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    Mahmoud Khalil blocked from holding son for first time by Ice, lawyers say

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    Mahmoud Khalil, the detained Columbia University graduate and Palestinian activist, was not allowed to hold his newborn son after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officials refused to allow a contact visit between him and his family, his lawyers said on Wednesday.Instead, Khalil, 30, was forced to meet his month-old baby for the first time behind glass, after his wife, Noor Abdalla, traveled from New York to the Louisiana detention facility where he has been detained since March, his legal team said.Ice officials and a private prison contractor denied the family’s request for a contact visit, citing the detention center’s no-contact visitation policy and unspecified “security concerns”, lawyers said.Abdalla, a US citizen who gave birth to their first child last month while Khalil was in detention, said she was “furious at the cruelty and inhumanity of this system that dares to call itself just”.“After flying over a thousand miles to Louisiana with our newborn son, his very first flight, all so his father could finally hold him in his arms, Ice has denied us even this most basic human right,” she said in a statement.“This is not just heartless. It is deliberate violence, the calculated cruelty of a government that tears families apart without remorse.”The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The department had previously denied Khalil’s request to be at his wife’s side to attend the birth of their son in New York, a move that Abdalla described as “a purposeful decision by Ice to make me, Mahmoud, and our son suffer”. Instead, he was only able to experience his child’s birth via a telephone call.Khalil, a legal permanent resident, or US green-card holder, was arrested in New York on 8 March in the first in a string of Ice arrests targeting pro-Palestinian students and scholars, and put in detention without due process.In a letter to his son published in the Guardian, Khalil wrote shortly after the birth: “My heart aches that I could not hold you in my arms and hear your first cry, that I could not unfurl your clenched fists or change your first diaper.”“My absence is not unique,” he continued. “Like other Palestinian fathers, I was separated from you by racist regimes and distant prisons. In Palestine, this pain is part of daily life … The grief your mother and I feel is but one drop in a sea of sorrow that Palestinian families have drowned in for generations.”The current president of Columbia University in New York, Claire Shipman, where Khalil had been finishing up his graduate studies, was booed and heckled on both Tuesday and Wednesday by graduates at their commencement ceremonies who also were furious that Khalil was in detention. Many chanted “free Mahmoud”, as Shipman acknowledged their frustration.The Trump administration is using obscure immigration law to make extraordinary claims in cases such as Khalil’s that it can summarily detain and deport people for constitutionally protected free speech if they are deemed adverse to US foreign policy. Khalil is Palestinian and was born in a refugee camp in Syria. His wife accepted a graduate diploma on his behalf at an alternative graduation ceremony in New York on Sunday, while holding their baby. More

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      Mohsen Mahdawi, released from Ice custody, graduates from Columbia

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      Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi, released just over two weeks ago from federal detention, crossed the graduation stage on Monday to cheers from his fellow graduates.The Palestinian activist was arrested by immigration authorities in Colchester, Vermont, while attending a naturalization interview. He was detained and ordered to be deported by the Trump administration on 14 April despite not being charged with a crime.Several students cheered for Mahdawi, 34, who was draped in a keffiyeh as he walked across the stage. He blew a kiss and bowed, one video showed. Then he joined a vigil just outside Columbia’s gates, raising a photograph of his classmate Mahmoud Khalil, who remains in federal custody.“It’s very mixed emotions,” Mahdawi told the Associated Press. “The Trump administration wanted to rob me of this opportunity. They wanted me to be in a prison, in prison clothes, to not have education and to not have joy or celebration.”He is one of several international students who have been detained in recent months for their advocacy on behalf of Palestinians.The Trump administration is attempting to deport them using an obscure statute that gives the secretary of state the right to revoke the legal status of people in the country deemed a threat to foreign policy.Mahdawi was released two weeks later by a judge, who likened the government’s actions to McCarthyist repression. Federal officials have not accused Mahdawi of committing a crime, but argued that he and other student activists should be deported for beliefs that may undermine US foreign policy.For Mahdawi, who earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Columbia’s School of General Studies, the graduation marked a bittersweet return to a university that he says has betrayed him and other students.“The senior administration is selling the soul of this university to the Trump administration, participating in the destruction and the degradation of our democracy,” Mahdawi said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe pointed to Columbia’s decision to acquiesce to the Trump administration’s demands – including placing its Middle Eastern studies department under new leadership – as well as its failure to speak out against his and Khalil’s arrest.Khalil would have received his diploma from a Columbia master’s program in international studies later this week. He remains jailed in Louisiana as he awaits a decision from a federal judge about his possible release.As he prepares for a lengthy legal battle, Mahdawi faces his own uncertain future. He was previously admitted to a master’s degree program at Columbia, where he planned to study “peacekeeping and conflict resolution” in the fall. But he is reconsidering his options after learning this month that he would not receive financial aid.For now, he said, he would continue to advocate for the Palestinian cause, buoyed by the support he says he has received from the larger Columbia community.“When I went on the stage, the message was very clear and loud: they are cheering up for the idea of justice, for the idea of peace, for the idea of equality, for the idea of humanity, and nothing will stop us from continuing to do that. Not the Trump administration nor Columbia University,” he said. More

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      Ice used ‘false pretenses’ for warrant to hunt for Columbia students, lawyers say

