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Worldnews

Trump Revokes Legal Status For 530,000 Immigrants In The US

Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans could face deportation from April 24. United States President Donald Trump’s administration will revoke the temporary legal status of 530,000 people including Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans in the United States, according to a Federal Register notice. The move, the latest expansion of Trump’s crackdown on immigration, is effective from April 24, and cuts short a two-year “parole” granted to the immigrants under former President Joe Biden that allowed them to enter the country by air if they had US sponsors. A group of American citizens and immigrants sued the Trump administration for ending humanitarian parole and are seeking to reinstate the programmes for the four nationalities. Biden launched the parole entry programme for Venezuelans in 2022 and expanded it to Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans in 2023 as his administration grappled with high levels of undocumented immigration from those nationalities. Diplomatic and political relations between the four countries and the United States have been strained. The new legal pathways came as Biden also tried to clamp down on illegal crossings at the US-Mexico border. Trump, who campaigned on a harsh anti-immigration line, took immediate steps to ramp up enforcement after taking office, including a push to deport record numbers of people who reside in the US without official documentation. He has argued that the legal entry parole programmes launched under his Democratic predecessor overstepped the boundaries of federal law, and he called for their termination in a January 20 executive order. His administration’s decision to strip the legal status from half a million immigrants could make many vulnerable to deportation if they choose to remain in the US. It remains unclear how many who entered the country on parole now have another form of protection or legal status. In a notice set to be formally published in the Federal Register on Monday, the US Department of Homeland Security said revoking the parole status would make it easier to place these immigrants in a fast-track deportation process known as “expedited removal”. Karen Tumlin, director of immigrant rights group Justice Action Center, said the Trump administration was “breaking a commitment the federal government made to the hundreds of thousands” of immigrants and their sponsors in the United States. “Suddenly revoking the lawful status of hundreds of thousands of CHNV (Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans) humanitarian parole recipients is going to cause needless chaos and heartbreak for families and communities across the country,” she told the AFP news agency in a statement. Nicolette Glazer, an immigration lawyer in California, said the latest order would affect the “vast majority” of the half a million immigrants who entered the United States under the CHNV scheme. “The chaos will be unreal,” she added on X. On March 6, Trump said he would also decide “very soon” whether to strip the parole status from some 240,000 Ukrainians who fled to the US during the war with Russia. Under a Trump-era policy implemented in January, expedited removal can be applied to certain immigrants in the US for two years or less. In the meantime, Venezuela has reached an agreement to resume repatriation flights of immigrants from the United States, the Venezuelan government said in a statement Saturday. “Migrating isn’t a crime, and we won’t rest until everyone who wants to return is back and we rescue our kidnapped brothers in El Salvador,” the statement said. Follow Al Jazeera English:...

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Trying To Heal The Trauma Of Israeli Raids In The Occupied West Bank

