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We need a united, independent, democratically organized mass movement for peace, justice and equality in solidarity with similar movements worldwide if we are to survive the death agony of capitalism and its inevitable descent into fascism and barbarism before it destroys the world altogether!
—Bonnie Weinstein
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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 Kagarlitsky
We, 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 authorities of the Russian Federation to reverse their growing repression of dissent and respect their citizens' freedom of speech and right to protest.
Sign to Demand the Release of Boris Kagarlitsky
https://freeboris.info
The petition is also available on Change.org
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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.
Donate to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Emergency Legal and Medical Defense Fund, Official 2024
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
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Updates From Kevin Cooper
A Never-ending Constitutional Violation
A summary of the current status of Kevin Cooper’s case by the Kevin Cooper Defense Committee
On October 26, 2023, the law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP wrote a rebuttal in response to the Special Counsel's January 13, 2023 report upholding the conviction of their client Kevin Cooper. A focus of the rebuttal was that all law enforcement files were not turned over to the Special Counsel during their investigation, despite a request for them to the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office.
On October 29, 2023, Law Professors Lara Bazelon and Charlie Nelson Keever, who run the six member panel that reviews wrongful convictions for the San Francisco County District Attorney's office, published an OpEd in the San Francisco Chronicle calling the "Innocence Investigation” done by the Special Counsel in the Cooper case a “Sham Investigation” largely because Cooper has unsuccessfully fought for years to obtain the police and prosecutor files in his case. This is a Brady claim, named for the U.S. Supreme court’s 1963 case establishing the Constitutional rule that defendants are entitled to any information in police and prosecutor's possession that could weaken the state's case or point to innocence. Brady violations are a leading cause of wrongful convictions. The Special Counsel's report faults Cooper for not offering up evidence of his own despite the fact that the best evidence to prove or disprove Brady violations or other misconduct claims are in those files that the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office will not turn over to the Special Counsel or to Cooper's attorneys.
On December 14, 2023, the president of the American Bar Association (ABA), Mary Smith, sent Governor Gavin Newsom a three page letter on behalf of the ABA stating in part that Mr.Cooper's counsel objected to the state's failure to provide Special Counsel all documents in their possession relating to Mr.Cooper's conviction, and that concerns about missing information are not new. For nearly 40 years Mr.Cooper's attorneys have sought this same information from the state.
On December 19, 2023, Bob Egelko, a journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle wrote an article about the ABA letter to the Governor that the prosecutors apparently withheld evidence from the Governor's legal team in the Cooper case.
These are just a few recent examples concerning the ongoing failure of the San Bernardino County District Attorney to turn over to Cooper's attorney's the files that have been requested, even though under the law and especially the U.S. Constitution, the District Attorney of San Bernardino county is required to turn over to the defendant any and all material and or exculpatory evidence that they have in their files. Apparently, they must have something in their files because they refuse to turn them over to anyone.
The last time Cooper's attorney's received files from the state, in 2004, it wasn't from the D.A. but a Deputy Attorney General named Holly Wilkens in Judge Huff's courtroom. Cooper's attorneys discovered a never before revealed police report showing that a shirt was discovered that had blood on it and was connected to the murders for which Cooper was convicted, and that the shirt had disappeared. It had never been tested for blood. It was never turned over to Cooper's trial attorney, and no one knows where it is or what happened to it. Cooper's attorneys located the woman who found that shirt on the side of the road and reported it to the Sheriff's Department. She was called to Judge Huff's court to testify about finding and reporting that shirt to law enforcement. That shirt was the second shirt found that had blood on it that was not the victims’ blood. This was in 2004, 19 years after Cooper's conviction.
It appears that this ongoing constitutional violation that everyone—from the Special Counsel to the Governor's legal team to the Governor himself—seems to know about, but won't do anything about, is acceptable in order to uphold Cooper's conviction.
But this type of thing is supposed to be unacceptable in the United States of America where the Constitution is supposed to stand for something other than a piece of paper with writing on it. How can a Governor, his legal team, people who support and believe in him ignore a United States citizen’s Constitutional Rights being violated for 40 years in order to uphold a conviction?
This silence is betrayal of the Constitution. This permission and complicity by the Governor and his team is against everything that he and they claim to stand for as progressive politicians. They have accepted the Special Counsel's report even though the Special Counsel did not receive the files from the district attorney that may not only prove that Cooper is innocent, but that he was indeed framed by the Sheriff’s Department; and that evidence was purposely destroyed and tampered with, that certain witnesses were tampered with, or ignored if they had information that would have helped Cooper at trial, that evidence that the missing shirt was withheld from Cooper's trial attorney, and so much more.
Is the Governor going to get away with turning a blind eye to this injustice under his watch?
Are progressive people going to stay silent and turn their eyes blind in order to hopefully get him to end the death penalty for some while using Cooper as a sacrificial lamb?
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)
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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
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1) Cities Across U.S. Brace for Fresh Protests as Marines Prepare to Deploy in L.A.
California’s governor condemned President Trump for a “brazen abuse of power” in sending military forces. Protests over federal immigration raids spread to cities across the country, and more are expected on Wednesday.
By Francesca Regalado, John Yoon, Julie Bosman, Eric Schmitt and Sean Keenan, June 11, 2025
A protest against the detention of migrants by federal law enforcement in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday. Philip Cheung for The New York Times
Cities across the United States were bracing for a new round of immigration protests on Wednesday after the Los Angeles mayor imposed an overnight curfew downtown and Gov. Gavin Newsom of California blamed President Trump for unrest that began with deportation raids last week.
The curfew brought quiet to downtown Los Angeles, where five days of protests over the federal immigration raids have occasionally turned violent, but tensions remained high after the U.S. military announced that 700 Marines would join National Guard troops in the city on Wednesday. A spokeswoman for the U.S. military’s Northern Command said that the Marines would help protect federal property and personnel, including immigration enforcement agents.
Even as his administration escalated the military response — an exceedingly rare use of active-duty troops on domestic soil — President Trump suggested on Tuesday that the protests in Los Angeles were petering out, and gave himself credit. “By doing what I did, I stopped the violence in L.A.,” he said in the Oval Office.
The California governor hit back in a nationally televised address that appeared intended to be heard far beyond the state. Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, warned that Mr. Trump’s deployment of nearly 5,000 National Guard and Marine troops to Los Angeles against state officials’ advice was a “brazen abuse of power,” and he warned of a “perilous moment” for American democracy.
“California may be first, but it clearly won’t end here,” Mr. Newsom said. “Other states are next. Democracy is next.”
On Tuesday, the fifth day of unrest over the immigration raids, protests that began in Los Angeles grew in size and intensity across the country. Some demonstrators in downtown Chicago threw water bottles at police officers and vandalized at least two vehicles. In New York, officers made dozens of arrests near federal buildings in Lower Manhattan, the police said. In Atlanta, they used chemical agents and physical force to drive a few dozen protesters from their foothold on a highway.
More protests were planned in several cities on Wednesday, including Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, Minneapolis, San Antonio and Seattle. Some organizers said that local demonstrations this week were a prelude to nationwide ones planned for Saturday against President Trump and an unusual military parade in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Trump warned on Tuesday that any demonstrators who assembled during the parade would “be met with very big force,” without elaborating. A U.S. official later told The New York Times that discussions were taking place inside the Trump administration, including at the Pentagon, about deploying National Guard or active-duty troops to cities beyond Los Angeles.
Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas said late Tuesday that he would deploy National Guard troops across the state to maintain order, becoming the first U.S. governor to do so since the unrest began.
Here’s what else to know:
· Arrests: Since protests began last Friday in response to federal immigration raids in Los Angeles’s garment district, hundreds of people have been arrested in several cities, including more than 330 in Los Angeles, more than 240 in San Francisco and a dozen in Austin, Texas, officials said. The encounters have turned tense at times, but the protests have remained largely confined to small sections of cities.
