Elon Musk is losing the culture war — he just doesn’t know it yet

(A Truly Evil Man)

​

“Elon Musk has been vocal in his criticism of Christopher Nolan’s casting choices for his upcoming film adaptation of “The Odyssey,” particularly the casting of Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy. Musk’s complaints, which have been echoed by some of his followers, are rooted in racist and outdated notions of historical accuracy. Despite Musk’s objections, the film remains highly anticipated and is expected to be a commercial success.

​

Musk’s one-man battle against “The Odyssey” is another symptom of his waning influence on the world outside the hothouse of X.

Elon Musk on April 28, 2026 at the U.S. District Court in Oakland, Calif.Godofredo A. Vásquez / AP Photo

Elon Musk has been busy: SpaceX filed for a blockbuster IPO. On Monday, a U.S. jury dismissed his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI. And last Wednesday, he accompanied President Donald Trump, and an entourage of tech moguls, to China for an elaborate state visit.

And yet, the richest man in the world spent much of the past week heckling a movie he hasn’t seen yet, directed by one of Hollywood’s most successful and celebrated directors, and starring a small army of A-list actors, including Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Zendaya, Tom Holland, and Jonathan Bernthal. He seemed especially angry that a woman of color was cast in two roles.

In a just-dropped Time Magazine interview, director Christopher Nolan confirmed that Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o is playing two iconic roles in his $250 million adaptation of the Greek myth “The Odyssey.” In the ancient poet Homer’s epic “The Iliad,” which precedes “The Odyssey,” the Trojan prince Paris abducts Helen, wife of the Spartan king Menelaus, sparking a 10-year war with Greece that ends in tragedy.  Nyong’o will portray Helen, “the face that launched 1,000 ships,” as well as Helen’s sister, the murderous Clytemnestra.

Musk quickly took to X to voice his displeasure with this casting choice: “Chris Nolan desecrated the Odyssey so that he would be eligible for an Academy Award.” Never mind the fact that the Academy’s eligibility criteria have nothing to do with casting. 

Musk also reposted conservative commentator Matt Walsh, who wrote, “Not one person on the planet actually thinks that Lupita Nyong’o is ‘the most beautiful woman in the world.’ But Christopher Nolan knows that he would be called a racist if he gave the ‘most beautiful woman’ role to a white woman. Nolan is technically talented but a coward.”

Nolan’s casting of Zendaya as Athena, the goddess of wisdom, and rap superstar Travis Scott as a bard has also angered Musk toadies and assorted online bots. The trans actor Elliot Page was also cast, causing some hysterical right-wingers to (apparently incorrectly) suggest the actor is playing the great Greek warrior Achilles, slain by the Trojans, and who Odysseus briefly meets in the afterlife. Musk’s minions are so desperate for engagement that they have to work themselves into a lather over mere speculation.

All of this points to a clear conclusion. Elon Musk is losing the culture war; he just doesn’t know it yet. His whiny, white grievance and anti-DEI posts are becoming predictable. Boring. Viral filler. He has an enormous platform, but his messages are increasingly small-minded.

Musk’s one-man battle against “The Odyssey” is another symptom of his waning influence on the world outside the hothouse of X; his Cybertrucks aren’t selling, Grok, his AI product, is lagging behind rivals, and the man can’t decide whether Trump is his bestie.

Another sign that he’s losing his grip: Musk took a break from insulting Nolan and Nyong’o to petulantly criticize the series finale of Amazon Prime’s hit superhero parody “The Boys,” which he called “pathetic” for killing off the show’s MAGA-coded villain, Homelander, but not before he murders a parody of the billionaire. Musk admitted he hadn’t actually watched the show, though. He’s just sitting in one of his mansions angrily scrolling, and getting bent out of shape.

At least “The Boys” showrunner seems to be to having fun sparring with an increasingly humorless Musk on X.

Meanwhile, the two people Musk is targeting in his crusade against “The Odyssey” also seem to be taking his harassment in stride. Nolan hasn’t commented. But Nyong’o did chime in. “Our cast is representative of the world,” she said. “I’m not spending my time thinking of a defense. The criticism will exist whether I engage with it or not.”

