US Politics

Jared Kushner is not the first presidential son-in-law to have held high office. President Woodrow Wilson leaned heavily on his talented and experienced Treasury Secretary, William McAdoo, who just happened to be his daughter’s husband.

Jared Kushner: Breaking History: A White House Memoir (Harper Collins)

McAdoo, however, was a skilled politician, and his appointment had to be ratified by the US Senate. Kushner, who spent much of Donald Trump’s period in office as a senior advisor, and even at times a de facto chief of staff, was previously a real estate developer.

Kushner’s marriage to Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, was facilitated by Rupert Murdoch and his former wife. But that friendship had its limits, as Jared would discover when Rupert refused to override the call made by Fox News in its coverage of the 2020 elections that gave Arizona to Trump’s adversary, Joe Biden.

Kushner was one of Trump’s inner circle, with a wide-ranging set of briefs that appeared to cut across half a dozen departments. Breaking History reads rather like a dutiful student’s account of “what I did on my summer holidays”, except in this case Jared actually influenced US policies in a number of areas.

While making sure to properly acknowledge the pater familias, Kushner claims some big personal achievements:

Across four years, I helped negotiate the largest trade deal in history, pass bipartisan criminal justice reform, and launch Operation Warp Speed to deliver a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine in record time … In what has become known as the Abraham Accords, five Muslim-majority countries signed peace agreements with Israel.

Some of these claims are justified. In particular, the Trump administration did support some relaxing of the draconian penal restrictions that mean the US leads the world in incarcerations. Kushner’s account of building a bipartisan movement to modify some of these laws is important, even as it reminds us of the barbarity of much of the US justice system.

Kushner, left, and Ivanka Trump, right, sit with Kim Kardashian West, one of the celebrities who advocated for criminal justice reform, at the White House in 2019.
Evan Vucci/AP

Kushner spent considerable time working with selected gulf states to develop what became the Abraham Accords, which saw four Arab states recognise Israel. His insight was that the various royal despots would ultimately collaborate in abandoning the Palestinians in the greater interest of building an anti-Iranian alliance, where they shared common concerns with Israel. It seems Kushner never met a ruler he didn’t like, nor one whose record on human rights was worth questioning.

Kushner seems blithely oblivious to the fact his close ties to Israel’s former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which go back to childhood, and his own strong support for Israeli ambitions, might have restrained Palestinian enthusiasm for his peacemaking efforts.

In this he reminds one of his father-in-law, who never let sentiment get in the way of enthusiasm for making a deal. Remember how well that went with Kim Jong-un – and, yes, Jared and Ivanka were there when the two presidents met at the Demilitarised Military Zone between the two Koreas, but tactfully no more is said about the beautiful friendship Trump claimed was established.

Little is said about this ‘beautiful friendship’.
KCNA/EPA

Read more:
Personal diplomacy has long been a presidential tactic, but Trump adds a twist

Telling silences and a magic touch

After the outbreak of COVID, Kushner became a central player, along with Vice-President Mike Pence, in organising the national response. As with his account of the Abraham negotiations, there is a great deal of fascinating detail obscured by his need to be centre-stage.

That the US suffered among the highest COVID death rates within rich countries
is apparently not worth mentioning beside the achievements of our hero in mobilising the private sector and pharmaceutical giants.

In Kushner’s world everyone is at fault, except the Trump family. President Trump, it seems, was constantly let down by his advisers, the Republican establishment, foreign leaders – by everyone, in fact, but Jared and Ivanka. Donald’s wife and sons barely appear (thankfully Melania, Eric and Donald Jr were hardly noted for their interest in policy).

In Kushner’s world, everyone is at fault except the Trump family.
Evan Vucci/AP

Nor, one might note, do either of the Australian prime ministers who dealt with Trump rate a mention. Kushner seems largely uninterested in democratically elected governments, although he does tell us of his friendship with former UK prime minister Boris Johnson. It seems that for four years, only the steady hand of President Trump, supported by his daughter and son-in-law, steered the US through perilous waters.

Breaking History suggests there were few areas of government where Jared’s magic touch was not required. As he says, when the president calls, you answer, even if it means missing sleep and meals. He notes the rapid turnover of officials in the administration, and has little praise for most of the cabinet, other than former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and treasurer Steven Mnuchin.

