Detainees stand by a window inside the federal immigration center at Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, where US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is housing detained immigrants on May 26, 2026. (Photo by Adam Gray/Getty Images)
“Hiding prisoners from the courts is unconstitutional,” said one expert.
Critics reacted with horror to a Monday report from The Associated Press detailing how US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has abruptly ended its practice of disclosing the locations of thousands of detainees.
According to the AP, ICE “has stopped publicly revealing where it is holding… detainees who are subject to final deportation orders, an unannounced move that has made it far more difficult for lawyers and relatives to find them.”
Immigration attorneys who spoke with the AP said that their clients had “vanished” from the system after ICE removed them from its online detainee locator system last week.
Greg Chen, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told the AP that families of detainees “are freaking out because they think the person has been deported and they don’t know where the person might be.”
Chen added that the new policy has “serious implications” for attorneys’ ability to make contact with their clients.
Michelle Mendez, legal director at the National Immigration Project, told the AP that the new policy is “just another iteration of disappearing people.”
“Why would we do that in the United States of America?” Mendez asked. “It’s something we’d hear about in another country and be concerned about individual rights and due process.”
Tom Jawetz, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, echoed Mendez’s analysis, writing in a social media post that the AP report reveals “an official government policy of disappearing people,” as “systems for attorneys and loved ones to know where—even whether—a person with a final removal order is in ICE custody have been wiped clean.”
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, described the new ICE policy as “unprecedented” for US immigration enforcement.
“People who have been detained for months are suddenly disappearing from the locator system—even if they haven’t been moved anywhere,” Reichlin-Melnick explained. “And people newly arrested are not showing up at all, their location now hidden from view.”
Georgetown University political scientist Jonathan Ladd argued that the ICE policy was a fundamental violation of long-established rights in the US that date to before the country’s official founding.
“The government moving or hiding jailed people to avoid review by courts isn’t some loophole in our habeas corpus rights,” Ladd explained. “This government behavior has been considered a violation of the people’s habeas corpus rights since at least the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679.”
Ladd further pointed out that “habeas corpus rights are guaranteed by Article I of our Constitution,” which means “hiding prisoners from the courts is unconstitutional.”
Journalist Gillian Brockell observed that the new ICE policy “will make it nearly impossible to file habeas petitions, because attorneys won’t even know what federal district their client has been moved to to stage for their removal.”
Among those sharing the AP report on social media was Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, an attorney for Wilbur Rafael Garces Perez, a 28-year-old Venezuelan shot by ICE in Austin, Texas on Sunday.
Initially, she and the immigrant’s wife could not make contact with him, because ICE moved him from the hospital “to an undisclosed location,” but Lincoln-Goldfinch said Monday afternoon that her client “is being held at Pearsall for interrogation.”
“We got Wilber on the phone live from detention at the press conference,” the attorney added. “He says he still has the bullet lodged in his shoulder. He says he is not doing well and has not received the medical care he needs.”
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Hundreds of people protest against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement outside Austin City Hall in Austin, Texas, on January 10, 2026. (Photo by Stephanie Tacy/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
“ICE has been terrorizing our country for far too long,” said Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar, who represents the district where the shooting occurred.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and wounded a man in Austin, Texas on Sunday, prompting demands for an independent investigation and renewed calls from progressive lawmakers and activists to abolish ICE amid the Trump administration’s deadly immigration crackdown.
Local ABC affiliate KVUE reported that the shooting occurred in the 7000 block of West Anderson Lane, near the intersection of Research Boulevard and Anderson Square. An unidentified man was taken to a hospital. His condition was initially unclear; the Austin American-Statesman later reported that he was alert and talking.
The circumstances leading to the shooting are under investigation.
Independent journalist Emiliano Tahui Gómez spoke with two witnesses.
“Nedevia Bolaños and her husband, Carlos, own a business just off the intersection where the shooting happened,” Gómez reported on social media. “Shortly before 1 pm they say they heard what sounded like two gunshots. Carlos ran out first. A blue Toyota sedan and a black Escalade were stopped under the highway.”
