crackdown

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Administrators at the state university’s campus in Colorado Springs thought they stood a solid chance of dodging the Trump administration’s offensive on higher education.

Located on a picturesque bluff with a stunning view of Pikes Peak, the school is far removed from the Ivy League colleges that have drawn President Trump’s ire. Most of its students are commuters, getting degrees while holding down full-time jobs. Students and faculty alike describe the university, which is in a conservative part of the blue state of Colorado, as politically subdued, if not apolitical.

That optimism was misplaced.

An Associated Press review of thousands of pages of emails from school officials, as well as interviews with students and professors, reveals that school leaders, teachers and students soon found themselves in the Republican administration’s crosshairs, forcing them to navigate what they described as an unprecedented and haphazard degree of change.

Whether Washington has downsized government departments, rescinded funding or launched investigations into diversity programs or campus antisemitism, the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs has confronted many of the same challenges as elite universities across the nation.

The school lost three major federal grants and found itself under investigation by the Trump Education Department. In the hopes of avoiding that scrutiny, the university renamed websites and job titles, all while dealing with pressure from students, faculty and staff who wanted the school to take a more combative stance.

“Uncertainty is compounding,” the school’s chancellor told faculty at a February meeting, according to minutes of the session. “And the speed of which orders are coming has been a bit of a shock.”

The college declined to make any administrators available to be interviewed. A spokesman asked the AP to make clear that any professors or students interviewed for this story were speaking for themselves and not the institution. Several faculty members also asked for anonymity, either because they did not have tenure or they did not want to call unnecessary attention to themselves and their scholarship in the current political environment.

“Like our colleagues across higher education, we’ve spent considerable time working to understand the new directives from the federal government,” the chancellor, Jennifer Sobanet, said in a statement provided to the AP.

Students said they have been able to sense the stress being felt by school administrators and professors.

“We have administrators that are feeling pressure, because we want to maintain our funding here. It’s been tense,” said Ava Knox, a rising junior who covers the university administration for the school newspaper.

Faculty, she added, “want to be very careful about how they’re conducting their research and about how they’re addressing the student population. They are also beholden to this new set of kind of ever-changing guidelines and stipulations by the federal government.”

A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Misplaced optimism

Shortly after Trump won a second term in November, University of Colorado-Colorado Springs leaders were trying to gather information on the incoming president’s plans. In December, Sobanet met the newly elected Republican congressman who represented the school’s district, a conservative area that Trump won with 53% of the vote. In her meeting notes obtained by the AP, the chancellor sketched out a scenario in which the college might avoid the drastic cuts and havoc under the incoming administration.

“Research dollars — hard to pull back grant dollars but Trump tried to pull back some last time. The money goes through Congress,” Sobanet wrote in notes prepared for the meeting. “Grant money will likely stay but just change how they are worded and what it will fund.”

Sobanet also observed that dismantling the federal Education Department would require congressional authorization. That was unlikely, she suggested, given the U.S. Senate’s composition.

Like many others, she did not fully anticipate how aggressively Trump would seek to transform the federal government.

Conservatives’ desire to revamp higher education began well before Trump took office.

They have long complained that universities have become bastions of liberal indoctrination and raucous protests. In 2023, Republicans in Congress had a contentious hearing with several Ivy League university leaders. Shortly after, the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania resigned. During the presidential campaign last fall, Trump criticized campus protests against the war in Gaza, as well as what he said was a liberal bias in classrooms.

His new administration opened investigations into alleged antisemitism at several universities. It froze more than $400 million in research grants and contracts at Columbia, along with more than $2.6 billion at Harvard. Columbia reached an agreement last month to pay $220 million to resolve the investigation.

When Harvard filed a lawsuit challenging Trump’s actions, his administration tried to block the school from enrolling international students. The Trump administration has also threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status.

Northwestern University, Penn, Princeton and Cornell have seen big chunks of funding cut over how they dealt with the protests about Israel’s war in Gaza or over the schools’ support for transgender athletes.

Trump’s decision to target the wealthiest, most prestigious institutions provided some comfort to administrators at the approximately 4,000 other colleges and universities in the country.

Most higher education students in the United States are educated at regional public universities or community colleges. Such schools have not typically drawn attention from culture warriors.

Students and professors at UCCS hoped Trump’s crackdown would bypass the school and others like it.

“You’ve got everyone — liberals, conservatives, middle of the road” at the college, said Jeffrey Scholes, a professor in the philosophy department. “You just don’t see the kind of unrest and polarization that you see at other campuses.”

The purse strings

The federal government has lots of leverage over higher education. It provides about $60 billion a year to universities for research. In addition, a majority of students in the U.S. need grants and loans from various federal programs to help pay tuition and living expenses.

This budget year, UCCS got about $19 million in research funding from a combination of federal, state and private sources. Though that is a relatively small portion of the school’s overall $369-million budget, the college has made a push in recent years to bolster its campus research program by taking advantage of grant money from government agencies such as the U.S. Defense Department and National Institutes of Health. The widespread federal grant cut could derail those efforts.

School officials were dismayed when the Trump administration terminated research grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Defense Department and the National Science Foundation, emails show. The grants funded programs in civics, cultural preservation and boosting women in technology fields.

School administrators scrambled to contact federal officials to learn whether other grants were on the chopping block, but they struggled to find answers, the records show.

School officials repeatedly sought out the assistance of federal officials only to learn those officials were not sure what was happening as the Trump administration halted grant payments, fired thousands of employees and closed agencies.

“The sky is falling” at NIH, a university official reported in notes on a call in which the school’s lobbyists were providing reports of what was happening in Washington.

There are also concerns about other changes in Washington that will affect how students pay for college, according to interviews with faculty and education policy experts.

While only Congress can fully abolish the Department of Education, the Trump administration has tried to dramatically cut back its staff and parcel out many of its functions to other agencies. The administration laid off nearly 1,400 employees, and problems have been reported in the systems that handle student loans. Management of student loans is expected to shift to another agency.

In addition, an early version of a major funding bill in Congress included major cuts to tuition grants. Though that provision did not make it into the law, Congress did cap loans for students seeking graduate degrees. That policy could have ripple effects in the coming years on institutions such as UCCS that rely on tuition dollars for their operating expenses.

DEI and transgender issues

To force change on campus, the Trump administration has begun investigations targeting diversity programs and efforts to combat antisemitism.

The Education Department, for example, opened an investigation in March targeting a PhD scholarship program that partnered with 45 universities, including the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, to expand opportunities for women and nonwhites in graduate education. The administration alleged the program was only open to certain nonwhite students and amounted to racial discrimination.

“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news UCCS is included on the list” of schools being investigated, wrote Annie Larson, assistant vice president of federal relations and outreach for the entire University of Colorado system.

“Oh wow, this is surprising,” wrote back Hillary Fouts, dean of the graduate school at UCCS.

UCCS also struggled with how to handle executive orders, particularly those on transgender issues.

In response to an order that aimed to revoke funds to schools that allowed trans women to play women’s sports, UCCS began a review of its athletic programs. It determined it had no transgender athletes, the records show. University officials were also relieved to discover that only one school in their athletic conference was affected by the order, and UCCS rarely if ever had matches or games against that school.

“We do not have any students impacted by this and don’t compete against any teams that we are aware of that will be impacted by this,” wrote the vice chancellor for student affairs to colleagues.

Avoiding the spotlight

The attacks led UCCS to take preemptive actions and to self-censor in the hopes of saving programs and avoiding the Trump administration’s spotlight.

Emails show that the school’s legal counsel began looking at all the university’s websites and evaluating whether any scholarships might need to be reworded. The university changed the web address of its diversity initiatives from www.diversity.uccs.edu to www.belonging.uccs.edu.

And the administrator responsible for the university’s division of Inclusive Culture & Belonging got a new job title in January: director of strategic initiatives. University professors said the school debated whether to rename the Women’s and Ethnic Studies department to avoid drawing attention from Trump, but so far the department has not been renamed.

Along the same lines, UCCS administrators have sought to avoid getting dragged into controversies, a frequent occurrence in the first Trump administration. UCCS officials attended a presentation from the education consulting firm EAB, which encouraged schools not to react to every news cycle. That could be a challenge because some students and faculty are calling for vocal resistance on issues from climate change to immigration.

Soon after Trump was sworn in, for example, a staff member in UCCS’s sustainability program began pushing the University of Colorado system to condemn Trump’s withdrawal from an international agreement to tackle climate change. It was the type of statement universities had issued without thinking twice in past administrations.

In an email, UCCS’ top public relations executive warned his boss: “There is a growing sentiment among the thought leadership in higher ed that campus leaders not take a public stance on major issues unless they impact their campus community.”

Tau writes for the Associated Press. AP education writer Collin Binkley in Washington contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered that National Guard troops patrolling the streets of Washington for President Trump’s law enforcement crackdown be armed, the Pentagon said Friday.

