Trump immigration enforcement memo targets migrants who entered legally under Biden

Trump immigration enforcement memo targets migrants who entered legally under Biden
A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Processing Center stands in Broadview, Illinois, US Jan. 23, 2025. (Reuters)
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Updated 24 January 2025
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Trump immigration enforcement memo targets migrants who entered legally under Biden

Trump immigration enforcement memo targets migrants who entered legally under Biden
  • The US Department of Homeland Security memo provides guidance for the use of a fast-track deportation process
  • The process, known as “expedited removal,” had been applied only to people apprehended within 14 days of entering the country

WASHINGTON: The Trump administration is empowering federal immigration officers to consider whether to strip temporary legal status from migrants who entered through former President Joe Biden’s signature “parole” programs in an effort to ramp up deportations to record levels, according to a memo issued on Thursday.
The US Department of Homeland Security memo provides guidance for the use of a fast-track deportation process that the Trump administration reinstated earlier this week, suggesting officers focus on migrants who failed to request asylum within a one-year deadline after arriving in the US
The process, known as “expedited removal,” had been applied only to people apprehended within 14 days of entering the country and within 100 miles (160 km) of the border under Biden. On Tuesday, it was expanded nationwide and applied to all those who entered within two years.
President Donald Trump issued a series of executive orders after returning to the White House on Monday intended to deter illegal immigration and position the US to deport millions of immigrants without legal status.
The Republican president says the moves are necessary after millions of immigrants entered the US under Biden, both crossing illegally and through Biden’s legal entry programs.
Some Democrats and advocates counter that Trump’s aggressive enforcement could target non-criminals, disrupt businesses and split apart families. Immigrant rights group Make the Road New York sued on Wednesday to block Trump’s expansion of the fast-track deportation process.
Some 1.5 million migrants entered the US from 2022 to 2024 through two Biden legal entry “parole” programs aimed at reducing illegal crossings, according to US government statistics. One program allowed migrants waiting in Mexico to schedule an appointment to request asylum at a legal border crossing. Another allowed Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans outside the US to enter by air if they had US sponsors and underwent vetting.
Trump ended those programs on Monday, leaving some migrants in Mexico
stranded and unsure of next steps. Migrants who might have entered legally could face riskier routes if they cross illegally and higher prices from smugglers.
The latest guidance allowing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to consider stripping active parole from people who entered in the past two years could face legal challenges, one former Biden official said.
ICE made some 500 arrests on Thursday, Fox News reported, about a third of which were people without criminal records. The agency’s daily average for arrests was 311 in fiscal year 2024 and 467 in fiscal year 2023.
Ras Baraka, the Democratic mayor of Newark, New Jersey, criticized ICE last night
for an enforcement action in his city that involved detaining US citizens and a military veteran.


Trump says he would love to make a deal with Iran

Trump says he would love to make a deal with Iran
Updated 24 sec ago
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Trump says he would love to make a deal with Iran

Trump says he would love to make a deal with Iran

US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he would love to make a deal with Iran to improve bilateral relations, but added that Tehran should not develop a nuclear weapon.

“I say this to Iran, who's listening very intently, 'I would love to be able to make a great deal. A deal where you can get on with your lives,”” Trump told reporters in Washington.

“They cannot have one thing. They cannot have a nuclear weapon and if I think that they will have a nuclear weapon ... I think that's going to be very unfortunate for them,” He said.


Drone attack sparks blaze at oil depot in Russia’s Krasnodar, governor says

Drone attack sparks blaze at oil depot in Russia’s Krasnodar, governor says
Updated 18 min 33 sec ago
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Drone attack sparks blaze at oil depot in Russia’s Krasnodar, governor says

Drone attack sparks blaze at oil depot in Russia’s Krasnodar, governor says

A Ukrainian drone attack overnight sparked a fire at an oil depot in Russia’s southern region of Krasnodar that has since been extinguished, regional officials said on Wednesday.
A series of drone attacks by Ukraine on Russia’s energy facilities have sparked fires in recent days at a major oil refinery in the Volgograd region, as well as at the Astrakhan gas processing plant.
“The fire in a tank with oil product residues in the village of Novominskaya in the Kanevsky District was fully extinguished,” the region’s operational authorities said on the Telegram messaging app.
Earlier, Veniamin Kondratyev, governor of the Krasnodar region, said that there were no injuries in the fire that was caused by a falling drone debris. A team of 19 people wielding 19 items of equipment were fighting the flames, he said.
Kondratyev did not say which depot was on fire or detail the extent of damage.
The Russian defense ministry said that four Ukrainian drones were destroyed over the Russian territory overnight, but did not mention the Krasnodar region in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.
The ministry only reports drones that its air defense systems destroy, not how many were launched.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine. Kyiv says that its attacks inside Russia are aimed at destroying infrastructure key to Moscow’s war in Ukraine and are in response to Russian continued bombing of Ukraine.


5 people wounded in shooting at Ohio cosmetics warehouse

5 people wounded in shooting at Ohio cosmetics warehouse
Updated 33 min 19 sec ago
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5 people wounded in shooting at Ohio cosmetics warehouse

5 people wounded in shooting at Ohio cosmetics warehouse
  • Police say five people have been wounded in a shooting at a cosmetics warehouse in New Albany, Ohio
  • A spokesperson for New Albany says victims of Tuesday night’s shooting have been transported to the hospital

NEW ALBANY: Five people were wounded in a shooting Tuesday night at a cosmetics warehouse in Ohio, officials said.
The victims have been transported to the hospital and the suspect is no longer believed to be at the building, said Josh Poland, a spokesperson for the city of New Albany.
The shooting happened at the warehouse for a company that makes products including cosmetics and toiletries. Police did not immediately provide details of the circumstances surrounding the shooting or the conditions of those wounded.
Police were working to evacuate all the employees following the shooting, which happened just before 11 p.m., police said in a statement.


