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    We call on Columbia to stand up to authoritarianism | Open letter

    To the Columbia University administration,As journalists who were trained by Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, and who are steeped in America’s long traditions of free speech and academic freedom, we write to you to express our horror at the events of the past week.The Trump administration has sent immigration enforcers into university-owned student housing and university public spaces at Columbia, has arrested and sought to deport Mahmoud Khalil – not for having committed any documented crimes, but for the thoughts that he has expressed; and has forced another student, Ranjani Srivasan, to flee to Canada after her visa was revoked, also apparently for thought crimes.It has sought to financially cripple the university by withholding $400m in federal funds. And it has demanded the university shut down or restructure departments it deems to be politically problematic, and that it alter its criteria for who to admit to incoming student cohorts.We come from diverse political backgrounds and worldviews; some of us were deeply alienated by last year’s campus protests around the war in Gaza, others of us were sympathetic to the students. Regardless of our political views, however, we firmly believe that the federal government should have no role in policing Columbia’s academic structures, in shaping course requirements and personnel choices made by the university, in dictating admissions strategies, and in terrorizing students for expressing political views that the first amendment clearly protects.Yet, astoundingly, all of these changes are now being accepted by Columbia University in the vain hope of deterring a predatory government from cutting off federal funds and decimating the university’s science research facilities. The university higher-ups have sold out students and faculty alike in their efforts to access federal dollars.We recognize that the fault here lies primarily with the Trump administration, which is stampeding away from democratic norms and, by the day, reinventing the US as an autocracy in the image of Orbán’s Hungary and Putin’s Russia. We recognize, too, that universities such as Columbia are caught between a rock and hard place, damned if they cooperate with the Maga agenda and damned if they don’t.In such a dismal situation, courageously standing up for moral principles and academic codes would have been the honorable – and ultimately more effective – path to take. As Churchill famously said after England and France’s capitulation to Nazi demands at the Munich conference in which Czechoslovakia was dismembered: “You had a choice between dishonor and war; you chose dishonor and you shall have war.”Trump’s administration preys on weakness, and it is employing an extraordinarily effective divide and conquer strategy. We are seeing this in its assault on individual law firms, such as Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, which this week cried uncle and arranged a meeting with Trump, in which it agreed to do $40m of pro bono work for clients and issues of his choice in exchange for not having their security clearances revoked.That will, of course, only empower Trump and the justice department to ask more of the capitulating attorneys and also to go after additional law firms, seeking the same result – indeed, on Friday night, Trump released a memo directing the Department of Justice to do just that. We are seeing it with major media outlets – take, for example, ABC’s extraordinary decision to donate millions of dollars to the Trump presidential library to make an inconvenient Trump lawsuit disappear; or CBS’s decision to give the Trump team access to the transcripts of its pre-election interview with Kamala Harris. Again, that will only empower Trump to demand further concessions from those companies in how they report on his Administration as well as to seek to kneecap the independence of other media outlets.And, of course, we are seeing it in the escalating war against academia. Columbia’s capitulation won’t end the nightmare that American research universities are facing, rather it will make it worse. For if an institution of the stature, and with the vast endowment resources, of an Ivy League school such as Columbia can be publicly humiliated and made to grovel for Federal crumbs, then every other academic institution in the country is rendered weaker and more open to political attack.Given this reality, we urge Columbia’s administrators to rethink their strategy in dealing with Trump’s authoritarian administration. We urge university administrators around the country to respond collectively rather than allowing themselves to be picked off one by one. And we urge Columbia alumni, of all political persuasions, to join with us in recognizing the enormous stakes in play here, and in demanding that this wonderful academic institution stand up for the values and the beliefs that have held steady since its founding more than 270 years ago. We urge alumni to call their political representatives to protest the assault on academic freedom, to contact Columbia University’s leadership to express their displeasure, and, if necessary, to withhold their donations to Columbia until such time as the university stiffens its spine in its dealings with the Trump administration.This is, we believe, one of the greatest crises facing academia in US history, and also one of the greatest assaults on free speech. How universities such as Columbia respond will determine whether universities remain independent or whether, ultimately, they end up simply serving as extensions of an increasingly authoritarian state.Sasha Abramsky