Musk frequently posts bigoted opinions to X, which is his prerogative, I suppose. He owns that dumpster fire. But his current attempts to shame Nolan and suggest that the director, whose action and sci-fi movies are beloved by dudes, is indulging in nontraditional casting to win another Oscar feel transparently pitiful. 

When it was first rumored that Nyong’o had been cast as Helen back in January of this year, furious users on X called it an “insult” to Homer. Musk later posted that “Chris Nolan has lost his integrity.” This underlying thesis is not only racist, but it’s also so ignorant that I wonder if Musk can tell the difference anymore between what is real and what is make-believe.

I’m not an expert in ancient history, but I’m pretty sure “The Odyssey” is fictional. There is no such thing as a man-eating Cyclops. And like all classic literature, Homer’s works are open to interpretation.

Another of the arguments against Nyong’o’s casting is that it isn’t historically accurate, never mind that both African and Middle Eastern countries border the Mediterranean. These critics seem to think the ancient Greeks really looked like ripped Scottish hunk Gerard Butler in director Zack Snyder’s cartoonish Spartan action film “300.”

You want realism? Helen of Troy’s father is Zeus, the god of thunder. Zeus, who transformed into animals and seduced mortals. What are we doing here? 

Despite Musk’s musings, “The Odyssey” is already the most buzzed-about movie of the summer. The 70mm IMAX screenings are a hot ticket: opening weekend sold out within minutes of going on sale 12 months in advance. This isn’t surprising. Nolan remains one of the entertainment industry’s most dependable and respected directors of blockbusters, from 2023’s Oscar-winning historical phenomenon “Oppenheimer” to his formidable Batman trilogy to 2014’s emotional space opera “Interstellar.”

He’s also a director who has never worn his personal politics on his sleeve, although many of his movies have what could fairly be called conservative vibes. In 2012’s “The Dark Knight Rises,” for example, a billionaire puts down a populist revolution led by a cross between Darth Vader and a communist guerrilla. 

Everything I know about “The Odyssey” I learned in high school. I guess I was lucky enough to have an English teacher who knew this epic was full of action and romance, so he always emphasized the good parts. But while Musk might not want to admit it, at its core, “The Odyssey” is really an anti-war story about the ultimate wife guy on an endless, dangerous road trip back home. Through his hero’s journey, Homer teaches that smarts and grit matter more than brute strength. “The Odyssey” is a 2600-year-old message passed from storyteller to storyteller about what really matters in life. It’s a message a man like Musk could learn from — if he’d only stop whining long enough to listen. “

Harvard Law Professor SOUNDS ALARM on Roberts COURT!!!

 

“Clear Racism”: Trump Admin Blocks Refugee Resettlement, Except for White South Africans | Democracy Now!

 

  “Clear Racism”: Trump Admin Blocks Refugee Resettlement, Except for White South Africans | Democracy Now!

With Big Decisions Ahead, the Supreme Court Collides With a Testy Trump - The New York Times

With Big Decisions Ahead, the Supreme Court Collides With a Testy Trump

"President Trump has alternated between bullying the justices and cozying up to them as the court prepares to announce major decisions that will determine the fate of the key aspects of his agenda.

May 24, 2026, 5:02 a.m. ET

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., Justice Elena Kagan, and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh at the State of the Union address earlier this year.Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times

Vice President JD Vance made an unannounced visit to the Supreme Court last week to attend a private dinner in a wood-paneled conference room with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and dozens of the chief justice’s former law clerks.

Accompanying his wife Usha, who clerked for the chief justice nearly a decade ago, Mr. Vance’s visit was a social call, people familiar with the dinner said. But Mr. Vance’s friendly pop-by illustrated the awkward dance that has been underway between the Trump administration and the nation’s highest court, as the administration has at times appeared to woo the justices even as President Trump has repeatedly bullied and insulted them.

With the court preparing to issue major rulings in the coming weeks that will determine the fate of key aspects of the president’s agenda, Mr. Trump has vacillated between combative and conciliatory in his treatment of the justices.

