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.

Newsweek [4/23/2025 9:44 PM, Dan Gooding, 52220K] reports the U.S. Department of Justice said Wednesday it would file a felony immigration charge against an illegal immigrant convicted of killing two California teens in a horrific DUI and is now reportedly set to be released from prison early. The move comes after Fox News reported Oscar Eduardo Ortega-Anguiano, 43, would be released in July, having served 3 1/2 years of a 10-year sentence he received for killing Anya Varfolomeev and Nicholay Osokin in the Orange County crash in November of 2021. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) later told Newsweek that it reviews all outstanding state and federal holds before an inmate’s release, including any detainers filed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and coordinates with those agencies. Ortega-Anguiano’s potential release in California comes as the Trump administration continues to clash with sanctuary states and cities, accusing the Democrat-run states of hindering immigration enforcement and shielding illegal immigrants from removal. California’s Democratic leaders have repeatedly stated they will work with federal agents when it comes to serious and violent offenders. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Newsweek in a statement: "This twice deported illegal alien was convicted of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, which resulted in the death of a young American couple. This tragedy was completely preventable. This criminal illegal alien should have never been in our country. "Now, sanctuary state California is letting him out after serving just three years of a 10-year prison sentence. ICE has placed a detainer with the California Department of Corrections. We hope California law enforcement will work us to ensure this criminal alien is not released into American communities." The Los Angeles Times [4/23/2025 7:32 PM, Cerys Davies, 13342K] reports that a spokesperson for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said Ortega-Anguiano "received 334 days of pre-sentence credits for time served locally while awaiting sentencing and is eligible for credit-earning opportunities while incarcerated.” Border czar Tom Homan vowed to send federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to enforce an agreement known as a detainer, under which local officials hold individuals facing deportation. "I will work with [Homeland Security] Secretary Noem on this case, and I guarantee you, if they don’t honor the detainer, we’ll have ICE agents outside that facility to take custody of this individual and deport him," Homan said Wednesday on Fox’s "America’s Newsroom.” A spokesperson for ICE said a detainer was placed on June 9, 2022, while Ortega-Anguiano was housed at North Kern State Prison. According to ICE, his previous criminal convictions include burglary in 2005; vehicle theft in 2007; and battery on spouse with kidnapping in 2014. "This tragedy was completely preventable. This criminal illegal alien should have never been in our country," Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement. "We hope California law enforcement will work us to ensure this criminal alien is not released into American communities.”

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DailySignal.com [4/23/2025 4:03 PM, Virginia Allen, 495K] reports the tragic deaths of two American teenagers at the hands of an illegal alien was "completely preventable," according to a top Department of Homeland Security official. Illegal alien Oscar Eduardo Ortega-Anguiano was deported from the U.S. twice before being "convicted of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, which resulted in the death of a young American couple," Tricia McLaughlin, DHS assistant secretary, told The Daily Signal. "This criminal illegal alien should have never been in our country." Ortega-Anguiano was sentenced to 10 years in prison after crashing into a vehicle on a freeway in Orange County, Calif., in 2021, claiming the lives of Anya Varfolomeev and Nicholay Osokin, who were both 19 at the time. A U.S. attorney in Los Angeles is seeking to put Ortega-Anguiano behind bars for an additional 20 years for violating U.S. immigration laws after California releases him from prison. Bondi pledged that the Justice Department will work with ICE "to make sure this illegal alien receives full punishment for his crimes." Ortega-Anguiano was drunk, high, and driving nearly 100 mph when he crashed into the young couple, who are reported to have been burned alive inside their vehicle. Border czar Tom Homan told Fox News he will place the illegal alien in federal custody upon his release from prison in California and will pursue prosecuting Ortega-Anguiano for illegal reentry into the U.S.

New York Post [4/23/2025 1:53 PM, Jennie Taer and Jorge Fitz-Gibbon, 54903K] reports that an illegal immigrant convicted of killing a young California couple in a horrific, drunken car crash could be back on the streets this summer after serving a mere fraction of his sentence, leaving the victims’ kin livid. "It’s disgusting," Anatoly Varfolomeev, the father of 19-year-old Anya Varfolomeev, who was burned alive with her boyfriend Nicholay Osokin inside their car in the fatal November 2021 wreck in Orange County, told Fox News. "You have two young, unbelievable future, productive American citizens killed for nothing and that illegal immigrant who already has been deported twice is going to be released again?" the furious father told the outlet. "For what? If even he is deported he will come back." Oscar Eduardo Ortega-Anguiano, 43, an illegal Mexican immigrant, was drunk and driving at nearly 100 mph when he slammed into the young couple’s car on the 405 freeway, authorities said. In 2022 he was convicted of two counts of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and sentenced to 10 years in prison – with a pending US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer hanging over his head. Tom Homan, President Trump’s border czar, vowed this week to fight to seize the migrant and deport him the moment he steps out of prison. "I will work with [Homeland Security] Secretary [Kristi] Noem on this case, and I guarantee you, if they don’t honor the detainer, we’ll have ICE agents outside the facility to take custody of this individual and deport him," Homan told Fox.

FOX News [4/23/2025 5:54 PM, Madison Colombo, 46189K] reports the Trump administration says it is taking steps to prevent the early release of an undocumented immigrant convicted of killing two American teenagers in a 2021 DUI crash. Oscar Eduardo Ortega-Anguiano, who was in the U.S. illegally, was convicted in 2022 of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated after he crashed into a vehicle carrying 19-year-olds Anya Varfolomeev and Nicholay Osokin. Both teens were killed in the fiery collision. Ortega-Anguiano was sentenced to 10 years in prison but is now expected to be released early, prompting backlash from the victims’ families and immigration authorities. Leavitt said the administration is working to ensure he remains behind bars. An ICE detainer has been issued, according to Trump "border czar" Tom Homan, who says he is coordinating with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office says the state will honor the federal detainer, and Ortega-Anguiano will be transferred to ICE custody before his expected release in July.

FOX News [4/23/2025 11:29 AM, Madison Columbo, 46189K] reports that outrage is growing after the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced it will release an undocumented immigrant convicted of killing two American teenagers, more than six years before his original sentence was set to end. Trump border czar Tom Homan says he’s stepping in. "I will work with [Homeland Security] Secretary Noem on this case, and I guarantee you, if they don’t honor the detainer, we’ll have ICE agents outside that facility to take custody of this individual and deport him," Homan said Wednesday on "America’s Newsroom." Oscar Eduardo Ortega-Anguiano was driving drunk at high speed in 2021 when he crashed into a car carrying 19-year-olds Anya Varfolomeev and Nicholay Osokin. Both teens were killed in the fiery wreck. Ortega-Anguiano was later convicted of two counts of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2022. Now, California officials say he will be released early, sparking outrage from the victims’ families and immigration officials. "He’s been deported several times, which means he’s a felon," Homan said. "Re-entry to the country, deported. Deportation is a felony. We will prosecute him, and we will deport him.” ICE has issued a detainer requesting custody of Ortega-Anguiano upon his release. However, California’s sanctuary state policies raise questions about whether local officials will comply. [Editorial note: consult v8ideo for source link]

Washington Examiner [4/23/2025 5:00 PM, Ross O’Keefe, 2296K] reports President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, said he’ll work with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to arrest an illegal immigrant set to be released by the California Department of Corrections six years before his sentence expires. The immigrant, Oscar Eduardo Ortega-Anguiano, was convicted of killing two American teenagers in a drunk driving crash. California officials decided that Ortega-Anguiano should be released despite being convicted of two counts of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2022. The Trump administration filed federal charges against Ortega-Anguiano shortly after Homan’s comments.

