US news

Subterms

    More stories

    • 225 Shares149 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump news at a glance: president demands Bolsonaro trial be stopped as he hits Brazil with 50% tariff

      by

      Donald Trump has slapped a 50% tariff on Brazil over what he called the “witch-hunt” against former president Jair Bolsonaro and demanded that it end immediately.The US president said the levy on Brazil would be “separate from all sectoral tariffs” as he also targeted seven other countries for steep tariffs and criticised the trial of Bolsonaro, whom he has described as a friend and hosted at his Mar-a-Lago resort.The US supreme court, meanwhile, denied a request by Florida officials to lift a judge’s order barring them from carrying out arrests of undocumented US immigrants entering the state while a legal challenge plays out.And the Trump administration has issued sanctions against Francesca Albanese, a UN official investigating abuses in Gaza, in the latest US effort to punish critics of Israel’s war in the territory.Here are the key US politics stories at a glance:Trump announces 50% tariff on Brazil, citing ‘witch-hunt’ against BolsonaroOn Wednesday afternoon, Trump avoided his standard form letter with Brazil, and criticized the trial Jair Bolsonaro is facing over trying to overturn his 2022 election loss. “This Trial should not be taking place,” Trump wrote in the letter posted on Truth Social on Wednesday. “It is a witch hunt that should end IMMEDIATELY!”Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, rejected Trump’s demand that legal proceedings against Bolsonaro be dropped and his claim that a 50% tariff on Brazilian imports was necessary to close a trade deficit that does not, in fact, exist.Read the full storyUS supreme court blocks Florida from enforcing anti-immigration lawThe country’s supreme court has maintained a judicial block on a Republican-crafted Florida law that makes it a crime for undocumented immigrants in the US to enter the state.The justices on Wednesday denied a request by state officials to lift an order by Florida-based US district judge Kathleen Williams that barred them from carrying out arrests and prosecutions under the law while a legal challenge plays out in lower courts.Read the full storyKennedy touts ultra-processed meals he once called ‘poison’Robert F Kennedy Jr has promoted a company whose meals contain ultra-processed ingredients – which he has repeatedly railed against – on his “Make America healthy again” tour.The US health secretary appeared at an enormous food plant in Oklahoma for a company called Mom’s Meals, which makes 1.5m “medically tailored” meals each week and ships them all over the country.Read the full storyUS issues sanctions against UN official investigating abuses in GazaThe Trump administration announced on Wednesday it was issuing sanctions against Francesca Albanese, an independent official tasked with investigating human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories, the latest effort by the US to punish critics of Israel’s 21-month war in Gaza.Read the full storyUS agriculture secretary says Medicaid recipients can replace deported farm workersThe US agriculture secretary has suggested that increased automation and forcing Medicaid recipients to work could replace the migrant farm workers being swept up in Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign, despite years of evidence and policy failures that those kinds of measures are not substitutes for the immigrant labor force underpinning American agriculture.Read the full storyTrump administration reportedly planning to fire 2,145 Nasa employeesThe Trump administration is reportedly planning to cut at least 2,145 high-ranking Nasa employees with specialized skills or management responsibilities.According to documents obtained by Politico, most employees leaving are in senior-level government ranks, depriving the agency of decades of experience as part of a push to slash the size of the federal government through early retirement, buyouts and deferred resignations.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      War-torn South Sudan has said it is holding a group of eight men controversially deported from the US. Only one of them is from South Sudan. The rest comprise two people from Myanmar, two from Cuba and one each from Vietnam, Laos and Mexico.

      The Trump administration has sued California over its policies allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ school sports, alleging their participation violates federal anti-discrimination laws.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 8 July 2025. More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump administration reportedly planning to cut 2,145 Nasa employees

