Tag: Marco Rubio
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Federal Court Rules Speech-Based Deportations of Non-Citizen Students and Academics Violate the First Amendment
Today, in AAUP v. Rubio, federal district Judge William G. Young (appointed by Ronald Reagan) ruled that speech-based deportations of foreign students and academics violate the First Amendment. Here is his summary of his long and detailed ruling (which runs to 161 pages in all):
This case -– perhaps the most important ever to fall within the jurisdiction of this district court –- squarely presents the issue whether non-citizens lawfully present here in United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us. The Court answers this Constitutional question unequivocally “yes, they do.” “No law” means “no law.” The First Amendment does not draw President Trump’s invidious distinction [between citizens and non-citizens] and it is not to be found in our history or jurisprudence… No one’s freedom of speech is unlimited, of course, but these limits are the same for both citizens and non-citizens alike.
With this constitution ruling firmly undergirding its approach, the Court here held a full hearing and a nine-day bench trial on the issue of whether the rights of these
plaintiffs to constitutional freedom of speech have been unconstitutionally chilled by the deliberate conduct of any or all of these Public Official defendants. The Court heard 15 witnesses and admitted 250 exhibits consisting of documents, photographs, and video clips.Having carefully considered the entirety of the record, this Court finds by clear and convincing evidence that the Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, together with the subordinate officials and agents of each of them, deliberately and with purposeful aforethought, did so concert their actions and those of their two departments intentionally to chill the rights to freedom of speech and peacefully to assemble of the non-citizen plaintiff members of the plaintiff associations. What remains after issuing this opinion is to consider what, if anything, may be done to remedy these constitutional violations.
Much of the opinion is a long detailed recitation of the extensive evidence showing that the administration does indeed have a policy of targeting non-citizen students and university employees for deportation based on their anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian speech. One can quibble with some of the details here. But the combined weight of evidence is overwhelming, in so far as high officials from the president on down have openly said that is what they are doing. In several cases, such as that of Tufts graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk, they have indeed tried to deport people whose only offense was to engage in speech disapproved of by the administration. Thus, Judge Young is right to conclude there is a basis for a lawsuit by the AAUP and the Middle East Studies Association, both of which have members vulnerable to deportation under the policy.
The latter part of the opinion (beginning at pg. 116) has a solid explanation of why the First Amendment’s protection for freedom of speech applies to non-citizens present in the US, and why Supreme Court precedent supports that position, or at least does not preclude it. Here is one key point:
Lastly,…. this Court observes that, on its face, the First Amendment does not
distinguish between citizens and noncitizens; rather, it states simply, “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech[.]” U.S. Const. amend. I. As the Supreme Court’s now frequently cited statement in Bridges v. Wixon confirmed, this text at least arguably implies that “[f]reedom of speech . . . is accorded aliens residing in this country.” 326 U.S. 135, 148 (1945). It also suggests something a little less obvious, but still worth saying, which is that its chief concern is with the character and quality of the “speech” that occurs on American soil, in what Justice Holmes called “free trade in ideas,” which is “the best test of truth,” Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616, 630 (1919), and ensuring that Congress may not twist that speech in the federal government’s preferred direction….As I have pointed out previously, the First Amendment, like most constitutional rights is phrased as a generalized limitation on government power, not a privilege limited to a specific group, such as citizens. A few rights, are explicitly confined to citizens (such as the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment) or to “the people” (such as the Second Amendment right to bear arms), which may be a euphemism for citizens. But that makes it all the more clear that rights not explicitly limited to citizens apply to everyone, without exception.
I have defended applying the First Amendment to non-citizens in greater detail elsewhere (e.g. here and here), including responding to the view that speech-based deportations are permissible because non-citizens have no inherent legal right to be in the US:
The text of the First Amendment is worded as a general limitation on government power, not a form of special protection for a particular group of people, such as US citizens or permanent residents. The Supreme Court held as much in a 1945 case, where they ruled that “Freedom of speech and of press is accorded aliens residing in this country.”
A standard response to this view is the idea that, even if non-citizens have a right to free speech, they don’t have a constitutional right to stay in the US. Thus, deporting them for their speech doesn’t violate the Constitution. But, in virtually every other context, it is clear that depriving people of a right as punishment for their speech violates the First Amendment, even if the right they lose does not itself have constitutional status. For example, there is no constitutional right to get Social Security benefits. But a law that barred critics of the President from getting those benefits would obviously violate the First Amendment. The same logic applies in the immigration context.
While Judge Young’s ruling – following Supreme Court precedent – applies a distinction between speech-based initial exclusions and speech-based deportations (allowing greater scope for the former), I would argue both are equally unconstitutional.
As Judge Young notes, today’s ruling follows a number of previous court decisions reaching similar conclusions about Trump’s speech-based deportations. But his analysis is particularly thorough and compelling.
Judge Young’s opinion includes a number of rhetorical flourishes that some might consider inappropriate for a judicial ruling. For example, the beginning and end are framed as a response to an anonymous postcard sent to the court:
If I were in the judge’s place, I probably would not have done this. While I share Judge Young’s dismay at the administration’s illegal actions, these remarks are unlikely to persuade readers who aren’t otherwise inclined to agree with his reasoning. And the predictable controversy they engender could divert attention from the substantive reasoning underlying the court’s ruling. They might also provide critics with an excuse to dismiss that reasoning without seriously engaging with it, by claiming that the judge was acting inappropriately.
That said, the debate over the appropriateness of some of the rhetoric in the opinion should not detract from the substance of Judge Young’s reasoning, which is strong, and a good model for future court decisions on this issue.
In addition to the factual record and the constitutional questions, the ruling also covers claims under the Administrative Procedure Act, and a number of procedural questions (e.g. – associational standing for the plaintiffs), which I will not attempt to assess here.
