Washington, DC – As graduation ceremonies take place around the country, and families prepare to celebrate the hard work of bright minds, the Trump administration’s detention, targeting, and deportation dragnet is ensnaring students and young people – U.S. citizens and Dreamers alike. As America’s Voice has been highlighting in the weekly, “This is What Mass Deportation Looks Like” series, the chaos and cruelty that is central to this agenda has a ripple effect that include harms and fears to local communities and economies.

According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:

“Graduation should be a time of celebration and hope, not fear and dread. The Trump Administration is instilling fear, trampling dreams, and erasing the future with its deliberate targeting of young people – Dreamers and U.S. citizens alike – who are simply trying to better their lives and contribute to America. Arriving in America at the innocent age of 4, Ximena is now a 19-year-old college student classmate, babysitter, and friend in her Georgia town, studying and succeeding and trying to give back. How does it make sense to detain her or the thousands of other Dreamers like her who are living in fear and uncertainty at this moment? It doesn’t. Even young people who are US citizens are getting caught in Trump’s deportation dragnet.  Americans are recoiling in horror, calling for a better way that lives up to our values and advances our interests rather than indiscriminate detentions and deportations.”

See below for a few of the most egregious examples of young people being targeted and in the news this week:

In Georgia, “Georgia teen detained by ICE after mistaken arrest says detention was ‘life-changing’ – ABC News”: “ Ximena Arias-Cristobal, 19, was arrested on May 5 in Dalton, Georgia, when her dark gray truck was mistaken for a black pickup that made an illegal turn. Those citations were later dropped once officials realized there was a mix-up, Dalton Assistant Police Chief Chris Crossen said. But she was still detained by ICE after it was discovered she was an undocumented immigrant. As she was being transferred to Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, she stopped at some offices in Atlanta, she said. “They had me in a room by myself for nine hours. I didn’t know what was going on. It was never explained,” Arias-Cristobal told Chattanooga, Tennessee, ABC affiliate WTVC Thursday after her release from detention. “Being in Stewart changed my life. It’s something that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. It’s life-changing.”

In Alabama, “US citizen detained by immigration officials who dismissed his Real ID as fake“: “Authorities wrestled a US-born citizen to the ground, cuffed him and dismissed his so-called Real ID as ‘fake’ during an arrest operation targeting undocumented people on Wednesday under the direction of the Trump administration, according to a viral video and reporting by Telemundo. Leonardo Garcia Venegas, 25, was at his construction job in Foley, Alabama, when officials arrived to arrest workers there. Garcia Venegas – who was born in Florida to Mexican parents – began filming the arrests with his mobile phone before officials reportedly knocked the device out of his hand and tried to arrest him as well. Video of the arrest shows three officials wrestling him to the ground, while he yells: ‘I’m a citizen!’ … According to an interview with the Spanish-language US news outlet Telemundo, officials took out his wallet, removed his ID – which complies with higher federal security standards for state-issued driver’s licenses as well as identification – and told him that it was fake.”

In New York, “A Bronx high schooler showed up for a routine immigration court date. ICE was waiting”: “Normally, a court date like Dylan’s would have been relatively straightforward. But when Dylan and his mom arrived at immigration court at 290 Broadway in lower Manhattan, the government lawyers made an unusual request. They asked the judge to dismiss the deportation proceedings against Dylan, according to his mom and lawyers. But when Dylan’s deportation proceedings were dismissed, his asylum claim was too, leaving him without legal protection and allowing the government to initiate an expedited removal … After Dylan’s case was dismissed, Raiza said two men entered the courtroom and then followed her and Dylan outside and into the elevator.”

Washington, DC —It’s been another busy week in Trump’s America, with immigration chaos and self-defeating cruelty a through line between an array of announcements and activities.

According to Mario Carrillo, Campaigns Director for America’s Voice:

“This week was yet another window into a presidency that is more interested in stoking outrage, fear, and seeking retribution rather than advancing the interests or upholding the values of America. This week in Trump’s America encapsulates many of the harms and self-defeating chaos all of us are living through, with a through line that involves an ugly and racialized view of immigration and an attempt to remake the nation in Trump’s preferred image, which those of us who live in El Paso, like all communities across America, know very well the dangers of these policies and rhetoric.”