      by

      The Trump administration is reportedly planning to cut at least 2,145 high-ranking Nasa employees with specialized skills or management responsibilities.According to documents obtained by Politico, most employees leaving are in senior-level government ranks, depriving the agency of decades of experience as part of a push to slash the size of the federal government through early retirement, buyouts and deferred resignations.The documents indicate that 1,818 of the staff currently serve in core mission areas, like science or human space flight, while the others work in mission support roles including information technology, or IT.Asked about the proposed cuts, agency spokesperson Bethany Stevens told Reuters: “NASA remains committed to our mission as we work within a more prioritized budget.”Since Trump returned to office in January, planning in the US space industry and among Nasa’s workforce of 18,000 people has been thrown into chaos by the layoffs and proposed budget cuts for fiscal year 2026 that would cancel dozens of science programs.Last week, seven former heads of Nasa’s Science Mission Directorate signed a joint letter to Congress condemning the White House’s proposed 47% cuts to Nasa science activities in its 2026 budget proposal. In the letter, the former officials urged the House appropriations committee “to preserve US leadership in space exploration and reject the unprecedented cuts to space science concocted by the White House’s Budget Director, Russ Vought”.“The economics of these proposed cuts ignore a fundamental truth: investments in NASA science have been and are a powerful driver of the U.S. economy and technological leadership,” the letter read. “In our former roles leading NASA’s space science enterprise, we consistently saw skilled teams innovate in the face of seemingly impossible goals, including landing a car-sized rover on Mars with pinpoint precision, build a massive telescope that can unfold in the vacuum of space to unravel the mysteries of the cosmos, design and operate a spacecraft hardy enough to survive temperatures of many thousands of degrees at the Sun, inspiring young and old alike worldwide by the stunning images from the Hubble Space Telescope, and pioneering the use of small satellites for science.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThey also warned that the cuts threatened to cede US leadership to China: “Global space competition extends far past Moon and Mars exploration. The Chinese space science program is aggressive, ambitious, and well-funded. It is proposing missions to return samples from Mars, explore Neptune, monitor climate change for the benefit of the Chinese industry and population, and peer into the universe – all activities that the FY 2026 NASA budget proposal indicates the US will abandon.”Nasa also remains without a confirmed administrator, since the Trump administration abruptly withdrew its nominee, the billionaire private astronaut Jared Isaacman, in an apparent act of retaliation against Elon Musk, who had proposed his nomination.In a social media post attacking Musk on Sunday, Trump wrote that he thought it would have been thought “inappropriate that a very close friend of Elon, who was in the Space Business, run NASA, when NASA is such a big part of Elon’s corporate life”. More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      US supreme court blocks Florida from enforcing anti-immigration law

      by

      The US supreme court maintained on Wednesday a judicial block on a Republican-crafted Florida law that makes it a crime for undocumented immigrants in the United States to enter the state.The justices denied a request by state officials to lift an order by the Florida-based US district judge Kathleen Williams that barred them from carrying out arrests and prosecutions under the law while a legal challenge plays out in lower courts. Williams ruled that Florida’s law conflicted with the federal government’s authority over immigration policy.The law, signed by the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, in February and backed by the Trump administration, made it a felony for some undocumented migrants to enter Florida, while also imposing pre-trial jail time without bond.“This denial reaffirms a bedrock principle that dates back 150 years: States may not regulate immigration,” said Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project. “It is past time for states to get the message.”After Williams blocked the law, Florida’s attorney general, James Uthmeier, a Republican, and other state officials filed the emergency request on 17 June asking the supreme court to halt the judge’s order. Williams had found that the Florida law was probably unconstitutional for encroaching on the federal government’s exclusive authority over US immigration policy.The state’s request to the justices was backed by America First Legal, a conservative group co-founded by Stephen Miller, a senior aide to Donald Trump and a key architect of the administration’s hardline immigration policies.Florida’s immigration measure, called SB 4-C, was passed by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature and signed into law by DeSantis. It made Florida one of at least seven states to pass such laws in recent years, according to court filings.The American Civil Liberties Union in April sued in federal court to challenge the law, arguing that the state should not be able to “enforce its own state immigration system outside of federal supervision and control”. Williams agreed.The law imposed mandatory minimum sentences for undocumented adult immigrants who are convicted of entering Florida after arriving in the United States without following federal immigration law. Florida officials contend that the state measure complies with – rather than conflicts with – federal law.Sentences for violations begin at nine months’ imprisonment for first offenders and reach up to five years for certain undocumented immigrants in the country who have felony records and enter Florida after having been deported or ordered by a federal judge to be removed from the United States.The state law exempts undocumented immigrants in the country who were given certain authorization by the federal government to remain in the United States. Florida’s immigration crackdown makes no exceptions, however, for those seeking humanitarian protection or with pending applications for immigration relief, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which sued in federal court to challenge the law.The ACLU filed a class-action suit on behalf of two undocumented immigrants who reside in Florida, an immigration advocacy group called the Florida Immigrant Coalition and the non-profit group Farmworker Association of Florida, whose members include immigrants in the United States illegally who travel in and out of Florida seasonally to harvest crops. Some of the arguments in the lawsuit included claims that it violates the federal “commerce clause”, which bars states from blocking commerce between states.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBacardi Jackson, executive director of the ACLU of Florida, in a statement issued after the challenge was filed said that Florida’s law “is not just unconstitutional – it’s cruel and dangerous”.Williams issued a preliminary injunction in April that barred Florida officials from enforcing the measure.The Atlanta-based 11th US circuit court of appeals in June upheld the judge’s ruling, prompting the Florida officials to make an emergency request to the supreme court.In a filing on 7 July, the state of Florida pointed to a brief filed by the Trump administration in the appeals case, in support of SB 4-C. “That decision is wrong and should be reversed,” administration lawyers wrote at the time.On the same day that Florida’s attorney general filed the state’s supreme court request, Williams found him in civil contempt of court for failing to follow her order to direct all state law enforcement officers not to enforce the immigration measure while it remained blocked by the judge. Williams said that Uthmeier only informed the state law enforcement agencies about her order and later instructed them to arrest people anyway. Williams ordered Uthmeier to provide an update to the court every two weeks on any enforcement of the law.Other states have tried to pass similar laws, including Texas, Oklahoma, Idaho and Iowa, which have attempted to make entering their jurisdictions, while undocumented, a state crime. More

