Tag Archives: Trump Administration

Independent: Federal agents to ‘flood the zone’ after Supreme Court opens door for racial profiling in Los Angeles immigration raids

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The Trump administration is vowing to “FLOOD THE ZONE” after the Supreme Court opened the door for federal law enforcement officers to roam the streets of Los Angeles to make immigration arrests based on racially profiling suspects.

A 6-3 decision from the nation’s high court Monday overturned an injunction that blocked federal agents from carrying out sweeps in southern California after a judge determined they were indiscriminately targeting people based on race and whether they spoke Spanish, among other factors.

The court’s conservative majority did not provide a reason for the decision, which is typical for opinions on the court’s emergency docket.

In a concurring opinion, Trump-appointed Justice Brett Kavanaugh said that “apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion” but it can be a “relevant factor” for immigration enforcement.

Attorney General Pam Bondi called the ruling a “massive victory” that allows Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to “continue carrying out roving patrols in California without judicial micromanagement.”

The Department of Homeland Security said its officers “will continue to FLOOD THE ZONE in Los Angeles” following the court’s order.

“This decision is a victory for the safety of Americans in California and for the rule of law,” the agency said in a statement accusing Democrat Mayor Karen Bass of “protecting” immigrants who have committed crimes.

Federal law enforcement “will not be slowed down and will continue to arrest and remove the murderers, rapists, gang members and other criminal illegal aliens that Karen Bass continues to give safe harbor,” according to Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin.

The court’s opinion drew a forceful rebuke from liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic justice on the bench, who accused the conservative justices of ignoring the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unlawful protects against unlawful searches and seizures

“We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job,” she wrote in a dissenting opinion.

“The Fourth Amendment protects every individual’s constitutional right to be “free from arbitrary interference by law officers,’” she added. “After today, that may no longer be true for those who happen to look a certain way, speak a certain way, and appear to work a certain type of legitimate job that pays very little.”

Immigration raids throughout the Los Angeles area in June sparked massive protests demanding the Trump administration withdraw ICE and federal agents from patrolling immigrant communities.

In response, Trump federalized National Guard troops and sent in hundreds of Marines despite objections from Democratic city and state officials. The administration deployed roughly 5,000 National Guard soldiers and Marines to the Los Angeles area, assisting with more than 170 law enforcement operations carried out by federal agencies, according to the Department of Defense.

The Pentagon has ended most of those operations, but hundreds of National Guard members remain active in southern California.

California Governor Gavin Newsom sued the administration, alleging the president illegally deployed the troops in violation of a 140-year-old law that prohibits the military from performing domestic law enforcement operations.

ACLU legal director Cecillia Wang, representing groups who sued to block indiscriminate raids in Los Angeles, said the Supreme Court order “puts people at grave risk.”

The order allows federal agents “to target individuals because of their race, how they speak, the jobs they work, or just being at a bus stop or the car wash when ICE agents decide to raid a place,” she said.

“For anyone perceived as Latino by an ICE agent, this means living in a fearful ‘papers please’ regime, with risks of violent ICE arrests and detention,” Wang added.

In his lengthy concurring opinion, Kavanaugh suggested that the demographics of southern California and the estimated 2 million people without legal permission living in the state support ICE’s sweeping operations.

He also argued that because Latino immigrants without legal status “tend to gather in certain locations to seek daily work,” work in construction, and may not speak English, officers have a “reasonable suspicion” to believe they are violating immigration law.

Sotomayor criticized Kavanaugh’s assessment that ICE was merely performing “brief stops for questioning.”

“Countless people in the Los Angeles area have been grabbed, thrown to the ground and handcuffed simply because of their looks, their accents and the fact they make a living by doing manual labor,” she wrote. “Today, the court needlessly subjects countless more to these exact same indignities.”

Because the court did not provide a reasoning behind the ruling, it is difficult to discern whether the justices intend for the order to have wider effect, giving Donald Trump a powerful tool to execute his commands for millions of arrests for his mass deportation agenda.

Bass warned that the ruling could have sweeping consequences.

“I want the entire nation to hear me when I say this isn’t just an attack on the people of Los Angeles, this is an attack on every person in every city in this country,” she said in a statement.

Feds to ‘flood the zone’ after Supreme Court allows roving ICE raids
Trump administration promises ‘roving patrols’ after conservative justices allow ICE to target Latinos and Spanish speakers

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/supreme-court-ice-immigration-raids-racial-profiling-b2822602.html

CNN: Epstein survivor who invited Trump to meet with her says she’s heard ‘crickets’ in response

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Epstein survivor who invited Trump to meet with her says she’s heard ‘crickets’ in response
Haley Robson, who says she was assaulted by Jeffrey Epstein when she was 16, tells CNN’s Pamela Brown that she has yet to hear from the White House after she directly invited Trump to sit down with her to prove that calls for transparency are “not a hoax.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/news/epstein-survivor-who-invited-trump-to-meet-with-her-says-she-s-heard-crickets-in-response/vi-AA1M8zQ4

Reuters: Trump administration says it launched ‘Operation Midway Blitz’ in Chicago

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  • DHS says operation targets ‘criminal illegal aliens’ in Chicago
  • Illinois governor say no advance notice or coordination provided
  • Critics decry ‘Operation Midway Blitz’ as political theater
  • Local officials say ICE sweep terrorizes Latino communities

After weeks of vowing to deploy National Guard troops to fight crime in Chicago, the Trump administration said on Monday it had launched a deportation crackdown in Illinois targeting hardened criminals among immigrants in the U.S. without legal status.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in an online statement that “Operation Midway Blitz” was being conducted by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, but details about its scope and nature were not immediately made clear.

