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      Ice arrests at immigration courts across the US stirring panic: ‘It’s terrifying’

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      Federal authorities have arrested people at US immigration courts from New York to Arizona to Washington state in what appears to be a coordinated operation, as the Trump administration ramps up the president’s mass deportation campaign.On Tuesday, agents who identified themselves only as federal officers arrested multiple people at an immigration court in Phoenix, taking people into custody outside the facility, according to immigrant advocates.In Miami on Wednesday, Juan Serrano, a 28-year-old who immigrated from Colombia, went to court for a quick check-in where a judge soon told him he was free to go. When he left the courtroom, federal agents waiting outside cuffed him and placed him in a van with several other immigrants detained that day.Journalists, advocates and attorneys reported seeing Ice agents poised to make arrests this week at immigration courthouses in Los Angeles, Phoenix, New York, Seattle, Chicago and Texas.Arrests near or in the immigration courts, which are part of the US Department of Justice, are typically rare – in part due to concerns that the fear of being detained by Ice officers could discourage people from appearing. “It’s bad policy,” said Lindsay Toczylowski, president of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef). “By putting immigration officers in the courtrooms, they’re discouraging people from following the processes, punishing people for following the rules.”Toczylowski noted several Ice officers both inside and outside an immigration courtroom in Los Angles this week, but said she did not see any arrests made there. She said that immigrants without lawyers are especially vulnerable, as they may not understand the exact information and context they need to provide in order to advance their case for asylum or other pathways to permanent residency in the US.ImmDef and other legal groups are sending attorneys to courtrooms they believe may be targeted by Ice officials, to try to provide basic legal education and aid to people appearing at required appointments. The presence of agents is stirring panic, she said.“People are being detained and handcuffed in the hallway,” she said. “Can you imagine what you would be thinking, if you’re waiting there with your family and children, about to see a judge? It’s terrifying.”The agents’ targeting of immigrants at court comes as the Trump administration faces multiple lawsuits and the president attempts to enact the large-scale deportations he promised during his campaign.“All this is to accelerate detentions and expedite removals,” said Wilfredo Allen, an immigration attorney with decades of experience representing immigrants at the Miami immigration court.The Trump administration has revived a 2019 policy that allows for “expedited removals” – fast-tracked deportation proceedings for people who have been in the US for less than two years.Immigrants who cannot prove that they have been in the US for longer than two years are subject to having their cases dismissed and being immediately expelled from the country.Under the Biden administration, expedited removals were limited to people apprehended within 100 miles (160km) of the US border, and who had been in the US for less than two weeks.In Phoenix, immigrant advocates gathered outside immigration court to protest the presence of Ice agents. “We witnessed parents and children being detained and abducted into unmarked vans immediately after attending their scheduled immigration proceedings,” said Monica Sandschafer, the Arizona state director for the advocacy group Mi Familia Vota. “We demand an immediate stop to these hateful tactics.”Three US immigration officials told the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity that government attorneys were given the order to start dismissing cases when they showed up for work Monday, and were aware that federal agents would then be able to arrest those individuals when they left the courtroom.In the case of Serrano in Miami, the request for dismissal was delivered by a government attorney who spoke without identifying herself on the record, the Associated Press reported. She refused to provide her name to the AP and quickly exited the courtroom.US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement this week that it was detaining people who are subject to fast-track deportation authority.Advocates and lawyers are advising immigrants with upcoming hearings or court appearances to bring a trusted family member or friend who is a US citizen and ideally, a lawyer, to their appointments.The Associated Press contributed More

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      Fury as Republicans go ‘nuclear’ in fight over California car emissions

