Key events
US immigration officers ramp up sweeps in LA after raid restrictions are lifted
Johana Bhuiyan
US immigration officers are ramping up immigration sweeps in Los Angeles again after the supreme court reversed a temporary restraining order that banned the Trump administration from stopping people solely based on their race, language or job.
In a post on Twitter/X, Greg Bovino, the head of US border patrol in Los Angeles, called the temporary restraining order “very poorly” written and “the worst” he’s ever seen. He also said that border patrol would be starting operations back up again today.
“We are going hard in Los Angeles today and are hitting a location as I write this,” Bovino wrote.
Immigration officers were forced to pause their sweeping immigration raids after advocacy groups sued the Trump administration for systemically racially profiling brown-skinned people. US district judge in Los Angeles Maame E Frimpong granted the groups a temporary restraining order after finding a “mountain of evidence” that the immigration enforcement tactics were violating the constitution.
But the supreme court ruled 6-3 to lift those restrictions on Monday. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who voted to approve the stay on the order, wrote that the Immigration and Nationality Act allows immigration officers to “interrogate any alien or person believed to be an alien as to his right to be or to remain in the United States”. While “ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion” it can be used as a “relevant” factor, he wrote.
House committee releases image of ‘sickening’ Trump birthday note to Epstein
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with news that House Democrats on Monday released an image of a sexually suggestive letter and drawing that appears to bear the signature of Donald Trump, the very same note the president had denied writing after reports of its existence were published earlier this year in the Wall Street Journal.
The letter, described as “sickening” by one representative, was turned over by lawyers for disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s estate in response to a subpoena from the House oversight committee, and was included in a set of notes sent to the convicted sex offender for his 50th birthday.
The image showed a letter that in effect comported with a description in the Journal’s report from July. Inside the sketch of a woman’s torso, the note depicts an imagined conversation between Trump and Epstein, with what appeared to be Trump’s signature below.
“The oversight committee has secured the infamous ‘Birthday Book’ that contains a note from President Trump that he has said does not exist,” Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the panel, said in a statement. “It’s time for the president to tell us the truth about what he knew and release all the Epstein files.”
The White House did not immediately comment on the letter, but officials sought to discredit the note. Deputy chief of staff for communications, Taylor Budowich, suggested in an X post carrying a different version of Trump’s signature that the letter or the signature had been falsified.
“Time for news corp to open that check book, it’s not his signature. DEFAMATION!” Budowich wrote, referencing the defamation suit that Trump filed against News Corp, the parent company of the Journal, over its original story.
Maryland representative Jamie Raskin called the letter “sickening” and called for the full Epstein files to be released. Posting on X, he said:
House Democrats fought to bring this sickening letter into the light while Trump and MAGA mouthpieces assured us it did not exist. Trump even sued the Wall Street Journal for reporting on it!
We can’t trust a word MAGA says. Release the full Epstein file NOW!
Read the full story here:
In other developments:
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US immigration officers are ramping up immigration sweeps in Los Angeles again after the supreme court reversed a temporary restraining order that banned the Trump administration from stopping people solely based on their race, language or job. In a post on Twitter/X, Greg Bovino, the head of US border patrol in Los Angeles, called the temporary restraining order “very poorly” written and “the worst” he’s ever seen.
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Donald Trump’s second state visit to the UK will see a big policing operation led by drones in the airspace over Windsor, police have said. King Charles is to host the US president and his wife, Melania Trump, at Windsor Castle from 17 to 19 September, where they will be entertained with a ceremonial welcome and state banquet.
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Donald Trump launched a vitriolic attack against Tom Hanks for supposedly being “destructive” and “woke” after one of America’s most beloved actors was snubbed without much explanation by West Point last week. On his social media site on Monday, the US president applauded the alumni association of the US Military Academy (or West Point) for abruptly calling off a ceremony honoring Hanks, twice an Academy award winner who has played numerous military characters and also has a long history of advocating for veterans.
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Donald Trump now cannot claim presidential immunity to get off the hook from paying $83.3m in damages to the writer E Jean Carroll, a federal appeals court ruled on Monday, upholding a jury’s 2024 award against the president for defamation. Trump’s lawyers had pointed to the supreme court’s ruling last year saying the president has immunity for official acts to argue that the damages should be overturned.
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The US supreme court allowed Donald Trump on Monday to keep a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission away from her post for now, temporarily pausing a judicial order that required the reinstatement of the commissioner who the Republican president has sought to oust.
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Intent on vindication after spending four months in prison last year, Donald Trump’s White House trade adviser Peter Navarro asked a federal appeals court on Sunday night to force the justice department to explain why it would not defend his 2022 conviction for defying a January 6 committee subpoena.
