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      ‘There was no place for me in American society’: an ex-Black Panther cub speaks out

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      Hello and welcome to The Long Wave. This week, Guardian Documentaries has released a short film about the life and legacy of the Black Panthers with a focus on the group’s children. It was released alongside a Long Read by Ed Pilkington in the US on the wider group. I spoke to one of those cubs in the film, Ericka Abram, about her childhood within the activist community in the 1970s, and how her life was shaped by the experience. But first, the weekly roundup.‘I lived in a protected Panther bubble’View image in fullscreenThe first thing I notice about Ericka is that she is deliberate in her articulation and her responses are meticulously considered. She is also warm and quick-witted, with a flair for a killer line. She will not argue with people online about Donald Trump, she says, because it’s a waste of time to engage with a “bot, a baby or a bigot”.Ericka is the daughter of Elaine Brown, a former chair of the Black Panther party, and Raymond Hewitt, one of its leaders. She spent her early years in Oakland, California, and the Black Panther party she grew up in was not only a political organisation, but also a social one. The cubs lived in dormitories and had their own school. At weekends, they could return to a home where adult members of the party lived together and played an equal role in their care – “comrade moms” is how she describes the women she lived with.Ericka had no idea her childhood was anything out of the ordinary. Even though reporters showed up at their schools, and she had seen her mother and Huey Newton, the co-founder of the Black Panthers, on television, she did not have a sense of how outsiders perceived the party. I ask her if she was aware of the risks involved for her family and the wider network. “It just felt like family,” she says. Despite this, she shares a chilling story about her mother’s bodyguard stopping a seven-year-old Ericka from opening the door of their house and rebuking her, because he was the first person who should walk out, in case someone shoots.The full picture did not start to become clear until she was in high school, years after her mother left the party and took Ericka with her. She recalls someone once telling her: “Your mother is the only woman in US history to lead a paramilitary organisation.” Ericka says it was “strange” to hear her mum being described like that.She recalls a community that was deeply activist but also, perhaps counterintuitively, apolitical. Ericka tells me it often shocks people that she not only had no insights on the internal politics of the Black Panthers, but she had almost no idea what the party actually was. “The Black Panther party and the reasons it existed were unknown to me. [This is] because I wasn’t suffering racism or sexism; I lived in a protected Panther bubble.” The group participated in boycotts with farmworkers, who successfully secured better working conditions and union rights, and Ericka “hated” that party members couldn’t eat grapes and things she thought were delicious. But the boycotts were explained to her in such a way that she grasped that there were overlords who needed to be forced to play fair. She says from an early age she understood capitalism as synonymous with greed.View image in fullscreenLeaving that bubble was a sharp adjustment. When Ericka was eight her mother left the party and moved to Los Angeles, and the experience of attending a non-Black Panther school for the first time was full of conflict. “I had fights frequently – arguments with my teachers – most of it was about injustice. One teacher put me out of class because I said Australia was founded by prisoners and bigots or something like that. I was in seventh grade.” Another time she was ejected from class for sitting quietly during the pledge of allegiance. “I might not have understood the values that were raising me, but as soon as I was removed from them I needed them most,” she says.I ask how she adjusted to living in the mainstream. Her answer is unequivocal: “There was no place for me in American society.” That might have led to her finding refuge in drugs, says Ericka, who started using cocaine when she was 15. “I was trying to medicate a pain I didn’t understand. And living a life I hadn’t any intention of living.” As a child, she had assumed she would one day become a Black Panther. When that life did not come to pass, a profound sense of effacement took hold. “I developed this idea that unless I die for the people, my life was worthless,” she says. Growing up in an organisation with such a clear purpose raised the hurdle so high that one may as well not try to scale it. That’s what comes “from being raised by people who knew what they were willing to die for”, she says.I suggest that she is describing a sort of nihilism and erasure. Well, yes, is her answer. Ericka has always believed that individuals do not matter. “We were raised to believe we were precious – but we were precious for a purpose. I went to school with a kid called Bullet. I mean, there’s no pressure there.” Ericka says at times she felt she did not live up to expectations. As a teenager “I felt I had failed my mother,” she admits casually. I stop her. Why? “Because when we left [the Black Panther party] there was nothing to protect us from America. I thought I could protect her but I didn’t understand what that meant.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWith such a legacy, I wonder if she harbours any resentment towards her mother, or indeed that generation of Black Panther parents, for not preparing their children for life outside the party? “No,” she says, before I finish the question. “I didn’t feel resentment. But I remember I was about to start my sophomore year when Huey Newton was killed. I felt so alone. And I realised that I wasn’t mourning his death but that, even at the age of 19, some part of me thought that as long as he was alive, someone would still come and tell me what to do.” As she holds back tears, there is such plaintiveness and loss in her voice. For a moment, she is again that 19-year-old faced with figuring life out on her own.And it feels as if she has. Ericka’s sense of failure has been replaced by an understanding that what the Black Panthers signed up to was something exceptional. She refuses to call herself a cub, because a cub grows up to be a Panther. And she is not that. “They really did promise their lives to an ideal,” she says.The values she grew up with are serving her well during a tumultuous time in US political history. “I know that I see the world in a unique way,” Ericka says when I ask how the Black Panthers shaped her life. She understands now that the difference between “activists and revolutionaries is what you are willing to risk” – and that without solidarity, nothing can be achieved. The Black Panthers were not just seeking racial equality but interconnection between all who are suffering the depredations of state and capital. There is in Ericka a clear understanding that what it takes to stabilise politics in a country roiled by a second Trump administration is a combination of empathy but also resolve – action guided by love.The Black Panther Cubs: When the Revolution Doesn’t Come is out now. For more on this story read Ed Pilkington’s in-depth essay, here. And for an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the Guardian’s latest films as they release, sign up here to the Guardian Documentaries newsletter.To receive the complete version of The Long Wave in your inbox every Wednesday, please subscribe here. More

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      For the sake of US democracy, it’s time for Chuck Schumer to step down | Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin

