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Lawyers for Venezuelans Try Again to Stop Deportations, Now in New York

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Lawyers for Venezuelans Try Again to Stop Deportations, Now in New York

Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday renewed their efforts to prevent the Trump Administration from deporting Venezuelan migrants under a wartime powers act, asking a Manhattan judge to again block the White House from using the law.

The filing followed a Supreme Court decision on Monday that had allowed the government to resume deportations, an early ruling on an issue that has set up a major clash between President Trump and the federal judiciary.

The Supreme Court addressed few of the case’s substantive issues. Instead, it ruled on narrow procedural grounds: The justices said that, because the migrants were confined in Texas, the A.C.L.U.’s case should have been filed there, rather than in Washington.

But on Tuesday, the A.C.L.U. filed a similar petition in a New York federal court, noting that two migrants who were subject to deportation were being held in a jail in Goshen.

The administration’s efforts to deport Venezuelan migrants have set off one of the most contentious legal battles of President Trump’s second term. It began last month, after the president invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a seldom-used wartime statute from 1798, seeking to authorize the deportation of people he claimed were members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan criminal gang.

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A.C.L.U. lawyers representing the targeted migrants immediately challenged the order in Washington federal court, even as the administration sent at least 137 migrants to a prison in El Salvador. The lawyers have said the government misconstrued the Alien Enemies Act, and that the law was intended to be used only during an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” by a foreign nation or government.

The judge hearing the case, James E. Boasberg, expressed skepticism about the government’s use of the statute. He said he was concerned that the migrants had no way to contest whether they were gang members and prohibited the administration from continuing to use it as justification for deportations. It was his order that the Supreme Court overturned on Monday.

The A.C.L.U.’s petition on Tuesday sought a similar order from a New York judge, Alvin K. Hellerstein. It sought to prohibit the deportation of the two unnamed men being held in Goshen — and all others in similar situations.

The first of the men is a 21-year-old who fled Venezuela after having been threatened by members of the Tren de Aragua gang because of his sexual orientation, the A.C.L.U. said in its filing. The second is a 32-year-old who applied for asylum after having protested the actions of the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, and later fled the country, fearing that he would be imprisoned, tortured and killed for his activism.

The administration has argued that it is justified in using the Alien Enemies Act, saying that Tren de Aragua members are “dangerous aliens who pose threats to the American people.”

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Critics of the government have raised concerns about the misidentification of some of the migrants, who were quickly moved out of the country without being given a chance to challenge their detention.

The Supreme Court did not rule on that issue. But it did say that the government needed to inform migrants within a reasonable amount of time that they were subject to deportation, allowing them to seek relief in the proper court.

Jurisdictional issues — the question of which court should hear a case and why — have dominated the early proceedings in several high-profile immigration cases.

In addition to the Venezuelan migrant case, the case of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student and a leading figure in pro-Palestinian protests, has mostly been dominated by questions of where the case should be heard. While Mr. Khalil is being held in Louisiana, the case for his release is playing out in New Jersey.

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They Witness Deaths on the Tracks and Then Struggle to Get Help

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They Witness Deaths on the Tracks and Then Struggle to Get Help

‘Part of the job’

Edwin Guity was at the controls of a southbound D train last December, rolling through the Bronx, when suddenly someone was on the tracks in front of him.

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He jammed on the emergency brake, but it was too late. The man had gone under the wheels.

Stumbling over words, Mr. Guity radioed the dispatcher and then did what the rules require of every train operator involved in such an incident. He got out of the cab and went looking for the person he had struck.

“I didn’t want to do it,” Mr. Guity said later. “But this is a part of the job.”

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He found the man pinned beneath the third car. Paramedics pulled him out, but the man died at the hospital. After that, Mr. Guity wrestled with what to do next.

A 32-year-old who had once lived in a family shelter with his parents, he viewed the job as paying well and offering a rare chance at upward mobility. It also helped cover the costs of his family’s groceries and rent in the three-bedroom apartment they shared in Brooklyn.

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But striking the man with the train had shaken him more than perhaps any other experience in his life, and the idea of returning to work left him feeling paralyzed.

