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    Trump’s already skirting due process. Now he’s musing about deporting citizens | Moira Donegan

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    They’re rounding people up, and you could be next. The Trump administration has largely dispensed with due process rights in deporting immigrants, who are now being targeted for their protected speech, having their visas or green cards summarily cancelled without process and sometimes without notice, and getting kidnapped off the streets and hustled into vans so that they can be shipped to “detention centers” too far away for their loved ones, or their lawyers, to visit them.Some immigrants are being targeted for disappearance because they oppose Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, an opinion that it is now physically dangerous, instead of merely unpopular, to hold. But others the government seems to be seizing almost at random. More than 200 Venezuelan nationals have been seized and deported to a mega-prison in El Salvador, rendered outside of US jurisdiction in defiance of judges’ orders demanding that their deportation flights be stopped. Of those Venezuelans, most had no criminal record. Other deportees, like the Maryland father and sheet metal worker Kilmar Abrego García, seem to have been deported by mistake; the Trump administration says that Abrego García, who they admit they did not mean to deport, will not be brought back to his family in the United States. Conveniently, the fact that they have deported him to a foreign prison is supposed, in the Trump administration’s logic, to absolve them of responsibility for putting him there. “We suggest the judge contact [Salvadoran] President Bukele because we are unaware of the judge having jurisdiction or authority over the country of El Salvador,” the White House said, obnoxiously, after a judge ordered them to bring Abrego García back.Meanwhile, the sadism of the deportations, and the cruelty of the Salvadoran prison where the men are being kept, seem to hold a kind of aesthetic appeal for the Trump camp. The homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, recently flew to the El Salvador prison for a photoshoot with the captives there, where she stood in front of a crowd of men packed into a cell behind bars with her hair coiffed in long beachy waves.Now, the Trump administration may be seeking to extend the lawlessness and cruelty of its deportation regime to the next logical target: American citizens. The White House spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, confirmed on Tuesday that the Trump administration is considering pathways to deport citizens as well. “The president has discussed this idea quite a few times publicly. He’s also discussed it privately. You’re referring to the president’s idea for American citizens to potentially be deported,” she said. “The president has said, if it’s legal, if there is a legal pathway to do that, he’s not sure.”This would be illegal. But so is so much of what the Trump administration is doing with its deportation policies. It is illegal to cancel visas and green cards without due process, as the Trump administration has done and continues to do as part of a widening dragnet in its anti-immigrant purges. It is illegal to target immigrants for their speech, as the Trump administration has done to pro-Palestinian and anti-genocide activists, from Rümeysa Öztürk to Mahmoud Khalil. It is illegal to deport people to a foreign prison where they have no recourse to enforce their rights and no path to pursue their freedom – it is illegal to do this, as the Trump administration has done, specifically to prevent its victims from seeking to enforce their own rights in American courts. And it is illegal to ignore the binding orders of federal judges to stop all of this conduct in order to ensure that the deportations can continue, punishing innocent people, silencing protected speech, and scaring whole populations out of work, travel, political participation or any of the other daily dignities that they are supposed to be entitled to in this country.But the law, increasingly, is whatever the Trump administration decides it is. And there is no force that seems prepared to make them obey the law when their will does not incline them to do so.That is because the supreme court has been no help, and if anything has acted, so far, as all but an accomplice to Trump’s dismantling of the rule of law in his pursuit of anti-immigrant vengeance. Lower court judges have attempted to intervene on behalf of the disappeared immigrants, issuing orders commanding the Trump administration to stop deportations under a long-dormant 1798 wartime measure known as the Alien Enemies Act, and to return Abrego García to the US immediately. But the supreme court has stepped in to pause these orders, allowing the Trump administration’s deportation agenda to continue. In the Abrego García case, the court weakened a district court order to “effectuate” the innocent man’s freedom and return to a mere command that they “facilitate” it, and only in ways that don’t interfere with the executive branch’s foreign policy prerogatives – in practice, a weakening of the demand to bring Abrego García back home to a request that the Trump administration provide more plausible deniability when they refuse to do so. And while Brett Kavanaugh weighed in with a concurrence to make a pious declaration of the need for due process in deportation proceedings, the court’s actions speak louder than its words: they are allowing the kidnapping and deportation of US residents to continue without due process.The legal precedents being established in these immigration disappearance cases have no limiting principles: if visa holders, asylum seekers and legal permanent residents can be snatched and deported with effectively no practicable recourse to due process protections, then there is no reason why citizens can’t be. It is in the interest of every American citizen to take an active stand in defense of our immigrant neighbors. Because once the Trump administration decides that they have no rights, then neither do we. More

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      I disagree with Mahmoud Khalil’s politics. But the deportation decision is abhorrent | Jo-Ann Mort

