House GOP relents on DHS funding plan after Trump weighs in

Congressional GOP leaders said Wednesday they will quickly move to end the Department of Homeland Security shutdown after President Donald Trump set a hard deadline for Republicans to fund immigration enforcement. The statement from Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson comes after Trump set a June 1 deadline for Republicans to fund ICE and Border Patrol through the party-line budget process called reconciliation — giving them an off-ramp from the weeks-long fight over the administration’s immigration enforcement strategy that has been at the heart of the DHS shutdown. 00:02 02:00 Read More “In the coming days, Republicans in the Senate and House will be following through on the President’s directive by fully funding the entire Department of Homeland Security on two parallel tracks: through the appropriations process and through the reconciliation process,” Thune and Johnson said in a joint statement. A White House official, granted anonymity to discuss internal thinking, said the administration supports the GOP leaders’ plan. The White House and congressional Republican leadership have been working since late last week to mutually agree on a reconciliation plan before Congress returns on April 13, according to two people with knowledge of the conversations and granted anonymity to describe them. Trump’s Wednesday demand for Republicans to use the procedural tool that circumvents a Democratic Senate filibuster comes as the DHS shutdown moves further into record-breaking territory. “We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won’t be able to stop us,” the president posted on Truth Social. The president’s post essentially endorsed the approach favored by Thune. And the plan he subsequently detailed with Johnson mirrors the strategy the Senate had already been pitching — funding most of DHS through a bipartisan deal with Democrats and then using the reconciliation process to enact funding for ICE and Border Patrol. It’s also a U-turn for Johnson and House Republicans who rejected the Senate deal Friday, saying they could not support a bill that did not include funding for immigration enforcement agencies. “They sent us a bill that literally put the number zero in the bill for the funding of border security and customs and immigration enforcement,” Johnson said Tuesday during an interview with Fox and Friends. “We can’t do that. That was the biggest issue in the 2024 election.” The soonest Senate Republicans could attempt to pass their bill to fund most of DHS again is Thursday morning, when the Senate convenes for a brief pro forma session. In order to move the bill forward, the Senate would need unanimous approval from all 100 senators — and a few GOP senators have publicly bashed the deal since it was struck on Friday. Both the House and Senate have adjourned for two weeks, leaving Washington with lawmakers pointing fingers at each other. Democrats have dug in and refused to fund immigration enforcement agencies without constraints on how agents can operate. The president’s post on Truth Social didn’t specify whether he wants the reconciliation bill to be confined solely to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol funding. Previously, Trump had indicated that he wanted pieces of the GOP voting bill, known as the SAVE America Act, included. Congressional Republicans are also mulling trying to include Iran war funding in their reconciliation push. Thune and Johnson said Wednesday the bill will include border security and immigration enforcement funding through the rest of the Trump administration. Some GOP lawmakers have suggested going further and funding ICE and CBP for 10 years — the maximum allowed under reconciliation rules. Reconciliation is an intensive multistep process, requiring the House and Senate to first agree on a consensus fiscal blueprint known as a budget resolution. Neither GOP leaders nor Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who made a separate statement, specified when either the chamber would move to take up a budget resolution. But the Senate is expected to move first, according to two people granted anonymity to disclose internal strategy. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Wednesday that if there isn’t a deal to reopen DHS by the time Congress comes back “you’ll see a skinny reconciliation bill move very quickly through the Senate and the House.” But many House Republicans have been wary of moving nonenforcement DHS funding first because of their skepticism that the Senate will actually pass more ICE and Border Patrol funding through reconciliation. Some signaled Wednesday they are not on board with the new plan. “Funding for ICE and CBP must never be separated from DHS funding,” Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas) wrote on X. “If Republicans isolate it, they’re handing our border and ICE agents straight to the radicals who will defund and dismantle them every chance they get. Fund DHS fully, or the open borders globalists win.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Federal government appealing order releasing 5-year-old from immigration custody

The federal government may try to send 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos back to detention. The Justice Department filed a notice of appeal Wednesday in federal court in Texas, challenging a January ruling that freed the 5-year-old Minnesota resident and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, from an immigration detention facility. The father and son were taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers during a crackdown in the Minneapolis area earlier this year, drawing nationwide attention. The filing, obtained by CBS News, takes the fight to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. If the government succeeds, the two could find themselves back in detention. "The first time they came for us it was unjust. The second time they came for us is unjust. We are not giving into their fear," Adrian Conejo Arias told CBS News through his attorney, Danielle Molliver. He also sent a message of gratitude to people around the world who have advocated on their behalf, saying, "Thank you to all those who continue to support and love us." A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told CBS News that the father and son "received full due process and were issued a final order