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Worldnews
AI Is Fuelling A New Wave Of Border Vigilantism In The US
~3.0 mins read
A new platform offers crypto rewards for border surveillance — and invites anyone to join the hunt. In Arizona’s borderlands, the desert is already deadly. People crossing into the United States face blistering heat, dehydration, and exhaustion. But for years, another threat has stalked these routes: Armed vigilante groups who take it upon themselves to police the border – often violently, and outside the law. They have long undermined the work of humanitarian volunteers trying to save lives. Now, a new artificial intelligence platform is actively encouraging more people to join their ranks. ICERAID.us, recently launched in the United States, offers cryptocurrency rewards to users who upload photos of “suspicious activity” along the border. It positions civilians as front-line intelligence gatherers – doing the work of law enforcement, but without oversight. The site opens to a map of the United States, dotted with red and green pins marking user-submitted images. Visitors are invited to add their own. A “Surveillance Guidance” document outlines how to capture images legally in public without a warrant. A “Breaking News” section shares updates and new partnerships. The platform is fronted by Enrique Tarrio – a first-generation Cuban American, far-right figure and self-styled “ICE Raid Czar”, who describes himself as a “staunch defender of American values”. I have been researching border surveillance since 2017. Arizona is a place I return to often. I’ve worked with NGOs and accompanied search-and-rescue teams like Battalion Search and Rescue, led by former US Marine James Holeman, on missions to recover the remains of people who died attempting the crossing. During that time, I’ve also watched the region become a laboratory for high-tech enforcement: AI towers from an Israeli company now scan the desert; automated licence plate readers track vehicles far inland; and machine-learning algorithms – developed by major tech companies – feed data directly into immigration enforcement systems. This is not unique to the United States. In my book The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, I document how similar technologies are being deployed across Europe and the Middle East – from spyware in Greek refugee camps to predictive border enforcement by the EU’s border agency, Frontex. These tools extend surveillance and control. They do not bring accountability or safety. Since Donald Trump’s re-election in 2024, these trends have accelerated. Surveillance investment has surged. Private firms have flourished. ICE has expanded its powers to include unlawful raids, detentions and deportations. Military units have been deployed to the US-Mexico border. Now, ICERAID adds a new layer – by outsourcing enforcement to the public. The platform offers crypto rewards to users who upload and verify photographic “evidence” across eight categories of alleged criminal activity. The more contributions and locations submitted, the more tokens earned. Surveillance becomes gamified. Suspicion becomes a revenue stream. This is especially dangerous in Arizona, where vigilante violence has a long history. Paramilitary-style groups have detained people crossing the border without legal authority, sometimes forcing them back into Mexico. Several people are known to have died in such encounters. ICERAID does not check this behaviour – it normalises it, providing digital tools and financial incentives for civilians to act like enforcers. Even more disturbing is the co-optation of resistance infrastructure. ICERAID’s URL, www.iceraid.us, is nearly identical to www.iceraids.us, the website of People Over Papers, a community-led initiative that tracks ICE raids and protects undocumented communities. The similarity is no accident. It is a deliberate move to confuse and undermine grassroots resistance. ICERAID is not an anomaly. It is a clear reflection of a broader system – one that criminalises migration, rewards suspicion, and expands enforcement through private tech and public fear. Public officials incite panic. Corporations build the tools. Civilians are enlisted to do the job. Technology is never neutral. It mirrors and amplifies existing power structures. ICERAID does not offer security – it builds a decentralised surveillance regime in which racialised suspicion is monetised and lives are reduced to data. Recognising and resisting this system is not only necessary to protect people on the move. It is essential to the survival of democracy itself. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance. Follow Al Jazeera English:...
