Israeli airstrike on popular Gaza beachside cafe leaves at least 30 dead
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The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
A day outside an LA detention center shows profound impact of ICE raids on families
At a federal immigration building in downtown Los Angeles guarded by U.S. Marines, daughters, sons, aunts, nieces and others make their way to an underground garage and line up at a door with a buzzer at the end of a dirty, dark stairwell. It's here where families, some with lawyers, come to find their loved ones after they've been arrested by federal immigration agents. For immigrants without legal status who are detained in this part of Southern California, their first stop is the Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center in the basement of the federal building. Officers verify their identity and obtain their biometrics before transferring them to detention facilities. Upstairs, immigrants line up around the block for other services, including for green cards and asylum applications. On a recent day, dozens of people arrived with medication, clothing and hope of seeing their loved one, if only briefly. After hours of waiting, many were turned away with no news, not even confirmation that their relative was inside. Some relayed reports of horrific conditions inside, including inmates who are so thirsty that they have been drinking from the toilets. ICE did not respond to emailed requests for comment. Just two weeks ago, protesters marched around the federal complex following aggressive raids in Los Angeles that began June 6 and have not stopped. Scrawled expletives about President Donald Trump still mark the complex's walls. Those arrested are from a variety of countries, including Mexico, Guatemala, India, Iran, China and Laos. About a third of the county's 10 million residents are foreign-born. Many families learned about the arrests from videos circulating on social media showing masked officers in parking lots at Home Depots, at car washes and in front of taco stands. Around 8 a.m., when attorney visits begin, a few lawyers buzz the basement door called 'B-18" as families wait anxiously outside to hear any inkling of information. 9 a.m. Christina Jimenez and her cousin arrive to check if her 61-year-old stepfather is inside. Her family had prepared for the possibility of this happening to the day laborer who would wait to be hired outside a Home Depot in the LA suburb of Hawthorne. They began sharing locations when the raids intensified. They told him that if he were detained, he should stay silent and follow instructions. Jimenez had urged him to stop working, or at least avoid certain areas as raids increased. But he was stubborn and 'always hustled.' 'He could be sick and he's still trying to make it out to work,' Jimenez said. After learning of his arrest, she looked him up online on the ICE Detainee Locator but couldn't find him. She tried calling ICE to no avail. Two days later, her phone pinged with his location downtown. 'My mom's in shock,' Jimenez said. 'She goes from being very angry to crying, same with my sister.' Jimenez says his name into the intercom – Mario Alberto Del Cid Solares. After a brief wait, she is told yes, he's there. She and her cousin breathe a sigh of relief — but their questions remain. Her biggest fear is that instead of being sent to his homeland of Guatemala, he will be deported to another country, something the Supreme Court recently ruled was allowed. 9:41 a.m. By mid-morning, Estrella Rosas and her mother have come looking for her sister, Andrea Velez, a U.S. citizen. A day earlier, they saw Velez being detained after they dropped her off at her marketing job at a shoe company downtown. 'My mom told me to call 911 because someone was kidnapping her,' Rosas said. Stuck on a one-way street, they had to circle the block. By the time they got back, she says they saw Velez in handcuffs being put into a car without license plates. Velez's family believes she was targeted for looking Hispanic and standing near a tamale stand. Rosas has her sister's passport and U.S. birth certificate, but learns she is not there. They find her next door in a federal detention center. She was accused of obstructing immigration officers, which the family denies, but is released the next day. 11:40 a.m. About 20 people are now outside. Some have found cardboard to sit on after waiting hours. One family comforts a woman who is crying softly in the stairwell. Then the door opens, and a group of lawyers emerge. Families rush to ask if the attorneys could help them. Kim Carver, a lawyer with the Trans Latino Coalition, says she planned to see her client, a transgender Honduran woman, but she was transferred to a facility in Texas at 6:30 that morning. Carver accompanied her less than a week ago for an immigration interview and the asylum officer told her she had a credible case. Then ICE officers walked in and detained her. 'Since then, it's been just a chase trying to find her,' she says. 12:28 p.m. As more people arrive, the group begins sharing information. One person explains the all-important 'A-number,' the registration number given to every detainee, which is needed before an attorney can help. They exchange tips like how to add money to an account for phone calls. One woman says $20 lasted three or four calls for her. Mayra Segura is looking for her uncle after his frozen popsicle cart was abandoned in the middle of the sidewalk in Culver City. 'They couldn't find him in the system,' she says. 12:52 p.m. Another lawyer, visibly frustrated, comes out the door. She's carrying bags of clothes, snacks, Tylenol, and water that she says she wasn't allowed to give to her client, even though he says he had been given only one water bottle over the past two days. The line stretches outside the stairwell into the sun. A man leaves and returns with water for everyone. Nearly an hour after family visitations are supposed to begin, people are finally allowed in. 2:12 p.m. Still wearing hospital scrubs from work, Jasmin Camacho Picazo comes to see her husband again. She brought a sweater because he had told her he was cold, and his back injury was aggravated from sleeping on the ground. 'He mentioned this morning (that) people were drinking from the restroom toilet water,' Picazo says. On her phone, she shows footage of his car left on the side of the road after his arrest. The window was smashed and the keys were still in the ignition. 'I can't stop crying," Picazo says. Her son keeps asking: "Is Papa going to pick me up from school?' 2:21 p.m. More than five hours after Jimenez and her cousin arrive, they see her stepfather. 'He was sad and he's scared," says Jimenez afterwards. 'We tried to reassure him as much as possible.' She wrote down her phone number, which he had not memorized, so he could call her. 2:57 p.m. More people arrive as others are let in. Yadira Almadaz comes out crying after seeing her niece's boyfriend for only five minutes. She says he was in the same clothes he was wearing when he was detained a week ago at an asylum appointment in the city of Tustin. He told her he'd only been given cookies and chips to eat each day. 'It breaks my heart seeing a young man cry because he's hungry and thirsty,' she says. 3:56 p.m. Four minutes before visitation time is supposed to end, an ICE officer opens the door and announces it's over. One woman snaps at him in frustration. The officer tells her he would get in trouble if he helped her past 4 p.m. More than 20 people are still waiting in line. Some trickle out. Others linger, staring at the door in disbelief.
