Evelyn Reynolds

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    Utah emerges as a pivotal battleground amid race to redraw congressional maps

    In the fast-escalating national arms race over redistricting, Utah has emerged as an unexpected and potentially pivotal battleground.The campaign began in Texas, where Donald Trump openly declared he was “entitled to” five additional Republican House seats. It quickly expanded to California, where Democratic lawmakers are asking voters to retaliate with new congressional maps drawn to “neutralize” Texas.At least half a dozen other states have been recruited into what has is now an unprecedented push to redraw their congressional boundaries in ways that could lock in political advantage ahead of next year’s midterms.The president has been candid about his aims: to safeguard Republicans’ fragile hold on the House. A loss of the speaker’s gavel would derail Trump’s legislative ambitions in the second half of his term – and open the door to a wave of investigations, from his administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files to its mass detention and deportation policies.Deeply conservative Utah, by contrast, has been pulled into the redistricting fray not by the president but by a judge.This week, Judge Dianna Gibson tossed out Utah’s current congressional map and gave the Republican-led state legislature until 24 September to submit a new one.The existing boundaries fracture Salt Lake City – a splash of blue in a sea of red – across all four congressional districts, effectively diluting Democrats’ political influence. A redrawn map could consolidate more of Utah’s capital city into one district, giving Democrats a rare opening in one of the nation’s most reliably Republican states.“There’s no doubt that any map that complies with this ruling would be more competitive than the current map,” said David Wasserman, senior editor and elections analyst at the non-partisan Cook Political Report. But he cautioned that lawmakers could still carve up Salt Lake City in ways that would maintain a Republican edge.On Friday, lawyers for the Utah legislature asked Gibson to pause her gerrymandering order to allow time for lawmakers to appeal the decision to the state supreme court, according to local news reports. The request comes a day after the state’s Republican legislative leaders said they would comply with the ruling, which they denounced as “misguided” and “unreasonable” given the 30-day deadline.“While we will continue to pursue every legal option available – including requesting a stay from the Utah Supreme Court if necessary – we will attempt to redistrict under these unprecedented constraints, consistent with our oath to represent the best interests of Utah,” the state house speaker, Mike Schultz, and senate president J Stuart Adams, said in a statement.The ruling in the Utah case stems from a yearslong legal battle over Proposition 4, a ballot initiative narrowly passed by voters in 2018 that aimed to ban partisan gerrymandering through the creation of an independent redistricting commission. Although the Republican-controlled legislature weakened the commission and enacted its own map, the state supreme court – made up of five justices all appointed by Republican governors – ruled last year that lawmakers had probably overstepped, paving the way for this week’s decision.Mark Gaber, an attorney representing the groups challenging Utah’s congressional maps, called the ruling a “vindication of a fair and neutral process”.“The voters passed this in 2018 to effectively ban partisan gerrymandering and now we’re seeing a push across the country to gerrymander,” he said. “It’s nice to see this standing out as a shining example of a process that can work.”Mid-decade redistricting on this scale is extraordinary. Typically states draw new congressional maps at the start of each decade following the census to account for population shifts.At stake is the balance of power in Congress, where the president’s party typically loses ground in midterm elections. House Democrats need to flip only a handful of seats to retake the majority, and early signs point in their favor: Trump’s approval ratings are low and falling, and since his return to the White House, Democrats have outperformed expectations in a series of low-turnout contests from Florida to Iowa.In a tit-for-tat redistricting fight, political analysts and experts say Republicans still hold the advantage: they control more state legislatures and have fewer constraints on gerrymandering.Yet the Texas plan, which was signed into law on Friday by the state’s governor, Greg Abbott, faces multiple lawsuits, including one alleging that the new districts are racially discriminatory. In California, Republicans have asked the state supreme court to block the proposed countermeasure from reaching the ballot. And even seats drawn to favor one party can become competitive depending on candidate quality, voter turnout and the national mood.In a closely fought election, even a single seat could tip the balance of power, making the prospect of a Democratic pickup in Utah all the more worrying for the president.On Wednesday night, Trump called the Utah decision “absolutely unconstitutional”.“How did such a wonderful Republican State like Utah, which I won in every Election, end up with so many Radical Left Judges?” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “All Citizens of Utah should be outraged at their activist Judiciary, which wants to take away our Congressional advantage, and will do everything possible to do so.”Gibson, the judge, was appointed to the district court in 2018 by the then governor Gary Herbert, a Republican.Trump continued, urging Republicans in Utah to “stay united” and ensure the state’s “four terrific Republican Congressmen stay right where they are!” (One of Utah’s four House members, Celeste Maloy, is a woman.)Trump’s outrage over the Utah ruling is a reminder, experts say, that courts – and voters – also have a say in shaping the political map.Kareem Crayton, the vice-president of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Washington DC office and a leading expert on redistricting, said the Utah ruling “achieves something closer to redistricting with guardrails” – in stark contrast to what is unfolding elsewhere.The lurch toward maximalist gerrymandering underlines the need for national standards, long sought by advocates of less partisan maps, Crayton said, but for now the message from the White House is: “Do more of it.”“This system is broken,” he said. “It’s a broken one when the outcome of the people’s house – the one that’s actually supposed to be the most representative of the public – turns out to be the least representative because people are going back to the maps multiple times and, with no abandon, with respect to partisanship, drawing districts that choose their voters and not the other way around.” More

