House Republicans are pushing to vote on their multi-trillion-dollar tax breaks package as soon as Wednesday, grinding out last-minute deal-making to shore up wavering GOP support and deliver on Trump’s top legislative priority.
And Trump will host South Africa’s leader at the White House on Wednesday after accusing the country’s government of allowing a “genocide” to take place against minority white farmers. Afrikaner farmers in the country say this claim is false and there’s no evidence of it.
And a federal judge ruled late Tuesday that U.S. officials must retain custody and control of migrants apparently removed to South Sudan in case he rules their removals were unlawful. Attorneys for immigrants said the Trump administration appears to have begun deporting people from Myanmar and Vietnam to South Sudan — despite a court order restricting removals to other countries.
Here’s the latest:
South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 amid hopes that large oil reserves could bring prosperity amid endemic poverty. Instead, violence ensued.
Nicholas Haysom, who leads the nearly 20,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping mission, has warned that fighting between forces loyal to the president and a vice president threatens to spiral again into full-scale civil war of the kind that took 400,000 lives a decade ago.
The U.S. State Department’s annual report on South Sudan, published in April 2024, says “significant human rights issues” include arbitrary killings, disappearances, torture or inhumane treatment by security forces and extensive violence based on gender and sexual identity.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem recently extended Temporary Protected Status to a small number of South Sudanese already living in the United States until November, to allow for a more thorough review of whether conditions in South Sudan are unsafe for return.
Major General James Monday Enoka also told The Associated Press on Wednesday that if they do, they would be “redeported to their correct country” if found not to be South Sudanese.
U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy in Massachusetts called the emergency hearing to get answers about the apparent deportation of immigrants to South Sudan and other countries.
Murphy, who was nominated by Democratic President Joe Biden, previously found that any plans to deport people to Libya without notice would “clearly” violate his ruling. He wants the Trump administration attorneys to:
1. identify the migrants impacted
2. provide information about the whereabouts of migrants already removed
3. address when and how the migrants were told they’d be removed to a third country
4. explain what opportunity the migrants were given to raise a fear-based claim
The Department of Homeland Security and the White House did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy in Massachusetts called Wednesday’s hearing to get answers about the apparent deportation of immigrants to South Sudan and other countries.
Murphy, who was nominated by Democratic President Joe Biden, previously found that any plans to deport people to Libya without notice would “clearly” violate his ruling. He wants the Trump administration attorneys to:
5. identify the migrants impacted
6. provide information about the whereabouts of migrants already removed
7. address when and how the migrants were told they’d be removed to a third country
8. explain what opportunity the migrants were given to raise a fear-based claim
The Department of Homeland Security and the White House did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
Organizers announced some details on Wednesday for the parade on June 14 — which is also Flag Day and Trump’s 79th birthday.
The parade will run from 6:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. ET that Saturday, along Constitution Avenue between 15th and 23rd Streets. A fireworks display and daylong festival on the National Mall are also being planned.
The procession will trace the Army’s evolution from the Revolutionary War to modern times with historical U.S. Army personnel reenactors, period-accurate equipment, vehicles, flyovers and military bands.
Trump is scheduled to deliver remarks.
9. Classifying farm attacks as a priority crime. South Africa’s government counters that the relatively small number of homicides against white farmers are misunderstood by the Trump administration; they’re part of the country’s severe problem with crime and aren’t racially motivated.
10. South Africa’s race-based barriers to trade. The Trump administration would like U.S. companies to be exempt from laws requiring foreign companies to allow 30% of their South African subsidiaries to be owned by shareholders who are Black or from other racial groups that were disadvantaged under apartheid, South Africa’s former system of white-minority rule.
11. Condemning politicians who promote “genocidal rhetoric.” While Ramaphosa’s party doesn’t use the “kill the farmer” or “shoot the farmer” apartheid-era chants, the government hasn’t condemned it.
Trump is hosting Cyril Ramaphosa amid tension after accusing South Africa of allowing a “genocide” against minority white farmers. South Africa has strongly rejected Trump’s allegations. Afrikaner farmers in the country say there’s no evidence of this — that white and Black farmers alike have been murdered.
Ramaphosa pushed for Wednesday’s Oval Office meeting to try to set the record straight and salvage his country’s relationship with the United States. It’s at their lowest point since the nation enforced its apartheid system of racial segregation, which ended in 1994.
Trump has cut all U.S. assistance to South Africa and welcomed several dozen white South African farmers to the U.S. as refugees.
▶ See an AP Photo package on Afrikaner farmers
12. 11:30 a.m. – Trump welcomes South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa
13. 11:45 a.m. – Trump and Ramaphosa will have lunch
14. 12:45 a.m. – Trump and Ramaphosa will have a meeting in the Oval Office
15. 4:00 p.m. – The NCAA men’s college basketball champions, the University of Florida Gators, will visit the White House
With Trump back in the White House, a jaunt with the president or a stop in the Oval Office is now as routine for America’s business leaders as a speech to an industry conference.
Corporate titans are spending more time than ever working to curry favor with the administration as part of their effort to score relief from regulations — and tariffs — from the transactional president. He, in turn, is happy to use them as supporting cast members as he tries to project the economy as booming at a time when growth is slowing.