The Defense Department didn’t offer any other details about the new development or why it was needed.

The step is a escalation in Trump’s intervention into policing in the nation’s capital and comes as nearly 2,000 National Guard members have been stationed in the city, with the arrival this week of hundreds of troops from several Republican-led states.

Trump initially called up 800 members of the District of Columbia National Guard to assist federal law enforcement in his bid to crack down on crime and homelessness in the capital. Since then, six states have sent troops to the city, growing the military presence.

It was unclear if the guard’s role in the federal intervention would be changing. The guard has so far not taken part in law enforcement but largely have been protecting landmarks like the National Mall and Union Station and helping with crowd control.

The Pentagon and the Army said last week that troops would not carry guns. The new guidance is that they will carry their service-issued weapons.

The city had been informed about the intent for the National Guard to be armed, a person familiar with the conversations said earlier this week. The person was not authorized to disclose the plans and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Spokespeople for the District of Columbia National Guard and a military task force overseeing all the guard troops in Washington did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Toropin writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Anna Johnson contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Federal authorities have used checkpoints around the nation’s capital to screen vehicles, sometimes asking people for their immigration status after stopping them, as President Trump’s crackdown reaches the two-week mark in Washington.

The use of checkpoints, which can be legally controversial, is the latest indication that the White House’s mass deportation agenda is central to its assertion of federal power in Washington. Federal agents and hundreds of National Guard troops have surged into Washington this month, putting some residents on edge and creating tense confrontations in the streets.

The city’s immigrant population, in particular, is rattled. A daycare was partially closed on Thursday when staff became afraid to go to work because they heard about federal agents nearby. An administrator asked parents to keep their children at home if possible.

Other day cares have stopped taking kids on daily walks because of fears about encountering law enforcement.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser acknowledged Thursday that the proliferation of traffic checkpoints are an inevitable aspect of the federal law enforcement operations.

“The surge of federal officers is allowing for different types of deployments, more frequent types of deployments, like checkpoints,” Bowser said.

Since Aug. 7, when Trump began surging federal agents into the city, there have been 630 arrests, including 251 people who are in the country illegally, according to the White House. Trump has been ratcheting up the pressure since then, seizing control of the D.C. police department Aug. 11 and deploying more National Guard troops, mostly from Republican-led states.

Soldiers have been largely stationed in downtown areas, such as monuments on the National Mall and transit stations.

However, federal agents are operating more widely through the city — and some may soon get a visit from the president himself.

Trump is expected to join a patrol in D.C. on Thursday night. He told his plans to Todd Starnes, a conservative commentator.

Not a normal traffic stop

On Thursday morning, as Martin Romero rode through Washington’s Rock Creek Park on his way to a construction job in Virginia, he saw police on the road up ahead. He figured it was a normal traffic stop, but it wasn’t.

Romero, 41, said that U.S. Park Police were telling pickup trucks with company logos to pull over, reminding them that commercial vehicles weren’t allowed on park roads. They checked for licenses and insurance information, and then U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents came over.

Romero said there were two agents on one side of his truck and three on the other. He started to get nervous as the agents asked where they were from and whether they were in the country illegally.

“We just came here to work,” Romero said afterward. “We aren’t doing anything bad.”

Two people in his truck were detained and the agents didn’t give a reason, he said. He also saw three other people taken from other vehicles.

“I feel really worried because they took two of our guys,” he said. “They wouldn’t say where they’re taking them or if they’ll be able to come back.”

Romero said he called his boss, who told him to just head home. They wouldn’t be working today.

Enrique Martinez, a supervisor at the construction company, came to the scene afterward. He pondered whether to call families of the detained men.

“This has never happened to our company before,” Martinez said. “I’m not really sure what to do.”

Checkpoints are legal, to a point

The Supreme Court has upheld the use of law enforcement and government checkpoints for specific purposes, such as for policing the border and for identifying suspected drunk drivers.

But there are restrictions on that authority, especially when it comes to general crime control. Jeffrey Bellin, a former prosecutor in Washington and professor at Vanderbilt Law School who specializes in criminal law and procedures, said the Constitution doesn’t allow “the government to be constantly checking us and stopping to see if we’re up to any criminal activity.”

He said checkpoints for a legally justifiable purpose — like checking for driver’s licenses and registrations — cannot be used as “subterfuge” or a pretext for stops that would otherwise not be allowed. And though the court has affirmed the use of checkpoints at the border, and even some distance away from it, to ask drivers about immigration status, Bellin said it was unlikely the authority would extend to Washington.

Anthony Michael Kreis, a professor at Georgia State College of Law, said the seemingly “arbitrary” and intrusive nature of the checkpoints in the capital could leave residents feeling aggrieved.

“Some of the things could be entirely constitutional and fine, but at the same time, the way that things are unfolding, people are suspicious — and I think for good reason,” he said.

From Los Angeles to D.C.

There are few places in the country that have been unaffected by Trump’s deportation drive, but his push into D.C. is shaping into something more sustained, similar to what has unfolded in the Los Angeles area since early June.

In Los Angeles, immigration officers — working with the Border Patrol and other federal agencies — have been a near-daily presence at Home Depots, car washes and other highly visible locations.

In a demonstration of how enforcement has affected routines, the bishop of San Bernardino formally excused parishioners of their weekly obligation to attend Mass after immigration agents detained people on two parish properties.

Immigration officials have been an unusually public presence, sending horse patrols to the city’s famed MacArthur Park and appearing outside California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s news conference last week on congressional redistricting. Authorities said an agent fired at a moving vehicle last week after the driver refused to roll down his window during an immigration stop.

The National Guard and Marines were previously in the city for weeks on an assignment to maintain order amid protests.

A federal judge blocked the administration from conducting indiscriminate immigration stops in Southern California but authorities have vowed to keep the pressure on.

Megerian and Martin write for the Associated Press. AP writers Eric Tucker and Ashraf Khalil in Washington and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Bringing prominent White House support to the streets of Washington, Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday visited with National Guard troops at the city’s main train station as protesters chanted “free D.C.” — the latest tense interlude from President Trump’s crackdown in the nation’s capital. “We brought some law and order back,” the vice president asserted.

“We appreciate everything you’re doing,” Vance said as he presented burgers to the troops. Citing the protesters whose shouts echoed through the station, Vance said “they appear to hate the idea that Americans can enjoy their communities.”

The appearance, which also included White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, was a striking scene that illustrated the Republican administration’s intense focus on the situation in Washington and its willingness to promote an initiative that has polarized the Democrat-led city.

An estimated 1,900 troops are being deployed in D.C. More than half are coming from Republican-led states. Besides Union Station, they have mostly been spotted around downtown areas, including the National Mall and Metro stops.

An early morning accident involved an armored vehicle

The intersection of life in the city and a military presence produced another striking scene early Wednesday when an armored vehicle collided with a civilian car less than a mile from the U.S. Capitol. One person was trapped inside the car after the accident and had to be extricated by emergency responders, according to D.C. fire department spokesman Vito Maggiolo. The person was taken to a hospital because of minor injuries.

It was not immediately clear what caused the crash. A video posted online showed the aftermath of the collision, with a tan-colored armored vehicle twice the height of the civilian car with a crushed side.

“You come to our city and this is what you do? Seriously?” a woman yelled at the troops in the video.

Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said more than 550 people have been arrested so far, and the U.S. Marshals are offering $500 rewards for information leading to additional arrests. “Together, we will make DC safe again!” Bondi wrote on social media.

City officials work to navigate the situation

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser, trying to balance the constituency that elected her and the reality in front of her, acknowledged the changing situation in the city as she attended a back-to-school event with teachers and staff.

“This is not the same time, is it, that we experienced in opening school last year,” she said. Bowser said she would worry about the politics and told school employees that “your job is to love on the kids, teach them and make sure that they are prepared and to trust that I’m going to do the right thing for all of us.”

Despite the militarized backdrop, Bowser said it’s important that children “have joy when they approach this school year.” Public schools around Washington reconvene Monday.

The skewer-everyone cartoon TV show “ South Park,” which has leaned into near-real-time satire in recent years, this week made the federal crackdown fodder for a new episode. A 20-second promo released by Comedy Central depicts the character “Towelie” — a walking towel — riding in a bus past the U.S. Supreme Court building and White House, where armed troops are patrolling. A tank rolls by in front of the White House.

“This seems like a perfect place for a towel,” the character says upon disembarking the bus.

“South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone recently signed a reported $1.5-billion, five-year deal with Paramount for new episodes and streaming rights to their series, which began its 27th season this summer.

The season premiere mocked the president’s body in a raunchy manner and depicted him sharing a bed with Satan.

Whitehurst, Brown and Megerian write for the Associated Press. AP writers David Bauder and Michelle Price contributed to this report.

Bringing prominent White House support to the streets of Washington, DC, US Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have visited with National Guard troops at the city’s main train station.

