‘Is JD Vance aware that a small village in rural Tyrone is his ancestral home? Very unlikely, but I would love him to visit Coagh'

A Stormont department insists it has found a potential link to back claims by US Vice President JD Vance that his ancestral roots have Ulster Scots links.
The research is also backed up by a local historian who has traced the Vance family back to the Tyrone village of Coagh.

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The Guardian

37 minutes ago

• The Guardian

Vance attacks Newsom and LA mayor and misnames senator arrested by Ice

JD Vance, the vice-president, on Friday accused California governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass of encouraging violent immigration protests as he used his appearance in Los Angeles to rebut criticism from state and local officials that the Trump administration fueled the unrest by sending in federal officers. Vance also referred to US senator Alex Padilla, the state's first Latino senator, as 'Jose Padilla', a week after the Democrat was forcibly taken to the ground by officers and handcuffed after speaking out during a Los Angeles news conference by homeland security secretary Kristi Noem on immigration raids. 'I was hoping Jose Padilla would be here to ask a question,' Vance said, in an apparent reference to the altercation at Noem's event. 'I guess he decided not to show up because there wasn't a theater. And that's all it is.' He added: 'They want to be able to go back to their far-left groups and to say, 'Look, me, I stood up against border enforcement. I stood up against Donald Trump.'' A spokesperson for Padilla, Tess Oswald, noted in a social media post that Padilla and Vance were formerly colleagues in the Senate and said that Vance should know better. 'He should be more focused on demilitarizing our city than taking cheap shots,' Oswald said. Vance's visit to Los Angeles to tour a multi-agency federal joint operations center and a mobile command center came as demonstrations calmed down in the city and a curfew was lifted this week. That followed over a week of clashes between protesters and police and outbreaks of vandalism and looting that followed immigration raids across southern California. Trump's dispatching of his top emissary to Los Angeles at a time of turmoil surrounding the Israel-Iran war and the US's future role in it signals the political importance Trump places on his hard-line immigration policies. Vance echoed the president's harsh rhetoric toward California Democrats as he sought to blame them for the protests in the city. 'Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass, by treating the city as a sanctuary city, have basically said that this is open season on federal law enforcement,' Vance said after he toured federal immigration enforcement offices. 'What happened here was a tragedy,' Vance added. 'You had people who were doing the simple job of enforcing the law and they had rioters egged on by the governor and the mayor, making it harder for them to do their job. That is disgraceful. And it is why the president has responded so forcefully.' Newsom's spokesperson Izzy Gardon said in a statement: 'The vice-president's claim is categorically false. The governor has consistently condemned violence and has made his stance clear.' In a statement on X, Newsom responded to Vance's reference to 'Jose Padilla', saying the comment was no accident. Jose Padilla also is the name of a convicted al-Qaida terrorism plotter during George W Bush's administration, who was sentenced to two decades in prison. Padilla was arrested in 2002 at Chicago O'Hare airport during the tense months after the 9/11 attacks and accused of a 'dirty bomb' mission. It later emerged through US interrogation of other al-Qaida suspects that the 'mission' was only a sketchy idea, and those claims never surfaced in the terrorism case. Responding to the outrage, Taylor Van Kirk, a spokesperson for Vance, said of the vice-president: 'He must have mixed up two people who have broken the law.' Federal immigration authorities have been ramping up arrests across the country to fulfill Trump's promise of mass deportations. Todd Lyons, the head of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has defended his tactics against criticism that authorities are being too heavy-handed. The friction in Los Angeles began on 6 June, when federal agents conducted a series of immigration sweeps in the region that have continued since. Amid the protests and over the objections of state and local officials, Trump ordered the deployment of roughly 4,000 national guard troops and 700 marines to the second-largest US city, home to 3.8 million people. Trump has said that without the military's involvement, Los Angeles 'would be a crime scene like we haven't seen in years'. Newsom has depicted the military intervention as the onset of a much broader effort by Trump to overturn political and cultural norms at the heart of the nation's democracy. Earlier Friday, Newsom urged Vance to visit victims of the deadly January wildfires while in southern California and talk with Trump, who earlier this week suggested his feud with the governor might influence his consideration of $40bn in federal wildfire aid for California. 'I hope we get that back on track,' Newsom wrote on X. 'We are counting on you, Mr Vice President.' Vance did not mention either request during his appearance on Friday.

