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      Texas’s Eagle Pass voters turned to Trump. A year later, some have doubts

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      Along southern Texas, the Rio Grande forms the US-Mexico border, an arrangement established after the end of the Mexican-American war. Eagle Pass, which had been known as El Paso del Águila, became the first US settlement on the Rio Grande.Swimming across the river has remained treacherous ever since. But migrants never stopped risking their lives to set foot on US soil – and in 2023, those numbers reach record highs as Eagle Pass, the seat of Maverick county, became the epicenter of growing backlash over the Biden administration’s immigration policies.In 2024, for the first time in a century, the Hispanic-majority border county voted for a Republican: Donald Trump. Trump won 14 out of 18 counties along the southern border, gaining the most support there of any Republican in three decades. But he made his biggest gains in Maverick, with 59% of the votes, increasing his support by 14% from 2020.While many supported Trump’s policies on border security, one year later some residents in Eagle Pass are increasingly uncomfortable with the tactics the administration has used across the country in keeping with its mass deportation agenda. Since Trump’s inauguration, federal agents have disrupted communities as they arrest parents who are with their children, show up at schools or daycare facilities, and accidentally sweep up US citizens.The intensity of the national crackdown is jarring for residents like Manuel Mello III who have been on the frontlines of border issues for decades. The chief of the Eagle Pass fire department, Mello explained that border crossings have always been part of the city’s history.Mello said his grandmother would pack food and water for those migrants that passed by. She would give them las bendiciones, or blessings in Spanish, and send them off. But what he saw at the Rio Grande in the last year of the Biden administration was unlike anything he had witnessed in his 33 years in the fire department.“We would get between 30 to 60 emergency calls a day about migrants crossing the river with a lot of injuries, some with broken femurs or this lady who had an emergency childbirth,” Mello said.In all 2024, the Eagle Pass fire department received more than 400 emergency calls and reported eight drownings. This year, the department has responded to fewer than 100 calls and reported only three drownings, according to numbers shared with the Guardian.“Now Eagle Pass has gone back to normal, but this is still a broken system. Because you’re deporting people doesn’t mean that you’re fixing it,” Mello said.A mile away, Ricardo Lopez and a group of friends gathered at a McDonald’s, as they do every week, to discuss some of the challenges facing Eagle Pass, a town in which 28,o00 people live.Not long after ordering coffee, Lopez and his friends, all bilingual men of Mexican descent, realized it has been almost a year since the last elections. They remembered the evolution of what was then an extraordinary series of events: from thousands of migrants swimming across the Rio Grande each day to foreign journalists wandering the town’s streets and Texas national guard troops grabbing lunch at local restaurants.“I think most people that live here can agree that it was the illegal immigration that was causing all the problems and that [Joe] Biden didn’t respond to the needs of the border,” said Lopez, 79, who recently ran for city council in Eagle Pass and lost. “After the last election I asked some of my friends, why did you vote for Trump? And they put it back to me: don’t you see what is happening? Though I don’t like the guy, he fixed the problem.”Just hours after taking office for a second time, Trump signed an order declaring a national emergency that allowed additional US troops to arrive at the southern border. But Trump didn’t only try to cut down on illegal immigration. The administration also terminated a mobile phone app created under Biden known as CBP One, which had allowed tens of thousands of people waiting in Mexico to cross into the US legally and apply for asylum.Since then, residents like Lopez have seen a dramatic change in Eagle Pass.At the height of the spike in migration in December of 2023, the border patrol recorded over 2,300 crossings a day in the Del Rio sector, home to Eagle Pass. In September of this year, it averaged just 30 crossings a day there, government data shows.Joshua Blank, research director of the Texas Politics project, a nonpartisan polling initiative by the University of Texas at Austin, said Maverick county was a reflection of broader political dynamics in the state, where Republicans were seeking to expand their appeal in blue-collar areas, including among Latinos.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Texas is a changing competitive landscape and more diverse than the country as a whole. If you try to appeal to Hispanics based on their Hispanicness, you might be missing the mark. And I think Democrats have probably failed in engaging with this group of people,” Blank said.Shortly after Biden entered the White House, Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, had also launched Operation Lone Star in a bid to deter illegal immigration. The effort quickly raised concerns about its tactics, including the busing of thousands of migrants to Chicago, New York and Washington DC.As part of the initiative, an 80-acre base camp was built in Eagle Pass to house 1,800 Texas national guard soldiers. Troops deployed there by Texas and other Republican-led states have been seen standing on the US side of the border setting up coils of razor wire along the banks of the Rio Grande, ordering migrants to swim back to Mexico.Texas says Operation Lone Star had led to more than 500,000 apprehensions of undocumented people.On a recent afternoon, the Guardian observed armed Texas national guard troops walking and watching over the US-Mexico border atop shipping containers. No migrants were seen crossing the river from Mexico. In Piedras Negras, there wasn’t razor wire preventing access to the Rio Grande.While the migration dynamics have changed at the border, some longtime residents are not just concerned about the impact on people. They’re also worried about the degradation of the environment as a result of Trump and Abbott’s crackdown.Abbott used a natural disaster declaration to install floating buoys separated by saw-blades in the river as a part of Operation Lone Star. Shortly after, Jessie Fuentes, the owner of a kayaking company in Eagle Pass, filed a lawsuit, seeking to stop the installation of floating barriers.“The river was part of my grandfather’s upbringing, my father’s upbringing and mine, more than 200 years of experience as a family, and now it’s been mistreated with this militarization,” said Fuentes.“The river can’t defend itself so I sued the Texas government.” More

