Monday, June 03, 2024

 

Muslim schools caught up in France's 

fight against Islamism

By Juliette Jabkhiro

PARIS (Reuters) - Last year, Sihame Denguir enrolled her teenage son and daughter in France's largest Muslim private school, in the northern city of Lille some 200 kilometres (125 miles) from their middle-class suburban Parisian home.

The move meant financial sacrifices. Denguir, 41, now pays fees at the partially state-subsidised Averroes school and rents a flat in Lille for her children and their grandmother, who moved to care for them.

But Averroes' academic record, among the best in France, was a powerful draw.

So she was dumbstruck in December when the school lost government funding worth around two million euros a year on grounds it failed to comply with secular principles enshrined in France's national education guidelines.

"The high school has done so well," Denguir told Reuters in a park near her home in Cergy, calling Averroes open-minded. "It should be valued. It should be held up as an example."

President Emmanuel Macron has undertaken a crackdown on what he calls Islamist separatism and radical Islam in France following deadly jihadist attacks in recent years by foreign and homegrown militants. Macron is under pressure from the far right Rassemblement National (RN), which holds a wide lead over his party ahead of European elections this week.

The crackdown seeks to limit foreign influence over Muslim institutions in France and tackle what Macron has said is a long-term Islamist plan to take control of the French Republic.

Macron denies stigmatizing Muslims and says Islam has a place in French society. However, rights and Muslim groups say that by targeting schools like Averroes, the government is impinging on religious freedom, making it harder for Muslims to express their identity.

Four parents and three academics Reuters spoke to for this story said the campaign risks being counterproductive, alienating Muslims who want their children to succeed within the French system, including at high-performing mainstream schools such as Averroes.

Thomas Misita, 42, father of three daughters attending Averroes, said he was taught at school that France's principles included equality, fraternity and freedom of religion.

"I feel betrayed. I feel singled out, smeared, slandered," Misita said. "I feel 100% French, but it creates a divide. A small divide with your own country."

The school's long-term survival is now in question.

Despite raising about 1 million euros in donations from individuals, enrolment for next year has dropped to about 500 students, from 800, headmaster Eric Dufour told Reuters in May.

Macron's office referred a request for comment to the interior ministry, which did not respond. The education ministry said it did not differentiate between schools of different faiths in applying the law. The ministry said despite academic success, Averroes had failings, citing "administrative and budgetary management" and a lack of transparency.

The school is in a legal battle to overturn the decision.

Headmaster Eric Dufour told Reuters the school had given the state "all the guarantees" to show that it respected funding terms and French values.

"We are the most inspected school in France," he said.

SCHOOLS CLOSED

Local offices of the national government have closed at least five Muslim schools since Macron came to power in 2017, according to a Reuters tally. Reuters was only able to find one Muslim school closed under his predecessors.

In the first year of Macron's presidency, one other school lost public funding, pledged in May 2017 by the government of former president Francois Hollande.

Since 2017, only one Muslim school has been awarded state funding, compared to nine in total under Macron's two predecessors, Education Ministry data shows. The National Federation for Muslim Education (FNEM) told Reuters it made about 70 applications on behalf of Muslim schools in that period.

Reuters spoke to more than a dozen current and former headmasters and teachers in ten Muslim schools, who said the establishments were being targeted, including being censured on flimsy grounds, and that perceived discrimination was preventing them integrating more closely with the state system.

"It's really a double standard of who has to conform to secular Republican values in a certain way, and who doesn’t," said American anthropologist Carol Ferrera, who studies French faith schools and says Catholic and Jewish schools are treated more leniently.

Prominent Parisian Catholic school Stanislas has kept its funding despite inspectors last year finding issues including sexist or homophobic ideas and mandatory religious classes, French media has reported.

The education ministry said the government had increased supervision of private schools under Macron, leading to more closures, including of some non-denominational schools. It cited budget restraints as a reason for the low number of schools offered public funding.

While some of the five closed Muslim schools taught conservative versions of Islam, according to the education ministry statements and closure orders, the headmasters and teachers Reuters spoke to emphasised their schools' efforts to create a mainstream and tolerant teaching environment.

"There was never a desire for separatism," said Mahmoud Awad, board member at Education & Savoir, the school that lost state funding soon after Macron took office.

"At some point they have to accept that a Muslim school is like a Catholic school or a Jewish school," he said.

Idir Arap, headmaster of the Avicenne middle school in Nice, told Reuters he has unsuccessfully sought public funding since 2020, as he wants the school brought into the state fold. The latest request was rejected in February, according to a document reviewed by Reuters.

"We're the opposite of radicalism," Arap said.

In February, Education Minister Nicole Belloubet said she wanted to close Avicenne, citing 'opaque funding' found by a local representative of the government. In April, an administrative court provisionally ruled any irregularities were minor, suspending the closure order. The next hearing is set for June 25.

In a reply to Reuters, the ministry reiterated that financial opacity was widespread at Avicenne, saying it awaited the court's final ruling. It said the school could appeal the funding refusal.

FAITH SCHOOL TRADITION

France has a tradition of Catholic, Protestant and Jewish schools that allow religious expression within the constraints of lay principles broadly excluding religion from public life.

A prohibition on hijab headscarves in public schools in 2004 created demand for schools where Muslim students, and in particular girls, could express religious identity.

State funding was extended to Averroes in 2008, in return for oversight, in a push by former president Nicolas Sarkozy to better integrate Muslim institutions.

