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Associated Press: US hiring stalls with employers reluctant to expand in an economy grown increasingly erratic
The American job market, a pillar of U.S. economic strength since the pandemic, is crumbling under the weight of President Donald Trump’s erratic economic policies.
Uncertain about where things are headed, companies have grown increasingly reluctant to hire, leaving agonized jobseekers unable to find work and weighing on consumers who account for 70% of all U.S. economic activity. Their spending has been the engine behind the world’s biggest economy since the COVID-19 disruptions of 2020.
The Labor Department reported Friday that U.S. employers — companies, government agencies and nonprofits — added just 22,000 jobs last month, down from 79,000 in July and well below the 80,000 that economists had expected.
The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.3% last month, also worse than expected and the highest since 2021.
“U.S. labor market deterioration intensified in August,’’ Scott Anderson, chief U.S. economist at BMO Capital Market, wrote in a commentary, noting that hiring was “slumping dangerously close to stall speed. This raises the risk of a harder landing for consumer spending and the economy in the months ahead.’’
Alexa Mamoulides, 27, was laid off in the spring from a job at a research publishing company and has been hunting for work ever since. She uses a spreadsheet to track her progress and said she’s applied for 111 positions and had 14 interviews — but hasn’t landed a job yet.
Bubba Trump is doing a splendid job of trashing our economy! And unfortunately, it’s only just begun.
US hiring stalls with employers reluctant to expand in an economy grown increasingly erratic
The American job market, a pillar of U.S. economic strength since the pandemic, is crumbling under the weight of President Donald Trump’s erratic economic policies.
https://apnews.com/article/jobs-economy-unemployment-trump-firing-f686eab61f7d6b702ca10b12b0250498
Haaretz.com: ICE Gains Access to Israeli Spyware Maker Paragon’s Tool
After the deal between Paragon and Homeland Security’s investigations unit was frozen, the first signs that Trump wants spyware emerged, sparking concerns amid a growing arsenal of digital tools
The contract between the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Israeli spyware company Paragon has been reactivated, in what some say is the first sign of a shift in the current administration’s policies towards offensive cyber.
Last year, a $2 million contract was signed between Paragon and ICE, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), for its Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) unit. However, it was frozen a month later amid the Biden administration’s policy to clamp down on the offensive cyber industry, which sells technologies that allow states access to encrypted smartphones and has been misused across the globe over the past decade.
That policy included pressuring Israel to rein in its spyware exports, and also sanctions on Israeli companies like NSO and Candiru, which are regulated by Israel, as well as harsher personal sanctions against the owners and executives of Intellexa, which operated outside Israel’s regulatory oversight.
The temporary suspension of the Paragon contract stemmed from concerns it could violate Biden’s 2023 executive order restricting the purchase of foreign spyware by U.S. agencies, if those had been used to undermine U.S. national security or had been implicated in misuse.
Its renewal, announced with little fanfare this Saturday on an official U.S. procurement data website, is seen by some as an early signal of a potential shift in the Trump administration’s policy toward the offensive cyber industry. The contract renewal was first published by Jack Poulson, an independent journalist, on his Substack.
Paragon, the procurement documents details, will provide a “proprietary solution” to ICE via the HSI, an investigative arm that combats illegal immigration, human and arms trafficking, international crime, cyber threats, and more. It was founded by former Unit 8200 commander Ehud Schneorson and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and developed a spyware called Graphite.
It has been sold to intelligence and law enforcement agencies in Israel, Europe, the United States and Singapore. Infection with the spyware gives operators full access to a victim’s mobile phone, including files, photos, and contacts, as well as the ability to eavesdrop on calls and read encrypted messages. Earlier this year, Paragon was for the first time embroiled in a scandal regarding misuse of its tech in Italy, where the country’s intelligence service turned the spyware against activists and journalists.
Digital rights groups fear that Trump’s policies, coupled with the renewal of the Paragon contract, signal that the United States may roll back its efforts to regulate the spyware industry and could even emerge as a state that abuses these advanced tools.
According to U.S. media reports, the administration has budgeted $170 billion for enforcing Trump’s immigration policy, setting a daily target of 3,000 arrests for the authorities. To meet this goal, ICE is recruiting 10,000 agents, offering signing bonuses of $50,000.
