Trump administration revises ‘good moral character' citizenship requirement
US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) officers will now consider positive attributes like community involvement and education, alongside negative factors such as repeated traffic infractions or harassment, even if lawful.
A USCIS spokesperson stated that US citizenship should be reserved for 'the world's best of the best' and that the agency screens for 'anti-American activity' when vetting applications.
This policy is part of Trump's broader agenda to crack down on immigration, which includes potential mass deportations and reviewing immigrants' social media for reasons to reject applications.
Experts suggest the new guidance aims to restrict legal immigration by broadening grounds for denial, with concerns that its discretionary nature could lead to arbitrary enforcement.
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Metro
7 minutes ago
- Metro
'Trump's sanitising history for his own power - we've moved beyond an Orwellian
The world-renowned Smithsonian Museums give America a negative reputation. At least, that's what Donald Trump thinks. The museum is the latest target of Trump's 'clean-up' of Washington DC. He claims it focuses too much on 'how bad slavery was', and spreads 'anti-American ideology'. The White House has said current and former exhibitions at the museum will undergo a review to make sure they align with Trump's agenda and view of history. Historian and propaganda academic Ian Garner told Metro: 'What Trump is doing looks like a pretty naked attempt at sanitising history in order to maximise his own power.' If Trump's attempts to change how the Smithsonian retells the story of America, he could go beyond skewing understanding of the past and present – but also the direction of the future, Garner warned. 'Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. 'And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped.' Those words were written by George Orwell in his dystopian novel 1984. Regarded as his magnum opus, it is a critique of authoritarianism and warns against the loss of individual thought. It ends with the protagonist Winston Smith agreeing with 'Big Brother', which represents the authoritarian government that wants him to believe that 2+2=5. But Garner points out: 'We now live in a world where we can have the main character believing that 2 + 2 equals 5, but also 10, 12, 14, 28, and anything else, because people can hold all of these things in their heads all at once in the digital world. And that's something that we haven't faced before. 'We've moved beyond Orwell, because we're no longer living in the world of analogue communications of television and newspapers. Orwell couldn't have conceived the confusion that we end up with in the present, in the social media era, where reality can be constantly reconstructed,' he added. That reconstruction of reality is still in its early stages, Garner said, but the danger is real and needs to be recognised. There are a few displays and museums that Trump isn't happy with. One exhibit is about Benjamin Franklin, and lists his scientific discoveries, linking them to the slaves he owned. Another reference is to George Floyd's death, which Trump says puts police in a bad light. Trump wrote on Truth Social: 'The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been.' But the museum has already made changes to its exhibits, removing mentions of Trump's impeachment at the American History Museum. If Trump goes further in his attempts to amend exhibits and how they portray history, Garner explained it would damage the reputation of the museum and perpetuate the idea that there is a 'false history' and a 'real history'. Past autocracies have had words for things they deem false, or not enough in line with the country – Stalin referred to these things and ideas that weren't loyal to the Soviet Union as 'cosmopolitan'. Trump's word of choice? 'Woke'. In a tangent on Truth Social about museums, Trump wrote: 'I have instructed my attorneys to go through the Museums, and start the exact same process that has been done with Colleges and Universities, where tremendous progress has been made. 'This Country cannot be WOKE, because WOKE IS BROKE. We have the 'HOTTEST' Country in the World, and we want people to talk about it, including in our Museums.' 'Woke' is an empty vessel of a word, which has become meaningless, Garner argues – but by deploying it, people like Trump and his allies are trying to shut off or close off discussion about the past. Historically, governments have always wanted to control elements of the past, pump out certain narratives. But the more authoritarian the government becomes, the more that version of the past becomes central to their governing idea, and the less tolerance they're able to allow in representing the past. 'Everybody does it,' Garner said. 'But more recently, Hitler did it, Mussolini did it, Stalin did it, and Putin does it. So it doesn't matter whether Trump now goes ahead and changes exhibits in the Smithsonian or not. 'What matters is that he's put out the idea that this should happen, that the Smithsonian is some sort of 'woke' institution that needs to be reformed.' 'They bury it under this torrent of emotion, so that we're not really talking about the past at all. We're just talking about anger, about fury, about rage, disillusionment,' Garner adds. More Trending 'And these are the emotions that brought Trump to power in the first place. That's what he wants people to be engaging in, not the history or the present or the future of the country at all.' It's unclear how far the overhaul of museums in Washington, DC, will go, but if it's anything like Orwell wrote about in his novel, it won't stop just at reangling history in museums: 'Big Brother is infallible and all-powerful. 'Every success, every achievement, every victory, every scientific discovery, all knowledge, all wisdom, all happiness, all virtue, are held to issue directly from his leadership and inspiration.' Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: Trump says he wants to get to heaven but is at the bottom of the totem pole MORE: Zelensky should never have to hand over land to Putin MORE: What could happen if Zelensky and Putin actually meet?
