revoke

Jose Raul Mulino says the visa-removal policy is ‘not coherent’ with the ‘good relationship’ he hopes to have with the US.

Panama President Jose Raul Mulino said that someone at the United States Embassy has been threatening to cancel the visas of Panamanian officials.

His statements come as the administration of US President Donald Trump pressures Panama to limit its ties to China.

Responding to a reporter’s question at his weekly news conference, Mulino said — without offering evidence — that an official at the US Embassy is “threatening to take visas”, adding that such actions are “not coherent with the good relationship I aspire to maintain with the United States”. He did not name the official.

The US Embassy in Panama did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Trump administration has previously declined to comment on individual visa decisions.

But in September, the US Department of State said in a statement that the country was committed to countering China’s influence in Central America. It added that it would restrict visas for people who maintained relationships with China’s Communist Party or undermined democracy in the region on behalf of China.

Earlier this week, the Trump administration revoked the visas of six foreigners deemed by US officials to have made derisive comments or made light of the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk last month.

Similar cases have surfaced recently in the region. In April, former Costa Rica President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Oscar Arias said the US had cancelled his visa. In July, Vanessa Castro, vice president of Costa Rica’s Congress, said that the US Embassy told her her visa had been revoked, citing alleged contacts with the Chinese Communist Party.

Panama has become especially sensitive to the US-China tensions because of the strategically important Panama Canal.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Panama in February on his first foreign trip as the top US diplomat and called for Panama to immediately reduce China’s influence over the canal.

Panama has strongly denied Chinese influence over canal operations but has gone along with US pressure to push the Hong Kong-based company that operated ports on both ends of the canal to sell its concession to a consortium.

Mulino has said that Panama will maintain the canal’s neutrality.

“They’re free to give and take a visa to anyone they want, but not threatening that, ‘If you don’t do something, I’ll take the visa,’” Mulino said Thursday.

He noted that the underlying issue — the conflict between the US and China — “doesn’t involve Panama”.

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

The Colombian leader was filmed joining thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters outside UN headquarters in New York.

The United States Department of State has said it will revoke the visa of Colombian President Gustavo Petro, citing his “reckless and incendiary actions” in relation to a speech he gave to protesters outside the United Nations headquarters in New York City on Friday.

“Earlier today, Colombian president [Gustavo Petro] stood on a NYC [New York City] street and urged U.S. soldiers to disobey orders and incite violence,” the department said in a post on X.

The post did not provide specific details on Petro’s alleged offence, but footage circulated on social media showed the Colombian leader joining thousands of pro-Palestine protesters outside the UN building in Midtown Manhattan.

In one video clip, Petro can be heard saying his country plans to present a resolution to the UN seeking to establish an “army for the salvation of the world”.

In an unofficial translation of his speech to protesters, Petro said that world nations will contribute soldiers to the army, which will “enforce the orders of international justice” and must be “larger” than the US military.

“I ask all of the soldiers of the army of the US not to point their guns at humanity. Disobey the orders of Trump. Obey the orders of humanity,” the Colombian leader said.

Earlier today, Colombian president @petrogustavo stood on a NYC street and urged U.S. soldiers to disobey orders and incite violence.

We will revoke Petro’s visa due to his reckless and incendiary actions.

— Department of State (@StateDept) September 27, 2025

Huge protests took place outside the UN headquarters on Friday as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on the fourth day of the UN General Assembly’s General Debate.

The Israeli leader delivered a bombastic speech as he told world leaders Israel must be allowed to “finish the job” in Gaza, where the Israeli army has been accused of perpetrating genocide, and lambasting Western states for their “disgraceful decision” to recognise a Palestinian state.

Petro’s office and Colombia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the visa revocation from the Reuters news agency.

In a speech to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Petro also hit out at US President Donald Trump, saying the US leader was “complicit in genocide” in Gaza and called for “criminal proceedings” over US air attacks on boats in Caribbean waters that Washington has accused of trafficking drugs.