Since returning to the White House, Trump has flooded the streets of Washington, Los Angeles, and other cities with immigration agents, ramping up arrests and deportations of undocumented migrants, as well as enforcing strict new policing measures.
“It is deeply concerning that the U.S. government and DHS are acquiring highly invasive spyware at a time of unprecedented crackdowns on students, protesters, and migrants,” said Donncha Ó Cearbhaill, head of Amnesty International’s Security Lab, which monitors technologies that violate human and civil rights. “Time and again, such tools have ultimately been found to be abused to target journalists and government critics.”
DHS-affiliated bodies have numerous ties to Israeli surveillance and intelligence companies: Cognyte provided various technologies to the Secret Service last year and this year reported a $20 million deal with a leading U.S. security organization; Cellebrite supplies law enforcement agencies, including ICE and the Secret Service, with phone-hacking technology for seized devices.
ICE also has access to intelligence technologies from companies like Palantir and Babel Street, Ó Cearbhaill explained. A Haaretz investigation last year revealed how Babel Street sells software that allows surveillance and tracking of individuals using advertising data collected online. According to him, the addition of Paragon’s spyware to the authorities’ surveillance toolkit increases the risk of unlawful and arbitrary arrests, investigations, visa revocations, and deportations, “in significant violation of numerous human rights.”
Late last year, Paragon was sold to the American private equity firm AE Industrial Partners, considered close to the U.S. defense establishment. The sale caused tension and criticism within Israel’s offensive cyber industry.
An investigation by Israeli television uncovered an intelligence community document that warned that the sale of Paragon posed a “potential danger” to national security, due to concerns about American influence over a “strategic sector” for Israel and the leakage of sensitive knowledge abroad. Similar concerns were exposed in 2022 when the American defense contractor L3Harris attempted to purchase NSO and relocate it to the United States.
Following the acquisition, Paragon’s U.S. branch joined REDLattice, a cyber-intelligence company also owned by the U.S. fund. Reporting on the contract renewal, journalist Poulson revealed the two firms’ deep ties to the U.S. intelligence community. According to Poulson’s substack, former CIA deputy director John “Finbar” Fleming was appointed head of Paragon’s U.S. branch.
Reuters: These Trump voters back his immigration crackdown, but some worry about his methods
While Trump supporters are happy to see criminals deported, they are split over methods for detaining immigrants.
Juan Rivera voted for President Donald Trump, hoping that the president’s efforts to rid the United States of illegal immigration would improve safety in the Southern California city where the 25-year-old content creator lives.
Neighborhoods near Rivera’s home in San Marcos that used to be frequented by migrants with “violent tendencies” do feel much safer now, he said. But he also said he’ll “never forget” seeing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pull over a truck of Latino workers and haul the men into their cars without asking for identification, leaving the empty truck behind.
Some of Rivera’s family members work for U.S. Border Patrol. Other relatives who are in the process of establishing legal residency in the United States “are scared of going to work because they fear that they’re going to get pulled over by immigration,” he said.
Overall, however, Rivera gave the Trump administration very high marks on its handling of immigration because “there’s a lot more public safety.”
Seven months into his second term, Trump’s signature issue – immigration – is still helping buoy his overall sinking approval ratings, making up for a downturn in support for his economic policies. A group of 20 Trump voters Reuters has interviewed monthly since February, including Rivera, illuminated the complex views behind the numbers.
Reuters asked the voters to rate the Trump administration’s handling of immigration on a scale of 1 to 10. Sixteen gave it a rating of 7 or higher, and none rated it below 5.
They universally support Trump’s tightening of U.S. border security to prevent further illegal immigration and his efforts to expel immigration offenders with violent criminal records. But there was less consensus about how Trump is going about the crackdown.
“President Trump was elected based on his promise to close the border and deport criminal illegal aliens,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson in an emailed statement. “The Trump Administration will continue carrying out the largest mass deportation operation in history.”
The 20 voters were selected from 429 respondents to a February 2025 Ipsos poll who said they voted for Trump in November and were willing to speak to a reporter. They are not a statistically representative portrait of all Trump voters, but their ages, educational backgrounds, races/ethnicities, locations and voting histories roughly correspond to those of Trump’s overall electorate.
Seven of the voters said they worried about the means Trump was using to achieve his goals, with some recoiling at the way authorities are rounding up immigrants for deportation.
“I agree that you have to have an immigration policy and enforce it. I don’t agree with kidnapping people off the street,” said Virginia Beach-based retiree Don Jernigan.