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FOX News [4/23/2025 9:38 AM, Staff, 46189K]

FOX News [4/23/2025 3:26 PM, Cameron Arcand, Bill Melugin, 46189K] reports the state of California plans to comply with Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s detainer after an illegal immigrant convicted of vehicular manslaughter was set to be released on July 19 — over six years before his full sentence is up. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office announced the individual would be brought into federal custody ahead of the July release date. Fox News reported earlier that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation tends to follow ICE detainer orders, but there were concerns that the state’s sanctuary policies could have played a role in letting him be released back into the community. Oscar Eduardo Ortega-Anguiano was driving drunk, high and speeding at nearly 100 mph on the 405 freeway in Orange County in November 2021, when he crashed into a car being driven by a young couple, 19-year-old Anya Varfolomeev and Nicholay Osokin, which killed them both as they burned alive. In spring 2022, he was convicted of two counts of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated. Fox News reported on Wednesday morning that Ortega-Anguiano will be released by the California state government on July 19 after serving just 3.5 years, and the victim’s families were notified on Easter Sunday. After the report came out, the Department of Justice said they would be prosecuting Ortega-Anguiano on federal charges in order to keep him behind bars longer. Border czar Tom Homan said ICE planned on quickly arresting and deporting Ortega-Anguiano if he was released by the Golden State.

The AP [4/23/2025 6:34 PM, Alanna Durkin Richer and Eric Tucker, 48304K] reports the Justice Department has charged an alleged high-ranking member of Tren de Aragua in Colombia with terrorism offenses, making the first case of its kind against a member of the gang the Trump administration has designated a foreign terrorist organization, officials said Wednesday. The case is part of a broad push to target Tren de Aragua or TdA, a Venezuelan gang that has been blamed for drug smuggling and violence in the United States. President Donald Trump has labeled the gang an invading force under an 18th century wartime law to deport Venezuelan migrants to a notorious El Salvador prison as part of Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown. The Justice Department’s application of a criminal statute primarily reserved in recent years for extremist groups such as the Islamic State and al-Qaida underscores the extent to which the administration is relying on a strikingly expansive definition of terrorism as it pursues a national security agenda focused on drug trafficking and illegal immigration. "TdA is not a street gang – it is a highly structured terrorist organization that put down roots in our country during the prior administration," Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. "Today’s charges represent an inflection point in how this Department of Justice will prosecute and ultimately dismantle this evil organization, which has destroyed American families and poisoned our communities.” Jose Enrique Martinez Flores, 24, was charged in Texas federal court with drug offenses as well as conspiring to provide and providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. Prosecutors described him as part of the "inner circle of TdA leadership," and accuse him of playing a role in the international distribution of cocaine. The Hill [4/23/2025 10:30 PM, Lauren Irwin, 430301K] reports "According to information presented to the court, Flores is a high-ranking TdA leader in Bogota, Colombia and is part of the inner circle of senior TdA leadership," the DOJ said in its release. "Flores also allegedly caused the delivery of approximately five kilograms or more of cocaine for international distribution, proceeds that were used to further TdA’s criminal goals.” The charges stem from a larger push from the Trump administration to crack down on the Venezuelan gang, commonly called TdA. FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed the charges against Flores, who was arrested by Colombian authorities on March 31 according to an arrest warrant from the U.S. He remains in custody in Colombia pending further proceedings, the DOJ said. "With Attorney General Bondi leadership, these charges are a major step in breaking the operations of violent terrorist gangs and rooting them out of American communities," Patel said online. The Trump administration declared in February that TdA was one of several groups it had deemed as terrorist organizations. CNN [4/24/2025 3:36 AM, Dalia Faheid, 908K] reports that the terror-related charges come over a month after the administration invoked the centuries-old Alien Enemies Act to deport hundreds of alleged members of the gang from the United States to a maximum security prison in El Salvador. Both the Supreme Court and a federal district court temporarily blocked the administration’s ability to deport migrants under the wartime law. The criminal gang originated in a Venezuela prison and has slowly spread both north and south in recent years. It now operates in the United States, US Customs and Border Protection and the FBI have said. The gang has engaged in criminal activities including human trafficking, extortion, kidnapping, money laundering and drug smuggling, according to the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. Flores faces a maximum penalty of life in prison and a $10 million fine if convicted.

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Breitbart [4/23/2025 8:30 AM, Bob Price, 2923K] reports the Department of Justice filed multiple federal charges against 27 members of the hyperviolent Tren de Aragua Venezuelan gang on Monday. The charges include Racketeering, Narcotics and Sex Trafficking, Robbery, and Firearms offenses. DOJ officials say this marks the first time RICO charges have been filed against Tren de Aragua gang members. On Monday, DOJ officials unsealed indictments against 27 current or former members of the Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang. Officials report that 21 of the 27 indicted gang members are currently in federal custody. "As alleged, Tren de Aragua is not just a street gang – it is a highly structured terrorist organization that has destroyed American families with brutal violence, engaged in human trafficking, and spread deadly drugs through our communities," U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a written statement. "Today’s indictments and arrests span three states and will devastate TdA’s infrastructure as we work to completely dismantle and purge this organization from our country.” The indictments include charges against six current TdA gang members and 21 former members who are now part of an "Anti-Tren" gang that splintered off from TdA. Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York said, ""Today, we have filed charges against 27 alleged members, former members, and associates of Tren de Aragua, for committing murders and shootings, forcing young women trafficked from Venezuela into commercial sex work, robbing and extorting small businesses, and selling ‘tusi,’ a pink powdery drug that has become their calling card.” "Today’s Indictments make clear that this Office will work tirelessly to keep the law-abiding residents of New York City safe, and hold accountable those who bring violence to our streets.” New York City Police Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch added, "For the first time ever, TdA is being named and charged as the criminal enterprise that it is. This isn’t just street crime—it’s organized racketeering, and this gang has shown zero regard for the safety of New Yorkers. As alleged in the indictment, these defendants wreaked havoc in our communities, trafficking women for sexual exploitation, flooding our streets with drugs, and committing violent crimes with illegal guns.”

