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    Trump’s barbarism is turning his biggest strength into a liability | Osita Nwanevu

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    If you can bear to hear it, there are still more than 1,300 days remaining in the Trump administration. That’s an interminably long time given all the havoc the president has been able to wreak since January alone; the chaos and cruelty of the term so far also happen to have used up his political capital remarkably quickly. The New York Times average of polls, which found him at 52% approval on inauguration day, had him at 51% disapproval on Wednesday. That collapse is less a problem for Trump specifically ⁠– assuming, perhaps optimistically, that he won’t appear on a ballot again ⁠– than it is for the Republican party, which will have to answer for the mess he’s made in next year’s midterms and beyond. And one of the challenges they seem likely to face is a changed public opinion landscape on immigration ⁠– a strength that Trump’s barbarism, just as in his first term, seems to be turning into a liability.While it remains his strongest issue, polls have shown the public’s confidence in Trump on immigration declining steadily since January ⁠– averages suggest the public is newly and evenly split on his handling of it and some polls taken around the 100-day mark even found an outright majority of Americans disapproving. It’s no mystery why. The shock-and-awe campaign the administration is waging against immigrants legal and not has produced a steady stream of headlines that sound awful to all but Stephen Miller and the nativist fanatics driving Trump’s agenda. The deportation of a four-year-old citizen suffering from a rare form of cancer. The end of temporary protected status for 9,000 Afghan refugees even as the administration welcomes Afrikaners supposedly fleeing “white genocide”, a myth most voters who don’t frequent white supremacist forums are probably unfamiliar with. The use of the immigration enforcement apparatus to pursue and persecute critics of Israel’s war in Gaza. Even as voters succumbed to a panic over the migrant surge under Biden, moves like this under Trump and a public backlash to them were inevitable.What should be especially dismaying to the president’s supporters ⁠– and especially heartening to the rest of us ⁠– is the administration’s absolute failure to win over the public on the Kilmar Ábrego García case. That battle was probably lost as soon as it was conceded that he was deported by mistake, but it’s notable that none of the efforts to muddy the waters and obfuscate the main issues at hand with lies and character assassination have worked. The escalatory rhetoric ⁠– Ábrego García is not an innocent man but a member of MS-13, not merely a member of MS-13 but one of “the top MS-13 members”, not merely one of “the top MS-13 members” but a terrorist ⁠– has been almost comic. The complaints that the media has been stretching the facts of the case have been pathetic. “Based on the sensationalism of many of the people in this room,” the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, fumed last month, “you would think we deported a candidate for father of the year”.The administration was surely pleased when the domestic violence claims made by Ábrego García’s wife several years ago, which she dismisses now, began picking up traction in the press. And it is just as surely disappointed that a majority of Americans believe Ábrego García should be returned to America anyway ⁠– which suggests that the principles at stake in the case matter more and matter to more people than cynics might assume. Wholly irrespective of who Ábrego García is ⁠or what he might have done – and there remains no solid evidence at all that he belongs to MS-13 – he is entitled to due process under the law and fair treatment by our government. The fact that many Americans remain committed to this ideal here ⁠– despite the president’s best efforts to render Ábrego García unsympathetic, despite all that’s been done to frame undocumented immigration as an invasion and a society-breaking crisis ⁠– is one of the brightest glimmers of light against the pall Donald Trump and the right have cast over this country.Bright as it is, there are Democrats who are determined not to see it. Infamously in Axios last month, one anonymous House member ⁠– some nameless, brainless invertebrate, croaking from the bottom of a boot ⁠– warned the party against defending immigrants like Ábrego García or the makeup artist Andry Hernández Romero, also deported as a gang member for having tattoos. Trump, they said, was “setting a trap for the Democrats, and like usual we’re falling for it […] we’re going to go take the bait for one hairdresser”. In an appearance on Fox News Radio, the Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar argued that Ábrego García, in particular, was “not the right case” for Democrats to take up. “This is not the right issue to talk about due process,” he said. “This is not the right person to be saying that we need to bring him back to the United States.”Fortunately, most Americans disagree. And there is an opportunity here, for those with the good sense and courage to take it, to use the public’s dismay at the Ábrego García case and the realities of Trump’s immigration agenda to sell it on an alternative vision for our immigration policy and an alternative set of culprits for the problems immigrants have proven easy scapegoats for.Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents supposedly on the prowl for the thugs and thieves who’ve ruined communities and degraded our public infrastructure would be better off kicking down the doors of Congress than smashing the windows of asylum seekers. And, of course, if preserving law and order means that criminals who are sucking our public resources dry and who pose a danger to women ought to be dealt with harshly, we should insist on bringing the convict, grifter, and accused rapist in the White House to justice. The chief priority of his administration is terrorizing people for committing the crime of coming to this country and working harder for it than he ever has. His agenda here is corrosive to our values. It is degrading to our society. It materially profits no one. In important ways, it hurts us all.More and more Americans are wising up to this. Fewer and fewer are willing to stand for it.

    Osita Nwanevu is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Venezuelans deported by Trump are victims of ‘torture’, lawyers allege