Reuters

2 hours ago

• Reuters

Vance, in Los Angeles, says troops need to stay, blasts Newsom over immigration

LOS ANGELES, June 20 (Reuters) - Republican Vice President JD Vance on Friday met troops who have been deployed in Los Angeles to quell protests against immigration raids, as he accused Democratic state and city leaders of encouraging immigrants to cross the U.S. border illegally. Vance, who met some of the 700 U.S. Marines and 4,000 National Guard troops recently deployed to Los Angeles by President Donald Trump, also accused the Democratic leaders of failing to support local law enforcement. Trump deployed the California National Guard troops to Los Angeles earlier this month, against the wishes of Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, to quell protests triggered by immigration raids on workplaces by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. A U.S. appeals court on Thursday let Trump retain control of California's National Guard. Trump's decision to send troops into Los Angeles prompted a national debate about the use of the military on U.S. soil and inflamed political tension in the country's second most-populous city. Vance said the court's decision made clear that Trump's troop deployment "was a completely legitimate and proper use of federal law enforcement." Vance gave no indication of when the Marines and National Guard would leave Los Angeles, and hinted that they might stay in the city for some time. "The soldiers and Marines are still very much a necessary part of what's going on here, because they're worried that it's going to flare back up," Vance said. He accused Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass of failing to crack down on people in the city illegally, and of failing to support local and state law enforcement. "They have treated Border Patrol and border enforcement as somehow an illegitimate force, instead of what they are, which is the American people's law enforcement trying to enforce the American people's laws," he said. Newsom is tipped to mount a presidential bid in 2028, and could conceivably face off against Vance. Diana Crofts-Pelayo, a spokesperson for Newsom, called Vance's claim "categorically false." "The Governor has consistently condemned violence and has made his stance clear," she said. She cited posts Newsom made on X, including one on June 9 when he said, "Foolish agitators who take advantage of Trump's chaos will be held accountable." Newsom has said Trump's deployment of troops exacerbated the protests, increased tensions and is unconstitutional.

Daily Mail​

3 hours ago

• Daily Mail​

JD Vance travels to Los Angeles to scold Gavin Newsom for 'egging on' violent riots

Vice President JD Vance traveled to Los Angeles on Friday, setting up a showdown with Gov. Gavin Newsom as he visited deployed Marines in the city. The vice president traveled to a multiagency Federal Joint Operations Center and a Federal Mobile Command Center to visit with federal law officials and thank them for their efforts to protect the city. He defended the president's decision to send in federal troops to help local law enforcement combat rioters in the city. He described the series of events surrounding the riots a 'tragedy' and said that the rioters were 'egged on' by Newsom and the Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. 'That is disgraceful,' he said, adding, 'We've got to enforce our borders and get so many of these criminals out of our country to begin with.' He said that Trump acted because Newsom refused to take the riots seriously. 'If you enforce your own laws and if you protect federal law enforcement, we're not going to send in the national guard because it's unnecessary,' he said. 'But if you let violent rioters burn great American cities to the ground, then of course we're going to send in federal law enforcement to protect the people the president was elected to protect.' Vance said he was grateful to federal law enforcement officials citing the 'good news' that the rioting had slowed down, but said it was still necessary to keep them on duty in case the riots flared back up. The vice president criticized both Bass and Newsom for encouraging a 'crisis' by extending government benefits to illegal immigrants and straining the local public services. He also criticized both leaders for inciting violent riots in response to the president's deportation orders and endangering local law enforcement officials. 'I think it's disgraceful that we've ever gotten to this point,' Vance added. The vice president also ridiculed Sen. Jose Padilla for causing a scene at a press conference with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem last, leading her bodyguards to wrestle him to the ground and handcuff him. 'Well I was hoping Jose Padilla would be here to ask a question but unfortunately I guess he decided not to show up because there wasn't a theater,' he said when asked to respond to the incident. 'I think we ought to laugh them out of the building, we ought to call them out for doing what they are doing which is grandstanding.' President Donald Trump deployed 700 U.S. Marines to the city after protesters rioted in response to increased ICE raids and deportations of illegal immigrants. Vance's visit takes place after Newsom, who is considering a 2028 Ron for president, loudly protested the deployment of military forces to help quell the riots. Newsom warned that 'democracy was under assault,' because the president ignored his plea to deescalate the riots and protests. He described the deployment of federal troops and Marines unnecessary and illegal, filing a lawsuit to contest the president's deployment. Vance's trip takes place just after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled Thursday in favor of the president's authority to deploy military forces. 'The undisputed facts demonstrate that before the deployment of the National Guard, protesters 'pinned down' several federal officers and threw 'concrete chunks, bottles of liquid, and other objects' at the officers,' the court's decision read. 'Protesters also damaged federal buildings and caused the closure of at least one federal building. And a federal van was attacked by protesters who smashed in the van's windows. The federal government's interest in preventing incidents like these is significant.' The Marines were tasked with protecting federal buildings. Last week they detained a man for walking onto the property of a Los Angeles federal building but he was released without charges.