October, 17 2017, 12:15pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Email:,info(at)fwwatch(dot)org,Seth Gladstone -,sgladstone@fwwatch.org
Trump Trumpets Meatpacker Power at Expense of Family Farmers
USDA derails long-languishing farmer protection rules.
WASHINGTON
Statement by Wenonah Hauter, executive director, Food & Water Watch:
"Today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) derailed proposed and pending rules designed to protect farmers from unfair, deceptive and abusive practices by the meatpacking and poultry industries. The USDA has turned its back on farmers in its ongoing quest to deregulate agribusiness. The proposed farmer protection rules provided commonsense safeguards from retaliation, abusive contracts, rigged payment schemes and other unfair practices that have become commonplace in the poultry and livestock sectors. When USDA scrubbed these sensible farmer protections, it reaffirmed that agribusiness can play by its own rules without government oversight. There should be no mistake: Trump is making globalized agribusiness great again, not standing up for American farmers."
Food & Water Watch mobilizes regular people to build political power to move bold and uncompromised solutions to the most pressing food, water, and climate problems of our time. We work to protect people's health, communities, and democracy from the growing destructive power of the most powerful economic interests.
(202) 683-2500LATEST NEWS
'Inhumanity': IDF Soldiers Drop Blue Bomb in Gaza as Part of Gender Reveal Celebration
One advocacy group said the act "clearly acts clearly demonstrates once again the brutal nature of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza and on the Palestinian people," said one advocacy group.
May 05, 2025
As thousands of Palestinian children across Gaza face starvation two months into Israel's most recent complete blockade on humanitarian aid into the enclave, members of the Israel Defense Forces allegedly used one recent attack on a residential area as a prop in their celebration of one soldier's impending fatherhood.
In a video posted to social media on May 5—with the soldiers reportedly sharing it on their own accounts—the IDF members can be heard cheering and laughing as a building in a civilian area is leveled by an Israeli bombing, leaving blue smoke rising from the rubble in the distance.
The smoke signified that the soldier's expected child is a boy—and the troops, members of the military that's often called by Israel and its allies "the most moral army in the world," gave no indication that they were thinking of any civilians who could have been in the bombed area as they laughed loudly at the "gender reveal."
Israeli soldiers have filmed themselves blowing up a building in Gaza for a ‘gender reveal’, having rigged it with explosives that give off blue smoke to indicate a fetus is male.
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— aljazeera.com (@aljazeera.com) May 5, 2025 at 6:20 AM
"We have reached the stage of genocidal fervor where new Israeli life is literally celebrated through the destruction of Palestinian life," said Heidi Matthews, a law professor at York University in Toronto.
Another observer, Daniel Lambert—manager of the outspoken Irish hip hop trio Kneecap, which has condemned Israel's bombardment of Gaza—called the video "the most depraved thing you'll ever see."
"As other babies starve they welcome their kid with a war crime and cheers," Lambert said.
According to Gaza's Health Ministry, the death toll in Gaza has surged past 52,000 since Israel began attacking the enclave—and blocking the entry of nearly all humanitarian aid—in October 2023 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack.
Israel and its top international military funder, the U.S., have repeatedly insisted that the IDF is targeting Hamas—even as reporting has revealed mass graves filled with women and children, some of whom appeared to have been buried alive or with their hands tied behind their backs; and attacks like those that killed 15 paramedics who were in clearly marked vehicles and seven World Central Kitchen workers who were distributing food to Palestinians.
Israel has killed more than 17,400 children in Gaza—and many more are presumed dead and buried under rubble.
Five out of every 100 children in the enclave have been orphaned, and Israel's bombardment has left Gaza with the highest number of child amputees in the world—and with dwindling capacity to care for them as repeated bombings and the blockade have led to the near-total collapse of the healthcare system.
Despite the growing consensus among international rights groups that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza, just 94 out of 535 voting members of the U.S. Congress have demanded a permanent cease-fire in the enclave—and speaking out against Israel's attacks has proven dangerous in the U.S., with numerous foreign students detained and threatened with deportation for organizing protests.
"While the Israeli government slaughters and starves Palestinian babies in Gaza—with the full support of our own government—its occupation forces are now blowing up buildings to stage 'gender reveal' events in celebration of the birth of their own children," said the Council on American Islamic Relations. "The inhumanity of such acts clearly demonstrates once again the brutal nature of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza and on the Palestinian people. The Israeli government must be stopped."
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Rwanda Confirms Talks With Trump Administration to Take Deported Migrants
"As we did with the U.K.-Rwanda deportation deal... let us unapologetically and loudly oppose this again," said one Rwandan human rights defender.
May 05, 2025
Rwanda's foreign minister confirmed Sunday that the East African nation's government is in "early stage" talks with the Trump administration about possibly taking in migrants deported from the United States.
"It has not yet reached a stage where we can say exactly how things will proceed, but the talks are ongoing," Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe toldRwanda TV. He added that the Rwandan government is in the "spirit" of offering "another chance to migrants who have problems across the world."
Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration is seeking nations that are willing to accept its deportees.
"We want to send you some of the most despicable human beings to your countries."