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      Lawyers for 252 Venezuelans deported by the Trump administration and imprisoned in El Salvador for two months have alleged that the migrants are victims of physical and emotional “torture”.A law firm hired by the Venezuelan government said that it had been unable to visit the migrants in the mega-prison where they are locked up.The lawyers are seeking “proof of life”, but say they have come up against a wall of silence from President Nayib Bukele’s administration and the Central American nation’s justice system.Grupo Ortega filed a habeas corpus petition with the supreme court on 24 March seeking an end to what it calls the “illegal detention” of the Venezuelans, but is still waiting for a ruling.“They are treating them like common criminals,” lawyer Salvador Ríos said, after the migrants were shown dressed in prison clothing, shackled and with shaved heads.“This is torture,” both physically and psychologically, Rios said in an interview with AFP.The lawyers delivered a letter in early May to Bukele, a key ally of Donald Trump, requesting authorization to visit the Venezuelans, but so far without success.AFP sought a comment from the Salvadorian presidency about the case and the lawyers’ efforts, but has not received a response.Félix Ulloa, the Salvadorian vice-president, told the French media outlet Le Grand Continent that his government merely provides a “service that we could call prison accommodation”.Trump’s administration has paid Bukele’s government millions of dollars to lock up migrants it says are criminals and gang members.Trump invoked rarely used wartime legislation in March to fly migrants to El Salvador without any court hearing, alleging they belonged to the Tren de Aragua gang, a charge that their families and lawyers deny.The Venezuelans, as well as 36 deported Salvadorian migrants, are being held in a maximum-security prison built by Bukele to house thousands of suspects arrested during his sweeping crackdown on street gangs.Images of the Venezuelans entering the Cecot mega-prison in shackles illustrate the brutality, Ríos said.“The damage is not only physical, but also psychological,” Ríos said.In their letter to Bukele, the lawyers sought permission to interview the prisoners, either in person or virtually, which could serve as “proof of life”.They asked Bukele to release the list of the 252 Venezuelans, something that Washington has not done either.One Salvadorian migrant who was initially incarcerated in Cecot – but in April was moved to a prison farm – is Kilmar Ábrego García, a US resident deported due to what the United States itself admitted was an administrative error.A Venezuelan identified in US court documents as “Cristian” was also mistakenly expelled.In both cases, US judges unsuccessfully ordered the Trump administration to facilitate their return to the United States.Volker Türk, the UN human rights chief, said this week that the situation “raises serious concerns regarding a wide array of rights that are fundamental to both US and international law”.“Families we have spoken to have expressed a sense of complete powerlessness in the face of what has happened and their pain at seeing their relatives labelled and handled as violent criminals, even terrorists, without any court judgment as to validity of what is claimed against them,” he said in a statement.Isael Guerrero, another lawyer with Grupo Ortega, described the detentions as “completely illegal” because the Venezuelans “are not being legally prosecuted in any court” in El Salvador.The firm’s head, Jaime Ortega, said they were “100% migrants”.“Not a single one of them is being prosecuted” in the United States for their alleged membership of the Tren de Aragua gang, he said.The fate of the Venezuelans now depends entirely on Bukele, as “the expulsion completely nullifies US jurisdiction”, Ortega said.In April, Bukele offered to trade the 252 Venezuelans for an equal number of political prisoners held by President Nicolás Maduro’s government. More

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      Ice has become Trump’s private militia. It must be abolished | Mehdi Hasan

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      On Friday, the Democratic mayor of Newark was arrested and detained in his own city by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents. His crime? Trying to gain access and inspection rights to a privately operated detention center that he says is in violation of multiple city lawsuits.Three Democratic members of Congress accompanied Ras Baraka to the Delaney Hall facility in Newark, as they exercised their own congressionally mandated right to enter Ice detention facilities for oversight purposes, without prior notice.While Baraka was taken away in handcuffs, two of the House Democrats – Bonnie Coleman Watson and LaMonica McIver – were shoved and manhandled by Ice agents outside the facility. The third, Rob Menendez, angrily accused Ice of feeling “no weight of the law and no restraint on what they should be doing. And that was shown in broad daylight today when they not just arrested the mayor of Newark but when they put their hands on two members of Congress standing behind me. How is this acceptable?”It’s a good question. Elected Democrats are now under both legal and physical assault from a rogue agency, which behaves less like federal law enforcement and more like Donald Trump’s private militia. And yet, elected Democrats refuse to call for its abolition. They seem to have decided that the continued existence of Ice is “acceptable”.Despite the feverish claims from Republican politicians and Fox anchors about the Democratic party being “soft” on immigration enforcement, we’re a long way from 2018, when “abolish Ice” was an actual slogan on the left and deployed by both prominent progressive activists and rising Democratic party stars, such as then newly elected Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Even Kirsten Gillibrand, a moderate New York senator, said she wanted to “get rid of [Ice], start over, reimagine it and build something that actually works”. Kamala Harris, then a California senator, said she believed in “starting from scratch” with Ice.These days, however, elected Democrats, even of the progressive variety, have run a mile from the one-time campaign to dismantle Ice. The new Congressional Progressive Caucus chair, Greg Casar, for example, told Semafor last month he had “changed” his mind on “Abolish Ice”. Ocasio-Cortez did not utter the words “abolish Ice” on her recent “Fighting Oligarchy” tour with Bernie Sanders. And nor, for that matter, did the independent senator from Vermont, who once said he wanted to “break up” Ice.What on Earth are elected Democrats, especially progressives, waiting for? How many more abuses of power and violations of the law does Ice have to commit? How unpopular does Trump have to get on the issue of immigration – especially on the issue of Ice deportations – before the so-called opposition take a much bolder stance on the future of Ice?Consider some of the Ice horror shows from the past 30 days alone:

      On 8 May, Ice agents “held a young girl’s face to the ground” while they detained her mother in Worcester, Massachusetts. A video of the incident from Telemundo Nueva Inglaterra shows the teenage girl screaming as multiple agents and officers chase her and grab her legs.

      On 7 May, Ice agents detained Jensy Machado, a US citizen, in northern Virginia with “guns drawn”, to quote the Virginia Democratic congressman Don Beyer. Despite his attempt to show his Real ID and prove his legal status, they put him in cuffs.

      On 5 May, Ice agents detained Daniel Orellana, a 25-year-old Guatemalan, at a gas station in Framingham, Massachusetts. When they were told they had apprehended the wrong man, according to Orellana’s girlfriend, one of the agents said: “OK, but we’re going to take you anyway.”

      On 4 May, a group of Ice agents detained a man filling up gas in his truck at a gas station in Oxnard, California – and left his children behind on their own. “They arrested someone,” said an eyewitness. “They left the children inside the truck.”

      On 26 April, court papers filed by the Department of Homeland Security admitted that Ice agents did not have a warrant when they arrested the Palestinian activist and green-card holder Mahmoud Khalil in March.

      On 24 April, in the middle of the night, Ice agents burst into the home of a family of US citizens in Oklahoma City, while executing a search warrant issued for someone else. The agents ordered the family outside into the rain in their underwear, the mother said, and confiscated their phones, laptops and all their cash savings as “evidence”.

