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marco rubio
'Fascism Is Here': Rubio, Miller Say More Terrorist Designations Coming for 'Far-Left' Groups
"If you’re not alarmed you’re not paying attention."
Jul 16, 2026
Trump administration officials on Thursday hyped up plans to carry out mass political arrests and prosecutions of people whom it deemed far-left terrorists.
In a speech given at the US State Department, Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump's deputy chief of staff, described left-wing political violence as a "fatal cancer to civilization," and boasted of plans to use state power to suppress people whom he called "political terrorists."
Miller said that the administration would be carrying out this operation under the guidance of National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7), a directive signed by Trump in September that demanded a “national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.”
Miller bragged that "for the first time in American history," NSPM-7 would direct "all of our law enforcement and intelligence agencies to work together to disrupt, identify, defund, de-bank, arrest, prosecute these political terrorists that are operating within our country."
Santa Monica Goebbels is doing his weird and creepy gyrations while delivering a speech smearing Democrats as violent radicals pic.twitter.com/PaeDcD55jw
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 16, 2026
Miller said that the mass arrest of left-wing radicals was necessary to prevent them from carrying out mass arrests of their own.
"Inevitably, left to its course, it always becomes a gulag," said Miller. "It always becomes the mass imprisonment of political enemies, the stripping of their rights and freedoms, inflicting immense pain, humiliation, suffering, in order to establish complete and total control, control through psychological and physical and actual terror."
The social media account of independent progressive publication The Tennessee Holler expressed alarm at Miller's speech.
"Fascism is here," The Tennessee Holler wrote. "If you’re not alarmed you’re not paying attention. 'Left-wing political terrorism' will mean those who oppose the regime—while actual right-wing extremism is allowed to grow and thrive. We are very far off the cliff, folks."
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also spoke of the event, noted last year that his department "designated four violent far-left extremist groups as foreign terrorist organizations, and there will be more designations soon."
Secretary of State Rubio says there will be more terrorist designations of left-wing groups "soon." pic.twitter.com/RmZjBgQXas
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) July 16, 2026
The administration's declaration of war against left-wing political violence comes despite decades of research showing that political violence is more commonly carried out by right-wing groups.
A report published last year by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that, while left-wing political violence has grown since Trump’s first election in 2016, it “remains much lower than historical levels of violence carried out by right-wing and jihadist attackers.”
The report also noted that violence carried out by left-wing individuals or groups was "remarkably less lethal" than violence carried out by right-wing or jihadist individuals or groups.
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Ilhan Omar Takes Marco Rubio to Task With Call for US to Finally Join International Criminal Court
"America is strongest when we lead with our values, not when we demand immunity from them."
Jul 15, 2026
Days after Secretary of State Marco Rubio vowed to "dismantle” the International Criminal Court, Rep. Ilhan Omar hit back on Wednesday with a resolution urging the US to join the international war crimes tribunal for the first time.
The Democrat from Minnesota was the first member of Congress to push back against the Trump administration's pledge that it would “systematically disable” the ICC's “ability to operate, target American servicemen or officials, or otherwise threaten American sovereignty.”
“The ICC is a crucial tool for justice in places where victims have nowhere else to turn,” Omar told The Guardian. “If we truly believe in human rights and the rule of law, we should strengthen international justice—not undermine it. The United States should lead by example and show that no one is above the law.”
The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute, which established the ICC in 1998. But during President Donald Trump's second term, his administration has waged war on the body, specifically over its investigations into Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and investigations into US personnel over alleged war crimes in Afghanistan.
It has imposed sanctions on most of the court's leadership, as well as on those who have "materially assisted" ICC investigations it opposes, including lawyers and human rights groups that have provided evidence.
The administration has also reportedly demanded that the court amend the Rome Statute to ensure that Trump and members of his administration, as well as Israeli officials, cannot be investigated or prosecuted.
Rubio's pledge to dismantle the court has drawn widespread condemnation from human rights advocates.
Agnès Callamard, the secretary general of Amnesty International, said that “in trying to discredit the court, Rubio instead highlights its very purpose: ensuring accountability when those with the power to act choose not to.”
"His arguments read like a tacit admission of wrongdoing," she said, "suggesting concerns that US officials could one day be held accountable for actions that may amount to crimes under international law, including deporting people to torture in El Salvador’s prisons or the campaign of extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific."
She said, "The only reason he would have to fear the ICC is if US officials have committed such crimes outside the United States and the US government is unwilling to hold them genuinely accountable.”
Omar's resolution came as a pair of advocacy organizations launched a lawsuit against Trump and other top administration officials alleging that they illegally "muzzle[d] Palestine advocacy" in violation of the First Amendment when they sanctioned human rights groups that called for investigations into US and Israeli nationals over war crimes in Gaza.
While Rubio has denounced the court's very existence as a threat to “every aspect of [America’s] political and legal system," and argued that it could lead to the prosecution of US soldiers simply for serving in the military, Omar said this was "simply not true."
