Key events
Environmental group hails ‘landmark victory’ after Alligator Alcatraz closure ruling
Environmental groups have welcomed the ordered closure of the Trump administration’s notorious “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration jail within 60 days.
In her 82-page order, published in the US district court’s southern district of Florida on Friday, judge Kathleen Williams determined the facility was causing severe and irreparable damage to the fragile Florida Everglades.
The shock ruling by district court judge Kathleen Williams builds on a temporary restraining order she issued two weeks ago halting further construction work at the remote tented camp, which has attracted waves of criticism for harsh conditions, abuse of detainees and denial of due process as they await deportation.
“This is a landmark victory for the Everglades and countless Americans who believe this imperilled wilderness should be protected, not exploited,” said Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades, which mounted the legal challenge.
“It sends a clear message that environmental laws must be respected by leaders at the highest levels of our government – and there are consequences for ignoring them”.
Judge Williams also ruled that no more detainees were to be brought to the facility while it was being wound down.
She also noted that a plan to develop the site on which the jail was built into a massive tourist airport was rejected in the 1960s because of the harm it would have caused the the land and delicate ecosystem.
“Since that time, every Florida governor, every Florida senator, and countless local and national political figures, including presidents, have publicly pledged their unequivocal support for the restoration, conservation, and protection of the Everglades,” she wrote.
“This order does nothing more than uphold the basic requirements of legislation designed to fulfill those promises.”
No further construction at the site can take place, she ruled, and there must be no further increase in the number of detainees currently held there, estimated to be about 700. After the 60-day period, all construction materials, fencing, generators and fixtures that made the site a detention camp must be removed.
Read my colleague Richard Luscombe’s latest report here:
Trump administration accused of wanting to ‘revoke visas based on speech, not conduct’
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with news that the Trump administration has been accused of wanting to “proactively conduct reviews of social media posts and revoke visas based not on conduct but speech”.
It comes as the state department said it was reviewing the records of more than 55 million US visa holders for potential revocation or deportable violations of immigration rules, in a significant expansion of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
David J Bier, the director of immigration policy at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank based in DC, told the Washington Post:
I doubt that’s feasible for everyone, but I suspect that these reviews will be done in a discriminatory manner targeting immigrants with certain backgrounds and in certain visa categories or specific people they want an excuse to revoke.
In a move first reported by the Associated Pressthe state department said that all of the foreigners who currently hold valid US visas are subject to “continuous vetting” for any indication that they could be ineligible for the document, including those already admitted into the country.
Should such evidence come to light, the visa would be revoked and, if the visa holder were in the United States, they would be subject to deportation.
“We are gathering more information than ever,” a senior state department official told the Washington Post, admitting it was likely that social media vetting would add more time to the review process.
It follows an announcement by the Trump administration on Tuesday that it will look for “anti-American” views, including on social media, when assessing the applications of people wanting to live in the United States.
US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which handles requests to stay in the US or become a citizen, said it would expand vetting of the social media postings of applicants and that “reviews for anti-American activity will be added to that vetting”.
Read our latest report here:
In other developments:
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California’s governor, Gavin Newsomsigned a law to hold a special election in November in which voters will be asked to approve a new congressional map, tilted in favor of Democrats, for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections, if Texas goes ahead with a plan to do the same for Republicans.
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Donald Trump ventured from the White House in his motorcade through the not all that mean streets of Washington DC to deliver pizza and hamburgers to law enforcement officers and National Guard troops, and regale them with his plans to upgrade the grass in the district to make it look more like one of his golf courses. “I know more about grass than any human being I think anywhere in the world”, the commander-in-chief told the officers.
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A federal judge ruled that Trump’s former lawyer and campaign surrogate, Alina Habbihas been unlawfully serving as the the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey.
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A New York state appeals court tossed out a half-billion-dollar penalty that Trump had been ordered to pay after a judge found the president fraudulently overstated the value of his properties and other assets to bolster his family business. Despite the president falsely claiming the ruling to be a “total victory”the five-judge panel let the lower court’s fraud verdict stand, which paves the way for New York attorney general Letitia James to appeal the decision to the state’s highest court.
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The Trump administration ratcheted up pressure on the Federal Reserve to remove governor Lisa Cookafter the economist declared she had “no intention of being bullied” into stepping down.
