Wasn’t the war “almost over”? Then why do you need automatic military draft registration?

The last time a military draft was in effect in the United States was in February 1973, during the Vietnam War, the most unpopular war in the nation’s history. Around 1.9 million men were selected for military service between 1964 and 1973. For context, 2.8 million were drafted during World War I, and around 10.1 million were drafted during World War II.

Now, “young, eligible men” will be automatically registered for the military draft pool in the U.S. starting in December as part of a measure no one seems to have read in the defense policy bill Congress signed into law late last year.

According to the Selective Service System’s 2024 report, automatic registration is already in place in 46 states and territories. However, the SSS proposed a rule to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs late last month to implement the practice nationwide, according to CNN.

An educated guess would suggest the Trump administration already knew it wanted to be in a world-scale conflict for a long time, or at least until next year.

However, CNN says “the nationwide measure has no connection to the ongoing war with Iran and was passed with bipartisan support months before the current conflict with the country. But the Trump administration has declined to rule out the possibility of putting U.S. troops on the ground, and the war has led to renewed attention on the draft policy.”

That is, if you believe CNN.

On the other hand, according to The New York Times, government officials are bracing for what experts say are “potential confrontations with China or Russia” at a moment when military recruiting “has slumped.”

What happens now?

First, failing to comply with the draft is a felony, which carries various penalties. According to The New York Times, these include up to five years in prison and the inability to receive certain federal benefits, such as government loans.

The logical reasoning is simple: if you are not planning to wage war, you do not really need a larger army, do you? In fact, in decades past, a country used to be proud of not needing an army at all. However, these are quasi-unprecedented times, right?

This, however, does not mean young, able Americans will be drafted. This is just a preemptive move, “just in case.”

As the Times continues, during a March 8 interview on Fox News, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said Mr. Trump “does not remove options off the table” when asked what she would tell mothers worried about the draft returning.

Leavitt also said at the time that sending ground troops into Iran was not part of the “current plan.” That was over a month ago, and before the U.S. president drew the world to the edge of its seat in a countdown to a possible nuclear conflict.

Others argue that “even if boots were to be put on the ground, it is very unlikely a draft would return. This is because America already has one of the largest militaries in the world, so currently it doesn’t need any soldiers who don’t already want to be there.”

While the president would be required to get approval from Congress to enact a military draft, which was last used during the Vietnam War in the early 1970s, this could be more about “money and ease.”

As reported by ABC News, in 2024, Representative Chrissy Houlahan noted that automatic registration “saves taxpayers significant money and makes it easier for these men to follow the law and register with the Selective Service.”

Does this change if you are an immigrant?

According to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026, “Except as otherwise provided in this title, every male citizen of the United States, and every other male person residing in the United States, between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six, shall be automatically registered under this Act by the Director of the Selective Service System.”

So, in short, and as Michael Grothaus explained in his column for Fast Company, if you are a man in the United States aged 18 to 26, you will be automatically registered for the draft. And this does not just include U.S. citizens. The Selective Service System says that immigrants and dual-national U.S. citizens must register, along with other cohorts.

However, this is no different from what was already required. Currently, all men ages 18 to 26 must register for the draft. The new rules mean the registration will now be automatic across the country.

Airports are now part of the administration’s broader show of force. According to The Washington Post, ICE officers were sent to at least 14 airports in March, officially to help with crowd control, exit lanes, and line management during TSA staffing shortages. They were not supposed to check IDs or screen passengers. However, their presence still raised obvious concerns because, as immigration lawyers told the Post, ICE officers in an airport still carry the same authority they would have in any other public place.

That means this is the practical question travelers need to answer before they leave for the airport: what can they legally do, what can they not do, and how can they protect themselves and their loved ones without making a bad situation worse?

First, know who you may be dealing with

At airports, you may encounter TSA officers, local airport police, ICE officers, Customs and Border Protection officers, or Homeland Security Investigations agents. The ACLU’s airport enforcement guide notes that at the border or ports of entry, you are especially likely to encounter CBP and sometimes HSI, which is part of ICE.

TSA’s role is security screening. ICE’s role is immigration enforcement. CBP’s authority is broader at ports of entry than ICE’s is in an ordinary domestic airport setting. According to the Post, if ICE officers are simply standing in an airport in their capacity as ICE agents, they have the same authority they would have in any public place, not some magical airport superpower.

The biggest thing to understand: there are no ICE-free zones in the airport

The Post reports that ICE can approach travelers anywhere in the airport, not just at the checkpoint. That includes the terminal, the security line, the gate, or a coffee line. The practical advice from immigration attorney Nicole Hallett: stay aware of your surroundings the entire time you are there, not just while going through security.

For undocumented people, the risk is higher. The ACLU’s guide says noncitizens without current legal status should consider the risks of flying, including on domestic flights, and notes that TSA has provided lists of travelers to ICE.

If ICE approaches you, do not run and do not volunteer more than you have to

According to the Post, if an ICE officer approaches you and starts asking questions, the safest immediate move is not to run. Running may escalate the encounter. Instead, you can calmly say that you are exercising your right to remain silent.

For domestic travel, the Post also notes that, by law, you do not have to carry proof that you are a U.S. citizen or lawful resident. That said, if you are a noncitizen with lawful status and fear profiling, carrying documentation may help resolve an encounter more quickly.

The ACLU’s airport rights guide adds an important distinction. U.S. citizens generally only need to answer questions establishing identity and citizenship. Lawful permanent residents usually only need to answer questions establishing identity and permanent residency. Visa holders and visitors face more risk if they refuse to answer questions, especially at the border.

ICE cannot automatically search your phone just because you are in an airport

According to the Post, ICE officers at an airport cannot, without a warrant, search your carry-on, phone, or laptop simply because they are present in the airport. They can conduct only those kinds of searches if they are acting under the authority of the agency that has that search power in that setting, such as TSA at a domestic checkpoint or CBP at a port of entry.

But at the border, the legal terrain gets much worse. The ACLU’s airport guide says customs officers sometimes ask travelers to unlock devices or provide passwords when entering or leaving the United States. U.S. citizens cannot be denied entry for refusing, though refusal may lead to delays or the seizure of a device. Lawful permanent residents should generally not be denied entry, though delays and confiscation can still occur. Visa holders and tourists face a greater risk if they refuse. If an officer confiscates a phone or laptop, the ACLU says to get a receipt.

So protect your devices before you travel

According to The Intercept, there are a few key things to keep in mind regarding digital security, especially for journalists, organizers, immigrants, or anyone carrying sensitive information.

They suggest that before you leave:

1. Use a strong alphanumeric passcode, not Face ID or fingerprint unlock.

2. Turn biometrics off entirely.

3. Power your phone fully down before security. Do not just lock it.

4. Carry a paper boarding pass if possible, so you do not need to power the device back on in line.

5. Log out of apps you do not need.

6. Delete sensitive chats, files, and contacts from the device you are traveling with.

7. If possible, travel with a clean secondary device instead of your primary phone.

The reasoning is: if authorities get access to your device, the safest device is the one that contains as little as possible. The Intercept also warns that if you refuse to unlock a device, you may be delayed, hassled, or have the device confiscated. That does not mean you lose the right to refuse, but you should prepare for the consequences in advance.

TSA still has limits, too

The ACLU’s airport guide makes clear that TSA officers can screen you and your belongings, but they cannot arrest you. They may search bags further, even if the first screening shows nothing suspicious. Still, they may not select you for a personal search or secondary inspection based on religion, race, national origin, gender, ethnicity, or political beliefs.

If you wear a religious head covering, the ACLU says you have the right to wear it through screening. If TSA insists on further screening, you can request that any pat-down or removal happen in a private area and, where relevant, by someone of your gender.

If you are traveling with children, the ACLU notes that children can opt out of an airport scanner, though there is no blanket exemption from pat-downs. Children under 13 may keep shoes, light jackets, and headwear on during screening. If you are carrying breast milk or formula, TSA must allow it in quantities larger than the standard liquid limit, though it may be inspected or tested.

If you are delayed for a long time, say so clearly

The ACLU guide says that if questioning becomes intrusive or improper, you can ask to speak to a supervisor. If you are being detained for an unusually long period, you should ask to contact an attorney or a legal services organization. If an officer tells you that you are under arrest, or it becomes clear they suspect you of a crime, ask for a lawyer before answering more questions. If you want to invoke your right to remain silent, say it out loud.

What families should do before they leave home:

1. Have one folder, physical or digital, with the documents you may need.

2. Memorize or write down at least one emergency phone number.

3. Decide in advance who will be called if someone is detained.

4. Tell your loved ones your flight number, route, and departure and arrival times.

5. If someone in your family is undocumented or has a precarious status, talk honestly about the risk before traveling at all.

Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear one of the most consequential immigration cases in years. On paper, it is about whether Donald Trump can use an executive order to end automatic citizenship for some babies born in the United States. In practice, it is about something much larger: whether the Court is willing to reopen one of the country’s most settled constitutional guarantees, and in doing so create a new class of children whose legal status would depend on who their parents are.

Trump’s order, signed on his first day back in office, says children born in the U.S. would no longer automatically be citizens if their parents are undocumented or in the country temporarily, including on student or work visas. Lower courts have uniformly blocked the order from taking effect, and the Supreme Court agreed to take the case before the appeals process had fully played out. A decision is expected by late June or early July.

What the Court is actually being asked to decide

The formal question is whether Trump’s order is consistent with the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, which says that all persons born in the United States and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are citizens. For more than a century, that clause has been understood to cover nearly everyone born on U.S. soil, with only narrow exceptions such as the children of diplomats and foreign enemies. That understanding was cemented by the Supreme Court’s 1898 decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark.

The Trump administration is asking the justices to adopt a much narrower reading. Solicitor General D. John Sauer argues that the 14th Amendment was meant to protect freed slaves and their children, not the children of people in the country unlawfully or temporarily, and that the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” should be read to require a more complete form of allegiance to the United States. Opponents say that it is an attempt to rewrite settled law by executive order.

That is the clean constitutional fight. But there is a second path the justices could take.