It remained to be seen whether President Donald Trump would send National Guard soldiers into Chicago to accompany ICE and other federal law enforcement officers, as he has in and around Los Angeles and the District of Columbia.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, both Democrats, each said their offices had received no official notice from federal authorities about the operation, which they decried as a political stunt designed to intimidate.

Trump has been ramping up his rhetoric about expanding federal law enforcement and National Guard presence in Democratic-led cities and states, casting the use of presidential power as an urgent effort to confront crime even as local officials cite declines in homicides and other violent offenses.

DHS said its latest ICE operation was necessary because of city and state “sanctuary” laws that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the crackdown was aimed at convicted gang members, rapists, kidnappers and drug traffickers who she called “the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens in Chicago.”

The press release cited 11 cases of immigrants in the U.S. illegally, most from Mexico and Venezuela, who DHS said had records of arrest or convictions for serious crimes and were released from local jails rather than turned over to federal immigration officials.

City Alderwoman Jeylu Gutierrez, who represents the predominantly Hispanic 14th Ward on Chicago’s southwest side, said at least five members of her community had been detained in what she called a “federal assault.”

Among those arrested, Gutierrez said, was a flower vendor taken into custody on the job, while others were detained as they waited for a bus or walked on the sidewalk.

‘THIS ISN’T ABOUT FIGHTING CRIME’

“This was never about arresting the worst of the worst, this is about terrorizing our communities,” Gutierrez, a Mexican immigrant, told a press conference.

Pritzker, widely seen as a potential 2028 candidate for the White House, also disputed the crime-fighting rationale that Trump voiced last Tuesday when he said he would send National Guard troops to Chicago, the nation’s third most populous city and a Democratic stronghold.

“This isn’t about fighting crime,” Pritzker said on social media platform X on Monday. “That requires support and coordination — yet we’ve experienced nothing like that over the past several weeks.”

Pritzker has suggested Trump’s National Guard deployments might be a dress rehearsal for using the military to manipulate the 2026 midterm congressional elections.

Johnson said he was concerned about “potential militarized immigration enforcement without due process,” citing “ICE’s track record of detaining and deporting American citizens and violating the human rights of hundreds of detainees.”

In a post on Truth Social on Monday, Trump cited recent murders and shootings in Chicago and blamed Pritzker for making no requests for assistance from the Trump administration.

“I want to help the people of Chicago, not hurt them,” Trump wrote. “Only the Criminals will be hurt! We can move fast and stop this madness.”

In a separate post on Saturday, Trump posted a meme based on the 1979 Vietnam War movie “Apocalypse Now” that showed an image of the Chicago skyline with flames and helicopters, reminiscent of the deadly helicopter attack on a Vietnamese village in the film.

The Trump administration launched a parallel immigration enforcement operation in Boston in recent days, an ICE official confirmed on Monday.

ICE also said on Monday that its Houston-based agents had arrested 822 “criminal aliens, transnational gang members, child predators, foreign fugitives and other egregious offenders” during a week-long operation last month in southeastern Texas.

Previously, DHS said ICE had arrested nearly 1,500 immigration offenders during a month-long enforcement surge in Massachusetts in May and early June.

The latest ICE operation in Chicago was announced the same day that the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 6-3 decision allowing federal agents in Southern California to proceed with immigration raids that detain people on the basis of their race, ethnicity, language or accent, even without “reasonable suspicion” that they are in the country illegally.

Trump administration says it launches ICE crackdown in Illinois
After weeks of vowing to deploy National Guard troops to fight crime in Chicago, the Trump administration said on Monday it had launched a deportation crackdown in Illinois targeting hardened criminals among immigrants in the U.S. without legal status.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-administration-says-it-launches-ice-crackdown-illinois-2025-09-08

NBC News: New tariff rules bring ‘maximum chaos’ as surprise charges hit consumers

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The bills are sudden and jarring: $1,400 for a computer part from Germany, $620 for an aluminum case from Sweden and $1,041 for handbags from Spain.

Some U.S. shoppers say they are being hit with surprise charges from international shipping carriers as the exemption on import duties for items under $800 expires as a part of President Donald Trump’s tariff push.

That’s leading to some frustration and confusion as shoppers and shippers both try to navigate a new reality for anybody ordering goods from abroad.

“It’s maximum chaos,” said Nick Baker, co-lead of the trade and customs practice at Kroll, a firm that advises freight carriers.

