New version of CBP app enables migrants to ‘self-deport’

Amnesty!?

““The CBP Home app gives aliens the option to leave now and self-deport, so they may still have the opportunity to return legally in the future and live the American dream,” Noem said. “If they don’t, we will find them, we will deport them, and they will never return.””

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/11/cbp-app-self-deport-00225102

Inside Trump’s Deportation Push, and the U.S. Holds Talks With Hamas

Trump paused tariffs on automobiles because big auto companies called him and convinced him to pause them. What about all those companies and consumers who do not have Trump’s ear?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mP0brCE_ig

The biggest spending cuts in Trump’s new budget bill — and how they could affect you

“Trump’s new budget blueprint, which is also known as a resolution, does three things.

First, it calls for extending the president’s 2017 tax cuts, which would otherwise expire at the end of the year, at a cost of $4 trillion over the next decade. It also makes room for another $500 billion in tax cuts Trump talked about on the campaign trail, such as no tax on tips, for a grand total of $4.5 trillion.

Second, the blueprint greenlights modest spending increases targeted toward immigration enforcement (up to $110 billion), customs and border protection (up to $90 billion) and military involvement in border security (up to $100 million) — top Trump priorities.

And finally, at the behest of conservative deficit hawks, the resolution mandates $2 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years to partially offset new border spending and the trillions in revenue lost to Trump’s tax cuts. (Even then, the new budget would still directly add $2.8 trillion to the deficit.)

For now, Trump’s budget blueprint doesn’t say which programs will be slashed; instead, it instructs specific House committees to cut specific amounts from the programs under their jurisdiction.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/the-biggest-spending-cuts-in-trumps-new-budget-bill–and-how-they-could-affect-you-172157094.html

How Democrats should — and shouldn’t — moderate on immigration

“Few things do more to increase humanity’s aggregate prosperity than allowing people to migrate from less wealthy nations to the United States. And the immense benefits that immigrants derive from moving to the US do not come at the expense of native-born Americans. To the contrary, in the long term, immigration makes Americans more prosperous, while rendering the country’s retirement programs more secure.
Precisely because immigration is so beneficial, however, it’s imperative for Democrats to forge a politically tenable approach to the issue. The party should neither embrace full-bore restrictionism nor project complacency about chaos at the border.

Instead, Democrats must make American politics safe for mass immigration. Maintaining the party’s recent pivot toward more aggressive border enforcement and less lenient asylum policies is likely necessary for achieving that goal.”

https://www.vox.com/politics/392104/immigration-surge-trump-biden-democrats-moderate-border

‘Frankly Insane’: Trump’s Plan to Ship Migrants to Guantanamo Could Quickly Collapse

‘Frankly Insane’: Trump’s Plan to Ship Migrants to Guantanamo Could Quickly Collapse

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/02/05/frankly-insane-trumps-plan-to-ship-migrants-to-guantanamo-could-quickly-collapse-00202374

Trump’s Deportation Plan Is About Numbers, Not Safety

“The Trump administration’s plan to arrest and deport as many undocumented immigrants as possible quickly became a numbers game as White House officials set quotas and government press officers highlighted each day’s deportation tally. As president, Donald Trump is continuing his campaign-trail rhetoric by insisting federal officers are rounding up murderers, even though a deportation policy that focuses on generating impressive numbers to achieve a “mission accomplished” moment cannot also prioritize removing dangerous criminals.”

“After Trump became “disappointed” in the number of arrests so far, The Washington Post reported, the administration set arrest quotas, telling Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials that “each of the agency’s field offices should make 75 arrests per day and managers would be held accountable for missing those targets.” The Post added, “The orders significantly increase the chance that officers will engage in more indiscriminate enforcement tactics or face accusations of civil rights violations as they strain to meet quotas, according to current and former ICE officials.””

“Given the desire for numbers and other factors, cases of U.S. citizens being held or arrested by ICE are likely—and already happening. A U.S. military veteran from Puerto Rico was apprehended during a raid in New Jersey. (Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens.) “At least 15 Indigenous people in Arizona and New Mexico have reported being stopped at their homes and workplaces, questioned or detained by federal law enforcement and asked to produce proof of citizenship during immigration raids since Wednesday, according to Navajo Nation officials,” reported CNN.

During most presidential administrations, due to limited resources, ICE focuses on people with criminal convictions.”

“Considering the vast majority of deportees will not be criminals but men, women, and children who lived and worked in the U.S. peacefully for years, Americans will decide if the number hailed by government officials is cause for celebration.”

https://reason.com/2025/01/31/trumps-deportation-plan-is-about-numbers-not-safety/

Why Trump won’t be deporting “millions” of criminals

“Less than 1% of immigrants deported last fiscal year were kicked out of the U.S. for crimes other than immigration violations.”

“To deport millions of “criminals,” Trump would have to consider all undocumented immigrants as criminals. But being in the U.S. illegally is a civil violation, not a criminal one.”

“Those millions would have to include agricultural, construction and service workers, students and others who are unauthorized to be in the U.S. but have no criminal backgrounds, according to legal specialists and an Axios review of federal immigration data.”

“”There are not millions of people with criminal records to deport,” Nicole Hallett, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago, tells Axios.”

https://www.axios.com/2025/01/27/undocumented-immigrants-crime-deportations-trump

Trump’s two-by-four foreign policy gets early wins

Coercion may work against smaller countries on issues that don’t hurt them too much, but that doesn’t mean it will work against stronger countries. Trump’s first term trade war with China was a failure.

https://www.axios.com/2025/01/28/trump-foreign-policy-deportations

What to know about the Laken Riley Act

“The new law will require the detention of undocumented immigrants accused of certain crimes such as theft. Federal immigration officials have warned it could impact 60,000 people.”

“ICE warned Congress that the Laken Riley Act could require detention for 60,000 people, and that the agency would need billions of dollars and thousands more detention beds to comply with the law, Axios reported.”

“The federal government has prioritized deporting immigrants with criminal records since the Obama administration”

“Study after study has indicated that immigrants — those in the U.S. legally or undocumented — commit crimes at lower rates than U.S. citizens, Axios’ Russell Contreras reports.”

https://www.axios.com/2025/01/29/laken-riley-act-what-to-know-trump-immigration-law

What to make of Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship

“the United States is far from alone in offering birthright citizenship. As of 2022, 60 countries had a provision in their legal codes or constitutions that provide at least some pathway to citizenship by jus soli, according to data from the Global Citizenship Observatory.* And more than half of those nations have a mostly unrestricted version akin to the United States’ longstanding formulation, whereby nearly anyone born in that country is guaranteed access to citizenship. (Others may provide for birthright citizenship subject to additional requirements, such as parental descent, period of residence and/or membership of a certain racial or ethnic group.)

Overall, unfettered birthright citizenship is mainly found among countries in the Americas, many of which — including the U.S. — have lengthy histories of immigration from other parts of the globe.”

https://abcnews.go.com/538/make-trumps-attempt-end-birthright-citizenship/story?id=118023941