But putting in time with the U.S. president has not fully insulated companies such as Apple, Amazon, Walmart and others from Trump’s anger. It’s a sign that the public commitments they make to create U.S. jobs may be doing more to burnish the president’s image than to protect their own profitability.
▶ Read more about Trump’s relationship with business titans
Trump will host South Africa’s leader at the White House on Wednesday for a meeting that might be tense after Trump accused the country’s government of allowing a “genocide” to take place against minority white farmers.
South Africa has strongly rejected the allegation and President Cyril Ramaphosa pushed for the meeting with Trump in an attempt to salvage his country’s relationship with the United States, which is at its lowest point since the end of the apartheid system of racial segregation in 1994.
Trump has launched a series of accusations at South Africa’s Black-led government, including that it is seizing land from white farmers, enforcing anti-white policies and pursuing an anti-American foreign policy.
Ramaphosa said he hopes to correct what he calls damaging mischaracterizations during the meeting, which is Trump’s first with an African leader at the White House since he returned to office.
▶ Read more about Ramaphosa’s visit
Trump has announced the concept he wants for his future Golden Dome missile defense program — a multilayered, $175 billion system that for the first time will put U.S. weapons in space.
Speaking Tuesday from the Oval Office, Trump said he expects the system will be “fully operational before the end of my term,” which ends in 2029, and have the capability of intercepting missiles “even if they are launched from space.”
It’s likelier that the complex system may have some initial capability by that point, a U.S. official familiar with the program said.
Golden Dome is envisioned to include ground- and space-based capabilities that are able to detect and stop missiles at all four major stages of a potential attack: detecting and destroying them before a launch, intercepting them in their earliest stage of flight, stopping them midcourse in the air, or halting them in the final minutes as they descend toward a target.
▶ Read more about the “Golden Dome”
House Republicans are pushing to vote on their multi-trillion-dollar tax breaks package as soon as Wednesday, grinding out last-minute deal-making to shore up wavering GOP support and deliver on Trump’s top legislative priority.
Trump himself had instructed the Republican majority to quit arguing and get it done, his own political influence on the line. But GOP leaders worked late into the night to convince skeptical Republicans who have problems on several fronts, including worries that it will pile onto the nation’s $36 trillion debt.
A fresh analysis from the Congressional Budget Office said the tax provisions would increase the federal deficit by $3.8 trillion over the decade, while the changes to Medicaid, food stamps and other services would tally $1 trillion in reduced spending. The lowest-income households in the U.S. would see their resources drop, while the highest ones would see a boost, the CBO said.
Republicans hunkered down at the Capitol through the night for one last committee hearing processing changes to the package. Democrats immediately motioned to adjourn, but the vote failed on party lines.
▶ Read more about the upcoming vote
A federal judge has ruled that U.S. officials must retain custody and control of migrants who were apparently removed to South Sudan in case he rules their removals were unlawful.
U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy in Massachusetts issued the ruling late Tuesday after an emergency hearing, after attorneys for immigrants said the Trump administration appears to have begun deporting people from Myanmar and Vietnam to South Sudan — despite a court order restricting removals to other countries.
Murphy said the government must “maintain custody and control of class members currently being removed to South Sudan or to any other third country, to ensure the practical feasibility of return if the Court finds that such removals were unlawful.”
While Murphy left the details to the government’s discretion, he said he expects the migrants “will be treated humanely.”
▶ Read more about the judge’s ruling
As part of the Trump administration’s push to carry out mass deportations, the agency responsible for immigration enforcement has aggressively revived and expanded a decades-old program that delegates immigration enforcement powers to state and local law enforcement agencies.
Under the 287(g) program led by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, police officers can interrogate immigrants in their custody and detain them for potential deportation.
Since President Donald Trump took office in January, ICE has rapidly expanded the number of signed agreements it has with law enforcement agencies across the country.
The reason is clear. Those agreements vastly beef up the number of immigration enforcement staff available to ICE, which has about 6,000 deportation officers, as they aim to meet Trump’s goal of deporting as many of the roughly 11 million people in the country illegally as they can.
▶ Read more about what these agreements are and what critics say about them
Immigration authorities appear to have begun deporting migrants from Myanmar and Vietnam to South Sudan, attorneys for the migrants said in court documents filed Tuesday.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately return messages seeking comment. An immigration official in Texas confirmed via email that at least one man from Myanmar had been flown to South Sudan Tuesday morning, according to court documents.
A woman also reported to attorneys that her husband from Vietnam and up to 10 other people were flown to Africa.
Those removals would violate a court order from a judge in Massachusetts requiring that people have a chance to challenge removals to countries other than their homelands, attorneys from the National Immigration Litigation Alliance wrote.
They asked Judge Brian E. Murphy for an emergency order to prevent such removals. He previously said deportations to Libya would violate his ruling.
Speaker Mike Johnson says Trump’s “one, big, beautiful, bill will require one, big, beautiful vote”, but holdouts remain.
The chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, said they’re still “a long ways away” from agreement. And other key Republicans said they were still a no vote.
Johnson headed to the Senate to update Republicans there on the path ahead.
