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- [00:15]
Amy Goodman
From New York. This is democracy now.
- [00:19]
Gregory Bevino
You can tell there's a certain energy to this movement. The movement spans across the ocean into the United States. And the interesting thing is the problems are the same problems with the same solutions. I think that's why we are all very interested in what's happening in Europe, whereas Europe, conversely, was interested in what was happening in the United States with our mass deportation campaign. So this is exciting.
- [00:42]
Amy Goodman
In Portugal, hundreds of far right activists gathered Saturday for an anti immigrant summit focused on so called re migration. Those who attended included Trump's former Border Patrol commander, Gregory Bevino, who led the deadly immigration crackdowns in Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis. We'll speak to two reporters about Bavino. But first we get a report from outside the Delaney Hall ICE Jail in Newark, New Jersey, where prisoners launched a hunger strike two weeks ago.
- [01:19]
Natalie (Mutual Aid Organizer)
People are scared. People are confused. I just heard a mom tell her daughter, it's okay, we're okay. Look, I told you, there's nothing to be scared of because the daughter started shaking. She's just here to see her dad. She thinks Delaney hall is a hospital because her family is too scared to tell her what it actually is, which is a concentration camp.
- [01:39]
Amy Goodman
And as the US Continues to threaten Cuba, we'll speak to Princeton historian Ada Ferrer. She won a Pulitzer Prize for her book Cuba An American History. Her new memoir, Keeper of My Memoir of an Immigrant Daughter. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now. Democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. AMY I'm Amy Goodman. The House of Representatives has approved legislation seeking to end President Trump's war in Iran. On Wednesday, four Republican Congressmembers broke ranks and sided with Democrats in a 215, 208 vote on the War Powers Resolution directing President Trump to remove US Armed forces from hostilities against Iran unless explicitly authorized by Congress. The vote had initially been set for two weeks ago, but was delayed after House Speaker Mike Johnson adjourned for an early May recess when it appeared the resolution had the votes to pass. It now heads to the Senate. If approved there, the resolution would require Trump's signature. Neither chamber of Congress appears to have enough votes to override a presidential veto. Meanwhile, Michigan Democratic Congressmember Rashida Tlaib is moving forward with a separate War Powers Resolution that would end US Military involvement in Israel's war on Lebanon. She spoke from the House floor Wednesday.
- [03:05]
Rashida Tlaib
Organizations says Human Rights Watch have documented Israel's illegal use of white phosphorus multiple times in Lebanon, which is a war crime. They launched it in residential neighborhoods, y' all in Lebanese farmland. Is this what our country is supporting? We are supplying these horrific chemical bombs to the Israeli military and our military is providing operational support as we speak for these scorched earth campaigns that is destroying the very conditions of life in Lebanon.
- [03:35]
Amy Goodman
Lebanon's government's agreed to extend the U. S Brokered cease fire with Israel, even though the Israeli military has consistently violated it. The agreement reached Wednesday requires Hezbollah to cease fire on Israeli troops occupying southern Lebanon, ordering the withdrawal from territory north of the Latani River. Once again, Hezbollah was not a party to the talks, which were hosted by the State Department in Washington. Ahead of Wednesday's announcement, Hezbollah continued to attack. IS forces occupying southern Lebanon fired rockets toward northern Israel. Meanwhile, Israeli strikes across Lebanon killed at least nine people Wednesday, including an attack on an ambulance that killed two paramedics. Several more people were wounded after the ceasefire extension was announced when an Israeli drone attacked a vehicle in southern Lebanon. On Capitol Hill, Secretary of State Marco Rubio testified to a House committee on Wednesday that military operations against Iran are over. Rubio later clarified firefighters remark to state he meant only that Operation Arctic Fury had ended.
- [04:39]
Marco Rubio
It's a fact we're no longer conducting sustained strikes inside of Iran to degrade their military because epic fury is over.
- [04:45]
Amy Goodman
Even as Rubio spoke, President Trump appeared to contradict his testimony, telling reporters in the Oval Office the US had attacked Iran as recently as Tuesday evening and
- [04:56]
Donald Trump
we hit them pretty hard the night before.
- [04:59]
Amy Goodman
And actually last night, Trump claimed talks to end the US war in Iran were going very well, actually, and could result in a breakthrough as soon as this weekend. He spoke just hours after Iran attacked diplomatic facilities in Kuwait along with its International Airport, killing one person and injuring over 60 others.
- [05:19]
Donald Trump
You're not saying in that part of the world ceasefires when you're shooting in a more moderate manner.
- [05:26]
Amy Goodman
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi said Iran remains in communication with the Trump administration, but stressed there had been no tangible progress with US Negotiators in Gaza, Israeli airstrikes overnight killed nine Palestinians, including four children. On Wednesday, mourners gathered at Al Aqsa hospital to bid farewell to two Palestinian brothers, Sakar and Mo' Men Khalil Abu Harim, who were killed in an Israeli airstrike at Maghazi refugee camp. This is one of their relatives.
- [06:00]
Various Protesters/Interviewees
There's no ceasefire or anything. The Israeli army is targeting civilians. He was a young man trying to make a living, just like me. I'm a tradesman just trying to earn a living. We want to live. What shall we do? It's a wartime and everything is shut down.
