U.S. Department of the Interior officials are visiting Native American communities to learn about the impact of government-run residential schools on former students and their families. The institutions once suppressed Native cultures, but the few schools that remain now celebrate them. Mike O’Sullivan reports from Riverside, California.
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A mother is suing the city of Detroit, saying unreliable facial recognition technology led to her being falsely arrested for carjacking while she was eight months pregnant. 

Porcha Woodruff was getting her two children ready for school the morning of February 16 when a half-dozen police officers showed up at her door to arrest her, taking her away in handcuffs, the 32-year-old Detroit woman said in a federal lawsuit.

“They presented her with an arrest warrant for robbery and carjacking, leaving her baffled and assuming it was a joke, given her visibly pregnant state,” her attorney wrote in a lawsuit accusing the city of false arrest. 

The suit, filed Thursday, argues that police relied on facial recognition technology that should not be trusted, given “inherent flaws and unreliability, particularly when attempting to identify Black individuals” such as Woodruff.

Some experts say facial recognition technology is more prone to error when analyzing the faces of people of color.

In a statement Sunday, the Wayne County prosecutor’s office said the warrant that led to Woodruff’s arrest was on solid ground, NBC News reported.

“The warrant was appropriate based upon the facts,” it said.

The case began in late January, when police investigating a reported carjacking by a gunman used imagery from a gas station’s security video to track down a woman believed to have been involved in the crime, according to the suit.

Facial recognition analysis from the video identified Woodruff as a possible match, the suit said.

Woodruff’s picture from a 2015 arrest was in a set of photos shown to the carjacking victim, who picked her out, according to the lawsuit.

Woodruff was freed on bond the day of her arrest and the charges against her were later dropped due to insufficient evidence, the civil complaint maintained. 

“This case highlights the significant flaws associated with using facial recognition technology to identify criminal suspects,” the suit argued.

Woodruff’s suit seeks unspecified financial damages plus legal fees. 
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Fueled by election gains, Democrats in Minnesota and Michigan this year enacted far-reaching policy changes that party leaders in other states are looking to as a potential roadmap for what they could swiftly achieve with similar control.

Gun safety packages, expanded voting rights, free meals for all students, and increased protections for abortion rights and LGTBQ+ people were just some of pent-up policy proposals that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed into law within months under the new legislative majorities.

“We’ve definitely paid attention to what they’ve done,” Pennsylvania state Sen. Sharif Street, chair of the state Democratic party, said about the two states. “I’ve offered to Pennsylvanians that if we could flip the Senate, we could pass similar legislation.”

Democrats in four states, including Massachusetts and Maryland, scored victories in the 2022 midterms to gain a “trifecta” — control of the state House, state Senate and the governor’s office. Republicans, who held trifectas in 19 more states than Democrats just six years ago, now hold an advantage of 22 states to the Democrats’ 17.

Ahead of the 2024 election, Democratic leaders in Pennsylvania, Arizona and New Hampshire are hoping similar election gains can help them achieve trifectas. They’re looking to Michigan and Minnesota, where leaders have been unapologetic about quickly rolling back years of Republican measures and implementing their own liberal agendas.

“This is the first time in 40 years that we’ve had this opportunity,” Whitmer said of Michigan Democrats, who last held a trifecta in 1983. “This is a huge step forward that we’ve taken.”

Michigan Democrats were able to flip both chambers with the help of new districts redrawn by a citizens commission instead of ones crafted by Republican lawmakers and a ballot proposal enshrining abortion rights into the state constitution that led to record midterm turnout.

The power shift in Michigan and Minnesota comes as statehouses nationwide have grown even more polarized. In GOP-led states, leaders have focused this year on rolling back LGBTQ+ rights, tightening abortion access, protecting gun rights and waging a war on what some have called “woke” agendas.

Whitmer, who spoke with The Associated Press last week, said she hopes voters in other states see that “you can lead with your brain and also be a kind person in the process.” She added an oft-repeated phrase of her second-term that “bigotry is bad for business.”

The quick work by Democrats in the two states was due in part to uncertainty over how long the full control will last considering voters could decide to flip state House majorities back to Republican control as soon as next year. Michigan and Minnesota Republicans are already strategizing to regain some power in the 2024 elections by calling out what they say have been overly partisan sessions.

In Michigan, Republican legislators in the House and Senate out-raised Democrats in the first part of 2023, led by the efforts of former Republican Gov. Rick Snyder. Minnesota Republicans, who lost a majority when Democrats won a decisive Senate district by only 321 votes, have criticized Democrats for excluding them from a legislative session that ended in May.

“The issues, I think, are still on the table. It’s public safety, it’s education, it’s tax relief. And the Democrats did not deliver on any of those promises or expectations,” said Minnesota Republican Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson.

