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    Honduran immigrant dies while fleeing ICE, bringing raids death toll to three

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    A 24-year-old Honduran man died while trying to flee Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Virginia, bringing the death toll among those trying to escape detention in the Trump administration’s mass deportation crackdown to at least three people.Jose Castro Rivera was killed on Thursday morning after running onto a busy highway and being struck and fatally injured while trying to evade ICE agents, local authorities said.A Department of Homeland Security official told NBC News that ICE agents stopped a vehicle as part of a “targeted, intelligence-based immigration enforcement operation” but did not provide further details about Castro Rivera, or any of the other passengers who were detained but survived the operation. An ICE agent administered CPR to Castro Rivera, but he died at the scene, according to the official.The fatal incident took place on the busy Interstate 264 eastbound at the Military Highway interchange in Norfolk in south-east Virginia. The Virginia state police said they were not involved in the pursuit and the fatal crash remains under investigation.This is the third known deadly incident involving immigrants trying to flee immigration raids by masked, armed federal agents that are spreading across the country, as part of the Trump administration’s relentless crackdown on immigrants and unprecedented expansion of ICE.In August, Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdés, 52, of Guatemala was killed on the freeway after fleeing an ICE raid at a Home Depot in Monrovia, California, about 20 miles (32km) north-east of downtown Los Angeles. The home improvement retailer, which has long been a meeting spot for employers to recruit documented and undocumented day laborers as roofers, painters and construction workers, has been targeted by the Trump administration for ICE operations.The Guatemalan man’s death came just a month after another deadly ICE raid in southern California.Mexican farm worker Jaime Alanís García, 56, died after falling 30ft (9 meters) from a greenhouse while fleeing federal agents at the state-licensed Glass House Farms cannabis facility in Camarillo, Ventura county. Alanís García, who had been living and working in the US for about three decades to support his family in Michoacán, Mexico, climbed onto the roof in a desperate effort to get away from the masked ICE agents and national guard soldiers during the July raid, in which more than 300 people were detained. He suffered catastrophic injuries and was taken off life support after two days.Trump and his anti-immigrant advisers have repeatedly claimed that the unprecedented resources and power being gifted to ICE is about removing “illegal criminals” off American streets.Yet official government data shows that immigrants with no criminal record are now the largest group in US immigration detention. The number of people with no criminal history arrested by ICE and detained by the Trump administration has surpassed the number of those charged with crimes.At least 20 people have died in ICE custody so far this year, according to a recent NPR investigation, making it the deadliest year since 2004. More

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      Portland judge rejects Trump request to allow national guard deployment

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      A federal judge in Portland, Oregon, on Friday rejected the Trump administration’s request to immediately lift her order blocking the deployment of federalized national guard troops to the city, saying that she would decide the matter by Monday.The hearing in Portland and one in Washington DC are the latest in a head-spinning array of lawsuits and overlapping rulings prompted by Trump’s push to send the military into Democratic-run cities despite fierce resistance from mayors and governors. Troop deployment remains blocked in the Chicago area, where all sides are waiting to see whether the US supreme court intervenes to allow it.The Portland district court judge, Karin Immergut, who is based in the city, had previously issued two temporary restraining orders blocking the deployment of national guards troops there, in response to a persistent but small protest outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office.Her first order, blocking the deployment of 200 troops from the Oregon national guard, said that Donald Trump had exceeded his authority by taking federal control of the troops based on his claim that the city was in a state of war-like rebellion. Trump’s assessment, Immergut ruled, was “simply untethered to the facts”.When Trump responded to that order by sending 200 troops from California’s national guard to Oregon, and threatened to send 400 more from Texas, Immergut determined it was an attempt to evade her order, and issued a second order barring the deployment of troops from anywhere in the country to Portland.Immergut’s first order was lifted on Monday by a three-judge panel of the ninth circuit court of appeals, over the strong dissent of the only judge on the panel who lives in Portland. But because the government never appealed Immergut’s second order, it remains in effect and the deployment of troops remains blocked until she decides whether or not to lift or modify it in response to the appeals court ruling.At a virtual hearing on Friday, Immergut cited two reasons for her to delay lifting the second injunction. The first was that the appeals court did not address a central fact in her second order: that she had issued it in part because the government responded to her first order by attempting to evade it. The second was that the ninth circuit appeals court is currently considering a call from one of its judges to rehear the appeal of her first order before a larger panel of 11 judges.At the end of the hearing, Immergut said that she would decide by Monday, if not earlier.The US district judge, Jia Cobb, an appointee of Joe Biden, was hearing arguments Friday on a request from Brian Schwalb, the District of Columbia attorney general, for an order that would remove more than 2,000 guard members from Washington streets.In August, Trump issued an executive order declaring a crime emergency in the district – though the Department of Justice itself says violent crime there is at a 30-year low.Within a month, more than 2,300 guard troops from eight states and the district were patrolling under the army secretary’s command. Trump also deployed hundreds of federal agents to assist them.It is unclear how long the deployments will last, but attorneys from Schwalb’s office said troops were likely to remain in Washington through at least next summer.“Our constitutional democracy will never be the same if these occupations are permitted to stand,” they wrote.Government lawyers said Congress empowered the president to control the DC national guard’s operation. They argued that Schwalb’s lawsuit is a frivolous “political stunt” threatening to undermine a successful campaign to reduce violent crime in Washington.Although the emergency period ended in September, more than 2,200 troops remain. Several states told the Associated Press they would bring their units home by 30 November, unless their deployment is extended.Among the states that sent troops to the district was West Virginia. A civic organization called the West Virginia Citizen Action Group says the governor, Patrick Morrisey, exceeded his authority by deploying 300 to 400 guard members to support Trump’s efforts there.Morrisey has said West Virginia “is proud to stand with President Trump”, and his office has said the deployment was authorized under federal law. The state attorney general’s office has asked Richard D Lindsay, a Kanawha county circuit court judge, to reject the case, saying the group has not been harmed and lacks standing to challenge Morrisey’s decision.Lindsay heard some arguments Friday before continuing the hearing to 3 November to give the state time to focus more on whether Morrisey had the authority to deploy the cuard members.“I want that issue addressed,” Lindsay said.April Perry, a district judge, on Wednesday blocked guard deployment to the Chicago area until a case in her court is decided or the US supreme court intervenes. Perry previously blocked the deployment for two weeks through a temporary restraining order.Attorneys representing the federal government said they would agree to extend the order, but would also continue pressing for an emergency order from the supreme court that would allow for the deployment.Lawyers representing Chicago and Illinois have asked the supreme court to continue to block the deployment, calling it a “dramatic step”. More

