WASHINGTON: The top Democrat in the US Congress warned Wednesday that lawmakers would block a trade pact with Britain if its exit from the EU undermines Northern Ireland’s peace accord.
President Donald Trump and senior advisers to Britain’s new Prime Minister Boris Johnson have spoken recently of fast-tracking a bilateral trade deal once Brexit is complete.
But any such agreement would need the green light from Congress, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — Trump’s political nemesis on Capitol Hill — made clear she would not play ball if the Irish peace deal were put at risk.
Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom and is thus set to leave the European Union while the neighboring Republic of Ireland is a separate EU member state.
Reimposing controls along their shared border if Britain leaves without a deal — a so-called “hard Brexit” — would put the 1998 peace deal in jeopardy.
“Whatever form it takes, Brexit cannot be allowed to imperil the Good Friday Agreement, including the seamless border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland,” Pelosi said in a statement.
“If Brexit undermines the Good Friday accord, there will be no chance of a US-UK trade agreement passing the Congress.”
The 1998 Good Friday Agreement brought the decades-old Northern Ireland conflict to an end. But how to handle Northern Ireland has emerged as a core issue for Brexit negotiators.
Critics have warned that Brexit might require reimposing a hard border on the island, a move that would essentially upend the agreement that has kept peace in Northern Ireland for the past two decades.
Goods and people freely cross the border, as both countries are currently members of the EU, and the withdrawal agreement negotiated last year between London and Brussels contains a “backstop” plan to maintain this situation whatever happens with Brexit.
However, British MPs have rejected it three times and Johnson warns the backstop must go or Britain will leave the EU on October 31 without any deal.
Pelosi, a master legislator, strongly signaled that Republicans would join her Democrats in opposing a trade pact if Brexit undermines the peace deal.
“The peace of the Good Friday Agreement is treasured by the American people and will be fiercely defended on a bicameral and bipartisan basis in the United States Congress,” she said.
The Republican co-chair of the Friends of Ireland group in the US Congress, Pete King, reportedly said jeopardizing the open border was a “needless provocation” over which his party would have no hesitation defying Trump.
Those in Congress with a strong belief in Northern Ireland and the Good Friday agreement “would certainly be willing to go against the president,” King told The Guardian.
After his first phone call with the new British leader late last month, Trump said talks on a “very substantial” post-Brexit trade deal were already underway.
Last week Johnson dispatched top aides including Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to Washington in a bid to fast-track the negotiations.
And on Monday US National Security Adviser John Bolton, a hawkish Trump aide, said Washington wanted to “move very quickly” on the trade pact after Britain exits the EU.
House Democrat Brendan Boyle called Bolton’s trade talk “nonsensical” and said the comments should not be taken seriously. Boyle added on Twitter that he “strongly” supports Pelosi’s position.
Any US trade deal needs final approval from the US Congress, where political power is split: Pelosi’s Democrats control the House of Representatives, while the Senate is led by Republicans.
Dozens of US lawmakers claim Irish ancestry, and the Friends of Ireland caucus in Congress has long advocated for peace and justice in Ireland and Northern Ireland.
George Mitchell, a former US Senate majority leader with Irish roots, was president Bill Clinton’s envoy to Northern Ireland and led the all-party peace negotiations in the 1990s.
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Pelosi vows to thwart US-UK trade deal if Brexit risks Irish peace
Pelosi vows to thwart US-UK trade deal if Brexit risks Irish peace
- Donald Trump and senior advisers to Britain’s new Prime Minister Boris Johnson have spoken recently of fast-tracking a bilateral trade deal once Brexit is complete
- Any such agreement would need the green light from Congress, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — Trump’s political nemesis on Capitol Hill — made clear she would not play ball if the Irish peace deal were put at risk
Trump set to expand immigration crackdown in 2026 despite brewing backlash
- Trump plans to increase workplace raids despite political risks
- ICE and Border Patrol to receive $170 billion funding boost
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump is preparing for a more aggressive immigration crackdown in 2026 with billions in new funding, including by raiding more workplaces — even as backlash builds ahead of next year’s midterm elections. Trump has already surged immigration agents into major US cities, where they swept through neighborhoods and clashed with residents. While federal agents this year conducted some high-profile raids on businesses, they largely avoided raiding farms, factories and other businesses that are economically important but known to employ immigrants without legal status. ICE and Border Patrol will get $170 billion in additional funds through September 2029 — a huge surge of funding over their existing annual budgets of about $19 billion after the Republican-controlled Congress passed a massive spending package in July. Administration officials say they plan to hire thousands more agents, open new detention centers, pick up more immigrants in local jails and partner with outside companies to track down people without legal status.
