Prepared for the Office of Public Affairs (OPA)
U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Editorial Note: The DHS Daily Briefing is a collection of news articles related to Department’s mission. The inclusion of particular stories is not intended to reflect their importance, nor is it intended to endorse the political viewpoints or affiliations included in news coverage.

The Daily Caller [4/9/2025 8:00 AM, Jason Hopkins, 1082K] reports the Trump administration is relaunching a key office that serves victims of immigrant crime, highlighting its commitment to combating border-related issues and its consequences. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is relaunching the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) Office, according to a press release shared exclusively with the Daily Caller News Foundation. VOICE, which was shuttered just months after President Joe Biden entered office in 2021, offers key support services to victims of immigrant crime and their family members. "I met with Angel Families who lost a loved one because of an illegal alien who should never have been in our country," Noem said in a prepared statement. "The previous administration ignored these families and the other victims of illegal alien crime.” "With the re-launching of the VOICE Office, we are giving victims and their families access to resources and support services," Noem continued. The VOICE Office will serve to help victims of migrant crime understand the immigration enforcement and removal process, provide assistance in signing up for automated custody status information on criminal migrants in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody and provide additional history on illegal migrants to families, according to DHS. The office will also instruct where a victim may be able to provide a victim impact statement, and provide access to social service professionals and other contacts to help victims connect with other needed resources. VOICE was first launched in 2017 during the first Trump administration, serving as a resource for those who had been victimized by illegal migrants and other foreign nationals. However, the Biden administration — as part of its effort to completely gut the immigration enforcement apparatus built by the Trump White House — nixed the office in June 2021. Following Biden’s decision to shutter the VOICE office and oversee an unprecedented illegal immigration crisis, a number of high-profile crimes were allegedly committed by illegal migrants under his watch. The Daily Wire [4/9/2025 12:25 PM, Spencer Lindquist, 4672K] reports “We have enemies living among us because of what the Biden administration has done by opening our borders,” Noem said while announcing the recreation of the VOICE office at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters. “They have allowed terrorists, people that are on the terrorist watch list, dangerous criminals, gang members, and criminals to enter our country and to perpetuate violence on American families, and that is going to stop now,” Noem charged as she spoke in front of angel moms like Alexis Nungaray, whose 12-year-old daughter Jocelyn Nungaray was raped and killed by members of Tren de Aragua. Also present was Maureen Maloney, who lost her 23-year-old son in 2011 after he was struck by an illegal alien who was driving without a license. “The illegal alien ran through a stop sign in the residential area and collided with Matthew’s motorcycle. Matthew survived the collision and was getting up out of the street when the illegal alien fled, and when he did, he ran Matthew over,” Maloney said as she recounted her son’s tragic death. “Matthew became lodged in the truck wheel well. And he was dragged to his death while witnesses were pleading with the driver to stop and banging on his truck. The driver never stopped. Matthew became dislodged. The illegal alien backed up over him again and continued to flee.” “We’ve heard far too many stories about American lives that were taken because of illegal aliens who should have never been here in the first place,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin charged. The office was closed by the Biden administration in 2021, with then DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas stating that “all people, regardless of their immigration status, should be able to access victim services without fear.”

Reported similarly:
New York Post [4/9/2025 12:00 AM, Josh Christenson]
FOX Live Now [4/9/2025 3:06 PM, Staff]
Washington Examiner [4/9/2025 3:30 PM, Anna Giaritelli, 2296K]
(B) Newsline [4/9/2025 1:02 PM, Bianca de la Garza]

Axios [4/9/2025 6:58 PM, Brittany Gibson, 13163K] reports the more than 200 migrants sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador by U.S. immigration agents should stay there "for the rest of their lives," Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Wednesday. Noem’s remark reflects the Trump administration’s harsh approach to noncitizens it views as criminals or gang members — in this case, arresting and deporting them to a foreign, maximum-security prison without giving them a court hearing. Her comment came two days after the Supreme Court signaled that such detainees designated as "enemies" of the U.S. can be deported — but should have some way to challenge their removal. "We’re confident that people that are [imprisoned in El Salvador] should be there, and they should stay there for the rest of their lives," Noem said after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) event. She said her assessment was based on intelligence work by ICE and other agencies, including the State Department.

CNN [4/9/2025 5:13 PM, Priscilla Alvarez, 22131K] reports the Trump administration is preparing to send more immigrants with criminal records to El Salvador’s notorious mega prison on the heels of a Supreme Court order allowing the use for now of a sweeping wartime authority for deportations, according to two US officials. El Salvador has emerged as a key US ally in Latin America as President Donald Trump pushes to advance his aggressive immigration agenda. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele is expected to visit the White House on Monday to discuss the use of the country’s Cecot prison, the largest in the Americas. And the Trump administration has even fielded a recent proposal from private security contractor Erik Prince to establish a US-run migrant detention facility in El Salvador, according to three sources familiar with the discussions. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Wednesday the US would continue using the Alien Enemies Act to deport people. But the administration’s reliance on El Salvador as it seeks to ramp up deportations has proven to be controversial — prompting fraught legal battles and public pushback.

Wall Street Journal [4/9/2025 12:56 PM, Richard Rubin, 646K] reports Acting IRS Commissioner Melanie Krause plans to leave the agency soon, said people familiar with her decision, extending an extraordinary period of turmoil at the Internal Revenue Service as the Trump administration shrinks and reshapes the agency. The development comes a week before the individual income tax-filing deadline, in the IRS’s busiest time of year. The move happened right after an unusual data-sharing agreement between the IRS and immigration authorities became official, a step that required weeks of negotiations as agency attorneys tried to structure the deal to avoid violating taxpayer-privacy laws. Krause is concerned about the consequences of recent Trump administration decisions about the IRS and doesn’t think she can affect those decisions, one of the people said. She took a deferred-resignation offer available to many federal employees. She is expected to remain acting commissioner through at least May 15, according to the Treasury Department. Krause will become the third IRS chief to exit this year, and her replacement could be the agency’s fourth leader in four months. Danny Werfel, who had been nominated and confirmed to the job under President Joe Biden, left on Inauguration Day. His successor, longtime agency official Douglas O’Donnell, exited in late February. President Trump has nominated Billy Long to run the IRS, but he hasn’t yet had a Senate confirmation hearing. Other IRS executives, including Chief Financial Officer Teresa Hunter and Chief Privacy Officer Kathleen Walters, are leaving the government or planning to leave, the people familiar with the matter said. Mike Wetklow, the chief risk officer, is also leaving the IRS. Six weeks ago, when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced Krause as the interim IRS leader, he said the agency’s former chief operating officer and chief data and analytics officer would be an “outstanding steward” for the agency. A Treasury Department representative said Tuesday that Krause had been leading the agency through extraordinary change. “We are also in the midst of breaking down data silos that for too long have stood in the way of identifying waste, fraud, and abuse and bringing criminals to justice,” an agency statement said. “We wish Melanie well on her next endeavor.” Since Trump took office, his administration has cut thousands of jobs at the IRS and could be aiming for thousands more layoffs in the months ahead, more than reversing a Biden-era expansion. Those changes have paused or ended some audits, and future personnel reductions after tax-filing season could affect taxpayer assistance. The Trump administration has paused some information-technology contracts and is pursuing a rethinking of the agency’s modernization efforts, contending that the IRS has been too reliant on outside contractors and can accomplish some of its aims much more cheaply. The Trump administration also has moved to use IRS data to help authorities locate people who have violated criminal immigration laws. On Monday, Bessent and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem signed an agreement allowing data-sharing between the IRS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. The agreement, disclosed in partially redacted form in court filings, would let the IRS give ICE certain address information. Taxpayer privacy law generally prohibits the IRS from sharing taxpayer data. Administration officials said it was important to use the government’s data to enforce the laws, and they said the agreement complied with the law. They highlighted that the taxpayer-privacy statute has an explicit exception for the IRS to provide information for certain criminal proceedings. Willfully refusing to leave the U.S. after receiving a removal order is a crime. “Under President Trump’s leadership, the government is finally doing what it should have all along: sharing information across the federal government to solve problems,” said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin.

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ABC News [4/9/2025 12:38 PM, Benjamin Siegel, 34586K]
Axios [4/9/2025 7:57 AM, Avery Lotz, 13163K]
FOX News [4/9/2025 7:39 AM, Greg Norman, 10702K]
Washington Examiner [4/9/2025 8:34 AM, Jack Birle, 2296K]

Federal News Network [4/9/2025 5:43 PM, Jory Heckman and Drew Friedman, 1089K] reports the Treasury Department expects to cut up half of IRS enforcement personnel and reduce staffing by up to 20% across other Treasury components as part of a major agency reorganization. Treasury told the Office of Personnel Management that it "anticipates significant cuts beginning in 2025 through 2026" as part of its agency reorganization and Reduction in Force (RIF) plan. The department asked OPM to approve Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA) for employees who are at least 50 years of age with at least 20 years of service, or any age with at least 25 years of service. "This request will assist the Department in achieving the President’s goal of reducing the size of the federal workforce through attrition by authorizing early retirements in lieu of separating employees through time-consuming, labor-intensive reduction in force procedures," Treasury wrote in its request to OPM, obtained by Federal News Network. Treasury told OPM that the VERA will allow the department to achieve a similar offboarding outcome and will accelerate attrition for employees who would be eligible to retire. "If approved, Treasury will use the authority in phases over a period of 18 months as a part of our restructuring efforts," Treasury wrote. Treasury’s proposed cuts would have major impacts on the IRS’ ability to collect taxes owed. Multi-year funds from the Inflation Reduction Act allowed the IRS to rebuild its workforce after more than a decade of budget and staffing cuts. Hiring more enforcement personnel helped the IRS recover $1.4 billion in taxes owed by wealthy individuals last year. The IRS began layoffs through a RIF last Friday. Meanwhile, several top agency officials are stepping down. The Associated Press reported Tuesday that acting IRS Commissioner Melanie Krause is resigning over a deal to share tax data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, for the purpose of identifying and deporting undocumented immigrants. Acting IRS Chief Counsel William Paul was removed from his role at the agency last month. IRS Chief Privacy Officer Kathleen Walters, the top official who protects the sensitive data of more than 300 million taxpayers, told staff on Tuesday she recently accepted Treasury’s "deferred resignation" offer and will soon go on administrative leave.

The Washington Post [4/9/2025 8:21 PM, Maria Sacchetti and Shayna Jacobs, 31735K] reports federal judges in parts of Texas and New York temporarily blocked the Trump administration Wednesday from using a centuries-old wartime powers act to summarily deport immigrants the government alleges are members of a Venezuelan gang known as Tren de Aragua. The hearings marked the first legal challenges to the use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged gang members since the Supreme Court lifted a nationwide block on the removals Monday. But the majority held that the government could not remove immigrants without a hearing — as it did on March 15 when it shipped more than 130 Venezuelan immigrants to a prison in El Salvador — and said immigrants could challenge allegations that they are deportable under the act in court districts where they are being detained. In the first such case in New York on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein issued a temporary order requiring the government to give notice and the opportunity for a hearing to immigrants who are detained for removal under the act in that district. The judge also allowed the lawsuits, known as habeas petitions, to proceed as a class-action lawsuit, appointing the lawyers who filed the case, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, to represent them. On Wednesday, Hellerstein expressed concern for the immigrants’ welfare if they were expelled without a chance to rebut the government’s claims. In a written ruling, he said the class-action lawsuit would shield immigrants who would likely face language barriers and be unable to find lawyers on their own. “Given the history, it seems to me people need to be protected, people need to be given notice before they can be removed,” Hellerstein said earlier in the day at a proceeding in court. Lawyers had also asked the judge to declare Trump’s proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act last month for the first time since World War II unlawful, but Hellerstein said he would leave that “for another day.” He scheduled another hearing in the case for April 22. Lawyers for the Justice Department have argued in court that the president has broad authority to order rapid deportations under the Alien Enemies Act. The AP [4/9/2025 7:38 PM, Valerie Gonzalez and Larry Neumeister, 164K] reports that the pair of rulings didn’t address the legality of President Donald Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans accused of belonging to the Tren de Aragua gang, and they only applied to immigrants in federal custody in the judges’ judicial districts. The judicial moves were the first to occur after the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled the administration can resume deportations under the act, but deportees must be afforded some due process before they are flown away, including reasonable time to argue to a judge that they should not be deported. Civil rights lawyers in the two states had sued to prevent the government from deporting five men who deny being part of the Tren de Aragua gang. Similar legal challenges are likely to follow in other places where Venezuelans have been detained. The American Civil Liberties Union is asking the judges in Texas and New York to decide whether the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act is lawful when the country is not at war. The Alien Enemies Act has only been used three times in the past, during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II, when it was used to justify the mass internment of people of Japanese heritage while the U.S. was at war with Japan. The United States is not at war with Venezuela, but Trump has argued the U.S. is being invaded by members of the Tren de Aragua gang. U.S. immigration authorities already have deported more than 100 people and sent them to a notorious prison in El Salvador without letting them challenge their removals in court. Breitbart [4/9/2025 11:20 PM, Elizabeth Weibel, 2923K] reports District Judge James Boasberg and ruled that the Trump administration is allowed to use the wartime authority to deport illegal migrants suspected of being gang members from Tren de Aragua (TdA) or MS-13. One case was "filed in Manhattan" by lawyers representing "two Venezuelan men" being detained in Orange County, New York, while another case in Texas "was brought on behalf of the same Venezuelans who challenged their potential deportation in Washington, D.C.," according to CBS News. Per the outlet, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein "granted the temporary relief" in the New York case, while Southern District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr., who was appointed by President Donald Trump, "blocked the Trump administration from transferring or removing from the El Valle Detention Center the three Venezuelan men or any other Venezuelan citizen held in the Southern District of Texas who are subject to deportation": “In one case filed in Manhattan, attorneys for two Venezuelan men who are currently being detained in Orange County, New York, successfully argued to block their clients’ deportations and movement outside of the state and the United States. U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, appointed to the federal bench by President Clinton, granted the temporary relief.” The Wall Street Journal [4/9/2025 1:19 PM, Mariah Timms and James Fanelli, 646K] reports that the new challenges come after the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this week lifted an order from a judge in Washington, D.C., that had temporarily blocked the Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport people it says are members of Tren de Aragua, a violent Venezuelan gang that the president has designated a foreign terrorist organization. The 5-4 decision said the challenge should have been brought through the constitutional process of habeas corpus in the district where they have been held, not Washington.

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New York Times [4/9/2025 2:08 PM, Alan Feuer and Jonah E. Bromwich, 145325K]
The Hill [4/9/2025 2:55 PM, Zach Schondfeld, 12829K]
AP [4/9/2025 11:33 AM, Staff, 48304K]
Reuters [4/9/2025 3:04 PM, Luc Cohen and Ted Hesson, 41523K]
ABC News [4/9/2025 12:42 PM, Aaron Katersky, Peter Charalambous, James Hill, 34586K]
CBS News [4/9/2025 1:01 PM, Jacob Rosen and Melissa Quinn, 51661K]
NBC News [4/9/2025 2:25 PM, Gary Grumbach, Chloe Atkins, and Suzanne Gamboa, 44742K]
CNN [4/9/2025 1:06 PM, Gloria Pazmino, 908K]
FOX News [4/9/2025 4:08 PM, Breanne Deppisch, 46189K]
Washington Times [4/9/2025 3:29 PM, Stephen Dinan, 1814K]
Washington Examiner [4/9/2025 1:25 PM, Ashley Oliver, 2296K]

NBC News [4/9/2025 8:31 PM, Scott Wong, 44742K] reports that, as President Donald Trump ramps up attacks on the judiciary, the Republican-led House voted Wednesday to limit district court judges’ ability to issue the nationwide injunctions that have hampered some of his executive actions. The vote was 219-213, with just one Republican, Mike Turner of Ohio, joining all Democrats in opposing it. The bill now heads to the Senate, where it would almost certainly be blocked by a Democratic filibuster if it were brought to the floor. Trump and many of his allies on the far right had been pushing House Republicans to take a more extreme step and attempt to impeach judges that stood in his way. The "No Rogue Rulings Act," authored by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., doesn’t go that far, but it allows House Republicans to voice their support for Trump on the issue while avoiding politically perilous impeachment votes that would be all but doomed to fail. In a brief interview, Issa argued that both parties would benefit from the legislation. He said that during President Joe Biden’s administration, Democrats howled when conservative judges issued nationwide injunctions against his executive actions. "This is a growing problem that has vexed both Republican and Democrat presidents," Issa, a senior member of the Judiciary Committee and the former chairman of the Oversight Committee, said before the vote. Biden, "to the very end, was trying to get this process of activist judges exceeding their jurisdiction rolled back." This bill, Issa said, "limits judges to the original intent, which will allow them to make decisions but only as to the plaintiffs." Trump and his allies have grown frustrated with lower-court judges’ issuing injunctions blocking Trump’s actions on deportations of undocumented immigrants, sweeping cuts and mass firings at federal agencies, ending birthright citizenship and other matters. Much of Republicans’ criticism has centered on U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who halted Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants alleged to be Tren de Aragua gang members. After that decision, Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, a Trump ally, introduced a resolution to impeach Boasberg, who is based in Washington, D.C. Other judges who have ruled against Trump also have faced impeachment threats, including U.S. District Judges Paul A. Engelmayer and John Bates. But GOP leaders have acknowledged such impeachment resolutions wouldn’t have enough support to pass out of the House, where Republicans hold a narrow 220-213 majority. On top of that, 67 votes would be needed for convictions in the Senate, where Republicans have a 53-47 majority.

Daily Signal [4/9/2025 1:24 PM, Fred Lucas, 495K] reports that illegal immigrants overstaying their deportation day will have to pay a fine of $998 per day after their official removal date. The Trump administration is enforcing a 1996 Clinton administration-era law. Though on the books, the law was enforced for the first time in 2018 during President Donald Trump’s first term, Reuters reported. The Department of Homeland Security is also considering seizing property of immigrants who don’t pay the fine, according to emails and documents obtained by Reuters. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told Reuters in a statement that illegal immigrants can "self-deport and leave the country now," and inform the government on a Customs and Border Protection app, known as CPB Home under the Trump administration and formerly as CPB One under the Biden administration. "If they don’t, they will face the consequences," McLaughlin said. "This includes a fine of $998 per day for every day that the illegal alien overstayed their final deportation order.” Reuters reported that a March 31 email shows the White House National Security Council and Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy, pressed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to enforce the fines. The next day, a CBP memo argued for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to take on the task instead, anticipating that CBP would need about 1,000 new paralegal specialists. The agency currently has 313 paralegals, according to the emails reported by Reuters.

FOX News [4/9/2025 3:53 PM, Michael Lee, 46189K] reports thousands of illegal immigrants facing potential involuntary removal from the United States have instead opted to self-deport through an app provided by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The number of immigrants who have opted to self-deport over the last month using the CBP Home app is over 5,000, according to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data shared with Fox News Digital. The self-deportations come as the Trump administration has ramped up a messaging campaign aimed at encouraging illegal immigrants to leave the country voluntarily, most recently releasing a flyer addressed to "illegal aliens" that threatens new fines for those who choose to remain in the U.S. despite a deportation order. The flyer warns that the administration plans to start fining illegal migrants who have received a final order of removal $998 per day if they continue to stay in the country, while fines of $1,000-$5,000 could be given to those who failed to self-deport after claiming they would.

Blaze.com [4/9/2025 9:08 AM, Joseph MacKinnon, 1668K] reports the U.S. Supreme Court sided Monday with President Donald Trump, lifting an Obama judge’s order that temporarily blocked the president’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport suspected terrorists who have stolen into the homeland. While Trump called it a "great day for justice in America!" and Attorney General Pam Bondi said the decision was "a landmark victory for the rule of law," the fight was apparently not over. The high court afforded alien enemies and their leftist champions another opportunity to challenge removals under the act by the Trump administration, explaining that their lawsuits must be brought where they are being held — not in Washington, D.C. The American Civil Liberties Union and New York Civil Liberties Union seized upon that opportunity on Tuesday, filing a lawsuit in a Democratic enclave on behalf of a pair of military-age Venezuelan nationals fit for removal under the Alien Enemies Act. One of the illegal aliens is a supposedly non-straight 21-year-old Venezuelan national who entered the U.S. in May 2024 and was subsequently identified by the Department of Homeland Security as an "associate/affiliate of Tren de Aragua." The other is a 32-year-old Venezuelan who stole into the U.S. in 2022, allegedly because his political activism back home jeopardized his safety. Both illegal aliens were parties to the ACLU’s original lawsuit targeting the administration’s use of the AEA. The Trump administration is targeting Venezuelan nationals who are members of the terrorist organization, ‘are within the United States, and are not actually naturalized or lawful permanent residents of the United States.’. The ACLU has asked a Clinton appointee, U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein, to assume jurisdiction, to block the Trump administration from removing the illegal aliens under the act, and to certify the Venezuelan duo as representatives of a class of illegal aliens. A judge ordered the Trump administration to refrain from ousting the two men before a hearing Wednesday morning, as it had with hundreds of others under the AEA in March, reported The Hill. The lawsuit claims that Trump’s proclamation "contorts the plain language" of the 1798 law; the AEA "plainly only applies to warlike actions"; Venezuelan nationals are not invading the U.S.; Venezuela "has not launched a predatory incursion" into the country; "‘mass illegal immigration’ or criminal activities, as described in the Proclamation, plainly do not fall within the statutory boundaries"; and the use of the AEA has caused and will continue to cause the apparent alien enemies harm.