But sycophancy has its limits. One of the most revealing lines in the book comes in a reflection on the days after the 2020 elections: “Like millions of Americans, I was disappointed by the outcome of the election.”

Kushner makes no attempt to support claims the election was stolen, and passes over the attack on the Capitol by Trump’s supporters, which he acknowledges was “wrong and unlawful”. His claim that had Trump anticipated violence he would have prevented it from happening has been essentially disproved in the recent hearings into the January 6 attack.

Analysing a morally corrupt presidency

Donald Trump is known to be a lazy reader, although Kushner claimed last month his father-in-law had started reading his book. Will he wade through the 400 or so pages of praise that come before the admission of electoral defeat?

One wonders whom else the book might attract. The prose is flat but grammatical, far removed from the overblown rhetoric and denunciations so beloved of the MAGA crowd. The book has been predictably panned by the New York Times and Washington Post, and largely ignored by Trump’s true believers, who far prefer the fiery speeches of Don Junior. But it would be wrong to ignore the insights into Washington and Middle Eastern policy-making that Kushner provides.

Jared Kushner (right) and Benjamin Netanyahu make joint statements to the press about the Israeli-United Arab Emirates peace accords in Jerusalem, August 30 2020.
Debbie Hill/EPA

Even a morally corrupt presidency leaves a mark on the world that needs to be analysed. The plethora of books that have already appeared around the Trump presidency bear out Kushner’s claim to have been a key player across a number of crucial portfolios.

Indeed, the only other person to remain in “the room where it happened” through the entire four years was Pence, until his final break with Trump over the results of the 2020 elections. Now there’s a story Lin Manuel Miranda might consider as a follow-up to Hamilton. More

Mar-a-Lago a magnet for spies, officials warn after nuclear file reportedly foundFormer intelligence chiefs say national security officials are ‘shaking their heads at what damage might have been done’ Mar-a-Lago – the Palm Beach resort and residence where Donald Trump reportedly stored nuclear secrets among a trove of highly classified documents for 18 months since leaving the White House – is a magnet for foreign spies, former intelligence officials have warned.FBI found document on foreign nuclear defenses at Mar-a-Lago – reportRead moreThe Washington Post reported that a document describing an unspecified foreign government’s defences, including its nuclear capabilities, was one of the many highly secret papers Trump took away from the White House when he left office in January 2021.There were also documents marked SAP, for Special-Access Programmes, which are often about US intelligence operations and whose circulation is severely restricted, even among administration officials with top security clearance.Potentially most disturbing of all, there were papers stamped HCS, Humint Control Systems, involving human intelligence gathered from agents in enemy countries, whose lives would be in danger if their identities were compromised.The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is conducting a damage assessment review which is focused on the sensitivity of the documents, but US officials said it is the job of FBI counter-intelligence to assess who may have gained access to them.That is a wide field. The home of a former president with a history of being enthralled by foreign autocrats, distrustful of US security services, and boastful about his knowledge of secrets, is an obvious foreign intelligence target.“I know that national security professionals inside government, my former colleagues, [they] are shaking their heads at what damage might have been done,” John Brennan, former CIA director, told MSNBC.“I’m sure Mar-a-Lago was being targeted by Russian intelligence and other intelligence services over the course of the last 18 or 20 months, and if they were able to get individuals into that facility, and access those rooms where those documents were and made copies of those documents, that’s what they would do.”US investigates fake heiress who infiltrated Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resortRead moreLast month, the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project reported that a Russian-speaking immigrant from Ukraine was able to mingle with the former president’s family and friends at Mar-a-Lago, posing as Anna de Rothschild, presenting herself as being an heiress of the banking dynasty.Inna Yashchyshyn, the daughter of a truck driver who emigrated to Canada, regaled those around her with tales of vineyards and estates and growing up in Monaco, and even met the former president in person, getting herself photographed with him on a golfing green.There is no evidence that Yashchyshyn was a spy, but the episode underlined how easy it is to get into Mar-a-Lago. During Trump’s presidency, two Chinese women were caught trespassing there on separate occasions.One of them, Yujing Zhang, was in possession of four mobile phones, a laptop, an external hard drive, and a thumb drive later found to carry malware. In her hotel room, investigators found nine USB drives, five SIM cards and a “signal detector” device for spotting hidden microphones or cameras. She was found guilty of unlawfully entering a restricted building and making false statements to a federal officer, and deported to China in 2021.The guests, invited or otherwise, are not the only security concern. In 2021, the Trump Organization sought 87 foreign workers for positions at Mar-a-Lago, with wages starting at $11.96 an hour.“Any competent foreign intelligence service, whether those belonging to China, those belonging to Iran, to Cuba, certainly including Russia are … and were interested in gaining access to Mar-a-Lago,” Peter Strzok, former deputy assistant director of counter-intelligence at the FBI, told MSNBC.TopicsMar-a-LagoFBIUS politicsDonald TrumpNuclear weaponsnewsReuse this content More

