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      Venezuelans deported by Trump are victims of ‘torture’, lawyers allege

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      Lawyers for 252 Venezuelans deported by the Trump administration and imprisoned in El Salvador for two months have alleged that the migrants are victims of physical and emotional “torture”.A law firm hired by the Venezuelan government said that it had been unable to visit the migrants in the mega-prison where they are locked up.The lawyers are seeking “proof of life”, but say they have come up against a wall of silence from President Nayib Bukele’s administration and the Central American nation’s justice system.Grupo Ortega filed a habeas corpus petition with the supreme court on 24 March seeking an end to what it calls the “illegal detention” of the Venezuelans, but is still waiting for a ruling.“They are treating them like common criminals,” lawyer Salvador Ríos said, after the migrants were shown dressed in prison clothing, shackled and with shaved heads.“This is torture,” both physically and psychologically, Rios said in an interview with AFP.The lawyers delivered a letter in early May to Bukele, a key ally of Donald Trump, requesting authorization to visit the Venezuelans, but so far without success.AFP sought a comment from the Salvadorian presidency about the case and the lawyers’ efforts, but has not received a response.Félix Ulloa, the Salvadorian vice-president, told the French media outlet Le Grand Continent that his government merely provides a “service that we could call prison accommodation”.Trump’s administration has paid Bukele’s government millions of dollars to lock up migrants it says are criminals and gang members.Trump invoked rarely used wartime legislation in March to fly migrants to El Salvador without any court hearing, alleging they belonged to the Tren de Aragua gang, a charge that their families and lawyers deny.The Venezuelans, as well as 36 deported Salvadorian migrants, are being held in a maximum-security prison built by Bukele to house thousands of suspects arrested during his sweeping crackdown on street gangs.Images of the Venezuelans entering the Cecot mega-prison in shackles illustrate the brutality, Ríos said.“The damage is not only physical, but also psychological,” Ríos said.In their letter to Bukele, the lawyers sought permission to interview the prisoners, either in person or virtually, which could serve as “proof of life”.They asked Bukele to release the list of the 252 Venezuelans, something that Washington has not done either.One Salvadorian migrant who was initially incarcerated in Cecot – but in April was moved to a prison farm – is Kilmar Ábrego García, a US resident deported due to what the United States itself admitted was an administrative error.A Venezuelan identified in US court documents as “Cristian” was also mistakenly expelled.In both cases, US judges unsuccessfully ordered the Trump administration to facilitate their return to the United States.Volker Türk, the UN human rights chief, said this week that the situation “raises serious concerns regarding a wide array of rights that are fundamental to both US and international law”.“Families we have spoken to have expressed a sense of complete powerlessness in the face of what has happened and their pain at seeing their relatives labelled and handled as violent criminals, even terrorists, without any court judgment as to validity of what is claimed against them,” he said in a statement.Isael Guerrero, another lawyer with Grupo Ortega, described the detentions as “completely illegal” because the Venezuelans “are not being legally prosecuted in any court” in El Salvador.The firm’s head, Jaime Ortega, said they were “100% migrants”.“Not a single one of them is being prosecuted” in the United States for their alleged membership of the Tren de Aragua gang, he said.The fate of the Venezuelans now depends entirely on Bukele, as “the expulsion completely nullifies US jurisdiction”, Ortega said.In April, Bukele offered to trade the 252 Venezuelans for an equal number of political prisoners held by President Nicolás Maduro’s government. More

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      Judge dismisses trespassing charges against immigrants crossing US-Mexico border

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      A federal judge in New Mexico on Thursday dismissed trespassing charges against dozens of immigrants caught in a new military zone on the US-Mexico border, marking a setback for Trump administration efforts to raise penalties for unlawful crossings into the US.Chief US magistrate judge Gregory Wormuth began filing the dismissals late on Wednesday, ruling that immigrants did not know they were entering the military zone in New Mexico and therefore could not be charged, according to court documents and a defense attorney.Assistant federal public defender Amanda Skinner said Wormuth dismissed trespassing charges against all immigrants who made initial court appearances on Thursday. The immigrants still face charges accusing them of crossing the border illegally.