Donald Trump

May 16 (UPI) — The United States and the United Arab Emirates have agreed to form an Artificial Intelligence alliance.

The U.S. Department of Commerce announced in a statement that the United States will launch a one-gigawatt AI data center, which in turn will be a part of a five-gigawatt “UAE-U.S. artificial intelligence technology cluster” in the UAE capital city of Abu Dhabi.

The cluster will manage the region’s computation needs that will operate under American-level security standards and be open to the distribution of new AI infrastructure that can serve on an international level.

A group will be formed between the countries within 30 days of its announcement and will “work together to make more efficient the process of inward investments into the United States by UAE Investment Funds,” which also involves UAE investment in American digital infrastructure.

“We are proud to announce the US-UAE AI Acceleration Partnership,” U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick posted to X Thursday. “Together we will build the largest AI data center outside the United States, powered by American companies and high tech manufacturing.”

The deal was made public as President Donald Trump continues a trip through the Gulf region and stopped to visit a new AI campus in Abu Dhabi, where American-produced AI chips will computationally power the facility and become the largest project of its type anywhere outside the United States.

The Biden administration had set an “AI Diffusion Rule” in January, under which the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security added exceptions to the facilitation in regard to the export, reexport of transfer of “advanced computing” to ensure the tech ended up with “users in destinations that do not raise national security or foreign policy concerns.”

The Trump administration rescinded that rule Tuesday, a deregulation that now allows the federal government to make deals with other countries to decide how many American chips they would like to purchase.

“The Trump Administration will pursue a bold, inclusive strategy to American AI technology with trusted foreign countries around the world, while keeping the technology out of the hands of our adversaries,” said Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Jeffery Kessler in a Tuesday press release.

A social media post has dragged former FBI director James Comey into a maelstrom of accusations from critics that he called for the assassination of United States President Donald Trump.

Comey, a fierce Trump critic, denied in a statement that the photo he took and shared on Instagram was a call for violence, adding that “I oppose violence of any kind.” He has since taken down the photo in question.

His rebuttal has, however, done little to calm Trump’s supporters, with the country’s Homeland Security Department and the Secret Service announcing on Thursday that they were investigating the incident.

Here’s a breakdown of what happened:

What did Comey Post?

Comey shared an Instagram photo on Thursday showing seashells on a beach arranged in the numbers “86 47”.

“Cool shell formation on my beach walk,” his caption read.

Critics were quick to point out that the number “86” refers to old US slang that refers to “getting rid of” something, or “removing something”. The slang was highly in use in restaurants back in the 1930s, and usually signalled to waiters and customers that an item on a menu was sold out and could not be provided.

The “47”, they claim, refers to Trump’s current term in office as the 47th president of the US.

Comey, on the same day, took the photo down. In a separate Instagram post, the former intelligence boss explained that he took the photo while “on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message”.

“I didn’t realise some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me, but I oppose violence of any kind, so I took the post down,” he said.

The hashtag #8647 has previously, and as early as March, appeared on social media sites like TikTok among posters criticising Trump and calling for his removal. It has come to represent a silent code for opposing the president.

What have Trump’s allies said?

Trump’s supporters on social media channels have denounced Comey’s post, calling it a call for the president’s “assassination”.

Just James Comey causally calling for my dad to be murdered.

This is who the Dem-Media worships. Demented!!!! pic.twitter.com/4LUK6crHAT

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) May 15, 2025

President Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr on Thursday said in an X post that Comey had “casually called for my dad to be murdered”, adding that the post was “demented”.

Grok, a conversational AI assistant on the Elon Musk-owned social media site, responding to comments from X users asking for clarification on the meaning of the numbers, said it was “basically a sneaky way of saying “get rid of Trump”. However, the assistant also added that the numbers do not “inherently mean assassinate Trump” but rather they imply “political removal”.

Speaking on Fox News, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard said she did not accept that Comey was unaware of the violent interpretation of “86 47”. Gabbard said Comey “should be held accountable and put behind bars for this”.

Republican Congressman Andy Ogles said he sent a letter to US intelligence agencies calling for an investigation into Comey’s “disturbing” post to see if the former intelligence boss had violated two federal laws – threatening the president and interstate sharing of threatening communication.

Ogles also demanded confirmation on whether Comey still has access to classified material because of his previous role as FBI director.

“If Comey broke the law, he shouldn’t get a pass. He should be in handcuffs,” Ogles wrote on X.

Meanwhile, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in an X post said the matter was already being investigated by US intelligence authorities.

“Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey just called for the assassination of @POTUS Trump. DHS and Secret Service is investigating this threat and will respond appropriately,” she posted.

FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed on X that his agency will aid the investigation and “provide all necessary support”.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair said Comey’s post was a call to “terrorists & hostile regimes to kill the President of the United States as he travels in the Middle East”.

“Any Democrat or Media Outlet who fails to condemn this clear Incitement of Violence is complicit and must be described as such.”

What is Comey and Trump’s past relationship?

Comey was appointed by former President Barack Obama. Before the 2016 election, Comey investigated Hillary Clinton’s use of private email servers during her time as secretary of state. Many Democrats argue that this investigation, on the eve of the vote, cost her the election, in which Clinton was the party’s nominee against Trump.

But Comey also led the FBI’s investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections, and was fired in 2017 by Trump early in his first term in office.

Comey had testified to Congress that Russia did interfere in the 2016 elections. The administration’s official reason for firing him was that Comey was “ineffective”, referring to dissatisfaction with the Clinton investigation, which eventually ended without the politician being charged.

The major sticking point between Trump and Comey, according to analysts, was Comey’s focus on the Russia issue and his refusal to state in public that Trump and his Trump Organisation were not personally being investigated.

Comey began vocally criticising Trump following his dismissal, calling him “morally unfit” to be president and a threat to the norms of democracy in his 2018 memoir, A Higher Loyalty.

May 16 (UPI) — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced Thursday night that DHS and the Secret Service are investigating a since-deleted picture former FBI Director James Comey published online as a threat targeting President Donald Trump.

“Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey just called for the assassination of @POTUS Trump,” she said online. “DHS and Secret Service is investigating this threat and will respond appropriately.”

Comey had published the now-deleted photo to Instagram. It showed shells on a beach arranged to form the numerals “86 47.”

“Cool shell formation on my beach walk,” Comey had written in the caption.

The number 86 is widely used code in restaurants and the hospitality industry meaning an item is either sold out, no longer available or should be removed from a dish. The Merriam-Webster dictionary says it is slag meaning to eject, dismiss or remove.

The number 47 suggests Trump, who is the 47th president of the United States.

The president’s eldest child, Donald Trump Jr., published a screenshot of the deleted post to his X account, describing the image as “James Comey casually calling for my dad to be murdered.”

In a follow-up post on Instagram, Comey explained that he had assumed the shells conveyed a political statement but not one suggesting violence.

“I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message. I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence,” he said. “It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”

FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement that the FBI is aware of the post “directed at President Trump” and is in contact with the Secret Service.

“Primary jurisdiction is with SS on these matters and we, the FBI, will provide all necessary support,” he said.

UPI has contacted the Secret Service for comment.

Tulsi Gabbard, director of National Intelligence, also described the image on X as Comey issuing “a call to action to murder the President of the United States.”

In an interview with Fox News, Gabbard said Comey should be jailed for it.

“I’m very concerned for the president’s life,” she said. “And James Comey, in my view, should be held accountable and put behind bars for this.”

Comey served as director of the FBI from 2013 until he was fired by Trump during his first term in 2017, during which his office investigated Russian interference into the 2016 election and Hillary Clinton‘s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.

