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    Pall of ICE spoils weekend celebrations in Chicago: ‘I think people are just scared’

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    For 40-year-old Cecilia Romero, the days before and after Halloween are not just any other holiday. It’s the time of year when she can take her kids trick-or-treating in the neighborhood she’s from – and a connection to her own past when she would go celebrate as a little girl.She remembers years of streets brimming with families and children, with street vendors selling food and cempasúchil, the marigolds that loved ones place on altars for Day of the Dead – or Día de los Muertos – from 1 to 2 November.But this year, things are much, much different – because of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids that have been happening in and around Chicago since early September.“Clearly, it’s because of ICE,” Romero said. Referring to how JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, had unsuccessfully requested that the Trump administration pause immigration enforcement operations for the Halloween weekend which began Friday, she added: “I think people are just scared. It’s just kind of sad that kids are not allowed to have fun on a day where they should be [kids].”In the Chicago neighborhoods of Pilsen and Little Village, Halloween, All Saints Day on 1 November, and Día de los Muertos collectively play an important part in bringing the community together to celebrate, mourn and pray as a whole. This year, amid ICE enforcement and raids, the celebrations were a lot more muted. At any point throughout years past, the corridors of 18th Street in Pilsen and 26th Street in Little Village would be packed with people. Those same corridors were much more empty for hours at a time when the Halloween weekend began Friday on this occasion.Prior to Pritzker’s plea to let families celebrate Halloween, federal agents released pepper spray on 25 October in Old Irving Park in an incident that led to the cancellation of a Halloween parade. On Friday, ICE operations in Evanston got out of control, according to neighbors, close to Chute middle school. Federal agents used pepper spray and arrested three US citizens, according to NBC 5 Chicago, on allegations of “violence against law enforcement”.Marco DeSantiago, 49, grew up on Chicago’s South Side, but has been taking his kids to Pilsen for the Halloween festivities for the last 12 years. And he said the changed tone for the revelry this time was striking.“I guess the big difference this year is you could just feel [the] sadness,” DeSantiago said. “It’s a somberness, we feel personally, I could just see [it] in people’s faces. It’s not a joyous occasion.“You’re kind of doing it to keep it going for the kids but everybody, I think, is feeling pretty sad and upset.”He said that in years past more businesses and people had their doors open to trick-or-treaters – more street vendors were on the street, and the vibe was happier and more celebratory.Instead, it felt more like a solemn occasion, he said, adding: “It’s definitely a different feeling.”View image in fullscreenAt nearby soccer fields owned by the Catholic church and school St Procopius, an annual Día de los Muertos celebration featured the usual elaborately decorated altars with photos of deceased loved ones. The tributes had their favorite snacks and items they owned – rosaries or bags, or even Pond’s face cream, and the iconic orange marigolds, in some cases substituted for a plastic alternative, along with votive candles, decorated skulls, as well as many depictions of the Virgin Mary.Yet a lower attendance than usual was obvious to those who went.“It would be packed from the afternoon till the end, like there will be people coming in and out and so you can definitely see a change or a shift – but I don’t think that has to do with the [lack of] motivation or the love for the holiday,” said Isabel Hernández, 27, who was sitting next to an intricate altar for her grandmother, Lorenza Hernández. “I think it’s more so part of the fear right now of … what’s going on in the city, in the country.”Hernández feels particularly sad for people who might be mourning a recent loss – but, due to the ICE raids, might not feel comfortable or safe enough to be able to celebrate with others or partake in the traditions.“I don’t think the grieving is going to ever just go away, but I think you just have to heal with time … or be able to control it some more,” she said. “I can’t even imagine, for those that just recently lost someone … what they’re experiencing seeing people celebrating and then not being able to celebrate with others. I think that’s really hard.”Hernández’s mom, Cecilia, said that it was important for her and her loved ones to keep going with their traditional celebrations despite the pervading sadness.“One of the questions was like, ‘Should we have this event take place?’” Cecilia, 52, said. “For me personally, I was like, ‘Yes, let’s have it,’ because we don’t want what’s happening out there with ICE [to] take that away from us.”For Romero, she just wants to continue celebrating like she used to. “Hopefully, ICE will leave,” she said. “We don’t want them here. We don’t need them here. You know, our city – and I think our country – has been doing fairly well without them coming in.” More

