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Deportation Actions Against US Legal Permanent Residents Affiliated With Haitian FTO Viv Ansanm

Deportation Actions Against US Legal Permanent Residents Affiliated With Haitian FTO Viv Ansanm

Scoop3 days ago
July 21, 2025
I am pleased to announce the latest U.S. actions against individuals whose presence and activities in our country have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.
Specifically, the Department of State has determined that certain individuals with U.S. lawful permanent resident status have supported and collaborated with Haitian gang leaders connected to Viv Ansanm, a Haitian Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). Viv Ansanm is a driver of the violence and criminality in Haiti contributing to the island's instability. The United States will not allow individuals to enjoy the benefits of legal status in our country while they are facilitating the actions of violent organisations or supporting criminal terrorist organisations.
With this determination, the Department of Homeland Security can pursue the removal of these individuals under section 237(a)(4)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. These new actions demonstrate the Trump Administration's firm commitment to protecting the American people, advancing our national security interests, and promoting regional security and stability.
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Netanyahu, Trump appear to abandon Gaza ceasefire negotiations with Hamas
Netanyahu, Trump appear to abandon Gaza ceasefire negotiations with Hamas

RNZ News

time4 hours ago

  • RNZ News

Netanyahu, Trump appear to abandon Gaza ceasefire negotiations with Hamas

US President Donald Trump (R) and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu take questions during a press conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on 4 February, 2025. Photo: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump appeared to abandon Gaza ceasefire negotiations with Hamas, both saying it had become clear that the Palestinian militants did not want a deal. Netanyahu said Israel was now mulling "alternative" options to achieve its goals of bringing its hostages home from Gaza and ending Hamas rule in the enclave, where starvation is spreading and most of the population is homeless amid widespread ruin. Trump said he believed Hamas leaders would now be "hunted down", telling reporters: "Hamas really didn't want to make a deal. I think they want to die. And it's very bad. And it got to be to a point where you're going to have to finish the job." The remarks appeared to leave little to no room, at least in the short term, to resume negotiations for a break in the fighting, at a time when international concern is mounting over worsening hunger in war-shattered Gaza. French President Emmanuel Macron, responding to the deteriorating humanitarian situation, announced that Paris would become the first major Western power to recognise an independent Palestinian state . Britain and Germany said they were not yet ready to do so but later joined France in calling for an immediate ceasefire. British Prime Minister Keith Starmer said his government would recognise a Palestinian state only as part of a negotiated peace deal. Trump dismissed Macron's move. "What he says doesn't matter," he said. "He's a very good guy. I like him, but that statement doesn't carry weight." Israel and the United States withdrew their delegations on Thursday from the ceasefire talks in Qatar, hours after Hamas submitted its response to a truce proposal. Sources initially said on Thursday (local time) that the Israeli withdrawal was only for consultations and did not necessarily mean the talks had reached a crisis. But Netanyahu's remarks suggested Israel's position had hardened overnight. US envoy Steve Witkoff said Hamas was to blame for the impasse, and Netanyahu said Witkoff had got it right. Senior Hamas official Basem Naim said on Facebook that the talks had been constructive, and criticised Witkoff's remarks as aimed at exerting pressure on Israel's behalf. "What we have presented - with full awareness and understanding of the complexity of the situation - we believe could lead to a deal if the enemy had the will to reach one," he said. Mediators Qatar and Egypt said there had been some progress in the latest round of talks. They said suspensions were a normal part of the process and they were committed to continuing to try to reach a ceasefire in partnership with the US. The proposed ceasefire would suspend fighting for 60 days, allow more aid into Gaza, and free some of the 50 remaining hostages held by militants in return for Palestinian prisoners jailed in Israel. It has been held up by disagreement over how far Israel should withdraw its troops and the future beyond the 60 days if no permanent agreement is reached. Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right national security minister in Netanyahu's coalition, welcomed Netanyahu's step, calling for a total halt of aid to Gaza and complete conquest of the enclave, adding in a post on X: "Total annihilation of Hamas, encourage emigration, (Jewish) settlement." International aid organisations say mass hunger has now arrived among Gaza's 2.2 million people , with stocks running out after Israel cut off all supplies to the territory in March, then reopened it in May but with new restrictions. The Israeli military said on Friday (local time) it had agreed to let countries airdrop aid into Gaza. Hamas dismissed this as a stunt. "The Gaza Strip does not need flying aerobatics, it needs an open humanitarian corridor and a steady daily flow of aid trucks to save what remains of the lives of besieged, starving civilians," Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, told Reuters. Gaza medical authorities said nine more Palestinians had died over the past 24 hours from malnutrition or starvation. Dozens have died in the past few weeks as hunger worsens. Israel says it has let enough food into Gaza and accuses the United Nations of failing to distribute it, in what the Israeli foreign ministry called on Friday "a deliberate ploy to defame Israel". The United Nations says it is operating as effectively as possible under Israeli restrictions. United Nations agencies said on Friday that supplies were running out in Gaza of specialised therapeutic food to save the lives of children suffering from severe acute malnutrition. United Nations aid chief Tom Fletcher also has demanded that Israel provide evidence for its accusations that staff with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs were affiliated with Hamas, according to a letter seen by Reuters. The ceasefire talks have been accompanied by continuing Israeli offensives. Palestinian health officials said Israeli airstrikes and gunfire had killed at least 21 people across the enclave on Friday, including five killed in a strike on a school sheltering displaced families in Gaza City. In the city, residents carried the body of journalist Adam Abu Harbid through the streets wrapped in a white shroud, his blue flak jacket marked PRESS draped across his body. He was killed overnight in a strike on tents housing displaced people. Mahmoud Awadia, another journalist attending the funeral, said the Israelis were deliberately trying to kill reporters. Israel denies intentionally targeting journalists. Israel launched its assault on Gaza after Hamas-led fighters stormed Israeli towns near the border, killing some 1200 people and capturing 251 hostages on 7 October, 2023. Since then, Israeli forces have killed nearly 60,000 people in Gaza, health officials there say, and reduced much of the enclave to ruins. - Reuters

