The Trump administration is escalating its attack on Cuba, cutting off the island’s access to oil in a deliberate attempt to induce famine and mass suffering. This is collective punishment, plain and simple.
In response, we’re releasing a public Call to Conscience, already signed by influential public figures, elected officials, artists, and organizations—including 22 members of the New York City Council, Kal Penn, Mark Ruffalo, Susan Sarandon, Alice Walker, 50501, Movement for Black Lives, The People’s Forum, IFCO Pastors for Peace, ANSWER Coalition, and many others—demanding an end to this brutal policy.
The letter is open for everyone to sign. Add your name today. Cutting off energy to an island nation is not policy—it is a tactic of starvation.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Petition to Force Amazon to Cut ICE Contracts!
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-amazon-end-contracts-with-ice/?source=group-amazon-labor-union&referrer=group-amazon-labor-
Amazon Labor Union
Over 600,000 messages have already been sent directly to Amazon board members demanding one thing: Amazon must stop fueling deportations by ending its contracts with ICE and DHS.
ICE and DHS rely on the data infrastructure provided by Amazon Web Services. Their campaign against immigrants and those who stand with them depends on the logistical, financial, and political support of companies like Amazon.
But workers and communities have real power when we act collectively. That’s why we must expose Amazon’s role in the deportation machine. Help us reach 1 million messages and force Amazon to act by signing our petition with The Labor Force today:
Tell Amazon: End contracts with ICE!
On Cyber Monday 2025, Amazon workers rallied outside of Amazon’s NYC headquarters to demand that Amazon stop fueling mass deportations through Amazon Web Services’ contracts with ICE and DHS.
ICE cannot operate without corporate backing; its campaign against immigrants and those who stand with them depends on the logistical, financial, and political support of companies like Amazon. Mega-corporations may appear untouchable, but they are not. Anti-authoritarian movements have long understood that repression is sustained by a network of institutional enablers and when those enablers are disrupted, state violence weakens. Workers and communities have real power when they act collectively. That is why we must expose Amazon’s role in the deportation machine.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rely on Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its most commonly used cloud platform. DHS and ICE cannot wage their attack on immigrants without the critical data infrastructure that Amazon Web Services provide, allowing the agencies to collect, analyze, and store the massive amounts of data they need to do their dirty work. Without the power of AWS, ICE would not be able to track and target people at its current scale.
ICE and DHS use Amazon Web Services to collect and store massive amounts of purchased data on immigrants and their friends and family–everything from biometric data, DMV data, cellphone records, and more. And through its contracts with Palantir, DHS is able to scour regional, local, state, and federal databases and analyze and store this data on AWS. All of this information is ultimately used to target immigrants and other members of our communities.
No corporation should profit from oppression and abuse. Yet Amazon is raking in tens of millions of dollars to fuel DHS and ICE, while grossly exploiting its own workers. Can you sign our petition today, demanding that Amazon stop fueling deportations by ending its contracts with DHS and ICE, now?
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-amazon-end-contracts-with-ice/?source=group-amazon-labor-union&referrer=group-amazon-labor-
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
End Texas Torture of Revolutionary Elder Xinachtli
Organization Support Letter
Letter to demand the immediate medical treatment and release of Chicano political prisoner Xinachtli (Alvaro Hernandez #00255735)
To the Texas Department of Criminal Justice,
We, the undersigned organizations, write to urge immediate action to protect the life, health, and human rights of Xinachtli (legal name Alvaro Hernandez). Xinachtli is 73-year-old Chicano community organizer from Texas who has spent 23 years in solitary confinement and 30 years incarcerated as part of a 50-year sentence. His health is now in a critical and life-threatening state and requires prompt and comprehensive medical intervention.
Since his conviction in 1997, Xinachtli has spent decades in conditions that have caused significant physical and psychological harm. As an elder in worsening health, these conditions have effectively become a de facto death sentence.
Xinachtli’s current medical condition is severe. His physical, mental, and overall well-being have declined rapidly in recent weeks. He now requires both a wheelchair and a walker, has experienced multiple falls, and is suffering from rapid weight loss. He is currently housed in the McConnell Unit infirmary, where he is receiving only palliative measures and is being denied a medical diagnosis, access to his medical records, and adequate diagnostic testing or treatment.
A virtual clinical visit with licensed medical doctor Dr. Dona Kim Murphey underscores the severity of his condition. In her report of the visit, she wrote: "Given the history of recent neck/back trauma and recurrent urinary tract infections with numbness, weakness, and bowel and bladder incontinence, I am concerned about nerve root or spinal cord injury and/or abscesses that can lead to permanent sensorimotor dysfunction."
Despite his age and visible disabilities, he remains in solitary confinement under the Security Threat Group designation as a 73-year-old. During his time in the infirmary, prison staff threw away all of his belongings and “lost” his commissary card, leaving him completely without basic necessities. He is experiencing hunger, and the lack of consistent nutrition is worsening his medical condition. McConnell Unit staff have also consistently given him incorrect forms, including forms for medical records and medical visitation, creating further barriers to care and communication.
A family visit on November 29 confirmed the seriousness of his condition. Xinachtli, who was once able to walk on his own, can no longer stand without assistance. He struggled to breathe, has lost more than 30 pounds, relied heavily on his wheelchair, and was in severe pain throughout the visit.
In light of these conditions, we, the undersigned organizations, demand that TDCJ take immediate action to save Xinachtli’s life and comply with its legal and ethical obligations.
We urge the immediate implementation of the following actions:
Immediate re-instatement of his access to commissary to buy hygiene, food, and other critical items. Immediate transfer to the TDCJ hospital in Galveston for a full medical evaluation and treatment, including complete access to his medical records and full transparency regarding all procedures. Transfer to a geriatric and medical unit that is fully accessible under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Xinachtli requests placement at the Richard P LeBlanc Unit in Beaumont, Texas. Approval of Medical Recommended Intensive Supervision, the release program for individuals with serious medical conditions and disabilities, in recognition of the severity and progression of his current health issues. Failure to act will result in the continued and foreseeable deterioration of Xinachtli’s health, amounting to state-sanctioned death. We urge TDCJ to take swift and decisive action to meet these requests and to fulfill its responsibility to safeguard his life and well-being.
We stand united in calling for immediate and decisive action. Xinachtli’s life depends on it.
Signed, Xinachtli Freedom Campaign and supporting organizations
Endorsing Organizations:
Al-Awda Houston; All African People’s Revolutionary Party; Anakbayan Houston; Anti-Imperialist Solidarity; Artists for Black Lives' Equality; Black Alliance for Peace - Solidarity Network; Columbia University Students for a Democratic Society; Community Liberation Programs; Community Powered ATX; Contra Gentrificación; Diaspora Pa’lante Collective; Down South; DSA Emerge; Entre nos kc; Fighting Racism Workshops; Frontera Water Protectors; GC Harm Reductionists; JERICHO MOVEMENT; Jericho Movement Providence; Montrose Anarchist Collective; NYC Jericho Movement; OC Focus; Palestine Solidarity TX; Partisan Defense Committee; Partido Nacional de la Raza Unida; PDX Anti-Repression; Red Star Texas; Root Cause; San Francisco Solidarity Collective; Shine White Support Team; Sunrise Columbia; UC San Diego Faculty for Justice in Palestine; Viva Palestina, EPTX; Water Justice and Technology Studio; Workshops4Gaza.
Sign the endorsement letter for your organization here:
https://cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/form/view/MiR1f+iLiRBJC7gSTyfhyxJoLIDhThxRafPatxdbMWI/
IMPORTANT LINKS TO MATERIALS FOR XINACHTLI FREEDOM CAMPAIGN:
PHONE BLAST: Your community can sign up for a 15-minute-long call shift here: bit.ly/xphoneblast
FUNDRAISER: Here is the link to Jericho's fundraiser for Xinachtli: http://givebutter.com/jerichomovement
CASE HISTORY: Learn more about Xinachtli and his case through our website: https://freealvaro.net
CONTACT INFO:
Follow us on Instagram: @freexinachtlinow
Email us:
xinachtlifreedomcampaign@protonmail.com
COALITION FOLDER:
https://drive.proton.me/urls/SP3KTC1RK4#KARGiPQVYIvR
In the folder you will find: Two pictures of Xinachtli from 2024; The latest updated graphics for the phone blast; The original TRO emergency motion filing; Maria Salazar's declaration; Dr. Murphy's report from her Dec. 9 medical visit; Letter from Amnesty International declaring Xinachtli's situation a human rights violation; Free Xinachtli zine (which gives background on him and his case); and The most recent press release detailing who Xinachtli is as well as his medical situation.