    Jason Ziedenberg
    Marissa Ventura
    Marion Davis
    Martha Irvine
    Anna Allen
    Gil Griffin
    Megan Williams
    Tony Fong, Science editor
    Victoria Pesce Elliott
    Holly Bass
    Stuart Davis
    Chuck Tanowitz
    Jennifer Cohen Oko
    Carolyn Juris
    Victoria Colliver
    John Nichols
    Chris Lombardi
    Alice Sparberg Alexiou
    Elizabeth Kadetsky
    Dina Hampton
    Aaron Naparstek
    Kevin Heldman
    Jerome Weeks
    Betsy Rosen
    Lizzy Stark
    Jay Ross
    Professor Sam Freedman
    Timothy Cahill More

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    Amid fear and confusion in US immigrant communities, protest goes grassroots

    On Sundays, Juan Carlos Ruiz gives his sermons while wearing a white robe. Although his English- and Spanish-speaking congregants at a Brooklyn-based church may not notice it, the neck of his robe is ripped, the cloth frayed. When asked about the tear in his robe, Ruiz gives a charming smile, remembering his 2018 arrest.That year, during the first Trump administration, Ruiz was participating in a protest to prevent the deportation of a prominent New York immigration activist. As tensions flared, cops began to rough up some demonstrators. Ruiz attempted to intervene. He and 17 others were arrested by police; his white alb ripped during the struggle.“They beat us for a long time,” Ruiz recalls. “But it exposed that, although New York is a so-called ‘sanctuary city’, in reality, the practice still existed of working hand-in-hand with the migrant police.”Ruiz is an important figure in New York’s immigrant activist space, one of many providing services and assistance to immigrants at risk of being targeted by federal authorities. Now Ruiz and others are continuing their work to help migrants – but with more urgency and determination under the second Trump administration’s aggressive anti-immigrant full court press.View image in fullscreenAlthough the work is not new for many, immigrant rights activists in New York are adapting their methods, finding new ways to respond to the federal government’s attacks. Some groups are offering legal advice to immigrants navigating the backlogged and bureaucratic proceedings, even as the White House steers around due process; others are providing legal information, in case immigration officials come knocking; and others are providing food and basic assistance to those in need.There is deep confusion and much fear in many communities – both documented and undocumented, with advocates attempting to anchor those threatened by providing quick-response resources, information and – if necessary – physical refuge.“We are responsible for our own silence,” Ruiz said. If you do not stand up against injustice, he added, “we will be complicit in a system that is undermining all of us.”Before Ruiz’s Spanish-language service on Sundays, the church provides a hearty meal to people who attend. During the downtime, while young children laugh and chase each other around the church, many people will wait patiently to visit with the pastor in his office. They will inquire about their immigration cases or request help with their legal process.On one recent Sunday, a man kissed his baby and his wife, embraced Ruiz and broke down in tears after the pastor handed him an envelope. His work permit had finally arrived in the mail.“For me, my role is more to accompany, listen, maybe take the person’s hand and, as I accompany them, search for paths forward and solutions,” Ruiz said, with his distinctive central Mexican accent. “A lot of people, what they want, is just to be heard.”And Ruiz has heard it all. He has sat with immigrants who tell horror stories of the extremely dangerous journey through South and Central America. Others tell Ruiz about loved ones, who have died or been killed. Some migrants have fled their home countries due to political persecution; others are fleeing violence from organized criminal groups. Many also seek economic opportunities, with some leaving due to poverty driven by the climate crisis or weak, corrupt governments.The toughest aspect is seeing the “normalization of lies” about immigrants: “The lies that ‘having papers makes you superior,’ that ‘having a certain skin color makes you better’ or ‘less’. These lies undermine people’s dignity,” he said.Since Donald Trump took office for the second time, Ruiz noticed attendance at his Sunday lunches began to wane. On 20 January, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security released a memo allowing for Ice to conduct arrests and enforcement operations at “sensitive locations” or “protected areas”, including churches, schools and medical facilities. Legal challenges partially blocked the “sensitive locations” Trump memo but a nationwide chilling effect and fear lingers. However, life must go on.