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      Judge rules Alien Enemies Act does not allow White House to deport alleged gang members

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      The 18th-century Alien Enemies Act does not authorize Donald Trump to deport Venezuelan immigrants alleged to be members of the Tren de Aragua gang, a federal judge in Texas ruled on Thursday.The ruling from US district judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr is significant because it is the first sweeping and permanent injunction directly addressing whether the government can use the 1798 Alien Enemies Act (AEA) to deport alleged members of Tren de Aragua. Other judges have issued similar but more limited and preliminary rulings.The decision applies only to migrants detained in Rodriguez’s judicial district, the southern district of Texas, which includes Brownsville, McAllen and Houston. Trump appointed Rodriguez to the federal bench in 2018.Trump invoked the act in March declaring Tren de Aragua (TdA) a foreign terrorist organization that was invading the US. The rarely used law allows the president to deport people without full due process in times of war. The law is supposed to apply whenever there is a war between the United States and a foreign nation and when there is “any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States”.“While the Proclamation references that TdA members have harmed lives in the United States and engage in crime, the Proclamation does not suggest that they have done so through an organized armed attack, or that Venezuela has threatened or attempted such an attack through TdA members,” Rodriguez wrote in a 36-page opinion. “For these reasons, the Court concludes that the President’s invocation of the AEA through the Proclamation exceeds the scope of the statute and, as a result, is unlawful.”The Trump administration has relied on the law to aggressively deport Venezuelan migrants, defying temporary injunctions from other judges telling the White House to halt the removals.On 7 April, the US supreme court ruled that those being removed under the law needed to be provided adequate notice that they were being removed under the Alien Enemies Act so that they might be able to file a legal challenge. Less than two weeks later, the supreme court ordered a halt to a deportation of migrants in Texas after being presented with evidence they weren’t being given adequate chance to file their removals. More

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      Trump to address graduating students at the University of Alabama

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      Donald Trump will travel to heavily Republican Alabama on Thursday to speak to graduating students at the University of Alabama, where he is expected to draw some protesters despite enjoying a deep well of support in the state.The US president’s evening remarks in Tuscaloosa will be his first address to graduates in his second term and will come as he has been celebrating the first 100 days of his administration.The White House did not offer any details about Trump’s planned message.Alabama, where Trump won a commanding 64% of the vote in 2024, is where he has staged a number of his trademark large rallies over the past decade. It also is where Trump showed early signs of strength in his first presidential campaign when he began filling stadiums for his rallies.While the White House has described Trump’s speech as a commencement address, it is actually a special event that was created before graduation ceremonies that begin Friday. Graduating students have the option of attending the event, but it is not required.Former Crimson Tide football coach Nick Saban is also speaking at the event.“As President Trump marks 100 days in office, there is no better place for him to celebrate all the winning than in Tuscaloosa, Alabama,” said the state’s Republican governor, Kay Ivey.Trump’s presence has drawn criticism from the Alabama NAACP and the University of Alabama College Democrats.College Democrats are countering with their own rally, calling it “Tide Against Trump” – a play on the university’s nickname. The event will feature onetime presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke of Texas and former US senator Doug Jones, the last Democrat to hold statewide office in Alabama.The NAACP said Trump’s policies are hurting universities and students, particularly students of color.“The decision for students of color, and really all students, should be to skip his speech and spend that time reflecting on how to make America a more inclusive nation,” said Benard Simelton, president of the Alabama NAACP.Trump’s visit to Alabama is his second trip this week. He held a rally in Michigan on Tuesday to mark 100 days in office.Outside of weekend trips for personal visits, Trump has not made many official trips since taking office on 20 January. He usually speaks to the public from the impromptu news conferences he holds in the Oval Office and at other events at the White House.After his stop in Alabama, Trump is scheduled to travel to Florida for a long weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort.Next month, he is scheduled to give the commencement address at the US military academy in West Point, New York. More

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      Trump moves Mike Waltz from national security adviser to UN ambassador role

