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      How can Trump use the national guard on US soil?

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      Donald Trump said on Saturday he’s deploying 2,000 California national guard troops to Los Angeles to respond to immigration protests, over the objections of the California governor, Gavin Newsom.Here are some things to know about when and how the president can deploy troops on US soil.The laws are a bit vagueGenerally, federal military forces are not allowed to carry out civilian law enforcement duties against US citizens except in times of emergency.An 18th-century wartime law called the Insurrection Act is the main legal mechanism a president can use to activate the military or national guard during times of rebellion or unrest. But Trump didn’t invoke the Insurrection Act on Saturday.Instead, he relied on a similar federal law that allows the president to federalize national guard troops under certain circumstances.The national guard is a hybrid entity that serves both state and federal interests. Often, it operates under state command and control, using state funding. Sometimes national guard troops will be assigned by their state to serve federal missions, remaining under state command but using federal funding.The law cited by Trump’s proclamation places national guard troops under federal command. The law says this can be done under three circumstances: when the US is invaded or in danger of invasion; when there is a rebellion or danger of rebellion against the authority of the US government; or when the president is unable to “execute the laws of the United States”, with regular forces.But the law also says that orders for those purposes “shall be issued through the governors of the States”. It’s not immediately clear whether the president can activate national guard troops without the order of that state’s governor.The role of the national guard troops will be limitedTrump’s proclamation says the national guard troops will play a supporting role by protecting US immigration officers as they enforce the law, rather than having the troops perform law enforcement work.Steve Vladeck, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center who specializes in military justice and national security law, says that’s because national guard troops can’t legally engage in ordinary law enforcement activities unless Trump first invokes the Insurrection Act.Vladeck said the move raises the risk that the troops could end up using force while filling that “protection” role. The move could also be a precursor to other, more aggressive troop deployments down the road, he wrote on his website.“There’s nothing these troops will be allowed to do that, for example, the ICE officers against whom these protests have been directed could not do themselves,” Vladeck wrote.Troops have been mobilized beforeThe Insurrection Act and related laws were used during the civil rights era to protect activists and students desegregating schools. Dwight Eisenhower sent the 101st airborne to Little Rock, Arkansas, to protect Black students integrating Central high school after that state’s governor activated the national guard to keep the students out.George HW Bush used the Insurrection Act to respond to riots in Los Angeles in 1992 after the acquittal of white police officers who were videotaped beating Black motorist Rodney King.National guard troops have been deployed for a variety of emergencies, including the Covid pandemic, hurricanes and other natural disasters. But generally, those deployments are carried out with the agreements of the governors of the responding states.Trump is willing to use the military on home soilIn 2020, Trump asked governors of several states to deploy their national guard troops to Washington DC to quell protests that arose after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer. Many of the governors agreed, sending troops to the federal district.At the time, Trump also threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act for protests following Floyd’s death in Minneapolis – an intervention rarely seen in modern American history. But then defense secretary Mark Esper pushed back, saying the law should be invoked “only in the most urgent and dire of situations”.Trump never did invoke the Insurrection Act during his first term.But while campaigning for his second term, he suggested that would change. Trump told an audience in Iowa in 2023 that he had been prevented from using the military to suppress violence in cities and states during his first term, and said that if the issue came up again in his next term: “I’m not waiting.”Trump also promised to deploy the national guard to help carry out his immigration enforcement goals, and his top adviser, Stephen Miller, explained how that would be carried out: sympathetic Republican governors would send troops to nearby states that refused to participate, Miller said on The Charlie Kirk Show in 2023.After Trump announced he was federalizing the national guard troops on Saturday, the defense secretary Pete Hegseth said other measures could follow.Hegseth wrote on the social media platform X that active-duty Marines at Camp Pendleton were on high alert and would also be mobilized “if violence continues”. More

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      Immigration raids in LA expand despite protests with teargas and flash-bangs

