Latest news with #NicolasMaduro
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First Post
20 hours ago
- Politics
- First Post
US Supreme Court authorises Trump to revoke legal status of 500,000 immigrants
The latest case resulted from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem canceling an 18-month extension of the temporary protected status of the migrants, citing in particular the 'authoritarian' nature of Nicolas Maduro's government in Venezuela read more The US Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump a major victory Friday in his immigration crackdown, giving his administration the green light to revoke the legal status of half a million migrants from four Caribbean and Latin American countries. The decision puts 532,000 people who came from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to the United States under a two-year humanitarian 'parole' program launched by former president Joe Biden at risk of it marked the second time the highest US court has sided with Trump in his aggressive push to deliver on his election pledge to deport millions of non-citizens, through a series of policy moves that have prompted a flurry of lawsuits. On Calle Ocho, a historic street in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood, Johnny Cardona, 63, was saddened by the Supreme Court's decision. 'Since I'm American, it's not going to affect me, but I know it's going to affect many friendships, many families, many people I know,' Cardona told AFP. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The ruling sparked a scathing dissent from two justices in the liberal minority who said the six conservatives on the bench had 'plainly botched' the decision and undervalued the 'devastating consequences' to those potentially affected. The revoked program had allowed entry into the United States for two years for up to 30,000 migrants a month from the four countries, all of which have dismal human rights records. But as Trump takes a hard line on immigration, his administration moved to overturn those protections, winning a ruling from the Supreme Court earlier this month that allowed officials to begin deporting around 350,000 Venezuelans. The latest case resulted from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem canceling an 18-month extension of the temporary protected status of the migrants, citing in particular the 'authoritarian' nature of Nicolas Maduro's government in Venezuela. The department gave them 30 days to leave the country unless they had legal protection under another program. 'Needless human suffering' 'The court has plainly botched this assessment today,' Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor wrote in their dissent. The justices said the migrants face being wrenched from family and returning to potential danger in their native countries – or opting to stay and risking imminent removal. 'At a minimum, granting the stay would facilitate needless human suffering before the courts have reached a final judgment regarding the legal arguments at issue, while denying the government's application would not have anything close to that kind of practical impact,' Jackson said. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD None of the other justices gave reasons for their decision, and the court was not required to make the vote public. 'The ultimate goal of this policy is to leave these people without legal status, to make them subjects of deportation,' said Adelys Ferro, co-founder and executive director of the Venezuelan American Caucus, an advocacy group. The district court that barred the administration from revoking the migrants' status had argued that it was unlawfully applying a fast-track deportation procedure aimed at illegal immigrants to non-citizens protected by government programs. At the Supreme Court, Justice Department lawyers said the 'district court has nullified one of the administration's most consequential immigration policy decisions' by issuing the stay. The high court's decision means the Trump administration can go ahead with its policy change, even as the litigation on the merits plays out in lower courts. Trump campaigned for the White House on a pledge to deport millions of undocumented migrants, claiming there was an ongoing 'invasion' of the United States by hordes of foreign criminals. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD But his program of mass deportations has been thwarted or restricted by numerous court rulings, including from the Supreme Court and notably on the grounds that those targeted should be able to assert their due process rights. The Trump administration systematically accuses judges who oppose his immigration decisions of plundering his presidential national security powers.
