U.S. ESTA Travel Pass News

After a western Maryland area hit hard by torrential rains in May disaster assistance was denied from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), state lawmakers and local leaders are protesting.

The state of Maryland formally requested federal disaster relief immediately after the floods, and although the area met federal standards, FEMA denied the request with a simple letter and no specific reason. “It just said ‘denied,’ no explanation,” one state official said. The decision by FEMA stands in stark contrast to President Donald Trump’s announcement on Twitter the same day that FEMA had approved $11.7 million in disaster assistance for West Virginia, which was hit by flooding and tornadoes in June. “This decision really hit me in the gut,” said Senator Mike McKay (R-West Maryland), expressing his disappointment. “I expect FEMA to provide more detailed explanations as to why this was denied.”

The torrential rains from May 12 to 14 (pictured) caused Georges Creek to rise more than 12 feet above the major flood level, Walls Creek in Coverland rose eight feet, and the Potomac River overflowed. Midland, Ronaconing, and Westernport were among the hardest hit. Some areas were evacuated.

Maryland Gov. Wes More visited the area immediately after the rains and declared a state of emergency, immediately requesting federal assistance from FEMA. In a statement released on the 23rd, he said, “Over 200 homes, numerous businesses, roads, bridges, railroads, sewer and water systems, and public facilities were damaged,” and “the total damage is approximately $90 million.”

Governor Moore emphasized, “This flood clearly met FEMA’s criteria for disaster assistance,” and “The residents of this area faithfully followed FEMA’s assessment criteria, and we will appeal this decision and mobilize all available resources to support recovery.” Maryland state government plans to file an official appeal against FEMA’s denial decision, and is also providing emergency assistance at the state level separately. The local community is unable to hide its anger and disappointment over the federal government’s decision, saying, “We have been turned away.”

As large-scale arrests and deportations of illegal immigrants continue across the United States, it has been revealed that large numbers of illegal immigrants without criminal records have been arrested in the Washington area.

Local media outlet Axios DC reported this on the 23rd in an article titled “ICE Sees Surge in Non-Criminal Arrests,” citing recent data from the UC Berkeley School of Law’s Deportation Data Project. According to the outlet, of the 852 illegal immigrants arrested by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Virginia and Washington, D.C. in early June, a whopping 60% (515 people) had no criminal charges or convictions, and in May, about 50% were illegal immigrants without criminal records.

In Maryland, the rate was somewhat lower than in Virginia or Washington, D.C., but 49 percent of illegal immigrants arrested in May had no criminal record, and that number had risen to 55 percent in early June. Of the people arrested in the Washington area in early June, 194 had criminal records, and 143 had been charged but not yet convicted.

The outlet reported that ICE had not arrested any illegal immigrants without criminal records in the Washington area in January, and that the recent surge in arrests of illegal immigrants without criminal records came shortly after immigration agents were quota-bound to make 3,000 arrests per day.

Nationwide, an average of 47 percent of illegal immigrants arrested by ICE in early June had no criminal records, more than doubling from about 21 percent in May. Recently, immigration authorities have been deploying many personnel to carry out intensive operations to arrest illegal immigrants in so-called ‘sanctuary cities’ such as the Washington area, New York, and LA that are uncooperative with the crackdown on illegal immigrants.

Immigrant communities in the Inland Empire are on edge after federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were seen entering a grocery store on the 21st to raid undocumented immigrants.

Footage shared by the Inland Immigrant Justice Coalition on the 21st shows federal agents entering a Stater Brothers grocery store in Ontario. Status Brothers says ICE agents notified the store manager without warning that they were following a person they were monitoring at a nearby donut shop into the grocery store.

Ontario police responded to the scene that day after receiving a report and confirmed that federal agents were on official duty at the scene and explained that there was no further involvement or role.

There were unconfirmed reports that three people, including citizens, were temporarily detained because of the raid that day, but the Department of Homeland Security did not provide specific explanation. Concerns are growing in the community about the unexpected raid by federal agents and the lukewarm response of the police.

Democratic politicians including Rep. Andy Kimissue statement condemning “using the US military as a political tool”

The Donald Trump administration’s plan to use a military base in southern New Jersey as an immigrant detention facility has sparked controversy. According to Rep. Herb Conaway (D, NJ 3rd District), Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth notified the administration on the 15th of a plan to set up a temporary illegal alien detention facility on the grounds of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in Burlington County, New Jersey.

Secretary of Defense Hegseth said, “I am writing this letter to inform you that providing the land on this military base for the Department of Homeland Security’s temporary facility for detaining illegal immigrants will not negatively impact our military needs, such as training and operations.”

However, New Jersey Democratic politicians, including Rep. Conaway and U.S. Senator Andy Kim, immediately issued a statement condemning the use of the U.S. military as a domestic political tool.

They strongly condemned the Trump administration’s decision to use a military base in New Jersey for immigrant detention, saying, “This is an inappropriate use of our national defense system and military resources.”

If an immigrant detention facility is built on this military base, New Jersey will have two new immigrant detention facilities this year alone. The Delaney Hall immigrant detention facility in Newark opened amid controversy in May.

