The Trump administration’s harsh immigration policies create fear and concrete consequences for immigrants in the USA. The growing climate of insecurity is illustrated by cases like that of a Mexican student mistakenly arrested, a Cuban rapper threatened with deportation and the withdrawal of visas for artists and foreign students.
Among these cases is that of Ximena Arias. The young 19-year-old woman, an undocumented university student, was mistakenly arrested against the backdrop of the current United States administration’s strong immigration policies.
She was stopped for an alleged traffic offence in the city of Dalton, in Georgia, and ended up in a centre belonging to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). They had the wrong driver.
Local media published the news recently: The Georgia police officer who arrested Ximena has resigned from the department.
Ximena arrived in the United States from her native Mexico when she was four years old and now faces the risk of deportation. The ICE allowed her to return to her home on 22nd May after an immigration judge granted her bail.
Nobody escapes?
A pro-Donald Trump rapper from Cuba known as “El Funky” could be on the verge of deportation, says Politico magazine.
At the beginning of this month, the United States immigration authorities refused the application for residency from Eliéxer Márquez Duany (the rapper’s real name).
He has less than 30 days to leave the United States or face expulsion. This is the same rapper who in 2021 received support from federal congress representatives who embrace the anti-Cuban policy, among them the then-senator Marco Rubio.
But now it is different. The rapper’s current situation is “striking in several ways”, the magazine article indicated. “Firstly, it illustrates how much Rubio has changed during the Trump administration; if the Cuban rapper had received a similar notification just a year ago, it is difficult to imagine that Rubio would not have spoken up,” it noted.
Visa withdrawn
Julión Álvarez, a singer of regional Mexican music, was unable to perform in the United States. The Trump administration’s new policies appear to be behind what happened.
Álvarez announced on social media that the visa allowing him to work in the northern country had been withdrawn.
His upcoming performances have been cancelled until further notice.
The singer of “Tu perfume” (“Your Scent”) said the notification of the visa withdrawal was issued just hours before he was due to board an aeroplane bound for Arlington, Texas, the city where he was to have performed on 24th May, according to the newspaper La Opinión.
“The event will not take place as our work visas have been withdrawn,” Álvarez explained in a video shared on his official Instagram account and tagged as an “urgent statement”.
Panic at Harvard
Foreign students at Harvard university say they are experiencing “sheer panic” in the face of the Trump government’s measure banning international student registrations.
Many fear their visas could be revoked, their research halted and that they could be prevented from returning to the United States if they leave this summer, CNN reported.
A federal judge blocked the measure temporarily after the country’s oldest and richest university lodged a lawsuit in a federal court explaining its arguments for rejecting the Republican administration’s decision to eliminate the Student and Exchange Visitor Programme.
Harvard asserted that the measure was “a clear reprisal” for its refusal to accept the government’s markedly political demands. A significant number of students feel in limbo and are “clearly very scared” because they don’t know their current legal status, declared Abdullah Shahid Sial, co-president of the student body at the university, to the news channel. PL
(Translated by Philip Walker – Email: philipwalkertranslation@gmail.com) – Photos: Pixabay
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