A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Now Lost in Salvadoran Prison System
A new court order Friday in federal court in south Texas, first flagged by Politico’s Kyle Cheney, reveals that another Salvadoran national has been unlawfully deported twice by the Trump administration in the past eight months in violation of separate orders by a federal judge and an immigration judge.
In an under-the-radar case reminiscent of the brutalization of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Nelson Ariel Umanzor Chavez was deported to Mexico in November despite a federal court’s temporary restraining order barring the administration from removing him from the United States. As in the Abrego Garcia case, the court ordered the administration to facilitate his return from Mexico and he was in fact returned to the U.S. by the end of November.
But then in January — despite a 2019 immigration court order barring his removal to his native country because he was “more likely than not to be tortured” there — the administration deported him to El Salvador anyway, where he was immediately imprisoned.
His condition and the exact location of his detention remain unknown.
“Salvadoran authorities have transferred Petitioner between prisons and his family has not been provided information regarding his current location, his condition, or whether he is alive,” according to the latest court order, citing a declaration filed in the case.
Umanzor Chavez unlawfully entered the United States in 2015 but was released as an unaccompanied minor. His asylum claim was rejected in 2019, but he was granted withholding of removal to El Salvador under the Convention Against Torture. He appears from the court order to have remained free for a decade, until he was detained in May 2025 in Baltimore during an ICE check-in.
In his order Friday laying out the circumstances of the case, U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. (a Trump appointee) denied the relief Umanzor Chavez was seeking because his request was based on his earlier deportation to Mexico, not his more recent deportation to El Salvador. The judge gave him until next month to amend his pleadings to challenge the second deportation.
Houston ICE Shooting: No Drugs in Van
The substance that the FBI found in the work van being driven by Lorenzo Salgado Araujo when he was shot and killed by an ICE agent tested negative for narcotics or illicit drugs, the House district attorney announced Friday. The fact that the news came not from the FBI but from the local prosecutor reinforced suspicions that the Trump administration had tried to sully the victim’s reputation. For reasons which remain unclear, the search warrant for the van which revealed the FBI’s suspicion of meth was unsealed unusually early in the case amidst outrage over the shooting.
ICE Plans to Target Haitians
With the Supreme Court ending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) protection for more than 300,000 Haitians, ICE is planning for a potential arrest and deportation blitz, CBS News reports.
Boat Strike Watch: Grisly Stats Edition
A new report from the Washington Office on Latin America says the death toll from President Trump’s lawless high seas campaign against alleged drug-smuggling boats is 221.
But despite the illegal carnage, the campaign is failing to achieve its own stated objective of strangling drug trafficking by sea, the WaPo reports:
The Trump administration’s deadly military strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats have not reduced the amount of cocaine entering the United States, but they’re prompting criminal organizations to develop new strategies and tactics and undermining traditional investigative methods, according to a previously unreported assessment by the Drug Enforcement Administration, a closed-door congressional briefing and interviews with current and former U.S. and foreign officials.
Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon
- NYT: An Admiral’s Rise Reveals the Politics Driving Hegseth’s Pentagon
- WaPo: After Trump’s order, West Point curbed faculty speech. One professor said no.
NYT Still Crushing It on Air Force One
Undaunted by the Trump DOJ’s unlawful subpoenaing of five of its reporters, the New York Times continues to crank out new stories on President Trump’s scandalous new Air Force One boondoggle:
- Inside the Rushed Effort to Get Trump His New Air Force One
- Iranian Threat to Air Force One Prompted Plane Swap During NATO Summit
- VIDEO: How Trump’s New Air Force One Poses Potential Security Risks
- In Rush to Track Down Leaks, Justice Dept. Reversed Its Own Process
Exporting the MAGA Vision Abroad
Over the weekend, Brazil announced that it denied visas to two senior State Department officials — assistant secretary Riley M. Barnes and deputy assistant secretary Samuel Samson — who were being dispatched by the Trump administration “on a mission to cast doubt on the fairness and integrity of the country’s electoral system” ahead of the Oct. 4 presidential election, the WaPo reports.
Trump Loses on Election Meddling Gambit
The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals handed the administration an important loss Friday when it declined to pause a lower court order that blocked the administration from moving ahead on President Trump’s executive order purporting to revamp mail voting ahead of the midterm elections.
The Retribution: Blue State Edition
In a little-noticed court filing, the Trump administration admitted that it canceled $7.5 billion in federal clean energy grants “based solely” on the projects being in states that voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.
MAHA: Measles Cases Soar
NYT: “More measles cases have been reported in the United States in the last two years than in all the years from 2000 through 2024 combined.”
Sad Trombone
The White House Correspondents Dinner — interrupted in the spring by a gunman’s assassination attempt — finished up over the weekend. It was … something:
News? Tips? Feedback? Please let me know. For sensitive information, use the encrypted methods here.
frist!
Making friends and influencing people.
Russia still on top on the odium scale, but we’re gaining.
Time to walk. Already 87°F in Tucson.
Go for it! Don’t TACO out on this one!! It will have unbelievable results…at the midterms.
Today’s Heather and Paul: