Author: Emmanuel

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Trump administration may seek to deport nearly 350,000 Venezuelans who were granted “temporary protected status” under the Biden administration to live and work in the United States.In a brief order, the justices granted a fast-track appeal from Trump’s lawyers and set aside the decision of a federal judge in San Francisco who had blocked the repeal announced by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson voted to deny the appeal.Trump’s lawyers said the law gave the Biden administration the discretion to grant temporary protection to Venezuelans, but also gave the new administration the same discretion to end it. The court’s decision does not involve the several hundred Venezuelans who were held in Texas and targeted for speedy deportation to El Salvador because they were alleged to be gang members. The justices blocked their deportation until they were offered a hearing. But it will end the legal protection for an estimated 350,000 Venezuelans who arrived by 2023 and could not return home because of the “severe humanitarian” crisis created by the government of Nicolas Maduro. An additional 250,000 Venezuelans who arrived by 2021 remain protected until September.“This is the largest single action stripping any group of non-citizens of immigration status in modern U.S. history,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law, and a counsel for plaintiffs. “That the Supreme Court authorized it in a two-paragraph order with no reasoning is truly shocking. The humanitarian and economic impact of the Court’s decision will be felt immediately, and will reverberate for generations.” The ruling affected one of two special authorities used by the Biden administration that face possible repeal now. Last week, Trump’s lawyers asked the Supreme Court to also revoke the special “grant of parole” that allowed 532,000 immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to legally enter the United States on personally financed flights. A judge in Boston blocked Noem’s repeal of the parole authority. The Biden administration granted the TPS under a 1990 law. It said the U.S. may extend relief to immigrants who cannot return home because of an armed conflict, natural disaster or other “extraordinary and temporary conditions.”Shortly before leaving office, Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden’s Homeland Security secretary, extended the TPS for the Venezuelans for 18 months.While nationals from 17 countries qualify for TPS, the largest number from any country are Venezuelans. The Trump administration moved quickly to reverse course.“As its name suggests,” TPS provides “temporary — not permanent — relief to aliens who cannot safely return to their homes,” Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer wrote in his appeal last week. Shortly after she was confirmed, Noem said the special protection for the Venezuelans was “contrary to the national interest.”She referred to them as “dirtbags.” In a TV interview, she also claimed that “Venezuela purposely emptied out their prisons, emptied out their mental health facilities and sent them to the United States of America.”The ACLU Foundations of Northern and Southern California and the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law filed suit in San Francisco. Their lawyers argued the conditions in Venezuela remain extremely dangerous. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen agreed and blocked Noem’s repeal order from taking effect nationwide. He said the “unprecedented action of vacating existing TPS” was a “step never taken by any administration.”He ruled Noem’s order was “arbitrary and capricious” in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act because it did not offer a reasoned explanation for the change in regulations. It was also “motivated by unconstitutional animus,” he said. The judge also found that tens of thousands of American children could be separated from their parents if the adults’ temporary protected status were repealed. When the 9th Circuit Court refused to lift the judge’s temporary order, the solicitor general appealed to the Supreme Court on May 1. Last week, the State Department reissued an “extreme danger” travel advisory for Venezuela, urging Americans to leave the country immediately or to “prepare a will and designate appropriate insurance beneficiaries and/or power of attorney.”“Do not travel to or remain in Venezuela due to the high risk of wrongful detention, torture in detention, terrorism, kidnapping, arbitrary enforcement of local laws, crime, civil unrest, and poor health infrastructure,” the advisory states.Trump’s lawyers downplayed the impact of a ruling lifting TPS. They told the justices that none of the plaintiffs is facing immediate deportation. Each of them “will have the ability to challenge on an individual basis whether removal is proper — or seek to stay, withhold or otherwise obtain relief from any order of removal — through ordinary” immigration courts, Sauer said. Arulanantham said the effect will be substantial. Many of the beneficiaries have no other protection from deportation. Some have pending applications, such as for asylum. But immigration authorities have begun detaining those with pending asylum claims. Others, who entered within the last two years, could be subject to expedited deportation.Economic harm would be felt even more immediately, Arulanantham said. Once work permits provided through TPS are invalidated, employers would be forced to let workers go. That means families would be unable to pay rent or feed their children, and economic losses would be felt in communities across the country. More to Read

The leaders of Canada, Britain and France warned on Monday that their countries would take action if Israel does not stop a renewed military offensive in Gaza and lift aid restrictions.”The Israeli government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable and risks breaching international humanitarian law,” a joint statement released by the prime minister’s office said.”We oppose any attempt to expand settlements in the West Bank…. We will not hesitate to take further action, including targeted sanctions.”The statement came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel would control the whole of Gaza despite mounting international pressure that forced it to lift a blockade on aid supplies that left the enclave on the brink of famine.”We strongly oppose the expansion of Israel’s military operations in Gaza. The level of human suffering in Gaza is intolerable,” the three Western leaders said in the joint statement, adding that Israel’s announcement it will allow a basic quantity of food into Gaza is “wholly inadequate.”They also stated their support for the efforts led by the United States, Qatar and Egypt for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and said they were committed to recognizing a Palestinian state as a contribution to achieving a two-state solution.Netanyahu condemned the joint statement in a post on X and called it “a huge prize for the genocidal attack on Israel on October 7.”The Israeli military, which announced the start of a new operation on Friday, warned residents in the southern city of Khan Younis on Monday to evacuate to the coast immediately as it prepared “an unprecedented attack.””There is huge fighting going on, intense and huge. We are going to control all parts of Gaza,” Netanyahu said in a video message. In it, he pledged to achieve “complete victory” with both the release of the 58 hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza and the destruction of the Palestinian militant group.Even as the military warned of the attack, Reuters reporters saw aid trucks heading toward northern Gaza after Netanyahu was forced to agree to allow a limited amount of aid into Gaza in response to global concern at the reports of famine.Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike, in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, on Monday.

