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      ‘I’m scared to death to leave my house’: immigrants are disappearing from the streets – can US cities survive?

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      At Hector’s Mariscos restaurant in the heavily Latino and immigrant city of Santa Ana, California, sales of Mexican seafood have slid. Seven tables would normally be full, but diners sit at only two this Tuesday afternoon.“I haven’t seen it like this since Covid,” manager Lorena Marin said in Spanish as cumbia music played on loudspeakers. A US citizen, Marin even texted customers she was friendly with, encouraging them to come in.“No, I’m staying home,” a customer texted back. “It’s really screwed up out there with all of those immigration agents.”Increasing immigrant arrests in California have begun to gut-punch the economy and wallets of immigrant families and beyond. In some cases, immigrants with legal status and even US citizens have been swept into Donald Trump’s dragnet.The 2004 fantasy film A Day Without a Mexican – chronicling what would happen to California if Mexican immigrants disappeared – is fast becoming a reality, weeks without Mexicans and many other immigrants. The implications are stark for many, both economically and personally.“We are now seeing a very significant shift toward enforcement at labor sites where people are working,’ said Andrew Selee, president of the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. “Not a focus on people with criminal records, but a focus on people who are deeply integrated in the American economy.”In California, immigrant workers comprise bigger shares of certain industries than they do for the nation overall. Here, the foreign-born make up 62% of agriculture labor and 42% of construction workers, according to the American Immigration Council. About 85% of sewing machine operators in garment factories are foreign-born. Fully 40% of entrepreneurs are foreign-born.Nationally, about a quarter of workers are foreign-born in agriculture and construction, according to the American Immigration Council. More than half of drywall hangers, plasterers and stucco masons are foreign-born. And in science, technology, engineering and math – the so-called Stem fields – nearly a quarter of workers are foreign-born, said the council.The current enforcement trend, Selee said, will “lead to a strategy that will have big economic implications if they continue to go after people who are active in the labor force rather than those who have criminal records”.In both California and across an ageing nation, about half of the foreign-born are naturalized US citizens – a crucial defense in immigration raids and arrests.View image in fullscreenSelee said the current strategy was launched when “the Trump administration realized they weren’t getting large numbers by following traditional approaches to pursuing people who are priority targets for deportation”.Now the threat and chilling effect from immigration raids can be felt in disparate communities from Dallas to El Paso to rural Wisconsin – among migrants and, in some cases, the employers who hire them.In the small town of Waumandee in Wisconsin, dairy farmer John Rosenow said he can’t find US citizens who can withstand the rigors of dairy work.“Fact of the matter is if you want to eat or drink milk you are going to need immigrant workers,” he said.“Yes, we want to get rid of the people who are bad actors,” Rosenow said. “But the people I know, people who are working in the dairy farms, are just hard-working people, getting things done, doing jobs Americans don’t want to do.”In California’s San Joaquin valley, rancher and melon-grower Joe Del Bosque has heard reports of US agents chasing workers in the strawberry fields south of his operation.The San Joaquin valley, known as the food basket of the world, is heavily dependent upon foreign-born workers, especially at harvest time, Del Bosque said. He currently has 100 people working for him and that number will double as the harvest picks up in the coming weeks.