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      In just two months, Donald Trump has launched an assault of staggering ferocity on America’s values, laws and people. The Democratic party faces a choice: does it lead the fight against authoritarianism and billionaire capture, or does it hunker down and hope the president implodes on his own? After last week’s legislative debacle, we’ve concluded that if Democrats want to fight, they need to replace the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, with someone who understands the stakes.Since November, our grassroots movement, Indivisible – led by regular people organizing nationwide – has been fighting back. Indivisible groups have pushed members of Congress, attended town halls, protested Elon Musk, and organized locally against Trump’s agenda. Everywhere we go – red, blue or purple – people ask why Democratic leadership doesn’t share their urgency.For months, we urged Senate Democratic leadership to use every tool at their disposal to fight back and raise the alarm. We asked them to stay unified against Trump’s nominees – a cabinet of billionaires and extremists who openly flout the law. We asked them to organize against Maga bills such as the Laken Riley Act, which expands Trump’s mass deportation powers. We asked them to use every procedural tool to halt business as usual. All too often the response has been: “We’re in the minority, we don’t have the votes.”This argument collapsed with the passage of a funding bill packed with Maga priorities. The funding bill required 60 votes to pass, giving Democrats rare leverage. They could have demanded safeguards against Musk’s raid of the government or at least stopped Republicans from making things worse. This was perhaps their only real chance to take a stand this year.Under Hakeem Jeffries’ leadership, House Democrats overwhelmingly united to oppose the bill, forcing the House speaker, Mike Johnson, to pass it with Republican votes. Then it reached the US Senate, where Schumer initially vowed to block it – but reversed course within 24 hours and gave Republicans the votes they needed.This was bad policy and worse politics. History shows that the party demanding new concessions in a funding fight loses public support – and Republicans were the ones making demands. Republican leaders and Trump himself were openly thrilled with Schumer. House Democrats felt betrayed. Nancy Pelosi, a master legislative strategist, put it bluntly: “I myself don’t give away anything for nothing. I think that’s what happened.”Schumer’s defense was that avoiding a shutdown would prevent further damage and stop Trump’s rise. But those with the most at stake disagreed. Litigators fighting Trump’s legal battles said passing the continuing resolution hurt their cases more than a shutdown. The federal employees’ union acknowledged that while a shutdown would be painful, a blank check for Trump to continue his rampage was worse. Yes, a shutdown would be an opportunity for Trump to wreak havoc on federal agencies – but he is doing precisely that already while all the lights are on. From the Center for American Progress to House Democrats to Never Trumpers, a broad coalition agreed: Democrats needed to take a stand.Even if one accepted Schumer’s rationale, his lack of strategy was indefensible. He knew for months this would be the Democrats’ only leverage point. There was no excuse for entering the week without a plan or for undercutting House Democrats after they took a tough vote.The real reason for Schumer’s surrender was a mystery until this week. In an interview with Chris Hayes following the backlash, he was asked if we were facing a constitutional crisis. His response: “We’re not there yet.”It was a stunning admission. The problem isn’t just Schumer’s strategy – it’s his perception of reality. He is conducting business as usual while the country burns.After the Senate Democratic collapse, we called an emergency meeting with over 1,300 Indivisible leaders across the country. The reaction was near-universal: shock, despair and rage. Our leaders – who are holding “empty chair” town halls to pressure Republican lawmakers hiding from constituents – couldn’t understand why Schumer wouldn’t fight as hard as they are. They felt betrayed. Ultimately, 91% of local leaders across blue, red and purple states voted for Indivisible to call on Schumer to step down.We made this call in sorrow, not anger. We’ve worked closely with Schumer over the years. We appreciate his achievements. We like him personally. But the events of the last four months have made painfully clear that the Democratic party is not going to climb out of this hole by relying on the same people who led us into it. We need a leader who understands we’re in an emergency and acts like it. We need our leaders to match the fervor of the people rising up in defense of America.That leader can emerge if we create the opening. Schumer’s fate is no longer in his hands. The Democratic senators who can demand a new leadership election answer to us – their constituents. They will act if we speak up. We get the party we demand – and for the sake of our democracy, we must demand more.

      Leah Greenberg is the co-executive director of Indivisible

      Ezra Levin is the co-executive director of Indivisible More

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      How to protect your phone and data privacy at the US border