· L.A. curfew: In Los Angeles, the downtown curfew imposed by Mayor Karen Bass lifted at 6 a.m. local time. It covers a complex of downtown federal buildings where protesters have clashed with police, and was expected to last for several days. Read more ›
· Newsom’s speech: The governor used one of the highest-profile moments of his political career to lay out what he argued was the threat that Mr. Trump poses to democracy. Read the full transcript of his speech ›
· Immigration raids: Armed National Guard troops accompanied federal immigration enforcement officers on raids in Los Angeles on Tuesday, a move that the state of California has called unlawful and inflammatory. Read more ›
· Court hearing: A federal judge in California has set a hearing for Thursday on the state’s request to limit Marines and National Guard troops to guarding federal buildings.
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2) Military Parade Marches Into Political Maelstrom as Troops Deploy to L.A.
President Trump’s decision to send troops into an American city comes just days before a rare military display in the nation’s capital.
By Helene Cooper, Reporting from Washington, June 10, 2025
This is not the image Army officials had wanted.
While tanks, armored troop carriers and artillery systems pour into Washington for the Army’s 250th birthday celebration, National Guard troops from the Army’s 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, supplemented by active-duty Marines, have been deployed to the streets of Los Angeles.
It is a juxtaposition that has military officials and experts concerned.
Several current and former Army officials said the military parade and other festivities on Saturday — which is also President Trump’s 79th birthday — could make it appear as if the military is celebrating a crackdown on Americans.
“The unfortunate coincidence of the parade and federalizing the California National Guard will feel ominous,” said Kori Schake, a former defense official in the George W. Bush administration who directs foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
Dr. Schake initially did not consider the parade much of a problem but is now concerned about “the rapid escalation by the administration” in Los Angeles.
The two scenes combined “erode trust in the military at a time when the military should be a symbol of national unity,” said Max Rose, a former Democratic congressman and an Army veteran.
“They are deploying the National Guard in direct contradiction to what state and local authorities requested, and at the same time there’s this massive parade with a display more fitting for Russia and North Korea,” he said.
Some veterans groups soured on the parade well before the latest deployments in Los Angeles. The Army recently asked the Vietnam Veterans of America chapter in Northern Virginia if it would provide 25 veterans to sit in the official reviewing stand. The group said no.
“If it were just a matter of celebrating the Army’s 250th birthday, there’d be no question,” said Jay Kalner, the chapter’s president and a retired C.I.A. analyst. “But we felt it was being conflated with Trump’s birthday, and we didn’t want to be a prop for that.”
It was unclear exactly what grounds Mr. Trump and the Defense Department are using to deploy active-duty Marines to an American city. The Posse Comitatus Act generally prohibits active-duty forces from providing domestic law enforcement unless the president invokes the little-used Insurrection Act.
But in his order federalizing California’s National Guard, Mr. Trump cited Title 10 of the United States Code, which lays out the legal basis for the use of U.S. military forces.
Mr. Trump wanted to invoke the Insurrection Act to use active-duty military troops against Black Lives Matter protesters during his first term. But his defense secretary, Mark T. Esper, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, both opposed the move, and Mr. Trump held back.
The moment proved to be a breaking point between Mr. Trump and the Pentagon. The president eventually fired Mr. Esper, and he has suggested General Milley should be executed.
This time, Mr. Trump’s defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has cheered him on.
Within minutes of Mr. Trump’s order on Sunday deploying the first 2,000 National Guard troops to join the scattered immigration protests in Los Angeles, Mr. Hegseth threatened to deploy active-duty Marines from, he said, Camp Pendleton. (The Marines who deployed on Monday night were from Twentynine Palms, a base about 150 miles east of Los Angeles, but Mr. Hegseth continued to say Camp Pendleton, which is about 100 miles south of the city).
By Monday night, 700 Marines and another 2,000 National Guard troops had been activated for largely peaceful protests that have, so far, done relatively little damage to buildings or businesses. And on Tuesday, Mr. Trump said that anybody protesting the parade in Washington would “be met with very big force.”
Mr. Hegseth defended the deployments in congressional testimony on Tuesday, saying, “We ought to be able to enforce immigration law in this country.”
Mr. Hegseth’s term has been defined by his amplification of the president. He has enthusiastically backed the Army’s plans to hold a rare military parade, in which 150 military vehicles, including 28 tanks and 28 heavy armored troop carriers, will roll down the streets of the capital, granting Mr. Trump the celebration he has wanted for years.
Democratic lawmakers and some military veterans expressed fear that Mr. Hegseth, himself a National Guard veteran who was deployed against Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020, was taking the military where it has traditionally least wanted to be: into the middle of a political battle.
“The president’s decision to call the National Guard troops to Los Angeles was premature, and the decision to deploy active-duty Marines as well is downright escalatory,” Representative Betty McCollum, Democrat of Minnesota, said at a House committee hearing on Tuesday as lawmakers grilled Mr. Hegseth. “Active-duty military has absolutely no role in domestic law enforcement, and they are not trained for those missions.”
One defense official said that Pentagon lawyers believe they have found some leeway in the Title 10 provision that Mr. Trump used to order National Guard troops to Los Angeles against the wishes of California’s governor, Gavin Newsom.
The Marines will help protect federal property and federal agents in Los Angeles, the U.S. military’s Northern Command said in a statement.
But unlike law enforcement officers or even National Guard troops, who practice controlling crowds during protests, active-duty troops are trained to respond to threats quickly and with lethal force.
“I do not take the position that invoking the Insurrection Act is necessary at this point; the facts on the ground don’t justify it,” said Daniel Maurer, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who served as a judge advocate general. “It’s almost like a show of force to the MAGA base, if you will.” Mr. Maurer is now a law professor at Ohio Northern University.
Concerns about the parade surfaced even before the Trump administration deployed troops to Los Angeles.
“The challenge of the parade all along has been how to celebrate the military’s 250-year contribution to the Republic while avoiding the politicization that comes from our current polarized partisan environment,” said Peter Feaver, a political science professor at Duke University who has studied the military for decades. “That challenge is considerably harder when some units are seen parading at the same time other units are seen policing a public protest.”
One Army official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid alienating Mr. Trump, said she would be leaving town during the events.
Janessa Goldbeck, a Marine Corps veteran who is now a senior adviser at the veterans advocacy group VoteVets, said she was worried that the Marines and the National Guard were being led into a political maelstrom that could damage their relations with the American public.
“Young men and women who sign up to serve, to volunteer in their communities, to respond to wildfires and other natural disasters,” she said, “are now being put in this very dicey position politically.”
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
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3) Under Pressure From the White House, ICE Seeks New Ways to Ramp Up Arrests
Former officials said the Trump administration’s push for the agency to detain record numbers of undocumented immigrants increases the chances of mistakes.
By Hamed Aleaziz, Photographs by Todd Heisler, Reporting from Washington and Miami, June 11, 2025
“Since Jan. 21, ICE has arrested more than 100,000 people suspected of being in the country illegally, according to data obtained by The Times.”
Demands from the White House for a drastic increase in arrests of people who have entered the country illegally have pushed immigration officials into overdrive to fulfill President Trump’s pledge of mass deportations.
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement is carrying out workplace raids across the country like the one in the garment district of Los Angeles last week that kicked off protests and a vast federal response. The agency is staggering shifts so agents are available seven days a week to try to meet arrest goals and asking criminal investigators who usually focus on issues like human trafficking to help identify targets. It is also asking the public to call in tips to report illegal immigration.
ICE’s work is being aided by a new mapping app that locates people with deportation orders who can be swiftly expelled, drawn from data housed in agencies across the government, according to documents obtained by The New York Times.
