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    ‘Nightmare’: family in shock after Ice moves LA teen out of state without their knowledge

    The family of 18-year-old Benjamin Guerrero-Cruz was shocked when they found out that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) had discreetly moved him out of California, according to California congresswoman Luz Rivas, who spoke with his relatives and reviewed federal detention records.Guerrero-Cruz, who was first detained in Van Nuys neighborhood while walking his dog, was transferred late Monday from the Adelanto detention facility in San Bernardino county to a remote holding site in Arizona without any notification given to his family.The next day, Ice prepared to send him to Louisiana, a key hub for deportation flights. At the last moment, however, Guerrero-Cruz was removed from the plane and returned to Adelanto, where he remains in custody, according to Rivas’s office.“The nightmare for him, his family, and thousands in similar situations is not over yet,” Rivas said in a statement. “I will not accept the current reality that ICE shuffles and transfers detainees without notifying their family to inflict psychological pain for all of those involved.“Benjamin and his family deserve answers behind Ice’s inconsistent and chaotic decision-making process, including why Benjamin was initially transferred to Arizona, why he was slated to be transferred to Louisiana afterward, and why his family wasn’t notified of his whereabouts by Ice throughout this process,” the statement continued.Rivas introduced legislation on Tuesday that would require Ice to contact a detainee’s immediate family within 24 hours of a transfer. Current rules only mandate notification in the event of a detainee’s death.According to the Department of Homeland Security, Guerrero-Cruz faces deportation to Chile after overstaying his visa, which obliged him to leave the US by 15 March 2023.The teen was initially arrested on 8 August and held in downtown LA for a week. One of his former teachers, Liz Becerra, visited Guerrero-Cruz at an Ice processing center in Adelanto, an hour and a half north of LA.She said that Guerrero-Cruz spoke about being surrounded by masked men while walking his dog, handed over to federal agents, and then brought to the metropolitan detention center in downtown LA. He was not allowed to shower or brush his teeth for a week, Becerra said.Once he was moved to Adelanto, he said he was being kept in a small cell with about two dozen other men with little access to food and water.This pattern of detainees being shifted between multiple sites reflects a broader practice under what the Trump administration is touting as the largest deportation initiative in US history.An analysis of Ice data by the Guardian found that in June this year, average daily arrests were up 268% compared with June 2024. It also found that, despite Trump’s claims that his administration is seeking out the “worst of the worst”, the majority of people being arrested by Ice now have no criminal convictions.As a result, detention facilities have been increasingly overcrowded, and the US system was over capacity by more than 13,500 people as of July. More

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    Trump administration pulls another $175m from California’s high-speed rail

    The Trump administration is cancelling another $175m in funding for California’s high-speed rail, marking another setback for the state’s much-delayed project.The US transportation department said on Tuesday it was withdrawing funding the $175m for grade separation, over-crossing and design work and to build a high-speed rail station in Madera. The move follows the cancellation earlier this summer of $4bn in federal grants for the state’s ambitious but long-overdue plans.California in July sued to challenge the withdrawal of funding, calling the decision illegal.The funding cuts are another hurdle for the 16-year effort to link Los Angeles and San Francisco by a three-hour train ride, a project that would deliver the fastest passenger rail service in the United States.The rail system, whose first $10bn bond issue was approved by California voters in 2008, has built more than 50 major railway structures, including bridges, overpasses, under-crossings and viaducts, and completed 70 miles (113km) of guideway.The project has also faced numerous delays and spiraling costs, with no section of the railway currently operational and a completion date still years away.The San Francisco-to-Los Angeles route was initially supposed to be finished by 2020 at a cost of $33bn; the projected cost has since risen from $89bn to $128bn, with the start of service along a portion of the line in the Central valley only expected by 2033. On Monday, state lawmakers suggested the project would require a $1bn-per-year investment to continue in light of the federal funding cuts.The move also marks the latest clash between Donald Trump and California’s governor Gavin Newsom – widely viewed as a contender for his party’s 2028 White House nomination. The two leaders have repeatedly clashed since Trump took office over issues ranging from transportation to immigration to transgender rights. Earlier on Tuesday, the transport department threatened to cancel $33m in safety funding for the state after the department said California was not enforcing federal rules requiring truck drivers to be able to speak English.The California High-Speed Rail Authority did not immediately comment, but in July Newsom said termination of the grants amounted to “petty, political retribution, motivated by President Trump’s personal animus toward California and the high-speed rail project, not the facts on the ground”.A previous move by Trump during his first term in 2019 to revoke $929m in federal grants was challenged by the state, leading to a settlement in June 2021 under Joe Biden restoring the full amount. More

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    Trump administration to restore $6.8bn in education funds after multi-state suit

    After a multi-state lawsuit over Donald Trump’s abrupt decision to freeze more than $6.8bn in education funding to US schools, the Trump administration has agreed to restore the funds for a range of educational services, including after school and summer learning, teacher training, and support for English-learners.The administration did not give a clear explanation as to why it had withheld the congressionally-allocated funds, though a spokesperson for the White House Office of Management and Budget had indicated that review found instances of federal education money being “grossly misused to subsidize a radical left-wing agenda”.Following a lawsuit brought by the attorneys general of California and 22 other states, as well as the governors of two states, the administration released some funding. On Monday, California attorney general Rob Bonta announced that the states secured an agreement to have the funding fully restored.“The Trump administration upended school programs across the country when it recklessly withheld vital education funding just weeks before the school year was set to begin,” Bonta said. “Fortunately, after we filed our lawsuit, the Trump Administration backed down and released the funding it had previously withheld … Our kids deserve so much better than what this anti-education administration has to offer, and we will continue to fight to protect them from this president’s relentless attacks.”In their lawsuit, states accused the administration of holding back money illegally, as the US constitution gives congress the rights to appropriate funding, and the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 bars the president from unilaterally withholding funds designated by congress.The delayed funds, which were frozen just weeks before the start of the school year this year, had left many communities and school districts uncertain if they would be able to sustain programs. The withheld funds affected after-school and other programs attended by about 1.4 million children nationwide, according to the nonprofit group Afterschool Alliance. Most of the programs benefit low-income families.The funds also covered programs to retain teachers, especially in low-income school districts.Since taking office, Donald Trump has pushed to reshape public education in the US to fit more closely with his rightwing political and social beliefs.He had repeatedly threatened to withhold federal funds from states over policies allowing transgender athletes to compete in sports. It has also separately threatened or cancelled for sex ed over mentions of transgender people from educational materials.The administration has also pushed states to disqualify immigrant students from discounted in-state tuition reserved for state residents. More

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    New allegations against Smartmatic executive in company’s voting machine contract with LA county