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      Welcome to Opt Out, a semi-regular column in which we help you navigate your online privacy and show you how to say no to surveillance. The last column covered what to do with your 23andMe account after the company filed bankruptcy. If you’d like to skip to a section about a particular tip, click the “Jump to” menu at the top of this article.If you’re a visa or green card holder with plans to travel to the US, reports of people being turned away at airports over messages found on their devices might be prompting you to second-guess your travel plans. You might be asking whether Customs and Border Protection (CBP) can search your phone, whether you can opt out and what you should do to minimize your risks.The short answer is that yes, CBP can search your devices. Constitutional protections are generally weaker at US borders, including airports. You can try to opt out, but depending on your specific circumstances, you might not be willing to risk the potential ramifications of not complying, which can include the confiscation of your devices.Privacy experts say everyone should conduct a personal risk assessment – which should include your immigration status, travel history and what data you might have on your phone. There’s not a one-size-fits all solution because data that may seem sensitive to some may not be to others, depending on your circumstances. That assessment might affect your calculus of whether to push back if CBP attempts to search your phone, for instance, or how much you want to lock down your devices before heading to the airport.While CBP said it only searched about 47,000 devices of the 420 million people who crossed the US border in 2024, experts the Guardian spoke to say border enforcement has been unpredictable under the Trump administration, so figuring out whether you’re at risk of a device search is not as straightforward as it once was. French officials said a French scientist was recently turned away at an airport in Texas because immigration officers found texts that were critical of Trump on his phone.“The super-conservative perspective is to assume they are completely unhinged and that even the most benign reasons for travel are going to subject non-citizens to these device searches,” said Sophia Cope, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a non-profit digital rights group.If you’re a US citizen, you must be admitted into the country. That said, some jurisdictions allow CBP to work with the FBI or local police to advance domestic investigations, so there are still some risks of your devices being searched for domestic reasons.There are steps you can take to make it harder for CBP officers to access your device and the data on it. So what should you do to protect the data on your phone from being searched? The main thing is to prepare ahead of heading to the airport. Here is what you should be thinking about:Decide if you will comply with a phone searchBefore you travel, start to prepare for the possibility of being pulled into secondary screening. First, you should decide if you’re going to comply if an immigration officer asks if they can search your device. They may ask for your phone password or for you to unlock the device. Ideally, you would unlock the device yourself and not share your password. You can decide not to give your consent, but that does come with its own risks.From a guide to the border from the EFF: “This presents a no-win dilemma. If a traveler complies, then the agents can scrutinize and copy their sensitive digital information. If a traveler declines, then the agents can seize their devices and subject the traveler to additional questioning and detention.”It’s possible that, if you refuse the search, the officer might decide that you are not worth the trouble because you do not present a high risk. They might let you go. On the flip side, though, declining could make the process longer or could result in border agents confiscating your device. If they do confiscate your device, make sure you ask for a property receipt so you can document that they have your device when you try to get it back. Even if you don’t give up your password, immigration officials can use various tools on your device to unlock it themselves. They can also try to guess your password, so make sure you have a strong and long password.There are a lot of reasons you might not want to risk being held back longer than you already have been or risk having your device confiscated – including that you don’t know how long border agents will keep your phone.If you plan to comply with a phone search to avoid any further complications, your phone might be searched either manually or with forensic tools. It is worthwhile to prepare for both types of searches.Turn your phone and Face ID off before entering the USThe EFF recommends turning your devices completely off before entering the US. This could return your phone or laptop to a heightened security state and, as a result, could make it harder for anyone to break the encryption on your device.Privacy advocates also recommend making sure your device requires a password to decrypt or unlock. If you use Face ID or a fingerprint to unlock your phone, for instance, it would be easier for an officer to use it to gain access to your device.Do not wipe your phoneYou might think the most protective options are to completely wipe your phone before traveling, use a burner or travel without a phone. But the EFF’s Cope said that could actually raise suspicions.“People are damned if they do and damned if they don’t,” Cope said. “If you cross the border with no data on your device, that itself can be seen as suspicious.”Instead, if you want to seem cooperative but do have data or texts stored on your phone that you wouldn’t want to be accessed, Cope suggests deleting that information selectively rather than wiping your whole device.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionEncrypt your data and use a strong passwordThe most important step to take before you travel is to encrypt the data on your device, which is different than using encrypted messaging services like Signal. Device encryption can make it harder for CBP officers to access files on your phone or laptop or recover deleted files, even if they confiscate the device and subject it to sophisticated forensic tools.Fortunately, all recent models of both iPhones and most Android phones come with full-device encryption automatically turned on. On an Android, double check that yours is on in the “advanced settings” tab of your “Security” menu. You will want to choose a strong password that is not easy to guess so CBP can’t walk in the front door to your device. Here’s a good primer on how to make a strong password.“This encryption is only as good as the encryption passphrase someone uses on their device, though,” said EFF senior staff technologist Bill Budington. “So the best advice is to choose a strong, nine- to 12-random-character (or four- to five-word) passphrase for the device, and make sure that biometric unlocks like Face ID or Touch ID are turned off when going through sensitive areas like checkpoints or somewhere your device could be confiscated.”Laptops, on the other hand, do not all come with full-device encryption. You can use the encryption tools some of them offer to encrypt your data. MacOS has a tool called FileVault, which you can access by searching for it in the top right corner of your screen, and some Windows computers come with a tool called Bitlocker, which can be used to encrypt your device. The EFF has a full list of tools you can use on various operating systems here.For those of you traveling with a device owned by your employer or someone else, you will want to make sure to have a conversation with them before you travel to ensure your device is sufficiently protected.How to securely delete your dataIn addition to encrypting your devices, you should delete any specific texts, apps, photos, etc that you feel are sensitive or you wouldn’t want a government agent to see.Securely deleting this data requires a few steps and comes with limitations. If you are not wiping your phone entirely, as that may raise suspicions, you will probably opt to delete specific files. That more practical option may be effective for a manual or cursory search but may not be sufficient in the event of a more advanced search by US immigration personnel. Files may not be fully deleted, or there may be references to these files that remain on your device.On top of ensuring your device is encrypted, you will want to make sure that you’ve deleted your files from any trash folders as well. On iMessage, for instance, if you click on “filters” in the top left corner you’ll find a “recently deleted” folder. Make sure you’ve cleared texts from there as well. On iPhones, once a file is deleted from both the main iMessage interface and the “recently deleted” file, it is permanently deleted, according to the company.Cope suggests pre-emptively deleting some apps your don’t want to be searched. This protective method is imperfect because an advanced search could reveal that an app was installed, but it would be a way to avoid having your WhatsApp messages searched, for instance, in the case of a manual search.Move things on to a cloud storage serverDuring law enforcement searches inside the boundaries of the US, a cloud storage server is not more protected than your devices. At the border, however, there are currently policies in place that prohibit CBP from searching online cloud services. In practice, that means that immigration officers will have to put your phone in airplane mode before searching it.“They do specifically say officers are only authorized to look at data that are ‘resident on the device’,” Cope said. “So that is data that is actually on the hard drive of your phone, laptop or camera. They’re supposed to disconnect it from the internet, if it’s an internet-connected device.”If you have data that you don’t want to or can’t delete permanently for any reason, you can delete it off your device and store it on your cloud storage like iCloud, Google Drive or Microsoft One Drive.This is a high-level guide that may not touch on the specifics of your situation. For a full comprehensive guide on how to protect your devices at US borders, please visit the Electronic Frontier Foundation. More

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      ‘A capitalistic cowardice’: big law firms being threatened by Trump face pressure to speak out

