Category World News

It was one of US President Donald Trump’s most ambitious executive orders, and it came just hours after he took office for his second term: ending the United States’ policy of birthright citizenship that has lasted for more than a century.

And just three days after Trump issued the order, a federal judge in Washington state blocked the decree from going into effect. In the months that followed, two other federal judges joined in issuing nationwide injunctions.

On Thursday, the issue will reach the US Supreme Court, with the 6-3 conservative dominated bench set to hear oral arguments in the case. What the court decides could be transformative.

Proponents have long argued that the practice of granting citizenship to all those born on US soil is woven into the national fabric.

American Civil Liberties Union executive director Anthony Romero did not mince words in January, when he called Trump’s order a “reckless and ruthless repudiation of American values”, destined to create a “permanent subclass of people born in the US who are denied full rights as Americans”.

Meanwhile, a smaller but vocal contingency, empowered by Trump, has maintained that the practice is based on faulty constitutional interpretation and serves as an incentive for undocumented migration. The Trump administration has called it “birth tourism”.

Here’s what to expect from Thursday’s hearing:

What time will it start?

The hearing will start at 9am local (14:00 GMT).

What is at stake?

The most fundamental question that could be answered by the top court is whether birthright citizenship will be allowed to continue.

Proponents point to the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, which reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside”.

A subsequent 1898 Supreme Court case, United States v Wong Kim Ark, interpreted the language as applying to all immigrants, creating a precedent that has since stood.

Some studies estimate that about 150,000 immigrant infants are born with citizenship every year under the policy.

The Trump administration, in contrast, has embraced the theory that babies born to noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the US, and therefore are not constitutionally guaranteed citizenship.

Speaking to reporters in April, Trump described a scenario of “tourists coming in and touching a piece of sand and then all of a sudden, there’s citizenship”. He has embraced the theory that the 14th Amendment was meant to apply only to former slaves, and not newly arriving immigrants

At the time, Trump predicted it would be “easy” to win the case based on that logic.

Could the outcome be more complicated?

Yes. The Trump administration has taken a strategically unique tack in the case.

In their emergency filing to the Supreme Court, they have focused on the actions of the three judges who blocked Trump’s order from going into effect nationwide.

They argue the orders extend beyond the judges’ authorities and should only apply to the plaintiffs or jurisdictions directly connected to Trump’s executive order.

Theoretically, the Supreme Court could rule on whether the judges can issue nationwide injunctions, without ruling on whether birthright citizenship is, in fact, protected by the Constitution.

For example, if the justices rule that the lower judges exceeded their power, but do not make a determination on the constitutional merits of birthright citizenship, the executive order would only be blocked in the 22 states that successfully challenged Trump’s order.

Attorneys General in those states had challenged the order in a joint lawsuit, with a federal judge in Massachusetts ruling in their favour in February.

Birthright citizenship would effectively be banned in 28 other states unless they also successfully challenge the order or until the Supreme Court makes a future ruling.

The possibility has split legal scholars, with some arguing it is unlikely the Supreme Court would make the narrower decision on the scope of the lower judges’ power without also ruling on the underlying constitutional merits of birthright citizenship.

Could the ruling extend beyond birthright citizenship?

Yes. If the justices do decide to only address the scope of the lower judges’ power, the implications could extend far beyond the birthright citizenship question.

It would also apply to several other Trump executive orders that have been blocked by a federal judge’s national injunction, also called “universal injunctions”. Those include several Trump executive orders seeking to unilaterally transform the federal government, the military, and how funding is disbursed to states, to name a few.

In a written filing in the birthright citizenship case, the Department of Justice pointed to the wider implications, saying the need for the Supreme Court’s “intervention has become urgent as universal injunctions have reached tsunami levels”.

Meanwhile, the plaintiffs in the Maryland case that successfully challenged Trump’s birthright order said doing away with national injunctions would create different tiers of rights depending on an individual’s geographical location.

Ukraine’s president has described the delegation sent by Russia for talks in Turkiye as “decorative”. Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in Ankara on Thursday ahead of the Russia-Ukraine meeting aimed at ending the war, but President Vladimir Putin, who proposed it, will not attend.

A 23-year-old Mexican influencer, Valeria Marquez, was fatally shot on Tuesday while livestreaming on TikTok from her beauty salon in Guadalajara, Jalisco.

Marquez, who had more than 113,000 followers on the platform, was broadcasting to her audience when the attack occurred.

