US immigration

Subterms

    Latest story

    213 Shares30 Views

    Trump news at a glance: in a U-turn, president tells Republicans to vote to release Epstein files

    by

    Donald Trump has told his fellow Republicans in Congress to vote for the release of files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, in a sudden reversal of his earlier position.The US president’s post on his Truth Social website came after the House speaker, Mike Johnson, said previously that he believed a vote on releasing justice department documents in the Epstein case should help put to rest allegations “that he [Trump] has something to do with it”.Late on Sunday, Trump wrote on his social media platform: “House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files because we have nothing to hide.“And it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party,” he added.Trump’s surprise reversal on releasing Epstein filesThe White House has struggled to contain suspicion within Trump’s usually loyal Make America Great Again (Maga) base that the administration is hiding details of Epstein’s crimes to protect the rich elite with whom the financier associated, including Trump.Despite continued releases of files by Republicans this year, including a cache of more than 20,000 pages that were published last week, pressure has grown to disclose more information from Epstein’s estate, as well as FBI investigation documents.The US House of Representatives is expected to vote on the legislation regarding the release of more Epstein files this week, possibly as soon as Tuesday.Read the full storyUN security council votes to endorse Trump’s Gaza planThe resolution, passed by a vote of 13-0 with abstentions by China and Russia, charted “a new course in the Middle East for Israelis and Palestinians and all the people of the region alike”, the US envoy to the UN, Mike Waltz, told the council chamber.The price of passing a resolution was vague language which left many issues uncertain. It gives overall oversight authority to a “board of peace” chaired by Trump, but of uncertain membership.Read the full storyUS will label supposed Venezuelan drug cartel ‘headed by Maduro’ as terrorist organizationThe US has said it will designate a putative Venezuelan drug cartel allegedly led by Nicolás Maduro as a foreign terrorist organization, as the Trump administration sent more mixed messages over its crusade against Venezuela’s authoritarian leader.The move to target the already proscribed group, the Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns), was announced by Marco Rubio on Sunday.Read the full storyUS judge finds evidence of ‘government misconduct’ in federal case against ComeyA US judge on Monday found evidence of “government misconduct” in how a prosecutor aligned with Donald Trump secured criminal charges against former FBI director James Comey and ordered that grand jury materials be turned over to Comey’s defense team.Last week, prosecutors were ordered to produce a trove of materials from the investigation, with the court saying it was concerned that the US justice department’s position on Comey had been to “indict first and investigate later”.Read the full storyTrump has ‘blurred’ line between military and politics, ex-officers warnWith months of escalation between US cities and the Trump administration amid the deployment of national guard troops, former military officials released a report on Monday about the risks of politicizing the country’s armed forces.The report warns that increasing domestic military deployments, such as using national guard troops for immigration enforcement in the US, and removing senior military officers and legal advisers have made the armed forces appear to serve partisan agendas.Read the full storyCharlotte, North Carolina, reels as 81 people arrested in immigration raidsMany communities in Charlotte, North Carolina, were reeling after federal Customs and Border Protection teams descended on the city at the weekend and arrested at least 81 people – while normally-thriving immigrant enclaves and business districts came to a standstill. Federal agents were deployed in what the Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), calls Operation Charlotte’s Web, sparking protests.Read the full storyTrump signals he may soon meet with Zohran MamdaniThe president told reporters that New York City’s mayor-elect “would like to meet with us”, adding, “we’ll work something out” despite trading sharp words for each other previously.“He would like to come to Washington and meet, and we’ll work something out,” Trump said late on Sunday, referring to Mamdani, the 34-year-old Democratic socialist and former state assemblymember who won the New York City mayoral election earlier this month. “We want to see everything work out well for New York.”Read the full storyNew international student enrollments in US plunge this year, data showsThe number of international students enrolling in US colleges and universities plunged this year as the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown on higher education began to bite, data released on Monday reveals.Read the full storySupreme court to review Trump policy of limiting asylum claims at borderThe US supreme court agreed on Monday to hear a defense by the Trump administration of the government’s authority to limit the processing of asylum claims at ports of entry along the US-Mexico border.The court took up the administration’s appeal of a lower court’s determination that the “metering” policy, under which US immigration officials could stop asylum seekers at the border and decline to process their claims, violated federal law.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

    In the underworld of accelerationist neo-Nazis, where talk of attacks against western governments are commonplace, the spread of illegal weapons manuals and tradecraft on drone warfare are proliferating. Experts say, in some cases, that classes are being taught online with the input of leadership from proscribed terrorist groups with links to Russian intelligence.

    A powerful atmospheric river weather system has mostly moved through California but not before causing at least six deaths and dousing much of the state.

    Eswatini has confirmed for the first time that it had received more than $5m from the United Statesto accept dozens of people expelled under Washington’s aggressive mass deportation drive.

    Lawyers for Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve governor, called Trump administration allegations of mortgage fraud against her “baseless” on Monday and accused the administration of “cherry-picking” discrepancies to bolster their claims.
    Catching up? Here’s what happened Sunday 16 November.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion More

    More stories

    • 175 Shares40 Views

      in US Politics

      Why are US border agents in Charlotte, and are they allowed to operate there?

