Arab America decides as Trump and Harris remain tied in final stretch of election race

No matter who wins the vote, Arab and Muslim American voters will have been in the driver’s seat for sure. (AFP)
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Updated 04 November 2024
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Arab America decides as Trump and Harris remain tied in final stretch of election race

  • Recent Arab News/YouGov survey revealed Arab American frustration with US policy in the Middle East
  • In swing states with large concentrations of Arab Americans, their votes have become as valuable as gold dust

LONDON: They are in a minority of about 1 percent.

In the US census carried out in 2020 — the first that specifically sought information about MENA origins — just 3.5 million of America’s 334 million citizens reported being of Middle East and North African descent.

But as Americans go to the polls today to select their next president, that 1 percent is poised to have a 100 percent impact on one of the most important US elections for a generation.

No one would suggest that this is a homogeneous group. Culturally, historically and linguistically, being “Arab” is an umbrella term for peoples as diverse as the 22 nations that comprise the League of Arab States.

But as an exclusive Arab News/YouGov survey revealed last month, in the run-up to the 2024 US presidential election all Arab Americans have been united — in grief and outrage and in disappointment at the performance of the current US administration over the shocking events that have taken place in Gaza and Lebanon over the past year.

The survey also found that Arab Americans were preparing to vote in unprecedented numbers — underscoring just how important their swing-state vote will have been today for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

What the survey also revealed, however, is that Arab Americans have been divided over which of the two main candidates to vote for.

This explains the last-minute efforts to woo the Arab American vote by both Harris and former President Donald Trump.




The Arab News/YouGov survey revealed the extent to which traditional Arab American support for the Democratic Party has ebbed away over the Palestine issue. (AFP)

Right up to the wire, the election race has been too close to call, which is why in the crucial swing states that happen to be home to the largest concentrations of Arab Americans, their votes have become like gold dust.

On Sunday Harris was in Detroit, announcing: “I am honored to have the support of many Arab American leaders who represent the interests and the concerns of the Arab American community.”

She also made sure to repeat a line she has delivered frequently during the campaign as she sought to distance herself from association with the perception that the Biden administration had failed to hold Israel in check over the past year.

“The level of deaths of innocent Palestinians is unconscionable,” she said.

The Arab News/YouGov survey revealed the extent to which traditional Arab American support for the Democratic Party has ebbed away over the Palestine issue.

In October, Harris met community leaders in Flint, Michigan, in a clear attempt to make the point that, although she served as his vice president, she is not Biden.

But some community leaders declined the invitation to meet Harris, and not everyone who took part in a virtual meeting with Harris’ national security adviser, Phil Gordon, was reassured by the overture.

Ali Dagher, a Lebanese-American community leader who did not attend the meeting, described Harris’ outreach to the Arab community as “too little, too late.”

Both campaigns have been very aware that of all seven battleground states, the result in Michigan appears to have been the most finely balanced, and on Friday it was Trump’s turn to assure the 200,000 Arab American voters in the state there that he was on their side.

In messages found on billboards along Michigan’s highways, Trump portrayed himself as pro-peace in the Middle East, while casting Harris as pro-Israel. Skeptics saw it as a curious flight of fancy for a man whose record as president was entirely pro-Israel, and not all of them were falling for it.

“We’re not naive about what he means for our community,” Rexhinaldo Nazarko, executive director of Michigan advocacy group the American Muslim Engagement and Empowerment Network, told the BBC.

Nazarko and doubtless many other Arab Americans have not forgotten Trump’s 2017 “Muslim ban,” his recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and his Abraham Accords, widely perceived in the Arab world as favoring Israel and patronizing Palestinians.

Regardless, several influential Arab Americans have declared for Trump, including Amer Ghalib, the mayor of Hamtramck, near Detroit. He has said his decision to endorse the former president was “a combination of both disappointment and hope” — disappointment with Biden’s handling of the Middle East situation and “hope that some change will bring peace to the Middle East, and we found President Trump is so determined about that.”




Demonstrators protest in support of the Palestinians who have died in Gaza outside of the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. (AFP)

However, one of the latest polls of American voters suggests that Harris is beginning to pull ahead of Trump in five of the crucial seven swing states.

But it is in the three remaining swing states where the election is likely to be won and lost — including in Michigan, where the two candidates are neck-and-neck with exactly 47 percent of the vote each.

