Donald Trump

Washington, DC – A group of United States citizens and immigrant rights groups has launched a lawsuit seeking to challenge the sweeping suspension of immigrant visa processing for 75 countries by the administration of United States President Donald Trump.

The lawsuit filed on Monday argues that the Trump administration has relied on a false narrative to justify the visa processing suspension, one of the most substantial restrictions on legal immigration in the country’s history.

The lawsuit charges the policy “constitutes an unlawful nationality-based ban on legal immigration and a new set of discriminatory, unlawful public charge rules that strips families and working people of the process guaranteed by law”, according to a case overview by the National Immigration Law Center, which is among the groups supporting the legal challenge.

The sprawling 106-page complaint further alleges that the administration relies “on an unsupported and demonstrably false claim that nationals of the covered countries migrate to the United States to improperly rely on cash welfare and are likely to become ‘public charges’”.

The State Department has described the action, announced in mid-January, as a “pause” on immigrant visa processing on “countries whose migrants take welfare from the American people at unacceptable rates”.

The department has not revealed the criteria it used to determine which countries were added to the list, which comes amid a wider effort to constrict legal immigration pathways into the US and to deport undocumented citizens from the country.

The affected countries include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Mongolia, Brazil, Colombia, Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana, Somalia and Russia.

The list also includes Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, as well as several Caribbean, Pacific Island, and Eastern European countries.

Non-immigrant visas, including business and tourist visas, remain exempt.

“The freeze will remain active until the US can ensure that new immigrants will not extract wealth from the American people,” the State Department said in January.

‘Arbitrary, unlawful, and deeply harmful’

More than a dozen organisations and individuals named as plaintiffs in Monday’s lawsuit, as well as the seven legal organisations supporting them, argue the administration’s policy misuses the so-called “public charge” ground for inadmissibility laid out in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

The provision, they argue, is meant to be a determination made on an “individualised” basis that a person risks becoming “primarily and permanently dependent on government for subsistence” if they are granted immigration status.

In turn, they said the administration is violating another provision of the INA, which says “no person shall receive any preference or priority or be discriminated against in the issuance of an immigrant visa because of the person’s race, sex, nationality, place of birth, or place of residence”.

It further argues that the administration has adopted an overly broad interpretation of what constitutes a “public charge”.

The plaintiffs include US citizens who had petitioned and been approved for their family members, including children and spouses, to join them in the US, a process known as “family unification”. Other plaintiffs included foreign nationals approved for immigrant visas through their specialised employment.

Hasan Shafiqullah, immigration supervising attorney at The Legal Aid Society, called the State Department policy “arbitrary, unlawful, and deeply harmful to families who have followed the rules and are simply seeking to reunite with their loved ones”.

Other lawyers supporting the case underscored that the policy disproportionately affects people from Africa, the Middle East, South and Central Asia and Eastern Europe.

Baher Azmy, the legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, accused the administration of relying on “obviously pretextual tropes about nonwhite families undeservedly taking benefits”.

“Congress and the Constitution prohibit white supremacy as grounds for immigration policy.”

The lawsuit further points to “arbitrary and disparaging” statements made by Trump and administration officials about immigrants being likely to receive public benefits.

It notes that most immigrants are ineligible for most government assistance programmes, yet are required to pay local, state, and federal taxes.

The State Department did not reply to a request for comment on the new legislation from Al Jazeera. US agencies typically do not comment on pending litigation.

Chances of success

The odds of success for the new lawsuit, which comes amid a deluge of legal challenges, remained unclear.

Plaintiffs have won at least temporary pauses on several key immigration issues, particularly related to Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to swiftly deport alleged gang members and his effort to end birthright citizenship, as lawsuits make their way through the legal system.

Many more long-term decisions remain elusive.

Meanwhile, in 2018, a 5-4 ruling by the conservative-dominated US Supreme Court upheld Trump’s visa-processing ban on several Muslim-majority countries, including Iran, Syria, Yemen, Libya and Somalia.

In the 2018 ruling, most justices ruled that the president had broad discretion to limit the entry of individuals into the US.

At the time, the Trump administration cited “national security” concerns rather than the “public charge” argument it has used in the most recent suspension.

Feb. 2 (UPI) — President Donald Trump plans to launch a $12 billion stockpile of rare earth minerals to curb U.S. dependence on China.

The project is called Project Vault and it will be funded by a $10 billion loan from the U.S. Export-Import Bank and about $1.67 billion in private capital.

Trump’s plan seeks to procure and store rare-earth minerals that are critical to the automotive, defense, and tech industries. Minerals would be stored for use by U.S. manufacturers.

Some critical minerals that are of interest to tech companies and electric vehicle manufacturers include cobalt, lithium, titanium, silicon, nickel and graphite.

Rare earth minerals have been a focus of Trump’s during his second term. The White House said the United States was reliant on imports of minerals in 2024. Trump has since used mineral acquisition as a key point of international negotiations.

The president has also eyed Greenland for its mineral deposits. He recently alluded to invading Greenland and raising tariffs but walked back that rhetoric at the World Economic Forum last month.