Thomas Andrews, who runs a business in upstate New York restoring vintage computers from the 1980s and 1990s, said he was shocked to receive a tariff bill from UPS for approximately $1,400 on a part worth $750. He said he assumed there must have been a mistake.

“That’s extortion,” Andrews said.

Late Friday, a representative for UPS told Andrews that the initial charge was indeed incorrect: The tariff bill should have only been for about $110. But it was too late: Andrews had already refused shipment to avoid paying the charge. Soon after learning about the corrected charge, he realized UPS had already begun sending the item back to Germany.

The final annoyance, Andrews said: He’s being charged for the return shipping — about $50.

In a statement, UPS said it has solutions available to merchants designed to navigate the new environment. It did not address the customer-billing situation.

On Aug. 29, for the first time in nearly a century, small-dollar items coming into the U.S. — also called de minimis goods — began facing import duties. That means even small, personal orders now face the sizable tariffs placed on U.S. trading partners. While a recent ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found many of Trump’s duties unconstitutional, they remain in effect while Trump appeals the case to the Supreme Court.

To comply with the new de minimis rules, a wave of countries have halted shipments to the U.S. That’s caused postal traffic into the U.S. to decline by some 80%, according to a United Nations agency.

But many orders are still flowing. And since the new de minimis rule began taking effect, social media platforms have been filled with accounts of U.S. customers receiving shock bills from major shippers like DHL, FedEx and UPS, having received no notice about the charges from the foreign merchant they’d ordered from.

The shippers, in turn, are being inundated with messages from customers disputing the charges, along with return-to-sender requests as the customers refuse shipments to avoid having to pay the bills.

A representative for DHL said the firm “is committed to supporting customers through the recent tariff changes and ensuring their shipments are managed efficiently.”

“We encourage customers to take note of the shipping policies of the brands they shop with and to also remember that tariffs are payable to the U.S. government,” it said.

The Trump administration has heralded the billions in revenues the tariffs are bringing in — and in the case of the new de minimis rule, argued the change is essential to halting the flow of small-sized illicit drug packages and drug ingredients. In a statement posted the day the new de minimis rules took effect, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the logistics industry “has already adapted to the changes with minimal interruption.”

“This change has been months in the making, and we are fully prepared to implement it,” said Susan S. Thomas, acting executive assistant commissioner for CBP’s Office of Trade. “Foreign carriers and postal operators were given clear timelines, detailed guidance, and multiple options to comply. The only thing ending on August 29 is the pathway that has been used by criminals to exploit America’s borders.”

Baker said foreign merchants are obligated to provide information to the shipper about the classification of the item, which is key to the tariff calculation — but from a regulatory perspective, the customer, as the importer of record, is ultimately responsible for the accuracy of that information.

But many people are still getting caught off guard.

After receiving a tariff bill for $620 on a $300 aluminum computer case from Sweden, Robert Wang decided to turn the shipment away.

A software engineer in the San Francisco Bay Area, Wang said he placed his order Aug. 22 with Louqe, a high-end Swedish merchant. More than a week later, he received notice from UPS about the bill.

“Confusion transitioned into a late-night panic,” Wang said, as he frantically researched the situation. Eventually UPS confirmed he’d been charged the 200% tariff Trump has slapped on certain aluminum goods.

Wang said he tried to reach out to Louqe about the charge, but did not hear back. The company did not respond to a request for comment from NBC News.

Baker said many foreign businesses that rely on U.S. customers now face the dilemma of eating the tariff cost — assuming they are properly accounting for it in the first place — or passing it on to their customers, which could scare off business. Many merchants abroad have posted to social media to alert U.S. customers that they are suspending shipments there.

Some U.S. small businesses are also paying a price. A day after receiving a shipment from Spain for handbags he said were worth about $600, Herm Narciso said he and his wife, who run a brick-and-mortar shop in Dunedin, Florida, that resells goods from Europe, got a tariff invoice for $1,041.44 from DHL.

“We can’t understand how it’s possible to assess us with that level of tariffs,” Narciso said.

They said that they plan to file a dispute, but that the response could take two to four weeks. Narciso is worried their shop won’t survive the recent changes if they start getting similar bills going forward.

“This last quarter is probably going to tank us,” Narciso said. “The margins on this type of business are slim to begin with.”

He added: “It just doesn’t feel like the American way to me.”

New tariff rules bring ‘maximum chaos’ as surprise charges hit consumers
The end of the de minimis exemption is wreaking havoc on U.S. consumers, small businesses and major carriers.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/surprise-tariff-bills-de-minimis-rcna229375

Newsweek: Immigrant New York farm workers issue warning over ICE raids

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New York’s small farms are beginning to feel the strain of immigration enforcement under the Trump administration, with experts warning that an industry heavily reliant on undocumented workers needs an urgent solution from Congress.

While much of the focus when it comes to immigrants in the Empire State has been the New York City metro area, the state itself is home to as many as 67,000 farmworkers across 30,000 farms mostly upstate and on Long Island.

“We are the most important part of the country, because no one can live without food,” said one Mexican man who has worked in New York for 12 years, speaking to Newsweek on condition of anonymity. “So we can live without a car, without electricity, without many things. But we can’t live without food.”