The legal battle over speech-based deportations will continue. I hope higher courts will follow Judge Young’s and other district courts’ lead, and hold there is no immigration exception to the First Amendment.
Ilya Somin
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U.N. hits Iran with
The United Nations reimposed sanctions on Iran early Sunday over its nuclear program, further squeezing the Islamic Republic as its people increasingly find themselves priced out of the food they need to survive and worried about their futures.
The sanctions will again freeze Iranian assets abroad, halt arms deals with Tehran, and penalize any development of Iran’s ballistic missile program, among other measures. It came via a mechanism known as “snapback,” included in Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, and comes as Iran’s economy already is reeling.
Iran’s rial currency sits at a record low, increasing pressure on food prices and making daily life that much more challenging. That includes meat, rice and other staples of the Iranian dinner table.
Meanwhile, people worry about a new round of fighting between Iran and Israel — as well as potentially the U.S. — as missile sites struck during the 12-day war in June now appear to be being rebuilt.
Activists fear a rising wave of repression within the Islamic Republic, which already has reportedly executed more people this year than over the past three decades.
Sina, the father of a 12-year-old boy who spoke on condition that only his first name be used for fear of repercussions, said the country has never faced such a challenging time, even during the deprivations of the 1980s Iran-Iraq war and the decades of sanctions that came later.
“For as long as I can remember, we’ve been struggling with economic hardship, and every year it’s worse than the last,” Sina told The Associated Press. “For my generation, it’s always either too late or too early — our dreams are slipping away.”
John Lamparski / Getty Images
Snapback was designed to be veto-proof at the U.N. Security Council, meaning China and Russia could not stop it alone, as they have other proposed actions against Tehran in the past. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called them a “trap” for Iran on Saturday.
France, Germany and the United Kingdom triggered snapback over Iran 30 days ago for its further restricting monitoring of its nuclear program and the deadlock over its negotiations with the U.S.
Iran further withdrew from the International Atomic Energy Agency monitoring after Israel’s war with the country in June, which also saw the U.S. strike nuclear sites in the Islamic Republic. Meanwhile, the country still maintains a stockpile of uranium enriched up to 60% purity — a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90% — that is largely enough to make several atomic bombs, should Tehran choose to rush toward weaponization.
Iran has long insisted its nuclear program is peaceful, though the West and IAEA say Tehran had an organized weapons program up until 2003.
The three European nations on Sunday said they “continuously made every effort to avoid triggering snapback.” But Iran “has not authorized IAEA inspectors to regain access to Iran’s nuclear sites, nor has it produced and transmitted to the IAEA a report accounting for its stockpile of high-enriched uranium.”
Tehran has further argued that the three European nations shouldn’t be allowed to implement snapback, pointing in part to America’s unilateral withdrawal from the accord in 2018, during the first term of President Trump’s administration.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio praised the three European nations for “an act of decisive global leadership” for imposing the sanctions on Iran and said “diplomacy is still an option.”
“For that to happen, Iran must accept direct talks,” Rubio said.
However, it remains unclear how Tehran will respond Sunday.
“The Trump administration appears to think it has a stronger hand post-strikes, and it can wait for Iran to come back to the table,” said Kelsey Davenport, a nuclear expert at the Washington-based Arms Control Association. “Given the knowledge Iran has, given the materials that remain in Iran, that’s a very dangerous assumption.”
Risks also remain for Iran as well, she added: “In the short term, kicking out the IAEA increases the risk of miscalculation. The U.S. or Israel could use the lack of inspections as a pretext for further strikes.”
The aftermath of the June war drove up food prices in Iran, putting already expensive meat out of reach for poorer families.
Iran’s government put overall annual inflation at 34.5% in June, and its Statistical Center reported that the cost of essential food items rose over 50% over the same period. But even that doesn’t reflect what people see at shops. Pinto beans tripled in price in a year, while butter nearly doubled. Rice, a staple, rose more than 80% on average, hitting 100% for premium varieties. Whole chicken is up 26%, while beer and lamb are up 9%.
“Every day I see new higher prices for cheese, milk and butter,” said Sima Taghavi, a mother of two, at a Tehran grocery. “I cannot omit them like fruits and meat from my grocery list because my kids are too young to be deprived.”
The pressure over food and fears about the war resuming have seen more patients heading to psychologists since June, local media in Iran have reported.
“The psychological pressure from the 12-day war on the one hand, and runaway inflation and price hikes on the other, has left society exhausted and unmotivated,” Dr. Sima Ferdowsi, a clinical psychologist and professor at Shahid Beheshti University, told the Hamshahri newspaper in an interview published in July.
Iran has faced multiple nationwide protests in recent years, fueled by anger over the economy, demands for women’s rights and calls for the country’s theocracy to change.
In response to those protests and the June war, Iran has been putting prisoners to death at a pace unseen since 1988, when it executed thousands at the end of the Iran-Iraq war. The Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights and the Washington-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran put the number of people executed in 2025 at over 1,000, noting the number could be higher as Iran does not report on each execution.
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Rubio answers Hamas’ reported letter to Trump, says president won’t accept partial hostage release
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the White House has yet to receive a reported Hamas letter offering a 60-day ceasefire in exchange for releasing half the remaining Gaza hostages, while noting that President Donald Trump would reject anything short of a full release of hostages.
“We haven’t seen the letter. We don’t have that letter, and even if we did, it wouldn’t matter. The president has already made clear he’s not interested in 60 days, 10 people. He wants all the hostages out, all 48, including the 20 who are alive, the 28 who are deceased,” Rubio said Tuesday on “Fox & Friends.”
“Why are we even talking about hostages? Why do we still have to talk about hostages at this point? There shouldn’t be any. They should all be released immediately. Period. That’s the president’s position.”