Petro’s social media profile on Friday showed he had reposted several video clips of himself speaking to the pro-Palestinian protesters in New York.

O’Donnell says the Republican US president hates her because she sees ‘him for who he is – a criminal con man’.

United States President Donald Trump has said he might revoke talk-show host Rosie O’Donnell’s US citizenship after she criticised his administration’s handling of weather forecasting agencies in the wake of the deadly Texas floods.

Trump’s threats are the latest salvo in a years-long feud the two have waged over social media.

“Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship,” the US president wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Trump has long called for the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, but in recent weeks, he has suggested that he would remove US citizens that he disagrees with from the country.

“She is a Threat to Humanity, and should remain in the wonderful Country of Ireland, if they want her. GOD BLESS AMERICA!” Trump wrote.

Under the law, a president cannot revoke the citizenship of an American born in the US. O’Donnell was born in New York state.

Trump’s latest jab at O’Donnell seemed to be in response to a TikTok video she posted this month, mourning the 119 deaths in the July 4 floods in Texas and blaming Trump’s widespread cuts to environmental and science agencies involved in forecasting major natural disasters.

“What a horror story in Texas,” O’Donnell said in the video. “And you know, when the president guts all the early warning systems and the weathering forecast abilities of the government, these are the results that we’re gonna start to see on a daily basis.”

The Trump administration, as well as local and state officials, have faced mounting questions about whether more could have been done to protect and warn residents in advance of the Texas flooding, which killed at least 120 people earlier this month.

Trump, on Friday, visited Texas and defended the government’s response to the disaster, saying his agencies “did an incredible job under the circumstances.”

O’Donnell responded to Trump’s threat in two posts on her Instagram account, saying: “the president of the usa has always hated the fact that i see him for who he is – a criminal con man sexual abusing liar out to harm our nation to serve himself.”

She added that he opposes her because she “stands in direct opposition with all he represents”.

O’Donnell has been a longtime target of Trump’s insults and jabs.

In 2014, when she opened up about her weight loss journey, Trump said on X that “she felt ‘shame’ at being fat-not politically correct! She killed Star Jones for weight loss surgery, just had it!”

During Trump’s first presidency, O’Donnell told W magazine that she feared whether she would be able to “live through” his presidency.

Following Trump’s inauguration for his second presidential term in January this year, she moved to Ireland earlier this year with her 12-year-old son.

In a March TikTok video, she said that she would return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.

Earlier this month, Trump said he may look at options to deport his former aide-turned-critic, Elon Musk, a naturalised US citizen.

And last month, the White House said allegations that Democratic nominee for New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani has supported “terrorism” in the past “should be investigated”, with the intent of revoking his citizenship.

Human rights activists fear the move approved by lawmakers could be used to target political opponents.

Lawmakers in Cambodia have amended the country’s constitution to allow legislation that would see citizenship stripped from those deemed to have colluded with foreign powers.

The constitutional change, which was unanimously supported by 125 politicians in the National Assembly on Friday, has drawn criticism from rights groups, which have expressed concern that it could be used to target political opponents.

The government said it will soon make use of the amendment.

Justice Minister Koeut Rith confirmed that a new citizenship revocation bill would be swiftly brought before parliament.

“If you betray the nation, the nation will not keep you,” he said before dismissing critics’ unease about the move.

The justice minister claimed that those who have not harmed the national interests will not be stripped of their citizenship, adding that they might still “face other charges”.

Before Friday’s vote, the constitution specified that Khmer citizens could lose their citizenship only “through mutual agreement”.

However, after being revised, Article 33 of the constitution now states that “receiving, losing and revoking Khmer nationality shall be determined by law”.

Amnesty International condemned the change on Friday, urging the international community to criticise Cambodia over the decision.

“As the proposal moves closer to becoming reality, anyone who speaks out against or opposes the ruling party will be at risk of having their citizenship revoked,” the NGO’s regional research director, Montse Ferrer, said.

“We are deeply concerned that the Cambodian government, given the power to strip people of their citizenship, will misuse it to crack down on its critics and make them stateless.”