    The justice department is alleging in a new court filing that three Smartmatic executives who were indicted last year on bribery and money-laundering charges transferred money from a 2018 voting machine contract with Los Angeles county into slush funds that were originally set up to pay bribes to election officials in Venezuela and the Philippines between 2012 and 2016 to obtain and retain lucrative election contracts.Prosecutors say one of the executives transferred an undisclosed amount from the $282m LA county contract into the slush funds in 2019 but did not say if anyone actually received bribes from the county’s money at that point. The government is seeking to prove the funds were part of a long pattern of bribing election officials by Smartmatic, the voting machine company, which sued Fox News for defamation after the 2020 election.A separate court filing in a lawsuit brought by Fox News against LA county to obtain records about Smartmatic’s relationship with Dean Logan, LA county’s registrar-recorder and county clerk who oversees elections and the Smartmatic contract, Fox News asserts that Logan may have received inappropriate gifts from the company in the form of business-class travel and upscale restaurant meals. Logan is supposed to report vendor gifts above $50 on annual disclosure forms, but records obtained by Fox News and included in the court filing show he did not report some gifts from Smartmatic. Logan maintains he was not required to report the travel or a meal that Fox highlights in its filing. Fox News is seeking the records from LA county to support its defense against a defamation suit filed against it by Smartmatic in 2021.Last year, prosecutors in Florida filed corruption charges against the president of UK-based Smartmatic, along with two other current and former executives, for allegedly operating a years-long bribery and money-laundering scheme that paid bribes to an election official in the Philippines. The justice department has since said that the scheme involved payments to officials in Venezuela as well, where the company obtained its first elections contract in 2004.US election integrity activists have long been concerned about Smartmatic’s contract with LA county, due to the company’s controversial history, the founders’ ties to Venezuela and a lack of transparency over company ownership. The company first tried to get into the US elections market in 2006, but a federal investigation into its ownership and potential ties to the Venezuelan government at the time put a halt to its US ambitions until it obtained the contract with LA county in 2018. Concerns about the company and its role in US elections increased last year when the justice department indicted its executives.The new revelations about the LA county money raise even more questions about the county’s contract. Prosecutors allege that the Smartmatic executives conspired for years with the owner of Jarltech International, a hardware maker in Taiwan that manufactured voting machines for Smartmatic, to overcharge customers for the systems it built then used the excess money to pay bribes to election officials in the Philippines and Venezuela. Prosecutors do not say if they overcharged LA county as well or if any LA county money actually got paid out in bribes to anyone – only that some of that money made it into slush funds that had been used in the past to pay bribes. The justice department declined to answer questions about the case but said in a court filing that it has documents and witness testimony to support its claims about LA county’s money.Smartmatic itself has not been accused of wrongdoing, only the three executives. But a Smartmatic spokesperson says the justice department allegations are “filled with misrepresentations” and also says the company operates “ethically” and abides “by all laws always, both in Los Angeles county and every jurisdiction where we operate”.The new allegations are not part of charges the justice department brought against the Smartmatic executives. Prosecutors are only asking a Florida court to allow evidence about the LA county money to show a pattern in how the executives managed their alleged bribery and money-laundering scheme.After news of the indictments broke last year, the county barred the three executives from any further association with its Smartmatic contract but did not “debar” the company itself, something it can do if a contractor shows a lack of “business integrity or business honesty”. The county can also terminate a contract if a vendor gives any county officer or employee “improper consideration” in the form of travel, entertainment or tangible gifts to secure favor. But Logan’s office says it stands by its work with the company. With regard to the implication that LA county money that got into the slush funds might have come from overcharging the county, Logan says the county’s contract with Smartmatic uses fixed pricing.“The alleged actions in the federal matter are unrelated to the work performed under contract by Smartmatic for Los Angeles County,” according to a statement sent by Logan in an email. “The County has no knowledge or visibility into how Smartmatic USA used proceeds from that contract; however, the County does validate work performed and deliverable requirements aligned to the fixed price structure of the contract prior to making any payments.”The contract runs through March 2027, but has three, two-year extension options that, if exercised, would stretch the agreement to 2033. It also does allow for changes in pricing up to 10% of the contracted amounts.The three indicted executives include company president and co-founder, Roger Alejandro Piñate Martinez Jr; Jorge Vasquez, former vice-president of hardware development for Smartmatic’s US division; and Elie Moreno, who oversaw the company’s contracts. According to a company bio, Piñate, who goes by Roger Piñate, played a “critical” role in winning the LA county contract and was chief operating officer until becoming president in 2018, the year Smartmatic won the Los Angeles contract.Piñate is a Venezuelan citizen and permanent US resident, and Elie Moreno is a Venezuelan-Israeli. The company put Piñate and Moreno on administrative leave after the announcement of their indictments last year, and currently Ruliena Piñate, Roger’s cousin, oversees Smartmatic’s LA contract with another employee. She was co-president with her cousin before his indictment. Vasquez, a US citizen, left Smartmatic in 2021 in the midst of the justice department investigation. The justice department accuses him of receiving direct kickbacks for his role in the alleged scheme.Controversial beginningsSmartmatic has been dogged by controversy almost since its founding in Florida in 1999 by Piñate and two fellow Venezuelan engineers – Antonio Mugica and Alfredo José Anzola – as a network applications developer.The company shifted to voting machines in 2004 when then-Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez was threatened with a recall referendum. Months before the recall election, Venezuela’s National Electoral Council announced it would replace the country’s six-year-old voting machines with new ones under a $91m contract awarded to Smartmatic, Bizta – a small software firm owned by Mugica and his father – and the state-run telecom CANTV. Smartmatic and Bizta got the contract despite having no experience in voting machines or elections. There were other concerns about the deal as well: the Venezuelan government owned 28% of Bizta through a $200,000 investment in the firm, a close associate of Chávez was on Bizta’s board, and two of the five members of the electoral council denounced the contract, citing irregularity with the bidding process.Chávez survived his recall battle, though not without additional controversy: he and his supporters were accused of rigging the election based on an outcome that differed from an exit poll. However, after an audit of the results, the US-based Carter Center, which monitors overseas elections, supported the outcome, as did the US state department.Riding its success in Venezuela, Smartmatic tried to enter the US elections market in 2006 by using money from the Venezuela contract to buy the California-based Sequoia Voting Systems, whose voting systems were used across the US. The purchase caught the attention of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which launched an investigation into Smartmatic’s ownership and possible ties to the Venezuelan government. But rather than cooperate with the federal inquiry, Smartmatic quickly sold off Sequoia.The company then turned to Europe and other election markets, moving its headquarters to the UK in 2012. It won a contract worth more than $180m to supply