Los Angeles ICE raids: Videos show police in riot gear tackling protestors
The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers on Friday conducted a series of raids across Los Angeles, leading to protests erupting across the city and police enforcing riot-control measures against the demonstrators.
The raids reportedly led to dozens of arrests, with crowds attempting to halt vans taking away detainees. Video footage showed ICE agents near a Home Depot in LA, sprinting to arrest people as a a part of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.
Also Read: Protesters face off against Los Angeles police after 44 arrested in ICE immigration raids. See pics, videos
In a video posted on X, officers from the LAPD were seen in riot gear to control crowds and assist agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) who had been blocked by demonstrators rallying outside a federal detention centre.
The officers were seen using munitions and tackling protestors, reportedly making at least one arrest. Smoke grenades were reportedly thrown near the crowds and pepper spray was used as the federal officers attempted to clear the area.
Also Read: TikToker Khabane 'Khaby' Lame arrested by ICE in Las Vegas? What we know
The officials had stated that the protest outside the federal building constituted unlawful assembly and warned that those who did not disperse would be detained.
During a press conference, Angelica Salas, executive director for the Coalition of Humane Immigrant Rights, said at least 45 people were arrested without warrants.
'Our community is under attack and is being terrorized. These are workers, these are fathers, these are mothers, and this has to stop. Immigration enforcement that is terrorizing our families throughout this country and picking up our people that we love must stop now,' Salas said, as quoted by The Guardian.
California senate president Mike McGuire stated, "The ICE raids we're seeing across LA County today are ruthless, indiscriminate and are designed to instill terror into the lives of Californians. America must put a stop to these fascist tactics. We call for an immediate release of SEIU State Council President David Huerta who was violently thrown to the ground and is now being detained by ICE. We are better than this and every American should be alarmed."
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Hindustan Times
22 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
Can Qatari jet gifted to Trump take a nuclear hit? What it needs to be Air Force One
Donald Trump recently received a luxury jet as a gift by the Qatari Royal family and is now reportedly planning to use the aircraft as a temporary Air Force One, the official air traffic control-designated call sign for the plane that carries carrying the US president. But converting the jet gifted by the Qatari royal family as a temporary Air Force One for presidential use may come at the cost of national security, officials cited in an Associated Press report said. As the White House navigates legal questions over accepting the plane, military and national security leaders are quietly debating how much to modify the aircraft — and how fast — to make it fit for a commander in chief. Installing the full suite of security and communications tech typical of Air Force One could cost upwards of $1.5 billion and take years, according to US officials, cited in the AP report, which added that the time it would take to do all of that would dash Trump's hopes of flying in the aircraft before the end of his term. The US Air Force is working on replacing the current aging 747s with highly customised presidential aircraft — a project plagued by delays and budget overruns. Experts have warned that retrofitting the Qatari plane to the same standard risks the same fate. Air Force secretary Troy Meink told Congress the core security upgrades for the Qatari jet would be 'less than $400 million' but did not elaborate. However, lawmakers and defense officials remain skeptical that a safe and fully equipped plane can be delivered in such a short window. Donald Trump, however, has made clear he wants the Qatari plane operational 'as soon as possible' while still 'adhering to security standards,' a White House official said, speaking anonymously. But experts caution that transforming the Qatari aircraft into a reliable Air Force One is no quick task. 'You'd have to break that whole thing wide open and almost start from scratch,' AP quoted Deborah Lee James, former Air Force Secretary, referring to the extensive rewiring needed to match Air Force One's security protocols. The list of required upgrades is not a short one: -Anti-missile defense,-EMP shielding,-Classified communications,-and command systems robust enough to survive a nuclear blast. 'The point is, it remains in flight no matter what,' James said. While cutting corners might be tempting for a president on the clock, experts say Secret Service can plan for and mitigate risk but can never eliminate it. Trump, as commander in chief, has the authority to waive some requirements. Still, James warned, waiving certain features should remain classified: 'You don't want to advertise to your potential adversaries what the vulnerabilities of this new aircraft might be.' Cosmetic changes, however, are almost certain as Trump famously prefers a darker paint scheme modeled after his personal jet, and a model of the design reportedly still sits in his office. Trump personally toured the Qatari jet in February near Mar-a-Lago, accompanied by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin. While the jet reportedly needs maintenance, officials say it's not beyond what's expected for an aircraft of its size and complexity.
