By MATTHEW LEE and ELLEN KNICKMEYER

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Democratic senators sparred Tuesday over the Trump administration’s foreign policies, ranging from Ukraine and Russia to the Middle East, Latin America, the slashing of the U.S. foreign assistance budget and refugee admissions.

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Rubio defended the administration’s decisions to his former colleagues during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, his first since being confirmed on President Donald Trump’s Inauguration Day.

He said “America is back” and claimed four months of foreign-policy achievements, even as many of them remain frustratingly inconclusive. Among them are the resumption of nuclear talks with Iran, efforts to bring Russia and Ukraine into peace talks and efforts to end the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.

America’s top diplomat praised agreements with El Salvador and other Latin American countries to accept migrant deportees, saying “secure borders, safe communities and zero tolerance for criminal cartels are once again the guiding principles of our foreign policy.”

He also rejected assertions that massive cuts to his department’s budget would hurt America’s standing abroad. Instead, he said the cuts would actually improve the U.S. reputation internationally.

Hearing opens with a joke, then turns serious

Committee Chairman Jim Risch opened the hearing with praise for Trump’s changes and spending cuts and welcomed what he called the administration’s promising nuclear talks with Iran.

Risch also noted what he jokingly called “modest disagreement” with Democratic lawmakers, who used Tuesday’s hearing to confront Rubio about Trump administration moves.

Ranking Democratic member Jeanne Shaheen argued that the Trump administration has “eviscerated six decades of foreign-policy investments” and given China openings around the world.

“I urge you to stand up to the extremists of the administration,” the New Hampshire senator said.

Other Democrats excoriated the administration for its suspension of the refugee admissions program, particularly while allowing white Afrikaners from South Africa to enter the country.

Some Republicans also warned about drastic foreign assistance cuts, including former Senate leader Mitch McConnell and Susan Collins. They expressed concern that the U.S. is being outmaneuvered by its rivals internationally after the elimination of thousands of aid programs.

“The basic functions that soft power provides are extremely important,” McConnell told Rubio at a second hearing later in the day before the Senate Appropriations Committee. “You get a whole lot of friends for not much money.”

Rubio says the US is encouraging but not threatening Israel on Gaza aid

Rubio told the Appropriations Committee that the Trump administration is encouraging but not threatening Israel to resume humanitarian aid shipments into Gaza.

He said the U.S. is not following the lead of several European countries that have imposed sanctions or warned of actions against Israel amid the dearth of assistance reaching vulnerable Palestinians. However, he said U.S. officials have stressed in discussions with the Israelis that aid is urgently needed for civilians in Gaza who are suffering during Israel’s military operation against Hamas.

“We’re not prepared to respond the way these countries have,” but the U.S. has engaged with Israel in the last few days about “the need to resume humanitarian aid,” Rubio said. “We anticipate that those flows will increase over the next few days and weeks — it’s important that that be achieved.”

And Rubio acknowledged that the administration was approaching foreign governments about taking mass numbers of civilians from Gaza but insisted that any Palestinians leaving would be “voluntary.”

“There’s no deportation,” Rubio said. “We’ve asked countries preliminarily whether they will be open to accepting people not as a permanent solution, but as a bridge to reconstruction” in Gaza.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., condemned it as a “strategy of forced migration.”

Also on the Middle East, Rubio said the administration has pushed ahead with attempts to broker a ceasefire in Gaza and promote stability in Syria.

He stressed the importance of U.S. engagement with Syria, saying that otherwise, he fears the interim government there could be weeks or months away from a “potential collapse and a full-scale civil war of epic proportions.”

Rubio’s comments addressed Trump’s pledge to lift sanctions burdening Syria’s new transitional government, which is led by a former militant chief who led the overthrow of the country’s longtime oppressive leader, Bashar Assad, late last year. The U.S. sanctions were imposed under Assad.

Rubio and senators clash over white South Africans entering the country

In two particularly contentious exchanges, Kaine and Van Hollen demanded answers on the decision to suspend overall refugee admissions but to exempt Afrikaners based on what they called “specious” claims that they have been subjected to massive discrimination by the South African government. Rubio gave no ground.

In one tense exchange, Kaine pressed Rubio to say whether there should be a different refugee policy based on skin color.

“I’m not the one arguing that,” Rubio said. “Apparently, you are, because you don’t like the fact they’re white.”

