Oil prices rose and stock futures ticked down on Monday as investors reacted after the two sides failed to agree on a U.S.-Iran peace deal.
President Trump said on social media Sunday that Iran’s latest proposal was “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!” He did not share details about what Iran had offered. Tehran has said the two countries are working on a short-term agreement that would pause fighting for another 30 days and end Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil and gas shipping route in the Persian Gulf.
Iran’s demands for U.S. war reparations, recognition of its sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz and an end to American sanctions were among the conditions that President Trump has deemed “unacceptable,” Iran’s state-owned broadcaster reported on Monday.
The terms were detailed in a social media post by Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting after Mr. Trump on Sunday dismissed an Iranian counterproposal as “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE.” Mr. Trump did not specify his objections to the deal, which was passed via Pakistani mediators.
Brothers and sisters, | ||||||||
On Saturday, April 25, I introduced a resolution against the US-Israeli imperialist war on Iran at a meeting of UAW Local 677, which includes the Mack Trucks plant where I work. The local apparatus voted it down 7–1, with mine the only vote in favor. | ||||||||
There is enormous opposition among autoworkers to the war, to the attacks on democratic rights at home, and to the diversion of trillions into militarism while living standards are slashed. But the UAW apparatus has aligned itself with the war drive of the government and the corporations, enforcing nationalism while workers are told to “sacrifice” for policies that benefit only the financial oligarchy. | ||||||||
The resolution denounces the war as the supreme international crime as established at Nuremberg, condemns Trump’s threat to “end a whole civilization” as incitement to genocide, opposes the conversion of auto and auto parts production to military output, and demands the immediate disbanding of ICE and CBP as agencies of repression. It calls for the formation of rank-and-file committees in every local — independent of and not subordinate to the union bureaucracy — to take this fight forward. | ||||||||
The fight against war cannot be waged through the officials who support it. I urge workers to read, print, and distribute this resolution widely in your workplaces, present it at your local, and use it to organize discussion and action independent of the bureaucracy. | ||||||||
Read my recent statements | ||||||||
William Lehman for UAW President | ||||||||
|
Donald Trump has gone on a desperate social media posting spree to try to hide just how unpopular a president he is.
In a typically deranged Truth Social blitz starting Sunday night, the 79-year-old posted: “Excellent Poll Numbers. Thank You!”
It is unclear where Trump is seeing these “excellent” poll numbers, as the president is routinely recording dire approval ratings amid his deeply unpopular war on Iran and his handling of the U.S. economy.
Trump
was so desperate to share acclaim from his loyal supporters that he
even posted a polling story that is at least nine months old.
Soon after boasting about his supposedly “excellent” polling, the president shared another post about a CNN survey showing Trump had surpassed Ronald Reagan as the “most beloved president among Republicans.”
The poll appears to refer to polling aggregation reported by CNN in July 2025. A more up-to-date story on the president, showing approval ratings in the low to mid-30s, was published by CNN last week under the headline: “Charting how Trump became a historically unpopular president.”
A released a study that looked at Latino immigrant labor employment across every major red and blue state across the country. Researchers found that Texas and Florida, among the loudest anti-immigration states, depend on immigrant labor at about the roughly the same rates as California and more than New York. In other words, red states can’t function without the very people they say they want to deport.
Red state conservatives attack immigrants publicly, so no one looks too closely at their own behavior. As Shakespeare once wrote: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
A good example of someone “protesting too much” has been Donald Trump, who has repeatedly attacked undocumented migrants as “animals” who “poison the blood of our country.”
Given those types of comments, it is more than ironic that the Trump Tower in Manhattan was built by employing undocumented Polish workers in 1980s, while Trump was telling Americans that immigrants were stealing their jobs. Trump’s golf courses hired undocumented workers for decades. Of course, Trump will deny all of these facts as “fake news.”
Trump and MAGA need you to hate immigrants, so you don’t notice they’re the ones hiring immigrants. The louder the outrage, the bigger the secret they’re hiding from the public.
By the way, aren’t we still waiting for millions of more documents to be released from the Epstein files?
Bob Chimis, Elmwood Park
After years demanding indiscriminate immigration crackdowns, they’re now shocked to learn that driving away workers leaves no workers.
