policy

The man just had his immigration case dismissed and his wife and 8-year-old son were trailing behind him when agents surrounded, then handcuffed him outside the downtown Los Angeles courtroom.

Erick Eduardo Fonseca Solorzano stood speechless. His wife trembled in panic. The federal agents explained in Spanish that he would be put into expedited removal proceedings.

Just moments earlier on Friday, Judge Peter A. Kim had issued a dismissal of his deportation case. Now his son watched in wide-eyed disbelief as agents quickly shuffled him to a service elevator — and he was gone. The boy was silent, sticking close by his mother, tears welling.

“This kid will be traumatized for life,” said Lindsay Toczylowski, chief executive and co-founder of Immigrant Defenders Law Center, who reached out to the family to help them with their case.

A child who’s father was detained by ICE after a court hearing stands inside the North Los Angeles Street Immigration Court on Friday.

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

Similar scenes are taking place across the country as the Department of Homeland Security asks to dismiss its own deportation cases, after which agents promptly arrest the immigrants to pursue expedited removals, which require no hearings before a judge.

The courthouse arrests escalate the Trump administration’s efforts to speed up deportations. Migrants who can’t prove they have been in the U.S. for more than two years are eligible to be deported without a judicial hearing. Historically, these expedited removals were done only at the border, but the administration has sought to expand their use.

The policies are being challenged in court.

“Secretary [Kristi] Noem is reversing Biden’s catch-and-release policy that allowed millions of unvetted illegal aliens to be let loose on American streets,” said a senior official from the Department of Homeland Security.

The official said most immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally within the last two years “are subject to expedited removals.” But he noted that if they have a valid credible fear claim, as required by law, they will continue in immigration proceedings.

Toczylowski said it was Fonseca Solorzano’s first appearance in court. Like many of those apprehended this week, Fonseca Solorzano arrived in the United States from Honduras via CPB One, an application set up during the Biden administration that provided asylum seekers a way to enter the country legally after going through a background check.

Erendira De La Riva, left, Sarai De La Riva and Maria Elena De La Riva speak to the media Friday about the status of Alvaro De La Riva, who was detained the previous night by ICE and taken to the North Los Angeles Street Immigration Court.

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

More than 900,000 people were allowed in the country on immigration parole under the app, starting in January 2023. The Trump administration has turned the tool into a self-deportation app.

“We are punishing the people who are following the rules, who are doing what the government asks them to do,” Toczylowski said.

“I think that this practice certainly seemed to have shaken up some of the court staff, because it’s so unusual and because it’s such bad policy to be doing this, considering who it targets and the ripple effects that it will have, it’ll cause people to be afraid to come to court.”

A Times reporter witnessed three arrests on Friday in the windowless court hallways on the eighth floor of the Federal Building downtown. An agent in plain clothes in the courtroom came out to signal to agents in the hallway, one wearing a red flannel shirt, when an immigrant subject to detainment was about to exit.

“No, please,” cried Gabby Gaitan, as half a dozen agents swarmed her boyfriend and handcuffed him. His manila folder of documents spilled onto the floor. She crumpled to the ground in tears. “Where are they taking him?”

Richard Pulido, a 25-year-old Venezuelan, had arrived at the border last fall and was appearing for the first time, she said. He had been scared about attending the court hearing, but she told him missing it would make his situation worse.

Gaitan said Pulido came to the U.S. last September after fleeing violence in his home country.

An immigrant from Kazakhstan, who asked the judge not to dismiss his case without success, walked out of the courtroom. On a bench across from the doors, two immigration agents nodded at each other and one mouthed, “Let’s go.”

They stood quickly and called out to the man. They directed him off to the side and behind doors that led to a service elevator. He looked defeated, head bowed, as they searched him, handcuffed him and shuffled him into the service elevator.

Lawyers, who were at courthouses in Santa Ana and Los Angeles this week, say it appears that the effort was highly coordinated between Homeland Security lawyers and federal agents. Families and lawyers have described similar accounts in Miami, Seattle, New York, San Diego, Chicago and elsewhere.

During the hearing for Pulido, Homeland Security lawyer Carolyn Marie Thompkins explicitly stated why she was asking to dismiss the removal proceedings.

“The government intends to pursue expedited removal in this case,” she said. Pulido appeared confused as to what a dismissal would mean and asked the judge for clarity. Pulido opposed having his case dropped.

“I feel that I can contribute a lot to this country,” he said.

Kim said it was not enough and dismissed the case.

People line up outside the North Los Angeles Street Immigration Court before hearings on Friday.

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

The courthouse arrests have frustrated immigrant rights advocates who say the rules of the game are changing daily for migrants trying to work within the system.

“Immigration court should be a place where people go to present their claims for relief, have them assessed, get an up or down on whether they can stay and have that done in a way that affords them due process,” said Talia Inlender, deputy director at the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law School. “That is being ripped away sort of at every turn.

“It’s another attempt by the Trump administration to stoke fear in the community. And it specifically appears to be targeting people who are doing the right thing, following exactly what the government has asked them to do,” she said.

The Trump brand has been used to hawk cryptocurrencies, Bibles, steaks and guitars. Now the US president’s media company is laying the groundwork to sell investment funds.

Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., which is majority owned by Donald Trump, plans to sell offerings tied to his agenda.

The parent of the Truth Social platform, where the president is also a prominent poster, has announced plans for and trademarked the names of a group of financial products under the Truth.Fi banner—investments that will potentially benefit from the president’s policies with bets on energy, crypto and domestic manufacturing. The proposed products include exchange-traded funds, or portfolios that trade like stocks that can be purchased through most brokers.

Details on the products’ structures and strategies are still scarce. ETFs are subject to approval by regulators, and no public filings are available yet. Yet the brand-building has already begun. So have the arguments. Critics see a sitting US president having a financial stake in the success of funds that are associated with his brand and his politics, built on strategies that he can influence from the White House.

“These transactions fly in the face of government ethics standards,” says Michael Posner, professor of ethics and finance at NYU Stern School of Business. “When you’re president, the assumption is that 100% of your energy is devoted to serving the country—not monetizing your public platform.”

The administration says the president is walled off. “President Trump’s assets are in a trust managed by his children,” Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement. “There are no conflicts of interest.” Trump Media did not respond to a request for comment.

US presidents aren’t required under federal law to divest assets, but past leaders have done so or used blind trusts to avoid perceived conflicts. Trump, however, has maintained financial exposure through family-controlled structures. Right before taking office again, he transferred about $4 billion worth of Trump Media shares to a trust controlled by his son Donald Trump Jr. But the arrangement is not a blind trust with independent oversight.

The concern among ethics experts isn’t only the ownership. It’s the overlap between policy and potential monetary benefit. The Truth.Fi funds could rise and fall in line with decisions the president makes in office. Protectionist policies aimed at various sectors and countries could help the proposed Truth.Fi Made in America ETF, which is set to bet on reshoring. Deregulatory moves in favor of crypto may boost a Bitcoin-themed ETF. And so on.

The crypto angle is a familiar one. Trump and his family have already profited from the digital-asset boom, hyping up a cryptocurrency bearing his name. Such so-called memecoins have no underlying value as investments, but creators of Trump’s coin recently held a promotion offering top holders a private dinner with the president. A company affiliated with the Trump Organization owns a large chunk of the Trump memecoins. Another Trump family-linked company, World Liberty Financial, has also issued its own cryptocurrencies, including a dollar-linked digital token called a stablecoin. World Liberty recently announced the coin would be used to complete a $2 billion transaction between a state-backed Abu Dhabi company and the overseas crypto exchange Binance. Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Jeff Merkley of Oregon have said the stablecoin offers “opportunities for unprecedented corruption” because the Trump family can benefit financially from the use of its product.

In its ETF announcement, Trump Media said the proposed products, which include portfolios known as separately managed accounts in addition to ETFs, offer a conservative alternative to “woke” investing. It’s a niche currently occupied by funds including the Point Bridge America First ETF and the God Bless America ETF, among others. Both have gathered only modest assets, as have left-leaning ETFs, thanks in part to a saturated ETF market that’s making life harder for newbie issuers.

There are already about 60 ETFs based on Bitcoin, a tally that’s grown by at least 22 this year. In addition, there are more than 60 funds tied to energy, including coal, and at least three from issuers including Tema and BlackRock Inc.’s iShares based on reshoring and manufacturing, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Trump Media “will be depending on its brand recognition to set its ETFs apart among a crowd of competing products,” says Roxanna Islam, head of sector and industry research at ETF shop TMX VettaFi. “A strong political following may help gather initial support, but in the long run, flows will ultimately depend on ETF basics like fees and performance.”

The company has announced plans to seed the funds with as much as $250 million. It’s working with trading platform Crypto.com and investment firm Yorkville Advisors to help run the funds. Still, its biggest unrivaled asset is Trump himself. Even if he’s not an explicit spokesperson, almost everything he does makes him a potential ad for the company. “What a competing fund doesn’t have is a person who’s in the news literally every day who can then talk about these things,” says Philip Nichols, a professor of legal studies and business ethics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Hal Lambert, who runs the MAGA ETF and has raised money for Trump’s presidential runs, dismisses concerns about conflicts. For one, the president’s views on issues such as domestic manufacturing have been publicly known for decades. There are more direct ways to have a seat at the table than buying an ETF, he says; people can give money to campaigns or political action committees, for instance. “I just don’t know that that stuff would work on him,” Lambert says. “Trump does what he wants to do.”