The cold (and occasionally hot) war between Trump and his predecessors
The cold (and occasionally hot) war between Trump and his predecessors

NZ Herald

time5 hours ago

  • NZ Herald

The cold (and occasionally hot) war between Trump and his predecessors

This skirmishing among the select group of men who have held the nation's highest office is a historical anomaly and is sending ripples through the political system. 'If not completely unprecedented, it's aberrational,' said Barbara Perry, co-chair of the presidential oral history programme at the University of Virginia's Miller Centre. 'Ex-presidents feel that they are part of this exclusive club. There are so few people who have been president, and you share this common bond, a brotherhood of sorts. And that is bipartisan and in some ways nonpartisan.' Not this time. Trump's launch of an investigation into Biden, a political opponent, over the autopen violates democratic norms and comes as Biden is seeking to focus on his legacy. Some Democrats want Obama to speak out more forcefully, while he fires back that they should stop looking for a 'messiah'. Bush, the only living former Republican president, is keeping a low profile as Trump reshapes the GOP in a way that reflects a broad rejection of his legacy and that of his father. Senator Chris Coons (D-Delaware) said Trump is attacking the former presidents in large part because he needs enemies. 'Biden beat him and was a good president who delivered on things that Trump failed to deliver on - but he attacks Bush and Obama with equal flair,' Coons said. 'Trump defines himself by who he fights and how he fights. He thrives on the drama of constant tension. A war of all against all, in order to keep people tuning in to the next episode, is how he runs his life.' Trump's supporters contend that his predecessors represent a failed system that has been rejected by voters, so it's not surprising that tensions would erupt. 'Former Presidents Clinton, Obama, and Biden are all part of the same club that's spent decades serving the corrupt DC establishment and protecting the failed status quo. President Trump wears their criticism as a badge of honour,' said White House spokeswoman Liz Huston. 'President Trump remains the ultimate outsider, and he's focused on keeping his promises to hardworking, patriotic citizens and making America greater than ever before.' President Donald Trump speaks with former president Barack Obama and former vice president Joe Biden during Trump's first inauguration on January 20, 2017. Photo / Getty Images Obama's role is among the most notable, as he seeks to present a counterpoint to Trump without becoming a high-profile spokesman for the opposition. In a June 17 appearance in Hartford, Connecticut, Obama left little doubt how he views the Trump administration. 'The system is captured by those who, let's say, have a weak attachment to democracy - I don't even think that's a controversial statement at this point,' Obama said. The United States, he added, is getting 'dangerously close' to normalising autocratic behaviour, in part because so few people are pushing back on falsehoods like the notion that the 2020 election was rigged. 'In one of our major political parties, you have a whole bunch of people who know that's not true but will pretend like it is,' Obama said. 'And that is dangerous.' Clinton also has not been silent. He has been promoting The First Gentleman, his latest political thriller with James Patterson, and has been asked about Trump at his book events. In a June 1 appearance on CBS Sunday Morning, Clinton took Trump to task for his cavalier attitude toward judicial rulings, and he predicted that voters will rebel if Trump continues on this path. 'Look, we've never seen anything like this before in my lifetime - somebody who says, 'Whatever I want should be the law of the land. It's my way or the highway,'' Clinton said. 'And most Americans don't agree with that.' Former president George W. Bush, President Donald Trump, and former presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter look on during a funeral for former president George H.W. Bush in 2018. Photo / Matt McClain, The Washington Post Biden has been playing defence as the Trump administration and congressional Republicans pursue investigations into whether he was so diminished that his staff used an autopen to improperly approve presidential decisions. They have provided no evidence, but the probes have prompted several Biden aides to invoke their Fifth Amendment rights. Biden has blasted the claims as an attempted 'distraction' from Trump's 'disastrous legislation that would cut essential programs like Medicaid and raise costs on American families, all to pay for tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and big corporations'. In a sense, the Democratic former presidents are stepping into the vacuum that confronts any party out of power. As Trump presses ahead with his sweeping, chaotic agenda, many Democrats view him as an existential threat and are hungry for someone to hit back. Obama is in some ways a natural contender. A Gallup poll in January found that 96% of Democrats had a favourable view of Obama, and a survey a month earlier found that 84% of them said Obama was an outstanding or above-average president. 'My own view is that Obama, who is the most popular and probably most influential Democrat, should be very seriously considering speaking out more and giving voice to the values and the vision of the Democratic Party on a steadier basis,' said Alex Keyssar, a historian at the Harvard Kennedy School. 