(Washington) Donald Trump made a trip to California on Friday, a state that promised to lead the resistance against him, while the White House announced expulsions of migrants in an irregular situation.
Posted at 6:37 a.m.
Updated at 10:10 a.m.
Aurelia End
Agency France-Presse
The White House boasted of having launched “the greatest mass eviction operation in history”. “Promises made, promises”, we read on the official account of the American executive on X.
“The Trump administration arrested 538 illegal criminal migrants,” said its spokesperson Karoline Leavitt on X, adding that “hundreds” had been expelled, using army aircraft for the first time.
“It is a pure propaganda operation,” said on X Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, an expert in the American Immigration Council, “last year and in previous years there were already dozens of expulsion flights each week”.
During the budget year 2024 (October to the end of September), under the chairmanship of Joe Biden, the border police had expelled a total of 271,000 undocumented migrants, an average of 742 people per day.
The Republican President has promised to expel a total of “millions”. Shortly after his inauguration on Monday, he signed a series of decrees intended to stop the arrival of migrants in an irregular situation – one of them, calling into question the law of the soil, was contested in court.
Donald Trump declared “a state of national emergency” on the southern border with Mexico, and announced the deployment of additional troops.
“All states have the right to exercise their jurisdiction along their international borders” but “they must do so in accordance with their obligations in terms of human rights,” said the High Commissioner of the High Commissioner United Nations Human Rights, Ravina Shamdasani.
PHOTO JOSE LUIS GONZALEZ, REUTERS
Workers mount a giant tent, where the Mexican authorities will build a temporary shelter for the migrants expelled from the United States.
Natural disasters
The White House Communication Operation on Immigration takes place while Donald Trump left the White House on Friday for his first trip, in North Carolina and California, two states experienced by natural disasters including the manager Republican made subjects of intense controversy.
PHOTO ROBERTO SCHMIDT, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
-Donald Trump addressed the media before boarding Marine One.
North Carolina had been affected in October, in the middle of the presidential campaign, by the hurricane Helene who killed 104 people there.
Donald Trump had virulent the crisis management of President Joe Biden and vice-president Kamala Harris, his unhappy democrat rival.
In the viewfinder of the 78 -year -old billionaire: FEMA, a federal agency for response to natural disasters.
This organization “will be the subject of a big discussion shortly, because I would prefer to see the States [fédérés] Take care of their own problems, “the American president told Fox News.
PHOTO FREDERIC J. BROWN, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A man climbs in the middle of the rubble of what was formerly the family business, the Little Hen Coffee Shop, which burned in the fire of Eaton, in Altadena, California, on January 23, 2025.
In this same interview, he also repeated his threats against the Californian authorities: “I do not think that we should give anything to California until they let water from northern southern state to fight fires in Los Angeles.
This climatosceptic said several times that California lacked water because of democratic environmental policies, affirmations denied by experts. Still on Wednesday, he said he wanted to “observe this fire that could have been turned off if they had let the water flow”.
According to the press, the president will be welcomed at his descent of the aircraft, as is the use, by the governor of the State, Gavin Newsom.
This hope of the Democratic Party is one of the privileged targets of the Republican, who treated him as a “idiot” in his interview on Wednesday in Fox News.
The governor positioned himself as one of the great opposition animators against Donald Trump. He wishes to “defend [la] Constitution and enforce the rule of law ”.
California, with its progressive customs in terms of manners and its initiatives to combat climate change, has long been in the sight of the hard right.