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      Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) effectively misled a judge in order to gain access to the homes of students it sought to arrest for their pro-Palestinian activism, attorneys say.A recently unsealed search warrant application shows that Ice told a judge it needed a warrant because the agency was investigating Columbia University for “harboring aliens”. In reality, attorneys say, Ice used the warrant application as a “pretext” to try to arrest two students, including one green card holder, in order to deport them.What the unsealed document shows is that the agency “was manufacturing an allegation of ‘harboring’, just so agents can get in the door,” Nathan Freed Wessler, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said. “What Ice was actually trying to do is get into these rooms to arrest them.”The “harboring aliens” statute is applied to those who “conceal, harbor, or shield from detection” any immigrant who is not authorized to be in the US.The search warrant, which was first reported by the Intercept, relates to two Columbia University students, Yunseo Chung and Ranjani Srinivasan, whom Ice sought to deport over their purported pro-Palestinian activism.According to the document and other court records, agents had arrived at Columbia’s New York campus on 7 March to try to arrest Srinivasan but were unable to enter her dorm room because they did not have a judicial warrant. Two days later, on 9 March, agents arrived at Chung’s parents’ house to search for her, also without a warrant.On 13 March, an agent with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), an office within Ice, filed the application for a search and seizure warrant with a federal judge in New York, saying that it was investigating Columbia University for “harboring aliens”. The agent claimed he believed there was “evidence, fruits and instrumentalities” that could prove the government’s case against the university. The federal judge granted the warrant and agents subsequently entered and searched two residences on Columbia’s campus.After Chung, a legal permanent resident who has lived in the US since the age of seven, found out about HSI’s search, she sued the government to block its effort to arrest and deport her. In the original complaint, attorneys for Chung claimed the search warrant was “sought and obtained on false pretenses”. Srinivasan, a doctoral student on a student visa, had left the US by then rather than risk arrest.Despite entering the dorm to, as HSI says, investigate whether Columbia was “harboring aliens”, attorneys claim it was used as a pretext to gain access to residences they would not otherwise have been able to enter, in order to carry out the arrests.“The manner of execution suggests that the agents were searching for the two named students, including Ms Chung, and needed a lawful basis to enter the residences in the hope of arresting the students on encounter,” Chung’s attorneys wrote in the March complaint.Chung has since been granted temporary protection from deportation as her case proceeds.The deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, said in mid-March that the university was under investigation “for harboring and concealing illegal aliens on its campus”.It is unclear whether Ice is still investigating Columbia University for “harboring aliens”. The New York Times recently reported that a separate justice department investigation is seeking a list of names of Columbia students involved in a protest group in order to share it with immigration agents.A Columbia University official with knowledge of the search warrant application said that university had not seen the document before this week, and that the university has complied with subpoenas and judicial warrants when “required”. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not respond to requests for comment by time of publication. HSI referred all questions to the DHS.Since the Trump administration stepped into office, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has engaged in a little-used authority to rescind green cards and visas held by a number of students around the country who have been involved in pro-Palestinian advocacy. The state department has accused some of them of supporting Hamas, a US-designated terrorist organization, without providing evidence.“We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported,” Rubio said in March on X, formerly known as Twitter. Rubio personally determined Chung should be deported, a memo submitted in her case shows.As Wessler explains, even if the secretary of state revokes someone’s legal status, the government is required to engage in the lengthy legal process before attempting to deport them.But, he adds, the government’s attempt to use the “harboring aliens” accusation to enter the building is a worrying escalation by the Trump administration.“There is a lot of concern by people and organizations for [the Trump administration’s] extremely aggressive interpretations of the harboring statute,” Wessler said. “As this episode illustrates, those interpretations don’t hold up to scrutiny.”The ACLU submitted letters to universities and magistrate judges last month, warning them of Ice’s attempts to use similar accusations to justify judicial warrants.“A college or university’s normal conduct in providing housing and services to students does not constitute a violation of Section 1324” – the “harboring aliens” law, one of the ACLU letters states. 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      To my newborn son: I am absent not out of apathy, but conviction | Mahmoud Khalil

