Human Rights

As anticipated, US President Donald Trump’s economic and immigration policies are harming American farmers’ ability to earn a living—and testing the loyalty of one of the president’s staunchest bases of support, according to reports published this week.

After Trump slapped 30% tariffs on Chinese imports in May, Beijing retaliated with measures including stopping all purchases of US soybeans. Before the trade war, a quarter of the soybeans—the nation’s number one export crop—produced in the United States were exported to China. Trump’s tariffs mean American soybean growers can’t compete with countries like Brazil, the world’s leading producer and exporter of the staple crop and itself the target of a 50% US tariff.

“We depend on the Chinese market. The reason we depend so much on this market is China consumes 61% of soybeans produced worldwide,” Kentucky farmer Caleb Ragland, who is president of the American Soybean Association, told News Nation on Monday. “Right now, we have zero sold for this crop that’s starting to be harvested right now.”

Ragland continued:

It’s a five-alarm fire for our industry that 25% of our total sales is currently missing. And right now we are not competitive with Brazil due to the retaliatory tariffs that are in place. Our prices are about 20% higher, and that means that the Chinese are going elsewhere because they can find a better value.And the American soybean farmers and their families are suffering. They are 500,000 of us that produce soybeans, and we desperately need markets, and we need opportunity and a leveled playing field.

“There’s an artificial barrier that is built with these tariffs that makes us not be competitive,” Ragland added.

Tennessee Soybean Promotion Council executive director Stefan Maupin likened the tariffs to “death by a thousand cuts.”

“We’re in a significant and desperate situation where... none of the crops that farmers grow right now return a profit,” Maupin told the Tennessee Lookout Monday. “They don’t even break even.”

Alan Meadows, a fifth-generation soybean farmer in Lauderdale County, Tennessee, said that “this has been a really tough year for us.”

“It started off really good,” Meadows said. “We were in the field in late March, which is early for us. But then the wheels came off, so to speak, pretty quick.”

It started with devastating flooding in April, followed by a drier-than-usual summer. Higher supply costs due to inflation and Trump’s tariffs exacerbated the dire situation.

“So much of what has happened and what’s going on here is totally out of our control,” Meadows said. “We just want a free, fair, and open market where we can sell our goods... as competitively as anybody else around the world. And we do feel that we produce a superior product here in the United States, and we just need to have the markets.”

Farmers are desperate for help from the federal government. However, Congress has not passed a new Farm Bill—legislation authorizing funding for agriculture and food programs—since 2018, without which “we do not have a workable safety net program when things like this happen in our economy,” according to Maupin.

Maupin added that farmers “have done everything right, they’ve managed their finances well, they have put in a good crop... but they cannot change the weather, they cannot change the economy, they cannot change the markets.”

“The weather is in the control of a higher power,” he added, “and the economy and the markets are in control of Washington, DC.”

It’s not just soybean farmers who are hurting. Tim Maxwell, a 65-year-old Iowa grain and hog farmer, told the BBC Sunday that “our yields, crops, and weather are pretty good—but our [interest from] markets right now is on a low.”

Despite his troubles, Maxwell remains supportive of Trump, saying that he is “going to be patient,” adding, “I believe in our president.”

However, there is a limit to Maxwell’s patience with Trump.

“We’re giving him the chance to follow through with the tariffs, but there had better be results,” he said. “I think we need to be seeing something in 18 months or less. We understand risk—and it had better pay off.”

It’s also not just Trump’s economic policies that are putting farmers in a squeeze. The president’s anti-immigrant crackdown has left many farmers without the labor they need to operate.

“The whole thing is screwed up,” John Painter, a Pennsylvania organic dairy farmer and three-time Trump voter, told Politico Monday. “We need people to do the jobs Americans are too spoiled to do.”

As Politico noted:

The US agricultural workforce fell by 155,000—about 7%—between March and July, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data. That tracks with Pew Research Center data that shows total immigrant labor fell by 750,000 from January through July. The labor shortage piles onto an ongoing economic crisis for farmers exacerbated by dwindling export markets that could leave them with crop surpluses.

“People don’t understand that if we don’t get more labor, our cows don’t get milked and our crops don’t get picked,” said Tim Wood, another Pennsylvania dairy farmer and a member of the state’s Farm Bureau board of directors.

Charlie Porter, who heads the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau’s Ag Labor and Safety Committee, told Politico that “it’s a shame you have hard-working people who need labor, and a group of people who are willing to work, and they have to look over their shoulder like they’re criminals—they’re not.”

Painter also said that he is “very disappointed” by Trump’s immigration policies.

“It’s not right, what they’re doing,” he said of the administration. “All of us, if we look back in history, including the president, we have somebody that came to this country for the American dream.”

From her home-based day care in Washington D.C., Alma peers out the door and down the sidewalks. If they’re clear and there are no ICE agents out, she’ll give her coworker, an undocumented Latina who lives nearby, a call letting her know it's safe to head in for work.

This story was originally reported by Chabeli Carrazana of The 19th. Meet Chabeli and read more of her reporting on gender, politics and policy.

They have to be careful with the kids, too. Typically, she took the five children she cares for to the library on Wednesdays and out to parks throughout the week, but Alma — who is also undocumented — had to stop doing that in August, when President Donald Trump declared a “crime emergency” in the district. Now, two of the kids she cares for are being pulled out of the day care. The parents said it was because they weren’t going outside.

Trump has deployed the National Guard and a wave of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents into the district. ICE arrests there have increased tenfold. The situation has thrust the Latinas who hold up the nation’s child care sector into a perpetual state of panic. Nationwide, about 1 in 5 child care workers are immigrants, but in D.C. it’s closer to 40 percent; about 7 percent nationally are undocumented. Nearly all are women.

Many are missing work, and others are risking it because they simply can’t afford to lose pay, providers told The 19th. All are afraid they’ll be next.

