WASHINGTON: Bargainers seeking a bipartisan immigration accord planned talks as soon as Wednesday as President Donald Trump and leading lawmakers sought to parlay an extraordinary White House meeting into momentum for resolving a politically blistering issue.
Facing a Jan. 19 deadline for averting an election-year government shutdown, negotiators were seeking a formula for reviving protections against deportation that Trump has ended for nearly 800,000 immigrants who arrived illegally in the US as children. In exchange, Trump and Republicans want toughened border protections and tightened restrictions on others trying to migrate to this country.
“I’ll take all the heat you want,” Trump told nearly two dozen lawmakers Tuesday at the White House for a meeting that began with a startling 55 minutes in which reporters and TV cameras watched. “But you are not that far away from comprehensive immigration reform.”
Trump said an immigration deal could be reached in two phases — first by addressing young immigrants and border security with what he called a “bill of love,” then by making comprehensive changes that have long eluded Congress. That second bill would likely face long odds for passage, considering long-running disagreements over issues like how to handle all 11 million immigrants illegally in the US
Republicans will need Democratic votes to prevent a federal shutdown in 10 days, votes Democrats have threatened to withhold without an immigration agreement.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told reporters talks would begin as early as Wednesday, adding, “And we’ll solve this problem and find common ground.”
Negotiations over the DACA program may be more complicated in light of a federal judge’s ruling Tuesday night to block temporarily the administration’s decision to end the program. In doing so, US District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco granted a request by California and other plaintiffs to let lawsuits over the administration’s decision play out in court.
Alsup said lawyers in favor of DACA clearly demonstrated that the young immigrants “were likely to suffer serious, irreparable harm” without court action. The judge also said the lawyers had a strong chance of succeeding at trial.
After Trump and lawmakers spent time meeting privately, the White House and numerous lawmakers said there was agreement to limit the immediate bill to four areas. These were border security, family-based “chain migration,” a visa lottery that draws people from diverse countries and how to revive the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
That Obama-era program has given hundreds of thousands — the so-called Dreamers — a shield from deportation and the right to work legally. Trump ended it last year but gave Congress until March 5 to find a fix, and Tuesday he signaled flexibility.
“I think my positions are going to be what the people in this room come up with,” Trump said during the Cabinet Room meeting.
Trump even flashed some give on his cherished plan to build a wall along the border with Mexico, perhaps his highest profiled pledge from last year’s presidential campaign. That proposal has been strongly opposed by Democrats and many Republicans as a futile waste of money.
Trump said it need not be a “2,000-mile wall. We don’t need a wall where you have rivers and mountains and everything else protecting it. But we do need a wall for a fairly good portion.” He’d made similar statements last year, but this time it was in the context of negotiations for actual legislation.
Both parties were already showing signs of divisions over how much to give in upcoming talks. But one conservative foe of giving ground acknowledged the impact of Trump’s support.
“There are scores of Republicans who have shifted their position to follow the president,” said Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa. He said while he helped head off a bipartisan immigration effort in 2013, “I don’t want to promise the result will be the same. This is more momentum than I have ever seen.”
Among Democrats, Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, who attended the White House meeting, said he was open to negotiations on the four issues bargainers will address.
But Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Arizona, who was not there and like Cuellar is a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said he favored a narrow bill protecting Dreamers with perhaps something negotiable on border security.
“They took the hostage,” Gallego said of Trump’s action that would end Dreamers’ protections. “We’re not going to pay for it.”
One attendee, No. 2 Senate Democratic leader Dick Durbin of Illinois, said, “The sense of urgency, the commitment to DACA, the fact that the president said to me privately as well as publicly, ‘I want to get this done,’ I’m going to take him as his word.”
Underscoring the effort’s fresh momentum, the head of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Rep. Michelle Grisham Lujan, D-N.M., said late Tuesday she was “encouraged” by Trump’s words and would work “in good faith” toward a deal. Some of the group’s members have taken a hard line against surrendering too much in a compromise with Trump.
Conservatives quickly sounded alarms about a process that would lead to a comprehensive agreement on immigration, a path that has long been anathema to many rank-and-file Republicans.
US lawmakers seek deal on immigration, border security
US lawmakers seek deal on immigration, border security
California governor says ‘democracy is under assault’ by Trump as feds intervene in LA protests
- Gavin Newsom: ‘California may be first, but it clearly will not end here. Other states are next’
- California governor is head of the heavily Democratic state known as the epicenter of the so-called Trump resistance
LOS ANGELES: Calling President Donald Trump a threat to the American way of life, Governor Gavin Newsom depicted the federal military intervention in Los Angeles as the onset of a much broader effort by Trump to overturn political and cultural norms at the heart of the nation’s democracy.