“We brought some law and order back,” the vice president asserted as protesters chanted “free DC” during the latest tense interlude from President Donald Trump’s crackdown in the nation’s capital on Wednesday.

“We appreciate everything you’re doing,” Vance said as he presented burgers to the troops. Citing the protesters whose shouts echoed through the station, Vance said, “They appear to hate the idea that Americans can enjoy their communities.”

Vance’s and Hegseth’s appearance, which also included White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, was a striking scene that illustrated the Republican administration’s intense focus on the situation in Washington and its willingness to promote an initiative that has polarised the Democratic-led city.

On August 8, federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), began patrolling parts of Washington, DC. Days later, on August 11, President Trump declared a “crime emergency” under Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, which temporarily placed the city’s Metropolitan Police under federal authority.

An estimated 1,900 troops are being deployed in DC. More than half are coming from Republican-led states. Besides Union Station, they’ve mostly been spotted around downtown areas, including the National Mall and DC Metro stops.

National Guard armoured vehicle crash

The intersection of life in the city and a military presence produced another striking scene early on Wednesday when an armoured vehicle collided with a civilian car less than a mile (1.6km) from the US Capitol. One person was trapped inside the car after the accident and had to be extricated by emergency responders, according to DC Fire Department spokesman Vito Maggiolo. The person was transported to a hospital with minor injuries.

It was not immediately clear what caused the crash. A video posted online showed the aftermath of the collision, with a tan-coloured armoured vehicle twice the height of a civilian car with a crushed side.

“You come to our city and this is what you do? Seriously?” a woman yelled at the troops in the video.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi said more than 550 people have been arrested so far, and the US Marshals Service is offering $500 rewards for information leading to additional arrests. “Together, we will make DC safe again!” Bondi wrote on social media.

Navigating the situation

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser, trying to balance the constituency that elected her and the reality in front of her, acknowledged the changing situation in the city as she attended a back-to-school event with teachers and staff.

“This is not the same time, is it, that we experienced in opening school last year,” she said. Bowser said she would focus on the politics and told school employees that “your job is to love on the kids, teach them and make sure that they are prepared and to trust that I’m going to do the right thing for all of us”.

Despite the militarised backdrop, Bowser said it’s important that children “have joy when they approach this school year”. Public schools around Washington reconvene Monday for the fall semester.

The city’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) arrested an average of 61 adults and juveniles per day in 2024, according to city statistics. The Trump administration has not specified whether the arrest totals it has cited include those made by MPD officers or only consist of those made by federal agents.

DC crime rates have remained largely unchanged from a year ago, according to the police department’s weekly statistics.

As of Tuesday, the city’s overall crime rate is down 7 percent year over year, the same percentage as before the crackdown. DC has also experienced the same declines in violent crime and property crime as it did beforehand, according to the data.

Trump has defended his decision to deploy soldiers in the US capital as necessary to stem a wave of violent crime. City officials have rejected that assertion, pointing to federal and city statistics that show violent crime has declined significantly since a spike in 2023.

The president has said, without providing evidence, that the crime data is fraudulent. The US Department of Justice has opened an investigation into whether the numbers were manipulated, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed sources.

Shotguns and rifles

The White House has touted the number of guns that law enforcement has seized since Trump began surging federal agents into the city. In a social media post on Wednesday, US Attorney General Pam Bondi said the operation had taken 76 illegal guns off the streets, along with the more than 500 arrests.

However, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday that federal prosecutors in DC will no longer seek charges against people who violate a local law prohibiting individuals from carrying rifles or shotguns in the nation’s capital.

The decision, which represents a break from the office’s prior policy, comes amid what Trump has described as a crime crackdown in Washington.

The president has deployed hundreds of National Guard troops and federal agents to the city’s streets to combat what he says is rampant crime, in an extraordinary exercise of presidential power.

66 arrests yesterday and 8 illegal firearms seized. One arrest was a warrant on a juvenile for armed robbery in Washington DC.

Thank you to our K9, Red, and all the men and women who continue to work hard so that Americans can feel safe in the nation’s capital! pic.twitter.com/jpcWfTvRhp

— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) August 20, 2025

In a statement provided to Reuters, US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said the new policy will not preclude prosecutors from charging people with other illegal firearms crimes, such as a convicted felon found in possession of a gun.

“We will continue to seize all illegal and unlicensed firearms,” she said.

The DC code in question bars anyone from carrying a rifle or shotgun with narrow exceptions. Pirro, a close Trump ally, argued in a statement to the Washington Post that the law violates two US Supreme Court decisions expanding gun rights.

In 2008, the court struck down a separate DC law banning handguns and ruled that individuals have the right to keep firearms in their homes for self-defence. In 2022, the court ruled that any gun-control law must be rooted in the country’s historical traditions to be valid.

Unlike US attorneys in all 50 states, who only prosecute federal offences, the US attorney in Washington prosecutes local crimes as well.

WASHINGTON — The main drag in Washington’s Columbia Heights neighborhood is typically crammed with people peddling pupusas, fresh fruit, souvenirs and clothing. On Tuesday, though, things felt different: The white tents that bulge with food and merchandise were scarcer than usual.

“Everything has stopped over the last week,” said Yassin Yahyaoui, who sells jewelry and glass figurines. Most of his customers and fellow vendors, he said, have “just disappeared” — particularly if they speak Spanish.

The abnormally quiet street was further proof of how President Trump’s decision to flood the nation’s capital with federal law enforcement and immigration agents has rippled through the city. Although troop deployments and foot patrols in downtown areas and around the National Mall have garnered the most attention, life in historically diverse neighborhoods such as Columbia Heights is being reshaped as well.

The White House has credited Trump’s crackdown with hundreds of arrests, while local officials have criticized the aggressive intervention in the city’s affairs.

The confrontation escalated Tuesday as the top federal prosecutor in the District of Columbia opened an investigation into whether police officials have falsified crime data, according to a person familiar with the situation who wasn’t authorized to comment publicly. The inquiry could be used to bolster Trump’s claims that the city is suffering from a “crime emergency” despite statistics showing improvements. The mayor’s office and the Police Department declined to comment.

Stops are visible across the city

Blocks away from where Yahyaoui had set up shop, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local police stopped a moped driver delivering pizza. The agents drove unmarked cars and wore tactical vests; one covered his face with a green balaclava. They questioned the driver and required him to present documentation relating to his employment and legal residency status. No arrest was made.

The White House said there have been 465 arrests since Aug. 7, when the federal operation began, including 206 people who were in the country illegally. The Trump administration has ramped up immigration enforcement and the president signed an executive order on Aug. 11 to put the Police Department under federal control for 30 days; extending that would require congressional approval.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said Trump was “unapologetically standing up for the safety of law-abiding American citizens.”

Glorida Gomez, who has been working a fruit stand in Columbia Heights for more than a decade, said business is worse now than during the COVID-19 pandemic. She said many vendors stopped coming because they were afraid of encountering federal agents.

Customers seem less willing to spend money too. Reina Sosa, another vendor, said that “they’re saving it in case something happens,” like getting detained by immigration enforcement.

Ana Lemus, who also sells fruit, said that “we need more humanity on that part of the government.”

“Remember that these are people being affected,” she said. “The government is supposed to protect members of the community, not attack or discriminate against them.”

Bystanders have recorded some arrests on video. On Saturday morning, Christian Enrique Carias Torres was detained in another part of the city during a scuffle with ICE agents, and the video ricocheted around social media. An FBI agent’s affidavit said Carias Torres kicked one of the agents in the leg and another was injured when he fell during the struggle and struck his head on the pavement. A stun gun was used to subdue Carias Torres, who was charged Tuesday with resisting arrest.

An alphabet soup of federal agencies have been circulating in the city. In the Petworth neighborhood, roughly 20 officers from the FBI, Homeland Security, Park Police and U.S. Marshals descended on an apartment building on Tuesday morning. A man extended his hands out a window while officers cuffed him. Yanna Stelle, 19, who witnessed the incident, said she heard the chatter from walkie-talkies as officers moved through the hallways.

“That was too many police first thing in the morning — especially for them to just be doing a warrant,” she said.

More National Guard troops from other states are slated to arrive

From his actions and remarks, Trump seems interested in ratcheting up the pressure. His administration has asked Republican-led states to send more National Guard troops. Mississippi, Tennessee, Louisiana, West Virginia, South Carolina and Ohio have agreed to deploy a total of 1,100 troops to the city, on top of the 800 from the D.C.-based National Guard.

Resistance to that notion is starting to surface, both on the streets and in Congress. On Tuesday, Democratic Rep. Sam Liccardo (D-San José) introduced a bill that would require a report outlining the cost of any National Guard deployment unrelated to a natural disaster, as well as its legal basis. It would also require reporting on any Guard interactions with civilians and other aspects of the operation.