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      Yaba Deen,* it has been two weeks since you were born, and these are my first words to you.In the early hours of 21 April, I waited on the other end of a phone as your mother labored to bring you into this world. I listened to her pained breaths and tried to speak comforting words into her ear over the crackling line. During your first moments, I buried my face in my arms and kept my voice low so that the 70 other men sleeping in this concrete room would not see my cloudy eyes or hear my voice catch. I feel suffocated by my rage and the cruelty of a system that deprived your mother and me of sharing this experience. Why do faceless politicians have the power to strip human beings of their divine moments?Since that morning, I have come to recognize the look in the eyes of every father in this detention center. I sit here contemplating the immensity of your birth and wonder how many more firsts will be sacrificed to the whims of the US government, which denied me even the chance of furlough to attend your birth. How is it that the same politicians who preach “family values” are the ones tearing families apart?Deen, my heart aches that I could not hold you in my arms and hear your first cry, that I could not unfurl your clenched fists or change your first diaper. I am sorry that I was not there to hold your mother’s hand or to recite the adhan, or call to prayer, in your ear. But my absence is not unique. Like other Palestinian fathers, I was separated from you by racist regimes and distant prisons. In Palestine, this pain is part of daily life. Babies are born every day without their fathers – not because their fathers chose to leave, but because they are taken by war, by bombs, by prison cells and by the cold machinery of occupation. The grief your mother and I feel is but one drop in a sea of sorrow that Palestinian families have drowned in for generations.View image in fullscreenDeen, it was not a gap in the law that made me a political prisoner in Louisiana. It was my firm belief that our people deserve to be free, that their lives are worth more than the televised massacre we are witnessing in Gaza, and that the displacement that began in 1948 and culminated in the current genocide must finally end. This mere belief is what made the state scramble to detain me. No matter where I am when you read this – whether I’m in this country or another – I want to impress upon you one lesson:The struggle for Palestinian liberation is not a burden; it is a duty and an honor we carry with pride. So at every turning point in my life, you will find me choosing Palestine. Palestine over ease. Palestine over comfort. Palestine over self. This struggle is sweeter than a life without dignity. The tyrants want us to submit, to obey, to be perfect victims. But we are free, and we will remain free. I hope you feel this as deeply as I do.Deen, as a Palestinian refugee, I inherited a kind of exile that followed me to every border, every airport, every form. Borders mean something to me that they may not mean to you. Each crossing required me to prove my docility, my identity and my very right to exist. You were born an American citizen. You may never feel that weight. You may never have to translate your humanity through paperwork, countless visa applications and interview appointments. I hope you use this not to separate yourself from others, but to uplift those who live under the same circumstances that once constrained me. But I won’t pretend this citizenship protects you. Not completely. Not when you have my name. Not when those in power still see our people as threats.One day, you might ask why people are punished for standing up for Palestine, why truth and compassion feel dangerous to power. These are hard questions, but I hope our story shows you this: the world needs more courage, not less. It needs people who choose justice over convenience.It is nothing but the dehumanization and racist disregard for Palestinians that renders their lives forgettable and that dares describe Palestinian fathers who love their sons as “terrorists”. Perhaps that is why the world so quickly forgot the killing of four-month-old Iman Hijjo in Gaza in 2001. Why did Ahmed Abu Artema’s beloved son Abdullah die hungry for bread? Who recalls the children lost in the Flour Massacre? Where is the justice for the fathers in the West Bank who carefully dress their sons for prison? Why does liberty not visit the bodies of Palestinian children whose limbs are missing, whose ribs are exposed under thin skin and who are born lovingly only to die under an Israeli bomb?On this first Mother’s Day for Noor, I dream of a world where all families are reunited to celebrate the incredible women in their lives. Many years ago, on one of our very first dates, I had asked your mother what she would change in the world if she could. Her simple response was: “I just want people to be nicer to each other.” Deen, you were born to a mother as gentle as she is fierce. I pray that you live in a world shaped by that kindness. I hope, with all my heart, that you will not witness the oppression that I’ve known. I hope that you never need to chant for Palestine, because it has long been free with dignity and prosperity for all. Should that day come, know that it was ushered in through the courage of those who came before you. I am certain that in this new world, you and I will visit Tiberias together, drink from the river and marvel at the sea. There, in a free and just Palestine, you will see the fruits of our struggle.Deen, my love for you is deeper than anything I have ever known. Loving you is not separate from the struggle for liberation. It is liberation itself. I fight for you, and for every Palestinian child whose life deserves safety, tenderness and freedom. I hope one day you will stand tall knowing your father was not absent out of apathy, but out of conviction. And I will spend my life making up for the moments we lost – starting with this one, writing to you with all the love in my heart.*Yaba Deen: “Yaba” (يابا ) is an affectionate term meaning “dad” in Arabic. In Palestinian Arabic, yaba is often used self-referentially to center the father-son bond in the greeting itself. So when a father says “yaba”, he’s using a tender, fatherly voice to address his child, somewhat like saying: “From your dad, Deen” or “My son, from your yaba (dad)”.

      Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. More

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      ‘What is left of our democracy?’: freed Palestinian human rights advocate warns of US authoritarian rule

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      Mohsen Mahdawi, the Palestinian green-card holder and Columbia University student freed on Wednesday after more than two weeks in immigration detention, has issued a stark warning about the US’s descent into authoritarianism.“Once the repression of dissent, in the name of security, becomes a key objective of a government, authoritarian rule and even martial law are not far off. When they look at my case, all Americans should ask themselves: what is left of our democracy, and who will be targeted next?” said Mahddawi in an op-ed for the New York Times.Mahdawi, a Palestinian human rights advocate based in Vermont, was detained and ordered deported by the Trump administration on 14 April despite not being prosecuted of any crime – and without due process. The philosophy student was arrested by masked Ice agents in Colchester, Vermont, during what should have been his citizenship naturalization interview.He is among a growing number of international students who have been ordered deported for their Palestinian rights advocacy by the Trump administration, which is using an obscure law to accuse these individuals of posing a threat to US foreign policy interests. Unlike the others, Mahdawi avoided being sent to a Louisiana detention facility after the Ice agents narrowly missed the flight, allowing his attorneys to challenge the deportation order in Vermont.“Despite spending 16 nights in a jail cell, I never lost hope in the inevitability of justice and the principles of democracy. I wanted to become a citizen of this country because I believe in the principles that it enshrines,” writes Mahdawi.“The American government accuses me of undermining US foreign policy, a patently absurd pretext for deportation for political speech that the Trump administration dislikes. The government is scraping the bottom of the barrel in its attempts to smear me. My only ‘crime’ is refusing to accept the slaughter of Palestinians, opposing war and promoting peace. I have simply insisted that international law must be respected. I believe the way to a just and long-lasting peace for Palestinians and Israelis is through diplomacy and restorative justice.”Mahdawi was born and raised in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, where as a child he bore witness to the death of his brother after he was denied access to medical care, and the detention and imprisonment of multiple close relatives including his grandfather and father by Israeli forces.Moving to the US in 2014 was his first experience of freedom, he said.“Ultimately, I sought American citizenship not only because I did not want to lose the freedom I enjoyed as a permanent resident but even more so because I believe in the principles and values of democracy, which this country stipulates in its founding documents,” he wrote in the Times.“These very freedoms are under attack today, both for me and for others like me. The Trump administration is hewing to Israel’s playbook: Under the thinly veiled guise of security, rights are being denied and due process eliminated.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“By seeking to deport me, the Trump administration is sending a clear message: There is no room for dissent, free speech be damned. It seems willing to shield an extremist Israeli government from criticism at the expense of constitutional rights, all while suppressing the possibility of a peaceful future for both Palestinians and Israelis, a future free of trauma and fear.”Israel’s war on Gaza since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack has killed at least 52,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Palestinian health authorities. Thousands more people are missing and feared dead, while tens of thousands have suffered injuries and preventable diseases including acute malnutrition.In the ruling ordering Mahdawi’s release on bail on Wednesday, Judge Geoffrey W Crawford wrote: “Legal residents not charged with crimes or misconduct are being arrested and threatened with deportation for stating their views on the political issues of the day.” He likened the Trump administration’s crackdown on students and free speech to the red scare and the McCarthy era.Upon his release, Mahdawi told supporters and the media: “I am saying it clear and loud. To President Trump and his cabinet: I am not afraid of you.” More

