u.s. citizen

CHICAGO — Hoan Huynh was going door to door informing businesses of ramped-up immigration enforcement on Chicago’s North Side when the Democratic state lawmaker got an activist notification of federal agents nearby.

He followed agents’ vehicles and then honked to warn others when he was pulled over. Masked federal officers pointed a gun at him and a staffer, attempted to break his car window and took photos of their faces before issuing a warning, he recounted.

“We were nonviolent,” Huynh said of Tuesday’s incident, part of which was captured on video. “We identified ourselves as an elected official and my hands were visible.”

As the Trump administration intensifies an immigration crackdown across the nation’s third-largest city and its suburbs, elected officials in the Democratic stronghold have been increasingly caught in tense encounters with federal agents. Members of the Chicago City Council and their staffers as well as state legislators and congressional candidates report being threatened, handcuffed and detained in recent days.

The tense political atmosphere comes as President Trump has vowed to expand military deployments and jail Gov. JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson — both Democrats — over immigration policies the Republican claims protect criminals.

Illinois Democrats deem the actions to be scare tactics and a calculated acceleration. The clashes, amid constant arrests of immigrants and protesters, have emerged as a top campaign issue in the state’s March primary, where an unusually high number of congressional seats are open.

“This is an escalation with the interests of creating fear and intimidation in my community and in all of Chicago,” said Alderman Mike Rodriguez, whose ward includes heavily immigrant and Latino neighborhoods.

During an enforcement operation Wednesday in the city’s Mexican enclave of Little Village and adjacent suburb of Cicero, at least eight people, including four U.S. citizens, were detained, he said.

Two of those citizens work in his office, including Chief of Staff Elianne Bahena, and were held for hours, he said. Bahena also serves on an elected police accountability council. Rodriguez said they did nothing wrong but didn’t offer details.

“Trump sent his goons to my neighborhood to intimidate, and in the process of helping people out, my staff got detained,” he said Thursday amid continued federal presence in Little Village. Among other things, agents deployed chemical agents and detained a 16-year-old, activists and elected officials said.

Though the operation’s focus has been concentrated in Latino neighborhoods and suburbs, federal agents have been spotted all over the city of 2.7 million and its many suburbs. Word of pedestrian and traffic stops outside schools, stores, courts and an O’Hare International Airport parking lot used by rideshare drivers have triggered waves of frustration amid the city’s active immigrant rights network and residents who follow vehicles, blow warning whistles and take videos.

The Department of Homeland Security has defended its operations, including the detention of U.S. citizens, saying they are temporarily held for safety. The agency, which didn’t answer questions about Rodriguez’s staff, accused Huynh of “stalking” agents.

Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said agents had to assess whether he was a threat.

“This behavior is unbecoming of a public servant and is just another example of sanctuary politicians putting our officers at risk,” she said in a statement.

Also this week, City Council member Jessie Fuentes filed a federal tort claim seeking $100,000 in damages after agents grabbed and handcuffed her this month at a hospital. She said she was checking on a person who was injured while being pursued by immigration agents and asked for a signed judicial warrant on the person’s behalf. She was handcuffed and let go outside the hospital. She wasn’t charged.

“It is indeed a frightening time when unidentified federal agents shove, grab, handcuff and detain an elected official in the exercise of her duties,” said Jan Susler, Fuentes’ attorney.

Huynh, who was elected to the Illinois House in 2022, is running for Congress to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Jan Schawkosky, among four open House seats in safely Democratic territory. Other candidates in the crowded primary have also publicized their opposition outside a federal immigration processing center, including Kat Abughazaleh, who was thrown on the ground by federal agents as she protested.

For Huynh, who came to the U.S. in the 1990s from Vietnam and was granted political asylum, the feeling is familiar.

“My family came as refugees from the Vietnam War, where people were being picked up by the secret police all the time. We believed in the American ideal of due process,” he said. “It is very concerning that in this country right now and very disturbing right now that we are living under this authoritarian regime.”

Tareen writes for the Associated Press.

CHICAGO — The music begins low and ominous, with the video showing searchlights skimming along a Chicago apartment building and heavily armed immigration agents storming inside. Guns are drawn. Unmarked cars fill the streets. Agents rappel from a Black Hawk helicopter.

But quickly the soundtrack grows more stirring and the video — edited into a series of dramatic shots and released by the Department of Homeland Security days after the Sept. 30 raid — shows agents leading away shirtless men, their hands zip-tied behind their backs.

Authorities said they were targeting the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, though they also said only two of the 27 immigrants arrested were gang members. They gave few details on the arrests.

But the apartments of dozens of U.S. citizens were targeted, residents said, and at least a half-dozen Americans were held for hours.

The immense show of force signaled a sharp escalation in the White House’s immigration crackdown and amplified tensions in a city already on edge.

“To every criminal illegal alien: Darkness is no longer your ally,” Homeland Security said in a social media post accompanying the video, which racked up more than 6.4 million views. “We will find you.”

But Tony Wilson, a third-floor resident born and raised on Chicago’s South Side, sees only horror in what happened.

“It was like we were under attack,” Wilson said days after the raid, speaking through the hole where his door knob used to be. Agents had used a grinder to cut out the deadbolt, and he still couldn’t close the door properly, let alone lock it. So he had barricaded himself inside, blocking the door with furniture.

“I didn’t even hear them knock or nothing,” said Wilson, a 58-year-old U.S. citizen on disability.

Dreams and decay

The raid was executed in the heart of South Shore, an overwhelmingly Black neighborhood on Lake Michigan that has long been a tangle of middle-class dreams, urban decay and gentrification.

It’s a place where teams of drug dealers troll for customers outside ornate lakeside apartment buildings. It has some of the city’s best vegan restaurants but also takeout places where the catfish fillets are ordered through bullet-proof glass.

It has well-paid professors from the University of Chicago but is also where one-third of households scrape by on less than $25,000 a year.