“I’ve been in this country for 20 years,” one woman from Mexico said, asking for her name to be withheld for fear of being targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), the federal agency that carries out deportations. Last month fear was rampant and she noticed the New York subway trains were emptier than usual on the way to work. “But we have to keep going. We have to go work because, here, no one is going to help us pay rent, no one is going to help us except ourselves,” she said.Ruiz became the pastor of the Good Shepherd church in 2018. Ever since, during moments of desperate need and heightened threats, he has periodically opened the church’s doors, offering sanctuary to migrants seeking refuge, motivated by his own experience as an immigrant and decades of activism.He arrived in the US at 16 from Mexico and was himself undocumented – “living in the shadows”, as he describes it – before going through the long process of obtaining legal status. At one point, immigration officials attempted to deport his brother. His family’s church intervened and stopped the deportation – a landmark event in Ruiz’s political, religious and personal development. His religious philosophy was further shaped by a longstanding tradition of progressive faith activism, having studied under liberation theology and leftwing Jesuit priests in Chicago and New Jersey.“We are a sanctuary church. This means that your body and blood, your dignity and your personhood, is also sacred,” Ruiz preached to his congregants during a recent Spanish-language sermon. “When there are unjust systems that distort that, one has the necessity to protest, or do whatever is possible, to dismantle those unjust systems.”In the first two months of the Trump administration, the federal government has significantly escalated its offensive against undocumented immigrants. Among its countless actions, the administration has stripped away asylum rights, sent migrants to the Guantánamo naval base to be detained, arrested a green card holder for political activism, issued quotas for Ice arrests and used the Alien Enemies Act to deport immigrants, despite a federal judge’s order. Ice arrested more than 32,000 people during Trump’s first 50 days.Some of the most vigorous challengers to the anti-immigrant agenda have been immigrant and civil rights organizations, including grassroots groups, rather than from Democratic lawmakers, whose resistance has been limited. And as activists routinely point out, the two recent Democratic presidents – Barack Obama and Joe Biden – leaned into the federal detention and deportation machine.“I correct people when they say that the system is broken, as if someone arrived and broke it,” Ruiz said. “I tell them: ‘No, the system has been designed to work this way’.”Community organizations and individuals are striving to protect each other.View image in fullscreenFor the past few years, the non-profit organization South Brooklyn Sanctuary has been providing assistance and advice to recently arrived immigrants in New York. The organization originated in the Good Shepherd church, and became independent in 2023 to formalize its work.“ We started in 2022 when Texas governor Greg Abbott first started bussing immigrants from the southern border to New York City as a political ploy,” said Emily Shechtman, co-founder and executive director of South Brooklyn Sanctuary. “It was an all-hands-on-deck, volunteer-run effort that included all sorts of support, like clothing, food, language classes, grocery distribution. And among that work was legal support.”One Saturday evening this month, the organization, in partnership with South Brooklyn Mutual Aid, provided “know your rights” training to a packed room of people, encouraging attendees to look out for their immigrant neighbors.South Brooklyn Sanctuary also runs a legal clinic for immigrants navigating the complex civil court system that adjudicates immigration cases. Unlike the criminal court system, immigrants are not guaranteed legal representation during procedures, so the group provides community support to better equip immigrants to represent themselves in court.“ Our goal is to train volunteers to help people fill out their own applications with attorney supervision, and to provide legal empowerment information so that recently arrived immigrants don’t feel steamrolled, overwhelmed and confused by what’s a very complex, bureaucratic and adversarial legal system,” Shechtman added.Some workshops do not just prepare immigrants to avoid arrest and navigate the immigration system, but they also prepare people for the worst-case scenario. An immigrant woman the Guardian spoke with attended a workshop on how to prepare for deportation if necessary. Although it is a scary lesson, she explains, it is best to be prepared. After the workshop, the mother gave a trusted friend copies of important documents and enough money for four plane tickets, two tickets for her young children to join her in Mexico, and a roundtrip flight for her friend to escort her children – if it comes to that.