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    What is temporary protected status and who is affected by Trump’s crackdown?

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    Millions of people live legally in the United States under various forms of temporary legal protection. Many have been targeted in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.The latest move has been against people who have what’s known as “temporary protected status” (TPS), which grants people the right to stay in the US legally due to extraordinary circumstances in one’s home country such as war or environmental catastrophe.The Trump administration has in recent weeks announced its plan to end TPS for Haitians, Venezuelans, Afghans and Cameroonians. The move may force more than 9,000 Afghan refugees to move back to the country now ruled by the Taliban. The administration also is ending the designation for roughly half a million Haitians in August.Here’s what to know about TPS and some other temporary protections for immigrants:What is temporary protected status?Temporary protected status allows people already living in the United States to stay and work legally for up to 18 months if their homelands are unsafe because of civil unrest or natural disasters.The Biden administration dramatically expanded the designation. It covers people from more than a dozen countries, though the largest numbers come from Venezuela and Haiti.The status does not put immigrants on a long-term path to citizenship and can be repeatedly renewed. Critics say renewal has become effectively automatic for many immigrants, no matter what is happening in their home countries. According to the American Immigration Council, ending TPS designations would lead to a significant economic loss for the US. The non-profit found that TPS households in the country earned more than $10bn in total income in 2021, and paid nearly $1.3bn in federal taxes.What is the latest supreme court ruling on Venezuelans?On Monday, the supreme court allowed the administration to end protections that had allowed some 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants to remain in the United States.Many Venezuelans were first granted TPS in 2021 by the Biden administration, allowing those who were already in the US to apply for protection from deportation and gain work authorization. Then, in 2023, the Biden administration issued an additional TPS designation for Venezuelans, and in January – just before Trump took office – extended those protections through October 2026.The Trump administration officials had ordered TPS to expire for those Venezuelans in April. The supreme court’s decision lifted a federal judge’s ruling that had paused the administration’s plans, meaning TPS holders are now at risk of losing their protections and could face deportation.What other forms of legal protection are under attack?More than 500,000 people from what are sometimes called the CHNV countries – Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela – live in the US under the legal tool known as humanitarian parole, which allows people to enter the US temporarily, on the basis that they have an urgent humanitarian need like a medical emergency. This category, however, is also under threat by the Trump administration.In late March, the Trump administration announced plans to terminate humanitarian parole for approximately 530,000 Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Cubans and Haitians. In April, a federal judge issued a temporary order barring the elimination of the humanitarian parole program.But last week, the administration took the issue to the supreme court, asking it to allow it to end parole for immigrants from those four countries. The emergency appeal said a lower-court order had wrongly encroached on the authority of the Department of Homeland Security.US administrations – both Republican and Democratic – have used parole for decades for people unable to use regular immigration channels, whether because of time pressure or bad relations between their country and the US.The case now returns to the lower courts. For the California-based federal court, the next hearing is on 29 May. For the Massachusetts case, no hearings are scheduled and attorneys are working on a briefing for the motion to dismiss filed by the government, according to WGBH, a member station of National Public Radio in Massachusetts. The appeals court hearing will be the week of 11 July. More

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      Venezuelans deported by Trump are victims of ‘torture’, lawyers allege