The apartment building where the raid occurred has long been troubled. Five stories tall and built in the 1950s, residents said it was often strewn with garbage, the elevators rarely worked and crime was a constant worry. Things had grown more chaotic after dozens of Venezuelan migrants arrived in the past few years, residents said. While no residents said they felt threatened by the migrants, many described a rise in noise and hallway trash.

Owned by out-of-state investors, the building hasn’t passed an inspection in three years, with problems ranging from missing smoke detectors to the stench of urine to filthy stairways. Repeated calls to a lead investor in the limited liability company that owns the building, a Wisconsin resident named Trinity Flood, were not returned. Attempts to reach representatives through realtors and lawyers were also unsuccessful.

Crime fears spiked in June when a Venezuelan man was shot in the head “execution-style,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. Another Venezuelan was charged in the death.

Days after the raid, the doors to dozens of the building’s 130 apartments hung open. Nearly all those apartments had been ransacked. Windows were broken, doors smashed, and clothes and diapers littered the floors. In one apartment, a white tuxedo jacket hung in the closet next to a room knee-deep in broken furniture, piles of clothing and plastic bags. In another, water dripping from the ceiling puddled next to a refrigerator lying on its side. Some kitchens swarmed with insects.

Wilson said a trio of men in body armor had zip-tied his hands and forced him outside with dozens of other people, most Latino. After being held for two hours he was told he could leave.

“It was terrible, man,” he said. He’d barely left the apartment in days.

A city under siege?

Chicago, the White House says, is under siege.

Gang members and immigrants in the U.S. illegally swarm the city and crime is rampant, President Trump insists. National Guard soldiers are needed to protect government facilities from raging left-wing protesters.

“Chicago is the worst and most dangerous city in the World,” he posted on Truth Social.

The reality is far less dramatic. Violence is rare at protests, though angry confrontations are increasingly common, particularly outside a federal immigration center in suburban Broadview. And while crime is a serious problem, the city’s murder rate has dropped by roughly half since the 1990s.

Those realities have not stopped the Trump administration.

What started in early September with some arrests in Latino neighborhoods, part of a crackdown dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz,” has surged across Chicago. There are increasing patrols by masked, armed agents; detentions of U.S. citizens and immigrants with legal status; a fatal shooting; a protesting pastor shot in the head with a pepper ball outside the Broadview facility, his arms raised in supplication.

By early October, authorities said more than 1,000 immigrants had been arrested across the area.

The raids have shaken Chicago.

“We have a rogue, reckless group of heavily armed, masked individuals roaming throughout our city,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said after the Sept. 30 raid. “The Trump administration is seeking to destabilize our city and promote chaos.”

To Trump’s critics, the crackdown is a calculated effort to stir anger in a city and state run by some of his most outspoken Democratic opponents. Out-of-control protests would reinforce Trump’s tough-on-crime image, they say, while embarrassing Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, seen as a possible Democratic presidential contender.

So the South Shore raid, ready-made for social media with its displays of military hardware and agents armed for combat, was seen as wildly out of proportion.

“This was a crazy-looking military response they put together for their reality show,” said LaVonte Stewart, who runs a South Shore sports program to steer young people away from violence. “It’s not like there are roving bands of Venezuelan teenagers out there.”

Officials insist it was no reality show.

The operation, led by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, was based on months of intelligence gathering, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The building’s landlord told authorities that Venezuelans in about 30 units were squatters and had threatened other tenants, the official said, adding that the building’s size necessitated the show of force. Immigration agencies declined further comment.

Even before the “Midway Blitz,” Trump’s election had whipsawed through Chicago’s Latino communities.

Stewart said Venezuelan children began disappearing from his programs months ago, though it’s often unclear if they moved, returned to Venezuela or are just staying home.

“I had 35 kids in my program from Venezuela,” he said. “Now there’s none.”

A wave of migrant newcomers

The raid echoed through South Shore, pinballing through memories of the surge in violence during the 1990s drug wars as well as economic divides and the sometimes uncomfortable relations between Black residents and the wave of more than 50,000 immigrants, most Latino, who began arriving in 2022, often bused from southern border states.

Chicago spent more than $300 million on housing and other services for the immigrants, fueling widespread resentment in South Shore and other Black neighborhoods where the newcomers were settled.

“They felt like these new arrivals received better treatment than people who were already part of the community,” said Kenneth Phelps, pastor at the Concord Missionary Baptist Church in Woodlawn, a largely Black neighborhood.

It didn’t matter that many migrants were crowded into small apartments, and most simply wanted to work. The message to residents, he said, was that the newcomers mattered more than they did.

Phelps tried to fight that perception, creating programs to help new arrivals and inviting them to his church. But that stirred more anger, including in his own congregation.

“I even had people leave the church,” he said.

In South Shore it’s easy to hear the bitterness, even though the neighborhood’s remaining migrants are a nearly invisible presence.

“They took everyone’s jobs!” said Rita Lopez, who manages neighborhood apartment buildings and recently stopped by the scene of the raid.

“The government gave all the money to them — and not to the Chicagoans,” she said.

Changing demographics and generations of suspicion

Over more than a century, South Shore has drawn waves of Irish, Jewish and then Black arrivals for its lakeside location, affordable bungalows and early 20th-century apartment buildings.

Each wave viewed the next with suspicion, in many ways mirroring how Black South Shore residents saw the migrant influx.

Former first lady Michelle Obama’s parents moved to South Shore when it was still mostly white, and she watched it change. A neighborhood that was 96% white in 1950 was 96% Black by 1980.

“We were doing everything we were supposed to do — and better,” she said in 2019. “But when we moved in, white families moved out.”

But suspicion also came from South Shore’s Black middle-class, which watched nervously as many housing projects began closing in the 1990s, creating an influx of poorer residents.

“This has always been a complex community,” Stewart said of those years.

