GISELA SALOMON

Juan Carlos Lopez Gomez, 20, a U.S. citizen, hugs his mother in Tallahassee, Fla., after his April 17, 2025 release from jail where he was being held by federal immigration authorities. (Thomas Kennedy via AP)
A US citizen was held for pickup by ICE even after proving he was born in the country
A U.S. citizen was arrested in Florida for allegedly being in the country illegally and held for pickup by immigration authorities even after his mother showed a judge her son’s birth certificate and the judge dismissed charges.
 
U.S. citizens who immigrated from Venezuela between 16 and 30 years ago play dominos outside El Arepazo, a restaurant that is a hub of the largest Venezuelan community in the U.S., in Doral, Fla., Wednesday, April 2, 2025. Cesar Mena, at right, voted for President Donald Trump and continues to support him. “I have family and friends on TPS (Temporary Protected Status) and I feel bad for them. But it’s a temporary situation, and you need to resolve the problem.” (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
PHOTO ESSAY: Miami’s ‘Little Venezuela’ fears Trump’s moves against migration
DORAL, Fla. (AP) — This is a documentary photo story curated by AP photo editors.

Since Feb. 3, the Trump administration ended two federal programs that together allowed more 700,000 Venezuelans to live and work legally in the U.S.
 
U.S. citizens who immigrated from Venezuela between 16 and 30 years ago play dominos outside El Arepazo, a restaurant that is a hub of the largest Venezuelan community in the U.S., in Doral, Fla., Wednesday, April 2, 2025. Many of the friends, including Cesar Mena, at right, voted for President Donald Trump and continue to support him. "I have family and friends on TPS [Temporary Protected Status] and I feel bad for them. But it's a temporary situation, and you need to resolve the problem." (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Miami’s ‘Little Venezuela’ fears Trump’s moves against migration
Since Feb. 3, the Trump administration ended two federal programs that together allowed more 700,000 Venezuelans to live and work legally in the U.S. It’s all anyone discusses in Doral, Florida, the largest Venezuelan community in the United States.
 
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks at U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak during a tour, Monday, March 17, 2025, in Kodiak, Alaska. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Homeland Security revokes temporary status for 532,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans
The Department of Homeland Security says it will revoke legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, setting them up for potential deportation in about a month.
 
This undated photo provided by Johanny Sanchez shows Sanchez, right, and her husband Franco Caraballo, who was sent over the weekend to El Salvador accused by the Trump administration of belonging to the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang. (Johanny Sanchez via AP)
Immigrants disappear from US detainee tracking system after deportation flights
Weekend flights by U.S. immigration authorities set off a frantic scramble among terrified families after hundreds of immigrants disappeared from the government’s online locator for detainees.
 
Jhoan Bastidas gives an interview at his father's house in Maracaibo, Venezuela, Wednesday, March 5, 2025, after being deported from Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. (AP Photo/Juan Arraez)
After a stint in Guantanamo Bay, a Venezuelan deported from the US adjusts to his homeland
Jhoan Bastidas is just starting to make sense of it all. How he is back in the once-prosperous hometown in Venezuela that he left as a teenager. How tattoos on his chest earned him a criminal reputation.
 
Two humanitarian parole beneficiaries, a mother and her son from Venezuela who were sponsored by Sandra McAnany, and the husband/father whom they reunited with enjoy the North Carolina Zoo, June 1, 2024, in Randolph County, NC. (Sandra McAnany via AP)
Trump cutoff of humanitarian parole for immigrants from Ukraine, 6 other countries challenged
A group of American citizens and immigrants is suing the Trump administration for ending a legal tool presidents have used to allow people from countries with wars and political instability to come to the U.S. temporarily.
 
Children cover their heads as they sit outside of a migrant shelter Wednesday, March 13, 2024, in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley, File)
Trump administration reverses its previous decision and reinstates legal aid for migrant children
Days after telling legal groups who help migrant children who arrive in America alone — some so young they are in diapers or their feet dangle from their chairs in court — that they must stop their work, the federal government reversed itself.
 