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      May Day: protesters rally across US over workers’ and immigrants’ rights

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      Protesters rallied nationwide on Thursday in support of workers’ and immigrants’ rights in the latest round of demonstrations against Donald Trump and his administration.May Day, commemorated as international workers’ day, comes after two massive days of protests in April – 5 April’s hands off rallies and 19 April’s day of action – drew millions to the streets across the country.The 1 May protests were supported by hundreds of organizations and set to take place in nearly 1,000 cities, organizers said, with a focus on rallying against the Trump administration and “billionaire profiteers”. Turnout was predicted to be lower than the previous two April protests because 1 May is a weekday, but tens of thousands were expected to turn out. Cities across the US from New York to Seattle to Anchorage, Alaska, saw major demonstrations.“This is a war on working people – and we will not stand down,” a website for the national day of action says. “They’re defunding our schools, privatizing public services, attacking unions, and targeting immigrant families with fear and violence. Working people built this nation and we know how to take care of each other. We won’t back down – we will never stop fighting for our families and the rights and freedoms that propel opportunity and a better life for all Americans. Their time is up.”View image in fullscreenA map of May Day protests showed several major metro areas had more than one rally planned. A coalition of groups in Los Angeles started the day with an early morning rally, then a program and march to show solidarity with the city’s workers and immigrants. In New York, protests were planned throughout the day.In New York, protesters turned out to support workers, immigrants and others under attack by the Trump administration. Some of those attending the New York rally spoke against Columbia University’s capitulation to Trump’s demands.“Today, we saw lots of new people who are getting energized and activated. The Trump administration is clearly coming for all of these rights that we’ve won, and all of us are taking up the task to fight back,” said Saidi Moseley, 25, an education coordinator and one of the organizers of the May Day march in Union Square.Betsy Waters held a sign saying “due process for all”. The 67-year-old retiree who volunteers full-time said she had come to several marches. “I feel that we have to be out here. We have to be out here making a stand as much as we can,” Waters said. “So I am out here making a stand, saying that what is happening in our country is just not right.”Lydia Howrilka, a 25-year-old librarian from Queens, was holding a “only you can stop fascism” sign. “I am standing in solidarity with my immigrant brothers and sisters in New York. I am standing in defense of democracy,” Howrilka said.Grant Miner, one of a handful of speakers at the New York rally, was abruptly expelled by Columbia University in March for participating in pro-Palestinian protests.View image in fullscreen“I’m trying to speak out about the things that are affecting my workers, which include the ongoing cuts to higher education, as well as the targeting of students for student protests, which are two very big issues facing our workplace reality,” said Miner, who also serves as president of UAW 2710, the Student Workers of Columbia union.As Trump surpassed 100 days in office, a period filled with slashing and burning of the federal government and democratic norms, a resistance has taken shape, growing in size since February. People have started to organize in larger numbers to pressure Democrats to stand up more strongly to Trump.Trump’s approval ratings have fallen from positive to negative, with more people disapproving of him than approving. The focus on workers and immigrants comes as Trump has fired a host of federal workers and his administration has ramped up deportations, including of people who the courts have said were not supposed to be deported.“Everyone deserves respect and dignity, no matter who they are, where they were born, or what language they speak,” the May Day protest website says. “Immigrants are workers, and workers are immigrants. Our fight for fair wages, safe workplaces, and dignity on the job is the same fight for immigrant justice.”Organizers behind the May Day protest in Washington DC said they expected to see up to 3,000 people join the rally in the nation’s capital to demand safety on the job, legal protections and an end to unjust deportations.“We’re seeing people abducted off the streets every day in some of the most violent and cruel ways. We’re seeing people like Kilmar Ábrego García – and he’s only one story. His story is not unusual,” said Cathryn Jackson, the public policy director at Casa, a group that provides critical services to immigrant and working-class families.View image in fullscreenÁbrego García’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, was expected to speak at Thursday’s rally as she continues to fight for her husband to be released from prison in El Salvador and to be returned to the US.“Hundreds and hundreds of people are being deported to some of the worst prisons across the country with no due process,” Jackson said. “This rally today is about solidarity. It’s about saying no matter what the Trump administration tries to do, we are determined to fight back.”Also among the speakers scheduled to address the Washington rally was María del Carmen Castellón, whose husband, Miguel Luna, died in the Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore last year.The story of Luna and the five other construction workers who died during the tragedy is “symbolic”, Jackson said. The six men were all construction workers originally from Latin American countries.“This is the story of men working in the middle of the night while all of us were sleeping, getting the roads together, doing the work that many people don’t want to do,” Jackson continued. “We are literally physically building this country, and then being treated the way we are in return.”Delia Ramirez, a Democratic representative of Illinois, addressed the crowd in Franklin Park as the “proud daughter of Guatemalan immigrants”.View image in fullscreen“Today on International Workers’ Day, we are united,” Ramirez said. “We’re united because we understand that this president wants to silence us. He wants to divide us, pit us against each other. But we are not going to be silenced.”The Trump administration knows that “the only thing that will stop fascism is mobilization”, she continued, acknowledging that there will be “really hard days” ahead. “But as long as you keep organizing, I can amplify that voice and continue to stand up to fascism.”Jorge Mújica, the strategic organizer for Arise Chicago and an organizer of the city’s May Day protest, said on Democracy Now that “the Trump administration miscalculated completely” by targeting so many constituencies in its first 100 days.“They are attacking everybody at the same time, and that [has] enabled us to gather a really broad coalition with labor unions, with federal workers, with students, with teachers at universities, and every other community and put together this event on May Day,” Mújica said. More