A Multi-Billion Dollar Industry At Risk

The human impact of ongoing ICE raids is evident to those working on the ground. Another farm worker in New York, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, told Newsweek that “cows are going to die” if the administration’s deportations continue across the state.

“It’s a risk every day to go to work. It’s a risk to go to the grocery store. It’s a risk to drive your kids to school. It’s a risk to drive your child to their doctor’s appointment,” the worker told Newsweek.

The person said that the farming industry in New York won’t be able to function without immigrant workers.

“It doesn’t make sense on either a human level or on a business level. The food industry relies mostly on undocumented people,” the worker said.

New York is the country’s top producer of yogurt, and number two producer of apples, but U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids are potentially putting an $8 billion farming industry at-risk, experts believe.

Margaret Gray, an associate professor of political science at Adelphi University, told Newsweek that New York state has a diversity of farming sectors and immigrant workers supporting them.

“Dairy workers are year-round workers, apple pickers might only be in the state for eight or 12 weeks,” Gray said. “So, a lot of the apple pickers are on H-2A guest worker visas and so they’re not going to be targeted by ICE, but the dairy industry is not eligible for these visas at this time because to be eligible, you cannot have year-round work.”

Year-round operations, such as dairy farms, are largely ineligible for H-2A visas. Dairy farming requires consistent labor throughout the year to care for animals and maintain production, and the H-2A program is designed only for temporary or seasonal work during workforce shortages.

As a result, many dairy farms and other year-round agricultural businesses continue to rely heavily on undocumented workers to keep their operations running.

Gray said that communities like those in Suffolk County, on Long Island, where large immigrant communities have formed around the farming and agricultural industries, are among those most at risk when many residents and workers do not hold legal status.

“Even the detention of one worker right now can cause chaos. I have talked to people who are literally afraid to leave the house,” Gray said. “They’re afraid to go grocery shopping, they won’t go to parent-teacher meetings, and some of them aren’t even sending their children to school out of fear.”

A declining workforce, especially in sectors such as agriculture, could trigger supply shortages and higher labor costs, which may ultimately increase consumer prices.

Undocumented New Yorkers made a substantial economic contribution, paying $3.1 billion in state and local taxes, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that approximately 11.3 million undocumented immigrants live in New York.

“As business owners and employers in agriculture, we are very dependent on migrant workers,” Dennis Rak, who owns Double A Vineyards in West New York, told Newsweek. “These are jobs that we’d offer to any person, they are not bad-paying jobs, they’re $20 an hour or more, but no one wants to do any sort of manual labor anymore. So it’s critical for agriculture to have access to a source of labor that will do this.”

Will Trump Find a Solution?

Armando Elenes, Secretary-Treasurer for the United Farm Workers of America, told Newsweek that UFW has seen higher engagement from farm workers who want to know their rights should ICE show up.

In May, 14 workers at Lynn-Ette & Sons Farms, in Orleans County, were detained during an ICE raid. Then, in mid-August, agents showed up again to arrest seven more.

“The workers that have not been detained, it’s the fear of them being next or them being targeted, and the workers who were detained, they have their roots here,” Elenes said. “They’ve been here for years, and they have families here, they have friends here, and to be uprooted and basically sent back, whether it be to Guatemala or to Mexico, it’s a traumatic experience.”

President Donald Trump said in July at the Iowa State Fairgrounds that his administration was working on legislation to allow undocumented workers in sectors such as agriculture and hospitality to remain in the country, a compromise that many in MAGA said amounted to “amnesty.”

“We’re working on legislation right now where – farmers, look, they know better. They work with them for years. You had cases where…people have worked for a farm, on a farm for 14, 15 years and they get thrown out pretty viciously and we can’t do it. We gotta work with the farmers, and people that have hotels and leisure properties too,” Trump said, although no official program or policy update has been announced.

The administration has urged those in the U.S. without legal status to self-deport, offering them $1,000 to do so, or face tougher penalties, such as ICE detention. For the Mexican worker Newsweek spoke to, leaving is not an option.

“I think that the people who are taking self-deportation are people who have just arrived and since they haven’t had a permanent job, they don’t have a life, like they don’t have stability anymore,” he said. “So that’s not an option, I think, for most of the people who are here, because, I mean, $1,000 you earn in a week.”

Newsweek asked the USDA what the administration was doing about the issue, with a spokesperson repeating that Trump was “putting America First”, including streamlining H-2A and H-2B visas.

“Our immigration system has been broken for decades, and we finally have a President who is enforcing the law and prioritizing fixing programs farmers and ranchers rely on to produce the safest and most productive food supply in the world,” the spokesperson said.

Rak said he had little faith that the Trump administration was making any serious efforts on immigration reform which would help business owners like him.

“It doesn’t matter who is in the White House, or who’s in charge of Congress, none of them has been able to work together to come up with a solution that would solve this problem,” Rak said. “If the problem was solved with a workable immigration policy, we wouldn’t need to have the enforcement things that are going on now.”

