Federal agents including Immigration and Customs Enforcement detain a person outside an immigration courtroom in New York, 10 June 2025. (Keystone/AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

How Trump’s crusade against migration reverberates in Geneva. Nine months after launching his campaign promise to crack down on migration, Trump is taking a swing at the UN asylum system. As member states meet this week to discuss funding for refugee protection, what will the US rhetoric mean for Geneva agencies?

💥TWO YEARS OF DEVASTATION. Israel’s war in Gaza, launched after the 7 October attack by Hamas that killed around 1,000 Israelis, will hit its two-year mark on Tuesday.

UN officials describe an unprecedented humanitarian collapse. “We’ve reported on a war on children, a famine and a polio outbreak…yet somehow today, things are worse than any other time,” James Elder, Unicef spokesperson, told Geneva reporters on Friday.

Speaking from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, he described how two or three newborns were forced to share oxygen sources – 20 minutes each – in Nassar hospital in Khan Younis while corridors were lined with women who had just given birth.

IN NUMBERS

66,200 Palestinians killed and 170,000 wounded, according to Gaza health authorities.

42,000 with life-changing injuries, such as amputations, spinal cord injuries and severe burns, according to the WHO. One quarter are children.

543 aid workers killed, two thirds from UNRWA. An MSF staffer was killed as recently as Thursday.

20 injured per day at food distribution sites, treated at the ICRC field hospital in Rafah, spokesperson Christian Cardon said.

440 deaths from hunger, including 147 children, Gaza health authorities report.

8 hospitals remain minimally functional, according to WHO’s Rik Peeperkorn, who warned “hospitals are not protected”.

INFORMATION WAR. Despite the piling reports and testimonies of the dire humanitarian catastrophe, aid officials are visibly frustrated with narratives downplaying the crisis. Elder pushed back against Israel's claims that aid was flowing into the enclave.

“When we talk about a man-made famine, when we talk about why people don't have shelter, when we talk about the restrictions that have been on water, there has been consistently an information war,” he said, accusing some media of giving a platform to those “engineering famine”.

✅DECISION WEEK. The Human Rights Council will wrap up its fall session on Wednesday. States will consider nearly 40 draft resolutions and over 20 amendments from countries challenging proposals around maternal deaths, the death penalty and drug policy.

📑NEW REFUGEE CHIEF WANTED. Today is the last day to apply for the UN’s top refugee job. Filippo Grandi’s second five-year term as UN high commissioner for refugees is ending this year, and the UN is searching for his replacement.

Switzerland’s state secretary for migration, Christine Schraner, threw her hat in the ring early on, along with her country’s support.

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo has also been campaigning for the role, reportedly with French president Emmanuel Macron’s backing despite their frosty relationship, though it hasn’t been made official yet. She’ll be giving a video address this week at the UN Forum of Mayors in Geneva – an opportunity perhaps to signal her aspirations to her potential new home.

Among the others to have announced their bids are Turkey's UN envoy Ahmet Yildiz, the speaker of Poland's parliament, Szymon Hołownia, and former Belgian asylum secretary of state Nicole de Moor.

– By Michelle Langrand