Category Archives: Trump administration

Fresh Los Angeles rallies planned to demand release of arrested union leader

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ACLU says David Huerta ‘was unjustly arrested’ after thousands protested against Ice raids over weekend

Los Angeles was waking Monday up to another day of high tensions with Donald Trump’s administration, the fourth since protests began over efforts by federal immigration authorities’ attempts to arrest illegal migrants in the city and a day after the president ordered in the national guard.

New rallies against US immigration and customs enforcement (Ice) detentions are planned, with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announcing an event “to demand justice for detained immigrants and an end to the ongoing human rights abuses by Ice”.

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Glendale ends ‘divisive’ Ice detention contract amid California protests

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Decision comes as federal action to enforce US immigration laws inspired three days of protests in the LA area

The California city of Glendale has terminated a contract to house federal immigration detainees, with local officials saying the arrangement had become increasingly “divisive” within the community.

The decision by the Los Angeles county municipality to sever ties with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) comes after three days of protests in other parts of the LA area. That included Sunday near the Metropolitan Detention Center, about nine miles from Glendale, where cars were set alight as anti-Ice protesters clashed with law enforcement officers, including the national guard.

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NIH scientists go public to denounce Trump’s deep cuts in health research

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Scores of National Institutes of Health researchers and staffers sign letter criticizing agency policies: ‘We dissent’

In his confirmation hearings to lead the National Institutes of Health, Jay Bhattacharya pledged his openness to views that might conflict with his own. “Dissent,” he said, “is the very essence of science.”

That commitment is being put to the test.

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Latinas for Trump co-founder criticizes president’s immigration arrests: ‘Unacceptable and inhumane’

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Florida state senator joins US House member in expressing alarm over ‘arbitrary measures to hunt down people’

A co-founder of a group for Latinas who support Donald Trump has excoriated the president on some of the immigration-related arrests being carried out by his administration, which she called “unacceptable and inhumane”.

In a statement posted on X over the weekend, Ileana Garcia wrote, “This is not what we voted for.”

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Newsom is warned of ‘criminal tax evasion’ if he withholds federal taxes

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California governor made threat amid reports Trump is weighing huge federal funding cuts targeting state

The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has warned California governor Gavin Newsom that he would be guilty of “criminal tax evasion” if he withholds his state’s tax payments to the federal government amid threats of a funding cut by Donald Trump.

Newsom had threatened to cut tax payments to the federal government two days ago after reports that Trump was preparing huge federal funding cuts targeting Democrat-dominated California, including its state university system.

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Kristi Noem: the made-for-TV official executing Trump’s mass deportations

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Noem has played a starring role in the second Trump administration with her goal to ‘Make America Safe Again’ – derided by critics as ‘cosplay’ with cruel consequences

Little more than a year ago, Kristi Noem’s political prospects appeared to be in freefall. The then South Dakota governor was criss-crossing the country on an ill-fated book tour, widely seen, at least initially, as an audition to be Donald Trump’s running mate. Instead, Noem found herself on the defensive – a position Trump never likes to be in – after revealing in her memoir that she had shot the family’s “untrainable” hunting dog, a 14-month old wirehair pointer named Cricket.

Even in Trumpworld, where controversy can be a form of currency, the disclosure shocked. In the weeks that followed, she faded from contention and the breathless veepstakes rumor mill moved on. By the time Trump selected JD Vance as his vice-presidential nominee, Noem’s path forward on the national stage was unclear.

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Fired US librarian of Congress details callous dismissal in new interview

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Carla Hayden, first woman and African American to serve in role, details firing by Trump administration to CBS

The first woman and African American to serve as the US librarian of Congress before Donald Trump fired her in May has not heard from the president’s administration beyond the 31-word email it sent her with word of her dismissal, she has revealed in her first interview since her ouster.

“No one has talked to me directly at all from the White House,” Carla Hayden says in an interview airing on the upcoming CBS News Sunday Morning. “I’ve received no communication directly, except for that one email.

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Neo-Nazi group ‘actively seeking to grow in US’ with planned paramilitary training event

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The Base is emerging from shadows and ramping up its ranks as White House turns blind eye to the far right

An international neo-Nazi terrorist organization is boldly continuing to build in the US and planning a new paramilitary training event without fear of local authorities or the FBI, which once dismantled it in a nationwide effort.

The Base, founded in 2018 by a former Pentagon contractor living in Russia and now suspected of Kremlin-sponsored espionage, once boasted close to 50 stateside members before the bureau made more than a dozen arrests in a years-long counter-terrorism operation.

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Iran blasts Trump for ‘racist mentality’ and hostility to Muslims over travel ban

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Tehran condemns Donald Trump’s order barring 12 countries’ citizens from entering US as violation of ‘fundamental principles of international law’

Tehran has denounced the US travel ban on Iranians and citizens of 11 other mostly Middle Eastern and African countries, saying Washington’s decision was a sign of a “racist mentality”.

Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday reviving sweeping restrictions that echo the US president’s first-term travel ban, justified on national security grounds after a firebomb attack at a pro-Israel rally in Colorado.

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California leaders condemn Ice raids in LA: ‘We will not stand for this’

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City mayor Karen Bass joins governor Gavin Newsom and others in denouncing arrests of at least 45 people

The Department of Homeland Security conducted raids on multiple locations across Los Angeles on Friday, clashing with the crowds of people who gathered to protest and prompting widespread criticism from California leaders.