- [06:14]
Amy Goodman
The British government has banned progressive political commentators Hassan Piker and Cenk Uyghur from entering the uk. They were scheduled to speak at the south by Southwest London Festival and the Oxford Union Society. The UK's Home Office, said it was canceling their travel permits, quote, on the grounds that their presence in the UK may not be conducive to the public good, unquote. Both Piker and Uyghur are outspoken in their criticism of Israel. Uyghur posted on social media, quote, I've been banned for criticizing Israel. Are we free anymore? He asked. Piker also said, quote, the UK has revoked my visa as well, all at the behest of Israel, Piker said. President Trump said Wednesday night he'll nominate Todd Blanche as his next attorney general. Blanche has been serving as acting attorney general. Trump fired Pam Bondi in April. He was previously President Trump's personal lawyer. President Trump signed an executive order Wednesday making it easier to fire 8,000 of the highest paid government workers. The order by the Office of Personnel Management strips a mostly senior group of workers of their civil service protections by classifying them as at will employees who can be fired without a stated cause. The White House previously indicated up to 50,000 positions could be reclassified and hasn't ruled out expanding its order. In Bolivia, rural communities demanding the resignation of President Rodrigo Paz have seized an oil field in the Santa Cruz region, shutting down production. Protesters closed the well valves and erected barriers to slow the events of the police, with a local leader stating the takeover was nonviolent and decided collectively by indigenous community members. Police later moved in with riot gear, arresting four people. The oil field action is the latest escalation in a weeks long general strike opposing Paz's sweeping neoliberal agenda. The unrest began in early May over fuel shortages, rising living costs and austerity measures. Since then it's left at least five people dead and caused billions of dollars in economic losses. President Paz is proposing a controversial state of Exception bill to Bolivia's Congress to authorize the military to dismantle roadblocks as nationwide protests enter their fifth week. This is Bolivian President Paz.
- [08:45]
Charles Davis
All the efforts that our national police, our armed forces and the government will make will be humanitarian actions aimed at changing this situation.
- [08:54]
Amy Goodman
In Chile, thousands of students, teachers and activists have taken to the streets of Santiago in a massive march against far right President Jose Antonio Cast, education cuts and sweeping austerity measures. Since since taking office in March, CAST has pledged to slash roughly $6 billion in public spending over 18 months imposing a nearly 3% budget cut across all ministries, the Confederation of Students of Chile called on citizens to reject the austerity plan under the slogan public education must be defended. Warning free higher education is now under threat in Chile. These are some of the voices from the march.
- [09:32]
Various Protesters/Interviewees
We are returning once again to a savage dictatorship. The kids tried to march and the police didn't let. The teachers were gassed and beaten.
- [09:41]
Felicia de la Caridad Alvarez
We are fighting to maintain rights, to protect them, not only for us students, but also for the elderly and for all the people who need support and whom the state cannot leave alone.
- [09:50]
Amy Goodman
Mexico City has been rocked by massive labor protests as the National Coordinating Committee of Education Workers is calling for dignified pensions, fair wages and job security. The strike comes just days before Mexico is set to host the first match of the World cup soccer tournament. On Monday, striking teachers marched on Zocalos Square, where they were met with tear gas from riot police as they broke through metal barricades. On Tuesday, they toppled giant mannequins of soccer stars advertising FIFA World cup matches. According to the union, five protesters were injured in the clash. This is Jose Montes de Oca, the Secretary of Foreign affairs of the Mexican Electricians Union.
- [10:35]
Various Protesters/Interviewees
There is a lack of sensitivity on the part of the government to address and resolve the demands of the working class organized as a social movement.
- [10:43]
Amy Goodman
And in Albania, protests are growing over the development of a massive resort linked to Jared Kushner, President Trump's son in law. Back in 2024, Kushner and Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump were set to invest $1.4 billion into turning an abandoned Soviet weapons base known as Cezanne into a luxury island resort. Cezanne island is littered with World War II era unexploded ordnance, including artillery shells and anti submarine mines. Activists raising concerns that the resort will impact wildlife, particularly the flamingos, seals and sea turtles that live in an area of coastal wetland. This is a local ecologist.
- [11:23]
Nermeen Shaikh
In this stretch of kilometers of land
- [11:26]
Amy Goodman
of wildlife habitat, we plan to build a new city. It's declared 10,000 rooms.
- [11:34]
Nermeen Shaikh
And what we hear now is even more so there.
- [11:37]
Amy Goodman
We won't have any more.
- [11:38]
Nermeen Shaikh
The protected area, the delta, it's completely being destroyed.
- [11:42]
Amy Goodman
And those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman.
- [11:50]
Nermeen Shaikh
And I'm Nermeen Shaikh. Welcome to our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world as protests continue outside the Newark, New Jersey immigration jail known as Delaney Hall. Our New Jersey's Attorney General has sued the GEO Group, the private prison company operating the facility. The lawsuit asked the court to grant the state health department full access to the facility. New Jersey Governor Mikey Sherrill said in a statement, quote, if the GEO group, with a $1 billion government contract, has nothing to hide and the conditions inside Delaney hall are as safe and as sanitary as this private corporation and the Trump administration claim, then there is no legitimate reason why my health inspectors are being kept from full access throughout the building. The New Jersey governor is still being denied access to visit the ICE Jail.
- [12:43]
Amy Goodman
This comes as the city of Newark plans to expand its own lawsuit from last year against the for profit GEO Group, asking a court to close Delaney hall unless city officials are allowed to inspect the jail. Newark Mayor Ross Baraka also lifted a nightly curfew around Delaney hall on Tuesday as hundreds of immigrants jailed inside the ICE Jail continue a hunger and labor strike. Democracy Now's Maria Inez Tericena was outside Delaney Hall Tuesday and filed this report.
- [13:15]
Maria Inez Tericena
We are standing outside the police barricade. It's about half a mile away from Delaney hall, the ICE Jail here in Newark. We just spend the afternoon with mutual aid workers speaking to them, speaking to some of the families of immigrants who are detained inside.