“You can live on a block here that’s super-clean, with really nice houses, then go one block away and there’s broken glass, trash everywhere and shootings,” he said. “It’s the weirdest thing and it’s been this way for 30 years.”

Sullivan writes for the Associated Press. AP reporters Aisha I. Jefferson in Chicago, Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and congressional Democrats have announced a sweeping investigation into potential misconduct in the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown that has ensnared citizens, made use of racial profiling and terrified communities for months.

Bass and the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), announced that Congress will open up “a broad investigation” into arrests of U.S. citizens by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, as well as another investigation into immigration raids overall. The announcement was made Monday at a news conference at L.A. City Hall.

“Donald Trump and [Department of Homeland Security Secretary] Kristi Noem are terrorizing immigrants, working people, the people of Los Angeles and of our state every single day,” Garcia said. “They violate the law and they violate the constitution.”

Garcia said that his House committee would investigate “every single brutal misconduct” that immigration authorities have committed in Los Angeles as well as across the country.

Simultaneously, the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will conduct an investigation into reports of the detention of at least 170 U.S. citizens by immigration authorities, which was reported by ProPublica last week.

“Troublingly, the pattern of U.S. Citizen arrests coincides with an alarming increase in racial profiling — particularly of Latinos — which has been well documented in Los Angeles,” Garcia and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) wrote in a letter to Noem. “In a pattern symptomatic of a disregard for civil rights by DHS, U.S. citizens have faced extended periods of detention.”

For months, agents have roamed the streets of Los Angeles toting guns and chasing down immigrants. The scenes that have played out on the streets — protesters being arrested, immigrants dragged out of their cars — have been repeated in Chicago and other cities with largely Democratic leadership.

Mayor Bass said the arrests of American citizens means that no one in the country is safe.

“This can happen to anyone, to all of us, at any period of time,” she said.

Garcia said that the first hearing of the House committee will be held in Los Angeles and that Angelenos should attend and be heard on immigration enforcement issues.

The congressman did not give a date for the hearing, but said he hoped it would be soon.

In the letter that Garcia and Blumenthal sent to Noem on Monday, the legislators called on the Department of Homeland Security to report the total number of U.S. citizens who have been detained by immigration authorities, as well as how long each individual was detained. They also asked for information regarding the training that CE and Customs and Border Protection agents receive on use of force, among other things.

The White House and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

What began as banter between fans during a contentious playoff game took a darker turn when a woman threatened to call ICE on a Southern California man during Tuesday’s National League Championship game between the Dodgers and the Milwaukee Brewers.

The exchange began when Dodgers fan Ricardo Fosado trash-talked nearby Brewers fans moments after third baseman Max Muncy clobbered a solo home run in the top of the sixth inning to give visiting Los Angeles a 3-1 lead.

Fosado repeatedly asked, “Why is everybody quiet?” to distraught Milwaukee fans in a social media clip that has since gone viral.

One fan, identified by Milwaukee media as an attorney named Shannon Kobylarczyk, responded by threatening to call U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Fosado.

“You know what?” she asked a nearby fan. “Let’s call ICE.”

Fosado, a former Bellflower City Council candidate, told Kobylarczyk to “call ICE.”

“ICE is not going to do anything to me,” said Fosado, who noted he was a war veteran and a U.S. citizen. “Good luck.”

On the video, the woman then uses a derogatory term to question Fosado’s masculinity, remarking, “real men drink beer.” Fosado was instead enjoying a fruity alcoholic beverage.

Fosado then told Kobylarczyk one last time to call ICE before calling her an idiot, punctuating the remark with an expletive.

An email to Fosado was not immediately returned Thursday.

Fosado told Milwaukee television station WISN 12 News that the incident “just shows the level where a person’s heart is and how she really feels as a human being.”

The station also confirmed that Kobylarczyk’s employment with the Milwaukee-based staffing firm Manpower had ended.

Kobylarczyk also reportedly stepped down from the board of Wisconsin’s Make-a-Wish chapter.

Fosado did not escape unscathed, however. He said he and a friend were ejected from the game shortly after the exchange.

The Dodgers ended up winning the game 5-1 and led the best-of-seven series, 2-0. The series now shifts to Dodger Stadium, with the first pitch of Game 3 is scheduled for 3:08 p.m. Thursday.

Is there a better inkblot test for America right now than reaction to Bad Bunny being the halftime act for Super Bowl LX?

Soon after his name was announced, social media exploded into meritocracy debates as if the National Football League’s decisions are culturally motivated and not commercially. Taylor Swift is the most streamed artist in Spotify history. Bad Bunny is No. 2. For a domestic sports league trying to grow its popularity globally, the rationale seems clear.

And yet because he is a Puerto Rican who sings in Spanish, conservative talking heads must project outrage and offer listeners nonsensical objections.

“It’s so shameful they’ve decided to pick somebody who seems to hate America so much to represent them at the halftime show,” Corey Lewandowski, a longtime confidant of President Trump who currently advises the Department of Homeland Security, told conservative podcast host Benny Johnson. “We should be trying to be inclusive, not exclusive. There are plenty of great bands and entertainment people who could be playing at that show that would be bringing people together and not separating them.”

Suggesting Bad Bunny hates America is an interesting take given Puerto Ricans have been U.S. citizens since 1917. The three-time Grammy winner also has four No. 1 albums on the very American Billboard pop charts and has already performed during halftime at the Super Bowl back in 2020 with Jennifer Lopez and Shakira. The Federal Communications Commission received more than 1,300 complaints about the show that year with the vast majority being from parents complaining about the stripper pole and twerking of the women, not Bad Bunny’s alleged hate of America.

I don’t know if Lewandowski and Johnson knew any of that before they started talking, but I get the feeling it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Once Lewandowski suggested ICE was going to be at the Super Bowl — an event that had an average resale ticket price of $8,600 in 2024 — it was clear their conversation wasn’t about solving the immigration problem.

It was clear they didn’t know much about the history of halftime acts either.

