The US is ending temporary deportation protection for South Sudanese nationals, which for more than a decade allowed people from the east African country to stay in the US after escaping conflict.
In a notice published on Wednesday, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said conditions in South Sudan no longer met the statutory requirements for temporary protected status. The agency said South Sudanese nationals with status through the programme had 60 days to leave the US or face deportation.
“Based on the department’s review, the secretary has determined the situation in South Sudan no longer meets the criteria for an ongoing armed conflict that poses a serious threat to the personal safety of returning South Sudanese nationals,” the notice says.
In a statement, USCIS said South Sudanese nationals who used the Customs and Border Protection mobile app to report their departure could receive “a complimentary plane ticket, a $1,000 exit bonus, and potential future opportunities for legal immigration”.
Temporary protected status gives foreign nationals access to work permits and allows them to temporarily live and work legally in the US when their home countries are unsafe to return to.
South Sudan’s designation, which was first authorised by the Barack Obama administration in 2011 because of armed conflict, expired on Monday after many extensions.
The designation had so far been approved for about 232 people from the country.
As the US federal shutdown enters its second month, government workers are accusing the Trump administration of being “out of control” and bullying people who are “simply trying to do their best”.
The shutdown surpassed 35 days this week, beating the previous record set under Donald Trump’s first presidential term. About 700,000 federal employees are furloughed without pay, and about 700,000 additional federal workers have been working without pay through the shutdown.
Affected workers say the shutdown has been a continuation of attacks they have experienced under the Trump administration, from mass firings – many of which have been overturned or blocked in federal courts – to drastic budget cuts, pushes to take early retirements or resignation buyouts, and threats of withholding back pay for workers furloughed during the shutdown.
“It’s already been a chaotic year,” said Micah Niemeier-Walsh, who works at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (Niosh). She was initially fired along with most employees at the agency, but reinstated in May after a court intervened to block most of the firings.
“For many agencies, like the one that I am employed by, we’ve been effectively shut down for many months already because of the reductions in force that have already happened, and all of the attacks that we’ve been seeing on the federal workforce,” said Niemeier-Walsh, who is also vice-president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 3840.
“It’s become out of control, and I really hope that this shutdown is a wake-up call of how bad things have gotten.”
In November, furloughed government employees received furlough extension notices, although many notices did not contain assurances they would receive back pay once the government reopens. Denial of back pay has been a threat repeatedly made by the Trump administration during the shutdown, along with firings during the shutdown, which were blocked in a federal court.
“I have never, ever, ever, ever, ever thought that we would have our government attacking government employees,” said Omar Algeciras, who works at the Department of Labor. “ I think this is the epitome of harassment, bullying and attacks on people that are simply trying to do their best to provide a service or services to American workers.”
Michael Durant watched through night-vision goggles as two 2,000-pound laser-guided bombs slammed on to the Panamanian airbase while he hovered off the country’s south coast in a Black Hawk helicopter.
“A gigantic flash, followed by a boom … [like] the largest lightning strike you’ve ever seen in your life,” the retired US army pilot recalled of the opening salvo of the Battle of Rio Hato Airfield in December 1989.
The stealth bomber blitzkrieg and subsequent army ranger assault marked the start of the US invasion of Panama – Operation Just Cause – designed to dethrone Panama’s military dictator, Manuel Noriega.
Durant and his colleagues had orders to capture the Panamanian Defense Force (PDF) base to stop troops coming to Noriega’s rescue. Over the coming days, the pilot and more than 25,000 other American troops hunted the autocrat, who finally surrendered on 3 January 1990.
Memories of Just Cause have resurfaced in recent weeks after Donald Trump ordered the largest US military buildup in Latin America and the Caribbean since that invasion almost four decades ago.
A seventh of US naval assets – including the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford – have been sent to the region since August, with B-52 bombers and special forces spotted off Venezuela’s northern coast. Airstrikes on alleged drug boats in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea have killed more than 60 people.
Officially, the deployment of warships, Reaper drones and about 10,000 service personnel is part of a crackdown on Latin American narco-traffickers who Trump accuses of flooding the US with drugs. But many suspect Trump’s real goal is toppling Venezuela’s dictator, Nicolás Maduro, just as George HW Bush toppled Noriega before he was tried and jailed in the US.
Some members of Venezuela’s opposition appear keen for a replay of Just Cause, on an even greater scale. The exiled politician Leopoldo López recently voiced support for a US attack to unseat Maduro, who is widely believed to have stolen last year’s presidential election. But many observers, including Trump backers, question the wisdom of invading a country 12 times larger than Panama, and more politically and geographically complex.
President Donald Trump appealed directly to China’s Xi Jinping to free jailed Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai when the two leaders met in South Korea last week, according to three people briefed on the talks and a US administration official, Reuters reported.
Trump did not discuss a specific deal to free Lai but spoke more broadly about concerns surrounding the 77-year-old publishing mogul’s health and well-being after his lengthy trial on national security charges, one of the people said.
Trump spent less than five minutes discussing the issue, the person added.
“President Trump brought up Jimmy Lai’s case, just as he said he would,” said the administration official. “Both president Trump and president Xi engaged in the discussion that followed.”
“It was raised by Trump and noted by Xi,” a third person said on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the leaders’ meeting.
That person said Trump suggested that Lai’s release would be good for US-China relations and beneficial for China’s image.
Donald Trump appeared to be sharing everything on his mind all at once on Wednesday as he posted more than 30 Truth Social posts in less than three hours.
