It will apply to tech companies with global sales of over £674m (€750m), and which make more than £22.5m (€25m) a year in France. The government argues they pay little or no tax in France.
The tax will target tech firms that put other companies in touch with customers (like Amazon), digital advertising, and the sale of data for advertising purposes.
The law will be backdated to 1 January 2019.
What will this mean for tech companies?
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has said that about 30, mostly US-based companies, will be hit with the new tax.
Image copyright AFP/Getty Images
Image caption
Bruno Le Maire with fellow French finance leader Christine Lagarde
It’s thought it will apply to just one French company, advertising firm Criteo, as well as some Indian, British and Chinese firms.
The new tax is expected to raise £360m (€400m) for the French government in 2019, after which it could grow.
Some have argued that it could go even further, given tech companies’ huge incomes.
Jessie Denton, a Paris-based tax lawyer, said the French tax is more of a “symbol” than an effective tax measure. She said the amount it will raise for the French government is below what they’d like from the digital economy.
President Donald Trump has ordered an investigation into the tax – which could result in retaliatory tariffs.
Where do tech giants pay tax at the minute?
Global tech companies have been accused of finding ways to avoid tax. It is said they do this by paying most of their taxes in the EU countries where they have headquarters, rather than where they make their sales.
Often, they have offices in countries like Ireland or Luxembourg, where there are very low tax rates.
It can mean the firms end up paying very little tax in countries such as France or the UK, despite having lots of customers there.
But big US tech companies, including Amazon, have consistently argued they are paying all the tax they are required to under law.
What do people think of the French tax?
Following the gilets jaunes (“yellow vests”) anti-government protests, French President Emmanuel Macron said businesses must pay their fair share of tax.
Protests included a blockade at an Amazon warehouse in the southern town of Montélimar, on Black Friday last November.
Image copyright Fabrice HEBRARD/Maxppp/PA Media
But critics have warned that the new tax could undermine the government’s efforts to create a “start-up nation”.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo oversaw a former railway station being converted into the world’s largest incubator for tech companies.
Foreign visas for tech entrepreneurs have been overhauled to make it easier to work there.
Media captionThe largest incubator in the world for tech start-ups
Some economists have also suggested that the new tax could be hard to collect.
That’s because it’s meant to apply to income generated from French customers. But, that data isn’t stored anywhere centrally.
What are other countries doing?
The United Kingdom, Spain and Italy are all looking at introducing their own versions of a digital tax.
In the UK, digital companies will be taxed 2% of their revenues, from April 2020. It will apply to companies with revenues of £500m worldwide and is expected to raise about £400m a year.
Image copyright Getty Images
Image caption
Philip Hammond and treasury secretary Liz Truss ahead of the 2018 Budget, in which the UK’s digital tax was announced
The question of taxing digital companies has been an issue in the UK for some time.
Earlier this year, the European Commission also outlined proposals for a 3% tax on the revenues of large internet companies, with global revenues above €750m (£675m) a year.
But, critics fear an EU-wide tax could breach international rules on equal treatment for companies around the world.
And EU tax reforms need the backing of all member states to become law.
Japan, Singapore and India are reportedly planning similar schemes of their own.
Any tax measures introduced by individual countries will stay in place until a global agreement is reached.
The Organisation of Economic Development and Co-operation (OECD), an international economic organisation, is hoping to come up with a solution by the end of 2019.
A Seized JPMorgan Chase ship was found with $1.3B in cocaine aboard.
A ship with more than $1 billion in cocaine aboard — that was seized in Philadelphia on the Fourth of July — is owned by financial giant JPMorgan Chase, according to a report.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced Monday that its agents discovered nearly 20 tons of cocaine — or nearly 40,000 pounds — inside several shipping containers aboard the MSC Gayane while it was docked in Philadelphia’s seaport on June 17.
An estimated $1.3 billion worth of cocaine was taken from the ship — making it the largest cocaine seizure ever carried out by the CBP, the agency said.