Immigrant New York farm workers issue warning over ICE raids
Smaller farms producing dairy and apples are under growing pressure as the Trump administration increases its immigration enforcement.

https://www.newsweek.com/new-york-farms-immigrant-workers-ice-raids-2124775

Raw Story: ‘I’m gonna punch you!’ Top Trump officials pulled apart as threats hurled at swanky dinner

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Rumble!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Why the f— are you talking to the president about me? F— you,” and declaring, “I’m gonna punch you in your f—ing face.”

A private dinner for Donald Trump administration officials erupted when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confronted Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte, threatening physical violence during the exclusive Georgetown event, Politico reported Monday.

The Wednesday evening gathering at Executive Branch, a club for Trump’s inner circle, was intended to celebrate the club’s inaugural dinner along with podcaster Chamath Palihapitiya’s birthday. Approximately 30 high-ranking officials were present, including Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and other prominent administration members.

During the cocktail hour, Bessent launched into an aggressive confrontation with Pulte, claiming the housing official had been speaking negatively about him to Trump. Witnesses reported Bessent’s explosive verbal assault, with him demanding, “Why the f— are you talking to the president about me? F— you,” and declaring, “I’m gonna punch you in your f—ing face.”

Club co-owner Omeed Malik intervened to prevent escalation. Bessent insisted on Pulte’s removal, declaring, “It’s either me or him,” and challenging Pulte to go outside. When Pulte asked if they could “talk,” Bessent responded he intended to “beat your a–,” according to the Politico report.

Malik ultimately separated the men, moving Bessent to another part of the club. During the seated dinner, Bessent and Pulte were strategically placed at opposite ends of the table, and the event proceeded without further incident, the report stated.

The confrontation highlighted underlying tensions between two top economic officials working on sensitive financial matters. Trump had previously tasked Bessent, Lutnick, and Pulte with collaborating on a plan to privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Behind the scenes, the two men had been engaged in a power struggle. Bessent believed Pulte was overstepping into his jurisdiction, while Pulte resented feeling marginalized. Their conflicting approaches were further complicated by their different relationships with Trump and competing visions for economic policy.

Bessent, known as a soft-spoken market strategist, has been viewed as a stabilizing force in the administration. Pulte, by contrast, has taken a more aggressive approach, quickly firing more than 100 Fannie and Freddie staffers and using his position to launch investigations targeting the president’s critics.

The incident was not unprecedented for Bessent, who had previously confronted other administration figures, including a notable altercation with Elon Musk over IRS commissioner appointments earlier in the year.

Neither Bessent, Pulte, Malik, nor the White House provided official comment to Politico on the encounter.

The bully boy misfits can’t even be nice to each other!

https://www.rawstory.com/bessent-trump

Wall Street Journal: Did a Boat Strike in Caribbean Exceed Trump’s Authority to Use Military Force?

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President Trump was operating within his constitutional powers as commander in chief when he ordered the U.S. military to destroy a vessel in the Caribbean, administration officials said, describing the drugs it was allegedly smuggling as an imminent national security threat.

But that claim was sharply disputed by legal experts and some lawmakers, who said that Trump exceeded his legal authority by using lethal military force against a target that posed no direct danger to the U.S. and doing so without congressional authorization.

The disagreement since Trump announced the deadly attack Tuesday underscored how much of a departure it represents from decades of U.S. counternarcotics operations—and raised questions about whether drug smugglers can be treated as legitimate military targets.

“Every boatload of any form of drug that poisons the American people is an imminent threat. And at the DOD, our job is to defeat imminent threats,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters Thursday during a visit to an Army base in Georgia. “A drug cartel is no different than al Qaeda, and they will be treated as such.”

Trump administration officials said Tuesday’s strike, which killed 11 people on the boat, was just the opening salvo in an expanded campaign to dismantle the drug cartels they say pose a major threat to Americans.

But in importing tactics from the post-9/11 war against terrorist groups to use against drug cartels, some former officials said, Trump is trampling on longstanding limits on presidential use of force and asserting legal authorities that don’t exist.

The casualties “weren’t engaged in anything like a direct attack on the United States” and weren’t afforded a trial to determine their guilt, said Frank Kendall, who served as the secretary of the Air Force during the Biden administration and holds a law degree. “Frankly, I can’t see how this can be considered anything other than a nonjudicial killing outside the boundaries of domestic and international law.”

Unlike the interdictions which are usually conducted by the U.S. Coast Guard, the strike was carried out without warning shots, and no effort was made to detain the ship, apprehend its crew, or confirm the drugs on board. “Instead of interdicting it, on the president’s orders they blew it up,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in Mexico City on Wednesday.

Trump said U.S. forces “positively identified” the crew before the attack as members of Venezuelan crime syndicate Tren de Aragua, calling them “narcoterrorists.” Tren de Aragua is among the Latin American cartels and gangs that Trump has designated as foreign terrorist organizations since February.

The White House has provided no further information on the operation against the boat or detailed the legal arguments that it claims support it. Nor have officials disclosed where the strike took place, the identities of the casualties or the weapons used.

