In the first two months of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, the administration has taken new and unusual measures to conduct deportations. It has enlisted military planes, pressured other countries to retrieve their citizens, sent people to third countries far from their homes and invoked a wartime law to remove migrants without due process.

But even as immigration officials have escalated efforts to remove people from the United States, they continue to fall short of the mass deportations Trump vowed to carry out. Overall, the number of flights and their destinations look largely similar to those under President Joe Biden.

There have been 258 deportation flights since Trump took office, according to a New York Times review of an independent database, about the level in the final months of the Biden administration. Less typical: At least 31 flights were on military planes, which are much more expensive to operate than the chartered jets U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement uses.

The flight data was collected by Tom Cartwright, an immigrant rights advocate, and was verified by the Times.

In response to questions about the number of flights, a Homeland Security Department official provided a statement saying that ICE was working to arrest and deport people and that the agency expected the number of deportations to rise.

Judge frees detained Columbia student

A Columbia University student who faces potential deportation for her involvement in a pro-Palestinian protest cannot be detained by immigration officials for now as she fights the Trump administration in court, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald said in Manhattan court that the government had not laid out enough facts about its claims against Yunseo Chung.

The 21-year-old lawful permanent resident who came to the U.S. as a child filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration Monday, arguing the government is “attempting to use immigration enforcement as a bludgeon to suppress speech that they dislike.”

In a statement Monday, the Department of Homeland Security said she had “engaged in concerning conduct,” including being arrested at a protest.

Chung’s suit said immigration officials moved to deport her after she was identified in news reports as one of several protesters arrested after a sit-in at a library on the nearby Barnard College campus this month.

Appeals court upholds Trump refugee policy

An appeals court on Tuesday allowed the Trump administration to stop approving new refugees for entry into the U.S. as a lawsuit plays out over the president’s executive order halting the nation’s refugee admissions system.

Refugees who were conditionally approved before President Donald Trump took office must still be processed under the order from a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel, but the judges allowed the Republican administration to suspend new approvals.

The appeals court panel largely halted a ruling from U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead in Seattle. He found that Trump could not nullify the law passed by Congress establishing the program, and it must be restarted.

Whitehead, who was appointed President Joe Biden, a Democrat, said the president does have substantial discretion to suspend refugee admissions but the authority was not limitless. He pointed to reports of refugees stranded in dangerous places, families separated from relatives in the U.S. and people sold all their possessions for travel to the U.S. that was later canceled.

Vance joining wife on Greenland trip

U.S. Vice President JD Vance said that he’s joining his wife on a Friday trip to Greenland, suggesting in an online video that global security is at stake.

“We’re going to check out how things are going there,” Vance said in a video shared Tuesday. “Speaking for President Trump, we want to reinvigorate the security of the people of Greenland because we think it’s important to protecting the security of the entire world.”

U.S. President Donald Trump irked much of Europe by suggesting that

his country should in some form control the self-governing, mineral-rich territory of American ally Denmark. As the nautical gateway to the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches to North America, Greenland has broader strategic value as both China and Russia also seek access to its waterways and the nearby natural resources.

The office of second lady Usha Vance said Sunday that she would depart Thursday for Greenland and return Saturday. Vance and one of her three children are set to visit historic sites and learn about Greenland’s culture.

Media critic Bozell named to S. Africa post

President Donald Trump plans to nominate L. Brent Bozell III, a conservative media critic and fierce defender of Israel, to be the U.S. ambassador to South Africa, according to the congressional website.

Bozell had previously been nominated to lead the U.S.’ global media agency, but that nomination was withdrawn Monday, the congressional website had said.

Bozell, who must be confirmed by the Senate, would be stepping into the role at a time when the relationship between South Africa and the United States is at its worst in recent memory. The Trump administration recently expelled South Africa’s ambassador to the United States after he criticized Trump during a webinar.

It was not immediately clear whether Bozell had ties to South Africa. He is the founder and president of the Media Research Center, a watchdog group that targets network television hosts and mainstream media outlets with accusations of liberal bias.

Abortion foe named as HHS inspector general

President Donald Trump has nominated a Republican attorney who was once accused of mishandling taxpayer funds and has a history of launching investigations against abortion clinics to lead the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General.

If confirmed by the Senate, Thomas March Bell will oversee fraud, waste and abuse audits of the Medicare and Medicaid programs, which spend more than $1 trillion annually.

Bell, who was nominated on Monday, currently serves as general counsel for House Republicans and has worked for GOP politicians and congressional offices for decades.

Bell was terminated from his role at Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality in 1997 after a state audit showed he improperly authorized a nearly $8,000 payment to the agency’s former spokesman, according to Washington Post reporting at the time.

Nominee defers on Panama Canal question

Kevin Cabrera, President Donald Trump’s pick for ambassador to Panama, faced a call from Democrats in his confirmation hearing to commit to upholding Panama’s sovereignty and advising the president to do the same. But Cabrera responded that he would defer to Trump.

Cabrera pointed out that Trump has said “all the options are on the table” when asserting U.S. control over the Panama Canal, but added that part of that included “diplomacy.”

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said she appreciated a “focus on diplomacy,” but was worried by the threats of sending military force or coercing Panama to relinquish control over the canal.

Cabrera responded, “President Trump is our commander in chief, and I stand behind him and his policies.”

Former Hunter Biden partner pardoned

President Donald Trump on Tuesday pardoned a former business partner of Hunter Biden who was convicted of participating in a conspiracy to defraud a Native American tribe.

Devon Archer later became a key figure in the congressional inquiry into the Biden family businesses, telling lawmakers behind closed doors that the younger Biden sold the “illusion of access” to his father.

Before signing the pardon, Trump said Archer was treated “very unfairly.” White House staff secretary Will Scharf said the “tone and tenor” of the prosecution changed after Archer began to cooperate with congressional investigators in the Biden family inquiry.

Archer was convicted in 2018 in a scheme to defraud the tribe that involved the sale of bonds. His conviction was overturned later that year before the court of appeals in New York reinstated it in 2020. He was sentenced in 2022 to a year in prison.

— From news services