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    ‘He’s brazenly anti-worker’: US marks the first Labor Day under Trump 2.0

    For this Labor Day, the Donald Trump administration has draped an enormous banner outside the US labor department with his portrait and the words “American Workers First.”Trump was elected on promises, since repeatedly pledged, that he would fight for workers and forgotten Americans. But many labor advocates say that Trump has consistently put corporate interests first in his second term as he has taken dozens of actions that hurt workers, often by cutting their pay or making their jobs more dangerous.Despite his vow to help coal miners, Trump halted enforcement of a regulation that protects miners from a debilitating, often deadly lung disease. He fired the chair of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), leaving the US’s top labor watchdog without a quorum to protect workers from corporations’ illegal anti-union tactics. Angering labor leaders, Trump stripped one million federal workers of their right to bargain collectively and tore up their union contracts.“It’s a big betrayal,” Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the main US labor federation, said. “We knew it would be bad, but we had no idea how rapidly he would be doing these things. He is stripping away regulations that protect workers. His attacks on unions are coming fast and furious. He talks a good game of being for working people, but he’s doing the absolute opposite.”“This is a government that is by, and for, the CEOs and billionaires,” Shuler added.Trump has hurt construction workers by shutting down major wind turbine projects and ending Biden-era subsidies that encourage the construction of factories that make renewable-energy products. In moves that will harm some of the nation’s most vulnerable workers, the Trump administration has proposed ending minimum wage and overtime protections for 3.7 million home-care and domestic workers. It has also killed a Biden plan to prevent employers from paying disabled workers less than the $7.25-an-hour federal minimum wage.“There is a huge disconnect between Trump’s pro-worker rhetoric and the policies he’s putting in place. The gulf is enormous,” said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive thinktank. “In his second term, he’s been absolutely, brazenly anti-worker.”“I keep thinking about his taking away the Biden-era increase in the minimum wage for federal contractors. It’s unbelievably brazen,” Shierholz continued. (Trump ended the requirement that federal contractors pay their workers at least $17.75 an hour.) “The minimum wage is incredibly popular. He just took away the minimum wage from hundreds of thousands of workers. That blew my mind.” As a result, many full-time workers will see their pay drop by more than $9,200 a year.The administration disputes all these criticisms. “The American worker has been left behind by the Democrat party for years, but President Trump has championed an agenda that puts the American worker first,” said Taylor Rogers, White House assistant press secretary.Trump has “unleashed an economic boom”, she said. Inflation is cooling, native-born Americans are benefiting from private-sector job gains and blue-collar wages are rising fast. “Under President Trump’s leadership, Republicans are once again the party of the American worker,” said Rogers.Many labor experts say Trump is even more anti-union than Ronald Reagan, often called the most anti-union president of modern times. Reagan fired 11,345 air traffic controllers who went on strike, but the AFL-CIO’s Shuler said that “pales in comparison” to Trump’s ending collective bargaining for 1 million federal workers. “That’s the largest single act of union-busting in our history,” she said.“He is worse than Reagan when it comes to his approach to unions,” said Julie Su, who was acting labor secretary under Biden. “We saw what Reagan did in the 1980s. That began a long decline in unionization. This president wants to make America non-union again. He’s certainly trying to make the government non-union again.”Shierholz said the “absolute scale of crushing unions” under Trump is “on a whole different scale from what we saw under Reagan. Trump is saying it’s absolutely open season on union folks. He took an absolute chainsaw to the federal workforce. He’s giving the green light to the private sector and local government to do the same.”Justin Chen, president of an American Federation of Government Employees council representing 8,000 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) workers across the US, is angry that Trump halted collective bargaining for EPA employees, voided most of their union contracts and fired probationary workers. “Whatever he said about fighting for workers was a complete lie,” Chen said. “He treats federal employees with a great deal of disdain, not as civil servants valuable to make our government and economy run.”Many labor advocates say Trump’s signature policies, including tariffs and deportations, are hurting US workers. Trump’s tariffs are pushing up prices and slowing