Trump news at a glance: immigration agents to ‘flood' US sanctuary cities as marines withdraw from LA
Tom Homan, Donald Trump's hardline border tsar, vowed to 'flood the zone' with Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (Ice) agents, saying: 'Every sanctuary city is unsafe. Sanctuary cities are sanctuaries for criminals and President Trump's not going to tolerate it.'
In Los Angeles, meanwhile, 700 active-duty US marines was being withdrawn, the Pentagon confirmed, more than a month after Trump deployed them to the city against the objections of local leaders.
Here's more on these and the day's other key Trump administration stories at a glance.
Tom Homan has vowed to 'flood the zone' of sanctuary cities with Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (Ice) agents in an all-out bid to overcome the lack of cooperation he said the government faced from Democrat-run municipalities in its quest to arrest and detain undocumented people.
The pledge from Donald Trump's hardline border tsar followed the arrest of two undocumented men from the Dominican Republic after an off-duty Customs and Border Protection officer suffered gunshot wounds in an apparent robbery attempt in New York City on Saturday night.
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The Pentagon confirmed to the Guardian on Monday that the full deployment of 700 active-duty US marines was being withdrawn from Los Angeles more than a month after Donald Trump deployed them to the city in a move state and city officials called unnecessary and provocative.
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The president's signature tax and spending bill will add $3.4tn to the national debt over the next decade, according to new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released on Monday.
Major cuts to Medicaid and the national food stamps program are estimated to save the country $1.1tn – only a chunk of the $4.5tn in lost revenue that will come from the bill's tax cuts.
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A legal group founded by Trump adviser Stephen Miller has requested the justice department investigate 'illegal DEI practices' at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
In a letter to the justice department's civil rights division, America First Legal asked an assistant attorney general to investigate and issue enforcement actions against the prestigious medical university for embracing 'a discriminatory DEI regime as a core institutional mandate'.
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Almost 300 current and former US Nasa employees – including at least four astronauts – have issued a scathing dissent opposing the Trump administration's sweeping and indiscriminate cuts to the agency, which they say threaten safety, innovation and national security.
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The Trump administration has released records of the FBI's surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr, despite opposition from the slain Nobel laureate's family and the civil rights group that he led until his 1968 assassination.
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An artist who first accused Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell of sexual assault almost three decades ago has told the New York Times that she had urged law enforcement officials back then to investigate powerful people in their orbit – including Donald Trump.
The artist, Maria Farmer, was among the first women to report Epstein and his partner Maxwell of sexual crimes in 1996 when, according to the new interview with the Times, she also identified Trump among others close to Epstein as worthy of attention.
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Harvard University appeared in federal court on Monday to make the case that the Trump administration illegally cut $2.6bn from the college – a major test of the administration's efforts to reshape higher education institutions by threatening their financial viability.
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Michael Bloomberg is calling on Senate Republicans to oust Robert F Kennedy Jr from his post as Trump's health secretary.
The US Federal Reserve is pushing back against claims from the White House that it is undergoing extravagant renovations with a video tour showing the central bank's ongoing construction.
Hunter Biden gave a profanity-laced interview during which he attacked George Clooney, denied owning the cocaine found in the White House and spoke about his father's last efforts in the 2024 race before dropping out.
Catching up? Here's what happened on 20 July 2025.
