United States | News & Politics

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As any climate scientist will tell you, we simply do not have time for this foolishness

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7083727

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/14447

Policy experts were skeptical Wednesday that the Trump administration could legally or practically carry out its threat to strip more naturalized Americans of their citizenship. Still, they warned that new guidance issued by the White House to immigration officials would ramp up "fear and terror" in immigrant communities and could portend the targeting of naturalized citizens who President Donald Trump views as adversaries.

The guidance was issued Tuesday to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) field offices, with officers directed to supply the Department of Justice (DOJ) with "100-200 denaturalization cases per month” in the 2026 fiscal year.

The denaturalization process is "deliberately hard" for the federal government, noted American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, and stripping people of the citizenship is a rare step only taken in cases of fraud when they applied to be a citizen or in other narrow circumstances.

As such, between 2017-25, there have been just over 120 denaturalization cases filed with the Office of Immigration Litigation at the DOJ.

Under the first Trump administration, denaturalization cases peaked at 90 in one year in 2018, and the directive issued Tuesday signaled the White House is aiming for a far bigger escalation as it also continues its mass deportation operation and blocks people from seeking asylum as they are permitted to under international law.

Reichlin-Melnick called the directive for a denaturalization quota "vicious and cruel," and pointed out that the president is asking USCIS and the DOJ to take on an onerous task.

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"These cases are hard to file and win, and require a lot of DOJ resources, and the DOJ is stretched thin already. So we’ll see; I have serious doubts about their ability to do this," said Reichlin-Melnick.

USCIS refers cases to the DOJ, which must prove in a federal court that it has "unequivocal evidence" that someone obtained their citizenship illegally or fraudulently.

"The Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that citizenship and naturalization are too precious and fundamental to our democracy for the government to take it away on their whim. Instead of wasting resources digging through Americans’ files, USCIS should do its job of processing applications, as Congress mandated,” Amanda Baran, a former senior USCIS official who served during the Biden administration, told the New York Times.

Naturalized Americans account for 26 million people in the US, with 800,000 people sworn in last year. In most cases, a person who loses their citizenship status is classified as a legal permanent resident.

Trump has repeatedly called to denaturalize Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and to deport her over her criticism of his policies, and has made the same threat against New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist.

In those threatened cases, wrote Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice, earlier this month, "it appears that crime isn’t so much a motivation as disloyalty."

"Stripping citizens of their citizenship in the name of making the electorate more 'American' is arguably one of the most un-American acts imaginable," wrote Waldman. "We are a nation of immigrants and also a nation of laws. The courts must continue to ensure that those laws protect naturalized citizens from being punished for speaking out."

Three other Brennan Center experts also recently wrote about the history of denaturalization efforts in the US, including during the "Red Scare" of the 1950s:

Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin led witch hunts, with denaturalization often used as a tool against accused communists or sympathizers. Among those targets was Harry Bridges, an Australian-born, nationally known labor leader accused of being a communist, who faced an ultimately unsuccessful campaign to revoke his citizenship. The Supreme Court ruled in his favor, not once, but twice.

"This is straight-up Nazi stuff and I’m calling on my fellow Jewish Americans who know where this can lead to be in the vanguard against it," said Dylan Willams, vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, also noting that the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee has endorsed Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.), who has called for the denaturalization and expulsion of Muslim Americans and immigrants.

Sarah Pierce, a former USCIS official, told the Times that Trump's quota for denaturalization cases "risks politicizing citizenship revocation" as it has been in the past.

“And requiring monthly quotas that are 10 times higher than the total annual number of denaturalizations in recent years," she said, "turns a serious and rare tool into a blunt instrument and fuels unnecessary fear and uncertainty for the millions of naturalized Americans.”

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7094160

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/14604

The US military on Thursday bombed two vessels in the eastern Pacific, killing at least five people and pushing the death toll from the Trump administration's lawless military campaign in international waters above 100.

Thursday's strikes marked the third time this week that the US military has bombed boats operated by people accused, without evidence, of smuggling drugs. None of the dozens of strikes that have now killed at least 105 people since early September have been authorized by Congress, and legal experts at home and abroad have said the attacks clearly constitute murder.

Brian Finucane, a senior adviser with the US Program at the International Crisis Group, warned against allowing the Trump administration to normalize and escape accountability for its extrajudicial killings.

"The lawless killing spree continues. Do not become inured," Finucane wrote on social media. "This is premeditated killing outside of armed conflict. We call that murder."

As with previous attacks, the Trump administration attached a short video clip to its announcement of the Thursday strikes, which came amid mounting fears that President Donald Trump is dragging the US into an illegal war with Venezuela and possibly other South American countries.

On Dec. 18, at the direction of @SecWar Pete Hegseth, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted lethal kinetic strikes on two vessels operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations in international waters. Intelligence confirmed that the vessels were transiting along known… pic.twitter.com/CcCyOgYRto
— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) December 19, 2025

But US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is refusing to release footage of at least one of the deadly strikes that he authorized with a verbal order to "kill everybody" onboard the targeted vessel.