Jernigan, 75, said that footage of ICE raids he has seen on ABC and Fox News “reminds me of Nazi Germany. And you would rarely hear me say that name, Nazi, okay? But it does, the way they snatch people.”
Other voters, such as Will Brown, 20, a student at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, urged the administration to pursue even more ambitious deportation goals.
Brown, who said he “couldn’t be more of a fan of Stephen Miller,” the White House aide credited with designing Trump’s immigration policy, noted that the deportation rate of Trump’s second term so far lagged that of the last two Democratic administrations. “Honestly, I don’t think they’re doing enough,” he said.
REALITY DIVIDE
The voters’ attitudes towards traditional news outlets heavily affected their view of Trump’s immigration crackdown.
“If you get your information from one source, ICE is devils incarnate, and if you get it from another source, they’re superheroes,” said Gerald Dunn, 66, a martial arts instructor in upstate New York.
Dunn said he rarely reads or watches news from mainstream outlets because “everything is so exaggerated.” Instead, he browses headlines and watches YouTube videos to stay informed.
He has heard reports of ICE agents detaining non-criminal immigrants, but said such incidents are blown out of proportion.
“You’re going to arrest people wrongfully, and it turns out they shouldn’t have been arrested. That doesn’t mean you don’t arrest anybody.”
In the Chicago suburbs, municipal office secretary Kate Mottl, 62, said she is thrilled with Trump’s immigration policy. She does not believe news outlets that report immigrants without a criminal record are being swept up in raids.
Mottl was dismayed to learn that some immigrants without legal status she knows are afraid of being deported under Trump.
“I tell them, ‘you shouldn’t be worried about that because you’re not a bad person. You’re not committing crimes,’” she said, adding that she feared they were being misinformed by the news sources they watch.
CLEARER PATHWAY TO LEGAL STATUS
Fourteen of the 20 voters said they hoped Trump would improve the immigration system and vetting process to help deserving foreigners with the potential to contribute to the U.S. economy legalize their status more easily in the United States.
Like Mottl, Lesa Sandberg of St. George, Utah, said she knows undocumented immigrants “who are raising their families here, who are working, who are contributing to our economy and our society. And my heart goes out to them.”
Sandberg, 57, who runs an accounting business, rents properties and works for a former Republican congressman’s political action committee, said she is glad to see the administration cracking down on immigrants with criminal backgrounds.
But when it comes to the immigrants in the U.S. illegally she considers friends, she said, “I would never call ICE on them … [it’s] that whole concept of when we know people in the situation, feelings are different about it because we know how bad it is for them.”
David Ferguson, 53, a mechanical engineer and account manager in western Georgia, said some of the foreign students in his daughter’s graduate school program want to stay and work in the United States but fear they won’t be able to re-enter if they visit their home countries, despite having valid visas.
Some immigrants really do “want to have long-term residency and be productive members of our society. Let’s give them a path for that,” he said.
Ferguson said he doesn’t think an amnesty program is necessarily the solution. But Juan Rivera, the Trump voter in southern California, thinks it could attract wide support.
“It’s actually a really big sentiment I’ve been hearing from a lot of local Republican elected officials, that the Trump administration [should] offer amnesty the way that Reagan did,” said Rivera, who does Latino outreach advocacy for his county’s Republican Party.
His own father was able to become a U.S. citizen after former Republican President Ronald Reagan signed legislation in 1986 granting amnesty to about 3 million immigrants without legal status, according to Rivera.
He said he hopes Trump moves the country toward “an immigration system that balances security with humanity.”
Newsweek: Ron DeSantis Wasted $250 Million on Alligator Alcatraz as It Faces Closure
The state of Florida is committed to $245 million toward the construction of “Alligator Alcatraz,” the Everglades immigration detention facility which is due to close in days.
An email obtained by The Associated Press Wednesday from Kevin Guthrie, head of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, indicates the facility will likely soon be empty, after a federal judge ruled it must cease to operate.
Newsweek contacted Governor DeSantis’s office and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for comment on Thursday via email outside of regular office hours.
Why It Matters
Since his second presidential inauguration in January, President Donald Trump has overseen a crackdown aimed at illegal immigration, increasing spending on immigration enforcement and removing legal impediments to rapid deportations.