Write to:
Alvaro Hernandez CID #00255735
TDCJ-W.G. McConnell Unit
PO Box 660400
Dallas, TX 75266-0400
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Self-portrait by Kevin Cooper
Funds for Kevin Cooper
Kevin was transferred out of San Quentin and is now at a healthcare facility in Stockton. He has received some long overdue healthcare. The art program is very different from the one at San Quentin but we are hopeful that Kevin can get back to painting soon.
For 41 years, an innocent man has been on death row in California.
Kevin Cooper was wrongfully convicted of the brutal 1983 murders of the Ryen family and houseguest. The case has a long history of police and prosecutorial misconduct, evidence tampering, and numerous constitutional violations including many incidences of the prosecution withholding evidence of innocence from the defense. You can learn more here .
In December 2018 Gov. Brown ordered limited DNA testing and in February 2019, Gov. Newsom ordered additional DNA testing. Meanwhile, Kevin remains on Death Row at San Quentin Prison.
The funds raised will be used to help Kevin purchase art supplies for his paintings . Additionally, being in prison is expensive, and this money would help Kevin pay for stamps, books, paper, toiletries, supplies, supplementary food, printing materials to educate the public about his case and/or video calls.
Please help ease the daily struggle of an innocent man on death row!
An immediate act of solidarity we can all do right now is to write to Kevin and assure him of our continuing support in his fight for justice. Here’s his address:
Kevin Cooper #C65304
Cell 107, Unit E1C
California Health Care Facility, Stockton (CHCF)
P.O. Box 213040
Stockton, CA 95213
www.freekevincooper.org
Call California Governor Newsom:
1-(916) 445-2841
Press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish,
press 6 to speak with a representative and
wait for someone to answer
(Monday-Friday, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. PST—12:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. EST)
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Dr. Atler Still Needs Our Help!
Please sign the petition today!
https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-university-give-tom-alter-his-job-back
What you can do to support:
—Donate to help Tom Alter and his family with living and legal expenses: https://gofund.me/27c72f26d
—Sign and share this petition demanding Tom Alter be given his job back: https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-university-give-tom-alter-his-job-back
—Write to and call the President and Provost at Texas State University demanding that Tom Alter be given his job back:
President Kelly Damphousse: president@txstate.edu
President’s Office Phone: 512-245-2121
Provost Pranesh Aswath: xrk25@txstate.edu
Provost Office Phone: 512-245-2205
For more information about the reason for the firing of Dr. Tom Alter, read:
"Fired for Advocating Socialism: Professor Tom Alter Speaks Out"
Ashley Smith Interviews Dr. Tom Alter
—CounterPunch, September 24, 2025
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
 Russia Confirms Jailing of Antiwar Leader Boris Kagarlitsky In a secret trial on June 5, 2024, the Russian Supreme Court’s Military Chamber confirmed a sentence of five years in a penal colony for left-wing sociologist and online journalist Boris Kagarlitsky. His crime? “Justifying terrorism” — a sham charge used to silence opponents of Putin’s war on Ukraine. The court disregarded a plea for freedom sent by thirty-seven international luminaries. Kagarlitsky, a leading Marxist thinker in Russia’s post-Soviet period, recently addressed socialists who won’t criticize Putin: “To my Western colleagues, who…call for an understanding of Putin and his regime, I would like to ask a very simple question. [Would] you want to live in a country where there is no free press or independent courts? In a country where the police have the right to break into your house without a warrant? …In a country which…broadcasts appeals on TV to destroy Paris, London, Warsaw, with a nuclear strike?” Thousands of antiwar critics have been forced to flee Russia or are behind bars, swept up in Putin’s vicious crackdown on dissidents. Opposition to the war is consistently highest among the poorest workers. Recently, RusNews journalists Roman Ivanov and Maria Ponomarenko were sentenced to seven, and six years respectively, for reporting the military’s brutal assault on Ukraine. A massive global solidarity campaign that garnered support from thousands was launched at Kagarlitsky’s arrest. Now, it has been revived. This internationalism will bolster the repressed Russian left and Ukrainian resistance to Putin’s imperialism. To sign the online petition at freeboris.info —Freedom Socialist Party, August 2024 https://socialism.com/fs-article/russia-jails-prominent-antiwar-leader-boris-kagarlitsky/#:~:text=In%20a%20secret%20trial%20on,of%20Putin's%20war%20on%20Ukraine. Petition in Support of Boris KagarlitskyWe, the undersigned, were deeply shocked to learn that on February 13 the leading Russian socialist intellectual and antiwar activist Dr. Boris Kagarlitsky (65) was sentenced to five years in prison. Dr. Kagarlitsky was arrested on the absurd charge of 'justifying terrorism' in July last year. After a global campaign reflecting his worldwide reputation as a writer and critic of capitalism and imperialism, his trial ended on December 12 with a guilty verdict and a fine of 609,000 roubles. The prosecution then appealed against the fine as 'unjust due to its excessive leniency' and claimed falsely that Dr. Kagarlitsky was unable to pay the fine and had failed to cooperate with the court. In fact, he had paid the fine in full and provided the court with everything it requested. On February 13 a military court of appeal sent him to prison for five years and banned him from running a website for two years after his release. The reversal of the original court decision is a deliberate insult to the many thousands of activists, academics, and artists around the world who respect Dr. Kagarlitsky and took part in the global campaign for his release. The section of Russian law used against Dr. Kagarlitsky effectively prohibits free expression. The decision to replace the fine with imprisonment was made under a completely trumped-up pretext. Undoubtedly, the court's action represents an attempt to silence criticism in the Russian Federation of the government's war in Ukraine, which is turning the country into a prison. The sham trial of Dr. Kagarlitsky is the latest in a wave of brutal repression against the left-wing movements in Russia. Organizations that have consistently criticized imperialism, Western and otherwise, are now under direct attack, many of them banned. Dozens of activists are already serving long terms simply because they disagree with the policies of the Russian government and have the courage to speak up. Many of them are tortured and subjected to life-threatening conditions in Russian penal colonies, deprived of basic medical care. Left-wing politicians are forced to flee Russia, facing criminal charges. International trade unions such as IndustriALL and the International Transport Federation are banned and any contact with them will result in long prison sentences. There is a clear reason for this crackdown on the Russian left. The heavy toll of the war gives rise to growing discontent among the mass of working people. The poor pay for this massacre with their lives and wellbeing, and opposition to war is consistently highest among the poorest. The left has the message and resolve to expose the connection between imperialist war and human suffering. Dr. Kagarlitsky has responded to the court's outrageous decision with calm and dignity: “We just need to live a little longer and survive this dark period for our country,” he said. Russia is nearing a period of radical change and upheaval, and freedom for Dr. Kagarlitsky and other activists is a condition for these changes to take a progressive course. We demand that Boris Kagarlitsky and all other antiwar prisoners be released immediately and unconditionally. We also call on the auth *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* |
Mumia Abu-Jamal is Innocent!
FREE HIM NOW!
Write to Mumia at:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM-8335
SCI Mahanoy
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
Join the Fight for Mumia's Life
Since September, Mumia Abu-Jamal's health has been declining at a concerning rate. He has lost weight, is anemic, has high blood pressure and an extreme flair up of his psoriasis, and his hair has fallen out. In April 2021 Mumia underwent open heart surgery. Since then, he has been denied cardiac rehabilitation care including a healthy diet and exercise.
He still needs more complicated treatment from a retinal specialist for his right eye if his eyesight is to be saved:
Donate to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Emergency Legal and Medical
Defense Fund
Mumia has instructed PrisonRadio to set up this fund. Gifts donated here are designated for the Mumia Abu-Jamal Medical and Legal Defense Fund. If you are writing a check or making a donation in another way, note this in the memo line.
Send to:
Mumia Medical and Legal Fund c/o Prison Radio
P.O. Box 411074, San Francisco, CA 94103
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Resources for Resisting Federal Repression
https://www.nlg.org/federalrepressionresources/
Since June of 2020, activists have been subjected to an increasingly aggressive crackdown on protests by federal law enforcement. The federal response to the movement for Black Lives has included federal criminal charges for activists, door knocks by federal law enforcement agents, and increased use of federal troops to violently police protests.