of removal on February 19." "The Trump administration is committed to restoring the rule of law and common sense to our immigration system, and will continue to fight for the arrest, detention, and removal of illegal aliens who have no right to be in this country," the spokesperson continued. The government is appealing a ruling by U.S. District Judge Fred Biery, who ordered the father and son released after finding their constitutional rights had been violated. Biery called their detention the product of a "perfidious lust for unbridled power" and said the case had its "genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children." In addition to the release order, the government's appeal extends to "all opinions, rulings, findings, conclusions, judgments, and orders on which the grant of the Petition is based." Conejo's story — and the image of a 5-year-old standing outside his home wearing a blue bunny hat and a Spiderman backpack while surrounded by immigration agents — became a symbol of the harsh crackdown under Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis. Liam Conejo Ramos, 5, was detained by ICE officers along with his father Liam Conejo Ramosis detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers after arriving home from preschool on Jan. 20 in a Minneapolis suburb. Ali Daniels / AP CBS News documented the impact of Conejo's detention at his elementary school in a Minneapolis suburb, where 24 families had children or parents detained at the time. Valley View Elementary Principal Jason Kuhlman told CBS News he was worried about Conejo's health while he remained in detention in late January. "His friends notice that he's not here. Then when it hit the media, they start seeing his face on TV," Kuhlman said. "It's like, how do you explain that? When you start missing someone out of your classroom. How do you have that conversation with a 5-year-old?" A spokesperson for the Columbia Heights School District confirmed to CBS News that the 5-year-old was back in the classroom and his family wanted to make sure he wasn't singled out over the rest of the students as he re-adapted. Conejo's case drew outrage after community members alleged ICE agents had used him as "bait" to have his mother open the door of their home after agents detained his father. Then-DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin responded to questions about the viral photo of Conejo in front of his home, saying his father "fled on foot—abandoning his child. For the child's safety, one of our ICE officers remained with the child while the other officers apprehended Conejo Arias." The DHS statement added, "Our officers made multiple attempts to get the alleged mother who was inside the house to take custody of her child. Officers even assured her she would NOT be taken … into custody. The alleged mother refused to accept custody of the child. The father told officers he wanted the child to remain with him." Airport surveillance video released in late March shows images of Conejo and his father being escorted by federal agents to a Delta flight from Minneapolis to Texas after their Jan. 20 detention. In March, an immigration judge denied the family's asylum claim, leaving them eligible for deportation. Their attorneys are appealing that decision, but the government's appeal to their release challenges a narrow protection provided in Biery's order, that if they were re-detained, they must receive a bond hearing. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Immigrants seeking asylum are ordered to countries they’ve never been to, but end up stuck in limbo

The Afghan man had fled the Taliban for refuge in upstate New York when U.S. immigration authorities ordered him deported to Uganda. The Cuban woman was working at a Texas Chick-fil-A when she was arrested after a minor traffic accident and told she was being sent to Ecuador. There’s the Mauritanian man living in Michigan told he’d have to go to Uganda, the Venezuelan mother in Ohio told she’d be sent to Ecuador and the Bolivians, Ecuadorians and so many others across the country ordered sent to Honduras. They are among more than 13,000 immigrants who were living legally in the U.S., waiting for rulings on asylum claims, when they suddenly faced so-called third-country deportation orders, destined for countries where most had no ties, according to the nonprofit group Mobile Pathways, which pushes for transparency in immigration proceedings. Yet few have been deported, even as the White House pushes for ever more immigrant expulsions. Thanks to unexplained changes in U.S. policy, many are now mired in immigration limbo, unable to argue their asylum claims in court and unsure if they’ll be shackled and put on a deportation flight to a country they’ve never seen. Related Stories Asylum claim denied for the family of the boy in a bunny hat detained with his father, lawyer says Asylum claim denied for the family of the boy in a bunny hat detained with his father, lawyer says Supreme Court considers letting Trump administration revive restrictive immigration asylum policy Supreme Court considers letting Trump administration revive restrictive immigration asylum policy ICE agents said to have posed as police, a tactic some fear could erode trust in real cops ICE agents said to have posed as police, a tactic some fear could erode trust in real cops Some are in detention, though it’s unclear how many. All have lost permission to work legally, a right most had while pursuing their asylum claims, compounding the worry and dread that has rippled through immigrant communities. And that may be the point. “This administration’s goal is to instill fear into people. That’s the primary thing,” said Cassandra Charles, a senior staff attorney with the National Immigration Law Center, which has been fighting the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda. The fear of being deported to an unknown country could, advocates believe, drive migrants to abandon their immigration cases and decide to return to their home countries. Things may be changing. In mid-March, top Immigration and Customs Enforcement legal officials told field attorneys with the Department of Homeland Security in an email to stop filing new motions for third-country deportations tied to asylum cases. The email, which has been seen by The Associated Press, did not give a reason. It has not been publicly released, and DHS did not respond to requests to explain if the halt was permanent. But the earlier deportation cases? Those are continuing. An asylum-seeker says she’s in panic over possibly being sent to a country she doesn’t know In 2024, a Guatemalan woman who says she had been held captive and repeatedly sexually assaulted by members of powerful gang arrived with her 4-year-old daughter at the U.S.