In May 1939, a ship called the St. Louis departed from Hamburg, Germany, with 937 passengers, most of them Jews fleeing the Holocaust. They had been promised disembarkation rights in Cuba, but when the ship reached Havana, the government refused to let it dock. The passengers made desperate pleas to the U.S., including directly to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, to allow them entry. Roosevelt never responded. The State Department wired back that they should “wait their turn” and enter legally.As if that were a realistic option available to them.After lingering off the coast of Florida hoping for a merciful decision from Washington, the St. Louis and its passengers returned to Europe, where the Nazis were on the march. Ultimately, 254 of the ship’s passengers died in the Holocaust.In response to this shameful failure to provide protection, the nations of the world came together and drafted an international treaty to protect those fleeing persecution. The treaty, the 1951 Refugee Convention, and its 1967 Protocol, has been ratified by more than 75% of nations, including the United States.Because the tragedy of the St. Louis was fresh in the minds of the treaty drafters, they included an unequivocal prohibition on returning fleeing refugees to countries where their “life or freedom would be threatened.” This is understood to prohibit sending them to a country where they would face these threats, as well as sending them to a country that would then send them on to a third country where they would be at such risk.All countries that are parties to the Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees are bound by this prohibition on return (commonly referred to by its French translation, “nonrefoulement”). In the U.S., Congress enacted the 1980 Refugee Act, expressly adopting the treaty language. The U.S. is also a party to the Convention Against Torture, which prohibits the return of individuals to places where they would be in danger of “being subjected to torture.”In both Trump administrations, there have been multiple ways in which the president has attempted to eviscerate and undermine the protections guaranteed by treaty obligation and U.S. law. The most drastic among these measures have been the near-total closure of the border to asylum seekers and the suspension of entry of already approved and vetted refugees.However, none of these measures has appeared so clearly designed to make a mockery of the post-World War II refugee protection framework as the administration’s proposals and attempts to send migrants from the U.S. to Libya and Rwanda.Although there are situations in which the U.S. could lawfully send a migrant to a third country, it would still be bound by the obligation not to return the person to a place where their “life or freedom would be threatened.” The choices of Libya and Rwanda — rather than, for example, Canada or France — can only be read as an intentional and open flouting of that prohibition.Libya is notorious for its abuse of migrants, with widespread infliction of torture, sexual violence, forced labor, starvation and slavery. Leading advocacy groups such as Amnesty International call it a “hellscape.” The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has stated in no uncertain terms that Libya is not to be considered a safe third country for migrants. The U.S. is clearly aware of conditions there; the State Department issued its highest warning level for Libya, advising against travel to Libya because of crime, terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping and armed conflict.Although conditions in Rwanda are not as extreme, the supreme courts of both Israel and the United Kingdom have ruled that agreements to send migrants to Rwanda are unlawful. The two countries had attempted to outsource their refugee obligations by calling Rwanda a “safe third country” to which asylum seekers could be sent to apply for protection.Israel and the U.K.’s highest courts found that Rwanda — contrary to its stated commitment when entering these agreements — had in fact refused to consider the migrants’ asylum claims, and instead, routinely expelled them, resulting in their return to countries of persecution, in direct violation of the prohibition on refoulement. The U.K. court also cited Rwanda’s poor human rights record, including “extrajudicial killings, deaths in custody, enforced disappearances and torture.”If the Trump administration had even a minimal commitment to abide by its international and domestic legal obligations, plans to send migrants to Libya or Rwanda would be a nonstarter. But the plans are very much alive, and it is not far-fetched to assume that their intent is to further undermine internationally agreed upon norms of refugee protection dating to World War II. Why else choose the two countries that have repeatedly been singled out for violating the rights of refugees?As in Israel and the U.K., there will be court challenges should the U.S. move forward with its proposed plan of sending migrants to Libya and Rwanda. It is hard to imagine a court that could rule that the U.S. would not be in breach of its legal obligation of nonrefoulement by delivering migrants to these two countries.Having said that, and despite the clear language of the treaty and statute, it has become increasingly difficult to predict how the courts will rule when the Supreme Court has issued decisions overturning long-accepted precedent, and lower courts have arrived at diametrically opposed positions on some of the most contentious immigration issues.In times like these, we should not depend solely on the courts. There are many of us here in the U.S. who believe that the world’s refugee framework — developed in response to the profound moral failure of turning back the St. Louis — is worth fighting for. We need to take a vocal stand. The clear message must be that those fleeing persecution should never be returned to persecution.If we take such a stand, we will be in the good company of those who survived the Holocaust and continue to speak out for the rights of all refugees.Karen Musalo is a law professor and the founding director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at UC Law, San Francisco. She is also lead co-author of “Refugee Law and Policy: A Comparative and International Approach.” More to Read

U.S. Vice-President JD Vance discussed fair trade policies with Prime Minister Mark Carney on Sunday in Rome, Vance’s office said in a statement, as the two nations try to resolve a dispute over tariffs.The two leaders also discussed efforts underway to secure borders, crack down on fentanyl and increase investments in defence and security, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a separate statement.Carney said on X he had a “good conversation” with Vance while in Rome.”We’re strongest when we work together,” he said.The leaders spoke about the immediate trade pressures and the need to build a new economic and security relationship, agreeing to stay in contact, the statement said.Carney and Vance were among leaders from around the world attending Pope Leo XIV’s inaugural mass earlier in the day.WATCH | Carney meets with global leaders while in Rome: Carney attends Pope Leo XIV’s inaugural mass1 day agoDuration 2:44Pope Leo XIV kicked off his papacy with his inaugural mass in Vatican City, drawing thousands including Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who used the visit to meet with global leaders in preparation for next month’s G7 in Alberta.