Houston Chronicle [4/9/2025 4:46 PM, Tanya Babbar, 1769K] reports immigration advocates say they fear the Trump administration reviving a dormant rule requiring immigrants in the country without permission to register with the federal government and carry proof of registration at all times, will lead to profiling and harassment. The revival of Alien Registration Requirement prompted immigration groups to file a lawsuit against the Trump administration at the end of March, arguing the rule will create "an unprecedented requirement that millions of people carry specific identity papers with them at all times." A failure to register and carry proof of registration, can result in fines up to $5,000 and imprisonment, DHS officials said. The registration, which will start March 11, is among the initiatives the Department of Homeland Security is using to urge immigrants to "self-deport," DHS secretary Kristi Noem said in a news release. The lawsuit argued DHS published the rule without allowing public comment — even though it will likely affect millions of Americans.

Daily Caller [4/9/2025 3:04 PM, Adam Pack, 1082K] reports key border security officials in President Donald Trump’s administration are warning that Congress’s failure to pass the president’s “one big, beautiful bill” quickly could negatively impact the president’s efforts to deport illegal migrants. White House border czar Tom Homan and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have both signaled that Republican lawmakers must pick up the pace to pass a forthcoming budget bill that will send more than $100 billion in new border security funding to federal immigration authorities. The administration’s warnings come as House conservatives are threatening to tank a budget blueprint that will lay the groundwork to enact President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda. The budget plan would unlock funding to finish border wall construction, increase the number of detention beds to hold illegal migrants and hire additional ICE officers, according to Senate Budget Committee chairman Lindsey Graham. Homan has been urging Congress to make progress in transferring new funding to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) since early February. Nearly two months later, Homan is still waiting for Congress to fund the president’s immigration enforcement priorities.

DailySignal [4/9/2025 3:04 PM, George Caldwell, 495K] reports the fentanyl trade-which claimed tens of thousands of American lives in 2024 alone-is a multibillion-dollar business supported by sophisticated money laundering schemes, a new report from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent revealed Wednesday. Bessent released the report amid President Donald Trump’s push to use tariffs as a weapon against foreign nations’ reputed abuses of their financial relationship with the United States. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a bureau of the Treasury, compiled the report, which focuses on Bank Secrecy Act reports, or BSAs, on transactions suspected of supporting the fentanyl trade-1,246 of them between January and December 2024 alone. All told, those transactions add up to $1.4 billion. FinCEN indicates in the report that Mexico and China are the two top foreign players in the American fentanyl trade. The report goes on to detail complex Chinese money laundering schemes, which often involve "electronics, such as cellular phones, and vaping/e-cigarette devices." The Mexican states of Jalisco and Sinaloa, which are hotbeds of cartel activity, are the top sources of Mexico-based fentanyl transactions, as are Mexican border towns.

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Washington Examiner [4/9/2025 5:37 PM, Brady Knox, 2296K]

Los Angeles Times [4/9/2025 6:00 AM, Andrea Castillo, 13342K] reports the Supreme Court’s ruling allowing the Trump administration to continue deporting immigrants under an 18th century wartime law was hailed as a victory by both the federal government and those challenging the deportations. The high court left many questions about the law unanswered, experts said, which explains, in part, the contradictory reactions to Monday night’s ruling. The divided court agreed the Trump administration can use the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged members of a foreign gang, as long as they are given the right to challenge the government’s claim. "The critical point of this ruling is that the Supreme Court said individuals must be given due process to challenge their removal under the Alien Enemies Act," Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, who is leading the lawsuit, wrote in a statement. "That is an important victory.” President Trump, writing on his social media platform Truth Social, focused on the other key part of the court’s ruling: "The Supreme Court has upheld the Rule of Law in our Nation by allowing a President, whoever that may be, to be able to secure our Borders, and protect our families and our Country, itself. A GREAT DAY FOR JUSTICE IN AMERICA!". The ruling upends the orders of district court and appellate judges who had paused the deportations and said the administration had overstepped its power. The court did not decide a larger issue: whether the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act is constitutional. The families of many people deported under the law said they are not gang members. More than 100 men accused of belonging to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua were sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador. Though the court held that detainees have the right to challenge their removal, immigrant advocates said this comes with a catch: People held for deportation will have to file individual petitions in the district where they are detained, a difficult process for someone arrested in, say, California but held in Texas, far from family and lawyers. Immigration officials sent many detainees to Texas before their deportation to El Salvador. On Tuesday, the ACLU and other plaintiffs filed an emergency lawsuit in New York federal court to again halt removals under the Alien Enemies Act for people within that court’s jurisdiction.

Washington Examiner [4/9/2025 9:13 AM, Emily Hallas, 2296K] reports that the Department of Justice dismantled its National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team to focus on targeting drug cartels and terrorist organizations that use digital assets to carry out crimes. In a memo sent to employees Monday evening, DOJ Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced that "effective immediately," the department would slash NCET, which he described as a "reckless strategy of regulation by prosecution" left over from the Biden era. Blanche cited a Jan. 23 executive order issued by President Donald Trump that called for the government to promote "the ability of individual citizens and private-sector entities alike to access and use for lawful purposes open public blockchain networks without persecution" as the basis for the overhaul. Blanche wrote that the DOJ "will no longer target virtual currency exchanges, mixing and tumbling services, and offline wallets for the acts of their end users or unwitting violations of regulations.” Instead, the agency will prioritize investigating "individuals who victimize digital asset investors, or those who use digital assets in furtherance of criminal offenses such as terrorism, narcotics and human trafficking, organized crime, hacking, and cartel and gang financing," Blanche continued in the agency-wide memo. The department’s Market Integrity and Major Frauds Unit will cease all cryptocurrency enforcement efforts as part of the latest order.

NPR [4/9/2025 6:00 AM, Ronnie Cohen, 29983K] reports more than 1 million noncitizen immigrants — one-third of them without legal status — work as doctors, nurses, nursing home aides and in other essential and increasingly hard-to-fill health care jobs in the U.S., a new analysis shows. As a result, President Trump’s threatened mass deportations and tightened immigration restrictions, if carried out, could lead to bottlenecks, gridlock and compromised care throughout American hospitals, nursing homes and the entire health care system, warned Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a Hunter College health policy professor and one of the authors of a research letter published last week in JAMA. "We already have shortages," she said. "If we start deporting or scaring away 1.1 million noncitizen health care workers, things will get much worse. And that’s going to affect the health care of all Americans." After analyzing 2024 U.S. Census data, Woolhandler and her colleagues estimated that nearly 17% of the health care workforce, or roughly 3.4 million workers, were born outside the U.S. More than 5% of health care workers were noncitizens, with about 700,000 who were here legally and more than 366,000 immigrants without legal status, researchers found. Some regions of the U.S. rely particularly heavily on immigrants. Noncitizen immigrants comprised almost 13% of the health care workforce in New York, almost 10% in Florida and 9% in California, researchers estimated. Nearly a quarter of physicians working in the U.S. were born elsewhere, and more than 6% are here legally but are not citizens. One, Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a kidney transplant specialist and professor at Brown University’s medical school, was refused reentry into the U.S. from her home country of Lebanon at Boston Logan International Airport in March. The Department of Homeland Security said it found evidence that Alawieh attended the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, a political group that the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization. That the U.S. deported the Yale-trained physician who possessed a valid visa "sent a chill down the spine of the entire foreign-born health care workforce," Woolhandler said.

DailySignal [4/9/2025 8:00 AM, Lora Ries, 495K] reports Elon Musk, Antonio Gracias, and the Department of Government Efficiency team recently exposed how rampant immigration fraud and government corruption became under the Joe Biden administration. Specifically, they showed how aliens "getting" asylum can receive work authorization and, with it, an automatic Social Security number, which enables them to obtain driver’s licenses, commit voter fraud, and receive other benefits. This already sounds alarming. But the truth is even worse. Under current U.S. regulations, asylum applicants can apply for a work authorization document with the Department of Homeland Security five months after their asylum application is filed (rather than five months after it’s granted). There’s no filing fee for asylum applications—meaning there is literally no cost involved in applying. This creates a huge incentive for inadmissible aliens to file fraudulent asylum applications to gain U.S. work authorization. And while adjudicating the asylum application can take DHS or the Justice Department years to complete, DHS prioritizes granting employment authorization applications, averaging mere months to complete such applications. In other words, individuals can fraudulently apply for asylum and then receive work authorization shortly after, safe in the knowledge that their asylum application may not be decided for years. Asylum was created to protect the persecuted. But this system means it’s more prone to be exploited by inadmissible aliens as a way to get work authorizations, Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses, and other government benefits. As a result, the system is being flooded. Under the Biden administration, so many employment documents were issued to immigration parolees (without congressional authorization), asylum applicants, and other temporary aliens that DHS could not keep up with renewing the authorizations. According to one chart (shown by DOGE’s Gracias at a recent Wisconsin town hall), 270,000 new aliens were issued Social Security numbers in fiscal year 2021. That number rose to 590,000 in fiscal year 2022, 964,000 in fiscal year 2023, and approximately 2.1 million in fiscal year 2024. During its investigations, DOGE found 1.3 million aliens who were already receiving Medicaid. It also found among the millions a subset who were registered to vote—and some who did indeed vote. Congress should also enact anti-fraud asylum measures, which would significantly decrease the number of fraudulent asylum applications—and, by extension, would decrease the yearslong wait for DHS and DOJ to adjudicate legitimate asylum applications.

AP [4/9/2025 7:18 PM, Michelle L. Price, 48304K] reports President Donald Trump intensified his efforts to punish his critics on Wednesday by signing a pair of memoranda directing the Justice Department to investigate two officials from his first administration and stripping them of any security clearances they may have. Trump’s targeting of Miles Taylor, a former Department of Homeland Security official in Trump’s first term, and Chris Krebs, a former top cybersecurity official, came as the president has sought to use the powers of the presidency to retaliate against his adversaries, including law firms. Trump also on Wednesday retaliated against another law firm, Susman Godfrey, as he seeks to punish firms that have links to prosecutors who have investigated him or employed attorneys he sees as opponents. Although Trump has ordered security clearances to be stripped from a number of his opponents, including former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris, the president’s order Wednesday directing the Justice Department to broadly investigate the actions of Taylor and Krebs marks an escalation of Trump’s campaign of retribution since he returned to power. Taylor, who left the Trump administration in 2019, was later revealed to be the author of an anonymous New York Times op-ed in 2018 that was sharply critical of Trump. The person writing the essay described themselves as part of a secret "resistance" to counter Trump’s "misguided impulses," and its publication touched off a leak investigation in Trump’s first White House. Trump named Krebs the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency but became angered with him after he declared the 2020 election that Trump lost to be secure and the ballot counts to be accurate. Trump has falsely claimed he was cheated out of reelection in 2020 by widespread fraud, despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary. Recounts, reviews and audits in the battleground states where he disputed his loss all affirmed Biden’s victory. Judges, including some he appointed, rejected dozens of his legal challenges. "It’s bizarre to see a president investigate his own administration and his own appointee," said David Becker, a former Justice Department lawyer and coauthor of "The Big Truth," a book about Trump’s 2020 election lies.

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New York Post [4/9/2025 6:17 PM, Steven Nelson, 54903K]
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The Hill [4/9/2025 6:26 PM, Brett Samuels, 12829K]
NPR [4/10/2025 4:06 AM, Ashley Lopez, Leila Fadel, 29983K]
Reuters [4/9/2025 6:46 PM, Steve Holland, 41523K]
Axios [4/9/2025 6:32 PM, Sam Sabin, 13163K]
USA Today [4/9/2025 7:26 PM, Josh Meyer, 75858K]

HS Today [4/9/2025 3:18 PM, Erin Caine, 38K] reports Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Kristi Noem, has formally notified DHS personnel of new voluntary workforce transition programs, part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to reduce the size of the federal government. The announcement was made in an internal email sent to DHS employees on Monday evening and later obtained by several news outlets. In the email titled “Reshaping the DHS Workforce,” Noem outlined three voluntary options available to DHS employees: deferred resignation, early retirement, and a one-time buyout payment. Employees have until April 14 to apply for one of these offers. In the email titled “Reshaping the DHS Workforce,” Noem outlined three voluntary options available to DHS employees: deferred resignation, early retirement, and a one-time buyout payment. Employees have until April 14 to apply for one of these offers. Lawmakers across party lines have expressed concern about the potential effects of the reductions. Representative Andrew Garbarino (R-New York.), chair of the House Homeland Security Committee’s cyber subcommittee, said last week he was “not thrilled” with previous dismissals at CISA. Meanwhile, Representative Eric Swalwell (D-Californina), ranking member of the same subcommittee, has requested a formal briefing on CISA’s staffing changes, Axios reported. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin has reiterated the administration’s rationale, stating, “Every dollar spent and position filled at DHS should be focused on our core mission of securing our homeland and keeping the American people safe.”

New York Post [4/9/2025 11:34 PM, Joe Marino, Larry Celona and David Propper, 54903K] reports human remains were discovered in a wooded Long Island preserve Wednesday — after a suspected MS-13 gangbanger tipped off the authorities, according to law enforcement sources. FBI agents and Nassau County police officers converged on Underhill Preserve in Jericho after a suspected member of the brutal gang, who was already in custody, tipped them off to the dead body, sources said. The victim’s identity and cause of death were not immediately known. Nassau police officials referred The Post to the FBI for comment. A bureau spokesperson said the agency was conducting "investigative activity" at the preserve, which is near Jericho High School. Photos captured at the scene show law enforcement carrying equipment, as well as a large paper bag, out of the woods. The scourge of MS-13 has been a longstanding problem on Long Island – an issue addressed by neighboring Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney Wednesday night. "They’re going into the schools, and they’re recruiting the kids," the GOP prosecutor said on NewsNation. "They will try to recruit young gang members, and they will start to try to enforce those rules that we spoke about, you know, at the earliest opportunity. And, unfortunately, what we see with the MS-13, really the drivers of violence in the gang are their youngest members.” He told fill-in host Laura Ingle on "Elizabeth Vargas Reports" that children as young as 12 or 13 are recruited by the bloodthirsty gang. Attorney General Pam Bondi touted the arrest of an alleged MS-13 kingpin in Virginia last month, with the feds claiming he was drawn to the gang in middle school. The Department of Justice, however, moved to drop its case against Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos, a 24-year-old illegal migrant from El Salvador, in a court filing Wednesday, Washington Post reported. The one-page filing offered no explanation for the reversal, the outlet noted. Tierney, in his NewsNation interview, said MS-13 is brazen in the crimes they commit. "The MS-13 is probably the most unique gang in that their purpose is to be the biggest, baddest gang in the world. With the MS-13, the violence is because they want to be known as the biggest gang, most violent gang," he said.

Breitbart [4/9/2025 6:41 PM, Warner Todd Huston, 2923K] reports the Democrat governor of New Jersey has ordered the state’s police departments to stop cooperating with immigration officials. The orders came from New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy and New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin, according to New Jersey’s Immigrant Trust Directive, Shore News Network reported. Murphy’s directive came on the heels of the Trump administration’s addition of 27,000 "Outstanding Administrative Warrants for Removal from the United States" to the FBI’s National Crime Information center (NCIC) as the administration works to fulfill the president’s immigration orders. "These Administrative Warrant messages appear in NCIC in a method that ALL members are to note they are NOT to be broadcast as ‘NCIC Hits,’" Colonel Patrick Callahan of the New Jersey State Police wrote in an internal memo. "NJDSP members are NOT permitted to contact ICE via the phone numbers provided.” U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey Alina Habba pushed back on the directives, though, warning New Jersey officials in a post on X, saying, "Let me be clear: Executive Orders will be followed and enforced in the State of New Jersey.” Callahan’s memo is in keeping with New Jersey’s 2018 Immigrant Trust Directive prohibiting state law enforcement agencies from working with federal law enforcement agencies. Callahan also noted that law enforcement must not alert ICE, even when they come across someone on the alert list or come across them in the normal course of their duties and pointed out that helping ICE with NCIC warrants is not allowed under state law.

Reuters [4/9/2025 7:39 PM, Jonathan Landay, 41523K] reports the top U.S. spy’s chief of staff on Wednesday said the U.S. intelligence community is investigating whether the FBI was involved in planning the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump. "We’re looking into it right now," Joseph Kent, chief of staff to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, said during a Senate intelligence committee hearing on his nomination to head the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center. He did not elaborate on which of the 18 U.S. intelligence agencies is conducting the probe. Gabbard oversees the FBI’s intelligence functions. A U.S. Justice Department watchdog report released in December debunked claims by far-right conspiracy theorists who falsely alleged that FBI operatives were secretly involved in the Capitol attack. The report found there were 26 FBI informants in Washington on the day of the attack. But, it said, the FBI did not authorize any to enter the Capitol or engage in violence. Kent’s comments came in response to questions from Democratic Senator Mark Kelly about the attack by Trump supporters trying to prevent Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory. Trump falsely claimed he lost the contest due to widespread voting fraud. In January, he pardoned more than 1,500 people charged in the assault by a mob of his supporters who stormed the Capitol in an unsuccessful effort to overturn his election defeat. Kelly asked Kent, a former Green Beret and CIA officer and staunch Trump loyalist, what evidence he had to back up a post on what is now the social media platform X that the FBI and U.S. spy agencies were involved in planning the assault on Congress. "We’ve already identified that there were multiple confidential human informants run by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies that were present in the crowd that day, directing, removing barriers, those types of things," Kelly said. "That has been investigated widely. We continue to look into that intelligence.” He alleged that the FBI and law enforcement elements that he did not identify "attempted to suppress the fact" that informants were among the thousands of rioters. Information that forewarned of violence indicated that there had been "some degree of intelligence infiltration" of groups who stormed the Capitol, he said. Kent said that it "probably" was the bureau’s Washington Field Office that was involved and that it was "being looked into" by the intelligence community. Asked for comment, a spokesperson for Gabbard’s office referred to her announcement on Tuesday that a new task force she has formed is "executing" Trump’s executive orders to rebuild trust in the intelligence community "starting with investigating weaponization, rooting out deep-seeded politicization, exposing unauthorized disclosures of classified intelligence, and declassifying information that serves a public interest.”

(B) CBS Mornings [4/9/2025 8:55 AM, Staff] reports that the wife of a Prince George’s County man who was deported by mistake last month will gather on Capitol Hill with members of Congress. About 2000 lawmakers have signed a letter to Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem demanding Kilmar Abrego Garcia be returned to the United States. The press conference will begin at 1 pm.

FOX News [4/9/2025 9:54 PM, Audrey Conklin, David Spunt, 46189K] reports the Justice Department on Wednesday filed a motion to dismiss its case against a Virginia-based Salvadoran national accused of being an MS-13 leader. Henrry Jose Villatoro Santos’ only charge in federal court is listed as illegal firearms possession after FBI agents entered his residence in Woodbridge, Virginia — southwest of Washington, D.C. — and confiscated a Taurus, model G2C, 9 mm pistol, as well as three additional firearms, ammunition and two suppressors in a bedroom, according to federal court documents. "As a terrorist, he will now face the removal process," Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News on Wednesday evening. A Wednesday evening motion to delay the dismissal states that Villatoro Santos’ newly appointed counsel understands "the Government now intends to pursue the deportation of Mr. Villatoro Santos in lieu of prosecution." "The above is a fairly straightforward procedural history," the defense’s motion, filed by attorney Muhammed Sayed, states. "But in the background of this routine legal process, the United States government, at its highest levels, has been publicly and loudly propagating allegations that Mr. Villatoro Santos ‘is one of the top leaders of MS-13’ and ‘one of the leaders for the East Coast, one of the top in the entire country,’ claims made by Attorney General Pam Bondi at a high-level press conference on March 27, 2025." Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel described Villatoro Santos as the top MS-13 leader on the East Coast, during a news conference after his arrest, which they were present for, along with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove. "He will not be living in our country much longer," Bondi said at the time. "They executed a clean, safe operation, and the bad guy is in custody. And thanks to the FBI, we got one of the worst of the worst of the MS-13 off the streets this morning. Virginia and the country is a lot safer today," Bondi told Fox News after the arrest. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

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CNN [4/9/2025 9:32 PM, Hannah Rabinowitz, 908K] reports the Justice Department moved to drop charges Wednesday against a man they had alleged to be a “major leader” of the MS-13 gang – just weeks after publicly lauding his arrest – a move his lawyer says is the first step towards immediately deporting him to El Salvador. Attorney General Pam Bondi, in a press conference last month, said the man, Henrry Villatoro Santos, was MS-13’s “leader for the East Coast,” and that he was among the “horrible, violent, worst of the worst criminals.” Now, just two weeks later, Trump’s Justice Department, without explanation, moved to dismiss the single federal charge he faced for unlawfully possessing a firearm. In a court filing, prosecutors said only that “the government no longer wishes to pursue the instant prosecution at this time.” The switch in tactic comes as the Trump administration works to rapidly deport alleged gang members. In March, President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which gives a president broad power to target and remove undocumented immigrants in times of war or when an enemy attempts an “invasion or predatory incursion.” Villatoro Santos’ lawyer quickly moved to temporarily keep the federal charges pending against his client, saying that if the case were dropped, Villatoro Santos would be “immediately transferred to ICE custody.” “The danger of Mr. Villatoro Santos being unlawfully deported by ICE without due process and removed to El Salvador, where he would almost certainly be immediately detained at one of the worst prisons in the world without any right to contest his removal, is substantial, both in light of the Government’s recent actions and the very public pronouncements in this particular case,” defense attorney Muhammad Elsayed wrote to the court. He cited the ongoing legal battle over Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport more than 200 Venezuelan nationals to El Salvador’s maximum-security mega prison. Elsayed said that “in its rush to prove to the American public that this administration is tough on crime and immigration enforcement,” the government has “wrongfully deported” people and maintains that it has “no obligation” to facilitate their returns.