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      Lawyers for 252 Venezuelans deported by the Trump administration and imprisoned in El Salvador for two months have alleged that the migrants are victims of physical and emotional “torture”.A law firm hired by the Venezuelan government said that it had been unable to visit the migrants in the mega-prison where they are locked up.The lawyers are seeking “proof of life”, but say they have come up against a wall of silence from President Nayib Bukele’s administration and the Central American nation’s justice system.Grupo Ortega filed a habeas corpus petition with the supreme court on 24 March seeking an end to what it calls the “illegal detention” of the Venezuelans, but is still waiting for a ruling.“They are treating them like common criminals,” lawyer Salvador Ríos said, after the migrants were shown dressed in prison clothing, shackled and with shaved heads.“This is torture,” both physically and psychologically, Rios said in an interview with AFP.The lawyers delivered a letter in early May to Bukele, a key ally of Donald Trump, requesting authorization to visit the Venezuelans, but so far without success.AFP sought a comment from the Salvadorian presidency about the case and the lawyers’ efforts, but has not received a response.Félix Ulloa, the Salvadorian vice-president, told the French media outlet Le Grand Continent that his government merely provides a “service that we could call prison accommodation”.Trump’s administration has paid Bukele’s government millions of dollars to lock up migrants it says are criminals and gang members.Trump invoked rarely used wartime legislation in March to fly migrants to El Salvador without any court hearing, alleging they belonged to the Tren de Aragua gang, a charge that their families and lawyers deny.The Venezuelans, as well as 36 deported Salvadorian migrants, are being held in a maximum-security prison built by Bukele to house thousands of suspects arrested during his sweeping crackdown on street gangs.Images of the Venezuelans entering the Cecot mega-prison in shackles illustrate the brutality, Ríos said.“The damage is not only physical, but also psychological,” Ríos said.In their letter to Bukele, the lawyers sought permission to interview the prisoners, either in person or virtually, which could serve as “proof of life”.They asked Bukele to release the list of the 252 Venezuelans, something that Washington has not done either.One Salvadorian migrant who was initially incarcerated in Cecot – but in April was moved to a prison farm – is Kilmar Ábrego García, a US resident deported due to what the United States itself admitted was an administrative error.A Venezuelan identified in US court documents as “Cristian” was also mistakenly expelled.In both cases, US judges unsuccessfully ordered the Trump administration to facilitate their return to the United States.Volker Türk, the UN human rights chief, said this week that the situation “raises serious concerns regarding a wide array of rights that are fundamental to both US and international law”.“Families we have spoken to have expressed a sense of complete powerlessness in the face of what has happened and their pain at seeing their relatives labelled and handled as violent criminals, even terrorists, without any court judgment as to validity of what is claimed against them,” he said in a statement.Isael Guerrero, another lawyer with Grupo Ortega, described the detentions as “completely illegal” because the Venezuelans “are not being legally prosecuted in any court” in El Salvador.The firm’s head, Jaime Ortega, said they were “100% migrants”.“Not a single one of them is being prosecuted” in the United States for their alleged membership of the Tren de Aragua gang, he said.The fate of the Venezuelans now depends entirely on Bukele, as “the expulsion completely nullifies US jurisdiction”, Ortega said.In April, Bukele offered to trade the 252 Venezuelans for an equal number of political prisoners held by President Nicolás Maduro’s government. More

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      Judge dismisses trespassing charges against immigrants crossing US-Mexico border

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      A federal judge in New Mexico on Thursday dismissed trespassing charges against dozens of immigrants caught in a new military zone on the US-Mexico border, marking a setback for Trump administration efforts to raise penalties for unlawful crossings into the US.Chief US magistrate judge Gregory Wormuth began filing the dismissals late on Wednesday, ruling that immigrants did not know they were entering the military zone in New Mexico and therefore could not be charged, according to court documents and a defense attorney.Assistant federal public defender Amanda Skinner said Wormuth dismissed trespassing charges against all immigrants who made initial court appearances on Thursday. The immigrants still face charges accusing them of crossing the border illegally.“Judge Wormuth found no probable cause,” Skinner said in an email.New Mexico US attorney Ryan Ellison, who filed the first trespassing charges against migrants on 28 April, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The so-called New Mexico national defense area was established in April along 180 miles (290km) of the border, and US army troops were authorized to detain immigrants entering the area from Mexico.A second buffer zone was set up in Texas this month. Defense secretary Pete Hegseth said in a social media post the military would continue to expand the zones to gain “100% operational control” of the border.US attorneys charged over 100 immigrants with crossing the border illegally and trespassing in the military zones in New Mexico and Texas. Potential combined penalties were up to 10 years imprisonment, according to Hegseth.But Wormuth pushed back against the charges for the immigrants in New Mexico, ordering Ellison on 1 May to show proof they were aware they entered the military zone unlawfully.Defense attorneys argued warning signs in the area were inadequate to inform immigrants they were committing a crime, a position Wormuth agreed with.“The criminal complaint fails to establish probable cause to believe the defendant knew he/she was entering” the military zone, Wormuth wrote in his orders dismissing charges.The Department of Defense did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment. More