In 2006, a Super Bowl held in the heart of Detroit — the birthplace of Motown — rolled out the Rolling Stones, who are from London. In 2010, a Super Bowl in Miami — home of salsa and Afro-Cuban jazz — gave us the Who … who are also from England. In 2002, months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, U2 — a band from Dublin, Ireland — did the show. There is a decades-long precedent for non-Americans to headline the Super Bowl. Though, again, quick geography lesson: Puerto Rico is part of the United States and Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens.

Detractors like Lewandowski and Johnson want to make English being Bad Bunny’s second language an indictment of his patriotism, as if growing up speaking English is a criterion for citizenship. It isn’t and never has been. Perhaps instead of using their platform to stir fear at a time when calm is needed, the two could see next February’s show as an opportunity to grow. Because honestly, it is so counterproductive to allow influential voices to gaslight the country into forgetting the milestones it’s already crossed. “La Bamba” by Los Lobos was sung in Spanish and hit No. 1 nearly 40 years ago. The only English in the K-pop hit “Gangnam Style” is “hey, sexy lady,” and that song made PSY an international sensation.

Instead of making people fear Spanish at the Super Bowl, maybe encourage them to spend this NFL season learning something beyond “gracias.“ Because in this world, there are people who choose to speak in English and there are people who have no other choice. Only one of those scenarios feels like freedom to me.

That was the topic of discussion in the summer of 2008 after then-Sen. Barack Obama said this at a campaign stop in Georgia: “Understand this, instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English — they’ll learn English — you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish. You should be thinking about how can your child become bilingual.”

At the time many conservatives — such as Tucker Carlson and Lou Dobbs — used those comments not as a prompt to debate the merits of Obama’s remarks regarding U.S. education but as a weapon to attack him. They accused him of being divisive — when years ago Nelson Mandela said when you talk to someone “in his own language, that goes to his heart.” In fact, Dobbs said “instead of diversity, he’s talking about factionalism.” Nonsense that sounds a lot like the echoes we hear from Lewandowski and Johnson today.

It’s not just a question of if our children should be bilingual; it’s also about being curious about the world we live in. This NFL season has already featured games in Ireland and Brazil. Mexico City is an annual event. The league is in it for the bag. And eventually there will be a team based overseas where Spanish is heard, visiting teams carry passports and Bad Bunny is no stranger.

YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow

DES MOINES — Officials put the leader of Iowa’s largest school district on administrative leave Saturday, a day after federal immigration agents arrested him because they said he was in the country illegally.

The Des Moines school board voted unanimously to place Supt. Ian Roberts on paid leave. The board said during a three-minute meeting that Roberts was not available to carry out his duties for the 30,000-student district and that officials would reassess his status after getting more information.

After the meeting, school board President Jackie Norris read a statement saying that word of Roberts’ arrest Friday made for a “jarring day,” but noting that board members still didn’t have all the facts.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said agents detained Roberts because he was in the country illegally, didn’t have authorization to work and was subject to a final removal order issued in 2024. ICE agents stopped Roberts while he was driving a school-issued vehicle, and the agency said he then fled into a wooded area before being apprehended with help from Iowa State Patrol officers.

He was held in the Woodbury County Jail in Sioux City, in northwest Iowa, about 150 miles from Des Moines.

“I want to be clear, no one here was aware of any citizenship or immigration issues that Dr. Roberts may have been facing,” Norris said. “The accusations ICE had made against Dr. Roberts are very serious, and we are taking them very seriously.”

Norris said Roberts has retained a Des Moines law firm to represent him. Lawyer Alfredo Parrish confirmed his firm was representing Roberts, but declined to comment on his case.

Norris also repeated that the district had done a background check on Roberts before he was hired that didn’t indicate any problems and that he signed a form affirming he was a U.S. citizen. A company that aided in the search for a superintendent in 2023 also hired another firm to conduct “comprehensive criminal, credit and background checks” on Roberts that didn’t indicate any citizenship problems, Norris said.

Also Saturday, the Iowa Department of Education released a statement saying Roberts stated he was a U.S. citizen when he applied for an administrator license. The department said the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners conducted a criminal history check with state and federal authorities before issuing a license.

The department said it is reviewing the Des Moines district’s hiring procedures for ensuring people are authorized to work in the U.S.

Roberts had previously said he was born to immigrant parents from Guyana and spent much of his childhood in Brooklyn, N.Y. He competed in the 2000 Olympics in track and field for Guyana.

ICE said he entered the U.S. on a student visa in 1999.

A former senior Guyanese police official on Saturday remembered Roberts as a middle-distance runner who could have risen through the ranks of the South American country’s police force had he not emigrated to the U.S. decades ago. Retired Assistant Guyana Police Force Commissioner Paul Slowe said Roberts entered the police force after graduating from the country’s standard military officers’ course.

“He served for a few years and then left. He was not dismissed or dishonorably discharged at all; he just moved on,” Slowe told the Associated Press. “He was a good, promising and disciplined man.”

McFetridge writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Bert Wilkinson in Georgetown, Guyana, contributed to this report.

President Trump’s new sky-high visa fees have shaken Silicon Valley’s tech giants as they contemplate a surge in the cost of hiring global talent and a new tactic the White House can use to keep Silicon Valley in line.

The tech industry was already navigating an economy with higher and unpredictable tariffs, when last week the Trump administration threw another curveball aimed directly at its bottom line: a $100,000 fee for the visas used to hire certain skilled foreign workers. The industry relies heavily on the H-1B visa program to bring in a wide range of engineers, coders, and other top talent to the United States.

The rollout has sparked confusion among businesses, immigration lawyers and current H-1B visa holders.

Over the weekend, the Trump administration clarified that the new fee will apply to new visas, isn’t annual and doesn’t prevent current H-1B visa holders from traveling in and outside of the country. Companies would have to pay the fee with any new H-1B visa petitions submitted after a specific time on Sept. 21, the White House said.

