In 1968, students at Columbia University stormed the school president’s office to protest racism and involvement in the Vietnam War. Before the protest ended, they had held the university president for 24 hours and were successful in effecting change.

That same year, college students in North Carolina staged sit-ins at segregated lunch counters that spread to 30 cities throughout the South.

Around the same time, students at Howard University — then called “Black Harvard” — staged sit-ins to call for the resignation of the school’s president for neglecting issues brought up by the student body.

Fifty years later, as the United States commemorates the events of that decade and the 50th anniversary of the assassination of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., student activists are again a major force in political change in America.

The anti-gun violence movement — including #March4OurLives, which was organized by students who survived a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida — drew hundreds of thousands of people to the nation’s capital. At Howard, students have held a dayslong sit-in at the campus administration building to protest alleged corruption.

Jennia Taylor, a senior at Spelman College and a graduate of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, said that, like youth activists in 1968, her generation has reached their “tipping point.” They are fed up with a lack of political action following school shootings, as well as other issues, she said.

“I think that what has happened is there’s peaks in our society — tipping points, as we like to call it — so, we came to that point for our generation,” she told VOA.

Taylor, who has started a social justice youth coalition in Georgia after having organized Atlanta’s #March4OurLives event last month, said she and her colleagues “absolutely” drew inspiration from Martin Luther King Jr. and youth movements of the 1960s.

“Just to even have a basis of how they organized is so helpful,” she said.

“It’s not uncommon for high school students and even younger students and, of course, college students, to be involved in a movement,” Arwin Smallwood, professor and chair of the history department at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (A&T), told VOA.

“In 1968, most of the students involved were college students,” he added, noting in particular the “A&T four” students who staged the first sit-ins to protest segregated lunch counters in the South.

While youths have frequently been involved in social and political movements, Smallwood noted that today’s activism, particularly arguing for gun control, resembles movements of 1968 because of the universal relatability, which crosses gender, race and class.

“Most people around the world knew who Martin Luther King was,” he said. “Most people felt the same despair, disappointment, hurt and, in some cases, anger.”

King’s granddaughter, 9-year-old Yolanda Renee King, spoke at the #March4OurLives event in Washington about a week before the anniversary of King’s death.

“My grandfather had a dream that his four little children will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character,” King told a crowd of hundreds of thousands, invoking her grandfather’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech from 1963.

“I have a dream that enough is enough, and that this should be a gun-free world, period,” she added, going on to lead the crowd in a call-and-response, declaring that “we are going to be a great generation.”

Many student activists in the crowd said the elder King’s teachings inspired them to participate in the march.

Quintez Brown, a high school student who traveled from Kentucky, told VOA that though he had learned about King in elementary school, he only truly understood his principle of nonviolence after reading one of his books.

“Today’s march is an example of MLK’s nonviolence direct-action strategy. We are here creating tension in the nation’s capital,” he said.

“We are here creating conflict. We are creating a disturbance in the nation. We are here to raise awareness because we don’t have to be violent. All we had to do was raise our voices up and appeal to the morality of this nation, and we can make change. And MLK helped me realize that, and that’s why I am here.”

Dan Brown contributed to this report.
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The United States involvement in Syria is “coming to a rapid end,” but the White House is refusing to say when that end will come despite repeated, public calls by President Donald Trump for U.S. forces there to come home.

“The military mission to eradicate ISIS in Syria is coming to a rapid end, with ISIS being almost completely destroyed,” the White House said in a statement Wednesday, using an acronym for the Islamic State (IS) terror group.

“The United States and our partners remain committed to eliminating the small ISIS presence in Syria that our forces have not already eradicated,” it continued. “We will continue to consult with our allies and friends regarding future plans.”

The statement, issued a day after Trump said, “I want to bring our troops back home,” comes after what multiple sources have described as an “all-hands” national security meeting on Syria at the White House Tuesday that included Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford.

It also comes after phone calls between Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron, Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Prior to the statement, U.S. military officials had been awaiting possible new marching orders for the country’s involvement in Syria.

Calls for mission to continue

The United States currently has about 2,000 troops in Syria as part of its ongoing efforts to defeat and destroy IS, and despite President Trump’s public pronouncements on Syria, key U.S. officials have been more cautious, urging a continued U.S. role even as the fight against IS winds down.

“We are in Syria to fight ISIS,” said Brett McGurk, the Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat IS, speaking Tuesday at the U.S. Institute for Peace at nearly the same time as the president.