Barack and Michelle Obama return to White House for unveiling of portraitsThe Obamas did not have their unveiling ceremony while Donald Trump was in office Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, returned to the White House on Wednesday for the unveiling of their official portraits, hosted by Joe Biden more than five years after the 44th president left office.Large, formal portraits of presidents and first ladies adorn walls, hallways and rooms throughout the White House. Customarily, a former president returns for the unveiling during the tenure of his successor. But the Obamas, who have remained popular since leaving power, did not have their ceremony while Donald Trump was in office. More

Oath Keepers membership rolls feature police, military and elected officialsHundreds of public officials, including police chiefs, appear on far-right group’s leaked lists of members, report finds The names of hundreds of US law enforcement officers, elected officials and military members appear on the leaked membership rolls of a far-right extremist group that is accused of playing a key role in the January 6 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol, according to a report released on Wednesday.The Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism pored over more than 38,000 names on leaked Oath Keepers membership lists and identified more than 370 people it believes currently work in law enforcement agencies – including as police chiefs and sheriffs – and more than 100 people who are currently members of the military.Oath Keepers lawyer faces conspiracy charge in connection with January 6Read moreIt also identified more than 80 people who were running for or served in public office as of early August. The membership information was compiled into a database published by the transparency collective Distributed Denial of Secrets.The data raises fresh concerns about the presence of extremists in law enforcement and the military who are tasked with enforcing laws and protecting the US. It is especially problematic for public servants to be associated with extremists at a time when lies about the 2020 election are fueling threats of violence against lawmakers and institutions.“Even for those who claimed to have left the organization when it began to employ more aggressive tactics in 2014, it is important to remember that the Oath Keepers have espoused extremism since their founding, and this fact was not enough to deter these individuals from signing up,” the report says.Appearing in the Oath Keepers’ database does not prove that a person was ever an active member of the group or shares its ideology. Some people on the list contacted by the Associated Press said they were briefly members years ago and were no longer affiliated with the group. Some said they were never dues-paying members.“Their views are far too extreme for me,” said Shawn Mobley, sheriff of Otero county, Colorado. Mobley told the AP in an email that he distanced himself from the Oath Keepers years ago over concerns about its involvement in the standoff against the federal government at Bundy Ranch in Bunkerville, Nevada, among other things.The Oath Keepers, founded in 2009 by Stewart Rhodes, is a loosely organized conspiracy theory-fueled group that recruits current and former military, police and first responders. It asks its members to vow to defend the constitution “against all enemies, foreign and domestic”, promotes the belief that the federal government is out to strip citizens of their civil liberties and paints its followers as defenders against tyranny.More than two dozen people associated with the Oath Keepers – including Rhodes – have been charged in connection with the January 6 attack. Rhodes and four other Oath Keeper members or associates are heading to trial this month on seditious conspiracy charges for what prosecutors have described as a weeks-long plot to keep the then president, Donald Trump, in power. Rhodes and the other Oath Keepers say that they are innocent and that there was no plan to attack the Capitol.The Oath Keepers has grown quickly along with the wider anti-government movement and used the tools of the internet to spread their message during Barack Obama’s presidency, said Rachel Carroll Rivas, interim deputy director of research with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project. But since January 6 and Rhodes’s arrest, the group has struggled to keep members, she said.That is partly because Oath Keepers had been associated so strongly with Rhodes that the removal of the central figure had an outsized impact, and partly because many associated with the group were often those who wanted to be considered respectable in their communities, she said.“The image of being associated with January 6 was too much for many of those folks,” she said.Among the elected officials whose name appears on the membership lists is a South Dakota state representative, Phil Jensen, who won a June Republican primary in his bid for re-election. Jensen told the AP he paid for a one-year membership in 2014 but never received any Oath Keepers’ literature, attended any meetings or renewed his membership.Jensen said he felt compelled to join because he “believed in the oath that we took to support the US constitution and to defend it against enemies foreign and domestic”.He would not say whether he now disavows the Oath Keepers, saying he did not have enough information about the group today.“Back in 2014, they appeared to be a pretty solid conservative group. I can’t speak to them now,” he said.ADL said it found the names of at least 10 people who now work as police chiefs and 11 sheriffs. All of the police chiefs and sheriffs who responded to the AP said they no longer have any ties to the group.“I don’t even know what they’re posting. I never get any updates,” said Mike Hollinshead, sheriff of Idaho’s Elmore county. “I’m not paying dues or membership fees or anything.”Hollinshead, a Republican, said he was campaigning for sheriff several years ago when voters asked him if he was familiar with the Oath Keepers. Hollinshead said he wanted to learn about the group and recalls paying for access to content on the Oath Keepers’ website, but that was the extent of his involvement.Benjamin Boeke, police chief in Oskaloosa, Iowa, recalled getting emails from the group years ago and said he believes a friend may have signed him up. But he said he never paid to become a member and does not know anything about the group.Eric Williams, police chief in Idalou, Texas, also said in an email that he has not been a member or had any interaction with the Oath Keepers in over 10 years. He called the storming of the Capitol “terrible in every way”.“I pray this country finds its way back to civility and peace in discourse with one another,” he said.TopicsUS politicsThe far rightnewsReuse this content More