Forty-four Democrats have signed on in support, including Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington’s nonvoting delegate in the House of Representatives. Although the measure stands little chance of passing while Republicans control the chamber, it’s a sign of a wider Democratic response to Trump’s unprecedented moves in Washington.

“Are L.A. and D.C. a test run for a broader authoritarian takeover of local communities?” Liccardo asked. He added that the country’s founders were suspicious of “executive control of standing armies.”

Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said that “Democrats continue to side with criminals over law-abiding Americans.”

What kind of assistance will be offered?

It’s unclear what kind of help the National Guard will be able to provide when it comes to crime.

“The fact of the matter is that the National Guard are not law-enforcement trained, and they’re not going into places where they would be engaged in law enforcement activity,” said Jeff Asher, a crime analyst and consultant at AH Datalytics. “So I don’t know that it’s fair to expect much of it.”

Trump declared in a social media post that his initiative has transformed Washington from “the most unsafe ‘city’ in the United States” to “perhaps the safest, and getting better every single hour!”

The number of crimes reported in D.C. did drop by about 8% this week as compared with the week before, according to Metropolitan Police data. There was some variation within that data, with crimes such as robberies and car thefts declining while burglaries increased a bit and homicides remained steady.

Still, a week is a small sample size — far from enough time for data to show meaningful shifts, Asher said. Referring to the monthlong period that D.C.’s home rule law allows the president to exert control over the Police Department, he said: “I think 30 days is too short of a period to really say anything.”

Brown, Whitehurst and Megerian write for the Associated Press. AP writers Michael Kunzelman, Alanna Durkin Richer, Jacquelyn Martin and Ashraf Khalil contributed to this report.

THE Government has confirmed when it’s planning to bring in controversial new powers aimed at cracking down on benefits fraudsters.

Banks will be drafted in to help identify benefits cheats and convicted fraudsters could be stripped of their driving licences under the new Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) plans.

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New Government documents have revealed it’s planning to bring the measures under the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill in April 2026.

The DWP has said it will be the “biggest fraud crackdown in a generation”.

It’s estimated the new powers could save taxpayers £1.5billion over five years.

Last year, an estimated £7.4billion was lost to benefits fraud – around 2.8% of total welfare spending.

A further £1.6bn (0.6%) was overpaid due to unintentional errors by claimants, while £0.8bn (0.3%) was overpaid because of errors by the DWP.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been trying to boost the public purse after it was revealed she needs to plug a £50billion hole in public finances.

The new measures mean banks will help to identify customers who might have breached benefit eligibility rules, such as exceeding the £16,000 savings limit for Universal Credit.

They will share limited data with the DWP but can’t provide transaction details, so officials won’t be able to see how benefit claimants spend their money.

The DWP also won’t gain direct access to claimants’ bank accounts, but it will receive cases flagged for investigation.

Financial institutions face penalties if they overshare information beyond what’s permitted.

Airlines and other third-party organisations might also have to provide information to help detect benefit claims made from abroad that could violate eligibility rules.

According to the Government documents, any information “will not be shared on the presumption or suspicion that anyone is guilty of any offence”.

However officials will gain authority to recover money directly from fraudsters’ bank accounts.

As well as this, persistent benefit fraudsters who fail to repay their debts could face driving bans lasting up to two years.

DWP minister Liz Kendall has pledged to clamp down on benefit cheats, saying back in March: “The social security system that we inherited from the Conservatives is failing the very people that it is supposed to help and is holding our country back.

“The facts speak for themselves. One in 10 people of working age are now claiming a sickness or disability benefit. Almost one million young people are not in education, employment or training – one in eight of all our young people.”

The DWP has said it will have strong safeguards in place, including new inspection and reporting mechanisms.

DWP staff will also receive comprehensive training before using the new powers.

However campaign groups have warned the powers could invade claimants’ rights to financial privacy and it could also lead to legitimate claimants being wrongly investigated.

In a letter to Kendall last year, the directors of Big Brother Watch and Age UK described the plans as “mass financial surveillance powers” which they said would “represent a severe and disproportionate intrusion into the nation’s privacy”.

Four years have passed since Hanifa Girowal fled Afghanistan on a US evacuation flight. But every August, her mind returns to the same place.

Like many Afghans evacuated amid the August 15 Taliban takeover of Kabul, Girowal, who worked in human rights under the former Afghan government, still remains stuck in “legal limbo” in the United States. She is steadfastly pursuing a more stable status in the US, even as the political landscape surrounding her, and thousands of other Afghans in similar situations, shifts.

“I somehow feel like I’m still stuck in August 2021 and all the other Augusts in between, I can’t remember anything about them,” Girowal told Al Jazeera.

She often recalls the mad dash amid a crush of bodies at the crowded Kabul International Airport: people shot in front of her, a week of hiding, a flight to Qatar, then Germany and then finally, the US state of Virginia.

Followed by the early days of trying to begin a new life from the fragments of the old.

“Everything just comes up again to the surface, and it’s like reliving that trauma we went through, and we have been trying to heal from since that day,” she said.

The struggle may have become familiar, but her disquiet has been heightened since US President Donald Trump took office on January 20. His hardline immigration policies have touched nearly every immigrant community in the US, underscoring vulnerabilities for anyone on a precarious legal status.

There is a feeling that anything could happen, from one day to the next.

“I have an approved asylum case, which gives a certain level of protection, but we still don’t know the future of certain policies on immigration,” Girowal said. “I am very much fearful that I can be subjected to deportation at any time.”

Unheeded warnings

Four years after the US withdrawal, much remains unclear about how Trump’s policies will affect Afghans who are already in the US, estimated to total about 180,000.

They arrived through a tangle of different avenues, including 75,000 flown in on evacuation flights in the immediate aftermath of the withdrawal, as the administration of US President Joe Biden undertook what it dubbed “Operation Allies Welcome“. Thousands more have since sought asylum by making treacherous journeys across the world to traverse the US southern border.

Some have relocated via so-called Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs), reserved for individuals who worked directly with the US military in Afghanistan, under a notoriously backlogged programme.

Others have been resettled through a special State Department programme, known as Priority 1 (P1) and Priority 2 (P2), launched by the administration of President Biden, meant for Afghans who face persecution for having worked in various capacities on behalf of the US government or with a US-based organisation in Afghanistan.

Adam Bates, a supervisory policy counsel at the International Refugee Assistance Programme, explained that some of those pathways, most notably the SIV and refugee programmes, provide a clear course towards US residency and, eventually, citizenship.

But, he clarified, others do not – a fact that advocates have warned leaves members of the population subject to perpetual uncertainty and political whims.

“A lot of the advocacy to the Biden administration officials was about finding more permanent legal pathways for Afghans,” Bates told Al Jazeera. “That was with one eye towards the potential of giving the Trump administration this opportunity to really double down and target this community.”

Pressure on Afghans in the US

During Trump’s new term, his administration has taken several concrete – and at times contradictory – moves that affect Afghans living in the US.

It ended “temporary protected status” (TPS) for Afghans already in the country at the time of the Taliban takeover, arguing the country shows “an improved security situation” and “stabilising economy”, a claim contradicted by several human rights reports.

At the same time, the Trump administration added Afghanistan to a new travel ban list, restricting visas for Afghans, saying such admissions broadly run counter to US “foreign policy, national security, and counterterrorism”.

These actions underscore that “the situation in Afghanistan seems to be whatever it needs to be, from the Trump administration’s perspective,” according to Bates.

Trump has offered his contradictory messaging, criticising the Biden administration on the campaign trail for its handling of the withdrawal, and as recently as July, pledging to “save” evacuated Afghans subject to deportation from the United Arab Emirates.

Meanwhile, the administration terminated a special status for those who entered the US via the CBP One app in April, potentially affecting thousands of Afghans who entered via the southern border.

Advocates warn that many more Afghans may soon be facing another legal cliff. After being evacuated in 2021, tens of thousands of Afghans were granted humanitarian parole, a temporary status that allowed them to legally live and work in the US for two years, with an extension granted in 2023. That programme is soon set to end.

While many granted the status have since sought other legal avenues, most often applying for asylum or SIVs, an unknown number could be rendered undocumented and subject to deportation when the extension ends. Legislation creating a clearer pathway to citizenship has languished in Congress for years.

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has not publicly released how many evacuated Afghans remain in the US on humanitarian parole, and did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for the data.

Evacuated Afghans’ unease has been compounded by Trump’s aggressive approach to immigration enforcement, which has increasingly seen those without criminal histories targeted for deportations and permanent residents targeted for their political advocacy.

“It’s just an escalation across the board and a compounding of fear and instability in this community,” Bates said. “It’s hard to make life decisions if you aren’t sure what’s going to happen tomorrow or next week or in a year”.

‘Pulled the rug out’

Meanwhile, for the thousands of Afghans continuing to seek safety in the US from abroad, pathways have been severely constricted or have become completely blocked.