AMERICAN VETERANS FACING HAMAS THREATS WHILE DELIVERING AID TO PALESTINIANS IN GAZA
Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Tuesday, Aug. 26. (Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Rubio reiterated that President Trump would have rejected Hamas’ reported offer even if it had already reached his desk, suggesting the message was perhaps given to the media rather than the administration.
Per prior reporting, a senior Trump official and a second source directly involved in negotiations told Fox News Hamas had drafted the letter to be delivered to Trump sometime this week.
This comes after the president said he wanted the remaining hostages to be freed “now – right now,” during his U.K. visit last week.
ISRAEL LAUNCHES NEW GROUND OFFENSIVE INTO GAZA CITY AS RESIDENTS FLEE IN DROVES
Hamas terrorists stand in formation as Palestinians gather on a street to watch the handover of three Israeli hostages to a Red Cross team in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, on February 8. (Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Trump also issued what he called his “last warning” to Hamas in a Truth Social post earlier this month, writing on Sept. 7, “Everyone wants the Hostages HOME. Everyone wants this War to end! The Israelis have accepted my Terms. It is time for Hamas to accept as well. I have warned Hamas about the consequences of not accepting. This is my last warning, there will not be another one!”
Rubio elaborated on what lies ahead for Hamas if the group fails to surrender, warning that Israeli forces are “right at the doorstep of Gaza City,” where Hamas leaders are currently concentrated, and have “begun an operation to go in.”
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“It may take a while, but they’re [Hamas officials are] not going to survive the Israeli push,” he warned.
“What we would hope to see is that it doesn’t have to happen, because Hamas surrenders, they lay down their arms, they release all the hostages. And then the important work of rebuilding Gaza and providing a place where Palestinians can live prosperously and peacefully, that work can begin. But that work cannot begin until the hostages are released and Hamas no longer exists.
“The sooner that happens, the sooner peace will begin.”
Fox News’ Trey Yingst and Alex Nitzberg contributed to this report.
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Trump admin asks Supreme Court to restore anti-trans passport policy
Donald Trump’s administration has filed an emergency appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to reinstate a passport policy that doesn’t recognize transgender, nonbinary, or intersex identities.
The policy had been blocked by a nationwide injunction from a federal judge in Massachusetts, and an appeals court declined to lift the injunction.
In January, Secretary of State Marco Rubio directed his staff to stop issuing passports with an X gender marker, which had been available since 2022, and said the State Department would no longer allow passport holders to change their gender marker. Existing passports would remain valid, but new or renewed passports would not reflect the holder’s gender identity. The policy was in keeping with Trump’s executive order saying the federal government would recognize only male and female sexes as assigned at birth.
Five trans people and two who are nonbinary filed suit against the policy in February in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts. In the case, known as Orr v. Trump, they are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Massachusetts, and the law firm of Covington and Burling LLP.
U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick issued a preliminary injunction in April blocking the policy for six of the seven people who sued — those who doctors said would suffer irreparable harm under the policy. In June, she expanded the injunction to cover almost all trans and nonbinary applicants. The policy is motivated by prejudice and “likely violates the constitutional rights of thousands of Americans,” she wrote. In September, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit refused to lift Kobick’s injunction.
In the administration’s appeal to the Supreme Court, filed Friday, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer contended that the injunction “has no basis in law or logic. Private citizens cannot force the government to use inaccurate sex designations on identification documents that fail to reflect the person’s biological sex — especially not on identification documents that are government property and an exercise of the President’s constitutional and statutory power to communicate with foreign governments.”
Sauer called the passport policy “eminently lawful” and entirely rational, adding, “it is not discrimination based on sex to define a person’s sex as the person’s immutable biological classification rather than the sex with which the person self-identifies.”
Jon Davidson, senior counsel for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, released a statement saying, “As the lower courts have found, the State Department’s policy is an unjustifiable and discriminatory action that restricts the essential rights of transgender, nonbinary, and intersex citizens.
“This administration has taken escalating steps to limit transgender people’s health care, speech, and other rights under the Constitution, and we are committed to defending those rights including the freedom to travel safely and the freedom of everyone to be themselves without wrongful government discrimination.”
The justices have not said if they will hear the appeal.
This article originally appeared on Advocate: Trump admin asks Supreme Court to restore anti-trans passport policy
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China accuses Philippines of ship collision near disputed shoal in South China Sea
China’s coast guard accused a Philippine ship of deliberately ramming one of its vessels on Tuesday near the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. The Philippines denied it, saying China’s forces used powerful water cannons that damaged its ship and injured a crew member.
A Chinese coast guard statement said more than 10 Philippine government ships coming from various directions entered the waters around the shoal, which is called Huangyan Island in Chinese. It said it deployed water cannons against the vessels.
The encounter came six days after China announced it was designating part of Scarborough Shoal as a national nature reserve. The Philippine government, which calls the shoal Bajo de Masinloc, filed a diplomatic protest.
China and the Philippines have clashed repeatedly around outcroppings in the South China Sea, which China claims almost in its entirety. The two countries are among several that have competing claims to territory in the waters, which are of strategic importance and home to valuable fishing grounds.
The Philippine coast guard said two Chinese coast guard ships hit a Filipino fisheries vessel, the BRP Datu Gumbay Piang, with powerful water cannons for nearly 30 minutes “resulting in significant damage,” including in the captain’s cabin and the bridge. A glass window was shattered and injured a personnel while the deluge of water caused a short circuit that affected electrical outlets and five outdoor air-conditioning units, it said.
A Chinese navy warship also broadcast a radio notice “announcing live-fire exercises” at the shoal which caused panic among Filipino fishermen, said the Philippine coast guard.
The Philippine coast guard and fisheries ships were deployed to the shoal on Tuesday to provide fuel, water, ice and other aid to more than 35 fishing boats in the area.
In August, a Chinese navy ship collided with a Chinese coast guard vessel while the latter was chasing a patrol boat from the Philippines at high speed in the South China Sea, according to officials in Manila.