      by

      What is happening in Charlotte? North Carolina’s largest city is reeling from a series of immigration raids that have arrested more than 100 people, leading to alarm and protests.US Customs and Border Protection has called it Operation Charlotte’s Web, and border agents have been seen near churches, apartment complexes and stores. Greg Bovino, a hardline Border Patrol chief who has led agents in a similar effort in Chicago and Los Angeles, has also been spotted.Over the weekend, Bovino – known for posting highly stylized videos of enforcement actions – touted his work on X. “From border towns to the Queen City, our agents go where the mission calls,” he said, referring to Charlotte.Josh Stein, the governor of North Carolina, has criticized the crackdown as simply “stoking fear”.Why are we seeing more border agents in US cities?Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which encompasses the Border Patrol, is about 60,000 agents strong – making it the largest law enforcement agency in the country.The department has long had the authority to conduct patrols further inland, but it has until recently been highly uncommon to see agents stray far from the south-western border. During Donald Trump’s second term, however, agents have become ubiquitous foot soldiers in the administration’s mass deportation agenda.Under a 1946 statute, Border Patrol agents have the ability to conduct warrantless searches within a “reasonable distance” – or up to 100 miles – from any international boundaries. Those boundaries include international land borders as well as coastlines – so in effect, their range encapsulates most US major cities, including LA, New York and Washington DC. Cities such as Chicago falls within this 100-mile zone, because the Great Lakes are considered a maritime boundary.Nearly two-thirds of the US population lives within the zone.Can Border Patrol operate in places such as Charlotte that are not near the border? The short answer is yes.That’s according to Deborah Anthony, a professor of legal studies at the University of Illinois Springfield with an expertise in constitutional law and the legality of Border Patrol operations. She clarifies that within 100 miles of an international border or US coastline, Border Patrol operates with expanded authority that other law enforcement agencies do not have. Within that perimeter, agents can run immigration checkpoints that require every motorist to stop, even without reasonable suspicion, and can board buses, for example, for immigration inquiries.But once agents are outside the 100-mile perimeter, Border Patrol loses those exemptions and must follow the same constitutional limits as any other law enforcement agency. For instance, agents cannot indiscriminately stop cars or pedestrians or set up checkpoints.They also cannot detain or question people without reasonable suspicion of an immigration violation. To arrest or detain someone, Border Patrol agents would need probable cause, just like any other law enforcement agency. Therefore, if agents in Charlotte conduct stops, detain people without cause, or operate checkpoints inland without reasonable suspicion, that is technically a violation of the constitution.“I think that their presence in Charlotte is something that the community should pay close attention to, because whether they’re operating legally depends on the specifics of how things are playing out,” Anthony said.Who is Greg Bovino, the border chief in charge of these efforts? Until recently, he was an unheralded regional Border Patrol agent from southern California. But since the summer, Bovino, 55, has become the face of the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts in cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and now Charlotte.View image in fullscreenBovino, a 29-year Border Patrol veteran who formally headed the El Centro sector in southern California, has frequently broadcast his operations in social media videos that resembles action films.Bovino is not without controversy: he has come under fire for making misleading statements about immigration raids, and Border Patrol operations in Chicago and Los Angeles have triggered lawsuits over the use of force, including widespread deployment of chemical agents.Last month, a federal judge ordered Bovino to regularly appear in court with updates about operations in the city, an effort to create more oversight over the Trump administration’s militarized immigration crackdown. Bovino was also ordered to get a body camera and complete training on the use of a body camera.In August, the New York Times reported that two undocumented people died trying to flee from Bovino’s agents. A Mexican farm worker fell from a greenhouse and a Guatemalan day laborer was hit by a vehicle following a raid at a Home Depot.What does Border Patrol say about the scope of its operations? In response to questions from the Guardian about Border Patrol’s operations in Charlotte, DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said: “While the US Border Patrol primarily operates within 100 air miles of the border, the legal framework provided by the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), title 8, title 19 of the US Code, and other laws allows them to operate anywhere in the United States.”She added: “Their ability to operate nationwide ensures Border Patrol can enforce immigration laws, combat smuggling and address national security threats anywhere in the United States, and that immigration enforcement is not limited to border regions when individuals who evade detection at the border can still be apprehended.”Lawyers and human rights advocates, however, have said that the agents, who are trained to block illegal entries, drug smugglers and human traffickers at the country’s borders, may be ill-suited to conduct civil immigration enforcement in urban communities.“The Border Patrol is certainly quite cavalier, and has been very aggressive historically as it goes about its enforcement responsibilities,” César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a law professor at Ohio State University, previously told the Guardian.Robert Tait and the Associated Press contributed reporting More

    • 100 Shares35 Views

      in US Politics

      Protests in Charlotte as aggressive immigration arrests continue

      by

      Aggressive arrests by federal immigration agents continued in Charlotte on Monday after a weekend sweep in which authorities said they detained a total of at least 130 people in North Carolina’s largest city, as protests picked up.North Carolina’s governor, Josh Stein, on Monday warned that the crackdown was simply “stoking fear” and resulting in severe disruption.The Trump administration on Saturday sent border patrol agents to Charlotte to enhance operations by Customs and Immigration Enforcement.The White House has argued that its latest focus on the Democratic-run city of about 950,000 people is an effort to combat crime but the enforcement has been met with fierce objections from local leaders – amid declining crime rates in the city.Many residents were additionally outraged when there was a flurry of reported encounters with immigration agents near churches, apartment complexes and stores over the weekend, chasing and arresting people as part of anti-immigration measures but which included some US citizens.“We’ve seen masked, heavily armed agents in paramilitary garb driving unmarked cars, targeting American citizens based on their skin color, racially profiling and picking up random people in parking lots and off of our sidewalks,” Stein, a Democrat, said in a video statement late on Sunday.“This is not making us safer. It’s stoking fear and dividing our community.”Similarly, Charlotte mayor Vi Lyles said on Monday that she is “deeply concerned with many of the videos I’ve seen,” adding: “I urge all agencies operating here to conduct their work with respect for those values.“We are actively working with our partners to determine what more we can do to support our community while working within complicated legal boundaries,” Lyles continued.Over the weekend, a coalition of Muslim-American groups led by the Council on American-Islamic Relations issued a public warning to residents, saying: “We urge all our community members to stay safe during these times, especially as mosques and community spaces may be targeted.“Our city is strengthened by families who contribute to its neighborhoods, schools, businesses, and houses of worship. Charlotte, and North Carolina as a whole, has long been shaped by newcomers, and we refuse to allow anyone, local or national, to use xenophobia or Islamophobia to divide us or make our neighbors feel unsafe,” the coalition added.The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that border patrol officers had arrested “over 130 illegal aliens who have all broken” immigration laws.The agency said the records of those arrested included gang membership, aggravated assault, shoplifting and other crimes, but it did not say how many of such cases had resulted in convictions, how many people had been facing charges or any other details.Stein acknowledged that it was a stressful time, but he called on residents to stay peaceful. If people see something they feel is wrong, they should record it and report it to local law enforcement, the governor said.The homeland security department, which oversees Customs and Border Protection (CBP), has said it is focusing on North Carolina because of so-called sanctuary policies, which limit cooperation between local authorities and immigration agents.Meanwhile, North Carolina’s Republican party hailed the operations, with chairperson Jason Simmons saying: “Border Patrol is in Charlotte for one reason: the need is real.”He went on to point the blame at Democrats, saying: “When local Democrats – who control all aspects of local government – refuse to enforce the law, federal agencies have no choice but to step in and protect this community. This is no political stunt.”North Carolina’s Democratic representative Deborah Ross pushed back against claims that the operations are being conducted for the sake of public safety, saying: “The Trump administration is sowing fear in our communities. They are targeting people based on the color of their skin and the languages they speak. This is not public safety.”Echoing Ross was Roy Cooper, the state’s former Democratic governor who said: “Randomly sweeping up people based on what they look like, including American citizens and those with no criminal records, risks leaving violent criminals at large while hurting families and the economy.”Several North Carolina county jails honor “detainers”, or requests from federal officials to hold an arrested immigrant until agents can take custody of them. But Mecklenburg county, which includes Charlotte, does not.Also, the city’s police department does not help with immigration enforcement. The DHS alleged that about 1,400 detainers across North Carolina had not been honored and claimed this was putting the public at risk.US courts have repeatedly upheld the legality of sanctuary laws.On Saturday, some normally bustling commercial districts were described as being at a standstill as shoppers stayed home to avoid possible encounters with ICE or border patrol agents seeking undocumented residents to arrest.Manolo Betancur, owner of Manolo’s Bakery, a Latino-run bakery operating in Charlotte since 1997, closed his business temporarily because he said immigration enforcement officers were targeting customers.Some welcomed the Trump administration’s effort, however, including the Mecklenburg county Republican party chairman, Kyle Kirby, who said in a post on Saturday that the county GOP “stands with the rule of law – and with every Charlottean’s safety first”.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