“What kind of life is this?” said Alma, whose name The 19th has changed to protect her identity. “We are not delinquents, we are not bad people, we are here to work to support our family.”

Alma has been running a home-based day care for the past decade. She’s been in the United States for 22 years, working in child care that entire time. With two kids being pulled, she will have to reduce her staffer’s hours as she tries to find children to fill those spots.

Her four school-age children also depend on her. This month, she had to write out a signed document detailing what should happen to her kids if she were to be detained. Her wish is that they be brought to detention with her.

“I can’t imagine my kids here without me,” she said.

She said she understands the president’s approach of expelling immigrants with criminal convictions from the country, but teachers who are working with kids? Who haven’t committed any crime?

By targeting them, she said, the administration is “destroying entire families.”

The Multicultural Spanish Speaking Providers Association in D.C., which works with Latina child care providers, has seen this panic first hand for the past couple of weeks as more and more Latinas in child care have stopped coming into work. The center also helps workers obtain their associate’s degree in early childhood education, and since the semester started in mid-August, many teachers have asked for classes to be offered virtually so they don’t have to show up to campus at night.

Latinas have flocked to the child care industry for multiple reasons: Families seeking care value access to language education, and Latinas have a lower language barrier to entry, said Blanca Huezo, the program coordinator at the Multicultural Spanish Speaking Providers Association.

“In general, this industry offers them an opportunity for a fresh start professionally in their own language and without leaving behind their culture,” Huezo said.

Though the number of undocumented child care workers has historically been low, recent changes from the Trump administration to revoke or reduce legal protections have likely increased it. This year, the administration has narrowed opportunities for claiming asylum at the border, tried to bar certain groups from obtaining Temporary Protected Status and temporarily paused humanitarian protections for groups of migrants, thrusting more workers into the “undocumented” category.

The changes, coupled with increased enforcement, has fostered fear among Latinx people regardless of immigration status. That fear among workers is deepening a staffing crisis in an industry that already couldn’t afford additional losses, Huezo said.

“There is a shortage — and now even more,” she said. “There are many centers where nearly 99 percent of teachers are of Hispanic origin.”

Washington, D.C., has been a sanctuary city since 2020, where law enforcement cooperation with immigration officials was broadly prohibited. Earlier this year, however, Mayor Muriel Bowser proposed repealing that law and, in mid-August, Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department Police Chief Pamela Smith gave officers leeway to share information with ICE about individuals they arrested or stopped.

“There was some peace that living in D.C. brought more security," Huezo said. Now, “people don’t feel that freedom to walk through the streets.”

Child care centers are also no longer off limits for ICE raids. The centers were previously protected under a “sensitive locations” directive that advised ICE to not conduct enforcement in places like schools and day cares. But Trump removed that protection on his first day in office. While reports have not yet surfaced of raids in day cares, ICE presence near child care care centers, including in D.C., has been reported.

A similar story of fear and surveillance has already played out in Los Angeles, where ICE conducted widespread raids earlier in the summer. Huezo said her organization has been in touch with child care providers in L.A. to learn about how they managed those months.

In the meantime, the best the organization can do, she said, is connect workers with as many resources as possible, including legal clinics, but the ones that help immigrants are at their maximum caseload. The group has put child care workers who are not leaving their homes in touch with an organization called Food Justice DMV that is delivering meals to their doorsteps. Prior to last month, people who needed food could fill out a form and get it that same week. Now, the wait time is two to three weeks, Huezo said. For those in Maryland and Virginia, it’s closer to a month.

Thalia, a teacher at a day care, said her coworkers have stopped coming to work. It’s all the staff talks about during their lunchtime conversations. When she rides the Metro into work, she looks over her shoulder for the ICE agents, their faces covered, who are often at the exits.

“They are hunting us,” she said.

Thalia, whose name has been changed because she is undocumented, has been living in the United States for nine years and working in child care that entire time. Like her, many of the Latina teachers she works with have earned certifications and degrees in early childhood education.

“We are working, we are cooperating, paying taxes,” she said. “We are there all day so other families can benefit from the child care.”

As a single mother, Thalia has also had to consider what would happen to her three children if she was detained. This past month, she retained a lawyer who could help them with their case in case anything were to happen. Her school-age kids know: Call the lawyer if mom is detained and get tickets to Guatemala to meet her there.

This is what she lives with every day now: “The fear of leaving your family and letting them know, ‘If I don't return, it’s not because I am abandoning you.’”

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration earned condemnation from Amnesty International on Thursday over its leaked plans to downplay human rights violations in countries favored by the American government.

News of the plan was originally reported on Wednesday by The Washington Post, which documented how the administration has been revising State Department reports on human rights in El Salvador, Israel, and Russia to "strike all references to LGBTQ+ individuals or crimes against them." The Post also added that "the descriptions of government abuses that do remain have been softened."

In the case of El Salvador, where the administration earlier this year began lawlessly shipping immigrants deported from the United States, the administration's report stated that were "no credible reports of significant human rights abuses" there, even though a State Department report under former President Joe Biden's administration issued last year documented "significant human rights issues" in the country.

Human rights violations against LGBTQ+ people were deleted from the State Department's report on Russia, while the report on Israel deleted references to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's corruption trial and to his government's threats to the country's independent judiciary.

Amanda Klasing, Amnesty International USA's national director of government relations and advocacy, ripped the administration for selectively whitewashing human rights records of nations favored by the president.

"The leaked chapters of the latest Annual Human Rights Report reveal a disturbing effort by the Trump administration to purposefully fail to fully capture the alarming and growing attacks on human rights in certain countries around the globe," she said. "Alarmingly, we understand that the mandate from Secretary Rubio was... to go back and wipe out portions of the reports that had already been written—to delete stories from survivors of human rights violations."

