The United States has arrested 538 illegal migrants and deported hundreds in a mass operation, the White House announced, just days into Donald Trump’s presidency.
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This announcement comes as the new American president makes his first trip on Friday to North Carolina (southeast) and the Democratic stronghold of California (west), two states hit by natural disasters of which the Republican leader has made subjects. intense controversies.
“The Trump administration has arrested 538 illegal criminal migrants,” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt announced Thursday evening on X, adding that “hundreds” had been deported on army planes.
“The largest mass deportation operation in history is underway,” the spokesperson wrote, adding: “promises kept.”
Donald Trump committed to a vast offensive against illegal migrants during his campaign and he began his second term on Monday with a series of decrees intended to stem their influx into the United States.
He thus declared “a state of national emergency” on the southern border with Mexico, and announced the deployment of troops while promising the expulsion of “criminal foreigners”.
Shortly before the White House announcement, Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka said in a statement Thursday that “(immigration) agents raided a local facility… .), arrested residents and also citizens, without showing a warrant,” in this town near New York.
The same day as Trump’s inauguration, the Republican-majority US Senate passed a bill requiring the detention by federal law enforcement of illegal immigrants suspected of certain crimes.
First trip
In a sudden turnaround, Trump said in an interview broadcast Thursday evening by Fox News that he might finally abandon the tariffs he had been threatening to impose on China.
“We have a very big power over China, which is tariffs, and they don’t want it, and I would rather not have to use it,” he said.
However, Trump declared on Monday that customs duties of 10% on all Chinese imports could come into force as early as February 1.
-In the same interview, Trump said he was eager to reconnect with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, “an intelligent guy,” whom he had met three times during his first term, but without any progress on nuclear power. .
The most followed part of his first trip as 47th President of the United States, which will also take him to Nevada (west), will be that which will take place in California, whose governor wants to lead the “resistance” against the president, who threatened to cut federal aid to fight the fires in Los Angeles.
North Carolina was hit in October, in the middle of the presidential election campaign, by Hurricane Helene, which left 104 dead.
Donald Trump had virulently criticized the crisis management of President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris, his unsuccessful Democratic rival.
“Abandoned”
In the sights of the 78-year-old billionaire: FEMA, a federal agency for responding to natural disasters.
This organization “will be the subject of a big discussion shortly, because I would prefer to see the (federated) states take care of their own problems,” the American president told Fox News.
In the same interview, he also repeated his threats against Californian authorities: “I don’t think we should give anything to California until they let the water flow from the north to the south” of the state to fight fires in Los Angeles.
This climate skeptic has repeatedly said that California is running out of water because of Democratic environmental policies.
According to the press, the president will be greeted when he gets off the plane, as is customary, by the governor of the state, Gavin Newsom.
This Democratic Party hopeful is one of the Republican’s favorite targets, who called him “idiot” in his Wednesday interview with Fox News.
The governor has positioned himself as one of the great leaders of the opposition against Donald Trump. He wishes to “defend (the) Constitution and uphold the rule of law”.
California, with its progressive morality policies and climate change initiatives, has long been in the sights of the hard right.
