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A photograph with a prominent drug cartel figure may be behind the Trump administration's refusal to grant a top Mexican politician a visa to enter the United States. The picture showed Baja California governor Marina del Pilar Avila hugging Emmanuel 'El Botas' Serrano while she was campaigning for mayor of the border town of Mexicali in 2019. Serrano allegedly reports directly to Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada, who leads half of the infamously brutal Sinaloa Cartel. The photo first emerged in September 2022, with the governor's office disputing allegations that she had any ties to the so-called El Botas. 'It's a...

Are you ready for the Circle IPO? The “stablecoin” giant just filed to go public. It’s aiming for a valuation between $4 billion and $5 billion and plans to list on the NYSE as early as June under the ticker CRCL. It will be the biggest crypto IPO since Coinbase (COIN) went public back in 2021. Circle is the company behind USD Coin (USDC)— the world’s second-biggest stablecoin. I’ll share my favorite way to profit from the rise of stablecoins in a minute. First, let me quickly break down what stablecoins are and why they’re a huge disruption to the...

At least three dozen more international students and recent alumni of pristine California universities have had their visas revoked by the Trump administration as it continues to zero in on anti-Israel protesters. Stanford University and several colleges part of the University of California system all confirmed to NBC News members of their school communities were caught up in the ongoing crackdown that began last month with the high-profile detainment of Columbia University alum and activist Mahmoud Khalil. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced last month he’s pulled back 300 visas from foreign students, claiming they should be kicked out of...

A Cornell University graduate student who had his US visa revoked due to protest activities against Israel has chosen to leave the US rather than be deported. Momodou Taal, who is a joint citizen of the UK and The Gambia, had his student visa revoked due to his on-campus protest activities last year as the Israel-Gaza war raged. Mr Taal previously sued to block his deportation, but on Monday posted on X that he had chosen to leave the country "free and with my head held high". It comes after a judge had denied his request to delay his deportation....

...the UK will introduce its Electronic Travel Authorisation system on January 8, 2025. It is a digital registration scheme for travelers who don’t need a visa to enter the UK...travelers will now need to get pre-travel authorization to fly to the UK. The pre-authorization clears you for entry to the country before travel. This is the UK equivalent of the United States’ ESTA — a mandatory, paid-for authorization to travel, with security clearance done in advance. The scheme debuted to Gulf Cooperation Council nationals in 2024, and will roll out to other non-European travelers — including the six million travelers...

Three members of the pioneering band were detained and returned to the UK after flying to Los Angeles for a gigMembers of the punk rock band UK Subs have said they were denied entry and detained in the US, according to accounts from the band themselves. Bassist Alvin Gibbs shared details of the incident in a Facebook post on Wednesday, which comes amid widespread reports of people being denied entry to the US, including a French scientist who said he was barred because of anti-Donald Trump comments he had made. Gibbs, along with bandmates Marc Carrey and Stefan Häublein, were...

The State Department has yanked the first visa of foreign student linked to “Hamas-supporting disruptions” after President Trump vowed to crackdown on those involved in anti-Israel protests on college campuses. “We revoked the first visa of an alien who was previously cited for criminal behavior in connection with Hamas-supporting disruptions,” a State Department spokesperson said in a Thursday statement first obtained by Fox News. “This individual was a university student. [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] will proceed with removing this person from the country.” The student’s name or nationality wasn’t released due to “legal constraints.” It also wasn’t immediately clear what...

Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters Tuesday that the administration plans to offer a “gold card” that would confer legal residency to foreigners at a cost of about $5 million. They said it would replace an existing U.S. visa program for overseas investors that’s long been mired in controversy. The president and Lutnick outlined a program that would also allow corporations to purchase U.S. residency, commonly known as a “green card,” for high-skilled or highly educated employees, suggesting it might replace some kinds of work visa. “ It’s going to be giving you green card privileges plus,” Trump...

Companies that prefer migrants and H-1B visa workers over Americans will face federal investigations and discrimination lawsuits, says Andrea Lucas, who President Donald Trump picked to serve as acting chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). “The EEOC is putting employers and other covered entities on notice: if you are part of the pipeline contributing to our immigration crisis or abusing our legal immigration system via illegal preferences against American workers, you must stop,” Lucas said in a February 20 notice. “The law applies to you, and you are not above the law. The EEOC is here to...

