Evelyn Reynolds

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    Doge reportedly using AI tool to create ‘delete list’ of federal regulations

    The “department of government efficiency” (Doge) is using artificial intelligence to create a “delete list” of federal regulations, according to a report, proposing to use the tool to cut 50% of regulations by the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s second inauguration.The “Doge AI Deregulation Decision Tool” will analyze 200,000 government regulations, according to internal documents obtained by the Washington Post, and select those which it deems to be no longer required by law.Doge, which was run by Elon Musk until May, claims that 100,000 of those regulations can then be eliminated, following some staff feedback.A PowerPoint presentation made public by the Post claims that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) used the AI tool to make “decisions on 1,083 regulatory sections”, while the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau used it to write “100% of deregulations”.The Post spoke to three HUD employees who told the newspaper AI had been “recently used to review hundreds, if not more than 1,000, lines of regulations”.During his 2024 campaign, Donald Trump claimed that government regulations were “driving up the cost of goods” and promised the “most aggressive regulatory reduction” in history. He repeatedly criticized rules which aimed to tackle the climate crisis, and as president he ordered the heads of all government agencies to undertake a review of all regulations in coordination with Doge.Asked about the use of AI in deregulation by the Post, White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said “all options are being explored” to achieve the president’s deregulation promises. Fields said that “no single plan has been approved or green-lit”, and the work is “in its early stages and is being conducted in a creative way in consultation with the White House”.Fields added: “The Doge experts creating these plans are the best and brightest in the business and are embarking on a never-before-attempted transformation of government systems and operations to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.”Musk appointed a slew of inexperienced staffers to Doge, including Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old who was previously known by the online handle “Big Balls”. Earlier this year, Reuters reported that Coristine was one of two Doge associates promoting the use of AI across the federal bureaucracy. More

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    Trump bids to release Epstein grand jury files – what secrets might they hold?