Last month, Hun Sen, the influential former Cambodian prime minister, called for the constitution to be changed so Cambodians could be stripped of their citizenship.

This came after exiled opposition figures condemned the government over its ongoing border dispute with Thailand.

Former opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who lives in exile to avoid being sent to prison, was among those Hun Sen accused of speaking against the interests of the nation.

The ruling means people from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua can be targeted for deportation as lawsuits continue.

The conservative-dominated United States Supreme Court has handed President Donald Trump another major victory, allowing his administration to revoke a temporary legal status from more than 500,000 immigrants as legal challenges continue in lower courts.

Friday’s decision applies to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan, Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan people who were granted humanitarian parole under the administration of former President Joe Biden.

That parole status allowed them to enter the US due to emergencies or urgent humanitarian reasons, including instability, violence and political repression in their home countries.

But the Supreme Court’s ruling means that the beneficiaries of humanitarian parole could be targeted for deportation prior to a final ruling on whether the revocation of their immigration status is legal.

The ruling by the top court, which is dominated six-to-three by conservatives, reverses a lower court’s order temporarily halting the Trump administration from yanking humanitarian parole from Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans.

The Supreme Court’s decision was unsigned and did not provide reasoning. However, two liberal justices on the panel publicly dissented.

The outcome “undervalues the devastating consequences of allowing the government to precipitously upend the lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens while their legal claims are pending”, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote.

She noted that some of the affected individuals had indicated in court filings that they would face grave harm if their humanitarian parole were cut short.

Trump has targeted programmes like humanitarian parole as part of his efforts to limit immigration into the US. His administration has accused Biden of “broad abuse” in his invocation of humanitarian parole: Trump has said Biden was lax on immigration and oversaw an “invasion” of the US from abroad.

Since taking office in January, Trump’s administration has also indefinitely suspended applications for asylum and other forms of immigration relief.

The plaintiffs in Friday’s humanitarian parole case warned the Supreme Court they could face life-threatening conditions if they were not allowed to seek other avenues for immigration and were forced to leave the country.

If they were deported “to the same despotic and unstable countries from which they fled”, lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that “many will face serious risks of danger, persecution and even death”.

Earlier in May, the Supreme Court also allowed Trump to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) — another temporary immigration pathway — for about 350,000 Venezuelans living in the US. TPS allows non-citizens to remain in the US while circumstances in their home countries remain unsafe or unstable.

As with Friday’s case, the Supreme Court’s ruling on TPS allowed the Trump administration to move forward with removals while a legal challenge to Trump’s policy plays out in lower courts.

Biden had encouraged the use of programmes like TPS and humanitarian parole as alternatives to undocumented immigration into the US.

Humanitarian parole, for instance, allowed recipients to legally live and work in the US for two years. Trump’s efforts to end the programme would cut that timeframe short.

The countries in question — Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti — have all experienced significant economic and political crises in recent years.

In Venezuela, for instance, critics have accused President Nicolas Maduro of detaining and disappearing political dissidents and activists, and an economic collapse caused hyperinflation that put basic necessities beyond the means of many Venezuelans. Millions have fled the country in recent years.

One of the other countries, Haiti, has been ravaged by a spike in gang violence since the assassination of President Jovenal Moise in 2021. Federal elections have not been held since, and gangs have used violence to fill the power vacuum.

As much as 90 percent of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, has fallen under gang control, according to the United Nations, and thousands have been killed.

US Supreme Court lets Trump terminate Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of people from Venezuela.

Washington, DC – The United States Supreme Court has enabled the administration of President Donald Trump to revoke the protected immigration status of about 350,000 Venezuelans.

The top court’s justices issued a brief order on Monday, granting the administration’s request for lifting the suspension that had been placed by a lower court in March.

In February, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem terminated a 2023 Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for Venezuelans that had been issued by the administration of former President Joe Biden.

TPS is a programme that shields noncitizens already in the US on a temporary basis from deportation and allows them to seek a work permit if the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) deems their home country to be unsafe to return to.