The key Democratic leaders in Minnesota — Walz, House Speaker Melissa Hortman and Senate Majority Leader Kari Dziedzic — decided to act swiftly, knowing they might not get another chance for a long time if they hesitated. Their last trifecta, in 2012-13, lasted only two years, but they’re betting that this year’s successes will prove popular with voters come 2024.

House Democrats, who have a six-seat majority, kept a big checklist on the wall of their caucus room of their top 30 priorities for the session. They started checking them off in January, including a big abortion rights bill. By the end of the session in May, all 30 had been checked off, including the legalization of recreational marijuana for adults; drivers’ licenses for all regardless of immigration status, tax cuts aimed at lower-income workers and spending increases for education, transportation and other infrastructure, affordable housing, child care, and public safety.

Leaders in the state were among those invited to the White House to brief the president’s advisers on legislation, including a paid family and medical leave program, that the Biden administration would like to enact nationally if not for a divided government.

“If you need a reminder that elections have consequences, check out what’s happening in Minnesota,” former President Barack Obama tweeted earlier this year.

National leaders are hoping that the liberal swing in the Midwest continues in 2024. The party is hosting the Democratic convention next year in Chicago and voter sentiment after two years of unchecked liberal policy in Michigan and Minnesota could have an enormous impact on national politics; recent presidential races have hinged on the critical Midwestern “blue wall,” which also includes Wisconsin.

President Joe Biden applauded Michigan for “leading” on labor rights after the state became the first in nearly 60 years to repeal a union-restricting law known as “right-to-work” that was passed over a decade ago by a Republican-controlled Legislature.

Major legislation, such as the right-to-work repeal, has only been possible in Michigan due to strong party discipline with Democrats only holding a two-seat majority in each chamber.

State Rep. Joe Tate, who is Michigan’s first Black speaker of the House, said the Democratic caucus began the year by finding legislation all members could agree on with.

“This is legislation that we’ve been talking about for, if not years, decades. So it helped to prioritize where we needed to go at the beginning of this session,” said Tate.

Michigan Democrats have already passed many of their top priorities only halfway through this year’s legislative session, including a 11-bill gun safety package that had stalled in the Legislature for years.

Winnie Brinks, the first female Senate majority leader in Michigan history, called said it was an “intense six months” and that Democrats don’t plan to ease up the rest of the year. Future legislation, Brinks said, will include a focus on climate and the environment in addition to more work on reproductive rights.
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It’s all about speed and skill — in the air and on the water. In Seattle, the annual Seafair summer festival concluded with Coast Guard rescue operation demonstrations, U.S. Navy Blue Angels’ aerobatics and the fastest hydroplanes in the world racing for the Gold Cup. Natasha Mozgovaya reports from Lake Washington.
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Two conservative groups are asking a federal court to block the Biden administration’s plan to cancel $39 billion in student loans for more than 800,000 borrowers.

In a lawsuit filed Friday in Michigan, the groups argue that the administration overstepped its power when it announced the forgiveness in July, just weeks after the Supreme Court struck down a broader cancellation plan pushed by President Joe Biden.

It asks a judge to rule the cancellation illegal and stop the Education Department from carrying it out while the case is decided. The suit was filed by the New Civil Liberties Alliance on behalf of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the Cato Institute.

The Education Department called the suit “a desperate attempt from right wing special interests to keep hundreds of thousands of borrowers in debt.”

“We are not going to back down or give an inch when it comes to defending working families,” the department said in a statement.

It’s part of a wave of legal challenges Republicans have leveled at the Biden administration’s efforts to reduce or eliminate student debt for millions of Americans. Biden has said he will pursue a different cancellation plan after the Supreme Court decision, and his administration is separately unrolling a more generous repayment plan that opponents call a “backdoor attempt” at cancellation.

The Biden administration announced July 14 that it would soon forgive loans for 804,000 borrowers enrolled in income-driven repayment plans. The plans have long offered cancellation after borrowers make 20 or 25 years of payments, but “past administrative failures” resulted in inaccurate payments counts that set borrowers back on their progress toward forgiveness, the department said.

The new action was announced as a “one-time adjustment” that would count certain periods of past nonpayment as if borrowers had been making payments during that time. It moved 804,000 borrowers across the 20- or 25-year mark needed for cancellation, and it moved millions of others closer to that threshold.

It’s meant to address a practice known as forbearance steering, in which student loan servicers hired by the government wrongly pushed borrowers to go into forbearance — a temporary pause on payments because of hardship — even if they would have been better served by enrolling in one of the income-driven repayment plans.

Under the one-time fix, past periods in forbearance were also counted as progress toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness, a program that offers cancellation after 10 years of payments while working in a government or nonprofit job.

Biden’s action was illegal, the lawsuit says, because it wasn’t authorized by Congress and didn’t go through a federal rulemaking process that invites public feedback.

“No authority allows the Department to count non-payments as payments,” the lawsuit says. It adds that the action came in “a press release that neither identified the policy’s legal authority nor considered its exorbitant price tag.”