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      US immigration authorities extended activity in the Los Angeles area on Saturday in the wake of protests at a federal detention facility and a police response that included teargas, flash-bangs and the arrest of a union leader.Border patrol personnel in riot gear and gas masks stood guard outside an industrial park in the city of Paramount, deploying teargas as bystanders and protesters gathered on medians and across the street, some jeering at authorities while recording the event on smartphones.“Ice out of Paramount. We see you for what you are,” a woman announced through a megaphone. “You are not welcome here.”One handheld sign said: “No Human Being is Illegal.”The boulevard was closed to traffic as US Customs and Border Protection circulated through the area. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) representatives did not respond immediately to email inquiries about weekend enforcement activities.Arrests by immigration authorities in Los Angeles come as Donald Trump and his administration push to fulfill promises to carry out mass deportations across the country.On Friday, Ice officers arrested more than 40 people as they executed search warrants at multiple locations, including outside a clothing warehouse where a tense scene unfolded as a crowd tried to block agents from driving away.The Los Angeles mayor, Karen Bass, said the activity was meant to “sow terror” in the nation’s second-largest city.In a statement on Saturday, Ice acting director Todd Lyons chided Bass for the city’s response to protests.“Mayor Bass took the side of chaos and lawlessness over law enforcement,” Lyons said in a statement. “Make no mistake, ICE will continue to enforce our nation’s immigration laws and arrest criminal illegal aliens.”Protesters gathered Friday evening outside a federal detention center in Los Angeles where lawyers said those arrested had been taken, chanting: “Set them free, let them stay!”Other protesters held signs that said “ICE out of LA!” and led chants and shouted from megaphones. Some scrawled graffiti on the building facade.Federal agents executed search warrants at three locations, including a warehouse in the fashion district of Los Angeles, after a judge found there was probable cause the employer was using fictitious documents for some of its workers, according to representatives for homeland security investigations and the US attorney’s office.Advocates for immigrant rights say people were detained Friday by immigration authorities outside Home Depot stores and a doughnut shop. More

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      Ice agents use pepper spray and smoke grenades to disperse LA protesters

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      The Department of Homeland Security conducted raids on multiple locations across Los Angeles on Friday, clashing with the crowds of people who gathered to protest.Masked agents were recorded pulling several people out of two LA-area Home Depot stores and the clothing manufacturer Ambient Apparel’s headquarters in LA’s Fashion District. Immigration advocates said the raids also included four other locations, including a doughnut shop.There has not yet been confirmation of how many people were taken into custody during the coordinated sweeps.At an afternoon press conference, Angelica Salas, executive director for the Coalition of Humane Immigrant Rights, said at least 45 people were arrested without warrants.“Our community is under attack and is being terrorized. These are workers, these are fathers, these are mothers, and this has to stop. Immigration enforcement that is terrorizing our families throughout this country and picking up our people that we love must stop now,” Salas told the crowd.The protest only grew as the afternoon wore on. By 6pm local time, hundreds of people assembled around the federal building in downtown Los Angeles, where those taken into custody during the raids are being held.Earlier in the day, armed agents clad in heavy protective and tactical gear, including some who wore gas masks, could be seen on video and through aerial footage pushing individuals and trying to corral large groups that congregated to challenge the raids.Smoke grenades were reportedly thrown near the crowds and pepper spray was used as the federal officers attempted to clear the area. As the demonstrations continued into the evening, videos showed officers firing less-lethal weapons toward protestors.View image in fullscreenSome people in the crowd attempted to block large armored trucks carrying FBI agents as they departed. One person reportedly threw eggs at the vehicles.The Los Angeles fire department was called to the scene to administer aid to protesters injured by agents and officers, which included the president of the California branch of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), David Huerta, the organization said in statement calling for his immediate release.“We call for an end to the cruel, destructive, and indiscriminate Ice raids that are tearing apart our communities, disrupting our economy, and hurting all working people,” Tia Orr, executive director of SEIU California said.“Immigrant workers are essential to our society: feeding our nation, caring for our elders, cleaning our workplaces, and building our homes.”The Los Angeles police department also assisted the federal officers in dispersing demonstrators, despite the department’s insistence that it is not involved in “civil immigration enforcement”, and would only have a presence to ensure public safety.Advocates used megaphones from the streets outside where the raids were occurring to remind workers inside of their rights, the Los Angeles Times reported. Some called out individual names and demanded they be given access to lawyers.“The community is here with you,” one person shouted. “Your family is here with you.”Los Angeles leaders were quick to condemn the actions, which were part of a string of high-profile raids undertaken by Immigration and Customs Enforcement under orders from Donald Trump.“I am closely monitoring the Ice raids that are currently happening across Los Angeles, including at a Korean-American owned store in my district,” Congresswoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove said in a post on X, along with instructions on how impacted constituents could reach her office for help.“LA has long been a safe haven for immigrants,” she added. “Trump claims he’s targeting criminals, but he’s really just tearing families apart and destabilizing entire communities.”Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement that she was “deeply angered by what has taken place,” and that her office was coordinating with immigrant rights community organizations.“These tactics sow terror in our communities and disrupt basic principles of safety in our city,” she said. “We will not stand for this.”Los Angeles councilmember Eunisses Hernandez said in a statement: “These actions are escalating: agents arrive without warning and leave quickly, aware that our communities mobilize fast. I urge Angelenos to stay alert.” More