According to the Pew Research Center, the number of illegal immigrants in New Jersey is estimated at 475,000.

As the Donald Trump administration froze funding for after-school programs and summer camps for children from low-income families, more than 20 states, including New York and New Jersey, have filed lawsuits demanding that support be restored.

According to the Associated Press, 24 states, led by New York, have filed lawsuits against the federal government, claiming that the Trump administration’s freeze on after-school programs and summer camps violates the Constitution and multiple federal laws.

Programs that have been cut off from education funding include the Boys and Girls Clubs for children and youth, as well as after-school programs and summer vacation programs at public schools. Programs run by organizations such as the YMCA and Save the Children are also at risk of closure.

The Trump administration suspects that these programs support illegal immigrant families or provide inclusive education for sexual minorities and has withheld funding until it can verify that the programs are consistent with the values pursued by President Trump, AP explained.

Since taking office, President Trump has been pushing for changes to campus policies and school education programs at major universities, saying he will eradicate the discourse on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

A man in his 30s who had been storing 112 illegal firearms in his home in Suffolk County was arrested on charges of illegal firearm possession and firearm trafficking.

According to the Suffolk County Prosecutor’s Office, a total of 112 illegal firearms, including 12 firearms made with a 3D printer, were found during a search of a home in Medford on the 9th.

Daniel Probeck (35), who lived in the home, was arrested and charged with first- and second-degree firearm sales and first- and second-degree illegal firearm possession. Probeck made a profit by making “ghost guns,” so-called firearms without serial numbers, using firearm parts made with a 3D printer at home and selling them. Probeck’s home was searched and seized after an investigation into the local firearms market that began in March.

Probeck, who is scheduled to appear in court on the 5th of next month, faces up to 25 years in prison if found guilty.

The Supreme Court has cleared the way for President Donald Trump’s massive federal layoffs.

According to Bloomberg, Reuters, and others, the Supreme Court on the 9th temporarily nullified a lower court ruling that had put the brakes on federal government reorganization and workforce restructuring. This Supreme Court decision was made in response to the Trump administration’s request for emergency intervention and will remain in effect while the main case is being heard.

The Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration is likely to succeed in asserting that the executive order for government restructuring, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) of the White House, and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) are legal. However, the Supreme Court made it clear that it will not take a specific position on whether the implementation plans of individual agencies meet legal standards at this stage.

With this decision, President Trump has achieved a political victory in his plan to reorganize the bureaucracy to support his policy direction at the start of his second term. The New York Times (NYT) evaluated that this decision is technically a temporary measure, but it grants him the discretion to restructure as he pleases.

In February of this year, President Trump signed an executive order stating that the purpose is to improve government efficiency and optimize human resources and assigned the work to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). As a result, tens of thousands of public sector workers, including civil servants, are at risk of losing their jobs in the process of downsizing and reducing personnel in organizations that do not conform to the MAGA (Make America Great Again) slogan.

Public sector workers, including federal workers, began filing lawsuits, claiming that the president’s arbitrary and excessive reorganization of agencies that operate under laws enacted by Congress is unconstitutional. In a recent ruling, U.S. District Judge Susan Ilston of the San Francisco District Court in California blocked the Trump administration’s restructuring plan, saying that federal agencies would be unable to perform the work authorized by Congress.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently upheld Judge Ilston’s ruling, prompting the Trump administration to request emergency intervention from the Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court is 6-3 conservative and 6-3 liberal and is considered to have made many decisions that are favorable to the Trump administration’s policies.

Liberal Justice Curtangie Brown Jackson wrote a dissenting opinion declaring the Trump administration’s mass layoff plan illegal. The public sector labor groups that initially filed the lawsuit argued in a statement that “this decision is a serious blow to our democracy and puts the services that Americans rely on at risk.” They emphasized that “this Supreme Court ruling does not change the simple fact that the Constitution does not permit dangerous reorganization of government functions and mass layoffs of federal workers without congressional approval.”

As President Donald Trump pursues a policy of abolishing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, universities, companies, and charities in the U.S. are reforming their scholarship systems based on race, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on the 5th.

According to data from the National Scholarship Providers Association (NSPA), the total amount of scholarships in the U.S. based on race, ethnicity, or gender amounted to $56 million as of June, a 25% decrease from March 2023.

The NSPA statistics do not compile all scholarships in the U.S., which amount to trillions of dollars a year, but they serve as an indicator of recent reforms to the scholarship system, the newspaper explained.

Since the Trump administration took office, the U.S. Department of Education has notified universities that federal funding may be cut off if they use race as a criterion for financial support for school members. In fact, the University of Michigan alumni association suspended its LEAD scholarship program in March to comply with federal guidelines.

This scholarship program, which began in 2008, had been providing scholarships to black, Native American, and Latino students. Illinois State University, Northwestern University, Loyola University in Chicago, and the University of Chicago have also withdrawn their race-based scholarship programs or suspended their operations for internal evaluation.