- [13:36]
Natalie (Mutual Aid Organizer)
They're saying families need an appointment. That has never been the case for those visiting. They're just making it more and more difficult to go and visit those who are on labor and hunger strike. And those who have been on strike have been isolated, retaliated against, have had their tablets taken away from them, have had pepper sprays in their units and then had the doors closed. We have firsthand accounts of this happening. These families are just here to visit. They're still waiting here. And whenever we ask the cops, they're literally ignoring me.
- [14:11]
Maria Inez Tericena
And our families, how do they feel? Have they told you if they are afraid now that they have to be escorted by police in order to even get to the entrance of Delaney hall, which used to not be the case when this barrier was not in place.
- [14:27]
Natalie (Mutual Aid Organizer)
People are scared. People are confused. I just heard a mom tell her daughter, it's okay, we're okay. Look, I told you, there's nothing to be scared of because the daughter started shaking. She's just here to see her dad. She thinks Delaney hall is a hospital because her family is too scared to tell her what it actually is, which is a concentration camp.
- [14:47]
Mutual Aid Advocate/Narrator
That was Natalie, a mutual aid organizer with the group Eyes on Ice New Jersey. We spoke to a high school senior who asked us not to use his real name. He was wearing his graduation sash.
- [15:02]
Anonymous High School Senior
I'm here to visit my father and to. I mean, I just came from graduate, well, from my signing day, and I wanted to come see my father.
- [15:14]
Maria Inez Tericena
What would you like to tell your father? On such a special day and such
- [15:18]
Mutual Aid Advocate/Narrator
an incredible accomplishment that I did it for him.
- [15:24]
Anonymous High School Senior
All I ever thought about, all I had in mind was him. I really wish he was here. I really wish he was here to see me graduate and to be here with me. He's been there maybe five months, maybe six. I lost count. I've been focused more in school. I've been trying to get there for him. I've been trying to make my family proud.
- [15:46]
Mutual Aid Advocate/Narrator
We also spoke to a young woman who was there with her siblings and cousin. They asked us to conceal their identities.
- [15:54]
Anonymous Young Woman
I was trying to be my father. He recently got put in and. And right now we can't find anybody to help us with the lawyer, and no lawyer is trying to help his case. And so it's really hard to find someone to stay here because he does not deserve to go to another country when he belongs in this one.
- [16:19]
Maria Inez Tericena
If you were able to see your father, what would you like to tell him?
- [16:23]
Anonymous Young Woman
I would like to tell him that I love him and that one day I know we will be together as a whole family. And, you know, I don't know, you know, you have a bond, you know, a father, daughter bond.
- [16:41]
Maria Inez Tericena
Do you have any siblings?
- [16:43]
Anonymous Young Woman
Yes, that's right here, actually. My brother and his little baby that he has a newborn. It's. It's hard to see him because he has a newborn baby. He does not have a father.
- [16:57]
Kimberly Trinidad
He only has a mother.
- [16:59]
Anonymous Young Woman
His mother can't take care of him just by himself. He needs two parents to support him and love him. Every. Every child needs a parent to be there. And it's.
- [17:09]
Anonymous High School Senior
It's.
- [17:11]
Anonymous Young Woman
It's so painful because not having a father, knowing that your father's in jail and you can't even communicate, and growing up with the father is just so hard.
- [17:21]
Mutual Aid Advocate/Narrator
About an hour after we spoke to them, they were given permission to pass through the police barrier around Delaney Hall. Others, however, were escorted to Delaney hall by local police, only to be denied entry to visit their loved ones. This is Kimberly Trinidad.
- [17:39]
Kimberly Trinidad
My dad's name is Isenda Trinidad Palliero, and my uncle is Agustin Trinidad Palliero. So they're here since Wednesday the twentiet. They happen to be detained in Home Depot in Hatwell, New Jersey. My father has his work authorization, and since the 20th, they haven't released him. Lawyer had to file a habeas corpus
- [18:06]
Anonymous Young Woman
for both of them.
- [18:07]
Kimberly Trinidad
He's tried to show them his Social Security card, tried to show them his work authorization card and said it didn't matter and they brought him in anyway. My uncle, on the other hand, doesn't have any legal status. He's been here for over 30 years.
- [18:19]
Maria Inez Tericena
Were you able to see them this afternoon?
- [18:22]
Kimberly Trinidad
I was not because they said that you have to be on a list to get in.
- [18:27]
Rachel Marondet
I'm Rachel Marondet. I am a detention attorney at the American Friends Service Committee, which is a nonprofit here in New Jersey. So I was inside visiting. I saw five of my clients who were inside today. So I have some clients who have various medical conditions. And because the food in the dining hall is so inedible, they won't eat anything other than out of the commissary. So when their commissary shut down down for five days, they're not eating. So I have many of the clients I saw today hadn't had anything to eat other than perhaps like a cracker in the past week or so. And then there's also temperature dysregulation. They said they often will crank up the air conditioning so that everyone's freezing, which often really feels like kind of direct retaliation.
- [19:06]
Mutual Aid Advocate/Narrator
As mutual aid advocates began to pack up and the sun started setting, a man was released from Delaney hall and reunited with his friend of 14 years. The man identified himself as Damian Castillo. He said he was detained for about three weeks. And that he knew of the hunger strike happening inside in a different detention unit. He said the detainees were treated very poorly and were often put on lockdown.
- [19:54]
Maria Inez Tericena
This is Maria Ines Taracena with Diego Ramos and Sharina Nadura reporting for Democracy now outside of Delaney hall in Newark, New Jersey.
