CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan vets group to step down later this spring
Iraq War veteran Allison Jaslow announced Thursday that she will step down from her role as CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America later this spring, prompting a search for the next leader of the veterans organization.
The group — founded in 2004 — has been a prominent and sometimes controversial voice in the veterans community over the last two decades, focused largely on issues impacting the youngest generation of American veterans.
Unlike most of the legacy veterans organizations, which have leadership changes annually, Jaslow is only the third CEO in the organization's history. She is the group's first female leader and its first openly gay chief executive.
Her departure comes after two years in the CEO role and more than nine years of work with the organization, including spearheading the organization's 'She Who Borne the Battle' campaign, which highlighted the contributions and needs of women veterans.
Jalsow said in recent years the organization has focused more on developing leadership training programs to elevate the voices of post-9/11 veterans and the challenges facing them.
'It's a very rewarding thing to be able to bring veterans to Washington, D.C., invest in them, to train them, and give them the tools not just to advocate for our priorities but also themselves,' she said. 'And those are tools that they take home to their communities where they can help other veterans advocate too.'
Jaslow served two combat tours in Iraq with the Army. She has also worked in multiple Capitol Hill posts and recently served as an adjunct professor at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy.
VA secretary insists massive staff cuts needed to refocus department
In testimony before Congress on March 4, she delivered a blistering rebuke of lawmakers from both parties, saying that partisan fighting has blocked sensible compromises that can benefit veterans and all Americans.
'If you really want to get the backs of Post-9/11 generation veterans, how about you stop asking us and our fellow Americans to keep soldiering on when none of us is satisfied with the leadership we have in this country right now?' she said. 'How about you follow my generation of veterans' lead and make sacrifices on behalf of our country that prove that you're worthy of the office that you hold?'
Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars era now make up about 30% of the nation's veteran population, the second-largest segment behind the Vietnam War era. But they also make up about half of all veterans in the civilian workforce, a percentage that is expected to grow in coming years.
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USA Today
21 minutes ago
- USA Today
Trump's aggressive immigration crackdown is getting ICE agents hurt
New tactics are being met with rising public resistance and desperation from suspects facing ICE detention and deportation. Masked agents. Terrified suspects. Emotions running high as screaming crowds press in, cell phone cameras in hand. Amid surging immigration enforcement across the country, federal agents are being hurt and hospitalized as they make increasingly public – and risky – arrests of people they believe are undocumented. White House officials say there's been a 500% increase in assaults on agents, as President Donald Trump's massive deportation campaign ramps up. Administration officials say bold tactics are needed to repel what they call an "invasion" of immigrants. But policing experts say the aggressive approach is provoking unnecessarily dangerous encounters. In a recent incident in Nebraska, a female ICE agent was thrown to the ground and choked by an accused Tren de Aragua gang member who said he was formerly a Venezuelan soldier, according to court documents. The suspect escaped and was later captured with the help of local police. Bystander videos have captured agents wrestling suspects to the ground on crowded streets and chasing them through farm fields. One widely circulated video showed an agent grabbing a U.S. citizen by the neck in a Walmart parking lot as he resisted being taken; federal prosecutors have charged the man with assault after he allegedly punched an agent. "Just this week, an ICE officer was dragged 50 yards by a car while arresting an illegal alien sex offender," Tricia McLaughlin, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary, told USA TODAY. "Every day the men and women of ICE put their lives on the line to protect and defend the lives of American citizens." Trump, who has promised to deport 1 million immigrants this year, ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents "to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest mass deportation program in history." In a June 15 social media post, he also said: "Every day, the brave men and women of ICE are subjected to violence, harassment and even threats from radical Democrat politicians, but nothing will stop us from executing our mission, and fulfilling our mandate to the American people." Art Del Cueto, the vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, said the union's 16,000 members welcome Trump's tough new approach to immigration enforcement. Detainees are increasingly fighting back, he said, because they know there's no escape: "That's why you're seeing attacks on agents." 