    • 125 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump sues California over transgender athletes in girls’ school sports

      by

      The Trump administration has sued California over its policies allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ school sports, alleging that their participation violates federal anti-discrimination laws.The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Los Angeles, claims that California’s policies violate Title IX, which affords legal protection against sex discrimination.Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, in a statement took aim at Gavin Newsom, California’s governor and a Trump antagonist seen as a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2028. Newsom in a March podcast interview with the rightwing activist Charlie Kirk called transgender participation in girls’ sports “deeply unfair”.“Not only is it ’deeply unfair,’ it is also illegal under federal law,” Bondi said in a statement. “This Department of Justice will continue its fight to protect equal opportunities for women and girls in sports.”A spokesperson for Newsom did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump, a Republican, has signed a series of executive orders restricting transgender rights, including a February directive to strip federal funding for any school that allows transgender women or girls to compete in female sports.The suit comes weeks after the education department announced it had found California allegedly violated the law by permitting trans girls to compete on girls’ sports teams, and proposed that the state strip trans athletes of their records and awards and bar trans women from competing in women’s sports.California has allowed trans girls to compete in girls’ sports for more than a decade – a policy that attracted little outcry until Republicans and anti-LGBTQ+ groups seized on the issue in recent years.The justice department under Trump has already filed a similar lawsuit against Maine and has made challenging transgender rights a major civil rights priority. The lawsuit alleges that state policies “ignore undeniable biological differences between boys and girls” and diminish the integrity of girls’ sports. Advocates for LGBTQ+ rights have said transgender athletes comprise a small minority of all school athletes and bans on their participation further stigmatize a vulnerable population.California’s policies drew national attention earlier this year when a transgender girl competing in the state track and field championship won the high jump and triple jump and finished second in the long jump, an episode cited in the justice department’s complaint. Ahead of that competition, the governing board for California high school sports had announced it would change the rules to allow more girls to take part.The athlete who won, 16-year-old AB Hernandez, was subjected to harassment from anti-LGBTQ+ activists and targeted by the president himself who said that her participation was “demeaning” to women and girls and said he was “ordering local authorities, if necessary, to not allow” her to participate.In an interview with the Guardian, Hernandez said that despite the criticism, she had the support of her classmates. “They see how hard I train,” she said. One of her competitors told the San Francisco Chronicle: “Sharing the podium was nothing but an honor.”The Trump administration lawsuit cites five alleged instances of transgender athletes taking part in girls’ school sporting events in a state with nearly 6 million public school students, according to state data.It seeks a court order barring any school under the California Interscholastic Federation from allowing transgender athletes to take part in girls’ sports competitions and to establish a process to compensate female athletes it alleges have been harmed by the state’s policy.Newsom has repeatedly clashed with Trump, most recently over the president’s decision to deploy national guard troops to Los Angeles, California’s largest city, to quell anti-deportation protests that erupted after the Trump administration carried out workplace raids in the city.The feud has prompted several legal battles between the Trump administration and the largest US state. The justice department under Trump has already launched an investigation into hiring practices at the University of California system and has sued Los Angeles over policies restricting the city’s cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.Newsom sued the Trump administration over the national guard deployment. More