These are the key events on day 1,177 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is where things stand on Friday, May 16 :

Fighting

• Fighting continues along the 1,100km (683 mile) front line, where Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces captured two settlements located near Moscow’s long-term targets. Russia claimed to have taken Novooleksandrivka, a rural village near Pokrovsk, a logistics hub in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, as well as the town of Torske, which is located near the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.
• The Ukrainian military acknowledged that Novooleksandrivka had been under attack, but it did not mention Torske in its latest report.
• Oleksandr Syrskii, Ukraine’s top military commander, said on Telegram that Russia “has turned its aggression against Ukraine into a war of attrition and is using a combined force of up to 640,000 troops”.
• Ukraine lost its first F-16 fighter jet on Friday due to an “unusual situation on board”, but the pilot successfully ejected, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.

Ceasefire

• Turkish, Russian and Ukrainian envoys will hold trilateral talks in Istanbul, although hopes are low for any breakthrough after Russia sent a lower-level delegation to the meeting than hoped. The meeting marks the first direct talks between Russia and Ukraine since a meeting in 2022 also held in Istanbul.
• Turkiye will take part in two trilateral meetings on Friday as part of the renewed diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine, Turkish Foreign Ministry sources told the Reuters news agency.
• A meeting will take place between Turkish, US and Ukrainian officials and is scheduled to take place at 10:45am local time [07:45 GMT], followed by talks between Turkish, Russian and Ukrainian delegations at 12:30pm [09:30 GMT], the sources told Reuters.
• The Ukrainian delegation will now be led by Defence Minister Rustem Umerov instead of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Thursday.
• “We can’t be running around the world looking for Putin,” Zelenskyy said after a meeting with Erdogan. “I feel disrespect from Russia. No meeting time, no agenda, no high-level delegation – this is personal disrespect. To Erdogan, to Trump.”
• US President Donald Trump said an agreement between Russia and Ukraine is not possible without him first meeting Putin. “I don’t believe anything’s going to happen, whether you like it or not, until he and I get together,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One.

Senators accuse US President Donald Trump of engaging in ‘corruption of US foreign policy’ with defence deals.

A group of United States senators is trying to halt $3.5bn in weapons sales to the United Arab Emirates and Qatar over concerns that the deals will personally benefit the family of US President Donald Trump.

Two “resolutions of disapproval” were submitted on Thursday in the US by Democratic Senators Chris Murphy, Chris Van Hollen, Brian Schatz and Tim Kaine, along with Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who often votes with Democrats.

The legislators also issued statements accusing President Trump, who is concluding a trip to the Middle East, of actively engaging in the “corruption of US foreign policy” over the timing of the sales and recent investment deals.

The Department of State this week approved the $1.6bn sale to the UAE of Chinook helicopters and equipment, F-16 aircraft components, and spare and repair parts to support Apache, Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters. Initial reporting cited the figure as close to $1.3bn, but the $1.6bn figure was used in a statement from the legislators. The lawmakers are also seeking to block $1.9bn in sales to Qatar of MQ-9B Predator drones and associated equipment, which was approved by the State Department in March.

The legislators accuse Trump of accepting favours in exchange for the deals, citing news from April that the Emirati investment firm MGX would use a stablecoin – a cryptocurrency whose value is pegged to another asset – issued by the Trump family-backed World Liberty Financial to finance a $2bn investment in the cryptocurrency exchange Binance.

The Trump family is reported to have made millions off niche cryptocurrencies like the $TRUMP “meme coin” since the president returned to the White House in January.

I know Trump’s crypto scams can seem hard to understand. So I went the Senate floor to break down the most outrageous one.

A foreign government is investing $2 billion in Trump’s coin to get favorable treatment from the Administration. A wild corruption.

Here’s how it works. pic.twitter.com/pxLSlZH2QN

— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) May 13, 2025

In addition to business dealings, the senators also expressed fears that US weapons sent to the UAE could end up in the hands of Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which is allegedly backed by the UAE and has played a critical role in Sudan’s civil war.

“The US should not be delivering weapons to the UAE as it aids and abets this humanitarian disaster and gross human rights violations,” Van Hollen said, citing Sudan’s civil war.

The senators also cited Qatar’s offer of a Boeing 747 jumbo for the president’s temporary use as Air Force One. The offer has drawn criticism from both Democrats and some Republicans because it would be the most expensive foreign gift ever exchanged between a foreign government and an elected US official.

“There’s nothing Donald Trump loves more than being treated like a king, and that’s exactly why foreign governments are trying to buy his favour with a luxury jumbo jet and investments in Trump’s crypto scams,” Murphy said in a statement.

When asked about the offer of the aircraft, Trump blamed Boeing’s lack of progress in building a new Air Force One and said he would be “stupid” to refuse a free plane.

“It’s not a gift to me, it’s a gift to the Department of Defense,” he said.

It is unclear when a vote will happen on the joint “resolutions of disapproval”, but the US political news outlet The Hill said that due to the nature of the bills, Democrats will likely force them to the floor of the Senate.

US President Donald Trump, who promised to end America’s foreign military campaigns, has paid a visit to US troops stationed in Qatar. Trump praised the US’s deadly arsenal, hit out at his predecessor and made fun of France.

Washington, DC – Justices at the US Supreme Court have questioned lawyers representing the administration of US President Donald Trump and those challenging his effort to end birthright citizenship in the country.

The hearing on Thursday represented the first time the top court in the United States has heard a case related to Trump’s January 20 order seeking to do away with the more-than-century-old policy, which grants citizenship to nearly all infants born on US soil, regardless of their parents’ legal status.

It was not immediately clear when the court would issue a ruling in the case, although an outcome could take weeks. It also remained unclear if the justices would address the underlying constitutionality of Trump’s order, or if they would only rule on the narrower question of whether lower federal court justices are empowered to block the implementation of the order nationwide.

Still, demonstrators and lawmakers who gathered outside of the Washington, DC courthouse said any ruling challenging birthright citizenship would corrode the national fabric of the US.

“We are here at the highest court in the land because a fundamental promise of America is under attack. And we are here to say not on our watch,” Ama Frimpong, the legal director of CASA, told those gathered in protest.

“All persons born in the US are citizens of the US,” Frimpong said.

Legal experts have also said a ruling limiting federal courts’ ability to order a “national” or “universal” injunction to block Trump’s executive actions would in and of itself be transformative.

“That question, in a normal sense, would already shake the legal foundation of the country: whether lower courts have the right to order nationwide injunctions,” said Al Jazeera’s Heidi Zhou-Castro from outside the courthouse.

“But it’s the second question that really people are focused on, and that is if Trump has the power to cancel birthright citizenship for the children born to undocumented immigrants and certain visa holders visiting the US,” she said.

“Now it is up to the justices whether they want to go in either of those directions.”

‘Catch me if you can kind of regime’

Over two hours of questioning, lawyers for the Trump administration, as well as those representing states and individuals who have challenged Trump’s order, addressed matters both of constitutional grandeur and legal minutia.

Solicitor General John Sauer began by laying out the Trump administration’s broad argument that the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, has been incorrectly interpreted since then. The amendment, Sauer argued, “guarantees citizenship to the children of former slaves, not to illegal aliens or temporary visitors”.

Trump also reiterated that position in a Truth Social post ahead of the hearing, saying birthright citizenship makes the US a “STUPID Country” that incentivises people to visit to have children.

Sauer also took aim at the three federal judges who have ruled in favour of separate lawsuits challenging the law’s constitutionality. Plaintiffs in those cases include 22 state attorneys general, immigrant rights organisations, and individuals affected by the rule. Sauer argued that the judges’ decisions should only apply to the plaintiffs in the cases, and not the entire nation.

Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor questioned whether the broader constitutional question could be unpicked from the narrower question of the judges’ reach, saying the president’s order violates “by my count, four established Supreme Court precedents”.

That included the 1898 Supreme Court case, United States v Wong Kim Ark, which first established that the 14th Amendment applies to immigrants, she said.