Some companies that are expected to be involved in the Project Vault stockpile include General Motors, Stellantis, Boeing and Google.

Feb. 2 (UPI) — U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the arrest of two more people on Monday in relation to an anti-ICE protest at a church in Minnesota last month.

Ian Davis Austin and Jerome Deangelo Richardson are the latest to be arrested for protesting during a church service at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minn., on Jan. 18. They are among nine people that the Justice Department has indicted for the protest.

“If you riot in a place of worship, we will find you,” Bondi posted on X.

U.S. code describes a riot as a “public disturbance involving an act or acts of violence by one or more persons part of an assemblage of three or more persons.”

The indictment of the protesters does not describe any acts of physical violence but mentions protesters “intimidated the church’s congregants and pastors by physically occupying most of the main aisle and rows of chairs near the front of the church.”

The protesters are charged with conspiracy against the right of religious freedom at a place of worship and conspiracy to injure, intimidate or interfere with the exercise of religious freedom at a place of worship.

On Thursday, federal officials arrested journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort who were at the scene covering the demonstration. Both have been released from custody.

Protesters interrupted the church service in response to the ongoing immigration raids by federal agents in the Minneapolis area. Two U.S. citizens were killed by federal agents in Minneapolis last month, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both 37 years old.

Cities Church was the site of this demonstration due to its pastor, David Eastwood, being an acting field office director for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

President Donald Trump referred to the church protesters as “agitators and insurrectionists” in a social media post last month.

All about the numbers

The Petro administration has also continued to target criminal networks that traffic in cocaine through arrests and the seizure of shipments.

In November, Petro announced the Colombian government had made its largest drug bust in a decade, with law enforcement nabbing nearly 14 tonnes of cocaine.

Gloria Miranda was appointed by Petro in 2024 to lead Colombia’s Directorate for the Substitution of Illicit Crops, the agency overseeing the voluntary eradication efforts.

She believes that the Petro administration’s efforts have been mischaracterised as ineffective.

“There’s been a narrative that Colombia isn’t doing anything in the fight against drug trafficking,” she told Al Jazeera.

“But we’ve seized 276,000 kilogrammes [608,500 pounds] of cocaine, destroyed 18,000 laboratories, arrested 164,000 people, and are replacing more than 30,000 hectares [about 74,100 acres] of illicit crops.”

But critics — including Trump — argue Petro’s measures have yet to translate into results. Coca cultivation and cocaine production remain stubbornly at record levels.

According to the latest United Nations figures, coca cultivation rose in Colombia by about 10 percent in 2023. Potential cocaine output also jumped 53 percent to about 2,600 tonnes.

Petro has questioned the accuracy of those numbers, though. Last week, ahead of Petro’s meeting with Trump, his government announced it would no longer use the United Nations figures, arguing that they rely on an “obscure statistical method”.

Michael Weintraub, the director of the Center for the Study of Security and Drugs (CESED) at the University of the Andes, told Al Jazeera that some of Petro’s pushback is political.

But he added that there is a genuine basis for questioning the UN’s methodology.

“The ‘potential cocaine production’ measure has a lot of baked-in assumptions that make it very difficult to trust,” Weintraub said.

It predicts coca production from selected plots, but yields vary by region and season. The UN itself has admitted there are limitations in its method.

Despite these concerns, coca cultivation in Colombia has trended upward for decades.

Analysts note one overriding factor: demand. Consumption in North America and Europe remains strong, and new markets have emerged in Asia, Africa and South America.

“Coca can only grow in limited places due to climate, soil and elevation,” Weintraub said. “So Colombia is likely to remain a major producer for the foreseeable future.”

Five-year-old Liam Ramos and his father have been released from a US immigration detention facility, following an order by a judge who accused ICE agents of traumatising children as they pursue the Trump administration’s deportation quotas.

ICE agents in California detained several residents, including a US citizen, amid a surge in immigration raids under the Trump administration. Protests under the ‘ICE Out of Everywhere’ campaign erupted across southern California, where demonstrators faced arrests and injuries.

Feb. 2 (UPI) — President Donald Trump has threatened to sue Trevor Noah over a joke the comedian made while hosting Sunday night’s Grammy Awards.

“It looks like I’ll be sending my lawyers to sue this poor, pathetic, talentless dope of an M.C., and suing him for plenty$,” Trump said Sunday night in a statement on his Truth Social media platform.

Trump frequently pursues lawsuits against critics and media organizations over comments he says damaged his reputation, drawing criticism from opponents who accuse him of trying to silence dissent.

Noah, a South African comedian who has hosted the Grammy Awards since 2021, attracted the ire of the American president with a joke about Trump’s relationship with the convicted sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

After awarding singer Billie Eilish the song of the year award, Noah remarked: “That is a Grammy every artist wants — almost as much as Trump wants Greenland, which makes sense, I mean, because Epstein’s island is gone he needs a new one to hang out with Bill Clinton.”

There is no verified evidence that either president visited Epstein’s Little Saint James Island, which has been linked to sex crimes committed by Epstein against minors.

“Noah said, INCORRECTLY about me, that Donald Trump and Bill Clinton spent time on Epstein Island. WRONG!!!” Trump said in his statement.