“That is our mission and our mission isn’t over,” he said, adding that the U.S. presence in Syria remains “incredibly effective and strong.”

The top military commander for U.S. forces in the Middle East also indicated U.S. and coalition troops could remain in Syria for some time to come.

“There still are some areas where they [IS] are present and that we will have to continue to operate on,” said U.S. Central Command Commander Gen. Joseph Votel.

“Our goal is to continue to keep pressure on ISIS…and at the same time to continue to work through the other tensions that are very present here in northern Syria,” added Votel.

‘Alarm bells’ for some groups

Votel also indicated the U.S. could continue to have a military presence in Syria, and Iraq, even after IS is thoroughly defeated.

“The hard part I think is in front of us,” the CENTCOM commander said. “There is a military role in this, certainly in the stabilization phase.”

In the meantime, the prospect of pulling all forces from the counter-IS fight is not sitting well with U.S. allies, including the Kurds and Iraq.

“A sudden withdrawal from Syria would send a frightening message,” Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, the Kurdistan Regional Government Representative to the United States, said Tuesday, adding Trump’s comments, “ring alarm bells for us and I’m sure for the people of Syria.”

Iraqi Ambassador to the U.S. Fareed Yasseen expressed similar reservations.

“We still suffer from Syria,” Yasseen said. “Still to this day, we have insurgents crossing the border.”

Rather than see the United States leave Syria, Yasseen said Baghdad would like the U.S. to engage more broadly across the region, and even encourage private companies to look to invest more in Iraq.

 
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Mexican officials on Tuesday screened a dwindling group of hundreds of largely Central American migrants who are moving through Mexico toward the United States, seeking to break up the “caravan” that has drawn the ire of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Trump, doubling down on his tough stance against illegal immigration, has railed against those making their way from the Guatemala-Mexico border in the past 10 days.

Trump repeated threats to torpedo the North American Free Trade Agreement, which underpins much of Mexico’s foreign trade, and said he wanted to send troops to the U.S. border to stop illegal immigrants until a long-promised border wall is built.

In response, the Mexican government has said the migrants are being vetted to determine whether they have a right to stay or will be returned to their countries of origin.

Stuck, waiting

Hundreds of men, women and children from Central America were stuck Tuesday in the town of Matias Romero in the poor southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, awaiting clarification of their legal status after officials began registering them.

Confused and frustrated by paperwork, many were uncertain about what lay in store, and desperate for information.

“What was the point of all this then if they don’t let us stay?” Elizabeth Avalos, 23, a migrant from El Salvador who was traveling with two children, said angrily. “There’s no food, my children haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

Hundreds of people camped out overnight in a park near the town’s train station, with shoes and bags strewn about.

Jaime Alexander Variega, 35, sat alone in a patch of shade and cupped his head in his hands, weeping or praying, his feet still bearing lacerations from walking for four or five days straight through Guatemala from El Salvador.

“We’re not safe in El Salvador,” said the former security guard, his hat smeared in dirt, explaining he had left his home because of the threats from local gangs. “I know it’s difficult to get into the United States. But it’s not impossible.”

Around them, Mexican migration officials with notepads and pens took basic information from the migrants, asking for names, nationalities, dates of birth and proof of identity.

The caravan was organized by U.S-based advocacy group Pueblo Sin Fronteras, which seeks to draw attention to the rights of migrants and provide them with aid. The Mexican government says the caravan, which like others travels by road, rail and on foot, has been organized every year since 2010.

Numbers dwindle

Honduran Carlos Ricardo Ellis Garcia clutched a handwritten list of names belonging to more than 100 people who joined the caravan in the southern border town of Tapachula, where it began on March 25, reaching a peak of around 1,500 people.

But by Tuesday the number was down to about 1,100, according to Pueblo Sin Fronteras spokeswoman Gina Garibo.

Many had broken off from the group, eager to move on more quickly, she said. Many others aimed to stay in Mexico because they had family ties there or planned to work, Garibo said.

“Now they’re separating these groups,” Ellis Garcia said, referring to an estimated 300 people who split from the caravan on Monday. “I don’t know what’s the deal. We have no answers.”

Advocacy groups told Reuters dozens of people left the caravan and traveled to the crime-ridden eastern state of Veracruz, where they were met by migration officials and police.

The government said on Monday evening that about 400 people in the caravan had already been sent back to their home countries.