Klasing went on to accuse the administration of turning the human rights report "into yet another tool to obscure facts to push forward anti-rights policy choices."

She also emphasized that "it would be a travesty and subversion of congressional intent to downplay or ignore human rights violations faced by marginalized populations including refugees and asylum seekers, women and girls, Indigenous people, ethnic and religious minorities, and LGBTQI+ people throughout the world."

An unnamed State Department official this week told the Post that the administration was merely simplifying the human rights reports to make them more "readable."

"The 2024 Human Rights report has been restructured in a way that removes redundancies, increases report readability, and is more responsive to the legislative mandate that underpins the report," the official said. "The human rights report focuses on core issues."

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"We're taking father/son bonding to a whole new level."

That's how the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday told social media users that it is lifting age limits for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) applicants—evidence, critics said, of the Trump administration's desperation to fill the ranks of federal agencies tasked with carrying out its cruel and illegal anti-immigrant policies.

In a move reminiscent of how the U.S. military attempted to stem flagging enlistment during the George W. Bush administration's so-called War on Terror by lowering recruitment standards to welcome felons, gang members, white supremacists, and high school dropouts, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced Wednesday that "we are ENDING the age cap for ICE law enforcement."

Approved applicants will be joining an agency rife with human rights and legal abuses as it scrambles to satisfy alleged ICE arrest quotas and President Donald Trump's desire to carry out the biggest mass deportation campaign in the nation's history—a campaign of kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment and expulsion of innocent people, family separation, concentration camps, terrorization of American communities, alleged torture and sexual crimes, and many other outrages.

Noem told Fox & Friends Wednesday that in addition to lifting the 40-year-old age cap, ICE applicants can now be as young as 18.

"What could possibly go wrong?" independent journalist Tina Vasquez quipped on Bluesky.

Author Patrick S. Tomlinson wrote on X that "ICE opening up recruiting to teenagers because they can't find enough adults willing to be their racist storm troopers is some real dystopian s---."

Wednesday's announcement is the latest Trump administration effort to lure 10,000 new recruits, including by offering $50,000 sign-up bonuses and student loan repayment assistance—policies that can be paid for thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act's historic funding for ICE.

Some critics pointed to a similar move to increase recruitment at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, where lower hiring standards resulted in increased reports of sexual misconduct and corruption among Border Patrol recruits.

"If they start waiving requirements there like they did for Border Patrol, you're going to have an exponential increase in officers that are shown the door after three years because there's some issue," former senior ICE official Jason Houser told The Associated Press last week.

Sunrise Movement, the youth-led climate campaign, offered some friendly advice for those considering working for ICE: "Instead of joining the Gestapo, perhaps find a unionized workplace that's not involved in kidnapping instead."

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It was meant to be a routine discussion on pollution. One by one, delegates at the United Nations expressed support for a new panel of scientists who would advise countries on how to address chemicals and toxic waste.

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

But the U.S. delegate took the meeting in a new direction. She spent her allotted three minutes reminding the world that the United States now had a “national position” on a single word in the documents establishing the panel: gender.

“Use of the term ‘gender’ replaces the biological category of sex with an ever-shifting concept of self-assessed gender identity and is demeaning and unfair, especially to women and girls,” the delegate told the U.N. in June.

The Trump administration is pushing its anti-trans agenda on a global stage, repeatedly objecting to the word “gender” in international resolutions and documents. During at least six speeches before the U.N., U.S. delegates have denounced so-called “gender ideology” or reinforced the administration’s support for language that “recognizes women are biologically female and men are biologically male.”

The delegates included federal civil service employees and the associate director of Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for Trump’s policies, who now works for the State Department. They delivered these statements during U.N. forums on topics as varied as women’s rights, science and technology, global health, toxic pollution and chemical waste. Even a resolution meant to reaffirm cooperation between the U.N. and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations became an opportunity to bring up the issue.

Insisting that everyone’s gender is determined biologically at birth leaves no room for the existence of transgender, nonbinary and intersex people, who face discrimination and violence around the world. Intersex people have variations in chromosomes, hormone levels or anatomy that differ from what’s considered typical for male and female bodies. A federal report published in January just before President Donald Trump took office, estimated there are more than 5 million intersex Americans.

On at least two occasions, U.S. delegates urged the U.N. to adopt its language on men and women, though it’s unclear if the U.S.’ position has led to any policy changes at the U.N. But the effects of the country’s objections are more than symbolic, said Kristopher Velasco, a sociology professor at Princeton University who studies how international institutions and nongovernmental organizations have worked to expand or curtail LGBTQ+ rights.

U.N. documents can influence countries’ policies over time and set an international standard for human rights, which advocates can cite as they campaign for less discriminatory policies, Velasco said. The phrase “gender ideology” has emerged as a “catchall term” for far-right anxieties about declining fertility rates and a decrease in “traditional” heterosexual families, he said.

At the U.N., the administration has promoted other aspects of its domestic agenda. For example, U.S. delegates have demanded the removal of references to tackling climate change and voted against an International Day of Hope because the text contained references to diversity, equity and inclusion. (The two-page document encouraged a “more inclusive, equitable and balanced approach to economic growth” and welcomed “respect for diversity.”)

But the reflexive resistance to the word “gender” is particularly noteworthy.

Advocates for LGBTQ+ rights said the U.S.’ repeated condemnation of “gender ideology” signals support for more repressive regimes.

The U.S. is sending the world “a clear message: that the identities and rights of trans, nonbinary, and intersex people are negotiable,” Ash Lazarus Orr, press relations manager at the nonprofit Advocates for Trans Equality, said in a statement.

Laurel Sprague, research director at the Williams Institute, a policy center focused on sexual orientations and gender identities at the University of California, Los Angeles, said she’s concerned that other countries will take similar positions on transgender rights to gain favor with the U.S. Last month Mike Waltz, Trump’s nominee for ambassador to the U.N., told a Senate committee that he wants to use a country’s record of voting with or against the U.S. at the U.N. as a metric for deciding foreign aid.

