Trump directs Commerce Department to create new US Census
"People who are in our Country illegally will not be counted in the census," he said in a Truth Social post.
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The Guardian
15 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Texas redistricting fight with Democrats ‘could last years', threatens Greg Abbott
Texas governor, Greg Abbott, has stepped up his war of words with Democratic lawmakers who have left the state to foil an aggressive redistricting plan aimed at giving his Republican party five additional seats in Congress, saying on Sunday that the fight 'could literally last years'. Abbott issued his new threat on Fox News Sunday, saying that he would use his powers to call a special session of the Texas legislature to extend the battle indefinitely. The special session lasts 30 days, he said, 'and as soon as this one is over, I'm going to call another one, then another one, then another one, then another one'. Whenever the absent Democrats return to Texas, Abbott said, they would be arrested for violating their oath of office. 'If they want to evade that arrest, they're going to stay outside Texas for literally years,' he remarked. 'And they might as well start voting in California or Illinois, or wherever they may be.' Sunday's TV political talk shows were dominated by the increasingly acrimonious dispute over Texas's audacious gerrymandering plans which were instigated at the direct behest of Donald Trump. The move to flip five US House seats to the Republicans is being made as polls indicate that the US president's party will struggle to hang on to its razor-slim majority in the chamber in next year's midterm elections. The Republicans currently hold a margin of just three seats. The stakes could not be higher: were Trump able to hang onto his narrow control of Congress, he could cement the attacks on democratic and constitutional norms that he has begun in the first six months of his second presidency. As the crisis reaches a crunch, more than 50 Texas Democrats have left the state, heading to Democratically-controlled states, including Illinois and New York. The relocation is designed to deprive Republicans of a quorum needed to pass the new gerrymandered maps in the Texas legislature in Austin. Democratic governors went on the political shows on Sunday to launch their own barrage of words threatening counter-action. The strong language deployed was the latest indication that the leadership of the Democratic party, which has floundered in the face of Trump's radical authoritarian-leaning tactics, is determined at this point to take a stand. New York's Democratic governor Kathy Hochul accused Abbott on Fox News Sunday of being a 'lap dog' for Trump. 'Knock it off,' she told her counterpart in Texas. 'Let's get back to governing.' She added that if Texas continued with what she called 'these games', 'we're not going to sit on the sidelines – we're New Yorkers. We fight back.' New York's room for maneuver, however, is more limited than that of Texas. The state has an independent redistricting commission that oversees the drawing of its electoral maps which has been the subject in recent years of much court action. Hochul said that the restrictions would not hold New York back. 'We amend constitutions – we did it a few years ago,' she said. 'We can put it to the people. I'm not going to let our democracy be eroded away because there's a blatant power grab in our nation's capital.' JB Pritzker, the Democratic governor of Illinois where many of the Texas Democrats are holed up in an undisclosed hotel outside Chicago, unleashed his own verbal volley on NBC's Meet the Press. He accused Trump of being a cheater, saying: 'He cheats on his wives. He cheats at golf. And now he's trying to cheat the American people out of their votes.' Pritzker was dismissive of claims by Texas US senator John Cornyn that the FBI had been brought in to help find the missing Democrats. 'Texas law does not apply in the state of Illinois, and there's no federal law that would allow the FBI to arrest anybody that's here visiting our state,' Pritzker said. 'So, it's a lot of grandstanding.' Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion As the governors were thrashing it out in the TV studios, lawsuits continued to fly around Texas's courts as both sides seek to gain the upper hand legally. Texas attorney general Ken Paxton is suing a sample group of 13 of the Democratic lawmakers claiming that the 'runaways' have officially vacated their offices. Paxton is now asking the state's supreme court to remove the 13 from their seats. Beto O'Rourke, the former Democratic presidential candidate from El Paso, Texas, has also waded into the fray. On Friday, a state court in Fort Worth blocked his political action committee, Powered By People, from using its funds to support the fleeing lawmakers. O'Rourke has counter-sued, arguing that Paxton was trying to 'intimidate' a potential rival in next year's US senate race. Speaking at an event in New Orleans on Friday, he accused the Republicans of being 'would-be fascists' and warned that if they got away with their plan to maintain power in Congress in 2026 'the consolidation of authoritarian control in the hands of Donald Trump will be nearly unstoppable'. Trump's ruse to create more winnable congressional seats is being taken so seriously in Democratic circles that it has gelled even die-hard opponents of party political gerrymandering to come out in favor of counter measures. Bernie Sanders, the independent US senator from Vermont, is a fierce critic of the redrawing of electoral maps for partisan benefit. Yet he told CNN's State of the Union that the Democratic party had no option but to fight fire with fire, saying: 'Democrats have got to fight back. I think it's pathetic, but I think that's what they've got to do.' Asked whether that his position was defensible, given his years of opposing gerrymandering, Sanders said: 'What we have now is terrible, and Republicans are making it worse. Well, what do you do if Republicans are doing it? You have to respond. It's pathetic, but I think you have to respond.'