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      California has long been one of the nation’s preeminent eco-warriors, enacting landmark environmental standards for cars and trucks that go much further than those mandated by the federal government. Vehicles across the country are cleaner, more efficient and electric in greater numbers because of it.But that could all change if Donald Trump and his Republican allies manage to revoke the state’s ability to set its own, stricter emissions standards amid a White House crusade to combat climate-friendly policies.The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets and updates its own federal standards for all states on smog and emissions from cars and trucks, which the Biden administration made even stricter last year, saying they will save American drivers thousands in fuel costs and maintenance over the life of a vehicle.But for decades, California has been granted the ability to make those rules even stricter to help address some of the worst smog and air quality issues in the nation, which are linked to a host of health effects that disproportionately affect people of color.On Wednesday, the Senate voted to reverse the waivers, in move that prompted fury from Democrats who call it a “nuclear” option, calling it an unprecedented, and illegal, use of the statute. The Government Accountability Office and the Senate parliamentarian have agreed, saying EPA waivers are not subject to the review law.The House approved similar resolutions earlier this month. The resolutions now go to the White House, where Trump is expected to sign them.“This move will harm public health and deteriorate air quality for millions of children and people across the country,” said senators Alex Padilla, Sheldon Whitehouse and the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, in a statement.“This Senate vote is illegal. Republicans went around their own parliamentarian to defy decades of precedent. We won’t stand by as Trump Republicans make America smoggy again,” California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, said in a statement on Thursday. “We’re going to fight this unconstitutional attack on California in court.”Kathy Harris, the director of clean vehicles at the Natural Resources Defense Council, emphasized California’s ability to mandate strict emissions standards for cars, trucks and buses had existed for nearly 60 years, noting the state had been granted more than 75 waivers under Republican and Democratic presidents.Among the waivers include rules to increase the share of electric vehicles each year among all new car and truck sales, as well as mandates that auto companies introduce progressively cleaner vehicles.She described the waivers as a “quadruple win”, benefiting public health, air quality, drivers’ pockets and the economy as a whole.“These waivers are not new or novel,” Harris said in an interview. “California has historically been innovators in systems to help produce cleaner air and stymying California’s ability is a direct attack on our ability to limit pollution and health harming pollutants in the air.”View image in fullscreenShe added revoking the waivers would immediately lead to an increase in pollution on the nation’s roadways.More than a dozen states follow California’s lead on emissions standards, according to the California air resources board. The standards now cover nearly 40% of new light-duty vehicle registrations and more than a quarter of heavy-duty vehicles like trucks across the entire US.Automakers have largely followed California’s emissions standards as well so they can continue to sell cars there, as the state equates to the fourth-largest economy on the planet.Newsom upped the ante in the nation’s environmental future in 2020, declaring his state would ban the sale of all new gas-powered vehicles by 2035. Eleven states have also joined California’s plan to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by the 2035 deadline, a reality that has spooked major car companies.Joe Biden’s administration approved the plan at the end of his term. Trump, however – a vehement opponent to many of the nation’s climate efforts – has vowed to see them reversed.“California has imposed the most ridiculous car regulations anywhere in the world, with mandates to move to all electric cars,” Trump said during his campaign last year. “I will terminate that.”Newsom on Wednesday cast the battle as a nail in the coffin for the American car industry and decades of public health advancements.“The United States Senate has a choice: cede American car-industry dominance to China and clog the lungs of our children, or follow decades of precedent and uphold the clean-air policies that Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon fought so hard for,” he challenged Republicans in a statement. “Will you side with China or America?”The Senate’s decision may have sweeping effects far beyond the state’s borders.Harris said she recently pulled up pictures of what air quality looked like in cities around the country in the 1960s before the Clean Air Act, the seminal environmental law that regulates the nation’s air quality, was in effect. She described normal levels of smog in California as blanketing the state similar to the apocalyptic clouds of wildfire smoke that have descended during recent fire seasons.The American Lung Association also found last month that Los Angeles remained the country’s smoggiest city for the 25th time in 26 years of tracking, despite decades of improvements in air quality.“I think we have forgotten about what our air used to look like,” Harris said. “We take it for granted because it’s a policy that’s been around for so long we don’t really recognize those direct benefits.“There is still a long way to go, we have not succeeded in fully cleaning up our air yet,” she added. “These types of policies help ensure we are moving in a positive direction.” More