The conservative groups say Biden’s plan undercuts Public Service Loan Forgiveness. The Mackinac Center and Cato Institute say they employ borrowers who are working toward student loan cancellation through the program. They say Biden’s action illegally accelerates progress toward relief, diminishing the benefit for nonprofit employers.

“This unlawful reduction in the PSLF service requirement injures public service employers that rely on PSLF to recruit and retain college-educated employees,” the suit alleges.

The Cato Institute previously sued the administration over the cancellation plan that was struck down by the Supreme Court. The Mackinac Center is separately challenging Biden’s pause on student loan payments, which is scheduled to end this fall with payments resuming Oct. 1.
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Calls are growing for Donald Trump’s criminal trials to be broadcast live, as the United States grapples with the prospect of seeing a former — and possibly future — president in the dock.

Lawyers and politicians are lining up to urge that cameras be allowed inside the courtroom, particularly when the one-time reality TV star faces a jury on charges that he tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

“Given the historic nature of the charges brought forth in these cases, it is hard to imagine a more powerful circumstance for televised proceedings,” read a letter signed Thursday by California congressman Adam Schiff and dozens of his Democratic Party colleagues. 

“If the public is to fully accept the outcome, it will be vitally important for it to witness, as directly as possible, how the trials are conducted, the strength of the evidence adduced and the credibility of witnesses,” the letter said.

A Trump lawyer, John Lauro, said he would favor having a televised trial, but in several appearances on Sunday talk shows he emphasized this was merely his own opinion

“I personally would love to see that,” he told Fox News Sunday, adding he believed the Biden administration “does not want the American people to see the truth.”

Trump has now been charged in three separate criminal cases: lying about hush-money payments to a porn star, mishandling secret documents, and trying to subvert the election.

An indictment looms in a fourth, related to a phone call in which Trump pressured a Georgia election official to “find” the 11,780 votes that would reverse his defeat to Joe Biden in the southern state.

Despite extensive media coverage of Trump’s alleged crimes, an overwhelming majority of Republican voters – 74% — and a third of all voters believe he has done no wrong, according to a poll by The New York Times and Sienna College.

 

Trump himself insists he is innocent, the victim of a “witch hunt” by an establishment desperate to silence him as he runs again for the White House.

Clarifying Trump’s exact role and actions is a prime reason to show the trial to a wide audience, said Alan Dershowitz, a constitutional law specialist.

“If the Trump trial is not televised, the public will learn about the events through the extremely biased reporting of today’s media,” he wrote in The Hill.

“It will be as if there were two trials: one observed by reporters for MSNBC, CNN, The New York Times and other liberal media, the other through the prism of reporters for Fox, Newsmax and other conservative outlets. 

“There will be nowhere to go to learn the objective reality of what occurred at trial.”

The OJ Simpson precedent

While some state-level proceedings have been shown on U.S. television – O.J. Simpson’s nation-stopping murder trial was a ratings blockbuster — federal trials cannot be photographed or broadcast, courtesy of rules dating to 1946.

Neal Katyal, a law professor at Georgetown University, argued in The Washington Post it was time to update this “antiquated” edict.

“We live in a digital age, where people think visually and are accustomed to seeing things with their own eyes,” he wrote.

The decision on whether to allow cameras into the courtroom will ultimately rest with the Judicial Conference — the policy-making body of the federal court system, which is run by U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts.

Alternatively, Congress could change the law.

Katyal, who was a prosecutor in the murder trial of Derek Chauvin, the white Minnesota police officer who killed African American George Floyd, said the broadcasting of those proceedings had helped a highly divided public to accept the guilty verdict when it came.

The same would be true of the Trump trial, Katyal maintained.

“We have a right to see it. And we have the right to ensure that rumormongers and conspiracy theorists don’t control the narrative,” he said.

Broadcast risks

The problem with putting it all on the small screen, said Christina Bellantoni, an expert in media and political journalism at the University of Southern California, is Trump’s formidable ability to dominate discourse and bend the narrative.

“My prediction… would be that his public opinion ratings would go up, no matter what evidence is presented,” she told AFP.

The risk is that a trial about an alleged attempt to overthrow democracy becomes little more than entertainment, where no one’s mind is changed.

People are not on the fence about Trump, she said. “People will hate-watch it; people will rally and root for him. And there’s not going to be anybody that’s like, ‘Gee, I think I’ll watch this and see how justice plays out.'”
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Lina Hurtig’s converted her penalty and Sweden knocked the United States out of the World Cup 5-4 on penalties after a scoreless draw at the Women’s World Cup.

U.S. goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher fruitlessly argued she had saved Hurtig’s attempt, but it was ruled over the line. The stadium played Abba’s “Dancing Queen in the stadium as the Swedes celebrated.

The United States, which has a record four World Cup titles overall and was trying to win an unprecedented third consecutive tile, was eliminated in the Round of 16 for the first time in team history.