An estimated 6.8 million Muslims live in France, data from France's statistics agency shows, around 10% of the population. Islam is the country's second-largest religion after Catholicism.

There are 127 Muslim schools, according to FNEM. Only ten benefit from state funding, a report from the public audit office said last year.

In contrast, 7,045 Catholic schools are funded, the report said. France's Catholic Church says there are 7,220 such schools.

Macron's government introduced laws granting powers to local authorities to strip institutions, including private schools, of funding for failing to respect "liberty, equality, fraternity," among other things.

In a 2020 speech, Macron described a need to reverse what he saw as radicalization in Muslim communities, including practices such as the separation of sexes.

"The problem is an ideology which claims its own laws should be superior to those of the Republic," he said.

In 2020, Elysee advisers told reporters monitoring of Muslim schools and associations involved with children was key to fight separatism. Officials said they feared religious indoctrination was taking place in some of them.

Rights group Amnesty International has warned the government's approach is potentially discriminatory and risks reinforcing stereotypes that conflate all Muslims with terrorism or radical views.

CULTURAL BRIDGE

The first Muslim high school in mainland France, Averroes was named after a 12th century Muslim scholar from Spain who helped reintroduce Aristotle's thought to Europe and is seen as a symbol of cooperation between Islam and the West.

It was voted France's best high school in 2013.

Reuters spoke to seven parents and pupils who spoke of a nurturing space that took constitutional commitments seriously.

On a visit in March, Reuters reporters observed girls and boys studying together. Teachers included non-Muslims. Some girls wore the hijab while others chose not to.

Religious studies are optional, as is prayer.

In 2019, French journalists and local politicians drew attention to Averroes over a 850,000 euro grant from aid organisation Qatar Charity, which works with the United Nations. They also questioned links between members of the school's board and proponents of political Islam in France.

An education ministry inspection of the school in 2020 found the grant to be legal. But officials and politicians in the Lille region continued a campaign to restrain the school's state income.

In February, a Lille administrative court upheld the decision of the local representative of the government to halt funding, largely on the grounds that a 1980s Syrian book on the curriculum of an optional Muslim ethics class contained ideas about the separation of genders and the death sentence for apostasy, according to the ruling, reviewed by Reuters.

The Lille office of the government declined a request for comment.

Headmaster Dufour told Reuters the book should not have been on the curriculum and was removed earlier in 2023. He said it was not present in the school and had never been taught. The Muslim ethics class helped pupils practice faith in compliance with French law, he said.

Nine pupils, former pupils, parents and teachers said the class advocated for democratic, tolerant values.

On a March afternoon, Denguir's son Abderahim, 14, attended the class during Ramadan alongside other boys and girls from the middle school.

Abderahim said he wanted to become an architect and make his parents proud.

"They want me to excel at school," he said, "to have a good job, a good salary, to take care of our family later."

(This story has been refiled to add a missing letter in Mahmoud Awad's name in paragraph 25)

(Additional reporting by Layli Foroudi and Michel Rose; Editing by Richard Lough and Frank Jack Daniel)

Trump Courts Young Voters by Joining TikTok He Tried to Ban

Stephanie Lai and Michael Sin
Sun, June 2, 2024 



(Bloomberg) -- Former President Donald Trump joined TikTok, the Chinese-owned platform he tried to ban in the US, as the presumptive 2024 Republican nominee steps up efforts to reach young voters.

Fresh from being convicted in the first criminal trial of a former US president, Trump made his debut on the video-sharing app with a 13-second clip alongside Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White. “It’s my honor,” Trump said in the video, which cuts to scenes of fans cheering for him at a UFC fight in Newark, New Jersey.

Trump, who polls suggest is leading President Joe Biden among voters in most of seven key swing states, has been seeking to shift attention away from his case since last week’s verdict.

He touted a 24-hour fundraising record of almost $53 million immediately after the jury found him guilty in the New York trial and announced an initiative to recruit volunteers to canvass neighborhoods leading up to the election in November.

A New York jury found Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a hush-money payment to a porn star, a conspiracy that prosecutors said deprived voters of vital information before the 2016 presidential election. Sentencing is set for July 11.

‘Breaking Point’

Asked about the risk of facing house arrest or jail time, Trump suggested it could provoke an outcry.

“I’m not sure the public would stand for it,” he said in a Fox News interview broadcast Sunday. “I think it would be tough for the public to take. You know at a certain point there’s a breaking point.”

Lara Trump, who has been the Republican National Committee’s co-chair since March, said her father-in-law’s supporters will “remain calm and protest at the ballot box on Nov. 5.”

“So they shouldn’t do anything until voting starts, and then they’re going to come out in droves,” she said on CNN’s State of the Union.

Before Trump started his TikTok account, his main super political action committee joined last month.

“We will leave no front undefended and this represents the continued outreach to a younger audience consuming pro-Trump and anti-Biden content,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement Sunday.

TikTok’s fate has become a election-year issue as its Chinese parent, ByteDance Ltd., faces a deadline to sell its stake in the company or face a ban in US app stores. TikTok is suing the US government over the law, which was backed by congressional Republicans and Biden in a bid to address concerns that the Chinese government could access user data or influence what’s seen on the app.

More than 170 million Americans have accounts on the popular platform, according to the company, including many Gen-Z and millennial voters who both Biden and Trump have been courting. Biden’s decision to sign the divest-or-ban law has drawn blowback from younger voters on the app, including some influencers who have backed his reelection bid.