The NLG National Office is releasing this resource page for activists who are resisting federal repression. It includes a link to our emergency hotline numbers, as well as our library of Know-Your-Rights materials, our recent federal repression webinar, and a list of some of our recommended resources for activists. We will continue to update this page.
Please visit the NLG Mass Defense Program page for general protest-related legal support hotlines run by NLG chapters.
Emergency Hotlines
If you are contacted by federal law enforcement, you should exercise all of your rights. It is always advisable to speak to an attorney before responding to federal authorities.
State and Local Hotlines
If you have been contacted by the FBI or other federal law enforcement, in one of the following areas, you may be able to get help or information from one of these local NLG hotlines for:
Portland, Oregon: (833) 680-1312
San Francisco, California: (415) 285-1041 or fbi_hotline@nlgsf.org
Seattle, Washington: (206) 658-7963
National Hotline
If you are located in an area with no hotline, you can call the following number:
National NLG Federal Defense Hotline: (212) 679-2811
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Articles
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
1) With Latest Rollback, the U.S. Essentially Has No Clean-Car Rules
The E.P.A.’s killing of the “endangerment finding” caps a year of deregulation that is likely to make cars thirstier for gas and less competitive globally, experts say.
By Hiroko Tabuchi, Feb. 16, 2026
Transportation is the top contributor to U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Apu Gomes/Getty Images
The momentous end to the federal government’s legal authority to fight climate change makes it official.
The United States will essentially have no laws on the books that enforce how efficient America’s passenger cars and trucks should be.
That’s the practical result of the Trump administration’s yearlong parade of regulatory rollbacks, capped on Thursday by its killing of the “endangerment finding,” the scientific determination that required the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases because of the threat to human health.
“The U.S. no longer has emission standards of any meaning,” said Margo T. Oge, who served as the E.P.A.’s top vehicle emissions regulator under three presidents and has since advised both automakers and environmental groups.
“Nothing. Zero,” she added. “Not many countries have zero.”
Transportation is the largest single source of greenhouse gases in the United States.
Car buyers could still vote with their wallets, demanding more fuel-efficient cars. California has vowed to sue to maintain stricter standards. And the Department of Transportation still regulates fuel economy under rules meant to conserve oil.
But last year, the Trump administration proposed weakening the fuel economy standards to largely irrelevant levels. The Republican-controlled Congress also set civil penalties for violations at $0, essentially making them voluntary for automakers. In addition, Congress last year blocked California’s clean-car rules.
The bottom line is that the United States is set to stand apart from a majority of the world’s industrialized nations, which have mandatory fuel economy or greenhouse gas tailpipe emissions rules. The E.P.A. still regulates tailpipe emissions of specific pollutants, like nitrogen oxides.
The Biden administration had sought to tighten limits on emissions to encourage automakers to sell more nonpolluting electric vehicles.
The Trump administration’s elimination of the endangerment finding on Thursday is expected to face fierce legal challenges from environmental groups and others. The endangerment finding was a 2009 scientific conclusion that greenhouse gas emissions pose a danger to Americans’ health and welfare. It provided the foundation to justify federal regulations that limit carbon dioxide, methane and other pollution, including from cars.
If the E.P.A.’s decision holds, it could increase the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by 10 percent over the next 30 years, according to the Environmental Defense Fund, an advocacy group.
Greenhouse emissions are the main driver of global climate change, which in turn is intensifying heat waves, drought, hurricanes and floods while also melting glaciers, causing sea levels to rise.
Lee Zeldin, the E.P.A. administrator, called the end of the finding “the single largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States.” He accused Democrats of having launched an “ideological crusade” on climate change that had “strangled entire sectors of the United States economy,” particularly the auto industry, which has struggled to sell electric vehicles.
Climate concerns aside, it’s unclear whether the U.S. auto industry will ultimately benefit from the elimination of emissions and fuel efficiency regulations. The move could leave American automakers even more dominated by gas-guzzling trucks and sport utility vehicles, experts said, as China and other nations continue to shift toward cleaner electric cars.
That could leave them at a competitive disadvantage in coming years. “Our automakers are not going to survive,” Ms. Oge predicted.
John Bozzella, the president of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents automakers in the United States, has declined to say whether he supports the end of the endangerment finding. But he said in a statement that the move would “correct some of the unachievable emissions regulations enacted under the previous administration.”
Mr. Trump has swung back and forth on his opinion of electric vehicles. During the 2024 presidential campaign, he said electric cars would “kill” America’s auto industry. But he appeared to at least temporarily soften his stance at the urging of Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and his one-time close adviser. In March, he said he would buy a Tesla.
“Globally, the push is in exactly the opposite direction, in the direction of electrifying vehicles,” said Ann Carlson, a professor at U.C.L.A. School of Law who served under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. as acting administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Transportation Department agency that sets fuel efficiency standards.
But now, “they’re saying no standards whatsoever,” she said.
For 17 years, the E.P.A. worked in tandem with the Department of Transportation, with the E.P.A. regulating carbon dioxide emissions (to protect health) and the Transportation Department governing how much fuel a car can burn (to conserve fuel).
The endangerment finding had allowed the E.P.A. in recent years to push standards more aggressively than possible using fuel-economy rules alone, setting targets so low they would eventually have become virtually impossible for gasoline engines to meet. The E.P.A. also had the authority, for example, to issue stop-sale orders if an automaker failed to meet standards, preventing them from selling certain cars until the issue was resolved.
The first Trump administration had moved to weaken both the tailpipe emissions and fuel economy standards. Mr. Biden had then reversed course, strengthening them. But now that the second Trump administration has eliminated the E.P.A.’s underlying authority to regulate greenhouse gases, another reversal by a future administration could be more difficult.
“Even if a new administration came in and was inclined to regulate greenhouse gasses, it would take years to reissue and defend the endangerment finding,” Professor Carlson said. “And in the meantime, they would have no authority to write any new greenhouse gas regulations.”
The remaining rules, such as the fuel efficiency requirements, could also be weakened. In December, the Trump administration proposed resetting the Transportation Department standard to require automakers to achieve an average of 34.5 miles per gallon for the full lineup of cars they sell by 2031. The Biden-era target was closer to 50 miles per gallon.
Those new standards would be less stringent than those in the European Union, as well as those of countries like China, Japan and India. Congress’s separate decision to eliminate fines for failure to comply with efficiency standards also makes the rules voluntary, saving automakers significant compliance costs.
Any resulting shift by American automakers toward gas guzzlers that can’t be sold in Europe or China could further isolate the U.S. market. And the United States would increasingly cede the future of automotive technology to Chinese electric vehicle giants like BYD, experts said.
“We’re an outlier now,” said Joshua Linn, a professor at the University of Maryland who studies environmental policies and the transportation sector. “Those larger trucks and S.U.V.s tend to make them more money,” he said. “But if they want to compete in Europe or East Asia, they really need to be able to produce these E.V.s.”
A divergence in tailpipe emissions rules could emerge domestically. California has promised a court challenge, saying the state would fight to continue to regulate greenhouse gases. Other states are expected to follow California’s lead.
“To have a patchwork of systems makes it really hard for companies that do business in 50 states,” let alone in other countries, said Anne L. Kelly, the vice president of government relations at Ceres, an advocacy group that works with businesses on their sustainability plans. “There is no world in which this is helpful for the auto industry.”
Matthew Beecham, a senior research analyst at S&P Global Mobility, an automotive company, said that given the uncertainties, automakers were likely to hedge their bets. They might expand their gasoline car lineups, he said, but most likely would not abandon electrification completely.
And despite no penalties for violating the remaining fuel economy standards, there was unlikely to be “wholesale lawbreaking,” he said, because state rules and investor scrutiny could keep companies in check. “Expect tactical shifts toward profitable trucks, not open defiance,” he added.
Still, a shift toward larger gasoline models could ultimately undermine their competitiveness in an intensifying global E.V. race. Carmakers around the world are scrambling to secure enough E.V. batteries, for example, and that race penalizes laggards, he said.
While the E.P.A. continues to regulate pollutants like nitrogen oxides that pose direct threats to human health, it is now also seeking to weaken those rules.
Aaron Szabo, the E.P.A.’s air quality chief, wrote in an opinion article published by The Hill in December that rolling back those rules would “reduce red tape and bring common sense back to rulemaking.” The move to roll back regulations increases choice and lowers the price of cars, he said.