"The ICC is an international court of last resort, intended to prosecute only the most horrific crimes—war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity—when countries are unable or unwilling to do so themselves," she said. "The best way to avoid ICC scrutiny is simple: don't commit atrocity crimes, and if credible allegations arise, investigate them transparently and hold those responsible accountable."
Omar has introduced two previous resolutions calling on the US to ratify the Rome Statute and join the ICC in 2020 and 2022. Neither of them was brought to the floor for a vote, though the latter one had nine Democratic cosponsors.
Announcing plans for a new resolution on Monday, she said, "I urge my colleagues who believe in justice and human rights to join me."
She said: "America is strongest when we lead with our values, not when we demand immunity from them. If we respect human rights, uphold the rule of law, and hold ourselves to the same standards we ask of others, we have nothing to fear from the ICC.”
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Trump Officials Sued Over ICC Sanctions Designed to 'Muzzle Palestine Advocacy'
"The government is violating the constitutional rights of American citizens in order to shield officials of a foreign government who have committed a genocide."
Jul 15, 2026
A pair of advocacy organizations on Wednesday sued President Donald Trump and top members of his administration over sanctions targeting the International Criminal Court and its supporters, arguing the punitive measures violate the First Amendment of the US Constitution and illegally "muzzle Palestine advocacy."
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Manhattan by Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) and the Taxpayer Alliance Against Genocide (TAAG), contends that Trump's Executive Order 14203 unlawfully restricts Americans' ability to seek "justice on Palestine at the ICC" and work with human rights organizations sanctioned "solely for calling on the ICC to investigate Israeli and American nationals."
"The Trump administration is using the blunt instrument of economic sanctions not only to punish human rights defenders but to police the political expression of millions of Americans," said Omar Shakir, executive director of DAWN. "The government is violating the constitutional rights of American citizens in order to shield officials of a foreign government who have committed a genocide."
DAWN notes that, under Trump's February 2025 executive order, the administration has sanctioned ICC officials "as well as leading Palestinian human rights groups al-Haq, al-Mezan, and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR)," as well as Francesca Albanese, the United Nations' special rapporteur for the human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Trump's order authorizes sanctions against "any foreign person" deemed to have "materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of," ICC efforts to "investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute" Americans or officials from allied nations, such as Israel.
The organizations behind the new lawsuit explain that "because the government can interpret the term 'service' to encompass anything that confers a benefit on the recipient, groups like DAWN and TAAG could face civil and criminal charges if they engage in routine advocacy with the sanctioned parties—for example, filing a brief with the ICC encouraging it to investigate possible crimes, sharing evidence or advocacy ideas with Palestinian human rights groups or Ms. Albanese, or working with them on a campaign to lift the sanctions."
“The chilling effect on plaintiffs has been profound,” the lawsuit states. “They now face prison terms and ruinous fines if, in their interactions with the designated parties, they provide or receive anything that defendants could plausibly characterize as a ‘service’—an extraordinarily capacious term that potentially reaches any act that confers a benefit on its recipient. Fearing liability, plaintiffs—and countless others like them—have turned to self-censorship.”
Tarik Kanaana, president of TAAG, said that "with this executive order, Trump has put himself and those in the U.S. government above the law, shielding them from any accountability for their roles in the genocide in Palestine and Lebanon and for war crimes around the globe funded by US taxpayers."
"As US taxpayers, we have the right to hold our government accountable for how it uses this public resource," said Kanaana. "That right cannot be taken away."
The lawsuit comes days after the US State Department launched a sweeping broadside against the ICC, an independent tribunal based in The Hague that investigates and prosecutes individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other atrocities. In late 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, for alleged war crimes committed in Gaza.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, one of the Trump administration officials named as a plaintiff in the new lawsuit, vowed on Monday to "dismantle" the ICC with increasingly aggressive sanctions against the court and its supporters and international pressure. (Neither the US nor Israel are party to the Rome Statute, which established the ICC.)
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International's secretary-general, warned in a statement on Tuesday that if nations fail to fight back against the US assault on the ICC, "they will acquiesce to a new era of lawlessness, impunity, and rampant injustice."
"Now is not the time to appease. Now is the time to resist," said Callamard. "For the good of humanity, victims’ hopes of justice, and the prospect of lasting global security, the international community must come together, stand up to the bullies in the White House and State Department and protect the international rule of law. We must not accept a reality where the most powerful have the least legal responsibility.”
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'It's Rule of Law or Barbarism,' Says Francesca Albanese After Rubio Attack on ICC
"All states and people who care for freedom must rise up in defense of the ICC and international justice now, before it's too late," the UN Palestine expert implored.
Jul 14, 2026
More defenders of human rights and the rule of law weighed on Tuesday after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio's announcement of a "campaign to dismantle" the International Criminal Court, many of whose judges and prosecutors have already been sanctioned by the administration of President Donald Trump.