the Philippines with more than 90,000 voting machines for its 2016 elections, with Jarltech International on board to manufacture the machines. But the company became embroiled in more controversy almost immediately after the election when Philippine authorities charged the head of Smartmatic’s technical support team and two subordinates with accessing a system on election night used to transmit unofficial results and making an unauthorized change to code. The case was later dismissed.Two years after the Philippines election, Smartmatic won the Los Angeles contract. Smartmatic hoped to parlay this win to expand across the US. But after its machines were used for the first time in the 2020 presidential primary and general election, Donald Trump, who lost the election, falsely accused Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems of manipulating the results to give the election to Joe Biden.These claims were amplified by Fox News and other media outlets sympathetic to Trump, and in 2021, Smartmatic filed a series of defamation lawsuits against media outlets and Trump supporters who they say encouraged and amplified the vote-rigging assertions, including a $2.7bn defamation suit against Fox News. Smartmatic claims Fox News reporting decimated its US business prospects, causing other election jurisdictions to shun it. But Fox News says it simply covered newsworthy claims made by Trump and others.Last year Smartmatic settled a similar suit against Newsmax for $40m and against One America News for an undisclosed sum and seemed to be on path to win or settle the Fox News suit as well until the indictment of its executives. Fox News has used the indictments and alleged bribery scheme to support its defense in the defamation suit, saying in court documents that if the company has had trouble expanding its business in the US, it’s due to these allegations and the company’s troubled history, not Fox News reporting.The chargesProsecutors from the southern district of Florida allege that the three Smartmatic executives and Jarltech owner Andy Wang engaged in a years-long conspiracy to overcharge the Philippines government for voting machines, then used the fraudulently obtained funds to pay more than $1m in kickbacks to Juan Andres Bautista – chair of the Philippine elections commission at the time – to win and retain a contract to supply systems for the 2016 elections there.Jarltech allegedly overcharged the Philippines government $10-$50 per voting machine in “extra” or “rush” fees, amassing about $6m in a slush fund to pay the bribes. Wang allegedly managed the funds in Hong Kong bank accounts, and Smartmatic executives directed the payments, using bogus purchasing agreements, shell companies and banks in Europe, Asia and the US. Bautista passed the money to a family member who then bought a condo in San Francisco, prosecutors say.Wang did not respond to questions from the Guardian.The justice department investigation began after Bautista’s estranged wife told Philippine authorities in 2017 that her husband had $20m in “unexplained wealth” and provided them with 35 passbooks for offshore bank accounts in Bautista’s name. Bautista resigned as chair of the election commission two months later, and in 2023, news broke that the justice department had filed charges against him and was investigating unnamed Smartmatic executives as well.But the scheme didn’t start with the Philippines. Prosecutors say the conspirators had also inflated the cost of voting machines sold to Venezuela to amass $4m for bribes paid to unnamed Venezuelan officials between 2012 and 2014 , showing a pattern of illegal activity. In 2019, prosecutors say Piñate also transferred ownership of an upscale home in Caracas to Tibisay Lucena Ramírez, then president of the Venezuelan National Electoral Council, to secure her assistance with its business interests in that country.A Smartmatic spokesperson calls the house claim “untethered from reality”. She says Smartmatic “ceased all operations in Venezuela in August 2017 after blowing the whistle on the government and has never sought to secure business there again”.In 2017, Smartmatic accused the Venezuelan electoral council and the Nicolás Maduro regime of manipulating voter turnout numbers and election results and ceased business in the country. But prosecutors say Piñate hoped to repair the relationship with Venezuela with Ramírez’s help and gave her the Caracas home as a bribe. Ramírez died in 2023.Los Angeles countyThe federal case against Smartmatic executives and the company’s lawsuit against Fox News have now become intertwined due to the new allegations about the LA county money and questions about whether the executives used bribes to win favor around the county contract. Fox News says in its recent filing against LA county that it “does not yet have evidence that slush fund payments or real estate title transfers were made to any L.A. County official”, but it says that gifts Logan received from the company follow “patterns of misconduct” that prosecutors have alleged occurred in other countries, and that Logan cultivated an unusually close relationship with Smartmatic executives that went “well beyond typical business relationships.”Logan took a nine-day trip to the Maldives and Taiwan in July 2019 that was partially funded by Smartmatic, including business-class air fare, accommodations and meals, according to text messages obtained by Fox News and included in its court filing. The Maldives portion was covered by an organization that invited Logan to speak there, but Smartmatic paid for Logan’s travel to Taiwan. Based on another text message not included in the court filing but seen by the Guardian, Smartmatic played a role in coordinating the conference invitation to Logan as well.Logan’s wife accompanied him on the trip, but the text messages indicate he gave his credit card number to Smartmatic to cover her $5,000 air fare. Logan and his wife tacked on tourist activity to the Taiwan portion of their trip, and it’s not clear how much Smartmatic paid for the entire excursion. Under California Fair Political Practices Commission regulations, gifts to state and local officials from a single source were limited to $500 a year when Logan took the trip. Smartmatic would not say how much it paid for the Taiwan trip, citing ongoing litigation.An LA county spokesperson said in an email that the Taiwan trip was not a gift but a work trip to conduct oversight of the manufacturing process – the trip included a visit to Jarltech, the subcontractor that was making the hardware for LA county’s machines. The spokesperson wrote: “the lead from the County’s VSAP design contractor was also part of the trip, which included detailed reviews and presentations of products that required approval prior to manufacturing, and onsite visits to multiple product and manufacturing assembly plants/operations.”Approval of the manufacturing process was required as part of the contract, he says, and “protocols for notification and approval of the travel were followed and are documented in the responsive records provided [to Fox News]”.Asked why the project manager for the contract, whose job is “inspecting any and all tasks, deliverables, goods, services, or other work provided by or on behalf of the Contractor” didn’t visit the Jarltech facilities instead of Logan, spokesperson Michael Sanchez said that as chief elections official “Logan had and continues to have clear responsibility for ensuring contract compliance.”Fox News disputes that the travel was covered under the contract, noting that the contract only mentions paying travel expenses if county officials are auditing financial records related to Smartmatic’s contract with the county and have to travel outside the county to view the company’s financial records. Sanchez says the paragraph addressing travel expenses “is not limited to the inspection of financial records for a financial audit” but includes travel to “examine … any pertinent transaction, activity, or record” relating to the contract.In addition to the Taiwan travel, Fox News says Smartmatic paid for an unknown number of meals in upscale restaurants for Logan, at least one of which Logan did not report on annual disclosure form in 2022. In a deposition in the lawsuit Fox has filed against LA county to obtain Logan’s records, Logan disputes that he was required to report the meal because he says it was a personal meal with a Smartmatic employee.He also rejects the suggestion that Smartmatic won its contract out of favoritism.“The contract between Los Angeles County and Smartmatic USA was competitively bid, evaluated, and awarded in compliance with the County’s open competitive public procurement processes,” Logan wrote in an email. More