The quieter issue that could decide the whole case

As The Hill points out, the Court does not necessarily have to resolve the full constitutional question tomorrow. Congress codified birthright citizenship in federal law in 1940, and then again in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, using language that closely tracks the 14th Amendment. That gives the justices a narrower off-ramp: they could rule that Trump’s order conflicts with federal statute even if they avoid saying anything sweeping about the Constitution itself.

That point is crucial because this Court, and Chief Justice John Roberts in particular, has sometimes preferred narrower rulings when a broader constitutional one is not strictly necessary. A statutory ruling would still block Trump’s order. It would also let the Court sidestep, at least for now, a frontal collision with more than a century of constitutional understanding.

Of course, that would not end the politics. It would simply move the fight back to Congress, where Republicans have spent years trying to restrict birthright citizenship and where support for that effort has grown, even if the legislation still has not moved.

The administration’s argument is not just aggressive. It is historically loaded.

There is another reason this case feels so ominous. According to The Washington Post, the Trump administration’s Supreme Court brief leans in part on arguments advanced by late-19th-century figures such as Alexander Porter Morse, Francis Wharton, and George D. Collins, men whose campaigns against birthright citizenship were steeped in anti-Black and anti-Chinese racism. Scholars quoted by the Post say the administration is reviving ideas that emerged from efforts to narrow Reconstruction-era citizenship and keep Chinese immigrants and their children outside the national body politic.

That historical backdrop matters because it clarifies what is being presented as a technical dispute about constitutional meaning. The argument Trump is pushing did not emerge from some neutral, long-lost legal tradition. It grew out of an older effort to decide that some people born here still did not belong here.

That does not automatically decide the case. But it tells you something about what kind of history the administration has chosen to elevate, and why so many legal historians hear alarm bells in this brief.

John Eastman is back in the room, even if his name is not on the brief

And then there is the man behind the theory.

According to Politico, John Eastman has been trying to end birthright citizenship for decades. Long before he became nationally known for helping devise Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, Eastman was writing op-eds, law review articles, and testimony arguing that the 14th Amendment does not guarantee citizenship to virtually everyone born on U.S. soil. Politico describes him as the longtime intellectual engine behind this effort, even though the administration’s briefs do not openly credit him.

In short, the same lawyer whose legal theories became shorthand for constitutional extremism after 2020 is also the leading evangelist for this one. That does not make the administration’s argument legally impossible on its own. But it does tell you what ideological ecosystem it comes from, and how long this project has been waiting for the right Court and the right presidency to try again.

The babies keep disappearing from the argument

One of the sharpest critiques of this case came from NPR, which noted how rarely the people most directly affected are centered in the debate. According to Bruce Lesley of First Focus on Children, this is “birth” right citizenship. This is about babies. But public argument around the case has focused instead on administrative burdens, historical meaning, political allegiance, and immigration deterrence.

NPR reports that under the current system, babies born in U.S. hospitals are automatically folded into a network of legal and administrative protections: Social Security numbers, Medicaid eligibility, food benefits, and continuity of care. If birthright citizenship were narrowed, every family could be forced into a proof regime that does not currently exist, with the citizenship of newborns depending on documents, parental status, and bureaucratic determinations made at the most vulnerable moment in a child’s life.

Regarding the consequences, NPR notes that around 3.6 million babies are born in the U.S. each year, and that all parents, not just immigrant parents, could face new documentation hurdles if automatic citizenship disappears. Lawyers have also warned of especially chaotic outcomes for babies with unknown fathers, foundlings, children born through surrogacy or assisted reproductive technology, and families whose records are incomplete or destroyed.

In the end, once you make citizenship at birth conditional, you are no longer simply arguing about constitutional text. You are building a bureaucracy of suspicion around newborns.

How many children are actually at stake

Similarly, CBS reports that the Migration Policy Institute and Penn State’s Population Research Institute estimate more than 250,000 babies each year would be affected by Trump’s order. California Attorney General Rob Bonta told CBS that between 20,000 and 24,000 babies in California alone could lose citizenship annually, while states would also lose federal funding tied to children’s eligibility for programs such as Medicaid and CHIP.

And the concern does not stop with future births. Advocates told CBS that if the Court accepts the administration’s reading of the Citizenship Clause, it could invite broader challenges to the citizenship of millions of Americans and fuel even more aggressive efforts to question who belongs. That is why opponents keep stressing that this case is not just about one executive order. It is about whether the Court opens the door to a much wider culture of doubt about citizenship.

Public opinion is split, but not in a simple way

NPR’s latest survey round-up shows the politics here are more complicated than the White House would like. General support for birthright citizenship remains relatively strong when people are asked about it as a constitutional principle, but support drops sharply when poll questions focus specifically on undocumented parents or temporary visitors. The divide is also steeply partisan and racialized: Democrats, younger voters, Black Americans, and Latinos are much more likely to support birthright citizenship, while Republicans, especially white Republicans, are much more likely to oppose it.

That split matters because it helps explain why the administration is pushing so hard on this case. Birthright citizenship is one of those issues where long-settled law collides with a public that is unevenly informed and often responsive to how the question is framed. It is also one of the clearest examples of how immigration politics in the United States works: present a constitutional guarantee as a loophole, describe newborns as incentives, and then ask the Court to do what Congress never quite managed to do.

What tomorrow’s hearing is really about

Tomorrow’s argument is nominally about text, history, and precedent. But the deeper conflict is over what kind of country the Court thinks the 14th Amendment created after the Civil War.

The traditional understanding of birthright citizenship says that if you are born here, you enter the political community here. You are not required to inherit your parents’ legal precarity. You do not begin life having to prove that you belong. That is part of what made the Citizenship Clause so powerful after Dred Scott, and part of why Wong Kim Ark became so central in the first place.

Trump’s order asks the Court to move in the opposite direction. It asks the justices to treat birthplace as insufficient, parental status as decisive, and constitutional bedrock as flexible enough to be narrowed by a president on day one.

We’re starting the week with a contradiction the White House can no longer hide: the spectacle of power is still there, but so are the cracks. From the largest single day of protest in U.S. history to a sudden retreat on Cuba oil and a Pentagon argument that edges toward criminalizing journalism itself, here’s the news we’re watching as the week begins.

The country kept showing up

The third No Kings protest drew more than 8 million people across more than 3,300 events in all 50 states and more than a dozen countries, according to organizers cited by The Guardian. That makes it the largest number of protests in a single day in U.S. history.

What stands out is not only the scale but the geography. Organizers said nearly half of the events took place in traditionally red or battleground states, and more than two-thirds of people who RSVP’d were outside major urban centers. In other words, this was a national warning flare.

The issues pulling people into the street were also tellingly broad: ICE raids, the war in Iran, voting rights threats, trans rights, labor rights, Palestinian solidarity, and the basic question of whether the country is sliding toward something openly authoritarian. In Minnesota, where federal agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti earlier this year, the protest carried the weight of mourning as much as resistance. In New York, the theme was democracy. In Chicago, it was anti-fascism and protection for immigrant and trans communities. Across cities and rural towns alike, the throughline was simple: people are seeing the connections.

That is why the White House response felt so brittle. Dismissing millions of people as participants in “Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions” fell, well, short. It is the language of an administration that knows the backlash is no longer a partisan issue.

Trump blinked on Cuba

After months of trying to choke off fuel to Cuba, Trump said Sunday he would not stop a Russian tanker carrying oil to the island. According to The Washington Post, the Hong Kong-flagged tanker was nearing Cuba with Russian-origin fuel when Trump abruptly said he had “no problem” with a country sending oil there.

This comes after the administration had spent months building an effective fuel blockade meant to weaken the Cuban government. Trump had threatened tariffs on countries that supplied Cuba with oil. He had also already cut off Venezuelan fuel exports to the island. The result, according to the Post, was diesel and gasoline shortages, island-wide blackouts, and the closure of schools and hospitals.

Then, in the now trademarked style of this administration, came the reversal.

On one level, Trump tried to brush it off by claiming Cuba is finished anyway. On the other hand, the climbdown exposed the limit of trying to run a war in Iran, manipulate global energy markets, antagonize Russia, and tighten the screws on Cuba all at once. When your foreign policy is scattershot and overextended, eventually one front gives way.

That is the more interesting part here. The administration wanted the blockade to appear to be a display of dominance. Instead, it ended up looking like another reminder that coercion has consequences, especially when oil prices are already under pressure, and Russia is still willing to test Washington’s nerve.

The Pentagon wants fear to do the censoring

The administration’s assault on the press also kept moving.

According to The Intercept, a federal judge struck down the Pentagon’s restrictions on journalists seeking “unauthorized” information, siding with The New York Times. The Pentagon responded by reissuing essentially the same restrictions with cosmetic changes and pledging an immediate appeal.

The more chilling part is the legal theory underneath it. As The Intercept reported, the Justice Department argued that while journalists may ask authorized Pentagon personnel questions, they can be accused of soliciting a crime if they ask nonpublic information from officials who are not supposed to disclose it. Put plainly, the government is pushing the idea that asking the wrong question to the wrong official could itself be criminal.

For years, administrations have tried to route journalists through official spokespeople and choke off unscripted access. This move, however, goes further. It tries to shift the burden of censorship onto reporters themselves, forcing them to behave as if the government’s internal gag rules are now their legal problem, too.

And January 6 keeps coming back dressed as public service

Meanwhile, in Florida, one of the men most closely associated with the visual humiliation of January 6 is trying to turn notoriety into office.

The Washington Post profiled Adam Johnson, the man photographed carrying Nancy Pelosi’s lectern through the Capitol Rotunda on January 6, 2021. After serving jail time and receiving a presidential pardon, he is now running for a seat on the Board of Commissioners in Manatee County.

The profile is disturbing for reasons that go beyond one race. Johnson has rarely voted, still doubts the 2020 election was fair, and now treats his role in January 6 as both a joke and a brand asset. His campaign logo is a silhouette of him carrying the lectern. He calls that day “a good day.” He says it offers “free marketing.”

And that sums it up. January 6 is no longer something many on the right feel compelled to explain away. It is becoming a credential, a meme, a low-level launching pad into public office. What was once supposed to disqualify someone from democratic life is being folded back into politics as a matter of personality.