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      Trump’s mass federal cuts disrupt LA wildfire recovery: ‘It’s coming tumbling down’

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      On 13 April, Tess McGinley was working in her Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) cubicle in Los Angeles, calling people who had lost their homes in the January wildfires, when her team was told to stop what they were doing and leave the office immediately.McGinley, a 23-year-old team leader for AmeriCorps, the US agency for national service and volunteerism, was helping Fema by reviewing wildfire survivors’ cases to ensure they received housing assistance. Over the past six weeks, she and her seven teammates had reviewed more than 4,000 cases and made hundreds of calls to survivors. Now, even as the team drove home after their jobs were cut, their government phones kept ringing. “Survivors just kept calling us … And we weren’t able to help,” McGinley said.“I think of one survivor calling over and over, getting my voicemail, and thinking that Fema has abandoned them,” she added.View image in fullscreenMore than 400 AmeriCorps staff and volunteers were deployed in the aftermath of the January megafires that destroyed thousands of homes and businesses and killed 30 people. They helped 26,000 households affected by the fires and packed 21,000 food boxes. But in April, the agency placed about 90% of its staff on immediate leave.The cuts were among the harshest doled out by Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge). But AmeriCorps is just one of several agencies involved in the response to emergencies like the LA fires that has seen drastic reductions as Trump has sought to slash costs across the federal government and shift disaster preparedness on to state and local governments. Fema, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the army corps of engineers and the Small Business Administration (SBA) have all been affected as well.A flurry of lawsuits are challenging the Trump administration’s cuts to various federal departments, including two lawsuits led by the state of California and Democracy Forward over the gutting of AmeriCorps.But the cuts are already being acutely felt in LA’s burn zones. Disaster relief is composed of many different agencies at the local, state and federal levels, and the federal support is now being pulled out. “Jenga is one of the best ways to describe it,” said Kelly Daly, AmeriCorps employees union AFSCME Local 2027 president. “It’s going to come tumbling down.”The impact of AmeriCorps volunteersAnthony Garcia-Perez, 25, spent more than three months helping wildfire survivors, working six days a week and 10 hours a day. AmeriCorps made it possible for him to volunteer by covering his hotel and meals. He worked at a YMCA in Pasadena, handing out food and clothing donations to survivors, and at a disaster recovery center, assisting Fema workers and translating for wildfire survivors who only spoke Spanish.He recalls meeting a family of five who lost their home in the Eaton fire and became regulars at the YMCA. The mother, father and three young children were living in their car. The children had no toys. Garcia-Perez found dolls for the two girls, and a rattle toy for the family’s newborn son. “Seeing the smiles on the kids’ faces, getting something as simple as a doll, definitely made my day,” Garcia-Perez said. “The mom was overwhelmed. She started crying and thanking us for everything. We said we were more than happy to help. We’re here for them.”View image in fullscreenGarcia-Perez heard on 28 April that the funding supporting him was cut. “We were told to go back to our hotels, pack and then be ready to go home the next day,” he said.Nearly a month after leaving Los Angeles, his mind still turns to the families he helped. “I wonder if they’re OK, I wonder if they’re getting the help they need.”Crucial Small Business Administration loansAfter the fires, the Small Business Administration contributed $2bn in disaster loans – the largest source of federal disaster recovery for homeowners, renters, businesses and non-profits. In March, the Trump administration announced cuts to 43% of the agency’s workforce.Judy Chu, the US congresswoman who represents wildfire survivors in Altadena, said she feared the federal cuts would make it harder for survivors to navigate recovery. “So many of them need help, especially the elderly and disabled,” she said. “I worry about them being able to make their way through the morass of bureaucracy.”Chu said she had already heard from Altadena residents who felt frustrated by the federal cuts.View image in fullscreenA woman who lost her home in the Eaton fire had told Chu she had secured a loan from the SBA, support she said was crucial because she was underinsured and couldn’t afford to rebuild without a loan. Since the Doge cuts, she said her caseworker was not responsive and she experienced long wait times to get questions answered.