Masked agents were recorded pulling several people out of two LA-area Home Depot stores and the clothing manufacturer Ambient Apparel’s headquarters in LA’s Fashion District. Immigration advocates said the raids also included four other locations, including a doughnut shop.

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US supreme court rules Doge can access social security data during legal challenge

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Key player in Trump’s drive to slash federal workforce keeps access to sensitive records including family court and mental health records

The US supreme court on Friday allowed members of the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) to access the sensitive records kept by the Social Security Administration while legal challenges play out.

The conservative-majority court, in an unsigned order with the three liberal justices dissenting, sided with the Trump administration in the appeal involving Doge, the team spearheaded by the billionaire Elon Musk.

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Group stranded with Ice in Djibouti shipping container after removal from US

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Deportees and officers are ‘ill’ and face risks after flight to South Sudan was stopped by US court in late May

A group of men removed from the US to Djibouti, in east Africa, are stranded in a converted shipping container together with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers sent to supervise them after a deportation flight to South Sudan was stopped by an American court.

The eight deportees and 13 Ice staff have begun to “feel ill”, the US government said.

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Trump travel ban comes as little surprise amid barrage of draconian restrictions

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President had cued up ban in January order and, despite exemptions, policy will separate families and harm people fleeing crises

Donald Trump’s first travel ban in 2017 had an immediate, explosive impact – spawning chaos at airports nationwide.

This time around, the panic and chaos was already widespread by the time the president signed his proclamation Wednesday to fully or partially restrict foreign nationals from 19 countries from entering the United States.

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‘Total discrimination’: Chinese students facing US visa ban say their lives are in limbo

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Across the US, hundreds of thousands of Chinese students are now uncertain about their academic future and some are considering moving away

Chinese students in the United States are questioning their future in the country after the state department announced last week that it would “aggressively” revoke visas for Chinese students and enhance scrutiny of future applications from China and Hong Kong.

Chinese students hoping to study at Harvard, the US’s oldest and wealthiest university, are under particular pressure after the Trump administration announced on Wednesday that it was banning the school from enrolling new foreign students. The presidential proclamation cited Harvard’s links with China as a particular cause for concern.

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Donald Trump to meet Xi Jinping in China after ‘very good’ call on trade

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US president says he accepted invitation in first phone conversation between leaders since January

Donald Trump said he had accepted an invitation to meet Xi Jinping in China after a phone conversation on trade was held between the leaders of the world’s two largest economies.

In a post on Truth Social, the US president said the “very good” call lasted about 90 minutes and the conversation was “almost entirely focused on trade”.

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Trump signs proclamation to restrict foreign student visas at Harvard

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US president says it would jeopardize national security to allow university to keep hosting international students

Donald Trump signed a proclamation to restrict foreign student visas at Harvard University, the White House said on Wednesday.

The order would suspend for an initial six months the entry into the US of foreign nationals seeking to study or participate in exchange programs at Harvard. Trump declared that it would jeopardize national security to allow Harvard to continue hosting foreign students.

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US judge rules prisons must provide gender-affirming care for trans people

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Ruling in Washington comes despite executive order signed by Donald Trump that targeted funding for such care

A US judge on Tuesday ruled the US Bureau of Prisons must keep providing transgender inmates gender-affirming care, despite an executive order Donald Trump signed on his first day back in office to halt funding for such care.

US district judge Royce Lamberth in Washington DC allowed a group of more than 2,000 transgender inmates in federal prisons to pursue a lawsuit challenging the order as a class action. He ordered the Bureau of Prisons to provide them with hormone therapy and accommodations such as clothing and hair-removal devices while the lawsuit plays out.

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Gaza Humanitarian Foundation names US evangelical leader as new chair

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Johnnie Moore, also an adviser to Trump, named as US- and Israeli-backed initiative tries to recover from resignations

An evangelical leader and adviser to Donald Trump on interfaith issues has been appointed the new head of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) as the controversial US- and Israeli-backed initiative attempts to recover from top-level resignations during a tumultuous rollout last week.

Johnnie Moore, a member of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom and founder of the boutique advisory firm Kairos Company, was appointed the new head of the GHF after Jake Wood, a former marine, resigned, saying that he could not guarantee the GHF’s independence from Israeli interests.

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Millions of legal immigrants’ lives upended after social security freeze

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Program halted suddenly, leaving legal immigrants unable to work due to lack of US social security number

Millions of legal immigrants may be left unable to work after the US Social Security Administration quietly instituted a rule change to stop automatically issuing them social security numbers.

The Enumeration Beyond Entry program is an agreement between the Social Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security, where US Citizenship and Immigration Services would provide social security with information from applicants for work authorization or naturalization.

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Massachusetts students and teachers protest teen’s ‘inhumane’ arrest by Ice

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Milford high school students walk out to support classmate Marcelo Gomes Da Silva, with teachers following: ‘We are inspired by the brave young people’

Students at Massachusetts’s Milford high school staged a walkout on Monday to show support for their classmate Marcelo Gomes Da Silva, who was headed to volleyball practice when he was detained over the weekend by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents who were actually looking for his father.

Gomes Da Silva, a Brazilian national, entered the US in 2012 on a student visa, according to a court document since filed by his lawyer. The filing states that Gomes Da Silva’s student visa status has since lapsed – but that he is eligible for and intends to apply for asylum.

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