Massachusetts set to elect first female, gay governor over Trumpist opponentMaura Healey cruises to Democratic primary victory and will face Republican Geoff Diehl, a supporter of Trump’s election lie Massachusetts is on course to elect its first woman and first gay governor after Maura Healey won the Democratic primary on Tuesday and a Trump-backed candidate, Geoff Diehl, won the Republican contest to face her.Healey, the state attorney general, said: “I am honored to receive the Democratic nomination … Together, we’re going to win in November and build a Massachusetts that works for everyone.”Massachusetts has a long record of electing moderate Republicans. Only one Democrat – Deval Patrick, from 2007 to 2015 – having been governor since 1991.Healey, a former college and professional basketball player, has been attorney general since 2015. Polls give her huge leads over Diehl.The Republican backs Trump’s lie that his defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 election was the result of electoral fraud, opposed the extension of mail-in voting, opposed public health mandates in the Covid pandemic and supports the supreme court decision overturning Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that guaranteed the right to abortion.The abortion issue alone has driven electoral successes that have Democrats hoping they can prosper in the midterm elections.On Monday, Trump – the de facto leader of a party dominated by supporters Biden has called “semi-fascist” – told Massachusetts Republicans that Diehl would push back against “ultraliberal extremists” and “rule your state with an iron fist”.In Dorchester the next day, Healey told supporters “the choice in this election could not be more clear” and said Republicans wanted to “bring Trumpism to Massachusetts”. She promised to be “a governor as tough as the state she serves”.The current governor, Charlie Baker, worked to protect abortion rights and combat the climate crisis and backed Donald Trump’s impeachment over the Capitol attack. He faced defeat in a party dominated by Trump and chose not to run for a third term.Healey seems all but assured of victory. The polling website fivethirtyeight.com rates Massachusetts as the state most likely to swap a Republican governor for a Democrat, “just [ahead of] Maryland, another blue state where a moderate Republican is retiring and Republicans have nominated a diehard Trump supporter to replace him”.Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts US senator who beat Diehl for re-election in 2018, said on Tuesday: “Woo-hoo! I’ve seen firsthand how Maura Healey has the experience, keen policy knowledge, and steadfast commitment to deliver results for Massachusetts – and now she’s one step closer to shattering a glass ceiling as our next governor.”Healey is set to be the second woman to govern Massachusetts but the first elected to the office. In 2001, Jane Swift, a Republican, took over from Paul Cellucci when he became US ambassador to Greece. Swift was succeeded by Mitt Romney, who became the 2012 Republican nominee for president and is now a senator from Utah.The Democratic candidate for governor in Oregon, Tina Kotek, is also gay. If elected, she and Healey will be the first gay women to govern US states.TopicsMassachusettsUS politicsDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