But vehicles that burn more fuel cost car owners more at the pump, said Daniel Becker, the director of the Safe Climate Transport Campaign at the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, in addition to the costs to the climate, public health and industrial competitiveness.
The Trump administration “is telling American manufacturers, ‘You guys go build gasoline cars again,’” he said. “The Chinese government is telling its manufacturers, ‘You go build the advanced vehicles that are going take over the world.’”
Maxine Joselow contributed reporting from Washington.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
2) Indonesia Says It’s Preparing Thousands of Peacekeeping Troops for Trump’s Gaza Plan
President Prabowo Subianto of Indonesia will be among those meeting with President Trump in Washington this week to discuss his Board of Peace initiative to oversee a cease-fire in Gaza.
By Muktita Suhartono, Feb. 16, 2026
Indonesia’s military said that it was preparing to send thousands of troops to Gaza for a peacekeeping mission as part of President Trump’s Board of Peace initiative, in one of the most significant public statements of support for the effort.
The announcement Sunday came days ahead of the first Board of Peace summit meeting in Washington, which President Prabowo Subianto of Indonesia and other world leaders are expected to attend on Thursday.
Brig. Gen. Donny Pramono, the Indonesian Army spokesman, said that around 1,000 troops would be ready to deploy to Gaza by early April, and the contingent would then grow to as many as 8,000. He said the deployment was still awaiting Mr. Prabowo’s final approval.
The government emphasized that the force would not engage in combat and was meant to help stabilize Gaza for humanitarian and rebuilding purposes. If approved, Indonesia’s pledge would be the first public commitment to send peacekeepers into Gaza.
Mr. Trump’s new Board of Peace has drawn sharp skepticism from some U.S. allies. The body, which mostly includes heads of state, was originally expected to supervise the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. But its charter gives the Board of Peace a sprawling, global mandate, and analysts say that Mr. Trump is trying to create a rival to the United Nations that puts him in charge.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
3) How the Visa Debate for Foreign Workers Fuels Racism Against South Asians
A dispute over the impact of H-1B visas on U.S. workers has been overshadowed by racist rhetoric, with troubling echoes of the great replacement conspiracy theory.
By Amy Qin, Feb. 16, 2026
In Frisco, Texas, one-third of the population is of Asian heritage. Credit...Meridith Kohut for The New York Times
The floor was open at a regular City Council meeting in Frisco, Texas, and several speakers, riled by a recent viral video over visas for specialized foreign workers, wanted to make their views known. They did not mince words about the program.
The visa, called H-1B, had led to an “Indian takeover” of their city. The program, some said without citing proof, was full of “fraudsters” and “low-quality scammers.”
A few people claimed an even broader racist conspiracy theory, accusing Western elites and corporations of seeking to replace and disempower white Americans.
“We must maintain our Rhodesia,” said someone identifying himself as a college student, referring to the former white-ruled colony that later became Zimbabwe.
During the nearly two-hour open floor this month, some opponents of the visas spoke about more typical concerns like job losses and suppressed wages, while South Asian residents expressed their fears over the rhetoric. And the leaders of Frisco, a rapidly growing suburb north of Dallas, emphasized the value and contributions of its population, one-third of whom are of Asian heritage.
In a statement, Jeff Cheney, the Frisco mayor, described many of the speakers as “outside agitators” who did not represent the majority of residents.
But the meeting displayed how the anger over the visa program has helped ignite racist rhetoric targeting the Indian community, not only in Frisco, but across the country.
Created in 1990, the H-1B program allows up to 85,000 foreign workers to fill specialized roles in the United States every year. In 2023, around three-quarters of the 400,000 or so approved H-1B applications were for workers from India, according to Pew Research Center. That same year, Dallas-Ft. Worth ranked fourth among metropolitan areas for approved H-1B applications. Many of these visa holders work as software programmers and computer engineers.
Rules around the H-1B visa are meant to protect American workers. Companies, for instance, are prohibited from paying H-1B workers less than other workers with similar skills and qualifications. But the effectiveness of these rules is hotly disputed.
The tech industry says it needs the program because of a dearth of qualified Americans, and health care associations have said the visas help ease physician shortages. Economists have generally found that H-1B visa holders boost American productivity and raise wages even for American workers.
Critics of the program, which include many labor unions, argue that it is ripe for abuse and displaces domestic workers. They point to examples like the 2015 decision to lay off 250 technology workers at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla., who were told to train their replacements with H-1B visas. And in 2024, a federal jury found that Cognizant, an information technology outsourcing company that is among the top recipients of H-1B visas, had intentionally discriminated for years against non-Indian employees.
President Trump has fueled the debate with anti-immigrant rhetoric and recent moves, such as an executive order mandating a $100,000 fee for new H-1B applications, even as he acknowledged the need for some skilled workers from outside the United States.
The important policy debates about H-1B visas, however, have been increasingly overshadowed by what Asian American advocacy groups say is a surge in hate speech directed at South Asians. Between January 2023 and December 2025, the use of anti-South Asian slurs in online spaces associated with targeted violence rose by 115 percent, according to Stop AAPI Hate, a nonprofit that tracks discrimination against Asian Americans.
The Center for the Study of Organized Hate, a nonprofit that tracks online extremism, found a similar uptick against Indians, noting that posts on X featuring anti-Indian slurs, stereotypes or narratives like “deport Indians” garnered 280 million views over about two months last summer.
In recent months, prominent conservatives of Indian heritage like Vivek Ramaswamy and Dinesh D’Souza have also decried a rise in such rhetoric.
“In a career spanning 40 years, I have never encountered this type of rhetoric,” Mr. D’Souza wrote on X. “The Right never used to talk like this. So who on our side has legitimized this type of vile degradation? It’s a question worth thinking about.”
Some of the racist rhetoric echoes the great replacement conspiracy theory, which tries to stoke fear of a future in which white people are no longer the majority in America.
“Whereas the old version of replacement theory accuses Jews of taking over, the thrust of this new version is that now Indian people are taking over,” said Stephanie Chan, director of data and research at Stop AAPI Hate, which works together with Moonshot, a company that tracks extremism online.
In these attacks, Indians are seen as part of both the elite pulling strings and the immigrants replacing white Americans, said Sean Long, a political scientist working on a book about the politics of extremist violence in the United States.
A video posted on X last August recorded shoppers at a Costco in Frisco, claiming that it was “the Indian takeover in full view.”
It added, “America’s harsh new reality: The Great Replacement unfolding.”
The escalation in anti-South Asian hate speech began in 2024 around the presidential campaign of Kamala Harris, whose mother was Indian, said Ms. Chan of Stop AAPI Hate.
And it spiked last summer after Mr. Trump’s H-1B executive order and the rise of Zohran Mamdani as New York City mayor, she said. Nearly 80 percent of the anti-Asian slurs online are now directed at South Asians, Ms. Chan said.
Republicans have also been the targets of this rhetoric. After Vice President JD Vance announced that he and his wife, Usha, were expecting their fourth child, right-wing forums reacted with both congratulatory and racist messages. Some called for the deportation of Ms. Vance, who is of Indian descent, and her “anchor baby” — a trope commonly associated with replacement theory, which claims immigrants have babies in the United States to get citizenship. (Ms. Vance was born in the United States and is an American citizen.)
Mr. Ramaswamy, the Trump supporter and current candidate for governor of Ohio, has been pummeled by one of his primary challengers, Casey Putsch. A political newcomer, Mr. Putsch has called Mr. Ramaswamy an “Indian anchor baby” and a “globalist Trojan horse.” He has described the H-1B program as a “billionaire slave bomb” intended to destroy the job market for young Americans and accused Mr. Ramaswamy, without evidence, of being involved in H-1B fraud.
Mr. Ramaswamy is a critic of the visas, arguing that the program should be replaced with a system that brings in the most highly skilled foreign workers.
Mr. Putsch declined to comment through a spokeswoman.
Mr. Putsch is not the only local Republican politician to use such rhetoric. Aaron Reitz, a Republican candidate for Texas attorney general, wrote on X that the state’s counties “may soon be renamed Calcutta, Delhi, & Hyderabad Counties given how bad the invasion of un-assimilated & un-assimilable Indians has become.”
Mr. Reitz, who served last year as the head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy, blamed “globalist corporations” for overlooking “native-born American workers” and facilitating the “H-1B scam for cheap labor.” Mr. Reitz did not respond to a request for comment.
