Trump news at a glance: thinktank finds legal immigrants stripped of protections and sent to El Salvador prison
At least 50 Venezuelan men sent by the Trump administration to a prison in El Salvador had entered the US legally, according to a review by the Cato Institute.
Published by the libertarian thinktank on Monday, the report analyzed the available immigration data for only a portion of the men who were deported to El Salvador's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), and focuses on the cases where records could be found.
'The government calls them all 'illegal aliens.' But of the 90 cases where the method of crossing is known, 50 men report that they came legally to the United States, with advanced US government permission, at an official border crossing point,' Cato said in its report.
The Cato Institute's analysis goes against the Trump administration's claim that only undocumented people were deported to El Salvador.
The report says that 21 men were admitted after presenting themselves at a port of entry, 24 were granted parole, four were resettled as refugees, and one entered the US on a tourist visa.
The Trump administration deported more than 200 alleged gang members to the Cecot mega-prison in March, controversially invoking the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law meant only to be used in wartime, as justification.
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Donald Trump's administration can end legal protections that have shielded about 350,000 Venezuelans from potential deportation, the supreme court ruled on Monday.
America's highest court granted a request by Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, to revoke temporary protected status (TPS) for the Venezuelans while an appeal proceeds in a lower court.
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Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump have held a rare phone call, which the US leader described as 'excellent', but the Kremlin refused to agree to a ceasefire in the war with Ukraine, despite pressure from Washington and European allies.
Trump described the call as having gone 'very well'. But the Russian leader declined to support the US-proposed 30-day unconditional ceasefire, which Washington had framed as the call's primary objective. Putin also suggested his country's maximalist objectives in the war with Ukraine were unchanged.
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The former FBI director James Comey has brushed off criticism about a photo of seashells he posted on social media, saying it is 'crazy' to think the messaged was intended as a threat against Donald Trump.
'I posted it on my Instagram account and thought nothing more of it, until I heard … that people were saying it was some sort of a call for assassination, which is crazy,' Comey said in interview on MSNBC.
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The Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi, who was released only weeks ago from federal detention, has crossed the graduation stage to cheers from his fellow graduates.
The Palestinian activist was arrested by immigration authorities in Colchester, Vermont, while attending a naturalization interview. He was detained and ordered to be deported by the Trump administration on 14 April despite not being charged with a crime.
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Donald Trump has signed into law the Take It Down Act, a measure that imposes penalties for online sexual exploitation that Melania Trump helped usher through Congress.
The US president had the first lady sign it, too, despite what sounded like a mild objection on her part.
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The president of CBS News has announced that she is stepping down, citing disagreements with the network's parent company as it confronts a $20bn lawsuit from Donald Trump and a looming merger.
Wendy McMahon, who has helmed the company's venerated news division since 2023, said in a memo shared in full on social media that 'it's become clear the company and I do not agree on the path forward'.
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Donald Trump lashed out at celebrities who endorsed Kamala Harris in late night and early morning screeds on Monday, saying he would investigate them to see if they were paid for the endorsements – repeating a common refrain on the right about the star-studded list of Harris supporters.
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The US has officially closed its Office of Palestinian Affairs in Jerusalem, according to an internal state department memo seen by the Guardian, in effect eliminating the Palestinians' dedicated diplomatic channel to Washington.
A federal judge has blocked efforts by the Trump administration and its so-called 'department of government efficiency' (Doge) to dismantle the US Institute of Peace, at least temporarily.
The Trump administration has reportedly reached an agreement to pay nearly $5m to the family of the woman who was fatally shot by police while participating in the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol.
Catching up? Here's what happened on 18 May 2025.
