The congressional setback arrives as Milei’s political party faces slumping popularity headed into a midterm election.
Published On 2 Oct 20252 Oct 2025
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Argentina’s struggling President Javier Milei has suffered a new setback as Congress overturned his vetoes of laws increasing funding for public universities and for paediatric care.
On Thursday, senators invalidated both vetoes, which had already been rejected by the Chamber of Deputies, bringing to three the number of laws upheld by Congress despite vehement opposition from the budget-slashing Milei.
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Milei, who has implemented deep austerity policies to reduce the size of government, had said the new spending would jeopardise Argentina’s fiscal balance.
The Senate’s vote comes as the United States-backed Milei struggles to end a run on the national currency, the Argentinian peso, in the run-up to the crucial October 26 midterm elections.
The 54-year-old right-winger, in power since December 2023, has been on the ropes since his party’s trouncing by the centre-left in Buenos Aires provincial polls last month.
Those elections, seen as a bellwether ahead of the midterms, shredded his aura of political invincibility and sent markets into a tailspin.
“There’s a sensation of disenchantment and anger with the impact of the cutbacks,” said Sebastian Halperin, a political consultant in Buenos Aires.
He added that Milei had failed to build alliances with governors who influence how their province’s legislators vote in Congress.
Last week, the US government announced it was in talks with Argentina on a $20bn swap line aimed at shoring up the peso.
US President Donald Trump sought to buoy his close ally at talks in New York last week, saying: “He’s doing a fantastic job.”
The two are expected to meet in October as Milei seeks to secure a credit swap line from the US.
Analysts say, however, the president still needs a strong result in the midterms to avoid compromising the progress he has made in steadying Argentina’s economy.
After rallying briefly, the peso slumped again this week over market uncertainty about the amount and extent of the US financial help on offer.
Sept. 8 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday overturned a lower court’s rulings blocking federal immigration officials from conducting raids in California seen by critics as unconstitutional racial profiling.
The high court voted 6-3 in favor of lifting temporary restraining orders preventing Immigration and Customs Enforcement from carrying out the raids.
“This is a win for the safety of Californians and the rule of law,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said in a statement.
“DHS law enforcement will not be slowed down and will continue to arrest and remove the murderers, rapists, gang members and other criminal illegal aliens that Karen Bass continues to give safe harbor.”
Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong issued two restraining orders in July, saying roving patrols “indiscriminately” rounded up people without reasonable suspicion, a violation of the Fourth Amendment. She also said that ICE denied the individuals access to lawyers, a violation of the Fifth Amendment.
Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the majority on Monday, said it was reasonable to question people gathered in places seeking day work, landscaping, agriculture, construction and other types of jobs that don’t require paperwork and are therefore attractive to undocumented immigrants. He said reasonable suspicion cannot rely alone on ethnicity, but he called it a “relevant factor.”
“Under this court’s precedents, not to mention common sense, those circumstances taken together can constitute at least reasonable suspicion of illegal presence in the United States,” Kavanaugh wrote.
The three dissenters — Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — agreed with civil rights activists who said that ICE’s approach of questioning people who appear to be of Hispanic origin or work in certain jobs would target many U.S. citizens and legal immigrants.
“We should not have to live in a country where the government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish and appears to work a low-wage job,” Sotomayor wrote in her dissent. “Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent.”
The high court’s decision was swiftly rebuked by civil rights organizations, unions and Democrats.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who has fought against President Donald Trump‘s raids, described the action as an “attack” that not only targeted her city, but “an attack on every person in every city in this country.”
“Today’s ruling is not only dangerous — it’s un-American and threatens the fabric of personal freedom in the U.S.,” she said in a statement on X.
The federal government raids in Los Angeles began June 6, sparking protests that prompted Trump to deploy thousands of National Guardsmen to the city.
On July 2, several people who were arrested in the operation filed a class action lawsuit against the federal government, calling on the courts to end the stop and arrests and to up hold due process and rights for immigration detainees to access to legal counsel.