“I said it from Day 1, if you’re in the country illegally, you’re not off the table,” Thomas D. Homan, Mr. Trump’s border czar, said in an interview. “So, we’re opening that aperture up.”
Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, has been deeply engaged in the effort behind the scenes, meeting with top ICE officials in recent weeks and scrutinizing the numbers, according to people familiar with his involvement.
The intense pressure by top administration officials creates an atmosphere that elevates the potential for mistakes at a time when officers and agents are being pushed to make consequential decisions, former officials said.
“You’re going to have people who are being pushed to the limit, who in a rush may not get things right, including information on a person’s status,” said Sarah Saldaña, who served as ICE’s director during the Obama administration. “All of that takes time and effort, and this push on numbers — exclusive of whether or not the job is being done right — is very concerning.”
White House officials say the measures the administration is taking are necessary.
“Keeping President Trump’s promise to deport illegal aliens is something the administration takes seriously,” Abigail Jackson, a spokeswoman, said in a statement. “The violent riots in Los Angeles, including attacks on federal law enforcement agents carrying out basic deportation operations, underscore why removing illegal aliens is so important.”
The political stakes are high: Mr. Trump was swept into office for a second time on a platform built around his pledge to crack down on illegal immigration and promises of mass deportations as soon as he took office.
Since Mr. Trump returned to office, more than 200,000 people in the United States without authorization have been sent back to their home country or a third country, a fraction of the 1.4 million people who faced deportation orders by the end of last year, according to internal government data obtained by The Times.
Mr. Miller, a staunch advocate of tightening America’s borders, said on Fox News in late May that ICE would set a goal of a “minimum” of 3,000 arrests a day, figures never before seen and 10 times the daily arrests during the Biden administration. Since Jan. 21, ICE has arrested more than 100,000 people suspected of being in the country illegally, according to data obtained by The Times.
During a meeting with agency leaders late last month at ICE’s headquarters, Mr. Miller reviewed the agency’s arrest rate and discussed ways to ratchet it up. At one point, he encouraged ICE leaders to target apparent gang members with noticeable tattoos, according to people familiar with his comments.
“He wasn’t putting a specific quota on us but just going over the numbers and making sure that we’re utilizing all of our resources to make the arrests out there,” said Garrett Ripa, the head of the Miami ICE office, who at the time was a top official overseeing the agency’s deportation operations. ICE officials asked Mr. Miller for more resources, such as extra transportation help, to help meet the ambitious goals, he said.
Another official with direct knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the discussion, said that Mr. Miller asked those in the room if they thought they could hit one million deportations this year.
Former and current agency officials say that the high expectations have sapped morale in some quarters — and created a pressure keg.
“There is a constant state of anxiety,” said Jason Houser, a former ICE chief of staff during the Biden administration. “They understand they are playing Stephen Miller’s game. This isn’t about public safety or national security; this is about hitting a quota number. That’s it.”
Some ICE officers, however, said they welcomed the intense focus on their work.
“It’s something that I’m invested in, so I don’t feel like it’s a bad thing,” said Carlos Nuñez, a supervising deportation officer in Florida, adding that he finally felt he could do his job the way it was meant to be done.
“We just have so much work that there’s not enough hours in the day, to be honest with you, just to get it done,” he said. “My teams, all these guys you see here, they’re working seven days a week, working around the clock. I haven’t had a day off in several months already.”
Mr. Ripa said many agents are working staggered shifts to assure the entire week is covered. (A Homeland Security official said the use of staggered shifts is not new.)
The Times recently accompanied Mr. Nuñez and other ICE officials in Miami as they conducted a series of arrests. Over the course of several hours, a group of more than 10 officers — which at certain points included F.B.I. agents and an official from the State Department — tracked down and detained a total of three migrants.
In one case, a Honduran man who was the brother of an ICE target was arrested when he happened to show up to drive him to work — an example of how the agency is making collateral arrests to increase its numbers.
That is the mandate right now, Mr. Homan said.
“If they’re out there looking for a target and they find the target and he is with other people in the country illegally, they need to be taken into custody,” he said. “We’re not walking away from the illegal alien.”
The Miami arrests underscored one of the main challenges ICE faces in boosting its arrests: It is often painstaking, low-yield work. Officers spend extensive time doing surveillance, sending multiple officers to stake out a location for hours. Sometimes, an address is old or incorrect.
So in recent weeks, ICE has begun to hit workplaces such as clubs, restaurants and factories across the country, executing raids aimed at netting larger numbers. Officers have descended upon immigration courthouses, in coordination with prosecutors, to arrest migrants who show up for scheduled court dates.
The agency is also asking the public to use a tip line to report illegal immigration. In May, officers arrested five men in a Baltimore parking lot based on a phone tip. Video of the arrest was posted online by ICE with the caption, “When you call our Tip Line, we listen!”
Mr. Homan said such arrests were allowed if there was “reasonable suspicion” that someone was in the country illegally.
In some offices, investigators who usually focus on issues like human trafficking have been asked to help drive up the arrest numbers. One Homeland Security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal tactics, said that some undercover special agents responsible for investigating online sex trafficking have begun setting up in-person meetings with people suspected of prostitution to potentially arrest them on immigration charges.
The agency has also turned to higher-tech solutions. A new mapping app allows agents and officers to see areas around the country with large numbers of people under deportation orders, according to Mr. Ripa and documents obtained by The Times. An early version of the app was dubbed Alien Tracker, or Atrac.
The project was launched with help from members of the Department of Government Efficiency, which was led by the billionaire Elon Musk until he left his government role last month, according to Mr. Ripa. “I know in the infancy stages of Atrac, they were an integral part of it,” Mr. Ripa said. The White House declined to comment on the app.
The software, which is accessible on mobile phones, maps the location of migrants with deportation orders across the country, and even allows officers to zero in on those with certain criminal convictions, he said.
“The heat map shows where there are executable final orders of removal around the nation. And that officer then can just zoom in on those areas,” said Mr. Ripa.
The app contains information about more than 700,000 people, drawn from data not just at ICE, but agencies across the government. That includes the F.B.I.; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the U.S. Marshals Service; and the Social Security Administration, according to the documents obtained by The Times.
The app will “eventually allow for the centralized management of all interior enforcement priorities,” the documents say. That would include data from the Housing and Urban Development Department, the Labor Department, the Health and Human Services Department and the Internal Revenue Service, according to the documents.
The consolidation of government data to track migrants through the app comes after Musk aides moved aggressively to try to tap into streams of information held by different agencies. Career officials raised objections to the efforts, which they said violated privacy and security protocols, and labor unions and watchdog groups sued to halt the efforts.
Information about each immigrant in the app is available on a baseball-card-style format, according to the documents. Officers are required to log the outcome of each encounter they have with a target.
Despite the tech wizardry, some ICE agents have found the addresses in the map are erroneous or out of date, according to a Homeland Security official.
The agency faces other challenges in communities like Los Angeles, where a court order issued in 2024 blocks officers from knocking on doors with the intent to arrest people. An expert for the groups suing the government over the practice found that such arrests, in which ICE knocks on a door with the intent to arrest the person inside the home, accounted for more than a quarter of all residential arrests made by ICE.
In late May, Bill Essayli, the acting U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, directed Justice Department law enforcement agents to take over the door-knocking tasks, according to a document obtained by The Times. A spokesperson for Mr. Essayli confirmed the initiative.
There have been some signs that ICE’s push is yielding results. The Homeland Security Department said in a statement over the weekend that ICE had “arrested 2,000 aliens a day” last week. Trump administration officials pointed to the figures as a sign that their crackdown was working.
