Latest news with #JonathanShaw
BBC News
2 days ago
- General
- BBC News
Ukrainecast How has the ‘Spider Web' drone attack hurt Russia?
On Sunday, more than 100 Ukrainian drones struck air bases deep inside Russia. According to some estimates, the operation dubbed 'Spider Web' may have successfully damaged or destroyed up to a third of Russia's fleet of strategic bombers. So what impact might this have on its aerial capability? We're joined in the studio by Major General Jonathan Shaw, former Assistant Chief of the UK's Defence Staff. And with Ukraine's drone industry in the spotlight, we speak to Kseniia Kalmus, a drone manufacturer who co-founded a volunteer-led workshop in Kyiv. Today's episode is presented by Victoria Derbyshire and James Waterhouse. The producers were Laurie Kalus and Nik Sindle. The technical producer was Philip Bull. The series producer is Tim Walklate. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham. Email Ukrainecast@ with your questions and comments. You can also send us a message or voice note via WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram to +44 330 1239480 You can join the Ukrainecast discussion on Newscast's Discord server here:
Otago Daily Times
18-05-2025
- General
- Otago Daily Times
‘Important community has say' on housing, development
The Invercargill community now has an opportunity to share its feedback on the future direction of housing and development. The Invercargill City Council's district plan is up for review and the council wants to hear from its ratepayers on what they wish to change or implement. Council consenting and environment group manager Jonathan Shaw said early public consultation on changes needed to the district plan was sought last year and had played an integral role in shaping the council's preferred approach for the upcoming plan change. The second stage of public consultation on potential changes to the district plan opened last Monday, he said. "It's equally important that the community has their say once more, and lets us know what they think of our preferred approach to the proposed changes to the district plan. The decisions we make regarding the district plan quite literally shape the future of our city, so it is really important our community's voice continues to be heard throughout this process," Mr Shaw said. The council's preferred approach to changing the plan aimed to enable greater density and diversity of housing in Invercargill, promote well-designed housing to provide greater social and environmental outcomes, enable papakāinga (traditional communal living on ancestral Māori land) and separate the code of practice for land development and subdivision infrastructure out from the district plan. The code of practice was developed with the Southland District Council, and set out engineering and technical standards for land development and subdivision activities. Separating the two documents would mean the code of practice could be updated more quickly and easily, without requiring a change to the district plan, he said. "The district plan guides how our city is developed. It sets out what kind of activities or development can happen throughout Invercargill, so that both developers and residents can do things while at the same time we can protect important values and amenities for the wider community." The proposed changes to housing density applied to most of residentially zoned Invercargill. However, the proposed rules for papakāinga were likely to apply throughout the district, in residential and rural zones, he said. Once this phase of consultation had closed, the council would use this feedback to inform the drafting of the plan change. The plan change would then be notified in October, and the community would have an opportunity to make formal submissions on the specific policies and rules proposed at that time, Mr Shaw said. Feedback would be open until 5pm on Friday, June 6, he said. — APL
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
How many individuals being deported have a criminal record?
Jorge Soto came to a Texas ICE office in January as part of a routine review — complying when requested to also bring his wife and two children, ages 4 and 5, from school. After learning that his wife Beatriz Piño and two children had been in Texas just under the two year threshold that would have provided further legal protection, immigration attorney Jonathan E. Shaw told Deseret News how agents put this woman and her two children on an airplane to leave the country without the father, Jorge, even being aware. The day before the presidential election, then-candidate Donald Trump described at a Pennsylvania rally his intent to 'launch the largest deportation program of criminals in American history.' Soon after the election, the President-elect also emphasized his specific aim to 'get the criminals out' in expanded deportation proceedings. As these plans have been put in action, it's remained unclear how many criminals are being targeted as part of these deportation efforts — compared with law-abiding individuals who are noncitizens. Even El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, who agreed to receive U.S. deportees in his prisons, reportedly requested more reassurance from the United States that each of those locked up in the prison were, in fact, gang members. Earlier this spring, New York Times journalists reached out to all 88 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) field offices asking for more details on who was getting deported. At this early date, government offices refused to release details of deportees as a whole. In recent months, they've released many stories on social media of certain individuals who committed heinous crimes. It's clear that most Americans welcome news about convicted criminals being deported — with 97% of respondents in a March 2025 Pew survey saying they support the removal from the