The Americans’ worst finish had been third place, three times.

“I am proud of the women on the field,” said U.S. coach Vlatko Andonovski. “I know we were criticized for the way we played, and for different moments in the group stage. I think we came out today and showed the grit, the resilience, the fight. The bravery showed we did everything we could to win the game. And, unfortunately, soccer can be cruel sometimes.”

It was the first match at this World Cup to go to extra time.

Two-time World Cup participant Julie Ertz was in tears after the match.

“We didn’t put anything in the back of the net,” she sobbed. “The penalties was tough as well. It’s just emotional because it’s probably my last game ever. It’s just tough. It’s an emotional time. It obviously sucks. Penalties are the worst.”

It was the was the fourth time a U.S. match at the World Cup went to extra time. All of the three previous matches went to penalties, including the 2011 final won by Japan. The U.S. won on penalties in a 2011 quarterfinal match against Brazil, and in the 1999 final at the final at the Rose Bowl against China.

Sweden knocked the United States out of the 2016 Olympics in the quarterfinals on penalties.

Sweden goes on to the quarterfinals to play Japan, the 2011 World Cup winner, which defeated Norway 3-1 on Saturday night.

Sweden has never won a major international tournament, either the World Cup or the Olympics. The closest the team has come is World Cup runner-up in 2003. They finished in third in the 1999, 2011 and 2019 editions, and won silver medals in the last two Olympics.

The Americans struggled through group play with just four goals in three matches. They were nearly eliminated last Tuesday by first-timers Portugal, but eked out a 0-0 draw to fall to second in their group for just the second time at a World Cup.

The Americans looked far better against Sweden, dominating possession and outshooting the Swedes 5-1 in the first half alone. Lindsey Horan’s first-half header hit the crossbar and a second-half blast was saved by goalkeeper Zecira Musovic, who had six saves in regulation.

Sweden won all three of their group games, including a 5-0 rout of Italy in its final group match. Coach Peter Gerhardsson made nine lineup changes for the match, resting his starters in anticipation of the United States.

It was tense from the opening whistle.

Naeher punched the ball away from a crowded goal on an early Sweden corner kick. Three of the Swedes’ goals against Italy came on set pieces.

Trinity Rodman’s shot from distance in the 18th minute was easily caught by Musovic, who stopped another chance by Rodman in the 27th.

Horan’s header off Andi Sullivan’s corner in the 34th hit the crossbar and skipped over the goal. Horan was on target in the 53rd minute but Musovic dove to push it wide. Horan crouched to the field in frustration while Musovic was swarmed by her teammates.

The United States was without Rose Lavelle, who picked up her second yellow card of the tournament in the group stage finale against Portugal and has to sit out against Sweden.

In Lavelle’s absence, Andonovski started Emily Sonnett, who was making her first start for the team since 2022. The addition of Sonnett allowed Horan to move up higher in the midfield.

Sweden pressed in the final 10 minutes of regulation. Sofia Jakobsson, who came in as a substitute in the 81st minute, nearly scored in the 85th but Naeher managed to catch it for her first save of the tournament.

Neither Caroline Seger of Megan Rapinoe started the match, but Rapinoe came in as a sub for Alex Morgan in the first overtime period.

Seger, whose 235 appearances for Sweden are the most for any woman in Europe, was on the bench to start the match. The 38-year-old has been struggling with a calf problem all year and trained alone in the two days of practice leading into the showdown with the U.S.

Rapinoe, also 38, previously announced that this would be her last World Cup. She has taken on a smaller role for the Americans in her final tournament. She was a substitute in the United States’ first and third games of group play and didn’t get off the bench in the middle match. She made her 200th appearance for the national team at the World Cup.
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The tidal wave of artificial intelligence (AI) barrelling toward many professions has generated deep anxiety among workers fearful that their jobs will be swept away — and the mental health impact is rising.

The launch in November 2022 of ChatGPT, the generative AI platform capable of handling complex tasks on command, marked a tech landmark as AI started to transform the workplace.

“Anything new and unknown is anxiety-producing,” Clare Gustavsson, a New York therapist whose patients have shared concerns about AI, told AFP.

“The technology is growing so fast, it is hard to gain sure footing.”

Legal assistants, programmers, accountants and financial advisors are among those professions feeling threatened by generative AI that can quickly create human-like prose, computer code, articles or expert insight.

Goldman Sachs analysts see generative AI impacting, if not eliminating, some 300 million jobs, according to a study published in March.

“I anticipate that my job will become obsolete within the next 10 years,” Eric, a bank teller, told AFP, declining to give his second name.

“I plan to change careers. The bank I work for is expanding AI research.”

Trying to ’embrace the unknown’

New York therapist Meris Powell told AFP of an entertainment professional worried about AI being used in film and television production — a threat to actors and screenwriters that is a flashpoint in strikes currently gripping Hollywood.

