Trump U-turn on deporting farm workers came after fury from Noem and Miller, report claims
Donald Trump 's rapid flip-flop on not deporting undocumented migrant farm and hotel workers came after the president was reportedly met with angry pushback from Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem.
Trump briefly changed his mind on who ICE should kick out of the country after getting a phone call from Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, according to Axios.
Speaking at the White House on June 12, Trump said, "We can't take farmers and take all their people and send them back because they don't have maybe what they're supposed to have, maybe not.'
Rollins reportedly went over Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to speak with the president. Axios reported the pair were angry over Rollins' actions.
In response, Noem and Miller went to the president to change his mind. The policy was switched to meet their position and raids on those sectors resumed, reported CBS News.
On Sunday, Trump also announced the administration would target U.S. metropolitan areas, particularly 'sanctuary cities.'
"ICE Officers are herewith ordered, by notice of this TRUTH, to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History,' the president wrote on the social media platform.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, doubled down on the president's remarks, saying, 'There has not been a change in our posture.'
Another senior administration official told Axios the president 'doesn't need to hear from Conrad Hilton to know about the hotel business,' he said. 'He has his own resort."
Almost six months since Trump's inauguration, President Barack Obama still holds the record for deporting the most amount of migrants. His administration deported 438,421 people in 2013.
To break Obama's record, Trump would need to double the current number of people his administration is deporting, but it's unclear if that could be done. Trump briefly changed his tune on deportations last week.
At the end of April, the administration said it had deported about 139,000 migrants.
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Reuters
39 minutes ago
- Reuters
Israel-Iran air war enters sixth day, Trump calls for Iran's 'unconditional surrender'
JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON/DUBAI, June 18 (Reuters) - Iran and Israel launched new missile strikes at each other on Wednesday as the air war between the two longtime enemies entered a sixth day despite a call from U.S. President Donald Trump for Iran's unconditional surrender. The Israeli military said two barrages of Iranian missiles were launched toward Israel in the first two hours of Wednesday morning. Explosions were heard over Tel Aviv. Israel told residents in the area of Tehran to evacuate so its air force could strike Iranian military installations. Iranian news websites said explosions were heard in Tehran and the city of Karaj west of the capital. Trump warned on social media on Tuesday that U.S. patience was wearing thin. While he said there was no intention to kill Iran's leader "for now," his comments suggested a more aggressive stance toward Iran as he weighs whether to deepen U.S. involvement. "We know exactly where the so-called 'Supreme Leader' is hiding," he wrote on Truth Social, referring to Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. "We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now ... Our patience is wearing thin." Three minutes later Trump posted, "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!" A White House official said Trump spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone on Tuesday. Trump's sometimes contradictory and cryptic messaging about the conflict between close U.S. ally Israel and longtime foe Iran has deepened the uncertainty surrounding the crisis. His public comments have ranged from military threats to diplomatic overtures, not uncommon for a president known for an often erratic approach to foreign policy. Britain's leader Keir Starmer, speaking at the Group of Seven nations summit in Canada that Trump left early, said there was no indication the U.S. was about to enter the conflict. Trump met for 90 minutes with his National Security Council on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the conflict, a White House official said. Details were not immediately available. The U.S. is deploying more fighter aircraft to the Middle East and extending the deployment of other warplanes, three U.S. officials told Reuters. The U.S. has so far only taken defensive actions in the current conflict with Iran, including helping to shoot down missiles fired toward Israel. Khamenei's main military and security advisers have been killed by Israeli strikes, hollowing out his inner circle and raising the risk of strategic errors, according to five people familiar with his decision-making process. With Iranian leaders suffering their most dangerous security breach since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the country's cybersecurity command banned officials from using communications devices and mobile phones, Fars news agency reported. Israel launched a "massive cyber war" against Iran's digital infrastructure, Iranian media reported. Ever since Iran-backed Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, and triggered the Gaza war, Khamenei's regional influence has waned as Israel has pounded Iran's proxies - from Hamas in Gaza to Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and militias in Iraq. Iran's close ally, Syria's autocratic president Bashar al-Assad, has been ousted. Israel launched its air war, its largest ever on Iran, on Friday after saying it had concluded the Islamic Republic was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons and has pointed to its right to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, including enrichment, as a party to the international Non-Proliferation Treaty. Israel, which is not a party to the NPT, is the only country in the Middle East believed to have nuclear weapons. Israel does not deny or confirm that. Netanyahu has stressed that he will not back down until Iran's nuclear development is disabled, while Trump says the Israeli assault could end if Iran agrees to strict curbs on enrichment. Before Israel's attack began, the 35-nation board of governors of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, declared Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time in almost 20 years. The IAEA said on Tuesday an Israeli strike directly hit the underground enrichment halls at the Natanz facility. Israel says it now has control of Iranian airspace and intends to escalate the campaign in coming days. But Israel will struggle to deal a knock-out blow to deeply buried nuclear sites like Fordow, which is dug beneath a mountain, without the U.S. joining the attack. Iranian officials have reported 224 deaths, mostly civilians, while Israel said 24 civilians had been killed. Residents of both countries have been evacuated or fled. Global oil markets are on high alert following strikes on sites including the world's biggest gas field, South Pars, shared by Iran and Qatar.