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      Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, and his deputy, Alex Wong, will be leaving their posts after they lost the confidence of other administration officials and found themselves without allies at the White House, according to two people familiar with the matter.The exit of Waltz and Wong marked the conclusion of a fraught tenure. In March, Waltz inadvertently added Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, to a Signal group chat that shared sensitive information about US missile strikes in Yemen before they took place.Trump announced in a Truth Social post later on Thursday that he would name his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, to also take on the job of the national security adviser on an interim basis, and that he would nominate Waltz to be the US ambassador to the United Nations.The president briefly considered firing Waltz over the Signal episode, but decided he was unwilling to give the news media the satisfaction of forcing the ouster of a top cabinet official weeks into his second term. Trump was also mollified by an internal review that found Waltz’s error was a mistake.The furore over the Signal group chat, if anything, was widely seen to have bought Waltz and Wong additional time after they had both been on shaky ground for weeks. That was in large part because of a strained working relationship with Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and other senior officials.The interpersonal difficulties extended to Wong, according to a person directly familiar with the ousters. Wong frustrated some officials at other agencies who were involved in national security matters and complained to people in the West Wing that Waltz refused to rein him in, the person said.In the days after the Signal group chat episode, Waltz sought advice from JD Vance and others in the vice-president’s circle about how to reset relations. Vance counseled Waltz to be more deferential to Wiles, who had pushed for him to get the job, and throw around his weight less.But Waltz also came under fire from other quarters. Even though he was cleared in the internal review into Signalgate, as it came to be known, Waltz faced pressure for being seen as a war hawk and at odds with Trump’s “America first” agenda.That included scrutiny at a dinner that Waltz attended with Trump and some of Trump’s allies including Tucker Carlson, who has been skeptical of the adviser. The outside pressure campaign to remove Waltz additionally included an effort led by Steve Bannon, the people said.And the far-right activist Laura Loomer, who pushed a conspiracy theory that Wong had loyalties to China, weakened Waltz’s power after she went to the White House last month at Trump’s invitation and successfully pushed for Trump to fire a number of Waltz’s staffers.The gutting of Waltz’s staff was widely seen to have weakened his position inside Trump’s orbit. As Carlson, Bannon and Loomer separately pushed a whisper campaign that Waltz would be out before June, officials in the White House concurred that Waltz’s influence was waning.This week, it was quietly made clear to Waltz and Wong that their time at the national security council would be coming to an end. Waltz tried to extend his tenure by attending a cabinet meeting on Wednesday but was informed of his removal on Thursday, one of the people said.The top Senate Democrat, Chuck Schumer, welcomed the firing of Waltz but said that the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, was most deserving of losing his job.“They should fire him, but they’re firing the wrong guy. They should be firing Hegseth,” the minority leader told reporters at the Capitol.He accused Republicans of confirming a defense secretary who was unfit for the job, and predicted scandals similar to Signalgate – where Hegseth, Waltz and other national security officials shared details of airstrikes in Yemen in a group chat – would happen in the future.“They fired the [national security council] guy, but there are going to be many more problems, just like Signalgate that come out of the defense department, as long as Hegseth is in charge. This is not a one-off. This is going to happen over and over and over again.”Trump’s move to name Rubio the interim national security adviser took officials at the state department by surprise. Tammy Bruce, the spokesperson for the state department, appeared to learn about the decision from a reporter during a news conference in real time.The appointment means Rubio has taken on a total of four positions in the administration. In addition to being secretary of state and interim national security adviser, he is also currently serving as the acting USAID administrator and the acting national archivist.Chris Stein contributed reporting More

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      White House uses newly revealed allegations to support refusal to return Kilmar Ábrego García to US