“After that, I felt a sense of peace,” the woman said. “We’ve come out on top in a country that is not our own, where we don’t speak the language, where we aren’t wanted. If I am deported to my own country, I can start anew.”On a sunny but chilly recent Friday evening, volunteers and staff from the New York Immigrant Coalition (NYIC) advocacy took to the streets with an initiative, sparked by Trump, to distribute pamphlets and cards explaining one’s legal rights in case Ice arrives. They went door to door in Sunset Park, a Brooklyn neighborhood primarily made up of Latin American and Chinese immigrants, many undocumented.The advocates made their way down the main avenue, talking to business owners, workers and pedestrians. They plan to visit other neighborhoods, too.View image in fullscreen“ Workplace raids were very common in the first Trump administration, and we expect them to scale [up],” said Wennie Chin, senior director of civic engagement at NYIC.The organization provides “know your rights” cards in 15 different languages.Chin also distributed signs for business owners to bar immigration officers from entering without the required warrant signed by a judge – explaining that agents brandishing a simple internal administrative order doesn’t cut it.“ We recruit members of the community who may have language capacity to do this level of outreach, and really make sure that we are reaching people where they are at,” Chin added.Later that evening, back at the Good Shepherd church in Bay Ridge, families gathered for music and dance lessons, a place of refuge, where people living with irregular legal status, can breathe a little easier.A boisterous group of more than two-dozen Spanglish-speaking children rehearsed mariachi music in the church’s main space. The mariachi group, armed with violins and guitars, travels around New York City, performing at community events, weddings and parties. As the kids filed out, excited to enjoy the rest of their Friday evening, the church space filled with the sounds of different music coming from the basement.There, about 30 girls, between five and 15 years old, were taking Mexican folk dance lessons. Their traditional colorful skirts swayed as they rehearsed Mexico’s national dance with loud footwork. After a long week of work, the girls’ visibly tired parents watched their daughters rehearse.“We come here, even though there’s fear,” said one father holding a baby. He gestured towards his daughter, a US citizen by birthright who was with the group of folk dancers. “We are not going to take this away from them because of the fear.”As their children danced, a group of 14 parents, all undocumented, mostly from Mexico, sat in a circle on the main floor of the church to discuss their perspectives on the current atmosphere. Some were vocal, some more shy, there was a mix of fear, courage, also anger at government anti-immigrant hostility and misinformation. All asked that their identities be shielded but all seemed relieved to be seen and heard.“We are not taking jobs away from people,” one father said. “It is also an absolute lie that we do not pay taxes. We pay taxes. We do not live here for free, we all work and pay rent.”Although the majority of their children are US citizens, when talking of Trump’s executive order to restrict birthright citizenship, currently in legal limbo awaiting the US supreme court, the parents’ fear was palpable.And the children feel it, too, many said – not just because of news and rumors on social media, but in their own homes and schools.View image in fullscreenOne man’s young son, who loved to play soccer then go eat at his favorite restaurant, refused to go out for weeks, fearing that Ice would arrest his father during their regular weekend outings. Another woman’s daughter was being bullied at school, she said – a classmate was threatening to call Ice on her family. Although the mother was insistent on reporting the classmate to the school, her daughter deleted the bully’s messages, out of fear of escalating the situation.An eight-year-old girl came home from school telling her parents they were going to “deport everyone”. Her parents are of separate nationalities, Mexican and Guatemalan. “Which country are they going to send us to?” the girl asked.“It’s terrifying,” her mother said. “It scared me to hear small children talking about this. It’s a way of snatching away their innocence – they shouldn’t have to worry about this. And how do you explain this to a child?”Ruiz said that confusion and fear are part of Trump’s strategy – but the fight must go on.“ We cannot underestimate the power of a handful of people, willing to work for the common good,” Ruiz said. “We need to keep working, from whichever trench we find ourselves in.” More

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    ‘I am a political prisoner’: Mahmoud Khalil says he’s being targeted for political beliefs

    In his first public remarks since being detained by federal immigration authorities, Palestinian activist and recent Columbia graduate, Mahmoud Khalil, spoke out against the conditions facing immigrants in US detention and said he was being targeted by the Trump administration for his political beliefs.“I am a political prisoner,” he said in a statement provided exclusively to the Guardian. “I am writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana where I wake to cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices underway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law.”Khalil, a permanent US resident who helped lead Columbia University’s pro-Palestinian protests last spring, was arrested and detained in New York on 8 March by federal immigration authorities who reportedly said that they were acting on a state department order to revoke his green card.The Trump administration, he said, “is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent” warning that “visa-holders, green-card carriers and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs.”The statement, which Khalil dictated to his friends and family over the phone from an Ice detention facility in Jena, Louisiana, railed against the US’s treatment of immigrants in its custody, Israel’s renewed bombardment of the Gaza Strip, US foreign policy, and what he described as Columbia University’s surrender to federal pressure to punish students.