Ice says it arrested 11 Iranian nationals
Federal immigration agents arrested 11 Iranian nationals during and after the weekend, authorities said on Tuesday.
All were in the US illegally, a statement from the homeland security department (DHS), which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), said. Among them is Mehran Makari Saheli, alleged by Ice to be a former member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. He was arrested in St Paul, Minnesota.
Five of those arrested had previous criminal convictions ranging from grand larceny to drug and firearm possessions, the statement said, and those arrested include “an individual with admitted ties to Hezbollah, a known or suspected terrorist, and an alleged former sniper for the Iranian army”.
All 11 have been charged or accused of crimes beyond civil immigration violations.
The Ice arrests follow US airstrikes on Iran on Sunday. There is no suggestion they were related to the US military action, or any identified scheme or plot for an attack inside the US.
Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary of DHS, said in the statement: “We have been saying we are getting the worst of the worst out – and we are. We don’t wait until a military operation to execute; we proactively deliver on President Trump’s mandate to secure the homeland.”
One US citizen was also arrested, the statement said, and was charged with threatening law enforcement and harboring one of the Iranians.
Key events
Fed chair defies Trump, says rate hikes can wait
Callum Jones
The Federal Reserve is well placed to wait and see how tariffs affect US prices before cutting interest rates, its chair, Jerome Powell, insisted, defying renewed demands from Donald Trump.
The US president has disregarded the central bank’s longstanding independence to repeatedly call for rate cuts to spur economic growth and launch a series of personal attacks on Powell.
In an overnight social media post, Trump branded the Fed chair as “very dumb” and claimed the central bank’s refusal to lower rates since December – in part, the result of uncertainty sparked by his own administration’s erratic economic strategy – was damaging the US.
“We will be paying for his incompetence for many years to come,” the president wrote on his Truth Social platform.
On Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Powell reiterated that Trump’s tariffs were “likely” to increase prices – potentially challenging the Fed’s years-long effort to bring down US inflation. He noted, however, that the administration’s policies frequently shift.
“Policy changes continue to evolve, and their effects on the economy remain uncertain,” Powell told the US House of Representatives financial services committee. “The effects of tariffs will depend, among other things, on their ultimate level. Expectations of that level, and thus of the related economic effects, reached a peak in April and have since declined.
“Even so, increases in tariffs this year are likely to push up prices and weigh on economic activity.”
Read the full story:
Ice says it arrested 11 Iranian nationals
Federal immigration agents arrested 11 Iranian nationals during and after the weekend, authorities said on Tuesday.
All were in the US illegally, a statement from the homeland security department (DHS), which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), said. Among them is Mehran Makari Saheli, alleged by Ice to be a former member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. He was arrested in St Paul, Minnesota.
Five of those arrested had previous criminal convictions ranging from grand larceny to drug and firearm possessions, the statement said, and those arrested include “an individual with admitted ties to Hezbollah, a known or suspected terrorist, and an alleged former sniper for the Iranian army”.
All 11 have been charged or accused of crimes beyond civil immigration violations.
The Ice arrests follow US airstrikes on Iran on Sunday. There is no suggestion they were related to the US military action, or any identified scheme or plot for an attack inside the US.
Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary of DHS, said in the statement: “We have been saying we are getting the worst of the worst out – and we are. We don’t wait until a military operation to execute; we proactively deliver on President Trump’s mandate to secure the homeland.”
One US citizen was also arrested, the statement said, and was charged with threatening law enforcement and harboring one of the Iranians.
Donald Trump’s latest post on Truth Social from the skies above the Atlantic is a plea to senators to pass his deficit-busting “big, beautiful bill” this week.
The president’s message is typical of its genre, random capital letters mixed with grandiose claims, including that peace has been achieved in the Middle East despite ceasefire violations by both Israel and Iran:
Now that we have made PEACE abroad, we must finish the job here at home by passing “THE GREAT, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL,” and getting the Bill to my desk, ASAP. It will be a Historic Present for THE GREAT PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, as we begin the Celebration of our Country’s 250th Birthday.
