Latest news with #DavidHuerta
Yahoo
21-07-2025
- Yahoo
This 1 Hidden iPhone Feature Could Instantly Make Your Online Data Safer — And It's Easy To Activate
Our iPhones carry our most private photos and secret files and notes inside them –– and there's one step you could do right now to keep their iCloud backups safer from prying eyes. It's called Advanced Data Protection, and it's a software option that was rolled out for iOS 16.2 in 2022 for U.S. users that you may not know about, because it's not a default setting, so you have to turn it on yourself. But you should. This feature 'maximizes the amount of privacy you can have' on Apple devices, explained David Huerta, senior digital security trainer at Freedom of the Press Foundation. Advanced Data Protection is a strong privacy and security feature because it enables end-to-end encryption for your iCloud backups. When you save your files and photos to the cloud, platforms like Apple, by default, will do 'in transit encryption,' meaning transferred data is private but that Apple itself can still see what you are doing. End-to-end encryption goes one step further because it will scramble data so that it's inaccessible unless there is an encryption key that only you know. It 'makes it so that even the platform owners cannot see that activity, those contents being created,' explained David Huerta, senior digital security trainer at Freedom of the Press Foundation. This way, no one –– not even Apple or a U.S. government that has the power to seize devices at the border –– can gain access to your revealing photos and voice memos saved on your iCloud, because only you have the encryption key. 'End-to-end encryption does make it so that law enforcement would have a tough time accessing things from cloud providers who get court orders, subpoenas ... sent to them to get access to different types of information,' Huerta said. Even if you are not an activist, celebrity or a journalist with sensitive information on your phone, you might still want your private photos, like your nudes, or your vulnerable breakup notes you back up to iCloud, to be under this extra layer of privacy. 'If you don't want your content to be used for advertising ... one of the best ways to get that to happen is to use a service that is end-to-end encrypted,' said Sarah Scheffler, an assistant professor in Carnegie Mellon's CyLab Security and Privacy Institute. She noted that end-to-end encryption also helps protect against potential employee misuse of your data or data breaches. Apple already automatically does end-to-end encryption protection for your payment information, passwords and health data — but it does not, by default, do it for other revealing parts of your iPhone, such as your photo libraries or your Notes, Reminders, Safari Bookmarks, Siri Shortcuts and Voice Memos. Turning on Advanced Data Protection changes that. Here's how it works. How To Turn On Apple's Advanced Data Protection Feature First, you need to make sure you enable two-factor authentication and update your device to at least iOS 16.2, iPadOS 16.2, macOS 13.1, tvOS 16.2 or watchOS 9.2. Then go to Settings, click your Apple name, so you go to your Apple Account. Then select iCloud and Advanced Data Protection. As part of Advanced Data Protection, you must either create a recovery key or a recovery contact in case you get locked out of your account. For the recovery key option: You need to create a 28-character key that will help you unlock your account. You must write this down and keep it somewhere you will remember, because Apple can't help you recover this key if you forget it. For the recovery contact option: You need to designate someone you trust who has an Apple device to be your recovery contact. They'll get a message with a code to help you regain access to your end-to-end encrypted data if you get locked out. What Advanced Data Protection Doesn't Do This feature is a great, simple way to add a much-needed layer of security and privacy to your iPhone and the outside world — but it does come with caveats. Notably, iCloud Mail, Contacts and Calendar events will not be end-to-end encrypted under this extra layer of security. And it still takes a bit of time to set up. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation acknowledges in its pitch for people to use this feature, the digital rights group states, 'It'd be even better if this became Apple's default, instead of an opt-in.' And it's not available for users in every country, either. This year, Apple said it is withdrawing this feature for U.K. users, reportedly as a way to avoid complying with a request from the U.K. government to create a technical 'back door' for accessing user data. Unfortunately, there is also no exact equivalent to this one-stop, additional end-to-end encryption feature for Android users. 'Your Android phone, if it's a modern Android phone, will have full disk encryption, which is good, so that the actual device itself and the files in it are protected,' explained Huerta. 'But then as soon as you put that or save that in Google Photos or Google Drive or whatever, then that's when you know Google now has a fully readable copy of your data.' Don't let your guard down, either. Even if you are an Apple user with Advanced Data Protection turned on, don't assume that this step means you are completely private and secure on your phone. You should always be doing basic security steps like enabling two-factor authentication and password managers on your phone apps. But overall, Advanced Data Protection should be a feature you have on if you are worried about having your most sensitive photo libraries and files exposed for an authority or a hacker to find. In this era of online surveillance by hackers and empowered border agents, it doesn't hurt to be more careful. Related... 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Yahoo
