Latest news with #Pro-Trump
Axios
2 days ago
- Politics
- Axios
Trump ramps up deportation spectacle with new stunts and ICE funding
The MAGA movement is reveling in the creativity, severity and accelerating force of President Trump's historic immigration crackdown. Why it matters: Once-fringe tactics — an alligator-moated detention camp, deportations to war zones, denaturalization of immigrant citizens — are now being proudly embraced at the highest levels of the U.S. government. It's an extraordinary shift from Trump's first term, when nationwide backlash and the appearance of cruelty forced the administration to abandon its family separation policy for unauthorized immigrants. Six months into his second term — and with tens of billions of dollars in new funding soon flowing to ICE — Trump is only just beginning to scale up his mass deportation machine. Driving the news: Trump on Tuesday toured a temporary ICE facility in the Florida Everglades dubbed " Alligator Alcatraz," where thousands of migrants will be detained in a remote, marshland environment teeming with predators. MAGA influencers invited on the trip gleefully posted photos of the prison's cages and souvenir-style "merchandise," thrilling their followers and horrifying critics. Pro-Trump activist Laura Loomer drew outrage after tweeting that "alligators are guaranteed at least 65 million meals if we get started now" — widely interpreted as a reference to the Hispanic population of the United States. The big picture: Citing the millions of unauthorized immigrants who crossed the border under President Biden, Trump and his MAGA allies have framed the second-term crackdown as a long-overdue purge. The result is an increasingly draconian set of enforcement measures designed to deter, expel and make examples out of unauthorized immigrants. Some newer members of the MAGA coalition, such as podcaster Joe Rogan, have expressed deep discomfort with the targeting of non-criminal undocumented immigrants. Zoom in: Trump's deportation efforts exploded into a full-blown spectacle in March, when the U.S. flew hundreds of alleged gang members to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador. The operation was captured in glitzy promotional footage, distributed on official White House social media, that showed shaved and shackled migrants being marched off planes and busses at gunpoint. Kilmar Ábrego García, a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador but brought back to face human trafficking charges in the U.S., claims he suffered "severe beatings" and was tortured in the prison. Zoom out: Trump's immigration toolkit has expanded since March, as his aides push for a dramatically higher pace of arrests and deportations. Trump federalized the National Guard in California and deployed troops in Los Angeles to protect federal ICE agents, giving the military a rare and highly contentious role in immigration raids. The Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to deport undocumented immigrants to non-origin countries — including war torn nations such as South Sudan and Libya. Hundreds of migrants are being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This week, Trump claimed that "conceptual work" is underway to reopen Alcatraz — the decrepit former island prison in San Francisco, now a tourist site. The latest: On Thursday, ICE announced it had arrested and was preparing to deport Mexican boxer Julio César Chávez Jr. — accusing him of cartel ties just days after he headlined an arena against influencer Jake Paul. What to watch: Denaturalization of U.S. citizens — once a legal backwater — is gaining traction as Trump and his MAGA allies push the envelope on nativist rhetoric. The Justice Department has begun prioritizing stripping naturalized Americans of their citizenship when they're charged with crimes and "illegally procured or misrepresented facts in the naturalization process." But some MAGA influencers are pushing to weaponize denaturalization more broadly — not just as a legal remedy for fraud, but as a tool to punish ideological opponents. Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) has called for the Justice Department to investigate the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and became a U.S. citizen in 2018. Trump has echoed false claims about Mamdani being in the country "illegally," and threatened to arrest the democratic socialist if he impedes federal immigration operations in New York. Between the lines: For MAGA influencers obsessed with the notion of protecting Western civilization, denaturalization is also about enforcing cultural loyalty. Prominent voices on the right have argued that immigrants who haven't properly "assimilated" — by their definition — should be vulnerable to losing their citizenship. "The MAGA movement is willing to make examples of the people who have failed to [assimilate] so that in the future, the bar is set higher," said Raheem Kassam, editor of The National Pulse. The bottom line: MAGA is leveraging a precedent-busting president to set a new standard for immigration enforcement — one that could define Republican policy for years to come.