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      When the federal immigration judge Jamee Comans ruled in favor of allowing the government to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student in the US on a legal visa, her decision was based on “foreign policy concerns” presented by US secretary of state Marco Rubio. It was so shocking that I had to reread the news report several times before I could believe it.Rubio’s claim is based on Khalil’s leadership role in the anti-Israel protests at Columbia University. I didn’t agree with Khalil’s politics when he led the protests and I don’t agree today with his politics, nor even his actions during the protests. But I’m unwavering in supporting his right to his views, and his right to shout them in what, until Trump took the reins, was our free American nation.As an immigration judge, Judge Comans couldn’t make a constitutional determination. Immigration judges are not actually part of the judicial branch of government; they are part of the executive branch and, as such, don’t rule on constitutional questions but only on issues of immigration law. Therefore, it’s likely – and hopeful – that on further appeal, Khalil’s constitutional right to free speech could be upheld, though less likely than it would have been before the weakening of our constitutional fiber under President Trump.Since Rubio recently argued that non-citizens, even if here legally, can be deported if they undermine US foreign policy aims, the administration has taken further intimidating action. Today, visa-holders and US visitors are finding their social media being examined and their phones taken at the border for searches.From the day he entered office, Rubio has shown himself to be a weak link in preserving the national interest, justifying a range of abuses under the guise of US foreign policy. He has completely crouched under the heavy arm of President Trump, foregoing many of his previously long-held beliefs in everything from support for Ukraine to the use of soft aid via USAID, and generally in promoting American values. A child of parents who came to the United States as emigres from Fidel Castro’s Cuba, he once embraced democracy with as much bravado as he is now displaying in helping to sink it.To claim that one of the reasons for a deportation like this is to stop antisemitism, as the state department says, is really a ruse to garner support for the widening attack on campus free speech and universities. It is certainly not making Jewish students safer. On the contrary, dividing and conquering to strip higher education and free speech of their very essences endangers every group that has relied on the first amendment’s guarantee.It also strikes me as laughable that the secretary is claiming that Khalil’s presence in America is harming US foreign policy aims. After all, as I wrote here just last week, what in the world is US foreign policy, especially regarding the Middle East? There is no diplomacy and there are no stated foreign policy goals, unless you consider Trump’s dream of building hotel-casinos on Gaza’s beaches to be formal American policy.As the Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu himself discovered when he traveled to the White House this week, Trump had nothing to offer him. Netanyahu came begging for tariff relief and a green light for continuing his war against Hamas, as well as an even brighter green light to bomb Iran. He was shocked when Trump announced during their joint press availability that he would send his adviser Steve Witkoff to discuss a peace agreement between the US and Iran. Netanyahu went home empty-handed on tariff relief, and stunned at Trump’s sudden dive into talks with Iran.But of course, neither the Gaza beach hotels nor, especially, the deportations of visa-holders are about foreign policy. Everything is about domestic policy; the actual purpose is to pit various groups of Americans one against the other. The memo circulated by Rubio argues that “while Khalil’s activities were otherwise lawful” his presence in the US would harm efforts by those who are implementing “US policy to combat antisemitism around the world and in the United States, in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States”.Rubio went on to claim that “condoning antisemitic conduct and disruptive protests in the United States would severely undermine that significant foreign policy objective”.What does this even mean? On the same day that Khalil’s freedom was being constricted, Witkoff, the White House adviser, had a four-hour meeting with Vladimir Putin, one of the leading purveyors of antisemitism in the world today. What is this administration’s plan for fighting antisemitism on a global scale? There is none, of course.Domestically, the president’s plan appears to be not only to divide and conquer, but also to weaken and even cripple institutions of higher education, the arts, and other critical underpinnings of democracy that keep American Jews – and all minorities – safe. Worse still, it is to simultaneously try to make us, American Jews, complicit in his evil dealings.The ripple effect of this ruling and the detention of other students, like Rümeysa Öztürk from Tufts University, is propelling many of us in the American Jewish community to act against the Trump administration. A new amicus brief filed by a coalition of 27 Jewish organizations, supported with pro-bono work by the law firm of Davis Wright Tremaine (a firm that deserves a gold star for upholding our constitution, rather than making side deals with the president to crush it), says this: “Without presuming to speak for all of Jewish America – a diverse community that holds a multitude of viewpoints – amici are compelled to file this brief because the arrest, detention, and potential deportation of Rümeysa Öztürk for her protected speech violate the most basic constitutional rights.”Freedom of expression, particularly on matters of public concern, the brief makes clear, is a cornerstone of American democracy and extends to academic settings and campus discourse. I’m proud to say that my synagogue, Congregation Beth Elohim, in Brooklyn, is a signatory of the brief, along with an organization, New Jewish Narratives, where I serve on the board.Tonight begins the Jewish festival of Passover, a festival of liberation and freedom. It marks a journey that the ancient Jews who were slaves in Egypt took from servitude to freedom. It is a time when Jews around the world proclaim, “Let my people go,” as we see our own fight for freedom in the eyes of those who remain unfree. For me, the freeing of the Israeli hostages is central to the Passover message, as is the freedom of both the Palestinian people and the Israelis to live in a state where they are free from fear and have a vibrant democracy.It’s a vibrant democracy that I wish, too, for the United States. And, at my Passover table, I will pledge to fight to maintain and strengthen the bonds of all peoples here in the US toward collective action that defends and maintains our democracy. If Khalil’s right to remain in the US is not upheld, our nation will be weaker for it, and all our rights will be further endangered.

      Jo-Ann Mort, who writes and reports frequently about Israel/Palestine is also author of the forthcoming book of poetry, A Precise Chaos. Follow her @jo-ann.bsky.social More

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      Trump’s chaos-inducing global tariffs, explained in charts

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      Donald Trump’s announcement of a long slate of new tariffs on the US’s trading partners has caused chaos in global markets and threatens a global trade war and US recession.Long trailed on his election campaign, Trump’s plans were even more sweeping than many had predicted: a baseline 10% tariff on all imports and higher tariffs for key trading partners, including China and the EU.Though the tariffs won’t go into effect for a few more days, global markets have been reeling from the announcement of what’s to come.Here’s a breakdown of what the tariffs are and how they’ve affected the economy since Trump’s announcement.The new tariffsTrump’s new tariffs are twofold. First, all imported goods will be subject to a 10% universal tariff starting 5 April. Then, on 9 April, certain countries will see higher tariff rates – what Trump has deemed “reciprocal tariffs” in retaliation for tariffs the countries have placed on American exports.Keep in mind that tariffs are paid by American companies that are importing goods such as wine from Europe or microchips from Taiwan.Some of the highest tariffs will be put on imports from Asian countries, including China, India, South Korea and Japan. EU exports will also have a 20% tariff.How did the White House calculate its reciprocal tariffs? The administration said that it looked at the trade deficit between the US and a specific country as a percentage, and then considered that to be a tariff. So, for example, the value of US goods that are exported to China are 67% of the value of the Chinese goods that are imported into the US.The White House calls this definition a “tariff” placed on American goods, though a deficit and a tariff are not the same thing.It then halved the “tariff” and used that percentage to represent the new levy that the US would place on goods from that country.Canada and Mexico are notably absent from the list, despite being targets of a proposed 25% tariff. The White House said that goods covered under an existing trade agreement between the two countries will continue to have no tariffs.Targeting key trading partnersTrump and his economic advisers argue that the tariffs will strengthen US manufacturing while also lowering barriers other countries put on American goods. But the US has long been in a trade deficit, importing more goods than exporting.While increasing domestic manufacturing and relying less on foreign suppliers could strengthen the US economy in the long run, economists say that Trump’s tariffs are too aggressive and uncertain for them to actually encourage domestic investment. Instead, companies have said they will pass the cost of the tariffs on to consumers.Fear on Wall StreetMarkets immediately plummeted when exchanges started trading on Thursday morning, as Wall Street reacted to the new levies.Wall Street has been slumping for the last month as Trump introduced new tariffs and teased the ones he announced on Wednesday. All three exchanges went into correction territory in March, meaning that the indexes fell more than 10% from their recent peaks.The tariffs have also hit stock markets abroad. The UK’s FTSE 100 saw its worst day since August 2024, while markets in Japan, Hong Kong and Germany also tumbled.Leaders around the world expressed shock and frustration over the new tariffs. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, called the tariffs “a major blow to the world economy”.“The global economy will massively suffer,” she said Thursday. “Uncertainty will spiral and trigger the rise of further protectionism. The consequences will be dire.”The new tariffs have also made the US dollar fall in value in relation to other major currencies.The strength of the US dollar is an important measure of how the US economy is seen by investors, relative to other economies. That the dollar has been falling shows that investors see instability in the US economy that is likely to last. More

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      Trump makes sweeping HIV research and grant cuts: ‘setting us back decades’

