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    What is temporary protected status and who is affected by Trump’s crackdown?

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    Millions of people live legally in the United States under various forms of temporary legal protection. Many have been targeted in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.The latest move has been against people who have what’s known as “temporary protected status” (TPS), which grants people the right to stay in the US legally due to extraordinary circumstances in one’s home country such as war or environmental catastrophe.The Trump administration has in recent weeks announced its plan to end TPS for Haitians, Venezuelans, Afghans and Cameroonians. The move may force more than 9,000 Afghan refugees to move back to the country now ruled by the Taliban. The administration also is ending the designation for roughly half a million Haitians in August.Here’s what to know about TPS and some other temporary protections for immigrants:What is temporary protected status?Temporary protected status allows people already living in the United States to stay and work legally for up to 18 months if their homelands are unsafe because of civil unrest or natural disasters.The Biden administration dramatically expanded the designation. It covers people from more than a dozen countries, though the largest numbers come from Venezuela and Haiti.The status does not put immigrants on a long-term path to citizenship and can be repeatedly renewed. Critics say renewal has become effectively automatic for many immigrants, no matter what is happening in their home countries. According to the American Immigration Council, ending TPS designations would lead to a significant economic loss for the US. The non-profit found that TPS households in the country earned more than $10bn in total income in 2021, and paid nearly $1.3bn in federal taxes.What is the latest supreme court ruling on Venezuelans?On Monday, the supreme court allowed the administration to end protections that had allowed some 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants to remain in the United States.Many Venezuelans were first granted TPS in 2021 by the Biden administration, allowing those who were already in the US to apply for protection from deportation and gain work authorization. Then, in 2023, the Biden administration issued an additional TPS designation for Venezuelans, and in January – just before Trump took office – extended those protections through October 2026.The Trump administration officials had ordered TPS to expire for those Venezuelans in April. The supreme court’s decision lifted a federal judge’s ruling that had paused the administration’s plans, meaning TPS holders are now at risk of losing their protections and could face deportation.What other forms of legal protection are under attack?More than 500,000 people from what are sometimes called the CHNV countries – Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela – live in the US under the legal tool known as humanitarian parole, which allows people to enter the US temporarily, on the basis that they have an urgent humanitarian need like a medical emergency. This category, however, is also under threat by the Trump administration.In late March, the Trump administration announced plans to terminate humanitarian parole for approximately 530,000 Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Cubans and Haitians. In April, a federal judge issued a temporary order barring the elimination of the humanitarian parole program.But last week, the administration took the issue to the supreme court, asking it to allow it to end parole for immigrants from those four countries. The emergency appeal said a lower-court order had wrongly encroached on the authority of the Department of Homeland Security.US administrations – both Republican and Democratic – have used parole for decades for people unable to use regular immigration channels, whether because of time pressure or bad relations between their country and the US.The case now returns to the lower courts. For the California-based federal court, the next hearing is on 29 May. For the Massachusetts case, no hearings are scheduled and attorneys are working on a briefing for the motion to dismiss filed by the government, according to WGBH, a member station of National Public Radio in Massachusetts. The appeals court hearing will be the week of 11 July. More

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

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

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

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

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      The desperate search for a father disappeared by Trump to El Salvador: ‘We don’t know anything’

