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Kamala Harris trashes Trump in her rare trip to the US-Mexico border

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Harris, who last visited the border in 2021, accused Donald Trump of being focused on “scapegoating instead of solutions” and “rhetoric instead of results”.

Earlier on Friday, the Republican nominee argued Harris was “getting killed” on the issue and supports “the worst bill ever drawn” on border security.

Polls suggest more Americans trust Trump over Harris on handling the border and illegal immigration.

Cochise County, a conservative stronghold in Arizona that became a hot spot for record-high border crossings last autumn, provided a backdrop for the Democratic nominee to inspect the border wall, speak with local officials and project a message of toughness.

She claimed Trump “did nothing to fix our broken immigration system” as president, adding that Republicans were trying to force a “false choice” between border security and a “safe, orderly and humane” immigration system.

“We can and must do both,” she told supporters at a campaign event in Douglas.

Harris vowed to further toughen asylum laws enacted earlier this year by President Joe Biden and to revive a bipartisan border security measure Trump helped block.

But Jim Chilton, a local rancher, said he has “seen the evidence” of what Harris would do in power.

“I’ve watched her and President Biden,” he told the BBC. “We’ve had an open border policy. We now are understanding what that really means.”

Every year, thousands of undocumented migrants walk through Mr Chilton’s 50,000-acre ranch just south of Arivaca.

He has motion-activated cameras that show the procession of people, all dressed in near-identical camouflage, across his land. He is convinced drug dealers and gang members are among them.

Menacing signs threaten trespassers with death, but Mr Chilton has also installed drinking fountains so nobody dies making the hazardous journey.

Three corpses were found on his land last year.

A Trump supporter, Mr Chilton does not believe Harris will crack down on the flow of migrants.

“She’s changing her mind just to get votes and lie to us. It’s outrageous,” he said.

Concerns over stemming the influx are ever present in tiny border towns like Douglas.

Homeowners here can see through miles of border fencing into Mexico when they step out onto their front porches.

One woman said her neighbours built brick walls around their homes to keep migrants from hiding out in their backyards.

Even some Democrats here who are voting for Harris said they preferred Trump’s border approach and felt safer during his tenure.

Last year, a handful of churches and the town’s visitor centre transformed overnight into makeshift shelters to house newcomers.

Since then, the Biden administration has enacted tougher restrictions on seeking asylum and migrant crossings have plunged to four-year lows.

Gail Kochorek is a dedicated volunteer who drives down to the wall to hand out food and water to people on the Mexican side, usually waiting until after dark to cross back into the US.

To her, the political approach to immigration is increasingly dehumanising to people hoping to making a better life in her country.

She is disappointed to hear Harris promising to crack down on migrants but, given a choice between her and Trump, the Democrat can count on Ms Kochorek’s vote.

Laughing at Trump’s pledges to secure the border, she showed the BBC gaps in Trump’s wall and where people could cut through the steel fencing.

The former president has vowed to seal the border by completing construction of the barrier, increasing enforcement and implementing the largest mass deportation of undocumented migrants in US history.

But earlier this year, he urged Republicans to ditch a hardline, cross-party border bill that was endorsed by Biden and Harris.

“That’s the worst bill ever drawn. It’s a waste of paper,” Trump told supporters earlier on Friday at a rally in Walker, in the swing state of Michigan.

Denying that he lobbied congressional allies to tank the piece of legislation, Trump claimed Harris “want to see if she could salvage it and make up some lies”.

“She went to the border today because she’s getting killed on the border,” he said.

In a statement following Harris’s event, the Trump campaign characterised the visit as a “drop-in” and “photo op”.

The border crisis has been a major vulnerability for Harris.

As vice-president, she has not directly shaped border policy but was put in charge of addressing the root causes of migration from the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras.

Her efforts targeted systemic issues like poverty, corruption, and violence, which for years have driven large numbers of people from these regions to make the treacherous journey to the United States.