The Trump administration has paused asylum claims at the US southern border, citing a national emergency. It has almost completely suspended the US Refugee Program (USRAP), allowing only a trickle of new refugees in amid an ongoing legal challenge by rights groups.

Advocates say the special P1 and P2 programme created for Afghan refugees appears to have been completely halted under Trump. The administration has not published refugee admission numbers since taking office, and did not reply to Al Jazeera’s request for data.

“It feels as if we have pulled the rug out from many of our Afghan allies through these policy changes that strip legal protection for many Afghans in the US and limit pathways for Afghans who are still abroad to come to the US safely,” Kristyn Peck, the chief executive officer of the Lutheran Social Services of the National Capital Area, told Al Jazeera.

She noted that the SIV pipeline has continued to operate under Trump, although there have been some limitations, including requiring those approved for relocation to pay for their own travel.

Meanwhile, resettlement agencies like Lutheran have been forced to seriously curtail their operations following a stop-work order from the administration on January 24. As of March, Peck said, the organisation has been forced to let go of about 120 of its staff.

Susan Antolin, the executive director of Women for Afghan Women, a non-profit organisation that offers mental health, legal and social support to Afghans in the US, said organisations like hers are also bracing for sustained uncertainty.

“We are diversifying our funding and trying very hard, as so many other organisations are, to find other avenues to bring in that funding to continue to support our programmes,” she told Al Jazeera. “As organisations that deal with this kind of work, we have to step up. We have to do 10 times more, or 100 times more, of the work.”

‘No more a priority for the world’

The unstable situation in the US reflects a broader global trend.

The Taliban government, despite promising reforms in a push for international recognition, has continued to be accused of widespread human rights abuses and revenge killings. Still, it has upgraded diplomatic ties with several governments in recent years, and in July, Russia became the first country to formally recognise the group as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.

At the same time, the governments of Pakistan and Iran have accelerated expulsions of Afghans back to Afghanistan, with more than 1.4 million Afghans either being expelled or leaving Iran alone from January to July of 2025, according to UNHCR.

The Reuters news agency also reported in July that the UAE had notified Washington that it had begun returning evacuated Afghans.

Germany, too, has begun deporting Afghans back to Afghanistan, in July, it conducted its second deportation flight since the Taliban came to power, despite continuing not to recognise or maintain diplomatic ties with the group.

The collective moves send a clear message, evacuee Girowal said: “We know that Afghanistan is no more a priority for the world.”

Still, she said she has not abandoned hope that the US under Trump’s leadership will “not forget its allies”.

“I know the resilience of our own Afghan community. We are trained to be resilient wherever we are and fight back as much as we can,” she said.

“That’s one thing that gives me hope.”

Washington, DC attorney general says in a new lawsuit that Trump is going far beyond his power under the law.

The United States capital, Washington, DC, has challenged President Donald Trump’s takeover of its police department in court, hours after his administration stepped up its crackdown on policing by naming the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) chief, a federal official, as the new emergency head of the department, with all the powers of a police chief.

District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb said on Friday in a new lawsuit that Trump is exceeding his power under the law. Schwalb urged a judge to rule that control of the department remains in the city’s hands, and he has also sought an emergency restraining order.

“The administration’s unlawful actions are an affront to the dignity and autonomy of the 700,000 Americans who call D.C. home. This is the gravest threat to Home Rule that the District has ever faced, and we are fighting to stop it,” Schwalb said.

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser also pushed back, writing on social media that “there is no statute that conveys the District’s personnel authority to a federal official.”

Let us be clear about what the law requires during a Presidential declared emergency: it requires the mayor of Washington, DC to provide the services of the Metropolitan Police Department for federal purposes at the request of the President.

We have followed the law.

In… pic.twitter.com/XfaNqLalFU

— Mayor Muriel Bowser (@MayorBowser) August 15, 2025

The lawsuit comes after Trump’s Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Thursday night that DEA boss Terry Cole will assume “powers and duties vested in the District of Columbia Chief of Police”. The Metropolitan Police Department “must receive approval from Commissioner Cole” before issuing any orders, Bondi said.

Earlier this week, Trump announced that the federal government would take control of the District of Columbia (DC) Metropolitan Police Department to address surging crime.

“I’m announcing a historic action to rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse,” Trump said during the news conference, in which he was joined by Bondi, who was initially set to oversee the city’s police force while it is under federal control.

“This is Liberation Day in DC, and we’re going to take our capital back. We’re taking it back,” Trump said.

He also announced the deployment of the National Guard.

“I’m deploying the National Guard to help re-establish law, order and public safety in Washington, DC, and they’re going to be allowed to do their job properly,” he said.

Trump also said that he intends to remove the capital’s homeless population, but did not provide details on how the plan would be carried out.

Residents wary of escalated show of force

A Washington population already on edge from days of Trump administration ramp-ups has begun witnessing more significant shows of force across the city.

National Guard troops watched over some of the country’s most renowned landmarks and Humvees took position in front of the busy main train hub, Union Station.

Volunteers have helped homeless people leave longstanding encampments, but where they were relocating to was often unclear.

Department of Homeland Security police stood outside Nationals Park during a baseball game on Thursday. DEA agents patrolled The Wharf, a popular nightlife area, while Secret Service officers were seen in the Foggy Bottom neighbourhood.

The sudden spike in high visibility of federal forces around the city, including in many busy traffic areas, has struck residents going about their day-to-day lives.

Trump has the power to take over federal law enforcement for 30 days before his actions must be reviewed by Congress, though he has said he will re-evaluate as that deadline approaches.

National Guard troops are usually less of a heavy presence in Washington’s metropolitan area, typically being used during mass public events like the annual July 4 celebration. They have regularly been used in the past for crowd control in and around Metro stations.

One of the most iconic EU cities is under pressure to increase its tourist tax following outrage from locals – who argue their home is being turned into a theme park

Fed-up locals in one of Europe’s most famous cities are calling for tough measures following a surge in tourism. Last year, a staggering 48.7 million visitors flocked to Paris – lured in by iconic sights like the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and of course those mouthwatering pastries.

Around 11 million of these selfie-stick-waving tourists headed over to Montmartre, a historic district home to the ethereal Sacré-Cœur Basilica. Instantly recognisable by its narrow cobbled streets and vibrant nightlife – Montmatre was catapulted to fame thanks to its famous cabaret venue, The Moulin Rouge, and was once a haven for artists like Picasso, Van Gogh, and Renoir.

However, with narrow streets so crowded with large tour groups, residents say their home has turned into Disneyland, and are calling for drastic change. It comes after Spanish islands fear Brits won’t return as tourists are dealt another blow.

READ MORE: Huge blow as beautiful country with 3m visitors unveils £17 tourist charge

Anne Renaudie has lived in the area for almost three decades, and manages the Vivre à Montmartre association. Speaking to Reuters, she argued the historic quarter has turned into a theme park after being cast into the tourist spotlight thanks to the 2011 hit film Amelie.

“People come for three hours, have fun, buy a beret or a crepe, and leave – as if they were in an amusement park,” she said. As a result, many of the essential food shops catering to locals have been replaced with tourist-targeted snack stands and souvenir shops.

“We’re down to two or three butchers [and] two cheese shops. They’re disappearing one after the other,” Anne added. “Now, it’s a lot of ice cream, crepes, and taco places.”

Along with other members of the association, Anne is urging the town hall to impose similar clampdowns to other European hotspots including Barcelona and Venice. This includes limiting tour groups to just 25 people, banning loudspeakers and increasing the tourist tax.

Sky-high tourist taxes have become common practice across the continent in recent years, with swathes of destinations struggling to keep up with soaring demand. Take Italy’s Venice, for example, which has extended its day-tripper tourist tax to 2025 and doubled the price for certain visitors.

Those wanting to roam the endless network of canals on a gondola, or eat their body weight in pizza, will now have to pay €5 for the Venice Access Fee if they’re visiting for the day from April 18 to July 27. For last-minute visitors, this doubles to €10.

Cruise passengers heading to insufferably busy Greek islands such as Santorini and Mykonos will also be charged €20 for disembarking at the harbour, while tourists in Portugal are subject to a €1-€4 charge per night depending on the accommodation and area they’re staying in. For some, the unexpected costs come prior to flying – like one woman who was charged £75 for her luggage.

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PEOPLE smugglers who advertise Channel Crossings or try to flog fake passports online face up to five years in prison, under a new crackdown.

The Home Office is scrambling to beef up their laws after a record 25,000 illegal migrants landed on Britain’s beaches so far this year.

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The grim milestone piles massive pressure on Home Secretary Yvette Cooper – who has vowed to “smash the gangs” and stop the boats.

But the Government has been accused of woefully failing to restore control to UK borders.

Ministers will introduce a new criminal offence under the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill already going through Parliament.

This will make it a crime to publish material which promotes breaking immigration laws – like flogging small boat crossings, dodgy passports and visas or promising black market work.