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Zelenskyy to replace Ukraine’s envoy to US in diplomatic shuffle

      by

      Volodymyr Zelenskyy is replacing Ukraine’s ambassador to the US, who has been heavily criticised by leading Republicans, as part a diplomatic reshuffle designed to strengthen ties with the Trump administration.Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, confirmed on Wednesday that Oksana Markarova will be recalled from Washington after four years in the job. He described her as “extremely effective, charismatic and one of our most successful ambassadors”.He indicated that several top ambassadors to G7 and G20 countries would also be moved, telling Ukrainian radio “Every diplomat has a rotation cycle”.The diplomatic shake-up comes at a critical moment in the war. Russian troops have been attacking across the 600-mile frontline and in recent weeks the speed of their gains has increased, with the Kremlin spokesperson declaring: “We are advancing.”Russian combat units are for the first time close to crossing into Dnipropetrovsk oblast.Late on Tuesday and early on Wednesday, Russia carried out its biggest aerial attack since the start of its full-scale invasion in February 2022. It involved a record 728 Shahed-type drones, as well as 13 cruise and ballistic missiles. Most were shot down.The US House of Representatives speaker, Mike Johnson, is among the Republican figures who have criticised Markarova, accusing her of supporting the Democratic party and its candidate Kamala Harris in the run-up to last November’s presidential election.View image in fullscreenIn February she was pictured with her head in her hand during Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s disastrous meeting with Donald Trump in the Oval Office.There were calls for her dismissal after Zelenskyy visited a shell factory in Pennsylvania last September. Markarova organised the visit and did not invite a single Republican, Johnson said at the time.Ukrainian officials deny any bias but acknowledge the ambassador previously had good relations with the Biden administration and was close to Victoria Nuland, the then undersecretary of state for political affairs.Zelenskyy and Trump discussed Markarova’s departure during a phone call last Friday which Ukraine’s president hailed as their most constructive to date.On Tuesday, Trump expressed growing frustration with Vladimir Putin and announced US weapons deliveries to Kyiv would be restarted. His announcement followed a week-long pause, apparently ordered by Pete Hegseth, the US secretary of defense.The shipment includes Patriot interceptor missiles and other precision munitions. It is unclear how many will be transferred. The US news website Axios reported 10 missiles would be delivered – a tiny amount at a time when Moscow has dramatically escalated its bombardment of Ukrainian cities.The overnight raid was directed at the northwestern city of Lutsk. At least six civilians were killed and 39 injured in several other regions of the country, including Kharkiv and Donetsk in the north-east and east, and Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south.A one-year-old boy, Dmytro, died in the village of Pravdyne in Kherson oblast when the Russians hit his house with drones, the local administration reported. The boy had been staying with his great-grandmother.One possible successor to Markarova in Washington is said to be Ihor Zhovkva, the deputy head of the office of Ukraine’s president. Zhovka’s immediate boss is Andriy Yermak, who is widely seen as the most influential person in Ukrainian politics after Zelenskyy.Other names include the finance minister, Serhiy Marchenko, and Olha Stefanishyna, who is deputy prime minister for Europe and Euro-Atlantic integration, as well as minister of justice.There is growing optimism in Kyiv that Trump’s pivot earlier this year towards Russia has been halted, if not quite reversed. One former Ukrainian official credited Jonathan Powell, the UK’s national security adviser and a veteran negotiator, with the transformation.Powell has played an important role in repairing Zelenskyy’s fraught relations with Washington after the Oval Office bust-up.He advised Ukraine’s government to avoid confronting the US president and to take his words as truth. The approach – described as “strategic patience” – was beginning to pay off, the official suggested.Zelenskyy has agreed to US proposals for a 30-day ceasefire, repeatedly praised Trump’s leadership, and signed a deal giving American investors access to Ukraine’s valuable natural resources.On Wednesday he met Pope Leo in Rome before a two-day international conference, organised to help Ukraine’s postwar recovery. Zelenskyy said they had discussed the return of Ukrainian children and civilians who had been abducted by Russia and the Vatican’s offer to facilitate peace negotiations.Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, is due to attend the conference. In a recent call with Trump, Merz reportedly offered to buy Patriot anti-defence batteries from the US and to send them to Ukraine.Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, is also due in Rome and is likely to hold talks on weapons deliveries with Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s defence minister. More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      US agriculture secretary says Medicaid recipients can replace deported farm workers