"We’re not going to release a top secret, full, unedited video of that to the general public,” Hegseth told reporters earlier this week, referring to footage of a September 2 attack in the Caribbean that killed the survivors clinging to wreckage from an initial strike.

The ACLU's Jeffrey Stein and Christopher Anders wrote Thursday that "if a president can murder civilians at sea and keep the legal justifications secret, we should all be concerned."

"The harm is even worse when basic factual evidence, such as full videos and orders, is also hidden from the American people," they continued. "Transparency can’t wait while the government murders more people. That’s why we’re asking everyone to send a message to their representatives in Congress urging them to act now. Demanding answers, insisting on public hearings, and refusing to accept secret law as a license to kill, is how we can all help stop these unlawful strikes and defend the basic principle that no one—not even the president—is above the law."

The latest bombings came a day after House Republicans blocked a pair of resolutions aimed at stopping the Trump administration's unauthorized boat strikes and march to war with Venezuela.

In the Senate, Ruben Gallego is pushing a new resolution that "orders the US Armed Forces to immediately cease hostilities against vessels in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean unless authorized by Congress."

"If the president believes the use of military force is necessary, he needs to come talk to Congress first and make that case. The decision to use military force is one that requires serious debate, and the power to declare war unambiguously belongs to Congress under the Constitution,” said Gallego. “As an Iraq war veteran, I know the costs of rushing into an unnecessary war and that the American people will not stand for it.”

But Trump insisted Thursday that he doesn't "have to" go to Congress before taking military action.

Asked if war with Venezuela is a possibility, Trump said, "I don’t rule it out."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7101521

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/14742

The US Department of Justice on Friday released a massive—but incomplete—trove containing hundreds of thousands of records related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a move that came as Democratic lawmakers vowed to pursue "all legal options" after the Trump administration blew a deadline to disclose all of the files.

The DOJ uploaded the files—which can be viewed here in the section titled "Epstein Files Transparency Act"—to its website on Friday. Earlier in the day, Deputy US Attorney General Todd Blanche said that the agency would not release all the Epstein files on Friday, as required by the transparency law signed last month by President Donald Trump.

Friday's release includes declassified files, many of them heavily redacted and some of which were already publicly available via court filings, records requests, and media reporting. Files include flight logs and masseuse lists.

Curiously, a search for the words "Trump" and "Epstein" in the posted documents returned no results.

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While not accused of any wrongdoing, Trump was a former close friend of Epstein, who faced federal sex trafficking charges at the time of his suspicious 2019 death in a New York City jail cell.

Responding to the DOJ's document release and delay in fully disclosing the files, Elisa Batista, campaign director at UltraViolet Action, said in a statement that “if the Trump administration had its way, they would undo the sacrifice of survivors who came forward to demand transparency and accountability, as well as all those abused by Epstein who were unable to."

“Trump’s failure to release the Epstein files is an insult to survivors and a further stain on an administration that continuously bends over backwards to protect abusers—and just violated the Epstein Files Transparency Act to do so," Batista added. "We will continue to fight alongside the brave survivors—many of whom were young girls when they were abused by Epstein—who took great risk to reveal Epstein’s globe-spanning sex trafficking network.”

Britt Jacovich, a spokesperson for the progressive political action group MoveOn, said following Friday's release that “President Trump’s Department of Justice is breaking the law by holding all of the Epstein files hostage, and yet again, Trump is doing absolutely nothing."

"Trump doesn’t care about the victims or the millions of Americans calling for justice," Jacovich added. "He only cares about protecting the rich and powerful, even those who abuse young women and children. Every single person named in the Epstein files and involved in the cover-up should face accountability, regardless of their political party. No more delays, no more obstruction.”

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

Jake Paul has finally done something which people can get behind - namely getting his jaw broken in two places

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KOAA) — Mobile speed safety cameras designed to protect school zones are creating unexpected traffic problems for Colorado Springs drivers, according to local residents who say poor placement is causing dangerous backups.

Justin Baker photographed one of the enforcement vehicles parked Thursday morning on Chelton Road in the middle of a traffic lane with a single orange cone for visibility. The placement, near Centennial Elementary School and a busy intersection, created significant traffic delays during the morning commute.

"It’s worth stopping and thinking about this for a second. Bannon, who used his podcast to promote QAnon and claimed to be battling the world’s criminal elite, was trying to help the world’s most notorious sex offender, a billionaire, with his tarnished image and celebrating that neither he nor anyone he conspired with would face justice."

According to our recent survey of officials in Michigan communities, local democracy is humming along and city hall is taking care of business.

The federal government was shut down in October and November 2025, but cities and towns around the United States continued to fill potholes, purify drinking water, respond to emergency calls and issue construction permits, mostly with little fanfare.

But Michiganders should not take this local resilience for granted. Officials – especially in rural communities – are also raising some red flags about declining public engagement, deteriorating public discourse and harassment.

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