- [20:05]
Amy Goodman
Thank you for that, Maria. To see all of our coverage on the hunger strike and protests at the Delaney Hall Ice Jail in Newark, go to democracynow.org Coming up, hundreds of far right activists gathered in Portugal Saturday for an anti immigrant summit focused on so called re migration. Among those who attended, Trump's former Border Patrol commander Gregory Bevino. Stay with us.
- [20:36]
Donald Trump
Through the winner's Iceland coast down the glad avenue city of flame fought fire and ice neath an occupier's boat king Trump's private army from the dages guns belted to their colts came to Minneapolis to enforce the law. So their story goes against smoke and rubber bullets. Well, by the dawn's early light, citizens stood for justice. Their voices ringing through the night. And there were bloody footprints where mercy should have stood Too dead left to die on snow filled streets.
- [21:45]
Amy Goodman
Alex Pretty and Renee Good streets of Minneapolis. Bruce Springsteen performing on Democracy Now's 30th anniversary on Monday night, March 23rd at the Riverside Church. To see the full performance and the event, go to democracynow.org this is democracynow, democracynow.org, the war and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman with Nermeen Sheikh.
- [22:13]
Nermeen Shaikh
In Portugal, hundreds of far right activists gathered Saturday for the annual Re Migration Summit advocating for the mass deportation of immigrants. Former U.S. border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino and white nationalist leader Jared Taylor were VIP guests alongside elected officials from Germany, Germany's far right, anti immigrant AFD Pardi and Spain's Vox. Other attendees included Stefano Forte, president of the New York Young Republican Club. In an interview ahead of the event, Greg Bovino cited Nazi Germany's lead general Erwin Rommel as an inspirational figure at the summit. Bovino said, quote, if there is inspiration gained from the U.S. border Patrol model and method, then fantastic Gregory Bovino led
- [23:01]
Amy Goodman
the Trump administration's militarized immigration crackdowns in Chicago, Los Angeles and Minneapolis. Earlier this year, he appeared in Minneapolis wearing a long olive wool overcoat that some online observers likened to, quote, a Nazi cosplay coat. California Governor Gavin Newsom's social media press account called it Nazi coated. Bavino was eventually removed from his position in January after immigration agents under his command killed 37 year old VA nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Pretti was shot dead two weeks after an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Goode in Minneapolis. During an interview outside the so called Re Migration Summit in Portugal, Bovino criticized the Trump administration.
- [23:51]
Gregory Bevino
The base is not very happy now over what's happening immigration wise. They voted for mass deportations. Deportations are not occurring. There are no mass deportations occurring in the United States right now. So Those MAGA voters, those 80 million that came out to vote for him in the polls are not happy campers right now.
- [24:10]
Amy Goodman
We go now to Vienna, Austria to speak with the reporter Charles Davis, who writes for the Guardian and also runs the readout where his new piece is headlined why did the Press Ignore a gathering of the World's Leading Fascist? Charles, thanks so much for being with us. Why don't you talk about what remigration is and the significance of Bovino being there?
- [24:34]
Charles Davis
Yeah, so remigration is basically the policy response to the great replacement conspiracy theory. And the great replacement conspiracy theory, as I think unfortunately a lot of your viewers will already know about, is the idea that there's like a global elite plot, typically by Jews to replace white Europeans and white North Americans with immigrants via mass migration. So remigration was a term that was popularized a few years ago by an Austrian activist named Martin Sellner. He's also the guy who helped popularize the great replacement conspiracy theory. And it basically is it's an argument for mass deportations, not just of illegal criminals, as the typical rhetoric you would hear from the Trump administration far right parties here in Europe. But the idea that you need to actually reverse the 20th century, that the issue was not just the immigrants who came in the last few years seeking asylum or refugee status, but those who are allowed in over the last hundred years who are not really, as they see it, European or American.
- [25:33]
Nermeen Shaikh
And Charles, could you explain why you mentioned earlier, why is this re migration idea attributed to Jews, this global plot?
- [25:43]
Charles Davis
Well, actually, yeah. In my original piece that I wrote last week, I spoke to a professor at the University of Vienna named Daniel Sharp who explained that this is basically rooted in Nazi ideology. Like the idea specifically, let's talk about Germany and Austria. The idea that certain people were not German and Austrian despite the fact that they had lived in this area for hundreds of years, despite the fact that they had citizenship. That was very much the Nazi idea. In fact, remigration back then, before became the Holocaust was the idea that we would expel Jews to places like Madagascar. So when it's popularized now, this is why it caused such a controversy a few years ago when Martin Sellner was meeting with members of Alternative for Deutschland. In 2023, the German outlet Corrective reported that there was a secret meeting in Potsdam between sell and leaders of the AfD and that caused national protests because Germans know their history, right? They know what happens when you start saying certain Germans are more German than others than others. And I think what is so alarming about this summit is that these people, including the AfD lawmakers that attended this AfD lawmaker, Lena Corta, and the AfD press that showed up to give her a platform, they're now doing it out in the open. And I think that is maybe one of the lessons they've learned from Donald Trump. They've been both emboldened and empowered by him. And they've also learned that the way you get away with this kind of stuff and get away with this kind of crazy, conspiratorial and, you know, policy of ethnic cleansing, which I think you can call re migration, the way you get away with it is not by having secret meetings that the press can then expose you just do it out in public and you say there's no, there's nothing scandalous here. We're doing this out in public. We're organizing on Facebook. In fact, that's where I first learned about this summit. Paid Facebook ads by the group Reconquista, which is a far right Portuguese group, which is named after the idea of mass expulsions of Muslims, historically the Iberian Peninsula. And so now it's all out in the open. And if we can be grateful to Greg Bovino for anything, it's to drawing some attention to this and also spelling out what they mean by remigration. It is not just deporting so called illegals. Greg Bovino, when he was criticizing the Trump administration, you know, I'm less interested in his sour grapes and more in the fact that he spelled out that he thinks there are 100 million illegal aliens in the United States. Now, most credible experts would tell you there are 12 million top. But if you were paying attention during the 2024 campaign, you might have seen Donald Trump and JD Vance making that number go a little bit higher every time they spoke. It hit 20 million, it hit 30 million, and now it hit 100 million. And I think that speaks to the fact that they're not just trying to get people out based on pure legal status. You have to view it in the context of trying to eliminate birthright citizenship and rolling back the 20th century. It's getting rid of people that came over the last hundred years who they define as not American or not European enough in the European context.