    • 125 Shares54 Views

      in US Politics

      Dozens reportedly arrested in Charlotte, North Carolina, amid immigration crackdown

      by

      A top border patrol commander touted dozens of arrests in North Carolina’s largest city on Sunday as Charlotte residents reported a surge of encounters with federal immigration agents near churches and apartment complexes.The Trump administration has made the Democratic-led city of about 950,000 people its latest target for an immigration enforcement crackdown it says will combat crime, despite fierce objections from local leaders and the fact that crime rates in the city are steadily declining.Some businesses in Charlotte chose to stay closed at the weekend and many areas that would often be bustling on a Saturday afternoon were quiet as people stayed home in fear of anti-immigration raids and sweeps.Gregory Bovino, who led hundreds of US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents on a similar operation in Chicago, took to social media to document some of the arrests he said had reached more than 80. He posted pictures of people the Trump administration commonly dubs “criminal illegal aliens” as a damning characterization for people living in the US without legal permission who have alleged criminal records. That included one of a man with an alleged history of drunk driving convictions.“We arrested him, taking him off the streets of Charlotte so he can’t continue to ignore our laws and drive intoxicated on the same roads you and your loved ones are on,” Bovino wrote on X.The latest effort by federal law enforcement has been labeled “Operation Charlotte’s Web” as a play on the title of the children’s book but conjuring an image of people caught in a trap.At Camino, a nonprofit group that offers services to Latino communities, some said they were too afraid to leave their homes to attend school, medical appointments or work. A dental clinic the group runs had nine cancellations on Friday, spokesperson Paola Garcia said.“Latinos love this country. They came here to escape socialism and communism, and they’re hard workers and people of faith,” Garcia said. “They love their family, and it’s just so sad to see that this community now has this target on their back.”Recent operations led by Bovino in Chicago and Los Angeles triggered a flurry of lawsuits and investigations over questions about use of force, including wide deployment of chemical agents against protesters.Democratic party leaders in both cities said that agents’ presence inflamed community tensions and actually led to violence.Bovino and other Trump administration officials have called the use of force appropriate, citing a growing threats on agents’ lives.The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees CBP, did not respond to inquiries about the Charlotte arrests. Bovino’s spokesman did not return a request for comment on Sunday.DHS has not offered many details about who it has been arresting. For instance in Chicago, the agency only provided names and details on a handful of its more than 3,000 arrests in the metro region from September to last week.By Sunday, reports of CBP activity in Charlotte were “overwhelming” and difficult to quantify, Greg Asciutto, executive director of the community development group CharlotteEast, said in an email.“The past two hours we’ve received countless reports of CBP activity at churches, apartment complexes and a hardware store,” he said.City council member-elect JD Mazuera Arias said targeting houses of worship was “just awful”.“These are sanctuaries for people who are looking for hope and faith in dark times like these and who no longer can feel safe because of the gross violation of people’s right to worship,” he said.

      The Associated Press contributed reporting More

    • 113 Shares62 Views

      in US Politics

      Federal immigration officers begin sweep in Charlotte, North Carolina

      by

      Federal immigration officers on Saturday began a sweep through Charlotte, the largest city in North Carolina, federal officials confirmed.Local media reports said that among the locations targeted by masked federal agents was a church in east Charlotte, where an arrest was made while about 15 to 20 church members were doing yard work on the property.The pastor at the church, who did not want to identify himself or his church, told the Charlotte Observer that agents reportedly asked no questions and showed no identification before taking the man away. The man’s wife and child were inside the church at the time, said the pastor.“Right now, everybody is scared. Everybody,” he said. “One of these guys with immigration, he said he was going to arrest one of the other guys in the church. He pushed him.”Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant homeland security secretary, said in a statement to the Associated Press that federal agents “are surging DHS law enforcement to Charlotte to ensure Americans are safe and public safety threats are removed”.“Americans should be able to live without fear of violent criminal illegal aliens hurting them, their families, or their neighbors,” McLaughlin added.Local officials including the mayor, Vi Lyles, criticized such actions, saying in a statement that they “are causing unnecessary fear and uncertainty”.“We want people in Charlotte and Mecklenburg county to know we stand with all residents who simply want to go about their lives,” the statement said.In another interaction with federal agents in east Charlotte, two workers were hanging Christmas lights in Rheba Hamilton’s front yard when two Customs and Border Protection agents walked up.One tried to speak to the workers in Spanish, she said. They did not respond, and the agents left without making arrests.“This is real disconcerting, but the main thing is we’ve got two human beings in my yard trying to make a living. They’ve broken no laws, and that’s what concerns me,” said Hamilton, 73, who recorded the encounter on her cellphone.Hamilton said that the agents were “looking for easy pickings. There was nobody here with TV cameras, nobody here protesting, there’s just two guys working in a yard and an old white lady with white hair sitting on her porch drinking her coffee.”Willy Aceituno, a 46-year-old Honduran-born US citizen, said he was on his way to work Saturday when he saw “a lot of Latinos running”, chased by “a lot of border patrol agents”.Aceituno said he was stopped twice by agents. During the second encounter, he said, he was forced from his vehicle by agents who broke the window of his vehicle.“I told them: ‘I’m an American citizen,’” he told the Associated Press. “They wanted to know where I was born, or they didn’t believe I was an American citizen.” Aceituno said he was taken to a border patrol vehicle and later released after showing documents proving his citizenship.Rumors of an impending sweep in the area have been circulating for days after the county sheriff, Garry McFadden, said that two federal officials had told him customs agents would be arriving soon.Paola Garcia of Camino, a bilingual non-profit serving families in Charlotte, said she and her colleagues had observed an increase in stops since Friday.“Basically what we’re seeing is that there have been lots of people being pulled over,” Garcia said.Businesses in the area, including a local Latin American bakery, had closed before the raids, said city council member JD Mazuera Arias.“This is customs and border patrol. We are not a border city, nor are we a border state. So why are they here?” he said. “This is a gross violation of constitutional rights for not only immigrants but for US citizens.”Democratic governor Josh Stein said on Friday that the vast majority of people detained in such operations have no criminal convictions, and some are citizens. Stein urged people to record any “inappropriate behavior” and notify local law enforcement.But Mecklenburg county Republican party chair Kyle Kirby said Democratic officials “have abandoned their duty to uphold law and order” and are “demonizing the brave men and women of federal law enforcement”.“Let us be clear: President Trump was given a mandate in the 2024 election to secure our borders,” Kirby said in a statement. “Individuals who are in this country legally have nothing to fear.”The raids on Charlotte come three months after the Trump administration identified the city as an example of a Democratic-led city that was not doing enough to protect citizens, following the fatal stabbing of Ukrainian immigrant Iryna Zarutska aboard a Charlotte light-rail train.The sweeps follow a pattern of similar immigration enforcement operations across the US, including in Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland and New York City.The east Charlotte church where the raid took place on Saturday said it was suspending services and yard work until congregants felt safe to gather again, 15-year-old Miguel Vazquez told the Charlotte Observer.“We thought church was safe and nothing gonna happen,” Vazquez said. “But it did happen.” More