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The Independent
20 minutes ago
- The Independent
Married immigrants trying to get green cards could be deported, new Trump-era guidance says
Immigrants who are married to U.S. citizens have long expected that they won't be deported from the country while going through the process of obtaining a green card. But new guidance from Donald Trump's administration explicitly states that immigrants seeking lawful residence through marriage can be deported, a policy that also applies to immigrants with pending requests. Immigration authorities can begin removal proceedings for immigrants who lack legal status and applied to become a lawful permanent resident through a citizen spouse, according to guidance from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services issued this month. The policy also applies to immigrants with pending green cards through other citizen family members. People who entered the country illegally aren't the only ones impacted. Under new guidance, immigrants trying to get lawful status through a spouse or family member are at risk of being deported if their visas expired, or if they are among the roughly 1 million immigrants whose temporary protected status was stripped from them under the Trump administration. Immigrants and their spouses or family members who sponsor them 'should be aware that a family-based petition accords no immigration status nor does it bar removal,' the policy states. The changes were designed to 'enhance benefit integrity and identify vetting and fraud concerns' and weed out what the agency calls 'fraudulent, frivolous, or non-meritorious' applications, according to USCIS. 'This guidance will improve USCIS' capacity to vet qualifying marriages and family relationships to ensure they are genuine, verifiable, and compliant with all applicable laws,' the agency said in a statement. Those changes, which were filed on August 1, are 'effective immediately,' according to the agency. Within the first six months of 2025, immigrants and their family members filed more than 500,000 I-130 petitions, which are the first steps in the process of obtaining legal residency through a spouse or family member. There are more than 2.4 million pending I-130 petitions, according to USCIS data. Nearly 2 million of those petitions have been pending for more than six months. It is unclear whether those petitions involve immigrants who either lost their legal status or did not have one at the time they filed their documents. Previously, USCIS would notify applicants about missing documents or issue a denial notice serving as a warning that their case could be rejected — with opportunities for redress. Now, USCIS is signaling that applicants can be immediately denied and ordered to immigrant courts instead. Outside of being born in the country, family-based immigration remains the largest and most viable path to permanent residency, accounting for nearly half of all new green card holders each year, according to USCIS data. 'This is one of the most important avenues that people have to adjust to lawful permanent status in the United States,' Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrants' Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School, told NBC News. Under long-established USCIS policies, 'no one expected' to be hauled into immigration court while seeking lawful status after a marriage, Mukherjee said. Now, deportation proceedings can begin 'at any point in the process' under the broad scope of the rule changes, which could 'instill fear in immigrant families, even those who are doing everything right,' according to Mukherjee. Obtaining a green card The high-profile arrest and threat of removing Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil put intense scrutiny on whether the administration lawfully targeted a lawful permanent resident for his constitutionally protected speech. And last month, Customs and Border Protection put green card holders on notice, warning that the government 'has the authority to revoke your green card if our laws are broken and abused.' 'In addition to immigration removal proceedings, lawful permanent residents presenting at a U.S. port of entry with previous criminal convictions may be subject to mandatory detention,' the agency said. Another recent USCIS memo outlines the administration's plans to revoke citizenship from children whose parents lack permanent lawful status as well as parents who are legally in the country, including visa holders, DACA recipients and people seeking asylum. The policy appears to preempt court rulings surrounding the constitutionality of the president's executive order that unilaterally redefines who gets to be a citizen in the country at birth. That memo, from the agency's Office of the Chief Counsel, acknowledges that federal court injunctions have blocked the government from taking away birthright citizenship. But the agency 'is preparing to implement' Trump's executive order 'in the event that it is permitted to go into effect,' according to July's memo. Children of immigrants who are 'unlawfully present' will 'no longer be U.S. citizens at birth,' the agency declared. Trump's order states that children whose parents are legally present in the country on student, work and tourist visas are not eligible for citizenship USCIS, however, goes even further, outlining more than a dozen categories of immigrants whose children could lose citizenship at birth despite their parents living in the country with legal permission. That list includes immigrants who are protected against deportation for humanitarian reasons and immigrants from countries with Temporary Protected Status, among others. The 14th Amendment plainly states that 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.' The Supreme Court has upheld that definition to apply to all children born within the United States for more than a century. But under the terms of Trump's order, children can be denied citizenship if a mother is undocumented or is temporarily legally in the country on a visa, and if the father isn't a citizen or a lawful permanent resident. More than 150,000 newborns would be denied citizenship every year under Trump's order, according to plaintiffs challenging the president's order. A challenge over Trump's birthright citizenship order at the Supreme Court did not resolve the critical 14th Amendment questions at stake. On Wednesday, government lawyers confirmed plans to 'expeditiously' ask the Supreme Court 'to settle the lawfulness' of his birthright citizenship order later this year.