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Donald Trump to extend US TikTok ban deadline, White House says
TikTok will live on for at least another three months in the United States, as President Donald Trump is poised to extend a sale or ban deadline for the third time since taking office this year."President Trump will sign an additional Executive Order this week to keep TikTok up and running," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on popular video sharing app was supposed to be banned in the US after its Chinese owner, ByteDance, refused to sell it to a US buyer by a January and ByteDance did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the BBC. Leavitt said the 90-day extension would "ensure this deal is closed so that the American people can continue to use TikTok with the assurance that their data is safe and secure."Before Leavitt's announcement, Trump told the BBC that he would "probably" extend the TikTok."We'll probably have to get China approval," Trump said. "I think we'll get it. I think President Xi will ultimately approve it."When asked if he has the legal basis to extend the deadline, he responded: "We do."Trump's extension is at odds with the will of Congress, which passed the sale-or-ban measure last year. His predecessor, former President Joe Biden, immediately signed the bill into law was aimed to address concerns that TikTok, which has 170 million American users, could be used by China as a tool for spying and political Supreme Court agreed with a lower court and upheld the legislation in January just before Trump was set to take platform briefly went dark for a few hours during the weekend before Trump's praised Trump for saving the platform after it became available unilateral deadline extensions have led some analysts to dismiss the notion that a ban might ever take place during his time in office."What ban? There is nothing 'looming' about the potential TikTok ban anymore," said Forrester principal analyst Kelsey Chickering. "TikTok's behaviour also indicates they're confident in their future, as they rolled out new AI video tools at Cannes this week.""Smaller players, like Snap, will try to steal share during this "uncertain time," but they will not succeed because this next round for TikTok isn't uncertain at all," Ms Chickering Trump administration said in April that the US and China had neared a deal that would have placed majority control of TikTok's US operations under American ownership. That deal has yet to materialise."There are key matters to be resolved," a ByteDance spokesperson said at the time. "Any agreement will be subject to approval under Chinese law."Trump has said he would be open to seeing it sold to cloud computing giant Oracle, whose co-founder Larry Ellison is a long-time ally of Trump' Frank McCourt, Canadian businessman Kevin O'Leary, and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian are part of another team bidding for the the biggest YouTuber in the world Jimmy Donaldson - AKA MrBeast - has said he's also interested in buying TikTok as part of a different investor group. Sign up for our Tech Decoded newsletter to follow the world's top tech stories and trends. Outside the UK? Sign up here.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
How has the US shifted military jets and ships in the Middle East?
The U.S. is shifting military aircraft and warships into and around the Middle East to protect Israel from Iranian attacks as President Donald Trump warns Tehran to step back from the conflict. Trump's social media posts saying his patience with Iran was 'wearing thin" have raised the possibility of deepening U.S. involvement, perhaps by using its bunker-busting bomb to strike a key Iranian nuclear site built deep underground in the mountains. Israel doesn't have the massive munition it would take to destroy the Fordo nuclear fuel enrichment plant, or the aircraft needed to deliver it. Only the U.S. does. As America's national security leaders discuss the next steps, the Pentagon has moved to ensure that its troops and bases in the region are protected. Here's a look at the U.S. military presence in the Middle East: US aircraft moving to the Middle East In a social media post, Trump warned that 'we now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran.' U.S. officials insisted as of Tuesday that the American military has not taken any offensive actions against Iran, only defensive strikes to take out incoming Iranian missiles to protect Israel. Additional U.S. fighter jets and refueling tankers have been deployed to the region, but officials have declined to provide specific numbers. Fighter jets have joined in launching strikes to defend Israel, but officials said Tuesday that no American aircraft were over Iran. Aurora Intel, a group that reviews open source information in real time in the Middle East, said the U.S. Air Force had put additional refueling aircraft and fighter jets in strategic locations across Europe, including England, Spain, Germany and Greece. The information was obtained from public aviation tracking websites. U.S. fighter jets have been patrolling the skies around the Middle East to protect personnel and installations, and bases in the region are on heightened alert and are taking additional security precautions, the officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has not provided any details, but said on Fox News Channel late Monday that the military movements were to 'ensure that our people are safe.' Warships taking out Iranian missiles and ready to protect US bases American warships also are shooting down Iranian ballistic missiles targeting Israel, with the USS The Sullivans and the USS Arleigh Burke launching strikes over the weekend. The Sullivans has been joined in the Eastern Mediterranean by the USS Thomas Hudner this week to continue those defense strikes, while the Arleigh Burke has moved away from the area, according to a U.S. official. The USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier is in the Arabian Sea with the four warships in its strike group. They are not participating in the defense of Israel. But they are positioned to provide security for U.S. troops and bases along the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf. The USS Nimitz has been long scheduled to take over for the Carl Vinson and is heading west from the Indo-Pacific region toward the Middle East. The official said it is slated to arrive in the region by the end of the month, and the two carriers would likely overlap at least for a short time before the Vinson heads home to San Diego. There also are destroyers in the Red Sea, and others are based in the Western Mediterranean and participating in exercises in the Baltic Sea. US troops are on heightened alert and families are allowed to leave The forces in the region have been taking precautionary measures for days, including having military dependents voluntarily leave bases, in anticipation of potential strikes and to protect personnel in case of a large-scale response from Tehran. Officials said they were not aware of many families actually leaving. Typically around 30,000 troops are based in the Middle East, and about 40,000 troops are in the region now, according to a U.S. official. That number surged as high as 43,000 last October in response to heightened tensions between Israel and Iran as well as continuous attacks on commercial and military ships in the Red Sea by the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen. The B-2 and the bunker buster The Air Force's B-2 Spirit stealth bomber is the only aircraft that can carry the 30,000-pound GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, known as the bunker buster. The powerful bomb uses its weight and sheer kinetic force to reach deeply buried targets — and then explode. There are currently no B-2 bombers in the Middle East region, although there are B-52 bombers based at Diego Garcia, and they can deliver smaller munitions. If tapped for use, the B-2 bombers would have to make the 30-hour round trip from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, refueling multiple times. ___ AP writer Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.