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      The truth is finally dawning on Britain: toadying to Trump has got us nowhere | Emma Brockes

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      It’s not funny, of course – livelihoods if not actual lives depend on reaching a workable accord. But the news that President Trump has probably stiffed the UK into a second- or third-tier boarding group for trade talks, behind South Korea and Japan, triggers at least a snort of recognition for anyone who has experienced versions of that dynamic. The phrase “British negotiators are hopeful” followed almost immediately by use of the word “disappointed” in heavy rotation takes you, with grim amusement, back to every toxic relationship in which you have played Britain to someone else’s America.We are talking, of course, about the wisdom or otherwise of appeasing a man many think of as a tyrant, and the main takeaway from the Guardian’s story on Tuesday is that no matter how the UK pretzels itself to fit Donald Trump’s requirements, none of it will make any difference. Or rather what difference it makes, beyond the immediate relief enjoyed before the flattery wears off, is likely to be negative. It’s a rule of extortion that demands will increase with each capitulation, as Columbia University is finding out to its cost. (After caving to Trump’s demands last month in return for the restoration of $400m in federal funding, the university has not, in fact, had its funding restored. Instead Trump officials have told Columbia its concessions only represent the “first step”.)And now the UK finds itself in a similar pickle to Columbia, with any goodwill generated by King Charles’s letter inviting Trump to Balmoral apparently thrown up in the air. (One thing I’ll say for the royals is that their use of passive-aggressive semiotics in the invitation are absolutely world class: Balmoral is a mid-list palace that, while superior to Blenheim, which Trump visited in 2018 and is basically an off-site for corporate events these days, is decidedly not Buckingham Palace – a subtlety we must assume the king and his cohorts are thoroughly enjoying and Trump has no idea about whatsoever.)Anyway, where does any of this leave the UK? For now, at least, belligerence seems to be getting the better results with Trump, at least for those negotiators who have something he wants. Trump has blinked repeatedly when faced with the negative consequences of his own erratic behaviour, be that from tech companies forcing him to exempt them from tariffs or business leaders persuading him, in the wake of his commitment to putting 145% tariffs on Chinese goods, to wobble and admit they’re not sustainable.The fact is that Apple, Target and Walmart all have greater leverage over Trump than the UK does, which is why watching this latest episode of the special relationship unfold brings on, at least in British viewers, feelings of something like pathos. How many times will we keep going back? Clearly the prime minister’s jolly humouring secures better outcomes than Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s first approach at the White House, which has since been corrected to a necessary attitude of fealty. Meanwhile Canada, of all places, is now the nation telling the US in the most strident terms to take a step back and get stuffed.As in all these things, it’s the hope that kills you. Maybe if Britain says exactly the right words in the right order, keeps its breathing to a minimum, manages not to say anything annoying until we’re on the other side of the trade deal, lowers its eyes away from Europe or other allies that might trigger the rage of the aggressor, and continues to laugh at his jokes and listen to his stories, it will succeed in changing the pattern of Trump’s behaviour.The fact that this outcome is considered in any way achievable is perhaps the saddest thing of all. It’s an odd quirk of British-American diplomacy that, despite the vast disparity in power and wealth between the two countries, the sense of exceptionalism on both sides is probably equal. We really do believe we can talk our way out of anything, even when dealing with someone as capricious as Trump – a man for whom no amount of appeasement will hold longer than his mood. The king will be mobilised. The choice of Balmoral for Trump’s summer visit will rest in part on the fact that it’s harder for demonstrators bearing helium-filled balloons in the shape of Trump-as-a-baby to reach.And the diplomatic game will continue. Nothing Trump does seems strategic, but it seems both a calculated humiliation and a warning shot to steer clear of Europe to push the UK down the running order of trade talks. The question, then, becomes one of whether Britain’s poker face is a piece of canny diplomatic froideur and blithe UK negotiating or the uncertain actions of the party in an abusive relationship who understands that the moment of greatest danger is when you try to leave.

      Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist More

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      Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi freed after federal judge orders release

