By KATHY McCORMACK

A federal appeals court has paused a judge’s order to bring a Turkish Tufts University student from a Louisiana immigration detention center back to New England this week so it can consider an emergency motion filed by the government.

Related Articles

John M. Crisp: What I wish Rumeysa Ozturk could have learned in the US

White House focuses on border crackdown as it marks 100 days for Trump’s second term

As immigrant arrests surge, complaints of abuse mount at America’s oldest detention center in Miami

Fears of racial profiling swirl over registration policy for immigrants in the US illegally

ICE is reversing the termination of legal status for international students around the US

The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New York, ruled Monday that a three-judge panel would hear arguments on May 6 in the case of Rumeysa Ozturk. She’s been detained for five weeks as of Tuesday.

A district court judge in Vermont had earlier ordered that the 30-year-old doctoral student be brought to the state by Thursday for hearings to determine whether she was illegally detained. Ozturk’s lawyers say her detention violates her constitutional rights, including free speech and due process.

The U.S. Justice Department, which is appealing that ruling, said that an immigration court in Louisiana has jurisdiction over her case.

Congress limited federal-court jurisdiction over immigration matters, government lawyers wrote. Yet the Vermont judge’s order “defies those limits at every turn in a way that irreparably harms the government.”

Ozturk’s lawyers opposed the emergency motion. “In practice, that temporary pause could last many months,” they said in a news release.

Immigration officials surrounded Ozturk as she walked along a street in a Boston suburb March 25 and drove her to New Hampshire and Vermont before putting her on a plane to a detention center in Basile, Louisiana.

Ozturk was one of four students who wrote an op-ed in the campus newspaper, The Tufts Daily, last year criticizing the university’s response to student activists demanding that Tufts “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,” disclose its investments and divest from companies with ties to Israel.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in March, without providing evidence, that investigations found that Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group.

By TERRY TANG

During his adolescence, William Fong’s entire world was contained in San Francisco. But in 1967, over a decade into the Vietnam War, he was drafted.

Related Articles

Job cuts delay Pentagon plans to expand work to prevent sex assaults and suicides

The Vietnam War ended 50 years ago, but the battle with Agent Orange continues

Trump asks Supreme Court to allow ban on transgender members of the military to take effect, for now

Hegseth pulled airstrike info from secure military channel for Signal posts, NBC News reports

White House voices support for Hegseth as a new Signal chat revelation stirs fresh Pentagon turmoil

At age 20, he left his home in the city’s Chinatown neighborhood for basic training, and then found himself in Asia for the first time. Anticipating he would be surrounded by American soldiers who were mostly white, Fong grew anxious about being perceived as an enemy combatant.

That anxiety only strengthened his conviction and determination to be the best soldier possible, he said.

“I wanted to be accepted like anybody else, not necessarily Chinese or Asian or, you know, from any particular part of the country, but just to be myself,” Fong said. He didn’t want to be seen as any of the racist stereotypes about Chinese men he grew up hearing.

Fong, 77, went on to serve as an armor intelligence specialist during his yearlong tour in Vietnam, ultimately forming some of the most important friendships of his life.

Five decades after the Vietnam war ended, more Asian American and Pacific Islander veterans are reflecting on the life-changing ordeal that was at times made more complicated by their race. Service members — from the Army to the Marine Corps — are now sharing stories about the racism they faced growing up and again while serving their country. They were often reminded that they resembled “the enemy” and faced hostility and increased violence.

Still, many say they ultimately found camaraderie with their brothers-in-arms and are proud of their service. Now, a half-century later, many of these veterans want their voices to be heard.

Preserving veterans’ oral histories

The conflict known in Vietnam as the “American War” began in 1955 when northern Vietnamese communist forces rose in power. It ended on April 30, 1975, when tanks from the north rolled into the South Vietnam capital of Saigon. The U.S. was forced to withdraw. Roughly 58,000 Americans; 250,000 South Vietnamese allies; and an estimated 3 million communist fighters and civilians perished. Out of 2.7 million Americans who fought overseas, an estimated 35,000 were Asian American, according to the Library of Congress.

