#chartered migrant flights

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 27, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Yesterday, President Donald Trump began a trade war with Colombia after that country’s president refused to permit two U.S. military airplanes full of deportees to land in Colombia. As Regina Garcia Cano and Astrid Suárez of the Associated Press pointed out, Colombia and the U.S. had an existing agreement for deportations under former president Joe Biden, and it accepted 475 deportation flights from 2020 to 2024, accepting 124 flights in 2024 alone. But the Biden administration used commercial and charter flights, while as national security analyst Juliette Kayyem noted, Trump used a military plane that arrived unannounced.

As Tim Naftali of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs explained: “If a foreign country tries to land its military planes—except in an emergency—without an existing agreement that is an infringement of sovereignty.” Colombia rejected the military planes without prior authorization and offered the use of its presidential plane instead.

Colombia also asked the U.S. to provide notice and decent treatment for its people, an issue that had been raised and resolved in 2023 after migrants arrived in hand and foot cuffs. Colombian president Gustavo Petro noted that the U.S. had committed that it would guarantee dignified conditions for the repatriation of migrants. The plane of migrants landed in Honduras, where Columbia sent its presidential plane to pick them up.

Trump announced that Colombia’s “denial of these flights has jeopardized the National Security and Public Safety of the United States,” and slapped a 25% tariff on products from Colombia, which include about $6 billion of crude petroleum, $1.8 billion of coffee, and $1.6 billion of cut flowers. In addition, he said, the U.S. would revoke the visas of all Colombian “Government Officials, and all Allies and Supporters.” He promptly deported Colombian staff members of the World Bank who were working for international diplomatic organizations in the U.S., and canceled visa appointments at Colombia’s U.S. Embassy.

Rather than backing down, President Petro threatened to levy a retaliatory tariff on U.S. products. Colombia imports 96.7% of the corn it feeds its livestock from the U.S., putting Colombia in the top five export markets for U.S. corn. According to a letter written by a bipartisan group of lawmakers eager to protect that trade, led by Senator Todd Young (R-IN), in 2003 the U.S. exported more than 4 million metric tons of corn to Colombia, which translated to $1.14 billion in sales. “American farmers cannot afford to lose such a vital export market,” the lawmakers wrote, “especially when access to the top U.S. corn export market, Mexico, is already at risk.”

By this morning the economic crisis appeared to be over, although U.S. visa restrictions apparently remain. With prior authorization and better treatment of migrants, Colombia is willing to accept the migrant flights. The White House declared victory, saying: “Today’s events make clear to the world that America is respected again. President Trump will continue to fiercely protect our nation's sovereignty, and he expects all other nations of the world to fully cooperate in accepting the deportation of their citizens illegally present in the United States.”

The administration’s handling of the situation with Colombia reveals that their power depends on convincing people to ignore reality and instead to believe in the fantasy world Trump dictates.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced yesterday morning that “[d]eportation flights have begun.” In fact, nothing is “beginning.” In 2024, Colombia accepted on average more than two U.S. flights of migrants a week. And, as immigration scholar Austin Kocher noted, “everyone on this deportation flight was arrested and detained by the Biden administration.”

Over the past four years, Trump and MAGA Republicans repeatedly insisted that Biden had maintained “open borders,” while in fact, what the administration did was to try to address a situation made worse by the coronavirus pandemic.

As Katie Tobin of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace explains, before the coronavirus pandemic, Venezuela, where the economy was particularly bad under rising authoritarian Nicolás Maduro, sent migrants abroad. By June 2022, 6 million Venezuelans had fled their country; by September 2024, that number was 7.7 million. South American governments welcomed the Venezuelan migrants and others, including Haitians fleeing their country’s political chaos.

But as economies collapsed after the coronavirus crisis, Tobin explains, migrant populations that had settled in South American countries were forced out. From 2019 to 2021, Colombia’s per capita gross domestic product fell 4.6%; Peru’s, 5.3%; Ecuador’s, 2.8%; Brazil’s, 11.7%; and Venezuela’s, 20%. As the U.S. economy grew by 8.38%, Canada’s grew by 13.1%, and Mexico’s dropped only by 0.7%, migrants headed north. In September 2021, when 15,000 Haitians who had originally migrated to Brazil arrived at the U.S. border with Mexico, countries throughout the hemisphere realized that they needed a new regional approach to migration.

After nine months of negotiations, 21 countries announced that they had created a new migration pact for the Western Hemisphere. It provided economic support for Latin American countries that were original destinations for migrants, expanded formal pathways for immigration, and increased border security across the region.

Canada and Mexico were the first countries to buy into the new agreement. The U.S. turned next to strong ally Colombia, which agreed in March 2022, after which Vice President Kamala Harris brought on board Caribbean countries. By June 10, when the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection was announced, twenty-one nations had signed on. U.N. observers were present to demonstrate their support.

The Biden administration insisted that countries begin immediate action, and they did. Tobin notes that Belize, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, and Peru have made sweeping new offers of legal status to hundreds of thousands of migrants already living in their countries, while Colombia has offered legal status to 2 million Venezuelans and Brazil has welcomed more than 500,000. Mexico and Guatemala have offered legal pathways to workers.

Canada, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Spain, and the U.S. launched a virtual platform to enable migrants to apply for admission remotely. When Mexico agreed to accept Venezuelans who had crossed into the U.S. unlawfully and at the same time the U.S. announced a legal pathway for 24,000 Venezuelans, border crossings dropped 90% within a week. Biden and Mexican president Andrés Manuel L��pez Obrador expanded that initiative to include Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans.

By 2023, border arrests had fallen by about half. Although Congress failed to pass a strong bipartisan measure to increase border security and fund immigration courts, arrests fell by half again after Biden in June 2024 issued a proclamation that barred migrants from being granted asylum when U.S. officials deemed the border was overwhelmed. By the end of Biden’s term, unlawful border crossings had plummeted to lows that hadn’t been seen since June 2020.

There are new challenges to managing migration as wars, climate change, and economic pressures push migrants out of various parts of Africa and out of China. Many of those migrants are finding their way to Latin America and from there to the U.S. The U.N. Refugee Agency estimates that 117 million people were displaced by the end of 2023.

Trump won election in part by vowing to shut down immigration, and as soon as he took office he canceled the CBP One app, the virtual platform that allowed migrants to apply for asylum. During the campaign, he vowed to deport those migrants he claimed were criminals, which many interpreted to mean he would only remove those who had committed violent crimes (which the U.S. has always done). But in his first term, Trump’s people considered anyone who entered the U.S. outside of immigration law to be a criminal, and this appears to be the definition his people are using now.

Daily deportation raids in which U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested a few hundred people in sweeps began almost as soon as Trump took office. Josh Campbell, Andy Rose, and Nick Valencia of CNN reported that the federal government has flooded the media with video and photos of agents in tactical gear, their vests bearing the words “Police ICE” and “Homeland Security” as they lead individuals in handcuffs. The journalists report that this is not an accident: agents were told to have their agency names clearly displayed for the press.