"We are working with other countries to say, 'We want to send you some of the most despicable human beings to your countries. Will you do that as a favor to us?'" Rubio said. "And the farther away from America, the better, so they can't come back across the border."
The Wall Street Journalreported last month that Trump administration officials have also asked other countries including Benin, Eswatini, Kosovo, Libya, Moldova, and Mongolia about resettling U.S. deportees.
In 2022, Rwanda agreed to take in some people seeking asylum in the United Kingdom while their claims were being processed. However, the scheme was shelved amid legal and human rights concerns following the return to power of the center-left Labour Party. Rwanda is still seeking to collect £50 million ($66.4 million) from Britain despite the canceled deal.
The United Nations refugee agency condemned the U.K.-Rwanda deal, asserting that "externalizing asylum obligations poses serious risks for the safety of refugees" and "is not compatible with international refugee law."
Local human rights defenders strongly oppose any resettlement of third-country migrants in Rwanda.
"I with other concerned and responsible Rwandans are going to wage a legal war to challenge this arrangement between [Trump's] government and the dictatorial regime of [Rwandan President Paul Kagame]," investigative journalist Samuel Baker Byansi said on social media Sunday.
"Rwanda is not a dumping site of migrants with criminal records who have served their sentence in the U.S.," he added. "As we did with the U.K.-Rwanda deportation deal, fellow Rwandans in the country and abroad, let us unapologetically and loudly oppose this again."
Last month, the U.S. deported Omar Abdulsattar Ameen, an Iraqi refugee who had lived in the United States since 2014, to Rwanda after officials in Baghdad accused him of being a former Islamic State militant who murdered an Iraqi police officer. This, despite a U.S. judge's order blocking his deportation on the grounds that the murder allegation was "not plausible" since Ameen was living in Turkey at the time of the officer's killing.
Critics have sounded the alarm over potential perils migrants might face in Rwanda, including human rights violations and the possibility that they could be sent to third countries where they are at risk of violence and persecution.
The Trump administration is facing legal challenges to its mass deportation efforts, which include sending immigrants to the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay and the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) prison in El Salvador. President Donald Trump has even proposed deporting U.S. citizens to CECOT.
Trump appeared on NBC News' "Meet the Press" Sunday and was pressed by moderator Kristen Welker about the legality of his mass deportation program. Asked whether every person in the United States is entitled to due process, Trump replied: "I don't know. I'm not a lawyer."
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How Trump's $1,000 for 'Voluntary Self-Deportation' Could Harm Undocumented Immigrants
One legal expert warned the offer from DHS "would sabotage" pending or future cases people might have in immigration court.
May 05, 2025
The Trump administration on Monday announced what it called "historic travel assistance and stipend for voluntary self-deportation," prompting one expert to issue a warning to undocumented immigrants who may consider the offer.
"If you are here illegally, self-deportation is the best, safest, and most cost-effective way to leave the United States to avoid arrest," said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, a key leader of President Donald Trump's mass deportation agenda. "This is the safest option for our law enforcement, aliens, and is a 70% savings for U.S. taxpayers."
According to a statement from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), immigrants who use the CBP Home smartphone application to self-deport will receive "financial and travel assistance" as well as "a stipend of $1,000 dollars, paid after their return to their home country has been confirmed through the app."
DHS framed the offer as "a dignified way to leave" the United States without encountering Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and claimed people who submit their intent to self-deport in the app "will also be deprioritized for detention and removal ahead of their departure as long as they demonstrate they are making meaningful strides in completing that departure."
"DHS's claim that people who do this will be able to return is, in many cases, an outright LIE that will trap people into WORSE outcomes for them than if they stayed and fought a case in immigration court."
Responding to the announcement on social media, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, stressed that "it is incredibly important for all reporting on this to emphasize that DHS's claim that people who do this will be able to return is, in many cases, an outright LIE that will trap people into WORSE outcomes for them than if they stayed and fought a case in immigration court."
Reichlin-Melnick explained that "when a person is in immigration court proceedings, if they don't appear for a hearing, they get ordered deported—even if they're provably outside the country already. And having a deportation order makes it VERY hard to ever come back legally. DHS's offer would sabotage cases!"
"This move also raises VERY serious questions about statutory authority and funding sources. No law directly authorizes DHS to pay plane tickets and offer reimbursements to people leaving the country," he added. "The closest legal authority which might apply here is 8 USC § 1260, which authorizes using funding to deport 'aliens falling into distress' who are 'desirous of being so removed.' But that law also imposes a near-total ban on reentry, so if DHS is using that it's even worse!"
Prism immigration reporter Tina Vasquez shared a message from the app on social media Monday.
The CBP Home app features this flyer, with the many supposed benefits of self-deportation.
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— Tina Vasquez (@tinavasquez.bsky.social) May 5, 2025 at 10:40 AM
"I previously reported on how the Biden administration's attempt to modernize the immigration system through tech actually made things for immigrants more difficult," Vasquez noted. "I'm anxious to see how this app plays out in the deeply unfortunate cases where $1,000 is an incentive to self-deport."
"I also know that if the Biden [administration] offered $1,000 to undocumented immigrants—even for self-deportation—right-wing media would have screamed that Democrats were paying 'illegal aliens' with taxpayer dollars," she added.
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