“A seizure of a vessel this massive is complicated and unprecedented – but it is appropriate because the circumstances here are also unprecedented,” said William McSwain, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. “When a vessel brings such an outrageous amount of deadly drugs into Philadelphia waters, my office and our agency partners will pursue the most severe consequences possible against all involved parties in order to protect our district – and our country.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized the MSC Gayane on July 4 in Philadelphia after authorities found nearly 20 tons of cocaine on board last month. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection)
On July 4, the CBP executed a warrant and seized the ship, finding the drugs. The MSC Gayane is the largest vessel ever to be seized in the agency’s 230-year history, Casey Durst, CBP’s director of field operations in Baltimore, said in a news release. The MSC Gayane is owned by JPMorgan Chase but operated by Swiss-based Mediterranean Shipping Co., Markets Insider reported.
The financial firm has not commented on the case, according to reports.
Federal prosecutors are working with the CBP, Homeland Security Investigations, the U.S. Coast Guard and state and local law enforcement to investigate who played a role in an alleged conspiracy by crewmembers and others to smuggle the record load of drugs through the U.S.
The photos were taken at federal detention centers in the Rio Grande Valley the week of June 10, according to an inspector general’s report. DHS via Storyful
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will begin a vast roundup of undocumented immigrants in at least 10 major cities this weekend, the The New York Times reported Thursday.
The Times, citing two current and one former Homeland Security official it did not name, said the raids will begin Sunday and target more than 2,000 immigrants facing deportation orders who remain in the country illegally. The sources told the Times that ICE planned to keep family members together at family detention facilities whenever possible.
The report comes as no surprise: Less than a week ago President Donald Trump promised that mass deportation roundups would begin soon
“They’ll be starting fairly soon, but I don’t call them raids, we’re removing people, all of these people who have come in over the years illegally,” Trump said Friday.
Trump said two weeks ago that he would delay nationwide raids for two weeks to give Congress time to develop an immigration plan. Trump’s hard line on immigration has been a recurring theme in his presidency and is expected to take center stage in his 2020 reelection bid.
ICE spokesman Matthew Bourke, in a statement emailed Thursday to USA TODAY, would neither confirm nor deny the raid plan.
“Due to law-enforcement sensitivities and the safety and security of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel, the agency will not offer specific details related to enforcement operations,” Bourke said.
ICE has consistently maintained that its focus is on people with criminal records but that anyone found to be in the U.S. illegally would face detainment.
“Ninety percent of aliens arrested by ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations component in FY2018 had either a criminal conviction, pending criminal charge, were an ICE fugitive or illegally reentered the country after previously being removed,” Bourke said.
ICE officials previously have said they plan to target new arrivals in an effort to stem a surge of Central American families arriving through Mexico. That surge showed some decline in June, when total border arrests fell 29% according to numbers released by Customs and Border Protection. But the decline came after May totals — more than 140,000 arrests — that were the highest since 2006.
A government report released last week found that migrants were being held in overcrowded conditions described as “a ticking time bomb.” In one room at Customs and Border Protection’s Fort Brown station near the U.S-Mexico border in Texas, 51 women were in a cell with a capacity for 40 juveniles, according to the report from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general’s office. In another cell, 71 men were in a cell designated for 41, the report said.
Trump was dismissive of the report, saying the facilities he visited were clean and well run.
“I think they do a great job with those facilities,” Trump said.
President Trump’s threatened deportation raids are “absolutely going to happen,” says senior Department of Homeland Security official Ken Cuccinelli.
“There are approximately 1 million in this people with deportation orders,” the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services told reporters on the White House driveway. “Of course, that isn’t what ICE will go after in this, but that’s the pool of people that have been all the way through the process.”
The former Virginia attorney general, whose agency handles asylum cases, declined to discuss the timing of raids or additional details.
On June 22, Trump wrote on Twitter he would postpone threatened raids “for two weeks to see if the Democrats and Republicans can get together and work out a solution to the Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border. If not, Deportations start!”