In Palm Bay, Fla., the City Council censured a member, Chandler Langevin, after he accused Indians on social media of coming to the United States to “drain our pockets” and calling for their deportation en masse. Mr. Langevin’s comments were denounced by Republican officials in the state, including Senator Rick Scott, though Gov. Ron DeSantis ignored calls to remove Mr. Langevin from office. Mr. Langevin did not respond to a request for comment.
The rising rhetoric directed at South Asians comes as their profile has risen in America. Indians are now the largest Asian group in the United States among people who identify with one country of origin, though they constitute only about 1.5 percent of the overall population, according to a 2023 census report.
Among Asians in the United States, Indians are on average the wealthiest and most highly educated. They are often highly politically and civically engaged, which experts say is a result of India’s robust democratic tradition and English proficiency. And they are also increasingly prominent as big tech executives, national political figures and Hollywood stars.
Pawan Dhingra, a professor at Amherst College who studies immigration, noted the parallels with a century ago, when Indian workers came to the West Coast to work on farms and in lumber mills. Like many immigrant groups, they were also accused of being unable or unwilling to assimilate and blamed for taking jobs from white people. National publications warned of a “Hindu invasion.”
That wave of xenophobia led to violence and discrimination. And in 1917, Congress passed the Asiatic Barred Zone Act, one of the most restrictive immigration laws in the nation’s history that blocked immigrants from across much of Asia.
In Frisco, the tensions over H-1B were heightened by a conservative content creator who recently posted a much-watched video in which she made claims about possible H-1B fraud in the area. Shortly afterward, Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, ordered a pause on H-1B hiring at public universities and Texas agencies. Ken Paxton, the state’s attorney general who is running for senator, announced an investigation into three businesses accused of fraud in the video.
Heather Bunting, 43-year-old Frisco resident, has watched all this unfold with mixed feelings.
Growing up in the area, she has seen the city rapidly grow and appreciates the opportunity to learn about Indian traditions. Last fall, her family attended a neighborhood Diwali event, she said, floating boats with candles on the community pond.
“I was telling my kids, ‘It’s kind of Christian, like we’re trying to spread the light,’” she recalled.
But over the last few years, her husband, who works at a telecommunications company, has seen his older white colleagues leave and more Indian H-1B workers hired. And persistent rumors of restructuring make her increasingly worried about her husband’s job.
She is also worried about her son’s schooling, which has become, she said, more competitive, with Indian families signing up for tutoring and school on Saturdays. Around 45 percent of students at the city’s public schools are Asian, up from 13 percent more than a decade ago.
Despite her concerns, she resisted casting blame on an entire community.
“It’s easy to say ‘let’s blame them,’” Ms. Bunting said. “And that’s not fair.”
Among Frisco’s Indian and Indian American residents, there is fear.
“People are worried about their personal safety,” said Sunitha Cheruvu, a Frisco resident who was born in India and grew up partly in the United States.
At the recent City Council meeting, residents of South Asian descent also lined up to speak.
Any H-1B fraud, they all agreed, should be rooted out.
Many, though, also had a sense of bewilderment. Like so many other legal immigrants, they have suddenly found themselves in a more hostile and unwelcoming environment. They pointed out they had immigrated here legally, followed the rules, contributed to the economy and pitched in to the community.
Several spoke proudly about their Indian and American cultural traditions. They talked about their U.S. military service, their love of the Dallas Cowboys and the joy of biscuits and mashed potatoes. Some of their children, they pointed out, were Eagle Scouts and loved Bollywood and country music.
“Our kids have been here, they consider themselves American,” Ms. Cheruvu said in an interview. “This is their home — this is our home.”
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
4) The Immigration Debate Came to Rural Kansas. Locals Stood by Their Mayor.
The Mexican-born mayor of Coldwater was accused of voting illegally as a noncitizen. Many of his neighbors want state and federal officials to back off.
By Mitch Smith, Photographs by Clayton Steward, Reporting from Coldwater, Kan., Feb. 16, 2026
Former Mayor Joe Ceballos of Coldwater, Kan., was born in Mexico and came to the United States when he was 4 years old. Clayton Steward for The New York Times
A standing-room-only crowd jammed recently into the only courtroom in Comanche County, Kan. Residents came on their lunch breaks, trekked in from their ranches and even closed down a hardware store so they could watch.
They were there for the man at the defendant’s table, Joe Ceballos, who just weeks before had been re-elected mayor of Coldwater in a small-town landslide, with 101 votes to his opponent’s 20. There had been no time to celebrate. Hours before the votes were tallied, Mr. Ceballos, a legal permanent resident of the United States, was charged in state court with voting illegally as a noncitizen.
Now Mr. Ceballos, 55, sat in the high-ceilinged courtroom, glancing downward as a prosecutor from the Kansas attorney general’s office rattled off a list of felony charges that could lead to years in prison: three counts of election perjury, three counts of voting without being qualified.
When the charges were announced a few weeks before the hearing, the municipal politics of Coldwater suddenly became national news. Many conservatives from outside Comanche County framed the case as an example of rampant voter fraud. Before the first court hearing in December, the Trump administration drew attention to the case, pledging to seek Mr. Ceballos’s deportation if he were convicted.
“This alien committed a felony by voting in American elections,” Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a news release that included a photo of Mr. Ceballos and of his signature on a voter registration form.
Yet inside Coldwater — home to 700 people, zero stoplights and vanishingly few Democrats — the prosecution was widely seen as a personal attack on a pillar of the town. Most of them, Mr. Ceballos included, had voted for President Trump, and some said they supported his immigration policies. But they knew Joe, a fixture in Coldwater since he was a teenager. And they wanted the government to back off.
Decades before he appeared at the county courthouse as a defendant, Mr. Ceballos said he went to that same limestone-trimmed building on New York Avenue on a high-school field trip.
His teacher, Gail Boisseau, said she showed a group of seniors around, taking them to the spot where they would pay their taxes and introducing them to courthouse employees.
When they got to the county clerk’s office, she and Mr. Ceballos each recalled, the person working there asked if students who were at least 18 would like to register to vote. Mr. Ceballos said he filled out the form. Federal and state laws require that voters be United States citizens, and Kansans must check a box saying that they are citizens when they register to vote.
“Nobody ever told me that I couldn’t vote or register to vote,” Mr. Ceballos said during a recent interview inside the City Council chamber where he once presided over meetings. “And so, as a young man, yeah, I did it. I registered.”
The county clerk, Bri Uhl, said her office had no record of Mr. Ceballos’s registering to vote before 1999, when he would have been in his late 20s. Mr. Ceballos’s lawyer, Jess Hoeme, said in an email that “Joe is confident he was registered and had voted prior to the renewal or re-registration in 1999, but I’m having a hard time proving it.”
Mr. Ceballos was born in Mexico and came to the United States when he was 4 years old, he and his lawyer said. He moved around as a child before ending up in Coldwater, just north of the Oklahoma border in west-central Kansas, as a teenager in the 1980s. For all but a few months since then, Comanche County has been home.
Mr. Ceballos, who received a green card in 1990, said he had never been back to Mexico. And though he used to help local law enforcement as an informal Spanish interpreter, he said his knowledge of the language had faded.
Mr. Ceballos wears cowboy boots, drives a Ram truck and speaks with a slight Southern Plains accent. He cheers for the Dallas Cowboys, rides a Harley-Davidson and has a cavernous workshop next to his house that is stuffed with tools, car parts and an old Pepsi machine.
He said he did not follow national politics closely, but agreed with much of what the president had said about energy policy and illegal immigration. Mr. Ceballos said he voted for Mr. Trump in the last three presidential elections.
“I still strongly believe in Trump’s immigration laws about, ‘Let’s get the bad guys out of here.’ You know, they’re murderers, they killed people, they molested people, let’s get them out of here,” Mr. Ceballos said in an interview. “But I feel like I don’t fit that category. And I feel like that’s how they’re treating me.”
Over time, Mr. Ceballos became part of the fabric of Coldwater, a place where most people seem to have known most everybody else since childhood. He married twice, raised children and bought a pasture just outside city limits, where he tends to a herd of cattle. Each year, he hosts a mud run for large trucks, drawing spectators from across the region.
Court records show that Mr. Ceballos was arrested in 1994 and convicted of misdemeanor battery for his role in a fight involving several people. Someone was shot and wounded during that fight, according to those records, though Mr. Ceballos was not accused of shooting anyone. He and his lawyer described that case, as well as a 1995 case that led to a conviction for misdemeanor criminal damage to property, as related to the end of Mr. Ceballos’s first marriage. Kansas court records available online do not show any arrests of Mr. Ceballos in the last 30 years.
