Evelyn Reynolds

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    US claims student’s activism could ‘undermine’ Middle East peace

    The Trump administration is justifying its efforts to deport a student at Columbia University by saying that his activities could “potentially undermine” the Middle East peace process.In a memo from the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, reviewed exclusively by the New York Times, the administration asserts that Mohsen Mahdawi, 34, a green-card holder and student who led pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia, had undermined the Middle East peace process and threatened the US goal to “peacefully” resolve conflict in Israel and Gaza.Mahdawi was apprehended at an immigration services center in Vermont, where he had arrived to complete the final step in his citizenship process. Instead of taking a citizenship test, as he had expected to do, he was arrested and handcuffed by immigration officers.Rubio’s memo justifying the arrest cites the same authority used to detain Mahdawi’s fellow Columbia protester and green-card holder Mahmoud Khalil. In both cases, Rubio cited a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) that he said allows him to deport any person who is not a citizen or national of the US.In Khalil’s case, Rubio argued that Khalil’s activism undermined the US goal of combatting antisemitism; the reasoning is currently being challenged in court. But the memo addressing Mahdawi’s case, the New York Times reports, is more specific, noting that Mahdawi had “engaged in threatening rhetoric and intimidation of pro-Israeli bystanders”, saying his activism had undermined efforts to protect Jewish students from violence, and saying it had undermined the Middle East peace process by reinforcing antisemitic sentiment.The state department declined to comment, and Mahdawi’s lawyers did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.According to the court filing challenging Mahdawi’s arrest, he was born and raised in a refugee camp in the West Bank, where he lived until he moved to the US in 2014. He became a lawful permanent resident of the US in 2015.He was expected to graduate Columbia in May, and had been accepted into a master’s program at the university’s school of international and public affairs, according to the court documents.As a student at Columbia, his lawyers say, Mahdawi was “an outspoken critic of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and an activist and organizer in student protests on Columbia’s campus until March of 2024, after which he took a step back and has not been involved in organizing”. More

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    Judge rebukes Trump officials for not securing return of wrongly deported man

    A federal judge sharply rebuked the Trump administration and scolded officials on Tuesday for taking no steps to secure the return of a man wrongly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador, as the US supreme court had ordered in a contentious ruling last week.The US district judge Paula Xinis said that Donald Trump’s news conference with El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, where the leaders joked that Kilmar Ábrego García would not be released, did not count as compliance.“To date nothing has been done,” Xinis said, a day after senior Trump officials also mounted an effort to sidestep the supreme court decision by offering increasingly strained readings of the order to claim they were powerless to bring back Ábrego García.The judge ultimately said she would require the administration to produce details under oath about its attempts to return Ábrego García to US soil in two weeks, an unusually expeditious timeline for discovery that indicated how she intends to move with the case.At issue at the hearing in federal district court in Maryland was the administration’s narrow reading of the supreme court order that compelled it to “facilitate” the return of Ábrego García, who was supposed to have been shielded from being sent to El Salvador.The administration had earlier conceded Ábrego García’s deportation was an administrative error. But it has since taken the position that it is powerless to bring him back beyond removing domestic obstacles, and that courts lack the constitutional power to dictate the president to do more.The lead lawyer for the administration, Drew Ensign, also said in legal filings before the hearing that even if Ábrego García were returned to the US, the justice department would deport him to a different country or move to terminate the order blocking his removal to El Salvador.But the judge rejected the administration’s narrow reading of “facilitate”, noting the plain meaning of the word meant officials needed to secure Ábrego García’s release – and that US immigration and customs enforcement had previously taken a number of positions on its meaning.“Your characterization is not bound in fact,” Xinis said. “I need facts.”The administration argued it had sought to comply with the supreme court’s order when Trump addressed the case and Bukele questioned whether he was supposed to smuggle Ábrego García across the border – which Ensign argued showed the matter had been raised at the “highest levels”.The judge appeared unimpressed by the argument. “It’s not a direct response,” Xinis said. “Nor is the quip about smuggling someone into the US. If you were removing domestic barriers, there would be no smuggling, right? Two misguided ships passing in the night.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe judge told Ábrego García’s lawyers to prepare by Wednesday their questions for the administration about what steps it had taken. She said they could depose up to six officials, including Robert Cerna, a top official at Ice, and Joseph Mazarra, the acting general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security.“Cancel vacation,” Xinis told Ensign. “Cancel appointments. I’m usually pretty good about this in my courtroom, but not this time.”After the hearing, Ábrego García’s lawyer Rina Gandhi called the hearing a win but added they were not yet done. “We have not brought Kilmar home,” she told reporters, “but we will be able to question those involved and get information and evidence as required.”She also accused the administration of acting in bad faith. “This case is about the government unlawfully – and admitting to unlawfully – removing a gentleman from this country, from his home, his family, his children, and taking no actions to fix them as ordered by the supreme court,” Gandhi said. More