And in September 2024, a CBS News “60 Minutes” crew witnessed an incident in which a Chinese coast guard vessel rammed into a Philippine coast guard ship that had deployed for a mission to resupply ships and stations in the South China Sea.
The high-seas accident last month has raised concerns about maritime safety and questions about the extent to which the U.S. should involve itself in longstanding tensions between those countries.
Several friendly countries have backed the Philippines on the nature reserve.
A statement from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the Chinese action “yet another coercive move to advance sweeping territorial and maritime claims in the South China Sea at the expense of its neighbors.”
The U.K. and Australia also expressed concern, and the Canadian Embassy in the Philippines said it opposed attempts to use environmental protection as a way to take control over the disputed Scarborough Shoal.
The Trump administration has supported the Philippines in its dispute with China. In March, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited the Philippines and he and Rubio have assured the Philippines that the U.S. commitment to the country’s defense remains iron-clad.
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Israel says Gaza City ground offensive against Hamas underway, as Rubio says time
After a night of heavy airstrikes, the Israeli military announced Tuesday that its expanded operation in Gaza City “to destroy Hamas’ military infrastructure” has begun, and warned residents to move south. Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adree announced the expansion of Israel’s operation in a post on X, renewing a warning for Gaza City’s famine-stricken residents to evacuate.
Many Palestinians — tens of thousands of whom had sought shelter in Gaza City after fleeing areas further north amid Israel’s offensive against Hamas — have said they’re unable to evacuate due to overcrowding in southern Gaza and the high price of transport.
The Israel Defense Forces announced the launch of the next stage of “Operation Gideon Chariots,” saying two divisions had begun pushing into the heart of Gaza City, with two regular divisions operating in the surrounding area. It said a third division would join the operation in the coming days.
“They will surround Gaza City on all sides,” the IDF said.
Ebrahim Hajjaj/REUTERS
After weeks of threatening an expansion of the Israeli military operation in Gaza City, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz also signaled on Tuesday that it had begun.
“Gaza is burning,” he said early in the morning. “The (Israel military) is striking with an iron fist at the terrorist infrastructure and soldiers are fighting heroically to create the conditions for the release of the hostages and the defeat of Hamas. We will not relent and we will not go back — until the completion of the mission.”
The United Nations estimated on Monday that over 220,000 Palestinians have fled northern Gaza over the past month, after the Israeli military warned that all residents should leave Gaza City ahead of the operation. An estimated 1 million Palestinians were living in the region around Gaza City before the evacuation warnings.
Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
Palestinian residents reported heavy strikes across Gaza City on Tuesday morning. The city’s Shifa Hospital said it received the bodies of 20 people killed in a strike that hit multiple houses in a western neighborhood, with another 90 wounded arriving at the facility in recent hours.
“A very tough night in Gaza,” Dr. Mohamed Abu Selmiyah, director of Shifa Hospital, told The Associated Press
“The bombing did not stop for a single moment,” he said. “There are still bodies under the rubble.”
The Israeli military did not respond to immediate requests for comment on the strikes but in the past has accused Hamas of building military infrastructure inside civilian areas, especially in Gaza City.
Rubio visits Qatar, says time for peace deal “running out”
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio traveled Tuesday from Israel to the energy-rich nation of Qatar for talks with its ruling emir, whose country is still incensed over Israel’s strike last week that killed five Hamas members and a local security official.
Arab and Muslim nations denounced the strike at a summit Monday but stopped short of any major action targeting Israel, highlighting the challenge of diplomatically pressuring any change in Israel’s conduct.
Egypt, however, escalated its language against Israel, with President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi describing the country as “an enemy” in a fiery speech on Monday in Qatar during the Arab leaders’ summit.
QATARI MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS/AFP/Getty
It was the first time an Egyptian leader had used the term since the two countries established diplomatic ties in 1979, said Diaa Rashwan, head of Egypt’s State Information Service.
“Egypt is being threatened,” Rashwan told the state-run Extra News television late Monday.
El-Sisi’s remark comment played prominently across Egyptian newspapers’ front pages on Tuesday through Cairo has taken no steps to change its formal diplomatic status with Israel.
Rubio spent about an hour meeting with Qatar’s leader before heading back to the airport, where he was next scheduled to fly to the United Kingdom, where President Trump is set to arrive for an official state visit on Tuesday evening.
“We have a very short window of time in which a deal can happen” to end the war in Gaza, Rubio warned before arriving in Doha. “It’s a key moment — an important moment.”
Rubio said “a negotiated settlement” still remained the best option, while acknowledging the dangers an intensified military campaign posed to Gaza.
Amir Cohen/REUTERS
“The only thing worse than a war is a protracted one that goes on forever and ever,” Rubio said. “At some point, this has to end. At some point, Hamas has to be defanged, and we hope it can happen through a negotiation. But I think time, unfortunately, is running out.”
Experts commissioned by U.N. accuse Israel of genocide in Gaza
Separately, a team of independent experts commissioned by the United Nations’ Human Rights Council concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. It issued a report Tuesday that calls on the international community to end the genocide and take steps to punish those responsible for it.
Israel has refused to cooperate with the commission and has accused it and the HRC of anti-Israel bias. A statement from Israel’s Foreign Ministry Tuesday says it “categorically rejects this distorted and false report.”
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Rubio meets Netanyahu in Israel as U.S. ally Qatar gathers Arab neighbors to condemn Doha attack
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Monday in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as close U.S. ally Qatar gathered other Arab nations’ leaders for a summit to issue unified condemnation of last week’s Israeli airstrike targeting Hamas leaders in the Qatari capital.
On Sunday, President Trump urged Netanyahu’s government to be “very careful” following the airstrike in Doha.
“They have to do something about Hamas, but Qatar has been a great ally to the United States,” Mr. Trump told reporters at Morristown airport in New Jersey.
