TDB Top 5 International Stories: Friday 10th February 2017

5:Trump’s Massive Crackdown on Immigrants Has Begun

Even people in the US legally aren’t necessarily safe from deportation, some lawyers say.
As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric was often vague but generally focused on a couple issues: a wall that would (theoretically) keep undocumented migrants from crossing the southern border, and the mass deportation of “bad hombres,” i.e. immigrants who had committed crimes. But as president, Trump seems to be encouraging deportation on a much broader scale, and immigration authorities look happy to take him up on that.

Immigration attorney Ajay Singh, who works in New York State, has heard stories recently that point to a crackdown on all immigrants. He met with a client last week who said an officer stopped him driving merely to check his identification; that same week, Singh told me, saw immigration agents raid a factory in Monroe, New York, looking for undocumented workers—a tactic authorities haven’t used in years.

Vice News

4: Australia weather: heat threatens power outages and ‘catastrophic’ fire danger

Parts of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Victoria at risk as heatwave pushes temperatures into the mid-40s. Energy firms are warning of potential blackouts in NSW.

The Guardian 

3: TRUMP ADMINISTRATION PREPARES TO EXECUTE “VICIOUS” EXECUTIVE ORDER ON DEPORTATIONS

ON JANUARY 25, Donald Trump signed two executive orders calling for a series of dramatic new measures aimed at hardening the country’s domestic immigration enforcement apparatus. Despite their grave implications for millions of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., the measures were largely overshadowed by a particularly high-profile component of the directives — the construction of a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico — and receded further into the background two days later, when Trump signed another order banning travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

As the world’s attention was occupied with the chaotic implementation of the travel ban and its dramatic domestic and international impacts, the Trump administration and the Department of Homeland Security has quietly moved forward with elements of the earlier executive orders, according to internal communications obtained by The Intercept.

Trumps orders on border security and public safety in the interior of the U.S. resurrect some of the most controversial immigration enforcement programs of recent years, seek to deputize state and local law enforcement as immigration officials across the country, and threaten major cuts to federal funding for cities that fail to fall in line with the administration’s vision.

The Intercept

2: Velayati: US does not dare carry out attack on Iran

Iran has stepped up its war of words with the US, with an influential adviser to the supreme leader threatening the Trump administration with “dark days to come” in case of a military attack on his country.

In an exclusive interview to Al Jazeera, Ali Akbar Velayati, foreign-affairs adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said “Washington does not dare carry out its military threats against Iran”.

“The Americans know very well that Iran and its allies in the region would retaliate very hard, that will make America face dark days to come,” he said.

In the past week, the US has imposed new sanctions on Iran over a missile test.

Aljazeera

1: Breaking: 9th Circuit Judges Rule 3-0 Against Reinstating Donald Trump’s Muslim Ban

A federal appeals court in San Francisco has unanimously upheld a temporary suspension of President Trump’s executive order that restricted travel from seven Muslim-majority countries. The decision is likely to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Democracy Now