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US judge blocks deportation of Palestinian activist detained by Ice
A judge has blocked the deportation of the prominent Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University’s protests against Israel over the war in Gaza. Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia University until this past December who holds permanent US residency, is being detained by US immigration authorities at a facility in Louisiana after his arrest, according to information from officials.A spokesperson for the US’s homeland security department – as well as the country’s top diplomat – confirmed the arrest. In a statement to the Associated Press, a homeland security department spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, said Khalil’s arrest was made to support Donald Trump’s presidential orders “prohibiting antisemitism”.The department alleged that Khalil’s activism constituted “activities aligned to Hamas”.Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, also confirmed the arrest, adding on X: “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”Jesse M Furman, an Obama-appointed judge in New York’s southern district, announced the block in an order on Monday amid protests over Khalil’s arrest.Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries called on the department of homeland security on Monday evening to “produce facts and evidence of criminal activity”.“Absent evidence of a crime, such as providing material support for a terrorist organization, the actions undertaken by the Trump administration are wildly inconsistent with the United States constitution,” Jeffries’ statement read.Khalil served as lead negotiator for the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia University last spring. On Monday, an online tracker administered by the US’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) indicated he was at the LaSalle detention center near the central Louisiana community of Jena. The facility is operated by the private contractor GEO Group.According to Zeteo, which first reported on the arrest, Khalil’s attorneys did not immediately know where he was being detained. The same tracker showing Khalil in custody in Louisiana on Monday indicated on Sunday that he was at an immigration detention center in New Jersey.But when Khalil’s wife, a US citizen who is eight months pregnant, attempted to visit him at the New Jersey center, she was reportedly told he was not there.Khalil was detained by Ice agents despite having a green card and therefore being a permanent US resident. Khalil’s attorney said Ice agents hung up the phone during the detention when she asked if they had a warrant.“The Trump administration’s outrageous detention of Mahmoud is designed to instill terror in students speaking out for Palestinian freedom and immigrant communities,” said Jewish Voice for Peace in a statement on the arrest. “This is the fascist playbook. We all must fiercely reject it, and universities must start protecting its students.”Trump has vowed to target foreign students for deportations as well as “agitators” involved in protests on US college and university campuses. The second Trump administration has made a specific focus of Columbia University, recently announcing the cancellation of $400m in grants over claims the school isn’t doing enough to combat antisemitism.A Zionist activist group, Betar USA, claimed credit for releasing Khalil’s name to the Trump administration, praising his detention. The Anti-Defamation League has listed the group as a hate group – the only Jewish group on the list.“This blatantly unconstitutional act sends a deplorable message that freedom of speech is no longer protected in America,” Murad Awawdeh, president and chief executive of New York Immigration Coalition, said in a statement on Sunday afternoon.“Furthermore, Khalil and all people living in the United States are afforded due process.“A green card can only be revoked by an immigration judge, showing once again that the Trump administration is willing to ignore the law in order to instill fear and further its racist agenda. DHS must immediately release Khalil.”Abené Clayton contributed to this report More
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Crews continue to battle wind-driven brush fire on New York’s Long Island
Firefighters in New York were continuing to battle at least one brush fire in a wooded stretch of Long Island on Sunday with the wealthy coastal enclave of the Hamptons vulnerable and officials warning that high wind gusts threatened to ignite further blazes.The state’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, declared a state of emergency on Saturday after four separate fires broke out. The flames were spreading across large swaths of the narrow strip of barrier land that stretches for more than 100 miles east from New York City out towards the Atlantic Ocean.A huge fire in Long Island’s Pine Barrens region prompted road closures and evacuations of a military base.As of Sunday morning, three of the fires had been contained, while one was still burning in the hamlet of Westhampton, according to Michael Martino, a spokesperson for Suffolk county executive Ed Romaine.Local fire crews, as well as the air national guard, worked through the night, containing roughly 80% of the blaze, according to Martino.He said the Suffolk county police department’s arson squad had initiated an investigation into the blaze, though there was no immediate evidence to suggest arson.At least two commercial structures had been damaged. One firefighter was flown to a hospital to be treated for burns to the face on Saturday.Massive clouds of smoke billowed and flames towered over the Sunrise highway that leads to the Hamptons, the string of historic seaside communities flanked by magnificent sandy beaches with rolling waves and dotted with summer mansions of the rich and famous.According to the National Weather Service, wind gusts of up to 30mph were expected on Sunday, making it more difficult to extinguish parts that were still burning.“Our biggest problem is the wind,” Romaine said at an earlier news conference. “It is driving this fire.”Roughly 15 miles west, officials were monitoring a small brush fire along Sunrise highway early on Sunday, Brookhaven town supervisor Daniel Panico said. More