      by

      The US agriculture secretary has suggested that increased automation and forcing Medicaid recipients to work could replace the migrant farm workers being swept up in Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign, despite years of evidence and policy failures that those kinds of measures are not substitutes for the immigrant labor force underpinning American agriculture.Speaking at a news conference with Republican governors on Tuesday, Brooke Rollins said the administration would rely on “automation, also some reform within the current governing structure”, and pointed to “34 million able-bodied adults in our Medicaid program” as potential workers.“There’s been a lot of noise in the last few days and a lot of questions about where the president stands and his vision for farm labor,” Rollins said. “There are plenty of workers in America”.Trump signed legislation on Friday creating the first federally mandated work requirements for Medicaid recipients, set to take effect by the end of 2026. Medicaid is a healthcare safety net program that currently covers pregnant women, mothers, young children and the disabled, with 40 states having expanded coverage to working poor families earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level.However, agricultural experts and economists have repeatedly warned that neither automation nor welfare reforms can realistically replace the migrant workforce that dominates American farming.According to USDA data, 42% of US farm workers are undocumented immigrants, and just under 70% are foreign-born.And a March report from the Urban Institute found that most Medicaid recipients are either already working, exempt or face some sort of instability.Previous state-level immigration crackdowns are also evidence of the challenges facing Rollins’s proposed solution. Georgia’s 2011 immigration law resulted in a shortage of more than 5,200 farm workers and projected losses of hundreds of millions of dollars at the time, according to a University of Georgia study. Alabama farmers reported similar struggles, with locals telling the Associated Press in 2011 that American workers lasted about a day at their new farm jobs.While agricultural automation is advancing fast, it still appears to remain years away from replacing manual labor in fruit and vegetable harvesting.Rollins acknowledged the administration must be “strategic” in implementing deportations “so as not to compromise our food supply”, but held that Trump’s promise of a “100% American workforce stands.”Trump himself appeared to soften his stance last week, telling Fox News he was considering exemptions for undocumented farm workers.“What we’re going to do is we’re going to do something for farmers where we can let the farmer sort of be in charge,” he said. More

    • 188 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Ice is about to become the biggest police force in the US | Judith Levine