But in recent days, the numbers fell off again, according to data obtained by The Times. On Thursday, ICE arrested around 1,400 people. Friday, the total fell to over 1,200. On Saturday, the number dropped even further, to about 700.
Mr. Homan has remained undeterred, even amid the protests in Los Angeles.
“We will do this immigration operation,” he said on a show hosted by the right-wing activist Laura Loomer. “We’re going to do it every single day across this country, including L.A. You’re not going to stop us, so I guess this is game on.”
Michael H. Keller, Albert Sun, Allison McCann and Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed reporting.
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4) L.A. Protests Prompt Calls for Police Restraint After Journalist Injuries
The L.A.P.D. and L.A. County Sheriff said they were reviewing incidents in which journalists have been struck by projectiles fired by the police.
By Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, June 10, 2025
Demonstrators helping Nick Stern, a photojournalist, after he said he was hit by a projectile shot by a law-enforcement officer during a protest in Los Angeles County on Saturday. Credit...Ethan Swope/Associated Press
Nick Stern had moved into position to take a photograph of a group of people waving Mexican flags near a line of police officers in the Los Angeles area on Saturday when he felt a sharp pain in his right thigh.
Before long, Mr. Stern, a seasoned photojournalist who works mostly with British news outlets, had passed out. Then he was in surgery.
A deputy with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department had shot Mr. Stern with some kind of projectile, Mr. Stern said, the munition lodging in his thigh and putting him on a weekslong path to recovery.
Over the last few days, several journalists have been injured by law enforcement officers during the protests that have played out in parts of downtown Los Angeles and led to an escalating battle between California and the Trump administration.
Mr. Stern, 60, has covered protests for decades, and said he always keeps either his press badge or camera visible, to indicate he is a journalist. He said he wasn’t sure if the police targeted him or if the deputy who fired on him was just “a bad shot.”
Still, press freedom groups have condemned law enforcement for injuring journalists over the last few days, noting several instances of law enforcement officers firing projectiles at journalists.
In one instance, a police officer on Sunday turned in the direction of an Australian reporter during a broadcast and shot her with a projectile. That reporter, Lauren Tomasi, said the officers were with the Los Angeles Police Department. An L.A.P.D. spokesman, Drake Madison, said the department was investigating the deployment of “less lethal” projectiles during the protests, but he did not respond to questions about the incident with Ms. Tomasi.
The National Press Club, a professional organization for journalists, said reporters had been singled out, and also called on the L.A.P.D.’s police chief to make sure journalists could “safely observe and report” on the protests.
“Police cannot pick and choose when the First Amendment applies,” the group’s president, Mike Balsamo, said in a statement. “Journalists in Los Angeles were not caught in the crossfire — they were targeted.”
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said it was “reviewing video footage related” to Mr. Stern’s injury and was not able to confirm whether it was a sheriff’s deputy who had fired the shot. “We are committed to maintaining an open and transparent relationship with the media and ensuring that journalists can safely perform their duties, especially during protests, acts of civil disobedience, and public gatherings,” the department said.
Journalists have also reported being injured by California Highway Patrol officers and by agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Among several instances compiled by reporters and press freedom groups, a reporter said a Homeland Security agent had shot her with a projectile, and another said he may have been struck with a tear-gas canister fired by a line of Homeland Security agents. The department did not respond to an inquiry.
A collection of press freedom groups wrote a letter on Monday to Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, saying that, in some instances, it appeared federal officers had “deliberately targeted journalists.” The groups urged the department to refrain from unlawful force against reporters, “who are merely covering events of public concern in the Los Angeles area.”
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5) The Military May Find Itself in an Impossible Situation
By Joshua Braver, June 11, 2025
Dr. Braver is an assistant professor of law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies civil-military relations.
President Trump at Fort Bragg on Tuesday. Credit...Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Would a military officer disobey a lawful but unethical order — unethical in the sense that it violates the officer’s professional code? We may be on the verge of finding out.
The Trump administration has sent Marines to the Los Angeles area to join the National Guard troops already there. At the moment, the Marines have been deployed to help protect “federal functions and property,” as President Trump’s memorandum specifies — not to engage in broader domestic policing. But that could quickly change.
As a general matter, if the president were to order members of the military to engage in domestic policing, the order would almost certainly be legal. Not only does the president have constitutional authority to protect federal property and functions, but the Insurrection Act of 1807 also sets a very low bar for deploying the military for domestic law enforcement. Furthermore, military ethics dictate that officers must obey lawful orders. All this suggests that officers should comply if they are ordered to engage in domestic policing.
If the president were to order officers to engage in domestic policing that was unnecessary (because it could be adequately handled by local law enforcement), politically partisan or reckless, the order would still almost certainly be legal — but according to the officers’ professional code, it would also be unethical. And military ethics dictate that officers should reject unethical orders.
Military officers in such a situation would be mired in a contradiction: Their professional duty would compel both compliance and defiance.
Military professional ethics require nonpartisanship, so that the military does not become a political tool and jeopardize its aim of serving the national interest. Those same ethics also strive to keep the military’s conduct limited to its area of expertise — namely, warfighting. The military’s core competence is defeating enemies in mortal combat; for soldiers, Marines and sailors, a kill is often a victory. The same cannot be said for domestic policing, where the hope is to minimize the use of lethal force.
Because their expertise is limited in this way, the armed forces have “carefully delimited roles in law enforcement,” as explained in an open letter in 2022 signed by a bipartisan group of former secretaries of defense and chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Using active-duty forces in a law enforcement role should be done only “as a matter of last resort,” as Mark Esper, defense secretary late in the first Trump administration, explained at a news conference announcing his opposition to domestically deploying military forces during the civil disturbances in the United States in 2020. (Mr. Trump later fired him.)
What, then, are military officers supposed to do if lawfully ordered to violate their professional ethic? Within the armed services, the Army’s doctrine most comprehensively addresses the problem, and it offers little help. It reads: “We serve honorably — according to the Army ethic — under civilian authority while obeying the laws of the nation and all legal orders; further, we reject and report illegal, unethical or immoral orders or actions.”
The passage simultaneously commands obedience and disobedience to lawful but unethical orders, leaving officers without a clear answer on how to proceed.
Scholars of civil-military relations have engaged in long-running debate on this issue. Those who side with obedience emphasize the importance of civilian control of the military. Proponents of disobedience respond that the Army ethic protects not just civilian control of the military but also against the civilian misuse of the military. The foremost scholar of civil-military relations, the political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, suggested that the dilemma was irresolvable.
In recent years, when the dilemma threatened to rupture civil-military relations, high-ranking authorities stepped in to defuse the crisis — as when Mr. Esper publicly invoked the military’s ethical principles to oppose domestically deploying the military in 2020. Mr. Esper may have narrowly saved service members from having to decide whether to disobey a direct order.
In his second term Mr. Trump has been more careful to place loyalists in positions of authority. This means that the question of ethical resistance may fall on officers in the field. They may be forced to choose between professional obedience and professional integrity, between their duty to the commander in chief and to the American people. It is a tragic bind — for them, for the military and for American democracy.
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6) U.S. Ambassador to Israel Questions Policy on Palestinian State
The envoy, Mike Huckabee, said in media interviews that “Muslim countries” should build a Palestinian state on their territory, which would be a sharp departure from decades of U.S. foreign policy.
By Lara Jakes, June 11, 2025
Lara Jakes has covered Middle East diplomacy for more than a decade.
Ambassador Mike Huckabee speaking with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv in May. Credit...Pool photo by Alex Brandon
The American ambassador to Israel has said that it should be up to “Muslim countries” to build a Palestinian state on their territory instead of in the areas that much of the world recognizes as Palestinian lands.
If the statements by Ambassador Mike Huckabee are confirmed as representing the U.S. administration’s position, it would be a sharp shift away from decades of American foreign policy on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. A State Department spokeswoman downplayed his remarks.
