Latest news with #Raices
Yahoo
a day ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump travel ban comes as little surprise amid barrage of draconian restrictions
Donald Trump's first travel ban in 2017 had an immediate, explosive impact – spawning chaos at airports nationwide. This time around, the panic and chaos was already widespread by the time the president signed his proclamation Wednesday to fully or partially restrict foreign nationals from 19 countries from entering the United States. Since being sworn in for his second term, Trump has unleashed a barrage of draconian immigration restrictions. Within hours of taking office, the president suspended the asylum system at the southern border as part of his wide-ranging immigration crackdown. His administration has ended temporary legal residency for 211,000 Haitians, 117,000 Venezuelans and 110,000 Cubans, and moved to revoke temporary protected status for several groups of immigrants. It has moved to restrict student visas and root out scholars who have come to the US legally. Related: Trump's new travel ban: the countries chosen and how it differs from the last one 'It's death by 1,000 cuts,' said Faisal Al-Juburi of the Texas-based legal non-profit Raices, which was among several immigrants' rights groups that challenged Trump's first travel ban. 'And that's kind of the point. It's creating layers and layers of restrictions.' Trump's first travel ban in January 2017, issued days after he took office, targeted the predominantly Muslim countries of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. The order came as a shock – including to many administration officials. Customs and Border Protection officials were initially given little guidance on how to enact the ban. Lawyers and protesters rushed to international airports where travellers were stuck in limbo. Confusion spread through colleges and tech companies in the US, and refugee camps across the world. This time, Trump's travel ban came as no surprise. He had cued up the proclamation in an executive order signed on 20 January, his first day back in the White House, instructing his administration to submit a list of candidate countries for a ban by 21 March. Though he finally signed a proclamation enacting the ban on Wednesday, it will not take effect until 9 June – allowing border patrol officers and travellers a few days to prepare. The ban includes several exemptions, including for people with visas who are already in the United States, green-card holders, dual citizens and athletes or coaches traveling to the US for major sporting events such as the World Cup or the Olympics. It also exempts Afghans eligible for the special immigrant visa program for those who helped the US during the war in Afghanistan. But the policy, which is likely to face legal challenges, will undoubtedly once again separate families and disproportionately affect people seeking refuge from humanitarian crises. 'This is horrible, to be clear … and it's still something that reeks of arbitrary racism and xenophobia,' Al-Juburi said. 'But this does not yield the type of chaos that January 2017 yielded, because immigration overall has been upended to such a degree that the practice of immigration laws is in a state of chaos.' In his second term, Trump has taken unprecedented steps to tear down legal immigration. He has eliminated the legal status of thousands of international students and instructed US embassies worldwide to stop scheduling visa interviews as it prepares to ramp up social media vetting for international scholars. The administration has arrested people at immigration check-ins, exiled asylum seekers to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador, and detained scholars and travellers at airports without reason. Although Trump's travel ban excludes green-card holders, his Department of Homeland Security has made clear that it can and will revoke green cards as it sees fit – including in the cases of the student activists Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi. 'The first Muslim ban was very targeted, it was brutal, it was immediate, and it was massive,' said Nihad Awad, the executive director at the Council on American–Islamic Relations. 'Now, the administration is not only targeting nations with certain religious affiliations, but also people of color overall, people who criticise the US government for its funding of the genocide in Gaza.' And this new travel ban comes as many families are still reeling and recovering from Trump's first ban. 'We're looking at, essentially, a ban being in place potentially for eight out of 12 years,' said Ryan Costello, policy director at the National Iranian American Council. 'And even in that period where the Biden administration lifted the ban, it was still very hard for Iranians to get a visa.' Iranian Americans who came to the US fleeing political persecution back home, who couldn't return to Iran, have in some cases been unable to see their parents, siblings or other loved ones for years. 'You want your parents to be able to come for the birth of a child, or to come to your wedding,' Costello said. 'So this is a really hard moment for so many families. And I think, unfortunately, there's much more staying power for this ban.' Experts say the new ban is more likely to stand up to legal challenges than his first ban. It also doesn't appear to have registered the same intense shock and outrage, culturally. 'The first time, we saw this immediate backlash, protests at airports,' said Costello. 'Now, over time, Trump has normalized this.'