    • 188 Shares56 Views

      in US Politics

      Bondi assigns prosecutor to lead investigation into Trump adversaries over Epstein ties – live updates

      by

      Attorney general Pam Bondi announced today that she has assigned Jay Clayton, the US attorney for the southern district of New York, to lead the investigation into Donald Trump’s political adversaries and their ties to Jeffrey Epstein.Earlier, Trump called the latest release of emails that renewed focus on the president’s relationship with the late sex-offender a “hoax”, and directed the justice department to launch a probe into former president Bill Clinton, Democratic donor and entrepreneur Reid Hoffman, and former treasury secretary Larry Summers (who served under Clinton). “This is another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats,” the president wrote on Truth Social earlier.Bondi described Clayton, who previously served as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first administration, as “one of the most capable and trusted prosecutors in the country”. She added: “As with all matters, the Department will pursue this with urgency and integrity to deliver answers to the American people.”Donald Trump announced on Friday that he is “withdrawing the nomination of Donald Korb” to be the Internal Revenue Service’s top lawyer, days before Korb was expected to be confirmed by the Senate.The president cited no reason for suddenly abandoning Korb in a brief post on his social media platform, but the reversal came just 24 hours after Laura Loomer, a far-right podcaster who holds unusual sway over Trump’s personnel decisions, posted a thread on X attacking Korb for supposedly “supporting Democrats and anti-Trump RINOs” and demanded that his nomination “should immediately be revoked.”Loomer, a racist conspiracy theorist whose closeness to Trump alarmed some of his allies in the run-up to the 2024 election, immediately took credit, telling her 1.8 million followers on X (a website she was banned from before it was bought by Elon Musk) that Korb was “Loomered”.As the author and double Pulitzer winner James Risen wrote in an assessment of Loomer’s informal role earlier this year, after she met with Trump in the Oval Office and handed him a list of people on the staff of the national security council that she believed were not loyal enough to Trump, leading to six of them being fired:
      Loomer’s power in the Trump administration is ill-defined. Her many critics say she has just been taking credit for moves that Trump was already planning. But Trump himself has said he takes her seriously, so it may be more accurate to describe her as Trump’s de facto national security adviser.
      My colleague, Lucy Campbell, notes that today’s decision to investigate several of the president’s political adversaries represents an apparent departure from a July memo issued by the justice department and the FBI, which stated officials had found nothing in the Epstein files that warranted the opening of further inquiries.Investigators “did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties”, the memo said.

      Donald Trump directed the justice department to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s involvement and relationship with several prominent Democrats, including former president Bill Clinton, former treasury secretary Larry Summers, and donor and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman. The president’s move, to focus on his rivals’ affiliations and relationships with Epstein, is seemingly his latest effort to distance himself from the renewed focus on his own relationship with the disgraced financier following the latest tranche of documents released by the House oversight committee. Trump went on to claim, baselessly, that the release of emails where Epstein said that the president “spent hours” at the late sex-offenders house, and that he “knew about the girls” was just “another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats”.

      In response, attorney general Pam Bondi announced today that she has assigned Jay Clayton, the US attorney for the southern district of New York, to lead the investigation at the behest of the president. Bondi described Clayton, who previously served as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first administration, as “one of the most capable and trusted prosecutors in the country”.

      Donald Trump has agreed to slash US tariffs on Switzerland to 15% as part of a new trade pact, lowering duties that strained economic ties and hit Swiss exporters. The two countries have signed a “non-binding memorandum of understanding”, the Swiss government announced, following bilateral talks in Washington and intense lobbying by Swiss firms. In return, Switzerland will reduce tariffs “on a range of US products”, the statement said. “In addition to all industrial products, fish and seafood, this includes agricultural products from the US that Switzerland considers non-sensitive.”