As he made a life in Coldwater, where 90 percent of the residents are white, Mr. Ceballos became a regular voter, always choosing Republicans. He worked for years in Coldwater’s public works department, then landed a job as a lineman with a utility company, where he is still employed.
His neighbors elected him as a City Council member, then as mayor, a position in which he focused on keeping up basic services while managing a tight budget. He said the job paid $500 a month. One of his signature issues, he said, was maintaining the pavement on Coldwater’s aging streets rather than converting them to dirt roads. He resigned as mayor soon after the charges were announced.
His work in city government earned good reviews. Britt Lenertz, who took over as mayor for a few weeks after Mr. Ceballos resigned, said that “whenever it came to anything that he could do to try to improve the community, he wanted to be a part of it.”
He was known for checking in with the city clerk almost every day to see if anything needed his attention. For Christmas, he arranged to cut down a cedar tree at a nearby lake and install it in the middle of Coldwater’s ultrawide Main Street. And when Rick Beeley posted a few years ago in the local newspaper that he was hoping to retire from his role decorating Main Street in U.S. flags for patriotic holidays, Mr. Ceballos was the only person who responded and volunteered to take on that job, he said.
“I’m a Vietnam vet — he’s just as American as I am,” Mr. Beeley said.
A day before his court appearance, an advertisement in The Western Star, Coldwater’s newspaper, urged readers to attend the hearing: “Please Find the Time to Show Support for Joe Ceballos!”
“Over many years, Joe chose this community to be his forever home” and “gave of his time and energy,” the advertisement added.
Even Mr. Ceballos’s opponent in November’s nonpartisan mayoral election, Greg Vanderree, had nothing particularly bad to say about him.
Mr. Vanderree, a Republican who said he broadly supported Mr. Trump’s policies on immigration, said he had no idea before the charges were announced that Mr. Ceballos was not a citizen. Mr. Vanderree said he had played no role in reporting his opponent to the authorities, and said he had been hurt that some of his neighbors seemed to think he had.
As far as what should happen to Mr. Ceballos now, he said, there were no easy answers.
“He’s not a bad guy,” Mr. Vanderree said. “He’s not doing anything to harm anybody. But he did — I mean, he flat broke the law. And the trouble is, due to other things, he’s been made an example of.”
‘A Real Problem’
To the Kansas attorney general, Kris W. Kobach, the case against Mr. Ceballos was proof of what he had insisted for years.
“Noncitizen voting is a real problem,” Mr. Kobach, a Republican, said at the news conference where he announced the case against the mayor. “It is not something that happens once in a decade. It is something that happens fairly frequently.”
He said that too little had been done over the years to identify ineligible voters and remove them from the rolls.
“Every time a noncitizen votes, it effectively cancels out the vote of a U.S. citizen,” Mr. Kobach said, adding, “if a person who is not a U.S. citizen actually ends up on the ballot for an office, then a U.S. citizen lost the opportunity to obtain that office.”
Concern about election fraud and voting by noncitizens is now a core issue for many Republicans, but Mr. Kobach was ahead of his time in identifying that topic’s political potency. When he was Kansas secretary of state in the 2010s, Mr. Kobach built a national profile by calling for stricter election laws and by prosecuting a small number of people accused of voting illegally.
In fact, voter fraud is rare, and an exceedingly low percentage of ballots are cast by noncitizens in the United States. Mr. Kobach declined through a spokeswoman to be interviewed.
Outside Coldwater, the push to prosecute Mr. Ceballos won the attorney general praise from fellow conservatives. But around Comanche County, where Mr. Kobach and Mr. Trump have overwhelmingly won elections, some questioned the decision.
“I think he needs to find out a little bit more what’s going on,” Dennis Byram said of Mr. Kobach, for whom he voted. Mr. Byram, who closed down his hardware store to attend Mr. Ceballos’s court appearance, said “the whole county backs” the former mayor.
Ryan Swayze, a high school classmate of Mr. Ceballos who now ranches just south of the state line in Oklahoma, said “I feel like this is an A.G. that’s drawing attention to himself.”
Still, the defining challenge for Mr. Ceballos and his supporters is that he openly acknowledges doing what he is accused of doing. Yes, Mr. Ceballos said, he voted repeatedly in United States elections without being a United States citizen. And that is illegal.
His defense, essentially, is that he did not understand that being a permanent resident should have precluded him from voting and holding office, and that no one ever told him he was not eligible. He said he engaged in politics not in some plot to subvert the system, but out of a desire to help the place he considers home.
After decades as a permanent resident, Mr. Ceballos said, he decided last year to pursue citizenship. He said he had passed the civics test and was sitting for an interview in Wichita with a federal official when he was asked whether he had ever voted.
Yes, the mayor responded. It was not the answer the government was looking for.
“His eyes got real big, and I was like, ‘Boy, did I do something wrong?’” Mr. Ceballos said.
According to Mr. Ceballos and his lawyer, that exchange derailed his citizenship application, alerted Kansas officials that he had voted as a noncitizen and set off the chain of events that led to his being charged.
A lingering question is what justice might look like in this case. Should Mr. Ceballos be convicted of felonies, as the attorney general is seeking? And if he is, should he be slated for deportation, as the Trump administration has pledged in his case? Or, as so many in Coldwater have suggested, might there be some way to give him a slap on the wrist and move on?
Mr. Ceballos, whose preliminary hearing is scheduled for March, said that perhaps he should be ordered to pay a fine, or even spend time on probation. But he feared a felony conviction would mean being sent back to a country he had not visited in half a century — away from his family and his cows and his tidy house on the edge of town with hay bales wrapped in red, white and blue.
Even now, before his case is decided, he said he worried that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents might show up looking for him.
“You wake up, like, ‘Are they going to deport me now?’” he said. “It’s always in your thought.”
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
5) For an Immigration Trap on a Bridge to Canada, an Encouraging Sign
The recent detention of a visiting research scientist has renewed attention on a confusing exit ramp in Buffalo that sends drivers across the border.
By Benjamin Oreskes and Jay Root, Feb. 17, 2026
For the better part of a decade, motorists on the New York side of the Peace Bridge in Buffalo have had to confront a vexing problem: One wrong turn, easily taken, and you’ll soon be in Canada.
But under President Trump’s immigration crackdown, the inconvenience of a wayward trip has taken on dire consequences. A number of people, including some with legal residency status, have been detained for weeks pending deportation procedures.
The latest episode occurred last month, when U.S. authorities arrested a University at Buffalo research scientist, Shovgi Huseynov, who tried to turn around before crossing the Peace Bridge and was detained for weeks, first in nearby Batavia, N.Y., and then in Michigan.
Mr. Huseynov, a native of Azerbaijan whose lawyers said he had authorization to work in the United States through 2029, was released in late January. But the publicity over his detention sparked outrage, calls for reform and, earlier this month, a small gesture from Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Ms. Hochul’s anger over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has soared in recent months, leading her to call for a prohibition on partnerships between police departments in New York and the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
In Buffalo, she has directed the State Department of Transportation to place temporary electronic signs at the entrance to the bridge’s roundabout warning drivers that they are heading to another country.
One wrong turn, easily taken, and you’ll soon be in Canada.
“I am traumatized when I think about what is happening to families,” Ms. Hochul said at a news conference. “I mean, this insanity has to stop.”
For now, motorists will have to be content with the electronic signage, which alternately flashes “Right Ramp” and “To Canada Only.”
The navigational trap was accidentally created by New York about a decade ago, when the state helped rebuild a portion of a nearby park that resulted in the creation of the traffic roundabout.
Officials from the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority, which has oversight over the border crossing, warned that the new design could confuse drivers. The changes to the bridge’s entry route also eliminated a road that had, for decades, been used by people who had accidentally steered themselves toward Canada and needed to turn around.
“At the time New York State was designing this project, the Bridge Authority explicitly raised concerns about the Porter Avenue roundabout, noting that it was an irregular design that would create functional and safety problems,” Assemblyman Jon Rivera and State Senator April Baskin wrote in a letter to New York transportation officials late last month.
“Their recommendation was clear: The roundabout should not be constructed. That advice was ultimately ignored, as the project was not under the Bridge Authority’s jurisdiction.”
But with the recent shift in U.S. immigration enforcement, Mr. Rivera and Ms. Baskin wrote, “an unintended border crossing can now carry severe and life-altering consequences.”