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Andrew Cuomo enters race for New York mayor as frontrunner – but trailing baggage
Abraham Rios, a 76-year-old army veteran and retiree, regularly meets friends at a coffee shop around the corner from his home in Brooklyn, and that is about all he does, he says.The Puerto Rico native who served in the Vietnam war is satisfied with the money he gets from social security and enjoys life, but he would like to see more police in his Clinton Hill neighborhood, where he has lived since 1964.Rios thinks Andrew Cuomo, who on 1 March entered the New York City mayoral race in an attempt to resurrect a seemingly dead political career, can make that happen.“He is a very good leader,” Rios said of Cuomo, who resigned as New York governor in 2021 after facing sexual harassment allegations, which he denied. “He made his mistakes, like all of us have,” but “the governor built bridges. He helped the poor. He helped everybody.”Cuomo’s long history in New York politics and name recognition has helped him storm to a lead in a candidate field featuring an incumbent – Eric Adams – whom many see as corrupt, and a large number of lesser-known candidates who are struggling to get much traction.The scandal that brought Cuomo down and his controversial handling of the Covid-19 pandemic probably won’t have a significant impact on his chances of winning, New York political analysts say, but some voters don’t like what they viewed as his heavy-handed approach as governor and don’t think he is progressive enough.“The judging of the mayor is going to be determined not on incidents in their past but who we feel has got the best chance of leading the city when things that are not predictable happen,” like the pandemic and the September 11 terrorist attacks, said Mitchell Moss, New York University professor of urban policy and planning. “He is the only candidate” with experience “at the federal level, the state level and who understands how to make the tough decisions”.The Democratic mayoral primary, which will probably determine who wins the general election in the blue city, is scheduled for 24 June. The city will again use a ranked-choice system in which voters pick their preferred candidates from one to five, though they do not need to select more than one. If someone captures more than half the votes, they win; if not, the candidate with the fewest first-round votes is eliminated, and their supporters’ votes go to their second choice. That process continues until one candidate has a majority of the votes.Cuomo, who for months was rumored to be considering running, had a wide lead in February polls, with about a third of voters in two surveys saying he was their favorite candidate among nine Democrats, while the runner-up in each only received 10%.Other candidates include Adams, who faced a federal indictment until the US justice department dropped the charges against him, it appears, in exchange for his help implementing Donald Trump’s immigration policy; the current and former city comptrollers, Brad Lander and Scott Stringer; the New York state assembly member Zohran Mamdani; and the state senator Jessica Ramos, among others.In announcing his candidacy, Cuomo said the city was in crisis.“You feel it when you walk down the street and try not to make eye contact with a mentally ill homeless person or when the anxiety rises up in your chest as you’re walking down into the subway,” Cuomo said in a video. “These conditions exist not as an act of God, but rather as an act of our political leaders, or, more precisely, the lack of intelligent action by many of our political leaders.”View image in fullscreenAs governor, Cuomo allegedly bullied those who disagreed with him. While that made it hard for him to find allies when he faced calls to resign, it also contributed to the perception that he is a strong leader, said Doug Muzzio, a retired political science professor who worked at Baruch College.Meanwhile, “the incumbent is seen to be a weak person who is in the pocket of a president who the voters despise”, Muzzio said.Cuomo can also point to his infrastructure accomplishments, Moss said, which include rebuilding a bridge that connects Brooklyn and Queens, an overhaul of La Guardia airport and construction of the Moynihan Train Hall.Kim Grover, a graphic designer who lives in the East Village, said she was concerned about the allegations that Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women and that his administration underreported how many people died in nursing homes during the pandemic.Still, Grover thinks Cuomo stood up to Trump during the pandemic – and in doing so, to many, became a hero. She now worries about maintaining New Yorkers’ civil rights and sanctuary city policy, which keeps local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration officers, something Trump and Republicans have attacked.