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Yahoo
18 minutes ago
- Yahoo
How viral images are shaping views of L.A.'s immigration showdown
As protesters and police officers clashed in the streets of Los Angeles, a parallel conflict raged on social media, as immigration advocates and President Donald Trump's allies raced to shape public opinion on the impacts of mass deportations on American life. The sprawling protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids were captured from all angles by cellphones and body cameras and streamed in real time, giving a visceral immediacy to a conflict that led to more than 50 arrests and orders from the Trump administration to deploy the National Guard. Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. Amateur videographers and online creators shared some of the mayhem's most-talked-about videos and images, often devoid of context and aimed at different audiences. Clips showing officers firing less-lethal rounds at an Australian journalist or mounted police directing their horses to stride over a sitting man fueled outrage on one side, while those of self-driving Waymo cars on fire and protesters holding Mexican flags stoked the other. The protests have become the biggest spectacle yet of the months-long online war over deportations, as Trump allies work to convince Americans that the issue of undocumented immigration demands aggressive action. But immigrant families and advocates have also been winning attention, and seeking public support, through emotional clips of crying families grappling with removal orders, anti-ICE gatherings and young children in federal custody. The messaging war comes at a time of polarized public sentiment over Trump's immigration policies. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll in April found that roughly half the country believed Trump's deportations had gone too far, while the other half thought his actions were about right or hadn't gone far enough. 'To advance your side of the story, you need a piece of content that the algorithm likes. You need something that really grabs people's attention by the throat and doesn't let it go,' said Laura Edelson, an assistant professor at Northeastern University's Khoury College of Computer Sciences. 'If you're on the pro-ICE side of this, you need to find visual images of these protests that look really scary, look really dangerous because that's what's going to draw human attention,' she added. But if 'you don't think that ICE should be taking moms away from their families and kids, you're going to have a video that starts with a crying child's face.' A White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal plans, said Trump's digital strategists were following the president's lead by spotlighting images of destruction while insisting that he would always intervene in moments of unrest. The White House, which has said the ICE deportations are necessary to solve a national crisis, on Sunday posted an Instagram photo of Trump and a warning that looters and rioters would be given 'no mercy.' 'We're obviously following the president's direction. He is driving the message through his posts and his comments to the press,' the official said. 'We are definitely playing offense here. We are once again boxing the Democrats into the corner of defending criminal illegal aliens.' The unrest and its online propagation also heightened activity around projects like People Over Papers, a crowdsourced map for tracking the locations of ICE officers. Reports flooded in as the clashes continued, said Celeste, a project organizer in L.A. who spoke on the condition that her last name not be used for fear of government retribution. 'I haven't slept all weekend,' she said. She added, however, that she worried violent imagery from the ground could hurt the protesters' cause. She said she planned to start making Spanish-language videos for her 51,000 TikTok followers, explaining to skeptics that the violence isn't reflective of the protests, which she sees as necessary to counter ICE's agenda. The L.A. unrest followed weeks of online skirmishes over deportations, some of which have been touched off by the White House's strategy to lean into policy fights with bold and aggressive messaging. The White House last month posted a video that it said showed an 'EPIC takedown of 5 illegal aliens' outside a home improvement store and included an ICE hotline to solicit more tips. The clip, recorded by ICE agents' cameras, was liked 68,000 times but also drew criticism from commenters, who called it 'disturbing' and said this 'isn't a reality show.' After a similar ICE raid on Saturday outside a Home Depot in Paramount, a predominantly Latino suburb of L.A., witnesses sent out alerts on social media, and protesters raced to the scene. Within hours, the Trump administration called for the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops to neutralize the unrest. On his Truth Social account a week earlier, Trump celebrated the Supreme Court clearing the way for the removal of some immigrants' legal protections by posting a photo of a jet-filled sky with the phrase, 'Let the Deportations Begin!' The White House has also posted stylized mug shots of unnamed immigrants it said were charged with heinous crimes. 'I love this version of the white house,' one commenter said, with a cry-laugh emoji. 