US immigration

Subterms

    More stories

    • 188 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      Judge blocks Trump immigration policy allowing arrests in churches for some religious groups – live

      by

      A federal judge blocked immigration agents from conducting enforcement operations in houses of worship for some religious groups, the Associated Press reported. US district judge Theodore Chang found that the Trump administration policy could violate their religious freedom and should be blocked while a lawsuit challenging it plays out.

      Trump said the US and Ukraine are “very close” to coming to terms on a rare earth minerals agreement, in comments made during a visit from French president Emmanuel Macron amid European concerns over the US position on Ukraine. Follow the latest from the leaders’ joint press conference here.

      The Trump administration said it was placing all but a handful of USAid personnel around the world on paid administrative leave and eliminating about 2,000 of those positions in the US, as the rapid dismantling of the organization appears to move into its final phases.

      Attorneys for federal workers said in a lawsuit that billionaire adviser to Donald Trump, Elon Musk, had violated the law with his weekend demand that employees explain their accomplishments or risk being fired. An updated lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in California and was provided to the Associated Press, is trying to block mass layoffs.

      Many federal government departments, including the FBI, have told staff not to comply with the Musk directive to list their accomplishments in the past week by 11.59 pm ET tonight. But the US Transportation Department has told workers they should respond to the demand by Donald Trump’s adviser.

      A federal judge has blocked the government downsizing team Doge from accessing sensitive data maintained by the US Education Department and the US Office of Personnel Management. US district judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt, Maryland issued the temporary restraining order at the behest of a coalition of labor unions.
      Although a US-based Associated Press reporter was barred from the joint news conference between Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron, a France-based AP reporter was allowed it.The French press corps decided the France-based AP reporter should be allowed to ask the first question.The administration blocked AP reporters from the White House press pool after the news agency said it would continue to refer to the “Gulf of Mexico” in its articles, instead referring to the body of water as the “Gulf of America,” following Trump’s order to rename it.The AP has sued over its exclusion from the press conferences, but a judge denied the AP’s emergency motion to restore its access.A federal judge who blocked the Federal Bureau of Prisons from carrying out Donald Trump’s executive order that would transferred three incarcerated trans women into men’s facilities earlier this month, has extended protections for nine additional women.US district judge Royce Lamberth in Washington said the court “sees no reason to change its legal conclusions” from its previous order. On 4 February, Lambeth issued a temporary restraining order blocking Trump’s executive order seeking to erode trans rights behind bars.My colleague Sam Levin reported earlier this month:
      Lambeth ruled that Trump’s order discriminates against transgender people and violates their constitutional rights.
      The Federal Bureau of Prisons must “maintain and continue the plaintiffs’ housing status and medical care as they existed immediately prior to January 20”, he wrote.
      The judge said the trans women had “straightforwardly demonstrated that irreparable harm will follow” if they are denied healthcare and forced into men’s institutions.
      US officials “have not so much as alleged that the plaintiffs in this particular suit present any threat to the female inmates housed with them”, the judge added. The family of one plaintiff said her life would be threatened if she were moved.
      The judge said there were only 16 trans women housed in women’s facilities, and the ruling applies to all of them.
      On 26 January, a federal judge in Boston issued a restraining order in a separate challenge to the same executive order. That order was limited to one transgender woman in a woman’s prison.
      The Washington Post reports that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) which functions as the the government’s HR department, has told federal agency leaders they can ignore Elon Musk’s threat to fire employees who do not send in the bullet-pointed list of accomplishments that he requested.The Post, citing anonymous sources, reports that OPM told agency chief human capital officers on a Monday call that they could ignore Musk’s threat. Per the Post:
      Another person briefed on the call said that OPM is also looking at weekly reporting for government departments, the person said. But the person said that OPM was unsure what to do with the emails of employees who responded so far, and had “no plans” to analyze them.
      As my colleagues at the Guardian reported earlier, Musk’s ultimatum to federal workers has been causing chaos.
      Musk’s ultimatum was sent out on Saturday in a mass email to federal employees from the office of personnel management (OPM), one of the first federal organs Musk and his team on the so-called “department of government efficiency” infiltrated after Trump was sworn in. The message gave all the US government’s more than 2 million workers barely 48 hours to itemize their accomplishments in the past week in five bullet points, and in a post on X, Musk indicated that “failure to respond will be taken as a resignation”.
      The order provoked instant chaos across the government, with Trump’s own appointed leadership in federal agencies responding in starkly different ways. Workers in the Social Security Administration and the health and human services department were told to comply with the email, and CNN reported that the Department of Transportation ordered all its employees to respond to the Musk email by its deadline. That included air traffic controllers who are currently struggling with severe understaffing and a spate of recent accidents.

      A federal judge blocked immigration agents from conducting enforcement operations in houses of worship for some religious groups, the Associated Press reported. US district judge Theodore Chang found that the Trump administration policy could violate their religious freedom and should be blocked while a lawsuit challenging it plays out.