Carlos said he saw a man who looked like he was in his 30s “leaning backwards against his seat. A masked agent was standing outside the car. The agent refused to answer questions. Within a few minutes, as many as 10 other ICE agents arrived.”
Gómez continued:
Carlos asked the victim if he was ok. “Yes,” the man said in Spanish, but he looked exhausted. Carlos asked why they had shot him. “Because I didn’t stop.”
Bolaños ran up next. She said she continuously asked the ICE agents about why they’d shot him and if they were going to render aid. They didn’t answer her. It was an [Austin Police Department] officer who later arrived and cut open the young man’s shirt, revealing a deep hole between his shoulder blades.
The ambulance arrived about 10 minutes after and carried him off.
“I’ve never seen all this. Thank God I’m a citizen,” Bolaños said in Spanish. “Or I’d be living like this. In a dream of terror.”
CBS Austin reporter Vinny Martorano said on social media that Austin City Councilman Mike Siegel told him that “an ICE agent, who is well-known in the city’s Latino community, sideswiped the man’s car. Then the officer got out and shot the driver five times through the windshield.”
Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas)—who represents the district where the shooting occurred—said on social media that “the horror has come to our city: ICE has shot a person in Austin this morning.”
“As the facts emerge, I am demanding a full, independent investigation, immediate release of the body camera footage, and accountability for any ICE officer who broke the law,” he continued. “Over and over, ICE has shot people and then lied about what happened. We can see the lies with our own eyes. We will demand truth, transparency, and accountability.”
“Just like Americans have from Minneapolis to Houston, Austinites will speak out peacefully against this deadly mass deportation machine,” Casar added. “ICE has been terrorizing our country for far too long. We will not be silent.”
Breaking: ICE shot and injured a man in Austin, Texas, earlier today. Trump has allowed ICE to flood our streets and put our communities in harms way again and again and Governor Abbott is complicit every time.I am demanding the body camera footage and full accountability.
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, a Democrat, said at a press conference: “I’m very angry about this. I’m extremely unhappy. A person being shot on the streets of Austin by someone purporting to be law enforcement, particularly when it’s ICE, is something that causes me to be unhappy and angry about it.”
“And while I’m unhappy and I’m angry about it, I’m not surprised at all,” he added. “It’s happened in other cities with the nature of ICE and the way ICE is doing its business these days and the chaos that we see it performing and fomenting. There’s no reason for us to be surprised by it.”
Texas state Rep. Vikki Goodwin (D-47), who is running for lieutenant governor, said that “this violence cannot continue.”
“This weekend, after abusing and hurting peaceful protesters in Illinois, they have just shot another person in Austin, Texas,” she added. “The pattern is clear. The agency can’t be reformed. I’ve heard the community: I am ready to melt ICE and dismantle DHS! My colleagues in Congress should be too.”
Sunday’s shooting came 10 weeks after an ICE agent fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican man, in Houston. Salgado’s death followed a series of shootings involving federal immigration agents, including the January killing of US citizens Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
A letter sent in July by Democratic lawmakers to DHS officials noted that agents had shot at least 22 people since President Donald Trump’s return to office, with six of those shootings fatal. The lawmakers said that in multiple cases, federal authorities had made allegations against shooting victims that were later contradicted by evidence.
More than 50 people have died in ICE custody during Trump’s second term.
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President Donald Trump, with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, mimics firing a rifle while speaking to reporters at a briefing on Monday, April 6, 2026 at the White House in Washington, DC. (Photo by Maxine Wallace/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“International humanitarian law cannot authorize the United States’ attacks,” wrote human rights expert Ben Saul.
In a report on the Trump administration’s bombing of dozens of boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean over the past year, a top United Nations rights expert dismissed President Donald Trump’s claim that the military campaign has been in “self-defense” against “designated terrorist organizations,” and warned that the evidence collected about the strikes could point to crimes against humanity being committed by the United States.