Hajric writes for Bloomberg

Throughout his 2024 campaign for president, Donald Trump strongly and repeatedly denied any connection to Project 2025, the political platform document authored by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C.

“I have nothing to do with Project 2025,” Trump said during a debate with former Vice President Kamala Harris last September. He said he had not read the document, nor did he intend to.

Yet less than six months into his second stay in the White House, the president and his administration have initiated or completed 42% of Project 2025’s agenda, according to a tracking project that identified more than 300 specific action items in the 922-page document. The Project 2025 Tracker is run by two volunteers who “believe in the importance of transparent, detailed analysis,” according to its website.

Of all the action items, nearly a quarter are related to the environment through agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Forest Service, and the departments of the Interior, Commerce, and Energy. Further, it seems the environment is a high priority for the Trump administration, which has initiated or completed about 70% of Project 2025’s environmental agenda — or roughly two-thirds — according to a Times analysis of the tracked items.

That includes Project 2025 action items like rolling back air and water quality regulations; canceling funds for clean energy projects and environmental justice grants; laying off scientists and researchers in related fields; and withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord, an agreement among nearly 200 countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions driving global warming.

When asked about this overlap, the administration continued to downplay any connection between the president and Project 2025.

“No one cared about Project 2025 when they elected President Trump in November 2024, and they don’t care now,” White House spokesman Taylor Rogers said in an email. “President Trump is implementing the America First agenda he campaigned on to free up wasteful DEI spending for cutting-edge scientific research, roll back radical climate regulations, and restore America’s energy dominance while ensuring Americans have clean air and clean water.”

Project 2025 refers to climate change as an “alarm industry” used to support a radical left ideology and agenda.

“Mischaracterizing the state of our environment generally and the actual harms reasonably attributable to climate change specifically is a favored tool that the Left uses to scare the American public into accepting their ineffective, liberty-crushing regulations, diminished private property rights, and exorbitant costs,” it says in a chapter about the EPA.

The author of that chapter, Mandy Gunasekara, served as the EPA’s chief of staff during Trump’s first administration. In the document, she recommends that the president undertake a number of actions to reform the EPA, including downsizing the agency, eliminating its Office of Environmental Justice and Civil Rights, and instituting a pause and review of grants — all of which Trump has done.

That same chapter also recommends that the president undermine California’s ability to set strict vehicle emission standards, which Trump vowed to do shortly after taking office; the Senate this week voted to revoke California’s rights to enact policy on the issue.

Gunasekara did not respond to a request for comment.

Matthew Sanders, acting deputy director of the Environmental Law Clinic at Stanford, said these and other Project 2025-mandated moves could have far-reaching ramifications. He noted that 11 other states had chosen to follow California’s emission rules.

“What California does impacts what the rest of the nation does,” Sanders said. “In that sense … decisions about how to effectuate the Clean Air Act mandates are technology-forcing for much of the nation, and isolating California and eliminating its ability to do that will have profound consequences.”

The EPA isn’t the only agency affected by environmental policy changes mirrored in Project 2025.

The Trump administration has also directed the Department of Energy to expand oil and gas leasing in Alaska, eliminate considerations for upstream and downstream greenhouse gas emissions, and expedite the approval of liquefied natural gas projects, all of which were recommendations outlined in the document.

The Interior Department, which oversees U.S. national parks and public lands, has seen rollbacks of at least a dozen of President Biden’s executive orders that prioritized addressing climate change, as well as the termination of a Biden-era policy to protect 30% of U.S. land and water by 2030, also known as the 30×30 plan.

In April, Trump issued an executive order opening up 112.5 million acres of national forestland to industrial logging, as outlined on page 308 of Project 2025. The president said the move — which will touch all 18 of California’s national forests — is intended to increase domestic timber supplies, reduce wildfire risk and create jobs.

Sanders said actions on public lands are particularly consequential, not only for the extraction of resources but also for protected species and their habitats. The president has already taken Project 2025-mandated steps to lessen protections for marine life and birds, and has called for narrowing protections afforded by the Endangered Species Act.

He also expressed concern about Trump’s Jan. 20 proposal to revise or rescind National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations that require federal agencies to consider the environmental impacts of their actions — a step recommended on page 60 of Project 2025.

While the president described NEPA and other rules as “burdensome and ideologically motivated regulations” that limit American jobs and stymie economic growth, Sanders said such framing is an oversimplification that can make the environment a scapegoat for other administrative goals.

“When we make these decisions in a thoughtful, careful, deliberate way, we actually can have jobs and economic development and environmental protection,” he said. “ I don’t think that those things are inherently opposed, but the administration, I think, gets some mileage out of suggesting that they are.”

Indeed, the Commerce Department, which houses the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Weather Service and other climate-related entities, has also seen changes that follow Project 2025’s playbook. The document describes the agency as “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity.”

In recent months, the president has made moves to “break up” NOAA — a directive also found on page 674 of the Project 2025 document — including laying off hundreds of staffers, closing several offices and proposing significant cuts to its research arm.

The administration has similarly taken Project 2025-recommended steps to shift disaster relief responsibilities away from the federal government and onto the states; loosen energy efficiency standards for appliances; and rescind USAID policies that address climate change and help countries transition away from fossil fuels, among others.

These are some of nearly 70 environmental action items identified in the Project 2025 Tracker, of which 47 are already completed or in progress less than 150 days into President Trump’s second term.

Tracking the administration’s progress is a somewhat subjective process, in part because many of the directives have come through executive orders or require multiple steps to complete. Additionally, many goals outlined in Project 2025 are indirect or implied and therefore not included in the tracker, according to Adrienne Cobb, one of its creators.

Cobb told The Times she read through the entire document and extracted only “explicit calls to action, or recommendations where the authors clearly state that something should be done.”

“My goal was for the tracker to reflect the authors’ intentions using their own words wherever possible,” she said. “By focusing on direct language and actionable items, I tried to create a list that’s accurate and accountable to the source material.”

Though the Trump administration continues to deny any connection to Project 2025, the creators of the massive tome were always clear about their presidential intentions.

“This volume — the Conservative Promise — is the opening salvo of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project,” Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts wrote in its forward. “Its 30 chapters lay out hundreds of clear and concrete policy recommendations for White House offices, Cabinet departments, Congress, and agencies, commissions, and boards.”

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Democratic senators sparred Tuesday over the Trump administration’s foreign policies, including on Ukraine and Russia, the Middle East and Latin America, as well as the slashing of the U.S. foreign assistance budget and refugee admissions.

At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, his first since being confirmed on the first day of President Trump’s inauguration, former Florida Sen. Rubio defended the administration’s decisions to his onetime colleagues.

He said “America is back” and claimed four months of foreign policy achievements, even as many of them remain frustratingly inconclusive. Among them are the resumption of nuclear talks with Iran, efforts to bring Russia and Ukraine into peace talks, and efforts to end the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.

He praised agreements with El Salvador and other Latin American countries to accept migrant deportees, saying “secure borders, safe communities and zero tolerance for criminal cartels are once again the guiding principles of our foreign policy.” He also rejected assertions that massive cuts to his department’s budget would hurt America’s standing abroad. Instead, he said the cuts would actually improve American status and the United States’ reputation internationally.

Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), the committee’s chair, opened the hearing with praise for Trump’s changes and spending cuts and welcomed what he called the administration’s promising nuclear talks with Iran. Risch also noted what he jokingly called “modest disagreement” with Democratic lawmakers, who used Tuesday’s hearing to confront Rubio about Trump administration moves that they say are weakening the United States’ influence globally.

Yet Democrats on the Senate committee, including ranking member Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Tim Kaine of Virginia, and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, took sharp issue with Rubio’s presentation.

Shaheen argued that the Trump administration has “eviscerated six decades of foreign policy investments” and given China openings around the world.

“I urge you to stand up to the extremists of the administration,” Shaheen said. Other Democrats excoriated the administration for its suspension of the refugee admissions program, particularly while allowing white Afrikaners from South Africa to enter the country.

In two particularly contentious exchanges, Kaine and Van Hollen demanded answers on the decision to suspend overall refugee admissions but to exempt Afrikaners based on what they called “specious” claims that they have been subjected to massive discrimination by the South African government. Rubio gave no ground.

“The United States has a right to pick and choose who we allow into the United States,” he said. “If there is a subset of people that are easier to vet, who we have a better understanding of who they are and what they’re going to do when they come here, they’re going to receive preference.”

He added: “There are a lot of sad stories around the world, millions and millions of people around the world. It’s heartbreaking, but we cannot assume millions and millions of people around the world. No country can.”

On the Middle East, Rubio said the administration has continued to push ahead with attempts to broker a ceasefire in Gaza and to promote stability in Syria.