U.S. Marines install barbed wire along the border fence Friday, Jan. 31, 2025, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Trump administration halts legal aid for migrant children, leaving some to navigate courts alone
The Trump administration has suspended a program that helped children who come to the U.S. without a parent or guardian navigate the immigration court system. Organizations that help them say these children are at risk in a complicated system.
 
Women, who are in the U.S. illegally, and their children listen as Nora Sandigo explains their legal rights, as well as options to prepare their families in case a parent were to be detained or deported, Friday, Jan. 17, 2025, in Homestead, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Fearful immigrants ask Florida activist to sign guardianship papers for their children
Since President Donald Trump took office, immigrants in the U.S. illegally have changed their travel patterns and try to stay home, out of fear they could be deported.
 
Henry Carmona, 48, right, who fled Venezuela after receiving death threats for refusing to participate in demonstrations in support of the government, stands with friends and a reporter following a press conference by Venezuelan community leaders to denounce changes to the protections that shielded hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, including Carmona, from deportation, Monday, Feb. 3, 2025, in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Trump administration ends temporary deportation protection for 350,000 Venezuelans
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is ending protections that shielded roughly 350,000 Venezuelans from deportation, leaving them with two months before they lose their right to work in the U.S.
 
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks to employees at the Department of Homeland Security, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Trump administration revokes deportation protections for 600,000 Venezuelans
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Wednesday that the Trump administration has revoked a decision that would have protected roughly 600,000 people from Venezuela from deportation, putting some of them at risk of being removed from the country in about two months.
 
President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Trump administration cancels travel for refugees already cleared to come to America
Refugees who had been approved to come to the United States before America’s refugee resettlement program is suspended next week have had their travel plans canceled by the Trump administration.
 
Marcela Medina and her husband Enrique Corea of Venezuela react to seeing that their appointment was canceled on the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) One app, as they wait near the border crossing in Tijuana, Mexico on Monday, Jan. 20. 2025. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
Trump rolls out his blueprint on border security, but his orders will face challenges
President Donald Trump has signed executive orders to beef up security at the southern border that began taking effect hours after he was inaugurated.
 
Venezuelan Victor Macedo holds his daughter Sonia at their home, in in Davie, Fla., Sept. 27, 2023. The family crossed the border U.S. almost two years ago. Since then, they have been living in South Florida with the support of family and friends. They recently qualified for temporary protected status. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier, File)
Biden extends time in US for 800,000 Venezuelans, Salvadorans as Trump readies immigration crackdown
The Department of Homeland Security says about 600,000 Venezuelans and more than 200,000 El Salvadorans already living in the United States can legally remain another 18 months.
 
Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., speaks during a hearing of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Democratic senators urge Biden to act on temporary protections for migrants
Democratic senators are urging President Joe Biden to extend temporary protections for migrants in the U.S. before he leaves office.
 
FILE - Severe shortages and one of the world’s highest inflation rates have helped drive nearly 8 million Venezuelans from the petrostate of 28 million people, including Venezuelan migrant Lisbeth Contreras, who hugs her children as she crosses the Suchiate River on the border between Guatemala and Mexico, on Oct. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)
Presidents have used immigration ‘parole’ since the 1950s. Now it could disappear under Trump
Cuba’s at one of its lowest points since the 1959 revolution. Gangs control the streets of Haiti’s capital. Nicaragua’s president has imprisoned protesters. Venezuelans suffer severe shortages and one of the world’s highest inflation rates.
 
FILE - Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump listens to Paul Perez, president of the National Border Patrol Council, as he tours the southern border with Mexico, on Aug. 22, 2024, in Sierra Vista, Ariz. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Trump’s return to White House sets stage for far-reaching immigration crackdown
An immigration crackdown appears imminent in a second Trump administration at a time when an APVoteCast survey shows the president-elect’s supporters largely focused on immigration and inflation — issues the Republican has hammered throughout his campaign.
 
Spanish language instructions are seen on part of a mail-in election ballot in New York on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Patrick Sison)
Voting rights groups worry AI models are generating inaccurate and misleading responses in Spanish
With just days before the presidential election, Latino voters are facing a barrage of targeted ads in Spanish and a new source of political messaging in the artificial intelligence age: chatbots generating unfounded claims in Spanish about voting rights.
 