600 AM San Diego [4/23/2025 9:17 AM, Jason Hall] reports more than 200 known or suspected terrorists have been arrested in mass deportation raids carried out by President Donald Trump’s administration since his inauguration in January, the New York Post reports. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have reportedly arrested 219 known or alleged terrorists, which is a 655% increase from the same period in 2024 when 29 arrests were made under former President Joe Biden’s administration, according to new Homeland Security data obtained by the newspaper on Tuesday (April 22). The arrests included Harpreet Singh, who is considered to be one of India’s ‘most wanted’ suspects for providing terrorist funds, recruitment and planning a grenade attack on a police station in India, as well as targeting a retired officer’s home with the intent to kill and instill fear among other officers, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Singh illegally crossed from Mexico into Arizona on January 27, 2022, and roamed the U.S. for more than three years before being arrested by ICE agents in Sacramento last week, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told the New York Post while blaming the Biden administration. “The Biden administration not only let a wanted terrorist into our country, but after he was arrested by Border Patrol agents, they released him into the interior of our country,” she claimed. “While shocking, it’s not surprising given the Biden administration routinely released unvetted terrorists and criminals into American communities,” she added. McLaughlin told the New York Post that Trump’s administration would continue targeting terrorists “who have operated with impunity on American soil." “Under President Trump and Secretary [of Homeland Security Kristi] Noem’s leadership, ICE is unleashed to remove these violent criminals from America’s streets and put an end to catch and release,” she added.

CNN [4/23/2025 7:12 PM, Michael Rios, 908K] reports Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum says her government plans to ban advertisements from the US Department of Homeland Security, which have broadcast across the country in recent weeks and show Secretary Kristi Noem warning migrants not to enter the United States illegally. In one 30-second ad, Noem is seen in a light purple suit saying: "If you are a criminal alien considering entering America illegally, don’t even think about it.” She goes on to warn that if migrants break US laws, "We will hunt you down.” Mexico’s president has denounced the adverts, which have aired in the middle of soccer matches and on primetime programming, as "discriminatory.” On Tuesday, her government sent lawmakers reform proposals that would prohibit foreign governments from spreading what it considers political and ideological propaganda in the country. "We do not agree with the discriminatory propaganda against the migrant population that has been broadcast on television, radio, and social media by the United States government," Sheinbaum said. When asked for comment on Mexico’s response, DHS said to CNN that its "ad campaign is working.” "The data shows the world is hearing our message. Border crossings have reached the lowest ever recorded," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in an email. "Thanks to President Trump and Secretary Noem, we have the most secure border in history.” The US advertisements are part of a multimillion-dollar messaging campaign meant to deter illegal entry into the United States. The DHS says the videos are "hyper-targeted" at undocumented immigrants and would be distributed domestically and internationally on TV, radio, social media and through text messages. In another series of adverts announced on Monday, Noem is seen telling undocumented immigrants to self-deport or face hefty fines, imprisonment and deportation. She also claims the Trump administration has already deported tens of thousands of migrants, including some she says are accused of rape, murder and production of child pornography. CNN is unable to confirm Noem’s claims. Families of some deportees have previously told CNN that their loved ones had no criminal records.

The Daily Wire [4/23/2025 5:00 PM, Amanda Prestigiacomo, 4700K] reports as if being a country music star and successful businessman weren’t enough, John Rich has a new mission. The singer is working to raise awareness about the dangers of child sexual extortion, or “sextortion” – a form of harassment wherein an offender coerces or tricks a minor into sending them sexually explicit images or videos, and then threatens to release the content unless the child furnishes more sexual content or some form of payment. As The Daily Wire reported, sextortion has led dozens of young boys to commit suicide. On Wednesday, Rich is teaming up with the Department of Homeland Security to host an X Space that he says is the most vital information he’s ever put out on social media. Rich will be joined by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Special Agent Dennis Fetting. It will air live at 8 p.m. Eastern on Rich’s X account, @JohnRich. Rich said he’ll be acting as the “sit-in parent on behalf of American parents,” asking all the important questions you’d want to know.

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HSToday [4/23/2025 2:56 PM, Staff, 38K]

FOX News [4/23/2025 7:28 PM, Peter Pinedo and Cameron Arcand, 46189K] reports the so-called deported "Maryland man" Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whom Democrats have been demanding the Trump administration return to the U.S., was previously pulled over by a highway patrol officer while driving a car belonging to a confessed human smuggler, multiple sources in DHS confirmed to Fox News Digital. The sources confirmed documents reported by Just the News that revealed Abrego Garcia was pulled over driving an SUV belonging to Jose Ramon Hernandez Reyes, another illegal alien who in 2020 confessed to human smuggling across the U.S.-Mexico border. As previously reported by Fox News Digital, Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old illegal alien whom the Trump administration recently deported back to El Salvador, was pulled over on Dec. 1, 2022, by a Tennessee Highway Patrol trooper who stopped him after he was "observed speeding" and unable to stay in his lane. The trooper noticed eight individuals in the car with Abrego Garcia, who said he began driving three days prior from Houston, Texas, to Temple Hills, Maryland, via St. Louis, Missouri, to "perform construction work." The report on the stop states that the trooper suspected it was a human trafficking incident, as there was no luggage in the vehicle. Additionally, the individuals in the car reportedly gave the same address as Abrego Garcia’s home address. When speaking with the trooper, Abrego Garcia allegedly "pretended to speak less English than he was capable of and attempted to put encountering officer off-track by responding to questions with questions." After the incident, the officer decided not to give Abrego Garcia a citation for the driving infractions, but rather to give him a warning for driving with an expired license. New documents further reveal that Abrego Garcia was driving a black 2001 Chevrolet Suburban that he said belonged to his "boss." The Suburban was identified by DHS as belonging to Hernandez Reyes, who pleaded guilty to human smuggling after being caught in Mississippi in a car with passengers from Mexico, El Salvador and Honduras. According to another document also confirmed by DHS sources, the Homeland Security Investigations Baltimore field office further flagged the vehicle being driven by Abrego Garcia as belonging to a target they suspected of human trafficking or smuggling. The office said that the "vehicle is used by HSI Baltimore target in human smuggling/trafficking operation. Vehicle makes trips to southern border to pick up non-citizens.” Daily Caller [4/23/2025 7:29 PM, Jason Hopkins, 1082K] reports that when a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer stopped Abrego Garcia on Dec. 1, 2022, he was found to be driving eight other passengers across the country. He claimed that he was driving them from Texas to Maryland, but none of the individuals allegedly had any luggage on them and all claimed Abrego Garcia’s address as their own, according to court documents reviewed by the Daily Caller. Abrego Garcia allegedly pretended to understand less English than he actually knew and attempted to confuse the law enforcement officer by responding to questions with his own questions. He told the officer that the vehicle he was driving belonged to his "boss" who worked in construction. Despite allegedly not having a valid driver’s license and being suspected of smuggling the passengers, Abrego Garcia was ultimately let go at the request of the FBI and simply given a warning for driving on an expired license. Hernandez-Reyes — the owner of the vehicle that Abrego Garcia was driving that day, and the man he allegedly referred to as his "boss" — is a Mexican national who unlawfully entered the United States before pleading guilty to smuggling illegal migrants, according to DHS. Just The News first reported Abrego Garcia’s connection to Hernandez-Reyes. Despite being a suspected MS-13 gang member and alleged wife beater, Democrats have gone above and beyond in demands to bring Abrego Garcia back into the U.S. Maryland Democrat Sen. Chris Van Hollen flew down to El Salvador to meet with the alleged gang member, and, several days later, four Democratic congressmen also traveled to the country to demand his return.