New York Times
3 days ago
- General
- New York Times
F.B.I. Memo Sheds Light on Dispute Over Venezuelan Gang
An F.B.I. intelligence memo unsealed on Wednesday offers new details on why the bureau concluded that some Venezuelan government officials were likely to have had some responsibility for a criminal gang's actions in the United States, pitting it against other intelligence agencies in a heated dispute over President Trump's use of a wartime law. The memo, whose conclusions the remaining intelligence agencies have rejected, was submitted by the administration to a federal judge in Texas before a hearing on Thursday. It is part of a proliferating array of lawsuits over Mr. Trump's use of the law, the Alien Enemies Act, to deport people accused of being members of that gang, Tren de Aragua, to a notorious Salvadoran prison without due process. 'The F.B.I. assesses some Venezuelan government officials likely facilitate the migration of TdA members from Venezuela to the United States to advance the Maduro regime's objective of undermining public safety in the United States,' the memo said, using an abbreviation for the gang. It added that the bureau also thinks some officials in the administration of Venezeula's president, Nicolas Maduro, 'likely use TdA members as proxies.' The submission of the memo opens the door to greater judicial scrutiny of a key basis for Mr. Trump's assertion that he can invoke the rarely used law to summarily deport people accused of being members of the gang. It also offers a glimpse of the claims put forth by several detained migrants that formed the basis for the F.B.I.'s assessment. In March, Mr. Trump proclaimed that Venezuela's government controls the gang — a key premise for his use of the wartime deportation law — as he sent planeloads of men to El Salvador. Courts have since halted such transfers under the act, ruling that it is likely that it does not apply to the issue of undocumented migrants rather than a wartime situation. Despite the F.B.I.'s assessment, the majority of the nation's intelligence agencies, including the C.I.A. and the National Security Agency, believe Mr. Trump's claim is inaccurate. The National Intelligence Council, an elite internal think tank that policymakers can commission for special projects, has written two assessments to that effect, while also noting that the F.B.I. partly dissented. The F.B.I.'s minority views were known, in part because one of the council's memos was declassified and released this month in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Among other things, it made it clear that the F.B.I. had based its view on the statements of several migrants arrested in the United States. But it was not clear how many migrants the F.B.I. had relied on for its analysis; the memo said that the agency's view was based on statements by seven sources. The memo detailed what only one of them had said, however. 'According to a human source with indirect access,' the memo stated, strategic decision-making regarding the Venezuelan government's use of the gang went through President Nicolás Maduro, 'who used confidants as go-betweens to insulate himself from public affiliation' with the gang. At the same time, the memo said the F.B.I. had judged that high-ranking Venezuelan officials were not involved in the gang's 'daily activities.' It also said that it had considered an alternative hypothesis that the gang members were migrating and committing crimes on their own to be 'more or less equally plausible,' but said the bureau deemed its view to be 'more likely.' The F.B.I. put its assessment at 'medium' confidence and said it was considering moving that to lower confidence 'due to the primary sources, who were one-time contacts with indirect access and who may have been motivated by the perceived possibility of a favorable immigration decision.' The National Intelligence Council, which conducted an analysis drawing on the available evidence from all intelligence agencies, put greater weight on that skepticism. 'Most' of the intelligence community 'judges that intelligence indicating that regime leaders are directing or enabling TDA migration to the United States is not credible,' it wrote. The legal troubles of the detainees, the council said, could 'motivate them to make false allegations about their ties to the Venezuelan regime in an effort to deflect responsibility for their crimes and to lessen any punishment by providing exculpatory or otherwise 'valuable' information to U.S. prosecutors.' But the council and the other agencies had other issues with the allegations as well. They scrutinized whether the detainees 'could credibly have access to the information reported' and whether they had offered details that could be corroborated. Coordination of the sort that the migrants had claimed was almost certain to have required communications and financial transfers that the U.S. government would expect to collect but had not seen. The intelligence community ultimately concluded that 'the Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States,' the council said in its memo. The Justice Department does not appear to have submitted the council's memo summarizing the broader analysis by all the other intelligence agencies. The White House commissioned a systematic look at the evidence about Venezuela's government and the gang in February, as Mr. Trump considered using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans. The National Intelligence Council produced a memo on Feb. 26 that concluded that Venezuela's government does not control the gang. The memo noted that the F.B.I. did believe there were some links based on information the rest of the intelligence community did not think was credible. Still, on March 15, Mr. Trump signed a proclamation saying the opposite. Days later, The New York Times reported on the Feb. 26 memo, prompting the Justice Department to announce a criminal leak investigation. Joe Kent, a top aide to the director of national intelligence, also asked the acting head of the council at the time, a career analyst named Michael Collins, to produce a new assessment. In emails, Mr. Kent later demanded further 'rewriting' of a draft of the new assessment so it could not be 'used against' Mr. Trump. But the final version still concluded that Venezuela's government does not control the gang and that the F.B.I.'s view that some officials were using it as a proxy were not credible. Mr. Collins has since been fired.