economic growth, economists say. Trump’s “big, beautiful” tax cut will harm millions of working families by cutting food assistance and causing many to lose health coverage. As for Trump’s deportation campaign, many workers say it’s undermining their employers’ businesses and forcing them to work harder because they have to do the work of their departed co-workers.In her annual State of the Unions address, AFL-CIO president Shuler said on Wednesday: “The state of working people in this country is they’re under attack.” She added: “We want cheaper groceries, and we get tanks on our streets. We want more affordable healthcare, and we get 16 million Americans about to be kicked off their coverage.” Shuler said unions will hold close to 1,000 rallies and other events this Labor Day across the US to kick off a year of mobilization.Jenny Smith, a home-care worker in Champaign, Illinois, said Trump’s plan to end overtime and minimum-wage protections for home-care workers shows contempt for struggling, low-wage workers. “Trump doesn’t know what it means to go to work day after day to earn a living,” she said. “If you take away these wage protections, it will take money out of these workers’ pockets. The majority of these workers are Black, brown and single mothers. You’re taking from their children’s mouths.”Smith voiced dismay that Trump hasn’t made good on his promise to reduce prices. “I’m very disappointed that prices aren’t going down,” she said. “I just bought a dozen eggs for $6.”She added: “I don’t think he cares about us, but he does care about the billionaires.”Trump has taken numerous steps that will weaken safety protections for workers. He is cutting staffing by 12% at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha). His administration has proposed eliminating a requirement for adequate lighting on construction sites. It is reducing the fines that small businesses pay for violating safety rules. It has proposed blocking the government’s mine-safety district managers from ordering upgrades in mine ventilation and safety. It has slowed action on Biden’s effort to protect workers from high temperatures.Trump also froze enforcement of a Biden-era regulation that protects miners from silicosis, a serious lung disease.“Silicosis has become a major killer among coal miners, but the Trump administration is trying to make silicosis great again,” said David Michaels, a professor of public health at George Washington University who headed Osha under Barack Obama. “The Trump administration has taken several steps that are devastating to the safety and health of the nation’s workers. Osha, which is under-resourced and underpowered, has become significantly smaller as a result of the Trump and Doge [Trump’s unofficial ‘department of government efficiency’] cuts.”Michaels warned that Trump’s cuts to Osha penalties will reduce incentives for companies to ensure safe conditions.Administration officials point to the Trump-backed “no tax on tips” and “no tax on overtime” as clearly pro-worker. But Yale’s Budget Lab notes that only 4% of workers in the bottom half by income are in tipped jobs, while almost 40% of tipped workers earn so little they don’t pay federal income taxes.Moreover, the no-tax-on-overtime provision will reduce income taxes far less than most workers realize. The deduction applies only to the “half” in “time-and-a-half” overtime pay. If a worker earns $20 an hour and their overtime rate is $30, that worker can deduct only the $10 premium for each overtime hour, not the full $30.Shierholz said that if Trump were serious about helping workers, “he would raise the minimum wage, make overtime pay double pay and do away with the sub-minimum wage for tipped workers. That would truly help workers, but that’s not what he’s doing. He’s doing as little as possible to help workers, while helping employers.”While Trump says his deportations will create job opportunities for US-born workers, Shierholz’s economic institute forecasts that Trump’s effort to deport 1 million immigrants a year will result in 5.9m lost jobs after four years: 3.3 million fewer employed immigrants and 2.6 million fewer employed US-born workers. “If you don’t have immigrant roofers and framers, you’re not building houses, and that means electricians and plumbers lose their jobs,” Shierholz said. “Plus, you lose the consumer spending from those workers.”Corey Mahoney, a 35-year-old cargo handler at John F Kennedy international airport in New York, said Trump’s policies have whipsawed workers at his warehouse. “The tariff situation has slowed down work, and many people lost their jobs,” he said. When Trump ended protected status for many Venezuelans and other immigrants, some of his Venezuelan co-workers left or were deported. “Some of the people I was working with tried to come to work, but they weren’t allowed,” he said. “We were left with less people, and we had to work twice as hard. It’s unfair.”“Trump is in an alternative universe thinking everything is good,” Mahoney said. “He doesn’t realize that normal people who are just trying to make a living aren’t happy with what he’s doing.” More