Janet Murguia, president and CEO of UnidosUS, a nonpartisan nonprofit Hispanic civil rights organization, lambasted the ruling as opening the door for the federal government to indiscriminately stop and arrest minorities.
“It authorizes targeting by authorities that makes all immigrants, Hispanics and other non-White Americans, suspects simply because of the color of their skin or the language they speak. In doing so, the court has put the civil rights of every person in the United States at risk, Murguia said in a statement emailed to UPI.
“The Supreme Court, without proper review of explanation, has signaled that the administration can, with impunity, use profiling-based tactics nationwide.”
The banning of accounts has left an emotional impact on people
Instagram users have told the BBC of their confusion, fear and anger after having their accounts suspended, often for being wrongly accused by parent company Meta of breaching the platform’s child sex abuse rules.
For months, tens of thousands of people around the world have been complaining Meta has been banning their Instagram and Facebook accounts in error.
They say they have been wrongly accused of breaching site rules – including around child sexual exploitation.
More than 500 of them have contacted the BBC to say they have lost cherished photos and seen businesses upended – but some also speak of the profound personal toll it has taken on them, including concerns that the police could become involved.
It has repeatedly refused to comment on the problems its users are facing – though it has frequently overturned bans when the BBC has raised individual cases with it.
Here are some of the stories users have shared with BBC News.
‘I put all of my trust in social media’
Yassmine Boussihmed, 26, from the Netherlands, spent five years building an Instagram profile for her boutique dress shop in Eindhoven.
In April, she was banned over account integrity. Over 5,000 followers, gone in an instant. She lost clients, and was devastated.
“I put all of my trust in social media, and social media helped me grow, but it has let me down,” she told the BBC.
This week, after the BBC sent questions about her case to Meta’s press office, her Instagram accounts were reinstated.
“I am so thankful,” she said in a tearful voice note.
Five minutes later, her personal Instagram was suspended again – but the account for the dress shop remained.
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Lucia, not her real name, is a 21-year-old woman from Austin, Texas.
As with all the other cases, she was not told what post breached the platform’s rules.
That has left wondering if a picture she posted of herself and her 21-year-old friend wearing bikini tops somehow triggered the artificial intelligence (AI) moderation tools, as she thinks they “look a little bit younger”.
She also uses her account to interact with under 18s, such as sending Reels to her younger sister.
“It is deeply troubling to have an accusation as disgusting as this one,” she told BBC News.
“Given that I have a desire to work in juvenile justice as an attorney and advocate on behalf of children, I am appalled to have been suspended for something I know I did not do and would never do.”
She appealed, and then about seven hours after the BBC highlighted Lucia’s case to Meta’s press office, her account was restored with no explanation.
Over 36,000 people have signed a petition accusing Meta of falsely banning accounts; thousands more are in Reddit forums or on social media posting about it.
Their central accusation – Meta’s AI is unfairly banning people, with the tech also being used to deal with the appeals. The only way to speak to a human is to pay for Meta Verified, and even then many are frustrated.
Duncan Edmonstone thinks unfair social media bans “has real world consequences that Meta’s management don’t consider”
Duncan Edmonstone, from Cheshire, has stage four ALK+ lung cancer. The 55-year-old finds solace in the support network he has on private Facebook groups.
For 12 days at the end of June, he was banned for breaking cybersecurity guidelines before being reinstated.
“The support groups are my lifeline, and there are actual examples of where advice from group members has made a difference to other patient’s treatment,” he said.
“I draw satisfaction and meaning, in a life that is probably going to be cut short, from helping other people in that group.”
Banned, unbanned – then banned again
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Ryan – not his real name – has been banned, reinstated, and banned again from Instagram over the past few months.
The former teacher from London was thrown off the platform in May after he was accused of breaching the CSE policy.
He spent a month appealing. In June, the BBC understands a human moderator double checked and concluded Ryan had breached the policy.