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      The legal team behind Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland man unlawfully deported to El Salvador, is demanding that the Trump administration “bring him back and give him a full and fair trial” as the administration releases new domestic abuse allegations.In a press release issued on Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) cited allegations made by Ábrego García’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, that he abused her on several occasions in 2019 and 2020.Sura, a US citizen, filed a petition for protection against her husband in 2020, according to the new documents. She claimed to local police in Maryland that Ábrego García had kicked and verbally abused her, detained her against her will, and locked their children in a bedroom, among other accusations.She also claimed that, in 2019, he dragged her from a car by her hair. Ábrego García was never charged, according to Axios.The documents note that shortly after filing for the protective order in 2020, Sura asked the court to rescind it. She had said that their son’s birthday was approaching and Ábrego García had agreed to counseling.In response to the revelations from the DHS, Ábrego García’s lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, told the Guardian that “the whole country has spent the last month talking about Kilmar Ábrego García, and speaking for or against Kilmar Ábrego García” and that “the one person who hasn’t yet had the chance to speak is Kilmar Ábrego García”.“The government needs to bring him back and give him a full and fair trial. They can introduce all of this evidence, and he can respond in his own voice,” he said.Sandoval-Moshenberg also noted to Axios that the allegations were not related to the deportation.This move from the DHS comes on the heels of the administration resurfacing a separate protective order Ábrego García’s wife filed in 2021, also alleging domestic violence. In a statement, Sura said she filed the order “in case things escalated” but said that “things did not escalate”.“I decided not to follow through with the civil court process,” she said in April.“No one is perfect, and no marriage is perfect. That is not a justification for Ice’s action of abducting him and deporting him to a country where he was supposed to be protected from deportation.”The Alliance for Immigrant Survivors argued in a letter last week that the White House had “weaponized” Sura’s decision to seek a temporary protection order in 2021 “in order to justify her husband’s illegal kidnapping and indefinite incarceration”.“To be clear, nothing in Kilmar Ábrego García’s history gives the government permission or an excuse to violate his right to due process or legitimize his illegal removal from the US,” the letter reads.The letter also said that the administration posted a court document online that exposed Sura’s family’s home address, forcing her and her children “into hiding”.“Attempts to traumatize and intimidate survivors, and turn their experiences into political theater, are unacceptable and damaging,” the letter adds.Despite a 2019 court order prohibiting him from being sent to El Salvador, Ábrego García was deported from the US to El Salvador in March. The Trump administration has repeatedly accused him of being a member of the MS-13 gang, which was recently designated as a foreign terrorist organization; just last month, the administration posted documents online to bolster their claim that Ábrego García is a gang member.Ábrego García’s lawyers say that he had never been convicted of a crime in the US or El Salvador. They, along with his wife and labor union, have also repeatedly denied that he is a member of MS-13.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionShortly after the deportation, the Trump administration admitted in a court filing that it was the result of an “administrative error”. In the weeks since, administration officials have reversed course and insisted that Ábrego García was not wrongly deported.A federal judge, backed up by the supreme court, ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” Ábrego García’s release and provide evidence of the actions it has taken to get him back.Trump officials have argued that US courts lack jurisdiction since Ábrego García is not a US citizen and no longer in the country. The legal fight over his return is ongoing.On Thursday, Senators Chuck Schumer, Chris Van Hollen, Tim Kaine and Alex Padilla said they would require the Trump administration to produce a report on wrongful deportations to El Salvador.Ábrego García entered the US illegally in 2012 and was arrested in March 2019 along with three other people while looking for work at a Home Depot in Maryland.Police officers at the Prince George’s county police department said at the time that the men were “loitering” and identified Ábrego García as a member of MS-13, citing his clothing and information from a confidential source.Ábrego García challenged the determination, arguing that it was “hearsay”.Later that year, an immigration judge ruled that Ábrego García could not be deported back to El Salvador because he faced a credible fear of persecution. He was granted a “withholding of removal” order, preventing him from being sent to the Central American country.But on 12 March 2025, Ábrego García was detained by Ice officers who his lawyers say “informed him that his immigration status had changed”. He was deported to El Salvador, without a hearing, three days later and sent to a maximum-security prison.The White House has also accused Ábrego García of human trafficking due to a 2022 traffic stop during which he was found driving eight people from Houston to Maryland. He was not charged with any infraction, according to DHS, but received a warning citation for driving with an expired license. His wife said in a statement that he worked in construction and that he sometimes transported groups of workers between job sites.Ábrego García has since been moved out of the mega-prison to another prison in El Salvador. More