Speaking Monday alongside Rubio, Netanyahu heaped praise on the Trump administration for its staunch, increasingly unique international support of Israel’s tactics in its ongoing war against Hamas — which has long been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., Israel and the European Union — in the Gaza Strip.
“Your presence here today sends a clear message that America stands with Israel,” Netanyahu said.
NATHAN HOWARD/POOL/AFP/Getty
The Israeli leader has vigorously defended last week’s strike in Doha, saying Israeli fighter jets targeted senior Hamas leaders responsible for the Hamas-led, Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attack that killed some 1,200 people and saw 251 others taken as hostages back into Gaza.
Hamas has said that five of its members were killed, but that Israel failed to kill its intended targets — senior members of the group’s political negotiating team, who have long been based in Doha, with the knowledge and backing of both Israel and the U.S.
Rubio, pressed to respond to the anger in Doha over the strike last week, told reporters at the news conference with Netanyahu that “we have strong relationships with our Gulf allies… We have been engaged with them consistently before what happened and after what happened.”
“Irrespective of what has occurred, the reality is we still have 48 hostages. We still have Hamas that is holding Gaza hostage and using civilians as human shields… as long as they are around there will be no peace in this region,” Rubio said.
A senior State Department official told CBS News Monday that Rubio will travel to Qatar after his Israel visit, before flying to the United Kingdom for President Trump’s state visit there.
Addressing reporters Saturday at Joint Base Andrews prior to his departure, Rubio said he would be speaking with Netanyahu to “get a much better understanding of what their plans are moving forward.”
“What’s happened has happened. Obviously, we were not happy about it. The president was not happy with it,” Rubio said, referring to the strike in Doha. “Now we need to move forward and figure out what comes next. Because at the end of the day, when all is said and done, there is still a group called Hamas, which is an evil group that still has weapons and is terrorizing.”
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani issued a fresh condemnation of Israel’s attack on Sunday, and he called “for the international community to stop its double standards and punish Israel for its crimes.”
QATARI MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS/AFP/Getty
Qatar is a key U.S. ally and it has long hosted the largest American military base in the Middle East, the Al-Udeid Air Base, where there are thousands of U.S. troops based.
A source familiar with the discussions at the emergency Arab and Muslim leaders summit in Doha on Monday told CBS News a draft resolution would see them condemn, Israel’s “hostile acts including genocide, ethnic cleansing, [and] starvation” in Gaza, which, it will say, threatens “prospects of peace and coexistence” in the region.
QATARI MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS/AFP/Getty
Israel has vehemently denied multiple accusations that its war in Gaza amounts to a genocide against Palestinians, arguing that its military campaign is solely against Hamas militants whom it accuses of putting civilians in harms way by using them as human shields.
The source familiar with the draft statement from the Doha summit said the resolution would call “on the international community to coordinate efforts to impose international sanctions on Israel — suspending the supply of weapons, munitions, and military material, and reviewing diplomatic and economic relations — to stop its crimes against the Palestinian people and attacks on regional countries.”
Israel’s war has killed more than 64,000 Palestinians in the nearly two years since it began, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Israel rejects that figure but has not offered its own estimate and does not permit foreign journalists to enter Gaza and operate independently.
The United Nations considers the tally from the Gazan health ministry the most reliable information available on the war’s death toll.
Last month, Israel declared Gaza City, the Palestinian Territory’s biggest population center, a “dangerous combat zone” and a Hamas stronghold. In recent days, Israeli military forces have ramped up an aerial assault on the city, toppling several more high-rise buildings on Sunday in what was already an apocalyptic landscape.
Abdalhkem Abu Riash/Anadolu/Getty
The U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly voted Friday to support a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict — the long-standing call for an independent Palestinian state to be created alongside Israel as part of a negotiated peace agreement, which has been a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy for decades.
President Trump, who previously voiced support for a two-state solution, has more recently distanced his administration from adherence to that objective, despite rising support internationally for Palestinian statehood.
Israel and the U.S. were among the 10 countries that voted against the resolution, and before the vote, Netanyahu reiterated his government’s stance that, “there will be no Palestinian state.”
The U.N. resolution also condemned Israel’s alleged attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure in Gaza and its “siege and starvation, which have produced a devastating humanitarian catastrophe and protection crisis.”
The non-binding resolution, which 142 nations supported, also called for the release of all remaining Israeli hostages and outlined a vision in which the Palestinian Authority, which currently partially administers the Israeli-occupied West Bank, would govern and control all Palestinian territory, with a transitional administrative committee immediately established under its umbrella after a ceasefire in Gaza.
“In the context of ending the war in Gaza, Hamas must end its rule in Gaza and hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority,” the declaration said.
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Rubio arrives in Israel as Israeli strikes intensify in northern Gaza
JERUSALEM — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in Israel on Sunday, as Israel intensified its attacks against northern Gaza, flattening another high-rise building and killing at least 12 Palestinians.
Rubio said ahead of the trip that he will be seeking answers from Israeli officials about how they see the way forward in Gaza following Israel’s attack on Hamas operatives in Qatar last week that upended efforts to broker an end to the conflict.
His two-day visit is also a show of support for the increasingly isolated Israel as the United Nations holds what is expected to be a contentious debate on commitment to the creation of a Palestinian state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly opposes the recognition of a Palestinian state.
Attack on Qatar
Rubio’s visit went ahead despite President Donald Trump’s anger at Netanyahu over the Israeli strike against Hamas leaders in Doha, which he said the United States was not notified of beforehand.
On Friday, Rubio and Trump met with Qatar’s prime minister to discuss the fallout from the Israeli operation. The dual, back-to-back meetings with Israel and Qatar illustrate how Trump administration is trying to balance relations between key Middle East allies despite the attack’s widespread international condemnation.