Rubio raised eyebrows around the world by accusing the International Criminal Court—which is based in The Hague, Netherlands—of “waging a war against our country—not with bullets or missiles, but with statutes, compacts, and the force of so-called international law," and cryptically vowing that the Trump administration “will teach the ICC the full meaning of American resolve.”
On Tuesday, Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, called Rubio's announcement "utterly shocking but not a surprise."
"All states and people who care for freedom must rise up in defense of the ICC and international justice now, before it's too late," added Albanese, who is under legally contested sanctions imposed by the Trump administration for her outspoken criticism of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza. "It's rule of law or barbarism."
Responding Monday to the secretary of state's remarks, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said on social media that "Rubio's announcement that he will dismantle the International Criminal Court is reckless and dangerous. It undermines the rule of law, weakens global accountability, and turns America's back on the values we claim to champion."
"The ICC is an international court of last resort, intended to prosecute only the most horrific crimes—war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity—when countries are unable or unwilling to do so themselves," Omar added. "The best way to avoid ICC scrutiny is simple: Don't commit atrocity crimes, and if credible allegations arise, investigate them transparently and hold those responsible accountable."
The Trump administration has already hit ICC judges with sanctions, including asset freezes, travel bans, and other penalties for ordering the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, as well as for seeking to investigate US atrocities in Afghanistan.
ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan and two deputy prosecutors, as well as eight judges, have been sanctioned by the US.
While the US and Israel are not parties to the Rome Statute governing the ICC and do not recognize the tribunal's legitimacy, the treaty states that individuals from nonsignatory nations can be held liable for crimes committed in the territory of a member state.
State Department spokesperson Tommy Piggott echoed Rubio's remarks, telling Newsmax on Tuesday morning that "if the ICC continues to try to threaten our sovereignty, they will know the full power of American resolve."
Responding to the interview, independent journalist Aaron Rupar asked, "Are we going to, like, bomb the International Criminal Court?"
Astute observers noted that the American Service Members’ Protection Act—passed during the George W. Bush administration and known colloquially as the "Hague Invasion Act"—authorizes the president to use “all means necessary and appropriate,” including military intervention, to secure the release of American or allied personnel held by or on behalf of the ICC.
"The ICC is not doing great. There's a lot to complain about. But this, we cannot allow. We cannot allow these hegemons and bullies to run this project into the ground because there is something worthy of protection and improvement in it," Iva Vukušić, an assistant professor of international history at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, said Tuesday on Bluesky in response to Rubio's threat.
I cannot stress this enough: If this institution is destroyed, we will have nothing new at the international level negotiated for a generation, if ever. I don't believe the ICC is amazing, and there's a lot going on on the domestic level, but we need an ICC. A better one. #Accountability #Justice
— Iva Vukušić (@vukusiciva.bsky.social) July 14, 2026 at 12:54 AM
"The arrogance of this man, his boss, and their corrupt administration is insufferable," Vukušić said in a separate Bluesky post. "The empire must fall for a thousand reasons, but this childish arrogance is among the most important ones."
Journalist Thor Benson also took to Bluesky, writing: "I hope Marco Rubio eventually gets tried before the ICC. That would be a good way for this to go."
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Rubio Threatens to 'Teach the ICC'—Which Prosecutes War Crimes—the 'Full Meaning of American Resolve'
"Is the secretary of state worried because he knows US personnel committed war crimes in Iran?"
Jul 13, 2026
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday announced what he characterized as a "campaign to dismantle" the International Criminal Court, the Hague-based tribunal tasked with investigating and charging individuals with war crimes and other violations.
In a video posted to social media, Rubio accused the international court of "waging a war against our country—not with bullets or missiles, but with statutes, compacts, and the force of so-called international law." The top American diplomat threatened that the US "will teach the ICC the full meaning of American resolve."
The US State Department said in a statement that Rubio's new campaign against the ICC would "feature a whole-of-government response to systematically disable" the court's "ability to operate, target American servicemen or officials, or otherwise threaten American sovereignty." The US is not party to the Rome Statute, the 1998 treaty that established the ICC.
US President Donald Trump and his subordinates, who have been accused of myriad violations of international law, have adopted an increasingly aggressive posture toward the ICC since taking power last January.
In a February 6, 2025 executive order, Trump declared "a national emergency to address" the purported "threat" posed by the ICC and announced sanctions against court officials, including its judges. The president's order cited the ICC's "investigations concerning personnel of the United States and certain of its allies, including Israel," which is also not party to the Rome Statute.
In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, for alleged war crimes committed in the Gaza Strip.
Rubio warned in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal on Monday that US officials accused of international crimes could be next to face ICC action.
"Border Patrol agents working to remove violent criminals from our country, US Marines risking their lives to restore order in the Western Hemisphere, federal prosecutors working to dismantle terror networks plotting attacks on the American homeland—all would face the constant risk of persecution for the 'crime' of defending our country," Rubio wrote. "Using all the tools at our government’s disposal, working beside every ally with whom we can make common cause, we will dismantle the ICC—brick by brick, if necessary."