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CBS News [4/23/2025 10:18 PM, Staff, 51661K] reports a federal judge on Wednesday temporarily halted her order requiring the Trump administration to provide information on its efforts so far to retrieve Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador last month — just one day after accusing the administration of demonstrating "bad faith" in the proceedings. Earlier Wednesday, the Department of Justice asked Maryland-based U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis to stay her directive to provide testimony and documents on Abrego Garcia for seven days, and Abrego Garcia’s lawyers filed a response. Hours later, Xinis granted a stay of the discovery process until April 30 at 5 p.m. with "the agreement of the parties.” The reason for the stay is unclear since both parties’ filings are sealed. Xinis did not explain her reasoning. Abrego Garcia’s attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, told CBS News in a statement his team is "not at liberty to speak about the current status of the case at this time," citing the seal on the court documents. "We remain focused on bringing Kilmar Abrego Garcia home, and we will not rest until he is brought home," he added. Xinis’ decision to stay discovery for a week came one day after Abrego Garcia’s legal team accused the Trump administration of failing to follow her order for expedited discovery in the case. In a scathing order Tuesday, Xinis said the administration had shown a "willful and bad faith refusal to comply with discovery obligations," and ordered the government to respond to questions by Wednesday at 6 p.m. Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man who entered the U.S. illegally in 2011, was detained last month and flown to El Salvador, part of a wave of hundreds of migrants — including alleged gang members — sent by the Trump administration to the country’s notorious Terrorist Confinement Center (CECOT) supermax prison. A judge previously barred Abrego Garcia from being removed to El Salvador in 2019, citing the risk of persecution by the country’s gangs. The Trump administration conceded in court Abrego Garcia’s deportation was an "administrative error," but has declined to return him to the U.S., accusing him of membership in the MS-13 gang — which his lawyers deny, noting he hasn’t been charged with a crime. Abrego Garcia’s case has turned into a legal showdown. Xinis ordered the Trump administration to "facilitate" his return to the U.S., which the Supreme Court affirmed, but the administration has argued it’s up to El Salvador to return him. Xinis has suggested the government hasn’t adequately complied with her orders. The U.S. has claimed that much of the information is protected because it involves state secrets, government deliberations and attorney client privilege. But Xinis has rejected the argument and demanded that the Trump administration provide specific justifications for each claim of privileged information by Wednesday evening. A three-judge panel on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals scolded the administration last week, saying its claim that it can’t do anything to free Abrego Garcia "should be shocking." That ruling came one day after a federal judge in Washington, D.C., found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in criminal contempt in a different case for violating his orders to turn around planes carrying deportees to El Salvador.

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FOX News [4/23/2025 8:04 AM, Danielle Wallace, 46189K] reports a federal judge in Maryland accused the Trump administration of "willful and bad faith refusal" to comply with court orders in the case of illegal immigrant and suspected MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s deportation to El Salvador. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis – who was nominated to the bench by former President Barack Obama – accused the Trump administration of obstructing the legal process and refusing to provide information about the steps they have taken, if any, to free Abrego Garcia from Salvadorian custody and return him to the United States. "For weeks, Defendants have sought refuge behind vague and unsubstantiated assertions of privilege, using them as a shield to obstruct discovery and evade compliance with this Court’s orders," Xinis wrote in an eight-page order Tuesday. "Defendants have known, at least since last week, that this Court requires specific legal and factual showings to support any claim of privilege. Yet they have continued to rely on boilerplate assertions. That ends now.” "If Defendants want to preserve their privilege claims, they must support them with the required detail. Otherwise, they will lose the protections they failed to properly invoke," the judge added. She gave the administration until 6 p.m. Wednesday to provide those details. President Donald Trump on Tuesday posted a photo to TRUTH Social of himself in the Oval Office holding up a photo of the gang-affiliated tattoos etched on Abrego Garcia’s knuckles. "This is the man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, that the Courts are trying to save from being deported?" Trump wrote. "He was supposed to be, according to the Judge and the Democrats, a wonderful father from Maryland, but then they noticed he had "MS-13" tattooed onto his knuckles (and lots of really bad stories about his past!). This is the gang that is, perhaps, the worst of them all. What is wrong with our Country?". The Trump administration deported Abrego Garcia, 29, to El Salvador in what it described in court filings as an "administrative error," and has since said that it is up to El Salvador whether Abrego Garcia returns to the U.S. The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration nearly two weeks ago to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S., so that court proceedings could continue, rejecting the White House’s claim that it couldn’t retrieve him. Trump administration officials have pushed back, arguing that it is up to El Salvador — though the president of El Salvador has also said he lacks the power to return Abrego Garcia. The administration has also argued that information about any steps it has taken or could take to return Abrego Garcia is protected by attorney-client privilege laws, state secret laws, general "government privilege" or other secrecy rules. But Xinis said those claims, without any facts to back them up, reflected a "willful and bad faith refusal to comply with discovery obligations.” A three-judge panel on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals scolded the administration last week, saying its claim that it can’t do anything to free Abrego Garcia "should be shocking." [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Washington Examiner [4/23/2025 9:59 PM, Heather Hunter, 2296K] reports Gov. Wes Moore (D-MD) publicly called for the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States, emphasizing that the controversial case is a matter of constitutional rights, not immigration policy. Speaking to reporters at the Maryland State House, Moore said the detention of Abrego Garcia in El Salvador raises serious concerns about due process. "Where Kilmar Abrego Garcia is being held right now is, in many ways, not the point," Moore said. "The point is due process. He needs to come home so he can stand trial. And then, if he is found guilty, he will and should be held accountable.” Gov. Moore said: "Bring Garcia home to stand trial.” The Democratic governor praised Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) for his leadership on the issue after the senator traveled to El Salvador to meet with Garcia. Moore, however, said he had no plans to make the trip himself, noting, "I can’t speak to what other people do.” Moore’s comments come as Garcia’s deportation and reported gang affiliations have become the focus of national controversy. Garcia, an undocumented immigrant who was arrested in Maryland in 2019, has been accused by law enforcement and immigration officials of having ties to the MS-13 gang. Critics of the deportation, including Van Hollen and several House Democrats who recently visited El Salvador, argue that Garcia’s rights were violated. "This is not about immigration," Moore reiterated. "It’s about whether we are going to follow the Constitution or not. Donald Trump alone does not get to decide whether a person is guilty. That’s for a judge to determine.”

NewsMax [4/23/2025 4:07 PM, Jim Mishler, 4998K] reports Border Czar Tom Homan on Wednesday slammed the ongoing attempts to have deported former Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia returned to the United States. He cross-referenced the case to that of Georgia resident Laken Riley, who was murdered by an illegal immigrant in 2024. Homan responded to questions about the case posed by reporters outside the White House.

Univision [4/23/2025 4:00 PM, Jorge Cancino, 5325K] reports a group of 26 Democratic senators sent a letter to President Donald Trump on Wednesday demanding the return to the United States of Salvadoran immigrant Kilmer Ábrego García, who was deported to El Salvador on March 15 due to an "administrative error." In their letter to Trump, the senators asserted that facilitating Ábrego’s return to the U.S. "is undoubtedly within your reach, given that your administration is paying the government of El Salvador to detain him."