    As Donald Trump reels from political fallout related to his justice department’s handling of Jeffrey Epstein investigation files, the US president has directed his loyal attorney general, Pam Bondi, to “release all Grand Jury testimony with respect to Jeffrey Epstein, subject only to court approval”.It is an effort at damage control for a White House now engulfed in endless speculation – especially among Trump’s previously devoted Maga base – about the extent of Trump’s relationship with the late, disgraced sex trafficker and wealthy financier who killed himself in jail in 2019.Justice department attorneys quickly filed paperwork in Manhattan and south Florida federal courts requesting unsealing of grand jury testimony for Epstein. Justice department officials have also asked a New York judge to release grand jury transcripts for Ghislaine Maxwell – Epstein’s sometimes girlfriend and longtime confidante who in 2021 was convicted of sex trafficking for luring teenage girls into his orbit.A grand jury is a panel that decides whether evidence presented by prosecutors shows “probable cause” that someone committed a crime, and whether they should be tried. Should the grand jury, which is not the trial jury, find that there is sufficient evidence, an indictment will be issued.But veteran US attorneys, including those who have represented Epstein victims, told the Guardian that any release of grand jury transcripts around Epstein and Maxwell might not provide much insight into Epstein’s crimes and whether others were involved in abusing minors – or in covering up his years of predation of young girls and women.The lawyers, however, insist that meaningful information does exist in yet-to-be released Epstein files held by federal law enforcement authorities from multiple investigations into Epstein. Whether the political will – and legal ability – exists to release any or all of those files remains to be seen.“Grand juries serve two functions: to indict and to investigate. The transcripts may contain testimony of victims or cooperating witnesses if the grand jury was investigating Epstein,” Neama Rahmani, founder of West Coast Trial Lawyers, and a former federal prosecutor, said of grand jury processes.The grand jury transcripts could include graphic and explicit evidence, but they could also include more pro forma information about the actions of Epstein and Maxwell, who is serving jail time in Florida.“If they were indicting Epstein, we can expect to see law enforcement witnesses summarizing the evidence of probable cause to support the charges. That would probably be less interesting, and similar to the factual allegations in the Epstein indictment,” Rahmani said.He added: “There is likely much more salacious evidence out there than the grand jury transcripts.“The FBI interview summaries and internal Department of Justice memoranda probably contain the juiciest details. The grand jury transcripts are just a small part of the picture. If Bondi was serious about transparency, she would make public the complete Epstein files, subject to redactions to protect the privacy rights of the victims.”Top lawyer Gloria Allred, who has represented multiple Epstein victims, said government files should be made public with several exceptions, such as redaction of victims’ names and identifying information, attorney-client communications and material depicting abuse.“I think there is information that the government could release, such as texts, emails and other electronic communications of Jeffrey Epstein and anyone with whom he communicated. In addition, any communications on behalf of Mr Epstein made by his employees who may have played a part in recruiting or dealing with victims at the request of Mr Epstein and/or Ms Maxwell could be released,” Allred said.“All evidence in the file of the United States attorney for the southern district of New York which was gathered for the prosecution of Mr Epstein, with the exceptions which I have listed previously, could be released.”Allred believes “all files, both federal and state that reflect the investigation and potential prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein in Florida should also be made public”.Thorough investigations of Epstein were conducted in New York and Florida, Allred pointed out, and those investigations would be in those files.Spencer T Kuvin, chief legal officer of GoldLaw and an attorney for Epstein victims, voiced similar sentiments.“The real documents that the public needs to see are the documents maintained by the FBI and Department of Justice. They have thousands of hours of videotapes and investigative memos and documents regarding the data that was seized at his homes,” he said.Kuvin said that unsealing grand jury testimony was a “good first step” but limits information to four victims over whom Epstein was charged in New York. “I am aware that the FBI had interviewed over 40 girls during their investigations. Where are those interviews, where are those reports?“The abusers should be disclosed to the public so that we may all know who they are,” Kuvin also said, insisting that victims’ privacy must be protected in such a process. He called on Trump to act.