The Guardian
4 days ago
- General
- The Guardian
Trump travel ban comes as little surprise amid barrage of draconian restrictions
Donald Trump's first travel ban in 2017 had an immediate, explosive impact – spawning chaos at airports nationwide. This time around, the panic and chaos was already widespread by the time the president signed his proclamation Wednesday to fully or partially restrict foreign nationals from 19 countries from entering the United States. Since being sworn in for his second term, Trump has unleashed a barrage of draconian immigration restrictions. Within hours of taking office, the president suspended the asylum system at the southern border as part of his wide-ranging immigration crackdown. His administration has ended temporary legal residency for 211,000 Haitians, 117,000 Venezuelans and 110,000 Cubans, and moved to revoke temporary protected status for several groups of immigrants. It has moved to restrict student visas and root out scholars who have come to the US legally. 'It's death by 1,000 cuts,' said Faisal Al-Juburi of the Texas-based legal non-profit Raices, which was among several immigrants' rights groups that challenged Trump's first travel ban. 'And that's kind of the point. It's creating layers and layers of restrictions.' Trump's first travel ban in January 2017, issued days after he took office, targeted the predominantly Muslim countries of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. The order came as a shock – including to many administration officials. Customs and Border Protection officials were initially given little guidance on how to enact the ban. Lawyers and protesters rushed to international airports where travellers were stuck in limbo. Confusion spread through colleges and tech companies in the US, and refugee camps across the world. This time, Trump's travel ban came as no surprise. He had cued up the proclamation in an executive order signed on 20 January, his first day back in the White House, instructing his administration to submit a list of candidates for a ban by 21 March. Though he finally signed a proclamation enacting the ban on Wednesday, it will not take effect until 9 June – allowing border patrol officers and travellers a few days to prepare. The ban includes several exemptions, including for people with visas who are already in the United States, green-card holders, dual citizens and athletes or coaches traveling to the US for major sporting events such as the World Cup or the Olympics. It also exempts Afghans eligible for the special immigrant visa program for those who helped the US during the war in Afghanistan. But the policy, which is likely to face legal challenges, will undoubtedly once again separate families and disproportionately affect people seeking refuge from humanitarian crises. 'This is horrible, to be clear … and it's still something that reeks of arbitrary racism and xenophobia,' Al-Juburi said. 'But this does not yield the type of chaos that January 2017 yielded, because immigration overall has been upended to such a degree that the practice of immigration laws is in a state of chaos.' In his second term, Trump has taken unprecedented steps to tear down legal immigration. He has eliminated the legal status of thousands of international students and instructed US embassies worldwide to stop scheduling visa interviews as it prepares to ramp up social media vetting for international scholars. The administration has arrested people at immigration check-ins, exiled asylum seekers to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador, and detained scholars and travellers at airports without reason. Although Trump's travel ban excludes green-card holders, his Department of Homeland Security has made clear that it can and will revoke green cards as it sees fit – including in the cases of student activists Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi. Sign up to First Thing Our US morning briefing breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion 'The first Muslim ban was very targeted, it was brutal, it was immediate, and it was massive,' said Nihad Awad, the executive director at the Council on American–Islamic Relations. 'Now, the administration is not only targeting nations with certain religious affiliations, but also people of color overall, people who criticise the US government for its funding of the genocide in Gaza.' And this new travel ban comes as many families are still reeling and recovering from Trump's first ban. 'We're looking at, essentially, a ban being in place potentially for eight out of 12 years,' said Ryan Costello, policy director at the National Iranian American Council. 'And even in that period where the Biden administration lifted the ban, it was still very hard for Iranians to get a visa.' Iranian Americans who came to the US fleeing political persecution back home, who couldn't return to Iran, have in some cases been unable to see their parents, siblings or other loved ones for years. 'You want your parents to be able to come for the birth of a child, or to come to your wedding,' Costello said. 'So this is a really hard moment for so many families. And I think unfortunately, there's much more staying power for this ban.' Experts say the new ban is more likely to stand up to legal challenges as his first ban. It also doesn't appear to have registered the same intense shock and outrage, culturally. 'The first time, we saw this immediate backlash, protests at airports,' said Costello. 'Now, over time, Trump has normalized this.'
