WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has abruptly shifted the focus of its mass deportation campaign, telling Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to largely pause raids and arrests in the agricultural industry, hotels, and restaurants, according to an internal email and three US officials with knowledge of the guidance.
The decision suggested that the scale of President Trump’s mass deportation campaign — an issue that is at the heart of his presidency — is hurting industries and constituencies that he does not want to lose.
The new guidance comes after protests in Los Angeles against the Trump administration’s immigration raids, including at farms and businesses. It also came as Trump made a rare concession this week that his crackdown was hurting American farmers and hospitality businesses.
The guidance was sent Thursday in an email by a senior ICE official, Tatum King, to regional leaders of the ICE department that generally carries out criminal investigations, including worksite operations, known as Homeland Security Investigations.
“Effective today, please hold on all worksite enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and operating hotels,’’ he wrote in the message.
The email explained that investigations involving “human trafficking, money laundering, drug smuggling into these industries are OK.’’ But it said — crucially — that agents were not to make arrests of “noncriminal collaterals,’’ a reference to people who are living in the country illegally but who are not known to have committed any other crime.
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed the guidance.
New York Times
Deportation officials get Medicaid data
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration this week provided deportation officials with personal data — including the immigration status — on millions of Medicaid enrollees, a move that could make it easier to locate people as part of his sweeping immigration crackdown.
An internal memo and emails obtained by the Associated Press show that Medicaid officials unsuccessfully sought to block the data transfer, citing legal and ethical concerns.
Nevertheless, two top advisers to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ordered the dataset handed over to the Department of Homeland Security, the emails show. Officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services were given just 54 minutes on Tuesday to comply with the directive.
The dataset includes the information of people living in California, Illinois, Washington state, and Washington, D.C., all of which allow non-US citizens to enroll in Medicaid programs that pay for their expenses using only state taxpayer dollars. CMS transferred the information just as the Trump administration was ramping up its enforcement efforts in Southern California.
Besides helping authorities locate migrants, experts said, the government could also use the information to scuttle the hopes of migrants seeking green cards, permanent residency, or citizenship if they had ever obtained Medicaid benefits funded by the federal government.
Associated Press
Court setback for Khalil, who will remain in detention
NEW YORK — A federal judge who barred the Trump administration from deporting Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil declined Friday to order his release from an immigration detention center, saying the former Columbia University student hadn’t yet proven he was being held illegally.
The ruling is a setback for Khalil, who was detained in March. He had appeared to be close to winning his freedom after US District Judge Michael Farbiarz held that the government’s initial effort to deport him on foreign policy grounds was likely unconstitutional.
The judge had given the Trump administration until Friday morning to appeal an order that could have led to Khalil’s release.
But the government filed court papers saying it believed it could continue detaining Khalil based on its secondary rationale for expelling him from the US — an allegation that he lied on his green card application.
Farbiarz, who sits in New Jersey, wrote in his Friday ruling that Khalil’s lawyers hadn’t presented enough evidence that detention on those grounds was unlawful and suggested that Khalil’s next step could be to ask for bail from an immigration judge in Louisiana.
Associated Press
National Portrait Gallery director resigns
WASHINGTON —Kim Sajet, the director of the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, resigned on Friday, two weeks after President Trump said on social media that he had fired her.
Sajet’s resignation was announced in an internal email, obtained by The Washington Post, sent just before noon to Smithsonian staff. In it, Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III wrote, “We are grateful to Kim for leading the National Portrait Gallery with passion and creativity for 12 years.’’
Washington Post
Consultant found not guilty of voter suppression
A political consultant who sent artificial intelligence-generated robocalls mimicking former president Joe Biden to New Hampshire Democrats last year was acquitted Friday of voter suppression and impersonating a candidate.
Steven Kramer, 56, of New Orleans, admitted orchestrating a message sent to thousands of voters two days before the state’s 2024, presidential primary.
Associated Press
