Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2025-12-19 Friday

Episode Date: December 19, 2025

Democracy Now! Friday, December 19, 2025

From New York, this is Democracy Now. So-called gender affirming care has inflicted lasting physical and psychological damage on vulnerable young people. This is not medicine. It is malpractice. We're done with junk science, driven by ideological pursuits, not the well-being of children. The Trump administrations announced sweeping new measures that could effectively cut off gender-affirming care for transgender youth across the country. We'll speak to ACOU Attorney Chase Strangeo and a New York doctor who works with trans youth. Then to the case of Kilmar Abrego-Garcia, the Maryland father wrongfully deported to El Salvador earlier this year last week. He reunited with his family after months in ICE detention, but his ordeal is not over.

No matter what this government says, in the end, I still believe this is a country of laws, a country of justice, and we will put an end to all this injustice. we look at the Trump administration's plan to ramp up efforts to strip the citizenship of hundreds of naturalized Americans, and we'll get response to the Trump administration's move to suspend the diversity visa lottery program, the green card program, in the wake of the Brown University and MIT shootings. The suspect in both cases has been found dead. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. The Pentagon says it killed five people in a pair of airstrikes on boats in the eastern

Pacific, claiming they were carrying drugs, though, again, providing no evidence. The latest attacks bring the Pentagon's claim death toll in similar attacks to over 100 since September. This comes as leaders of the United Nations and Latin American nations are calling on the Trump administration to halt the extra judicial killings and to end its threats of a regime change war against Venezuela. This is the Mexican president, Claudia Shanebaum, speaking Wednesday. no foreign interference, self-determination of peoples, and peaceful resolution of controversies. We call for dialogue and peace to resolve any international controversy, not intervention. The suspect in the Brown University mass shooting was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound Thursday night

in a Salem, New Hampshire storage unit he'd rented. The suspect was identified as Claudio Nevis Belente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national, who attended Brown University in 2001. He was reportedly enrolled as a graduate student from the fall of 2000 to the next spring. Brown president, Christina Paxson, said in a statement, quote, during his time at Brown, Nevis Valente was enrolled only, only in physics classes, and it's likely he would have taken courses and spent time in Barras and Holly, referring to the building where the shooting took place.

Authorities said they believe Nevis Valenti is also responsible for the murder of the award-winning MIT physics professor Nuno Lodero at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts, just 48 hours after the Brown shooting that killed two students. students and wounded nine others. Nevis Valente was reportedly a teaching assistant in the same university in Portugal. Laredo attended between 1995 and 2000. Investigators say tips from a Brown campus custodian helped to narrow down the days-long search for the suspect. Nevis was reportedly spotted at Brown's Baudeson-Hale building in the days before the shooting, including at least twice by the custodian, who said he'd seen a person wearing a surgical mask

and whose clothing matched the individual scene in surveillance footage released by police. In the wake of the killings, Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noem announced the Trump administration is suspending its diversity visa lottery program. Nevis Valenti entered the country on a student visa in 2000 and was granted a green card through the visa program in 2017. We'll have more on this story later in the broadcast. In Gaza, Israeli airstrikes on a town east of Khan Yunus have killed four Palestinian civilians, including a woman over the past 24 hours.

This follows air and artillery strikes in the cities of Rafah and Kan Yunis, the latest in a series of near-daily ceasefire violations by Israel's military. Separately, a child in the New Sadat refugee camp died after, triggering unexploded Israeli ordinance. And Doctors Without Borders said Thursday, a 29-day-old baby died of hypothermia at Nassar Hospital, the latest Palestinian to freeze to death, as Israel prevents aid convoys from bringing tents and other portable shelters into Gaza. Nursing team supervisor, Bilal Abusada, said, quote,

children are losing their lives because they lack the most basic items for survival. survival, babies are arriving to the hospital cold with near-death vital signs. Even our best efforts are not enough. They say the war has ended, but people are still having to fight for their lives, unquote. The Trump administration's Middle East envoy, Steve Whitkoff, hosting talks in Miami today with senior officials from Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey, focused on the next phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, which Gaza officials say Israel's violated more than 800 times since, it took effect on October 10th. The meeting comes after the Middle East

I reported the U.S., Israel, and UAE have discussed using profits from Gaza's undeveloped offshore natural gas supplies to help pay for the reconstruction of the territory. Meanwhile, the Trump administration's announced a new round of sanctions on staff members at the ICC. That's the International Criminal Court in the Hague, citing the court's ongoing probe into Israeli war crimes. In Britain, advocates are calling on the immediate release of six political prisoners awaiting trial for supporting the banned protest group, Palestine Action. More than 800 doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals have warned the activists are at risk of dying, as they have not received proper medical attention, some after over 40 days on hunger strike, protesting their treatment in prison and calling for their release on bail.