      Trump said the US and Ukraine are “very close” to coming to terms on a rare earth minerals agreement, in comments made during a visit from French president Emmanuel Macron amid European concerns over the US position on Ukraine. Follow the latest from the leaders’ joint press conference here.

      The Trump administration said it was placing all but a handful of USAid personnel around the world on paid administrative leave and eliminating about 2,000 of those positions in the US, as the rapid dismantling of the organization appears to move into its final phases.

      Attorneys for federal workers said in a lawsuit that billionaire adviser to Donald Trump, Elon Musk, had violated the law with his weekend demand that employees explain their accomplishments or risk being fired. An updated lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in California and was provided to the Associated Press, is trying to block mass layoffs.

      Many federal government departments, including the FBI, have told staff not to comply with the Musk directive to list their accomplishments in the past week by 11.59 pm ET tonight. But the US Transportation Department has told workers they should respond to the demand by Donald Trump’s adviser.

      A federal judge has blocked the government downsizing team Doge from accessing sensitive data maintained by the US Education Department and the US Office of Personnel Management. US district judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt, Maryland issued the temporary restraining order at the behest of a coalition of labor unions.
      House Republicans face a major test this week as the fractured and narrow caucus tries to unify around a plan to advance Donald Trump’s agenda for trillions in tax cuts and new spending on defense and border security, Reuters reports.With only a 218-215 majority in the House of Representatives, Speaker Mike Johnson can afford to lose just one vote on any measure that all Democrats vote against. He faces resistance from as many as a dozen Republicans over a budget resolution that would allow congressional committees to begin crafting full-scale legislation to enact the Trump agenda.The House budget Ccmmittee was due to take up the measure on Monday, with the possibility of a floor vote as early as Tuesday. But Johnson said timing would also depend on the outcome of Monday night meetings with wavering lawmakers.“We expect to get it done this week,” the Louisiana Republican told reporters in the Capitol. “There’s a couple of folks who just have lingering questions. But I think all those questions could be answered and we’ll be able to move forward,” he added. “We’re very optimistic. We’ll get this thing done.”The House resolution calls for $4.5tn in tax cuts – a concern to lawmakers worried about the nation’s growing $36tn in debt – and calls for $2tn in cuts to spending, which have worried some lawmakers that their constituents could lose out on key services.Republicans in both the House and Senate need to pass the measure to unlock a key part of their strategy: a parliamentary tool allowing them to circumvent the Senate filibuster and opposition from Democrats.But that is only one feat awaiting lawmakers over the coming weeks. Congress also needs to avert a partial government shutdown after 14 March, when funding runs out and then raise the nation’s debt ceiling or risk a catastrophic default at mid-year.Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent who leapt on to the back of John F Kennedy’s limousine after the then president was shot, then was forced to retire early because he remained haunted by memories of the assassination, died on Friday. He was 93.Although few may recognize his name, the footage of Hill, captured on Abraham Zapruder’s chilling home movie of the assassination, provided some of the most indelible images of Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas on 22 November 1963.Hill received Secret Service awards and was promoted for his actions that day, but for decades blamed himself for Kennedy’s death, saying he didn’t react quickly enough and would gladly have given his life to save Kennedy.In an interview with David Smith in 2023, Hill recalled:
      From that point on, my life changed. Before that day, before I attempted to put my body up on top of the car to protect President Kennedy and Mrs Kennedy, I was just Clint Hill. But afterward, because of photographs and the Zapruder film, I was no longer just Clint Hill. I was that guy that got on to the back of the presidential vehicle and I went through life from that point on with that being said about me and of me.
      It has bothered me a great deal. I had a serious guilt complex about not being able to help him more than I did and that just grew and grew and grew from that point on.
      It was only in recent years that Hill said he was able to finally start putting the assassination behind him and accept what happened.You can read more on the remarkable story here:*scrambles to change the subject* Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron are now holding a joint news conference following bilateral talks at the White House. Trump said his meeting with Macron was an “important step forward” to achieving a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.I will post a summary here with the main lines once it’s over, but my colleague Léonie Chao-Fong is posting live updates here:An AI-generated video of Donald Trump licking Elon Musk’s toes briefly played on video screens at a US government office as staff returned to work on Monday.With a caption emblazoned over it reading “LONG LIVE THE REAL KING”, the fake footage, played on loop for several minutes throughout the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Washington headquarters, according to Marisa Kabas, an independent journalist who posted a video of the incident to social media citing an agency source.Washington Post journalist Jeff Stein also said on social media that the department’s televisions had been hijacked.Reuters was unable to establish the provenance of the video.“Another waste of taxpayer dollars and resources. Appropriate action will be taken for all involved,” department spokesperson Kasey Lovett said in an email.Just an observation; if you look closely at the fake footage, you can see it features two left feet. Was this deliberate, multi-layered messaging? I mean, equally, if you just want to keep scrolling and try to forget you ever saw this, that’s okay too.A group of Democratic and Republican US senators will offer a resolution backing Ukraine on Monday, amid fears that Donald Trump could make a deal with Moscow that leaves Kyiv on the sidelines three years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion.The resolution, seen by Reuters, expresses solidarity with the people of Ukraine, offers condolences for the loss of tens of thousands of its citizens and seeks a role for Kyiv in any ceasefire talks.The resolution was led by Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking Democrat on the foreign relations committee, and Republican Senator Thom Tillis. The two lawmakers visited Ukraine last week, along with Democratic Senator Michael Bennet.It has at least 12 backers, including such senior Republicans as Mitch McConnell, the party’s former Senate leader; Roger Wicker, chairman of the armed services committee, and Chuck Grassley, chairman of the judiciary committee, as well as Democrats Dick Durbin, a member of the party’s leadership, and Bennet, a Democratic foreign relations committee aide said.The resolution says:
      The Senate emphasizes that Ukraine must be a participant in discussions with the Russian Federation about Ukraine’s future.
      The measure does not specifically back Nato membership, but reaffirms US support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and “supports Ukraine’s efforts to integrate into Euro-Atlantic structures”.In an emailed statement, Shaheen said:
      As Vladimir Putin’s illegal and brutal full-scale invasion enters its fourth year, I’m proud to introduce this bipartisan resolution that clearly states our unwavering support for and solidarity with the Ukrainian people and condemns Russia’s aggression.
      In a loss for abortion opponents, the US supreme court on Monday declined to take up two cases involving “buffer zone” ordinances, which limit protests around abortion clinics and which anti-abortion activists have spent years trying to dismantle.The two cases dealt with buffer zone ordinances passed by the cities of Carbondale, Illinois, and Englewood, New Jersey. In filings to the supreme court, which is dominated 6-3 by conservatives, anti-abortion activists argued that these ordinances ran afoul of the first amendment’s guarantees of free speech. They also asked the justices to overturn a 2000 ruling called Hill v Colorado, which upheld a buffer zone law in Colorado.The justices didn’t explain why they declined to hear arguments in the cases, but the far-right justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas said they would have preferred to take them up. In a dissent outlining his desire to take the Carbondale case, Thomas wrote that he believed Hill “lacks continuing force”, in part due to recent rulings such as Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v Wade and abolished the federal right to abortion.“I would have taken this opportunity to explicitly overrule Hill,” he wrote. “Following our repudiation in Dobbs, I do not see what is left of Hill. Yet, lower courts continue to feel bound by it. The court today declines an invitation to set the record straight on Hill’s defunct status.”Here is more detail on our earlier post on Donald Trump’s remarks in defence of Elon Musk’s chaos-inducing demand that federal workers document what they do, from the AP.Trump voiced support for Musk’s demand that federal employees explain their recent accomplishments by the end of Monday or risk getting fired, an edict that has spawned new litigation and added to turmoil within the government workforce.“What he’s doing is saying, ‘Are you actually working?’” Trump said in the Oval Office during a meeting with French president Emmanuel Macron. “And then, if you don’t answer, like, you’re sort of semi-fired or you’re fired, because a lot of people aren’t answering because they don’t even exist.”The president claimed that Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” has found “hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud” as he suggested that federal paychecks are going to nonexistent employees. He did not present evidence for his claims.“If people don’t respond, it’s very possible that there is no such person, or they aren’t working,” Trump said. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump removes Ice chief amid apparent frustration over rate of deportations