On Monday, the Trump administration also clarified that certain professions, such as doctors, may be exempt from the fee. Some observers are concerned that a selective application of the fee could be a way the White House can reward its friends and punish its detractors.

Meta, Apple, Google, Amazon and Microsoft have been strengthening their ties with the Trump administration by committing to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the United States.

Still, immigration has long been a contentious issue between the Trump administration and tech executives, some of whom were on a H-1B visa before they co-founded or led some of the world’s largest tech companies.

One of the most vocal supporters of the H-1B visas: Elon Musk, who backed Trump but has publicly sparred with him after he led the federal government’s efforts to slash spending. Musk, who runs multiple companies, including Tesla, SpaceX and xAI, is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in South Africa and has held an H-1B visa.

Tech executives have said the H-1B visa program has been crucial for hiring skilled workers. Competition to attract the world’s best talent has been intensifying since the popularity of OpenAI’s ChatGPT sparked a fierce race to rapidly advance artificial intelligence.

The new fee could slow California’s development and the United States’ position in the AI race by making it tougher for companies — especially startups with less money — to bring in international employees, experts said.

So far this fiscal year, more than 7,500 companies in Californiahave applied forH-1B visas and 61,841 have been approved, data from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services shows.

Tech companies use the visa program to hire computer scientists and engineers because the U.S. isn’t producing enough workers with the skills needed, said Darrell West, a senior fellow in the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution.

Trump “likes to talk tough on immigration, but he fails to recognize how important immigrants are to our economy,” he said. “Companies in technology, agriculture, hotels, restaurants and construction rely heavily on immigrants, and slowing that flow is going to be devastating for companies in those areas.”

In his executive order, the Trump administration noted that some companies, such as information technology firms, have allegedly misused the program, citing mass layoffs in the tech industry and the difficulty young college graduates face in landing jobs.

“President Trump promised to put American workers first, and this commonsense action does just that by discouraging companies from spamming the system and driving down American wages,” Taylor Rogers, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement.

Economists and tech executives, though, have pointed to other factors affecting hiring, including economic uncertainty from tariffs, a shift in investments and the rise of AI tools that could complete tasks typically filled by entry-level workers.

California’s unemployment rate of 5.5% in August was higher than the U.S. unemployment rate of 4.3%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The rollout of the new changes has been “extremely chaotic,” and while the White House has tried to clear up some of the confusion, tech companies still have a lot of questions about how the fee would work, said Adam Kovacevich, chief executive of the Chamber of Progress, a center-left tech industry policy coalition.

“You never know what you’re gonna end up with the final policy in Trump world,” he said. “Somebody within the administration drives an announcement, there’s blowback, and then they end up modifying their plans.”

Tech companies have been trying to navigate a fine line in their relationship with Trump.

During Trump’s first term, high-profile tech executives, including those from Meta, Amazon, Google and Apple, spoke out about his administration’s order to restrict travel from several majority-Muslim countries. But in his second term, those same executives have cozied up to the Trump administration as they seek to influence AI policy and strike lucrative partnerships with the government.

They’ve contributed to his inauguration fund, appeared at high-profile press events, and attended a White House dinner, where Trump asked them how much they’re investing in the United States.

Microsoft declined to comment. Meta, Google and Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Changes to the H-1B program could also worsen relations with other countries, such as India, that send skilled tech workers to the U.S., experts said.

Indian nationals are the largest beneficiaries of the H-1B visa program, accounting for 71% of approved petitions, followed by those from China, at approximately 12%.

Some Indian venture capitalists and research institutes see a silver lining in this murky future. On social media, some have posted that the uncertainty surrounding H-1B visa rules could encourage talented engineers to return home to build startups, thereby fueling India’s tech sector. That would mean more competition for U.S. tech companies.

Kunal Bahl, an Indian tech investor and entrepreneur, posted “Come, build in India!” on social media. His firm, Titan Capital, launched a seed funding and mentorship program aimed at attracting students and professionals rethinking their future in the U.S. after the visa troubles.

Global tech companies might also consider opening more centers abroad where workers can work remotely and not have to move to the U.S., said Phil Fersht, the founder and chief executive of HFS Research.

“The more the U.S. makes itself a less attractive place to bring in talent,” he said, “the more it is going to harm its economy.”

WASHINGTON — Fifty years ago, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that U.S. Border Patrol agents violated the Constitution when they stopped a car on a freeway near San Clemente because its occupants appeared to be “of Mexican ancestry.”

The 4th Amendment protects Americans from unreasonable searches, the justices said then, and a motorist’s “Mexican appearance” does not justify stopping them to ask about their immigration status.

But the court sounded a decidedly different note on Monday when it ruled for the Trump administration and cleared the way for stopping and questioning Latinos who may be here illegally. By a 6-3 vote, the justices set aside a Los Angeles judge’s temporary restraining order that barred agents from stopping people based in part on their race or apparent ethnicity.

“Apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion,” said Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. “However, it can be a relevant factor when considered along with other salient factors.”

Critics of the ruling said it had opened the door for authorizing racial and ethnic bias.

UCLA law professor Ahilan Arulanantham called it “shocking and appalling. I don’t know of any recent decision like this that authorized racial discrimination.”

Arulanantham noted that Kavanaugh’s writings speak for the justice alone, and that the full court did not explain its ruling on a case that came through its emergency docket.

By contrast, he and others pointed out that the court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. prohibited the use of race or ethnicity as a factor in college admissions.

“Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it,” Roberts wrote for a 6-3 majority in 2023. That decision struck down the affirmative action policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina.

“Today, the Supreme Court took a step in a badly wrong direction,” Ilya Somin, a George Mason University law professor, wrote on the Volokh Conspiracy blog. “It makes no sense to conclude that racial and ethnic discrimination is generally unconstitutional, yet also that its use is ‘reasonable’ under the 4th Amendment.”