“It’s mainly people who are in creative fields who are at the forefront of that concern,” Gustavsson said.

AI is bringing with it a level of apprehension matched by climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic, she contended.

But she said that she tries to get patients to “embrace the unknown” and find ways to use new technology to their advantage.

For one graphic animator in New York, the career-threatening shock came from seeing images generated by AI-infused software such as Midjourney and Stable Diffusion that rivaled the quality of those created by humans.

“People started to realize that some of the skills they had developed and specialized in could possibly be replaced by AI,” she told AFP, adding she had honed her coding skills, but now feels even that has scant promise in an AI world.

“I’ll probably lean into more of a management-level role,” she said. “It’s just hard because there are a lot less of those positions.

“Before I would just pursue things that interested me and skills that I enjoy. Now I feel more inclined to think about what’s actually going to be useful and marketable in the future.”

Peter Vukovic, who has been chief technology officer at several startups, expects just one percent or less of the population to benefit from AI.

“For the rest, it’s a gray area,” Vukovic, who lives in Bosnia, said. “There is a lot of reason for 99 percent of people to be concerned.”

AI is focused on efficiency and making money, but it could be channeled to serve other purposes, Vukovic said.

“What’s the best way for us to use this?” he asked. “Is it really just to automate a bunch of jobs?”
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The Justice Department has asked a federal judge overseeing the criminal case against former President Donald Trump in Washington to step in after Trump released a post online that appeared to promise revenge on anyone who goes after him.

Prosecutors on Friday requested that U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan issue a protective order concerning evidence in the case, a day after Trump pleaded not guilty to charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss and block the peaceful transition of power. The order, different from a “gag order,” would limit what information Trump and his legal team could share publicly about the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith.

Such protective orders are common in criminal cases, but prosecutors said it’s “particularly important in this case” because Trump has posted on social media about “witnesses, judges, attorneys and others associated with legal matters pending against him.”

Prosecutors pointed specifically to a post on Trump’s Truth Social platform from earlier Friday in which Trump wrote, in all capital letters, “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!”

Prosecutors said they are ready to hand over a “substantial” amount of evidence — “much of which includes sensitive and confidential information” — to Trump’s legal team.

They told the judge that if Trump were to begin posting about grand jury transcripts or other evidence provided by the Justice Department, it could have a “harmful chilling effect on witnesses or adversely affect the fair administration of justice in this case.”

Prosecutors’ proposed protective order seeks to prevent Trump and his lawyers from disclosing materials provided by the government to anyone other than people on his legal team, possible witnesses, the witnesses’ lawyers or others approved by the court. It would put stricter limits on “sensitive materials,” which would include grand jury witness testimony and materials obtained through sealed search warrants.

A Trump spokesperson said in an emailed statement that the former president’s post “is the definition of political speech” and was made in response to “dishonest special interest groups and Super PACs.”

It’s unclear when Chutkan might rule on the matter. Chutkan, a former assistant public defender who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, has been one of the toughest punishers of rioters who stormed the Capitol in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack fueled by Trump’s baseless claims of a stolen election.

The indictment unsealed this week accuses Trump of brazenly conspiring with allies to spread falsehoods and concoct schemes intended to overturn his election loss to President Joe Biden as his legal challenges foundered in court.

The indictment chronicles how Trump and his Republican allies, in what Smith described as an attack on a “bedrock function of the U.S. government,” repeatedly lied about the results in the two months after he lost the election and pressured his vice president, Mike Pence, and state election officials to take action to help him cling to power.

Trump faces charges that include conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and conspiracy to obstruct Congress’ certification of Biden’s electoral victory.

It’s the third criminal case brought this year against the early front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. But it’s the first case to try to hold Trump responsible for his efforts to remain in power during the chaotic weeks between his election loss and the attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Smith has also charged Trump in Florida federal court with illegally hoarding classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and thwarting government efforts to get them back.

The magistrate judge in that case agreed to a protective order in June that prohibits Trump and his legal team from publicly disclosing evidence turned over to them by prosecutors without prior approval. Prosecutors are seeking another protective order in that case with more rules about the defense team’s handling of classified evidence.

After his court appearance on Thursday in the Washington case, Trump characterized the prosecution as a “persecution” designed to hurt his 2024 presidential campaign. His legal team has described it as an attack on his right to free speech and his right to challenge an election that he believed had been stolen.

Smith has said prosecutors will seek a “speedy trial” against Trump in the election case. Judge Chutkan has ordered the government to file a brief by Thursday proposing a trial date. The first court hearing in front of Chutkan is scheduled for Aug. 28.

Trump is already scheduled to stand trial in March in the New York case stemming from hush-money payments made during the 2016 campaign and in May in the classified documents case.
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Karina Ambartsoumian-Clough is a stateless person living in the United States.

“I’m from a country that doesn’t exist anymore,” Ambartsoumian-Clough told VOA.  She is one of the 218,000 stateless people living in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which on Tuesday said it would clarify what stateless means for immigration purposes.