FOX News [4/10/2025 4:00 AM, Sarah Rumpf-Whitten, 46189K] reports the city of Jacksonville, Florida, ignited an immigration firestorm, criminalizing illegal entry as a city council member touted the "public safety" benefits. Fox News Digital spoke with at-large Jacksonville City Council member Nick Howland on the city’s ordinance #2025-0147, known as the Jacksonville Illegal Immigration Enforcement Act, which was passed by the city council 12-5 last week and signed into law on Tuesday. "We are the first city in the country to enact this kind of bill," Howland said. "We’re standing with our president, with our governor, with our state legislature to secure our borders, to reverse the Biden wave of illegal immigration and to keep our streets and our neighborhoods safe." The bill not only criminalizes illegal immigration but also allocates resources to help the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office identify individuals without legal status. One of the main resources listed in the bill was a request for 25 mobile fingerprint scanners for law enforcement. The legislation will also make it a local crime for undocumented immigrants to enter or reside in the city of Jacksonville. First-time offenders face a mandatory 30-day jail sentence, while repeat offenders could receive up to 60 days in jail. "There are two main parts to the bill. The first is what we’ve already discussed; it criminalizes entering or residing in Duval County if you are an illegal immigrant. The second part focuses on determining whether someone is in the country illegally," he said.

NPR [4/9/2025 4:58 PM, Juana Summers, Tyler Bartlam and Patrick Jarenwattananon, 29983K] Audio: HERE reports earlier this week, Michigan-based attorney Amir Makled was detained by federal immigration agents while returning home from a family vacation to the Dominican Republic. On Sunday at the Detroit Metro Airport, Makled — who is a U.S. citizen — attempted to pass through customs with his wife and children. The rest of his family was able to enter the country without issue. But when Makled’s turn came, he overheard one of the agents call for assistance from the "Tactical Terrorism Response Team.” "My heart fell into my stomach at that point, I was so concerned and worried," Makled told NPR. Border agents pressured Makled to hand over his cell phone. He refused. After more than 90 minutes of back-and-forth, he eventually showed agents his contacts list. He was eventually released. Makled says he was never given a reason for his detainment. However, one of his current clients is a student who has been charged in connection to a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of Michigan. Makled does not think it’s a coincidence that he was targeted after deciding to represent this client following the Trump administration’s crackdown on visa holders who have expressed support for Palestine. "The purpose of searching my phone doesn’t have anything to do with terrorism, there is only a chilling effect, and it’s done to be intimidating.” NPR reached out to Customs and Border Protection, but has not yet received a response.

NPR [4/9/2025 4:58 PM, Juana Summers, Tyler Bartlam, Patrick Jarenwattananon, 29983K] Audio: HERE reports Michigan attorney representing a student protestor detained by immigration agents.

FOX News [4/10/2025 1:13 AM, Elizabeth Pritchett, 46189K] reports a Texas man charged with making online threats against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was ordered by a judge on Wednesday to remain in jail. Robert King, 35, who was charged with transmitting interstate threats in federal court on Monday, was ordered to stay in detention by U.S. Magistrate Judge Renee Toliver after a hearing in Dallas on Wednesday afternoon, Fox News confirmed. Toliver said King is a flight risk and a risk to the community, which solidified her ruling, despite his attorney arguing that he had no prior charges, no weapons and had been seeking treatment for mental health issues, including depression and suicidal thoughts. King was upset by the ruling and was seen crying as he left the courtroom. King was arrested in McKinney, Texas, on March 29 after he allegedly posted threats on Facebook towards ICE agents and Noem. In the first post, King shared a PBS NewsHour article and wrote: "I truly hope, and I mean this with all my heart, that Kristi Noem meets a horrible and agonizing demise I hope she is tried in a war criminal court with the rest of the Nazis when this is all over and I hope she is ripped apart in a gulag. Nothing less for a Nazi scum. This is America now a Nazi fascist state. Disgusting." He then threatened to kill ICE agents in a second post, where he described them as "a secret police force with no real legal authority," adding that he is "opening fire" on them if he sees agents in his neighborhood. A few days later, he doubled down on the threat. "Just wanna double down on what I said the other day: if ICE comes to your neighborhood, f****** shoot them and kill them. No mercy for the Gestapo," King wrote, according to federal prosecutors.

Roll Call [4/9/2025 5:08 PM, Chris Johnson, 503K] reports a federal judge blocked the Trump administration Wednesday from using of a centuries-old wartime law to deport migrants from one Texas detention center, the latest legal hurdle for the government’s push to use a proclamation to quickly remove alleged members of a Venezuelan gang from the U.S. Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas issued the temporary restraining order on the use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to remove migrants from the El Valle Detention Center in Raymondville, Texas. Rodriguez, a Trump appointee, points out in his order that keeping the status quo is required while he more fully considers a lawsuit that challenges President Donald Trump’s proclamation, considering a Supreme Court ruling Monday that found the U.S. government must give migrants a chance to have a federal judge review their situation. Migrants removed from the United States would no longer have such a chance, Rodriguez wrote. And for those erroneously removed to another country based on the proclamation, “a substantial likelihood exists that the individual could not be returned to the United States.” The American Civil Liberties Union filed the legal challenge earlier Wednesday, alleging the U.S. government had not given sufficient notice when seeking to remove migrants under the law who deny being members of the gang. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, speaking to reporters Wednesday at an event at the D.C. headquarters for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the Trump administration after the Supreme Court decision “will continue to use” the Alien Enemies Act to remove migrants deemed as criminals, referencing a recent trip she made to the prison in El Salvador. “One of the reasons I went to El Salvador last week was to visit with the president and ask him to continue to take terrorists from the United States of America that don’t belong here, and he is committed to continuing to work with us to make sure that we have more TdA [Tren de Aragua] members, more MS-13 members, that we’re able to incarcerate here in this country deported and in CECOT, and pay the consequences for their actions of violence,” Noem said.

The Hill [4/9/2025 9:30 AM, Elizabeth Crisp, 12829K] reports New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) has declared a state of emergency for Albuquerque, ordering the National Guard to help combat crime in the state’s largest city. "The safety of New Mexicans is my top priority," Lujan Grisham said in a statement. "This partnership represents our commitment to addressing the fentanyl crisis and juvenile crime with every resource at our disposal.” Lujan Grisham, a former member of Congress who is term limited, said the New Mexico National Guard will assist Albuquerque police with essential duties so the city’s law enforcement officers "can focus on what they do best — keeping our communities safe.” Harold Medina, chief of the Albuquerque Police Department (APD), sent the governor a request for assistance last month. "When we pool our resources, the impact on crime is dramatic," he wrote. "This partnership is vital for efficient incident response and reinforcing community trust through visible and professional engagement.” He cited the department’s need to focus more of its efforts on the city’s Central Avenue Corridor, which has been plagued by the dangerous fentanyl crisis and crime in recent years. The city has also faced escalating violent crime among youths. "Unfortunately, every arrest made by APD officers and every welfare check conducted by APD personnel on the Central Avenue corridor depletes resources necessary to achieve success," Medina wrote in his request. National Guard members will primarily back up APD with scene security and traffic control at critical incidents; medical assistance and humanitarian efforts along Central Avenue; the department’s prisoner transportation, court security, aviation and drone operations efforts; and the APD’s Shield Unit, which helps prepare cases for criminal prosecution, according to officials. Lujan Grisham’s office signaled that up to 70 members of the state’s National Guard will be deployed to Albuquerque starting in mid-May. They are currently receiving additional training ahead of the mission, with assistance from the New Mexico Department of Homeland Security, Department of Public Safety, State Police and the APD.

91.5 FM Pheonix [4/9/2025 5:52 PM, Ginia McFarland, 161K] reports Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem participated in a ride-along with ICE agents in Arizona and spoke at a border security convention on Tuesday. Noem’s ride-along included three deportation orders being enforced. At the convention, she praised President Donald Trump’s immigration orders and said there would be added efforts toward lowering border crossings. “I remember one of our Border Patrol officers and agents saying to me, ‘listen, there’s just no consequences for crossing our border. And without consequences there is no enforcement and there is no law. The law doesn’t matter,’” Noem said. Later in the afternoon, she spoke at the Border Security Expo with Trump’s border "czar," Tom Homan. She praised Trump’s executive orders and efforts of Border Patrol agencies. “President Trump has deported dozens of known terrorists already through all of your work,” Noem said. “Hundreds and hundreds of TDA members and MS-13 members and gang members he has declared foreign terrorist organizations."

(B) NBC News Daily [4/9/2025 4:23 PM, Staff] reports Homeland Security Kristi Noem headlined the border security expo in Phoenix, Arizona. The event is designed specifically for the border community to exchange ideas. It includes policy leaders, operational commanders, procurement officers, on the ground agents, local law enforcement, and industry leaders.

The Washington Examiner [4/9/2025 10:52 PM, Elaine Mallon, 2296K] reports Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has dismissed notions that she is "cosplaying" in her position as chief of the Department of Homeland Security. Noem was asked on Jesse Watters Primetime what she would say to those who’ve criticized her for wearing tactical gear in her appearances working alongside DHS special agents. "Every day I wake up and there’s new criticisms," Noem said. "It’s something different every single day, so I try not to pay attention to the noise. Obviously, I’m guided by the folks that I work with every day to be appropriate for the situation that I’m in and to take the same precautions that they do.” The Daily Caller [4/9/2025 10:26 PM, Hailey Gomez, 1082K] reports SiriusXM’s Megyn Kelly said Wednesday on her podcast that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem’s “photo ops” during deportation arrests are distracting from the “great job” she’s doing at the department. Noem led a multi-agency task force — including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Phoenix immigration agents — on Tuesday morning to arrest three illegal migrants with alleged criminal histories, according to the New York Post. On “The Megyn Kelly Show,” the SiriusXM host questioned Noem’s decision to keep posting videos and photos while participating in the raids.

Washington Examiner [4/9/2025 2:06 PM, Annabella Rosciglione, 2296K] reports that Arizona Democrats boycotted "border czar" Tom Homan’s speech to the Arizona state legislature. Democratic lawmakers were seen walking out of the legislature ahead of the address, with some holding up the names of those who have been entangled in Trump’s immigration policy, like Mahmoud Khalil. Homan did not acknowledge the protest, according to ABC 15 Phoenix. Homan gave a speech to a rare joint session of the Arizona Legislature to update them on the first few weeks of what he called the largest deportation operation in United States history. The speech served as a rallying cry for Republicans and emphasized the Trump administration’s goal of cracking down on illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border. "Our mission is to secure the border, run a deportation operation, and locate missing children," Homan told lawmakers. "If you’re in this country illegally, you should be looking over your shoulder. It’s not OK to enter this country illegally — it’s a crime," he said.

Univision [4/9/2025 6:59 PM, Staff, 5325K] reports Thomas Yarrington, a former governor of Tamaulipas, was deported to Mexico on April 9 by U.S. authorities, after serving seven years in prison for crimes of money laundering and conspiracy to drug trafficking. The deportation was carried out through a ground operation on the San Diego-Tijuana border, where U.S. agents handed Yarrington over to members of the Attorney General’s Office (FGR). The former state president and former presidential candidate was immediately transferred to Mexico City and later admitted to the Maximum Security Prison of the Altiplano, in the State of Mexico. Yarrington Ruvalcaba ruled Tamaulipas between 1999 and 2004, a period marked by growing violence and the presence of organized crime groups in the border region with the United States. His political career was overshadowed by allegations of corruption and links to drug trafficking. He was arrested in 2017 in Italy, after several years at large. In 2018, a Texas court sentenced him to nine years in prison after pleading guilty to money laundering and conspiracy to traffic drugs to the United States. During the Texas trial, U.S. authorities found that Yarrington received bribes of more than $9 million from the Gulf Cartel. That money was washed through the purchase of real estate and real estate in Texas. He also faced charges of bank fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to deal with international drug trafficking. In 2021, he was retried for money laundering, which strengthened accusations of his ties to criminal organizations.

Axios [4/9/2025 6:43 PM, Andrew Keatts, April Rubin and Jason Lalljee, 13163K] reprots President Trump paused his sweeping reciprocal tariffs on everyone but China, a country California imported $123 billion in goods from last year. Trump left a base tax of 10% in place across the world, in addition to duties on some industries, but raised the tariff on China to 125%. China has issued sanctions against multiple San Diego companies as part of the escalating trade war. Kratos Defense, Cubic Corp., Firestorm Labs, Source Intelligence, and Illumina have all been targeted. The country added Shield AI, a startup valued last month at $5.3 billion, to its blacklist Wednesday.

Breitbart [4/9/2025 1:12 PM, Staff, 2923K] reports that on Wednesday morning, the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced the targeting of Jesus Alfredo "El Mochomito" Beltran Guzman, the current leader of the Beltran Leyva cartel. The criminal organization is linked to the large-scale trafficking of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and fentanyl, as well as numerous violent crimes, including murders, kidnapping, torture, and engaging in large-scale shootouts. That organization is linked to two raids in December 2024 in Sinaloa, where Mexican authorities seized more than 2,000 pounds of fentanyl in the towns of Ahome and Guazave. The seizure is believed to be the equivalent of 20 million doses of fentanyl. "Beltran Guzman and the BLO have continued to operate with violent impunity, trafficking in deadly drugs, threatening communities, and targeting key officials, all while profiting from their criminal schemes," said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent in a prepared statement. "Treasury, in close partnership with our law enforcement colleagues, will continue to disrupt the operations of the cartels and their affiliates that enable the trafficking of deadly drugs like fentanyl across our border and in our communities." The Treasury designation blocks all assets and accounts tied to Beltran Guzman and forbids any U.S. citizen from doing business with him at the risk of facing similar sanctions.

AP [4/9/2025 10:44 PM, Fabiola Sánchez, 48304K] reports drug lord Ernesto "Don Neto" Fonseca Carrillo, who was convicted in the 1985 killing of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent, was freed from prison after completing his 40-year sentence, a federal agent confirmed late Wednesday. Fonseca, 94, had been serving the remainder of his sentence under home confinement outside Mexico City since being moved from prison in 2016. The federal agent, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case, said he was released last weekend. The co-founder of the Guadalajara Cartel along with Rafael Caro Quintero, Fonseca was convicted in the kidnapping, torture and murder of DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena. Caro Quintero, who was also convicted in the murder, was one of 29 cartel figures Mexico sent to the United States in February. It was not immediately clear if the United States would also seek Fonseca. Fonseca was arrested in Puerto Vallarta in 1985.

Reported similarly:
Univision [4/9/2025 3:46 PM, Marcos Martínez Chacón, 5325K]

USA Today [4/9/2025 6:13 PM, Eduardo Cuevas, 75858K] reports Latino House Democrats want a look inside the notorious mega-prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration has sent hundreds of migrants accused of gang ties. Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said Wednesday that representatives want to check on Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland father and Salvadoran migrant mistakenly deported due to an administrative error. He’s been held in El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, also known as CECOT, since mid-March. Members of Congress have the right to conduct surprise inspections of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, but their power doesn’t extend to El Salvador. Espaillat said the Hispanic Caucus plans to write and call Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who is expected to visit the White House next week, to gain entrance. Abrego Garcia’s family is suing the Trump administration for his return to the U.S. from CECOT in a case now before the Supreme Court. His family has said they haven’t heard from the 29-year-old sheet metal worker in over three weeks. "The family deserves to know his condition," Espaillat told reporters. "If they don’t tell us, we will visit the prison ourselves to go visit him.” The trip would focus on Abrego Garcia, a spokesperson for Espaillat said, though officials worry about human rights issues in CECOT. CECOT has drawn criticism from human rights observers its harsh and dangerous conditions, as well as its treatment of people held in custody without due process. The Trump administration invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport the migrants. The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday upheld Trump’s policy with some limitations. The announcement by Latino Democrats adds to growing concern and criticism of the administration’s policy to deport hundreds of migrants to El Salvador and house them in CECOT under a $6 million agreement. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited the prison in late March, when Abrego Garcia was held there. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, described El Salvador as "a beautiful country, but a country with a leader who has become a mercenary." Abrego Garcia and others are now held in "gulags" in El Salvador, he said. The Salvadoran embassy in Washington didn’t return a request for comment.

FOX News [4/9/2025 10:00 AM, Morgan Phillips, 46189K] reports Venezuelan opposition leader and U.S.-recognized President-elect Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia promised to offer "reparations" to Laken Riley’s family and other Americans affected by the crimes of street gang Tren de Aragua. In a letter to Riley’s family, González and fellow opposition leader María Corina Machado wrote, "Laken’s life, full of potential and promise, was tragically cut short by an individual who should have never been allowed to cross your border.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with González and Machado in January, reaffirming that Urrutia is the "legitimate president" of Venezuela. The Biden administration had previously referred to Urrutia as the "president-elect" before leaving office. In their letter, the opposition leaders called Riley’s murder a "direct consequence of Nicolás Maduro’s regime, which has fostered an environment where criminal organizations like Tren de Aragua can flourish with impunity.” Urrutia vowed that, if officially installed as president, he would "hold accountable all those responsible for the devastation they have wrought, both within Venezuela and internationally.” "We intend to establish a comprehensive framework for reparations, both for the countless Venezuelans harmed by this narco-state and also for victims abroad, including your family.” Gonzales also noted that the "vast majority of Venezuelans who have sought safety in the United States are committed to upholding the law and contributing to your nation’s economy and society.” "They long for the day they can return home to reunite with their families and work toward a free and prosperous Venezuela. We look forward to welcoming them back," they added. "Please accept this letter as a message of our deepest condolence and a solemn promise: Laken will never be forgotten. She will be remembered as an innocent victim of tyranny and a powerful catalyst for the change we are determined to bring about.”

The Hill [4/9/2025 12:30 PM, Stavan Singh and David Luckey, 12829K] reports that in February, eight organizations, drug cartels and other groups responsible for mass violence, kidnappings, bribery and more, were added to the U.S. State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. The Trump administration said combating transnational criminal organizations is a priority; this could shape U.S. foreign security policy in the coming years. The Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel, in particular, have become powerful non-state actors beyond Latin America, establishing a presence in over 100 countries, where they are involved in the production and trafficking of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. These groups form partnerships and agreements with local criminal outfits. In some extreme cases, they carve out satellite "narco-states" where they tyrannize residents and move contraband and cash with impunity. Designating these groups as terrorists makes new legal and policy tools available that could be the key to stopping transnational criminal organizations’ ambitions for global expansion. Mexican cartels and other transnational criminal organizations currently spend billions of dollars on bribes and expenses. Their payrolls include hundreds of thousands of individuals across a variety of sectors. The new terrorism designation gives the U.S. government legal authority to prosecute individuals who aid or work for these organizations, even if these individuals are based outside U.S. borders.

The Hill [4/9/2025 11:00 AM, Sheldon H. Jacobson, 12829K] reports that Republican Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) recently introduced the Abolish TSA Act of 2025, effectively calling for the privatization of airport security. Against the backdrop of DOGE and the elimination of longstanding institutions like the Department of Education and the U.S. Postal Service, it appears that if ever there was a time to get rid of the Transportation Security Administration, this is it. Doing away with the TSA does not mean doing away with airport security, of course. The TSA oversees a workforce of over 60,000 people who screen on average 2.5 million people every day at federalized airports to keep the air system safe. They are funded in part by the September 11th Security Fee. What makes such a task so daunting is that nearly every passenger that the TSA encounters is harmless. Only a few bad actors every year pose any risk to the air system. They are well camouflaged among the largely benign pool of air travelers. Adding to the complexity is that air travelers are apt to openly criticize the TSA for its efforts to protect the air system, claiming it is more theater than substance. Yet if you asked these people how security operations could be improved, they can offer no better solutions to what the TSA offers, except perhaps less screening.

Los Angeles Times [4/9/2025 6:00 AM, Jason M. Blazakis and Colin P. Clarke, 13342K] reports intelligence chiefs testified recently on Capitol Hill about the U.S. intelligence community’s newly published annual threat assessment. In a stark departure from previous reports, this year’s assessment began with an overview of the threats posed by criminal organizations, including drug cartels and transnational gangs, before moving on to detail the challenge of countering jihadist groups like the Islamic State and Al Qaeda and their worldwide networks. Before moving on to traditional state-based threats embodied by China, Iran and others, the section on nonstate actors concludes with an analysis of cybercriminals, hackers and online fraudsters using ransomware. But conspicuously absent from the report is any mention of transnational far-right extremists, including neo-Nazis, white supremacists and others animated by racial or ethnic hatred. This is the same ideology promoted by Anders Breivik, a Norwegian white supremacist who slaughtered 77 people in Norway in 2011, and Brenton Tarrant, an Australian far-right extremist who attacked two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019, killing more than 50 people and wounding more than 40 others. The decision to exclude any mention of far-right terrorism is not necessarily surprising, given President Trump’s support for certain political terrorists and political violence. But ignoring these threats will not make them go away. The United States is no stranger to far-right extremist terrorism, which reared its ugly head at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in October 2018; again at a Walmart in El Paso in August 2019; and at a supermarket in a predominantly African American section of Buffalo, N.Y., in May 2022. The perpetrators of each of these attacks engaged with far-right propaganda online and subscribed to some version of the Great Replacement theory, also advocated by Breivik and Tarrant, which conjures a global cabal of Jews and elites actively looking to replace the white Christian population with ethnic and religious minorities. It should not be surprising that the first annual threat assessment from this Trump administration ranks gangs and cartels as the top danger, given the president’s emphasis on deportations. But to go further by completely omitting far-right terrorists fundamentally ignores a core threat to American democracy. Just a year earlier, the 2024 threat assessment explained that "the transnational racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists (RMVE) movement, in particular motivated by white supremacy, will continue to foment violence across Europe, South America, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand inspiring the lone actor or small-cell attacks that pose a significant threat to U.S. persons." There’s no reason to think that threat has disappeared. While intelligence community threat assessments should always remain politically neutral, it seems evident that the Trump administration put its thumb on the scale to influence the analysis, generating a result that directly reflects Trump’s policy priorities. More recently — and at the urging of Trump’s consigliere du jour, the Tesla chief executive Elon Musk — those priorities have included labeling attacks against Tesla dealerships as domestic terrorism.