Raed Jarrar, advocacy director of the human rights group Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), said in response to Rubio's op-ed that "when the world’s most powerful country aims to dismantle the world’s only permanent international court, it sends the message that the powerful are above the law."
"It is not the ICC that Rubio is dismantling brick by brick, but the rules-based international order that grew out of the ashes of World War II,” said Jarrar. "Rubio’s attack doesn't just underscore US hypocrisy, but undermines access to justice across the globe, from Ukraine to Sudan and could amount to obstruction of justice, a crime under the Rome Statute in and of itself."
In his op-ed, Rubio pointed to DAWN's call earlier this year for Iran and other Middle East nations to grant the ICC jurisdiction to investigate apparent war crimes committed during the conflict launched in late February by Trump and Netanyahu.
Omar Shakir, DAWN's executive director, said Monday that Rubio mischaracterized the group's call as focusing solely on actions by US personnel. That move, said Shakir, "begs the question: Is the secretary of state worried because he knows US personnel committed war crimes in Iran?"
Under Rubio's plan, the State Department is threatening to impose "increased sanctions against the ICC and affiliated organizations," hit court personnel with "visa revocations and travel bans," and pressure other nations that aren't party to the Rome Statute to "leverage their diplomatic networks to take similar actions alongside" the Trump administration.
Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch who has demanded international accountability for the Trump administration over its illegal assault on Iran, wrote Monday that Rubio "can't even make an honest case for attacking the International Criminal Court."
"He makes it sound like the ICC acts out of the blue anywhere it wants when in fact it acts only against crimes committed on the territory of states that have invited it," Roth wrote. "He never explains why the United States should be able to commit crimes on the territory of those states with impunity, contrary to the desire of their sovereign governments for an international backstop to reinforce justice for such crimes."
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'Unconscionable and Impeachable': Experts Appalled at Report of Marco Rubio Acting as Venezuela 'Viceroy'
"Trump has turned Venezuela into an effective US colony," said one critic.
Jul 11, 2026
Some critics of the Trump administration are reacting with horror to revelations that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been serving as the de facto ruler of Venezuela.
According to a Saturday report in The New York Times, Rubio for the last several months has been acting informally as the "viceroy" of Venezuela ever since its recognized president, Nicolás Maduro, was abducted by the American military in January and brought to the US to face charges related to "narco-terrorism."
The Times' sources revealed that Rubio "effectively controls Venezuela’s finances, the distribution of its natural resources, and its government" and "is deeply involved in the country’s day-to-day operations," while maintaining regular contact with acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez.
Under current arrangements, the US Treasury Department takes in revenue from Venezuela's exports, including its petroleum, and then disperses the money back to the country through its private banks with strict conditions set by Rubio over what it can be spent on.
In explaining the system, the Times likened it to "parents handing out allowances to children," adding that it gives Rubio "immense leverage over... Rodríguez, who depends on the money to pay workers and prop up the national currency."
Elizabeth Saunders, professor of political science at Columbia University, described Rubio's power over Venezuela as "insane," as well as "derelict, unconscionable, and impeachable."
"The secretary of state's time is scarce, valuable, and not outsourcable," Saunders emphasized.
Orlando J. Pérez, professor of Political Science at the University of North Texas at Dallas, said the Times report made a mockery of Rubio's professed claims to want to bring democracy back to Venezuela.
"It appears Rubio has transformed from democracy promotion warrior," Pérez commented, "to transactional realpolitik operative!"
Kenneth Roth, former executive director at Human Rights Watch, wrote that US control over Venezuela appeared similar to the kind of imperial power wielded by European nations in the 19th Century.
"Trump has turned Venezuela into an effective US colony," said Roth, "with Marco Rubio as the viceroy and Washington controlling the country’s oil revenue and dictating major foreign and domestic policies. Democracy has been relegated to the distant future."
Bradley Simpson, historian at the University of Connecticut, also saw the current US arrangement with Venezuela as a return to overt imperialism.
"We are literally back in the Dollar Diplomacy days of the 1910s," Simpson wrote, "when the United States invaded countries and took over their financial systems and ran them as effective colonies. Flagrantly illegal, enormously corrupt. Where is the organization of American states or UN in denouncing this?"
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As Post-Quake Misery Mounts in Venezuela, Demand Grows for Total End to US Sanctions
"Anything short of a full lifting of sanctions will hobble the overall response before it gets off the ground," said a letter sent to Trump and Rubio by a coalition of advocacy groups.
Jul 01, 2026
As death and injury tolls from Venezuela's pair of devastating earthquakes last week continue to rise, a coalition of human rights and anti-war groups called on President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday to lift the US sanctions that have crippled the nation's economy.
"As long as sweeping economic sanctions remain in place and Venezuelan assets remain frozen abroad, reconstruction will be unnecessarily delayed, and millions of people will continue to suffer," said the letter, which was written by Just Foreign Policy, the Latin American Working Group, and Venezuelan American Community Action and shared exclusively with Common Dreams.