“This administration could end the dispute tomorrow by the president signing an executive order demanding the release of all the material in the custody of the FBI and DoJ,” Kuvin said. “Either Trump has the power to do this, or he must admit that he is not as powerful as he has professed to be to the public and his Maga followers.”Trump’s current political woes stem from his backtracking on previous vows to release the Epstein files. On the campaign trail, he vowed to declassify the files, but then attracted scathing criticism when his justice department released a memo claiming that there was no “incriminating” client list within the tranche of documents related to Epstein.The justice department’s claim that they did not find evidence implicating third parties has further fanned the flames of suspicion, especially as last week the Wall Street Journal reported that Bondi had warned Trump that his name appears in the files.A smattering of reports highlighting Trump’s friendship with Epstein several decades ago – which reportedly ended following a real estate dispute, several years before the late financier admitted to a state-level charge of soliciting prostitution from a minor in Florida – has proved yet another political minefield.Even if federal authorities and Trump drag their feet in releasing these documents, it is possible that new civil litigation could eventually force them to do so raising the prospect of yet more political scandals heading Trump’s way.Maria Farmer, an Epstein survivor who in 1996 told authorities he and Maxwell were abusing minors including her sister, is suing the federal government over their handling of these claims. Farmer’s suit alleges that the FBI “chose to do absolutely nothing”.Farmer also claims that the FBI agent taking her call “hung up on her, and no one at the FBI attempted to follow up with her or pursue her valid and serious allegations, most of which continued for many years, if not decades, with wide-ranging tragic consequences.”If this litigation progresses, both sides would exchange evidence related to the claims in a process called discovery. While discovery is typically subject to a confidentiality agreement, and solidified by a court order, information from this exchange could come up in subsequent court papers that are public.“What this lawsuit could reveal is what the FBI and the department did and did not do, what they failed to do – they failed to do their job,” Farmer’s attorney, Jennifer Freeman, special counsel at Marsh Law Firm, told the Guardian.Freeman noted, for example, that she has a redacted set of pages from what appears to be a 2006 field interview with Farmer, during which an FBI agent went to her home and spoke with her. Freeman said she had some 20 pages of handwritten notes, “many of which are redacted”.She said: “That’s the kind of information we need. It’s redacted. I’ve been trying to get this information for years now, through Foia [Freedom of Information Act] requests, but we’ve been stymied every time.”Neither the White House nor Department of Justice commented. More

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    ‘Hundreds’ of people have been removed from ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ detention camp, says Florida governor

    Florida has begun deporting people from the notorious “Alligator Alcatraz” detention camp, the state’s governor said, and deportations are expected to increase in the coming weeks.At a press conference at the controversial facility, Ron DeSantis said “hundreds of illegals have been removed” from the facility. He later clarified that most of those were flown from Alligator Alcatraz to other detention facilities in the US. DeSantis, who has built a political career on his anti-immigration views, said 100 people had been deported from the US.“I’m pleased to report that those flights out of Alligator Alcatraz by [the Department of Homeland Security] have begun. The cadence is increasing,” DeSantis said. “We’ve already had a number of flights. … Hundreds of illegals have been removed from here,” De Santis said.He added: “We look forward to this cadence increasing.”Officials said two or three flights have so far departed, but didn’t say where those flights were headed.Last week, a number of non-profit organizations demanded the closure of the facility, which is based in the rural Everglades region, about 40 miles (64km) from Miami.The facility’s conditions are reportedly appalling, advocates said, with detained immigrants sleeping in overcrowded pods, along with sewage backups “resulting in cages flooded with feces”, and, in addition, “denial of medical care”. Advocates said the 39-acre camp, which was built in a matter of days, now holds more than 1,000 men in “flood-prone” tents.Donald Trump said the jail would be reserved for immigrants who were “deranged psychopaths” and “some of the most vicious people on the planet” who were awaiting deportation, but in mid-July it emerged that the jail contains hundreds of detainees with no criminal records or charges. Democrats have sued DeSantis, demanding access to the facility.Kevin Guthrie, executive director of the Florida division of emergency management, said the facility had grown, in less than a month, to have a current capacity of 2,000 people. That will increase to 4,000, he said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionGuthrie defended conditions inside the facility, claiming that “whether it’s Florida standard or national standard [of conditions and services in detention facilities], we meet or exceed the higher standard”.Since the jail opened in early July, the Trump administration and local officials have specifically touted the brutality of the facility, including its remote location in a wetland surrounded by alligators, crocodiles, pythons and swarms of mosquitoes. Officials have also seemed to revel in the crude name the facility has been given, echoing the long-shut and notoriously harsh Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay. More