Liu Lijun, a Chinese graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), has reportedly had her student visa revoked after organizing pro-Palestine rallies on campus. Liu was arrested in May 2024 during protests related to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, which began on October 7, 2023. According to the Telegraph India, the revocation of Liu’s visa follows an executive order signed by U.S. President Donald Trump, which aims to address antisemitism in response to the conflict. The order focuses on what the Trump administration has described as a rise in antisemitism across U.S. campuses and communities....

BREAKING: Per source w/ knowledge, the Trump admin plans to retaliate against the Colombian president’s decision to reject two deportation flights by closing the US embassy Colombia’s visa section tomorrow, where 1,500 appointments had been scheduled. I’m told “additional retaliatory measures will be rolled out soon.”

Teamsters Union President Sean O’Brien says the H-1B visa program “displaces” Americans from their jobs while allowing billionaires at the top of corporations to exploit foreign workers. Amid debate regarding the H-1B visa program, which allows companies to import hundreds of thousands of foreign workers, primarily from India, to take white-collar American jobs, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) blasted the program as nothing more than an outsourcing scheme.

On Tuesday, the Justice Department unsealed an indictment against an Afghan national living in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for "conspiring to conduct an Election Day terrorist attack in the United States on behalf of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), a designated foreign terrorist organization (FTO)."According to a Justice Department press release, "Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, conspired and attempted to provide material support to ISIS and obtained firearms and ammunition to conduct a violent attack on U.S. soil in the name of ISIS." Both Tawhedi and his juvenile co-conspirator were in the U.S. on Special Immigrant Visas. Tawhedi is...

ASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI has arrested an Afghan man who officials say was inspired by the Islamic State militant organization and was plotting an Election Day attack targeting large crowds in the U.S., the Justice Department said Tuesday. Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, of Oklahoma City told investigators after his arrest Monday that he had planned his attack to coincide with Election Day next month and that he and a co-conspirator expected to die as martyrs, according to charging documents.

Paul Pelosi, the husband of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), sold between $500,000 and $1 million worth of Visa stock, according to public records, just weeks before the Justice Department launched a lawsuit against the credit card company on Tuesday. The finding raises concerns that many members of Congress trade stocks based on information unavailable to the public. Seventy-six percent of voters believe congressional members and their spouses have an “unfair advantage” in trading stocks. Paul Pelosi traded the stock before the DOJ launched a probe into Visa for allegedly monopolizing the debit card market, Bloomberg reported. The New York Post...

Most countries whose citizens can visit the US without a visa are longstanding allies in Europe and Asia. The only other Muslim-majority country in the program is the tiny Southeast Asian nation of Brunei. Although Qatar’s population is just over 3 million people, only a small percentage of those — about 320,000 — are actually Qataris who would be eligible for the program if they hold valid passports. The vast majority of people who live in Qatar are foreign workers and other expatriates who do not hold Qatari passports. The program allows citizens of qualifying nations to enter the US...

Americans planning to travel to the United Kingdom will have to pay a fee to enter the country starting next year. The county's electronic travel authorization (ETA) fee will go into effect on January 8, 2025, according to the UK government. US travelers will have to pay $13.05 (£10) to obtain the authorization which will be digitally linked to passports. The authorization will be valid for multiple trips over two years for stays up to six months at a time, 'or until the holder's passport expires,' the government said. US citizens can apply for an ETA starting on November 27,...

NEW YORK — Your wallet may soon be getting thinner. Visa on Wednesday announced major changes to how credit and debit cards will operate in the U.S. in the coming months and years. The new features could mean Americans will be carrying fewer physical cards in their wallets, and will make the 16-digit credit or debit card number printed on every card increasingly irrelevant. They will be some of the biggest changes to how payments operate in the U.S. since the U.S. rolled out chip-embedded cards several years ago. They also come as Americans have many more options to pay...

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 15, 2024-- The way people pay and get paid has changed more in the past five years than in the last 50. Consumers have evolved, adapting to new payment experiences – from the advent of embedded, digital commerce to the rapid adoption of “the tap.” Today at the annual Visa Payments Forum in San Francisco, Visa (NYSE: V) unveiled new products and services that will revolutionize the card and address the future needs of businesses, merchants and consumers and the financial institutions that serve them. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240515563838/en/ “The...

The Gateway Pundit’s Christina Laila was first to report on the most recent James O’Keefe bombshell video that exposed a CIA contractor admitting that the intelligence agencies were working together to keep top-secret information hidden from President Trump while he was the sitting President! snip.. O’Keefe Media Group’s bombshell undercover footage supports earlier reports by investigative journalists Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, and Alex Gutentag that revealed how the American intelligence community illegally ran a spy operation against then-candidate Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016 and illegally acquired intelligence that was later used to justify the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) official...