policy

Feb. 25 (Asia Today) — President Lee Jae-myung on Tuesday defended his directive to review a comprehensive survey and possible sale orders for uncultivated farmland, rejecting criticism that the move amounts to communist-style policy.

Lee said on social media that some critics “misunderstand the constitutional principle of land to the tiller and talk about the Communist Party” in response to his order.

He clarified that the review does not target inherited farmland or land left uncultivated due to age or unavoidable circumstances. Instead, he said it focuses on cases in which individuals submit farming plans for speculative purposes, acquire farmland and then fail to cultivate it themselves.

Under South Korea’s Constitution and the Farmland Act, only those who intend to farm the land directly may acquire farmland. Prospective buyers must submit a farming plan detailing how they will cultivate it. If they fail to do so, authorities may issue a sale order through legal procedures.

Lee emphasized that the “land to the tiller” principle was enshrined in the Constitution under former President Syngman Rhee, who also led postwar land redistribution by acquiring land from non-farming landlords and distributing it to farmers.

“The government’s land reform based on this principle became the foundation of South Korea’s economic development,” Lee said, adding that even critics of Rhee acknowledge his achievements in land reform. “Syngman Rhee was not a communist,” he said.

At a Cabinet meeting Monday, Lee said high farmland prices are making it difficult for people seeking to return to farming or rural life.

“We need to lower the cost of returning to farming, and fundamentally that requires bringing down land prices,” he said, calling for a full-scale investigation and possible sale orders if illegal activity is found.

Lee added that soaring real estate prices are at the root of many social and economic problems in the country.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260225010007408

US judge says that rapid deportation of migrants to countries other than their own violates due process.

A United States federal judge has ruled that the administration of President Donald Trump had violated the law through the swift deportation of migrants to countries other than their own, without giving them an opportunity to appeal their removal.

US District Judge Brian Murphy declared the policy invalid on Wednesday, teeing up a possible appeal from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to the Supreme Court.

“It is not fine, nor is it legal,” Murphy wrote in his decision, adding that migrants could not be sent to an “unfamiliar and potentially dangerous country” without any legal recourse.

He added that due process – the right to receive fair legal proceedings – is an essential component of the US Constitution.

“These are our laws, and it is with profound gratitude for the unbelievable luck of being born in the United States of America that this Court affirms these and our nation’s bedrock principle: that no ‘person’ in this country may be ‘deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law’,” Murphy said.

The ruling is the latest legal setback in the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign.

Trump has long pledged to remove immigrants from the country who violate the law or are in the country without legal paperwork. But critics argue that his immigration crackdown has been marked by widespread neglect of due process rights.

They also point out that some of the deportees have been in the country legally, with their cases being processed through legal immigration pathways like asylum.

Murphy said in his ruling that the swift nature of the deportation obscures the details of each case, preventing courts from weighing whether each deportation is legal.

“The simple reality is that nobody knows the merits of any individual class member’s claim because [administration officials] are withholding the predicate fact: the country of removal,” wrote Murphy.

In the decision, Murphy also addressed some of the Trump administration’s arguments in favour of swift deportation.

He highlighted one argument, for instance, where the administration asserted it would be “fine” to deport migrants to third-party countries, so long as the Department of Homeland Security was not aware of anyone waiting to kill them upon arrival.

“It is not fine, nor is it legal,” Murphy responded in his decision.

Murphy has previously ruled against efforts to swiftly deport migrants to countries where they have no ties, and over the past year, he has seen some decisions overturned by the Supreme Court.

Noting that trend, Murphy said Wednesday’s decision would not take effect for 15 days, in order to give the administration the opportunity to appeal.

Last year, for instance, the conservative-majority Supreme Court lifted an injunction Murphy issued in April that sought to protect the due process rights of migrants being deported to third-party countries.

The injunction had come as part of a case where the Trump administration attempted to send eight men to South Sudan, despite concerns about human rights conditions there.

Wednesday’s decision, meanwhile, stemmed from a class-action lawsuit brought by immigrants similarly facing deportation to countries they had no relation to.

A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Trina Realmuto from the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, hailed Murphy’s latest ruling.

“Under the government’s policy, people have been forcibly returned to countries where US immigration judges have found they will be persecuted or tortured,” Realmuto said in a statement.

Realmuto added that the ruling was a “forceful statement” about the policy’s constitutionality.

At a recent meeting of California’s high school sports governing board, two seniors from Arroyo Grande High School spoke out against a transgender peer competing on their track and field team and allegedly “watching” them in the girls’ locker room.

One of the Central Coast students said she is “more comfortable” changing in her car now. The other cited a Bible verse about God creating men and women separately, and accused the California Interscholastic Federation of subjecting girls to “exploitative and intrusive behavior that is disguised through transgender ideology.”

“Our privacy is being compromised and our sports are being taken over,” she said.

During the same meeting, Trevor Norcross, the father of 17-year-old transgender junior Lily Norcross, offered a starkly different perspective.

“Bathrooms and locker rooms are the most dangerous place for trans students, and when they are at their most vulnerable,” he said. “Our daughter goes to extreme lengths to avoid them. Unfortunately, sometimes you can’t.”

Lily Norcross with her parents, Trevor and Hilary Norcross.

(Owen Main / For The Times)

Norcross said Lily’s teammates had for months been misrepresenting a single moment from the year prior, when Lily had to use the restroom after a full day of avoiding it, chose to use the one in the locker room because it is monitored by an adult and safer for her than others, and briefly stopped to chat with a friend on her way out.

“There’s always more to the story,” he said.

The conflicting testimony reflected an increasingly charged debate over transgender athletes participating in youth sports nationwide. Churches, anti-LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, cisgender athletes and their conservative families are organizing to topple trans-inclusive policies, while liberal state officials, queer advocacy groups, transgender kids and their families are trying to preserve policies that allow transgender kids to compete.

The battle has been particularly pitched in California, which has some of the nation’s most progressive statewide athletic policies and liberal leaders willing to defend them — including from the Trump administration, which has attacked transgender rights and is suing the California Department of Education and the CIF, alleging their trans-inclusive sports policies violate the civil rights of cisgender athletes.

Along with a pending U.S. Supreme Court decision on the legality of policies banning transgender athletes from competing in states such as Idaho and West Virginia, the Trump administration’s lawsuit against California could have sweeping implications for transgender athletes — with a state loss potentially contributing to their being sidelined not just in conservative states, but nationwide.

For the handful of transgender California teens caught in the middle of the fight, it has all been deeply unnerving — if strangely motivating.

“I have to keep doing it, because if I stop doing sports, they won,” Lily Norcross said. “They got what they wanted.”

A coordinated effort

The movement to overturn California’s trans-inclusive policies is being coordinated at the local, state and national levels, and has gained serious momentum since several of its leaders joined the Trump administration.

At the local level, cisgender athletes, their families and other conservative and religious allies have expressed anger over transgender athletes using girls’ facilities and resentment over their allegedly stealing victories and the spotlight from cisgender girls.