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    ‘We need some hope’: can a rural hospital on the brink survive Trump’s bill?

    When her severely allergic toddler, Josie, began gasping for breath in the middle of the night, Krissy Cunningham knew there was only one place she could get to in time to save her daughter’s life.For 74 years, Pemiscot Memorial hospital has been the destination for those who encounter catastrophe in Missouri’s poorest county, a rural stretch of farms and towns in its south-eastern Bootheel region. Three stories of brown brick just off Interstate 55 in the town of Hayti, the 115-bed hospital has kept its doors open even after the county’s only Walmart closed, the ranks of boarded-up gas stations along the freeway exit grew, and the population of the surrounding towns dwindled, thanks in no small part to the destruction done by tornadoes.For many in Pemiscot county, its emergency room is the closest available without taking a 30-minute drive across the Mississippi river to Tennessee or the state line to Arkansas, a range that can make the difference between life and death for victims of shootings, overdoses or accidents on the road. In the wee hours of one spring morning, it was there that Josie received the breathing treatments and a racemic epinephrine shot that made her wheezing subside.“There is no way I would have made it to one of the farther hospitals, if it wouldn’t have been here. Her airway just would have closed off, and I probably would have been doing CPR on my daughter on the side of the road,” recalled Cunningham, a nurse who sits on the hospital’s board.View image in fullscreenYet its days of serving its community may be numbered. In May, the hospital’s administration went public with the news that after years of struggling with high rates of uninsured patients and low reimbursement rates from insurers, they may have to close. And even if they do manage to navigate out of their current crisis, Pemiscot Memorial’s leaders see a new danger on the horizon: the “big, beautiful bill” Republicans pushed through Congress earlier this month, at Donald Trump’s request.Centered around an array of tax cuts as well as funds for the president’s mass deportation plans, the bill will mandate the largest funding reduction in history to Medicaid, the federal healthcare program supporting low-income and disabled Americans. That is expected to have ripple effects nationwide, but will hit particularly hard in Pemiscot county and other rural areas, where hospitals tend to have frail margins and disproportionately rely on Medicaid to stay afloat.“If Medicaid drops, are we going to be even collecting what we’re collecting now?” asked Jonna Green, the chairwoman of Pemiscot Memorial’s board, who estimated 80% of their revenue comes from Medicaid as well as Medicare, another federal health program primarily for people 65 and older. “We need some hope.”The changes to Medicaid will phase in beginning in late 2026, and require enrollees to work, volunteer or attend school 80 hours a month, with some exceptions. States are also to face new caps on provider taxes, which they use to fund their Medicaid programs. All told, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office forecasts that 10 million people nationwide will lose their healthcare due to the bill, which is nonetheless expected to add $3.4tn to the federal budget deficit through 2034.Trump carried Missouri, a midwestern state that has veered sharply away from the Democratic party over the past three decades, with more than 58% of the vote last November. In Pemiscot county, where census data shows more than a quarter of residents are below the poverty line and the median income is just over $40,000 a year, he was the choice of 74% of voters, and Republican lawmakers representing the county played a notable role in steering his tax and spending bill through Congress.Senator Josh Hawley publicly advocated against slashing the healthcare program, writing in the New York Times: “If Republicans want to be a working-class party – if we want to be a majority party – we must ignore calls to cut Medicaid and start delivering on America’s promise for America’s working people.” He ultimately supported the bill after a $50bn fund to help rural hospitals was included, but weeks later introduced legislation that would repeal some of the very same cuts he had just voted for.“I want to see Medicaid reductions stopped and rural hospitals fully funded permanently,” the senator said.View image in fullscreenJason Smith, whose district encompasses Pemiscot county and the rest of south-eastern Missouri, oversaw the crafting of the measure’s tax provision as chairman of the House ways and means committee, and has argued they will bring prosperity rural areas across the state. Like others in the GOP, he has said the Medicaid cuts will ferret out “waste, fraud and abuse”, and make the program more efficient.It’s a gamble for a state that has seen nine rural hospitals close since 2015, including one in a county adjacent to Pemiscot, with a further 10 at immediate risk of going under, according to data from the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform policy group.The Missouri Budget Project thinktank estimates that the bill will cost 170,000 of the state’s residents their health coverage, largely due to work requirements that will act as difficult-to-satisfy red tape for Medicaid enrollees, while the cap on provider taxes will sap $1.9bn from the state’s Medicaid program.