The expanded deportation plans come despite growing signs of political backlash ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
Miami, one of the cities most affected by Trump’s crackdown because of its large immigrant population, elected its first Democratic mayor in nearly three decades last week in what the mayor-elect said was, in part, a reaction to the president. Other local elections and polling have suggested rising concern among voters wary of aggressive immigration tactics. “People are beginning to see this not as an immigration question anymore as much as it is a violation of rights, a violation of due process and militarizing neighborhoods extraconstitutionally,” said Mike Madrid, a moderate Republican political strategist. “There is no question that is a problem for the president and Republicans.” Trump’s overall approval rating on immigration policy fell from 50 percent in March, before he launched crackdowns in several major US cities, to 41 percent in mid-December, for what had been his strongest issue. Rising public unease has focused on masked federal agents using aggressive tactics such as deploying tear gas in residential neighborhoods and detaining US citizens.
’NUMBERS WILL EXPLODE’
In addition to expanding enforcement actions, Trump has stripped hundreds of thousands of Haitian, Venezuelan and Afghan immigrants of temporary legal status, expanding the pool of people who could be deported as the president promises to remove 1 million immigrants each year – a goal he almost certainly will miss this year. So far, some 622,000 immigrants have been deported since Trump took office in January.
White House border czar Tom Homan told Reuters Trump had delivered on his promise of a historic deportation operation and removing criminals while shutting down illegal immigration across the US-Mexico border. Homan said the number of arrests will increase sharply as ICE hires more officers and expands detention capacity with the new funding.
“I think you’re going to see the numbers explode greatly next year,” Homan said.
Homan said the plans “absolutely” include more enforcement actions at workplaces.
Sarah Pierce, director of social policy at the center-left group Third Way, said US businesses have been reluctant to push back on Trump’s immigration crackdown in the past year but could be prompted to speak up if the focus turns to employers.
Pierce said it will be interesting to see “whether or not businesses finally stand up to this administration.”
Trump, a Republican, recaptured the White House promising record levels of deportations, saying it was needed after years of high levels of illegal immigration under his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden. He kicked off a campaign that dispatched federal agents to US cities in search of possible immigration offenders, sparking protests and lawsuits over racial profiling and violent tactics.
Some businesses shut down to avoid raids or because of a lack of customers. Parents vulnerable to arrest kept their children home from school or had neighbors walk them. Some US citizens started carrying passports. Despite the focus on criminals in its public statements, government data shows that the Trump administration has been arresting more people who have not been charged with any crimes beyond their alleged immigration violations than previous administrations.
Some 41 percent of the roughly 54,000 people arrested by ICE and detained by late November had no criminal record beyond a suspected immigration violation, agency figures show. In the first few weeks in January, before Trump took office, just 6 percent of those arrested and detained by ICE were not facing charges for other crimes or previously convicted. The Trump administration has taken aim at legal immigrants as well. Agents have arrested spouses of US citizens at their green card interviews, pulled people from certain countries out of their naturalization ceremonies, moments before they were to become citizens, and revoked thousands of student visas.
PLANS TO TARGET EMPLOYERS
The administration’s planned focus on job sites in the coming year could generate many more arrests and affect the US economy and Republican-leaning business owners.
Replacing immigrants arrested during workplace raids could lead to higher labor costs, undermining Trump’s fight against inflation, which analysts expect to be a major issue in the closely watched November elections, determining control of Congress. Administration officials earlier this year exempted such businesses from enforcement on Trump’s orders, then quickly reversed, Reuters reported at the time.
