00:00This is Apropos.
00:04Officials here in Paris are expressing their dismay after a French scientist was denied
00:09entry to the United States because of text messages on their phone containing a personal
00:15opinion about the Trump administration.
00:17Separately, a woman who became a symbol of resistance during the US president's first
00:23term in office was taken into custody by federal immigration agents this week.
00:29With more on these and more high-profile deportation cases, here's our New York correspondent
00:34Jessica LeMessurier.
00:37US President Donald Trump has turbocharged his mass deportation plan over the past few
00:44weeks.
00:45He has also moved to control the narrative by deporting a certain type of immigrant,
00:50perhaps to make an example of them.
00:52Let's take the case of Columbia graduate student Mahmood Khalil.
00:56He's a green card holder married to a US citizen and he has been detained on March
01:038th by ICE agents over what the Trump administration says is his pro-Hamas activity here in the
01:11United States.
01:12Now, he's currently in detention in Louisiana but is due to be transferred to New Jersey.
01:16His lawyers argue that he is simply a human rights defender speaking out for the Palestinian
01:22people.
01:23President Khalil himself has said from detention that he is a political prisoner.
01:29It's unclear what will become of him.
01:32The legal wrangling over his case continues.
01:35Next there's the case of a Lebanese doctor who is a transplant specialist who was working
01:42in Rhode Island.
01:43Now, she was on her way back to the United States from Lebanon after a family holiday
01:48when she was stopped by immigration agents and she has now been deported back to Lebanon.
01:57They say that Homeland Security said that there were photos found on her phone of the
02:02late leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, and that they could not be sure that she didn't
02:06have bad intentions here in the United States.
02:09She was not afforded due process and that is what is causing concern.
02:14There's also the case of an Indian student who was at Columbia University who participated
02:19in the protests and she reportedly self-deported to Canada because she feared that ICE agents
02:25were after her.
02:26An example there of the chilling effect that these deportations are having.
02:31Then there is the case of a prominent immigrant rights activist, Jeanette Vizquerra, who had
02:38famously avoided being arrested in the past.
02:43She had really been a thorn in Trump's side during the first administration.
02:47ICE had pursued her but she had hidden in a church to avoid being deported.
02:51She has now been detained.
02:54ICE agents reportedly caught up with her in the parking lot of the Target store where
02:59she worked in Denver, Colorado.
03:02So that's another very symbolic arrest of a human rights activist.
03:07Then there are these deportations of Venezuelans.
03:11The Trump administration said that it was deporting over 100 Venezuelan gang members.
03:18They were taken from the United States to El Salvador and now they are in a maximum
03:23security prison there.
03:26The controversy around that is the fact that they've been taken to a third state without
03:33their families being informed of that and that their family members argue that they
03:37are not a part of any criminal gang.
03:41What's interesting to note is that actually the rate of deportations, according to the
03:45numbers, hasn't gone up under the Trump administration as compared to the Biden administration.
03:50But what has happened is the focus has changed, the narrative has changed and there are a
03:54lot of concerns amongst human rights defenders that people are being deported without due
03:59process and due to their political beliefs.
04:03Jessica LeMessurier there reporting from New York.
04:06Well for more we're joined now by Veronica Cardenas, former assistant chief counsel at
04:11the US Department of Homeland Security.
04:14Thanks so much Veronica for being with us on the programme.
04:17You actually spent 13 years with ICE, you now defend immigrants in the US.
04:23Is what we're seeing, all of that that Jessica was reporting there, is any of this actually
04:28legal?
04:29The Trump administration appears to be defying court orders, not just on one occasion but
04:34increasingly frequently over the past few weeks, even over the past few days.
04:40Yes, thank you for having me.
04:44And so what I would like to really point out is how this administration, what's different
04:49about this administration is the way that they're trying to avoid immigration courts,
04:53they're trying to avoid federal courts and they're trying to expeditiously deport people
04:59from the US.
05:00And I think that in this case is what's different from this administration to the administrations
05:05in the past.
05:07And you say the system, it's become a machine of mass surveillance, indiscriminate arrests,
05:13fear-based enforcement that is actually doing very little to keep Americans safer.
05:24Yes, and the reason I wrote that is because, the reason I wrote that is because what we're
05:32seeing now is, sorry, sorry, go ahead Veronica, the reason you wrote it?
05:44Sure.
05:46The reason I wrote that is because there really is an erosion of trust, of public trust here.
05:52And so we see the president trying to take authority on his own, like enacting the Alien
05:59Enemies Act, without having Congress first declaring war, so that he could expeditiously
06:04remove over 200 people who are in the United States, who are waiting for their court hearings,
06:11and remove them to El Salvador, where they will have to serve their prison time there
06:16for a year and work in those prisons.
06:19That's what we're hearing.
06:20So what we're seeing is the erosion of public trust, and that is a dangerous thing, because
06:27not only are citizens being caught up in this, we've heard reports of that, but now people
06:33who are here with legal status don't know whether they can trust whether they're here
06:37legally or not, especially with how swiftly the Department of State is revoking visas
06:42during this time.