The Gates Foundation also removed race or ethnicity from its scholarship criteria in April and made it possible for all students who are eligible for the federal government scholarship, the Pell Grant, to apply for scholarships.

This was after a petition was filed with the IRS asking the Gates Foundation to review its tax-exempt status, claiming that it discriminates against white students.

“We are seeing scholarship providers reorganize their programs because of concerns about litigation,” said Jackie Bright, president of the NSPA.

Although the United States claims that the bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities was a legitimate measure for international security, some are pointing out that this would not have happened if President Donald Trump had not unilaterally withdrawn from the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) in 2018.

On the 28th, the New York Times (NYT) reported the opinions of nuclear experts that the US military’s attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities on the 22nd was a measure by President Trump to offset the threats he had brought upon himself in the past.

Robert Einhorn, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who dealt with the Iranian nuclear issue at the US State Department during the Barack Obama administration, said, “If the first Trump administration had not withdrawn from the Iran nuclear deal, we would not have needed to bomb uranium metal production facilities today.”

Michael Rubell, a physics professor at the City University of New York who has federal access to government secrets related to nuclear weapons, had a similar opinion, saying, “President Trump has created this mess.” “There is no doubt that the Iran nuclear deal was working,” he said. “He tore up the deal, created chaos, and now he’s saying, ‘I’m the savior.’

” They believe that if President Trump had not torn up the Iran nuclear deal, which was led by the Obama administration in 2015, in 2018, the “uranium metal conversion facility,” which was the main target of the recent US bombing, would not have been built.

The Iran nuclear deal was basically about Iran freezing or reducing some of its nuclear program in exchange for the West easing economic sanctions on Iran. It also included a ban on converting enriched uranium gas into high-density metal that can be used as nuclear fuel for a nuclear bomb.

The metallization process is one of the final steps in creating the explosive core of a nuclear weapon. But President Trump has called the deal a “giant fiction,” and has reimposed severe sanctions on Iran after pulling out of the nuclear deal.

With the deal gone, Iran has begun construction of a uranium metallization facility, formalizing plans to start the process by the end of 2020.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported in February 2021 that Iran had begun producing uranium metal at its Isfahan nuclear facility. The amount was only 3.6 grams, but nuclear experts saw this as a dramatic escalation in Iran’s weapons threat.

Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran’s nuclear facility on the 13th, focusing on the uranium metallization facility in Isfahan, and the United States, which then participated in the war, launched Tomahawk cruise missiles at Isfahan to expand the scale of the destruction.

Nuclear experts believe that these Israeli and US attacks have temporarily destroyed Iran’s ability to make a nuclear bomb, especially its ability to handle the explosive core.

The White House responded to the claim that the Iran problem was brought upon by President Trump, saying, “President Trump was right on every count,” and “The United States should never have participated in Obama’s horrible Iran nuclear deal.”

He emphasized, “President Trump has put into practice what past presidents have only talked about. The Iranian nuclear program has been eliminated, a historic ceasefire agreement has been brokered, and the world has become safer.”

Republican Senator Thom Tillis (North Carolina), who has been attacked by President Donald Trump for opposing his key bills, has decided not to run for reelection.

According to the Associated Press and other sources, Tillis released a statement on the 29th, saying he would not seek a third term in the midterm elections scheduled for next November.

Tillis said, “Over the past few years, it has become increasingly clear that leaders who embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and independent thinking are becoming an endangered species in Washington.”

Tillis said he was proud of his track record of public service, but that the political environment has become difficult for those who act independently of the party line.

“I look forward to having the full freedom to make the decisions I think are right” he said.

Tillis was one of two Republicans who voted against President Trump’s key tax reform bill, a necessary hurdle before the Senate floor debated it the previous day.

The tax reform bill includes a major cut in Medicaid spending to fulfill President Trump’s tax cut pledge. Tillis opposed the bill because it would be a huge blow to North Carolinians if it were to pass as is.

North Carolina, which Tillis represents, is one of the most competitive swing states for Democrats and is also a place where Republicans cannot be sure of a victory in next year’s midterm elections .Republicans hold 53 of the 100 seats in the Senate, so they won the vote the day before by a vote of 51 to 49 despite objections from Rep. Tillis and others. However, President Trump fiercely criticized Rep. Tillis for not voting as he had requested.

President Trump said on social media the previous day, “A lot of people have come forward saying they want to run against Senator Thom Tillis in the primary. I will be meeting with them in the coming weeks to find someone who can properly represent the great people of North Carolina.”

This is essentially threatening to support another candidate in the Republican primary to be held ahead of the midterm elections next year and to defeat Senator Tillis.

President Trump also criticized Thom Tillis on social media that day, saying, “Thom Tillis is a man who talks and complains, but does not act.”

With incumbent Senator Tillis declaring that he will not run, the Republican Party will have to nominate a new candidate for the midterm elections next year.

According to NBC News, a source close to the Trump family said that President Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, is “strongly considering” running. NBC News also reported that incumbent U.S. House of Representatives members Richard Hudson and Patrick Harrigan, who represent North Carolina, are also likely to run.