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For Immediate Release
November, 08 2018, 11:00pm EDT
Contact:
Advocates Slam Trump's Proclamation To Block Asylum Seekers
NEW YORK, NY
Today, President Trump signed a proclamation denying migrants from claiming asylum between ports of entry at the United States Southern border. Yesterday, DHS Secretary Kirstjen M. Nielsen and Acting Attorney General Matthew G. Whitaker announced an interim final rule, setting the stage for these restrictions to take immediate effect.
Steven Choi, Executive Director of the New York Immigration Coalition, responded:
"Trump is tearing apart America's greatness by denying those in need of safety and shelter. Slamming the gate shut to those who have traveled thousands of miles to escape violence and death is unjustifiable - legally and morally. With this proclamation, it is clear that Trump is using asylum seekers as pawns in his ploy to further divide us as Americans - and we will not stand idly by as this happens. We have witnessed this Administration slam the door in the faces of refugees before, history will not be kinder this time around."
The President is invoking the same legal justification as the Muslim Ban, which currently bars immigrants from seven Muslim-majority nations entry into the United States.
Background
Plans for the rule change were first leaked ahead of the midterm elections, indicating that President Trump plans to unilaterally reject refuge, safety, and entry into the United States for asylum seekers at the U.S. southern border between ports of entry.
The migrant caravan includes asylum seekers from Honduras and other Central American countries fleeing violence, political conflict, and death threats to themselves and loved ones. The administration has absurdly characterized them as a threat to national security. Trump already ordered 5,000 active duty military members troops from the U.S. Army to the border.
The New York Immigration Coalition aims to achieve a fairer and more just society that values the contributions of immigrants and extends opportunity to all. The NYIC promotes immigrants' full civic participation, fosters their leadership, and provides a unified voice and a vehicle for collective action for New York's diverse immigrant communities.
LATEST NEWS
Judge Ends Öztürk Deportation Effort But Press Freedom Group Still 'Disgusted That It Ever Happened'
"They’d throw out all of us who dissent if they could," warned the Freedom of the Press Foundation's chief of advocacy.
Feb 10, 2026
An immigration judge has terminated the Trump administration's effort to deport Rümeysa Öztürk, a doctoral student at Tufts University, for criticizing Israel, her lawyers announced on Monday.
Öztürk, a 30-year-old Turkish national, was snatched off the street by masked US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Massachusetts last March and was flown to an unsanitary detention center in Louisiana, where she spent 45 days before a judge ordered her release on bail.
The US State Department had revoked Öztürk's visa, accusing her of "support for Hamas," a designated terrorist group, and creating a “hostile environment” for Jewish students.
That accusation was based solely on an opinion piece she'd co-written with other Tufts students calling for the university to divest assets from Israel over its genocide in Gaza, which had killed over 50,000 people at the time, according to official figures.
An internal memo relied upon by Secretary of State Marco Rubio provided no evidence that Öztürk had expressed support for terrorist groups or participated in any sort of antisemitic harassment.
Documents unsealed last month by a Massachusetts judge later revealed that Rubio had approved Öztürk and several other students' deportations based solely on their advocacy for Palestinian rights.
It was for this reason that an immigration judge, Roopal Patel, an employee of President Donald Trump's own Department of Justice (DOJ), ultimately found that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had not met its burden to prove Öztürk’s removability and ordered her case to be dropped.
“Today, I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that despite the justice system’s flaws, my case may give hope to those who have also been wronged by the US government,” Öztürk wrote in a statement Monday. “Though the pain that I and thousands of other women wrongfully imprisoned by ICE have faced cannot be undone, it is heartening to know that some justice can prevail after all.”
Many of the international students who were initially detained by ICE over their advocacy have since been freed after judges ruled their detentions unlawful. But they still spent weeks or months in detention in some cases.
Jessie Rossman, legal director at the ACLU of Massachusetts, added that the decision "underscores the importance of allowing federal courts to review challenges to immigration detention" because otherwise "the government could punitively and unlawfully detain any noncitizen for months based solely on their speech so long as it simultaneously began removal proceedings."
Seth Stern, the chief of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said his organization is "thrilled that the effort to deport Rümeysa Öztürk is over," but that they "remain alarmed and disgusted that it ever happened."
