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Manchester, UK, was hit with the deadliest bomb attack on Monday since a June Saturday morning in 1996, when a massive 3000 lb. Provisional Irish Republican Army blast leveled the city center shopping district to rubble and left 200 wounded. The toll at the Ariana Grande concert so far this morning is nearly two dozen dead and over 60 wounded.
My heart goes out to the innocent victims, young people celebrating spring and life with some lighthearted entertainment. I apologize that the rest of this column will turn to dry analysis. Trying to understand global contemporary history is my own way of dealing with its tragedy.
It should be underlined that local Manchester Muslims were as devastated as everyone else by this attack, and that Muslim cabbies swung into action helping the concert-goers with free rides out of the affected area. Islamic law forbids terrorism.
Ironically, the attack yesterday in Manchester was likely by Sunni radicals (ISIL has claimed it), and came two days after President Trump blamed all terrorism on Shiite Iran at a speech in Saudi Arabia, the proponent of a form of extreme Sunni supremacism. Saudi Arabia's royal family say they oppose terrorism and they are not responsible for terrorism, but they do give Wahhabis the impression that non-Wahhabis are wretched heretics with whom one cannot be friends.
Can anything be learned from looking at 1996 and 2017 in the same historical frame? Paul Sanders wrote in the London Times in 1996,
"We heard the sirens through the office window and I ran into the street to be met by hordes of shoppers running from the city centre . . . I had no idea what was going on but I headed forwhere they were running from. . . A policeman shouted at me: "Get down!" and thatwas when the bomb went off. It seemed to happen in slow motion. The airwas sucked out ofmy lungs and I was blown off my feet. Glass and bits of slate were falling around me and I was frightened of getting knocked unconscious or worse. I somehow got to thewall of a pub for shelter. As I looked along the street, I saw the cloud of dust and smoke. I took several frames.
Local officials spoke of the event as "a chilling reminder of the IRA's capacity for evil," [quoted in Barry Hazley, "Re/Negotiating 'Suspicion': Exploring the Construction of the Self in Irish Migrants' Memories of the 1996 Manchester Bomb," Irish Studies Review Vol. 21, Issue 3. Date: 2013 Pages: 326-341). Some suspicion fell on Manchester's large Irish expatriate community. There was a search for persons with Irish accents. The Irish community center received threatening phone calls with that "you murdering Irish bastards" are going to get it tonight!"
As Hazley's oral history showed, most working-class Irish in Manchester had no sympathy with the bombing, and regretted the tension it introduced into their relations with English friends.
Let me underline, since these matters are still controversial and can make for hard feelings that a) terrorism, i.e. hitting innocent civilians, is always wrong and b) the Irish nationalist cause has many legitimate grievances stemming from the long history of brutal colonialism.
The Provisional Irish Republican Army, founded in 1969, sought to unite the Republic of Ireland with British Northern Ireland in a single state. In the IRA frame, Northern Ireland was a colonial holdover militarily occupied by the United Kingdom and could be liberated by guerrilla war on Britain. Ireland itself had been a British colony for centuries and was only liberated by hard anti-colonial struggle at the beginning of the twentieth century. At the time of the 1996 bombing in Manchester, negotiations were going on between the UK and Ireland to find some sort of power-sharing solution for Northern Ireland. Those negotiations succeeded in 1998, and by 1997 the IRA had declared a cease-fire. The Manchester bombing was one of the last big such attacks. Perhaps because it occurred in the midst of a serious diplomatic process, British officialdom responded in a relatively subdued manner.
The 1998 "Good Friday" agreement that largely ended the Northern Ireland "troubles" that roiled the 1970s and after and left thousands dead and wounded acknowledged Ireland's legitimate interests in Northern Ireland but left that province part of the United Kingdom until such time as a majority of its inhabitants wished to succeed (a right they were granted). It also recognized the right of pro-Ireland inhabitants of Northern Ireland to advocate for union with Ireland without that being seen as treason.
How does the 1996 P-IRA bombing compare to that of 2017? Both hit a civilian target (Arndale Shopping Center among others in the first instance, a pop music concert in the second). If it is true that yesterday's incident was an attack by a suicide bomber, it very possibly was the work of ISIL (ISIS, Daesh), the radical Muslim organization that seeks to detach Sunni Iraq and Sunni Syria from their respective countries and create a state for Sunni Arabs, who are currently ruled by what the Sunni nationalists see as Shiite-dominated states. Britain was the colonial power that formed modern Iraq and is currently part of a US-led military coalition bombing ISIL facilities in an attempt to defeat the organization.