“They’re going to disrupt the harvest and food chain. This will hurt the American consumer,” Del Bosque said. “These people are hard workers. They come to work, especially if they have families here or in Mexico.”In a surprise pivot late last week, Trump said there would be an easing of the crackdown in agriculture and the hospitality industries. The New York Times first reported that new guidance from a senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) official called for a “hold on worksite enforcement investigations/operations” in the agriculture sector and restaurants and hotels. The Ice guidance, issued in an email, also said agents were not to make arrests of “noncriminal collaterals”, a key point for those who note that many detained immigrants have had no criminal record. However, the Department of Homeland Security told staff it was reversing that guidance on Monday.Some business leaders and immigrants remain scared and confused.View image in fullscreenRaids, or the threat of them, are also taking an emotional toll on families and generating protests in Chicago, Seattle, Spokane, New York, San Antonio, Dallas and elsewhere. Bigger protests are expected in days to come.In El Paso, protesters flipped the White House script that undocumented immigrants were “criminals”. They waved mostly US flags and shouted “No justice, no peace. Shame on Ice.”Among the protesters was Alejandra, a US citizen and a junior at the University of Texas at El Paso. She asked for partial anonymity for fear of reprisal against her mixed-status family.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionShe said she took to this border city’s streets to honor the sacrifice of her grandparents who migrated from Ciudad Juárez. “All it takes is for you to look at who took that first step to bring you the life you have currently,” Alejandra said.In the Dallas area, a Guatemalan worker said he had been absent from construction sites for days.“There’s too much fear, too much to risk,” said Gustavo, 34, requesting his surname be withheld because he is undocumented. “I fear tomorrow, tonight. I may be deported, and who loses? My family back in Guatemala.”Tough immigration enforcement has been the top-polling issue for Trump. But favor may be slipping. A poll released this week by Quinnipiac University showed Trump had a 43% approval rating on immigration and a 54% disapproval rating. That poll was conducted between 5 and 9 June – after several days of protests.Meantime, back in Santa Ana, a city of about 316,000 in southern California, shop owner Alexa Vargas said foot traffic had slowed around her store, Vibes Boutique, with sales plummeting about 30% in recent days.On a recent day, the shop’s jeans and glitzy T-shirts remained un-browsed. Metered parking spots on the usually busy street sat empty. A fruit and snow cone vendor whom Vargas usually frequents had been missing for days.“It shouldn’t be this dead right now,” Vargas, 26, said on a Tuesday afternoon. “People are too scared to go out. Even if you’re a citizen but you look a certain way. Some people don’t want to risk it.”Reyna, a restaurant cook, told her boss she didn’t feel safe going to work after she heard about the immigration detentions at Home Depot stores in the city.The 40-year-old, who is in the US without legal status, said she fears becoming an Ice target. Current immigration laws and policies don’t provide a way to obtain legal status even though she’s been living in the US for more than 20 years.“I need to work but, honestly, I’m scared to death to leave my house,” she said.For now her life is on hold, Reyna said.She canceled a party for her son’s high school graduation. She no longer drives her younger children to summer school. She even stopped attending behavioral therapy sessions for her seven-year-old autistic son.Reyna said she can’t sleep. She suffers headaches every day.Early on Tuesday, she said, immigration agents in an unmarked vehicle swept up her husband’s 20-year-old nephew, who is a Mexican national without legal status. The scene unreeled across from her home.Her autistic son, a US-born citizen, has begged her to allow him to play on the front yard swing set.“No, honey. We can’t go outside,” Reyna told him.“Why?” he asked.“The police are taking people away,” she explained. “They are taking away people who were not born here.”This story was co-published with Puente News Collaborative, a bilingual non-profit newsroom, convener and funder dedicated to high-quality, fact-based news and information from the US-Mexico border. More