In a speech Tuesday evening, the potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate said the arrival of National Guard and Marine troops in the city at Trump’s direction was not simply about quelling protests that followed a series of immigration raids by federal authorities. Instead, he said, it was part of a calculated “war” intended to upend the foundations of society and concentrate power in the White House.
“California may be first, but it clearly will not end here. Other states are next,” a somber Newsom warned, seated before the US and California flags. “Democracy is next. Democracy is under assault before our eyes. This moment we have feared has arrived.”
As head of the heavily Democratic state known as the epicenter of the so-called Trump resistance, Newsom and the Republican president have long been adversaries. But the governor’s speech delivered in prime time argued that Trump was not just a threat to democracy, but was actively working to break down its guardrails that reach back to the nation’s founding.
″He’s declared a war. A war on culture, on history, on science, on knowledge itself,” Newsom said. “He’s delegitimizing news organizations, and he’s assaulting the First Amendment.”
Newsom added that Trump is attacking law firms and the judicial branch – “the foundations of an orderly and civil society.”
“It’s time for all of us to stand up,” Newsom said, urging any protests to be peaceful. “What Donald Trump wants most is your fealty, your silence, to be complicit in this moment. Do not give in to him.”
His speech came the same day that Newsom asked a court to put an emergency stop to the military helping federal immigration agents, with some guardsmen now standing in protective gauntlet around agents as they carried out arrests. The judge chose not to rule immediately, giving the Trump administration several days to continue those activities before a hearing Thursday.
Trump has activated more than 4,000 National Guard members and 700 Marines over the objections of city and state leaders, though the Marines have not yet been spotted in Los Angeles and Guard troops have had limited engagement with protesters. They were originally deployed to protect federal buildings.
Newsom’s speech capped several days of acidic exchanges between Trump and Newsom, that included the president appearing to endorse Newsom’s arrest if he interfered with federal immigration enforcement. “I think it’s great. Gavin likes the publicity, but I think it would be a great thing,” Trump told reporters.
Over the years, Trump has threatened to intercede in California’s long-running homeless crisis, vowed to withhold federal wildfire aid as political leverage in a dispute over water rights, called on police to shoot people robbing stores and warned residents that “your children are in danger” because of illegal immigration.
Trump relishes insulting the two-term governor and former San Francisco mayor – frequently referring to him as Gov. “New-scum” – and earlier this year faulted the governor for Southern California’s deadly wildfires.
Trump has argued that the city was in danger of being overrun by violent protesters, while Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass have called the federal intervention an unneeded – and potentially dangerous – overreaction.
The demonstrations have been mostly concentrated in the city’s downtown hub. Demonstrations have spread to other cities in the state and nationwide, including Dallas and Austin, Texas, Chicago and New York City, where a thousand people rallied and multiple arrests were made.
Trump left open the possibility of invoking the Insurrection Act, which authorizes the president to deploy military forces inside the US to suppress rebellion or domestic violence or to enforce the law in certain situations. It’s one of the most extreme emergency powers available to a US president.
“If there’s an insurrection, I would certainly invoke it. We’ll see,” he said from the Oval Office.
Ukraine says Russian strikes hit Kharkiv, killing two
- The State Emergency Service of Ukraine said eight children were wounded in the attack
- Peace talks in Turkiye last week failed to yield a breakthrough toward ending the conflict
KYIV; killed two people and wounded 54 including children early Wednesday, authorities said, as Moscow pushed ahead with its relentless attacks after rejecting an unconditional ceasefire.
“Seventeen strikes by enemy UAVs (drones) were carried out in two districts of the city tonight,” Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov said on Telegram, later adding that 37 people were wounded and “several people were rescued from houses engulfed in flames.”
The State Emergency Service of Ukraine said eight children were wounded in the attack.
Russia has escalated its bombardments of Ukraine despite US President Donald Trump urging Moscow to end its three-year invasion, with Kyiv launching retaliatory attacks deep inside Russian territory.
After a previous overnight barrage of more than 300 drones and seven missiles on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged Kyiv’s Western allies to respond with “concrete action.”
“Action from America, which has the power to force Russia into peace. Action from Europe, which has no alternative but to be strong,” Zelensky wrote on social media.