“There’s going to be some really hard conversations over the course of the next five years, and I think that healthcare in our region will look a lot different than what it does right now,” said Karen White, CEO of Missouri Highlands Health Care, which operates federally qualified health centers providing primary and dental care across rural south-eastern Missouri. She forecasts 20% of her patients will lose Medicaid coverage through 2030.As the bill was making its way through Congress, she contacted the offices of Smith, Hawley and Missouri’s junior senator, Eric Schmitt, all politicians she had voted for, asking them to reconsider cutting Medicaid. She did not hear back.“I love democracy. I love the fact that we as citizens can make our voices heard. And they voted the way that they felt they needed to vote. Maybe … the larger constituency reached out to them with a viewpoint that was different than mine, but I made my viewpoint heard,” White said.Spokespeople for Schmitt and Smith did not respond to requests for comment. In response to emailed questions, a spokeswoman for Hawley referred to his introduction of the legislation to partially stop the Medicaid cuts.Down the road from the hospital lies Hayti Heights, where there are no businesses and deep puddles form in the potholes and ditches that line roadways after every thunderstorm. Mayor Catrina Robinson has a plan to turn things around for her 500 or so residents, which involves bringing back into service the water treatment plant that is the town’s main source of revenue. But that is unlikely to change much without Pemiscot Memorial.“Half of those people that work at the hospital, they’re my residents. So how they gonna pay their bills? How they gonna pay their water bill, how they gonna pay their light bill, how they gonna pay rent? This is their source of income. Then what will they do?” Robinson said.View image in fullscreenTrump’s bill does include an array of relief aimed at the working-class voters who broke for him in the last election, including tax cuts on tips and overtime pay and deductions aimed at senior citizens. It remains to be seen if whatever financial benefits those provisions bring to the workers of Pemiscot county will outweigh the impact of the stress the Medicaid cuts place on its healthcare system.“The tax relief of server’s tips and all that, that’s not going to change the poverty level of our area,” said Loren Clifton, the hospital’s administrative director. “People losing their healthcare insurance absolutely will make it worse.”Work can be found in the county’s corn, wheat, soybean and rice fields, at a casino in the county seat Caruthersville and at a shipyard along the banks of the Mississippi . But Green questions if those industries would stick around if the hospital goes under, and takes with it the emergency room that often serves to stabilize critical patients before transferring them elsewhere.View image in fullscreen“Our community cannot go without a hospital. Healthcare, employment, industry – it would devastate everything,” Green said.The board is exploring partnerships with other companies to help keep the hospital afloat, and has applied for a federal rural emergency hospital designation which they believe will improve their reimbursements and chances of winning grants, though that will require them to give up other services that bring in revenue. For many of its leaders, the stakes of keeping the hospital open are personal.“This is our home, born and raised, and you would never want to leave it. But I have a nine-year-old with cardiac problems. I would not feel safe living here without a hospital that I could take her to know if something happened,” said Brittany Osborne, Pemiscot Memorial’s interim CEO.One muggy Wednesday morning in July, Pemiscot’s three county commissioners, all Republicans, gathered in a small conference room in Caruthersville’s courthouse and spoke of their resolve to keep the hospital open.“It’s 50-50 right now,” commissioner Mark Cartee said of the hospital’s chances of survival. “But, as long as we have some money in the bank of the county, we’re going to keep it open. We need healthcare. We got to have a hospital.”They were comparatively sanguine about the possibility that the Medicaid work requirements would harm the facility’s finances down the line.“We got a guy around here, I guess he’s still around. He’s legally blind but he goes deer hunting every year,” commissioner Baughn Merideth said. “There’s just so much fraud … it sounds like we’re right in the middle of it.”A few blocks away, Jim Brands, owner of Hayden Pharmacy, the oldest in the county, had little doubt that there were those in the county who took advantage of Medicaid. He also believed that fewer enrollees in the program would mean less business for his pharmacy, and more hardship overall.View image in fullscreen“Just seeing this community, the situation it’s in, the poverty, we’ve got to get people to work. There are a ton of able-bodied people that could work that choose not to,” he said.“To me, there’s got to be a better way to weed out the fraud and not step on the toes of the people who need it.” More

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    She fled Cuba for asylum – then was snatched from a US immigration courtroom