As the clock ran out, Trump told reporters Friday that large-scale deportation sweeps would be “starting fairly soon.”
“I don’t call them ‘raids.’ I say they came in illegally, and we’re bringing them out legally,” Trump said. “We’re removing people that have come in — all of these people over the years that have come in illegally — we are removing them and bringing them back to their country.”
President Trump’s threatened deportation raids are “absolutely going to happen,” says senior Department of Homeland Security official Ken Cuccinelli.
“There are approximately 1 million in this people with deportation orders,” the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services told reporters on the White House driveway. “Of course, that isn’t what ICE will go after in this, but that’s the pool of people that have been all the way through the process.”
The former Virginia attorney general, whose agency handles asylum cases, declined to discuss the timing of raids or additional details.
On June 22, Trump wrote on Twitter he would postpone threatened raids “for two weeks to see if the Democrats and Republicans can get together and work out a solution to the Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border. If not, Deportations start!”
As the clock ran out, Trump told reporters Friday that large-scale deportation sweeps would be “starting fairly soon.”
“I don’t call them ‘raids.’ I say they came in illegally, and we’re bringing them out legally,” Trump said. “We’re removing people that have come in — all of these people over the years that have come in illegally — we are removing them and bringing them back to their country.”
United Nations General Assembly president Maria Fernanda Espinosa discusses tensions with Iran on ‘The Story.’
Five Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps gunboats tried to seize a British oil tanker in the Persian Gulf Wednesday but backed off after a British warship approached, a senior U.S. defense official told Fox News.
The British warship was said to have been less than 5 miles behind the tanker but soon intercepted the Iranian boats and threatened to open fire. A manned U.S. reconnaissance aircraft was above as well, the official said, adding that Iranian forces left without opening fire.
Navy Captain Bill Urban, spokesman for the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), said the military was aware of the reported actions. He added, “Threats to international freedom of navigation require an international solution. The world economy depends on the free flow of commerce, and it is incumbent on all nations to protect and preserve this lynchpin of global prosperity.”
The British frigate was identified as the HMS Montrose, according to The Sun. The vessel reportedly trained its 30mm deck guns on the enemy fleet and warned them off.
The incident was the latest in a series of provocations between the Islamic Republic and the West. British forces last week seized an Iranian supertanker that officials believed was operating in violation of European Union sanctions. The British Royal Marines captured the vessel in Gibraltar after believing it was trying to provide crude oil to Syria, an ally of Iran.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned that Britain would face repercussions over the seizure.
Last month, Iran shot down a U.S. drone over the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway separating Iran from the United Arab Emirates. Oil exporters transport around 22 million barrels of oil per day through the strait.
The British frigate was identified as the HMS Montrose. The vessel reportedly trained its 30mm deck guns on the enemy fleet and warned them off. <br data-cke-eol=”1″> (UK Ministry of Defence via AP)
Tensions between Iran and the U.S. have escalated in recent weeks and could spiral downward after Iran admitted Monday it surpassed uranium enrichment levels that were set by the Iran nuclear agreement in 2015.
President Trump pulled the U.S. out of the deal last year but several EU nations remained involved. Those countries — Russia, China, Germany, France, Britain, and the European Union — have called on Iran to stick to its commitments under the deal.
Iran has abandoned restraint in recent months as it seeks relief from U.S. sanctions. The republic has asked the deal’s signatories to provide economic incentives in exchange for the de-escalation of its nuclear program.
Trump has indicated he will impose additional sanctions on Iran and urged those nations not to give in to its demands.
A lawyer for Mr. Epstein, Reid Weingarten, did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Early Influences
Mr. Epstein’s big break came when he was teaching math at the Dalton School, a prestigious Manhattan private school, in the mid-1970s. He had tutored the son of Alan Greenberg, the chairman of the mighty investment bank Bear Stearns, and ended up joining the firm.