And if that sounds familiar, it should. The administration is doing something similar in court this week as it asks the Supreme Court to revisit birthright citizenship using arguments, The Washington Post reports, that rely in part on figures steeped in anti-Black and anti-Chinese racism.

That is the broader story right now. This is not just a government trying to govern badly. It is a government trying to normalize the ugliest parts of its project by laundering them through repetition, legal process, and spectacle.

One more thing to keep in mind this week

We’ll also be publishing a Survival Guide on what travelers need to know about ICE officers at airports, as the administration continues folding immigration enforcement into ordinary public life.

That is where we are. Millions in the streets, a blockade that wobbled, a Pentagon trying to scare reporters out of doing their jobs. And a January 6 meme candidate asking voters to call it all “normal.”

Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers have gone without pay for 40 days as a partial government shutdown drags on. TSA is housed under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The Senate is in a stalemate over DHS funding, with Democrats demanding accountability for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

As the shutdown drags on, Democrats have attempted 11 times to fund TSA separately, and Republicans have voted against it each time. Republicans have tried to reach a deal, but President Donald Trump demanded that Republican senators keep up the shutdown. There is a lot going on here, so let’s break it down.

President Donald Trump is threatening extraordinary actions to sidestep the Senate

The president is not immune to public perception and pressure. President Trump is known to walk back policies or comments when he sees that they are unpopular. After all, he has made a career of wanting to be liked and caring what people think about him. The mounting pressure to alleviate the long lines and wait times at airports is starting to make President Trump crack.

According to the Associated Press, the president is considering declaring a national emergency to force DHS to pay TSA workers. The move is a desperate attempt to end a partial government shutdown that is hurting the president’s polling numbers.

The president posted to Truth Social that he wants to end the chaos at the airports, and he is prepared to do whatever it takes to end the pain he has caused.

“It’s not an easy thing to do, but I am going to do it!” the president wrote.

Sixty votes are required in order for the funding to pass the Senate; senators are ready to get rid of the filibuster. Republicans need Democrats to cross party lines and vote with them to pass it. But by not negotiating in good faith, Democrats have stood strong on their demands.

Democrats are asking to rein in ICE. Democrats want three things: stricter standards around judicial warrants for arrests, ICE agents wearing body cameras, and banning ICE agents from wearing masks. Recent polling shows that Americans want the agency overhauled. Yet, like always, Republicans don’t want to work for the people.

Democrats have attempted to get the TSA paid to end the airport chaos

Democratic senators have offered 11 times to fully fund TSA, separate from the negotiations to fund DHS. Each time, Republicans have voted against the bills, creating an unnecessarily long partial shutdown. The refusal to vote to fund TSA separately has created more chaos in airports across the country. President Trump deployed ICE agents to airports to help with security, but social media posts show ICE agents hanging around like spectators.

“We can pay TSA workers right here, right now,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who offered that latest attempt to fund TSA. “Republicans are more interested in playing political games and holding the rest of DHS hostage than governing and keeping our communities safe!”

Sen. Merkley first sought unanimous consent to fund TSA directly and independently. However, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) refused. Sen. Moreno then blocked Sen. Merkley’s second attempt to fund all of DHS except for ICE and CBP so TSA workers can get paid and negotiations can continue.

Previously, Democrats and Republicans came to an agreement to fund all of DHS, minus ICE and CBP. Republicans said they could fund ICE later with a reconciliation. This would be along party lines, guaranteeing desired funding for ICE. President Trump told Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) no deal. The decision means that President Trump personally blocked pay for TSA workers.

Even Republicans have blamed President Trump for the prolonged shutdown

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) explained in a recent interview that a deal had been reached to partially fund DHS. The bipartisan deal was seen as a victory within the Senate, but President Trump didn’t like it. Republicans were prepared to accept the deal.

“[W]e would offer a bill for reconciliation where we don’t need any Democratic votes to do whatever we wanted to do with ICE. And that way we’re out of the shutdown, and DHS is back open,” Sen Kennedy said in the interview. “Senator Thune submitted that to President Trump, as is his right. He said no. No deals with the Democrats. It would’ve worked. We could’ve had TSA paid by the end of the week. But the president said no deal.”

Whether or not he meant to, Sen. Kennedy single-handedly disproved that Republican talking point that Democrats are to blame for the TSA chaos. In one interview, he admitted that Democrats were willing to fund TSA, but President Trump wasn’t done with his political theater.

A Mexican teenager died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody. Royer Perez-Jimenez, 19, was found unresponsive in a Florida detention facility in the early morning hours of March 16. His death was announced in a press release from ICE dated March 18. The teenager’s death is raising more questions about detention facility conditions. Here’s what we know about Perez-Jimenez’s death and the trend of people dying in ICE custody.

A teenager is dead after being detained by ICE

Royer Perez-Jimenez, a Mexican national, is the youngest person who has died in ICE custody during President Donald Trump’s second term. The teenager was being held at the Glades County Detention Center in Moore Haven, Florida. According to a press release, Perez-Jimenez was found unconscious and unresponsive by a detention officer at 2:34 a.m. in his room. He was declared dead at 2:51 a.m., but an investigation into the death is ongoing.

According to ICE, Perez-Jimenez is presumed to have died from suicide. Perez-Jimenez was arrested on Jan. 21 by the Edgewater Police Department. He was charged with misdemeanor fraud for impersonation and misdemeanor resisting an officer. He was placed into an ICE detainer on Jan. 22 and was transferred to ICE custody on Feb. 21. ICE transported him to the Glades County Detention Center on Feb. 26.

“At intake, Perez was evaluated by medical staff,” reads the press release. “He denied any behavioral health issues or concerns and answered ‘no’ to all suicide screening questions.”

Perez-Jimenez’s death is drawing more attention to poor conditions in Florida immigration detention centers

A report from multiple civil rights and advocacy groups released in January looked specifically at the conditions of the Glades County Detention Center. The report found that the detention center posed a serious risk to people’s health. Along with the misuse of industrial chemical disinfectant, the report found that detainees were at risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. Most troubling, ICE agents regularly used pepper spray as a form of punishment, adding more irritants to the air.

“This is just one of several immigration detention facilities in Florida in recent years in which we’ve seen a troubling disregard for the health of people detained or the surrounding environment,” Dominique Burkhardt, Earthjustice attorney, said in a statement. “The courageous effort by advocates and those detained to expose these conditions is vital in an immigration detention system that would otherwise operate as a black box.”

There have been concerns about the conditions of immigration detention centers for years. Activists have been calling attention to the subpar sleeping accommodations, chemical pollutants, and general unhygienic conditions.

This isn’t the first ICE custody death this year

There have been at least 10 deaths in ICE custody so far in 2026. Others who have died in custody include Victor Manuel Díaz, 36; Heber Sanchez Domínguez, 34; Luis Beltrán Yanez–Cruz, 68; Luis Gustavo Núñez Caceres, 42; Jairo Garcia-Hernandez, 27; Lorth Sim, 59; Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal, 41; Emanuel Cleeford Damas, 56; Pejman Karshenas Najafabadi, 59; and Alberto Gutiérrez Reyes, 48.

Forty-two people have died in ICE custody so far in President Trump’s second term, a record number. ICE officials have denied the claim. However, ICE detentions have skyrocketed under President Trump’s second term. According to data, the number of people in ICE custody peaked at more than 70,000 in January 2026.

The current federal government has put a lot of focus on mass arrests, detention, and deportations at the expense of people’s lives. Perez-Jimenez is the latest victim, but likely will not be the last of President Trump’s immigration crackdown.

The federal government has poured tens of billions into immigration detention, expanded the number of facilities at breakneck speed, and helped entrench private prison companies like CoreCivic and GEO Group even further into the machinery of enforcement.

Behind them sit some of the largest financial firms in the world, holding major stakes, while immigrants with no criminal convictions fill detention beds and deaths in custody rise.

Meanwhile, the same administration escalating this crackdown is also starving farms, trucking, and other sectors of the immigrant labor that keep the economy moving.

Renouncing your United States citizenship isn’t a common thing for people to do. According to data, between 5,000 and 6,000 people renounce their citizenship, and the State Department wants to make it easier. In a recent rule change, the cost of renouncing your U.S. citizenship is now $450. The announcement comes at a time when the federal government has been trying to get rid of birthright citizenship and threatening to strip people of their citizenship.

Renouncing your U.S. citizenship has never been cheaper

The State Department just dropped the cost of renouncing your U.S. citizenship from $2,350 to $450. That is an 80 percent drop in the financial cost of walking away from your citizenship. It is now back down to the original price it cost in 2010 when the U.S. started to charge citizens to renounce their citizenship. The price increased to $2,350 in 2015 when requests surged due to the changing tax responsibility for U.S. citizens living abroad.

“Many reported spending hundreds or thousands of dollars a year on tax professionals, even when they might have no U.S. tax liabilities,” an official for the State Department said, according to The New York Times. “Some stated that despite being required to comply with U.S. tax laws, they received and/or benefited from few of the services for which their taxes were collected.”

The drop in price is due to unrelenting legal pressure from the Association of Accidental Americans, which is based in France. The organization represents people living abroad who are U.S. citizens simply due to being born in the U.S. The organization filed several lawsuits questioning the constitutionality of the fee. There is a current lawsuit pending that argues that there should be no fee to renounce your citizenship.

“The Association of Accidental Americans welcomes this decision, which acknowledges the necessity of making this fundamental right accessible to all,” Fabien Lehagre, the president of the Association of Accidental Americans, said in a statement. “This victory is the direct result of six years of relentless legal action and advocacy.”

There are implications for anyone who renounces their U.S. citizenship

Renouncing your U.S. citizenship comes with implications. Once someone renounces their citizenship, they lose all rights that are given to citizens. First, people who give up their citizenship lose the right to enter, work, and live in the U.S. In the eyes of the government, once you renounce your citizenship, you are seen as a foreign national. It is seen as a permanent, irrevocable process, so don’t take it lightly.

For high-income individuals, the financial liabilities to renounce their citizenship keep growing. Currently, people who make $2 million+ net worth or $190k+ average annual income tax for 2024/2025 have to pay capital gains taxes on all property they own abroad. This is called an “exit tax.”

People are also required to file a specific tax form as their final tax return for the year they renounce. Renouncing your citizenship doesn’t wipe away tax liability debt. After all, the U.S. government wants to make sure it gets its money.