“I can’t speak for Bill, but I have never been to Epstein Island, nor anywhere close, and until tonight’s false and defamatory statement, have never been accused of being there, not even by the Fake News Media.”

Trump and Epstein, who died in jail by apparent suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex-trafficking charges, were friends dating back to the 1980s. The American president said in July that they had a falling out in the early 2000s after Epstein “stole” spa staff from his Mar-a-Lago resort including Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide in April.

On Friday, the Justice Department released millions of pages from its investigation into Epstein. Included in the documents were unverified claims and allegations submitted to the FBI that mention Trump in connection with alleged sex crimes involving minors.

Trump has denied wrongdoing. Justice Department Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday that allegations included in the documents against Trump and others were “very quickly determined to not be credible.”

Feb. 2 (UPI) — President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico announced over the weekend plans to send humanitarian aid to Cuba amid rising tensions between Havana and Washington.

Since President Donald Trump oversaw last month’s U.S. military seizure of Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolas Maduro, he has focused on Cuba, warning that the nation is on the precipice of failing. Last week, Trump declared a national emergency in relation to Cuba and announced a mechanism to impose sanctions against any nation that provides the island nation with oil.

In the southwestern city of Guaymas, Sonora, on Sunday, Sheinbaum said Mexico plans to send food, household goods and essential supplies to Cuba through the Secretariat of the Navy while seeking to address the shipment of oil to the Caribbean island via “diplomatic channels,” according to a readout from her office.

“We are already doing all the work necessary to send humanitarian aid that the Cuban people need — other household items and supplies,” Sheinbaum said.

“That is important.”

Commenting on whether she has addressed Trump about the issue of shipping Mexican oil to Cuba, Sheinbaum said her secretary of Foreign Affairs, Juan Ramon de la Fuente, has discussed it with his American counterpart, Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

“And as I’ve said, we are exploring all diplomatic avenues to be able to send fuel to the Cuban people, because this is not a matter of governments but of support to prevent a humanitarian crisis in Cuba,” she said.

“In the meantime, we will send food and other important aid to the island.”

Mexico is an important supplier of fuel to Cuba, and even more so since the Trump administration cut off oil Venezuelan oil exports.

Last week, Sheinbaum paused oil shipments to Cuba, but said it was “a sovereign decision.”

Trump and Sheinbaum spoke on the phone for about 40 minutes Thursday and had what the American president called “a very productive conversation” about border-related issues, drug trafficking and trade.

On Thursday night, Trump declared a national emergency in relation to Cuba and the threat of tariffs, heightening uncertainty over Washington’s next steps toward the socialist island nation.

Sheinbaum was reportedly taken by surprise by this announcement, telling reporters during a Friday press conference that “We did not touch on the topic of Cuba,” directing her secretary of Foreign Affairs to get more information from the U.S. State Department.

“The imposition of tariffs on countries that provide oil to Cuba could create a far-reaching humanitarian crisis.”

The United States already enforces a decades-old embargo against Cuba that restricts most industries, while secondary sanctions penalize foreign companies that do business with Havana.

Feb. 2 (UPI) — A Russian drone strike in Ukraine’s southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region has killed at least 12 miners and injured eight more, according to officials who are accusing the Kremlin of attacking unarmed civilians.

DTEK Group, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, said a Russian drone struck a bus transporting staff from its Dnipropetrovsk mine, resulting in at least 20 casualties.

“The bus was hit as it was taking miners home after their shift,” the company said in a statement.

The strike was part of a large-scale Russian assault on DTEK’s mining facilities in the region, the company said as it extended its condolences to the families and loved ones of those killed.

Maxim Teimchenko, CEO of DTEK, accused Russia of conducting “an unprovoked terrorist attack on a purely civilian target.”

“This attack marks the single largest loss of life of DTEK employees since russia’s full-scale invasion and is one of the darkest days in our history,” he said.

“Their sacrifice will never be forgotten.”

Serhii Berskresnov, a Ukraine Defense Ministry adviser, identified the weapon used in the attack on Telegram as an Iran-made Shahed drone.

Using a MESH radio modem, the drone pilot deliberately attacked the bus after spotting it on the road, he said.

The drone struck near the bus, with its blast wave forcing the driver to lose control and crash into a fence, he said, adding that as the injured were exiting the vehicle, a second Shahed drone struck.

“The operators operating from the territory of Russia 100% saw and identified the target as civilian, saw they were not military and made a conscious decision to attack,” he said.

“This is yet another act of terrorism. I have no words.”

Russia has been widely accused of committing war crimes in its nearly 3-year-old war in Ukraine. From indiscriminate attacks on civilians to executions, torture and forced deportations, Russia has been repeatedly denounced for alleged war crimes that it denies.

The International Criminal Court has formally opened a war crimes and crimes against humanity investigation into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and has issued arrest warrants for Russian officials, including its authoritarian president, Vladimir Putin.

The strike was one of numerous Russian attacks across Ukraine on Sunday, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stating on X that people throughout the country were without heat and electricity. Railway infrastructure was hit in the Sumy region, he said.