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      Trump’s war with Iran signals perilous shift from showman to strongman

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      So the military parade that brought tanks to the streets of Washington on Donald Trump’s birthday was more than just an authoritarian ego trip. It was a show of strength and statement of intent.Exactly a week later, sporting a “Make America great again” (Maga) cap in the situation room, the American president ordered the biggest US military intervention in decades as more than 125 aircraft and 75 weapons – including 14 bunker-busting bombs – struck three Iranian nuclear sites. Trump called it a “spectacular military success” – but it remains unclear how much damage had actually been inflicted.Trump’s gamble was cheered by Israel and Republican hawks. It alarmed some in his Maga base who fell for his rhetoric promising to be an isolationist who would end forever wars. It left egg on the face of Pakistan, which only a day earlier had said it would nominate Trump for the Nobel peace prize.But there was no inconsistency for those paying close attention to the president’s war on democracy, which since January has included a draconian crackdown on immigration – including masked government agents grabbing people off the street and deporting them without due process – and the deployment of marines and national guard troops against protesters in Los Angeles.Trump’s strike on Iran was another example of both his disregard for public opinion – six in 10 Americans opposed US military involvement in the conflict between Israel and Iran, according to an Economist/ YouGov poll released on 17 June – and his contempt for Congress.Democrats were quick to point out that his actions were a clear violation of the constitution, which grants Congress the power to declare war on foreign countries. There was no evidence of an imminent threat to the US that might have provided grounds for Trump to act unilaterally.Adam Schiff, a Democratic member of the bipartisan Senate national security working group, noted there was no intelligence showing Iran had made the decision to build a nuclear bomb or was constructing the mechanism of a bomb. And in a breach of protocol, leading national security Democrats were not informed of the strikes until after Trump announced them on social media.But once again, Democrats find themselves shut out of power and shouting into the void. Many called for Congress to pass a measure based on the War Powers Act that seeks to block “unauthorized hostilities” in Iran. Congresswoman Summer Lee of Pennsylvania called it a necessary step to “rein in this out-of-control, wannabe dictator”. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York called for Trump’s impeachment.Fat chance. Republicans, who control the majorities of both chambers, are willing accomplices in their own subjugation. They remained mostly silent as Trump unleashed Elon Musk’s Doge on the federal bureaucracy, gutting USAID and other agencies under Congress’s purview. In the House of Representatives, they buried their differences to pass Trump’s signature “one big beautiful bill”.Therefore, do not expect Republicans to pull the emergency brake on a Trump train that might be hurtling towards world war three. Mike Johnson, the House speaker, and John Thune, the Senate majority leader, led a chorus of praise for the attack. Frequent Trump dissenters such as Nikki Haley and Mitch McConnell joined the commendation.Perversely, this most unconventional of presidents who ruined the party brand had reverted to Republican Original, taking the kind of action that would meet approval from George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton and John McCain.The America First wing, meanwhile, was mostly muted and subdued. Trump’s cult of personality typically trumps differences over policy – and that is not likely to change over a military operation that took place more than 7,000 miles away with apparent success. (A damaging Iranian retaliation, or any suggested of a need for US boots on the ground, could of course change that narrative.)After all, Trump’s isolationism has always been selective: there is Dove Trump and Hawk Trump. Last year, Dove Trump falsely claimed to be the only president in 72 years to have no wars; in fact, Jimmy Carter never declared war or lost a single soldier to hostile action. In his inaugural address in January, he said: “We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end – and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.”Yet Hawk Trump looks familiar enough to any student of US foreign adventurism. In his first term, he ordered cruise missile strikes in Syria, expanded military operations in Somalia, intensified the campaign against the Islamic State, dropped a Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb in Afghanistan and ordered a drone strike that killed the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani. In his second term, Trump’s bombing campaign in Yemen has led to the deaths of almost as many civilians in two months as in the previous 23 years of US attacks on Islamists and militants in the country.View image in fullscreenThese contradictions are where JD Vance, the vice-president, becomes a useful foil. He has been an outspoken isolationist, openly questioning why the US should care about Ukraine’s borders rather than its own. During the Iran crisis he has remained staunchly supportive of Trump, standing beside the president during Saturday night’s televised address and defending the intervention on Sunday’s Meet the Press programme on the NBC network.“We’re not at war with Iran; we’re at war with Iran’s nuclear programme,” Vance said, using the type of doublespeak that the Bush administration specialised in to conjure phantom weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.He added in the same interview: “I certainly empathise with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East. I understand the concern, but the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America’s national security objective.”Trump has called on Iran to “agree to end this war”, saying that “now is the time for peace”. It remains to be seen whether the strikes will push Tehran to de-escalate the conflict or widen it further.The former would allow Trump and his army of loyalists to declare victory. The latter would give him potential for a “rally around the flag” effect that puts Democrats in a bind. Nothing suits an authoritarian better than an external threat.The Trump who threw a birthday parade and used the military like a prop invited ridicule. The Trump who deploys troops to the streets of Los Angeles and drops bombs on Iran is altogether more dangerous.Exit the showman. Enter the strongman. More

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      David Lammy refuses to say if UK supported US strikes on Iran nuclear facilities