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    ‘No-holds-barred fight’: California’s governor takes off his gloves to punch back at Trump

    In the opening weeks of Donald Trump’s second term, Gavin Newsom wagered that peacemaking was best: a tarmac greeting for Air Force One, an Oval Office visit and a podcast slot for Maga’s biggest names. But then Trump came for California, and its governor dropped the niceties.With a flood of all-caps social media posts, a counterpunching redistricting proposal and a string of lawsuits challenging the new administration, Newsom is not just taking on Trump, he’s stealing his tactics: fight, fight, fight.“We’ve got to wake up, disabuse ourselves as Democrats,” Newsom said on a podcast last week. “I’m sick of being weak. I’m sick of being effete. I’m sick of being non-consequential. It’s not good enough to say it – it’s time to do.”Newsom has charged on to the national stage as a recast political brawler willing to wield power as ruthlessly as the other side. On Thursday, he signed redistricting legislation establishing a special election to ask voters to temporarily redraw the state’s congressional boundaries and give Democrats as many as five additional US House seats in next year’s midterm elections.The ballot measure is a direct attempt to “neuter and neutralize” Texas’s partisan gerrymander, engineered at Trump’s behest, to safeguard Republicans’ fragile House majority. At a bill-signing ceremony on Thursday, Newsom cited the president’s claim that he was “entitled” to five additional congressional seats in the Lone Star state: “That should put chills up your spine.”Now the California referendum transforms an off-cycle election year into a high-stakes national showdown that could determine control of Congress – and set the stage for 2028. For Newsom, who’s term-limited and widely viewed as a presidential contender, the success – or failure – of this 11-week sprint could carry major consequences for his political future.The November special election gives voters in deep-blue California a chance to strike back at Trump, who has relentlessly tormented the state since returning to the White House. But by temporarily overriding California’s independent redistricting commission – long a point of pride in the Golden state – Democrats are being asked to “compromise their own values,” said Kim Nalder, a political science professor at California State University, Sacramento.“That’s been a guiding light for a lot of Democrats – the whole ‘they go low, we go high’ idea,” she said. “One of the risks is that the Democratic party – and Newsom himself – become associated with this all-out brawl, no-holds-barred fighting, rather than having a particular set of political principles that they stand by no matter what.”How Californians will decide remains uncertain. A Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll released on Friday shows 48% of registered voters in the state support Newsom’s redistricting plan, compared with 32% who oppose it. Another 20% are undecided, providing an opening for either campaign to make their pitch.“If Proposition 50 passes, and Californians succeed in adding more House seats, and is partially, if not completely, responsible for flipping the House next year, he’s a hero, plain and simple,” said Bill Whalen, a Hoover Institution fellow who was a speechwriter for Pete Wilson, the former Republican governor of California.Even if the initiative falls short in November, Whalen believes Newsom still benefits. “He still gets credit among those same Democrats for fighting the good fight,” he said. “I don’t see how he fails.”The all-out political war between the president and California’s governor erupted earlier this summer, when Trump seized control of California’s national guard and deployed US marines to Los Angeles, over Newsom’s objections, to suppress protests against the federal immigration crackdown. The raids are ongoing, and Trump has targeted the state in other ways: an attempt to strip federal funding from UCLA, and tariffs that threaten California’s economy – the fourth largest in the world.Newsom has argued that Trump was not just a threat to his state – but to the entire 249-year-old American project. While his approach might offend virtue-minded Democrats, he says the moment demands it.“Yes, I’ve changed,” he said recently in a local news interview. “The facts have changed. We need to change.”In recent weeks, as Newsom has stepped up his attacks on Trump as a “weak” and a “failed” leader, his social media team has trolled the president online – unleashing a jumble of unfiltered, stream-of-consciousness rants, AI-generated political fan art and schoolyard taunts, some of it signed with the governor’s initials, GCN, meant to parody the president’s own chaotic posting style.View image in fullscreenNewsom says he’s simply holding up a mirror. “If you’ve got issues with what I’m putting out,” he told reporters last week, “you sure as hell should have concerns about what he’s putting out as president.”The posts have gone viral – racking up millions of views, thousands of comments and driving a flood of engagement. They’ve also caught the attention of the right. Fox News hosts, Kid Rock, JD Vance and even Trump himself have all taken the bait, provoking what the governor’s staff gleefully dubbed “Maga meltdowns”.“JESSE WATTERS KEPT CALLING ME ‘DADDY’ (VERY WEIRD, NOT INTERESTED, BUT THANK YOU!)” his office clapped back, in an 188-word tweet about Fox News’s breathless coverage of Newsom’s furious posting streak.“Gavin Newsom can mimic Donald Trump all that he wants to,” Vance told Fox News host Laura Ingraham, “they’re still going to lose unless they get better policies that actually serve the American people.”Trump, for his part, weighed in on his own social media platform, Truth Social, vowing to save “the Once Great State of California” from “Newscum”.“Triggered?” Newsom replied with a wink.The Berkley poll suggested that California voters back his gloves-off strategy with the president by a nearly two-to-one margin, with just 29% saying they’d prefer a more cooperative approach. The tougher posture lands especially well with younger voters: 71% of Californians under 30 say they approve.In a blitz of media appearances last week, Newsom escalated his rhetoric.“We’re fighting fire with fire,” he said on The Siren podcast. “And we’re going to punch these sons of bitches in the mouth.”The response was telling: no ​Democratic moralizing, no rebuke from party leaders, no pressure on Newsom to apologize. Instead, his team promoted the interview to his legions of new followers and supporters replied with MAGAesque AI images of the governor as a superhero.“People are just not used to seeing this kind of rough around the edges, non-poll-tested messaging coming from Democrats,” said Olivia Julianna, a 22-year-old Democratic activist from Texas and social media influencer who interviewed Newsom for the episode. “It’s real, it’s raw, it’s authentic, and it shows that he’s a fighter.”As Democrats brace for the loss of up to five US House seats in her state, under the redistricting plan approved by the Texas legislature on Saturday, Julianna said voters alarmed by Trump’s increasingly brazen power grabs are desperate for leaders who offer more than just fighting words.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“We want to feel like someone is standing on the frontlines ready to go to battle for us,” she said. “And that’s what it feels like Gavin Newsom is doing.”Newsom’s new fight-fire-with-fire strategy isn’t always trained on Trump.When the Bed Bath & Beyond chair announced on Wednesday that he wouldn’t reopen stores in the state, calling it “overregulated, expensive and risky”, Newsom’s press office fired back. “After their bankruptcy and closure of every store, like most Americans, we thought Bed, Bath & Beyond no longer existed,” it said. “We wish them well in their efforts to become relevant again.”He’s also taken on his own party. Earlier this year, Newsom declared the Democratic brand “toxic” in an interview with provocateur Bill Maher – a diagnosis backed by polling and voter registration trends, but striking language for the leader of the largest blue state who could seek that same party’s nomination.He enraged progressives – already wary of his record on housing and homelessness – when he questioned the fairness of transgender athletes competing in women’s sports. The comments, during a conversation with rightwing agitator Charlie Kirk on the inaugural episode of the governor’s podcast, This Is Gavin Newsom, marked a split from other top Democrats on the issue and rattled some of his LGBTQ+ allies.In response to a Guardian story about the loss of care for trans youth in California, a Newsom spokesperson said critics should point the finger at Trump, not at a governor whose “record supporting the trans community is unmatched”.“Everyone wants to blame Gavin Newsom for everything. But instead of indulging in Newsom derangement syndrome, maybe folks should look to Washington,” the spokesperson said – invoking a pejorative phrase, “derangement syndrome”, used by Trump supporters to mock the president’s detractors.While his sharper tone has angered some on the left, the redistricting gambit has managed to unite progressives and establishment Democrats – sending Newsom’s once-stalled approval rating soaring.His redistricting plan has drawn praise from across the party, including Barack Obama, who called it “a responsible approach”, the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and the entire congressional delegation of California Democrats. With the ballot initiative in motion, he challenged other blue state leaders to follow suit, laying down the gauntlet for fellow Democratic governors with presidential ambitions as Trump expands his push to secure Republican advantages in states such as Indiana, Ohio and Missouri.That aggressive posture – in effect becoming an “anti-Trump troll” – has been cathartic for many Democrats, Nalder said.“Democrats nationwide have been feeling like the Trump administration has been punching their values and their party and democracy itself in the face repeatedly day after day and they’re just ready for somebody to punch the bully back,” she said. “And Newsom right now looks like he could be that guy.”View image in fullscreenNewsom’s campaign faces mounting opposition from Republicans, including those not in Trump’s Maga camp. The popular former Republican governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, a longtime Trump critic and advocate of independent redistricting, has promised to TERMINATE GERRYMANDERING”.Former House speaker Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, has also vowed to pump money into what some observers predict could quickly become one of the most expensive contests in Golden state history.“The voters of California have a say,” he said in an interview on CNN. “If you truly believe in your power of your own vote, you should vote against this.”Newsom has raised more than $6.2m from 200,000 donations in the week since he officially launched the ballot campaign at a rally in Los Angeles last week, according to his team.There, Newsom stood side by side with labor leaders, members of the teacher’s union and the head of California’s Planned Parenthood. His redistrticting plan even earned the endorsement of Sara Sadhwani, a Democrat who served on California’s 2020 independent redistricting commission. Making the case for tossing out her work, she declared: “Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures”.As Newsome spoke at the Japanese American National Museum’s National Center for the Preservation of Democracy earlier this month, federal agents, armed and masked, fanned out across the complex. Newsom said their presence could not have been coincidental, though a Trump administration official called the accusation “misinformed”.The next day, the governor’s office filed a freedom of information request seeking details on the administration’s involvement in the decision to send border patrol agents to that location.It was just more fuel for Newsom’s argument: his campaign is not just about congressional districts, but a referendum on Trump – and American democracy.“Donald Trump, you have poked the bear,” Newsom says in a new ad for the redistricting campaign, as the camera flashes to the grizzly on the state’s flag. “And we will punch back.” More