Beyond ISIL, Western Europe had colonized most of the Muslim world for centuries, in a concerted quest to steal its resources, tax its people, and put its inhabitants to work on colonial plantations. After WW II, most Muslim-majority states with the exception of the Mandate of Palestine became independent countries, but even then they often continued to be economically colonized and politically subordinate to the old colonial master. The US war of aggression on and brutal military occupation of Iraq 2003-2011 set off this sort of anti-colonial struggle once again.
ISIL of course differs profoundly from the IRA, but both were reactions against a history of colonial shaping of the lives of local people in ways that were seen by the colonized to harm their dignity and to detract from local sovereignty. Both lashed out with terrorism (the IRA once hit Harrod's Department Store in London, leaving people dead).
One big difference is that the IRA had a clear idea of what it wanted, which was the union of Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland (something a majority of people in Northern Ireland, i.e. Protestants, however, did not want). The IRA subordinated religion to nation, coding everyone in the Irish isles as Irish and ideally part of the same polity.
In contrast, ISIL exalts sectarian identity over nation, seeing the Sunni Arabs of Iraq as oppressed by being in the same country with a majority Shiite population. ISIL is a form of hyper Sunni nationalism (though to be fair it codes many mainstream Sunnis as heretics or colonial collaborators).
Both the IRA and ISIL are unrealistic. The IRA got only a little of what it wanted, but apparently that was enough to convince its members to stand down (there is a tiny rump of "Real IRA" activists who reject the Good Friday agreement). ISIL in contrast will get nothing and will simply be militarily defeated.
To the extent, though, that ISIL is a (distorted and monstrous) form of Sunni Arab nationalism, or benefited from those sentiments, it will be a mistake for Iraq/ US and Syria/Russia to simply crush the Sunnis. Sunni Arabs in both countries have legitimate aspirations to having more say in their governance. Along with the military defeat of ISIL, which may be accomplished by the end of the year, a George Mitchell-style political settlement is desirable. In Iraq, some of the problem could be resolved by the country becoming more democratic, making its parliamentary system more inclusive and less of a tyranny of the majority. Unfortunately, we are in the age of Trump, an age of the exaltation of the strong man (i.e. dictator) and diplomatic solutions are seen as mere weakness.
Political revenge. Mass deportations. Project 2025. Unfathomable corruption. Attacks on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Pardons for insurrectionists. An all-out assault on democracy. Republicans in Congress are scrambling to give Trump broad new powers to strip the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit he doesn’t like by declaring it a “terrorist-supporting organization.” Trump has already begun filing lawsuits against news outlets that criticize him. At Common Dreams, we won’t back down, but we must get ready for whatever Trump and his thugs throw at us. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. By donating today, please help us fight the dangers of a second Trump presidency. |
Manchester, UK, was hit with the deadliest bomb attack on Monday since a June Saturday morning in 1996, when a massive 3000 lb. Provisional Irish Republican Army blast leveled the city center shopping district to rubble and left 200 wounded. The toll at the Ariana Grande concert so far this morning is nearly two dozen dead and over 60 wounded.
My heart goes out to the innocent victims, young people celebrating spring and life with some lighthearted entertainment. I apologize that the rest of this column will turn to dry analysis. Trying to understand global contemporary history is my own way of dealing with its tragedy.
It should be underlined that local Manchester Muslims were as devastated as everyone else by this attack, and that Muslim cabbies swung into action helping the concert-goers with free rides out of the affected area. Islamic law forbids terrorism.
Ironically, the attack yesterday in Manchester was likely by Sunni radicals (ISIL has claimed it), and came two days after President Trump blamed all terrorism on Shiite Iran at a speech in Saudi Arabia, the proponent of a form of extreme Sunni supremacism. Saudi Arabia's royal family say they oppose terrorism and they are not responsible for terrorism, but they do give Wahhabis the impression that non-Wahhabis are wretched heretics with whom one cannot be friends.