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      Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting law firms and attorneys who challenge his priorities are roiling the legal community, with some capitulating to the administration’s demands amid mounting pressure on the US’s biggest firms to speak out.The president signed an executive order on Tuesday targeting the firm Jenner & Block over its previous employment of Andrew Weissmann, a prosecutor who worked on Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump’s connections to Russia. The order came after Trump issued similar executive orders targeting three other firms – Covington and Burling, Perkins Coie, and Paul Weiss – over their representation of his political rivals.Those orders have threatened to cripple the firms by revoking the security clearances of their lawyers, ending access to government buildings and forcing clients who do business with the government to disclose if they are represented by the firm. Trump also issued a separate executive order on Friday directing US attorney general Pam Bondi to investigate lawyers taking actions to block the administration’s priorities.Scholars and experts say there is little doubt that Trump’s executive orders are a thinly-veiled effort to intimidate lawyers who might otherwise challenge the administration. The actions undermine a key element of the American democratic system by limiting the ability of potential adversaries to access the judicial system, one of the most powerful checks on executive power.Trump got a huge boost last week when the firm Paul Weiss accepted demands from Trump in exchange for withdrawing the executive order targeting the firm. The White House was gleeful at that result and the administration reportedly already has a list of other firms it may subject to similar treatment.“Paul Weiss’s deal emboldened him to ratchet up his attack on one of the strongest checks on his power: lawyers and the rule of law,” David Perez, a partner at Perkins Coie, wrote in a post on Sunday on LinkedIn. “Now more than ever law firms and lawyers across the political spectrum have to stand up for our timeless values.” Perkins Coie is suing the administration over the order and won a temporary restraining order blocking it.US district judge Beryl Howell said during a hearing in the Perkins Coie suit that the order “sends little chills down my spine” and wrote in her ruling “such a circumstance threatens the very foundation of our legal system”.Trump’s intimidation campaign may be working. There has been no unified response from the country’s biggest and most well-known law firms. “We waited for firms to support us in the wake of the President’s executive order targeting Paul Weiss,” Brad Karp, the firm’s chair, wrote in an email to employees on Sunday. “Disappointingly, far from support, we learned that certain other firms were seeking to exploit our vulnerabilities by aggressively soliciting our clients and recruiting our attorneys.”Former Biden administration officials are having trouble finding lawyers to represent them, the Washington Post reported. And civil rights and non-profit lawyers, who traditionally get pro bono assistance from major firms, say there is a general wariness from big law firms on challenging the administration. And when firms do help, they want to keep it quiet and don’t want their names on publicly filed court documents.Some firms also appear to be revising their web pages that detail their pro bono work. The firm Davis Polk, for example, appears to have recently removed references to racial justice and immigration from the pro bono page on its website, according to a Guardian review of an archived version of the page. As of 17 March, the firm’s pro-bono page included the statement: “We are proud to have a large team of full-time pro bono lawyers, with members focusing on litigation, corporate and transactional, racial justice, and humanitarian immigration matters.” Today, it no longer exists.Davis Polk did not immediately return a request for comment on the changes.The law firms’ fears are well founded. Elon Musk, a top Trump adviser, has already suggested targeting the firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom because of its pro bono work representing a Georgia man who was falsely accused of voter fraud in the film 2,000 Mules. The conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza, who made the movie, apologized to Andrews last year, but nonetheless recommended targeting Skadden.“Skadden Arps is the firm engaged in systematic lawfare against ‘2000 Mules.’ They have an army of 17 attorneys working pro-bono against me. I have 2 lawyers. The Left’s game is to ruin us through protracted, costly litigation,” he wrote on Twitter/X. Musk reposted the comment and said “Skadden this needs to stop now.”The law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson is said to be organizing an amicus brief joined by several other firms in support of Perkins Coie. It is unclear, however, which firms will sign it and when it will be filed.Some firms are also beginning to speak out separately.“Our liberties depend on lawyers’ willingness to represent unpopular people and causes, including in matters adverse to the Federal Government,” Keker, Van Nest & Peters Partnership, a San Francisco-based firm, said in a statement on Saturday. “An attack on lawyers who perform this work is inexcusable and despicable. Our profession owes every client zealous legal representation without fear of retribution, regardless of their political affiliation or ability to pay.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPaul Weiss has faced significant backlash after reaching an agreement with Trump to rescind the executive order. The agreement came days after Perkins Coie successfully got a court order blocking the executive order that targeted it.More than 140 alumni of Paul Weiss signed a letter to the law firm’s chair on Monday condemning the agreement the law firm reached with Trump last week and said it was complicit in “what is perhaps the gravest threat to the independence of the legal profession since at least the days of Senator Joseph McCarthy”.“The very independence of lawyers and the legal profession is at stake. We are therefore profoundly saddened, and deeply outraged, that the firm in which we heretofore took pride has cowardly allowed itself to become instead a poster child for the administration’s efforts to silence dissent and impose a loyalty test on attorneys,” they wrote in the letter.Rachel Cohen, an associate at Skadden, resigned after the Paul Weiss agreement became public. She had organized an open letter signed by hundreds of lawyers urging major law firms to do more. Her resignation letter calling out Skadden for not doing more went viral.“It’s a capitalistic cowardice,” she said. “It is fear for the bottom line of firms that already clear billions and billions of dollars a year in revenue.”Deepak Gupta, a Washington-based appellate lawyer noted that the settlement itself also threatened to harm the firm’s reputation. “Would you want to be represented by a law firm that can’t even stand up for itself? a law firm that might sell you out to the federal government to save its own skin?,” he wrote in a post on the social media platform Bluesky.In his email to employees on Sunday, Karp defended Paul Weiss’s decision to reach an agreement with the Trump administration. The firm faced an “existential crisis”, he wrote, and the executive order could have “destroyed our firm”. The firm, he said, was guided by two principles in reaching the settlement: the firms’s obligation to its client’s interests and its fiduciary responsibility to its employees.For a firm targeted by one of Trump’s executive orders, the economic consequences can be severe.“Clients perceived our firm as being persona non grata with the Administration. We could prevent the executive order from taking effect, but we couldn’t erase it,” Karp wrote in his email to employees on Sunday. “Clients had told us that they were not going to be able to stay with us, even though they wanted to. It was very likely that our firm would not be able to survive a protracted dispute with the Administration.”In its lawsuit challenging the executive order against it, Perkins Coie also detailed some of the financial toll the firm had taken. Nearly a quarter of the firm’s revenue was at risk – more than $343m in 2024 – because of the executive order, the lawyers wrote. Trump announced the executive order on 6 March and by the time Perkins Coie sued over it five days later, at half a dozen – some who had been with the firm for years – had left the firm.Marc Elias, a prominent Democratic election lawyer who has been targeted by Trump, issued a statement on Saturday that his firm would not negotiate with the White House over who it represented.“President Trump is attempting to dismantle the constitution and attack the rule of law in his obsessive pursuit of retribution against his political opponents. Today’s White House Memo targets not only me and my law firm, but every attorney and law firm who dares to challenge his assault on the rule of law,” his statement said. “President Trump’s goal is clear. He wants lawyers and law firms to capitulate and cower until there is no one left to oppose his Administration in court.” More