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      Katie Miller is threatening the citizenship of a critic | Arwa Mahdawi

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      It’s Miller Meltdown TimeSome couples bond over shared hobbies; others over shared values. The Maga bigwigs Stephen and Katie Miller, on the other hand, appear to have connected over their shared love of terrorizing immigrant children.The political power couple, who married in 2020, bonded during Donald Trump’s first term, when Stephen helped engineer a family-separation policy at the border that ripped more than 5,000 children, as young as four months old, from their immigrant parents. At the time, Miller (then going by her maiden name, Waldman) was an immigration spokesperson, and a big fan of Stephen’s hardline policies. “DHS sent me to the border to see the separations for myself – to try to make me more compassionate – but it didn’t work,” she told MSNBC’s Jacob Soboroff in 2018, according to his book on the border policy, Separated. The book also quotes Miller saying she didn’t expect to change her mind: “My family and colleagues told me that when I have kids I’ll think about family separation differently. But I don’t think so.”Fast-forward to the present day and the married couple now share three young children. Stephen is White House deputy chief of staff and possibly the most dangerous man in the Trump administration. Miller, meanwhile, quit a mysterious role at Elon Musk’s private ventures back in May to start a podcast about motherhood as part of an apparent plan to recruit more women to Maga. Yep, the woman who couldn’t muster up any compassion for kids in cages is now a momfluencer.Miller seems to have been correct in her earlier assessment: having kids hasn’t made her think differently about family separation, a practice that attorneys and former immigration officials allege has been revived. What has changed, however, is the fact that she’s now weaponizing her poor children against anyone who dares challenge her. And now that her husband is Trump’s right-hand man, she’s not just going after immigrants – she’s threatening to strip one of her critics of US citizenship.This week, Miller appeared on Piers Morgan’s YouTube show, along with a panel that included the leftwing commentator Cenk Uygur, to discuss Islamophobic attacks on the New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. Miller kicked off the discussion with an incomprehensible point about the anti-Israel movement and then accused Uygur of “using coded language to attack American Jews and to say that we should not be here and we should not be in existence”.Uygur retorted by saying she was lying, adding: “It’s very normal for a Miller to be completely and utterly lying.” An epic meltdown ensued.“Piers, quite frankly, I’m really sick and tired of this racist bigoted rhetoric that can comes from people like you against my husband, against my family and my children,” Miller yelled. (Uygur had said nothing about Miller’s children.) “I am raising Jewish children in this country … ”“Who brought your children into this?” Uygur then said. “What a weirdo.”Miller, who doesn’t appear to have much experience being challenged during an interview, then started ranting at Piers Morgan about how Uygur saying “the Millers lie” is coded language for them being Jewish. After some more screaming, she also told Uygur: “You better check your citizenship application and hope that everything was legal and correct … because you’ll be just like Ilhan Omar,” a frequent subject of Republican attacks.You can watch the whole thing for yourself but the bottom line is this: the wife of the US homeland security adviser apparently threatened to denaturalize someone because she didn’t like the fact he criticized her.This, to be clear, is hardly some one-off. Threatening to deport your critics, even those with American citizenship, seems to be Maga policy now. The representative Nancy Mace, a Trump loyalist, for example, has said she would “love to see” Omar, a progressive representative, “deported back to Somalia”.Various Republicans are also threatening to deport Mamdani; indeed, Miller’s meltdown occurred during a discussion about how the representative Randy Fine of Florida and Andy Ogles of Tennessee have been pushing the federal justice