NewsMax [4/23/2025 7:39 PM, Jim Thomas, 4998K] reports top Democrat consultants sounded the alarm over party lawmakers defending an illegal alien accused of MS-13 gang ties, warning the move could spark voter backlash and damage Democrats’ electoral chances, Breitbart reported. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old illegal alien from El Salvador who was deported last month after being accused of violent criminal activity, was arrested in 2019 by the Prince George’s County Police Department and accused of being affiliated with a transnational criminal organization. Federal immigration judges affirmed the accusation, citing a reliable criminal informant who confirmed his rank within MS-13. Before his arrest, Abrego Garcia’s wife had accused him of domestic violence. In December 2022, he was in a vehicle tied to a human trafficking operation in Tennessee. Despite these serious allegations, some Democratic lawmakers have traveled to El Salvador to advocate for his release and return to the United States. Behind the scenes, however, Democrat consultants are warning that the optics could be politically disastrous. "People can’t afford eggs, and … you’re flying to sit with someone who’s accused of being in a gang," one Democrat consultant told The Hill. "Democrats want to think that everyone has the same morals and values that we do. ... That doesn’t necessarily win elections, though, and last cycle was proof positive of that.” The consultant continued: "We need to step back and wait for someone to be deported who has a really compelling story that’s devastating and that average Joe’s upset about. That person hasn’t presented themselves yet, and Democrats are battling their better instincts and not just hop at the first sign of injustice.” Frustration has also mounted over Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who has reportedly refused to meet with the family of Rachel Morin, a 37-year-old Maryland woman who was raped and murdered in 2023 by an illegal alien MS-13 member. Morin’s death is considered one of the most horrific crimes in Harford County’s history. "The hit on [Sen. Chris Van Hollen] that he’ll fly to El Salvador on taxpayer dollars and meet with a guy who’s accused of being in a gang, but he won’t meet with the family of gang victims in his home state is a very fair hit," the consultant told The Hill.

FOX News [4/23/2025 4:05 PM, Charles Creitz, 46189K] reports bicameral lawmakers are putting forward a bill Wednesday to strengthen penalties against illegal immigrants convicted of sex crimes. The Better Enforcement of Grievous Offenses by Unnaturalized Emigrants (BE GONE) Act will codify key parts of President Donald Trump’s "zero-tolerance" border crackdown. In September, Gonzales’ office obtained data from ICE showing 15,811 illegal immigrants on their "non-detained docket" have sexual assault convictions, out of 425,431 convicted criminals on the list overall. The BE GONE Act formally expands the definition of "aggravated felonies" under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, also known as Title 8 – which consolidated several immigration provisions prior to the Eisenhower administration into one comprehensive U.S. code, set visa quotas, and exempted certain family members of Americans from some immigration restrictions. Gonzales added that the BE GONE Act would give Homeland Security officers more tools to identify and deport sexually violent illegal immigrants.

Reuters [4/24/2025 5:07 AM, Humeyra Pamuk and Aaron Ross, 48128K] reports the United States has deported to Rwanda a resettled Iraqi refugee who it long tried to extradite in response to Iraqi government claims that he worked for the Islamic State, according to a U.S. official and an internal email. Omar Abdulsattar Ameen, who was granted refugee status in the U.S. in 2014, denied Iraqi charges that he murdered a police officer as an IS operative, and a judge found in 2021 that the version of events in the case against him was "not plausible". But the administrations of Joe Biden and Donald Trump both pursued his removal from the country, accusing him of lying on his refugee application by saying he had not interacted with terrorist groups. After the start of his second term in January, Trump launched a sweeping crackdown on immigration and attempted to freeze the U.S. refugee resettlement program. Ameen was sent to Rwanda earlier this month, according to the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, and the internal email seen by Reuters. A U.S. State Department spokesperson declined to comment on Ameen’s case, and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Rwanda’s government spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

AP [4/23/2025 9:43 PM, Rebecca Boone, 2923K] reports Attorneys for the Department of Homeland Security say the agency didn’t violate a judge’s order detailing when people may be deported to countries other than their own because it was the Defense Department — not DHS officials — doing the deporting. Justice Department attorney Mary Larakers made the argument in a court document filed Wednesday, suggesting that U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy’s order wasn’t violated because the Defense Department isn’t a defendant in the lawsuit. Murphy’s order, first issued March 28, blocked the Trump administration from deporting people who have exhausted legal appeals to countries other than their country of origin unless they are told of their destination and given a chance to object if they fear they will face torture or death there. Some countries do not accept deportations from the United States, which has led the Trump administration to strike agreements with other countries like Panama to house them. Some Venezuelans subject to Trump’s Alien Enemies Act have been sent to El Salvador and housed in its notorious main prison. In the court filing, Larakers said four people were deported to El Salvador on March 31 — three days after Murphy issued the restraining order — but said that was done by the Defense Department, and DHS officials were not on the flight and did not direct the removals. Two people were removed to Mexico, Larakers wrote, but one of them was sent three days before the restraining order was issued and the other one was sent the morning of March 28, several hours before the order came out.

NPR [4/23/2025 8:35 PM, Eric Westervelt and Joel Rose, 29983K] reports a federal judge agreed to give the Trump administration another week to answer detailed questions about the illegal deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. A day earlier, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis issued a scathing rebuke of the administration’s response to her order for more details about its efforts to return him to the U.S. But the Trump administration asked for more time to respond in the case of the Maryland man who was deported to El Salvador last month in an "administrative error" despite court protections. Despite the temporary reprieve, the standoff between the White House and the federal courts may still be heading for a reckoning. In a scathing order Tuesday evening, Judge Xinis accused the Justice Department of willful refusal to comply with her order and attempting to "obstruct" discovery after receiving what she characterized as vague and unsatisfying responses to her demand for information on efforts to return Abrego Garcia to the United States. "Defendants have failed to respond in good faith, and their refusal to do so can only be viewed as willful and intentional noncompliance," Xinis wrote. "That ends now," Judge Xinis declared as she rejected the administration’s arguments so far as "specious" and condemned their "mischaracterization" of the Supreme Court’s directive to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. In response, Justice Department lawyer Drew Ensign filed a sealed motion on Wednesday requesting a seven-day stay of the judge’s directive for the U.S. to provide testimony and documents. The White House continues to insist, without providing solid evidence, that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13, the Salvadoran gang that the Trump administration has recently declared a Foreign Terrorist Organization. White House border czar Tom Homan defended the administration’s handling of the Abrego Garcia case. "We removed an MS-13 gang member, public safety threat, wife-beater, designated terrorist from the United States," Homan told reporters on Wednesday. "He’s home. He’s a citizen of El Salvador, a native of El Salvador who had due process despite what you’re hearing."