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    ‘A new political era’: fresh Democratic faces seek office to prevent their party from ‘sleepwalking into dystopia’

    Earlier this year, Liam Elkind seized an opportunity to ask his longtime congressman, Jerry Nadler, what everyday New Yorkers like himself could do to help Democrats stand up to Donald Trump. Nadler’s response, according to Elkind, was to “donate to the DCCC” – the group that helps House Democrats keep their seats. Deeply unsatisfied, the 26-year-old decided to run for office against the 17-term incumbent.In Georgia, Everton Blair also sought answers from his long-serving congressman, David Scott, at a panel event earlier this year. When Blair asked him about Democrats’ legislative strategy, the 80-year-old lawmaker was dismissive. “I don’t know who sent y’all,” he said. Blair, 34, is now making a bid for Scott’s seat.Jake Rakov began to worry when he noticed his former boss, 70-year-old California congressman Brad Sherman, repeating the same anti-Trump talking points he’d deployed eight years prior. To Rakov, 37, it was a sign that the Democratic party’s ageing establishment “wasn’t going to learn”. He is now one of two millennial-aged Jakes challenging Sherman.View image in fullscreenA year after Joe Biden’s age and fitness for office emerged as a major liability in the 2024 presidential election, followed by Trump’s return to power , demand for generational change has reached a fever pitch. A wave of younger, social-media savvy candidates, frustrated by what they see as an ossifying, out-of-touch Democratic establishment, is launching primary challenges against some of their party’s most senior incumbents.The insurgents charge that party elders have failed to act with urgency as Trump targets Democratic cities, voters and values, and they say they’re no longer willing to wait their turn.“If what happened last year was not a wake up call for the Democratic party that we need to do things differently and that we need to let some new voices in, then we should all be deeply worried about the future of the Democratic party,” said Luke Bronin, a 46-year-old who is running against Connecticut congressman John Larson, 77.The 119th Congress is the third oldest in US history, and three members – all Democrats – have died in office this year. More than a dozen House Democrats who will be 70 or older by election day 2026 are facing challengers, according to an analysis by Axios, though not all have said whether they plan to seek re-election.But the push to replace longtime incumbents isn’t just about age, says Saikat Chakrabarti, 39, a former chief of staff to New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who is running for the San Francisco congressional seat long held by the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi.They say it’s about energy, vision and, crucially, how hard they’re willing to fight – which could explain why octogenarian brawlers like Maxine Waters haven’t faced calls to step aside while some relatively younger members, such as 50-year-old André Carson, have drawn challengers.“It’s being a part of a system for so long you just don’t actually think it’s your job to renew it,” Chakrabarti said.View image in fullscreenPelosi, 85, who stepped down from her leadership position to make room for a new generation in 2022, has not yet said whether she plans to seek re-election. ​A spokesperson for Pelosi declined to comment.While their campaigns are ​​textured by local​ issues and cultural references – Elkind touts his go-to bagel order (un-toasted everything with whitefish salad) and Chakrabarti pitches a publicly owned utility for San Francisco​ – their broader ​messages chime: Democratic elders have grown complacent, clinging to a broken status quo​ – with devastating consequences.Democrats’ popularity has cratered to record lows and the party has bled voters – especially young people, first-timers, and Black and Latino Americans.But the incumbents are pushing back. They argue their years of experience have delivered tangible results. “These guys would start off with zero seniority, just when the district needs the most help,” Sherman, the California congressman, said in an interview. He dismissed claims he’s been timid on Trump, noting he introduced articles of impeachment against him in 2017 and, earlier this year, confronted the president at an in-person briefing on the Palisades fire that devastated parts of his district.“The key to fighting Donald Trump is beating him in the 2026 election,” Sherman said. “If we don’t take the House back in 2026 we may not have elections in 2028.”Many challengers align politically with the incumbents they’re trying to unseat – several have voted for their opponent in the past. They argue the intraparty divide is not left-versus-center but a clash between “the fighters and the folders” – those who see the Trump era as a troubling but passing chapter and those who see it as a constitutional emergency that will determine the survival of American democracy.The younger candidates say the party needs to “meet voters where they are” – on social media, on podcasts, at red county diners and rambunctious town halls. They want leaders who can speak plainly about the ways the Trump administration is hurting working-class Americans – and how Democrats would help.But they also say it can’t only be about Trump. The party needs a full-scale reimagining of what Democrats stand for and how they communicate that to voters – a type of messaging they’ve struggled to articulate in the Trump era.Democrats haven’t always embraced primaries. They can be costly and time-consuming, and create headaches for general election races. But in the midst of deep party introspection and generational friction, more are embracing the contests as a way forward.Groups such as Leaders We Deserve, led by former Democratic national committee vice-chair David Hogg, are actively backing young candidates challenging “asleep-at-the-wheel” incumbents. The effort sparked an internal firestorm and ultimately led Hogg to step down from his role at the DNC.Republicans are watching the primary battles unfold with glee. “Democrats are engaged in a battle between the socialists and the party dinosaurs – and it’s only getting uglier,” Mike Marinella, spokesperson for the national Republican congressional committee, said.Next year’s elections will test Democrats’ desire for generational change but it may not resolve their identity crisis. Some districts will elevate centrist candidates, while others might embrace a democratic socialist. Some crave an anti-establishment streak, ideology aside.And some veteran lawmakers have already chosen to relinquish power. In May, Democratic congresswoman Jan Schakowsky announced that her 14th term representing Illinois’s ninth district would be her last, saying in a statement: “It is now time for me to pass the baton.” Before she made the decision public, Kat Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old progressive political influencer, had already launched a campaign for the seat, asking Democrats: “What if we didn’t suck?”Primed for Congress, but not waiting for an openingAmong the contenders in Democratic primaries are local and state political leaders for whom Congress makes sense as a next logical step. In years past, they might have opted to wait for a retirement and then seek an endorsement from the outgoing congressman. Not any more.View image in fullscreenAt 46, Luke Bronin has a lengthy résumé of service: a lawyer, former Obama administration official, navy reserve intelligence officer and, most recently, mayor of Hartford, Connecticut. But he stresses that he’d also bring “an outsider’s commitment to making some bigger changes”.Bronin has spoken with Larson, the longtime incumbent in Connecticut’s first district, including an hourlong conversation in recent months. What was missing, he said, was any recognition that the job has fundamentally changed since Larson arrived in Washington in 1999.