He left after a few years. Mr. Epstein told Securities and Exchange Commission lawyers in an insider-trading investigation that there were three reasons, according to a 2003 Vanity Fair article. He had been disciplined over lending money to a friend to buy stock, and there were irregularities with his expense account and rumors he was having an affair with a secretary. (Mr. Epstein testified that he had known nothing about any insider trading, and neither he nor anyone else at the firm was charged.)
In 1981, he struck out on his own. He founded his own advisory firm, Intercontinental Assets Group, which he ran out of his apartment on East 66th Street. In 1987, he met Mr. Hoffenberg, then the chief executive of Towers Financial Corporation.
Mr. Hoffenberg said in an interview that he had met Mr. Epstein in New York at the height of the 1980s takeover boom, when Ivan Boesky’s “Merger Mania” was a national best seller. Towers Financial was buying unpaid debt from hospitals, nursing homes and phone companies and trying to collect it — a distinctly unglamorous niche. Mr. Hoffenberg hired Mr. Epstein as a consultant for $25,000 a month, and the two men refashioned themselves as corporate raiders.
Two takeover efforts were spectacular failures. They made a run at Pan Am, and a news release issued by Towers in November 1987 listed their advisers as John Lehman, a former secretary of the Navy; John N. Mitchell, the attorney general during the Nixon administration; and Edward Nixon, former President Richard M. Nixon’s brother. But the bid collapsed after a jetliner exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, which sent Pan Am into bankruptcy.
Mr. Epstein and Mr. Hoffenberg also made a run at Emery Air Freight — an “epic failure,” according to an affidavit filed by Mr. Hoffenberg in a 2018 lawsuit against Mr. Epstein, which was brought by investors defrauded in Mr. Hoffenberg’s Ponzi scheme. The suit was dismissed.
“The First Amendment does not permit a public official who utilises a social media account for all manner of official purposes to exclude persons from an otherwise‐open online dialogue because they expressed views with which the official disagrees,” the judgement read.
According to Mr Hikind’s lawsuit, the congresswoman – commonly known by her initials AOC – blocked him after he criticised her and her political views.
The suit alleges that Mr Hikind, “a staunch supporter of Jewish values” was blocked “purely because of his speech in support of Jewish values and Israel”. This restricted Mr Hikind’s participation in “a public forum”, it says.
PARIS — Despite pressure from the United States, the French Parliament on Thursday adopted a new tax aimed at tech giants such as Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple.
The French government has argued that taxes on big tech firms should be based on where they do business, not just where they’re headquartered — as has been the case up to now. And so the measure would levy a 3 percent tax on certain revenue the companies earn in France.
The Trump administration warned on Wednesday that it would investigate whether the tax unfairly discriminates against U.S. businesses.
French officials stood firm Thursday, brushing off the criticism.
“France is a sovereign state, it decides its fiscal provisions in a sovereign manner, and it will continue to decide its tax decisions in a sovereign manner,” said Bruno Le Maire, France’s finance minister, speaking to the French Senate on Thursday.
“I believe profoundly that between allies, we should and we can settle our differences by other means than threats,” he added.
The so-called “taxe GAFA”— based on the acronyms of the big tech companies — had already passed in France’s National Assembly and was approved on Thursday in the French Senate, the upper house. It will become law after getting a signature from President Emmanuel Macron, for whom the tax has been a priority, and it will be retroactively applied for 2019.
The tax will apply to tech companies with revenues of more than $850 million, with at least $28 million earned in France. It will affect about 30 companies, including U.S., British, Chinese, German and Spanish businesses, along with one French advertising company, Criteo.
(Amazon’s founder and chief executive, Jeff Bezos, also owns The Washington Post.)
The tax is the latest move from Europe designed to gain more control over big tech.
Last year, the European Union implemented a sweeping new set data privacy regulations that have forced companies to offer European citizens greater ability to determine how their personal information is used, stored and sold.
European antitrust regulators have also been far more skeptical of U.S. tech companies than their American counterparts, meaning that Google, Apple and others have been hit with major fines in recent years and forced to alter their business practices. And European lawmakers and regulators have talked about doing more, expressing doubts about big tech’s ability to regulate itself.