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      The federal government has cancelled dozens of grants to study how to prevent new HIV infections and expand access to care, decimating progress toward eliminating the epidemic in the United States, scientists say.The National Institutes of Health (NIH) terminated at least 145 grants related to researching advancements in HIV care that had been awarded nearly $450m in federal funds. The cuts have been made in phases over the last month.NIH, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, is the largest funding source of medical research in the world, leaving many scientists scrambling to figure out how to continue their work.“The loss of this research could very well result in a resurgence of HIV that becomes more generalized in this country,” said Julia Marcus, a professor at Harvard Medical School who recently had two of her grants cancelled. “These drastic cuts are rapidly destroying the infrastructure of scientific research in this country and we are going to lose a generation of scientists.”In 2012, the FDA approved pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), an antiviral drug taken once a day that is highly successful at preventing new HIV infections. While the drug has been a powerful tool to contain the virus, inequities remain in accessing those drugs and sustaining a daily treatment. Despite major progress, there are still 30,000 new infections each year in the US.Many of the terminated HIV-related studies focused on improving access to drugs like PrEP in communities that have higher rates of infections – including trans women and Black men. One of Marcus’s projects was examining whether making PrEP available over the counter would increase the use of the drug in vulnerable communities.“The research has to focus on the populations that are most affected in order to have an impact and be relevant,” said Marcus.Yet, this may be the justification for defunding so many HIV-related studies. A termination letter reviewed by the Guardian dated 20 March cited that “so-called diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) studies are often used to support unlawful discrimination on the basis of race and other protected characteristics, which harms the health of Americans.”The National Institutes of Health did not expand on why the grants were terminated in response to questions from the Guardian. In a statement it said it is “taking action to terminate research funding that is not aligned with NIH and HHS priorities. We remain dedicated to restoring our agency to its tradition of upholding gold-standard, evidence-based science.”Many researchers were left stunned by the scale of the cancellations since in 2019, Donald Trump announced in his State of the Union address a commitment to eliminate the HIV epidemic in the country over the next 10 years. As part of this initiative, his administration negotiated a deal with drug companies to provide free PrEP for 200,000 low-income patients.“Scientific breakthroughs have brought a once-distant dream within reach,” said Trump in his address. “Together we will defeat Aids in America.”Amy Nunn, a professor at the Brown University School of Public Health, said she had even tailored grant proposals to fit the policy goals of the initiative, which included geographically targeting HIV prevention efforts. One of her studies that was terminated focused on closing disparities of PrEP use among African American men in Jackson, Mississippi.“They finally adopted those policies at the federal level,” Nunn said, noting that Trump was the first president to make ending the epidemic a priority. “Now they’re undercutting their own successes. It’s so strange.”Though hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds had been awarded for the grants, the terminations will not recoup all of that money for the administration, since many are years into their work. Some are even already finished.Nathaniel Albright learned earlier this month that an NIH grant supporting his doctoral research was cancelled even though his project had already been completed. A PhD candidate at Ohio State University, Albright is defending his dissertation at the end of the month. Still, Albright is concerned how the cuts impact the future of the field.“It’s created an environment in academia where my research trajectory is now considered high risk to institutions,” said Albright, who is currently struggling to find postdoctorate positions at universities.Pamina Gorbach, an epidemiologist who teaches at University of California, Los Angeles, had been following hundreds of men living with HIV in Los Angeles for 10 years to learn their needs. She had been awarded an NIH grant to better facilitate their treatment through a local clinic. Her funding was cancelled earlier this month as well.“It’s really devastating,” said Gorbach. “If you’re living with HIV and you’re not on meds, you know what happens? You get sick and you die.”Clinic staff in Los Angeles will likely be laid off as a result of the cuts, said Gorbach. Others agreed one immediate concern was how to pay their research staff, since the funds from a grant are immediately frozen once it is terminated. The NIH funds also often make up at least a portion of university professor’s salaries, all said they were most alarmed by the impact on services for their patients and the loss of progress toward ending the epidemic.“This is erasing an entire population of people who have been impacted by an infectious disease,” said Erin Kahle, the director of the Center for Sexuality and Health Disparities at the University of Michigan who lost an NIH grant.Scrapping an entire category of disease from research will have innumerable downstream effects on the rest of healthcare, she added.“This is setting us back decades,” said Kahle. More

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      What is ‘abundance’ liberalism, and why are people arguing about it?

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      Is progressive public policy in America broken? Do many left-leaning laws actually make life more expensive for struggling people? Is regulatory red tape hindering growth and innovation? Have Democratic-run cities, such as New York and San Francisco, become giant billboards against liberal governance?These arguments wouldn’t sound out of place in a policy paper from a conservative thinktank. Yet their newest champions are two of America’s best-known left-leaning journalists, the New York Times’ Ezra Klein and the Atlantic’s Derek Thompson – and they believe the left is overdue for a reckoning of sorts.Klein and Thompson make their case in a new book simply called, with no subtitle, Abundance. The authors put forward a positive pitch for “abundance liberalism”: a vision of the US where policymakers spend less time fighting over how to apportion scarce resources and more time making sure there’s no scarcity to start with.View image in fullscreenAbundance has received a mostly positive reception so far, but also sparked debate, with critics arguing that the book ignores the effect of corporate power, downplays Republicans’ role in the crises that the US faces or overstates the effectiveness of its policy prescriptions. A writer in the left-leaning magazine American Prospect accused the “abundance agenda” of being “neoliberalism repackaged for a post-neoliberal world”.The book opens with a striking image of a US, in the year 2050, that is close to utopia. Americans’ electrical needs are powered by sustainable energy “so clean it barely leaves a carbon trace and so cheap you can scarcely find it on your monthly bill”. AI breakthroughs, labor rights and economic reforms mean that most people can do their jobs in a shorter workweek. Vertical farms provide cheap and fresh vegetables, desalinated water from the ocean is used as drinking water, and lab-grown meat has replaced animal slaughter.This near-future America – less the gritty neon smog of Blade Runner than a hi-tech Copenhagen – is entirely achievable, the authors argue. It just requires political vision and a willingness to reconsider certain assumptions.Despite being the richest country in the world, the US has a problem of scarcity, particularly in Democratic-run metropolitan areas, where the costs of housing and other basic needs have spiraled out of control. This is exacerbated by the traditional progressive solution of giving people money or vouchers to help them pay for finite resources such as housing, healthcare and food, the book argues, which increases demand and merely makes those things even more expensive.“The problem is that if you subsidize the cost of something that there isn’t enough of, you’ll raise prices or force rationing,” Klein has said. He and Thompson have described themselves as “supply-side” progressives, borrowing a term usually associated with conservative economic theories.What the US badly needs to do is build, they argue – build more houses, public transportation, power plants and other infrastructure – but that isn’t happening.One obstacle is nimbyism, the tendency of people to support public works and development in the abstract but fight them when they affect their own neighborhoods. Another is “everything bagel” logrolling that complicates what should be narrowly focused legislation by layering it with other social and political objectives, such as diverse hiring requirements or climate crisis goals, in order to appease interest groups or political constituencies.In an example Thompson recently discussed on a podcast, then president Joe Biden signed legislation in 2021 providing $42bn of funding to expand access to broadband internet in rural America. As of this December, according to Politico, the program had “yet to connect a single household”. Critics told Politico that this was partly because of a “suite of federal conditions” that required states “accepting the money to make sure providers plan for climate change, reach out to unionized workforces and hire locally”, as well as guarantee affordable broadband plans for people with low incomes.“I don’t want the state of Virginia taking, say, federal money to build broadband internet and then charging poor rural folks, like, $200 a month to go online,” Thompson said. “But by holding those values so closely … we accidentally built just about nothing.” A “confusion of process versus outcomes” meant that “very little was actually done on behalf of the Americans for whom we wanted to raise their living standards”.Another example is California, which in 1982 began studying the idea of implementing a high-speed rail system across the state. The idea was, and is, extremely popular with voters, and billions of dollars were budgeted for the project. Four decades later, almost none of it has been built. A “vetocracy” of regulatory, legal, environmental and political considerations have caused endless delays and continually narrowed the project’s ambition.“In the time California has spent failing to complete its 500-mile high-speed rail system,” Thompson and Klein write, “China has built more than 23,000 miles of high-speed rail.”The solution to these problems, Abundance argues, is a combination of techno-optimism, ambitious and clearly defined policy goals, and political leadership that is willing at times to say no to progressive pressure groups.Klein and Thompson favorably cite what happened when a bridge collapsed in Pennsylvania in 2023, crippling an essential highway. To fix it would typically take months of planning, consultation and reviews; Governor Josh Shapiro instead declared a state of emergency that allowed the reconstruction of the bridge with union labor but free from many normal processes. The highway reopened in 12 days, instead of the 12 to 24 months that it might have taken.Abundance makes clear that it is a book written for the left, and isn’t really interested in elaborating the ways that Republicans and conservatives have contributed to these problems, though Klein and Thompson acknowledge that they have. Yet within the left the book has proved controversial.“[I]t would be a huge mistake,” Matt Bruenig, a policy analyst, wrote in Jacobin, “to sideline whatever focus there is on welfare state expansion and economic egalitarianism in favor of a focus on administrative burdens in construction.”He continued: “Indeed, we have now seen what it looks like when the government supports and subsidizes technological innovation and implementation without concerning itself with the inegalitarianism of the system. His name is Elon Musk. In its desire to promote electrical vehicles and rocketry innovations, the US government made him the richest man in the world and then he used his riches to take over a major political communications platform and then the government.”While agreeing with some of Abundance’s aims, the journalists Paul Glastris and Nate Weisberg, writing in the Washington Monthly, argued that the book’s prescriptions wouldn’t necessarily bring the kind of sweeping changes that Klein and Thompson believe. For example, according to examples they cite, areas of the US that have reformed zoning laws to make it easier to build apartment buildings and multifamily homes have seen only modest reductions in the cost of housing.Thompson and Klein have argued that the abundance agenda is bigger than any individual policy proposal, and more about the Democratic party and other left-leaning institutions rethinking their own ambitions and how they conceive of success and failure.“Liberals should be able to say: Vote for us, and we will govern the country the way we govern California!” they write. “Instead, conservatives are able to say: Vote for them, and they will govern the country the way they govern California! … What has gone wrong?” More