We are finally entering our Golden Age, which will bring unprecedented Safety, Security, and Prosperity for ALL of our Citizens. To my friends in the Senate, lock yourself in a room if you must, don’t go home, and GET THE DEAL DONE THIS WEEK.
Work with the House so they can pick it up, and pass it, IMMEDIATELY. NO ONE GOES ON VACATION UNTIL IT’S DONE. Everyone, most importantly the American People, will be much better off thanks to our work together. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
Trump continues feud with Republican congressman Thomas Massie
Donald Trump has been posting to social media from Air Force One, prolonging his feud with the Republican Kentucky congressman Thomas Massie, who opposed the president’s decision to launch airstrikes in Iran at the weekend without congressional approval.
Calling Massie a “Third Rate Congressman”, Trump – who is on his way to The Hague for a Nato summit – lashed out (again) in a lengthy diatribe on his Truth Social platform. He predicted Massie would vote against Trump’s so-called big, beautiful bill, even though Massie already did: he was one of two Republican no votes last month.
Axios reported on Sunday that Trump allies have launched a political action committee dedicated to unseating Massie in the 2026 election. For his part, Massie has brushed off the attacks, telling MSNBC that he has “Trump antibodies” and is immune to the president’s criticism.
Trump has been posting furiously before his arrival in The Hague, which is expected about 1pm ET. In one post he says he was looking forward to “seeing all of my very good European friends” and insists the summit “at worst … will be a much calmer period than what I just went through with Israel and Iran”.
Shreyas Teegala has been talking to Los Angeles residents who are skipping medical appointments because they fear being caught up in raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents:
On a Wednesday morning earlier this month, Jane*, the coordinator for a mobile clinic at a temporary housing campus in Downey, just southeast of Los Angeles, was weaving through the line of patients, helping them fill out routine forms.
Everything was normal, she recalled, until she glimpsed, from the corner of her eye, the facility’s security guard whisk away the cone that had been propping open the gate for the clinic, letting it swing shut. What had welcomed care now suddenly threatened capture.
Outside, a convoy of unmarked white SUVs rolled toward the entrance. Spotting the armed, masked men and out-of-state plates, Jane knew they were agents of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) and so did her patients. As she tried to keep everyone calm, the clinic’s driver and security guard asked to see the agents’ warrant. But they didn’t have one, Jane said.
After a tense few minutes, the SUVs pulled off. The clinic stood its ground, and no one was hauled off – yet the fear lingered. As Ice raids sweep LA county, fixtures of normal life – school, work and now even the doctor’s office – have become hunting grounds cloaked in fear for the region’s immigrant residents.
Read more:
The Republican Louisiana senator (and doctor) Bill Cassidy, who rang the alarm on Robert F Kennedy’s nomination as Donald Trump’s health secretary, then ended up voting to confirm him anyway, wants Kennedy’s new vaccine panel postponed.
In a post to X on Monday evening, Cassidy said that many of the health secretary’s appointees lacked “significant experience studying microbiology, epidemiology or immunology”.
Earlier this month, Kennedy fired the 17 members of the existing key US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee for immunization practices (Acip), and installed his own panel.
Cassidy in unlikely to get his wish. The Acip meeting is set to go ahead Tuesday.
Kennedy, meanwhile, is set to face tough questions about the switch when he appears later Tuesday before the House energy and commerce subcommittee.
A panel of judges in New York will hear arguments a little later on Tuesday in Donald Trump’s appeal of an $83.3m defamation ruling against him after he was adjudicated to have sexually abused writer E Jean Carroll in the 1990s.
The US court of appeals for the second circuit, in this case comprising one judge appointed by Bill Clinton, and two by Joe Biden, will take oral arguments.
The president will not be there – he’ll be arriving in the Netherlands in the coming hours for the Nato summit in the Hague – but his lawyers will argue why the award should be overturned.