Ambartsoumian-Clough says it is a “huge step forward in terms of recognizing people like us in this country.”

On Thursday, DHS organized a private listening session on the statelessness policy.

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas led the meeting. The conversation, according to attendees who spoke with VOA on background, was to figure out the next steps. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is also expected to organize a public meeting on this policy soon.

The DHS announcement promises to develop and implement new procedures so that USCIS officials can be better prepared to assess whether someone is stateless and outline examples of evidence that can aid USCIS officers in that determination.

“The United States does not currently make determinations about whether someone is stateless. In addition, the fact that a person is stateless does not provide her or him with any benefit or status under U.S. law,” per the UNHCR, the U.N. Refugee Agency, website.

Citizens of nowhere

Ambartsoumian-Clough still clearly remembers the day she found out she and her parents were stateless.

Ambartsoumian-Clough’s father was Armenian. He was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, and was a descendant of Armenian genocide survivors. Her mother is from Ukraine, born just outside of Odesa, in Voznesensk. Ambartsoumian-Clough’s grandparents also survived regional turmoil and the Holocaust.

When her parents were born, both regions were part of the Soviet Union. But it dissolved in the early 1990s into 15 countries. After 70 years, the Soviet Union suddenly no longer existed.

Ambartsoumian-Clough was born in Odesa in 1988, when the Soviet Union still existed.

“My parents had me as a mixed ethnic child; half Armenian and half Ukrainian, and that was a problem. My parents had a really, really hard time being a family with me. There was a lot of violence my parents experienced. My dad was targeted for his ethnicity in Odesa. My mom suffered a miscarriage in my dad’s city because she was beaten up in the streets,” Ambartsoumian-Clough said.

When she was 3 years old, the family realized it was not safe for them in Odesa. They made their way to Canada in 1992. They lived there for four years but were denied permanent residence. They came to the U.S. in 1996 where they applied for asylum. Their case took almost five years and once again they were denied a path to apply for permanent status in the U.S.

At 13, Ambartsoumian-Clough and her parents were told they had to leave the United States.

“We were told to return [to Ukraine]. And we went to the Ukrainian Embassy to get our passports. … And that’s when they said, ‘We don’t recognize you as one of our own.’ And that shocked us. That was very confusing to us. Just how can it be that you’re just not recognized in the country that you’re born? I mean, my family has a history in Ukraine. My grandfather was a community leader, a Baptist minister,” she said.

The family found themselves in a complex situation: even if they wanted to leave the U.S., they could not because they were citizens of nowhere.

“I became stateless … and we didn’t know what that meant. We never even heard of that issue. The first thing my parents said to me was, ‘Isn’t this like Tom Hanks and The Terminal?’ And it’s true, it’s like, yeah, instead of being stuck in an airport, we were limited to the United States, but we have really exhausted all options. The law didn’t recognize people like us, and we can’t return because no one recognizes us as their own. And that was about 25 years ago, and I’m 35 years old now. And I’m still in this limbo status,” she added.

The concept of statelessness might be difficult for many people to understand, especially Americans, given that the U.S. Constitution guarantees citizenship to anyone born within its borders. That is not the case in many countries.

Geopolitical events like war or the dissolution of a government, such as the former Soviet Union, can lead to statelessness. In some countries, women are not allowed to acquire, retain or change their nationality. They might also not be allowed to transfer nationality to their children, which very often results in statelessness.

Stateless in the US

With nowhere to go, Ambartsoumian-Clough and her parents stayed in the U.S. Her father worked as a painter. Her mother started a cleaning business.

“And I just tried to be normal, you know, and I tried to be Karina from Upper Darby, you know, outside of [Philadelphia], and just be normal. But when I became 18, that’s when things really changed because I became an adult. I became an adult without any access to a legal identity,” she said.

The only documents Ambartsoumian-Cloug had were a birth certificate from a country that didn’t exist anymore and her U.S. school identification card.

But when she tried to find a job, get a cellphone plan, or a bank account, she needed a government-issued identification.

“I didn’t have access to an identification. So we couldn’t work or find legal means to work. So, I worked a lot in restaurants. … I did the best I could with that. And in that time, I was in a process of extreme denial. I was 22 years old and living in [Philadelphia] … I didn’t want to deal with this immigration problem and kept putting it in the back. But it kept becoming a big deal in my life over and over again,” she said.

Ambartsoumian-Cloug met someone, fell in love, and got married in 2013 to a U.S. citizen.

“When we got married, we were five years together. And we actually went to Maryland to get married because Maryland state does not require a valid form of ID to get married. So we went to Elkton, Maryland, and got a marriage certificate, the first legal document I had with my name on it,” she said.

Through the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, Congress established the family immigration procedures we know today. With the law, Congress created a preference system that allows U.S. citizens to sponsor immediate relatives, including spouses, without any numerical limits.