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First Post
39 minutes ago
- First Post
Indians in US Colleges are in a crisis: One reason is that they have stopped learning
We, Indians, have to reject the models of learning we were drilled into by schools, colleges, corporate employers and peer groups which have turned us into mere employable robots and stop trying to force-fit our resplendent cultural traditions and expressions into the fringes and anonymous cubicles of modern society read more 'Vācālatvaṃ ca pāṇḍitye yaśorthe dharmasevanam' (In Kali Yuga, people think prattling is a mark of erudition and do dharma only for personal fame.) - Kalki Purana In the past few weeks, Indian-descent students in general and Hindu students in particular have been in the news once again. At UC Berkeley, a student request to observe a 'Hindu Heritage Month' was denied by student officials who said they were worried about 'Hindu Nationalism'. At Harvard, Hindu students spoke up about Hinduphobia when they found that the South Asia Institute there had hosted Pakistani government officials in a conference just days after the Pahalgam massacre, where Hindus and Christians were singled out and executed on the basis of their religion. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD If Berkeley and Harvard students were concerned about Hinduphobia, some MIT students were more worried, though, about Palestinian victims of war. Megha Vemuri, a computation and cognition student ('science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)' presumably, and not 'humanities'), won admiration and censure (from different quarters) after giving a pro-Palestine speech at the commencement. This article tries to analyse how Hindus typically respond to news concerning US colleges and identifies some institutional realities (and possibilities) which Hindu students, parents, and other stakeholders in US higher education from India should become aware of if they wish to ever acquire a little more clarity and influence. It comes from the personal and professional experience not of a political or community leader but that of an American liberal arts professor who believes that the emergence of a genuine Hindu voice in American humanities and social sciences is long overdue. It will be good for both American society and the well-being of Indian-descent students who are increasingly failing to find a purpose rooted in sanatana dharma for their lives and careers and pursue it instead in what they think is the most burning issue of the day, which is protecting Palestinians, Kashmiris, and other minorities facing persecution from 'Hindutvas' and 'Zionists'. Now, it may well be the case that these students are correct, and worried Hindu uncles and aunties on the internet are wrong. After all, these students and their parents are smart and accomplished and get into the most prestigious universities in the world. But, all the same, it is worth making the case that there might be things they don't know, just as there are things that their critics on social media, who are many, also do not know. On one side is the certainty that students who fight Zionism and Hindutva are on the morally righteous path of history. On the other side is the view that such students (and their parents or their teachers) are zombies or 'useful idiots' who are supporting imperialist religious bigotry and terrorist violence against Hindus, Jews, and others designated as 'Kafirs'. This is the reality of university life. There are a lot of different beliefs and opinions floating around, but as teachers and students, we have a duty to keep the focus on learning and on keeping learning open. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The Anti-Establishmentarian Establishment The first theme to recognise is that the majority of Hindu parents in America quite likely do not share the frustration and anger that erupts in Hindu and Indian 'RW' social media circles whenever incidents like the above are reported. It is a folly on the part of those in the latter circles to assume otherwise. Most immigrant Indian parents in America are tightly focused on measuring their children's progress through the lens of career success, and their child giving a speech on an issue that half the country's cultural, educational, business, and political establishment backs will not bother them. They share that establishment's view that this is a moral issue and know deep down that it is also not a really dangerous or self-defeating view. The genius of 'woke' issues in recent times is that they allow people to think they are anti-establishment while actually doing the work of the same. For Gen X or older Millennial parents who have left 'religion' behind, STEM success and establishment-sanctioned moral politics are the new faith. And even for parents who still remain religious in some sense, there is a convenient discourse available now which argues that the ideal way to be a Hindu today is to support the human rights of persecuted groups like Palestinians, Kashmiris, victims of Hindutva and Zionism, and Brahmanism, and so on. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Then, there are other parents who do worry a little when they see incidents such as this but satisfy themselves that as long as their children get good marks and jobs, none of this will affect them anyway. A subset of them might get involved with some sort of voluntary work for what the community calls Hindu 'advocacy', educating lawmakers, canvassing voter support, and so on. Students and Teachers Should Lead the Change, Not Lobbies and 'Leaders' The second theme pertains to the patterns of response within this last subsection. No doubt, the numbers of people and the number of Hindu voluntary organisations trying to do something have grown in the last two decades. They face severe challenges in terms of resources and know-how, as well as 'know-why', a problem in social-historical self-knowledge, which we explain further below. But the pattern of response here is typically to host a bunch of online talks and then move from one gathering or 'awareness day' to the next. But we rarely see organising oriented towards securing long-term institutional changes in universities. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Right from the 1960s, most changes in academia have happened as a result of universities agreeing to set up tenured faculty positions for specific areas of study demanded by student groups. University administrators take student needs seriously in America, and so do faculty. If students point out a gap in a curriculum or systemic flaws in how a student constituency is being taught about in the relevant area studies or identity studies courses, they may well be invited to join in the conversation to create a course or program. If students make the case in a sustained scholarly manner (usually with help from sympathetic vanguard academic mentors), then the university will find the funds to create a position and fill it. If, say, a university agreed to create a tenure track position in Hinduphobia Studies or Hindu Human Rights, it will imply that every academic year, anywhere from 100 to 300 students (depending on the size of the campus) of all backgrounds, not just Hindus, will be educated, formally, in issues which so far have remained only in easily ignorable online spaces. And if that professor stays on and gets tenured, you are looking at a 30-year project or 30 multiplied by 100-300 students who have been exposed to their ideas over three decades. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Thousands, if not tens of thousands, of students can get educated on human rights issues faced by Hindus, and not just in a fleeting online or weekend gathering format, but in an in-depth seminar meeting for several hours every week for a whole semester. Learning is built in-depth, and so is a long-term legacy for this body of learning in society at large as students graduate and go to work in humanities professions like teaching, arts, writing, journalism, media, film-making, social work, politics, diplomacy, and so on. This basic reality is something most other communities in US colleges are aware of. For instance, in the last two years of sweeping pro-Palestine activism on campuses, one of the demands universities have acceded to is exactly this – more tenured positions and programmes in Palestine studies. Hindu organisations trying to offer moral and social support to Hindu college students, on the other hand, tend to approach campus Hindu issues in a top-down manner, completely bypassing the educational component of the Hindu student experience. They seem overly obsessed with framing the problem as a 'religious' need issue, ignoring the core academic elephant in the room, and demanding cosmetic 'student life' things like a prayer room or a 'recognition note' or a 'Hindu Chaplain'. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Hindus Should Talk Human Rights, Not Multicultural Platitudes These demands don't pose any challenge to the academic status quo or its main product, which is a false story about Hindus, Hinduism, and India today. Demanding recognition or praise for a religion in campus life outside of the classroom merely skirts around the issue and often backfires too. 'Islamophobia' and 'antisemitism' are understood on US campuses by faculty, students, and administrators as human rights issues, whereas anything 'Hindu' comes across to them as a demand for just one religion to be treated like it's 'special'. That is one reason for the deep inertia on campuses when it comes to Hindu issues (based on personal experience, once again, of three decades in US universities and very specific conversations to this effect). On that note, one wonders, for example, how the Berkeley student officials might have reacted if the demand was made not for a 'Hindu Heritage Month' with a focus on how successful Hindu Americans have been in America (which often defeats the messaging about 'Hinduphobia' later) but simply and directly for an 'Anti-Hindu Racism and Genocide Awareness Month', forcing opponents to really reconsider which side of racism they want to be on. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Demonstrating bias, error, and egregious racism inside the institution's core product itself, its 'knowledge' about us, and demanding our right to speak to it, is the only duty we have if in a university. And on this point, one more nuance needs to be understood. There are many more subjects beyond just 'religion' or 'Hinduism Studies' in which proper, academically guided engagement needs to take place. Community leaders and groups have in the past taken a helicopter view, assuming that all they had to do was to raise donations to buy India or Hinduism Chairs, and the problem vanishes. Unfortunately, this did not win the grace of the Goddess of Learning, and it seems that at least that lesson has been learnt. The Tamas-Rajas Trap The third theme, a key one in understanding our diagnosis here, has to do with why the obvious path towards long-term change hasn't been sighted, let alone pursued with determination by the Hindu community here. Rather than the usual blame games or the usual clichés about 'lack of unity', one