Geronimo Gutierrez, Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, told CNN that Mexican authorities were “looking at the status of the individuals so we can proceed either with a repatriation process” or offer humanitarian relief. That could include granting asylum or humanitarian visas.

Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala are among the most violent and impoverished countries in the Americas, prompting many people to leave in search of a better life.

Trump, who ran for office in 2016 on a platform to stem the flow of illegal immigrants from Mexico, said he had “told Mexico” he hoped it would halt the caravan.

Political problem

The migrant caravan also poses a political problem for Mexico’s unpopular government in a presidential election year.

President Enrique Pena Nieto is barred by law from seeking re-election in the July 1 vote, but the ruling party candidate is running third, well behind the front-runner.

The government does not want to be seen as kowtowing to threats by Trump, who is deeply unpopular in Mexico.

In a country where millions of people have friends or relatives who have migrated legally or illegally to the United States, many Mexicans harbor sympathy for the Central Americans.
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As Republicans run into a buzz saw of conservative criticism over a deficit-expanding new budget, GOP leaders and the White House are looking for ways to undo the damage by allowing President Donald Trump to rescind some of the spending he signed into law just 10 days ago.

Rolling back the funds would be a highly unusual move and could put some lawmakers in the potentially uncomfortable position of having to vote for specific spending opposed by a president from their party. But it would also offer Republicans a way to save face amid the backlash over the bill that conservatives, and Trump himself, complain gives too much money for Democratic priorities.

Trump has been talking with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, about the plan over the past couple of days, according to an aide to the House leader who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private talks. It is not clear how widely the idea has been embraced by other top Republicans, including House Speaker Paul Ryan or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose offices declined to discuss it.

“There are conversations right now,” said Matt Sparks, a spokesman for McCarthy. “The administration and Congress and McCarthy are talking about it.”

The idea emerged as lawmakers get hammered back home for the $1.3 trillion spending package that, while beefing up funds for the military, also increases spending on transportation, child care and other domestic programs in a compromise with Democrats that Trump derided as a “waste” and “giveaways.”

Trump’s decision to sign the bill into law, after openly toying with a veto, has not quelled the unrest and may have helped fuel it.

“People are mad as hell about it and mad as hell that they put the president in that situation — that he sign the bill or shut the government down,” said Amy Kremer, a founder of the tea party and co-chairman of Women for Trump.

Kremer said Republicans in Congress have lost sight of the voters who propelled them to the majority on an agenda of fiscal restraint. “They are no better than the Democrats,” she said.

Lawmakers home on spring recess are feeling the brunt of the criticism. Representative Mark Amodei, a Republican from Nevada, said he encountered a finger-wagging voter back home almost as soon as he stepped off the airplane.

Fox News host Sean Hannity asked, “What happened to the Republican Party?” after Trump signed the bill. “Republicans should be ashamed of themselves,” he added.

In some ways, the rescission proposal is as close as Trump can get to the line-item veto, which he called on Congress to enact even though the Supreme Court decided in 1998 that it would violate the authority the Constitution gives Congress on legislation.

The idea centers on a rarely used provision of the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impound Control Act. It allows the White House to propose rescinding funds and sets a 45-day clock for the House and Senate to vote.

Congress could simply ignore the president’s request and keep the funds in place.

Sparks didn’t specify how much spending could be rescinded or in what categories. But Trump would likely seek to focus on domestic spending he has attacked in recent tweets.

Trump has been particularly upset the package did not include $25 billion he sought for the border wall with Mexico, even after the bill burst through previously set budget caps for military and domestic spending.

Ryan and Trump have not yet talked this week, an aide to the speaker said, but likely will by week’s end.

Voting, though, could be difficult, even for fiscally conservative Republicans, since Trump’s targets may be popular projects or programs back home, said Gordon Gray, the director of Fiscal Policy at the center-right American Action Forum, who notes the rescission tool is not as popular as it was when introduced in the Nixon era more than 40 years ago.

Passage would not be certain, especially in the Senate, where Republicans hold a slim 51-49 majority.
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Anticipating an unpredictable president’s next moves, U.S. officials have started planning for the likelihood President Donald Trump will announce next month that the United States is withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal.

But no one knows exactly what would happen next, nor how Iran would respond.

Still, with less than five weeks to go until Trump’s deadline, national security officials are exploring various “day after” scenarios. Those scenarios include how to sell a pullout as the correct strategy, how aggressively to reimpose U.S. sanctions on Iran that had been lifted under the deal, and how to deal with Iranian and European fallout from such a step, according to officials, diplomats and outside advisers to the administration.