But even that cannot help a stateless person in the United States.

Margaret Stock, an immigration attorney in Anchorage, Alaska, told VOA that usually a stateless person does not have the documentation that is necessary to apply for a legal permanent residency status, also known as green card, and get it approved.

“USCIS requires certain documentation before they’ll approve somebody for a green card, and one of the requirements is the person has to show valid documents that prove that they’re from a foreign country,” Stock said.

As a stateless person, people have all kinds of obstacles to applying for U.S. immigration benefits.

“And the government of the United States doesn’t care necessarily about the fact that you’re married to an American. They want to see documents proving that you’re a citizen of another country, so if you can’t show that you have a very difficult time applying for benefits,” Stock said.

Ambartsoumian-Clough said she hopes DHS guidance finally establishes a definition of statelessness in line with the internationally accepted definition to help those in limbo.

She eventually met other stateless people and started United Stateless, a national organization led by stateless people whose mission is to advocate for their human rights.

She also hopes the U.S. Congress passes legislation to codify into immigration law how a person with stateless status can file for permanent residency.

In the meantime, she lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, Kevin. Her mother is still living, but her father died in December.

“My dad passed away as a stateless person. And he’s been here since 1986. He never got to reunite with his parents, never got to really build the American Dream my parents always wanted,” she said.
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Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Friday he hopes to discuss further strengthening of three-way strategic cooperation with leaders of the United States and South Korea at a summit hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden at Camp David later this month.

The Aug. 18 summit with Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is the first stand-alone summit among leaders of the three countries, not in connection with international meetings.

The summit is also the latest sign of warming ties between Tokyo and Seoul. Both governments have moved to set aside decades-long tensions over wartime history, while Washington seeks to deepen its commitment in the Indo-Pacific region.

“I have high hopes that this summit meeting will further strengthen the foundation for strengthening ties with the United States and South Korea, which have been built up through multilayered efforts including at the summit level,” Kishida said, responding to a question about the summit, during a news conference Friday.

“On top of that, I expect we will further reinforce our strategic cooperation among the three countries, Japan, the United States and South Korea” as the three leaders discuss joint responses to North Korea’s threats and maintaining and strengthening a rules-based, free and open international order, Kishida said.

He declined to provide more details, saying he should avoid prejudging the outcome of the summit ahead of time.

The Biden administration has been urging stronger economic and defense ties between South Korea and Japan as it looks to bolster the region against China’s assertive territorial moves and economic influences, and to secure their cooperation in support of Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Japan and South Korea are both key U.S. allies and their cooperation is key to Washington’s security strategy in the Indo-Pacific as tensions grow with China, North Korea and Russia.

Ties between Japan and South Korea have rapidly thawed since earlier this year, largely because of Washington’s pressure and their shared sense of urgency over escalating regional security threats.

The improved ties between Tokyo and Seoul, and Japan’s new security and defense strategies are apparently making the stronger trilateral partnership possible. Under the new strategies issued in December, Kishida’s government pledges a drastic military buildup with strike capabilities and doubling defense spending in a major break from Japan’s postwar self-defense-only principle.

Japan, the United States and South Korea have agreed to start sharing real-time data on North Korean missile launches by the end of this year, as their trilateral cooperation is increasingly important amid growing nuclear and missile threats from the North. Washington and Seoul have also agreed to step up their nuclear deterrence cooperation, and Japan also wants stronger extended deterrence by U.S. nuclear weapons.

After the White House announcement of the summit, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, posted a message on Twitter that the upcoming summit promises to make history and “will lead to a strategic paradigm shift” as the three countries form “a united front for a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
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The United States took over the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday for the month of August. The Biden administration has used the opportunity to draw attention to global food insecurity, particularly how conflict is a major driver of hunger.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield spoke Friday to VOA about how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative have impacted international food security. She also discussed U.S. concerns about the attempted military coup in Niger, relations with China at the U.N., and other priority issues for the United States.

The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

VOA: This is your third time sitting in the Security Council chair as president and the third time you’ve used this opportunity to focus on global food insecurity. So, tell us what you hope to achieve drawing the council’s attention to this issue, and how it could make a positive difference on the ground.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations: This has been a priority for the administration. It has been a priority for me since I arrived here in New York. And as you know, this is the third time that I will be focusing on this issue. It has gotten worse. It has gotten worse because of Russia’s unprovoked war on Ukraine.

More than 170 million people have been impacted by conflict, and the conflict that we see in Russia is certainly contributing to that. So, we are focusing on the issue of food being used as a weapon of war. And there is no better example of that — no worse example of that — than what Russia is doing as it relates to Ukrainian grain being allowed to get into the market to reach the people in Africa, in the Middle East, elsewhere in the world who are dependent on grain coming out of Ukraine.

VOA: On the grain, is a return to the Black Sea grain deal, is that even possible now after Russia has spent the last couple of weeks bombing infrastructure at multiple Ukrainian ports?