Some Trump administration officials suggest that by designating the drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, the Pentagon has the leeway to treat the groups as it would foreign terrorists. As commander in chief, Trump has the power to order military action against imminent threats without congressional authorization, they said.

The strike “was taken in defense of vital U.S. national interests and in the collective self-defense of other nations,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said, adding that the strike occurred in international waters and “was fully consistent with the law of armed conflict.”

But Geoffrey Corn, a retired lieutenant colonel who was the Army’s senior adviser on the law of war, said: “I don’t think there is any way to legitimately characterize a drug ship heading from Venezuela, arguably to Trinidad, as an actual or imminent armed attack against the United States, justifying this military response.”

Corn, a law professor at Texas Tech University, noted that critics have condemned U.S. drone strikes since 2001 against militants in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries as extrajudicial killings, but those strikes were legitimate, he said, because the U.S. was engaged in an armed conflict under the laws of war against al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer who is now at the International Crisis Group, said that designation of drug cartels as terrorist groups doesn’t authorize the use of military force against them. Rather it enables the U.S. to levy sanctions and pursue criminal prosecutions against individuals who support the groups.

Nor can military action be justified under the law Congress passed authorizing the use of force against al Qaeda and related terrorist groups following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, experts said.

For the military to use force, “there needs to be a legitimate claim of self-defense in international waters, an action that is necessary and proportional in response to an armed attack or imminent armed attack,” said Juan Gonzalez, who served as the National Security Council’s senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs during the Biden administration. “That clearly didn’t happen.”

The attack was the U.S. military’s first publicly acknowledged airstrike in Central or South America since the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989. The White House released a grainy black-and-white video that showed the destruction of a small boat, which it celebrated as a blunt warning for drug traffickers throughout the region.

Trump administration officials have offered conflicting accounts of the episode. On Tuesday, Rubio said the drugs the vessel was carrying “were probably headed to Trinidad or some other country in the Caribbean” and could “contribute to the instability these countries are facing,” differing from Trump’s statement that the vessel was “heading to the United States.” On Wednesday, Rubio suggested that the shipment was “eventually” headed to the U.S.

No state in the region has publicly appealed for the U.S. to take military action against the cartels as an act of collective self-defense, Corn said.

On Thursday, two Venezuelan F-16 jet fighters flew near one of the U.S. Navy warships that have been positioned near the county. The Pentagon criticized the apparent show of force as a “highly provocative move” and warned Venezuela not to interfere with its “counter narco-terror operations.”

In the past, some U.S. counternarcotics strikes have ended in tragedy. In 2001, Peruvian and U.S. counterdrug agents mistook a small plane carrying American missionaries over the Peruvian Amazon as belonging to drug traffickers. The Peruvian Air Force shot down the plane, killing a 35-year-old woman and her infant daughter.

The U.S. has limited intelligence on small drug boats leaving Venezuela, from which the Drug Enforcement Administration was expelled in 2005 under then-President Hugo Chávez, said Mike Vigil, a former DEA director of international operations.

“The United States doesn’t really have the capability to develop good intelligence about these embarkations,” he said. “You don’t just send a missile and destroy a boat. It is the equivalent of a police officer walking up to a drug trafficker on the street and shooting him.”

In Quito, Ecuador, on Thursday, Rubio announced the designation of two more criminal groups—the Ecuadorean Los Choneros and Los Lobos—as foreign terrorist organizations. He said U.S. partners in the region would participate in operations to use lethal force against drug cartels.

A senior Mexican naval officer with decades of service and experience boarding drug vessels said actions like the one taken Tuesday by the U.S. would never be allowed by its Mexican counterpart, which has been trained in interdiction procedures by the U.S. Coast Guard.

“There is never a direct attack unless you are attacked,” he said. “As commander of the ship, I would get into serious trouble. I could be accused of murder.”

Did a Boat Strike in Caribbean Exceed Trump’s Authority to Use Military Force?
Legal experts said the president exceeded his legal authority by using lethal military force against a target that posed no direct danger to the U.S.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/did-a-boat-strike-in-caribbean-exceed-trump-s-authority-to-use-military-force/ar-AA1LU02a

Knewz: Trump appointee deals legal blow to the president

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Trump appointee deals legal blow to the president
The decision marks the second time in a week that a Trump-appointed judge ruled against the administration’s efforts.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/news/trump-appointee-deals-legal-blow-to-the-president/vi-AA1LYtO7

Washington Post: RFK Jr. says anyone who wants a covid shot can get one. Not these Americans.

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Pharmacies and doctors are struggling to adjust to a new regulatory environment for updated coronavirus vaccines that are no longer broadly recommended.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told senators last week that anyone can get a new coronavirus vaccine. But many Americans are finding the opposite.

Confusion is rippling through the health care system as pharmacies and doctors try to adjust to providing a vaccine that is no longer broadly recommended. Americans’ experiences vary widely, from easily booking appointments to having to cross state lines to access the shots, according to more than 3,200 submissions to The Washington Post’s request for readers to share their experiences.