He stressed the importance of U.S. engagement with Syria, saying that otherwise, he fears the interim government there could be weeks or months away from a “potential collapse and a full-scale civil war of epic proportions.”

Rubio’s comments addressed Trump’s pledge to lift sanctions on Syria’s new transitional government, which is led by a former militant chief who led the overthrow of the country’s longtime oppressive leader, Bashar Assad, late last year.

Lee and Knickmeyer write for the Associated Press.

April 30, 1975, marked a brilliant milestone in the history of the Vietnamese nation when the country was officially reunified after more than twenty years of protracted resistance. Since that sacred moment, national defense and security have always played a key role in protecting the achievements of the revolution, rebuilding the country, and affirming Vietnam’s position in the international arena. After half a century of development, Vietnam has transformed from a country suffering many consequences of war into a dynamic entity, contributing to peace and stability in the region.

This article analyzes the development process of Vietnam’s defense and security over the past 50 years, from the focus on protecting sovereignty and territorial integrity to the increasingly clear role of creating a regional position. During his lifetime, the then Deputy Prime Minister Vu Khoan wrote an essay titled “Security, development, and influence,” which are not only the three strategic goals in the process of “building and protecting the homeland” during the Doi Moi period but also strongly affirm the role of security for Vietnam in the current “era of rising up.” With guaranteed security and defense, the economy is developed in the highest and most sustainable way. With strong security and defense, it creates a strong voice in the international arena, weighing down on bad wills that threaten national sovereignty.

After national reunification, Vietnam entered a post-war recovery period with numerous socio-economic difficulties. In that context, the primary task of national defense was to maintain revolutionary achievements and protect independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity from external threats. During the 1980s, Vietnam faced border wars in the North and Southwest and was subject to embargoes from Western countries. This was a period that demonstrated the bravery, resilience, and absolute loyalty of the people’s armed forces to the cause of defending the Fatherland.

The turning point came after the 6th Congress in 1986, when the Communist Party of Vietnam initiated the Doi Moi process. In the national development strategy in the new period, national defense and security were placed in correlation with the tasks of economic development and international integration. The policy of national defense and people’s security was consolidated, closely combining the people’s hearts and military and security positions. Vietnam shifted from a defensive mindset to a preventive mindset, taking stability as the foundation, cooperation as the tool, and development as the motto.

Entering the 21st century, especially since 2010, Vietnam’s defense and security have recorded many significant advances, reflecting flexible adaptation to the changing regional and global security environment. In the context of increasing sovereignty disputes in the East Sea, Vietnam has always persevered in resolving disputes by peaceful means , on the basis of international law, especially the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS 1982). At the same time, Vietnam has actively modernized its army, focusing on building a strong enough navy and air force to protect its sovereignty over its seas and islands. According to the 2019 Vietnam Defense White Paper, Vietnam maintains a defense policy of “no military alliances, no use of force or threat of force, no participation in military alliances, and no foreign military bases on Vietnamese territory.” This is a principle that demonstrates the peaceful, autonomous, and transparent nature of Vietnam’s defense.

In the context of the Asia-Pacific region, especially the East Sea, becoming the focus of strategic competition between major powers, Vietnam must both strengthen its defense capacity and persist in its independent, multilateral, and diversified foreign policy. The “four no’s” defense policy continues to affirm Vietnam’s commitment to peace and stability.

A highlight in the defense and security policy over the past 50 years has been the expansion of international defense cooperation. Vietnam has continuously strengthened bilateral and multilateral defense cooperation with many partners, from traditional Russia and India to “former enemies” such as the United States, Japan, and France, demonstrating Hanoi’s skillful strategic balancing role in a period of complex geopolitical competition. In addition, Vietnam is currently an active member of regional defense cooperation mechanisms such as the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM+), the Shangri-La Dialogue, etc. Vietnam has also sent forces to participate in United Nations peacekeeping operations since 2014 in South Sudan and the Central African Republic. This is evidence that Vietnam not only focuses on protecting domestic security but also actively contributes to the common security of the region and the world.

In addition, ensuring national security and defense has also undergone major changes. In the context of non-traditional security emerging as a transnational challenge, Vietnam has promptly adjusted its awareness and response methods. Risks such as cybercrime, terrorism, energy security, environmental security, epidemics, etc. are included in the national security strategy. Vietnam has strengthened cooperation with INTERPOL, ASEANPOL, and major partners in preventing transnational crimes, ensuring social order and safety, and strengthening people’s trust in the national security apparatus.

On the basis of socio-political stability and firmly protected national sovereignty, Vietnam has increasingly affirmed its role in creating and promoting a stable, peaceful, and rule-based regional order. As the 2020 ASEAN Chair and a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for the 2020-2021 term, Vietnam has actively proposed initiatives on preventive diplomacy, security dialogue, and trust building in the region. Vietnam’s extensive participation in new-generation trade agreements such as CPTPP, EVFTA, and RCEP is not only an economic achievement but also a lever to enhance economic security and national comprehensive strength.

In addition, Vietnam is gradually investing heavily in military science and technology and applying technological achievements in protecting national sovereignty and security. Fields such as digital technology, artificial intelligence, big data, remote sensing, and cybersecurity are gradually being integrated into smart defense strategies. The construction and deployment of cybersecurity operations centers, organized cyberattack prevention, and the development of high-quality human resources in the defense and security sector are opening up a new step of development in depth and breadth.

At the same time, defense policies also play a fundamental role in enhancing soft power, creating the image of a peace-loving nation, ready to cooperate and responsible to the international community. Vietnam’s efforts in humanitarian initiatives, disarmament, humanitarian assistance, and regional disaster response have contributed to enhancing the country’s prestige and position. In particular, Vietnam has always promoted its role as a mediator and coordinator in regional and international disputes, which shows that its capacity for conflict management and defense diplomacy is increasingly mature and professional.

In conclusion, after half a century of unification, it can be affirmed that national defense and security have always been a solid pillar of the cause of “building and defending the Fatherland.” At the same time, Vietnam’s national defense and security have transformed from a model tasked with protecting territorial sovereignty in the early post-war years to participating in shaping the regional and global security structure. Vietnam has gradually enhanced its strategic position, affirming its role as a partner of peace, stability, and cooperation. The achievements are clear evidence of the effectiveness of the national defense and people’s security policy under the correct leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam. In the future, Vietnam’s national defense and security will not only stop at protecting sovereignty but also aim to create a peaceful environment for development, making a more positive contribution to global security.

The Netherlands’ relationship with the Islamic world has developed over the centuries, starting from the era of colonialism when the Dutch controlled the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), where the majority of the population is Muslim. This colonial legacy not only left a historical trace but also influenced the political and economic dynamics of the Netherlands in relation to Islamic countries. In addition, after World War II, the Netherlands received waves of migration from Muslim countries such as Turkey and Morocco, as well as from its former colonies, including Indonesia and Suriname. This led to a significant growth of the Muslim community in the Netherlands, which in turn created complex domestic social and political dynamics.

As a country that upholds the principles of liberal democracy and human rights, the Netherlands actively promotes these values in its foreign policy. This attitude often creates tensions in relations with Islamic countries, especially in issues related to religious freedom, women’s rights, and freedom of expression. For example, the debate over the ban on the burqa and criticism of sharia law in some Islamic countries show a clash between the principles of Dutch liberal democracy and the social norms of Islamic countries. However, on the other hand, the Netherlands also has great economic interests with Islamic countries, particularly in the field of trade and energy investment. Many Islamic countries, especially in the Middle East, are the Netherlands’ main trading partners, both in exports of agricultural products and in energy imports such as oil and gas.

The dilemma arose when the Netherlands had to balance between liberal democratic idealism and economic pragmatism. Criticism of human rights abuses in Islamic countries can risk disrupting trade and investment relations. For example, the diplomatic crisis with Turkey in 2017, in which the Netherlands banned Turkish ministers from campaigning in Rotterdam, reflected the tension between liberal democratic principles and political and economic interests. In addition, the Netherlands’ relations with countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran are often colored by contradictions, where on the one hand the Netherlands denounces their authoritarian policies, but on the other hand maintains close economic cooperation.

This research becomes relevant in understanding how the Netherlands navigates its foreign relations with Islamic countries in the midst of the dilemma between liberal democratic values and economic interests. This study not only contributes to the study of international relations but also provides insight for policymakers in formulating a balanced strategy between the promotion of democratic values and national interests in the context of relations with the Islamic world. Thus, this study aims to examine the dynamics of Dutch foreign policy towards the Islamic world, identify the factors that influence its political decisions, and analyze the impact of the approach used by the Netherlands in maintaining a balance between liberal democracy and economic interests.