Scotsman
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Album reviews: Gloria Estefan Lavinia Blackwall
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Gloria Estefan: Raices (Crescent Moon/Sony Music Latin) ★★★ Faith Eliott: Dryas (Lost Map) ★★★★★ Lavinia Blackwall: The Making (The Barne Society) ★★★★ Latin superstar Gloria Estefan marks 50 years in music with her first Spanish language album in almost two decades. Raices, meaning 'roots', is a vibrant exploration of her Cuban-American heritage, written and produced by her husband Emilio Estefan. Its title track is a joyous Cubano catharsis, with lyrics translating as 'if you want a good harvest, you need to know how to sow, with faith and dedication, that tree will grow roots'. Gloria Estefan | Crescent Moon/Sony Music Latin Elsewhere, Estefan helms the big band clamour and salsa explosion of La Vecina (No Se Na) with infectious verve, delivers impassioned balladeering on Tan Iguales y Tan Diferentes, accompanied by Spanish guitar and lush orchestration, and settles into a gentler middle of the road sway on Cuando el Tiempo Nos Castiga. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Edinburgh-based singer/songwriter Faith Eliott is something special, following up debut album Impossible Bodies with another imaginative dive into science, nature and mythology. Dryas is a gorgeous, gentle, poignant and hopeful folk pop fantasia, where the elemental intersects with the digital. Eliott dives into apocalypse stories on snowglobe, weaves a sparse, gothic anthropomorphic yarn on thys creatur and presides beautifully over an ode of unrequited love from a hagfish to a giant isopod, where the needy meets the unavailable on the ocean floor. Faith Eliott | Contributed Trembling Bells frontwoman Lavinia Blackwall is a similarly bold stylist. Her latest solo album is a full folk band fiesta in the spirit of Pentangle and Steeleye Span with her own soaring vocal as the star instrument. Maggie Reilly of Moonlight Shadow fame guests on My Hopes Are All Mine, a bitter tale of inequality, themed round the creaky turning of the wheel of fortune. Laura J Martin adds ye olde recorder part to the folk fable Scarlett Fever, while Blackwall veers into plaintive baroque pop on We All Get Lost and lets loose her inner Kate Bush on the glam eccentricity of Morning To Remember. CLASSICAL Yeol Eum Sol: Ravel & Bach (Naïve) ★★★★ Yet more Maurice Ravel to mark the 150th anniversary of his birth, this time from dynamic South Korean pianist Yeol Eum Son with The Hague's Residentie Orkest under Anja Bihlmaier. Both Son and Bihlmaier have hugely impressed live audiences in Scotland of late, performing with the SCO and BBC SSO respectively. But here they are together in a Ravel piano concerto double bill – the scintillating G major and hybrid Left Hand Concerto (written for Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm in the First World War) – and the teamwork is exemplary. Son brings freshly-conceived excitement to the G major, a glorious mix of zestfulness and laid-back poeticism, woozy and bluesy in the slow movement, pyrotechnically scintillating in the Finale, with Bihlmaier deploying lightning orchestral fire in response. The Left Hand Concerto is weightier, but still possesses drive and determined musicality. Son ends with four left hand solo transcriptions by Wittgenstein. Ken Walton JAZZ Tom Lyne with Dave Milligan: Well Mixed Blue (LisaLeo Records) ★★★★ Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad
CBS News
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Grammy winning superstar Gloria Estefan returns to her roots for latest album
Miami's own 9-time Grammy winning superstar Gloria Estefan returns to her roots with "Raices," which means "roots," her first Spanish-language album in 18 years. She said it's about the love story of her and her husband Emilio. "A love story first of all, big time, most of them (the songs) are about our love story," she said. "Emilio brought me these amazing songs and he said to me, 'I wrote you a love song.' I went, 'Oh, you're gonna sing it for me?' He said, 'No, you're gonna sing it to me.' He wrote his own love song,," she said with a laugh. The project was done hand-in-hand with her husband of 46 years, Emilio, at a time when the singer was busier than ever. She's working on a Broadway musical called "Basura" with her daughter Emily and the children's TV show "Gaby's Dollhouse." But it was that title track, written by Emilio, that held her heart. The video was shot on location at Fairchild Tropical Gardens. Artificial intelligence technology projected real pictures of Gloria as a toddler, the actual picture is displayed on the walls at the Estefans' Miami Beach offices. "That's me in Miami and I am in between the roots of the tree that is in the "Raices" video that I am singing from the middle of these two roots and this is Emilio in Cuba. Clearly cowboy gear was very popular," Gloria explained, pointing to the childhood photos. Estefan goes back to her roots "Raices" is an Estefan autobiography set to music, it showcases their entire family. Gloria said the idea for the project was to inspire all people, but especially immigrants. "Their contributions aren't ever really, you know, held for what they are, which is a lot because this country is built on immigrants. I just wanted to put positivity and love out there into the universe," she