Category: Politics

A federal judge said Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s policy facilitating visas for participants in the ongoing World Cup soccer tournament undercuts the administration’s claims that other immigration benefits — for nationals from some of those same countries — need to be halted for national security reasons.

Rhode Island-based U.S. District Judge John McConnell issued a ruling last month lifting a hold the administration put on immigration processing for citizens of 39 countries.

During a hearing Wednesday on the Justice Department’s request to pause McConnell’s ruling, the judge said the effort to expedite visas for World Cup players and others connected to the tournament backed his view that there was no genuine national security motivation behind the moratorium, imposed last year after an Afghan immigrant allegedly shot two National Guard members near the White House.

“We let players and coaches from some of those 39 countries in, and their family members — disregarded the ban. We’ve let doctors in,” said McConnell. “If the categorical ban on those countries was needed because of the finding of the requirement for vetting wasn’t being properly done, why did we let the soccer players in? Why did we let their family members? Why did we let their coaches? Why did we let their doctors?”

Justice Department attorney Tyler Becker acknowledged that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has ignored the 39-country halt “in a few contexts.” The visa decisions impacting the World Cup are made by another government agency, the State Department. It, too, enforces special limits on visas for citizens of the same 39 countries, but that policy contains an exception for “participants in certain major sporting events.”

McConnell rejected the notion that his order would have prevented the federal government from pausing Saudi applications after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. That decision, he said, was clearly rooted in rational security needs as opposed to the Trump administration’s more sweeping suspension of immigration processing.

Earlier in the hourlong hearing, McConnell joked that an attorney for those challenging the halt might want to speed his argument — because the Argentina-England World Cup semifinal was just minutes away and some fans in the courtroom were eager to see it. But the Obama-appointed judge quickly emphasized he was kidding.

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LOS ANGELES — British-born California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton — who said he was cheering for the United States while it was still in the mix — today said he wanted Americans to help England prevail.

“Maybe a small consolation would be for them to just let England win the World cup here on American soil 250 years later,” Hilton, a Republican, told an annual conference of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials. The remark was received with a mix of boos, groans and some laughter.

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There’s lots of talk in England about declaring a bank holiday should the Three Lions really bring football home.

Keir Starmer has refused to confirm whether England would get a bank holiday if it won the tournament for the first time in 60 years, saying: “I don’t want to jinx it, but ask me again if we get to the final.”

That chatter has piqued the interest of Welsh nationalists in Cardiff who have long sought a bank holiday marking St. David’s Day on March 1, matching the holidays already granted to Scotland and Northern Ireland for their equivalent days.

A spokesperson for the Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru told POLITICO: “If England winning means a new bank holiday, would that mean we’re a step closer to getting one for St David’s Day in Wales? That’s something to support!”

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Maine Democrats want to hold onto Graham Platner’s progressive base — but they can’t agree on who is best positioned to carry the torch.

That indecision is creating a fractured field heading into an unpredictable late July nominating convention for one of the most important Senate races on the 2026 map. Now, various candidates are rushing to prove they are the most aligned with Platner’s policies, without tying themselves too closely to the disgraced oysterman.

Labor organizations and the national progressive organizing group Our Revolution are backing former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson, who campaigned with Platner during the primary and got the endorsement of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for his unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign earlier this year. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), a former Platner surrogate, is also behind Jackson, as are dozens of current and former state lawmakers.

But some state legislators and local activists who had backed Platner are flocking to Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who similarly ran as a progressive in the gubernatorial primary. And former public health official Nirav Shah is touting more progressive policy positions than he did when he ran for governor in an attempt to break off some Platner supporters. Behind the scenes, he is also working to recruit former organizers from Platner’s campaign, according to two people familiar with the strategy and granted anonymity to discuss it.

The trio of former gubernatorial candidates are the leading figures in a crowded field aiming to win over a yet-to-be-selected group of 600 Democratic delegates. Part of that task is convincing Platner’s former supporters that they will carry on the progressive advocacy and fighting spirit that made his candidacy so popular — before he was forced to resign after POLITICO reported a woman said he had sexually assaulted her. Platner has denied the allegation.

Many of the candidates will make that pitch directly during a debate scheduled for Thursday night. And the stakes couldn’t be higher for national Democrats watching anxiously: Unseating Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is an essential part of the party’s plan to take back control of the Senate this fall.

Platner convincingly won the Democratic Senate primary last month with nearly three quarters of the vote, and had a zealous base of support during the primary. But where his voters and core volunteers go next is unclear.