Washington Examiner [4/9/2025 11:08 AM, Paul Bedard, 2296K] reports that jails in mostly liberal cities sped up the release of criminal illegal immigrants during former President Joe Biden’s last years in office, ignoring pleas from federal authorities that the law-breakers be turned over for deportation. Newly obtained U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement numbers showed that some 25,000 criminal illegal immigrants were released since Oct. 1, 2022, 10,127 in Biden’s last year. And 72 "with homicide convictions or charges" were included in the thousands freed since 2022. The new data were obtained by the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies and its expert on sanctuary policies, Jessica Vaughan. She told Secrets Wednesday morning, "I hope that citizens will use this information to raise questions with their state and local lawmakers about what they are doing and why. There is a human cost to sanctuary policies, and it’s not confined to the big cities.” Vaughan has built a map of sanctuary cities and states that now shows the release of criminal illegal immigrants in virtually every state. Her new data shared with Secrets said that recent rejections of ICE requests to detain illegal immigrants long enough for officials to retrieve them from jails for deportation were in 46 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and the Northern Marianas. She noted that many of those states have laws prohibiting sanctuary policies but that they were ignored by the liberal-controlled cities and counties. Santa Clara County, California, jails denied ICE retainer requests the most during the period. Two jails released 3,957 illegal immigrants. California was the top state in denying ICE retainers. Its jails released 13,025 during the period. It was followed by Illinois at 2,946, Virginia at 1,601, Massachusetts at 1,324, and Connecticut at 1,153. West Virginia was last on Vaughan’s list, with just a single criminal illegal immigrant released since October 2022. President Donald Trump and his border czar, Tom Homan, have put sanctuary cities and jails on their hit list. Homan and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have put officials who refuse to work with ICE on notice that they may face federal criminal charges. Vaughan said that the time is now for Trump to act on threats to file charges against pro-sanctuary officials and cut off federal funds to their jurisdictions. "Citizens and sheriffs are starting to push back, and it could be very helpful if the Justice Department would back them up by launching litigation and cutting off certain funds," she said. Vaughan also said that Homan’s tough talk and arrests of criminal illegal immigrants inside the United States are having a positive effect even in pro-illegal immigrant towns. "There is no question that the very public acceleration in enforcement and Tom Homan’s no-nonsense approach is causing some local leaders to examine what they are doing and take steps to get their act together with ICE. Since January, I’ve had more sheriffs and local leaders get in touch to have their sanctuary designation reviewed to avoid possible federal scrutiny for debarment or other penalties. Homan’s warning that ICE and Justice are looking at legal action definitely has made some jurisdictions squirm," Vaughan said.

Washington Examiner [4/9/2025 5:33 PM, Ross O’Keefe, 2296K] reports acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons said he wants to see a deportation process "like [Amazon] Prime but with human beings" at an immigration forum in Phoenix on Tuesday. Lyons said the process needs to be treated "like a business," speaking alongside Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Trump border czar Tom Homan. He suggested that artificial intelligence could be infused into the process to "free up bed space" and "fill up airplanes" taking illegal immigrants back to their home countries at a quicker pace. Noem appointed Lyons to his position last month after a stint as acting executive associate director of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, which has a budget of $4.4 billion. Lyons’s Amazon Prime comparison could mean deportations are conducted in a routine way and are widespread, much like the tech giant’s delivery services. The comments drew swift criticism from the Left on social media. "Tell me, in other words, that you don’t care about civil and human rights," the director of Hofstra University’s Deportation Defense Clinic, Alex Holtzman, posted on X. "I’m sorry but in a just world, people should be SCARED to say sh*t this evil in public, let alone to a journalist. ‘Prime, but with human beings’ is one of the most vile things I’ve ever read," a self-described "marxist" social media user said.

Reported similarly:
Bloomberg [4/9/2025 6:01 PM, Alicia A. Caldwell, 16228K]

FOX News [4/9/2025 2:06 PM, Michael Dorgan, 46189K] reports that New York City is allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to return to its Rikers Island prison following recent demands placed on Mayor Eric Adams by the Trump administration. First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro signed an executive order late Tuesday that allows federal immigration authorities to operate an office on Rikers Island to help carry out criminal investigations into drug trafficking, organized violence and migrant gang activity plaguing the city. The order states that the safety of New Yorkers has been jeopardized by violent transnational gangs like MS-13 and Tren de Aragua – gangs designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the Trump administration – and there is a critical need for federal law enforcement to share "real-time" intelligence with the city’s corrections department and police. The order allows federal law enforcement agencies to share intelligence with the corrections department and NYPD about criminal gang activity among individuals both inside and outside of custody. It does not give ICE permission to carry out civil immigration enforcement and arrest people simply for being undocumented. The move comes weeks after Adams met with border czar Tom Homan. After the closed-door meeting, Adams said a plan was being worked on to allow ICE onto the prison site. Adams said the pair had discussed how to combat violent migrant gangs and embedding more New York Police Department officers into federal task forces.

Reported similarly:
New York Post [4/9/2025 7:49 AM, Craig McCarthy, 54903K]
AP [4/9/2025 1:52 PM, Philip Marcelo, 48304K]
Washington Examiner [4/9/2025 12:52 PM, Emily Hallas, 2296K]

New York Times [4/10/2025 3:00 AM, Luis Ferré-Sadurní and Chelsia Rose Marcius, 145325K] reports that, for years, a handful of federal immigration agents worked out of a trailer office at the jail complex on Rikers Island in New York City. Their sole mission: to identify detainees who were undocumented so that they could be transferred to federal custody and deported. The practice, at times contentious, turned Rikers into a deportation pipeline for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, leading to the expulsion of thousands of undocumented immigrants, including many who were never convicted or had only minor violations. The city barred ICE from Rikers after passing sanctuary laws in 2014 that limited the city’s cooperation with the federal government and all but sealed the pipeline. But after a 10-year hiatus, ICE will soon reestablish a presence at the city’s largest jail after the administration of Mayor Eric Adams issued an executive order on Tuesday restoring its access. The mayor said that, this time around, ICE and other federal agencies will have a more limited presence at Rikers, with the agency’s work restricted to criminal investigations, such as tackling transnational gangs. Those assurances did little to tamp down concerns from civil rights groups and immigration lawyers. They said that the move violated the spirit of the city’s sanctuary laws and could give ICE a foothold to re-establish its deportation pipeline at Rikers. Even former top ICE officials warned that the executive order could still help the president’s broader deportation efforts, even if it was narrowly crafted to prevent the city from helping President Trump enforce federal immigration laws, many of which are civil, not criminal matters. “I think this gives ICE a lot of what it wants,” said John Sandweg, who served as an acting director of ICE under President Obama. “Even though this is essentially limited to criminal investigations, this will significantly bolster ICE’s capacity to do regular immigration enforcement on Rikers Island.” The executive order allows not just ICE but also at least six other federal agencies to open offices at city jails. That includes the F.B.I., the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. The order acknowledges that members and associates of transnational gangs that the Trump administration has designated as foreign terrorist organizations, such as MS-13 and Tren de Aragua, are incarcerated at Rikers. The new partnership, the executive order says, would allow the federal government and the Department of Correction’s intelligence bureau to coordinate investigations and share information.

The Hill [4/9/2025 3:40 PM, Rebecca Beitsch, 12829K] reports the wife of a Maryland man deported to a Salvadoran prison described him as "abducted and disappeared" by the Trump administration while Congressional leaders on Wednesday vowed to pressure the Latin American country for his return. Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), during a press conference with Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s family, said he plans to push Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to release the father of three, who the Trump administration sent to prison there due to an "administrative error." Bukele is due in the U.S. next week to meet with President Trump. A federal court ordered the Trump administration to secure Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. by Monday, but the Supreme Court agreed to intervene, temporarily blocking the lower court order amid further deliberations.

Telemundo [4/9/2025 6:23 PM, Carolina CruzandThayma Sánchez, 38K] reports the battle to return Kilmar Abrego García to the United States moved to the Capitol. Lawmakers and Abrego García’s family held a press conference Wednesday to demand answers from the government regarding the father’s deportation from Maryland on March 15. Vásquez’s remarks come after the Supreme Court suspended the midnight deadline it had imposed on the Trump administration to return Abrego García, who remains in a Salvadoran prison. This ruling responds to an emergency appeal filed by the Department of Justice on Monday arguing that U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis overstepped her authority in ordering the Salvadoran national’s return to the United States. Twenty-four senators also sent a letter Tuesday to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Tedd Lyons, saying the administration must "bring him home immediately." In the letter, the senators also ask Noem a series of questions, including whether she should show the alleged evidence linking Abrego García to the MS-13 gang.

The Hill [4/9/2025 11:10 AM, Ashleigh Fields, 12829K] reports that the lawyer for Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man mistakenly deported in the Trump administration’s roundup of alleged gang members, said he expects his client to be returned in the coming weeks. "I have every expectation that the Supreme Court will rule quickly and will rule in our favor, because when push comes to shove, this is not an exceptional case. The only exceptional thing has been the way in which the government has dug in its heels on making right what they messed up," attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg told ABC News. "Jennifer is really worried. She expects and I expect that we are going to get him back," he added, referring to Abrego Garcia’s wife. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis on Sunday ordered the Trump administration to return Abrego Garcia by midnight on Monday. "Neither the United States nor El Salvador have told anyone why he was returned to the very country to which he cannot return, or why he is detained at CECOT," Xinis wrote in her ruling, referring to the El Salvador prison where Abrego Garcia has been detained. A Trump administration official said he was removed due to an "administrative error.” A group of Senate Democrats earlier this week urged Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting Director Todd Lyons to swiftly return Abrego Garcia, who was detained after a traffic stop. "It is unacceptable that anyone would be deported without proper due process, especially where an immigration judge has granted the individual protected status that explicitly prohibits his return to El Salvador," they wrote in a Tuesday letter. "We demand that the Administration bring Mr. Abrego Garcia home immediately," the letter continued.

Georgia Recorder [4/9/2025 2:41 PM, Ariana Figueroa] reports two dozen Democratic senators Tuesday demanded the Trump administration return to the United States a Maryland father who was deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador by mistake. Immigration officials admitted to an “administrative error” in the March 15 deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, despite protections from removal to his home country placed in 2019 by an immigration judge. “Your unwillingness to immediately rectify this ‘administrative error’ is unacceptable,” according to the letter addressed to U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Todd Lyons, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It was led by Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen. DHS did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.

ABC News [4/9/2025 9:35 PM, Linsey Davis, Laura Romero, and Armando Garcia, 34586K] reports The wife of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was deported to El Salvador in error, denied the Trump administration’s allegation that her husband is a member of the criminal gang MS-13. "He’s never been convicted for anything," Jennifer Vasquez told ABC News Live Prime on Wednesday. "Everything they are saying is wrong," she said. "My husband is a loving father and what I know is that he’s an amazing husband, an amazing father. That’s who he truly is.” Abrego Garcia -- despite having protected legal status preventing his deportation to El Salvador, where he escaped political violence in 2011 -- was sent to that country’s notorious CECOT mega-prison following what the government said was an "administrative error.” Vasquez said she found out her husband was in El Salvador after she saw photos in the local Salvadoran news. "It was heartbreaking," she said. "Lots of tears, confused.” Last month, Abrego Garcia, whose wife is a U.S. citizen and who has 5-year-old child, was stopped by ICE officers who "informed him that his immigration status had changed," according to his attorneys. He was detained and then transferred to a detention center in Texas, after which he was sent on March 15 to El Salvador along with more than 200 Venezuelan men who the government claims are gang members. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, while acknowledging the error in sending Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, said last week that he was unwelcome in the U.S. "The administration maintains the position that this individual who was deported to El Salvador and will not be returning to our country was a member of the brutal and vicious MS-13 gang," Leavitt said. Vasquez told ABC News that she is trying to be strong. "My youngest son is autistic and he’s nonverbal, but I’ve seen that he misses him a lot," Vasquez said. "He looks for him, he looks for his work shirts just to smell him.” Vasquez said that one of the hardest things is not knowing her husband’s condition. "My biggest question is, when is he coming home?" Vasquez said. "Is he OK? And I don’t think anyone can answer that right now.” U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the Trump administration to return Abrego Garcia from El Salvador by this past Monday at midnight, before Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Monday issued a temporary administrative stay delaying the midnight deadline in order to give the court more time to consider the arguments presented by both sides.

NBC News [4/9/2025 6:57 AM, Patrick Smith, 44742K] reports an international student studying at the University of Florida has been deported to his home country of Colombia after he was arrested for alleged traffic violations, his family and local officials said. Felipe Zapata Velázquez, 27, has become one of the latest foreign students studying in the United States to be deported, following a widespread crackdown by President Donald Trump’s administration. A protest to demand his immigration status be returned will be held at the college on Wednesday at 12:15 p.m. ET. NBC Miami obtained body-worn camera footage showing the moment Zapata Velázquez was stopped by police in Gainesville, Florida, on March 28. "I’m an international student," he tells an officer. "I just came from Colombia.” Police records cited by NBC Miami show he was cited for numerous offenses, including having an illegal license plate and driving with a suspended or revoked license and registration tag. Like many others who have faced ICE detention, Zapata Velázquez had a valid F-1 student visa. The university confirmed that he is a third-year undergraduate majoring in food and resource economics, but said it could not comment further for privacy reasons. Claudia Velázquez, his mother, told Colombian TV station Nuestra Tele Noticias this week that her son was told he could wait in detention while the immigration court handled the case or sign his own deportation papers. "At this time, Felipe is undergoing a physical and emotional recovery process, and we are prioritizing his well-being and overall health," she said in a statement in Spanish obtained and translated by NBC Miami. "I sincerely appreciate the interest, solidarity, and support that many have expressed regarding my son’s situation. When his situation is fully clarified, and if he deems it appropriate, Felipe will personally address any additional requests or communications.” Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) said that Zapata Velázquez was detained by ICE and taken to the Krome Detention Center in Miami-Dade.

Reported similarly:
Telemundo51 [4/9/2025 2:58 PM, Marissa Bagg, 171K]

Telemundo [4/9/2025 6:59 PM, Staff, 171K] reports a man was arrested in Martin County after posing as an ICE officer and stopping a van carrying two men. And all while he was wearing his pyjama pants. José Juan López, 23, was arrested last Thursday at 3 a.m. after, according to authorities, he made a traffic stop to two men who were driving a van and who called 911. "When they called us, they said they were running away from someone who had arrested them and who claimed to be an ICE agent and demanded immigration information, if he wasn’t going to deport them," said Christine Weiss, a spokeswoman for the Martin County Sheriff’s Office. When the suspect was located and arrested, according to police, he denied posing as an immigration officer. "He didn’t realize that inside the van he stopped, there was a video camera, so when the officers arrived, they clearly realized that these two people were the victims and proceeded to arrest Mr. Lopez for posing as a federal agent," Weiss said. Police say this suspect is known to them as he has been arrested in the past for possession, drugs, child abuse and domestic violence. "We also don’t know many ICE agents coming out in their pajamas, so when he tried to stop these individuals, he was wearing pajamas, which was the first evidence that he wasn’t an agent."

Roll Call [4/9/2025 5:08 PM, Chris Johnson, 503K] reports a federal judge blocked the Trump administration Wednesday from using of a centuries-old wartime law to deport migrants from one Texas detention center, the latest legal hurdle for the government’s push to use a proclamation to quickly remove alleged members of a Venezuelan gang from the U.S. Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas issued the temporary restraining order on the use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to remove migrants from the El Valle Detention Center in Raymondville, Texas. Rodriguez, a Trump appointee, points out in his order that keeping the status quo is required while he more fully considers a lawsuit that challenges President Donald Trump’s proclamation, considering a Supreme Court ruling Monday that found the U.S. government must give migrants a chance to have a federal judge review their situation. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, speaking to reporters Wednesday at an event at the D.C. headquarters for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the Trump administration after the Supreme Court decision "will continue to use" the Alien Enemies Act to remove migrants deemed as criminals, referencing a recent trip she made to the prison in El Salvador.

Breitbart [4/9/2025 3:11 PM, Ildefonso Ortiz and Brandon Darby, 2923K] reports authorities arrested a Texas woman who allegedly tried to smuggle $270,000 in cash into Mexico. The woman claimed to have been hired to move the cash on this and prior occasions. The arrest occurred over the weekend at the Hidalgo Port of Entry, a criminal complaint filed by agents with U.S. Homeland Security Investigations revealed. That is when Ana Paulina Araujo Gonzalez tried to drive from Texas into Mexico but was stopped for an inspection. Authorities asked her if she was carrying weapons or cash in excess of $10,000, and she said no, court documents revealed. That is when authorities sent her to a secondary inspection area, where they discovered nine bundles of cash hidden in an aftermarket compartment in the vehicle’s front seat. After officers with U.S. Customs and Border Protection arrested her and turned her over to HSI agents, she told authorities she had previously crossed with cash as part of a job she had been hired to do, the criminal complaint revealed.

(B) NBC News Daily [4/9/2025 3:37 PM, Staff] reports that a youth soccer coach charged with murdering a 13-year-old boy in southern California is now wanted by immigration officials. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says it placed a detainer on the suspect who is being currently held in the Los Angeles Couty Jail. ICE says the suspect is an undocumented immigrant from EL Salvador. The boy’s body was found dumped on the side of the road last week after he went missing last month.

FOX News [4/9/2025 10:16 AM, Greg Norman , Bill Melugin, 46189K] reports that the alleged California murder of a missing 13-year-old soccer player by his illegal immigrant coach was "an avoidable crime and the result of failed border policies," a U.S. attorney told Fox News. Mario Edgardo Garcia-Aquino, 43, allegedly killed his player, Oscar "Omar" Hernandez, in Lancaster on March 28, according to Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman. Multiple law enforcement sources told Fox News on Tuesday that Garcia-Aquino is an illegal immigrant from El Salvador. "This was an avoidable crime and the result of failed border policies," said U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli. "We cannot and will not tolerate illegal aliens who flout our nation’s immigration laws then prey on children. Federal law enforcement will continue to be very aggressive in locating, apprehending, and prosecuting criminal illegal aliens.” Garcia-Aquino illegally entered the U.S. as a "gotaway" at an unknown time and location, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has had no previous encounters with him, a senior ICE source also told Fox News this week. ICE has since filed a detainer on him with the Los Angeles County jail. "Thirteen-year-old Oscar ‘Omar’ Hernandez was an innocent child who was exploited and killed by this depraved illegal alien who should have never been in this country," added Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin. "Under President Trump and Secretary Noem’s leadership, child predators, pedophiles and murderers will be hunted down and removed from America’s communities.”

The Washington Post [4/9/2025 11:26 PM, Anumita Kaur and María Luisa Paúl, 31735K] reports U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will begin screening immigrants’ social media accounts for antisemitic content as grounds to deny visa and green-card applications, the agency announced Wednesday — a move that immigration law and free-speech experts condemn as an alarming federal overstep. The guidance, effective immediately, affects immigrants applying for lawful permanent residence, foreign students and immigrants “affiliated with educational institutions linked to antisemitic activity,” the agency said. Social media content that indicates an immigrant is “endorsing, espousing, promoting, or supporting antisemitic terrorism, antisemitic terrorist organizations, or other antisemitic activity” will negatively impact their immigration application. “There is no room in the United States for the rest of the world’s terrorist sympathizers, and we are under no obligation to admit them or let them stay here,” Tricia McLaughlin, the Department of Homeland Security’s assistant secretary for public affairs, said in a statement. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem “has made it clear that anyone who thinks they can come to America and hide behind the First Amendment to advocate for anti-Semitic violence and terrorism — think again. You are not welcome here.” The announcement from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a subagency within DHS that oversees the country’s immigration and naturalization systems, raised concern among experts that the policy is too vague and would rely heavily on the personal opinions of officials. Bloomberg Law [4/9/2025 10:51 AM, Andrew Kreighbaum, 120K] reports USCIS will look specifically for demonstrations of support for groups including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, or the Houthi movement in Yemen. It will consider social media content that indicates, espouses, or endorses "antisemitic activity" as a factor in discretionary analysis in adjudicating immigration benefits. The new policy comes weeks after USCIS announced plans to begin requiring applicants to disclose social media profiles when seeking benefits like permanent residency and asylum. Immigration and privacy advocates have said those plans raise major First Amendment concerns. Litigation challenging similar requirements for visa applicants is ongoing. The State Department has reportedly launched an initiative using artificial intelligence to revoke visas based on social media posts supporting Hamas.

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NBC News [4/9/2025 7:53 PM, Julia Ainsley, 44742K] reports a recently created Department of Homeland Security task force is using data analytic tools to scour the social media histories of the estimated 1.5 million foreign students studying in the United States for potential grounds to revoke their visas, three sources familiar with the operation told NBC News. They said records are also being searched for charges or criminal convictions of the student visa holders. DHS officials also announced Wednesday that the department would begin considering what it deems to be antisemitic activity on social media and “physical harassment of Jewish individuals” as grounds to revoke or deny immigration benefits. “This will immediately affect aliens applying for lawful permanent resident status, foreign students and aliens affiliated with educational institutions linked to antisemitic activity,” the announcement said. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, said the new policy was a return to “McCarthyism,” referring to the tactics used to identify alleged communists in the Cold War that violated privacy rights. “The spirit of Joseph McCarthy is alive and well in the Trump administration, which has spent months dishonestly mischaracterizing legitimate criticism of the Israeli government’s war crimes in Gaza as antisemitic, pursuing witch hunts into American colleges, and threatening the free speech rights of immigrants,” CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said in a statement Wednesday. The data analytic tools now being used to scour social media were enhanced during the Biden administration, a former Biden administration DHS official said. But to use them to search social media of nonviolent students, the official said, is different from what the previous administration intended. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement: “There is no room in the United States for the rest of the world’s terrorist sympathizers, and we are under no obligation to admit them or let them stay here. Secretary [Kristi] Noem has made it clear that anyone who thinks they can come to America and hide behind the First Amendment to advocate for anti-Semitic violence and terrorism — think again. You are not welcome here.”

