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The Salvadoran migrant at the heart of a row over President Donald Trump’s hardline deportation policies was returned to the United States on Friday and arrested on human smuggling charges.Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was brought back to the United States from El Salvador and charged with trafficking undocumented migrants, Attorney General Pam Bondi said.”Abrego Garcia has landed in the United States to face justice,” Bondi said at a press conference.The US Supreme Court had ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia after he was mistakenly deported in March to a notorious maximum security prison in El Salvador.But Bondi insisted to reporters that his return to the United States resulted from an arrest warrant presented to Salvadoran authorities.”We’re grateful to (Salvadoran) President (Nayib) Bukele for agreeing to return him to our country to face these very serious charges,” she said.In a post on X, Bukele said “we work with the Trump administration, and if they request the return of a gang member to face charges, of course we wouldn’t refuse.”Trump, in remarks to reporters Friday, described Abrego Garcia as a “pretty bad guy” and said he “should’ve never had to be returned.”White House deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson said Abrego Garcia’s return “has nothing to do with his original deportation.””There was no mistake,” Jackson said on X. “He’s returning because a new investigation has revealed crimes SO HEINOUS, committed in the US, that only the American Justice System could hold him fully accountable.”Abrego Garcia, 29, was living in the eastern state of Maryland until he became one of more than 200 people sent to a prison in El Salvador as part of Trump’s crackdown on undocumented migrants.Most of the migrants who were summarily deported were alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which the Trump administration has declared a foreign terrorist organization.- ‘Administrative error’ -Justice Department lawyers later admitted that Abrego Garcia — who is married to a US citizen — was wrongly deported due to an “administrative error.”Abrego Garcia had been living in the United States under protected legal status since 2019, when a judge ruled he should not be deported because he could be harmed in his home country.Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of Abrego Garcia’s attorneys, said the government had returned him to the United States “not to correct their error but to prosecute him.””Due process means the chance to defend yourself before you’re punished, not after,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said. “This is an abuse of power, not justice.”Bondi alleged that Abrego Garcia had “played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring” and was a smuggler of “children and women” as well as members of the Salvadoran gang MS-13.She said Abrego Garcia, who was indicted by a grand jury in Tennessee, would be returned to El Salvador upon completion of any prison sentence.Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen visited Abrego Garcia in April in El Salvador and welcomed his return to the United States.”For months the Trump Administration flouted the Supreme Court and our Constitution,” the senator from Maryland said in a statement.”Today, they appear to have finally relented to our demands for compliance with court orders and with the due process rights afforded to everyone in the United States,” he said.”The Administration will now have to make its case in the court of law, as it should have all along.”According to the indictment, Abrego Garcia was involved in smuggling undocumented migrants from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and other countries into the United States between 2016 and earlier this year.

US agents pounced on two immigrants in the hallway of a New York courthouse Friday, wrestling them to the ground in a forceful display of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on people without papers.The two men had just attended a scheduled hearing when plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, some wearing black face masks, grabbed them.The officers yelled for the men not to move or put up resistance and forced them to lay face-down on the ground as they tied their hands behind their backs and arrested them.The immigrants were then whisked away into an elevator on the 12th floor of the Jacob K Javits Federal Building in Manhattan.The routine appointment they hoped would be a step toward life in America ended in shock and detention.AFP was on hand to witness these events because there was a similar arrest at the same courthouse earlier in the week and the agency suspected more might be imminent.It was not immediately clear exactly why these two men were arrested nor the fate that awaits them.    Trump was elected to a second term largely on a promise to crack down hard on the entry and presence of undocumented migrants and Americans largely support the idea.But polls show they also find tactics like surprise courthouse arrests by agents with black masks to be harsh.In recent weeks ICE agents have intensified operations like this in and around American immigration courts.After Trump swept back into power in January, the Department of Homeland Security revoked regulations that limited agents’ access to protected areas like the courts.One of the men arrested was a 34-year-old Dominican named Joaquin Rosario who arrived in the United States a year ago, registered with authorities as he came in, and had his first immigration hearing Friday, said a relative of his, Julian Rosario, who declined to say how they were related.”He was at ease. He did not think anything was going to happen,” said the relative, who was still visibly upset by what he had witnessed as agents threw the other man to the ground.Rosario was so unworried he did not even bother to have a lawyer with him, the relative said.The other detainee looked to be Asian. He arrived on his own and was accompanied by one of many immigration advocacy group volunteers who walk with such immigrants to and from the courtroom. The idea is to make them feel safe.This time the volunteers screamed out as the agents arrested the two men but this did nothing to halt the raid.Before this arrest other immigrants with appointments, including entire families, came and went with no problem.A pair of Venezuelans who refused to give their names were jubilant because their next appointment is not until 2027 — that’s how backlogged the US immigration court system is.- ‘Sound the alarm’ – Human rights groups are outraged by these operations, arguing that they sap trust in the courts and make immigrants wary of showing up for appointments as they try to gain US residency.”They’re illegal abductions,” said Karen Ortiz, herself a court employee who was demonstrating Friday against these sudden arrests of migrants.”We need to sound the alarm and show the public how serious this is and one way we can do that is actually physically putting ourselves between a masked ICE agent and someone they’re trying to detain and send away,” Ortiz told AFP.Since returning to power Trump has dramatically tested the limits of executive power as he cracked down on foreigners without papers, arguing that the United States is being invaded by criminals and other undesirables.