In 2024, two girls at Martin Luther King High School in Riverside filed a lawsuit challenging the participation of their transgender track and field teammate Abigail Jones, arguing her participation limited their own in violation of Title IX protections for female athletes. A judge found insufficient evidence of that, and recently dismissed the case.

Last year, Jurupa Valley High School track star AB Hernandez won several medals at the CIF State Track and Field Championships despite President Trump personally demanding she be barred from competing. Critics argued Hernandez’s wins were unfair, despite CIF having changed its rules so that her cisgender competitors received the medals they would have received had she not competed.

AB Hernandez competed for Jurupa Valley High School in the long jump at the 2025 CIF State Track and Field Championships.

(Tomas Ovalle / For The Times)

The challenges to Abigail, AB and Lily competing have all been driven in part by a network of conservative organizations working across California and beyond to oust transgender girls from sports, including by coordinating with evangelical churches, pushing social media campaigns, lining up speakers for school board meetings and working with cisgender athletes to hone their messages of opposition.

Shannon Kessler, a former PTA president and church leader who is now running for state Assembly, has worked within the wider network. In March 2025, Kessler founded the group Save Girls’ Sports Central Coast, and the next month distributed fliers at Harvest Church in Arroyo Grande that called on parishioners to challenge Lily’s participation on the track and field team.

Kessler said the two seniors on Lily’s team, who did not respond to a request for comment, had initially asked if she would “speak on their behalf,” so she did, but she has since let the girls “take the lead.”

“They took the initiative to speak and wrote their own speeches,” Kessler said, of their remarks at the recent CIF meeting.

Norcross said the effort to sideline his daughter has clearly been coordinated by outsiders from the start. He blames Kessler, Harvest Church and the state’s wider network of conservative activists for stirring up baseless fears about transgender athletes, exposing his family to danger and leaving them no choice but to defend themselves publicly.

“It’s not a fair position to be in,” he said.

Tied up in court

Within months of Trump issuing his February 2025 executive order calling for transgender athletes to be barred from competition nationwide, two leaders within the California conservative network turned Trump administration officials — Harmeet Dhillon, who is now assistant attorney general for civil rights, and former state Assemblyman Bill Essayli, who is now in charge of the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles — quickly moved to bring the state to heel.

They launched an investigation into California’s trans-inclusive sports policies, ordered its school districts to comply with Trump’s order in defiance of state law, and then sued the Department of Education and the CIF when they refused — alleging the state’s policies illegally discriminate against cisgender girls under Title IX by ignoring “undeniable biological differences between boys and girls, in favor of an amorphous ‘gender identity.’”

Neither Dhillon nor the Justice Department responded to a request for comment. Essayli’s office declined to comment.

Assistant Atty. Gen. for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon arrives for a news conference at the Justice Department in September.

(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)

The Department of Education and the CIF have called for the lawsuit to be dismissed, arguing that Title IX regulations “do not require the exclusion of transgender girls” and that the Justice Department had provided no evidence that the state’s policies left cisgender girls unable to compete.

The CIF said in a statement that it “provides students with the opportunity to belong, connect, and compete in education-based experiences in compliance with California law,” but it and the Department of Education said they do not comment on pending litigation. California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office has slammed the Trump administration’s efforts, and filed its own lawsuit to block them.

Separate from the California litigation, there is a major case on transgender youth athletes before the U.S. Supreme Court.

After athletes successfully challenged West Virginia and Idaho bans on transgender competition in lower federal courts, the states appealed. During arguments last month, the high court’s conservative majority sounded ready to uphold the state bans — but not necessarily in a way that would topple liberal state laws allowing such athletes to compete.

Pressure and resolve

Lily, AB and Abigail — all of whom are referenced anonymously in the federal lawsuit against California — agreed, with their parents, to be identified by The Times in order to share how it has felt to be targeted.

Abigail, 17, graduated early and is preparing to start college but hasn’t stopped being an advocate for transgender high school athletes, continuing to show up to CIF and school board meetings to support their right to compete.

“This is a part of my life now, whether I like it or not,” she said.

Speaking can be intimidating, Abigail said, but it has also become familiar — as has the cast of anti-transgender activists who routinely show up to speak as well. “It’s always the same people,” she said.

Abigail Jones participates in a protest against President Trump and his attacks on transgender people in April in Riverside.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

AB, also 17, said last year — when everyone, including Trump, seemed to be talking about her — was “just so much — too much.”

She felt she had to constantly “maintain an image,” including among her peers, that she was “not bothered by anything and just confident,” which was exhausting, she said. “There were a lot of times I just didn’t go to school, because I felt like I couldn’t keep up that image and I didn’t want them to see me down.”

It still can be overwhelming if she looks at all the vitriol aimed her way online, she said, but “off the internet, it’s a completely different story.”

AB was nervous headed into last year’s championships, but a couple of other competitors reached out with their support and the meet ended up being “a blast,” she said. At track practice this year, she’s surrounded by friends — one of her favorite things about being on the team.

For Lily, the last year has been “different and interesting, in not really a good way.”

She has had slurs lobbed at her and been physically threatened. She sometimes waits all day to use the toilet, nearly bursting by the time she gets home. When she has to use a school restroom, she times herself to be in and out in under three minutes. She took P.E. courses over the summer in part because she felt there would be fewer students around, but faced harassment anyway. Like AB, she feels as though she’s under a constant spotlight.

And yet, Lily said she is also “a lot happier with who I am” than she ever was before transitioning a couple of years ago. She said she’s enjoying her classes and her school’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance, where LGBTQ+ kids gather at lunch to swap stories, and is optimistic about the future — even if things aren’t great right now.

Her dad said watching her come out and transition has been gratifying, because “the smile came back, the light in her eyes came back.” Watching her navigate the current campaign against her, he said, has been “really hard,” because “she has been forced to grow up too quickly — she has been forced to defend herself in a way that most kids don’t.”

Mostly, though, he’s just proud of his kid.

“We had our fears as parents, as any parent would, that, OK, this is a different path than we thought our kid was going to be on, and we are worried about her safety and her future in this world,” he said. “But she is amazingly strong — amazingly courageous.”

While President Trump is busy working through his checklist for sabotaging the midterm elections, Republicans are already concocting the political equivalent of a shady insurance policy — the kind someone takes out the day before the house catches fire.

I’ll save you some time and explain that the drubbing Republicans are about to endure won’t be the result of Trump or his policies. Instead, it will be because the midterm elections were rigged for the Democrats. Or at least these claims are the GOP spin that’s already in progress.

The predicate is being laid. “They want illegals to vote,” House Speaker Mike Johnson recently declared. “That’s why they opened the border wide for four years under Biden and Harris and allowed in all these dangerous people. It was a means to an end. The end is maintaining their own power,” Johnson continued.

To prevent this, Republicans have invented a MacGuffin: the SAVE America Act — a plot device Republicans have introduced primarily to drive the story forward.