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      California school district must halt ban on critical race theory, court rules

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      A small southern California school district must immediately pause its ban on critical race theory (CRT), a California appeals court ruled on Thursday morning .The 4th district court of appeals ruling put a halt to the Temecula Valley unified school district ban until its litigation is settled in the California legal system. The decision is the latest in a long-running legal battle over the CRT ban, which was first adopted as a resolution by the Temecula Valley Board of Education in December 2022 as they attempted to purge elementary school textbooks that reference gay rights icon Harvey Milk.The recent decision, authored by Judge Kathleen O’Leary, and concurred by the panel’s other two judges, said that the vague nature and lack of legal or academic terminology in the resolution jeopardized its constitutionality.“The Resolution defined CRT as ‘a divisive ideology that assigns moral fault to individuals solely on the basis of an individual’s race’ and, therefore, is itself a racist ideology,” O’Leary’s ruling said. “The Resolution operates as if this definition is universally accepted, but the text does not indicate where this definition is derived, or whether it is shared with anyone else besides the Board.”The ruling pointed to the resolution’s lack of examples of CRT, and lack of guidance for teachers looking to modify their curriculum.O’Leary’s other primary concern revolved around “confusion and fear” from educators due to the policy, and negative impacts on education provided. One fourth grade teacher submitted a letter of evidence stating that under the doctrine, “she did not know what a permissible response was when her students asked her how and why slavery happened.”“Teachers are left to self-censor and potentially overcorrect, depriving the students of a fully informed education and further exacerbating the teachers’ discomfort in the classroom,” O’Leary wrote. “Rather than lead the classroom and moderate healthy discussion, the teachers are forced to leave children’s questions unanswered.”The conflict over CRT in education has been divisive in Temecula, a historically conservative southern California city of just more than 100,000 people. The battle has followed familiar lines, with three conservative school board members elected in 2022 after running in opposition to mask and vaccine mandates, as well as “sexualized” material in school curriculums. The school board president also famously labeled Milk as a “pedophile” and originally rejected a state-issued social studies textbook including the assassinated gay rights activist. Gavin Newsom, the California governor, threatened a $1.5m fine in response.While the school district may have run into opposition in their community and at the appeals court, headwinds at the federal level are in their favor. In late January, Donald Trump signed executive orders to promote school choice, or the use of public dollars for private education, and to remove funding from schools accused of “radical indoctrination”. Trump also revived a “1776 commission” to “promote patriotic education”. More

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      Could a British Fox News personality fix Republicans’ losing streak in California?

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      California is usually regarded as a political graveyard for ambitious Republicans, but Steve Hilton, the smiling, bald-headed former British political consultant turned Fox News personality, has a few theories of how to turn that around.Theory number one is that the Democrats, who have not lost a statewide election in almost 20 years and enjoy a supermajority in the California legislature, make the argument for change more or less by themselves, because the state has become too expensive for many of its residents and is mired in a steep budgetary crisis.Even the current governor, Gavin Newsom, argues that his party’s brand has become toxic, that Democrats across the country have lost their way, and “people don’t think we make any damn sense”. The leading Democratic candidates to succeed him have been similarly blunt.“Everything costs too much!” the former congresswoman Katie Porter says on her campaign website. “Homes and rent are too expensive,” the former state attorney general Xavier Becerra concurs on his. “Folks can barely cover their grocery bills. Healthcare costs are incredibly high.”To which Hilton responds gleefully: “We know! You did it to us!”Given the depth of the malaise – “Califailure”, the title of his campaign book calls it – Hilton believes that next year’s governor’s race offers Republicans a unique opportunity. If even Democrats think it’s time for change, he argues, wouldn’t it make sense for voters to look elsewhere for a solution?And that leads him to theory number two: that an engaging, energetic, unorthodox-sounding candidate like himself might just be the man for a job.In the four weeks since he announced his run for governor, Hilton and a skeleton staff have crisscrossed the state in a distinctive white pickup truck emblazoned with the Trump-like slogan “Make California Golden