    Jerome traveled a thousand miles from California to El Paso, Texas, so he could accompany Jenny to her immigration hearing. He and his wife had promised to take her after she had fled Cuba last December, after the government there had targeted her because she had reported on the country’s deplorable conditions for her college radio station.Everything should have been fine. Jenny, 25, had entered the United States legally under one of Joe Biden’s now-defunct programs, CBP One. By the end of the year, she could apply for a green card.But a few days before her hearing, Jerome started to feel like something was off. Jenny’s court date had been abruptly moved from May to June with no explanation. Arrests at immigration courthouses peppered the news.And when Jenny went before the court, the government attorney assigned to try to deport her asked the judge to dismiss her case, arguing vaguely that circumstances had changed.View image in fullscreenInstead, the judge noted that Jenny was pursuing an asylum claim and scheduled her for another court date in August 2026 – the best possible outcome.“She turned around and looked at me and smiled. And I smiled back, because she understood that she was free to go home,” Jerome said.But as Jenny left the courtroom and approached the elevator to leave, a crowd of government agents in masks converged on her and demanded she go with them. Just before she disappeared down a corridor with the phalanx of officers, she turned back to look at Jerome, her face stricken, silently pleading with him to do something.“I said, ‘She’s legal. She’s here legally. And you guys just don’t care, do you? Nobody cares about this. You guys just like pulling people away like this,’” Jerome recalled telling the agents. “And nobody said a word. They couldn’t even look me in the eye,” he told the Guardian.Footage of her apprehension was taken by those advocating for her and shared with the Guardian.Now Jenny is languishing in immigration custody. Her hearing for August 2026 has been replaced with a date for next month when the government attorney might once again attempt to dismiss her case, and her case been transferred from a judge who grants a majority of asylum applications to one with a less than 22% approval rate.“There’s no heart, there’s no compassion, there’s no empathy, there’s no anything. [It’s] ‘We’re just going to yank this woman away from you, and we don’t care,’” Jerome said. The Guardian is not using his or Jenny’s full name for their safety.Similar scenes have played out again and again at immigration courthouses across the country for weeks, as people following the federal government’s directions and attending their hearings are being scooped up and sent to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention.The unusual tactics are happening while Donald Trump and his deputy chief of staff for policy, Stephen Miller, push for Ice to make at least 3,000 daily arrests – a tenfold increase from during Biden’s last year in office. Ice agents have suddenly become regulars at immigration court, where they can easily find soft targets.At first, the officers appeared to focus arrests on a subset of migrants who had been in the US for fewer than two years, which the Trump administration argues makes them susceptible to a fast-tracked deportation scheme called expedited removal. Ice officers seem to confer with their agency’s attorneys, who ask the judge to dismiss the migrants’ cases, as they did with Jenny. And, if judges agree, the migrants are detained on their way out of court so that officials can reprocess them through expedited removal, which allows the federal government to repatriate people with far less due process, sometimes without even seeing another judge.View image in fullscreenBut reporting by the Guardian has uncovered how Ice is casting a far wider net for its immigration court arrests and appears also to be targeting people such as Jenny whose cases are ongoing and have not been dismissed. The agency is also snatching up court attendees who have clearly been in the US for longer than two years – the maximum timeframe that according to US law determines whether someone can be placed in expedited removal – as well as those who have a pathway to remain in the country legally.After the migrants are apprehended, they’re stuffed into often overcrowded, likely privately run detention centers, sometimes far from their US-based homes and families. They’re put through high-stakes tests that will determine whether they have a future in the US, with limited access to attorneys. And as they endure inhospitable conditions in prisons and jails, the likelihood of them having both the will to keep fighting their case and the legal right to stay dwindles.“To see individuals who are law-abiding and who have received a follow-up court date only to be greeted by a group of large men in masks and whisked away to an unknown location in a building is jarring. It breaks my understanding and conception of the United States having a lawful due process,” said Emily Miller, who is part of a larger volunteer group in El Paso trying to protect migrants as best they can.One woman Miller saw apprehended had come to the US legally, submitted her asylum petition the day of her hearing, and was given a follow-up court date by the judge before Ice detained her.“My physical reaction was standing in the hallway shaking. My body just physically started shaking, out of shock and out of concern,” Miller said. “I have lived in other countries where I’ve been a stranger in a strange land and did not speak the language or had limited language abilities. And as a woman, to be greeted by masked men is something we are taught to fear because of violence that could happen to us.”Elsewhere in Texas, at the San Antonio immigration court earlier this month, a toddler dressed in pink and white overalls ran gleefully around the drab waiting room. Far more chairs than people lined the room’s perimeter, as if more attendees had been expected. A constantly multitasking employee at the front window bowed her head in frustration as the caller she was speaking to kept asking more questions. Self-help legal pamphlets hung on the wall – a reminder that the representation rate for people in immigration proceedings has plummeted in recent years, and the vast majority of migrants are navigating the deportation process with little to no expert help.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn one of the courtrooms, a family took their seats before the judge. Their seven-year-old boy pulled his shirt over his nose, his arms inside the arm holes. The government attorney sitting with a can of Dr Pepper on her desk promptly told the judge she had a motion to introduce, even as the family filed their asylum applications. She wanted to dismiss their cases, she said, as it was no longer in the government’s best interest to proceed.The judge said no. She scheduled the family for their final hearings just over a year later. And she warned them, carefully, that Ice might approach them as soon as they left her courtroom. What happened next, she said, was not in her control.Her last words to the family: “Good luck.”Men in bulletproof vests were hanging around in the hallway, but the family safely made it into the elevator and left the courthouse for the parking lot. Stephanie Spiro, associate director of protection-based relief at the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC), said that for the most part, Ice is leaving families with children alone (with notable exceptions). It’s “single adults” they’re after, people who often have loved ones in the US depending on them, but whose immigration cases involve them alone, she said.A few days later, two such adults – a man and a woman – separately went before a different immigration judge in San Antonio, whose courtroom had signs encouraging people to “self-deport”, the Trump administration’s phrase for leaving the country voluntarily before being removed.The government attorney that day moved to dismiss both the man’s and the woman’s cases, which the judge granted, dismissing the man’s case even before the government attorney had given a reason why.Using a Turkish interpreter, the judge then told the man it was likely that immigration authorities would try to put him into expedited removal – despite the fact that he had entered the US more than two years earlier.Soon after, the woman – who had been in the country for nearly four years – went before the court without a lawyer. The judge tried to explain to her what might happen if her case were dismissed, but as he finished, she admitted in Spanish: “I haven’t understood much of what you’ve told me.”View image in fullscreenThe woman went on to say that she was deep in the process of applying for a visa for victims of serious crimes in the US – a visa that provides a pathway to citizenship. But the judge was upset with her for not also filing an asylum application, and he threatened to order her repatriated. It was the government attorney who “saved” her, the judge said, by requesting the case be dismissed instead.As soon as the woman walked out of the courtroom, agents approached her and directed her out of the hallway, into a small room. Around the same time, outside the building, men wearing gaiters over their faces ushered a group of people into a white bus, presumably to be transported to detention.Spiro of the NIJC, meanwhile, works in Chicago and said she and fellow advocates have documented Ice officers in plainclothes coming to immigration court there with a list of whom they’re targeting – and court attendees are apprehended whether or not their case is dismissed.“People are getting detained regardless,” Spiro added. “And once they’re detained, it makes it just so much harder to put forth their claim.”Migrants picked up at the court in Chicago have been sent to Missouri, Florida and Texas – to detention spaces that still have capacity, but also to where judges are more likely to side with the Trump administration for speedier deportations. Many of them end up far from their loved ones, and a lag in Ice’s publicly accessible online detainee locator has meant some of them have at times essentially disappeared.As word of mouth has spread among immigrant communities in Chicago about these arrests, the once bustling court has gone eerily quiet, Spiro said. That, in turn, could have its own serious consequences, as no-shows for hearings are often ordered deported.“They don’t want to leave their house because of the detentions that are happening,” Spiro said of Chicago’s immigrants. “So to go to court, and to go anywhere – they don’t want to come to our office. To go anywhere where there’s federal agents and where they know Ice is trying to detain you is just terrifying beyond, you know, most people’s imagination.” More