- [28:33]
Nermeen Shaikh
And so if you could say a little bit more about the way in which Trump and his administration generally have been advancing and elevating this idea, and in particular the fact that the State Department has pledged to create an office for re migration. What is the status of that? Has it been established and what is its purpose?
- [28:56]
Charles Davis
Well, you know, the Trump administration, there's always a little bit of dance that the far right does. There are those that are like the public figures that say, you know, re migration, don't get too scared about it. We actually just mean deporting criminals. That is what the AfD did after their secret meeting with Martin Sellner was exposed a few years ago. If you go to their website, they say we just mean getting rid of like the people that have committed violent crimes, et cetera. And same with the Trump administration. I do not know if they actually succeeded in establishing this, but the whole department of my remigration that they were going to establish from the under the State Department was ostensibly about voluntary self deportation. Of course, when you get them to speak honestly at summits like just happened over the weekend, you see that it's not just about getting out a certain amount of illegal aliens, as they call them, or getting people to self deport. I mean they would get people to self deport by creating such a hostile environment and I think through state force to get them expelled. And in terms of remigration in Europe, the United States State Department has actually endorsed this great replacement conspiracy. In the US National Security Strategy document that was released last December, the Trump administration warned that majority non Europeans were taking over Europe and that Europeans faced a stark prospect of civilizational erasure. And that should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less. Now, living here in Vienna, I can tell you that that is not really taking place. There are definitely more immigrants here than there were 20 years ago though. But the idea that they're facing civilizational erasure for white Austrians, that is, it's conspiratorial. And I think what upsets me so much about the coverage of this and just the far right extremism in general is that if you, you sound kind of crazy when you talk about it. When you say that the face of Donald Trump's deportation policy and a young Republican leader, Stefano Forte, are going to Europe to meet with self described fans of Adolf Hitler, people that you can fairly describe as neo Nazi activists to talk about a plan for ethnic cleansing. It sounds crazy because, you know, we should acknowledge that there has been some reporting on this. It's not just people like myself. But you have not seen any coverage from CBS News, you've not seen any coverage from the Washington Post, you've not seen any coverage from the New York Times. And I think that is a huge problem because the New York Times especially is an institution that could make this something more than just a one day story that could press the Trump administration to the to answer when did they realize that Greg Bevino was a Nazi sympathizer? And to press Republicans in New York and elsewhere. Do you agree with Stefano Forte and his efforts to forge a kind of neo fascist transatlantic alliance?
- [31:42]
Amy Goodman
So I want to ask you more about Bovino and why people should care since he has been ousted. You have him tweeting from Newark. Many people wondered if he had gone to Delany, but on his way to Portugal. So Senator Mullen, he was talking about the new DHS secretary and the rest of them have been trying to handle these riots. Well, let's just Say it's not going great. For those of you in the comments section, give a vote. Should I just handle this myself? Those agents lives are at stake due to this inaction. And then you havelet me go to Greg Bovino speaking to Newsmax about the hunger strike at the Delaney Hall ICE jail in Newark.
- [32:27]
Gregory Bevino
As far as the facilities, those facilities are actually, I think they're too good. Fantastic facilities. Those detainees get everything they need. But what they really need is deporting. And we need to expand this facility so we can get even more detainees in there. Carl, hey, I've heard about a hunger strike which, you know, I think that's fake news anyway. But if they do well, I'm okay with that because if they lose weight, we can get even more people on planes for deportation.
- [32:56]
Amy Goodman
So that was Bavino talking to Newsmax. And of course you had Tom Homan, the so called border czar, denying there's a hunger strike but then saying he would force feed prisoners there. And then you have Bovino saying you have the world watching and supporting your efforts to hold the line. He's saying to ICE agents at Delaney, every one of us wants to be shoulder to shoulder with you in speaking with the mean green team. They send you support and are wishing you the best. He also talked about ICE agents at Delaney. Hang in there. This is extremely interesting given he is both supporting them and criticizing the Trump administration. Your final comment on this, the role he played plays well.
- [33:49]
Charles Davis
Yeah, I think he does speak for the MAGA base. And I think it's interesting that when he criticizes the Trump administration, he's criticizing the czars around him. It's always the bad advisors. He's not criticizing Stephen Miller or Donald Trump and I think he's right not to because I think Stephen Miller and Donald Trump share the remigration agenda that he has. And I think it's interesting since we're talking about him showing up to Newark or at least faking that he would. You know, for several days organizers of this summit had been teasing that they would have a special guest star. And in the weeks leading up to it, I kind of wondered who that was. I thought is it going to be a former Fox News anchor? Is it going to be Nick Fuentes? And then Greg Bevino posted on X a photo of himself with giving what can only be described as a Nazi salute. And I think at that exact moment I realized it is him. It is him. And I checked the telegram channel for the summit and they had just announced him. And I think that is what is alarming, because I think he does speak in an unfiltered way what Stephen Miller and Donald Trump would like to say, but they are prevented to by the Susie Wiles who know, again, this kind of fascist dance that you cannot come out and say this. You can hint at it by embracing the term remigration. But when the broader public asks you what that means, you tell them it's not the scary thing that it totally does mean in which you are signaling to your far right supporters that you yourself support.