"Öztürk’s case is arguably the most blatant press freedom violation of this century, and maybe the last century as well," he said. "The administration did not even bother to present a pretext for its actions—it arrested her, jailed her in horrific conditions, and sought to expel her solely because she expressed views shared by millions of Americans about one of the most important issues of our time."
Chip Gibbons, policy director of Defending Rights & Dissent, noted that the Trump administration "continues to [Öztürk] as a terrorist," even though "her only 'crime' was using the First Amendment."
Stern said that “they went after noncitizens first, not because they have any greater appreciation of the First Amendment rights of citizens, but because they’re the low-hanging fruit. They’d throw out all of us who dissent if they could.”
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Amid Secretive Expansion, Leaked Docs Reveal Locations of New ICE Facilities Nationwide
Many new facilities will be located near schools, hospitals, and places of worship such as churches and mosques.
Feb 10, 2026
Leaked documents obtained by Wired show that federal immigration enforcement operations in the US appear set to expand even more significantly in the coming years.
Overall, Wired reported on Tuesday, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—which includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—has been aggressively expanding its footprint across the country, with "more than 150 leases and office expansions" that "have or would place new facilities in nearly every state, many of them in or just outside of the country’s largest metropolitan areas."
Many of these new facilities are near sensitive locations that ICE has targeted in its immigrant abduction campaigns, including schools, hospitals, and places of worship such as churches and mosques.
For example, records show ICE is planning to occupy an office building just blocks away from a preschool in Houston, Texas, and to move into offices in Irvine, California located near a childcare facility.
To speed up this rapid expansion, DHS has been leaning on the Government Services Administration to write off standard lease procurement procedures and to even conceal lease listings in the name of "national security concerns."
Taken as a whole, Wired found that "ICE agents and officers will share buildings with doctors, restaurants, and businesses," and will "expand existing offices and move in with unrelated government agencies," such as in Philadelphia, where they are set to share space with the local Division of Motor Vehicles.
"The leasing plans give a clear picture of where ICE is going next in the US: Everywhere," the report concluded.
The leaked plans about ICE's aggressive expansion come as immigrants being held in ICE detention centers give disturbing accounts of conditions at facilities.
Seamus Culleton, an Irish citizen who has been held at a Texas ICE detention center for five months despite having a valid US work permit and no criminal record, told Ireland's RTÉ that the facility is akin to a "modern-day concentration camp."
"It's a bunch of temporary tents," he explained. "There's a room for, probably, a thousand detainees in each tent... I've been locked in the same room now for four-and-a-half months. I've had barely any outside time, no fresh air, no sunshine. I can probably count on both hands the number of times I've been outside. So I'm just locked inside this room all day, every day."
Culleton also said that the facilities were "filthy," with toilets and showers being "completely nasty."
Seamus Culleton, an Irishman with a valid US work permit, has been held in an ICE detention center for over four months and calls it “a modern day concentration camp” (Video: @RTERadio1) pic.twitter.com/p4nJJwuoXL
— Marco Foster (@MarcoFoster_) February 10, 2026
On Monday, ProPublica published letters that children detained at an immigration center in Dilley, Texas had written while they were being held with their parents.
Ender, a 12-year-old from Venezuela who has been detained in Dilley for over two months, complained about people getting inadequate medical care at the facility.
"Going to the doctor and... the only thing they tell you is to drink more water," Ender wrote in his letter. "And the worst thing is that it seems the water is what makes people sick here."
Ariana, a 14-year-old from Honduras who has been at the facility for a month-and-a-half, used her letter to explain the mental toll the detention has taken.
"Since I got to this Center all you will feel is sadness and mostly depression," explained Ariana, who added that children being held at the facility are "being damage (sic) mentally, they witness how the’ve been treated."
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Trump Commerce Secretary Admits He Did, In Fact, Go to Epstein’s Island
Sen. Chris Van Hollen told Howard Lutnick he "misled the country and the Congress" when he claimed to have cut off ties with the billionaire sex offender.
Feb 10, 2026
President Donald Trump's commerce secretary admitted during a Congressional hearing on Tuesday that he lied to the public about his relationship with the billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who was his next-door neighbor for 13 years.