      by

      Donald Trump’s presidential administration has reassigned its top official at US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) after the agency’s arrests and deportations have been slower than expected, Reuters reported, citing a senior administration official and two other sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.The official, Caleb Vitello, was in the role in an acting capacity and had been grappling with pressure to step up enforcement after other top Ice officials were reassigned days earlier.According to a spokeswoman for the homeland security department who spoke to the Wall Street Journal, Vitello is “actually being elevated so he is no longer in an administrative role, but is overseeing all field and enforcement operations: finding, arresting, and deporting illegal aliens”.The outlet went on to report that Vitello will remain at Ice and lead the office that is responsible for arrests and deportations.Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, one Trump administration official said that the White House is expected to announce a new acting director. Another administration official told the outlet that the Ice team is going to be expanded.Vitello was hand-picked by Trump last December and has 23 years of experience with Ice.In a statement on Truth Social explaining his pick, Trump said: “A member of the Senior Executive Service, with over 23 years of service to [Ice], Caleb currently serves as Assistant Director of the Office of Firearms and Tactical Programs, where he oversees Agency-wide training, equipment, and policy to ensure Officer and Public Safety.”Trump added: “Caleb’s exceptional leadership, extensive experience, and commitment to [Ice]’s mission make him an excellent choice to implement my efforts to enhance the safety and security of American communities who have been victimized by illegal alien crime.”The latest reshuffling follows the recent reassignment of Russell Hott and Peter Berg at Ice due to frustrations from the Trump administration over the rate of deportations and arrest numbers.Speaking to the Washington Post which first reported the reassignments of Hott and Berg, a DHS spokesperson said: “Ice needs a culture of accountability that it has been starved of for the past four years. We have a president, DHS secretary, and American people who rightfully demand results, and our Ice leadership will ensure the agency delivers.”According to the outlet, Hott was reassigned to Ice’s local office in Washington while Berg was reassigned to the office in St Paul, Minnesota.Since Trump’s return to the presidency on 20 January, immigration officials have been arresting 826 people daily. At that rate, Trump’s administration would make nearly 25,000 immigration-related arrests in the first 30 days of his second presidency, more than any other month in the past 11 years, which included his first presidency from 2017 to 2021. More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Judge rejects DoJ call to immediately dismiss Eric Adams corruption case

