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      The ethnic cleansing of the US will destroy it | Heba Gowayed

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      Trump’s racist remarks on Ilhan Omar and Somali immigrants reveals his vision for the US as a white Christian nationA rally on affordability in Pennsylvania on 9 December devolved into a racist tirade when Donald Trump said to the crowd: “We only take people from shithole countries. Why can’t we have some people from Norway, Sweden, just a few? … From Denmark. Do you mind sending us a few people? Send us some nice people. But we always take people from Somalia, places that are a disaster, right? Filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime.”Referring to the US representative Ilhan Omar’s hijab as a “little turban”, Trump continued: “She should get the hell out. Throw her the hell out.” His supporters erupted in chants of: “Send her back.” Continue reading… More

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      You and me against the world: who was behind Trump’s anti-Europe foreign policy?

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      The US’s national security strategy, shared last week, claims European immigration will cause ‘civilisational erasure’How do you create a foreign policy manifesto for a US president who leads from the gut?The initial draft fell to Michael Anton, a Maga firebrand whom officials have called the lead author behind the US’s radical new national security strategy (NSS). The document shocked US allies, warning that immigration to Europe would cause “civilizational erasure”, reviving the Monroe doctrine in the western hemisphere, and downgrading the US’s responsibility for great power competition with China and Russia. Continue reading… More

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      The Trump administration keeps picking fights with pop stars. It’s a no-win situation | Adrian Horton

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      By using music from SZA, Sabrina Carpenter and Olivia Rodrigo in ICE videos, the government is playing a game of rage-baitLast week, as the Trump administration was engulfed in controversy over its illegal military strikes near Venezuela (among numerous other crises), a Department of Homeland Security employee – I picture the worst sniveling, self-satisfied, hateful loser – got to work on the official X account. The state-employed memelord posted a video depicting Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) officials arresting people in what appeared to be Chicago, celebrating the humiliation and incarceration of undocumented immigrants as some sort of patriotic achievement. The vile video borrowed, as they often do, from mainstream pop culture; in this case, a viral lyric from Sabrina Carpenter’s song Juno – “Have you ever tried this one?”, referring to sex positions – overlaid on clips of agents chasing, tackling and handcuffing people, cheekily nodding to all the methods in ICE’s terror toolbox.Carpenter, as a pre-eminent pop star, was caught in an impossible position. Say nothing, as her friend and collaborator Taylor Swift did weeks earlier when the White House used her music in a Trump hype video, and risk appearing as if you condone the administration’s use of your art for a domestic terror campaign (the administration hasn’t yet used Swift for an ICE video, but I’m sure it’s coming); or engage, even if to honestly express your utter disgust, and risk bringing more attention to objectionable propaganda designed to provoke a response. Continue reading… More

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      Hunger’s whip: why connecting US food stamps to work is outdated and ineffective

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      In many parts of the country, there are new work requirements to get food aid. But starving people doesn’t motivate them – despite centuries of this rhetoricFor more than 200 years, common wisdom and policymakers have assumed that to get people to work, you had to make them hungry. New work requirements for Snap food benefits, which went into effect in most of the US on 1 December, are only the latest in a long line of policies based on this idea. The new rules cut off benefits for any non-disabled adult up to age 65 who cannot prove that they are working or seeking work at least 80 hours every month (that includes homeless people, veterans and former foster youth). The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 2.7 million people will lose their benefits.You’ve heard this reasoning before: people are motivated to work because they and their families have to survive. If you give someone welfare – especially food aid – they become dependent and lazy. The Florida-based Foundation for Government Accountability, a conservative thinktank that has been campaigning for years to cut welfare, calls this “the dependency trap”. Starving people by taking away their food stamps is supposed to “incentivize individuals to better themselves and transition from dependency to work and self-reliance”. Continue reading… More

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      Donald Trump is pursuing regime change – in Europe | Jonathan Freedland

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      The US made it clear this week that it plans to help the parties of the European far right gain power. Keir Starmer and his fellow leaders have to face this new realityWhen are we going to get the message? I joked a few months back that, when it comes to Donald Trump, Europe needs to learn from Sex and the City’s Miranda Hobbes and realise that “He’s just not that into you”. After this past week, it’s clear that understates the problem. Trump’s America is not merely indifferent to Europe – it’s positively hostile to it. That has enormous implications for the continent and for Britain, which too many of our leaders still refuse to face.The depth of US hostility was revealed most explicitly in the new US national security strategy, or NSS, a 29-page document that serves as a formal statement of the foreign policy of the second Trump administration. There is much there to lament, starting with the sceptical quote marks that appear around the sole reference to “climate change”, but the most striking passages are those that take aim at Europe.Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading… More

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      ‘They attacked my religion, my faith’: Muslim photojournalist detained by ICE speaks out

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      Ya’akub Vijandre, held in ICE detention in Georgia, tells Guardian he is concerned for safety of family and friendsYa’akub Vijandre, a Muslim photojournalist, martial arts teacher and first responder who ICE detained in October for posting on social media, told the Guardian that the government is “attacking my faith” and that he was “concerned about the safety” of his family and friends.Speaking in his first interview from Georgia’s Folkston detention center, the 38-year-old said guards treat detainees “like animals”, yelling at them when they don’t understand English. One guard responded to his request to use the bathroom during a visit to the detention center’s library by telling him, “just piss on yourself”. Continue reading… More

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      ‘There’s power in numbers’: New Yorkers are banding together to protect street vendors from ICE

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      With ICE targeting vendors and fear rising, community groups are organising fast to keep New Yorkers working on the streets safeOn a December day when temperatures dipped below 20 degrees, Street Vendor Project staff walked along a busy commercial street in the Bronx, handing out “know your rights” information to vendors selling fruits and vegetables. Several vendors mentioned they were scared after watching videos of immigration raids across the city.“We used to go around helping vendors apply for permits so they wouldn’t get fined,” said Eric Nava-Pérez, Street Vendor Project’s Spanish-speaking member organizer. “But now, we’re out here distributing immigration rights information.” Continue reading… More

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      By the numbers: the latest ICE and CBP data on arrests, detentions and deportations in the US

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      The Guardian US reviewed figures from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection since Trump’s inaugurationDonald Trump campaigned on a platform of mass deportation. Since he took office, his administration has reshaped immigration enforcement across the country. The Guardian US, using data published every two weeks by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), is tracking the number of people the administration has arrested, detained and deported. Continue reading… More