26/07/2025

SATURDAY | JULY 26, 2025

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Trump orders crackdown on homeless encampments

The New York Times reported that of the more than 250 men sent to El Salvador, it found that at least 32 had been charged or convicted with serious offences but most of the men had no criminal connections. Family members have insisted that the deported men were not gang members and that they were deported without due process. “You do not have to be a constitutional scholar for the Rengel case to set off alarms,” said DDF executive chair Norm Eisen. “If you are an American who believes in justice at all, this case should be shocking. “Detaining and disappearing someone without cause or access to legal recourse is illegal and abhorrent.” – AFP LANNEMEZAN: One of France’s longest-held inmates, pro-Palestinian Lebanese militant Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, was released and to be deported yesterday, after more than 40 years behind bars for the killings of two diplomats. At 3.40am (0130 GMT), a convoy of six vehicles left the Lannemezan penitentiary with lights flashing, AFP journalists saw. Abdallah was detained in 1984 and sentenced to life in prison in 1987 for his involvement in the murders of US military attache Charles Robert Ray and Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov in Paris. The Paris Court of Appeal had ordered his release “effective July 25” on the condition that he leave French territory and never return. He had been eligible for release since 1999 but his previous requests were denied as the United States, a civil party to the case, consistently opposed him leaving prison. Once out of prison, Abdallah was transported to the Tarbes airport where a police plane took him to Roissy for a flight to Beirut, according to a source close to the case. Abdallah’s lawyer Jean-Louis Chalanset said: “He seemed happy, although he knows he is returning to the Middle East in a tough context for Lebanese and Palestinian populations.” – AFP Justice Dept sues New York City over immigration policies WASHINGTON: The US Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against New York City, its mayor Eric Adams and several city officials to challenge the city’s sanctuary policies, accusing the city of interfering with enforcing the administration’s immigration laws, reported Xinhua. “New York City has released thousands of criminals on the streets to commit violent crimes against law-abiding citizens due to sanctuary city policies,” said US Attorney-General Pamela Bondi in a statement. “New York City has been at the vanguard of interfering with enforcing our immigration laws,” said Assistant Attorney-General Brett Shumate. “Its efforts to thwart federal immigration enforcement end now.” The case was filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York on Thursday. In the past three months, the department has filed lawsuits against Los Angeles, New York State, Colorado, Illinois, the city of Rochester, New York and several New Jersey cities to “invalidate unconstitutional sanctuary policies”. The Trump administration’s immigration policies sparked significant backlash in many places across the nation, particularly in states or cities governed by Democrats. This case was described as “fighting back against unlawful obstruction of enforcement of federal immigration laws” by the department. – Bernama-Xinhua Lebanese militant released after 40 years in French jail

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order urging cities and states to clear homeless encampments and move people into treatment centres, a move that advocates for the homeless said would worsen the problem. The order directs Attorney-General Pam Bondi to overturn state and federal legal precedents and consent decrees that limit local efforts to remove homeless camps. It remains unclear how Bondi could unilaterally overturn such decisions. The order follows a Supreme Court decision in 2024 that allows cities to ban homeless camping. The National Coalition for the Homeless o Move, combined with budget cuts for housing and healthcare, would worsen issue: NGO Doctors launch five-day strike in UK LONDON: Thousands of UK doctors launched a five-day strike yesterday after talks with the Labour government for a new pay increase failed to reach a deal. The move comes after the doctors accepted a pay rise offer of 22.3% over two years in September, soon after Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour party took power. Resident doctors have said they felt they had “no choice” but to strike again to reverse “pay erosion” since 2008. Starmer yesterday appealed to the doctors, saying patients were being put at risk and the strikes would “cause real damage”. He said launching a strike “would mean everyone loses,” highlighting the added strain it would put on the already struggling National Health Service. But the junior doctors have said their pay in real terms has eroded more than 21% over the past two decades. Last year’s doctors’ strikes, which saw tens of thousands of appointments cancelled and treatment delayed, were among a series of public and private sector walk-outs over pay and conditions as inflation soared. Health Minister Wes Streeting also appealed to doctors to reverse their position, saying in a letter published in The Telegraph the government “cannot afford to go further on pay this year”. – AFP

increase homelessness. “Forced treatment is unethical, ineffective and illegal. These actions would push more people into homelessness and divert resources away from those in need.” Other groups said the order risks criminalising homelessness by pushing people off the streets without guaranteed housing, worsening the crisis. Many experts see the origin of the US homelessness crisis in the closure of psychiatric hospitals in the 1960s and 1970s in favour of community care. Advocates say this shift was never fully funded or effectively implemented, leaving many people with serious mental illness without care or housing. Other contributing causes are a severe shortage of affordable housing, rising poverty and cuts to public housing assistance programmes, experts say. Trump’s order gives preference in federal grant-making to cities that enforce bans on public camping, drug use and squatting. It also blocks funding for supervised drug-use sites. – Reuters

condemned the order, saying it would undermine legal protections for homeless and mentally ill individuals. The group said the Trump administration has “a concerning record of disregarding civil rights and due process”, and warned that it would worsen the homelessness crisis. Trump said people living in homeless encampments should be directed to facilities for treatment of mental health problems and addiction. He did not mention any plans to expand treatment centres or provide long-term housing. About 771,480 people were homeless in the United States on a single night in 2024, an 18% increase from the prior year, according to the US Interagency Council on Homelessness. Of those, about 36% were unsheltered, meaning they were living on the streets, in vehicles or in encampments, according to the Housing and Urban Development Department’s point-in-time count. The National Homelessness Law Centre said the order, combined with budget cuts for housing and healthcare, would

PAYING TRIBUTE ... Fans of Hulk Hogan taking a selfie at the Hogan’s Beach store on Thursday following his death in Clearwater Beach, Florida, United States. – REUTERSPIC

Deported Venezuelan to take legal action against US WASHINGTON: A Venezuelan man who was deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador from the United States took the first steps on Thursday towards suing the Trump administration over the ordeal. Rengel, who says he was beaten and abused during his four months at Cecot, has filed an administrative claim with the Homeland Security Department, the first step towards legal action against the federal government. League of United Latin American Citizens. “Federal government employees wrongfully and negligently detained and removed Rengel from the country without cause or due process,” DDF said on Thursday.

“Rengel was among the group of Venezuelan nationals that a federal court ordered the government not to remove or to return if in transit, an order that was ignored. “Instead, he was transferred to a notoriously brutal maximum security mega-prison in El Salvador, out of reach from anyone in the outside world, including his family.” The administration invoked the wartime Alien Enemies Act 1798 to carry out the summary deportations.

He was freed last week as part of a prisoner swap between Caracas and Washington and is claiming US$1.3 million (RM5.48 million) in damages. His partner and brother are still in the United States. “What do we do about everything we had and lost? How do we recover it? “They should pay for the injustice they did to us, the suffering of my mother and my daughter.” The filing on Rengel’s behalf was lodged by Democracy Defenders Fund (DDF) and the

Neiyerver Adrian Leon Rengel, 27, was one of 252 Venezuelan migrants sent to the Terrorism Confinement Centre (Cecot) as part of US President Donald Trump’s high-profile mass deportation of migrants. The administration claimed that the men were linked to violent gangs, but they were sent without trial to El Salvador. “Had they investigated each person, they would not have sent us to Cecot,” Rengel told AFP at his home in Venezuela.