“Judge Wormuth found no probable cause,” Skinner said in an email.New Mexico US attorney Ryan Ellison, who filed the first trespassing charges against migrants on 28 April, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The so-called New Mexico national defense area was established in April along 180 miles (290km) of the border, and US army troops were authorized to detain immigrants entering the area from Mexico.A second buffer zone was set up in Texas this month. Defense secretary Pete Hegseth said in a social media post the military would continue to expand the zones to gain “100% operational control” of the border.US attorneys charged over 100 immigrants with crossing the border illegally and trespassing in the military zones in New Mexico and Texas. Potential combined penalties were up to 10 years imprisonment, according to Hegseth.But Wormuth pushed back against the charges for the immigrants in New Mexico, ordering Ellison on 1 May to show proof they were aware they entered the military zone unlawfully.Defense attorneys argued warning signs in the area were inadequate to inform immigrants they were committing a crime, a position Wormuth agreed with.“The criminal complaint fails to establish probable cause to believe the defendant knew he/she was entering” the military zone, Wormuth wrote in his orders dismissing charges.The Department of Defense did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment. More

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      Republicans say they want more American babies – but which kind?

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      Some of the children were too young to stand on their own. Instead, they sat on their parents’ knees or in their parents’ arms, waving American flags. Many of them seemed confused about what, exactly, was even happening.But these kids were in the midst of making history: their families were among the first to take advantage of Donald Trump’s February executive order granting white South Africans refugee status in the United States, on the grounds that Afrikaner landowners – who make up just 7% of South Africa’s population yet, decades after the end of apartheid, control about half of its land – are facing persecution. While the doors to the US refugee program have been slammed shut to virtually everyone else, these Afrikaners showed up in the US earlier this week, their refugee status promising a path to US citizenship.Days later, the Trump administration took a far narrower view of who deserves access to the American polity. On Thursday morning, a lawyer for the Trump administration argued in front of the US supreme court that the 14th amendment does not guarantee citizenship to the American-born children of “illegal aliens” – a view contradicted by more than a century of legal precedent.This split screen raises a vital question: is the Trump administration really interested in helping children and families flourish – or only the “right” families?Over the last several months, the Trump administration’s policies on immigration, families, and children have been pockmarked by all kinds of contradictions. The administration is reportedly considering numerous policies to convince people to have more children, such as “baby bonuses” of $5,000 or medals for mothers who have six or more kids. The Department of Transportation has issued a memo directing the agency to “give preference to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average”. And JD Vance has proclaimed: “I want more babies in the United States of America.”These moves are, in part, fueled by the growing power of the pronatalism movement, which believes that the declining birthrate in the US is an existential threat to its workforce and its future.Why, then, does the government want to exclude an estimated 150,000 babies born every year?“It’s hard to look at any of these policies and not believe that they’re created for the purpose of satisfying a political base that was promised some sort of notions of recreating a nostalgia for a white Christian nationalist nation,” said P Deep Gulasekaram, a professor of immigration law at the University of Colorado Law School.If the fate of the US workforce is really of concern, experts say immigration could help grow it – but the Trump administration has taken a hardline stance against immigrants from the Global South and their children. The administration has not only reportedly turned the refugee agency responsible for caring for children who arrive in the US alone into an arm of Ice, but also slashed funding for legal representation of children in immigration proceedings. Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress are trying to block parents who lack Social Security Numbers – such as undocumented people – from benefiting from the child tax credit, even in cases where their children are US citizens.The Trump administration has also unveiled new screening protocols that make it far more difficult for undocumented people to “sponsor”, or take custody of, children who enter the US alone. Just last week, the National Center for Youth Law and the legal advocacy group Democracy Forward sued the Trump administration over the changes, which they say have forced kids to languish in government custody. Between December 2024 and March 2025, kids went from spending an average of two months in government custody to spending an average of six.