The relationship between the Netherlands and the Islamic world has a long history that has been shaped through various political, economic, and social dynamics. Since the 17th century, when the Netherlands became one of the largest maritime and colonial powers, interaction with the Islamic world has occurred, especially through trade and colonial activities in Muslim regions, such as Indonesia. In the 16th century, the Netherlands (which at that time was still part of the Spanish Empire) began to engage in the spice trade with the Islamic world, mainly by sea. Dutch traders explored trade routes controlled by Muslim traders and began to establish relationships with various kingdoms and sultanates in Southeast Asia, such as Aceh, Banten, and Makassar. There were conflicts and rivalries between the Dutch and the Muslim powers, despite favorable trade relations. One example is the Aceh War, which lasted ten years, in which the Dutch sought to control the Muslim sultanate of Aceh, which was very powerful in Sumatra. The history of relations between the Netherlands and the Islamic world is very complicated and full of conflicts. This relationship shows how two different societies interact with each other and shape each other. In addition to conflicts and difficulties, there is cooperation and mutual understanding. To build a better and more peaceful relationship in the future, it is important to understand our history.

The history of relations between the Netherlands and the Islamic world, particularly in Indonesia, reflects complex dynamics involving political, social, and cultural interactions. This relationship began with the arrival of the Dutch at the end of the 16th century and continued until the colonial period, which lasted more than three centuries. The arrival of the Dutch in Indonesia in 1596 was marked by the main goal of controlling the spice trade. Over time, they began to realize the growing power of Islam in the archipelago, especially through the influence of clerics and a strong social network among the Muslim community. The Dutch’s fear of potential resistance from Muslims, especially those connected to the Ottoman Caliphate, prompted them to develop a more strategic policy in dealing with Islam (Amalsyah, 2013).

During the colonial period, the Dutch controlled the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), where the majority of the population was Muslim. The Dutch colonial policy towards Islam was ambivalent—on the one hand, the colonial government sought to control and limit the influence of Islam in the nationalist movement, but on the other hand, they also worked closely with the local Muslim elite to maintain the stability of the colonial government. This colonial experience still has an impact on Dutch foreign policy towards the Islamic world to this day. In the modern era, the Netherlands’ relations with the Islamic world are growing, especially in economic and diplomatic aspects. The Netherlands has established trade relations with Islamic countries, especially in the energy and infrastructure sectors. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Turkey are major trading partners, while relations with Iran remain complex due to geopolitical factors and international sanctions. 

In many cases, Dutch foreign policy faces a dilemma between economic interests and liberal democratic values. This is especially true in relations with developing countries such as Indonesia. The interaction between past and modern practices demonstrates this dynamic. The Round Table Conference (KMB) in 1949 was an attempt by the Netherlands to strengthen its economic dominance in Indonesia. It regulates Dutch company ownership in strategic areas such as banking and transportation. However, Indonesia’s nationalization policies in 1958, such as the State Commercial Bank and Garuda Indonesia, made the Dutch reconsider their strategy; they shifted from colonial control to economic diplomacy based on equality. Dutch policies combine development aid and trade promotion. For example, the development assistance budget was reduced from 0.7% of GDP to below the international threshold, and the budget was allocated to subsidize SME exports and military operations. This method has been criticized for undermining principles (Bieckmann, 2013).

The Netherlands implemented various policies to supervise and control the lives of Muslims. One of the first steps was the establishment of institutions such as the Priesterraden in 1882 to supervise the religious activities of Muslims. In 1905, strict regulations were enacted requiring permission from the colonial government to teach Islam. Snouck Hurgronje, a Dutch orientalist, played a key role in formulating this policy. He suggested that the government be neutral on the religious aspects of Islam but wary of its political potential. Snouck classifies Islam into two categories: religious and political, with a focus on controlling political aspects that are considered to have the potential to cause rebellion (Effendi, 2013).

In addition to bilateral relations with Muslim countries, domestic dynamics also play an important role. The Netherlands has a significant Muslim population, mainly of Turkish and Moroccan immigrant descent. The presence of this Muslim community is often a domestic political issue, especially in debates about integration, multiculturalism, and immigration policy. Political parties’ attitudes towards Islam at home often influence Dutch foreign policy towards Islamic countries. Against this historical background and contemporary dynamics, Dutch foreign policy towards the Islamic world continues to develop within the framework of a balance between economic interests, liberal democratic values, and domestic and global political dynamics.

The Netherlands faces a dilemma in carrying out its foreign policy towards Islamic countries, where the values of liberal democracy that are upheld often conflict with economic interests. As a country that actively promotes human rights, freedom of opinion, and democracy, the Netherlands has consistently criticized human rights violations in Islamic countries, especially regarding political freedom, women’s rights, and religious freedom. However, on the other hand, economic relations with Islamic countries, especially in the trade, investment, and energy sectors, remain a top priority. The Netherlands is a liberal democracy that strongly defends values such as democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. However, as a country with an open economy that relies heavily on foreign investment and international trade, liberal democratic values often conflict with economic interests in foreign policy.

This tension is evident in various diplomatic situations. One prime example is the Netherlands’ relationship with Turkey, which has experienced ups and downs due to differences in political views. When the Netherlands criticized President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s authoritarian policies and restricted Turkey’s political campaigns in Europe, bilateral relations between the two countries briefly deteriorated. However, economic cooperation continues due to the great trade interests between the two countries. Another case that reflects this dilemma is the relationship between the Netherlands and Saudi Arabia. The Netherlands has often criticized Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, especially regarding freedom of opinion and its treatment of political opposition. However, because Saudi Arabia is one of the Netherlands’ main trading partners in the energy and infrastructure sectors, the Dutch government maintains close economic ties. Even as the Dutch Parliament passed a resolution condemning Saudi Arabia’s involvement in human rights abuses, the government continued to look for ways to maintain a balance between political criticism and economic interests. 

This dilemma is also seen in the Dutch policy towards Iran. International sanctions against Iran, backed by the Netherlands, often collide with the desire of Dutch businessmen to expand trade with the country. The Netherlands must play a cautious diplomatic role in order to remain compliant with the norms of liberal democracy without harming its economic interests. Overall, Dutch foreign policy towards the Islamic world shows the tension between idealism and pragmatism. Although the Netherlands wants to maintain its image as a democratic country that defends human rights, economic interests remain a dominant factor in foreign policy decisions. Therefore, the Netherlands continues to seek balance in its approach by implementing a flexible diplomacy strategy so as not to lose both political influence and economic advantages in the Islamic world. In its foreign policy, the Netherlands has always faced a dilemma between economic interests and liberal democracy. There are no easy solutions, and the Dutch government must continue to strive to find ways to balance the country’s economic interests and its values. The Netherlands can maintain its economic advantages while supporting democracy, human rights, and sustainable development around the world by using innovative and responsible approaches.

The dilemma between liberal democracy and economic interests in Dutch foreign policy towards the Islamic world has various implications, both in bilateral relations, domestic dynamics, and the Netherlands’ position in the international arena. Dutch foreign policy has major consequences at the regional (European) and global levels. These affected areas include the economy, security, environment, and human rights. It is essential to understand these consequences in order to assess how effective the policies are and to plan a better plan for future use. The Netherlands’ free trade policy abroad has increased Dutch exports and investment around the world. This has boosted Dutch economic growth and created more jobs. However, there are risks associated with these policies, such as dependence on certain markets and the possible exploitation of workers in developing countries.

The Netherlands’ foreign policy, which often criticizes democratic and human rights issues in Islamic countries, has the potential to strain diplomatic relations. The case of tensions with Turkey and Saudi Arabia shows that Dutch criticism of political policies in Islamic countries can trigger a harsh response, such as ambassadorial withdrawals or trade restrictions. However, on the other hand, economic pragmatism encourages the Netherlands to maintain trade relations, especially in the energy and infrastructure sectors. 

The Netherlands’ foreign policy towards the Islamic world is also closely related to domestic political dynamics. The growing Muslim population in the Netherlands, especially of Turkish and Moroccan descent, has sparked debates about integration and national identity. The Netherlands is a NATO member that supports global climate action and is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Netherlands also actively participates in NATO military operations and supports the improvement of European defense capabilities. The Netherlands also invests in renewable energy and supports international agreements on climate change. The Netherlands strongly supports human rights. This includes development assistance, diplomacy, and support for civil society institutions that fight for human rights. Political parties with a hardline stance towards Islam often exploit this issue in their political campaigns, which can then influence Dutch foreign policy towards Islamic countries. This attitude also has an effect on immigration policy, where the Netherlands is increasingly selective in accepting immigrants from Islamic countries, especially regarding security issues and social values.

As a member of the European Union, the Netherlands often follows European foreign policy as a whole in dealing with Islamic countries. However, in some cases, the Netherlands has taken a firmer stance than other European countries in criticizing human rights violations. This attitude could strengthen the Netherlands’ position as a country that upholds democratic values but also risks reducing economic access to the markets of Islamic countries. In addition, in international organizations such as the United Nations and the WTO, the Netherlands must maintain a balance between national interests and its commitment to multilateral policies. 

In the future, the Netherlands needs to develop a more flexible foreign policy strategy to manage relations with the Islamic world. Economic diplomacy that maintains democratic principles but with a more pragmatic and dialogical approach can be a solution in avoiding unnecessary diplomatic conflicts. In addition, increased cooperation in the fields of education, culture, and technology can be an alternative way to strengthen relations with Islamic countries without getting too caught up in political conflicts. Taking into account these various aspects, Dutch foreign policy towards the Islamic world will continue to be a challenge that requires a balance between political idealism and economic reality. Economic, security, environmental, and human rights are heavily influenced by Dutch international policies. The Netherlands must adapt its foreign policy to global trends and emerging problems if it wants to meet challenges and seize future opportunities. The Netherlands has the ability to contribute to the development of a safer, more prosperous, and more sustainable world by enhancing partnerships with like-minded countries, increasing investment in diplomacy, supporting international organizations, and protecting human rights.