Wall Street Journal [4/9/2025 7:04 PM, Liyan Qi, 646K] reports mounting U.S.-China tensions are forcing a rupture in the long love affair between Chinese students and American colleges. Chinese students, who often pay full tuition, have been a significant source of revenue for U.S. schools. On Wednesday, China cautioned students against studying in the U.S. The warning came as the U.S. is revoking visas for many of those already here. As the U.S. hit Chinese goods with new tariffs, China’s Ministry of Education advised Chinese students considering studies in the U.S. to thoroughly assess risks. Beijing issued a similar advisory in 2019, amid the U.S.-China trade war during President Trump’s first term. One in every four international students in the U.S. comes from China. The U.S. has been running a large service surplus with China for years, partly because of billions of dollars that Chinese households spend on schooling in the U.S. The services surplus, which also includes categories such as financial services, rose to nearly $32 billion in 2024 from $27 billion in 2023, according to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Colleges and universities across the U.S. say the visas of some international students have been revoked in recent days without notice, causing confusion on campuses and panic among students. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last month that the State Department would continue to identify student visa holders who it felt had abused its parameters.

Axios [4/9/2025 4:27 PM, Avery Lotz, 13163K] reports nearly 400 students and recent graduates have seen their visas revoked by immigration officials in the weeks surrounding the arrest of Columbia alumnus Mahmoud Khalil, igniting concerns about students’ First Amendment and immigration rights. The Trump administration has claimed that some international students, like Khalil, lost their status because they were affiliated with pro-Palestinian protests. For others, revocation was attributed to a crime or traffic offense and for some the reason is unknown. Khalil’s March 8 arrest was the first high-profile incident following the announcement of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s "Catch and Revoke" effort, though it’s unknown when the State Department and the departments of Homeland Security and Justice started implementing the policy. An Axios review of available data from universities and Insider Higher Ed showed nearly 400 students, recent graduates and individuals affiliated with universities on over 80 campuses nationwide have had their legal status changed by U.S. officials. That’s left students who lost their legal status to remain in the U.S. in an anxious limbo as the threat of detainment and deportation looms.

CNN [4/9/2025 6:37 PM, Andy Rose and Caroll Alvarado, 22131K] reports that Kseniia Petrova’s path from a Harvard laboratory to an immigration cell began with frogs. The Russian national who has been working as a researcher at Harvard Medical School failed to declare "non-hazardous" frog embryos she was carrying with her on her return to the US from France in February, Petrova’s attorney said. Rather than issue a fine, Petrova’s exchange visitor visa was revoked, and she was taken into custody. Revoking Petrova’s visa was "a punishment grossly disproportionate to the situation," her attorney, Greg Romanovsky, said, calling the error on the customs form "inadvertant.” CNN did not receive a response from the Department of Homeland Security to a request for comment, but the department told ABC News, "Messages found on (Petrova’s) phone revealed she planned to smuggle the materials through customs without declaring them." Petrova now sits in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Louisiana, ICE records show, waiting for a June 9 hearing that could end with her return to Russia, where Petrova’s attorney says she would face immediate arrest over her previous outspoken opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. "Her detention is not only unnecessary, but unjust," Romanovsky said. CNN has reviewed court filings, statements from attorneys and announcements from dozens of universities and colleges around the country and confirmed that more than 250 students, faculty and researchers have had their visas revoked this year.

Univision [4/9/2025 6:06 PM, Staff, 5325K] reports seven students linked to the University of Chicago have lost their F-1 student visas. These are three active students and four recent graduates who now face the uncertainty of their immigration status. The university confirmed that all of them are receiving legal support through its Office of International Affairs. The situation has raised alarm among international student communities across the country. F-1 visas allow foreign students to attend universities in the United States, but they are subject to rules such as: staying in good academic status, not committing crimes and avoiding abandoning their immigration status. The Trump administration has tightened policies on student visas. One of the most controversial measures is the evaluation of social media posts and personal affiliations. Eleven international students from North Carolina, and six students from the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), were also recently revoked their visas. "If a student supports a group considered extreme or anti-Semitic, their visa can be revoked," said Alex Galvez, an immigration lawyer. Galvez recommends international students: "Have a lot of care about what they post on social networks, also with the types of organizations that are associated."

Houston Chronicle [4/9/2025 6:29 PM, Samantha Ketterer, 1769K] reports federal authorities have terminated the academic status of 15 international students at Texas A&M University in recent weeks, possibly affecting their ability to stay in the country, and an undisclosed number of foreign students at the University of Houston and University of Texas at Austin have also seen changes to their legal status, according to school officials. Texas A&M discovered the terminations in a federal database of international students and exchange visitors, which is managed by the Department of Homeland Security. A terminated record could mean that a person no longer maintains their student visa, per the agency’s website. People with terminated records are required to leave the U.S. immediately and not return, though some circumstances could provide them a grace period. "This is an unprecedented situation being faced by nearly all U.S. institutions at the same time, so we are essentially figuring it out as we go along," Samantha Clement, director of A&M’s International Student & Scholar Services office, said in an email obtained by the student newspaper The Battalion. University of Houston and UT-Austin officials declined to provide exact figures of affected students. A UH spokesperson said the number of student status "terminations and/or visa revocations" was "small," and a UT spokesperson said there were "multiple.” "The University can confirm that the visa status of multiple international students has unexpectedly changed in recent days," University of Texas officials said in a statement. Texas A&M and University of Houston officials said that their international offices have directly contacted the students, as well as the broader international student community. "Texas A&M follows all federal and state laws, while ensuring a campus culture that supports every Aggie every day," A&M officials said in a statement. "The University of Houston’s International Student and Scholar Services Office is committed to supporting our international students and scholars by providing comprehensive services and programs to meet their needs," according to a UH statement. "We have proactively communicated the importance of maintaining compliance with immigration laws and continue to offer guidance.”

Miami Herald [4/9/2025 4:25 PM, Verónica Egui Brito, 3973K] reports a federal judge halted the Trump administration’s efforts to end Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, just days before they were scheduled to lose their right to remain and work legally in the U.S. Last month, U.S. District Judge Edward M. Chen in San Francisco issued a ruling blocking Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s decision to revoke the work permits and deportation protections for approximately 350,000 Venezuelans. That means the Trump administration’s decision in February to terminate TPS for Venezuelans is on hold, pending further hearings in the case. Had Chen not intervened, the TPS beneficiaries, many of them in South Florida, would have lost the right to remain in the U.S. on April 7. Chen said Noem had acted on broad generalizations and stereotypes when she revoked the work permits and deportation protections of about thousands of Venezuelans. The judge’s ruling means that more than 600,000 Venezuelan TPS holders will keep their legal status and work authorization for the time being as the case develops in federal court, pending the final outcome of the case. The decision affects two groups of Venezuelans: Those who would have lost their TPS status in April and a second group of about 260,000 who stand to lose their status in September.

The Hill [4/9/2025 12:09 PM, Rebecca Beitsch, 12829K] reports A bipartisan duo of senators from northern border states is asking the Trump administration to surge technological resources at both ends of the border, including more unmanned aircraft. “It is crucial that all U.S. borders are adequately defended,” Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and John Hoeven (R-N.D.) wrote to Pete Flores, the acting commission of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). “The U.S. and Canada share the world’s longest demilitarized border, and given the current deployment of CBP personnel and assets to the Southwestern border, the security of our northern border could be especially improved through the appropriate use of technological platforms.” The letter calls for the “the acquisition and fielding” of a number of systems, from anti-tunneling capabilities to technology backed by artificial intelligence. “Additionally, to better detect threats, we encourage CBP to increase its utilization of unmanned aircraft as well as radar and sensors technologies and autonomous platforms like aerostats,” they wrote. The letter also cites the need for better technology at the U.S.-Mexico border as well, referencing the “flow of fentanyl and other drugs across the Southwestern border.”

Washington Examiner [4/9/2025 1:38 PM, Anna Giaritelli, 2296K] reports that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) effort to make the federal government more transparent about the nationalities of illegal immigrants arrested at the border has advanced in the House. The Special Interest Alien Reporting Act was passed by the House Homeland Security Committee in a 15-12 vote on Wednesday. The bill would require the Department of Homeland Security to release statistics regularly about the number of illegal immigrants caught at the border if they are from certain "special interest" countries that pose national security threats to the United States, as well as the area of the border where they were apprehended. The DHS defines a "special interest alien" as a "non-U.S. person who, based on an analysis of travel patterns, potentially poses a national security risk to the United States or its interests.” "The administration tried to convince the public that there was no threat at the border. They were complicit in covering up the invasion at our border," Greene said during the committee markup of the bill. "They allowed over 12 million illegals from over 170 countries and territories to break our laws," Greene continued. "Under the Biden-Harris administration, there were at least 1.7 million Special Interest Aliens from 26 countries encountered at our border.” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), the top Democrat on the committee, said the Trump administration ought to consider how information could be safely published without putting national security at risk in the way he claimed Greene’s bill would.

Daily Caller [4/9/2025 10:08 AM, Jason Hopkins, 1082K] reports that the Trump administration is fast-tracking wall construction along a critical section of the U.S.-Mexico border, the latest move by the White House to prioritize immigration enforcement. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is waiving environmental restrictions in order to expedite the construction of roughly 2.5 miles of border barrier between California and Mexico, according to a notice published Tuesday on the Federal Register by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. The announcement marked the first environmental waiver used to fast-track border wall construction during President Donald Trump’s second term in office. “There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct additional physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States,” Noem said in the notice, citing the high number of border crossings in the San Diego area in 2024. “In order to ensure the expeditious construction of additional physical barriers and roads in the project area, I have determined that it is necessary that I exercise the authority that is vested in me,” Noem continued. The waiver will expedite border wall construction in the San Diego area, with a DHS announcement specifying that it will apply to roughly two miles of the San Diego Sector (SDC) Jacumba Gap Wall project, about 350 feet of the SDC Smugglers Gulch Project and another 600 to 1,500 feet of the SDC Wall Project. Border wall construction, a hallmark of Trump’s first term in the White House, has remained a top priority in his second administration. On his first day back in the Oval Office, Trump signed an executive order declaring an emergency at the southern border, allowing more resources to be diverted to the area and undoing a previous executive order by President Joe Biden that gutted funds for border wall construction. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in March awarded its first border wall contract of Trump’s second term, doling out more than $70 million to construct roughly seven miles of new border wall in Hidalgo County, Texas. Since returning to office, migrant encounters along the southern border have fallen to levels never before recorded in U.S. history. Border Patrol agents counted roughly 7,180 crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border during March, according to the latest figures released by CBP. Daily southern border apprehensions dropped during this time to around 230 per day, a figure the administration says is the lowest ever recorded. “Acting under President Trump’s Executive Orders, Secretary Noem is taking bold, decisive steps to secure the southern border and achieve full operational control,” DHS announced Tuesday. “To cut through bureaucratic delays, DHS is waiving environmental laws — including the National Environmental Policy Act — that can stall vital projects for months or even years.” “This waiver clears the path for the rapid deployment of physical barriers where they are needed most, reinforcing our commitment to national security and the rule of law,” DHS continued.

MeriTalk [4/9/2025 11:28 AM, Weslan Hansen, 45K] reports that as the United States gears up to host massive global sporting events, lawmakers and witnesses during a House hearing on April 8 sounded the alarm on outdated travel technology and slow visa processing systems that may struggle to keep pace with the expected influx of millions of visitors. At a House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation and Maritime Security hearing on Tuesday, lawmakers and industry leaders emphasized the urgent need to modernize airport identification systems and travel infrastructure, and emphasized the economic and security risks of falling behind. "Right now, we have work to do," Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., chairman of the subcommittee, said in opening statements. "Long waits for visas, outdated airport technology and staffing shortages at our ports of entry are slowing us down. These problems are not just frustrating, they could cost us jobs, investment, and global influence." The hearing, which focused on improvements at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) organization, follow long-term congressional debates on how to improve identity and security screening at U.S. airports. Geoff Freeman, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association (UTA), testified that while recent Federal initiatives – such as President Donald Trump’s task force to prepare to host the 2025 and 2026 FIFA World Cups – are steps in the right direction, more ambitious changes are required to upgrade aging systems and accelerate visa processing.

The Hill [4/9/2025 4:47 PM, Elizabeth Crisp, 12829K] reports travelers have less than a month to make sure their drivers licenses or identification cards are Real ID-compliant if they want to ease through Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoints at airports and prevent unnecessary delays. Congress approved the new enhanced security protocol two decades ago following recommendations from the panel that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but repeated setbacks have pushed the deadline for compliance to May 7 of this year. Every air traveler 18 years and older will need a Real ID-compliant driver’s license, identification card, U.S. passport, U.S. military ID or another federally approved form of identification to board a U.S. commercial aircraft after next month’s deadline. TSA will not accept temporary paper copies of licenses. Real ID certification also will be required to enter federal facilities or nuclear power plants.

New York Times [4/9/2025 4:57 PM, Christine Chung and Debra Kamin, 145325K] reports for years, the U.S. government has warned travelers they will soon need a Real ID to board domestic flights, only to keep postponing the deadline. But “soon” appears to be real this time. As of May 7, a standard driver’s license or state ID will no longer pass muster at airport security checkpoints, the Department of Homeland Security says. Passengers will instead need to present a security-enhanced, star-emblazoned Real ID or another approved form of identification like a passport. The change, nearly 20 years in the making, is meant to enhance security by setting a more consistent standard for state-issued documentation, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Bloomberg Law News [4/9/2025 1:20 PM, Ellen M. Gilmer and Kellie Lunney, 120K] reports that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is quietly scrapping a program designed to encourage communities to rebuild stronger infrastructure after disasters. FEMA officials directed staff to rescind a cost-sharing policy that provides more federal dollars to states and other jurisdictions that invest in mitigation measures and more resilient building standards after a disaster, according to FEMA officials who spoke anonymously to discuss internal operations. Bloomberg Government first reported on the plan. FEMA established the provision, known as the Public Assistance Mitigation Cost Share Incentives Policy, late last year to carry out a 2018 law that boosted incentives for communities to... [Editorial note: consult source link for extended commentary]

River Reporter [4/9/2025 5:01 PM, Staff] reports on Wednesday, April 9, Representative Rob Bresnahan, Jr. (PA-08) sent a letter to Cameron Hamilton, the Acting Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), following the agency’s announcement to cancel the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program. “I am writing to express my opposition to FEMA’s recent announcement it would cancel the [BRIC] program…this decision is detrimental to my constituents, and I strongly urge you to reverse this decision,” wrote Rep. Bresnahan. “This program is a hand-up, not a hand-out, to at-risk communities who have suffered catastrophic weather events. This includes my district and Northeastern Pennsylvania. The September 9, 2023 floods caused nearly $25 million in damage and destroyed 459 residences.” The BRIC program supports state, local and territorial governments and Tribal Nations as they work to reduce their hazard risk, including governments in Pennsylvania’s Eighth Congressional District. “In cases where communities cannot bear the full cost of property purchases, programs like BRIC are not wasteful, but well within the purview of federal coordination of disaster relief efforts,” continued Rep. Bresnahan. “The BRIC program has, and can continue to, support communities like those in my district. I urge you in the strongest possible manner to revive this program.”

Federal News Network [4/9/2025 1:24 PM, Tom Temin, 1089K] reports that President Donald Trump signed an executive order that shifts responsibility for disaster preparations to state and local governments. The Government Accountability Office added disaster response to its high-risk list this year. They have more than 60 recommendations to improve the process. And individuals applying for assistance face a forest of complexity when they need simplicity most. Federal News Network’s Terry Gerton spoke with Chris Currie, the director of GAO’s homeland security and justice division, on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin to find out where progress is being made and where more can be done. Chris Currie: Yeah. This has been a long time coming, actually. Over the last 10 years, the federal government spent about $500 billion on disaster assistance. So you’re correct that the number has been going up, the costs have been going up. But really, the main thing we’re seeing is that the complexity of these programs is making it very difficult for state and local officials and individuals themselves to recover. It’s just become way too big and difficult and is in need of major streamlining and reform. Chris Currie: So remember, we made this recommendation two years ago before all these recent talks of reorganization and eliminating FEMA came about. But there are over 30 congressional committees of jurisdiction with oversight over DHS and disaster assistance at large. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

ABC News [4/9/2025 3:09 PM, Julia Jacobo and Daniel Peck, 34586K] reports the multi-day outbreak of tornadoes, torrential rain and flooding that killed at least two dozen people across the Midwest and South was caused by a storm system that stalled and hovered over the same area for long periods of time, according to the National Weather Service. The system caused widespread extreme flooding in the region, with 26 river gauges in major flood stage as of Wednesday. At least 24 people in Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Georgia, Arkansas, Mississippi and Indiana have died as a result of the storms, according to officials. A strengthening high-pressure system over the Atlantic caused the system to stall and remain nearly stationary over parts of the Midwest and South for several days. Over a four-day period starting April 2, more than a foot of rain was recorded across portions of Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee, including the city of Memphis, records show. The biggest rainfall total from this event came from Benton, Kentucky, which recorded 15.68 inches of rain -- the most rain on record for a four-day period in western Kentucky. The preceding heavy rain events left the soil saturated with excess water in the region’s rivers and streams, increasing the risk of flash flooding and river flooding.

NewsNation [4/9/2025 11:03 AM, Staff, 6866K] reports that the Federal Emergency Management Agency plans to revoke more than $180 million in grants from New York City, claiming the city’s program for sheltering migrants "is not consistent" with Department of Homeland Security policies. On Tuesday, Mayor Eric Adams announced FEMA would claw back another $106 million from the city — on top of the roughly $80 million taken in February on similar concerns. In part, the letter from FEMA’s acting director, Cameron Hamilton, said the city’s grant use supports or has the potential to support "illegal immigration through funding illegal activities or support for illegal aliens that is not consistent with DHS’s enforcement." Adams said the funds would have been used to reimburse the city for its care of asylum-seekers. The money is part of the Shelter and Services Program and was appropriated by Congress, according to NewsNation affiliate WPIX. The program is intended to help local governments and nongovernmental organizations provide services for migrants. "Like their previous actions clawing back appropriated funds, these steps are unlawful, and the New York City Law Department is currently determining the best legal recourse to take to ensure that this money remains in New York City, where it was allocated and belongs," Adams said in a statement. The city filed a lawsuit challenging FEMA’s seizure of funds in February, and it has 30 days to file an objection against the latest round of revoked funding.

MSN United States [4/9/2025 2:29 PM, Chris Wade, 126906K] reports that the Trump administration is seeking to claw back $188 million in federal grants to New York City to cover migrant costs, but city leaders are vowing to challenge the move in court. The Federal Emergency Management Agency sent a letter to the city last week informing officials that the agency plans to terminate three grants under the Shelter and Services Program, including about $80 million the agency withdrew from the city’s bank account in February. The Trump administration alleges that the money was being spent to support "illegal" immigration. FEMA’s acting director, Cameron Hamilton, wrote in the letter that the "individuals receiving these services often have no legal status and are in the United States unlawfully" and that the grant program is "inconsistent" with the Trump administration’s priorities. "The department, consistent with President Trump’s direction, is focused on advancing the essential mission of enforcing immigration laws and securing the border," Hamilton said. New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who has praised some of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, said the city will challenge the move and "fight for every penny" related to migrant costs. "Like their previous actions clawing back appropriated funds, these steps are unlawful, and the New York City Law Department is currently determining the best legal recourse to take to ensure that this money remains in New York City, where it was allocated and belongs," Adams, a Democrat, said in a statement.

CBS News [4/9/2025 2:12 PM, Staff, 51661K] reports that after days of deluges overfilled rivers to near-record levels across Kentucky, residents were anxious to return to their flooded homes and assess what was salvageable, even as stubbornly high waters kept some of them waiting even longer. Floodwaters inundated a number of Kentucky cities and towns as powerful storms repeatedly struck parts of the South and Midwest, killing dozens of people in different states. In Kentucky, CBS News confirmed that at least six people are dead, while relentless rainfall caused the Ohio and Kentucky Rivers to swell and spill over around major metropolitan areas like Frankfort, the state capital, and Louisville, its largest city. Images of the storm damage in Lockport, Kentucky, show cars and buildings either partially or, in some cases, completely submerged in water. Officials warned of flooding expected along the Ohio River in Henderson and Owensboro into next week, with swift water rescue teams at the ready. Officials in Frankfort diverted traffic, turned off utilities to businesses and instituted a curfew as the Kentucky River crested Monday just short of a record set in 1978. Water service has been restored, but wastewater isn’t back up yet, Beshear said. Inundated rivers are the latest threat from persistent storms that have killed at least 25 people, CBS News has confirmed. Outside of Kentucky, 10 of the dead were killed in Tennessee, along with three in Missouri, two in Arkansas, two in Georgia and one each in Indiana and Mississippi, authorities said. In addition to storm hazards such as flooding, at least 157 tornadoes struck within seven days beginning March 30, according to a preliminary report from the National Weather Service. Flood danger remains elsewhere, including parts of Tennessee, Arkansas and Indiana.

Louisiana First [4/9/2025 11:19 AM, Allison Bruhl] reports the Federal Emergency Management Agency has ended a program Louisiana depends on to fund natural disaster mitigation projects. The federal agency announced Friday the end of the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program, canceling all applications from fiscal years 2020 to 2023. Officials said if funds have not been distributed, then they will be immediately returned to the Disaster Relief Fund or the U.S. Treasury. Through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2021, $1 billion was made available to BRIC over five years. According to FEMA, $133 million has been given to about 450 applications. “The BRIC program was yet another example of a wasteful and ineffective FEMA program. It was more concerned with political agendas than helping Americans affected by natural disasters. Under Secretary Noem’s leadership, we are committed to ensuring that Americans in crisis can get the help and resources they need,” a FEMA spokesperson said. Data on the program available on FEMA’s website shows Louisiana applications totaling 148 were worth $721,281,559 million. Congressmen Troy Carter and Cleo Fields oppose the Trump administration’s potential elimination of FEMA. Carter said the “gutting” of the federal agency is “not just reckless—it’s dangerous.” He said FEMA has served as a necessity for Louisiana communities for relief and long-term support to rebuild homes and protections from natural disasters the state faces. Carter and Fields sent a letter to Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and FEMA Acting Administrator Cameron Hamilton to voice their concerns, citing the 500,000 Louisiana households that have applied for funding since 2021. “With hurricane forecasts predicting yet another active season, these proposed changes could not come at a more dangerous time,” they wrote.