That’s not to say the legislation would be meaningless. The SAVE America act would require proof of citizenship to register to vote, eliminate mail-only registrations, mandate photo ID nationwide and force states to send voter lists to the Department of Homeland Security.

Some of these things (like requiring voter ID) are popular and even arguably salutary. But in light of recent events — say, Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election results — any effort by Trump to nationalize or otherwise meddle in our election process should be met with immediate alarm.

Still, it is highly unlikely that any of these new tools would actually stem the tide of the rising blue wave that is poised to devour Republicans this November.

The notion that any substantial number of undocumented immigrants is voting is a farce. There are scant few examples of election fraud by anyone, and the examples that do surface often involve Republicans.

And to the degree there would be impediments to voter registration (there is worry that women who changed their names after getting married would be disenfranchised), the electoral results of making it harder to register to vote would largely affect future elections after this year — and these provisions wouldn’t solely hurt Democratic voters.

Regardless, this is all likely a moot point. Despite passing the House, it’s hard to imagine this bill can garner the 60-vote threshold needed to pass the Senate (and it doesn’t seem likely there’d be enough votes to nuke the filibuster).

This raises an interesting question: Why invest so much time and energy in a bill that seems destined to fail — and that, even if it did pass, would likely not alter even the closest of November’s midterm elections?

Because the bill isn’t really about passing policy. It’s about narrative control.

The SAVE America Act serves three strategic purposes for Republicans:

It’s a comforting but false diagnosis for the midterms. Let’s face it: Trump isn’t going to admit that his policies have backfired or that his approval ratings are in the tank, and Republicans aren’t about to lay that at his feet. As Trump declared in 2020 (before a single vote was cast), “The only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged.” Trumpism cannot fail; it can only be failed.

Base mobilization through grievance. Just as caravans of migrants always seem to miraculously appear just before an election, threats of election rigging at least give Republicans something to scare Fox News voters about — a way to motivate via fear and outrage in an otherwise moribund midterm electorate.

Blame insurance. Despite being the establishment and controlling the entire federal government, Trump still gets to cast himself as the victim. And it won’t just be Democrats who get blamed for a midterm loss; there will also be a “stabbed in the back” excuse.

Scott Presler, a prominent right-wing activist championing this bill on Fox News, has already declared that unless the SAVE America Act passes, Republicans will lose both chambers of Congress. In a veiled threat to Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), he recently asked, “Do you want to be remembered as the Senate Majority Leader that was responsible for ushering in the decline of the United States?”

They’re clearly playing a game, but is this game good for Republicans?

While it might seem shrewd to construct a boogeyman, Republicans risk eliminating the feedback loop on which healthy political parties rely.

When losses are blamed on cheating rather than voter sentiment, there’s no incentive to change your behavior, your policies or your candidates. So a party that voters have rejected will keep repeating the same dumb things, all while voters scratch their heads and wonder why they still haven’t gotten to the promised land.

Republicans might well reflect on Trump’s Republican Party as a party that had “learned nothing and forgotten nothing.”

And a party that cannot learn or adapt is a party that shouldn’t count on winning many elections in the future.

Matt K. Lewis is the author of “Filthy Rich Politicians” and “Too Dumb to Fail.”

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday lashed out at Supreme Court justices who struck down his tariffs agenda, calling them “fools” who made a “terrible, defective decision” that he plans to circumvent by imposing new levies in a different way.

In a defiant appearance at the White House, Trump told reporters that his administration will impose new tariffs by using alternative legal means. He cast the ruling as a technical, not permanent setback, for his trade policy, insisting that the “end result is going to get us more money.”

The president said he would instead impose an across-the-board 10% tariff on imports on global trade partners through an executive order.

The sharp response underscores how central tariffs have been to Trump’s economic and political identity. He portrayed the ruling as another example of institutional resistance to his “America First” agenda and pledged to continue fighting to hold on to his trade authority despite the ruling from the nation’s highest court.

Trump, however, said the ruling was “deeply disappointing” and called the justices who voted against his policy — including Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, whom he nominated to the court — “fools” and “lap dogs.”

“I am ashamed of certain members of the court,” Trump told reporters. “Absolutely ashamed for not having the courage to do what’s right for our country.”

For years, Trump has insisted his tariffs policy is making the United States wealthier and giving his administration leverage to force better trade deals, even though the economic burden has often fallen on U.S. companies and consumers. On the campaign trail, he has turned to them again and again, casting sweeping levies as the economic engine for his administration’s second-term agenda.

Now, in the heat of an election year, the court’s decision scrambles that message.

The ruling from the nation’s highest court is a rude awakening for Trump at a time when his trade policies have already caused fractures among some Republicans and public polling shows a majority of Americans are increasingly concerned with the state of the economy.

Ahead of the November elections, Republicans have urged Trump to stay focused on an economic message to help them keep control of Congress. The president tried to do that on Thursday, telling a crowd in northwest Georgia that “without tariffs, this country would be in so much trouble.”

As Trump attacked the court, Democrats across the country celebrated the ruling — with some arguing there should be a mechanism in place to allow Americans to recoup money lost by the president’s trade policy.

“No Supreme Court decision can undo the massive damage that Trump’s chaotic tariffs have caused,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote in a post on X. “The American people paid for these tariffs and the American people should get their money back.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom called Trump’s tariffs an “illegal cash grab that drove up prices, hurt working families and wrecked longstanding global alliances.”

“Every dollar your administration unlawfully took needs to be immediately refunded — with interest,” Newsom, who is eyeing a 2028 presidential bid, wrote in a post on X addressed to Trump.

The president’s signature economic policy has long languished in the polls, and by a wide margin. Six in 10 Americans surveyed in a Pew Research poll this month said they do not support the tariff increases. Of that group, about 40% strongly disapproved. Just 37% surveyed said they supported the measures — 13% of whom expressed strong approval.

A majority of voters have opposed the policy since April, when Trump unveiled the far-reaching trade agenda, according to Pew.

The court decision lands as more than a policy setback to Trump’ s economic agenda.

It is also a rebuke of the governing style embraced by the president that has often treated Congress less as a partner and more as a body that can be bypassed by executive authority.

Trump has long tested the bounds of his executive authority, particularly on foreign policies, where he has heavily leaned on emergency and national security powers to impose tariffs and acts of war without congressional approval. In the court ruling, even some of his allies drew a bright line through that approach.

Gorsuch sided with the court’s liberals in striking down the tariffs policy. He wrote that while “it can be tempting to bypass Congress when some pressing problems arise,” the legislative branch should be taken into account with major policies, particularly those involving taxes and tariffs.

“In all, the legislative process helps ensure each of us has a stake in the laws that govern us and in the Nation’s future,” Gorsuch wrote. “For some today, the weight of those virtues is apparent. For others, it may not seem so obvious.”

He added: “But if history is any guide, the tables will turn and the day will come when those disappointed by today’s result will appreciate the legislative process for the bulwark of liberty it is.”