He has seemed ever aware and at times resentful of the critical role the justices play in determining the lawfulness of his policies, with the court representing perhaps the one force in American government truly able to thwart his agenda. At the heart of the tension: a president who appears to believe that justices, especially those he appointed, should be loyalists rather than independent actors in a separate, equal branch of government.

Sign up for the Docket newsletter.  Adam Liptak helps you make sense of legal developments in a turbulent time.

Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement that the American people have “always valued President Trump’s ability to freely speak his mind and share his thoughts directly with them” — including about the court.

The chief justice did not respond to a request for comment. A spokeswoman for Mr. Vance declined to comment.

Mr. Trump was furious with the court after it invalidated his sweeping tariffs in February. He called a news conference to vent, criticizing individual justices as “fools and lap dogs” and saying his two nominees who voted against him were “an embarrassment to their families.”

While past presidents have voiced disagreement and frustration with Supreme Court rulings, that kind of language and personal animosity has been unheard-of from a president.

Standing silently by his side was the solicitor general, D. John Sauer. Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer represents the administration at the Supreme Court in a role that has traditionally been so trusted by the court that it is nicknamed the “10th justice.”

Despite Mr. Trump’s anger, the administration has abided by the court’s ruling in the tariffs decision. The U.S. government this month started to refund some of the roughly $160 billion collected from those tariffs, plus interest.

Days after the news conference, Mr. Trump toned things down at his State of the Union address, when he could have blasted the chief justice and other members of the court to their faces as they sat in their robes in the front of the House chamber. Instead, in his remarks, Mr. Trump merely declared the ruling to be “very disappointing.” Otherwise, he was cordial to the four justices who attended, shaking their hands and exchanging pleasantries as he made his way to the rostrum.

But in recent weeks, the president has returned to hammering the court, including in repeated social media posts, as he has been appearing to brace for another major loss when the court rules on his effort to end the guarantee of birthright citizenship. The decision is expected by late June or early July.

“It would be a disgrace if the Supreme Court of the United States allows that to happen,” Mr. Trump said during an event in the Oval Office on Thursday. “It’s all up to a couple of people, and I hope they do what’s right.”

Mr. Trump turned up the pressure in early April when he became the first sitting president to attend an oral argument at the court for the birthright citizenship case. He spent about an hour listening to the arguments before abruptly getting up and walking out while the session was still underway. Critics said it was a show of power designed to intimidate the justices.

The president subsequently complained in a social media post that the Supreme Court had “not even recognized or acknowledged” his presence.

At the same time, the president hosted all six of the justices nominated by Republican presidents to the White House last month for a state dinner honoring King Charles III of Britain and Queen Camilla. The dinner was held the night before the court heard a case about Mr. Trump’s immigration policies.

None of the three liberal justices attended, and neither the White House nor the court have said whether they were invited.

On Friday, two justices who the president has praised were in the East Room of the White House. Justice Clarence Thomas swore in Kevin Warsh as the next chairman of the Federal Reserve. Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh also attended.

Three of the justices who took part in the state dinner — Neil M. Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and Justice Kavanaugh — were picked by Mr. Trump during his first term, drawing them Mr. Trump’s particular attention and, at times, his ire. In a recent post, as he criticized Justices Gorsuch and Barrett for voting against his tariffs, he insisted they should have been “loyal to the person that appointed them.”

The justices seem to have struggled with whether or how forcefully to respond. They have not specifically addressed Mr. Trump’s personal insults and have not responded to requests for comment about his statements when asked. But they have at times politely pushed back in public appearances.

In recent interviews to promote his new children’s book, Justice Gorsuch has rejected assertions that the justices should be loyal to the president.

“My loyalty is to the Constitution, the laws of the United States,” he said in an interview with CBS News. “That’s the oath I took. It’s really just that simple.”

The chief justice too has gently denounced the personal attacks — but indirectly. During an appearance at Rice University in March, he said harsh rhetoric aimed at justices is “dangerous.”

“It’s got to stop,” he added, without specifying whose rhetoric he was describing or naming Mr. Trump.

In an interview with a federal judge last year, the chief justice defended the independence of the judiciary, saying its role is “to obviously decide cases but in the course of that to check the excesses of Congress or the executive.”

