WASHINGTON, July 3 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump 's tax-cut l, opens new tabegislation cleared its final hurdle in the U.S. Congress on Thursday, as the Republican-controlled House of Representatives narrowly approved a massive package that would fund his domestic agenda and push millions of Americans off health insurance The 218-214 vote amounts to a significant victory for the Republican president that will fund his immigration crackdown, make his 2017 tax cuts permanent and deliver new tax breaks that he promised during his 2024 campaign.

t also cuts health and food safety net programs and zeroes out dozens of green energy incentives. It would add $3.4 trillion to the nation's $36.2 trillion debt, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Despite concerns within Trump's party over the 869-page bill's price tag and its hit to healthcare programs, in the end just two of the House's 220 Republicans voting against it, following an overnight standoff. The bill has already cleared the Republican-controlled Senate by the narrowest possible margin. The White House said Trump will sign it into law at 5 p.m. ET (2100 GMT) on Friday, the July 4 Independence Day holiday. Republicans said the legislation will lower taxes for Americans across the income spectrum and spur economic growth. "This is jet fuel for the economy, and all boats are going to rise," House Speaker Mike Johnson said. Every Democrat in Congress voted against it, blasting the bill as a giveaway to the wealthy that would leave millions uninsured. "The focus of this bill, the justification for all of the cuts that will hurt everyday Americans, is to provide massive tax breaks for billionaires," House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in an eight-hour, 46-minute speech that was the longest in the chamber's history. Trump kept up the pressure throughout, cajoling and threatening lawmakers as he pressed them to finish the job. "FOR REPUBLICANS, THIS SHOULD BE AN EASY YES VOTE. RIDICULOUS!!!" he wrote on social media. Though roughly a dozen House Republicans threatened to vote against the bill, only two ended up doing so: Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, a centrist, and Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a conservative who said it did not cut spending enough.

A similar situation arose in the Maldives in early 2024 when Mohamed Muizzu, the current president of the Maldives and then presidential candidate, showed up wearing T-shirts with the slogan "India OUT" as the chorus of "Boycott Turkey" and "Boycott Azerbaijan" grew among the two nations that support Pakistan and Pakistan's position on Kashmir. Additionally, Turkey provided arms to Pakistan.

The trend was strong, with a few online travel agencies announcing that they had stopped accepting bookings to Maldives, similar to the current stance by Cox & Kings and Ixigo to stop bookings to Turkey.  Within weeks of this online outrage, the Prime Minister visited Lakshadweep, which became a new go-to destination thanks to investments from numerous hotel chains and the launch of additional airline flights.

After an additional year, it turns out that "Boycott Maldives" has had an effect: the number of Indian nationals visiting the Maldives in 2024 decreased by a staggering 37% over 2023. According to data released by the Ministry of Tourism, Maldives, only 1,30,805 Indians will travel to the Maldives in 2024, compared to 2,09,193 Indians who will travel there in 2023. In the first quarter of 2025, the traffic from India has further shrunk by 7.9% over the same period in 2024.  This comes amidst multiple new hotels being launched in Maldives over the last few years and overall tourism growing by 20% in 2024 for the island country.  India now drops to the sixth largest source market for Maldives, with China, Russia and the United Kingdom being the top three.  The number of Chinese tourists visiting the Maldives increased by 40% in 2024, reaching 2,63,340. In 2019, the last full year before COVID, India was the second largest source market, while China was the top market.

Priya Saxena, an Indian PhD student at a university in South Dakota, whom the Trump administration has been attempting to deport from the United States, has won a legal reprieve from a federal court, allowing her to stay in America. The 28-year-old  who recently received a doctorate in chemical and biological engineering from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology faced deportation after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) unexpectedly revoked her F-1 student visa in April over a minor traffic violation.

After Saxena's visa was terminated -- which was valid till February 2027 -- her Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVIS) record was deleted, which could have potentially prevented her from completing her studies and graduating on May 10. But, Saxena sued the Trump administration in mid-April and was granted a temporary restraining order by a federal judge. This allowed her to complete her doctorate and graduate over the past weekend.

According to court documents, the Trump administration revoked Saxena's student visa due to a "criminal record" against her. But her only infraction was from a minor traffic violation in  2021 when she failed "to stop for an emergency vehicle", for which she paid a fine. 

Her attorney told The Guardian that under immigration law, minor infractions like Saxena's are not deportable offences.

This week, a federal court in South Dakota issued a preliminary injunction blocking the DHS from arresting and detaining her without court approval, allowing her to stay in the country. The judge said DHS's actions "appear unlawful and are likely to cause Saxena irreparable harm", The Guardian report said. 

Since taking office in January, the Trump administration has launched a crackdown on immigration that has also targeted international students across the US. Visas and SEVIS of thousands of international students were removed over minor infractions, traffic violations or pro-Palestinian activism on campus. Most of the students targeted by DHS were in the US legally. 

During a recent hearing, DHS told a court that it scanned the names of over 1 million international students through an FBI database to look for criminal records. The search yielded 6,400 matches, following which approximately 3,000 visas were revoked.