It is also important not to renounce, if you want, before having citizenship in another country. There is a risk of becoming stateless, which leaves you limited in how you can travel or receive government protection.

Renouncing your citizenship is not an easy process and requires the person to confirm multiple times that they understand the implications. The new fees are effective on April 13.

The 2026 midterms are heating up across the country. Democrats are over-performing and defeating Republicans. The political world is buzzing with new data and polling, shifting the likelihood of races into new territory. This also means that there is a lot of drama starting to show itself in some races.

The recent election results show a shift towards the Democratic Party, and it is putting some seats in danger of flipping away from Republicans. We live in a time, politically, where being an incumbent comes as extra baggage rather than an advantage. It has led to some wild political moves. Here are some of the elections that we are watching after some sudden shifts caused drama.

Montana: Senate Race

The Montana Senate race took a turn on March 4 when Republican incumbent Sen. Steve Daines withdrew from the race three minutes before the filing deadline. He then endorsed Kurt Alme, a former U.S. Attorney for the District of Montana. Many in the political world see right through the façade and call the move a trick to allow Alme to file to run while keeping other candidates out of the race.

By waiting until the last minute and essentially choosing a successor, Sen. Daines is putting his finger on the scale. The maneuver shut out Democrats from mounting a strong challenger in the now open Senate race. Independent candidate Seth Bodnar is capitalizing on the drama Sen. Daines created. Before the announcement, Sen. Daines held a sizable lead, and the story was that Republicans would hold onto the Senate seat.

However, the decision could put the seat into play for the 2026 midterm elections, costing Republicans a seat in the Senate. Inside Elections moved the race from Solid Republican to Likely Republican in the aftermath of Sen. Daines’s sudden retirement. President Donald Trump won Montana in 2024 with 58.4 percent of the vote. Sen. Daines intentionally injected uncertainty into the race with potentially far-reaching consequences.

Alaska: Senate Race

Mary Peltola is giving Democrats hope of a potential flip in the Senate. Peltola is no stranger to defying the odds when it comes to politics in Alaska. She won a special election in 2022 after the Republican incumbent Don Young died. She became the first Native Alaskan and woman elected to represent Alaska in Congress. She also became the first person born in Alaska elected to serve in Congress and the first Democrat elected to Congress in Alaska since 1972.

Polling shows Peltola leading the pack in Alaska’s jungle primary and ranked-choice voting system. Peltola's entering the race moved what would have been a Solid Republican seat to Lean Republican across several organizations tracking elections. She is challenging incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan. A recent survey from The Alaska Current shows that Alaska voters are not happy with Sen. Sullivan’s work in the Senate. The survey reports that 41 percent of Alaska voters think the senator should have another term, while 53 percent believe that he should be replaced.

Iowa: Senate Race

Republican Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa threw the Senate race into chaos long before 2026. During a town hall in 2025, Sen. Ernst was asked about Medicaid cuts that were coming as part of the Big Beautiful Bill that Republicans supported. Her response was, “Well, we are all going to die.” The comment landed as well as you would expect. The backlash was swift and severe, eventually forcing Sen. Ernst to announce her retirement from the Senate, a seat she has held since 2015.

With Sen. Ernst out of the race, national Democrats are hopeful that the right candidate could turn Iowa from a Republican state back to a battleground state. Iowa voted for President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. Current polling shows a close race with 3 percent between Republican Ashley Hinson and Democrat Zach Wahls. Wahls is currently leading in the polls for the Iowa Democratic Senate primary. Cook Political Report names the Senate race in Iowa as Likely Republican, showing a shift towards Democrats.

Texas: Senate Race

The Texas Senate race drama has less to do with party affiliation and more to do with unwavering loyalty to the president over country. Democrat James Talarico won the party’s nomination after the primary election on March 3. However, incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton failed to get 50 percent of the vote in the Republican primary, triggering a runoff election.

Where this gets dicey is AG Paxton’s claim that he will drop out of the race if Sen. Cornyn commits to suspending the filibuster to pass the SAVE Act. Sen. Cornyn had previously stated that he would not support suspending the filibuster for the vote, and it has thrown the Republican Party into chaos over the election. Why? Well, President Trump was set to endorse the incumbent, but he is determined to pass the SAVE Act in an attempt to disenfranchise voters ahead of the midterm elections.

AG Paxton’s announcement leaves President Trump unable to endorse one candidate over the other. On the one hand, he could endorse the incumbent to protect the seat. On the other hand, he can endorse a man who said he would drop out of the race if the incumbent changes his thoughts about the filibuster.

Meanwhile, recent polling shows both Sen. Cornyn and AG Paxton trailing Talarico by very slim margins. Talarico leads Sen. Cornyn 44 to 43, and he leads Paxton 47 to 45. Democrats have been trying to flip a Texas Senate seat for a decade, and this could be their best shot in a long time to turn a statewide seat blue.

Texas: 23rd Congressional District

Running from San Antonio to El Paso, Texas’s 23rd Congressional District is one to watch. Rep. Tony Gonzales has represented the district since 2021. However, a political scandal upended his reelection bid after admitting to an affair with a staffer who committed suicide last year. For months, Rep. Gonzales denied the affair, despite text evidence that he engaged in an inappropriate sexual relationship.

After he dropped out, YouTube personality Brandon Herrera, also known as the “AK Guy,” became the Republican candidate. He was quickly endorsed by President Trump. Herrera has a long history of posting Nazi and gun content on social media. Texas’s 23rd Congressional District includes Uvalde, the site of the Robb Elementary School shooting.

Recent polling shows that Democratic challenger Katy Padilla Stout is within striking distance of Herrera in a district that is largely Latino. Stout is polling at 40 percent compared to Herrera’s 42 percent.

Why do these elections matter?

Democrats are capitalizing on disenchanted voters who are moving away from Republicans. Recent special elections show Democrats over-performing in even the most Republican districts with strong support for President Trump in 2024.

On January 31, 2026, Taylor Rehmet pulled off a major upset for Republicans when he flipped Texas’s 9th Senate District for Democrats. The seat had been held by Republicans since 1992, ending a 34-year streak of Republicans representing the district. Rehmet won the district by 14 points, a dramatic swing from the 20-point victory by Republican Kelly Hancock in 2022. The 34-point swing is largely attributed to the shift of Latino voters back towards Democrats following the 2024 presidential election.

Republicans hold a slim majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives that could disappear after the 2026 midterms. Republican leadership has regularly stated that if Democrats control the Senate and the House, it would be an effective stop to President Trump’s agenda. Americans, according to polling, are unhappy with the president’s job. Fifty-five percent of Americans disapprove of President Trump’s job performance, with factors like the economy, the Iran war, and tariffs dragging down his approval rating.

Independent and Latino voters are shifting to the left. In a survey with Latino business owners by Politico, 42 percent said that their economic situation has gotten worse under President Trump. New data shows that 45 percent of Americans now identify as politically independent, the largest number ever recorded. The shift, however, seems to be favoring Democrats leading into the 2026 midterm elections.

For years, Donald Trump and his team have campaigned on the slogan “America First,” claiming that mass deportations of immigrants would lead to “higher wages with better benefits” and a “100% American workforce.” What they did not realize, among many other things, is that immigrants are the backbone of the American workforce.

In 2025 alone, more than 15,000 farms closed in the U.S. According to USDA data released in February 2026, the number of U.S. farms fell to a total of 1.865 million. This is due in part to a severe economic downturn, along with all the other factors the administration has promoted as a hoax: climate change, declining export demand, and, of course, the importance of farmworkers.

Now, according to The New York Times, the agricultural sector is facing a tight labor market as “farmworkers age and fewer new immigrants and younger Americans are willing to toil in the fields.”

Without saying so outright, the administration has admitted in recent months that immigration raids and the crackdown at the border “have exacerbated the issue.” Their solution? Making it cheaper for farmers to hire immigrant farmworkers on temporary visas.

As the Times reported, although many farmers have welcomed the changes made to the H-2A visa program, others are more radical in their opposition. Either way, “the simmering debate underscores how some of the administration’s top goals — reducing immigration, keeping food prices low, and helping American workers — may inevitably conflict.”

And it seems the administration still doesn’t get it

As if the lesson about the importance of immigrants to the country’s economic engine had not sunk in, some 200,000 immigrant truck drivers will now “begin to lose their commercial driver’s licenses as they expire” under a new Trump administration rule that takes effect Monday.

As reported by NPR, the administration’s rationale for tightening the rules is “following several high-profile crashes involving foreign-born drivers.” The policy, aimed at strengthening safety and enforcement, affects asylum seekers, refugees, and DACA recipients.

“To be clear, states are already barred from issuing commercial driver’s licenses to anyone in the U.S. illegally,” NPR added. “Immigrants with temporary legal status do need work authorization from the federal government in order to qualify for a CDL.”

As of early 2026, approximately 200,000 to more than 720,000 truck drivers in the U.S. are immigrants, with estimates often placing the foreign-born workforce at around 18% to 20% of all drivers. However, a new federal rule in March 2026 banning asylum seekers, refugees, and DACA recipients from obtaining or renewing commercial driver’s licenses is directly affecting about 200,000 of these drivers.

Foreign-born drivers are heavily involved in long-haul and regional freight, helping fill labor shortages

The administration’s new rule is expected to exacerbate driver shortages, increase shipping costs, and raise consumer prices.

As the industry relies heavily on foreign-born labor, companies are already reporting immediate difficulties finding drivers for key routes. That translates into increased shipping costs caused by reduced capacity, which are eventually passed on to consumers.

To be more specific, with foreign-born drivers making up a significant portion of the workforce, removing 200,000 drivers is expected to intensify the current labor shortage, which was already estimated at more than 60,000 drivers.

In California, specifically, the regulations are expected to disrupt the transportation economy, with concerns about the potential loss of 61,000 drivers, according to CalMatters.

Finally, the increased scrutiny has caused fear among immigrant drivers, prompting some to avoid certain routes and potentially leading to further supply chain slowdowns.

So what happens when ideology collides with reality?