A divided US Supreme Court on Friday granted President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) access to the social security data of millions of Americans.The decision came after the Trump administration appealed to the top court to lift an April order by a district judge restricting DOGE access to Social Security Administration (SSA) records.”SSA may proceed to afford members of the SSA DOGE Team access to the agency records in question in order for those members to do their work,” the top court said in a brief unsigned order.The three liberal justices on the Supreme Court dissented, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson saying the move poses “grave privacy risks for millions of Americans.””Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, bank-account numbers, medical records — all of that, and more, is in the mix,” Jackson said.”The Government wants to give DOGE unfettered access to this personal, non-anonymized information right now — before the courts have time to assess whether DOGE’s access is lawful,” she said.In her April ruling, District Judge Ellen Hollander banned DOGE staff from accessing data containing information that could personally identify Americans such as their social security numbers, medical history or bank records.Social security numbers are a key identifier for people in the United States, used to report earnings, establish eligibility for welfare and retirement benefits and other purposes.Hollander said the SSA can only give redacted or anonymized records to DOGE employees who have completed background checks and training on federal laws, regulations and privacy policies.The case before Hollander was brought by a group of unions which argued that the SSA had opened its data systems to unauthorized personnel from DOGE “with disregard for the privacy” of millions of Americans.DOGE, which has been tasked by Trump with slashing billions of dollars of goverment spending, was headed at the time by SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk, who has since had a very public falling out with the president.Trump has been at loggerheads with the judiciary ever since he returned to the White House, venting his fury at court rulings at various levels that have frozen his executive orders on multiple issues.

An ex-girlfriend of Sean Combs testified Friday of sex with a network of paid male escorts at the music mogul’s behest and that he asked her to transport drugs for him.The woman speaking under the pseudonym Jane took the stand for a second day in the sex trafficking and racketeering trial, delivering emotional, graphic testimony in the federal criminal proceedings against Combs, the 55-year-old superstar known as “Diddy.”He faces life in prison if convicted in the case, and has denied all charges.Jane told jurors in the Manhattan courtroom that she, assistants of Combs or the artist himself would book travel for the escorts, who would frequently be paid by Combs in the thousands of dollars in cash or via apps.The payment was in exchange for choreographed sexual encounters that would sometimes last days, “hotel nights” that Jane described in lurid detail.Her description closely tracked with the testimony of a previous star witness, Casandra Ventura, who said the encounters were called “freak-offs.”Jane, who was identified as a social media influencer and single mother, spoke through tears as she recounted instances that she told Combs she did not like having sex with the escorts while he watched.The encounters virtually always left her sore and in pain and she suffered frequent infections, Jane testified. But when she protested or said she only wanted to be with him, Jane said Combs was “dismissive” and “belittling.”Evidence read in court included lengthy text exchanges between Jane and Combs, as well as diaristic notes Jane had taken for herself on her phone that corroborate her testimony.Among the tranche of texts was one message in which she described the pattern of hotel nights as a “Pandora’s box” she couldn’t shut.”I’m so much more than being loved in the dark in hotel rooms doing things that make me feel disgusted,” she texted Combs. “I don’t want to play this role in your life anymore.””It’s dark, sleazy and makes me feel disgusted with myself,” she continued, saying that she felt he was paying her rent in exchange for the sex parties. “I don’t want to feel obligated to perform these nights with you in fear of losing the roof over my head,” Jane wrote.”Girl stop,” Combs wrote back.Her feeling of obligation had escalated in 2023, when the pair made a verbal “love contract” stipulating that while so-called hotel nights would feature into their relationship, so would a $10,000 monthly payment from Combs to Jane.She told jurors Friday that Combs continues to make her that payment, which she uses for rent, even as he is incarcerated.