- [35:06]
Nermeen Shaikh
Well, I also want to bring into this conversation Amanda Moore. She's a reporter who focuses on far right extremism and state violence. Her recent piece for the Nation is headlined Notes from an Ice Chaser. She spent months covering Gregory Bovino and the immigration crackdown from Mother Jones and other outlets. Welcome to Democracy Now. Amanda, we've just been talking about Bovino at this re migration summit in Portugal. Could you talk about what you did? The title of your piece is Notes from an Ice Chaser. You chase replaced Bovino,
- [35:43]
Amanda Moore
basically, Yeah. I followed Bovino and the surge of federal agents into Illinois, North Carolina, New Orleans and Minnesota. And so just kind of tailing his caravan usually and his men as they drove around.
- [36:02]
Nermeen Shaikh
And what did you hope to do by doing this? What did you hope to accomplish by doing this?
- [36:09]
Amanda Moore
Well, I mean, we were recording what was happening. Right. So, you know, there was an extreme amount of violence, especially at the Broadview ICE facility outside of Chicago. But also just having the agents driving around and stopping random people at bus stops or, you know, just walking down the street and tackling them, taking them away. You know, without journalists dedicated to following that, you're really relying on community members happening to be around and happening to think, to pull out their phones.
- [36:40]
Amy Goodman
You last were it Delaney, you were in Minneapolis, you were in ice, you were in Chicago. Talk about what you saw, what the ICE agents were doing, how they were trained, and how this fits into your overall coverage of far right extremism and state islands here.
- [37:02]
Amanda Moore
Sure. So, I mean, Bovino led Border Patrol. And so though these were, you know, considered ICE surges and a lot of federal agents were moved over to ice, whether they were with ATF or IRS or any other agency. You know, there is a different culture between Border Patrol and ice. And so a lot of ICE agents now that were previously hired before the Trump administration or before Trump 2.0 know, kind of are not very positive about their experiences in these cities because they don't like that. Everyone is now considered ice. They don't like you know, Bavino's cowboy style tactics, they felt like they were put in danger. But, you know, with Border Patrol it was different. I think, you know, there would be an escalation of violence outside of the, the detention facilities where people would be protesting just massive amounts of tear gas. Even when they were in neighborhoods, you know, they would snipe us with rubber bullets from rooftops by the detention centers. And then in Newark, most recently at Delaney, it was clear that they had been told they had to tone down the visual effects, which meant instead of tear gas, people were getting tased and they were being sprayed with extremely powerful pepper spray.
- [38:20]
Amy Goodman
Explain what commuters are in the context of those documenting the effects of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. Amanda?
- [38:31]
Amanda Moore
Sure. So in each city there would be groups of people, regular citizens who would also be following ICE and Border Patrol around. And so they referred to themselves as commuters, as in, you know, I am commuting behind a caravan full of, you know, ice. And they would have signal chats where they would discuss, you know, this is, you know, we're turning down this street here if you want to follow along with us. They would honk horns and blow whistles to alert people in the community that immigration officials were around.
- [39:04]
Amy Goodman
And finally with as we're seeing Bovino attending this far right so called re migration summit in Portugal. Portugal. And you know, the images of him in Chicago wearing that Nazi like green wool coat that he had specially made. Your thoughts?
- [39:28]
Amanda Moore
Yeah, I mean, you know, that's a photo that I think Vito has been quite proud of ever since it was taken. He immediately started using it as well as clips of him doing, you know, the hand gestures in the salute as he was getting into the car. So I mean it's not something that he's ever hidden that, you know, this is kind of how he feels. And I don't find it very surprising that he was at the summit.
- [39:52]
Amy Goodman
And finally I wanted to go back to Charles Davis and ask you about another member of the administration if you have researched him. And that is Sebastian Gorka, who I mean, I think his current role is, is deputy assistant to the President and senior director for counterterrorism on the White House National Security Council. He a top post Gorka advised Trump in his first term but was pushed out after the forward newspaper revealed he once had ties to a Hungarian far right Nazi allied group and that he supported an anti Semitic and racist paramilitary military in Hungary. Once, once he, while he served as a Hungarian politician. Just to round out your coverage of the far Right. In Europe?
- [40:45]
Charles Davis
Well, yeah, I mean, I think Sebastian Gorka, the fact that he has returned in the second Trump administration just like another figure from the first Trump administration, Darren Beatty, who got fired for speaking at a white nationalist conference, shows how like unleashed the second Trump administration is and how it is dead bent on forging these ties with far right extreme extremists. I actually want to go back to Stefano Forte because although he's just the member, just the president of the New York Young Republican Club, he's actually a key intermediary between the MAGA right and the far right in Europe. So he invited AfD members who attend his first gala as president of the New York Young Republican Club last December. And he was just invited a few weeks ago to address members of the AfD in the German parliament. So it is at multiple levels, the Trump administration seeking to forge ties with extremists abroad. And it's certainly something that again, I think there needs to be a drumbeat of coverage from major media to like really drive home to the average American that this extremism should be viewed with alarm. That is not just those on the left calling people fascists. It's that these people themselves describing themselves as such and still receiving the support from the Trump administration and members of the MAGA movement.