-Mexico border and asked for asylum. She later discovered she was pregnant with another child, conceived during a rape. In December, she sat in a San Francisco immigration courtroom and listened as an ICE attorney sought to have her deported. The ICE attorney didn’t ask the judge that she be sent back to Guatemala. Instead, the attorney said, the woman from the Indigenous Guatemalan highlands would go to one of three countries: Ecuador, Honduras or across the globe to Uganda. Until that moment, she’d never heard of Ecuador or Uganda. “When I arrived in this country, I was filled with hope again and I thanked God for being alive,” the woman said after the hearing, her eyes filling with tears. “When I think about having to go to those other countries, I panic because I hear they are violent and dangerous.” She spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisal from U.S. immigration authorities or the Guatemalan gang network. There have been more than 13,000 removal orders for asylum-seekers ICE attorneys, the de facto prosecutors in immigration courts, were first instructed last summer to file motions known as “pretermissions” that end migrants’ asylum claims and allow them to be deported. “They’re not saying the person doesn’t have a claim,” said Sarah Mehta, who tracks immigration issues at the American Civil Liberties Union. “They’re just saying, ‘We’re kicking this case completely out of court and we’re going to send that person to another country.’” The pace of deportation orders picked up in October after a ruling from the Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals, which sets legal precedent inside the byzantine immigration court system. The ruling from the three judges — two appointed by Attorney General Pam Bondi and the third a holdover from the first Trump administration — cleared the way for migrants seeking asylum to be removed to any third country where the U.S. State Department determines they won’t face persecution or torture. After the ruling, the government aggressively expanded the practice of ending asylum claims. More than 13,000 migrants have been ordered deported to so-called “safe third countries” after their asylum cases were canceled, according to data from San Francisco-based Mobile Pathways. More than half the orders were for Honduras, Ecuador or Uganda, with the rest scattered among nearly three dozen other countries. Deported migrants are free, at least theoretically, to pursue asylum and stay in those third countries, even if some have barely functioning asylum systems. Deportations have been far more complicated than the government expected Immigration authorities have released little information about the third-country agreements, known as Asylum Cooperative Agreements, or the deportees, and it’s unclear exactly how many have been deported to third countries as part of asylum removals. According to Third Country Deportation Watch, a tracker run by the rights groups Refugees International and Human Rights First, fewer than 100 of them are thought to have been deported. In a statement, DHS called the agreements “lawful bilateral arrangements that allow illegal aliens seeking asylum in the United States to pursue protection in a partner country that has agreed to fairly adjudicate their claims.” “DHS is using every lawful tool available to address the backlog and abuse of the asylum system,” said the statement, which was attributed only to a spokesperson. There are roughly 2 million backlogged asylum cases in the immigration system. But deportations clearly turned out to be far more complicated than the government expected, restricted by a variety of legal challenges, the scope of the international agreements and a limited number of airplanes. Mobile Pathways data, for example, shows that thousands of people have been ordered deported to Honduras — despite a diplomatic agreement that allows the country to take a total of just 10 such deportees per month for 24 months. Dozens of people ordered to Honduras in recent months did not speak Spanish as their primary language, but were native speakers of English, Uzbek and French, among other languages. And while hundreds of asylum-seeking migrants have been ordered sent to Uganda, a top Ugandan official said none have arrived. U.S. authorities may be “doing a cost analysis” and trying to avoid dispatching flights with only a few people on board, Okello Oryem, the Ugandan minister of state for foreign affairs, told The Associated Press. “You can’t be doing one, two people” at a time,” Oryem said. “Planeloads — that is the most effective way.” Many immigration lawyers suspect that the March email ordering a halt in new asylum pretermissions could indicate a shift toward other forms of third-country deportations. “Right now they haven’t been able to remove that many people,” said the ACLU’s Mehta. “I do think that will change.” “They’re in a hiring spree right now. They will have more planes. If they get more agreements, they’ll be able to send more people to more countries.” ___ Associated Press reporters Garance Burke in San Francisco, Joshua Goodman in Miami, Rodney Muhumuza in Kampala, Uganda, Marlon González in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and Molly A. Wallace in Chicago contributed to this report The Associated Press is an independent global news organization dedicated to factual reporting. Founded in 1846, AP today remains the most trusted source of fast, accurate, unbiased news in all formats and the essential provider of the technology and services vital to the news business. More than half the world’s population sees AP journalism every day. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Supreme Court appears skeptical over Trump’s push to restrict citizenship at birth