During the month of January, Russia launched more than 6,000 attack drones, 5,550 guided aerial bombs and 158 missiles at Ukraine, Zelensky said.

“Virtually all of it targeted the energy sector, the railways and our infrastructure — everything that sustains normal life.”

On Saturday, Russia bombed a maternity hospital in Ukraine’s southern city of Zaporizhzhia, injuring six people, according to Prime Minister Yulia Svydenko.

“This is the nature of Russia’s war,” she said.

The attacks occurred during a cold February that has seen the temperatures drop well below freezing, according to the country’s hydrometeorological center.

The strikes come despite U.S. President Donald Trump stating last week that Putin promised him that Russia would refrain from hitting Ukraine for a week.

“I personally asked President Putin not to fire into Kyiv and the various towns for a week, and he agreed to that,” he said during a cabinet meeting without making clear which towns, cities and regions that the Russian leader had agreed not to attack.

“We’re very happy that they did it.”

Trump has been pushing since before he returned to office to end the war, which he vowed to do during his first 24 hours back in the White House.

Zelensky confirmed Sunday that dates for the next trilateral meetings for a cease-fire between the United States and Russia have been set for Wednesday and Thursday in Abu Dhabi.

“Ukraine is ready for a substantive discussion, and we are interested in ensuring that the outcome brings us closer to a real and dignified end to the war,” he said.

As the Trump administration ploughs forward with its incendiary policies, European trust in the US government is fading.

Amid tariff threats and pledges to conquer Greenland, citizens and politicians in Europe are unsettled — questioning a long-standing alliance.

Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (FDP), chair of the Defence Committee in the EU Parliament, claims to have an answer that is “worth its weight in gold”. In this case, the expression is more literal than figurative.

Around 1,236 tonnes of German gold, worth more than €100bn, are sitting in vaults in the US. Strack-Zimmermann has now announced that, in view of Trump’s recent political manoeuvres, it’s no longer justifiable to leave them be. This has reignited a fierce debate: to retrieve or not to retrieve?

The demand to bring gold back to Germany has been around for a long time, with some surveys suggesting that many citizens are in favour of the move. Similar debates are happening in Italy, which has the third-largest gold reserves in the world after the US and Germany.

Why does Germany hold gold in the US?

Germany’s gold reserves amount to around 3,350 tonnes. About 36.6% of this is in the US, a legacy of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates after World War II.

“At the time, all exchange rates were tied to the dollar, and the dollar was tied to gold,” Dr. Demary, senior economist for Monetary Policy and Financial Markets at the German Economic Institute (IW), told Euronews.

“Germany had large export surpluses with the US, so we accumulated a lot of dollars. To keep exchange rates stable, we exchanged those dollars for gold. That’s how these reserves were built up.”

During the Cold War, it was also practical to store gold abroad, as the US was considered a safe place in case of conflict with the Soviet Union. Over the years, some gold has been repatriated. By 2017, 300 tonnes were brought back from New York, 380 tonnes from Paris, and 900 tonnes from London.

This was part of a Bundesbank plan, unveiled in 2013, to store half of Germany’s gold reserves in Germany from 2020 onwards.

Bringing in the gold treasure: What are the risks?

Strack-Zimmermann and other politicians and economists cite Trump’s unpredictable trade and foreign policy as the reason for moving the gold out of the US.

“Of course, there is always some risk when you keep assets abroad,” said Demary. For example, there is a storage risk if a break-in occurs. But this risk exists whether the gold is stored abroad or in Germany.

“Another possible scenario is that the US government, due to tight currency reserves, could prevent the gold from being transferred,” he explained.

To ensure the safety of gold holdings, the Bundesbank has had to make frequent trips to New York in the past to take an inventory.

“It makes sense to leave this gold in the US in case we have a banking crisis here and need to obtain dollars,” said Demary.

Retrieving the gold could not only be logistically complex, but also risky.

“The gold would have to be transported in armoured vehicles onto a ship, which would also need to be guarded, and then brought back to Frankfurt under security,” added Demary. “There could be robberies, the ship could sink, or the cargo could be seized.”

Is Strack-Zimmermann’s demand pure populism?

Is Strack-Zimmermann’s demand pure symbolic politics? “I think so,” said the economist. “Perhaps it was a political move in response to the tariff threats, saying, ‘We’re bringing our gold back now.’”

According to the economist, it is also possible that Strack-Zimmermann estimated the magnitude of this gold value to be somewhat greater than it really is. In any case, the gold is currently safe in New York, even if Trump wanted to use it to exert pressure on Germany.

“The Federal Reserve is actually independent in its monetary policy. The US government cannot simply intervene. They would have to change laws first,” explained Dr Demary.

Even in the absolute worst case, if the US refused to release the gold, there would still be the option to go to court and enforce its return or receive compensation in dollars, said Demary.

“You have to weigh up the pros and cons and I would say the advantages of leaving the gold in the US outweigh the disadvantages,” he told Euronews.

United States President Donald Trump has announced plans to close the John F Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts for two years for renovations starting in July.