21-07-2025
- Yahoo
This 1 Hidden iPhone Feature Could Instantly Make Your Online Data Safer — And It's Easy To Activate
Our iPhones carry our most private photos and secret files and notes inside them –– and there's one step you could do right now to keep their iCloud backups safer from prying eyes. It's called Advanced Data Protection, and it's a software option that was rolled out for iOS 16.2 in 2022 for U.S. users that you may not know about, because it's not a default setting, so you have to turn it on yourself. But you should. This feature 'maximizes the amount of privacy you can have' on Apple devices, explained David Huerta, senior digital security trainer at Freedom of the Press Foundation. Advanced Data Protection is a strong privacy and security feature because it enables end-to-end encryption for your iCloud backups. When you save your files and photos to the cloud, platforms like Apple, by default, will do 'in transit encryption,' meaning transferred data is private but that Apple itself can still see what you are doing. End-to-end encryption goes one step further because it will scramble data so that it's inaccessible unless there is an encryption key that only you know. It 'makes it so that even the platform owners cannot see that activity, those contents being created,' explained David Huerta, senior digital security trainer at Freedom of the Press Foundation. This way, no one –– not even Apple or a U.S. government that has the power to seize devices at the border –– can gain access to your revealing photos and voice memos saved on your iCloud, because only you have the encryption key. 'End-to-end encryption does make it so that law enforcement would have a tough time accessing things from cloud providers who get court orders, subpoenas ... sent to them to get access to different types of information,' Huerta said. Even if you are not an activist, celebrity or a journalist with sensitive information on your phone, you might still want your private photos, like your nudes, or your vulnerable breakup notes you back up to iCloud, to be under this extra layer of privacy. 'If you don't want your content to be used for advertising ... one of the best ways to get that to happen is to use a service that is end-to-end encrypted,' said Sarah Scheffler, an assistant professor in Carnegie Mellon's CyLab Security and Privacy Institute. She noted that end-to-end encryption also helps protect against potential employee misuse of your data or data breaches. Apple already automatically does end-to-end encryption protection for your payment information, passwords and health data — but it does not, by default, do it for other revealing parts of your iPhone, such as your photo libraries or your Notes, Reminders, Safari Bookmarks, Siri Shortcuts and Voice Memos. Turning on Advanced Data Protection changes that. Here's how it works. How To Turn On Apple's Advanced Data Protection Feature First, you need to make sure you enable two-factor authentication and update your device to at least iOS 16.2, iPadOS 16.2, macOS 13.1, tvOS 16.2 or watchOS 9.2. Then go to Settings, click your Apple name, so you go to your Apple Account. Then select iCloud and Advanced Data Protection. As part of Advanced Data Protection, you must either create a recovery key or a recovery contact in case you get locked out of your account. For the recovery key option: You need to create a 28-character key that will help you unlock your account. You must write this down and keep it somewhere you will remember, because Apple can't help you recover this key if you forget it. For the recovery contact option: You need to designate someone you trust who has an Apple device to be your recovery contact. They'll get a message with a code to help you regain access to your end-to-end encrypted data if you get locked out. What Advanced Data Protection Doesn't Do This feature is a great, simple way to add a much-needed layer of security and privacy to your iPhone and the outside world — but it does come with caveats. Notably, iCloud Mail, Contacts and Calendar events will not be end-to-end encrypted under this extra layer of security. And it still takes a bit of time to set up. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation acknowledges in its pitch for people to use this feature, the digital rights group states, 'It'd be even better if this became Apple's default, instead of an opt-in.' And it's not available for users in every country, either. This year, Apple said it is withdrawing this feature for U.K. users, reportedly as a way to avoid complying with a request from the U.K. government to create a technical 'back door' for accessing user data. Unfortunately, there is also no exact equivalent to this one-stop, additional end-to-end encryption feature for Android users. 'Your Android phone, if it's a modern Android phone, will have full disk encryption, which is good, so that the actual device itself and the files in it are protected,' explained Huerta. 