“This administration has compromised the basic health and safety of immigrant children in egregious ways,” Neha Desai, managing director of children’s human rights and dignity at the National Center for Youth Law, said in an email.In March, KFF, a charity that conducts health policy research, conducted focus groups of Hispanic adults who are undocumented or likely living with someone who is undocumented. Many spoke of the effect that the Trump administration’s policies are having on their families and kids.“I have a six-year-old child. Honestly, I’m afraid to take him to the park, and he asks me, ‘Mom, why don’t we go to the park?’” one 49-year-old Costa Rican immigrant woman told KFF. “How do I tell him? I’m scared.”“Even the children worry. ‘Mom, did you get home safely?’ They’re already thinking that something is going to happen to us on the street,” added a 54-year-old Colombian immigrant woman. “So that also makes me very nervous, knowing that there might come a time when they could be left here alone.”The supreme court arguments on Thursday centered not on the constitutionality of birthright citizenship, but on the legality of lower court orders in the case. Still, some of the justices expressed concerns about what the case could mean for children.Eliminating birthright citizenship, Justice Elena Kagan suggested, could render children stateless. The high court needed a way to act fast, she said.If the justices believe that a court order is wrong, she asked, “why should we permit those countless others to be subject to what we think is an unlawful executive action?”Both the historical and legal record make clear that the 14th Amendment encapsulates birthright citizenship, Gulasekaram said. But, he said, predicting the supreme court’s moves is a “fool’s errand”.“There’s really no way of getting around the the conclusion that this is a call to some form of racial threat and racial solidarity as a way of shoring up support from a particular part of the of the of the Trump base,” Gulasekaram said. “Citizenship and the acquisition of citizenship has always been racially motivated in the United States.” More

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      Newark mayor says prosecutors tried to ‘humilate’ him by forcing redo of fingerprints and mugshot

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      Ras Baraka, the Democratic mayor of Newark, said federal prosecutors were seeking to “humiliate and degrade” him by making him give fingerprints and have a mugshot taken for a second time on Thursday.The move came after a court appearance on a trespassing charge stemming from his arrest at an immigration detention center where he was protesting with several members of Congress.The charges against Baraka have unfolded amid fears that the Trump administration is seeking to prosecute Democratic politicians, judges or others who have opposed its policies.Baraka appeared in court for a roughly 15-minute procedural hearing before magistrate judge André Espinosa. The hearing covered mostly scheduling for discovery in the case, which stemmed from an encounter on Friday outside the Delaney Hall immigration detention center.Assistant prosecutor Stephen Demanovich said the government disputed Baraka’s claims that he committed no crime and was invited on to the facility’s property. Confusion over whether Baraka had been fingerprinted and processed after his arrest unfolded after the judge brought the proceedings to a close.As the parties began to walk away, the judge added that the mayor would need to be processed by the US Marshals Service and that it would take 10 minutes. Baraka, looking confused, said he had already been processed after his arrest. The judge said “agents” had processed him but not the marshals.“Let’s go,” Baraka said, before indicating he would go with the marshals.Speaking to a crowd of supporters outside court, Baraka addressed why it took him a while to emerge from the building.“They’re trying their best to humiliate and degrade me as much as they possibly can,” he said. “I feel like what we did was completely correct. We did not violate any laws. We stood up for the constitution of this country, the constitution of the state of New Jersey.”The trespassing charge against Baraka carries a maximum sentence of 30 days in prison.One of Baraka’s attorney’s, Rahul Agarwal, said the defense expected to seek to dismiss the charges because the mayor was arrested by federal agents on private property. He added that it was a “selective prosecution” and that only the mayor had been arrested.Demanovich said the government disputed that but did not go into detail.Baraka has been an outspoken opponent of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and a vocal opponent of the facility’s opening.In video of the Friday altercation shared with the Associated Press, a federal official in a jacket with the homeland security investigations logo can be heard telling Baraka he could not enter because “you are not a Congress member”.Baraka then left the secure area, rejoining protesters on the public side of the gate. Video showed him speaking through the gate to a man in a suit, who said: “They’re talking about coming back to arrest you.”