It has been signed by more than a dozen other groups, including the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, Peace Action, and the Presbyterian Church's Office of Public Witness.
The earthquakes have killed nearly 2,300 people as of Wednesday, a death toll that is expected to rise, with the number of missing people greater than 40,000, according to an unofficial estimate. The United Nations' resident coordinator said the UN was preparing more than 10,000 body bags for the country "in anticipation of the death toll rising further."
The quakes caused $6.7 billion in damage, the equivalent of 6% of the country's gross domestic product, the UN Development Program estimated last week.
In the letter sent Wednesday, the groups welcomed the State Department's mobilization of support for Venezuela, which has included search and rescue teams, military personnel for disaster relief, and at least $150 million in humanitarian assistance through aid partners and the UN.
But they said, “It is clear that emergency relief alone will not be enough.”
"Venezuela’s recovery will require access to its own financial resources and the ability to import the equipment, construction materials, medicine, fuel, spare parts, and other goods needed to rebuild homes, hospitals, schools, roads, ports, and critical infrastructure," they said.
They said acquiring these needs has been made vastly more difficult by US sanctions that have "deliberately crushed Venezuela's economy, restricting the government's ability to import goods, maintain infrastructure, and deliver basic services to its population."
Even before the earthquakes, they pointed out, nearly a third of Venezuela's population was in need of humanitarian assistance in May, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
They said US "responsibility" for the state of Venezuela's economy has only grown since Trump's operation in January to topple and abduct President Nicolás Maduro.
Despite Venezuela's oil exports rising 25%, its economic growth plummeted to an annual rate of just 2.5% in the first quarter of 2026, according to an analysis of bank data by Francisco Rodríguez, a senior research fellow at CEPR, who said it was "the lowest rate of growth observed since the second quarter of 2021."
"The data suggests the US may be holding Venezuelan oil revenues in deposit accounts and not disbursing them to the Venezuelan government," the letter said, "currently leaving ordinary Venezuelans with too little of the promised economic improvement and directly contradicting the Trump administration's claim that Venezuelans are doing better than ever."
Given the US role in creating these conditions, as well as the role of US sanctions in turning Venezuela's economic crisis in the 2010s into one of the worst depressions of the last 50 years, the coalition said the Trump administration must not continue using economic warfare to force political concessions.
They also condemned calls from Democrats, including Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Jeanne Shaheen (NH) and House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Gregory Meeks (NY) earlier this month, for the Trump administration to "exercise its leverage" on Venezuela's current government, led by President Delcy Rodriguez, to push for democratic elections.
"The primary leverage the US has long held over Venezuela includes indiscriminate economic sanctions, alongside threats of military action that are illegal under US and international law," the coalition said.
"Using economic pressure against a civilian population as a political tool was unconscionable before this earthquake," they continued. "In its aftermath, any call to tighten that leverage, or to attach political conditions to aid or in exchange for a lifting of economic sanctions must be recognized for what it is—an act of collective punishment against long-suffering civilians who should not face further indiscriminate harm due to US policy."
The coalition said that the Trump administration's limited, temporary unfreezing of some sanctions to allow humanitarian relief transactions was "wildly insufficient," as it did not unfreeze other sanctions that have hamstrung Venezuela's economy.
"The Venezuelan government must be free to receive and allocate earthquake relief and to direct humanitarian support to those who need it most," the letter said. "Anything short of a full lifting of sanctions will hobble the overall response before it gets off the ground."
They called for the US to provide "massive humanitarian assistance" without political strings attached.
They also said the US must release Venezuelan oil revenues held in US accounts and pressure other countries like the UK and Portugal to do so as well.
"This is Venezuela’s money, and it is now urgently needed," the groups said. "Withholding it during a national catastrophe of this magnitude is indefensible."
They also called on the US to lift all sanctions on Venezuela, which they said "impede the delivery of humanitarian goods, reconstruction materials, and financial transfers needed for disaster response and economic recovery."
"The United States has a short window to demonstrate that its relationship with the Venezuelan people is not merely transactional," the letter concluded. "The scale of aid must match the scale of the harm the United States has played a role in creating. Anything less would confirm what many Venezuelans already fear: that American concern for their welfare begins and ends where American geopolitical and economic interests do."
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Petro Demands Release of Colombian Activist Held as 'Political Prisoner' by ICE
Marco Rubio's State Department is trying to deport activist Beto Coral over his public opposition to a far-right presidential candidate supported by Trump in Colombia's upcoming election.
Jun 20, 2026
Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Saturday demanded that US President Donald Trump “tell the people of Colombia” where activist Beto Coral is after he was detained by immigration agents this week following his criticism of Trump’s preferred candidate in Colombia’s presidential election.
Coral, a progressive activist and Petro supporter, was arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at his Phoenix home on Tuesday, immediately after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a memo claiming that Coral “has used his presence in the United States to conduct political activity in support of the Petro government.”
His family says they now have no idea where he is.