Peace talks in Turkiye last week failed to yield a breakthrough toward ending the conflict, with Russia rejecting calls for an unconditional ceasefire and demanding Ukraine give up its territory and bid to join NATO.
But the two sides agreed to swap more than 1,000 prisoners of war and hand over the bodies of dead soldiers, swapping groups of captured soldiers on Monday and Tuesday.
Kharkhiv, which lies less than 50 kilometers from the Russian border, has been hit by a surge in large-scale nighttime attacks over the past week.
Wednesday’s strikes left a five-story building on fire in Slobidskyi district, while several houses were hit in Osnovyansky district, Mayor Terekhov said.
He said “there may be people trapped under the rubble.”
The attack came after Russia pummelled the city on Saturday in what Terekhov called “the most powerful attack” on Kharkiv since the start of the war.
Four people were killed and more than 50 wounded as homes and apartment blocks were hit overnight and guided bombs were dropped on the city on Saturday afternoon.
Ukraine is also stepping up its drone attacks on Russia, targeting military production and bases.
On Tuesday, one person was killed and four others wounded in a drone attack that destroyed a convenience store in the Russian region of Belgorod, according to Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.
Nevertheless, the two sides carried out a second prisoner of war swap on Tuesday.
The deal should see the freeing of all captured soldiers under the age of 25, as well as those who are sick or severely wounded, though neither side has specified the number of soldiers involved.
But Zelensky has said it is “pointless” to hold further talks with the current Russian delegation – who he previously dismissed as “empty heads” – since they could not agree to a ceasefire.
As a condition for halting its invasion, Russia has demanded that Ukraine cede the territories Moscow says it has annexed and forswear joining NATO.
It has also rejected a proposed 30-day unconditional ceasefire sought by Kyiv and the European Union, arguing that this would allow Ukrainian forces to rearm with Western deliveries.
Ukraine is demanding a complete Russian withdrawal of from its territory and security guarantees from the West.
The US and China have agreed on a framework to resolve their trade disputes
LONDON: Senior US and Chinese negotiators have agreed on a framework to move forward on trade talks after a series of disputes had threatened to derail them, Chinese state media said Wednesday.
The announcement followed two days of talks in the British capital that ended late Tuesday.
The disputes had shaken a fragile truce reached in Geneva last month, leading to a phone call last week between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to try to calm the waters.
Li Chenggang, a vice minister of commerce and China’s international trade representative, said the two sides had agreed in principle on a framework for implementing the consensus reached between the two leaders and at the talks on Geneva, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Further details, including any plans for a potential next round of talks, were not immediately available.
Li and Wang Wentao, China’s commerce minister, were part of the delegation led by Vice Premier He Lifeng. They met with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer at Lancaster House, a 200-year-old mansion near Buckingham Palace.
Wendy Cutler, a former US trade negotiator, said the disputes had frittered away 30 of the 90 days the two sides have to try to resolve their disputes.
They had agreed in Geneva to a 90-day suspension of most of the 100 percent-plus tariffs they had imposed on each other in an escalating trade war that had sparked fears of recession.
“The US and China lost valuable time in restoring their Geneva agreements,” said Cutler, now vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “Now, only sixty days remain to address issues of concern, including unfair trade practices, excess capacity, transshipment and fentanyl.”
Since the Geneva talks, the US and China have exchanged angry words over advanced semiconductors that power artificial intelligence, visas for Chinese students at American universities and rare earth minerals that are vital to carmakers and other industries.
China, the world’s biggest producer of rare earths, has signaled it may ease export restrictions it placed on the elements in April. The restrictions alarmed automakers around the world who rely on them. Beijing, in turn, wants the US to lift restrictions on Chinese access to the technology used to make advanced semiconductors.
Cutler said it would be unprecedented for the US to negotiate on its export controls, which she described as an irritant that China has been raising for nearly 20 years.
“By doing so, the US has opened a door for China to insist on adding export controls to future negotiating agendas,” she said.
Trump said earlier that he wants to “open up China,” the world’s dominant manufacturer, to US products.
“If we don’t open up China, maybe we won’t do anything,” Trump said at the White House. “But we want to open up China.”
Pakistan hikes defense budget 20% following conflict with India, but overall spending is cut
- Finance minister says 14 percent of the proposed 17.57 trillion rupees ($62 billion) budget will go to the military
- India in February increased its defense spending by 9.5 percent to a record high of $78.8 billion for 2025-2026
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has hiked defense spending by 20 percent following last month’s deadly conflict with India.
