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      California bill requires families to be alerted of immigration agents on school campuses

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      California lawmakers have passed a bill requiring schools to alert families and teachers when immigration enforcement authorities are on campuses as the Trump administration continues its aggressive mass deportation campaign.Under the bill, K-12 schools, state universities and community colleges must notify students, faculty and staff, “similar to early warning systems in place for other campus emergencies”, according to a statement from state senator Sasha Renée Pérez, who authored the legislation.It now heads to Gavin Newsom, who has until 12 October to sign it into law. The legislation would take effect immediately if signed and remain in effect until 2031.“With students returning to school, this legislation is more important than ever,” Pérez, the chair of the senate education committee, said in a statement.“In the face of mass deportations, raids and immigration enforcement authorities showing up at schools, the Safe Act can help inform and empower school communities to make the best decisions about their safety and their family’s safety,” she said.The bill comes as the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has thrown communities into turmoil, and immigration agents have arrested people outside schools and in shopping centers. State lawmakers passed a slate of proposals in response to the crackdown on Tuesday, and advanced bills banning immigration authorities from entering nonpublic areas of school or hospital grounds without a warrant.“Students cannot learn unless they feel safe,” Democratic assemblymember Al Muratsuchi said. “For decades we had a bipartisan agreement to keep educational institutions, schools, campuses, free from immigration enforcement activities.”The legislation was backed by Tony Thurmond, the state superintendent of public instruction, who oversees California’s public school system.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Our immigrant families are living in fear and our time to act is limited. The school year has begun, and now is the time to make decisive efforts to protect our communities and maintain schools as a safe place for learning,” Thurmond said.Other Democratic-led states introduced legislation this year aimed at protecting immigrants in their homes, at work and during police encounters amid Trump’s mass deportation plans.As the school year began at Los Angeles unified last month, officials urged immigration authorities not to conduct enforcement activity near campuses during the school day. The school district, which is the country’s second-largest, includes approximately 30,000 immigrant students, an estimated quarter of whom are without legal status, according to the teachers’ union.In August, federal immigration agents detained a 15-year-old boy at gunpoint outside a Los Angeles high school, a case that has drawn widespread outrage in the city. More

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      Ice obtains access to Israeli-made spyware that can hack phones and encrypted apps

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      US immigration agents will have access to one of the world’s most sophisticated hacking tools after a decision by the Trump administration to move ahead with a contract with Paragon Solutions, a company founded in Israel which makes spyware that can be used to hack into any mobile phone – including encrypted applications.The Department of Homeland Security first entered into a contract with Paragon, now owned by a US firm, in late 2024, under the Biden administration. But the $2m contract was put on hold pending a compliance review to make sure it adhered to an executive order that restricts the US government’s use of spyware, Wired reported at the time.That pause has now been lifted, according to public procurement documents, which list US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) as the contracting agency.It means that one of the most powerful stealth cyberweapons ever created – which was produced outside the US – is now in the hands of an agency that has repeatedly been accused by civil and human rights groups of violating people’s due process rights.The story was first reported by the journalist Jack Poulson on his All-Source Intelligence Substack newsletter.Neither Paragon nor Ice immediately responded to a request for comment.When it is successfully deployed against a target, the hacking software – called Graphite – can hack into any phone. By essentially taking control of the mobile phone, the user – in this case, Ice – can not only track an individual’s whereabouts, read their messages, look at their photographs, but it can also open and read information held on encrypted applications, like WhatsApp or Signal. Spyware like Graphite can also be used as a listening device, through the manipulation of the phone’s recorder.An executive order signed by the Biden administration sought to establish some guardrails around the US government’s use of spyware. It said that the US “shall not make operational use of commercial spyware that poses significant counterintelligence or security risks to the United States government or significant risks of improper use by a foreign government or foreign person”. The Biden administration also took the extraordinary step of placing one of Paragon’s rival spyware makers, NSO Group, on a commerce department blacklist, saying the company had knowingly supplied foreign governments to “maliciously target” the phones of dissidents, human rights activists and journalists.Paragon has sought to differentiate itself from NSO Group. It has said that, unlike NSO – which previously sold its spyware to Saudi Arabia and other regimes – that it only does business with democracies. It has also said it has a no tolerance policy and will cut off government clients who use the spyware to target members of civil society, such as journalists. Paragon refuses to disclose who its clients are and has said it does not have insight into how its clients use the technology against targets.Spyware makers like Paragon and NSO have said their products are intended to be used to prevent crime and terrorist attacks. But both companies’ software has been used in the past to target innocent people, including individuals who have been perceived to be government enemies.John Scott-Railton, a senior research at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, who is one of the world’s leading experts on cases in which spyware like Graphite has been abused by governments, said in a statement that such tools “were designed for dictatorships, not democracies built on liberty and protection of individual rights”.“Invasive, secret hacking power is corrupting. That’s why there’s a growing pile of spyware scandals in democracies, including with Paragon’s Graphite,” he said, referring to a controversy in Italy that erupted late last year.Paragon broke off its ties to Italy after it was revealed that 90 people, including journalists and members of civil society, in two dozen countries, had been targeted with the spyware. The individuals who were targeted by the Italian government included human rights activists who have been critical of Italy’s dealings with Libya. Several journalists were also targeted, though it is still unclear who ordered those hacking attacks.The US government has in the past resisted using spyware technology made outside the US because of concerns that any company that sells technology to multiple government agencies around the world represents a potential security risk.“As long as the same mercenary spyware tech is going to multiple governments, there is a baked-in counterintelligence risk. Since all of them now know what secret surveillance tech the US is using, and would have special insights on how to detect it and track what the US is doing with it,” Scott-Railton said. “Short of Paragon cancelling all foreign contracts, I’m not sure how this goes away.”Nadine Farid Johnson, policy director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which is dedicated to free speech advocacy, said news of the Ice contract compounded civil liberty concerns surrounding the “rapid and dramatic expansion of Ice’s budget and authority”. She also called on Congress to step in and limit the circumstances in which spyware could be deployed.“Spyware like Paragon’s Graphite poses a profound threat to free speech and privacy,” Farid Johnson said. “It has already been used against journalists, human rights advocates, and political dissidents around the world. The quiet lifting of the stop work order also raises the troubling prospect that parts of the executive branch are acting without adherence to the government’s own vetting requirements.” More