Since 2000, the Library of Congress’ Veterans History Project has gathered roughly 121,000 submissions of veterans’ personal histories. Archivists say only about 700 identified as Asian American or Pacific Islander, but that’s likely an undercount since the vast majority of participants didn’t disclose their race.

A lot of the credit for those contributions goes to the volunteer-run Asian American Community Media Project, which has submitted over 100 in just the past two years.

The project is a labor of love started by volunteers Don Bannai and George Wada. The Los Angeles area residents, who are both in their 70s and Japanese American, decided to take filmmaking classes for seniors a few years ago. Neither is a veteran. But, both are passionate about preserving veterans’ voices. They channeled their newfound documentary skills and personal funds into interviewing and filming veterans’ testimonials.

“The hardest thing is to find people to talk to,” Bannai said. “We’ve got a list of 250 guys and a hundred of those have said ‘No, I’m not ready to talk about that. I’m not interested in talking about my story.’ So, that’ll tell you there are other stories out there that are still difficult to tell.”

Looking like ‘the enemy’

Bannai and Wada have dug up fascinating stories of Japanese American veterans who served in Vietnam. Some revealed their parents were incarcerated in camps during World War II. Others had family members who served in the 442nd Infantry Regiment, an all-Japanese American unit that is arguably the most decorated group in U.S. military history.

“The culture that their sons grew up in, of course it was a valid option … going to serve your country because your dad did or your uncle did,” Bannai said.

Some Japanese American veterans recounted hostile encounters with fellow officers in Vietnam. One recounted a superior pointing to him at boot camp, telling everyone “This is what your enemy is going to look like,” Bannai said.

In one video, a former marine describes how a sergeant hit him on his first night in Vietnam because he assumed he was Vietnamese. The sergeant was then shocked to hear him respond in English. Because of his looks, the man was also prohibited from going on night patrols.

Many veterans who have shared their stories through the project have come away feeling emotional but appreciative of the opportunity to reflect.

“I’m not a counselor,” Bannai said. “But for some of these guys, it’s the first time they’ve ever told these stories. And that feeling of relief, emotional relief, is almost euphoric for some of them.”

Finding commonality in Vietnam

Fang Wong, 77, of East Brunswick, New Jersey, came to New York City from China in 1960 at age 12. Three years later, he obtained citizenship. In 1969, he was drafted. He went to South Carolina, for basic training, then deployed to Germany. Tired of constant snow and homesickness, he volunteered to relocate to Vietnam.

He was stationed right outside Saigon and working military intelligence. The only Asian in his unit, he also found connection elsewhere.

Wong soon found a special kinship with Chinese civilian contractors who worked on the base and introduced him to Cholon, a Chinese enclave in Saigon still considered one of the largest Chinatowns worldwide. He had meals of Cantonese food that were almost “as good as home” and hung out with other Chinese youths.

“Once they find out that I could speak Cantonese, we communicate and every once in a while when we have a chance, I’d go out with them,” Wong said. “I go down to Cholon and find out that they have a bunch of young guys, they play basketball. I happen to like basketball.”

Wong went on to serve in the Army for 20 years. In 2011, he also was the first Asian American and person of color elected national commander of The American Legion.

For Fong, a retired grandfather of three living in the Bay Area suburb of Redwood City, talking about the war isn’t easy. He saw fellow soldiers die and then returned to the U.S. where the public’s perception of the war was contentious. It’s hard for civilians to understand, he said. So, he prioritized keeping in touch with fellow veterans. As an active member of the nonprofit Veterans of Foreign Wars’ Chinatown Post, he is intent on being a resource available to other veterans.

He hopes these discussions can help other Asian Americans who have served process their experiences.

“Hopefully,” he said, “this might give them an understanding that they’re not alone.”