'It's not about public safety anymore' But there's growing pushback from the public. Recent immigration sweeps in the Los Angeles area sparked widespread protests and small riots downtown, as people threw rocks at law enforcement and set patrol vehicles on fire, and federal agents responded with tear gas and pepper spray. In some cases, federal agents are getting into shoving matches with crowds trying to film or stop what they consider to be overzealous detentions, especially when the masked agents refuse to identify themselves. Policing experts say ICE agents are exacerbating tense situations with practices that many American police departments have largely disavowed. While there's little objection to detaining violent criminals, masked agents descending upon Home Depot parking lots to arrest day laborers and food vendors – most with no criminal record – sparks panic. "The aggressive police tactics being employed by the federal government are causing the issue," said longtime police supervisor Diane Goldstein, who now directs the Law Enforcement Action Partnership, which has spent decades working to develop trust between the public and police. "Their direction and their leadership is directly putting them in a horrific situation," she said. The ICE tactics on display are a dramatic departure from how cautiously ICE agents previously worked, said Jason Houser, a former Department of Homeland Security counterterrorism official. Houser is an Afghanistan combat veteran who was ICE chief of staff during the Biden administration. Previously, ICE agents prioritized serious criminal offenders for arrest, Houser said. A team of agents might work for days or weeks to surveil a single subject before making an arrest carefully timed to minimize risks to the public and to agents themselves. ICE agents are trained to "think about prioritization of public safety, risk and removability," he added. Internal Justice Department training programs stress that police agencies should focus on de-escalation whenever possible and avoid making arrests in public areas, especially when there's no imminent threat to public safety. "Now we have political quotas: 'Give me 3,000 arrests' (per day). And all gloves are off," Houser said. "It's not about public safety any more." Before Trump, assaults were on the decline An increase in assaults on officers and agents this year would reverse a three-year trend of declining incidents, according to internal Department of Homeland Security statistics. Despite millions of daily interactions with the public, it was rare for ICE, customs officers and Border Patrol agents to get attacked on the job. The agency logged 363 assault incidents in fiscal 2024, down from 474 incidents in fiscal 2023 and 524 in fiscal 2022, according to DHS data. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which includes both customs officers and Border Patrol agents, has 45,000 law enforcement personnel and is the nation's largest law enforcement agency. Additionally, ICE has roughly 6,200 deportation agents on staff. White House officials declined to answer USA TODAY's questions about the numbers underlying the 500% increase in assaults, including the total number of injuries and their severity. It's also unclear how many additional federal agents have so far been re-assigned to immigration enforcement. Masked agents refusing to identify themselves In Huntington Park, Calif, authorities this week detained a man they said appeared to be pretending to be an ICE agent ‒ a situation they said was possible because real ICE agents are refusing to properly identify themselves as they aggressively detain people. Mayor Arturo Flores said the way ICE agents are acting does not present "the image of a just and lawful government." He said he can understand why people are angry and scared, especially knowing there are potential vigilantes and impersonators operating in the area. In response to the accused impersonator's arrest, Huntington Park leaders asked local police to verify the identity of any suspected ICE agents operating in the city. The suspect was found with multiple police radios, official-looking federal paperwork, flashing lights and a 9 mm handgun in his otherwise unmarked vehicle, according to city police. "When people cannot trust who is enforcing the law, public safety us undermines and fear begins to take hold," Flores said in a June 27 press conference. "What we are saying is simple: if you are acting with federal authority, show it. ID yourself Do not hide behind unmarked vehicles, facemasks and vague credentials." 'Someone's going to pull a gun' Underlying the tension between ICE and members of the public is a fundamental fact: ICE is arresting a record number of people who have no criminal record. An analysis by the Libertarian Cato Institute shows ICE is arresting four times more people with no criminal convictions or criminal charges per week now than the agency did during the same period in June 2017, when Trump was also president. "This is a radical tactical shift compared to Trump 1.0," David Bier, Cato director of immigration studies, in a post on X. ICE officials said they are responding to interference by the public. They say advocacy groups are stalking agents as they try to make arrests, putting the agents at risk and allowing their targets to escape. Federal agents testifying before a Senate committee on June 26 said that during a recent enforcement operation bystanders photographed an officer and posted the photo online with a threatening message. There's been a small but growing number of incidents, too, in which people called their local police department to report the presence of armed, masked men bundling community members into unmarked vehicles. ICE officials also often say that if hundreds of "sanctuary" jurisdictions around the country would hand over immigrants after they've completed a criminal sentence, that would reduce the need for agents to make risky, public arrests. But prior to Trump's enforcement ramp-up – about 70% of people arrested by ICE were transferred directly from the prison system into ICE custody, according to the nonprofit Freedom for Immigrants. Trump's new approach has pushed agents to make more arrests in the community at places like Home Depot. The push to meet a quota is driving agents toward raids and round-ups that expose them to greater risk in the field, says Goldstein. She worries that aggressive tactics combined with masks will eventually lead to a shootout. Twenty-eight states have "Stand Your Ground" laws that allow citizens to shoot if they feel threatened. "If you have masked people running out at you, someone's going to pull a gun out and someone's going to get hurt," she said. Trump's Homeland Security leadership appears to have no plans to back down. "Federal law enforcement is facing an ever-escalating increase in assaults," DHS posted to X, "but we will not be deterred."