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      The last time Joregelis Barrios heard from her brother Jerce, the call had lasted just one minute.Immigration officials had moved Jerce from the detention center in southern California where he had been for six months to another one in Texas. He sounded worried, as if he had been crying. He told his sister he might be transferred somewhere else soon.No one has heard from him since.Within hours of that call, Jerce was forced on a plane to El Salvador and booked into the country’s most notorious prison: the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (Cecot). He was one of more than 260 men that Donald Trump’s administration had accused of terrorism and gang membership. His sister thought she recognized him in the videos shared by the Salvadorian government, among the crowd of deportees with shaved heads and white prison uniforms, being frogmarched to their cells by guards in ski masks. Then CBS News published a leaked list of the deportees’ names, confirming her worst worries.“It was a shock,” said Joregelis. “Jerce has always avoided trouble.”Jerce, a 36-year-old professional soccer player and father of two, had come to the US last year to seek asylum, after fleeing political violence and repression in Venezuela.An immigration hearing to review his case was scheduled for 17 April, just weeks after he was abruptly exiled to El Salvador.“He was so optimistic, up till the last day we spoke,” said Mariyin Araujo, Jerce’s ex-partner and the co-parent of his two daughters, Isabella and six-year-old Carla.“He believed the laws there in the US were the best, that it would all work out soon,” she said. “How far did that get him?”Barrios was flown to Cecot on 15 March. For the past two months, his family has been obsessively scanning news updates and social media posts for any sign that he is still alive and healthy. They have been closely monitoring the court cases challenging Trump’s invocation of the wartime powers of the Alien Enemies Act against the Venezuela-based gang known as Tren de Aragua, to exile immigrants – most of whom have no criminal history – to one of the most notorious prisons in the world. And they have been wondering what, if anything, they can do for Jerce.In Machiques, a small town near Venezuela’s border with Colombia, locals have painted a mural in Jerce’s honor. His old soccer club, Perijaneros FC, started a campaign demanding his release – and children from the local soccer school held a prayer circle for him. “We have created TikToks about him, we have organized protests, we held vigils,” said Araujo.“We have looked for so many ways to be his voice at this moment, when he is unable to speak,” she said.But as the weeks pass, she said, she is increasingly unsure what more she can do. The Trump administration has doubled down on its right to send immigrants to Cecot, despite a federal judge’s order barring it from doing so.To justify these extraordinary deportations, both Trump and El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, have publicly insisted that the men sent to Cecot are the worst of the worst gang members. To mark Trump’s first 100 days in office, his Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a list of “Noteworthy individuals deported or prevented from entering the US” – and characterized Jerce as “a member of the vicious Tren de Aragua gang” who “has tattoos that are consistent with those indicating membership” in the gang.Jerce’s family and lawyer say the only evidence DHS has shared so far is that he has a tattoo on his arm of a soccer ball with a crown on top – a tribute to his favorite soccer team, Real Madrid. His other tattoos include the names of his parents, siblings and daughters.“My brother is not a criminal,” Joregelis said. “They took him away without any proof. They took him because he’s Venezuelan, because he had tattoos, and because he is Black.”She’s still haunted by the strange sense of finality in his last call. He had asked after his daughters, and whether his Isabella had been eating well. “I told him she had just had some plátano,” Jorgelis said. “And then he said to me: ‘I love you.’ He said to tell our mom to take care.”Araujo has struggled to explain to her daughters why their father hasn’t been calling them regularly. She lives in Mexico City with Carla, her six-year-old. Isabella, three, is in Venezuela with Jorgelis.Carla, especially, has started asking a lot of questions. “Recently, she said to me: ‘Mom, Dad hasn’t called me, Mom. Could it be that he no longer loves me?’” Araujo said. “So I had to tell her a little bit about what had happened.”Now Carla cries constantly, Araujo said. She misses her father, she misses his scrambled eggs, she misses watching him play soccer. She keeps asking if he is being treated well in detention, if he is eating well. “It’s too difficult,” Araujo said. “From a young age, kids learn that if you do something bad, you go to jail. And now she keeps asking how come her dad is in jail, he’s not a bad person. And I don’t know how to explain. I don’t know how to tell her there is no logical explanation.”Jerce had been in detention of some sort ever since he set foot inside the US.Last year, he had used the now defunct CBP One app to request an appointment with immigration officials at the border. After more than four months of waiting in Mexico, agents determined that he had a credible case for asylum – but decided to detain him in a maximum-security detention center in San Ysidro, California, while he awaited his hearing.“Jerce didn’t tell us much about what it was like there, because he didn’t want us to worry,” said Jorgelis. “The only thing he did say was, why did he have to be Black? I believe he faced a lot of racism there.”When he first arrived at the border, immigration officials had alleged he might be a gang member based on his tattoos and on social media posts in which he was making the hand gesture commonly used to signify “I love you” in sign language, or “rock and roll”.His lawyer, Linette Tobin, submitted evidence proving that he had no criminal record in Venezuela, and that his hand gesture was benign. She also obtained a declaration from his tattoo artists affirming that his ink was a tribute to the Spanish soccer team and not to a gang. Officials agreed to move him out of maximum security shortly thereafter, in the fall of last year. “I thought that was a tacit admission, an acknowledgement that he’s not a gang member,” Tobin said.When officials moved him to a detention center in Texas, Tobin worried that transfer would complicate his asylum proceedings. Since she is based in California, she wasn’t sure whether she’d be able to continue to represent him in Texas.Jerce had been worried when Tobin last spoke to him on the phone, in March, but she had reassured him that he still had a strong case for asylum. Now, the US government has petitioned to dismiss Jerce’s asylum case, she said, “on the basis that – would you believe it – he’s not here in the US”.“I mean, he’d love to be here if he could!” she said.Other than ensuring that his case remains open, Tobin said she’s not sure what more she can do for her client. After the ACLU sued Donald Trump over his unilateral use of the Alien Enemies Act to remove alleged members from the US without legal process, the supreme court ruled that detainees subject to deportation must be given an opportunity to challenge their removals.But the highest court’s ruling leaves uncertain what people like Jerce, who are already stuck in Salvadorian prison, are supposed to do now. As that case moves forward, Tobin hopes the ACLU will be able to successfully challenge all the deportations.But in a separate case over the expulsion of Kilmar Ábrego García, whom the administration admitted was sent to Cecot in error, the supreme court asked the administration to facilitate Ábrego García’s return to the US – and the administration said it couldn’t, and wouldn’t.In his last calls with his family, Jerce told them he’d be out of detention soon – that it would all be better soon. Once he was granted asylum, he said, he would try to join a soccer league in the US and start earning some money. He had promised Carla he’d buy her a TV soon.Now, Araujo said: “I don’t even know if he is alive. We don’t know anything. The last thing we saw was a video of them, and after that video many speculations, but nothing is certain.” More

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      We can’t just be against Trump. It’s time for a bold, progressive populism | Robert Reich