Colleen Sinzdak, a former law clerk to Chief Justice Roberts who argues frequently in front the court, said the justices seem to be trying to stay above the political fray. By ignoring some of the attacks, the justices send the message that they see themselves as part of an institution rather than political actors scrumming with elected officials.

“It’s not supposed to be about you personally,” she said. “They are trying to embody that in how they are going about their business, and to the extent possible to do the things they would normally do — like going to state dinners.”

Likewise, Richard Lazarus, a law professor at Harvard who has written frequently about the court, said the justices appeared to be trying to treat Mr. Trump like any other party in a case when they seated him in the public gallery for the arguments in the birthright citizenship case, rather than in a special seat reserved for presidents that is used for courtroom ceremonies.

Still, he said the president’s personal attacks on individual justices were “out of bounds,” representing a unique assault that went beyond the traditional push and pull between the branches of government.

“It does damage to the court as an institution,” he said, and it “generates threats to the individual justices and their families when the president attacks them in this way.”

Professor Lazarus said he believed the justices should have declined to attend Mr. Trump’s state dinner last month, given that it appears only those nominated by Republican presidents had been invited.

“It’s wrong, irresponsible and undermines the integrity of the court, which all the justices tell us they believe in,” he said.

Ms. Jackson, the White House spokeswoman, said the president understands the dangers of political violence after three assassination attempts in less than two years.

“Any implication that sharing these opinions is akin to making threats is deeply unserious and should be dismissed by anyone with half a brain,” she said in a statement, adding that the administration “cares deeply for the safety of all members of the Judicial Branch.”

For his part, Mr. Vance, a graduate of Yale Law School, has not been shy about expressing his frustration with the courts and his wife’s former boss. In an interviewwith New York Times opinion columnist Ross Douthat last year, Mr. Vance said the chief justice was “profoundly wrong” to suggest that one of the roles for the court is to check the excesses of the executive branch. Courts, he said, should be “extremely deferential” to the president’s political judgments.

At the court last Saturday night, around 100 guests gathered for the reunion of law clerks, starting with cocktails in a courtyard, followed by dinner in one of the formal conference rooms on the same floor as the courtroom.

Mr. Vance and his wife were not given special seating at the chief justice’s table, said people familiar with the event who were granted anonymity to talk about the private dinner. And when Chief Justice Roberts gave brief remarks to welcome guests, he did not offer any special greeting to Mr. Vance.

For the night, the vice president was just a plus one.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Tyler Pager contributed reporting to this story."

With Big Decisions Ahead, the Supreme Court Collides With a Testy Trump - The New York Times

Trump's justice department scrubs its website of news releases about January 6 defendants | US Capitol attack | The Guardian

Trump's justice department scrubs its website of news releases about January 6 defendants

"Department of Justice acknowledges the removal of news releases about criminal cases related to 2021 Capitol attack

Supporters of Donald Trump scale the west wall of the the US Capitol as they try to storm the building on 6 January 2021. Photograph: José Luis Magaña/AP

The Department of Justice is acknowledging it has removed from its website news releases about criminal cases related to the 6 January 2021 Capitol attack, calling the information about the prosecutions “partisan propaganda”.

The purge of news releases documenting criminal charges, convictions and sentencings is the latest step by the Trump administration to dramatically rewrite the history of the assault on the US Capitol, when hundreds of supporters of Donald Trump stormed the building in an effort to halt the congressional certification of his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump, on his first day back in office in January 2025 , pardoned, commuted the prison sentences or vowed to dismiss the cases of all of the 1,500-plus people charged with crimes during the Capitol assault, including those convicted of attacking officers with makeshift weapons such as flagpoles, a hockey stick and a crutch.

On Monday, the justice department announced the creation of a $1.776bn fund meant to compensate Trump allies who feel they were unjustly investigated and prosecuted. The acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, has not ruled out that rioters convicted of violence will be eligible for payouts, prompting bipartisan anger in Congress.

After a journalist on Friday observed on the social media platform X that the justice department was “quietly” removing news releases on its website that were related to the January 6 attack, including about a Texas man who pleaded guilty to assault and also faced separate state charges of soliciting a minor, the department responded through its “rapid response” account that there was “nothing ‘quiet’ about it”.