Trump has criticized Biden’s decision even though he tried to force a sale of the app as president. He blamed Biden for “banning TikTok” in a post on his social media platform in April, saying he was addressing “especially the young people.”

The former president and his allies have alleged that Google and Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook engaged in election interference. There’s no evidence to support those claims.

--With assistance from Akayla Gardner.

(Updates with Trump’s “breaking point” comment in eighth paragraph.)

Bloomberg Businessweek



Trump takes off on TikTok

Anthony Ha
Sun, June 2, 2024



Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump now has an account on the short-form video app that he once tried to ban.

Trump’s TikTok account, which launched on Saturday night, features just one post as of publication time on Sunday morning. In the video, UFC CEO Dana White declares, “The President is now on TikTok,” then Trump chimes in to say, “It’s my honor.” The rest of the video consists largely of footage showing Trump walking among the crowd at a UFC event in Newark, New Jersey.

The video has apparently been viewed more than 31 million times, while Trump has already amassed 1.7 million followers — more than 5x the followers of the Biden-Harris account.

“Political candidate creates social media account” would not normally be big news, but the Trump campaign’s move is a reminder that even as TikTok faces an uncertain future in the United States, politicians remain eager to reach its 170 million US users. The platform could be particularly valuable for Trump, who appears to have made inroads among younger, disengaged voters — the kind of voter who might be on TikTok.

Trump’s position on TikTok has seemingly reversed — after trying to ban TikTok while he was president, he posted on Truth Social in May, “Just so everyone knows, especially the young people, Crooked Joe Biden is responsible for banning TikTok.” (Biden recently signed a bill that will ban TikTok if its parent company ByteDance fails to sell the app within a year; TikTok is fighting the bill in court.)

While Trump’s old adviser Steve Bannon has accused the former president of flip-flopping due to the influence of billionaire Jeff Yass (who owns a major stake in TikTok), Trump has insisted that banning TikTok would only strengthen Facebook, which he describes as an “enemy of the people.”

Of course, joining TikTok and attracting over 1 million followers is still just a footnote in Trump’s big week — one where he became the first former US president to be convicted of felony crimes.

Donald Trump Does the Unexpected With First TikTok Video

Rebecca Schneid
Mon, June 3, 2024 


Former U.S. President Donald Trump has joined TikTok. His first video, posted on Saturday night, shows him arriving at a UFC 302 fight. The move to TikTok comes despite Trump's previous attempts to ban the app as President in 2020.

Trump’s first TikTok video sees him join forces with UFC CEO Dana White. Joe Rogan, podcaster and UFC color commentator, was also in attendance at the fight, and was seen shaking hands with Trump. In the opening of the TikTok clip, Trump says it’s his “honor” to be on the social media platform.

The video features a montage of crowd reactions to Trump's arrival, including a spectator taking a photo with the former President, who can be seen pointing and waving at fans. These videos are short slices, seemingly taken on a digital phone camera, with Kid Rock’s song “American Bad Ass,” playing in the background. This is the same song that Trump walked out to when he entered the arena.

Trump signs off the video clip by saying, “That was a good walk on, right?”

The former President and current Republican frontrunner for renomination’s attendance at the UFC fight between Islam Makhachev and Dustin Poirier in Newark, New Jersey, and his arrival on TikTok comes days after he was found guilty in the historic hush-money trial.

Read More: President Biden’s Campaign Is on TikTok

Trump was convicted of 34 charges related to activity around the 2016 election. He was accused of falsifying business records that showed hush-money payments to former porn actor Stormy Daniels. The guilty verdict results in the first-ever criminal conviction of a former U.S. President. Trump’s upcoming sentencing is set for July 11.

During his presidency, Trump tried to ban TikTok. He signed an executive order to ban the video platform unless it was acquired by an American company, alleging the Chinese government was using the video-sharing service to surveil millions of Americans. He said that apps owned by companies in China “threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States,” in the executive order.

Though the executive order never went into effect since it was shot down in federal court, Trump changed his tune earlier this year in March.

President Biden signed into law in April a bill that would ban TikTok in the U.S. if the social media platform’s China-based owner doesn’t sell its stake within a year. However, Trump has said there could be some utility in keeping TikTok.

Read More:Why Trump Flipped on TikTok

“Frankly, there are a lot of people on TikTok that love it,” he told CNBC. “There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it.”

Many young voters utilize TikTok to receive their news, according to a recent Pew Research study, which found that one-third of American adults under 30 regularly scroll the app for news. According to the study, this number has grown substantially since 2020.

In the 2020 elector, a major factor contributing to President Biden’s victory over Trump was the youth vote. According to another study by the Pew Research Center, Biden voters were generally younger than Trump voters, with nearly half of Biden voters younger than 50, compared to 39% of Trump voters.
Among all U.S. adults, the study shares that the number of those who regularly get news from TikTok has more than quadrupled, from 3% in 2020 to 14% in 2023.
UN experts urge all countries to recognise Palestinian statehood

Reuters
Mon, June 3, 2024 

Smoke rises following Israeli strikes during an Israeli military operation in Rafah


GENEVA (Reuters) - A group of United Nations experts called on Monday for all countries to recognise a Palestinian state to ensure peace in the Middle East.

The call came less than a week after Spain, Ireland and Norway officially recognised a Palestinian state, prompting anger from Israel, which has found itself increasingly isolated after nearly eight months of war in Gaza.