United States of those who have committed violent crimes, with a slight majority (52%) supporting deportations for nonviolent crimes. That number drops to 15% and 14% when asked about deporting noncitizens with jobs or those with children born in the U.S. Border 'czar' Tom Homan has long acknowledged 'collateral arrests' as part of the expected result when ICE-raids target known criminals. So, how often is that happening? How many other migrants without a criminal background are being arrested and deported? As time has passed, more statistics have emerged on this question. NBC News reported in February about government data they obtained showing that 'the number of detainees in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody without a criminal conviction or pending criminal charges increased by more than 1,800 in the first two weeks of February, representing 41% of the 4,422 total new detainees in that period' (with 59% having some criminal association). One month later in March, the Department of Homeland Security shared higher percentages, claiming that in Trump's first 50 days, out of the 32,809 arrests made of undocumented people in the country, just over 73% were 'accused or convicted criminals.' More recently, the State Department reported revoking an estimated 4,000 student visas in the first 100 days of President Trump's office. According to a senior State Department official who spoke with the New York Post, 90% of them have serious criminal records. The latest numbers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — including stats through April - show that of the 49,184 individuals detained in 2025, 31% are convicted of a crime and another 24% have pending criminal charges (totaling 55% with some kind of criminal association). That figure of just over half of those arrested having criminal records seems to be the most reliable figure based on the most comprehensive data so far. Historically, the comparable figures of arrested noncitizens who had confirmed or pending criminal charges was 72% in 2024 and 43% in 2023, according to a 2024 report by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. As reflected here, although the percentage of non-criminally charged individuals being deported has risen in recent months compared with the previous year, the current figure of 45% is less than the estimated 57% of those arrested in 2023 during the Biden administration by U.S. Enforcement and Removal Operations without criminal backgrounds. One reason the government needed to gather further evidence to send to President Bukele, is that the planned process moved faster than such careful evidence gathering would require, thanks to invocation of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. As Stephen Miller explained to Charlie Kirk in a September 2023 interview, that act would allow the government to 'instantaneously remove' any noncitizen foreigner 14 years or older from somewhere determined to be an 'invading country.' 'That allows you to suspend the due process that normally applies to a removal proceeding,' Miller explained. In recent weeks, multiple judges (most recently the Supreme Court on Friday) have ruled against this invocation of the 18th century law, arguing the White House hasn't shown the United States is under invasion by a hostile foreign power. Subsequently, Stephen Miller confirmed last week the administration was 'actively looking at' suspending habeas corpus, a legal principle that protects individuals from unlawful detention by requiring that person to be brought before a court to confirm that detention is lawful. (Presumably, the administration would again be arguing for an invasion threat, since the Constitution stipulates, 'The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.') 'If the people who are getting arrested are really the cold-blooded criminals the executive branch insists they are,' writes columnist David Graham in the Atlantic, 'saying so in a court of law should be relatively easy.' But in recent weeks, more stories have been published of individuals detained by ICE without any redress, accompanied by protests from families who insist they are law-abiding and contributing positively to their community. For instance, in early February ICE agents seized Neri José Alvarado a few days before his asylum appointment was scheduled. The 25-year-old man had fled Venezuela and had just got a promotion at a bakery in the Dallas area, reportedly sending money home to cover his brother's treatments for autism. Alvarado is now in El Salvador's prison. Bakery owner Enrique Hernández told reporters: 'They didn't investigate him…They took him and they didn't even know who he was.' In March, a 20-year old man Cristian, likewise from Venezuela in the U.S. with a pending asylum application, was also sent to prison in El Salvador. The judge, a Trump appointee, who later reviewed the decision, wrote critically: 'Defendants have provided no evidence, or even any specific allegations, as to how Cristian, or any other Class Member, poses a threat to public safety.' A third man, 25-year-old Guatemalan with no prior police or criminal record, according to his family, was detained in Massachusetts this month. 'It's not fair that he's going through this and being treated like a criminal,' said the young man's father Arquimedes Orellana, who says he brought his family to the U.S. fleeing violence in his home country. Daniel Orellana has since been in contact with his girlfriend, Zulema Alfaro, telling her it was a 'misunderstanding' but that the officials told him, 'OK, but we're going to take you anyway.' The father insisted he wasn't against the government bringing more scrutiny to immigration status. 