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia  — President Trump’s four-day visit to the Middle East was marked by a flurry of activity: Billion-dollar trade deals, a meeting with Syria’s new president and diplomatic efforts to resolve the nuclear standoff with Iran. But the fate of Palestinian people and the war in Gaza, where the dead are piling up in recent days under an Israeli onslaught, appears to have received short shrift. Trump finished his visit to the Persian Gulf on Friday, touting his abilities as a deal maker while he forged trade agreements worth hundreds of billions of dollars — his administration says trillions — from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.But despite his repeated insistence that only he could bring a peaceful end to the world’s intractable problems — and saying Friday that “we have to help” Palestinians — there were no breakthroughs on the Israel-Hamas war, and the president repeated his suggestion of U.S. involvement in the Gaza Strip. Noting the widespread destruction in the territory, Trump said, “I have concepts for Gaza that I think are very good — make it a freedom zone. Let the United States get involved and make it just a freedom zone.” President Trump walks down the stairs of Air Force One upon his arrival at Joint Base Andrews, Md., on Friday. (Luis M. Alvarez / Associated Press) 1 2 1. Palestinians struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip, Thursday, May 15, 2025. (Jehad Alshrafi / Associated Press) 2. Islam Hajjaj holds her 6-year-old daughter Najwa, who suffers from malnutrition, at a shelter in central Gaza City, on May 11, 2025. Amnesty International accuses Israel on April 29 of committing a ‘’live-streamed genocide’’ against Palestinians by forcibly displacing Gazans and creating a humanitarian catastrophe in the besieged territory, claims Israel dismisses as ‘’blatant lies’’. (Majdi Fathi / NurPhoto via Getty Images) Trump’s comments Friday came as the Israel military began the first stages of a ground offensive it called “Operation Gideon’s Chariots” — an apparent fulfillment of a threat by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this month that he would launch an attack on Gaza to destroy Hamas and liberate detainees if there wasn’t a ceasefire or a hostage deal by the time Trump finished his time in the Middle East.Trump’s concerns “are deals that benefit the U.S. economy and enhance the U.S.’ global economic positions,” or preventing costly military entanglements in Iran or Yemen, said Mouin Rabbani, a nonresident fellow at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies, based in Qatar.“Unlike Syria or Iran,” Rabbani said, “ending the Gaza war provides no economic benefit to the U.S., and doesn’t risk American troops getting involved in a new war.”Ahead of Trump’s four-day trip, there were moves that had buoyed hopes of a ceasefire or allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza, which Israel has blocked for more than two months as aid groups warn of impending famine. On May 12, Hamas released Edan Alexander, a soldier with Israeli and U.S. citizenship and the last American detainee in its hands, as a goodwill gesture to Trump, and there were rumors of a meeting between Trump and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.But that meeting never took place, and instead of a ceasefire, Israel launched strikes that health authorities in the enclave say have killed at least 250 people in the last few days, 45 of them children, according to UNICEF. A man looks at burned vehicles in the Barkan Industrial area, near Salfit in the occupied West Bank, on Friday, after more than 17 Palestinian workers’ cars were reportedly set on fire by Israeli settlers the night before. Since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, violence has soared in the West Bank where Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. (John Wessels / AFP via Getty Images) Netanyahu insists his aim is to destroy Hamas, which attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and seizing roughly 250 hostages. Israel’s military campaign has so far killed at least 53,000 people in Gaza — including combatants and civilians, but mostly women and children, according to health authorities there — and many believe that toll to be an undercount. A ceasefire that Trump’s incoming administration brokered in January broke down in mid-March after Israel refused to continue second-stage negotiations. “We expect the U.S. administration to exert further pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to open the crossings and allow the immediate entry of humanitarian aid, food, medicine and fuel to hospitals in the Gaza Strip,” said Taher El-Nounou, a Hamas media advisor, in an interview with Agence France-Presse on Friday.He added that such moves were part of the understandings reached with U.S. envoys during the latest meetings, under which Hamas released Alexander.Yet there has been little sign of that pressure, despite fears in Israeli circles that Trump’s actions before and during his Middle East trip — which skipped Israel, saw Trump broker a deal with Yemen’s Houthis and lift sanctions on Syria without Israeli input — was a snub to Netanyahu. President Trump speaks on Air Force One at Abu Dhabi International Airport before departing on Friday in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. (Alex Brandon / Associated Press) Speaking to reporters on Air Force One as he left the Emirati capital, Abu Dhabi, on Friday, Trump sidestepped questions about the renewed Israeli offensive, saying, “I think a lot of good things are going to happen over the next month, and we’re going to see.”“We have to help also out the Palestinians,” he said. “You know, a lot of people are starving in Gaza, so we have to look at both sides.”On the first day of Trump’s Mideast trip, in Saudi Arabia, he announced that the U.S. was ending sanctions on Syria, now headed by an Islamist government that overthrew longtime dictator Bashar Assad in December. He met Syrian interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa and praised him as a “tough guy” and a “fighter.” Israel views Al-Sharaa’s government as a threat and has made incursions into its territory since Assad’s fall, and launched a withering airstrike campaign to defang the fledgling government’s forces.When asked whether he knew Israel opposed the lifting of sanctions, Trump said, “I don’t know, I didn’t ask them about that.” Palestinians struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Khan Yunis, Gaza Strip, on Friday. (Abdel Kareem Hana / Associated Press) Commentators say that although Washington’s leverage over Israel should make a Gaza ceasefire easier for a Trump administration seeking to project itself as an effective peacemaker, the conflict there remains a low priority for Trump.“Gaza may seem like low hanging fruit on the surface, but it’s also low political yield — how does acting decisively on Gaza benefit Trump? It doesn’t,” said Khaled Elgindy, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. He added that going along with Netanyahu would be more in line with Trump’s vision for owning and remaking Gaza, while on Iran, Syria and the Houthi rebels in Yemen, it makes sense to separate U.S. interests from Israel’s.“Palestinians have nothing to offer Trump. And the Gulf states offered their investments for free, with no conditions on Gaza. Gaza is a moral imperative, not a strategic one, and Trump is not known for acting on moral grounds.” More to Read