Having to close the new Florida detention facility would be a blow to both Governor DeSantis and the Trump administration, and would show that one of the main impediments to White House policy continues to be the courts.
What To Know
Figures published by Florida officials show the state has signed contracts worth at least $245 million to companies for work at the new Florida detention facility, which was constructed by repurposing the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee.
The largest single contract, at $78.5 million, went to Jacksonville based Critical Response Strategies which is responsible for hiring corrections officers, camp managers and IT personnel.
Longview Solutions Group was awarded $25.6 million for site preparation and construction while IT company Gothams has a $21.1 million contract to provide services including access badges and detainee wristbands.
Some of the contract details were later removed from Florida’s public database, sparking criticism from Democratic state Rep. Anna Eskamani.
Florida officials said some of their spending would be reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
But the Trump administration has said in a court filing it has had nothing to do with funding of the facility, according to CBS: “Florida is constructing and operating the facility using state funds on state lands under state emergency authority.”
The filing also says: “DHS (the U.S. Department of Homeland Security) has not implemented, authorized, directed, or funded Florida’s temporary detention center.”
The facility was expected to cost $450 million to operate each year after construction, according to CNN.
However, in a blow to DeSantis, a federal judge in Miami ruled on August 21 that “Alligator Alcatraz” must be closed down within 60 days, and that no further detainees could be transferred to the facility during this time. Just weeks previously the same judge had ordered a halt on construction work at the camp.
Legal challenges had been brought by a coalition of environmental group and the indigenous Miccosukee Tribe.
What People Are Saying
Speaking about conditions at the facility Florida Representative Debbie Schultz, a Democrat, said: “They are essentially packed into cages, wall-to-wall humans, 32 detainees per cage.”
In an interview with CNN Thomas Kennedy, a policy analyst for the Florida Immigrant Coalition, said: “The fact that we’re going to have 3,000 people detained in tents, in the Everglades, in the middle of the hot Florida summer, during hurricane season, this is a bad idea all around that needs to be opposed and stopped.”
In a statement previously sent to Newsweek a DHS official said: “Under President Trump’s leadership, we are working at turbo speed on cost-effective and innovative ways to deliver on the American people’s mandate for mass deportations of criminal illegal aliens.
“DHS is complying with this order and moving detainees to other facilities. We will continue to fight tooth-and-nail to remove the worst of the worst from American streets.”
What Happens Next
The Trump administration is expected to continue its crackdown on illegal migrants in the United States in a move that will put pressure on existing immigration detention facilities, and could lead to more being constructed.
Ron DeSantis wasted $250 million on Alligator Alcatraz as it faces closure
A federal judge has ruled that the new Florida detention center must close within 60 days.
https://www.newsweek.com/ron-desantis-wasted-250-million-alligator-alcatraz-it-faces-closure-2120638
Guardian: IRS commissioner’s removal reportedly over clash on undocumented immigrant data
Trump removed Billy Long from post months after agency said it couldn’t release information on some taxpayers
The removal of the Internal Revenue Service commissioner Billy Long after just two months in the post came after the federal tax collection agency said it could not release some information on taxpayers suspected of being in the US illegally, it was reported on Saturday.
The IRS and the White House had clashed over using tax data to help locate suspected undocumented immigrants soon before Long was dismissed by the administration, according to the Washington Post.
Long’s dismissal came less than two months after he was confirmed, making his service as Senate-confirmed IRS commissioner the briefest in the agency’s 163-year history. Treasury secretary Scott Bessent will serve as acting commissioner, making him the agency’s seventh leader this year.
The outlet reported the Department of Homeland Security had sent the IRS a list of 40,000 names on Thursday that it suspects of being in the country illegally. DHS asked the tax service to crosscheck confidential taxpayer data to verify their addresses.
The IRS reportedly responded that it was able to verify fewer than 3% of the names on the DHS list, and mostly names that came with an individual taxpayer identification, or ITIN number, provided by DHS.
Administration officials then requested information on the taxpayers the IRS identified, which the service declined to do, citing taxpayer privacy rights.
The White House has identified the IRS as a component of its crackdown on illegal immigration and hopes that the tax agency help locate as many as 7 million people in the US without authorization. In April, homeland security struck a data sharing agreement with the treasury department – which oversees the IRS.
But Long appears to have resisted acting on that agreement, saying the IRS would not hand over confidential taxpayer information outside its statutory obligation to the treasury.