It is too soon to tell if the two-part strategy – bolstering democratic institutions and coaxing business leaders to invest in the region – is working, but Harris has taken a lot of blame for upward trends in migration.

As a candidate, she has highlighted her experience as a prosecutor when she was attorney general of California, particularly in investigating transnational and cartel organisations, to emphasise her approach to tackling immigration-related challenges.

Her recent remarks have aligned closely with Biden’s emphasis on border security and law enforcement, but also reflect how the politics of the issue have shifted notably to the right.

As she seeks to convince voters that she has a plan, her biggest challenge is finding an approach that balances the legal and humanitarian aspects of the immigration system.

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Trump’s sudden suspension of foreign aid puts millions of lives in Africa at risk

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  • The United States government funds HIV prevention, treatment and research programmes across the world but especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

  • US President Donald Trump issued an executive order on 20 January that halts foreign aid for 90 days.

  • The order, which is not clearly worded, has left in doubt the future of many life-saving HIV programmes in Africa.

The sudden decision by United States President Donald Trump to halt and review all foreign aid for 90 days could be devastating for HIV programmes in African countries. After Trump’s inauguration on 20 January, he signed numerous executive orders. One of these suspends aid to “foreign countries and implementing non-governmental organisations, international organisations, and contractors” pending review for whether it aligns with “American interests and … values”.

The order said, “no further [US] foreign assistance shall be disbursed in a manner that is not fully aligned with the foreign policy of the President of the United States”.

Foreign aid includes the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR. PEPFAR has saved millions of lives since it was launched by former president George W. Bush in 2003.

PEPFAR statistics show that at the end of 2024, it was providing life-saving antiretroviral treatment to nearly 21-million people across 55 countries, many of them in sub-Saharan Africa. PEPFAR is also delivering pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) — which stops people from contracting HIV — to about 2.5 million people. In 2024, PEPFAR provided HIV testing to about 84-million people. It funds HIV treatment and intervention in Uganda, Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and many others.

South Africa has about 5.6-million people on antiretroviral treatment. The medicines themselves are paid for by the South African government, but PEPFAR funds some of the staff at some ARV programmes. It also funds much of the prevention and information effort, including ARV user clubs, medical circumcision and public messaging.

South Africa does leading research on HIV and TB. Much of this is funded by the US National Institutes of Health. It’s unclear what the future status of this funding is.

It’s also unclear what the status is of money that has been committed. For example, some programmes get monthly tranches based on contracts that have already been signed. At least one project manager we spoke to said he wasn’t sure if commitments for February onwards would be arriving, and US government representatives who he deals with are themselves unsure.

This uncertainty is due to this phrase in the executive order, “shall immediately pause new obligations and disbursements”. It’s unclear if already-committed disbursements are affected.

Professor Linda-Gail Bekker, an infectious disease scientist at the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre at UCT, said that it’s unclear whether the PEPFAR funding will be reduced or stopped but that the outcome in African countries could be “disastrous”.

Bekker said that HIV treatment “doesn’t stand still” and that treatment, PrEP, and quality healthcare have to keep on getting to people.

Bekker also said that other countries in Africa are far more dependent on PEPFAR funding than South Africa. For example, Malawi, which has a minimal health budget.

“There is no doubt our own national governments need to step up. We know there needs to be more self-reliance,” she said, but added that the sudden stop of donor funding can be “disastrous”.

study from 2024 looking at the rate of mortality amongst South African adults who experienced interruption in antiretroviral treatment, shows that interrupting antiretroviral treatment leads to much greater risk of death.

Over the years, Bekker says, PEPFAR funding has also gradually transitioned from where there was an emergency situation, at the height of the AIDS epidemic in the early 2000s, to helping countries’ health systems cope.