'I'm sympathetic to the idea that it needs to be done, and he may be uniquely positioned to do it.' At a recent Democratic fundraiser in New Jersey, Obama focused not only on Trump's actions – 'I mean, that's who he is' – but also on Democrats who, he suggested, are spending too much time hand-wringing and not enough fighting back. 'I think it's going to require a little bit less navel-gazing and a little less whining and being in fetal positions,' Obama said, according to excerpts released by his office. 'And it's going to require Democrats to just toughen up.' On the other hand, just 4% of Democrats in a CNN poll in March volunteered Obama's name as the leader who best reflects the party's core values. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) was named by 10%, former Vice-President Kamala Harris by 9% and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) by 8% – bolstering the notion that the party lacks a clear leader. This is not the first time presidents and ex-presidents have gone after one another, although usually the attacks have been more sporadic and less personal. At the Democratic National Convention in 2004, Clinton, who by then had been out of office for four years, levelled a sharp attack on Bush, a Republican seeking reelection, accusing him of squandering the country's unity after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But those critiques were broad arguments made as part of well-established political rituals, bearing little resemblance to today's hard-hitting exchanges. As Trump faces growing pressure to release material related to sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, for example, he has lashed out on a Truth Social post at Obama, Biden and other officials. 'Why are we giving publicity to Files written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration?' Trump wrote. The post was part of Trump's ongoing drumbeat about his fellow presidents. On June 1, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, 'President Obama was a terrible president. President Biden was the worst president in the history of our country. President Bush should not have gone into the Middle East and blow the place up, so I don't give him high marks either.' A portrait of Trump hangs between paintings of former first ladies Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton at the White House on May 20. Photo / Demetrius Freeman, The Washington Post Trump's criticism of Biden in particular has become so reflexive that he recently slammed his predecessor for appointing Jerome H. Powell, even though it was Trump himself who appointed the Federal Reserve chairman. Powell has displeased Trump by not lowering interest rates. Andrew Bates, a Democratic strategist who worked in Biden's White House, said Trump is levelling his attacks in an effort to change the subject. 'He is eager to talk about his predecessor and anyone else because he knows that his support is cratering and the prices he ran on lowering on are going up,' Bates said. Coons said Biden has been judicious about firing back, especially given the direct nature of Trump's attacks. 'Trump has been so aggressive and so personal and so biting,' Coons said. 'If you are a newly-elected president and you are criticising your predecessor's policies, that strikes me more as fair game. But … Trump has made his attacks on Biden so personal and so persistent that it's hard to ignore them.' Trump has been slower to attack Bush, the only living former Republican President. But he and his aides have been clear that they view Bush's decision to launch the Iraq War in 2003 as a historic blunder, an issue that flared up after Trump's decision last month to bomb Iran. For his part, Bush has been notably quiet as Trump has remade the Republican Party that Bush and his father built, demolishing such longtime Republican principles as free trade and low deficits. But after Trump dismantled the US Agency for International Development, Bush recorded a video with Obama and others thanking USAID employees for their contribution to the country. 'You've shown the great strength of America through your work, and that is our good heart,' Bush said. Bush spoke on the video with particular emotion about PEPFAR, the global Aids-fighting initiative he created that Trump has sought to cut. 'This program shows a fundamental question facing our country: Is it in our national interest that 25 million people who would have died now live?' Bush said. 'I think it is.' As the ex-presidents continue trying to calibrate the aggressiveness of their responses to Trump's onslaught, Keyssar emphasised the novelty of the entire exercise. Presidents have always been courteous even when taking office after a predecessor whose agenda they reject, he said. 'Eisenhower did not blame Roosevelt or Truman, and in fact ended up accepting the New Deal,' Keyssar said. 'Neither Kennedy nor Johnson attacked Eisenhower. Nixon did not attack the Democrats, saying Vietnam was their war.' At the New Jersey fundraiser, Obama told Democrats they should not look to former presidents or anyone else to lead them out of the wilderness. Rather, he said, they should focus on winning critical races this November and next year. 'Stop looking for the quick fix. Stop looking for the messiah,' Obama said. 'You have great candidates running races right now. Support those candidates.' Scott Clement contributed to this report.