Reports had already emerged before the decision of ICE agents confronting U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents before they have been able to prove their status, compelling many to begin carrying documentation around at all times.

In New York on Monday, one man outside a federal court was pushed by ICE agents before being able to show them his identification. He was let go.

Asked by The Times to respond to increasing concern among U.S. citizens they could be swept up in expanded ICE raids as a result of the ruling, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that individuals should not be worried.

She added that immigration agents conduct targeted operations with the use of law enforcement intelligence.

“The Supreme Court upheld the Trump administration’s right to stop individuals in Los Angeles to briefly question them regarding their legal status, because the law allows this, and this has been the practice of the federal government for decades,” Leavitt said. “The Immigration and Nationality Act states that immigration officers can briefly stop an individual to question them about their immigration status, if the officer has reasonable suspicion that the individual is illegally present in the United States. And reasonable suspicion is not just based on race — it’s based on a totality of the circumstances.”

On X, the House Homeland Security Committee Democrats responded to Leavitt’s comments, writing: “ICE has jailed U.S. citizens. The Trump Admin is defending racial profiling. Nobody is safe when ‘looking Hispanic’ is treated as probable cause.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her dissent pointed out that nearly half of the residents of Greater Los Angeles are Latino and can speak Spanish.

“Countless people in the Los Angeles area have been grabbed, thrown to the ground and handcuffed because of their looks, their accents, and the fact that they make a living by doing manual labor,” she wrote. “Today, the Court needlessly subjects countless more to these exact same indignities.”

At issue in the case was the meaning of “reasonable suspicion.”

For decades, the court has said police and federal agents may stop and question someone if they see something specific that suggests they may be violating the law.

But the two sides disagreed over whether agents may stop people because they appear to be Latinos and work as day laborers, at car washes or other low-wage jobs.

President Trump’s lawyers as well as Kavanaugh said agents may make stops based on the “totality of the circumstances” and that may include where people work as well as their ethnicity. They also pointed to the data that suggests about 10% of the people in the Los Angeles area are illegally in the United States.

Tom Homan, the White House border advisor, said that the legal standard of reasonable suspicion “has a group of factors you must take into consideration,” adding, “racial profiling is not happening at all.”

It is a “false narrative being pushed,” Homan told MSNBC in an interview, praising the Supreme Court decision. “We don’t arrest somebody or detain somebody without reasonable suspicion.”

Mandonna “Donna” Kashanian lived in the United States for 47 years, married a U.S. citizen and raised their daughter. She was gardening in the yard of her New Orleans home when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers handcuffed and took her away, her family said.

Kashanian arrived in 1978 on a student visa and applied for asylum, fearing retaliation for her father’s support of the U.S.-backed shah. She lost her bid, but she was allowed to remain with her husband and child if she checked in regularly with immigration officials, her husband and daughter said. She complied, once checking in from South Carolina during Hurricane Katrina. She is now being held at an immigration detention center in Basile, La., while her family tries to get information.

Other Iranians are also getting arrested by immigration authorities after decades in the United States. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security won’t say how many people they’ve arrested, but U.S. military strikes on Iran have fueled fears that there is more to come.

“Some level of vigilance, of course, makes sense, but what it seems like ICE has done is basically give out an order to round up as many Iranians as you can, whether or not they’re linked to any threat and then arrest them and deport them, which is very concerning,” said Ryan Costello, policy director of the National Iranian American Council, an advocacy group.

Homeland Security did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment on Kashanian’s case but have been touting arrests of Iranians. The department announced the arrests of at least 11 Iranians on immigration violations a week ago, during the weekend of the U.S. missile strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said, without elaborating, that it arrested seven Iranians at a Los Angeles-area address that “has been repeatedly used to harbor illegal entrants linked to terrorism.”

The department “has been full throttle on identifying and arresting known or suspected terrorists and violent extremists that illegally entered this country, came in through Biden’s fraudulent parole programs or otherwise,” spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said of the 11 arrests. She didn’t offer any evidence of terrorist or extremist ties. Her comment on parole programs referred to former President Biden’s expanded legal pathways to entry, which President Trump shut down.

Russell Milne, Kashanian’s husband, said his wife is not a threat. Her appeal for asylum was complicated because of “events in her early life,” he explained. A court found an earlier marriage of hers to be fraudulent.

But over four decades, Kashanian, 64, built a life in Louisiana. The couple met when she was bartending as a student in the late 1980s. They married and had a daughter. She volunteered with Habitat for Humanity, filmed Persian cooking tutorials on YouTube and was a grandmother figure to the children next door.

The fear of deportation always hung over the family, Milne said, but he said his wife did everything that was being asked of her.

“She’s meeting her obligations,” Milne said. “She’s retirement age. She’s not a threat. Who picks up a grandmother?”

While Iranians have been crossing the border illegally for years, especially since 2021, they have faced little risk of being deported to their home countries due to severed diplomatic relations with the U.S. That seems to no longer be the case.

The Trump administration has deported hundreds of people, including Iranians, to countries other than their own in an attempt to circumvent diplomatic hurdles with governments that won’t take their people back. During Trump’s second term, countries including El Salvador, Costa Rica and Panama have taken back noncitizens from the U.S.

The administration has asked the Supreme Court to clear the way for several deportations to South Sudan, a war-ravaged country with which it has no ties, after the justices allowed deportations to countries other than those that noncitizens came from.

The U.S. Border Patrol arrested Iranians 1,700 times at the Mexican border from October 2021 through November 2024, according to the most recent public data available. The Homeland Security Department reported that about 600 Iranians overstayed visas as business or exchange visitors, tourists and students in the 12-month period through September 2023, the most recent report shows.

Iran was one of 12 countries subject to a U.S. travel ban imposed by Trump that took effect this month. Some fear ICE’s growing deportation arrests will be another blow.