These things are already illegal, but ministers say the new law will help beef up the power of the cops and prosecutors.

Anyone caught flouting the law faces five years behind bars or a massive fine.

Ms Cooper said: “Selling the false promise of a safe journey to the UK and a life in this country – whether on or offline – simply to make money, is nothing short of immoral.

“These criminals have no issue with leading migrants to life-threatening situations using brazen tactics on social media. We are determined to do everything we can to stop them – wherever they operate.

“We have to stay one step ahead of the ever-evolving tactics of people-smuggling gangs.”

A staggering 80 per cent of migrants arriving on small boats used social media sites like TikTok to plan their journey, according to the Home Office.

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July 29 (UPI) — The Department of Education has launched a civil rights investigation into Duke University amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on higher-learning institutions as it seeks to rid the private and public sector of diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

The civil rights investigation was launched Monday into not only Duke but its law journal for violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by allegedly discriminating against students based on race.

The investigation coincides with the departments of Education and Health and Human Services sending a joint letter to Duke University outlining their “shared concerns” about its use of race in its hiring, admissions and scholarship decisions.

“If Duke illegally gives preferential treatment to law journal or medical school applicants based on those students’ immutable characteristics, that is an affront not only to civil rights law, but to the meritocratic character of academic excellence,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement.

“Blatantly discriminatory practices that are illegal under the Constitution, anti-discrimination law and Supreme Court precedent have become all too common in our education institutions. The Trump administration will not allow them to continue.”

Diversity, equity and inclusion, known as DEI, is a conceptual framework that promotes fair treatment and full participation of all people. It has been a target of conservatives who claim it focuses on race and gender at the expense of merit.

Since returning to the White House in January, President Donald Trump has sought to remove DEI from the federal government and has threatened to revoke federal funding from several universities, including Harvard, over their alleged DEI programs.

Dozens of schools have been the target of Trump administration civil rights investigations over DEI policies and practices. It has also launched investigations into schools over allowing transgender students to compete in women’s sporting competitions, for not protecting Jewish students amid pro-Palestine protests and for providing migrants with scholarship opportunities denied to out-of-state Americans.

Several of the schools have reached multimillion-dollar settlements with the Trump administration to resolve the civil rights investigations, including Columbia, which, earlier this month, agreed to pay $200 million to the federal government and end its DEI policies.

The investigation launched Monday accuses Duke’s law review of awarding extra points in its editor application process to personal statements that explain how the applicant’s membership in an underrepresented group promotes diverse voices.

In the joint letter from the Department of Education and HHS, they accuse Duke University School of Medicine of employing practices that “include illegal and wrongful racial preferences and discriminatory activity in recruitment, student admissions, scholarships and financial aid, mentoring and enrichment programs, hiring, promotion and more.”

No specifics were given.

“The immediate request is simple: Review all policies and practices at Duke Health for the illegal use of race preferences, take immediate action to reform all of those that unlawfully take account of race or ethnicity to bestow benefits or advantages and provide clear and verifiable assurances to the government that Duke’s new policies will be implemented faithfully going forward,” the letter said.

The departments called on the school to form a committee to carry out the Trump administration’s request over a six-month period. Duke has 10 days to respond, it said.

The departments said federal funding to the school was at risk.

Lawyers seeking a temporary restraining order against an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades say that “Alligator Alcatraz” detainees have been barred from meeting attorneys, are being held without any charges and that a federal immigration court has canceled bond hearings.

A virtual hearing in federal court in Miami was being held Monday on a lawsuit that was filed July 16. A new motion on the case was filed Friday.

Lawyers who have shown up for bond hearings for “Alligator Alcatraz” detainees have been told that the immigration court doesn’t have jurisdiction over their clients, the attorneys wrote in court papers. The immigration attorneys demanded that federal and state officials identify an immigration court that has jurisdiction over the detainees and start accepting petitions for bond, claiming the detainees constitutional rights to due process are being violated.

“This is an unprecedented situation where hundreds of detainees are held incommunicado, with no ability to access the courts, under legal authority that has never been explained and may not exist,” the immigration attorneys wrote. “This is an unprecedented and disturbing situation.”

The lawsuit is the second one challenging “Alligator Alcatraz.” Environmental groups last month sued federal and state officials asking that the project built on an airstrip in the heart of the Florida Everglades be halted because the process didn’t follow state and federal environmental laws.

Critics have condemned the facility as a cruel and inhumane threat to the ecologically sensitive wetlands, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Republican state officials have defended it as part of the state’s aggressive push to support President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has praised Florida for coming forward with the idea, as the department looks to significantly expand its immigration detention capacity.

Schneider writes for the Associated Press.

OCHOPEE, Fla. — Deportation flights from the remote Everglades immigration lockup known as ”Alligator Alcatraz″ have begun and are expected to increase soon, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Friday.

The first flights operated by the Department of Homeland Security have transferred about 100 detainees from the immigration detention center to other countries, DeSantis said during a news conference near the facility.

“You’re going to see the numbers go up dramatically,” he said.

Two or three flights have already departed, but officials didn’t say where those flights headed.

Critics have condemned the South Florida facility as cruel and inhumane. DeSantis and other Republican officials have defended it as part of the state’s aggressive push to support President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

Building the facility in the Everglades and naming it after a notorious federal prison were meant as deterrents, DeSantis and other officials have said.

The White House has delighted in the area’s remoteness — about 50 miles west of Miami — and the fact that it is teeming with pythons and alligators. It hopes to send a message that repercussions will be severe if U.S. immigration laws are broken.

Trump has suggested that his administration could reopen Alcatraz, the notorious island prison in San Francisco Bay. The White House also has sent some immigrants awaiting deportation to a detention lockup in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and others to a megaprison in El Salvador.

The Everglades facility was built in a matter of days over 10 square miles. It features more than 200 security cameras and more than 5 miles of barbed wire. An adjacent runway makes it more convenient for homeland security officials to move detainees in and out of the site.

It currently holds about 2,000 people, with the potential to double the capacity, Florida Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie said Friday.

DeSantis wants the U.S. Justice Department to allow an immigration judge on site to speed up the deportation process.

“This was never intended to be something where people are just held,” he said. “The whole purpose is to be a place that can facilitate increased frequency and numbers of deportations.”

Critics have challenged federal and state officials’ contention that the detention center is just run by the state of Florida. Environmental groups suing to stop further construction and expansion demanded Thursday to see agreements or communications between state and federal officials and to visit the site.

Seewer writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Mike Schneider contributed to this report.

Tehran, Iran – The wave of Afghan refugees and migrants being sent back from Iran has not stopped, with more than 410,000 being pushed out since the end of the 12-day war with Israel on June 24.

More than 1.5 million Afghan refugees and migrants have been sent back in 2025, according to the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration (IOM), while the Red Cross says more than one million people more could be sent back by the end of the year.

Iran has been hosting Afghans for decades. While it has periodically expelled irregular arrivals, it has now taken its efforts to unprecedented levels after the war with Israel that killed more than 1,000 people in Iran, many of them civilians.

Iran has also been building a wall along its massive eastern borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan to stem the flow of irregular migration, and smuggled drugs and fuel.

The parliament is also planning for a national migration organisation that would take over its efforts to crack down on irregular migration.

‘I’m afraid’

“I feel like we’re being singled out because we’re easy targets and don’t have many options,” said Ahmad*, a 27-year-old undocumented Afghan migrant who came to Iran four years ago.

Like others, he had to work construction and manual labour jobs before managing to get hired as the custodian of an old residential building in the western part of the capital, Tehran.

At the current rate of Iran’s heavily devalued currency, he gets paid the equivalent of about $80 a month, which is wired to the bank card of an Iranian citizen because he cannot have an account in his name.

He has a small spot where he can sleep in the building and tries to send money to his family in Afghanistan whenever possible.

“I don’t really leave the building that much because I’m afraid I’ll be sent back. I don’t know how much longer I can live like this,” he told Al Jazeera.

Vahid Golikani, who heads the foreign nationals’ department of the governor’s office in Tehran, told state media last week that undocumented migrants must not be employed to protect local labour.

Daily returns, which include expulsions and voluntary returns, climbed steeply after the start of the war, with average daily returns exceeding 29,600 in the week starting July 10, said Mai Sato, UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran.

She was among four special rapporteurs who decried the mass returns on Thursday, adding their voice to rights organisations such as Amnesty International.

“Afghanistan remains unsafe under Taliban rule. These mass returns violate international law and put vulnerable people, especially women, children, and minorities, at severe risk of persecution and violence,” Sato said.

Alleged security risks

Authorities and state media have said undocumented immigrants may pose a security risk, alleging that some of them were paid by Israel to carry out tasks inside Iran.

While state television has aired confessions from a handful of unidentified imprisoned Afghans, but their numbers do not seem to match the scale of the expulsions.