      On 22 April, Ice agents detained a mother and her two-year-old daughter, a US citizen, during a routine check-in with the agency in New Orleans and then deported the mother back to Honduras with her American child. A Trump-appointed federal judge said he had a “strong suspicion that the government just deported a US citizen with no meaningful process”.

      Also on 22 April, Ice agents in plain clothes, without badges or warrants, detained two men during a raid on a courthouse in Charlottesville, Virginia. Two bystanders who dared to ask those agents to show them a warrant were ordered not to “impede” the arrest and have since been threatened with prosecution by Ice.

      On 14 April, Ice agents stopped an undocumented Guatemalan couple in their car in New Bedford, Massachusetts, while looking for another man. When Juan Francisco and Marilu Méndez’s lawyer told them over the phone to stay in the car until she got there, the Ice agents used a large hammer to smash the rear window of the car and drag them out.

      Also on 14 April, we learned that Ice agents detained a 19-year old Venezuelan asylum seeker and deported him to the Cecot prison in El Salvador – despite his lack of criminal convictions or even tattoos. During the arrest, according to his father, one Ice agent said: “No, he’s not the one,” as if they were looking for someone else, but another agent said: “Take him anyway.”
      All of these incidents are just from the past month. Go back further, and I could go on and on and on.So where are the Dems on this? Why aren’t they calling for an end to a lawless, violent, deadly, institutionally racist, sexually abusive agency, whose employees’ union endorsed Trump for president in both 2016 and 2020, and whose former acting director, Tom Homan, has become this administration’s gung-ho “border czar” and “the face of Trump’s cruelty”, to quote my Zeteo colleague John Harwood?Forget about talk of “reform”. At this point, there is no way to improve or “fix” Ice. It has to be abolished. Shut down. Scrapped. To quote Gillibrand in 2018, the entirety of immigration enforcement in the United States must be “reimagined”.Meanwhile, as some Democrats obsess over opinion polls and worry about looking “soft” on the border, the actual experts on authoritarianism are sounding the alarm. The political scientist Lee Morgenbesser has compared Ice to a “secret police” and says the agency “is fast becoming a key piece in the repressive apparatus of American authoritarianism”. Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat calls Ice the “foot soldiers” of the “fascists”. Even the “anti-woke” libertarians over at Reason magazine say Ice is on a “militaristic mission that effectively turns nonviolent immigrants into fugitives”.Why would a future Democratic president or Democratic-controlled Congress want to keep such a Gestapo-like outfit? And, sorry, but when did it become a political taboo to call for the abolition of a government agency? Republicans have spent decades trying to shut down a plethora of federal government departments. The current Trump administration has gutted USAID, established under John F Kennedy in 1961. Trump has signed an executive order to try to force the “closure” of the Department of Education, which was first conceived of by Andrew Johnson in 1867. Republicans in Congress have introduced a bill to abolish the IRS, which goes back to 1862 and Abraham Lincoln.So why can’t timid Democrats call for the abolition of Ice, which was created only in 2003 by George W Bush, making it even younger than Leonardo DiCaprio’s current girlfriend?Both Ice and its Republican supporters in Congress see an opportunity right now. “The agency,” reports the New York Times, “is hoping to receive a large windfall from Republicans in Congress so it can spend as much as $45bn over the next two years on new detention facilities, a more than sixfold increase from what Ice typically spends to detain migrants.”If Democrats are serious about stopping fascism, then they have to do everything in their power to prevent the ongoing expansion and further empowerment of Homan and his army of masked Ice thugs.And if Democrats are ever able to win back office, there is only one right move here, politically, financially, and, above all else, morally: abolishing Bush and Trump’s Ice, once and for all.

      Mehdi Hasan is a broadcaster and author, and a former host on MSNBC. He is also a Guardian US columnist and the editor-in-chief of Zeteo More

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      I used to laugh at my Chilean father’s paranoia about life in the US – not any more