According to a statement from the Jalisco state prosecutor’s office, the case is being investigated under femicide protocols, applied in instances where a woman is killed due to her gender.

As of Wednesday, Marquez’s TikTok account appeared to have been removed.

Here is what we know:

What happened to Valeria Marquez?

Marquez was working inside Blossom The Beauty Lounge when the attack happened.

She was livestreaming on TikTok at the time. In the video, she is seen sitting at a table, holding a stuffed pink pig toy, and is heard saying, “He is coming.”

A man’s voice in the background then asks, “Hi, are you Valeria?” to which she replies, “Yes.”

At that moment, she turns off the microphone, and seconds later, she is shot dead. The man whose voice was previously heard is not visible in the video.

According to reports, the man who shot her then hopped onto a motorbike and fled.

Meanwhile, on the video – still being streamed live – Valeria is seen grabbing her chest and stomach before she collapses in her chair. She appears to have been shot twice, with at least one bullet hitting her torso. The face of another woman briefly appears before the video ends.

Earlier suspicion

Earlier in the same video, Valeria revealed information that has set off speculation over a possible link to the events leading to her death.

“Hey, what do you think happened to me?” she says.

“I was doing some things today, and Erika called me and said, ‘Hey, babe, they’re bringing you something, and I don’t know what, but they want to give it to you.’” It’s unclear who Erika is.

I said, ‘Oh, I’ll be there in about an hour,’ and the delivery guy said, ‘I’d better wait for her because it’s really expensive.’

“Who’s going to give me something?” she asked on the video.

In the livestream, she said at another point, “Dude, they might’ve been about to kill me.” It’s unclear who she’s referring to or what prompted her to say this.

According to authorities, she was still in the chair, holding onto the stuffed pig, when they arrived.

The crime is now being investigated as the eighth femicide so far this month in Jalisco.

Who was Marquez?

According to local media, Valeria rose to fame on social media thanks to her content about beauty, lifestyle and entrepreneurship. She had more than 113,000 followers on TikTok and at least 70,000 followers on Instagram.

She owned the beauty salon located in Zapopan, where she shared aesthetic tips and personal moments with her audience. She opened it in 2024.

According to the publication El Financiero, in 2021, Marquez was crowned Miss Rostro, a local beauty contest, which solidified her presence in the world of modelling and beauty. In addition to her professional career, she maintained a close relationship with her followers, openly sharing details about her personal life.

What do we know about femicides in Mexico?

According to the latest data from the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Mexico shares the fourth-highest femicide rate in the region, tied with Paraguay, Uruguay, and Bolivia, at 1.3 deaths per 100,000 women in 2023.

The top three are Honduras, the Dominican Republic and Brazil.

Jalisco is ranked sixth out of Mexico’s 32 states, including Mexico City, for homicides, with 906 recorded there since the beginning of President Claudia Sheinbaum’s term in October 2024, according to the data consultancy TResearch.

The United Nations says that about 10 women or girls are murdered every day in Mexico

According to AFP, Zapopan Mayor Juan Jose Frangie stated that his office had no record of Marquez seeking assistance from authorities regarding any threats. He added that “femicide is the worst thing”.

This killing took place just days before another woman, a mayoral candidate in the state of Veracruz, was also shot dead during a livestream alongside three other people.

Johannesburg, South Africa – On a chilly Sunday evening in Johannesburg, OR Tambo International Airport was filled with tourists and travellers entering and exiting South Africa’s busiest airport.

On one side of the international departures hall, a few dozen people queued – their trollies piled with luggage, travel pillows and children’s blankets – as they waited to board a charter flight to Washington Dulles International Airport in the United States.

Dressed casually and comfortably for the 13-hour journey that would follow, the group – most young, all white – talked among themselves while avoiding onlookers. Although they blended into the bustling terminal around them, these weren’t ordinary travellers. They were Afrikaners leaving South Africa to be refugees in Donald Trump’s America.

When Charl Kleinhaus first applied for refugee resettlement in the US earlier this year, he told officials he had been threatened and that people attempted to claim his property.

The 46-year-old, who claimed to own a farm in Limpopo, South Africa’s northernmost province, was not required to present proof of these threats or provide details regarding when the alleged incidents occurred.

On Sunday, he joined dozens of others accepted by the Trump administration as part of a pilot programme granting asylum to people from the Afrikaner community – descendants of mainly Dutch colonisers that led the brutal apartheid regime for nearly five decades.