NBC 6 Miami [4/9/2025 2:53 PM, Julian Quintana] Video HERE reports over 48,400 pounds of cocaine and some marijuana worth more than $509 million seized by the U.S. Coast Guard were offloaded at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday. Coast Guard officials, joined by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, held a press conference at Port Everglades to discuss the seizure of illicit narcotics. The U.S. Cutter James has been out on a four-month deployment as it operated out in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. The crew used surveillance systems, drones, aircraft and ships to interdict several vessels and seize the drugs. During the press conference, officials said they believed two cartel groups were heavily tied to the shipments. Bondi said 11 separate prosecutions will take place as a result of these interdictions and they will be held accountable and prosecuted in the Middle District of Florida. She also said the operation was a textbook example of the DOJ supporting the fight against violent crime. "The drugs that you have seen today will no longer destroy lives," Bondi said. "They will help us lock up the criminals." "They are going to get all the drugs off the streets, off the markets and as Attorney General Bondi said, we are going to lock them up, they are no longer going to be free to roam," Patel said. [Editorial note: consult video at source link] The AP [4/9/2025 5:14 PM, Alanna Durkin Richer, 48304K] reports Bondi traveled to Florida to tout the seizure of cocaine and marijuana by U.S. Coast Guard crews and put a spotlight a key Trump administration priority to go after drug traffickers helping to fuel America’s addiction crisis. Bondi’s appearance at the south Florida port, standing in front of a Coast Guard ship and stacks of the intercepted drugs, underscores the Trump administration’s efforts to reshape the Justice Department to align with the President Donald Trump’s priorities to crack down on violent crime, illegal immigration and cartels. Ships, aircraft and drones were used to intercept the traffickers off the coast of Peru, Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands, according to Bondi, who said the seizures have led to sealed indictments against 11 people. Bondi said investigators have linked two cartels - Jalisco New Generation and Sinaloa - to the shipments, and described the seizures as a “major blow” to their financial operations. “What they did saved countless American lives,” Bondi said of Coast Guard crews that intercepted the drugs. “This cocaine would have been distributed throughout our country and perhaps throughout our world.” The Sinaloa cartel, Mexico’s oldest criminal group, which traffics drugs, weapons and people, and Jalisco New Generation were among eight Latin American crime organizations as “foreign terrorist organizations” by the Trump administration in February, upping its pressure on cartels operating in the U.S. and on anyone aiding them. “This administration has labeled them foreign terrorist organizations because that’s what they are,” said FBI Director Kash Patel, who joined Bondi in Florida Wednesday.

Reported similarly:
ABC News [4/9/2025 12:38 PM, Luke Barr, 31638K] Video HERE
CBS 4 Miami [4/9/2025 12:38 PM, John MacLauchlan] Video HERE
NBC 8 Tampa [4/9/2025 4:53 PM, Sierra Rains, 2000K] Video HERE
FOX News [4/9/2025 3:18 PM, Adam Sabes, 46189K]
FOX 7 Miami [4/9/2025 12:09 PM, Alex Browning, Vanessa Medina, and Aaron Page, 864K]
NewsNation [4/9/2025 2:57 PM, Jordan Perkins, 6900K]
Miami Herald [4/9/2025 6:56 PM, David Goodhue, 4000K]
Washington Examiner [4/9/2025 12:53 PM, Anna Giaritelli, 2296K]

Politico [4/9/2025 7:23 PM, Paul McLeary, 2100K] reports President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency to investigate Navy and Coast Guard shipbuilding, giving the controversial group wide leverage to tackle some of the military’s most expensive — and troubled — projects. Trump, in a Wednesday executive order, said DOGE will begin a review of shipbuilding within three months, “to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of these processes.” Both the Biden and Trump administrations have tried to tackle decades of Navy shipbuilding delays and over-budget projects, with little to show for their efforts. Promises by the Navy to speed up the process, reduce bad planning decisions and more efficiently design new warships have mostly failed. The order, which seeks to revive the beleaguered industry, also instructs both the Navy and Coast Guard to launch 45-day reviews of their shipbuilding efforts. The document requires the secretaries of Defense and Transportation to work together on revitalizing the commercial shipbuilding industry, which is dominated by China. It also tasks the Defense, Commerce, Labor, Transportation and Homeland Security departments with developing a Maritime Action Plan by November that outlines new ways to invest in the shipbuilding industrial base. Bloomberg [4/9/2025 4:01 PM, Laura Curtis and Anthony Capaccio, 27782K] reports the order is intended to blunt China’s maritime dominance by offering new funding streams to support US shipbuilding, according to a senior White House official who asked not to be identified discussing the document before its release. It paves the way for tax breaks on investments in “maritime opportunity zones” and directs agencies to study in particular the US presence in the Arctic, the person said. Challenges over maritime commerce and seagoing defenses have the president’s attention. During his speech to Congress in March, Trump announced a new office of shipbuilding and said the US would be making ships “very fast and very soon.”

New Haven Register [4/9/2025 6:34 AM, Jessica Bravo] reports a Good Samaritan successfully located the missing vessel that had set sail from New Haven, officials said. The U.S. Coast Guard said the "Hot Chocolate" was located Tuesday evening disabled "46 miles south of Fire Island," off the coast of Long Island. It wasn’t immediately unclear how the boat became disabled. All three people aboard were safely rescued, the U.S. Coast Guard said. The U.S. Coast Guard reported that the boat was en route to Ocracoke, N.C., and was seeking information regarding it on Tuesday morning.

ABC 25 West Palm Beach [4/9/2025 11:05 PM, Staff] reports the U.S. Coast Guard is working with Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office to search for a 32 year-old, who reportedly fell overboard. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Florida Daily [4/10/2025 4:00 AM, Staff] reports a federal judge in Miami has found two Cuban nationals guilty in a case involving the smuggling of undocumented migrants from the Bahamas to the United States. Court records indicate that on October 24, 2024, Yordany Capote-Leon, 31, and Yuniel Cabrera Piloto, 44, departed from the U.S. toward Bahamian waters in a cuddy cabin-style boat. Authorities say the two men picked up 18 individuals and attempted to return with them to the U.S. The vessel was tracked by the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Manowar, which observed the activity and followed the boat as it reentered U.S. waters near Key Largo, Florida. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers aboard an Air and Marine Operations vessel attempted to stop the boat, but the operators did not comply. The vessel eventually halted after warning shots were fired. The investigation was conducted by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Miami with support from U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Coast Guard’s 7th District. The case is being prosecuted by Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Tanner Stiehl.

The San Diego Union-Tribune [4/9/2025 8:42 PM, Gary Robbins, 1700K] reports the commander of the U.S. Coast Guard’s large base in San Diego has been permanently relieved of his duties six months after being suspended for unspecified reasons. Capt. James Spitler was relieved “following an investigation leading to a loss of confidence due to failures in leadership, judgement, and integrity,” Rear Adm. Joseph Buzzella, commander of District Eleven, said in a statement. “Sector San Diego is fully operational and focused on securing our Maritime Border and approaches,” Buzzella said. “The Coast Guard has surged assets and tripled the number of deployed forces — to include cutters, aircraft, and tactical teams — along the U.S. Southern border and maritime approaches.” Sector San Diego is responsible for patrolling 120 miles of coastline and 750 miles of the Colorado River, as well as the U.S.-Mexico southwest maritime border, the agency says. Hoodline [4/9/2025 1:30 PM, Ben J. Costas] reports that details released by the service indicate that their decision followed an investigation that raised serious concerns over Spitler’s performance in key areas of leadership and responsibility, as per the U.S. Coast Guard. Joseph Buzzella, commander of District Eleven, temporarily stepped in, apparently Spitler’s shortcomings led to a "loss of confidence due to failures in leadership, judgement, and integrity" as revealed in the formal statement. This move precluded the recent confirmation of a permanent change; after careful assessment, Rear Adm. Buzzella’s recommendation was reviewed and endorsed by Vice Admiral Andrew Tiongson, commander of the Pacific Area, and ultimately approved by Coast Guard Headquarters, thus bringing closure to weeks of uncertainty surrounding the leadership of the sector.

Reuters [4/9/2025 6:10 AM, Raphael Satter, 41523K] reports U.S. Democratic Senator Ron Wyden plans to put a hold on Donald Trump’s appointee for the U.S. cybersecurity agency, citing what the Oregon senator called a "multi-year cover up" of serious vulnerabilities in the U.S. telecommunications network. In prepared remarks reviewed by Reuters and set to be released later on Wednesday, Wyden said he would object to considering the nomination of Sean Plankey, Trump’s pick to head the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), unless the agency published a report on insecurity in the U.S. telecommunications industry dating back to 2022. CISA referred questions on the matter to the White House, which did not immediately return a message seeking comment. Plankey, who was nominated last month to lead the agency, did not immediately return a message. Under Senate rules, a single senator can hold up a nominee even if the other 99 want to move forward, using up floor time as lawmakers vote their way through what would otherwise be routine procedural hurdles. Legislators often use holds or even the threat of holds to negotiate concessions from the executive branch. Wyden has had success with such tactics in the past. In 2018, Wyden held up the nomination of Trump’s first nominee for CISA, Chris Krebs, until the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agreed to hand over information about cell phone surveillance in Washington. Wyden ultimately lifted the hold, when DHS complied. In his prepared remarks, Wyden noted that he’d been fighting for three years to get the report released, saying it was both unclassified and particularly relevant in light of the recent wave of breaches blamed on the Chinese hacking group nicknamed "Salt Typhoon," which he and others have blamed in part on shoddy cybersecurity at top U.S. telecommunications providers. "CISA’s multi-year cover up of the phone companies’ negligent cybersecurity has real consequences," the remarks said. "Congress and the American people have a right to read this report.”

Reported similarly:
The Hill [4/9/2025 2:05 PM, Julia Shapero, 12829K]
Federal News Network [4/9/2025 6:02 PM, Justin Doubleday, 1089K]

Breitbart [4/9/2025 10:37 AM, Alana Mastrangelo, 2923K] reports that hackers have reportedly spied on 100 email addresses belonging to U.S. Bank regulators at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for more than a year, gaining access to correspondence involving sensitive information regarding banks they oversee and agency deliberations, sources say. The hackers, whose activities were discovered earlier this year, have monitored employee emails at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) after breaking into an administrator’s account, two people familiar with the situation told Bloomberg. The OCC — a bureau of the Department of the Treasury that regulates all national banks — reportedly revealed on February 26 that it had recently found a "cybersecurity incident" involving an administrator’s account in its email system. The agency said it discovered a "limited number of affected email accounts," adding that they have since been disabled. The attackers, whose identities remain unclear, infiltrated emails belonging to senior deputy comptrollers and international banking supervisors, gaining access to more than 150,000 emails, starting in June 2023, until they were found and removed in February, the sources told Blomberg. The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) says it has not found any signs of impact on the financial sector "at this time." But the sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that the OCC now believes the attackers gained access to more email accounts than the agency initially thought.

Federal News Network [4/9/2025 5:41 PM, Gina Scinta, 1089K] reports almost half of federal government agencies have had their data security breached, according to a recent survey of security and IT management professionals. While that’s a sobering number, it’s also not surprising, given that these organizations are prized targets for cybercriminals and rogue nation-states. And while new technologies such as artificial intelligence can enable agencies to improve the user experience and support other stakeholders, they also open the door to previously unknown security vulnerabilities. The solution to this dilemma lies in the adoption of technologies including phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication (MFA), encryption of data-at-rest and in-motion, secure, controlled cryptographic keys and quantum-safe cryptography. Those are some of the key takeaways from a recently released 2024 Data Threat Report — Federal Edition. What follows is a summary of those takeaways and how agencies and vendors can work together to help stem the rising tide of data threats. The scope of data threat problems for federal agencies cannot be overstated. As noted above, about half (49%) of federal agencies and organizations have been breached. On the plus side, the number of organizations reporting a recent breach in the last 12 months has dropped from 47% in 2021 to 13% in 2024. This reduction is the result of a combination of factors, including directives such as: The government is not taking data threats lightly, including with continuing heavy investment in cybersecurity. The federal fiscal 2025 budget request includes approximately $13 billion for civilian cybersecurity-related activities. Despite these efforts, the cyberattack landscape is growing quickly. Nine out of 10 federal organizations (93%) have experienced an increase in attacks — specifically in the areas of malware, phishing and ransomware. The most common causes of cloud-based data breaches were cited as human error (27%), exploitation of a known vulnerability (27%) and failure to use MFA for privileged user accounts (20%). Misconfiguration (human error) was ranked as the top cause of external attacks.

CyberScoop [4/9/2025 10:28 AM, Matt Bracken] reports a federal study into the national security risks posed by routers, modems and similar devices controlled by U.S. adversaries moved one step closer to law Tuesday by advancing out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The Removing Our Unsecure Technologies to Ensure Reliability and Security (ROUTERS) Act from Reps. Bob Latta, R-Ohio, and Robin Kelly, D-Ill., would require the Commerce Department’s assistant secretary for communications and information to oversee a study into devices that are “designed, developed, manufactured, or supplied” by or subject to the influence of a “covered country.” The two-page bill is a companion to legislation introduced in January by Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M. In a press release accompanying the introduction of the Senate bill, China, Russia, Iran, North Korean, Cuba and Venezuela were called out specifically as covered countries. The Senate version was reported favorably out of the chamber’s Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee last month. Kelly said Tuesday during the House markup that broadband infrastructure has been a top priority for her on the committee. Closing the digital dive is something she remains “deeply committed to,” but precautions for doing so must be taken. “We must protect the privacy and security of those millions of Americans who rely on the internet to accomplish critical everyday tasks,” she said, “like online banking, educational purposes, remote sensing and monitoring, and more leisure activities like shopping and streaming.”

FOX News [4/9/2025 8:00 AM, Alec Schemmel, 46189K] reports a spate of violent incidents targeting Tesla car owners, dealerships, charging stations and Republicans in general have been a common occurrence since President Donald Trump took office, compelling some GOP lawmakers to take certain safety measures. The pattern of violent incidents comes after a new report from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), which found that increasingly violent rhetoric online is becoming more normalized than ever. NCRI’s findings showed that more than half of left-leaning respondents said killing Trump would be at least "somewhat justified.” The increased normalization of violent rhetoric was exhibited in audio recordings of voice mails and handwritten letters sent to GOP North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis. "Thom Tillis, afraid of death threats? Then get the f--- out of office," a caller said in a voicemail sent to the senator’s office. In an unsigned letter sent to Tillis, his staffers were referred to as "sacrificial lambs" who "signed up to be [Tillis’s] shield.” Citing the uptick in "Democrat threats of violence," GOP Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman moved all of her in-person town halls online. The move came after an incident in which an attendee of one of her town halls followed Hageman as she left and initiated a physical confrontation with her staff, eventually requiring police to intervene. Tillis has similarly taken certain steps to protect his staff, telling them to telework on days when there could be trouble. "What was formerly taboo culturally has become acceptable," Joel Finkelstein, lead author of the NCRI report, told Fox News Digital. "We are seeing a clear shift – glorification, increased attempts and changing norms – all converging into what we define as ‘assassination culture.’". These new rhetorical norms have translated into significant real-life violence, including just a few days ago at the New Mexico GOP’s headquarters in Albuquerque. Suspects set the building on fire using incendiary devices, and they spray-painted the words "ICE = KKK" across the side of the building. An investigation into the incident, which did not result in any injuries, was initiated after the incident. So far, no arrests have been publicly reported.

Free Beacon [4/9/2025 5:00 AM, Jessica Costescu, 475K] reports Northwestern University’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter held an anarchist training session for its members at which it cited propaganda from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group urging U.S. students to "build an Intifada" and "destroy amerika.” Northwestern’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter featured two radical pamphlets as part of its materials for the Thursday training, titled "Organizing Safety 101." One of those, an anarchist pamphlet, quoted a PFLP leader and called on students to "build an Intifada" so they could "destroy amerika." The other, crafted by the SJP chapter, featured a PFLP cartoon on the cover and encouraged students to "channel [their] anger" so they could "aid in the fight" against Israel. The event coincides with the Trump administration’s intensifying efforts to address anti-Semitism on college campuses across the nation, slashing more than $430 million in federal funds at Columbia University and threatening to cut another $9 billion in grants and contracts at Harvard University. And on Tuesday, the Trump administration froze $790 million at Northwestern amid a civil rights investigation, New York Times reported. Still, a Northwestern graduate student told the Washington Free Beacon he doubts the university will take action to address the anti-Semitic training. He said seeing the SJP pamphlet, which was passed out on campus and obtained by the Free Beacon, made his "stomach drop.” "Seeing the [SJP] pamphlet made my stomach drop. If you put that next to Nazi or Communist propaganda from back in the day, you would not be able to tell the difference. This is how they signal their true intentions- getting rid of Jews everywhere," he said. "It’s terrifying that they are planning out how to subvert the university’s rules and get away with it. Unfortunately, it’s likely that they will because Northwestern has an extensive track record of refusing to enforce their own rules.” Northwestern did not respond to a request for comment. The anarchist pamphlet included in the SJP chapter’s training, titled "The Battle of Hind’s Hall, From Our Side Of The Barricades," was produced by Unity of Fields, a self-described "militant front against the US-NATO-zionist axis of imperialism." The anarchist group has played a significant role in fomenting unrest at Columbia University, most prominently when radicals stormed Hamilton Hall and symbolically renamed it "Hind’s Hall" last spring.

CBS News [4/9/2025 6:43 AM, Staff, 51661K] reports eight members of Colombia’s largest cartel have died in clashes with security forces, the army said Tuesday, the latest in a series of raids against one of Latin America’s most powerful criminal groups. Days after the death of a top Gulf Clan capo, the military said it had killed several more of the cartel’s members and taken two captive during an operation in the country’s northwest. In a social media post, the army said it had also seized "abundant war material and supplies.” The Gulf Clan was born from right-wing paramilitary groups that fought leftist guerrillas in the 1990s -- before turning their attention to the cocaine trade. They are now a criminal powerhouse making money from drug trafficking, illegal gold mining, racketeering and migrant smuggling across the northern border with Panama. The cartel is believed to number between 6,000 and 9,000 members, according to government estimates. Since peace efforts stalled, Colombia’s government has launched a series of attacks on the group. The Gulf Clan is one of several cartels recently designated as foreign terrorist groups by the United States. In 2022, the Gulf Clan shut down dozens of towns in northern Colombia for four days in reaction to its leader being extradited to the U.S. for trial. On Saturday, the police and the DEA killed alias "Chirimoya," one of the cartel’s five commanders. Late last month, air strikes killed nine alleged cartel members.

Los Angeles Times [4/9/2025 10:41 PM, Kaitlyn Huamani, 13342K] reports a Pasadena woman has admitted to stalking a man and threatening to kill him and his wife, as well as threatening to bomb a U.S. Consulate in Vietnam. Natalie Nguyen, 39, pleaded guilty Wednesday at the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California to one count of stalking and one count of threat by interstate commerce to kill another person and to damage and destroy buildings by fire and explosives. Nguyen stalked a man who is identified in court documents as “T.H.” and his wife from April 2023 through February 2024, per her plea agreement. She sent several emails to the man and threatened to kill him and his wife. One email included screenshots of a text conversation about paying a hit man $15,000 to kill the wife. She sent several emails to officials — impersonating T.H. and his wife — in which she threatened to detonate a bomb at the U.S. Consulate in Ho Chi Minh City and had also stalked five of its employees, according to authorities. In an October 2023 email impersonating T.H., Nguyen wrote to three government employees at the U.S. Consulate stating, “i wil [sic] kill every [expletive] one of you who has been delaying issuing my wife visa.” In January 2024, this time impersonating T.H.’s wife, Nguyen sent a message to U.S. officials through an online portal: “Device will be detonated at America consular in Saigon and in San Francisco. All of you will be exploded for causing my separation with my husband for this last year. Everything will be exploded around new year or after.” Through a message in a U.S. Embassy online portal, she also threatened to set off grenades around the time of the Lunar New Year. Nguyen’s lawyer, Benjamin P. Lechman, said in a statement to The Times on Wednesday that “no one was physically harmed in any way in this case.” “This is a case about a person who — at the time of the offense — was suffering from some very real mental health issues,” he said. “Ms. Nguyen is now working with a talented mental health professional and with today’s plea, has taken responsibility for her actions. She is simply seeking to put this episode behind her and move ahead with her life in a positive fashion. “Mental health struggles affect a large segment of society and Ms. Nguyen encourages anyone suffering like she was to seek appropriate treatment as soon as possible,” Lechman added.