The Democrats’ best message for the midterms: democracy is in grave perilOsita NwanevuRepublicans’ efforts to delegitimize the electoral process should trouble us greatly. Democrats ought to hammer this home We’re nearing the end of a summer that’s been a real boon for the Biden administration and Democrats in Washington. The White House finally announced a partial student loan forgiveness plan that will deliver some long-awaited relief to millions of borrowers. The Dobbs decision in June and its aftermath have triggered a public backlash that’s reinforced support for abortion rights and opened the eyes of many Americans to the pro-life movement’s radicalism on the issue. The Department of Justice is evidently in the middle of a quite serious investigation into Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents ⁠— one that’s put him at the top of the headlines again in spectacular fashion and may well end in his prosecution. And, most consequentially, after a months-long stalemate, Congress managed to pass a flawed, but genuinely historic bill ⁠— the hilariously and shrewdly named Inflation Reduction Act, which happens to be, among other things, the largest single climate package ever passed by any country.All these developments have fueled optimism that November’s midterms might not be as bad for Democrats as many have feared. And there’s some evidence that the party really has gotten a bounce: according to FiveThirtyEight’s polling average, Democrats have taken a narrow lead on the generic congressional ballot for the first time since last fall. Still, history strongly suggests Democrats are likely to lose at least the House. The party holding the White House has lost House seats ⁠— 26 on average ⁠— in all but two midterms since World War II. Republicans only need to gain four in order to take the chamber this year. And despite better numbers for Democrats as a whole, the polls suggest voters are still down on both President Biden and the state of the economy, although things might change a bit on both fronts as inflation eases.It’s doubtful rhetoric alone will shorten the long odds Democrats face heading into November. But it’s worth thinking through what the strongest possible message for the party might be. As it stands, their main focal point, beyond Congress’ accomplishments thus far in Biden’s term, has been the threat Donald Trump and his allies pose to the democratic process. Last week, Biden kicked off campaign season in earnest with a major address on just that subject. “Maga Republicans do not respect the Constitution,” he told his audience in Philadelphia. “They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people. They refuse to accept the results of a free election. And they’re working right now ⁠— as I speak, in state after state ⁠— to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself.”Democrats’ hopes rise for midterms amid backlash over abortion accessRead moreWhile his critics in the press have called the speech divisive and overly partisan, Biden went out of his way to absolve most Republicans from responsibility for the January 6th attack and Trump’s wrongdoing. “Not every Republican, not even the majority of Republicans, are Maga Republicans,” he said. “Not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology. I know because I’ve been able to work with these mainstream Republicans.” And one of the most prominent promoters of the Democratic line recently has been a Republican who Biden wants Americans to consider representative of the party. “I feel sad about where my party is, “ Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney said in an interview last month. “I feel sad about the way that too many of my colleagues have responded to what I think is a great moral test and challenge of our time – a great moment to determine whether or not people are going to stand up on behalf of the democracy, on behalf of our republic.” But while thousands of Democrats switched parties to back her against Harriet Hageman, a Trump-endorsed candidate and former Trump critic who’s supported his election claims, Cheney was handily defeated in her primary by more than 30 points — more proof, as though we really needed it, that Trumpism is the Republican Party’s mainstream. In suggesting otherwise, Biden intends to send the American people a partially defensible message ⁠— that support for democracy and the rule of law are principles that should transcend our political affiliations. And they should. But democracy and the rule of law aren’t just abstract ideals ⁠— they’re the means by which we solve our material problems. Republican efforts to usurp and delegitimize the electoral process should trouble us not just because they’re unfair and destabilizing, but