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      The UK foreign secretary has repeatedly refused to say if the UK supported the US military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities on Saturday or whether they were legal.Interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday for the first time since the US launched airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities, David Lammy also sidestepped the question of whether he supported recent social media posts by Donald Trump that seemed to favour regime change in Tehran, saying that in all his discussions in the White House the sole focus had been on military targets.Lammy said western allies were waiting for battlefield assessments of the impact of the strikes, but it was possible Iran still had a stockpile of highly enriched uranium, although the strikes “may also have set back Iran’s nuclear programme by several years”.Ever since the US strikes, senior figures in the Labour government have tried to make their criticism of the action only implicit rather than explicit.Lammy tried to focus on urging Iran to return to the negotiating table, insisting that Iran was in breach of its obligations by enriching uranium at levels of purity as high as 60%.The UK Foreign Office has denied Iranian reports that in a phone call on Sunday with the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, Lammy had expressed regret about the US strikes.Asked if the airstrikes were legal, Lammy said three times it was for Washington to answer such questions.But in the course of a 15-minute interview on BBC Radio 4, he at no point backed the US airstrikes, saying he was not going to get into the issues of whether they conformed with either article 2 or article 51 of the UN charter, clauses that permit military action in self-defence.Saying “there is still an off-ramp for the Iranians”, he admitted discussions with Iran involving France, Germany and the UK last Friday in Geneva had been “very tough”.He said: “Everyone is urging the Iranians to get serious about the negotiations with the E3 and the US.” Iran is currently refusing to talk to the US or Israel while it is under military attack.Lammy said he still believed Iran was engaging in “deception and obfuscation” about its nuclear programme, but added “yes, they [the Iranians] can have a civil nuclear capability that is properly monitored that involves outsiders but they cannot continue to enrich to 60 %”.His remarks left open whether the UK supported the US negotiating position of insisting on zero uranium enrichment inside the country, or whether he was prepared to accept that Iran could enrich to 3.67% level of purity, the maximum allowed in the Iran nuclear deal signed in 2015 and from which the UK, unlike the US, has not withdrawn.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe also refused to say if he agreed with the latest US intelligence assessment that Iran was close to securing a nuclear weapon, saying instead he relied on the report from the UN nuclear inspectorate, the International Atomic Energy Agency. In its latest reporting, the IAEA said it had no evidence that Iran was seeking a nuclear bomb.He said: “You can only deal with the Iranian nuclear programme diplomatically. If Iran is able to enrich beyond 60%, is able to get a weapon, what we will see is nuclear proliferation across the Middle East.”Asked about Trump’s references to regime change he said: “I recognise there is a discussion about regime change but that is not what is under consideration at this time. The rhetoric is strong but I can tell you, having spoken to the secretary of state, having sat in the White House, that this targeted action is to deal with Iran’s nuclear capability.”When pressed to comment on a claim by Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister, that by “being blind” on the issue of the legality of the US’s action, European leaders undermined their position on Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Russia, Lammy insisted there was no moral equivalence between the Russian invasion of a sovereign country and the actions the US had taken in Iran. More

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      Rich Americans flock to apply for New Zealand’s ‘golden visas’ after rules relaxed