Chain pharmacy locations in some parts of the country have yet to stock the shots or are turning away patients seeking the updated vaccines manufactured to protect people from the worst effects of new strains of the coronavirus. In some states, they require prescriptions, a step that has largely not been required since vaccines became widely available in early 2021.

Even more confusing: Pharmacies are reaching different conclusions about whether they’re allowed to administer coronavirus vaccines, even in the same state. And some states, including New York and Massachusetts, have scrambled in recent days to rewrite their rules to make it easier to get shots.

Many patients puzzle about whether they qualify to get the shot at all, or if they remain free as in years past.

Officials in the Trump administration have insisted that the new coronavirus vaccines remain available to those who want them and have blasted those who have suggested otherwise. Some Republican leaders are casting doubt on the safety of the shots, while some Democratic governors are rushing to preserve access — underscoring the nation’s deepening political divide over vaccines.

In Washington, D.C., Vernon Stewart, a 59-year-old retired parking enforcement officer, spent Wednesday riding his bike to see a doctor to get a prescription for the vaccine and to find a pharmacy where he could get it, only to be told the shot was not available. At one CVS, Stewart was seated in the chair with his sleeve rolled up when a nurse emerged to tell him his Medicaid insurance plan didn’t cover it.

On Friday morning, he hopped on the Metro train to Temple Hills, in Maryland — a state where CVS is not requiring prescriptions. He didn’t have to show his insurance card and paid nothing for the shot. He left with a bandage on his arm and a free bag of popcorn.

“It shouldn’t have to be this hard,” Stewart said Friday. “It was such a hassle. But I found a way.”

Doctors have the option to provide coronavirus vaccines “off label” to lower risk groups without approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Amid the fierce debates about coronavirus vaccines and low uptake of the latest versions, plenty of Americans want them.

Some, like Stewart, simply want to protect their health, despite not being considered at high risk. Many care for elderly or immunocompromised people and don’t want to get them sick. Some want to be immunized before traveling abroad or to reduce their risk of long covid.

Research has shown that annual coronavirus vaccinations reduce hospitalization and death, especially in people with weaker immune systems because of their age and underlying conditions. Health officials in the Trump administration argue that a universal recommendation is no longer warranted, because clinical trials have not demonstrated the vaccines are effective at reducing infection or transmission in younger and otherwise healthy people who are at low risk of hospitalization. Past research into updated coronavirus vaccines suggests they confer short-term partial protection against infections and can reduce transmission by reducing viral loads and symptoms.

Under Kennedy, the FDA in August narrowed approval of updated coronavirus shots to those 65 and older and people with underlying conditions that elevate their risk of severe disease. Typically, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee meets soon after such an announcement — often a few days later — to recommend which Americans should get coronavirus vaccines. The recommendations, which previously applied to everyone ages 6 months and older, compel insurers to pay for the vaccines.

But this year, the CDC panel was thrown into turmoil when Kennedy fired its members and replaced them with his own picks, most of whom have been critical of coronavirus vaccines. The panel is now scheduled to meet Sept. 18-19.

The vast majority of Americans receive coronavirus shots at pharmacies. More than a dozen states limit the vaccines that pharmacists can give without a doctor’s prescription to only those recommended by the CDC advisory panel, according to the American Pharmacists Association, complicating efforts even for those who are seniors or have preexisting conditions as approved by the FDA.

Five Democratic-led states — Colorado, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York and Pennsylvania — have recently issued orders to pharmacies to provide coronavirus vaccines without a prescription.

At CVS, the nation’s largest pharmacy chain, prescriptions are still required for coronavirus vaccines in Louisiana, Maine, New Mexico (where the order has yet to take effect), Utah and West Virginia. Patients in higher-risk groups can receive them through CVS Minute Clinics to bypass prescription requirements in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia and D.C.

The nation’s other two largest pharmacy chains — Walgreens and Walmart — have not provided a list of states where prescriptions are required to get the vaccine.

In a combative appearance before the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday, Kennedy bristled when Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-New Hampshire) accused the Trump administration of taking steps that deny people vaccines.

“Everybody can get the vaccine. You’re just making things up,” Kennedy said. “You’re making things up to scare people, and it’s a lie.”

In Virginia, Elaine Cox said she and her husband asked their doctor for a prescription before leaving Saturday for a vacation in Italy. The office declined because it hadn’t received CDC guidance. Cox, 68, suffers from chronic lung disease, and her nephew died of the viral infection in 2022.

“I was crying this afternoon about this,” she said on Thursday. “My family takes [covid] very seriously.”

Pharmacy employees have given conflicting instructions about how to get coronavirus vaccines, patients report.

In San Antonio, 78-year-old Brant Mittler was told at a CVS Minute Clinic that he needed a prescription on Monday, even though the pharmacy includes Texas among its no-prescription states. The next day, a pharmacist at the same clinic told him it wasn’t needed.

In states where CVS does not require prescriptions, coronavirus vaccine appointments aren’t available for younger, healthier people outside the recommended categories. But the list of qualifying medical conditions, including physical inactivity, being overweight or a history of smoking, is so long that nearly anyone who wants a shot should be able to get one, said Amy Thibault, a CVS spokeswoman.