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    Dear Keir Starmer, stop cosying up to Donald Trump – or he’ll drag Britain down with him | Simon Tisdall

    Donald Trump’s victory in last November’s US presidential election presented Keir Starmer, Britain’s Labour prime minister, with a choice – and an opportunity. Either cosy up to a man whose obnoxious, hard-right, ultra-nationalist policies are inimical to UK security and foreign policy interests, economic prosperity and democratic values; or risk a rupture with the US, a longstanding but overbearing ally, and seize the moment to redefine Britain’s place in the world, primarily through reintegration in Europe.Starmer made the wrong call – and Britain has paid a heavy price ever since. The cost to national dignity and the public purse will be on painful show this weekend as Trump, pursued by the Epstein scandal and angry protesters, makes an expensively policed, ostensibly private visit to his golf courses in Scotland. On Monday, the prime minister will travel north to kiss the ring. More humiliations loom. In September, Trump will return for an unprecedented second state visit, at Starmer’s unctuous behest. At that point, the full, embarrassing extent of Britain’s thraldom will be there for all the world to see.Let’s be clear. Trump is no friend of Britain’s and is, in key respects, a dangerous foe. Efforts to curry favour with this narcissist will ultimately prove futile. Trump always reneges. His unedifying career is littered with broken promises and relationships, personal and political. His only loyalty is to himself. Right now, this wannabe dictator is busy making America not greater but weaker, poorer, less influential and more disliked. Don’t let him drag Britain down, too. It’s not too late to make the break.US leadership of the western democracies used to be taken for granted. Now it’s a problem. Politicians in both Britain’s main parties have difficulty accepting this shift. As so often, public opinion is ahead of them. Recent polling by the Pew Research Center found 62% of Britons have no confidence in Trump “to do the right thing regarding world affairs”. Most of those surveyed in 24 countries viewed him as dangerous, arrogant and dishonest. Thanks to him, the US’s international standing is in freefall.Giving Israel a free hand in Gaza is the most egregious example of how Trump’s policies conflict with UK interests. Starmer’s government has condemned the deliberate killing and starving of civilians. Among the 55% of Britons opposed to Israel’s actions, 82% believe they amount to genocide, a YouGov poll found last month. A majority backs additional sanctions. Trump’s support for forced relocations, opposition to a two-state solution and close collaboration with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli leader charged with war crimes, all contradict stated UK policy. Trump bears significant personal responsibility for what Starmer calls the “unspeakable and indefensible” horror in Gaza.Starmer warned dramatically last month that the UK was in growing danger of military attack following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Britain and other Nato states have steadfastly supported Kyiv. Not so Trump. Since taking office, he has toadied to Vladimir Putin, vilified Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, suspended military supplies and questioned Nato’s future. Ignoring proliferation fears, Trump is simultaneously fuelling a nuclear arms race. Now the hapless Starmer has been panicked into buying US jets capable of carrying warheads and, it is claimed, has secretly allowed US-owned nukes back into the UK. This is not the Britain Labour voters want.Trump recently reversed himself on Ukraine, patched things up with Nato and criticised Putin. But he could change his mind again tomorrow. Oblivious to the glaring double standard, he congratulates himself meanwhile on “obliterating” Iran’s nuclear facilities – even though last month’s illegal US bombing was only partly successful. Britain rightly favours negotiations with Tehran. It wasn’t consulted.Trump’s tariff wars pose a direct threat to the UK economy, jobs and living standards. Despite Starmer’s deal mitigating their impact, 10% tariffs or higher remain on most US-bound exports. Trump’s bullying of Canada, Mexico, Greenland, Panama and others over sovereignty, migration and trade feeds uncertainty. His irrational hostility to the EU may gratify the likes of Nigel Farage (and Putin). But endless rows between important allies do not serve Britain’s interests.The advance of hard-right, nationalist-populist parties in Europe and, most recently, in Japan suggests the socially divisive, chauvinist agendas championed by Trump’s Maga movement have widening international appeal. That augurs ill for democracy in Britain and the world generally. For the same reason, Trump’s assaults on US constitutional rights, notably minority and gender rights, attacks on judges, universities and public institutions, and attempts to suppress independent media scrutiny are ominous. Such toxic behaviour is contagious. Trumpism is the new Covid. Britain needs inoculation.By slashing overseas aid, cutting public service broadcasters such as Voice of America, defunding and ostracising UN agencies, flouting international courts and pretending the climate emergency is illusory, Trump inflicts immense harm on the US’s reputation, global influence and soft-power armoury. He is wrecking the rules-based order that Britain views as fundamental. It’s a gift to China, Russia and authoritarians everywhere. As Pentagon spending rockets to $1tn annually, his crude message is unmistakeable: might makes right. Brute strength rules.Trump is a disaster for the west and all in the UK who respect progressive democratic values. His second term will evidently be more globally perilous, destructive and destabilising than his first. In support of universal principles established centuries before anyone heard of him, Britain should steer clear of this walking, talking catastrophe. Rather than hug Trump close, Starmer should keep him at arm’s length for fear of infection.Don’t go to Scotland to see him, Prime Minister. Don’t waste your breath. Instead, start planning for the post-special-relationship era. Make the break. It’s time.

    Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

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    Democrats request copy of Epstein ‘birthday book’ that reportedly contains Trump poem