Trump said the court ruling prompted him to use his trade powers in different ways.

In December, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent asserted has the administration can replicate the tariff structure, or a similar structure, through alternative legal methods in the 1974 Trade Act and 1962 Trade Expansion Act.

“Now the court has given me the unquestioned right to ban all sort of things from coming into our country, to destroy foreign countries,” Trump said, as he lamented the court constraining his ability to “charge a fee.”

“How crazy is that?” Trump said.

“The United States, after all, is not at war with every nation in the world.” The US Supreme Court has struck down Donald Trump’s use of a national emergency declaration to impose sweeping global tariffs. Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna explains the court’s reasoning.

More than 457,000 European citizens have signed a petition calling for the full suspension of the European Union’s partnership agreement with Israel within the initiative’s first month.

Launched on January 13 as a formally registered European citizens’ initiative, the petition must reach 1 million signatures from at least seven EU member states by January 13 next year to trigger formal consideration by the European Commission. It is not a symbolic appeal. It is a mechanism embedded within the EU’s democratic framework, designed to translate public will into institutional review.

The speed and geographic spread of this mobilisation matter. The demand to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement is no longer confined to street demonstrations or activist circles. It has entered the EU’s formal democratic architecture.

The petition calls for suspension on the grounds that Israel is in breach of Article 2 of the association agreement, which conditions the partnership on respect for human rights and international law. As the initiative states, “EU citizens cannot tolerate that the EU maintains an agreement that contributes to legitimize and finance a State that commits crimes against humanity and war crimes.” The text further cites large-scale civilian killings, displacement, destruction of hospitals and medical infrastructure in Gaza, the blockade of humanitarian aid and the failure to comply with orders of the International Court of Justice.

As of Monday, the initiative had gathered 457,950 signatures, more than 45 percent of the required total in just one month. Signatories come from all 27 EU member states without exception. This is not a regional surge. It is continental.

The distribution of signatures reveals more than raw numbers. France alone accounts for 203,182 signatories, nearly 45 percent of the total. That figure reflects the country’s longstanding tradition of solidarity mobilisation, sustained mass demonstrations throughout the genocidal war on Gaza and the clear positioning of major political actors, such as La France Insoumise. France has emerged as the principal engine of this institutional push.

Spain follows with 60,087 signatures while Italy stands at 54,821, a particularly striking figure given the presence of a right-wing government that openly supports Israel. Belgium has registered 20,330 signatures from a population of roughly 12 million, reflecting high relative engagement. In the Nordic region, Finland with 12,649 signatures, Sweden with 15,267 and Denmark with 8,295 show sustained participation. Ireland has reached 11,281 signatures from a population of just over five million.

Several of these countries have already exceeded their required national thresholds under EU rules. France, Spain, Belgium, Finland, Ireland, Italy and Sweden have all surpassed the minimum number needed for their signatures to count towards the seven-member-state requirement. This is a critical development. It means the initiative is not merely accumulating volume but is also already satisfying the geographic legitimacy criteria built into the European citizens’ initiative mechanism.

The Netherlands, with 20,304 signatures, is approaching its national threshold. Poland, at 22,308 signatures, reflects engagement that extends beyond Western Europe. Even in smaller states such as Slovenia with 1,703 signatures, Luxembourg with 900 and Portugal with 4,945, participation is visible and measurable.

Germany presents a revealing contrast. Despite being the EU’s most populous member state and the site of some of the largest demonstrations against Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza, the petition has gathered 11,461 German signatures, only 17 percent of Germany’s national threshold of 69,120. This gap between visible street mobilisation and formal institutional participation highlights the particular political and legal environment in Germany, where pro-Palestinian expression has faced restrictions and where successive governments have maintained near-unconditional support for Israel as a matter of state policy. The relatively low percentage does not signal absence of dissent. Rather, it illustrates the structural constraints within which dissent operates. That more than 11,000 citizens have nevertheless formally registered their support indicates that institutional engagement is occurring even under conditions of political pressure.

Taken together, these patterns reveal something deeper than a petition’s momentum. Over more than two years of genocidal war, ethnic cleansing and the systematic destruction of civilian life in Gaza, solidarity across Europe has not dissipated. It has moved from protest slogans and street mobilisation into a formal democratic instrument that demands institutional response.

Petitions do not automatically change policy. The European Commission is not legally bound to suspend the association agreement even if the initiative ultimately reaches 1 million signatures. But the political implications are significant. A successful initiative would formally compel the commission to respond to a demand grounded in the EU’s own human rights clause. It would demonstrate that the call for suspension is rooted in broad and measurable public support across multiple member states.

The European Union has long presented itself as a normative power committed to international law and human rights. Article 2 of its partnership agreements is foundational. If hundreds of thousands, and potentially more than a million, European citizens insist that this principle be applied consistently, EU institutions will face a credibility test.

This petition is not merely a count of signatures. It is an index of political will. It shows that across France, Spain, Belgium, Italy, Ireland, the Nordic states and beyond, citizens are invoking the EU’s own democratic mechanisms to demand accountability.

Whether the initiative ultimately reaches 1 million, one reality is already established. The demand to suspend the EU-Israel partnership has entered Europe’s institutional bloodstream. It can no longer be dismissed as marginal rhetoric. It is embedded within the union’s formal democratic process, and that marks a significant development in Europe’s response to the genocide in Gaza.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

The recent use of a laser directed energy weapon to down an aerial object near El Paso, Texas, and its chaotic aftermath, highlight the policy challenges and impediments the U.S. still faces in defending against drone incursions over the homeland. These are major national security concerns and a topic The War Zone has been reporting on for years.

The latest chapter in the ongoing saga of U.S. efforts to begin countering small drone incursions over the country began last week. Reacting to what they thought was a drone operated by a Mexican drug cartel, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel reportedly used a laser directed energy weapon to take down the object, which multiple reports say turned out to be a Mylar balloon. The system, which Reuters identified as a AeroVironment LOCUST laser counter-drone weapon, was lent to CBP by the U.S. Army. This is the first publicly known instance of an object being shot down over the U.S. with a laser in an operational setting.

You can read more about LOCUST and how it works in our story here.

The use of the LOCUST came as the FAA was working on “a safety assessment of the risks the new technology could pose to other aircraft,” The New York Times reported. “F.A.A. officials had warned the Pentagon that if they were not given sufficient time and information to conduct their review, they would have no choice but to shut down the nearby airspace.”

The tug of war between the Pentagon and FAA – which led to a shutdown of airspace over the nation’s 23rd largest city – is a glaring example of the convoluted and conflicting authorities the U.S. relies on to deal with the increasing threat posed by drones.

The FAA did not respond to our request for comment. We also reached out to U.S. Northern Command and AeroVironment for comment.

However, safety concerns about using directed energy weapons, and especially kinetic ones, to take down drones in the U.S. have been a major factor in why they aren’t employed in this role. 