“Muslim countries have 644 times the amount of land that are controlled by Israel,” Mr. Huckabee said in an videotaped interview with the BBC. “So maybe, if there is such a desire for the Palestinian state, there would be someone who would say we’d like to host it, we’d like to create it.”
The United States has long supported a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would give Palestinians sovereignty in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza. That has been American policy since the United States helped broker the Oslo Accords in 1993, which were widely expected to lead to statehood for the Palestinians, and, for Israel, realization of the long-held goal of land for peace.
Mr. Huckabee said in a separate interview with Bloomberg News that it would be a “problem” if someone wanted to declare those exact territories a future Palestinian state. Bloomberg quoted him as saying in off-camera remarks “I don’t think so” when asked whether the Trump administration supported a two-state solution as ongoing American policy.
“I know that many American administrations and other European countries have pushed for it. But the question is: Where should that be?” he told the BBC. Both interviews were published on Tuesday but it was not clear precisely when they had taken place.
Asked about Mr. Huckabee’s remarks, a State Department spokeswoman, Tammy Bruce, told reporters, “I think he certainly speaks for himself,” and added: “When it comes to American policy and certainly where the president stands, I’d suggest you call the White House.”
At least 146 of the world’s 193 countries, plus the Holy See, support statehood for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Although none of the so-called Group of 7 industrialized countries currently recognize a Palestinian state, France and Britain have recently been discussing steps toward doing so.
Next week, President Emmanuel Macron of France will jointly chair a U.N. conference in New York with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia to explore the creation of a Palestinian state.
Before he became ambassador this year, Mr. Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas and Southern Baptist minister, had said that “there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian” and argued that all of the occupied West Bank belonged to Israel.
But last fall, Mr. Huckabee said he would “carry out the policy of the president” while serving as the top American diplomat to Israel.
“I won’t make the policy,” he said in November.
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7) Yosemite Bans Large Flags From El Capitan, Criminalizing Protests
Violators could face up to six months in jail under the new rule, which appears to have been formalized last month.
By Neil Vigdor, June 10, 2025
Climbers who hang large flags or banners from El Capitan could face up to six months in jail under a crackdown on political displays by the Trump administration. A group of climbers unfurled a trans pride flag in May. Credit...Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle, via Associated Press
It is one of America’s most majestic and recognizable landmarks, having beckoned Teddy Roosevelt, Ansel Adams and, more recently, protesters.
From the granite walls of El Capitan in California’s Yosemite National Park, demonstrators have draped large flags and banners several times in the past year in protest of a number of issues, including the Israel-Hamas war and various Trump administration policies.
There was one symbolizing transgender pride, another saying “Stop the Genocide” and an upside-down American flag, which represents distress.
Now, the federal government seemingly wants to keep the famous rock formation a blank slate. It has outlawed large flags, banners and signs from El Capitan and most of the park altogether.
The ban appears to have been formalized last month by Yosemite’s acting superintendent, Raymond McPadden, in a Park Service compendium of regulations dated May 20.
The rule tracks with a series of punitive actions by the Trump administration against some critics of its immigration policies and Palestinian sympathizers.
Violators could face up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $5,000 for individuals and $10,000 for groups — penalties already in place for various offenses in the park.
“This restriction is necessary to preserve the values of wilderness character in accordance with the Wilderness Act, provide for an unimpaired visitor experience, protect natural and cultural resources in designated Wilderness and Potential Wilderness Addition portions of the park,” Mr. McPadden wrote.
Parks officials also cast the display of large flags — those greater than 3 feet by 5 feet — on any of the cliffs or mountains in Yosemite as a potential safety hazard that they said could interfere with climbing activity. Flags larger than that size would require a permit.
The Park Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday about the new rule, which was reported earlier by Climbing magazine and SFGate.com. Nor did the White House.
Miranda Oakley, 40, one of four climbers who unfurled a 25-by-10-foot banner last June with the colors of the Palestinian flag saying “Stop the Genocide,” said in an interview on Tuesday that the Trump administration was further trying to suppress voices of dissent.
“To me, it still seems like they want to control what we’re saying,” said Ms. Oakley, who is part of the group Climbers for Palestine.
Ms. Oakley wondered what would happen to people who don’t cooperate with the new rule.
“Are they going to detain them indefinitely, as they have for some international students that have spoken out for Palestine?” she asked.
In February, a small group of protesters hung an inverted American flag — a signal for distress that began with sailors — off the side of El Capitan to protest the Trump administration’s cuts to the Park Service.
Plenty of eyes were already fixated on El Capitan for the annual phenomenon known as firefall, when the light from the setting sun causes a seasonal waterfall to glow orange.
The display occurred shortly after at least 1,000 Park Service employees were abruptly dismissed from their jobs, part of a sweeping federal work force downsizing initiative that was once overseen by President Trump’s now-estranged ally, Elon Musk.
An additional 3,000 people were fired from the U.S. Forest Service, which plays a significant supporting role with the parks.
In May, a group of climbers unfurled a transgender pride flag in the middle of El Capitan to criticize the Trump administration’s rollback of protections for L.G.B.T.Q. people, including its elimination of diversity, equity and inclusion programs, The San Francisco Chronicle reported.
On the same day last month that the compendium was issued, Doug Burgum, the interior secretary, whose agency oversees the Park Service, asked the public to take note of any signs at parks or on public lands that “are negative about either past or living Americans.” In a directive, Mr. Burgum said that he was carrying out the provisions of an executive order signed by President Trump for “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”
El Capitan had a starring role in “Free Solo,” the Oscar-winning 2018 documentary about the climber Alex Honnold’s quest to reach the top of the landmark without a rope.
Ms. Oakley, who estimated that she had climbed El Capitan more than 20 times, said the cliff is a statement in its own right, especially when driving into Yosemite Valley.
“It is right smack dab in your face,” she said.
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8) Israel Appears Ready to Attack Iran, Officials in U.S. and Europe Say
Concern about a strike and the prospect of retaliation led the United States to withdraw diplomats from Iraq and authorize the voluntary departure of U.S. military family members from the Middle East.
By Michael Crowley, David E. Sanger, Farnaz Fassihi, Eric Schmitt and Ronen Bergman, Published June 11, 2025, Updated June 12, 2025
Michael Crowley, David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt reported from Washington, Farnaz Fassihi from New York and Ronen Bergman from Tel Aviv.
The U.S. Embassy complex in Baghdad in 2020. U.S. military family members have been authorized to leave the Middle East. Credit...Khalid Mohammed/Associated Press
Israel appears to be preparing to launch an attack soon on Iran, according to officials in the United States and Europe, a step that could further inflame the Middle East and derail or delay efforts by the Trump administration to broker a deal to cut off Iran’s path to building a nuclear bomb.
The concern about a potential Israeli strike and the prospect of retaliation by Iran led the United States on Wednesday to withdraw diplomats from Iraq and authorize the voluntary departure of U.S. military family members from the Middle East.
It is unclear how extensive an attack Israel might be preparing. But the rising tensions come after months in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has pressed President Trump to seize on what Israel sees as a moment of Iranian vulnerability to a strike.
Mr. Trump waved off another plan by Israel several months ago to attack Iran, insisting that he wanted a chance to negotiate a deal with Tehran that would choke off Iran’s ability to produce more nuclear fuel for a bomb. Two weeks ago, Mr. Trump said he had warned Mr. Netanyahu about launching a strike while U.S. negotiations with Iran were underway.
It is not clear how much effort Mr. Trump made to block Mr. Netanyahu again this time, but the president has appeared less optimistic in recent days about the prospects for a diplomatic settlement after Iran’s supreme leader rejected an administration proposal that would have effectively phased out Iran’s ability to enrich uranium on its soil. Mr. Netanyahu has walked up to bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities in the past, only to back off at the last minute.