Other justices questioned the implications of a scenario where the court ruled that the judges could not issue “national injunctions” in the case, without answering the underlying constitutional question.

Legal scholars have noted that this could create a situation where Trump’s end to birthright citizenship would not apply to states and individuals who successfully challenged his order in court. That would mean birthright citizenship – at least temporarily – would end in 28 other states if they do not launch their own challenges.

“Does every single person that is affected by this EO [executive order] have to bring their own suit?” Justice Elena Kagan questioned.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the Trump administration’s argument turns the US justice system into a “catch me if you can kind of regime”.

Under that, “everybody has to have a lawyer and file a lawsuit in order for the government to stop violating people’s rights”.

The magistrate ruled that apprehended migrants may not have been aware they were crossing into a military zone.

A United States judge in the southwestern state of New Mexico has dismissed trespassing charges against dozens of migrants apprehended in a military zone recently created under President Donald Trump.

The military zone is one of two so far that the Trump administration has created along the US-Mexico border, in order to deter undocumented migration into the country.

Entering a military zone can result in heightened criminal penalties. As many as 400 cases have since been filed in Las Cruces, New Mexico, alleging security violations and crimes like trespassing on restricted military property.

But starting late on Wednesday and continuing into Thursday, Chief US Magistrate Judge Gregory Wormuth began issuing dismissals at the request of the federal public defender’s office in Las Cruces.

Wormuth ruled that the government had failed to demonstrate that the migrants knew they were entering a military zone.

“The criminal complaint fails to establish probable cause to believe the defendant knew he/she was entering” the military zone, Wormuth wrote in his orders dismissing charges.

The ruling is the latest legal setback for the Trump administration, as it seeks to impose stricter restrictions and penalties for undocumented immigration. But the president’s broad use of executive power has drawn the ire of civil liberties groups, who argue that Trump is trampling constitutional safeguards.

Establishing new military zones has been part of Trump’s strategy to reduce the flow of migration into the US.

Normally, the crime of “improper entry by an alien” carries fines or a prison sentence of up to six months. But trespassing on a military zone comes with steeper penalties than a typical border crossing, and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has warned of a possible combined sentence of up to 10 years.

“You can be detained. You will be detained,” Hegseth warned migrants. “You will be interdicted by US troops and border patrol working together.”

On April 18, the first military zone was unveiled, called the  “New Mexico National Defence Area”. It covered a stretch of about 274 kilometres — or 180 miles — along the border with Mexico, extending into land formerly held by the Department of the Interior.

Hegseth has said he would like to see more military zones set up along the border, and in early May, a second one was announced near El Paso, Texas. That strip was approximately 101km or 63 miles.

“Let me be clear: if you cross into the National Defense Area, you will be charged to the FULLEST extent of the law,” Hegseth wrote in a social media post.

Hegseth has previously stated that the military will continue to expand such zones until they have achieved “100 percent operational control” of the border.

Trump and his allies have frequently compared undocumented immigration to an “invasion”, and they have used that justification to invoke wartime laws like the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

In a court brief on behalf of the Trump administration, US Attorney Ryan Ellison argued that the new military zones were a vital bulwark for national security. He also rejected the idea that innocent people might be caught in those areas.

“The New Mexico National Defense Area is a crucial installation necessary to strengthen the authority of servicemembers to help secure our borders and safeguard the country,” Ellison said.

He noted that the government had put up “restricted area” signs along the border. But the public defender’s office in New Mexico argued that the government had not done enough to make it sufficiently clear to migrants in the area that they were entering a military zone.

In the US, the public defenders noted that trespassing requires that the migrants were aware of the restriction and acted “in defiance of that regulation for some nefarious or bad purpose”.

Despite this week’s dismissals, the migrants involved still face less severe charges of crossing the border illegally.

US president claims he has sealed deals worth $10 trillion during visits to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE.

President Donald Trump has hailed deepening ties between the United States and the United Arab Emirates and said that the latter will invest $1.4 trillion in the former’s artificial intelligence sector over the next decade.

“I have absolutely no doubt that the relationship will only get bigger and better,” Trump said on Thursday at a meeting with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, on the final leg of his three-country tour of the Gulf region that saw him strike a series of lucrative tech, business and military deals that he said amounted to $10 trillion.

Sheikh Mohammed said the UAE remained “committed to working with the United States to advance peace and stability in our region and globally”.

The deal with UAE is expected to enable the Gulf country to build data centres vital to developing artificial intelligence models. The countries did not say which AI chips could be included in UAE data centres. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had earlier been seen in conversation with Sheikh Mohamed and Trump.

The AI agreement “includes the UAE committing to invest in, build, or finance U.S. data centres that are at least as large and as powerful as those in the UAE,” the White House said.

Reporting from Doha in Qatar, Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra said such a deal had been “a national security concern” for Washington in the past. “But then they decided to change their mind under Trump, particularly when the UAE said that it was willing to invest $1.4 trillion,” he said.

Ahelbarra said the deal was a “significant step” for the UAE, positioning it as “the most important player in artificial intelligence, followed by Saudi Arabia”.

Before his departure for the UAE, Trump said in a speech to US troops at the Al Udeid Air Base southwest of Doha in Qatar that defence purchases signed by Qatar on Wednesday were worth $42bn.

Other agreements signed during Trump’s four-day swing through the Gulf include a deal for Qatar Airways to purchase up to 210 Boeing widebody jets, and a commitment from Saudi Arabia to invest $600bn in the US and to buy $142bn worth of US arms.

The tour also brought a flurry of diplomacy, with Trump saying in Qatar on Thursday that the US was getting close to securing a nuclear deal with Iran. On Tuesday, he said the US would remove longstanding sanctions on Syria.

Trump said he would probably return to Washington on Friday, although he said it was “almost destination unknown because they’ll be getting calls ‘Could you be here? Could you be there?’”

Trump had previously hinted that he could stop in Istanbul for talks on the Russia-Ukraine war.

Avelo Airlines, a Texas-based budget carrier, is facing backlash from both customers and employees over its decision to operate deportation flights under a new contract with the Trump administration.

Avelo, which has been struggling financially, signed a contract with the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) last month to transport migrants to detention centres inside and outside the US, according to an internal company memo reviewed by the Reuters news agency.

On Monday, the airline flew its first flight under the deal from Arizona to Louisiana, data from flight-tracking services FlightAware and Flightradar24 showed.

Avelo plans to dedicate three aircraft to deportation operations and has established a charter-only base in Mesa, Arizona, specifically for these flights, according to the company memo.

The union representing Avelo’s flight attendants called the contract “bad for the airline”, and one customer has helped organise a petition urging travellers to boycott the airline.

US President Donald Trump has launched a hardline crackdown on undocumented immigration, including the deportation of Venezuelan migrants he accuses of being gang members to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador. Immigration authorities also detained and moved to deport some legal permanent US residents. Trump’s policies have triggered a rash of lawsuits and protests.

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at DHS, said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was deporting illegal aliens who broke the country’s laws. She called the protests “nothing more than a tired tactic to abolish ICE by proxy”.

“Avelo Airlines is a sub-carrier on a government contract to assist with deportation flights,” McLaughlin said in a statement. “Attacks and demonization of ICE and our partners is wrong.”

On defence

The airline on Wednesday confirmed its long-term agreement with ICE and said it was vital to Avelo’s financial stability. It also shared a statement from CEO Andrew Levy acknowledging that it is a “sensitive and complicated topic”, but saying that the decision on the contract came “after significant deliberations”.

The statement added that the deal would keep the airline’s “more than 1,100 crewmembers employed for years to come”.

Avelo said it will use three Boeing 737-800 planes in Mesa, Arizona.

“Flights will be both domestic and international,” the company said, declining to share more details of the agreement.