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      ‘They tricked us’: migrants who braved the Darién Gap forced home by Trump deal

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      Outside the Lajas Blancas migrant camp in southern Panama, wooden shops are boarded up. A bed of cold ash lies in an iron drum barbecue which once served meat skewers to hungry migrants.Six months ago, hundreds of people would pass through the camp every day, emerging from the jungles of the Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama to receive humanitarian aid, before continuing their journey north towards the US.Now, however, migration through the gap has slowed to a trickle and the footfall is in the opposite direction, as many migrants from South America try to return home.Adriangela Contreras was one of 300,000 migrants to make the perilous crossing in 2024, carrying her two-year-old daughter, Arianna, as she stepped over dead bodies on the trail.She arrived at Lajas Blancas in November amid a crackdown by Panamanian authorities who rolled out barbed wire in the jungle and introduced biometric tests at the border.Under a $6m agreement with the US, hundreds of migrants from Colombia and Ecuador were returned to their home countries on deportation flights.Most Venezuelans were allowed to proceed, however, and Contreras’ group made it as far as southern Mexico, sleeping in the street and selling candies or washing windscreens to earn bus fares. But when on his first day in office Donald Trump shut down the CBP One app used by asylum seekers to request appointments, Contreras felt she had little option but to retrace her steps.“I’m so disappointed, I didn’t [decide to migrate] for myself but for my family,” she said. “Now I just want to go home, it’s been a long and difficult journey.”The shutdown of CBP One and the increased Panamanian controls have all but extinguished the Darién migrant route.In February, crossings were down 96% compared with the previous year. At the end of that month Lajas Blancas – which once regularly sheltered over 3,000 migrants in plywood buildings and tents – held just 485 migrants, 90% of whom had come from the north.So far this year, 4,091 migrants have returned to Panama and the government has struggled to deal with the logistics of this reverse flow.Oscar Ramírez, a 52-year-old Venezuelan, arrived at Lajas Blancas with barely $1 in his pocket. He had sold his truck to follow the “American dream”, but said he was robbed in Mexico City and then held prisoner by people smugglers in a hotel near Monterrey. “The only thing sure about Mexico is that you will be mugged,” he said.When he eventually made it into the US he was arrested by Ice that same morning and detained for three months before being deported to Villahermosa, Mexico, in January.“They tricked us,” he said, “they told us we would be able to get a repatriation flight from Panama.”Many of the migrants, including Contreras, say they were promised that, upon reaching Panama, they would be offered a place on a plane to Cúcuta, a Colombian city on the border with Venezuela.When the flight never materialized, some migrants who could afford it began taking small boats back to Colombia. On 22 February, a boat containing 19 migrants capsized and a nine-year-old Venezuelan girl drowned.Since then, the Panamanian government has introduced a new route, bussing migrants from Lajas Blancas to Miramar, a port on the Caribbean coast, and boarding them on to ferries to La Miel, an isolated village close to the Colombian border.“It was a horrible experience,” said Jessica Álvarez, who had never been on a boat before. “There were times when I thought we were going to turn over, it was really scary. I vomited and my son was really sick, everyone was so seasick.”From La Miel the migrants are sent on small boats to the villages of Capurganá and then Necoclí in Colombian territory. From there many, including Álvarez, have opted to stay with friends or family in Colombian cities.But Contreras and her daughter remain stuck in Necoclí.“When we first arrived they gave us nothing, not a bite to eat, not a mattress, nothing,” she said, speaking by phone from the Colombian port. With the help of some friends she managed to find a space on the floor of a guesthouse, but she is unsure how she will raise the money to return to Venezuela to see her son who recently underwent eye surgery.“I just want to be back with my family. I hope Venezuela has something better in store for me,” she said.The presidents of Panama and Colombia will meet in Panama City on 28 March with migration at the top of the agenda. Humanitarian aid agencies have started to depart Lajas Blancas, which is due to be closed in the coming weeks. Any further migrants arriving through the Darién Gap will be immediately deported to their home country or to Colombia, according to Panama’s ministry of public security.Ramírez had the funds to pay for a bus to Cúcuta and by Wednesday was back with his family in the state of Barinas. Over the phone he said he was happy to be home, even if he no longer had his truck.“Us migrants, we all had the same thing in our heads, the American dream,” he said. “But after the things we lived, I realized it’s just that: a dream.” More

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      in US Politics

      Wednesday briefing: Just how bad was the White House accidentally leaking military plans over Signal?

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      Good morning. Look, it could happen to anyone: I well remember, for example, the time I added my mum to a thread with my siblings discussing what to get her for Christmas. On the other hand, I don’t have a secure communications facility in my house for when I need to get something out on the family group chat. Also, we rarely digress from pictures of cute kids to setting out war plans for an imminent set of airstrikes on the Houthis in Yemen.So perhaps the latest Trump administration hullabaloo isn’t that relatable, after all. Two days after the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg revealed that he had been mystifyingly added to a thread on Signal – an encrypted WhatsApp-like instant messaging app – in which vice-president JD Vance, defence secretary Pete Hegseth, and a host of others chatted about a highly sensitive operation, there are as many questions as answers. How on earth did Goldberg get added in the first place? Why didn’t anybody realise the error? Are White House officials doing this all the time? And how vulnerable are their communications to interception from America’s adversaries?Today’s newsletter explains this absolute dumpster fire of a story, and why it matters. Here are the headlines.Five big stories

      Spring statement | Rachel Reeves will make additional welfare cuts in her spring statement on Wednesday after the Office for Budget Responsibility rejected her estimate of savings from the changes announced last week. The chancellor is expected to announce an additional £500m in benefits cuts to make up part of the £1.6bn shortfall.