      by

      A New York judge on Friday said he would not immediately dismiss Eric Adams’s corruption case, but ordered the Democratic New York City mayor’s trial delayed indefinitely after the justice department asked for the charges to be dismissed.In a written ruling, the US district judge Dale Ho in Manhattan said he would appoint an outside lawyer, Paul Clement of the law firm Clement & Murphy PLLC, to present arguments against the federal prosecutors’ bid to dismiss, in order to help the judge make his decision.Justice department officials in Washington asked Ho to dismiss the charges against Adams on 14 February. A hearing was held in New York earlier this week.That came about after several prosecutors resigned rather than follow orders from the acting deputy attorney general, Emil Bove, an appointee of Donald Trump and the Republican president’s former personal criminal defense lawyer, to seek dismissal of the case brought last year by prosecutors during the Biden administration.The current justice department argued that dismissal was needed so Adams could focus on helping Trump crack down on illegal immigration. The controversy, especially because the city has a strong sanctuary law designed to stop local enforcement from assisting federal immigration enforcement, has sparked a political crisis in the most populous US city. Senior Democrats have said that dismissing the charges makes Adams beholden to Trump’s administration.Adams, 64, was charged last September with taking bribes and campaign donations from Turkish nationals seeking to influence him. Adams, running for re-election this year, has pleaded not guilty.Many have called on Adams to resign.Four of the mayor’s deputies plan to resign amid loss of confidence in the mayor. The governor of New York state, Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said on Thursday she would not use her power to remove Adams, but proposed new oversight of the mayor’s office. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Mexico’s Sheinbaum wins plaudits for cool head in dealings with Trump

      by

      As Donald Trump swings his sights from one region to the next, upturning diplomatic relations and confounding allies, leaders of former US partners have clashed with him and come off much the worse.But so far, one – Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum – has emerged relatively unscathed.With the US-Mexico border and the trade, drugs and migrants that cross it a focus of the Trump administration, Mexico is under intense pressure. Yet while Sheinbaum has made some concessions, she has also charmed Trump and won plaudits at home, with approval ratings that touch 80%.“Sheinbaum has kept a cool head, and the capacity to hold firm and react to Trump,” said Carlos Pérez Ricart, a political scientist. “But Mexico is in a situation of emergency with the US. And it will have to play this game for four years straight.”Sheinbaum led Morena, a leftwing populist party, to a landslide victory in June last year, and had barely taken power when Trump won re-election in November.Many wondered how Sheinbaum, a climate scientist before she became a politician, would handle the US president. But the two have struck up a relationship, with Trump describing Sheinbaum as a “marvellous woman” even as he claims Mexico is “essentially run by cartels”.Since Trump announced a plan to hit all goods imported from Mexico with a 25% tariff, citing its alleged failure to stop migrants and fentanyl entering the US, Sheinbaum has offered to negotiate, while avoiding gestures of obeisance – such as Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau’s trip to Mar-a-Lago – or defiance – like Colombian president Gustavo Petro’s tirade against Trump on X.Sheinbaum has also shown a willingness to do more on fentanyl, with Mexican security forces notching a record seizure just days after Trump’s announcement, and underlined that Mexico was already doing a great deal to keep migrants away from the US-Mexico border.View image in fullscreenAt the same time, she picked battles that allowed her to show strength to a domestic audience while avoiding direct confrontation with Trump himself – for example, threatening Google with a lawsuit after it bowed to Trump and renamed international waters in the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America on Google Maps.She has pledged to expand legal action against US gun manufacturers who produce the majority of weapons used in Mexico, and implicitly turned Trump’s rhetoric on its head by warning that her country would not tolerate an “invasion” of its national sovereignty by US forces.“Sheinbaum found the sweet spot between the submission of Trudeau and the bravado of Petro,” said Pérez Ricart.The first real crunch came earlier this month, as the deadline for Trump’s tariff threat loomed.Sheinbaum was poised to announce retaliatory measures when last-minute talks defused the situation, with Trump agreeing to delay the tariffs for a month in exchange for Mexico sending 10,000 more soldiers to the border.It is unclear how those extra soldiers will reduce the flow of fentanyl, a substance so potent that only relatively small volumes are moved, and the great majority of which is trafficked through ports of entry by US citizens.“What I see is a show for the Mexican and American publics,” said Martha Bárcena, a former Mexican ambassador to the US. “It’s clear that Trump is talking to his base and Sheinbaum to hers. But we don’t know what is happening in the conversations between them.”“The president bought time – but the negotiation is not over,” Bárcena added.The next deadline, on 4 March, for Trump’s tariffs will likely bring another round of feverish talks, as Mexico tries to convince the US of results made on fentanyl and migration.“But if we don’t know what they want or how they want to measure it, then Trump can keep threatening us from here to the end of his government,” said Bárcena.The US has also ratcheted up the pressure by adding six Mexican organised crime groups – including the Jalisco New Generation and Sinaloa cartels, two of the world’s biggest drug trafficking organisations – to its list of foreign terrorist organisations (FTOs).While the designation of cartels as FTOs itself does not authorise US military action in Mexico, some fear it is a first step towards it.Defense secretary Pete Hegseth recently said “all options will be on the table” when it comes to dealing with the cartels. “Ultimately, we will hold nothing back to secure the American people,” he added.Meanwhile, Mexico’s economy edges towards recession. The mere threat of tariffs has already helped dragged growth projections down, with Mexico’s central bank predicting 0.6% GDP growth for 2025.That makes staving off tariffs and holding the US-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement together only more important for Sheinbaum.“For 30 years, Mexico anchored itself to a policy of trade and development in North America. It bet its growth, its identity, on integration into North America,” said Pérez Ricart. “And now this idea is being challenged. Trump doesn’t believe in it. This is a very delicate situation for Sheinbaum, and for the country.” More