Can anything be learned from looking at 1996 and 2017 in the same historical frame? Paul Sanders wrote in the London Times in 1996,
"We heard the sirens through the office window and I ran into the street to be met by hordes of shoppers running from the city centre . . . I had no idea what was going on but I headed forwhere they were running from. . . A policeman shouted at me: "Get down!" and thatwas when the bomb went off. It seemed to happen in slow motion. The airwas sucked out ofmy lungs and I was blown off my feet. Glass and bits of slate were falling around me and I was frightened of getting knocked unconscious or worse. I somehow got to thewall of a pub for shelter. As I looked along the street, I saw the cloud of dust and smoke. I took several frames.
Local officials spoke of the event as "a chilling reminder of the IRA's capacity for evil," [quoted in Barry Hazley, "Re/Negotiating 'Suspicion': Exploring the Construction of the Self in Irish Migrants' Memories of the 1996 Manchester Bomb," Irish Studies Review Vol. 21, Issue 3. Date: 2013 Pages: 326-341). Some suspicion fell on Manchester's large Irish expatriate community. There was a search for persons with Irish accents. The Irish community center received threatening phone calls with that "you murdering Irish bastards" are going to get it tonight!"
As Hazley's oral history showed, most working-class Irish in Manchester had no sympathy with the bombing, and regretted the tension it introduced into their relations with English friends.
Let me underline, since these matters are still controversial and can make for hard feelings that a) terrorism, i.e. hitting innocent civilians, is always wrong and b) the Irish nationalist cause has many legitimate grievances stemming from the long history of brutal colonialism.
The Provisional Irish Republican Army, founded in 1969, sought to unite the Republic of Ireland with British Northern Ireland in a single state. In the IRA frame, Northern Ireland was a colonial holdover militarily occupied by the United Kingdom and could be liberated by guerrilla war on Britain. Ireland itself had been a British colony for centuries and was only liberated by hard anti-colonial struggle at the beginning of the twentieth century. At the time of the 1996 bombing in Manchester, negotiations were going on between the UK and Ireland to find some sort of power-sharing solution for Northern Ireland. Those negotiations succeeded in 1998, and by 1997 the IRA had declared a cease-fire. The Manchester bombing was one of the last big such attacks. Perhaps because it occurred in the midst of a serious diplomatic process, British officialdom responded in a relatively subdued manner.
The 1998 "Good Friday" agreement that largely ended the Northern Ireland "troubles" that roiled the 1970s and after and left thousands dead and wounded acknowledged Ireland's legitimate interests in Northern Ireland but left that province part of the United Kingdom until such time as a majority of its inhabitants wished to succeed (a right they were granted). It also recognized the right of pro-Ireland inhabitants of Northern Ireland to advocate for union with Ireland without that being seen as treason.
How does the 1996 P-IRA bombing compare to that of 2017? Both hit a civilian target (Arndale Shopping Center among others in the first instance, a pop music concert in the second). If it is true that yesterday's incident was an attack by a suicide bomber, it very possibly was the work of ISIL (ISIS, Daesh), the radical Muslim organization that seeks to detach Sunni Iraq and Sunni Syria from their respective countries and create a state for Sunni Arabs, who are currently ruled by what the Sunni nationalists see as Shiite-dominated states. Britain was the colonial power that formed modern Iraq and is currently part of a US-led military coalition bombing ISIL facilities in an attempt to defeat the organization.
Beyond ISIL, Western Europe had colonized most of the Muslim world for centuries, in a concerted quest to steal its resources, tax its people, and put its inhabitants to work on colonial plantations. After WW II, most Muslim-majority states with the exception of the Mandate of Palestine became independent countries, but even then they often continued to be economically colonized and politically subordinate to the old colonial master. The US war of aggression on and brutal military occupation of Iraq 2003-2011 set off this sort of anti-colonial struggle once again.
ISIL of course differs profoundly from the IRA, but both were reactions against a history of colonial shaping of the lives of local people in ways that were seen by the colonized to harm their dignity and to detract from local sovereignty. Both lashed out with terrorism (the IRA once hit Harrod's Department Store in London, leaving people dead).
One big difference is that the IRA had a clear idea of what it wanted, which was the union of Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland (something a majority of people in Northern Ireland, i.e. Protestants, however, did not want). The IRA subordinated religion to nation, coding everyone in the Irish isles as Irish and ideally part of the same polity.
In contrast, ISIL exalts sectarian identity over nation, seeing the Sunni Arabs of Iraq as oppressed by being in the same country with a majority Shiite population. ISIL is a form of hyper Sunni nationalism (though to be fair it codes many mainstream Sunnis as heretics or colonial collaborators).