department to investigate Mamdani’s citizenship. (Mamdani was born in Uganda, moved to the US at age seven and became a citizen in 2018.) Fine, who has suggested Omar is a “Muslim terrorist” and called for Gaza to be nuked, recently demanded the federal government “review every naturalization of the past 30 years – starting with Mamdani”.Fine doesn’t really need to be demanding this, by the way, because the government is already on it. Back in June, the justice department announced plans to prioritize efforts to strip some naturalized Americans of their US citizenship. Barack Obama, I should note, also led a denaturalization push – but the difference between that and Trump 2.0 is the way in which the president is using deportation fears to chill political speech and intimidate his enemies.While people of color are the main target of these attacks, even some privileged white people are being threatened with deportation or the loss of their citizenship because of their opinions – a terrifying throwback to McCarthyism. Back when Musk and Trump were feuding, for example, the president responded to a question on whether he’d deport the South African tech billionaire by saying: “I don’t know, we’ll have to take a look.” And, in July, Trump said he was thinking of revoking the citizenship of Rosie O’Donnell, an American-born comedian and actor who has repeatedly criticized the president. To be clear, Trump can’t legally take away the citizenship of someone born in the US. But as we all know by now, Trump rarely seems to look at the law as an impediment.Expect more of this. The Trump administration has made it very clear to 24.5 million naturalized Americans in the US that they’d better keep their mouths shut to keep their passports. Ultimately, Miller’s threat on Piers Morgan’s show wasn’t just directed at Uygur, it was a warning to everyone in America: criticize Maga and there will be consequences.Kat Abughazaleh, who is running for Congress, says she has been indicted by the DoJ for protesting ICEAbughazaleh called the charges “yet another attempt by the Trump administration to criminalize protest and punish those who dare to speak up”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionA disgraced Andrew has been demoted to plain old Mr Mountbatten WindsorShortly after the publication of Virginia Giuffre’s posthumous book, Nobody’s Girl, King Charles announced that Andrew’s titles were being removed. It’s not quite justice, but it’s something.Kim Kardashian thinks the moon landing was fakeOh dear.Horrifying mass killings in Sudan after El Fasher seizedThere is evidence of mass killings by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), after they took control of the city in Sudan’s western Darfur region last weekend. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), an ally of the UK and the US, has been repeatedly accused of supplying weapons to the paramilitary RSF in Sudan. According to the UN, the RSF is also using rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war. The US and the UK must end arms sales to the UAE. We have crept into a new dark age where genocide appears to have been normalized.France adds consent to rape law in the wake of Gisèle Pelicot caseThe country’s Senate has approved a bill defining rape and other sexual assault as any non-consensual sexual act. Previously, rape was defined as penetration or oral sex using “violence, coercion, threat or surprise”.Ms Rachel is one of Glamour Magazine’s women of the yearRachel Accurso has been one of the most vocal voices in the US for Gaza – and has been smeared and harassed because of this. Her “nursery school tenderness and moral clarity … explains why she’s not just a streaming juggernaut but a cultural flashpoint”, Glamour writes.The week in pawtriarchyShoppers at a Spirit Halloween in Texas were spooked after a pet monkey wearing a diaper escaped from its owner and began swinging from the rafters. Eventually, the monkey’s owner offered it a cookie and it came down. While the video is cute, there’s been a disturbing trend of monkeys being trafficked into the US because people see them on TikTok and want to keep them as pets, which is often cruel and inappropriate. Weird how it seems easier to get hold of a pet primate in Texas than it is to get abortion care for a life-threatening pregnancy.

      Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian US columnist More

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      California: officials investigate after second shooting by ICE agents in a week

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      US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were involved in a shooting in southern California on Thursday, prompting a federal investigation.The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement that ICE officers were conducting a vehicle stop in Ontario when another driver, who was not the target, approached. Officers ordered the driver to leave the area, according to the statement.“As the driver began to pull away, the car stopped and attempted to run officers over by reversing directly at them without stopping,” Tricia McLaughlin, the DHS’s assistant press secretary, said in a statement.“An ICE officer, fearing for his life, fired defensive shots at the vehicle. The subject fled the scene and abandoned his vehicle.”The shooting was the second such incident in the Los Angeles area in recent weeks. Last week, federal agents shot a Los Angeles man who livestreams US immigration enforcement operations on social media.Officials said at the time that Carlitos Ricardo Parias, a TikTok creator with a large following, attempted to ram federal agents’ vehicles after agents surrounded him and boxed in his car. Officers shot him in the elbow while a ricochet bullet hit a deputy US marshal in the hand.In Phoenix on Wednesday, an ICE officer shot at a vehicle that officials had tried to stop. The driver began to drive away and officials said the officer was in the vehicle’s path, ABC 15 reported.The shootings come as the Trump administration attempts to significantly expand its deportation operations across the US. The government is reportedly moving to overhaul ICE leadership in order increase the pace of removals.Meanwhile, conditions in ICE facilities are troubling. The Guardian reported this week that US immigration officials are increasingly holding people in small and secretive facilities for days and in some cases weeks, a violation of federal policy. At least 16 people died in ICE facilities between January and September.Deportation operations have upended communities across the US, particularly in southern California, where the fear of raids and removal has left residents on edge and in some cases fearful to leave their homes.The homeland security department said in its statement that Thursday’s shooting “was another example of the threats our ICE officers are facing day-in and day-out as they risk their lives to enforce the law and arrest criminals”.“ICE officers now face a 1,000% increase in assaults against them, including cars being used as weapons, and death threats against our agents are up 8,000%,” McLaughlin said. “Let me be clear: anyone who assaults, impedes, obstructs, or threatens the lives of federal officers will be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” More

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      US will limit number of refugees to 7,500 and give priority to white South Africans

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      The Trump administration is going to restrict the number of refugees it admits into the United States next year to the token level of just 7,500 – and those spots will mostly be filled by white South Africans.The low number represents a dramatic drop after the US previously allowed in hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war and persecution from around the world.The administration published the news on Thursday in a notice on the Federal Registry.No reason was given for the drop in numbers, which are a dramatic decrease from last year’s ceiling set under the Biden administration of 125,000.The Associated Press previously reported that the administration was considering admitting as few as 7,500 refugees and mostly white South Africans.The government memo said only that the admission of the 7,500 refugees during 2026 fiscal year was “justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest”.The figure had previously been reported after documents about the plans were leaked.The announcement swiftly drew criticism from refugee organizations, with the International Refugee Assistance Project saying: “This determination makes it painfully clear that the Trump administration values politics over protection.”“By privileging Afrikaners while continuing to ban thousands of refugees who have already been vetted and approved, the administration is once again politicizing a humanitarian program. It is egregious to exclude refugees who completed years of rigorous security checks and are currently stuck in dangerous and precarious situations,” it added.Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, CEO of the US-based Global Refuge, took issue with the ethics of the decision.She said: “This decision doesn’t just lower the refugee admissions ceiling. It lowers our moral standing. For more than four decades, the US refugee program has been a lifeline for families fleeing war, persecution, and repression. At a time of crisis in countries ranging from Afghanistan to Venezuela to Sudan and beyond, concentrating the vast majority of admissions on one group undermines the program’s purpose as well as its credibility.”Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council posted on X.He wrote: “Since the US Refugee Program was created in 1980, it has admitted over two million people fleeing ethnic cleansing and other horrors. Now it will be used as a pathway for white immigration. What a downfall for a crown jewel of America’s international humanitarian programs.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn February, Trump signed an executive order to cut financial aid to South Africa after he accused its Black-led government of “unjust racial discrimination” to white Afrikaners, a minority group who are descendants of Dutch and French colonial settlers.The Trump administration has repeatedly claimed that the South African government is implementing anti-white policies through a new land expropriation law that allegedly targets Afrikaners’ land.The South African government has pushed back, calling the claims false as well as denying US accusations that Afrikaners are being subjected to racially motivated violence in rural areas.Across South Africa, 72% of farms and agricultural holdings are owned by white individuals, who make up 7.3% of the total population of the country, according to Action for Southern Africa. Meanwhile, Black Africans, who make up 81.4% of the country’s population, only own around 4% of the land.Thursday’s announcement is not the first time Trump has slashed refugee resettlement numbers.During his first term, in 2020, Trump set a limit of 15,000 refugees for the 2021 fiscal year. The previous year, in 2019, he had already reduced the limit to 18,000 for the 2020 fiscal year. More