Trump’s announcement on Sunday follows a wave of cancellations by leading performers, musicians and groups since the president ousted the previous leadership and added his name to the building.

Trump made no mention in his post of the recent cancellations.

“I have determined that the fastest way to bring The Trump Kennedy Center to the highest level of Success, Beauty, and Grandeur, is to cease Entertainment Operations for an approximately two year period of time,” he said in a post on his Truth Social platform.

“The temporary closure will produce a much faster and higher quality result!”

The closure will start on July 4, to coincide with the 250th Independence Day celebration.

The decision, Trump said, will be subject to approval of the board, which he handpicked upon taking over as chairman.

The president added that the facility’s various entertainment events – concerts, operas, musicals, ballet performances, and interactive arts – would impede and slow the construction and renovation operations, and that a full temporary closure would be necessary.

“The Trump Kennedy Center, if temporarily closed for Construction, Revitalization, and Complete Rebuilding, can be, without question, the finest Performing Arts Facility of its kind, anywhere in the World,” he said.

“America will be very proud of its new and beautiful Landmark for many generations to come.”

There was no immediate comment from the Kennedy Center.

The complex began as a national cultural centre, but was renamed by Congress as a “living memorial” to former President John F Kennedy in 1964, in the aftermath of his assassination.

Opened in 1971, it operates year-round as a public showcase for the arts, including the National Symphony Orchestra.

After Trump took over as chairman of the centre’s board, several entertainers and performers withdrew their performances in protest of the president’s policies.

Among them were the producers of the award-winning musical Hamilton, and international operatic soprano Renee Fleming.

The Washington National Opera recently announced that it would leave the Kennedy Center, its home since the centre’s opening.

Renowned composer Philip Glass also announced on Wednesday the withdrawal of a symphony orchestra performance for Abraham Lincoln, saying that “the values” of the centre “today” are in “direct conflict” with the message of his piece.

Trump had criticised some of the programmes of the once non-partisan centre as too “woke”.

In recent days, the Kennedy Center hosted the premiere of First Lady Melania Trump’s documentary, which saw a record weekend at the box office, but drew mostly negative reviews from film critics.

The extent of the “complete rebuilding” mentioned by Trump is unclear, but he has described the structure as dilapidated and needing a facelift.

In a post on X, Maria Kennedy Shriver, a niece of the slain former president, criticised Trump’s decision without naming him. She suggested that the closure and renovation were made to distract Americans, as “no one wants to perform there any longer”.

Trump’s rebuilding plans for the centre follow a series of measures to reshape US historical and cultural institutions.

He demolished the East Wing of the White House and launched a massive $400m ballroom project, is actively pursuing the building of a triumphal arch on the other side Arlington Bridge from the Lincoln Memorial, and has plans for the Washington Dulles international airport.

Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian, were accompanied home by Texas Democratic Representative Joaquin Castro.

A five-year-old boy and his father, who were detained as part of United States President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration raids and held at a detention facility in Texas, have returned to their home in Minnesota.

Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian, who are asylum seekers from Ecuador, spent 10 days in the Dilley detention centre until US District Judge Fred Biery ordered their release on Saturday.

US Representative Joaquin Castro, a Texas Democrat, wrote in a social media post that he picked them up on Saturday night at the detention facility and escorted them home on Sunday.

“Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack,” Castro wrote, including photos of the child. “We won’t stop until all children and families are home.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested Liam and his father on January 20 as the boy arrived home from preschool.

Images of the boy with a blue bunny hat and backpack being held by officers spread around the world and added fire to public outrage at the federal immigration crackdown, during which agents have shot dead two US citizens.

Liam was one of four students detained by immigration officials in a Minneapolis suburb, according to the Columbia Heights Public School District.

In a statement, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said ICE did not target or arrest Liam, and that his mother refused to take him after his father’s apprehension. His father told officers he wanted Liam to be with him, she said.

“The Trump administration is committed to restoring the rule of law and common sense to our immigration system, and will continue to fight for the arrest, detention, and removal of aliens who have no right to be in this country,” McLaughlin said.

Neighbours and school officials say that federal immigration officers used the preschooler as “bait” by telling him to knock on the door to his house so that his mother would answer.

DHS called the description of events an “abject lie”. It said the father fled on foot and left the boy in a running vehicle in their driveway.

Biery said in a scathing opinion that “the case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children”.

He criticised what he called the government’s apparent “ignorance” of the US Declaration of Independence, which “enumerated grievances against a would-be authoritarian king over our nascent nation”.

Biery also cited the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects the right against “unreasonable searches and seizures”.

US Representative Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota, posted a photo to social media of her with Liam, his father and Castro, with her holding Liam’s Spider-Man backpack.

“Welcome home Liam,” she posted with two hearts.

United States plans for Gaza amount to a “theme park of dispossession” for Palestinians, argues Drop Site News Middle East Editor Sharif Abdel Kouddous.

Abdel Kouddous tells host Steve Clemons the draconian measures planned for the two million shell-shocked Palestinians in Gaza are an Orwellian labyrinth of biometrics, bureaucracy and “a lab for government surveillance” – all meant to drive them out.