“We are proud to reverse the [justice department’s] weaponization under the Biden administration. We will do everything in our power to make whole those who were persecuted for political purposes,” the post said. “This includes stripping [the justice department’s] website of partisan propaganda.”

Among the releases removed from the site were those concerning seditious conspiracy cases against members of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, far-right extremist groups. The justice department, in an unopposed motion last month, asked a federal appeals court to vacate those seditious conspiracy convictions, a request that was granted on Thursday. The department on Friday moved to dismiss the cases against the group members."

Trump's justice department scrubs its website of news releases about January 6 defendants | US Capitol attack | The Guardian

Israeli Strikes Pummel Lebanon, Killing Medics Amid Fragile Truce

​

“Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon killed and injured several people, straining a fragile truce with Hezbollah. The strikes, mostly in southern Lebanon, targeted Hezbollah operatives and infrastructure, but also damaged a hospital and killed paramedics. The truce, intended to ease weeks of violence, remains precarious as both sides accuse each other of violations.

​

Saturday’s strikes damaged a main hospital in the Lebanese city of Tyre, as funerals for paramedics killed a day earlier were held.

May 23, 2026, 11:02 a.m. ET

Mourners at the funeral of a paramedic and two civil defense workers, in Tyre, Lebanon, on Saturday. They were killed in an Israeli airstrike the day before, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.Daniel Berehulak/The New York Times

Dozens of Israeli airstrikes pounded Lebanon late Friday and early Saturday, killing and injuring several people, Lebanon’s national news agency said, exposing the mounting strain on a truce between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

The strikes mostly hit towns and villages in southern Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold where Israel is occupying large swaths of territory and where tens of thousands of residents remain displaced. The Israeli military also issued new evacuation warnings on Saturday afternoon for several towns across southern Lebanon.

A truce first reached in mid-April was meant to ease weeks of violence, but near-daily airstrikes still disrupt daily life and deepen uncertainty for peopleacross the country. The cease-fire formed part of a broader arrangement involving Iran, which regional mediators have spent recent days trying to turn into a more permanent agreement amid fears that it could unravel and trigger renewed American-Israeli strikes.

Saturday’s attacks come just a day after Israeli strikes killed six paramedics in two incidents in southern Lebanon within 24 hours, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Over 120 medics have been killed in the latest conflict, according to the ministry.

In one of the strikes, in Deir Qanoun an-Nahr, the Israeli military said it had targeted Hezbollah operatives traveling on motorcycles. In the second strike, in Hanouiyeh, the military said it had struck Hezbollah infrastructure sites where militants were present. The Israeli military said in a statement it was examining whether the two strikes hit civilians in the aftermath, following reports that “several uninvolved individuals” were harmed.

Another Israeli airstrike on Thursday damaged the three-story Tibnin hospital, a key medical facility operating near the region that Israel is occupying.

Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged fire in southern Lebanon almost daily since the truce took effect, with each accusing the other of violating the deal. 

Civil defense workers looking up toward the sound of an Israeli jet fighter, during the funeral in Tyre on Saturday.Daniel Berehulak/The New York Times

Lebanese authorities say the attacks on medical workers amount to violations of international law.

Many of Saturday’s strikes focused on areas in and around the coastal district of Tyre, emergency workers and doctors at a hospital in the area said. Shortly after midnight, an airstrike leveled a house in the town of Deir Qanoun an-Nahr in Tyre, killing four people, according to Lebanon’s state news agency. An Israeli drone also targeted a citrus grove in the town of Bazourieh, wounding several Syrian laborers who were working there, the agency said.

Another strike hit a building near Hiram Hospital, which the Israeli military had ordered evacuated, shattering windows and damaging parts of the hospital, including operating rooms, doctors at the hospital said in interviews. Hiram is one of the main functioning medical centers in Tyre. At least four newborns were evacuated safely from the hospital, according to the nursing supervisor, Mohammad Salem.