Atención: El activista colombiano @Betocoralg me llamó hace unos minutos para decirme que agentes de inmigración de @ICE lo están arrestando en este momento en Arizona, aparentemente con la intención de deportarlo. Está con su hijo que es menor de edad pic.twitter.com/sjlaGQdc4Y
— Daniel Coronell (@DCoronell) June 17, 2026
Coral is the son of Humberto Coral Caballero, a police captain who was involved in the 1993 operation that located and killed the notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar. His father was murdered just four months later, in a case that remains unsolved.
The younger Coral immigrated to the US in 2015 on a six-month tourist visa. He later applied for asylum in the US, saying he faced danger from drug cartels in Colombia.
Although the US Department of Homeland Security has also accused him of overstaying his visa for 10 years, the State Department memo pointed to his political activity.
“Allowing [Coral] to remain in the United States,” Rubio's memo said, “undermines US foreign policy interests in Colombia’s democratic processes and signals that foreign nationals may use US platforms to conduct politically motivated disinformation campaigns and litigation targeting foreign democratic actors without consequence.”
The memo reflects the State Department policy of seeking to deport foreign nationals explicitly over their expression of political viewpoints at odds with the Trump administration, particularly pro-Palestinian student activists such as Mahmoud Khalil of Columbia University and Rümeysa Öztürk of Tufts University.
Rubio’s memo also noted that Coral had opposed the right-wing presidential candidate Abelardo de la Espriella, a former criminal defense lawyer supported by Trump, who has pledged to “disembowel the left” if he takes power in Colombia’s presidential runoff on Sunday.
Petro has accused De la Espriella of being a “defender of narcoparamilitaries,” citing his legal defense of armed right-wing groups tied to massacres, assassinations, forced displacement, and drug trafficking.
In a message from detention, Coral said that his arrest "is a sign of what can happen" if De la Espriella, whom he described as a "defender of mobsters and criminals," becomes president of Colombia.
According to The New York Times, Coral’s arrest is the first known instance in which Rubio has targeted an immigrant in the US over their advocacy in a foreign election.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, called it an example of "free speech under attack" by the Trump administration.
"Marco Rubio just had a man arrested and jailed, and is seeking to deport him, because he publicly criticized a presidential candidate in Colombia that Donald Trump would prefer to be elected," he said, adding that Coral "committed no crimes and had an asylum application pending."
Beto Coral fue nuevamente trasladado este día por las autoridades migratorias estadounidenses. Su familia asegura que desconoce su ubicación actual y advierte que su nombre ya no aparece en el sistema oficial ICE Locator, situación que ha incrementado la preocupación y la… pic.twitter.com/cNh4qYy0fI
— Beto Coral (@Betocoralg) June 19, 2026
The 40-year-old Coral was arrested after returning to his Phoenix home with his 12-year-old son. Coral had recently been in Miami, where he said he'd filed a lawsuit against De la Espriella, whom he'd previously accused of illegally recording phone calls between the two.
Coral's former partner, Tatiana Camacho, told the Times that De la Espriella had contacted Coral multiple times "so he would retract his statements.”
US Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said Tuesday that Coral’s detention pointed to “coordination between American officials and Colombian political actors in this arrest—that would amount to our government aiding and abetting transnational repression.”
McGovern noted that he had helped lead legislation cosponsored by Rubio in 2023 to counter transnational political repression while Rubio was still a senator.
"Now he’s abetting it himself," McGovern said, "by weaponizing the law to punish free speech and help Trump’s right-wing buddies."
A Friday post from Coral’s X account stated that he had recently been transferred between facilities by immigration authorities, that his family does not know his current whereabouts, as his name no longer appears in the official ICE locator system.
Alberto Coral hijo del oficial de policía, capitán Humberto Coral Caballero, que fué asesinado en el operativo policial contra Pablo Escobar, es ahora, un preso político en EEUU.
Solo por el apoyo político que el secretario de estado de los EEUU Marcos Rubio dió al defensor de…
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) June 20, 2026
On Saturday, Petro said he “demands” that Trump “tell the people of Colombia where [Beto] Coral is,” referring to him in another post as a “political prisoner.”
“Solely because of the political support that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave to Abelardo de la Espriella, a defender of the genocidal narcoparamilitary forces against the Colombian people, who suggested his capture, he has been detained and beaten by the US government, separating him from his family,” Petro said. “[Beto] Coral sought asylum in the US because drug trafficking mafias could have murdered him 10 years ago, and the anti-migrant attitude toward South Americans has not even allowed for his authorization.”
“What will the members of Colombia’s Public Force—which carries out the world’s largest cocaine seizures—think if the states that benefit from them reject and torture even the sons of those fallen in combat against drug trafficking?” Petro asked.
He continued: “I request the solidarity of the governments of the world and the world’s human rights organizations to free the prisoner of conscience [Beto] Coral.”
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Trump Sanctions on Cuba's Oil Company Expected to Worsen Humanitarian Crisis
"The US regime's secretary of state, driven by ambitions of conquest, presidential aspirations, and the vengeful sentiments of the elitist clique that propelled his political career, now further tightens the economic and energy stranglehold against Cuba," said the island's foreign minister.