The presence of television talk show host Dr. Phil (McGraw) with an ICE team in Chicago reinforces the sense that these arrests are designed for the cameras. So does yesterday’s report by Nick Miroff and Maria Sacchetti of the Washington Post that Trump is disappointed with the sweeps so far and has directed officials to ramp up arrests aggressively, providing quotas for ICE field offices. Today, new secretary of defense Pete Hegseth said the department will “shift” to “the defense of the territorial integrity of the United States of America at the southern border.”

Yesterday’s spat with Colombia’s president enabled Trump to declare victory, but Colombia has been the top U.S. ally in Latin America, a close partner in combating drug trafficking and managing migration. That relationship, which has taken years of careful cultivation, is now threatened.

Will Freeman of the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy, posted: “I can’t think of many *worse* strategic blunders for the U.S., as it competes w/ China, than going nuclear against its oldest strategic ally & last big country in S. America where it enjoys a trade advantage…. Trump certainly expects that b[ecause] 1/3 of Colombian exports go to the U.S. Petro will be forced to back down. But Petro seems to welcome the fight & has already signaled wishes to deepen ties w/ China. Colombia will lose partnership on security it badly needs. Only China stands to gain from this.”

Indeed, China’s ambassador to Colombia promptly noted that “we are at the best moment of our diplomatic relations between China and Colombia, which are now 45 years old.”

Meanwhile, according to former ambassador Luis G. Moreno, the Trump administration has shut down 2,100 courses in the premier training facility for State Department foreign service officers, ostensibly because they are too associated with diversity, equity, and inclusion. Moreno adds: “Dismantling of a professional diplomatic corps is underway.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[lopadopalis]

Haiti is currently experiencing the prelude to genocide.

I don't know if anyone will find this, I don't even know how reliable some of these sources' details are, but something must be said.

A day ago, the Dominican Republic and Haiti had an armed standoff. They clashed over the border a month ago because of Haiti building a canal that would make them more independent from the DR.

Refugees were progressively fleeing to Nicaragua to get away from the country's ongoing spiral, but that door recently closed. It may have opened back up, I'm not certain, but the government of Haiti has gone ahead and banned flights to Nicaragua anyway.

The Dominican Republic also wants to build an actual fucking wall, and is partnered with Israel, who are currently killing Palestinians in utterly disproportionate and sickening so-called retribution.

The Dominican Republic has good relations with the United States. This post is from just eight days ago, from Biden himself.

In summary: 1. Haiti's bid to cope with their own water crisis has led to the Dominican Republic closing the border. 2. There are currently border clashes between Haiti and DR. 3. Haitians have been fleeing to Nicaragua, but the door has been closed by their own government. 4. DR has close ties with the US, so they're likely to back the DR. 5. People are dying.

I don't live anywhere near Haiti, nor am I physically affected by the unfolding situation. I don't know how bloody things really are getting in there, or how accurate some of this news is (lord knows accurate news on unfolding genocides is horrendously difficult to find), but if there's even a chance that this is actually fucking happening right now, then it needs to be said. It needs to be known. Because things are about to get very ugly.

[hybridmindthoughtsreloaded]

Since he's using military planes to help put on a show for the MAGA cult instead of charter flights like normal deportations, Trump is wasting even more tax payers money.

[beardedmrbean]

July 2 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will fund a program to help Panama remove illegal migrants from within its borders, the Biden administration announced Monday.

"Irregular migration is a regional challenge that requires a regional response," Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a news release Monday. "We are grateful for our partnership with Panama to manage the historic levels of migration across the Western Hemisphere."

The program will help the Panamanian government remove foreign nationals who illegally are in Panama.

The goal is to reduce "unprecedented irregular migration" through the Darien Province of eastern Panama and which is the entryway to Central America from South America.

About 520,000 "irregular migrants" with no legal basis traveled through Panama's Darien Province last year, according to the DHS.

The agreement with the Biden administration supports "safe and effective Panamanian repatriation operations," including protection screening of migrants, according to the DHS.

The repatriation operations include removal flights that are part of a comprehensive regional approach to addressing irregular migration in the Western Hemisphere.

The DHS will support training and capacity-building to enable "safe, humane repatriation processes in Panama," Mayorkas said.

The cooperative agreement supports the reduction of the "number of migrants being cruelly smuggled through the Darien, usually en route to the United States," National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a prepared statement Monday.

"Returning such individuals to their country of origin ... will help deter irregular migration in the region and at our southern border and halt the enrichment of malign smuggling networks that prey on vulnerable migrants," Watson said.

The Biden administration announced the agreement on the same day that newly elected Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino was inaugurated.

"The United States reaffirms our long-standing partnership with Panama," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a prepared statement Monday. "We will work together to strengthen institutions,advance inclusive economic growth and promote good governance and citizen security."

Blinken said the United States also will work with Panamanian officials to "address the unprecedented level of illegal migration through the Darien and dissuade would-be migrants from attempting this extremely dangerous journey."

The Biden administration also has created sanctions and worked with other countries this year in attempts to tackle irregular migration patterns that can affect the United States, particularly at the southern border.

In May, Blinken announced $578 million in humanitarian, development and economic assistance for various countries in the Western Hemisphere. He unveiled the funds in Guatemala, where he had led a delegation to a ministerial meeting of the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection, a multi-country agreement aimed at combating migration and forced displacement.

Nicaragua also was the target of May sanctions from the United States. The Biden administration said Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, were profiteering off the plight of "irregular migrants" seeking passage to the United States.

In February, the United States expanded visa restrictions to transportation operators accused of offering services that facilitate irregular migration. The State Department said the new policy would target owners, executives and senior officials of "charter flight, ground and maritime transportation companies providing transportation services designed for use primarily by persons intending to migrate irregularly to the United States."

[tomorrowusa]

Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis are transporting migrants to other states to boost their standings with the far right and to draw attention away from festering problems in their own states.

DeSantis is governor of a state which doesn't even have a border with a foreign country, but he's been scooping migrants up in other states and dumping them in California, Massachusetts, and elsewhere.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is now threatening criminal charges against DeSantis. THIS is what needs to be done. Other blue state governors and attorneys general, please take note!

For the second time in four days, Florida picked up people seeking asylum and took them by private jet to Sacramento at taxpayer expense, California officials said on Monday after another flight arrived at a local airport.

California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, on Monday branded his rightwing Republican Florida counterpart, Ron DeSantis, a “small, pathetic man”, and appeared to threaten kidnapping charges after the first incident in which a group of migrants was dumped at a Sacramento church.

Rob Bonta, California’s attorney general, said in a statement that 16 South Americans abandoned outside the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento on Friday were “in possession of documentation purporting to be from the state of Florida”, and may have been duped into boarding charter flights via New Mexico after entering the US in Texas. On Monday morning, a second flight of 20 migrants arrived in the state’s capital.

DeSantis is using Florida taxpayer money to conduct these stunts. His rubber stamp legislature lets him get away with stuff like this.