This is the sister of Palestine Action Prisoner, 28-year-old Kamran Ahmed. He is on day 39 of his hunger strike. He's had two hospitalizations since the start of his hunger strike, having only come out of his hospitalization last week. Whilst they were able to stabilize his ketones, they are steeply on the rise again. But what is mostly concerning is that his heart is. is giving in and his pulse is slowing down. And at the moment, he's losing half a cagey every day. In the United States, House Democrats have released more photos from the estate of the

convicted serial sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, ahead of today's congressionally mandated deadline for the Justice Department to release the Epstein files. The uncaptioned photos show Epstein with film director Woody Allen, Trump's former advisor, Steve Bannon. and in New York Times opinion, columnist David Brooks, MIT linguist, Noam Chomsky, and billionaire tech mogul Bill Gates. Some of the photographs show would appear to be lines from Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, a novel about a pedophile written on parts of a woman's body. Ahead of today's deadline, CNN reported the Justice Department was racing to redact thousands

of pages in the Epstein files. Here in New York, Gopimist is reporting federal immigration officers, were able to enter private areas of city shelters or obtain resident information without presenting judicial warrants at least five times earlier this year. That's despite sanctuary city laws barring city staffers from allowing immigration officers to enter private areas of city property. Meanwhile, human rights watch is calling on Congress to investigate the brutality of the Trump administration's immigration enforcement activities, writing, quote, allowing masked unidentified agents to roam communities and apprehend people without identifying themselves a road's trust

in the rule of law and creates a dangerous vacuum, where abuses can flourish, exacerbating the unnecessary violence and brutality of the arrests, unquote. In Wisconsin, a jury Thursday convicted Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan of obstructing federal agents from arresting an undocumented immigrant while jurors acquitted her of a misdemeanor charge. She was accused of helping an undocumented immigrant leave her courtroom in April to avoid arrest by agents waiting in the hallway. The Trump administrations announced new policies aimed at denying gender-affirming care to transgender youth. The proposed new rules would cut off all Medicare and Medicaid funding to hospitals offering such care to anyone under 18.

Medicare and Medicaid cover nearly half of all hospitals spending after headlines will speak with. Chase Strangio of the ACLU and a pediatrician and adolescent medicine specials who works with transgender youth in New York City. President Trump signed an executive order Thursday fast-tracking the reclassification of cannabis as a Schedule 3 substance, which would pave the way for the Food and Drug Administration to study its medicinal uses. It's currently listed under the U.S. Controlled Substances Act as a Schedule 1 substance, a list that includes heroin, ecstasy, and peyote. During Thursday's signing ceremony, Trump struggled to stay awake.

It's the latest in a series of recent public events where Trump appeared to fall asleep in front of the cameras. That's fueled speculation about his health. California Congress member, Sydney Kamlaeger Dove, wrote on social media, quote, the Alzheimer's drug, Lekembe, is administered through an infusion, for example, through the hand, can cause swelling, bleeding, or fluid leakage in the brain requiring regular MRIs can cause tiredness. Curious, she wrote.

President Trump's redecorated a stretch of the White House. He's calling the presidential walk of fame with plaques offering hyper-partisan descriptions of past presidents and his own time in the president. as president. The portrait gallery along the West Wing Colonnade now features Trump's words cast in bronze in the style of a social media post. One plaque under President Biden, which is actually a picture of an auto pen, reads, quote, Sleepy Joe Biden was by far the worst president in American history, unquote, and claims the 2020 election was the most corrupt in U.S. history. Another reads quote, under Barack Obama's portrait, Barack Hussein Obama was the first black president,

a community organizer, one-term senator from Illinois, and one of the most divisive political figures in American history, unquote. The plaques also tout Trump's achievements, claiming he tackled inflation and ended eight wars, while President Ronald Reagan's plaque reads, quote, he was a fan of President Donald J. Trump, before Trump's historic run for the White House, likewise, President Trump was a fan of his exclamation point, unquote. This week, President Trump said the cost of his plan, Bullroom Project at the White House could reach $400 million.

That's double as earlier claim that it would cost $200 million. On Monday, his administration argued the bowlroom's construction is a matter of national security. The Board of Trustees at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts voted Thursday to rename the facility. Its new name will be the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. The board members were handpicked by President Trump in February after he named himself chair. Democratic lawmakers called the move illegal, saying in a statement that any name change would require an act of Congress.