In response to detailed questions from ProPublica, White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement: “President Trump was overwhelmingly elected to restore common sense to government, which means focusing foreign policy on securing peace deals and putting America First — not enforcing woke gender ideology.”

A clash between Trump’s administration and certain U.N. institutions over transgender rights was almost inevitable.

Trump’s hostility to transgender rights was a key part of his election campaign. On his first day in office, he issued an executive order called “Defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government.” The order claimed there were only two “immutable” sexes. Eight days later, Trump signed an executive order restricting gender-affirming surgery for anyone under 19. Federal agencies have since forced trans service members out of the military and sued California for its refusal to ban trans athletes from girls’ sports teams.

In June, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights criticized American government officials for their statements “vilifying transgender and non-binary people.” The human rights office urges U.N. member states to provide gender-affirming care and says the organization has “affirmed the right of trans persons to legal recognition of their gender identity and a change of gender in official documents, including birth certificates.” The office also supports the rights of intersex people.

“Intersex people in the U.S. are extremely worried” that they will become bigger targets, said Sylvan Fraser Anthony, legal and policy director at the intersex advocacy group InterACT.

“In all regions of the world, we are witnessing a pushback against women’s human rights and gender equality,” Laura Gelbert Godinho Delgado, a spokesperson for the U.N.’s human rights office, said in an email. “This has fueled misogyny, anti-LGBTI rhetoric, and hate speech.”

The Trump administration’s insistence on litigating “gender” complicates the already ponderous procedures of the U.N. Many decisions are made by consensus, which could require representatives from more than 100 countries to agree on every word. Phrases and single words still under debate are marked with brackets. Some draft documents end up with hundreds of brackets, awaiting resolution at a subsequent date.

At the June meeting on chemical pollution, delegates decided to form a scientific panel but couldn’t agree on crucial details about whether the panel’s purpose included “the protection of human health and the environment.” A description of the panel included brackets on whether it would work in a way that integrates “gender equality and equity” or “equality between men and women.”

The U.S. delegate, Liz Nichols, reminded the U.N. at one point that it “is the policy of the United States to use clear and accurate language that recognizes women are biologically female and men are biologically male. It is important to acknowledge the biological reality of sex to support the needs and perspectives of women and girls.”

Career staffers like Nichols are hired for subject-matter expertise and work to execute the agenda of whichever administration is in charge, regardless of personal beliefs. Nichols has a doctorate in ecology from Columbia University and has worked for the State Department since 2018. When asked for comment, she referred ProPublica to the State Department.

A State Department spokesperson said in a statement, “As President Trump’s Executive Orders and our public remarks have repeatedly stated, this administration will continue to defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male.”

Gender is a crucial factor in chemical safety, said Rachel Radvany, environmental health campaigner at the Center for International Environmental Law who attended the meeting. Pregnant people are uniquely vulnerable to chemical exposure and women are disproportionately exposed to toxic compounds, including through beauty and menstrual products.

Radvany said the statement read by Nichols contributed to the uncertainty on how the panel would consider gender in its work. The brackets around gender-related issues and other topics remained in the draft decision and will have to be resolved at a future gathering that may not happen until next summer.

The U.S. has also staked out similar positions at U.N. meetings focused on gender. At a session of the Commission on the Status of Women in March, Jonathan Shrier, a longtime State Department employee who now works for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, said the U.S. disapproved of a declaration supporting “the empowerment of all women and girls” that mentioned the word “gender.” The phrase “all women and girls” in U.N. documents has been used as a way to be inclusive of trans women and girls.

Shrier read a statement saying that several factors in the text made it impossible for the U.S. to back the resolution, which the commission had recently adopted. That included “lapses in using clear and accurate language that recognizes women are biologically female and men are biologically male.”

During the summit, Shrier repeated those talking points at an event co-sponsored by the U.S. government and the Center for Family and Human Rights, or C-Fam. The group’s mission statement says its goal is the “preservation of international law by discrediting socially radical policies at the United Nations and other international institutions.”

Shrier directed questions to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, which did not respond. Responding to questions from ProPublica, C-Fam’s president, Austin Ruse, said in a statement that the U.S. position on gender is in line with the definitions found in an important U.N. document on the empowerment of women from 1995.

Some countries have pushed back against the U.S.’ stance, often in ways that appear subtle to the casual observer. The U.N. social and environmental forums where these speeches have been delivered tend to operate with a culture of civility and little direct confrontation, said Alessandra Nilo, external relations director for the Americas and the Caribbean at the International Planned Parenthood Federation. Nilo has participated in U.N. forums on HIV/AIDS and women’s health since 2000.

When other delegates speak out in support of diversity and women’s rights, it’s a sign of their disapproval and a way to isolate the U.S., Nilo said. During the women’s rights summit, the delegate from Brazil celebrated “the expansion of gender and diversity language” in the declaration.

Nilo said many countries are scared to speak out for fear of losing trade deals or potential foreign aid from the U.S.

Advocating an “America First” platform, Trump has upended U.S. commitments to multinational organizations and alliances. He signed orders withdrawing the U.S. from the World Health Organization and various U.N. bodies, such as the Human Rights Council and the cultural group UNESCO.

It’s rare for the U.N. to directly affect legislation in the U.S. But the Trump administration repeatedly cites concerns that U.N. documents could supersede American policy.

In April, the U.S. criticized a draft resolution on global health debated at a meeting of the U.N. Commission on Population and Development. Spencer Chretien, the U.S. delegate, opposed references to the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals, which provide a blueprint for how countries can prosper economically while improving gender equality and protecting the environment. Chretien called the program a form of “soft global governance” that conflicts with national sovereignty. Chretien also touted the administration’s “unequivocal rejection of gender ideology extremism” and renewed membership in the Geneva Consensus Declaration, an antiabortion document signed by more than 30 countries, including Russia, Hungary, Saudi Arabia and South Sudan. The first Trump administration co-sponsored the initiative in 2020 before the Biden administration withdrew from it.