Avelo, which launched in 2021, was forced to suspend its most recent fundraising round after reporting its worst quarterly performance in two years.

In a message to employees last month, Levy said the airline was spending more than it earned from its customers, forcing it to seek repeated infusions of capital from investors.

“I realize some may view the decision to fly for DHS as controversial,” Levy wrote in the staff memo, which was reviewed by Reuters, but said the opportunity was “too valuable not to pursue”.

Widespread backlash

The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, which represents Avelo’s crew, has urged the company to reconsider its decision, which it said would be “bad for the airline”.

“Having an entire flight of people handcuffed and shackled would hinder any evacuation and risk injury or death,” the union said. “We cannot do our jobs in these conditions.”

The Trump administration has deported hundreds of migrants labelled as Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador. Photos and videos have shown deportees in handcuffs and shackles.

Customers have also expressed outrage. Anne Watkins, a New Haven, Connecticut, resident, said she has stopped flying with Avelo. She and her co-members at the New Haven Immigrants Coalition have launched an online petition urging travellers to boycott the airline until it ends its ICE flight operations. The petition has garnered more than 38,000 signatures.

Watkins, 55, said the coalition also organised a vigil on Monday to mark the launch of Avelo’s deportation flights.

“Companies can decide to operate in wholly ethical and transparent ways,” she said. “Avelo is not choosing to do that right now.”

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, a Democrat, has threatened to review the state’s incentives for Avelo, which has received more than $2m in subsidies and tax breaks.

In California, Los Angeles resident Nancy K has co-founded a campaign called “Mothers Against Avelo”. She plans to lead weekly protests every Sunday in May at Hollywood Burbank airport, one of Avelo’s six operating bases.

SUPERMARKETS have told The Sun they have no plans to sell American beef, upping the stakes for politicians thrashing out the details of a UK-US trade deal.

Donald Trump and Keir Starmer announced the outline of an agreement last week that would allow up to 13,000 tons of US beef to be imported here tariff-free.

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That is the equivalent of one medium steak per Brit per year.

Currently the UK imports just £24million worth of beef a year, but Trump’s team have called the deal a $5billion opportunity.

However, Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Lidl, Aldi, Iceland and The Co-op all said they have no plan to switch from UK and Irish farmers.

And the Government has said that imports of hormone-treated beef or chlorinated chicken will remain illegal.

Tesco boss Ken Murphy said this week that he had no plan to sell US beef.

He said: “We source 100 per cent Irish and British and for the foreseeable future that policy will be the same.”

Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons also said they don’t intend to change supply or animal welfare and food standards.

Budget pair Lidl and Aldi are also not budging on beef.

Aldi chief exec Giles Hurley said: “British farming is known for its high welfare, food safety and environmental standards — and we know how important that is to our customers.”

Iceland boss Richard Walker said there was no appetite for US beef from customers or supermarket suppliers.

He said: “Consensus is that even at a ten per cent tariff it’s a very price prohibitive option.”

The Co-op’s Matt Hood said: “We’re a long-term supporter of British farming, and the first national UK grocer to switch to 100 per cent British fresh and frozen own brand protein.”

The National Farmers Union said: “It’s brilliant to see supermarkets championing British beef. Consumers value its high standards in animal welfare.”

A government spokesman said: “This is a great deal as we have opened access to a huge American market, without weakening UK food standards on imports.”

Butty giant spreading

GREENCORE, the UK’s biggest sandwiches maker, announced it has agreed a £1.2billion takeover of rival Bakkavor to create a food-to-go giant.

It will see £4billion of revenues generated from selling pizzas, soups, salads and sushi to almost all of Britain’s supermarkets.

But workers fear job cuts after the firms said they would save at least £80million in costs a year after the deal.

GMB union national officer Eamon O’Hearn said: “The likelihood of site closures and drop in headcount confirms our worst fears — that hard-working production staff will be facing job losses.”

ITV’s not love sick with US

LOVE Island broadcaster ITV yesterday shrugged off any US tariff concerns as bosses highlighted its Studios arm made TV shows, not films.

President Trump has spooked Britain’s creative industry by slapping 100 per cent tariffs on movies “produced in foreign lands”.

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ITV yesterday said it did not “anticipate any direct impact”.

It came as the company toasted a return to growth for the Studios business, with ­revenue up one per cent at £386million after years of ­disruption from the Hollywood writers’ strike.

Speculation about a takeover of ITV or the Studios business continues to run rife, but insiders downplayed rumours.

The broadcaster, fresh from winning a Bafta for Mr Bates vs The Post Office, expects advertising revenue to be lower than last year, when companies spent big on ads during the Euros footie tournament.

Covid fraud axe

MINISTERS have scrapped a Covid fraud recovery unit and transferred investigations to the Insolvency Service — after realising even more taxpayer cash was being wasted.

Around £47billion was paid to firms as bounceback loans but there had been more than 100,000 cases of fraud and error.

The National Investigation Service received £38.5million in state funding but has secured just 14 convictions.

Trade minister Gareth Thomas said transferring the probes would “remove unnecessary waste and inefficiency”.

B&M goes Dutch

DISCOUNT chain B&M has hired a Dutch former Tesco executive in the latest sign of FTSE firms looking abroad for leadership.

Tjeerd Jegen, who recently led Europe’s biggest ebike maker Accell Group, has also worked at German clothing chain Takko Fashion and Dutch retailer Hema.

He led Tesco’s Malaysian business in 2010 and was its chief operating officer in Thailand before that.

B&M pushed out ex-boss Alex Russo after two profit warnings in as many months.

Baraka’s defence team say they will file a motion to dismiss trespassing charges pursued by the Trump administration.

Lawyers in the United States have said they will file a motion to dismiss trespassing charges directed at Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, following his arrest during a protest at an immigrant detention centre in New Jersey.

During a hearing in a New Jersey federal court on Thursday, Baraka’s defence team said that they believed he was being selectively prosecuted by the administration of President Donald Trump.

“We believe that the mayor himself was targeted here,” said Rahul Agarwal, one of Baraka’s lawyers.

“The mayor was invited into the facility on Friday,” Agarwal added, pointing out that Baraka was “outside the facility when he was ultimately handcuffed and detained”.

Baraka himself attended the hearing and spoke to supporters outside afterwards. On social media, he framed the criminal complaint as a sham.

“Today, the U.S. Attorney General’s office chose to move forward with a trial over trespassing charges at Delaney Hall. While the charges are unwarranted, we will fight this,” Baraka wrote. “This is bigger than me. It’s about all of us.”

The incident is the latest to underscore growing tensions between the Trump administration and local authorities who oppose his immigration crackdown.

Civil liberties groups have argued that the government is using its power to intimidate or coerce officials who do not align with its priorities on immigration.

The Trump administration’s complaint centres on the events of May 9, when lawmakers and protesters showed up at Delaney Hall, a new detention facility in Newark run by the private company GEO Group.

Baraka has long opposed the 1,000-bed facility, saying it lacks the proper permitting, and he has appeared outside its gates multiple times since its May 1 opening.

On the day of his arrest, Baraka joined three members of the US Congress — LaMonica McIver, Bonnie Watson Coleman and Rob Menendez — who arrived unannounced “to conduct lawful congressional oversight” of the facility, according to their statements afterwards.

Agarwal said that Baraka was the only person arrested in the incident. Baraka has maintained that he was invited in to the facility and shared a video on social media on Wednesday that he says shows a guard opening the gate to allow him inside the premises.

“Mayor Baraka was at Delaney Hall to join a tour of the detention facility with a congressional delegation as part of their authorized oversight responsibilities,” the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said in a statement on the arrest of Baraka last week.

“Mayor Baraka — and lawmakers across New Jersey and the country — are being targeted by the Trump administration for refusing to be complicit with its ongoing violations of due process.”