'But then as soon as you put that or save that in Google Photos or Google Drive or whatever, then that's when you know Google now has a fully readable copy of your data.' Don't let your guard down, either. Even if you are an Apple user with Advanced Data Protection turned on, don't assume that this step means you are completely private and secure on your phone. You should always be doing basic security steps like enabling two-factor authentication and password managers on your phone apps. But overall, Advanced Data Protection should be a feature you have on if you are worried about having your most sensitive photo libraries and files exposed for an authority or a hacker to find. In this era of online surveillance by hackers and empowered border agents, it doesn't hurt to be more careful. Related... This 1 iPhone Setting Might Be Messing With Your Friendships Knowing The Difference Between These 3 Types Of Emergency Alerts Could Save Your Life This Hidden iPhone Feature May Just Save Your Life In An Emergency 1 Seemingly Innocent Thing On Your Phone Might Make Border Agents Deny You Entry Solve the daily Crossword
Daily Maverick
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Daily Maverick
Immigration raids on California cannabis nurseries spark protests
An attendee holds a sign quoting Senator Cory Booker, while they and local union members attend a rally in support of union leader David Huerta and the protesters in Los Angeles, on the Boston City Hall Plaza in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, 09 June 2025. Huerta who was detained in Los Angeles, seen injured on television on 06 June 2025, was arrested while protesting a raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division of the US Department of Homeland Security at a worksite in downtown Los Angeles and was accused of obstructing police officers. EPA-EFE/CJ GUNTHER By Steve Gorman and Leah Douglas As word and video images of the raids spread on social media, dozens of migrant-rights activists converged on the area in vehicles leading to face-offs with federal agents in the middle of rural roadways, according to the Santa Barbara Independent, Los Angeles Times and other news media. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents accompanied by National Guard troops in military-style vehicles turned up at two locations operated by Glass House Farms – one in the Santa Barbara County town of Carpinteria, about 90 miles northwest of Los Angeles, and one in the Ventura County community of Camarillo, about 50 miles from L.A. Glass House Farms, which bills itself as one of the 'fastest-growing vertically integrated cannabis companies in the U.S.,' said on X that its greenhouse sites 'were visited today by ICE officials,' adding, 'The company fully complied with agent search warrants and will provide further updates if necessary.' An attorney representing clients who work at Glass House said both of the company's nurseries had been previously visited by ICE in June. National Guard troops were with ICE when they arrived at the property Thursday morning. TEAR GAS One local television station reported that about 100 farmworkers were detained in the immigration sweep prior to the protests, and that tear gas was fired at crowds during an encounter with federal agents. Local TV footage from the scene of one standoff showed protesters yelling and gesturing angrily at armed, uniformed federal agents wearing helmets and face masks blocking traffic with yellow crime-scene tape strung across the road. Asked for information or comment on the situation, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, parent agency of ICE, replied by email: 'DHS law enforcement is executing a warrant at a marijuana facility. Our brave officers will continue to enforce the law.' In Carpinteria, U.S. Representative Salud Carbajal, a California Democrat, said he was denied access to the scene of the raid while seeking to exercise his oversight authority as a member of Congress, and that company officials later told him 10 workers were taken into custody at that location. More than 50 ICE agents took part in the operation there, with crowd-control munitions deployed against members of the crowd in a 'militarized raid targeting farm workers,' Carbajal said on X. One of two city council members who were also present fell and injured her arm in a fracas between protesters and law enforcement, the Independent reported. At a separate clash in Camarillo, a man running from federal agents appeared to open fire with a handgun in the direction of authorities as they lobbed smoke canisters at protesters, video footage from Los Angeles TV station KABC-TV showed. SHIFTING POSITION The Trump administration has shifted its position several times in recent weeks on whether farmworkers will be subject to its campaign to deport all immigrants who are in the country illegally. Trump on June 14 ordered ICE to halt enforcement activities on farms, but the agency reversed that position days later. On July 3, Trump said he was willing to let migrant workers stay in the country if farmers can 'vouch' for them. Days later Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said there would be 'no amnesty' for farmworkers from deportation. About half of U.S. farmworkers are in the country illegally, according to government estimates. The farm sector has warned that mass deportation of agricultural workers would cripple the nation's food supply chain. Raids on some California farms in June left crops unharvested and farmworkers and operators fearful of further enforcement activity. (Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles and Leah Douglas in Washington; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
The Hill
19-06-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Unions are right to stand with immigrants against ICE deportations