      by

      On Thursday, congressional Republicans passed Trump’s 1,000-page budget, and the president signed it on Saturday. The rich will get obscenely richer. The poor will be hungrier and sicker, work more precarious, and the planet unrelentingly hotter. The symmetry is elegant: cuts to healthcare and food programs average about $120bn each year over the next decade, while the tax cuts will save households earning more than $500,000 about $120bn a year.Trump got what he wanted. But enriching himself and his wealthy friends at the expense of everyone else has long been his life purpose. It was not until he became president, with the Heritage Foundation’s wonks, the deportation czar Stephen Miller, and six loyal supreme courtiers behind him, that he could reshape the US in his own amoral, racist, violence-intoxicated image. In fact, the latter goal may be dearer to him than the former.The night before the Senate vote, JD Vance summed up the administration’s priorities: “Everything else,” including the Congressional Budget Office’s deficit estimates and “the minutiae of the Medicaid policy”, he posted, “is immaterial compared to the ICE money and immigration enforcement provisions”.The vice-president’s indifference to the lives of millions of Americans – particularly to the class of Americans from which this self-described “hillbilly” hails – enflamed the Democrats and the left. But his comment also woke everyone up to another major set of appropriations in the budget. As Leah Greenberg, co-chair of the progressive activist group Indivisible, put it on Twitter/X: “They are just coming right out and saying they want an exponential increase in $$$ so they can build their own personal Gestapo.”The press had been focused on the wealth gap the budget turns into the San Andreas fault. It had been dutifully mentioning increases in funding for the military – to an unprecedented $1.3tn – and “border security”.Set aside for a moment that phrase’s implication, that the US is being invaded – which it isn’t – and it is still not apt. The jurisdiction of the federal police force that this budget will finance promises to stretch far beyond immigration; its ambitions will outstrip even the deportation of every one of the nearly 48 million immigrants in the country, including the three-quarters of them who are citizens, green-card holders or have temporary visas.The colossal buildup of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) will create the largest domestic police force in the US; its resources will be greater than those of every federal surveillance and carceral agency combined; it will employ more agents than the FBI. Ice will be bigger than the military of many countries. When it runs out of brown and Black people to deport, Ice – perhaps under another name – will be left with the authority and capability to surveil, seize and disappear anyone the administration considers undesirable. It is hard to imagine any president dismantling it.Ice will receive $45bn for immigrant detention, to be spent over four years – more than the Obama, Biden and first Trump administrations combined. The agency says it is planning on a total of 100,000 beds. But grants to the states loosely slated for “enforcement” total $16.5bn. If they use the money to build and lease more detention camps, the American Immigration Council estimates, capacity could reach 125,000, just under the population of the federal prisons.Dipping into a pot totaling $170bn, the Department of Homeland Security intends to hire 10,000 new Ice agents, bringing the total to 30,000, as well as 8,500 border patrol agents. For comparison, the FBI has about 23,700 employees, including 10,000 special agents.Like Ice’s budget, DHS’s is fat with redundancies: $12bn to DHS for border security and immigration; $12bn to Customs and Border Protection for hiring, vehicles and technology; $6.2bn for more technology. And then there’s over $45bn to complete the jewel in the king’s crown: Trump’s “beautiful” border wall. That’s on top of approximately $10bn spent during his first term for a project he promised would cost less than $12bn – and be bankrolled by Mexico.To balance the expenses of the hunt, the government will raise revenue from its prey. The cruelty written into the fees seems almost an afterthought. According to the New York Times’s breakdown, for a grant of temporary legal residence, for instance, a refugee pays $500 or $1,000, depending on whether they are fleeing armed conflict or humanitarian crisis. There’s a new $250 fee to apply for a visa for a child who’s been abused, abandoned or neglected by a parent.Immigrants must fork over as much as $1,500 for status adjustments ordered by a judge. And if they are arrested after a judge’s removal order for missing a hearing, they will be charged $5,000. The budget does not specify whether you pay for a downward adjustment to your status or what it costs to be snatched when you do show up at court, which is now regular Ice procedure.Observed as from a Google satellite, the outlines of a wide-ranging, increasingly coherent police state come into focus. The boundaries between federal and local, military operations and civilian law enforcement are smudged. During the anti-Ice protests in Los Angeles, Trump federalized the national guard to put down an uprising that didn’t exist, and an appeals court let him. The marines, restricted by the Posse Comitatus Act from civilian law enforcement, detained a US citizen anyway. To circumvent the prohibition against deploying the military to enforce immigration law, the president declared an “invasion” at the southern border, and the Pentagon took more territory under its control. Last week it added 140 miles of land to the marine air station in Arizona and has announced plans for 250 miles more, in Texas, under the air force’s aegis. Heather Cox Richardson reports that national guard troops have been deployed by Governor Ron DeSantis to “Alligator Alcatraz”, the new immigrant lockup in the Florida Everglades. Two hundred marines have been sent to Florida to back up Ice, and Ice agents will be stationed at marine bases in California, Virginia and Hawaii. The military budget earmarks $1bn for “border security”.A budget is the numerical representation of its makers’ values. So the upward redistribution of wealth that this budget exacerbates and the police state it invests trillions of dollars in are of a piece. What connects them is not just the profit to be made building, leasing and managing the infrastructure. When people lack food, medicine and housing, when public spaces deteriorate and families have little hope of security, much less mobility, rage and crime rise. And when that happens, the police – whether Ice or the marines, local cops or private security officers – will be mobilized to put down dissent and protect the oligarchs’ property from a desperate populace.

      Judith Levine is Brooklyn-based journalist, essayist and author of five books. Her Substack is Today in Fascism More

    • 163 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Undocumented builders face unchecked exploitation amid Trump raids: ‘It’s more work, less pay’