Millions of people have fled Venezuela in recent years due to political repression and a crippling economic crisis spurred in part by US sanctions against the government of President Nicolas Maduro.

The Supreme Court did not elaborate on why it sided with the Trump administration on Monday. The ruling simply added that liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson “would deny” the government’s request.

The DHS had argued that TPS designations are not subject to judicial review.

Noem had declared the 2023 designation for Venezuela “contrary to the national interest”, citing gang membership and “adverse effects on US workers”. However, she kept a previous TPS issued for Venezuelans in place.

DHS welcomed the ruling on Monday, saying without evidence that the Biden administration granted TPS to “gang members” and “known terrorists and murderers”.

“The Trump Administration is reinstituting integrity into our immigration system to keep our homeland and its people safe,” the agency said in a social media post.

Several Democrats described the push to deport Venezuelans – part of a border immigration crackdown – as cruel, rejecting the Trump administration’s allegation that people under the TPS designation are criminals and “terrorists”.

“Venezuelans face extreme oppression, arbitrary detention, extrajudicial killings and torture,” Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal said in a statement.

“Poverty levels are surging, and essentials like electricity, water and medical care are scarce. The dire circumstances in Venezuela make it clear that this is exactly the type of situation that requires the government to provide TPS.”

May 19 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to revoke special legal protections for nearly 350,000 Venezuelan nationals living in the United States temporarily.

Homeland Security had asked the justices to lift a lower court’s injunction that blocked Secretary Kristi Noem’s revocations of the Temporary Protected Status program, or TPS.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she would deny emergency relief.

The brief order said Northern California district court order is “stayed pending the disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, if such a writ is timely sought.”

The TPS program, created in 1990, provides temporary legal status and work authorization to nationals from countries experiencing armed conflict, natural disasters or other extraordinary conditions.

On Feb. 3, Noem terminated the designation, which began in March 2021 and was extended by the Biden administration in October 2023. On April 7, protected Venezuelans were to lose their government-issued work permits and deportation protections.

Another 250,000 immigrants from the Central American country who arrived before 2023 will lose their status in September.

In all, about eight million people have left Venezuela since 2014 due to political persecution, violence, and a lack of food and access to essential services. In 2023, Nicolás Maduro was elected in a race contested as fraudulent by the opposition and outside observers.

The Venezuelan program is the largest TPS designation.

At least 60 days before a TPS designation expires, the agency’s secretary is required to review the conditions in a country designated for TPS to determine whether the conditions supporting the designation continue to be met.

On March 30, District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco blocked the action and said the decision to terminate the TPS program for the Venezuelans appeared to be “predicated on negative stereotypes.” The appointee of President Barack Obama said the order was “motivated by unconstitutional animus” and unlikely to prevail in a court’s final decision.

On April 15, Massachusetts-based U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, also appointed by Obama, separately temporarily blocked a TPS revocation of about 532,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela in the United States. It was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court

Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in the administration’s emergency appeal of the decision by Chen: “So long as the order is in effect, the secretary must permit hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan nationals to remain in the country, notwithstanding her reasoned determination that doing so is ‘contrary to the national interest.'”

Seven Venezuelan nationals covered by TPS and a group that represents others challenged the change.

Lawyers for TPS beneficiaries told the Supreme Court in a filing: “Staying the district court’s order would cause far more harm than it would stop. It would radically shift the status quo, stripping plaintiffs of their legal status and requiring them to return to a country the State Department still deems too dangerous even to visit.”

The U.S. State Department advises Americans not to travel to Venezuela, the highest travel advisory level.

At the end of Trump’s first term, officials described Venezuela as “the worst humanitarian crisis in the Western Hemisphere.” A different form of temporary relief to some of its migrants was granted.

This litigation is separate from lawsuits involving Trump’s use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members. The Supreme Court ruled Friday again against the administration, saying more notice is needed for people to challenge their removal under the act, which has been used during wars. In April, the justices paused deportations of any Venezuelans held in northern Texas.