Judge rules U.S. can't expel migrant families using public health law
Under a Trump-era policy that the Biden administration has maintained, hundreds of thousands of migrants have been expelled without a chance to apply for asylum.
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Camilo Montoya-Galvez is the Immigration Correspondent at CBS News, where his reporting is featured across multiple programs and platforms, including national broadcast shows, CBS News 24/7, CBSNews.com and the organization's social media accounts.
Montoya-Galvez has received numerous awards for his groundbreaking and in-depth reporting on immigration, including a national Emmy Award, the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award and several New York Emmy Awards.
Over several years, he has built one of the leading and most trusted national sources of immigration news, filing breaking news pieces, as well as exclusive reports and in-depth feature stories on the impact of major policy changes.
Montoya-Galvez was the first reporter to obtain and publish the names of the Venezuelan deportees sent by the U.S. to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador, with little to no due process. Using that list, he co-produced a "60 Minutes" report that found most of the deported men did not have apparent criminal records, despite the administration's claims that they were all dangerous criminals and gang members. Montoya-Galvez was also the first journalist to interview Jennifer Vasquez Sura, the wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador and imprisoned at the CECOT prison.
In 2025 alone, Montoya Galvez broke dozens of other exclusive stories. He disclosed the internal Trump administration plan to revoke the legal status of hundreds of thousands of migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela; landed the first national network sit-down interviews with the current heads of ICE and Border Patrol; and obtained government data showing that illegal crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2025 plummeted to the lowest level since 1970 amid Trump's crackdown.
Montoya Galvez's North Star is to cover immigration with nuance and fairness, in a nonpartisan, comprehensive and compelling way that respects the dignity of those at the center of this story
Before joining CBS News, Montoya-Galvez spent over two years as an investigative unit producer and assignment desk editor at Telemundo's television station in New York City. His work at Telemundo earned three New York Emmy Awards. Earlier, he was the founding editor of After the Final Whistle, an online bilingual publication featuring stories that highlight soccer's role in contemporary society.
Montoya-Galvez was born in Cali, Colombia's third-largest city, and raised in New Jersey. He earned a bachelor's degree in Media and Journalism Studies and Spanish from Rutgers University.
Under a Trump-era policy that the Biden administration has maintained, hundreds of thousands of migrants have been expelled without a chance to apply for asylum.
The statistics show that unauthorized migration to the U.S.-Mexico border remained at an extremely high level toward the end of the summer, when migrant apprehensions have historically dropped.
U.S. officials have portrayed the program as a safe and legal alternative to the often dangerous trek migrant children undertake to reach the southern border.
The legalization plan would benefit undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, farmworkers, Temporary Protected Status holders and essential workers.
"It's frustrating to continue waiting here after all this time and suffering," one asylum-seeker stranded in Mexico with her 9-month-old baby told CBS News.
While the vast majority of Afghan evacuees arriving in the U.S. this summer have been families and adults, some evacuated children have been entering the country without their parents.
This marks the first reported death of an evacuee from Afghanistan on U.S. soil.
The resettlement operation is grappling with issues ranging from the uncertain immigration status of many evacuees, to limited social resources and permanent housing for the new arrivals.
U.S. immigration officials have designated at least 34 Afghan children as unaccompanied minors, sending some of them to government shelters for undocumented migrant youth.
Under the Trump-era program, the U.S. returned 70,000 non-Mexican asylum-seekers to Mexico, instructing them to wait there for their court hearings.
The move will allow the U.S. government to authorize the entry of certain vulnerable Afghans, including those who helped American forces but whose visa applications remain pending.
Human rights researchers tracked 6,356 attacks against migrants who were expelled to Mexico by the U.S. or barred from requesting U.S. refuge.
Providing refuge to Afghans who assisted the American war effort is a rare immigration policy with broad public support, including among Republicans, according to CBS News polling.
The Trump-era program required 70,000 non-Mexican asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for their U.S. asylum court hearings.
Freshta, a college student in Michigan, fears her Hazara family in Afghanistan could be harmed by the Taliban because of their assistance to the U.S. war effort.