“I’m not on their property. They can’t come out on the street and arrest me,” Baraka replied.Minutes later, several Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents, some wearing face coverings, surrounded him and others on the public side. Baraka was dragged back through the gate in handcuffs.Delaney Hall is a two-storey building next to a county prison and formerly operated as a halfway house. In February, Immigration and Customs Enforcement awarded a 15-year contract to the Geo Group Inc to run the detention center.Politicians and activists have said facility has been reopened in contravention of local ordinances and without the necessary permits. It is the largest such facility in the north-eastern US, and the first to open during Trump’s second term, according to Ice.A trial date for Baraka has not yet been set.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      This pregnant woman sued Trump over birthright citizenship. Now it’s up to the supreme court

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      With the highest court in the US poised to hear her case – and decide her family’s future – Monica was keeping busy babyproofing her house.Monica is a plaintiff in one of three lawsuits challenging Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship order, a case that is being heard before the nation’s highest court on Thursday. She’s expecting her first child in early August.The Guardian first spoke with her in January, not long after Trump took office and signed an executive order seeking to end the constitutionally recognized right of birthright citizenship. Since then, she said, her belly has grown bigger, her feet more swollen. And she is still waiting to see whether her baby will be born as a citizen, or stateless.“We can only wait and hope,” she said. “Let’s wait in faith and trust in the laws of this country.”The Guardian is not publishing Monica’s surname, to protect her from retribution. She and her husband fled political persecution in Venezuela in 2019, and came to the US seeking asylum. The couple had been waiting for their immigration court hearing when they found out, in early January, that Monica was pregnant.“We were so excited,” she said. Just two weeks later, news of Trump’s executive order landed like a blow. Acquiring Venezuelan citizenship for their child would be impossible – both Monica and her husband were outspoken critics of their country’s autocratic leader, Nicolás Maduro – and contacting the government could put them in danger.“I had to fight for my baby,” she said.She had been a member of the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (Asap), a non-profit group that advocates for immigrant rights, and when lawyers from the group reached out to expecting parents to see if any would like to join a lawsuit challenging Trump’s order, Monica felt compelled to respond.Two immigration advocacy groups, Asap and Casa, are named as plaintiffs alongside Monica and four other mothers in one of three cases challenging the executive order. A second case was filed by four states and pregnant women, and a third by 18 states, the District of Columbia and San Francisco. The supreme court is hearing these cases consolidated as one.Other than her mother and a few close relatives, nobody knows that she is involved in one of the most closely watched cases to come before the supreme court this year. She has concealed her identity and tried to maintain a low profile, to avoid biasing her family’s asylum case, and to protect her family in Venezuela.But the topic of birthright citizenship and the administration’s intention to end it often comes up in her conversations with friends – especially with immigrant mothers who, like her, worry about their babies’ futures. “We are all on standby,” she said.They worry, too, about news that mothers are being separated from their babies – or being deported alongside their children. “Every day there are new changes, there are new executive orders about us immigrants,” she said. “Every day there is more fear in immigration conditions.”In the meantime, she said, there’s nothing to do but focus on the day to day. Monica and her husband have kept busy getting their home baby-ready, purchasing and assembling cribs and car seats. Now that she’s in her third trimester, she’s packed a go-bag with a change of clothes and other essentials – ready in case she needs to rush to the hospital. “We’re really down to the last few weeks already,” she said.Recently, they settled on a name. More

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      Keep calm (but delete your nudes): the new rules for travelling to and from Trump’s America