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      Wealthy Americans are leading the charge in applications for New Zealand’s “golden visas” after rules on applying were relaxed.New Zealand’s coalition government in February loosened the requirements for its Active Investor Plus visa – commonly known as the golden visa – offering residency to wealthy foreigners in a bid to boost the flagging economy.The new rules, which came into effect in April, lowered investment thresholds, removed English-language requirements and cut the amount of time applicants must spend in the country to establish residency from three years to three weeks.Immigration New Zealand says the scheme has attracted 189 applications, representing 609 people, under the new rules. Prior to the changes, the visa attracted 116 applications over 2.5 years.Nearly half the investors who have applied hail from the US, representing 85 applications, followed by China, 26, and Hong Kong, 24. Residents from countries across Asia and Europe make up the rest of the applicants.“Nearly everyone who is applying is applying because of the changes they’re seeing under the Trump administration,” said Stuart Nash, a former Labour party minister, who now runs Nash Kelly Global, an immigration and relocation consultancy.Under the new rules, 149 applied under the visa’s “growth” category, which requires a minimum $5m investment over three years, and 40 applied under the “balanced” category, which requires a minimum $10m investment over five years.Immigration has approved 100 applications in principle and seven have transferred their funds – netting New Zealand $45m.There has been a significant increase in interest in the visa since the changes, with investors drawn to New Zealand’s stability and innovation in sustainable business and technology, said Benny Goodman, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise’s general manager for investment.“This is a rare combination, and one that deeply resonates with investors thinking about legacy, not just returns,” he said.Global instability makes New Zealand – with its stable democracy, independent judiciary and safe banking system – an attractive destination, particularly to Americans, Nash said.“We are seeing more people looking for a safe haven than a tax haven – and that’s what we have got here in New Zealand, Nash said.It is not the first time New Zealand has attracted the interest of Trump-weary Americans and other wealthy foreigners seeking to make New Zealand their “bolthole” at a time of societal division.Following Trump’s 2016 election, visits to the country’s immigration website rose almost 2,500%. After the supreme court decision removing abortion rights, New Zealand’s immigration site visits quadrupled to 77,000. After Trump’s 2024 election win, New Zealand’s property market saw a surge of interest from the US.Meanwhile, billionaires acquiring residency or citizenship in New Zealand have been subject to political controversy in the past. In 2017, news broke that Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of PayPal, was granted citizenship despite spending only 12 days in the country, prompting former Labour prime minister Jacinda Ardern to tighten the rules on investment visas and foreign home ownership in 2018.The loosening of the visa rules is one of a number of Ardern-era policies the right-wing coalition has wound back in its bid the boost the economy. Earlier this year it relaxed other more restrictive visa settings to attract so-called ‘digital nomads’ to New Zealand.New Zealand’s economy suffered as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and the country experienced the biggest contraction in GDP of any developed country in the world in 2024, due to high interest rates and unemployment.In a statement on Monday, economic growth minister Nicola Willis said so far the visa could represent “a potential $845 million of new investment in New Zealand business”.“New investors don’t just bring their dollars to our shores, they also bring skills, knowledge and experience that will drive future economic development,” Willis said. “It’s a win-win.” More

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      Western leaders call for diplomacy, but they won’t stop this war – they refuse to even name its cause | Nesrine Malik