Conservatives and anti-union forces are hammering labor unions for our role in the demonstrations against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and Saturday's 'No Kings' rallies. But unions, including controversial Service Employees International Union California president David Huerta, are doing what we should be doing — standing up for our members and for workers as a whole against the enemies of labor. Labor's biggest mistake of the modern era was to allow the destruction of millions of industrial jobs without effective resistance. President Trump spoke the truth about deindustrialization in his 2017 Presidential Inaugural Address when he said, 'Rusted out factories [are] scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation … One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores, with not even a thought about the millions and millions of American workers that were left behind.' It was Big Labor's disgraceful acquiescence to this catastrophic assault on American workers' livelihoods that has allowed Trump to pose as the friend of the American worker. He has successfully channeled workers' legitimate anger and resentment in the direction of immigrants instead of against the big businesses who destroyed America's industrial working class. While the labor movement in Los Angeles and in California is being criticized for our sympathies for so-called 'illegal aliens,' immigrants (legal or not) make up one-third of California's labor force. Most of California's 'illegals' arrived in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s, many fleeing horrific U.S.-backed Central America dictatorships and the civil wars those regimes created. Most came too late to take advantage of President Ronald Reagan's 1986 immigration amnesty but are law-abiding and pay taxes in numerous ways and forms. Why would we turn our backs on them? As a trade unionist, the immigration status of my union brothers and sisters is of no import. The Trump Administration and the big business interests it serves seek to divide working people, but workers as a whole will either move forward together or fall back together. Attacks on one part of the working class cannot, over time, benefit the other parts. A major line of attack against labor argued by Aaron Withe, CEO of the anti-union Freedom Foundation, conservative investigative reporter Robert Schmid and others is that the average American is being forced to help finance the anti-ICE movement because the SEIU other unions resisting ICE 'rely on taxpayer-funded dues.' But this is not taxpayer money. It is workers' wages, and we have the right to do whatever they want with it, just as if we worked in the private sector. Moreover, union dues is money well spent. For example, in March, 2023 the SEIU and United Teachers Los Angeles jointly struck the Los Angeles Unified School District. Our picket lines held, SEIU won large pay increases and an extensive expansion of healthcare benefits for part-time employees, and UTLA won a good contract as well. Conservatives are almost unanimous in their condemnation of Huerta, who spent three nights in detention and is charged with conspiracy to impede an officer — a felony carrying a sentence of up to six years in prison. But Huerta was doing exactly what a good labor leader should be doing — putting himself out front and, if necessary, in harm's way for the benefit of his members and of workers. The fact that people on both the left and the right were so surprised by Huerta's incarceration is reflective of modern America's ignorance about labor history–effective labor leaders have usually had to risk incarceration. During the massive strikes that built organized labor in the 1930s, there were many workers and union leaders attacked, jailed, and even killed by police and National Guard. In 1948, John L. Lewis, combative leader of the United Mine Workers, was found guilty of criminal and civil contempt of court for failing to end a coal strike. In 1964, under then-Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa, truckers won the first National Master Freight Agreement, a national over-the-road contract said to have brought more workers into the middle class than any other single event in the history of labor organizing. In a long-running, politically-motivated prosecution by Robert F. Kennedy, who called the Teamsters the 'enemy within,' and others, Hoffa was convicted of jury tampering, attempted bribery, and fraud and incarcerated from 1967 until 1971. However, in the eyes of authorities, Hoffa's real crime had been his effectiveness as a labor leader. During the 1966 New York City Transit Workers Union strike, union leader Mike Quill led his 36,000 workers in shutting down the world's largest subway and bus system. Just as Huerta and unions are vilified today, Mayor John Lindsay called the strike 'defiance against eight million people' and, as British labor writer Ronan Burtenshaw explains, 'the New York Times called for the police and army to run the buses; William F. Buckley Jr wanted the National Guard.' A judge issued an injunction to stop the strike, but Quill tore it up in front of the media, saying, 'The judge can drop dead in his black robes. We will not call off the strike!' Quill and other leaders were arrested and jailed, but the TWU lines held, and they won the strike. The Trump Administration's assault on immigrant workers might be the catalyst for a revitalized labor movement with the kind of power unions like the TWU and the Teamsters once wielded. If so, all workers — immigrant or native born, male or female, white, Black, Latino, or other — will be the winners. Glenn Sacks teaches Social Studies and represents United Teachers Los Angeles at James Monroe High School in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