First Post
4 days ago
- Politics
- First Post
Maduro's Party Sweeps Elections Boycotted By Venezuela Opposition Firstpost America
Maduro's Party Sweeps Elections Boycotted By Venezuela Opposition | Firstpost America | N18G Maduro's Party Sweeps Elections Boycotted By Venezuela Opposition | Firstpost America | N18G Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's ruling party has claimed a sweeping victory in the country's parliamentary and regional elections, winning 23 of 24 governor seats and over 80% of the vote. The opposition, led by Maria Corina Machado, boycotted the vote, calling it a "farce" after Maduro's disputed re-election last year. Turnout was low, with only 42% of eligible voters participating. In the lead-up, authorities arrested more than 70 people, including opposition figure Juan Pablo Guanipa, for allegedly plotting to sabotage the election. The vote also included, for the first time, a governorship in the disputed Essequibo region. While Maduro hailed the results as a "victory for peace," critics say they reflect deep public disillusionment with Venezuela's political system. See More
LeMonde
5 days ago
- Politics
- LeMonde
In Venezuela, Maduro claims landslide win in elections amid opposition boycott
As expected, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro secured a sweeping victory in the legislative and regional elections held on Sunday, May 25, which part of the opposition had called to boycott. With more than 90% of ballots counted, the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV, United Socialist Party of Venezuela) won 23 out of 24 governorships and a commanding majority in the Asamblea Nacional. Chavism, the political movement founded by Hugo Chávez, received 82.68% of the vote, winning 40 out of 50 seats in the national constituency – the regional constituencies have yet to be allocated. According to the Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE, National Electoral Council), voter turnout reached 42.6%. The opposition, which advocated abstention, contested this figure, highlighting inconsistencies (the total number of votes cast does not match the reported turnout) and portrayed the low turnout observed on the ground as a victory for their movement. This regional and legislative election was the first held since the contentious July 28, 2024, presidential election and the highly disputed re-election of Maduro. The victory claimed by Chavism could not erase the president's lack of legitimacy or the looming economic challenges he faced.
Business Recorder
5 days ago
- Politics
- Business Recorder
Venezuela's Maduro wins landslide in election boycotted by opposition
CARACAS: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's party on Sunday swept the board in parliamentary and regional elections that were boycotted by the opposition in protest over his disputed re-election last year. The United Socialist Party of Venezuela won 23 out of 24 state governor positions and scored 82.68 percent of the votes cast for lists of National Assembly members, the electoral council (CNE) said. The constituency-level results of the parliamentary vote had yet to be tallied. The main opposition group, led by popular figurehead Maria Corina Machado, had urged voters to stay away to avoid legitimizing what she described as a 'farce' election. AFP journalists who visited polling stations in several cities said turnout was much lower compared to the July 2024 presidential election. The CNE put voter turnout at a little over 42 percent of Venezuela's 21 million eligible voters. The run-up to the vote was marked by mass arrests and a new crackdown on dissent. Over 70 people were arrested on suspicion of planning to 'sabotage' the election. Among those arrested was leading opposition member Juan Pablo Guanipa, held on charges of heading the 'terrorist network' behind the alleged plot. Venezuela's authoritarian leftist government frequently alleges foreign-backed, opposition-led initiatives to topple Maduro, who took over on the death of his mentor, socialist firebrand Hugo Chavez in 2013. On Sunday, Maduro hailed the election results as a 'victory of peace and stability' and said it 'proved the power of Chavismo' — the left-wing, populist political movement founded by his predecessor. The vote was for 285 members of the National Assembly and 24 governors — including for the first time in Essequibo, an oil-rich region controlled by neighboring Guyana but claimed by Caracas. But many Venezuelans said they lost faith in the electoral process after last July's presidential vote. Electoral authorities quickly declared Maduro the winner of a third six-year term in that election, without releasing detailed results. The opposition published its own tally from individual polling stations, showing a convincing win for its candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia. The crackdown on post-election protests left 28 dead, hundreds behind bars, and cemented Venezuela's pariah status on the world stage. On Sunday before the results were announced, Maduro shrugged off the opposition boycott. 'When the opponent withdraws from the field, we advance and occupy the terrain,' he said matter-of-factly. Machado published several pictures of deserted polling stations on social media.