Jun 11, 2026
Amid mounting global calls for President Donald Trump to end his administration's "economic genocide" in Cuba, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday announced sanctions against the state-owned oil and gas company, a move expected to worsen the island's fuel shortage and related humanitarian crisis.
Trump, in recent months, has repeatedly threatened to "take" Cuba and ramped up the 65-year US embargo against the country, including by imposing an oil blockade—disrupting food supplies, healthcare, education, transportation, and more—and issuing a May executive order that Rubio cited in his statement about the sanctions against Union Cuba-Petroleo (CUPET).
Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants and a longtime advocate of regime change on the island, claimed Thursday "that like every resource on the island, energy has long been weaponized by Cuba's communist government as a tool of both repression and self-serving regime kleptocracy."
"While the Cuban people have suffered fuel shortages and blackouts because of decades of under-investment in critical infrastructure," Rubio continued, "Cuba's communist leaders have diverted energy resources to line their own pockets: reselling countless barrels of scarce energy on the secondary market, hoarding energy supplies for its military, intelligence, and repressive forces, and rationing energy as a tool of social control."
Warning of the new sanctions' likely impact, William LeoGrande, a Cuba expert at American University in the United States, told The Associated Press: "It appears that they're all in on strangling the Cuban economy... Their policy is a contradiction. They claim they don't want to create a humanitarian crisis, although that's exactly what they’re doing."
As some Florida Republicans in Congress celebrated the secretary of state's announcement, Cuban officials fired back, with Bruno Rodríguez, Cuba's foreign affairs minister, taking aim at Rubio in a social media post.
"The US regime's secretary of state, driven by ambitions of conquest, presidential aspirations, and the vengeful sentiments of the elitist clique that propelled his political career, now further tightens the economic and energy stranglehold against Cuba," he wrote in Spanish. "To justify it, he does not resort to excuses prepared by his State Department, but to the usual crude lies, the most aggressive, uncouth, and rabid among Cuba's enemies."
Ernesto Soberón, Cuba's permanent representative to the United Nations, accused Rubio of "peddling crude lies" while the US ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, "mindlessly parrots the claim that the blockade does not exist and is, therefore, not primarily responsible for the suffering of the Cuban people."
"The cynicism of top US officials knows no bounds," Soberón said. "Stop the collective punishment of the Cuban people."
This week alone, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, and thousands of Italian medical professionals have spoken out against the US blockade of Cuba.
“The fuel restrictions imposed since early 2026 and recent tightening of extraterritorial sanctions, taken together, are directly harming Cubans, especially the most vulnerable," said Türk. "Children are dying because doctors lack access to essential medical supplies and medicines. This is unacceptable. These sanctions must be lifted immediately."
The Trump administration's targeting of CUPET came a week after it sanctioned Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, his wife, and three other individuals.
"We just want them to be a nicely run country," Trump told journalists in the Oval Office last week, when asked whether those sanctions were meant to accelerate Cuba's collapse. "The country is starving, and it's got no energy, it's got no oil, it's got no money, it's got nothing. It's got a beautiful piece of land. You could have beautiful resorts."
Trump said that Cuba had already "sort of collapsed" and "we're going to handle that as soon as we've finished" military operations in Iran. He added, "I like to do one thing at a time."
Earlier this week, Elena Gutiérrez, a Mexican American activist at Global Exchange, wrote for Foreign Policy In Focus about returning from three trips to the island this year "with my heart a little more broken, but also with a stronger conviction that we need to defend Cuba."
"But can US citizens truly stop the madness their own empire imposes on them and on the rest of the world? Let us hope so, because only the people of the United States—and no one else—can carry out the transformations their own country needs," according to Gutiérrez. "Only then will Cuba, the United States, Mexico, and the rest of the world be free."
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'Bureaucratic Temper Tantrum': Trump White House Pilloried Over Reported Effort to Deport Iran War Critic Trita Parsi
"Irony is if the Trump admin had listened to Parsi, they'd be in much better shape now," said a fellow anti-war writer.
Jun 11, 2026
The Trump administration is once again being accused of using immigration enforcement to silence speech after it reportedly launched an investigation into one of the most prominent critics of the president's war in Iran, Trita Parsi, as part of an effort to deport him.
Parsi, an Iranian-Swedish citizen who holds a green card in the US, is the co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and co-founded the National Iranian American Council (NIAC).
Since February, when the US and Israel launched a war against Iran that has killed more than 1,700 civilians, wracked the global economy, and spiraled out across the Middle East, Parsi has been a highly cited anti-war voice in the media.
But according to an exclusive report from The Free Press published on Thursday, which quotes senior Trump administration officials, the State Department views Parsi, who has lived in the US for 25 years, not as "another Washington pundit eager to share his point of view," but as someone seeking to nefariously spread "Iranian influence."
