Washington DC:

US President Donald Trump said Monday he had signed an executive order ridding the military of what he called “transgender ideology,” in a potentially major setback for LGBTQ rights.

In a series of orders related to the military that Trump told reporters he had signed on Air Force One, he also called for the building of a US version of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.

The Republican signed further orders reinstating service members dismissed for refusing to take the Covid vaccine, and extending a wider government crackdown on diversity programs to the armed forces.

“To ensure that we have the most lethal fighting force in the world, we will get transgender ideology the hell out of our military,” Trump told a Republican congressional retreat earlier in Miami.

Trump has previously promised to bring back a ban on transgender troops, but it was not immediately clear what specific steps were contained in the new order, which has not yet been published.

A White House official with him said the order involved “eliminating gender radicalism in the military.”

Trump’s orders came at the start of his second week back in the White House and on the day a welcome ceremony was held at the Pentagon for his new defense secretary, military veteran and Fox News personality Pete Hegseth.

“Thank you for your leadership Mr President. We will execute!” Hegseth — who was confirmed last week despite concerns over his inexperience, and alleged record of heavy drinking and domestic violence — said on X.

Transgender Americans have faced a roller coaster of changing policies on military service in recent years, with Democratic administrations seeking to permit them to serve openly while Trump has repeatedly sought to keep them out of the ranks.

The US military lifted a ban on transgender troops serving in the armed forces in 2016, during Democrat Barack Obama’s second term as president.

Under that policy, trans troops already serving were permitted to do so openly, and transgender recruits were set to start being accepted by July 1, 2017.

‘Patriots’

But the first Trump administration postponed that date to 2018 before deciding to reverse the policy entirely, sparking criticism from rights groups.

Trump claimed that transgender service members were disruptive, expensive and eroded military readiness and camaraderie among troops.

Trump’s Democratic successor Joe Biden moved to reverse the restrictions just days after he took office in 2021, saying all Americans qualified to serve should be able to do so.

While the number of transgender troops in the American military is fairly small — with estimates of some 15,000 out of more than two million uniformed service members — their dismissal would reduce US forces at a time when the country is already facing difficulties recruiting new personnel.

Biden’s outgoing defense secretary Lloyd Austin appeared to criticize Trump’s plans during a farewell address earlier this month, saying: “Any military that turns away qualified patriots who are eager to serve is just making itself smaller and weaker.”

Transgender issues have roiled US politics in recent years, as states controlled by Democrats and Republicans have moved in opposite directions on policies ranging from medical treatment to what books on the topic are allowed in public or school libraries.

Trump has meanwhile repeatedly promised to build a version of the Iron Dome system that Israel has used to shoot down missiles fired by Hamas from Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

But he ignored the fact that the system is designed for short-range threats, making it ill-suited to defending against intercontinental missiles that are the main danger to the United States.

“We need to immediately begin the construction of a state-of-the-art Iron Dome missile defense shield,” Trump said in Miami, adding that it would be “made right here in the USA.”

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Washington DC:

In a first legislative win to President Donald Trump, the US Congress on Wednesday gave the final approval to a GOP-led bill that would require the detention and deportation of undocumented migrants who enter the country without authorization and are charged with certain crimes. The bill – titled the Laken Riley Act –  capped the opening salvo in a broader crackdown on immigration that the President has promised.

The legislation received 263 to 156 with 46 Democrats voting in its favour, a sign of the growing cross-party consensus around taking a hard-line approach against those who enter the US illegally.

The bill is named after a 22-year-old Georgia student who was killed last year while out for a run. An undocumented migrant from Venezuela was convicted and sentenced to life without parole. The convict had previously been arrested in a shoplifting case but had not been detained. Laken Riley’s case reignited a debate over immigration and crime in America. 

Under the provisions of the bill, the Department of Homeland Security is required to detain undocumented migrants– people who are in the US unlawfully or without legal status– if they have been charged with, arrested for, convicted of, or have admitted to certain criminal offences, including theft and burglary, according to a report by The New York Times. 

The House of Representatives passed the bill after the Senate debated changes to it last week, where amendments were adopted to reportedly expand the list of criminal offences covered under the bill to include assault on law enforcement officers and crimes resulting in death or serious bodily injury.

Republicans made the legislation their top priority after winning the government trifecta. Still, it would not have been able to advance to final passage without support from key Democrats as Republicans control only a narrow majority.

Democrats who opposed the legislation reportedly argued that the bill could undercut US foreign policy by giving state attorney generals and federal judges overly expansive power with respect to blocking visas. Though it is passed out of Congress to reach President Trump’s office– who on Monday started his second term by issuing a raft of executive orders that kicked off his immigration crackdown– there are still hurdles ahead for its implementation.

Per a CNN report, the Laken Riley Act will require a ramp-up period and a boost in funding. “Full implementation would be impossible for ICE to execute within existing resources,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a memo to lawmakers this month.

According to the agency’s estimate, it would need an additional 110,000 beds to support the population of people the new act covers, far exceeding its current inventory. ICE is funded for 41,500 detention beds and already had over 39,000 people in its custody till December.

The agency said that its initial cost estimate of $3.2 billion to execute the act “does not represent the full cost of implementation.”

“If additional resources are provided, a ramp-up period would be needed due to implementation challenges such as hiring, detention bed availability, and contracting/ acquisition timelines,” the memo said.

File picture of Proud Boys former chief Enrique Tarrio
| Photo Credit: AP

A former leader of the right-wing Proud Boys group was sentenced on Tuesday to 22 years in prison for his role in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump trying to overturn his election defeat.

Enrique Tarrio was given the longest sentence so far handed down in connection with the January 6 riots despite not being present at the U.S. Capitol Building that day.

“This was a calculated act of terrorism,” federal prosecutors said during a sentencing hearing in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. “He practised, and he endorsed the use of misinformation.”

Tarrio was convicted of seditious conspiracy, for his role in planning the storming of the Capitol, when thousands of supporters of the Republican then-U.S. president sought to stop Congress from certifying the results of an election that Mr. Trump falsely claimed had been tainted by widespread fraud.

Prosecutors had asked U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly to sentence Tarrio to 33 years behind bars, saying he helped direct the attack from Baltimore.

Tarrio’s attorneys had asked for a substantially shorter sentence.

Judge Kelly last week sentenced another far-right Proud Boys leader, Ethan Nordean, to 18 years, less than the 27 years prosecutors had sought. Oath Keepers militia founder Stewart Rhodes in May was also sentenced to 18 years.

More than 1,100 people have been arrested on charges related to the Capitol assault. At least 630 have pleaded guilty and at least 110 have been convicted at trial. Five people, including a police officer, died during or shortly after the riot and more than 140 police officers were injured. The Capitol suffered millions of dollars in damage.

Special Counsel Jack Smith, who was tapped to investigate broader efforts to overturn the 2020 election, has charged Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, for trying to keep himself in power.