The experts, including the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories, said recognition of a Palestinian state was an important acknowledgement of the rights of the Palestinian people and their struggle towards freedom and independence.


"This is a pre-condition for lasting peace in Palestine and the entire Middle East – beginning with the immediate declaration of a ceasefire in Gaza and no further military incursions into Rafah," they said.

"A two-state solution remains the only internationally agreed path to peace and security for both Palestine and Israel and a way out of generational cycles of violence and resentment."

Israel's Foreign Ministry did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

With their recognition of a Palestinian state, Spain, Ireland and Norway said they sought to accelerate efforts to secure a ceasefire in Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza.

The three countries say they hope their decision will spur other European Union states to follow suit. Denmark's parliament later rejected a proposal to recognise a Palestinian state.

Israel has repeatedly condemned moves to recognise a Palestinian state, saying they bolster Hamas, the militant Islamist group that led the deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel which sparked the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.

The conflict has killed more than 36,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry. Israel says the Oct. 7 attack, the worst in its 75-year history, killed 1,200 people, with more than 250 hostages taken.

(Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber; Editing by Ed Osmond)



Photo of Palestinian flag flying at UN headquarters was taken in 2015, not 2024

Tommy WANG / AFP Hong Kong
Sun, June 2, 2024 

A photo of the Palestinian flag after it was raised at the United Nations headquarters in New York for the first time in September 2015 has resurfaced in social media posts that falsely claimed the flag was "finally flown" by the global body in May 2024. The old photo was shared against the background of the ongoing war in Gaza, which has revived a global push for Palestinians to be given a state of their own.

"Just today, the Palestinian flag was finally flown at UN Headquarters! History will always remember this as the momentous day when the flag of the State of Palestine was raised over UN Headquarters," read part of the simplified Chinese caption to a photo shared on Weibo on May 24, 2024.

The photo appears to show the Palestinian flag flying alongside the UN flag outside the headquarters of the international organisation in New York City.

Screenshot of the false Weibo post, captured on May 30, 2024

The same photo was shared alongside similar claims on X here and here.

The claim circulated seven months into the war in Gaza, which was sparked by Hamas' unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,189 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 36,439 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

The Gaza bloodshed has revived calls for Palestinians to be given their own state.

Spain, Ireland and Norway formally recognised a Palestinian state on May 28 in a coordinated decision that infuriated Israel. The move brought the number of UN member states to have recognised a Palestinian state to 145 out of the 193.

However, the photo shared online is old -- it has circulated since September 2015.
2015 photo

Reverse image searches and subsequent keyword searches on Google found the picture was published by the German photo agency IMAGO on September 30, 2015 and credited to "IMAGO/Xinhua" (archived link).

Its caption read: "NEW YORK, Sept. 30, 2015 -- Palestinian flag (lower) flies together with the United Nations flag at the United Nations headquarters in New York, Sept. 30, 2015."

Below is a screenshot comparison of the falsely shared image (left) and the photo published on IMAGO's website (right):


Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared image (left) and the photo published on IMAGO's website (right)

The Palestinians raised their flag at the United Nations for the first time on September 30, 2015, after the General Assembly voted earlier that month to allow the flags of Palestine and the Vatican -- who have observer status -- to be raised alongside those of member states.

The flag of the Holy See was raised for the first time five days earlier, on September 25, 2015 (archived link).

Google Street View imagery from May 2016, June 2019 and August 2021 shows the Palestinian flag continued to fly outside the UN headquarters.

"As a Permanent Observer State, Palestine’s flag does fly outside the UN Secretariat building in New York, although it is slightly separated from the UN Member State flags and is not part of the alphabetic line-up," read an article posted on the UN's official website on April 18, 2024 (archived link).

AFP has fact-checked other misinformation around the Israel-Hamas war here.
Bombshell Report Reveals Team Trump Is Rewarding Key Trial Witnesses

Talia Jane
Mon, June 3, 2024 


Donald Trump’s campaign and the Trump Organization paid off nine witnesses called to testify in criminal cases against Trump, an explosive new report from ProPublica reveals. Witnesses who testified in defense of Trump for his numerous criminal cases received massive raises, new jobs, cushy severance packages, and more, all conveniently coinciding with being called to testify or after providing testimony favorable to Trump—and the excuses from Team Trump couldn’t be weaker.

Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, told ProPublica witness tampering is often difficult to prove because the gimmick is often not done explicitly. But the trend could assist prosecutors in their efforts to call into question the credibility of witnesses testifying in Trump’s defense for his innumerable legal battles.

In response to queries by ProPublica, team Trump claimed the nine witnesses who all saw big raises and flashy new jobs simply took on more work. The campaign also insisted Trump, who notoriously insists on controlling every facet of his organizations, has no say in who gets promoted or how much they’re paid. “The president is not involved in the decision-making process,” a Trump campaign official told ProPublica. “I would argue Trump doesn’t know what we’re paid.”

Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign, questionably asserted in a statement to ProPublica that “the 2024 Trump campaign is the most well-run and professional operation in political history.” Cheung continued, “Any false assertion that we’re engaging in any type of behavior that may be regarded as tampering is absurd and completely fake.” ProPublica also reports the outlet received a cease-and-desist from David Warrington, Trump’s attorney, against publishing its findings, promising that “President Trump will evaluate all legal remedies.” According to ProPublica’s findings, those legal remedies seem to conveniently trend toward doling out big payments to people called to testify on Trump’s behalf.