The lawmakers cited reporting in The New York Times that chronicled the case of a Colombian immigrant named Victor who had been detained for weeks after the GPS on his cellphone erroneously directed him across the Peace Bridge into Canada. Victor was authorized to work in the United States while he sought political asylum.
Sean Ryan, Buffalo’s new mayor, said he would soon be meeting with leaders of the Bridge Authority. He said that while the temporary signs Ms. Hochul had installed were a good start, a more durable fix was needed.
“Everyone is thinking about a more permanent solution,” Mr. Ryan said. “We spent so much money doing that plaza redesign and it really worked at getting traffic off the streets. We need to have a better stopgap. I am trying to see what else we can do so the chances are decreased that you pick the wrong lane.”
Part of the reason for drivers’ errors seems to be their reliance on mapping apps, which have occasionally sent unaware motorists across the bridge. It was a phenomenon that The Times experienced last year, when a request for directions to a restaurant in Buffalo resulted in a trip across the international border. The Times’s journalists were told by a Canadian border agent that these inadvertent crossings happen “at least 20 times a day.”
Since there are so many different entities involved in operating the Peace Bridge and the border crossing, state transportation officials said that a permanent solution would take time.
Mr. Huseynov did not respond to a request for an interview, but in an emotional video posted to Facebook last month, the father of two discussed his relief at being home. He pulled both of his children into the video and spoke with pride about how in his absence, his son had competed in a swimming race and won.
“Thank you, my son. I kiss you,” he said in Azeri, noting that his return was possible because all his “documents were legal and in accordance with the law.”
“I have now returned to my normal life, and everything is fine,” he said.
Since there are so many different entities involved in operating the Peace Bridge and the border crossing, state transportation officials said that a permanent solution would take time. That is why the large temporary signs were so important.
“The state took immediate action to reduce these instances and is working closely with the city of Buffalo, Thruway Authority and Peace Bridge Authority to alert drivers ahead of the border,” Glenn Blain, assistant communications director for the Transportation Department, said in a written statement.
Mr. Ryan said there were simple changes that U.S. Customs and Border Protection could immediately make to significantly reduce the problem, including removing a set of orange barrels that block drivers from turning around outside a certain spot near the customs booths.
Ms. Baskin and Mr. Rivera agreed. They urged the Bridge Authority — which acts as a landlord for federal border agencies — to consider allowing motorists to exit through a gate at the edge of the travel plaza on the U.S. side.
But Thomas Boyle, the Bridge Authority’s chief executive, said that Customs and Border Protection had control over the gate. And he encouraged the lawmakers to consider solutions that fix the problem at its source: the confusing traffic circle on Porter Avenue where motorists trying to reach the highway frequently take the ramp toward Canada instead.
Once a car is on the ramp, it can’t turn back. The only solution is to keep moving forward, over the bridge toward Canada, and then back into the dragnet of federal immigration agents.
“We want to see a solution,” Mr. Boyle said. “And our main statement at this point is solutions can be made where the problem persists.”
Mr. Rivera, however, said that the board that Mr. Boyle reported to — composed of five Canadians picked by the national government and five New Yorkers designated by the state — should be more proactive in finding a solution that worked for people using the bridge and not the U.S. government.
A spokesman for Customs and Border Protection did not answer specific questions about the continued problems at the Peace Bridge but said that “border security and our law enforcement mission remain our priority.”
“We need to make clearer to people that C.B.P. is the tenant and not the one calling the shots,” Mr. Rivera said. “We’re the landlord. We’re the owners.”
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
6) Military Veterans Protesting ICE See Crackdown Through Different Lens
Veterans have taken part in demonstrations against the federal crackdown on illegal immigration in Minnesota. “I believe in the institutions,” one said.
By Julie Bosman, Talya Minsberg and Jazmine Ulloa, Reporting from Minneapolis, Feb. 17, 2026
Tom Kendall, who served in the U.S. Air Force, outside the federal building in Minnesota that has been a center of protest. Ben Brewer for The New York Times
Tom Kendall, 78, can usually spot a fellow veteran outside the Whipple building near Minneapolis, where he has stood in his gray parka keeping tabs on federal immigration agents’ vehicles for six weeks.
Some wear military insignia on their hats or coats, identifying themselves as veterans of wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan. Others are people he has slowly gotten to know over conversations in the bitter cold, as they have demonstrated together in opposition to the immigration crackdown. Late last week, there were dozens more veterans than usual outside Whipple, the home base for federal operations in the region, drawn by a boisterous protest organized by a veterans’ group.
In the Twin Cities, veterans of the U.S. military have been among those on the front lines of protest during the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operation that has convulsed the Minneapolis area for months and was expected to wind down in the coming days.
Veterans, who make up about six percent of the U.S. adult population, are often visible members of protests around the country. But they bring a unique perspective to the conflict between some members of the American public and immigration agents that has played out in Los Angeles, Chicago and, most recently, in the Twin Cities.
While many veterans favor a crackdown on illegal immigration and some have even gone on to work as federal immigration agents, veterans who have been protesting in Minnesota said they view the operation through the lens of their own military experience. Some said they were troubled to recognize weapons used by agents that were similar to those they carried overseas. Many of them said their sense of patriotism drove them to protest.
“I can’t speak for all the veterans,” said Mr. Kendall, who served in the U.S. Air Force. “But a lot of us feel that we protected America once, we’ll protect America again.”
It has been more than two months since the Trump administration began the crackdown that sent thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents into Minnesota. Trump officials said the effort was necessary to arrest undocumented immigrants, particularly those with violent criminal records, who have dodged the legal system in the Twin Cities, and have defended their tactics as lawful and claimed that the state was safer because of the operation.
But the operation drew widespread criticism from Minnesota residents, including those who have served in the military and have seen armed conflict up close. In interviews, veterans participating in anti-ICE efforts said they were especially dismayed to see ICE agents patrolling streets recklessly in their own country, wearing masks and treating civilians roughly.
“These guys are drawing weapons on observers who are in their cars and driving around like they’re in ‘Sicario,’” Chris Foreman, an Army veteran, said, referring to a 2015 Hollywood film that chronicled a clandestine team of federal agents who take on a Mexican drug cartel.
Mr. Foreman, a regular protester outside the Whipple building, said he observed inadequate training and violations of norms that were deeply meaningful in his military experience. “I believe in the institutions,” he said. “I want them to work right. And they’re eroding the institutions.”
Sara Teig, a veteran who was in the Army reserves for 23 years, said that she been haunted by witnessing military-style coordination by the federal agents in Minnesota, her home state. She said she recognized tactics she had seen during her time in Afghanistan and Kuwait, including the way that heavily armed agents would go about searching a house. Seeing the same practices at home felt like something of a betrayal, she said.
Many of the veterans who participated in protests in Minnesota said they have long favored Democrats and opposed President Trump’s policies. Some described themselves as political independents or had voted for Mr. Trump in previous elections.
As the immigration crackdown began in Minnesota in December, Andrew Mercado, a U.S. Army veteran and former Trump supporter who says his politics now veer center-left, joined independent journalists and others who tracked and recorded the activities of ICE agents. From a phone attached to the windshield of his pickup truck, Mr. Mercado livestreamed video on social media platforms as he tailed caravans of federal immigration officers or searched for them.
At times, he chatted with followers or argued with right-wing influencers, building a diverse audience.
“We’ve all been watching how they are acting, and it’s so unprofessional,” he said.
In response to an inquiry about the veterans’ critiques, Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, defended the actions of ICE agents, saying that “these types of smears” against them had contributed to a large uptick in assaults against them. “To most Americans our brave ICE law enforcement are heroes,” she said in an email.
Some veterans have come to the Twin Cities from afar, eager to join demonstrations, particularly after federal agents fatally shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti in January. One veterans group sponsored an ice sculpture on the steps of the State Capitol in St. Paul that read “Prosecute ICE,” though it was knocked down.
“We’re banding together to stand up for the oath that we took, to stand for the Constitution, to make this country what it says it is,” said Jesse Amo, a veteran of the Minnesota National Guard.
Many of the veterans, including Mr. Amo, are part of groups such as Veterans for Peace, a group which frequently organizes antiwar rallies around the county. But others have protested for the first time, arriving in Minnesota without much of a plan.
Max Adamson, 39, said he drove to the Twin Cities from Idaho after seeing how protesters were being treated outside of the Whipple building, which has become a staging ground for immigration agents and for protesters.