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      San Francisco Bay Area mobilizes amid threats of Trump immigration crackdown: ‘We’re ready’

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      It was a whirlwind, disorienting 24 hours in the San Francisco Bay Area for local leaders and organizers, who were expecting a major immigration enforcement operation in the region on Thursday.But by mid-morning, Donald Trump announced he was calling off a federal “surge” – and telling residents to “stay tuned” for what would come next.In the uneasy lull, many residents carried on, preparing for the worst.Volunteers organized patrols in areas where day immigrant workers tended to congregate, and launched initiatives to help the children of undocumented workers get to and from school. Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in San Francisco and across the bay in Oakland.“I think he’s just trying to mess with us, with our Bay Area,” said Jose Ramirez, 59. He was one of a few hundred people gathered in Fruitvale – a predominantly Latino community in east Oakland, across the bay from San Francisco. “But we’re still out here to support.”Oakland’s mayor, Barbara Lee, had initially said she was aware of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents being stationed at the local US Coast Guard based, but was unable clarify whether officers would be deployed in the city until Friday.“I spoke with Alameda county sheriff Yesenia Sanchez, who confirmed through her communications with Ice that border patrol operations are cancelled for the greater Bay Area – which includes Oakland – at this time,” Lee said.By Thursday night, it remained unclear whether agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and CBP were still planning to ramp up enforcement in cities such as Oakland that border San Francisco.The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to the Guardian’s queries, and instead linked to Trump’s Truth Social post explaining that he had called off federal agents following a call with tech leaders including the Salesforce CEO, Marc Benioff. “Friends of mine who live in the area called last night to ask me not to go forward with the surge,” Trump wrote.Local officials and advocates condemned Silicon Valley billionaires, including Benioff, who had previously suggested that Trump should send the national guard troops to the city.“I condemn every tech billionaire who supported this,” said Jackie Fielder, the San Francisco city supervisor representing parts of the city’s Mission neighborhood, home to a large Chicano and the Latino community. Standing at the steps of city hall – and directly facing the massive Salesforce tower looming over the city’s skyline – Fielder said: “We are here because Benioff of Salesforce put forth this idea.”Meanwhile, in Fielder’s district, volunteers from various community groups were geared up to respond to ramped-up raids.For weeks already, the local non-profit Homies Organizing the Mission to Empower Youth (Homey) had been deploying street patrols, to observe and report ICE activity in the area. Patrollers have yet to intervene in any arrests, said José Luis Pavón, an organizer with the group. “But the patrols are also to build community, to make sure that people know their rights, to also reassure a lot of the people who are scared, to involve small-business owners, to involve neighbors, to really strengthen the community,” he said.View image in fullscreenFollowing months of threats from the Trump administration to ramp up law enforcement and immigration raids in the city, the neighborhood is now prepared to respond, Pavón said: “I feel like people are starting to lose their fear. People are getting a lot more practical.”Bay Resistance, a social justice non-profit, said it would continue to send volunteers to Home Depot stores and other areas where day laborers tend to congregate and work, to monitor for immigration agents and help inform workers about their legal rights. The Latino Task Force said it would drive students of undocumented parents to schools across the city.“We’re ready,” said Lisa Knox, co-executive director of California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, a non-profit that supports people in immigration detention. “We always say ‘power, not panic’. We’re focused on getting the message out to the community that they are not alone, people have rights if they encounter ICE or federal agents, and there are rapid response networks that can provide support if they are arrested. Yes, this is frightening, but communities can organize to defend themselves.”Groups were coordinating across the region to ensure they could mobilize wherever ICE shows up, and advocates had learned lessons from efforts in Los Angeles and Chicago, Knox said. The president’s announcement that he was calling off the troops did not alter preparations, she added: “We’re not taking Trump at his word. He’s equivocated before. We’re sticking with our plans.”In Fruitvale, which has one of the highest concentrations of immigrants and non–citizens in Oakland, street vendors said they had seen much less foot traffic than usual. The farmers’ market, held in the plaza outside the transit station, was quieter than usual.“We cannot let this happen – where people are afraid to get out of the house, where people are afraid to be seen,” said Rosemary, an 18-year-old community college student who joined the protest. She and her loved ones – almost all of whom are immigrants – created a group chat to check in with one another each hour, she said, to make sure they’re safe.Jaime, an English language development teacher who works with elementary and middle school students in the neighborhood, said she joined up to show solidarity with her students and their families – most of whom are immigrants. Earlier that day, teachers hosted a brown bag lunch for students who were worried about a major federal deployment in the region. A group of about 20 students strategized how to create fundraisers for the families most affected by immigration raids, and reviewed information about immigrants’ legal rights to share with friends and families.“Unfortunately … a lot of what is happening won’t feel new to our students,” said Nick, a fellow teacher. “It’s not the first time that their families have felt threatened by the presence of ICE or other immigration officials. It’s not the first time they’ve heard of members of our school community being threatened with deportation or being deported.” The Guardian is not using the teachers’ last names at their request, to protect their students.By Thursday evening as the sun set over the San Francisco Bay, hundreds of protesters walked from Fruitvale, along Oakland’s industrial corridors towards the entrance of the Coast Guard base.Gabriela DelaRiva, a retired nurse who lived in Alameda – the city where the base is located – began to tear up. Her grandmother, she said, had come to the US from Zacatecas, Mexico, as a child, and worked at canneries in California’s agricultural Central valley. And DelaRiva grew up to be an activist – she had marched for labor rights, and against various US military interventions and wars.“To see progress, and then to see these things going backwards, it’s very distressing, very painful,” she said. “But I’m so proud to be in the Bay Area where people do get activated.”Sam Levin contributed reporting More