The government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced the increase as part of the budget for the fiscal year 2025-26, in which overall spending will be cut by 7 percent to 17.57 trillion rupees ($62 billion).
Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb presented the budget to parliament on Tuesday evening, allocating 14 percent to the military.
It comes after Pakistan’s government announced Friday on social media that it was in discussions to acquire 40 new Chinese fighter jets and new air defense systems.
Pakistan and India were pushed to the brink of war earlier this year after a gun massacre of tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir, marking the biggest breakdown in relations between them since 2019.
More than 70 people were killed in the four-day conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbors in May before a ceasefire was announced.
Aurangzeb said the government was allocating 2.55 trillion rupees ($9 billion) for defense compared with 2.12 trillion rupees in the previous budget.
India in February increased its defense spending by 9.5 percent to a record high of $78.8 billion for 2025-2026.
Sharif told the Cabinet: “All economic indicators are satisfactory. After defeating India in a conventional war, now we have to go beyond it in the economic field as well.”
Opposition members of the National Assembly verbally abused Aurangzeb, chanting slogans, throwing scrunched-up copies of the budget at him, whistling, and banging their desks as he gave his address.
The coming year’s defense allocation is considerably more than the government’s expenditure on higher education, agricultural development, and mitigating climate-related risks, to which Pakistan is especially prone.
Brink of default
Pakistan came to the brink of default in 2023, as a political crisis compounded an economic downturn and drove the nation’s debt burden to terminal levels, before it was saved by a $7 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund.
It has since then enjoyed a degree of recovery, with inflation easing and foreign exchange reserves increasing.
“We have moved in the right direction,” Aurangzeb said at a briefing ahead of the budget announcement in parliament.
“Any transformation takes two to three years and we have done a good job in terms of where we wanted to take things.”
The budget will be voted on by parliament later this month, but the government’s safe majority means only minor changes are expected.
An economic survey released on Monday for the outgoing fiscal year which ends on June 30, showed that the country missed almost all the targets set at the beginning of the year, with GDP expected to grow by 2.7 percent — falling short of the initial 3.6 percent target set in the last budget.
The government has set an ambitious target of 4.2 percent GDP growth for the next fiscal year.
The budget set aside 8 trillion rupees ($28.4 billion) to service its huge amount of debt.
A World Bank report said last week that nearly 45 percent of Pakistan’s 240 million population is living below the poverty line, while the country’s literacy rate stands at 61 percent.
It is the government’s second budget since coming to power last year, in an election which saw the wildly popular leader Imran Khan jailed for charges he says were politically motivated.
Los Angeles mayor imposes curfew on downtown following increased nighttime violence
- The curfew is a necessary measure to protect lives and safeguard property following several consecutive days of growing unrest throughout the city
LOS ANGELES: Mayor Karen Bass issued a curfew for downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday “to stop the vandalism, to stop the looting.”
She said in a news conference that she had declared a local emergency and that the curfew will run from 8 p.m. Tuesday until 6 a.m. Wednesday.
“We reached a tipping point” after 23 businesses were looted, Bass said.
The curfew will be in place in a 1 square mile (2.59 square kilometer) section of downtown that includes the area where protests have occurred since Friday. The city of Los Angeles encompasses roughly 500 square miles (2,295 square kilometers).
The curfew doesn’t apply to residents who live in the designated area, people who are homeless, credentialed media or public safety and emergency officials, according to Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell.
McDonnell said “unlawful and dangerous behavior” had been escalating since Saturday.
“The curfew is a necessary measure to protect lives and safeguard property following several consecutive days of growing unrest throughout the city,” McDonnell said.
Earlier Tuesday, National Guard troops began protecting immigration agents as they made arrests in Los Angeles on Tuesday, an expansion of their duties that had been limited to protecting federal property. Photos posted Tuesday by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement show National Guard troops standing guard around officers as they made arrests.
ICE said in a statement that the troops were providing security at federal facilities and protecting federal officers “who are out on daily enforcement operations.” The change moves troops closer to engaging in law enforcement actions like deportations as President Donald Trump has promised as part of the administration’s immigration crackdown.
The agency said Guard members are also providing support with transportation. The Guard has the authority to temporarily detain people who attack officers but any arrests ultimately would be made by law enforcement.