The episode has parallels to what critics called a similar “soulless” stunt orchestrated by DeSantis last year in which his administration abandoned several dozen mostly Venezuelan migrants in Martha’s Vineyard.

Newsom, in a tweet posted Monday lunchtime directed at DeSantis, said: “You small, pathetic man. This isn’t Martha’s Vineyard. Kidnapping charges?” and linked to a section of California’s penal code stating anybody who “abducts or takes by force or fraud” a person found within the state “is guilty of kidnapping”.

Republican governors should not be allowed to conduct kidnappings at taxpayer expense. And their accomplices need to be penalized as well.

“While we continue to collect evidence, I want to say this very clearly: state-sanctioned kidnapping is not a public policy choice, it is immoral and disgusting,” Bonta said in the statement.

The flight was operated by Berry Aviation, an active US defense contractor, according to flight tracking data on FlightRadar24. When reached on the phone, the company declined to comment. Acorn Growth Companies, an aerospace investment firm, which owns Berry Aviation, did not answer calls.

Acorn’s managing partner, Rick Nagel of Oklahoma, is a major Republican fundraiser. He was the campaign treasurer for congressman Tom Cole, who chairs the House rules committee. Cole is a former head of the Republican National Congressional Committee and a fervent backer of Donald Trump’s anti-immigration policies.

Planes and buses used to transport migrants under such circumstances should be impounded as evidence and the companies which own them should be indicted.

Given the disproportionate number of mass shootings in Florida and Texas, DeSantis and Abbott are trying to deflect attention from their failure to keep assault weapons out of the hands of extremists and criminals.

If California and other states issue warrants for the arrest of Ron DeSantis, that might make his campaigning a little more difficult.

[newstfionline]

Wednesday, December 27, 2023

In battleground Arizona, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. draws Biden and Trump voters (AP) Some voted for Donald Trump, others for Joe Biden. A few had never wanted anything to do with politics before they heard Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on a podcast or YouTube video. Lined up outside a Phoenix wedding hall tucked between a freeway, a railroad track and a U-Haul rental center, the hundreds of people who turned out Wednesday to hear Kennedy speak shared little in common ideologically. What united them was a deep-seated distrust of the media, of corporations and especially of the government and a belief that Kennedy is the only person in politics willing to tell them the truth. Voters are not enthusiastic about a Biden-Trump rematch, and alternatives like Kennedy or the No Labels third-party movement, which would typically be longshots, see an opening. Kennedy’s appearance in a 2024 battleground state highlights how he could influence the election in ways that are tough to predict. Allies of both Trump and Biden have expressed concerns that Kennedy’s independent bid could pull votes from their candidate in next year’s expected general election rematch.

Migrant caravan in southern Mexico marks Christmas Day by trudging onward (AP) Christmas Day meant the same as any other day for thousands of migrants walking through southern Mexico: more trudging under a hot sun. There were no presents, and Christmas Eve dinner was a sandwich, a bottle of water and a banana handed out by the Catholic church to some of the migrants in the town of Álvaro Obregón, in the southern state of Chiapas, which borders Guatemala. Migrants spent Christmas night sleeping on a scrap of cardboard or plastic stretched out under an awning or tent, or the bare ground. At around 6,000 people, the migrant caravan that set out Sunday was the largest one since June 2022, when a similarly sized group departed Tapachula.

Police in Peru dress up as Santa for festive drugs bust (The Independent) Police in Peru have been spotted carrying out a drugs raid while dressed as Santa Claus. The undercover agents caught two men allegedly selling cocaine and cannabis in a house in Huaral, just north of Lima. ‘Santa’ could be seen using a sledgehammer to break down the door of the house, before removing his beard to cuff one of the suspects.

Plane passengers held pending human trafficking inquiry leave France for India (Reuters) A plane carrying 276 Indian passengers took off on Monday for Mumbai, the French interior ministry’s local office said, after it was grounded for four days pending investigation into possible human trafficking. The flight, carried out by Romanian charter company Legend Airlines, had departed from Dubai and landed at the small Vatry airport on Thursday for a technical stopover when police intervened. Bound for Nicaragua, the flight arrived in France with 303 Indian passengers onboard. After being interrogated by police, two people investigated for human trafficking have been placed under “assisted witness” status while the investigation continues, according to the prosecutor’s office. Another 25 people, including five minors, have stayed in France where they wish to seek asylum, authorities said.

Russian naval ship in Crimea damaged in airstrike by Ukrainian forces, Russian Defense Ministry says (AP) A Russian naval ship in Crimea was damaged in an airstrike by Ukrainian forces, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday. The landing ship Novocherkassk was hit at a base in the city of Feodosia by plane-launched guided missiles, the ministry said, adding that two Ukrainian fighter jets were destroyed by anti-aircraft fire during the attack. Over the past several months, Ukrainian forces have conducted attacks around Crimea, mostly with sea drones.

China expects searing heat, more weather extremes in 2024 (Reuters) China grappling with one of its coldest Decembers on record will likely have to brace for another round of scorching heat and an increase in extreme weather next year due to the El Nino weather phenomenon, a senior climate expert said. This year has seen China lurch from some of its hottest temperatures logged since 1850 to a harsh cold snap that froze many parts of the country for close to a fortnight earlier this month. This past summer saw Beijing bake in record heat while a remote township in the country’s arid northwest logged a day of 52 degrees Celsius (126 Fahrenheit) the hottest on record for China. Typhoons also brought record-breaking rainfall in China’s north, causing widespread flooding.

Israel’s Economy Expected to Shrink 2% as War Sidelines Workers (NYT) The Israeli economy is expected to shrink by 2 percent this quarter, according to a leading research center, with hundreds of thousands of workers displaced by the war with Hamas or called up as reservists. About 20 percent of the Israeli work force was missing from the labor market in October, up from 3 percent before the fighting began, according to a report from the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies, a nonpartisan think tank in Israel. The spike in unemployment reflects the fact that about 900,000 people were called up to fight, stayed home to take care of children because schools had closed, evacuated from towns near the borders with Lebanon and Gaza or couldn’t work because of physical damage to their industries.

Lose a limb or risk death? Gaza’s wounded face hard choices (AP) The doctors gave Shaimaa Nabahin an impossible choice: lose your left leg or risk death. The 22-year-old had been hospitalized in Gaza for around a week, after her ankle was partially severed in an Israeli airstrike, when doctors told her she was suffering from blood poisoning. Nabahin chose to maximize her chances of survival, and agreed to have her leg amputated 15 centimeters (6 inches) below the knee. The decision upended life for the ambitious university student, as it has for untold others among the more than 54,500 war-wounded who faced similar gut-wrenching choices. Experts believe that in some cases, limbs could have been saved with proper treatment. But after weeks of Israel’s blistering air and ground offensive, only nine out of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are still operational. They are greatly overcrowded, offer limited treatment and lack basic equipment to perform surgeries. Many wounded are unable to reach the remaining hospitals, pinned down by Israeli bombardment and ground combat.