This muscular approach has drawn the ire of President Trump, who appeared to lash out last month at the E.U. antitrust chief, Margrethe Vestager.
“You have a woman in Europe, I won’t mention her name . . . she hates the United States perhaps worse than any person I’ve ever met,” Trump told Fox Business, discussing antitrust law.
But if European leaders have generally been tougher on big tech than the U.S. government, the French tax also highlighted that Europe is far from united on tech policy.
Macron pushed hard for an E.U.-wide digital tax policy. But several E.U. countries resisted. Notable among those in opposition were Ireland (where Google, Facebook and Apple have their European headquarters) and Luxembourg (where Amazon’s European headquarters is located). Those countries have been successful in luring tech companies with low tax schemes.
Another fault line has emerged as the privacy rules have gone into effect. European tech activists have criticized Ireland’s privacy regulatory agency for what they say is the slow pace of its investigations of suspected violations. The agency says it is simply being meticulous before it pursues high-profile cases.
Le Maire, the French finance minister, admitted in the spring that an E.U.-wide tax was a dead-end, as it would require the backing of all 28 members of the bloc. So he proposed instead that France go ahead alone.
Britain, Austria and Poland are among those pursuing their own versions. But because France went first, it will face the consequences.
Washington announced an investigation under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act, which grants the president the power to impose retaliatory measures against U.S. trading partners.
This was the same measure that permitted the Trump administration to slam China with tariffs last year, though it has rarely been used against so close an ally.
Michael Birnbaum and Quentin Ariès in Brussels and Tony Romm in Washington contributed to this report.
Progressive advocacy groups, including CREDO Action, MoveOn, UltraViolet and the American Federation of Teachers, projected the words “Acosta Enabled Sex Trafficking” and “Acosta Must Go” on the building.
“Secretary Acosta’s actions in not disclosing the plea deal of a politically well-connected predator to the victims of that predator were illegal and unconscionable. By breaking the law and hiding the deal from victims, he’s shown that we cannot trust him,” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said in a statement.
In 2008, as a U.S. Attorney, Acosta approved a deal that allowed Epstein to serve only 13 months and spend 16 hours a day outside of prison. Epstein was arrested on new federal charges of sex trafficking over the weekend. He has pleaded not guilty.
“We believe that we proceeded appropriately,” Acosta told reporters at the Labor Department. “We did what we did because we wanted to see Epstein go to jail. He needed to go to jail.”
The U.S. will not waver from its course of maximum pressure against Iran, White House national security adviser John Bolton said Monday, as the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers appears unraveling with the Trump administration’s pullout. (July 8) AP, AP
LONDON – Iranian ships attempted to obstruct a British-flagged commercial oil tanker as it sailed in the Persian Gulf, Britain’s Defense Ministry said, a move that comes amid heightened tensions over a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.
The Iranian vessels are suspected of belonging to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. They were forced away from the oil tanker “British Heritage” after receiving verbal warnings from a British navy vessel accompanying the commercial vessel through the Strait of Hormuz – a strategically important choke point for oil delivery.
“We are concerned by this action and continue to urge the Iranian authorities to de-escalate the situation in the region,” the British government said in a statement.
No shots were fired and the Iranian vessels heeded the “HMS Montrose”‘s warnings.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. denied the allegations.
The semi-official Fars news agency carried a statement from the Guard’s navy early Thursday saying “there were no clashes with alien boats, especially English boats.”
“HMS Montrose” has since left the Persian Gulf, according to the ministry.
There was no immediate reaction from the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet in Bahrain.
The incident follows a warning from Iran that it would retaliate against British interests after Royal Navy marines helped seize an Iranian oil tanker in the Mediterranean Sea last week allegedly on its way to Syria in breach of European Union sanctions. Iran said the seizure was illegal and that the supertanker was not headed to Syria.
“You, Britain, are the initiator of insecurity and you will realize the consequences later,” Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said, referring to the presence of British warships in the Persian Gulf. The latest incident occurred near the island of Abu Musa.