because they advance the interests of the wealthy and powerful, who benefit from the conservative policy agenda. By attacking our elections and the right to vote, conservatives hope to rob us of opportunities to shore up and empower working class Americans on issues from health care to labor rights. And this is the point Democrats should emphasize ⁠— especially given that the pivotal constituencies in the electorate, swing and Trump-curious voters, are clearly ambivalent about, or willing to overlook, Republican violations of democratic norms.It’s encouraging that Biden himself seems to understand this on some level. In his speech, Biden said that Trump’s supporters in the Republican party “spread fear and lies […] told for profit and power.” Later, he added that the “soul of America” is defined by egalitarian principles ⁠— “that all deserve justice and a shot at lives of prosperity and consequence,” he said, “and that democracy must be defended, for democracy makes all these things possible.” This passage echoed remarks he’d made during the signing of the IRA, which he touted as an example of what can get done when democracy works as it should. “It’s about delivering progress and prosperity to American families,” he said of the bill. “It’s about showing the American people that democracy still works in America — notwithstanding all the talk of its demise — not just for the privileged few, but for all of us.”Of course, the process of getting to the IRA colorfully illustrated some of the ways democracy isn’t really working in America. Thanks to the power afforded to one very stubborn man from West Virginia in the Senate, popular policies like paid leave and more expansive climate measures were left on the chopping block. And the anticipated emissions reductions in the IRA will, like the long-troubled Medicaid expansion component of the Affordable Care Act, depend largely on the cooperation of state governments that are controlled by Republicans across much of the country and are working to disenfranchise Democratic voters. Components of the For the People Act ⁠— now ancient history politically speaking ⁠— would have gone some way towards evening out the already-skewed playing field in the states and combatting Republican voter suppression efforts. Its failure is one of the signal disappointments of this Congress. And Democrats will only get another crack at it, in another majority, if they manage to convince voters that the fight for democracy is, in fact, a partisan and material struggle ⁠— a fight against a party that cannot be redeemed and is animated in its attacks on our norms and elections by more than just loyalty to Donald Trump.Liz Cheney, heralded now as a profile in courage, should be presented by Democrats as an object lesson here. It genuinely matters that she backed Trump with her votes over 90% of the time over the course of her tenure in the House, including her opposition to Trump’s first impeachment. It was doubtless as obvious to her as it was to most Americans that Trump was dangerous, and it can’t have been much of a surprise that a man who lied about voter fraud in an election he had won in 2016 went on to assail the democratic process after his loss. But she stood with him ⁠— willing to indulge his abuses of power up until, almost literally, the last minute ⁠— because he was implementing policies she supports.Cheney’s turn against Trump was less an indictment of his character than a vote of no confidence, after his loss, in his remaining utility to the party. And while few Republicans have been as bold in repudiating him, there’s palpable interest among the right’s powers that be in potential successors like Ron DeSantis, who’s winning plaudits from high-profile Trump critics like The Atlantic’s David Frum even as he echoes Trump’s anti-democratic rhetoric and conspiracy theories from his perch in Florida. The simple truth is that most of the Republicans and conservatives Biden prefers still place protecting the power of capital well above protecting democracy and the rule of law on their list of concerns. That’s not an argument that will bring Americans together. But realistically, nothing will. And politics is, at the end of the day, about presenting voters with clear choices and stakes. The Democrats have a powerful case to make: return them to power and they’ll do what they can to safeguard democracy from a Republican party fully and irretrievably controlled by bosses and billionaires intent on dominating ordinary Americans. That message might not work magic in time for the midterms. But it’s worth a shot.
Osita Nwanevu is a Guardian US columnist
TopicsDemocratsOpinionRepublicansJoe BidenUS midterm elections 2022US politicsDonald TrumpcommentReuse this content More