Both the IRA and ISIL are unrealistic. The IRA got only a little of what it wanted, but apparently that was enough to convince its members to stand down (there is a tiny rump of "Real IRA" activists who reject the Good Friday agreement). ISIL in contrast will get nothing and will simply be militarily defeated.
To the extent, though, that ISIL is a (distorted and monstrous) form of Sunni Arab nationalism, or benefited from those sentiments, it will be a mistake for Iraq/ US and Syria/Russia to simply crush the Sunnis. Sunni Arabs in both countries have legitimate aspirations to having more say in their governance. Along with the military defeat of ISIL, which may be accomplished by the end of the year, a George Mitchell-style political settlement is desirable. In Iraq, some of the problem could be resolved by the country becoming more democratic, making its parliamentary system more inclusive and less of a tyranny of the majority. Unfortunately, we are in the age of Trump, an age of the exaltation of the strong man (i.e. dictator) and diplomatic solutions are seen as mere weakness.
Manchester, UK, was hit with the deadliest bomb attack on Monday since a June Saturday morning in 1996, when a massive 3000 lb. Provisional Irish Republican Army blast leveled the city center shopping district to rubble and left 200 wounded. The toll at the Ariana Grande concert so far this morning is nearly two dozen dead and over 60 wounded.
My heart goes out to the innocent victims, young people celebrating spring and life with some lighthearted entertainment. I apologize that the rest of this column will turn to dry analysis. Trying to understand global contemporary history is my own way of dealing with its tragedy.
It should be underlined that local Manchester Muslims were as devastated as everyone else by this attack, and that Muslim cabbies swung into action helping the concert-goers with free rides out of the affected area. Islamic law forbids terrorism.
Ironically, the attack yesterday in Manchester was likely by Sunni radicals (ISIL has claimed it), and came two days after President Trump blamed all terrorism on Shiite Iran at a speech in Saudi Arabia, the proponent of a form of extreme Sunni supremacism. Saudi Arabia's royal family say they oppose terrorism and they are not responsible for terrorism, but they do give Wahhabis the impression that non-Wahhabis are wretched heretics with whom one cannot be friends.
Can anything be learned from looking at 1996 and 2017 in the same historical frame? Paul Sanders wrote in the London Times in 1996,
"We heard the sirens through the office window and I ran into the street to be met by hordes of shoppers running from the city centre . . . I had no idea what was going on but I headed forwhere they were running from. . . A policeman shouted at me: "Get down!" and thatwas when the bomb went off. It seemed to happen in slow motion. The airwas sucked out ofmy lungs and I was blown off my feet. Glass and bits of slate were falling around me and I was frightened of getting knocked unconscious or worse. I somehow got to thewall of a pub for shelter. As I looked along the street, I saw the cloud of dust and smoke. I took several frames.
Local officials spoke of the event as "a chilling reminder of the IRA's capacity for evil," [quoted in Barry Hazley, "Re/Negotiating 'Suspicion': Exploring the Construction of the Self in Irish Migrants' Memories of the 1996 Manchester Bomb," Irish Studies Review Vol. 21, Issue 3. Date: 2013 Pages: 326-341). Some suspicion fell on Manchester's large Irish expatriate community. There was a search for persons with Irish accents. The Irish community center received threatening phone calls with that "you murdering Irish bastards" are going to get it tonight!"
As Hazley's oral history showed, most working-class Irish in Manchester had no sympathy with the bombing, and regretted the tension it introduced into their relations with English friends.
Let me underline, since these matters are still controversial and can make for hard feelings that a) terrorism, i.e. hitting innocent civilians, is always wrong and b) the Irish nationalist cause has many legitimate grievances stemming from the long history of brutal colonialism.
The Provisional Irish Republican Army, founded in 1969, sought to unite the Republic of Ireland with British Northern Ireland in a single state. In the IRA frame, Northern Ireland was a colonial holdover militarily occupied by the United Kingdom and could be liberated by guerrilla war on Britain. Ireland itself had been a British colony for centuries and was only liberated by hard anti-colonial struggle at the beginning of the twentieth century. At the time of the 1996 bombing in Manchester, negotiations were going on between the UK and Ireland to find some sort of power-sharing solution for Northern Ireland. Those negotiations succeeded in 1998, and by 1997 the IRA had declared a cease-fire. The Manchester bombing was one of the last big such attacks. Perhaps because it occurred in the midst of a serious diplomatic process, British officialdom responded in a relatively subdued manner.