“My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza, which resumed in full force Monday night,” the statement said. “With January’s ceasefire now broken, parents in Gaza are once again cradling too-small shrouds, and families are forced to weigh starvation and displacement against bombs. It is our moral imperative to persist in the struggle for their complete freedom.”Khalil described his arrest at his university-owned apartment building in New York in front of his wife, Noor Abdalla, who is eight months pregnant with their first child. The agents who arrested him “refused to provide a warrant” before forcing him into an unmarked car, he said.“At that moment, my only concern was for Noor’s safety,” he said. “I had no idea if she would be taken too, since the agents had threatened to arrest her for not leaving my side.”He was then transferred to an Ice facility in New Jersey before being flown 1,400 miles away to the Louisiana detention facility, where he is currently being held. He spent his first night in detention, he said, sleeping on the floor without a blanket.In his remarks, Khalil said that in Louisiana, he wakes to “cold mornings” and spends “long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices underway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law”.“Who has the right to have rights?” Khalil asked. “It is certainly not the humans crowded into the cells here. It isn’t the Senegalese man I met who has been deprived of his liberty for a year, his legal situation in limbo and his family an ocean away. It isn’t the 21-year-old detainee I met, who stepped foot in this country at age nine, only to be deported without so much as a hearing.”“Justice escapes the contours of this nation’s immigration facilities,” he added.Khalil drew comparison between his current treatment in the US and the ways in which he said the Israeli government uses detention without trial to lock up Palestinians.“I was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria to a family which has been displaced from their land since the 1948 Nakba,” he added, referring to the expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians in 1948 after the creation of Israel.“I spent my youth in proximity to yet distant from my homeland. But being Palestinian is an experience that transcends borders. I see in my circumstances similarities to Israel’s use of administrative detention – imprisonment without trial or charge – to strip Palestinians of their rights,” he said.“I think of Gaza hospital director and pediatrician Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, who was taken captive by the Israeli military on December 27 and remains in an Israeli torture camp today. For Palestinians, imprisonment without due process is commonplace.”Khalil’s arrest ignited protests and caused alarm among free expression advocates, who view the deportation attempt as a violation of his free speech rights. Khalil has not been accused of a crime. His lawyers argue that the Trump administration is unlawfully retaliating against him for his activism and constitutionally protected speech. In an amended petition filed last week, they contended that his detention violates his constitutional rights, including the rights to free speech and due process, and goes beyond the government’s legal authority.His attorneys are currently fighting in a New York court to have him transferred back to New York and to secure his release. A federal judge has blocked Khalil’s deportation while the legal challenge is pending.Throughout Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and since assuming office, Trump has repeatedly pledged to deport foreign students involved in pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses, frequently framing such demonstrations as expressions of support for Hamas.Khalil, who has worked for the British embassy in Beirut, served as a lead negotiator for the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia University last year, mediating between the pro-Palestine protesters and university administrators.The Trump administration has accused the former student of leading “activities aligned to Hamas” and was attempting to deport him using a rarely invoked legal provision from the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which gives the US secretary of state the power to remove someone from the US if their presence in the country is deemed to “have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States”.Federal prosecutors are asking the New York court to order his challenge to his detention moved to Louisiana, where it would likely face more conservative judges.Diala Shamas, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights and member of Khalil’s legal team, said that what happens to Khalil will reverberate beyond his case. “The Trump administration has clearly signaled that this is their test case, their opening shot, the first of many more to come,” she said.