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      Demonstrations against Donald Trump Trump are getting larger and louder. Good. This is absolutely essential.But at some point we’ll need to demonstrate not just against the president but also for the United States we want.Trump’s regressive populism – cruel, bigoted, tyrannical – must be met by a bold progressive populism that strengthens democracy and shares the wealth.We can’t simply return to the path we were on before Trump. Even then, big money was taking over our democracy and siphoning off most of the economy’s gains.Two of the country’s most respected political scientists – professors Martin Gilens of Princeton and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University – analyzed 1,799 policy issues decided between 1981 and 2002. They found that “the preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”Instead, lawmakers responded to the demands of wealthy individuals (typically corporate executives and Wall Street moguls) and big corporations – those with the most lobbying prowess and deepest pockets to bankroll campaigns. And “when a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites or with organized interests, they generally lose.”Notably, Gilens and Page’s research data was gathered before the supreme court opened the floodgates to big money in Citizens United. After that, the voices of typical Americans were entirely drowned.In the election cycle of 2016, which first delivered the White House to Trump, the richest 100th of 1% of Americans accounted for a record-breaking 40% of all campaign donations. (By contrast, in 1980, the top 0.01% accounted for only 15% of all contributions.)The direction we were heading was unsustainable. Even before Trump’s first regime, trust in every major institution of society was plummeting – including Congress, the courts, corporations, Wall Street, universities, the legal establishment and the media.The entire system seemed rigged for the benefit of the establishment – and in many ways it was.The typical family’s inflation-adjusted income had barely risen for decades. Most of the economy’s gains had gone to the top.Wall Street got bailed out when its gambling addiction caused it humongous losses but homeowners who were underwater did not. Nor did people who lost their jobs and savings. And not a single top Wall Street executive went to jail.A populist – anti-establishment – revolution was inevitable. But it didn’t have to be a tyrannical one. It didn’t have to be regressive populism.Instead of putting the blame where it belonged – on big corporations, Wall Street and the billionaire class – Trump has blamed immigrants, the “deep state”, socialists, “coastal elites”, transgender people, “DEI” and “woke”.How has Trump gotten away with this while giving the super-rich large tax benefits and regulatory relief and surrounding himself (especially in his second term) with a record number of billionaires, including the richest person in the world?Largely because Democratic leaders – with the notable exceptions of Bernie Sanders (who is actually an independent), AOC and a handful of others – could not, and still cannot, bring themselves to enunciate a progressive version of populism that puts the blame squarely where it belongs.Too many have been eating from the same campaign buffet as the Republicans and dare not criticize the hands that feed them.This has left Trump’s regressive populism as the only version of anti-establishment politics available to Americans. It’s a tragedy. Anti-establishment fury remains at the heart of our politics, and for good reason.What would progressive populism entail?Strengthening democracy by busting up big corporations. Stopping Wall Street’s gambling (eg replicating the Glass-Steagall Act). Getting big money out of politics, even if this requires amending the constitution. Requiring big corporations to share their profits with their average workers. Strengthening unions. And raising taxes on the super-wealthy to finance a universal basic income, Medicare for all, and paid family leave.Hopefully, demonstrations against Trump’s regressive, tyrannical populism will continue to grow.But we must also be demonstrating for a better future beyond Trump – one that strengthens democracy and works on behalf of all Americans rather than a privileged few.

      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More

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      US supreme court allows Trump trans military ban to take effect

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      The Trump administration can begin to enforce a ban on transgender troops serving in the military while a challenge to the policy plays out in the courts, the supreme court ruled on Tuesday, a significant decision that could lead to the discharge of thousands of military members.The court’s order was unsigned and gave no explanation for its reasoning, which is typical of decisions the justices reach on an emergency basis. The court’s three liberal members – Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – all noted their dissent from the decision.Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, which represented challengers in the case, called the decision “a devastating blow to transgender servicemembers”.“By allowing this discriminatory ban to take effect while our challenge continues, the Court has temporarily sanctioned a policy that has nothing to do with military readiness and everything to do with prejudice,” the groups said in a statement. “Transgender individuals meet the same standards and demonstrate the same values as all who serve. We remain steadfast in our belief that this ban violates constitutional guarantees of equal protection and will ultimately be struck down.”Immediately after coming into office, Donald Trump rescinded an executive order from the Biden administration that allowed transgender people to serve openly in the military. On 27 January, the president issued a second executive order that said transgender people couldn’t serve in the military.“It is the policy of the United States Government to establish high standards for troop readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity,” the order said. “This policy is inconsistent with the medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria. This policy is also inconsistent with shifting pronoun usage or use of pronouns that inaccurately reflect an individual’s sex.” The defense department began implementing the ban at the end of February.A defense department estimate from earlier this year said there were 4,240 people in the military with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria – roughly 0.2 % of the 2 million people currently serving.Seven transgender servicemembers and one transgender person who would like to join the military challenged the ban. Lawyers for the lead platiniff, navy pilot Emily Shilling, said the military had spent $20m on her training, according to SCOTUSBlog.Several lower courts had halted the ban. The case before the supreme court involved a ruling from US district court judge Benjamin Settle, who blocked the ban in March.“The government’s arguments are not persuasive, and it is not an especially close question on this record,” Settle, an appointee of George W Bush, wrote at the time. “The government’s unrelenting reliance on deference to military judgment is unjustified in the absence of any evidence supporting ‘the military’s’ new judgment reflected in the Military Ban.”Another judge, Ana Reyes, of the US district court in Washington DC, also blocked the ban, saying it was “soaked with animus and dripping with pretext”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Trump administration asked the supreme court to intervene last month. “The district court issued a universal injunction usurping the Executive Branch’s authority to determine who may serve in the Nation’s armed forces,” John Sauer, the US solicitor general, wrote in a brief to the court.Trump’s ban is broader than a similar policy enacted during his first term. The previous policy allowed those who had come out before the ban to continue to serve in the military. The more recent policy affects nearly all active serving transgender members.Pausing the order, Shilling’s lawyers said, would “upend the status quo by allowing the government to immediately begin discharging thousands of transgender servicemembers … thereby ending distinguished careers and gouging holes in military units”.A majority of Americans support allowing transgender people to serve in the military, according to a February Gallup poll. However, there is a sharp partisan split. While 84% of Democrats favor such a policy, only 23% of Republicans do. More

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      Does Nayib Bukele’s campaign against democracy give a blueprint for Trump?