FOX News [4/23/2025 5:47 PM, Breanne Deppisch, 46189K] reports a second U.S. judge scolded the Trump administration on Tuesday night for failing to answer questions in an ongoing deportation case, raising the threat that some Trump officials could be held in contempt of court. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis of Maryland upbraided Trump officials for failing to comply with the court’s requests for information in a case involving the deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia — accusing officials in a blistering eight-page order of submitting "vague, evasive and incomplete" responses that she said demonstrated "willful and bad faith refusal to comply with discovery obligations." She further described the Justice Department’s "false premise" objections as "a willful and bad faith refusal to comply with discovery obligations." Xinis is not the first federal judge to raise the possibility of holding the Trump administration in contempt for failing to abide by court orders. Just 15 miles away, at a courthouse in Washington, D.C., another judge had already threatened the same. At issue in both cases is President Donald Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime immigration law the administration invoked last month to immediately deport certain individuals from the U.S. to El Salvador.

Washington Examiner [4/23/2025 2:57 PM, Kaelan Deese, 2296K] reports a Texas federal judge publicly reprimanded an attorney for migrants facing deportation over an improper out-of-court voicemail a lawyer left for the judge in the dispute over President Donald Trump’s Alien Enemies Act policy. U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix, presiding over a habeas petition involving Venezuelans allegedly tied to the Tren de Aragua gang, criticized American Civil Liberties Union attorney Lee Gelernt for leaving a voicemail on his chambers’ line after hours on April 17. The message sought emergency relief to block deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, without notifying the Trump administration’s legal team, a move the judge deemed a prohibited "ex parte" communication. In a little-noticed court order issued Monday, Hendrix noted the voicemail addressed the substance of motions and constituted an attempt to secure a temporary restraining order "off the record, ex parte, and in the evening," a direct violation of judicial standards.

Bloomberg Law [4/23/2025 12:29 PM, Erik Larson and Bob Van Voris, 1085K] reports that a pair of federal judges blasted the Trump administration’s effort to deport alleged gang members without due process on Tuesday, while another accused the government of stonewalling. The cases illustrate how civil rights groups and immigration attorneys are using the courts to rein in some aspects of President Donald Trump’s unprecedented crackdown on illegal immigration, particularly those accused of crimes. Many of the accused migrants deny being gang members and say they’re being targeted because of their tattoos and clothing. The harshest rebuke on Tuesday was delivered during an afternoon hearing when a New York judge told a government lawyer that the deportation fight isn’t playing out "in a secret court." "This is not the Inquisition or medieval times," said US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein. "This is the United States of America." Two of the lower-court rulings on Tuesday stem from lawsuits over Trump’s use of a 227-year-old wartime law to unilaterally deport alleged members of a Venezuelan gang to a notorious prison in El Salvador. A third ruling comes from the case of a Maryland man fighting to return to the US after being deported to his native El Salvador by mistake.

New York Times [4/23/2025 6:06 PM, Luke Broadwater,145325K] reports while the Justice Department argues in court that it is working to comply with judges’ orders to provide migrants with due process before deporting them, President Trump and his top advisers are increasingly making a different argument altogether: Why should we? In their rapid, maximalist campaign to apprehend and deport as many migrants as possible as quickly as possible, Mr. Trump and top members of his administration have abandoned any pretense of being bound by the constitutional limits that have constrained presidents of both parties in the past on immigration. Instead, they are asserting that when it comes to people who entered the United States illegally, the president has unchecked power to expel them without recourse, and that he has neither the time nor the obligation to do otherwise. “We’re getting them out, and a judge can’t say, ‘No, you have to have a trial,’” Mr. Trump said on Tuesday in the Oval Office. “The trial is going to take two years. We’re going to have a very dangerous country if we’re not allowed to do what we’re entitled to do.” He made similar remarks on social media on Monday, writing: “We cannot give everyone a trial, because to do so would take, without exaggeration, 200 years.” Such statements are alarming to legal experts who note that in the United States civil rights are for everyone — not just citizens. “It’s enormously disturbing,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley. “It is so troubling to hear the president and top executive officials give so little regard to the Constitution. It’s important to emphasize that the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment says no person can be ‘deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law.’ It doesn’t say ‘citizen.’” In recent days, Mr. Trump and his top advisers have railed against judges who have blocked their quick deportation efforts; declared there should be no trials for those accused of violating immigration laws; and mocked calls for those arrested to receive due process. “I find it incredible that there’s all this push for more and more and more due process, more process for these designated terror groups, when, in fact, no one asked for due process when they crossed the border,” Thomas D. Homan, Mr. Trump’s “border czar,” said Wednesday. “No one asked for a vetting when they crossed the border. Where was all the media?” The Supreme Court has held that immigrants present in the United States, regardless of legal status, are guaranteed due process rights, but what qualifies as due process varies depending on the person’s legal status and circumstances. Congress has created an expedited process for removing undocumented migrants who are newly arrived to the country, with limited opportunities for judicial review. But the Trump administration is trying to go beyond that process by invoking wartime powers that erode fundamental principles of American society, said Lee Gelernt, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union who is the lead counsel in the challenges to the administration’s use of the law, the Alien Enemies Act.

Washington Examiner [4/23/2025 2:04 PM, Asher Notheis, 2296K] reports that anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said Wednesday that he is "really glad" the Trump administration has turned up the heat on Harvard University and other schools, but urged the White House to be "strategic" in its pursuit to combat antisemitism. The Trump administration’s feud with Harvard has grown over the weeks, with the school suing the administration after it pulled $2.2 billion in multiyear grants. Greenblatt said there are "rampant" problems with antisemitism at universities such as Harvard, prompting questions of whether he supports the recent actions taken by the Trump administration to combat these problems. Amid Harvard’s feud with the Trump administration, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem warned the school’s officials that it would lose its Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification if it did not provide information about its "foreign student visa holders’ illegal and violent activities." The university will lose its ability to enroll foreign students if it fails to comply with Noem’s request by April 30. Last week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said she was "very proud" of Harvard for resisting the Trump administration. She said people are questioning why the administration is seeking to cut the school’s "research grants."

Daily Caller [4/23/2025 10:17 AM, Robert McGreevy, 1082K] reports that Republican legal experts are urging President Trump’s Treasury Department to undo a policy change which they argue allows cartels to facilitate fentanyl and human trafficking through shell corporations. Treasury announced in March they would be suspending enforcement on a key element of the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA). Reversing a Biden-era law that went into effect in January, the department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) will no longer be enforcing fines or penalties for American companies who don’t report beneficial ownership information (BOI) for their companies to the government. The U.S. Department of Treasury is scrapping a requirement for U.S. small businesses to report information about their owners to the federal government. "Small businesses fear their information will be targeted by criminals, politically motivated individuals, or subject to cyberattacks by our nation’s adversaries, that could expose their personal information to actual criminals and nefarious actors," the National Federation of Independent Businesses argued. NFIB member Elden Johnson and NFIB VP of Federal Government Relations Jeff Brabant testified before U.S. House Committees urging Congress to alleviate regulatory burdens and repeal the Corporate Transparency Act. NFIB’s lawsuit remains active.