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      Democratic contender for Congress indicted over Chicago ICE protests

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      Kat Abughazaleh, a progressive candidate for Congress, has been indicted on federal charges related to her participation in protests outside an ICE processing facility near Chicago in September.The indictment, filed last week, alleges that the 26-year old Palestinian American candidate and five other individuals “physically hindered and impeded” a federal agent who was “forced to drive at an extremely slow rate of speed to avoid injuring any of the conspirators”.Abughazaleh, who is running for Illinois’s ninth congressional district to replace the outgoing Democrat Jan Schakowsky, was charged with conspiracy to forcibly impede or injure a federal agent, and assaulting or impeding the agent while they were performing official duties.According to the indictment, the group “conspired with one another and others, known and unknown, to prevent by force, intimidation, and threat, Agent A, a United States law enforcement officer, from discharging the duties of his office”.It alleged that Abughazaleh, along with the other individuals, “banged aggressively” on the agent’s vehicle, “crowded together in the front and side” of the vehicle and “pushed against the vehicle to hinder and impede its movement”.According to the indictment, the group etched the word “pig” on to the vehicle and broke a side mirror and a rear windshield wiper. It also alleged that Abughazaleh specifically “joined the crowd at the front of the government vehicle, and with her hands on the hood braced her body and hands against the vehicle while remaining directly in the path of the vehicle, hindering and impeding” the agent.Following the indictment, Abughazaleh, who is known for her large social media platform on which she frequently criticizes Donald Trump’s immigration crackdowns, called the indictment “political prosecution”.“This is a … gross attempt at silencing dissent, a right protected under the first amendment. This case is yet another attempt by the Trump administration to criminalize protest and punish those who dare to speak up. That’s why I’m going to fight these unjust charges,” she said.Abughazaleh added: “As I and others exercised our first amendment rights, ICE has hit, dragged, thrown, shot with pepper balls, and teargassed hundreds of protesters, myself included. Simply because we had the gall to say masked men abducting our neighbors and terrorizing our community cannot be the new normal.“This case targets our rights to protest, speak freely, and associate with anyone who disagrees with this government … I’ve spent my career fighting America’s backwards slide towards fascism and I’m not going to give up now,” she continued.The indictment comes as the Trump administration ramps up federal immigration raids across numerous progressive cities including Chicago – a move which has been harshly criticized by local and state leaders.The raids have drawn widespread opposition from the public, congressional Democratic lawmakers and civil rights groups, with the ACLU describing them as a “build out of a national paramilitary policing force that could be used to … consolidate President Donald Trump’s power”. More

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      DeSantis urges Florida universities to stop hiring foreign visa workers

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      Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, is urging the state’s universities to stop hiring international employees through the H-1B visa program.DeSantis said he wants the Florida board of governors “to pull the plug” on the practice. Nearly 400 foreign nationals are currently employed at Florida’s public universities under the H-1B visa program, reported the Orlando Sentinel.“Universities across the country are importing foreign workers on H-1B visas instead of hiring Americans who are qualified and available to do the job,” said DeSantis in a statement. “We will not tolerate H-1B abuse in Florida institutions. That’s why I have directed the Florida Board of Governors to end this practice.”However, it’s unclear how such a move could be carried out. States do not have authority to revoke federal visas, and US Citizenship and Immigration Services regulations prohibit firing employees based on immigration status.Last month, Donald Trump raised the H-1B visa fee from $215 to $100,000, a decision likely to face legal challenges. He also issued a proclamation alleging “systematic abuse” of the program.The H-1B program permits employers to hire skilled foreign professionals for specialized positions that are difficult to fill with US workers. Across Florida, more than 7,200 people hold H-1B visas.The program has caused friction among Trump supporters. Some, such as Elon Musk, argue it’s essential for US innovation, while others, including DeSantis, contend it enables companies to replace Americans with lower-paid foreign labor.DeSantis cited positions filled by workers from China, Argentina and Canada, arguing these roles were taken from qualified Floridians in favor of “cheap labor”.The University of Florida is one of the state’s largest users of the H-1B program, employing more than 150 staff members under the visa, according to an Orlando Sentinel review of federal data. Other universities also rely heavily on the program, including the University of South Florida with 72 employees and Florida State University with 69, according to the Tampa Bay Times.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionEducators note that most H-1B visa holders at these institutions work in departments such as computer science, engineering, physics and chemistry. About 60% of people who earned PhDs in computer science from US universities in 2023 were temporary visa holders, not citizens or permanent residents, reported the Sentinel.Donald Landry, the University of Florida’s interim president, said during the news conference that the university will embrace DeSantis’s review of H-1B visas. “Occasionally, some bright light might be good enough for the faculty, and then we will try and retain the person into whom we’ve invested so much,” Landry said, according to the Tampa Bay Times. “But that’s the exception that proves the rule.” More