According to records reviewed by ProPublica, monthly payments from Trump’s campaign to Trump lawyer Boris Epshteyn’s company—which appears to be just a one-man show—more than doubled after Trump was indicted—jumping from $26,000 a month to $53,500 a month. The Trump campaign told ProPublica the increase was due to Epshteyn’s workload increasing, even though Epshteyn has continued taking contracts for other campaigns and landed a job as a managing director at a financial securities firm elsewhere.

Susie Wiles, senior adviser to Trump’s 2024 campaign who allegedly witnessed Trump showing off classified documents, also saw a big bump in pay after being called to a grand jury and before Trump’s indictment in that case. Her pay jumped from $25,000 a month to $30,000 a month and her consulting firm received a hefty $75,000, according to ProPublica. Team Trump claims payments to the consulting firm were simply backpay and her raise was because she “redid her contract.” Her daughter Caroline was hired by the Trump campaign a few months later, receiving a salary of $222,000 and becoming the fourth-highest-paid campaign staffer. Caroline told ProPublica she got the job “because I earned it,” telling ProPublica, “I don’t think it has anything to do with Susie,” referring to her mother. Meanwhile, her mother stated she directly hired her nepobaby daughter and that Trump had no influence in that decision.

Dan Scavino, a political adviser and Trump’s former chief of staff, was given a seat on Truth Social’s board, Trump’s social media company. His appointment landed between him being subpoenaed and giving testimony to Congress about Trump’s role in the January 6 Capitol riot. Scavino also received a $600,000 retention bonus and “a $4 million ‘executive promissory note’ paid in shares” at some point, according to ProPublica. Conveniently, Scavino’s testimony around the Capitol riot produced no “significant new information,” according to ProPublica.

Allen Weisselberg, a retired Trump Organization chief financial officer who was recently convicted of lying for Trump, received a $2 million severance agreement four months after New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Trump for real estate fraud. The agreement included a clause preventing Weisselberg from cooperating with investigators unless forced to do so. According to court records, prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money trial raised the agreement for why they wouldn’t call him to testify, noting, “The agreement seems to preclude us from talking to him or him talking to us at the risk of losing $750,000 of outstanding severance pay.”

Witness payoffs are nothing new for team Trump, which has a history of campaign staff getting convicted for federal witness tampering: Roger Stone, Trump’s 2016 campaign adviser, directed a witness to lie to a Senate committee. Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager, was convicted for colluding with Russia after previously being convicted for witness tampering. Trump pardoned both, as well as Jared Kushner’s father, in his final days in office.

FASCIST ZIONIST IN LIBERTARIAN CLOTHING

President Milei's surprising devotion to Judaism and Israel provokes tension in Argentina and beyond

ISABEL DEBRE and ALMUDENA CALATRAVA
Updated Mon, June 3, 2024 
 
Argentina Israel's Biggest Fan
 Argentine President Javier Milei prays at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City, Feb. 6, 2024. Although born and raised Roman Catholic, Milei has increasingly shown public interest in Judaism and even expressed intentions to convert.
 (AP Photo/Leo Correa, File)


BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — At the base of the sacred Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City, President Javier Milei of Argentina appeared to be in a spiritual trance.

With head and hands pressed against the ancient stone, he prayed with the Orthodox rabbi who introduced him to Judaism three years ago. Although born and raised Roman Catholic, Milei has increasingly shown public interest in Judaism and even expressed intentions to convert.

Stepping back from the wall, Milei broke down. He hugged Rabbi Shimon Axel Wahnish close, sobbing onto his shoulder.


“In that moment, I felt proud that we have such a determined leader, with such deep spiritual values,” Wahnish told The Associated Press in a recent interview, recalling their state trip to Israel in February.

For many Argentines, that pride was fraught with peril.

Breaking decades of policy precedent, Milei has gone further in his support of right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government than perhaps any other world leader as Israel faces growing isolation over its bombardment and invasion of Gaza that has killed over 36,000 Palestinians and pushed the enclave to the brink of famine.

His posture could not stand in starker contrast to most of Latin America — where Bolivia and Colombia have severed ties with Israel and at least five regional countries, most recently Brazil, have pulled ambassadors from Tel Aviv.

“Among great nations that should be pillars of the free world, I see indifference in some and fear in others about standing on the side of truth,” Milei told Jewish community leaders at an event last month commemorating the 81st anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. It was a veiled swipe at Western powers — including the United States — for criticizing Israeli military conduct.

The crowd leapt to its feet in applause.

The president's supporters insist his newfound Jewish fervor has no bearing on his foreign policy. But Milei's infatuation with Judaism and outspoken support for Israel has generated fears and exposed fissures within Argentina’s Jewish community, among the biggest in the world, and roiled relations with its neighbors.

Argentine Jews remain deeply scarred by a pair of lethal bombings targeting Israel's embassy in 1992 and the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association, a community center known by its Spanish acronym AMIA, in 1994. Authorities allege Iran plotted the attacks and Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group carried them out. No one has been held responsible. Argentina's investigation has been mired in controversy.

“Milei has a messianic mind, and this is quite dangerous,” said Diana Malamud, whose husband was among the 85 people killed in the AMIA attack. “His policies can not only stoke conflicts at the international level ... but also generate anti-Semitism within our country."