A little less than a year and a half ago, officials at U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM), which has coordinating authority for counter-drone efforts in the U.S., said the use of such weapons was not yet on the table. The reason is that they can create dangerous or otherwise serious collateral effects that are not a concern in a war zone.

“The biggest thing right now is the impact of the laser when it moves beyond its target,” NORTHCOM Deputy Test Director Jason Mayes said of laser directed energy weapons for counter-drone use. “You know, how far is it going? What’s that going to do? How long does the laser need to remain on target before it begins to inflict damage and so on, right?”

Mayes, speaking to a small group of reporters, including from The War Zone at Falcon Peak 2025, a counter-drone experiment at Peterson Space Force Base in October 2024, also raised questions about whether the laser beam could impact aircraft or even satellites passing by, as well as things on the ground like “hikers up on a hill.”

The military has been working to mitigate those concerns, Mayes proffered at the time.

“I think that we could get to a point where we have approval for that here in the homeland,” he posited.

The video below shows a test of a U.S. Navy shipboard laser directed energy weapon capable of being employed against drones.

USS Portland (LPD 27) tests LWSD laser system

It is unclear when the approval to use laser counter-drone weapons came or how extensive such permissions have been. We also don’t know if the LOCUST system, understood to have been stationed at nearby Fort Bliss, was sent there under a pilot program established under the Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). It calls for at least four military installations to be used to speed up the development of counter-drone efforts at bases across the country. The measure includes systems “capable of destroying or disabling a small unmanned aircraft by means of high-powered microwave, laser, or other similar technology.”

Fort Bliss is also home to a significant portion of the Army’s air defense units, which are increasingly charged with the counter-drone mission. The base is also a major hub for border security operations, which the U.S. military often conducts in cooperation with law enforcement agencies, as well.

The future domestic use of laser counter-drone weapons remains an open question, but the NDAA pilot program gives the military additional authorities under existing statutes to at least test them. Still, as we have frequently noted, a confusing and often competing set of federal laws governing the use of counter-drone systems domestically impacted the ability to defend against these threats. The El Paso situation is a case in point of how challenging this can be.

NORTHCOM has authority over the troops and equipment, in this case a laser system, to take down the drones. However, federal laws limit where and when the military can use these systems, which is a large reason why CBP was involved.

In advance of the U.S. hosting the 2026 World Cup and 2028 Olympic Games, the Trump administration pushed to expand counter-drone authorities. Congress granted that when it passed the Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Under a federal law known as 124n, “the Departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and Justice (DOJ, including CBP, have limited authority to mitigate drone threats domestically to protect covered facilities or assets,” Scott Shtofman, Vice President & Counsel, Regulatory Affairs for the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), told us. “That authority has been extended and expanded, under the Safer Skies Act of the NDAA, to certain certified state, local, Tribal, and territorial agencies operating under federal training and oversight.”

Still, “it’s not a blanket nationwide shoot down power and only applies in defined threat situations,” he added. 

Meanwhile, under another federal statute commonly referred to as 130(i), “DoW can mitigate drone threats to protect military installations and missions inside the U.S., but it does not have general domestic airspace policing authority,” Shtofman posited.

However, the Pentagon is working to expand its counter-drone capabilities. 

In January, the recently created Joint Interagency Task Force (JIATF) 401 announced updated guidance for counter-unmanned aerial systems (UAS) operations. The move empowered installation commanders “to take decisive action to protect military facilities, assets, and personnel within the homeland,” according to a press release at the time.

“The guidance, signed by the Secretary of War on December 8, 2025, streamlines and consolidates existing policies for detecting and mitigating UAS under the authority of 10 U.S. Code § 130i,” the release added, referring to another one of the laws governing domestic counter-small drone efforts. “It addresses the direct and growing threat posed by the proliferation of inexpensive and capable UAS. This updated framework provides commanders with the expanded authority and flexibility needed to dominate the airspace above their installations.”

Among other things, the new rules eliminate restrictions on defense perimeters that reduced installation commanders’ abilities to protect against drones.

“The previous ‘fence-line’ limitation has been removed, giving commanders a larger defensive area and greater decision space to protect covered facilities and assets,” the new rules state.

In earlier reporting, we noted that not all installations were considered “covered” to take down drones. The new rules permit service secretaries to determine which installations should be covered, to increase the number.

Beyond that, the Pentagon is now allowed to share “UAS track and sensor data among interagency partners, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ). It also allows for the use of trained and certified contractor personnel as C-sUAS operators.”

“Every commander has the inherent right to self-defense,” the Pentagon told us. “The Department of War will defend its personnel and assets from illicit UAS activity in accordance with our authority under title 10 Section 130i, and the standing rules for the use of force.”

In addition to the numerous drone incursions over U.S. installations that we have frequently covered, cross-border cartel drone operations are a chronic issue, and we have been calling attention to the growing dangers they pose for many years now. Controversy over the El Paso incident was magnified after the White House insisted that the U.S. shot down a cartel drone flying over the border, which was later contradicted by the reporting that it was a mylar balloon.

Regardless of what it was, small drones remain a clear and present danger to the U.S. Whether new technology and additional authorities to use them will make a difference is an open question.

Update: 8:31 PM Eastern –

A U.S. official responded with answers to some of our questions.

1. The limit on the distance installation commanders can counter drones is the capability of their counter-UAS systems and the ability to coordinate with local authorities and communities.
2. No sites have been chosen yet for the counter-drone pilot program.
3. To his knowledge, the El Paso incident was the first time a directed energy weapon had been used against illicit drones in the homeland.
4. There are no statutory preclusions to using directed energy weapons against drones in the homeland.

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com

President Trump’s administration can continue to detain immigrants without bond, marking a major legal victory for the federal immigration agenda and countering a slew of recent lower court decisions across the country that argued the practice is illegal.

A panel of judges on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday evening that the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to deny bond hearings to immigrants arrested across the country is consistent with the Constitution and federal immigration law.

Specifically, Circuit Judge Edith H. Jones wrote in the 2-1 majority opinion that the government correctly interpreted the Immigration and Nationality Act by asserting that “unadmitted aliens apprehended anywhere in the United States are ineligible for release on bond, regardless of how long they have resided inside the United States.”

Under past administrations, most noncitizens with no criminal record who were arrested away from the border had an opportunity to request a bond hearing while their cases wound through immigration court. Historically, bond was often granted to those without criminal convictions who were not flight risks, and mandatory detention was limited to recent border crossers.

“That prior Administrations decided to use less than their full enforcement authority under” the law “does not mean they lacked the authority to do more,” Jones wrote.

The plaintiffs in the two separate cases filed last year against the Trump administration were both Mexican nationals who had lived in the United States for more than 10 years and weren’t flight risks, their attorneys argued. Neither man had a criminal record, and both were jailed for months last year before a lower Texas court granted them bond in October.

The Trump White House reversed that policy in favor of mandatory detention in July, reversing almost 30 years of precedent under both Democrat and Republican administrations.

Friday’s ruling also bucks a November district court decision in California, which granted detained immigrants with no criminal history the opportunity to request a bond hearing and had implications for noncitizens held in detention nationwide.