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      Kindness doesn’t cost a thing. Putting up a big “no foreigners welcome” sign, threatening to annex your neighbour, and throwing visitors to your country into detention for minor visa infractions, however? Such actions are expensive. The United States is on track to lose $12.5bn (£9.4bn) in international travel spending this year, according to a study published on Tuesday by the World Travel and Tourism Council.If the Trump administration is concerned that its aggressive rhetoric is costing tourist dollars, it’s not showing it. During a recent press conference about the 2026 Fifa World Cup, which will be jointly hosted by the US, Mexico and Canada, vice president JD Vance joked about deporting football fans who outstay their welcome. “We’ll have visitors from close to 100 countries. We want them to come…” Vance said. “But when the time is up, they’ll have to go home, otherwise they’ll have to talk to [Homeland Security] secretary Noem.” That’s Kristi Noem, the woman who shot her own dog. Not someone you want to talk to when she’s in a bad mood.Judging by the drop-off in visitors, many people have decided that a trip to the US just isn’t worth the risk right now. As a green card holder – and someone with family in the UK who have been thoroughly put off coming to visit the US – this is a question I’ve been wrestling with for the past few months. So, for somewhat selfish reasons, I spoke to a number of immigration lawyers and civil rights experts to try to figure out the new rules, across different demographics, for travelling to and from Trump’s America.View image in fullscreenFirst, though: the big picture. It is hard to quantify exactly how much things have changed at the border since the start of Trump’s second term. There have been plenty of scary stories in the news but that might not reflect a policy shift – it could just mean the media is paying more attention to the subject. Murali Bashyam, an immigration lawyer based in North Carolina, believes that while “there are more issues at the port-of-entry than before”, fears of being detained “are overblown to some extent”.Other immigration lawyers are more worried. Camille Mackler, executive director of a legal service provider collaborative called Immigrant Arc, stresses: “Things have fundamentally shifted – although whether that shift is happening systematically at the airport level or on an individual officer level is harder to say.” But, she says, there seems to be a clear trend: “The Trump administration wants to increase deportation numbers, and they’re going after any case they can. Enforcement has become much more aggressive.”According to Golnaz Fakhimi, legal director of Muslim Advocates, one of the biggest shifts is “the targeting of non-citizens based on viewpoints and ideology”. There are two executive orders that set the stage for this targeting: EO 1461 Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats, and EO 14188, Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism. The first EO lays the groundwork to deport or deny entry to foreigners based on their political and cultural views. The second uses a broad definition of antisemitism that includes criticism of Israel’s policies or government.Since Trump passed those orders, says Fakhimi, “there’s been a lot of rhetoric reinforcing those policies and we’ve seen actual instances of what looks like viewpoint-based scrutiny. All of this points to a kind of risk that non-citizens – including lawful permanent residents – should be aware of, especially when it comes to ideological expression.”View image in fullscreenCriticism of the Israeli government or support for Palestinian rights seems to be at the “forefront of what’s being targeted” now, says Fakhimi. “But many of us worry that the scrutiny won’t stay limited to those viewpoints. It may already be expanding. There was one case reported in the media involving a French researcher who was denied entry, possibly because of content on their phone that was critical of the US president. Inside the US, we’ve also seen targeting of immigrant-rights activists – Jeanette Vizguerra in Colorado for example.”Kseniia Petrova, a Russian-born researcher at Harvard Medical School who has been detained since February, may have been targeted because of her political views. “So it’s important for non-citizens to be clear-eyed about what viewpoints they’ve publicly expressed – especially online – when considering the risks of international travel.”View image in fullscreenIt’s also prudent to assume that your social media activity has been examined. “Social media identifiers are now required on forms like the visa application or Esta [for the visa waiver programme],” says Sophia Cope, senior staff attorney on the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s civil liberties team. “We’ve heard anecdotal reports of agents referencing social media during questioning.”It is not only non-citizens who should be worried. Hasan Piker, a left-wing YouTuber and US citizen, was recently held and questioned for hours by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials in Chicago after returning from France. In a video, Piker says the agents seemed to know who he was and asked about his political beliefs, including repeated questions about his views of Hamas. A CBP official called the suggestion that Piker was targeted for his political views “baseless”.View image in fullscreenAmir Makled, a Lebanese-American lawyer