Milei's curiosity about Judaism began as a kind of penitence in 2021, when he faced accusations of harboring pro-Nazi sympathies and wanted to prove in speech that he bore no animus toward Jews. He connected with Sephardic leader Rabbi Wahnish to have “a chat that was supposed to last 10 minutes and ended two hours later,” Wahnish said.

As Milei evolved from TV pundit to “anarcho-capitalist” president, Wahnish guided him through the study of Torah. Seeking common ground between his vision of radical libertarianism and the prophecy of the Old Testament, Milei's casual interest morphed into a regular religious practice.

Wahnish, recently appointed Argentina's ambassador to Israel, declined to comment on Milei's conversion.

“In Judaism and Moses, Milei sees a cultural and spiritual revolution toward freedom,” Wahnish said. Since childhood, he added, Milei “felt Moses was his idol, his hero.”

Milei, who owns four clones of his dead dog Conan, has never been the most conventional occupant of Argentina's highest office. Still, his foray into Judaism has come as a particular surprise.

On the campaign trail, Milei quoted the Torah, made multiple Brooklyn pilgrimages to the tomb of influential Hasidic leader Menachem Mendel Schneerson and sounded the shofar, the ram’s-horn trumpet blasted during the Jewish High Holy Days, to close his electoral campaign.

Ahead of Milei’s victory, nearly 4,000 Argentine Jewish intellectuals signed a petition voicing concern over Milei’s “political use of Judaism.”

“It’s perverse ... to use the shofar, which is played during religious ceremonies, to announce himself,” said Pablo Gorodneff, secretary-general of the progressive Argentine Jewish Appeal group. “It makes me very frustrated, very sad.”

As fighting raged in Gaza, Milei flew to Israel for his first foreign visit and praised Netanyahu without reservation. Following in the footsteps of former U.S. President Donald Trump, he pledged to move Argentina’s Embassy from a beachfront bastion near Tel Aviv to the contested capital of Jerusalem — aggravating an emotional issue at the heart of the conflict. Netanyahu called Milei “a great friend." Hamas called him “a partner of the Zionist occupier.”

Last month, Milei's government upended Argentina’s traditional recognition of Palestinian statehood, joining the U.S. and Israel to vote against Palestinian membership at the U.N.

His foreign policy shift has thrilled Jewish community leaders, but also left them on edge.

“If Milei’s supposed defense of Israel is an attack on Palestinian rights, it puts the Jewish community in Argentina at risk,” said Héctor Shalom, director of Argentina's Anne Frank Center. “The decades of impunity for past attacks show our vulnerability."

The 1994 bombing, Argentina's most notorious cold case, still spreads unease. After Hamas' Oct. 7 attack, the mood in the Jewish community went from worried to alarmed.

Jewish high schools requested that students stop wearing their uniforms, so as not to identify as Jewish. Authorities jacked up security at synagogues. Two bomb scares emptied out the AMIA building.

“Security levels have always been high but now there is a much greater sensitivity,” said Amos Linetzky, head of AMIA.

Government officials have also grown anxious, lashing out at Iran and warning that the Israel-Hamas war has stoked the embers of Islamic militancy and blown them all the way to Latin America.

Upon news of the first Iranian assault on Israeli territory April 14, local media reported Milei's pro-Israel stance had made him a target. He cut his state visit to Denmark short and flew home to convene a crisis committee alongside the Israeli ambassador.

Milei's hardline security minister, Patricia Bullrich, singled out left-wing neighbors Bolivia and Chile as Islamist hotbeds, ordering reinforcements to Argentina's northern border.

“We are on high alert,” Bullrich said, alleging that Bolivia — which last year struck a defense agreement with Iran — teems with Iranian Revolutionary Guard operatives. “Politically correct messages like calling for peace are not Argentina’s position."

Without providing evidence, Bullrich also claimed that Chile — home to the largest Palestinian population outside the Arab world — hosts Hezbollah.

The accusations, decried as baseless by Bolivia and Chile, prompted both governments to pull their ambassadors from Buenos Aires.

On Saturday, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, a 57-member group describing itself as “the collective voice of the Muslim world,” issued a furious denunciation of what it described as Milei’s anti-Islamic rhetoric.

For years, U.S. and Argentine intelligence services have subjected the Triple Frontier, where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet, to intense surveillance, scouring the large population of Lebanese and Syrian immigrants for Islamist sympathies.

“One of the things I don’t think gets enough attention is how long Hezbollah has had a presence in our hemisphere,” Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee this spring.

Washington claims Hezbollah funds its activities through drug traffickers in the area. The U.S. Treasury has sanctioned dozens of individuals in South America over alleged ties to Hezbollah, most recently last fall. Authorities have reported thwarting attacks, with Israel's Mossad spy agency helping Brazil arrest alleged Hezbollah recruits last November.

Hezbollah denies running operations in the region.

“What would Hezbollah want with Latin America?” the group's spokesperson, Rana Sahili, asked the AP. She accused Milei of playing loose with facts to score points in a “political game.”

Experts say the true threat lies somewhere in the middle.

“Some say Hezbollah's presence in Latin America is a complete fabrication, while others say the group uses the region as a base and we're doomed,” said Fernando Brancoli at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

“Neither is correct."














Biden to sign executive order on immigration as early as this week: Sources

RACHEL SCOTT and LUKE BARR
Mon, June 3, 2024 
President Joe Biden is expected to sign an executive order on immigration as early as this week, according to sources familiar with the decision.