Among the many relevant announcements and activities include the following six storylines emanating from the Trump administration:

1. Ramped up ICE arrests at courthouses nationwide … AP reported on the “coordinated dragnet,” noting “government attorneys were given the order to start dismissing cases when they showed up for work Monday, knowing full well that federal agents would then have a free hand to arrest those same individuals as soon as they stepped out of the courtroom.”
2. Scaled up the targeting of longtime undocumented residents and trusted workers with deep ties to their communities, including faith leaders, business owners, and parents, all while spreading fears and harms on local economies and key industries 
3. Announced the revocation of Harvard’s certification for foreign students’ admission in a DHS announcement that is almost certainly unlawful and definitely is self-defeating to the nation, given the important civic, economic, scientific and academic contributions of international students at Harvard and elsewhere.
4. Cheered as the House of Representatives passed a massive tax cut and budget bill that would, among other provisions, turbocharge mass deportations and family separations and escalate the Trump efforts to flout judicial rulings, while slashing essential healthcare, food security, and economic assistance that vulnerable Americans rely on (see AV’s deeper dive take here)
5. Advanced the dangerous white nationalist “invasion” conspiracy and politicize intelligence findings in order to justify their anti-immigrant actions, including administration attempts to attack democratic pillars like due process and habeas corpus protections. Read ProPublica’s new investigative piece, “The ‘Invasion’ Invention: The Far Right’s Long Legal Battle to Make Immigrants the Enemy” and read Gabe Ortiz on the America’s Voice website blog, “Lack of Intelligence: Trump, Miller, and Gabbard Lie About So-Called ‘Invasion’” for more.
6. Celebrated the Supreme Court ruling that gave the administration the green light to rescind Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Venezuelans. As America’s Voice Executive Director Vanessa Cardenas stated, “The administration’s choice to strip status and protections from Venezuelans here with lawful and legal status is part of their larger effort to make as many individuals as possible deportable … [it] does nothing to fix our immigration system or make Americans safer. Instead, it replaces a functional, legal program with more of the chaos and cruelty that Americans are already recoiling from.”
7. Insulted the South African President in the Oval Office while advancing racist conspiracy theories that underpin the disparate and welcoming treatment of white Afrikaners. President Trump confronted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and voiced the lie and conspiracy of white genocide – all of which underpins the administration welcoming and resettling of white Afrikaners while they seek to purge or block the entrance of mostly Black and brown immigrants and refugees. As Vanessa Cárdenas told the New York Times, “There’s no subtext and nothing subtle about the way this administration’s immigration and refugee policy has obvious racial and racist overtones … While they seek to single out Afrikaners for special treatment, they simultaneously want us to think mostly Black and brown vetted newcomers are dangerous despite their background checks and all evidence to the contrary.”

Washington, DC – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that the Trump administration has the “go-ahead” to rescind Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Venezuelans, bypassing a California federal judge’s order requiring the government to keep Biden-era removal protections and work authorizations in place during a legal battle over a policy change. This will cancel legal status and work permits for some 350,000 vetted Venezuelan immigrants, criminalizing them at no fault of their own effectively overnight.

In response, America’s Voice Executive Director Vanessa Cárdenas issued the following statement:

“Today’s disappointing ruling from the Supreme Court compounds the underlying harms of the Trump administration’s decision to revoke TPS from Venezuelans in the first place.

The legal protections and work permits that come with TPS status bolster our economy, stabilize communities, and strengthen families here in America. The administration’s choice to strip status and protections from Venezuelans here with lawful and legal status is part of their larger effort to make as many individuals as possible deportable.

Let’s be clear, their revocation of TPS does nothing to fix our immigration system or make Americans safer. Instead, it replaces a functional, legal program with more of the chaos and cruelty that Americans are already recoiling from.”

Washington, DC — Today, America’s Voice hosted a virtual press event to assess the latest details and larger implications of the Trump administration’s immigration overreach.