Word of the U.S. decisions to withdraw personnel from the region, along with a warning from Britain about new threats to Middle East commercial shipping, came hours after Mr. Trump told The New York Post in a podcast released on Wednesday that he had grown “less confident” about the prospects for a deal with Iran that would limit its ability to develop nuclear weapons.
American and Iranian negotiators have been planning to meet on Sunday for another round of talks, although Mr. Trump told reporters on Monday that Iran had adopted an “unacceptable” negotiating position. As of Wednesday, Mr. Trump’s envoy to the talks, Steve Witkoff, was still planning to attend the negotiations in Oman, officials said.
Asked about the reason for the departures of U.S. personnel and dependents from the region as he arrived at the Kennedy Center in Washington for a Wednesday evening performance of “Les Misérables,” Mr. Trump told reporters, “Well, you’re going to have to figure that one out yourself.”
The British warning came from a maritime trade agency that monitors Middle East shipping and that said in a public advisory that it had “been made aware of increased tensions within the region which could lead to an escalation of military activity having a direct impact on mariners.” The advisory urged commercial vessels transiting the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz to use heightened caution.
Iranian military and government officials have already met to discuss their response to a potential Israeli strike, according to a senior Iranian official.
The official said that Tehran had devised a response plan that would involve an immediate counterstrike on Israel with hundreds of ballistic missiles. In October 2024, a major Iranian missile assault against Israel related to the war in Gaza inflicted limited damage, however, in part because of U.S. assistance in intercepting the missiles.
Mr. Trump spoke by phone on Monday with Mr. Netanyahu, but the White House disclosed few details about the conversation. Mr. Trump had met on Sunday evening at Camp David with his national security team.
Iran’s defense minister, Gen. Aziz Nasirzadeh, raised alarms on Wednesday with a warning that, in the event of a conflict following failed nuclear talks, the United States would suffer heavy losses. “America will have to leave the region because all its military bases are within our reach and we will, without any consideration, target them in the host countries,” he told reporters.
Iranian officials also balked at remarks on Tuesday by Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, the head of Central Command. General Kurilla testified before a House committee that he had presented Mr. Trump and Mr. Hegseth “a wide range of options” for a potential strike against Iran. General Kurilla had been scheduled to testify again on Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, but his testimony was postponed without explanation.
Iran’s mission to the U.N. denounced General Kurilla’s comments in a Wednesday social media post as “militarism” that “fuels instability.”
The tough talk came amid a week of meetings in Vienna by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors. The United States, Britain, France and Germany have submitted a resolution to the agency that would censure Iran for rapidly advancing its nuclear program and violating other commitments under a 2015 nuclear deal brokered with those countries, along with China and Russia. The board is expected to vote on the censure resolution on Thursday morning.
Censure could be grounds for the U.N. Security Council to restore, or “snap back,” heavy economic sanctions on Tehran that were lifted as part of the 2015 deal, which was struck by the Obama administration. Mr. Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from that agreement in 2018, a move that Iran says gave it license to abandon its commitments to limit its nuclear activity. The deal’s European parties insist that it remains enforceable through restored sanctions.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said on social media on Wednesday that censure “will compel Iran to react STRONGLY.”
The State Department did not provide details on how many personnel would be removed from Iraq, or why. The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that nonessential U.S. personnel would be withdrawn from Baghdad, and that nonessential personnel and family members of diplomats had been authorized to depart from U.S. embassies in Bahrain and Kuwait.
The military dependents authorized to depart the Middle East are largely from Navy and Marine families in Bahrain, home to a major U.S. naval base, a senior Navy official said.
Iran’s atomic program has progressed dramatically since Mr. Trump abandoned the 2015 deal. Analysts say that Iran is now on the brink of being able to manufacture enough nuclear material to fuel 10 nuclear weapons.
Constructing a workable device, if Iran chose to pursue that option, could take several more months. But many top Israeli officials already consider Iran’s progress to be unacceptable and have openly threatened military action against its nuclear facilities.
Many Israeli officials believe they have a golden opportunity to solve a decades-long problem. Israel has recently decimated Hezbollah and Hamas, Iranian proxy groups that Tehran has long relied on as a deterrent to Israeli action. And Israeli airstrikes last year severely reduced Iran’s air defense systems.
Some analysts warn that Iran has been restoring those defenses, making Israeli action against Iran’s nuclear program riskier by the week. It is also unclear whether Israel can inflict decisive damage on Iran’s nuclear program without U.S. military assistance.
U.S. oil prices climbed above $68 a barrel on Wednesday afternoon, their highest level since early April, when Mr. Trump placed tariffs on nearly all U.S. trading partners. Fighting in the region could disrupt oil supplies, as could tougher American sanctions on Iran.
The U.S. aircraft carrier Carl Vinson has been in the Arabian Sea for several weeks. More than 60 aircraft are aboard the Vinson, including advanced F-35 stealth strike fighters.
The senior Navy official said there were currently no plans to change the carrier’s position in response to the developing situation.
The United States also has several dozen attack and fighter jets deployed in the Middle East. These aircraft were used extensively to defend Israel from Iranian strikes last year.
Rebecca Elliott contributed reporting from New York, and Javier C. Hernández from Washington.
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9) Iran Is Breaking Rules on Nuclear Activity, U.N. Watchdog Says
The decision comes as officials say they believe that Israel is preparing to launch a military attack on Iran. Tehran condemned the vote.
By Steven Erlanger, Reporting from Prague, June 12, 2025
A mural in Tehran. The International Atomic Energy Agency said that Iran had failed to provide information about nuclear material and activities. Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
The International Atomic Energy Agency declared on Thursday that Iran was not complying with its nuclear nonproliferation obligations, the first time the U.N. watchdog has passed a resolution against the country in 20 years.
The long-anticipated censure vote by the agency’s board of governors in Vienna came at a time of high tension over Tehran’s nuclear program, with American and European officials saying they believe that Israel may be preparing an imminent military strike against Iran.
Iran condemned the vote, calling it political in a joint statement from its foreign ministry and national atomic energy agency. The resolution “completely called into question the credibility and prestige” of the nuclear watchdog, they said.
The statement added that Iran would now “launch a new enrichment center in a secure location and replace the first-generation machines” at another site with more modern equipment.
The I.A.E.A. also said that Iran had consistently failed to provide information about undeclared nuclear material and activities at multiple locations.
The resolution was put forward by the United States, Britain, France and Germany and passed easily, with 19 votes of the 35-nation board. Russia, China and Burkina Faso voted against, and 11 other countries abstained, while two did not vote at all.
Iran had reacted angrily to the prospect of the vote and had threatened to leave the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which came into force in 1970. Iran is a signatory but has not ratified a section that would allow inspectors to search areas of the country where they suspect nuclear activity. But the vote was also seen as part of the diplomacy around the fraught negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program between Washington and Tehran.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said on social media on Wednesday that a move to censure the country would “compel Iran to react STRONGLY. Blame will lie solely and FULLY with malign actors who shatter their own relevance.”
Diplomats in Oman, where the Washington-Tehran talks are being held, said that a sixth session would go ahead there on Sunday between President Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Mr. Araghchi.
Mr. Araghchi and others have warned that any military action against Iran by the United States or by Israel would produce severe consequences, potentially including strikes on American military bases. An attack on Iran would also most likely derail the diplomatic effort to ensure that Iran stops or sharply reduces uranium enrichment, which is needed for a nuclear weapon. Iran has said its nuclear program is for civilian use and not to develop weapons.
The Trump administration has proposed an arrangement that would provide Iran with fuel for reactors but prevent the country from building a nuclear weapon or enriching uranium. Iran has said that it will never give up the right to enrichment.