“We are scared,” Mr. Salem said in an interview, adding that it was the third strike near the hospital. “We know that we will always have to be cautious because the Israeli military has no limits, not even when it comes to a hospital.”

Medical workers cleaning debris after an overnight Israeli airstrike hit a building near Hiram Hospital, in Tyre, on Saturday.Daniel Berehulak/The New York Times

A soldier sustained “moderate injuries” after an Israeli strike targeted an army barracks in the southern city of Nabatieh on Saturday, the Lebanese army said in a statement.

Israeli warplanes also carried out airstrikes early Saturday on the eastern Bekaa region, according to Lebanon’s state media.

The Israeli military said on Saturday that it had struck an underground Hezbollah compound in the Bekaa Valley that it said was used to manufacture weapons, as well as Hezbollah infrastructure sites in Tyre.

Hezbollah also said it targeted Israeli soldiers and positions with rockets and drone attacks.

More than 3,100 people have been killed ⁠in Lebanon since early March, when Hezbollah launched attacks on Israel in support of Iran, which just days before had been attacked by the United States and Israel.

Many of Saturday’s strikes focused on areas in and around the coastal district of Tyre, Lebanon’s national news agency and health workers said.Kawnat Haju/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

On Saturday, mourners gathered for the funeral of some of the paramedics killed on Friday. Relatives leaned over the coffins in grief, scattering flowers across them and sharing memories of the men being buried, even as Israeli warplanes and drones roared overhead.

Brahim Diab, 32, spoke in an interview about his relative Ahmad Hariri, a paramedic and photojournalist who was killed in Deir Qanoun an-Nahr on Friday.

“Ahmad is everything that is beautiful in this life,” he said. “He always made sure he gave everyone their time. He was exhausted, but he was happy.”

Daniel Berehulak and Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting.

Abdi Latif Dahir is a Middle East correspondent for The Times, covering Lebanon and Syria. He is based in Beirut.“ 

Green Card Seekers Must Leave U.S. to Apply, Trump Administration Says

​

“The Trump administration announced that most foreigners seeking green cards must return to their home countries to apply, a change that could affect hundreds of thousands of people. This policy, which requires consular processing outside the U.S., could lead to family separations and longer processing times. While the administration claims this change will reduce illegal immigration, it has been met with confusion and concern from immigration lawyers and advocates.

​

The change is likely to affect hundreds of thousands of people. It could also lead to more family separations as spouses or relatives wait for application decisions, immigration lawyers said.

May 22, 2026

U.S. Immigration Crackdown

There are various pathways for foreigners to obtain green cards, which grant them the ability to live and work in the United States as permanent residents. Libby March for The New York Times

Leer en español

The Trump administration said on Friday that most foreigners seeking green cards will have to return to their home countries to apply, a remarkable change that could make it more difficult for hundreds of thousands of people to obtain permanent residency.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that oversees the legal immigration system, said it would grant green cards to people inside the country only in “extraordinary circumstances.” People applying for permanent residency, which is one step away from citizenship, will have to go through consular processing outside the country instead, according to a memo issued by the agency.

“This policy allows our immigration system to function as the law intended instead of incentivizing loopholes,” Zach Kahler, a spokesman for the agency, said in a statement. “When aliens apply from their home country, it reduces the need to find and remove those who decide to slip into the shadows and remain in the U.S. illegally after being denied residency.”

The change could upend the lives of people who entered the country lawfully through temporary visas and are seeking green cards to remain in the United States, including students, spouses of U.S. citizens and a wide range of foreign workers. The process of obtaining a green card — which gives immigrants the right to live in the country permanently and provides a path to citizenship — takes months or longer, meaning families could be separated for extended periods.

The memo was immediately met with confusion and chaos as immigration lawyers scrambled to understand which exceptions would be granted. Many also expected the policy change to be met with legal challenges.

The agency did not detail which groups would be eligible for an exception, only suggesting that refugees would not be subject. Mr. Kahler said in a statement that people who “provide an economic benefit or otherwise are in the national interest will likely be able to continue on their current path.” 

It was unclear, though, which foreign workers would be exempt and if exceptions would extend to skilled foreign workers on H-1B visas, for instance.