The same politicians who cheered mass deportation suddenly bemoan labor shortages and slower growth.
That’s not policy. It’s political theater with real world costs.
For more than a decade, Texas leaders blocked immigration reform, sued to stop legal pathways and turned border security into a prop.
Now crops rot, construction stalls and restaurants can’t hire. You can’t demand mass deportation on Monday and complain about missing workers on Tuesday.
Texas has always relied on immigrant labor. Our economy knows it. San Antonio knows it. Only politicians trapped in their own contradictions pretend otherwise.
If they want workers, they can drop the stunts and finally pass real bipartisan immigration reform.
Charles Fredrickson
The United States Department of Justice on Friday filed a motion urging a federal judge to immediately prohibit New Mexico officials from enforcing House Bill 9, the Immigrant Safety Act, saying the new state law is unconstitutional and would irreparably harm a New Mexico county.
The law prohibits public entities like counties from contracting with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to hold immigrant detainees. The law has faced sustained pushback in Otero County, where county officials say the measure will result in the loss of up to 284 jobs and force the county to sell its immigrant detention facility, the Otero County Processing Center, at a loss.
The federal DOJ’s Civil Division and the United State’s Attorney’s Office in New Mexico filed the motion for a preliminary injunction Friday in federal court. The defendants are the State of New Mexico, including Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Attorney General Raúl Torrez.
Their letter comes on the heels of new legislation introduced this week by Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.) that would establish care standards for federally incarcerated pregnant people—including those jailed in ICE and Customs and Border Protection facilities. The bill builds on one that the House already passed in 2022, which only applied to those in Bureau of Prison’s custody.
It’s hard to know how many pregnant people are in federal custody, and what percentage of those are immigrants. In 2023, more than 700 incarcerated mothers gave birth in prison, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. Between January 1, 2025, and February 16, 2026, 363 pregnant, postpartum and nursing immigrants were deported, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Sixteen miscarriages were recorded during those six weeks. As of March, there were an estimated 126 pregnant women still being held in detention, according to the senators’ letter.
U.S. states can’t bar immigrant children – no matter their status – from attending public school. The Supreme Court said so in 1982.
A growing chorus of Republicans wants to overturn that decision. Bills in state legislatures over the past year have unsuccessfully aimed to collect data on immigrant students without legal status or charge them tuition. Passing that sort of legislation could put the issue back in front of the Supreme Court someday.
“It’s time for it to go,” Rep. Chip Roy, who’s also running in the Republican primary for Texas attorney general, said of the court ruling during a congressional hearing in March. “Any amount of illegal immigration in our hospitals, jails, schools, or elsewhere should not be tolerated. ... States should have the ability to curb it.”
As the death toll at immigrant detention centers across the country continues to rise, the Trump administration is kneecapping federal efforts to monitor allegations of abuse at these facilities.
Sites such as the Dilley Immigration Processing Center and Camp East Montana — both located in Texas and used to aid President Donald Trump’s racist anti-immigrant crackdown — have been decried by human rights advocates over reported deaths and alleged abuse.
You may have heard of Camp East Montana earlier this year, after a medical examiner determined that an immigrant who was being held there died by homicide via asphyxia, contradicting officials who said the man died after attempting suicide. Last month, NPR reported that the number of immigrants to have died in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has already hit a record annual high in the current fiscal year, which began in October. And CBS News reported that a record high for the calendar year is possible as well.
Meanwhile, the administration is undermining efforts to investigate unlawful and abusive behavior toward detained immigrants. HuffPost reported on an internal email, which MS NOW hasn’t independently seen, indicating that the Department of Homeland Security is closing an office tasked with investigating claims of abuse at immigration facilities.
The internal Department of Homeland Security office that oversees detention facilities and conditions is winding down its operations — even as the administration places more people in detention, and for longer stints.
Congress created the Office of Immigration Detention Ombudsman (OIDO) in 2019 to investigate detainee deaths, detainee access to medical care, and employee misconduct, among other issues.
In a statement to NPR, DHS said the office shut down because of the current funding lapse in Congress targeting immigration enforcement.
Congress last week finally ended the longest agency shutdown in U.S. history, agreeing to fund most parts of DHS — but excluding some immigration enforcement functions.
DHS said that it is Congress' fault. DHS who lies regularly to the American people and the American legal system. They're lying again.