Britain has sided with the United States in accusing Iran of attacking oil tankers in the Persian Gulf in June, a claim that Iran also denies. The attacks, along with Iran’s shooting down of a U.S. drone, have roiled oil markets. About a quarter of the world’s seaborne crude oil is transported through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow passageway between Oman and Iran that connects the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The United Nations’ atomic watchdog confirmed Monday that Iran has started enriching uranium at levels that breach the nuclear agreement with world powers. It could spark new U.S. reaction over the deal the Trump administration abandoned a year ago and adds fresh pressure on France, Britain and Germany to salvage the accord.
The U.S. has been steadily reimposing sanctions that have damaged Iran’s economy.
“Iran has long been secretly ‘enriching,’ in total violation of the terrible 150 Billion Dollar deal made by John Kerry and the Obama Administration. Remember, that deal was to expire in a short number of years. Sanctions will soon be increased, substantially!,” Trump tweeted Wednesday, making inaccurate claims about the accord.
Iran has been permitted to enrich uranium at lower levels as part of the agreement, and is still doing so even with its recent jump to 4.5% enrichment, breaking the limit of 3.67%, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. And there was no $150 billion deal with Iran, nor was it U.S. money. It was Iran’s money, about $55 billion – for years frozen in international financial institutions – that was unlocked.
Dryad Global, a maritime security risk firm, said on Twitter that “British Heritage” was an oil tanker operated by British oil and gas multinational BP and registered in the Isle of Man. Lloyd’s List, a publication specializing in maritime affairs, said British-Dutch oil giant Shell had chartered the ship from BP. Lloyd’s List, said 20 British-flagged vessels have sailed through the Strait of Hormuz into Persian Gulf waters since July 2.
China and Russia, signatories to the nuclear deal alongside European nations, have called for U.S. and British restraint in the Persian Gulf amid elevated tensions with Iran.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez continued her war of words with Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday night, calling the Speaker of the House “outright disrespectful” for criticizing women of color.
The Bronx Democrat was reacting to Pelosi’s repeated attempts at reigning in some of the more left-wing members of her caucus and chastising the freshman reps for tweeting too much.
“When these comments first started, I kind of thought that she was keeping the progressive flank at more of an arm’s distance in order to protect more moderate members, which I understood,” Ocasio-Cortez told the Washington Post.
“But the persistent singling out — it got to a point where it was just outright disrespectful — the explicit singling out of newly elected women of color.”
Erlier in the week Pelosi mocked her and freshman progressive colleagues — Rep. Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley — for their Twitter-based influence.
“All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world,” Pelosi told The New York Times in a story published Sunday. “But they didn’t have any following. They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got.”
Pressley, who called Pelosi’s comments “demoralizing,” was less interested in engaging with the California Democrat.
“Thank God my mother gave me broad shoulders and a strong back. I can handle it. I’m not worried about me,” Pressley told the paper.
“I am worried about the signal that it sends to people I speak to and for, who sent me here with a mandate, and how it affects them.”
President Donald Trump is expected to announce an executive action on getting the citizenship question added to the census, according to an administration official.
Trump announced on Twitter Thursday morning that he will hold a press conference in the afternoon to discuss his latest efforts at including the citizenship question as part of the census.
“The White House will be hosting a very big and very important Social Media Summit today,” Trump tweeted. “Would I have become President without Social Media? Yes (probably)! At its conclusion, we will all go to the beautiful Rose Garden for a News Conference on the Census and Citizenship.”
Last week, Trump told reporters on the White House South Lawn when asked if he would issue an executive order: “We’re thinking about doing that.”
“It’s one of the ways,” he added. “We have four or five ways we can do it. It’s one of the ways and we’re thinking about doing it very seriously.”
The news conference comes as two federal judges refused to let the Department of Justice withdraw lawyers from a lawsuit over the Trump administration’s plans to put the citizenship question on the 2020 census form.
This is a developing story, check back for updates.