In the end, as is highly likely, the government will realize that it has no other workforce as efficient and reliable as the immigrant workforce. Will it regret this decision, just as it did with farmworkers, or will it let the economy collapse while searching for another scapegoat that better suits its rhetoric?

We’re kicking off the week with half the world captivated by the Oscars while the rest of it continues to burn. From what’s really happening in American television to the latest news out of Iran, here’s the news we’re watching as the week begins.

Not even the Oscars can escape politics

Before all the artists arrived at the Dolby in their finest attire, hundreds of anti-ICE protests erupted across Los Angeles. Amid slogans like “history will remember” and “ICE won’t quit,” activists called for the expulsion of the government’s paramilitary agents from cities including Minnesota and Portland.

While stars like Javier Bardem demanded an end to the war and freedom for Palestine, U.S. networks are now under direct threat.

Just before the Academy Awards ceremony, the current Federal Communications Commission chairman, Brendan Carr, threatened that TV broadcasters must “course correct” their coverage of the Iran war or “they will lose their licenses.” Carr’s threat came just one day after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth openly called for CNN to be taken over by Paramount, and just one hour after the president posted an image outlining his plan to “reshape the media” by defunding public news, firing late-night hosts and news anchors, and waging war on media companies.

Waco teacher fired for giving kids art supplies for ICE protest

Steve Gaines, an English teacher at the Harmony School of Innovation in Waco, was fired a month after students in his class organized a walkout to protest ICE. Gaines helped students make signs out of cardboard boxes and paint during school hours and said the principal did not instruct him to stay out of the protest until third period.

Gaines, who has 11 years of teaching experience, says he takes responsibility for the lost class time, but believes his dismissal was a disproportionate consequence and stands by his decision to support his students.

Finally, Iran’s long game

As the U.S.-Israel war on Iran escalates, Trump is urging NATO nations to help reopen shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz through military support. Daily oil exports from the Persian Gulf, home to top exporter Saudi Arabia and other major producers, have dropped by at least 60%, driving up prices and intensifying fears of long-term economic fallout.

However, only 2% of the total petroleum products fueling the United States passes through the Strait of Hormuz, while 20% goes to Europe. That could push countries around the world to negotiate with Iran before joining the deranged and unsustainable quest the United States has launched on Israel’s behalf.

There is something especially cruel about the way this Administration talks about work.

It wraps itself in the language of entrepreneurship, grit, self-reliance, and “American job creators,” while targeting the very people who have spent years building businesses, hiring workers, and keeping local economies from hollowing out. This week, the U.S. Small Business Administration made that contradiction impossible to ignore.

According to a March 9 news release from the SBA, the agency has now expanded its restrictions on access to SBA-backed loans, banning foreign nationals and non-citizens from all SBA-guaranteed small business loan programs. That includes the agency’s Surety Bond and Microloan Programs, and it builds on an earlier policy change that had already made any small business owned in whole or in part by a foreign national ineligible for the SBA’s flagship 504 and 7(a) loan programs. Under the new rule, small business owners applying for any SBA loan program “must be U.S. citizens or U.S. nationals with their principal residence in the United States.”

“The Trump SBA is committed to driving economic growth and job creation for American citizens,” SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler said in the agency’s release. “Last month, we made it clear that SBA would not allow foreign nationals to access our core small business loan programs, and today, we are expanding that policy to include all SBA-guaranteed loans. With our lending authority capped annually by Congress and amid record demand for access to capital, our responsibility is clear: the limited resource of SBA financing must prioritize American citizens who are building businesses and creating jobs here at home.”

On paper, the White House and the SBA want this to read as a simple America First correction. In practice, it reads as an attempt to choke off access to capital for immigrant communities, including a large swath of Latino entrepreneurs, at the precise moment they have become one of the country’s clearest engines of business growth.

What the SBA actually changed

According to Politico, the Small Business Administration issued policy guidance in early February requiring that all owners of a small business applying for the agency’s primary 7(a) loan program be U.S. citizens or U.S. nationals with principal residences in the United States. The outlet reported that the move rescinded a December policy that had allowed a 7(a) loan borrower to hold up to 5% of a business’s ownership by a foreign national, a green card holder, or a U.S. national or citizen living outside the country.

That shift was severe enough on its own. Green card holders who had permanent U.S. residency could no longer own any part of a business applying for the federal government’s most popular small business loan program. Then the Administration went further.

According to Reuters, the SBA notice stated that “Legal Permanent Residents (LPRs) will not be eligible to own any percentage interest in an Applicant/Borrower.”

Then came the March 9 expansion. According to the SBA’s own release, the rule now covers all SBA-guaranteed loans, including the Surety Bond Guarantee and Microloan programs. The agency said the change would take effect 30 days after publication.

The SBA said that in fiscal year 2025, it approved 3,358 loans for small businesses owned in part by lawful permanent residents, representing 4% of the agency’s total loan approvals of 85,000. Because Congress caps the agency’s lending authority each year, the SBA argued that “the limited resource of SBA financing must prioritize American citizens.”

But that framing leaves out the basic reality that lawful permanent residents are legal residents of the United States. They live here. They work here. They pay taxes here. They hire here. They build here. The Administration is asking the public to treat them as outsiders while depending on the economic life they help sustain.

Latino business owners already carry more of the economy than Washington admits

According to Brookings analysis of the Annual Business Survey, American Community Survey, and Bureau of Economic Analysis data from 2017 to 2022, Latino or Hispanic individuals owned 7.9% of all employer businesses in 2022, totaling 465,202 firms. Those businesses employed 3,550,230 people and generated more than $653 billion in total revenue. From 2021 to 2022 alone, Latino or Hispanic-owned businesses increased employment by 14.1% and total revenue by 18.9%.

That growth did not come out of nowhere. According to the same report, Latino or Hispanic-owned businesses grew at an average annual rate of 7.7% between 2017 and 2022, far outpacing the 0.46% growth rate for all employer businesses. Between 2017 and 2022, Latino or Hispanic-owned businesses grew in 204 of 227 U.S. metro areas studied. Between 2021 and 2022, they represented 58% of the increase in total employers nationwide.

This means that without Latino or Hispanic-owned businesses, the U.S. would have had 619,655 fewer jobs between 2019 and 2022, alongside a loss of $34 billion in workers’ wages and $190 billion in total revenue.

So when this Administration narrows access to capital in the name of protecting “American job creators,” it is attacking a sector of the business community that has already been doing the work of creating jobs, wages, and revenue at a pace the broader economy has struggled to match.

However, another point buried in the Brookings data deserves more attention. Latino or Hispanic business owners remain underrepresented relative to their share of the U.S. population. In 2022, Latino or Hispanic-identifying individuals made up 19.1% of the population but owned only 7.9% of employer businesses. According to Brookings, if the share of Latino or Hispanic-owned employer businesses matched the share of Americans who identify as Latino or Hispanic, there would be 812,440 more businesses generating a combined $1.1 trillion in revenue and $250 billion in payroll.

In other words, the country is already benefiting from Latino entrepreneurship while still starving it of the full room it deserves to grow.

And who gets shut out when Latino business owners lose access to capital?

The SBA does not need to name Latinos explicitly for Latino communities to feel the blow.

According to The Guardian, this is the first time in the agency’s history that legal residents, including green card holders, have been cut off from loans backed by the Small Business Administration. The paper reported that many of those loans support “main street” enterprises such as retail shops, restaurants, cafes, franchises, and business-to-business services in sectors ranging from manufacturing to transportation.

That description should sound familiar to anyone who knows how Latino entrepreneurship actually looks on the ground. It is the restaurant owner trying to expand, the contractor trying to bid on a larger project. The family business struggling to buy equipment. The franchisee who wants to open a first location.

According to The Guardian, Keegan McBride, co-founder of SBA Source, said many franchisees are immigrants, including both green card holders and naturalized U.S. citizens, and that under the new rule, even married couples trying to launch a business together could be blocked from an SBA loan if both people are not U.S. citizens. He explained why these loans matter by saying, “SBA loans are really only meant to be issued in situations where folks wouldn’t be able to get access to credit on similar terms without the government guarantee. It’s challenging because SBA is kind of designed to fill that gap.”

That gap is the story. Conventional lenders already reward people who have home equity, inherited wealth, investment portfolios, or the kind of financial cushion that makes risk feel manageable. SBA-backed loans were created to reach people who do not move through the economy with those protections.

Many Latino families know that terrain intimately. They build businesses while carrying less generational wealth, thinner margins, and fewer institutional connections. Cutting off access to government-backed financing does not level the playing field. It tilts it even harder toward the people who already own most of it.

The Administration says this protects Americans. The record says something else.

The Administration has not been subtle about the worldview behind this policy.

According to Politico, the change is consistent with Trump’s January 2025 executive order on “protecting the American people against invasion,” which directs federal agencies to “employ all lawful means to ensure the faithful execution of the immigration laws of the United States.” According to Lexology’s review of the policy changes, the SBA’s tightening rules have been gradual, beginning in 2025 and becoming more restrictive over time, culminating in a February 2026 policy that excludes legal permanent residents from owning even 1% of a business applying for SBA-backed financing.

This was not a one-off administrative correction. It was a deliberate campaign to tether access to capital to the Administration’s broader immigration enforcement agenda.

In an op-ed posted to the SBA’s website in February, Loeffler said, “Trump has restored confidence and opportunity to Main Street with a commonsense economic agenda designed to put hardworking families and small businesses, not Washington bureaucrats, illegal aliens or coastal elites, in the driver’s seat,” according to The Guardian.

But the policy does not stop at undocumented immigrants. It reaches legal permanent residents. It reaches people whom the government itself has authorized to live and work permanently in the United States. It reaches people who have built businesses, paid taxes, created jobs, and committed themselves to this country for years.

According to Politico, Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Nydia Velázquez said in a joint statement: “The Trump administration is stoking the flames of hatred, spreading fear and confusion among immigrants and small business owners. Rather than support hardworking legal immigrants to start or expand a business, the Trump SBA is choosing hatred by barring green card holders from receiving an SBA loan. The Administration’s message to immigrants is clear: you are not welcome to pursue the American Dream.”

According to The Guardian, Aissatou Barry-Fall, CEO of the Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union, said the new policy makes “no sense whatsoever” and added, “I think it’s discrimination. That’s all it is.”