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      View image in fullscreen“Don’t open the door to nobody,” my father warned throughout my childhood – right up until the day he died. He trusted no politicians, no organized religion and definitely no strangers knocking unannounced.Lately, his words echo louder than ever.In California, where I teach at university, the year began with wildfires. They’re out now, but there is no containment for the political blaze sweeping through higher education. One after another, Donald Trump’s executive orders have scorched the landscape: slashing funding, silencing communication, terminating grants, capping research.Each one feeds the fire. As Trump remarked in his address to Congress, he’s “just getting started”.So between grading papers and making dinner, the real questions linger: will I still have a job next year? Will my department survive? Will my students be safe? Will my work be banned for using words like disability or inequality?These questions aren’t paranoid. They’re familiar.They’re the same kinds of questions my father asked himself in 1975 before fleeing Chile for the US, trading a brutal dictatorship for freedom.The speed and ease with which words like “purge”, “erasure” and “forced removal” have flooded our lexicon, crammed into news updates about attacks on minority groups and immigrants, brings to mind 11 September 1973.Though I wasn’t born yet, that day lives beneath my skin as one of Chile’s daughters. On that day, the military overthrew the democratically elected president, Salvador Allende, and ushered in a 17-year dictatorship under Gen Augusto Pinochet.View image in fullscreenThe new regime tortured and murdered thousands of Allende supporters. And because Pinochet feared free speech and a free press, public debate and intellectual freedoms, he specifically targeted writers, academics, students and artists.Authoritarian regimes always do.Now consider what’s happening today to those on Trump’s growing enemy list. This includes the recently detained Palestinian activist and legal permanent resident Mahmoud Khalil at Columbia University, my alma mater. Trump hasn’t even tried to hide his desire for retribution; instead, he vowed that Khalil’s arrest would be the first of “many to come”.Since then, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has revoked 300 scholars’ visas and federal agents have detained at least a dozen students and professors, often without clarity on charges or alleged crimes other than protesting and speaking out.The case of the Tufts doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk– arrested in broad daylight by plainclothes Ice agents – stands out for me. Her only known offense was co-authoring an op-ed in the campus newspaper that criticized the university’s response to students’ demands to divest from companies with ties to Israel over the Gaza conflict.Some ideas are now deemed so dangerous they must be erased, free speech be damned.View image in fullscreenWith the thought police now in full force in my country – our country – I can’t help but think of the killing of Víctor Jara, the Chilean singer-songwriter often dubbed the Bob Dylan of Chile. His curly hair, olive skin and Mapuche features so resemble my father’s that I tear up watching black-and-white performances of El Derecho de Vivir en Paz (The Right to Live in Peace).Born into an impoverished peasant family and a fierce supporter of working-class and Indigenous people, he threaded their stories into song. “We’ve had enough of that music that doesn’t speak to us, that entertains us only for a moment, but leaves us empty,” he said. “We began to create a new kind of song. It was music that was born out of total necessity.”Jara was closely aligned with Allende’s leftist Popular Unity coalition, even rewriting the lyrics to its anthem, Venceremos (We Shall Prevail), which made him a prime target for the opposition.Like many workers, Jara responded to Allende’s call on the morning of 11 September to occupy their workplaces in defiance of the unfolding coup. As a professor at the State Technical University, he went to campus. Despite a strict curfew – anyone found on the streets risked being shot – hundreds of students and faculty sought refuge in university buildings, which were later shelled by tanks and raked with machine gun fire.A survivor, Osiel Núñez Quevado, recalled in a documentary: “Without absolutely no warning, they began machine-gunning the university’s central building. They got everybody out, putting professors and students on the floor with hands on their heads. There among them, was Víctor.”Pinochet’s forces found Jara’s message so threatening that when he was identified among the prisoners brought to Estadio Chile – the stadium later turned into a detention center and renamed to honor the singer’s memory – he was singled out for torture in an especially cruel way.Soldiers broke his hands and wrists, then taunted him to play his guitar and sing. Badly beaten and bloodied, in the two hours before his death he secured a pen and paper from a friend and gathered the strength to write his final song, Estadio Chile.He defiantly performed Venceremos before his captors killed him with a gunshot to the head, further riddling his body with 44 bullet wounds before dumping his corpse in the street.View image in fullscreenSuch brutality, forever seared into the consciousness of Chileans like my father, has shaped generations across national borders, thousands of miles, and decades. The ghosts of a decimated democracy haunted Dad’s nightmares, and they continue to haunt me.When I turned 18, my father actively discouraged me from voting, fearing that my name could end up on a list used against me one day, that I could be killed like one of los desaparecidos – the thousands of Chileans who were abducted by state forces during Pinochet’s rule, never to be seen again.The deeper I dig into history, the more parallels I uncover between then and now.I recently learned about Chile’s failed coup in June 1973, which eerily resembles the January 6 assault on the US Capitol. Riding on growing discontent within the military, Lt Col Roberto Souper launched an unsuccessful attempt against Allende. Though poorly coordinated, it served as a kind of dress rehearsal, helping the military understand the conditions necessary for success in a future attempt.The commander-in-chief of the Chilean army, Gen Carlos Prats, helped squelch the rebellion. But by August, having lost the military’s support, Prats resigned and personally recommended his replacement: his second-in-command, Pinochet. (The following year, while in exile, Prats and his wife Sofía were killed in a car bombing in Buenos Aires, carried out by Chile’s secret police.)Pinochet swiftly pardoned those arrested during the failed coup attempt – mostly men from various branches of the military – and assigned them to guard the Estadio Nacional, where so many were tortured and killed.The similarities are impossible to ignore: a failed insurrection, full pardons for the perpetrators, and ensuing vengeance.As the attorney Almudena Bernabéu observes, “Dictatorial regimes are fueled by arrogance and by the ability to deny that their power will ever end.”View image in fullscreenEmboldened and once again in power, Trump’s ire threatens most of the American public, save for a small segment of wealthy oligarchs.And just as in Chile, where poverty soared in the dictatorship years, the most vulnerable Trump voters will suffer most from rising prices and cuts to crucial social safety net programs.Allende’s wide-ranging platform had promised to alleviate extreme inequality, at a time when 28.5% of Chileans lived in poverty. He had pursued a number of reforms including increasing wages, providing free milk to poor children and nationalizing the copper industry. He won a close race, after having garnered nearly 37% of the vote, partly thanks to worker and peasant turnout.But his victory came at a time of extreme political polarization and foreign interference. The National Security Archive contains a trove of documents exposing the US government’s efforts to eradicate the perceived communist threat by attempting to prevent Allende’s win and then undermining his presidency with anti-leftist propaganda and economic encroachment to destabilize the country.Severe inflation and scarcity had left people like my father – an intended beneficiary of Allende’s policies – disgruntled. His frustrations help me understand the deep dissatisfaction and distrust felt by the large swathes of midwestern voters who supported Trump.Dad had never graduated from high school. He had toiled in nitrate mines in the Atacama desert, loaded cargo on ships, hauled trash in buildings – dirty jobs that left his hands calloused and his psyche bruised – eventually securing a union job as an elevator operator and later doorman.He would often recount his dissatisfaction with Allende, given long food lines and the exorbitant prices for black market goods, and had been especially stung by the indignity of a waiter at a “nice” restaurant handing him newspaper to wipe his hands instead of napkins.Between the lack of economic opportunity, especially for those like Dad born into the working class, and the violence and repression during the dictatorship, my father emigrated in 1975. He joked: “I left because I wanted to be rich.”Chile’s right wing capitalized on growing discontent, organizing the 1971 protest March of Empty Pots and Pans, which, according to a CIA memorandum, “drew more support from angry Chilean housewives than had been anticipated even by the sponsors”.View image in fullscreenArtists, writers and intellectuals continued to offer Allende strong support, including Chile’s celebrated poet Pablo Neruda, his friend and adviser. Neruda died just 12 days after the coup, before he could seek refuge in Mexico, prompting the recently confirmed speculation that he had been poisoned.This is Pinochet’s legacy: layers and layers of horrific secrets that are still being unveiled, which might explain why Dad urged me never to vote for fear of being tracked down.I had the privilege, then, of laughing off such worries. “Don’t be paranoid, Dad. They don’t keep track of who you voted for here,” I said, explaining secret ballots. He wasn’t convinced.Suddenly, Dad doesn’t seem so paranoid any more.I’ve never been good at keeping my big mouth shut. My father was a masterly kvetcher and, as a New Yorker, I consider complaining my birthright. While I enjoy commiserating as a way to connect with others, my griping also helps me search for answers, question what we take for granted, and untangle vexing puzzles.Perhaps naively, I once believed tenure would grant more academic freedom – that our right to dissent would be protected. But as we slide toward authoritarianism, the train’s moving in reverse. Instead of my horizon expanding as I near that milestone, I feel the walls closing in.Earlier in my career, when I voiced doubts, a mentor wisely cautioned: “You don’t want to twist yourself into a pretzel for a job you don’t want any more.” How far will we twist, bend, compromise, modify, avoid – or hide? One of my personal heroes, the photographer Bill Cunningham, memorably declined food and drink while working events, explaining: “Money is the cheapest thing. Liberty is the most expensive.” What price are we willing to pay for an academic job?I inherited many things from my father – his hazel eyes, his acid reflux, his politics of fear – and his stubbornness. I’ve come too far to hide now. I spent years ashamed of my socioeconomic background and ethnic surname, but I’ve come to see that what once made me feel like an outsider also sharpened my tools – especially the way I observe the world as a sociologist.And I’ve gained a deeper respect for my father’s distrust. He never returned to Chile, yet despite the pain bound up in that homeland, he held on to a fierce love for it –he never burned the bridge back. That bridge may one day provide me with an escape route, thanks to my eligibility for Chilean residency through him.Dad’s lifelong fear kept him metaphorically sleeping with one eye open, always listening for danger in the distance. Now, it’s helping me prepare for a new era of terror. I will still vote. I will still speak my mind – because he often couldn’t. But I’m no longer naive about the repercussions.Lately, I’ve caught myself practicing the words: “I was once a college professor.” It’s been a meaningful ride, but if it ends, so be it. I’d rather say, “I used to be a college professor” than “I once stood up for my beliefs and values.” Because what good is all this education if I haven’t learned the most important lesson?In that case, I might as well light the match myself.