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      Border patrol leader told to go to court every weekday to report on Chicago enforcement

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      A federal judge has ordered Gregory Bovino, a senior border patrol official leading the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Chicago, to appear in federal court each weekday to report on the day’s incidents in an exceptional bid to impose oversight over the government’s militarized raids in the city.The order came following a terse hearing on Tuesday morning.“Kids dressed in Halloween costumes walking to a parade do not pose an immediate threat to the safety of a law enforcement officer,” US district judge Sara Ellis told Bovino. “They just don’t. And you can’t use riot control weapons against them.”Ellis was referring to an incident over the weekend, when federal agents deployed chemical irritants against residents, including in a neighborhood where dozens of children were planning to march in a Halloween parade.The order today is the latest of several attempts to maintain oversight over Bovino and his agents, who have appeared to repeatedly violate court orders to curb their use of force amid a heavily militarized immigration crackdown in Chicago. The administration has dubbed the movement in Chicago as “Operation Midway Blitz” and it’s resulted in at least 3,000 arrests since September.The use of force by federal agents in Chicago first came before Ellis after media organizations, protestors and clergy members filed a lawsuit accusing agents of “extreme brutality” in an attempt to “silence the press and civilians”. She ordered agents to avoid using tear gas in a crowd without first issuing two warnings.When agents repeatedly deployed pepper balls, smoke grenades and tear gas against protesters and local police despite the order, Ellis ordered agents to wear body cameras. During the hearing on Tuesday, she told Bovino that he must personally get a body camera and complete training on the use of a body camera by Friday.Bovino – who appeared in his green fatigues with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) insignia – agreed to each request, responding: “Yes, ma’am.”“My role is not to tell you that you can or cannot enforce validly passed laws by Congress … My role is simply to see that in the enforcement of those laws, the agents are acting in a manner that is consistent with the constitution,” Ellis said.Bovino, chief of the border patrol sector in El Centro, California, along the US-Mexico border, has become the face of Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement in cities including Chicago and Los Angeles.In LA, agents smashed car windows and blew open a door to a house while a woman and her two young children were inside. Immigration advocates and lawyers have raised concerns about border patrol agents flooding US cities, as the agents are trained to block illegal entries, drug smugglers and human traffickers at the country’s borders, and not to conduct civil immigration enforcement in urban communities.The Department of Homeland Security, which encompasses the CBP, did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for a comment on Ellis’s latest order.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn hearings, federal officials have said that they used riot control gear and tear gas in response to threats. They have not offered proof that these were valid threats.Ellis questioned Bovino’s own use of tear gas, after he was captured on video throwing a canister of gas into a group of residents of Little Village, a largely immigrant and Mexican American neighborhood on the city’s Southwest Side.She also questioned his agents’ use of force in the Old Irving Park neighborhood, which she described as “a fairly quiet neighborhood [with] a lot of families, a lot of single-family homes”.“These kids, you can imagine, their sense of safety was shattered on Saturday,” she said. “And it’s going to take a long time for that to come back, if ever.” More