Latino business owners grew across the country. The punishment is national too.

One of the laziest myths in American politics is that Latino economic power is confined to a few predictable places. The data says otherwise.

According to Brookings, Latino or Hispanic-owned businesses grew in nearly 90% of the metro areas examined between 2017 and 2022. The biggest numerical gains came in places with large Latino communities, including Miami, Los Angeles, and New York. Miami alone added 13,693 Latino or Hispanic-owned businesses during that period. Los Angeles added 10,999. New York added 8,727.

And yet the pattern was national. Growth was observed across the Midwest and parts of the Southern Appalachians. Latino or Hispanic-owned businesses also contributed heavily to overall business growth in major metro areas. According to Brookings, they accounted for over 93% of total growth in Miami, 47% in Los Angeles, and 65% in Orlando.

These businesses are concentrated in sectors that shape everyday life. In 2022, according to Brookings, Latino or Hispanic-owned employer businesses were clustered in construction, accommodation and food services, and professional, scientific, and technical services. From 2017 to 2022, Latino- or Hispanic-owned construction businesses increased by over 37,500, a 75% jump. Transportation and warehousing grew by 74%. Arts, entertainment, and recreation grew by 86%. Real estate and rental leasing grew by 66%.

So why target Latino business owners now?

Because capital is power.

A community that starts businesses builds more than income. It builds autonomy. It builds leverage. It builds local hiring power, local political influence, neighborhood stability, and the ability to survive institutions that were never designed to make life easy. Small business formation changes the social map of who gets to own, employ, and endure.

That helps explain why this Administration keeps returning to the same pressure points: Immigration status. Access to credit. Federal legitimacy. The right to belong economically.

According to the SBA’s March 9 release, the agency also pointed to earlier efforts, including citizenship verification requirements across its loan programs, to “cut off access to loans for illegal aliens” and plans to move SBA field offices out of sanctuary cities that it says do not comply with ICE. In other words, this is a political worldview being translated into administrative barriers.

And it arrives at a brutal time. According to Politico, small business advocates warned that restrictions on green card holders come as small businesses are already struggling with tariffs, health care costs, inflation, and long-standing difficulties accessing capital. Small Business Majority founder and CEO John Arensmeyer said the decision “will limit the growth of small businesses and jobs throughout the United States” and that “the timing of SBA’s tighter lending eligibility criteria could not be worse.” He called on the agency to “prioritize broadening eligibility rather than narrowing it.”

According to The Guardian, restaurateur Aneesa Waheed, who was named the SBA’s New York state small business person of the year in 2024, put the emotional reality of the shift into plain language. “I’m really shocked,” she said. “I’ve been in the SBA world for a long time. You think of the SBA as a source of support and strength for small businesses.”

For decades, the SBA was one of the few places where the federal government acknowledged that access to capital should not be limited exclusively to the already secure. Now the agency is being used to narrow who counts as fully investable in America.

What they are really cutting off

There is a temptation to describe this as an immigration story and leave it there. That would let the Administration off too easily.

This is also a labor story. A wealth story. A race story. A story about who gets to convert work into ownership.

According to Reuters, the new rule does not stop non-citizens from owning businesses in the United States or from accessing conventional bank loans. That is true. It is also incomplete. Conventional credit is often harder to obtain, especially for founders without the collateral, asset base, or financial history that banks prefer. That is exactly why SBA-backed loans exist.

According to The Guardian, McBride said that without the SBA guarantee, many borrowers will have to rely on home equity, investment portfolios, or other forms of collateral to secure financing. Those are resources that many working and immigrant families do not have in abundance.

This is where the broader economic picture comes back into view. Brookings found that Latino or Hispanic-owned businesses likely buffered the U.S. economy against a more severe downturn during and after the pandemic. They helped drive post-pandemic business creation. They generated jobs, wages, and revenue in places that badly needed all three.

And still, they remain underrepresented. Still, there is room for growth. Still, the ceiling has not remotely been reached.

So when this Administration closes off a critical financing pathway, it’s telling a fast-growing entrepreneurial community that its labor, taxes, hiring, and revenue are welcome, but its claim to institutional support remains conditional.

There is a lot of chatter about the gubernatorial race in California. The top-two primary system, also called a jungle primary, has conservative voices on social media claiming that California is poised to have a Republican governor. For months, former Riverside County sheriff and Oath Keeper Chad Bianco was leading the pack. Second was Steve Hilton, a conservative commentator from the United Kingdom. Republicans really thought that they had something cooking in the Golden State, but claiming an early victory that never materializes is typical of the California GOP. New polling shows that the dream of a Republican-only race for governor in California is quickly evaporating.

Sorry, Republicans. The new frontrunner for California governor is a Democrat

For months, polling numbers showed a rare Republican two-way race in the top-two primary. A top-two primary is when all candidates for an office run against each other in the primary. This means that there is no Democratic or Republican primary for a two-party matchup for the general election. This is a rare primary structure that is only used in a handful of states. California and Washington both use a top-two primary system. Louisiana has what is called a classic jungle primary, where all of the candidates run on the same ballot, and only the one with more than 50 percent of the vote wins. Otherwise, there is a runoff. In Alaska, there is a similar system, but the top four candidates go into a ranked-choice voting runoff.

Previous polling showed Chad Bianco, a former sheriff from Riverside County and an unapologetic former member of Oath Keepers, and Steve Hilton, a conservative political commentator born in the United Kingdom, leading the large pack of gubernatorial hopefuls. This had Republicans hyped that they might take the governorship in California.

New polling from Emerson dashed those hopes this week when it was reported that Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell is now leading the pack with 17 percent. Meanwhile, Hilton remained in second place with 13 percent, and Bianco dropped to third place with 11 percent. Billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer is tied with Bianco for third place. Katie Porter, who was the favored candidate and the first to announce her candidacy, is in fifth place with 8 percent. So far, 25 percent of voters are still undecided and likely deciding on which Democrat to support.

The possibility of a Republican governor for California is very slim

The California GOP has been relying on a potential lockout scenario to win the California gubernatorial race. While it is technically possible, it is also an almost impossible situation. The gubernatorial race is filled with a lot of hopefuls.

There are currently nine Democrats in the race for governor. When you add up the polling numbers between Swalwell, Steyer, Porter, Antonio Villaraigosa, and Xavier Becerra, it accounts for 42 percent of likely voters. Meanwhile, the only Republicans in the mix account for 24 percent of potential voters.

For reference, Democratic voters outnumber Republican voters in California by almost double. There are 10,398,558 registered Democrats in California compared to 5,845,164 registered Republicans.

History shows that Californians aren’t into the Republican Party

Conservative pundits and social media users were obsessed with telling everyone that California is turning red. It would be an impressive feat if Republicans could somehow flip the Democratic stronghold. However, the data and history are not on their side. While they point to maps with large red districts, population numbers are important. The red areas of California are largely rural with fewer voters than major metropolitan areas, like Los Angeles and San Francisco.

When you dig into the historical data, the idea of a Republican governor becomes even more unlikely. The last Republican governor of California was Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was elected during a recall election in 2003 and won reelection in 2006. He served until 2011 and left the state in bad shape. Schwarzenegger left office with a 23 percent approval rating, a $28 billion deficit, and an economy in ruins.

To put this in even clearer terms, Schwarzenegger was elected as governor the last time in 2006. Coincidentally, 2006 was the last time that California voters elected a Republican to a statewide office. By 2022, no Republicans have come within a 10-point margin of winning a statewide office.

As the race narrows, the Democratic lead will grow

With so many Democrats running for governor in California, the numbers right now aren’t telling the true story. California is strongly Democratic and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. The Republican Party's rebrand to MAGA and anti-immigrant doesn’t play well within the state. The last thing that Californians want is a state-level government that functions like a Trump administration.

Two out of three California voters do not approve of the president’s job. More specifically, a large majority of voters in California said that political extremism or threats to democracy, economic conditions, and immigration are important problems facing the nation with President Donald Trump in the White House. Three out of four believe that the country is heading in the wrong direction. These fears and opinions spell a worsening situation for the California Republican Party, which is already weakened due to the national Republican Party’s message.

Additionally, none of the low-ranking Democratic candidates would want to be the spoiler that would usher in a Republican state government these days. If any of them want to have a future career in California politics, the right thing to do is to suspend their campaigns and put their support behind the leading Democrats in the field. Once that happens, the fantasy of a Republican winning the 2026 gubernatorial race in California will fully evaporate. Till then, pay attention to the numbers, not the loud voices.

The recent arrest of Nashville journalist Estefany Rodríguez is further exposing the questionable tactics used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Rodríguez has built a career as a journalist and recently covered immigration raids in Nashville. There is conflicting information coming from the federal government that is doing more to cast doubts than answer questions about her arrest. Let’s dig into what happened and why people are calling for Rodríguez’s release.

Estefany Rodríguez is a Nashville journalist covering immigration

Rodríguez first came to the United States on March 10, 2021, on a tourist visa from Colombia. After arriving, she applied for asylum based on death threats he received in Colombia for her reporting on corruption. She is married to a United States citizen, has applied for a green card, and has a valid work permit.

So, why was she arrested by ICE?

Rodríguez works for a media outlet called Nashville Noticias. As part of her work, she has recently covered the immigration raids and increased surveillance in the Nashville area. Her legal team and critics are claiming that her on-the-ground reporting made her a target for an unfounded immigration arrest.

“With her arrest, federal authorities have both silenced an important on-the-ground perspective and have sent a chilling message that reporting critical of the administration may face retaliation,” reads a statement from the Society of Professional Journalists. “Rodríguez’s detention is part of a broader erosion of democratic norms and human rights in the United States in which immigration authorities are increasingly being used to chill free expression and First Amendment rights. This practice must stop.”

On March 4, Rodríguez was in the car with her husband, who was driving. The car had a Nashville Noticias sticker on it. The couple was driving with their 7-year-old daughter when they were pulled over. When they parked, they were suddenly surrounded by unmarked cars and immigration agents. She was arrested and taken from the scene without any information about why she was arrested.