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      Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian green-card holder and Columbia University student who was detained for his activism, walked out of immigration detention on Wednesday after a federal judge in Vermont ordered his release.Mahdawi had been detained and ordered deported by the Trump administration on 14 April despite not being charged with a crime.“The two weeks of detention so far demonstrate great harm to a person who has been charged with no crime,” said Geoffrey Crawford, a US district judge, at a hearing on Wednesday, according to ABC News. “Mr Mahdawi, I will order you released.”Mahdawi was arrested by Ice in Colchester, Vermont, while attending a naturalization interview.He is one of a number of international students who have been detained in recent months for their advocacy on behalf of Palestinians. The Trump administration is attempting to deport them using an obscure statute that gives the secretary of state the right to revoke the legal status of people in the country deemed a threat to foreign policy.In his ruling, Crawford stated that the evidence before the court “suggests that Mr Mahdawi is neither a flight risk or a danger to the community, and his release will not interfere with his removal proceedings”.Crawford wrote that the government “failed to demonstrate any legitimate interest in Mr Mahdawi’s continued confinement” and that his “continued detention would likely have a chilling effect on protected speech”.Crawford ordered that Mahdawi be released from prison on bail, pending the resolution of his case in federal court.The order allows Mahdawi to continue residing in Vermont and to travel to New York to attend school and meet with his lawyers. His case in federal court will continue alongside separate immigration proceedings.Upon his release, Mahdawi , greeted supporters and thanked them for their support.“For anybody who is doubting justice, this is a light of hope and faith in the justice system in America,” he said in a brief address. “We are witnessing the fight for justice in America, which means a true democracy, and the fight for justice for Palestinians, which means that both liberation[s] are interconnected, because no one of us is free unless we all are.”Shezza Abboushi Dallal, one of Mahdawi’s attorneys said outside the courtroom on Wednesday that “today’s victory cannot be overstated”.“The court’s order to free Mohsen today is a victory for Mohsen, in his just pursuit of continued advocacy for Palestinian lives, and it is a victory for all people in this country invested in their ability to dissent and speak and protest for causes they are morally drawn to,” Abboushi Dallal said. “We will continue our legal battle for Mohsen until his constitutional rights are fully vindicated.”Attorneys for Mahdawi, a lawful permanent US resident, argued that he was being unlawfully detained in “retaliation for his speech advocating for Palestinian human rights” and say that it was “part of a policy intended to silence and chill the speech of those who advocate for Palestinian human rights”.The Trump administration is seeking to deport 34-year-old Mahdawi, claiming that his presence and activities in the US “would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise a compelling US foreign policy interest”. Critics say that the crackdown that swept up Mahdawi constitutes an unprecedented assault on free speech.In new court filings submitted on Monday, the justice department included a two-page letter from Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, saying that Mahdawi’s activities and presence in the US “undermines US policy to combat antisemitism” according to NPR, and that his activities could “potentially undermine the peace process underway in the Middle East”.In a statement following Mahdawi’s release, the Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin declared: “No judge, not this one or another, is going to stop the Trump administration from restoring the rule of law to our immigration system.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThis week, the Vermont senate voted to condemn “the manner and circumstances” of Mahdawi’s arrest, and called for his immediate release.Several Democratic members of Congress – joined by Senator Bernie Sanders – rallied outside of the state department this week on his behalf.“He has used his voice to advocate for peace, justice and dignity for Palestinians and Israelis” Sanders said. “Not only was this action cruel and inhumane, most importantly, it was illegal, it was unconstitutional.”David Myers, a Jewish history professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has been involved in Israeli-Palestinian dialogue efforts with Mahdawi, said he was overjoyed at the release of his friend. He called Mahdawi’s detention “a profound miscarriage of justice”.“Mohsen was such a clearcut case, given his extraordinary commitments to non-violence, dialogue across difference, and acknowledging the humanity of all,” he said in an email. “If it is a crime to embody such values, then the edifice of democracy in the United States has completely crumbled.”Mahdawi immigrated to the US over a decade ago and began attending Columbia University in 2021. According to his attorneys, last year, as a student at Columbia, he was “an outspoken critic of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and an activist and organizer in student protests on Columbia’s campus until March of 2024, after which he took a step back and has not been involved in organizing”.Mahdawi, who was born and raised in a refugee camp in the West Bank, spoke with NPR this week from the Northwest State correctional facility in St Albans, Vermont.“I’m centered, internally I am at peace,” Mahdawi told NPR. “While I still know deeply that this is a level of injustice that I am facing, I have faith. I have faith that justice will prevail.”Also this week, a federal judge in New Jersey ruled that a lawsuit filed by the Columbia University graduate and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who is also challenging his detention and deportation order, can proceed.The Tufts University graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk and Georgetown scholar Badar Khan Suri also remain detained and continue to fight against their deportation, which the Trump administration is pursuing on the same foreign policy grounds.Noa Yachot contributed reporting More

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      Denied, detained, deported: the people targeted in Trump’s immigration crackdown