However, the government’s criminal complaint alleges that Baraka entered and remained inside the private facility despite multiple warnings to leave. He faces up to 30 days in prison.

“We believe there’s clear evidence that the mayor was within the property,” Assistant US Attorney Stephen Demanovich told US Magistrate Judge Andre Espinosa.

Video of the incident shows an official behind the gate at Delaney Hall telling Baraka he must return outside because “you are not a congressmember”.

Judge Espinosa on Thursday told Baraka he needed to be processed by US Marshals Service after proceedings came to an end.

The Associated Press said the request sparked a moment of confusion in the courtroom. Baraka pointed out that he had already been processed after his arrest, but ultimately agreed to give his fingerprints and take a mugshot a second time.

“They’re trying their best to humiliate and degrade me as much as they possibly can,” said Baraka. “I feel like what we did was completely correct. We did not violate any laws. We stood up for the constitution of this country, the constitution of the state of New Jersey.”

Baraka is considered a leading candidate in the 2025 New Jersey governor’s race.

Republicans have proposed the remittance tax as part of a broader push to crack down on undocumented immigration.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has denounced a provision in a tax bill being considered in the United States Congress that would impose duties on remittances — a term used to describe the money people send abroad for non-commercial reasons, often as gifts to family and loved ones.

On Thursday, during her morning news conference, Sheinbaum addressed the tax bill directly, calling the remittances proposal “a measure that is unacceptable”.

“It would result in double taxation, since Mexicans living in the United States already pay taxes,” she said.

She added that her government was reaching out to other countries with large immigrant populations to voice concern about the US proposition.

“This will not just affect Mexico,” she said. “It will also affect many other countries and many other Latin American countries.”

According to World Bank data from 2024, India is the top recipient of international remittances, with $129bn coming from abroad, followed by Mexico with more than $68bn.

In Mexico, in particular, experts estimate that remittances make up close to 4 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP).

But a far-reaching tax bill championed by US President Donald Trump includes language that would impose a 5-percent excise tax on remittances sent specifically by non-citizens, including visa holders and permanent residents.

That bill would affect nearly 40 million people living in the country. US citizens, however, would be exempt from the remittance tax.

Trump has led a campaign to discourage immigration to the US and promote “mass deportation” during his second term in office, as part of his “America First” agenda.

Proponents of that platform say taxing remittances would serve as clear deterrence to immigrants who come to the US looking for better economic opportunities for themselves and any loved ones they hope to support back home.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, an anti-immigration think tank, told The Associated Press news agency that he believes barriers to remittances can help curb undocumented immigration to the US.

“One of the main reasons people come here is to work and send money home,” Krikorian said. “If that’s much more difficult to do, it becomes less appealing to come here.”

Under the bill being weighed in the House of Representatives, the 5-percent tax would be paid by the sender and collected by “remittance transfer providers”, who would then send that money to the US Treasury.

But President Sheinbaum and other leaders have called on Republicans in Congress to reconsider that provision, given the unintended consequences it could create. Sheinbaum even suggested that the tax could be seen as unconstitutional in the US.

“This is an injustice, apart from being unconstitutional,” she said on Thursday. “But in addition, it is the tax on those who have the least. They should charge taxes to those at the top, not those at the bottom.”

Critics of the measure point out that remittances can help stabilise impoverished areas abroad, thereby limiting the likelihood of undocumented migration from those areas.

Additional barriers to sending remittances could create economic setbacks for those communities, not to mention make the process more difficult for US citizens who are exempted from the proposed tax.

Still, even if the tax bill is defeated or the provision on remittances removed, the Trump administration has signalled it plans to move forward with other measures designed to discourage migrants from sending funds abroad.

On April 25, Trump posted on his media platform, Truth Social, a list of “weekly policy achievements”.

On the final page, the top bullet point under “international relations” was “finalizing a Presidential Memorandum to shut down remittances sent by illegal aliens outside the United States”. Trump called the document a “MUST READ”.

Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, will have to start raising prices later this month due to the high cost of tariffs, executives have warned in a clear signal that United States President Donald Trump’s trade war is filtering through to the US economy.

As a bellwether of US consumer health, Walmart’s explicit statement on Thursday is also a signpost for how the trade war is affecting companies as Walmart is noted for its ability to manage costs more aggressively than other companies to keep prices low.

Walmart’s shares fell 2.3 percent in morning trading after it also declined to provide a profit forecast for the second quarter, even as the company’s US comparable sales surpassed expectations in the first quarter.

Net sales rose 2.5 percent to $165.6bn, a hair shy of estimates, while same-store sales were up 4.5 percent. Walmart’s quarterly adjusted profit was 61 cents per share, ahead of the analyst consensus for 58 cents per share.

Many US companies have either slashed or pulled their full-year expectations in the wake of the trade war, as consumers stretch their budgets to buy everything from groceries to essentials at cheaper prices. But Walmart’s statement will resonate nationwide, as roughly 255 million people shop in its stores and online weekly around the world, and 90 percent of the US population lives within 10 miles of a Walmart.

US shoppers will start to see prices rise at the end of May and certainly in June, Walmart’s Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said in a CNBC interview. On a post-earnings call with analysts, he said the retailer would also have to cut back on orders as it considers price elasticity.

As the largest importer of container goods in the US, Walmart is heavily exposed to tariffs, and even though the US and China reached a truce that lowered levies for imports on Chinese goods to 30 percent, that’s still a high cost to bear, executives said.

“We’re very pleased and appreciative of the progress that has been made by the administration to bring tariffs down … but let me emphasise we still think that’s too high,” Rainey said on the call, referring to the tariff cuts negotiated over the weekend.

“There are certain items, certain categories of merchandise that we’re dependent upon to import from other countries and the prices of those things are likely going to go up, and that’s not good for consumers,” he added.

Other retailers also said they would be boosting prices. German sandal maker Birkenstock on Thursday said it plans to raise prices globally to fully offset the impact of the US tariff of 10 percent on European Union-made goods.

US consumer sentiment ebbed for a fourth straight month in April, signaling watchful purchasing, while the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) contracted for the first time in three years during the first quarter, fanning worries of a recession.

Narrow margins

Walmart’s CEO Doug McMillon said the retailer would not be able to absorb all the tariffs’ costs because of narrow retail margins, but was committed to ensuring that tariff-related costs on general merchandise – which primarily come from China – do not drive food prices higher.

To mitigate the impact, Walmart is working with suppliers to substitute tariff-affected components, such as replacing aluminium with fibreglass, which is not subject to tariffs.

Despite these efforts, McMillon noted that adjusting costs is more challenging in cases where Walmart imports food items like bananas, avocados, coffee, and roses from countries such as Costa Rica, Peru, and Colombia.

Analysts said Walmart was better positioned than rivals, as its scale enables it to lean on its suppliers and squeeze out efficiencies to shield customers from tariffs, but only so much.

“There will likely be some demand destruction from tariffs; a complete wreck is unlikely,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management.

Walmart on Thursday kept its annual sales and profit forecast intact for fiscal 2026, but withheld second-quarter operating income growth and earnings per share forecasts, citing a “fluid operating environment … [which] makes the very near term exceedingly difficult to forecast at the level and speed at which tariffs could go up”.

The United States and China have surprisingly agreed to a dramatic de-escalation in their trade war.

Under the agreement, the world’s two largest economies have paused their respective tariffs for 90 days.

That breaks an impasse which has brought much of the commerce between the two nations to a halt.

Critics say the talks in Geneva did not appear to yield any meaningful concessions. The two sides aim to reach a broader deal, but this takes too long to negotiate.

Also in this episode, we examine whether the US-UK trade pact will deliver real benefits, or is it symbolism over substance?