“People who were vocal supporters of Platner’s have moved to other candidates, and it doesn’t look to me like they moved in a block, that everyone agrees who’s the best next candidate from that movement,” said David Farmer, a Maine Democratic political strategist not involved with the Senate campaign. “And I think that in a truncated process like this, that’s to be expected.”

In just 11 days, Democrats will replace their nominee at a convention in Bangor. This weekend, they will select the delegates who will pick that candidate — a process playing out across all of the state’s 16 counties, with campaigns seeking to recruit and organize delegates who will vote in their favor.

Unions, who were a key Platner booster in his primary against Gov. Janet Mills, have largely gone to Jackson, a logger and longtime union member. The Maine AFL-CIO endorsed Jackson over the weekend, citing his support of workers’ issues in the Maine legislature, along with his track record of winning over rural and working-class voters.

Some of Platner’s biggest supporters in the state House are beginning to coalesce around Bellows, however. That includes state Rep. Valli Geiger, who had been floated by Platner as a potential replacement before she passed on a run. In a Facebook post, Geiger cited Bellows’ track record of standing up to President Donald Trump as secretary of state, along with the fact that she “did not declare as a candidate until after Graham Platner announced he was withdrawing from the race unlike the unseemly rush of so many ambitious men.”

Reached via text, Geiger declined to be interviewed about her support for Bellows.

State Rep. Gary Friedmann, who also previously endorsed Platner, said he is all-in for Bellows. While he agrees with Jackson’s stances and called his association with Sanders and Our Revolution “very compelling,” Friedmann hinted at something Democrats have voiced worry about behind the scenes: That Jackson struggles as a compelling public speaker.

“When it comes to standing up, if there’s a debate with Susan Collins, or the messaging that comes from both candidates, I think Shenna is extremely articulate and compelling,” Friedmann said.

He added: “I think that having a woman to voice that platform is gonna be very important.”

All of the candidates are still figuring out exactly how to capture Platner’s support without tying themselves too closely to him as an individual. A letter circulated by former Platner campaign volunteers that racked up hundreds of signatures as of Tuesday called for the candidate replacing him to adopt a string of progressive commitments on issues including health care, housing and ending “forever wars.” Both Jackson and Bellows signed onto the letter.

During a virtual rally hosted by Our Revolution on Monday, Jackson took time to “acknowledge what everyone on this call has been through” while asking Platner’s supporters to rally behind him, though he never mentioned the oysterman by name.

“I know that there’s real pain, anger, disappointment, and I’m not going to try and to minimize that,” Jackson said. “But look, this movement has always been bigger than one person. It’s about taking on a system rigged against working people.”

Joseph Geevarghese, who runs Our Revolution, called on the movement Platner emboldened to get involved in the delegate process outlined by the Maine Democratic Party.

“This is the perfect opportunity for us to show the establishment that we can organize and win within the system that they created, the Democratic Party process,” he said on the call.

A person close to Bellows, granted anonymity to discuss internal strategy, also acknowledged this dilemma for candidates, calling it “a really delicate dance to walk.”

“It’s not like she’s trying to be Graham Platner or be someone she’s not,” the person said. “She is able to be herself, and I think she, ideologically, is a great bridge for people who were very disheartened by what happened with Platner, but still extremely pissed off about Susan Collins and the Senate majority, and what’s happening in Washington, D.C.”

While Shah’s campaign is recruiting former Platner supporters behind the scenes, the former public health official is also making the pitch explicit in public comments.

“I want all former Platner supporters to know: you have a place in this campaign,” Shah wrote on social media shortly after he launched his candidacy last week.

Maine politics was rocked on Monday by ICE agents’ shooting of a 26-year-old man in Biddeford, with potential Senate candidates rallying around getting the federal agency out of Maine. For many Democrats, it was also a reminder of the importance of supporting the party’s eventual nominee, regardless of who it is.

Democratic State Rep. Morgan Rielly, a former supporter of Platner’s, said he told Jackson that he would support him in the primary. But more important, he said, was the goal of defeating Collins this fall.

“[The Democratic nominee] will have my full support and I will be working hard to get them elected,” Rielly said in a text message. “It’s absolutely crucial we are united and Senator Collins loses on election day.”

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Farkhunda Muhtaj has spent years fighting to keep the Afghanistan women’s national soccer team alive after the Taliban banned women from sport following President Joe Biden’s chaotic withdrawal of American forces from the country. That campaign reached a breakthrough this year when FIFA agreed to establish an official Afghan women’s national team.