      The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued a rare condemnation of president Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and advocated for “meaningful immigration reform”. In a special message, the first of its kind in 12 years, the bishops said that “we are troubled by threats against the sanctity of houses of worship and the special nature of hospitals and schools.” In response, White House border czar, Tom Homan, hit back. “The Catholic church is wrong, I’m sorry. I’m a lifelong Catholic,” he said. “I think they need to spend time fixing the Catholic church in my opinion.”
      Attorney general Pam Bondi announced today that she has assigned Jay Clayton, the US attorney for the southern district of New York, to lead the investigation into Donald Trump’s political adversaries and their ties to Jeffrey Epstein.Earlier, Trump called the latest release of emails that renewed focus on the president’s relationship with the late sex-offender a “hoax”, and directed the justice department to launch a probe into former president Bill Clinton, Democratic donor and entrepreneur Reid Hoffman, and former treasury secretary Larry Summers (who served under Clinton). “This is another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats,” the president wrote on Truth Social earlier.Bondi described Clayton, who previously served as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first administration, as “one of the most capable and trusted prosecutors in the country”. She added: “As with all matters, the Department will pursue this with urgency and integrity to deliver answers to the American people.”Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, has responded to Donald Trump’s repeated claims that the ongoing Epstein investigation – which included the release of three emails this week where Epstein said that the president “knew about the girls” and “spent hours” at his home – is a “hoax” and “Russia scam”.“Our Oversight investigation has Donald Trump panicked and desperate,” Garcia said. “He is trying to deflect from serious new questions we have about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.”He added:
      The President has not explained why he won’t release the files to the American people. Or why sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell was moved to a cushy low-security prison after her interview with Trump’s former personal lawyer.
      Jenna Norton, a program director at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), said that she was put on non-disciplinary administrative leave for “speaking up in my personal capacity” about the “harms that I have been witnessing” inside the agency. In a video posted to TikTok on Thursday, Norton said that being put on leave was “designed to scare and silence me. It was designed to scare and silence my colleagues, and it was designed to scare and silence everyone.”According to Stat News, Norton was also one of the organizers of the “Bethesda Declaration” letter signed by hundreds of NIH staffers, calling on director Jay Bhattacharya to listen to their concerns about the direction of the agency.Given that the president has no public events or meetings scheduled today, a White House official tells the press pool that Donald Trump “held calls with Thailand and Cambodia in an effort to mediate the most recent conflict” and “engaged with Malaysia as well to help end the violence”.Federal immigration agents will conduct their next major operation in Charlotte, according to the county’s sheriff.In a statement on Thursday, Garry McFadden confirmed that his office was “contacted by two separate federal officials confirming that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel will be arriving in the Charlotte area as early as this Saturday or the beginning of next week”.The sheriff added: “At this time, specific details regarding the federal operation have not been disclosed and the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) has not been requested to assist with or participate in any enforcement actions.”In an interview with NPR this week, McFadden said “we cannot control what is going to go on. We just have to better understand it and be prepared to respond and react.”Tom Homan, the president’s border czar, has hit back against the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, after they issued a rare condemnation of the administration’s immigration agenda.“Secure borders save lives, and I wish the Catholic church would understand that,” Homan said, speaking to reporters outside the White House today. “So the Catholic church is wrong, I’m sorry. I’m a lifelong Catholic … I think they need to spend time fixing the Catholic church in my opinion.”The border czar declined to comment on whether options for land strikes in Venezuela had been presented to Trump, or whether ICE agents would soon be conducting their next major operation in Charlotte, North Carolina.Further to my last post on the announcement of a framework agreement, the White House has said in a statement that the US, Switzerland and Liechtenstein aim to conclude negotiations to finalize their trade deal by the first quarter of 2026.Of the $200bn pledged Swiss investments in the United States, at least $67bn will come in 2026, it said, adding that the investments will target a range of sectors including pharmaceuticals, medical devices, aerospace and gold manufacturing.Earlier we reported that US trade representative Jamieson Greer said that the US has “essentially reached a deal with Switzerland”, after the country was hit with a 39% tariff on Swiss exports to the US.My colleague Callum Jones reports that Donald Trump has agreed to slash US tariffs on Switzerland to 15% as part of a new trade pact, lowering duties that strained economic ties and hit Swiss exporters.The two countries have signed a “non-binding memorandum of understanding”, the Swiss government announced, following bilateral talks in Washington and intense lobbying by Swiss firms.The Trump administration agreed to limit US tariffs on Switzerland and Liechtenstein “to a maximum of 15%” under the deal, according to a statement from the Swiss government.This brings US tariffs on Switzerland in line with those on the European Union – allowing Swiss exporters the same treatment as rivals in neighboring countries.In return, Switzerland will reduce tariffs “on a range of US products”, the statement said. “In addition to all industrial products, fish and seafood, this includes agricultural products from the US that Switzerland considers non-sensitive.”Swiss officials also committed to granting a series of quotas for US goods that can be exported to Switzerland on a duty-free basis, including 500 tonnes of beef, 1,000 tonnes of bison meat and 1,500 tonnes of poultry.“The date for implementing these market access concessions will be coordinated with the US to ensure that customs duties are reduced at the same time,” the statement said.A series of exchanges between child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers, the former US treasury secretary, showing a relationship as confidantes emerged among the emails released by Republican legislators this week.The exchanges, from 2013 to early 2019, showed the two men sharing personal – and sometimes unseemly – views about politics and relationships.“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,” Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”At the time, Harvard was wrestling with an admissions debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position in a scandal after making sexist comments about female academics, went on to say in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ In [the] world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”After the Wall Street Journal revealed a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers told the paper that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.In the massive trove of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate released by Republican lawmakers this week are documents that show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.Trump wrote on Truth Social today that he would be asking the DOJ and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Summers, among other prominent Democrats and business leaders.In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’ contempt for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “ignore the daddy im going to go out with the motorcycle guy, you reacted well.. annoyed shows caring., no whining showed strentgh.”Summers reiterated his regret to the Harvard Crimson on Wednesday. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement.”The only remaining criminal case against Donald Trump has been revived after the head of Georgia’s prosecutor’s council appointed himself to replace Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, who was removed from the election interference case in September.Pete Skandalakis, a Republican and the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, the state body that provides legal training and is often charged to mitigate prosecutorial conflicts, wrote in a statement on Friday that he would be taking over for Willis.A grand jury in Atlanta indicted Trump and 18 others in August 2023, using the state’s anti-racketeering law to accuse them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally overturn Trump’s narrow 2020 loss to Joe Biden in Georgia. The alleged scheme included Trump’s call to the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, urging him to help find enough votes to beat Biden.The case remains the only criminal prosecution of Trump remaining, but it has been on life support after Willis was disqualified by the Georgia supreme court, which ruled that her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, revealed in dramatic court filings in January 2024, created an impermissible appearance of a conflict of interest.Four people have pleaded guilty. Trump and the others have pleaded not guilty. While president, Trump is protected from state-level prosecutions, but the other 14 remaining defendants are still subject to prosecution.“The filing of this appointment reflects my inability to secure another conflict prosecutor to assume responsibility for this case,” Skandalakis said. “Several prosecutors were contacted and, while all were respectful and professional, each declined the appointment.”Trump’s move, to focus on his rivals’ affiliations and relationships with Epstein, is seemingly his latest effort to distance himself from the renewed focus on his own relationship with the disgraced financier, who died by suicide in federal prison in 2019, and the extent to which he was aware of his conduct.The president continued to post on Truth Social today, notably saying that he will direct attorney general Pam Bondi and the FBI to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s “involvement and relationship with Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, JPMorganChase, and many other people and institutions, to determine what was going on with them, and him”.Trump went on to claim, baselessly, that this is “another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats”.Flight logs state that former president Bill Clinton travelled on Epstein’s private jet several times. According to several emails from Epstein, released by the House oversight committee, Clinton never visited his private island. Meanwhile, Reid Hoffman – the longtime Democratic donor and venture capitalist – has said he engaged with Epstein in a fundraising capacity for the Massachussets Institute of Technology. Larry Summers, former treasury secretary under Clinton, was a friend of Epstein’s and several emails between the two appear in the committee’s most recent release.In the tranche of documents published this week, Epstein said that Donald Trump “spent hours” at Epstein’s home with one of his victims in an email to co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. The president has maintained the correspondence released by House Democrats was part of the ongoing “hoax” around Epstein, and simply a deflection from their performance during the government shutdown.Several Republican senators have expressed disapproval about a provision tucked into the stopgap spending bill passed this week, which would allow lawmakers to sue the federal government because their phone records were subpoenaed in 2023 by the special counsel investigating Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election.“There needs to be accountability for the Biden DOJ’s outrageous abuse of the separation of powers, but the right way to do that is through public hearings, tough oversight, including of the complicit telecomm companies, and prosecution where warranted,” said senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, one of the eight lawmakers whose phone data the FBI sought and obtained.For his part, House speaker Mike Johnson has pledged to repeal the provision next week, and many House Republicans are incensed about the language in the bill.“Interesting seeing my colleagues express outrage over this provision yet still vote for it when they could have been strong and not let the Senate jam the House,” said GOP member Greg Steube, who represents the Florida suncoast. “There was no reason this needed to be in the bill to reopen the government. The Senate used a crisis to pass an unethical provision and now the House is complicit.”Donald Trump has claimed on social media that Democratic lawmakers are doing “everything in their withering power to push the Epstein Hoax again”. This comes after emails released this week by the House oversight committee seem to suggest that the president may have known about Jeffrey Epstein’s conduct.In his post on Truth Social a short while ago, Trump added that the latest batch of documents are being used to “deflect” from Democrats’ “bad policies and losses, specially the SHUTDOWN EMBARRASSMENT, where there party is in total disarray and has no idea what to do”.The president has yet to address the emails, or the wider record release, which included more than 20,000 pages. On Thursday, he took no questions from reporters at an executive order signing in the East Room. He has, however, been resolute about his stance online. White House officials have recapitulated his claims that the new information is merely a distraction.“Some Weak Republicans have fallen into their clutches because they are soft and foolish,” Trump wrote on Friday. “Epstein was a Democrat, and he is the Democrat’s problem, not the Republican’s problem! Ask Bill Clinton, Reid Hoffman, and Larry Summers about Epstein, they know all about him, don’t waste your time with Trump. I have a Country to run!”Americans should “raise hell” to protect US national parks through the “nightmare” of Donald Trump’s presidency, according to a former National Park Service director, amid alarm over the impact of the federal government shutdown.Jonathan Jarvis claimed the agency is now in the hands of a “bunch of ideologues” who would have no issue watching it “go down in flames” – and see parks from Yellowstone to Yosemite as potential “cash cows”, ripe for privatization.Jarvis, who led the NPS from 2009 to 2017, faced intense scrutiny, a five-hour grilling in Congress and calls for his resignation after closing all 401 national park sites during a previous shutdown, in October 2013.He was certain, despite the backlash, that it was the right thing to do: keeping them open with a skeleton staff would have put parks and their visitors at risk, his team concluded.Over the past month, hundreds of NPS veterans including Jarvis, 72, have watched aghast as most of the agency’s workers were furloughed during the longest shutdown in US history – while the Trump administration kept all national parks open.There have been consequences.A fire at Joshua Tree national park burned through about 72 acres. Yosemite faced a wave of illegal Base jumping. Yellowstone grappled with bear jams.Vandalism included graffiti in Arches national park. A stone wall at Gettysburg national military park was damaged. Trash started to gather at various sites.Thousands of NPS workers are typically around to guide visitors safely through parks, point them in the right direction, swiftly rescue them from danger, keep traffic moving, monitor wildlife and protect the landscape.“You take all of that away – all of those employees – you basically are, on one hand, creating unsafe conditions for the visitor,” Jarvis said, adding: “And you’re putting basically these irreplaceable resources at risk.” More