representing one of the University of Michigan pro-Palestine campus protesters, was recently stopped at Detroit Metro airport and interrogated by a tactical terrorism response team agent. Makled has said the agents knew exactly who he was; his phone was searched and they asked about his contacts. Eventually, he was allowed to go home.The Makled case was very troubling, says Cope, because it suggests targeting based on political association. “CBP denied this, but during the inspection, they asked to see his contact list. That implies they weren’t interested in him, but in who he knew. That’s outrageous. We litigated a case on this for four years – unfortunately, the courts didn’t rule in our favour – but we learned that CBP believes it has the authority to search devices not just when the traveller is a suspect, but also to gather intelligence on someone else the traveller may be connected to … It’s a form of dragnet intelligence gathering.”When it comes to intelligence gathering at the border, officials have carte blanche. After your international flight lands on US soil and before you clear customs, you are in something of a no man’s land in relation to civil rights. “The normal fourth amendment requirement of a warrant or individualised suspicion doesn’t apply,” says Nate Freed Wessler, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union. Some states offer slightly more protection than others, however. In the ninth circuit, which covers the western US, the rules are “most protective”, says Wessler. “For a manual search (where an agent is just scrolling through your phone), no individual suspicion is needed, but the search must be for digital contraband – like classified documents.“For a forensic search, where they plug your phone into a device to extract and analyse the entire contents, there must be reasonable suspicion that the phone contains digital contraband. And if the purpose is anything else, like gathering intelligence or helping another domestic agency, then a warrant would be required.”For most of the country, however, it’s anything goes. “The only minimal protection CBP has in their policy is distinguishing between manual and forensic searches. For a forensic search, they say they need reasonable suspicion, but they don’t define what that means. For a manual search, there are no guardrails. They argue it’s less invasive, but that’s just not true. They can still do keyword searches and spend hours combing through your device.”View image in fullscreenThey don’t have access to everything on your phone, however. Customs and Border Protection policy requires agents to put devices in flight mode before searching, to avoid accessing cloud data. It’s not a bad idea to put your phone in flight mode before you travel to understand what is stored on the cloud and what is local.What if you refuse to give your passcode to officers or say you don’t consent to a search? Consequences differ depending on your immigration status. If you’re a green card holder or citizen they can still take your phone. “They can’t compel you to give your passcode, but they can seize the phone and send it to a forensic lab, where it might sit for weeks or months while they try to break into it,” says Wessler. “For visa holders, it’s trickier. If you refuse to unlock your phone, they may just deny you entry, claiming you’re not cooperating in assessing admissibility.” And in the very worst scenario they might throw you into a detention centre before sending you home.Searches, to be clear, are still very rare. “Claims that CBP is searching more electronic media due to the administration change are false,” CBP assistant commissioner of public affairs Hilton Beckham said in a statement last month. “CBP’s search numbers are consistent with increases since 2021, and less than 0.01% of travellers have their devices searched … Allegations that political beliefs trigger inspections or removals are baseless and irresponsible.”If you’re worried these allegations aren’t quite as baseless as CBP insists, Wessler says: “The safest approach is not to travel with data you wouldn’t want the US government to access.”Let’s say you’re a British citizen who has been outspoken, on social media and elsewhere, about your pro-Palestinian or anti-Trump views. Would it be a foolish idea to travel to the US right now? “I wouldn’t say ‘don’t come,’ but I’d say evaluate your risk and risk tolerance,” says Wessler. “The government is being extremely aggressive with students and activists, and there’s always a chance a border agent might act on something they find politically disagreeable. Most travellers are still fine – but the risk is real and well above zero.” So, basically, nothing is very clear? Pretty much, says Wessler. “The law is a complete mess, and people’s options are a complete mess. People just have to make a risk assessment based on extremely imperfect information.”The first step in making that risk assessment is to thoroughly understand the rules for the specific visa you’ll be travelling on or your immigration status. “The Foreign Affairs Manual is a great resource,” says immigration lawyer Tahmina Watson. “It’s what consular officers use, and it’s publicly