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    US removes sanctions from Antal Rogán, aide to Hungary’s Viktor Orbán

    The United States has removed sanctions on a close aide of the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, the state department said, adding that the punitive measures had been “inconsistent with US foreign policy interests”.Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, spoke on Tuesday with his Hungarian counterpart, the foreign minister Péter Szijjártó, and informed him of the move, state department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement.“The Secretary informed Foreign Minister Szijjarto of senior Hungarian official Antal Rogán’s removal from the US Department of the Treasury’s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List, noting that continued designation was inconsistent with US foreign policy interests,” Bruce said.The two also discussed strengthening US-Hungary alignment on critical issues and opportunities for economic cooperation, Bruce said.Orbán and his Fidesz party have been among Donald Trump’s most vocal supporters in Europe.Joe Biden’s administration imposed sanctions on Rogán on 7 January over alleged corruption, in a move that Budapest pledged to challenge once Trump returned to the White House on 20 January.Rogán is a close aide of Orbán and has run his cabinet office since 2015.“Throughout his tenure as a government official, Rogán has orchestrated Hungary’s system for distributing public contracts and resources to cronies loyal to himself and the Fidesz political party,” the US treasury department said at the time.Accusations of corruption and cronyism have dogged Orbán since he came to power in 2010, while Budapest’s relations with Washington became increasingly strained during Biden’s presidency, due in part to Budapest’s warm ties with Moscow despite the war in Ukraine.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOrbán has repeatedly denied allegations of corruption.Rogán has been close to Orbán for decades, running his government’s media machine and helping orchestrate his election campaigns. More

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    Hegseth adviser placed on leave after investigation into Pentagon leaks

    One of US defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s leading advisers, Dan Caldwell, was reportedly put on leave and removed from the Pentagon on Tuesday following a Department of Defense investigation into leaks.Caldwell was escorted out of the Pentagon after being identified during the investigation and subsequently placed on administrative leave for “an unauthorized disclosure”, a source told Reuters.“The investigation remains ongoing,” the source, an official within the administration, said. The source did not go into detail about the alleged disclosure of information, and they did not reveal whether it was made to a journalist or another entity.A memo signed 21 March by Hegseth’s chief of staff, Joe Kasper, requested an investigation into “recent unauthorized disclosures of national security information involving sensitive communications”. The memo also mentions a potential “use of polygraphs in the execution of this investigation” but it is not currently known if Caldwell was subjected to a polygraph test.“I expect to be informed immediately if this effort results in information identifying a party responsible for an unauthorized disclosure, and that such information will be referred to the appropriate criminal law enforcement entity for criminal prosecution,” Kasper wrote in the letter.Caldwell has played a significant role as Hegseth’s adviser, with the defense secretary naming Caldwell as the best staff point of contact for the National Security Council as it prepared for the launch of strikes against the Houthis in Yemen in the leaked Signal chat published by the Atlantic last month.The decision to put Caldwell on administrative leave is reportedly separate from the wave of federal firings in the past few weeks under the Trump administration.Caldwell, a Marine Corps veteran, previously worked for Concerned Veterans for America, a non-profit group with strong ties to Republican lawmakers and promoting conservative policies.He had worked with Hegseth at that organization before he joined Hegseth’s defense department team. More

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    Suspect in arson attack at Josh Shapiro’s residence faces domestic abuse charges