Trump suffered defeat earlier this month when the appeals court denied his attempt to reverse a separate $5m award from a civil jury, which found in 2023 that Trump had sexually abused Carroll, then defamed her, before he embarked on his political career.
Tactics employed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents in migrant raids taking place across the country have come under increasing scrutiny.
There have been numerous reports of plainclothes Ice officers in masks, some without identification or badges, bundling people into unmarked vehicles, all while Trump administration officials are demanding a ramping up of arrests to 3,000 a day.
Here, Ben Makuch looks at the secrecy surrounding Ice operations, and how the agency has become a kind of “domestic stormtrooper” for Donald Trump’s make America great again (Maga) agenda:
What to expect today: Middle East, New York mayoral race and ‘big, beautiful bill’ wrangling
It’s Richard Luscombe in the US taking over from my colleague Tom Ambrose, and I’ll be here to guide you through the day’s political developments.
The conflict consuming Israel and Iran is dominating headlines, and you can follow happenings in our Middle East crisis liveblog here.
We’re also following reaction to Monday’s supreme court ruling allowing the Trump administration to deport migrant detainees to countries that are not their own; and voting Tuesday in New York’s mayoral race primary, in which leftwing candidate Zohran Mamdani appears to be leading the former New York governor Andrew Cuomo for the Democratic nomination.
While all that is going on, US senators are wrangling over the future of Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”, for which an unofficial 4 July deadline has been set.
Republican senators are still at odds over many of the provisions, including one that strip healthcare from millions, especially in red states. John Kennedy of Louisiana told CNN on Monday night:
Right now, the bill is held together with happy thoughts and spit. I think we’ll eventually pass something, I just can’t tell you when.
Trump asked Netanyahu to not attack Iran – report
Donald Trump called Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and asked him not to attack Iran, an Axios reporter said in a X post on Tuesday, citing an Israeli official.
Netanyahu told Trump that he was unable to cancel the attack and that it was needed because Iran violated the ceasefire, the Axios reporter said.
The attack would be significantly scaled back and would not hit a large number of targets but only strike one target, according to the report.
President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Israel is not going to attack Iran and all planes will turn around and head home.
“All planes will turn around and head home, while doing a friendly ‘Plane Wave’ to Iran. Nobody will be hurt, the Ceasefire is in effect!,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
We have some lines from Joint Base Andrews, where president Donald Trump exited Marine One at 6.59am.
The president walked towards Air Force One holding his white ball cap by his side and did not stop to talk to the out of town pool reporters.
He made a fist and waved at press when he reached the top of the stairs, before stepping onto Air Force One at 7am.
Secretary of state Marco Rubio is also aboard Air Force One as it heads to Nato.
Trump on social media: ‘Israel. Do not drop those bombs’
President Donald Trump has warned Israel not to drop any more bombs on Iran or it would be a violation of the ceasefire he is trying to broker between the two countries.
“Israel. Do not drop those bombs. If you do it it is a major violation. Bring your pilots home, now!” Trump wrote in a post on his social media site shortly after he left the White House for a trip to the Nato summit in the Hague.
Trump says Israel and Iran violated ceasefire
President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that both Israel and Iran violated a ceasefire he announced hours earlier and he was not happy with either country but especially Israel.
Speaking to reporters before leaving for the Nato summit in The Hague, Trump said Israel “unloaded” right after agreeing to the deal.
He also said Iran’s nuclear capabilities are gone.
We’re covering the latest developments on Israel’s war with Iran in our dedicated live blog here:
European allies should not worry about the United States’ commitment to Nato, Mark Rutte, the chief of the military alliance, said on Tuesday, speaking before a summit that is likely to sign off a big new spending goal.
The two-day gathering is intended to signal to Russian president Vladimir Putin that Nato is united, despite US president Donald Trump’s previous criticism of the alliance, and determined to expand and upgrade its defences to deter any attack from Moscow.