The 1998 "Good Friday" agreement that largely ended the Northern Ireland "troubles" that roiled the 1970s and after and left thousands dead and wounded acknowledged Ireland's legitimate interests in Northern Ireland but left that province part of the United Kingdom until such time as a majority of its inhabitants wished to succeed (a right they were granted). It also recognized the right of pro-Ireland inhabitants of Northern Ireland to advocate for union with Ireland without that being seen as treason.
How does the 1996 P-IRA bombing compare to that of 2017? Both hit a civilian target (Arndale Shopping Center among others in the first instance, a pop music concert in the second). If it is true that yesterday's incident was an attack by a suicide bomber, it very possibly was the work of ISIL (ISIS, Daesh), the radical Muslim organization that seeks to detach Sunni Iraq and Sunni Syria from their respective countries and create a state for Sunni Arabs, who are currently ruled by what the Sunni nationalists see as Shiite-dominated states. Britain was the colonial power that formed modern Iraq and is currently part of a US-led military coalition bombing ISIL facilities in an attempt to defeat the organization.
Beyond ISIL, Western Europe had colonized most of the Muslim world for centuries, in a concerted quest to steal its resources, tax its people, and put its inhabitants to work on colonial plantations. After WW II, most Muslim-majority states with the exception of the Mandate of Palestine became independent countries, but even then they often continued to be economically colonized and politically subordinate to the old colonial master. The US war of aggression on and brutal military occupation of Iraq 2003-2011 set off this sort of anti-colonial struggle once again.
ISIL of course differs profoundly from the IRA, but both were reactions against a history of colonial shaping of the lives of local people in ways that were seen by the colonized to harm their dignity and to detract from local sovereignty. Both lashed out with terrorism (the IRA once hit Harrod's Department Store in London, leaving people dead).
One big difference is that the IRA had a clear idea of what it wanted, which was the union of Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland (something a majority of people in Northern Ireland, i.e. Protestants, however, did not want). The IRA subordinated religion to nation, coding everyone in the Irish isles as Irish and ideally part of the same polity.
In contrast, ISIL exalts sectarian identity over nation, seeing the Sunni Arabs of Iraq as oppressed by being in the same country with a majority Shiite population. ISIL is a form of hyper Sunni nationalism (though to be fair it codes many mainstream Sunnis as heretics or colonial collaborators).
Both the IRA and ISIL are unrealistic. The IRA got only a little of what it wanted, but apparently that was enough to convince its members to stand down (there is a tiny rump of "Real IRA" activists who reject the Good Friday agreement). ISIL in contrast will get nothing and will simply be militarily defeated.
To the extent, though, that ISIL is a (distorted and monstrous) form of Sunni Arab nationalism, or benefited from those sentiments, it will be a mistake for Iraq/ US and Syria/Russia to simply crush the Sunnis. Sunni Arabs in both countries have legitimate aspirations to having more say in their governance. Along with the military defeat of ISIL, which may be accomplished by the end of the year, a George Mitchell-style political settlement is desirable. In Iraq, some of the problem could be resolved by the country becoming more democratic, making its parliamentary system more inclusive and less of a tyranny of the majority. Unfortunately, we are in the age of Trump, an age of the exaltation of the strong man (i.e. dictator) and diplomatic solutions are seen as mere weakness.
A group named after the Polish-born lawyer of Jewish descent who coined the term genocide issued a "red flag alert" for the United States on Monday after billionaire Elon Musk—a top ally of President Donald Trump—twice flashed what was widely seen as a Nazi salute during a post-inauguration event.
The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Studies and Prevention said that "Musk's act is a frightening signal of things to come" and rejected the notion that the billionaire's gestures were unintentional.
"In light of Musk's important influence on the new administration," the group said in a statement, "the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention is issuing a Red Flag Alert for genocide in the United States."
The Lemkin Institute urged Americans to "respond with critical thinking" to any suggestion that Musk's salutes were merely awkward or odd-looking—but ultimately benign—expressions of enthusiasm.
"Is it possible that any person—especially in South Africa (where support for Nazism was very strong) or the USA (where the History Channel has introduced almost all but the youngest generations to the Nazi salute)—is unaware of this salute or what it means?" the group asked. "It is almost impossible that this was an unfortunate mistake. Finally, can we really believe that someone who is so often in the public eye would risk an arm gesture—twice—that looks almost exactly like the Nazi salute while he is supposedly celebrating Donald Trump's election to president? We strongly believe that Elon Musk's gesture was intentional. We will be happy to be proven wrong."