The Doha attack also appears to have ended attempts to secure an Israel-Hamas ceasefire and the release of hostages ahead of the upcoming U.N. General Assembly session, at which the Gaza war is expected to be a primary focus.
Deadly airstrikes mount
On Sunday, at least 13 Palestinians were killed and dozens were wounded in multiple Israeli strikes across Gaza, according to local hospitals.
Local hospitals said Israeli strikes targeted a vehicle near Shifa hospital and a roundabout in Gaza City, and a tent in the city of Deir al-Balah that killed at least six members of the same family.
Two parents, their three children and the children’s aunt were killed in that strike, according to the Al-Aqsa hospital. The family was from the northern town of Beit Hanoun, and arrived in Deir al-Balah last week after fleeing their shelter in Gaza City
The Israeli military did not have immediate comment on the strikes.
As part of its expanding operation in Gaza City, the Israeli military destroyed a high-rise residential building on Sunday morning, less than an hour after an evacuation order posted online by the military spokesman Avichay Adraee.
Residents said said the Kauther tower in the Rimal neighborhood was flattened to the ground. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
“This is part of the genocidal measures the (Israeli) occupation is carrying out in Gaza City,” said Abed Ismail, a Gaza City resident. “They want to turn the whole city into rubble, and force the transfer and another Nakba.”
The word Nakba is Arabic for catastrophe and refers to when some 700,000 Palestinians were expelled by Israeli forces or fled their homes in what is now Israel, before and during the 1948 war that surrounded its creation.
Israeli strongly denies accusations of genocide in Gaza.
Starvation in Gaza
Separately, two Palestinian adults died of causes related to malnutrition and starvation in the Gaza Strip over the last 24 hours, the territory’s health ministry reported Sunday.
That has brought the death toll from malnutrition-related causes to 277 since late June, when the ministry started to count fatalities among this age category, while another 145 children died of malnutrition-related causes since the start of the war in October 2023, the ministry said.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, abducting 251 people and killing some 1,200, mostly civilians. There are still 48 hostages remaining in Gaza, of whom 20 Israel believes are still alive.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 64,803 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were civilians or combatants. It says around half of those killed were women and children. Large parts of major cities have been completely destroyed and around 90% of some 2 million Palestinians have been displaced. ___
Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2025 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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Rubio says Trump is ‘not happy’ about Israel’s strike on U.S. ally Qatar targeting Hamas operatives | Fortune
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says he will be seeking answers from Israeli officials about how they see the way forward in Gaza following Israel’s attack on Hamas operatives in Qatar that has upended efforts to broker an end to the conflict.
Rubio told reporters on Saturday before leaving for Israel that President Donald Trump remained unhappy with the Israeli strike but that it would not shake U.S. support for Israel.
“We’re going to talk about what the future holds, and I’m going to get a much better understanding of what their plans are moving forward,” Rubio said. “Obviously we’re not happy about it. The president was not happy about it. Now we need to move forward and figure out what comes next.”
Both Rubio and Trump met on Friday with Qatar’s prime minister to discuss the fallout from the Israeli operation, in a demonstration of how the Trump administration is trying to balance relations between key Middle East allies days after Israel targeted Hamas leaders in a strike on Doha.
The attack has drawn widespread international condemnation and appears to have ended attempts to secure an Israel-Hamas ceasefire and the release of hostages ahead of the upcoming U.N. General Assembly session at which the Gaza war is expected to be a primary focus.
Trump “wants Hamas defeated, he wants the war to end, he wants all 48 hostages home, including those that are deceased, and he wants it all at once,” he said. “And we’ll have to discuss about how the events last week had an impact on the ability to achieve that in short order.”
Rubio will have meetings in Jerusalem on Sunday and Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others.
Despite tensions between Trump and Netanyahu over the strike, Rubio will be in Israel for the two-day visit. It is a show of support for the increasingly isolated country before the United Nations holds likely contentious debate on the creation of a Palestinian state, which Netanyahu opposes.
On Friday, Rubio and Vice President JD Vance met Qatari Prime Ministers Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani at the White House. Later Friday, Trump and special envoy Steve Witkoff had dinner with the sheikh in New York, where Trump went to commemorate the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The Trump administration is walking a delicate line between two major allies after Israel took its fight with Hamas to the Qatari capital, where leaders of the militant group had gathered to consider a U.S. proposal for a ceasefire in the nearly two-year-old war in Gaza. Qatar is a key mediator, and while its leaders have vowed to press forward, the next steps are uncertain for a long-sought deal to halt the fighting and release hostages taken from Israel.
Condemning the strike but supporting Israel
Israel’s attack Tuesday also has ruptured Trump’s hopes to secure a wider Middle East peace deal, with the rulers of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar all uniting in anger.
Trump himself has distanced himself from the strike, saying it “does not advance Israel or America’s goals” and has promised Qatar that it would not be repeated. The U.S. also joined a U.N. Security Council statement condemning the strike without mentioning Israel by name.
While in Israel, Rubio plans to visit the City of David, a popular archaeological site and tourist destination built by Israel in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan in contested east Jerusalem.
It contains some of the oldest remains of the 3,000-year-old city. But critics accuse the site’s operators of pushing a nationalistic agenda at the expense of Palestinian residents.
Israel captured east Jerusalem, home to the city’s most important religious sites, in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed the area.
Israel claims the entire city as its eternal, undivided capital while the Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state, including the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The competing claims lie at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and frequently boil over into violence.
Fortune Global Forum returns Oct. 26–27, 2025 in Riyadh. CEOs and global leaders will gather for a dynamic, invitation-only event shaping the future of business. Apply for an invitation.Matthew Lee, The Associated Press
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Rubio says U.S. is designating 2 Ecuador gangs as foreign terrorist groups:
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday that the United States is designating two Ecuadorian gangs as foreign terrorist organizations in the Trump administration’s latest move against cartels.