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    Can you solve it? Are you a genius at gerrymandering?

    Gerrymandering is the practice of redrawing the boundaries of political districts to favour certain parties or politicians.On Friday, Texas governor Greg Abbott signed a new redistricting bill with a gerrymandered map that will heavily favour Republicans – and California governor Gavin Newsom plans to retaliate by doing the same in his state for Democrats.Irresepective of the politics of gerrymandering, however, the ruse conceals some interesting maths. Such as – given a certain distribution of voters, how do you draw a map that makes the minority party win the majority of districts?It’s exactly this question that underlies today’s puzzles.In each of the grids below, the challenge is to find the unique electoral map in which the minority colour wins the most regions. A region is defined as a contiguous block of cells that are joined either horizontally or vertically. (A region cannot contain any cells that are only connected diagonally, i.e. via a corner.) Winning a region means having the most cells in that region.The puzzles were conceived by Brady Forrest, a university student in Toronto, whose online alias is Deckard.ExampleDivide the grid into 3 regions of 3 cells each. Purple, the minority colour, must win the majority of the regions.To solve using pencil and paper, click here for a print out (and some bonus puzzles). To play on your screen, below each puzzle is a link to an interactive version.Puzzle 1: EasyDivide the grid into 5 regions of 5 cells each. Purple, the minority colour, must win the majority of regions.View image in fullscreenPuzzle 2: MediumDivide the grid into 5 regions of 10 cells each. Purple, the minority colour, must win the majority of regions. No ties allowed in any region.View image in fullscreenPuzzle 3: HardDivide the grid into 7 regions of 7 cells each. Blue, the minority colour, must win the majority of regions. No ties allowed for first place in any region.View image in fullscreenI’ll be back at 5pm UK with the solutions.NO SPOILERS Please discuss the maths of gerrymandering.Thanks to Deckard for sharing his puzzles. Thanks to Starwort for the interactive versions.I’ve been setting a puzzle here on alternate Mondays since 2015. I’m always on the look-out for great puzzles. If you would like to suggest one, email me.View image in fullscreenIn other Gerry-related news, here’s a fact from my new book, Football School Facts. Gerry Taggart (ex-Bolton) is one of only four Premier League players to have been sent off on their birthdays. The wrong sort of card! This curio and hundreds of others appear in the book, the latest in the long-running series I write with Ben Lyttleton for children aged 7 to 107. Football School Facts is full-colour, hardback, would make an excellent gift, and is available at the Guardian Bookshop. More