Also, Senegal is capitalising on its energy wealth to change its fortunes.

Brussels is drawing up plans to use trade tariffs and capital controls to maintain financial pressure on Russia, even if Hungary decides to use its veto to block an extension of the European Union’s sanctions regime, which lapses in July of this year.

The European Commission has told ministers that a large part of the EU’s sanctions, which included freezing 200 billion euros ($224bn) of Russian assets, could be adapted to a new legal framework to bypass Budapest’s veto, according to the United Kingdom’s Financial Times newspaper.

Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister, has repeatedly held up EU boycotts on Moscow as the central European country gets 85 percent of its natural gas from Russia. Orban’s nationalist government is also one of the most friendly to Moscow in all of Europe.

In any event, the EU’s recent proposals have emerged as Moscow and Kyiv hold their first direct peace talks since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Ukrainian and Russian representatives are convening today in Istanbul, Turkiye. However, Vladimir Putin will not travel to Istanbul for face-to-face talks with Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Last weekend, European leaders held talks in Ukraine to put pressure on Russia to agree to a 30-day ceasefire in the run-up to the Istanbul talks. Ukraine agreed to it. Russia did not.

What sanctions does the EU currently have in place against Russia?

The EU adopted its 17th sanctions package against Moscow, designed to stifle Russia’s economy and force President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine, on Wednesday. This package has been signed off by Budapest and will be formally ratified by the European Commission next week.

Brussels has progressively expanded sanctions against Moscow since 2022, introducing import bans on Russian oil, a price cap on Russian fuel and the freezing of Russian central bank assets held in European financial institutions.

Vast swaths of Russia’s economy – from media organisations to aviation and telecommunications – are now under EU restrictions, in addition to trade bans and measures targeting oligarchs and politicians.

Under the 17th package, some 200 “shadow fleet” tankers have been sanctioned. These are ships with opaque ownership and no Western ties in terms of finance or insurance, allowing them to bypass financial sanctions.

The latest sanctions will also target Chinese and Turkish entities that the EU says are helping Russia to evade embargoes. New restrictions will be imposed on 30 companies involved in the trade of dual-use goods – products with potential military applications.

“Russia has found ways to circumvent the blockage imposed by Europe and the United States, so closing the tap would grab Russia by the throat,” France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, told BFM TV.

How effective are sanctions?

Alongside military support for Kyiv, sanctions have been the EU’s main response to Russia’s war on Ukraine. But sanctions have so far failed to stop the war. What’s more, due to high oil prices and elevated military spending, Russia’s economy has outperformed expectations since the start of 2022.

Barrot acknowledged on Wednesday that the impact of sanctions has been insufficient. “We will need to go further because the sanctions so far have not dissuaded Vladimir Putin from continuing his war of aggression … we must prepare to expand devastating sanctions that could suffocate, once and for all, Russia’s economy,” said Barrot.

What new measures are being proposed?

While the 17th round of sanctions was only agreed on Wednesday, EU ministers are already considering what more might be done to undermine Putin’s political clout if the war in Ukraine persists.

Capital controls, which would be aimed at restricting money flowing in and out of Russia, and trade measures such as tariffs, are two options that have been mentioned by the European Commission in recent weeks. Capital controls can take a variety of forms, including restrictions on foreign investment, limiting currency exchange or imposing taxes on the movement of capital.

The commission also aims to share proposals next month that would allow Brussels to implement a ban on new Russian gas spot market contracts – deals for immediate delivery and payment – with European companies in 2025, and a total phase-out by 2027.

Despite oil export restrictions, Russia still earns billions of euros from natural gas sales into the EU through liquefied natural gas (LNG) and TurkStream (a pipeline connecting Russia to southeastern Europe via the Black Sea). Banning spot market contracts would lower Moscow’s revenue from these sources.

Brussels may also propose tariffs on enriched uranium as part of its effort to cut EU reliance on Russian fuels.

According to The Financial Times, the EU insists that these measures would not amount to sanctions and therefore would not need the unanimous backing of all 27 EU countries, which is normally required to extend sanctions.

“I think the EU cooked up these potential punishments to try and get Russia to agree to the 30-day ceasefire … it was the stick they were brandishing,” said an analyst familiar with the matter who asked not to be named.

Will the US impose more sanctions?

It may. On May 1, Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said he had the commitment of 72 colleagues for a bill that would enact “bone-crushing” sanctions on Russia.

Graham, a close ally of President Donald Trump, is spearheading a draft bill that seeks to impose a 500 percent tariff on imports from countries that buy Russian oil and fossil fuels.

Trump himself, who seemingly welcomes the possibility of a rapprochement with Russia, said in March that he was “considering” imposing sanctions and tariffs on Russia until a peace agreement is reached with Ukraine.

Could such measures force Putin to the negotiating table?

“Most Russian people want life to return to normal and business owners are getting tired of war-related costs,” the anonymous analyst told Al Jazeera. “There is a growing sense of unease.”

She said she doubted whether the EU’s touted measures would bring Putin any closer to signing a peace agreement, however. “Only because sanctions haven’t been able to do that,” she said, “and there’s already a maze of them.”

According to Castellum.AI, a global risk platform, Russia has been slapped with 21,692 sanctions since the start of the war – the majority of them against individuals.

“On past performance, it’s hard to see how even more sanctions and additional punishments will stop the fighting,” the analyst said.

She estimated a 60 percent chance that Russia and Ukraine would still be at war by the end of this year.

The Trump administration says it has accepted an airplane worth an estimated $400 million from the state of Qatar. While Trump is president, the White House says it would be used as the new Air Force One, then it would go to Trump’s presidential library after his term ends.

The aircraft would become the most expensive gift from a foreign government ever to a US elected official, ABC News reported. But some members of Congress say accepting it would be unconstitutional.

When asked about the potential gift at a May 12 executive order signing, Trump blamed Boeing’s lack of progress in building a new Air Force One. He said he would be “stupid” to refuse a free airplane, and said he won’t use it after he leaves office. “It’s not a gift to me, it’s a gift to the Department of Defense,” he said.

What do experts say?

Legal experts told PolitiFact they believe accepting the gift would violate the US Constitution’s emoluments clause, which reads, “No Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”

The emoluments clause was designed “to prevent foreign nations from gaining improper influence” over US leaders, said David Forte, Cleveland State University emeritus law professor.

Experts differed on whether accepting the plane would be an impeachable offense.

Michael Gerhardt, a University of North Carolina law professor, said that if Trump accepts the gift, it could be an impeachable deed, because it would amount to “a fully corrupt act.”

Forte, however, said the gift wouldn’t necessarily amount to a bribe or an impeachable offense, but it “is a form of influence buying designed to gain the gratitude of the recipient by playing to his vanity.”

Is this the first time Trump is facing such accusations?

During Trump’s first term, Congressional Democrats, private individuals and attorneys general from Maryland and Washington, DC, filed lawsuits against Trump stemming from the emoluments clause.

However, many of the cases were dismissed on procedural grounds, and the US Supreme Court did not rule on the transactions’ underlying constitutionality.

Trump’s possible acceptance of the aircraft is different, said Frank Bowman, a University of Missouri emeritus law professor.

In his first term, Trump said payments were made to his businesses. This time, there would be no connection to Trump’s businesses. It would be a gift offered for free with no promise of payment from the president or the US Treasury, Bowman said.

NBC News, citing an anonymous senior Justice Department official, reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi approved a memo prepared by the agency’s Office of Legal Counsel that deemed it was legal for the Defense Department to accept the gift. Bondi has previously lobbied on behalf of the state of Qatar.

Trump, on his part, has thanked Qatar for the jet.

“If we can get a 747 as a contribution to our Defense Department, during a couple of years whole they’re [Boeing is] building the other one, I think that’s a very nice gesture [from Qatar],” he said on May 12.