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Worldnews
Political Violence Is Quintessentially American
~4.3 mins read
The US cannot claim innocence – political violence shaped its past and defines its present. Violence begets violence, so many religions say. Americans should know. After all, the United States – a nation founded on Indigenous genocide, African enslavement and open rebellion against an imperial power to protect its wealthiest citizens – cannot help but be violent. What’s more, violence in the US is political, and the violence the country has carried out overseas over the generations has always been connected to its imperialist ambitions and racism. From the US bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites on June 21 to the everyday violence in rhetoric and reality within the US, the likes of President Donald Trump continue to stoke the violent impulses of a violence‑prone nation. The US news cycle serves as continual confirmation. In June alone, there have been several high‑profile shootings and murders. On June 14, Vance Boelter, a white male vigilante, shot and killed former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, after critically wounding State Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette. That same day, at a No Kings mass protest in Salt Lake City, Utah, peacekeepers with the 50501 Movement accidentally shot and killed Samoan fashion designer Arthur Folasa Ah Loo while attempting to take down Arturo Gamboa, who was allegedly armed with an AR‑15. On June 1, the start of Pride Month, Sigfredo Ceja Alvarez allegedly shot and murdered gay Indigenous actor Jonathan Joss in San Antonio, Texas. On June 12, Secret Service agents forcibly detained and handcuffed US Senator Alex Padilla during Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s news conference in Los Angeles. Mass shootings, white vigilante violence, police brutality, and domestic terrorism are all normal occurrences in the United States – and all are political. Yet US leaders still react with hollow platitudes that reveal an elitist and narcissistic detachment from the nation’s violent history. “Such horrific violence will not be tolerated in the United States of America. God bless the great people of Minnesota…” said Governor Tim Walz after Boelter’s June 14 shootings. On X, Republican Representative Derrick Van Orden wrote: “Political violence has no place in America. I fully condemn this attack…” Despite these weak condemnations, the US often tolerates – and sometimes celebrates – political violence. Van Orden also tweeted, “With one horrible governor that appoints political assassins to boards. Good job, stupid,” in response to Walz’s message. Senator Mike Lee referred to the incident as “Nightmare on Waltz Street” before deleting the post. Political violence in the US is commonplace. President Trump has long fostered it – such as during a presidential debate in Philadelphia, when he falsely claimed Haitian immigrants “eat their neighbours’ pets”. This led to weeks of threats against the roughly 15,000 Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. On June 9, Trump posted on Truth Social: “IF THEY SPIT, WE WILL HIT… harder than they have ever been hit before.” That led to a federally-sanctioned wave of violence against protesters in Los Angeles attempting to end Trump’s immigration crackdowns, including Trump’s takeover and deployment of California’s National Guard in the nation’s second-largest city. But it’s not just that Trump may have a lust for political violence and is stoking such violence. The US has always been a powder keg for violence, a nation-state that cannot help itself. Political violence against elected officials in the US is too extensive to list fully. Assassins murdered Presidents Abraham Lincoln, James A Garfield, William McKinley, and John F Kennedy. In 1804, Vice‑President Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Populist candidate Huey Long was assassinated in 1935; Robert F Kennedy in 1968; Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was wounded in 2011. Many assassins and vigilantes have targeted those fighting for social justice: Dr Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, Elijah Parish Lovejoy, Marsha P. Johnson, and civil‑rights activists like Medgar Evers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, Viola Liuzzo, and Fred Hampton. Jonathan Joss and Arthur Folasa Ah Loo are more recent examples of marginalised people struck down in a white‑supremacist society. The most chilling truth of all is that, because of the violent nature of the US, there is no end in sight – domestically or overseas. The recent US bomb mission over Iran is merely the latest unprovoked preemptive attack the superpower has conducted on another nation. Trump’s unilateral use of military force was done, presumably, in support of Israel’s attacks on Iran, allegedly because of the threat Iran poses if it ever arms itself with nuclear weapons. But these are mere excuses that could also be violations of international law. It wouldn’t be the first time the US has sought to start a war based on questionable intelligence or reasons, however. The most recent example, of course, is the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, a part of George W Bush’s “preemptive war” doctrine, attacking Iraq because they supposedly had a stockpile of WMDs that they could use against the US in the future. There was never any evidence of any stockpile of chemical or biological weapons. As many as 2.4 million Iraqis have died from the resulting violence, statelessness, and civil war that the initial 2003 US invasion created. It has not gone unnoticed that the US mostly bombs and invades nation-states with majority people of colour and non-Christian populations. Malcolm X said it best, a week after Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated John F Kennedy in 1963: “Being an old farm boy myself, chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they’ve always made me glad.” Given that Americans consume nine billion chickens a year, that is a huge amount of retribution to consider for the nation’s history of violence. Short of repealing the Second Amendment’s right-to-bear-guns clause in the US Constitution and a real commitment towards eliminating the threat of white male supremacist terrorism, this violence will continue unabated, with repercussions that will include terrorism and revenge, domestically and internationally. A country with a history of violence, elitism, and narcissism like the US – and an individual like Trump – cannot divorce themselves from their own violent DNA, a violence that could one day consume this nation-state. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance. Follow Al Jazeera English:...