      Stacy Torres is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, San Francisco, and author of At Home in the City: Growing Old in Urban America.
      Spot illustrations by Angelica Alzona. More

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      JD Vance had ‘exchange of opinions’ with senior cardinal, Vatican says

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      The US vice-president, JD Vance, had “an exchange of opinions” with the Vatican’s secretary of state over current international conflicts and immigration when they met on Saturday, the Vatican has said.The Vatican issued a statement after Vance, a Catholic convert, met Cardinal Pietro Parolin and the foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Gallagher. There was no indication he met Pope Francis, who has resumed some official duties during his recovery from pneumonia.The Holy See has responded cautiously to the Trump administration, in keeping with its tradition of diplomatic neutrality.It has expressed alarm over Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration and cuts in international aid, and has called for peaceful resolutions to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.Those concerns were reflected in the Vatican statement, which said the talks were cordial and that the Vatican expressed satisfaction with the administration’s commitment to protecting freedom of religion and conscience.“There was an exchange of opinions on the international situation, especially regarding countries affected by war, political tensions and difficult humanitarian situations, with particular attention to migrants, refugees, and prisoners,” the statement said.“Finally, hope was expressed for serene collaboration between the state and the Catholic church in the United States, whose valuable service to the most vulnerable people was acknowledged.”The reference to “serene collaboration” appeared to refer to Vance’s accusation that the US conference of Catholic bishops was resettling “illegal immigrants” in order to obtain federal funding. Top US cardinals have pushed back strongly against the claim.Parolin told La Repubblica on the eve of Vance’s visit: “It is clear that the approach of the current US administration is very different from what we are used to and, especially in the west, from what we have relied on for many years,.”As the US pushes to end the war in Ukraine, Parolin reaffirmed Kyiv’s right to its territorial integrity and insisted that any peace deal must not be “imposed” on Ukraine but “built patiently, day by day, with dialogue and mutual respect”.Vance was spending Easter weekend in Rome with his family and attended Good Friday services in St Peter’s Basilica after meeting Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni. On Saturday, after the Vance family’s introduction to Parolin, they had a private tour of the Sistine Chapel.It was not immediately clear where they would celebrate Easter. Pope Francis, for his part, according to official liturgical plans released on Saturday, indicated he hoped to attend Easter mass on Sunday, which usually draws thousands to St Peter’s Square.The pope and Vance have tangled over immigration and the Trump administration’s plans to deport people en masse. Francis has made caring for those who migrate a hallmark of his papacy and his progressive views on social justice issues have often put him at odds with members of the more conservative US Catholic church.The pope also changed church teaching to say that capital punishment was inadmissible in all cases. After a public appeal from Francis just weeks before Trump took office, Joe Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row. Trump is an outspoken proponent of expanding capital punishment.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionVance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, identifies with a small Catholic intellectual movement that is viewed by some critics as having reactionary or authoritarian leanings and often described as “post-liberal”.Post-liberals share some longstanding Catholic conservative views, such as opposition to abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. They envision a counter-revolution in which they take over government bureaucracy and institutions such as universities from within, replacing entrenched “elites” with their own and acting upon their vision of the “common good”.Just days before the pope was admitted to hospital in February, Francis criticised the Trump administration’s deportation plans, warning that they would deprive people of their inherent dignity. In a letter to US bishops, he also appeared to respond to Vance directly for having claimed that Catholic doctrine justified such policies.Vance had defended the administration’s America-first crackdown by citing a concept from medieval Catholic theology known in Latin as ordo amoris. He said the concept delineated a hierarchy of care – to family first, followed by neighbour, community, fellow citizens and, last, those elsewhere.In his 10 February letter, Francis appeared to correct Vance’s understanding of the concept.“Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extends to other persons and groups,” he wrote. “The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the good Samaritan, that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.”Vance has acknowledged Francis’ criticism but has said he will continue to defend his views. During an appearance on 28 February at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, Vance did not address the issue specifically but called himself a “baby Catholic” and acknowledged there are “things about the faith that I don’t know”. More