Noting that Israel hasn’t “gone past phase one” of any ceasefire agreement with an Arab country, Abdel Kouddous warns that Israel is establishing facts on the ground in Gaza – including 50 military bases – “which eventually become permanent”.

US President Donald Trump says Iran is ‘seriously talking’ with the US and hopes that talks with Tehran will lead to a nuclear deal. Trump also reiterated that he’s sending ‘powerful ships’ to the Gulf.

Jan. 31 (UPI) — The Iranian military intends to conduct two days of live-fire naval drills in the Strait of Hormuz, starting on Sunday, despite warnings against it from the U.S. military.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is conducting the drills amid civic unrest and U.S. President Donald Trump deploying a “massive armada” to the area, led by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.

“U.S. forces acknowledge Iran’s right to operate professionally in international airspace and waters. Any unsafe and unprofessional behavior near U.S. forces, regional partners or commercial vessels increases risks of collision, escalation, and destabilization,” CENTCOM officials said in a statement on Saturday.

“CENTCOM will ensure the safety of U.S. personnel, ships, and aircraft operating in the Middle East. We will not tolerate unsafe IRGC actions, including overflight of U.S. military vessels engaged in flight operations, low-altitude or armed overflight of U.S. military assets when intentions are unclear, high-speed boat approaches on a collision course with U.S. military vessels, or weapons trained at U.S. forces,” CENTCOM said.

The Strait of Hormuz connects the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf, with Iran situated along its northern shore and Oman and the United Arab Emirates along its southern shoreline.

More than 100 merchant vessels per day sail through the strait, which makes it an “essential trade corridor” that supports the region’s economy, CENTCOM said, as reported by Fox News.

The deployment comes as the Trump administration considers potential military intervention in the Iranian unrest.

Various estimates place the number of protestors and other civilians killed at between 6,000 and more than 30,000 since protests began on Dec. 28.

Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman attended a private briefing in Washington, D.C., on Friday and warned that Iran would grow stronger if the United States does not act in Iran is warranted if military action is warranted, Axios reported.

Trump has threatened to target Iran’s leadership with military strikes if widespread killings of protesters continued, but he delayed any strikes after Saudi leaders cautioned against it.

Salman’s comments on Friday indicate a change among Saudi Arabia’s leadership regarding potential military action in Iran.

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Saturday accused the U.S. military of trying to dictate how the Iranian military conducts “target practice on their own turf.”

“Freedom of navigation and safe passage of commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz are of vital importance for Iran, as much as it is for our neighbors,” Araghchi added.

“The presence of outside forces in our region has always caused the exact opposite of what is declared: promoting escalation instead of de-escalation,” he said.

The pending military exercise also is scheduled after Iranian state media reported an explosion damaged a nine-story residential building and killed a young girl and injured 14 in Bandar Abbas, which is an Iranian port city located on the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran’s Fars News Agency denied reports that IRGC Navy leader Brigadier Gen. Alireza Tangsiri died in the blast, which local officials said likely was caused by a gas leak.

“The initial cause of the building accident in Bandar Abbas was a gas leak and buildup, leading to an explosion,” Bandar Abbas Fire Chief Mohammad Amin Lyaghat told Iranian state media. He called the explanation an “initial theory.”

The talks come just a day before a second round of US-mediated talks between Russia and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi.

United States special envoy Steve Witkoff has said he held “productive and constructive meetings” with Russian special envoy Kirill Dmitriev in Florida, as President Donald Trump’s administration presses to end Russia’s nearly four-year war in Ukraine.

“We are encouraged by this meeting that Russia is working toward securing peace in Ukraine,” wrote Witkoff in a post on X following Saturday’s talks.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and White House adviser Josh Gruenbaum also attended the talks.

Neither side released details of what was discussed.

Dmitriev also met Witkoff and Kushner in January on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

He also held talks on the Ukraine war with US negotiators in a visit to Miami in December.

Saturday’s meeting comes before Ukrainian and Russian negotiators are expected to hold a second round of talks with US mediators in Abu Dhabi to discuss a US-backed plan to end Russia’s war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later appeared to suggest that the meeting would not take place on Sunday, saying in his nightly address that Ukraine was waiting for more information from the US about further peace talks and expected new meetings to take place next week.

A first US-mediated meeting was held in the United Arab Emirates’s capital last week, marking the first direct public negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv since the early weeks of the war.

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office this week that he believes “we are getting close” to a deal to end the war.

Trump announced on Thursday that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, had agreed to his request not to attack Ukraine’s energy infrastructure for a week amid extreme cold weather, which he said was “very nice” of the Russian president.

The Kremlin confirmed on Friday that Putin had received the request, with spokesperson Dmitry Peskov telling Sky News the Russian leader had “of course” agreed to the proposal.

Zelenskyy wrote on X that the issue of a ceasefire on energy infrastructure attacks had been discussed during last week’s talks, and that he expected the agreements to be implemented. “De-escalation steps contribute to real progress toward ending the war,” he added.

On Friday, the Ukrainian leader said in his nightly address that neither Moscow nor Kyiv had conducted strikes ⁠on energy targets from Thursday night onwards.