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      Man deported to Laos despite US court order blocking his removal, attorneys say

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      Immigration officials have deported a father living in Alabama to Laos despite a federal court order blocking his removal from the US on the grounds he has a claim to citizenship, the man’s attorneys said on Tuesday.US district judge Shelly Dick last week ordered US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to keep Chanthila “Shawn” Souvannarath, 44, in the United States while he presented what the judge called his “substantial claim of US citizenship”, court records show. He was born in a refugee camp in Thailand but was granted lawful permanent residence in the US before his first birthday, according to court filings.But Souvannarath on Sunday messaged his wife on WhatsApp and told her he was in Dongmakkhai, Laos, according to a screenshot she shared with the Associated Press. The message ends with “love y’all”.“It is very unfortunate, especially for the children that we have together,” Beatrice Souvannarath told AP.Emails, phone calls and text messages sent to ICE and the US Department of Homeland Security were not immediately returned.The ACLU of Louisiana, which is representing Souvannarath, called the deportation a “stunning violation of a federal court order”. Before his deportation, Souvannarath had been detained at a newly opened ICE facility at the Louisiana state penitentiary at Angola.“ICE just ignored a federal court order and tore yet another family apart,” said Alanah Odoms, executive director for the ACLU of Louisiana, in a statement. “This administration has shown it will ignore the courts, ignore the Constitution and ignore the law to pursue its mass deportation agenda, even if it means destroying the lives of American citizens.”The deportation comes as Trump administration officials have repeatedly clashed with the courts over their attempts to deport large numbers of immigrants. There have been previous cases of US citizens being deported, including US-born children.Chanthila Souvannarath was taken into ICE custody in June following an annual check-in with immigration authorities in Alabama, where he had been living, his wife said.“When he went to check in, they detained him. And our two younger kids were with him,” Beatrice Souvannarath told AP. “It was the hardest two months of my life.”He spent much of his childhood living with one or both of his parents in Hawaii, Washington state and California. His father, a native of Laos, is a naturalized US citizen, and Souvannarath claims his citizenship derives from that status.“I continuously lived in the United States since infancy,” Souvannarath wrote in a letter from immigration detention, “and I have always considered myself an American citizen.”Souvannarath filed an emergency motion seeking to delay his deportation. Dick, the federal judge based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, issued a temporary restraining order on Thursday, citing the “irreparable harm that would be caused by immediate deportation”.“Though the government has an interest in the enforcement of its immigration laws, the potential removal of a US citizen weighs heavily against the public interest,” wrote Dick, who was appointed to the federal bench by president Barack Obama. Souvannarath would be “unable to effectively litigate his case from Laos”, she added.The court docket shows no changes in Souvannarath’s case since the judge issued the temporary restraining order, which was scheduled to expire on 6 November. Through her office, Dick declined to comment. More

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      Haitians helped boost Springfield’s economy – now they’re fleeing in fear of Trump