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    Trump news at a glance: US president issues threat to mandate voter ID

    Donald Trump has said he will issue an executive order to mandate voter identification at all US elections, with “no exceptions”.“Voter I.D. Must Be Part of Every Single Vote. NO EXCEPTIONS! I Will Be Doing An Executive Order To That End!!!,” the US president said on Truth Social late on Saturday.Any such move is likely to be challenged in court as unconstitutional.The US constitution grants primary authority to regulate elections to the US states, while empowering Congress to enact election laws or regulations. It gives no explicit authority to the president to regulate voting.Voter fraud is incredibly rare and voter ID laws have been shown to disproportionately impact minorities, low-income individuals and disabled voters. “As many as 11% of eligible voters do not have the kind of ID that is required by states with strict ID requirements, and that percentage is even higher among seniors, minorities, people with disabilities, low-income voters, and students,” the Brennan Center for Justice states.Trump wants to ban mail-in votingThe US president also stated he wants to ban all voting by mail except for those who are very ill or in military service.The voting change push by Trump stems from baseless claims that the 2020 election he lost was stolen from him. Earlier this month, Trump falsely claimed only the US uses mail-in voting. Dozens of countries permit at least some form of mail-in voting.Read the full storyVisa approvals reportedly halted for Palestinian passport holders The United States has suspended visa approvals for nearly everyone who holds a Palestinian passport, the New York Times reported on Sunday. The restrictions go beyond those Donald Trump’s administration had previously announced on visitors from Gaza.Read the full storyIllinois governor urges ‘all to stand up’ to Trump immigration crackdownGovernor JB Pritzker has said he will do everything he can to stop Trump taking away people’s rights and urged everyone to take a stand as the US president prepares to launch an immigration crackdown across Chicago.Pritzker, a Democrat, told CBS on Sunday: “Any kind of troops on the streets of an American city don’t belong unless there is an insurrection, unless there is truly an emergency. There is not … I’m going to do everything I can to stop him from taking away people’s rights and from using the military to invade states. I think it’s very important for us all to stand up.”Read the full storyJudge pauses deportation of hundreds of Guatemalan childrenA federal judge has ordered an emergency halt to a plan by the Trump administration to deport a group of nearly 700 unaccompanied Guatemalan children after immigrant advocates lawyers called the plan “illegal”.Judge Sparkle L Sooknanan said those children couldn’t be deported for at least 14 days, and after a hastily scheduled hearing on Sunday, she enforced that they needed to be taken off the planes and back to the Office of Refugee Resettlement facilities while the legal process plays out.Read the full storyFDA vaccine chief demands videos of him criticizing Covid vaccines be removedA top official at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) demanded the removal of YouTube videos of himself that were published by a physician and writer who has been critical of medical misinformation and public health officials in the Trump administration, according to a YouTube notice that was seen by the Guardian.Read the full storyFormer CDC official warns of ‘harm’ to public health under RFK Jr Demetre Daskalakis, the former immunizations director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has warned of the future of American health under the leadership of health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, saying: “I only see harm coming.”He went on to add: “I may be wrong, but based on what I’m seeing, based on what I’ve heard with the new members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, or ACIP, they’re really moving in an ideological direction where they want to see the undoing of vaccination.”Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

    Rudy Giuliani was hospitalised after a car crash in New Hampshire. He was treated for a fractured thoracic vertebrae, and multiple cuts and bruises.