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      Trump’s tariff obsession is a lose-lose proposition | Steven Greenhouse

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      I’ve been writing about manufacturing in the US since the 1980s, and it’s been heart-wrenching to report on dozens of factory closings and the devastation they have done to workers and communities. As the nation grasped for ways to slow these plant closings, I also wrote about Washington’s use of carefully employed trade measures, like targeted tariffs, and how they helped save some plants and jobs, especially in the steel industry.Carefully targeted tariffs can be a winning strategy, but Donald Trump’s obsession with tariffs – especially across-the-board ones that are neither careful nor targeted – has already shown itself to be a lose-lose strategy. Perhaps it’s too generous to use the word strategy to describe what the president is doing, because his tariffs seem based on fiat and whim, not on thoughtful planning.Trump is like Elmer Fudd with his shotgun, shooting every which way: Canada today, China tomorrow and perhaps Champagne country the day after, with tariffs imposed one day, suspended the next and then re-imposed a few days later, but, wait, those re-imposed tariffs might be canceled next week. It’s a “strategy” of chaos and capriciousness, with some viciousness thrown in.Obsessed as he is with tariffs, Trump calls tariffs “the greatest thing ever invented”, and “the most beautiful word in the dictionary”. He talks as if tariffs will create an economic nirvana, but the opposite is happening. Stock markets are plummeting, corporate confidence is tanking, consumers fear higher prices and economists warn the measures might push the US into recession.Let’s count the ways Trump’s tariffs are a lose-lose proposition.First, at a time when Americans are feeling beaten and bruised from the pandemic-era burst of inflation, the tariffs – which are really a tax on imports – will inevitably push up prices. Trump’s tariffs will hit less affluent Americans hardest because they spend a higher percentage of their income on clothes and other imported goods. Many of those Americans voted for Trump, believing him when he said he’d reduce prices.Second, even though Trump boasts that tariffs will make American industry great again, it’s dubious whether Trump’s tariffs will do much to spur manufacturing. Trump has evidently forgotten that if you want to persuade corporations to build new factories – in this case, to bring back operations from overseas – then you need to reassure business executives that there will be economic and policy stability. But that’s the opposite of what Trump, the emperor of chaos, is all about. If you were a CEO, would you shell out $200m to build a new factory in the US in response to Trump’s tariffs when you know that Trump might lift those tariffs tomorrow or in two weeks or whenever a foreign leader flatters him or promises to let Eric and Don Jr build a Trump hotel at a beautiful seaside resort in their country?Trump is eager for hundreds of companies to build new factories in the US, but with his on-again-off again, here today-gone-tomorrow tariffs, he has made many stability-craving CEOs too scared to build new plants. Moreover, if Trump wants to attract the manufacturing industries and jobs of tomorrow, he’s been shooting himself and the US in the foot with his ideological war against the industries of the future, including electric vehicles, renewable energy and semiconductors. Trump is even threatening to kill Biden’s hugely successful subsidy program to build sophisticated new semiconductor plants in the US.Third, Trump’s tariffs are undermining economic growth; even Trump’s team has acknowledged the threat of recession. His tariffs are sabotaging supply chains, and that will disrupt production at many factories. His scattershot tariffs are so alarming companies that many are hesitating on plans to invest in new plant and equipment. That also undercuts growth. In addition, the widespread fears that tariffs will push inflation skyward have caused consumer sentiment to fall sharply. That could cause consumer spending, the major engine of the US economy, to decline.Fourth, Trump’s tariffs are hitting various U.S. industries hard. Trump’s hefty 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports will hurt US auto makers by raising the cost of vital raw materials and making US-made cars less competitive vis-a-vis foreign automakers. Not only that, trade retaliation from Canada, Europe and China is already harming many US industries – including agriculture, motorcycles and Kentucky bourbon—and that, too, will push the economy toward recession. And let’s not forget that Trump’s tariffs are hurting the targeted countries, and that’s slowing their – and worldwide – economic growth.Fifth, another big way we lose is that Trump, by slapping tariffs on Canada, Mexico and the European Union, has further angered and alienated many of our closest allies, and that comes on top of his disparaging Nato and increasingly allying the US with Russia. In this way, Trump may destroy the Atlantic Alliance, which has been pivotal for maintaining peace and prosperity, though not perfectly, since the second world war.Sixth, any honest, fair-minded cost-benefit analysis will show that Trump’s tariffs will cause far more damage than gain. Although Trump says his tariffs will “create jobs like we have never seen before”, economic studies have found that the tariffs Trump imposed in his first term failed to increase the number of jobs. Those tariffs created a small number of jobs in some industries, but retaliation and supply-chain disruptions caused job losses in other industries. A study by economists at MIT, the World Bank, Harvard and the University of Zurich concluded that Trump’s first-term tariffs “neither raised nor lowered US employment” and didn’t “provide economic help to the US heartland”.With Trump’s tariffs changing day to day, it’s impossible to predict how many jobs those tariffs will create or destroy. Thus far, his tariffs have caused US stock markets to lose $4tn in value, and those losses could grow. If Trump’s tariffs were to create 100,000 jobs, which some economists say is unrealistically optimistic, the cost would be an astronomical $40m per job ($4tn divided by 100,000). If his tariffs created 10,000 jobs, the cost would be $400m per job.With Trump’s tariffs slowing economic growth, if they result in a 1 percentage point drop in annual GDP, that would mean a loss of $300bn a year in economic output. (1% of the nation’s $30tn GDP). If Trump’s tariffs yielded 100,000 jobs, the cost would be $3m per job. Or if Trump’s tariffs raise inflation by 1%, that would cost American consumers roughly $200bn a year – which would mean a cost of $2m per job created.Returning to Elmer Fudd, his goal was always to shoot Bugs Bunny, but his gun often blew up in his face by mistake. With his tariffs, Elmer Trump seems well on his way to shooting the US economy by mistake.