06:43And you pointed out as well that the harshest, some of the harshest policies that were introduced
06:47after the September 11th attacks, they were eventually rolled back because they proved
06:52to be ineffective.
06:53Is the same thing going to happen here again, do you think?
07:01I think that this administration is not going to stop.
07:05I think that once there is a change in power, that future presidents need to really examine
07:12what dormant immigration laws need to be repealed, because this issue that we're having
07:18today has been a slow buildup.
07:21As we've seen with Jeanette Vizguerra, who came in the 90s, there have been so many administrations
07:27who have tried to tackle on the immigration problem, and none have been successful.
07:32And laws that have been dormant, like the Alien Enemies Act, that has only been used
07:36three times, have been there for the taking.
07:41And that's what Trump is doing.
07:42He's taking advantage of laws that should have been repealed a long time ago.
07:46And we've seen reports as well this week of people who are travelling into the US, for
07:51example, a French scientist who was denied entry because of text messages that they had
07:57in their phone.
07:58So how are immigration officers actually doing this?
08:02How are they discovering these kind of text messages?
08:05Is it a random targeting, or are they actually profiling people before they arrive in the
08:10United States?
08:15I would say that it's both.
08:19So at the border, immigration authorities are at their highest.
08:24They don't really need to have any suspicion to do any type of search on people's phones,
08:29on their belongings.
08:31And they have the manifest of people who are landing before they board those planes.
08:36So I'm sure they're taking a look at who's flying.
08:39And then once they come in, they have an idea of who they're going to take into secondary
08:44for further questioning.
08:47And in your work with immigrants, because you work with them now, what kind of concerns
08:51are people raising with you?
08:57I think the number one concern that most of my clients have is if they leave for the day
09:01to go to work, to go to the gym, to go grocery shopping, will they be able to come home to
09:05see their children?
09:07And what we're seeing right now is people are being, non-citizens who are being detained
09:14are being transferred all over the U.S. without their family members knowing, without their
09:19attorneys knowing.
09:21And they're going off grid for a few days until there's that communication again.
09:28And that's the part that scares non-citizens the most, that they are here, they're trying
09:33to do the best that they can under the circumstances to work, to provide for their families, to
09:39do things the right way, quote unquote, having their cases in immigration court and not knowing
09:44if they can see that to completion.
09:48It represents a massive departure from what would be the traditional kind of U.S. immigration
09:53enforcement that would have always prioritized, you know, people who posed a risk to national
09:59security or public safety.
10:01So where is all of this going?
10:07Right, and what we're seeing right now is a one size fits all immigration, which does
10:13not work.
10:15Prior administrations have prioritized.
10:17There's a limited amount of resources.
10:19And where should those resources be directed?
10:21They should be directed to people who actually pose a threat.
10:25There should be investigations done into those people.
10:29And now it's everyone is a danger simply by being born in another place that's not the
10:36United States.
10:37And you say as well, Veronica, that this kind of approach based on fear, it's emboldening
10:43vigilantes in various communities in the U.S., but it's also dismantling federal law enforcement.
10:49So what kind of an impact is all of this having there on the ground with the police?
10:56Right, it is a devastating effect because people in authority like to be in those positions
11:02of authority.
11:03And what this administration is doing is bestowing the authority of immigration, which has always
11:09had a wide latitude and it's very dangerous, and putting that into state officials, those
11:17who want to take it.
11:19So a simple traffic stop can turn into detention where a person is now being sent on the next
11:25plane home without speaking to his family members or without speaking to a lawyer.
11:29And so those are the types of things that we're seeing right now.
11:33And we've also seen, of course, the Trump administration doing what appears to be openly
11:39defying various court orders.
11:41We saw that in the case of Ms. Vizquerra, Jessica mentioned, you mentioned her as well.
11:46How concerned are you by what appears to be happening when it comes to various orders
11:51that are being issued by judges and the Trump administration is proceeding with deporting
11:56these people, regardless of the fact that judges are putting stays on those orders?
12:05That is probably one of the most dangerous things that this administration can do.
12:09To say that he's going to impeach the judge because one judge put a stay on sending the
12:17airplane back to or sending the airplane with Venezuelans to El Salvador, those attacks
12:23really undermine our democracy because it emboldened others to say, well, the law doesn't
12:29matter and the president is above it and we stand with the president.
12:32And that type of rhetoric is exactly what this administration is going after.
12:37I do believe that the administration knew that they were wrong in sending that plane
12:41back.
12:42The judge, there's reports that show that the judge took a brief recession so that the
12:48Department of Justice attorneys could call ICE, could call the people they needed to,
12:52to tell the plane that there was an executive or that there was a stay and that was ignored.
12:59And so what this administration is doing just to override the checks and balances that
13:06we have is very dangerous because it is encouraging others to disagree with the law and to take
13:14matters into their own hands, especially when it's non-citizens, because they're already
13:19a vulnerable population in the US.
13:22Veronica, we'll have to leave it there for now.
13:23Thanks so much for being with us on the programme this evening.
13:26That's Veronica Cardenas, former Assistant Chief Counsel at the Department of Homeland
13:30Security.
13:31Well, that's it from us for now.
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