The media company run by Donald Trump Jr. and former Republican Congress member Devin Unius has announced a $6 billion merger with a firm that hopes to build the world's first viable nuclear fusion power plant. The merger between the Trump Media and Technology Group and TAA Technologies comes after President Trump's signed executive order seeking to bar states from regulating artificial intelligence and the energy-intensive data centers needed to power AI. This comes as Vermont Independence Senator Bernie Sanders is continuing to speak out against AI data centers amidst a construction boom that's led to protests over skyrocketing electricity costs and strains on community's water

supplies. I will be pushing for a moratorium on the construction of data centers that are powering this unregulated sprint to develop and deploy AI. This moratorium will give democracy a chance to catch up with the transformative changes that we are witnessing and make sure that the benefits of these technologies work for all of us, not just the wealthiest people on Earth. And protests have erupted across Bangladesh after the death of prominent youth activist Sharif Osman-Haddy, a leader in last year's uprising that ousted the Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Police and paramilitary forces have been deployed to the capital DACA and other cities as hundreds of people took to the streets overnight Thursday. Last week, Haddi, an outspoken critic of India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was shot in the head by masked assailants as he launched his campaign for the first elections since the 2024 ouster of Sheikh Qasina, who remains in self-imposed exile in India, was sentenced to death for crimes against humanity last month. Sharif Osman-Hadi died of his wounds Thursday at a hospital in Singapore. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Mimi Goodman.

The Trump administrations announced new measures that could effectively ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth. On Thursday, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Mehmet Oz, who leads Medicaid and Medicare, unveiled a series of series of new rules targeting hospitals and doctors that provide care to trans youth. One rule would strip Medicaid and Medicare funding for any hospital that provides pediatric gender-affirming care. Kennedy spoke Thursday. So-called gender-affirming care has inflicted lasting physical and psychological damage on vulnerable young people. This is not medicine. It is malpractice. We're done with junk science, driven by ideological pursuits, not the well-being of children.

The Dr. Susan Cressley, President of the American Academy of Pediatrics, criticized the new rules, saying, quote, allowing the government to determine which patient groups deserve care sets a dangerous precedent and children and families will bear the consequences, unquote. The new rules were announced a day after the House, narrowly approved a bill that aims to criminalize providing gender-affirming medical care for any transgender person under the age of 18 and subject providers to hefty fines and up to 10 years in prison. This is Democratic Representative Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender member of Congress speaking to reporters before the anti-trans bill vote Wednesday. We are two legislative days away from the Affordable Care Act tax credits expiring when millions of people will see their health care premiums skyrocket.

And GOP leadership, with that deadline fast approaching, has decided to schedule two votes on anti-trans bills and precisely zero votes on extending the Affordable Care Act tax credits. they would rather have us focus in and debate a misunderstood and vulnerable 1% of the population instead of focusing in on the fact that they are rating everyone's health care in order to pay for tax breaks for the wealthiest 1%. All Republican politicians care about is making the rich richer and attacking trans people. they are obsessed with trans people. I actually think they think more about trans people than trans people think about trans people. They are consumed with this and they are extreme on it.

They are bringing forward a bill that would put parents and providers at risk of being jailed, literally jailed, for affirming their transgender child, and following medical best practices. We're joined now by two guests. Jeffrey Birnbaum is a pediatrician, adolescent medicine specials, who works with transgender youth here in New York City. And we're joined by Chase Strangio, the co-director of the American Civil Liberties Union's

LGBTQ and HIV project. Last year, he became the first openly trans lawyer to argue in front of the Supreme Court when he presented oral arguments in United States v. Scrimetti, we welcome you both to democracy now. Chase, let's begin with you. If you can explain what RFK Jr., the health secretary, is announced, and what the House passed. Yeah, so, Amy, I just want to take a step back and echo what Representative McBride said, because before we get into the details, we have to understand what's happening here, which is that health care costs for Americans are about to skyrocket, and you have two branches. of government, the legislative and the executive, deciding to instead focus on usurping the decisions of parents and doctors to try to, in the case of the House bill, criminalize this care

and in the case of the actions from HHS, coerce hospitals into stopping providing care for transgender adolescents. This is a drastic departure from any concern about science, concern about parents and their rights. And frankly, it's really rich to hear the Secretary RFK Jr. talking about junk science when what we have here is medical care supported by every major medical association in the United States. Meanwhile, this is an administration that is so anti-science that I think we can see that all of our health is under threat. And trans people now and our families are facing terror from this administration because they are, in essence, saying we will do whatever it takes to take away your health care. And that's what we're seeing right now.