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      “I have no doubt the government are watching,” said Ingrid Escobar, an activist lawyer who has proved a thorn in the side of El Salvador’s authorities. “There are cars that follow me – I have them identified.”Since president Nayib Bukele launched a sweeping crackdown on gangs, Escobar has advocated for the tens of thousands locked up without due process. She points to a photo of Geovanni Aguirre, a childhood friend and trade unionist who worked in San Salvador’s mayor’s office. He disappeared into the prison system in 2022.“The threat is real,” said Escobar. “There are activists and unionists in prison. There are others with arrest orders out for them. Yes, we are afraid.”This is the dark side of the “Bukele model”, which extols an ultra hardline approach to crime spearheaded by a populist leader – but also entails an assault on civil society and democratic institutions, and the accumulation of near absolute power. All with soaring approval ratings.It has made Bukele, 43, the envy of populist authoritarians worldwide, including many in and around the Trump administration. “President Nayib Bukele saved El Salvador,” TV host Tucker Carlson gushed after interviewing him. “He may have the blueprint for saving the world.”But El Salvador’s embattled civil society and independent press – the only counterweights to Bukele’s power that remain – warn the regime may yet take a still darker turn.View image in fullscreen“Bukele still benefits from his popularity, but El Salvador could go the way of Nicaragua, where public opinion has swung against the regime,” said Pedro Cabezas, an environmental defender. “And then it comes down to military control.”Fears that Donald Trump might take cues from Bukele spiked last month when he deported more than 200 migrants to Cecot, El Salvador’s mega-prison, and then defied the supremecourt when it ordered that his administration “facilitate” the return of one of them, Kilmar Ábrego García.For Salvadorians, this was reminiscent of Bukele’s actions back in 2020, when he defied a supreme court ruling to stop detaining people for violating quarantine during the pandemic.Some now see this is a turning point.Over the following years Bukele went on to march the army into the legislature to intimidate lawmakers; fire judges who opposed him; modify the electoral system in his favour; and start a state of exception, suspending Salvadorian’s constitutional rights, which shows no sign of ending.Bukele followed the authoritarian playbook – with great success. Last year Salvadorians voted to give him an unconstitutional second consecutive term.All of this has to be seen in the context of what life was like under the MS-13 and Barrio 18 gangs, said Amparo Marroquín, a professor at the Central American University. “The levels of violence were brutal, especially in the poorer neighbourhoods. It paralysed the social life of the country.”By locking up 85,000 people without due process, many of whom likely have nothing to do with the gangs, Bukele provided a brutal solution. The gangs’ territorial control was broken, homicides fell, and many Salvadorians enjoyed a kind of freedom they had not experienced for years.On the outskirts of San Salvador, one taxi driver pointed to the side of the road. “The gangs dumped bodies here like it was nothing,” he said. “Sometimes in pieces, over hundreds of metres.”“It used to be that every time you left home you ran the risk of being robbed or even killed,” he said. “The president changed that.”Bukele has ridden this wave of relief, with approval ratings consistently around 80% – even if this figure masks an undercurrent of fear.“Around the same number say they would be afraid to express an opinion that was not aligned with the president,” said Noah Bullock, executive director of Cristosal, a human rights organisation. “And nobody in this country has any doubt that the government can do whatever it wants to whoever it wants.”One veteran of El Salvador’s civil war, who asked not to be named, said he lost a teenage son to a gang shooting in 2010, and that he had been happy to see the gangs brought low.View image in fullscreen“But now the soldiers bother us. I don’t feel safe, I don’t know how to explain it,” he said, searching for the words. “It’s like there are more gangsters with credentials in their hands.”Now the only counterweights to Bukele’s power that remain are civil society organisations and the independent press – and he is turning the screws on both.Bukele has portrayed both as political enemies working against him and the Salvadorian people, and the message has been faithfully amplified by his media machine.“Bukele is like an antenna,” said Cabezas, the environmental defender. “Then there are the repeater antennae: the ministries, the legislative, all the institutions of the state. And then comes the army of trolls.”At the same time, Bukele pressures civil society through regulations, audits and exemplary persecution, such as in the case of five environmental defenders who were at the forefront of El Salvador’s campaign to ban metal mining – which Bukele recently overturned.“These leaders are known at the national and even international level,” said Cabezas. “Now, imagine you are someone who doesn’t have that kind of profile, and you see the state persecuting them. You’d wonder what they would do to you.”Cristosal found that 86% of civil society organisations in El Salvador now self-censor to avoid reprisals.Meanwhile journalists are subject to harassment and targeted with spyware.“It has become normalised for security forces to demand journalists’ phones in the streets, to threaten them with arrest, or even hold them for a time,” said Sergio Arauz, president of El Salvador’s association of journalists.Trump’s freezing of USAID, which supported 11 media outlets in El Salvador, and various civil society organisations, was a gift to Bukele.View image in fullscreenYet the government stops short of all-out repression – and journalists continue to produce damaging investigations into corruption and the negotiations Bukele’s government held with the gangs.“I think Bukele understands that there is an international cost if he attacks journalists too much, and the question is whether he is willing to pay that cost,” said Marroquín.“When you cross that line, there is no going back,” added Marroquín.When Bukele was in the Oval Office last month, denying that he could return the wrongly deported Ábrego García, Trump was sat next to him, visibly admiring the spin and aggressive handling of the press.“Sometimes they say that we imprisoned thousands,” said Bukele, as he defended his mass incarceration spree. “I like to say that we actually liberated millions.”Trump smiled and asked: “Who gave him that line? Do you think I can use that?”To what extent Trump wants to emulate the “Bukele model” is an open question, but it’s far from clear Bukele’s methods would work in the US, which both lacks a social crisis of the gravity of El Salvador’s gangs and still has a range of formal checks on Trump’s power, from the independent judiciary to the federal system.“American democracy is more resilient – but Americans should not take it for granted,” said Juan Pappier of Human Rights Watch. “Bukele managed to destroy the Salvadoran democracy in two or three years. And putting institutions back to together is a daunting task.” More