The televised confessions featured men with covered eyes and blurred-out faces saying they had sent photographs and information online to anonymous handlers linked with Mossad.

Hundreds of Iranians have also been arrested on suspicion of working for Israel, and several Iranians have been executed over the past weeks as the government works to increase legal punishments for spying.

Mohammad Mannan Raeesi, a member of parliament from the ultraconservative city of Qom, said during a state television interview last week, “We don’t have a single migrant from Afghanistan among the Israeli spies.”

He pointed out that some Afghans have fought and died for Iran, and that attempts to expel irregular arrivals should avoid xenophobia.

Economic pressures

Before the latest wave of forced returns, Iranian authorities reported the official number of Afghan refugees and migrants at a whopping 6.1 million, with many speculating the real number was much higher.

Only about 780,000 have been given official refugee status by the government.

Supporting millions of refugees and migrants, regular and irregular, takes a toll on a government that spends billions annually on hidden subsidies on essentials like fuel, electricity and bread for everyone in the country.

Since 2021, there have been complaints among some Iranians about the economic impact of hosting millions who poured into Iran unchecked in the aftermath of the Taliban’s chaotic takeover of Afghanistan.

Amid increasing hostility towards the Afghan arrivals over the past years, local newspapers and social media have increasingly highlighted reports of crimes like theft and rape allegedly committed by Afghan migrants. However, no official statistics on such crimes have been released.

That has not stopped some Iranians, along with a large number of anonymous accounts online, from cheering on the mass returns, with popular hashtags in Farsi on X and other social media portraying the returns as a “national demand”.

Again, there are no reliable statistics or surveys that show what portion of the Iranian population backs the move, or under what conditions.

Some tearful migrants told Afghan media after being returned from Iran that security forces beat or humiliated them while putting them on buses to the border.

Others said they were abruptly deported with only the clothes on their back, and were unable to get their last paycheques, savings, or downpayments made for their rented homes.

Some of those with legal documentation have not been spared, as reports emerged in recent weeks of Afghan refugees and migrants being deported after having their documents shredded by police.

Government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani and Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni have separately said the government is only seeking undocumented migrants.

“In cases where legal residents have been deported, those instances have been investigated,” Momeni said last week, adding that over 70 percent of those returned came forward voluntarily after the government set a deadline to leave for early July.

‘I sense a lot of anger among the people’

For those Afghans who remain in Iran, a host of other restrictions make life difficult.

They are barred from entering dozens of Iranian cities. Their work permits may not be renewed every year, or the renewal fees could be hiked suddenly. They are unable to buy property, cars or even SIM cards for their mobile phones.

They are seldom given citizenship and face difficulties in getting their children into Iranian schools.

Zahra Aazim, a 22-year-old teacher and video editor of Afghan origin based in Tehran, said she did not truly feel the extent of the restrictions associated with living in Iran for Afghans until a few years ago.

Her family migrated to Iran about 45 years ago, shortly after Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution that brought the incumbent theocratic establishment to power.

“What really bugs me is the fact that I was born in Iran, and my family has been living here for over four decades, but I’m still unable to get something as basic as a driver’s licence.

“That’s not to mention fundamental documents like a national ID card or an Iran-issued birth certificate,” she told Al Jazeera.

By law, those documents are reserved for Iranian nationals. Afghan-origin people can apply if their mother is Iranian or if they are a woman married to an Iranian man.

Aazim said Iran’s rules have only gotten stricter over the years. But things took a sharp turn after the war, and she has received hundreds of threatening or insulting messages online since.

“I’ve been hearing from other Afghan-origin friends in Iran … that this is no longer a place where we can live,” she said.

“A friend called me with the same message after the war. I thought she meant she’s thinking about moving to another country or going back to Afghanistan. I never thought her last resort would be [taking her own life].”

Aazim also said her 23-year-old brother was taken by police from a Tehran cafe – and later released – on suspicion of espionage.

The incident, along with videos of violence against Afghans that are circulating on social media, has made her feel unsafe.

“I sense a lot of anger among the Iranian people, even in some of my Iranian friends. When you can’t lash out against those in power above, you start to look for people at lower levels to blame,” she said.

“I’m not saying don’t take any action if you have security concerns about Afghan migrants … I just wish they would treat us respectfully.

“Respect has nothing to do with nationality, ethnicity or geography.”

*Name has been changed for the individual’s protection.

Florida’s top emergency official asked a federal judge on Monday to resist a request by environmentalists to halt an immigration detention center known as Alligator Alcatraz in the middle of the Florida Everglades because their lawsuit was filed in the wrong jurisdiction.

Even though the property is owned by Miami-Dade County, Florida’s southern district is the wrong venue for the lawsuit since the detention center is located in neighboring Collier County, which is in the state’s middle district. Decisions about the facility also were made in Tallahassee and Washington, Kevin Guthrie, executive director for the Florida Division of Emergency Management, said in a court filing.

“And all the detention facilities, all the buildings, and all the paving at issue are sited in Collier County, not Miami-Dade,” Guthrie said.

Environmental groups filed a lawsuit in Florida’s southern district last month, asking for the project being built on an airstrip in the heart of the Florida Everglades to be halted because the process didn’t follow state and federal environmental laws. A virtual hearing was being held Monday on the lawsuit.

Critics have condemned the facility as a cruel and inhumane threat to the ecologically sensitive wetlands, while Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and other state officials have defended it as part of the state’s aggressive push to support President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has praised Florida for coming forward with the idea, as the department looks to significantly expand its immigration detention capacity.

Schneider writes for the Associated Press.

The rights group Cristosal says it has evacuated staff from El Salvador amid pressure from President Nayib Bukele.

The El Salvador human rights and anti-corruption watchdog Cristosal says it has relocated its operations outside the country, as the government of President Nayib Bukele intensifies its crackdown on dissenting voices.

Cristosal said on Thursday that it has suspended work in El Salvador and relocated its staff out of the country, where the group plans to continue its work in exile.

“When it became clear that the government was prepared to persecute us criminally and that there is no possibility of defence or impartial trial, that makes it unviable to take those risks anymore,” Noah Bullock, executive director of Cristosal, told the news agency Reuters, speaking from Guatemala.

The Bukele government has stepped up its targeting of organisations and figures that scrutinise the government’s record on issues such as corruption and security, threatening rights groups and independent media with what critics say are fabricated legal challenges.

Ruth Lopez, a prominent anti-corruption and justice advocate with Cristosal, was arrested on corruption charges in May and remains in detention. Her arrest has been denounced by organisations such as Amnesty International and the United Nations.

Bukele also announced a new law in May requiring non-governmental organisations that receive support from outside the country to register with the government and pay additional taxes.

Cristosal has operated in El Salvador for 25 years and has become a target of ire for Bukele with investigations into government corruption and reports on the human toll of El Salvador’s campaign of mass arrests and suspension of key civil liberties in the name of combating gang activity.

“Under a permanent state of exception and near-total control of all institutions, El Salvador has ceased to be a state of rights,” the group said in a statement on Thursday. “Expressing an opinion or demanding basic rights today can land you in jail.”

The Bukele government declared a “state of exception” in March 2022, granting the government and security forces exceptional powers and suspending key civil liberties. The government’s push has substantially reduced the influence of powerful gangs that had previously smothered life in Salvadoran cities with exploitation and violence.

Those successes have won Bukele widespread popularity, but come at a steep cost: scores of people swept into prisons without charge, held in abysmal conditions and with no means of contesting their detention. Bukele himself has also faced accusations of coordinating behind the scenes with powerful gang leaders.

While the government has boasted that violent crime has fallen to record lows and the gangs have been smashed, it has continuously renewed the exceptional powers under the state of emergency, which dissidents say are being used to target and harass human rights advocates and critics of the government.

In April 2023, the investigative news outlet El Faro also stated that it would relocate its administrative and legal operations outside the country over fears of legal harassment and surveillance, while its reporters would continue to work in El Salvador.

Visitors to the town of Portofino, on the Italian Riviera, will have to abide by new local ordnance that prohobits several common activities enjoyed by holidaymaking Brits

A sun-drenched holiday hotspot could fine rulebreaking Brits more than £400 after it introduced sweeping bans restricting a slew of typical summer activities.

Italian officials in Portofino, a stunning coastal town on the country’s Riviera in Liguria typically swimming with thousands of tourists at a time, have introduced bans after growing weary of the massive activity. From today, new ordinance will prevent the up to 100,000 people who travel there a year from walking barefoot, enjoying picnics, and drinking booze on the community’s streets.

The ordnance, which has been introduced to protect the “peace and quiet of residents and tourists”, also introduces a series of other bans.

READ MORE: Brits abroad warned to brace for more summer holiday protests from anti-tourists

Signed by Mayor Matteo Viacava, it prevents people from walking through the town barefoot, topless, or while wearing nothing more than swimwear.