Ben Saul, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, concurred with numerous human rights experts as he said Monday that even if the boats targeted by the US had been engaged in drug trafficking—the central claim of Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as they’ve defended the operation—there are no “international legal rights to unilaterally use military force” to counter drug cartels or other organized crime groups.
He noted that Trump last October notified Congress that the strikes were part of a “non-international armed conflict,” governed by the law of armed conflict, as his administration highlighted the threat of “narco-terrorists.”
“The United States military attacks are, however, contrary to international law, violate the human right to life, and plausibly constitute crimes against humanity,” wrote Saul.
He added that the killings could reasonably constitute “crimes against humanity of murder under customary international law,” noting that such crimes generally require “that murder (or attempted murder) was committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population.”
Saul compared the bombings to the alleged crimes of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, whose own “war on drugs” included the state killings of thousands of Filipinos accused of trafficking narcotics. Duterte, noted Saul, “is on trial for alleged crimes against humanity of murder for targeting suspected criminals, or criminals having criminal propensities, including drug offenders.”
The special rapporteur’s report pertains to attacks up until August, but came days after the US military said it had killed four more people aboard a vessel in the Caribbean. At least 234 people have been killed in the attacks by US Southern Command so far, in at least 70 strikes.
As with its previous bombings, US Southern Command did not release any evidence in its latest attack that the target was a boat involved in drug trafficking. US Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) emphasized at a hearing in June that the “targeting criteria” the military has used in the boat bombing campaign has never included “evidence of narcotics on the boat,” and data from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has shown little to no evidence that the flow of drugs into the US has decreased since the bombings began more than a year ago.
In addition to some people who may have been involved in narcotics trafficking, the report reads, “some victims have reportedly included fishermen, migrants, and victims of human trafficking.” The families of some victims have filed legal complaints over their killings.
Moreoever, said Saul, “even assuming that the vessels and crew attacked were members of the criminal groups listed as terrorist, such organizations have not mounted any ‘armed attack’ on the United States so as to trigger a right of self-defense.”
“Deaths from illicit drugs are not assimilable to an armed attack under international law,” he wrote, despite Hegseth’s insistence that the US aims to protect the country from “the drugs that are killing our people.”
Instead of being legitimate attacks in self-defense, wrote Saul, the bombings “amount to serial extrajudicial killings in violation of the right to life, being unjustified in national or personal self-defense or under international humanitarian law, the international law of the sea, narcotics suppression conventions, or international counterterrorism law.”
“International humanitarian law cannot authorize the United States’ attacks,” he added.
Saul said the military campaign, which the Trump administration has recently expanded to include land attacks in Latin American countries, may violate Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which was ratified by the US in 1992.
The report was filed as world leaders gathered in New York for the UN General Assembly and weeks after US Southern Command announced its campaign in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific was expanding to include operations inside countries in Latin America, with leaders who are aligned with Trump hosting joint military operations. The US has particularly deepened military ties with Ecuador in recent months, with the partnership reportedly resulting in torture, arbitrary detentions, and disappearances.
“International law on the right to life,” wrote Saul, “applies to any extraterritorial military or law enforcement action against criminal groups.”
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Demonstrators rally outside the US Consulate in Nuuk, Greenland on January 17, 2026 to protest President Donald Trump’s designs on the autonomous Danish territory. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
“Trump did an incredible job negotiating for things we already had in Greenland,” said one US critic.
Danish and international commentators dismissed President Donald Trump’s claim that the deal he announced Friday gives the United States “permanent control” over Greenland’s security as what one journalist called a “repackaging” of long-standing agreements spun as a foreign policy win.
Trump—who has repeatedly threatened to gain control of the autonomous Danish territory, including by military force—said on his Truth Social network: “I am pleased to announce that the United States of America has entered into an Agreement with The Kingdom of Denmark, and Greenland, that gives the United States permanent control over security, and all other needs, in Greenland, completely addressing ALL of our many US concerns. There will be NO COST to the United States!”