    House Democrats on Friday sent a letter to the attorneys representing the estate of Jeffrey Epstein requesting a copy of the so-called “birthday book” that reportedly contains a crude poem and doodle from Donald Trump in celebration of the late sex offender’s 50th birthday.In the letter, California congressmen Ro Khanna and Robert Garcia say the contents of the book may be “essential” to congressional oversight of the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein controversy. In the letter, they ask for a “complete and unredacted” copy of the book by 10 August.“The public deserves to know the truth and the survivors and their families deserve justice,” said Khanna, who criticized Congress for leaving Washington early without voting on his bipartisan bill to release the Epstein files.The birthday book is a leather-bound album compiled by Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for conspiring with Epstein to sexually traffic minors. It is reportedly filled with birthday greetings from dozens of Epstein’s friends and associates, including, according to the Wall Street Journal, messages from Trump, Bill Clinton and Alan Dershowitz, among other wealthy and powerful men.On Thursday, the New York Times published an image of Maxwell’s dedication in the book.Trump is suing the Journal over its initial report that he contributed a page with an imagined dialogue between “Donald” and “Jeffrey” and a sketch of a naked woman. In his federal lawsuit, Trump called the letter attributed to him “fake and nonexistent”.Khanna and Garcia sent the letter after a lawyer representing hundreds of Epstein’s victims said the estate was in possession of the birthday book. The lawyer, Brad Edwards, said in an interview with the MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell that he believed the estate would turn over the book upon request.“I know the executors are in possession of this book,” Edwards said in the interview.Lawyers for the estate did not immediately respond to a request for comment.“The American people deserve to know who was involved in Epstein’s trafficking network and if they are in positions of power in our government,” Garcia, the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, said.The Epstein files are at the center of an extraordinary rift between Trump and his Maga base, who have long-demanded the release of documents related to the child sex offender. The White House has failed to quell growing demands from his base for more transparency, while Democrats, out of power in Congress, press the issue to their advantage.Trump and Epstein’s friendship in the 1990s and early 2000s was well-known and well documented. The president has said that he cut ties with Epstein in 2004, and he has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with the Epstein matter.Earlier this week, the Journal first reported that Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, briefed Trump in May that his name appeared multiple times in the files related to the investigation.In an attempt to confront the matter, Trump had instructed Bondi to seek the release of grand jury transcripts from an investigation into Epstein. In a setback, a judge in Florida rejected the Trump administration’s request, though a similar case is still pending in New York.In the letter to the Epstein’s estate, the Democrats write that the book is “relevant for ongoing congressional oversight of the Department of Justice’s handling of the Epstein investigation and prosecution, as well as the Trump administration’s decision to declassify and release only a handful of documents from the Epstein files while withholding others from the public”.Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer, Todd Blanche, who is now the deputy attorney general, met with Maxwell in federal prison on Friday and plans to meet her again on Saturday. Maxwell is attempting to have her conviction overturned. More

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    Trump news at a glance: president dismisses continued Epstein and Maxwell furore as ‘not a big thing’

    Donald Trump continued to face questions about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein as he landed in Scotland ahead of meeting British prime minister Keir Starmer and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen.The US president denied reports that he was briefed about his name appearing in the Epstein files after landing on Friday evening local time. He was also asked about the justice department’s questioning of Ghislaine Maxwell and suggestions he might offer her clemency.Trump: “I don’t know anything about the conversation, I haven’t really been following it.”“A lot of people have been asking me about pardons [for Maxwell]. Obviously, this is no time to be talking about pardons” he went on. “You’re making a very big thing over something that’s not a big thing.”Here are the key US politics stories today:Trump deflects Epstein questions as he arrives in Scotland The furore over Donald Trump’s ties with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein continued on Friday as new revelations about the pair’s relationship threatened to mire the president’s golfing trip to Scotland, where he arrived late on Friday.After landing at Glasgow Prestwick airport at about 8.30pm local time, the US president denied reports that he had been briefed about his name appearing in files pertaining to the case against the late Epstein. He also said he had not “really been following” the justice department’s interview with Epstein’s convicted associate, Ghislaine Maxwell.Read the full storyVon der Leyen to meet Trump as EU and US close in on trade dealThe EU appears to be on the verge of signing a trade deal with Donald Trump after the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, announced she would meet the US president on Sunday during his four-day trip to Scotland.Trump landed in Scotland on Friday evening before the opening of his new golf course in Aberdeenshire. He said he was also planning to meet the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, on Saturday.Read the full storyGhislaine Maxwell interviewed again The deputy US attorney general, Todd Blanche, held a second in-person meeting on Friday with Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted sex trafficker and longtime associate of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.Blanche had confirmed the two met behind closed doors in Tallahassee, Florida, on Thursday, at the federal prosecutor’s office within the federal courthouse in the state capital, and they met again on Friday.Read the full storyA teenage US citizen secretly recorded his brutal arrestKenny Laynez-Ambrosio was driving to his landscaping job with his mother and two male friends when they were pulled over by the Florida highway patrol. In one swift moment, a traffic stop turned into a violent arrest.Video of the incident captured by Laynez-Ambrosio, an 18-year-old US citizen, appears to show a group of officers in tactical gear working together to violently detain the three men. The video has put fresh scrutiny on the harsh tactics used by US law enforcement officials as the Trump administration sets ambitious enforcement targets to detain thousands of immigrants every day.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

    The White House has announced that it will release $5.5bn in frozen education funds back to US states. That announcement came on Friday after Donald Trump’s administration decided to abruptly withhold the congressionally approved funds a day before their 1 July release for the 2025-26 school year.

    South Park co-creator Trey Parker had the briefest response to anger from the White House over this season’s premiere, which showed a naked Trump in bed with Satan.

    Two high-ranking officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were placed on administrative leave on Friday, fueling speculation that the Trump administration was retaliating against them for actions taken during the president’s first term.
    Catching up? Here’s what happened on 24 July 2025. More