accessible. It lays out what officers are looking for, visa by visa. We’re now advising clients more than ever to understand the B1/B2 visa rules. B1 is for business, B2 for tourism. When CBP asks why you’re here, they’re listening for key phrases – ‘I’m visiting my grandmother,’ ‘I’m going to Disneyland,’ etc. The manual also talks about proof of ties to your home country – job, house, bills. That stuff matters.”Having any sort of criminal record or contact with the criminal legal system is a major part of a risk assessment. “I just spoke with a US citizen who had married a green card holder,” says Watson. “They were returning from their honeymoon when he was detained. He had a conviction from when he was 18, served his time, and had travelled internationally for more than 30 years since without issue. But this time, he was detained, and it will be very difficult to get him out.”If you’re a green card holder with a criminal record, Watson strongly advises against leaving the country. “Not until you’ve spoken with a lawyer. Even a long-ago conviction can result in detention now.” If you’ve ever overstayed a visa, even for a day, you should also speak to a lawyer before travelling.Students have their own set of issues to look for. “For students or others with campus affiliations, we’d want to know if there’s been any scrutiny or disciplinary action at the university level,” says Fakhimi. “Another factor is whether any third parties have tried to spotlight or mischaracterise your views to attract federal attention. Groups like Betar US, for example, have devoted resources to building lists of political protesters they want deported.”And then, of course, you’ve got to think about any public statements you’ve made and whether you can or should delete them. “For some, minimising the visibility of their views might feel like the right way to reduce risk,” says Fakhimi. “For others, staying publicly vocal and visible with their beliefs might feel too important to compromise. It’s really about what trade-offs someone is willing to make, and what decision they can live with.”One thing that sustains Fakhimi, she says, is how many people are unwilling to censor themselves for their safety. “I’ve been incredibly moved and inspired by the courage of non-citizens – people with precarious status, even undocumented – who continue to speak out on a range of injustices. They see these issues as interconnected, and despite the risks, they’re standing firm.” Sometimes, staying true to your beliefs is more important than a trip to Disney World. More

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      Supreme court to hear birthright citizenship dispute that could expand Trump’s power

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      The US supreme court will hear arguments on Thursday in a dispute that could significantly expand presidential power despite ostensibly focusing on Donald Trump’s contentious executive order ending birthright citizenship.The trio of cases before the court stem from the president’s January executive order that would deny US citizenship to babies born on American soil if their parents aren’t citizens or permanent residents. The plan is likely to be ultimately struck down, as it directly contradicts the 14th amendment, which grants citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States”.But Trump’s legal team isn’t asking the supreme court to rule on whether his policy is constitutional. Instead, they are challenging whether lower court judges should be able to block presidential orders nationwide – a move that could overall weaken judicial checks on executive power.Three federal judges have blocked the policy nationwide, including US district judge Deborah Boardman, who ruled that “no court in the country has ever endorsed the president’s interpretation.”But the justice department argues these “nationwide injunctions” unfairly tie the president’s hands. “These injunctions have reached epidemic proportions since the start of the Trump Administration,” the department wrote in a March filing. The administration is asking for the scope of the injunctions to be narrowed, so they only apply to the people, organizations or states that sued.If Trump prevails, his administration could potentially enforce his desired citizenship policy in parts of the country where specific courts haven’t blocked it – creating different citizenship rules in different states while legal challenges continue.The supreme court’s conservative majority, which includes three Trump appointees, has previously signaled skepticism about nationwide injunctions. Justice Neil Gorsuch called the issue a “question of great significance” requiring the court’s attention.Critics warn that limiting judges’ power to block policies nationwide would force people to file thousands of individual lawsuits to protect their rights.