‘Tale of two borders’: how a US Covid-era rule shapes fate of migrants Title 42 bans all migrants from entering the country over spread of Covid – but the rule is largely enforced against Mexicans and people from Guatemala, Honduras and El SalvadorAs hundreds of migrants line up along an Arizona border barrier at about 4am, agents try to separate them by nationality.“Anyone from Russia or Bangladesh? I need somebody else from Russia here,” an agent shouts. Then, quietly, almost to himself, he says: “These are Romanian.”It’s a routine task for Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in this flat expanse of desert where the wall ends. People from at least 115 countries have been stopped here during the past year, with entire families from Venezuela, Colombia, Haiti, Cuba, Brazil, India and Cameroon among those arriving in Yuma, south-west Arizona after wading through the perilous knee-deep Colorado River.It marks a dramatic shift away from the recent past, when migrants were predominantly from Mexico and Central America’s Northern Triangle countries – Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, escaping a mix of state sponsored and criminal violence, corruption and extreme poverty.People not from Mexico and the Northern Triangle accounted for 41% of detentions on the border from October to July – up from only 12% three years earlier, according to official figures. Meanwhile, Mexicans made up 35% of all border encounters – higher than three years ago but well below the 85% reported in 2011 and the 95% at the turn of the century.The changing demographics reflects how a controversial pandemic-era rule still shapes the fate of some migrants, even though much of the US has moved on from Covid.Migrants risk death crossing treacherous Rio Grande river for ‘American dream’ Read moreThe impact of Title 42, a Trump-era mandate barring migrants and asylum seekers from entering the country at land borders, is especially stark at some of the busiest crossings, such as Yuma and in Eagle Pass, Texas, close to where at least nine people died last week trying to cross the rain-swollen river.The only option for most Mexicans and Central Americans caught up in the Title 42 ban is to try to cross at more isolated and less militarized points, in hope of eluding detention – otherwise they are likely to be summarily expelled, and refused the opportunity to seek asylum.Mexicans still account for seven of every 10 encounters in the Tucson area in southern Arizona, where John Modlin, the CBP sector chief, said smugglers order them to walk at night with black-painted water jugs, camouflage backpacks and boots with carpeted soles to avoid leaving tracks in the sand.“[An] incredibly different tale of two borders, even though they’re within the same state,” said Modlin.In Yuma, migrants from Asia, Africa, South America and the Middle East arrive having typically walked a short distance through tribal lands, and surrender to border patrol agents. They come wearing sandals and carrying shopping bags stuffed with belongings over their shoulders, expecting to be released to pursue their immigration cases. Some carry toddlers on their hips. On paper, Title 42 denies people of all nationalities the right to seek asylum on grounds of preventing the spread of Covid. In reality, the rule has been selectively enforced against Mexicans and people from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, who the Mexican government agreed to accept.Most other nationalities have been spared due to the US not wanting to pay for expensive flights and limited diplomatic options.“The challenge is what Mexico can accept,” Modlin said. “That’s always going to be a limiting factor.”So far, the Biden administration’s attempts to wind down Title 42 have been blocked by the courts. Yet its continuing use depends on where people come from and which port of entry they are trying to seek asylum. In Yuma, Title 42 was applied in less than 1% of of 24,424 stops in July, whereas in Tucson, it was used in 71% of detentions.It is unclear why.“What we know with absolute certainty is that the smuggling organizations control the flow,” Modlin said. “They decide who goes where, and when they go to the point. It’s almost like air traffic control of moving people around.”In Yuma, groups of up to two dozen or so migrants dropped off by bus or car on a deserted Mexican highway begin arriving in the US shortly after midnight. If English and Spanish fail, agents use Google Translate to question them, under generator-powered lights, take photos and load them on to buses.One recent morning, six Russians said they flew from Istanbul to Tijuana, Mexico, with a stop in Cancun, and hired a driver to take them four hours to the deserted highway where they crossed.A 26-year-old man who had flown from his home in Peru to Tijuana said the most difficult part of the journey was the anxiety about whether he’d make it to his destination in New Jersey.Nelson Munera, 40, said he, his wife and their 17-year-old son got off a bus on the highway and crossed into Yuma because fellow Colombians had taken the same route.Lazaro Lopez, 48, who came with his nine-year-old son from Cuba by flying to Nicaragua and crossing Mexico over land, chose Yuma because that’s where his smuggler guided him.Most will be released on humanitarian parole or with a notice to appear in immigration court.From here, the border patrol drops off hundreds of migrants each day at the Regional Center for Border Health near Yuma, that charters six buses daily to transport them almost 200 miles north-east to Phoenix Sky Harbor international airport. “We have seen families from over 140 countries,” said Amanda Aguirre, the clinic’s chief executive officer. “We haven’t seen one from Mexico, not through our processing.”The shift is also evident on the Mexican side of the border.The Don Chon migrant shelter in nearby San Luis Rio Colorado fills many of its roughly 50 beds with Central Americans expelled under Title 42.Kelvin Zambrano, 33, who arrived in a large group of Hondurans, said he fled threats of extortion and gang violence, but border agents were not interested in hearing his story. “I don’t know why, but they don’t want Hondurans,” he said.TopicsUS immigrationUS-Mexico borderUS politicsCoronavirusfeaturesReuse this content More