Reuters [4/23/2025 6:03 PM, Peter Eisler and Sarah N. Lynch, 41523K] reports that the U.S. Justice Department has canceled hundreds of ongoing grants that funded everything from services for mental health care for police officers to support programs for victims of crime and sexual assault, according to internal records and four people familiar with the matter. At least 365 grants from the Office of Justice Programs, the department’s largest grant-making arm, were terminated late on Tuesday, said two of the people, who were granted anonymity to discuss details that have not been made public. In fiscal year 2023, that office collectively awarded $4.4 billion in funding, according to the Justice Department’s website. Among the programs that are being targeted include grants that supported victims of crime, including some specialized for transgender victims, hotlines used by crime victims, human trafficking grants awarded to organizations that work with immigrants and refugees, programs to curb juvenile delinquency and safeguard incarcerated youth, and funding to help state-run hate crime reporting, according to a partial list of terminated grants seen by Reuters. Jean Bruggeman, who leads the non-profit Freedom Network USA which assists human trafficking victims, said abruptly canceling funding without warning could leave vulnerable victims of domestic abuse out on the streets without access to housing.

ABC News [4/23/2025 10:21 AM, Laura Romero, 34586K] reports that a federal judge in Vermont set a hearing for next Wednesday to decide whether to release Mohsen Mahdawi, the Columbia student who was arrested by ICE last week, while his case proceeds. Mahdawi, who was arrested during his citizenship interview on Aug. 14, was present during the hearing. U.S. District Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford kicked off Wednesday’s hearing by asking Mahdawi if he was being treated well in a detention facility in Vermont. "I’m grateful for the kindness of the state, your honor," Mahdawi said. Before briefly discussing the motion from Mahdawi’s attorneys to release him, Judge Crawford extended the temporary restraining order that was issued by a separate judge last week to keep Mahdawi in Vermont. "I don’t want Mr. Mahdawi to be whisked away to another state," Judge Crawford said. Mahdawi, who co-founded a university organization called the Palestinian Student Union with detained Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil, is a permanent resident of the U.S. and was taking his last step in the process for him to become a U.S. citizen before his arrest, his attorneys said. In a court filing on Monday, Mahdawi’s attorneys said that he is not a flight risk or a danger to the community. Mahdawi’s attorneys said his release is necessary to avoid "what is a devastating punitive consequence of Mahdawi’s continued detention, namely, the disruption of his education." The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately reply to ABC News’ request for comment. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

CBS News [4/23/2025 5:02 PM, Joe Walsh, 52225K] reports Mohsen Mahdawi — a Palestinian student who was detained by immigration agents at a U.S. citizenship interview last week — must remain in Vermont for at least 90 days while his legal team pushes for his release, a federal judge said Wednesday, according to Mahdawi’s lawyers. In a Vermont court hearing, U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford indicated he will extend a restraining order issued by another judge last week blocking the government from deporting Mahdawi or transferring him to another state, his legal team said in a statement. Crawford scheduled another hearing in Mahdawi’s case for next week. A separate hearing in immigration court is also set for May 1 in Louisiana, according to Mahdawi’s legal team, though the status of that court appearance is unclear. Mahdawi’s attorneys argue the Trump administration is seeking to deport Mahdawi because he helped lead pro-Palestinian protests on Columbia’s campus in the early months of the Israel-Hamas war, in violation of his First Amendment rights. Mahdawi alleges he was detained under an obscure law allowing the government to revoke a visa if the secretary of state determines somebody could pose "adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States." The Trump administration used the same argument to detain fellow Columbia activist Mahmoud Khalil — who, like Mahdawi, has a green card — and Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk. Khalil and Öztürk are both suing for their release. The Trump administration has argued it has the legal right to revoke Mahdawi, Khalil and Öztürk’s visas. The government also argues that the Vermont federal court doesn’t have jurisdiction over Mahdawi’s case. "It is a privilege to be granted a visa or green card to live and study in the United States of America," Homeland Security assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to CBS News. "When you advocate for violence, glorify and support terrorists that relish the killing of Americans, and harass Jews, that privilege should be revoked, and you should not be in this country." Mahdawi has pushed back against allegations of antisemitism in the Columbia protests. In an interview with CBS News a day before his arrest, Mahdawi said, "I want people to know that my compassion extended beyond the Palestinian people. My compassion is also for the Jewish people and for the Israelis as well." He also says he took a step back from the protests before students formed encampments on Columbia’s campus and took over a school building last year. [Editorial note: consult video at source link] CNN [4/23/2025 7:38 PM, Gloria Pazmino and Caroll Alvarado, 22131K] reports Mahdawi, who was born in the West Bank and helped organize protests against the Israel-Hamas war on Columbia’s campus last year, is one of a handful of students who have been targeted for deportation as part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. He is the second Palestinian student at Columbia with a green card who has been detained by immigration authorities for removal. The other is Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent US resident who was one of the lead negotiators of the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia; he was arrested March 8 and is being held at a detention facility in Louisiana. Federal immigration officers arrested Mahdawi, a legal permanent US resident for the past 10 years, on April 14 during an appointment he had previously scheduled to complete his citizenship application. After Mahdawi took the citizenship oath and signed documents – which are some of the final steps to becoming a US citizen – armed and masked officers entered the office and arrested Mahdawi inside the US Citizenship and Immigration Services building, put him in handcuffs and shackles and drove him away, according to court documents and his attorneys. Mahdawi has not been charged with a crime. In a letter written from inside the Northwest State Correctional Facility in Vermont, Mahdawi described his arrest as a kidnapping set up to take place during his naturalization interview. A copy of the letter was obtained by CNN. "The Department of Homeland Security orchestrated a honey trap, offering me a long-awaited appointment for citizenship," Mahdawi wrote.

Reported similarly:
NBC News [4/23/2025 5:22 PM, Kimmy Yam and Chloe Atkins, 44742K]

Gothamist [4/23/2025 4:28 PM, Arya Sundaram, 2200K] reports attorneys for Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi say he was trapped by immigration officials during a routine check-in and then arrested last week, according to new filings in his case. It happened last Monday when Mahdawi, a legal permanent U.S. resident of over 10 years, appeared at a naturalization interview in Colchester, Vermont, the filing says. During the interview, an officer with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services told Mahdawi that he needed to “check” on some information and that he’d be right back, according to the court papers. Masked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents then entered the room and shackled Mahdawi, the filing said. “It was a trap,” Mahdawi’s attorneys said in the court document, which was a request for his release filed on Tuesday. His arrest was the latest in a series of detentions by federal immigration authorities of pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia and at other university campuses across the country. “When you advocate for violence, glorify and support terrorists that relish the killing of Americans, and harass Jews, that privilege should be revoked, and you should not be in this country,” Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement, without offering further explanation. An ICE spokesperson referred questions to the office of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose spokespeople have not responded. According to the court papers, Mahdawi received a document from DHS saying he’s being targeted for deportation because Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined his presence in the United States “would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” The document stated Rubio made his decision because Mahdawi “through his leadership and involvement in disruptive protests at Columbia University, has engaged in antisemitic conduct through leading pro-Palestinian protests and calling for Israel’s destruction.”