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      ‘A ruthless agenda’: charting 100 days of Trump’s onslaught on the environment

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      Donald Trump has never been mistaken for an environmentalist, having long called the climate crisis a “giant hoax” and repeatedly lauding the supposed virtues of fossil fuels.But the US president’s onslaught upon the natural world in this administration’s first 100 days has surprised even those who closely charted his first term, in which he rolled back environmental rules and tore the US from the Paris climate agreement.This time, the mantra “drill, baby, drill” has been used to justify a hyperactive series of actions to reverse rules designed to protect clean air and water, open up vast tracts of land, ocean and even the seabed to mining, fire federal scientists en masse and downgrade the federal response to the disasters that stem from a warming world.Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is attempting to roll back toxic regulations that were calculated to save an estimated 200,000 Americans’ lives in the years ahead, his Department of the Interior is looking to shrink national monuments and his scientific agencies are degrading the basic data collection required for climate assessments and even weather forecasts.This burst of activity faces a barrage of legal action, with the courts already taking a dim view of the administration’s attempts to skirt usual practice in its haste to deregulate. Even with a rightwing-dominated supreme court, many of these executive orders are expected to founder.However, the US must accelerate efforts to cut emissions if climate goals are to be met, half of Americans still have to endure unsafe air and endangered species and public lands face pressure from a changing climate. The next few years will see little remedy to these growing problems from the White House.“The pace of announcements may slow at some point but the pressure on our regulatory system and our democracy will not only continue, but ramp up,” said Michael Burger, a climate law expert at Columbia University.“The result will be fewer environmental protections and more people suffering the public health consequences of more pollution. It’s that straightforward.” Oliver MilmanHistoric rollbacks of environmental regulations What has the administration done:

      Taken more than 140 actions to roll back environmental rules and push for greater use of fossil fuels.

      Set about rewriting regulations that limit pollution from cars, trucks and power plants.

      Officially reconsidering whether greenhouse gases actually cause harm to public health.

      Legally targeted states that have their own laws on tackling the climate crisis.

      Speeded up environmental reviews of drilling projects, from years to just a few weeks.

      Winding back water efficiency standards for showers and toilets and halting a phase-out of plastic straws
      View image in fullscreenAnalysis and reaction: When campaigning for president, Donald Trump promised to torch environmental regulations if fossil fuel companies were able to donate enough money to propel him to the White House. He has set about fulfilling this pledge in dizzying fashion.By the Guardian’s count, Trump’s administration has taken more than 140 actions to weaken or rescind environmental rules and to escalate the use of fossil fuels in his first 100 days – more than all of the rollbacks of his entire first term.The drumbeat of this effort, largely via a blizzard of executive orders and agency memos, to eviscerate rules designed to protect Americans’ air, water and a livable climate, has been relentless. “What we’ve seen in this first 100 days is unprecedented – the deregulatory ambition of this administration is mind-blowing,” said Burger of Columbia University.In a single day in March, Trump’s EPA launched 31 different actions to refashion pollution laws for cars, trucks and power plants and even re-evaluate whether greenhouse gases harm public health – a key finding that underpins US climate laws. It was a “dagger to the heart of the climate religion”, according to Lee Zeldin, the EPA administrator.Zeldin has repeatedly touted the EPA’s record during the first 100 days, with the agency publishing a list of 100 environmental actions, including the cleanup of toxic waste and the testing of chemicals.But the administration has also sought to ease restrictions upon coal plants dumping their toxic ash and mercury and to scale back a plan to prevent states from wafting their pollution to their neighbors. Consideration of the climate crisis has been removed from federal spending decisions and disaster recovery, pipeline safety standards are to be relaxed and environmental permit approvals speeded up from years to just weeks.Places of refuge for nature and carbon storage, such as oceans and national forests, will be opened up for the extraction of fish and timber while endangered species laws are set to be upended and, if the administration gets its way, essentially neutered.Not content with the reorientation of the federal government’s response to the climate crisis, Trump has ordered his Department of Justice to target states that have their own climate laws. He has also ordered the expiration of environment and energy regulations across 25 different laws, usually a responsibility of Congress.Trump has even used the power of his office to attend to his own fixations around shower water pressure, which he considers too weak, and paper straws, which he dislikes compared with the plastic alternative. “There doesn’t seem to be any strategy to this but I feel like I have policy whiplash,” said Gina McCarthy, who was Joe Biden’s top climate adviser.“We see an administration that doesn’t care about these things and is all about the whims of President Trump. Executive orders are not laws, though, and we spend a great deal of time focusing on them when most of them are highly illegal and won’t go anywhere.” Oliver MilmanTrump’s ‘drill, baby, drill’ agendaWhat the administration has done:

      Trump signed executive orders to ease restrictions on fossil fuel extraction and exports, pledging to “unleash American energy”.

      He tapped fossil fuel-supporting appointees to head up crucial federal agencies, including Chris Wright, a former fracking CEO, for energy secretary; Doug Burgum, former Republican governor of North Dakota – the third largest oil and natural gas producer in the country – to lead the interior department (DOI); and Lee Zeldin, a former Republican congressperson to head the EPA.