may gain from a yogic view. Hindu responses to the deeply entrenched problems of Hinduphobia in the academia, in the media, and in the world at large seem to swing between a state of 'Rajas' and 'Tamas.' In the past ten years or so, the following pattern has played out numerous times. There are long periods of silence, punctuated by very routine, low-key, non-controversial cultural events and gatherings by Hindu or Indian students. At this same time, other initiatives, often bearing the signature worldview and institutional legitimacy and heft of South Asia studies faculty and their allies, progress very quickly. Professors get other professors and activists and lobbyists to come to campuses to speak about Hindutva and caste. Documentaries are screened about Hindu patriarchy and violence (but never about, say, the devastating phenomenon of 'grooming gangs' in the UK). Peer pressure grows enormously on the vast number of silent, usually STEM-focused Indian students, to the point where even their non-controversial activities like celebrating Holi or Diwali suddenly become a political and moral choice they have to make. Usually around this time, a small group of students get emboldened. Their friends, from former students to community leaders, step in to advise them. Suddenly, there is a big-name event advertised, usually featuring a controversial speaker, usually a non-academic, and usually from India. Backlash ensues. After a brief bout of Rajassic assertiveness, the Tamas returns. For months, maybe years, students become overcautious and refrain from speaking up even when legitimacy and timing are on their side. In this Rajas-Tamas brashness and timidity cycle, the 'Satvic' moment rarely gets to stick, unfortunately. Truth: There is a Threat, and There is Fear The fourth and last theme to consider here is that of ignorance and fear. We do not say 'ignorance' in a judgemental manner, but to merely connote a lack of information, understanding, and experience in navigating educational institutions as a minority community and in surviving more generally in a host society where xenophobia and religious racism are clearly rising on both sides of their political divide. Hopefully, the first part of this problem, which is the fear of making institutional demands from universities that Hindu students, parents and community leaders (who are invariably from outside academia, or at least the pertinent fields of study in academia) seem to have, will be usefully mitigated by the facts shared in this essay. Most of the time, when we swing from aggressive posturing to timid self-erasure in our actions, it may well be because we haven't learnt enough about the ecology we inhabit so as to centre ourselves in the balanced middle. A satvic understanding of what Hindu students today can do while in college to their home of four (or more) years so as to make it better for their younger siblings and descendants will be a wonderful quality to cultivate and practice. Unfortunately, there is a deeper problem of fear among Hindus which really needs to be talked about as well. A lot of modern Hindu behaviour in America can be understood in relation to this. Brash, successful, pro-Palestine 'HINO' Hindus (as they are called), as well as more culturally rooted and concerned Hindus worried about Hinduphobia, all have one reality they share. Hindus live in a world that is non-Hindu at best and anti-Hindu at worst. We are all coping with it. 'HINO' Hindus believe they have achieved top-level cosmopolitanism and that there is no such thing as anti-Hindu bigotry or prejudice in the world. What they don't realise is that there is something in the social and political ecology of the world which has turned them, in just two or three generations from their grandparents' time, into whatever deracinated cosmopolitan far-right jihadist-supporting personas they now inhabit. They are, in a way, converts, not to the usual converting religions, but to the extremely superficial and shaky religion of selectively secular progressivism. It gives them an air of certainty and comfort and even superiority. But from the time of the Inquisitions to the present, a coercive system will always demand purity tests. Even someone as American, Californian, and culturally cosmopolitan as former Vice President Kamala Harris, for example, was accused of being a Brahmin supremacist by some activists. But for Hindus in America who still like to think they are spiritually and culturally active and would like to see the same in their otherwise materially successful children going to college, that fear plays out in a different way. They have found a way to cope by downplaying the threats which produce that fear and exaggerating the things which they think can counteract those threats: their education, economic status, model-minority good conduct, faith in liberal democracy, avoiding controversy and so on. They look at other immigrants who are successful and imitate each other, confining Hinduism to safe and tested routines like temples, hurried weekend classes for children, and, of late, a little bit of engagement with politicians, usually to get 'recognition' proclamations passed. With the rise of the internet and social media, they have become more aware of problems and threats but have also fallen into the inertia of false security and complacency in gatherings and numbers. But the fact that they rarely go beyond talking about problems to doing what actually needs to be done (in higher education, in the case of this article) shows they are perhaps paralysed by fear too, sometimes, quite literally. In a recent planning meeting for Hindu