So we're talking about removing Medicare and Medicaid from hospitals where transgender care is performed on young people and doctors being criminalized if they dare to engage in transgender care, they could go to prison? Exactly. So with respect to the bill that passed the house, that is threatening doctors with 10 years in prison. This would be a felony for following evidence-based medicine. And then on the HHS side, it is a proposed rule. And I think it's important so that people aren't terrified right now. Neither of these things is the law yet. But what we have from HHS is a proposed rule, in essence, staying to hospitals across the country, including in states where this care is legal,

we will take away the vast majority of your funding if you continue to provide this care to transgender adolescents, regardless of whether federal money is being used to provide the care. So it's telling hospitals, that they have to stop providing the care if they are, in essence, going to continue to operate. Have hospitals responded? What we're seeing from hospitals since January of this year, since inauguration, is that they are, in some cases, capitulating to the threats of the administration and in some cases continuing

to take a stand to defend their patients. Obviously, right now, this is a significant escalation. And if these regulations are, in fact, finalized and the way that they have been proposed, hospitals will not really have a choice because they cannot afford to lose 50% or more of their operating money. So it is putting hospitals in an impossible situation and just another example of this administration undermining and threatening all of our health and welfare. I want to go back to the Democratic Congress member, Sarah McBride. She is the first openly transgender member of Congress. I get it's hard to understand what it feels like to be trans.

I get that it is hard to understand what it feels like to be me. I get that it's hard to understand this care and understand the need for it. But one of the things that gets so lost in this conversation is that the transgender adults of today were kids once. I was a kid once. I didn't have the courage to come out until I was 21. But it's a fact I have known about myself for my entire life. I didn't have the courage to come out until I was 21, and that means 21 years of pain.

21 years of unwavering homesickness that only went away when I was able to get the care that I needed. And my biggest regret in life is that I never had a childhood without that pain. That's Sarah McBride, the first openly trans member of Congress. Dr. Jeffrey Bernbaum, you're a pediatrician and adolescent medicine specialist who works with transgender youth in New York City. if you can expand on what Congress member McBride is saying and talk about what this means for you. Do you continue your care? You could face 10 years in prison. Yeah, well, Congresswoman McBride's words really resonated with me.

As soon as the show is over this morning, I'm going to spend the morning in my clinic working with these young. people of the type that she talks about, not just her, but everyone who has that sort of experience as young people. I work with these young people and their parents, their families, every single day, and they are terrified right now. I have to tell you the number of suicide attempts we've averted, the amount of depression we've treated, the number of kids that we've kept in school, keeping their school performance helping them reach their life goals, this is what transgender treatment for young people

results in, improved outcomes. If these laws go forward, I don't know how my facility is going to respond, but I refuse to stop providing this care, knowing that I could potentially face 10 years in prison and a felony charge. I'm willing to go down that route if necessary. Can you compare suicide rates of children who are trans and children who are not? I don't have the exact information in front of me in terms of rates, but LGBT youth in general have higher suicide rates than non-LGB youth overall. That's inclusive of all LGBT youth and transgender youth probably at much higher rates because they are that much more marginalized.

I would say the one thing that is best in prevention of these horrible outcomes is access to care and a supportive family. What does it mean to interrupt transgender care, Dr. Burnvau? Complete devastation for these families. I mean, they won't know where to go. They won't have recourse. People are already asking me questions about stoppiling. hormones, getting them overseas through the internet.

Sometimes people are talking about buying things that they don't even know what it is that they're buying because there's no quality control. This is just devastating. And young people and their parents are

terrified. I can't tell you when the executive order first came out back at the end of January, the number of families that came to me seeking care because I refused to stop providing care when other facilities immediately bent at the need to the executive order and shut down their youth clinics. It's just giving people a place where they can go and safe refuge.

That alone helps improve the outcomes. But I don't know what's going to happen to them in the long run if someone like me has completely stopped from providing this type of care. Dr. Mehmet said, we want our hospitals returning to healing, not harming the patients entrusted in their care, or they're going to pay a very high price. Explain what gender-affirming care is, the range of that care. In this age group, we start with counseling.

Young people need to have an understanding of who they are and try and solidify their identity to determine what medical intervention. interventions may be appropriate, right at the onset of puberty, ideally would be the time to introduce puberty blockade through drugs like reprelin and trypdorellin. Those are commonly prescribed drugs, histrellin as an implant, and that is 100% reversible. When they start talking about irreversible damage, puberty blockade is 100% reversible and safe. We've been using, it for decades. We've been treating precocious puberty with it for decades. We have lots of experience. And so, you know, I don't put much stock in what they're saying about that.