Saudis Keep Low Profile in Red Sea Conflict (NYT) After rebels took over the capital of Yemen in 2014, a 30-year-old Saudi prince named Mohammed bin Salman spearheaded a military intervention to rout them. With American assistance and weapons, Saudi pilots embarked on a bombing campaign called Operation Decisive Storm inside Yemen, the mountainous nation on their southern border. Officials expected to swiftly defeat the rebels, a ragtag tribal militia known as the Houthis. Instead, the prince’s forces spent years mired in a conflict that splintered into fighting between multiple armed groups, drained billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia’s coffers and helped plunge Yemen into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Hundreds of thousands of people died from violence, hunger and unchecked disease. Saudi Arabia and its main partner, the United Arab Emirates, eventually scaled back their military involvement, and Saudi officials entered peace talks with the Houthis, who secured control of northern Yemen. Now, the war in Gaza has thrust the Houthis whose ideology is driven by hostility toward the United States and Israel and support for the Palestinian cause into an unlikely global spotlight. Saudi Arabia, however, would rather watch these latest developments from the sidelines, with the prospect of peace on its southern border a more appealing goal than joining an effort to stop attacks that the Houthis say are directed at Israel a state the kingdom does not officially recognize and which is widely reviled by its people.

Attack in Nigeria (Foreign Policy) At least 160 people were killed and 300 people wounded in attacks on villages in central Nigeria, local officials said Monday. Monday Kassah, head of the local government in Bokkos, Plateau State, told the AFP that armed groups locally known as bandits launched attacks on at least 20 communities. Plateau State Gov. Caleb Mutfwang condemned the violence as “barbaric, brutal, and unjustified,” and governor’s office spokesperson Gyang Bere vowed to take proactive measures to protect civilians. However, Amnesty International criticized the government following the attacks, writing on X that “the Nigerian authorities have been failing to end frequent deadly attacks on rural communities of Plateau State.”

A Thriving Border Town Undercuts South Africa’s Anti-Immigrant Mood (NYT) By 7 a.m., lines of customers snake down the block outside stores on the main commercial strip in Musina, a bustling South African border town where thousands of people arrive daily from neighboring Zimbabwe to buy food, clothes and other necessities that are hard to get back home. A few miles away, at the border, pickup trucks bearing the seal of South Africa’s newly formed border patrol inspect the razor-wire fence, looking to arrest people who cross illegally braving bandits, crocodiles and the rushing Limpopo River. The border force represents an effort by the government, months ahead of crucial national elections, to respond to popular demand and clamp down on migrants sneaking into the country. Musina, surrounded by farms and a copper mine, is where the government’s muscular immigration policy collides with a tricky reality that many South Africans are loath to concede: that even people who cross the border illegally may be good for the country. Like politicians in the United States, Europe and elsewhere who score points by promising hardened borders and mass deportation, their South African counterparts are pitching a sweeping crackdown on foreigners to appeal to voters, playing on similar, often-unfounded fears that immigrants fuel crime and steal jobs.

Pope Francis blasts the weapons industry as he makes a Christmas appeal for peace in the world (AP) Pope Francis on Monday blasted the weapons industry and its “instruments of death” that fuel wars as he made a Christmas Day appeal for peace in the world and in particular between Israel and the Palestinians. Speaking from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica to the throngs of people below, Francis said he grieved the “abominable attack” of Hamas against southern Israel on Oct. 7 and called for the release of hostages. And he begged for an end to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and the “appalling harvest of innocent civilians” as he called for humanitarian aid to reach those in need. Francis devoted his Christmas Day blessing to a call for peace in the world, noting that the biblical story of the birth of Christ in Bethlehem sent a message of peace. But he said that Bethlehem “is a place of sorrow and silence” this year. He took particular aim at the weapons industry, which he said was fueling the conflicts around the globe with scarcely anyone paying attention. “It should be talked about and written about, so as to bring to light the interests and the profits that move the puppet strings of war,” he said. “And how can we even speak of peace, when arms production, sales and trade are on the rise?” Francis has frequently blasted the weapons industry as “merchants of death” and has said that wars today, in Ukraine, in particular, are being used to try out new weapons or use up old stockpiles.

[ausetkmt]

TALLAHASSEE, FL — Authorities in two states are threatening Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis with criminal charges after dozens of migrants were flown from Texas to California this week and to Massachusetts in September 2022.

In California, authorities were investigating whether DeSantis was behind a flight that picked up asylum-seekers on the Texas border and flew them — apparently without their knowledge — to California's capital of Sacramento.

The development coincided with confirmation from the Bexar County Sheriff's Office in Texas that criminal charges were recommended against DeSantis in connection to an incident where 49 asylum seekers were flown from Texas to Martha's Vineyard as part of DeSantis' migrant relocation program.

In California, about 20 people aged 21 to 30 were flown by private jet to Sacramento on Monday, state Attorney General Rob Bonta said. It was the second such flight in four days.

Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg and faith-based groups who have been assisting the migrants scheduled a news conference for Tuesday morning.

Meanwhile, California Gov. Gavin Newsom lashed out at DeSantis on Twitter, calling him a "small, pathetic man" and suggesting his state could pursue kidnapping charges.

"@RonDeSantis, you small, pathetic man," Newsom tweeted. "This isn't Martha's Vineyard. Kidnapping charges?"

With the tweet, Newsom included a section of the California penal code on kidnapping charges that reads, "(d) Every person who, being out of this state, abducts or takes by force or fraud any person contrary to the law of the place where that act is committed and brings, sends, or conveys that person within the limits of this state, and is afterwards found within the limits thereof, is guilty of kidnapping."

DeSantis, who is seeking the Republican nomination to run for president, has been a fierce critic of federal immigration policy under President Joe Biden and has heavily publicized Florida's role in past instances in which migrants were transported to Democratic-led states.

DeSantis and other Florida officials have remained mum, as they initially were last year when they flew 49 Venezuelan migrants to the upscale Massachusetts island of Martha's Vineyard, luring them onto private jets from a shelter in San Antonio.

In a statement to the Miami Herald this week, the Bexar County Sheriff's Office in Texas confirmed that criminal charges were recommended in connection with the Martha's Vineyard case.

The case was then passed to the Bexar County District Attorney, the Herald reported.

"The case filed includes both felony and misdemeanor charges of Unlawful Restraint," according to the statement. "At this time, the case is being reviewed by the DA's office. Once an update is available, it will be provided to the public."

The case by Texas authorities isn't the first piece of litigation levied at DeSantis regarding the flights to Martha's Vineyard.

Lawyers for Civil Rights filed the suit on behalf of about 50 Venezuelans involved in the flights, and Alianza Americas, a network of migrant-led organizations supporting immigrants in the U.S. in September 2022.

The lawsuit names DeSantis and Secretary of Florida Department of Transportation Secretary Jared Perdue, and called the flights "inhumane and morally repugnant."

The suit says the Florida officials arranged a "fraudulent and discriminatory scheme to transport nearly 50 vulnerable immigrants, including women and children, from San Antonio, Texas to Martha's Vineyard without shelter or resources in place."