The Guardian
42 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Companies aiding Trump's immigration crackdown see ‘extraordinary' revenues
The tech, surveillance and private prison providers arming Donald Trump's massive expansion and weaponization of immigration enforcement are running a victory lap after reporting their latest financial results. Palantir, the tech firm, and Geo Group and CoreCivic, the private prison and surveillance companies, said this week that they brought in more money than Wall Street expected them to, thanks to the administration's crackdown on immigrants. 'Well, as usual, I've been cautioned to be a little modest about our bombastic numbers,' said Alex Karp, the Palantir chief executive, in an investor call earlier this week. Then he crowed about the company's 'extraordinary numbers' and his 'enormous pride' in its success. Private prison company executives, during their respective calls, could barely contain their excitement, flagging to investors opportunities for 'unprecedented growth' in the realm of immigration detention. Palantir saw 53% growth in revenue from US government contracts in the second quarter of 2025 compared with the same period the year prior and surpassed $1bn in total quarterly revenue for the first time. Analysts had expected the company to bring in $939.4m in revenue. The company, which connects and analyzes disparate sets of data to enable its customers to build products with that information, brings in the majority of its revenue from government contracts. Its biggest US customer is the Department of Defense, where the US army, which announced a $10bn agreement with Palantir last week, is housed. On the immigration side, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has deepened its partnership with Palantir since the start of the Trump administration, which it's been working with since 2011. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), the agency primarily engaged in arresting, detaining and deporting immigrants, most recently announced a $30m contract with Palantir to build a database that makes its deportation and detention machine more efficient. 'Palantir gets attacked just because we help make this country even better, because we support the values, because we defend it,' Karp said. 'And us being able to win while having an opinion does have an impact on the world, if only because the people who think we are wrong are not good, have to be a little jealous and suffer.' While Palantir is making it easier to deport immigrants, private prison corporations GeoGroup and CoreCivic are bringing in more money than expected helping detain them. GeoGroup reported $636.2m in revenue this quarter, beating analyst predictions of $623.4m, while CoreCivic announced $538.2m in the second quarter of this year, a 9.8% increase from last year's second quarter. George Zoley, the GeoGroup company chief executive, said its detention facilities are fuller than they've ever been, with Ice using 20,000 beds across 21 GeoGroup detention centers, about one-third of the estimated 57,000 beds in Ice detention centers across the country. GeoGroup executives also said in the call they have begun exploring detention centers at US military sites, one of the many 'unprecedented growth opportunities' Zoley spoke of during the call. While there has been a big boost to GeoGroup's detention business, its surveillance subsidiary is not yet seeing the massive growth company executives predicted earlier this year. Executives said they expected the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP) – an immigrant monitoring initiative run by the company's subsidiary BI Inc for 20 years – would expand beyond its previous peak of 370,000 immigrants being monitored. The number of immigrants who are currently being surveilled by Ice has hovered around 183,000 for the past few months. '[ICE hasn't] communicated at this time the expansion of ISAP,' Zoley said on the investor call. 'Their focus is intensely on scaling up the detention capacity.' That said, the company expects ISAP numbers to start increasing next year once 'detention capacity is maximized'. The Trump administration has signaled a desire to increase the number of immigrants surveilled by ankle monitors. Many immigrants have described ISAP surveillance as intrusive, at times physically painful and inefficient. In the call with investors, CoreCivic executives revealed they have offered Ice around 30,000 beds to detain immigrants throughout the company's nationwide network. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act legislation was passed by Congress and signed by Trump last month, providing DHS a massive influx of cash. Ice was given $45bn to expand its detention network. Sign up to TechScape A weekly dive in to how technology is shaping our lives after newsletter promotion Ice currently has funds for around 41,500 beds but is currently detaining around 57,000 people throughout its detention network. With the incoming influx of cash, the agency will have the funds to likely detain thousands upon thousands more – and private prison contractors are ready. 'Our business is perfectly aligned with the demands of this moment,' said Damon T Hininger, the CEO of CoreCivic, during Thursday's call with investors. 'We are in an unprecedented environment, with rapid increases in federal detention populations nationwide and a continuing need for solutions we provide.' As the office of management and budget readies the finances from the spending package, private prison companies have wasted no time in selling their services to immigration officials. 'As we know, budgets are moral documents, and last month Congress decided to fully fund cruelty aimed at immigrant communities at the expense of vital programs that serve all Americans,' said Setareh Ghandehari, advocacy director for the Detention Watch Network. 'Private prison companies have been giddy since last November about the prospect of making money at the expense of all of us.' Since Trump took office again this year, CoreCivic has modified, extended or signed new contracts to detain immigrants at eight different facilities, according to company financial disclosures. Geo Group has done the same with five different facilities. The earning calls from the two companies come as immigrant rights organizations and human rights groups criticize conditions inside immigration jails nationwide. Setareh added that private prison companies' profits come from 'the destruction of human lives as directed by the Trump administration and made possible by the majority Congress'. A CoreCivic facility in New Mexico where immigrants and federal prisoners are detained, the Cibola correctional facility, is currently under investigation by the FBI for an 'epidemic' of drug trafficking, as the Guardian recently revealed. At least 15 people have died inside that facility since 2018. Last September, the company pitched Cibola to Ice as an ideal place to detain more immigrants.
The Independent
44 minutes ago
- The Independent
Grant Forrest congratulated by Donald Trump after winning Nexo Championship
Grant Forrest eased to victory on home soil for the second time in his career with a four-shot success at the Nexo Championship – and then received a video call from United States president Donald Trump. Forrest's victory was at Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeen and, shortly after collecting his trophy, he was being congratulated by the owner and 47th president of the USA over FaceTime. 'I watched it… he's some player. I look forward to playing with him – in fact I will play with him tomorrow if he could get on a plane,' Trump said in the call, shared on X by the DP World Tour. 'What a round of golf. What three rounds of brilliant golf. It's a great honour you won, thank you very much.' Forrest, who lifted his maiden DP World Tour title at St Andrews four years and two days ago, took control of windy conditions over the weekend but saw his three-shot overnight advantage trimmed to two after Todd Clements' birdie on the opening hole. However, when Forrest birdied the fourth and Clements carded a triple-bogey eight at the same hole, the Scot led by five and never looked back. The world number 294, who double-bogeyed the last, added two more birdies and a dropped shot in a closing 72 to finish with an eight-under-par total. 'It's amazing, just speechless,' Forrest said. 'I think it is the same week as I won four years ago on the calendar so just amazing, that must say something about this week and being at home. 'I just can't believe it. It's been such a tough year on the golf course. It's just a crazy game that you can go and come out and do this, with what feels out of nowhere. 'It's just that old chestnut that one week can turn things around and it has.' Joe Dean nervelessly parred the last to claim solo second at four under, with John Parry one shot further behind alongside Norway's Kristoffer Reitan and Denmark's Jacob Skov Olesen. Jordan Smith finished sixth at two under, while Clements, Andy Sullivan and Finland's Oliver Lindell were a further shot adrift – the only nine players to finish the tournament under par.