The policy is a major escalation of the Trump administration’s efforts to curb legal immigration and reflects how the president’s crackdown has broadened beyond immigrants living in the country unlawfully. Federal officials have in recent months sought to strip some naturalized citizens of their status and review thousands of green card holders to root out immigrants they believe should be deported.

The change is likely to lead to more families being separated as spouses or relatives wait for decisions on their applications, immigration lawyers and former homeland security officials said. It could also lead to longer processing times as consulates around the world manage an influx of new cases.

“Our consular processing system through which they would have to apply is already overburdened,” said Sarah Pierce, a former policy analyst at Citizenship and Immigration Services who is now the director of social policy at the center-left think tank Third Way. “So that means we could have families separated for months or years.”

About 1.4 million green cards were granted in 2024, with more than 820,000 approved for people inside the country through a process called “adjustment of status,” according to Department of Homeland Security data. Over the past two decades, more than 500,000 people have received green cards via adjustment of status each year, except for in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Most green cards issued in the last 10 years were to people already in the country

The majority of people who became legal permanent residents while in the U.S. were sponsored by a relative or an employer.

Number of green cards issued each fiscal year

There are various pathways for foreigners to obtain a green card. People with temporary visas can apply to adjust their status if they have spouses who are U.S. citizens, for instance. Certain foreign workers and parents of citizens who are at least 21 years old are also eligible for green cards.

More than 70 percent of people who received a green card through marriage did so through adjustment of status, totaling about 250,000 people in 2024.

Some immigration attorneys said they were inundated with calls and emails from clients on Friday asking how the new memo could affect their cases.

Robert O’Malley, an immigration attorney in Grand Rapids, Mich., said several clients called to ask if their spouses needed to leave the United States, or if they would be able to stay together.

“I’ve done my best to assuage those fears,” Mr. O’Malley said. “But I’m really just trying to digest this six-page memo and wait for further guidance so that we know how to best advise our clients.”

Madeleine Ngo covers immigration and economic policy for The Times.

Albert Sun is a data reporter and graphics editor at The Times who covers immigration.“ 

 

Judge Dismisses Criminal Case Against Abrego Garcia

"The move deals an embarrassing blow to the Trump administration, which made the Maryland man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the face of its deportation campaign.

May 22, 2026

Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Baltimore last year.Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times

A federal judge on Friday dismissed the criminal case against the immigrant Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, ruling that the Trump administration had brought human smuggling charges against him as part of a vindictive effort to punish him for challenging his wrongful deportation to El Salvador last year.

The ruling by the judge, Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr., was a stinging rebuke of both the Justice Department and its top official, Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general. Judge Crenshaw singled out Mr. Blanche for criticism in his 32-page opinion, pointing to statements he had made that prosecutors reawakened a dormant investigation into Mr. Abrego Garcia only after a different judge in Maryland questioned the administration’s decision to deport him — along with scores of other immigrants — to a notorious Salvadoran prison in March 2025.

The decision, filed in Federal District Court in Nashville, marked the first time that a judge had dismissed a case brought by President Trump’s Justice Department for being rooted in vindictive motives. It showed an emerging willingness among jurists across the country to publicly call out the administration for prioritizing its political imperatives above the pursuit of actual justice.

Mr. Abrego Garcia, who is still fighting the administration’s efforts to expel him from the country, is perhaps the best-known symbol of Mr. Trump's aggressive deportation agenda. His serial legal battles against the administration have dragged on for more than a year, reaching all the way to the Supreme Court. His release from criminal charges because of what Judge Crenshaw called their “vindictive taint” was another blow to the president’s immigration crackdown, which had already been battered by, among other things, the killings of two protesters in Minnesota by federal agents.

Judge Crenshaw opened his ruling by quoting Robert H. Jackson, a former attorney general and Supreme Court justice whose reputation for probity has made him something like the patron saint of federal prosecutors.

“Then-Attorney General Robert H. Jackson warned his fellow prosecutors long ago of the danger of picking the person first and the crime second,” Judge Crenshaw wrote. “‘Therein is the most dangerous power of the prosecutor: that he will pick people that he thinks he should get, rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted.’”

