17 h. ago John Oliver on Trump deportations: ‘usually blatantly racist and always cruel’

The Last Week Tonight host decries Trump’s fearmongering on immigration and disregard for the rule of lawJohn Oliver took a deep dive through the Trump administration’s brutal and bewildering campaign of deportations on Sunday evening, starting with the White House’s “nauseating social media posts”. Posts to the official White House Instagram account include a video of shackled people led on to a plane soundtracked to the song Closing Time by Semisonic, along with the caption “you don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.”The track “obviously isn’t the right song choice”, the Last Week Tonight host said. “The right song choice would be no song at all, because deportation Instagram reel is a combination of words that should never exist, like ‘Oscar winner Mr Beast’ or ‘Stephen Miller nudes’ or ‘Bill Belichick speaks about his relationship with 24-year-old girlfriend.’” (Semisonic has denounced the choice of the song.) Continue reading...

Politics

36 h. ago Emmerdale wedding at risk as John Sugden's secrets finally exposed

Emmerdale's John Sugden - played by Oliver Farnworth - has been keeping secrets from his fiancé Aaron Dingle that could threaten to ruin their wedding day on the ITV soap opera

Society

64 h. ago ‘What is left of our democracy?’: freed Palestinian human rights advocate warns of US authoritarian rule

Mohsen Mahdawi, student detained by Ice last month, pens blistering attack on Trump’s deportation policiesMohsen Mahdawi, the Palestinian green-card holder and Columbia University student freed on Wednesday after more than two weeks in immigration detention, has issued a stark warning about the US’s descent into authoritarianism.“Once the repression of dissent, in the name of security, becomes a key objective of a government, authoritarian rule and even martial law are not far off. When they look at my case, all Americans should ask themselves: what is left of our democracy, and who will be targeted next?” said Mahddawi in an op-ed for the New York Times. Continue reading...

Events

4 d. ago White House uses newly revealed allegations to support refusal to return Kilmar Ábrego García to US

Wife of man unlawfully sent to El Salvador filed protection petition in 2020 after domestic violence allegationsThe legal team behind Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland man unlawfully deported to El Salvador, is demanding that the Trump administration “bring him back and give him a full and fair trial” as the administration releases new domestic abuse allegations.In a press release issued on Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) cited allegations made by Ábrego García’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, that he abused her on several occasions in 2019 and 2020. Continue reading...

Events

4 d. ago Judge bars deportations of Venezuelans from South Texas under 18th

A federal judge has barred the Trump administration from deporting any Venezuelans from South Texas under an 18th-century wartime law

Events

4 d. ago I witnessed US cruelty as a Guantánamo lawyer. Trump’s deportations are disturbingly familiar | Mark Denbeaux

The government’s claims against detainees were paper-thin and the process riddled with errors. Now history is repeatingGuantánamo is a horror Americans have tried to forget. But the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) deportation regime resembles so many of Guantánamo’s evils that it compels comparison. That comparison reveals significant differences but frightening similarities.On 11 January 2002, the detention facility opened. The first detainees, in orange jumpsuits, hobbled along in a parade to show the press the success of the government in this battle of the “war on terror”.The detainee admits he was a cook’s assistant for Taliban forces in Narim, Afghanistan under the command of Haji Mullah Baki.Mark Denbeaux is professor emeritus at Seton Hall Law School and for 18 years represented four detainees held in Guantánamo who had endured torture by the CIA Continue reading...

Politics

5 d. ago Trump says he can 'bring back' man accidentally deported to torture prison

President Donald Trump has refused to make the call to El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele to discuss returning Kilmar Abrego Garcia after he was wrongly deported due to being 'an MS-13 gang member'

Events

5 d. ago Trump says he does not know if El Salvador would return Kilmar Ábrego García and hasn’t asked – live

Trump said he hasn’t spoken to Bukele about mistakenly deported man – despite supreme court order requiring administration to facilitate returnKristi Noem says Ábrego García would be deported immediately if sent back to USTrump pressures journalist to accept doctored photo as realDonald Trump promptly claimed this morning that the contraction in the US economy had nothing to do with his tariff wars, repeated his habitual claim that this is all somehow his predecessor Joe Biden’s fault, and predicted the economy would boom when tariffs kicked in. He wrote on his Truth Social platform:This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s. I didn’t take over until January 20th. Tariffs will soon start kicking in, and companies are starting to move into the USA in record numbers. Our Country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden “Overhang.” This will take a while, has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that he left us with bad numbers, but when the boom begins, it will be like no other. BE P...