Chretien helped write Project 2025 when he worked at The Heritage Foundation. He is now a senior bureau official in the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. Chretien couldn’t be reached for comment.

The U.N. proposal on global health faced additional opposition from Burundi, Djibouti and Nigeria, where abortion is generally illegal. Delegates from those countries were upset about references to “sexual and reproductive health services,” which could include abortion access. The commission chair withdrew the resolution, seeing no way to reach consensus.

During a July forum about a document on sustainable development, the U.S. delegate, Shrier, asked for a vote on several paragraphs about gender, climate change and various forms of discrimination. In his objections, he cited two paragraphs that he argued advanced “this radical abortion agenda through the terms ‘sexual and reproductive health’ and ‘reproductive rights.’”

The final vote on whether to retain those paragraphs was 141 to 2, with only the U.S. and Ethiopia voting no. (Several countries abstained.)

When the results lit up the screen, the chamber broke into thunderous applause.

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After months of national protests over U.S. President Donald Trump's mass deportation agenda, even some of his supporters—including an Alabama man who runs day-to-day operations at construction sites—have come to the conclusion that workplace raids aimed at rounding up undocumented immigrants are the wrong way to go.

In an interview with Reuters published Monday, construction site superintendent Robby Robertson expressed frustration at the way the Trump administration's hard-line immigration policies have impacted his business.

He said that trouble at his site began in late May shortly after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid on a construction site in Tallahassee, Florida, which he said scared off nearly his entire workforce for several days afterward. Even though nearly two months have passed since then, he said a little more than half of his workforce has come back.

This is negatively impacting his current project, which he said was projected to be finished already but which has been slow to complete now that his initial 22-person roofing team has dwindled down to just a dozen workers. As if that weren't enough, Reuters wrote that Robertson's company "is facing potentially $84,000 in extra costs for the delays under a 'liquidated damages' clause of $4,000 for every day the project runs beyond" its deadline.

"I'm a Trump supporter," Robertson told Reuters. "But I just don't think the raids are the answer."

Robertson added that the raids aren't just intimidating undocumented immigrant workers but also Latino workers who are in the country legally but who don't want to get swept up in raids "because of their skin color."

"They are scared they look the part," Robertson explained.

Tim Harrison, the CEO of the construction firm that is building the project being overseen by Robertson, told Reuters that finding native-born American workers to do the kind of work he needs is extremely difficult, especially since Alabama already has a low unemployment rate that makes trying to attract workers to a physically demanding industry difficult.

"The contractor world is full of Republicans," explained Harrison in an interview with Reuters. "I'm not anti-ICE. We're supportive of what the president is trying to do. But the reality of it is our industry has to have the Hispanic immigrant-based workers in it."

A report issued earlier this month by the progressive Economic Policy Institute (EPI) projected that the construction industry could take a severe hit from Trump's mass deportation plan given how many undocumented immigrants work in that industry.

"Employment in the construction sector will drop sharply: U.S.-born construction employment will fall by 861,000, and immigrant employment will fall by 1.4 million," wrote EPI senior economist Ben Zipperer, who added that the Trump administration's plans risked "squandering the full employment... inherited from the Biden administration and also causing immense pain to the millions of U.S.-born and immigrant workers who may lose their jobs."

At a town hall in Pennsylvania in October 2024, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris was asked if she considered her GOP rival, Donald Trump, a "fascist" — and her reply was a definite "yes." Harris was hardly alone in that view: Everyone from conservative attorney George Conway to self-described "democratic socialist" Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) attacked Trump as a dangerous authoritarian who openly praised dictators and had no regard for the rule of law.

After Trump narrowly defeated Conway, AOC and countless other Trump critics warned that the United States was in for a rough ride. The Guardian's Robert Tait, in an article published on June 19, emphasizes that Trump, during his second term, is attacking democracy at an even more rapid pace than his detractors predicted.

"It reads like a checklist of milestones on the road to autocracy," Tait explains. "A succession of opposition politicians, including Alex Padilla, a U.S. senator, are handcuffed and arrested by heavy-handed law enforcement for little more than questioning authority or voicing dissent. A judge is arrested in her own courthouse and charged with helping a defendant evade arrest. Masked snatch squads arrest and spirit people away in public in what seem to be consciously intimidating scenes. The president deploys the military on a dubious legal premise to confront protesters contesting his mass roundups of undocumented migrants."

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Tait continues, "A senior presidential aide announces that habeas corpus — a vital legal defense for detainees — could be suspended. The sobering catalogue reflects the actions not of an entrenched dictatorship, but of Donald Trump's administration as the president's sternest critics struggle to process what they say has been a much swifter descent into authoritarianism than they imagined even a few weeks ago."

Eric Rubin, a former U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria, believes that Trump is shredding civil liberties at an even more rapid pace than Russian President Vladimir Putin in the past.

Rubin told The Guardian, "This is going faster than Putin even came close to going in terms of gradually eliminating democratic institutions and democratic freedoms. It took him years. We're not even looking at six months here."

Brendan Nyhan, a professor at Dartmouth College, warns that the worst is yet to come during Trump's second term.

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Nyhan told The Guardian, "We're in the range of countries like Brazil and Israel, but well above countries like Russia. I do expect things to get worse. The potential for further democratic erosion is very real."