Dutch foreign policy towards the Islamic world is in tension between liberal democracy and economic interests. As a country that upholds human rights and democratic freedoms, the Netherlands often criticizes political policies in Islamic countries, especially regarding freedom of opinion, women’s rights, and the system of government. However, on the other hand, economic relations with Islamic countries, especially in the trade and energy sectors, remain a top priority. This dilemma is reflected in various dynamics of bilateral relations, such as tensions with Turkey and Saudi Arabia due to differences in political views, but the establishment of close economic cooperation. In addition, domestic dynamics, including immigration issues and the integration of the Muslim community in the Netherlands, also play a role in shaping the country’s foreign policy. As part of the European Union, the Netherlands must balance its stance between the broader European foreign policy and its own national interests. In the future, the Netherlands needs to adopt a more flexible approach to establishing relations with Islamic countries, prioritizing economic diplomacy that remains based on democratic values but with a more pragmatic strategy to avoid unnecessary conflicts. With this balance, the Netherlands can maintain its position as a strong democratic country while maintaining the stability of economic relations with the Islamic world.

The US-Israeli plan to get humanitarian aid into Gaza, amid the use of starvation as a weapon of war, enables Israel to “force the ethnic cleansing of a huge part of Gaza’s population”, argues Matt Duss, the executive vice president of the Center for International Policy.

United States President Donald Trump visited the Middle East, which saw a shift in US policy on Yemen, Iran, and Syria.

Duss tells host Steve Clemons that the Democratic Party would be wise to learn from Trump’s foreign policy. “The Democrats have completely left the antiwar, pro-diplomacy, pro-peace lane open for Donald Trump to fill,” he says.

Verizon Communications Inc. won Federal Communications Commission approval for its $9.6-billion acquisition of Frontier Communications Parent Inc. after agreeing to agency demands to pare back diversity initiatives in line with President Donald Trump’s policies.

The deal “will unleash billions of dollars in new infrastructure builds in communities across the country — including rural America,” FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said in a statement Friday. “This investment will accelerate the transition away from old, copper line networks to modern, high-speed ones.”

The transaction values the Dallas-based company at $20 billion when including debt.

The approval marks one of the first deals to get the green light under Carr, who had threatened to block mergers unless companies rolled back what he called “invidious” diversity, equity and inclusion practices.

Carr sent a letter to Verizon in February warning the company that its DEI efforts run afoul of Trump administration directives. Carr told the New York-based telecom carrier to end its promotion of DEI in corporate values and training materials.

Trump has been pushing to root out such policies from the federal government, corporate America and beyond, issuing executive orders banning the practices and asking agency heads to identify targets, including listed companies, to investigate for “illegal DEI” efforts.

Verizon committed to ending some practices and has reaffirmed a commitment to equal opportunity and nondiscrimination, the FCC said in its statement. “This will ensure that the combined business will enact policies and practices consistent with the law and the public interest.”

The FCC approval paves the way for the biggest U.S. phone company to expand its high-speed internet business. It will allow Verizon to upgrade and expand Frontier’s existing network in 25 states, according to the FCC.

Telecommunications companies like Verizon have been bulking up on fiber-optic assets to add capacity for customers’ surging data use. The flow of data is expected to increase further as more companies adopt artificial intelligence.

The deal combines Frontier’s fiber network with Verizon’s portfolio of fiber and wireless assets, including its Fios offering. It also brings back some assets that Verizon sold to Frontier in 2015 for $10.54 billion.

Frontier filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020 after years of losses in its wire-line telecom business led to ballooning debt. It emerged from bankruptcy the following year and focused on building out its fiber network to better compete against cable and wireless companies.

Over about the last four years, Frontier has invested $4.1 billion upgrading its network and replacing antiquated copper lines. Now, the company derives more than half of its revenue from fiber products.

Following the transaction, Verizon expects to deploy fiber to 1 million or more U.S. homes annually, according to the FCC statement.

Griffis writes for Bloomberg.

A group of seven European nations has called for an end to Israel’s military assault and blockade of Gaza, as the United Nations aid chief says time should not be wasted on an alternative United States-backed proposal to deliver aid to the Palestinian territory.

In a joint statement late on Friday, the leaders of Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Slovenia, Spain and Norway said they “will not be silent in front of the man-made humanitarian catastrophe that is taking place before our eyes in Gaza” as Israel’s blockade has prevented the delivery of humanitarian aid for two and a half months.

“We call upon the government of Israel to immediately reverse its current policy, refrain from further military operations and fully lift the blockade, ensuring safe, rapid and unimpeded humanitarian aid to be distributed throughout the Gaza strip by international humanitarian actors,” the statement read.

“More than 50,000 men, women, and children have lost their lives. Many more could starve to death in the coming days and weeks unless immediate action is taken,” it said.

Meanwhile, the Council of Europe, a body that works to safeguard human rights and democracy, also noted that Gaza was suffering from a “deliberate starvation” and warned that Israel was sowing “the seeds for the next Hamas” in the territory, referring to the Palestinian armed group.

“The time for a moral reckoning over the treatment of Palestinians has come – and it is long overdue,” said Dora Bakoyannis, rapporteur for the Middle East at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

The European calls came hours after UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said 160,000 pallets of relief and 9,000 trucks were ready to enter Gaza.

“To those proposing an alternative modality for aid distribution, let’s not waste time. We already have a plan,” he said in a statement.

“We have the people. We have the distribution networks. We have the trust of the communities on the ground. And we have the aid itself – 160,000 pallets of it – ready to move. Now,” he said.

“We demand rapid, safe, and unimpeded aid delivery for civilians in need. Let us work.”

Israel has halted the entry of food, medication and all other essentials into Gaza since March 2. UN agencies and other humanitarian groups have warned of shrinking food, fuel and medicine supplies to the territory of 2.4 million Palestinians facing acute starvation.

Earlier, the US and Israel said they were preparing a plan that would allow the resumption of aid by an NGO, while keeping supplies out of Hamas’s hands.

Under the heavily criticised alternative aid plan, the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aims to start work in Gaza by the end of May.

It intends to work with private US security and logistics firms to transport aid into Gaza to so-called secure hubs where it will then be distributed by aid groups, a source familiar with the plan told the Reuters news agency. It is unclear how the foundation will be funded.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has also asked Israel to allow humanitarian deliveries by the UN and aid groups to resume now until its infrastructure is fully operational, saying this is essential to “alleviate the ongoing humanitarian pressure”.

The UN, however, said it would not work with the foundation because the distribution plan is not impartial, neutral or independent. Israel says the blockade, alongside “military pressure”, is intended to force Hamas to free the remaining captives.

On Thursday, senior Hamas official Basem Naim reiterated the group’s position that the entry of aid into Gaza is a prerequisite for any truce talks with Israel.

“Access to food, water and medicine is a fundamental human right – not a subject for negotiation,” he said.

WASHINGTON — Democrats and Republicans alike raised concerns on Wednesday about deep staffing cuts, funding freezes and far-reaching policy changes overseen by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers questioned Kennedy’s approach to the job, some saying that he has jeopardized vaccine uptake, cancer research and dental health in just a few short months.

In combative and at times highly personal rejoinders, Kennedy defended the Trump administration’s dramatic effort to reshape the sprawling, $1.7-trillion-a-year agency, saying it would deliver a more efficient department focused on promoting healthier lifestyles among Americans.

“There’s so much chaos and disorganization in this department,” Kennedy said on Wednesday during the Senate hearing. “What we’re saying is let’s organize in a way that we can quickly adopt and deploy all these opportunities we have to really deliver high-quality healthcare to the American people.”

During tense exchanges, lawmakers — in back-to-back House and Senate hearings — sometimes questioned whether Kennedy was aware of his actions and the structure of his own department after he struggled to provide more details about staffing cuts.

“I have noted you’ve been unable, in most instances, to answer any specific questions related to your agency,” said Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, a Maryland Democrat.

The secretary, in turn, pushed back — saying he had not had time to answer specific questions — and at points questioning lawmakers’ own grasp of health policy.

Kennedy testified to explain his downsizing of the department — from 82,000 to 62,000 staffers — and argue on behalf of the White House’s requested budget, which includes a $500-million boost for Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” initiative to promote nutrition and healthier lifestyles while making deep cuts to infectious disease prevention, medical research and maternal health programs.

He revealed that he persuaded the White House to back down from one major cut: Head Start, a federally funded preschool program for low-income families across the country.

But lawmakers described how thousands of job losses at the health department and funding freezes have impacted their districts.

One Washington state mother, Natalie, has faced delays in treatment for Stage 4 cancer at the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical Center, said Democratic Sen. Patty Murray. The clinical center is the research-only hospital commonly known as the “House of Hope,” but when Murray asked Kennedy to explain how many jobs have been lost there, he could not answer. The president’s budget proposes a nearly $20-billion slash from the NIH.

