Ex-Zambian Leader Should Be Buried in Home Country, Court Rules
Lungu died in a hospital in Pretoria on June 5 and his family wanted to hold a private burial ceremony for him in South Africa and for Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema to be excluded from the proceedings. The Zambian government insisted he should have an official funeral at home.
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Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Unmaking Americans: Trump aims to revoke citizenship
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. What has Trump said? After months of targeting undocumented migrants and some legal immigrants for removal from the U.S., the president has recently turned his attention to American citizens. In July, Trump raised the possibility of deporting his South African–born ex-adviser Elon Musk and the Ugandan-born New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani (explaining that "we don't need a communist in this country"), and said he was "giving serious consideration" to stripping comedian and Trump nemesis Rosie O'Donnell of her citizenship. The Supreme Court has ruled that U.S.-born citizens like O'Donnell cannot have their citizenship taken away. But the government can revoke the citizenship of naturalized, foreign-born Americans—who make up more than 7% of the population, about 25 million people— through a legal process known as denaturalization, which returns them to the immigration status they held before naturalizing. At that point, deportation proceedings can begin. And in June, the Justice Department said its Civil Division had been directed by Trump to "maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence." Is there a precedent for this policy? Denaturalization was remarkably common for much of the 20th century. The 1906 law that federalized the naturalization process included a provision allowing new Americans to lose their citizenship due to fraud, racial ineligibility—a clause initially aimed at Chinese people—and lack of "good moral character." Denaturalization quickly became "a tool for ridding the American citizenry of 'undesirables,'" said historian Patrick Weil. That included the Russian-born anarchist Emma Goldman, whom the government had spent years unsuccessfully trying to deport. Those efforts initially fell flat, because Goldman had legally obtained citizenship through her first marriage. But immigration officials investigated her ex-husband, found he'd put the wrong age on his citizenship application, and denaturalized him and Goldman using the 1906 law. She was deported in 1919, alongside 248 others considered foreign anarchists or communists. The 1940 Nationality Act expanded those eligible to be stripped of citizenship, including U.S.-born citizens who had joined a foreign army, voted in foreign elections, or deserted during wartime. How many people lost citizenship? Between 1907 and 1967, the government recorded about 22,000 denaturalizations. Weil estimates another 121,000 U.S.-born citizens lost their nationality from 1945 to 1977. The Supreme Court pared back the government's citizenship-stripping powers with a string of rulings in the 1950s and '60s, the most significant being 1967's Afroyim v. Rusk. In 1960, the State Department declared that Polish-born painter Beys Afroyim had forfeited his U.S. citizenship by voting in a 1951 Israeli election. The Supreme Court overturned that decision and much of the 1940 Nationality Act in 1967, ruling that the 14th Amendment's "citizenship clause" says simply that all American-born or naturalized Americans are U.S. citizens—a status that only the individual can renounce. "The Government is without power to rob a citizen of his citizenship," wrote Justice Hugo Black. Denaturalization numbers dropped after that ruling, with only a few cases filed each year. What's the current legal situation? There are two grounds for denaturalization: committing serious human rights violations before naturalization and committing fraud during the naturalization process. Officials must also demonstrate a person lacks "good moral character." The most common targets in recent decades were naturalized citizens with undisclosed Nazi pasts, such as Feodor Fedorenko, who kept secret that he'd been a guard at the Treblinka extermination camp. He was denaturalized in 1981 and deported to his native USSR, where he was executed in 1987. Denaturalization investigations began to ramp up with the 2010 launch of Operation Janus under President Obama, which used new digital tools to search for discrepancies in fingerprint data that might indicate naturalization fraud. Some 315,000 potential cases were flagged, but because such investigations require significant resources, the first Janus denaturalization occurred in 2018, under President Trump. Around that same time, Trump created a "denaturalization task force" to examine the files of some 700,000 naturalized citizens. In total, 102 denaturalization cases were filed during the first Trump administration; the Biden administration filed 24. Who's being targeted now? The DOJ's June memo lists 10 potential grounds for denaturalization, including having links to terrorism, gangs, or cartels; committing fraud against the government or individuals; and "any other cases" deemed "sufficiently important to pursue." Immigration experts and former officials warn that the memo is so broad that it could be used to denaturalize Americans for minor infractions, such as an underpayment of taxes. Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) has argued that Mamdani should be denaturalized for writing rap lyrics that, he said, suggest support for Hamas. Immigration lawyers say such an argument is unlikely to succeed in court, because in civil denaturalization cases the government has to show "clear, convincing, and unequivocal evidence which does not leave the issue in doubt." Playing a "game of gotcha with naturalization applicants isn't going to work," said Jeremy McKinney, former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. But he notes that simply threatening denaturalization can "create a climate of panic and anxiety and fear" in which naturalized critics of the Trump administration may think twice before speaking up. "They're doing that very well," said McKinney. "So, mission accomplished in that regard." Denaturalized for political beliefs The idea of using denaturalization to root out supposedly un-American behavior has a long but not always successful history. In 1939, the U.S. government sought to revoke the citizenship of Russia-born William Schneiderman, then secretary of the Communist Party's California branch. Officials alleged Schneiderman's citizenship had been obtained through fraud, since he could not have pledged to support the Constitution—as naturalization law required—while simultaneously belonging to a party that advocated revolution. A federal court agreed and Schneiderman was denaturalized. The case was successfully appealed to the Supreme Court by Wendell Willkie, the 1940 Republican nominee for president, and in 1943 the justices ruled that Schneiderman had not acted fraudulently; the citizenship application didn't ask if he was a Communist, so he could not have lied. The justices also stressed that the First Amendment protects freedom of thought, including political beliefs, setting a precedent that could become relevant if Trump acts on his threats. "The constitutional fathers, fresh from a revolution, did not forge a political straitjacket for the generations to come," wrote Justice Frank Murphy.
News24
5 hours ago
- News24
Delays, cost overruns: Treasury not involved in Parly rebuild despite dishing out billions
The budget to rebuild the fire-damaged parliamentary buildings has increased from just over R2 billion in 2023 to more than R4.4 billion in 2025.
Washington Post
10 hours ago
- Washington Post
U.S. escalates human rights criticism of South Africa and Brazil
The Trump administration is significantly escalating U.S. government criticism of perceived foes in South Africa and Brazil as the State Department's political leadership reimagines America's role in documenting human rights abuses around the world, according to leaked draft documents reviewed by The Washington Post. The department's annual human rights reports, which are scheduled to be transmitted to Congress on Tuesday, according to a memo seen by The Post, are expected to target the South African government for its alleged mistreatment of White Afrikaner farmers and the Brazilian government for its alleged persecution of former president Jair Bolsonaro, an ally of President Donald Trump. Human rights advocates, foreign leaders and other critics of the Trump administration say its claims about both governments are exaggerated. Within the State Department, there is considerable unease, too, over how the writing of these and other country-specific human rights reports were shaped compared with past years, with some saying the process was unduly politicized. The Post also has reviewed leaked draft reports for El Salvador, Israel and Russia. Those documents eliminate previous descriptions of abuses, including government corruption, prisoner abuse and persecution of LGBTQ+ individuals. The State Department has declined to comment directly on the draft documents but last week issued a broad defense of the administration's shift in priorities. 'Governments around the world continue to use censorship, arbitrary or unlawful surveillance and restrictive laws against disfavored voices, often on political and religious grounds,' a senior State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity under the agency's rules, told reporters. 'We are committed to having frank conversations … with our allies, our partners and also our adversaries to promote freedom of expression around the world.' This official also noted that the forthcoming human rights reports had been restructured to remove redundancies and increase readability. Representatives of the South African and Brazilian embassies in Washington did not respond to requests for comment. Current and former State Department officials familiar with this year's human rights reports describe a divisive process with internal disputes over certain countries, including South Africa, resulting in a months-long publication delay as drafts begun during the Biden administration underwent substantial revision. Uzra Zeya, a top official for human rights at the State Department during the Biden administration who now leads the Human