    • 138 Shares79 Views

      in US Politics

      People held in ‘decrepit’ California ICE facility sue over ‘inhumane’ conditions

      by

      Seven people detained at California’s largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center have sued the US government, alleging they have been denied essential medications, frequently go hungry and are housed in a “decrepit” facility.The federal class-action complaint filed against ICE on Wednesday challenges the “inhumane conditions” at the California City detention center, which opened in late August inside a shuttered state prison. The suit alleges “life-threatening” medical neglect, with the plaintiffs saying they have been denied cancer treatment, basic disability accommodations and regular insulin for diabetes.The facility is run by CoreCivic, a private prison corporation, which is not a named defendant.Residents have raised alarms about the facility for two months, with some describing it as a “torture chamber” and “hell on earth” in interviews.California City is located in the remote Mojave desert, 100 miles (160km) north-east of Los Angeles. It can hold more than 2,500 people, increasing ICE’s California detention capacity by 36%. It currently detains more than 800 people, lawyers say.Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary, said in an email that claims of “subprime conditions” at the detention center were “false”, writing: “No one is denied access to proper medical care.”The suit, which alleges constitutional violations, describes conditions as “dire”, saying: “Sewage bubbles up from the shower drains, and insects crawl up and down the walls of the cells. People are locked in concrete cells the size of a parking space for hours on end.”Temperatures inside are “frigid”, and detained residents who cannot afford to buy roughly $20 sweatshirts “suffer in the cold, some wearing socks on their arms as makeshift sleeves”, the complaint alleges; meals are “paltry”, and people who cannot afford to buy supplemental food go hungry.Even though residents are detained for civil immigration violations, not criminal offenses, California City “operates even more restrictively and punitively than a prison”, the lawyers say. Families are forced to visit their relatives behind glass, with parents denied the ability to hug or touch their children, and the facility “sharply limits access to lawyers, leaving people bewildered and largely incommunicado”, the suit alleges.McLaughlin of the DHS said detained people were provided three meals a day and dietitians evaluated the meals to “ensure they meet the appropriate standards”. She said they “have access to phones to communicate with their family members and lawyers”, adding: “ICE has higher detention standards than most US prisons.”The residents are coming forward as the homeland security department continues to ramp up immigration raids nationally, bolstered by $45bn to expand ICE capacity, with the goal of detaining more than 100,000 people. Civil rights lawsuits have repeatedly raised concerns about detention conditions across the country.The plaintiffs are represented by the Prison Law Office, the Keker Van Nest and Peters law firm, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice.Requests for medical attention “go unanswered for weeks or are never answered at all”, the complaint states. People with disabilities have allegedly struggled to access essential services, including wheelchairs. One man, whose glasses were confiscated at intake and had difficulty seeing objects in front of him, fell getting off his bunkbed and was hospitalized, the suit says.Jose Ruiz Canizales, a detained plaintiff who is deaf and does not speak, has been at California City since 29 August, but has only communicated once with staff through a sign language interpreter via video, the complaint says. When he tries to communicate, staff “often shrug their shoulders, walk away, or laugh at him”. The impact on his mental health was so severe, he was hospitalized for an anxiety attack.Yuri Alexander Roque Campos, another plaintiff, has a heart anomaly requiring daily monitoring and medication, but since he arrived at California City on 5 September, he has been denied medications “for days at a time”, his lawyers wrote, resulting in two emergency hospitalizations for severe chest pain. A hospital doctor allegedly told him “he could die if this were to happen again”, but the lawsuit says he has yet to see a cardiologist and still lacks consistent medication.Sokhean Keo, who previously spoke of his temporary hunger strike to protest about conditions, witnessed a friend’s suicide attempt at the facility and remains traumatized by flashbacks, lawyers wrote.“I’m bringing this lawsuit to try to help end the suffering and pain that I see in here,” Keo said in a statement shared by his attorneys. “ICE is playing with people’s lives, and they treat people like they’re trash, like they’re nothing.”When residents do see doctors, “the care they receive is dangerously poor”, according to the complaint, with providers failing to document exams, address abnormal lab results or order timely treatment.Fernando Viera Reyes, a plaintiff transferred to California City in late August, had a pending biopsy appointment to formally diagnose and begin treatment for prostate cancer, but his request to see a doctor went unanswered for weeks, and he still has not seen a urologist nor received testing for his condition, the suit says. His bloodwork and bleeding with urination suggests his cancer may have metastasized, his lawyers said.Plaintiff Fernando Gomez Ruiz, a father of two and LA resident for 22 years, was arrested by ICE in early October while at a food truck outside a Home Depot, the complaint says. Since his arrival at California City in mid-October, he has not received regular insulin for his diabetes, leading to elevated blood sugar and a “large, oozing ulcer on the bottom of his foot”, the suit says. He says he has been forced to cover his wound with “soiled bandages and bloody shoes” and is worried he will need amputation.The DHS did not respond to the detailed healthcare claims in the lawsuit, but McLaughlin said ICE provided “comprehensive medical care from the moment” people are detained: “This includes medical, dental, and mental health intake screening within 12 hours of arriving at each detention facility, a full health assessment within 14 days of entering ICE custody or arrival at a facility, and access to medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care.” She said ICE “provides necessary accommodations for disabilities”.Ryan Gustin, a CoreCivic spokesperson, declined to comment on the litigation and specific claims, but said in an email on Thursday after publication that the “safety, health and well-being of the individuals entrusted to our care is our top priority”. CoreCivic’s ICE facilities follow federal detention standards, are “monitored very closely by our government partners” and are required to undergo regular reviews and audits to “ensure an appropriate standard of living and care for all”, he said.“We’re proud of our dedicated team at [California City] who work hard every day to keep those in our care safe while providing for their needs,” he said, adding “staff are held to the highest ethical standards” outlined in the company’s “human rights policy”. The company told the Guardian in September that it provided “high-quality healthcare, available 24/7”.The plaintiffs also accused staff of “abusive” behavior and “unreasonable use of force”. On 29 September, staff entered the cell of a person detained in “administrative segregation”, a form of restricted housing, and hit him with riot shields, even though he was already handcuffed, and held him down with their knees on his back, the complaint says.On 3 October, Gustavo Guevara Alarcon, another plaintiff, said he witnessed an officer pepper-spraying a man who did not speak English, after the man did not understand the officer and turned to walk away.In another alleged incident on 9 October described in the lawsuit, people were screaming for help due to an attempted suicide, and a person stepped out of his cell to observe. A staff member, who was holding a drill for maintenance work, ordered the person to get his “ass inside”, threatening to “make a hole in your chest”, and the man allegedly got a disciplinary write-up for being outside his cell.“California City’s punishing conditions are punishing by design,” said Tess Borden, a supervising staff attorney at the Prison Law Office. “ICE and DHS are using detention as a threat to immigrants who decide to stay in America, and they’re making good on that threat at California City. Many people have agreed to deportation, and some even attempt to take their own lives, because the conditions at the facility are so unbearable.”McLaughlin did not respond to accounts of the specific incidents, but said ICE placed people in segregation for “their own protection or protection of others”, adding: “Ensuring the safety, security, and well-being of individuals in our custody is a top priority … ICE is regularly audited and inspected by external agencies to ensure that all ICE facilities comply with performance-based national detention standards.” More

    • 138 Shares79 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘MigraWatch’ trainings to ‘Whistlemania’ events: Chicagoans fight back against ICE raids