“I didn’t hear a sense of urgency that we need to hear from every single member of Congress,” Bronin said.Bronin thinks Democrats need to be “relentless and clear” about the ways Trump is making life worse for Americans, and “equally relentless and clear” about the Democratic party’s vision for improving their daily lives. He wants to see “an intense focus on issues like housing and healthcare and childcare”, and for Democrats to spread these messages in friendly and unfriendly forums.In a statement, the Larson campaign said the district needs a “proven fighter” to protect against Trump’s attacks on social security and Medicare.“That’s Congressman Larson. That’s why he’s backed by progressive groups, labor, and working people alike,” the campaign said. “What they don’t need is someone pretending to be a new voice who’s actually been in politics [for] decades that’s always been more focused on running for higher office than delivering results.”Chakrabarti, who has spend much of his political career working to elect progressives to Congress, said he began to seriously consider a run himself after listening to a New York Times podcast interview with Pelosi just days after the November election. He had expected Democrats’ crushing defeat to trigger a reckoning – but instead heard a defense of the status quo.It confirmed for Chakrabarti what he had long feared: the Democratic party was “sort of sleepwalking into this dystopia”.But progressives like Chakrabarti take hope from the success of state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary this summer.“When I look at the moment today, the appetite for change, it completely dwarfs what I saw in 2018,” Chakrabarti said, referring to the election year in which Ocasio-Cortez toppled one of the most senior House Democrats as a political unknown.“We’re at the point of a dawn of a new political era.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe crowded primariesSeveral candidates have filed to run in Georgia’s 13th district, a solidly blue area in the Atlanta suburbs, a sign of the vulnerabilities among older members and the enthusiasm to replace them. Scott, who has served in Congress since 2003, has not yet announced whether he will run again. Questions over his health and fitness for office have become public fodder – he lambasted a photographer for taking a photo of him in a wheelchair last year.Some are younger than the average age in Congress (58.9); all are younger than Scott, 80. One contender, state senator Emanuel Jones, is 66. In 2024, Scott fended off a crowded field of primary challengers to keep his seat.Jasmine Clark, 42, was first elected to the state house in Georgia in 2018. She has a PhD in microbiology, an expertise that has served her well in analyzing bills and communicating during the pandemic. If elected, would be the first woman with a science PhD in Congress.View image in fullscreenShe wants the district to have a fighter who can call out the rampant misinformation and disinformation coming out of the Trump administration. The Atlanta area is feeling the consequences of this information environment, she said, pointing to a shooting earlier this month at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by a man alleged to be fixated on the Covid-19 vaccine.“When you have the same people in the same place for a really long time, that stagnation leads to stagnation of ideas as well,” she said. “There should be a healthy turnover, where you still have institutional knowledge while ushering in new ideas. But for whatever reason, we don’t really see that in Congress.”View image in fullscreenEverton Blair, who served on the Gwinnett county board of education, is touting his deep ties to the district where he was born and raised. He sees a lot of opportunities left on the table because of inactive representation.“There’s a general sense of despondency and just apathy right now that we address and we combat by bringing those very voices and people back into the conversation and making sure that they feel represented well,” Blair said.“The leaders who got us into this mess are not the leaders who can get us out of it,” he added.Scott did not respond to a request for comment.In California, Jake Rakov, who served as a deputy communications director for Brad Sherman, the 15-term incumbent he’s challenging, is making a similar case. He hasn’t spoken to his old boss in years, but he has been talking to the congressman’s constituents. Many, he said, are shocked that any member – let alone their own – has been in Congress for nearly 30 years.“We’ve got people in office who’ve been there since the 1990s and are still legislating like it’s the 1990s,” he said, adding: “It is so antithetical to our idea of a representative democracy that it just is immediately offensive to people when they hear about it.”Sherman has also drawn a challenge from Jake Levine, a veteran of the Biden and Obama administrations whose mother lost her home in the January fires. “It’s time for something new,” Levine says in his campaign launch video.Sherman argued that calls for generational change aren’t new. Estimating that he’s taken about 5,000 votes in Congress over the past decade, the overwhelming majority of which his challengers would agree with, Sherman asked: “If you did something right 5,000 times in a row – 100% of the time – is there any chance that you should get fired?”The upstartsUpstart candidates traditionally face steeper challenges against incumbents, but, with the help of slick online content, they’re finding new ways to gain traction. In an Arizona special election earlier this year, Deja Foxx, a 25-year-old influencer and activist, came in a distant second behind a longtime Democratic official whose father held the seat until his death – but she still managed to win more than 22% of votes.Katie Bansil, a 34-year-old political newcomer who works in finance, is challenging congressman Frank Pallone, 73, in New Jersey’s sixth congressional district over his support for Israel’s war in Gaza. Since launching her campaign, Bansil, who immigrated to the US from the Philippines and grew up in New Jersey, says she’s seen a growing desire for new leadership.View image in fullscreen“I started calling him ‘the asterisk’, because a lot of people have told me, ‘Oh, I just vote for the guy that is labeled as the incumbent,’” she said. “But I think people are actually waking up to the truth about what’s going on.”A spokesperson for Pallone said the congressman has “proven himself to be an effective champion of progressive causes”.“With daily assaults from the Trump administration on our democracy and institutions, Pallone will continue to use every tool to stop the Republican authoritarian agenda of stealing from the poor to give to the rich,” the spokesperson said.Liam Elkind, the challenger to Jerry Nadler, announced his campaign with a splashy video that opened with dirt being shoveled into a grave and his voiceover: “The Democratic party is dying.”“Our system often tells people to wait their turn,” Elkind said. “And look where we are.”A Rhodes scholar, Elkind founded the non-profit food delivery service Invisible Hands during the pandemic. He says that work – along with own experiences as a young person living in one of the most expensive cities in the world – would shape his approach to the job.Like many his age, Elkind doesn’t have health insurance. When he recently went to get a vaccine and was told it would cost $500, “I turned my ass around,” he quipped. “But look, that’s the day-to-day lived reality of a whole lot of people in this country.”View image in fullscreenA spokesperson for Nadler emphasized the congressman’s political strength, noting that he won his most recent election with 80% of the vote.“But this is the great thing about America, it’s a democracy – hopefully still – and anybody can run,” Robert Gottheim, the spokesperson, said, adding that Nadler would “put his over-30-year record of accomplishments against anyone including someone who appears to have no record of accomplishment to speak of”.Elkind said he voted for Nadler and respected his long record as a progressive voice for New York. But, he argued, the moment demands new energy and a break from the past.“The house is on fire, and we need leaders who can meet this moment,” he said. “We deserve to know that the next time a child is kidnapped off of our streets, that our congressman will be on that street in the next hour with a megaphone demanding that child’s release and then will travel to whatever foreign gulag the president has decided to stash that kid in.” More