"Musk's Hitler salute cannot and must not be swept under the rug. The U.S. press, cowed as it has been under President Biden, cannot be trusted to cover the new president's administration with any backbone or honesty. It is up to the American people to defend the Constitution and this country's core values against all threats," the organization continued. "Trans people, refugees, and migrants are not the threats. The billionaires with close ties to our new president who flash the Nazi salute and seek to replace the old elites with a new caste—that is the real threat to America."
Musk's salutes drew widespread alarm, including from public officials in Europe—where Musk has attempted to boost far-right parties.
"Such a gesture, given his already known proximity to right-wing populists in the fascist tradition, must worry every democrat," German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach wrote in response.
Far-right extremists, for their part, celebrated Musk's gestures, which they appear to have had no trouble interpreting.
As Rolling Stone reported, "The Proud Boys Ohio chapter posted a clip of the Musk video to its Telegram channel with the text, 'Hail Trump!'"
President Donald Trump's attempt to end birthright citizenship "seeks to repeat one of the gravest errors in American history, by creating a permanent subclass of people born in the U.S. who are denied full rights as Americans."
A coalition of immigrant rights groups sued the Trump administration on Monday over the newly inaugurated president's executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship, a move that campaigners and legal experts condemned as both immoral and flagrantly unconstitutional.
The lawsuit was filed by several branches of the ACLU, the Asian Law Caucus, the State Democracy Defenders Fund, and the Legal Defense Fund on behalf of groups with members whose children born in the United States would be denied citizenship under President Donald Trump's new order, which runs up against the clear text of the 14th Amendment and more than a century of legal precedent.
Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU, said in a statement that "denying citizenship to U.S.-born children is not only unconstitutional—it's also a reckless and ruthless repudiation of American values."
"Birthright citizenship is part of what makes the United States the strong and dynamic nation that it is," said Romero. "This order seeks to repeat one of the gravest errors in American history, by creating a permanent subclass of people born in the U.S. who are denied full rights as Americans. We will not let this attack on newborns and future generations of Americans go unchallenged. The Trump administration's overreach is so egregious that we are confident we will ultimately prevail."
The groups behind the new lawsuit noted that Trump's order leaves many expectant parents across the United States fearful and uncertain about their babies' futures. The organizations pointed to one couple who arrived in the U.S. in 2023 and is awaiting a review of their asylum application.
"The mom-to-be is in her third trimester," the groups said. "Under this executive order, their baby would be considered an undocumented noncitizen and could be denied basic healthcare and nutrition, putting the newborn at grave risk at such a vulnerable stage of life."
"Taken as a whole, Trump's words and actions reveal the enormity of the danger we're facing, which compels us all to mobilize to fight back."
Theo Oshiro, co-executive director of Make the Road New York, said Monday that "birthright citizenship is a cornerstone of our democracy."
"Our members, who come from all over the world, have created vibrant communities, loving families, and built this country over generations," said Oshiro. "To deny their children the same basic rights as all other children born in the United States is an affront to basic values of fairness, equality, and inclusivity. We are grateful for the bravery of our members who have taken on this case, and are prepared to fight alongside them."
The order was part of a flurry of immigration-related actions that Trump took on the first day of his second White House term, including an emergency declaration that directs the U.S. armed forces "to take all appropriate action to assist the Department of Homeland Security in obtaining full operational control" at the southern border.
Trump also signed an executive order suspending refugee programs, a step that had an immediate impact. Reuters reported that "nearly 1,660 Afghans cleared by the U.S. government to resettle in the U.S., including family members of active-duty U.S. military personnel, are having their flights canceled" under the order.
Additionally, The Washington Post reported that "asylum seekers who made appointments to come to the U.S. border Monday afternoon were blocked at international crossings after Trump officials halted use of the CBP One mobile app, which the Biden administration used as a scheduling tool."
"Trump also ended all 'categorical' parole programs that under President Joe Biden allowed 30,000 migrants per month to enter the country via U.S. airports, bypassing the border, for applicants from Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti, and Nicaragua," the Post added.
Kica Matos, president of the National Immigration Law Center, said that "taken as a whole, Trump's words and actions reveal the enormity of the danger we're facing, which compels us all to mobilize to fight back."
"This is a fight not just to protect immigrants," said Matos, "but to also defend our democracy."