“You are here to defend cutting the NIH by half,” Murray said. “Do you genuinely believe that won’t result in more stories like Natalie’s?” Kennedy disputed Murray’s account.

Democrat Rep. Bonnie Watson-Coleman of New Jersey asked “why, why, why?” Kennedy would lay off nearly all the staff who oversee the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which provides $4.1 billion in heating assistance to needy families. The program is slated to be eliminated from the agency’s budget.

Kennedy said that advocates warned him those cuts “will end up killing people,” but that President Trump believes his energy policy will lower costs. If that doesn’t work, Kennedy said, he would restore funding for the program.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican of Alaska, said those savings would be realized too late for people in her state.

“Right now, folks in Alaska still need those ugly generators to keep warm,” she said.

Murkowski was one of several Republicans who expressed concerns about Kennedy’s approach to the job throughout the hearings.

Like several Republicans, Rep. Chuck Fleischmann of Tennessee praised Kennedy for his work promoting healthy foods. But he raised concerns about whether the secretary has provided adequate evidence that artificial food dyes are bad for diets. Removing those food dyes would hurt the “many snack manufacturers” in his district, including the makers of M&M’s candy, he said.

Rep. Mike Simpson, a dentist from Idaho, said Kennedy’s plan to remove fluoride recommendations for drinking water alarms him. The department’s news release on Tuesday, which announced the Food and Drug Administration plans to remove fluoride supplements for children from the market, wrongly claimed that fluoride “kills bacteria from the teeth,” Simpson noted. He explained to Kennedy that fluoride doesn’t kill bacteria in the mouth but instead makes tooth enamel more resistant to decay.

“I will tell you that if you are successful in banning fluoride … we better put a lot more money into dental education because we’re going to need a lot more dentists,” Simpson added.

Kennedy was pressed repeatedly on the mixed message he’s delivered on vaccines, which public health experts have said are hampering efforts to contain a growing measles outbreak now in at least 11 states.

Responding to Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut, Kennedy refused to recommend that parents follow the nation’s childhood vaccination schedule, which includes shots for measles, polio and whooping cough. He, instead, wrongly claimed that the vaccines have not been safety tested against a placebo.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican of Louisiana and chairman of the health committee, had extracted a number of guarantees from Kennedy that he would not alter existing vaccine guidance and work at the nation’s health department. Cassidy, correcting Kennedy, pointed out that rotavirus, measles and HPV vaccines recommended for children have all been tested in a placebo study.

As health secretary, Kennedy has called the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine — a shot given to children to provide immunity from all three diseases — “leaky,” although it offers lifetime protection from the measles for most people. He’s also said they cause deaths, although none has been documented among healthy people.

“You have undermined the vital role vaccines play in preventing disease during the single, largest measles outbreak in 25 years,” independent Sen. Bernie Sanders said.

Seitz writes for the Associated Press.

United States President Donald Trump has announced that he will lift all sanctions on Syria, declaring that it was time for the country to “move forward”, giving a nation devastated by years of ruinous civil war a crucial opening in reviving its shattered economy.

Speaking at an investment forum in Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh during his Middle East tour on Tuesday, Trump said the punitive measures had achieved their “purpose” and were no longer needed.

“I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness,” he said. “It’s their time to shine. We’re taking them all off”.

The president ended his remarks with a direct message to Damascus: “Good luck, Syria. Show us something very special.”

The announcement marks a dramatic shift in Washington’s yearslong policy towards Syria, where sanctions targeted ousted President Bashar al-Assad’s government during years of war, and the country at large over its crackdown on dissent and human rights abuses during that nearly 14-year period.

Syrians suffered hundreds of thousands of deaths, and millions were displaced during the war.

“There’s a new government that will hopefully succeed in stabilising the country and keeping peace,” Trump said in Riyadh, referring to the interim government led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

Trump noted that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet Syria’s Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani in Turkiye later this week, and says his decision to end the sanctions was influenced by conversations with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Al-Shaibani welcomed the announcement, calling it a “a pivotal turning point for the Syrian people as we move toward a future of stability, self-sufficiency, and true reconstruction after years of devastating war”, according to the state-run SANA news agency.

Key obstacle removed, but others remain

The sanctions relief will be welcomed by al-Sharaa’s government, which also says it wants to transition away from the corrupt system that gave al-Assad loyalists privileged access to government contracts and kept key industries in the hands of the al-Assad family and its Alawite base.

Omar Rahman, a fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, says that while it is important not to overestimate the significance of Trump’s promise to lift sanctions on Syria, it is an important step in the future of a nation devastated by years of war.

“It takes away a key obstacle in their ability to establish some kind of economic development, economic prosperity,” he told Al Jazeera. “But there are plenty of other obstacles and challenges the country is facing.”

Rahman said that Saudi Arabia helped push the US towards its decision to drop sanctions.

“I think the United States was really dragging its feet on sanctions – they wanted to use it as leverage in order to push other policies in Syria,” he said, adding that besides Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates were also pushing for this pivotal outcome.

“This wasn’t something that was too difficult for Trump to do,” Rahman added. “He didn’t need to get permission from anybody. He didn’t even need consent from Congress.”

Syria’s new government has sought to rebuild the country’s diplomatic ties, including with international financial institutions. It also counts on wealthy Gulf Arab states to play a critical role in financing the reconstruction of Syria’s war-ravaged infrastructure and reviving its economy.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar announced in April that they will settle Syria’s debt to the World Bank totalling roughly $15m.

The United Kingdom has also removed its sanctions on 12 Syrian government entities, including the Ministries of Defence and Interior and the General Intelligence Directorate.

But military attacks persist.

Israel has carried out multiple air strikes in Syria since al-Assad’s removal. The country’s presidency denounced an Israeli attack near the presidential palace in Damascus as a “dangerous escalation” earlier this month.

Tensions between Israel and Syria soared after the Israeli government accused the Syrian authorities of failing to protect the country’s Druze minority.

The Syrian government and Druze came to an agreement after days of violence, the latter saying they did not need Israel’s intervention or protection.

Israel has previously called Syria’s interim government a “terror group from Idlib that took Damascus by force”.

Decades needed to recover

A February report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimated that at current growth rates, Syria would need more than 50 years to return to the economic level it had before the war, and it called for massive investment to accelerate the process.

The UNDP study said nine out of 10 Syrians now live in poverty, one-quarter are jobless and Syria’s gross domestic product (GDP) “has shrunk to less than half of its value” in 2011, the year the war began.

Syria’s Human Development Index score, which factors in life expectancy, education and standard of living, has fallen to its worst level since it was first included in the index in 1990, meaning the war erased decades of development.

The UNDP report estimated that Syria’s “lost GDP” during the 2011-2024 war to be about $800bn.

WASHINGTON — California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta filed two lawsuits on Tuesday challenging a Trump administration policy that would deny the state billions of dollars in transportation grants unless it follows the administration’s lead on immigration enforcement.

“Let’s be clear about what’s happening here,” Bonta said in a statement. “The President is threatening to yank funds to improve our roads, keep our planes in the air, prepare for emergencies, and protect against terrorist attacks if states do not fall in line with his demands.”

“He’s treating these funds, which have nothing to do with immigration enforcement and everything to do with the safety of our communities, as a bargaining chip,” Bonta added.

The lawsuits, filed with a coalition of states against the Departments of Transportation and Homeland Security, argue that imposing the new set of conditions across a broad range of grant programs exceeds the administration’s legal authority.

Last month, Trump signed an executive order aiming to identify and possibly cut off federal funds to so-called sanctuary cities and states, which limit collaboration between local law enforcement and immigration authorities.

“It’s quite simple,” said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in a briefing announcing the executive order. “Obey the law, respect the law, and don’t obstruct federal immigration officials and law enforcement officials when they are simply trying to remove public safety threats from our nation’s communities.”

Cities and states that find themselves on the Trump administration’s list could also face criminal and civil rights lawsuits, as well as charges for violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

During Trump’s first term in 2018, California legislators passed a pioneering sanctuary law, the California Values Act.

California receives more than $15.7 billion in transportation grants annually to maintain roads, highways, railways, airways and bridges, Bonta’s office said. That includes $2 billion for transit systems, including buses, commuter rail, trolleys and ferries.

The state also receives $20.6 billion in yearly homeland security grants to prepare for and respond to terrorist attacks and other catastrophes. Those funds include emergency preparedness and cybersecurity grants.

But the coalition of states — California, Illinois, New Jersey and Rhode Island — argued that because such grant funding has no connection to immigration enforcement, the Trump administration cannot impose criteria that forces states to comply with its vision of enforcement.

“President Trump doesn’t have the authority to unlawfully coerce state and local governments into using their resources for federal immigration enforcement — and his latest attempt to bully them into doing so is blatantly illegal,” Bonta said.

This story will be updated.

Whether Project 2025 was President Trump’s plan for his second presidency was a big point of contention during the presidential campaign.