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      ‘He didn’t deserve that’: widow speaks out after husband’s violent death at ICE facility

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      A few hours before the Texas sun set, Stephany Gauffeny held her newborn son close to her chest as she started walking in a cemetery. The grave she stopped at had no headstone, but Gauffeny, 32, had written her husband’s name on a red ribbon.She married Miguel García-Hernández in 2016, nearly 10 years before he was shot at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Dallas in late September.“I am trying to cope because that’s what I am supposed to do, but what hurts me the most is to hear my kids ask where daddy is,” said Gauffeny, speaking to the Guardian in her first interview since his death.“My eight-year-old daughter with autism waited for him until the last minute. They would talk over the phone while he was detained, but one day before the funeral, I had to tell her that daddy was in heaven and that he would be watching her and that she wouldn’t see him.”García-Hernández ended up in ICE custody early on 24 September after a short time in jail for a DUI. That same morning, while he was shackled inside a government van, a gunman opened fire outside the ICE field office in Dallas where he was awaiting intake.View image in fullscreenFederal authorities have said the attacker was targeting ICE officials, but only detainees were hurt, including García-Hernández, 31, who was rushed to the hospital in critical condition.“I was coming back from a doctor’s appointment for my pregnancy and I was so excited to tell him about our son, but I got a call saying that my husband was in the hospital,” said Gauffeny, switching between English and Spanish intermittently.“I walked into the [hospital] room and I just started crying. His arms were restrained to the bed and he had handcuffs on his feet.”García-Hernández died on 29 September from his gunshot wounds. His third child with Gauffeny was born three days later. He would have turned 32 on 5 January, the day of their 10th wedding anniversary, Gauffeny said as she stood sorrowfully in front of García-Hernández’s grave.She believes the rising political violence and anti-immigration agenda in the US played a part in her husband’s violent death.The couple had been focusing hard on the new home they bought a few months ago in Arlington, on the outskirts of Dallas. There, they lived with their children, as well as two girls from Gauffeny’s previous relationship whom García-Hernández had helped raise.“He talked about little projects like turning the garage into a room, painting some parts of the house, getting a new fence and doing it all by himself,” said Gauffeny, her voice cracking.“It hurts to look around now, you know? Who is going to do it?”García-Hernández was born in San Luis Potosí, a central state in Mexico, and crossed the US border without papers when he was 14. Though the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program has benefited hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants with similar cases since 2012, he arrived just too early to qualify.García-Hernández lived in the Dallas area for nearly two decades, most recently making a living painting and remodeling homes. Gauffeny said he had applied for a Biden administration initiative, dubbed Keeping Families Together, that was designed to allow the undocumented spouses of US citizens to get legal status. However, a federal judge in Texas blocked the policy just a few months after it started.View image in fullscreenMartina Alvarado, a lawyer who tried to help García-Hernández fix his immigration status, said he was awaiting a waiver that, if granted, would effectively erase his illegal entry into the US and allow him to get a green card based on his marriage to an American citizen.Gauffeny said her husband was planning to open his own painting company as soon as his immigration case was resolved, and he had been saving money for the equipment.Since Donald Trump took office for a second time, his administration has aggressively expanded immigration raids across the country, granting deportation agents a broad mandate to target those in the country without proper documents, even if they’re not criminals. The crackdown has spurred massive protests and growing concerns over tactics by federal agents.The contentious climate around immigration under the Trump administration can also be palpable far from the neighborhoods and the streets where federal agents roam. After the shooting and the death of García-Hernández, Gauffeny said she received hateful messages from strangers on social media.“Some comments said they were happy that it happened because he shouldn’t have been here illegally,” said Gauffeny.“He and I never hid the fact he entered illegally, you know, but what I keep saying is that he didn’t deserve that and we’re going to fight this.”Eric Cedillo, a Dallas attorney who has been helping Gauffeny since the shooting, said they are contemplating filing a lawsuit, without specifying details at that time.García-Hernández’s mother, Maria García, was deported to Mexico earlier this year and was initially unable to see her son when he was hospitalized. But she was allowed into the US after the Mexican government intervened. In a statement, Mexico’s foreign ministry said “an extraordinary humanitarian parole was arranged for García-Hernández’s mother to travel to the US”.The statement did not provide information on what, if any, economic assistance has or will be given to Gauffeny to cover expenses related to García-Hernández’s funeral.View image in fullscreenAt the funeral, a Mexican flag was laid next to his grave by the Brown Berets of North Texas, a community defense group that runs an “ICE Watch” in the area. When Stephany visited with newborn Miles Alexander last week, the flag was gone but some roses remained.Gauffeny said that securing the burial site was possible thanks to money donated to a GoFundMe page created by her sister-in-law. There is no headstone on García-Hernández’s grave yet because she cannot afford it.“My biggest concern now is to have a place to live in the future. Our mortgage is very expensive and we were already struggling when he was detained. I am scared for my kids,” Gauffeny said.Before leaving the cemetery in Arlington, Gauffeny recalled that her husband had bought a Bible in Spanish while in the custody of Tarrant county for the DUI. Days after his death, his belongings came in the mail, including the Bible, which he had bookmarked.She said: “It was on a page in Genesis. He wanted to read the Bible from the start to the end but couldn’t continue because he was killed.” More