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      Donald Trump retook the White House vowing to stage “the largest deportation operation in American history”. As previewed, the administration set about further militarizing the US-Mexico border and targeting people requesting asylum and refugees while conducting raids and deportations in undocumented communities, detaining and deporting immigrants and spreading fear.Critics are outraged, if not surprised. But few expected the new legal chapter that unfolded next: a multipronged crackdown on certain people seen as opponents of the US president’s ideological agenda. This extraordinary assault has come in the context of wider attacks on higher education, the courts and the constitution.Here are some of the most high-profile individual cases that have captured the world’s attention so far because of their extreme and legally dubious nature, mostly involving documented people targeted by the Trump administration in the course of its swift and unlawful power grab.Students and academics hunted and ‘disappeared’In recent weeks, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) teams suddenly began arresting and detaining foreign-born students and academics on visas or green cards. In most cases the government has cited their roles in pro-Palestinian campus protests over Israel’s war in Gaza following the 7 October 2023 attack. Claims that they “support Hamas” are invoked as justification for wanting to deport them, even though they have not been charged with any crimes. Those taken include:Mahmoud KhalilA recent graduate student of Columbia University in New York, Mahmoud Khalil, 30, is a Palestinian green-card holder who was a leader during protests last year. He was arrested without due process in front of his pregnant wife and has been in a detention center in Louisiana since mid-March, denied release to attend the birth. He told an immigration judge that he and hundreds of other detainees were being denied rights the court itself had claimed to prioritize: “Due process and fundamental fairness.”View image in fullscreenThe government is using obscure immigration law to make extraordinary claims in cases like Khalil’s that it can summarily detain and deport people for constitutionally protected free speech if they are deemed adverse to US foreign policy. A far-right group has claimed credit for flagging his and others’ names for scrutiny by the authorities.Rümeysa ÖztürkView image in fullscreenUS immigration officials encircled and grabbed the Tufts University PhD student near Boston and bustled her into an unmarked car, shown in onlooker video. Öztürk, a Fulbright scholar and Turkish national on a visa, had co-written an op-ed in the student newspaper, criticizing Tufts’ response to Israel’s military assault on Gaza and Palestinians. She was rushed into detention in Louisiana in apparent defiance of a court order. Öztürk, 30, says she has been neglected and abused there in “unsafe and inhumane conditions”.Mohsen MahdawiView image in fullscreenMahdawi, a Palestinian green-card holder and student at Columbia University, was apprehended by Ice in Colchester, Vermont, on 14 April, as first reported by the Intercept.He was prominent in the protests at Columbia last year. During his apprehension he was put into an unmarked car outside a federal office where he was attending an interview to become a naturalized US citizen. The administration’s arcane justification is that his activism could “potentially undermine” the Middle East peace process, citing a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). He is detained in Vermont. Democratic lawmakers have visited Khalil, Öztürk and Mahdawi but failed to secure their release.Yunseo ChungView image in fullscreenAnother Columbia student, Chung, 21, sued the administration for trying to deport her, and has gone into hiding. She is a pro-Palestinian campaigner and was arrested by the New York police in March while protesting, as first reported by the New York Times. She said a government official told her lawyer they wanted to remove her from the country and her residency status was being revoked. Chung was born in South Korea and has been in the US since she was seven.Alireza DoroudiView image in fullscreenThe Democrats on campus group at the University of Alabama said of the arrest of Doroudi, 32, an Iranian studying mechanical engineering: “Donald Trump, Tom Homan [Trump’s “border czar”], and Ice have struck a cold, vicious dagger through the heart of UA’s international community.”He was taken to the same Louisiana federal detention center as Khalil. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has said he was a threat to national security, without providing details, and the state department had revoked his visa, while an immigration judge refused to release him.Badar Khan SuriView image in fullscreenMore than 370 alumni of Washington DC-based Georgetown University joined 65 current students there in signing on to a letter opposing immigration authorities’ detention of Dr Badar Khan Suri, a senior postdoctoral fellow at the institution’s Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU).The authorities revoked his student visa, alleging the Indian citizen’s father-in-law was an adviser to Hamas officials more than a decade ago – and claiming he was “deportable” because of his posts on social media in support of Palestine. He was taken to Louisiana and then detention in Texas and was given court dates in May.View image in fullscreenKseniia PetrovaThe Harvard Medical School research scientist was stopped at Boston’s Logan airport by US authorities on her way back from France in February, over what appeared to be an irregularity in customs paperwork related to frog embryo samples. She was told her visa was being revoked and she was being deported to her native Russia.When Petrova, 30, said she feared political persecution there because she had criticized the invasion of Ukraine, she was taken away and also ended up in an overcrowded detention facility in Louisiana. Her colleagues say her expertise is “irreplaceable” and Petrova said foreign scientists like her “enrich” America.Student visas revoked, then restored amid chaosMore than 1,400 international students from at least 200 colleges across the US had their “legal status changed” by the state department, including the revoking of visas, in what the specialist publication Inside Higher Education called “an explosion of visa terminations”.Amid scant information and rising panic, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, lambasted protesters and campus activists as “lunatics”. Some were cited for pro-Palestinian views, others concluded they must have been targeted because of minor crimes or offenses, such as a speeding ticket. Some could find no explanation. Then in the face of multiple court challenges, the administration in late April reversed course and restored legal statuses that had been rescinded en masse, but said it was developing a new policy. Uncertainty prevails.The legal rollercoaster came too late for this high-profile case:Felipe Zapata VelásquezView image in fullscreenThe family of the University of Florida student Felipe Zapata Velásquez, 27, said he was “undergoing a physical and emotional recovery process” in his native Colombia after police arrested him in Gainesville in March for traffic offenses and turned him over to Ice. He agreed to be deported, to avoid lengthy detention and legal battles. The Democratic congressman Maxwell Frost accused authorities of “kidnapping” Velásquez.Removed by (admitted) mistakeKilmar Ábrego GarcíaView image in fullscreenThe Salvadorian man was removed to El Salvador by mistake, which the Trump administration admitted. But it is essentially defying a US supreme court order to “facilitate” his return to his home and family in Maryland. Ábrego García was undocumented but had protected status against being deported to El Salvador. He was flown there anyway, without a hearing, to a brutal mega-prison, then later transferred to another facility. The administration accuses him of being a violent gangster and has abandoned him, infuriating a federal judge repeatedly and prompting warnings of a constitutional crisis.He has not been charged with any crimes but was swept up with hundreds of Venezuelans deported there. He has begged to speak to his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, who insists he is not a criminal. The sheet metalworkers union chief, Michael Coleman, described Ábrego García as an “apprentice working hard to pursue the American dream” and said he was not a gang member. Trump said he was eyeing Salvadorian prisons for US citizens.Deported to a third country, without due processThe US deported more than 230 Venezuelan men to the mega-prison in El Salvador without so much as a hearing in mid-March despite