Why did a judge grant Trump’s request for a ‘special master’?Critics say the decision to stop reviewing documents seized from Mar-a-Lago until a special master is appointed is ‘unprecedented’ and ‘insane’ Monday’s decision by a US federal judge to stop the investigation of Donald Trump’s seizure of classified documents until a “special master” reviews them has thrown the political and legal worlds into uproar – pitting those who believe the ex-president has special legal privileges against those who think he should be treated like any other citizen.The procedural victory for Trump means the Department of Justice will have to press pause on its effort to determine whether the former president may have illegally run off with classified documents from the White House and kept them at his home in Mar-a-Lago. William Barr defends FBI and justice department over Mar-a-Lago searchRead moreJudge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, agreed to his request that a special master, a kind of independent mediator, review the roughly 11,000 documents that the FBI discovered and seized when it searched Mar-a-Lago last month – some of which the FBI said were marked “classified”, “secret” and “top secret”.Courts occasionally appoint special masters – typically retired judges or lawyers – to decide if materials seized by subpoenas or search warrants are protected by attorney-client privilege, and therefore exempt from use in court. Unusually, Cannon also authorized the special master in this case to look for documents protected by “executive privilege”.Executive privilege is the controversial legal doctrine that US presidents, and their staffs, can refuse certain legal demands if they impair national security or the functions of the executive branch.What makes the situation even more bizarre is that Trump, a former president, is invoking executive privilege against the current executive branch of the US government.In 1974, when Watergate prosecutors subpoenaed tapes from the White House, Richard Nixon memorably argued that the tapes were protected by executive privilege. The supreme court ruled against him.Cannon’s decision, however, has lawyers for the justice department frantically rushing to respond. She has given both the department and Trump’s legal team until Friday to agree on a list of potential special masters.The justice department can appeal Cannon’s ruling, but the court of appeals that would probably hear the appeal is heavily dominated by Trump-appointed judges. Cannon herself was appointed to the federal bench by Trump in 2020 and is a member of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal organization.In her 24-page ruling, she held that Trump faced “unquantifiable potential harm by way of improper disclosure of sensitive information to the public”.Although the justice department has a “filter” team to review documents for privilege before criminal investigators or prosecutors see them, Cannon argued that the process was faulty. In two instances, she said, potentially privileged materials were seen by the prosecution team.Some legal experts criticized Cannon’s order as abnormal and unduly protective of Trump. The decision is “an unprecedented intervention by a federal district judge into the middle of an ongoing federal criminal and national security investigation”, Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas, told the New York Times.On Twitter, Neal Katyal, a professor of national security law at Georgetown and a former acting US solicitor general, described Cannon’s reasoning as “so bad it’s hard to know where to begin”.The judge enjoined “the entire investigation because some of the material might be subject to executive privilege”, Katyal wrote.Yet executive privilege “isn’t some post-presidential privilege that allows presidents to keep documents after they leave office. At most, it simply means these are executive documents that must be returned to the archives. It doesn’t in any way, shape, or form mean they can’t be used in a criminal prosecution about stolen docs.”Katyal also criticized the idea that the court should be mindful of the risk of undue “reputational harm” to Trump. “That’s insane,” he wrote. Every criminal defendant experiences “reputational harm. Are we now going to have special masters in every [criminal] investigation?”Trump’s former attorney general William Barr recently criticized Trump’s legal maneuvers in an interview with the New York Times. “I think it’s a crock of shit,” Barr said. “I don’t think a special master is called for.”A separate review of the documents by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which is reviewing them to assess their national security implications, will continue unaffected.TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More