Mr. Trump has described the negotiations, which began in April, as heading in a positive direction and has said that he told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to postpone any military plans. But on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said he was “less confident” that Iran would agree to demands to shut down its nuclear enrichment program.
“They seem to be delaying, and I think that’s a shame,” he said.
The nuclear agency vote was another indication that American and European patience is wearing thin. But the resolution did not immediately refer Iran’s noncompliance to the Security Council to consider more sanctions on Tehran. It is an effort to get Iran to comply, said a senior European diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.
Any move by Iran to increase activity at its nuclear facilities would probably increase Israel’s belief that a military attack is the only way to stop Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Iran already has enough highly enriched uranium at near weapons-grade to build 10 bombs in less than a year, according to the I.A.E.A.
Iran’s continued failure to comply with the nuclear watchdog’s requirements could be grounds for the Security Council to restore, or “snap back,” heavy economic sanctions on Tehran that were lifted as part of the 2015 deal that was agreed with the Obama administration, the five permanent members of the Security Council, the European Union and Germany. Mr. Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from that agreement in 2018, a move that Iran says gave it license to abandon its commitments to limit nuclear activity.
Under the 2015 deal, which expires in mid-October, any participant can trigger the snapback sanctions, which would reinstate all the multinational and U.N. sanctions lifted under the Obama-era agreement.
Those sanctions are in addition to American ones and are severe. They include an embargo on selling conventional weapons to Iran, asset freezes, banking restrictions and various further restrictions on uranium enrichment and nuclear-related trade.
If those sanctions were reinstated, the restrictions would come back into force after 30 days unless the Security Council passed a separate resolution to continue sanctions relief.
That threat is also intended to push Iran toward a diplomatic resolution. But the snapback can only be used before the 2015 deal expires on Oct. 18.
Leily Nikounazar contributed reporting from Brussels.
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10) Why Israel May Be Considering an Attack on Iran
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to prevent Tehran, “one way or the other,” from building a nuclear bomb.
By Aaron Boxerman, Reporting from Jerusalem, June 12, 2025
Murals in Tehran in April. Many experts say Israel would struggle to destroy Iran’s main nuclear facilities without American military support. Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
Israel has long envisioned a military attack on Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites in an attempt to halt what it considers an existential threat. But any such military strike would risk igniting a major conflict that could draw in the United States.
Many in the Middle East are now wondering whether that moment has arrived. But it is unclear whether the heightened tensions are the result of saber-rattling in an attempt to influence negotiations between the United States and Iran over a nuclear deal, or a genuine Israeli attempt to carry out a planned attack.
On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that officials in the United States and Europe believed that Israel seemed to be gearing up for a potential strike, even as Trump administration is seeking a deal with Tehran to curb its nuclear program. The following day, the International Atomic Energy Agency declared that Iran was not complying with its nuclear nonproliferation obligations — the first such censure in two decades.
It is unclear how extensive an attack Israel is considering. But the United States has withdrawn diplomats from the region over concerns about the attack and any Iranian retaliation.
Here’s what we know.
Why might Israel attack now?
Iran’s nuclear program has advanced considerably over the past decade, analysts say. Iran is on the brink of being able to manufacture enough nuclear material to fuel 10 nuclear weapons, although producing a usable bomb would likely take many more months.
But Iran has been weakened since Hamas launched the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that ignited the war in Gaza. Hamas and Hezbollah, both of which are backed by Iran, have been decimated in the war with Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has privately argued that Iran’s vulnerability will not last long, meaning that Israel has a limited window in which to launch an attack.
“One way or the other, Iran will not have nuclear weapons,” Mr. Netanyahu said in an speech in April.
Iran had wielded the threat of a formidable response by Hezbollah in Lebanon as a deterrent against Israeli attack. But after Hezbollah attacked Israel in solidarity with Hamas, Israel routed the group, methodically eliminating its leadership and killing thousands of its fighters.
Israeli strikes against Iran’s air defenses last year weakened their capabilities, allowing Israeli fighter jets to more safely launch a new mass attack, according to officials and analysts. If Israel waits too long, Iran might restore them, analysts said.
What has Trump said?
President Trump has previously warned Mr. Netanyahu against attacking Iran, increasing tensions between the two leaders.
During his first term, Mr. Trump pulled the United States out of a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran that was signed by Barack Obama, deriding the agreement as “one-sided.” This time around, he seems eager to avoid being sucked into a large-scale conflict in the Middle East.
Mr. Trump has also sought a new deal with Iran to curtail its nuclear program. Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s Middle East envoy, has held talks with Iranian officials in Oman and Rome.
Israeli officials had originally developed proposals to attack Iranian nuclear sites in May, hoping to set back Tehran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon by a year or more. In April, Mr. Trump told Israel that the United States would not support an attack.
In late May, Mr. Trump said he had again rebuffed Mr. Netanyahu’s suggestion to attack Iran’s enrichment sites because the United States and Iran were in negotiations. “I told him this would be inappropriate to do right now because we’re very close to a solution,” he said.
But it is unclear whether the United States and Iran can reach a nuclear agreement soon. Mr. Trump has publicly insisted that Iran will have no enrichment capabilities under the deal, which Tehran is unlikely to accept. “I’m getting more and more less confident about it,” he told The New York Post in a podcast on Wednesday. “They seem to be delaying and I think that’s a shame.”
On Sunday, Mr. Witkoff is expected to return to Oman, which has been mediating the talks with Iran, for another round of negotiations.
Why are Israel and Iran at odds?
Iran and Israel have been enemies for decades. Since the rise of the Islamic Republic at the end of the 1970s, Iran’s rulers have pledged to destroy Israel. They have supported a web of militia groups, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, to pressure Israel on multiple fronts.
The two countries have fought a yearslong shadow war. Israel has bombarded sites in Syria and assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists. Iran has smuggled arms and funding to its proxies on Israel’s borders.
But over the past year, the two countries have also openly attacked each other twice. In April 2024, Israel assassinated Iranian security chiefs in an airstrike in Syria, prompting Iran to fire hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel. Israel later struck back at Iran.
Several months later, Iran fired more than 150 missiles at Israel in response to the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, in Lebanon, and the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s leader, in Tehran. Israel retaliated by bombarding Iran’s aerial defenses.
Could Israel go it alone?
Israel possesses sophisticated military capabilities. But military analysts say destroying Iran’s nuclear program would likely be tricky, even for one of the strongest powers in the Middle East, and would probably require American military support.
Experts say targeting all Iran’s nuclear sites — some of which are in reinforced facilities dug into mountains — would require top-notch bunker-busting munitions. The United States has refused Israeli requests to provide them in the past.
Previous Israeli plans to attack Iran have relied heavily on U.S. backing. Israel also hopes U.S. forces will defend Israel from Iranian retaliation.
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11) Inside a Courthouse, Chaos and Tears as Trump Accelerates Deportations
Immigration courtrooms in New York City have emerged as a flashpoint, with masked agents making surprise arrests of immigrants who have appeared for routine hearings and check-ins.
By Luis Ferré-Sadurní, une 12, 2025
Federal immigration agents, who often wear masks to conceal their identities, have begun apprehending people inside immigration courthouses in New York City and across the nation. Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times
Inside an immigration courthouse in the heart of Lower Manhattan, federal agents in T-shirts and caps cover their faces with masks as they discreetly attend routine hearings filled with immigrants.
The agents tip off other officers huddled in the court’s staid hallways as undocumented immigrants on their radar leave the hearings. They then move in to arrest their targets, sometimes leading to disorderly scenes as husbands are separated from wives, and parents from children.