      Trump offered the fossil fuel industry – which lavished record levels of donations on him and Congress – an exemption from the tariffs he presented in April (and which he placed on pause shortly thereafter).
      Analysis and reaction: Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of the youth-led environmental justice group Sunrise Movement said: “Donald Trump’s actions on climate are part of a ruthless agenda to prop up big oil and reward the billionaires bankrolling his campaigns. Big oil’s bribe paid off.”Trump’s loyalty to the fossil fuel industry has not, however, shielded fossil fuel companies from the fallout of his erratic policymaking. The domestic oil industry is currently facing the some of the lowest prices for crude it has seen in years. The Dow Jones’s US Oil and Gas Index, which tracks 42 fossil fuel companies, plummeted by more than 15% since Trump announced the tariffs on 2 April, sinking to its lowest level since 2022, before a slow, partial rebound.View image in fullscreenMeanwhile, Trump’s tariffs have already begun driving up the costs of oil production, with new taxes on steel and aluminum inflating the costs of building fossil fuel infrastructure. And his calls to “drill, baby, drill” have raised concerns about oil demand, since an increase in supply could push down prices, thereby limiting profit.Though the oil industry has publicly praised Trump, they have quietly showed they are anxious about the economic implications of his policies. In a recent anonymized survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, for instance, fossil fuel executives brazenly criticized Trump. “The administration’s chaos is a disaster for the commodity markets,” one oil boss said. “‘Drill, baby, drill’ is nothing short of a myth and populist rallying cry. Tariff policy is impossible for us to predict and doesn’t have a clear goal. We want more stability.”At a major Texas oil and gas conference in May, fossil fuel top brass echoed these criticisms.Though the Trump administration has not ended the chaos created by its policies, it has given big oil other gifts. In recent weeks, for instance, Trump signed an executive order instructing the Department of Justice to “stop the enforcement” of state climate laws forcing polluting companies to pay for climate damages, and also targeting dozens of lawsuits that accuse big oil of intentionally covering up the climate risks of their products. Dharna NoorHollowing out agencies including Noaa, Fema and DOIWhat has the administration done

      Sweeping cuts to federal agencies on the forefront of the climate crisis, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), the DOI and the Department of Agriculture (USDA), and widespread firings of climate scientists and regulation experts.

      Withdrawal from contracts and canceled grant funding; datasets pulled from public-facing websites; funding for regional climate centers suspended.

      National Climate Assessment contract canceled; hundreds of experts dismissed.

      Executive order to expedite deep-sea mining for minerals.

      Plans to dismantle a key Fema disaster preparedness program.

      Weather balloon launches stopped due to staff shortages.

      Censorship of climate-related words, flagged in studies, contracts and agency documents/websites.

      Plans to drain funding for climate, weather and ocean laboratories.
      Analysis and reaction: Trump wasted no time before he unleashed an all-out assault on environmental science, gutting the federal agencies positioned on the frontlines of the climate crisis, firing hundreds of researchers, staffers and forecasters and pulling public access to critical resources and data.Vital work to understand, prepare and respond to changes caused by global heating has slowed or stopped as teams try to navigate the chaos, while the threat of more severe budget cuts and political crackdowns lingers. The moves largely bypassed input or oversight from Congress as Trump used executive orders and actions undertaken by the billionaire Elon Musk-led “department of government efficiency”, even on budget issues typically governed by the legislative branch.View image in fullscreenThousands of federal workers were culled from the ranks across the country’s premier scientific agencies – including at Noaa and Nasa – and in roles across the government that typically facilitate regulatory process or research. Many of those fired were probationary employees, a classification applied to the first year, or sometimes two, in a position.The widespread firings were challenged in court, forcing the administration to rehire workers and put them on administrative leave, only to fire them again when legally in the clear. In the end, at least 121,000 federal workers were fired, leaving significant holes in their wake.Thousands more workers have opted to take offers of early retirement or voluntary separations. At Noaa alone, roughly 27,000 years of collective experience was lost, according to Craig McLean, the former director of Noaa research.“We lost our promising new talent in the probationary firings and now we’ve lost our institutional knowledge,” a Noaa employee said of the resignations, asking for anonymity out of fear of retribution.While the losses are expected to have a profound effect on the American public, the impact will be felt globally too.Among the hundreds of positions lost were workers who track El Niño-La Niña weather patterns around the world, people who model severe storm risks, and scientists contributing to global understanding of what could happen as the world warms.“I want to emphasize that this blunt smashing of federal agencies is limiting the ability of our nation to respond not only now, but in the future,” said Dr Gretchen Goldman, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “It’s dismantling the very infrastructure by which we collect data, foster expertise and collaboration, and have the people and processes in place to take action.”Already, the staff shortages have hampered data collection and field offices have had to stop deploying tools that gather essential intel.“The effects may not be obvious until there is a major tornado outbreak, or a hurricane landfall downwind, that doesn’t go so well,” said climate scientist Daniel Swain, who spoke about the gravity of this issue during a recent broadcast on YouTube. But, he said, the actions taken in the first 100 days were just the beginning.“What we have seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg,” he said, noting recently leaked budget documents that outline the president’s plans to continue gutting climate science-focused federal work. If the administration has its way, he said, “it would probably spell the end of most publicly funded climate research in the United States”. Gabrielle CanonPublic lands targetedWhat has the administration done

      Rescinded protections for hundreds of millions of acres of federal waters.

      Initiated major changes to National Environmental Policy Act (Nepa) regulations that require federal projects consider environmental impacts and enable public oversight/comment, severely reducing the often years-long environmental impact process to 28 days.

      Ordered the end of American Climate Corps jobs that create climate and public lands-supporting positions.

      Plans to fast-track controversial deep-sea mining and accelerating approvals for mining, drilling, and fossil fuels extraction on public lands..

      Proposed rolling back protections in the Endangered Species Act.

      Plans to rescind Bureau of Land Management rules that protect millions of acres in Alaska and across the US west; planned repeal of BLM Public Lands Rule.