      by

      As the Trump administration ramps up its crackdown on immigration, undocumented workers in the construction industry claim raids and arrests have emboldened some contractors to cut pay and increase hours.Rogelio, a tile setter, works for various contractors in the the Tucson, Arizona, region. He is undocumented, and did not provide his full name.When Donald Trump returned to office in January, Rogelio said his employers cut their rates by 30% to 40%. Other laborers told him they had endured similar treatment.“They decreased the pay by piece because they know most of the tile setters don’t have social security numbers, so they take advantage of that. We are in their hands,” Rogelio told the Guardian. “It’s more work, less pay. We have no choice right now.“We’re struggling with bills. We’re struggling with food. We’re struggling with everything because we don’t get enough money to pay whatever we need to pay.”Many of the undocumented immigrants Rogelio knows are only leaving home to work, Rogelio said. “We have a lot of fear,” he told the Guardian. “We look for news in the morning to see if we’re able to go to work or not.”With approximately 2.9 million US construction workers – about 34% of the workforce – foreign-born, construction sector lobbyists have publicly urged the Trump administration to soften their hardline stance on immigration. “While the need for safe and secure borders is paramount, mass deportation is not the answer,” Buddy Hughes, chairperson of the National Association of Home Builders, said in a statement.Advocates for workers rights say some operators in the sector are using Trump’s crackdown to abuse undocumented workers.“Especially in construction, there’re a lot of subcontractors that take advantage of this situation by not paying them the fair wage or not even paying them at all,” said Laura Becerra, movement politics director of the non-profit Workers Defense Project based in Texas.Undocumented workers are unlikely to lodge an official complaint, she added. “Since people don’t want to say anything because they don’t want to be put on the radar, and they’re also getting retaliated against if they do say something.”The administration is pushing ahead with public raids on undocumented immigrant workers. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agency is arresting an increasing number of immigrants without any criminal history, according to a Guardian analysis of federal government data.“It’s an attack,” Becerra said. “It’s taking a toll on families, families that need to make ends meet, that are already suffering from low wages and doing work no one wants to do.”In Tucson, undocumented workers are avoiding freeways, according to Rogelio. “Freeways are one of the worst places to drive right now because of all the police and border patrol and they look for mostly hispanic people to stop,” he said. “We are living day by day and not knowing what’s going to happen tomorrow.”In some areas “there are spots where you can work with no problem,” he said. “But others, there are racist people living there and they don’t want us. They want our work, they want cheap labor, but they don’t want us.“We came here because we want to work and provide for our families. The only reason I’m here, personally, I have two kids who are American citizens. I’m not asking for any benefits from the government.”Reports from across the US suggest undocumented workers are facing unprecedented pressure.Savannah Palmira, director of organizing for the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades district council 5, which covers workers in states around the Pacific north-west, said the threat of raids is making it harder for workers to organize.A roofing company in Washington was raided by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) earlier this year after workers filed safety complaints, Palmira claimed, with the fear of retaliation stemming from that case spreading to other job sites, and leaving workers reluctant to speak out and file complaints against abusive work practices.“What contractors are doing is taking an opportunity to not be held accountable for their bad practices,” said Palmira. “The more and more people are starting to talk about workers getting taken advantage of, Ice is getting called on them. They’re taking a tool away from us to be able to put bad contractors on notice.”In Washington, another undocumented construction worker – who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation – said many of his coworkers were “thinking about going back to their countries” due to the reality of life in the US.“The last company I worked for took advantage of people in every situation,” he said, from dissuading injured workers from getting medical attention to denying overtime and breaks.“They say, you are undocumented, so they will pay you $10 an hour because you have no work permit,” he added. “And if not, they will tell Ice.”“In Washington state, immigrants make up 25% of the trades workforce in construction. With a consistent labor shortage and demand for housing constantly growing, residential construction needs all the skilled workers available,” a spokesperson for the Building Industry Association of Washington said in an email. “We’ve provided our members with guidance on how to legally employ immigrants, including verifying the identity and US employment authorization of all employees. We also generally support improving US Immigration policy to allow responsible and law-abiding undocumented worker a pathway to achieving citizenship.”Arizona Builders Alliance did not respond to multiple requests for comment.On a national level the construction industry has repeatedly warned of the negative impacts of immigration raids on what they claim has already been a severe labor shortage in US construction.Asked about contractors allegedly using the ramp up in immigration enforcement to cut pay and increase workloads, the National Association of Home Builders issued a statement from Hughes, its chairperson, which did not directly address the claims.“With the construction industry facing a deficit of more than 200,000 workers, policymakers must consider that any disruption to the labor force would raise housing costs, limit supply and worsen the nation’s housing affordability crisis,” Hughes said. “To address this pressing national issue, NAHB is urging Congress to support meaningful investments in our nation’s education system to encourage students to pursue careers in the skilled trades.“Policymakers should also support sensible immigration policies that preserve and expand existing temporary work visa programs while also creating new market-based visa programs that will accurately match demand with available labor.” More