The Guardian
17-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Will the public side with the protesters in LA? Here are some lessons from history
On 6 June, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) conducted aggressive raids in Los Angeles, sweeping up gainfully employed workers with no criminal record. This led to demonstrations outside the Los Angeles federal building. During these protests, David Huerta, president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) of California, was arrested alongside more than 100 others – leading to even larger demonstrations the next day. Donald Trump responded on 7 June by sending federal troops to Los Angeles to quell the protests without consulting Governor Gavin Newsom and, in fact, in defiance of Newsom's wishes. This dramatic federal response, paired with increasingly aggressive tactics by local police, led to the protests growing larger and escalating in their intensity. They've begun spreading to other major cities, too. Cue the culture war. On the right, the response was predictable: the federal clampdown was largely praised. Hyperbolic narratives about the protests and the protesters were uncritically amplified and affirmed. On the left, the response was no less predictable. There is a constellation of academic and media personalities who breathlessly root for all protests to escalate into violent revolution while another faction claims to support all the causes in principle but somehow never encounters an actual protest movement that they outright support. For my part, as I watched Waymo cars burning as Mexican flags fluttered behind them, I couldn't help but be reminded of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. In the documentary Sociology Is a Martial Art, he emphasized: 'I don't think it's a problem that young people are burning cars. I want them to be able to burn cars for a purpose.' It is, indeed, possible for burning cars to serve a purpose. However, it matters immensely who is perceived to have lit the fuse. It's uncomfortable to talk about, but all major successful social movements realized their goals with and through direct conflict. There's never been a case where people just held hands and sang Kumbaya, provoking those in power to nod and declare, 'I never thought of it that way,' and then voluntarily make difficult concessions without any threats or coercion needed. Attempts at persuasion are typically necessary for a movement's success, but they're rarely sufficient. Actual or anticipated violence, destruction and chaos also have their role to play. Civil rights leaders in the 1950s, for instance, went out of their way to provoke high-profile, violent and disproportionate responses from those who supported segregation. Leaders like Martin Luther King Jr had an intuitive understanding of what empirical social science now affirms: what matters isn't the presence or absence of violence but, rather, who gets blamed for any escalations that occur. The current anti-Ice protests have included clashes with police and occasional property damage. Melees, looting and destruction are perennially unpopular. Then again, so were civil rights-era bus boycotts, diner sit-ins and marches. In truth, the public rarely supports any form of social protest. Something similar holds for elite opinion-makers. In the civil rights era, as now, many who claimed to support social justice causes also described virtually any disruptive action taken in the service of those causes as counterproductive, whether it was violent or not. As I describe in my book, civil rights leaders across the board described these 'supporters' as the primary stumbling block for achieving equality. The simple truth is that most stakeholders in society – elites and normies alike, and across ideological lines – would prefer to stick with a suboptimal status quo than to embrace disruption in the service of an uncertain future state. Due to this widespread impulse, most successful social movements are deeply unpopular until after their victory is apparent. Insofar as they notch successes, it is often in defiance of public opinion. For instance, protests on US campuses against Israel's campaign of destruction in Gaza were deeply unpopular. However, for all their flaws and limitations, the demonstrations, and the broader cultural discussion around the protests, did get more people paying attention to what was happening in the Middle East. And as more people looked into Israel's disastrous campaign in Gaza, American support plummeted. Among Democrats, independents and Republicans alike, sympathy for Israelis over Palestinians is significantly lower today than before 7 October 2023. These patterns are not just evident in the US but also across western Europe and beyond. The Palestinian author Omar el-Akkad notes that when atrocities become widely recognized, everyone belatedly claims to have always been against them – even if they actively facilitated or denied the crimes while they were being carried out. Successful social movements function the opposite way: once they succeed, everyone paints themselves as having always been for them, even if the movements in question were deeply unpopular at the time. Martin Luther King Jr, for instance, was widely vilified towards the end of his life. Today, he has a federal