Related: Trump removes IRS commissioner Billy Long two months after he was sworn in
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson rejected the notion that the IRS was not in harmony with administration priorities.
“Any absurd assertion other than everyone being aligned on the mission is simply false and totally fake news,” Johnson told the Post. “The Trump administration is working in lockstep to eliminate information silos and to prevent illegal aliens from taking advantage of benefits meant for hardworking American taxpayers,” she addedIn fact, undocumented immigrants paid $96.7bn in federal, state and local taxes in 2022, including $59.4bn to the federal government, helping to fund social security and Medicare, despite being excluded from most benefits, according to an analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy thinktank.
DHS told the Post that its agreement with IRS “outlines a process to ensure that sensitive taxpayer information is protected, while allowing law enforcement to effectively pursue criminal violations”.
Pressure on federal agencies to conform to administration priorities has also led to pressures on the Census Bureau to conduct a mid-decade population review as well as the firing of Bureau of Labor head last week after it published a unfavorable job report.
After being dismissed on Friday, Long, a former six-term Missouri congressman, said that he would be the new US ambassador to Iceland.
“It is a honor to serve my friend President Trump and I am excited to take on my new role as the ambassador to Iceland,” Long said in post on X. “I am thrilled to answer his call to service and deeply committed to advancing his bold agenda. Exciting times ahead!”
He followed that up with a more humorous entry that referred to former TV Superman actor Dean Cain’s decision, at 59, to join to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agency.
“I saw where Former Superman actor Dean Cain says he’s joining ICE so I got all fired up and thought I’d do the same. So I called @realDonaldTrump last night and told him I wanted to join ICE and I guess he thought I said Iceland? Oh well.”
IRS commissioner’s removal reportedly over clash on undocumented immigrant data
Trump removed Billy Long from post months after agency said it couldn’t release information on some taxpayers
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/09/billy-long-irs-removal-immigrant-data-trump
Mirror: Trump interrupted by panicking UK Prime Minister for making ‘false’ allegation
The leaders of the UK and US got into a small disagreement about estate taxes as Trump and Starmer met to discuss tariffs
President Donald Trump was swiftly interrupted by Keir Starmer as the UK Prime Minister attempted to correct him about inheritance taxes on farmers.
The pair met in Scotland on Monday to discuss tariffs, Gaza, and other topics. During a press conference, the president slammed inheritance taxes on farmers, claiming farmers in the US had been driven to suicide by high taxes on their farmhouses and estates. Trump, who made a massive Epstein files radio blunder, bragged about removing those taxes, and suggested Starmer do the same.
“We were losing a lot of farms to the banks because a loving mother and father would die and left their farm to their children or their child…but they had a 50% tax to pay, so the land would get valued and at a high number because some of the farms were valuable but they…couldn’t quantify it,” Trump said, which comes amid alarming fears over the president’s health due to an injury being spotted.
“And they go out and borrow money to pay the estate tax or the death taxes it’s called. And they’d overextend and they’d lose the farm and they commit suicide in many cases.”
Starmer interrupted the president as he took aim at Trump’s figures.
“No, no, no, our levels are nowhere near 50 percent, they’re not. We’ve just introduced where it’s paid over many years, let’s get an extra 2 percent a year over 10 years, so it’s not at those levels by any stretch of the imagination,” Starmer said.
“But the other thing that we’ve done, as you know, is make sure that we’ve got a pathway for farmers that actually increases their year-on-year income, which is the most important thing.”
Trump also had some advice to offer to his British counterpart on winning reelection – cutting taxes and going after illegal immigration. The two leaders are conducting discussions at Trump’s Turnberry golf course in Scotland, where they’ve covered a broad spectrum of topics.
Trump’s guidance comes as Farage’s Reform UK maintains a solid advantage over Labour in polling data, according to The Independent.
When questioned about the race between Keir and Farage, Trump responded: “I don’t know the politics of it, I don’t know where they stand. I would say one’s slightly liberal, not that liberal, slightly, and the other one’s slightly conservative, but they’re both good men.”
Trump also reflected on how his unprecedented second state visit, scheduled for later this year, has never been done and reminisced about his last state visit in 2019 during his first term.
“It was one of the most beautiful evenings I’ve ever seen,” Trump said of his first visit. As he spoke about the pomp and ceremony of the evening, he said to Starmer, “Nobody does it like you people.”