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      Every morning, Alicia Mercado makes the 50-minute drive from her home in Columbus to Springfield, where she runs the Adasa Latin Market store. She opened the business next to a Haitian restaurant in 2023, having spotted a gap in the market for Caribbean and Latin foods – the neighborhood’s Haitian population was booming at the time.But over the past year, she says her business, which includes an international money transfer kiosk, has taken a major hit.“About 80 to 90% of our customers were Haitians; now that’s down to about 60% over the past six months,” she says. “No more people are moving to Springfield.”Mercado’s experiences are being echoed around the city of 58,000 people that garnered international attention last year when Donald Trump falsely claimed during a presidential debate that immigrants were eating people’s pets.Until the end of last year, Springfield was something of a surprise economic juggernaut.A report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland found that it ranked second among all Ohio cities for job growth since the pandemic.New housing projects, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, are among the biggest investments the city has ever made.That growth was partly fueled by the availability of manufacturing and blue-collar jobs that were eagerly filled by the more than 15,000 Haitian immigrants who had moved to the city over the past eight years, fueling businesses such as Mercado’s.Local companies got cheap, reliable labor, while Haitian workers received stable income, health insurance and a safe place to live. Many bought homes and invested their hard-earned income into improving the city’s housing stock that, in turn, padded the city’s tax coffers. For the most part, it was a win for all involved.But since then, the city’s economic fortunes have spiraled.Springfield businesses, big and small, are struggling in the aftermath of thousands of Haitians fleeing the town after the Trump administration’s termination of the humanitarian parole program for citizens of several countries, including Haiti, in June. On top of that, the government has ended temporary protected status, affecting the immigration status of more than half a million Haitians, which comes into effect on or before 5 February 2026.The Department of Homeland Security says conditions in Haiti have improved to allow US-based Haitians to return. However, violence prompted Haiti’s government in August to issue a state of emergency in parts of the country. The US Department of State currently has a level four “do not travel” advisory for Haiti.The consequences of these moves are being keenly felt in places such as Springfield.Since January, when the Trump administration took office, the percentage of manufacturing jobs in Springfield has been falling by double digits as the civilian labor force also declines, something thought to be partly fueled by Haitians leaving the city due to fear of the administration’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.At Topre America, an automotive parts manufacturing company north-east of downtown Springfield, dozens of jobs that Haitians had once filled – forklift drivers, supervisors and stackers – have remained unfilled on the company’s employment webpage for months.Unemployment has ticked up slightly in the city – but still at a rate twice the state’s increase – in the 12 months since Trump’s racist comments.In a city where income tax makes up the majority of municipal funding, the loss of thousands of Haitian workers means fewer dollars for public services for all residents.“Our tax revenue, which is the backbone of our general fund, has flattened. After years of strong growth post-pandemic, the rebound is behind us,” Springfield’s city finance director, Katie Eviston, reported at a city commission public meeting in June.Previous estimates had tracked that 2025 would see a 3.5% increase in income tax funds for the city. By June, that anticipated growth, however, had been wiped out in what Eviston said was a “level of decline [that] hasn’t occurred since the early days of the Covid shutdown”.Moreover, the city faces a worrying $4.25m financial hole due to the cancellation of a host of Biden-era programs and grants by the Trump administration.Springfield and its businesses aren’t alone in dealing with the fallout of the Trump administration’s immigration policies.Experts say it has consequences for businesses and companies right across the country. In June, the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) said that ending visas for international workers would leave 85,000 jobs unfilled.“Stripping [immigrants’] ability to work and threatening them with removal is not just a human cost; it is an economic one,” an AEM executive wrote in the Washington Examiner.Small communities in Indiana, Pennsylvania and elsewhere in Ohio that enjoyed an economic rebound in the aftermath of the pandemic are also experiencing depressed purchasing power due to White House-fueled job cuts.“Trump’s immigration policy slowed inflows. Suddenly, more firms have seen their immigrant worker supplies decline, forcing them to pay more to attract native workers, thereby placing upward pressure on inflation,” says Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the Brookings Metro thinktank.“This, combined with Trump’s tariffs, has created serious upward price pressure along with the rise in labor costs – not a great combination for many US producers in the heartland.”Without the ability to work, many Haitians are leaving the US.According to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, more than 26,000 Haitians sought asylum there in the first six months of 2025, many of whom are thought to have fled the US. By contrast, just 21,756 claims were made for all of 2024.Many Haitians in Springfield, however, are stuck in place, without jobs and with bills mounting up.“A lot of people have work problems – we have lost half our customers,” says Youdins Solon, who helps out at his family’s Keket Bongou Caribbean restaurant in south-east Springfield. Solon moved to Springfield last March, having lived in Florida for 18 months prior. But by the summer, he lost his job at a local Amazon distribution center when his immigration status was revoked. He says he is one of hundreds who have been laid off.“I’m lucky because I have my family here, but for a lot of people, they moved [out of Springfield] because they were afraid of the situation.”But for those who have staked their businesses on a thriving immigrant community in Springfield, it’s not easy to pack up and leave.“We order Haitian food from companies in Florida and Chicago every two weeks,” says Mercado, “but now, that’s greatly reduced.” More