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Worldnews
Indias Lion Numbers Soar: Why Are Some Conservationists Worried?
~7.4 mins read
The latest census puts India’s wild lion population at 891 lions, a 32 percent increase from 2020. But is it all good news? On May 21, the forest department of the western Indian state of Gujarat released results of the country’s first lion population estimation since 2020. According to the census, India’s wild lion population – exclusively concentrated in Gujarat – has risen by 32 percent over the past five years to 891 lions. India’s lion conservation efforts have long been focused on the Gir forest and surrounding areas of Gujarat, especially since the creation of the Gir National Park and Sanctuary in 1965. Today, lions have dispersed and established separate satellite populations outside the Gir region and are found in 11 districts in Gujarat. But for the first time, the census counted more lions across nine satellite populations (497) than the core population (394) in Gir. These include three new populations in neighbouring districts of Gir, including the Barda Wildlife Sanctuary, areas around Jetpur city, and areas around Babra and Jasdan towns — all in Gujarat. The census report has earmarked Barda Wildlife Sanctuary as a “second home” for the big cat in Gujarat, echoing the stance of the state and central governments, which also have argued in favour of developing and managing Barda to host more lions. Indeed, that is one of the primary goals of the 29,277 million Indian rupee ($341m) Project Lion conservation programme announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in March. But the surging number of lions masks challenges that confront the future of the species in India, say experts, and questions remain over whether the country is doing enough to minimise human-animal conflict and ensure the long-term conservation of the animal. On June 25, a lion mauled a five-year-old boy to death in Gujarat’s Amreli district, after dragging the child away from a farm. We unpack the key findings of the census and the key battles ahead for the big cat in India. As per the Gujarat Forest Department, the lion population estimation was conducted over two 24-hour recording schedules from May 11-13. The state’s lion landscape was divided into 735 sampling regions, each entrusted to an enumerator and two assistant enumerators. Lions were located and photographed with digital cameras, and cross-verified with adjacent sampling regions to avoid duplication, according to the report. Yadvendradev Jhala, an expert on big cat conservation and formerly with the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), however, cautioned that “total count of wide-ranging wild carnivores is not a scientific way of estimating their population”. Ravi Chellam, a veteran wildlife biologist involved with lion conservation since 1985, questioned the logic of a methodology that required field staff to stay alert for 24 hours on two full days in 72 hours. “One can well imagine the fatigue levels and diminished state of alertness of the field staff,” he said. “I find it difficult to believe that reliable and accurate data can be collected with such an approach.” According to both experts, there are more robust and reliable scientific methods, like combining photographs of lions with the use of whisker patterns – similar to human fingerprints – to identify individual lions. Still, Jhala said that the actual count is likely not very different from the census number. Experts say that a combination of the Gujarat state government’s policies and the adaptability of lions has contributed to the successful rise in the numbers. According to Jhala, lions will continue to expand their population as long as there is food and cover available, and the animals aren’t attacked. “There is food in the form of livestock, dead carcasses for scavenging, as well as feral cattle for predation,” he said. The Gujarat government’s “compensation for livestock loss is almost near market value and is revised regularly to reflect current market rates,” Jhala said. This has allowed continued human-lion coexistence. Meanwhile, the new census shows that the coastal Gujarat district of Bhavnagar and adjacent areas along the state’s coast – far from the dry deciduous habitats of Gir – are now home to 212 lions. The thorny shrubs of the invasive Prosopis juliflora species (a kind of mesquite) along the coast provide “refuge for lions through the day, and they can come out at night to feed in agropastoral landscapes,” Jhala said. Since 2010, Gujarat’s lion population has more than doubled, and their territorial range has increased by 75 percent, from 20,000 to 35,000 square kilometres (7,700 to 13,500 square miles). However, only 1800sq km falls under protected areas, of