“Our community was devastated,” the woman wrote to Chu. “We want to rebuild and move forward, but how can we when the very support we rely on is being stripped away?”Canceling Fema’s disaster aidTo help the city recover, Fema approved more than $200m in relief funds for eligible wildfire survivors, and helped fund transitional hotels and shelters. The agency also deployed 70 staff to help survivors apply for aid. The White House said in a statement that Fema deployed hundreds of staff to Los Angeles and provided shelter for more than 2,800 households.The agency delivered crucial aid in LA, but now it is facing possible extinction. Trump has threatened to get rid of Fema, and on 9 May, he fired its leader, Cameron Hamilton, one day after Hamilton publicly disagreed with dismantling the agency. The administration has fired hundreds of Fema employees and offered deferred resignations. Fema is ending door-to-door canvassing in disaster areas, and cancelling the $750m set to be allocated this year through the building resilient infrastructure and communities grant program, which funds local projects to protect against disasters including wildfires.Brad Sherman, the US congressman who represents the fire-stricken neighborhood of the Palisades, said Trump had demoralized federal workers when the president suggested getting rid of Fema while visiting Los Angeles in January. “I talked to Fema people, and they were, of course, upset. They’re professionals. They did their job. But it’s hard under those circumstances,” Sherman said.Sherman called it “absurd” that Trump wants to abolish Fema by pushing its responsibilities on to states. “The idea of shifting it to the states is absolutely crazy,” he said.Slashing army corps and EPA cleanup staffTwo federal agencies, the EPA and the army corps, are responsible for the majority of wildfire debris cleanup in Los Angeles. But both agencies are bleeding staff.“We’re relying on the army corps to do the debris removal, which is the single thing that has to happen before rebuilding can start,” Sherman said.As the climate crisis fuels more destructive wildfires, army corps workers are deploying to more burn zones. They had barely finished cleaning up after the fires in Lahaina, Hawaii, when they were deployed to Los Angeles, said Colin Smalley, president of IFPTE Local 777 representing army corps workers.The Doge deferred resignation program pushed a large number of army corps employees out the door, meaning there are fewer workers available to respond to wildfires, Smalley said. Supervisors can only approve staff to deploy to disaster missions to the extent that it doesn’t compromise the agency’s core functions, he explained. “It creates a concern about our ability to absorb these kinds of disasters. [Our disaster response] is jeopardized by these personnel actions that Elon Musk and Doge have forced upon us,” Smalley said.View image in fullscreenThe EPA, the agency responsible for the hazardous materials cleanup in Altadena and the Palisades, has faced brutal cuts, with Trump moving to reduce staff to 1980s levels.When Doge began slashing EPA staff in early March, it prompted an urgent letter from members of Congress, including Chu and Sherman, asking the agency to reconsider. “In the wake of the recent California wildfires, it is more critical than ever that EPA is fully staffed and supported to ensure EPA’s efforts to identify hazardous materials on properties impacted by the Eaton and Palisades fires is completed promptly,” they wrote.EPA staff completed the hazardous debris removal in Los Angeles in record time, but the cuts will harm future wildfire recovery, said Mark Sims, who recently retired from his role representing EPA workers at Engineers and Scientists of California Local 20, IFPTE. He explained that the EPA was suffering brain drain as both senior and new staff leave in droves. “Their responses will be a lot less robust, and take a lot longer to do,” he said.White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in an email that “President Trump led a historic, record-breaking effort to clean up the damage from the LA wildfires, including turning on the water to prevent further tragedy,” referring to a widely debunked claim that Trump’s order for the Army Corps to release billions of gallons of irrigation water could have helped Los Angeles fight the fires. Fire hydrants ran dry in the Palisades due to an infrastructure issue, not a water supply problem.She argued LA’s mayor, Karen Bass, and California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, slowed down recovery efforts “by dragging their feet and bogging down the process with unnecessary bureaucracy and red tape” and the president had pushed them to speed up. “The Trump administration remains committed to empowering and working with state and local governments to invest in their own resilience before disaster strikes,” she wrote.A White House official said AmeriCorps had failed eight consecutive audits and, in the fiscal year 2024, the agency had found and publicly reported $45m in improper payments, which are outside the control of the agency and were made by grantee partners.Trump has argued his federal cuts are necessary to root out fraud and waste. But McGinley, the AmeriCorps team leader, said part of her team’s job was to review cases and ensure people were not receiving double benefits. “It made a difference that it helped people receive housing assistance, and it helped identify that waste in the government system, too,” she said.“My team worked really hard,” McGinley said. She recalled a woman who lost her home in the Eaton fire. She was blind, making it harder for her to upload the necessary documents to receive assistance. But McGinley’s team sent people to the woman’s hotel to help her upload the files to prove she was eligible. “She was able to stay in housing, which is huge after you’ve lost everything in your life,” McGinley said. More