    Water quality warnings have been issued at beaches across the US during the Labor Day holiday weekend due to detection of elevated levels of bacteria associated with fecal waste.
    Catching up? Here’s what happened on 30 August 2025. More

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    Before and after: Trump’s extreme goldening of the Oval Office

    In just seven extraordinary months, Donald Trump’s administration has left an unprecedented mark on the United States. From rewriting the rules of free trade to upending the norms of due process and challenging scientific orthodoxy, no corner of the country has remained untouched, including the president’s own centre of power: the Oval Office.Leaning into his former career as a real estate developer and hotelier, the president has, in his own words, applied some “Trump touches” to the room’s decor. The results have split opinions, with some calling the revamped office a symbol of America’s new golden age, while others have compared it to a professional wrestler’s dressing room.On a tour of the Oval Office in March, Trump was asked about some of the new gold details by a Fox News host. Describing the room as needing “a little life”, he went on to explain how difficult it is to get gold paint to look like gold.That apparent impediment did not hold the president back from continuing his refurbishments. Over the following months, the “goldening” ratcheted up, with gold trimming across the ceiling, door frames and fireplace. Even the sculpted cherubim inside door frames were painted gold.View image in fullscreenOver the months of his administration, the number of of gold trophies and vases littered across the mantlepiece have multiplied and there are now even gold coasters with Trump’s name on them.A White House spokesperson told Fox News that the gold – “of the highest quality” – was all paid for by Trump personally.The president has also multiplied the number of paintings on display, with almost 20 images of presidential predecessors adorning the walls. His predecessor, Joe Biden, had just six paintings on the walls. Barack Obama had pictures of just two former presidents.View image in fullscreenView image in fullscreenThe office is rounded out with pictures of the Trump family, a copy of the declaration of independence and gifts from visitors and well-wishers – including the Fifa Club World Cup trophy, which was given to Trump by the organisation’s president.The White House was approached for comment, but aides have previously told US media that every addition has come at the president’s direction. To help in this venture, Trump has reportedly called in the help of his personal “gold guy”.John Icart, a 70-year-old cabinet maker from Florida, was reportedly flown to Washington on Air Force One to provide the White House with the flourishes he brought to Trump’s Palm Beach mansion, Mar-a-Lago. The gilded carvings Icart added to the room prompted White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt to describe it as a “golden office for the golden age”.Others have been more critical. It was musician Jack White who compared the room to a wrestler’s dressing room, calling it “vulgar” and “gaudy”.View image in fullscreenView image in fullscreenReporter Jon Keegan pointed out that decorative medallions that festoon the walls of the room also bore more than a passing resemblance to “Foam Veneer Accessories” available from Chinese e-commerce site Ali Baba for just $1 a piece.The gold artefacts that have multiplied across the mantle piece are known to have a more auspicious pedigree. Coming from the White House’s own collection, they include a 19th-century French compotier, gilded urns given to president James Monroe and silver dating to the Eisenhower administration.Trump’s style is said to have been inspired by the Versailles hall of mirrors, and he has in the past bragged that the ballroom of his Florida home was itself modelled on the French palace.But in making these changes to the Oval Office, Trump has placed himself in a long tradition that sees every resident of the White House adjust the decor to their liking, including new furniture, wallpaper and rugs. But perhaps no president has gone further to transport the aesthetics of their pre-presidential home to Washington.View image in fullscreenIn the final year of his presidency, Obama was asked what art or object in the Oval Office was most significant to him. He pointed to the carpet beneath his feet. Handmade for him in a Michigan studio, the almost 10-metre-wide rug featured quotes around the perimeter from US leaders including Abraham Lincoln, John F Kennedy and Theodore Roosevelt.It was a line from Martin Luther King that Obama was said to be most fond of: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”A few months later, as Trump began moving into the White House and America’s winding story took another unexpected turn, Obama’s prized carpet was jettisoned, replaced by a floor covering with a golden tinge. More

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    US reportedly suspends visa approvals for nearly all Palestinian passport holders