Can the emoluments clause be enforced against Trump?

Legal experts said it’s unlikely that Congress, controlled by Republicans, will stop Trump from accepting the gift.

Meghan Faulkner, communications director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, DC, said that since it appears the Justice Department has signed off on receiving the gift, it “could make it harder to hold him accountable”.

Bowman said the Justice Department, according to longstanding policy, wouldn’t prosecute a sitting president.

Faulkner said Trump stands to benefit again after running out the clock on emoluments challenges during his first term. “Enforcing the Emoluments Clause in the courts would face similar challenges (in his second term), including the challenge of finding a plaintiff who has standing to challenge the violations,” she said.

It was one of US President Donald Trump’s most ambitious executive orders, and it came just hours after he took office for his second term: ending the United States’ decades-long policy of birthright citizenship.

And just three days after Trump issued the order, a federal judge in Washington state blocked the decree from going into effect. In the months that followed, two other federal judges joined in issuing nationwide injunctions.

On Thursday, the issue will reach the US Supreme Court, with the 6-3 conservative dominated bench set to hear oral arguments in the case. What the court decides could be transformative.

Proponents have long argued that the practice of granting citizenship to all those born on US soil is woven into the national fabric.

American Civil Liberties Union executive director Anthony Romero did not mince words in January, when he called Trump’s order a “reckless and ruthless repudiation of American values”, destined to create a “permanent subclass of people born in the US who are denied full rights as Americans”.

Meanwhile, a smaller but vocal contingency, empowered by Trump, has maintained that the practice is based on faulty constitutional interpretation and serves as an incentive for undocumented migration. The Trump administration has called it “birth tourism”.

Here’s what to expect from Thursday’s hearing:

What time will it start?

The hearing will start at 9am local (14:00 GMT).

What is at stake?

The most fundamental question that could be answered by the top court is whether birthright citizenship will be allowed to continue.

Proponents point to the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, which reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside”.

A subsequent 1898 Supreme Court case, United States v Wong Kim Ark, interpreted the language as applying to all immigrants, creating a precedent that has since stood.

Some studies estimate that about 150,000 immigrant infants are born with citizenship every year under the policy.

The Trump administration, in contrast, has embraced the theory that babies born to noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the US, and therefore are not constitutionally guaranteed citizenship.
Speaking to reporters in April, Trump described a scenario of “tourists coming in and touching a piece of sand and then all of a sudden, there’s citizenship”. He has embraced the theory that the 14th Amendment was meant to apply only to former slaves, and not newly arriving immigrants

At the time, Trump predicted it would be “easy” to win the case based on that logic.

Could the outcome be more complicated?

Yes. The Trump administration has taken a strategically unique tack in the case.

In their emergency filing to the Supreme Court, they have focused on the actions of the three judges who blocked Trump’s order from going into effect nationwide.

They argue the orders extend beyond the judges’ authorities and should only apply to the plaintiffs or jurisdictions directly connected to Trump’s executive order.

Theoretically, the Supreme Court could rule on whether the judges can issue nationwide injunctions, without ruling on whether birthright citizenship is, in fact, protected by the Constitution.

For example, if the justices rule that the lower judges exceeded their power, but do not make a determination on the constitutional merits of birthright citizenship, the executive order would only be blocked in the 22 states that successfully challenged Trump’s order.

Attorneys General in those states had challenged the order in a joint lawsuit, with a federal judge in Massachusetts ruling in their favour in February.

Birthright citizenship would effectively be banned in 28 other states unless they also successfully challenge the order or until the Supreme Court makes a future ruling.

The possibility has split legal scholars, with some arguing it is unlikely the Supreme Court would make the narrower decision on the scope of the lower judges’ power without also ruling on the underlying constitutional merits of birthright citizenship.

Could the ruling extend beyond birthright citizenship?

Yes. If the justices do decide to only address the scope of the lower judges’ power, the implications could extend far beyond the birthright citizenship question.

It would also apply to several other Trump executive orders that have been blocked by a federal judge’s national injunction, also called “universal injunctions”. Those include several Trump executive orders seeking to unilaterally transform the federal government, the military, and how funding is disbursed to states, to name a few.

In a written filing in the birthright citizenship case, the Department of Justice pointed to the wider implications, saying the need for the Supreme Court’s “intervention has become urgent as universal injunctions have reached tsunami levels”.

Meanwhile, the plaintiffs in the Maryland case that successfully challenged Trump’s birthright order said doing away with national injunctions would create different tiers of rights depending on an individual’s geographical location.

“An infant would be a United States citizen and full member of society if born in New Jersey, but a deportable noncitizen if born in Tennessee,” they wrote in a court filing.

Johannesburg, South Africa – On a chilly Sunday evening in Johannesburg, OR Tambo International Airport was filled with tourists and travellers entering and exiting South Africa’s busiest airport.

On one side of the international departures hall, a few dozen people queued – their trollies piled with luggage, travel pillows and children’s blankets – as they waited to board a charter flight to Washington Dulles International Airport in the United States.

Dressed casually and comfortably for the 13-hour journey that would follow, the group – most young, all white – talked among themselves while avoiding onlookers. Although they blended into the bustling terminal around them, these weren’t ordinary travellers. They were Afrikaners leaving South Africa to be refugees in Donald Trump’s America.

When Charl Kleinhaus first applied for refugee resettlement in the US earlier this year, he told officials he had been threatened and that people attempted to claim his property.

The 46-year-old, who claimed to own a farm in Limpopo, South Africa’s northernmost province, was not required to present proof of these threats or provide details regarding when the alleged incidents occurred.

On Sunday, he joined dozens of others accepted by the Trump administration as part of a pilot programme granting asylum to people from the Afrikaner community – descendants of mainly Dutch colonisers that led the brutal apartheid regime for nearly five decades.

The Trump administration claims white people face discrimination in South Africa – a country where they make up some 7 percent of the population but own more than 70 percent of the land and occupy the majority of top management positions.

“I want you all to know that you are really welcome here and that we respect what you have had to deal with these last few years,” US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau told Kleinhaus and the others when they landed at the Dulles International in Virginia.

“We respect the long tradition of your people and what you have accomplished over the years,” he said on Monday.

Speaking to a journalist at the airport, Kleinhaus said he never expected “this land expropriation thing to go so far” in South Africa.

He was referring to the recently passed Expropriation Act, which allows the South African government to, in exceptional circumstances, take land for public use without compensation. Pretoria says the measure is aimed at redressing apartheid injustices, as Black South Africans who make up more than 80 percent of the population still own just 4 percent of the land.

South African officials say the law has not resulted in any land grabs. There is also no record of Kleinhaus’s property being expropriated.

Kleinhaus was unaffected by any threats and the government was unaware of anyone who might have threatened his property, Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni told Al Jazeera.

“The people of South Africa have not been affected by the expropriation of land. There’s no evidence. None of them are affected by any farm murders either,” the minister emphasised.

Discredited ‘genocide’ claims

In February, when Trump signed an executive order granting refugee status to Afrikaners, he cited widely discredited claims that their land was being seized and that they were being brutally killed in South Africa.

On Monday, Trump again claimed that Afrikaners were victims of a “genocide” – an accusation South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and other experts maintain is based on lies.

“Farmers are being killed,” Trump told reporters. “White farmers are being brutally killed, and the land is being confiscated in South Africa.”

Ramaphosa has also debunked claims that the group who left this week faced any persecution at home.

“They are leaving because they do not wish to embrace the democratic transformation unfolding in South Africa,” he said.

For 60-year-old Sam Busa, watching Kleinhaus and the 48 other South Africans leave to be resettled in the US was a hopeful moment.

Busa, who has also applied for asylum, is waiting in anticipation for an interview that would qualify her for resettlement. She has begun selling excess household items in anticipation of her new life in the US.