      Steven Greenhouse is a journalist and author focusing on labor and the workplace, as well as economic and legal issues More

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      Black farmers face setbacks over Trump budget cuts: ‘We are in survival mode’

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      For the last several weeks, Jocelyn Germany has been asking herself “is it safe for us to exist” as Black farmers?, since US Department of Agriculture cuts have put her work in jeopardy.Germany is the farmer advocate of Farm School NYC (FSNYC), an urban agriculture education center focused on food sovereignty and social, economic and racial justice. About 85% of Farm School NYC’s funding comes from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).The center was in the process of launching a New York City-wide pilot initiative focused on food justice, crop management and urban farming advocacy. But National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s (NIFA) $300,000 community food projects grant that would have funded it was terminated, effective immediately. Forced to scramble, FSNYC scaled down the programming and adopted a sliding scale for tuition.The cuts affected other plans, including public courses on food stewardship. Funding that would have allowed the center to distribute mini grants and grow community capacity has also been paused. FSNYC recently discussed cutting some of its own employee benefits to free up resources for the now affected programming. “Our main goal is to keep Farm School in operation,” Germany said.The impact of USDA cuts has rippled through farming and agriculture communities, which are mobilizing to stanch the damage. Farm School NYC is part of the Black Farmer Fund, a consortium of Bipoc-led/owned farms and entities that work on agricultural policy and strengthening local food systems throughout the north-east. The group was founded to share resources in an already difficult funding environment; rather than compete with each other, they collaborate on joint fundraising and programming.Now, they share an estimated $1.2m gap due to defunding. For Farm School NYC and Black Farmers United – New York State (BFU-NYS), the USDA’s termination or freezing of National Institute of Food and Agriculture grants and Natural Resources Conservation Service contracts put programs and salaries at risk.“We are in survival mode,” Germany said. Over the past year, Farm School NYC began taking baby steps to transition some of its funding away from government dollars, but “the sudden defunding was not the way we wanted to do it”, added Germany.Made up of growers, advocates and food educators, BFU-NYS just became an independent organization after being a fiscally sponsored project under Farm School NYC. It lost a five-year, $660,000 contract with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service agency. The contract was to fund three annual statewide “Bridging Land, Agriculture, and Communities” conferences, with the inaugural one planned for April.About a week after Donald Trump’s inauguration, Black Farmers United got an email explaining that because their work fell under diversity, equity and inclusion programming, the USDA would end their contract. This year’s conference was canceled, but BFU-NYS plans to host one in 2026 with or without government funding. The organization is seeking private donors to make that happen.The abrupt withdrawal of funding has left the organization holding the bag for an event that was just around the corner – and all its costs. “We have done the background work, got participating partners, submitted deposits and signed contracts,” said Dr Kuturie Rouse, BFU-NYS’s executive director of development.The organization is now unable to reimburse full-time staff for extra time spent coordinating the conference or recoup the cost of supplies. On top of that, BFU-NYS must pay vendors and other collaborators despite no longer having the USDA money or this year’s conference itself. “The organization is already at a loss,” Rouse said.BFU-NYS also lost its Green Futures program. The program helps young adults battle food insecurity, establish community gardens and pursue agriculture as a career. Last year, it launched a pilot program with a South Bronx middle school where students grew watermelon, callaloo, lettuce and other fruits and vegetables. The students then gave that food to their school cafeteria to feed the student body. BFU-NHYS now hopes to partner with other local schools to continue and grow the initiative.Aside from the loss of money and programming, Rouse said that the mental health of BFU-NYS staff had taken a hit. After the inauguration, staff were bombarded with racist emails and social media comments. “It was hate mail just because of our name and who we support and sponsor.” He clarified that while “Black” is on the organization’s name and it focuses on communities of color, it is a nondiscriminatory organization that “work[s] with any and everyone”.And, at this extremely critical and stressful time, mental health support from another ecosystem partner will not happen. The Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust (NEFOC) supports climate stewardship and regenerative farming. It also serves as an incubator for several regional land projects. Christine Hutchinson, a founding board member of the land trust, shared that a $200,000 collaborative program focused on farmers’ mental health from Maine to Delaware was now on hold indefinitely. NEFOC is one of several organizations that contributed to it. “People are really rocked,” Hutchinson said.It’s been difficult for Monti Lawson, the founder of the Catalyst Collaborative Farm, to see so much funding halted because he encouraged many farmers and other partners to take advantage of these USDA programs. The farm, which invites queer and Bipoc people to the land to farm and organize, offers many free, donation-based or sliding-scale events – all possible due to previous funding. “For government and even philanthropy, QTBipoc was a very sexy word,” Lawson said.Lawson has been connecting with past funders and community members. “In this particular moment, there are so many people who are reaching out, trying to be comforted, trying to be connected to others,” Lawson said.The land trust’s Hutchinson pointed out that the impact of defunding will vary. “A larger farm in a different place has access to resources that our farmers just don’t have access to,” Hutchinson said. Farmers from Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust are already starting with lower levels of federal support, and their capacity to replace those funds will probably be much lower. Meanwhile, farming organizations are trying to document what is happening as funding evaporates. The Hudson Valley Young Farmers Coalition, of which Lawson is a part, is collecting New York-based farmer testimonials to track the impact of cuts. The National Young Farmers Coalition is doing the same across the country.On the ground, though, the Black Farming Fund members and other agricultural organizations are trying to secure funding and their futures. In mid-February, Farm School NYC launched an emergency fundraiser to meet its severe funding gap, support its scholarship fund, launch revamped courses and pay farmer facilitators. Thus far, it has raised $750.The precarity of federal funding has the consortium’s members looking elsewhere for funding. Farm School NYC has been assembling advocacy toolkits and helping facilitate contact with legislators. BFU-NYS recently launched a mobilization strategy that includes prioritizes funding from state and local government. Rouse noted that one of the non-profit’s biggest supporters is New York State representative Khaleel Anderson, who chairs the state’s food and farming nutrition policy taskforce. Through Anderson’s support, BFU-NYS has had its own line item in the New York state budget for the past three years. Right now, Anderson is pushing for Black Farmers United to get increased support. BFU also wants to tap into New York City council discretionary dollars to fund local initiatives such as its Green Futures program and social responsibility grants from businesses that remain committed to diversity and inclusion.Some advocates believe that now is the time for those with power and privilege to march on the streets and that QTBipoc, immigrant and food justice communities – often on the frontlines – should take a step back.One of the first things longtime food justice advocate Karen Washington did was put out a call on her LinkedIn, asking her network to donate to cover the funding gap. Washington is co-founder of Rise & Root Farm in Orange county, New York.“There are foundations, hedge funds, venture capital groups, and Wall Street executives who can write a check in an instant without losing a cent.” In an interview, she asked: “Where are the people that voted for this? Where is the outrage?” More