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      A Nicaraguan asylum seeker checked in with Ice every week. He was arrested anyway

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      It finally happened while he was waiting to get his hair cut.Alberto Lovo Rojas, an asylum seeker from Nicaragua, had been feeling uneasy for weeks, worried that immigration officials would arrest him any moment. But he had pushed the worry aside as irrational – after all, he had a permit to legally work in the US, and he had been using an app to check in monthly with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).Still, something felt off. The Trump administration had promised mass deportations, and in the weeks since Donald Trump’s inauguration, Ice had asked him to do extra check-ins each weekend. “I even messaged the Ice office through my app, to ask if something was wrong,” Rojas said.His last check-in with Ice was on 5 February – all normal. On 8 February, they came for him.He was outside Great Clips in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Spokane, Washington. The barbershop had been crowded, so he put his name down for a cut and decided to wait in his car.Hours later, he was moved into the north-west detention center in Tacoma, awaiting deportation to Nicaragua – which he fled in 2018 amid a violent crackdown against nationwide anti-government protests. Rojas fears he’ll be targeted again.“I’m afraid to go back, I’m afraid for my life,” he told the Guardian. “I’m afraid I will never see my children again.”Rojas, 42, is one of potentially hundreds of people who have been detained in recent weeks despite complying with Ice requirements to regularly check-in. Ice does not appear to keep count of how many people it has arrested at check-ins. But the Guardian has estimated, based on arrest data from the first four weeks of the Trump administration, that about 1,400 arrests – 8% of the nearly 16,500 arrests in the administration’s first month – have occurred during or right after people checked in with the agency.View image in fullscreenLawyers and immigration advocates told the Guardian they believe that in order to oblige the president’s demand for mass arrests and deportation, immigration officials are reaching for the “low-hanging fruit” – people that Ice had previously released from custody while they pursued asylum or other immigration cases in a backlogged immigration court system.Most of these people do not have criminal histories and have dutifully been complying with the government’s orders to routinely report to immigration officials. Some have pending asylum cases, or are appealing their deportation orders. Others, like Rojas, had been denied their claims to stay in the US, but were released on supervision.In Rojas’s case, he was allowed to stay in Spokane with his wife and children – who had pending asylum cases – and apply yearly for a permit to legally work.“I just don’t understand,” Rojas’s wife, Dora Morales said. “Why would they want to arrest him now?Rojas had left Nicaragua with his uncle in September 2018.Both men had participated in Nicaragua’s April rebellion of 2018, a movement that started among university students. The movement was incited by unpopular changes to the social security system, but quickly grew into a massive movement calling for democratic reforms.Government forces immediately responded with crushing brutality, shooting at young protesters. “I felt a lot of pain, sadness to see mothers crying for their children,” Rojas said. He felt called to join the cause.Send us a tipIf you are connected to someone who has been deported or is in fear of deportation and have information you’d like to share securely with the Guardian, please use a non-work device to call or text immigration reporter Maanvi Singh via the Signal messaging app at 929-418-7275.Rojas was well-known in his neighborhood, and he started to help organize protests and arrange transportation for those interested in attending.But as the demonstrations grew, so did the backlash. Police and pro-government paramilitary groups killed hundreds of students, human rights activists and journalists. His uncle was beaten and shot twice by Nicaraguan paramilitary officers.They had to leave, Rojas said. They went into hiding and eventually made their way out of the country, through Honduras and Guatemala before arriving at the US-Mexico border.“I never broke an immigration law,” Rojas said. He did exactly as he was directed – waiting a week in a notorious hielera – a frigid Customs and Border Protection holding cell where newly arrived immigrants slept on concrete floors. Then he was transferred to Phoenix, Arizona; flown to a detention center in Memphis, Tennessee; then Mississippi, where officials interviewed him to assess his eligibility for asylum in the US; and finally sent to Louisiana while his case was assessed.In July of 2019, a judge denied his asylum application, and he remained in detention while his lawyers appealed. And then – finally – in May 2020, as Covid-19 rapidly spread through the facility where he was held, Rojas’s fate changed. Following a class-action lawsuit, a federal judge ruled that Ice must consider the release of all detainees whose age or health conditions put them at elevated risk of Covid infection.Rojas is missing a kidney – a complication from a car accident when he was a child – and was especially at risk of complications from a coronavirus infection. So they let him go. “It was such a miracle,” he said.View image in fullscreenWhile Rojas was in detention, Morales and the couple’s two young sons, Alberto Jr and Matteo, had managed to escape Nicaragua as well. The family reunited in Spokane. He found work in construction, then on a ranch – and eventually, he was able to get a job as a mechanic at the Corwin Ford dealership in Spokane.“It was almost like some stereotypical, all-American dream. I mean, he was literally working for Ford!” said his friend Lizzy Myers. “He had just gotten this new lease on life, and he was really doing well.”Rojas and Morales had met – years ago – at church. He fell in love with her singing voice, and she managed to chat him up by asking for his help with English. In Spokane, the couple were once again able to attend mass together.Rojas began playing pick-up soccer with a local league. He’s been coaching his eldest in the sport as well. “And they are both improving so much – they are really getting quite good,” Rojas said. Last year, the family welcomed their newest member – baby Santiago – whom they baptized in Spokane’s St Peter church.Rojas’ lawyers reassured him that so long as he complied with Ice’s orders to routinely check in, and applied to renew his work permit each year, he’d be fine.“When the president won the election, he said he would arrest the criminals,” Rojas said. “I was worried. But also, I am not a criminal.”But then, Trump took office and rolled back a Biden-era memo prioritizing the deportation of people with criminal records or who posed threats to public safety. Now, all immigrants in the US without a legal status are subject to arrest, including those who have been checking in and cooperating with Ice. To meet the president’s goal for “mass deportations”, immigration officials have become more indiscriminate in their enforcement, a Guardian analysis last month found.The US arrested more immigrants in February 2025 than any month in the last seven years. Still, no one in his community believed that Rojas would be one of them.“We were all just shocked,” said Susy Glamuzina, his close friend and co-worker. Glamuzina had rushed to Morales’s side as soon as Rojas was arrested and had been driving the family over to Tacoma to visit Alberto in detention. “I just thought, you know, he had a baby who was born here,” she said.View image in fullscreenTheir boss reassured Alberto he’d hold Rojas’s job until he returned, and offered to pitch in for his legal fees. Marcus Riccelli, a Democratic state senator representing Spokane, who played soccer in the same league as Rojas, heard about the case, offered to help find Rojas legal representation and called in a favor to help his family file paperwork to delay his deportation. Meanwhile, friends have jumped in to help Morales with childcare and connect their children – who had been struggling since Rojas’s arrest – with counselors to help them process the trauma.Glamuzina and his friends have already planned a party for when he returns home. “Alberto is really missed. We want him back. And I’ll tell you – if they need any personal testimonies for his case, I can have 20 people in Tacoma in a heartbeat.”A GoFundMe page for his legal fees started by Myers has so far raised nearly $17,000.The family has been using the funds to pay for legal fees, and their lawyers have filed a motion to reopen Rojas’ asylum case. They’re also hoping Rojas will be released soon.He worries about health complications due to his missing kidney if he were to contract any infections while in detention.Morales has chided Rojas for not eating enough. Mealtimes in the detention centre have been irregular, and Rojas has not been in the mood to eat.“I see my husband is getting thinner in detention,” she said. “And I told him, I don’t want to see you thinner, because it would make me sadder than I already am!”It has been difficult, for both of them, not to think about what will happen if he is deported.Morales said news that Rojas has been detained in the US has already spread through their town in Nicaragua, and she worries that government-appointed neighborhood committees will be waiting, ready to alert authorities of Rojas’s arrival. If he isn’t imprisoned or worse, Morales said she worries he could end up exiled – the Nicaraguan government stripped citizenship from hundreds of opponents.“I am preparing for the worst,” Rojas said. “I am praying and I am preparing myself spiritually for what is to come.” More