"This move not only erases accountability for one of the darkest days in our nation's history but also emboldens far-right extremists and grants them free license to continue their ideological reign of terror," said one critic.
Democracy defenders on Monday night swiftly condemned U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to pardon roughly 1,500 insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021 and commute the sentences of some others.
The widely anticipated move, which Trump made with television cameras in the Oval Office, came just hours after he returned to power on Monday afternoon—despite being convicted of 34 felonies in New York last year and facing various other legal cases, including for his attempts to overturn his 2020 loss to Democratic former President Joe Biden that culminated in inciting the 2021 Capitol attack.
"Just hours after promising to bring 'law and order back to our cities,' Trump pardoned more than a thousand January 6th rioters and put violent offenders right back in our neighborhoods—people who assaulted police officers, destroyed property, and tried to overturn our freedom to vote," said Sean Eldridge, president and founder of the progressive advocacy group Stand Up America, in a statement.
"By giving January 6th rioters a free pass, Trump is rewarding political violence and making all of us less safe," he continued. "No one should be above the law in the United States of America, and our first responders and the American people deserve better than this."
Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of the grassroots progressive political organizing group Our Revolution, said that "Trump's pardons of January 6 rioters, including those convicted of violence against law enforcement, mark a grave and unprecedented attack on the rule of law and American democracy. This move not only erases accountability for one of the darkest days in our nation's history but also emboldens far-right extremists and grants them free license to continue their ideological reign of terror."
"These are not patriots, these are traitors who will now be free to recruit others into what Trump views as his own personal militia," he asserted. "By granting clemency to these individuals, who sought to overturn the peaceful transfer of power, Trump is signaling that political violence and the rejection of democratic norms are acceptable tactics in service to his authoritarian agenda. This is a direct threat to the foundations of our democracy and the safety of our communities."
Lisa Gilbert, co-president of watchdog Public Citizen, said that "it is perhaps on-brand that Donald Trump has kicked off his second term with an assault on our democracy, just as he ended his first term."
"This isn't just about degrading the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law in theory, his disgraceful actions here send a message that political violence is acceptable, so long as it is in support of him and his pursuit of unchecked power," she continued. "We intend to fight against these types of abuses over the next four years to maintain the integrity of the rule of law."
Accusing the Republican of "condoning insurrection," Common Cause president and CEO Virginia Kase Solomón similarly warned that "this will not be the last time President Trump attacks democracy" and vowed that her organization stands "ready to defend it."
During the insurrection, Kase Solomón said, "people died and more than 140 law enforcement officers were injured protecting members of Congress from the attack that followed. These deaths and injuries should not be in vain. To pardon those involved is a blatant and dangerous abuse of power."
"Trump was charged with multiple crimes for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election which ended in the insurrection at the Capitol," she noted. "Only his reelection, coupled with an extremely misguided ruling from the Supreme Court on presidential immunity, allowed him to escape trial. In pardoning those who attempted to violently overturn the election and invalidate 80 million votes, Trump is showing his contempt for our justice system and our democracy."
Noah Bookbinder, a former federal prosecutor who is now president of the watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, warned that "giving a pass to those who participated, all of whom were convicted after trial with ample evidence and process or pleaded guilty to crimes, sends a message that the right of the people to choose our own leaders no longer matters because the results can merely be overturned by force."
"And," he said, "it raises a terrifying question: What happens if Trump doesn't want to leave the White House at the end of his term?"
Trump commuted the sentences of Jeremy Bertino, Joseph Biggs, Thomas Caldwell, Joseph Hackett, Kenneth Harrelson, Kelly Meggs, Roberto Minuta, David Moerschel, Ethan Nordean, Dominic Pezzola, Zachary Rehl, Stewart Rhodes, Edward Vallejo, and Jessica Watkins. The others—whom Trump called "hostages"—received "a full, complete, and unconditional pardon."
"I further direct the attorney general to pursue dismissal with prejudice to the government of all pending indictments against individuals for their conduct related to the events at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021," Trump's order said. "The Bureau of Prisons shall immediately implement all instructions from the Department of Justice regarding this directive."
Shortly before leaving office on Monday, Biden issued a final wave of pardons, including for members of the U.S. House of Representatives select committee that investigated the insurrection. The Democrat said that he could not "in good conscience do nothing" to protect them and the pardons "should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense."
This post has been updated with comment from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.