- Flying with drugs -Jane’s testimony of paying for the travel of escorts is key to the prosecution’s argument that Combs trafficked men and women across state lines with the intent of prostitution.She also told jurors that she transported illegal drugs for Combs on two occasions.When she expressed to a high-ranking staff member of Combs that it felt “unsafe” to fly with drugs from Los Angeles to Miami, the staffer replied that “it’s fine” and “I do it all the time.”In their opening statements, the defense insisted that Combs’s relationship with Jane was consensual.But she described struggling to get through the hotel nights without the aid of drugs, namely Ecstasy. She recounted one instance when she attempted to stay sober while complying with Combs’s demands that she have sex with multiple men for hours, to the point that she threw up, saying she was “repulsed.””Sean came in and I told him I had just thrown up and he was like, ‘that’s good then you’ll feel better.'”‘”Let’s go because the guy is here, the third guy,'” Jane said he told her.Jane previously told jurors that her relationship with Combs continued up until his arrest in September 2024.Prosecutors say he ran a criminal enterprise of employees and bodyguards who enforced his power and fulfilled his desires with illicit acts including trafficking, kidnapping, bribery and arson. Along with Ventura — whose testimony included harrowing accounts of physical and psychological abuse — and Jane, witnesses have included former employees of Bad Boy Enterprises, Combs’s company.Jane’s testimony could last days, with court proceedings expected to continue at least another month.

Disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein conceded that he acted “immorally” but insisted he did nothing criminal as jury deliberations on his fate in his sex crimes retrial paused for the weekend Friday.Jurors said after two days that they needed “more time” to deliberate on a verdict for Weinstein.He is on trial again after a New York state appeals court threw out his 2020 convictions, citing irregularities in the original proceedings. The former movie industry titan’s 23 year prison sentence for the initial conviction was thrown out, but he remains imprisoned for separate offenses.Although Weinstein did not take the stand, he spoke out in an interview aired by FOX5 television Friday as the jury considered six weeks of testimony.”I have regrets that I put my family through this, that I put my wife through this, and I acted immorally…, but never illegal, never criminal, never anything,” he said.Weinstein pointed to comments by his defense attorney Arthur Aidala who suggested the three women who testified against him at trial “had four million reasons to testify, as in dollars.”Judge Curtis Farber issued initial instructions Thursday to jurors, one of whom had to be swapped out for an alternate after falling ill, before they retired to consider their verdict.He called on the panel to use “common sense” for this “very important decision” and reminded them that Weinstein was “presumed innocent.”On Friday, the jury panel of 12 heard a read back of emotional testimony from Weinstein’s former assistant Miriam Haley.The jury must decide whether Weinstein — accused by dozens of women of being a sexual predator — is guilty of sexual assaults in 2006 on Haley and former model Kaja Sokola, and of rape in 2013 of then-aspiring actress Jessica Mann.- ‘Playground stuff’ -One juror came forward on Friday to report tensions between his fellow panelists, alleging “people are being shunned. It’s playground stuff.”He asked to resign as a juror, but Farber denied his request.Aidala requested that a mistrial be declared, but the judge denied his motion, and the jury will continue to deliberate Weinstein’s fateMonday.On Wednesday, prosecutor Nicole Blumberg summarized the evidence of the three alleged victims of Weinstein who testified at the trial for jurors saying simply “he raped three women, they all said no.”The Hollywood figure had “all the power” and “all the control” over the alleged victims, which is why jurors should find him guilty, she said.”The defendant thought the rules did not apply to him, now it is the time to let him know that the rules apply to him.”There is no reasonable doubt; tell the defendant what he already knows — that he is guilty of the three crimes.”Weinstein’s defense attorney insisted the sexual encounters were consensual, pointing to a “casting couch” dynamic between the movie mogul and the women.Weinstein, the producer of box office hits “Pulp Fiction” and “Shakespeare in Love,” has never acknowledged wrongdoing.The cinema magnate, whose downfall in 2017 sparked the global #MeToo movement, has been on trial since April 15 in a scruffy Manhattan courtroom.He is already serving a 16-year prison sentence after being convicted in California in a separate for raping and assaulting a European actress more than a decade ago.