Circuit Judge Dana M. Douglas wrote the lone dissent in Friday’s decision.

The elected members of Congress who passed the Immigration and Nationality Act “would be surprised to learn it had also required the detention without bond of two million people,” Douglas wrote, adding that many of the people detained are “the spouses, mothers, fathers, and grandparents of American citizens.”

She went on to argue that the federal government was overriding the lawmaking process with the Department of Homeland Security’s new immigration detention policy that denies detained immigrants bond.

“Because I would reject the government’s invitation to rubber stamp its proposed legislation by executive fiat, I dissent,” Douglas wrote.

Douglas’ opinion echoed widespread tensions between the Trump administration and federal judges around the country, who have increasingly accused the administration of flouting court orders.

U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi celebrated the decision as “a significant blow against activist judges who have been undermining our efforts to make America safe again at every turn.”

“We will continue vindicating President Trump’s law and order agenda in courtrooms across the country,” Bondi wrote on the social media platform X.

Riddle writes for the Associated Press.

A proposed new consensus between sports leaders across the globe about gender policy would be a first uniform criteria.

Global sports leaders ‌have reached consensus on a new set of eligibility criteria for transgender athletes, with the new policy expected to be announced within the first half of this year, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said on Saturday.

It would be the first uniform policy adopted by the IOC and international sports federations, applying to major events in dozens of sports, including the Games and world championships. Currently, federations have ⁠their own rules, which can vary.

Details of the new policy are unclear, but it is expected to severely restrict the participation of transgender athletes who compete in women’s categories if they have undergone full male puberty before any subsequent medical transition.

The IOC, under its first female president, Kirsty Coventry, took the lead in June, opting for a uniform approach.

“Protecting the female category is one of the key reforms she wants to bring in,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams ⁠told a news conference at the Milan-Cortina Winter Games on Saturday.

“I would say it is going to happen shortly, within the next few months.

“It has been out to consultation phase and we had the ‘pause and reflect’ (period) on it,” Adams said. “Generally speaking, there is consensus within the sporting movement. I think you will have a new policy in the first half of this year. Don’t hold me to it, but that is roughly the timescale.”

In September, Coventry set up the “Protection of the Female Category” working group, made up of experts as well as representatives ‌of international federations, to look into how best to protect the female category in sport.

Before Coventry’s decision, the IOC had long baulked at any universal rule on transgender participation for the Games, instructing international federations in 2021 to come up with their own ‌guidelines. Under current rules, still in force, transgender athletes are eligible to take part in the Olympics once cleared by their respective federations.

Only a handful of openly ‌transgender athletes have taken part in the Games. New Zealand’s Laurel ⁠Hubbard became the first openly transgender athlete to compete in a different gender category to that assigned at birth when the weightlifter took part in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

Currently, for example, World Aquatics allows transgender athletes who have transitioned before the age of ‌12 to compete. World Rugby bans all transgender athletes from elite-level competitions.

United States President Donald Trump has banned transgender athletes from competing in school, college and pro events in the female category in the US, as Los Angeles prepares to host the 2028 Summer Olympics.

Trump, who signed the “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” order in February, has said he would not allow transgender athletes to compete at the LA Games.

WASHINGTON — On New Year’s Eve, Lee Zeldin did something out of character for an Environmental Protection Agency leader who has been hacking away at regulations intended to protect Americans’ air and water.

He announced new restrictions on five chemicals commonly used in building materials, plastic products and adhesives, and he cheered it as a “MAHA win.”

It was one of many signs of a fragile collaboration that’s been building between a Republican administration that’s traditionally supported big business and a Make America Healthy Again movement that argues corporate environmental harms are putting people’s health in danger.

The unlikely pairing grew out of the coalition’s success influencing public health policy with the help of its biggest champion, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. As Health and Human Services secretary, he has pared back vaccine recommendations and shifted the government’s position on topics such as seed oils, fluoride and Tylenol.

Building on that momentum, the movement now sees a glimmer of hope in the EPA’s promise to release a “MAHA agenda” in the coming months.

At stake is the strength of President Trump’s coalition as November’s midterm elections threaten his party’s control of Congress. After a politically diverse group of MAHA devotees came together to help Trump return to the White House a little more than one year ago, disappointing them could mean losing the support of a vocal voting bloc.

Activists such as Courtney Swan, who focuses on nutritional issues and has spoken with EPA officials in recent months, are watching closely.

“This is becoming an issue that if the EPA does not start getting their stuff together, then they could lose the midterms over this,” she said.

Christopher Bosso, a professor at Northeastern University who researches environmental policy, said Zeldin didn’t seem to take MAHA seriously at first, “but now he has to, because they’ve been really calling for his scalp.”

MAHA wins a seat at the table

Last year, prominent activist Kelly Ryerson was so frustrated with the EPA over its weakening of protections against harmful chemicals that she and other MAHA supporters drew up a petition to get Zeldin fired.

The final straw, Ryerson said, was the EPA’s approval of two new pesticides for use on food. Ryerson, whose social media account “Glyphosate Girl” focuses on nontoxic food systems, said the pesticides contained “forever chemicals,” which resist breakdown, making them hazardous to people. The EPA has disputed that characterization.

But Ryerson’s relationship with the EPA changed at a MAHA Christmas party in Washington in December. She talked to Zeldin there and felt that he listened to her perspective. Then he invited her and a handful of other activists to sit down with him at the EPA headquarters. That meeting lasted an hour, and it led to more conversations with Zeldin’s deputies.

“The level of engagement with people concerned with their health is absolutely revolutionary,” Ryerson said in an interview. She said the agency’s upcoming plan “will say whether or not they take it seriously,” but she praised MAHA’s access as “unprecedented.”

Rashmi Joglekar, associate director of science, policy and engagement at UC San Francisco’s Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment, said it’s not typical for an activist group to meet with the EPA administrator. She said MAHA’s ability to make inroads so quickly shows how “powerful” the coalition has become.

The movement’s influence is not just at the EPA. MAHA has steered federal and state lawmakers away from enacting liability shields that protect pesticide manufacturers from expensive lawsuits. In Congress, after MAHA activists lobbied against such protections in a funding bill, they were removed. A similar measure stalled in Tennessee’s Legislature.

Zeldin joined a call in December with the advocacy group MAHA Action, during which he invited activists to participate in developing the EPA’s MAHA agenda. Since then, EPA staffers have regularly appeared on the weekly calls and promoted what they say are open-door policies.

Last month, Ryerson’s petition to get Zeldin fired was updated to note that several signers had met with him and are in a “collaborative effort to advance the MAHA agenda.”

Zeldin’s office declined to make him available for an interview on his work with MAHA activists, but EPA Press Secretary Brigit Hirsch said the forthcoming agenda will “directly respond to priorities we’ve heard from MAHA advocates and communities.”

The American Chemistry Council said “smart, pro-growth policies can protect both the environment and human health as well as grow the U.S. economy.”