PEPFAR allocations in Malawi for 2024 and 2025 are $180-million and $178-million respectively. It is one of two of the biggest funders of HIV interventions in Malawi, along with the Global Fund, according to the National Aids Commission (NAC) of Malawi. In a recent strategic plan, the NAC noted that, “There is an urgent need to sustain and accelerate the national response between 2020 and 2025 in order to put Malawi on the path towards ending AIDS as a public health threat in Malawi by 2030.”

It is unclear how Trump’s order to pause and review foreign aid will affect PEPFAR in the future. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) media office did not respond to questions by the time of publication.

Trump also issued an executive order withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organisation (WHO). According to Reuters there is a 12-month notice period for the US, the WHO’s largest funder, to leave the organisation and stop all financial contributions to its work.

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Trump Administration to Address Non-Citizen Immigrants as ‘Aliens’

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The Trump administration has decided to officially refer to non-citizen immigrants as “aliens.” Caleb Vitello, the Acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), issued an internal memo directing the use of the term “alien” instead of “non-citizen.”

From now on, “non-citizen” will be replaced with “alien,” “non-citizenship” with “alienage,” “undocumented non-citizen” with “undocumented alien,” and “non-citizen children” with “alien children.” Before the Biden administration, the term “alien” was commonly used to refer to non-citizens.

“This memorandum supersedes and rescinds the April 19, 2021, Updated Terminology for Communications and Materials memorandum from Acting Director Tae Johnson. Moving forward, for all communications materials and internal and external communications, ICE employees are directed to use the lexicon consistent with the Immigration and Nationality Act and the language historically used by the agency. Specifically, ICE will revert to its prior lexicon,” the memo sent to ICE leadership by Acting Director Caleb Vitello reads.

On April 19, 2021, the Biden administration changed these terminologies. Since then, ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had stopped referring to immigrants as “aliens” or “illegal aliens.” The Biden administration had instructed U.S. immigration enforcement agencies not to use terms like “alien” or “illegal alien” when referring to immigrants. However, under the previous Trump administration, such terms were widely used.

ICE and CBP are the primary federal agencies responsible for enforcing immigration laws in the U.S. The Biden administration had changed these terms as part of its efforts to make the immigration system more humane.

Under the changes, the term “alien” was replaced with “non-citizen” or “migrant,” and “illegal” was replaced with “undocumented.” ICE’s then-Acting Director, Tae Johnson, had emphasized the use of more inclusive language.

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Over 10,000 Black Women Come Together to Thank Kamala Harris

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Over 10,000 Black women, led by the Black Women’s Leadership Collective and Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., have united to express their gratitude to Kamala Harris in an open letter celebrating her legacy of service, leadership, and inspiration.

The heartfelt letter highlights Harris’s historic role as the first Black and South Asian woman to serve as Vice President of the United States and acknowledges her tireless dedication to advancing justice, equity, and representation for marginalized communities.

“As the first Black woman to hold the office of Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris leaves behind an incredible legacy of strength, resilience, grace, and determination,” said Dr. Stacie NC Grant, President and CEO of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.

She reflected on the historic moment Harris addressed the sorority’s Grand Boule in Indianapolis in July 2024, her first public appearance as the sitting Vice President and presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee.

Although the 2024 presidential election did not result in a victory, the letter acknowledges Harris’s profound impact on millions, particularly Black women and girls. Her presidential campaign symbolized hope and progress, inspiring her supporters to continue fighting for justice and equity.

The letter, signed by prominent Black women leaders such as Donna Brazile, LaTosha Brown, Symone Sanders Townsend, and Secretary Marcia Fudge, praises Harris’s work on key issues such as voting rights, economic justice, and healthcare. It also acknowledges the sacrifices and resilience she displayed while breaking barriers in U.S. politics.

“Your work does not go unnoticed, and it inspires generations of women and girls to dream bigger and fight harder for the future they deserve,” the letter states.

The initiative underscores the vital role Black women have played in Harris’s political journey. From her historic election as Vice President in 2020 to her unprecedented presidential campaign in 2024, Black women have mobilized to support her vision of dismantling barriers and amplifying marginalized voices.

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