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      Is Trump preparing for civil war? – podcast

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      Archive: CBS News, CBS News Chicago, PBS Newshour, CNN, WHAS11, Global News, KREM 2 News, Inside Edition, Today
      Read David Smith’s piece on why Donald Trump is demolishing the East Wing of the White House
      Read Rachel Leingang’s piece on the future for No Kings rallies
      Buy Jonathan Freedland’s new book, The Traitor’s Circle, here
      Send your questions and feedback to politicsweeklyamerica@theguardian.com
      Support the Guardian. Go to theguardian.com/politicspodus More

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      Trump vows to ‘take care of Chicago’ after backing off plan to send troops to San Francisco – live

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      Donald Trump continued his threats to send the national guard to Chicago.“They don’t have it under control,” Trump said. “It’s getting worse, so we’ll take care of as soon as we give the go ahead.”This comes as the administration filed an emergency appeal to the supreme court after a federal judge blocked the administration’s from deploying troops to the Chicago indefinitely.Speaking to reporters at City Hall, San Francisco mayor Daniel Lurie elaborated on his Wednesday evening call with Donald Trump.Lurie said he had not reached out to Trump but that the president “picked up the phone and called me”. During the call, Lurie said he told Trump that crime was falling in San Francisco and the city was “on the rise”. Pressed on whether Trump sought any concessions from the city in exchange for calling off the “surge” Lurie said he “asked for nothing”. Lurie said he did not know if Trump’s decision extended to the rest of the Bay Area and acknowledged that the mercurial president could yet change his mind.“Our city remains prepared for any scenario,” Lurie said. “We have a plan in place that can be activated at any moment.”Asked if other Democratic mayors could learn from his approach, which has been notably less antagonistic than the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, Lurie demurred, suggesting that was more a question for the political chattering class than for a mayor “laser-focused” on his city.“Every day I’m focused on San Francisco,” he said. “Heads down. How do we keep our city safe?”Former New York City mayor Bill de Blasio has condemned a racist AI-generated ad posted – and then deleted – by Andrew Cuomo’s campaign depicting “criminals for Zohran Mamdani”.On Thursday, De Blasio wrote on X: “This is disqualifying. No candidate who approves a racist, disgusting ad like this can be allowed to govern. Bye, @andrewcuomo.”The ad which was shared on Cuomo’s official account on Wednesday featured Mamdani, the popular democratic socialist state assemblyman, eating rice with his hands before being supported by a Black man shoplifting while wearing a keffiyeh, a man abusing a woman, a sex trafficker and a drug dealer.In June, Mamdani, who if elected would be the city’s first Muslim mayor, accused donors of Cuomo’s campaign of “blatant Islamophobia” after an altered image of him in a mailer to voters depicted him with a visibly darkened and bushier beard.Outside of San Francisco’s city hall on Thursday afternoon, local leaders and organizers were grappling with the whiplash.“At this time, do not know which federal agencies are being called off. We don’t know if that’s the National Guard. We don’t know if it’s ice, if it’s Border Patrol,” said Jackie Fielder, the San Francisco city supervisor representing parts of the city’s Mission neighborhood. “I also want to be clear that ICE, CBP, any federal agency deputized by Trump, to help him carry out his mass deportation plans, are absolutely not welcome in San Francisco.”Fielder also criticized Benihoff, Musk and other tech leaders who had voiced support for a National Guard deployment in the Bay Area. “I condemn every tech billionaire who supported this,” she said. “This city doesn’t belong to them.”Fielder and other leaders and organizers emphasized that even as the region awaits clarity on whether and where there will be a federal deployment, and the extent to which the administration plans to ramp up immigration enforcement in the city, local leaders are going to continue to mobilize rapid response networks, legal aid and other support systems for the residents most impacted.“We don’t need to get ready because we’ve been ready,” Fielder said. “This is not a time for panic. It is a time for power across this area.”Organizers urged residents to check in regularly with friends and family, and prepare for the possibility that they may be arrested by immigration officers, urging immigrants to entrust their full legal names and A-Numbers with trusted allies. “Without this information, it becomes very challenging, and it takes time to locate our loved ones,” said Sanika Mahajan, Director of Community Engagement and Organizing for the local advocacy group Mission Action. Organizers who had lent support during the militarized raids in Los Angeles this summer encouraged San Franciscans to store important documents at home, and let loved ones know where to find them.“Mexico is run by the cartels, I have great respect for the president”, Donald Trump just said near the end of the White House event to justify what he calls the success of his militarized war on drugs. “Mexico is run by the cartels and we have to defend ourselves from that”.After a first phase of the roundtable discussion, in which senior administration officials took turns praising Trump and claimed that the crackdown on drugs has been a spectacular success, the president then took questions from reporters invited to cover the event.Many of the correspondents he called on were from partisan, rightwing outlets who also laced their questions with praise for the president.Clearly aware that many of the correspondents he called on to ask questions were on his side, Trump even said “This is the kind of question I like” to Daniel Baldwin of the pro-Trump news channel One America News, before Baldwin even asked his question.When Trump did not recognize a correspondent, he asked them who they were with.And when he did call on a reporter he views as adversarial, Kaitlan Collins of CNN, he even made a point of joking that her question would be a bad one.No matter what the questions were, Trump repeated many of his familiar talking points, exaggerations, insults and lies, including that the Biden administration had “lost” hundreds of thousands of children.At one point, unprompted, he said: “Let me tell ya, Barack Hussein Obama was a lousy president.”Donald Trump was just asked about a call from Daniel Goldman, a Democratic congressman from New York, for the New York police department to arrest federal agents “who assault or detain New Yorkers without legal authority” during immigration raids or outside immigration courts in New York City.Goldman referred specifically to a woman who was hurled to the floor by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer outside a court.