Several sticking points over the US-backed plan to end the war remain, including Russia’s demand for Ukrainian forces to withdraw from about one-fifth of the Donetsk region, and the potential deployment of international peacekeepers in Ukraine after the war.

Jan. 31 (UPI) — Danish military veterans and others staged a protest march against U.S. President Donald Trump‘s recent comments regarding NATO members and Greenland.

Trump criticized the amount of support the United States received from NATO allies during recent conflicts, and many veterans and others in Denmark took to the streets on Saturday to show their displeasure.

One protester, Danish Lance Cpl. Soren Teigen, said only the president is responsible for the comments.

“I don’t blame American soldiers in any way — we’ve fought side by side, and we still do,” Teigen told The New York Times. “But when the president says something like this, of course it hurts.”

Trump earlier accused NATO allies of shying away from fighting after sending their troops to Afghanistan but allegedly keeping them away from the front lines.

Officials with Danish Veterans & Veteran Support took exception to the president’s comments.

“Denmark has always stood side by side with the USA, and we have shown up in the world’s crisis zones when the USA has asked us to,” the group said in a prepared statement.

“We feel let down and ridiculed by the Trump administration, which is deliberately disregarding Denmark’s combat side by side with the USA,” it added.

Many veterans and other Danes also are unhappy with the president’s efforts to annex or otherwise control Greenland.

Hundreds of Danish military veterans on Saturday quietly marched to outside the U.S. Embassy in Copenhagen, where some placed 44 small Danish flags in planters located nearby.

The flags are to commemorate the 44 Danish military personnel who died in Afghanistan.

U.S. Embassy staff members were unaware of the flags’ meaning and initially removed them, which further upset many Danes.

Upon learning what the flags represented, the embassy staff left alone any that remained or were replaced.

Ali Larijani says efforts to get a framework for negotiations are advancing, as a US naval deployment in the Gulf fuels concerns.

Iran’s top security official has said progress is being made towards negotiations with the United States, even as the Iranian foreign minister again accused Washington of raising tensions between the two countries.

Ali Larijani, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said in a social media post on Saturday that, “unlike the artificial media war atmosphere, the formation of a structure for negotiations is progressing”.

Larijani’s post did not provide further details about the purported framework for talks.

Tensions have been rising between Iran and the US for weeks amid US President Donald Trump’s repeated threats to attack the country over a crackdown on recent antigovernment protests, and his push to curtail the Iranian nuclear programme.

The Trump administration has also deployed a naval “armada” to Iran, led by the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, escalating fears of a possible military confrontation.

Senior Iranian leaders have said they are open to negotiations with Washington, but only once Trump stops threatening to attack the country.

Earlier this week, Trump said the US vessels being sent to Iran were ready to use “violence, if necessary” if Iran refused to sit down for talks on its nuclear programme.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) also warned Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Friday over its plans to hold a two-day naval exercise in the Strait of Hormuz, a Gulf maritime passage that is critical to global trade.

“Any unsafe and unprofessional behavior near US forces, regional partners or commercial vessels increases risks of collision, escalation, and destabilization,” CENTCOM said in a statement.

Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi hit back on Saturday, saying in a social media post that the US military, operating off Iran’s shores, “is now attempting to dictate how our Powerful Armed Forces should conduct target practice on their own turf”.

“CENTCOM is also requesting ‘professionalism’ from a national military the U.S. Government has listed as a ‘terrorist organization’, all while recognizing the right of that same ‘terrorist organization’ to conduct military drills!” Araghchi wrote.

The US designated the IRGC, an elite branch of the Iranian military, as a “terrorist” organisation in 2019, during Trump’s first term in office.

Araghchi added, “The presence of outside forces in our region has always caused the exact opposite of what is declared: promoting escalation instead of de-escalation”.

Reporting from the Iranian capital, Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi said the situation remains “quite fragile and delicate” amid the US military buildup in the region.

Still, he said that Saturday’s statement by Larijani, the Iranian security official, about progress being made on efforts to hold negotiations was a “positive” sign.

“Diplomatic [efforts] are [on]going,” Asadi said, noting that senior Iranian officials have held talks with allies in recent days amid a push to prevent a confrontation between Washington and Tehran.

The Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani met with Larajani in Tehran on Saturday to discuss “efforts to de-escalate tensions in the region”.

Sheikh Mohammed reiterated Qatar’s “support for all efforts aimed at reducing tensions and achieving peaceful solutions that enhance security and stability in the region”, the ministry said of the talks in a statement.

“He also stressed the need for concerted efforts to spare the peoples of the region the consequences of escalation and to continue coordination with brotherly and friendly countries to address differences through diplomatic means,” the statement added.

The Coordination Framework said that selecting a PM is an internal constitutional matter and should take place without foreign interference.

Iraq’s main Shia alliance, which holds a parliamentary majority, has reiterated its support for reinstating Nouri al-Maliki as prime minister, despite United States President Donald Trump threatening to end US support to the country.

The Coordination Framework said in a statement on Saturday that it “reiterates its support for its nominee, Nouri Kamel al-Maliki, for the premiership.”