According to the lawsuit, DeSantis used about $615,000 in taxpayer dollars to charter the flights to Martha's Vineyard and told the migrants they would arrive in either Washington, D.C., or Boston. The suit also says the migrants were lured into planes with the promise of benefits, including $10 McDonald's gift cards.

[futuretrendstoday]

Indian Restaurants in the UK Targeted in Immigration Crackdown

The UK government has intensified its efforts against illegal immigration, launching a nationwide crackdown that has significantly impacted Indian restaurants and other hospitality businesses. The operation, described as a "UK-wide blitz" by the Home Office, led to a record number of arrests and enforcement actions in January.

Increased Raids and Arrests

Under the supervision of Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, immigration enforcement teams raided 828 establishments across the UK in January—marking a 48% increase from the previous year. Arrests also saw a sharp rise, with 609 individuals detained, a 73% surge compared to the same period last year.

The Home Office revealed that a significant portion of enforcement activity was focused on restaurants, takeaways, and cafes, as well as the broader food and beverage industry. One raid on an Indian restaurant in Humberside, northern England, resulted in seven arrests and four immediate detentions.

Government's Stance on Illegal Employment

"The immigration rules must be respected and enforced," stated Home Secretary Yvette Cooper. "For too long, businesses have exploited illegal migrants, while enforcement action remained weak. This crackdown ensures that illegal workers and their employers face real consequences."

Cooper emphasized that unchecked illegal migration poses broader risks, including fueling human smuggling operations and enabling the exploitation of vulnerable workers. The UK government has recently ramped up deportation efforts, using special charter flights to repatriate illegal immigrants, including individuals convicted of serious crimes.

Stricter Immigration Measures

Since Labour's return to power, nearly 19,000 foreign criminals and undocumented migrants have been deported. The government has also launched social media campaigns in Vietnam and Albania to deter illegal migration by highlighting the dangers of human smuggling and false promises made by traffickers.

The Home Office reported that from July 2024 to January 2025, illegal working crackdowns increased by 38% compared to the previous year. Over 1,090 civil penalty notices were issued to businesses found employing undocumented workers, with fines reaching up to £60,000 per worker.

Eddy Montgomery, Director of Enforcement, Compliance, and Crime at the Home Office, reinforced the government's commitment to tougher enforcement. "These figures show that we are serious about tackling illegal migration. Employers who break the law will be held accountable, and illegal workers will face removal.

New Border Security Legislation

The crackdown aligns with the Labour government’s Border Security, Asylum, and Immigration Bill, which is set for its second reading in Parliament. The proposed legislation seeks to dismantle criminal networks involved in human trafficking and illegal migration. Key measures include giving law enforcement expanded powers to seize mobile phones from migrants entering the UK illegally and strengthening penalties against businesses employing undocumented workers.

The opposition Conservative Party has criticized the bill as "ineffective," calling for stricter measures to prevent illegal migration and limit access to permanent residency for all migrants. "Under new leadership, the Conservatives are proposing real reforms to cut immigration. Britain is our home, not a hotel," stated shadow home secretary Chris Philp.

As the UK government continues its aggressive stance on immigration enforcement, Indian restaurants and other businesses employing undocumented workers find themselves at the center of these sweeping changes. With stricter laws and heightened enforcement, compliance with immigration policies is more critical than ever for businesses operating in the UK.

[yourreddancer]

Heather Cox Richardson

January 27, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Jan 28

Yesterday, President Donald Trump began a trade war with Colombia after that country’s president refused to permit two U.S. military airplanes full of deportees to land in Colombia. As Regina Garcia Cano and Astrid Suárez of the Associated Press pointed out, Colombia and the U.S. had an existing agreement for deportations under former president Joe Biden, and it accepted 475 deportation flights from 2020 to 2024, accepting 124 flights in 2024 alone. But the Biden administration used commercial and charter flights, while as national security analyst Juliette Kayyem noted, Trump used a military plane that arrived unannounced.

As Tim Naftali of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs explained: “If a foreign country tries to land its military planes—except in an emergency—without an existing agreement that is an infringement of sovereignty.” Colombia rejected the military planes without prior authorization and offered the use of its presidential plane instead.

Colombia also asked the U.S. to provide notice and decent treatment for its people, an issue that had been raised and resolved in 2023 after migrants arrived in hand and foot cuffs. Colombian president Gustavo Petro noted that the U.S. had committed that it would guarantee dignified conditions for the repatriation of migrants. The plane of migrants landed in Honduras, where Columbia sent its presidential plane to pick them up.

Trump announced that Colombia’s “denial of these flights has jeopardized the National Security and Public Safety of the United States,” and slapped a 25% tariff on products from Colombia, which include about $6 billion of crude petroleum, $1.8 billion of coffee, and $1.6 billion of cut flowers. In addition, he said, the U.S. would revoke the visas of all Colombian “Government Officials, and all Allies and Supporters.” He promptly deported Colombian staff members of the World Bank who were working for international diplomatic organizations in the U.S., and canceled visa appointments at Colombia’s U.S. Embassy.

Rather than backing down, President Petro threatened to levy a retaliatory tariff on U.S. products. Colombia imports 96.7% of the corn it feeds its livestock from the U.S., putting Colombia in the top five export markets for U.S. corn. According to a letter written by a bipartisan group of lawmakers eager to protect that trade, led by Senator Todd Young (R-IN), in 2003 the U.S. exported more than 4 million metric tons of corn to Colombia, which translated to $1.14 billion in sales. “American farmers cannot afford to lose such a vital export market,” the lawmakers wrote, “especially when access to the top U.S. corn export market, Mexico, is already at risk.”

By this morning the economic crisis appeared to be over, although U.S. visa restrictions apparently remain. With prior authorization and better treatment of migrants, Colombia is willing to accept the migrant flights. The White House declared victory, saying: “Today’s events make clear to the world that America is respected again. President Trump will continue to fiercely protect our nation's sovereignty, and he expects all other nations of the world to fully cooperate in accepting the deportation of their citizens illegally present in the United States.”  (NOTE - AMERICA IS NOT RESPECTED, EVER SINCE11/5/2024!!!)

The administration’s handling of the situation with Colombia reveals that their power depends on convincing people to ignore reality and instead to believe in the fantasy world Trump dictates.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced yesterday morning that “[d]eportation flights have begun.” In fact, nothing is “beginning.” In 2024, Colombia accepted on average more than two U.S. flights of migrants a week. And, as immigration scholar Austin Kocher noted, “everyone on this deportation flight was arrested and detained by the Biden administration.”

Over the past four years, Trump and MAGA Republicans repeatedly insisted that Biden had maintained “open borders,” while in fact, what the administration did was to try to address a situation made worse by the coronavirus pandemic.

As Katie Tobin of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace explains, before the coronavirus pandemic, Venezuela, where the economy was particularly bad under rising authoritarian Nicolás Maduro, sent migrants abroad. By June 2022, 6 million Venezuelans had fled their country; by September 2024, that number was 7.7 million. South American governments welcomed the Venezuelan migrants and others, including Haitians fleeing their country’s political chaos.