Washington Post [4/9/2025 1:52 PM, Salvador Rizzo, 31735K] reports that dozens of people who were injured or lost family members in terrorist strikes in the Middle East filed a federal lawsuit against Iran and North Korea on Wednesday, saying the two countries provided funding, weapons and training to militant groups that targeted Americans. Nations are broadly immune from lawsuits in U.S. courts, but the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act allows those who were injured or whose family members were killed in militant strikes to seek financial damages from state sponsors of terrorism. Such lawsuits, while rare, occasionally result in multibillion-dollar judgments for victims. The 48 plaintiffs cite reports from U.S. government agencies that say Iran and North Korea have long partnered on efforts to arm and train several designated terrorist organizations that carried out seven separate attacks on Army personnel, military contractors and U.S. civilians — starting with a deadly rocket barrage at an Iraqi air base in 2019 and ending with the Oct. 7, 2023, hostage-taking massacre in Israel. The strikes, which also targeted Americans in Kenya and Syria, were orchestrated by al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and other proxies for Iran and North Korea that aim to drive the United States out of Middle Eastern affairs, according to the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Roll Call [4/9/2025 2:27 AM, Olivia M. Bridges, 503K] reports President Donald Trump said Wednesday he is pausing and lowering reciprocal tariffs on 75 countries that have called for trade negotiations and will raise tariffs on goods imports from China to 125 percent effective immediately. Trump announced the change in policy on Truth Social, altering a course he set only last week. The news caught Republicans in Congress off guard. Members of the House Ways and Means Committee continued to ask U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer about the reciprocal tariffs even as Trump disclosed his decision. The news sent U.S. equity markets sharply higher after several days of deep declines amid conflicting messages from administration officials, including some who said there would be no change in course. Trump didn’t disclose the 75 countries. "Conversely, and based on the fact that more than 75 Countries have called Representatives of the United States, including the Departments of Commerce, Treasury, and the USTR, to negotiate a solution to the subjects being discussed relative to Trade, Trade Barriers, Tariffs, Currency Manipulation, and Non Monetary Tariffs, and that these Countries have not, at my strong suggestion, retaliated in any way, shape, or form against the United States, I have authorized a 90 day PAUSE, and a substantially lowered Reciprocal Tariff during this period, of 10 percent, also effective immediately," Trump said on social media. But Trump continued with his aggressive actions − and rhetoric − regarding China, one of the biggest U.S. trading partners. "Based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125 percent, effective immediately. At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable," Trump posted. The president’s action is the latest escalation in the trade conflict with China. His increase in tariffs comes hours after China said it would raise its retaliatory tariffs on all U.S. goods and services from 34 percent to 84 percent.

Washington Examiner [4/9/2025 1:35 PM, Jack Birle and Christian Datoc, 2296K] reports that President Donald Trump announced he would issue a 90-day pause on tariffs on non-retaliating countries and raise tariffs on China to 125%. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the pause would lower tariff rates to 10%, the baseline that went into effect on Saturday, and would be issued to countries not retaliating against his initial tariff plan. Stocks on Wall Street skyrocketed shortly after Trump’s post. The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased more than 2,000 points, the S&P 500 increased more than 7%, and the Nasdaq Composite increased almost 10%. "Based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125%, effective immediately. At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable," Trump wrote. "Conversely, and based on the fact that more than 75 Countries have called Representatives of the United States, including the Departments of Commerce, Treasury, and the [U.S. Trade Representative], to negotiate a solution to the subjects being discussed relative to Trade, Trade Barriers, Tariffs, Currency Manipulation, and Non Monetary Tariffs, and that these Countries have not, at my strong suggestion, retaliated in any way, shape, or form against the United States, I have authorized a 90 day PAUSE, and a substantially lowered Reciprocal Tariff during this period, of 10%, also effective immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter!" he continued.

ABC News [4/9/2025 6:18 PM, Ivan Pereira, 34586K] reports it’s an argument President Donald Trump makes repeatedly as an end goal of his sweeping tariffs: America needs to bring companies and their manufacturing jobs -- back to the U.S. That’s a key reason, he says, that he imposed his hefty tariffs across the globe, with the heaviest levied on China, Vietnam and the European Union (although on Wednesday he put higher tariffs on some countries on pause -- excepting China). "Jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country," Trump said last week in announcing his tariffs. "And ultimately, more production at home will mean stronger competition and lower prices for consumers.” Making steel, aluminum and other products in the U.S. is a matter of national security, he added. But on a practical level, experts say companies could take a long time to relocate, factories a long time to build and the cost of doing so -- plus higher American labor wages -- could make their products more expensive for American consumers. Some economists and international trade experts told ABC News that the president’s controversial trade policy could actually discourage firms from setting up factories on American soil. "Trump has a fundamental misunderstanding of how trade works. More domestic manufacturing does not mean a better economy," Justin Wolfers, a professor of economics and public policy at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, told ABC News. "It’s an example I see a lot in 18-year-olds who turn up on the first day of my economics class.” Wolfers and others contend that the decades of a U.S. shift from a manufacturing-heavy economy to one more based in financial and intellectual capital, tech and other white-collar fields, has done more to help American consumers and workers. Wolfers said that Trump’s tariffs are a "solution looking for a rationale," given the disparity between manufacturing and other sectors, which have attracted a lot of talent domestically. "One of the questions posed by the tariffs is should we undermine the competitiveness of the 140 million (non-manufacturing) jobs to satisfy the other 13 million (manufacturing)?" he said.

NewsMax [4/9/2025 7:15 PM, Michael Katz, 4998K] reports Democrats are seeking to force the House to review the Trump administration’s use of the Signal chat app after it was used to discuss a pending airstrike on Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists in Yemen. Acting Pentagon Inspector General Steven Stebbins is investigating the incident in which a journalist was mistakenly added to the group chat regarding the operation. Stebbins’ investigation was launched April 3 following a request by Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and ranking member Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I. But Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Wednesday introduced a resolution of inquiry to investigate the incident and subsequent reports that national security adviser Michael Waltz and other staff members used their personal email accounts to conduct official government business. A resolution of inquiry is a House tool typically used by the minority party that seeks factual information from the executive branch but is not legally binding like a subpoena. Once introduced at the committee level, the committee has 14 legislative days to act on and report the resolution to the House or it will become eligible for a vote on the House floor. "It has now been several weeks since National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and the entire Trump leadership team jeopardized the safety of U.S. military personnel by announcing classified battle plans and attack sequencing on an unauthorized and insecure network just hours before those operations commenced," Lynch said in a news release. "This colossal security failure exposed U.S. fighter jets to enemy anti-aircraft positions and left U.S. Naval vessels vulnerable to drone and missile attack. Yet, no one has taken responsibility or explained how these dangerous and irresponsible security lapses occurred. "This resolution of inquiry will allow Congress to review all the protocol breaches in order to put a stop to the slipshod and unprofessional handling of our national security and force protection responsibilities. Our sons and daughters in uniform deserve better," Lynch said.

Federal News Network [4/9/2025 8:33 AM, Michele Sandiford, 1089K] reports members of Congress are looking to further secure collective bargaining for federal employees. A group of lawmakers has reintroduced the "Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act" in both the House and Senate. If it’s enacted, the bill would guarantee public sector workers the ability to join a union and collectively bargain. The bill has bipartisan support and the backing of multiple federal unions. The reintroduced legislation comes after President Trump signed an executive order to end collective bargaining at most federal agencies. [Editorial note: consult audio at source link]

Roll Call [4/9/2025 3:14 PM, Jacob Fulton, 503K] reports Meta has worked "hand in glove" with the Chinese Communist Party and taken steps to "undermine American interests to build its China business," a Facebook whistleblower said in a Wednesday Senate subcommittee hearing. Sarah Wynn-Williams, who worked for Facebook from 2011 to 2017 and served as the company’s director of global public policy, told the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism that Meta, which owns Facebook, has accommodated the CCP in an attempt to break into the Chinese market and misrepresented its operations before Congress. She was called to testify before the panel, chaired by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., as part of an effort to investigate, publicize and regulate the potentially harmful inner workings of tech giants like Meta. Congress for years has sought ways to regulate Big Tech, although free speech concerns and powerful lobbying efforts from highly influential companies have served as past roadblocks. In her memoir "Careless People," published in March, Wynn-Williams alleged misconduct and sexual harassment at the company, and many of her statements to the Senate subcommittee were also detailed in the book. She was the lone witness at the hearing. Meta has disputed her claims and the company also took legal steps against Wynn-Williams earlier this year, with an arbitrator deciding that Wynn-Williams should stop promoting the memoir. "This is a hearing that Facebook tried desperately to prevent," Hawley said at the hearing. "Facebook is one of the most powerful companies in the world. It is one of the most powerful companies in the history of the world, and they have stopped at absolutely nothing to prevent today’s testimony.” Wynn-Williams testified that Meta has previously considered actions, such as building data centers in China, that would have compromised Americans’ data as well. The Chinese government would have access to data centers built in China, for example, and Americans’ data could be compromised if they interacted with Chinese Facebook users as a result, she said. Wynn-Williams also said Meta employees briefed the Chinese government on artificial intelligence technology. "There’s a straight line you can draw from these briefings to the recent revelations that China is developing AI models for military use," she said, seemingly referencing a Reuters report from last fall that Chinese researchers have developed an AI model for military use, building off of Meta’s open-source Llama model. A Meta spokesperson at the time emphasized China’s extensive investments in expanding AI research, as well as the wide range of open-source AI models from both American and Chinese companies on the market. All of this, Wynn-Williams said, was done "to win favor with Beijing and build an $18 billion business in China.”

Reported similarly:
CBS News [4/9/2025 7:42 PM, Laura Garrison, 51661K]
NewsMax [4/9/2025 6:46 PM, Michael Katz, 4998K]
FOX Business [4/9/2025 9:05 AM, Danielle Wallace, 10702K]

NBC News [4/9/2025 7:32 PM, David Ingram, 44742K] reports Republican and Democratic senators took turns Wednesday denouncing Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg over his company’s record on China after they heard testimony from the latest former Meta employee to become a public critic of the company. At a hearing of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on crime and terrorism, senators of both parties accused Zuckerberg and his company of having put Americans’ data at risk as it explored releasing its apps Facebook and Instagram in China over the past decade. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., the subcommittee’s chair, said lawmakers would continue with an investigation of the company and would seek testimony from Zuckerberg. "This will not be the end. This is just the beginning," he said. The hearing was a demonstration of deep bipartisan anger at Meta, even as it has largely flown under the political radar in recent months as other tech figures, such as Tesla CEO Elon Musk, have grabbed the spotlight. Senators turned their focus to Meta after the release of a memoir by a former company employee, Sarah Wynn-Williams. The memoir, "Careless People," has become a bestseller, despite attempts by Meta to limit its promotion. The book chronicles Zuckerberg’s multi-year effort to break into the Chinese market beginning in 2014 in a quest to reach the country’s more than 1 billion potential social media users. Meta never released a mainstream app there, and Zuckerberg called off the effort in 2019, although the company still makes billions of dollars a year from China-based businesses that buy ads on Meta’s apps. Wynn-Williams writes in the book that, as part of Zuckerberg’s wooing of China, Meta created and tested custom censorship tools that it could potentially roll out in China. She also writes that company employees discussed potential deals with China over data, such as giving the Chinese government access to the personal information of Hong Kong-based users. Some of the allegations were previously published in news accounts. In testimony before the subcommittee, Wynn-Williams accused Zuckerberg, whom she worked with directly, of being dishonest about his past willingness to strike compromises with the Chinese government.

Washington Post [4/9/2025 6:00 PM, Christian Davenport, 31735K] reports that Jared Isaacman, the billionaire entrepreneur and astronaut and President Donald Trump’s choice to become the next NASA administrator, said Wednesday that despite his ties to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, he would treat the company that flew him to space twice like any other contractor and would not allow Musk to have any undue influence on the space agency. Speaking during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee, Isaacman said Musk’s role as the head of the U.S. DOGE Service would not afford Musk preferential treatment and that he has not discussed his plans for NASA with Musk since he was nominated by Trump in December. “I want to be absolutely clear: My loyalty is to this nation, the space agency and their world-changing mission.” SpaceX, he said, is a contractor, “NASA is the customer. They work for us, not the other way around.” Isaacman is the founder of Shift4 Payments, a payments processing firm, which he founded when he was 16. In 2021, Isaacman commissioned what was known as the Inspiration4 mission, a three-day flight with SpaceX of four private citizens. He later announced that he had purchased three more missions in an ambitious effort known as the Polaris program that is designed to push the boundaries of commercial spaceflight.

Breitbart [4/9/2025 1:57 PM, Staff, 2923K] reports that NASA will prioritize sending astronauts to Mars, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the US space agency said Wednesday, shifting focus beyond a long-planned return to the Moon — but insisting both were achievable. Though NASA’s "Artemis" Moon mission was announced in Trump’s first term, he has since openly mused about heading straight to Mars, prompting concerns that China or others could fill the gap on the lunar surface. The notion has gained traction as Elon Musk — the world’s richest person and SpaceX chief who has long eyed a human mission to Mars — became a key Trump ally and advisor. "We will prioritize sending American astronauts to Mars," businessman Jared Isaacman told the Senate committee overseeing his appointment. "And along the way, we will inevitably have the capabilities to return to the Moon and determine the scientific, economic and national security benefits for maintaining a presence on the lunar surface," he said. Musk founded his successful space company with the idea of making humanity a multiplanetary species. Isaacman, an e-payments billionaire, is a close Musk ally who has flown to space twice with SpaceX as a private astronaut. He did not appear to view a bid for Mars as incompatible with the Artemis mission, telling senators he did not see any "tough trades here."

Reuters [4/9/2025 9:30 AM, Emily Green, Cassandra Garrison and Stephen Eisenhammer, 41523K] reports Mexican officials are scrambling to come up with a plan to increase the amount of water the country sends to the United States because of growing concern that President Donald Trump could drag a dispute over an 81-year-old water treaty into trade negotiations, according to three sources familiar with the matter. Under a 1944 treaty that outlines water sharing between the two countries through a network of interconnected dams and reservoirs, Mexico must send 1.75 million acre-feet of water to the U.S. from the Rio Grande every five years. An acre-foot of water is enough to fill about half an Olympic swimming pool. The current five-year cycle is up in October, but Mexico has sent less than 30% of the required water, according to data from the International Boundary and Water Commission. Put another way, Mexico owes enough water to supply a mid-sized city for around 30 years. Mexico contends that a historic drought fueled by climate change makes it impossible to fulfill its water commitments, a scenario for which the treaty offers leniency, allowing the water debt to be rolled over to the next five year cycle. But that excuse has fallen on deaf ears among Texas Republicans who have publicly accused Mexico of being chronically delinquent in its water deliveries and flagrantly ignoring the treaty. With the U.S.-Mexico relations already frayed over security, migration and tariffs, the two countries could now be on a collision course over water too, adding to Mexico’s woes as it struggles to navigate a minefield of issues with the Trump administration. Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum has said the country will continue negotiating with the U.S. in the coming weeks over tariffs imposed by Trump. "It has become very political," said one Mexican source who works on water issues and spoke on condition of anonymity, adding that there are growing concerns on the Mexican side that Trump could end the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade pact over the water debt and what the U.S. sees as non-compliance. A second Mexican source with knowledge of the dispute said Mexico hopes to reach an agreement with the U.S. in the "next few weeks" in order to avoid the issue spilling into ongoing trade negotiations. But, the source added, "the expectations of the U.S. should be grounded in reality. We cannot deliver water that does not exist.” The White House referred questions to the State Department. A State Department spokesman said the agency "continues to urge the Mexican government at the highest levels to meet its 1944 treaty obligations and ensure predictable water deliveries.”

Breitbart [4/9/2025 1:11 PM, Staff, 2923K] reports that US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday during a visit to Panama that the United States does not seek war with China, but will counter what he called the threats it poses in the Americas. Hegseth made the remarks in a speech to a regional security conference a day after visiting the US-built Panama Canal, which President Donald Trump has threatened to seize because of what he calls China’s excessive influence over the waterway. The United States says it is a threat to its national security and the region as a whole for a Hong Kong company to operate ports at either end of the canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific, and through which five percent of all global shipping passes. "We do not seek war with China. And war with China is certainly not inevitable. We do not seek it in any form," the secretary said. "But together, we must prevent war by robustly and vigorously deterring China’s threats in this hemisphere," the former Fox News anchor said in his speech. Hegseth asserted that China-based companies are capturing land and infrastructure in strategic sectors like energy and telecommunications, and that China has too large a military presence in the hemisphere. "Make no mistake, Beijing is investing and operating in this region for military advantage and unfair economic gain," Hegseth said. Panama, under pressure from the Trump administration to reduce alleged Chinese influence in the waterway, has accused the Hong Kong firm that runs the ports at either end of the canal of failing to meet its contractual obligations and pushed for it to pull out of the country.

AP [4/9/2025 6:14 PM, Juan Zamorano, 34586K] reports U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth focused again on China’s presence in the Western Hemisphere Wednesday, one day after calling the world power a threat to the Panama Canal. Speaking at a regional security conference, Hegseth said that China-based companies were controlling land and critical infrastructure in strategic sectors. “China’s military has too large of a presence in the Western Hemisphere,” Hegseth said. “Make no mistake, Beijing is investing and operating in this region for military advantage and unfair economic gain.” He called on the region’s governments to work together to deter China and address threats posed by transnational drug cartels and mass immigration. Hegseth was speaking a day after meeting Panama’s President José Raúl Mulino and touring the Panama Canal. The two countries agreed to step up security coordination and appeared to say they would work toward a way to pay back fees that U.S. warships pay to pass through the Panama Canal. The visit comes amid tensions over U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated assertions that the U.S. is being overcharged to use the Panama Canal and that China has influence over its operations — allegations that Panama has denied. Shortly after Hegseth and Mulino met, the Chinese Embassy in Panama criticized the U.S. government in a statement on X, saying Washington had used “blackmail” to further its own interests and that who Panama carries out business with is a “sovereign decision of Panama ... and something the U.S. doesn’t have the right to interfere in.” On Wednesday, Hegseth said, “I don’t know anything about blackmail.”

Breitbart [4/9/2025 10:17 AM, Kristina Wong, 2923K] reports thatDefense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday in Panama delivered a clear message: the United States and Panama would take back the Panama Canal from China’s influence. "I want to be very clear — China did not build this canal. China does not operate this canal, and China will not weaponize this canal," Hegseth said. "Together with Panama in the lead, we will keep the canal secure and available for all nations through the deterrent power of the strongest, most effective, and most lethal fighting force in the world. We will do this in partnership with Panama. Together we will take back the Panama Canal from China’s influence, and we will do this along with other capable like-minded allies and partners. This is what ‘peace through strength’ looks like," he said. Panama has denied the canal falling under China’s influence, but Hegseth said China-based companies continue to control critical infrastructure in the area, giving China the potential to conduct surveillance across Panama. "As President Donald Trump has pointed out, that situation is not acceptable," he said. Hegseth delivered his remarks at a ceremony unveiling a pier at the Vasco Nuñez de Balboa Naval Base that was refurbished with support from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Wall Street Journal [4/9/2025 4:22 PM, Vera Bergengruen and Juan Forero, 646K] reports on a rare high-level visit to Panama, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth secured new commitments from the small Central American country but left some Panamanian officials wondering if they were enough to mollify President Trump, who has repeatedly vowed to “take back” the country’s canal. Under normal circumstances, the flurry of agreements and concessions announced over the two-day visit would be hailed as a high point in U.S.-Panama relations. Hegseth and his counterparts agreed to work out a “first and free” deal to reimburse U.S. vessels for transit fees through the Panama Canal, signed a memorandum of understanding to increase security cooperation and agreed to resume jungle warfare training for U.S. troops. Panama had previously announced that it would scrap an infrastructure deal with China and conduct a sweeping financial audit of Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison Holdings, which controls ports on either side of the canal. It had also agreed to accept non-Panamanians deported from the U.S., one of the Trump administration’s top priorities. As Hegseth took off from Panama City to return to Washington on Wednesday, Panamanian officials appeared relieved. “We went all in,” one person familiar with the discussions said. The Panamanian president had a warm rapport with Hegseth, who at one point called Trump and put him on speakerphone. Trump indicated that he was pleased with the negotiation, the person said, and that he would watch their press conference on television.

CNN [4/10/2025 12:08 AM, Patrick Oppmann, 22131K] reports Panama promotes itself “as the bridge of the world, heart of the universe” but lately the narrow Central American Isthmus and its namesake canal that joins the Atlantic to the Pacific have become the setting for a bitter clash between the world’s two preeminent economic superpowers. The escalating war of words between the US and China over the canal has left Panama – which does not have a military – baffled and brings to mind the old proverb of how “when elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.” From the beginning of his second term, US President Donald Trump has claimed without proof that China secretly controls the canal where around 40% of US container traffic passes through. If China’s alleged influence over the canal wasn’t halted, Trump threatened to “take back” the iconic waterway that the US returned to Panama in 2000, employing military force if needed. Panama’s President José Raúl Mulino rejects Trump’s claims but has also made significant efforts to placate the White House, such as dropping out of China’s Belt and Road investment initiative in February. In March, US investment giant BlackRock announced a $22.8 billion deal to buy 43 ports, including two located on either side of the Panama Canal, from CK Hutchison, the Hong Kong logistics company that the Trump administration has accused of being under Beijing’s control – something Hutchison denies. But those concessions seem to have only added fuel to the White House’s bellicose rhetoric, most recently this week from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth during a visit to Panama to attend the Central American Security Conference.

AP [4/9/2025 9:43 AM, Staff, 44742K] reports Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi has commuted the death sentences of three Americans convicted on charges of participating in a botched coup attempt in the country’s capital Kinshasa last year, an official said Wednesday. A presidential order commuted their death sentences to life imprisonment, Congolese presidential spokesperson Tina Salama said, more than six months after a military court sentenced the three and more than 30 others to death for the failed coup. The pardon came amid efforts by Congolese authorities to sign a minerals deal with the U.S. in exchange for security support that will help Kinshasa fight rebels in the conflict-hit eastern region. Six people were killed during last year’s botched coup attempt, led by little-known opposition figure Christian Malanga, that targeted the presidential palace in Kinshasa as well as a close ally of Tshisekedi. Malanga was fatally shot while resisting arrest soon after live-streaming the attack on his social media, the Congolese army said. Malanga’s 21-year-old son Marcel Malanga, who is a U.S. citizen, was among the Americans convicted for participating in the coup plot. The other Americans are Tyler Thompson Jr., 21, a high school friend of the younger Malanga who flew to Africa from Utah for what his family believed was a free vacation, and Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun, 36, who is reported to have known Christian Malanga through a gold mining company. Marcel Malanga told the court that his father had forced him and Thompson to take part in the attack. “Dad had threatened to kill us if we did not follow his orders,” he said previously during hearings. Most of the defendants were Congolese but also included a Briton, Belgian and Canadian. Their charges included attempted coup, terrorism and criminal association. Fourteen people were acquitted in the trial.