“If you’re five pounds overweight, you qualify,” she said. “If you’ve smoked a cigarette once, you qualify.”

Some people seeking prescriptions from their doctors face pushback.

In Louisville, Stephen Pedigo said his primary care doctor recommended against receiving the vaccine, arguing that covid is mild and that the vaccine has “a lot of complications,” including heart problems, according to a screenshot of their messages.

The most recent CDC guidance says coronavirus vaccination is “especially important” if you are 65 or older and notes vaccines underwent the most intensive safety analysis in U.S. history.

Pedigo, who is 66 and has undergone a heart valve replacement, insisted, and the office gave him the prescription. He received the shot at a CVS on Friday. “I trust the vaccines are safe,” Pedigo said.

Doctors offices also have reported challenges helping patients get vaccinated.

In Raleigh, North Carolina, pediatrician Mary-Cassie Shaw said her office has preordered from Moderna hundreds of shots, at $200 a dose, but worries that insurers won’t provide reimbursement.

Families for the past month have been asking for coronavirus shots to go along with flu vaccines, she said.

One 12-year-old immunocompromised girl went to CVS but needed a prescription from Shaw — who was asked by the pharmacist to rewrite the prescription to include certain diagnosis codes indicating why the patient needed the vaccine.

“I have to do the legwork to come up with the codes that might qualify them,” Shaw said. “It’s a huge barrier. It’s ridiculous.”

Vaccination rates for the latest coronavirus shots have been low, particularly for people not considered at high risk, according to CDC estimates. For adults, uptake of the 2024-2025 vaccine ranged from 11 percent for younger adults to nearly 44 percent for those 65 and older. Roughly 13 percent of children between 6 months and 17 years received the shot.

The most effective way to increase vaccine uptake is to make it easier for people to get the shots, said Noel Brewer, professor of public health at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health. In states such as North Carolina, the added step of getting prescriptions will prompt many people to not bother, he said.

“They might even just hear about other people having a hassle and decide to go back another time and never get back to it,” said Brewer, who studies patient behavior in regard to vaccines.

Last week, California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington announced plans to form a “health alliance” to coordinate vaccine recommendations based on advice from national medical organizations rather than the federal government, because, they said, federal actions have raised concerns “about the politicization of science,” according to a joint statement.

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey (D) announced Thursday that her state would be the first to require insurance companies to cover vaccines recommended by the state’s Department of Public Health, even if the CDC does not. Washington state government officials on Friday recommended coronavirus vaccines for people ages 6 months and older.

At 59, Brewer doesn’t fall into the category of people for whom the FDA recommended updated coronavirus vaccines. Instead, Brewer said, he will wait until the fall, when he might travel to a blue state.

RFK Jr. says anyone who wants a covid shot can get one. Not these Americans.
Pharmacies and doctors are struggling to adjust to a new regulatory environment for updated coronavirus vaccines that are no longer broadly recommended.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/rfk-jr-says-anyone-who-wants-a-covid-shot-can-get-one-not-these-americans/ar-AA1M32EI

Washington Post: ICE begins immigration crackdown in Massachusetts, DHS says

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The Trump administration has launched an Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in Massachusetts, saying it would target what it called “the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens” in the state.

The Department of Homeland Security provided few details on the scale of the latest operation, called Patriot 2.0. But in a statement Saturday, the department said that it followed “the success of Operation Patriot in May.” The earlier ICE raids resulted in nearly 1,500 arrests across Massachusetts, including dozens of migrant workers on Martha’s Vineyard.

“If you come to our country illegally and break our laws, we will hunt you down, arrest you, deport you, and you will never return,” the statement said.

The Massachusetts operation comes as the Trump administration has signaled it is preparing to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago — a move that local leaders have strongly opposed.

On Thursday, the administration sued Boston and its leaders for allegedly refusing to cooperate with immigration authorities, adding to a string of similar lawsuits against so-called “sanctuary cities.”

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has defended the city’s laws, describing the lawsuit Thursday as an “unconstitutional attack on our city.” The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ICE operation Saturday.

In its statement Saturday, DHS said “sanctuary policies like those pushed by Mayor Wu not only attract and harbor criminals but also place these public safety threats above the interests of law-abiding American citizens.”

Trump’s border czar Tom Homan vowed last week to increase immigration enforcement across sanctuary cities, saying the administration was planning to “flood the zone” with thousands of agents.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem has repeatedly said that immigration officers are arresting the “worst of the worst.” But a Washington Post analysis of ICE data from June found the administration is increasingly targeting unauthorized immigrants with no criminal record as it ramps up arrests.

Federal authorities said the Massachusetts arrests in May included an alleged MS-13 gang member and someone described as a “child sex offender.” But according to community members, most of the migrants had no criminal record and were stopped on their way to work.

ICE begins immigration crackdown in Massachusetts, DHS says
The Trump administration has launched an Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in Massachusetts days after it sued Boston over the city’s sanctuary policies.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ice-begins-immigration-crackdown-in-massachusetts-dhs-says/ar-AA1M2kH7