But as economies collapsed after the coronavirus crisis, Tobin explains, migrant populations that had settled in South American countries were forced out. From 2019 to 2021, Colombia’s per capita gross domestic product fell 4.6%; Peru’s, 5.3%; Ecuador’s, 2.8%; Brazil’s, 11.7%; and Venezuela’s, 20%. As the U.S. economy grew by 8.38%, Canada’s grew by 13.1%, and Mexico’s dropped only by 0.7%, migrants headed north. In September 2021, when 15,000 Haitians who had originally migrated to Brazil arrived at the U.S. border with Mexico, countries throughout the hemisphere realized that they needed a new regional approach to migration.

After nine months of negotiations, 21 countries announced that they had created a new migration pact for the Western Hemisphere. It provided economic support for Latin American countries that were original destinations for migrants, expanded formal pathways for immigration, and increased border security across the region.

Canada and Mexico were the first countries to buy into the new agreement. The U.S. turned next to strong ally Colombia, which agreed in March 2022, after which Vice President Kamala Harris brought on board Caribbean countries. By June 10, when the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection was announced, twenty-one nations had signed on. U.N. observers were present to demonstrate their support.

The Biden administration insisted that countries begin immediate action, and they did. Tobin notes that Belize, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, and Peru have made sweeping new offers of legal status to hundreds of thousands of migrants already living in their countries, while Colombia has offered legal status to 2 million Venezuelans and Brazil has welcomed more than 500,000. Mexico and Guatemala have offered legal pathways to workers.

Canada, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Spain, and the U.S. launched a virtual platform to enable migrants to apply for admission remotely. When Mexico agreed to accept Venezuelans who had crossed into the U.S. unlawfully and at the same time the U.S. announced a legal pathway for 24,000 Venezuelans, border crossings dropped 90% within a week. Biden and Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador expanded that initiative to include Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans.

By 2023, border arrests had fallen by about half. Although Congress failed to pass a strong bipartisan measure to increase border security and fund immigration courts, arrests fell by half again after Biden in June 2024 issued a proclamation that barred migrants from being granted asylum when U.S. officials deemed the border was overwhelmed. By the end of Biden’s term, unlawful border crossings had plummeted to lows that hadn’t been seen since June 2020.

There are new challenges to managing migration as wars, climate change, and economic pressures push migrants out of various parts of Africa and out of China. Many of those migrants are finding their way to Latin America and from there to the U.S. The U.N. Refugee Agency estimates that 117 million people were displaced by the end of 2023.

Trump won election in part by vowing to shut down immigration, and as soon as he took office he canceled the CBP One app, the virtual platform that allowed migrants to apply for asylum. During the campaign, he vowed to deport those migrants he claimed were criminals, which many interpreted to mean he would only remove those who had committed violent crimes (which the U.S. has always done). But in his first term, Trump’s people considered anyone who entered the U.S. outside of immigration law to be a criminal, and this appears to be the definition his people are using now.

Daily deportation raids in which U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested a few hundred people in sweeps began almost as soon as Trump took office. Josh Campbell, Andy Rose, and Nick Valencia of CNN reported that the federal government has flooded the media with video and photos of agents in tactical gear, their vests bearing the words “Police ICE” and “Homeland Security” as they lead individuals in handcuffs. The journalists report that this is not an accident: agents were told to have their agency names clearly displayed for the press.

The presence of television talk show host Dr. Phil (McGraw) with an ICE team in Chicago reinforces the sense that these arrests are designed for the cameras. So does yesterday’s report by Nick Miroff and Maria Sacchetti of the Washington Post that Trump is disappointed with the sweeps so far and has directed officials to ramp up arrests aggressively, providing quotas for ICE field offices. Today, new secretary of defense Pete Hegseth said the department will “shift” to “the defense of the territorial integrity of the United States of America at the southern border.”

Yesterday’s spat with Colombia’s president enabled Trump to declare victory, but Colombia has been the top U.S. ally in Latin America, a close partner in combating drug trafficking and managing migration. That relationship, which has taken years of careful cultivation, is now threatened.

Will Freeman of the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy, posted: “I can’t think of many *worse* strategic blunders for the U.S., as it competes w/ China, than going nuclear against its oldest strategic ally & last big country in S. America where it enjoys a trade advantage…. Trump certainly expects that b[ecause] 1/3 of Colombian exports go to the U.S. Petro will be forced to back down. But Petro seems to welcome the fight & has already signaled wishes to deepen ties w/ China. Colombia will lose partnership on security it badly needs. Only China stands to gain from this.”

Indeed, China’s ambassador to Colombia promptly noted that “we are at the best moment of our diplomatic relations between China and Colombia, which are now 45 years old.”

Meanwhile, according to former ambassador Luis G. Moreno, the Trump administration has shut down 2,100 courses in the premier training facility for State Department foreign service officers, ostensibly because they are too associated with diversity, equity, and inclusion. Moreno adds: “Dismantling of a professional diplomatic corps is underway.”THIS IS AN UNMITIGATED DISASTER FOR THIS COUNTRY.4 YEARS OF THIS IDIOCY, FROM WHICH WE MAY NEVERRECOVER, IS MORE THAN I CAN BEAR TO THINK ABOUT. 

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 17, 2023 (Thursday)

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

Philip Stephens of Financial Times today pointed out how much global politics has changed since 2016. That was the year of Brexit and Trump, when those calling for national sovereignty and iron-bound borders seemed to have the upper hand, and it seemed we were entering a new era in which nations would hunker down and international cooperation was a thing of the past.

But now, just seven years later, international cooperation is evident everywhere. Stephens pointed out that a series of crises have shown that nations cannot work alone. Migrants fleeing the war in Syria in 2015 made it clear that countries must cooperate to manage national borders. Then Covid showed that we must manage health across political boundaries, and then Russia’s invasion of Ukraine proved that European nations—and other countries on other continents—must stand together militarily in their common defense. 

That embrace of cooperation is in no small part thanks to President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who have focused on bringing together international coalitions.

The new global stance is on display in the U.S. right now as President Biden hosts the first-ever trilateral summit with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan and President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea. This is not an easy meeting—Japan and South Korea have a long history of conflict—but they are working to mend fences* to stand firm against North Korea, including its missile tests, and to present a united front in the face of Chinese power. 

Secretary Blinken noted for reporters on Tuesday that the world is currently being tested by geopolitical competition, climate change, Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, and nuclear aggressions. “Our heightened engagement is part of our broader efforts to revitalize, to strengthen, to knit together our alliances and partnerships—and in this case, to help realize a shared vision of an Indo-Pacific that is free and open, prosperous, secure, resilient, and connected,” he said. “And what we mean by that is a region where countries are free to chart their own path and to find their own partners, where problems are dealt with openly, where rules are reached transparently and applied fairly, and where goods, ideas, and people can flow lawfully and freely.”

Cooperation between Japan and South Korea “helps us promote peace and stability and furthers our commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. It advances our shared values and helps uphold principles of the UN Charter like sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity. It allows us to even more expand opportunity and prosperity.”