'It feels like a movie every day with President Trump.' During the protests, the administration has worked with new-media figures and online influencers to promote its political points. Phil McGraw, the TV personality known as Dr. Phil who now runs the conservative media network Merit Street, posted an exclusive interview with border czar Tom Homan and embedded with ICE officers last week during L.A. raids, as the company's spokesperson first told CNN. Some top administration officials have worked to frame the protests in militaristic terms, with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller on Saturday sharing a video of the protest and calling it 'an insurrection against the laws and sovereignty of the United States.' Others, like Vice President JD Vance, have treated it as a chance for dark jokes. When posters on X said Vance could do the 'funniest thing ever' by deporting Derek Guy, a prominent menswear commentator who discussed how his family had been undocumented after fleeing Vietnam, the vice president on Monday posted a brief clip of Jack Nicholson nodding with a sinister grin. Some far-right influencers urged their followers to identify people caught on camera during the civil unrest. In one X post with more than 29,000 likes, the account End Wokeness shared a video of masked figures throwing rocks at police from an overpass and said, 'These are insurrectionists trying to kill cops. Make them famous.' In more left-leaning online spaces, some posters watching from the sidelines offered advice on how protesters could best position their cause to the rest of the world. On the r/ICE_raids subreddit, some posters urged L.A. protesters to stop carrying non-American flags. It's 'adding ammo to ICE's justification,' one poster said, attaching a screenshot of a Homeland Security post showing masked protesters with Mexican flags. Many accounts, knowingly or unknowingly, shared images that warped the reality of what was happening on the ground. An X account with 388,000 followers called US Homeland Security News, which is not affiliated with DHS but paid for one of X's 'verified' blue check marks, posted a photo of bricks that it said had been ordered to be 'used by Democrat militants against ICE agents and staff!! It's Civil War!!' The photo actually originated on the website of a Malaysian construction-supply company. The post has nevertheless been viewed more than 800,000 times. On Sunday night, California Gov. Gavin Newsom's X account tried to combat some of the misinformation directly, saying a viral video post being passed around as evidence of the day's chaos was actually five years old. Even before the L.A. protests, the increased attention on ICE activity had driven a rush of online organizing and real-world information gathering, with some people opposed to mass deportations tracking the movements of ICE officers with plans to foil or disrupt raids. In one viral TikTok post last week, a Minneapolis protester marching in a crowd outside the site of a rumored ICE raid said he had learned of it from Reddit, where a photo had been posted of Homeland Security Investigations officers outside a Mexican restaurant. The local sheriff's office later told news crews that the operation was not an immigration-enforcement case and that no arrests had been made. Some online creators treated the L.A. clashes as a prized opportunity for viral content. On Reddit, accounts with names like LiveNews_24H posted 'crazy footage' compilations of the unrest and said it looked like a 'war zone.' On YouTube, Damon Heller, who comments on police helicopter footage and scanner calls under the name Smoke N' Scan, streamed the clashes on Sunday for nearly 12 hours. Jeremy Lee Quinn, a photographer who shares protest footage to his social media followers, posted to Instagram on Saturday a video of protesters cheering from a bridge as officers tried to extinguish a burning police vehicle. Quinn, who also documented Black Lives Matter marches and the U.S. Capitol riots, said viewers on the left and right treat viral videos like weapons in their arsenal. Far-left viewers might take away from the videos ideas for militant tactics to use in future protests, he said, while far-right viewers will promote the videos to suggest the other side craves more violent crime. Either way, his material gets seen - including through reposts by groups such as the LibsOfReddit subreddit, which shares screenshots mocking liberal views on undocumented immigrants and transgender people. 'You end up with a far-right ecosystem that thrives on these viral moments,' Quinn said. As short-form video and social media platforms increasingly become many Americans' news sources of choice, experts worry they could also amp up the fear and outrage engendered by polarizing events. The fragmentation of social media and the attention-chasing machinery of its recommendation algorithms helps ensure that 'there are a lot of people talking past each other,' said Northeastern's Edelson, not seeing one another's content or 'even aware of the facts that are relevant to the other side.' Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, said videos can play a uniquely forceful role in shaping people's reactions to current events because they 'encapsulate the emotion of the moment.' 'There's a heavy dose of misinformation,' he added. 'And, you know, people just end up getting angrier and angrier.' Related Content 'He's waging a war on us': As Trump escalates, Angelenos defend their city To save rhinos, conservationists are removing their horns Donald Trump and the art of the Oval Office confrontation
CNN
19 minutes ago
- CNN
Los Angeles mayor slams vandalism during protests