'I know the government is working to improve the country… but it's not fair that they take innocent people, people who are productive for the country.' When asked in an April interview about whether he was worried about mistakenly deporting innocent people, President Trump responded, 'You know, I'm not involved in that. I have many people, many layers of people that do that.' He then emphasized, 'I would say they are all extremely tough, dangerous people. I would say that.' President Trump then added, 'And, don't forget, they came in the country illegally.' When it comes to visas being revoked, government sources deny that mild charges like 'littering' are triggering federal action, with one official claiming that 500 of the 3600 students whose visas were revoked had assaulted someone. Secretary of State Marco Rubio does famously have a 'zero tolerance' policy for students who, in his words, 'create a ruckus for us' on campus — e.g., if they vandalize a library or 'take over a campus.' Sometimes minor violations are being cited as pretext for removal proceedings. For instance, Ximena Arias-Cristobal, 19, was arrested in Georgia after failing to obey a 'no turn on red' sign. She's lived in the U.S. for 15 years, graduating high school and starting college. Her father, Jose Francisco Arias-Tovar, owns a small business — but was also pulled over for a speeding ticket. Now the whole family is facing deportation within a month — with immigration attorney Terry Olsen saying authorities shortly plan to arrest Arias-Cristobal's mother and her daughters 'to keep the family together.' In some instances, vastly disparate allegations exist about deported families. For example, in one highly publicized case where a 2-year-old was separated from her parents, the U.S. government has accused father Maiker Espinoza of being a 'lieutenant' of the gang Tren de Aragua who oversees criminal operations, and his wife, 20-year-old Yorely Bernal of directing the 'recruitment of young women for drug smuggling and prostitution.' But Mr. Espinoza's sister, María Alejandra Fernández, 31, rejects these allegations, saying: 'My brother is not a criminal. He left Venezuela like many young people, looking for an opportunity to get ahead.' Referring to these kinds of cases, immigration researcher David Dyssegaard Kallick tells Deseret News: 'This administration is trampling due process and picking people up off the streets and deciding that anyone they say has committed a crime is a criminal. And they're doing that whether or not there's evidence and whether or not the family even knows what's happening.' Kallick is the director of the Immigration Research Initiative, established to 'inject some level of calm and data-based understanding' in a national debate dominated by what he calls 'overheated rhetoric and unfounded claims about immigrants in everyday life.' Kallick points out that due process was 'so fundamental to our history in this country.' This principle was 'absolutely front of mind for the framers of the Constitution, who had their own experiences with a monarch who didn't respect due process and just decided that somebody who they suspected was a criminal was a criminal,' he says. Although publicly committing to prioritize the 'worst first,' the White House has also acknowledged wanting to go beyond those with a criminal background. The fact is that immigrants here illegally who have criminal records that go beyond immigration violations number only in the hundreds of thousands – far short of the millions this White House has committed to deport. As I reported earlier this year, out of the total estimated population of migrants in the U.S., an estimated 5% (655,000) have some kind of a criminal charge or conviction, many of which are minor offenses like traffic violations. And of this group that has been charged with any violation of the law, only 15,000 are in custody, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. To reach higher deportation numbers, quotas are being used. When senior ICE officials were instructed to make 75 arrests per day at each of the agency's field offices, the Washington Post reported current and former ICE officials acknowledging that 'the orders significantly increase the chance that officers will engage in more indiscriminate enforcement tactics or face accusations of civil rights violations as they strain to meet quotas.' Those with criminal records are also often the toughest people to track down and arrest — compared with law-abiding immigrants who seek to follow all the rules and keep records updated. This is a cruel irony noted by several immigration attorneys Deseret News contacted. Namely, those who have tried to do the right thing —submitting papers, appearing in court, staying in touch with the immigration office — may be more vulnerable to deportation, because the government knows where they are (compared with those largely off the radar). Writing in Forbes earlier in the year, Stuart Anderson had similarly predicted that federal pressure to generate large numbers of deportations would create conditions where 'targeting criminals or convicting a business owner in a workplace raid will be secondary to the bureaucratic goal of driving up deportation numbers.' Homan has acknowledged the possibility of reinstating the practice of detaining immigrant families. 'We need family residential centers,' he said. 'My mom isn't a criminal,' Ingrid Martínez said about her mother, who was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the Nashville area this month. 'My mom — she serves a church. She takes care of her grandkids. So, I don't know how she can be seen as a criminal.' 'Despite legal status, we have contributed greatly to this city's development,' said Martinez and Patricia Rocha, who have lived in Tennessee for more than 30 years and recently saw their sister apprehended. 'Some people think immigrants are criminals, that we steal jobs. On the contrary, many of us are business owners who create jobs.' Immigration attorney Jonathan E. Shaw tells Deseret News, 'Now, it's open season on anyone who's been here less than 2 years.'