In Oregon, an Iranian man was detained by immigration agents this past week while driving to the gym. He was picked up roughly two weeks before he was scheduled for a check-in at ICE offices in Portland, according to court documents filed by his attorney, Michael Purcell.

The man, identified in court filings as S.F., has lived in the U.S. for more than 20 years, and his wife and two children are U.S. citizens.

S.F. applied for asylum in the U.S. in the early 2000s, but his application was denied in 2002. His appeal failed, but the government did not deport him and he continued to live in the country for decades, according to court documents.

Due to “changed conditions” in Iran, S.F. would face “a vastly increased danger of persecution” if he were to be deported, Purcell wrote in his petition. “These circumstances relate to the recent bombing by the United States of Iranian nuclear facilities, thus creating a de facto state of war between the United States and Iran.”

S.F.’s long residency in the U.S., his conversion to Christianity and the fact that his wife and children are U.S. citizens “sharply increase the possibility of his imprisonment in Iran, or torture or execution,” he said.

Similarly, Kashanian’s daughter said she is worried what will happen to her mother.

“She tried to do everything right,” Kaitlynn Milne said.

Chandler, Rush and Spagat write for the Associated Press.

NEW YORK — New York City comptroller and Democratic mayoral candidate Brad Lander was arrested by federal agents at an immigration court Tuesday as he was trying to accompany a person out of a courtroom.

A reporter with the Associated Press witnessed Lander’s arrest at a federal building in Manhattan. The person Lander was walking out of the courtroom was also arrested.

Lander had spent the morning observing immigration court hearings and told an AP reporter that he was there to “accompany” some immigrants out of the building.

A video of the arrest, captured by an AP reporter, shows an agent telling Lander, “You’re obstructing.”

Lander replies, as he’s being handcuffed, “I’m not obstructing, I’m standing right here in the hallway.”

“You don’t have the authority to arrest U.S. citizens asking for a judicial warrant,” Lander said as he was led down a hallway and into an elevator.

One of the officers who led Lander away wore a tactical vest labeled “federal agent.” Others were in plainclothes, with surgical masks over their faces.

The episode occurred as federal immigration officials are conducting large-scale arrests outside immigration courtrooms across the country.

Emailed inquiries to the FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement were not immediately returned.

Lander is a candidate in the city’s Democratic mayoral primary. Early voting in the contest is underway.

Attanasio writes for the Associated Press.

After gunfire erupted outside a humanitarian aid event for Gaza at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington late Wednesday, Yoni Kalin and his wife, JoJo, watched as museum security rushed attendees away from the doors and others who had just left came tumbling back in.

Among those who came in, Kalin said, was a man who appeared agitated, who Kalin and others in the museum first took for a protester, and who “walked right up” to police the moment they arrived, Kalin said.

“‘I did this for Gaza. Free Palestine,’” Kalin recalled the man telling the officers in an interview with The Times Thursday. “He went into his, ‘Free Palestine. There’s only one solution. Intifada revolution’ — you know, the usual chants.”

Kalin, a 31-year-old Washington, D.C., resident who works in biotech, said he still had no idea that two Israeli Embassy employees had been fatally shot outside. So when police started to pull the man away and he dropped a red kaffiyeh, or traditional Arab headdress, Kalin picked it up and tried to return it to him, he said.

The event that night — which Kalin’s wife had helped organize with the American Jewish Committee and the humanitarian aid groups Multifaith Alliance and IsraAID — had been “all about bridge building and humanitarian aid and support,” Kalin said, and he figured returning a protester’s kaffiyeh was in line with that ethos.

“I regret that now,” Kalin said Thursday morning, after a nearly restless night. “I regret touching it.”

Like so many other mourners across the nation, Kalin said he was having a hard time processing the “surreal, horrific” attack, and its occurring at an event aimed at boosting collaboration and understanding between Israelis, Palestinians and Americans.

“I don’t think him shouting ‘Free Palestine’ or ‘Free Gaza’ is going to actually help Palestinians or Gazans in this situation, especially given that he murdered people that are actually trying to help on the ground or contribute to these aid efforts,” Kalin said of the shooter. “It’s a really sick irony.”

Israeli officials identified the two victims as employees of the Israeli Embassy in Washington. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Yaron Lischinsky was an Israeli citizen and research assistant, and Sarah Milgrim was a U.S. citizen who organized visits and missions to Israel. Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter said the two were a couple, and that Lischinsky had recently purchased a ring and planned to propose to Milgrim next week in Jerusalem.

U.S. authorities called the shooting an “act of terror” and identified the suspect as Elias Rodriguez, 31, of Chicago. Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith said Rodriguez was seen pacing outside the museum before the shooting, and was later detained by security after walking inside.

Dan Bongino, deputy director of the FBI, said the agency was “aware of certain writings allegedly authored by the suspect, and we hope to have updates as to the authenticity very soon.” He said Rodriguez had been interviewed by law enforcement early Thursday morning, and that the FBI did not believe there was any ongoing threat to the public.

President Trump, who spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, and U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi have both promised justice in the shooting.

“These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW!” Trump posted on social media. “Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA.”

Israel Bachar, Israel’s consul general for the U.S. Pacific Southwest, based in Los Angeles, said security has been increased at consul facilities and at other Jewish institutions, with the help of American law enforcement and local police.

The shooting comes amid Israel’s latest major offensive in the Gaza Strip in a war since Oct. 7, 2023, when Israel was attacked by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

The attack, launched from Gaza, killed 1,200 people, while Hamas claimed about 250 hostages. Israel’s response has devastated Gaza and killed more than 53,000 people, mostly women and children, according to local health authorities.

U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi visits the site of the shooting outside the Capital Jewish Museum on Thursday.

(Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images)

About 90% of the territory’s roughly 2 million population has been displaced. Much of urban Gaza has been bombed out and destroyed, and Israel has blocked huge amounts of aid from entering the territory, sparking a massive hunger crisis. Protests of Israel’s actions have spread around the world and in the U.S., which is a major arms supplier to Israel.