His opponents in the race — first President Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris — aggressively tried to tie him to the Heritage Foundation’s unpopular conservative playbook, which was unveiled in 2023. Trump vociferously denied it was his plan, and the White House still does.

Now, several months into Trump’s second term, what is clear is that he is working with incredible speed to implement an array of policies that align with those espoused by Project 2025’s conservative authors and contributors, some of whom Trump has appointed to prominent administration posts.

A tracking project claims Trump has already implemented more than 40% of Project 2025’s recommendations.

Here are five areas where the alignment is evident:

Federal bureaucracy

In a Project 2025 chapter on the powers of the executive, Russell Vought — who served as director of the Office of Management and Budget during Trump’s first term — envisioned Trump moving quickly to “break the bureaucracy to the presidential will” by firing huge numbers of career federal employees, installing loyalists in positions of power and taking control of the federal purse strings from Congress.

Vought argued career federal employees with liberal leanings had taken too much power, and the next conservative president should seize that power back.

When Trump was elected, he appointed Vought to again head OMB, and Vought, along with the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, swiftly got to work attacking the federal bureaucracy.

The OMB froze trillions of dollars in federal funding allocated by Congress. Vought prompted mass government layoffs by ordering federal agencies to “focus on the maximum elimination of functions that are not statutorily mandated.”

The courts are now hearing multiple challenges to firings, funding cuts and other Trump administration efforts to downsize the federal government.

Immigration

Trump appointed multiple immigration hard-liners with ties to Project 2025 to prominent roles in his administration, including Stephen Miller as his deputy chief of staff for policy and Tom Homan as his “border czar.” They have pushed various policies also espoused by the playbook.

Project 2025 said prioritizing “border security and immigration enforcement, including detention and deportation,” was crucial, called for many more detention beds to be created, and said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement should rescind policies that barred agents from staging immigration enforcement raids in “sensitive places” such as schools, hospitals and churches.

The Trump administration has ordered the biggest mass deportation program in U.S. history, called for billions to be invested in massive new immigration detention facilities, and promptly did away with ICE policies barring raids in sensitive places. It has also claimed sweeping executive powers to target immigrants in the country illegally, as Project 2025 recommended.

Transgender issues

Project 2025 proposed that all federal regulations that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity be rescinded, that transgender service members be ousted from the military and that gender-affirming care be strictly limited.

It also called for bans on federal funding for gender-affirming care and for “gender ideology” to be removed from all school curricula, suggested transgender athletes were endangering girls’ sports, and called for the total erasure of transgender identities in federal regulations, policies and materials.

Trump has begun implementing all of those policies. His administration announced plans to remove transgender service members, ordered the removal of LGBTQ+ references in agency materials, threatened local schools that allow transgender athletes to compete, threatened hospitals that provide gender-affirming care, and began clawing back federal funding from LGBTQ+ healthcare providers.

Trade

In his chapter on trade, economist Peter Navarro argued the U.S. must expand domestic manufacturing and called on the next president to take a particularly hard line on trade with China.

Promptly after being elected, Trump appointed Navarro as his senior counselor for trade and manufacturing. Within months, he announced sweeping new “reciprocal tariffs” against nations around the globe and even stiffer tariffs on China, suggesting those moves would return manufacturing jobs to the U.S.

The episode sent shock waves through the global economy and has produced rare examples of pushback against Trump’s agenda from Republicans in Congress.

Education

Project 2025 called for dismantling the Department of Education.

The Trump administration has ordered massive layoffs there, which Education Secretary Linda McMahon called the “first step” toward eliminating the agency. It has also sought to rescind hundreds of millions of dollars in education funding and ordered schools nationwide to end “diversity, equity and inclusion,” or DEI, initiatives and support for transgender students.

Project 2025 also called for ending federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, accusing both the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio — and even “Sesame Street” — of harboring anti-conservative bias and having little educational value. Trump signed an executive order to cut the funding.

In his Project 2025 chapter on trade, economist Peter Navarro called on the next U.S. president to bring about a domestic manufacturing “renaissance” by adopting reciprocal tariffs against trading partners and taking a particularly hard line on China.

Promptly after being elected, President Trump appointed Navarro as his senior counselor for trade and manufacturing. Within months, he announced sweeping new tariffs largely in line with Navarro’s suggestions.

When the stock market plunged and economists warned of increasing inflation and a potential recession, several of Trump’s other advisors rushed to step in, drive space between him and Navarro and prod the president into hitting pause on much of the plan.

The episode, which sent shock waves through the global economy, illustrated a broader pattern in which the president has rushed to implement unconventional or extreme policies also outlined in Project 2025.

He has done so despite having insisted throughout his 2024 presidential campaign that he wanted nothing to do with the unpopular, ultraconservative playbook, and despite warnings from experts and other liberal critics that such policies were unwise, if not illegal.

During the campaign, Trump said he hadn’t read Project 2025, which was released by the conservative Heritage Foundation in 2023, and didn’t intend to. He also said that some of its recommendations were “absolutely ridiculous and abysmal,” and two of his top campaign advisors — including his current chief of staff, Susie Wiles — said that “Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed.”

Yet just as Project 2025 envisioned, Trump as president has pursued aggressive immigration enforcement, ordered a dramatic downsizing of the federal workforce in favor of loyalists, started dismantling the Department of Education, ordered new restrictions on voting, attempted to seize the power of the federal purse from Congress, set out to defund public media institutions and targeted transgender people with an array of threats, regulations and restrictions.

One prominent community tracking project says Trump has already implemented more than 40% of Project 2025’s recommendations. To help usher in those changes, he has appointed a cadre of Project 2025 contributors to powerful positions in his administration.

Asked about the broad alignment, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt — who once appeared in a Project 2025 training video — suggested it wasn’t worth talking about.

“This is a stupid story to write and nobody cares,” Leavitt said in a statement to The Times. “President Trump makes policy decisions based on the best interests of the American people, period.”

Policy experts and liberal critics of the president disagreed.

They said Trump’s implementation of so many Project 2025 policies has hurt the economy and pushed the world’s most powerful democracy ever closer to an authoritarian, Christian nationalist regime, which is what Project 2025 called for, what made it unpopular and what its critics — and some of its supporters — warned would happen if Trump won.

Maya Wiley, president and chief executive of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of hundreds of civil rights organizations, said that Leavitt would suggest that “nobody cares” about Trump’s alignment with Project 2025 precisely because she knows they do care — and that an honest discussion about the overlap could alarm them and harm him politically.

It “matters that there is a plan, that it is an intentional plan, and that it is what Trumpism represents,” Wiley said.

Close policy alignment

In a recent report on Trump’s first 100 days in office, Michael Sozan and Ben Olinsky of the liberal Center for American Progress wrote that Trump has “waged a forceful and well-oiled effort with lightning speed to achieve — and even surpass — the ‘Second American Revolution’ envisioned by the authors of Project 2025.”

Paul Dans led Project 2025 at the Heritage Foundation until he left in July.

(George Walker IV / Associated Press)

Their assessment wasn’t far removed from that of Paul Dans, who led Project 2025 at the Heritage Foundation until his departure in July, when the plan was polling poorly and Trump wanted to distance himself from it.

In an interview with The Times, Dans said that he was “thrilled with the direction President Trump’s gone in the first 100 days,” and that he could not “find fault in anything that’s happened” under the new administration.

Dans said that the question of overlap between Trump’s agenda and Project 2025 was “irrelevant,” and that Trump was “delivering on the promises that he made to the American people.” But he also acknowledged substantial overlap existed, saying the “central tenet” of Project 2025 was “to deconstruct the administrative state,” and “the fact that [Trump] set out in earnest to do precisely that is very reassuring.”

“He’s coming out with a fierce urgency I don’t think we’ve seen in decades of governing,” Dans said.

Jon D. Michaels, a constitutional law professor at UCLA and co-author of a new book on right-wing authoritarianism under Trump, said the influence of Project 2025 and the conservative coordination that went into producing it is clear, especially in “the speed and effectiveness with which the second Trump administration is acting compared to the first.”

“It was very clear there was going to be an infrastructure in place to move from Day One, and that’s playing out,” Michaels said. “Everything is sort of hard-charging.”

One of the most prominent themes of Project 2025 is that the power of the federal government has for too long been held by a “sprawling federal bureaucracy” of liberal underlings and should be seized by the next conservative president. That was most forcefully articulated by the playbook’s principal author, Russell Vought, who served as director of the Office of Management and Budget during Trump’s first term.

Vought envisioned Trump moving quickly to “break the bureaucracy to the presidential will” by firing huge numbers of career federal employees, installing loyalists in positions of power and taking control of the federal purse strings from Congress.

When Trump was elected, he appointed Vought to again head OMB, and Vought, along with the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, swiftly got to work. Within days of Trump’s inauguration, the OMB froze trillions of dollars in federal funding allocated by Congress. A month later, Vought prompted mass government layoffs by ordering federal agencies to “focus on the maximum elimination of functions that are not statutorily mandated.”

Immigration is another area where the Trump administration is heavily aligned with Project 2025.