FILE - A security guard poses for a photo next to the group holding cells during a media tour of the Port Isabel Detention Center (PIDC), hosted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Harlingen Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) in Los Fresnos, Texas, June 10, 2024. (Veronica Gabriela Cardenas/Pool Photo via AP, File)
Lawsuit claims ICE withheld $300M in bond payments from immigrants
A lawsuit alleges U.S. immigration authorities illegally kept more than $300 million in bond payments made by tens of thousands of low-income immigrant families and U.S. citizens.
 
A Venezuelan media tycoon is charged in a bribery conspiracy in Florida
A Venezuelan media tycoon has been charged in federal court in Florida for what authorities say was his role in laundering money in a conspiracy to siphon more than $1 billion from Venezuela’s state oil company.
 
A jogger trots in light rain ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Milton, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Language, lack of money and fear are matters of life and death with Milton approaching Florida
Hurricane Milton is expected to unleash its greatest force over hundreds of thousands of immigrants who don’t speak English. Most are Latin Americans who have been harvesting the fields along Florida’s I-4 corridor.
 
FILE - A sign is displayed outside a hospital in Miami, on July 9, 2020. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee, File)
Florida hospitals ask immigrants about their legal status. Texas will try it next
Texas hospitals who are enrolled in state health plans, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program will start asking patients’ immigration status in November. Florida has had a similar law since 2023.
 
A man, part of a group of 50 new United States citizens from 25 different countries, takes part in a naturalization ceremony before the San Diego Padres host the Minnesota Twins in a baseball game at Petco Park, Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
Share of foreign-born people in the US is at its highest rate in over a century, survey says
The percentage of U.S. residents born outside the country reached its highest level in more than a century in 2023. That’s one of the findings of a survey of American life released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
 
Roberto Garcia helps his wife Maria Garcia get into their truck after dropping their two children off for their first day of school in East Los Angeles on Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Immigrant families in limbo after judge puts U.S. program for spouses on hold
Immigration attorneys say families are in limbo after a federal judge in Texas paused a Biden administration program that would provide immigrant spouses of U.S. citizens a pathway to citizenship.
 
FILE - Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC 2024, at the National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Md., Friday , Feb. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
Texas, other GOP-led states sue over program to give immigrant spouses of US citizens legal status
Sixteen Republican-led states are suing to end a federal program that could potentially give nearly half a million immigrants without legal status who are married to U.S. citizens a path to citizenship.
 
In this July 2020 photo, Xavier Chavarría, background right, poses for a photo with his wife Karen Chavarría, second left, and their children Karen Azriela Chavarria, left, and son Xavier Yahir Chavarría, in Jinotega, Nicaragua. (Courtesy Xavier Chavarría via AP)
Biden’s offer of a path to US citizenship for spouses leaves some out
Registration has begun under President Joe Biden’s offer of a path to citizenship to spouses of U.S. citizens without having to first leave the country.
 
Roberto Garcia drops his children, Lily, 7, center, and Jack, 9, off for their first day of school in East Los Angeles on Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Immigrants prepare for new Biden protections with excitement and concern
A new Biden administration program will allow some spouses of U.S. citizens living in the U.S. illegally to gain legal status without leaving the country.
 
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro sits in front of an image of Venezuelan independence hero Simon Bolivar as he gives a news conference at Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, July 31, 2024, three days after his disputed reelection. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Venezuela’s Maduro asks top court to audit the presidential election, but observers cry foul
President Nicolás Maduro has asked Venezuela’s high court to conduct an audit of the presidential election after opposition leaders disputed his claim of victory.
 
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, left, and opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez hold up vote tally sheets from the top of a truck during a protest against the official presidential election results declaring President Nicolas Maduro the winner in Caracas, Venezuela, on Tuesday, July 30, 2024, two days after the election. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)
Carter Center unable to verify Venezuela election results, blasts officials for lack of transparency
The Carter Center said it was unable to verify the results of Venezuela’s presidential election and blamed authorities for a “complete lack of transparency” in declaring Nicolas Maduro the winner without providing any individual polling tallies.
 
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