The Trump administration claims white people face discrimination in South Africa – a country where they make up some 7 percent of the population but own more than 70 percent of the land and occupy the majority of top management positions.

“I want you all to know that you are really welcome here and that we respect what you have had to deal with these last few years,” US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau told Kleinhaus and the others when they landed at the Dulles International in Virginia.

“We respect the long tradition of your people and what you have accomplished over the years,” he said on Monday.

Speaking to a journalist at the airport, Kleinhaus said he never expected “this land expropriation thing to go so far” in South Africa.

He was referring to the recently passed Expropriation Act, which allows the South African government to, in exceptional circumstances, take land for public use without compensation. Pretoria says the measure is aimed at redressing apartheid injustices, as Black South Africans who make up more than 80 percent of the population still own just 4 percent of the land.

South African officials say the law has not resulted in any land grabs. There is also no record of Kleinhaus’s property being expropriated.

Kleinhaus was unaffected by any threats and the government was unaware of anyone who might have threatened his property, Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni told Al Jazeera.

“The people of South Africa have not been affected by the expropriation of land. There’s no evidence. None of them are affected by any farm murders either,” the minister emphasised.

Discredited ‘genocide’ claims

In February, when Trump signed an executive order granting refugee status to Afrikaners, he cited widely discredited claims that their land was being seized and that they were being brutally killed in South Africa.

On Monday, Trump again claimed that Afrikaners were victims of a “genocide” – an accusation South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and other experts maintain is based on lies.

“Farmers are being killed,” Trump told reporters. “White farmers are being brutally killed, and the land is being confiscated in South Africa.”

Ramaphosa has also debunked claims that the group who left this week faced any persecution at home.

“They are leaving because they do not wish to embrace the democratic transformation unfolding in South Africa,” he said.

For 60-year-old Sam Busa, watching Kleinhaus and the 48 other South Africans leave to be resettled in the US was a hopeful moment.

Busa, who has also applied for asylum, is waiting in anticipation for an interview that would qualify her for resettlement. She has begun selling excess household items in anticipation of her new life in the US.

The semi-retired businesswoman has been at the forefront of efforts – through a website called Amerikaners – encouraging Afrikaners to take an interest in the US offer to grant refugee status on the grounds that they face racial persecution in South Africa.

When asked how she has experienced persecution because of her race, Busa recounted an incident where she was held at gunpoint at her home in Johannesburg – the commercial capital of South Africa and one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

She later moved to KwaZulu-Natal on the country’s east coast, where she ran a business that provided services to the government.

When asked whether she believed she was targeted because of her race or if she was simply a victim of common crime, Busa asserted it did not matter.

She didn’t feel safe, she said. “I am not overly sensitive. When I watch Julius Malema singing about killing the Boer, it is extremely terrifying.”

Malema, the far-left leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) political party, often sings a famous anti-apartheid song, Kill the Boer (Boer meaning farmer in Afrikaans), which the courts have ruled is not hate speech or an incitement to violence.

‘Persecution’

For Busa, much like Kleinhaus, new legislation passed to bolster racial transformation, which includes having specific hiring targets for employment equity, has been “the straw that broke the camel’s back”.

“Expropriation without compensation is a huge issue, along with the amendment to employment equity,” she said, restating her belief that white people don’t have a future in South Africa.

“It’s coming hard and fast, and it’s becoming clear to [white] South Africans that we struggle with fears of home invasion. I don’t live on a farm, but there are massive fears because of the constant threat of crime. It has become clear to white South Africans; it’s not disguised,” she claimed.

The narrative of fear is prevalent among those engaged in the refugee programme despite the fact that several experts have debunked the assertion that they were victims of racially motivated attacks and not common crime.

South Africa sees about 19,000 murders a year. According to data from the police, most victims of rural crime are Black, with evidence showing that white farmers are not disproportionately being killed.

Meanwhile, many participants in the US’s Afrikaner refugee resettlement programme do not even live on farms; many are urban dwellers, according to Minister Ntshavheni.

Katia Beedan, who lives in Cape Town, is also anticipating resettlement in the US. She told Al Jazeera that refugee hopefuls do not have to prove racial persecution but simply articulate it.

“For me, it’s racial persecution and political persecution,” she said about her reasons for wanting to leave South Africa.