    • 163 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Vance poses immigration as ‘greatest threat’ to US and Europe in CPAC speech

      by

      JD Vance marked one month since the Trump administration returned to power on Thursday by again claiming uncontrolled immigration was “the greatest threat” to both Europe and the United States.The vice-president took the stage at the country’s largest conservative voters conference in National Harbor, Maryland, to double down on his criticism that stunned European leaders last week when he accused them of suppressing free speech and “running in fear” from voters’ true beliefs.“The greatest threat in Europe, and I’d say the greatest threat in the US until about 30 days ago, is that you’ve had the leaders of the west decide that they should send millions and millions of unvetted foreign migrants into their countries,” Vance told the crowd.His rhetoric represents the administration’s dramatic U-turn in long-standing American domestic and foreign policy priorities, making clear the aim is to bolster border security with more agents and be more cautious about European military commitments.Vance also made the extraordinary claim, without evidence, that the month-old administration was about to end Europe’s bloodiest conflict in decades.“I really believe we are on the cusp of peace in Europe for the first time in three years,” he said about the war in Ukraine. “How are you going to end the war unless you are talking to Russia? You’ve got to talk to everybody involved in the fighting.”The remarks landed well at a transformed Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), where establishment Republicans that once dominated the stage have been replaced by nationalist figures including Steve Bannon, Britain’s Nigel Farage, and the tech billionaire and “department of government efficiency” operator Elon Musk.The conference’s shift over the years mirrors the broader changes in Republican politics since Trump’s first nomination – at the 2016 event, Trump finished third in the conference’s straw poll with just 15%, behind Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.This year, thousands of conservatives near and far have flocked to CPAC, many donning “Make America great again” (Maga) apparel and America-centric costumes, including a Statue of Liberty outfit and flag shirts.The nationalist vibe at CPAC was further reflected by the presence of prominent European rightwing and Trump-friendly figures, including András László, a Hungarian member of the European parliament and president of the Patriots for Europe foundation.Speaking to the Guardian on the sidelines of the conference, László defended the Trump administration’s existential stance on European politics.“We need to have honest discussions, even if they are difficult to have,” László said, echoing Vance’s criticisms of European speech restrictions. “What are we fighting for? Sovereignty and democracy for Ukraine if we don’t practice it at home? We need to stop stifling freedom of speech, have more discussion, even if sometimes that might be painful for some people.”His organization, which launched last year and is now the third-largest group in the European parliament, with 86 members from 13 states, has been gaining influence across the continent, reflecting the same nationalist currents reshaping American conservatism.The conference also drew Liz Truss, Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister, who crashed the UK economy with tax cuts for the wealthy before resigning after just 49 days in office. Reinventing herself as a rightwing populist, Truss used her CPAC platform to claim her political failures were actually the fault of shadowy elites.“The British state is now failing, is not working. The decisions are not being made by politicians,” Truss said, claiming her country was controlled by a “deep state” while calling for a British version of Trump’s movement. “We want to have a British CPAC.”Hours before his appearance at CPAC, Vance had posted a lengthy critique of traditional US and European foreign policy writ-large on X, dismissing concerns about the administration’s stance on Ukraine as “moralistic garbage” and defending its push for peace negotiations.“President [Donald] Trump and I have made two simple arguments: first, the war wouldn’t have started if President Trump was in office; second, that neither Europe, nor the Biden administration, nor the Ukrainians had any pathway to victory,” Vance wrote.Vance got more specific on the CPAC stage, suggesting that the US’s military commitment to European allies could be contingent on their domestic policies, particularly targeting Germany.“Germany’s entire defence is subsidised by the American taxpayer. There are thousands upon thousands of American troops in Germany today,” he said. “Do you think the American taxpayer is going to stand for that if you get thrown in jail for posting a mean tweet?” More