    The United States has suspended visa approvals for nearly everyone who holds a Palestinian passport, the New York Times reported on Sunday.The restrictions go beyond those Donald Trump’s administration had previously announced on visitors from Gaza. They would prevent Palestinians from traveling to the United States for medical treatment, attending college and business travel, the newspaper reported, citing unidentified officials.The state department said two weeks ago that it was halting all visitor visas for individuals from Gaza while it conducts “a full and thorough” review, a move that has been condemned by pro-Palestinian groups.On Friday, the US began denying and revoking visas from members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Palestinian Authority (PA) in advance of the UN assembly meeting in September, the state department confirmed.Under an agreement as host of the UN in New York, the US is not supposed to refuse visas for officials heading to the world body for the general assembly, but the state department said it was complying with the agreement by allowing the Palestinian mission to attend.“The Trump administration has been clear: it is in our national security interests to hold the PLO and PA accountable for not complying with their commitments, and for undermining the prospects for peace,” the state department said in a statement.The new measure further aligns the Trump administration with Israel’s rightwing government, which adamantly rejects a Palestinian state.Jason Burke contributed reporting More

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    Judge orders US to halt deportation of hundreds of Guatemalan children

    A US judge on Sunday ordered an emergency halt to a plan by the Trump administration to deport a group of nearly 700 unaccompanied Guatemalan children back to their home country after immigrant advocates lawyers called the plan “illegal”.Attorneys for 10 Guatemalan minors, ages 10 to 17, said in court papers filed late on Saturday that there were reports that planes were set to take off within hours for the Central American country. But a federal judge in Washington said those children couldn’t be deported for at least 14 days, and after a hastily scheduled hearing on Sunday, she enforced that they needed to be taken off the planes and back to the Office of Refugee Resettlement facilities while the legal process plays out.Judge Sparkle L Sooknanan, a Biden appointee, began the Sunday afternoon hearing by ensuring that the justice department had received her expanded order and that government officials were aware of it. “I do not want there to be any ambiguity,” she said, adding that her ruling applies broadly to Guatemalan minors who arrived in the US without their parents or guardians.Government lawyers, meanwhile, maintained that the children weren’t being deported but rather reunited at the request of their parents or guardians – a claim that the children’s lawyers dispute, at least in some cases.“I have conflicting narratives from both sides here,” Sooknanan said. She said that what she was hearing from the government lawyers “doesn’t quite line up” with what the children’s advocates had told her.Similar emergency requests were filed in other parts of the country as well. Attorneys in Arizona and Illinois asked federal judges there to block deportations of unaccompanied minors, underscoring how the fight over the government’s efforts has quickly spread.At the border-area airport in Harlingen, Texas, the scene on Sunday morning was unmistakably active. Buses carrying migrants pulled on to the tarmac as clusters of federal agents moved quickly between the vehicles and waiting aircraft. Police cars circled the perimeter, and officers and security guards pushed reporters back from the chain-link fences that line the field. On the runway, planes sat with engines idling, ground crews making final preparations as if departures could come at any moment – all as the courtroom battle played out hundreds of miles away in Washington.The Trump administration is planning to remove nearly 700 Guatemalan children who came to the US unaccompanied, according to a letter sent on Friday by Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon. The Guatemalan government has said it is ready to take them in.Melissa Johnston, the director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s program for unaccompanied children, sent an email to staff on Thursday calling for a halt to the release of all Guatemalan children except for those sponsored by parents or legal guardians in the US, according to a copy reviewed by Reuters and one of the former officials.Lawyers for the Guatemalan children said the US government doesn’t have the authority to remove the children and is depriving them of due process by preventing them from pursuing asylum claims or immigration relief. Many have active cases in immigration courts, according to the attorneys’ court filing in Washington.Although the children are supposed to be in the care and custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the government is “illegally transferring them to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody to put them on flights to Guatemala, where they may face abuse, neglect, persecution, or torture”, argues the filing by attorneys with the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights and the National Immigration Law Center.Migrant children traveling without their parents or guardians are handed over to the Office of Refugee Resettlement when they are encountered by officials along the US-Mexico border. Once in the US, the children often live in government-supervised shelters or with foster care families until they can be released to a sponsor – usually a family member – living in the country.In a legal complaint filed on Sunday, the National Immigration Law Center and Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights said the deportations would be a “clear violation of the unambiguous protections that Congress has provided them as vulnerable children”.“Defendants are imminently planning to illegally transfer Plaintiffs to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) custody to put them on flights to Guatemala, where they may face abuse, neglect, persecution, or even torture, against their best interests,” the complaint read.The US Department of Homeland Security, Ice’s parent agency, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Guatemala’s foreign ministry declined to comment. More