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      Olivia Rodrigo condemns Trump administration’s use of her music for ‘racist, hateful propaganda’

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      Olivia Rodrigo has criticized the Trump administration after one of her songs was featured in a government video promoting deportation efforts.A clip posted on the official Department of Homeland Security and White House Instagram accounts encouraged undocumented immigrants to voluntarily leave the US. The video used a segment of Rodrigo’s song all-american bitch as its soundtrack.Rodrigo, who is Filipino American, reportedly condemned the use of her music in a comment on the post, writing: “don’t ever use my songs to promote your racist, hateful propaganda.” The comment was later taken down, but not before screenshots were captured and circulated widely.The video, uploaded Tuesday as Americans voted in several states, opens with the loud intro of the track as ICE agents are shown detaining people, accompanied by the caption: “IF ICE FINDS YOU.” It then transitions to scenes of immigrants seemingly choosing to self-deport, underscored by the song lyrics: “All the time/I’m grateful all the time/I’m sexy and I’m kind/I’m pretty when I cry.”The caption concludes with a warning: “LEAVE NOW and self-deport using the CBP Home app. If you don’t, you will face the consequences.”After Rodrigo’s response went viral on Friday, Instagram removed the soundtrack from the clip. An error message, reading “This song is currently unavailable”, is currently displayed.In a statement shared with the Guardian, a DHS spokesperson said: “America is grateful all the time for our federal law enforcement officers who keep us safe. We suggest Ms. Rodrigo thank them for their service, not belittle their sacrifice.”The department did not confirm whether they had removed the original comment by Rodrigo from the post.Rodrigo joins a growing list of artists who have objected to Trump or his administration using their music without consent, with others including Beyoncé, the Rolling Stones and the singer Jess Glynne.Glynne voiced her anger when one of her songs was similarly used, writing on Instagram: “This post honestly makes me sick. My music is about love, unity, and spreading positivity – never about division or hate.”This isn’t the first time Rodrigo has spoken out against the Trump administration. She publicly condemned ICE raids that took place in Los Angeles earlier in the year.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe singer, 22, wrote on Instagram: “I’ve lived in LA my whole life and I’m deeply upset about these violent deportations of my neighbors under the current administration. LA simply wouldn’t exist without immigrants. Treating hardworking community members with such little respect, empathy, and due process is awful.”Rodrigo previously collaborated with the federal government under very different circumstances. In 2021, she visited the White House wearing a vintage pink Chanel suit to meet then-president Joe Biden and Dr Anthony Fauci, recording a video to encourage youth vaccination during the Covid-19 pandemic.From the White House podium, she said: “I am beyond honored and humbled to be here today to help spread the message about the importance of youth vaccination. I’m in awe of the work President Biden and Dr Fauci have done and was happy to help lend my support to this important initiative.” More

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      ‘Huge victory’ in Portland as judge’s final order bars Trump from sending national guard