“Choosing the prime minister is an exclusively Iraqi constitutional matter … free from foreign interference.”

Earlier this week, Trump warned Iraq that if al-Maliki were chosen as Iraq’s next prime minister, then Washington would withdraw support, the latest in a growing list of interventions in the politics of other nations made by Trump or members of his administration.

Al-Maliki rejected Trump’s threat on Wednesday in a post on X, condemning the “blatant American interference in Iraq’s internal affairs” and insisting that he would not withdraw his candidacy for the top job.

Trump has been running a campaign to curb the influence of Iran-linked groups in Iraq, which has long walked a tightrope between its two closest allies, Washington and Tehran.

Al-Maliki, 75, is a senior figure in the Shia Islamic Dawa Party. His tenure as prime minister from 2006 to 2014 was a period marked by a power struggle with Sunni and Kurdish rivals, accusations of corruption and growing tension with the US.

He stepped down after ISIL (ISIS) seized large parts of the country in 2014, but has remained an influential political player, leading the State of Law coalition and maintaining close ties with Iran-backed factions.

The US wields key leverage over Iraq, as the country’s oil export revenue is largely held at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York in an arrangement reached after the 2003 US invasion that toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Following United States forces’ abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a new set of questions is emerging as to how far Donald Trump is prepared to go in pushing US power abroad through direct intervention.

But is this a real break with past policy – or the latest iteration of the US’s longstanding interventionist power play in Latin America?

And with Cuba back in the administration’s sights, will Trump push for further action in the region?

This week on UpFront, Marc Lamont Hill speaks with Senior Analyst at the National Security Archive, Peter Kornbluh.

A judge in the United States has declined to order President Donald Trump’s administration to halt its immigration crackdown in Minnesota, amid mass protests over deadly shootings by federal agents in the US state.

US District Judge Kate Menendez on Saturday denied a preliminary injunction sought in a lawsuit filed this month by state Attorney General Keith Ellison and the mayors of Minneapolis and Saint Paul.

She said state authorities made a strong showing that immigration agents’ tactics, including shootings and evidence of racial profiling, were having “profound and even heartbreaking consequences on the State of Minnesota, the Twin Cities, and Minnesotans”.

But Menendez wrote in her ruling that, “ultimately, the Court finds that the balance of harms does not decisively favor an injunction”.

The lawsuit seeks to block or rein in a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) operation that sent thousands of immigration agents to the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area, sparking mass protests and leading to the killings of two US citizens by federal agents.

Tensions have soared since an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Minneapolis mother Renee Nicole Good in her car on January 7.

Federal border agents also killed 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti in the city on January 24, stoking more public anger and calls for accountability.

Tom Homan, Trump’s so-called “border czar”, told reporters earlier this week that the administration was working to make the immigration operation “safer, more efficient [and] by the book”.

But that has not stopped the demonstrations, with thousands of protesters taking to the streets of Minneapolis on Friday amid a nationwide strike to denounce the Trump administration’s crackdown.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from a memorial rally in Saint Paul on Saturday, city councillor Cheniqua Johnson said, “It feels more like the federal government is here to [lay] siege [to] Minnesota than to protect us.”

She said residents have said they are afraid to leave their homes to get groceries. “I’m receiving calls … from community members are struggling just to be able to do [everyday] things,” Johnson said.

“That’s why you’re seeing folks being willing to stand in Minnesota, in negative-degree weather, thousands of folks marching … in opposition to the injustice that we are seeing when law and order is not being upheld.”

Racial profiling accusations

In their lawsuit, Minnesota state and local officials have argued that the immigration crackdown amounts to retaliation after Washington’s initial attempts to withhold federal funding to try to force immigration cooperation failed.

They maintain that the surge has amounted to an unconstitutional drain on state and local resources, noting that schools and businesses have been shuttered in the wake of what local officials say are aggressive, poorly trained and armed federal officers.

Ellison, the Minnesota attorney general, also has accused federal agents of racially profiling citizens, unlawfully detaining lawful residents for hours, and stoking fear with their heavy-handed tactics.

The Trump administration has said its operation is aimed at enforcing federal immigration laws as part of the president’s push to carry out the largest deportation operation in US history.

On Saturday, Menendez, the district court judge, said she was not making a final judgement on the state’s overall case in her decision not to issue a temporary restraining order, something that would follow arguments in court.

She also made no determination on whether the immigration crackdown in Minnesota had broken the law.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi called the judge’s decision a “HUGE” win for the Department of Justice.

“Neither sanctuary policies nor meritless litigation will stop the Trump Administration from enforcing federal law in Minnesota,” she wrote on X.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said he was disappointed by the ruling.

“This decision doesn’t change what people here have lived through — fear, disruption, and harm caused by a federal operation that never belonged in Minneapolis in the first place,” Frey said in a statement.

“This operation has not brought public safety. It’s brought the opposite and has detracted from the order we need for a working city. It’s an invasion, and it needs to stop.”

Two journalists were arrested and taken to court in the US for covering an anti-ICE protest inside a Minnesota church, as protests were held across the country against two killings by federal agents and President Trump’s immigration raids.