The Herald Scotland
an hour ago
- The Herald Scotland
Trump tax cuts needed to be extended - but not like this
While it was necessary to extend the 2017 Trump tax cuts, the Senate has passed a completely irresponsible budget that endangers America's fiscal health. The Trump tax cuts needed to be extended, but not like this This entire piece of legislation is oriented around extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts, which is good policy. In fact, it's just about the only good part of the bill. If not extended, the expiration of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would have been devastating to Americans. If allowed to expire, 62% of Americans would see a tax increase, according to the Tax Foundation. Extending the TCJA would result in a gross domestic product growth of 1.1% in the long run. The issue is that the extension of these tax cuts will result in a revenue loss of $4.5 trillion for the federal government. The economic growth spurred by the act will cover just $710 billion of that shortfall, leaving nearly $3.8 trillion that needs to be paid for somehow. The tax cuts themselves aren't the only significant source of spending in the bill. A sticking point for swing district Republicans has been the state and local tax (the SALT deduction), or the amount of state tax burden taxpayers can deduct from their federal income tax. Certain House Republicans have demanded that the annual limit of $10,000 be raised to $40,000, and the Senate has begrudgingly given them their increase for the next five years. Opinion: Supreme Court's birthright citizenship opinion reveals rising hostility, tension I've written elsewhere about why the SALT deduction is bad policy, but combined with other changes to the alternative minimum tax would result in a $325 billion revenue loss on net. The Senate's version is even more generous on these policies than the House's version was. Additionally, the big ugly mess includes no tax on tips, social security and overtime pay. Neither Trump nor Republicans more generally have made a case for why these types of income are deserving of exempt status, and they amount to nothing more than a populist bribe of voters. These policies add hundreds of billions more to the revenue decreases from the tax cut extension. Other defense and immigration enforcement provisions bring the grand cost of the legislation up to $4 trillion once the long-term economic growth is accounted for. Work requirements for Medicaid benefits and food stamps are the chief sources of new funding to offset these costs, as well as the elimination of certain clean energy tax credits. The House should hold the line against Senate's fiscally irresponsible bill As written, the Senate version of the bill adds even more to the budget deficit than the version the House put together. The House version was a fiscally irresponsible mess, which was estimated to add about $1.7 trillion to the deficit over the next decade, even after considering the economic growth that the bill is projected to create. The Senate version is estimated to add $2.9 trillion under the same metrics. Previously: Trump's 'big beautiful bill' is an ugly fiscal mess created by Republicans | Opinion Some House Republicans have already expressed frustrations with the Senate version of the bill, which House Speaker Mike Johnson wants to pass before Friday, Independence Day. The budget hawks in the House must hold the line against the careless spending the Senate has engaged in. The House bill that passed in the first go-around was a mess, and the Senate made it even worse. The Senate version also exaggerates its benefits and underestimates its costs by making many of its programs temporary. This allows them to gloss over this fact when discussing the benefits while claiming a lower cost. Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store. All of these games are played in order to avoid tough political conversations about slashing entitlements, the chief cause of our escalating budget crisis. I have little faith in the House's ability to stop this mess of a bill. Our legislators (with one notable exception) are so terrified of the prospect of a Trump primary challenge that they will vote for just about anything to avoid being the one to hold up the president's desired budget. America's takeaway from this should be to laugh hysterically the next time Republicans claim to be the party of responsible spending. For all the talk of slashing government spending, the GOP has put together one of the most counterproductive efforts in modern history. Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.
The Herald Scotland
an hour ago
- The Herald Scotland
What's next for Trump's tax bill? Quarreling House Republicans
House Republicans are already slamming the changes made to the bill in the Senate, from moderate members concerned about cuts to Medicaid and fiscal conservatives who are concerned about the bill's massive price tag. It will add a projected $3.3 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. "The United States is $37 TRILLION in the red. This is unsustainable," wrote Rep. Keith Self, R-Texas, on X. "I support President Trump and his tax cuts, but we cannot saddle our children and grandchildren with TRILLIONS upon TRILLIONS in new debt." However, House Speaker Mike Johnson indicated in a statement that he plans to push his conference to accept the bill in order to meet the president's self-imposed deadline of July 4. "The House will work quickly to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill that enacts President Trump's full America First agenda by the Fourth of July. The American people gave us a clear mandate, and after four years of Democrat failure, we intend to deliver without delay," he said in a statement. "This bill is President Trump's agenda, and we are making it law." A key House committee plans to meet in the afternoon to begin the process of advancing the Senate's bill in the chamber. Trump indicated that he may be willing to budge on the July 4 deadline given the complications of passing it in the House. "I'd love to do July 4th, but I think it's very hard to do July 4th," Trump told reporters. "It can go longer, but we'd like to get it done by that time if possible."