The federal government did not have a proper warrant

According to Rodríguez’s legal team, the original administrative warrant, dated March 2, was not properly filled out. An administrative warrant is a document that is signed by a fellow immigration officer, not a judge. These warrants are not legally binding and would prevent the arrest of a person or an immigration agent’s entry into private property.

Columbia Journalism Review pointed out the glaring mistakes of the original administrative warrant. According to the report, the Department of Homeland Security submitted a photo of the administrative warrant to the US District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, Nashville Division. The warrant did not include an A-number, which is a unique seven- to nine-digit code assigned to noncitizens. Additionally, the part that says where and when the arrest happened was left blank, further complicating the narrative from the federal government. The court is demanding an explanation from the federal government to justify the arrest.

DHS is trying to use social media and bots to change the narrative

Of course, the current federal government responded to the allegations on social media, instead of in court. Making legal arguments on social media has become a go-to for the administration as a way of controlling the narrative and likely relying on bots to spread the information as fact.

DHS claimed that there was a valid warrant and shared an image of said warrant. However, the warrant that DHS shared in an attempt to validate the arrest is dated March 4, the same day as the arrest. The claim from DHS is that the warrant was filled out in a post-arrest interview with Rodríguez.

According to court filings, the warrant isn’t enough to satisfy the burden of proof to justify her arrest. Rather, the documentation shown so far is casting a lot of doubt around ICE’s tactics in targeting Rodríguez.

Rodríguez’s arrest is exposing more potential constitutional violations

Rodríguez and her legal team are arguing that her First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment rights were violated in the arrest. Activists and her legal team are claiming that she was targeted for her reporting on immigration activities.

“Petitioner still seeks immediate release from custody of the ICE Enforcement & Removal Operations (“ERO”) Nashville Office, but she also requests that this Court enjoin Respondents from taking any enforcement action against Petitioner, either by retaliating against her past speech or chilling her future speech,” reads a filing to the court by Rodríguez’s legal team.

Rodríguez is currently being held in a county jail in Gadsden, Alabama. She is expected to be transferred to a detention center in Louisiana.

Amid the illogical war this administration has dragged us into, panic over an attack on U.S. territory, beyond its military bases in the Middle East, has started to materialize.

According to a report by ABC News, the FBI warned California police departments in recent days that Iran could launch drones against the West Coast.

“We recently acquired information that as of early February 2026, Iran allegedly aspired to conduct a surprise attack using unmanned aerial vehicles from an unidentified vessel off the coast of the United States Homeland, specifically against unspecified targets in California, in the event that the US conducted strikes against Iran,” the alert distributed at the end of February said. “We have no additional information on the timing, method, target, or perpetrators of this alleged attack.”

The warning reportedly came just as the Trump administration was beginning its offensive at Israel’s instruction.

So far, neither the FBI nor the White House has commented on the matter

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office told ABC News: “The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services is actively working with state, local, and federal security officials to protect our communities.”

And the LA Sheriff’s Department said that, “in light of current global events,” it is maintaining an “elevated level of readiness.”

“Out of an abundance of caution, and in recognition of current religious observances, the Department has continued increased patrols around places of worship, cultural institutions, and other prominent locations throughout the County,” the department said in a statement.

“We have proactively reviewed our deployment plans, enhanced coordination with our patrol stations, and ensured that additional resources are available should they be needed.”

Can Iran really attack the United States?

According to the Los Angeles Times, a source with knowledge of the memo who was not authorized to discuss it publicly said the warning was issued based on intelligence received by the U.S. Coast Guard. Law enforcement sources with intelligence experience said such alerts are cautionary in nature.

The source, who is experienced in counterterrorism, said: “It’s not been deemed credible at this time.”

The sources stressed that the warning was precautionary and that there was no indication that Iran was planning an attack or could successfully launch one.

Intelligence suggests that Iran considered using unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, launched from unidentified ships off the West Coast of the United States. This is considered a “hybrid” or “asymmetric” option, since Iran lacks missiles with the range necessary to reach the continental United States from its own territory.

Multiple law enforcement sources have described the intelligence as “uncorroborated” and “cautious.” There is no specific information on timing, targets, or perpetrators.

Who would benefit from an Iranian attack on U.S. soil?

In short: Trump.

Given the disapproval the current administration faces among voters, many speculate that the only way the Republican Party could win the midterm elections would be if they were suspended. To do so, the only strategy at hand would be to declare a national emergency.

For several weeks, a draft executive order proposing exactly that has been circulating among government allies.

According to PBS, the 17-page proposal would give Trump extraordinary power over the 2026 midterm elections. The proposal claims to address electoral integrity issues caused by foreign interference. By declaring a national emergency, according to the document’s hypothesis, the president could take control of some voting mechanisms in the country, including requiring manual recounts of votes and voter identification at the polls.

As PBS continued, the U.S. Constitution makes clear that states administer elections, while Congress has only a limited oversight role in regulating how states conduct federal elections. This proposal would expand federal control over elections and would be challenged in court almost immediately. Since The Washington Post first reported on the draft, experts have shared concerns that such a proposal would be unconstitutional and beyond the president’s authority.

Could this actually happen?

Since 2016, Donald Trump has shown that even the worst-case scenarios are possible. Ten years later, in the middle of the worst global conflict seen in years, it would be naive to dismiss the ideas swirling around the president.

As explained by the Brennan Center for Justice, just hours after launching the Iran war, Trump reposted a headline on Truth Social claiming, “Iran tried to interfere in the 2020 and 2024 elections to stop Trump, and now faces renewed war with the United States.”

The New York University School of Law Center explained how governments, especially authoritarian regimes, often use crises to try to manipulate elections. In Hungary, for example, there is growing fear that Viktor Orbán will use Russia’s war against Ukraine to distort or delay voting in that country. In this case, Trump has been trying for months to justify his increasing efforts to interfere in our elections.

What better excuse than an attack on national territory?

Representative Tony Gonzales (R-Texas 23rd) is not seeking reelection to Congress. The announcement comes after mounting pressure for answers after his staffer, Regina Ann Santos-Aviles, died by suicide. Speculation swirled that the two had an affair after Santos-Aviles’s tragic death. Here is a recap of what led to the end of Rep. Gonzales’s political career.

Rep. Tony Gonzales will not seek reelection after a political scandal

Rep. Gonzales was first elected to represent Texas’s 23rd Congressional District in 2020. In that election, he defeated current San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones after he was endorsed by President Donald Trump. By 2022, he won the Republican primary with 55.87 percent of the vote. That margin became slimmer in 2024. He won the Republican primary with only 50.6 percent of the vote, which is less than 400 votes.

But his ongoing decline in popularity is not the reason that he isn’t seeking reelection. Rep. Gonzales has been embroiled in a political scandal that includes sex, infidelity, a tragic death, and lying.

It all started with the tragic death of staffer Regina Ann Santos-Aviles

Santos-Aviles was the Uvalde Regional District Director for Rep. Gonzales. First responders were called to her home the night of Sept. 13, 2025, after the staffer sustained burn injuries over her body. According to footage recovered from the home, the video showed Santos-Aviles covering herself in gasoline and lighting herself on fire.

Her death exposed allegations of infidelity between the congressman and Santos-Aviles. According to a report from the San Antonio Express-News, attorney Bobby Barrera contacted the politician about $300,000 for a non-disclosure agreement about the affair on behalf of Adrian Aviles, Santos-Aviles’s husband. Rep. Gonzales shared the message on social media, claiming that Aviles was attempting to blackmail him.

Rep. Gonzales denied the allegations of sexual misconduct for months

Barrera told CNN that he had text messages from Santos-Aviles that confirmed an affair. According to the attorney, Santos-Aviles showed text messages between her and the congressman to her husband in 2024 when she admitted the affair to him. Additionally, Santos-Aviles texted with a close colleague about the affair.

Rep. Gonzales came out strongly denying the allegations of any impropriety between him and Santos-Aviles. Furthermore, he claimed that Aviles and Barrera were tarnishing the memory of Santos-Aviles with the accusations.

“Ms. Santos-Aviles was a kind soul who devoted her life to making the community a better place. Her efforts led to improvements in school safety, healthcare, and rural water like never before,” Rep. Gonzales said in a statement to CNN. “It’s shameful that Brandon Herrera is using a disgruntled former staffer to smear her memory and score political points, conveniently pushing this out the very day early voting started. I am not going to engage in these personal smears and instead will remain focused on helping President Trump secure the border and improve the lives of all Texans.”

People wouldn’t let the congressman skirt accountability

Despite his consistent denials of an affair, people continued to ask questions. The mounting evidence prompted Republican leadership in Congress to call on the House Ethics Committee to launch a formal investigation into the relationship. The committee announced an investigation into whether Rep. Gonzales engaged in a sexual relationship with a member of his staff on March 4.

By March 5, Rep. Gonzales admitted to having a sexual relationship with Santos-Aviles and dropped out of the race.

“I made a mistake, and I had a lapse in judgment, and there was a lack of faith, and I take full responsibility for those actions,” Rep. Gonzales told conservative radio host Joe Pags. “Since then, I’ve reconciled with my wife, Angel. I’ve asked God to forgive me, which he has, and my faith is as strong as ever.”

Republican leadership released a joint statement commending him for stepping aside.

“We have encouraged him to address these very serious allegations directly with his constituents and his colleagues,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Whip Tom Emmer, and GOP Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain said in the joint statement. “In the meantime, Leadership has asked Congressman Gonzales to withdraw from his race for reelection.”

With no incumbent running, the race for Texas’s 23rd Congressional District is open. The Republican who will be running in his place is “AK Man” Brandon Herrera, who is described as a Nazi cosplayer and gun enthusiast. The district includes Uvalde, the site of the Robb Elementary School shooting.

The United States is currently engaged in active military operations against Iran with Israel. The armed conflict is costing U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars. According to Al Jazeera, the first 100 hours of military conflict in Iran cost the U.S. $3.7 billion. Since the start, the price has continued to increase by the billions in what is becoming another endless war in the Middle East with no endgame plan. Good thing that the U.S. has no problems or citizens that need support that could be handled by the amount of money used in these military actions, right? Wrong. Let’s talk about it.