“If you literally have to bring separate cases for every single plaintiff, you are limiting the ability of courts to declare what the law is and protect people,” Colorado attorney general Phil Weiser, who joined legal challenges to Trump’s order, told NBC News.By the end of March, Trump had faced at least 17 nationwide injunctions since returning to office in January, according to the Congressional Research Service. His first term saw 86 such rulings – far more than other presidents including Joe Biden, who saw 28; Barack Obama who saw 12; and George W Bush who saw six. Trump has also faced at least 328 lawsuits nationwide as of 1 May, with judges blocking his actions more than 200 times, according to a Bloomberg analysis.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe administration has said that universal injunctions “have reached epidemic proportions since the start of” Trump’s second term, and claims they have prevented the executive branch “from performing its constitutional functions before any courts fully examine the merits of those actions”.Several Democratic attorneys general urged the court not to restrict judicial power at a time when “the government is aggressively issuing executive orders of dubious legality”.Three separate lawsuits have been consolidated into one challenge before the court on Thursday, which came via an emergency appeal in the court’s so-called “shadow docket”. The court’s ruling is expected by early July. More

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      Lord Buffalo drummer removed from plane and detained by US border control

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      The Texas-based rock band Lord Buffalo has cancelled its European tour after its drummer, Yamal Said, was detained by US Customs and Border Protection on Monday.Said was removed from a plane en route to the band’s summer tour and has had no contact with his bandmates for two days, according to a message posted to the band’s Instagram account. Said is a Mexican citizen but a legal permanent resident of the United States, holder of a green card and resident of Austin since the 1980s, according to the Austin Chronicle.“We are heartbroken to announce we have to cancel our upcoming European tour,” the band wrote on Instagram on Wednesday. “Our drummer, Yamal Said, who is a Mexican citizen and lawful permanent resident of the United States (green card holder) was forcibly removed from our flight to Europe by Customs and Border Patrol [sic] at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on Monday May 12. He has not been released, and we have been unable to contact him. We are currently working with an immigration lawyer to find out more information and to attempt to secure his release.“We are devastated to cancel this tour,” the statement continued, “but we are focusing all of our energy and resources on Yamal’s safety and freedom.”An update to the statement on Wednesday afternoon thanked fans for their support, and said Said had “secured the legal representation he needs”.“We are waiting to hear what comes next,” they added. “We want to reiterate that we truly don’t know what’s going on. We have more questions than answers, but we will keep you posted as much as we can. At this time the family asks for privacy as they navigate the situation.”According to the Chronicle, Said is a longtime staple of the music scene in Austin. He formerly played with the band the Black and works as a music instructor for the Texas School for the Blind.The heavy psychedelic-Americana quartet were to embark on an eight-date European tour in support of their latest album Holus Bolus. The tour, alongside the Swedish band Orsak:Oslo, was scheduled to begin on 15 May in the Netherlands and wrap the following Friday in Iceland.In their own statement, Orsak:Oslo, who will continue with the tour, wrote: “No one should be pulled off a plane and jailed for simply trying to travel and make art with their band. We won’t pretend to understand the full complexity of the situation, but this should not happen anywhere.”Said’s arrest comes amid a broader crackdown on immigration and border entry from the Trump administration, which has included searching phones for text messages critical of Donald Trump. In the four months since the US president took office, several professional musicians have had issues leaving or entering the US.In March, members of the British punk band UK Subs said they were denied entry and detained in the US, reportedly due to incorrect visas and a reason agents were unwilling to disclose. Bassist Alan Gibbs, who was sent back to the UK along with bandmates Marc Carrey and Stefan Häublein, speculated on social media “whether my frequent, and less than flattering, public comments regarding their president and his administration played a role – or perhaps I’m simply succumbing to paranoia”.Additionally Bells Larsen, a trans singer-songwriter based in Montreal, told the Guardian that he was canceling a tour because he could not apply for a visa under new US citizenship and immigration services policies that do not recognize transgender identities. The British singer FKA twigs cancelled several North American dates of her Eusexa tour because of unspecified visa issues. And Grzegorz Kwiatkowski, of the Polish rock band Trupa Trupa told NPR that visa delays forced him and his band to miss out on several North American performance opportunities.The Guardian has reached out to Lord Buffalo’s representatives for comment. More