      Ukraine | Russia and Ukraine have agreed to “eliminate the use of force” in the Black Sea, though the Kremlin said it was conditional on sanctions relief for its agricultural exports. The warring parties also agreed to implement a previously announced 30-day halt on attacks against energy networks.

      Assisted dying | The introduction of assisted dying in England and Wales is likely to be pushed back by a further two years in a delay that supporters fear could mean the law never comes into force. The delay marks the latest major change to the proposals, which have proven deeply contentious in the Commons and beyond.

      Gaza | Press freedom organisations have condemned the killing of two journalists in Gaza on Monday by the Israeli armed forces. Hossam Shabat, a 23-year-old correspondent for the Al Jazeera Mubasher channel, and Mohammed Mansour, a correspondent for Palestine Today, died in separate targeted airstrikes.

      Society | Non-monogamous people are just as happy in their relationships as those with only one partner but are not “significantly” more sexually satisfied, research suggests. The authors of a new study said their findings challenged what they called a prevailing “one-size-fits-all approach to relationships”.
      In depth: How a journalist got a front row seat to US military planningView image in fullscreen“This is going to require some explaining,” Jeffrey Goldberg writes at the beginning of his Atlantic story about how Pete Hegseth ended up messaging him about an imminent attack on Yemen, and he’s absolutely right.In brief: Goldberg was added to a Signal thread by Michael Waltz, Donald Trump’s national security adviser, who presumably confused his contact with someone else’s. Goldberg was allowed to lurk on the thread for several days as senior officials – here’s a rundown of the dramatis personae – discussed the timing of the strike against the Houthis, fulminated against European “free-loading”, and celebrated the operation’s success with fire emojis. Eventually, Goldberg removed himself, and then wrote a story about it. Since then, all hell has broken loose.Here’s what else you need to know about the significant issues raised by this fiasco – and, as a bonus, the best quote from the fallout so far: “Everyone in the White House can agree on one thing: Mike Waltz is a fucking idiot.” (Donald Trump said he was “doing his best”, but the two aren’t mutually exclusive.)What’s the problem with having national security discussions on Signal?The most glaring issue is the lack of adequate security protocols for discussions about US military operations – even if, hilariously, Hegseth sent a message to the group saying “we are currently clean on OPSEC” while Goldberg was still in it.Such conversations are meant to be held in enclosed areas called sensitive compartmented information facilities, or Scifs, which have reinforced physical defences against eavesdropping, tight controls on access, and shields against electronic surveillance. Many senior government officials have Scifs installed at their homes; failing that, they are meant to use secure government-issued devices. Peter Beaumont has more on what America’s adversaries might have learned.To state the most obvious point: if the discussion had been held under such conditions, a journalist would not have been accidentally added. But even if Goldberg hadn’t been included, significant issues would remain.While the messaging app Signal is a more secure way to exchange messages than ordinary texting, it is a rung below official government communication channels. One aspect of the risk is that it is possible to download messages to a desktop, which lacks the layers of security in the app itself. The Pentagon warned its employees against using Signal last week.It is also possible that the participants were using their own devices. In this Politico piece, a former White House official warns: “Their personal phones are all hackable, and it’s highly likely that foreign intelligence services are sitting on their phones watching them type the shit out.”Is it possible the participants broke the law?By holding sensitive national security discussions on a commercially available app, the participants may well have violated the US espionage act. Kevin Carroll, a national security lawyer, told the Washington Post: “I have defended service members accused of violating the Espionage Act through gross negligence for far, far less. If these people were junior uniformed personnel, they would be court-martialed.”Vance, Hegseth and their colleagues may also have been in breach of federal records law – which mandates that messages about official acts be preserved. Many former officials have said that for that reason, they confined their use of platforms like Signal to bland logistical discussions or as a way to direct others to a more secure channel.That is not what happened here – and because Waltz switched on Signal’s “disappearing messages” function, the discussions might have vanished for ever barring Goldberg’s accidental inclusion. Yesterday, CIA director John Ratcliffe, another participant, claimed that the decisions taken in the group were also formally recorded.What did we learn about the Trump administration’s view of Europe?One thing the leak makes absolutely clear: when Vance expresses his disdain for Europe in public, he isn’t putting it on. Part of the discussion about the timing of a strike against the Houthis was focused on the idea that by protecting a trade route used by European shipping, Washington was giving EU countries a free ride.Vance, who expressed his reluctance to conduct the operation immediately, eventually said: “If you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again.” In reply, Hegseth agreed: “I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC.”The discussion concluded with a suggestion that “we soon make clear” that Europe should contribute to the cost of the operation.In Brussels yesterday, all of that was greeted with weary dismay. “Horrific to see in black and white,” one European diplomat told the BBC. “But hardly surprising.”Are there any awkward historical precedents which the protagonists have expressed strong opinions about?Funny you should ask! After the story broke, CNN put together a montage that showed just some of the times that those involved in the message thread took a stern line on the notorious row over Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while in office.“If it was anyone other than Hillary Clinton, they’d be in jail right now,” Hegseth said on Fox News in 2016. Marco Rubio said in the same year that “nobody is above the law – not even Hillary Clinton.” And Ratcliffe said in 2019 that “mishandling classified information is still a violation of the espionage act”.Later, Trump’s consigliere Stephen Miller tweeted that because of Clinton’s “illegal” behaviour, “foreign adversaries could easily hack classified ops & intel in real time from other side of the globe.” With that uncompromising line, the White House must be hoping Stephen Miller never hears what Stephen Miller’s been up to.The administration steered well clear of addressing that aspect of the story. Hillary Clinton didn’t, though: “You have got to be kidding me,” she wrote on X, along with an eyeballs emoji.How have Trump’s supporters fought back?The White House has admitted the thread “appears to be authentic”. Still, that didn’t stop Hegseth turning to a familiar strategy in response: attack the media.“Nobody was texting war plans,” he said, although Goldberg reported that Hegseth himself texted “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHegseth also sought to discredit Goldberg, among the most eminent journalists in the United States and one with no obvious track record of dishonesty: “You’re talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes.” Later, Trump called him a “total sleazebag”. Waltz, for his part, called him “bottom scum” and suggested he could have got himself added to the group “deliberately” because he “wasn’t on my phone”, a fairly head-scratching claim.All of that aligned closely with the approach taken by presenters on Fox News. Sean Hannity dismissed it as “the state-run legacy media mob” being “obsessed with an accidentally leaked text”.Another Will Cain, found a silver lining: “After years of secrecy and incompetence, if you read the content of these messages, I think you will come away proud that these are the leaders making these decisions in America.”But the idea that there’s nothing to see here doesn’t seem to have landed with everyone. At a hearing before the Senate intelligence committee yesterday, John Ratcliffe and Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence who was also on the thread, faced intense questioning about their roles, and found it tricky to agree on a strategy: immediately after Gabbard refused to confirm her participation in the thread, Ratcliffe confirmed he had done so and said it was permissible.“What you’re saying didn’t make sense,” said Democratic senator Mark Warner. Somewhere in Washington, a Republican was probably sending an eyeroll emoji.What else we’ve been readingView image in fullscreen