The United States government is wasting billions on a war with Iran

Operation Epic Fury launched on Feb. 28 with military strikes in multiple cities across Iran. The attack killed the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. After the initial blitz that cost taxpayers $3.7 billion, reports show that the ongoing conflict is costing between $891 million and $1 billion a day. In total, it is estimated that the war has already cost the U.S. $5.7 billion. That doesn’t account for the $2 billion in military equipment losses, including fighter jets and radar systems.

The conflict is expected to run for two months, meaning that the final cost of this war could be between $50 billion and $210 billion. That is a lot of money for an armed conflict that a majority of Americans do not support. So, what could that money be used to do?

The amount already spent could help U.S. citizens in need

Data shows that $5.7 billion could fund Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for 2 million people for an entire year. One Tomahawk missile, which costs $2.2 million, could provide meals for 3,600 children through the National School Lunch Program. So far, it is estimated that the U.S. has launched around 400 Tomahawk missiles into Iran for a total of $880 million. That would pay for 1.4 million children to access lunch at school.

For healthcare, the original $5.7 billion could be used to help millions of children on Medicaid get the health insurance they need. It could also do the same for millions of adults who rely on Medicaid.

The Big Beautiful Bill that Republicans passed last year included deep cuts to both Medicaid and SNAP. The cuts were made to offset tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy that were passed during President Trump’s first term in 2017.

The estimated full cost of the two-month conflict could help even more

On the low-end, the $95 billion it would cost for the full conflict could pay for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies that 22 million Americans rely on for health insurance. Without the subsidies, which Republicans refused to approve last year, millions of Americans are losing health insurance because of the spike in premiums.

On the high-end, if the war ends up costing $210 billion, the impact of the money would be even more transformative in the U.S. Current estimates show that it would cost the U.S. government $177 billion to pull every person in the U.S. out of poverty. Imagine the government using money to better the lives of Americans as opposed to helping a foreign nation go to war with an enemy.

The conflict is costing Americans more than health care and food assistance. The collateral damage, like the rising price of oil, is already costing people more at the gas pumps, with gas averaging more than $3 a gallon. The war has made the Strait of Hormuz so dangerous that private insurance companies will not insure tankers responsible for transporting oil and natural gas. The U.S. is now giving $20 billion in taxpayer-funded shipping insurance to try to offset the consequences of the ill-informed military actions.

President Trump campaigned on lowering prices and not starting new wars. So far, he has spent his second term doing the exact opposite.

Good morning from the incongruous reality that now seems to be ours. This week, we have our eye on the alliance of Latin American right-wing leaders with Trump, the impact of the war in Iran, and what our taxes are financing.

The Latin American right bends the knee

While the world freezes, wondering if we are already in World War III, Donald Trump gathered Latin American right-wing leaders at his golf club in Miami. At what he called the “Shield of the Americas” Summit, Trump announced a coalition to eradicate cartels in Latin America.

In front of leaders from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, and Trinidad and Tobago, Trump outlined his agenda for the region.

“Just as we formed a coalition to eradicate ISIS, we now need a coalition to eradicate the cartels,” he told the 12 regional leaders. “We must recognize that the epicenter of cartel violence is Mexico,” he said, adding that this is where “the cartels are fueling and orchestrating much of the bloodshed and chaos in this hemisphere.”

Kristi Noem, who resigned Thursday as DHS secretary, became the first cabinet secretary to leave the second Trump administration and spoke later that afternoon in her new role as US special envoy to the coalition.

“This is intended to be a group that works together to ensure we’re defending our own sovereignty, we’re each defending our own security and economic prosperity,” Noem said, adding that the organization would be a “powerful example to the rest of the world about what’s possible.”

The summit took place less than two months after the US military intervention in Venezuela, less than two weeks after US law enforcement provided intelligence assistance in Mexico to capture Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, and one week after US military activity in Ecuador.

Notably absent were the leaders of Mexico and Colombia.

Trump announced that Cuba is “at the end of the line”

Trump also used the summit to repeat his prediction that the Cuban regime has “few days left,” especially now that it no longer has access to Venezuelan oil.

“We’re looking forward to the great change that will soon be coming to Cuba,” Trump said, asserting that the Caribbean nation was “at the end of the line.”

“They have no money, they have no oil, they have a bad philosophy and bad regime,” the US president said, while also claiming the regime wanted to negotiate with the United States. “Cuba is in its last moments of life as it was, but it will have a great new life.”

Gasoline prices skyrocket

Since the United States joined Israel in the attack on Iran, gasoline prices have skyrocketed. This week, it is reported that prices have increased by 17% since the conflict began.

This is partly due to disruptions in oil supplies in the Middle East, long considered a major source of the world’s energy.

According to The New York Times, the average price of gasoline in the US reached $3.48 per gallon, based on data from the AAA automobile club. That represents an increase of nearly 17% since the first US and Israeli attacks on Iran on February 28. Gasoline had not reached these levels since 2024.

The price of oil exceeded $100 on Monday after the attacks intensified, and Iran announced it would launch more missiles against Israel in response to the expansion of US and Israeli attacks.

The sudden rise in energy costs, from jet fuel to diesel for trucks and tractors, stems from crude oil supplies from the Persian Gulf. Oil tankers that normally transport oil out of the region are not sailing, leaving the world without about a fifth of its oil supply.

TSA staff shortages at airports cause chaos

Since the Department of Homeland Security entered a partial shutdown, US airports have been in chaos. Queues at security checkpoints at airports across the country lasted more than an hour on Sunday, according to CNN.

The department, which oversees the Transportation Security Administration, posted photos of long lines on its social media pages, blaming Democrats for holding spring break travel “hostage for political points.” Funding for the department lapsed in mid February amid a standoff between Republicans and Democrats over federal immigration reform.

An explosive device was thrown outside Zohran Mamdani’s residence

New York police confirmed that an improvised explosive device was thrown in front of the official residence of the city’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, on Saturday. The incident occurred when anti-Islamic protesters, led by influencer and right-wing activist Jake Lang, clashed with counter-protesters.

New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said a preliminary bomb squad analysis of the device, which was ignited and thrown during the protest, had “determined that it is not a hoax device or a smoke bomb.”

“It is, in fact, an improvised explosive device that could have caused serious injury or death. Further analysis will be conducted, including on a second device,” Tisch said in a social media post.

Tisch added that two men, Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi, who were arrested at the scene, are in custody in connection with the incident, and that New York police are working with federal prosecutors and the FBI through a terrorism task force.

The United States is responsible for bombing schools in Iran

The bombing of the elementary school in Minab, Iran, where more than 168 people, mostly children, were killed, shook the world. Now, a video appears to confirm that the United States carried out the bombing.

The video, published by the Iranian news agency Mehr and geolocated at the site by the investigative collective Bellingcat, shows the missile striking the Minab complex on the morning of February 28, when the US and Israeli attacks on Iran began.

Along with other evidence from the site, including videos verified by The Guardian, photos of the aftermath, and satellite images of the attack, the new footage indicates that the Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school was hit during a series of US strikes, as the target was an adjacent naval complex belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The attack destroyed approximately half of the school and killed dozens of girls between the ages of 7 and 12 who were attending morning classes.

Cuba is facing a growing energy crisis brought on by the United States. Washington has been eyeing toppling the Cuban government as part of the foreign crusade to push for regime change. It is another example of Washington practicing its favorite pastime of meddling in foreign governments and leading military campaigns.

President Donald Trump continues to put the squeeze on Cuba

With ongoing military action in Iran, President Donald Trump is already refocusing on toppling the Cuban government. The president who ran on a campaign of not starting any new wars is creating a legacy of being a warmonger.

The U.S. government first started its campaign against Cuba in January 2026. One of the first things the federal government did when it arrested Nicolás Maduro was to cut off oil supplies to the Caribbean island. Venezuela was the largest exporter of oil to Cuba before the U.S. intervened with force. The move from Washington further pushed a fragile energy infrastructure that often gives out, plunging Cuba into national blackouts.

Shortly after the capture of Maduro, President Trump signed Executive Order 14380 to further strengthen an energy blockade against the Cuban government. The order declares a national emergency, citing the government’s duty to protect international interests. To accomplish this, the president threatened retaliatory tariffs on countries that help Cuba.

“Beginning on the effective date of this order, an additional ad valorem rate of duty may be imposed on goods imported into the United States that are products of any other country that directly or indirectly sells or otherwise provides any oil to Cuba,” reads the executive order.

The blockade is working, according to media reports and the president. The lack of countries providing Cuba with oil to keep the power on for the island is pushing the country to the brink. Tourism on the island is plummeting as countries stop all oil exports to Cuba.

Tourism is evaporating, and Cubans are feeling the impact

The United States has long had tough restrictions on companies doing business in Cuba, as well as preventing U.S. citizens from traveling to the island. The rest of the world has maintained diplomatic ties, and tourists have been a major economic boost for Cuba.

Those days of a booming tourism industry are vanishing along with the energy. The Cuban government announced that the island was running out of jet fuel, prompting airline companies in Canada and Europe to suspend all flights to the island. For those citizens already visiting Cuba, airlines have sent empty planes to help them get off the island and back to their home countries.

Canadian tourists accounted for 40 percent of the tourism industry. Now, with power being cut and fuel being rationed, many are cancelling trips and cutting current vacations short. According to The New York Times, tourism numbers in Cuba have reached pandemic levels, forcing stores to close and hotels to start cutting off power for employee quarters.

Canada is stepping in to help, but not providing oil

In response to the growing humanitarian crisis, Canada has pledged $8 million to help deliver food to needy Cubans. The Canadian government is working with the World Food Programme and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to help the international community deliver necessary food and nutrition to the island.

“As the people of Cuba face significant hardship, Canada stands in solidarity and is providing targeted assistance to help address urgent needs,” Anita Anand, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Canada, said in a statement. “Through trusted humanitarian partners, we are delivering timely support to vulnerable communities and reaffirming Canada’s commitment to the well-being and dignity of the Cuban people.”

While the Canadian government is assisting, it is limited to food. Due to the executive order and to avoid angering Washington, Canada has not provided the island with oil. It is the same position the Mexican government has taken. Mexico suspended crude oil exports in early 2026 in response to the U.S. intervention in Venezuela. Instead, Mexico is helping the Cuban people by dispatching ships with food and medical supplies to Havana.