Folks,
Greetings from the Burgh where Payday is getting ready to leave for Brasil in 11 days. Hopefully, though, the Brazilian government still allows Americans in after what just happened.
Trump Suspends Brazilian Immigration
Earlier today, the Trump Administration announced that they were suspending all immigration procedures for citizens from 75 countries including Brazil, Somalia, Russia, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Nigeria, Thailand, and Yemen.
This would not affect people traveling on tourist, business, or journalism visas. However, all Brazilians entering the United States would be required to show their social media history before entering.
"The Trump administration is bringing an end to the abuse of America's immigration system by those who would extract wealth from the American people," State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said in a statement. "Immigrant visa processing from these 75 countries will be paused while the State Department reassesses immigration processing procedures to prevent the entry of foreign nationals who would take welfare and public benefits.”
At the same time, Trump is threatening to impose a 25% tariff on all countries that continue to do trade with Iran, including Brasil and many of the countries on the list.
Brazilian President Lula did not respond immediately. The relationship between Trump and Lula has been cordial in recent months. The two promised to call each other if problems arose.
Brazilian Agriculture Minister Carlos Fávaro commented that the Lula Administration was not ready to comment on the measures yet since nothing has been finalized by the Trump Administration.
“For now, everything is proceeding normally. Nothing has been formalized yet,” Agriculture Minister Carlos Fávaro told CNN. “We're going to take it calmly. That's the president's instruction, dialogue is the key word,” he added.
60% of Goal of Latin American Coverage Met
Good news, we are 60% of the way to our goal for Latin American coverage and leaving in 11 days.
For 1st time in 50 Years, US Experiences Negative Net Migration
As America continues to deal with labor shortages in key sectors, the United States has, for the first time in 50 years, seen negative net migration. From The Washington Post:
Net migration to the U.S. was between negative 10,000 and negative 295,000 in 2025, according to an update of estimates first released in the summer by economists Wendy Edelberg and Tara Watson, of center-left think tank Brookings, and Stan Veuger, of the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
While arrests and deportations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have been in the spotlight, the report’s authors attribute the majority of the drop-off in immigration to a slowdown in new arrivals orchestrated by President Donald Trump’s administration — from the near-closure of the U.S.-Mexico border to new visa restrictions and fees and the end of many humanitarian migrant programs, including for nearly all refugees.
Another factor includes deportations, which the economists estimate amounted to about 300,000 in 2025, less than the approximately 600,000 the Trump administration described.
For more, check out The Washington Post.
Suspended Ford Worker, Who Heckled Trump, Raises $330,000
Yesterday, 40-year-old Ford worker TJ Sabula, a proud member of UAW 600, heckled Trump while he was visiting his plant in Dearborn, Michigan, calling him a “pedophile protector.” Trump responded by yelling “Fuck you” back at the worker and giving him the middle finger.
Ford responded by suspending Sabula from his job while they investigate the matter. In response, union activists from Sabula’s local launched a GoFundMe campaign that has raised over $330,000 as we went to press.
UAW Ford Director Laura Dickerson defended the actions of Sabula and vowed that the union would protect him.
‘The autoworker at the Dearborn Truck Plant is a proud member of a strong and fighting union — the UAW. He believes in freedom of speech, a principle we wholeheartedly embrace, and we stand with our membership in protecting their voice on the job,” said Dickerson in a statement. “The UAW will ensure that our member receives the full protection of all negotiated contract language safeguarding his job and his rights as a union member.”
For more, check out his GoFundMe page.
ICE Offering Bribes to Organizers to Rat Out Immigrants
A new lawsuit by the ACLU accuses ICE of offering bribes and legal rewards to organizers if they snitch on undocumented immigrants. The lawsuit alleges that the organizers were detained without their lawyers for several hours in brutal conditions and even threatened with legal action if they didn’t give up names.
“It was very clear that they were trying to just humiliate me, break me down. Just hearing the visceral pain of the people in this center was awful,” Patty O’Keefe told the AP. “And then you juxtapose that with the laughter we heard from the actual agents. ... It was very surreal and kind of shocking.”
ICE Targets Minnesota Pizza Place Donating Food to Immigrants & Activists
Since ICE’s crackdown in Minnesota, the Wrecktangle Pizza Place in Minneapolis' LynLake neighborhood has raised over $83,000 online to provide food for immigrants who can’t work because of the raids in the Twin Cities.
On Monday, ICE tried to raid the pizza shop in a move that many saw as retaliatory. However, residents and employees fought back; preventing the agents from entering the pizza place.
"They stormed up on our door to try to get in," Breanna Evans, co-owner of Wrecktangle Pizza told WCCO. "We probably put a target on ourselves like that by helping people, which is sickening,"
Haitian-American Nurse Leading 15,000 Nurses Strike in NYC
In New York City, over 15,000 nurses, members of NYSNA (New York State Nurses Association), are on strike at some of the biggest hospitals in the city. Leading the strike is Haitian immigrant Nancy Hagans, president of the NYSNA:
“Our key sticking points in negotiations continue to be safe staffing for our patients, protection from workplace violence and health care for frontline nurses,” said Nancy Hagans, president of the New York State Nurses Association, during a press conference kicking off the planned strike.
She was flanked by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, among numerous officials, who came to show support for the strike from three of the city’s largest health care systems: Mount Sinai, Montefiore, and NewYork-Presbyterian. The strike continued Tuesday, with no confirmed information about when it might end.
Ramatulah Sow, a nurse who has worked at NewYork-Presbyterian for 17 years, was among the demonstrators outside the hospital headquarters in Washington Heights.
“I’m here for a fair contract, for my patients, for my pension, for everything,” Sow said.
Hagans, who is Haitian-American, leads a union that represents a workforce comprising a significant number of immigrants, many from Haiti and the Caribbean. While there is no exact data on how many nurses in New York City are Haitian or of Haitian descent, national and state data show that Haitian and Caribbean immigrants make up a significant share of the health care workforce.
The Migration Policy Institute stated in a 2023 report that more than 103,000 Haitian immigrants worked in health care nationwide as of 2021. The figure makes Haitians the sixth-largest immigrant group in that field in the U.S. Many work in nursing-related and health care support roles such as nursing assistants or home health aides. In the state of New York, immigrants account for about 37% of the health care workforce, roughly twice the national average.
For more, check out The Haitian Times
I’m flying to Detroit tomorrow and likely won’t have a newsletter, but keep sending tips, comments, and complaints to melk@paydayreport.com
See yinz later in the week,
Melk