“Additionally, from now on, no US adversary can EVER have a base in Greenland, have a military presence in Greenland, or make sensitive investments in Greenland, without our express written approval,” the president continued. “This is an ‘Infinite Life’ Agreement, there is no end!”
“We look forward to working with the wonderful people of Denmark and Greenland toward a magnificent future with respect to this large, and highly strategic, parcel of land,” Trump added. “We will be very protective of it! This is a dream come true for the United States of America, one that is very important, historic, and special.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubiohailed what he called a “historic deal” and “a huge win for the United States and the American people.”
A joint statement released by the office of Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Jens-Frederik Nielsen, who chairs the Naalakkersuisut—Greenland’s governing body—confirmed that “Greenland, Denmark, and the United States are expected to sign an agreement on strengthened security in the Arctic and the North Atlantic area next week” at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Frederiksen stressed that the agreement “recognizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom [of Denmark] and the Greenlandic people’s right to self-determination,” while Nielsen said the pact “is to the benefit of us all.”
While the official text of the deal is not yet public, observers said it is unclear how it differs from the terms of a Cold War-era agreement that already gives the US broad military access to Greenland.
“In terms of rights, they were already allowed quite a lot under the original agreement,” Mikkel Runge Olesen, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen, said of the United States in a Saturday interview with The New York Times. “Is there anything here that one could not have achieved without this crisis?”
Trump did an incredible job negotiating for things we already had in Greenland.
University of Maryland government and politics professor David Karol said on Bluesky that “this seems to be largely a rebranding of the status quo to claim a win.”
Karol likened the Greenland deal to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that replaced the Clinton-era North American Free Trade Agreement—which Trump called the “worst trade deal ever made”—during the president’s first term. Critics noted that differences between the two pacts were “mostly cosmetic,” as one expert put it.
As the illegal US-Israeli war of choice against Iran dragged on with no end in sight, the US president also pursued a deal to end the conflict that observers noted was broadly similar, and even more favorable to Tehran, to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—better known as the Iran nuclear deal—signed during the Obama administration and unilaterally abandoned by Trump during his first term, despite Iranian compliance.
Sofie Pultz, an international policy research fellow at the progressive UK think tank Institute for Public Policy Research, told LBC on Saturday that “it does sound like the Americans have accepted a repackaging of all deals and agreements, maybe with Denmark footing some of the defense bill. But overall, there’s not a lot of new stuff in here.”
🇬🇱🇩🇰 “Don’t tell Trump, the Kingdom of Denmark won.”
Danish commentator Sophie Pultz told LBC the Greenland agreement largely repackages rights Washington already held under its 1951 defense treaty: broad basing rights, exclusion of adversaries and an effectively permanent pact.… https://t.co/W0UKI0Jtxtpic.twitter.com/TCTDYQO3cl
Some Danish commentators were more blunt in their assessment of the deal. Henrik Højgaard Sejerkilde wrote for Jyllands-Posten that “everything suggests that Donald Trump’s agreement on the military presence in Greenland is a flea market find, found in diplomatic recycling.”
Moderne diplomati med Trump er åbenbart kunsten at genforhandle en aftale fra 1951, sætte en stor shiney glitrende sløjfe på den og sige; "Se, Donny. Den har DU vundet, fordi du er så god!" – på sin vis er det jo smukt pædagogisk arbejde overfor narcissister.
Other Danish observers expressed relief that what many viewed as an utterly unnecessary clash between two NATO allies has seemingly been defused.
“One can hope that the crisis of Greenland ends here—but one can never be sure,” Jacob Heinel Jensen of the Danish daily newspaper Berlingske said. “There is reason to be cautiously optimistic that this nonsense of taking over Greenland is now over. But with Trump, you can never be sure.”