This echoes almost precisely the result of the Arab News/YouGov poll, which was published last week, and which also found that the Arab American vote is virtually polarized. Asked which candidate they were most likely to vote for, 45 percent said Trump, while 43 percent opted for Harris.

This was a big surprise, especially as 40 percent of those polled described themselves as natural Democrats, only 28 percent as Republicans and 23 percent as independents.

The poll made clear just how many Arab Americans appear to have switched their allegiance from the Democrats to the Republicans in response to the disappointment engendered by the Biden administration’s handling of Israel and the catastrophe in Gaza.

It will soon be clear whether Harris has been able to shake off that association among Arab American voters.

Whether she has or not, and whoever will be heading for the White House in January following today’s vote, the 2024 presidential election is already a historic one for Arab Americans. Their wholehearted embrace of the US democratic process — on a scale far outweighing that of the American electorate overall — has been on an unprecedented scale, reflecting not only their concern for their familial homelands but also their engagement with the politics of America.

Because make no mistake: Although the world categorizes them as Arab Americans, they see themselves as American Arabs — and their stake in the country that can lay claim to being the world’s greatest melting pot of immigrants is as deeply embedded as any.

In 2023 Dearborn, Michigan, became the first Arab-majority city in America. The fact that it did, and that Michigan’s Arabs have been in a position to play such a vital role in the selection of America’s next president, is down to something as all-American as the Model T Ford — literally.

At the start of the 20th century there was nothing much other than farmland in and around Dearborn. In 1908 Henry Ford began producing his revolutionary Model T cars in Detroit, and among the first workers he hired on the production line were Arabs who had recently emigrated from Syria.




Joe Biden stepped aside in July to allow his VP, Kamala Harris, to contest the election. (AFP)

They were followed by others, chiefly from Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen, who all settled in and around Dearborn, working for the gigantic Ford factory that grew up there, and where the company still has its headquarters today.

There have been 21 presidents since the first Arab immigrants began working on Ford’s Model T production lines in Michigan 116 years ago. When the last polls close in Michigan today at 9 p.m. Eastern Time, their descendants will have the satisfaction of knowing that in the race to become the 47th president of the United States they have been firmly in the driver’s seat.

 


US immigration authorities appear to have begun deporting migrants to South Sudan, attorneys say

Updated 6 sec ago
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US immigration authorities appear to have begun deporting migrants to South Sudan, attorneys say

  • South Sudan has suffered repeated waves of violence since gaining independence from Sudan in 2011

WASHINGTON: The Trump administration appears to have begun deporting people from Myanmar and Vietnam to South Sudan despite a court order restricting removals to other countries, attorneys for the migrants said in court documents.
Immigration authorities may have sent up to a dozen people from several countries to Africa, they told a judge.
Those removals would violate a court order saying people must get a “meaningful opportunity” to argue that sending them to a country outside their homeland would threaten their safety, attorneys said.
The apparent removal of one man from Myanmar was confirmed in an email from an immigration official in Texas, according to court documents. He was informed only in English, a language he does not speak well, and his attorneys learned of the plan hours before his deportation flight, they said.
A woman also reported that her husband from Vietnam and up to 10 other people were flown to Africa Tuesday morning, attorneys from the National Immigration Litigation Alliance wrote.
They asked Judge Brian E. Murphy for an emergency court order to prevent the deportations. Murphy, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, previously found that any plans to deport people to Libya without notice would “clearly” violate his ruling, which also applies to people who have otherwise exhausted their legal appeals. A hearing in the case is set for Wednesday.
The Department of Homeland Security and the White House did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
Some countries do not accept deportations from the United States, which has led the Trump administration to strike agreements with other countries, including Panama, to house them. The Trump administration has sent Venezuelans to a notorious prison in El Salvador under an 18th-century wartime law hotly contested in the courts.
South Sudan has suffered repeated waves of violence since gaining independence from Sudan in 2011 amid hopes it could use its large oil reserves to bring prosperity to a region long battered by poverty. Just weeks ago, the country’s top UN official warned that fighting between forces loyal to the president and a vice president threatened to spiral again into full-scale civil war.
The situation is “darkly reminiscent of the 2013 and 2016 conflicts, which took over 400,000 lives,” Nicholas Haysom, head of the almost 20,000-strong UN peacekeeping mission.
The US State Department’s annual report on South Sudan, published in April 2024, says “significant human rights issues” include arbitrary killings, disappearances, torture or inhumane treatment by security forces and extensive violence based on gender and sexual identity.
The US Homeland Security Department has given Temporary Protected Status to a small number of South Sudanese already living in the United States since the country was founded in 2011, shielding them from deportation because conditions were deemed unsafe for return. Secretary Kristi Noem recently extended those protections to November to allow for a more thorough review.