Then his account was abruptly restored at the end of July.
“We’re sorry we’ve got this wrong,” Instagram said in an email to him, adding that he had done nothing wrong.
Ryan was left flabbergasted.
“‘Sorry we called you a paedophile for two months – here is your account back,'” is how he characterised the tone of the message.
But that wasn’t the end of the story.
Hours after the BBC contacted Meta’s press office to ask questions about his experience, he was banned again on Instagram and, for the first time, Facebook.
“I am devastated and I don’t know what to do,” he told the BBC.
“I can’t believe it has happened twice.”
His Facebook account was back two days later – but he was still blocked from Instagram.
Ryan says he has been left feeling deeply isolated – and worried the police are going to “knock on the door”.
His experiences mirrors those of other Instagram users who told the BBC of the “extreme stress” of having their accounts banned after being wrongly accused of breaching the platform’s rules on CSE.
What has Meta said?
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When a user is suspended and they appeal, Meta pledges to look at their account. If the appeal is successful, the user is reinstated. If not, the user is then permanently banned
Despite taking action on Yassmine, Lucia and Ryan’s accounts, Meta has not made any comment to the BBC.
In common with all big technology firms, it has come under pressure from authorities to make its platforms safer.
In July, Meta said it was taking “aggressive action” on accounts breaking its rules – including the removal of 635,000 Instagram and Facebook accounts over sexualised comments and imagery in relation to children.
Vehicle overturned after Israeli forces directed it down an ‘unsafe road’, local officials tell WAFA news agency.
At least 20 Palestinians have been killed and many injured after a truck carrying humanitarian aid overturned onto a crowd of people in central Gaza, according to the Government Media Office in the enclave.
The incident occurred on Wednesday as large numbers of Palestinians gathered in central Gaza in search of food and basic supplies, amid an increasingly dire humanitarian crisis.
Local officials quoted by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa said the vehicle overturned after Israeli forces directed it down what they described as an “unsafe road”.
Gaza Civil Defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said that 20 people were killed and dozens were wounded in the incident while hundreds of civilians were waiting for aid, the AFP news agency reported.
“Despite the recent limited allowance of a few aid trucks, the occupation deliberately obstructs the safe passage and distribution of this aid,” the Gaza Government Media Office said in a statement.
“It forces drivers to navigate routes overcrowded with starving civilians who have been waiting for weeks for the most basic necessities. This often results in desperate crowds swarming the trucks and forcibly seizing their contents.”
The incident comes as humanitarian organisations warn of famine and disease spreading across the enclave, while deaths from starvation and malnutrition continue to rise.
At least three people died from malnutrition on Wednesday, medical sources told Al Jazeera. A source at al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza confirmed that Hiba Yasser Abu Naji, a child, died from malnutrition. An infant also died from malnutrition, according to the source. An adult from Jabalia was also reported to have died as a result of malnutrition.
On Monday, the Israeli military permitted 95 aid trucks to enter Gaza – a figure far below the 600 trucks a day needed to meet basic requirements, according to UNRWA. The current daily average is 85 trucks.
Meanwhile, Palestinians approaching aid distribution sites run by the notorious GHF have frequently come under Israeli fire since the organisation launched operations in late May. Such shootings have become near-daily occurrences near its sites in central and southern Gaza.
Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for OCHA, said that while some aid was entering the enclave, “there should be hundreds and hundreds of trucks entering Gaza every day for months or years to come.
“People are dying every day. This is a crisis on the brink of famine,” he said, adding that tonnes of life-saving aid remain stuck at border crossings due to bureaucratic delays and a lack of safe access.
Elsewhere in Gaza, several Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks across the enclave.
Al-Awda Hospital reported that five people – including a woman and two children – were killed, and others wounded, in an Israeli raid on a house north of the Nuseirat refugee camp.
Four more people were killed in an Israeli raid on two homes in the Shujayea neighbourhood of Gaza City.