“In terms of his excellent delivery and communication skills, my first thought would be that [Cuomo] would be a good person to stand his ground against President Trump,” said Grover, 67, who has not decided whom she will support.Gabe Russell, a petitioner for a Democrat in the comptroller race – whom he declined to name – did not like Cuomo even before the Covid and sexual harassment scandals, and Cuomo is not on his list of five candidates. His top two choices are Mamdani and Lander.Cuomo “was very cozy with the real estate lobby … and that is always a bad sign”, said Russell, 33, who wants the government to use mathematics to prevent gerrymandering. “New York is one of the bluest states. We should have been doing far more lefty stuff than we ever do.”Russell also thinks Cuomo could lose support, citing the 2021 mayoral election, when Andrew Yang was the frontrunner and then fell to fourth place.Elena Siyanko, a longtime leader of arts organizations who moved to New York in 1996, said the city was once a “generative place in terms of culture, where artists could afford to live” but had become a place “for hi-tech and financial services”.An East Village resident, Siyanko blames Cuomo for the safety issues he now decries because of how he cut funding for social services. For example, to address a budget shortfall, he discontinued $65m in annual payments for a rental assistance program, while also refusing to raise taxes on the state’s wealthiest residents.“He is in this neoliberal camp of removing any safety net and economic support from public life,” said Siyanko, 53, who immigrated from Kyiv, Ukraine, and is undecided in the mayoral race. “We just need to try to get to a corruption-free candidate in this chapter of our life in New York City.” More
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Trump administration cancels $400m in funds to Columbia University
The Donald Trump administration announced on Friday that it had canceled $400m in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University in New York because of what it alleges is the college’s repeated failure to protect students from antisemitic harassment.The announcement comes after Columbia set up a new disciplinary committee and initiated its own investigations into students critical of Israel and its war on Gaza after Hamas’s own attack on Israel. That move by the university has alarmed advocates of free speech.It also comes at a time of widespread backlash to American universities by the Trump administration and conservatives more broadly who see the higher education sector in the US as dominated by liberals and ripe for a rightwing attack on its influence.Linda McMahon, the Trump-appointed secretary of education, had warned on Monday that Columbia would lose federal funding if it did not take additional action to combat antisemitism on its campus.A statement issued on Friday by the Department of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Education, and the US General Services Administration, states: “These cancellations represent the first round of action and additional cancellations are expected to follow.”“For too long, Columbia has abandoned that obligation to Jewish students studying on its campus,” McMahon said in the statement.The statement also refers to ongoing “illegal protests” on college and university campuses, a phrase Trump has used to refer to some student protests, though what makes these illegal remains unclear.Columbia was central to campus protests that broke out across the US over Gaza last spring. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators set up an encampment there in April and inspired a wave of similar protests in many other colleges.The first amendment to the US constitution protects the rights of people to “peacefully assemble” and to petition the government for a “redress of grievances”.The extent that pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campuses can be considered antisemitic is still debated across political and academic spheres. Republican lawmakers viewed the protests as antisemitic, despite the fact many protesters denied the accusations or were Jewish themselves.Trump has threatened college students with imprisonment and deportation on Tuesday on his Truth Social platform, writing: “Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested.”A Columbia University spokesperson wrote in a statement to the Columbia Spectator, that it was “reviewing the announcement from the federal agencies and [pledged] to work with the federal government to restore Columbia’s federal funding”.“We take Columbia’s legal obligations seriously and understand how serious this announcement is and are committed to combatting antisemitism and ensuring the safety and wellbeing of our students, faculty, and staff,” the spokesperson wrote.It is not immediately clear what contracts or grants would be cut under the directive. Columbia University currently holds more than $5bn in federal grant commitments, the GSA statement said.Katherine Franke, a retired legal scholar and former professor at Columbia Law School told the Guardian how she was “pushed out” of her role in January because of her pro-Palestinian activism. She had been with Columbia for 25 years.Franke says that the university was told “unless we as faculty and students take a pro-Israeli position, it [the university] will be sanctioned. And at the same time, the university is now committing itself to something it’s calling institutional neutrality.”She says that though not all the grants were cut, the Trump administration did “cut a significant part of them, and the important research that’s being done with those grants will stop”.Franke is highly critical of the way Columbia is responding to the threats from Trump, believing the institution could have done more to protect students, faculty and the pivotal role the university plays in a democracy.