The announcement came as Rubio traveled to Ecuador to meet with its leaders in a trip to Latin America this week that has been overshadowed by a U.S. military strike against a similarly designated gang, Tren de Aragua. The strike has raised concerns in the region about whether the Trump administration will step up military activity to combat drug trafficking and illegal migration.
The two new designees, Los Lobos and Los Choneros, are Ecuadorian gangs blamed for much of the violence that began since the COVID-19 pandemic. The designation, Rubio said, brings “all sorts of options” for the U.S. government to work in conjunction with the government of Ecuador to crack down on these groups.
That includes the ability to kill them as well as take action against the properties and banking accounts in the U.S. for the group’s members and people with ties to the criminal organizations, Rubio said, adding it would also help with intelligence sharing.
Rubio called them “vicious animals, these terrorists.”
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
Criminal gang violence continues unabated following the recapture in June of the country’s biggest drug lord, Adolfo Macías, who leads Los Choneros, after his escape from a maximum-security prison in 2024. In July, the Ecuadoran government extradited Macias to the United States, where he faces multiple drug trafficking and firearms charges.
Last year, the U.S. classified Los Choneros as one of the most violent gangs and affirmed its connection to powerful Mexican drug cartels who threaten Ecuador and the surrounding region.
Earlier this year, a leader of Los Lobos was arrested at his home in the coastal city of Portoviejo. Carlos D, widely known by his alias El Chino, was the second-in-command of Los Lobos and “considered a high-value target,” the armed forces said in a statement.
The U.S. last year declared Los Lobos to be the largest drug trafficking organization in Ecuador.
“Interdiction doesn’t work”
Rubio’s meetings in Quito on Thursday follow talks a day earlier with Mexican leaders that were overshadowed by the U.S. military strike on suspected Tren de Aragua drug runners in the southern Caribbean.
The Trump administration asserts that it targeted a Venezuelan drug-running ship crewed by members of Tren de Aragua. U.S. officials say the vessel’s cargo was intended for the United States and that the strike killed 11 people.
Rubio defended the action and offered no justification other than to say the boat posed an “immediate threat” to the U.S. and that Trump opted to “blow it up” rather than follow what had been standard procedure to stop and board, arrest the crew and seize any contraband on board.
“Interdiction doesn’t work,” Rubio said Wednesday. “Instead of interdicting it, on the president’s orders, we blew it up. And it’ll happen again. Maybe it’s happening right now, I don’t know, but the point is the president of the United States is going to wage war on narco-terrorist organizations.”
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that U.S. military assets will remain in the region, and that more strikes may be forthcoming.
“This is a deadly, serious mission for us and it won’t stop with just this strike,” Hegseth told Fox News. “Anyone else trafficking in those waters who we know is a designated narco-terrorist will face the same fate.”
The strike got a mixed reaction from leaders around Latin America, where the U.S. history of military intervention and gunboat diplomacy is still fresh. Many, like officials in Mexico, were careful not to outright condemn the attack but stressed the importance of protecting national sovereignty and warning that expanded U.S. military involvement might actually backfire.
Mexico Foreign Affairs Secretary Ramón de la Fuente, speaking to reporters alongside Rubio, emphasized his country’s preference for “nonintervention, peaceful solution of conflicts.”
Ecuador has its own issues with narcotics trafficking and also has been looked to by the Trump administration as a possible destination to deport non-Ecuadorian migrants from the United States. U.S. officials have said they would like to secure an agreement with Ecuador that would have it accept such deportees, but the status of negotiations with Quito was not clear.
Ecuador’s president, Daniel Noboa, on Thursday thanked Rubio for the U.S. efforts to “actually eliminate any terrorist threat.” Before their meeting, Rubio had said on social media that the U.S. and Ecuador are “aligned as key partners on ending illegal immigration and combatting transnational crime and terrorism.”
Surging violence since COVID-19 pandemic
The latest U.N. World Drug Report says various countries in South America, including Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, reported larger cocaine seizures in 2022 than in 2021, but it does not give Venezuela the outsize role that the White House has in recent months.
“The impact of increased cocaine trafficking has been felt in Ecuador in particular, which has seen a wave of lethal violence in recent years linked to both local and transnational crime groups, most notably from Mexico and the Balkan countries,” the report says.
Violence has skyrocketed in Ecuador since the COVID-19 pandemic, as drug traffickers expanded operations in the country and took advantage of the nation’s banana industry.
The South American country is the world’s largest exporter of bananas, shipping about 7.2 million tons a year by sea. Traffickers find containers filled with bananas the perfect vehicle to smuggle their product.
In addition, cartels from Mexico, Colombia and the Balkans have settled in Ecuador because it uses the U.S. dollar and has weak laws and institutions, along with a network of long-established, ruthless gangs that are eager for work.
Ecuador also gained prominence in the global cocaine trade after political changes in Colombia last decade. Coca bush fields in Colombia have been moving closer to the border with Ecuador due to the breakup of criminal groups after the 2016 demobilization of the rebel group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, better known by its Spanish acronym FARC.
Rubio is also visiting the Andean country to argue against its close ties and reliance on China.
contributed to this report.
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Trump orders strike on suspected Venezuelan gang boat in Caribbean
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump carried out a strike on a boat in the southern Caribbean that he claims was operated by members of the Tren de Aragua gang and en route to the United States with drugs on board. “The strike occurred while the terrorists were at sea in International waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States,” Trump posted on Truth Social with a video of the strike. “Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE!”
The strike followed last week’s deployment of eight U.S. warships, one nuclear-powered submarine, and thousands of Marines—the largest military buildup in Latin America since the 1989 invasion of Panama. Officially, Washington says it’s fighting drug cartels by first designating them as global terrorists. Yet Trump “secretly signed a directive to the Pentagon” instructing the military to start targeting cartels. But the Venezuelan regime is no ordinary cartel.