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    California legislature approves first of three redistricting bills in response to Texas gerrymandering

    The California legislature on Thursday began advancing a series of three bills designed to redraw congressional boundaries and create five potential new Democratic US House seats.The effort in California is an answer to the Republican redistricting push in Texas, sought by Donald Trump and aimed at tilting the map in his party’s favor before next year’s midterm elections.The nation’s two most populous – and ideologically opposed – states were racing on parallel tracks toward consequential redistricting votes, potentially within hours of each other. As Democrats in Sacramento worked to advance a legislative package that would put their “election rigging response act” before voters in a special election this fall, Republicans in Austin were nearing a final vote on their own gerrymandering pursuit.Democratic state lawmakers erupted in applause, when the assembly passed the constitutional amendment to allow the redrawing in a 57-20 vote, sending it next to the state senate. On the other side of the capitol, the state senate passed a bill on a 30-9 party-line vote laying out the proposed congressional maps Democrats hope voters will accept in the November special election.The chambers were debating the legislative package simultaneously, with Democrats up against a Friday deadline to give the secretary of states’s office enough time to get the measure on the November ballot.The state’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, who has led the redistricting push, intends to sign the bill as soon as it arrives on his desk.“We will not let our political system be hijacked by authoritarianism. And today, we give every Californian the power to say no,” said the Democratic assembly speaker Robert Rivas, in floor remarks before the vote. “To say no to Donald Trump’s power grab and yes to our people, to our state and to our democracy.”Approval by the Texas senate, which is expected as early as Thursday, would conclude a dramatic showdown with the state’s outnumbered Democratic lawmakers whose two-week boycott captured national attention and set in motion a coast-to-coast redistricting battle.The California plan is designed to flip as many as five Republican-held seats in California – the exact number of additional GOP seats Trump has said he is “entitled to” in Texas.“This is a new Democratic party, this is a new day, this is new energy out there all across this country,” Newsom said on a call with reporters on Wednesday. “And we’re going to fight fire with fire.”The redistricting tit-for-tat is an extraordinary deviation from the norm. Traditionally, states redraw congressional maps once a decade based on census data, with both the Texas and California maps originally intended to last through 2030.The California state legislature, where Democrats have a supermajority, is expected to easily approve new congressional maps despite sharp Republican objections. Newsom’s signature would send the measure to the ballot in a special election this November.Before Thursday’s vote, California Republicans pleaded with their Democratic colleagues to oppose what they derisively called a “Gavinmander”.“The problem when you fight fire with fire is you burn it all down,” James Gallagher, the state assembly Republican leader, said at a news conference.Initially, Democratic lawmakers said the changes would only take effect in response to a gerrymander by a Republican state – a condition that would be met when the Texas legislatures sends the maps to the state’s governor, Greg Abbott, for his promised signature. But they amended the language on Thursday to remove any reference to a trigger, arguing it was no longer necessary now Texas has moved ahead.A Texas senate committee approved the GOP plan on Thursday morning, setting up a vote on final passage in the chamber, which was scheduled to reconvene that evening.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionCalifornia was acting after a dramatic showdown in Austin, where Democratic lawmakers left the state earlier this month to delay a GOP redistricting plan pushed by the president. They returned only after California moved forward with its counterproposal. When they returned, some were assigned police minders and forced to sign permission slips before leaving the capitol. Several spent the night in the chamber in protest before Wednesday’s session, where Republicans pushed through a map designed explicitly to boost their party’s chances in 2026.California Democrats are moving ahead after days of contentious debate over the cost – and consequences – of a referendum to temporarily toss out the maps drawn by the state’s voter-approved independent redistricting commission. Republicans estimated that a special election could cost more than $230m – money they said would be better spent on other issues like healthcare.On Wednesday night, the state supreme court declined an emergency request by Republican lawmakers seeking to block the Democratic plan from moving forward.The redistricting push has also caused angst among some Democrats and independents who have fought for years to combat gerrymandering.Testifying in favor of the changes during a hearing earlier this week, Sara Sadhwani, a political science professor who served as a Democratic member of the state’s independent redistricting commission in 2020, said the map-drawing tit-for-tat presented California voters with a “moral conflict”. But she argued that Democrats had to push back on the president’s power grab.“It brings me no joy to see the maps that we passed fairly by the commission to be tossed aside,” she said. “I do believe this is a necessary step in a much bigger battle to shore up free and fair elections in our nation.”The plan also drew the backing of former president Barack Obama and other champions of fair redistricting, such as his former attorney general, Eric Holder.But Newsom’s redistricting plan – a high-stakes gambit for the term-limited governor who has made no secret of his 2028 presidential ambitions – is not assured to succeed. It faces mounting opposition from high-profile Republicans, including the state’s former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has vowed to “terminate gerrymandering”.Early polling has been mixed. But a new survey conducted by Newsom’s longtime pollster David Binder found strong support for the measure in the heavily Democratic state, with 57% of voters backing it while 35% opposed it.In a memo, Binder noted that support for the redistricting measure varies depending on how it is presented to voters. When framed as eliminating the state’s independent redistricting commission designed to prevent partisan gerrymandering, support drops. However, when voters hear that the initiative would allow temporary map changes only in response to partisan actions in other states, like Texas, while retaining the commission, the measure enjoys a double-digit margin of support. More