      by

      Anaís Robles didn’t expect to get teargassed. The co-owner of Colibrí Cafe, the coffee shop that opened this year in Chicago’s East Side neighborhood, saw commotion outside in mid-October and ran to see what happened.Robles saw federal agents donning masks and decided to step back, she was half a block away when the teargas canisters hit. “People were just in the streets, so to clear out the area, they teargas all of us, and like, multiple teargas [canisters],” she said.Robles recalled the burning sensation as she walked back to the coffee shop with her eyes closed.ICE and Customs and Border Protection agents have been raiding almost every part of Chicago in the Trump administration’s wide-ranging “Operation Midway Blitz”, which started on 9 September 2025. The National Center for Immigrant Justice and Illinois Coalition on Immigrant and Refugee Rights estimated that since the start of the operation, about 1,300 people had been illegally detained, and that violations of a court order to stop warrantless arrests were ongoing. Mayor Brandon Johnson even called this week for the United Nations to investigate the force being used on city streets.But Chicagoans are also fighting back.View image in fullscreenThey are organizing to protect life in a city that in so many ways is defined by the many waves of immigration from eastern European to Latin American, with Mexican-born immigrants making up nearly 40% of all foreign-born immigrants in the city. And with entire communities now on edge, and vibrant streets filled with immigrant-owned businesses have turned into ghost towns, many residents have dedicated countless hours and funds to keeping the city intact.Donald Trump has long targeted the Democrat-led city for its crime rate, calling it the murder capital of the world, on social media, even though the city experienced its lowest murder rate since 1962 this summer.His feud goes as far back as 2016, when he had to withdraw from hosting a rally citing “security concerns”, as fights broke out between counter-protesters and attenders. Or as far back as 2014, when the then mayor, Rahm Emanuel, called Trump Tower’s embellishment with the future president’s last name, “tasteless”.Since Trump’s first term, residents have been organizing against his impact on the city. But those efforts have ramped up in response to “Operation Midway Blitz”. Residents have hosted ICE Watch trainings, accompanied students for safety, passed out whistles to neighbors to blow when ICE is spotted, and by donating money to those most affected by the raids.View image in fullscreenDiego Morales, a volunteer with Puño, or Pilsen Unidos por Nuestro Orgullo said their MigraWatch trainings have consistently reached capacity. Morales has trained more than 2,000 people in how to spot ICE as well as what rights people have that could keep them safe or quickly release them from detention. He has done this since 2016, when Trump first got elected.“Ideally, we want to reach, like, a critical mass of trained people in the city of Chicago, so that you know everybody going about their day – whether they’re [a] bus driver, whether there’s somebody walking down the street going to a book shop, whether they’re a student coming in and out of school – has these sorts of tools and is connected to the network in some way and can activate,” he said.Meanwhile, a local West Side group, Belmont Cragin United, has been hosting what has been dubbed “Whistlemania” events, where volunteers gather at a local restaurant to pack whistles, community resource guides, and zines on how to gather a crowd of people when ICE is nearby. Hundreds of people attended these events at locations all over the city’s West Side and packed more than 17,000 kits, according to Block Club Chicago.“We’re showing them in deeds and actions that we care about them, that the city of Chicago and our neighbors care about these individuals, even if the federal government doesn’t,” Alonso Zaragoza told Block Club Chicago, a Chicago-based non-profit media outlet.View image in fullscreenMorgan Martinez, the owner of Solar Intentions, an astrology-themed local sober gathering space in the city’s Edgewater neighborhood, has been active in efforts to educate residents about ICE.“We’ve been able to become part of local rapid response teams that are entirely community driven: from community patrolling at local businesses and schools to organizing mutual aid, local community organizers are informative, dedicated to protecting our neighbors at all costs,” said Martinez.Solar Intentions also held a fundraiser for another local business called Edgewater Tacos, which has been struggling since the ICE raids started in September. Martinez said she was inspired to fundraise when she heard that Edgewater Tacos had to close for an entire weekend; locals suggested donations to make up for lost revenue. That fundraiser raised thousands for the neighborhood business.In the city’s Little Village neighborhood, the Street Vendors Association of Chicago is making sure that the vendors who sell mango with chamoy, paletas, Mexican corn and other snacks are able to stay afloat without the fear of going out to potentially be detained by ICE, by fundraising on their behalf. One of the first people detained in Operation Midway Blitz was a flower vendor on the city’s Southwest Side.“The vendors are small businesses, and you went from seeing 20 vendors to seeing two vendors out there. And sometimes it’s not even the actual vendors, but it’s their kids that are vending for them out of fear,” said Maria Orozco, a development coordinator at SVAC.Orozco, whose own parents are street vendors, said the organization raised over $230,000 for street vendors. Despite working long hours and fighting exhaustion, she and her colleagues will continue to do so to ensure street vendors can access aid.Martinez for her part will be doing the same.“This administration wants us to feel defeated and fatigued from the violence against our local communities, and it may tempt us towards numbness. But the real truth is that when we are present in our bodies, we’re present with each other, which allows to stand up for our communities,” she said. More

    • 125 Shares92 Views

      in US Politics

      Judge orders release of hundreds arrested during Chicago immigration raids

      by

      A federal judge has ordered the release of hundreds of people who were arrested over the last few months in the Chicago area amid the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration raids across the city.On Wednesday, US district judge Jeffrey Cummings ordered the justice department to produce a list showing which of the 615 possible class members are still in custody by 19 November, the Chicago Tribune reports.According to Cummings, he would allow the members’ release on a $1,500 bond as long as they have no criminal history or prior removal order. The ACLU of Illinois said that the order will mean the immediate release of 13 people who have been detained by federal officials.As part of Wednesday’s order, Cummings also prohibited the government from pressuring detainees to agree to voluntary deportation while their cases are pending, the Chicago Tribune added.The order comes after Donald Trump’s Operation Midway Blitz launched a series of aggressive immigration raids across Chicago during which federal agents have been accused of using excessive force against protesters including deploying tear gas and pepper spray.In a statement to the Guardian, ACLU’s Illinois chapter hailed Cummings’ decision, with its deputy legal director Michelle Garcia noting the 13 immediate releases.“In addition, more than 600 additional individuals may be released in a week on bond or ankle monitoring, while the parties determine if their arrests violated the consent decree,” Garcia added, referencing a 2022 consent decree that had been previously established concerning warrantless arrests in the Chicago area.The ACLU and the National Immigrant Justice Center had filed a lawsuit over allegations that federal agents violated the 2022 agreement by issuing warrantless arrests amid the latest immigration crackdowns across the city.Garcia went on to say: “Most importantly, the court committed to enforcing our agreement with the federal government – a step that creates a pathway for even more of the hundreds of people illegally arrested and detained during Operation Midway Blitz to be released. The court is holding ICE and CBP accountable for breaking the law.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMeanwhile, justice department lawyer William Weiland described Cummings’ decision as “highly significant” and requested that he halt any release order so he could consult with his superiors, the Chicago Tribune reported. Weiland further noted that at least 12 of the 615 individuals posed a substantial security concern and that the government needed more time to complete their vetting, the outlet added.Cummings has directed both the plaintiffs and defendants to file a status report by 21 November.Just last month, a coalition of immigration advocates – led by the Illinois chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and the MacArthur Justice Center – filed a lawsuit against federal authorities, alleging “torturous” conditions at an ICE facility in the Chicago area. More