an infuriated federal judge trying to halt the flights, then blocking others. Donald Trump took extraordinary action to avoid due process by invoking the 1798 Alien Enemies Act (AEA), a law meant only to be used in wartime, prompting court challenges led by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). John Roberts, the US chief justice, rebuked the president when he threatened the judge. The justices, by a majority, did not stop Trump from using the AEA but the bench unanimously reaffirmed the right to due process and said individuals must be able to bring habeas corpus challenges.Most of the men are reportedly not violent criminals or members of violent gangs, as the Trump administration asserts, according to a New York Times investigation.Many appear to have been accused of being members of the transnational Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua partly on the basis of their tattoos, with their families speaking out, including:Andry José Hernández RomeroView image in fullscreenHernández, a 31-year-old makeup artist and hairdresser, entered California last year to attend an asylum appointment, telling the authorities he was under threat in Venezuela as a gay man. But he was detained and accused of being in Tren de Aragua because of his tattoos, then suddenly deported under Trump, deemed a “security threat”.Jerce Reyes Barriosskip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe former professional footballer, 36, has been accused of gang membership by the DHS, seemingly because of his tattoos, including one of a crown sitting atop a soccer ball with a rosary and the word “dios”.“He chose this tattoo because it is similar to the logo for his favourite soccer team, Real Madrid,” his lawyer, Linette Tobin, said, adding that her client fled Venezuela after protesting against the government and being tortured.Francisco Javier García CasiqueView image in fullscreenRelatives were shocked when they spotted Francisco Javier García Casique, 24, in a propaganda video from El Salvador showing scores of Venezuelan prisoners being frog-marched off planes and into custody there. He is a barber in his home town of Maracay and is completely innocent of gang involvement, the family said, adding that Francisco and his brother Sebastián have matching tattoos quoting the Bible.Migrants seeking asylum removed to PanamaA US military plane took off from California in February carrying more than 100 immigrants from countries as far flung as Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, China, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Pakistan, dumping them in Panama. They were shackled and deported to a third country without due process because their countries of origin refuse to accept them back from the US. Shocking scenes unfolded of the people locked in a hotel in Panama City, signaling and writing on the windows pleading for help.The people, including children, were then moved and held at a facility deep in the dense jungle that separates Panama from Colombia. They were later reportedly freed and were seeking asylum from other countries, their futures uncertain. One of those deported from the US was:Artemis GhasemzadehView image in fullscreenGhasemzadeh, 27, a migrant from Iran, wrote “Help us” in lipstick on a window of the hotel in Panama City, as a desperate way of alerting New York Times reporters on the street to her and fellow detainees’ plight. She had thought that, especially as a convert from Islam to Christianity who faces danger in Iran as a result, that she would be offered freedom in the US, she told the newspaper while still in custody. She is possibly still in Panama trying to get a foothold.Americans questioned and threatenedAmir MakledView image in fullscreenMakled, a Detroit-born attorney, was questioned at the airport on returning from vacation. He was flagged to a terrorism response team, kept behind and pressured to hand over his phone, then give up some of its contents. The Lebanese American represents a pro-Palestinian student protester who was arrested at the University of Michigan. Experts said the incident was evidence of a weakening of fourth amendment constitutional protections at the border against “unreasonable search and seizure”.Nicole MicheroniView image in fullscreenThis Massachusetts immigration lawyer, a US-born American citizen, spoke out after receiving an email from the Trump administration telling her “it is time for you to leave the United States”. She said it was “probably, hopefully, sent to me in error. But it’s a little concerning these are going out to US citizens.” She told NBC she thought it was a scare tactic.Adam PeñaThis San Diego-based US citizen now carries his American passport and birth certificate everywhere with him and thinks he was sent one of the “time for you to leave” letters in error but because he represents clients in Ice detention locally. “I do believe this email was sent intentionally to immigration advocates around the country to instill fear and intimidation,” he told NBC news.Americans removedChildren who are seven, four and two and are US citizens were removed from the US in late April when their mothers were deported to Honduras. DHS said the two women chose to take their children with them but one of their lawyers told the Guardian that they were denied any opportunity to coordinate the care and custody of their children before being put on deportation flights from Louisiana. A federal judge said it was “illegal and unconstitutional” to thus remove a US citizen “with no meaningful process”.Visitors detainedJasmine Mooney, CanadaView image in fullscreenCanadian Jasmine Mooney was shackled and ended up in Ice detention in the US for two weeks over an alleged work visa irregularity while on one of her frequent visits to California. She spoke out about the harsh conditions and the information black hole and how outraged she was that so many other detainees she met, who helped her, are stranded without access to the kind of resources that ultimately got her out.Rebecca Burke, UKView image in fullscreenThe British graphic artist was stopped at the border when she headed from Seattle to Canada as a backpacker and, because of a visa mix-up, she became one of 32,809 people to be arrested by Ice during the first 50 days of Trump’s presidency. Almost three weeks of grueling detention conditions later, she smuggled out her poignant drawings of fellow detainees when she was released.Jessica Brösche, GermanyThe German tourist and tattoo artist, 29, from Berlin was detained by US immigration authorities and deported back to Germany after spending more than six weeks in US detention, including what she described as eight days in solitary confinement. Her family compared her ordeal to “a horror film”.Fabian Schmidt, GermanyView image in fullscreenThe 34-year-old German national and US green-card holder was apprehended and allegedly “violently interrogated” by US border officials as he was returning to New Hampshire from a trip to Luxembourg. His family said he was held for hours at Boston’s Logan airport, stripped naked and put in a cold shower, then later deprived of food and medicine, and collapsed. His case is being investigated and as of mid-April he was in Ice detention in Rhode Island.Sent back‘Jonathan’A man with a US work visa provided his anonymous account to the Guardian of being denied entry into the US after a trip to his native Australia to scatter his sister’s ashes. He was pulled aside on arrival in Houston, Texas, and accused, variously, of selling drugs and having improper paperwork. After being detained for over a day he was put on a flight back to Australia even though he has worked on the US east coast for five years, where he lived with his girlfriend.Denied entry – for criticizing Trump?Alvin Gibbs, Marc Carrey and Stefan Häublein of band UK SubsView image in fullscreenMembers of the punk rock band UK Subs said they were denied entry and detained in the US on their way to play a gig in Los Angeles, after being questioned about visas. Bassist Alvin Gibbs said: “I can’t help but wonder whether my frequent, and less than flattering, public comments regarding their president [Trump] and his administration played a role.” He and the two band mates were kept in harsh conditions for 24 hours then deported back to the UK.French scientistA French scientist, who has not been publicly named, was denied entry to the US after immigration officers at an airport searched his phone and found messages in which he had expressed criticism of the Trump administration, according to a French government minister. The researcher was on his way to a conference in Texas.“Freedom of opinion, free research, and academic freedom are values ​​that we will continue to proudly uphold,” Philippe Baptiste, France’s minister of higher education and research, told Le Monde. More