DHS ⁠began a partial shutdown last week ⁠after Republicans and Democrats failed to reach a deal on immigration enforcement reforms.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Supports of Reza Pahlavi attend a demonstration during the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, on Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026.
| Photo Credit: AP

President Donald Trump talks to reporters as he walks on the South Lawn of the White House, in Washington on January 11, 2026.
| Photo Credit: AP

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump attend an indoor Presidential Inauguration parade event in Washington, on January 20, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AP

Donald Trump said Monday (January 20, 2025) he will issue a raft of executive orders aimed at reshaping how the United States deals with citizenship and immigration.

The 47th president will set to work almost immediately with a series of presidential decrees intended to drastically reduce the number of migrants entering the country.

Follow Trump inauguration LIVE Updates here

“First, I will declare a national emergency at our southern border,” Mr. Trump said minutes after his inauguration.

“All illegal entry will immediately be halted, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.”

He will send troops to the U.S.-Mexico border “to repel the disastrous invasion of our country,” he said.

Mr. Trump, who campaigned on a platform of curbing migration and whose policies are popular with people who fret over changing demographics, also intends to end the centuries-old practice of granting citizenship automatically to anyone born in the United States.

“We’re going to end asylum,” White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly told reporters, and create “an immediate removal process without possibility of asylum. We are then going to end birthright citizenship.”

The U.S. Constitution grants citizenship to anyone born on US soil.

Ms. Kelly said Mr. Trump’s actions will “clarify” the 14th Amendment, which addresses birthright citizenship.

“Federal government will not recognize automatic birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens born in the United States,” she said.

Appointments cancelled

The first effects of Mr. Trump’s stance became apparent minutes after his inauguration when an app unveiled under president Joe Biden to help process migrants went offline.

“Effective January 20, 2025, the functionalities of CBP One that previously allowed undocumented aliens to submit advance information and schedule appointments at eight southwest border ports of entry is no longer available, and existing appointments have been cancelled,” said a notice on the landing page.

U.S. media reported 30,000 people had appointments scheduled.

Mr. Trump’s key adviser and noted immigration hardliner Stephen Miller took to social media to announce that the doors were shut.

“All illegal aliens seeking entry into the United States should turn back now,” he wrote.

“Anyone entering the United States without authorization faces prosecution and expulsion.”

Ms. Kelly said the administration would also reinstate the “Remain in Mexico” policy that prevailed under Trump’s first administration.

Under that rule, people who apply to enter the United States at the Mexican border were not allowed to do so until their application had been decided.

Court challenges

Ms. Kelly said Donald Trump would seek to use the death penalty against non-citizens who commit capital crimes including murder.

“This is about national security. This is about public safety, and this is about the victims of some of the most violent, abusive criminals we’ve seen enter our country in our lifetime, and it ends today,” she said.

Many of Mr. Trump’s first-term executive actions were rescinded under Biden, including one using so-called Title 42, implemented during the Covid pandemic preventing almost all entry to the country on public health grounds.

The changes under Mr. Biden led to an influx of migrants, with images of thousands of people packing the border area.

Mr. Trump frequently invoked dark imagery about how illegal migration was “poisoning the blood” of the nation, words that were seized upon by opponents as reminiscent of Nazi Germany.

Court challenges

While U.S. presidents enjoy a range of powers, they are not unlimited. Analysts say any effort to alter birthright citizenship will be fraught.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said the 14th Amendment was “crystal clear” in granting citizenship to anyone born in the United States with the exception of children of foreign diplomats.

“We have had birthright citizenship for centuries, and a president cannot take it away with an executive order,” he told AFP. “We expect rapid court challenges.”

Cris Ramon, immigration senior policy advisor at civil rights group UnidosUS, said the administration was “using a ‘throw spaghetti at the wall’ approach.”

“We don’t care whether this is legal or not,” he said of the apparent attitude. “We’re just simply going to do it and see if it survives the courts.”

The entrepreneur-turned-politician said that there is a spiritual revival of American identity after Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election 2024. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election will renew national self-confidence, an Indian-American politician and a close confidant of the President-elect Vivek Ramaswamy has said, expressing hope that his comeback will signify America’s comeback.

In a historic election on Tuesday (November 5, 2024), Mr. Trump defeated his Democratic rival Vice President Kamala Harris and was elected the 47th President of the United States, becoming only the second commander-in-chief in over a century to win two nonconsecutive presidential terms.

