The tribulations of Kilmar Abrego Garcia: An allegory of the Trump administration's crackdown on undocumented immigrants
On March 12, he was thrust out of anonymity when immigration police arrested him as he was picking up his son from his grandmother's home in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Three days later, he was among more than 200 other "criminals" on a plane headed to El Salvador and a high-security prison at the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot). It was, by the Department of Homeland Security's own admission, an "administrative error": in 2019, a judge had prohibited his return to his home country, where he faced the risk of torture.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia has never regained his freedom, a victim caught in a political-judicial system beyond his control. Over the course of four months, he was shuttled from Maryland to Louisiana, from Texas to El Salvador, from which he was only brought back on June 6, following pressure from the judiciary. Against his will, he has become a symbol of the standoff between the courts – which continue to uphold the principle that no one can be detained without trial – and Donald Trump, who is quick to see a criminal in every migrant, and a challenge to his policies in every reminder of the rule of law.
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France 24
4 hours ago
- France 24
EU threatens US planes and whiskey while pressing for deal
Trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic was to talk to US counterpart Jamieson Greer Tuesday, a day after speaking with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. The European Commission said that Brussels was still hopeful for a "good outcome" in the tariffs standoff. US President Donald Trump threw a curveball into months of EU-US negotiations at the weekend when he announced he would slap a 30-percent levy on the bloc's goods from August 1 if no deal was made. Until Trump's ultimatum, the EU had been hoping for an accord last week that would stave off higher tariffs and avoid a damaging trade war with its biggest commercial partner. On Monday, Brussels shared with member states a list of US goods worth 72 billion euros ($84 billion) that could be hit by levies if tariff negotiations fail -- with several capitals urging the bloc to toughen its stance. The 202-page document, seen by AFP on Tuesday, lists big-ticket items like US-made aircraft, cars, chemicals and electrical equipment alongside sundry other items, such as live bees, camels, parrots, condoms and opium. Bourbon whiskey, whose targeting faced resistance from France and Italy for fear of reprisals against European wine and spirits, also features. So are nails, snails, and Christmas trees. Commission spokesman Olof Gill declined to provide details of Sefcovic's Monday call with Lutnick, but said a technical team from the commission, in charge of trade policy for the 27-nation EU, was heading to Washington "as we speak". "We are in the most sensitive stage of those negotiations right now, working towards getting an agreement in principle over the line before the deadline," he told reporters. "We wouldn't be engaging in negotiations if we didn't think those negotiations could lead to a good outcome. So clearly, we think that an agreement in principle, as we have said, is within reach." The commission's new list of reprisal targets comes in addition to a first package -- worth 21 billion euros -- which it drew up after Trump slapped tariffs on imports of EU steel and aluminium. That retaliation remains suspended until early next month to allow for more negotiations, and Gill said the EU would not decide on imposing the second round of tariffs before August 1. © 2025 AFP
LeMonde
5 hours ago
- LeMonde
In Srebrenica, 30 years after the genocide, the 'vicious circle' of denial continues
"Welcome to the Las Vegas of Bosnia, we attract at least as much attention [as the American city]." On Wednesday, July 9, the mayor of Srebrenica, Milos Vucic, displayed this peculiar sense of humor, two days before the July 11 commemorations marking the 30 th anniversary of the 1995 genocide in his city. This Bosnian Serb, who is also a cousin of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, said he would not participate in the ceremonies meant to honor the more than 8,000 Muslim Bosniaks killed in a matter of days by the forces of Serb General Ratko Mladic, in what is considered the worst massacre of civilians in Europe since the end of World War II. "I was not invited, and I do not see why I should go when my deputy [a Bosniak] isn't coming here," said the 37-year-old official during a small counter-ceremony he organized in a predominantly Serb neighborhood of his municipality. Decorated with Serbian flags and set to the Serbian national anthem, the event was dedicated solely to Serb victims of the war, which claimed around 100,000 lives overall between 1992 and 1995. "Serbs were killed in much more horrific ways than the Bosniaks, for example by decapitation, as seen in certain Muslim countries, but have you ever read anything about them in the international press?" Vucic exclaimed, criticizing what he described as a "double standard" from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which convicted Mladic of genocide in 2021. It mattered little that the Serb victims commemorated on Wednesday by a few dozen Serbs gathered around the mayor of Srebrenica did not die on that precise date, or that the local commander of the Bosniak forces, whom they accuse of being responsible for their deaths, has been systematically acquitted by international and Bosnian courts. The main objective was to stage a counter-event ahead of July 11, which is expected to draw tens of thousands of people this year. Several senior European officials, such as European Council President Antonio Costa and French Minister for European Affairs Benjamin Haddad, are expected to attend in this eastern Balkan town.
France 24
6 hours ago
- France 24
UN demands justice in any Ukraine peace talks, as civilian deaths spike
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