“And for that test case, they chose an intrepid and deeply principled organizer who is beloved and trusted in his community,” Shamas said.After Khalil’s arrest, Trump said that it was just “the first of many to come” and vowed on social media to deport other foreign students he accused of engaging in “pro-terrorist, antisemitic, anti-American activity”.Khalil said in his statement that he has always believed that his duty “is not only to liberate myself from the oppressor, but also to liberate my oppressors from their hatred and fear”.“My unjust detention is indicative of the anti-Palestinian racism that both the Biden and Trump administrations have demonstrated over the past 16 months as the US has continued to supply Israel with weapons to kill Palestinians and prevented international intervention” he said. “For decades, anti-Palestinian racism has driven efforts to expand US laws and practices that are used to violently repress Palestinians, Arab Americans, and other communities.”He added: “That is precisely why I am being targeted.”Khalil also criticized Columbia University, arguing that university leaders “laid the groundwork for the US government to target me by arbitrarily disciplining pro-Palestinian students and allowing viral doxing campaigns – based on racism and disinformation – to go unchecked.”The university has increasingly taken disciplinary actions against students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is stepping up its attacks on the school under the guise of fighting antisemitism, which it claims run rampant at the university. The administration is using the same argument to threaten dozens of others American universities with potentially crippling funding cuts.Students, Khalil said, have an important role to play in fighting back. “Students have long been at the forefront of change – leading the charge against the Vietnam War, standing on the frontlines of the civil rights movement, and driving the struggle against apartheid in South Africa,” he said.“In the weeks ahead, students, advocates, and elected officials must unite to defend the right to protest for Palestine. At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all.”He concluded: “Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances, I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my first-born child.”

    Read Khalil’s full statement here. More

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    Chuck Schumer postpones book tour stops amid shutdown vote backlash

    The Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, has postponed several stops on a tour to promote his new book, citing security concerns, as the New York Democrat faces intensifying backlash over his vote to support a Republican-drafted spending bill and avert a government shutdown.Schumer was scheduled to participate in events in Baltimore, Washington DC, New York City and Philadelphia this week to discuss his new book, Antisemitism in America: A Warning, which is set to be released on Tuesday. The tour dates were expected to be rescheduled but the cancellation drew criticism from both political wings.Progressives erupted in fury over his decision last week to relent and help Republicans pass a stopgap funding bill many Democrats warned would hand Donald Trump and Elon Musk even greater discretion to slash government programs and services. Schumer had said Senate Democrats faced a “Hobson’s choice”: either vote for a “terrible” bill or shut down the government, which he argued would have been a far worse outcome for the party and the country.But Democrats are desperate for the party to stand up to Trump, as the administration embarks on a series of radical and potentially unlawful moves to slash the government, deport thousands of immigrants and launch a global trade war.“People are furious about Democrats not having a plan to fight Trump – and supposed ‘leaders’ folding [over] and over again,” Adam Green, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said in a statement, accusing Schumer of attempting to “hide” from constituents. “We hope other Democratic senators continue meeting with their constituents and demand that their leadership fight with backbone.”Democrats have been organizing protests against Republican members of Congress, voicing their fury over the administration’s federal overhaul led by Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” as well as their fears over Republican proposals that would probably result in cuts to safety-net programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.But this week, several Democratic groups are targeting Schumer and other Senate Democrats who voted for the spending bill. Some have staged protests outside of the minority leader’s Brooklyn home while others are calling on him to step down.In an interview with the New York Times, Schumer brushed aside questions about whether the self-described institutionalist was the right leader for this moment. The New York Democrat said he knew how to win seats and compared himself to an “orchestra leader” skilled at highlighting the diverse talent in his caucus. He said he encouraged the senator Chris Murphy, one of the sharpest Democratic critics of the second Trump administration, to ramp up his media appearances, and the independent senator Bernie Sanders to lead a cross-country “fighting oligarchy” tour.When asked about the prospect of a primary challenge, perhaps by the New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as some have reportedly encouraged her to do, Schumer demurred, saying 2028 was “a long time away”.But Schumer’s decision to relent rather than fight has shaken his party’s activist base.After the vote last week, Indivisible, one of the major groups organizing against Trump, said it was time for new leadership in the Senate.