“Well, you know, I know Dan, and Dan’s a loser,” Trump replied. “It’s so ridiculous, a suggestion like that.”What Trump did not explain is that he no doubt knows Goldman primarily from his role as lead counsel in the first impeachment of Trump, over his attempt to force Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to open a sham investigation into Joe Biden in 2019 by withholding military aid.Rather than address the issue, Trump then pivoted to suggesting that Democrats were desperate for attention and even imitating him by cursing more in public. Goldman did not curse when he told reporters on Tuesday: “No one is above the law – not ICE, not CBP, and not Donald Trump. Federal agents who assault or detain New Yorkers without legal authority must be held accountable and the NYPD must protect our neighbors if the federal government refuses to.”Donald Trump was just asked by a French reporter about the vote in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, on formal annexation of the occupied West Bank, a Palestinian territory that Israel has occupied since 1967, where hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers now live, in a violation of international law.He asked the reporter to repeat the question but louder. She did, in a distinct French accent.Trump asked Pam Bondi, seated next to him to answer, saying, “I cannot understand a word she’s saying”.When the question was then explained to him, the president told the reporter: “Don’t worry about the West Bank, Israel’s not going to do anything with the West Bank.”Earlier on Thursday, the vice-president, JD Vance, said that Israel would not annex the West Bank, the day after Israeli lawmakers voted to advance two bills paving the way for the territory’s annexation.“If it was a political stunt it was a very stupid political stunt and I personally take some insult to it,” Vance said on the tarmac as he wrapped up his visit in Israel.Israeli analysts have pointed out that Israel currently rules the entire West Bank, except for limited urban enclaves under Palestinian self-rule, as if it were formally part of its territory.As is customary of Trump’s public-facing events, he has spent much of his time speaking blaming the Biden administration for the country he inherited.“By the way, the cartels control large swaths of territory. They maintain vast arsenals of weapons and soldiers, and they used extortion, murder, kidnapping, to exercise political and economic control,” he said. “Thank you very much, Joe Biden, for allowing that to happen. Biden surrendered our country to the cartels.”Donald Trump continued his threats to send the national guard to Chicago.“They don’t have it under control,” Trump said. “It’s getting worse, so we’ll take care of as soon as we give the go ahead.”This comes as the administration filed an emergency appeal to the supreme court after a federal judge blocked the administration’s from deploying troops to the Chicago indefinitely.The president has spent his opening remarks claiming his administration’s efforts in curbing cartels had been successful.“These groups have unleashed more bloodshed and killing on American soil than all other terrorist groups combined. These are the worst of the worst. It should now be clear to the entire world that the cartels are the Isis of the western hemisphere,” he said.We’re waiting for Donald Trump to appear in the state dining room for an announcement on cartels and human trafficking. Several cabinet members are already seated. Including defense secretary Pete Hegseth, attorney general Pam Bondi, and homeland security secretary Kristi Noem.It’s important to note that so far, Donald Trump has paid members of the military by ordering the Pentagon to use any unspent funds for the 2025 fiscal year. A move that experts and lawmakers alike say is squarely illegal.Romina Boccia, director of budget and entitlement policy at Cato Institute, emphasized that Congress has the sole prerogative to authorize funding.“The executive can’t just look for money under the cushions. It’s not their money to spend,” Boccia said. “If Congress doesn’t step up and reclaim its spending authority, the administration here is potentially setting very dangerous new precedents for executive spending that was never envisioned by America’s founders.”She added that there is the option for the administration to repurpose “unobligated balances” using the rescissions process. However, this isn’t playing out in this case because it still requires Congress’s authorization.“What we’re witnessing is the executive taking unprecedented steps to repurpose funding unilaterally,” Boccia said.While today’s failed Senate vote might give Trump the “political justification” for inappropriate government spending, there was no “legal justification”.Pivoting back to the Senate, where lawmakers failed to pass a bill to keep certain government workers and members of the military paid during the government shutdown.As I noted earlier, only three Democrats broke ranks with their party to vote in favor of the legislation. Most Democratic lawmakers voted against the bill, arguing that it would give Donald Trump the ability to handpick which workers and departments get to receive paychecks. Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, called the bill a “ruse” that “doesn’t the pain of the shutdown” but “extends it”.Democrats also offered alternative pieces of legislation. This included the True Shutdown Fairness Act, which would pay all roughly 700,000 furloughed federal employees, and inhibit the administration from carrying out any more mass layoffs while the government is shutdown. Senate Republicans, however, objected to their attempt to pass this bill by unanimous consent.John Thune, the upper chamber’s top Republican, said that Democrats are “playing a political game” by blocking today’s bill, in an attempt to appease their “far-left base”. On the Senate floor, Thune said that the failed legislation introduced by Republicans today would include the more than 300 federal workers at the Capitol who had to “work through the night and into the next day” during Oregon senator Jeff Merkley’s marathon speech lambasting the Trump administration, which lasted almost 23 hours. More