Bustillo notes:
But the measure passed by Congress and signed by President Trump to fund most parts of DHS did not mandate the closing of the office.
Republicans are separately looking at a partisan process known as reconciliation to fund all of DHS, including ICE and Border Patrol, for the remainder of Trump's term without any Democratic support. It is not clear if OIDO would reopen if ICE and Border Patrol are funded.
Even before the shutdown, the Trump administration had been stripping down the office's functions and laying off staff in civil rights areas. That comes as the number of people who have died in immigration custody has reached an all-time high for the fiscal year.
While Melania ignored the mothers in need, American Friends Service Committee doesn't. They issued the following:
Mother’s Day is a time to celebrate the women who raised us—to honor their love, their sacrifice, their strength. But today, thousands of immigrant mothers are separated from their children and loved ones by detention. Across the U.S., mothers are locked up in immigration detention centers. Many more are left to care for their families alone after a loved one is detained or deported.
No one should be torn away from their loved ones. Families should never be separated by walls or borders. That’s why, with your support, AFSC is working alongside communities across the country to end detention for good.
This week, dozens of community members in San Diego, California, and Denver, Colorado, showed up for mothers in detention. We wanted everyone behind those walls to know that people outside stand in solidarity with them, that they are not forgotten.
In Colorado, community members gathered for a vigil outside the GEO Detention Center in Aurora. We held handmade signs and candles and delivered our messages through a megaphone so everyone inside could hear.
In San Diego, many community members came together to make Mother’s Day cards for people in detention. On Friday, we brought the cards and yellow flowers to Otay Mesa Detention Center, where we hoped they would be delivered to people inside.
These acts of solidarity are one part of a broader effort to support families facing detention. They also highlight the cruelty of our immigration system.
“Writing a Mother's Day card to someone who is currently being detained exemplifies the idea that everyday people are thinking about those who have been deprived of their freedom,” says Adriana Jasso, coordinator for AFSC’s U.S-Mexico Border Program. “We need to communicate to the public that immigration law and policies—as harmful as they are—don’t just impact mothers being held, but also their children and extended community. We have a responsibility to call out the inhumanity of a system that continues to take away people’s freedom and potentially their future.”
Since the start of the Trump administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has vastly expanded detention and deportation. ICE has detained the parents of at least 50 U.S. citizen children per day, according to research by ProPublica. It has also deported four times as many mothers of U.S. citizen children per day as the previous administration did.
The people behind these numbers are mothers, children, and whole communities.
From California to New Jersey, AFSC provides direct support to families impacted by detention and deportation. That includes legal representation, social work, accompaniment, and other support.
In Florida, AFSC is part of the Miramar Circle of Protection. Since 2017, the group has offered mutual aid, information, and other resources to immigrants navigating the immigration system.
Every Wednesday, AFSC staff and volunteers set up across the street from the local ICE facility in Miramar. We offer water, coffee, homemade pasteles, clothing, Know Your Rights information, and legal referrals. When someone comes for an ICE appointment and gets detained, our team documents what they can and helps families locate their loved ones.
AFSC Campaigns Coordinator Maria Bilbao helped found the Circle of Protection. In recent months, she says the group has assisted mothers facing eviction, deportation, and family separation.
Gladis is a mother of two. Her youngest was just two weeks old when ICE detained her husband while he was walking to the neighborhood store. Without her husband’s income, Gladis couldn’t pay the rent or afford groceries or diapers. The Circle of Protection mobilized, helping raise funds from the community to cover her rent for three months and other expenses until she figured out her next steps.
Doris and her husband were both detained and facing deportation. Maria connected them with legal help to get their affairs in order. The parents made the difficult decision to return to Honduras with their young children. Maria helped Doris get passports for their children so they could make the journey together.
Ana* came to the Circle of Protection after her husband was deported during an ICE check-in at the facility. She didn’t know how she was going to support their family. The group provided her with some financial assistance. They brought toys for her kids. And they connected with a local immigrant services organization that could offer long-term support.
“We are not charity,” Maria says. “We are showing up. We are bearing witness. We are documenting everything we’re seeing. We are there every day to stand with immigrants facing detention and injustice.”