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      Seth Meyers on looming recession: ‘We all knew Trump was bad with money’

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      Late-night hosts pondered a possible recession under Donald Trump, as the US economy contracted during the first quarter of 2025.Seth MeyersThe US economy officially contracted during the first quarter of 2025, with -0.3% growth that seemed to surprise even newscasters. “It’s very sweet that the news anchors are acting so surprised,” said Seth Meyers on Wednesday evening, “but come on – we all knew Trump was bad with money. He bankrupted casinos, lost a billion dollars and he dresses like a guy selling watches in a dark alley. Also everyone said what Trump was doing was bad for the economy, and it was bad for the economy.“We’ve seen recessions before,” the Late Night host continued, “but we haven’t seen this specific confluence of factors – rising prices, negative growth – in a long time. And what makes it so much worse is that just a few months ago, we had an economy that was considered the strongest in the world.“But who cares about the economy?” he added. “Trump is doing the important stuff anyway, like renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, not that anyone could afford new maps with these tariffs.”During the now-halcyon days of the Biden presidency, Trump took credit for the booming economy, attributing stock market gains to expectations that he would win the election. But now, Trump is blaming Biden for a possible oncoming recession. “I get it now – when the economy is good under Biden, it’s because of you. But when the economy is bad under you, it’s because of Biden,” said Meyers. “You know, Harry Truman had a sign on his desk at the Oval Office that said, ‘the buck stops here,’ which let people know the value of taking responsibility. I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump had one that says, ‘get that fucking buck away from me! I’ve never seen that buck before in my life!!!’“Thanks to Trump’s policies, we’re now staring down the prospect of rising prices and possibly even barren shelves, and his team is basically just shrugging and hoping for the best,” Meyers summarized. When asked about 145% tariffs on China, which will raise prices for most products for American consumers, Trump simply answered without merit: “China will have to eat those tariffs.“China will not eat those tariffs. We will eat them,” said Meyers. “Literally, we will have to eat tariffs because we won’t be able to afford the mangos.”Jimmy Kimmel“Sixty per cent of economists who were polled believe there is a high or very high chance of a recession, so the president now is distancing himself from himself,” said Jimmy Kimmel.On Truth Social, Trump posted: “This is Biden’s stock market, not Trump’s … our country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden ‘Overhang.’” He also added: “BE PATIENT!!!”“What happened to the guy who promised it would all happen on day one?” Kimmel laughed. “What happened to the guy who less than 100 days into his first presidency crowed” about $3.2tn in gains just because he won the election.“The buck stops wherever he wants it to stop,” he added. “And consumer confidence is at its lowest level since May of 2020. You remember what happened in May of 2020? We were fighting old ladies for toilet paper in May of 2020.”Kimmel also talked about Trump’s frightening interview with ABC, which Kimmel called “the most disturbing moment yet” of his presidency. “Trump says crazy stuff every day. But most of the time, you know he’s full of it – he’s bragging, lying or whatever, just throwing crap on to his vision board.” But the ABC interview on Tuesday “went off that rails” when Trump showed the interviewer a mock-up image trying to justify the unlawful and erroneous deportation of Kilmar Ábrego García to a prison in El Salvador.“This couldn’t look worse even if Trump had written it in a Sharpie himself,” said Kimmel. “Our president is falling for Facebook memes.”Stephen ColbertAnd on the Late Show, Stephen Colbert reacted to the report that the US economy contracted in the first quarter of 2025, shrinking 0.3% – much worse than economists projected. “And that’s saying a lot, because economists did not have high expectations,” said Colbert. “This is like your girlfriend’s review of the Phish concert: I didn’t know any of the songs going in and I don’t like that kind of music, and once I got there I actually hated it.”On Truth Social, Trump tried to deflect blame, posting: “This is Biden’s stock market, not Trump’s.”“OK, but when Biden was president and the market was good, back then Trump posted ‘this is the Trump stock market, because my polls against Biden are so good that investors are projecting that I will win,’” said Colbert.“It’s Freaky Friday rule,” he mocked. “When Biden is president, it’s actually me and when I’m president, it’s actually Jamie Lee Curtis.” More