“I was just watching the news and paying attention to what was going on and seeing multiple constitutional, civil rights violations being performed by the ICE agents,” he said. “It was like a little war going outside that building every day.”
Ian Austin said he came to Minnesota from Pennsylvania in part to document interactions between civilians and immigration agents. He was arrested a day after he arrived on Jan. 16. Video captured by CNN shows Mr. Austin backing away from agents before he was tackled and shoved to the ground. He was released without charges hours later.
Mr. Austin was arrested again days later in connection with a protest at a Minnesota church. A demonstration interrupted a service where an ICE official serves as a pastor, and Mr. Austin was one of nine people charged with conspiracy to deprive the congregants of the church of their rights and to interfere with religious freedom in a house of worship. Mr. Austin has entered a not guilty plea.
As Trump officials last week announced plans to scale down operations in the Twin Cities, some veterans said that they intend to keep watching the actions of agents, even if the immigration operations move to another city.
“We’re not stopping because they say that they’re stopping,” Mr. Austin said. “I know at least among veterans, there will be a whole lot of people that, if they’re racking up somewhere else, will be transitioning to go and help in those places.”
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
7) Two Strikes in Three Years: N.Y.C. Nurses Awaken as a Major Labor Voice
But a rift has emerged among the union’s leaders as workers at four hospitals are back on the job, while a walkout persists at a fifth hospital.
By Joseph Goldstein, Feb. 17, 2026
Three years ago, Nancy Hagans, the president of the New York State Nurses Association, led members on a strike. She has been back on the picket line in recent weeks. Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters
It should have been a triumphant moment for Nancy Hagans. A nurse at a Brooklyn hospital, she is the president of the state’s largest nursing union. Three years ago, she had led 7,000 health care workers on a strike that resulted in major gains, and now she had done it again — this time with nearly 15,000 nurses.
But this winter’s walkout had been a far bigger gamble, with far less upside and considerably more peril. There were fewer protections for striking workers, and hospitals were better prepared than in 2023. Still, after a monthlong strike, the hospitals offered the nurses better pay and working conditions than they had been likely to get without striking.
And last week, after having gone on strike for the second time in three years, most of the nurses took the deal — an accomplishment that sealed the nurses’ position as a potent political force. But, for Ms. Hagans and other leaders of the statewide union, it came at a cost.
The most recent strike has revealed a bitter rift inside the union, which has come to the surface in the past week. While most nurses are returning to work, thousands of others have decided to persist with the strike while accusing the union’s leadership of undermining their efforts.
Nurses from one of the city’s largest hospitals, NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia, hand-delivered a letter to the union’s office last week, demanding Ms. Hagans’s removal as president of the New York State Nurses Association, according to one of the leaders of the union’s chapter at the hospital, Cagatay Celik. The letter was first reported by The City, an online news outlet.
The dispute stems from the statewide union taking the pact directly to nurses and bypassing the nurse leaders at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia, who had opposed the deal a mediator had offered to end the strike.
“That was a very unfortunate decision,” Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez, who was the statewide union’s president until 2021, said. “I don’t want to denigrate my union leadership, so I want to be very careful how I phrase this.”
She said that the union leadership had erred in its efforts to get nurses at NewYork-Presbyterian to vote on a deal that local union leaders had rejected.
“I just think that they perhaps have lost touch with some of the rank and file,” she said.
It was only after four weeks that a deal began to take shape, after the mediators put forward a proposal. The nurse bargaining units at Mount Sinai Health System and Montefiore Medical Center voted to approve the deal and put it to the rank-and-file nurses at those hospitals, who ratified the deal.
But at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia, Beth Loudin, the head of the bargaining unit, said that the proposed deal did not include sufficient protections against layoffs, nor did it add enough nurses in understaffed units.
To her surprise, the union’s leadership decided to put the proposal to a vote of the more than 4,000 striking nurses at the hospital, a move that struck many nurses as a betrayal of those on the picket line. The nurses there voted against the proposal, and to stay on strike.
It was that decision that led Ms. Loudin and others, including Mr. Celik, to demand the ouster of Ms. Hagans, who has been the union president since 2021, and other union leaders. On “The Brian Lehrer Show” on WNYC radio, Ms. Hagans, who did not respond to interview requests from The New York Times, defended her decision to have the NewYork-Presbyterian nurses vote on the deal.
“The decision was to put it out there for all the members to see and make that decision,” Ms. Hagans said. “It’s about democracy.”
When she was asked on WNYC how she would restore her credibility with the rank and file, she said that she understood that many nurses were frustrated.
“This is a very difficult time,” she said. “This is a long strike. The nurses are frustrated and I understand that.”
About 10,000 nurses began returning to work this past weekend at Montefiore in the Bronx and across three hospitals in the Mount Sinai Health System. But more than 4,000 nurses remained on strike in Upper Manhattan, outside NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia.
NewYork-Presbyterian has begun encouraging nurses to cross the picket line, sending emails that invite them to return to work.
“We know that for many, missing another paycheck and going without health care coverage is not an option you and your families can afford,” the hospital wrote in an email Friday.
What happens next is far from clear. The NewYork-Presbyterian nurses could land the deal they are seeking. Or perhaps the picket line caves, under fear that the hospital will replace those on strike, a worry that some nurses have expressed.
Jason Ortiz, a political operative who was once the political director of a labor union, the New York Hotel Trades Council, said that he couldn’t recall any other union in New York that had led its members on two major strikes in such a short period.
“That was a very, very risky and very, very courageous move,” he said.
Striking workers, he said, couldn’t depend on protections from the National Labor Relations Board, a federal agency that has been largely sidelined.
“It’s not a decision to be taken lightly, and one where the consequences of doing it and staying out for a long time could be catastrophic,” he said, noting the results of a five-year strike by Spectrum cable and internet workers in New York City that resulted in decertification of the union.
But many wondered if this was the start of a pattern. Would there be a nurses strike at the end of every three-year contract?
“That is not our desire,” said Ms. Sheridan-Gonzalez, the former president of the statewide union, who remains on the union’s bargaining committee at Montefiore.
The New York State Nurses Association is New York’s oldest nursing union and professional association for nurses. Two decades ago, it was nobody’s idea of a pugnacious union. But a group of nurse leaders, including Ms. Sheridan-Gonzalez, transformed the organization.
During the past decade or so, it has fought with considerable success for minimum staffing levels. For years, the union complained that hospitals hired too few nurses, leaving them with far too many patients to care for properly. With the union’s support, state lawmakers passed a law that established safe staffing standards.
The issue resonated with anyone who had ever waited in a crowded emergency room. It linked working conditions for nurses to the care that patients received. “More nurses, better care for patients,” Ms. Hagans said on WNYC.
But the state law proved less effective than the nurses hoped. Three years ago, during contract negotiations, the nurses’ union won not just a guarantee of minimum staffing levels but, in some cases, a mechanism for extracting payouts from hospitals that didn’t comply.
At Mount Sinai, nurses have been awarded more than $6 million from arbitrators because of insufficient staffing levels.
The nurses say they won those provisions by going on strike in January 2023. It was the first significant nurses’ strike in New York City in a quarter century. Hospital executives doubted the nurses would walk. When they did, they had broad public support: New Yorkers remembered opening their windows and banging pots and pans to celebrate health care workers each night early in the coronavirus pandemic. That strike lasted just three days.
The hospitals were better prepared this time. To replace the striking workers, the hospitals quickly deployed thousands of short-term contract nurses, paying them about $9,000 a week, substantially more than nurses typically earn.
By early January, both sides were accusing the other of failing to negotiate in good faith. The hospitals focused on the nurses’ initial pay demands — 10 percent raises a year that they lowered to 8 percent — as unrealistic.
The union accused the hospitals of trying to compel them to strike, by offering too little and trying to roll back the wins of the last contract.
As the strike persisted, the negotiations unfolding at the Javits Convention Center made little headway through January. At times, the bargaining units of nurses at each hospital staked out separate positions, with one unit rejecting a deal that another had accepted.
“Every bargaining unit went and did their own thing,” Marc Z. Kramer, the lead negotiator for Mount Sinai, said.
Some of the demands, in the view of hospital negotiators, went beyond the scope of typical union-management issues, such as the union’s demand that hospitals bar officials from the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency from hospitals, without a warrant.
The strike wasn’t a last resort for the union, Mr. Kramer said. “It was their first resort.”
“Their tactics were strike first and bargain second.”
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