The long-awaited executive order would limit the number of migrants that would be allowed to claim asylum at the southern U.S. border. It would immediately send them back to Mexico to wait until the daily average goes down and, once it goes down, they would be able to claim asylum. The exact number that would trigger a pause on claiming asylum is still under deliberations, the sources said.

In recent days, members of Congress have been briefed on the executive action, according to sources familiar with the briefings.

Any executive order, administration officials caution, would be challenged in court.

"I anticipate that if the president would take executive action, and whatever that executive action would entail, it will be challenged in the court," Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters last month at Department of Homeland Security headquarters.

Mayorkas and other members of the administration have urged Congress to pass the bipartisan border bill that was negotiated and proposed earlier this year.

MORE: Unaccompanied minors are representing themselves in immigration court, alarming advocates

A spokesperson for Brownsville, Texas, Mayor John Cowen confirmed to ABC News that the White House invited him to a meeting at the White House on Tuesday for an immigration-related announcement, and he will be attending.

El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser also confirmed he is attending. He told ABC News in a statement: "El Paso is a welcoming community, and that makes me very proud, but no community can continue the effort and resources we've expended on this humanitarian crisis endlessly. We are appreciative of the funding we have received from the federal government so that our efforts don't fall on the backs of El Paso taxpayers, but our immigration system is broken, and it is critical that Congress work on a bipartisan long-term plan to work with other countries in order to create a more manageable, humane and sustainable immigration system for our country.

"I look forward to hearing more about the president's plan on Tuesday, and we stand ready to work with our partners at the local, state and federal level on this effort," he added.

ABC News' Armando García contributed to this report.

White House expected to unveil sweeping immigration order

Bernd Debusmann Jr - BBC News, Washington
Mon, June 3, 2024 

The number of migrant arrivals at the US-Mexico border has been steadily falling in 2024. [Getty Images]

President Joe Biden is expected to issue a sweeping new executive order aimed at curbing migrant arrivals at the US-Mexico border as early as Tuesday.

Under the planned order, US officials could swiftly deport migrants who enter the US illegally without processing their asylum requests once a daily threshold is met, according to CBS.

That, in turn, will allow border officials to limit the amount of migrant arrivals, three unnamed sources briefed on the expected order told CBS, the BBC's news partner.

More than 6.4 million migrants have been stopped crossing into the US illegally during Joe Biden's administration - a record high that has left him politically vulnerable as he campaigns for re-election.

Migrant arrivals have plummeted this year, however, although experts believe the trend is not likely to be sustainable.

CBS - the BBC's US partner - and other US news outlets have reported that Mr Biden has been mulling use of a 1952 law that allows access to the American asylum system to be restricted.

The law, known as 212(f), allows the US president to "suspend the entry" of foreigners if their arrival is "detrimental to the interests" of the country.

The same regulation was used by the Trump administration to ban immigration and travel from several predominantly Muslim countries and to bar migrants from asylum if they were apprehended crossing into the US illegally, provoking accusations of racism.

Asylum processing at ports of entry is expected to continue under the order. About 1,500 asylum seekers go through the process at official crossings each day, mostly after setting up appointments using a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) app known as CBP One.

Mayors of several border towns - including Brownsville and Edinburg, both in Texas - were expected to be in Washington for the president's announcement.

Democratic lawmakers have also been reportedly briefed on the plan.

The proposal, however, is likely to be challenged in court, either from immigration advocates or from Republican-led states.

A White House official told the BBC on Friday that no final decisions had been made on possible executive actions.

In a statement, a White House spokesperson noted that a bipartisan border security deal failed earlier this year as a result of opposition from Republicans in Congress.

"While Congressional Republicans chose to stand in the way of additional border enforcement, President Biden will not stop fighting to deliver the resources that border and immigrational personnel need to secure our border," the spokesperson said.

"As we have said before, the administration continues to explore a series of policy options and we remain committed to taking action to address our broken immigration system," the spokesperson added.

Republicans criticised the Biden border plan as an election-year ruse and argued that US laws already exist to prevent illegal immigration, but they were not being duly enforced by the Democratic president.

News of the potential executive order comes as numbers of migrant detentions at the US-Mexico border fall.

Recently released statistics from CBP show that about 179,000 migrant "encounters" were recorded in April.

In December, by comparison, the figure spiked to 302,000 - a historic high.

Officials in the US and Mexico have said that increased enforcement by Mexican authorities is largely responsible, although many experts have cautioned the reductions are unlikely to be permanent.

The decline in migrant crossings at the US border comes at a politically fraught time for President Biden.

Polls show that immigration is a primary electoral concern for many voters in the presidential election in November.

A Gallup poll at the end of April found that 27% of Americans view immigration as the most important issue facing the country, topping the economy and inflation.

A separate poll conducted in March by the Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that two-thirds of Americans now disapprove of Mr Biden's handling of the border, including about 40% of Democrat voters.

Biden prepares a tough executive order that would shut down asylum after 2,500 migrants arrive a day

SEUNG MIN KIM, STEPHEN GROVES and COLLEEN LONG
Mon, June 3, 2024 

President Joe Biden arrives on Marine One at Delaware Air National Guard Base in New Castle, Del., Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is telling lawmakers that President Joe Biden is preparing to sign off on an executive order that would shut down asylum requests to the U.S.-Mexico border once the number of daily encounters hits 2,500 between ports of entry, with the border reopening once that number declines to 1,500, according to several people familiar with the discussions.