“The secretary has been very clear,” an unnamed Trump administration official said, referring to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “Anyone who seeks to undermine the US, we’re taking a hard look at.” That includes “people who support adversaries of ours and whose work furthers their agenda and undermines our security.”
Since attacking Iran, the Trump administration has brought the hammer down on other Iranians living legally in the US due to their alleged sympathies with their nation of origin.
In April, the State Department arrested two women alleged to be the niece and grandniece of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani, who was extrajudicially assassinated in an airstrike ordered by President Donald Trump in 2020. Rubio accused the two women of promoting "regime propaganda," revoking their green cards, though documents later revealed that the women had no connection to the slain general.
The administration also canceled the visa belonging to the daughter of Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, who was assassinated in March.
The administration has similarly wielded its powers against foreign-born critics of Israel, including Columbia University student protest leader Mahmoud Khalil, and Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk, who was snatched off the street by immigration agents and detained for weeks over an opinion piece she co-wrote calling on her school to divest from Israel. The White House's deportation effort against her was thrown out by an immigration judge in February.
Documents unsealed in January showed that five pro-Palestine student activists singled out by the State Department, including Öztürk and Khalil, were targeted for deportation for no other reason than their speech and were not accused of any wrongdoing.
Relying on a previously rarely used provision in the McCarthy era Immigration and Nationality Act, the administration has defended its right to strip legal residents of their status on the grounds of speech alone that was adverse to a "compelling United States foreign policy interest.”
In the case of Khalil, Rubio acknowledged in a memo that his speech was “otherwise lawful,” but claimed that allowing him to remain in the country would undermine the Trump administration's foreign policy goals of supporting Israel and "combating antisemitism."
A similar justification appears to be undergirding the administration's attacks on Parsi. According to The Free Press, the administration has highlighted his and his organization's public warnings against escalation against Iran, his role as an informal adviser to negotiations for the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, opposition to US sanctions against the country, and correspondence with Iranian officials as evidence that he is working to further Tehran's influence.
While Parsi has not yet publicly confirmed that an investigation is underway, The Free Press reported that the Quincy Institute has prepared for legal action if the government attempts to have him detained or deported.
The outlet cited a memo from Quincy CEO Lora Lumpe, who noted that Parsi had recently come into the crosshairs of the notorious pro-Trump influencer Laura Loomer, who accused him of being “a mouthpiece for the Iranian regime" and threatened that his “days in our country are numbered.”
The State Department has previously appeared to make decisions directly in response to Loomer's online outbursts. Loomer was the first to erroneously claim that the two women detained in April were relatives of Soleimani. She also took credit for the department revoking the visa of the British commentator and Israel critic Sami Hamdi, who was abducted by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the middle of a speaking tour.
The State Department has also appeared to follow her lead after she called for it to block children injured during Israel's genocide in Gaza from entering the US on medical humanitarian visas to receive desperately needed surgeries and rehabilitative care.
News of the State Department's pursuit of an investigation against Parsi was described as the latest attempt by the Trump administration to use the threat of deportation to bully critics into silence.
"Trita Parsi is a courageous and outspoken critic of the US-Israeli war on Iran, alongside whom we’re proud to have worked in opposition to war and injustice for many years," said the civil liberties organization Defending Rights & Dissent. "The Trump administration’s investigation of Parsi is an outrageous attack on free speech. Government officials are explicit that they are exploring deporting Parsi specifically for his advocacy—a blatant affront to the First Amendment."
Branko Marcetic, another prominent war opponent who writes for Jacobin magazine, called the attack on Parsi "contemptible."
"Irony is if the Trump admin had listened to Parsi, they'd be in much better shape now," he added. "Instead, they put their political futures in the hands of people Trump himself called warmonger idiots, and now they're left throwing this bureaucratic temper tantrum."
Drop Site News, which has often interviewed Parsi as an expert, also noted the significance of the fact that the "exclusive" report was being published by The Free Press, a hawkish right-wing publication that "has repeatedly published articles that amplify official pressure on critics of Israel, US wars, and aggressive foreign policy, contributing to a chilling effect intended to deter others from speaking out."
Some of Parsi's ideological opponents have also warned against the government's efforts to punish his speech, like Kaveh Shahrooz, a prominent Iranian-Canadian advocate for regime change in Iran.
"You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who, over the past decade, has been more aggressively outspoken against Trita Parsi and NIAC than I have," Shahrooz said. "But I’m deeply uncomfortable with what’s being reported."
"Unless the [US government] can demonstrate that Parsi violated US law... deporting him would amount to targeting someone for their speech and political beliefs," he continued. "An abuse of government power directed at someone you despise today can very easily be directed at you, or at someone you support, tomorrow."
Update (6/13/2026): Following the publication of this piece, the US State Department issued a statement that it "has no plans to revoke the green card of Mr. Parsi at this time."
Parsi has responded to the reports with a post to his Substack, in which he said, "I don’t believe there was any investigation against me," but that "some elements within the State Department wanted to start one and thought external pressure," via The Free Press' report "could help move things forward." Parsi's full response can be read here.
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