Reuters
8 minutes ago
- Reuters
Putin prepared to meet Zelenskiy but legitimacy an issue, Lavrov says
MOSCOW, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin is prepared to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy but all issues must be worked through first and there's a question about Zelenskiy's authority to sign a peace deal, Putin's foreign minister said on Thursday. Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump met on Friday in Alaska for the first Russia-U.S. summit in more than four years and the two leaders discussed how to end the deadliest war in Europe since World War Two. After his summit talks in Alaska, Trump said on Monday he had begun arranging, opens new tab a meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders, to be followed by a trilateral summit with the U.S. president. Asked by reporters if Putin was willing to meet Zelenskiy, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: "Our president has repeatedly said that he is ready to meet, including with Mr. Zelenskiy". Lavrov, though, added a caveat: "With the understanding that all issues that require consideration at the highest level will be well worked out, and experts and ministers will prepare appropriate recommendations. "And, of course, with the understanding that when and if - hopefully, when - it comes to signing future agreements, the issue of the legitimacy of the person who signs these agreements from the Ukrainian side will be resolved," Lavrov said. Putin has repeatedly raised doubts about Zelenskiy's legitimacy as his term in office was due to expire in May 2024 but the war means no new presidential election has yet been held. Kyiv says Zelenskiy remains the legitimate president. Russian officials say they are worried that if Zelenskiy signs the deal then a future leader of Ukraine could contest it on the basis that Zelenskiy's term had technically expired. Zelenskiy said this week Kyiv would like a "strong reaction" from Washington if Putin were not willing to sit down for a bilateral meeting with him. European leaders say they are sceptical that Putin is really interested in peace, but are searching for a credible way to ensure Ukraine's security as part of a potential peace deal with minimal U.S. involvement. Lavrov said it was clear that neither Ukraine nor European leaders wanted peace. He accused the so-called "coalition of the willing" - which includes major European powers such as Britain, France, Germany and Italy - of trying to undermine the progress made in Alaska. "They are not interested in a sustainable, fair, long-term settlement," Lavrov said of Ukraine. He said the Europeans were interested in achieving the strategic defeat of Russia. "European countries followed Mr. Zelenskiy to Washington and tried to advance their agenda there, which aims to ensure that security guarantees are based on the logic of isolating Russia," Lavrov said, referring to Monday's gathering of Trump, Zelenskiy and the leaders of major European powers at the White House. Lavrov said the best option for a security guarantee for Ukraine would be based on discussions that took place between Moscow and Kyiv in Istanbul in 2022. Under a draft of that document which Reuters has seen, Ukraine was asked to agree to permanent neutrality in return for international security guarantees from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States. Any attempts to depart from the failed Istanbul discussions would be hopeless, Lavrov said. At the time, Kyiv rejected that proposal on the grounds that Moscow would have held effective veto power over any military response to come to its aid.
BBC News
8 minutes ago
- BBC News
Police accuse Jair Bolsonaro and son of obstruction of justice
Police in Brazil have accused former President Jair Bolsonaro, 70, and his 41-year-old son Eduardo of obstruction of justice. They allege that the two tried to interfere in the trial currently under way against the elder Bolsonaro, in which he stands accused of leading an attempted coup after his defeat in the 2022 presidential say they have found a document on Jair Bolsonaro's mobile phone which suggests he planned to evade criminal proceedings by seeking asylum in also accuse Eduardo Bolsonaro of lobbying the Trump administration on behalf of his father - which they say led to the US imposing punitive tariffs on Brazilian goods. Why Trump's tariffs on Brazil are more about political retaliation than tradeThe 170-page police report comes less than two weeks before the start of the final phase of the coup trial and piles further pressure on the former Bolsonaro denies conspiring to overturn his 2022 election loss to his left-wing rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da he has questioned the fairness of the proceedings against him, alleging he is the target of a "political witch hunt".He told news agency Reuters last month that he had "no doubt" the five Supreme Court justices tasked with delivering the verdict had already made up their mind about convict him. But at the time, he denied ever having made plans to try to evade the trial."I've never considered leaving the country, never," he told Reuters, adding that he believed the coup charges were designed to "eliminate" him from running for president in in their report filed on Wednesday, police say they found a draft letter on Jair Bolsonaro's mobile phone requesting political asylum in 33-page letter was addressed directly to Argentine President Javier Milei, according to the report. Milei has condemned Bolsonaro's "persecution" and is seen as a political ally of the former leader. The letter is not dated but police say it was last modified on the phone in February 2024, shortly after Bolsonaro had to surrender his passport to is not clear whether the draft was ever sent and an Argentine government source has told Reuters that the office of the Argentine president had not received a letter from police argue the draft shows Bolsonaro's intent to evade de Moraes, the judge overseeing the Bolsonaro trial, has given the ex-president's lawyers 48 hours to provide an explanation for the alleged asylum Bolsonaro is currently under house arrest and is already barred from posting on social media and from contacting his son Eduardo for breaching court restrictions placed on him. The report also accuses Eduardo Bolsonaro of trying to influence his father's trial by lobbying the Trump administration to lay pressure on the Brazilian government and the Supreme Court. In July, Trump announced he would raise tariffs on Brazilian imports to 50%, citing Brazil's treatment of Jair Bolsonaro as a trigger for the addition to that, the US State Department banned eight Brazilian Supreme Court justices - including Alexandre de Moraes - from travelling to the Bolsonaro, who has been in the US for almost six months, took to social media on Wednesday to deny the allegations against said that his actions in the US had never been intended to influence any ongoing proceedings in Brazil and that his goal had been the "restoration of individual freedoms in the country".