IPO mania led to record exit value from venture-backed companies…
Uber accounted for almost half of the exit value from venture-backed companies in the quarter, while Slack, Zoom, Pinterest and CrowdStrike made up most of the rest.
President Trump’s threatened deportation raids are “absolutely going to happen,” says senior Department of Homeland Security official Ken Cuccinelli.
“There are approximately 1 million in this people with deportation orders,” the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services told reporters on the White House driveway. “Of course, that isn’t what ICE will go after in this, but that’s the pool of people that have been all the way through the process.”
The former Virginia attorney general, whose agency handles asylum cases, declined to discuss the timing of raids or additional details.
On June 22, Trump wrote on Twitter he would postpone threatened raids “for two weeks to see if the Democrats and Republicans can get together and work out a solution to the Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border. If not, Deportations start!”
As the clock ran out, Trump told reporters Friday that large-scale deportation sweeps would be “starting fairly soon.”
“I don’t call them ‘raids.’ I say they came in illegally, and we’re bringing them out legally,” Trump said. “We’re removing people that have come in — all of these people over the years that have come in illegally — we are removing them and bringing them back to their country.”
As Louisiana and Acadiana prepares for the soon to be named Tropical Storm Barry, the KATC team has gathered information on the storm and its affects on Acadiana and Louisiana.
As the storm moves into the area, the following articles will be updated.
Weather Alerts:
For the Latest track and information on the storm from the KATC Weather team,
Image caption
The HMS Montrose is reported to have driven off the Iranian boats
Iranian boats tried to impede a British oil tanker near the Gulf – before being driven off by a Royal Navy ship, the Ministry of Defence has said.
HMS Montrose moved between the three boats and the tanker British Heritage before issuing verbal warnings to the Iranian vessels, a spokesman said.
He described the Iranians’ actions as “contrary to international law”.
Iran had threatened to retaliate for the seizure of one of its own tankers, but denied any attempted seizure.
Boats believed to belong to Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) approached the British Heritage tanker and tried to bring it to a halt as it was moving out of the Gulf into the Strait of Hormuz.
Guns on HMS Montrose, the British frigate escorting the tanker, were reportedly trained on the Iranian boats as they were ordered to back off. They heeded the warning and no shots were fired.
The BBC has been told British Heritage was near the island of Abu Musa when it was approached and harassed by the Iranian boats.
Although the island is in disputed territorial waters, HMS Montrose remained in international waters throughout.
A UK government spokesman said: “Contrary to international law, three Iranian vessels attempted to impede the passage of a commercial vessel, British Heritage, through the Strait of Hormuz.
“We are concerned by this action and continue to urge the Iranian authorities to de-escalate the situation in the region.”
What does Iran say?
Quoting the public relations office of the IRGC’s Navy, the Fars news agency said, in a tweet, the IRGC “denies claims by American sources” that it tried to seize British Heritage.
“There has been no confrontation in the last 24 hours with any foreign vessels, including British ones,” the IRGC added, according to the AFP news agency.
Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the UK made the claims “for creating tension”.
“These claims have no value,” Mr Zarif added, according to Fars.
Why are UK-Iran tensions escalating?
Image copyright Reuters
Image caption
British Royal Marines helped to detain the Iranian oil tanker, Grace 1, earlier this month
Last week, British Royal Marines helped the authorities in Gibraltar seize an Iranian oil tanker because of evidence it was heading to Syria in breach of EU sanctions.
Iran also summoned the British ambassador in Tehran to complain about what it said was a “form of piracy”.
On Wednesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani mocked the UK, calling it “scared” and “hopeless” for using Royal Navy warships to shadow a British tanker in the Gulf.
HMS Montrose had shadowed British tanker the Pacific Voyager for some of the way through the Strait of Hormuz, but that journey had passed without incident.
“You, Britain, are the initiator of insecurity and you will realise the consequences later,” Mr Rouhani said.
The UK has also been pressing Iran to release British-Iranian mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who was jailed for five years in 2016 after being convicted for spying, which she denies.