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      Casualties in Trump’s war on the arts: the small museums keeping local history alive

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      For the past two years, a small arts non-profit has been telling stories about the communities living alongside the Los Angeles river, one voice at a time.The organization, called Clockshop, has collected the oral histories of nearly 70 local residents, activists and elected officials. Their knowledge is compiled in a vast cultural atlas – which contains videos, an interactive map and a self-guided tour exploring the waterway and its transformation from a home for the Indigenous Tongva people to a popular, rapidly gentrifying urban space.But in April, the future of the ever-growing atlas was thrown in uncertainty, when a three-year federal grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the agency that supports libraries, archives and museums, was terminated 17 months early. The grant, originally for $150,000, still had $20,000 left to pay out. “There is no recourse to recover the funds still in the grant project activities,” the organization said in a post on Instagram.Now, executive director Sue Bell Yank says their mission to preserve the stories of residents ousted by gentrification could lead to “erasure of the past, of cultural self-determination, and a lack of understanding about how communities can successfully advocate for the kinds of neighborhoods we deserve”.Clockshop’s post foreshadowed an alarming message that would eventually be delivered to hundreds of other arts and cultural institutions across the US. As the Trump administration directed federal agencies to cancel grants that did not support the president’s new priorities, which focused on funding “projects that reflect the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity” and targeted anything broadly deemed “DEI” (diversity, equity and inclusion), millions of dollars dedicated to preserving local history and culture suddenly disappeared.Shortly after IMLS grants were terminated, so too were those awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). By Friday 2 May, a spreadsheet created by writer and theater director Annie Doren was being passed around the internet, aiming to catalog every organization that had lost their NEA funding. With more than 500 organizations on the list, the question shifted from who lost their funding to who didn’t.View image in fullscreenWhile organizations of all kinds were impacted, it is the small and midsized institutions that lack endowments, prominent donors, and broad outreach whose futures are particularly in jeopardy. The cuts have affected a broad swath of projects – from a documentary film-maker in Fresno making a film about a woman who has played Harriet Tubman in civil war reenactments for 30 years; to a dance performance about south-east Asian mothers in New York City, to an organization that brings films, book clubs and other cultural events to rural Montana.Rick Noguchi who runs a non-profit called California Humanities, said he has seen the 112 NEH grants it awarded across the state suspended indefinitely by the Trump administration. “There are many newer immigrant communities that don’t have deep donors and struggle with being able to find individual donors that step in to tell their stories.”‘The country is abandoning its citizens’Back in Los Angeles, the cuts have blanketed cultural institutions with feelings of anxiety and urgency. But their leaders are also fighting back, vowing to continue the work of preserving local history in spite of the administration’s threats to revoke non-profit status if they continue to champion DEI programs.The Japanese American National Museum (JANM), an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution in LA’s Little Tokyo neighborhood that focuses on the history, culture and legacy of Japanese immigrants, initially lost grants that amounted to roughly $1.45m – though some have since been temporarily restored after a court order. Among those cut was a NEH landmarks of American history and culture grant, which funded a workshop helping teachers build a curriculum about the history of Japanese incarceration during the second world war. JANM CEO Ann Burroughs said that the program benefits approximately 20,000 students a year.“It was very much to ensure that the history was never forgotten,” Burroughs said about the museum’s mission and outreach. “It was also to ensure that what happened to Japanese Americans never happened to anybody else.”View image in fullscreenLos Angeles’s One Institute, which houses the largest queer archive in the world, also uses their collection to help educate others on queer history and marginalization. They lost a $15,000 NEA grant to support their upcoming annual festival in October, and now they are scrambling to hold fundraisers to keep the festival on track.Tony Valenzuela, the organization’s executive director, said that their event is important because it covers a gap in education. “Even in liberal states like California, only a fraction of students learn about the contributions of queer people to society,” Valenzuela said. “If the government abandons funding non-profits and other individuals and organizations providing a social good, this country will also be abandoning whole swaths of its citizens who greatly benefit from this work.”Another organization that was hit hard was the Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD), which operates the Skid Row History Museum & Archive, located just a few blocks north of the neighborhood in Downtown Los Angeles. They lost four grants administered by IMLS, NEH, and California Humanities, and are unlikely to receive an NEA grant that normally keeps the organization running – a total value of nearly $144,000 dollars, or 22% of the organization’s annual budget.Like Clockshop, the LAPD’s exhibitions, public programs and archives chart the ways Skid Row has been transformed – and nearly erased – due to development and gentrification. “Not everyone sees Skid Row as a community, let alone a thriving arts community,” said Henry Apodaca, LAPD’s media archivist. “This is a critical counter narrative to popular narratives that we’ve all been inundated with when talking about Skid Row.”View image in fullscreenOne of the terminated grants was an IMLS grant for small museums, which was being used to support a project called Welcome to the Covid Hotel. The project, named for the temporary medical treatment centers that popped up in vacant hotels during the pandemic to care for unhoused people, culminated in an exhibition and a series of theatrical performances based on interviews with patients, nurses and social workers.“There’s stories of people coming in blind and getting cataract surgeries,” explains LAPD’s co-founder and artistic director, John Malpede. “Someone with gangrene needed to have his legs amputated, and it saved his life. And most people got and accepted some form of next-step housing.”Malpede’s performance is a creative way for policymakers to notice the Covid Hotels’ impact and potentially make the sites into permanent fixtures. When the grants were canceled, LAPD was still waiting on more than $38,000 to come through: money that was supposed to pay venues, crew and performers for events that took place in April, as well as upcoming performances in May and June, and a forthcoming publication. While LAPD aims to move forward with their plans, they are uncertain on how to fund it.After going public on social media, private donors have since stepped up to help the JANM and Clockshop recoup their losses. LAPD and the One Institute, however, are still looking for support. Without this funding, not only could the non-profits disband, but also the communities that have flourished as a result of their work.As Malpede warns: “It’s only because of the neighborhood standing up and using its own history that it continues to be present.” More