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      This pregnant woman sued Trump over birthright citizenship. Now it’s up to the supreme court

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      With the highest court in the US poised to hear her case – and decide her family’s future – Monica was keeping busy babyproofing her house.Monica is a plaintiff in one of three lawsuits challenging Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship order, a case that is being heard before the nation’s highest court on Thursday. She’s expecting her first child in early August.The Guardian first spoke with her in January, not long after Trump took office and signed an executive order seeking to end the constitutionally recognized right of birthright citizenship. Since then, she said, her belly has grown bigger, her feet more swollen. And she is still waiting to see whether her baby will be born as a citizen, or stateless.“We can only wait and hope,” she said. “Let’s wait in faith and trust in the laws of this country.”The Guardian is not publishing Monica’s surname, to protect her from retribution. She and her husband fled political persecution in Venezuela in 2019, and came to the US seeking asylum. The couple had been waiting for their immigration court hearing when they found out, in early January, that Monica was pregnant.“We were so excited,” she said. Just two weeks later, news of Trump’s executive order landed like a blow. Acquiring Venezuelan citizenship for their child would be impossible – both Monica and her husband were outspoken critics of their country’s autocratic leader, Nicolás Maduro – and contacting the government could put them in danger.“I had to fight for my baby,” she said.She had been a member of the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (Asap), a non-profit group that advocates for immigrant rights, and when lawyers from the group reached out to expecting parents to see if any would like to join a lawsuit challenging Trump’s order, Monica felt compelled to respond.Two immigration advocacy groups, Asap and Casa, are named as plaintiffs alongside Monica and four other mothers in one of three cases challenging the executive order. A second case was filed by four states and pregnant women, and a third by 18 states, the District of Columbia and San Francisco. The supreme court is hearing these cases consolidated as one.Other than her mother and a few close relatives, nobody knows that she is involved in one of the most closely watched cases to come before the supreme court this year. She has concealed her identity and tried to maintain a low profile, to avoid biasing her family’s asylum case, and to protect her family in Venezuela.But the topic of birthright citizenship and the administration’s intention to end it often comes up in her conversations with friends – especially with immigrant mothers who, like her, worry about their babies’ futures. “We are all on standby,” she said.They worry, too, about news that mothers are being separated from their babies – or being deported alongside their children. “Every day there are new changes, there are new executive orders about us immigrants,” she said. “Every day there is more fear in immigration conditions.”In the meantime, she said, there’s nothing to do but focus on the day to day. Monica and her husband have kept busy getting their home baby-ready, purchasing and assembling cribs and car seats. Now that she’s in her third trimester, she’s packed a go-bag with a change of clothes and other essentials – ready in case she needs to rush to the hospital. “We’re really down to the last few weeks already,” she said.Recently, they settled on a name. More

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      Brazil’s president seeks ‘indestructible’ links with China amid Trump trade war