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      Trump cancels plans to send federal troops to San Francisco for immigration crackdown

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      Donald Trump has canceled plans for a deployment of federal troops to San Francisco that had sparked widespread condemnation from California leaders and sent protesters flooding into the streets.The Bay Area region had been on edge after reports emerged on Wednesday that the Trump administration was poised to send more than 100 Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and other federal agents to the US Coast Guard base in Alameda, a city in the East Bay, as part of a large-scale immigration-enforcement plan.But on Thursday, the president said he would not move forward with a “surge” of federal forces in the area after speaking with the mayor, Daniel Lurie, and Silicon Valley leaders including Marc Benioff, the Salesforce CEO who recently apologized for saying Trump should send national guard troops, and Jensen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia. Lurie said he spoke with the president on Wednesday night, and that Trump told him he would call off the deployment.“In that conversation, the president told me clearly that he was calling off any plans for a federal deployment in San Francisco. Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, reaffirmed that direction in our conversation this morning,” Lurie said in a statement.Trump confirmed the conversation on his Truth Social platform, saying: “I spoke to Mayor Lurie last night and he asked, very nicely, that I give him a chance to see if he can turn it around.”The operation had been expected to start as early as Thursday.The sudden reversal came as protesters had mobilized in anticipation of a surge in troops. Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the US Coast Guard base in Alameda on an overcast Thursday morning, holding signs with slogans such as “No ICE or Troops in the Bay!” Police used flash-bang grenades to clear a handful of demonstrators from the entrance as CBP vehicles drove through.View image in fullscreenLater on Thursday morning, protesters were walking in a slow circle at the gates of the Coast Guard base. Many were carrying signs that read: “Protect our neighbors, protegemos nuestros vecinos.” There was at least one person dressed as Batman, and Marvin Gaye was blasting through a loudspeaker.Josh Aguirre, 39, had come to participate in his first ever protest. “It’s scary what’s going on right now, and we’ve got to just stand in solidarity,” said Aguirre, who had come, along with his dog, from East Oakland – a largely Latino and immigrant community.He found out that federal agents would be deployed to the Bay Area from his four-year-old daughter’s school administrators. “And the first thing I thought was the families that I know who bring their kids to school are going to be affected the most,” he said. “It’s important to show up for your community.”Raj, an educator who asked to be identified only by his first name, had come with his 10-year-old daughter. “In the Bay we’re involved … and our kids know what’s happening,” he said. “When federal troops come in here, they won’t just see what they think they’re gonna see, which are like violent agitators. They’re going to see entire communities come out with their kids, with their families, with their teens.”By Thursday afternoon, local leaders and organizers had gathered outside San Francisco’s city hall, where they grappled with the whiplash. It remained unclear whether Trump’s decision to pull back was focused only on San Francisco, or if other Bay Area cities such as Oakland would still be targeted.“At this time, we do not know which federal agencies are being called off. We don’t know if that’s the national guard. We don’t know if it’s ICE, if it’s border patrol,” said Jackie Fielder, the San Francisco city supervisor representing parts of the city’s Mission neighborhood.Fielder also criticized Benioff, Elon Musk and other tech leaders who had voiced support for a national guard deployment in the Bay Area. “I condemn every tech billionaire who supported this,” she said. “This city doesn’t belong to them.”Fielder and other organizers emphasized that even as the region awaits clarity on whether and where there will be a federal deployment, and the extent to which the administration plans to ramp up immigration enforcement in the city, local leaders are going to continue to mobilize rapid response networks, legal aid and other support systems for the residents most affected.“We don’t need to get ready because we’ve been ready,” Fielder said. “This is not a time for panic. It is a time for power across this area.”Trump had signaled for weeks that San Francisco could be the next Democratic city to face an administration crackdown. In an interview on Fox News on Sunday, the president claimed “unquestioned power” to deploy the national guard and argued that San Francisco residents want the military in their city.It was unclear if the national guard would have played a role in operations in the region. But state and local leaders on Wednesday had responded swiftly and strongly to the news of the CBP operations, and vowed to fight any potential deployment of the military.California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, called Trump’s moves “right out of the dictator’s handbook”.“He sends out masked men, he sends out border patrol, he sends out ICE, he creates anxiety and fear in the community so that he can lay claim to solving for that by sending in the [national] guard,” Newsom said in a video statement. “This is no different than the arsonist putting out the fire.”Lurie said earlier in the week that his city was prepared.“For months, we have been anticipating the possibility of some kind of federal deployment in our city,” he said.Oakland’s mayor, Barbara Lee, said: “Real public safety comes from Oakland-based solutions, not federal military occupation.”View image in fullscreenRob Bonta, California’s attorney general, vowed to “be in court within hours, if not minutes”, if there is a federal deployment, and the San Francisco city attorney, David Chiu, has promised the same.San Francisco’s district attorney, Brooke Jenkins, said she was ready to prosecute any federal agents who violated California law.San Francisco has been the latest major US city to face Trump’s threats. The administration has previously sent the military to Los Angeles and Chicago, and has tried to deploy troops in Portland. All deployments have faced legal challenges from local and state authorities.Trump in recent weeks argued that a federal operation in San Francisco was necessary to combat crime. “Every American deserves to live in a community where they’re not afraid of being mugged, murdered, robbed, raped, assaulted or shot” he said at an appearance on 16 October.Local leaders, including the city’s mayor and district attorney, have said crime in the city is under control, pointing to falling crime rates and growing police recruitment. The city’s homicide rate this year is expected to be the lowest since 1954, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.Community groups had readied themselves to support affected residents. Organizers have mobilized to stage a mass rally in the city, as well as vigils at local libraries.City supervisor Jackie Fielder told reporters last week she and her constituents in the Mission district had been bracing for this moment.“The moment that people stop going to work, when anyone Black or brown can’t freely walk outside without the fear of Trump’s federal agents racially profiling and arresting them, the moment when parents stop sending kids to school, become too afraid to go to the grocery store or doctor,” Fielder said. “What we have been preparing for in the Mission is essentially a shutdown the likes of which we haven’t seen since Covid.” More