Rights First nonprofit, said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was seeking to 'weaponize and distort human rights policy' in a way that rewards rights-abusing allies while targeting political opponents and critics. The report for South Africa focuses on what the Trump administration says is the 'land expropriation of Afrikaners and further abuses against racial minorities in the country,' the draft documents show. Trump has claimed the country's White minority faces a 'genocide,' though human rights groups, and even some Afrikaner groups, have resoundingly dismissed that as untrue. Trump lectured South African President Cyril Ramaphosa during a visit to the White House in May, with the U.S. president showing his visitor purported video evidence of what he claimed proved the persecution of Afrikaners. While Ramaphosa acknowledged there were problems with safety in some rural parts of his country, he forcefully rejected the idea that White South Africans were being singled out — and at least one of the images Trump showed during the tense meeting was later found to not show South Africa at all. That same month, the Trump administration welcomed to the United States about 60 White South Africans as refugees, making a rare exception to its broader halt to refugee resettlement programs for people fleeing war or facing persecution around the world. The U.S. has also cut aid to South Africa and is planning to boycott November's meeting of the Group of 20 industrialized countries to be held in Johannesburg. U.S. officials have complained not only of the treatment of White Afrikaners but also South Africa's support of legal cases against U.S. ally Israel at the International Court of Justice. The draft report includes a lengthy section on antisemitism in South Africa. According to two people with knowledge of the process, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, career State Department staff pushed back on some of the proposed language in the South Africa report. There were specific concerns, these people said, about use of the word 'genocide,' which carries significant legal implications for U.S. policy under domestic and international law. One person with knowledge of the process said the administration wanted not just to strip down the South Africa draft left by the prior administration but reshape it entirely, highlighting claims of persecution against Afrikaners despite doubts about their veracity. A Trump political appointee, Samuel Samson, led the draft's rewriting after Africa subject matter experts in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor refused to continue their involvement, citing the inclusion of false and misleading information, this person said. Samson later visited South Africa in July to conduct research, according to local media reports. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In Brazil's draft report, the State Department accused the country's left-wing government of 'disproportionately suppressing the speech of supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro,' who is accused of attempting to stay in power with a violent coup. Bolsonaro has denied the charge. The draft report specifically mentions Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, stating that he 'personally ordered the suspension of more than 100 user profiles on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter)' in a way that impacted Bolsonaro's supporters on the far right. The Trump administration expanded U.S. sanctions on Moraes last month, with Rubio alleging the judge had committed 'serious human rights abuse, including arbitrary detention involving flagrant denials of fair trial guarantees and violations of the freedom of expression.' Moraes has pledged to ignore the sanctions and continue his work. Bolsonaro and his allies have appealed to Trump for help as he faces a variety of charges related to the 2022 attempted coup, which occurred roughly two years after Trump's supporters, hoping to overturn his election defeat in 2020, carried out a violent assault on the U.S. Capitol. 'I always talked about the prosecutions that Trump suffered. If he wants to say something about me, he'll decide to speak,' Bolsonaro told The Post this year. Administration officials have defended the shift in U.S. human rights priorities, and it's not unusual for a new administration respond to different trends, such as perceived attacks on freedom of expression in Europe and other democracies. The State Department human rights reports are the most comprehensive on the subject compiled by any single body in the world, and they are widely used in both U.S. and international courts. In particular, they are often used in immigration court during hearings on asylum and deportations. Appearing in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in May, Rubio clashed with Democratic lawmakers, who asked why the State Department had canceled long-standing refugee programs but started a new program that focused specifically on Afrikaners from South Africa. Rubio said that the South Africans who arrived in the United States 'thought they were persecuted' but acknowledged there were millions of others facing persecution around the world who would not be resettled as refugees in the U.S.