Per the rules, alcohol can only be consumed in restaurants, bars and designated areas, with begging and lying on the streets, walls, sidewalks and in local parks also banned. The new rules come into effect immediately, and will last throughout the summer season, when thousands of Brits will be mingling with the roughly 400 locals during a picturesque summer break.

Those who break the rules will risk a potential hefty fine, with penalties ranging from as low as £22 to up to £433 as Italian officials try to discourage unruly tourists.

Portofino has jostled with problem visitors for years, with the increasingly popular town having hit headlines years ago for similar restrictive measures. In 2023, officials banned tourists from visiting several local vantage points, officially citing concerns over local pedestrian footfall.

The earlier crackdown led to the creation of “no-waiting zones” in which tourists were prevented from pausing at locations – usually the most popular ones – deemed especially crowded or prone to bottlenecking.

Much like the latest raft of bans, rule flouters were threatened with hefty – although less pricey – fines. Anyone caught on the wrong side of the ordnance was ordered to pay up €275 (£242), with town administrators stressing at the time that, again like the latest rules, they were meant to protect the local quality of life.

Mayor Viacava told news outlet Leggo the rules were placed after select areas of the Portofino borough became so crowded that police were called in to “control pedestrians”.

He said: “The ordinance prohibits gatherings in certain areas of the borough where getting around is so difficult that police must be called in to control pedestrians. This is a common sense safety measure.” He added in a statement to Il Secolo XIX.: “Our goal is not to drive tourists away or discourage them from visiting.

“Everyone must do their part to contribute to the beauty of Portofino by behaving properly.”

BOSTON — Plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s campaign of arresting and deporting college faculty and students who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations spent the first few days of the trial showing how the crackdown silenced scholars and targeted more than 5,000 protesters.

The lawsuit, filed by several university associations, is one of the first against President Trump and members of his administration to go to trial. Plaintiffs want U.S. District Judge William Young to rule that the policy violates the 1st Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act, a law that governs how federal agencies develop and issue regulations.

The government argues that no such policy exists and that it is enforcing immigration laws legally to protect national security.

Investigating protesters

One of the key witnesses was Peter Hatch, who works for the Homeland Security Investigations unit of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Over two days of testimony, Hatch told the court a “Tiger Team” was formed in March — after two executive orders that addressed terrorism and combating antisemitism — to investigate people who took part in the protests.

Hatch said the team received as many as 5,000 names of protesters and wrote reports on about 200 who had potentially violated U.S. law. The reports, several of which were shown in court Thursday, included biographical information, criminal history, travel history and affiliations with pro-Palestinian groups as well as press clips and social media posts on their activism or allegations of their affiliation with Hamas or other anti-Israel groups.

Until this year, Hatch said, he could not recall a student protester being referred for a visa revocation.

“It was anything that may relate to national security or public safety issues, things like: Were any of the protesters violent or inciting violence? I think that’s a clear, obvious one,” Hatch testified. “Were any of them supporting terrorist organizations? Were any of them involved in obstruction or unlawful activity in the protests?”

Among the report subjects were Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, who was released last month after 104 days in federal immigration detention. Khalil has become a symbol of Trump’s clampdown on the protests.

Another was Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk, who was released in May from a Louisiana facility. She spent six weeks in detention after she was arrested while walking on the street of a Boston suburb. She says she was illegally detained following an op-ed she cowrote last year criticizing the school’s response to the war in Gaza.

Hatch also acknowledged that most of the names came from Canary Mission, a group that says it documents people who “promote hatred of the U.S.A., Israel and Jews on North American college campuses.” The right-wing Jewish group Betar was another source, he said.

Hatch said most of the leads were dropped when investigators could not find ties to protests and the investigations were not inspired by a new policy but rather a procedure in place at least since he took the job in 2019.

What is Canary Mission?

Weeks before Khalil’s arrest, a spokesperson for Betar told the Associated Press that the activist topped a list of foreign students and faculty from nine universities that it submitted to officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who made the decision to revoke Khalil’s visa.

The Department of Homeland Security said at the time that it was not working with Betar and refused to answer questions about how it was treating reports from outside groups.

In March, speculation grew that administration officials were using Canary Mission to identify and target student protesters. That’s when immigration agents arrested Ozturk.

Canary Mission has denied working with administration officials, while noting speculation that its reports led to that arrest and others.

While Canary Mission prides itself on outing anyone it labels as antisemitic, its leaders refuse to identify themselves and its operations are secretive. News reports and tax filings have linked the site to a nonprofit based in the central Israeli city of Beit Shemesh. But journalists who have visited the group’s address, listed in documents filed with Israeli authorities, have found a locked and seemingly empty building.

In recent years, news organizations have reported that several wealthy Jewish Americans made cash contributions to support Canary Mission, disclosed in tax paperwork filed by their personal foundations. But most of the group’s funding remains opaque, funneled through a New York-based fund that acts as a conduit for Israeli causes.

Were student protesters targeted?

Attorneys for the plaintiffs pressed a State Department official Friday over whether protests were grounds for revoking a student’s visa, repeatedly invoking several cables issued in response to Trump’s executive orders as examples of policy guidance.

But Maureen Smith, a senior advisor in the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, said protest alone wasn’t a critical factor. She wasn’t asked specifically about pro-Palestinian protests.

“It’s a bit of a hypothetical question. We would need to look at all the facts of the case,” she said. “If it were a visa holder who engages in violent activity, whether it’s during a protest or not — if they were arrested for violent activity — that is something we would consider for possible visa revocation.”

Smith also said she didn’t think a student taking part in a nonviolent protest would be a problem but said it would be seen in a “negative light” if the protesters supported terrorism. She wasn’t asked to define what qualified as terrorism nor did she provide examples of what that would include.

Scholars scared by the crackdown

The trial opened with Megan Hyska, a green card holder from Canada who is a philosophy professor at Northwestern University, detailing how efforts to deport Khalil and Ozturk prompted her to scale back her activism, which had included supporting student encampments and protesting in support of Palestinians.

“It became apparent to me, after I became aware of a couple of high-profile detentions of political activists, that my engaging in public political dissent would potentially endanger my immigration status,” Hyska said.

Nadje Al-Ali, a green card holder from Germany and professor at Brown University, said that after the arrests of Khalil and Ozturk, she canceled a planned research trip and a fellowship to Iraq and Lebanon, fearing that “stamps from those two countries would raise red flags” upon her return. She also declined to take part in anti-Trump protests and dropped plans to write an article that was to be a feminist critique of Hamas.

“I felt it was too risky,” Al-Ali said.

Casey writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Adam Geller in New York contributed to this report.

A record high of 79 percent of US respondents in a Gallup survey say immigration is a ‘good thing’ for the country.

A new poll shows support for immigration in the United States has increased since last year, while backing for the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants has gone down.

The survey, released on Friday from the research firm Gallup, suggests a shift in public opinion as President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown concludes its sixth month.

Gallup found that 79 percent of respondents say immigration is a “good thing” for the country — a record high that represents a 15-point increase from last year.

Among supporters of Trump’s Republican Party, the number rose sharply to 64 percent, up from 39 percent in 2024.

Only 38 percent of respondents said they back “deporting all immigrants who are living in the United States illegally back to their home country”, down from 47 percent last year.

Support for expanding the US-Mexico border wall also went down to 45 percent, a drop of eight percentage points. The survey, conducted in June, featured interviews with 1,402 US adults.

“Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55 percent in 2024 to 30 percent today,” Gallup said.

Trump made mass deportations a key promise of his 2024 re-election campaign, often using language to demonise migrants, including by using a poem to compare them to poisonous snakes.

He seized on the public concern over the uptick in the number of undocumented immigrants who crossed into the US from Mexico in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, under Democratic President Joe Biden.

Since returning to the White House in January, he has launched an all-out campaign on immigration, including by gutting the refugee resettlement programme, unleashing agents to round up undocumented migrants and sending suspected gang members to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador without due process.

The Trump administration also ended protected status for nationals of several countries, including Venezuela and Haiti, who had been shielded from deportation due to dangerous conditions in their homelands.

Meanwhile, it has been pushing to remove foreign students critical of Israel from the US.

But while the crossings have sharply decreased this year, it appears that the US public may have soured on the anti-immigration campaign.

“With illegal border crossings down sharply this year, fewer Americans than in June 2024 back hard-line border enforcement measures, while more favor offering pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already in the US,” Gallup said.

Trump’s immigration policies have sparked outrage and lawsuits, as well as accusations of executive overreach and violations of the US Constitution.

A majority of respondents in the Gallup survey — 62 percent — said they disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration, while 36 percent said they approve.

David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, described the findings of the survey as an “absolute bloodbath” for Trump.

“Support for cuts to immigration has plummeted 25 points since last year,” he wrote in a social media post. “Deporting ‘all illegal immigrants’ has gone back to a right-wing only view.”