This is what community looks like—people choosing to show up for one another. None of this work happens without people who believe families belong together and that all people deserve to live in dignity.
Because of supporters like you, we can walk alongside mothers like Gladis, Dori, and Ana—offering care, resources, and solidarity in the hardest moments.
This Mother's Day, we stand with every mother harmed by detention and deportation. We stand with every family forced to navigate this inhumane system. And we will keep standing until every mother can spend this day where she belongs—with her children, her family, and her community.
Pope Leo XIV’s pick to lead West Virginia Catholics is a prelate who was at one time an undocumented immigrant. Evelio Menjivar-Ayala, who has served as an auxiliary bishop in the archdiocese of Washington D.C. since 2023 and has now been selected by the pontiff to become the new bishop of West Virginia, is a Central American immigrant who fled for his life hidden in the trunk of a car, The Guardian reports.
“Born on 14 August 1970, in Chalatenango, El Salvador, Menjivar-Ayala’s journey to the priesthood began in the violence of the Salvadorian civil war, where he and his family narrowly survived being fired upon by soldiers while fleeing their home, he previously told the Catholic Standard,” The Guardian said. “After two failed attempts to reach the US, hindered by deportation and a guide who deserted the migrant group, he finally succeeded on his third try, despite a brief imprisonment in Mexico and a grueling desert crossing.”
Menjivar-Ayala, who arrived in the U.S. with just an extra set of clothes as his only possessions, worked a series of essential jobs in construction and janitorial services while earning his GED before entering the priesthood, The Guardian noted.
During a press event announcing his elevation to bishop of West Virginia, Menjivar-Ayala pledged to stand by working people, including immigrants. Menjivar-Ayala has already asserted fierce support for immigrant communities as Washington’s auxiliary bishop, including penning an April 2025 National Catholic Reporter op-ed that rebuked the federal government’s mass deportation agenda and urged faithful to not be complicit in the targeting of their neighbors.
“To those of you who are silent or think this does not involve you, to those of you who are not troubled by this — or worse, who applaud it — particularly those who are Catholic, I ask you: Do you not see the suffering of your neighbors?” he wrote. “Do you not realize the pain and misery and very real fear and anxiety these unjust government operations and policies are causing? Is your conscience not disturbed? How can you stay quiet? In the final teaching of his public ministry, Jesus warned that we will be judged on how we respond to others in distress (Mt 25:41-46).”
This diversity reflects the diversity of the Church in America itself. Immigrants have of course always been a key Catholic demographic in the USA, since it is itself a nation of immigrants. However, over the past century their countries of origin have mostly shifted away from Europe.
Just in the first week of May this year, Leo XIV has appointed five bishops. On May 1, 2026, he made four episcopal appointments: two of them are immigrants, and a third will be the youngest bishop in the country. The fourth was a later vocation with a background in military service. Then, on May 6, he named the fifth, tapping a Jesuit priest to head the Diocese of Honolulu.
More than 200 people gathered May 6 at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit to discuss the Church’s prophetic witness regarding the debates surrounding immigration and the impact current federal policy has had on immigrant communities over the past two years.
Priests, bishops, parish leaders and immigration rights advocates from 10 dioceses participated in “Witness to Hope: Pastoral Care of Immigrant Communities,” a collaborative effort between the Archdiocese of Detroit, Catholic Charities of Southeast Michigan, the Hope Border Institute in El Paso, Texas, and the Center for Migration Studies of New York, to discuss what the Church can do at the parish and diocesan levels to accompany immigrant communities amidst the expansion of immigration enforcement initiatives taking place during President Donald Trump’s second administration.
This was the third daylong summit, following previous “Witness to Hope” gatherings in Providence, Rhode Island, and Phoenix, Arizona, in recent months.
“The goal here today is to get us energized to take the next steps as dioceses, parishes, religious congregations or as groups of Catholic organizations, because some of you might be doing pretty well in a lot of things,” said Fr. David Buersmeyer, a priest for the Archdiocese of Detroit and chaplain for Strangers No Longer, a Detroit-based, lay-led Catholic immigration rights advocacy group.
An Atlanta-based appeals court has struck down the Trump administration’s mandatory detention policy for immigrants in federal custody, clearing the way for more people to wait at home while their deportation cases wind through the court system.