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      in US Politics

      I’m the Canadian who was detained by Ice for two weeks. It felt like I had been kidnapped

      by

      There was no explanation, no warning. One minute, I was in an immigration office talking to an officer about my work visa, which had been approved months before and allowed me, a Canadian, to work in the US. The next, I was told to put my hands against the wall, and patted down like a criminal before being sent to an Ice detention center without the chance to talk to a lawyer.I grew up in Whitehorse, Yukon, a small town in the northernmost part of Canada. I always knew I wanted to do something bigger with my life. I left home early and moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, where I built a career spanning multiple industries – acting in film and television, owning bars and restaurants, flipping condos and managing Airbnbs.In my 30s, I found my true passion working in the health and wellness industry. I was given the opportunity to help launch an American brand of health tonics called Holy! Water – a job that would involve moving to the US.I was granted my trade Nafta work visa, which allows Canadian and Mexican citizens to work in the US in specific professional occupations, on my second attempt. It goes without saying, then, that I have no criminal record. I also love the US and consider myself to be a kind, hard-working person.I started working in California and travelled back and forth between Canada and the US multiple times without any complications – until one day, upon returning to the US, a border officer questioned me about my initial visa denial and subsequent visa approval. He asked why I had gone to the San Diego border the second time to apply. I explained that that was where my lawyer’s offices were, and that he had wanted to accompany me to ensure there were no issues.After a long interrogation, the officer told me it seemed “shady” and that my visa hadn’t been properly processed. He claimed I also couldn’t work for a company in the US that made use of hemp – one of the beverage ingredients. He revoked my visa, and told me I could still work for the company from Canada, but if I wanted to return to the US, I would need to reapply.I was devastated; I had just started building a life in California. I stayed in Canada for the next few months, and was eventually offered a similar position with a different health and wellness brand.I restarted the visa process and returned to the same immigration office at the San Diego border, since they had processed my visa before and I was familiar with it. Hours passed, with many confused opinions about my case. The officer I spoke to was kind but told me that, due to my previous issues, I needed to apply for my visa through the consulate. I told her I hadn’t been aware I needed to apply that way, but had no problem doing it.Then she said something strange: “You didn’t do anything wrong. You are not in trouble, you are not a criminal.”I remember thinking: Why would she say that? Of course I’m not a criminal!She then told me they had to send me back to Canada. That didn’t concern me; I assumed I would simply book a flight home. But as I sat searching for flights, a man approached me.“Come with me,” he said.There was no explanation, no warning. He led me to a room, took my belongings from my hands and ordered me to put my hands against the wall. A woman immediately began patting me down. The commands came rapid-fire, one after another, too fast to process.They took my shoes and pulled out my shoelaces.“What are you doing? What is happening?” I asked.“You are being detained.”“I don’t understand. What does that mean? For how long?”“I don’t know.”That would be the response to nearly every question I would ask over the next two weeks: “I don’t know.”They brought me downstairs for a series of interviews and medical questions, searched my bags and told me I had to get rid of half my belongings because I couldn’t take everything with me.“Take everything with me where?” I asked.A woman asked me for the name of someone they could contact on my behalf. In moments like this, you realize you don’t actually know anyone’s phone number anymore. By some miracle, I had recently memorized my best friend Britt’s number because I had been putting my grocery points on her account.I gave them her phone number.They handed me a mat and a folded-up sheet of aluminum foil.“What is this?”“Your blanket.”“I don’t understand.”I was taken to a tiny, freezing cement cell with bright fluorescent lights and a toilet. There were five other women lying on their mats with the aluminum sheets wrapped over them, looking like dead bodies. The guard locked the door behind me.View image in fullscreenFor two days, we remained in that cell, only leaving briefly for food. The lights never turned off, we never knew what time it was and no one answered our questions. No one in the cell spoke English, so I either tried to sleep or meditate to keep from having a breakdown. I didn’t trust the food, so I fasted, assuming I wouldn’t be there long.On the third day, I was finally allowed to make a phone call. I called Britt and told her that I didn’t understand what was happening, that no one would tell me when I was going home, and that she was my only contact.They gave me a stack of paperwork to sign and told me I was being given a five-year ban unless I applied for re-entry through the consulate. The officer also said it didn’t matter whether I signed the papers or not; it was happening regardless.I was so delirious that I just signed. I told them I would pay for my flight home and asked when I could leave.No answer.Then they moved me to another cell – this time with no mat or blanket. I sat on the freezing cement floor for hours. That’s when I realized they were processing me into real jail: the Otay Mesa Detention Center.View image in fullscreenI was told to shower, given a jail uniform, fingerprinted and interviewed. I begged for information.“How long will I be here?”“I don’t know your case,” the man said. “Could be days. Could be weeks. But I’m telling you right now – you need to mentally prepare yourself for months.”Months.I felt like I was going to throw up.I was taken to the nurse’s office for a medical check. She asked what had happened to me. She had never seen a Canadian there before. When I told her my story, she grabbed my hand and said: “Do you believe in God?”I told her I had only recently found God, but that I now believed in God more than anything.“I believe God brought you here for a reason,” she said. “I know it feels like your life is in a million pieces, but you will be OK. Through this, I think you are going to find a way to help others.”At the time, I didn’t know what that meant. She asked if she could pray for me. I held her hands and wept.I felt like I had been sent an angel.I was then placed in a real jail unit – two levels of cells surrounding a common area, just like in the movies. I was put in a tiny cell alone with a bunk bed and a toilet.The best part: there were blankets. After three days without one, I wrapped myself in mine and finally felt some comfort.For the first day, I didn’t leave my cell. I continued fasting, terrified that the food might make me sick. The only available water came from the tap attached to the toilet in our cells or a sink in the common area, neither of which felt safe to drink.Eventually, I forced myself to step out, meet the guards and learn the rules. One of them told me: “No fighting.”“I’m a lover, not a fighter,” I joked. He laughed.I asked if there had ever been a fight here.“In this unit? No,” he said. “No one in this unit has a criminal record.”That’s when I started meeting the other women.That’s when I started hearing their stories.View image in fullscreenAnd that’s when I made a decision: I would never allow myself to feel sorry for my situation again. No matter how hard this was, I had to be grateful. Because every woman I met was in an even more difficult position than mine.There were around 140 of us in our unit. Many women had lived and worked in the US legally for years but had overstayed their visas – often after reapplying and being denied. They had all been detained without warning.If someone is a criminal, I agree they should be taken off the streets. But not one of these women had a criminal record. These women acknowledged that they shouldn’t have overstayed and took responsibility for their actions. But their frustration wasn’t about being held accountable; it was about the endless, bureaucratic limbo they had been trapped in.The real issue was how long it took to get out of the system, with no clear answers, no timeline and no way to move forward. Once deported, many have no choice but to abandon everything they own because the cost of shipping their belongings back is too high.I met a woman who had been on a road trip with her husband. She said they had 10-year work visas. While driving near the San Diego border, they mistakenly got into a lane leading to Mexico. They stopped and told the agent they didn’t have their passports on them, expecting to be redirected. Instead, they were detained. They are both pastors.I met a family of three who had been living in the US for 11 years with work authorizations. They paid taxes and were waiting for their green cards. Every year, the mother had to undergo a background check, but this time, she was told to bring her whole family. When they arrived, they were taken into custody and told their status would now be processed from within the detention center.Another woman from Canada had been living in the US with her husband who was detained after a traffic stop. She admitted she had overstayed her visa and accepted that she would be deported. But she had been stuck in the system for almost six weeks because she hadn’t had her passport. Who runs casual errands with their passport?One woman had a 10-year visa. When it expired, she moved back to her home country, Venezuela. She admitted she had overstayed by one month before leaving. Later, she returned for a vacation and entered the US without issue. But when she took a domestic flight from Miami to Los Angeles, she was picked up by Ice and detained. She couldn’t be deported because Venezuela wasn’t accepting deportees. She didn’t know when she was getting out.There was a girl from India who had overstayed her student visa for three days before heading back home. She then came back to the US on a new, valid visa to finish her master’s degree and was handed over to Ice due to the three days she had overstayed on her previous visa.There were women who had been picked up off the street, from outside their workplaces, from their homes. All of these women told me that they had been detained for time spans ranging from a few weeks to 10 months. One woman’s daughter was outside the detention center protesting for her release.That night, the pastor invited me to a service she was holding. A girl who spoke English translated for me as the women took turns sharing their prayers – prayers for their sick parents, for the children they hadn’t seen in weeks, for the loved ones they had been torn away from.Then, unexpectedly, they asked if they could pray for me. I was new here, and they wanted to welcome me. They formed a circle around me, took my hands and prayed. I had never felt so much love, energy and compassion from a group of strangers in my life. Everyone was crying.At 3am the next day, I was woken up in my cell.