The impact of the 2,500 figure means that the border could be closed to migrants seeking asylum effectively immediately, because daily figures are higher than that now.

The Democratic president is expected to unveil his actions — which mark his most aggressive unilateral move yet to control the numbers at the border — at the White House on Tuesday at an event to which border mayors have been invited.

Five people familiar with the discussions confirmed the 2,500 figure on Monday, while two of the people confirmed the 1,500 number. The figures are daily averages over the course of a week. All of the people insisted on anonymity to discuss an executive order that is not yet public. Other border activity, such as trade, is expected to continue.

Senior White House officials have been informing lawmakers on Capitol Hill of details of the planned order ahead of the formal rollout on Tuesday.

Biden has been deliberating for months to act on his own after bipartisan legislation to clamp down on asylum at the border collapsed at the behest of Republicans, who defected from the deal en masse at the urging of Donald Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Biden continued to consider executive action even though the number of illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border has declined for months, partly because of a stepped-up effort by Mexico.

Biden admin quietly dismisses over 350K asylum applications from immigrants since 2022: TRAC

Greg Wehner
FOX NEWS/AP
Sun, June 2, 2024 

As the White House finalizes plans for a U.S.-Mexico clampdown that would shut off asylum requests and automatically deny entrance to migrants once a threshold is met, the Biden administration has continued to allow hundreds of thousands of migrants to remain in the U.S. with what amounts to amnesty, according to a report.

A report released last month by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a nonpartisan data gathering organization that tracks immigration cases and backlogs shows that since 2022, over 350,000 asylum cases filed by migrants were closed by the U.S. government on the basis that those who filed did not have a criminal record or were not deemed a threat to the U.S.

Once cases are terminated without a decision on the merits of their asylum claim, the migrants are removed from the legal system, and they are not required to check in with authorities.

It also means the migrants can legally go anywhere they want inside the U.S. without having to worry about being deported.


JACUMBA HOT SPRINGS, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 20: Border patrol agents process asylum seekers at an improvised camp near the US-Mexico border on February 20, 2024 in Jacumba Hot Springs, California.

The New York Post reported that a memo sent out by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) principal legal advisor Kerry Doyle in 2022 told agency prosecutors to dismiss cases for migrants who do not pose a threat to national security.

TRAC’s data shows that in the same year, there were 173,227 applications for asylum filed. Of those applications, immigration judges ordered 36,250 of the applicants be removed from the U.S., granted asylum to 31,859 applicants. The other 102,550 applications were reportedly dismissed or taken off the books.

In 2023, there were 248,232 asylum applications filed, of which 52,440 applicants were ordered to be removed, 43,113 were granted asylum, and 149,305 were dismissed or taken off the books.


People, mainly from West African countries, line up outside the former St. Brigid School to apply for shelter, in New York City on December 7, 2023. There are approximately 66,000 asylum seekers currently housed in shelters in New York, which Mayor Eric Adams says is "managing a national migration crisis virtually single-handedly."More

So far in 2024, there have been 175,193 asylum applications and 113,843 applications dismissed.

The numbers are much higher than under the Trump administration, when in 2019 – before the pandemic – there were 87,018 asylum applications filed with 52,223 applicants removed from the country, 24,109 granted relief and 4,746 applications dismissed.

When cases are closed, migrants are no longer faced with deportation or removal proceedings. They are also not obligated to leave the U.S. as they are no longer being monitored by ICE.



June 2, 2022: ICE agents conduct an enforcement operation in the U.S. interior.

The applicants whose cases are dismissed are able to apply for asylum again or they can seek out other forms of legal status like a family-based or employment-based visa, or even Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).

The immigration court backlog has grown from 2.8 million at the end of Fiscal Year 2023 to nearly 3.6 million in FY 2024, with immigration judges being unable to keep up with the current flow of new cases into the system.

The number of new cases filed as well as the number of cases completed by immigration judges are both on pace to exceed all-time highs this year, the TRAC report notes, though the pace of completions will be unable to stem the growing backlog.


TOPSHOT - US President Joe Biden speaks with US Customs and Border Protection officers as he visits the US-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, on January 8, 2023.

The president has been weighing additional executive action since the collapse of a bipartisan border bill earlier this year. The number of illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border has declined for months, partly because of a stepped-up effort by Mexico. Still, immigration remains a top concern heading into the U.S. presidential election in November and Republicans are eager to hammer Biden on the issue.

The Democratic administration’s effort would aim to head off any potential spike in crossings that could occur later in the year, as the fall election draws closer, when the weather cools and numbers tend to rise. Four people familiar with Biden’s plans were not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing discussions and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The move would allow Biden, whose administration has taken smaller steps in recent weeks to discourage migration and speed up asylum processing, to say he has done all he can do to control the border numbers without help from Congress.

The restrictions being considered are an aggressive attempt to ease the nation's overwhelmed asylum system, along with a new effort to speed up the cases of migrants already in America and another meant to quicken processing for migrants with criminal records or those who would otherwise be eventually deemed ineligible for asylum in the United States.

The people told the AP that the administration was weighing some of the policies directly from a stalled bipartisan Senate border deal, including capping the number of encounters at an average of 4,000 per day over a week and whether that limit would include asylum-seekers coming to the border with appointments through U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s CBP One app. Right now, there are roughly 1,450 such appointments per day.

Fox News Digital’s Michael Lee and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Original article source: Biden admin quietly dismisses over 350K asylum applications from immigrants since 2022: TRAC