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      Since the war on Gaza started, the defining dynamic has been of unprecedented anger, panic and alarm from the public, swirling around an eerily placid political centre. The feeble response from mainstream liberal parties is entirely dissonant with the gravity of the moment. As the US joins Israel in attacking Iran, and the Middle East heads toward a calamitous unravelling, their inertness is more disorienting than ever. They are passengers in Israel’s war, either resigned to the consequences or fundamentally unwilling to even question its wisdom. As reality screams at politicians across the west, they shuffle papers and reheat old rhetoric, all while deferring to an Israel and a White House that have long taken leave of their senses.At a time of extreme geopolitical risk the centre presents itself as the wise party in the fracas, making appeals for cool heads and diplomacy, but is entirely incapable of addressing or challenging the root cause. Some are afraid to even name it. Israel has disappeared from the account, leaving only a regrettable crisis and a menacing Iran. The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, has called for de-escalation. But he referred to the very escalation he wishes to avoid – the US’s involvement – as an alleviation of the “grave threat” posed by Iran, all the while building up UK forces in the Middle East.The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, underlines the importance of diplomacy while making sure to assert that Iran is the “principal source” of instability in the region. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, had seemed to be inhabiting the real world, warning against the inevitable chaos that would be triggered by regime change in Iran and in repeating the mistakes of the past. But by Sunday France had fallen into line, joining the chorus calling for de-escalation and restraint in vague general terms, and reiterating “firm opposition” to Iran’s nuclear programme.If this seems maddeningly complacent to you, let me reassure you that you are not, in fact, missing something. The war with Iran is very bad news, and introduces a number of profoundly destabilising scenarios: regime change with no day-after plan, leaving a large cadre of armed military and security forces in play; the amassing in the region of western military forces that could become targets and flashpoints; or simply a prolonged war of attrition that would seize up the region and open a large festering wound of anger and militarisation. It’s also – and this is something Israel’s assaults have inured us to – killing hundreds of innocent people. To say nothing of the fact that it is, above all the extant risks, illegal.But most western leaders continue to treat it as just another chapter of unfortunate but ultimately fixed realities of the world to manage. And here is the sinkhole at the heart of the entire response to Israel over the past year and a half – a vacant centre. Trump is Trump. No one is expecting him to have a coherent, brave and stabilising response to Israel. But the problem predates him: a political establishment of ostensibly liberal, reliable custodians of stability that has no moral compass, and no care for the norms it constantly claims to uphold. Under its watch, international and human rights law has been violated again and again in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and now Iran. Its answer has been to get out of Israel’s way at best, and arm it and provide it with diplomatic cover at worst. Joe Biden’s administration set the tone, and European governments followed. Collectively, they have clung on to a status quo of unconditional support for Israel and, in doing so, shattered the legal and moral conventions that imbued them with any measure of integrity or authority.And yet they still carry on amid the wreckage. Their pronouncements about the importance of diplomacy sound like echoes from an era that has long passed – one before a livestreamed genocide demolished any semblance of a coherent system of international law. What the current moment has revealed is a cohort of regimes fundamentally unsuited to crisis, fit only for management; a crop of politicians whose very role is not to rethink or challenge the way things are, but simply to shepherd geopolitical traffic. Their mandate is indeed to stabilise, but only in the sense of locking in a world order of failing assumptions and hierarchies. It is not to make the world a better place, but to cast a veneer of credibility over why it is necessary that we live in this worse one.This is not to be confused with “pragmatism”. Pragmatism implies a lack of position or vested interest. What is obscured by the language of reluctant engagement is that it is underpinned by beliefs that are defined not by values, but by tribal supremacy. Iran is a country which, in the eyes of a liberal establishment, is never fully sovereign because it has diverged from western interests. It has no right of response when attacked (and in fact, must show restraint when it is). Its people have no right to expect a careful consideration of their future, or indeed the entire region’s. Israel, on the other hand, is a super sovereign, and never culpable.This default position is so naked in its hypocrisy, so ignorant and parochial in its worldview, so clear in its disregard for human life, that it represents a colossal erosion of sophistication in political discourse, and a new low in contempt for the public. Support for Israel can only be defended by facile, logic-defying references to its right to defend itself even when it is the aggressor, and Iran’s “threat to the free world”. Forgive me, but is that the same free world that backed unilateral attacks on four Middle East territories by Israel, a country whose leader is wanted by the international criminal court? At this point, the biggest threat to the free world is itself, which will sacrifice everything to ensure that not a single challenge to its power is allowed to pass.The end result is that such leaders are not only irresponsible, they are unrepresentative, unable and unwilling even to manufacture consent any more. An accelerating nihilism has taken hold. Mandates fray as centrist governments and political parties stray further and further from the public, which in Europe declares a historically low level of support for Israel. In the US (including Trump supporters), a majority opposes involvement in war with Iran. And so the gap between a detached politics and bloody reality widens even further. The managers of western hegemony hurtle into the void, taking all of us with them.

      Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist More

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      Trump news at glance: US president talks regime change and ‘MIGA’ after Iran strikes

