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The president misleadingly blamed the Biden administration's weapons transfers to Ukraine for current concerns over munitions stockpiles, among other claims about the Iran war.
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U.S. boat strikes across the Caribbean and eastern Pacific have killed at least 221 people since September, while the Trump administration has provided no evidence linking the vessels or their passengers to drug trafficking. Ecuadorian prosecutor Alexandra Bravo was fatally shot on June 14 by a hitman in the city of Manta. Bravo had been investigating U.S. strikes on three Ecuadorian boats in which 36 passengers survived, many of them recounting alleged torture by American gunmen in U.S. military uniforms aboard a U.S.-flagged patrol ship.
The allegations of U.S. boat strikes and torture Bravo was investigating "are a reflection of the growing U.S.-backed military dictatorship in Ecuador," says Camila Lourdes Galarza, an investigative journalist and labor organizer based in Quito. Lourdes Galarza says that during Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa's reelection last year, former Blackwater mercenaries patrolled voting sites at gunpoint.
"The Trump administration has deepened U.S. security cooperation with Ecuador as a response to the surge in violence in [Ecuador], particularly to the growth of organized crime groups," adds Juanita Goebertus, director of the Americas division at Human Rights Watch. "None of the two governments have provided transparency about the nature of their security cooperation."
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House Republicans narrowly passed two plans that would satisfy the Trump administration's funding demands for the war in Iran and its efforts to rebrand the Defense Department. But their prospects are far dimmer in the Senate.
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As the Trump administration carries out its campaign against the International Criminal Court, imposing wide-reaching sanctions on judges, prosecutors and groups who have accused Israel of war crimes in front of the international tribunal, we're joined by veteran war crimes prosecutor Reed Brody. Brody says that the U.S. government's rejection of the ICC's jurisdiction is not about "American sovereignty," as the Trump administration claims, but about "impunity," for both U.S. allies, like Israel, and the U.S. itself. "Marco Rubio knows that bombing Iran without Security Council authorization constitutes aggression under the U.N. Charter," says Brody. "This is an insurance policy against accountability for crimes that the Trump administration is committing in plain sight."
Brody also responds to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's statements that his office may attempt to carry out the ICC arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu when the Israeli prime minister attends the United Nations General Assembly later this year, and to the recent announcement by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega that his country will no longer hold elections, further entrenching the onetime revolutionary's authoritarian rule.
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The Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman (CIS Ombudsman) recently published new resources on its website to raise awareness of the office's mission and to reach a broader population of stakeholders. The CIS Ombudsman is dedicated to improving the quality of citizenship and immigration services delivered to the public by providing individual case assistance, identifying systemic issues, and making recommendations to improve the administration of immigration benefits by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
"I applaud the Administration's commitment to identifying barriers that impede access to immigration services and benefits, a focus closely aligned with the CIS Ombudsman's statutory mission," said Phyllis A. Coven, CIS Ombudsman. "The President's recent executive orders open the door for enhanced collaboration with USCIS and opportunities to maximize our office's contributions to creating a more responsive and transparent immigration system."
The CIS Ombudsman is committed to engaging with the public through a multilayered outreach approach, with an emphasis on outreach to vulnerable and underserved populations. The CIS Ombudsman engages regularly with a broad range of stakeholders across the country to understand their concerns and identify trends and areas in which individuals and employers encounter problems when seeking immigration benefits from USCIS. The CIS Ombudsman has also released new resources to assist customers who contact USCIS for assistance. These resources include:
A tip sheet on how to communicate effectively with the USCIS Contact Center;An informational
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