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      A federal judge in Oregon on Friday blocked Donald Trump from deploying national guard troops to Portland, ruling there was no evidence of widespread violence to justify federal intervention.The US district court judge, Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, delivered her final order in the case on Friday. She found that protests near Portland’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility were “predominately peaceful, with only isolated and sporadic instances of relatively low-level violence”.Earlier this week, Immergut barred Trump’s administration from deploying the national guard to Portland until at least Friday, saying she “found no credible evidence” that protests in the city had grown out of control before the president federalized the troops earlier this fall.In Friday’s ruling, she concluded that most altercations occurred between protesters and counter-protesters, not between protesters and federal agents. Immergut also acknowledged that while she “may lack jurisdiction to enjoin President Trump in the performance of his official duties”, her injunction only bars the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, from deploying members of the national guard to Oregon.This is the latest development in weeks of legal back and forth in Portland, Chicago and other US cities as the Trump administration has moved to federalize and deploy the national guard in city streets to quell protests.The ICE facility in south-west Portland has been the site of ongoing protests since June, when Portland police declared one a riot. The city of Portland and the state of Oregon sued the Trump administration in September after the president announced he had directed the defense department to federalize and deploy the Oregon national guard.Immergut previously issued a temporary restraining order barring the deployment of the national guard in Oregon, a decision the Trump administration appealed.The judge heard three days of witness testimony from law enforcement officers and officials describing conditions around the ICE facility. Oregon attorney general Dan Rayfield called Friday’s ruling “a huge victory”.“The courts are holding this administration accountable to the truth and the rule of law,” Rayfield said. “From the beginning, this case has been about making sure that facts, not political whims, guide how the law is applied. Today’s decision protects that principle.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Trump administration is expected to appeal the ruling. More

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      An Arizona town is dreading plans to turn its prison into an ICE facility: ‘It’s morally objectionable’