      Emergency situation determination issued by the USDA to open logging on more than 100m acres of national forests and an executive orders to increase and accelerate logging on federal lands. And revoked a Biden order that protected old-growth forests.

      Joint taskforce between DOI and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to examine federal lands for housing development as the administration pushes for the sell-off of public lands.
      Analysis and reaction: Trump may be one of the very few Americans who doesn’t cherish the country’s public lands. Voter support for these roughly 640m acres – forests and deserts, parks and monuments among them – is stalwart and one of the few issues bridged by an otherwise vast political divide.But even with broad popularity and a rapidly escalating interest in outdoor recreation that’s fueled both local economies and international tourism, the administration has made it a priority to shrink land management agencies, reduce protections once governed by them and possibly even diminish the holdings of lands under federal jurisdiction.View image in fullscreenThousands of employees were fired or took deals to leave, and agencies are struggling to hire seasonal employees who typically run operations during the busiest seasons. Still, more cuts are being planned as Trump seeks to reshape the federal government. Reports found the Department of Interior has plans to cull roughly 25% of its workforce, and employees at the US Forest Service are bracing for a broad reduction in force that has yet to be detailed. The National Park Service alone has suffered a 13% reduction in staff already.Sweeping firings left behind gaping holes in an already short-staffed workforce at parks and forests, leaving some departments with workforce levels typically seen during government shutdowns according to some experts.Toilets, trash and overgrown trails may become a common feature in highly trafficked areas, along with increasing risks of trampled conservation areas, a lack of capacity for the study of threatened plants and animals, and lost support that ensures safety measures are followed. Visitation has surged in recent years, adding new strains on ageing infrastructure and more opportunities for injuries and wildlife conflicts, as dangers from extreme conditions fueled by the climate crisis continue to mount.“Scientists who should be doing their job tracking the wildlife and the ecosystems in these parks, are being told they have to take restroom cleaning shifts,” said Aaron Weiss, the deputy director for the Center for Western Priorities. “That’s incredibly important in parks,” he added, “but we shouldn’t be assigning those jobs to scientists because Doge has fired all the custodial staff.”It’s not just about recreation, though. The administration has also made moves to open the country’s holdings of conservation areas, protected habitats and wilderness to extraction and development. There have been a series of orders from the administration that call for increased logging, fossil fuels leases, and mining as Trump pushes for expanding industry access.Ben Vizzachero, a federal worker who initially lost his job during the federal firing spree but who was later brought into his position said the outlook still remained bleak for US public lands. “The Trump administration is waging a campaign of bullying and harassment, trying to shrink the federal workforce by any means,” he said, noting that removing regulators and regulations will “open lands for mining, logging, drilling, and other destruction”.These sweeping changes and the threats to public lands come as they continue to be widely supported and cherished by the American people. “The fight to protect our public lands is embedded within the fight for our democracy itself.” Gabrielle CanonCancelling environmental justice schemes, and hitting US farmers What has the administration done

      Trump immediately rescinded a slew of executive orders that directed federal agencies to prioritize tackling environmental racism and other injustices – including one dating back more than 30 years.

      A separate executive order focused on ending government-sponsored diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and so-called “illegal DEI” efforts in the private sector also targeted environmental justice by wrongly conflating the two. This called for the closures of all environmental justice offices and positions in the federal government – including the office of environmental justice and external civil rights which was created to support EPA efforts to help improve access to clean water, air and land in communities disproportionately affected by environmental pollution, as well as enforce federal civil rights laws.

      Mass layoffs in the EPA, USDA and health and human services department which will disproportionately hit access to adequate, clean and affordable food, water, air and energy for low-income and rural communities.

      Freezing the Biden-era Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund – more than $20bn of competitive grants available to states, cities, tribes and other eligible groups to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution, particularly in areas most affected by climate crisis and excluded from mainstream finance.

      Terminating climate and conservation grants to US farmers including the Biden-era five-year $3.2bn real-life study into the effectiveness of conservation practices such as cover cropping for commodity farms.
      View image in fullscreenAnalysis and reaction: From day one of Trump 2.0, the president has revealed his intention to willfully conflate environmental justice – efforts to acknowledge and correct decades of harm caused by placing polluting factories, landfills, fossil fuel infrastructure and highways in low-income and Indigenous people and communities of color – with what he and his allies believe to be woke, anti-white DEI policies that proliferated in response to the BLM movement.Citing Trump’s crusade against DEI, the justice department terminated a two-year investigation into a petrochemical plant in LePlace, Louisiana, accused of emitting extraordinarily high levels of the cancer-causing chemical chloroprene into the majority Black community. Then, in an unprecedented move, his justice department terminated a 2023 landmark settlement with the state of Alabama requiring health authorities to provide the majority-Black Lowndes county with basic sewage and sanitation services – which an earlier investigation found had been denied for decades due to environmental racism. Several other consent decrees involving egregious polluters are feared to be under threat.Not to be outdone, Robert F Kennedy Jr, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), dismantled the office and fired the entire staff at the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (Liheap). States were still waiting for about $380m to be disbursed this year, when the bipartisan program that helps low-income Americans struggling to pay energy bills so they don’t die from the extreme heat or cold was disbanded. In a leaked HHS budget for 2026 seen by the Guardian, Liheap was terminated – which unless revived will increase heat and cold deaths in the richest country in the world.The $20bn Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, and the portal, has been frozen on and off since February, causing chaos and uncertainty for recipients as this makes its way through the courts. The money was appropriated by Congress through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and finalized before the election, and it is widely agreed (outside Trump world) that the fund cannot legally be cancelled without legislation. The fear is that the Republican-majority Congress will succeed in pushing this through in the continuing resolution for the 2025 budget, which should be passed in May.“The administration is trying to make it so difficult that people will give up, but our quest for environmental justice [has been waged] for 40 years and we will not stop now,” said one veteran environmental justice leader who asked not to be named in fear that his organization, a recipient of the fund, would be targeted. “The climate crisis is real; environmental racism is real. Those are the facts.” Nina LakhaniTearing up US global climate pledgesWhat has the administration done

      Pulled out of the 2015 Paris accords, which the Biden administration rejoined in 2021 – four years after Trump first withdrew the US from the global climate mitigation pact.