By PETER SMITH

Whoever succeeds Pope Francis will inherit his momentous and controversial legacy of relations with Indigenous people throughout the Americas.

Related Articles

Liberals won the election in Canada. Here’s what to know and what comes next

If Trump abandons Ukraine, can Europe help Kyiv fight on? The clock is ticking to answer that

Ukraine says Russia hits civilians again as Kyiv derides Putin’s 3-day truce offer

What is a conclave? What to know about the secretive process to elect the next pope

Disgraced Cardinal Becciu formally withdraws from participation in conclave to elect pope

Some found Francis to be a reconciling figure, others a disappointment. Even those who applauded the actions he took during his 12-year papacy said they were just a beginning, and that his successor will need to continue to work toward healing.

Francis, who died April 21, at age 88 issued a historic apology for the “catastrophic” legacy of residential schools in Canada and oversaw the repudiation of the “Doctrine of Discovery” — the collective name given to a series of 15th-century papal decrees that legitimized colonial-era seizure of Native lands.

But some Indigenous leaders criticized him as slow to fully recognize the traumatic impact of Catholic missionary efforts and for canonizing Junipero Serra, the 18th-century missionary accused of mistreating Native people in present-day California.

Even Francis’ admirers says his work is unfinished

“It’s 150 years of trauma. It’s going to take us a bit of time to recover,” said Wilton Littlechild, a residential school survivor and former Grand Chief of the Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations in Canada. “He put us on a real strong path to reconciliation, but it can’t stop.”

Perhaps the most dramatic of Francis’ encounters with the Indigenous community occurred on a July day in 2022 in Maskwacis, a small town in the Canadian province of Alberta and the hub of four Cree nations.

There, Pope Francis paid respects at a cemetery near a former residential school for Indigenous children. He then delivered a long-sought apology for Catholic complicity in the 19th- and 20th-century residential school system for the First Nations, Metis and Inuit people of Canada.

“I am deeply sorry, sorry for the ways in which, regrettably, many Christians supported the colonizing mentality of the powers that oppressed the Indigenous peoples,” Francis said.

The Rev. Cristino Bouvette recalled being unexpectedly emotional at that moment.

Bouvette, an Alberta priest of Cree and Metis heritage who was liturgical coordinator for the pope’s Canada visit, recalled hearing the applause and seeing some onlookers weeping.

Bouvette said his late grandmother had attended a residential school and never felt the pope needed to apologize — but he, too, began to weep.

“My thoughts immediately turned to my grandmother,” he said. “I think she would have been deeply touched had she been alive to hear those words herself, despite her not thinking it needed to happen.”

The first pope from the Americas also offered an apology in Bolivia for Catholic complicity in colonialism and he supported the use of Indigenous languages and customs at Catholic liturgies in Mexico.

Francis “was a human being who tried to love and respect and honor people,” advocating for the poor and migrants, said Valentin Lopez, chairperson of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band in California. “But regarding the Native Americans specifically, there’s a number of negative items that were pretty much totally ignored by the pope, and for that we’re disappointed.”

Kenneth Deer — a Mohawk activist from Canada who was part of a Native delegation that urged Francis in 2016 to rescind the Doctrine of Discovery — saw Francis as “very progressive, and he could have been more progressive if the Vatican wouldn’t hold him back.”

Deer noted that while the church was unwilling to state that the residential schools were an act of genocide, Francis was willing to say that in personal remarks.

“That’s who you want to listen to, the unscripted Pope Francis,” Deer said.

Francis’ successor will need “to continue working, continue to evolve,” said Deer. “You have to change.”

Mixed messages? Some activists said that was a problem

Visiting Bolivia in July 2015, Francis asked forgiveness “not only for the offenses of the church herself, but also for crimes committed against the Native peoples during the so-called conquest of America.”

Later that year in his only U.S. visit, Francis officially declared Serra to be a saint.

Many Native activists lambasted the canonization, calling the missionary priest a prime culprit in what Francis had just apologized for in Bolivia — complicity with destructive colonization.