which only 250sq km is exclusive to lions. According to the census, 45 percent of lions recorded were found in non-forested areas such as wastelands, agricultural lands and near human habitats. “They run the risk of falling into open wells, being run over by heavy vehicles and trains, getting electrocuted and also contracting infections,” Chellam said. He pointed out that lions have been regularly documented in unusual locations such as the terraces of homes, in the basement parking lots of hotels, and on busy highways. Chellam argued that “the region as a whole has far exceeded its carrying capacity.” He says it’s not sensible to have an “increasing lion population in what are essentially human habitations”. Jhala agreed. “The question is: How much are people willing to tolerate a large carnivore in their neighbourhood?” According to a human-lion conflict study in the Conservation Biology journal published in November, there has been a 10 percent annual increase in the number of villages in Gujarat reporting livestock attacks and a 15 percent increase in livestock killed per year. The paper uses data collected from 2012-2017. Jhala, who a co-author of the study, anticipates growing human-lion conflict. “It’s not easy to live with a large carnivore,” he said. “You learn that you can’t let your kids roam around in the fields at night, that you need to clear the vegetation near your huts, that going out for defecation in the field during twilight hours is to be prevented, that you need walled corrals for your livestock.” Chellam agreed. “While the increase in the number of lions is viewed by many, and especially the government, as a positive sign, the reality is that more and more lions are risking themselves as well as the lives of tens of thousands of people,” he said. “There have been numerous instances of people harassing lions and also an increasing trend of lions attacking people.” As per the census report, for the first time since 1879, the Barda Wildlife Sanctuary has an established lion population (17) within its range. While the Gujarat government pitches Barda as a “second home” for lions, Chellam and Jhala say its small size and proximity to Gir mean that it fails the test of what qualifies as a geographically distinct habitat that can sustain a “second” lion population. “The satellite population in Barda counts as a range expansion for lions, but it cannot be considered a separate population since they are contiguous with Gir,” Jhala said. “The whole point in translocating lions to establish a ‘second’ free-ranging population is to ensure geographical isolation, to mitigate the risks of having the entire population of an endangered species at a single site,” Chellam explained. Barda is 100km from Gir, and just 200sq km in size, compared with 1,400sq km of core protected area in Gir. “It [Barda] is a small area with a very low-density prey population. It is incapable of hosting a viable population of lions,” he added. “The risks are numerous and include cyclones, floods, forest fires, disease outbreaks, political decisions, droughts, poaching, violence and wars.” That’s a question that has piqued conservationists – and frustrated even the Supreme Court of India. In April 2013, the country’s top court ordered the Gujarat state government to translocate a few Asiatic lions to Kuno National Park in the neighbouring state of Madhya Pradesh within six months to create a geographically separate, free-ranging lion population. Kuno, with its large tracts of forests and grasslands, was identified as having the perfect landscape and prey base for lions. Though the Gujarat government assured the top court that it would comply with the order, 12 years later, the order is still to be implemented, and neither the federal nor the state government has faced any consequences. “It is very disappointing to see the levels of impunity with which the state government of Gujarat and also the government of India have been operating when it comes to the translocation of lions to Kuno,” Chellam said. According to Jhala, it is also a failure on the part of wildlife biologists and conservationists. “You cannot do conservation without the government. I think biologists have failed in convincing the government that Kuno is an ideal place to have a second home for lions,” Jhala said. On September 17, 2022, eight Southeast African Cheetahs were flown in from Namibia to Kuno National Park as part of India’s efforts to reintroduce the cheetah to the country. Cheetahs had previously gone extinct in India in 1952. However, the introduction of cheetahs to Kuno set off a debate over whether that would impede plans to also move lions to the Madhya Pradesh reserve. Jhala, who led the 2022 plan to bring cheetahs back to India, said it was “fantastic” to have the animals back in India – and that lions and cheetahs could easily coexist in Kuno. “In no way do cheetahs prevent lions from going there. In fact, they would do better than cheetahs, the landscape and prey base in Kuno is perfect for lions,” he said. Bringing in lions could also be helpful for cheetahs, Jhala added. Kuno has one of the highest leopard densities in the world, at 22 leopards per 100sq km. Leopards pose more of a predatory threat to cheetahs; lions can help reduce leopard density as they prey on leopards, especially the young ones. Chellam, though, questioned the intentions of the cheetah reintroduction plan, which he alleged was “more to continue to stall and delay the translocation of lions [to Kuno] rather than to conserve cheetahs”. Like Jhala, Chellam said that lions would do well in Kuno. “Lions are very hardy and robust animals. If the translocation is planned and carried out carefully, there is no reason for the lions not to thrive in Kuno.” “It [lions in Gujarat] is a wonderful conservation story,” Jhala said. “But a lot can be done for the lion as a species. Forget about Kuno; we should try and establish lion populations across its historical range, within and outside of India”. The old range of lions in Asia extended from Persia to eastern India – the last of Asia’s lions outside India were shot and killed in Iran in the 1940s. The current concentration of lions in just Gujarat, Chellam said, was a “ticking time bomb”. With lion numbers ballooning in human habitats, he said it was important for the government to recognise that “space and availability of good quality habitats are a severe constraint [in Gujarat].” Follow Al Jazeera English:...
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Explosive: US Supreme Court Deals Blow To Those Challenging Trumps Power
~5.1 mins read
The ruling makes it harder for judges to nationally block controversial executive orders as they are challenged in court. Washington, DC – The United States Supreme Court has dealt a major blow to those challenging Donald Trump’s use of presidential power, in what the president and his allies have hailed as a major victory. In its decision on Friday, the nine-member panel weighed whether courts could block an executive order on birthright citizenship. The court did not rule directly on the president’s order, which would limit citizenship for US-born children based on their parents’ immigration status. But in a six-to-three ruling, the court’s conservative supermajority did severely curtail the ability of judges to issue so-called universal injunctions: blanket bans on presidential actions stemming from legal challenges. The court’s move, according to Allen Orr, the former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), is nothing short of “explosive”. “For lawyers and people who practice law, this is a drastic change from the way we’ve had courts run in the past,” he told Al Jazeera. “It’s weakening the judiciary yet again, as a balancing act [against the executive branch].” Friday’s ruling lifts the nationwide block on Trump’s executive order that seeks to redefine birthright citizenship, which generally allows those born on US soil to be recognised as American citizens. However, Trump’s order, signed just hours after he took office for a second term on January 20, would restrict citizenship for individuals born to undocumented parents in the US. That “opens the door to partial enforcement” of Trump’s order, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), one of several groups that have challenged the attempted policy. That is, at least until the Supreme Court makes a determination on whether birthright citizenship is indeed protected by the US Constitution, as proponents – and the court’s own precedents – have long maintained. If no further action is taken, in theory, the order could be blocked in the handful of states where judges have already issued injunctions related to at least 10 individual lawsuits. But it could go into effect in dozens of other states where judges have issued no such injunction. The Supreme Court’s ruling says Trump’s order will not be enforceable for at least 30 days. But Leon Fresco – a former deputy assistant attorney general who oversaw immigration at the Justice Department under President Barack Obama – warned that, after that 30-day period, there could be grave consequences for the newborn children of immigrants. “If there isn’t an injunction in your jurisdiction that prevents the executive order from being implemented and you’re born to a parent without a status that confers you citizenship, then the government could deny you either a passport, if you apply for a passport, or a Social Security number,” he told Al Jazeera. The decision on Friday does not completely remove the possibility of a judge issuing a nationwide injunction