EPA’s alliance with industry raises questions

Despite the ongoing conversations, the Republican emphasis on deregulation still puts MAHA and the EPA on a potential collision course.

Lori Ann Burd, the environmental health program director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said the administration has a particularly strong alliance with industry interests.

As an example, she pointed to the EPA’s proposal to allow the broad use of the weed killer dicamba on soybeans and cotton. A month before the announcement, the EPA hired a lobbyist for the soybean association, Kyle Kunkler, to serve in a senior position overseeing pesticides.

Hirsch denied that Kunkler had anything to do with the decision and said the EPA’s pesticide decisions are “driven by statutory standards and scientific evidence.”

Environmentalists said the hiring of ex-industry leaders is a theme of this administration. Nancy Beck and Lynn Dekleva, for example, are former higher-ups at the American Chemistry Council, an industry association. They now work in leadership in the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, which oversees pesticide and toxic chemical regulation.

Hirsch said the agency consults with ethics officials to prevent conflicts of interest and ensures that appointees are qualified and focused on the science, “unlike previous administrations that too often deferred to activist groups instead of objective evidence.”

Alexandra Muñoz, a molecular toxicologist who works with MAHA activists on some issues and was in the hourlong meeting with Zeldin, said she could sense industry influence in the room.

“They were very polite in the meeting. In terms of the tone, there was a lot of receptivity,” she said. “However, in terms of what was said, it felt like we were interacting with a lot of industry talking points.”

Activists await the EPA’s MAHA agenda

Hirsch said the MAHA agenda will address issues such as lead pipes, forever chemicals, plastic pollution, food quality and Superfund cleanups.

Ryerson said she wants to get the chemical atrazine out of drinking water and stop the pre-harvest desiccation of food, in which farmers apply pesticides to crops immediately before they are harvested.

She also wants to see cancer warnings on the ingredient glyphosate, which some studies associate with cancer even as the EPA said it is unlikely to be carcinogenic to humans when used as directed.

Although she’s optimistic that the political payoffs will be big enough for Zeldin to act, she said some of the moves he’s already promoting as “MAHA wins” are no such thing.

For example, in his New Year’s Eve announcement on a group of chemicals called phthalates, he said the agency intends to regulate some of them for environmental and workplace risks, but didn’t address the thousands of consumer products that contain the ingredients.

Swan said time will tell if the agency is being performative.

“The EPA is giving very mixed signals right now,” she said.

Govindarao, Swenson and Phillis write for the Associated Press. Govindarao reported from Phoenix.

Los Angeles unions enjoy a decided “brand advantage” over corporations among city voters, and the labor movement should use that popularity to advance “union-led solutions” to key public policy issues in 2007, a memo written by top labor strategists says.

The two-page memo, which was obtained by The Times, argues for broader, more straightforward engagement on policy issues than many unions have undertaken in the past. Some labor leaders prefer to focus on their own contract issues, and even those who are active in politics often soft-pedal the “union” label.

The document demonstrates labor’s confidence as it heads into a new year of big battles over politics, contracts and organizing.

Labor is preparing to fight a referendum, which was qualified by the business community, to block an expansion of the city’s living wage ordinance. Civilian city employees, grocery store workers, security officers and teachers are seeking new union contracts, and hotel workers near the airport and truck drivers near the port are engaged in organizing drives.

The memo relies heavily on public opinion research conducted by a Democratic pollster, David Binder, including a survey of 800 city voters last fall. The document was written by three veteran strategists, John Hein, Bob Cherry and Don Attore, all of whom have retired from the political operation of the California Teachers Assn. The three work closely with Working Californians, a nonprofit research and advocacy group.

“There is a significant opportunity for organized labor in Los Angeles,” the memo says. “In particular, we’d highlight these factors: unions’ fundamentally positive image and ‘brand advantage’ over business corporations; the overlap between union priorities and the key concerns of voters across the electorate in L.A., and the opportunity to expand public understanding of the connection between local government and the full range of quality-of-life issues.”

Gary Toebben, president and chief executive of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, said that unions, to the extent that they engage in policy issues, “are copying the Chamber of Commerce…. For other groups to want to be involved in efforts to build a better community, I say we welcome them to the cause that we have been championing.”

Toebben and other leaders of Los Angeles’ business community are focusing on a referendum to block a new law, which is heavily backed by labor, to expand the city’s living wage ordinance to cover workers at airport-area hotels. The success of the referendum, which probably will appear on the ballot in May, is crucial to persuading businesses to come to Los Angeles, expand and create jobs, he said.

Asked at a news conference last week about whether the referendum was wise given labor’s growing strength in the city, Toebben said it would be wrong to “just let the bulldozer run over you.”

Binder’s poll found that unions have more public support in Los Angeles than in other areas of the state and country. Among city voters surveyed, 55% agreed that “without unions, there would be no middle-class left in America.”

Reflecting the labor movement’s influence in city politics, the memo argues for talking up local government’s ability to deal with issues such as the economy, healthcare and the environment, which generally are considered federal and state matters.

The memo calls “for a public education campaign focused on union-led solutions to the quality-of-life issues that Los Angeles voters regard as most important.” The memo suggests that such a campaign be conducted before 2008, when state and national election campaigns will probably consume union energy.

“Los Angeles, against its own history, is a labor town now,” said Cherry, one of the strategists, who was a key figure in the successful effort to defeat Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s slate of ballot initiatives in 2005. “One of the things that comes through in the poll is that people really see the potential of unions to take up the cause of ordinary people on quality-of-life issues.”

Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian and UC Santa Barbara professor, said he had “a certain admiration” for unions involving themselves more in policy issues, though he wonders if the public may prove skeptical.

In the long term, “this is the way that unions will make a breakthrough — when people see that solutions to society-wide questions are part of a labor agenda,” he said.

Binder’s polling suggests that any attempts by business to challenge union priorities will not be easy. Seventy-three percent of those surveyed agreed with the statement: “Big corporations are taking advantage of people like you.” Sixty-one percent of the Angelenos surveyed believe that oil companies are manipulating oil prices, including reducing prices during election times to keep supportive politicians in office.

Maria Elena Durazo, the leader of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, was briefed on the polling. She said in an interview that in 2007, she wanted to continue to organize workers while looking for opportunities to take on “the greediness of the corporations, which is pretty clear and pretty blatant.”

“Strategically, we just don’t take on everything that’s out there,” she said. “We’ve tried to put our resources in places where they make a difference.”

Dan Schnur, a Republican political consultant who teaches at USC, said that a public education campaign might be particularly effective this year, when no state or federal elections are scheduled.

“The best time to reach the voters with any type of argument is when their guard is down,” Schnur said. “The closer you get to an election, the more difficult it is to get through to people, but having this discussion in an off-year makes it much easier to get your message through.”

*

joe.mathews@latimes.com

They added that the government was “focused on delivering a balanced approach with strengthened law enforcement to tackle supply coupled with investment in treatment, the development of a skilled workforce, sustainable recovery services and peer networks that will support people in recovery with employment, housing and education”.