The playbook said prioritizing “border security and immigration enforcement, including detention and deportation,” was crucial; called for many more detention beds to be created; and said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement should rescind policies that precluded agents from conducting immigration enforcement in “sensitive places” such as schools, hospitals and churches.

The Trump administration has ordered the biggest mass deportation program in U.S. history, called for billions to be invested in massive new immigration detention facilities, and promptly did away with ICE policies barring raids at sensitive places.

In another area of alignment, Project 2025 called for an across-the-board attack on transgender people’s rights, proposing that all federal regulations that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity be rescinded, that transgender service members be ousted from the military and that gender-affirming care be strictly limited.

It called for new bans on federal funding being used for gender-affirming care and for “gender ideology” to be removed from all school curricula, suggested transgender athletes were endangering girls’ sports, and called for the total erasure of transgender people in federal regulations, policies and materials.

Trump set about implementing those policies as soon as he took office.

His administration announced a ban on transgender service members, erased LGBTQ+-related materials across government, threatened local schools that allow transgender athletes to compete, threatened hospitals that provide gender-affirming care, and announced it was clawing back funding from organizations that provide healthcare to the LGBTQ+ community.

Russell Vought heads President Trump’s Office of Management and Budget after serving as the principal author of Project 2025.

(Mark Schiefelbein / Associated Press)

Similarities can also be found in an array of other areas.

Project 2025 called for dismantling the Department of Education; scaling back the U.S. Agency for International Development, which provides aid to impoverished nations around the world; shifting Justice Department resources toward prosecuting voter fraud, despite experts saying it is rare; dismantling “diversity, equity and inclusion” initiatives across government; and stripping federal funding from public media such as the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio.

The Trump administration has set all of those policies in motion.

Momentum and resistance

With Trump in office, Project 2025 is well on its way to being implemented. That has prompted pushback and, in some cases, defeat.

Litigation by California and other states, private individuals and liberal advocacy groups has stopped some of Trump’s Project 2025-aligned policies while the courts consider their legality, and could permanently block them. In multiple cases, judges have found such policies or Trump’s unilateral implementation of them to be unconstitutional or illegal.

Congress, under the control of Republicans loyal to Trump, has shown little appetite to counter the president’s agenda, despite having substantial power to do so. However, their lockstep allegiance has shown some signs of fraying.

Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who studies trade, said Trump has long been bullish on tariffs and in Navarro found the “one advisor who consistently supports what Trump believes on this stuff.” However, their ideas have been a “disaster” economically, Alden said, and could push more Republicans to challenge the president if the resulting market volatility persists.

“They’re not worried about his authoritarian tendencies. They’re cool with that stuff. But trade, not so much,” he said.

Dans said that most conservatives “are delighted to see the path” Trump is on, and that “RINOs” in Congress — an insult meaning “Republicans in Name Only” — had best get out of his way or risk being voted out by the MAGA base.

The president’s actions so far have been “a knockdown blow to the deep state, but not a knockout blow,” Dans said. “They’re going to get their breath back, and the question is going to be, can these reforms actually take root?”

Meanwhile, liberal activists say they are increasingly working together to resist Trump’s policies. Street protests have been ratcheting up, and civil rights groups are forming new alliances with other institutions under attack from the administration, including universities and law firms.

Wiley, of the Leadership Conference, said maintaining a unified and “very public” front will be essential in holding the line against Trump and Project 2025 into the future — both because “courage is contagious,” and because Project 2025 as a political framework will outlive Trump.

“Is it the president’s plan now? Yes. Was it the president’s plan [during the campaign], even though the president tried to distance himself? Yes. Will this end with Donald Trump’s presidency? No,” Wiley said.

Jenny Pizer, chief legal officer at LGBTQ+ legal advocacy group Lambda Legal, which is suing the administration over its transgender policies, agreed.

Pizer said those policies are the product of years of work by anti-LGBTQ+ and religious groups to convince everyday Americans that queer people represent a threat to their conservative values.

“This is the worldview that they want to impose on all of us, and it’s not new,” she said. “Project 2025 brings together multiple different reactionary themes into one enormous document that, to many of us, is a terrifying picture of a world that we do not want to live in.”

WASHINGTON — The label “Northern Triangle” is in the news again as the Biden administration focuses on reducing illegal immigration from the three countries that make up the triangle: El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

Many people in Central America dislike the term because they believe it unfairly groups — and sometimes diminishes — the three very different nations.

But the administration believes there are enough similarities in the kinds of policies it wants to implement, and related problems with all three governments that will complicate the mission, that the term is part of official lexicon. President Biden named Vice President Kamala Harris to be in charge of Northern Triangle policy, and there’s a special envoy for the Northern Triangle, the State Department’s Ricardo Zúñiga.

Why these three countries? Don’t most migrants come from Mexico?

For many years, Mexican nationals constituted a larger percentage of people attempting to cross their northern border into the U.S. And while the numbers fluctuate, Central Americans from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras in the last decade vastly increased their arrivals and attempted arrivals.

For example, in fiscal year 2008, more than 90% of those apprehended by U.S. law enforcement at the border were Mexicans. In the first three quarters of 2019, Central Americans comprised 74% of apprehensions. (Apprehensions are often the way the U.S. government measures immigration.)

The number of border crossers from Northern Triangle countries dropped last year at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic but are rebounding.

Why are Central Americans fleeing those three countries?

El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have seen their governments chronically fail to improve political conditions, squander foreign aid, and allow corruption to deepen and enrich a handful of elites while the majority endures poverty.

In 2014, there may have been a glimmer of hope when the Obama administration also announced ambitious plans to improve the security and economy of the region — a job then-Vice President Biden was tasked to handle. But those efforts ran aground, in part because Central American presidents did not hold their end of their bargain, and then the Trump administration shifted focus from aid to law enforcement. If anything, conditions have deteriorated.

Climate disasters also made tens of thousands of Central American citizens more desperate. Two devastating back-to-back hurricanes in 2020 destroyed large swaths of the region, areas not already lost to droughts fueled by climate change. The loss of crops robs untold numbers of Central Americans of their livelihoods in the agricultural economy.

By making the Northern Triangle the priority, U.S. officials calculate they can make the biggest dent in migration in areas where they can more easily funnel aid to grass-roots and development organizations, away from central government coffers.

Why avoid giving the money to governments? Aren’t they best equipped to spend it efficiently?

That might be true theoretically, but the Northern Triangle governments have proven themselves inefficient or corrupt, or, as in the case of El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, have engaged in undemocratic behavior that the Biden administration does not want to reward.

Bukele has taken steps to take over the judiciary and consolidate his hold on power. In Honduras, President Juan Orlando Hernández has been implicated in a major drug-trafficking case in which his brother was sentenced to life in prison by a New York court. Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei has attempted to squash independent courts and corruption investigations and is thought to be beholden to the country’s powerful oligarchs.

Isn’t the history of U.S. involvement in Central America long and controversial? Does the U.S. bear responsibility for the troubles besetting the Northern Triangle?

Yes, and yes.

For much of the last two centuries, the United States regarded parts of Central America as its private plantation for the growing of bananas and other fruit, or a landscape for wild adventures and colonization, or a proxy battleground in fights against communism.

U.S. officials considered it to be in their own interest to further the subjugation of Central Americans, often by overthrowing leftist leaders like Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán in Guatemala in the 1950s or by lending support to dictators like Nicaragua’s Anastasio Somoza in the 1960s and ‘70s.

Nicaragua remains a deeply divided, repressive, impoverished country after wars and misrule. But the Biden administration did not include it in the Northern Triangle because most Nicaraguans who flee their country head south, to Costa Rica or Panama. (Nicaraguans who sought refuge in the U.S. in the ‘80s found an easier path to legal status because then-President Reagan judged they had fled communism.)

In the Northern Triangle, U.S. interventionism stifled democratic political development that troubles these countries to this day.

Toward the end of the 20th century, the U.S. backed a hardline military government in El Salvador in its civil war against leftist guerrillas fighting for peasants and workers with backing from Cuba and the Soviet Union. The war claimed more than 75,000 lives and sent hundreds of thousands fleeing mostly into California and the Washington, D.C., area.

The United States also interfered in Guatemala’s 35-year civil war, which ended in 1996 and killed hundreds of thousands, mostly Indigenous peasants. And the U.S. used Honduras as a staging ground for a separate war around the same time aimed at toppling leftists in Nicaragua, doing lasting damage to both countries.

Who is coming from the three countries?

The migrants arriving from these countries run the gamut, but many are farmers, eager to pick crops where labor is often in short supply, and many work construction, domestic or service-industry jobs. The better-educated or -connected often find schooling and professional positions, though their legal status tends to hold them back. Many pay taxes and support local economies.

Many were children brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents and now constitute the so-called Dreamers, a group estimated to number up to 800,000 for whom Obama deferred deportation to allow them time to gain full legal status.

In the early 1990s, the U.S. for the first time deported members of an L.A.-born gang known as Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS-13, back to their birthplace of El Salvador. The gang grew exponentially in numbers and ferocity, eventually franchising throughout the region. Many recent asylum applicants say they are escaping MS-13 or other gangs who have taken over their neighborhoods to extort, rape and kill.