parents organising children's weekend classes for the coming year, a suggestion to include college experience 'reality check' orientation sessions for high school students by professors and old students from the program now in college led to some strangely confused, silent responses, with people staring down at the floor and freezing up in tension! No wonder some Hindu American parents lament that their children loved Hinduism and Indian culture when in school but turned viciously anti-Hindu in college. Colleges will teach your children in their Hinduism, South Asian history and politics, or diaspora studies classes that their innocent childhood memories of going to Bala Vikas or Bala Vihar were actually wrong and that these were Hindu nationalist indoctrination camps. That's what is published in peer-reviewed journals and books, and that's what is prescribed, and that's what will be taught (not always, but in most cases). The professors in many cases may not actually know better, and the students who do know better unfortunately have never been taught by parents or elders that they do have a right, indeed a duty, to speak up and assert the truth. And now, as more and more unhappy stories emerge, whether it is of extreme violence like Pahalgam or extreme self-censorship over it by Hindu students and parents, the elephant in the room has to be named. Maybe 'Hinduphobia' is a term that should be re-understood not as bigotry or aversion against Hindus but simply as the Hindu state of perpetual fear of being Hindu. Smash the Hinduphobia – at Home, First! The cause of that fear is not paranoia but the fact that there is a threat, and even those who avoid seeing it perhaps know it deep down in their hearts. To get out of this paralysis, though, is possible. Borrowed clichés from American liberalism or right-wingism won't do it. We must return to our ancient critical tradition of saying Neti, Neti. We have to reject the models of learning we were drilled into by schools and colleges and corporate employers and peer groups which have turned us into mere employable robots and stop trying to force-fit our resplendent cultural traditions and expressions into the fringes and anonymous cubicles of modern society. We must stop asking for small favours from modern institutions and rise to look at our role as the big favour we are about to do for all of them, given how much their 'brotherhood of man' dreams swinging between Left and Right extremes have failed and how we still carry the energy and purpose and protection of our 'motherhood of god' traditions in us. We must learn, however we can, to learn again. We have to become, each, our own cultural and spiritual revolutionary schools. A saffron storm must rise over these overrated racist hold-outs and teach them what it means to learn and to live under our mother earth's reign once again. Vamsee Juluri is Professor of Media Studies, University of San Francisco. He has authored several books, including 'Rearming Hinduism: Nature, Hinduphobia and the Return of Indian Intelligence' (Westland, 2015). C Raghothama Rao is a writer, podcaster and YouTuber. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost's views.
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
The 911 presidency: Trump flexes emergency powers in his second term
Call it the 911 presidency. Despite insisting that the United States is rebounding from calamity under his watch, President Donald Trump is harnessing emergency powers unlike any of his predecessors. Whether it's leveling punishing tariffs, deploying troops to the border or sidelining environmental regulations, Trump has relied on rules and laws intended only for use in extraordinary circumstances like war and invasion. An analysis by The Associated Press shows that 30 of Trump's 150 executive orders have cited some kind of emergency power or authority, a rate that far outpaces his recent predecessors. The result is a redefinition of how presidents can wield power. Instead of responding to an unforeseen crisis, Trump is using emergency powers to supplant Congress ' authority and advance his agenda. "What's notable about Trump is the enormous scale and extent, which is greater than under any modern president," said Ilya Somin, who is representing five U.S. businesses who sued the administration, claiming they were harmed by Trump's so-called "Liberation Day" tariffs. Live Events Because Congress has the power to set trade policy under the Constitution, the businesses convinced a federal trade court that Trump overstepped his authority by claiming an economic emergency to impose the tariffs. An appeals court has paused that ruling while the judges review it. Growing concerns over actions The legal battle is a reminder of the potential risks of Trump's strategy. Judges traditionally have given presidents wide latitude to exercise emergency powers that were created by Congress. However, there's growing concern that Trump is pressing the limits when the U.S. is not facing the kinds of threats such actions are meant to address. "The temptation is clear," said Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program and an expert in emergency powers. "What's remarkable is how little abuse there was before, but we're in a different era now." Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who has drafted legislation that would allow Congress to reassert tariff authority, said he believed the courts would ultimately rule against Trump in his efforts to single-handedly shape trade policy. "It's the Constitution. James Madison wrote it that way, and it was very explicit," Bacon said of Congress' power over trade. "And I get the emergency powers, but I think it's being abused. When you're trying to do tariff policy for 80 countries, that's policy, not emergency action." The White House pushed back on such concerns, saying Trump is justified in aggressively using his authority. "President Trump is rightfully enlisting his emergency powers to quickly rectify four years of failure and fix the many catastrophes he inherited from Joe Biden - wide open borders, wars in Ukraine and Gaza, radical climate regulations, historic inflation, and economic and national security threats posed by trade deficits," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. Trump frequently cites 1977 law to justify actions Of all the emergency powers, Trump has most frequently cited the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, to justify slapping tariffs on imports. The law, enacted in 1977, was intended to limit some of the expansive authority that had been granted to the presidency decades earlier. It is only supposed to be used when the country faces "an unusual and extraordinary threat" from abroad "to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States." In analyzing executive orders issued since 2001, the AP found that Trump has invoked the law 21 times in presidential orders and memoranda. President George W. Bush, grappling with the aftermath of the most devastating terror attack on U.S. soil, invoked the law just 14 times in his first term. Likewise, Barack Obama invoked the act only 21 times during his first term, when the U.S. economy faced the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. The Trump administration has also deployed an 18th century law, the Alien Enemies Act, to justify deporting Venezuelan migrants to other countries, including El Salvador. Trump's decision to invoke the law relies on allegations that the Venezuelan government coordinates with the Tren de Aragua gang, but intelligence officials did not reach that conclusion. Congress has ceded its power to the presidency Congress has granted emergency powers to the presidency over the years, acknowledging that the executive branch can act more swiftly than lawmakers if there is a crisis. There are 150 legal powers - including waiving a wide variety of actions that Congress has broadly prohibited - that can only be accessed after declaring an emergency. In an emergency, for example, an administration can suspend environmental regulations, approve new drugs or therapeutics, take over the transportation system, or even override bans on testing biological or chemical weapons on human subjects, according to a list compiled by the Brennan Center for Justice. Democrats and Republicans have pushed the boundaries over the years. For example, in an attempt to cancel federal student loan debt, Joe Biden used a post-Sept. 11 law that empowered education secretaries to reduce or eliminate such obligations during a national emergency. The U.S. Supreme Court eventually rejected his effort, forcing Biden to find different avenues to chip away at his goals. Before that, Bush pursued warrantless domestic wiretapping and Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the detention of Japanese-Americans on the West Coast in camps for the duration of World War II. Trump, in his first term, sparked a major fight with Capitol Hill when he issued a national emergency to compel construction of a border wall. Though Congress voted to nullify his emergency declaration, lawmakers could not muster up enough Republican support to overcome Trump's eventual veto. "Presidents are using these emergency powers not to respond quickly to unanticipated challenges," said John Yoo , who as a Justice Department official under George W. Bush helped expand the use of presidential authorities. "Presidents are using it to step into a political gap because Congress chooses not to act." Trump, Yoo said, "has just elevated it to another level." Trump's allies support his moves Conservative legal allies of the president also said Trump's actions are justified, and Vice President JD Vance predicted the administration would prevail in the court fight over tariff policy. "We believe - and we're right - that we are in an emergency," Vance said last week in an interview with Newsmax . "You have seen foreign governments, sometimes our adversaries, threaten the American people with the loss of critical supplies," Vance said. "I'm not talking about toys, plastic toys. I'm talking about pharmaceutical ingredients. I'm talking about the critical pieces of the manufacturing supply chain." Vance continued, "These governments are threatening to cut us off from that stuff, that is by definition, a national emergency." Republican and Democratic lawmakers have tried to rein in a president's emergency powers. Two years ago, a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House and Senate introduced legislation that would have ended a presidentially-declared emergency after 30 days unless Congress votes to keep it in place. It failed to advance. Similar legislation hasn't been introduced since Trump's return to office. Right now, it effectively works in the reverse, with Congress required to vote to end an emergency. "He has proved to be so lawless and reckless in so many ways. Congress has a responsibility to make sure there's oversight and safeguards," said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who cosponsored an emergency powers reform bill in the previous session of Congress. He argued that, historically, leaders relying on emergency declarations has been a "path toward autocracy and suppression." Economic Times WhatsApp channel )