India PM Modi’s party seeks to oust anti-corruption crusader in New Delhi state elections

India PM Modi’s party seeks to oust anti-corruption crusader in New Delhi state elections
Updated 05 February 2025
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India PM Modi’s party seeks to oust anti-corruption crusader in New Delhi state elections

India PM Modi’s party seeks to oust anti-corruption crusader in New Delhi state elections
  • Thousands are voting in the Indian capital’s state legislature election, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party trying to unseat a powerful regional group that has ruled New Delhi
  • Kejriwal’s party won 62 out of 70 seats in the last election in 2020

NEW DELHI: Thousands begin voting in the Indian capital’s state legislature election on Wednesday, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party trying to unseat a powerful regional group that has ruled New Delhi for over a decade.
Voters walked to polling booths on a cold, wintry morning to cast their ballots across the sprawling capital. Manish Sisodia, a key Aam Aadmi Party leader, and others offered prayers in a temple before voting.
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party is up against the AAP, led by Arvind Kejriwal, which runs New Delhi and has built a vast support base on its welfare policies and an anti-corruption movement. Kejriwal, a popular crusader against corruption, suffered a setback as he himself faced graft allegations.
The AAP won 62 out of 70 seats in a landslide victory in the last election, held in 2020. leaving BJP with only eight and the Congress party with none. The AAP had also swept the 2015 state elections, winning 67 seats, with the BJP taking three.
Modi and Kejriwal have both campaigned vigorously in roadshows with thousands of supporters tailing them. They have offered to revamp government schools and provide free health services and electricity, and a monthly stipend of over 2,000 rupees ($25) to poor women.
Voting ends later Wednesday, with results due on Saturday. More than 15 million people are eligible to vote in New Delhi’s election.
Arati Jerath, a political commentator, predicted a tight contest between the two parties, saying, “Even since the AAP rose to prominence, it has been a one-sided contest.”
Delhi, a city of more than 20 million people, is a federal territory that Modi’s party has not won for over 27 years despite having a sizable support base there.
Kejriwal and other AAP leaders recently faced graft allegations in a liquor license case.
Neerja Chowdhury, a political analyst, said the liquor policy case — in which several AAP leaders, including Kejriwal, went to jail — had dented Kejriwal’s clean image.
Kejriwal was arrested last year along with two key leaders of his party ahead of national elections on charges of receiving bribes from a liquor distributor. They have consistently denied the accusations, saying they are part of a political conspiracy. The Supreme Court allowed the release of Kejriwal and other ministers on bail.
Kejriwal later relinquished the chief minister’s post to his most senior party leader.
The BJP, which failed to secure a majority on its own in last year’s national election but formed the government with coalition partners, has gained some lost ground by winning two state elections in northern Haryana and western Maharashtra states.
Modi’s party hopes to benefit after last week’s federal budget slashed income taxes on the salaried middle class, one of its key voting blocks.
Opposition parties widely condemned Kejriwal’s arrest, accusing Modi’s government of misusing federal investigation agencies to harass and weaken political opponents, and pointed to several raids, arrests and corruption investigations of key opposition figures in the months before the national election.
Kejriwal vowed to be an anti-corruption crusader and formed the AAP in 2012 after tapping into public anger against the then-Congress party government over a series of corruption scandals. His pro-poor policies have focused on fixing state-run schools and providing cheap electricity, free health care and bus transport for women.
The BJP was voted out of power in Delhi in 1998 by the Congress party, which ran the government for 15 years. In the 2015 and 2020 elections in Delhi, the AAP won landslide victories.


Vietnamese man sentenced to 44 years for plotting suicide attack at London’s Heathrow

Metropolitan Police officers stand guard in central London, on January 21, 2023. (AFP)
Metropolitan Police officers stand guard in central London, on January 21, 2023. (AFP)
Updated 05 February 2025
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Vietnamese man sentenced to 44 years for plotting suicide attack at London’s Heathrow

Metropolitan Police officers stand guard in central London, on January 21, 2023. (AFP)
  • He spent a year in Yemen, where he received “military-type” training and helped prepare the group’s magazine, Inspire, working directly with Samir Khan, a US citizen who served as its editor and died in a US drone strike in 2011, according to the departme

LONDON: A Vietnamese man was sentenced to 44 years in prison for attempting to carry out a suicide attack at Heathrow International Airport in London, the US Department of Justice said on Tuesday.
Minh Quang Pham, 41, who was alleged to have traveled to Yemen to receive military training from Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, had previously pleaded guilty charges that included providing material support to the group.
US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Danielle R. Sassoon described his actions not only as an affront to the safety of the US “but to the principles of peace and security that we hold dear.”
“Today’s sentencing underscores our collective resolve to stop terrorism before it occurs, and place would-be terrorists in prison,” Sassoon said in a statement.
The Justice Department said Pham traveled from the United Kingdom to Yemen in December 2010 and took an oath of allegiance to the militant group, which the United States lists as a terrorist organization.
He spent a year in Yemen, where he received “military-type” training and helped prepare the group’s magazine, Inspire, working directly with Samir Khan, a US citizen who served as its editor and died in a US drone strike in 2011, according to the department.
Pham was arrested by British authorities in 2011 and extradited to the United States four years later to face terrorism charges, it added.