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      During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump campaigned on the promise of “no more wars” but global events have radically changed his views.In what could be his most consequential day as president yet, Trump decided to bomb three Iranian nuclear sites on Saturday in an operation he deemed “a spectacular military success”. Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities, he boasted, have been “completely and totally obliterated.”In a post to the Truth Social platform on Sunday, Trump took it a step further by addressing the issue of regime change in Iran, applying his Maga rhetoric to the Middle East.“It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!” he wrote.Here are the key stories at a glance.Trump’s military attack on Iran reveals split among Maga diehardsSaturday’s US strikes on Iran provoked conflicting reactions from isolationist Republicans who support Donald Trump’s “Make America great again” (Maga) movement, catching them – like many Democrats – between supporting efforts against nuclear proliferation and opposing American intervention in foreign conflicts.Read the full storyJD Vance claims US is at war with Iran’s nuclear program, not IranJD Vance has said the US is “not at war” with Iran – but is with its nuclear weapons program, holding out a position that the White House hopes to maintain over the coming days as the Iranian regime considers a retributive response to Saturday’s US strike on three of its nuclear installations.Read the full storyUS bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities is Trump’s biggest gamble yet as presidentDonald Trump, a self-confessed risk-taker, has taken the greatest gamble – not just with his political reputation and the future of the Middle East, but arguably with the whole concept of military intervention as a way to solve intractable geopolitical problems.Read the full storyJudge orders release of Kilmar Ábrego García as he awaits federal trialA Tennessee judge on Sunday ordered the release of Kilmar Ábrego García, whose mistaken deportation has become a flashpoint in Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, while he awaits a federal trial on human smuggling charges. But he is not expected to be allowed to go free.Read the full storyMahmoud Khalil renews devotion to Palestinian freedom at New York rallyMahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian rights activist, freed from Ice detention on Friday, returned to Columbia University on Sunday to renew his commitment to the cause of Palestinian freedom and opposition to both the university and the Trump administration.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      ‘Ticking timebomb’: Ice detainee dies in transit as experts say more deaths likely

      Republican representative’s ectopic pregnancy clashes with Florida abortion law

      Gun-wielding attacker killed at church in suburban Detroit
      Catching up? Here’s what happened 21 June. More

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      Judge orders release of Kilmar Ábrego García as he awaits federal trial

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      A Tennessee judge on Sunday ordered the release of Kilmar Ábrego García, whose mistaken deportation has become a flashpoint in Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, while he awaits a federal trial on human smuggling charges. But he is not expected to be allowed to go free.At his 13 June detention hearing, prosecutors said US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) would take Ábrego García into custody if he were released on the criminal charges, and he could be deported before he has a chance to stand trial.US magistrate judge Barbara Holmes has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday to discuss the conditions of Ábrego García’s release. The US government has already filed a motion to appeal the judge’s release order.Holmes acknowledged in her ruling on Sunday that determining whether Ábrego García should be released is “little more than an academic exercise” because Ice will probably detain him. But the judge wrote that everyone is entitled to the presumption of innocence and “a full and fair determination of whether he must remain in federal custody pending trial”.Holmes wrote that the government failed to prove that Ábrego García was a flight risk, that he posed a danger to the community or that he would interfere with proceedings if released.“Overall, the Court cannot find from the evidence presented that Ábrego’s release clearly and convincingly poses an irremediable danger to other persons or to the community,” the judge wrote.Ábrego García has pleaded not guilty to the smuggling charges that his attorneys have characterized as an attempt to justify the deportation mistake after the fact.The acting US attorney for the middle district of Tennessee, Rob McGuire, argued on 13 June that the likely attempt by Ice to try to deport him was one reason to keep him in jail.But Holmes said then that she had no intention of “getting in the middle of any Ice hold”.“If I elect to release Mr Ábrego, I will impose conditions of release, and the US Marshal will release him.” If he is released into Ice custody, that is “above my pay grade”, she said.The judge suggested that the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security could work out between themselves whether the government’s priority is to try him on the criminal charges or deport him. No date has been set for the trial.Will Allensworth, an assistant federal public defender representing Ábrego García at the detention hearing, told Holmes that “it’s not necessarily accurate that he would be immediately deported.”A 2019 immigration judge’s order prevents Ábrego García, who had been living in Maryland, from being deported to his home country of El Salvador, Allensworth said in court. That’s because he faces a credible threat from gangs there, according to court papers.The government could deport him to a third country, but immigration officials would first be required to show that third country was willing to keep him and not simply deport him back to El Salvador, Allensworth said.The smuggling charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop for speeding in Tennessee during which Ábrego García was driving a vehicle with nine passengers. Although officers suspected possible smuggling, he was allowed to go on his way with only a warning. He has pleaded not guilty.At the detention hearing, McGuire said cooperating witnesses have accused Ábrego García of trafficking drugs and firearms and of abusing the women he transported, among other claims. Although he is not charged with such crimes, McGuire said they showed Ábrego García to be a dangerous person who should remain in jail pretrial.Ábrego García’s attorneys have characterized the smuggling case as a desperate attempt to justify the mistaken deportation. The investigation was launched weeks after the US government deported Ábrego García and the supreme court ordered the administration to facilitate his return amid mounting public pressure.The US is now expected to try to deport him again with much of the world watching and the outcome hard to predict.Most people in Ice custody who are facing criminal charges are not kept in the US for trial but deported, César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, an Ohio State University law professor, said.The US will probably try to deport Ábrego García quickly without going before an immigration judge, the professor said. The government would not need a conviction to deport him because Ábrego García came to the US illegally.“The legal standard is laxer,” García Hernández said. “The government’s argument is on stronger legal footing.”However an immigration judge rules, the decision can be appealed to the board of immigration appeals, García Hernández said. And the board’s ruling can then be contested in a federal appeals court. More