“This is a painful decision, the gravity of which we take very seriously. Senator Schumer has contributed to and led many important accomplishments that Indivisible is grateful for,” Ezra Levin, the co-executive director of Indivisible, wrote in a statement. “But with our democracy on the line, he let us, the country, and the Democratic party down.”The group is encouraging members to call their Democratic senators and ask them to pressure Schumer to “step aside”.The funding fight also exposed a deep rift with House Democrats, all but one of whom opposed the bill in a floor vote. On Friday, the congressman Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader, declined to answer a question about whether it was time for new leadership in the Senate. More

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    French politician jokes US should return Statue of Liberty for siding with ‘tyrants’

    A French European parliament member has quipped that the US should return the Statue of Liberty, which it received as a gift from France about 140 years ago, after Donald Trump’s decision “to side with the tyrants” against Ukraine.Trump’s White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, then responded to Raphaël Glucksmann on Monday by calling him an “unnamed low-level French politician” and saying the US would keep the statue.Taunting France’s conquest by Nazi Germany during the second world war before the allied forces – including the US – then defeated the Nazis, Leavitt added: “It’s only because of America that the French are not speaking German right now.” She also said France “should be very grateful to our great country”.Glucksmann, of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, kicked off the exchange Sunday when – evidently with his tongue in his cheek – he said it appeared to him that the US had come to “despise” the statue as well as what it symbolizes.“So, it will be just fine here at home,” Glucksmann said.Glucksmann also referred to a crackdown on “scientific freedom” in the US in his remarks at a political party convention, first reported by Agence France-Presse.His comments amount to a verbal protest after Trump suspended military aid and intelligence gathering on Ukraine, in an apparent attempt to strong-arm its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in the negotiations to end the war started by Russia, which invaded in February 2022.The US president upbraided Zelenskyy during a televised diplomatic meltdown in the Oval Office on 28 February, which caused significant alarm across Europe for appearing to signal that the Trump administration generally favors Russia in the conflict. The US later restored military aid, but on Monday it was reported the US was withdrawing from an international body formed to investigate responsibility for the invasion of Ukraine.Trump and the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, for whom the US president has repeatedly expressed admiration, are tentatively scheduled to talk on Tuesday over the phone about ending the war in Ukraine.Glucksmann’s remarks additionally nodded to Elon Musk’s brutal staffing and spending cuts to the US federal government, which have affected numerous health and climate research workers. Glucksmann said France could be in a position to benefit if any of the fired workers emigrated.“If you want to fire your best researchers, if you want to fire all the people who, through their freedom and their sense of innovations, their taste for doubt and research, have made your country the world’s leading power, then we’re going to welcome them,” said Glucksmann.“Give us back the Statue of Liberty. We’re going to say to the Americans who have chosen to side with the tyrants, to the Americans who fired researchers for demanding scientific freedom: ‘Give us back the Statue of Liberty.’ We gave it to you as a gift.”France did indeed present the 305ft-tall, 450,000lb Statue of Liberty to the US in Paris on 4 July 1884, the 108th anniversary of the American declaration of independence from the UK. The US needed crucial military aid from France to win its revolutionary war and gain independence from the UK.Nicknamed “Lady Liberty”, the torch-bearing statue – designed by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi of France – was then installed on an island in New York City’s harbor and dedicated in 1886. There is a smaller copy of the statue on an island in the Seine river in Paris.A bronze plaque on the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal contains the words of a poem titled The New Colossus, which overtly references the large number of immigrants who arrived in the US in the 19th century and partially reads: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”Trump has been aggressively pursuing the deportation of immigrants. Recently, his administration deported a Brown University medical professor to Lebanon, despite her having a valid US work visa and a judge’s order not to do so.Prosecutors reportedly alleged that the professor had recently attended the funeral of Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, among other things.The US also recently deported to El Salvador more than 250 people whom the White House accused of belonging to Venezuelan and Salvadorian gangs, despite a judge’s order halting the flight.David Smith contributed reporting More

