The faces behind Trump’s deportation policies

Even after Donald Trump won the 2024 election, it was unclear what exactly his immigration policy would look like. Trump had pledged to deport anyone living in the country illegally. Yet some of his advisers — including Vice President JD Vance and Tom Homan, his border czar — said the administration would prioritize people with criminal records or who threatened national security.

In practice, things seem to have escalated. The administration has certainly detained undocumented people convicted of crimes. But it has also detained people without criminal records, like a teenager in Lynn and the Peruvian wife of a US citizen. And it has detained or deported people with legal status in the United States whose threat to national security is unclear.

Here are three recent cases the Globe has documented around New England, and the questions they raise.

Border Patrol detained Herrera, a 17-year-old living in Lewiston, Maine, last month as he rode with his uncle to his first day of work at a construction site. Herrera entered the United States at 12 as an unaccompanied minor. Federal authorities are now holding him in New York, more than 300 miles from his mother and siblings. Herrera’s mother told my colleague Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio that an immigration official said he would likely be deported to El Salvador and that she could join him if she wished.

Immigration advocates fear that cases of undocumented children separated from their families, like Herrera’s, will become more common. “Agents across the country are racing to increase arrest numbers at any cost, unnecessarily separating children from their loving families,” one lawyer told Giulia. (Border officials say that the law requires them to transfer minors to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which runs the facility holding Herrera.)

Immigration authorities deported Alawieh, a well-regarded kidney transplant doctor at Brown Medicine and Rhode Island Hospital, to Lebanon last week after she returned from visiting her parents there. Alawieh was deported despite a judge’s order and had a valid H-1B visa. Officials claim that agents didn’t get the order in time, although a lawyer has disputed that.

The case took a turn yesterday when federal prosecutors said that border agents had questioned Alawieh about photos on her phone of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, and Hassan Nasrallah, the former leader of Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group that the US designates as a terrorist organization. Alawieh reportedly said she doesn’t support Hezbollah but attended Nasrallah’s funeral after he was killed in an Israeli airstrike because he and Khameini are religious figures for Shia Muslims. She said that others had messaged her the photos.

The Department of Homeland Security publicly accused Alawieh of “glorifying and supporting terrorists,” and all but one of her lawyers withdrew from the case yesterday. More evidence may come to light soon.

For now, the uncertainty has worried immigrants with legal status and those who work with them. “I feel like I actually am not able to give people good advice now on what factors may put them at risk,” said Nithya Nathan-Pineau of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, a national nonprofit. “That’s a very scary place to be in.” Brown University has advised students and employees with visas to avoid leaving the United States.

ICE arrested Schmidt, a German national living in New Hampshire with a green card, after he returned from visiting Germany this month, his loved ones said. No charging documents have been filed against him in immigration court, and it’s unclear why ICE detained him.

Schmidt, who has lived in the United States since his teens, faced misdemeanor charges related to drug possession and driving under the influence years ago and allegedly failed to show up to court in 2022. But court records show he attended recovery programs and paid fines, and his family said that his green card was reissued in 2023.

Schmidt’s mother also alleges that ICE mistreated him, including interrogating him for hours, stripping him, putting him in a cold shower, and giving him little food or water. Schmidt allegedly fell ill and went to the hospital in handcuffs, where he tested positive for the flu. German officials have spoken to his family and to US authorities. ICE hasn’t provided answers about his case, citing privacy concerns.

Trump’s immigration policies have had other effects, too. As the Globe reported yesterday, Canadian police recently rescued a frostbitten migrant family that tried to escape the United States into Canada. Trump’s rhetoric has helped drive the number of migrants attempting to illegally enter the United States to its lowest point in decades.

For now, those moves are popular. A recent poll found that 55 percent of voters approve of how Trump is handling border security. But polls also show that many Americans oppose deporting people who haven’t committed crimes, separating undocumented families (like Herrera’s), and deporting people who are in the US legally (like Alawieh and Schmidt). These and other immigration stories could put those polls to the test.