The posts, of which there were 33 between 4.17pm and 6.40pm ET, came a day after Democrats won in a series of elections across the United States in New York, California, Virginia, and New Jersey.
Trump’s posts ranged in subject matter. In a handful of missives, Trump made recommendations to his followers to buy books written by former FBI special agent Nicole Parker, Fox News political analyst Gianno Caldwell, Georgia congressman Barry Loudermilk, senior counselor for trade and manufacturing Peter Navarro, and his own former lawyer, Christina Bobb. Most notably, Trump penned the foreword for Bobb’s book.
Other posts included videos of Trump appearing to read nearly verbatim from his own previously posted Truth Social text posts. They appeared to be artificially generated, but the Guardian could not independently confirm. Users on social media platform X asked Grok about their authenticity and Grok noted they were indeed AI.
Upon asking the White House for more information, the Guardian received an automated response that read in part: “Due to staff shortages resulting from the Democrat Shutdown, the typical 24/7 monitoring of this press inbox may experience delays.”
The videos feature Trump standing in front of a podium in an unknown room and covered topics such as his recent meeting with the prime minister of Japan, his G2 meeting with China’s president Xi Jinping, Walmart allegedly lowering its prices, and more.
The transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, and the FAA administrator, Bryan Bedford, said on Wednesday the federal government would be reducing airline traffic by 10% at 40 “high volume markets” beginning on Friday if the government shutdown does not end by then.
The announcement did not specify which 40 airports would see the reduction and said that a complete list would be announced on Thursday with cuts likely at the nation’s 30 busiest airports, including those serving New York, Washington DC, Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Dallas. The reduction will affect cargo, private and passenger traffic.
Reuters reported that the cuts would begin at 4% on Friday, escalate to 5% Saturday and 6% at Sunday, before reaching 10% next week, and that international flights were to be exempted from the initial cuts. Aviaion analytics firm Cirium estimated that the cuts would reduce as many as 1,800 flights and over 268,000 airline seats.
The comments come after Duffy warned earlier this week that the US may close portions of its airspace if the shutdown, now on its record-breaking 36th day, does not end.
Duffy and Bedford repeatedly framed the decision as a pre-emptive, safety and data-driven measure. Bedford said that air traffic was currently operating safely, but that the FAA was concerned about widespread reports of fatigue from flight controllers.
“As we slice the data more granularly, we are seeing pressures build in a way that we don’t feel, if we allow it to go unchecked, will allow us to continue to tell the public that we operate the safest airline system in the world” Bedford said.
“Many of these employees, they’re the head of household,” Duffy said. “When they lose income they are confronted with real-world difficulties on how they pay their bills.”
Senate to vote on bipartisan legislation to stop unauthorized war against Venezuela
Good morning and welcome to our coverage of US politics as the record-breaking government shutdown drags on and president Donald Trump continues to rail against various targets following Democrat electoral successes on Tuesday.
But first, let’s look at the Senate vote today on bipartisan legislation to stop an unauthorized war against Venezuela.
The proposals from Democrats Tim Kaine and Adam Schiff along with independently minded Republican senator Rand Paul would block the use of the US armed forces to engage in hostilities within or against Venezuela, unless that action has been authorized by Congress. This follows reports that the Trump administration is considering land strikes inside the country.
It also follows yet another deadly strike on a boat accused of ferrying drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean and as an aircraft carrier began heading to the region in a new expansion of military firepower.
The attack on Tuesday killed two people aboard the vessel, defence secretary Pete Hegseth said, bringing the death toll from the Trump administration’s campaign in South American waters up to at least 66 people in at least 16 strikes.
A similar vote which would have blocked such strikes failed in Congress last month.
Meanwhile, Schiff said on X:
The Trump admin is laying the groundwork for potential military action inside Venezuela. Tomorrow, on a bipartisan basis, we will force a vote to block this unauthorized use of military force. Congress must assert its authority to stop America from being dragged into a new war.
In other developments:
Democrats took a victory lap after Tuesday’s election day wins with the chair of Democratic National Committee saying the party “is all gas, no brakes” and “this is not your grandfather’s Democratic party”. Despite that, Jared Golden, a democratic representative for Maine, announced Wednesday that he wouldn’t seek re-election, which could pose a challenge for Democrats in the highly contested seat.
A federal judge in Chicago issued a temporary restraining order that requires an immigration facility to improve its conditions. The ruling came after detainees sued the government over what they say are “inhumane”, unsanitary and crowded conditions.
Transportation secretary Sean Duffy said that if a deal isn’t reached in the government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration will cut 10% of flights in 40 major airports across the country. The announcement did not specify which 40 airports would see the reduction, but Duffy said it will affect cargo, private and passenger traffic.
The US supreme court appeared skeptical of the legal basis of the Trump administration’s sweeping global tariff regime on Wednesday after justices questioned the president’s authority to impose the levies. The question at the heart of the case is whether the Trump administration’s tariffs violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a 1977 law which only gives the president authority to “regulate or prohibit international transactions during a national emergency”.
As he hosted Republican senators at the White House, Donald Trump offered some initial thoughts on the Democratic victories across the country on election night. “Last night, it was not expected to be a victory, it was very Democrat areas. But I don’t think it was good for Republicans,” the president said.
On Capitol Hill, amid the government shutdown (now the longest on record), Republicans continued to rebuke Democrats for failing to pass a stopgap funding bill. House speaker Mike Johnson also used his daily press conference to both downplay and foreshadow what Tuesday’s election results suggest going forward.
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