“The United States has a right to pick and choose who we allow into the United States,” he said. “If there is a subset of people that are easier to vet, who we have a better understanding of who they are and what they’re going to do when they come here, they’re going to receive preference.”

He added: “There are a lot of sad stories around the world, millions and millions of people around the world. It’s heartbreaking, but we cannot assume millions and millions of people around the world. No country can.”

A truck driver told a trooper he was looking at a map and a GPS unit when ran a stop sign and crashed into another vehicle in Washington County, after which the other driver died, according to a search warrant affidavit.

Shane Joseph Loughney, 48, was taken to Regions Hospital with life-threatening injuries following the collision last Wednesday and died at the hospital on Saturday.

State Patrol troopers responded about 1:50 p.m. to Denmark Township. Investigation showed a 27-year-old man was driving a semitrailer northbound on Minnesota 95 “at highway speeds,” the affidavit said.

Loughney was eastbound on 70th Street, stopped at a stop sign and began turning left onto Minnesota 95. The semi T-boned his pickup in the intersection. The collision pushed both vehicles into another pickup.

The semi’s driver told a State Patrol sergeant he was “at fault for the crash,” the affidavit said. He said he’d “been looking at a combination of maps on his phone and a separate GPS unit which distracted him from seeing the stop signs.”

The warrant, approved by a judge and filed in court Monday, was for a forensic search of the driver’s phone.

The Washington County Attorney’s Office had not received a case to review for charges as of Tuesday.

Loughney was from Woodville in St. Croix County, Wisconsin.

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“What’s really on the line here isn’t paperwork—it’s power. Without member deference, decisions about what gets built and where shift away from accountable elected leaders and into the hands of deep-pocketed developers who answer to no one but their investors.”

Members of the City Council during a stated meeting in November. (Emil Cohen/NYC Council Media Unit)

In the fight over the future of New York City, one thing must stay non-negotiable: our neighborhoods don’t belong to developers—they belong to the people who live and work in them.

That’s why we must reject the Charter Revision Commission’s proposal to eliminate member deference in the City Council. It’s not some obscure procedural rule—it’s one of the last lines of defense New Yorkers have against profit-first developers who treat our city like a Monopoly board.

Member deference gives locally elected councilmembers the ability to fight for the people they represent on major land use decisions. It’s not just a courtesy—it’s a shield. It’s how working people protect their homes, their jobs, and their neighborhoods from being steamrolled by billionaire real estate interests that see every block as an investment opportunity.

Yes, we need to build more housing. Yes, we need to do it faster. And the carpenters are ready to roll up our sleeves to get it done. But efficiency can’t come at the cost of fairness. It can’t mean giving developers a blank check while stripping communities, and the workers who build this city, of a voice. Streamlining the process is one thing. Silencing the people? That’s something else entirely.

What’s really on the line here isn’t paperwork—it’s power. Without member deference, decisions about what gets built and where shift away from accountable elected leaders and into the hands of deep-pocketed developers who answer to no one but their investors. That is not reform, it is a sellout. 

We need a process that makes damn sure the people at the table are thinking about their neighbors, not the donors lining their pockets. Member deference holds councilmembers accountable. If they stop listening to the people and start siding with developers, voters can show them the door. That’s real democracy.

We’ve seen what happens when development is done right—with labor standards and community input. Good jobs are created, affordable housing goes up, and neighborhoods thrive. And we’ve seen what happens when developers get free rein: rents skyrocket, workers get shut out, and communities are hollowed out.

If we’re serious about solving the housing crisis, then we need to build more housing that is affordable, union-built, and community-driven. And that only happens when local voices are part of the process from the start, not pushed out of the way for the sake of speed.

This isn’t about protecting a political norm. It’s about protecting working people. Weakening their voice doesn’t move us forward; it hands the reins to the powerful few.

Let’s build a city for the people who power it—not the people who profit off it. 

Paul Capurso is the executive secretary-treasurer pro tem of the New York City and Vicinity District Council of Carpenters.

The post Opinion: Build a City for People, Not Developers appeared first on City Limits.

By JACQUES BILLEAUD

PHOENIX (AP) — Twenty years ago, when Arizona became frustrated with its porous border with Mexico, the state passed a series of immigration laws as proponents regularly griped about how local taxpayers get stuck paying the education, health care and other costs for people in the U.S. illegally.