Serra founded California’s historic missions, where thousands of Native Americans were converted. But some were also whipped for misbehaving or trying to flee. The missions became centers for horrific disease outbreaks, with mass fatalities.

“Saintly people are supposed to live lives that we are supposed to emulate,” Lopez said. “How can those actions be considered saintly?”

Lopez, whose Amah Mutsun Tribal Band includes descendants of those who lived in the spheres of influence of two California missions, had written multiple times to Pope Francis, unsuccessfully urging him to cancel the canonization.

Defenders of Serra’s canonization said he wasn’t perfect but had exemplary qualities. Francis contended that Serra actually defended “the dignity of the Native community” from the threat of worse treatment by secular Spanish colonial authorities.

Historic Canada trip

In 2022, Francis addressed the Catholic Church’s operation of residential schools, which shattered Indigenous children’s ties to family and culture in the 19th and 20th centuries. Canada’s National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation documented more than 4,000 child deaths at residential schools, and some experts believe the number is much higher.

Della Lizotte, whose parents attended a residential school, welcomed Francis’ apology.

“For me, it felt genuine,” said Lizotte, an elder in Sacred Heart Church of the First Peoples in Edmonton, Alberta, which the pope also visited. “I just wish it had been sooner, because my parents had already passed away and they would have really appreciated hearing that.”

The event sparked controversy when Littlechild presented Pope Francis with a ceremonial headdress. Historically, the headdress has been a symbol of respect, worn by Native American war chiefs and warriors. Some Native commentators found the image jarring.

Littlechild said the pope’s apology enabled him to forgive the church for his own experiences during 14 years in a residential school.

“When I gave him the headdress as a gift from our people, I told him, ‘I forgive for what happened to me as a child,’” he said. “And many people have told me since then that it was a new journey for them to heal from the traumas.”

Doctrine of Discovery

In 2023, the Vatican formally repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery, which legitimized colonial-era seizure of Native lands by Spain and Portugal. The concept forms the basis of some property laws today in the United States.

The Vatican said the related decrees, or papal bulls, “did not adequately reflect the equal dignity and rights of Indigenous peoples” and have never been considered expressions of the Catholic faith.

Fernie Marty, an elder in Sacred Heart Church of the First Peoples, a parish that uses Native language and customs, said the action showed the pope was moving from words to deeds — what Marty called “reconcili-action.”

“I thought, wow, this is another proof that he’s on the right track,” he said.

But Lopez said Francis didn’t go far enough by not rescinding the papal bulls. To Lopez, that means they’re still technically on the books.

Not only do Native people have historical traumas, Lopez said, but the church itself needs healing from the “soul wound” of this legacy. But it has to fully make amends, he said.

“We have trouble with the papal bulls, we have trouble with Junipero Serra, we have trouble with Pope Francis not wanting to listen to or ignoring this devastating history and impact on Indigenous people,” he said.

AP writer Graham Lee Brewer contributed from New York.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

By NICOLE WINFIELD

What is a conclave?

VATICAN CITY (AP) — A conclave is the centuries-old election of a pope that derives its name from the Italian “con clave” (with a key) to underscore that cardinals are sequestered until they find a winner.

Cardinals have no contact with the outside world after the master of liturgical ceremonies utters the words “Extra Omnes” the Latin phrase for “all out,” to ask all those present except the cardinal electors to leave the Sistine Chapel to begin the voting process.

In between votes, the cardinals will be staying at the Domus Santa Marta hotel in Vatican City and possibly another nearby Vatican residence, since there are more cardinal electors than Santa Marta hotel rooms.

How will it work?

The conclave begins May 7, in the afternoon.

The day begins with Mass celebrated in the morning by the dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re.

In the afternoon, the cardinals process into the Sistine Chapel and take their seats. A priest delivers a meditation and the cardinals take an oath. After the “Extra Omnes,” the conclave begins.