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      North Carolina helps kids earn college degrees in high school. It’s a lifeline for immigrant families

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      Daniel is a high school senior in rural North Carolina. Soon, he will graduate with a high school diploma, an associate degree and a paralegal certification from a local community college. He’s just 17, but he’ll be able to apply for positions at law firms and begin earning an almost $50,000 salary straight out of high school.“The early college program really set me up for success because even though I’m young, I’ll be able to help financially support my family,” said Daniel, a first-generation Salvadorian American who is only using his first name to protect undocumented family members. “I’ve done all of this because of support from my mother and family. I owe everything I’ve accomplished to them and I want to give back.”It’s been a long road for Daniel, who was accepted into a competitive Cooperative Innovative high school while still in middle school. These small, public high schools are located on North Carolina community college campuses, and they enable teens to simultaneously work toward completion of a high school diploma and an associate degree. It’s one of three paths that eligible North Carolina high school students can take as part of Career and College Promise (CCP): a free, statewide dual enrollment program established by the North Carolina state legislature in 2011, and that also facilitates college transfer or further technical education. The program helped Daniel get ahead of the curve, and so far it’s paid off. The teenager was just accepted into Vanderbilt University.According to North Carolina educators who spoke to the Guardian, dual enrollment is one of the state’s best kept secrets – especially for first-generation Latino students like Daniel.And because CCP is open to all qualified high school students, the program offers an extraordinary benefit to undocumented young people. As college students, undocumented immigrants are ineligible for most financial aid and otherwise considered “non-residents”, requiring them to pay out-of-state tuition at more than double the cost to residents. However, undocumented high school students participating in dual enrollment can attend up to four years of community college free of charge.But thanks to Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant vision for the US, students from immigrant families are now afraid – and so too are North Carolina community college educators and administrators, who fear their schools will be targeted for their efforts to extend educational opportunities to Latino communities. For safety reasons, most of the students, educators and administrators who spoke to the Guardian chose to remain anonymous.Engines of equity and accessLatinos have been the fastest growing demographic in North Carolina since the 1990s, with young Latino citizens in particular accounting for much of the growth. Many of these young people are the US citizen children of immigrants or come from mixed-status families where only some family members have authorization to be in the US.But even with 30 years to adjust to shifting demographics, the education system in North Carolina was largely ill-equipped to serve Latino students – especially in rural communities where a large percentage of the state’s Latino population resides.One rural community college staff administrator responsible for Latino engagement has worked tirelessly over the last few years to reach students like Daniel, whom they helped usher through College and Career Promise. They see it as part of their job to spearhead efforts to bring bilingual programs and classes to their community college, hire members of the immigrant community to teach, and perform outreach at local Latino community events. They also work closely to problem-solve with individual students, whether that means referring an undocumented student to scholarship opportunities or walking a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) recipient through the process of obtaining employer-sponsored in-state tuition. Just a few short months ago, these were efforts the staff administrator would have trumpeted – but times have changed.“I am afraid it might call attention to us in a negative way,” they said. “I saw how parents were too scared to drive to schools in [North Carolina] … and how people knew which roads not to take due to the police presence. I don’t want to widely call attention to us as being immigrant-friendly when the goal of this administration is to quash that.”There are valid reasons to be fearful. The Trump administration’s targeting and defunding of institutions with DEI policies have led many to preemptively comply out of fear of losing federal funding, and now that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) rescinded a previous policy warning against carrying out immigration enforcement in “sensitive locations”, schools are fair game for immigration raids. In recent weeks, hundreds of foreign college students have also had their visas revoked by the Trump administration, though it changed course and restored some students’ status after widespread media attention and court challenges.It was because of “serious concerns for the safety of students and the entire campus community” that officials from another North Carolina community college located in a mid-sized city initially spoke on the record, but later decided to remain anonymous. An administrator responsible for Latino student engagement there told the Guardian that when community colleges are forced to hide their efforts to make education more accessible, it also means hiding services from students and community members who need them the most.Alice Dolbow, a senior adviser at the North Carolina non-profit LatinxEd, issued an important reminder to schools now afraid to make these efforts public: helping immigrant and first generation students access higher education is “not against the law”. Her organization focuses on developing Latino education leaders in higher education.“I think many districts found themselves unexpectedly transformed by the increase in immigration,” Dolbow said. “Interestingly, community colleges are catching up at a much faster rate than our K-12 schools and our four-year universities. Programs like CCP are great for all students; they are engines of equity and access for all North Carolinians, including undocumented students. I want to be clear that any programs that happen to also help undocumented students access higher education are not ‘loopholes’. We are not ‘taking advantage of the system’. We are operating within the system and under the laws we have, and we are doing what the laws and system allow.”Latino students in the state – many of whom come from mixed-status families – are also a lifeline for North Carolina community colleges. Before 2020, community college enrollment in the state was on a slow decline. Then, 69,000 CCP students participated in dual enrollment during the pandemic. While community colleges don’t track the immigration status of students in the CCP program, it’s clear that more targeted outreach to the state’s young, growing Latino population can transform community college enrollment and the trajectory of Latino and immigrant families in the state.In many ways, community colleges are primed to serve immigrant communities. They offer flexible schedules; English classes for adults; continuing education; and curriculum programs that can lead to certificates, diplomas and degrees. In recent years, North Carolina has made considerable leeway to recruit Latino students of all kinds, in part, by hiring Latino educators to oversee Latino student engagement and outreach.