The copywriter-turned-life coach pointed to racial transformation laws targeting employment equity and land expropriation, which she believes the government is “overwhelming us with”, as a key reason for her desire to flee.

However, many other South Africans see sections of the Afrikaner community – including their right-wing lobby groups like AfriForum that first pushed the false narrative of a “white genocide” – as struggling to exist equally in a country where they were once considered superior because of their race.

“I think AfriForum is struggling with the reality of being ordinary,” social justice activist and South Africa’s former public protector, Thuli Madonsela, told local TV channel, Newzroom Afrika, in March.

“The new South Africa requires all of us to be ordinary, whereas colonialism and apartheid made white people special people.

“I think some white people … [are] seeking to reverse the wheel and find reason to be special again. They seem to have found an ally in the American president,” she said.

‘Absurd and ridiculous’

In February, as Trump expedited efforts to resettle Afrikaners in the US, he was closing off his country’s refugee programme to other asylum seekers from war-torn and famine-stricken parts of the world.

For Loren Landau from the African Centre for Migration and Society at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, the Afrikaner refugee relocation is “absurd and ridiculous”.

“They have not been welcomed as tourists or work permit holders, but as refugees. The idea of a refugee system is to protect those who cannot be safeguarded by their own states and who fear persecution or violence because of who they are or their membership in a social group. Can Afrikaners make that case?” he asked.

Although “there are people in South Africa who discriminate against them,” and Afrikaners now “have less privilege and protection than during the apartheid era”, it cannot be said that this is indicative of state policy, he said, adding that many different people are robbed, killed, and face discrimination in South Africa.

“Are they [Afrikaners] specially victimised because of who they are? Absolutely not!” Landau added.

He said all statistics on land ownership, income, and education levels indicate that South Africa’s white population far outstrips others: “They are still by far in the top strata of South African society. No one is taking their land. No one is taking their cars.”

Even fringe groups that may have called for land grabs have done little to enact their threats, observers note.

However, for Busa, that doesn’t matter. “I fear for my children. You never know when the EFF decides they want you dead. It’s not a country I want to live in,” she said. The EFF has said those who decide to leave South Africa should have their citizenship revoked.

Confronted with the implications of this situation, the government is considering whether those who exit as refugees could easily return to the country. Ramaphosa is expected to discuss the ongoing matter with Trump at a meeting in the US next week.

Meanwhile, for the Afrikaners now in the US, most will settle in Texas, with others in New York, Idaho, Iowa and North Carolina, while the government helps them find work and accommodation.

They will hold refugee status for one year, after which they can apply for a US green card to make them permanent residents. At the same time, the Afrikaner resettlement programme remains open to others who want to apply.

When Kleinhaus and his group arrived in the US on Monday, they had smiles on their faces as they met officials and waved US flags.

Yet, for South Africa’s president, their resettlement in the US marks “a sad moment for them” – and something he believes may not last.

“As South Africans, we are resilient. We don’t run away from our problems,” he said at an agricultural exhibition in Free State province on Monday.

“If you look at all national groups in our country, Black and white, they’ve stayed in this country because it’s our country.

Russian forces made creeping advances through Ukraine’s east this week, as the two countries prepared to hold their first direct talks in three years on Thursday.

Russian forces captured the settlement of Kotlyarivka, southwest of the embattled area of Pokrovsk, on Monday, Russia’s Ministry of Defence said.

The seizure brought Russian forces to within 3.7km (2.3 miles) of the regional border between Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk in Ukraine.

Russian forces also forced their way into the village of Myrolyubivka, east of Pokrovsk, and claimed to have taken the entire settlement.

On Wednesday, Russia’s Defence Ministry claimed its forces took the community of Mykhailovka, also in Donetsk.

These were minor advances, but showed there was no letup in Russia’s effort to take all of Donetsk and other regions it partly occupies, even as it prepared to go into peace talks.

According to Ukrainian military intelligence, Russia was even moving troops into position for a major new offensive, the United Kingdom’s Financial Times reported.

Peace talks

US President Donald Trump called for a 30-day ceasefire on May 8. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, flanked by the leaders of Poland, Germany, France and Britain, backed that demand on Saturday.

Despite telling Western reporters Russia would “think about that”, the Kremlin ended up insisting on peace talks without a ceasefire, accusing Ukraine of violating previous ceasefires it announced unilaterally.

Instead, Putin proposed peace talks without conditions at a dawn media conference on Sunday.