Edwin Guity was prescribed exposure therapy after his train struck a man on the tracks.

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Hundreds of train operators have found themselves in Mr. Guity’s position over the years.

And for just as long, there has been a path through the state workers’ compensation program to receiving substantive treatment to help them cope. But New York’s train operators say that their employer, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, has done too little to make them aware of that option.

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After Mr. Guity’s incident, no official told him of that type of assistance, he said. Instead, they gave him the option of going back to work right away.

But Mr. Guity was lucky. He had a friend who had been through the same experience and who coached him on getting help — first through a six-week program and then, with the assistance of a lawyer, through an experienced specialist.

The specialist prescribed a six-month exposure therapy program to gradually reintroduce Mr. Guity to the subway.

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His first day back at the controls of a passenger train was on Thanksgiving. Once again, he was driving on the D line — the same route he had been traveling on the day of the fatal accident.

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Mr. Guity helps care for his 93-year-old grandmother, Juanita Guity.

M.T.A. representatives insisted that New York train operators involved in strikes are made aware of all options for getting treatment, but they declined to answer specific questions about how the agency ensures that drivers get the help they need.

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In an interview, the president of the M.T.A. division that runs the subway, Demetrius Crichlow, said all train operators are fully briefed on the resources available to them during their job orientation.

“I really have faith in our process,” Mr. Crichlow said.

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Still, other transit systems — all of which are smaller than New York’s — appear to do a better job of ensuring that operators like Mr. Guity take advantage of the services available to them, according to records and interviews.

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An Uptick in Subway Strikes

A Times analysis shows that the incidents were on the rise in New York City’s system even as they were falling in all other American transit systems.

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Source: Federal Transit Administration.

Note: Transit agencies report “Major Safety and Security Events” to the F.T.A.’s National Transit Database. The Times’s counts include incidents categorized as rail collisions with persons, plus assaults, homicides and attempted suicides with event descriptions mentioning a train strike. For assaults, The Times used an artificial intelligence model to identify relevant descriptions and then manually reviewed the results.

Bianca Pallaro/The New York Times

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San Francisco’s system provides 24-hour access to licensed therapists through a third-party provider.

Los Angeles proactively reaches out to its operators on a regular basis to remind them of workers’ compensation options and other resources.

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The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has made it a goal to increase engagement with its employee assistance program.

The M.T.A. says it offers some version of most of these services.

But in interviews with more than two dozen subway operators who have been involved in train strikes, only one said he was aware of all those resources, and state records suggest most drivers of trains that strike people are not taking full advantage of them.

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“It’s the M.T.A.’s responsibility to assist the employee both mentally and physically after these horrific events occur,” the president of the union that represents New York City transit workers, John V. Chiarello, said in a statement, “but it is a constant struggle trying to get the M.T.A. to do the right thing.”

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Video: Protesters Arrested After Trying to Block a Possible ICE Raid

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Video: Protesters Arrested After Trying to Block a Possible ICE Raid

new video loaded: Protesters Arrested After Trying to Block a Possible ICE Raid

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Protesters Arrested After Trying to Block a Possible ICE Raid

Nearly 200 protesters tried to block federal agents from leaving a parking garage in Lower Manhattan on Saturday. The confrontation appeared to prevent a possible ICE raid nearby, and led to violent clashes between the police and protesters.

[chanting] “ICE out of New York.”

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Nearly 200 protesters tried to block federal agents from leaving a parking garage in Lower Manhattan on Saturday. The confrontation appeared to prevent a possible ICE raid nearby, and led to violent clashes between the police and protesters.

By Jorge Mitssunaga

November 30, 2025

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Video: New York City’s Next Super Storm

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Video: New York City’s Next Super Storm

new video loaded: New York City’s Next Super Storm

What’s a worst-case scenario for hurricane flooding in New York City? Our reporter Hilary Howard, who covers the environment in the region, explores how bad it could get as climate change powers increasingly extreme rainfall and devastating storm surges.

By Hilary Howard, Gabriel Blanco, Stephanie Swart and K.K. Rebecca Lai

November 26, 2025

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