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Mobilization in Caracas demanding the return of Nicolás Maduro. Photo: Francisco Trias
The implications of this case extend far beyond Venezuela. The entire process against Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores threatens to establish the US court system as one with global and unlimited jurisdiction.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is not guilty. This is a statement of law and fact, since Maduro has not been convicted of any crime. He has pleaded not guilty to every charge brought against him, and the accusations made by the United States remain precisely that: accusations. Under the presumption of innocence – recognized in the United States Constitution and in Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – the burden rests entirely upon the prosecution to prove guilt. It is not Maduro who must prove his innocence, but it is the United States government that must prove his guilt.
On January 3, 2026, United States forces illegally entered Venezuela, attacked targets in and around Caracas, seized President Maduro and his wife and an elected official, Cilia Flores, and transported them to the United States. Two days later, shackled and injured, Maduro appeared before a federal court in Manhattan. “I am innocent. I am not guilty,” he told the court. Both defendants entered pleas of not guilty and are now imprisoned in Brooklyn while awaiting a trial provisionally scheduled for June 2027.
The charges against Maduro
The United States alleges that Maduro participated in conspiracies to import cocaine, possess machine guns and destructive devices, and collaborate with organizations Washington has designated as terrorist groups. These charges developed out of an indictment announced during Donald Trump’s first presidency in March 2020. The case was substantially expanded after Maduro was kidnapped through a fourth superseding indictment. An indictment, however, is not evidence tested before a court. It is a document prepared by prosecutors and approved through a grand-jury proceeding at which the defense is normally neither represented nor permitted to challenge the government’s account.
The prosecution relies heavily upon the idea that Maduro directed the so-called Cartel de los Soles, or Cartel of the Suns. But even organizations deeply hostile to the Venezuelan government acknowledge that this is not a cartel in the conventional sense. The name has long been used as an umbrella expression for disparate Venezuelan officials allegedly involved in criminal activity, long before Maduro entered political life. It does not describe an organization with a demonstrated membership, command structure, headquarters or chain of authority comparable to Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel. When Washington designated the Cartel de los Soles a foreign terrorist organization in 2025, the Associated Pressnoted that it was “not a cartel per se.”
This matters because the prosecution’s language performs much of its political work. Allegations concerning individual acts of corruption are assembled into the image of a unified organization, the organization is then attributed to the Venezuelan state, and responsibility for everything allegedly done by anyone within that loose network is placed upon Maduro. The indictment must still demonstrate that Maduro knowingly joined the specific conspiracies charged. Political authority over a state in which crimes occur does not by itself establish personal criminal responsibility for those crimes.
Case is dead on arrival
Venezuela is not a major producer of coca leaf or cocaine. The principal cocaine-producing countries remain Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. Venezuela has been used as a transit territory, particularly for cocaine originating in neighboring Colombia. But transit through a country does not prove that its president commands the traffic, and nor does it substantiate the extravagant political image of Venezuela as the central source of the drugs entering the United States. The US Drug Enforcement Administration’s own 2025 threat assessment concentrated overwhelmingly upon Mexican organizations and their supply chains. The global cocaine trade operates primarily through production in the Andean region, maritime export corridors, Central America and Mexico, not through a single organization supposedly commanded from the Venezuelan presidential palace. The International Criminal Court’s investigation into the situation in Venezuela, for example, is an investigation into alleged crimes within its jurisdiction. It is not a conviction of Maduro and has not produced an individual judgment of guilt against him.
The US government is expected to rely upon cooperating witnesses, including former Venezuelan intelligence chief Hugo Carvajal and former general Clíver Alcalá. Both men pleaded guilty to serious offenses in the United States. Their evidence cannot be treated as disinterested truth. Cooperating defendants may hope to obtain sentencing benefits by assisting prosecutors. Their claims must therefore be corroborated and subjected to cross-examination. Until that happens, their statements do not establish Maduro’s guilt. In fact, it is better to see their statements as proof of their own attempt to lighten their sentences and launder their soiled reputations.