 


Trump selects concept for $175 billion ‘Golden Dome’ missile defense system

Updated 23 min 55 sec ago
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Trump selects concept for $175 billion ‘Golden Dome’ missile defense system

  • Golden Dome is envisioned to include ground- and space-based capabilities that are able to detect and stop missiles at all four major stages of a potential attack

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump has announced the concept he wants for his future Golden Dome missile defense program — a multilayered, $175 billion system that for the first time will put US weapons in space.
Speaking Tuesday from the Oval Office, Trump said he expects the system will be “fully operational before the end of my term,” which ends in 2029, and have the capability of intercepting missiles “even if they are launched from space.”
It’s likelier that the complex system may have some initial capability by that point, a US official familiar with the program said.
Trump, seated next to a poster showing the continental US painted gold and with artistic depictions of missile interceptions, also announced that Gen. Michael Guetlein, who currently serves as the vice chief of space operations, will be responsible for overseeing Golden Dome’s progress.
Golden Dome is envisioned to include ground- and space-based capabilities that are able to detect and stop missiles at all four major stages of a potential attack: detecting and destroying them before a launch, intercepting them in their earliest stage of flight, stopping them midcourse in the air, or halting them in the final minutes as they descend toward a target.
For the last several months, Pentagon planners have been developing options — which the US official described as medium, high and “extra high” choices, based on their cost — that include space-based interceptors. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to detail plans that have not been made public.
The difference in the three versions is largely based on how many satellites and sensors — and for the first time, space-based interceptors — would be purchased.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated this month that just the space-based components of the Golden Dome could cost as much as $542 billion over the next 20 years. Trump has requested an initial $25 billion for the program in his proposed tax break bill now moving through Congress.
The Pentagon has warned for years that the newest missiles developed by China and Russia are so advanced that updated countermeasures are necessary. Golden Dome’s added satellites and interceptors — where the bulk of the program’s cost is — would be focused on stopping those advanced missiles early on or in the middle of their flight.
The space-based weapons envisioned for Golden Dome “represent new and emerging requirements for missions that have never before been accomplished by military space organizations,” Gen. Chance Saltzman, head of the US Space Force, told lawmakers at a hearing Tuesday.
China and Russia have put offensive weapons in space, such as satellites with abilities to disable critical US satellites, which can make the US vulnerable to attack.
Last year, the US said Russia was developing a space-based nuclear weapon that could loiter in space for long durations, then release a burst that would take out satellites around it.
Trump said Tuesday that he had not yet spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin about the Golden Dome program, “but at the right time, we will,” he told reporters at the White House.
There is no money for the project yet, and Golden Dome overall is “still in the conceptual stage,” newly confirmed Air Force Secretary Troy Meink told senators during a hearing Tuesday.
While the president picked the concept he wanted, the Pentagon is still developing the requirements that Golden Dome will need to meet — which is not the way new systems are normally developed.
The Pentagon and US Northern Command are still drafting what is known as an initial capabilities document, the US official said. That is how Northern Command, which is responsible for homeland defense, identifies what it will need the system to do.
The US already has many missile defense capabilities, such as the Patriot missile batteries that the US has provided to Ukraine to defend against incoming missiles as well as an array of satellites in orbit to detect missile launches. Some of those existing systems will be incorporated into Golden Dome.
Trump directed the Pentagon to pursue the space-based interceptors in an executive order during the first week of his presidency.

 


Immigrant rights advocates claim US violated court order by deporting migrants to South Sudan

Updated 20 May 2025
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Immigrant rights advocates claim US violated court order by deporting migrants to South Sudan

  • The advocates made the request in a motion directed to a federal judge in Boston

BOSTON: Immigrant rights advocates accused the Trump administration on Tuesday of deporting around a dozen migrants from countries including Myanmar and Vietnam to South Sudan in violation of a court order and asked a judge to order their return.