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      Silly inflatable costumes are taking over anti-Trump protests. What are they actually saying? | Julia Carrie Wong

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      There was little reason to imagine that the inflatable frogs would become an actual thing. Protests at the ICE detention center in Portland, Oregon, in recent months have reflected the city’s penchant for whimsy and weirdness, and tactics such as naked bike riding, organized public knitting and “ICE fishing” with doughnuts have largely remained a local affair.But when a federal agent in riot gear ran up behind a protester wearing an inflatable frog costume and sprayed a chemical agent directly into his costume’s air vent with all the casual menace of an exterminator, the inflatable frog went viral. “I’ve definitely had spicier tamales,” the 24-year-old protester, Seth Todd, told the Oregonian, cementing the frog’s status as a leftist folk hero.Soon, activists had launched “Operation Inflation” to equip Portland protesters with an entire menagerie of inflatable animal suits, and the costumes began appearing at other protest hotspots, including the ICE detention center near Chicago where police have deployed teargas, pepper balls and batons against protesters in recent weeks. By the time millions of Americans took to the streets in last weekend’s No Kings marches, inflatable costumes were ubiquitous.“I obviously started a movement of people showing up looking ridiculous, which is the exact point,” Todd said. “To show how the narrative that is being pushed [that] we are violent extremists is completely ridiculous.”View image in fullscreenMove over pussy hats. Step aside safety pins. The resistance 2.0 has a new visual language, and this time it’s polyester, battery-powered and full of hot air. The colorful costumes lent a festive air to the No Kings protests and offered an implicit rebuke to the Trump administration’s attempt to smear his political opponents as violent terrorists.“Frivolity and absurdity are kryptonite to authoritarians who project the stern father archetype to their followers,” wrote author Gary Shteyngart in a New York Times op-ed celebrating the profusion of playful and joyful imagery at Saturday’s marches. “Once the pants are lowered and the undies of the despot are glimpsed, there is no point of return.”It’s a lovely idea, but nine months into the second Trump administration, it’s hard to argue that Americans have yet to catch sight of the president’s dirty laundry. Kryptonite, like the emperor’s new clothes, is just a fairytale. As Americans seek to harness the energy of No Kings and direct it toward building an effective opposition to Trump’s authoritarian agenda, it’s worth considering what the inflatable costumes are actually saying.Street protest movements have many aims and many outcomes, but one of the most important is the production of imagery that conveys a message and outlasts the event itself. Activists are keenly aware of symbolism and optics – they aren’t called “demonstrations” for nothing – and often work to imbue protest aesthetics with their particular ideological and ethical commitments.Nonviolent resistance movements tend to adopt aesthetics that emphasize the inherent dignity and humble humanity of their members. From the Sunday best donned by marchers in the US civil rights movement to the simple dhoti worn by Gandhi and the modest white dress shirt and black slacks of the Tiananmen Square Tank Man, aesthetic choices by peaceful protesters are an effective way of manufacturing imagery that, by contrast, illustrates the sadism and brutality of an oppressive state.The rejection of respectability politics by subsequent generations of Black liberation activists in the US – from the Black Panther party to Black Lives Matter – reflected not just an aesthetic but also an ideological shift. The Panthers were not seeking equality within a white supremacist system, but a revolution of the system itself; their signature berets, black leather jackets and firearms asserted their militancy and tied them visually to other leftwing revolutionary movements around the world.View image in fullscreenRebel clowning or “tactical frivolity” represents a another aesthetic tradition of protest, one that deploys humor and buffoonery to pierce the aura of invincibility relied on by despots and dictators. From Charlie Chaplin’s lampooning of Adolf Hitler in the 1940 film The Great Dictator to the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (Circa) protests against globalization and capitalism in the early 2000s, clowning has a storied history within leftwing and antifascist resistance movements.“The clown puts their absurd body in the way of the harm of others. It is politically more expensive to club a clown!” wrote performance artist LM Bogad in a 2020 essay about his experience with Circa. Confrontations between clowns and riot police create what Bogad calls “irresistible images” – “images that are so compelling that our ideological opponents cannot help but reproduce them even though they undermine their worldview and support ours”.Portland’s inflatable frogs fit squarely into this tradition, co-opting and subverting the aesthetic of intentional cruelty that has been so assiduously cultivated by the second Trump administration. Maga’s exaggeratedly sculpted faces and glorification of human misery convey the underlying ethos of the Trumpist worldview: beauty is pain, and pain beauty. When Donald Trump conjures up a false image of Portland as “war-ravaged” and “under siege” by antifa “terrorists”, he asks his supporters to embrace the cleansing power of state violence. But when federal agents and riot cops are forced to carry out their attacks on inflatable cartoon characters rather than figures clad in the all-black uniform of recent iterations of antifascist activism, government forces are enlisted in the project of debunking their own lies.But there is a difference between facing down a riot cop outside an ICE detention center, and dancing in the streets during a permitted march on a sunny Saturday morning. When a Vietnam war protester placed flowers down the barrels of rifles wielded by military police at the 1967 march on the Pentagon, or when anti-occupation activists clucked like chickens before IDF soldiers in the West Bank, they clowned in the face of real danger. Without the implicit threat of state violence, without the bravery of offering up a comically unprotected body as a target for real violence, tactical frivolity can devolve into little more than entertainment.View image in fullscreenThere are very good reasons to hold family-friendly protests away from the threat of riot cops, but different contexts require different tactics; what is ridiculously effective in front of an ICE detention center can end up looking just a bit ridiculous when there is no danger in the frame.Already, one mainstream media outlet has published an affiliate link-laden article promoting cheap inflatable costumes on Amazon: “You too can join in on the movement today with this steeply discounted inflatable elephant costume that’s less than $20 – a record-low price, according to Amazon.” Similarly, the aesthetics of the flower power movement were adopted and commodified by the fashion industry over and over again, losing political potency along the way. The revolution may well end up being televised, but it is sure as hell not going to arrive in a cardboard box with free shipping from Amazon Prime.It is also worth keeping in mind that Trump is not a straightforward “stern father” autocrat. While some of his rhetoric and actions invoke violence and terror against disfavored groups, he has also played the role of his own court jester, to great effect. His disinhibited remarks and frequent buffoonery are doing their own work to disarm and discredit his opponents, who have often struggled to convince the broader public of the seriousness of the threat he poses. So while tactical frivolity certainly has the power to deflate the menace of the Department of Homeland Security’s anti-immigrant security apparatus, it is not clear that it has much to offer when confronting Trump directly. After the No Kings protests, the president posted an AI-generated video of himself dumping shit on protesters; it’s impossible to make him look like more of a clown than he already is.Finally, remember that clowning is a fundamentally de-escalatory tactic. When activists turn rifles into vases and riot cops into zookeepers, they are interrupting the cycle of escalating tension that can turn protests into dangerous confrontations. We absolutely need to de-escalate the violence that is being aimed at immigrants and other disfavored communities by Trump, ICE, DHS and the national guard – but it’s not clear to me that de-escalation is the right tactic for nationwide, popular protests. The Democratic party leadership has overwhelmingly failed to operate as an actual opposition party since Trump’s re-election; they don’t need to calm down, but to wake up.So please, wear your inflatable frog costume if you plan to use your body to obstruct the workings of Trump’s violent deportation machine: in addition to provoking irresistible images, it might help protect you against teargas and pepper spray. But let us be strategic about deploying tactical frivolity against Trumpism. When millions of people take to the streets to demand that our leaders and institutions stop capitulating, the message should not be mistaken for anything other than deadly serious. More