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      The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has heralded his desire to build “indestructible” relations with China, as the leaders of three of Latin America’s biggest economies flew to Beijing against the backdrop of Donald Trump’s trade war and the profound international uncertainty his presidency has generated.Lula touched down in China’s capital on Sunday for a four-day state visit, accompanied by 11 ministers, top politicians and a delegation of more than 150 business leaders.Hours later Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, arrived, making a beeline for the Great Wall of China and declaring his desire for the South American country to not “only look one way” towards the US. “We have decided to take a profound step forward between China and Latin America,” Petro said.Chile’s Gabriel Boric has also travelled to Beijing to attend Tuesday’s meeting between members of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) and Chinese representatives.Addressing hundreds of Chinese and Brazilian business chiefs in the Chinese capital on Monday, Lula hit out at Trump’s tariffs, saying he could not accept the measures “that the president of the US tried to impose on planet Earth, from one day to the next”.The Brazilian leftist said he hoped to build an “indispensable” relationship with China – already Brazil’s top trading partner – and heaped praise on his Communist party hosts as his officials announced $4.6bn (£3.5bn) of Chinese investment in their country. On Tuesday, Lula is scheduled to meet China’s leader, Xi Jinping, who is expected to return the visit in July, when Xi travels to the Brics summit in Rio.“China has often been treated as though it were an enemy of global trade when actually China is behaving like an example of a country that is trying to do business with countries which, over the past 30 years, were forgotten by many other countries,” said Lula, who is expected to seek major Chinese investments in Brazilian infrastructure projects.The visit of the three South American leaders to China underlines the east Asian country’s rapidly growing footprint in a region where, over the past 25 years, it has become a voracious consumer of commodities such as soybeans, iron ore and copper. Chinese companies have also poured into the region. Electric cars made by the Chinese manufacturer BYD can be seen cruising the streets of Brazilian cities, from Brasília to Boa Vista, deep in the Amazon.The visits also come amid global jitters over Trump’s volatile presidency and Latin American anxiety and suspicion over the US president’s plans for a region where he has threatened to “take back” the Panama canal – by force if necessary.Matias Spektor, an international relations professor at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, a Brazilian thinktank and university, said the presence of the three South American presidents in Beijing underscored how, in the Trump era, with the US in retreat, such leaders were increasingly reaching out to other parts of the world.“It tells us that countries around the world are willing to go out … to exploit all the opportunities that are there in the international system – and there are many. Because, as America turns away from free trade and as America adopts a policy that is … instead of transactional, predatory – countries have an incentive to engage with those who are transactional,” Spektor said, pointing to recent trips Lula made to Japan and Vietnam.“[Lula] is very proactively trying to open trade for Brazil at a time when America is undoing the previous rules of the game, and the new rules of the game are not yet born … These [Latin American] countries want to shape the norms that are likely to emerge now. And those rules are not going to emerge in Washington DC. They are going to be made globally,” Spektor added.Spektor said Latin American leaders such as Lula had long considered the world a multipolar place. “What happened on 20 January [with Trump’s return to power] is that the barrage of policy change coming from Washington DC has accelerated the belief that was already in place that the axis of global power has for a while been moving towards the east, and somewhat towards the south.” More

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      Voters like the UK-US reaching a trade deal – they just don’t think Trump will follow it

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      Across the board, Americans and Britons agree that a free-trade agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom is a good idea, but far fewer are confident that President Donald Trump will abide by whatever deal he strikes. On Thursday, Trump and Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that the two countries agreed to increase access for U.S. agricultural exports while lowering some levies against the U.K., in the first deal since Trump launched his global trade war. But polling from last month indicates that details of an agreement are less of a concern to adults in the U.S. or U.K. – instead, most people are wary of Trump’s unpredictability.While 78 percent of U.S. adults support a free-trade agreement in principle, only 44 percent believe Trump will abide by the terms of an agreement, a Politico and Public First poll conducted last month found. Fewer than half of US and UK adults trust that President Donald Trump will abide by trade deal terms More

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      The desperate search for a father disappeared by Trump to El Salvador: ‘We don’t know anything’