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      Trump news at a glance: ‘I’m not joking’ – Trump says he could seek third term

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      Donald Trump has said there are “methods” – if not “plans” – to circumvent the constitutional limit preventing US presidents from serving three terms, in an explosive interview in which he also said he was “very angry” with Vladimir Putin, threatened to bomb Iran and did not rule out using force in Greenland.In the interview, which aired Sunday on NBC, Trump told host Kristen Welker regarding a third term that “there are methods which you could do it”. Trump has repeatedly raised the possibility of serving a third term but has often masqueraded it as a joke. But on Sunday, he confirmed he was “not joking”.Trump makes clear his interest in a third term is seriousIn the interview, Welker alluded to a purported loophole some Trump supporters have fantasized about finding in which he could be the running mate to his vice-president, JD Vance, or someone else in the 2028 election. The person to whom Trump would be the running mate in that scenario could then immediately resign after winning and being sworn in as president, letting Trump take over by succession.Trump said it was “far too early to think about” trying to defy the two presidential term limit, but asked if being president a third time would be too much work, he said: “I like working.”Read the full storyTrump says he’s ‘pissed off’ with PutinTrump has said he is “very angry” and “pissed off” with Vladimir Putin over his approach to a ceasefire in Ukraine and threatened to levy tariffs on Moscow’s oil exports if the Russian leader does not agree to a truce within a month.The abrupt change of direction came after Putin had tried to attack the legitimacy of Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday, Trump said. Appearing on Russian television, Putin had suggested Ukraine could be placed under a temporary UN-led government to organise fresh elections before negotiating a peace deal.Read the whole storyFinnish president plays a round of golf diplomacy with TrumpFinnish president Alexander Stubb said Trump was losing patience with Putin’s stalling tactics over the Ukraine ceasefire after spending several hours with the US president – including winning a golf competition with him at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Saturday.Stubb, who also spent two days with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, last week in Helsinki suggested in a Guardian interview a plan for a deadline of 20 April, by which time Putin should be required to comply with a full ceasefire.Read the full storyThe Atlantic’s Goldberg dismisses Waltz’s Signal defense: ‘This isn’t the Matrix’.The Atlantic magazine’s chief editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, has dismissed as implausible the explanation offered by national security adviser Mike Waltz that his contact was “sucked in” to his phone via “somebody else’s contact”.“This isn’t The Matrix,” Goldberg told NBC’s Kristen Welker on Sunday’s Meet the Press. “Phone numbers don’t just get sucked into other phones.”Read the full storyMinnesota officials seek answers after Ice detains graduate studentOfficials in Minnesota were seeking answers in the case of a University of Minnesota graduate student who was being detained by US immigration authorities for unknown reasons.University leadership said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detained the student on Thursday at an off-campus residence. Officials said the school was not given advance notice about the detention and did not share information with federal authorities. The student’s name and nationality have not been released.Read the full storyAdvertising giant WPP cuts diversity references from annual reportThe British advertising giant WPP has become the latest company to cut the phrase “diversity, equity and inclusion” from its annual report as the policies come under attack from the Trump administration.The agency, which counts the US as by far its largest market, boasts the storied “Madison Avenue” agencies J Walter Thompson, Ogilvy and Grey among its top brands. In WPP’s annual report, which was released on Friday, the chief executive, Mark Read, told shareholders that “much has changed over the last year” due to political events.Read the full storyWhite House correspondents’ dinner cancels anti-Trump comedian’s appearanceComedy is off the menu at the annual White House correspondents’ dinner, a once convivial get-together for reporters to meet with federal governments officials that has become too fraught for light-heartedness amid the second Trump presidency.The dinner, scheduled for 26 April, is organized by the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA), and it typically features a post-meal comedic interlude where a comedian sets to work on the powerful. Beginning with Calvin Coolidge in 1924, every president has attended at least one WHCA dinner – except for Trump.Read the full storySmithsonian Institution braces for Trump rewrite of US historyVisitors have come in their millions to the Smithsonian Institution, the world’s biggest museum, education and research complex, in Washington for the past 178 years. On Thursday, Donald Trump arrived with his cultural wrecking ball.The US president, who has sought to root out “wokeness” since returning to power in January, accused the Smithsonian of trying to rewrite history on issues of race and gender. In an executive order entitled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History”, he directed the removal of “improper, divisive or anti-American ideology” from its storied museums.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Trump said he “couldn’t care less” if tariffs make car prices go up and is facing a backlash from some members within his own party over the measures.