The Hill
32 minutes ago
- The Hill
The Memo: SCOTUS clears the way for Trump – and for his successors
The Supreme Court's decision in a birthright citizenship case, handed down on Friday, has ramifications way beyond President Trump. The big, long-term impact is the granting of greater leeway to future presidents as well as to the current one. The power of the courts to curb actions emanating from the Oval Office has been significantly diluted. Whether that is a good or bad thing is in the eye of the beholder — refracted through the lens of party loyalties. For now, the decision is being celebrated by Republicans and lamented by Democrats. Those roles are nearly sure to reverse the next time a Democratic president moves into the White House. The high court did not, in fact, weigh in on the constitutionality of Trump's executive order to shift the definition of birthright citizenship. Trump wants to change the automatic assumption that people born in the United States are automatically American citizens, regardless of the immigration status of their parents. That push is framed by immigration hawks as a battle to thwart the concept of 'anchor babies' – infants born in the United States, allegedly in order to put their unauthorized-migrant parents effectively outside the reach of deportation efforts. But liberals argue the Trump effort is unconstitutional on its face, given the Fourteenth Amendment's apparently clear statement that, 'All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.' Liberals also assert that the clause about 'jurisdiction' is largely beside the point where immigration is concerned, since unauthorized migrants are still subject to the laws of the United States while they reside within its borders. In any event, lower courts have found against the Trump administration on the question, the administration has appealed and it is likely that the specific question will end up before the justices yet again. 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She alleged that the focus on universal injunctions amounted merely to the Trump administration playing a 'different game' because it had no realistic chance of making its more limited interpretation of birthright citizenship work. On the latter point, she wrote, Trump had 'an impossible task in light of the Constitution's text, history, this Court's precedents, federal law, and Executive Branch practice.' On the bigger question of how the legal processes will now work, some worries were voiced even by one of the conservative judges who concurred in the ruling, Justice Brett Kavanaugh. 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Hamilton Spectator
34 minutes ago
- Hamilton Spectator
What is Canada's digital services tax? Here's what you need to know about Trump's latest tariff threat
Donald Trump's brash threats of additional tariffs are back in full force. The U.S. president said on social media he's ending all trade talks with Canada and within a week will unveil new tariffs 'that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America.' His reason? The digital services tax. If you don't know what that is, you're not alone. Here's what you need to know. Trump announced his plan to end trade talks in a social media post Friday afternoon, less than The digital services tax is set to take effect for the first time on Monday. It will hit big tech companies around the world, including American companies like Amazon, Google, Meta, Uber and Airbnb, with a three per cent tax on revenue from Canadian users. The tax officially became law last year and is retroactive to 2022, but the first payments aren't due until the end of June. That means U.S. tech companies have a $2 billion (U.S.) bill due at the end of the month, according to The Canadian Press. The independent Parliamentary Budget Officer reported in 2023 that the tax would raise about $1.2 billion per year in government revenues. The tax has been long planned by the Liberal government, first promised in the 2019 election and delayed for years. In his Truth Social post, Trump said the tax is a 'direct and blatant attack on our country.' 'They are obviously copying the European Union, which has done the same thing, and is currently under discussion with us, also,' Trump wrote. Because of the tax, Trump said he is terminating all trade discussions with Canada. Trump has previously lashed out against the tax . In a fact sheet released in February, the White House said 'only America should be allowed to tax American firms.' And the opposition didn't start with Trump. Last year, under the Biden administration, the Office of the United States Trade Representatives said it would do what's necessary to halt the digital services tax. The digital services tax has faced increasing criticism in the U.S. and Canada. Last year, a group of Congress members called on the former Joe Biden administration to respond to the tax, saying it 'seeks to erode the durability of our bilateral economic relationship' and would 'uniquely target our firms and workers.' A group of Canadian business organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Retail Council of Canada and Canadian Bankers Association, released a letter earlier this month that said the tax could result in U.S. retaliation that could hurt Canadian pension funds and investments. 'The negative impact of this measure cannot be understated for the Canadian economy,' the letter said, calling for the tax to be paused. The prime minister also announced a Buy Canadian policy for steel and aluminum used in federal The Prime Minister's Office responded with a short statement Friday afternoon that expressed Canada's desire to continue the trade talks but did not mention the digital services tax. 'The Canadian government will continue to engage in these complex negotiations with the United States in the best interest of Canadian workers and businesses,' the statement said. Last week, finance minister François-Philippe Champagne said Canada is 'going ahead' with the tax. 'The (digital services tax) is in force and it's going to be applied,' he told reporters on Parliament Hill. Prime Minister Mark Carney comments moments after U.S. President Donald Trump said that he was "terminating all discussions on trade with Canada" and threatened new tariffs over Ottawa's plans to push ahead with a digital services tax. Carney called the negotiations "complex." (June 27, 2025 / The Canadian Press) With files from Alex Ballingall and The Canadian Press