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      The last time Joregelis Barrios heard from her brother Jerce, the call had lasted just one minute.Immigration officials had moved Jerce from the detention center in southern California where he had been for six months to another one in Texas. He sounded worried, as if he had been crying. He told his sister he might be transferred somewhere else soon.No one has heard from him since.Within hours of that call, Jerce was forced on a plane to El Salvador and booked into the country’s most notorious prison: the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (Cecot). He was one of more than 260 men that Donald Trump’s administration had accused of terrorism and gang membership. His sister thought she recognized him in the videos shared by the Salvadorian government, among the crowd of deportees with shaved heads and white prison uniforms, being frogmarched to their cells by guards in ski masks. Then CBS News published a leaked list of the deportees’ names, confirming her worst worries.“It was a shock,” said Joregelis. “Jerce has always avoided trouble.”Jerce, a 36-year-old professional soccer player and father of two, had come to the US last year to seek asylum, after fleeing political violence and repression in Venezuela.An immigration hearing to review his case was scheduled for 17 April, just weeks after he was abruptly exiled to El Salvador.“He was so optimistic, up till the last day we spoke,” said Mariyin Araujo, Jerce’s ex-partner and the co-parent of his two daughters, Isabella and six-year-old Carla.“He believed the laws there in the US were the best, that it would all work out soon,” she said. “How far did that get him?”Barrios was flown to Cecot on 15 March. For the past two months, his family has been obsessively scanning news updates and social media posts for any sign that he is still alive and healthy. They have been closely monitoring the court cases challenging Trump’s invocation of the wartime powers of the Alien Enemies Act against the Venezuela-based gang known as Tren de Aragua, to exile immigrants – most of whom have no criminal history – to one of the most notorious prisons in the world. And they have been wondering what, if anything, they can do for Jerce.In Machiques, a small town near Venezuela’s border with Colombia, locals have painted a mural in Jerce’s honor. His old soccer club, Perijaneros FC, started a campaign demanding his release – and children from the local soccer school held a prayer circle for him. “We have created TikToks about him, we have organized protests, we held vigils,” said Araujo.“We have looked for so many ways to be his voice at this moment, when he is unable to speak,” she said.But as the weeks pass, she said, she is increasingly unsure what more she can do. The Trump administration has doubled down on its right to send immigrants to Cecot, despite a federal judge’s order barring it from doing so.To justify these extraordinary deportations, both Trump and El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, have publicly insisted that the men sent to Cecot are the worst of the worst gang members. To mark Trump’s first 100 days in office, his Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a list of “Noteworthy individuals deported or prevented from entering the US” – and characterized Jerce as “a member of the vicious Tren de Aragua gang” who “has tattoos that are consistent with those indicating membership” in the gang.Jerce’s family and lawyer say the only evidence DHS has shared so far is that he has a tattoo on his arm of a soccer ball with a crown on top – a tribute to his favorite soccer team, Real Madrid. His other tattoos include the names of his parents, siblings and daughters.“My brother is not a criminal,” Joregelis said. “They took him away without any proof. They took him because he’s Venezuelan, because he had tattoos, and because he is Black.”She’s still haunted by the strange sense of finality in his last call. He had asked after his daughters, and whether his Isabella had been eating well. “I told him she had just had some plátano,” Jorgelis said. “And then he said to me: ‘I love you.’ He said to tell our mom to take care.”Araujo has struggled to explain to her daughters why their father hasn’t been calling them regularly. She lives in Mexico City with Carla, her six-year-old. Isabella, three, is in Venezuela with Jorgelis.Carla, especially, has started asking a lot of questions. “Recently, she said to me: ‘Mom, Dad hasn’t called me, Mom. Could it be that he no longer loves me?’” Araujo said. “So I had to tell her a little bit about what had happened.”Now Carla cries constantly, Araujo said. She misses her father, she misses his scrambled eggs, she misses watching him play soccer. She keeps asking if he is being treated well in detention, if he is eating well. “It’s too difficult,” Araujo said. “From a young age, kids learn that if you do something bad, you go to jail. And now she keeps asking how come her dad is in jail, he’s not a bad person. And I don’t know how to explain. I don’t know how to tell her there is no logical explanation.”Jerce had been in detention of some sort ever since he set foot inside the US.Last year, he had used the now defunct CBP One app to request an appointment with immigration officials at the border. After more than four months of waiting in Mexico, agents determined that he had a credible case for asylum – but decided to detain him in a maximum-security detention center in San Ysidro, California, while he awaited his hearing.“Jerce didn’t tell us much about what it was like there, because he didn’t want us to worry,” said Jorgelis. “The only thing he did say was, why did he have to be Black? I believe he faced a lot of racism there.”When he first arrived at the border, immigration officials had alleged he might be a gang member based on his tattoos and on social media posts in which he was making the hand gesture commonly used to signify “I love you” in sign language, or “rock and roll”.His lawyer, Linette Tobin, submitted evidence proving that he had no criminal record in Venezuela, and that his hand gesture was benign. She also obtained a declaration from his tattoo artists affirming that his ink was a tribute to the Spanish soccer team and not to a gang. Officials agreed to move him out of maximum security shortly thereafter, in the fall of last year. “I thought that was a tacit admission, an acknowledgement that he’s not a gang member,” Tobin said.When officials moved him to a detention center in Texas, Tobin worried that transfer would complicate his asylum proceedings. Since she is based in California, she wasn’t sure whether she’d be able to continue to represent him in Texas.Jerce had been worried when Tobin last spoke to him on the phone, in March, but she had reassured him that he still had a strong case for asylum. Now, the US government has petitioned to dismiss Jerce’s asylum case, she said, “on the basis that – would you believe it – he’s not here in the US”.“I mean, he’d love to be here if he could!” she said.Other than ensuring that his case remains open, Tobin said she’s not sure what more she can do for her client. After the ACLU sued Donald Trump over his unilateral use of the Alien Enemies Act to remove alleged members from the US without legal process, the supreme court ruled that detainees subject to deportation must be given an opportunity to challenge their removals.But the highest court’s ruling leaves uncertain what people like Jerce, who are already stuck in Salvadorian prison, are supposed to do now. As that case moves forward, Tobin hopes the ACLU will be able to successfully challenge all the deportations.But in a separate case over the expulsion of Kilmar Ábrego García, whom the administration admitted was sent to Cecot in error, the supreme court asked the administration to facilitate Ábrego García’s return to the US – and the administration said it couldn’t, and wouldn’t.In his last calls with his family, Jerce told them he’d be out of detention soon – that it would all be better soon. Once he was granted asylum, he said, he would try to join a soccer league in the US and start earning some money. He had promised Carla he’d buy her a TV soon.Now, Araujo said: “I don’t even know if he is alive. We don’t know anything. The last thing we saw was a video of them, and after that video many speculations, but nothing is certain.” More