Thomas-Greenfield: Russia’s bombing of Ukrainian ports and infrastructure is unacceptable, and of course is making the situation even worse. But I know that [U.N.] Secretary-General [Antonio] Guterres and OCHA [the U.N. office of humanitarian affairs] are continuing to attempt to bring the Russians back into the grain deal. The government of Turkey has also been engaged with the Russians to urge them to come back into this deal. Other countries in the world have issued statements urging Russia to come back into the deal. So, we remain guardedly hopeful, but in the meantime, the impact of this on the world’s market is really, really devastating.

VOA: What are you hearing from some of your counterparts here at the U.N. about that, from other countries, especially in the Global South?

Thomas-Greenfield: Well, we had a Security Council high-level meeting yesterday, where countries from all over the world, including many countries from the Global South, spoke. They all called on Russia to return to the grain deal. They expressed their concerns about the impact this is having on food supplies around the world, and I think the Russians heard the message loudly and clearly that they need to return to this deal. But this is not the only place where Russia has had such a devastating impact on the humanitarian situation. Just look at the situation on the border with Turkey and Syria, where Russia vetoed the resolution that would have allowed for the continuation of needed humanitarian assistance to reach the Syrian people across the border.

VOA: Speaking of Russia, there’s a bit of breaking news today from Moscow. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been sentenced to a further 19 years in prison on extremism charges. Your reaction?

Thomas-Greenfield: Sad but not surprised. It is clear that the Russian government, that Putin, that this authoritarian government, will use any means to restrict the voices of the opposition, restrict the voices of criticism. Navalny represents that. He is being held in an unacceptable way. He should not have been in this court system, and we condemn the actions of the Russian government as it relates to him.

VOA: Moving to another council member — there’s been a lot of talk and analysis about U.S.-China relations recently. How would you characterize U.S.-China relations here at the United Nations, and are there any areas where you’ve been able to cooperate?

Thomas-Greenfield: We sit on the Security Council together. We are both permanent members of the Security Council; we’re part of the P5 [P5 is a nickname for the five permanent members of the Security Council]. We do work together on issues of mutual interests, and there are issues where we have differences. And certainly, we have significant differences as it relates to Russia’s unprovoked war in Ukraine. We have differences on how we should respond to the DPRK [North Korea] threats. But there are areas where we’re working together with them. We were able to get a resolution on BINUH [the U.N. Integrated Office in Haiti] — this is the Haiti resolution — passed and will hopefully be able to work again with them on Haiti.

VOA: Niger: The ECOWAS [Economic Community of West African States] deadline for the military to reverse the coup and restore President [Mohamed] Bazoum is quickly approaching, but the military seems to be doubling down in the face of possible ECOWAS action. So how worried is Washington that this crisis could rapidly evolve into a regional conflict?

Thomas-Greenfield: We have been very, very clear in our support for ECOWAS, for ECOWAS’s statements, for ECOWAS’s involvement in trying to find a solution. They have called for the military to step aside to restore President Bazoum, who was democratically elected. We support the president, and we continue to support the Nigerien people. This is an unacceptable action by the military, and we have to work together with the region to try to push back on this.

VOA: And have nonessential U.S. personnel and their families begun departing Niger?

Thomas-Greenfield: We are in the process of removing some American citizens in an ordered departure. But our embassy remains open. Our diplomatic contacts with the various parties, including with President Bazoum, continues in Niger.

VOA: Have you spoken to your colleague [Nigerien] Ambassador [Yaou] Bakary here? Because I know today the military has fired some ambassadors, including the ambassador to Washington.

Thomas-Greenfield: I have been in touch with him. I spoke to him early on, when the situation started, and I’ve stayed in contact with him. I’ve also spoken with President Bazoum.

VOA: And finally, Ambassador, I just wanted to ask you about Afghanistan. You’ve been very outspoken about the Taliban’s human rights record. They’ve not fulfilled many commitments to the international community. They are ignoring international calls to give women their rights, minorities, et cetera. So, is the U.S. considering any alternative approaches to encourage the Taliban to address these demands?

Thomas-Greenfield: We are continuing to put pressure on them on issues related to human rights and the rights of women. We have not recognized this government, and we have been clear that we will not recognize them until they are — until they behave in such a way to show that they deserve to be — to be recognized. So, we’re continuing to engage on this issue. We want to be clear to Afghan women and girls that we see no world where the women and girls of Afghanistan cannot be allowed to acquire education, to work, to pursue their dreams like women everywhere else in the world.

VOA: Ambassador, before I let you go, anything else you would like to touch upon?

Thomas-Greenfield: I’m looking forward to our month as president of the Security Council. We will be looking to bring before the council what is happening still in Sudan, and particularly, we have some concerns about the situation in Darfur, so you can look to the council having meetings on that in the coming days and weeks.
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