump was photographed with Epstein on multiple occasions and called him a "terrific guy" in a 2002 interview, but the Washington Post reported they had a falling out two years later over a foreclosed oceanfront mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, after the president outbid him for the property. "I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you," Trump said after Epstein was arrested in 2019. Trump has not been implicated in any of Epstein's illegal behavior. The latest: Bondi notified Trump months ago that he was named in the Epstein files, multiple outlets reported this week. But the DOJ called the reports false. The AG and deputy attorney general Todd Blanche allegedly told the president this spring that his name, as well as those of other high-profile individuals, appeared as they re-examined documents related to the case that hadn't been made public, per the New York Times. "This is a collection of falsehoods and innuendo designed to push a bulls**t narrative and drive clicks," DOJ spokesperson Gates McGavick said about the reports. It was not immediately clear what the documents were, or in what context Trump's name was raised. What has Trump's reaction been? The president has faced pressure from MAGA circles since the conclusion of his administration's review of the case and tried to move his base on from Epstein. "Are people still talking about this guy, this creep?" Trump said in response to a reporter's question on his administration's handling of the files earlier this month. "This guy's been talked about for years. That is unbelievable." Days later, he denounced "PAST supporters," whom he described as "weaklings," for their focus on what he called the "Jeffrey Epstein Hoax." Trump maintains any documents linking him to Epstein are a "hoax" cooked up by the same forces behind the Russia investigation. The president announced last week he had directed Bondi to release all relevant grand jury testimony in the Epstein case, subject to court approval. Zoom in: Trump sued the Wall Street Journal last week over a story describing a "bawdy" birthday letter bearing his name that the outlet says was given to Jeffrey Epstein. The president said he personally warned the WSJ and owner Rupert Murdoch "that the supposed letter" was "a FAKE."
Yahoo
30 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump administration delves into MAGA distractions in deviation from the so-called Epstein files
President Donald Trump and his administration have been delving into distractions for their Make America Great Again base in deviation from its handling of documents related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein died in his jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal charges related to the trafficking and sexual abuse of dozens of minor girls. His life and death have been the center of conspiracy theories, notably among Trump's base, as the feds have been tight-lipped about the evidence collected. The Trump administration has been facing backlash after the Justice Department and FBI said in a memo released earlier this month there was no client list of Epstein's associates who may have partaken in his crimes and Epstein did indeed die by suicide. Trump announced last week he had requested Attorney General Pam Bondi to release certain Epstein files, 'subject to court approval.' 'Based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein, I have asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval. This SCAM, perpetuated by the Democrats, should end, right now!' he wrote on Truth Social. Trump and his administration have instead worked to focus on other issues, from civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination to the names of Washington and Cleveland sports teams, to one of his Democratic foes, former President Barack Obama. The White House denied these moves are a distraction, telling the Independent, 'It's absurdly rich for the media to speculate about attempts to distract the American people when that has been their modus operandi for decades.' On Sunday, Trump took to social media to attack Senator Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, Samantha Power, former administrator of the U.S.A.I.D., and he also posted a bizarre AI-generated video of Obama being arrested and thrown in jail. Regarding the fake Obama video he posted, Trump appeared to have been referring to comments made by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who told host Maria Bartiromo on Fox News' Sunday Morning Futures Obama had orchestrated a 'years-long coup' to keep Trump from the White House. On Friday, Gabbard announced she was referring Obama administration officials, including ex-FBI Director James Comey, to the Justice Department for prosecution over allegations they had 'manufactured' intelligence to substantiate the idea that Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election to help Trump beat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Trump won the election over Clinton and became president in 2017. House Intelligence Committee ranking member Jim Himes, a Connecticut Democrat, rebuked Gabbard's claims. 'It's a day that ends with 'y' and Donald Trump desperately wants to change the subject, so Director Gabbard is rehashing decade-old false claims about the Obama Administration,' Himes said in a statement Monday. Himes said every 'legitimate' probe into the matter found 'no evidence of politicization and endorsed the findings of the 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment.' Trump has also called for the Washington Commanders and the Cleveland Guardians to revert their names to the Washington Redskins and Cleveland Indians, respectively. He even went as far as to threaten the Commanders' new Washington, D.C. stadium deal, writing on Truth Social Sunday: "I may put a restriction on them that if they don't change the name back to the original 'Washington Redskins,' and get rid of the ridiculous moniker, 'Washington Commanders,' I won't make a deal for them to build a Stadium in Washington.' On Monday, the Trump administration released more than 230,000 pages of federal documents related to Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1968 assassination. Former Illinois congressman Adam Kinzinger, a Republican who has been critical of Trump, called out the irony. 'Trump releases MLK Jr files…. Didn't limit it to 'pertinent' and 'grand jury.' So do the same for Epstein,' he wrote on X late Monday. Also on Monday, the Justice Department announced it honored Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley's request for information related to the FBI's handling of its probe into Clinton's emails. The FBI had investigated Clinton's use of a private email server for official communications during her time as secretary of state under Obama. No charges were filed against Clinton. When asked if the administration is trying to distract from the Epstein drama, Harrison Fields, special assistant to the president and principal deputy press secretary, told the Independent, 'It's absurdly rich for the media to speculate about attempts to distract the American people when that has been their modus operandi for decades, which is why no one believes the garbage being spewed at them. The only distractions are the media's continued obsession with non-stories and their refusal to report on what's actually happening: the execution of the most consequential six months of any administration and the success of the President's agenda.' House Democrats have also criticized their Republican colleagues for blocking efforts to force the release of the Epstein files. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told progressive political YouTuber Jack Cocchiarella Monday, 'For years Republicans promised to release the Epstein files…now they have the opportunity…and they refuse to do so,' adding, 'I have a simple question for the Speaker and Republican leaders and members of the House of Representatives on the GOP side: What are you hiding from the American People?" Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, wrote on X late Monday, 'Ummm so let me get this straight: Republicans have ground Congress to a halt and are considering adjourning the entire House for 6 weeks to avoid releasing the info they have on Epstein? What is going on here?' She was responding to an X post from Politico's Meredith Lee Hill, in which she wrote, citing unnamed sources, the House Rules Committee will likely not meet at all this week amid the Epstein drama and other issues. Congress will recess for August. Hill said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican, 'confirms to me it's 'not likely' Rules return - meaning House would leave without advancing immigration and several other bills.' Most Americans think the Trump administration is covering up evidence in the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's federal case, according to a new poll. A poll conducted by The Economist and YouGov from July 11 to 14 found 67 percent of Americans believe the government is hiding evidence related to the late financier. Only 8 percent of respondents believe the government is not covering up evidence about Epstein, while 25 percent are unsure. When asked if the government should release all documents relating to the feds' Epstein case, 79 percent of respondents said it should. Only 5 percent said the government shouldn't release the files, and 17 percent were unsure.