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      Handshakes, friendship and ‘never, never, never, never, never’: five takeaways from Carney-Trump meeting

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      Perhaps no world leader can ever be completely sure how an encounter with Donald Trump will play out, but Canada’s Mark Carney had grounds to be especially wary before heading to the White House for his first post-election meeting with the US president.For months now, Trump has waged a campaign of diplomatic and commercial intimidation against his northern neighbour, launching a trade war and belittling Carney’s predecessor Justin Trudeau.Shortly before the briefing, the US leader once again took to social media to post a debunked figure that the US is “subsidizing Canada by $200 Billion Dollars a year” and to complain the country was receiving “FREE Military Protection”.But from the moment the pair shook hands, it was clear the tone of the meeting would be remarkably cordial, with Trump praising Carney as “a very talented person” and Carney describing Trump as a “transformational” president.The mood grew less relaxed as Trump again falsely claimed that the US was “subsidizing” Canada and repeated his calls for Canada to become the 51st state.Here are five takeaways from Tuesday’s meeting:1. Canada is not for saleCarney used the meeting to tell Trump to his face what he’s told Canadians ever since he became prime minister: the country isn’t for sale.When asked by reporters about his proposal for Canada to become the 51st state of the USA, Trump seemed to walk back the idea, conceding “it takes two to tango”. But he then said Canada would get a “massive tax cut” if it became an American state.Trump said it would be “beautiful” to merge the two countries, saying the prospect “would really be a wonderful marriage”.Carney, drawing on Trump’s pride in real estate dealings, reminded the president that in the industry, “there are some places that are never for sale”.“That’s true,” said Trump.“Having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign … it’s not for sale,” said Carney. “Won’t be for sale, ever.”Later in the meeting, Trump brought up the idea again, telling Carney and the assembled media: “I say, never say never.”“Never, never, never, never, never,” Carney appeared to say quietly.2. Tariffs remain – for nowOne major task for Carney and his team is to better understand the rationale – if there is one – behind the tariffs on Canadian goods, and to find any possible off-ramps. Carney set the bar low before the meeting, suggesting he didn’t anticipate any big announcements from the first gathering of the two leaders.Near the end of the meeting, Trump was asked whether there was anything Carney or the Canadian delegation could offer for tariffs to be removed.“No,” he said, adding that it’s “just the way it is”.The prime minister was likely to use the working lunch to nonetheless chip away at the American position in search of common ground.In Canada, the tariffs have led to a broad boycott by consumers of US-made products.“Usually those things don’t last very long,” Trump said. “We have great things, great product. The kind of product we sell, nobody else can sell. Including military. We make the best military equipment in the world. And Canada buys our military equipment, which we appreciate.”3. Both sides predict a revised trade dealThe country’s trade relationship came up during the meeting, with Trump signalling he was interested in renegotiating key aspects of the free-trade US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), calling the prior deal, Nafta, the “worst in the history of the world”.The current pact governing free trade across the continent is due for renewal next year.“We’re going to be starting to possibly renegotiate that,” Trump said, “if it’s even necessary. I don’t know that it’s necessary any more.”Trump refused to answer questions on which specific provisions of the deal he wanted to renegotiate, telling reporters the leaders were “dealing more with concepts right now”. But later, he repeated claims that the United States didn’t need Canadian exporters, including for Canadian cars, steel or energy. “We want to do it ourselves,” he said.Carney pushed back on Trump’s characterization of the current deal, including the use of tariffs by American officials, but agreed the existing deal was a “framework” for future talks and a “bigger discussion”.“We are the largest client of the United States, in the totality of all the goods,” he said.In a nod to the importance of the trade relationship between the two nations, both sides brought their most senior officials. Attending for the Canadians were some of the country’s top trade and diplomatic officials, including international trade minister Dominic LeBlanc, foreign affairs minister Mélanie Joly, public safety minister David McGuinty and Canada’s ambassador to the US, Kirsten Hillman.On the American side, Trump had JD Vance, secretary of state Marco Rubio, secretary of commerce Howard Lutnick and US trade representative Jamieson Greer.4. Trump just wants to be lovedWhen asked by reporters what the biggest concession Canada could offer might be, Trump said “friendship”.The cordial and positive tone between the leaders likely comes as a relief to Canadian officials, who prepared for numerous scenarios – including a dressing-down akin to the treatment of the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.Instead, the initial minutes of the meeting involved a shower of mutual praise between the leaders.After the Liberal party’s federal election victory last week, Trump congratulated Carney for one of the “greatest political comebacks of all time”, and described the prime minister’s visit “an honour” for the White House. Trump added he had great “respect” for Carney.Carney returned the compliments, calling Trump a “transformational president” with a strong focus on the economy, security and American workers.It marked a sharp departure from the frosty and strained relationship with Carney’s predecessor Justin Trudeau, whom Trump once described as “two-faced” – and who in turn described the US trade war as “dumb”.Given that much of US foreign policy appears to depend on whether Trump favours a world leader, that change in tone may bode well for Canada.5. Bad blood lingersTrump used part of the meeting to attack various political actors, including Trudeau and the former finance minister Chrystia Freeland, who led the Canadian delegation in previous negotiations of the continental free-trade pact.“I didn’t like his predecessor,” Trump said to Carney, once again derisively calling Trudeau “governor”.He then singled out Freeland, saying: “She was terrible. Actually, she was a terrible person, and she really hurt that deal very badly because she tried to take advantage of the deal and she didn’t get away with it.”In late January, Freeland used Trump’s dislike of her as a key component of her failed bid for leadership of the Liberal party – a race she eventually lost to Carney. More