More on deportations:

• Over 200 of Alawieh’s friends and supporters protested her deportation at the Rhode Island State House.
• A federal judge accused the administration of defying his order that blocked it from using an 18th-century law to deport people and gave it until noon to provide additional information.
• Here’s a minute-by-minute timeline of when the flights departed and the judge issued his turnaround order.

🧩 4 Down: Harsh | ☀️ 51º Here comes the sun

Boston and New England

• Free ride: Harvard is expanding financial aid, covering all costs for families with incomes less than $100,000 and giving free tuition to those with incomes under $200,000.
• White Stadium trial: The long battle over the renovation is finally in court today, pitting Boston and a pro women’s soccer team against opponents of the project. Columnist Shirley Leung says the battle has opened an unfortunate divide between the city and a parks group it helped create.
• Physician or friend? A leading Dana-Farber oncologist gave a major donor medical advice for decades. But after the donor died, the hospital said he was a friend, not a patient.
• Bird people: Thanks to avian flu and egg shortages, there’s a growing subculture of backyard chicken owners (or renters) whose relationships with their “ladies” can be kind of “crazy.”
• Whale of a tale: Right whales are returning to Cape Cod Bay in larger numbers than in previous years, researchers say, stirring hope for the endangered species.

Trump administration

• Long-distance call: Trump and Vladimir Putin will speak today about negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. (Kyiv Independent)
• Civil rights: The administration accused three public agencies in Maine of violating Title IX by letting transgender students compete in girls’ sports.
• Insecure: Elon Musk’s cuts to the Social Security Administration could increase wait times and delay benefits, former commissioners warn. (NYT)
• Unredacted: Trump said he’ll release the government’s remaining classified files on the JFK assassination today. (USA Today)
• Tap out: Mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor was Trump’s St. Patrick’s Day guest. McGregor was found civilly liable for rape in his native Ireland, which he’s appealing. (Politico)
• Arts shakeup: Visiting the Kennedy Center after naming himself board chair, Trump declared the place in “tremendous disrepair.” (NPR) He wants more input over picking honorees. (NYT)
• No backsies: A French lawmaker said the United States should return the Statue of Liberty, an 1884 gift from France, for siding with “tyrants.” The administration said non. (Le Monde)

The Nation and the World

• Never mind: Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, postponed his book tour because so many Democrats are furious over his vote to advance a GOP spending bill. (AP)
• Encore: Conan O’Brien will host the Oscars again next year, likely because this year he increased ratings among people aged 18 to 49. (Hollywood Reporter)
• Holding space: Those two stranded astronauts will head back to Earth and could splash down near Florida this evening. (Live Science)
• Offensive exhibits: Some UK lawmakers want to end the public display of human remains in museums, including ancient Egyptian mummies, and return the remains to their countries of origin. (Guardian)

☘️ Seisiún: The Pogues and Dropkick Murphys will headline a new Irish cultural gathering and music festival at Suffolk Downs in September.

💔 ‘Love Is Blind’: In the latest season, the contestants are breaking up over politics. (NPR)

🍕 Humble pie: A Somerville pizza shop asked an unruly family to leave, sparking an online debate.

💤 Too tired or too wired? Here’s what to do if you find yourself sleepy or wide awake at the wrong time of the day or night. (CNN)

🎤 Their lucky day: Ed Sheeran played a surprise St. Patrick’s Day show at The Dubliner, a popular downtown Boston pub.

🪦 Epilogue: Carol Goldberg, who rose through Stop & Shop’s ranks as the boss’s daughter to reach the top of the corporate ladder, died at 93.

Today’s edition was edited by Teresa Hanafin and produced by Bill Geshwender and Diamond Naga Siu.

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Ian Prasad Philbrick can be reached at ian.philbrick@globe.com.