Again”. He has spoken at universities and presidential libraries, made common cause with hardcore Trump Republicans, and struck up conversations with voters in some of the most liberal corners of the state.His style has been casual – he dresses most commonly in a T-shirt and sneakers as he sits down in coffee shops or addresses so-called “policy forums” for supporters – and he keeps a video crew close to post updates on social media and underline how little he looks or talks like a regular Republican candidate.Back in Britain, where he was an adviser to the Conservative prime minister David Cameron from 2010 to 2012 and, later, a champion of Brexit, Hilton worked largely behind the scenes. He has been much more visible since as a Fox News host and contributor, and has honed a public persona that remains unabashedly rightwing but is also adept at presenting complex political viewpoints in easily relatable terms.So far, at least, Hilton’s British origins have proven more of an asset than a liability. (“He just sounds smarter because of his accent,” the moderator at a Republican gathering in Santa Barbara said. “It’s almost not fair.”) Even his bare scalp has contrasted favorably in some quarters with Newsom’s famously coiffed full head of hair.Hilton’s core message is simple: that Californians want good jobs, good homes and good schools for their kids. And the reason too many feel these goals are eluding them, he says, is because of “one-party rule and really bad ideas” from the Democrats.That diagnosis certainly has the potential to resonate widely, particularly among working-class voters who, according to Hilton, are ‘being completely screwed” by high living costs, high taxes and a public school system whose test scores in English and math consistently lag behind the national average.“It doesn’t have to be like this,” Hilton told the Santa Barbara crowd. “We don’t have to put up with this.”The question, though, is whether Hilton is the alternative voters are craving– and that’s where observers believe he may be on shakier ground, particularly since his strongest political connections are with the Trump end of the Republican party.View image in fullscreenEven Hilton’s more moderate ideas reflect a standard Republican playbook of cuts to taxes, public spending and business regulations – a platform Californians have rejected time and again. Dan Schnur, a former Republican campaign consultant who teaches political communications at Berkeley and the University of Southern California, thinks that behind the moderate facade Hilton is in fact “running pretty hard as a Maga candidate” on a range of issues from immigration to homelessness.Hilton has a slightly different theory of the case. He sees parallels between California in 2025 and Britain in the late 1970s, when it was known as the “sick man of Europe”, and envisions himself as a version of Margaret Thatcher providing a much-needed rightward course correction. He drew laughter and applause in Santa Barbara when he complained about California’s “nanny state bossy bureaucracy” – a Thatcher-inspired turn of phrase – and when he borrowed from a celebrated 1979 Conservative campaign slogan to say “California isn’t working”.Whether that message can work with independents and Democrats – constituencies he has to sway in large numbers to win – is far from clear. However much Hilton talks about “commonsense” solutions, his early champions include Charlie Kirk, who runs the Trump-supporting youth group Turning Point, and Vivek Ramaswamy, the tech entrepreneur turned politician who is old friends with Vice-President JD Vance and is now running for governor of Ohio – both of whom would suggest he has hitched his wagon to a more radical agenda.Even when forging connections in working-class, heavily Latino East Los Angeles, Hilton has relied on a local Trump activist, now in charge of the White House faith office, who in turn introduced him to Maga-friendly grassroots groups with names like the Conservative Comadres and Lexit (for Latinos Exiting the Democratic Party).The problem is not that Hilton’s new friends in East LA – many of them small business owners – do not reflect broader frustrations when they talk about working hard and having far too little to show for it. They almost certainly do.The problem is that Trump’s brand of working-class populism is toxic in California – vastly more so than the Democrats – and growing only more so as Trump’s chaotic second term in the White House unfolds.An LA Times opinion poll earlier this month showed 68% of Californians disapproved of the president’s job performance and thought the country was on the wrong track – numbers that many political analysts expect to worsen as the effects of Trump’s trade war kick in.Hilton himself makes light of this problem, arguing that if he runs an energetic, attractive enough campaign it will cut across the political spectrum and create its own momentum. “We’ve just learned that California is the fourth biggest economy in the world, and that’s great,” he said in an interview, “but it isn’t an economy that works for the people who live here … We are building a movement and a coalition for change.”Soon, though, he is likely to be pulled in different directions, because the logic of California’s primary system requires him to beat every other Republican before he can even think about the Democrats. And, in