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      Ice arrests at immigration courts across the US stirring panic: ‘It’s terrifying’

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      Federal authorities have arrested people at US immigration courts from New York to Arizona to Washington state in what appears to be a coordinated operation, as the Trump administration ramps up the president’s mass deportation campaign.On Tuesday, agents who identified themselves only as federal officers arrested multiple people at an immigration court in Phoenix, taking people into custody outside the facility, according to immigrant advocates.In Miami on Wednesday, Juan Serrano, a 28-year-old who immigrated from Colombia, went to court for a quick check-in where a judge soon told him he was free to go. When he left the courtroom, federal agents waiting outside cuffed him and placed him in a van with several other immigrants detained that day.Journalists, advocates and attorneys reported seeing Ice agents poised to make arrests this week at immigration courthouses in Los Angeles, Phoenix, New York, Seattle, Chicago and Texas.Arrests near or in the immigration courts, which are part of the US Department of Justice, are typically rare – in part due to concerns that the fear of being detained by Ice officers could discourage people from appearing. “It’s bad policy,” said Lindsay Toczylowski, president of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef). “By putting immigration officers in the courtrooms, they’re discouraging people from following the processes, punishing people for following the rules.”Toczylowski noted several Ice officers both inside and outside an immigration courtroom in Los Angles this week, but said she did not see any arrests made there. She said that immigrants without lawyers are especially vulnerable, as they may not understand the exact information and context they need to provide in order to advance their case for asylum or other pathways to permanent residency in the US.ImmDef and other legal groups are sending attorneys to courtrooms they believe may be targeted by Ice officials, to try to provide basic legal education and aid to people appearing at required appointments. The presence of agents is stirring panic, she said.“People are being detained and handcuffed in the hallway,” she said. “Can you imagine what you would be thinking, if you’re waiting there with your family and children, about to see a judge? It’s terrifying.”The agents’ targeting of immigrants at court comes as the Trump administration faces multiple lawsuits and the president attempts to enact the large-scale deportations he promised during his campaign.“All this is to accelerate detentions and expedite removals,” said Wilfredo Allen, an immigration attorney with decades of experience representing immigrants at the Miami immigration court.The Trump administration has revived a 2019 policy that allows for “expedited removals” – fast-tracked deportation proceedings for people who have been in the US for less than two years.Immigrants who cannot prove that they have been in the US for longer than two years are subject to having their cases dismissed and being immediately expelled from the country.Under the Biden administration, expedited removals were limited to people apprehended within 100 miles (160km) of the US border, and who had been in the US for less than two weeks.In Phoenix, immigrant advocates gathered outside immigration court to protest the presence of Ice agents. “We witnessed parents and children being detained and abducted into unmarked vans immediately after attending their scheduled immigration proceedings,” said Monica Sandschafer, the Arizona state director for the advocacy group Mi Familia Vota. “We demand an immediate stop to these hateful tactics.”Three US immigration officials told the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity that government attorneys were given the order to start dismissing cases when they showed up for work Monday, and were aware that federal agents would then be able to arrest those individuals when they left the courtroom.In the case of Serrano in Miami, the request for dismissal was delivered by a government attorney who spoke without identifying herself on the record, the Associated Press reported. She refused to provide her name to the AP and quickly exited the courtroom.US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement this week that it was detaining people who are subject to fast-track deportation authority.Advocates and lawyers are advising immigrants with upcoming hearings or court appearances to bring a trusted family member or friend who is a US citizen and ideally, a lawyer, to their appointments.The Associated Press contributed More