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      Identity of second man illegally deported to El Salvador prison revealed

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      The identity of a second man illegally deported from the US by the Trump administration in defiance of a court order and now in detention in El Salvador has been revealed.Daniel Lozano-Camargo, a 20-year-old Venezuelan, was deported to El Salvador’s notorious Cecot terrorism confinement facility in March under the White House’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, Politico reported.His deportation came after authorities declared him, along with about 240 other men, to be a member of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang that the US government has defined as a terrorist organization. Lozano-Camargo’s family members deny that he has gang affiliations.Politico revealed Lozano-Camargo’s identity after a Maryland judge last month ruled that the Trump administration had improperly removed him in violation of a 2024 legal settlement that forbade immigration authorities from deporting him while his application for asylum was pending.The judge, Stephanie Gallagher, who was appointed to the bench by Trump, ordered officials to “facilitate” Lozano-Camargo’s return to the US. So far, the administration has not complied.He is reported to have entered the US in 2022 as an asylum seeker, initially spending time in a facility for underage migrants until he turned 18.According to Politico, he was subsequently twice arrested for possession of cocaine, most recently last November, and was sentenced in January to 120 days in prison. It was from there that he was transferred to the custody of the Immigration, Customs and Enforcement authority (Ice), which filed an application for his detention, claiming that he was in the country illegally.In her ruling, Gallagher agreed with immigrant rights advocates that Lozano-Camargo should not have been deported until his asylum application was resolved. While withholding his identity by referring to him only by a pseudonym, “Cristian”, she said he was “fleeing danger and threats in Venezuela”.Politico said Lozano-Camargo’s identity was disclosed in metadata embedded in government court filings.A justice department court filing released on Monday disputed the judge’s assessment, saying he belonged to “a violent terrorist gang”, thus disqualifying him from asylum in the US. Bringing him back to the US “would no longer serve any legal or practical purpose”, justice department lawyers wrote.Gallagher was due to further rule on the matter in a Baltimore court on Tuesday.Lozano-Camargo’s case resembles that of Kilmar Ábrego García, a Maryland resident who was deported to El Salvador in March despite a previous court order issued in 2019 establishing that he had protected status because he was at risk of violence if he was returned to the country of his origin. Ábrego García is Salvadorian by birth. The US government, which has claimed that he is a member of the MS-13 gang – something Ábrego García denies – admitted that he had been deported by mistake but has defied court orders to return him to the US.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionÁbrego García was removed from the US on the same set of flights as Lozano-Camargo but has been transferred from Cecot to another facility because of the international publicity surrounding his case.Lozano-Camargo’s family has tried to draw attention to his plight in social media posts. His mother, Daniela, has proclaimed his innocence in a tearful Facebook video.Possessing a valid work permit, he is said to have been living in Houston and washing cars for a living before his detention.His deportation was among those highlighted by the Guardian in March, amid speculation that he was one of hundreds of Venezuelans singled out for removal on the basis of their tattoos, which authorities claimed identified them as members of Tren de Aragua.Lozano-Camargo is said to have several tattoos, including one bearing the name of his father – who died when he was a child. Critics say Tren de Aragua members do not use tattoos to advertise their membership of the gang. More