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    LA Ice protests spurred US military to identify ‘hotels to avoid’ due to ‘harassment’

    When Donald Trump’s administration escalated immigration raids in Los Angeles earlier this summer, protest organizers responded with actions staged in an unusual setting: the hotels where immigration officers were staying.Protests took place at several southern California hotels where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents had been spotted. Some activists launched “No sleep for Ice” rallies, with chants and music blaring through the night, in hopes of pressuring the hotels to kick agents out.Now, public records shared with the Guardian show that the protests indeed sent federal agencies scrambling to find hotels for their officers in LA where they would not be “harassed”.A 16 June email from the US marines shows that military officials made a list of “LA Hotels to Avoid”. The information came from multiple law enforcement agencies who were tracking the community backlash to Ice and the border patrol, the marines said. The list was written by Army North, the domestic defense command deployed on the ground during the protests, and reviewed by the navy’s south-west division.The documents, obtained by Property of the People, a government transparency non-profit, suggest protesters successfully disrupted Trump’s immigration crackdown by targeting hotels, though the extent of their impact is not clear from the records.An email thread shows a Marine Corps analyst in San Diego sent the list of LA hotels to the San Diego Law Enforcement Coordination Center (SD-LECC) seeking a similar list of properties to avoid in San Diego. The analyst’s duties include “critical infrastructure protection” and their name was redacted. The SD-LECC is a fusion center where local, state and federal agencies share intelligence.“We have operations in the area and are looking to avoid issues wherever possible,” the analyst wrote, saying the LA list was based on reports of “harassment of Ice and CBP personnel”.View image in fullscreenAuthorities did not disclose the hotel names or further communications to Property of the People, so it is also unclear how widely hotel demonstrations erupted and were tracked.Spokespeople for the marines and the navy declined to comment, deferring to the army, which did not respond to inquiries. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions about the hotel protests, and in an email on Thursday after publication of this article, a spokesperson referred questions to the military.Kristi Laughlin, SD-LECC’s deputy director, told the Guardian that SD-LECC was not aware of protests taking place at hotels in the San Diego region and did not provide a list in response to the military’s request.The military’s apparent efforts to help federal personnel avoid demonstrators at hotels came after Trump took the extraordinary step of deploying the national guard and marines to respond to LA protests. The move polled poorly among US residents and led to reports of low morale among troops.Ryan Shapiro, executive director of Property of the People, which filed a series of records requests on the LA immigration raids, said it was remarkable that US armed forces apparently had to search for accommodations where they would not be protested, an unusual predicament he attributed to the widespread outrage at the administration.“The document reveals that Trump’s nativist crusade, carried out by masked Ice thugs, is so widely detested that now the US military feels the need to hide from Americans on American soil,” Shapiro said in an email.Advocates involved in the protests said the emails seemed to affirm the effectiveness of the demonstrations, some of which were organized spontaneously by nearby residents. News reports in June chronicled hotel demonstrations across LA county municipalities, including Pasadena, Glendale, Long Beach, Whittier, Downey, Monrovia and Montebello.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Working-class people saw this as a way to participate in the struggle against Ice,” said Ron Gochez, a leading member of Unión del Barrio, a group that documents Ice actions in LA. At the height of the June raids, his group received five to 10 calls a day from people who had spotted immigration officers at hotels, Gochez said. Once the reports were verified through photos or hotel employees, Unión del Barrio alerted other community groups in their networks.“A lot of hotel workers were not only mad about officers staying there, but were in fear because they were undocumented,” he said. “People want to make life difficult for these agents as they are kidnapping and separating families. And for the agents to constantly hear that they are unwanted, that people in society hate what they’re doing, that they will go down in history as kidnappers and collaborators, I think that gets to them psychologically.”One of the first hotel demonstrations took place on 8 June at the AC Hotel in Pasadena, a Marriott property, where, according to a state senator, immigration officers were lodging and had questioned staff.“We wanted to alert the community that Ice was staying at the hotel and let Ice know they were not welcome in Pasadena,” said Jose Madera, director of the Pasadena Community Job Center, a day laborer center.Widely shared footage showed protesters cheering as federal vehicles left the AC Hotel, with agents seen exiting with their bags stacked on a cart, the LA Times reported.“It was effective because the community organically organized itself, and people did not leave until they physically saw the agents leave,” Madera said. “It’s a source of pride for the people who live and work in Pasadena that we started this and sparked other communities to organize to get Ice out of their hotels … It’s going to take many strategies to slow down and stop Ice raids.”At the Glendale Hilton on 12 June, protesters posted footage of a woman who identified herself as hotel management greeting protesters and saying officers had left and would no longer be staying there.Representatives of the Glendale and Pasadena hotels did not respond to inquiries.“It helped combat this feeling of hopelessness,” said Teto Huezo, who was involved in the Glendale protests and is part of an LA community self-defense coalition that monitors Ice. He said he hoped more protests would pressure hotels to publicly commit to keeping Ice out. “Community members should be proud of these wins. The lesson is, we can be so much more organized and smarter than these agencies, and when we don’t want them in our neighborhoods, we can actually take actions to force them out.” More