APOPA, El Salvador — Victor Barahona was grateful when soldiers started rounding up gang members who had long terrorized this working-class city. No longer would his grandchildren pass drug deals or be startled from sleep by the crack of gunfire.But when El Salvador’s military started hauling away neighbors Barahona knew had no connection to the gangs, he spoke out, criticizing the arrests on his community radio program. Soon after, police rapped on his door. Barahona said he was handcuffed and sent to prison, with no access to lawyers, no contact with family and no clear sense of the charges against him. He recalls seeing inmates being tortured and guards hauling dead bodies from cells while he lived on meager portions of noodles and beans. He would later lodge a complaint with the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.When he was released almost a year later — 70 pounds lighter, and with no explanation — Barahona was alarmed to see that President Nayib Bukele was winning global praise for bringing peace and prosperity to El Salvador, with his iron-fist security strategy heralded by American conservatives such as President Trump. Soldiers patrol a neighborhood in Apopa during the implementation of a military siege to combat gangs on Oct. 11, 2023, in El Salvador. (Camilo Freedman / For The Times) A 43-year-old former adman first elected in a landslide in 2019, Bukele has been largely successful in rebranding El Salvador from a poor backwater plagued by murderous gangs into an innovative and safe nation that he compares to Singapore. In prolific social media posts, he presents himself like a tech CEO: a disrupter-in-chief willing to break norms and create what he terms a “new history.” But for all his modern trappings — his embrace of Bitcoin, TikTok and slick promotional videos — Bukele’s critics say he’s just following the playbook of previous Latin American strongmen, including the military leaders who ruled El Salvador as a dictatorship from 1931 until the early 1980s. Bukele jails opponents, fires judges and has been been implicated in corruption. He pushed for a court decision that paved the way for his reelection even though the country’s constitution prohibits it. Last week, he launched a crackdown on nonprofits, calling for 30% of their donations to be taxed.“He’s not a divergence,” said Noah Bullock, the director of Cristosal, a human rights group. “He governs in the same way as past dictators and uses the same instruments of power. It’s a regime that tortures and kills and disseminates fear.”There is little doubt that Bukele’s mass arrests starting in 2022 helped dismantle the gangs that once held this country in a chokehold. And for that, most Salvadorans are thankful.But as part of his security push — which included asking Salvadorans to denounce suspected “terrorists” via an anonymous tip line — tens of thousands of innocent people were wrongfully detained, human rights groups say. A woman stacks a shelf as demonstrators march to protest against the ongoing state of emergency on Jan. 12, 2025, in San Salvador, El Salvador. (Camilo Freedman / For The Times) While polls show that most Salvadorans support Bukele, they also show that a majority fear retribution if they express their views. “We used to be afraid of the gangs,” Barahona said as he walked through Apopa, where rifle-toting soldiers are posted every few blocks. “Now,” he said, “we’re afraid of the state.”Favorite of the American rightMore and more, Bukele’s El Salvador is a model for the American right.He got a rock-star welcome at the 2024 Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington, where participants chanted his name and he warned U.S. leaders to fight “dark forces … taking over your country.” “The people of El Salvador have woken up,” he said. “And so can you.”Marco Rubio, Matt Gaetz and Donald Trump Jr. have made pilgrimage to El Salvador, and Republican commentator Tucker Carlson said Bukele “may have the blueprint for saving the world.” Elon Musk insists that El Salvador’s crackdown “needs to happen and will happen in America.”President Trump seems eager to replicate many Bukele strategies. An ongoing state of emergency declared by Bukele has suspended civil liberties, including due process. The White House announced it is “actively looking at” suspending habeas corpus, the constitutional right for people to challenge their detention by the government. In March, the Trump administration paid Bukele millions of dollars to house hundreds of American deportees in one of its infamous prisons. Trump and Bukele have refused to comply with a U.S. Supreme Court order to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who the U.S. acknowledges was improperly deported. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s president, during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House on April 14, 2025. (Al Drago / The Washington Post via Getty Images) Trump and Bukele share a disregard for democratic norms, with Bukele describing himself as a “philosopher king” and “world’s coolest dictator.” Trump says he has not ruled out seeking a prohibited third term and posted a quote online attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”Their affinity was clear at their meeting last month in the Oval Office. Sitting next to Trump, Bukele acknowledged that while thousands of prisoners in El Salvador may have had their rights violated, “I like to say that we actually liberated millions.”“Who gave him that line?” Trump responded. “Do you think I can use that?”“Mr. President, you have 350 million people to liberate,” Bukele said. “But to liberate 350 million people, you have to imprison some. That’s the way it works, right?” Attracting investment, silencing criticsSan Salvador, a lush city that lies in the shadow of a dormant volcano, has been buzzing in recent years with the clatter of construction.The country’s main hospital is getting a facelift, and crews are renovating colonial buildings. A new library donated by China looms over the central square, where children splash in a fountain and boleros play from speakers hidden among trees. Bukele has promoted the changes here and along the Pacific Coast, now a surfing mecca, as evidence that El Salvador is thriving. Last year, the country welcomed a record 3.9 million tourists, including cryptocurrency evangelists drawn by Bukele’s short-lived experiment in making Bitcoin legal tender. But while he has spent big on cosmetic changes, Bukele has slashed budgets for health and education. Dozens of schools and community clinics have been shuttered. Ivan Solano Leiva, the director of El Salvador’s medical association, said Bukele has emphasized “constructing an image” over meeting basic needs. As Bukele touted the purchase of state-of-the art hospital equipment, wait times to see specialists lengthened, Solano said, and doctors have been pressured not to write prescriptions because of drug shortages.“What’s the point of having the latest technology if I don’t have enough staff to operate it?” he said. Bukele has beefed up state-owned news outlets, which broadcast pro-Bukele content and have prominent social media influencers on their payrolls. But behind TikToks touting improvements lie bleak statistics. The poverty rate rose from 26.8% in 2019 to 30.3% in 2023. The country has the lowest levels of economic growth and foreign investment in of all of Central America, worse even than nearby Nicaragua, a dictatorship that has been pummeled by U.S. sanctions. While Bukele can claim some impressive projects, like a towering new Google office in San Salvador, the shaky rule of law has spooked other investors, said an adviser to foreign companies who spoke on the condition of anonymity: “They feel too much risk.”The perils for businesses were clear this month, after a highway renovation disrupted traffic and Bukele declared on X that transportation would be free nationwide.When some bus companies failed to comply, Bukele ordered the arrests of 16 company owners on charges of sabotage. They remain in jail.On a recent scorching afternoon, Erica Mendoza, 42, was waiting for a bus with her disabled husband. Mendoza, who earns about $8 a day, said she was grateful for the help with bus fare, and said she didn’t expect Bukele to solve El Salvador’s long-standing economic problems over night.