“America has this great tradition. We believe in our own manifest destiny…We are born to be the greatest nation that sets an example for everybody else of what’s possible for human capacity,” Vivek Ramaswamy told the Tucker Carlson Show in an interview.

“I think that that’s the kind of leader we need right now to bring that back. And that’s Donald Trump as a person. So, in some ways, Trump’s story is America’s story. Trump’s comeback is now hopefully America’s comeback,” Mr. Ramaswamy said in response to a question.

“A Trump win,” he said, “will result in the renewal of national self-confidence.”

“I think that we’re going to be more sure of ourselves as Americans. I think we already are,” the entrepreneur-turned-politician said.

“The markets reflect confidence. The revival of our self-confidence is the most important thing…Everything else, we could talk about the issues, fixing the border, restoring law and order, enforcing the law, ending rampant crime in the country, and growing the economy all of those things require a certain level of self-confidence in America, require a certain sense of spine in who we are to be able to say, an economy grows when people are willing to take risks,” he said.

He said there is a spiritual revival of American identity.

“That was the pinnacle of what we saw on Tuesday (November 5, 2024) night. There was a moment, there was a moment,” he said.

Mr. Ramaswamy revealed that he, Vice President-elect J. D. Vance and his spouse Usha Vance were classmates in Yale Law School.

“We were in the same class. Me, Usha, and J D, we’re all classmates. And my wife was in med school at the same time. So we were all friendly,” he said.

Mr. Trump, he noted, has learned a lot from that first term.

“This time around, he is laser-focused on making sure that the people he puts into those positions actually share broadly his vision for the country, broadly share an allegiance,” Mr. Ramaswamy said.

U.S. former President and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump looks on at the conclusion of the second day of the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on July 16, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

As questions swirl over how a would-be assassin managed to get anywhere near Donald Trump, some conservatives are blaming the Secret Service for hiring the women agents who threw themselves into the line of fire to protect the former president.

Women are too short, too weak — and in some cases, too overweight — to protect someone like Trump, according to people on the U.S. political right who accused the Secret Service of “woke” hiring practices they say nearly got the former president killed.

Several women can be seen among the black-suited, sunglass-clad agents racing to shield Trump with their bodies as the gunman opened fire at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, before hustling him from the stage and into a waiting car and safety.

But they, along with their boss Kimberly Cheatle — only the second-ever woman director of the federal agency tasked with protecting presidents current, former and would-be — are now caught in the intense scrutiny over the nearly catastrophic attack.

“There should not be any women in the Secret Service. These are supposed to be the very best, and none of the very best at this job are women,” right-wing activist Matt Walsh wrote on X, in one typical post.

“I can’t imagine that a DEI hire from @pepsi would be a bad choice as the head of the Secret Service. #sarcasm,” tweeted Republican congressman Tim Burchett.

Also Read | Secret Service agrees to independent probe over Trump shooting

Mr. Burchett was referring to Ms. Cheatle’s previous job as director of global security for Pepsi — a post she held for several years before returning to the Secret Service, where she had previously spent nearly three decades.

With the phrase DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion — he was invoking one of the most popular conservative fronts in the culture wars: the so-called “wokeification” of the workplace as employers strive to diversify their hiring practices beyond white men.

The first women were sworn in as Secret Service agents in 1971. CBS News reported last year that the agency aims to have 30% women recruits by 2030.

“I’m very conscious … of making sure that we need to attract diverse candidates and ensure that we are developing and giving opportunities to everybody in our workforce, and particularly women,” Ms. Cheatle told CBS at the time.

The wildly popular conservative Libs of TikTok account cited that interview in a post also blaming hiring practices for the Trump shooting that has received more than 10 million views on X.

“The results of DEI. DEI got someone killed,” it read.

‘Secret Service A-team’

Diverse hiring practices accelerated in 2020 after the George Floyd killing forced America into a new reckoning over racism and inclusivity.

But they have seen a growing backlash from conservatives in recent months who complain they unfairly disadvantage white workers in general, and white men in particular.

None other than Ohio Senator J.D. Vance — Trump’s newly-announced running mate — has spearheaded a recent bill to do away with such efforts.

Also Read | Who is Usha Chilukuri Vance, Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance’s Indian-origin wife

“DEI is racism, plain and simple. It’s time to outlaw it nationwide, starting with the federal government,” he tweeted last month as the bill was introduced.