- [41:52]
Amy Goodman
Charles Davis of the Redoubt will link to your new article, why did the press ignore a gathering of the World's leaders? Fascists? And Amanda Moore will link to your new article in the Nation, Notes from an Ice Chaser. We'll link@DemocracyNow.org Coming up, as the US continues to threaten Cuba, we'll speak to the Pulitzer Prize winning Princeton historian Ada Ferrer. Stay with us. The Cuban singer Sylvia Rodriguez performed here in Central park almost a decade ago. This is Democracy Now. I'm Amy Goodman with Nermeen Shaikh.
- [43:24]
Nermeen Shaikh
We turn now to Cuba. Five months into the Trump administration's energy blockade of the island, coming on top of the longest embargo in U.S. history. Expanded U.S. sanctions have exacerbated Cuba's economic crisis, forcing 10 million Cubans to live with rolling blackouts, inflation and shortages of basic goods. This is 64 year old Felicia de la Caridad Alvarez, a resident of Old Havana.
- [43:52]
Felicia de la Caridad Alvarez
We've been without water for six months. Water is essential in a home. Without water, you're nothing. Life doesn't flow. That cistern is empty every 21 days or a little longer if I don't push the mayor or the director of Aguas de La Habana, they don't send the Water truck. And what they do send is a small one. What we need here is a big one this year.
- [44:13]
Amy Goodman
President Trump repeatedly threatened to take over Cuba. But at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio evaded a question about whether the Trump administration plans to invade the island. The question came from Illinois Democratic Congressmember Jonathan Jackson, the son of Reverend Jesse Jackson. Congressman Jackson recently returned from a visit to Cuba. In closing, I would like to ask you, will you invade Cuba? I yield back.
- [44:48]
Marco Rubio
Well, I have one second to answer. What do I do? I mean, you guys tell me your rules here. I tried to write down will you invade Cuba? Well, that's not the only thing you said.
- [45:00]
Nermeen Shaikh
Just last week, Rubio described Cuba as a failed state threatening US national security. He was speaking at a cabinet meeting.
- [45:08]
Marco Rubio
Cuba's in a lot of trouble because unfortunately for them, it's run by a bunch of incompetent communists. It's 90 miles from our shores and having a failed state 90 miles from our shores is a threat to the national security of the United States.
- [45:23]
Nermeen Shaikh
Wednesday, June 3rd was the 95th birthday of former Cuban President and Fidel's younger brother Raul Castro. He was a key figure in the Cuban revolution and remains a powerful figure in Cuban politics. Politics despite having stepped down in 2018.
- [45:38]
Amy Goodman
Last month, on May 20, Cuban Independence Day, the Trump administration unsealed an indictment against Raul Castro for murder and other crimes over the 1996 shootdown of two planes flown by Cuban exiles from Miami who were part of the anti Castro group Brothers to the Rest the of Rescue founded by the CIA operative Jose Basulto. Two days later, President Trump threatened Cuba once again saying it was likely he would order military strikes.
- [46:12]
Donald Trump
Other presidents have looked at this for 50, 60 years doing something and it looks like I'll be the one that does it. So would be happy to do.
- [46:22]
Amy Goodman
For more we're joined by the Pulitzer Prize winning historian at Princeton University, Ade Ferrari Ferrer, professor of history and the author of An American History, which won a Pulitzer Prize. Her latest book is a memoir about growing up between Cuba and the United States. It's called Keeper of My Memoir of an Immigrant Daughter. Professor Ferrer, welcome to democracy. Now start off by responding to the latest the indictment of now the 95 year old former President Raul Castro, Marco Rubio. Is it pushing hard for is it overthrow? Is it change of administration? But the fact is he said that it's a threat to the national security of the United states being just 90 miles offshore.
- [47:24]
Ada Ferrer
Yeah, well thanks for having me, Amy. It's good to be here. May has been such a busy month in terms of the US Pressure campaign against the Cuban government. You mentioned the indictment of Raul Castro. There have been the hardening of secondary sanctions against Cuba, and that is all having an effect on the ground. Just a couple of days ago, Spanish and Canadian companies, companies involved in tourism and hotels have announced that they're pulling out or partially pulling out. So the situation there is dire. It has been for quite some time, and it's gotten worse and worse over the last five months. So, you know, it's so hard to predict what will happen, in part because Donald Trump is unpredictable. But there's no question that it's the Cuban people who are who are bearing the brunt of the policies of both governments.
- [48:19]
Nermeen Shaikh
And Professor Federer, if you could also respond specifically to Rubio's comments in this regard. Marco Rubio, himself a Cuban American, at the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Tuesday, evading a question about whether the Trump administration plans to invade Cuba and then describing Cuba as a failed state. State threatening US national security.
- [48:46]
Ada Ferrer
Yeah, I mean, he says Cuba is a threat because it's 90 miles from its shores and it's a failed state. But, you know, the geographic position of Cuba hasn't changed last I looked there. I don't have access, obviously, to the kind of internal documents that they do. But given the hardships in Cuba, given the fact that right. Right now the government can'tyou know, can't provide water and electricity, it's hard to think about it as a serious threat to a government like the US which is so powerful.
- [49:18]
Nermeen Shaikh
And who do you have and in
- [49:19]
Ada Ferrer
terms of invading, I mean, Sorry.
- [49:21]
Nermeen Shaikh
No, no, please go ahead, Professor.
- [49:24]
Ada Ferrer
Well, in terms of invading, I mean, Trump has been threatening that since January, since the Maduro operation. You know, people thought he said in the beginning that it would happen within daysyou know, Cubathe Cuban government would fall within days. That obviously didn't happen. He's perfectly capable, I think, of invading, as is Rubio, as is this government. But, you know, it's hard to predict from one day to the next. You see what's happening in Iran, what's happening in this country. And, you know, it's justit's hard to say, but I have no doubt that Trump would do that. If he thought it worked, it would work.