“If there’s money we eat, if there’s not, we don’t,” she said. “This is life and we’re used to it.”Accusations of corruptionInstead of residing in the national palace, Bukele lives in a modern home in a luxury compound called Los Sueños: The Dreams.In recent years, his government has bought up multiple lots in the neighborhood to build what government officials say will be a new presidential residence.Enrique Anaya, a constitutional attorney who has criticized Bukele’s mass firings of judges and suspension of rights, said it’s clear that “his mission is clearly to stay in power as long as possible and to make himself scandalously rich.”A recent investigation by the journalist Jaime Quintanilla revealed that Bukele and his family purchased 34 properties valued at more than $9 million during his first presidential term.Bukele, who ran as an anti-corruption crusader, vowing to break with past leaders on the left and right implicated in graft, has denied insinuations that he has enriched himself in office, calling critics “imbeciles.”But for some, the case is another example of the wide gap between the image of El Salvador that Bukele is selling and reality. The is significant evidence that Bukele’s biggest accomplishment of all — reducing crime in El Salvador — wasn’t just the result of his punishing security strategy. Journalists and U.S. officials say that during Bukele’s first term, his administration negotiated with gangs to bring down killings and generate votes for his party.In 2021, the U.S. Treasury Department slapped sanctions against Bukele’s vice minister of justice and a top presidential aide for cutting deals with leaders of the MS-13 and Barrio 18 gangs. This month, the news site El Faro published a video that showed a gang member known as El Charly say he received money from Bukele’s party for votes. It’s unclear whether everyday Salvadorans care how exactly peace was achieved. Andrés Hernández, 50, was forced to abandon his home in Apopa 15 years ago because the gangs were trying to recruit his young son. “We suffered so much,” he said. “Finally, we can breathe.” Hernández said he hopes to vote for Bukele for a third term. “I want him to stay — forever.” Juan Meléndez, director of the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy in El Salvador, said many of his compatriots seem “open to exchanging their rights for security.” It’s something he attributes to the country’s long history of authoritarian rule. Democracy, he said, was an abstract concept to many Salvadorans, while safer streets was a concrete benefit. Meanwhile, about 110,000 people, nearly 2% of El Salvador’s population, languish in jail. One of them is René Mauricio Tadeo Serrano, 37, who was arrested in 2022 while working at a factory in the coastal province of Libertad. It has been nearly three years since his mother, María Serrano, 60, has heard from him. She has diabetes but walks the streets daily in search of work laundering clothing to pay for the $150 monthly package family members must buy so their loved ones in jail can have basic items like toilet paper and soap. On a recent morning, Serrano stood outside the prosecutor’s office begging for information on her son’s case, alongside dozens of other mothers whose children have disappeared. She thinks it’s only a matter of time before more people see the cost of Bukele’s rule. “It’s a lie that we’re free in El Salvador,” she said. “The people who are in favor of him haven’t had their hearts broken yet.” More to Read

18 May 2025First Newcastle, now Crystal Palace. As I said on BBC One after Saturday’s FA Cup final, 2025 is the year of the underdog – and I love it!I know exactly how the Palace fans felt after seeing their side beat Manchester City, because I was there myself only a few weeks ago when Newcastle won the Carabao Cup final.Like them, I had waited my entire life to see my team win a major trophy. For Palace supporters this is their first piece of silverware in their history and, from where I was doing my co-commentary at Wembley, I could tell how much it meant to them.They reminded me of the Newcastle fans with the way they roared their team on from the moment they got into the ground. For most of the game they drowned the City supporters out, and I went through every emotion with them during the 90 minutes, and especially beyond.You could see the agony on their faces when the board went up to show there would be 10 minutes of stoppage time, and when I looked around I saw everyone with their head in their hands – the same way I was when I was waiting for the final whistle in the same stadium against Liverpool.I saw the joy and the tears afterwards too, when the celebrations were just getting started. A lot of them will have sore heads on Sunday and Monday, and I don’t blame them one bit.They knew they had a part to play if their team was going to beat City, and they did it – it was a great performance by Palace’s players, but their fans were sensational too.To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.This video can not be playedNow this is their moment and they should absolutely make the most of it – I know I did when it was finally Newcastle’s turn to win something.Usually you see a team lift a trophy and you ask ‘what next?’, but – apart from enjoying European football for the first time next season – the only thing Palace should be looking forward to right now is Tuesday’s home game against Wolves, because there is going to be one heck of a party at Selhurst Park.They will have to decide who they sell, or keep, in the summer because they have got some very talented players who other clubs may try to sign, but that’s not something they need to think about now.Instead, everyone connected to the club can simply revel in the glory of being FA Cup winners for the first time. It’s an amazing achievement.’Palace won all the individual battles’To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.This video can not be playedThere were so many impressive individual performances from the Palace players, and I thought they were the better team too. They deserved their win, and they certainly gave everything to get it.Whether it was blocking shots, crosses or passes, they all put their bodies on the line. There were so many times where they had two, three or even four men throwing themselves in the way in desperation, doing whatever they could to make a difference, and their determination to stop City was brilliant to watch.Palace seemed to win every tackle, and it was getting the better of all those separate battles that got the team over the line in the end.I don’t think you can put Palace’s victory down to any one thing, but they had that hard work allied with a gameplan that worked – they were happy to let City have the ball, defend deep and then try to hit them on the break.To win the FA Cup you always need a bit of luck too, and perhaps they got that with the decision not to send off goalkeeper Dean Henderson for his handball outside his box when Erling Haaland ran through in the first half.They got away with one there, because if I am a City player then I want that to be a red card and it probably should have been, but there was no luck about the saves Henderson made, including Omar Marmoush’s penalty, and he was another of their heroes.’I’m amazed Haaland gave up a penalty’To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.This video can not be playedWhen City look back at what they could have done differently on Saturday, they will think a lot about that penalty and who should have taken it.Pep Guardiola pretty much confirmed in his post-match interview that it was the players’ responsibility to sort it out, but I am still amazed that Erling Haaland decided to give up a penalty in an FA Cup final.Haaland has missed three penalties already this season and is only just back from injury, but he has still scored 30 goals in all competitions. If I am in his shoes, I am taking that penalty every time.What made the situation even more fascinating was hearing Henderson talking after the game. While he obviously knew exactly where Marmoush was going to put his penalty, he said if Haaland had taken it he didn’t have a clue which way he was going from the spot.That