holiday named after him. The lesson? Contemporaneous public polls about demonstrations tell us very little about the impact they'll ultimately have. So, how can we predict the likely impact of social movements? The best picture we have from empirical social science research is that conflict can help shift public opinion in favor of political causes, but it can also lead to blowback against those causes. The rule seems to be that whoever is perceived to have initiated violence loses: if the protesters are seen as sparking violence, citizens sour on the cause and support state crackdowns. If the government is seen as having provoked chaos through inept or overly aggressive action, the public grows more sympathetic to the protesters' cause (even if they continue to hold negative opinions about the protesters and the protests themselves). The 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles are an instructive example. They arose after King was unjustly beaten by law enforcement and the state failed to hold the perpetrators to account. In public opinion, the government was held liable for these legitimate grievances and outrage. As a result, the subsequent unrest seemed to generate further sympathy for police reform (even though most Americans frowned on the unrest itself). Stonewall was a literal riot. However, it was also widely understood that the conflict was, itself, a response to law enforcement raids on gay bars. Gay and trans people were being aggressively surveilled and harassed by the state, and began pushing back more forcefully for respect, privacy and autonomy. The government was the perceived aggressor, and this worked to the benefit of the cause. Hence, today, the Stonewall uprising is celebrated as a pivotal moment in civil rights history despite being characterized in a uniformly negative fashion at the time. This is not the way social movements always play out. If the protests come to be seen as being motivated primarily by animus, resentment or revenge (rather than positive or noble ideals), the public tends to grow more supportive of a crackdown against the movement. Likewise, if demonstrators seem pre-committed to violence, destruction and chaos, people who might otherwise be sympathetic to the cause tend to rapidly disassociate with the protesters and their stated objectives. The 6 January 2021 raid on the Capitol building, for instance, led to lower levels of affiliation with the GOP. Politicians who subsequently justified the insurrection performed especially poorly in the 2022 midterms (with negative spillover effects to Republican peers). The protests that followed George Floyd's murder were a mixed bag: in areas where demonstrations did not spiral into chaos or violence, the protests increased support for many police reforms and, incidentally, the Democratic party. In contexts where violence, looting, crime increases and extremist claims were more prevalent – where protesters seemed more focused on condemning, punishing or razing society rather than fixing it – trends moved in the opposite direction. Yet, although the Floyd-era protests themselves had an ambivalent effect on public support for criminal justice reform, the outcome of Trump's clampdown on the demonstrations was unambiguous: it led to a rapid erosion in GOP support among white Americans – likely costing Trump the 2020 election. Why? Because the president came off as an aggressor. Trump did not push for a crackdown reluctantly, after all other options were exhausted. He appeared to be hungry for conflict and eager to see the situation escalate. He seemed to relish norm violations and inflicting harm on his opponents. These perceptions were politically disastrous for him in 2020. They appear to be just as disastrous today. Right now, the public is split on whether the ongoing demonstrations in support of immigrants' rights are peaceful. Yet, broadly, Americans disapprove of these protests, just as they disapprove of most others. Critically, however, most also disapprove of Trump's decisions to deploy the national guard and the marines to Los Angeles. The federal agency at the heart of these protests, Ice, is not popular either. Americans broadly reject the agency's tactics of conducting arrests in plain clothes, stuffing people in unmarked vehicles, and wearing masks to shield their identities. The public also disagrees with deporting undocumented immigrants who were brought over as children, alongside policies that separate families, or actions that deny due process. Employers, meanwhile, have lobbied the White House to revise its policies, which seem to primarily target longstanding and gainfully employed workers rather than criminals or people free-riding on government benefits – to the detriment of core US industries. Even before the protests began, there were signs that Americans were souring on Trump's draconian approach to immigration, and public support has declined rapidly since the protests began on 6 June. Whether the demonstrations ultimately lead to still more erosion of public support for Trump or continued declines in public support for immigration will likely depend less on whether the demonstrations continue to escalate than on whom the public ultimately blames for any escalation that occurs. At present, it's not looking good for the White House. Musa al-Gharbi is a sociologist in the School of Communication and Journalism at Stony Brook University. His book, We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite, is out now with Princeton University Press. He is a Guardian US columnist