“There is total commitment by the US president and the US senior leadership to Nato,” Rutte told a public forum before the formal opening of the summit, adding, however, that such backing came with an expectation that European countries and Canada spend more on defence.
All the latest from the Nato summit will be covered in this live blog:
The WhatsApp messaging service has been banned on all US House of Representatives devices, according to a memo sent to House staff on Monday.
The notice to all House staff said that the “Office of Cybersecurity has deemed WhatsApp a high-risk to users due to the lack of transparency in how it protects user data, absence of stored data encryption, and potential security risks involved with its use.”
The memo, from the chief administrative officer, recommended use of other messaging apps, including Microsoft Corp’s Teams platform, Amazon.com’s Wickr, Signal, Apple’s iMessage, and Facetime.
Meta, which owns WhatsApp, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
New Yorkers vote in mayoral primary as polls show Mamdami leading Cuomo
Adam Gabbatt
New Yorkers are headed to the polls on Tuesday in a primary election that is both likely to decide the city’s next mayor and have major political implications for the future of the Democratic party.
The race pits two drastically different Democrats against one another. Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist endorsed by the progressive wing of the Democratic party, is the main challenger to Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor who has been backed by the party’s centrists and billionaire donors.
Cuomo, who resigned as governor in 2021 after more than a dozen women accused him of sexual harassment, was the clear frontrunner earlier in the year. But Mamdani has enjoyed a meteoric surge in polls in recent weeks, and could benefit from the primary’s ranked-choice voting system.
Voters can rank five candidates in order of preference, and a poll released on Monday showed Mamdani winning the primary after multiple rounds of counting. Last week, Mamdani announced he was “cross-endorsing” with Brad Lander, a fellow progressive who was recently arrested by Ice agents while visiting an immigration court.
US supreme court allows Trump officials to deport migrants to countries other than their own
The US supreme court on Monday paved the way for the Trump administration to resume deporting migrants to countries they are not from, including to conflict-ridden places such as South Sudan.
In a brief, unsigned order, the court’s conservative supermajority paused the ruling by a Boston-based federal judge who said immigrants deserved a “meaningful opportunity” to bring claims that they would face the risk of torture, persecution or even death if removed to certain countries that have agreed to take people deported from the US.
As a result of Monday’s ruling, the administration will now be allowed to swiftly deport immigrants to so-called “third countries”, including a group of men held at a US military base in Djibouti who the administration tried to send to South Sudan.
The court offered no explanation for its decision and ordered the judge’s ruling paused while the appeals process plays out. The three liberal justices issued a scathing dissent.
The Department of Homeland Security hailed the decision as a “victory for the safety and security of the American people”.
“DHS can now execute its lawful authority and remove illegal aliens to a country willing to accept them,” spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “Fire up the deportation planes.”
Read the full story here:
In other developments:
-
Donald Trump announced that Israel and Iran had reached a ceasefire in a post published on his social media platform. Iran and Israel had not immediately verified the deal. The news came just hours after Iran launched a retaliatory strike on a US military base in Qatar.
-
CIA director John Ratcliffe and director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard will brief members of Congress today on US military action in Iran. Top Democrats began calling for a classified briefing after the United States launched military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities over the weekend. Democratic members of “the Gang of Eight” say they have not been briefed on the situation yet, although Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson was briefed this morning.
-
Health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr met with major health insurers today, extracting pledges that they will take additional measures to simplify their requirements for prior approval on medicines and medical services. Kennedy, who is known for pushing anti-vaccine conspiracies, is set to speak this week at a fundraising event for Gavi, a public-private partnership which helps buy vaccines for the world’s poorest children.
-
Canada signed a defense pact with the European Union – the latest sign of the North American country’s shift away reliance on the United States amid strained relations with Donald Trump. Trump is set to attend a two day Nato summit beginning tomorrow. The White House said that at the summit, Trump will push Nato members to increase defense spending.