CNN [4/9/2025 4:56 PM, Victoria Butenko, Svitlana Vlasova, Lauren Kent, and Billy Stockwell, 22131K] reports that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday that Ukrainian intelligence had identified 155 Chinese citizens fighting alongside Russian forces, a day after Ukraine said two Chinese nationals were captured in the country. The Chinese nationals had been recruited through advertisements, including on social media, Zelensky said in a briefing Wednesday. China has consistently denied any involvement in the war. A spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said earlier Wednesday that any claims that Chinese citizens are fighting in Ukraine were "groundless." "It is important to emphasize that the Chinese government has always instructed its citizens to stay away from areas of armed conflict and avoid getting involved in the conflict in any form, especially avoiding participation in any party’s military operations," spokesperson Lin Jian said in a press conference. A Ukrainian security agencies document seen by CNN purports to show a list of more than 150 Chinese citizens who have served with the Russian armed forces, most of whom are said to be in the lowest military positions. Most of the contracts in the document are dated "2024" and straddle different military units. The list has not been verified by CNN.

Wall Street Journal [4/10/2025 4:23 AM, Brett Forrest, 646K] reports Russia and the U.S. carried out a prisoner swap early Thursday in Abu Dhabi in a sign of continuing confidence building, as the two sides pursue a deal to end the war in Ukraine. Russia released Ksenia Karelina, a U.S.-Russian dual national who was sentenced last year to 12 years in a penal colony after being found guilty in Russia of treason for donating less than $100 to a U.S.-based Ukrainian charity. In exchange, the U.S. freed Arthur Petrov, a dual German-Russian citizen, who was arrested in 2023 in Cyprus at the request of the U.S. for allegedly exporting sensitive microelectronics. CIA Director John Ratcliffe and a senior Russian intelligence official conducted the talks for the swap, according to a CIA official, pointing to deepening communications between the two countries’ intelligence agencies. “Today, President Trump brought home another wrongfully detained American from Russia,” Ratcliffe said in a statement to the Journal. “I’m proud of the CIA officers who worked tirelessly to support this effort, and we appreciate the Government of U.A.E. for enabling the exchange.”

Reuters [4/8/2025 10:56 AM, Timothy Gardner, 24727K] reports legislation from two U.S. senators from both parties introduced on Wednesday establishes a fund to enforce sanctions on the so-called ghost fleet of tankers Russia relies on to carry oil to avoid Western sanctions over its war on Ukraine. The bill from Senators Joni Ernst, a Republican, and Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, creates a fund to enforce sanctions on vessels, which sometimes also carry crude exports from Iran, a trade President Donald Trump says he wants to bring down to zero to prevent it from getting a nuclear weapon. The bill establishes a Russian Sanctions Enforcement Fund at the U.S. Treasury with an initial $150 million in 2025. Any oil seized by the U.S. would be sold and the funds over certain levels would eventually help pay down the U.S. debt, though the amount raised would be tiny compared to the $36 trillion debt. "Russia is continuing its malign actions by operating a ‘ghost fleet’ to evade U.S. sanctions, enrich its own war machine, and even aid Iranian oil smuggling," said Ernst. The legislation will enhance intelligence sharing and equip law enforcement with the tools to go after "illicit" trade networks, Ernst said. "In addition to disrupting Moscow’s malign efforts to undermine U.S. law, this bill will also arm our nation to utilize the seized assets and pay down our own debt."

NPR [4/9/2025 11:10 AM, Hadeel Al-Shalchi, 29983K] reports that the weekend killing of a Palestinian American teenager by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank has sparked an outcry from relatives and community members in the Palestinian territory as well as the United States. The family of 14-year-old Amir Rabee said he was picking olives with two friends, also U.S. citizens, on Sunday when Israeli forces fired at them. The Israeli military said it opened fire toward three people who were endangering drivers by hurling rocks at a highway in the village of Turmus Ayya, killing one person and injuring the other two. The U.S. State Department confirmed the death of a U.S citizen in the West Bank, offering its condolences to the family. It acknowledged the Israeli military’s statement that the killing was part of a counterterrorism operation and that the military was investigating. The Israeli military released a black-and-white video showing what it said was Amir Rabee throwing rocks, but the elder Rabee said it was impossible to say if it was his son or not. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D.-N.J., said Amir’s death was an "atrocity" and fellow Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy demanded "answers from the Israeli government."

New York Times [4/9/2025 3:37 PM, Isabel Kershner, 145325K] reports when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel visited the White House two months ago, President Trump sold him a brazen dream: The United States would take control of the Gaza Strip, relocate about two million Palestinians and turn the devastated seaside enclave into a glittering “riviera.” This week, as the two leaders faced reporters again after meeting in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump appeared to have moved on, holding forth instead on U.S. border policy, his new tariffs, the plight of the hostages held in Gaza and the latest showstopper for Middle East policy — the opening of talks with Iran to curb its nuclear weapons program. But Mr. Netanyahu did not let the Gaza idea — however unfeasible or potentially illegal — fade like a mirage. He raised it himself, saying that he and Mr. Trump had discussed the vision, including which countries might agree to accept Gazans. Mr. Netanyahu and his government say they are serious about the idea but emphasize that they are speaking about facilitating the “voluntary” migration of Palestinians, in an apparent attempt to avoid any suggestion of ethnic cleansing. Critics say that it would hardly be voluntary if Gazans left, regardless, given that so many of their homes have been smashed to rubble. Days after Mr. Trump’s original announcement, the Israeli defense minister, Israel Katz, said he was establishing a special administration within the ministry focused on voluntary migration from Gaza. In late March, he appointed a senior ministry official, Yaakov Blitshtein, to head it. Mr. Netanyahu told the reporters on Monday at the Oval Office that Gaza was the only war zone where civilians were “locked in,” unable to leave. “We didn’t lock them in,” he said, without acknowledging years of severe Israeli restrictions on movement in and out of the enclave for what the country says are security reasons, a longstanding Israeli naval blockade of the territory and Israel’s refusal to allow Gazans to live within its borders. Egypt also strictly controls its border with the enclave. “It’s going to take years to rebuild Gaza,” Mr. Netanyahu said, referring to the vast destruction wrought by Israel’s 18-month campaign, which was ignited by the October 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel. “In the meantime, people can have an option. The president has a vision. Countries are responding to that vision,” he added. Israeli officials would not say which third countries they were talking to about taking in Palestinians. Mr. Trump had suggested regional neighbors like Jordan and Egypt. But he already appeared to be backing off from his relocation idea barely two weeks after proposing it, after those two countries flatly rejected the notion and said that peace could be achieved only by giving the Palestinians statehood.

Breitbart [4/9/2025 7:05 AM, Staff, 2923K] reports Indian authorities are readying for the extradition from the United States of a man that New Delhi accuses of helping plan the 2008 Mumbai siege that killed 166 people. Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 64, a Canadian citizen born in Pakistan, is due to be extradited "shortly" to face trial, Indian media said, reporting that New Delhi had sent a multi-agency team of security officials to collect him. India accuses him of being a member of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group, designated by the United Nations as a terrorist organisation, and of aiding planning the attacks. US President Donald Trump announced in February that Washington would extradite Rana, whom he called "one of the very evil people in the world". The US Supreme Court this month rejected his bid to remain in the United States, where he is serving a sentence for a planning role in another LeT-linked attack. New Delhi blames the LeT group — as well as intelligence officials from New Delhi’s arch-enemy Pakistan — for the Mumbai attacks in November 2008, when 10 Islamist gunmen carried out a multi-day slaughter in the country’s financial capital. India accuses Rana of helping his longterm friend, David Coleman Headley, who was sentenced by a US court in 2013 to 35 years in prison after pleading guilty to aiding LeT militants, including by scouting target locations in Mumbai. Rana, a former military medic who served in Pakistan’s army, emigrated to Canada in 1997, before moving to the United States and setting up businesses in Chicago, including a law firm and a slaughterhouse. He was arrested by US police in 2009. A US court in 2013 acquitted Rana of conspiracy to provide material support to the Mumbai attacks. But the same court convicted him of backing LeT to provide material support to a plot to commit murder in Denmark. Rana was sentenced to 14 years for his involvement in a conspiracy to attack the offices of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, which had published cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed that angered Muslims around the globe. But India maintains Rana is one of the key plotters of the Mumbai attacks along with the convicted Headley — and the authorities have welcomed his expected extradition.

AP [4/9/2025 6:14 PM, Juan Zamorano, 24727K] reports that U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Wednesday focused again on China’s presence in the Western Hemisphere, one day after calling the world power a threat to the Panama Canal. Speaking at a regional security conference, Hegseth said that China-based companies were controlling land and critical infrastructure in strategic sectors. "China’s military has too large of a presence in the Western Hemisphere," Hegseth said. "Make no mistake, Beijing is investing and operating in this region for military advantage and unfair economic gain." He called on the region’s governments to work together to deter China and address threats posed by transnational drug cartels and mass immigration. Hegseth was speaking a day after meeting Panama’s President José Raúl Mulino and touring the Panama Canal. The two countries agreed to step up security coordination and appeared to say they would work toward a way to pay back fees that U.S. warships pay to pass through the Panama Canal. The visit comes amid tensions over U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated assertions that the U.S. is being overcharged to use the Panama Canal and that China has influence over its operations — allegations that Panama has denied. Shortly after Hegseth and Mulino met, the Chinese Embassy in Panama criticized the U.S. government in a statement on X, saying Washington had used "blackmail" to further its own interests and that who Panama carries out business with is a "sovereign decision of Panama... and something the U.S. doesn’t have the right to interfere in."

Wall Street Journal [4/9/2025 7:50 PM, Lingling Wei, Alex Leary, and Jared Malsin, 646K] reports by pausing global tariffs against dozens of countries and raising them on China, President Trump has set up a high-stakes showdown in hopes he can pressure Beijing into a face-saving deal after weeks of global turmoil. There is little sign so far, though, that Chinese leader Xi Jinping is ready to buckle. Trump announced Wednesday on social media that tariffs on Chinese goods would jump to 125%, saying “hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable.” So far, Beijing has hit back at each round of tariff increases from the U.S. by raising duties on American products and targeting U.S. companies. The clash likely means higher costs for U.S. consumers and locks the world’s two largest economies in an extraordinary conflict with no immediately clear offramps. For Trump, the decision to pause the bulk of his reciprocal-tariff program underscored his growing concern about the economy. But by escalating against China, he has avoided a full retreat from his tariff policies, making it even harder to back down against the last remaining target, analysts said. “I think the Chinese appreciate that and they are more and more suspicious that negotiating will help them. Trump has to have a win on China,” said Derek Scissors, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Reuters [4/9/2025 10:41 AM, Staff, 24727K] reports China’s commerce ministry slapped restrictions on more than a dozen U.S. defence firms on Wednesday after President Donald Trump made good on his threat to impose an additional 50% tariff on Chinese imports. Beijing added 12 U.S. companies to a control list that prohibits exports of dual-use items and another six to its "unreliable entities" list, which allows Beijing to take punitive actions against foreign entities, according to commerce ministry statements. China also announced it would raise its levies on U.S. goods by 50%, adding to the 34% increase previously announced and due to be implemented on Thursday, to bring the total additional duties on U.S. imports to 84%. The most recent round of trade restrictions, also effective Thursday, are mainly targeted at U.S. firms that supply the Pentagon and federal government agencies, adding to the 60 or so American companies Beijing has already punished over Trump’s tariffs on China, the first of which took effect in February. In the case of the unreliable entities list, Beijing said the six U.S. firms were added over arms sales or military cooperation with Taiwan and would be banned from China-related import and export activities, as well as investing in the country. "In recent years, the six companies, including Shield AI and Sierra Nevada Corporation, have... seriously jeopardised China’s national sovereignty, security and development interests," the commerce ministry said in a statement.

Bloomberg [4/9/2025 7:35 PM, Staff, 16228K] reports China retaliated against new tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump by announcing it would raise duties on US goods, roiling markets and deepening a trade war between the world’s largest economies. The Chinese government will impose an 84% tariff on all imports from the US starting April 10, the Finance Ministry said in a statement Wednesday. China’s move came hours after the steepest American tariffs in a century went into force, taking Trump’s duties on Beijing this year to 104%. The US leader later responded by raising his duties on China to 125%, while pausing levies on dozens of trade partners, as the tit-for-tat with Beijing spiraled. President Xi Jinping’s latest moves mirrored the extra levies Trump put on Chinese goods as a punishment for Beijing’s last retaliation. With tariffs now soaring beyond the level economists say would decimate bilateral trade, any further duties would serve as a political statement rather than a way to apply economic pressure. “China sent a clear signal today that the government will keep its stance on trade policies, despite the higher tariffs of the US,” said Zhang Zhiwei, president and chief economist for Pinpoint Asset Management Ltd. “I don’t expect a quick and easy way out from the current trade conflict. Meanwhile, the tariffs have become effective and the damage to the two economies will become visible soon.” US equity futures fell more than 2% after China announced the new tariffs, a move that followed the Asian country’s vow to “fight to the end.” Stocks in Europe slumped 4%. Markets then rebounded after Trump paused some tariffs. Beijing appears to have tweaked its tariff strategy, moving from answering immediately in the first two rounds to responding just as markets open in New York.

AP [4/10/2025 4:44 AM, Christopher Bodeen, 4998K] reports China is reaching out to other nations as the U.S. layers on more tariffs in what appears to be an attempt to form a united front to compel Washington to retreat. Days into the effort, it’s meeting only partial success with many countries unwilling to ally with the main target of President Donald Trump’s trade war. Facing the cratering of global markets, Trump on Wednesday backed off his tariffs on most nations for 90 days, saying countries were lining up to negotiate more favorable conditions. China has refused to seek talks, saying it would “fight to the end” in a tariff war, prompting Trump to further jack up the tax rate on Chinese imports to 125%. China has retaliated with tariffs on U.S. goods of 84%, which took effect Thursday. Trump’s move was seemingly an attempt to narrow what had been an unprecedented trade war between the U.S. and most of the world to a showdown between the U.S. and China. “A just cause receives support from many,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said at a daily briefing on Thursday. “The U.S. cannot win the support of the people and will end in failure.” China has thus far focused on Europe, with a phone call between Premier Li Qiang and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen “sending a positive message to the outside world.” “China is willing to work with the EU to jointly implement the important consensus reached by the leaders of China and the EU, strengthen communication and exchanges, and deepen China-EU trade, investment and industrial cooperation,” the official Xinhua News Agency reported. That was followed by a video conference between Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao and EU Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security Šefčović on Tuesday to discuss the U.S. “reciprocal tariffs.” Wang said the tariffs “seriously infringe upon the legitimate interests of all countries, seriously violate WTO rules, seriously damage the rules-based multilateral trading system, and seriously impact the stability of the global economic order,” Xinhua said. “It is a typical act of unilateralism, protectionism and economic bullying,” Wang said quoted as saying.

New York Times [4/9/2025 3:50 PM, Keith Bradsher, 145325K] reports Beijing on Wednesday aimed the latest blow in the escalating trade war between the United States and China, by raising new tariffs on all American imports by 84 percent. China’s Ministry of Finance announced that it would match a 50 percent tariff on all imports from China that President Trump announced on Tuesday with its own 50 percent tariff. Last week, the two sides traded 34 percent tariffs on each other that are also taking effect now. The latest Chinese tariffs on U.S. goods took effect one minute into Thursday in China. China and the United States have now taken a series of steps in just one week that until very recently would have been almost unimaginable. For nearly half a century after the death of Mao Zedong, the two countries seemed on a course toward ever greater economic integration. Some experts even referred to the partnership of China and America as “Chimerica.” That partnership was occasionally cast in doubt during the trade war that Mr. Trump started in his first presidential term, but it survived. The two countries’ close trade ties have since gradually loosened. But their ties have been supplemented by a complex trading web that transfers Chinese components to countries like Vietnam and Mexico, where they are assembled into finished goods for shipment to the United States with little or no tariffs due. The pair of steep tariff increases by each side in the past week have now driven duties to a level that is likely to halt shipments of many products between the two countries, particularly if the tariffs endure more than a few weeks. Prohibitively high tariffs could ripple extensively through supply chains for many goods that rely on factories often in China but sometimes in the United States as well. Mr. Trump’s latest tariffs, which took effect on Wednesday, hit dozens of America’s trading partners, including many longtime allies, like European nations, South Korea and Japan. His extra 84 percent in tariffs on imports from China are on top of the 20 percent in tariffs that Mr. Trump imposed in February and March. Beijing matched those with limited tariffs, on just American fossil fuels and agricultural goods. And all of these tariffs are in addition to the standard levies both countries charge on all imports. China did not stop with imposing further tariffs. The Ministry of Commerce announced separately on Wednesday that it was putting export controls on 12 American companies and had added six more American companies to its list of “unreliable entities,” meaning they will be mostly barred from doing business in China or with Chinese companies.

NBC News [4/9/2025 12:47 PM, Allan Smith, 44742K] reports that a bipartisan team of freshman senators who went through some of 2024’s biggest battleground races are introducing a bill Wednesday to give President Donald Trump’s administration the power to stop investments from Chinese companies in the U.S. Sens. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio; Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich.; and Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., are sponsoring the Providing Rigorous Oversight Through Evaluation of Concerning Transactions Act (or PROTECT Act), which would give the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States new authority to stop both entirely new foreign investment projects in the U.S. and foreign investments in existing facilities. The bill would "require the review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States of greenfield and brownfield investments by foreign countries of concern." The legislation comes after the White House, in a February memo, asked for Congress to "strengthen" CFIUS’ ability to "restrict foreign adversary access to United States talent and operations in sensitive technologies (especially artificial intelligence)." In an interview, Moreno said Congress needs to give Trump "maximum negotiating leverage" to deal with China, and that this legislation contributes to that goal.

NewsMax [4/9/2025 8:54 AM, Charlie McCarthy, 4998K] reports Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday morning brushed off reports that China planned to raise tariffs on U.S. goods in retaliation to President Donald Trump’s tariffs. China again vowed to "fight to the end" Wednesday in an escalating trade war with the U.S. as it announced it would raise tariffs on American goods to 84% from Thursday. "I think it’s unfortunate that the Chinese actually don’t want to come and negotiate, because they are the worst offenders in the international trading system," Bessent said in an interview Wednesday. "Their exports to the U.S. are five times our exports to China," Bessent said in the Fox Business interview. "They can raise their tariffs, but so what?". Beijing also added an array of countermeasures after Trump raised the total tariff on imports from China to 104%. China said it was launching an additional suit against the U.S. at the World Trade Organization and placed further restrictions on American companies’ trade with Chinese companies.

Breitbart [4/9/2025 7:26 AM, Staff, 2923K] reports a US academic charged with breaking Thailand’s strict royal defamation laws was granted bail on Wednesday, his lawyers said, but remains in custody pending an appeal to immigration authorities who earlier revoked his visa. Paul Chambers, who has spent over a decade teaching Southeast Asian politics at a Thai university, was arrested on Tuesday after reporting to police to answer a charge of lese-majeste. His case is a rare instance of a foreigner falling foul of strict laws which shield King Maha Vajiralongkorn and his close family from any criticism and can lead to decades-long prison sentences. "The Appeal Court… issued an order granting bail for Paul," said a post on X from the Thai Lawyers for Human Rights group (TLHR) representing Chambers. "Paul will remain in custody at Phitsanulok Provincial Prison until the result of the bail request from immigration police is known.” His lawyer Wannaphat Jenroumjit earlier told AFP that immigration authorities had visited Chambers in detention and informed him his visa had been revoked. Wannaphat said Chambers was "not confident but remains hopeful" in the Thai justice system. The Thai military filed a complaint against Chambers this year over an article linked to a think-tank website which focuses on Southeast Asian politics. He told AFP last week he felt "intimidated" by the situation, but was being supported by the US embassy and colleagues at his university. The US State Department said Tuesday it was "alarmed" by the arrest. Chanatip Tatiyakaroonwong, a researcher at Amnesty International who campaigns for the release of political prisoners, said the visa revocation was meant to "intimidate" Chambers. "They found his work threatening, so revoking his visa means he can no longer remain in Thailand and continue his work," he told AFP. "The visa revocation is meant to send a message to foreign journalists and academics working in Thailand, that speaking about the monarchy could lead to consequences.” International watchdogs have expressed concern over the use of the laws — known as Article 112 — against academics, activists and even students. One man in northern Thailand was jailed for at least 50 years for lese-majeste last year, while a woman got 43 years in 2021. In 2023, a man was jailed for two years for selling satirical calendars featuring rubber ducks that a court said defamed the king.

Miami Herald [4/9/2025 11:56 AM, Doug Cunningham, 3973K] reports that Japan and NATO decided Wednesday to jointly increase defense cooperation to counter threats from Russia and China. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba made a joint appearance to underscore the deepening partnership. "Strengthening defense industrial cooperation is a shared priority. We will accelerate cooperation in this area, including with a view to developing dual-use technologies, advanced technologies, and enhancing standardization," NATO and Japan said in a joint statement. Those technologies are likely to include drones, artificial intelligence and quantum technology. Japan also expressed interest in becoming part of a NATO command coordinating the procurement of military equipment and training for Ukraine. "Prime Minister Ishiba stated that as the international security environment has become increasingly severe, it is our shared recognition that the security of Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific is inseparable, and the need for security cooperation among NATO and Indo-Pacific partners, including Japan, has increased even further," Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. According to Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs both sides agreed to strengthen defense industrial cooperation in "various fields" that include cyber, maritime security, strategic communications and interoperability. They agreed to continue information sharing and cooperation. Japan and NATO also agreed to work closer together on cryptocurrency thefts that they said funds North Korea’s nuclear and missile activities.

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