      Withdrew the US from the loss and damage fund – a global agreement under which the developed countries most responsible for the climate crisis pledged to partly compensate developing countries for irreversible harms caused by global heating.

      The EPA missed the annual 15 April deadline to submit data on US greenhouse gas emissions to the United Nations – the first time in 30 years.
      Analysis and reaction: The US is currently the second biggest greenhouse gas emitter, so withdrawing from the Paris agreement and its legally binding commitment to reduce emissions will further weaken global efforts to slow global heating – with catastrophic consequences for communities vulnerable to climate shocks in the US and globally. It takes a year for the withdrawal to go into effect, but missing the 15 April emissions reporting deadline, which never happened even during Trump’s first term, has raised suspicion that this administration is willing to violate international rules and could be preparing to exit from the entire UNFCCC.View image in fullscreenAnother major concern is climate finance. As the world’s biggest economy (and worst historical polluter), the US has been a major, albeit inadequate, contributor to global climate funds to help developing countries that are not responsible for global heating in their climate mitigation and adaptation efforts. It has already pulled out of the loss and damage fund, adopted at the Cop28 UN summit in 2023 after years of diplomatic and grassroots advocacy – and despite US efforts to block it. The US has long obstructed progress on global climate action and had pledged a measly $17.5m (£13.5m) to the fund; the cynical move to withdraw from loss and damage efforts – while bolstering fossil fuel production – was widely condemned by the global south.Harjeet Singh, a climate activist and founding director of the India-based Satat Sampada Climate Foundation, said: “As the largest historical emitter, the United States bears a significant share of the blame for the climate adversities affecting vulnerable populations worldwide. The decision by the Trump administration exemplifies a longstanding pattern of obstruction by the US government in securing necessary finance for addressing climate impacts, [and] undermines global efforts to deliver climate justice.” Nina Lakhani More

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      Trump news at a glance: US and Ukraine sign long-awaited minerals deal; Noem doubles down on deportation threat

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      Ukraine and the US have signed a deal pushed by President Donald Trump that will give the US preferential access to Ukrainian mineral resources and fund investment in Ukraine’s reconstruction.The accord establishes a joint investment fund for Ukraine’s reconstruction as Trump tries to secure a peace settlement in Russia’s three-year-old war in Ukraine.After fraught negotiations, which almost collapsed at the last minute, the agreement is central to Kyiv’s efforts to mend ties with Trump and the White House, which frayed after he took office in January.Here are the key stories at a glance:US and Ukraine sign minerals deal after months of negotiationsThe US and Kyiv have signed an agreement to share revenues from the future sale of Ukrainian minerals and rare earths, sealing a deal that Donald Trump has said will provide an economic incentive for the US to continue to invest in Ukraine’s defense and its reconstruction after he brokers a peace deal with Russia.Read the full storyKristi Noem says Ábrego García would be deported if returned to USKristi Noem, the US homeland security secretary, said that if Kilmar Ábrego García was sent back to the US, the Trump administration “would immediately deport him again.” Ábrego García is a Salvadorian man who the Trump administration has admitted was mistakenly deported from Maryland last month. Noem’s comments come as a federal judge again directed the Trump administration to provide information about its efforts so far, if any, to comply with her order to retrieve Ábrego García from an El Salvador prison.Read the full storyTrump officials contacted El Salvador president about Ábrego García, sources sayBehind the scenes, the Trump administration has been in touch directly with the Salvadorian president Nayib Bukele in recent days about the detention of Kilmar Ábrego García, the man wrongly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador, according to two people familiar with the matter.The nature of the discussion and its purpose was not clear because multiple Trump officials have said the administration was not interested in his coming back.Read the full storyTrump pressures journalist to accept doctored photo as realDonald Trump lashed out at an ABC journalist in a tense TV interview to mark 100 days of his second term in office, in which among other confrontations he angrily pushed correspondent Terry Moran to agree with him that a doctored photo was actually real, telling him: “Why don’t you just say yes.”Read the full storyUS economy shrinks in first quarter of Trump 2.0The US economy shrank in the first three months of the year, according to official data, triggering fears of an American recession and a global economic slowdown. Donald Trump, who returned to the White House promising to “make America great again”, sought to blame Joe Biden for the figure.Read the full storyUS supreme court open to religious public charter schoolsThe US supreme court’s conservative majority seemed open to establishing the country’s first public religious charter school as they weighed a case that could have significant ramifications on the separation of church and state.Read the full storyColumbia student freed after federal judge orders releaseMohsen Mahdawi walked out of immigration detention after a federal judge in Vermont ordered his release. The Palestinian green-card holder and student at Columbia University had been detained and ordered deported by the Trump administration on 14 April despite not being charged with a crime.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Detainees at an immigrant detention center in the small city of Anson, Texas, sent the outside world a message as a drone flew by: SOS.

      The US is treading the path followed by democracies that descended into authoritarianism and dictatorship, former ambassadors to countries that underwent autocratic takeovers warned.

      The Trump administration is moving to cancel $1bn in school mental health grants, saying they reflect the priorities of the previous administration.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 29 April 2025. More