    The man accused of setting fire to the Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial mansion early on Sunday morning while the governor, Josh Shapiro, and his family were asleep inside was due in court three days later on allegations that he assaulted his wife and stepson after trying to take his own life.Those records help provide a more complete picture of Cody Balmer, 38, of the Pennsylvania capital of Harrisburg, who was denied bail on Monday on charges of attempted murder, terrorism, aggravated assault and aggravated arson in connection with the governor’s mansion blaze.Balmer, who stuck his tongue out at news media reporters as he was being led into court on Monday, had been due in court on Wednesday on charges related to domestic abuse allegations.According to a police affidavit from January 2023, police were dispatched to Balmer’s residence after a child called about domestic abuse. Balmer allegedly told officers responding to the call that he had taken a full bottle of pills in a suicide attempt.That escalated into an argument between Balmer and his wife, with Balmer allegedly assaulting both her and his stepson, according to court records reviewed by the Hill.USA Today further reported that Balmer and his wife finalized their divorce in February 2025, and he was subject to a protection from abuse order.Balmer’s mother spoke to the Associated Press and said her son grappled with mental health issues. She reportedly said she had made calls in recent days about those issues, but “nobody would help”.Balmer’s bail denial on Monday occurred after prosecutors said he told police that he planned to beat Shapiro with a hammer – and used Molotov cocktails made from beer bottles filled with gasoline to start the fire. Security footage from the residence evidently shows a man who was carrying a bag and wearing a black jacket – as well as black boots – breaking a window into the home and tossing a homemade molotov cocktail inside.Balmer surrendered to the Pennsylvania state police on Sunday and admitted to “harboring hatred toward Governor Shapiro”, authorities alleged. Asked during a police interview what he would have done had Shapiro found him inside the residence, “he advised he would have beaten him with his hammer”, said the probable cause affidavit justifying Balmer’s arrest.In court on Monday, county judge Dale Klein asked Balmer if he took any medication for mental illness. Balmer responded that he was not mentally ill and he had not taken medication, adding that it had “led … to different types of behavior” in the past.Klein said he had denied Balmer bail because he could be a danger to the community and himself.The arson attack attributed to Balmer followed a series of other attacks targeting US political figures.Those include against Paul Pelosi, the husband of congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, and two separate assassination attempts on Donald Trump.Supporters of Trump – whose first presidency ended in defeat after the 2020 election before he then won back the Oval Office in November – violently attacked the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. And on 8 April, a California man pleaded guilty to trying to kill US supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2022.ABC News reported that social media pages connected to Balmer appear to show both critiques of Trump and his presidential predecessor Joe Biden.Balmer seemed to reject Biden’s 2020 presidential win over Trump and criticized him on Facebook during his term. Posts included a picture with the text “Joe Biden owes me 2 grand” and another that said: “Biden supporters shouldn’t exist.”In 2020, he posted a meme that argued that both Democrats and Republicans “would rather argue with other than work to solve the problems we are facing”.After the alleged arson attack, Shapiro said: “This kind of violence is not OK.“I don’t give a damn if it’s coming from one particular side or the other, directed at one particular party or another, or one particular person or another. It is not OK, and it has to stop.”Authorities have not disclosed the precise motive for the alleged arsonist. Posting on X, Biden said he and former first lady Jill Biden were “disgusted by the attack on the Shapiro family and their home” – while noting it occurred during the first night of the major Jewish holiday of Passover.“There is no place for this type of evil in America, and as I told the governor yesterday, we must stand united against hatred and violence,” Biden said.Trump commented from the White House on Monday that Balmer was “probably just a wack job”.“The attacker was not a fan of Trump,” the president said. “I understand, just from what I read and from what I’ve been told, the attacker basically wasn’t a fan of anybody.“Certainly a thing like that cannot be allowed to happen.”Other entries on Balmer’s rap sheet include several additional violations in Pennsylvania. Among them: a guilty plea to forgery in 2016, for which he was sentenced to 18 months of probation.ABC also reported that Balmer had been dealing with “protracted” foreclosure proceedings. The outlet added that Balmer posted memes urging people to “become ungovernable” and reposted an artwork of a molotov cocktail in 2022 with the slogan: “Be the light you want to see in the world.” More

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    Canadian universities report jump in US applicants amid Trump crackdown