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      JD Vance claims US is at war with Iran’s nuclear program, not Iran

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      JD Vance has said the US is “not at war” with Iran – but is with its nuclear weapons program, holding out a position that the White House hopes to maintain over the coming days as the Iranian regime considers a retributive response to Saturday’s US strike on three of its nuclear installations.In an interview Sunday with NBC News’ Meet the Press, the US vice-president was asked if the US was now at war with Iran.“We’re not at war with Iran,” Vance replied. “We’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program.”But Vance declined to confirm with absolute certainty that Iran’s nuclear sites were completely destroyed, a position that Donald Trump set out in a Saturday night address when the president stated that the targeted Iranian facilities had been “completely and totally obliterated” in the US strikes.Vance instead said that he believes the US has “substantially delayed” Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon.“I’m not going to get into sensitive intelligence about what we’ve seen on the ground there in Iran, but we’ve seen a lot, and I feel very confident that we’ve substantially delayed their development of a nuclear weapon, and that was the goal of this attack,” Vance said.He continued: “Severely damaged versus obliterated – I’m not exactly sure what the difference is.“What we know is we set their nuclear program back substantially.”An Iranian member of parliament claimed on Sunday that the Fordo enrichment plant, the focus of seven B-2 bombers armed with 14 premier bunker-busters from the US arsenal, was not seriously damaged.Those bombers returned to Missouri on Sunday.Separately, Bloomberg News said satellite images of the site undermined the Trump administration’s claims that Iran’s underground nuclear sites at Fordo and Natanz had been destroyed.Satellite images distributed by Maxar Technologies showed new craters, possible collapsed tunnel entrances and holes on top of a mountain ridge. But the main support building at the facility remained undamaged, the report said.Maxar said in a statement that images of Natanz showed a new crater about 5.5 meters (18ft) in diameter over the underground facility – but they did not offer conclusive evidence that the 40-meter-deep nuclear engineering site had been breached.The chair of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Dan Caine, said at a Pentagon briefing on Sunday: “Final battle damage will take some time, but initial battle damage assessments indicate that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction.”Nuclear non-proliferation analysts are conflicted on whether the strikes will be effective in bringing Iran to the negotiating table or convince them to move more decisively toward enriching uranium stockpiles to weapons-grade, assembling a bomb, and manufacturing a delivery system.In a statement to Bloomberg, Darya Dolzikova, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said there were slim prospects that the US entering the war would convince Iran to increase International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) cooperation. The nuclear watchdog has said it is not sure where Iran’s 400lb stockpile of 60% uranium is.“The more likely scenario is that they convince Iran that cooperation and transparency don’t work and that building deeper facilities and ones not declared openly is more sensible to avoid similar targeting in future,” Dolzikova said.Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said he planned to fly to Moscow to meet with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, on Monday morning for consultations. Separately, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said his forces were progressing toward its goal of destroying Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile threats.“We are moving step after step to achieve these goals. We are very, very close to completing them,” he said. More