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      In an Arizona town where farmers have long wrested a living off the arid land, reports that a former prison complex may be turned into an immigration detention center have sparked a fierce backlash, with residents seeing the potential transition as the latest undesirable symbol of the Trump administration’s massive escalation of immigration enforcement.The facility in Marana, a town of about 63,700 people located north of Tucson, sprawls across a flat expanse of desert studded with scrubby bushes and hardy trees. It was shuttered almost two years ago, and the Management and Training Corporation, the private company that owns it, informed the town manager of company plans to operate a detention center in the prison.During a town hall meeting on 23 October, residents crowded into a school auditorium to learn more from representatives of local government and advocacy organizations about the plan. Many attenders spoke against the jailing of immigrants amid Donald Trump’s crusade to deport as many undocumented immigrants as possible.Karla Jones, one of the attenders, said she abhorred the idea of having a nearby detention center to hold immigrants – whose only crime in many cases is lacking US legal status, a civil offense – for extended periods of time. “That’s breaking up families,” she said. “And it’s people who are paying taxes, it’s people who are working. So I don’t want my community to support that.”Federal legislation passed in July provided $45bn for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to build more detention centers for adults and children as part of a larger $75bn, four-year package for the federal agency. To vastly increase detention capacity, the federal government is relying heavily on for-profit private companies that run prisons.The Utah-based Management and Training Corporation (MTC) is one of those companies. MTC built the Marana prison in the mid-1990s, when the population in the then largely farming community was about 2,000. It was the first private prison in the state.In 2013, Arizona bought the prison for $150,000. In December 2023, the state – citing high costs and a decreasing incarcerated population – closed it. This past summer, after Arizona lawmakers rejected a bill that would have leased the prison for $1 a year to the federal government for use as an immigration detention center – MTC paid the state $15m to get it back.View image in fullscreenMarana’s town manager, Terry Rozema, said there was little the town could do to prevent the use of the building complex as a detention center. “The facility is privately owned by MTC and is already properly zoned for use as a prison or an ICE facility. As such, the town doesn’t have authority to restrict its future use as long as it meets current zoning,” Rozema said in an emailed statement.Emily Lawhead, MTC’s director of communications, declined an interview but wrote in an email that the company was “in discussions with several public agencies that may have a need for additional bed space”. ICE did not respond to questions regarding plans to use the onetime prison, but an agency spokesperson cited the need for “greater detention capacity” due to “a significant number of arrests”.MTC already operates five immigration detention centers in California, New Mexico and Texas.Its record in Arizona is spotty. In 2015, the state canceled a contract with the company after a riot at a prison it operated in the town of Kingman left more than a dozen incarcerated people and guards injured. A subsequent investigation by the Arizona department of corrections concluded that the company had “a culture of disorganization, disengagement and disregard” for state policies. MTC did not respond to the Guardian’s questions about those allegations, but the company has previously described the investigation’s findings as flawed.Jennifer Allen, a member of the board of supervisors for Pima county, where Marana is located, said that given reports about the poor conditions facing ICE detainees across the country, she and her constituents were concerned about the treatment of people in the Marana facility if it were to be converted and about oversight of the facility. She criticized the federal government for showering immigration enforcement with resources while simultaneously cutting funding for social safety net programs for older adults, children and other vulnerable populations.At the town hall, the federal government received plenty of criticism for its aggressive immigration agenda. Many attenders spoke against not just having a detention center in the vicinity, but also about the impact of social harms of the crackdown. Some residents brought signs bearing the slogan “Stop the kidnappings, protect your neighbors”, alluding to forceful arrests of immigrants in their homes, at work and in the streets.Speaking to the crowd, Tucson resident Maximiliano Torres likened the Trump administration’s detention and deportation campaign to Arizona’s 2010 Senate Bill 1070, commonly known as the “show me your papers” law that empowered police to conduct immigration enforcement. Although police can still inquire about immigration status, it’s no longer required because courts have largely struck down the law as unconstitutional.Recalling the law’s impact, Torres told the crowd: “They turned [crossing the border without authorization] into a criminal act, so they could justify putting those people in prison and forcing the federal government to pay private prisons.”While Trump has repeatedly promised immigration enforcement efforts would be focused on undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes, statistics show that those being held in detention are primarily people without criminal convictions. As of September, 71.5% of the 59,762 immigrants in detention had no criminal conviction, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. Many convictions involved traffic violations and other minor offenses.Under the Biden administration, immigrants with strong community ties and no serious brushes with the law would generally be released and be asked to check in with ICE periodically, since the government prioritized deporting people with criminal convictions, said Jennifer Ibañez Whitlock, senior policy counsel at the National Immigration Law Center. “Now everybody gets arrested, everybody gets detained,” she said.The Trump administration has significantly expanded mandatory detention to keep immigrants in confinement during proceedings to remove them from the country, she said. “More and more often, people are just giving up and agreeing to be deported instead of sitting in jail trying to fight their case,” the attorney said.In Marana, resident Tom Flynn left the town hall clutching one of the protest signs. He detests the possibility of an immigrant detention center in his town. “No 1, it’s morally objectionable,” he said. “No 2, it’s a detriment to the overall economy; it reduces the number of people who have been in the area, it depresses home values. And it’s so obviously politically driven.”Marlis Dinning said what she heard at the town hall about the possible detention center was disturbing. “It seems like all of this has happened behind closed doors,” she said. She’s against the detention of immigrants, many of them asylum seekers who entered the country legally, and who now “have no way to get citizenship”, she said.After the town hall, Jones was feeling quite unsettled by the overall discussion. But she vowed to participate in the mounting community pressure to keep the detention center at bay. “I really hope we can stop it from opening,” she said. More

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      ICE plans to open call center to help law enforcement locate unaccompanied minors

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      US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to open a new call center to help law enforcement agencies track down unaccompanied migrant children.According to a homeland security department Request for Information (RFI) notice released this week, ICE stated there was an “immediate need to establish and maintain” a call center equipped with “data-enabled technology”.The agency said the center’s purpose was to “support partner encounters in the field … focused on locating unaccompanied alien children”.The facility, slated to open in Nashville, Tennessee, will operate 24 hours a day and is expected to handle between 6,000 and 7,000 calls daily. The document did not specify why Nashville was chosen for the call center. ICE anticipates the center will open by March and reach full operational capacity by June.In the RFI, ICE also asked potential contractors to outline what kinds of “enabling technology” they would recommend to “integrate partner and alien data with our systems to maximize call efficiency and reduce call time”.In response to a Guardian request for comment, assistant homeland security secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in an emailed statement: “Your reporting is inaccurate,” without providing any details.ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.In addition to the planned call center, CoreCivic Inc, the nation’s second-largest private prison operator, is headquartered in Nashville. Since Donald Trump took office in January, the company has reported strong financial gains, announcing $538.2m in earnings for the second quarter of this year, a 9.8% increase over the same period last year.The surge in profits for private prison companies, along with those of technology firms such as Palantir, which recently secured a $30m contract with ICE to build a database aimed at streamlining detentions and deportations, comes amid an escalation in immigration raids nationwide. These actions have provoked fierce backlash from the public, Democratic lawmakers and civil rights groups alike.Reports of the planned ICE call center come as the Trump administration appears to have revived the practice of family separations in its renewed effort to deport millions, according to multiple cases reviewed by the Guardian. Immigration attorneys and former officials say the move is intended to pressure immigrants and asylum seekers to leave the US voluntarily.Meanwhile, in a memo obtained by the Guardian last month, the Trump administration laid out plans to offer migrant children $2,500 as a “one-time resettlement support stipend” in exchange for their self-deportation.This latest escalation builds on policies from Trump’s first term, which included a “zero-tolerance” approach that directed the justice department to prosecute anyone who crossed the border without legal status. That policy led to the separation of at least 5,500 migrant children from their parents and guardians at the US-Mexico border.After widespread backlash from the public, as well as from both Democrats and Republicans, Trump signed an executive order in 2018 to formally end the family separation policy. More