Speakers, including law professors, policy experts, and immigration advocates, highlighted the larger constitutional and democratic pillars at stake, including birthright citizenship, due process rights, and habeas corpus protections; how deportations and raids targeting long-settled immigrants are harming local communities and economies; and how the congressional budget and ongoing plans to shift federal investigative money and manpower to more immigration enforcement would turbocharge these harms

Amanda Frost, David Lurton Massee, Jr. Professor of Law and Director, Immigration, Migration and Human Rights Program, University of Virginia School of Law, spoke of the SCOTUS birthright citizenship case and the component involving nationwide injunctions, noting: “There’s an enormous violation of rights and the disruption of society associated with President Trump’s policies, not just birthright citizenship, but also deporting non-citizens without due process, forcing the disclosure of undocumented status through the IRS, firing federal employees, depriving people and institutions of all of those funds. If all of those policies can go into effect against everyone but individuals who filed suit, then President Trump wins by losing.”

George Escobar, Chief of Programs and Services at CASA, reflected on this moment, “I ask myself, ‘How did we get here?’ amidst the barrage of the Trump administration’s constitutional and human rights abuses. Masked armed men refusing to identify themselves may seem like a headline from another time from a far away country, but it’s happening every day in our community. At CASA, we run a national raid hotline where we receive tips from the public about ICE sightings and pickups. Last week we received reports about ICE targeting Washington DC, under the guise of an executive order called ‘Making DC Beautiful,’ made to chill local businesses from hiring immigrants. I admire the strength in the people like Jennifer Vasquez, Kilmar’s brave wife, and half a dozen amazing pregnant women who challenged the administration on birthright citizenship. We have shown that when we fight we win.”

Lia Parada, Chief Advocacy Officer at The Immigration Hub, stated, “The GOP’s budget bill is a roadmap to turbocharge fear, chaos, and mass disappearance. It gives President Trump a blank check to double down on deportations, jail families, and continue targeting legal residents and even U.S. citizens, all while ripping basic services like health care from millions. This is not about public safety—it’s about control, punishment, and erasure. Americans deserve solutions rooted in dignity and common sense, not Trump’s disappearing state. Congress must choose: will they fund cruelty, or invest in the future our communities deserve?”

Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice, stated, “The Trump administration is taking aim at core pillars of our democracy, from birthright citizenship to due process, in their pursuit of mass deportations and unchecked executive power. Their overreach on immigration and deportations is harming our communities, our economy, and our values.”

Access a recording of today’s virtual event HERE 

Washington, DC —Americans are recoiling after experiencing the first months of the Trump administration’s mass detention and deportation assault across the country. Americans are witnessing the targeting of long-standing, law-abiding members of our communities, seeing families torn apart, and watching how due process rights and common sense enforcement priorities are trampled in the process (see our “Trump’s America” map for a state-by-state snapshot of stories and examples). As a result, and as America’s Voice detailed in our recent memo synthesizing immigration polling and related political implications, It’s little wonder that Trump’s approval ratings on immigration are declining and he has ceded his previous advantages on the issue.

In our latest installment of the America’s Voice, “This is What Mass Deportation Looks Like” series, we highlight some examples of the deportation cruelty and chaos in action and the growing backlash around Trump’s anti-immigration agenda, including the new Nick Miroff story in The Atlantic, “The Terrible Optics of ICE Enforcement Are Fueling a Trump Immigration Backlash.”

According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice: 

“Mass deportation is grim, unsettling and un-American when seen up close.. Long-settled moms, students, and hard-working community members are being ripped from their families in scenes that better resemble authoritarian government crackdowns than it does the America we all call home. As we watch these stories unfold, many are recoiling and are recognizing there’s a better way than Trump’s chaos and cruelty.”

Below find key excerpts from recent coverage of egregious examples of overreach and related backlash brewing:

In The Atlantic, Nick Miroff writes, “The Terrible Optics of ICE Enforcement Are Fueling a Trump Immigration Backlash:

“Immigration enforcement in service of President Donald Trump’s mass-deportation campaign has been the aesthetic opposite of a Cops episode. In social-media clips and grainy security-camera footage, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers appear in dark clothing, some wearing masks or neck gaiters that make them look like bandits. The people they target may be walking down the street, sitting in a car, or otherwise going about their lives. Few are engaged in obvious criminal behavior.

…Many Americans have recoiled at these scenes, comparing officers’ tactics to those of authoritarian regimes. Yet the arrests in the videos do not show conduct outside the bounds of typical ICE protocol. This is what immigration enforcement looks like. It’s messy and emotional, and requires officers to arrest people for an offense that many Americans do not view as a crime.