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      Bernie Sanders rally in LA draws thousands to protest Trump: ‘We can’t just let this happen’

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      The Vermont senator Bernie Sanders drew a record-breaking crowd at his rally in Los Angeles on Saturday, which included musical acts from Joan Baez and Neil Young, who encouraged the crowd to “take America back”.Sanders’s Fighting Oligarchy: Where We Go from Here tour has been drawing massive crowds. Aided by the progressive New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the team set the record in Tempe, Arizona, for biggest-ever political rally in that state three weeks ago. In Denver, Colorado, more than 34,000 people showed up – a career-high crowd for the 83-year-old Sanders. Saturday in Los Angeles saw another record: at least 36,000 people packed a downtown park.A host of musical acts kicked off the high-energy event, including the indie rock band The Red Pears, Maggie Rogers, Indigo de Souza, and legends Baez and Young.View image in fullscreenOn a perfect LA day with a gentle breeze and blue sky, Young, wearing all black, performed for the crowd before introducing Ocasio-Cortez, who was met with the wild applause usually reserved for a rock star.Ocasio-Cortez, 35, told the crowd at Gloria Molina Grand Park – a space named after the trailblazing Angeleno often credited for paving the way for women and Latinos in LA politics – that “power, greed and corruption are taking over our country like never before”. She named some California lawmakers who have supported recent Trump policies, including Bakersfield representative David Valadao and representative Young Kim of Orange county.The Raise gospel choir sang out “power to the people”, and Sanders took the stage. “We are living in a moment where the Republican party to a large degree has become a cult of the individual, obeying Trump’s every wish,” Sanders told the crowd, adding that the Trump administration is now “plotting how they can give $1.1tn in tax breaks to the rich”.The politician’s critique of the administration – and the corrupting influence of big money and billionaires in US politics – lasted more than 40 minutes. The message has taken on a new resonance in the second Trump administration, as Americans have watched Elon Musk take a chainsaw to the federal government and threatening popular safety-net programs like social security and Medicare.View image in fullscreenThese are the issues that brought out Cindy and Victor Villanuevo. Cindy has battled multiple sclerosis for the past decade. “I’m here because I’m disgusted about what Trump is doing to science. It’s a disgrace. When you cut funding, there’s no hope for any of us,” said the Buena Park mother.Her sister, Rose Matthews, a retired teacher, is concerned about social security, for people who work at veterans’ affairs and for veterans’ benefits. “I know the folks at the Long Beach VA very well because my husband battled ALS for four years,” she said. “The work they do with the vets is incredible and much needed. Now I’m worried that’s going away. We can’t just let this happen.”Ali Wolff and Myylo Lewis took the 94 bus from Silver Lake to attend. They said the bus had been packed with Bernie supporters – and it felt good.“It’s terrifying what’s been happening,” said Wolff. “It’s a relief just being here with so many like-minded people.”Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie are the “closest thing to a version of America you actually want to live in”, said Lewis.View image in fullscreenSanders, an independent who votes with Democrats, launched the tour in late February, offering Democratic voters an outlet for their fury and grief at a moment when most of their leaders in Washington appeared disoriented by the speed of Trump’s second-term power grabs. The Vermont senator has held events in big cities like Denver and Phoenix, while also targeting Republican-held districts that voted for Joe Biden in 2020, as Democrats contemplate a path back to power in 2026.Ocasio-Cortez joined Sanders for part of his tour last month, raising questions about her political aspirations and the future of the progressive movement he has been building since before she was born. On the stage in Los Angeles, progressive congressmembers Pramila Jayapal of Washington state and Ro Khanna of California, as well as many union leaders representing teachers, nurses, longshoremen and healthcare workers all addressed the crowd. Eunissess Hernandez, who represents LA’s first city council district, gave a particularly powerful address, saying the Trump administration was trying to divide people and get them to blame each other for their problems instead of blaming the people who are “actually profiting from our pain”.Sanders’s western tour will continue with stops in Utah, Idaho and Montana. The tour will return to California on Tuesday for events in Folsom and Bakersfield, a Republican stronghold, which has one of the highest levels of Medi-Cal enrollments in the state. The agricultural community, which is in Kern county, was also the locale of a January immigration raid that resulted in 78 arrests many contend were a result of shocking and unlawful racial profiling. Sanders railed against the raid, describing it as the US government “disappearing people”. More