“We are not ruling out that during these talks we will be able to agree on some new ceasefire, a new truce,” he said.

Zelenskyy has said he would attend the talks in Istanbul if Putin does as well. Putin was expected after his spokesman said Russia would attend “at the corresponding” level, but then his name did not appear on a list of delegates Russia provided.

“If Putin does not show up – if this is another game – it will clearly demonstrate that Russia is not ready to end the war,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media, calling for a new sanctions package in that case.

As of Wednesday night, he was saying: “I am waiting to see who will come from Russia, and then I will decide which steps Ukraine should take.”

US President Donald Trump, currently on a Middle East tour, is claiming credit for this diplomatic initiative.

“I insisted that that meeting take place and it is taking place,” he said.

Trump dispatched his Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and said he “was thinking of actually flying over. There’s a possibility of it, I guess, if I think things can happen.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will host the talks.

“I think we have a window of opportunity this week and in the next 10 days – two weeks – to bring the issue of Ukraine to a more constructive level,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told Turkiye’s Anadolu news agency.

Pressure on Putin?

There appeared to be a connection between Putin’s meetings with foreign leaders on Saturday, and his peace talks proposal at dawn on Sunday.

At 1:30am [22:30 GMT] on Sunday morning, he was still in talks with the leader of South Ossetia, a breakaway region of Georgia.

It was the last of four days of meetings with 23 leaders who came to Moscow for the May 9 parade to celebrate the end of the second world war.

At 4am [01:00 GMT], he alerted the media that he would announce “the results of international events to mark the 80th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany”.

When he invited Ukraine to peace talks in Turkiye less than two hours later, he also thanked foreign partners for their “peace-oriented efforts”, Kremlin newswire TASS reported.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine had received a message of support for its call for a 30-day ceasefire from China, perhaps a sign that China privately put pressure on Putin to pursue peace.

A dark outlook for talks

There were strong headwinds going into the talks, however.

Putin’s language when announcing the talks was not friendly.

“The ball is now in the court of the Kyiv government and its curators, who are guided by political ambitions – not their people’s interests – in their desire to continue the conflict with Russia with the hands of Ukrainian nationalists,” he said, a reference to European governments, which have been less keen than the Trump administration to push Ukraine into talks.

Russia is taking a hard line going in. On Tuesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Russia would insist on the “denazification of the Kyiv regime”, Moscow’s way of describing Zelenskyy’s removal from office, and recognition of “current realities on the ground” – ie, there will be no territorial concessions.

On Tuesday, almost on the eve of talks in Istanbul on Thursday, Putin was selling Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine to investors at the Delovaya Rossiya (Business Russia) association, implying there would be no territorial concessions. “There is something to invest in there. There are such lands, fertile in terms of agriculture and favourable in terms of tourism development,” he said.

On Wednesday, Russian ambassador-at-large Rodion Miroshnik told reporters that negotiations need not go further than the Istanbul proposals of 2022.

That was when Russia attempted to impose a capitulation agreement in March and April of 2022, when a Russian invasion force threatened to take Kyiv. It named Russia and China as Ukraine’s security guarantors, cut down Ukraine’s armed forces to 85,000 personnel, less than one-tenth of the current Ukrainian army, and forbade Ukraine from joining foreign alliances such as NATO.

“Let’s go back, make adjustments to it that have emerged over the past three years and after that we will move to signing this document,” Miroshnik said.

The Western position ahead of talks has also been hard on Russia.

On the day of Putin’s parade, some 40 world leaders gathered in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv to celebrate the end of World War II and announced a tribunal to try Russian war crimes in Ukraine. The tribunal was to be launched in Luxembourg this week, when the Council of Europe was to convene.

On Tuesday, the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization officially held Russia responsible for the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in 2014. Pro-Russian separatists fighting in eastern Ukraine used a Russian Buk air defence system to down the plane in July that year, killing all 298 people on board.

On Wednesday this week, the European Union agreed on a 17th sanctions package restricting 200 tankers used by Russia to evade a ban on its oil exports to the EU, bringing Moscow tens of billions in illicit dollars. EU foreign ministers are expected to put the sanctions into force on May 20. European commissioner for economic affairs Valdis Dombrovskis said work would begin immediately on an 18th package.

On Monday, Poland shut down Russia’s consulate in Krakow, after investigators determined that a fire that destroyed the Marywilska shopping centre last year was the work of Russian saboteurs.