was obviously City’s big opportunity to level, but after that I don’t think they really did enough to get anything out of the game.Nico O’Reilly did have a decent chance before the end and he could have shot earlier, but instead he chose to cut back on to his left foot and was crowded out.Other than that, they had all the ball, of course, in the second half but they did not really move the Palace defence around enough, or open them up at all despite all that pressure.To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.This video can not be played’City have another cup final on Tuesday’City need to get over this disappointment quickly because they have got a massive Premier League game against Bournemouth on Tuesday.As things stand they are in sixth place and out of the Champions League places, so they really need to win it – in effect, it’s another cup final for them.Whether they finish in the top five or not, however, I can see there being a big turnover of players in Pep’s squad over the summer.We know Kevin de Bruyne is leaving and the writing appears to be on the wall for Jack Grealish as well – Guardiola preferred to bring a young kid, Claudio Echeverri, off the bench for his debut when he was desperate for a goal against Palace, rather than send on Grealish, a £100m player.There could be a lot of other changes too, and there has to be really. This City team has been amazing but they have come to the end of their period of dominance and some fresh faces are needed to get them challenging for the Premier League title again.Even if they spend big and bring a few players in, I am not sure whether they can get back to the levels they reached under Guardiola in the past few seasons, when they were the outstanding team in the country.But some kind of improvement is clearly needed. Considering the heights they have hit, for them to be in sixth place with two games to go and without a trophy for the first time since 2016-17 has already made this a very poor season by their high standards.Alan Shearer was speaking to BBC Sport’s Chris Bevan at Wembley.Related topicsManchester CityFA CupCrystal PalaceFootball

BERLIN — Jessica Lia Brösche is a Berlin tattoo artist who was escaping the frigid German winter in the sunshine of northern Mexico. She planned to add a short trip across the border to visit a friend in Los Angeles. But she never made it.Brösche was stopped by Immigration and Customs Enforcement when she tried to enter the United States near San Diego on Jan. 26 — six days after President Trump’s inauguration. The 29-year-old German national was held at the Otay Mesa detention center for six weeks before she was allowed to fly home.“They treat you at the border like you’re a criminal,“ Brösche told The Times after returning to Berlin. “I only wanted to visit a friend in L.A. for a few days.”The German consulate did not comment on the case. In an email to the Associated Press, ICE did not discuss Brösche’s case in detail but said that “if statutes or visa terms are violated, travelers may be subject to detention and removal.”Brösche’s detention made headlines across Europe.“Berlin woman endures ‘horror story’ in U.S. detention center while facing deportation,” wrote one German newspaper. “Is the USA cracking down on German tourists entering the country?” wrote another.Brösche’s experience — and media reports of other Germans or Europeans being detained by immigration authorities — may have contributed to a chill in travel to the United States, which is normally one of the most popular overseas destinations for Germans, with more than 2 million visitors each year. There was an appreciable drop in visitors to the United States from Europe in March, after the Trump administration introduced an aggressive crackdown on immigration. The number of German visitors fell most precipitously — 28% fewer in March compared to the previous March, according to data from the International Trade Administration, a German government agency. There were also far fewer Germans arriving in California in March, down 26% to 20,847 from March 2024, the agency said. Visit California, a nonprofit organization for tourism, recently lowered its forecast for 2025 spending by all visitors in the state by $6 billion to $160 billion after seeing the first quarter decline. ‘I don’t want to take a chance of ending up stopped at the airport and then taken to a prison in El Salvador, with my hair shaved off and forced to kneel in line with prisoners.’ — Karolina Pieper, German citizen Reflecting diminished demand to visit California, airfares from Germany have fallen too. Seats on mid-summer round-trip flights from Berlin to Los Angeles can now be found for as little as $500, or about half as expensive as a year ago.The trend has raised alarm because visitors from abroad have an important impact on the U.S. economy — especially in California, one of the leading destinations for German tourists. A banner featuring President Trump hangs near the entrance of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington. There was an appreciable drop in visitors to the United States from Europe in March, after the Trump administration introduced an aggressive crackdown on immigration. (Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty Images) Adam Sacks, president of Tourism Economics, told The Times that his independent organization had lowered its forecast for tourism to the U.S. from a gain of 9% in 2025 to a drop of 9% because of the turbulence caused since Trump took office. “Simply put, international leisure travelers have complete discretion on when and where they travel, and negative perceptions are reducing interest in visiting the U.S.,“ Sacks wrote in an email.Germans, who receive six weeks of paid vacation each year, are among the world’s most hearty travelers and their absence this summer would likely be felt at California hot spots such as Universal Studios, Disneyland, beaches and Death Valley. Germans spent $112 billion on foreign travel in 2023, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization, trailing only Chinese visitors ($197 billion) and Americans ($150 billion). The absence of German tourists this summer would likely be felt at California hot spots such as Universal Studios. Germans spent $112 billion on foreign travel in 2023, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization. (Amanda Villegas / For The Times) Residents of other countries have sworn off U.S. travel to protest Trump’s policies on immigration, foreign affairs or tariffs. Many Canadians have been staying away, most notably from Palm Springs, which usually hosts a large contingent of Canadians.The decline in German tourists, however, reflects not politics, but fear. Brösche was widely quoted in the German press as saying that she was held in a small cell for nine days. “Being in solitary confinement was hard,” she told The Times. “I had headaches and started getting panic attacks. I was on the verge of losing it.“ The company that owns the detention center, CoreCivic, has denied she was held in such confinement.“I love traveling to the States but I don’t think I’m going to risk it this year,” said Karolina Pieper, a 39-year-old civil servant from Mainz who usually vacations in the United States three times each year. “I don’t want to take a chance of ending up stopped at the airport and then taken to a prison in El Salvador, with my hair shaved off and forced to kneel in line with prisoners.”Germans with business dealings in the U.S. also report growing anxiety. Martin Moszkowicz, an executive at Constantin Film, said that some German actors and writers, who in the past had posted criticism of Trump on social media, were leery about traveling to the United States for fear of being detained.