When young people want to start gender transitioning, sometimes I may start at age 16, which is a common age to start. But I would be willing to start younger with the consent of the parents and having lots of discussion starting on either testosterone or estrogen or estradiol treatment, that allows their body to change with their gender that they identify with. And mind you, it's not only in gender affirming care that we use those drugs. We use those drugs in delayed puberty as well, other diseases like congenital, adrenal hyperplasia. there are numerous

other entities that we have lots of evidence of safety and efficacy that we apply to using in gender affirming care. Surgeries are something that often does not happen until someone is much older. Quite often they'll have what's typically called pop surgery as a first procedure done.

These are irreversible treatments as are the hormonal. treatments. And, you know, there are other examples of body modification in teenagers such as rhinoplasty, nose jobs. Sometimes you'll see beautiful teenage girl wanting a nose job because she thinks her nose is too big. That's irreversible. Why would it be allowed for her and not for somebody who is transgender youth? We would also have breast augmentation or breast breast reduction in teenagers, which is allowed surgery. Why would that be allowed? But this would just make no sense whatsoever. As we begin to wrap up, Chase Strange you, with more than

half of states already having bans, a recent Washington Post report found school hate crimes rose sharply in states with anti-LGBQ laws. Can you talk about at every level what happens from now on? You've got this House vote. It goes to the Senate. What do you expect? And what do you expect in states across the country? Yeah, unfortunately what we're seeing on every branch of government across the country is these escalating attacks in schools, in health care, in access to identification documents.

Hopefully people will continue to mobilize. This will not pass the Senate. Dr. Birnbaum won't have to worry about cutting off care to his patients because of a threat of criminal liability. but nothing is for sure. We have to take action. And yesterday in that HHS press conference, you had the Deputy Secretary of Health talking not about health,

not about science, but about a principle evil in relation to the rejection of what God intended of us. That is not about science. That is about a wholesale rejection of trans identity. We have to be attuned to that

and we have to be mobilizing to stop it. And the Senate, what do you expect and how are you organizing? Right now, this is a bill that has passed the House. it goes to the Senate and we all have a role to play. We need to contact our senators and make sure they do not vote for this criminal. They need 60 votes in the Senate. So hopefully the caucuses sticks to this caucus sticks together and stops this from passing. But nothing is a sure thing.

So we need people to mobilize. I'm optimistic that this will not become law. But again, we can't take anything for granted. We have a president that is threatening on every metric to coerce the shutdown of this care nationally. And that's on us to organize and mobilize and we're doing that, but we need everyone to join us. Chase Strangio, co-director of the American Civil Liberties Union's LGBTQ and HIV project. Dr. Jeffrey Burnbaum, pediatrician, adolescent medicine specials who works with transgender youth here in New York City. We thank you both for being with us, and we'll continue to cover, of course, this story.

Coming up, we look at the case of Kilmar Abregio Garcia, the Maryland father, who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador earlier this year. last week, he reunited with his family after months and iced detention back in the United States, but his ordeal is not over. Stay with us. I just got to jump in line into the deep side as long as I know I try We could be a wireless Break down barriers carry our torches we got the fires and we go be fighting We know what the story goes

We could be a world else Breakdown barriers carry our torches This is democracy now, democracy now. Democracy Now.org, the war and peace report. I'm Amy Goodman. We turn now to the extraordinary case of Kilmara Bredigo-Garcia, the Maryland Dad, who first made headlines in March when he was wrongfully deported to El Salvador, where he was held in the notorious Seckot megapurzen.

In June, he was returned to the United States. States, but his ordeal continued as the Trump administration threatened to deport him, first to Uganda, then to Eswatini and Liberia, three African countries he has no ties to. Well, last week, a federal judge ordered him released from an ICE jail in Pennsylvania. Abrego Garcia spoke to supporters after he reunited with his family. yesterday after my release the first thing I did and the only thing I did was enjoy time with my family these are times we're living in christmas time a time when harmony love and peace are paramount being with family is love and that is what I did I was with my family who mean everything to me

I stand here before you and the fight. The fight will continue. I will remain standing. I will not bow my head to anyone. I will always stand against all the injustices this government has committed. No matter what this government says, in the end, I still believe this is a country of laws, a country of justice, and we will put an end to all this injustice.

that was kilmar brago-garsia speaking last week we're joined now by one of his attorneys simon sandoval motionberg welcome to democracy now explain what is happening right now so on thursday morning the federal district judge in maryland judge senis ordered that he be released and she gave two reasons for that the first reason is um what you could say fairly is a technical reason that back when he in immigration proceedings in 2019, the judge did not properly enter an order of deportation. Really, essentially, there was a particular form that was supposed to be filled out that the judge did not fill out, which is an order of removal form. And so therefore, he can't be held pursuant to an order of removal that doesn't exist. That's the kind of hyper-technical, you know,

get them off on a technicality reason that everyone's focused on. But I'm really trying to focus more on the second reason that she gave, which is that even assuming that there is an order of deportation, or rather, even if there were an order of deportation, the only permissible purpose under the Constitution for immigration detention is in order to remove somebody. Well, the government's course of dealing since August shows that they've been detaining him, not in order to remove him from the country, but rather in order to keep him locked up. They're locking him up in order to lock him up, not even to actually deport him to Africa, but just to keep him locked up.