    More students living in the United States are applying to Canadian universities or expressing interest in studying north of the border as Donald Trump cuts federal funding to universities and revokes foreign student visas.Officials at the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) Vancouver campus said the school reported a 27% jump in graduate applications as of 1 March from US citizens for programs starting in the 2025 academic year, compared with all of 2024.UBC Vancouver briefly reopened admissions to US citizens for several graduate programs this week with plans to fast-track applications from US students hoping to begin studies in September.University of Toronto, Canada’s largest university by number of students, also reported more US applications by its January deadline for 2025 programs, while a University of Waterloo spokesperson reported an increase in US visitors to campus and more web traffic originating from the United States since September.Gage Averill, UBC Vancouver’s provost and vice-president of academics, attributed the spike in US applications to the Trump administration abruptly revoking visas of foreign students and increased scrutiny of their social media activity.“That, as a result, and especially as a result of the very recent crackdown on visas in the United States for international students, and now the development of a center that’s reading foreign students’ social media accounts,” Averill said.The administration has frozen hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for numerous universities, pressing them to make policy changes and citing what it claims is a failure to fight antisemitism on campus. It has detained and begun deportation proceedings against some foreign students who took part in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, while visas for hundreds of other students have been canceled – actions that have raised concerns about speech and academic freedoms in the US. At the same time, Canada has capped the number of international students allowed to enter the country for the second year in a row, meaning there may be fewer spots for US and other international students.Canada’s immigration ministry said it expects learning institutions to only accept the number of students they can support, including providing housing options. Provinces and territories are responsible for distributing spaces under the cap, the ministry said.The University of Toronto, considered an alternative to US Ivy League schools, said it was seeing a “meaningful increase” in applications from those living or studying in the US over previous years. University of Waterloo, which is known for its technical graduate programs and churns out top-notch engineering talent, said some faculties including engineering have seen increased interest and applications from students in the US.“We have seen an increase in US visitors to the UW visitors centre on campus, and web traffic that originates in the US has increased by 15% since September 2024,” a University of Waterloo spokesperson said.It did not specify whether these students were foreign students studying in the US or US citizens.Averill said UBC has seen only a modest 2% increase in undergraduate applications for this year’s programs, which closed around the time of Trump’s inauguration. However, interest appears to be growing, with campus tour requests from US students up by 20%.“We were concerned about the United States universities, our sister institutions in the US, who are under enormous pressure right now,” said Averill, referring in particular to the Trump administration’s efforts to withhold funds from universities that continue with diversity and equity initiatives or study climate science.According to UBC’s annual report, the United States ranks as one of the top three countries for international student enrollment. Currently, about 1,500 US students are enrolled in both graduate and undergraduate programs at the university’s two campuses. More

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    Senator Chuck Grassley grilled at Iowa town hall over ‘shameful’ Trump policies

    The Republican senator Chuck Grassley struggled to control a town hall meeting on Tuesday as constituents erupted in anger over border security policies and the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation practices.The 91-year-old Republican lawmaker from Iowa is the latest elected official to get grilled by a packed room of constituents. Attendees in the Republican state were concerned about the treatment of asylum seekers stemming from the president’s approach to immigration enforcement.“I believe very strongly in my Christian faith. I preach on Sundays,” said one attendee, “Turning away people who have come here for asylum is one of the most shameful things we are doing right here.”The attendee pressed Grassley on whether he would take action to ensure the United States better follows international law and upholds “the ideals of our country to be a place of hope for others”.Grassley responded that he would “welcome refugees, I would welcome people seeking asylum”. On Tuesday morning, Trump had posted on Truth Social that border crossings hit an all-time low in March.Tensions escalated further when another constituent accused Trump of ignoring the supreme court order regarding Kilmar Armando Ábrego García. Ábrego’s deportation to El Salvador despite supreme court intervention has become a rallying point for immigration advocates, who cite it as evidence of the administration’s willingness to flout judicial authority.In the White House press conference on Tuesday, the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, called Ábrego a “human trafficker and gang member”.“The president doesn’t care,” one attendee at Grassley’s town hall shouted. “He’s got an order from the supreme court and he’s just said: ‘No, screw it.’”Multiple attendees reminded Grassley, who has held his Senate seat since 1981, of his constitutional oath of office, with one asking whether the senator was acting upon that oath. The crowd grew increasingly frustrated as Grassley attempted to explain his position.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I’m trying to recapture the constitutional authority of article 1, section 8,” Grassley responded, referencing a bipartisan bill he introduced aimed at addressing what he called “mistakes that Democratic Congress has made in 1963”.Grassley’s confrontational town hall comes as many Republican lawmakers have largely abandoned the practice of holding in-person constituent meetings during their congressional recess. The retreat from public forums follows other heated exchanges where Republican lawmakers faced sometimes abrasive criticism over issues like proposed budget cuts to Medicare and Medicaid and what they see as the erosion of constitutional checks and balances.While Grassley continues his 45th annual 99-county tour of Iowa, only a handful of Republicans, including the representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Byron Donalds, have publicly announced plans for similar events. More

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    US’s $2.36tn tourism business fears ‘Trump slump’ over tariff turmoil