the age of Trump, there’s no competition between Republicans that does not require showing obeisance to the president. “The association’s going to be there, whether it results in a formal endorsement or not,” Schnur said. “Trump’s coat-tails are much longer in a primary than in a general election, which is good news for Hilton in the spring but a bigger obstacle in the fall.”Hilton’s stiffest Republican competitor so far, the Riverside county sheriff, Todd Bianco, has already run into trouble with the Trump faithful because he took a knee in solidarity with Black Lives Matter protesters in the wake of the George Floyd killing in 2020. (Bianco, who generally talks and acts like a Trump-aligned Republican, insists he was tricked into kneeling when he thought he was being asked to pray – a version at variance with video footage from the time.)At the Santa Barbara event, Hilton looked almost bashful when asked what Trump thought of his decision to run and gave only the vaguest of answers. It is unlikely to be the last time he will field such a question, though, or risk alienating some part of his target electorate with his response.Hilton describes the task ahead as “possible, but difficult”. His chances most likely rest on another theory of his – that the rightward swing the country experienced last November was not a one-off, but a trend still gathering momentum. Hilton points to all the ways California was part of that national trend in 2024 – the 10 counties that flipped from blue to red, the rejection of liberal district attorneys and mayors up and down the state, the call for a stiffer approach to law and order in a key statewide ballot initiative – and concludes that “Californians voted Republican without realising it.”The last time Trump was president, though, the midterm elections produced a major swing in the other direction, in California and across the country, and most political analysts expect the same thing next year. If office-holders can justifiably point the finger at Washington – for shortages on the shelves, or higher prices incurred by tariffs, or immigrant laborers vanishing from key industries – voters are likely to be more forgiving of their leaders’ own shortcomings.“It would be much easier to make the case against the Democratic establishment if there weren’t a Republican president,” Schnur said. “An entire generation of Californians has come of voting age automatically dismissing the possibility of supporting a Republican candidate … That doesn’t mean a Republican can’t get elected governor, but it’s a very steep uphill fight.” More

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      In California’s deep-red north, voters startled by pace of cuts – but they’re still backing Trump

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      Donald Trump’s administration has sought to remake the federal government at a breakneck pace. In far northern California – where he has strong support – people have backed those efforts. But even here, the speed and scale of the president’s agenda has been cause for concern.Officials in Shasta county, a region of 180,000 perhaps best known in recent years for its turbulent far-right politics, recently voted unanimously to send a letter to the federal government expressing concern about how layoffs could affect the nearby Whiskeytown national recreation area, which brings as much as $80m to the local economy each year.“The board urges the administration to reconsider layoffs impacting the National Park Service,” the letter states. “National parks, recreation areas, lakes, and mountainous regions throughout this great nation may be adversely impacted if not adequately protected and maintained for all to enjoy, both in the immediate future, and for years to come.”In March, about 150 people took to the streets in Redding, the Shasta county seat, to protest aggainst proposed cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs. A month later more than 1,000 people in the area gathered to demonstrate against the administration’s policies.Amid reports about possible reductions to Medicaid, the head of the area’s largest healthcare provider warned such action could have “crippling” impacts in a county where the local Medicaid provider serves nearly a third of the population. A bipartisan group of state lawmakers, including the region’s Republican representatives, signed a letter in late April urging Congress to protect Head Start, the federally funded education program.While California remains a Democratic stronghold, its less densely populated interior swings decidedly more conservative, with deep red enclaves in the state’s far north that have been particularly supportive of Trump.In Shasta county, where the president visited during his 2016 campaign, 67% of voters voted for Trump in November. Nearby counties, including Tehama, Lassen and Modoc, backed Trump at even greater levels.Support for Trump’s agenda has remained strong among Republicans in California. While 68% of California voters reported they disapprove of Trump’s performance and just 30% approve, 75% of Republicans say they approve, according to a new Berkeley IGS poll. The poll also found that 69% of California Republicans think the country is now headed in the right direction, a major shift from last year when 93% believed it was headed in the wrong direction.That’s the case, too, in rural California, where many voters said they backed the Trump administration’s policies, including tariffs against other countries, a smaller federal government, and, they hoped, reduced prices and a stronger economy.But the unease in an area where the president is still deeply popular highlights the potential effects the cuts pose to the region – particularly its rural communities – that is more reliant on federal support on everything from infrastructure to emergency preparedness to healthcare and childcare.