Such practices at the Secret Service faced scrutiny as recently as May, when Congress launched an investigation after a female agent in Vice President Kamala Harris’s detail reportedly got into an altercation with colleagues.

The incident raised concerns about this agent’s hiring, Kentucky Republican James Comer said in a letter to Ms. Cheatle — specifically, whether staff shortages “had led the agency to lower once stricter standards as a part of a diversity, equity and inclusion effort.”

The Secret Service did not immediately respond to questions from AFP.

But in response to the Comer letter, spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told U.S. media that Secret Service employees “are held to the highest professional standards… at no time has the agency lowered these standards.”

Ms. Cheatle has shrugged off calls for her resignation since the shooting, and the agency has agreed to cooperate with an independent review ordered by President Joe Biden.

Mr. Comer has also announced that Ms. Cheatle will appear before a congressional panel on July 22 for a hearing on the assassination attempt.

Mr. Biden — in whose detail Ms. Cheatle served when he was vice president — told NBC News on Monday that he feels “safe with the Secret Service,” though he agreed it was an “open question” whether they should have anticipated the shooting.

When Trump made his first public appearance after the shooting, at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Monday, he appeared to be surrounded by an all-male Secret Service detail.

“Now THIS is how you protect a President,” posted conservative commentator Rogan O’Handley on X.

“Trump gets the Secret Service A-team now.”

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump during a campaign rally.
| Photo Credit: AP

A Florida judge appointed by Donald Trump has dismissed the criminal case against the former president on charges of mishandling top secret documents, saying the way that Special Counsel Jack Smith was appointed was improper.

The decision is a huge victory for Trump, who had been accused of endangering national security by holding onto top secret documents after leaving the White House.

Also read | Prosecutors in Trump’s classified documents case sharply rebuke judge’s unusual and ‘flawed’ order

Judge Aileen Cannon made her ruling after lawyers for the 78-year-old argued for a partial stay of proceedings to allow for an assessment of a Supreme Court ruling that a former president has broad immunity from prosecution.

“Former President Trump’s Motion to Dismiss Indictment Based on the Unlawful Appointment and Funding of Special Counsel Jack Smith is GRANTED,” Judge Aileen wrote in her order.

“The Superseding Indictment is DISMISSED because Special Counsel Smith’s appointment violates the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution.”

It comes as Trump is set to be annointed as his party’s champion at the Republican National Convention, days after surviving an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania.

In the Florida case, Trump was facing 31 counts of “willful retention of national defense information,” each punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

He also faced charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice and making false statements.

Trump allegedly kept classified documents – which included records from the Pentagon and CIA – unsecured at his Mar-a-Lago home and thwarted efforts to retrieve them.

Donald Trump. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Former President Donald Trump’s sentencing in his hush money case has been postponed until at least September after the judge agreed Tuesday to weigh the possible impact of a new Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.

Trump had been scheduled to face sentencing July 11 on his New York conviction on felony charges of falsifying business records. He denies any wrongdoing.

The postponement sets the sentencing for Sept. 18, well after the Republican National Convention, where Trump is set formally to accept the party’s nomination for president in this year’s race. The convention runs from July 15 to 18.

A Supreme Court ruling Monday granted broad immunity protections to presidents, while also restricting prosecutors from citing any official acts as evidence in trying to prove a president’s unofficial actions violated the law.

Hours after it was issued, Trump’s attorney requested that New York Judge Juan M. Merchan set aside the jury’s guilty verdict and delay the sentencing to consider how the high court’s ruling and could affect the hush money case.

He wrote that he’ll rule Sept. 6, and the next date in the case would be Sept. 18, “if necessary.”

Manhattan prosecutors said Tuesday that they wouldn’t oppose putting off the sentencing for at least two weeks.

In their filing Monday, defense attorneys argued that Manhattan prosecutors had placed “highly prejudicial emphasis on official-acts evidence,” including Trump’s social media posts and witness testimony about Oval Office meetings.

Prosecutors said Tuesday that they believed those arguments were “without merit,” but noted they were not opposed to adjourning the sentencing as the judge considers the matter.

Trump was convicted May 30 on 34 counts of falsifying business records arising from what prosecutors said was an attempt to cover up a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election.

Daniels claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006 after meeting him at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe. Trump has repeatedly denied that claim, saying at his June 27 debate with President Joe Biden: “I didn’t have sex with a porn star.”