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      Pentagon sending up to 600 military lawyers to serve as immigration judges

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      The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has approved sending up to 600 military lawyers to the federal justice department to serve as temporary immigration judges, according to a memo reviewed by the Associated Press.The military will begin sending groups of 150 attorneys – both military and civilians – to the justice department “as soon as practicable” and the military services should have the first round of people identified by next week, according to the memo, dated 27 August.The effort comes as Donald Trump’s presidential administration cracks down on immigration across the country, ramping up arrests and deportations. Immigration courts are also already dealing with a huge backlog of roughly 3.5m cases that has ballooned in recent years.However, numerous immigration judges have been fired or left voluntarily after taking deferred resignations offered by the administration, according to their union. The International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) said in July that at least 17 immigration judges had been fired “without cause” in courts across the country.That has left about 600 immigration judges, union figures show, meaning the Pentagon move will double their ranks.The move is being done at the request of the justice department, and the memo noted that the details will initially last no more than 179 days but can be renewable.When asked about the move, a justice department spokesperson referred questions about the plan to the defense department. Pentagon officials directed questions to the White House.A White House official said on Tuesday that the administration was looking at a variety of options to help resolve the significant backlog of immigration cases, including hiring additional immigration judges. The official said the matter should be “a priority that everyone – including those waiting for adjudication – can rally around”. More

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      US reportedly suspends visa approvals for nearly all Palestinian passport holders

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      The United States has suspended visa approvals for nearly everyone who holds a Palestinian passport, the New York Times reported on Sunday.The restrictions go beyond those Donald Trump’s administration had previously announced on visitors from Gaza. They would prevent Palestinians from traveling to the United States for medical treatment, attending college and business travel, the newspaper reported, citing unidentified officials.The state department said two weeks ago that it was halting all visitor visas for individuals from Gaza while it conducts “a full and thorough” review, a move that has been condemned by pro-Palestinian groups.On Friday, the US began denying and revoking visas from members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Palestinian Authority (PA) in advance of the UN assembly meeting in September, the state department confirmed.Under an agreement as host of the UN in New York, the US is not supposed to refuse visas for officials heading to the world body for the general assembly, but the state department said it was complying with the agreement by allowing the Palestinian mission to attend.“The Trump administration has been clear: it is in our national security interests to hold the PLO and PA accountable for not complying with their commitments, and for undermining the prospects for peace,” the state department said in a statement.The new measure further aligns the Trump administration with Israel’s rightwing government, which adamantly rejects a Palestinian state.Jason Burke contributed reporting More