“If you grovel before a bully, it just emboldens the bully, and the bully has now become an authoritarian government with the capacity to act on a level that was unthinkable for us a couple of years ago,” she said.Columbia is one of five colleges currently under the new federal investigation, and it is one of 10 being visited by a taskforce in response to allegations of antisemitism. Others under investigation include the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Minnesota; Northwestern University; and Portland State University. More
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Republicans haul sanctuary city mayors over the coals at immigration hearing
A congressional hearing designed to criticize sanctuary city policies unexpectedly shifted on Wednesday, as a planned attack by Republican lawmakers instead dissolved into a platform that amplified Democratic mayors’ arguments about immigration and urban safety.Before a packed room on Capitol Hill, the House oversight committee, led by its Republican chair, James Comer of Kentucky, sought to portray sanctuary cities – a city that touts municipal laws that protect undocumented migrants – as havens for criminal activity and foreign gangs.“The point that we’ve got to iron out today is that we have to have cooperation with federal law to turn over those illegal criminals to Ice and we’ve heard reports and many of you have said publicly that you are going to obstruct that,” Comer said. “That is against the law. And we’re going to hear more about that today.”But instead of cornering the mayors, Republican lawmakers seemed to inadvertently provide them a national megaphone to sell their approaches to local governance and immigration.“If you wanted to make us safe, pass gun reforms,” Boston mayor Michelle Wu said. “Stop cutting Medicaid. Stop cutting cancer research. Stop cutting funds for veterans. That is what will make our cities safe.”Along with Wu, Mayors Eric Adams of New York, Brandon Johnson of Chicago, and Mike Johnston of Denver were put at the center of the national debate about local governance, immigration enforcement and the balance between federal mandates and municipal discretion.In opening statements, each mayor offered a defense of their sanctuary policies. Adams emphasized that such classifications do not shield criminals, but instead ensure immigrant communities can trust local authorities. Johnson argued that welcoming city ordinances do not impede criminal investigations, while Johnston framed the issue through a moral lens of humanitarian responsibility.Wu, who brought her one-month old infant, said it was the Trump administration’s over-the-top tactics that jeopardized safety for Americans – and that the border czar, Tom Homan, should be the one that should face Congress.“This federal administration is making hard-working, tax-paying, God-fearing residents afraid to live their lives,” Wu said. “A city that’s scared is not a city that’s safe, a land ruled by fear is not the land of the free.”The hearing took a turn when Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina demanded mayors answer inflammatory yes-or-no questions, including whether they “hated President Trump more than they loved their country”.A shouting match then erupted between Representative Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Comer, with Pressley attempting to enter critical headlines about the Trump administration into the official record. Comer had been generally receptive to her prior requests up until that moment.The hearing occurred amid heightened national tensions around immigration, with Trump and Republican rhetoric focusing on linking immigrant populations to crime – a narrative sharply contested by the Democratic mayors and civil liberties advocates.Comer suggested that sanctuary policies “create sanctuary for criminals” and directly endanger public safety. He called for potentially withholding federal funding from cities that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities and pressed each Mayor on whether they will turn over undocumented migrants to Ice.The hearing comes as Adams faces a potential congressional investigation into the justice department’s efforts to dismiss corruption charges against him.The Democratic representatives Jamie Raskin and Jasmine Crockett – who is a member of the House oversight committee – have accused the department of attempting an improper quid pro quo, alleging that federal prosecutors have looked to drop corruption charges in exchange for Adams’s cooperation with the Trump administration’s immigration policies.At one point, Robert Garcia, the Democratic congressman of California, publicly called for Adams’s resignation, declaring he was “confident that Adams committed the crimes with which he is charged”, though Adams – who has been ducking local media on the question – firmly denied any wrongdoing. More
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Hazel Dukes, lifelong civil rights leader, dies aged 92