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      Pall of ICE spoils weekend celebrations in Chicago: ‘I think people are just scared’

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      For 40-year-old Cecilia Romero, the days before and after Halloween are not just any other holiday. It’s the time of year when she can take her kids trick-or-treating in the neighborhood she’s from – and a connection to her own past when she would go celebrate as a little girl.She remembers years of streets brimming with families and children, with street vendors selling food and cempasúchil, the marigolds that loved ones place on altars for Day of the Dead – or Día de los Muertos – from 1 to 2 November.But this year, things are much, much different – because of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids that have been happening in and around Chicago since early September.“Clearly, it’s because of ICE,” Romero said. Referring to how JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, had unsuccessfully requested that the Trump administration pause immigration enforcement operations for the Halloween weekend which began Friday, she added: “I think people are just scared. It’s just kind of sad that kids are not allowed to have fun on a day where they should be [kids].”In the Chicago neighborhoods of Pilsen and Little Village, Halloween, All Saints Day on 1 November, and Día de los Muertos collectively play an important part in bringing the community together to celebrate, mourn and pray as a whole. This year, amid ICE enforcement and raids, the celebrations were a lot more muted. At any point throughout years past, the corridors of 18th Street in Pilsen and 26th Street in Little Village would be packed with people. Those same corridors were much more empty for hours at a time when the Halloween weekend began Friday on this occasion.Prior to Pritzker’s plea to let families celebrate Halloween, federal agents released pepper spray on 25 October in Old Irving Park in an incident that led to the cancellation of a Halloween parade. On Friday, ICE operations in Evanston got out of control, according to neighbors, close to Chute middle school. Federal agents used pepper spray and arrested three US citizens, according to NBC 5 Chicago, on allegations of “violence against law enforcement”.Marco DeSantiago, 49, grew up on Chicago’s South Side, but has been taking his kids to Pilsen for the Halloween festivities for the last 12 years. And he said the changed tone for the revelry this time was striking.“I guess the big difference this year is you could just feel [the] sadness,” DeSantiago said. “It’s a somberness, we feel personally, I could just see [it] in people’s faces. It’s not a joyous occasion.“You’re kind of doing it to keep it going for the kids but everybody, I think, is feeling pretty sad and upset.”He said that in years past more businesses and people had their doors open to trick-or-treaters – more street vendors were on the street, and the vibe was happier and more celebratory.Instead, it felt more like a solemn occasion, he said, adding: “It’s definitely a different feeling.”View image in fullscreenAt nearby soccer fields owned by the Catholic church and school St Procopius, an annual Día de los Muertos celebration featured the usual elaborately decorated altars with photos of deceased loved ones. The tributes had their favorite snacks and items they owned – rosaries or bags, or even Pond’s face cream, and the iconic orange marigolds, in some cases substituted for a plastic alternative, along with votive candles, decorated skulls, as well as many depictions of the Virgin Mary.Yet a lower attendance than usual was obvious to those who went.“It would be packed from the afternoon till the end, like there will be people coming in and out and so you can definitely see a change or a shift – but I don’t think that has to do with the [lack of] motivation or the love for the holiday,” said Isabel Hernández, 27, who was sitting next to an intricate altar for her grandmother, Lorenza Hernández. “I think it’s more so part of the fear right now of … what’s going on in the city, in the country.”Hernández feels particularly sad for people who might be mourning a recent loss – but, due to the ICE raids, might not feel comfortable or safe enough to be able to celebrate with others or partake in the traditions.“I don’t think the grieving is going to ever just go away, but I think you just have to heal with time … or be able to control it some more,” she said. “I can’t even imagine, for those that just recently lost someone … what they’re experiencing seeing people celebrating and then not being able to celebrate with others. I think that’s really hard.”Hernández’s mom, Cecilia, said that it was important for her and her loved ones to keep going with their traditional celebrations despite the pervading sadness.“One of the questions was like, ‘Should we have this event take place?’” Cecilia, 52, said. “For me personally, I was like, ‘Yes, let’s have it,’ because we don’t want what’s happening out there with ICE [to] take that away from us.”For Romero, she just wants to continue celebrating like she used to. “Hopefully, ICE will leave,” she said. “We don’t want them here. We don’t need them here. You know, our city – and I think our country – has been doing fairly well without them coming in.” More