As you'll recall, there's a criminal proceeding. They tried to get the criminal judge to keep him locked up. The criminal judge wouldn't do it. He ordered him released on his own recognizance. And so therefore, they're trying to use the immigration detention to accomplish what they couldn't accomplish in the criminal detention system. And the judge in Maryland held that that's impermissible. It's a violation of due process and ordered him released on that basis as well.

well. So you have them trying to send him to an African country, and it's not clear, like Swatini, like Liberia, like Uganda, it's something that he has no connection to. It's not clear if the U.S. has agreements with these countries to imprison him there, but the place he's closer to here in this hemisphere, Costa Rica, they said they refused to take him, but then Costa Rica said we never refused to take him. He can come here. What's the deal, Simon? Yeah, back in August, Costa Rica offered Mr. Obrigo Garcia refugee status in that country, right? So that's a permanent status. It means that he can live there permanently without fear of eventually getting kicked out to El Salvador. You know, he can work there. He can establish a life there, right, if he so chooses.

Now, of course, we understand that this is not justice, right? Justice would be that he gets to stay in Maryland where he's, you know, got a U.S. citizen wife, U.S. born child, built a life, you know, union worker, et cetera. That would be justice. That said, you know, he recognizes given the considerable power of the U.S. government to make his life miserable, that going to Costa Rica is essentially an acceptable outcome compared to being sent to some African country where, A, he doesn't know what his conditions are going to be, but perhaps even more importantly, B, he's got no guarantee that those countries are actually going to let him stay there and not re-deport him right back to El Salvador, where he was already tortured in prison

earlier this year. So that's why right now, essentially, the fight is around his ability to go to Costa Rica, right, and take advantage of this offer of refugee status that they've given. So what the judge in Maryland held, what she found is that if they were really trying to just deport him, right? I mean, the ICE can detain someone in order to deport. them. That's true. But if that's what they were actually trying to do, he'd have been in Costa Rica months ago. And so clearly what they're trying to do is something else entirely. And what is that? Well, punish him, right? Punish him for being, you know, so bold and, and, you know, to speak up for his rights to not be deported in violation of a court order. I mean, it's really, you know, it's about him.

Definitely, I don't want to take the focus off of him because he is a man, you know, with a wife and a child. But it's also about the government using him more or less at random, right, to stand for the principle that they get to do whatever they want, whenever they want, to whomever they want, and specifically courts can't stop them, right? So this is really a battle between the executive and the judiciary, and he's just being torn asunder, you know, by these two sort of competing forces. I know you have to go. So what happens now with Paula Zinnis' order, the judge? Well, we have a hearing on Monday afternoon in federal district court in Greenbelt, Maryland, at which it's going to be determined whether ICE can re-arrest him, right? Essentially, you know, what are the, they tried to re-arrest him on Monday morning, excuse me, Friday morning, the very day after he was released. We rushed into court overnight and got a temporary restraining order, preventing his immediate re-arrest.

He would have been, if the government had its way, he would have been out for literally one night before being re-arrested the following morning. But now, Judge Zinus is going to have to decide, essentially, what are the terms and conditions going forward, right, under what conditions? Can he be re-arrested by ICE? Does she have power to order them to deport him to Costa Rica? There's a lot that's still on the table. And the effect on Kilmar, his wife, the child? I mean, it's been an utter roller coaster, right? You know, Thursday morning, he woke up in the detention center thinking it was just going to be another day.

late morning they're telling him we're releasing you this afternoon as he's walking out the door of the detention center, he gets a notice that he's going to be re-arrested the following morning that he has to go to an ice office, which obviously is for re-arrest. You know, that night

we file a temporary restraining order. We receive the temporary restraining order from the judge literally as he's walking up the steps into the ice building, right? So he gets in the car that morning, not even knowing if he's going to come back home that afternoon. By the time he hits the door of the building, he knows

that he's got an order from a judge, at least protecting him in the short term. But that order is a very temporary order. It only lasts through Monday, right? And on Monday, this coming Monday, the judge is going to decide what happens next. So it's been, you know, one earthquake after another for him. I want to thank you so much for being with us, Simon Sandoval-Motionberg. Lead counselor for Kilmar-Abrego-Garcia. We'll continue to follow the story. Coming up, we'll stick with the issue of immigration. Looking at the Trump administration's plan to ramp up efforts to strip the citizenship of hundreds of naturalized Americans. We'll also talk about birthright citizenship.