“These cuts may, in fact, hurt rural communities harder because they just don’t have their tax bases,” said Lisa Pruitt, a rural law expert at the University of California, Davis. “Their bandwidth for providing all sorts of services is just much weaker to begin with, and that makes them more reliant on federal monies.”For some in this part of California the outcomes, and rapid pace at which the administration has moved, have been startling.View image in fullscreenIt was what Morgan Akin, a Shasta county resident and US marine veteran who joined the March protest against the VA cuts, expected would happen when Trump took office.“They’re predicting 80,000 cuts on the VA. That’s going to have an effect on the veterans throughout the country,” said Akin. “All these federal employees have just been dumped.”He added: “It’s been a shock, and I think that’s what’s disrupting for most people.”Bruce Ross, a Shasta county Republican, acknowledged the difficulties of seeing layoffs, but said he had been pleased with the direction of the administration.“Everybody who lives up in north-eastern California knows folks who work for the Forest Service, or for federal agencies, and it’s tough for them. I think on a human level, that’s real,” Ross said. But, he added, he had seen a willingness on the part of the administration to listen when local officials have pushed back against proposed cuts, and the practical changes had ultimately, so far, been less severe than they initially seemed.“There’s been a lot of drama about it. But I think the actual results have shown that the administration is listening to people and saying, OK, this is important. We’re gonna take it back.”Congressman Doug LaMalfa, a Republican and staunch Trump supporter who represents a large swath of northern California’s interior, has acknowledged that some of his constituents, and Republicans broadly, are concerned, but echoed Ross’s sentiments. “But they’re listening to us. I got in a room with Elon [Musk] and his right-hand man. They’re understanding us now, and they’re going to look at it more through that lens, and they’ll certainly listen to us,’ he told the Chico Enterprise-Record in March.In that interview, he pushed back against talk of broad layoffs and cuts to key programs.“There is no social security cuts. There is no cuts to the VA system; the employee stuff, we’ve still got more work to do with that.”Ross, who is also the secretary for the Shasta county Republican central committee, admitted there would probaly be pain as Trump enacts his agenda, but argued that was necessary to tackle the federal deficit.“There’s a $2tn annual deficit with the federal government in Washington in a time of peace and a fairly strong economy,” he said. “How do you ever go about trying to balance that without being somewhat aggressive about actually cutting spending? It’s never going to be easy to do.”Steve Barkley, a 74-year-old who lives in northern California’s Sierra foothills, said he felt confident in the president’s agenda, and wasn’t worried about any cuts to Medicare or social security.“He’s the first candidate that was really saying the things that I wanted to hear, and promised to do the things that I want done, and he’s keeping his promises,” Barkley said, adding that he believed Trump’s recent actions ensure the longevity of those programs and boost the economy.“I’m happy. I don’t expect anything to get done right away. It’s going to take time.”Ross is hopeful that even with some short-term pain, Trump’s policies will ultimately improve the region. He pointed to the area’s recent history of massive destructive and deadly wildfires and the lack of land management in federal forests that he believes has contributed to such blazes. He would like to see the return of the timber industry, which was historically a major employer in the area, and believes that could be possible under the new administration.“I think that’s going to be good for northern California. It’s not just about money – it’s about what is their direction, and what are their goals? And just bluntly, they’re on our side,” he said.“And again, look at the federal deficits and explain how that’s sustainable, and explain how that’s going to change in a way that doesn’t cause some dissension. It’s hard on any level. But I think long-term, it’s what the country needs.” More

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      Newsom calls on California cities to ban homeless encampments ‘without delay’