“Pack your bag. You’re leaving.”I jolted upright. “I get to go home?”The officer shrugged. “I don’t know where you’re going.”Of course. No one ever knew anything.I grabbed my things and went downstairs, where 10 other women stood in silence, tears streaming down their faces. But these weren’t happy tears. That was the moment I learned the term “transferred”.For many of these women, detention centers had become a twisted version of home. They had formed bonds, established routines and found slivers of comfort in the friendships they had built. Now, without warning, they were being torn apart and sent somewhere new. Watching them say goodbye, clinging to each other, was gut-wrenching.I had no idea what was waiting for me next. In hindsight, that was probably for the best.Our next stop was Arizona, the San Luis Regional Detention Center. The transfer process lasted 24 hours, a sleepless, grueling ordeal. This time, men were transported with us. Roughly 50 of us were crammed into a prison bus for the next five hours, packed together – women in the front, men in the back. We were bound in chains that wrapped tightly around our waists, with our cuffed hands secured to our bodies and shackles restraining our feet, forcing every movement into a slow, clinking struggle.When we arrived at our next destination, we were forced to go through the entire intake process all over again, with medical exams, fingerprinting – and pregnancy tests; they lined us up in a filthy cell, squatting over a communal toilet, holding Dixie cups of urine while the nurse dropped pregnancy tests in each of our cups. It was disgusting.We sat in freezing-cold jail cells for hours, waiting for everyone to be processed. Across the room, one of the women suddenly spotted her husband. They had both been detained and were now seeing each other for the first time in weeks.The look on her face – pure love, relief and longing – was something I’ll never forget.We were beyond exhausted. I felt like I was hallucinating.The guard tossed us each a blanket: “Find a bed.”There were no pillows. The room was ice cold, and one blanket wasn’t enough. Around me, women lay curled into themselves, heads covered, looking like a room full of corpses. This place made the last jail feel like the Four Seasons.I kept telling myself: Do not let this break you.Thirty of us shared one room. We were given one Styrofoam cup for water and one plastic spoon that we had to reuse for every meal. I eventually had to start trying to eat and, sure enough, I got sick. None of the uniforms fit, and everyone had men’s shoes on. The towels they gave us to shower were hand towels. They wouldn’t give us more blankets. The fluorescent lights shined on us 24/7.Everything felt like it was meant to break you. Nothing was explained to us. I wasn’t given a phone call. We were locked in a room, no daylight, with no idea when we would get out.I tried to stay calm as every fiber of my being raged towards panic mode. I didn’t know how I would tell Britt where I was. Then, as if sent from God, one of the women showed me a tablet attached to the wall where I could send emails. I only remembered my CEO’s email from memory. I typed out a message, praying he would see it.He responded.Through him, I was able to connect with Britt. She told me that they were working around the clock trying to get me out. But no one had any answers; the system made it next to impossible. I told her about the conditions in this new place, and that was when we decided to go to the media.She started working with a reporter and asked whether I would be able to call her so she could loop him in. The international phone account that Britt had previously tried to set up for me wasn’t working, so one of the other women offered to let me use her phone account to make the call.We were all in this together.With nothing to do in my cell but talk, I made new friends – women who had risked everything for the chance at a better life for themselves and their families.Through them, I learned the harsh reality of seeking asylum. Showing me their physical scars, they explained how they had paid smugglers anywhere from $20,000 to $60,000 to reach the US border, enduring brutal jungles and horrendous conditions.One woman had been offered asylum in Mexico within two weeks but had been encouraged to keep going to the US. Now, she was stuck, living in a nightmare, separated from her young children for months. She sobbed, telling me how she felt like the worst mother in the world.Many of these women were highly educated and spoke multiple languages. Yet, they had been advised to pretend they didn’t speak English because it would supposedly increase their chances of asylum.Some believed they were being used as examples, as warnings to others not to try to come.Women were starting to panic in this new facility, and knowing I was most likely the first person to get out, they wrote letters and messages for me to send to their families.It felt like we had all been kidnapped, thrown into some sort of sick psychological experiment meant to strip us of every ounce of strength and dignity.We were from different countries, spoke different languages and practiced different religions. Yet, in this place, none of that mattered. Everyone took care of each other. Everyone shared food. Everyone held each other when someone broke down. Everyone fought to keep each other’s hope alive.I got a message from Britt. My story had started to blow up in the media.Almost immediately after, I was told I was being released.My Ice agent, who had never spoken to me, told my lawyer I could have left sooner if I had signed a withdrawal form, and that they hadn’t known I would pay for my own flight home.From the moment I arrived, I begged every officer I saw to let me pay for my own ticket home. Not a single one of them ever spoke to me about my case.To put things into perspective: I had a Canadian passport, lawyers, resources, media attention, friends, family and even politicians advocating for me. Yet, I was still detained for nearly two weeks.Imagine what this system is like for every other person in there.A small group of us were transferred back to San Diego at 2 am – one last road trip, once again shackled in chains. I was then taken to the airport, where two officers were waiting for me. The media was there, so the officers snuck me in through a side door, trying to avoid anyone seeing me in restraints. I was beyond grateful that, at the very least, I didn’t have to walk through the airport in chains.To my surprise, the officers escorting me were incredibly kind, and even funny. It was the first time I had laughed in weeks.I asked if I could put my shoelaces back on.“Yes,” one of them said with a grin. “But you better not run.”“Yeah,” the other added. “Or we’ll have to tackle you in the airport. That’ll really make the headlines.”I laughed, then told them I had spent a lot of time observing the guards during my detention and I couldn’t believe how often I saw humans treating other humans with such disregard. “But don’t worry,” I joked. “You two get five stars.”When I finally landed in Canada, my mom and two best friends were waiting for me. So was the media. I spoke to them briefly, numb and delusional from exhaustion.It was surreal listening to my friends recount everything they had done to get me out: working with lawyers, reaching out to the media, making endless calls to detention centers, desperately trying to get through to Ice or anyone who could help. They said the entire system felt rigged, designed to make it nearly impossible for anyone to get out.The reality became clear: Ice detention isn’t just a bureaucratic nightmare. It’s a business. These facilities are privately owned and run for profit.Companies like CoreCivic and GEO Group receive government funding based on the number of people they detain, which is why they lobby for stricter immigration policies. It’s a lucrative business: CoreCivic made over $560m from Ice contracts in a single year. In 2024, GEO Group made more than $763m from Ice contracts.The more detainees, the more money they make. It stands to reason that these companies have no incentive to release people quickly. What I had experienced was finally starting to make sense.This is not just my story. It is the story of thousands and thousands of people still trapped in a system that profits from their suffering. I am writing in the hope that someone out there – someone with the power to change any of this – can help do something.The strength I witnessed in those women, the love they gave despite their suffering, is what gives me faith. Faith that no matter how flawed the system, how cruel the circumstances, humanity will always shine through.Even in the darkest places, within the most broken systems, humanity persists. Sometimes, it reveals itself in the smallest, most unexpected acts of kindness: a shared meal, a whispered prayer, a hand reaching out in the dark. We are defined by the love we extend, the courage we summon and the truths we are willing to tell. More