Time of India
6 days ago
- Automotive
- Time of India
Putin STUNS Zelensky With Next-gen War Machines; Flying Bombs, Lasers Debut On Battlefield
'Hang Your Heads…': Elon Musk's STARTLING Warning To Pro-Trump Brigade Over 'Big Beautiful Bill' Tesla CEO Elon Musk is once again clashing with US President Donald Trump, this time over Trump's "One Big, Beautiful Bill." Musk is publicly shaming lawmakers who support the bill, threatening to fund primary challengers and even launch his own "American Party" if it passes. Get the latest on this high-stakes political drama, as the Senate races to vote by July 4th. 4.0K views | 2 hours ago
Economic Times
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Economic Times
Watch: Aussie journalist hit by rubber bullet on Live TV while covering LA protests over Trump's immigration raids
AP A protestor is detained in downtown Los Angeles, Sunday, June 8, 2025, following immigration raid protest. (AP Photo/Eric Thayer) An Australian journalist has been shot with a rubber bullet in Los Angeles amid riots and protests over immigration raids. As riot police advanced with non-lethal munitions, Channel Nine News' US Correspondent Lauren Tomasi was struck in the leg by a non-lethal rubber bullet. She cried out and immediately grabbed her thigh. Her cameraman asked if she was okay. She replied, 'Yeah, I'm good, I'm good' before retreating to the video: U.S. Correspondent Lauren Tomasi has been caught in the crossfire as the LAPD fired rubber bullets at protesters in the heart of Los Angeles. #9News LATEST: — 9News Australia (@9NewsAUS) June 9, 2025 The protests began Friday in response to ICE-led deportation operations in the fashion district, a Home Depot, and a clothing wholesaler. Reports say more than 100 people were arrested, and federal agents used stun grenades and tear gas to disperse crowds. By Sunday, demonstrations had grown increasingly fierce. Protesters set police vehicles ablaze on major streets. Clashes included pepper spray, flash-bang grenades, and thrown response to the unrest, President Trump ordered the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops in an unprecedented, unilateral move without clearance from California's governor, the first of its kind since 1967. Governor Gavin Newsom denounced the deployment as 'unlawful' and 'purposefully inflammatory,' criticizing it as federal overreach that could escalate violence. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass also questioned the decision's legitimacy and urged calm among Trump defended his actions, calling the protests a 'migrant invasion' and saying federal troops were needed to 'restore order and expel undocumented migrants.' He warned of the possible deployment of active-duty Marines if unrest persisted. Protesters across downtown Los Angeles, along with satellite clashes in Paramount and Compton, blocked highways, launched fireworks, and set vehicles on fire. Police used tear gas and employed ISP enforcement to control crowds. Over 100 arrests occurred, and several people were in Los Angeles arrested approximately 30 individuals on Saturday, including three who were suspected of assaulting an movement has become a focal point in the national debate over immigration and federal versus state authority. Critics, including the ACLU and California Democrats, condemned the deployment as authoritarian. They argue it undercuts state sovereignty and chills peaceful protest. Pro-Trump voices defended the move as essential for public safety.
Time of India
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Watch: Aussie journalist hit by rubber bullet on Live TV while covering LA protests over Trump's immigration raids
An Australian journalist has been shot with a rubber bullet in Los Angeles amid riots and protests over immigration raids. As riot police advanced with non-lethal munitions, Channel Nine News ' US Correspondent Lauren Tomasi was struck in the leg by a non-lethal rubber bullet. She cried out and immediately grabbed her thigh. Her cameraman asked if she was okay. She replied, 'Yeah, I'm good, I'm good' before retreating to safety. Watch the video: U.S. Correspondent Lauren Tomasi has been caught in the crossfire as the LAPD fired rubber bullets at protesters in the heart of Los Angeles. #9News LATEST: — 9News Australia (@9NewsAUS) June 9, 2025 Live Events The protests began Friday in response to ICE-led deportation operations in the fashion district, a Home Depot, and a clothing wholesaler. Reports say more than 100 people were arrested, and federal agents used stun grenades and tear gas to disperse crowds. By Sunday, demonstrations had grown increasingly fierce. Protesters set police vehicles ablaze on major streets. Clashes included pepper spray, flash-bang grenades, and thrown projectiles. In response to the unrest, President Trump ordered the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops in an unprecedented, unilateral move without clearance from California's governor, the first of its kind since 1967. Governor Gavin Newsom denounced the deployment as 'unlawful' and 'purposefully inflammatory,' criticizing it as federal overreach that could escalate violence. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass also questioned the decision's legitimacy and urged calm among citizens. President Trump defended his actions, calling the protests a 'migrant invasion' and saying federal troops were needed to 'restore order and expel undocumented migrants.' He warned of the possible deployment of active-duty Marines if unrest persisted. Protesters across downtown Los Angeles, along with satellite clashes in Paramount and Compton, blocked highways, launched fireworks, and set vehicles on fire. Police used tear gas and employed ISP enforcement to control crowds. Over 100 arrests occurred, and several people were injured. Authorities in Los Angeles arrested approximately 30 individuals on Saturday, including three who were suspected of assaulting an officer. The movement has become a focal point in the national debate over immigration and federal versus state authority. Critics, including the ACLU and California Democrats, condemned the deployment as authoritarian. They argue it undercuts state sovereignty and chills peaceful protest. Pro-Trump voices defended the move as essential for public safety.