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Then-Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio gladly took up the cause, launching 20 large-scale traffic patrols targeting immigrants from January 2008 through October 2011. That led to a 2013 racial profiling verdict and expensive court-ordered overhauls of the agency’s traffic patrol operations and, later, its internal affairs unit.

Eight years after Arpaio was voted out, taxpayers in Maricopa County are still paying legal and compliance bills from the crackdowns. The tab is expected to reach $352 million by midsummer 2026, including $34 million approved Monday by the county’s governing board.

While the agency has made progress on some fronts and garnered favorable compliance grades in certain areas, it hasn’t yet been deemed fully compliant with court-ordered overhauls.

Since the profiling verdict, the sheriff’s office has been criticized for disparate treatment of Hispanic and Black drivers in a series of studies of its traffic stops. The latest study, however, shows significant improvements. The agency’s also dogged by a crushing backlog of internal affairs cases.

Thomas Galvin, chairman of the county’s governing board, said the spending is “staggering” and has vowed to find a way to end the court supervision.

“I believe at some point someone has to ask: Can we just keep doing this?” Galvin said. “Why do we have to keep doing this?”

Critics of the sheriff’s office have questioned why the county wanted to back out of the case now that taxpayers are finally beginning to see changes at the sheriff’s office.

Profiling verdict

Nearly 12 years ago, a federal judge concluded Arpaio’s officers had racially profiled Latinos in his traffic patrols that targeted immigrants.

The patrols, known as “sweeps,” involved large numbers of sheriff’s deputies flooding an area of metro Phoenix — including some Latino neighborhoods — over several days to stop traffic violators and arrest other offenders.

The verdict led the judge to order an overhaul of the traffic patrol operations that included retraining officers on making constitutional stops, establishing an alert system to spot problematic behavior by officers and equipping deputies with body cameras.

Arpaio was later convicted of criminal contempt of court for disobeying the judge’s 2011 order to stop the patrols. He was spared a possible jail sentence when his misdemeanor conviction was pardoned by President Donald Trump in 2017.

Several traffic-stop studies conducted after the profiling verdict showed deputies had often treated Hispanic and Black drivers differently than other drivers, though the reports stop short of saying Hispanics were still being profiled.

The latest report, covering stops in 2023, painted a more favorable picture, saying there’s no evidence of disparities in the length of stops or rates of arrests and searches for Hispanic drivers when compared to white drivers. But when drivers from all racial minorities were grouped together for analysis purposes, the study said they faced stops that were 19 seconds longer than white drivers.

While the case focused on traffic patrols, the judge later ordered changes to the sheriff’s internal affairs operation, which critics alleged was biased in its decision-making under Arpaio and shielded sheriff’s officials from accountability.

The agency has faced criticism for a yearslong backlog of internal affairs cases, which in 2022 stood around 2,100 and was reduced to 939 as of last month.

Taxpayers pick up the bill

By midsummer 2026, taxpayers are projected to pay $289 million in compliance costs for the sheriff’s office alone, plus another $23 million on legal costs and $36 million for a staff of policing professionals who monitor the agency’s progress in complying with the overhauls.

Galvin has criticized the money spent on monitoring and has questioned whether it has made anyone safer.

Raul Piña, a longtime member of a community advisory board created to help improve trust in the sheriff’s office, said the court supervision should continue because county taxpayers are finally seeing improvements. Piña believes Galvin’s criticism of the court oversight is politically driven.

“They just wrote blank checks for years, and now it makes sense to pitch a fit about it being super expensive?” Piña said.

Ending court supervision

Christine Wee, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney representing the plaintiffs, said the sheriff’s office isn’t ready to be released from court supervision.

Wee said the plaintiffs have questions about the traffic-stop data and believe the internal affairs backlog has to be cleared and the quality of investigations needs to be high. “The question of getting out from under the court is premature,” Wee said.

The current sheriff, Jerry Sheridan, said he sees himself asking the court during his term in office to end its supervision of the sheriff’s office. “I would like to completely satisfy the court orders within the next two years,” Sheridan said.

But ending court supervision would not necessarily stop all the spending, the sheriff’s office has said in court records.

Its lawyers said the costs “will likely continue to be necessary even after judicial oversight ends to sustain the reforms that have been implemented.”