Trump praises Houthis, disappoints Netanyahu, doesn't push MBS on Abraham Accord
Trump praises Houthis, disappoints Netanyahu, doesn't push MBS on Abraham Accord | Janta Ka Reporter
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Al Jazeera
3 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
As Trump raises deportation quotas, advocates fear an expanding ‘dragnet'
Washington, DC – There were shackles at her wrists. Her waist. Her ankles. The memory of being bound still haunts 19-year-old Ximena Arias Cristobal even after her release from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody. Nearly a month after her arrest, the Georgia college student said she is still grappling with how her life has been transformed. One day in early May, she was pulled over for a minor traffic stop: turning right on a red light. The next thing she knew, she was in a detention centre, facing a court date for her deportation. 'That experience is something I'll never forget. It left a mark on me, emotionally and mentally,' Arias Cristobal said during a news conference on Tuesday, recounting her time at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia. 'What hurts more,' she added, 'is knowing that millions of others have gone through and are still going through the same kind of pain'. Rights advocates say her story has become emblematic of a 'dragnet' deportation policy in the United States, one that targets immigrants of all backgrounds, regardless of whether they have a criminal record. President Donald Trump had campaigned for a second term on the pledge that he would expel 'criminals' who were in the country 'illegally'. But as he ramps up his 'mass deportation' campaign from the White House, critics say immigration agents are targeting immigrants from a variety of backgrounds — no matter how little risk they pose. 'The quotas that they are pushing for [are] creating this situation on the ground where ICE is literally just trying to go after anybody that they can catch,' said Vanessa Cardenas, the executive director of America's Voice, an immigration advocacy group. She explained that young, undocumented immigrants, known as Dreamers, are among the most vulnerable populations. 'In the dragnet, we're getting long-established, deeply rooted Dreamers and other folks that have been in the United States for a long time,' Cardenas explained. An avid runner who studies finance and economics at Dalton State College, Arias Cristobal is one of the 3.6 million people known as Dreamers. Many were sent to the US as children, sometimes accompanied by family members, others alone. For decades, the US government has struggled with how to handle those young, undocumented arrivals to the country. In 2012, then-President Barack Obama announced a new executive policy, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). It provided temporary protection from deportation for younger immigrants who had lived in the US since June 2007. About 530,000 Dreamers are protected by their DACA status. But Gaby Pacheco, the leader of the immigration group said that number represents a small proportion of the total population of young immigrants facing possible deportation. Some arrived after the cut-off date of June 15, 2007, while others have been unable to apply: Processing for new applications has been paused in recent years. Legal challenges over DACA also continue to wind their way through the federal court system. 'Sadly, in recent months multiple scholars and alumni have either been arrested, detained and even deported,' Pacheco said. She noted that 90 percent of the Dreamers that her organisation is supporting during their first year of higher education have no protections under DACA or other programmes. All told, she said, the last few months have revealed a 'painful truth': that 'Dreamers are under attack'. But advocates like Pacheco warn that the first months of the Trump administration may be only a harbinger of what is to come. Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller informed ICE agents that the Trump administration had increased its daily quota for immigration arrests, from 1,000 per day to 3,000. The current draft of Trump's budget legislation — known as the One Big Beautiful Bill — would also surge an estimated $150bn in government funds towards deportation and other immigration-related activities. The bill narrowly passed the House of Representatives and is likely to be taken up in the Senate in the coming weeks. Both actions could mean a significant scale-up in immigration enforcement, even as advocates argue that Trump's portrayal of the US as a country overrun with foreign criminals is starkly out of step with reality. Studies have repeatedly shown that undocumented immigrants commit fewer crimes — including violent crimes — than US-born citizens. Available data also calls into question Trump's claims that there are large numbers of undocumented criminal offenders in the country. The rate of arrests and deportations has remained more or less the same as when Trump's predecessor, former President Joe Biden, was in office, according to a report by the TRAC research project. From January 26 to May 3, during the first four months of Trump's second term, his administration made an average of 778 immigration arrests per day. That is just 2 percent higher than the average during the final months of Biden's presidency, which numbered about 759. The number of daily removals or deportations under Trump was actually 1 percentage point lower than Biden's daily rate. All told, Pacheco and Cardenas warned that the pressure to increase arrests and deportations could lead to increasingly desperate tactics. The administration has already rolled back a policy prohibiting immigration enforcement in sensitive areas, like churches and schools. It has also sought to use a 1798 wartime law to swiftly deport alleged gang members without due process, and revoked temporary protections that allowed some foreign nationals to remain in the country legally. In an effort to increase immigration arrests, the Trump administration has also pressured local officials to coordinate with ICE. Drawing on section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the administration has even delegated certain immigration powers to local law enforcement, including the right to make immigration arrests and screen people for deportation. In one instance in early May, the Tennessee Highway Patrol coordinated with ICE in a sweep of traffic stops that led to nearly 100 immigration arrests. Another large-scale operation in Massachusetts in early June saw ICE make 1,500 arrests. Swept up in that mass arrest was Marcelo Gomes Da Silva, an 18-year-old high school student on his way to volleyball practice. His arrest sparked protest and condemnation in Gomes Da Silva's hometown of Milford, Massachusetts. Cardenas pointed to those demonstrations, as well as the outpouring of support for Arias Cristobal, as evidence of a growing rejection of Trump's immigration policies. 'I think we are going to see more and more pushback from Americans,' she said. 'Having said that, it is my belief that this administration has all the intention to implement their plans… And if Congress gives them more money, they're going to go after our communities.'