The scene unfolding in New York City has repeated itself in immigration courthouses across the nation, a window into the Trump administration’s accelerating crackdown amid pressure from the White House to ramp up deportations. In Los Angeles, workplace raids have inflamed tensions and led to demonstrations. In New York, the courthouse arrests have emerged as a defining flashpoint.
In June, hundreds came and went at one federal building — for asylum hearings, citizenship applications and mandated check-ins with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Some left in handcuffs.
Immigrants arrested after appearing in courtrooms on higher floors were ferried by agents to holding cells on the 10th floor, an off-limits area where ICE typically keeps a few people for several hours as they are processed and transferred elsewhere.
But ICE agents have apprehended so many people showing up for routine appointments this month that the facilities appear to be overcrowded. Hundreds of migrants have slept on the floor or sitting upright, sometimes for days, said Francisco Castillo, a Dominican immigrant who was held there for three days last week.
Mr. Castillo, 36, said that the four holding cells — two for men, two for women — were so packed that some of the nearly 100 migrants in his cell resorted to sleeping on the bathroom floors. They were held for days without showers or clothing changes.
“Every single one of us slept on the floor because there are no beds,” Mr. Castillo said in a phone interview in Spanish from a detention facility in New Jersey where he was transferred. “What’s human about this?”
Mr. Castillo’s account echoed concerns from two Democratic members of Congress who showed up at the building at 26 Federal Plaza on Sunday to inspect the 10th floor after hearing reports of overcrowding and unsanitary conditions. They were denied access by ICE.
The imposing federal building at 26 Federal Plaza — home to an ICE headquarters and one of the city’s three immigration courts — has become a centerpiece of immigration enforcement in New York. ICE agents have arrested dozens of migrants in and around the building, as well as the other two courts in Manhattan, and held them out of view at 26 Federal Plaza before transferring them to detention centers outside the city.
The arrests have drawn protesters to the building’s perimeter, leading the police to arrest several who have tried to block vans carrying migrants out of the building. Inside, the presence of agents in courtrooms that were long considered off-limits to ICE has quickly disrupted courthouse operations and, critics say, eroded their status as a safe space for immigrants to engage with the legal system.
The sight of masked ICE agents in hallways has unsettled the hundreds of immigrants who show up at 26 Federal Plaza each day. There are signs that the arrests may be dissuading some migrants from following the rules by showing up to mandated court dates, worsening their chances of staying in the United States, because missed hearings can lead to deportation.
On Monday morning, 17 of the roughly two dozen immigrants who were required to show up before a judge on the 12th floor of 26 Federal Plaza never appeared — a higher number of no-shows than is usual, immigration lawyers said.
An Ecuadorean family of four living in New Jersey was the first to line up outside the courtroom. The parents clutched paperwork to their chests as they whispered and anxiously eyed the masked agents by the elevators.
“We’re uneasy,” said the mother, Joselyn Titisunta Saavedra, describing the gang threats that they said forced the family to seek asylum in the United States.
Federal officials have said that the court arrests allow agents to detain people in a controlled environment without having to dispatch teams into communities, which takes more time and planning and puts officers and the public at risk. The Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of ICE, has also said that threats against its officers are up, justifying the use of masks to conceal their identities.
Homeland Security and ICE did not respond to repeated requests for comment about the courthouse arrests and the conditions at 26 Federal Plaza. Top Homeland Security officials have previously cast the arrests as a way to quickly remove some of the millions of migrants who crossed the border during the Biden era.
Mr. Castillo, the man detained for three days, entered the United States illegally in 2022 from the Dominican Republic and does not have a criminal record, his lawyers said. ICE agents arrested Mr. Castillo, who is married to a U.S.-born citizen and lives in the Bronx, when he appeared on June 4 for a routine immigration court hearing in Manhattan.
“Emotionally, I’m frustrated because I was doing what they supposedly wanted to me to do” by showing up to court, Mr. Castillo said.
ICE moved to place him in deportation proceedings that moved on a fast track, a tactic that the agency has deployed to swiftly expel migrants without hearings. The agency has also expanded the arrest of immigrants showing up for other immigration-related appointments, not just court hearings.
Last week, a number of immigrants, including families with children, received automated text messages asking them to report to a nondescript office across the street from 26 Federal Plaza to check in with ICE. They were undocumented immigrants in supervisory programs that allow them to live in communities while their cases wind through the courts, so long as they occasionally check in with ICE.
When they showed up to check in last week, many were surprised with handcuffs. Dozens of immigrants were arrested in broad daylight on the streets of Manhattan as protesters hurled insults at agents, calling them “pigs” and “Nazis.”
Last Wednesday, Ambar Mujica Rodriguez, 33, and her 12-year-old daughter sobbed and screamed as four agents escorted her husband, Jaen Mawer Enciso Guzman, 30, to an SUV. Their daughter ran after him and tried to hug him. The Venezuelan family crossed the border into the United States in 2023 and had a pending asylum application, according to their lawyer, Margaret Cargioli.
“What’s alarming here and at immigration court is that they’re picking up people who are complying,” Ms. Cargioli said. “He was very cooperative with all the requirements that were made of him, and it’s a real shame that they’re separating them.”
She said he was probably targeted because he had entered the country about two years ago. The Trump administration has begun placing immigrants who have been in the country for less than two years into a deportation process known as expedited removal proceedings, which were previously used only for migrants encountered near the border.
Immigration courts are different from criminal courts. People are typically summoned to immigration courts because the federal government has initiated deportation hearings against them for entering the country illegally, not to face accusations of committing other crimes.
The arrests, in and near courts where millions of foreign-born individuals nationwide showed up last year so that judges could determine whether they could stay in the country, have turned the once unexceptional government offices into a daily political spectacle.
Brad Lander, the city comptroller and a candidate for mayor, sat in on several hearings at a different immigration court, at 290 Broadway last week, and escorted out migrant families who seemed to be at risk for arrest. On Sunday, the two members of Congress, Representatives Adriano Espaillat and Nydia Velázquez, were denied entry to tour the 10th floor at 26 Federal Plaza.
Inside the city’s three immigration courthouses — at 26 Federal Plaza and 290 Broadway, just a few blocks from City Hall, and at 201 Varick Street, on the West Side — the atmosphere has grown tense.
Fliers in Spanish and English encouraging self-deportation await arriving families. ICE agents and activists, some of whom also wear masks, occasionally taunt each other. Immigration judges and court staff express consternation over the disruption that the arrests — and the media attention — has wrought on typically sleepy immigration proceedings.
On Friday, one such arrest turned chaotic after ICE executed the administration’s new playbook. Inside a courtroom at 26 Federal Plaza, ICE prosecutors asked a judge to dismiss the immigration case against a Dominican man, a legal maneuver to allow ICE agents in the hallway to detain him and place him in expedited deportation proceedings.
The man, Joaquin Rosario Espinal, like many, showed up without a lawyer and expressed confusion when the government asked that his case be dismissed.
“What do you mean, dismiss my case?” Mr. Rosario Espinal, 34, asked in Spanish. “Do I need to leave the country, or not?”
The judge tried to explain. An immigration lawyer in the chambers sought to intervene on his behalf, to no avail. News photographers gathered in the hallway to capture the imminent arrest, leading the judge to admonish them for being a distraction.
“I wish you the best of luck,” the judge told Mr. Rosario Espinal.
When he exited into a cramped hallway, at least six agents tackled him to the floor as they also grappled with activists.
“Stop resisting!” one agent shouted as Mr. Rosario Espinal, who an acquaintance said arrived in the United States last year, was arrested. He was eventually whisked away to a detention facility north of the city in Orange County, N.Y.
In the lobby of the building, which also houses offices of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, a family of three from Gambia emerged from the elevators dressed in colorful dresses, smiling and holding American flags.
They had just become American citizens.
Olivia Bensimon and Wesley Parnell contributed reporting.
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