Blinken addressed Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion, backed by an international coalition, and reiterated that Ukrainians are upholding “the basic principles—sovereignty, territorial integrity, independence—that are vital to maintaining international peace and security.”

In squeezing Russia, international cooperation has again been vital. The Swiss corporation Société Internationale de Télécommunications Aéronautiqes (SITA), which is responsible for booking, flight messaging, baggage tracking, and other airline applications, announced in May that it will leave Russia this autumn. Russian carriers are scrambling. 

Blinken also confirmed that the Biden administration last week achieved a deal with Iran over U.S. prisoners. Iran moved four dual citizens from the infamous Evin Prison to house arrest, and the U.S. is working to get them, along with one more who was already under house arrest, home. In exchange, the U.S. will release several Iranian prisoners along with $6 billion of Iranian oil revenue currently held in South Korea.

Several Republicans have opposed that deal. The senior Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, James E. Risch of Idaho, said that the “unfreezing” of funds “incentivizes hostage taking & provides a windfall for regime aggression,” and Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) called the money “ransom” and said it was a “craven act of appeasement.” 

But in an op-ed on the national security website Defense One, Ryan Costello, the policy director for the National Iranian American Council, called the deal a win-win. The Iranian money will be released to Qatar, which will release it for purchases of food and medicine, which are not sanctioned. Medicine is desperately needed in Iran, and as Biden said in 2020: “Whatever our profound differences with the Iranian government, we should support the Iranian people.”

In his remarks to reporters on Tuesday, Blinken defended the administration's withdrawal from Afghanistan almost exactly two years ago, saying the decision to withdraw was “incredibly difficult” but correct. “We ended America’s longest war,” he said. “For the first time in 20 years, we don’t have another generation of young Americans going to fight and die in Afghanistan. And in turn, that has enabled us to even more effectively meet the many challenges of our time, from great power competition to the many transnational issues that we’re dealing with that are affecting the lives of our people and people around the world.”

He noted that the U.S. continues to be the leading donor of humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, contributing about $1.9 billion since 2021, and that the U.S. continues to work to hold the Taliban accountable for the rights of women and girls. 

In Niger, a key U.S. ally in Africa against terrorism, military forces took power from the democratically elected president on July 26, and now the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a regional union of fifteen countries, has said it will intervene militarily if diplomatic efforts to restore President Mohamed Bazoum to power fail. Army chiefs met today in Ghana to discuss creating a standby force. Nigeria’s chief of defense staff, General Christopher Gwabin Musa, told the meeting: “The focus of our gathering is not simply to react to events, but to proactively chart a course that results in peace and promote[s] stability." 

Blinken said Tuesday that the U.S. strongly supports the efforts of ECOWAS to restore Niger’s constitutional order, but the African Union apparently opposes intervention out of concern that such intervention might trigger a civil war.

Meanwhile, in Sudan, where the Biden administration hoped working with two rival generals would pressure them to restore civilian democracy, the country has been torn apart as those two generals now vie for power. Days ago, the U.S. government warned of corruption and human rights violations in South Sudan, with one of the rival military forces, the Rapid Support Forces, apparently engaging in widespread targeted killing and sexual violence in the western Sudan region of Darfur.

Yesterday, the State Department called for the two factions to stop fighting. “Every day this senseless conflict continues, more innocent civilians are killed, wounded, and left without homes, food, or livelihoods. The parties must end the bloodshed. There is no acceptable military solution to this conflict,” it said. 

—

*The expression “mending fences” appears to come from U.S. Senator John Sherman (R-OH), who in 1879 told reporters he had to go home to take care of his farm (including mending his fences) when everyone had a pretty shrewd idea he was trying to repair political relationships to shore up support, hoping for a presidential nomination. (It didn’t work: his chief manager was Representative James A. Garfield (R-OH), who ended up getting the nomination himself.)

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[misfitwashere]

January 27, 2025

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JAN 28

Yesterday, President Donald Trump began a trade war with Colombia after that country’s president refused to permit two U.S. military airplanes full of deportees to land in Colombia. As Regina Garcia Cano and Astrid Suárez of the Associated Press pointed out, Colombia and the U.S. had an existing agreement for deportations under former president Joe Biden, and it accepted 475 deportation flights from 2020 to 2024, accepting 124 flights in 2024 alone. But the Biden administration used commercial and charter flights, while as national security analyst Juliette Kayyem noted, Trump used a military plane that arrived unannounced.

As Tim Naftali of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs explained: “If a foreign country tries to land its military planes—except in an emergency—without an existing agreement that is an infringement of sovereignty.” Colombia rejected the military planes without prior authorization and offered the use of its presidential plane instead.

Colombia also asked the U.S. to provide notice and decent treatment for its people, an issue that had been raised and resolved in 2023 after migrants arrived in hand and foot cuffs. Colombian president Gustavo Petro noted that the U.S. had committed that it would guarantee dignified conditions for the repatriation of migrants. The plane of migrants landed in Honduras, where Columbia sent its presidential plane to pick them up.

Trump announced that Colombia’s “denial of these flights has jeopardized the National Security and Public Safety of the United States,” and slapped a 25% tariff on products from Colombia, which include about $6 billion of crude petroleum, $1.8 billion of coffee, and $1.6 billion of cut flowers. In addition, he said, the U.S. would revoke the visas of all Colombian “Government Officials, and all Allies and Supporters.” He promptly deported Colombian staff members of the World Bank who were working for international diplomatic organizations in the U.S., and canceled visa appointments at Colombia’s U.S. Embassy.

Rather than backing down, President Petro threatened to levy a retaliatory tariff on U.S. products. Colombia imports 96.7% of the corn it feeds its livestock from the U.S., putting Colombia in the top five export markets for U.S. corn. According to a letter written by a bipartisan group of lawmakers eager to protect that trade, led by Senator Todd Young (R-IN), in 2003 the U.S. exported more than 4 million metric tons of corn to Colombia, which translated to $1.14 billion in sales. “American farmers cannot afford to lose such a vital export market,” the lawmakers wrote, “especially when access to the top U.S. corn export market, Mexico, is already at risk.”

By this morning the economic crisis appeared to be over, although U.S. visa restrictions apparently remain. With prior authorization and better treatment of migrants, Colombia is willing to accept the migrant flights. The White House declared victory, saying: “Today’s events make clear to the world that America is respected again. President Trump will continue to fiercely protect our nation's sovereignty, and he expects all other nations of the world to fully cooperate in accepting the deportation of their citizens illegally present in the United States.”

The administration’s handling of the situation with Colombia reveals that their power depends on convincing people to ignore reality and instead to believe in the fantasy world Trump dictates.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced yesterday morning that “[d]eportation flights have begun.” In fact, nothing is “beginning.” In 2024, Colombia accepted on average more than two U.S. flights of migrants a week. And, as immigration scholar Austin Kocher noted, “everyone on this deportation flight was arrested and detained by the Biden administration.”

Over the past four years, Trump and MAGA Republicans repeatedly insisted that Biden had maintained “open borders,” while in fact, what the administration did was to try to address a situation made worse by the coronavirus pandemic.