Unless there are any outstanding questions or problems, cardinals take a single vote the afternoon of May 7, seeking a two-thirds majority. If they don’t find a winner on the first ballot, they retire for the evening and return to the Sistine Chapel the following morning.

They can take up to two votes each morning, and two each afternoon until they have a winner.

Who gets to be part of the conclave?

Only cardinals under age 80 are eligible to vote. Current regulations notionally limit the number of electors to 120, but popes often exceeded that ceiling and today there are 135 who are eligible.

Those cardinals who are over 80 can’t vote but can participate in pre-conclave meetings, known as general congregations, in which church problems are discussed. It was in these meetings in 2013 that then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio spoke about the need for the church to go to the “existential peripheries” to find those who suffer — an off-the-cuff speech that helped his election.

Are there major differences between this conclave and previous ones?

St. John Paul II rewrote the regulations on papal elections in a 1996 document that remains largely in force today, though Pope Benedict XVI amended it twice before he resigned.

Francis didn’t introduce any changes into the conclave itself, though his influence will surely be felt given he named 108 of the 135 cardinal-electors who are eligible to vote.

Benedict’s most notable change to the original 1996 document was to exclude the possibility that a pope could be elected by a simple majority if voting was stalemated. Benedict decreed that a two-thirds majority is always needed, no matter how long it takes. He did so to prevent cardinals from holding out for the 12 days foreseen by John Paul and then pushing through a candidate with a slim majority.

If the conclave lasts that long, the top two vote-getters go to a runoff, with a two-thirds majority required to win. Neither of the top two candidates casts a ballot in the runoff.

Who is eligible to be elected pope?

Any baptized Catholic male is eligible to be pope, but since 1378, only cardinals have been selected. Cardinals over age 80 can be elected pope, even if they can’t be in the room to cast a ballot.

Why aren’t women part of the process?

Francis and popes before him have upheld the ban on ordaining women as priests, which precludes them from being pope. Under Catholic doctrine, the priesthood is reserved for men because Christ chose only men as his 12 apostles. The teaching is considered divinely inspired and infallible.

St Peter’s Basilica is seen in the background as a cardinal arrives for a college of cardinals’ meeting, at the Vatican, Monday, April 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

So, the voting process is a secret?

Benedict tightened the oath of secrecy in the conclave, making clear that anyone who reveals what went on inside faces automatic excommunication.

In John Paul’s rules, excommunication was always a possibility, but Benedict revised the oath that liturgical assistants and secretaries take to make it explicit, saying they must observe “absolute and perpetual secrecy” and explicitly refrain from using any audio or video recording devices.

Related Articles

Disgraced Cardinal Becciu formally withdraws from participation in conclave to elect pope

Spain and Portugal focus on the cause of the huge blackout after power is almost fully restored

Today in History: April 29, Los Angeles riots after Rodney King verdict

Mark Carney wins new term as Canada’s prime minister on anti-Trump platform

Mark Carney wins full term as Canada’s prime minister on anti-Trump platform

They now declare: “I take this oath fully aware that an infraction thereof will incur the penalty of automatic excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See. So help me God and these Holy Gospels, which I touch with my hand.”

How does the conclave announce that they’ve selected a new pope?

After the ballots are pierced, they are burned in a cylindrical stove at the end of the voting session. Black smoke from the Sistine Chapel chimney means no decision; white smoke signals the cardinals have chosen a pope and that he has accepted.

Chemical cartridges are added to ensure there is no confusion over the color. To produce black smoke, a cartridge containing potassium perchlorate, anthracene — the component of coal tar — and sulfur is burned with the ballots. For white smoke, a cartridge of potassium chlorate, lactose and chloroform resin is burned with the ballots.

Bells also are rung to signal the election of a pope, for further clarity.

The new pope is introduced from the loggia overlooking St. Peter’s Square with the words, “Habemus Papam!” (“We have a pope!”) and his chosen papal name. The new pope then emerges and gives his first blessing.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.