As suspicion swirled around the president over his own ties to the infamous predator, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick claimed on a podcast last year that he'd been horrified after meeting Epstein once at his New York City apartment in 2005, during which he said the financier made sexual innuendoes and showed off his massage table to Lutnick and his wife.
Lutnick said he then vowed to “never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again." He added: “I was never in the room with him socially, for business, or even philanthropy. If that guy was there, I wasn’t going, because he’s gross."
But emails released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) late last month have revealed that Lutnick maintained a relationship with Epstein until 2018, just a year before his death in jail, and a full decade after the financier had been convicted of soliciting an underage prostitute.
Not only did Lutnick meet with Epstein for drinks and meals on multiple occasions and go into business with him, but he also made arrangements in 2012 to meet with Epstein on his private Caribbean island, where victims say sexual abuse of minors was rampant.
After facing bipartisan calls to resign from his post amid the new revelations, Lutnick appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, where he again attempted to wriggle out of the accusation that he'd remained cozy with Epstein.
"Of these millions and millions of documents, there may be 10 connecting me with him... over a 14-year period," Lutnick said. "I did not have any relationship with him. I barely had anything to do with that person, OK?"
Unconvinced by the denial, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) asked Lutnick if he'd ever made the visit to Epstein's island that was outlined in the 2012 email.
Lutnick admitted he did, in fact, have lunch with Epstein during what he described as a "family vacation."
"My wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies. I had another couple. They were there as well with their children. And we had lunch on the island," he admitted.
He said they were there for about "an hour" and that nothing "untoward" occurred while he was there. He clarified that he left "with all of my children" and everyone else who'd accompanied him, including their nannies.
Notably, one of those nannies is the subject of another email sent to Epstein from his accountant, Richard Kahn, in 2013. In the email, Kahn tells Epstein: "Attached is a resume of Lutnick's nanny. I am trying to arrange a time... for you to meet her."
During the hearing, Lutnick said he was surprised to learn that the nanny appeared in the email and that, as far as he knows, she never met Epstein.
Van Hollen said that there was reason to believe Lutnick "misled the country and the Congress" when he suggested that he'd cut off all contact with Epstein.
Speaking of Lutnick's meeting at the island, Van Hollen said: "You realize that this visit took place after he'd been convicted. You made a very big point of saying you sensed this was a bad person in 2005, and then, of course, in 2008 he was convicted of soliciting prostitution of a minor. And yet, you went and had this trip and had other interactions."
Van Hollen said that even if Lutnick himself was not accused of wrongdoing with Epstein, the fact that he misled the public is worthy of shame.
“That does call into question your fitness for the job you now hold, and the question of your credibility before this committee and the Congress,” the senator said.
Van Hollen also asked about another gathering mentioned in the emails, which supposedly happened in 2011 and included Lutnick and other prominent figures, such as the filmmaker Woody Allen and his wife, Soon-Yi Previn. (Previn is the adopted daughter of Allen's ex, Mia Farrow. Another adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, accused Allen of sexual assault, which he denied.)
After initially denying that the dinner took place, Lutnick said he didn't know what Van Hollen was referring to, then said there was a document in the tranche of files suggesting he'd met with Epstein again for only an hour and that they did not have dinner.
"I looked through the millions of documents for my name just like everybody else," Lutnick said.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) later appeared astonished by that statement.
“No," he said, "everyone isn’t worried about their names being in the Epstein files."
Following the hearing, calls for Lutnick to step down have only grown louder.
"Howard Lutnick, Donald Trump’s secretary of commerce, lied about his connection to Epstein, helped source a 'nanny' for Epstein, [and] visited rape island AFTER Epstein pled guilty to sex crimes," wrote Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.)
McGovern also mentioned a $50,000 donation Epstein made in 2017 to a dinner keepingLutnick and another investor, which was put on by the Jewish philanthropic organization UJA-Federation of New York. Emails show that Epstein was offered 10 seats to attend the event but declined, saying Lutnick could fill them.
"This has gone on long enough," McGovern said. "Lutnick is a liar, and he needs to resign."
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