For months, Gregory Bovino has been the public face of President Trump’s sweeping immigration raids across U.S. cities.

When the brash Border Patrol commander charged into Los Angeles last summer with the stated mission of arresting thousands of immigrants, he was unapologetic as agents smashed car windows, concealed their identities with masks, seized brown-skinned Angelenos off the streets, and descended on MacArthur Park on horseback.

In Minneapolis, when a federal officer shot and killed U.S. citizen Renee Good on Jan. 7, Bovino’s response to Fox News’ Sean Hannity was, “Hats off to that ICE agent.”

And when a Border Patrol agent shot Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse, on Saturday, Bovino again defended the killing. Pretti, he said, looked like someone who “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”

But as public outrage has swelled against the Trump administration’s aggressive tactics, Bovino’s future is in limbo. On Monday, Trump deployed border advisor Tom Homan to Minnesota, with Bovino reportedly set to depart the region.

Now, the question remains: will Bovino’s departure really change the Trump playbook?

Ariel G. Ruiz Soto — a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank — said Bovino’s exit, if true, could represent a pivotal moment in immigration enforcement in the nation’s interior.

“I think it signals that the tensions have risen so significantly that there’s beginning to be ruptures and fragments within the Trump administration to try to figure out how to do this enforcement more efficiently, but also with more accountability,” Ruiz Soto said.

Other immigration experts, however, question the significance of sidelining Bovino.

“I think it’s a grave mistake to think the change in the personnel on the ground constitutes a change in policy,” said Lucas Guttentag, a professor of law at Stanford University who specializes in immigration. “Because the policy remains the same: to terrorize immigrant communities and intimidate peaceful protesters.”

Even if Bovino is ousted or given a lesser role, Guttentag said, national immigration policy is still shaped by Stephen Miller — the White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security advisor who has embraced hardline enforcement tactics.

“They’re still threatening to use military action,” Guttentag said. “They still want to keep the National Guard on call. All of those fundamental policies, as well as deporting people who had legal status, sending people to third world countries without any due process, adopting detention rules that deprive people of hearings to be eligible for release, all of that’s continuing.”

“Simply changing from Bovino to Homan,” he added, “doesn’t signal anything significant in terms of policy.”

::

So far, the Department of Homeland Security has remained publicly tight-lipped about what’s next for Bovino, and did not respond this week to inquiries from The Times.

However, the Associated Press reported Monday that Bovino and some federal agents were expected to leave Minneapolis as early as Tuesday. The Atlantic, citing DHS sources, reported that Bovino had been demoted from his role of Border Patrol commander at large and would return to his former job in El Centro, Calif.

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin disputed that Monday, saying on X that Bovino “has NOT been relieved of his duties.” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt described him as a “wonderful person” and “a great professional” who would “continue to lead Customs and Border Patrol throughout and across the country.”

There has been mounting criticism of and public protest against the administration’s activities since the launch of Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota last month. Trump said he sent Homan to Minnesota “to de-escalate a little bit.”

“Bovino is very good, but he’s a pretty out-there kind of a guy,” Trump said Tuesday during an interview on Fox News’ “The Will Cain Show.” “And in some cases that’s good. Maybe it wasn’t good here.”

::

A pugnacious 55-year-old who was born in California but raised in North Carolina, Bovino’s muscle-bound physique, green military greatcoat and gel-spiked hair seemed straight out of MAGA central casting.

Barreling into Los Angeles in June to command the Trump administration’s mass immigration raids, he seemed to relish confrontation as protests erupted and troops were deployed across the city.
“All over … the Los Angeles region, we’re going to turn and burn to that next target and the next and the next and the next, and we’re not going to stop,” Bovino told the Associated Press last summer. “We’re not going to stop until there’s not a problem here.”

When Bovino met legal setbacks, he was defiant.

In August, an appeals court upheld a temporary restraining order blocking his agents from targeting people in Southern and Central California based on race, language or vocation without reasonable suspicion they are in the U.S. illegally.

Bovino responded by posting a video on X that first showed L.A. Mayor Karen Bass telling reporters that “this experiment that was practiced on the city of Los Angeles failed” before cutting to himself grinning. As a frenetic mix of drums and bass kicked in, the video transitioned to footage of federal agents jumping out of a van to chase people down.

“When you’re faced with opposition to law and order, what do you do?” Bovino wrote. “Improvise, adapt, and overcome!”

After Bovino led agents in Los Angeles, he pivoted to Chicago to serve as the commander of Operation Midway Blitz. Then, he went to New Orleans before heading to Minnesota to lead what officials called Homeland Security’s “largest immigration operation ever.”

The fatal shootings of Good and Pretti by federal agents this month sparked outrage and protests, both in Minneapolis and around the nation.

Ruiz Soto said that the controversy over the Trump immigration policy was no longer just about immigrants.

“It’s about constitutional rights and it’s about U.S. citizens,” Ruiz Soto said. “For the broader public, it’s now much more immersive. It’s now much more in their face.”

After Border Patrol agents tackled Pretti to the ground and shot him, many Americans were outraged to hear Bovino and other senior Trump administration officials make false statements regarding the incident.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that Pretti approached federal officers on the street with a 9-millimeter semiautomatic handgun and “violently resisted” when officers tried to disarm him.

But according to videos taken on the scene, Pretti was holding a phone, not a handgun, when he stepped in front of a federal agent who had shoved a woman to the ground. The agent shoved and pepper-sprayed him and then multiple agents forced him to the ground. In the middle of the scrum, an agent secured a handgun. Less than a second later, the first shot was fired.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem asserted without evidence that Pretti had committed “an act of domestic terrorism,” and said her agency would lead the investigation into his killing.

Federal officials also denied Minnesota state investigators access to the shooting scene in south Minneapolis, prompting local and state officials to accuse the Homeland Security agency of mishandling evidence.

In the days since the shooting, Democrats in Congress have called for Noem to be removed from office.

“The country is disgusted by what the Department of Homeland Security has done,” Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Tuesday in a joint statement. “Kristi Noem should be fired immediately or we will commence impeachment proceedings in the House.”

When asked by reporters Tuesday whether Noem would step down, Trump said: “No.”

By sidelining Bovino, Ruiz Soto said the Trump administration appears to be sending a larger message.

“They’re going to try to restrict or home in the Border Patrol’s authority or at least the way they participate in operations and are going to now go back,” he said. “Or at least try to emulate more of the prior ICE model.”

Guttentag, however, said that while the public is seeing a tactical retreat on the part of the Trump administration, the problems went beyond Bovino’s leadership.

“So it’s not just the leadership, it’s the lack of training,” Guttentag said. “It’s the message that we’re getting from the very top, the statements from the vice president and others, that they have legal immunity. It’s the instructions to be as aggressive as they can be, and it’s also the lack of quality in the hiring and training process. All of that continues regardless of who the person on the ground is.”