Hazel Dukes, the president of the New York state chapter of the NAACP and lifelong civil rights advocate, died Saturday at the age of 92.Dukes peacefully passed away in her New York City home surrounded by family, her son, Ronald Dukes, said in a statement.Dukes, who led the New York state NAACP for nearly five decades, fought tirelessly for voting rights, economic development, fair housing and education through her career. Even in her 90s, she spoke out against police brutality and for adequate health care in underserved neighborhoods, the NAACP’s New York state chapter said in a statement.In 2023, former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton presented Dukes with the NAACP’s highest honor – the Spingarn Medal.“I’m not tired yet,” Dukes said in her acceptance speech for the award. She added that she would continue her advocacy and empower the next generation of NAACP leaders.Dukes helped lay the foundation for Black women to ascend to the nation’s highest offices. In 1972, she took the stage at the Democratic National Convention to second the presidential candidacy of Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman to run for the party’s nomination.Dukes was instrumental in former president Joe Biden’s decision to choose a Black woman as his 2020 running mate, she noted in an interview with CBS last year. Her career-long fight was bookended by former vice-president Kamala Harris’s 2024 bid for the presidency.In a post in X Saturday, Harris called Dukes one of the heroes “upon whose broad shoulders we stand”.Dukes said in the CBS interview: “I’m just proud of Kamala. I’m just excited if I can live to see this happen. It would be the joy of my life.”Dukes was the president of her own consulting firm. She also served as the member of the NAACP national board of directors. Leaders of the NAACP said in a statement Saturday that Dukes was a “living embodiment” of the NAACP and that her legacy has touched every aspect of the movement.The New York City mayor, Eric Adams, ordered flags to be lowered at half-staff as a tribute to Dukes. More
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Pro-Ukraine protests erupt across US after Trump and Vance ‘ambush’ Zelenskyy
Protests against the Trump administration erupted across the US on Saturday following an unprecedented Oval Office clash, wherein Donald Trump and JD Vance escalated tensions with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.Hundreds of protesters gathered in Waitsfield, Vermont, on Saturday morning to oppose the vice-president’s visit to the state for a ski trip with his family.The demonstration had been planned earlier in the week by the Mad River Valley chapter of Indivisible, a grassroots organizing group, but additional protesters said they were motivated to join after watching Vance and Trump’s combative White House meeting with Zelenskyy on Friday.Protesters held signs reading “Vermont stands with Ukraine” and “International embarrassment”, while many waved Ukrainian flags in solidarity. Fox aired video of the protesters, but blurred out signs displaying messages against Vance and in favor of Ukraine.“After what he did yesterday, he crossed the line,” protester Cori Giroux told Vermont Public Radio.On Thursday, the governor, Phil Scott, a Republican who refused to vote for Trump in any of his three runs for the White House, issued a statement calling on Vermonters to be respectful of Vance and his family during their visit.“Please join me in welcoming them to Vermont and hoping they have an opportunity to experience what makes our state, and Vermonters, so special,” he said.While Vance, who admitted Friday he has never been to Ukraine, fled to an undisclosed location to evade protesters, some commentators noted that Zelenskyy, who stayed in Ukraine during Russia’s invasion, was returning to a Kyiv still under attack.The protest followed a contentious confrontation in the Oval Office, where the US president told the Ukrainian leader to make a deal with Russia “or we’e out”. At one point, Trump accused Zelenskyy of not showing enough gratitude for US military and political aid, warning that he was “gambling with world war three”.Zelenskyy countered that he had repeatedly thanked the American people and their leaders for their support, that but Ukrainians did not want to accept a ceasefire with Russia without security guarantees, since Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, had repeatedly broken a previous ceasefire agreement.Following the exchange, European leaders, along with the prime ministers of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, posted messages of support for Ukraine.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLeading Democratic lawmakers also rallied to Zelenskyy’s side, with one, the senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, calling the Oval office meeting an “ambush” of the Ukrainian president by Trump and Vance.The aggressive meeting led to protests in cities and towns across the US, including New York, Los Angeles and Boston, where hundreds gathered to express their support for Ukraine and Zelenskyy.Videos posted on social networks showed hundreds of demonstrators gathered in New York’s Times Square, many carrying the blue-and-yellow flag of Ukraine on their backs. In Los Angeles county, a pro-Ukraine crowd rallied in front of a SpaceX’s facility, and protesters in Boston held an “emergency rally” for “fair peace” for Ukraine at Boston Common.“Ukraine wants fair peace. Ukraine wants the war to end,” the group Boston Supports Ukraine wrote on Facebook. “Ukraine wants all of this on fair terms with security guarantees.”For his part, Zelenskyy posted video of his warm reception in London on social networks, showing crowds of supporters lining the street outside Downing Street, where he was embraced by the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer. More