…Which points to a bigger problem with Trump’s mass-deportation campaign, the signature domestic-policy promise of his second term. Whenever public attention on immigration shifts from the border to U.S. streets, support for aggressive enforcement tends to erode. It happened during Trump’s first term. It’s happening even faster now.

Immigration was one of Trump’s best-polling issues when he took office in January, and his rating on the issue continues to rank higher than his overall job approval. But in the past two months, Trump’s immigration approval rating has seen a double-digit downturn…”

• NBC News, “Massachusetts police hold girl’s face to the ground as ICE arrests her mother, video shows,” noting: “The four police officers then bring the girl to the ground, with at least one grabbing her legs and forcing her to lose her balance, the video shows. Two women, one of whom is holding a newborn baby, then can be seen trying to help the girl. The teenage girl is screaming throughout the entirety of the incident, the video shows.”
• New York Magazine: “A Mother Took Her Sons to an ICE Check-In. She Never Saw Them Again. No criminal records. Pursuing green cards. Under Trump, it doesn’t matter,” noting: “She didn’t see why they should be targeted now, given neither had a criminal history — not even a school disciplinary record.”
• MSNBC columnist Michael A. Cohen wrote, “A 19-year-old college student had a minor traffic violation — now she faces deportation,” noting, “On Monday morning, Ximena Arias-Cristobal, a 19-year-old college student from Georgia, made an illegal turn on a red light. Now, through no fault of her own, she is facing the possibility of deportation — and in the Trump administration’s frenzy to rid the country of every undocumented immigrant, America is at risk of losing yet another young person chasing the American dream.”

Washington, DC — The following is a statement from Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice, reflecting on 100 Days of the Trump administration, followed by a roundup of relevant America’s Voice content on the first 100 Days and beyond.

According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice: 

“Cruel, costly, and chaotic best describe the first 100 days of the Trump administration. From abducting American children to undermining the rule of law to tanking our economy, the lengths this Administration will go to demonize immigrants have no limits.  Yet, the more Americans see and experience the mass deportation agenda, the less they like it– as evidenced by recent polls that show that a growing majority of Americans disapprove of Trump on immigration and beyond.

Further, Trump’s minions seem intent on squandering one of America’s greatest comparative advantages as a nation by making it harder for people from around the world to imagine themselves studying, succeeding and creating businesses here in America. Our long-term fight is not just to fix a broken immigration system in a manner that reflects our interests and values, but to preserve a vision of America as the beacon of safety, liberty and freedom it has represented for so many, for so long.”

America’s Voice Content: 100 Days of Trump 

• Read the America’s Voice memo, “100 Days Roundup: The Current Polling and Politics of Immigration,” synthesizing the findings from polls over the first 100 days of this administration and highlighting four key takeaways and lessons for those seeking to offer opposition and an alternative to the Trump administration on immigration.
• Read the America’s Voice fact sheet, “High Costs, No Benefits: 100 Days of Trump’s Immigration Agenda,” detailing costs to Americans’ health and retirement security; costs to the U.S. economy; costs to Americans’ safety and security; and costs to Americans’ values and freedoms.
• Check out the America’s Voice website repository on 100 Days of Trump, featuring a digital toolkit, social media graphics, blogs, memos and fact sheets: https://americasvoice.org/high-costs-no-benefits/ 

Washington, DC — In this week’s installment of America’s Voice “This is What Mass Deportation Looks Like,” series, we spotlight how the Trump administration’s mass deportations are targeting affecting American children – and that Congress is proposing a budget that would turbocharge the deportation cruelty and chaos Americans are recoiling from by boosting the ICE enforcement budget tenfold (while slashing essential government programs such as Medicaid and SNAP). Among the horrific stories in the news include:

• The Washington Post reports, “Three U.S. citizen children from two different families were deported with their mothers by Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the early hours of Friday morning. One of them is a 4-year-old with Stage 4 cancer who was deported without medication or the ability to contact their doctors, the family’s lawyer said.”
• The Guardian reports, “Two women who were deported to Honduras alongside their US citizen children were held in “complete isolation” and denied any opportunity to coordinate the care and custody of their children before being put on a flight, according to one of the lawyers representing them.”
• HuffPost reports that “Dem Says ICE Took Florida Mom From Baby, Unlawfully Deported Her To Cuba”,  noting, “The baby was still breastfeeding at the time your Administration tore them apart, and the baby’s ongoing health issues require her mother’s return to the U.S. as soon as possible.”
• KFOR News in Oklahoma City reports, “A woman says her family’s fresh start in Oklahoma turned into a nightmare after federal immigration agents raided their home, taking their phones, laptops, and life savings – even though they were not the suspects the agents were looking for … ‘We just moved here from Maryland,’ [the mother said]. ‘We’re citizens. That’s what I kept saying. We’re citizens.’”

According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:

“Deporting American kids and leaving American babies without their mothers is not okay, not by a long shot. And in response to the outcry, this administration is trying to spin, lie and justify the unjustifiable. Americans are recoiling in horror, knowing we’re better than this cruelty and chaos. Now, through the pending budget, Trump and his allies in Congress want to turbocharge more enforcement against long-settled residents and American families. Shame on them.”

Washington, DC — As America’s Voice has been detailing in the ongoing, “At What Cost?” campaign, the Trump administration’s obsession with anti-immigrant policies comes at a high cost for the American people. In a new fact sheet released today, we detail four categories of the high costs to the American people: high costs to Americans health and retirement security; high costs to the economy; high costs to Americans’ safety and security and high costs to our values and freedoms. The fact sheet, “High Costs, No Benefits: 100 Days Of Trump’s Immigration Agenda,” is detailed below.

Yet the cruelty, costs, and staggeringly misplaced priorities detailed in the new fact sheet about the first 100 Days are also captured in a development from just these past few days. This weekend, the Washington Post filed, “Three U.S. citizens, ages 2, 4 and 7, swiftly deported from Louisiana,” which opened with the following sentence:

“Three U.S. citizen children from two different families were deported with their mothers by Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the early hours of Friday morning. One of them is a 4-year-old with Stage 4 cancer who was deported without medication or the ability to contact their doctors, the family’s lawyer said.”

According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:

“Let this sink in: our government is deporting American kids, including kids with cancer, and is now trying to defend and excuse their choices on national television. Their actions embody the cruelty, chaotic, and harmful nature of their agenda the past 100 Days, and what they want from the next 100 Weeks and beyond, and exemplifies how Americans are paying a high price for the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant and mass deportation obsessions.

As Americans see the cruelty and overreach in action, a growing majority is expressing disapproval, connecting it to broader concerns regarding the rule of law, the tanking economy, cuts to Americans’ healthcare, and overall chaos and extremism. We’re better than this.”

Among the categories detailed in the new fact sheet, “High Costs, No Benefits: 100 Days Of Trump’s Immigration Agenda,” include:

• Costs to Americans’ Health and Retirement Security: to pay for a ramped up ICE and immigration enforcement budget, Congress is ready to slash $880 billion from Medicaid and $230 million from food assistance that U.S. citizens rely on.
• Costs to the U.S. Economy: If President Trump proceeds with mass deportation removing millions of construction, hospitality and agriculture workers, it could reduce the GDP by an estimated $1.7 trillion.
• Costs to Americans’ Safety and Security: The Trump administration has diverted DHS and FBI resources away from investigating violent criminals and fentanyl traffickers to focus on detaining and deporting long-settled, taxpaying and productive members of our communities who have been in the U.S. for decades.
• Costs to Americans’ Values and Freedoms: from detaining and arresting U.S. citizens to ignoring due process and the separation of powers, this administration’s immigration agenda is taking aim at core democratic principles for all Americans.

America’s Voice Content: 100 Days of Trump 

• Read through the new America’s Voice fact sheet, “High Costs, No Benefits: 100 Days of Trump’s Immigration Agenda” 
• Read the America’s Voice memo, “100 Days Roundup: The Current Polling and Politics of Immigration” 
• Check out the America’s Voice website repository on 100 Days of Trump, featuring a digital toolkit, social media graphics, blogs, memos and fact sheets: https://americasvoice.org/high-costs-no-benefits/ 

Be on the lookout for more America’s Voice content assessing the first 100 days of the Trump administration.