Los Angeles mayor slams vandalism during protests Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass criticized people who are vandalizing the city amid widespread protests. CNN correspondent Stephanie Elam gets a closer look at some of the looting and vandalism in downtown LA. 01:08 - Source: CNN Vertical Top News 14 videos Los Angeles mayor slams vandalism during protests Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass criticized people who are vandalizing the city amid widespread protests. CNN correspondent Stephanie Elam gets a closer look at some of the looting and vandalism in downtown LA. 01:08 - Source: CNN Tanks arrive in DC ahead of US Army parade As the 250th anniversary celebration for the US Army approaches, a freight train of tanks was seen making its way into the nation's capital. The long-planned celebration in Washington will coincide with Trump's 79th birthday and include thousands of troops. The Army had said it has no plans to recognize the president's birthday. 00:40 - Source: CNN Colombian presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe shot in Bogota A Colombian senator and presidential hopeful is in a critical condition after being shot twice at an event in Bogota, according to national police and prosecutors. Police arrested a 15-year-old carrying a Glock pistol, according to the Attorney General's Office. Miguel Uribe expressed intentions to run in the 2026 presidential election for the country's largest opposition party, the center-right Centro Democrático, or Democratic Center. 01:05 - Source: CNN Immigration protests break out in Los Angeles President Donald Trump signed a presidential memorandum deploying 2,000 National Guardsmen to disperse the protests that began in the Los Angeles area in response to immigration raids. Law enforcement authorities and demonstrators have clashed for two days. CNN's Julia Vargas Jones reports. 01:34 - Source: CNN Coco Gauff reacts to winning the French Open Coco Gauff claimed her second career grand slam singles title, defeating world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in the French Open women's final. 00:46 - Source: CNN Protesters confront authorities following ICE raids in Los Angeles Federal immigration operations in Los Angeles were met by protests. ICE declined to discuss the details of its operations. 00:43 - Source: CNN Attorney for mistakenly deported man talks to Erin Burnett CNN's Erin Burnett talks with Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, attorney for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March, who has been returned to the United States to face federal criminal charges. 02:37 - Source: CNN Trump Admin targets LGBTQ+ community during Pride Month CNN's Ben Hunte breaks down how the Trump Administration has targeted the LGBTQ+ community with its policies in just the first few days of Pride Month. 02:09 - Source: CNN Former 'Diddy' girlfriend reveals 'love contract' A former romantic partner for Sean 'Diddy' Combs using the pseudonym 'Jane' described feeling financially coerced and revealed Combs is still paying for her rent, even as she testified against him at trial. Prosecutors hope the testimony by 'Jane' will drive home charges that include sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution. Combs has pleaded not guilty to all charges. 01:30 - Source: CNN Trump's border czar on 3 US children leaving the country with their deported mothers White House border czar Tom Homan defended the Trump administration's move to deport three US citizen children last week. Homan told CNN's Priscilla Alvarez the children's parents, who were in the US illegally, made a "parental decision" to leave the country together. Gracie Willis, an attorney with the National Immigration Project, denies that the mothers were given a choice whether their children could remain in the US. 01:07 - Source: CNN Trump on Musk: 'The poor guy's got a problem' In a phone call with CNN's Dana Bash, President Donald Trump said he is 'not even thinking about' billionaire Elon Musk and won't be speaking to him in the near future. The comments come a day after Trump and Musk traded barbs on social media as their relationship deteriorated in spectacular public fashion. 00:43 - Source: CNN No aliens here: Research disputes possible 'signs of life' on another planet In response to hints of "biosignatures" found on a world called K2-18b, new research suggests there's a lot of uncertainty surrounding the exoplanet. CNN's Ashley Strickland reports on the ongoing scientific discourse around the search for extraterrestrial life. 00:43 - Source: CNN Reporter: Trump made $1 billion in crypto in 9 months CNN's Erin Burnett talks with Forbes Magazine's Dan Alexander about President Donald Trump's stunning ownership of billions of dollars worth of crypto. 02:19 - Source: CNN Russia launches strikes across Ukraine Russia launched waves of drones and ballistic missiles at multiple targets across a broad swath of Ukraine overnight killing at least four people in the capital Kyiv and wounding around 40 across the country. 00:32 - Source: CNN
Associated Press
22 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Michigan State settles with 3 survivors of 2023 mass shooting for $30M
EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan State University has reached settlements worth about $30 million with three students who survived a mass shooting in 2023, attorneys said Tuesday. Three students were killed and five more were wounded when a man with no connection to the school fired shots inside two buildings. Michigan State agreed to a $14.2 million settlement with Nathan Statly; $13 million with Yukai 'John' Hao; and $2.5 million with Troy Forbush, according to lawyers at Grewal Law and Gruel Mills Nims & Pylman. 'While the university cannot comment on any specific settlements, we truly hope reaching a resolution helps provide some measure of relief, support and care to impacted individuals and their families,' Michigan State said. Statly was shot in the head, Hao was paralyzed after being shot in the back, and Forbush was shot in the chest. Three students were killed: Brian Fraser, Arielle Anderson and Alexandria Verner. Their families reached settlements with Michigan State in late 2023. The gunman, Anthony McRae, 43, killed himself after being confronted by police that night, nearly 4 miles (6 kilometers) from the East Lansing campus.