And we'll look at what the Justice Department, what the Department of Homeland Security said yesterday in response to the alleged shooter in the Brown University case and the murder of the MIT professor saying that they are halting the diversity visa program, which is a green card program. Stay with us. Hallelujah, since I lay my burdens down. Every round goes high and higher, since I lay my burdens down. Every round goes high and higher, since I lay my burdens down. Glory, glory, hallelujah, performed by rising stars,

Fife and Drum Band at the Brooklyn Folk Festival in November. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. The Trump administration's ramping up efforts to strip more naturalized immigrants of their U.S. citizenship. That's according to a report in the New York Times, which found internal guidance issued this week to U.S. citizenship and immigration services field offices, asked that they supply office of immigration litigation with 100 to 200 denaturalization cases per month in the next

fiscal year. The Times reports it would represent a massive escalation. of denaturalization in the modern era. The news comes less than two weeks after the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case to decide the constitutionality of President Trump's executive order aiming to end birthright citizenship. To talk about all of this, as well as the latest threat by the Trump administration, that was issued last night to end the visa diversity program, which leads to a green card for, so many. We're joined now by May 9, Professor of Asian American Studies and History at Columbia University. Much of her work focuses on immigration, citizenship, and nationalism. Welcome back to Democracy Now. Professor Nye, it's great to have you with us. Let's start off.

Thanks for having me, Amy. Great to be here. Explain for people who don't quite understand, what is it to be a naturalized citizen? And then what does it mean that the Trump and administration wants to revoke that citizenship from one to 200 people a month? The United States has two kinds of citizens, those who are born in this country, who are automatically citizens by birth. That's what we call birthright citizenship, and naturalized citizens, those people who are immigrants, who can apply to become a citizen after they've been here for five years, take a test on civics, have no criminal record, etc. The Constitution treats both kinds of citizens equally. Birth rights citizens and naturalized citizens are treated

the same under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. And we have naturalized close to 10 million people in the last 10 years. So there's a large number of foreign-born Americans who are citizens of this country. Now, to give you some context, and what does it mean? The mayor elect of New York, right? So Armandani is a naturalized citizen. He was born in Uganda. That's right.

And Trump has explicitly threatened to strip Mondami of his citizenship. So keep going with your explanation now. Okay. So to give you some context, what does it mean to say they want 100 to 200 cases per month. During the first Trump administration, they had 25 cases per year. And before that, for the 15 years before the first Trump administration, they had fewer than 15 cases per year. So this is an incredible escalation. I want to say that it's doubtful that they can actually do this, that they can bring that many cases, or that they can successfully prosecute.

that many cases. But it's like the mass deportation program. You know, they have no way to reach their goal of 3,000 ICE arrests per month, but they have spread terror and fear throughout immigrant communities, and now that is going to spread to our fellow citizens who are naturalized. So how does this happen? How does it start? If I were a naturalized citizen, I get a notice that I am going to lose my citizenship? No, they can't do that. DHS or citizen immigration services cannot unilaterally revoke your citizenship. They have to go to a U.S. attorney, and the U.S. attorney's office has to file a civil suit in federal

court and it has to go before a judge. So it's a long process. Every individual case has to be tried. And let me say, Amy, the grounds to denaturalize a citizen are very, very narrow, very narrow indeed. You have to show that the citizen lied on their application in a way that was meaningful to the outcome. So, for example, we mostly know about people who are war criminals who hid their past, people who were members of the Nazi Party during World War II. Those are the most famous cases. So you have to have misrepresented yourself and hidden or committed fraud on your application about something that would have been consequential.

Now, in June, the Trump administration expanded the list of reasons why they could revoke somebody's naturalization. These include association with gangs or cartels, people who have been involved in human trafficking, people who have committed financial fraud against the government or private individuals or entities. That's an interesting one. And so they have expanded the grounds considerably. And speaking of Mandani, I think one of the things we have to be very concerned about is their use of political difference with the Trump administration. I can imagine that they will selectively try to prosecute American citizens who are naturalized, who have spoken out against Israel's

genocide in Gaza. You know, Mandani has been accused of being, you know, a Hamas supporter, which is not true, but he does support Palestine. So this is going to be, I think, a new ground upon which we see the struggle for a political speech. You say that both birthright citizenship and naturalized citizenship are protected by the 14th Amendment. So go now to birthright citizenship and what's going before the Supreme Court. On day one of Trump taking office, he declared he was going to reviv, uh, deny birthright citizenship to babies born to undocumented migrants and temporary immigrants,