US 'will sell so much' beef to Australia after relaxed restrictions: Trump
US 'will sell so much' beef to Australia after relaxed restrictions: Trump

Otago Daily Times

time19 hours ago

  • Otago Daily Times

US 'will sell so much' beef to Australia after relaxed restrictions: Trump

The United States will sell "so much" beef to Australia, US President Donald Trump said today after Canberra relaxed import restrictions. He added that other countries that refused US beef products were on notice. Australia on Thursday said it would loosen biosecurity rules for US beef, something analysts predicted would not significantly increase US shipments because Australia is a major beef producer and exporter whose prices are much lower. "We are going to sell so much to Australia because this is undeniable and irrefutable Proof that US Beef is the Safest and Best in the entire World," Trump said in a post on Truth Social. "The other Countries that refuse our magnificent Beef are ON NOTICE," the post continued. Trump has attempted to renegotiate trade deals with numerous countries he says have taken advantage of the United States – a characterisation many economists dispute. "For decades, Australia imposed unjustified barriers on US beef," US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement, calling Australia's decision a "major milestone in lowering trade barriers and securing market access for US farmers and ranchers." Australia is not a significant importer of beef, but the United States is, and a production slump is forcing it to step up purchases. Last year, Australia shipped almost 400,000 metric tons of beef worth $US2.9 billion ($NZ4.8 billion) to the United States, with just 269 tons of US product moving the other way. Australian officials say the relaxation of restrictions was not part of any trade negotiations but the result of a years-long assessment of US biosecurity practices. Canberra has restricted US beef imports since 2003 due to concerns about bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease. Since 2019, it has allowed in meat from animals born, raised and slaughtered in the US but few suppliers were able to prove that their cattle had not been in Canada and Mexico. On Wednesday, Australia's agriculture ministry said US cattle traceability and control systems had improved enough that Australia could accept beef from cattle born in Canada or Mexico and slaughtered in the United States. The decision has caused some concern in Australia, where biosecurity is seen as essential to prevent diseases and pests from ravaging the farm sector. "We need to know if [the government] is sacrificing our high biosecurity standards just so Prime Minister Anthony Albanese can obtain a meeting with US President Donald Trump," shadow agriculture minister David Littleproud said in a statement. Australia, which imports more from the US than it exports, faces a 10% across-the-board US tariff, as well 50% tariffs on steel and aluminium. Trump has also threatened to impose a 200% tariff on pharmaceuticals. Asked whether the change would help achieve a trade deal, Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell said: "I'm not too sure." "We haven't done this in order to entice the Americans into a trade agreement," he said. "We think that they should do that anyway."

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