Starmer, too, pointed out how the nation had never invited a U.S. president for a second state visit. “You can imagine just how special that’s going to be,” Starmer said.
It comes after a Trump family member revealed the latest chilling symptom of his cognitive decline and revealed he is “far gone”.
Trump interrupted by panicking UK Prime Minister for making ‘false’ allegation
The leaders of the UK and US got into a small disagreement about estate taxes as Trump and Starmer met to discuss tariffs
https://www.themirror.com/news/us-news/trump-interrupted-panicking-uk-prime-1295386
CNN: A Marine veteran’s wife, detained by ICE while still breastfeeding, has been released
A Marine Corps veteran’s wife has been released from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention following advocacy from Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican who backs President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration crackdown.
Until this week, Mexican national Paola Clouatre had been one of tens of thousands of people in ICE custody as the Trump administration continues to press immigration officers to arrest 3,000 people a day suspected of being in the US illegally.
Emails reviewed by The Associated Press show that Kennedy’s office put in a request Friday for the Department of Homeland Security to release her after a judge halted her deportation order earlier that week. By Monday, she was out of a remote ICE detention center in north Louisiana and home in Baton Rouge with her veteran husband, Adrian Clouatre, and their two young children.
Kennedy’s constituent services representative, Christy Tate, congratulated Adrian Clouatre on his wife’s release and thanked him for his military service. “I am so happy for you and your family,” Tate wrote in an email to Adrian Clouatre. “God is truly great!”
Kennedy’s office proved “instrumental” in engaging with the Department of Homeland Security, according to Carey Holliday, the family’s attorney. Kennedy’s office did not provide further comment.
Another Louisiana Republican, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, also intervened recently with the Department of Homeland Security to secure the release of an Iranian mother from ICE detention following widespread outcry. The woman has lived for decades in New Orleans.
Kennedy has generally been a staunch supporter of Trump’s immigration policies.
“Illegal immigration is illegal – duh,” Kennedy posted on his Facebook page on July 17, amid a series of recent media appearances decrying efforts to prevent ICE officers from making arrests. In April, however, he criticized the Trump administration for mistakenly deporting a Maryland man.
Senator’s office requests mother’s release from ICE custody
The Department of Homeland Security previously told The AP it considered Clouatre to be “illegally” in the country.
An email chain shared by Adrian Clouatre shows that the family’s attorney reached out to Kennedy’s office in early June after Paola Clouatre was detained in late May.
Tate received Paola Clouatre’s court documents by early July and said she then contacted ICE, according to the email exchange.
On July 23, an immigration judge halted Paola Clouatre’s deportation order. After Adrian Clouatre notified Kennedy’s office, Tate said she “sent the request to release” Paola Clouatre to DHS and shared a copy of the judge’s motion with the agency, emails show.
In an email several days later, Tate said that ICE told her it “continues to make custody determinations on a case-by-case basis based on the specific circumstances of each case” and had received the judge’s decision from Kennedy’s office “for consideration.”
The next working day, Paola Clouatre was released from custody.
“We will continue to keep you, your family and others that are experiencing the same issues in our prayers,” Tate said in an email to Adrian Clouatre. “If you need our assistance in the future, please contact us.”
Back with her children
Paola Clouatre had been detained by ICE officers on May 27 during an appointment related to her green card application.
She had entered the country as a minor with her mother from Mexico more than a decade ago and was legally processed while seeking asylum, she, her husband and her attorney say. But Clouatre’s mother later failed to show up for a court date, leading a judge to issue a deportation order against Paola Clouatre in 2018, though by then she had become estranged from her mother and was homeless.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Clouatre’s release.
Adrian Clouatre said he wished the agency would “actually look at the circumstances” before detaining people like his wife. “It shouldn’t just be like a blanket ‘Oh, they’re illegal, throw them in ICE detention.’”
Reunited with her breastfeeding infant daughter and able to snuggle with her toddler son, Paola Clouatre told AP she feels like a mother again.
“I was feeling bad,” she said of detention. “I was feeling like I failed my kids.”
It will likely be a multiyear court process before Paola Clouatre’s immigration court proceedings are formally closed, but things look promising, and she should be able to obtain her green card eventually, her attorney said.