The circumstances under which Maduro was brought before the US court create an even deeper problem. Washington did not request extradition through an agreed legal process. It employed military force within another sovereign country without Venezuela’s consent or authorization from the United Nations Security Council. Article 2(4) of the UN Charter prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of a state, subject to narrow exceptions such as self-defence. Arresting a person accused of drug offenses is not one of those exceptions. International-law specialists described the operation as an unlawful use of force, while governments including Brazil, Mexico, and China condemned the violation of Venezuelan sovereignty.
Maduro’s lawyers have argued that the prosecution violates the immunity enjoyed by an incumbent head of state. Venezuela continued to recognize Maduro as its constitutional president when the United States seized him – a fact tacitly recognized by the United States when it calls Delcy Rodriquez the Acting President. Washington cannot necessarily extinguish the international legal status of another country’s head of state merely by withholding diplomatic recognition. The defense has consequently requested dismissal of the indictment on immunity grounds and has separately challenged the narco-terrorism count for lacking an adequate jurisdictional connection to the United States. Oral argument on these questions is scheduled for November 2026.
The case of former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández exposes the selectivity of Washington’s supposed war against narco-states. Hernández was a close US ally during his presidency from 2014 to 2022. After leaving office, he was extradited – not abducted through a military invasion – and tried in the same federal district in New York where Maduro is now being prosecuted. In March 2024, a jury convicted Hernández after a three-week trial. Prosecutors presented evidence that he had accepted millions of dollars from traffickers, protected cocaine shipments with the Honduran police and military, and helped move more than 400 tons of cocaine towards the United States. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison. Unlike the claims against Maduro, these allegations were tested through testimony, cross-examination and a jury verdict. Yet on December 1, 2025, President Donald Trump pardoned Hernández and secured his release, claiming that the former president had been treated unfairly.
The contrast could hardly be more revealing. Trump pardoned a former president whose participation in cocaine trafficking had been established in a US courtroom, while threatening and eventually invading Venezuela to seize a president against whom no verdict had been rendered. Hernández belonged to Washington’s political camp; Maduro did not. One was released despite his conviction, while the other was captured despite his legal innocence. This disparity does not by itself disprove the accusations against Maduro, but it demolishes the claim that Washington acted from a consistent concern about narcotics. The determining distinction was political alignment, not the strength of the evidence.
The implications of this case extend far beyond the specific circumstances of Maduro and Cilia Flores or their consequences for Venezuela. Allowing a foreign state to override the jurisdiction of another country’s legal system, pursue an accusation for which there is no evidence, and proceed with a trial that lacks a basis in international law effectively establishes the US court system as one with global and unlimited jurisdiction. The ambivalence of governments around the world toward this case is therefore alarming, as it risks signalling consent and normalizing such gross overreach. This is particularly relevant for Mexico, which is already facing a series of accusations and extradition demands from the United States with clear political implications. The outcome of Maduro’s trial could set an important precedent for how Mexico – and other countries – are treated in similar circumstances.
Nicolás Maduro is not guilty therefore expresses the only defensible conclusion at this stage. He was seized through an act of military force, placed before the courts of the state that had pursued his overthrow for years, and charged based on a politically constructed theory that has yet to survive adversarial examination. He remains innocent unless and until admissible evidence proves otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt. Sovereignty is not an ornament, an indictment is not a verdict, and an accusation issued by a powerful state does not become truth merely because that state possesses the weapons to seize the accused.
Stephanie Weatherbee Brito is the co-coordinator of the International Peoples Assembly (IPA).
Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian and journalist. He is the author of forty books, including Washington Bullets, Red Star Over the Third World, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South, and How the International Monetary Fund Suffocates Africa, written with Grieve Chelwa. He is the executive director ofTricontinental: Institute for Social Research, the chief correspondent for Globetrotter, and the chief editor ofLeftWord Books(New Delhi). He also appeared in the films Shadow World (2016) and Two Meetings (2017).
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