Could things get worse?
Iran appears to have been attempting to make good on its threat against British-flagged vessels in the wake of the seizure of an Iranian tanker off Gibraltar.
But though this incident has a specifically bilateral dimension, it is also a powerful reminder that the tensions in the Gulf have not gone away.
And with every sign that the dispute over the nuclear agreement with Iran is set to continue, things may only get worse.
The episode may add some impetus to US-brokered efforts to muster an international naval force in the Gulf to protect international shipping.
But most worrying of all, it shows that elements within the Iranian system – the Revolutionary Guard Corps’s naval arm, or whatever – are intent on stoking the pressure.
This inevitably plays into President Trump’s hands as Britain and its key European partners struggle to keep the nuclear agreement alive.
What about US-Iran relations?
Media captionWhy does the Strait of Hormuz matter?
The US has blamed Iran for attacks on six oil tankers in May and June.
The chairman of the US military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said, on Wednesday, it wants to create an multi-national military coalition to safeguard waters around Iran and Yemen.
The Trump administration – which has pulled out of an international agreement on Tehran’s nuclear programme – has reinforced punishing sanctions against Iran.
Its European allies, including the UK, have not followed suit.
Iran’s ambassador to the UN has insisted Europeans must do more to compensate Tehran for economic losses inflicted by US sanctions – otherwise Iranians will continue to exceed limits on their nuclear fuel production.
House Democrats on Wednesday will hold a hearing titled “Kids in Cages: Inhumane Treatment at the Border.” It will once again be an attempt to divert attention from the real reason why migrants kids are dying at the southern border.
The root of each and every death at the border is traced to a belief, on the part of hundreds of thousands of Central Americans, that they can and should show up after a dangerous 2,000-mile journey and throw themselves into the care of a stretched-thin U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
It’s not the “cages” that infected these exhausted, worn down people with the flu. It’s not the overcrowded ICE detention facilities that have compromised their health. It’s not a lack of medical attention that has turned southern Texas into an infirmary for all of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras.
It’s Congress, and Democrats in particular. It’s the absolute refusal to do anything that would stop these people from risking their lives in the first place.
Anyone who has been listening to the desperate warnings from the Departments of Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, and Defense for the past year already knows that our immigration system is collapsing. It’s being crushed under the weight of countless migrants showing up at the border, all of them aware that we can’t cope with the sheer number of them and thus will have to eventually be turned loose in to the country.
But the national news media play stupid. The Washington Postdescribed the hearing scheduled for Wednesday as an opportunity for Democrats “to question the impact of Trump’s immigration policies.”
No, “Trump’s immigration policies” aren’t having an impact. They were to build a wall, move to a merit-based immigration system, and halt illegal border crossings. He has accomplished precisely none of those things. The administration has instead been thrown into chaos trying to manage — not reduce or stop, but manage — the new gush of migrants pushing their way into Texas.
The only “impact” we should be asking about is the impact on the American taxpayer, tasked with providing endless food, clothing, medicine, and legal services to all of these migrants, while Congress does nothing to solve the problem.
President Trump’s threatened deportation raids are “absolutely going to happen,” says senior Department of Homeland Security official Ken Cuccinelli.
“There are approximately 1 million in this people with deportation orders,” the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services told reporters on the White House driveway. “Of course, that isn’t what ICE will go after in this, but that’s the pool of people that have been all the way through the process.”
The former Virginia attorney general, whose agency handles asylum cases, declined to discuss the timing of raids or additional details.
On June 22, Trump wrote on Twitter he would postpone threatened raids “for two weeks to see if the Democrats and Republicans can get together and work out a solution to the Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border. If not, Deportations start!”
As the clock ran out, Trump told reporters Friday that large-scale deportation sweeps would be “starting fairly soon.”
“I don’t call them ‘raids.’ I say they came in illegally, and we’re bringing them out legally,” Trump said. “We’re removing people that have come in — all of these people over the years that have come in illegally — we are removing them and bringing them back to their country.”
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