02.20.2025
Venezuelans vanish. Vance calls migration “the greatest threat.” A sixth-grader in Texas takes her own life. And, new polls show unease
NEW POLLS: One month into President Trump’s second term, a series of polls released Wednesday and Thursday show a drop in President Trump’s approval rating since he took office on Jan. 20, with 52 percent of respondents in a CNN poll saying Trump has “gone too far” in using his new presidential powers.
The latest 538 polling average puts President Trump’s approval rating at 48.3 percent as of Feb. 20, down 1.3 percent from Jan. 24, while his disapproval rating has climbed to 47 percent, up 6.5 percent in the same period. Survey respondents expressed concern over tariffs and firings at federal agencies, with Reuters reporting that the share of Americans who think the economy is “on the wrong track” rose to 53 percent in a six-day poll ending Tuesday, up 10 percent from a poll taken between Jan. 24 and Jan. 26.
By contrast, a majority of Americans approved of Trump’s actions to secure the southern border and deport migrants accused of serious crimes. However, a Washington Post-Ipsos poll found that “opinions turn negative” on the question of deporting undocumented people who have lived in the U.S. for 10 years or more, or who entered the U.S. as children, or who have children who are U.S. citizens.
SUDDEN DEPARTURE: All but one of the 178 Venezuelans flown to Guantánamo Bay naval base beginning Feb. 4 were “abruptly” removed Thursday and placed on charter flights to Honduras, where they were transferred to a Venezuelan government plane for the flight home, The New York Times reported. The move reportedly came at the request of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. One detainee was returned to the U.S.
The ACLU, along with other rights groups, sued the Trump administration eight days ago, calling Gitmo a legal “black hole” and demanding access to the men detained there. A declaration filed Thursday by the Department of Homeland Security said that immigration officials are working to translate legal notices given to detainees into Spanish and has requested the American Bar Association for a toll-free number that they can call if they need a lawyer.
Lee Gelernt, head of the ACLU’s Immigrant Rights Project, called today’s move unprecedented: “No president has ever before tried to move immigrants from the U.S. to Guantánamo and prevent lawyers from meeting with them.”
Separately on Thursday, three civil rights groups and several Venezuelans filed lawsuits in federal district courts in San Francisco and Greenbelt, Md., challenging the Trump administration’s rollback of temporary protected status for 348,000 Venezuelans now in the U.S., who could lose their work permits and be deported as soon as April. Another 600,000 Venezuelans could face the same fate in September, Reuters reported.
VANCE CALLS IMMIGRATION ‘GREATEST THREAT’: Fresh off his trip last week to the Munich Security Conference, where he alienated European leaders by accusing them of suppressing “free speech” by far alt-right groups employing Nazi rhetoric, Vice President JD Vance told the Conservative Political Action Conference Thursday that immigration tops the list of threats to the West. “The greatest threat in Europe, and I’d say the greatest threat in the U.S. until about 30 days ago, is that you’ve had the leaders of the West decide that they should send millions and millions of unvetted foreign migrants into their countries,” Vance said, according to The Guardian.
THREATENED ABOUT ‘ICE,’ SIXTH-GRADER TAKES HER OWN LIFE: A Texas mother said her 11-year-old daughter committed suicide after schoolmates bullied her about her family’s immigration status, in a story reported by multiple news outlets. Jocelyn Rojo Carranza, 11, died on Feb. 8 at a Dallas hospital, five days after her mother found her unresponsive at their home in Gainesville, Texas.
In a statement released Thursday, Gainesville police confirmed the report and said that an investigation of bullying accusations has been launched by the Gainesville Independent School District.
Marbella Carranza, Jocelyn’s mother, told local ABC affiliate WFAA that students “would tell her ICE was going to come and get her parents and she was going to be here alone.” Jocelyn loved to dance and sing, played the French horn and enjoyed watching movies on Friday nights with her family, according to her obituary.
BRIEFLY PUT:
A federal judge denied a request by the U.S. Conference of Bishops for a temporary restraining order against the Trump administration’s freeze on funding of its refugee resettlement program, the Associated Press reported. But Judge Trevor McFadden scheduled another hearing for this Friday and ordered both sides into mediation next week. The freeze affects some 7,000 newly arrived refugees, the bishops say.
The Ninth Circuit rejected an emergency appeal by the Department of Justice to lift a lower court’s ruling blocking President Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order to end birthright citizenship, according to Courthouse News. The ruling sets up the case to be appealed to the Supreme Court as early as this summer.
Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem canceled an extension of temporary protected status for Haitian refugees until February 2026, making them vulnerable to deportation as soon as August. The move affects some 500,000 Haitians who resettled in the U.S. after a devastating earthquake in 2010.
CBS Austin reported that construction of the border wall begun during the first Trump administration in California, Texas and New Mexico has resumed, with new razor wire installed on the wall in El Paso, Texas.
President Trump signed a new executive order Thursday directing federal agencies to make sure funds don’t go to undocumented migrants, although the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 already ensures that they don’t. Trump’s Department of Homeland Security froze benefits for Ukranians, Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans on Wednesday.