      Lorenzo Tondo spoke to witnesses about the brutal assault on Oscar-winning Palestinian director Hamdan Ballal by settlers, who handed him over to the military, bruised and bleeding. The attack on Ballal, who was subsequently detained, “might be their revenge on us for making the movie. It feels like a punishment,” said Basel Adra, another of No Other Land’s directors. Nimo

      The Guardian’s blockbuster invertebrate of the year prize continues with Patrick Barkham singing the praises of the “twerking pollinator with a bum-bag”: it is, of course, the dark-edged bee-fly. Slightly alarmingly, they “use false legs to bumble into a bee burrow and scoff the pollen left for the bee babies”. Archie

      Rashid Khalidi is searing in his response to Columbia University’s “capitulation” with the Trump administration’s sweeping policy changes last week. “Columbia barely merits the name of a university, since its teaching and scholarship on the Middle East, and soon much else, will soon be vetted by a ‘senior vice-provost for inclusive pedagogy’, in reality a senior vice-provost for Israeli propaganda,” he writes. Nimo

      The bleak sight of Conor McGregor visiting the White House on St Patrick’s Day has not gone down well with most people in Ireland, writes Justine McCarthy – but his putative presidential run risks galvanising the country’s “small but vocal minority on the hard right”. Archie

      For those who are mourning the end of Severance (me), Claire Cao has a great antidote: the film Triangle (pictured above) will scratch the “puzzle box” sci-fi plot itch that the Ben Stiller thriller has left. Nimo
      SportView image in fullscreenFootball | Real Madrid are close to completing a deal to sign Trent Alexander-Arnold on a free transfer this summer. The Liverpool right-back has long been a target for the European champions and there is now a widespread expectation that he will join Carlo Ancelotti’s side when his contract expires at the end of the season.Football | David Brooks scored in the sixth minute of injury time to rescue a point for Wales in their World Cup qualifier against North Macedonia. The game had been 0-0 until Bojan Miovski’s goal as normal time expired.Tennis | As Emma Raducanu enjoys her best run of form since her 2021 run to the US Open title, she now comes up against Jessica Pegula in the quarter final of the Miami Open. The match is just reward for her persistence, writes Tumaini Carayol: “to her credit she kept on ­rolling with the punches and showing up.”The front pagesView image in fullscreen“Fears of further tax rises as Reeves promises to ‘secure Britain’s future’” is the splash on the Guardian today, while the Financial Times says “Reeves to leaven grim spring outlook with £2.2bn defence spending boost.” The spring statement is also previewed in the Daily Mail, which has “Don’t shift blame for economy’s woes, voters tell Reeves,” and the Mirror, which runs an interview with Rachel Reeves under the headline “My mission.”“Victims must see ‘sense of justice being served’” is the lead story on the Express, while “Mortal blow to assisted dying Bill” is the focus in the Telegraph. “JD Dunce hates Britain, hates Europe and hates Ukraine…And could be president at any moment,” says the Star, and the Metro: “Trump backs chump.” The Sun covers a row over the pricing of Oasis tickets with the headline “Definitely Shady”.Today in FocusView image in fullscreenThe arrest that plunged Turkey into turmoilProtesters took to streets after President Erdoğan had his rival arrested. What will happen next? Sami Kent and Ruth Michaelson reportCartoon of the day | Rebecca HendinView image in fullscreenThe UpsideA bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all badView image in fullscreenIn Grenada, the persistent issue of sargassum seaweed, which has long plagued the island’s shores, is being reimagined as an opportunity rather than a burden. While the decaying seaweed causes bad smells and disrupts fishing and tourism, innovative solutions are emerging. The Grenadian government, in collaboration with the EU, is exploring ways to turn sargassum into a valuable resource, including clean energy, bioplastics, and fertiliser.Companies such as Seafields are developing methods to farm the seaweed and harness its potential, which could boost the economy. A bioenergy project is already converting sargassum into biogas and organic fertiliser. “They use diesel to generate electricity [now], which is very expensive for the local population. We are providing a reliable, cost-effective and sustainable alternative,” Benjamin Nestorovic, who works for the Grenada-based bioenergy company SarGas, says, adding that the company plans to expand across the Caribbean.Bored at work?And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.

      Quick crossword

      Cryptic crossword

      Wordiply More

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      in US Politics

      Trump news at a glance: Waltz takes fall for Signal blunder as president dismisses security threat