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      US deportees moved from Panama City to Darién jungle region, lawyer says

      by

      A group of immigrants deported from the US to Panama last week have been moved from a hotel in the capital to the Darién jungle region in the south of the country, according to a lawyer representing an immigrant family.Susana Sabalza, a Panamanian immigration lawyer, said a family she represents was transferred to Metetí, a town in the Darién, along with other deported people. La Estrella de Panamá, a local daily, reported on Wednesday that 170 of the 299 people who had been in the hotel had been moved to the Darién.Panama’s government did not respond to a request for comment.The 299 immigrants had been staying at a hotel in Panama City under the protection of local authorities and with the financial support of the United States through the UN-related International Organization for Migration and the UN refugee agency, according to the Panamanian government.Immigrants in the hotel were not allowed to leave, and at least one person tried to kill themselves, while another broke his leg trying to escape, according to media reports.Panama’s migration service said on Wednesday that a Chinese woman had escaped from the hotel. It asked her to return and accused unspecified people outside the hotel of aiding his escape.On Wednesday afternoon there were still migrants on the hotel. One family came to a window and gestured to a journalist outside they had no phone. Police later came to move reporters away from the hotel.The group includes people from Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Vietnam, according to Panama’s president, José Raúl Mulino, who has agreed with the US to receive non-Panamanian deportees. The deportation of non-Panamanian immigrants to Panama is part of the Trump administration’s attempt to ramp up deportations of people living in the US illegally.One of the challenges to Trump’s plan is that some people come from countries that refuse to accept US deportation flights, due to strained diplomatic relations or other reasons. The arrangement with Panama allows the US to deport people of these nationalities and makes it Panama’s responsibility to organize their onward repatriation. Human rights groups have warned that immigrants risk mistreatment and may be endangered if they are ultimately returned to violent or war-torn countries of origin, such as Afghanistan.Sabalza said she had not been able to see her clients while they were held at the hotel in Panama City and she is seeking permission to visit them at their new location. She declined to identify their nationality, but said they were a Muslim family who “could be decapitated” if they returned home.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSabalza said the family would be requesting asylum in Panama or “any country that will receive them other than their own”.Mulino said previously the immigrants would be moved to a shelter in the Darién region, which includes the dense and lawless jungle separating Central America from South America that has in recent years become a corridor for hundreds of thousands of people aiming to reach the United States. Panama’s security minister said on Tuesday that more than half of the people deported from the United States in recent days had accepted voluntary repatriations to their home countries.With reporting by Reuters More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘It comes from racism’: immigrant workers on Trump’s deportation push