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      in US Politics

      How an obscure US government office has become a target of Elon Musk

      by

      Federal employees in a little-known office dedicated to tech and consulting services were at work on the afternoon of 3 February when Elon Musk tweeted about their agency for the first time.“That group has been deleted,” Musk wrote.The richest man in the world was responding to a tweet from a rightwing activist who falsely claimed that 18F, an office within the General Services Administration (GSA), was a far-left cell inside the government. The activist accused 18F of building a program to put bureaucrats in charge of preparing people’s tax returns. It was one of several false claims about the office circulating on X, the social media platform that Musk owns and spends much of his day on.Musk’s tweet immediately set off widespread confusion in 18F, which, rather than a radical leftist cabal, is tasked with partnering with agencies across the government to consult and develop software solutions. Former staffers and a current GSA employee described 18F as a workforce that focused on delivering tech services and increasing efficiency within bureaucracy – exactly the work that Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) is ostensibly designed to carry out.At the time Musk claimed deletion, partner agencies were expecting the office’s help on civic tech projects that were already in the works and would be key to updating their operations. Would they still get that assistance? What did Musk mean by “deleted”? What would happen to the tech tools that 18F was building? Staff at the sub-agency couldn’t get a definitive answer from the new Musk-allied leadership, according to three former workers, and didn’t know what to tell other agencies.The confusion would last for weeks, until on Saturday 1 March, staff at 18F received an email at around 1am telling them that they would all be laid off and their office would be shut down “with explicit direction from the top levels of leadership within both the Administration and GSA”.The 18F episode fits a common pattern of how Musk appears to ingest and amplify misinformation online. It is also a window into the influence of rightwing media and activists on Musk as he attacks and disbands parts of the government he believes don’t fit with his ideological worldview.The week after cutting 18F, the recently appointed head of the GSA’s Technology Transformation Services, which oversees 18F, held a meeting explaining the decision. Thomas Shedd, a 28-year-old former Tesla software engineer and Musk ally who sent the mass layoff email, told staffers that 18F was shut down because employees’ hourly rates were too high and that outside consultants would cost less. Shedd did not directly respond to a request for comment on this article.“After a thorough review of 18F, GSA leadership – with concurrence from the administration and following all OPM guidelines – determined that the business unit was not aligned with the presidential EOs, statutorily required or critical activities,” a GSA spokesperson said, adding that the office was not recovering its costs.The explanation misunderstands how 18F operated and its cost structures, according to former staffers, as well as ignores that the group frequently saved agencies money by advising them against costly and unnecessary contracts with private vendors. Former employees and a current staffer at the GSA instead saw the layoffs as politically motivated.“The only reason I can see for 18F being singled out for elimination ahead of other offices would be to make Elon Musk happy,” said a GSA employee, who spoke anonymously out of fear of reprisal.Misleading tweets and Musk doom workers dedicated to government efficiencyAlthough 18F worked with various government agencies and created popular services, it was largely unknown to the public. The group quietly helped create dozens of services across different bureaus each year, however, including the IRS Direct File free tax filing system. Many 18F software projects, such as streamlining the government’s weather website for easier use in the case of natural disasters, bore the explicit intention of making government services more efficient and reducing taxpayer cost.When Musk claimed he had “deleted” 18F, he was retweeting a 3 February post from rightwing activist Alex Lorusso, a producer for the conservative media influencer Benny Johnson, who frequently interacts with Musk on X. Lorusso, who was formerly banned from Twitter in 2020 for violating the company’s policies on platform manipulation and spam, is one of several rightwing influencers regularly amplified by Musk on X, and one that Donald Trump’s administration has courted. He has worked as a paid consultant for Musk’s Super Pac, and he’s also a fan: the first post on his X profile, pinned to the top so no others will push it out of sight, is a 2023 photo of himself smiling with Musk.Lorusso’s post claimed 18F “puts the government in charge of preparing people’s tax returns for them” and suggested it was a “far left government wide computer office”. His claims about 18F were later corrected by other X users in a community note. It explained that the office had instead helped build a service that allowed Americans to file their taxes for free online – a popular pilot project that saved an estimated millions in tax fees and was set to expand nationwide.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLorusso’s post on X, like Musk’s, was a retweet of another conservative media figure. Luke Rosiak, a writer for the conservative news site the Daily Wire, had posted a long thread on 31 January attacking 18F. He framed the tech consulting unit as a “far-left agency” and “coven of transgenders and queers hiring each other”. The thread included the profiles of several former 18F employees who used “they” pronouns in their bios, as well as images of an employee’s crowdfunding campaign for gender-affirming healthcare. It also drew on articles published in 2023 by Rosiak about the GSA and 18F, in which he suggested that the agency’s focus on diversity had resulted in major security failures, which ex-employees said was false. The first post in the Rosiak’s chain received over 13.5m views and was retweeted by Musk.Rosiak’s attack on 18F contained misleading statements, according to former employees. The Daily Wire writer asserted that 18F jeopardized security for one million Americans because it refused to insert facial recognition software into government website login.gov because of “racial equity”. The claim conflated multiple different parts of the GSA and misunderstood security issues around facial recognition, one former employee said, as well as blamed 18F for leadership decisions pertaining to an entirely different business unit.The GSA did face a legitimate scandal when its former Technology Transformation Services director, Dave Zvenyach, misrepresented the level of security that login.gov operated with, according to a 2023 inspector general’s report, but login.gov has for years been a separate entity from 18F and has no direct staffing overlap with the office. A racial equity test of facial recognition technology did take place, according to a former 18F employee, because facial recognition software is notoriously less able to recognize non-white faces, and therefore using it as a tool for identity verification would have created security problems for users.“I think it’s impossible for people who are hyper-partisan to imagine people setting aside partisanship while working for the government,” a former 18F employee said in response to the conservative vitriol against 18F.In response to a request for comment on the statements in the thread, a Daily Wire spokesperson said that Rosiak’s reporting on 18F speaks for itself.Following the mass layoffs at 18F, some former staffers set up a website attempting to correct the rightwing narrative that their group was a partisan faction within the government and instead highlight the variety of projects they completed. Others warned that their group was an early warning sign for how Doge and the Trump administration would target other agencies based on ideological grounds, rather than the content of their work.“We were living proof that the talking points of this administration were false. Government services can be efficient,” Lindsay Young, the former executive director of 18F, said in a post on LinkedIn. “This made us a target”. More