For now, she’s wearing an ankle monitor, but still able to pick up life where she left off, her husband says. The day of her arrest in New Orleans, the couple had planned to sample some of the city’s famed French pastries known as beignets and her husband says they’ll finally get that chance again: “We’re going to make that day up.”
A Marine veteran’s wife, detained by ICE while still breastfeeding, has been released | CNN
A Marine Corps veteran’s wife has been released from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention following advocacy from Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican who backs President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration crackdown.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/29/us/mother-released-ice-marine-veteran-husband
USA Today: The Trump administration is telling immigrants ‘Carry your papers.’ Here’s what to know.
Papers, please!
Amid the Trump administration’s ongoing crackdown on illegal immigration, the nation’s immigration service is warning immigrants to carry their green card or visa at all times.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services posted the reminder July 23 on social media: “Always carry your alien registration documentation. Not having these when stopped by federal law enforcement can lead to a misdemeanor and fines.”
Here’s what immigrants – and American citizens – need to know.
‘Carry your papers’ law isn’t new
The law requiring lawful immigrants and foreign visitors to carry their immigration documents has been on the books for decades, dating to the 1950s.
The Immigration and Nationality Act states: “Every alien, eighteen years of age and over, shall at all times carry with him and have in his personal possession any certificate of alien registration or alien registration receipt card issued to him.”
But the law had rarely been imposed before the Trump administration announced earlier this year that it would strictly enforce it.
The “carry your papers” portion fell out of use for cultural and historical reasons, said Michelle Lapointe, legal director of the nonprofit American Immigration Council.
In contrast to the Soviet bloc at the time the requirement was written, “We have never been a country where you have to produce evidence of citizenship on demand from law enforcement.”
In a “Know Your Rights” presentation, the ACLU cautions immigrants over age 18 to follow the law and “carry your papers with you at all times.”
“If you don’t have them,” the ACLU says, “tell the officer that you want to remain silent, or that you want to consult a lawyer before answering any questions.”
A ‘precious’ document at risk
Many immigrants preferred to hold their green card or visa in safe-keeping, because, like a passport, they are expensive and difficult to obtain.
Historically, it was “a little risky for people to carry these precious documents such as green card, because there is a hefty fee to replace it and they are at risk of not having proof of status – a precarious position to be in,” Lapointe said.
But as immigration enforcement has ramped up, the risks of not carrying legal documents have grown.
Failure to comply with the law can result in a $100 fine, or imprisonment of up to 30 days.
Immigration enforcement and ‘racial profiling’
U.S. citizens aren’t required to carry documents that prove their citizenship.
But in an environment of increasing immigration enforcement, Fernando Garcia, executive director of the nonprofit Border Network for Human Rights in El Paso, Texas, said he worries about U.S. citizens being targeted.
“With massive raids and mass deportation, this takes a new dimension,” he said. “How rapidly are we transitioning into a ‘show me your papers’ state?”
“The problem is there are a lot of people – Mexicans, or Central Americans – who are U.S. citizens who don’t have to carry anything, but they have the burden of proof based on racial profiling,” he said. “There are examples of U.S. citizens being arrested already, based on their appearance and their race.”
American citizens targeted by ICE
The Trump administration’s widening immigration crackdown has already netted American citizens.
In July, 18-year-old Kenny Laynez, an American citizen, was detained for six hours by Florida Highway Patrol and Border Patrol agents. He was later released.
Federal agents also detained a California man, Angel Pina, despite his U.S. citizenship in July. He was later released.
Elzon Limus, a 23-year-old U.S. citizen from Long Island, New York, decried his arrest by ICE agents in June, after he was released. In a video of the arrest, immigration agents demand Limus show ID, with one explaining he “looks like somebody we are looking for.”
In updated guidance, attorneys at the firm of Masuda, Funai, Eifert & Mitchell, which has offices in Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles, advise U.S. who are concerned about being stopped and questioned “to carry a U.S. passport card or a copy of their U.S. passport as evidence of U.S. citizenship.”
“Papers, please!” is so un-American. 🙁
Reuters: US sues New York City to block laws it says impede immigration enforcement
The U.S. government on Thursday sued New York City, seeking to block enforcement of several local laws its says are designed to impede its ability to enforce federal immigration laws.
In a complaint filed in Brooklyn federal court, the U.S. government said New York City’s “sanctuary provisions” are unconstitutional, and preempted by laws giving it authority to regulate immigration.