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      What would you do if democracy was being dismantled before your eyes? Whatever you’re doing right now | Andy Beckett

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      How would you behave if your democracy was being dismantled? In most western countries, that used to be an academic question. Societies where this process had happened, such as Germany in the 1930s, seemed increasingly distant. The contrasting ways that people reacted to authoritarianism and autocracy, both politically and in their everyday lives, while darkly fascinating and important to study and remember, seemed of diminishing relevance to now.Not any more. Illiberal populism has spread across the world, either challenging for power or entrenching itself in office, from Argentina to Italy, France to Indonesia, Hungary to Britain. But probably the most significant example of a relatively free, pluralist society and political system turning into something very different remains the US, now nine months into Donald Trump’s second term.As it often does, the US is demonstrating what the future could be for much of the world. Trump’s purges of immigrants, centralisation of power, suppression of dissent, rewarding of loyal oligarchs and contempt for truth and the law are not unique. Even governments which present themselves as alternatives to populism, such as Keir Starmer’s, increasingly share some of its features, such as a performative severity towards asylum seekers. Yet with over three years left of Trump’s frenetic presidency, and possibly more – were he to overcome the constitutional and electoral obstacles to a third term – life under him already provides the most unsettling picture of democracy under siege so far.Partly because populism is divisive – setting “the people” against their supposed enemies – and partly because Trump is so volatile, the domestic impact of his regime is very uneven. And so is how different groups and individuals respond to its actions. These complex, often disturbing patterns are particularly clear in California, one of the places he most dislikes, for its liberal values and multiculturalism, and where his regime has most aggressively intervened.In Los Angeles, where US marines, national guard troops and armed officers of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have been controversially deployed by the federal government on and off since June, some largely Latino neighbourhoods remain eerily quiet. In Boyle Heights last Wednesday morning, two of the usual hubs for shopping and socialising, Cesar Chavez Avenue and Mariachi Plaza, were almost deserted, bakeries and cafes empty, only a few of the square’s outdoor seats taken, despite a mellow autumn sun. Fear of sudden arrest, detention and deportation has kept many people indoors and away from public spaces for months.Yet in the neighbouring arts district of downtown LA, a gentrified grid of former warehouses and factories, the bakeries and cafes were busy as usual. Over pricey iced coffees and fat, artisanal sandwiches, fashionably dressed clusters of largely white people chatted about their latest cultural projects. The fact that Trump and his supporters would probably hate the whole scene, or that something approaching martial law had been imposed just up the road, did not appear to be affecting these ambitious millennials. In the US, as in other countries that are becoming or have become authoritarian, for those spared by the state, careers, social lives, leisure and consumerism carry on – and sometimes with a new intensity, as a form of escape.However, avoiding and engaging with politics are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Often, both impulses coexist in people, especially when faced with something as simultaneously provocative and exhausting as hard-right populism. Periods of passivity, of apparent acceptance of the status quo, alternate with an urge to act.View image in fullscreenA fortnight ago, I went to a No Kings protest in Beverly Hills, a Californian city much less associated with activism than deep wealth. I expected a small gathering of elite liberals; instead, there were a couple of thousand boisterous people, of all ages, marching back and forth for hours along the edge of a park, carrying witty anti-Trump placards and chanting, to the accompaniment of drummers and constant passing car horns. The chants were not that fluent, which suggested that the participants did not protest often, and so did their gleeful smiles, as if they were doing something unexpectedly enjoyable and naughty. The whole event was uplifting: politics coming alive for people, perhaps for the first time.But authoritarianism can provoke more jaded reactions as well. In San Francisco, traditionally a more political place, while there have been big No Kings protests, I also encountered a contempt towards Trump and his circle, for their blatant self-interest, cartoonish bullying and vast exaggerations, which risked becoming an angry apathy: a belief that the regime was a malign fact of life, like a government in a totally corrupt state or the Soviet bloc. This response, like refusing to rise to Trump’s attention-seeking, can be understood and justified as a form of conscious disengagement and as a coping mechanism. Yet while liberals and leftists brood, his regime relentlessly moves on.While I was in San Francisco, it was rumoured that he was about to send troops or federal agents to what he claimed was a failing city. Some people I spoke to there ridiculed the idea. They gestured towards the many beautiful streets, successful businesses, picturesque green spaces and extensive public transport – a quality of life which, while increasingly unaffordable for some, exceeds that of many Trump-supporting places.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHowever, in countries dominated by autocratic populism and digital media, propaganda often defeats facts. Trump called off his San Francisco invasion, but the possibility of it remains, like a crude but effective TV cliffhanger. Creating a politics which can stand up to rightwing populism’s showmanship and drama in a sustained way is a project which has so far defeated Trump’s opponents, with the exception of isolated leftwingers such as Zohran Mamdani and Bernie Sanders.If Reform UK wins power, as seems increasingly possible, then British liberals and leftists will face the same challenge. Nigel Farage could launch endless eye-catching policies from Downing Street, such as the Trump-style deconstruction and politicisation of Whitehall, which Reform promised this week. These policies may fail or disappoint, as Trump’s often have, but make the political weather nevertheless. Unless populism’s opponents create an equally relentless and compelling movement, and draw in more of those whom populism victimises and scares into silence, then this age of autocrats will carry on. As the US shows, sporadic resistance, contempt and avoidance are not enough.

      Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist More

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      California: officials investigate after second shooting by ICE agents in a week

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      US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were involved in a shooting in southern California on Thursday, prompting a federal investigation.The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement that ICE officers were conducting a vehicle stop in Ontario when another driver, who was not the target, approached. Officers ordered the driver to leave the area, according to the statement.“As the driver began to pull away, the car stopped and attempted to run officers over by reversing directly at them without stopping,” Tricia McLaughlin, the DHS’s assistant press secretary, said in a statement.“An ICE officer, fearing for his life, fired defensive shots at the vehicle. The subject fled the scene and abandoned his vehicle.”The shooting was the second such incident in the Los Angeles area in recent weeks. Last week, federal agents shot a Los Angeles man who livestreams US immigration enforcement operations on social media.Officials said at the time that Carlitos Ricardo Parias, a TikTok creator with a large following, attempted to ram federal agents’ vehicles after agents surrounded him and boxed in his car. Officers shot him in the elbow while a ricochet bullet hit a deputy US marshal in the hand.In Phoenix on Wednesday, an ICE officer shot at a vehicle that officials had tried to stop. The driver began to drive away and officials said the officer was in the vehicle’s path, ABC 15 reported.The shootings come as the Trump administration attempts to significantly expand its deportation operations across the US. The government is reportedly moving to overhaul ICE leadership in order increase the pace of removals.Meanwhile, conditions in ICE facilities are troubling. The Guardian reported this week that US immigration officials are increasingly holding people in small and secretive facilities for days and in some cases weeks, a violation of federal policy. At least 16 people died in ICE facilities between January and September.Deportation operations have upended communities across the US, particularly in southern California, where the fear of raids and removal has left residents on edge and in some cases fearful to leave their homes.The homeland security department said in its statement that Thursday’s shooting “was another example of the threats our ICE officers are facing day-in and day-out as they risk their lives to enforce the law and arrest criminals”.“ICE officers now face a 1,000% increase in assaults against them, including cars being used as weapons, and death threats against our agents are up 8,000%,” McLaughlin said. “Let me be clear: anyone who assaults, impedes, obstructs, or threatens the lives of federal officers will be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” More