Five members of the far right Proud Boys convicted of orchestrating the US Capitol riot filed a lawsuit on Friday seeking $100 million in damages for alleged violations of their constitutional rights.The suit, filed in a federal court in Florida, claims the five were victims of “corrupt and politically motivated persecution” intended to punish political allies of President Donald Trump.Among the five plaintiffs is former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for directing the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol by Trump supporters seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election won by Democrat Joe Biden.Tarrio, whose sentence for seditious conspiracy was the longest doled out to Capitol rioters, was among the more than 1,500 Trump supporters pardoned by the Republican president on his first day in office.In their suit, the Proud Boys members said they were victims of “egregious and systemic abuse of the legal system and the United States Constitution to punish and oppress political allies of President Trump.”They accused government prosecutors of “evidence tampering, witness intimidation, violations of attorney-client privilege, and placing spies to report on trial strategy.”It said their convictions were “the modern equivalent of placing one’s enemies’ heads on a spike outside the town wall as a warning to any who would think to challenge the status quo.”The Proud Boys members demanded a jury trial and punitive damages of $100 million.The Trump administration agreed last month to pay nearly $5 million to the family of a woman shot dead by a police officer during the January 6 attack on the Capitol.Ashli Babbitt, 35, was shot as she tried to climb through a window leading to the House Speaker’s lobby during the assault on Congress by Trump supporters.Babbitt’s estate filed a wrongful death suit last year seeking $30 million.The case had been scheduled to go on trial, but the Justice Department reversed course after Trump won the November 2024 election and entered into settlement talks.The Capitol assault, which left more than 140 police officers injured, followed a fiery speech by then-president Trump to tens of thousands of his supporters near the White House in which he repeated his false claims that he won the 2020 race.He then encouraged the crowd to march on Congress.

US President Donald Trump announced Friday a new round of trade talks with China in London next week, a day after calling Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in a bid to end a bitter battle over tariffs.The talks in the British capital on Monday will mark the second round of such negotiations between the world’s two biggest economies since Trump launched his trade war this year.”The meeting should go very well,” said Trump in a post on his Truth Social platform.The president added that US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer would meet the Chinese team.The first talks between Washington and Beijing since Trump slapped levies on allies and adversaries alike took place in Geneva last month.While Trump had imposed a sweeping 10 percent duty on imports from most trading partners, rates on Chinese goods rocketed as both countries engaged in an escalating tariffs battle.In April, additional US tariffs on many Chinese products hit 145 percent while China hit back with countermeasures of 125 percent.Following the talks last month, both sides agreed to temporarily bring down the levels, with US tariffs cooling to 30 percent and China’s levies at 10 percent.But this temporary halt is expected to expire in early August and Trump last week accused China of violating the pact, underscoring deeper differences on both sides.US officials have accused China of slow-walking export approvals of critical minerals and rare earth magnets, a key issue behind Trump’s recent remarks.While Trump’s long-awaited phone call with Xi this week likely paved the way for further high-level trade talks, a swift resolution to the tariffs impasse remains uncertain.

US President Donald Trump has no plans to speak to billionaire Elon Musk and may even ditch his red Tesla car, the White House said Friday after a stunning public divorce fraught with risk for both men.Trump’s camp insisted that he wanted to move on from the row with the South African-born Musk, with officials telling AFP that the tech tycoon had requested a call but that the president was not interested.The Republican instead intended to focus on getting the US Congress to pass his “big, beautiful” spending bill — Musk’s harsh criticisms of which had triggered the astonishing meltdown on Thursday.Fallout from the blow up between the world’s richest person and its most powerful could be significant, as Trump risks political damage and Musk faces the loss of huge US government contracts.Trump phoned reporters at several US broadcast networks to insist that he was looking past the row. He called Musk “the man who has lost his mind” in a call to ABC and told CBS he was “totally” focused on the presidency.The White House meanwhile squashed earlier reports that they would talk.”The president does not intend to speak to Musk today,” a senior White House official told AFP on condition of anonymity. A second official said it was “true” that Musk had requested a call. – Tesla giveaway? -Tesla stocks tanked more than 14 percent on Thursday amid the row, losing some $100 billion of the company’s market value, but recovering partly Friday.Trump was considering either selling or giving away the cherry red Tesla S that he announced he had bought from Musk’s firm at the height of their relationship. The electric vehicle was still parked on the White House grounds on Friday.”He’s thinking about it, yes,” a senior White House official told AFP when asked if Trump would sell or give away the Tesla.Trump and Musk had posed inside the car at a bizarre event in March, when the president turned the White House into a pop-up Tesla showroom after viral protests against Musk’s role as head of the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).- ‘Expiration date’ -The move came despite apparent efforts by Musk to de-escalate.On Thursday, the SpaceX boss briefly threatened to scrap his company’s Dragon spacecraft — vital for ferrying NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station — after Trump suggested he could end Musk’s giant government contracts.But later in the day, Musk sought to deescalate, writing on his X social media platform:  “OK, we won’t decommission Dragon.”The tech magnate also kept a low profile early Friday.But there is no clarity on how the two big egos will repair the relationship, which had already been fraying badly, causing tensions in the White House.Trade Advisor Peter Navarro, whom Musk once called “dumber than a sack of bricks” in an argument over Trump’s tariffs, refused to gloat but said the tycoon had an “expiration date.””No, I’m not glad or whatever,” he told reporters. “People come and go from the White House.”Vice President JD Vance also stuck by Trump amid the blazing row — blasting what he called “lies” that his boss was “impulsive or short-tempered” — but notably avoided criticizing Musk. The tensions burst into the open this week when Musk called Trump’s flagship spending bill an “abomination” because it raises the US deficit. Then in a televised Oval Office diatribe on Thursday, Trump said he was “very disappointed” with Musk.The pair traded insults for hours on social media, with Musk at one point suggesting impeachment of Trump and signalling interest in forming a new political party.