Prosecutors said the Daniels payment was part of a broader scheme to buy the silence of people who might have gone public during the campaign with embarrassing stories alleging he had extramarital sex. Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen paid Daniels and was later reimbursed by Trump, whose company logged the reimbursements as legal expenses.

Falsifying business records is punishable by up to four years behind bars. Other potential sentences include probation, a fine or a conditional discharge which would require Trump to stay out of trouble to avoid additional punishment. Trump is the first ex-president convicted of a crime.

Trump will be required to be present in Merchan’s Manhattan courtroom when he is sentenced.

Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Donald Trump launched into attacks on the judge in his criminal trial and continued to undermine New York’s criminal justice system on May 31 as he tried to repackage his conviction on 34 felony charges as fuel, not an impediment, to his latest White House bid.

Trump spoke to reporters at his namesake tower in Manhattan on Friday, his return to campaigning a day after he was convicted of trying to illegally influence the 2016 election by falsifying business records to hide a hush money payment to a porn actor who claimed they had sex.

Also read | Analysis: How former U.S. President Donald Trump got convicted at his hush money trial

Trump, as defiant as ever, argued the verdict was illegitimate and driven by politics and sought to downplay the allegations underlying the case.

“It’s not hush money. It’s a nondisclosure agreement, totally legal, totally common,” he said.

In a message aimed to galvanize his supporters, he declared: “If they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone.”

While the guilty verdict against him and his vow to fight appeared to motivate his base of supporters, including those who began pouring donations into his campaign, it’s unclear if any of this will help him with independent voters who will be decisive in the November election.

No former president or presumptive party nominee has ever faced a felony conviction or the prospect of prison time, and Trump is expected to keep his legal troubles central to his campaign. He has long argued without evidence that the four indictments against him were orchestrated by Democratic President Joe Biden to try to keep him out of the White House. The hush money case was filed by local prosecutors in Manhattan who do not work for the Justice Department or any White House office.

Trump chose to start Friday in the atrium of Trump Tower, the brass and rose marble lobby where he descended his golden escalator to announce his 2016 campaign nine years ago next month.

In his disjointed remarks, Trump initially started attacking Biden on immigration and tax policies before pivoting to his case, growling that he was threatened with jail time if he violated a gag order. He picked apart intricate parts of the case and trial proceedings as unfair, making false statements and misrepresentations as he did so.

Trump said he wanted to testify but said the judge wanted to go into every detail. “I would have liked to have testified,” he said. “But you would have said something out of whack like ‘it was a beautiful sunny day,’ and it was actually raining out.”

Trump, who had the right to testify but didn’t, also tested the limits of the gag order that prohibits him from publicly critiquing witnesses including Michael Cohen, calling his former fixer, the star witness in the case, “a sleazebag.”

His son Eric Trump and daughter-in-law Lara Trump joined him, but his wife, Melania Trump, who has been publicly silent since the verdict, was not seen.

Outside, on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, supporters gathered across the street were flying a giant red “TRUMP OR DEATH” sign that was flapping in front of a high-end boutique. A small group of protesters held up signs that said “Guilty” and “Justice matters.”

On Friday morning, his campaign announced it had raised $34.8 million as donations poured in after the verdict. That’s more than $1 million for each felony charge and more than his political operation raised in January and February combined.

Trump and his campaign had been preparing for a guilty verdict for days, even as they held out hope for a hung jury. On Tuesday, Trump railed that not even Mother Teresa, the nun and saint, could beat the charges, which he repeatedly labeled as “rigged.”

His top aides on Wednesday released a memo in which they insisted a verdict would have no impact on the election, whether Trump was convicted or acquitted.

The news nonetheless landed with a jolt. Trump, his team and reporters at the courthouse had been under the impression that the jury on Thursday would wrap up deliberations for the day at 4:30 p.m. Trump sat smiling and chatting with his lawyers as the proceedings seemed to be coming to a close.

Trump had spent the hours before the verdict was announced sequestered in the private courtroom where he had spent breaks throughout the trial, huddled with his attorneys and campaign aides, eating from a revolving lunch menu of McDonald’s, pizza, and subs.

As the jury was deciding his fate, he filled his time making calls, firing off social media missives and chatting with friends, including developer Steve Witkoff, who joined him in court, and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who is considered a top vice presidential contender.