“It is our job as community colleges to respond to the economic needs of the region, and it’s our job to educate the workforce that responds to those local economic needs,” explained the administrator from the mid-sized city. “If you have this growing population, it’s your job to serve them and by doing that, you are better serving your state.”There’s data to support the assertion. In 2018, the statewide network of 58 public community colleges that make up the North Carolina community college system partnered with population scientists to examine demographic shifts in the state. Latino student outreach was identified as a primary tool to increase community college enrollment and thus, help North Carolina remain competitive in the changing economy.The state has only three “Hispanic-serving Institutions” (HSI), defined in federal legislation as accredited, degree-granting public or private nonprofit institutions of higher education with 25% or more total undergraduate Hispanic full-time equivalent student enrollment. But that’s enough to rank North Carolina among the top 10 states in emerging HSIs, and each of North Carolina’s three existing HSIs are community colleges.‘College is … starting to feel impossible’Still, gaps in community colleges’ outreach, engagement and investment in Latino students become starkly visible when considering the experiences of undocumented students.Olivia, who is also using a pseudonym, is a North Carolina 18-year-old who benefited from dual enrollment as a high school student. After graduation, she’s struggled to pay the exorbitant cost of community college tuition as an undocumented student. Well-meaning community college administrators instructed her to apply for federal student aid, not understanding that her immigration status bars her from receiving it. Others referred her to scholarships she spent hours applying for, only to later learn the scholarships were only available to US citizens.“I feel like every year, I’ve learned about something different that I can’t do,” said Olivia, who came to the US when she was six months old. “I can’t legally work. I can’t get a driver’s license. I can’t leave the country. College is starting to feel like another thing that’s impossible. I’m starting to really worry that I have to give up on school.”Olivia’s dream is to be a pediatrician, but currently she can only afford one community college class a semester. To her parents, it appears as if she’s not working hard enough on her education.“But I’m working myself to the bone,” Olivia insisted. “I just feel like I’m not getting anywhere, and there’s a lot of pain in wanting to be something greater than you’re allowed to be.”Gabriela (also using a pseudonym) understands how hard it is to plan for the future when options are limited. When she was 14, she moved from El Salvador to North Carolina, where she became the first in her family to graduate from high school.CCP would have gone a long way to help the now 21-year-old toward her ultimate goal of becoming an elementary school teacher, but no one ever informed her of the program.Community college administrators who spoke to the Guardian said there are many challenges to getting the word on CCP out. Many high schools don’t have bilingual staff to inform parents of these opportunities. High school counselors tend to focus on advanced learning and programs for students who are headed to traditional four-year colleges instead of CCP.“As an adult, I’ve heard about all of these opportunities that would have made such a difference in my life. I’m 21 and starting from scratch,” said Gabriela. She is legally able to work in the US and has a job as a teacher’s assistant at an elementary school. Like Olivia, Gabriela has encountered administrators who were confused about why she didn’t qualify for in-state tuition. She told another administrator she was undocumented and that person later asked for her social security number.Working at a school only reinforces exactly what she wants to do professionally – and how that career path seems increasingly out of reach. Gabriela works at a school with many undocumented and mixed-status families. Under the Trump administration, many parents are afraid of participating in school life, fearful that something as innocuous as going on a field trip will require government-issued identification that they can’t provide and thus, potentially getting them on Ice’s radar.“I want to comfort them, but at any moment I know that I can be the one who is deported,” Gabriela said. “My work permit can be taken away at any moment, and what happens if I’ve enrolled in school? There are no good options. I want to remain hopeful, but I also feel like: do I really want to go back to school now? Putting myself through school will be such a sacrifice. What if I can’t do anything with my education?”North Carolina organizations such as UndocuCarolina and Pupusas for Education work to fill information and financial gaps in the state for undocumented students, Daca recipients and young people with Temporary Protected Status (TPS). But according to Glenda Polanco, too many North Carolina students are forced to make “decisions about their future out of desperation”.Polanco is the program director of Pupusas for Education, which started in 2016 to provide scholarships to undocumented students through food sales and has since turned into a non-profit organization to support Latino students. Polanco, now 32, was able to take advantage of early college as a North Carolina high school student, but she didn’t understand at the time that college classes would no longer be free after she graduated high school. If not for an extraordinary act of kindness in the form of a North Carolina couple who paid Polanco’s way through university, college would have been out of the realm of possibility.Polanco acknowledges that she was “lucky”. but says she can still remember moments of sheer panic about the cost of school and her future as an immigrant with a temporary status.“With the young people we work with … there is this daunting, insanity-provoking question: why does it have to be this hard?” Polanco said. “I don’t really have a good answer for them, and the anxiety and depression that comes with that uncertainty takes a toll. There is a psychological impact on the immigrant community – including on our parents. They want to give us the world, but none of us can really say what’s going to happen tomorrow.” More