Qatar Tribune
6 hours ago
- Qatar Tribune
Eurozone inflation slows to 1.9% in May, below ECB target
Agencies Eurozone inflation eased in May to its lowest level in eight months, official data showed on Tuesday, falling back below the target of 2% set by the European Central Bank (ECB), further raising expectations for another interest rate cut this week. Year-over-year consumer price increases in the single currency area slowed more than predicted by analysts for FactSet to 1.9%, down from 2.2% in April, the EU's official statistics agency said. Core inflation, which strips out volatile energy, food, alcohol and tobacco prices and is a key indicator for the ECB, also eased more than expected to 2.3% in May, down from 2.7% a month earlier. The ECB is expected to deliver its seventh-straight interest rate cut Thursday as the United States' volatile trade policies hang over the sluggish eurozone economy. 'This won't have much of a bearing on Thursday's ECB decision, which already looked almost certain to be a 25 basis point cut,' said Jack Allen-Reynolds, deputy chief eurozone economist at U.K.-based investment research group Capital Economics. 'But May's inflation data strengthens the case for another cut at the following meeting in July,' he said. Eurozone inflation is at its lowest point since September last year, when it stood at 1.7%. The slowdown in inflation was thanks to prices for services easing to 3.2% from 4.0% in April, Eurostat said. The ECB closely monitors the sector as it is highly correlated to wage growth. The ECB fears that a vicious cycle between rising wages and prices would make it more difficult to tackle inflation. In energy, the rate was negative 3.6%, unchanged from the month before. Food-price inflation accelerated, however, to 3.3% last month from 3.0% in April. Inflation has sharply dropped from the record peak of 10.6% in October 2022 after Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent energy prices sky-high. Capital Economics' Allen-Reynolds said he expected inflation to fall further in the months ahead, 'leaving the headline rate comfortably below 2% in the second half of the year.' 'Subdued oil prices and a stronger euro will drag down energy inflation and lead to cheaper production inputs and imports. Decelerating wage growth will bring the long-awaited cooling in the sticky services category,' said Riccardo Marcelli Fabiani, senior economist at Oxford Economics. Consumer price rises in Europe's two economic powerhouses, Germany and France, slowed in May to 2.1% and 0.6%, respectively. While the eurozone economy expanded by 0.3% over the January-March period from the previous quarter, U.S. President Donald Trump's erratic trade policy, including the potential for steep tariffs, has hurt the region's economic outlook. Trump has put a 50% duty on EU goods on ice until July 9 as the two sides chase an agreement, but a 10% levy remains, alongside 25% tariffs on steel, aluminum and auto imports. Trump now also plans to raise duties on steel and aluminum to 50%.
Qatar Tribune
6 hours ago
- Qatar Tribune
Global economy remains vulnerable to US tariffs
Agencies The global economy remains vulnerable to US tariff policy with the recent US court developments injecting a new layer of uncertainty. In effect, as long as tariff cases are in front of the courts, not much progress can be expected in terms of US trade negotiations with trading partners. In the US, irrespective of court developments, the administration is sticking with its plans to impose tariffs, utilizing, if need be, other routes. In the Euro-zone, the ECB is set to cut rates again while the EU's trade negotiations with the US will likely be very difficult. In the UK, despite positive deal-making with the US/EU/India, the outlook is shaky amid limited policy support and global trade uncertainty. In Japan, soaring bond yields further complicate the BoJ's job and bring the public finances to the limelight. Finally, despite the recent heightened China-US tensions, a resumption of the de-escalatory bias between them will not be surprising. Irrespective of how the current tariff-related legal developments will unfold, the US administration will likely stick with its plans to impose tariffs, utilizing, if need be, several other routes. However, until the courts' final say on the current cases is clear, President Trump's bargaining power in his ongoing negotiations with the US's key trading partners is weakened substantially. Importantly, this means that not much can be expected from the US's trade negotiations with its main trading partners as long as the cases are in front of the courts. And while policy uncertainty has already been very high since Trump took office, another layer of court-related legal uncertainty has now been added. Court developments aside, a key date is July 9, which is the date when the pause on the 'reciprocal' tariffs would end. Earlier, the US and China had diffused their trade war, but negotiations have since stalled, and tensions re-escalated recently. While further escalation following the 90-day window is possible, we think the more plausible scenario is that a de-escalatory bias will resume as the world's two largest economies got a feel of the enormous economic damage that will ensue from a full-blown trade war. Meanwhile, the House passed the GOP's 'Big, Beautiful Bill', which is a step in the wrong direction given that it worsens an already unsustainable debt trajectory, although it is positive for economic growth in the short term. The bill is now in front of the Senate, where it is expected to undergo some amendments although it will very likely remain a debt-increasing bill. Meanwhile, GDP contracted in Q1 on tariff front-running, but the labor market remains broadly resilient with three-month average job gains at 155K/month. Hence, the Fed will likely remain in a wait-and-see mode while markets are currently pricing-in around two 25 bps rate cuts by year-end. In our view, a US recession will be avoided on condition that a major tariff escalation does not get re-ignited. The prior tariff de-escalation drove a V-shaped rebound in the S&P 500 index although the US dollar index remains 10 percent below a recent high reached in January. The Euro-zone economy started the year on a good note, growing by a higher-than-expected 0.3 percent q/q in Q1, strengthening from 0.2 percent in the previous quarter. Meanwhile, headline inflation is almost at target, standing at 2.2 percent y/y although further progress is needed in terms of core and services inflation. Nevertheless, more recent indicators are starting to reflect the tariff-related headwinds with the PMI dropping below 50 (49.5 in May) for the first time this year. The ECB has carried on with its easing policy, cutting rates seven times since June 2024, and near certain to cut again in its meeting this week.