Politics

5 d. ago Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi freed after federal judge orders release

Palestinian, a lawful permanent US resident, was detained and ordered deported despite not being charged with crimeUS politics live – latest updatesMohsen Mahdawi has walked out of immigration detention after a federal judge in Vermont ordered his release. The Palestinian green-card holder and student at Columbia University had been detained and ordered deported by the Trump administration on 14 April despite not being charged with a crime.“The two weeks of detention so far demonstrate great harm to a person who has been charged with no crime,” said Geoffrey Crawford, a US district judge, at a hearing on Wednesday, according to ABC News. “Mr Mahdawi, I will order you released.” Continue reading...

Events

5 d. ago Kristi Noem says Kilmar Ábrego García would be deported immediately if sent back to US

US homeland security secretary said Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador ‘not under our control’Kristi Noem, the US homeland security secretary, said that if Kilmar Ábrego García was sent back to the US, the Donald Trump administration “would immediately deport him again”.Noem repeated White House assertions about Ábrego García, a Salvadorian man who the Trump administration has admitted was mistakenly deported from Maryland last month, in a new interview with CBS. Continue reading...

Politics

5 d. ago Columbia student activist rebukes Trump after release from ICE detention: ‘I’m not afraid of you’

Palestinian activist is among dozens of international students marked for deportation by Trump administration

Politics

5 d. ago Denied, detained, deported: the faces of Trump’s immigration crackdown

The administration has torn up the rule book as it seeks to implement a hardline agenda to expel people from the US Donald Trump retook the White House vowing to stage “the largest deportation operation in American history”. As previewed, the administration set about further militarizing the US-Mexico border and targeting people requesting asylum and refugees while conducting raids and deportations in undocumented communities, detaining and deporting immigrants and spreading fear.Critics are outraged, if not surprised. But few expected the new legal chapter that unfolded next: a multipronged crackdown on certain people seen as opponents of the US president’s ideological agenda. This extraordinary assault has come in the context of wider attacks on higher education, the courts and the constitution. Continue reading...

Politics

5 d. ago Federal judge in Vermont orders release of Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi

Mahdawi, a lawful permanent US resident, was detained and ordered deported by the Trump administration despite not being charged with a crimeUS politics live – latest updatesA federal judge in Vermont ordered the release of Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian green-card holder and student at Columbia University who was detained and ordered deported by the Trump administration on 14 April despite not being charged with a crime.“The two weeks of detention so far demonstrate great harm to a person who has been charged with no crime,” said Geoffrey Crawford, a US district judge, at a hearing Wednesday, according to ABC News. “Mr Mahdawi, I will order you released.” Continue reading...

Events

5 d. ago Judge orders release of Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi from ICE detention after his arrest during citizenship interview

Palestinian activist is among dozens of international students marked for deportation by Trump administration

Events

5 d. ago Trump says he could free Abrego Garcia, but won’t – contradicting claims made by his cabinet

President confirms he has the authority to return the wrongly deported father to the United States but says he will not

Politics

6 d. ago Trump’s deportations are turning immigrant communities into ghost towns

The Independent visited three immigrant neighborhoods across the U.S. — Michelle Del Rey in Virginia, Josh Marcus in California and Richard Hall in New York — to investigate the impact of Trump’s deportations on the communities in the crosshairs.

Events

6 d. ago Faces of Trump’s deportation push: The people falling victim to the immigration crackdown

Asylum-seekers, international students and activists alike tell Josh Marcus about their age of uncertainty under Trump

Politics

6 d. ago Most Americans believe Trump’s threats over Canada, deporting citizens and a third term but don’t approve, poll finds

Even many Republicans oppose some of the president’s signature policies

Politics

6 d. ago Denied, detained, deported: the people targeted in Trump’s immigration crackdown

These are some of the people ensnared by the administration’s unprecedented measures to target people it believes oppose its agendaDonald Trump retook the White House vowing to stage “the largest deportation operation in American history”. As previewed, the administration set about further militarizing the US-Mexico border and targeting people requesting asylum and refugees while conducting raids and deportations in undocumented communities, detaining and deporting immigrants and spreading fear.Critics are outraged, if not surprised. But few expected the new legal chapter that unfolded next: a multipronged crackdown on certain people seen as opponents of the US president’s ideological agenda. This extraordinary assault has come in the context of wider attacks on higher education, the courts and the constitution. Continue reading...

Politics

6 d. ago The uniting theme of Trump’s presidency? Ineptitude | Robert Reich

From deportations to human rights to the economy, the president’s actions have resulted in mayhem. Here’s a samplingSome Democrats fear they’re playing into Donald Trump’s hands by fighting his mass deportations rather than focusing on his failures on bread-and-butter issues like the cost of living.But it’s not either-or. The theme that unites Trump’s inept handling of deportations, his trampling on human and civil rights, his rejection of the rule of law, his dictatorial centralization of power, and his utterly inept handling of the economy is the ineptness itself.Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com Continue reading...

Politics