The Independent
20 minutes ago
- The Independent
Restoration of torn-down Confederate monument will cost $10 million over 2 years, military says
Restoring a memorial to the Confederacy that was removed from Arlington National Cemetery at the recommendation of Congress will cost roughly $10 million total, a U.S. Army official said Wednesday — the latest development in a Trump administration effort to combat what it calls 'erasing American history.' Once back in the cemetery, the monument — described a few years ago as 'problematic from top to bottom' — will also feature panels nearby that will offer context about its history, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity about a project still in progress. The Pentagon expects it to take about two years to restore the monument to its original site, the official told The Associated Press. The base that it sat on needs to be replaced and the monument itself will be refurbished as well. On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the Pentagon would reinstall the memorial at Arlington — an expanse just outside Washington that once contained the land of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee — less than two years after it was removed on the recommendation of an independent commission. On social media Tuesday, Hegseth said the Arlington statue 'never should have been taken down by woke lemmings. Unlike the Left, we don't believe in erasing American history — we honor it.' It was erected more than a century ago The Confederate monument, erected in 1914, was the creation of sculptor and Confederate veteran Moses Ezekiel. It features a classical female figure, crowned with olive leaves, representing the American South, alongside sanitized depictions of slavery. In 2022, a congressionally mandated commission recommended that the memorial, along with scores of other military assets that bore Confederate references, be either removed or renamed. Retired Army Brig. Gen. Ty Seidule, the vice chair of the commission, said that the group found that Ezekiel's memorial was 'problematic from top to bottom.' Arlington National Cemetery's page on the memorial noted that aside from the sanitized depictions of enslaved people, the statue featured a Latin phrase that equated the South's secession to a noble 'lost cause." That's a false interpretation of the Civil War that glorifies the conflict as a struggle over the power of the federal government and not the institution of slavery. Hegseth has made a point of circumventing the will of the commission several times now by reverting the names of several Army bases back to their original, Confederate-linked names, though by honoring different figures. For example, following the recommendations of the commission, officials renamed Fort Bragg, a name that honored Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg, a slave owner who lost several key Civil War battles, to Fort Liberty. In February, Hegseth reverted the name back to Fort Bragg but honoring Army Pfc. Roland L. Bragg, a World War II soldier who earned a Silver Star and Purple Heart for exceptional courage during the Battle of the Bulge. The effort is part of a larger Trump initiative In March, President Donald Trump issued an executive order entitled 'Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.' It decried efforts to reinterpret American history, stating, 'rather than fostering unity and a deeper understanding of our shared past, the widespread effort to rewrite history deepens societal divides and fosters a sense of national shame.' The order targeted the Smithsonian network of museums as having 'come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology.' It also instructed the Interior Department to restore any statue or display that was 'removed or changed to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology.' This has been an active week when it comes to the dispute over how American history and culture are portrayed. On Monday, the National Park Service announced that the statue of Albert Pike, a Confederate brigadier general and a revered figure among Freemasons, would resume its previous position in Washington's Judiciary Square, a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol. It was the only outdoor statue of a Confederate military leader in the nation's capital. And late last week, the Smithsonian Museum of American History announced that it would revert an exhibit on the presidency to the 2008 era, eliminating any mention of the two Trump impeachments. After that move sparked discussion about how history is portrayed by government-backed institutions, the Smithsonian said it had come under no pressure from the White House and had been planning all along to update that part of the exhibit, which it said was temporary, to 2025 specifications.
The Independent
20 minutes ago
- The Independent
After deep DOGE cuts, National Weather Service gets OK to fill up to 450 jobs
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will hire as many as 450 people to shore up the National Weather Service after deep cuts this spring raised concern about dangerous understaffing, the Trump administration confirmed Wednesday. NOAA was granted permission to fill critical positions at its weather arm, including openings for meteorologists, hydrologists and electronics technicians, Trump administration officials said. The hirings are part of an exemption to a freeze on federal hiring in place through at least Oct. 15. NOAA declined to comment further. The planned hiring was first reported by CNN. The Department of Government Efficiency has gutted NOAA and the National Weather Service, which are key for the nation's daily weather forecasts, severe storm warnings, climate monitoring and more. Hundreds of NOAA forecasters and other employees have been cut, and NWS offices around the country have had a number of vacancies. The administration has also weighed ending the sharing of satellite data that is key to effective storm tracking and stopped tracking the cost of climate change-fueled weather disasters. Meteorologists and climate scientists have warned of consequences with fewer workers in positions that are crucial, especially as the hurricane season got underway. After deadly flash flooding that killed dozens of people in Texas last month, some local officials and Democrats suggested that the deep staffing cuts may have contributed to endangering lives, though others defended the agency's work. Experts cautiously applauded the exemption for hirings as positive news. 'While this new development is great news for the NWS and the American public, I would like to see that the hiring actions are actually underway,' said Louis Uccellini, former NOAA administrator for weather services and NWS director. The hirings are said to include the 'mission-critical field positions' that the agency announced it would hire for in June 'to further stabilize front line operations." The agency did not say at the time how many roles would be filled. ___ Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate reporter. Follow her on X: @alexa_stjohn. Reach her at ___ ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