The 28-year-old Afghan-Canadian, born to refugee parents from Kabul before her family settled in Toronto, helped lead the evacuation of Afghan soccer players after the Taliban returned to power in 2021. Since then, she has lobbied FIFA, organized a team in exile and worked to ensure Afghan players are ready to compete again — while playing as a midfielder for Calgary Wild of the Northern Super League in Canada.

The captain of the Afghanistan women’s soccer team, Muhtaj spoke with POLITICO from her home in Calgary.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The World Cup is sometimes described as one of the few genuinely global events left in a world that is being shaped by war, polarization and rising nationalism. Do we ask too much of sport to solve society’s problems?

Sport can still drive social change in a positive way, but when we look at the World Cup and competitions on a global scale, we often think that it’s going to solve geopolitical tension — and it doesn’t, unfortunately. But what I can say is fans that watch the World Cup definitely have a different perception compared to what they have learned in the past about certain regions. That’s a huge positive because you are able to come to conclusions on your own around what different cultures look like and you are able to understand that you have some biases toward certain communities that are not true. So, from a fan perspective, it definitely has the power to unite.

You helped lead the evacuation of Afghan soccer players from the country when the Taliban returned to power in 2021. Did that experience teach you anything about international solidarity — or a lack of international solidarity?

I’ve had incredibly positive experiences with American citizens that were able to help me with this evacuation. Whereas if we look at the government, perhaps I wouldn’t have received the same level of support or care from that perspective, just because unfortunately it was a failure from the U.S. government, what happened in Afghanistan.

It’s important to understand that you can’t underestimate your impact. You have to take things one step at a time and doors will open up, but you need to remain persistent. Throughout the whole journey hopefully things will end up the way you imagined, which in that case was helping evacuate these young girls and their family members.

What’s the set-up for the Afghan women’s football team right now?

Since 2021, unfortunately, the Taliban has banned women’s sport participation, which meant that the Afghanistan Football Federation also could not continue supporting the national women’s team. And so it no longer existed in 2021. During that time, when I helped evacuate the Afghan youth national team players to Portugal, I actually created the official Afghan youth national team as a result and the goal was really to make sure that we were in a state that we could continue to train and compete, albeit without any funding from FIFA or the Football Federation.

At the FIFA Congress in Vancouver this year, President [Gianni] Infantino actually announced that we were going to start the official national team. So they adjusted their governance just so that we could be a national team. That refugee pilot project was until June 30, which just passed, which means moving forward the goal is to make sure that they can build a sustainable program for this official national team program.

Do you feel like FIFA, national governments and other stakeholders are doing a good job to make sure people in your situation and your team are not forgotten about?

It’s difficult to say because it’s taken them many years to finally be able to recognize us when this is something that we had advocated for right from the beginning in 2021. So I am grateful that we have this opportunity now and we do have an independent national team and can rebuild. But I also feel like the longer we wait, the more difficult the situation gets. From a national team perspective, we haven’t been active for five years.

We really need to catch up and we’re not going to be on international standards right away, but it is a process and we are going to get there and I do truly believe in this group and the tenacity of Afghan women. But it would have been fantastic had this happened sooner and from a governmental perspective, unfortunately, the way geopolitics works, there’s always going to be something else that everyone focuses on.

How have events of the last few years changed what it means to represent your country?

Growing up, for me, football has always been bigger than just sport. My dad was introduced to football through being a refugee and he passed that on to us as well. As I came to Canada when I was two years old and my family were immigrants here, football is something that really united us, helped us integrate into society, built confidence and transferable life skills that definitely benefit us to this day.

And we give back through the game as well. We have a nonprofit organization called Scarborough Simbas that I’ve co-founded, which uses sports to help ease the settlement and journey of refugees and newcomers to Canada through the power of football.

If there’s a young girl out there watching the World Cup today, growing up in a country that’s affected by conflict or repression, what would you want her to know about the role sport can play?

I would go back to my speech at One Young World, which is a platform that unites the world and has people coming together, sharing each other’s stories, to discuss what’s happening around the world. I would argue the World Cup is like that, where it gives people different perceptions. You hear different stories about players, the challenges that they went through and it really humanizes the experience of those players, because, at times, I think we can feel so distant from a professional footballer.

But what I said in that speech, as well, was the fact that sport is so much more than a game, it was an opportunity. And for me when you are in those situations, it’s an opportunity to change gender norms and perceptions around your country as well, but also to understand that your impact is so much greater than the circumstances that you are in. So I would say to that young girl that gets involved in sport: compete … but give back to the game as well.

I am fully aware that it’s not as easy as what I’m saying. But I hope that they can understand that football and sport will give them so much more than they would have ever imagined.

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