“This is all creating a lot of uncertainty, and that is never good for business,” Moszkowicz said. A traveler waits inside the Delta Airlines terminal at Los Angeles International Airport. The number of German visitors to the United States was down 28% in March from the year before, according to data from the International Trade Administration, a German government agency. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) News reports of Germans undergoing special scrutiny when trying to enter the U.S. continue to circulate.A German electrical engineer named Fabian Schmidt, 34, has had a green card since 2008. But he was detained at Boston’s Logan Airport when returning from a visit to Germany on March 7 and held for two months. His mother, Astrid Senior, was quoted in German media reports saying he had been deprived of sleep, food and water when he was held for three weeks in detention in Rhode Island. She said the authorities would not let him have his anxiety medication and that his condition deteriorated to the point that he had to be taken to a hospital.“I would have a real problem with all the stress going to the United States now,” said Udo Grelzik, 64, a solar power entrepreneur from a Berlin suburb. “All these stories of Germans getting arrested at the border just for trying to visit on vacation. I couldn’t handle the interrogation. My English isn’t very good and I’d be scared of saying something wrong. And then end up in jail just because I misunderstood something. No thanks.”Grelzik said he will instead spend a few weeks this year in Canada. Brösche said she was at first told by authorities that they suspected she was attempting to work illegally in the U.S. because she was traveling with her tattoo equipment, then told her that she had stayed longer than the 90 days allowed on her visa during a trip to Chicago two years ago. She said immigration authorities later told her that she had been caught trying to enter the U.S. illegally. Brösche said all those statements were untrue. She did have her tattooing equipment, she said, but was planning to ink a fellow tattoo artist, not to work professionally.Others have reported being strip-searched, handcuffed and locked up, often without explanation.“It was really humiliating,” Maria Lepere, a 19-year-old German from Rostock who was detained along with her friend Charlotte Pohl, also 19, at the Honolulu airport for 24 hours in March. Lepere insisted she and Pohl had valid visas, but a Customs and Border Protection official quoted in the New York Post said the pair had attempted to enter the United States “under false pretenses,” with the goal of working, not visiting as tourists.Lepere said she was told authorities were suspicious about their planned three-week stay in Hawaii because they had booked a hotel only for the first part of their visit. The pair, who had been traveling the world, had their mug shots taken, were denied entry and flew back to Tokyo.They found the mug shot episode so absurd, Lepere said, that they they were pictured smiling and almost laughing when they were photographed.“It was just insane,” Lepere said. “We couldn’t comprehend it. They put us through metal detectors and our whole bodies were scanned. We had to stand naked in front of the police women and let them check us out.”The German government on March 18 issued a travel advisory about the United States, warning on its website that U.S. border control agents have the final decision on entry even if travelers are holding valid visas, and added that even the slightest irregularity or infraction could result in detention.German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul called the treatment of German tourists at border controls “unacceptable” and said he would lodge protests with U.S. authorities.As for Brösche, she said that as loath as she is to visit the United States again, she would not completely rule out the possibility of one day coming to Los Angeles.“I can’t forget about what happened but I can forgive — and if I could get to L.A. without any hassles at the border, I’d love to see L.A.,” she said.Kirschbaum is a special correspondent. More to Read

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday told conservative judges in Texas they must offer a hearing to detained Venezuelans whom the Trump administration wants to send to a prison in El Salvador.The justices, over two dissents, rebuked Texas judges and Trump administration lawyers for moving quickly on a weekend in mid-April to put these men on planes. That led to a post-midnight order from the high court that told the administration it may “not remove any member of the putative class of detainees.” The administration had argued it had the authority to deport the men as “alien enemies” under a wartime law adopted in 1798.On Friday, the court issued an unusual eight-page order to explain their earlier decision. In doing so, the justices faulted a federal judge in Lubbock, Texas, and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for taking no action to protect the due process rights of the detained men. The ruling noted that the government “may remove the named plaintiffs or putative class members under other lawful authorities.”The order carries a clear message that the justices are troubled by the Trump administration’s pressure to fast-track deportations and by the unwillingness of some judges to protect the rights to due process of law. After the ruling was issued, President Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday: “THE SUPREME COURT WON’T ALLOW US TO GET CRIMINALS OUT OF OUR COUNTRY.” He added in a second post: “This decision will let more CRIMINALS pour into our Country, doing great harm to our cherished American public.”Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project and lead counsel, said in a statement: “The court’s decision to stay removals is a powerful rebuke to the government’s attempt to hurry people away to a Gulag-type prison in El Salvador. The use of a wartime authority during peacetime, without even affording due process, raises issues of profound importance.”On a Saturday in mid-March, Trump’s immigration officials sent three planeloads of detainees from Texas to the maximum-security prison in El Salvador before a federal judge in Washington could intervene. The prisoners included Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who had an immigration order that was supposed to protect him from being sent back to his native El Salvador. Afterward, Trump officials said the detained men, including Abrego Garcia, could not be returned to this country. They did so even though the Supreme Court had said they had a duty to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return. The same scenario was nearly repeated in mid-April, but from a different prison in Texas. ACLU lawyers rushed to file an emergency appeal with U.S. District Judge James Hendrix. They said some of the detained men were on buses headed for the airport. They argued they deserved a hearing because many of them said they were not members of a crime gang. The judge denied the appeals for all but two of the detained men. The 5th Circuit upheld the judge’s lack of action and blamed the detainees, saying they gave the judge “only 42 minutes to act.”The Supreme Court disagreed with both on Friday and overturned a decision of the 5th Circuit. “A district court’s inaction in the face of extreme urgency and a high risk of ‘serious, perhaps irreparable’ consequences” left the detained men with no options, the court said. “Here, the district court’s inaction — not for 42 minutes but for 14 hours and 28 minutes — had the practical effect of refusing an injunction to detainees facing an imminent threat of severe, irreparable harm,” the justices wrote. “The 5th Amendment entitles aliens to due process of law in the context of removal proceedings. Procedural due process rules are meant to protect” against “the mistaken or unjustified deprivation of life, liberty, or property,” the majority said. “We have long held that no person shall be removed from the United States without opportunity, at some time, to be heard.”Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Clarence Thomas dissented last month, and they did the same on Friday. Friday’s ruling doesn’t affect the status of the men who were already sent to El Salvador. More to Read