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      Judge orders US to halt deportation of hundreds of Guatemalan children

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      A US judge on Sunday ordered an emergency halt to a plan by the Trump administration to deport a group of nearly 700 unaccompanied Guatemalan children back to their home country after immigrant advocates lawyers called the plan “illegal”.Attorneys for 10 Guatemalan minors, ages 10 to 17, said in court papers filed late on Saturday that there were reports that planes were set to take off within hours for the Central American country. But a federal judge in Washington said those children couldn’t be deported for at least 14 days, and after a hastily scheduled hearing on Sunday, she enforced that they needed to be taken off the planes and back to the Office of Refugee Resettlement facilities while the legal process plays out.Judge Sparkle L Sooknanan, a Biden appointee, began the Sunday afternoon hearing by ensuring that the justice department had received her expanded order and that government officials were aware of it. “I do not want there to be any ambiguity,” she said, adding that her ruling applies broadly to Guatemalan minors who arrived in the US without their parents or guardians.Government lawyers, meanwhile, maintained that the children weren’t being deported but rather reunited at the request of their parents or guardians – a claim that the children’s lawyers dispute, at least in some cases.“I have conflicting narratives from both sides here,” Sooknanan said. She said that what she was hearing from the government lawyers “doesn’t quite line up” with what the children’s advocates had told her.Similar emergency requests were filed in other parts of the country as well. Attorneys in Arizona and Illinois asked federal judges there to block deportations of unaccompanied minors, underscoring how the fight over the government’s efforts has quickly spread.At the border-area airport in Harlingen, Texas, the scene on Sunday morning was unmistakably active. Buses carrying migrants pulled on to the tarmac as clusters of federal agents moved quickly between the vehicles and waiting aircraft. Police cars circled the perimeter, and officers and security guards pushed reporters back from the chain-link fences that line the field. On the runway, planes sat with engines idling, ground crews making final preparations as if departures could come at any moment – all as the courtroom battle played out hundreds of miles away in Washington.The Trump administration is planning to remove nearly 700 Guatemalan children who came to the US unaccompanied, according to a letter sent on Friday by Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon. The Guatemalan government has said it is ready to take them in.Melissa Johnston, the director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s program for unaccompanied children, sent an email to staff on Thursday calling for a halt to the release of all Guatemalan children except for those sponsored by parents or legal guardians in the US, according to a copy reviewed by Reuters and one of the former officials.Lawyers for the Guatemalan children said the US government doesn’t have the authority to remove the children and is depriving them of due process by preventing them from pursuing asylum claims or immigration relief. Many have active cases in immigration courts, according to the attorneys’ court filing in Washington.Although the children are supposed to be in the care and custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the government is “illegally transferring them to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody to put them on flights to Guatemala, where they may face abuse, neglect, persecution, or torture”, argues the filing by attorneys with the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights and the National Immigration Law Center.Migrant children traveling without their parents or guardians are handed over to the Office of Refugee Resettlement when they are encountered by officials along the US-Mexico border. Once in the US, the children often live in government-supervised shelters or with foster care families until they can be released to a sponsor – usually a family member – living in the country.In a legal complaint filed on Sunday, the National Immigration Law Center and Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights said the deportations would be a “clear violation of the unambiguous protections that Congress has provided them as vulnerable children”.“Defendants are imminently planning to illegally transfer Plaintiffs to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) custody to put them on flights to Guatemala, where they may face abuse, neglect, persecution, or even torture, against their best interests,” the complaint read.The US Department of Homeland Security, Ice’s parent agency, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Guatemala’s foreign ministry declined to comment. More

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      JB Pritzker calls for ‘all to stand up’ to Trump’s immigration crackdown in Chicago