      by

      Donald Trump has ramped up anti-immigration fervor into his second presidency, promising mass deportations, pushing to increase arrests and bolstering public relations efforts to amplify arrests. The moves have sent a wave of terror through the undocumented worker community that underpins large parts of the US economy.“Every day I wake up and walk out the door, I go with the hope of going to work, but with the fear of not being able to come back,” said a construction worker and single parent in Texas who obtained immigration protection under the Biden administration. She requested to remain anonymous due to fears about her immigration status.“Every day I worry if something happens, who will take my kids,” she said. “I have only one child born in the US. They are the only one who might be able to return, but me and the other kids would not be able to come back.”She claimed that since Trump took office for his second term, there had been fewer opportunities to work construction jobs given the increased fear of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) raids at workplaces.Despite being in the US for 10 years and constantly trying to obtain documentation, she explained it took her experiencing weeks of wage theft to be able to get documentation through the deferred action program, which provides temporary status and work authorization to immigrants who have been victims of labor abuses.“Unfortunately, these next few years will be years of fear, years of silence,” she said. “I believe the anti-immigrant pushes are racist. People have been taken away without criminal records. We used to have the ability to pay fines before because we didn’t have criminal records, but I’ve heard from other immigrants, anyone being taken into custody by Ice, regardless of their situation, will be deported.”Trump has signed an executive order to allocate military resources at the US border with Mexico and opened Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba to the detention of undocumented immigrants. The Department of Homeland Security also rolled back a policy of restricting Ice arrests at sensitive locations such as hospitals, places of worship and schools and the agency is pushing to recruit IRS agents to assist in immigration enforcement. The administration is also reportedly planning to reopen family detention centers.View image in fullscreenThe changes come as Trump campaigned with misleading and false statements about immigrants, portraying them as criminals and taking away jobs, including making a baseless claim that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were eating pets.Despite this rhetoric fomenting xenophobic sentiments, an October 2024 report by the Economic Policy Institute on the benefits of immigration to the US cited the enabling of economic growth as the US-born workforce declines, and the payment of nearly $100bn annually in taxes, and noted mass deportations actually result in job losses for US-born workers due to reduced local demand output.Several industries rely heavily on immigrant workers. Nearly 2.9 million immigrants, the most in any occupation group, are employed in construction and extraction, comprising 34% of employment in these occupations in the US.The Guardian spoke with several immigrant workers in construction about their experiences and fears caused by Trump’s immigration policies and the anti-immigrant sentiments stoked by his rhetoric and policies.Another undocumented construction worker in Texas said there is a “constant fear” in going to work every day that his workplace will be raided by Ice or that he will return home to find his family, the majority of whom are undocumented, taken away.“It is a constant fear. It’s something we can’t take from our minds, every instance of the day,” they said. “My main worry is there will be one day where my family might be taken away from me and be sent back to Mexico.”Trying to acquire legal documentation has been “almost impossible”, they added. “The reason behind these policies, it comes from racism. The majority of immigrants aren’t criminals. Like myself, a lot of immigrants come to this country to be able to fulfill their dreams, to be able to work. We’re humans and we have rights. The things we go through when being held in immigration detention, unless you live them, you won’t be able to understand it.”Andres Surquia of Georgia currently has immigration protection through deferred action – a government policy that allows certain undocumented immigrants to work and avoid deportation for two-year periods.“I’m scared because Trump has said he wants to remove deferred-action protections, which took me so long to get,” he said. “As immigrants, we come into this country to work and we want to be respected and protected.”The International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, which represents 140,000 workers in the US and Canada, pushed to secure deferred-action immigration protections for workers experiencing labor abuses in construction for the past several years under the Biden administration.“It was one of the main pillars we put forth as a union, in coalition with other unions, that really view immigration as a working-class issue,” said the IUPAT general president, Jimmy Williams. “Now, under the Trump administration it’s going to go back to all these workers having no recourse, and the employers continuing to be able to use their status as a way to keep them further and further from being able to speak out.”Immigration is a labor and economic issue, Williams said. The union views it as a responsibility to fight and defend these workers because they are their union members. But he expressed disappointment with Democrats whom he feels have so far failed to support these workers.“Where’s the resistance?” Williams asked. “When will the Democratic party really get it right on framing this as a working-class issue and put the target solely on where it belongs, which is on the employers that have abused this system for decades now, keeping workers’ rights down, keeping wages down? You’ve seen limited to no response from the opposition.”A construction worker in Texas who has been pursuing asylum said she had seen fewer people show up to work out of fear in recent weeks.“There’s not many people going to work any more, because of the fear. The only reason why I go to work is it’s a necessity to bring food home and pay bills,” she said. “They want to extract the people that are working in the farms, that are working in the fields, that are working in the restaurants that they eat in, and now they’re taking them without any explanation. It’s not fair.”Milton Velásquez is a construction worker in Maryland from El Salvador who currently has temporary protected status (TPS), provisional protection given to nationals of some countries in crisis. Trump has already revoked these protections for 350,000 Venezuelans and has incited fears he will revoke or limit protections for 1 million immigrants in the US from 17 nations granted protections under the Biden administration.“It scares me because if my TPS does get revoked, I will lose a lot of job opportunities without it and it would limit my income,” he said. “There is always fear of deportation. I try not to think about it, but what scares me the most is having to go back to El Salvador. I would have to work 10 times as much to get paid $10 a day.”Under the first Trump presidential term, Velásquez faced issues with trying to bring his son and daughter to the US from El Salvador through the Central American Minors program, which Trump shut down in 2017. He is still separated from his daughter.“I tried to get her a visa,” Velasquez added. “I’ve been longing to bring them here. That’s what I work for, to provide for my family, to get my family to come here.”Send us a tipIf you have information you’d like to share securely with the Guardian about the impact of the Trump administration’s temporary protected status decision, please use a non-work device to contact us via the Signal messaging app at (929) 418-7175. More

