NICOSIA: The European Union will support Greenland and Denmark when needed and will not accept violations of international law no matter where they occur, EU Council President Antonio Costa said on Wednesday.
“On Greenland, allow me to be clear: Greenland belongs to its people. Nothing can be decided about Denmark and about Greenland without Denmark, or without Greenland,” Costa said in a speech marking the assumption by Cyprus of the rotating presidency of the EU.
“They have the full support and solidarity of the European Union,” he said.
US President Donald Trump has repeated in recent days that he wants to gain control of Greenland, as he argues the island is key for US military strategy and claims Denmark has not done enough to protect it.
Costa said Cyprus was taking the helm of the EU Council at a time when the international rules-based order was under attack, and urged EU member states to stand up against these developments.
“The European Union cannot accept violations of international law — whether in Cyprus, Latin America, Greenland, Ukraine or Gaza,” Costa said.
“Europe will remain a firm and unwavering champion of international law and multilateralism.”
Greenland belongs to its people and has full EU support, EU’s Costa says
https://arab.news/4qumw
Greenland belongs to its people and has full EU support, EU’s Costa says
- “They have the full support and solidarity of the European Union,” Costa said
Federal judge rules Kilmar Abrego Garcia can’t be re-detained by immigration authorities
- Abrego Garcia has an American wife and child and has lived in Maryland for years
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement cannot re-detain Kilmar Abrego Garcia because a 90-day detention period has expired and the government has no viable plan for deporting him, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday.
The Salvadoran national’s case has become a focal point in the immigration debate after he was mistakenly deported to his home country last year. Since his return, he has been fighting a second deportation to a series of African countries proposed by Department of Homeland Security officials.
The government “made one empty threat after another to remove him to countries in Africa with no real chance of success,” U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, in Maryland, wrote in her Tuesday order. “From this, the Court easily concludes that there is no ‘good reason to believe’ removal is likely in the reasonably foreseeable future.”
Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
Abrego Garcia has an American wife and child and has lived in Maryland for years, but he immigrated to the U.S. illegally as a teenager. In 2019, an immigration judge ruled that he could not be deported to El Salvador because he faced danger there from a gang that had threatened his family. By mistake, he was deported there anyway last year.
Facing public pressure and a court order, President Donald Trump’s administration brought him back in June, but only after securing an indictment charging him with human smuggling in Tennessee. He has pleaded not guilty. Meanwhile, Trump officials have said he cannot stay in the U.S. In court filings, officials have said they intended to deport him to Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana, and Liberia.
In her Tuesday order, Xinis noted the government has “purposely — and for no reason — ignored the one country that has consistently offered to accept Abrego Garcia as a refugee, and to which he agrees to go.” That country is Costa Rica.
Abrego Garcia's attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, argued in court that immigration detention is not supposed to be a punishment. Immigrants can only be detained as a way to facilitate their deportation and cannot be held indefinitely with no viable deportation plan.
“Since Judge Xinis ordered Mr. Abrego Garcia released in mid-December, the government has tried one trick after another to try to get him re-detained,” Sandoval-Moshenberg wrote in an email on Tuesday. “In her decision today, she recognized that if the government were truly trying to remove Mr. Abrego Garcia from the United States, they would have sent him to Costa Rica long before today.”
The government should now engage in a good-faith effort to work out the details of removal to Costa Rica, Sandoval-Moshenberg wrote.