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
'He's gotta go': The MAGA right cheers Musk-Trump rift
The Donald Trump-Elon Musk alliance ended like it started, 11 months ago: two of the world's most influential men, on the social networks that they own, posting about each other. But on Thursday afternoon, as Musk mused on X about supporting Trump's impeachment, launching a third party, and exposing his supposed ties to Jeffrey Epstein, nationalist conservatives celebrated the self-exile of a tech billionaire they never trusted. Their man was in the presidency. A South African immigrant who posted cringe, dreamed of microchipped brains, and didn't understand the importance of halting mass immigration was going to become irrelevant. 'Trump is a hero, and Elon Musk is not,' former Trump adviser Steve Bannon said on the Thursday episode of his podcast. Musk's eight-figure support for Trump in 2024 was 'deal baggage,' and the deal had been completed months ago. 'Elon Musk is illegal, and he's gotta go, too,' Bannon said. 'Deport immediately.' Bannon told Semafor late last year that Musk 'wrote a quarter-of-a-f*cking-billion-dollar check when we had no money,' and helped execute a winning GOP strategy. But Musk, he added, was out of sync with a populist economic project more than a decade in the public spat with Trump began on Tuesday, when the former DOGE head began attacking the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, warning that it would 'bankrupt' the country. Democrats rubbernecked from the sidelines, happy to watch Musk make some of their arguments, skeptical that it would amount to anything. Pro-Trump conservatives were on surer footing. They saw the end of Musk's advocacy for policies that clashed with their vision, including visas for highly skilled immigrants and tax credits for electric vehicles. And they spied victory over the GOP's libertarian wing — down to a handful of congressional Republicans, and Musk — who were more worried about deficit reduction than immigration. 'Debt is an important issue,' the pro-Trump influencer Jack Posobiec wrote on X. 'But there is one issue that is more important than all others, and that is Immigration. This bill funds the Mass Deportations.' This faction of MAGA notched one victory before Trump took office. The day after Christmas, when he was slated to lead DOGE alongside Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy defended tech companies that 'hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over 'native' Americans,' arguing that modern America didn't venerate the right skills or ethics. 'A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers,' Ramaswamy wrote. Ramaswamy left DOGE just hours into the Trump presidency, launching a run for governor of Ohio that Trump would soon endorse. But his riff on American competitiveness, and the need for more smart immigrants, became infamous on the nationalist right. 'When an outsider comes here, gets in your face, and starts throwing definitions at you, and you gotta Google sh*t? We're not doing that,' said the comedian Sam Hyde in a livestream dedicated to Ramaswamy. 'You're getting called a slur.' Musk, who had taken Ramaswamy's side in the argument, kept his role in the administration. He was publicly supportive of moves taken to cut grants for Ivy League schools. But as he exited DOGE, and the administration ramped up efforts to bar foreign students from those schools, Musk did not weigh in. 'I think we want to stick to the subject of the day, which is spaceships, as opposed to presidential policy,' he told CBS News last week, when reporter David Pogue asked about the foreign student MAGA self-deportation isn't a total victory for any political faction. The Department of Government Efficiency remains in place; Democrats and liberal groups are still suing to undo its work. And the Musk/DOGE effort to demolish USAID fulfilled a basic nationalist project, pulling back resources for noncitizens and giving the money to Americans. (The agency's offices are being refitted for Customs and Border Protection.) But the long-term Trump project, which has been succeeding all year, is transforming the Republican Party from Reaganite national greatness to nationalism — more like Viktor Orban's Fidesz than George W. Bush's GOP. As progressives and ex-Republicans fret about foreign scientists fleeing the country, as they quote Emma Lazarus and Martin Niemöller, Trump's Republicans are raising tariffs and funding more border wall construction. How far would Trump go to punish Musk? Maybe not as far as Bannon, who wants the government to seize SpaceX and his citizenship. The punishment matters less than the policy, which is to stop seeing the national debt as an existential threat, and understand immigration as an existential threat. Who wins if Trump-endorsed Republicans run on that, and candidates backed by a Musk PAC talk about cutting the deficit? The ending to that story is even more predictable than the ending of this Rep. Ro Khanna, a personal friend of Musk, believed that he could be brought back to the Democratic Party after his fight with Trump. Few Democrats agreed, even though some were using Musk's 'disgusting abomination' language against the OBBBA. Ben Wikler, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said that the donors and voters who helped beat Musk's candidate in the state's supreme court race 'drove a chisel into a crack in the Republican Hoover Dam,' and got a 'historic villain, who is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people,' to slink out of politics. 'A few months ago, politicians in both parties were terrified about crossing Trump, because they thought Musk might fund a primary campaign against them,' Wikler told Semafor. 'He was Trump's No. 1 enforcer. Now, he's been pushed out of the palace, and he's responding by trying to burn the whole thing down.' Musk's approval rating with Democrats, he said, was 'somewhere between anthrax and the bubonic plague.' Oren Cass, whose American Compass hosted Vice President JD Vance this week, predicted the Musk story's ending back in February. 'The good news is that Trump has historically shown himself highly attuned to what is politically achievable and what is politically unwise, and he seems unlikely to allow DOGE to run wild beyond the point of diminishing returns,' he wrote. 'Musk has shown no such judgment. Which likely puts an expiration date on his time in the president's favor.