In a 2-1 decision issued Wednesday by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a three-judge panel ruled that the Department of Homeland Security can no longer deny bond hearings to people in immigration detention, including those who have been living in the U.S. for years with no criminal records.
An increasingly desperate Pete Hegseth threatened fresh legal action against a Democratic senator for his criticism of Donald Trump’s war on Iran.
The defense secretary’s campaign against Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona was dealt a blow on Thursday, when a federal appeals court signaled that it would not support his effort to punish Kelly over a video in which he and other lawmakers told servicemembers they could refuse illegal orders.
In February, another court blocked his attempt to censure and demote the 62-year-old senator, who flew 39 combat missions over Iraq during the Gulf War before serving as a NASA astronaut.
Determined
to defeat Kelly by any means necessary, Hegseth issued a new threat on X
on Sunday evening in response to comments Kelly made on CBS News’ Face the Nation.
Speaking to host Margaret Brennan, Kelly said that it was “shocking how deep we have gone” into U.S. weapons stockpiles during Trump’s war on Iran.
“Because this president got our country into this without a strategic goal, without a plan, without a timeline... because of that, we’ve expended a lot of munitions. And that means the American people are less safe,” Kelly said.
Responding to a post from Brennan on X about Kelly’s claim, Hegseth wrote, “‘Captain’ Mark Kelly strikes again. Now he’s blabbing on TV (falsely & dumbly) about a *CLASSIFIED* Pentagon briefing he received. Did he violate his oath…again?” He ended his post with a note that the Pentagon’s legal counsel will review whether or not Kelly violated his oath.
Kelly was quick to respond, sharing a video of an interaction he had with Hegseth during the Pentagon chief’s appearance in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this month.
“We had this conversation in a public hearing a week ago and you said it would take “years” to replenish some of these stockpiles,” Kelly wrote.
“That’s not classified, it’s a quote from you. This war is coming at a serious cost and you and the president still haven’t explained to the American people what the goal is.”
California gas prices are up more than $1.50 per gallon since the start of Trump’s war with Iran
WASHINGTON, D.C. — As Californians face rising gas prices driven by the Trump Administration’s ongoing war in Iran, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) joined Senators Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) in introducing the Transportation Fuel Market Transparency Act to crack down on petroleum market manipulation and protect consumers from unjustified price spikes at the pump.
The bill would create a new Transportation Fuel Monitoring and Enforcement Unit at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to proactively monitor fuel markets for fraud, manipulation, and anti-competitive behavior that can artificially inflate prices. It would also increase transparency across fuel markets and significantly raise penalties for bad actors.
California drivers consistently pay among the highest gas prices in the nation, with costs often spiking faster and higher than the national average during periods of global disruption — putting added pressure on working families, small businesses, and commuters across the state.
“At a time when Trump’s unauthorized war with Iran is driving up costs, we need stronger oversight to ensure oil companies and traders aren’t exploiting the moment to pad their profits,” said Senator Padilla. “This bill will bring greater transparency to fuel markets, hold bad actors accountable, and help protect consumers across California.”
The Transportation Fuel Market Transparency Act would:
- Strengthen Oversight: Enhance the FTC’s authority to crack down on false reporting or deceptive practices that artificially inflate fuel prices across gasoline, diesel, and biofuels markets.
- Establish Dedicated Monitoring: Create a permanent FTC unit responsible for continuously tracking crude oil and fuel markets to identify irregularities and protect consumers.
- Target Market Manipulation: Empower regulators to investigate and penalize companies engaging in price manipulation, abuse of market power, or other anti-competitive practices.
- Increase Penalties: Double the maximum penalty for market manipulation to $2 million per day, per violation.
- Improve Transparency: Expand federal data collection and public reporting on fuel supply and pricing to promote fair competition and prevent price gouging.
The legislation builds on previous efforts to strengthen federal oversight of energy markets, similar to authorities granted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which have successfully policed manipulation in electricity and financial markets.
Despite having similar authority since 2007, the FTC has not consistently used its tools to monitor and enforce against manipulation in petroleum markets. This bill would ensure those authorities are fully utilized to protect consumers — including millions of Californians who rely on their cars every day.
A one-page summary of the Transportation Fuel Market Transparency Act is available here.
The full bill text is available here.
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