    • 138 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      How a faded New York hotel became a lethal political battleground

      by

      Manhattan’s Roosevelt hotel, with its faded Renaissance revival facade, last week became the focal point of a fast-moving political battle enveloping New York City’s mayor, the state governor and the department of justice in the service of Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda.Trump’s new head of homeland security, Kristi Noem, claims the formerly luxurious 1,025-room hotel, now a shelter for mostly Central and South American immigrants, is a “base of operations” for Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan prison gang.Noem’s head of immigration enforcement, Tom Homan, wants Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents to be able to enter the hotel, but New York’s sanctuary city laws prevent New York police from cooperating.The Trump administration, under Elon Musk’s cost-cutting Doge team, claimed that $80m had recently been transferred to New York to house migrants, including in the Roosevelt, and clawed it back.The Roosevelt is a grimy backdrop to an extraordinary battle that has pitted the city’s Democrat mayor, Eric Adams, seeking re-election this year, against Governor Kathy Hochul, and has had career federal prosecutors, Democrat and Republican, at each other’s­ throats over claims of bias and corruption.Late Friday, the justice department moved to dismiss corruption charges against Mayor Adams, the latest move in a legal saga that led over two days to the resignation of seven career prosecutors and left a justice department in chaos.View image in fullscreenDuring his campaign Trump vowed to “save” New York, claiming that businesses were fleeing hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who were sucking up public resources. Last year, the city estimated that the migration crisis has cost New York $5bn in two years, and costs are expected to double in 2025.Last week, the justice department in Washington sent a proposal to New York’s southern district to shelve an indictment against Adams on corruption charges of accepting illegal campaign donations in exchange for political favours, arguing that it would interfere with his ability to help the administration tackle illegal immigration.Democrats claimed the move amounted to using the law to influence an elected politician. It was characterised by one of Adams’ prosecutors as a “dismissal-with-leverage” proposal, a corrupt exchange for allowing federal agents to deport tens of thousands of migrants in the city against sanctuary city laws.Danielle Sassoon, acting US attorney in New York, said she could not “agree to seek a dismissal driven by improper considerations”, and resigned. Emil Bove, acting deputy US attorney general, accepted her resignation, alleging that she was “incapable of fairly and impartially” reviewing the case.Hochul said she was considering removing Adams as mayor over the alleged deal and claims Trump’s department of justice “is already showing they’re corrupt”. Homan called Hochul an “embarrassment” who “needs to be removed”. Progressive Bronx Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said: “This corruption poses a real threat to the people of the city.”View image in fullscreenThe escalating drama kicked off last month when Damian Williams, the former Democrat prosecutor who brought corruption charges against Adams, wrote that New York was “being led with a broken ethical compass” – seemingly a reference to Adams.That was a red flag to the incoming administration, whose chief executive is still smarting over a state conviction on a scheme to obscure hush-money payments to a porn actor and an $83m civil judgment for defaming writer E Jean Carroll and has seemingly found an ally in the Democrat mayor.“We are living in an era where political favoritism overrides the legal process in pursuit of political gains. This marks a dangerous new phase where selective law enforcement, applied at whim, is a weapon,” said Mike Quinn, a lawyer involved in the drive to hold Sackler family members accountable for the opioid crisis.Adams, like Trump, claims the criminal actions brought against him are politically motivated. The two are growing closer, with Adams visiting Trump at his Florida estate.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe impact on Adam’s re-election prospects are hard to read. A recent poll ahead of the Democrat primary in April had the mayor in third or fourth place, behind Trump’s arch enemy Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor who resigned in 2021 amid a sexual harassment scandal. Cuomo has not yet officially declared. In the running also is Zohran Mamdani, a progressive Democrat, who has vowed to lower the cost of living for working-class New Yorkers.A poll last month found that 73% of likely primary voters held an “unfavorable” view of Adams, with fears about subway crime, highlighted in December when a homeless woman was fatally set on fire in a subway car, among the factors behind their dissatisfaction.“New Yorkers have the idea that the mayor turns on the lights in the morning and turns them off at night,” says Democrat consultant Hank Sheinkopf. “They instil in him tremendous values and powers. When he fails to meet them on either side of the aisle, people lose their minds, and that’s what’s happening in New York right now.”But Adams has scored some wins, including reducing a post-Covid rat infestation by introducing plastic rubbish bins. “Everybody wants the city to function, and if it doesn’t function it doesn’t really matter what your ideological bent is,” says Sheinkopf. “It’s about how the garbage gets picked up, how you don’t feel threatened by homeless people and how your life functions.”But the left also dislikes Adams as a matter of reflex. “It’s a natural response, because anything Trump touches is right by definition,” Sheinkopf points out.If Adams loses the Democrat nomination, he could run as a Republican, much as three-term mayor Mike Bloomberg did in 2002. New York has only had four Republican mayors in a century, each one elected after a crisis.The crisis this time, says Sheinkopf, “is that New York is out of control. Corruption, crime and the sense that things have broken down.” But he doubts Adams is the one to fix it. “He created it, so it’s a hard sell”.One scenario, hinted at by City Hall insiders, is that under a deal to drop the Adams corruption charges, the mayor could then switch party in a bid to stop Trump’s arch enemy, Cuomo.Trump and Cuomo have fought bitterly over the years, including in 2019, when Trump called his brother Chris, a former CNN host, Fredo after the hapless brother in The Godfather. “If I wasn’t governor of New York, I would have decked him. Period,” Cuomo said. More