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      Letitia James asks New Yorkers to share footage of ICE after Chinatown raid

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      The New York state attorney general, Letitia James, rolled out a “Federal Action Reporting Portal” form urging New York residents to share photos and videos of federal immigration enforcement action across the state, just one day after a high-profile ICE raid rattled Manhattan’s Chinatown and prompted hundreds to come out in protest.“Every New Yorker has the right to live without fear or intimidation,” James wrote in a statement announcing the portal.“If you witnessed and documented ICE activity yesterday, I urge you to share that footage with my office. We are committed to reviewing these reports and assessing any violations of law.”The form offers spaces to submit images and video footage of the raid, as well as a place to indicate location information. Before submitting, users must check a box that indicates that “the Attorney General may use any documents, photographs, or videos I provided in a public document, including in a legal proceeding or public report or statement.”The Guardian has contacted James’s office for more information.The Chinatown raid, which onlookers say involved more than 50 federal agents, took place in a well-known area of Manhattan where counterfeit handbags, accessories, jewelry and other goods are sold daily en masse – often to tourists.Videos of Tuesday’s raid show multiple masked and armed federal agents zip-tying and detaining a man, and shoving away onlookers. Throngs of New Yorkers followed the agents through the streets and down the sidewalks. An armored military vehicle was also seen rolling through the city streets.Outrage over the ICE raid quickly spread – all three mayoral candidates condemned the raid, as did Governor Kathy Hochul.“Once again, the Trump administration chooses authoritarian theatrics that create fear, not safety. It must stop,” mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani wrote on X.New York City immigrant rights groups spoke out as well.“ICE descended on Manhattan’s Chinatown with military-style vehicles, masked agents and riot gear to target street vendors trying to make a living. This operation had nothing to do with public safety and everything to do with terrorizing immigrant families and communities,” said Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigrant Coalition.ICE raids have been cropping up increasingly in New York and around the country this year.A 16 October raid in midtown Manhattan was the first known raid on a migrant shelter of the current Trump administration. Protests against ICE are ubiquitous as are allegations of violence and inhumane treatment.Most recently, a letter submitted by the ACLU and other civil rights groups alleged medical neglect of pregnant women in ICE facilities. More