people like foreign students or guest workers. Now, this has been challenged in the courts. It's been turned down by several circuit courts, and now it's before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear it. And this is something that has over 100 years of precedents in our country, and this would be a terrible blow if Trump were to or if the Supreme Court were to uphold Trump's executive order. And explain what birthright citizenship is? It simply means that any person born on the soil of the United States, save for those who are born to foreign diplomats or an invading army,

which we don't have that circumstance. But anybody born on U.S. soil is, by that fact, a citizen of the United States. and there are, I think, some 300,000 babies born every year to people who are undocumented or temporary immigrants who have citizenship. I'm a birthright citizen. Explain. My parents were immigrants, but I'm a birthright citizen. Well, I was born in this country.

I was born in the Bronx. My parents were immigrants. They had come from China. And they later became naturalized citizens, but the time I was born, they were immigrants. And I was born here, and so I'm a citizen. So let's go to President Trump speaking from the White House in June about his plans to end birthright citizenship. We can now promptly file to proceed with numerous policies that have been wrongly

enjoined on a nationwide basis. And some of the cases we're talking about would be. ending birthright citizenship, which now comes to the fore. That was meant for the babies of slaves. It wasn't meant for people trying to scam the system and come into the country on a vacation.

This was, in fact, it was the same date, the exact same date, the end of the Civil War. It was meant for the babies of slaves and it's so clean and so obvious. But this lets us go there and finally win that case because hundreds of thousands of people are pouring into our country

under birthright citizenship. And it wasn't wasn't meant for that reason. So talk about what is meant for, Professor Nye. Well, it was originally meant for the babies of the former slaves. That is true. But it was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1898 in a Chinese case called Wang K. Mark. And the court said that it applied to the children of immigrants as well, including Chinese

immigrants, which the court had no great love for. And at that time, the court said, if we eliminate birthright citizenship for the Chinese, the citizenship of all the children of all the Europeans who've come here would be in jeopardy. So the court knew that this was a far-reaching provision of the Constitution, and it upheld it. And it's been upheld, you know, ever since. And I wanted to go what happened just last night. The Trump administration has suspended the diversity, visa lottery program in the wake of the mass shooting at Brown University and the murder of the

MIT physics professor Nuno Laredo. The suspect, which seems to be the same person in both cases, was found dead in a New Hampshire storage facility, a self-inflicted wound, a name Claudio Manuel Neves Valente. He entered the country on a student visa in 2000. he went to Brown, apparently, as a physics graduate student, was in that building where the young people were shot up this past weekend. So we got a visa, a student visa in 2000, and then apparently was granted a green card through the visa diversity program in 2017. Now the Trump administration is saying, based on this one person, they're going to end this?

What exactly is the diversity visa program, what's called a green card program, and what would it mean? First of all, I want to say that utter tragedy, what happened at Brown and MIT, and this is typical of the Trump administration to weaponize unfortunate instances like this to pursue a different agenda. The diversity visa program was passed by Congress in 1990. It allows for 50,000 green cards to be given to people in a lottery system. Now, people may know that the regular system, you have to have a family member in this country or a guarantee of employment from an employer. So the diversity option through the lottery is just for anybody. Now, they instituted that in 1990 in the hope.

of bringing in more white people, Irish, you know, Eastern Europeans, etc. But what happened in the diversity was that a lot of people who got the lottery were from Africa or other countries. So they've been calls in Congress to get rid of it because it's not what it was intended for, which was to make the immigration stream more white. And I think all of these things are just indices of the Trump administration's bigger agenda, which is to make this country a white Christian nation, to strip people of their citizenship. They're going to go after certain kinds of people. Obviously, we see in the mass deportation system, we see in their end to the amnesty programs and refugee programs, and we see in the attempt to eliminate the diversity, which actually has to be done

by Congress. But, you know, they do all these things because they don't like the color or the politics of the people who come to this country. Last quick question. A federal judge this week ruled the Trump administration broke the law by limiting Congress members' access to ICE jails. Can you talk about the significance of this? We have 20 seconds. Well, the Trump administration acts with no oversight whatsoever, whether it's a Supreme Court or Congress. He is acting like a dictator, an authoritarian, and it's just a terrible thing, and the American people have to protest and oppose these. Maynai, we want to thank you so much for being with us, Professor of Asian American Studies and History at Columbia University, author of several books, including the award-winning impossible. subjects, illegal aliens, and the making of modern America. That does it for our show. Democracy Now

currently accepting applications for our video news production and digital fellowship programs. Learn more at DemocracyNow.org. I'm Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.