SEOUL — In South Korea, the Trump administration’s 25% tariff on imported cars has sent local automakers Hyundai and Kia scrambling to protect one of the country’s most valuable exports. But General Motors, which last year shipped 418,782 units from its factories here to American consumers — or 88.5% of its total sales — may be facing a much larger predicament.Unlike Hyundai and Kia, which control over 90% of the domestic market here, the Detroit-based automaker produces budget SUVs like the Chevrolet Trax or Chevrolet Trailblazer almost exclusively for the U.S. market. The Trax has been South Korea’s most-exported car since 2023.That business model has made GM, which operates three factories and employs some 11,000 workers in the country, uniquely exposed to Trump’s auto tariffs, resurfacing long-running concerns in the local automobile industry that the company may ultimately pack up and leave.Until last month’s tariffs, cars sold between the U.S. and South Korea were untaxed under a bilateral free trade agreement. That helped South Korea become the third-largest automobile exporter to the U.S. last year to the tune of $34.7 billion — or around half of its total automobile exports. In contrast, South Korea bought just $2.1 billion worth of cars from the U.S.Earlier this month, GM executives estimated that the tariffs would cost the company up to $5 billion this year, adding that the company would boost production in its U.S. plants to offset the hit. With additional factories in Mexico and Canada, GM currently imports around half of the cars that it sells in the U.S.“If the U.S. tariffs remain in place, GM will no longer have any reason to stay in South Korea,” said Lee Ho-guen, an automotive engineering professor at Daeduk University.“The tariffs may add up to $10,000 to the sticker price on cars shipped to the U.S., while GM sells less than 50,000 units a year in South Korea. There is very little room for them to adjust their strategy.”Kim Woong-heon, an official in GM Korea’s labor union, said that the union is approaching current rumors of the company’s potential exit with a dose of caution, but added that broader concerns about the company’s long-term commitment remain.“The cars we’re manufacturing here are on the lowest end of GM’s price range so labor costs will make it impossible to immediately shift production to the U.S.,” he said.“But we have painful memories of GM shutting down one of its factories in 2018, so we get nervous every time these rumors surface.” GM Chevrolet automobiles bound for export sit parked at the Port of Incheon in South Korea. (SeongJoon Cho / Bloomberg via Getty Images) This isn’t the first time that GM’s prospects in the country have come under question. The company first established itself in South Korea in 2002 by acquiring the bankrupt Daewoo Motor Co. in a government-backed deal that some at the time criticized as “GM taking the cream off Daewoo for almost nothing.”Struggling to compete with the likes of Hyundai, GM briefly positioned itself as a production base for European and Asian markets until its bankruptcy in 2009.Amid the global restructuring efforts that followed, concerns that it would close its South Korean operations led the government to once again intervene. In the end, GM stayed after receiving $750 million in financing from the country’s development bank on the condition that it would remain open for at least 10 more years.But in 2018, the company closed its factory in the city of Gunsan, which had employed around 1,800 workers, and spun off its research and development unit from its manufacturing base — a move that many saw as the company strategically placing one foot out the door.In February, shortly after President Trump announced the 25% tariffs on foreign-made cars, Paul Jacobson, GM’s chief financial officer, hinted that the company may once again be facing similarly tough decisions:“If they become permanent, then there’s a whole bunch of different things that you have to think about in terms of, where do you allocate plants, and do you move plants.”In recent weeks, executives from GM Korea have sought to assuage the rumors that the company’s South Korean operations would be affected.“We do not intend to respond to rumors about the company’s exit from Korea,” said Gustavo Colossi, GM Korea’s vice president of sales, at a news conference last month. “We plan to move forward with our sales strategies in Korea and continue launching new models in the coming weeks and months, introducing fresh GM offerings to the market.”The union says the company’s two finished car plants have been running at full capacity, with an additional 21,000 units recently allocated to the factory in Incheon, a city off the country’s western coast — a sign that business will go on as usual for now.But with GM’s 10-year guarantee set to expire in 2027, Kim, the union official, said that their demands for measures that prove the company’s commitment beyond that have gone unanswered.These include manufacturing GM’s electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles in South Korean factories, as well as making a greater range of its products available for sale in South Korea and other Asian markets.”If the company intends to continue its operations here, it needs to make its business model more sustainable and not as reliant on imports to the U.S.,” Kim said.“That will be our core demand at this year’s wage and collective bargaining negotiations.”GM’s immediate prospects in the country will depend on the ongoing tariff talks between U.S. and South Korean officials that began last month with the goal of producing a deal by July 8.Although South Korean trade minister Ahn Duk-geun has stressed that cars are “the most important part of the U.S.-South Korea trade relationship,” few expect that Seoul will be able to finesse the sort of deal given to the U.K., which last week secured a 10% rate on the first 100,000 vehicles shipped to the U.S. each year.Unlike South Korea, which posted a $66-billion trade surplus with the U.S. last year, the U.K. buys more from the U.S. than it sells. And many of the cars that it does sell to the U.S. are luxury vehicles such as the Rolls-Royce, which Trump has differentiated from the “monster car companies” that make “millions of cars.”“At some point after the next two years, I believe it’s highly likely GM will leave and keep only their research and development unit here, or at least significantly cut back on their production,” Lee, the automotive professor, said.In the southeastern port city of Changwon, home to the smaller of GM’s two finished car plants, local officials have been reluctant to give air to what they describe as premature fearmongering.But Woo Choon-ae, a 62-year-old real estate agent whose clients also include GM workers and their families, can’t help but worry.She says that the company’s exit would be devastating to the city, which, like many rural areas, has already been under strain from population decline.GM employs 2,800 workers in the region, but accounts for thousands more jobs at its suppliers. The Changwon factory, which manufactures the Trax, represented around 15% of the city’s total exports last year.“People work for GM because it offers stable employment until retirement age. If they close the factory here, all of these workers will leave to find work in other cities, which will be a critical blow to the housing market,” she said.“Homes are how people save money in South Korea. But if people’s savings are suddenly halved, who’s going to be spending money on things like dining out?” More to Read