      Candidates are gearing up for special elections in parts of Florida, Texas, Arizona and Wisconsin in what’s being seen as a litmus test of Trump’s first weeks in office.

      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 29 March. More

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      What to know about the El Salvador mega-prison where Trump sent deported Venezuelans

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      The US has sent hundreds of mostly Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador to be held without trial in a controversial mega-prison known for its harsh conditions. The facility has drawn praise from hardline law-and-order politicians at home and abroad and ire from human rights organizations.Here’s what we know about the mega-prison called Cecot, an acronym for Terrorism Confinement Centre in Spanish.What is the Cecot prison?In February 2023, El Salvador opened what it claims is Latin America’s biggest prison with capacity for 40,000 inmates. The 23-hectare prison is isolated in a rural region 70 km east of capital San Salvador.Bukele in November said the prison cost $115m to develop and equip.This prison is part of Bukele’s highly popular hardline security policy which has resulted in a sharp drop in homicides.Calling himself the world’s “coolest dictator,” Bukele, 43, declared a state of emergency in March 2022 that remains in effect and has entailed the arrest of more than 84,000 people.This includes alleged members of El Salvador’s Mara Salvatrucha gan, also known as MS-13, and its rival, Barrio 18.Government reports put the prison population at 14,500 inmates in August 2024, but a government spokesperson said in March 2025 that the statistic was outdated. A current figure was not disclosed security reasons, the spokesperson said.View image in fullscreenWhy are migrants held at the prison?During a visit from the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, in February, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele offered to incarcerate criminals deported from the US in the mega-prison.The Trump administration deported 261 people to El Salvador on 15 March. For 137 of them, the US government justified the move under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, saying the men were members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua but providing few details about their cases.A US official said in a court filing that “many” of those 137 has no US convictions but still posed a serious threat.Those people along with 101 additional Venezuelans were sent to Cecot for a one-year term that can be renewed, Bukele said. The US government paid El Salvador about $6m to receive the deportees, the White House said.The remaining 23 deportees were Salvadoran gang members, the White House said.What is it like in the prison?Images taken inside the facility often show prisoners packed tightly together with their heads shaved and wearing only shorts.The prison has no outdoor recreational space and no family visits are allowed.View image in fullscreenA report from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in September 2024 expressed concerns about overcrowding in the Cecot, citing a study that found inmates had an average 0.60 square metres (6.45 square feet) of space, below international standards.Civil society organisations and advocates have reported over 6,000alleged human rights violations in the country since the state of emergency was declared in 2022, including arbitrary detentions, torture and 366 deaths in state custody. The government denies the allegations.Why is the prison controversial?Cecot has attracted global attention, both positive and negative. Argentine security minister Patricia Bullrich praised the facility in a June 2024 social media post that said: “This is the way. Tough on criminals.”A US Republican party delegation from the House of Representatives, led by then-Representative Matt Gaetz, visited the prison a month later.YouTube personalities have had millions of views for their prison visit videos that highlighted harsh conditions in the prison.Many human rights organisations have criticised El Salvador’s prisons and especially Cecot. Groups have reported alleged human rights violations like torture, inmate deaths and mass trials.Bukele said in August that “gang members will spend their entire lives in prison.” Justice minister Gustavo Villatoro vowed in 2023 that officials “will make sure none of those who enter the Cecot ever leave on foot.”View image in fullscreen More

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      Conor McGregor anti-immigration rant in White House condemned by Irish PM

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      Ireland’s prime minister has denounced anti-immigration comments made by Conor McGregor as the MMA fighter visited the White House before a Saint Patrick’s Day meeting with Donald Trump.McGregor said “Ireland is on the cusp of losing its Irishness” and that an “illegal immigration racket” was “running ravage on the country”.Last week, Donald Trump singled out “Conor” – who last year was found liable for sexual assault after a civil trial – as one of his favourite Irish people.Dressed in a green business suit to mark Ireland’s national day, McGregor was at the White House at Trump’s invitation and participated in an impromptu Q&A session with reporters. “There are rural towns in Ireland that have been overrun in one swoop,” he said, speaking in the White House briefing room alongside the president’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt.The 36-year-old former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) champion said he was “here to raise the issue and highlight it” and that he would be listening to Trump on immigration – one of the president’s main areas of focus as he seeks to ramp up deportations of people in the US without proper documentation.The apparently off-the-cuff comments were immediately condemned by Micheál Martin, the taoiseach. “Conor McGregor’s remarks are wrong, and do not reflect the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day, or the views of the people of Ireland,” the Irish prime minister said on X. “St Patrick’s Day around the world is a day rooted in community, humanity, friendship and fellowship.”McGregor was among those at an official pre-inauguration party in Washington in January. He has been one of the biggest stars of the UFC, which was founded by the Trump ally Dana White.In November McGregor was ordered by an Irish civil court to pay nearly €250,000 (£210,000) in damages to a woman who said he “brutally raped and battered” her in a hotel in Dublin in 2018. McGregor claimed they had consensual sex and is appealing against the verdict with a hearing in Dublin’s high court due later this week.The fighter has said he is considering running for president in Ireland later this year, a prospect some thought would be ruled out after the civil trial verdict.He has been supported by figures including the self-styled misogynist influencer Andrew Tate and anti-immigration campaigners in Ireland whose reach has been turbocharged by Elon Musk retweets.Immigration is a hot topic in Ireland with many arrivals entering Northern Ireland on ferries or planes and crossing the invisible border on the island to enter the Republic of Ireland.The justice minister, Jim O’Callaghan, has promised to clamp down on those who are not entitled to international protection. Last month he said more than 80% of applications for asylum in January were rejected in the first instance. More