to an executive order. Legal experts say it just severely restricts the avenues. Prior to the decision, groups and individuals could launch a panoply of legal challenges in federal courts across the country, any of which could result in nationwide injunctions. Now, a judge can only issue a blanket pause in response to a class action lawsuit, which is a complaint brought on behalf of an entire “class” of people. The process is typically more complex, time-consuming and costly. The Supreme Court’s majority opinion, Fresco explained, also clarified that only one nationwide class action lawsuit can represent a specific challenge. “There wouldn’t be this ability, which happens now, where plaintiffs can file cases in five or six different courts, in hopes of getting one judge in any of those courts to issue a nationwide injunction,” he said. “With the class action, you’ll only have the one time to win,” he added. “If you lost, you’d have to hope that the appellate court changed it, or that the Supreme Court changed it.” Class action lawsuits also have stringent requirements for who can participate. A judge must agree that all plaintiffs are pursuing the same case and that there are no substantial differences in their claims. Shortly after Friday’s ruling, the plaintiff, CASA Inc, an immigration advocacy group, swiftly refiled its legal challenge against Trump’s birthright citizenship order. Now, it is pursuing the case as a class action lawsuit. Critics, meanwhile, took aim at the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority. Even Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a liberal judge on the nine-member panel, criticised her colleagues for ruling on national injunctions but not on Trump’s executive order, which she called blatantly unconstitutional. “The majority ignores entirely whether the President’s Executive Order is constitutional, instead focusing only on the question whether federal courts have the equitable authority to issue universal injunctions,” Sotomayor wrote. “Yet the Order’s patent unlawfulness reveals the gravity of the majority’s error.” Absent a class action lawsuit, individuals and groups will be forced to launch their own lawsuits to get individual reprieves from potentially illegal presidential orders. That’s because the conservative supermajority ruled that court injunctions in most cases should only apply to the plaintiffs in the lawsuit at hand. In a post on the social media platform X, Democratic Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz wrote that the Supreme Court’s decision allows Trump to “rip away birthright citizenship, forcing individuals to file burdensome lawsuits to get it back”. But Friday’s decision not only restricts who is protected by a given court injunction, it also has sway over how much the judicial branch of government can continue to serve as a bulwark against the executive branch. Critics of universal injunctions have long accused federal judges of overstepping their authority by blocking presidential action. Among those celebrating Friday’s decision was Senator Chuck Grassley, who has spearheaded legislation on the issue. In a statement, he called such injunctions an “unconstitutional affront to our nation’s system of checks and balances” that “ought to be stopped for good”. Proponents, however, say the ability for judges to issue swift, wide-reaching pauses on controversial policies is needed to safeguard against presidential overreach. Many see Trump as taking the expansion of presidential powers to a new level during his second term. Since returning to office for a second term, Trump has issued 164 executive orders, surpassing the 162 issued by former President Joe Biden during his entire presidency. That number – for a span of about five months – is rapidly approaching the total for Trump’s entire first term: 220. Meanwhile, federal judges issued at least 25 national injunctions to Trump’s orders during his first 100 days in office, some of which paused cuts to federal funding, attacks on diversity initiatives and overhauls to the US immigration systems. Some of those court cases will likely be re-challenged in light of the latest ruling, experts said. In a post on X, Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat, warned the courts ruling “will only embolden Trump and his dismantling of our federal government”. “It will create an unworkable patchwork of laws that shift depending on who you are or what state you’re in.” Orr, the former law association president, agreed with that assessment. “This decision does not build consistency across the United States at a time when people need these standards,” he said. “People do not have time or money to wait to have these issues resolved.” Follow Al Jazeera English:...
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