In Tulkarem and Jenin, dedicated volunteers work to help the people traumatised and displaced by Israel’s raids. Jenin and Tulkarem, occupied West Bank – Omaima Faraj bows her head in silence for a moment – she’s tired, but the work does not stop. She arrives at a school-turned-shelter near Tulkarem where her first patient, an elderly displaced woman who greets her tenderly, is waiting for her to measure her glucose and blood pressure. Then she moves to the next classroom, the next patient, walking down an open passage drenched in late-February sunshine. Faraj, 25, has been volunteering to help residents devastated by the Israeli raids for weeks. She is one of the young Palestinians working to address the emergency Israel is creating across the occupied West Bank as it raids refugee camps and displaces thousands. When Israel’s military occupation and displacement of the camp began in what the Israelis have called operation “Iron Wall”, on January 21, Faraj rushed into Tulkarem’s refugee camp instead of running away from the violence. She stayed there with her fellow volunteers for more than 12 critical days when the attacks were at their fiercest and people were still trying to organise to flee the camp. They focused on delivering aid to people in need – the injured, the elderly, and people with limited mobility. Nobody could get to a hospital because the Israeli soldiers wouldn’t let them. Israeli soldiers harassed the volunteers, Faraj recounts, describing how they would threaten her and her colleagues, telling them to leave and never return or they’d be shot. One incident particularly haunts her, of an elderly man who was trapped in his house for four days. The team kept trying to reach him, but Israeli soldiers blocked their path. Finally, the International Committee of the Red Cross intervened, coordinating with the Israelis to allow safe passage for the volunteers. When they reached the man, he was in dire straits – lacking food, water and hygiene for four days, but they were finally able to evacuate him. As they were leaving, they were goaded, warned not to return – or risk being shot. “We didn’t have an emergency plan for this,” says Alaa Srouji, director of the Al-Awda Center in Tulkarem. Al-Awda and the Lajee Center of Aida Camp in Bethlehem are training volunteers to document the expulsions of people and camp conditions so they can assess the aid needed. The volunteers are about 15 mostly female nurses and medics who came together when the Israeli raids began, to provide medical aid and distribute essentials to the thousands who were harmed. Their young faces show the toll of nearly two months of working nonstop with people displaced by the Israeli attack on the Nur Shams and Tulkarem camps. They are struggling to fill a huge gap left when Israel banned the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) from helping people in the occupied West Bank. These volunteers don’t have headquarters, they spend all day walking around to serve people with nothing more than their backpacks and determination. They go to one of the 11 temporary, hurriedly set up shelters or wherever their patients have managed to find a place to live. They bring medical and psychological support and also clothes, food, and other necessities to those who have lost everything to Israel’s raiding soldiers. In their backpacks are gauze, portable glucose monitors, gloves, bandages, tourniquets, manual blood pressure monitors, notebooks and pens. “Our role as a local community is so important,” says Alaa. The volunteers must also support each other emotionally, holding group sessions to cope with the toll of working within their devastated communities. Many of them are from the camp, so they are also displaced, targeted, and have seen their neighbourhoods levelled by Israeli bulldozers. Faraj is no different. Like many Palestinians, she is marked by loss and violence after her 18-year-old brother was killed by an Israeli drone in January 2024. The camp is a no-go zone. Some displaced residents take the risk of returning to their homes to try to retrieve some of their belongings. They navigate rubble-filled streets, the stench of rotting food left behind in now-abandoned houses, and sewers torn open by bulldozers, while Israeli soldiers patrol and drones hover overhead, searching for movement inside the camp. An hour’s drive from Tulkarem is Jenin, and 10 minutes from Jenin is a village called Kafr Dan where an unusual sound filters in the air – children’s laughter. About 20 children roam around the garden of a large house. They’re gathered into a rough circle by trainers who encourage them to speak – loudly – to let out their fear and anger. The activity is organised by the Freedom Theater of Jenin, which came to Kafr Dan to provide this moment of respite for displaced children to simply be, at least for a moment. They started up inside Jenin camp as a space where children and youth could participate in cultural activities but have been blocked by the Israeli army from being there. So, “We bring the theatre to the children,” says Shatha Jarrar, one of the three activity coordinators. The children are encouraged to be as loud as they like, to scream out the fear and anger they hold inside after the violence they have been exposed to. A game involving a small ball balanced on a spoon is next, making the children laugh again and their watching mothers smile, happy to see their children happy. Sitting by the side is a smiling Um Muhammed, 67, who has brought some of the children to join the activities. They’re not her children, though, as she has offered shelter in her house to a family of seven who have recently been displaced from Jenin. Um Muhammed was displaced in 2002, during the second Intifada, her home in the Jenin refugee camp destroyed by Israeli forces back when her three children were small. They are older now, she says, her eyes darting around as she recalls the trauma of displacement. They’ve got children of their own, and she is a grandmother. Um Muhammed knows all too well the fear of Israeli tanks rolling in and explosions echoing. That’s why, now, she insists on helping people going through the same thing. Shatha, 26, and her two co-organisers start putting their equipment away, stowing it in backpacks. Activities are done for today. Shatha became aware of the Freedom Theater when she attended a programme there as a child and later decided to dedicate her time to the theatre’s legacy. “Theatre is a different world and a way of life. My work with children is part of this world. The children are our tomorrow,” she says. Near her is a mother – who prefers to withhold her name – who was watching her children. She, her husband and two children lived through the dystopian sight of Israeli drone quadcopters blaring orders to evacuate. Then came the Apache helicopters hovering in the sky, drone attacks, and a fleet of armoured vehicles invading, accompanied by heavily armed Israeli soldiers. Her eyes widen and her speech quickens, the memories fresh as she tells her story. Finally, as they left, they had to stand while Israeli soldiers scanned their faces and arrested some of the men trying to leave. When they first left, she had held out hope that they would be allowed back in a few days. But the reality of their displacement is slowly settling in. Follow Al Jazeera English:...

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Worldnews

South African Ambassador Expelled By Trump Receives Heros Welcome At Home

Ebrahim Rasool addresses supporters, calling his persona non grata status a badge of dignity after his US expulsion. The South African ambassador who was expelled from the United States in a row with US President Donald Trump’s administration has arrived home to a raucous welcome and struck a defiant tone over the decision. Crowds at Cape Town International Airport surrounded Ebrahim Rasool and his wife Rosieda on Sunday as they emerged in the arrivals terminal in their hometown. They needed a police escort to help them navigate their way through the building. “A declaration of persona non grata is meant to humiliate you,” Rasool told supporters as he addressed them with a megaphone. “But when you return to crowds like this, and with warmth … like this, then I will wear my persona non grata as a badge of dignity.” “It was not our choice to come home, but we come home with no regrets.” Rasool also said it was important for South Africa to fix its relationship with the US after Trump punished the country and accused it of taking an anti-American stance even before the decision to expel Rasool. Trump issued an executive order last month cutting all funding to South Africa, alleging its government is supporting the Palestinian group Hamas and Iran, and pursuing anti-white policies at home. South Africa filed a case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in December 2023, which accuses Israel of violating its obligations under the Genocide Convention in its war on the Gaza Strip. More than 10 countries have since joined South Africa in the genocide case. “We don’t come here to say we are anti-American,” Rasool said to the crowd. “We are not here to call on you to throw away our interests with the United States.” They were the ex-ambassador’s first public comments since the Trump administration declared him persona non grata over a week ago, removed his diplomatic immunities and privileges, and gave him until Friday to leave the country. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who issued the declaration on X, said Rasool was a “race-baiting politician” who hates the US and Trump. It is highly unusual for the US to expel a foreign ambassador. Rubio’s post linked to a story by the conservative Breitbart news site that reported on a talk Rasool gave on a webinar organised by a South African think tank. In his talk, Rasool spoke in academic language of the Trump administration’s crackdowns on diversity and equity programmes and immigration and mentioned the possibility of a US where white people soon would no longer be in the majority. Follow Al Jazeera English:...