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      Immigration agents turned away after trying to enter LA elementary schools

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      Immigration officials attempted to enter two Los Angeles elementary schools this week, but were turned away by school administrators. The incident appears to be the Trump administration’s first attempt to enter the city’s public schools since amending regulations to allow immigration agents to enter “sensitive areas” such as schools.At a Thursday press conference, the Los Angeles unified school district superintendent, Alberto Carvalho, confirmed that agents from the Department of Homeland Security were seeking five students in first through sixth grades.Officials attempted to enter two south Los Angeles schools, Lillian Street elementary and Russell elementary, but were turned away after the schools’ principals asked to see their identification. Los Angeles Unified is a sanctuary district and does not cooperate with federal immigration agencies.The news comes as the Trump administration has escalated its attacks against international students and ramped up efforts to deport undocumented and documented immigrants alike. In January, homeland security rescinded Biden administration guidelines preventing its agents from entering “sensitive areas” including schools and churches.“Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” former acting homeland security secretary Benjamine Huffman said in a statement announcing the new policy. “The Trump administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense.”In response, LA Unified began distributing “Know Your Rights” cards to students and the school police department issued a statement saying it would not “assist or engage in immigration compliance checks, immigration enforcement activity, or ICE-related task force operations”.“I’m still mystified as to how a first-, second-, third-, fourth- or sixth-grader would pose any type of risk to the national security of our nation,” Carvalho said. “Schools are places for learning. Schools are places for understanding. Schools are places for instruction. Schools are not places of fear.”The superintendent told reporters that the immigration agents who arrived at the Los Angeles elementary schools said they wanted to see the “students to determine their well-being” as unaccompanied minors, and that they had received authorization to speak with students from their caretakers. He added that the district later spoke with the students’ caretakers and learned that was untrue.“DHS is leading efforts to conduct welfare checks on these children to ensure that they are safe and not being exploited, abused, and sex trafficked,” the homeland security department said in a statement to Fox 11 Los Angeles.“Unlike the previous administration, President Trump and Secretary Noem take the responsibility to protect children seriously and will continue to work with federal law enforcement to reunite children with their families. In less than 70 days, Secretary Noem and Secretary Kennedy have already reunited nearly 5,000 unaccompanied children with a relative or safe guardian.”Carvalho contested that, and said as an educator who entered the United States without authorization at the age of 17 himself, he felt “beyond my professional responsibility, a moral responsibility to protect these students”.The incident has drawn attention from congressional lawmakers, including Pasadena Democrat Judy Chu.“I’m absolutely incensed that DHS agents would try to enter elementary schools this week, and I’m so grateful to the brave LAUSD administrators who denied them entry. These are children who should be learning to read and write, not cowering in fear of being ripped away from their homes,” she said.“I’m concerned parents may keep their children home rather than risk sending them to school. As Angelenos, we must lock arms together in moments like these to protect kids from deportation squads and protect schools from Trump’s campaign of terror.” More