He is almost certainly off the guest list for White House galas, but Elon Musk’s astonishing spat with Donald Trump could inflict damage for both men that goes far beyond catchy headlines and an incinerated friendship.On one side, there’s the US president — a man who has already shown unprecedented appetite for using the levers of power to go after opponents.On the other: the world’s richest man, with a business empire entwined deep into the heart of the US economy and space industry.”Get your popcorn,” Chaim Siegel, an analyst at financial services company Elazar Advisors told AFP.”I’ve never seen two people this big go at it this nasty in all my time in the business. Can’t be good for either side.”Trump allies worry that the messy breakup could have ramifications for his legacy and Republicans’ election prospects, as well as damaging the administration’s ties with Silicon Valley donors.Musk is also in jeopardy. Trump has threatened to scrap the tech mogul’s lucrative subsidies and federal contracts, potentially devastating Tesla and risking some $22 billion of SpaceX’s government income — even if it remains unclear how the US government itself would manage the fallout.- From policy to insults -The catalyst for the split was Trump’s sprawling domestic policy bill, a package that Musk has complained in increasingly apocalyptic terms will swell the budget deficit, undermining the president’s agenda.But the issue quickly has become extraordinarily bitter.Musk called Thursday for Trump’s impeachment, implying that the Republican was linked to the crimes of financier Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide after being charged with sex-trafficking to elite, international clients.The dust-up has rocked to the core the fragile coalition between the populists in Trump’s “MAGA” movement and the Musk-friendly “tech bros” whose podcasts and cash helped secure the Republican’s second term.Influential figures on the populist side hit back with calls for investigations into South African-born Musk’s immigration status, security clearance and alleged drug use.Meanwhile in Congress, Republicans are calling for a ceasefire, worried that the world’s richest man will use his deep pockets to exact revenge in the 2026 midterm congressional election.- Two big beasts -Trump and Musk were never obvious allies, but the flamboyant entrepreneur turned into the Republican’s surprise wingman — and mega-donor — during the 2024 election.Musk ended up spending $290 million to help the campaigns of Trump and other Republicans. He was then rewarded with overseeing the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which embarked on ruthless and, critics say, ideologically driven slashing of the State Department and other bodies.”Without me, Trump would have lost the election,” Musk posted on his social platform X at the height of a dust-up that US media labeled the “Clash of the Titans.”As president, Trump is arguably the most powerful person in the world.But Musk’s megaphone — X — is much bigger than Trump’s Truth Social and he is a prolific trash talker, instantly reaching many millions of people.Musk’s portfolio of almost 100 contracts with 17 government agencies also gives him enormous power over the federal bureaucracy, including the US space program.Trump, on the other hand, has ultimate say over those contracts. If Trump heeds his supporters’ calls for investigations he could tie Musk down for years, revoking his security clearances and issuing executive orders to gum up his business.- Congress in balance -Trump, 78, may need to walk a delicate line given the risk that Musk will lobby Congress to scuttle his budget plans.Republican lawmakers — most of whom are fighting elections next year — have welcomed Musk with open arms, nodding approvingly at his calls for federal cuts and grateful for his campaign cash.But when it comes to picking sides, most Republicans who have spoken out on the spat are sticking with Trump. The president has a long history of forcing wavering lawmakers to step back into line.”Every tweet that goes out, people are more in lockstep behind President Trump, and (Musk’s) losing favor,” Congressman Kevin Hern told political website NOTUS.Musk, who dreams of colonizing Mars, responded with a longer view of the situation.”Some food for thought as they ponder this question: Trump has 3.5 years left as President,” Musk posted, “but I will be around for 40+ years.”