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      Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, said he took full responsibility for a stunning leak of military plans in a Signal chat, while Trump intervened to defend him, saying it was “the only glitch in two months”.“I take full responsibility. I built the group. My job is to make sure everything is coordinated,” Waltz said in an interview with Fox News, in which he conceded: “it’s embarrassing”.The Trump administration has scrambled to contain the fallout since the Atlantic published a story on Monday revealing that its editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, had been inadvertently added to a chat with Waltz and other senior White House officials – including vice-president JD Vance, defense secretary Pete Hegseth and secretary of state Marco Rubio. The group discussed sensitive operational information about planned US airstrikes on Yemen.Mike Waltz claims ‘full responsibility’ for Signal, but can’t explain how it happenedWhen pressed by Fox News’s Laura Ingraham, Waltz accepted responsibility for making the Signal group, though he continued to deflect blame, insulted Goldberg and said he couldn’t explain how the mistake had occurred.“It’s embarrassing, yes. We’re going to get to the bottom of it,” Waltz said, adding that he was consulting with Elon Musk: “We’ve got the best technical minds looking at how this happened.”Read the full storyDemocrats demand answers over ‘careless’ Signal blunderDemocratic senators demanded answers from leaders of the US intelligence community on Tuesday over the Signal breach, arguing that the “sloppy, careless” leak put national security at risk.Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, and CIA director John Ratcliffe appeared before the Senate intelligence committee, in which Democratic senator Michael Bennet lambasted the security lapse as “swampiness”, “incompetence” and “an embarrassment”. Senior intelligence officials will face another round of questioning Wednesday by lawmakers.Read the full storyLeak shows Five Eyes allies must ‘look out for ourselves’, says Mark CarneyCanada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, has said the Signal leak means that allied nations must increasingly “look out for ourselves” as trust frays with a once-close ally. Carney said the intelligence blunder was a “serious, serious issue and all lessons must be taken”. He said it would be critical to see “how people react to those mistakes and how they tighten them up”.Read the full storyPentagon warned staffers against using SignalThe Pentagon recently warned its employees against using Signal, due to a technical vulnerability. According to a Pentagon “OPSEC special bulletin” seen by NPR reporters and sent on 18 March, Russian hacking groups may exploit the vulnerability in Signal to spy on encrypted organizations, potentially targeting “persons of interest”.Read the full storyTrump administration claims details of mass deportations are state secretsThe Trump administration invoked the “state secrets” privilege to avoid providing more information to a federal judge regarding this month’s highly contentious immigrant expulsions to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act.Read the full storyJudge rules Columbia protester can’t be detained as she fights deportationA federal judge in Manhattan blocked immigration officials from detaining Yunseo Chung, a Columbia University student and legal permanent resident the Trump administration is trying to deport for taking part in Gaza solidarity protests.The 21-year-old green card holder, who has lived in the US since she was seven years old, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Monday, arguing the government is “attempting to use immigration enforcement as a bludgeon to suppress speech that they dislike”.Read the full storyTrump signs executive order that will upend US voter registration processesDonald Trump has signed a far-reaching executive order that promises to fundamentally disrupt American voter registration processes, introducing measures so restrictive they could in effect disenfranchise millions of citizens if enacted.Described by Will Scharf, the White House staff secretary, on Tuesday as “the farthest reaching executive action taken” in the nation’s history, the order represents the latest in a long list of assaults against immigration, but also on current voting systems.Read the full storyTrump outburst prompts removal of his ‘distorted’ portraitA portrait of Donald Trump that was commissioned by fellow Republicans – but which he evidently came to believe had been “purposefully distorted” – was removed from a wall at the Colorado state capitol where it had been since 2019.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      The University of Southern California announced an immediate hiring freeze for all staff positions, “with very few critical exceptions” as US universities brace for Trump administration cuts to funding.

      US consumer confidence plunged to the lowest level in more than four years in March, with households fearing a recession in the future and higher inflation because of Trump’s tariffs.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened Monday, 24 March. More

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      Mike Waltz claims ‘full responsibility’ for Signal chat group leaked to journalist

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      Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Waltz, said on Tuesday he takes “full responsibility” for the group chat of senior administration officials that inadvertently included a journalist and leaked highly sensitive information about planned airstrikes in Yemen.Waltz’s comments came one day after Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of the Atlantic, revealed that he was added to a group on Signal, a private messaging app, that included vice-president JD Vance, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, secretary of state Marco Rubio and other high-profile figures discussing “operational details” of planned attacks on the Houthis in Yemen.Goldberg’s account in the Atlantic suggested Waltz had mistakenly invited him to the chat. The prominent journalist remained in the group undetected as the president’s cabinet members discussed policy and coordinated a wave of bombings, an extraordinary breach that critics said put national security at risk.When pressed by Fox News’s Laura Ingraham, Waltz accepted responsibility for making the Signal group, though he continued to deflect blame, insulted Goldberg and said he couldn’t explain how the mistake had occurred.“It’s embarrassing, yes. We’re going to get to the bottom of it,” Waltz said, adding that he was consulting with Elon Musk: “We’ve got the best technical minds looking at how this happened.” When Ingraham asked “what staffer is responsible” for adding Goldberg to the Signal group, Waltz responded: “A staffer wasn’t responsible. I take full responsibility. I built the group. My job is to make sure everything is coordinated.”When the Fox host asked how Goldberg’s number ended up in the group, Waltz responded: “Have you ever had somebody’s contact that shows their name and then you have somebody else’s number there? … Of course I didn’t see this loser in the group. It looked like someone else. Whether he did it deliberately or it happened in some other technical mean is something we’re trying to figure out.”Waltz did not offer any evidence for how Goldberg could have “deliberately” ended up in the group.Earlier in the interview, he said he didn’t know Goldberg or text with him, calling him the “bottom scum of journalists” while criticizing the media for focusing on the controversy.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAlthough Waltz claimed a staffer was not responsible, Trump appeared to make contradictory remarks in a Newsmax interview, saying: “We believe … somebody that was on the line, with permission, somebody that … worked with Mike Waltz at a lower level, had Goldberg’s number or call through the app, and somehow this guy ended up on the call.” It’s unclear what exactly the president was suggesting, since Goldberg was added to a text chat, not a phone call.Trump previously defended Waltz, saying he was a “good man” who “learned a lesson”, and also downplayed the incident, saying the leak was “the only glitch in two months, and it turned out not to be a serious one”.The episode has sparked widespread backlash and ridicule. Mark Warner, vice-chair of the Senate intelligence committee, said on Tuesday the incident was “one more example of the kind of sloppy, careless, incompetent behavior, particularly towards classified information”.On Monday, the minority leader, Chuck Schumer, called it “one of the most stunning breaches of military intelligence I have read about in a very, very long time”, and Delaware senator Chris Coons said every official in the group had “committed a crime – even if accidentally”.Goldberg’s story suggested Waltz’s coordination of a “national-security-related action over Signal, may have violated several provisions of the Espionage Act”, noting that Signal was not approved by the US for sharing classified information. More