Supreme Court justices appeared skeptical on Wednesday of the Trump administration’s argument that the 14th Amendment does not extend birthright citizenship to the children of noncitizen parents. The high court heard oral arguments on April 1 in Trump v. Barbara, a landmark case that will determine whether President Donald Trump can essentially redefine who is considered an American by restricting which babies born on U.S. soil have the right to citizenship. The bulk of the Trump administration’s argument centered on whether the children of noncitizen or temporary-status immigrants have an allegiance to the United States, and whether they can claim a “permanent domicile and residence” inside the country. The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one. Shop Now 970x250 Multiple justices raised questions about how the administration defines “domicile” and the logistics of how that definition might be applied if the executive order were to go into effect. Notably, three of the six justices who make up the court’s conservative majority — Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., Justice Neil Gorsuch and Justice Amy Coney Barrett — appeared unmoved. “The examples you give to support that strike me as very quirky,” Roberts said. Barrett, for her part, questioned how the administration’s argument might apply to the children of people trafficked illegally into the country. Trump listened in, becoming the first sitting president in history to attend a Supreme Court argument. The court’s liberal women justices pressed the administration on how enforcing the order would work in practice. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wondered if the administration seeks to retroactively “unnaturalize” people born to noncitizen parents but have already secured birthright citizenship; Solicitor General D. John Sauer responded that the administration does not intend to take retroactive action. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked, “Are we bringing pregnant women in for depositions?” In an interview with The 19th after the oral arguments, Hannah Steinberg, a staff attorney on the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project who assisted with the case, brought up the issue of enforcement: Who will be responsible for verifying the immigration status of a newborn’s parents? “Are women going to have to bring their identification to the hospital? Is the hospital going to check?” Steinberg said. “It’s a huge impact. It unsettles our entire system of law and practice.” These questions underscore the wide-reaching effect Trump’s birthright order would have. Previous Coverage An American flag in shadow. How redefining birthright citizenship could impact children of immigrants Trump executive order on birthright citizenship casts a narrow view of family What’s the latest on birthright citizenship? Supreme Court to review Trump’s order. An estimated 250,000 babies are born on U.S. soil to immigrant parents without authorization. Narrowing the scope of birthright citizenship threatens to expand the number of people living in the country without authorization for generations. An estimated 2.7 million additional people would be unauthorized by 2045, and 5.4 million additional people by 2075, according to projections published by the Migration Policy Institute and Pennsylvania State University. The American Civil Liberties Union is representing a group of parents and children who would be affected by Trump’s order. In its challenge to the administration, Cecillia Wang, national legal director for the ACLU, argued that establishing a permanent domicile was not the focus of the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment. “The 14th Amendment’s fixed bright line rule has contributed to the growth and thriving of our nation. It comes from text and history. It is workable and it prevents manipulation,” Wang told the justices. She added, “The executive order fails on all those counts; swaths of American laws would be rendered senseless. Thousands of American babies will immediately lose their citizenship, and if you credit the government’s theory, the citizenship of millions of Americans past, present and future could be called into question.” On the first day of his second term, Trump signed an executive order denying birthright citizenship to children born to immigrants without legal status and temporary visitors from foreign countries. The order ushered in some of the most aggressive immigration enforcement in U.S. history, one that has had a notable impact on immigrant families. In a number of lawsuits, civil rights and immigrant advocacy organizations, as well as four states, argued that the order violates the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause and longstanding legal precedent that has upheld birthright citizenship for the children of noncitizens. A federal judge issued a nationwide preliminary injunction temporarily blocking the administration’s ability to enforce the order, calling it “blatantly unconstitutional.” The Trump administration filed an emergency petition last year asking the Supreme Court to limit federal judges’ ability to issue nationwide injunctions, also known as “universal” injunctions. In June 2025, the court’s conservative majority weakened the power of lower courts to issue injunctions that block the implementation of White House policies nationwide. The ACLU argues that the scope of birthright citizenship and its inclusion of the children of noncitizen parents was affirmed by the 1898 case United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which ruled in favor of a man born in California to Chinese parents. If the Trump administration seeks to overturn the Ark ruling, the ACLU contends, then it has not provided enough evidence to justify its interpretation of the citizenship clause. Steinberg told The 19th that the legal definition of domicile applies to a person residing in the country who intends to remain indefinitely. That definition is “nowhere within the 14th Amendment,” she said. “There’s nothing that says, for example, that someone who is undocumented is not able to be domiciled here,” Steinberg added. “The government is not only inserting ‘domicile’ into the 14th Amendment, but totally reinventing what the concept even means.” Many legal experts contend that birthright citizenship is settled law, strengthened by decades of court rulings. Still, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has made it clear it is not averse to change long-standing legal precedent, as it did in recent years with the overturning of federal abortion protections and sharply limiting the consideration of race in college admissions. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.