Steven Levitsky, a political science professor at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, told The Guardian, "Trump is throwing authoritarian punches at a much greater rate than any of these other cases in their first year in power. But we don't yet know how many of those punches will land or how society will respond….. Trump's ramping up of the effort to politicize the military can still go in multiple directions. It could be really ugly and bad, because the only way that you can get from where we are to real authoritarianism like Nicaragua or Venezuela or Russia is if Trump has the military and security forces on his side — and he's taken steps in that direction."

READ MORE: 'Misinformation and lies': Discredited MAGA lawyer’s troubles going from bad to worse

Read Robert Tait's full article for The Guardian at this link.

Days of volatile immigration protests and demonstrations in downtown Los Angeles led to an 8 p.m. area curfew imposed this week by Mayor Karen Bass.

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

But even with the local night time movement subdued, helicopters continued to roar overhead at all hours. Law enforcement vehicles blazed through streets en masse — blue and red headlights flashing, sirens piercing.

Demonstrators from other parts of the city and throughout the state still made their way into downtown during the day. They headed toward the federal complex where National Guard and Los Angeles police stood ready for action — along with large congregations of media personnel.

Now, in the communities adjacent to the government center — nearby neighborhoods like Little Tokyo — shops and businesses sit shuttered. Plywood panels cover their windows, and their owners either plan to close early or don’t even bother opening up.

It’s a new and yet familiar reality for those who live and work in downtown L.A. It’s also not clear when it will end, with large protests expected this weekend and troops stationed there indefinitely.

Here’s a look at how the week played out for protesters, shop owners and locals.

'It's hard to tell what's really going on'

At Apple’s Tower Theater store a mile and a half away from Alameda and Temple streets, a heavy wooden barricade now protects the large panoramic glass of the repurposed movie house. Usually abuzz with customers who can be seen from the street, the tech community gathering space sits empty and dormant.

Lisa H. drives into downtown from South Central three or four days a week for her work as a legal consultant. Through hypervigilant eyes, she scanned the sidewalks on the way to her Prius.

“I just hope everyone stays safe out here,” she said, reluctant to give her last name to a reporter. “It’s hard to tell what’s really going on right now. I think folks are coming here with the intention to just stir things up. Doesn’t this feel like it’s all being set up or staged?”

She remembers the 1992 Rodney King riots. “That really was civil unrest. This is something else.”

Meltem Karakova has lived downtown with her husband and toddler for three months.

“It seems safe right here in this neighborhood,” said Karakova, as she pushed her child in a stroller several blocks from the Apple store. “But the noise at night from all the sirens and helicopters gives me a bit of anxiety.”

Then she gestured in the direction of the federal buildings. “We don’t go over there where it gets crazy.”

LA businesses brace for recurring vandalism

Less than half a mile away in Little Tokyo, business owners said they lost customers and suffered vandalism through the days of protests.

“I’m a Japanese immigrant myself,” said Ryota Sakai, who runs a retail shop on 1st Street. “I have my green card, but I understand the stakes — what others must go through just to be here.”

Sakai said his sales have plummeted since last weekend’s protests. With hardly any retail traffic on Wednesday, he did not know whether he would open his doors again until things returned to normal. Still, he felt fortunate that his storefront had not been vandalized.

“I feel for my neighbors, all down this street and around me,” said Sakai. “The taggers hit their shops for no reason — just because we’re here, I guess. They broke some windows and lit fires, too.”

Joyce Leung has co-owned her clothing and accessories store on 1st Street since 2009. She said her business hasn’t experienced any vandalism or problems with protesters in the area over the years until Tuesday night, right after the curfew went into effect.

“We all hung around out front of our stores along this street, keeping an eye out together as a community until almost 11 p.m.,” said Leung. “But right after we locked up and went upstairs, we heard glass breaking.”

“Yeah, a truck pulled up and shot something at our front door window,” explained employee Sam Du. “I think it was like a BB or pellet gun.”

Du and Leung cleaned up all the shattered glass. A black curtain blew in the breeze as a makeshift cover, and behind the other glass door, a painted “Closed” sign sat propped on a chair.

Leung spoke about the last handful of days downtown compared to her previous experiences with protests and civil unrest, like the 2020 Black Lives Matter demonstrations: “This is bad, different,” she said. “It feels more violent. These people are so ballsy and brazen now.”

Du concurred. “We’ve never seen it like this before so close to home, right on our street,” he said. “A lot of these restaurants, our neighbors, had tent setups for outdoor dining, and protesters were turning them over to use as barricades. They used some as barriers and others they left burning.”

Leung said she plans to shut the store down until after what she described as riots subside — especially in consideration of this weekend’s expected “No kings” protests.

Demonstrators converge

Raul Gomez drives up from Torrance every day and sells large flags for $20 a pop — Mexico, California, the U.S., El Salvador, Venezuela, Honduras, etc. He stood with his cart on a corner right across the street from the federal buildings. He’s sold around 200 flags per day.

“It’s been a little quiet today,” Gomez said on Wednesday afternoon. “I’ll pack up and move as soon as I see trouble. Most folks are out here to be peaceful. These are my people, mi gente. But you can see the other kind coming a mile away. They’re just here to start shit.”

Six Los Angeles Police Department officers stood casually around parked cars on the opposite corner. “They never bother me,” said Gomez.

Grace Martinez and her 16-year-old daughter, Raylene, stopped by Gomez’s stand on their way to the federal building. Grace wanted to buy a flag that is split diagonally down the middle — half American stars and stripes, half Mexican green, white and red.

“We came to support our people — immigrants,” said Grace, who drove downtown from her suburban home 40 miles away. “My father came here from Mexico years ago. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be here. So I’m very thankful and blessed for that, and I want to defend the people that can’t defend themselves.”

When asked how she feels about bricks being thrown at law enforcement and street vandalism all around the courthouse, Martinez said, “I’m a little nervous about it, but I’m trying to think positive that that’s not going to happen to us.”