Some immigration hard-liners have called for more workplace enforcement.
“Eventually you’re going to have to go after these employers,” said Jessica Vaughan, policy director for the Center for Immigration Studies, which backs lower levels of immigration. “When that starts happening the employers will start cleaning up their acts on their own.”
The expanded deportation plans come despite growing signs of political backlash ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
Miami, one of the cities most affected by Trump’s crackdown because of its large immigrant population, elected its first Democratic mayor in nearly three decades last week in what the mayor-elect said was, in part, a reaction to the president. Other local elections and polling have suggested rising concern among voters wary of aggressive immigration tactics. “People are beginning to see this not as an immigration question anymore as much as it is a violation of rights, a violation of due process and militarizing neighborhoods extraconstitutionally,” said Mike Madrid, a moderate Republican political strategist. “There is no question that is a problem for the president and Republicans.” Trump’s overall approval rating on immigration policy fell from 50 percent in March, before he launched crackdowns in several major US cities, to 41 percent in mid-December, for what had been his strongest issue. Rising public unease has focused on masked federal agents using aggressive tactics such as deploying tear gas in residential neighborhoods and detaining US citizens.
’NUMBERS WILL EXPLODE’
In addition to expanding enforcement actions, Trump has stripped hundreds of thousands of Haitian, Venezuelan and Afghan immigrants of temporary legal status, expanding the pool of people who could be deported as the president promises to remove 1 million immigrants each year – a goal he almost certainly will miss this year. So far, some 622,000 immigrants have been deported since Trump took office in January.
White House border czar Tom Homan told Reuters Trump had delivered on his promise of a historic deportation operation and removing criminals while shutting down illegal immigration across the US-Mexico border. Homan said the number of arrests will increase sharply as ICE hires more officers and expands detention capacity with the new funding.
“I think you’re going to see the numbers explode greatly next year,” Homan said.
Homan said the plans “absolutely” include more enforcement actions at workplaces.
Sarah Pierce, director of social policy at the center-left group Third Way, said US businesses have been reluctant to push back on Trump’s immigration crackdown in the past year but could be prompted to speak up if the focus turns to employers.
Pierce said it will be interesting to see “whether or not businesses finally stand up to this administration.”
Trump, a Republican, recaptured the White House promising record levels of deportations, saying it was needed after years of high levels of illegal immigration under his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden. He kicked off a campaign that dispatched federal agents to US cities in search of possible immigration offenders, sparking protests and lawsuits over racial profiling and violent tactics.
Some businesses shut down to avoid raids or because of a lack of customers. Parents vulnerable to arrest kept their children home from school or had neighbors walk them. Some US citizens started carrying passports. Despite the focus on criminals in its public statements, government data shows that the Trump administration has been arresting more people who have not been charged with any crimes beyond their alleged immigration violations than previous administrations.
Some 41 percent of the roughly 54,000 people arrested by ICE and detained by late November had no criminal record beyond a suspected immigration violation, agency figures show. In the first few weeks in January, before Trump took office, just 6 percent of those arrested and detained by ICE were not facing charges for other crimes or previously convicted. The Trump administration has taken aim at legal immigrants as well. Agents have arrested spouses of US citizens at their green card interviews, pulled people from certain countries out of their naturalization ceremonies, moments before they were to become citizens, and revoked thousands of student visas.
PLANS TO TARGET EMPLOYERS
The administration’s planned focus on job sites in the coming year could generate many more arrests and affect the US economy and Republican-leaning business owners.
Replacing immigrants arrested during workplace raids could lead to higher labor costs, undermining Trump’s fight against inflation, which analysts expect to be a major issue in the closely watched November elections, determining control of Congress. Administration officials earlier this year exempted such businesses from enforcement on Trump’s orders, then quickly reversed, Reuters reported at the time.
Some immigration hard-liners have called for more workplace enforcement.
“Eventually you’re going to have to go after these employers,” said Jessica Vaughan, policy director for the Center for Immigration Studies, which backs lower levels of immigration. “When that starts happening the employers will start cleaning up their acts on their own.”
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