The planning is at an early stage but has taken on greater urgency as mid-May nears, which is when Trump has said he’ll walk away unless his concerns about the accord are addressed. Another catalyst is the anticipated arrival of two new Trump aides strongly opposed to the deal: Mike Pompeo and John Bolton.

Pompeo, the CIA director whom Trump has nominated for his next secretary of state, was briefed last week on the Iran deal by top State Department aides, including policy planning chief Brian Hook and Andrew Peek, the deputy assistant secretary for Iran, U.S. officials said.

Both are opponents

Both Pompeo and Bolton, who takes over next week as Trump’s national security adviser, have been highly critical of the 2015 nuclear deal, and their appointments seemed to signal that one of former President Barack Obama’s signature foreign policy achievements might soon be history.

Another complicating factor is Trump’s stated desire to withdraw U.S. personnel and resources from Syria, which many Iran hawks believe will cede the country to Tehran. Leaving Syria to keep his campaign promise of disentangling the U.S. military from the Middle East may force Trump’s hand on the nuclear deal, according to those who have expressed dismay at the president’s desire to pull back.

“I want to get out. I want to bring our troops back,” Trump said Tuesday. “Sometimes, it’s time to come back home.”

Iran has said U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal and the reimposition of sanctions would destroy the agreement, and it has threatened a range of responses, including immediately restarting nuclear activities currently barred under the deal.

U.S. sanctions that were lifted in exchange for Iran’s curbing of its nuclear program fall into several baskets, including some that can be restored by executive order and some that would require congressional action to reimpose. Some sanctions target Iranians entities only, while others punish third-country companies for doing business with Iran.

Delay in enforcement

One option being considered by the Treasury Department, which enforces sanctions, would be to immediately snap back sanctions that don’t need action from Congress but to delay their enforcement by four to six months, according to people familiar with the matter. That would give companies and governments time to prepare to comply with the changes. It would also keep the door open for last-minute changes that could address Trump’s concerns.

Another option would reimpose U.S. sanctions but carve out certain exemptions that could allow Europe and Iran to remain in the agreement without U.S. participation. Then it would up to Tehran to decide whether the benefits of a deal that no longer includes the U.S. would be valuable enough to keep it alive.

The planning effort has also been spurred by growing signs that U.S.-European negotiations to address what Trump says are flaws in the agreement are deadlocked and unlikely to produce an outcome acceptable to the president before May 12. Complicating those talks is uncertainty over what might actually persuade Trump to stay in the deal, which he has called the worst ever negotiated by the United States. Diplomats involved in those discussions are increasingly pessimistic that a viable compromise is possible.

“We’ve gone from a strategy of ‘decertify, fix the deal and pressure Iran in the region’ to what increasingly appears to be one of ‘decertify, nix the deal and withdraw from the region,’ ” said Iran deal critic Mark Dubowitz, the executive director of the conservative Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, who has pushed for tightening the accord.

As the Europeans work to salvage the deal, France, Britain and Germany have been working to persuade their fellow EU members to agree to new non-nuclear sanctions on Iran, including some related to Tehran’s actions in Syria, said one European diplomat.

The goal is to tee up a “package” of actions to present to Trump as evidence that the Europeans are taking his concerns about Iran seriously and demonstrating willingness to act. But it’s unclear if the EU will agree to the new sanctions. Several nations have objected, arguing it’s illogical to make concessions to Trump when it’s not at all clear that will be enough to keep him in the deal.

Worst case for Europeans

The nightmare scenario for the Europeans is that they would go out on a limb by adopting sanctions they don’t really want in the first place, only to see Trump walk away from the nuclear deal anyway, said the diplomat, who wasn’t authorized to discuss the situation and requested anonymity.

“We need to find a solution that works for Trump and we’re working hard on that,” said a second European diplomat.

On two of Trump’s concerns — Iran’s ballistic missile testing and destabilizing behavior in the region — the U.S. and Europe have largely reached consensus that Tehran can and should be punished. But the two sides remain far apart on Trump’s third concern: the “sunset provisions” that gradually allow Iran to resume advanced nuclear work after several years.

Trump is demanding that those restrictions be extended or made permanent, but Iran and the Europeans argue that’s unworkable because it would be tantamount to renegotiating the deal, which they have vowed not to do. Both sides have offered possible compromises on the sunset provisions but none have yet met muster, according to the diplomats.
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