National Guard troops and Marines deployed to LA
California Gov. Gavin Newsom had asked a federal court to block the Trump administration from using the National Guard and Marines to assist with immigration raids in Los Angeles, saying it would only heighten tensions and promote civil unrest.
Newsom filed the emergency request after Trump ordered the deployment to LA of roughly 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines following protests of the president’s stepped-up enforcement of immigration laws.
The federal government said Newsom was seeking an unprecedented and dangerous order that would interfere with its ability to carry out enforcement operations. A judge set a hearing for Thursday.
The Marines and another 2,000 National Guard troops were sent to LA on Monday, adding to a military presence that local officials and Newsom do not want and that the police chief says makes it harder to handle the protests safely.
Marine Corps Gen. Eric Smith said Tuesday that the Marines had not yet been called to respond to the protests and were there only to protect federal officials and property. The Marines were trained for crowd control but have no arrest authority, Smith told a budget hearing on Capitol Hill.
Marines were not seen on the streets yet, while National guard troops so far have had limited engagement with protesters.
Trump says he’s open to using Insurrection Act
Trump left open the possibility of invoking the Insurrection Act, which authorizes the president to deploy military forces inside the US to suppress rebellion or domestic violence or to enforce the law in certain situations. It’s one of the most extreme emergency powers available to a US president.
“If there’s an insurrection, I would certainly invoke it. We’ll see,” he said from the Oval Office.
Later the president called protesters “animals” and “a foreign enemy” in a speech at Fort Bragg ostensibly to recognize the 250th anniversary of the US Army.
Trump has described Los Angeles in dire terms that Mayor Karen Bass and Newsom say are nowhere close to the truth.
The protests began Friday after federal immigration raids arrested dozens of workers in Los Angeles. Protesters blocked a major freeway and set cars on fire over the weekend, and police responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades.
The demonstrations have been mostly concentrated downtown in the city of 4 million and have been far less raucous since the weekend. Thousands of people have peacefully rallied outside City Hall and hundreds more protested outside a federal complex that includes a detention center where some immigrants are being held following workplace raids.
Several businesses were broken into Monday, though authorities didn’t say if the looting was tied to the protests. Nejdeh Avedian, general manager at St. Vincent Jewelry Center in the Los Angeles Jewelry District said the protesters had already left, and “these guys were just opportunists,” though St. Vincent’s had armed guards and was left alone.
Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement Tuesday that protesters have hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails at law enforcement, set vehicles on fire, defaced buildings and public property and set fire to American flags.
The Los Angeles Police Department said there have been more than 100 arrests. The vast majority were for failing to disperse, while a few others were for assault with a deadly weapon, looting, vandalism and attempted murder for tossing a Molotov cocktail. Seven police officers were reportedly injured, and at least two were taken to a hospital and released.
On Tuesday, a few dozen protesters gathered peacefully in front of the federal complex, which was quickly declared an unlawful assembly. Police issued a dispersal order and corralled the protesters, telling members of the media to stay out to avoid getting hurt. Officers with zip ties then started making arrests.
Obscene slogans directed at Trump and federal law enforcement remained scrawled across several buildings. At the Walt Disney Concert Hall, workers were busy washing away graffiti Tuesday.
In nearby Santa Ana, armored Guard vehicles blocked a road leading to federal immigration and government offices.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested Tuesday that the use of troops inside the US will continue to expand.
“I think we’re entering another phase, especially under President Trump with his focus on the homeland, where the National Guard and Reserves become a critical component of how we secure that homeland,” he said on Capitol Hill.
Los Angeles officials say police don’t need help
The mayor and the governor say Trump is putting public safety at risk by adding military personnel even though police say they don’t need the help.
Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said he was confident in the police department’s ability to handle the demonstrations and that the Marines’ arrival without coordinating with police would present a “significant logistical and operational challenge.”
Demonstrations have spread to other cities nationwide, including San Francisco, as well as Dallas and Austin, Texas, Chicago and New York City, where a thousand people rallied and multiple arrests were made.
LA response takes stage on Capitol Hill
The Pentagon said deploying the National Guard and Marines costs $134 million.
Meanwhile, Democratic members of California’s congressional delegation on Tuesday accused the president of creating a “manufactured crisis.”
On Monday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit seeking to halt the deployment.
Trump said the city would have been “completely obliterated” if he had not deployed the Guard.
The deployment appeared to be the first time in decades that a state’s National Guard was activated without a request from its governor, a significant escalation against those who have sought to hinder the administration’s mass deportation efforts.