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    ‘Tesla is a good target’: Elon Musk’s car business is focus of fury for political role

    Hundreds of people protested at Tesla dealerships across the US over the weekend, as the backlash against Elon Musk and the Trump administration continued despite a warning from the attorney general that the government would be “coming after” protesters.The protests, in cities including Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Boston and New York, have come as Musk has seen his net worth plunge and the sales of Teslas plummet in Europe. In Brooklyn, New York, about 50 people gathered outside a Tesla showroom on Saturday afternoon to loudly make their displeasure clear, the fourth such protest in the last four weeks.Other anti-Tesla actions have seen bullets fired through a dealership window and molotov cocktails thrown at a charging station. But this was a rather more genteel protest, as evidenced by the signs on show. “Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,” read one, channeling a poem by the American poet James Russell Lowell.One banner said: “Musk is too brusque,” another: “Very uncool.” One sign, however, offered a more prosaic example of the anger on display, riffing on a Dead Kennedys song: “Nazi trucks fuck off.”As protesters chanted: “Hands off our data,” and “Arrest Elon Musk,” there certainly seemed to be plenty of support from passersby. People in cars and trucks repeatedly blasted their horns – including, at one point, a man driving a Tesla.“This is probably the most consequential moment in US history since, I don’t know, the civil war. I don’t know what to liken it to, but we’re on a precipice, and so I can’t actually concentrate on anything right now except protesting,” said Kirsten Hassenfeld, a 53-year-old artist and editor who lives in Brooklyn.“I think there are people that haven’t woken up to this yet, but I think that we’re sliding into a full-on authoritarian state. I’m terrified,” she said.Musk has witnessed a mass sell-off of Teslas in recent weeks, in protest against his unprecedented intrusion into the US government through the so-called “department of government efficiency”. Sales of new vehicles have declined around the world, with February sales in Australia down about 72% compared with the same month in 2024; in Germany sales were down 76% for the same period, while Tesla’s stock price has lost almost half its value since December.As protests have grown, the White House has rallied round Musk. Last week Donald Trump claimed the boycott was “illegal”, while Pam Bondi, the attorney general, said on Friday she would launch an investigation into vandalism against Tesla vehicles and showrooms.“If you’re going to touch a Tesla, go to a dealership, do anything, you better watch out because we’re coming after you. And if you’re funding this, we’re coming after you. We’re going to find out who you are,” Bondi told Fox Business.In Brooklyn, people were apparently undeterred by the threat. Teslas driving past the protest were treated to a volley of boos, and lusty chants of “Sell your Tesla”. The demonstration certainly appeared to have restricted the number of people entering the dealership: the Guardian counted three customers in the space of an hour and a half.Donna C, who asked not to give her last name, said it was her fourth time protesting at that dealership.“It’s important for me because Elon Musk has carte blanche to destroy our country, destroy our democracy, destroy the institutions that millions of New Yorkers and millions of Americans rely on. Donald Trump has allowed him to buy his way into the government with hundreds of millions of dollars of contributions,” Donna said.“I think what these protests are doing is opening the eyes of Americans in their millions across the US to what is actually going on,” she said. “My parents grew up in fascism in Italy under Mussolini. I’ve seen what can happen. We know the history, the same steps are being taken.”Nearly 20 Tesla showrooms and charging stations have seen deliberate fires set over the past few weeks, while dozens of owners have had their cars variously egged, used as receptacles for dog feces, or coated with Kraft cheese singles. The protests on Saturday seem to have largely remained calm, however, despite the anger of those attending.“I’ve been pissed off and furious for a while, and a friend of mine told me, ‘If you want to come and scream and shout at Tesla, then show up on Saturday,’” said Yedon Thonden, 57.“Tesla is a good target. You know, their stock prices are sinking. Their leadership is cashing out their investments. And I think Elon is obviously worried about his company,” she said.“I think that this administration is going to realize pretty quickly that the economy is tanking. So the more we can highlight that, the better.” More