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      Gavin Newsom has called on California cities and counties to clear and effectively ban encampments “without delay” as the governor intensifies a crackdown on homelessness in the state.Newsom on Monday announced a new model ordinance to address “persistent” camps, in hopes of reducing the most visible signs of a worsening crisis, as well as $3.3bn in voter-approved funding to increase housing and drug treatment programs.“There’s nothing compassionate about letting people die on the streets. Local leaders asked for resources – we delivered the largest state investment in history. They asked for legal clarity – the courts delivered,” Newsom said in a statement.“Now, we’re giving them a model they can put to work immediately, with urgency and with humanity, to resolve encampments and connect people to shelter, housing, and care. The time for inaction is over. There are no more excuses.”California has the largest population of unsheltered people in the US with more than 180,000 people in the state experiencing homelessness, including 123,000 people living outside, according to a 2023 count. The state – and local governments across California – have begun enacting harsher anti-camping policies following a US supreme court’s ruling last year that cities can criminalize unhoused people for sleeping outside – even if there are no available shelter spaces.Newsom has escalated efforts to force local governments into action since the 2024 supreme court decision, warning counties that he could withhold state support if they did not do more sweeps. In February, he told cities and counties they could lose out on hundreds of millions of dollars in state funding if they do not make progress in eradicating encampments and reducing homelessness.In a statement this week the governor’s office pointed to its own approach that it said had cleared more than 16,000 encampments and was “effective and scalable”. The model ordinance introduced by the office includes provisions it said can be modified to suit local needs, including a ban on persistent camping in one location, a ban on encampments blocking sidewalks and a requirement for local officials to provide notice and offer shelter before clearing an encampment.The governor is seeking to help municipalities set “rules around encampments and establish effective enforcement procedures that prioritize notice, shelter and services”, according to the statement.“Encampments pose a serious public safety risk, and expose the people in encampments to increased risk of sexual violence, criminal activity, property damage and break-ins, and unsanitary conditions,” the news release said. 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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      in US Politics

      Not just Alcatraz: the notorious US prisons Trump is already reopening

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      Donald Trump’s proposal to reopen Alcatraz, the infamous prison shuttered more than 60 years ago, sparked global headlines over the weekend. But it isn’t the only notorious closed-down jail or prison the administration has sought to repurpose for mass detentions.The US government has in recent months pushed to reopen at least five other shuttered detention facilities and prisons, some closed amid concerns over safety and mistreatment of detainees. While California lawmakers swiftly dismissed the Alcatraz announcement as “not serious” and a distraction, the Trump administration’s efforts to reopen other scandal-plagued facilities are well under way or already complete, in partnership with for-profit prison corporations.The shuttered prisons are being revived for immigration detainees, unlike the US president’s purported plan for Alcatraz, which he claimed on social media would imprison “America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders”.US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (Ice) has sought to reopen the California city correctional facility, a state prison in the southern California desert region that closed last year, according to government contract records. The facility is owned by CoreCivic, a longtime Ice detention partner, and previously housed more than 2,000 people.California Democrats have also warned that Ice was interested in reopening Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Dublin, a US prison shuttered last year amid scandals surrounding systemic sexual abuse by staff, and concerns about mold and asbestos. The correctional officers’ union has reported that staff were recently forced to do maintenance work at Dublin in hazardous conditions, seemingly to prepare for a reopening, but Ice and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BoP), which runs Dublin, have not commented on plans.Communities in California, the country’s most populous state and home to nearly a quarter of immigrants in the US, have long opposed Ice detention centers, and there are currently no Ice jails in the state north of Bakersfield in the Central Valley, said Susan Beaty, senior attorney for the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice.View image in fullscreen“When there are fewer beds for Ice to incarcerate people, there are fewer arrests and less enforcement,” said Beaty, who represents people in Ice and BoP detention. “We don’t want Ice to expand their ability to cage our community members, because we know that will lead to more incarceration and allow them to terrorize our communities even further.”In rural Lake county, Michigan, Geo Group, another prison corporation, is reopening the closed North Lake correctional facility, which has capacity for 1,800 people and would be the largest immigration detention center in the