    Batman said business was so-so, and King Kong beat his chest in agreement. But neither could predict that it would improve. Gotham’s caped crusader and his muscular ape neighbour could only hope. As with Times Square’s superhero-themed visitor-photography business last week, so it is with the US tourism business at large.The effect of economic and political turbulence on the number of foreign visitors coming to the US is for now hard to define. But both – whether through tariffs, currency exchange chaos, or fears over political ill-winds – are sending chills through the $2.36tn business, the world’s most powerful travel and tourism market.Warnings that international tourism to the US could be hit by Donald Trump’s effort to re-engineer economic and political relations with the rest of the world are slowly emerging.The federal government’s National Travel and Tourism Office released preliminary figures last week showing visits to the US from overseas fell 11.6% in March compared with the same month last year. According to the data released on Tuesday, international arrivals from China were down nearly 1%. Wolfgang Georg Arlt, the CEO of the China Outbound Tourism Research Institute, called it the “Trump Slump”.The Delta Air Lines CEO, Ed Bastian, also said the company would not expand flying in the second half of the year because of disappointing bookings amid Trump’s unpredictable trade policies after cutting its first-quarter earnings outlook, citing weaker-than-expected corporate and leisure travel demand.“In the last six weeks, we’ve seen a corresponding reduction in broad consumer confidence and corporate confidence,” Bastian told CNBC, adding things “really started to slow” in mid-February.The Las Vegas Visitors and Convention Authority said last week it was projecting a 5% decline in room tax revenue for its upcoming budget – a decline that may reflect Trump’s trade disputes with Canada and Mexico. Those countries account for 2.6 million visitors to sin city, or half of international travel trade.LVCVA’s president, Steve Hill, warned at a budget meeting that short-term projected declines do not make a trend, “although we do expect that this is the start of a decline in international visitation. At some level, the conversation around the tariffs has also alienated some of our potential visitors.”The travel forecasting company Tourism Economics, which late last year projected the US would have nearly 9% more international arrivals this year, along with a 16% increase in spending, revised its annual outlook last week to predict a 9.4% decline in arrivals.The company’s Geena Bevenour said in an email statement that the revised forecast represented “a substantial setback” and eclipsed “the US downside scenario we released in late-February, reflecting a more contentious context for inbound travel and more severe tariff announcements than previously expected.”On the upside, a weakening dollar against sterling, the euro, Japanese yen and Swiss franc could make travel to the US more attractive. Despite the variables, New York this week was full of international visitors, many on Easter break, and others from further afield.A couple from Scotland, who offered their names as James and Zoe, were waiting to board the Staten Island ferry with their two children on Thursday afternoon, and said they weren’t fazed about tariffs or anti-European rhetoric from the White House. Nor had they encountered elevated difficulties at immigration at JFK – aside from the long queues.Notwithstanding their advance booking, the couple said they would not hesitate to return – and had booked a holiday in Florida for next year. “I can see both sides, from a right and left perspective on tariffs and and the US wanting to put its house in order first.”A couple from Belgium, Dave and Gwen Desmet, returning from a boat trip to the Statue of Liberty, said they had been apprehensive at immigration but encountered no problems. But they said that if the trip had not already been booked, they would have waited to better understand the reality of the impact of Trump’s upheavals.“There’s more anxiety,” said Gwen, who said she had advised her son to delete an essay about Donald Trump on his laptop, adding that she was alarmed by changes to US government policy around diversity and gender.Her daughter had worried that it was “not a good time to go to New York”. But her husband, Dave, reasoned that media was “playing a big role” in stirring anxiety and “creating negativity”.Last week, China issued warnings for citizens considering travelling or studying in the US. China’s ministry of culture and tourism cited the “deterioration of China-US economic and trade relations and the domestic security situation in the United States”.American Ring Travel, a tour operator based in California, offers carbon-neutral bus tours of the US that often attract eco-conscious travelers from Europe, said bookings from Germany flattened starting in January after Elon Musk threw his support behind a far-right political party in that country’s federal election.Many travel agents say it may be too early to tell if, beyond visitors from Canada, the US will see its post-Covid gains in foreign tourism wiped out or even reversed.Later this month, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) will release new figures on international travel. Global hotel chains like Hilton Worldwide are seeing share price declines.One high-end travel agent, accustomed to arranging international White Lotus-style luxury holidays for wealthy clients, said he had not seen any changes – yet. But it was still early days. “I think we’re going to feel it soon. People aren’t exhausted yet. But they’re clearly stressed – and will be, especially if their disposable income gets hit,” they said. More