The semi-retired businesswoman has been at the forefront of efforts – through a website called Amerikaners – encouraging Afrikaners to take an interest in the US offer to grant refugee status on the grounds that they face racial persecution in South Africa.

When asked how she has experienced persecution because of her race, Busa recounted an incident where she was held at gunpoint at her home in Johannesburg – the commercial capital of South Africa and one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

She later moved to KwaZulu-Natal on the country’s east coast, where she ran a business that provided services to the government.

When asked whether she believed she was targeted because of her race or if she was simply a victim of common crime, Busa asserted it did not matter.

She didn’t feel safe, she said. “I am not overly sensitive. When I watch Julius Malema singing about killing the Boer, it is extremely terrifying.”

Malema, the far-left leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) political party, often sings a famous anti-apartheid song, Kill the Boer (Boer meaning farmer in Afrikaans), which the courts have ruled is not hate speech or an incitement to violence.

‘Persecution’

For Busa, much like Kleinhaus, new legislation passed to bolster racial transformation, which includes having specific hiring targets for employment equity, has been “the straw that broke the camel’s back”.

“Expropriation without compensation is a huge issue, along with the amendment to employment equity,” she said, restating her belief that white people don’t have a future in South Africa.

“It’s coming hard and fast, and it’s becoming clear to [white] South Africans that we struggle with fears of home invasion. I don’t live on a farm, but there are massive fears because of the constant threat of crime. It has become clear to white South Africans; it’s not disguised,” she claimed.

The narrative of fear is prevalent among those engaged in the refugee programme despite the fact that several experts have debunked the assertion that they were victims of racially motivated attacks and not common crime.

South Africa sees about 19,000 murders a year. According to data from the police, most victims of rural crime are Black, with evidence showing that white farmers are not disproportionately being killed.

Meanwhile, many participants in the US’s Afrikaner refugee resettlement programme do not even live on farms; many are urban dwellers, according to Minister Ntshavheni.

Katia Beedan, who lives in Cape Town, is also anticipating resettlement in the US. She told Al Jazeera that refugee hopefuls do not have to prove racial persecution but simply articulate it.

“For me, it’s racial persecution and political persecution,” she said about her reasons for wanting to leave South Africa.

The copywriter-turned-life coach pointed to racial transformation laws targeting employment equity and land expropriation, which she believes the government is “overwhelming us with”, as a key reason for her desire to flee.

However, many other South Africans see sections of the Afrikaner community – including their right-wing lobby groups like AfriForum that first pushed the false narrative of a “white genocide” – as struggling to exist equally in a country where they were once considered superior because of their race.

“I think AfriForum is struggling with the reality of being ordinary,” social justice activist and South Africa’s former public protector, Thuli Madonsela, told local TV channel, Newzroom Afrika, in March.

“The new South Africa requires all of us to be ordinary, whereas colonialism and apartheid made white people special people.

“I think some white people … [are] seeking to reverse the wheel and find reason to be special again. They seem to have found an ally in the American president,” she said.

‘Absurd and ridiculous’

In February, as Trump expedited efforts to resettle Afrikaners in the US, he was closing off his country’s refugee programme to other asylum seekers from war-torn and famine-stricken parts of the world.

For Loren Landau from the African Centre for Migration and Society at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, the Afrikaner refugee relocation is “absurd and ridiculous”.

“They have not been welcomed as tourists or work permit holders, but as refugees. The idea of a refugee system is to protect those who cannot be safeguarded by their own states and who fear persecution or violence because of who they are or their membership in a social group. Can Afrikaners make that case?” he asked.

Although “there are people in South Africa who discriminate against them,” and Afrikaners now “have less privilege and protection than during the apartheid era”, it cannot be said that this is indicative of state policy, he said, adding that many different people are robbed, killed, and face discrimination in South Africa.

“Are they [Afrikaners] specially victimised because of who they are? Absolutely not!” Landau added.

He said all statistics on land ownership, income, and education levels indicate that South Africa’s white population far outstrips others: “They are still by far in the top strata of South African society. No one is taking their land. No one is taking their cars.”

Even fringe groups that may have called for land grabs have done little to enact their threats, observers note.

However, for Busa, that doesn’t matter. “I fear for my children. You never know when the EFF decides they want you dead. It’s not a country I want to live in,” she said. The EFF has said those who decide to leave South Africa should have their citizenship revoked.

Confronted with the implications of this situation, the government is considering whether those who exit as refugees could easily return to the country. Ramaphosa is expected to discuss the ongoing matter with Trump at a meeting in the US next week.

Meanwhile, for the Afrikaners now in the US, most will settle in Texas, with others in New York, Idaho, Iowa and North Carolina, while the government helps them find work and accommodation.

They will hold refugee status for one year, after which they can apply for a US green card to make them permanent residents. At the same time, the Afrikaner resettlement programme remains open to others who want to apply.

When Kleinhaus and his group arrived in the US on Monday, they had smiles on their faces as they met officials and waved US flags.

Yet, for South Africa’s president, their resettlement in the US marks “a sad moment for them” – and something he believes may not last.

“As South Africans, we are resilient. We don’t run away from our problems,” he said at an agricultural exhibition in Free State province on Monday.

“If you look at all national groups in our country, Black and white, they’ve stayed in this country because it’s our country.

“I can bet you that they [the Afrikaners who left] will be back soon because there is no country like South Africa.”

May 15 (UPI) — A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration unconstitutionally retaliated against the American Bar Association when it abruptly canceled millions in grants awarded to the world’s largest association of lawyers and legal professionals.

Judge Christopher Cooper of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a preliminary injunction against the cancelation of the five grants and ordered the Justice Department to fully pay out the $3.2 million previously allocated to the ABA. The grants were intended to train lawyers and judges who work with survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.

“The ABA has made a strong showing that Defendants terminated its grants to retaliate against it for engaging in protected speech,” the President Barack Obama-appointed judge wrote in his ruling.

The Trump administration has been accused of retaliating against President Donald Trump‘s perceived political opponents, including law firms associated with Democrats and judges who have ruled against his policies.

The ABA is among those who have described such attacks as threats to the judiciary, and in February, it joined a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s freeze of international development grants to the U.S. Agency for international Development.

In April, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche issued a memorandum calling out ABA over its lawsuit against the government and support for “activist causes,” essentially severing the Justice Department’s interactions with the organization. The department then canceled the grants the next day

The organization filed its lawsuit against the Trump administration on April 23, accusing it of unlawful retaliation for exercising its First Amendment right to petition the courts.

“This lawsuit is necessitated by DOJ’s undisguised efforts to retaliate against the ABA for taking positions that the current Administration disfavors,” the lawsuit filed by Democracy Forward on behalf of ABA stated.

In his ruling Wednesday, Cooper said the government does not have any “meaningful” arguments to contest ABA’s claims, stating it points to deficiencies in the organization’s performance of its grant obligations while conceding that similar grants administered to other organizations remain in place.

“The government claims that it had a non-retaliatory motive for terminating the grants: They no longer aligned with DOJ’s priorities. But the government has not identified any non-retaliatory DOJ priorities, much less explained why they were suddenly deemed inconsistent with the goals of the affected grants,” he said, adding that similar grants to other organizations continue without the government explaining why those are still being maintained.

“The government’s different treatment of other grantees suggests this justification is pretextual.”

Democracy Forward President and CEO Skye Perryman celebrated the ruling in a statement, saying it is “welcome news” for survivors of domestic and sexual violence and for their families.

“For decades, the American Bar Association has provided critical training to lawyers to enable the provision of essential legal services to survivors. The court recognized today that the ABA is being unconstitutionally targeted by the Department of Justice because of their longstanding and unchanged stance on the importance of the rule of law and our Constitution,” Perryman said.