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      Illinois’s governor JB Pritzker has called on “all to stand up” to Donald Trump as the US president prepares to launch a federally led immigration crackdown across Chicago, a plan which has been met with widespread backlash from local leaders and the public.Pritzker’s comments come as White House officials vow to target Chicago next in its sweeping immigration crackdowns across the country. Recently, the White House requested that a US military base on the outskirts of Chicago assist with immigration operations as the Trump administration plans a broader takeover of Democratic-run “sanctuary cities”.Pritzker, a Democrat, told CBS on Sunday: “Any kind of troops on the streets of an American city don’t belong unless there is an insurrection, unless there is truly an emergency. There is not … I’m going to do everything I can to stop him from taking away people’s rights and from using the military to invade states. I think it’s very important for us all to stand up.”Pritzker spoke after Trump on Saturday took to Truth Social to rant about Pritzker and Chicago, saying: “JB Pritzker, the weak and pathetic Governor of Illinois, just said that he doesn’t need help in preventing CRIME. He is CRAZY!!! He better straighten it out, FAST, or we’re coming!”Meanwhile, Pritzker said that no one from the Trump administration has contacted his team, the city of Chicago or any other local officials.In his interview with CBS, he said: “It’s clear that they’re secretly planning this. If they actually send in US troops, it would amount to an invasion. They should be coordinating with local law enforcement, telling us when and where they’re coming, and whether it’s Ice, ATF, or another agency. But they’re not doing that. And I have to say, it’s disruptive and dangerous. It stirs up tension on the ground when we’re left in the dark and can’t coordinate with them.”Pritzker also pushed back against accusations from Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, who said that Illinois “refuses to have our back”.“That’s not true,” he said, adding: “There were police officers who made sure that there was nobody interfering or attacking or causing problems for the Ice officials that were here … People have a right to their first amendment … and we protect that too in the city of Chicago … We have our job, which is to fight violent crime on the streets of our city and by the way, we’re succeeding at that job, but when they bring people in and don’t coordinate with us, they’re going to cause enormous problems.”Pritzker continued: “If he wants to send troops, he should call. I’ve been very clear about what it is that we’d like help with. But, instead, he’s talking about sending troops. Nobody’s called, literally nobody from the White House … If they actually wanted to help, they might call and say, what help do you need? … I don’t know why they haven’t bothered to reach out if they have plans of their own, but honestly, we’d be happy to receive a call.”The governor also accused Trump of having “other aims, other than fighting crime”, pointing out the handful of Democratic cities that have been the target of Trump’s immigration crackdowns, including Washington DC and Los Angeles.“The other aims are that he’d like to stop the elections in 2026 or, frankly, take control of those elections. He’ll just claim that there’s some problem with an election, and then he’s got troops on the ground that can take control if, in fact, he’s allowed to do this. We have sovereignty,” Pritzker said.With an imminent federal crackdown in Chicago expected to take place as soon as the end of this week, Chicago’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, signed an executive order on Saturday in an effort to push back against the White House’s “out of control” plan to deploy federal troops into the city.The new order bars Chicago police from aiding federal authorities with civil immigration enforcement or related patrols, as well as traffic stops and checkpoints during the crackdown.Johnson also ordered all city departments to protect the constitutional rights of the city’s residents “amidst the possibility of imminent militarized immigration or national guard deployment by the federal government”. More

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      Chicago mayor to sign executive order directing city to resist Trump’s immigration raids