Raylene said she’s ready. “Not everything’s gonna be peaceful. A lot of protests in L.A. from years and years ago weren’t all peaceful. Violence is never the answer, but violence gets more people to notice.”

She held a large “Who would Jesus deport?” sign she made herself.

Another demonstrator, J, didn’t want to give his full name. He’s been riding the Metro from South Los Angeles out to the downtown protest blocks with his 50/50 U.S./Mexico flag every day since Saturday. “The news — they kinda lie about everything, in my opinion,” said J. “There’s only like a few bad things that happen, but they make it like a big thing. We’re all being peaceful out here.”

With his flag draped over his shoulder, J bumped his fist against his chest as passing drivers honked their horns at him in support.

“The news makes it worse for us,” he said. “Respectfully, those guys over there and those guys down there,” he gestured toward LAPD officers grouped across the street and pointed at the National Guard soldiers farther down the block. “They make it worse for us.”

Joe Garcia is a California Local News fellow.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

The day after Congress certified President Donald Trump’s victory, Gregory Bovino led his Border Patrol agents hundreds of miles north, sweeping through Kern County in an audacious immigration raid that shocked the local agricultural community.

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At the time, Bovino, chief of the El Centro sector, said that his agents had a “predetermined list of targets,” many of whom had criminal records, before they set off for Kern County. “We did our homework,” he said.

In the weeks after, both the factual and legal foundation of Bovino’s bold sweep crumbled. Border Patrol documents obtained by CalMatters showed that 77 of the 78 people his agents arrested had no prior record with the agency.

Then, a federal judge ruled the wide-net sweep – based on random, warrantless stops where day laborers and farm workers congregate – likely violated the Constitution’s protection against unreasonable searches. Lawyers for the Department of Homeland Security promised to re-train Bovino’s 900-plus agents on the Constitution. But that wasn’t enough. The judge issued an injunction forbidding the Border Patrol from conducting similar raids in California’s Central Valley.

“You just can’t walk up to people with brown skin and say, ‘Give me your papers,’” said U.S. District Court Judge Jennifer L. Thurston.

It appears Bovino’s stock has only risen within the Trump administration since.

On Thursday, Bovino – in his green uniform, with his high-and-tight hairdo – stood next to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and announced that he has been in charge of Customs and Border Protection operations in Los Angeles. Indeed, the immigration raids that sparked the protests have all the hallmarks of Bovino’s Kern County operation.

Federal agents picked up day laborers outside of a Home Depot in Westlake. They went after car wash workers in Los Angeles and garment workers in Downtown LA. And farm workers have reported that Border Patrol agents have been conducting operations around the strawberry fields of Oxnard.

Bovino doesn’t distinguish between field workers or paleteros and fentanyl dealers. To him, they all fit one category: “Bad people.”

“For Customs and Border Protection, that’s why we are here right now, is to remove those bad people and bad things, whether illegal aliens, drugs or otherwise,” he said at the press conference Thursday. “We are here and we’re not going away.”

At this point, Bovino’s rapid rise from one of 20 section chiefs around the country to the face of Trump’s aggressive immigration sweeps in Los Angeles almost seems inevitable. His team employs a group of five agents to make videos, cranking out dramatic, fictionalized videos portraying migrants crossing the border as menaces with a bloodlust to commit crimes.

Bovino seems to relish the camera himself. The El Centro sector posts staged photos of him in uniform, including a closeup with an AR-15, and one on a white horse in the desert, cradling a shotgun. In an interview with CalMatters in February, flanked by a wall of armed agents, he taunted his other Border Patrol counterparts. “Twenty sectors in the U.S. Border Patrol, and we do call ourselves the ‘Premiere Sector,’” he said with a smile. “So please let those other chiefs know we said that.”

Bovino likes to praise President Dwight Eisenhower, who led the largest deportation in American history, rounding up 1.3 million Mexicans and Mexican Americans in 1954. The first buses deporting migrants – in what was called “Operation Wetback” – rolled out of El Centro over 70 years ago.

The Kern County raids were pitched as a “proof of concept” for how the Border Patrol could be mobilized for mass deportation operations away from the border. It’s exactly the kind of operation that, according to the Wall Street Journal, top White House aide Stephen Miller wanted to see when he convened top immigration officials in late May and demanded more aggressive action. Miller, the Journal reported, told officials they didn’t need targeted lists of immigrants – they should instead just go to Home Depots, inspiring the LA raids.

Now, Bovino, at the same press conference in which agents handcuffed Sen. Alex Padilla after the senator tried asking questions of Noem, said he’s sticking around.

“You’ll continue to see us in Los Angeles,” he said. “Not going anywhere soon.”

A new series of raids in California

Bovino labeled the Kern County sweeps “Operation Return to Sender.” Over three days, his agents detained day laborers, farm workers and others in a Home Depot parking lot, outside a convenience store and along a highway between orchards.

The ACLU sued on behalf of United Farm Workers, arguing that the indiscriminate stops violated the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure.

The judge hasn’t yet ruled on the full case, but found the ACLU was likely to succeed, and issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting Border Patrol agents from taking similar actions. That restricts them from stopping people unless they have a reasonable suspicion that the person is in violation of U.S. immigration law. It also bars agents from carrying out warrantless arrests unless they have probable cause that the person is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained.

The injunction only applies to the Central Valley, but similar legal challenges could await after the latest wave of sweeps.

Advocates are still trying to get a handle on the scope and details of federal actions over the last week.

Just after dawn on Tuesday, Border Patrol agents and other federal officers swept across Ventura, Kern, and Tulare counties, according to the United Farm Workers.

UFW provided CalMatters with a video that shows a white and green Border Patrol truck pulling up to a business in Moorpark. Two masked agents emerged and arrested a man in a baseball cap and neon yellow work shirt who was opening the gate just before 9 a.m.