Brian Levin, founder of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino, said that for decades, antisemitic and anti-Muslim attacks have increased in the U.S. when conflicts arise in the Middle East — and Israel’s current war is no exception.

“With the worst conflict the region has seen in years, with a horrifying loss of life and moving images of the suffering taking place in Gaza, what ends up happening is the soil gets soft for antisemitism,” Levin said.

In recent years especially, the spread of such imagery — and of misinformation — on social media has produced “a rabbit-hole where people can get increasingly radicalized,” and where calls for retribution against anyone even tangentially connected to a disfavored group can drown out messages for peace, compassion and aid, Levin said.

“We have unfortunately been caught in a time when the peaceful interfaith voices have been washed over like a tsunami, leaving a vacuum that allows conflict overseas to generate bigotry and violence here,” he said. “We see that again and again — we saw that with 9/11 — where communities become stereotyped and broad-brushed and labeled in certain niches as legitimate target for aggression, and that feeds upon itself like a fire, where you end up having totally innocent people being murdered.”

Several organizations have described Lischinsky and Milgrim as being committed to peace and humanitarian aid work. Kalin said many of the people at the museum event were — and will continue to be.

“This act of violence just makes me want to build bridges even stronger. I think we need to strengthen the coalition. We need more Muslims, we need more Christians, we need more Israelis, we need more Palestinians,” Kalin said. “We need people that believe that peace is the answer — and that hate and violence isn’t going to solve this issue.”

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Trump is circumspect about his duties to uphold due process rights laid out in the Constitution, saying in a new interview that he does not know whether U.S. citizens and noncitizens alike deserve that guarantee.

He also said he does not think military force will be needed to make Canada the “51st state” and played down the possibility he would look to run for a third term in the White House.

The comments in a wide-ranging, and at moments combative, interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” came as the Republican president’s efforts to quickly enact his agenda face sharper headwinds with Americans just as his second administration crossed the 100-day mark, according to a recent poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Trump, however, made clear that he is not backing away from a to-do list that he insists the American electorate broadly supported when they elected him in November.

Here are some of the highlights from the interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker that was taped Friday at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida and aired Sunday.

Due process

Critics and many analysts have argued that Trump is chipping away at due process in the United States. Most notably, they cite the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran-born man — and legal U.S. resident — who was living in Maryland when he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador and imprisoned without communication.

Trump says Abrego Garcia is part of a violent transnational gang. The president has sought to turn deportation into a test case for his campaign against illegal immigration despite a Supreme Court order saying the administration must work to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S.

Asked in the interview whether U.S. citizens and noncitizens both deserve due process as laid out in the 5th Amendment of the Constitution, Trump was noncommittal.

“I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know,” Trump said when pressed by Welker.

The 5th Amendment provides “due process of law,” meaning a person has certain rights when it comes to being prosecuted for a crime. Also, the 14th Amendment says no state can “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Trump said he has “brilliant lawyers … and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said.”

He said he was pushing to deport “some of the worst, most dangerous people on Earth,” but that courts are getting in his way.

“I was elected to get them the hell out of here, and the courts are holding me from doing it,” Trump said.

Canada as ‘51st state’

The president has repeatedly threatened that he intends to make Canada the “51st state.”

Before his White House meeting Tuesday with newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Trump is reiterating the rhetoric that has angered Canadians.

Trump, however, told NBC that it was “highly unlikely” that the U.S. would need to use military force to make Canada a state.

He offered less certainty about whether his repeated calls for the U.S. to take over Greenland from NATO-ally Denmark can be achieved without military action.

“Something could happen with Greenland,” Trump said. “I’ll be honest, we need that for national and international security. … I don’t see it with Canada. I just don’t see it, I have to be honest with you.”

Economy

Trump said the U.S. economy is in a “transition period” but he expects it to do “fantastically” despite the economic turmoil sparked by his tariffs.

He responded sharply when Welker noted that some Wall Street analysts now say the chances of a recession are increasing.

“Well, you know, you say, some people on Wall Street say,” Trump said. “Well, I tell you something else. Some people on Wall Street say that we’re going to have the greatest economy in history.”

He also deflected blame for the 0.3% decline in the U.S. economy in the first quarter. He said he was not responsible for it.

“I think the good parts are the Trump economy and the bad parts are the Biden economy because he’s done a terrible job,” referring to his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden.

Trump reiterated his recent comments at a Cabinet meeting that children might have to have two dolls instead of 30, denying that is an acknowledgment his tariffs will lead to supply shortages.

“I’m just saying they don’t need to have 30 dolls. They can have three. They don’t need to have 250 pencils. They can have five.”

A third term?

The president has repeatedly suggested he could seek a third term in the White House even though the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution says that “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”

Trump told NBC there is considerable support for him to run for a third term.

“But this is not something I’m looking to do,” Trump said. “I’m looking to have four great years and turn it over to somebody, ideally a great Republican, a great Republican to carry it forward.”

Some observers view Trump’s previous comments about a third term as provoking outrage on the political left. The Trump Organization is selling red caps with the words “Trump 2028.”

But at moments, he has suggested he was seriously looking into a third term. In a late March phone interview with NBC, Trump said, “I’m not joking. There are methods which you could do it.”

Vance in 2028? Or … ?

Trump said in the interview that Vice President JD Vance is doing a “fantastic job” and is “brilliant.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whom Trump last week tasked to simultaneously serve as acting national security advisor, is “great,” the president said.

But Trump said it is “far too early” to begin talking about his potential successor.

He is confident that his “Make America Great Again” movement will flourish beyond his time in the White House.

“You look at Marco, you look at JD Vance, who’s fantastic,” Trump said. “You look at — I could name 10, 15, 20 people right now just sitting here. No, I think we have a tremendous party. And you know what I can’t name? I can’t name one Democrat.”

Madhani writes for the Associated Press.