“That,” the judge concluded, “is the situation here.”

Mr. Abrego Garcia hailed the decision in a statement he released through We are CASA, an immigrant advocacy group.

“Justice is a big word and an even bigger promise to fulfill,” he said. “And I am grateful that today, justice has taken a step forward.”

Natalie Baldassarre, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said that prosecutors would appeal Judge Crenshaw's ruling.

“Another activist judge has placed politics above public safety,” she added. “The judge’s order is wrong and dangerous.”

When Mr. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers first asked Judge Crenshaw more than nine months ago to throw out the charges for being vindictive, they reminded him that the administration had removed their client from the United States in violation of a 2019 court order that expressly barred him from being sent to El Salvador.

He ended up with nearly 200 other deportees in a prison built for terrorists, where he claimed he was beaten, deprived of sleep and psychologically tortured over nearly three months.

Instead of simply bringing him back to U.S. soil, the White House began a public campaign to punish him “for daring to fight back,” by filing a lawsuit challenging his removal while he was still in Salvadoran custody. That campaign included vitriolic statements by senior Trump administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance, who falsely declared that Mr. Abrego Garcia “was a convicted MS-13 gang member with no legal right to be here.”

Other top aides have called Mr. Abrego Garcia a “rapist,” a “wife beater” and a “terrorist,” while the president, pointing to a photoshopped image, erroneously claimed last year that tattoos on Mr. Abrego Garcia’s fingers proved he belonged to MS-13, the violent Salvadoran street gang.

All of this culminated, the lawyers said, in a criminal investigation that led to Mr. Abrego Garcia’s indictment on smuggling charges in front of Judge Crenshaw. On the same day the charges were announced, the Trump administration brought him back from El Salvador, even though Mr. Trump and other officials had repeatedly vowed that was impossible, including at a bizarre Oval Office news conference with President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador.

At the heart of the criminal case against Mr. Abrego Garcia was a traffic stop on a Tennessee highway in 2022 during which he was pulled over and discovered to be driving several Hispanic men, some of whom were in the country illegally. Even though the F.B.I. learned about the stop at the time, it decided not to do anything about it, and Mr. Abrego Garcia was released without charges.

In his ruling, Judge Crenshaw noted that the administration did not reopen the inquiry into the traffic stop until more than two years later — tellingly, after Mr. Abrego Garcia challenged his wrongful expulsion from the country.

While the case was largely handled by Robert E. McGuire, a top career prosecutor in Nashville, Judge Crenshaw conducted his own inquiry into the origins of the investigation. He eventually determined that senior Justice Department leaders had peered over Mr. McGuire’s shoulder as he worked, hurried him along toward filing an indictment and sometimes knew more about the case than even he — the man who was supposedly in charge of it — did.

The judge said that one of Mr. Blanche’s top aides, Aakash Singh, was central to what he referred to as “the story of Main Justice’s involvement in the prosecution.”

Mr. Singh, Judge Crenshaw wrote, knew about the government’s star witness before Mr. McGuire did, and contacted him in late April of last year “to fold him into an investigation that was well underway.”

“When Singh contacted McGuire, it was not as a peer, but as McGuire’s supervisor in ODAG,” the judge wrote, referring to the office of the deputy attorney general, which Mr. Blanche ran before he was promoted to acting attorney general. “When Singh informed McGuire about the evidence developed against Abrego, it was clear what Singh and Blanche wanted McGuire to do.”

It remains unclear what Mr. Abrego Garcia may do now that the charges against him have been thrown out.

After failing in their earlier efforts to expel him to several African countries, including Uganda and Eswatini, administration officials are now trying to remove him to Liberia — for the second time. But for the moment, he is protected against hasty deportation by a court order from a federal judge in Maryland, Paula Xinis, who is handling his separate civil case.

Still, Mr. Abrego Garcia has been a free man since last December, when Judge Xinis ordered him to be released from immigration custody. And now that he is no longer facing criminal charges and does not have to appear in court to see them through, he could in theory go anywhere he wants.

Alan Feuer covers extremism and political violence for The Times, focusing on the criminal cases involving the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and against former President Donald J. Trump."