A video shared on social media by ABC7 shows officers in green Border Patrol uniforms chasing a farmworker through an Oxnard field. Another video shot from a different angle shows a green and white Border Patrol truck racing along the edge of the farm fields.

The agents appear to catch the worker, but it is unclear what happens after that. “There’s a lot we don’t know yet,” said Antonio de Loera-Brust, a spokesman for UFW. The labor union representing farm workers is working to contact families affected by the raids.

Other videos show white and green vehicles typically used by Border Patrol, but so far, the agency has not confirmed their participation. A spokeswoman for Customs and Border Protection, the parent agency for Border Patrol, told CalMatters to direct our questions to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A spokesperson for ICE told CalMatters to contact Customs and Border Protection with our questions.

“We’ve seen videos of Border Patrol trucks tearing through farmlands. I’ve heard reports of operations in farmlands, and we’re still investigating if the court’s order has been violated,” said Bree Bernwanger, an attorney with ACLU Northern California, which brought the Kern County suit.

“The Fourth Amendment really prohibits immigration agents from doing sweeps of communities, from doing racial profiling, from targeting people just because they’re Brown or looking like a farm worker.”

Oxnard Mayor Luis McArthur said his office has also received disturbing reports of immigration officials trying to enter agricultural fields and conducting vehicle stops.

“These actions are completely unjustified and harmful. They create chaos and distress in our community without contributing to public safety,” he said. “The individuals affected by these operations; they’re not criminals. They’re hardworking families who make meaningful contributions to our local economy and to our greater community.”

Elizabeth Strater, vice president of the UFW, said that a number of employers stopped federal agents from accessing their land.

“All across California one thing that is good to hear is that we can confirm in a number of locations federal agents attempted to enter a worksite and were repelled because the employer took the practical steps, like gates, and told the agents that they couldn’t come onto the property,” she said.

In February, Bovino denied that his agents had gone after farmworkers.

“For us, targeting agricultural workers at their job, absolutely not. That has no merit,” he said. “But when Border Patrol comes into contact with illegal aliens, you’re going to get arrested.”

He promised to take his fight across the state. “Our area goes through Central California all the way to the Oregon border, so anywhere in that area, we are going to go where that threat is, and where we can do the most damage to bad people and bad things as we possibly can,” Bovino said.

For now, that’s Los Angeles. Bovino said at the Thursday press conference he had several hundred agents and officers there.

“Many millions of illegal aliens have passed across that border over the past several years. It’s our job to get them out,” he said. “And that’s what we’re going to do and what we’re doing right now.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting “988” or chatting online at http://988lifeline.org/.

A 64-year-old man from Cuba started strangling himself and saying he was going to kill himself after federal agents arrested him at the Miami immigration court on Friday morning.

Jesus Rodriguez Delgado, 64, started yelling in Spanish that he would kill himself rather than be sent back to Cuba, said Karla De Anda, a community advocate who called for help as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents struggled to remove Rodriguez Delgado’s handcuffed hands from his neck.

“It was the most horrible thing I’ve seen in my life,” De Anda said in Spanish. “Hopefully, they’ll help him because he can’t go back to Cuba.”

The man’s reaction wasn’t surprising to his partner, Elisavel Torres, who told Florida Phoenix from inside the courthouse that Rodriguez Delgado had been a political prisoner in Cuba for 28 years and had lived in Mexico for six years before coming to the U.S. De Anda added that Rodriguez Delgado had said he had been imprisoned and would be killed if deported to Cuba.

Torres wept as she said that she couldn’t understand why the judge agreed to dismiss Rodriguez Delgado’s deportation case — exposing him to expedited removal. An application for permanent residency that Rodriguez Delgado submitted in January states he entered the country under humanitarian parole in 2021. Torres said Rodriguez Delgado received a work permit in April.

“He had told me he wouldn’t go back to Cuba, that he would die first, and it will be that way,” Torres told the Phoenix in Spanish.

ICE and Homeland Security Investigations officials arrested at least seven people during the four hours that the Phoenix reporter observed activity inside the courthouse.

Reports emerged last week of arrests in immigration courts across the country after judges dismissed cases at the request of the Department of Homeland Security. Still, Rodriguez Delgado’s attempt to strangle himself was the strongest reaction advocates witnessed on Friday. Others arrested cried and some remained quiet and looked at the ground.

‘You show up and get deported anyway’: Migrants with court hearings face an impossible choice

The agents told Torres that they would make sure Rodriguez Delgado was OK and would give him a list of pro bono attorneys, but couldn’t at the time of his arrest say where he would go. Torres, a U.S. citizen, said the couple knew about the arrests but still decided to come to the hearing from Naples rather than requesting an online hearing.

“We had faith in God that we were doing everything right, so we said we would come in person,” Torres said. “What a huge mistake.”

Her tears intensified as she told Rodriguez Delgado’s daughter about her father’s arrest over the phone.

“I was born in this country, and I am ashamed to say I’m American,” Torres said, adding that there were no words to describe how she felt when federal agents placed her partner in handcuffs.

Immigrants lack legal representation

Immigration attorney Cindy Blandon told the Phoenix that she’s noticed those who end up arrested for expedited removal lack lawyers. Few people in the court on Friday morning had attorneys, with some citing money as a barrier to obtaining legal representation.

Having an ongoing asylum or permanent residency case doesn’t exempt people from expedited deportations, Blandon said.

“Being placed under an expedited removal process doesn’t mean your case is closed,” she said. “People have a right to due process. The problem is that if you don’t have legal representation and you don’t know how to navigate the situation, you will likely end up deported.”

The mood on various floors of the courthouse grew more tense as people awaiting hearings heard about or saw the arrests.

But Blandon, De Anda, and Maria Asuncion Bilbao, with the American Friends Service Committee, noted that the arrests in the court appeared much calmer compared to the mass raids, such as the one that took place in Tallahassee on Thursday.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.