midwest, according to the local news site MLive.com. Over the years, the facility has housed imprisoned teenage boys, out-of-state incarcerated people and immigrants. But it has sat dormant since it closed in 2022 under the Biden administration.In 2020, detainees at North Lake went on a hunger strike, alleging they were denied access to their mail and religiously appropriate food, their complaint paperwork was destroyed, and they were placed in extended solitary confinement. Geo Group denied the claims at the time.In Newark, New Jersey, Geo Group has recently reopened the closed Delaney Hall facility for immigration detainees even as the company faces a pending lawsuit from the city alleging it failed to file required construction permits or allow inspectors inside, according to news site NorthJersey.com.“They are following the pattern of the president … who believes that he can just do what he wants to do and obscure the laws,” Newark’s mayor, Ras Baraka, said on Monday.Christopher Ferreira, a Geo Group spokesperson, said in an email that the firm had a “valid certificate of occupancy” and complied with health and safety requirements. The mayor’s opposition was “another unfortunate example of a politicized campaign by sanctuary city and open borders politicians in New Jersey to interfere with the federal government”, he added.In a December 2024 earnings call, Geo Group said it was in “active discussions” with Ice and the US Marshals Service about their interest in six of its facilities that were idle.In Leavenworth, Kansas, CoreCivic is working to reopen an immigration detention center closed in 2021 under Joe Biden. The proposal for the Midwest Regional Reception Center (MRRC) has sparked backlash from the city of Leavenworth, which sued CoreCivic in March, alleging the company has not followed the proper permitting protocols.View image in fullscreenIn 2021, the ACLU alleged that the Leavenworth facility was beset by problems, including frequent stabbings, suicides and contraband, and that “basic human needs [were] not being met”, with food restricted, contact with counsel and family denied or curtailed, limited medical care and infrequent showers. A federal judge called the facility a “hellhole”.Ryan Gustin, a CoreCivic spokesperson, defended the company’s decades of operations in Leavenworth in an email on Monday, saying understaffing amid the pandemic “was the main contributor to the challenges” and “the issues were concentrated in about an 18-month period”: “We’re grateful for a more stable labor market post-pandemic, and we’ve had a positive response with nearly 1,400 [applicants] expressing interest in one of the 300 positions the facility will create.“At any of our facilities, including MRRC, we don’t cut corners on care, staff or training, which meets, and in many cases exceeds, our government partners’ standards,” he said. He also pointed to a recent op-ed by the warden, who argued the facility “is and always has been properly zoned”.CoreCivic also reopened a family detention center in Texas last month.The use of shuttered prisons is just one way Ice is expanding detention for Trump’s mass deportations. He has also moved immigration detainees into BoP facilities currently housing criminal defendants, causing concerns about poor conditions, rights violations and a lack of basic resources as staff manage multiple populations under one roof. Trump has also pushed to expand local jail contracts and use military bases for Ice.Eunice Cho, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project, which has obtained public records on Ice’s expanding detention, said Ice was ignoring safety concerns in previously shuttered facilities.“This is a continuing pattern of the Trump administration’s willingness to knowingly place immigrants in detention facilities already well-known for having dangerous conditions,” she said. “They’re putting people in facilities where the conditions are so dire … that people simply give up their valid claims of relief to stay in the United States.”There is growing local backlash to these facilities, Cho added: “When people realize what is happening in these facilities, it’s not something they want to see up close. People are becoming very aware that billions of dollars are being spent to enrich private prison companies to hold people in abysmal conditions … including their neighbors, co-workers and friends.”Ice did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.Donald Murphy, a BoP spokesperson, did not answer questions about the reported reopening of Dublin for Ice. William K Marshall III, BoP director, said in a statement that the bureau would “vigorously pursue all avenues to support and implement the president’s agenda” and had ordered an “immediate assessment” to determine “our needs and the next steps” for Alcatraz: “We look forward to restoring this powerful symbol of law, order, and justice.”Corene Kendrick, ACLU National Prison Project deputy director, dismissed Trump’s Alcatraz statement as a “stunt”, noting that the prison’s cellblock has no running water or sewage and limited electricity.“I don’t know if we can call it a ‘proposal’, because that implies actual thought was put into it,” she said. “It’s completely far-fetched and preposterous, and it would be impossible to reopen those ancient, crumbling buildings as anything resembling a functioning prison.” More