In early August, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a reward of up to $50 million “for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction” of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro “for violating U.S. narcotics laws.” Maduro is accused of being “a leader of Cartel de los Soles” (Cartel of the Suns), a powerful trafficking network that, like Tren de Aragua, has become a target of U.S. operations.
In 2024, Edmundo González Urrutia won Venezuela’s presidential election with 67 percent of the vote, but Maduro’s dictatorship refused to relinquish power and forced him into exile. Despite clinging to illegitimacy, Maduro denounced the U.S. deployment at the United Nations as “a serious threat to regional peace and security.” At home, he attempted to project strength by launching a nationwide enlistment drive in mid-August, opening militia registration centers across the country, but the campaign seems to have been a failure.
The U.S., meanwhile, is building a coalition in Latin America to attack the Cartel of the Suns, getting other countries to also declare it a terrorist organization. So far, Ecuador, Paraguay, Argentina, and the Dominican Republic have joined the initiative. France has also reinforced its military presence in the Caribbean. A report detailing Operation Imeri, a plan Brazil had devised for a rescue operation of Maduro following the recent U.S. deployment, was ultimately rejected by sectors of the Brazilian Navy. However, despite the reports coming from reputable sources, its existence was later denied by Brazil’s Defense Ministry.
But now, everything depends on how far Trump is willing to go. This is the first direct action that the administration has taken against an organization related to the regime in Caracas. Trump directly named Maduro as the mind behind the organization, and accused him of overseeing “mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere.” During his briefing, the president also hinted at future actions against the regime, saying, “There’s more where that came from.”
The equipment deployed is not suitable for simply carrying out an anti-drug operation. It includes boats such as the USS Jason Dunham, which can use Tomahawk cruise missiles to hit targets accurately from over 1,000 miles. The forces are also not enough to start an occupation, and an intervention risks entangling the U.S. in another costly foreign conflict. But it is possible that we will see more strikes on vessels, and potentially, strikes on Venezuelan soil against drug operations. Venezuela is one of the key transit countries for cocaine, with nearly 24 percent of all the cocaine in the world going through the country, with the protection of the Cartel of the Suns.
The White House has promised repeatedly to bring to justice those responsible for smuggling drugs into the country. The U.S. is capable of conducting such an operation on Venezuelan soil, as we saw a few months ago when asylum-seeking opposition leaders were rescued from the Embassy of Argentina in Caracas—considered the most guarded place in the country after the government palace—by U.S. and Italian government forces.
If Trump were to deploy such a military force and then pull back, it would be a political defeat for him and an easy victory for the dictatorship. He has political reasons to conduct a high-level operation, one of which is the mid-term elections. The president will need the support of the Hispanic community, the largest minority in the country, and their support for Trump has diminished following his punishing deportation campaign—support he could largely regain if he captured Maduro. Another reason is that Trump might be holding a meeting with the Chinese President Xi Jinping in October, and holding this meeting after suffering a political defeat to the Maduro regime would put the U.S. in a weak position. However, if Trump gets to the meeting with a political victory over one of China’s allies, it could give him the upper hand.
What is now clear is that this is not a mere show of force. Washington seems to be testing the limits of intervention. How this gamble plays out remains uncertain. For many Venezuelans, the possibility of outside pressure offers a fragile sense of hope after decades of repression, yet the risks of escalation and regional instability are just as real. However this plays out, the outcome will reverberate far beyond Caracas, shaping both Venezuela’s future and the United States’ role in the hemisphere.
Diego Berrizbeitia
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What we know about the deadly U.S. strike against apparent Venezuelan drug-carrying boat
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What we know about the deadly U.S. strike against apparent Venezuelan drug-carrying boat – CBS News
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U.S. halts issuing worker visas for commercial truck drivers
The U.S. will stop issuing worker visas for commercial truck drivers, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Thursday. He said the change was effective immediately.
“The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on U.S. roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers,” Rubio wrote in a post on X.
A State Department spokesperson said later Thursday the pause was done “in order to conduct a comprehensive and thorough review of screening and vetting protocols used to determine their qualifications for a U.S. visa.”
The spokesperson noted it “applies to all nationalities and is not directed at any specific country.”
The Trump administration in the past months has taken steps to enforce the requirement that truckers speak and read English proficiently. The Transportation Department said the aim is to improve road safety following incidents in which drivers’ ability to read signs or speak English may have contributed to traffic deaths.
“As we have seen with recent deadly accidents, foreign truckers can pose risks to American lives, U.S. national security, and foreign policy interests,” the State Department spokesperson said. “Ensuring that every driver on our roads meets the highest standards is important to protecting the livelihoods of American truckers and maintaining a secure, resilient supply chain.”
The move comes amid a commercial truck driver shortage in the U.S. According to the American Trucking Association, a trade group, the industry is facing a shortage of about 60,000 drivers.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration also said Thursday it is reviewing more than 55 million people who have valid U.S. visas for any violations that could lead to deportation.
In a written answer to a question from the Associated Press, the State Department said all U.S. visa holders, which can include tourists from many countries, are subject to “continuous vetting,” with an eye toward any indication they could be ineligible for permission to enter or stay in the United States.
Should such information be found, the visa will be revoked, and if the visa holder is in the U.S., he or she would be subject to deportation.
Since President Trump took office, his administration has focused on deporting migrants illegally in the U.S. as well as holders of student and visitor exchange visas. The State Department’s new language suggests that the continual vetting process, which officials acknowledge is time-consuming, is far more widespread and could mean even those approved to be in the U.S. could abruptly see those permissions revoked.
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US immediately pausing issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers, Rubio says
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday that the United States was immediately pausing the issuance of all worker visas for commercial truck drivers.
“The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on U.S. roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers,” Rubio said in a post on X.
(Reporting by Jasper Ward, Editing by Bhargav Acharya)