In a sign that they expected deliberations to continue, Trump’s holding room was outfitted with a television Thursday, according to two people familiar with the setup who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the case.

Instead, Merchan announced that a verdict had been reached. Thirty minutes later, Trump listened as the jury delivered a guilty verdict on every count. Trump sat stone-faced while the verdict was read.

His campaign fired off a flurry of fundraising appeals, and GOP allies rallied to his side. One text message called him a “political prisoner,” even though he hasn’t yet found out if he will be sentenced to prison. The campaign also began selling black “Make America Great Again” caps to reflect a “dark day in history.”

Aides reported an immediate rush of contributions so intense that WinRed, the platform the campaign uses for fundraising, crashed. The $34.8 million raised Thursday did not include what Trump collected at his in-person fundraiser or any donations that continued to come in online Friday.

“President Trump and our campaign are immensely grateful from this outpouring of support from patriots across our country,” Trump’s senior campaign advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said in a statement. “President Trump is fighting to save our nation and November 5th is the day Americans will deliver the real verdict.”

Trump has long complained that the trial limited his campaign appearances for several weeks. “I want to campaign,” he had told reporters Thursday morning before a verdict was reached.

It is unclear, however, how much Trump’s schedule will ramp up in the days ahead. He held only a handful of public campaign events as the trial unfolded, despite the fact that he had Wednesdays, as well as evenings and weekends, to do what he wished.

He’s set in the upcoming two months to have his first debate with Biden, announce a running mate and formally accept his party’s nomination at the Republican National Convention.

But before he goes to Milwaukee for the RNC, Trump will have to return to court on July 11 for sentencing. He could face penalties ranging from a fine or probation up to four years in prison.

Former President Donald Trump speaks outside the courtroom at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York on May 30, 2024 after a jury convicted him of felony crimes for falsifying business records.
| Photo Credit: AP

Donald Trump became the first former President to be convicted of felony crimes on May 30 as a New York jury found him guilty of falsifying business records in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through hush money payments to a porn actor who said the two had sex.

Jurors convicted Trump on all 34 counts after deliberating for 9.5 hours.

Trump has called his guilty verdict a ‘disgrace’. The judge has set his sentencing for July 11, just days before Republicans are set to select him as 2024 nominee.

The verdict is a stunning legal reckoning for Trump and exposes him to potential prison time in the city where his manipulations of the tabloid press helped catapult him from a real estate tycoon to reality television star and ultimately president. As he seeks a return to the White House in this year’s election, the judgment presents voters with another test of their willingness to accept Trump’s boundary-breaking behavior.

Trump is expected to quickly appeal the verdict and will face an awkward dynamic as he seeks to return to the campaign trail as a convicted felon. There are no campaign rallies on the calendar for now, though he’s expected to hold fundraisers next week. It will likely take several months for Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw the case, to decide whether to sentence Trump to prison.

The falsifying business records charges carry up to four years behind bars, though prosecutors have not said whether they intend to seek imprisonment, and it is not clear whether the judge — who earlier in the trial warned of jail time for gag order violations — would impose that punishment even if asked. The conviction, and even imprisonment, will not bar Trump from continuing his pursuit of the White House.

Trump faces three other felony indictments, but the New York case may be the only one to reach a conclusion before the November election, adding to the significance of the outcome. Though the legal and historical implications of the verdict are readily apparent, the political consequences are less so given its potential to reinforce rather than reshape already-hardened opinions about Trump.

For another candidate in another time, a criminal conviction might doom a presidential run, but Trump’s political career has endured through two impeachments, allegations of sexual abuse, investigations into everything from potential ties to Russia to plotting to overturn an election, and personally salacious storylines including the emergence of a recording in which he boasted about grabbing women’s genitals.

In addition, the general allegations of the case have been known to voters for years and, while tawdry, are widely seen as less grievous than the allegations he faces in three other cases that charge him with subverting American democracy and mishandling national security secrets.

Even so, the verdict is likely to give President Joe Biden and fellow Democrats space to sharpen arguments that Trump is unfit for office, even as it provides fodder for the presumptive Republican nominee to advance his unsupported claims that he is victimized by a criminal justice system he insists is politically motivated against him.

Trump maintained throughout the trial that he had done nothing wrong and that the case should never have been brought, railing against the proceedings from inside the courthouse — where he was joined by a parade of high-profile Republican allies — and racking up fines for violating a gag order with inflammatory out-of-court comments about witnesses.