Newsweek
14-05-2025
- Business
- Newsweek
Boston Offering $50K to Help People Buy Homes
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. A new program in Boston is offering families and friends coming together to buy a property up to $50,000 in financial assistance to purchase multifamily homes in the city. Under the Co-Purchasing Housing Pilot Program, launched last month, the Boston Home Center will provide zero-percent, interest-deferred loans to help cover the cost of down payments for these households, as well as reasonable closing costs for the purchase. Why It Matters The country is in the midst of a housing affordability crisis that has hit aspiring first-time homeowners the hardest. Home prices have risen all across the U.S. since the pandemic, and in Boston they are now nearly 80 percent higher than they were in February 2020. In February this year, the median sale price of a home in the city was $858,000, according to Redfin data—while only 30 years ago, in 1995, you could get a property in the Boston metropolitan area for about $165,000, Jonathan Shaw wrote for Harvard Magazine. With mortgage rates still hovering around the 7-percent mark and expected to remain above 6 percent through 2025 and 2026, the monthly carrying costs of buying a home remains unaffordable for many—especially younger generations approaching the property ladder for the first time. What To Know The Boston Home Center launched the pilot loan program in partnership with the Housing Innovation Lab to help multiple households coming together to buy multifamily homes in the city—a minority of the housing stock in both the country and Boston. According to data, there were 192 multifamily homes for sale in Boston in April, with a median list price of $1.65 million. That price tag was roughly $450,000 higher than in 2020, the company said, but still more affordable than single-family homes in the city. Eligible households earning up to 100 percent of the area median income (AMI) could receive up to $50,000 in financial assistance for their down payment, while households earning up to 135 percent AMI could get up to $35,000. An aerial general view of Boston on August 11, 2024. An aerial general view of Boston on August 11, 2024. Billie Weiss/BostonIn order to apply to the pilot program, households must be considered first-time homebuyers and they must contribute to at least 1.5 percent of the purchase price of their share of the property. They also need to occupy the property as their primary residence, have less than $100,000 in liquid assets (excluding government-sponsored retirement accounts), and enter into a co-ownership agreement with the other buyers. Participants do not have to be current Boston residents, as long as they are willing to buy a property within the city limits and move there within the first 60 days of closing the purchase. The properties eligible to the program must be two- or three-family homes within the city of Boston and have as many vacant, unoccupied units as participating households listed as joint owners of the mortgage. Those applying can get a fixed-rate CRA portfolio loan, a conventional loan from Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, a Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loan, or any other mortgage approved by the Boston Home Center. Newsweek contacted the Housing Innovation Lab, Boston Home Center, and Mayor Michelle Wu's office for comment by email on Wednesday. What People Are Saying A guide released by Boston Mayor Michelle Wu's Housing Innovation Lab said: "Creating new homeownership opportunities is a key priority identified in Boston's 2025 Housing Strategy. As a first objective, the strategy seeks to broaden financial assistance for homebuyers and current homeowners, particularly for residents who identify as Black, Indigenous, and people of color." Wu said: "Boston's housing market has created significant barriers for middle-income families, particularly those from historically marginalized communities. Through the Co-Purchasing Pilot Program, we are creating opportunities for residents to pool their resources and build generational wealth together. This program represents one of many steps toward ensuring Boston remains a city where everyone can thrive." Jessica Ingram-Bee, a Boston-based real estate agent, told Boston Orange: "Many first-time buyers in Boston are financially ready to own, but face steep prices. This initiative offers a way to pool resources and increase buying power, making homeownership accessible to those who might otherwise be priced out." She added: "Beyond the financial benefits, it can also foster a sense of community—allowing friends, couples, and families to share responsibilities and create an affordable living arrangement. "I've heard successful co-buyers talk about babysitting for each other, sharing child care, and even coming together for weekly dinners. This model not only helps people afford a home, but also fosters a sense of community and mutual support. That is so needed in today's world." What Happens Next The program is currently accepting applications. For more information, visit the program's webpage. Are you a Boston resident trying to buy a home for the first time? I'd love to hear about your experience. Contact me at