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      The mayor of Chicago is planning to sign an executive order on Saturday outlining how the city will attempt to resist Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, according to reports.Brandon Johnson will set out guidance for the city’s agencies and law enforcement, CNN reported, “in the midst of escalating threats from the federal government”.Last week, the White House requested that a US military base on the outskirts of Chicago be made available to assist with immigration operations, as the Trump administration plans a broader takeover of Democratic-run “sanctuary cities”.Johnson’s order “affirms” that Chicago police will not “collaborate with federal agents on joint law enforcement patrols, arrest operations, or other law enforcement duties including civil immigration enforcement”, CNN reported.It also directs city police to wear their official police uniforms, continue to identify themselves, follow body-camera procedures and not wear masks to clearly distinguish themselves from any federal operations, according to a copy of the order.“The deployment of federal military forces in Chicago without the consent of local authorities undermines democratic norms, violates the City’s sovereignty, threatens civil liberties, and risks escalating violence rather than securing the peace,” the order says.It also says city departments should “pursue all available legal and legislative avenues to resist coordinated efforts from the federal government”.On Thursday, Tom Homan, the administration’s “border czar”, said Chicago, along with a number of other cities, would soon be targeted in a planned immigration crackdown.“Operations are ramping up across the country. But you can see a ramp-up across the operations in Chicago, absolutely,” Homan said.In an interview with Fox News, Homan was asked whether he wanted to give a message to Johnson. Homan responded: “Get out of the way, because we’re going to do it.”NBC News reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), the border patrol and other agencies will send numerous agents and equipment to Chicago as soon as next week, in an attempt to increase arrests of undocumented immigrants.The planned move comes weeks after the president deployed armed soldiers and military vehicles to patrol the streets of Washington DC, claiming, despite all available evidence, that the use of the national guard was necessary to control crime.The Trump administration has been working on plans to send the national guard to Chicago, something Johnson and JB Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, have said would be an abuse of power.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOn Friday, Pritzker said such a move would amount to an “invasion”. He told CBS News that, should Trump send in the national guard, voters “should understand that he has other aims, other than fighting crime”.Pritzker said those aims may be to “stop the elections in 2026 or, frankly, take control of those elections”.Johnson’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.“If these Democrats focused on fixing crime in their own cities instead of doing publicity stunts to criticize the president, their communities would be much safer,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson. “Cracking down on crime should not be a partisan issue, but Democrats suffering from TDS are trying to make it one. They should listen to fellow Democrat Mayor Muriel Bowser who recently celebrated the Trump Administration’s success in driving down violent crime in Washington DC.”Reuters contributed reporting More

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      Court blocks Trump bid to end protections for 600,000 Venezuelans

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      A federal appeals court on Friday blocked Donald Trump’s plans to end protections for 600,000 people from Venezuela who have had permission to live and work in the US, saying that plaintiffs are likely to win their claim that the president’s administration’s actions were unlawful.A three-judge panel of the ninth US circuit court of appeals unanimously upheld a lower court ruling that maintained temporary protected status for Venezuelans while TPS holders challenge actions by the Republican president’s administration in court.The ninth circuit judges found that plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their claim that homeland security secretary Kristi Noem had no authority to vacate or set aside a prior extension of TPS because the governing statute written by Congress does not permit it. The administration of Trump’s Democratic presidential predecessor Joe Biden had extended TPS for people from Venezuela.“In enacting the TPS statute, Congress designed a system of temporary status that was predictable, dependable, and insulated from electoral politics,” judge Kim Wardlaw, who was nominated by president Bill Clinton, a Democrat, wrote for the panel. The other two judges on the panel were also nominated by Democratic presidents.In an email, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) condemned the decision as more obstruction from “unelected activist” judges.“For decades the TPS program has been abused, exploited, and politicized as a de facto amnesty program,” the email read. “While this injunction delays justice and undermines the integrity of our immigration system, secretary Noem will use every legal option at the department’s disposal to end this chaos and prioritize the safety of Americans.”Congress authorized TPS as part of the Immigration Act of 1990. It allows the DHS secretary to grant legal immigration status to people fleeing countries experiencing civil strife, environmental disaster or other “extraordinary and temporary conditions” that prevent a safe return to that home country. The terms are for six, 12 and 18 months.The appellate judges said the guaranteed time limitations were critical so people could gain employment, find long-term housing and build stability without fear of shifting political winds.But in ending the protections soon after Trump took office, Noem said conditions in Venezuela had improved and it was not in the US national interest to allow migrants from there to stay on for what is a temporary program. It’s part of a broader move by Trump’s administration to reduce the number of immigrants who are in the country either without legal documentation or through legal temporary programs.US district judge Edward Chen of San Francisco found in March that plaintiffs were likely to prevail on their claim that the administration had overstepped its authority in terminating the protections. Chen postponed the terminations, but the US supreme court reversed him without explanation, which is common in emergency appeals.It is unclear what effect Friday’s ruling will have on the estimated 350,000 Venezuelans in the group of 600,000 whose protections expired in April. Their lawyers say some have already been fired from jobs, detained in immigration jails, separated from their US citizen children and even deported.Protections for the remaining 250,000 Venezuelans are set to expire 10 Sept.“What is really significant now is that the second court unanimously recognized that the trial court got it right,” said Emi MacLean, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Foundation of Northern California representing plaintiffs.She added that while the decision might not benefit immediately those people who have already lost their status or are about to lose their status, Friday’s ruling “should provide a path for the administration’s illegal actions related to Venezuela and TPS to finally be undone”. More