The advocates made the request in a motion directed to a federal judge in Boston who had barred the Trump administration from swiftly deporting migrants to countries other than their own without first hearing any concerns they had that they might be tortured or persecuted if sent there.


Maritime security under threat from ‘emerging dangers,’ UN chief warns

Updated 20 May 2025
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Maritime security under threat from ‘emerging dangers,’ UN chief warns

  • Houthi Red Sea campaign ‘increased tensions in an already volatile region’
  • Antonio Guterres calls for three-point plan to address challenges

NEW YORK CITY: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned of rising threats to global maritime transport at a high-level Security Council meeting on Tuesday.

It follows almost two years of turmoil in the Red Sea, a vital shipping lane connecting global trade via the Suez Canal.

Yemen’s Houthi militia launched a campaign in late 2023 to prevent Israel-linked shipping from transiting the Red Sea, claiming to act in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

The US responded with Operation Prosperity Guardian, a military campaign to target Houthi launch sites and infrastructure.

The EU contributed with EUNAVFOR Aspides, while Israel later responded to Houthi attacks with extensive strikes on Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, and the Houthi-controlled port city of Hodeidah.

Tuesday’s Security Council meeting was chaired by Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek prime minister.

Guterres told the meeting: “Without maritime security, there can be no global security.

“From time immemorial, maritime routes have bound the world together. They have long been the primary means for the trade and transport of not only people, goods and commodities, but also cultures and ideas.”

However, maritime spaces are “increasingly under strain” from traditional threats and “emerging dangers,” Guterres added.

He highlighted contested boundaries, the depletion of natural resources, conflict and crime as key issues affecting maritime security.

The first quarter of 2025 saw a “sharp upward reversal” in reported piracy and armed robbery at sea, Guterres said.

He highlighted the Houthi Red Sea campaign, warning it had “disrupted global trade and increased tensions in an already volatile region.”

Earlier this month, the US reached a ceasefire deal with the Houthis following mediation by Oman.

However, the militia and Israel continue to trade strikes.

Guterres called for three measures to improve global maritime security: Respect for international law; efforts to address the root causes of maritime insecurity; and partnerships involving “everyone with a stake in maritime spaces.”

The international legal framework for maritime security “is only as strong as states’ commitment” to its implementation, he said.

Globally, more must be done “to reduce the likelihood that desperate people will turn to crime and other activities that threaten maritime security,” he added.

Guterres said: “We must involve everyone with a stake in maritime spaces. From coastal communities to governments and regional groups. To shipping companies, flag registries, the fishing and extraction industries, insurers and port operators.

“Let’s take action to support and secure maritime spaces, and the communities and people counting on them.”


Indonesian gig drivers protest demanding lower app fees

Updated 20 May 2025
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Indonesian gig drivers protest demanding lower app fees

  • Motorbike and scooter drivers who form the backbone of Indonesia’s sprawling gig economy earn up to 150,000 rupiah ($10) a day

JAKARTA: Thousands of drivers from ride-hailing and food delivery apps protested in Indonesia on Tuesday, demanding a 10-percent cap on commission fees.

Hundreds of drivers gathered in the streets of the capital Jakarta, driving their motorbikes and waving flags.

Thousands more in Indonesia’s second-largest city of Surabaya drove to the offices of ride-hailing apps GoJek and Grab, before rallying in front of the governor’s office, an AFP journalist saw.

“Many of our friends got into accidents on the road, died on the road because they have to chase their income,” Raden Igun Wicaksono, chairman of the driver’s union Garda Indonesia, told AFP.

“It’s about lives, not about business calculation.”

Drivers are also demanding the end of discounted fare programs and calling on lawmakers to meet with the drivers’ association and app companies.

Motorbike and scooter drivers who form the backbone of Indonesia’s sprawling gig economy earn up to 150,000 rupiah ($10) a day, but costs including app commissions and fuel eat into their income.

Gojek — which alongside Singapore’s Grab is among Asia’s most valuable startups — said it was committed to “supporting the long-term welfare of our driver partners.” 

But lowering its 20-percent commission fee, which complied with regulations, was “not a viable solution,” according to Ade Mulya, head of public policy for Gojek’s parent company GoTo.