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    JB Pritzker calls for ‘all to stand up’ to Trump’s immigration crackdown in Chicago

    Illinois’s governor JB Pritzker has called on “all to stand up” to Donald Trump as the US president prepares to launch a federally led immigration crackdown across Chicago, a plan which has been met with widespread backlash from local leaders and the public.Pritzker’s comments come as White House officials vow to target Chicago next in its sweeping immigration crackdowns across the country. Recently, the White House requested that a US military base on the outskirts of Chicago assist with immigration operations as the Trump administration plans a broader takeover of Democratic-run “sanctuary cities”.Pritzker, a Democrat, told CBS on Sunday: “Any kind of troops on the streets of an American city don’t belong unless there is an insurrection, unless there is truly an emergency. There is not … I’m going to do everything I can to stop him from taking away people’s rights and from using the military to invade states. I think it’s very important for us all to stand up.”Pritzker spoke after Trump on Saturday took to Truth Social to rant about Pritzker and Chicago, saying: “JB Pritzker, the weak and pathetic Governor of Illinois, just said that he doesn’t need help in preventing CRIME. He is CRAZY!!! He better straighten it out, FAST, or we’re coming!”Meanwhile, Pritzker said that no one from the Trump administration has contacted his team, the city of Chicago or any other local officials.In his interview with CBS, he said: “It’s clear that they’re secretly planning this. If they actually send in US troops, it would amount to an invasion. They should be coordinating with local law enforcement, telling us when and where they’re coming, and whether it’s Ice, ATF, or another agency. But they’re not doing that. And I have to say, it’s disruptive and dangerous. It stirs up tension on the ground when we’re left in the dark and can’t coordinate with them.”Pritzker also pushed back against accusations from Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, who said that Illinois “refuses to have our back”.“That’s not true,” he said, adding: “There were police officers who made sure that there was nobody interfering or attacking or causing problems for the Ice officials that were here … People have a right to their first amendment … and we protect that too in the city of Chicago … We have our job, which is to fight violent crime on the streets of our city and by the way, we’re succeeding at that job, but when they bring people in and don’t coordinate with us, they’re going to cause enormous problems.”Pritzker continued: “If he wants to send troops, he should call. I’ve been very clear about what it is that we’d like help with. But, instead, he’s talking about sending troops. Nobody’s called, literally nobody from the White House … If they actually wanted to help, they might call and say, what help do you need? … I don’t know why they haven’t bothered to reach out if they have plans of their own, but honestly, we’d be happy to receive a call.”The governor also accused Trump of having “other aims, other than fighting crime”, pointing out the handful of Democratic cities that have been the target of Trump’s immigration crackdowns, including Washington DC and Los Angeles.“The other aims are that he’d like to stop the elections in 2026 or, frankly, take control of those elections. He’ll just claim that there’s some problem with an election, and then he’s got troops on the ground that can take control if, in fact, he’s allowed to do this. We have sovereignty,” Pritzker said.With an imminent federal crackdown in Chicago expected to take place as soon as the end of this week, Chicago’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, signed an executive order on Saturday in an effort to push back against the White House’s “out of control” plan to deploy federal troops into the city.The new order bars Chicago police from aiding federal authorities with civil immigration enforcement or related patrols, as well as traffic stops and checkpoints during the crackdown.Johnson also ordered all city departments to protect the constitutional rights of the city’s residents “amidst the possibility of imminent militarized immigration or national guard deployment by the federal government”. More