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      A plea to the West: help us save America’s democracy | Anonymous

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      Donald Trump and his political allies in Washington have undertaken far-sweeping actions to undermine the foundations of American democracy, while simultaneously pursuing policies that erode and disrupt eight decades of trust and cooperation with democratic allies in Europe, North America and Asia.While leaders in these countries grapple with what is happening in Trump’s America, they must now ask themselves a new and critical question of immense relevance – one that has never been asked before in the modern era:“As nations who were helped by America in world war two and who have depended on the United States for our security, do we now have an obligation to reciprocate and help tens of millions of Americans whose liberty is threatened? Should we – can we – do anything to help the American people in their moment of democratic peril?”Yes. I firmly believe that the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan have a historic obligation to the American people to do what they can to help us preserve our democracy. An America descending into authoritarianism also poses a threat to the democracies they lead.I have two memories that speak to how foreign democracies should think about what they see happening in the United States of 2025.When my mother passed away, I found a small ceramic teapot in her cupboard with gold lettering on the bottom that read: “For England and Democracy. This teapot was transported to the USA by the Royal Navy.” My mother had purchased it during the early days of the second world war to support Britain and its people. Ordinary Americans such as my mother were doing their part – however small – to support a democratic country besieged by Nazi Germany.During the cold war, I remember hearing American presidents deliver speeches that were highly critical of the Soviet Union. At the end of these remarks, they would sometimes take a moment to directly address “the Russian people”. Our presidents were saying: “We see you as victims of oppression. We know that you are suffering under a cruel regime, and we hope that someday, in some manner, you will be free from the yoke of Soviet communism.” I know that when these messages got through Russian jamming, they were heard and gave some degree of hope to large segments of the Russian population.These two memories tell me that fundamental bonds based on enduring values can exist between governments and peoples who are not citizens of that government. Freedom, democracy and the rule of law can be those values. They also say that in the modern world, ordinary citizens in one nation can take a range of actions to support governments and citizens of another country.Today’s America is a place of fear for many. Americans are afraid that their livelihoods will be destroyed by a president who exercises unconstitutional acts of political retribution against his “enemies”. His targets: universities, law firms, corporations, states, certain agencies of his own government, and any federal employee who dissents in public. The judiciary and the media have been targets of vicious verbal attacks from Trump and his allies in Congress, which are precursors of actual future assaults. Foreign students, permanent residents and immigrants are rounded up and deported using highly questionable methods.European, Canadian and Japanese leaders are having a difficult time adjusting to this new American reality. The muscle memory of 80 years of intense cooperation, and in some cases dependency on the United States, is very difficult to break.I know the questions these leaders must be asking in private: is the United States becoming our adversary and perhaps our enemy? Will we be alone in our battle against the authoritarians in Russia and China? Will Trump and Elon Musk use governmental power and immense personal wealth to undermine our own democracies by encouraging the growth of far-right, anti-democratic forces in our countries? How can we protect ourselves when the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world is in rapid retreat from justice, from economic reality, from science, from policies that protect global health, while it aggressively pursues actions that accelerate dangerous atmospheric warming to the detriment of all?The silence of European, Canadian and Japanese leaders in the face of the US’s democratic crisis is both understandable and deeply disappointing. But make no mistake, their silence is a betrayal of their historic obligation to the American people as well as their commitment to democratic forces the world over. There are at least three difficult steps these leaders should consider.First, they must form common cause with the American people – not our government – and publicly state what they are saying in private. American democracy is in peril from an increasingly lawless government in Washington. They need to acknowledge that if American democracy erodes and dies, democracies the world over will be less safe. For the first time in history, Americans need to hear a message from foreign democratic leaders in support of preserving and sustaining our 249-year-old republic. You owe us at least this if you believe in democracy.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSecond, take steps that begin to isolate the United States in world diplomacy that indicate strong disapproval of Trump’s activities to curtail democracy and his efforts to strengthen ties to authoritarian governments such as Russia. Refuse to visit the United States and make it clear that the US president is not welcome in Europe, Canada and Japan. If the US slips further into authoritarianism or undermines your own democracies, consider suspending the G-7’s yearly meetings and taking further actions to indicate that diplomatic business as usual will not be the norm as the Trump administration pursues an anti-democratic path.Third, move aggressively to act as Trump attacks our great universities and science centers, weakens countless not-for-profit organizations including our national museums, cultural centers and public media, as he moves to destroy US humanitarian relief efforts, as he terminates prior US environmental commitments and repeals laws and regulations designed to slow the climate crisis. Invite Americans engaged in these endeavors to work directly with the people of Europe, Canada and Japan and your like-minded institutions to support these American entities because they are part of our democratic fabric. And they often better your own societies and help people the world over. Establish and encourage the creation of people-to-people initiatives that will bring Europeans, Canadians, Japanese and Americans closer together to carry on what Trump and his allies are either destroying or weakening.I know that taking these actions will be extremely difficult. Trump will respond with verbal assaults and irrational retaliation because his power is unchecked. He and his allies will accuse you of interfering in our domestic affairs. In forming common cause with Americans fighting for our democracy, I deeply regret that you will begin to understand the growing fear that grips all segments of our society, and the retaliation visited every day upon the American people and institutions Trump deems as “enemies”.Defending European, Canadian and Japanese economic interests from Trump’s obsession with tariffs and other harmful actions he may take in the foreign policy arena, though important, does not repay the historic debt that you owe the people of the United States to help us preserve our democracy. I ask you to understand that staying silent as Donald Trump weakens American democracy will not deter him from harming your democratic societies. And your silence can only serve to embolden him in his efforts to erode the democratic standards embedded in the US constitution.

      The writer is a former US diplomat who wishes to remain anonymous More

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      We’ve never seen a more error-prone, incompetent presidency | Moustafa Bayoumi