As Katie Tobin of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace explains, before the coronavirus pandemic, Venezuela, where the economy was particularly bad under rising authoritarian Nicolás Maduro, sent migrants abroad. By June 2022, 6 million Venezuelans had fled their country; by September 2024, that number was 7.7 million. South American governments welcomed the Venezuelan migrants and others, including Haitians fleeing their country’s political chaos.

But as economies collapsed after the coronavirus crisis, Tobin explains, migrant populations that had settled in South American countries were forced out. From 2019 to 2021, Colombia’s per capita gross domestic product fell 4.6%; Peru’s, 5.3%; Ecuador’s, 2.8%; Brazil’s, 11.7%; and Venezuela’s, 20%. As the U.S. economy grew by 8.38%, Canada’s grew by 13.1%, and Mexico’s dropped only by 0.7%, migrants headed north. In September 2021, when 15,000 Haitians who had originally migrated to Brazil arrived at the U.S. border with Mexico, countries throughout the hemisphere realized that they needed a new regional approach to migration.

After nine months of negotiations, 21 countries announced that they had created a new migration pact for the Western Hemisphere. It provided economic support for Latin American countries that were original destinations for migrants, expanded formal pathways for immigration, and increased border security across the region.

Canada and Mexico were the first countries to buy into the new agreement. The U.S. turned next to strong ally Colombia, which agreed in March 2022, after which Vice President Kamala Harris brought on board Caribbean countries. By June 10, when the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection was announced, twenty-one nations had signed on. U.N. observers were present to demonstrate their support.

The Biden administration insisted that countries begin immediate action, and they did. Tobin notes that Belize, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, and Peru have made sweeping new offers of legal status to hundreds of thousands of migrants already living in their countries, while Colombia has offered legal status to 2 million Venezuelans and Brazil has welcomed more than 500,000. Mexico and Guatemala have offered legal pathways to workers.

Canada, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Spain, and the U.S. launched a virtual platform to enable migrants to apply for admission remotely. When Mexico agreed to accept Venezuelans who had crossed into the U.S. unlawfully and at the same time the U.S. announced a legal pathway for 24,000 Venezuelans, border crossings dropped 90% within a week. Biden and Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador expanded that initiative to include Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans.

By 2023, border arrests had fallen by about half. Although Congress failed to pass a strong bipartisan measure to increase border security and fund immigration courts, arrests fell by half again after Biden in June 2024 issued a proclamation that barred migrants from being granted asylum when U.S. officials deemed the border was overwhelmed. By the end of Biden’s term, unlawful border crossings had plummeted to lows that hadn’t been seen since June 2020.

There are new challenges to managing migration as wars, climate change, and economic pressures push migrants out of various parts of Africa and out of China. Many of those migrants are finding their way to Latin America and from there to the U.S. The U.N. Refugee Agency estimates that 117 million people were displaced by the end of 2023.

Trump won election in part by vowing to shut down immigration, and as soon as he took office he canceled the CBP One app, the virtual platform that allowed migrants to apply for asylum. During the campaign, he vowed to deport those migrants he claimed were criminals, which many interpreted to mean he would only remove those who had committed violent crimes (which the U.S. has always done). But in his first term, Trump’s people considered anyone who entered the U.S. outside of immigration law to be a criminal, and this appears to be the definition his people are using now.

Daily deportation raids in which U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested a few hundred people in sweeps began almost as soon as Trump took office. Josh Campbell, Andy Rose, and Nick Valencia of CNN reported that the federal government has flooded the media with video and photos of agents in tactical gear, their vests bearing the words “Police ICE” and “Homeland Security” as they lead individuals in handcuffs. The journalists report that this is not an accident: agents were told to have their agency names clearly displayed for the press.

The presence of television talk show host Dr. Phil (McGraw) with an ICE team in Chicago reinforces the sense that these arrests are designed for the cameras. So does yesterday’s report by Nick Miroff and Maria Sacchetti of the Washington Post that Trump is disappointed with the sweeps so far and has directed officials to ramp up arrests aggressively, providing quotas for ICE field offices. Today, new secretary of defense Pete Hegseth said the department will “shift” to “the defense of the territorial integrity of the United States of America at the southern border.”

Yesterday’s spat with Colombia’s president enabled Trump to declare victory, but Colombia has been the top U.S. ally in Latin America, a close partner in combating drug trafficking and managing migration. That relationship, which has taken years of careful cultivation, is now threatened.

Will Freeman of the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy, posted: “I can’t think of many *worse* strategic blunders for the U.S., as it competes w/ China, than going nuclear against its oldest strategic ally & last big country in S. America where it enjoys a trade advantage…. Trump certainly expects that b[ecause] 1/3 of Colombian exports go to the U.S. Petro will be forced to back down. But Petro seems to welcome the fight & has already signaled wishes to deepen ties w/ China. Colombia will lose partnership on security it badly needs. Only China stands to gain from this.”

Indeed, China’s ambassador to Colombia promptly noted that “we are at the best moment of our diplomatic relations between China and Colombia, which are now 45 years old.”

Meanwhile, according to former ambassador Luis G. Moreno, the Trump administration has shut down 2,100 courses in the premier training facility for State Department foreign service officers, ostensibly because they are too associated with diversity, equity, and inclusion. Moreno adds: “Dismantling of a professional diplomatic corps is underway.”

—

[nj-stone]

meidastouch Insanity: The deportation flights Trump used military jets for—that Mexico refused to accept—cost the U.S. up to $852,000 per flight to attempt to deport just 80 migrants at a time. To compare, flights directly chartered by ICE cost just $8,577.

[head-post]

Trump aims to deport thousands of Indian illegal migrants

US President-elect Donald Trump has promised to carry out the largest deportation in American history once he takes office on January 20, 2025.

In preparation for the event, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has compiled a list of about 1.5 million people to be deported. Among them, nearly 18,000 undocumented Indian nationals have made it to the list prepared by the US government and face imminent deportation back to India.

According to ICE data released in November 2024, 17,940 Indians are among the 1.5 million people on the list of undocumented people with a final order of removal from the US.

According to the Pew Research Center, there are about 725,000 unauthorised immigrants from India living in the US, making it the third largest population of unauthorised immigrants after Mexico and El Salvador.

In October, before the data was made public, the US used a chartered flight to deport Indian nationals in the country illegally.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, the flight sent to India on October 22 was in co-operation with the Indian government.

Earlier, Trump said he might deport Chinese nationals of draft age from the US. The US President-elect himself said on NBC that he intends to fulfil his campaign promise of mass deportation of migrants.

The incumbent President Joe Biden after coming to the White House softened the policy on migration, the problem with which in the US persists. A rise in the number of people wanting to enter the country has been repeatedly recorded throughout 2023, with an influx particularly noted at the border with Mexico.

In May of this year, when special deportation rules introduced under Trump because of the COVID-19 pandemic ceased to operate, the Biden administration introduced new requirements, but their effectiveness is questionable.

Read more HERE