- [50:05]
Nermeen Shaikh
And Professor Farah, if you could, you know, your position, broadly speaking, has been one in which you're absolutely against American imperial ambitions in Cuba and also those being the cause of much of the suffering in Cuba, in particular with this increase in the level of sanctions that the US has imposed on Cuba. Cuba. But you have simultaneously also criticized the government in Cuba. If you could talk a little bit about this and why you think it's essential to hold both these positions simultaneously.
- [50:47]
Ada Ferrer
Yeah, so I think, I mean, it's clear the embargo has done harm to the Cuban people and the really intensified sanctions since January have as well. My sense is that the Cuban government is not focused. Its priority is not the well being of the Cuban people right now. It has made decisions in the short run and in the long run that have not prioritized them. So, for example, it investseven with tourism in decline continues, has continued until recently to invest heavily in tourism, ignoring sectors of the economy such as agriculture, education, health, all of which are in horrible decline even going back. You know, I started traveling to Cuba in 1990, which was shortly before the fall of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. So I spent a lot of time there in what is called the special period. Fidel Castro called it the special period in time of peace. And part of the way that the government, the Cuban government survived the fall of the Eastern Bloc, which was its patron, and provided most of the petroleum and subsidies that kept the Cuban state afloat, part of the way they handled that was to turn to tourism. So I spent a lot of time there in the early 90s. And you would see the water trucks, you know, that, that the speaker you featured just a few minutes ago talked about, and you'd see these huge water trucks in front of tourist hotels while people in Havana had no water. And you know, you can't ignore basic infrastructure for 30 years and divert all investments to tourism and not expect it all eventually to come crumbling down. And so what we're living through, what Cubans are living through now, is the combined effect of a longstanding embargo and a government that has not. That has not invested significantly in basic infrastructure and in well being in particular over the last 30 years.
- [52:59]
Nermeen Shaikh
Well, Professor Farah, now we would like to turn to your remarkable memoir, memoir, Keeper of My Memoir of an Immigrant Daughter, in which, of course, you tell your own story, the story of you and your family between Cuba and the U.S. the story of your migration to the U.S. but of course, what you write about has much wider and broader implications for how we understand migration generally. And I'd just like to read to you from your book. In the right at the beginning, you have three notes to the reader, the third of which reads, quote, the consequences of migration are many. One is that people often have to live. The intimacy of family across multiple languages, the burden and privilege of translation falling usually to the children. So, first of all, if you could talk about your own position as that, at least in your initial years in the U.S. and what that means in terms of how migrants, what they experience as they come to the U.S.
- [54:12]
Amanda Moore
yeah,
- [54:12]
Ada Ferrer
this is, you know, the book is an immigrant memoir. So it's the story that many immigrants share about living between two places. It is also a story about family separation, which is such an important topic given what's happening in the US Right now. So at the heart of the story is my own migration with my mother from Havana in 1963. And when we came to the U.S. well, there were no direct flights because it was after the Cuban missile crisis and those had been suspended. But we went to Mexico briefly and then joined my father in New York. My mother, we left behind my brother, my mother's son from a first marriage, who was nine and a half years old. So our life in the US Began with that absence at its heart. So leaving behind my brother, my grandparents, and, you know, it's what many immigrants have to do. Sometimes politics can make all that a lot harder. And in the case of Cuba, there was no such thing as going back. Cubans in the US and abroad weren't allowed to go back until for short visits until 1979. And it was hard for military age men to migrate. So a lot of times, separations that people had hoped would last maybe a few months or a year or two stretched into many years and decades. So. And I hear echoes of it in so many things today. I hear it, you know, listening to some of the people interviewed at Delaney hall, the boy who graduated and his father couldn't be there. You know, that separation is at the family separation is at the heart of so much. And then also I hear it in a continued Cuban migration. Cuba has seen the largest exodus in its history over the last five, eight years since the. Since 2017, 2018. Numbers, exact numbers are hard to come by because Cuba hasn't had a census since 2012. But it's predicted that Cuba has lost about 20% of its population, many of them young people who basically see no future in that country and decide literally that the future is another country. And each of those people, or many of those people, leave behind loved ones and leave in a moment of great uncertainty and suffer the effects of family separation, of decisions made by governments who don't, frankly, think about them enough. So the echoes of our family story and our migration I see in so many places. I have, you know, a niece's daughter right now living here who has been rendered undocumented after the fact by Trump's immigration policies. And I have another cousin who spent about six months in Alligator Alcatraz and is now in Crome Detention center in Miami. And these are people, you know, contrary to what some of the administration said, have committed no crime and are just trying to live.
- [57:33]
Amy Goodman
In fact, Human Rights Watch says that the Trump administration has deported over 4,300 cubic Cubans to Mexico. We're going to have to leave it there, but we're going to do an interview in Spanish and we're going to post it online@democracynow.org Ada Ferrer is Professor of history at Princeton University. Her new book is Keeper of My Memoir of an Immigrant Daughter. She won a Pulitzer Prize for her book An American History. That does it for our show. I'll be at IFC tonight at 6:30 for the screening of Steal the Story, Please, a story about democracy now in our 30 years in independent media overall, along with along with the director Carl Diehl and Kathryn Grody. The actor will be moderating tomorrow night. I look forward to being in Tampa, Florida, celebrating WMNF. We'll be at the Sunray Theater for 6:30 and 7:30 screenings of Steal the Story plays. Then on to Miami on Saturday, two screenings and then on Sunday at 1 o' clock another screening as well at the O Cinema. Next week we'll be in Sheffield, England, and in Belfast, Ireland, and then on to Vermont. You can check our website, democracynow.org I'm Amy Goodman with Nermeen Shaikh.