shared. For her lively new single and video "La Vecina," meaning "the neighbor," Gloria returned to the very first neighborhood she called home after fleeing Cuba. It was all shot there, near LoanDepot Park. "The day that I sang 'La Vecina' in the studio, I got the whole video in my head, and I went, 'Oh my God,'" she recalled. "I started in this place when we came to the United States from Cuba, and look at where we are now." Estefan says she feels the love from her fans It all started 50 years ago when she joined a band called Miami Latin Boys led by a percussionist named Emilio Estefan. "I told Gloria that I found out she had played at a friend of mine's bar mitzvah," said Emilio. "Oh, of course I did, Absolutely," she said laughing. That connection born in Miami half a century ago has never waned. In fact, she feels the love from her fans everyday and says it never gets old. "Are you kidding me? There's nothing like it, and people will say 'I just want to hug you' and when they put their arms around me, they say these beautiful things. 'I feel like you're my family. I feel like you're my tia or my grandma or, you know, my mom, my sister.' It's a beautiful, beautiful thing," she said. "Raices" is set to be releases on May 29. Her Broadway musical "Basura" will debut in 2026, and her TV show "Gaby's Dollhouse" will be release in the Fall.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump administration seeks to end basic rights and protections for child immigrants in its custody
The Trump administration is trying to end a cornerstone immigration policy that requires the government to provide basic rights and protections to child immigrants in its custody. The protections, which are drawn from a 1997 consent decree known as the Flores Settlement Agreement, limit the amount of time children can be detained by immigration officials. It also requires the government to provide children in its custody with adequate food, water and clean clothes. The administration's move to terminate the Flores agreement was long anticipated. In a court motion filed Thursday, the justice department argued that the Flores agreement should be 'completely' terminated, claiming it has incentivized unauthorized border crossings and 'prevented the federal government from effectively detaining and removing families'. Donald Trump also tried to end these protections during his first term, making very similar arguments. Related: Ice arrests at immigration courts across the US stirring panic: 'It's terrifying' The move to end protections follows a slew of actions by the Trump administration that target children, including restarting the practice of locking up children along with their parents in family detention. Immigration advocacy groups have alleged in a class-action lawsuit filed earlier this month that unaccompanied children are languishing in government facilities after the administration unveiled policies making it exceedingly difficult for family members in the US to take custody of them. The president and lawmakers have also sought to cut off unaccompanied children's access to legal services and make it harder for families in detention to seek legal aid. 'Eviscerating the rudimentary protections that these children have is unconscionable,' said Mishan Wroe, senior attorney at the National Center for Youth Law. 'At this very moment, babies and toddlers are being detained in family detention, and children all over the country are being detained and separated from their families unnecessarily.' The effort to suspend the Flores agreement 'bears the Trump administration's hallmark disregard for the rule of law – and for the wellbeing of toddlers who have done no wrong', said Faisal al-Juburi of the Texas-based legal non-profit Raices. 'This administration would rather enrich private prison contractors with the $45bn earmarked for immigrant detention facilities in the House's depraved spending bill than to uphold basic humanitarian protections for babies.' The Trump administration in 2019 asked a judge to dissolve the Flores Settlement Agreement, but its motion was struck down. During the Biden administration, a federal judge agreed to partially lift oversight protections at the Department of Health and Human Services, but the agreement is still in place at the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agencies. 'Children who seek refuge in our country should be met with open arms – not imprisonment, deprivation and abuse,' said Sergio Perez, executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law. The settlement is named for Jenny Flores, a 15-year-old girl who fled civil war in El Salvador and was part of a class-action lawsuit alleging widespread mistreatment of children in custody in the 1980s. Since the settlement agreement was reached in 1997, lawyers and advocates have successfully sued the government several times to end the mistreatment of immigrant children. In 2018, attorneys sued after discovering unaccompanied children had been administered psychotropic medication without informed consent. In 2024, a court found that CBP had breached the agreement when it detained children and families at open-air detention sites at the US southern border without adequate access to sanitation, medical care, food, water or blankets. In some cases, children were forced to seek refuge in portable toilets from the searing heat and bitter cold.