      by

      As we pass the 100-day mark of Donald Trump’s second term, it’s time to take note of a key element of how this administration governs: by mistake. I’m being serious. Have we ever seen a more error-prone, incompetent and fumbling presidency? In their rush to implement a barely concealed authoritarian agenda, this administration is producing a litany of blunders, gaffes and slip-ups. At times, they’ll seek to hide those mistakes by projecting a shield of authoritarianism. At other times, they’ll claim the mistake as a method of walking back an unpopular authoritarian agenda item. Either way, it’s a unique style of rule, one that I call “rule by error”.On 11 April, for example, the White House’s taskforce on antisemitism sent Harvard University a letter detailing a laundry list of actions that Harvard would have to undertake if the university wanted to avoid having over $2bn of multiyear federal grants frozen by the government. But the actions were extreme and would have resulted in the end of Harvard’s intellectual independence. Days later, Harvard wrote back: “Nah, I’m good,” they told Trump’s people. (More precisely, they wrote that the university is “not prepared to agree to demands that go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration”.)Harvard’s response garnered much popular support against a bullying Trump administration, including a photo caption in the Onion that read: “Nation Can’t Believe It’s On Harvard’s Side.” Then, a few days later, several unnamed officials told the New York Times that the Trump administration’s letter, which had been signed by three officials from the administration and sent on official letterhead from an official email account, had been sent to Harvard by mistake. Oops.Maybe it was sent in error, which frankly still speaks poorly of this administration, but it’s also possible that as the wind began blowing favorably in Harvard’s direction, some in the administration were looking for a way out of the trap they had set for themselves.But that’s hardly the only error this administration has admitted to, nor is it the worst, not by a long shot. Kilmar Ábrego García, an Salvadorian man who lived in Maryland with his wife and five-year-old child, was grabbed by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents on 12 March and deported three days later to El Salvador, despite having a deportation protection order forbidding him from being sent there. In a 7 April court filing, Robert Cerna, the acting Ice field office director, admitted that Ábrego García’s deportation was an “administrative error”.Did owning up to this error result in the return of Ábrego García? Absolutely not. Trump’s administration continues to this day to defy the courts while doubling down on its own failures. During a recent Oval Office meeting between the US president and Salvadorian president, Nayib Bukele, White House aide Stephen Miller disputed even the existence of an error, despite all the evidence. “The only mistake that was made is a lawyer put an incorrect line in a legal filing that since has been relieved of duty,” Miller said, presumably referring in his tortured English to the fact that the administration fired Erez Reuveni, a career justice department attorney who represented the government in court during the Ábrego García case. The lesson here? You’re better off shooting the messenger than correcting your own mistake.If those errors aren’t enough evidence to constitute a philosophy of error, there’s still plenty more. What about the official notice the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sent to some Ukrainian refugees in the United States. More than 240,000 Ukrainians have been settled in the United States under a program titled “U4U” that began under Joe Biden’s presidency. On 3 April, some Ukrainians, it’s unclear how many, received a notice telling them: “DHS is now exercising its discretion to terminate your parole,” referring to their legal status to stay in the country. “Unless it expires sooner, your parole will terminate 7 days from the date of this notice,” the email said. Then it warned its recipients: “Do not attempt to remain in the United States–the federal government will find you. Please depart the United States immediately.”This would unquestionably be a terrifying communication to receive. When CBS News, which first reported the story, asked DHS about the notice, the government replied: “A message was sent in error to some Ukrainians under the U4U program. The U4U parole program has not been terminated.” Sorry!Or how about the time when Nicole Micheroni, a US-born American citizen and immigration lawyer received an email from the Trump administration telling her to self-deport. “It is time for you to leave the United States,” the email read. “If you do not depart the United States immediately you will be subject to potential law enforcement actions that will result in your removal from the United States.” Oops! They did it again.Or what about using the messaging app Signal to plan a bombing campaign, and then adding a journalist to this top-secret chat? Who hasn’t made this mistake before! And then done it again!How about the widely accepted fact that the calculation the administration has used to determine their outrageous and misguided tariff policy is just plain wrong. The American Enterprise Institute, a center-right thinktank, looked into Trump math and found that it inflates the tariffs that Trump assumes countries are levying on the US by four times. Then again, who cares!Remember when they told us that the US government was sending $50m of condoms to Gaza? The aid was actually sent to a province in Mozambique named Gaza and was earmarked for HIV and tuberculosis prevention. No condoms were part of the aid. Asked about the error, Elon Musk said: “Some of the things I say will be incorrect and should be corrected,” but then he repeated part of the lie by saying: “I’m not sure we should be sending $50m worth of condoms to anywhere, frankly.”There are plenty more mistakes (tariffs on penguins, anyone?), but you get the point. Trump constantly complains about the existence of some shadowy “deep state”, when in reality he and his entire administration ought to be in a deep state of shame, considering the constant stream of errors and blunders that constitute their rule. No wonder Trump’s job approval rating at the 100-day mark is at a piddly 42%, the second lowest of any president in the last 80 years, according to a new NPR/PBS/Marist News poll. (The lowest? Trump in his first term, by a single point.)People on the right often view Trump as some sort of political genius. Michael Moore, on the other hand, once labeled Trump an “evil genius”. But all I see is a man and an administration who use mistakes to cover up evil practices and use evil practices to excuse mistakes. That’s not genius. It’s dangerous. And if we don’t understand “rule by error” and how to dismantle it, we will all be doomed to live out its mistakes.

      Moustafa Bayoumi is the author of the award-winning books How Does It Feel To Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America and This Muslim American Life: Dispatches from the War on Terror. He is Professor of English at Brooklyn College, City University of New York More