Washington Post [4/23/2025 6:00 AM, Joanna Slater, 31735K] reports the white steepled church in this tiny town was full, every seat taken and still more people standing at the back, all hoping to help the student they consider one of their own. A woman came up to a microphone and talked about how Mohsen Mahdawi, the Columbia University student detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week, had made Vermont his home. “I don’t want that taken away from him,” she said through tears. “Please fight for Mohsen, please.” The room burst into applause. Hundreds of people came to their feet as they clapped. Mahdawi, a Palestinian who has been a U.S. permanent resident for a decade, was taken into custody on April 14 during his naturalization interview to become an American citizen. For many here in Vermont’s Upper Valley on the border with New Hampshire, where Mahdawi settled when he arrived in the United States, he is known simply by his first name, a familiar presence from his time as a bank teller and as a barista at the Dirt Cowboy Café. Now the community has rallied behind Mahdawi, 34, who was detained as part of a broader crackdown by the Trump administration on international students, particularly those involved in campus activism over Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip. That deep well of support in Vermont — from lawyers, politicians, friends and local activists — is proving key to Mahdawi’s case. As soon as he was detained, his lawyers filed a petition saying Mahdawi was being punished for exercising his freedom of speech and asking that he not be transferred to another jurisdiction. A federal judge in Vermont swiftly granted the request, foiling what his lawyers say was a plan to send Mahdawi to Louisiana, where ICE has flown other students it is trying to deport. On Friday evening, Michael Denmeade gazed around the packed room of the First Universalist Society with appreciation. He met Mahdawi a decade ago after giving a talk at the very same church and considers him his godson. Denmeade had driven 20 hours from Missouri, where he now lives, to attend the event. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

CNN [4/24/2025 3:00 AM, Betsy Klein, 908K]reports the Trump administration’s aggressive aim at Harvard University and other higher education institutions is being quietly spearheaded by a Justice Department-led task force under the leadership of former Fox News personality and civil rights lawyer Leo Terrell, in conjunction with top Trump official Stephen Miller and others. The administration says its Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, created following a February executive order, is intended to crack down on antisemitism on campuses amid the Israel-Hamas war. But even prominent Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League and Harvard’s chapter of the Hillel student organization, have publicly questioned the administration’s broad attacks on the university. The task force’s early actions against the nation’s most elite academic institutions underscore the power and influence that Miller has amassed in Trump’s second term – implementing an agenda years in the making that extends far beyond the issue of combating antisemitism. Months after its formation, the task force sent demands for policy changes to Harvard president Alan Garber, which the university rejected. Several days later, the federal task force announced a $2.2 billion funding freeze on Harvard, setting up a major clash over academic freedom, federal funding and campus oversight. The Ivy League university sued the Trump administration on Monday. But the administration has recently signaled that it’s open to making a deal with Harvard, with one White House official comparing conversations around federal funding for higher educational institutions to Trump’s tariff policies – subject to negotiation. Here’s what we know about the task force, its goals and its leaders: It is led by Terrell, senior counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights. Josh Gruenbaum, commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service at the General Services Administration, and acting Health and Human Services general counsel Sean Keveney are among its members. Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the civil rights division of the Department of Justice, is also involved. The task force meets weekly and includes representatives from the Departments of Justice, Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Treasury, and the GSA, according to the White House official and a March Fox News interview with Terrell. The White House declined to provide a full list of the names of its members. Terrell declined to comment to CNN. But Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, and other key White House officials involved in domestic policy are the driving force behind the president’s efforts, sources said, including senior policy strategist May Mailman and Domestic Policy Council director Vince Haley. Miller is guiding this task force and other aligned efforts after four years away from the White House. "They came prepared — they took transition planning from the policy and operational perspectives very seriously," a source familiar with the efforts said.

Washington Examiner [4/23/2025 11:18 AM, Brady Knox, 2296K] reports that President Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan and New York City Mayor Eric Adams coordinated to arrest 27 Tren de Aragua members and associates as part of a monthslong investigation. In a Tuesday press conference alongside Homan, Adams said the group was arrested on firearm offenses, racketeering conspiracy, and drug and sex trafficking charges. The operation and its publicity further solidify Adams’s alliance with the Trump administration. "Today, we announced another gang takedown in our city — this one the result of our local and federal partners working together to keep New Yorkers SAFE. The defendants in this case include members of the notorious Tren de Aragua gang," Adams announced in a post on X. The mayor said the operation was the culmination of an investigation into an attack against two New York City Police Department officers last year. The 27 arrestees came from across the country. Six targets were members of the gang, while 21 were part of a violent splinter group called anti-Tren, according to prosecutors. "Tren de Aragua is not just a street gang — it is a highly structured terrorist organization that has destroyed American families with brutal violence," Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement, adding that the arrests "will devastate TdA’s infrastructure" in three states. The press conference also highlighted the controversy regarding a joint effort to open an Immigration and Customs Enforcement center on Rikers Island, the city’s largest jail complex. Homan argued on Tuesday that the center was a necessity and that the lack of one would lead to more problems. "When ICE officers … have to go into the community to arrest the bad guy, a public safety threat, a national security threat, that means more officers in your neighborhood, that means more collateral arrests," he said. "Give us access to the person that you locked in the jail cell."

Reported similarly:
CBS Austin [4/23/2025 11:01 AM, Ryan Minnaugh, 602K]
Telemundo [4/23/2025 5:12 PM, Staff, 2454K] Video: HERE

Telemundo [4/23/2025 12:42 PM, Staff, 41K] reports Mexican national Vicente Carrillo Fuentes "El Viceroy," imprisoned in a New York jail since last February after being accused of drug trafficking by the US government, has been negotiating a plea deal with the prosecution for the past two months, according to a brief hearing in a New York federal court on Wednesday. Carrillo Fuentes, brother of Amado Carrillo - aka "El Señor de los Cielos" - and founder of the powerful Juarez Cartel, faced his first hearing today with Judge Jean Marie Azrack, who will preside over his case, in the federal court for the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn. So far, the Mexican national has pleaded not guilty to the multiple charges against him. Fuentes and his associate Rafael Caro Quintero were extradited from Mexico to face trial in the US for drug trafficking, a process that was interpreted as a response to President Donald Trump’s demands to redouble his fight against drug trafficking. "Negotiations have been going on for two months and we believe there is a possibility of reaching an agreement," the prosecution told the judge, in a hearing that lasted less than 10 minutes and in which the defendant was seen smiling with his defense team and talking animatedly with the translator assigned by the court, while they waited for the magistrate. Carrillo Fuentes, who was wearing the prison uniform of khaki pants and shirt, appeared quite relaxed at the second hearing in this court since he was brought from his country. After what the prosecution said, the judge asked Fuentes’ lawyer, Jamal Montgomery, if a deal was being negotiated, to which he answered in the affirmative. The magistrate also told Carrillo that he had the right to a speedy trial, which would last no more than 70 days after the charges were filed, and if that did not happen, his attorney could ask that the charges be dismissed; the magistrate then wanted to know if his attorney had explained this to him. However, due to the fact that there is a negotiation process, it was agreed, with Carrillo Fuentes’ consent, that the legal process of the speedy trial would be stopped while the conversations between the Prosecutor’s Office and the accused continue. "I agree" to stop the speedy trial process, the alleged drug trafficker told the judge, who set June 22 at 11 a.m. for the next hearing in the case. The US Attorney General’s Office has confirmed that it will seek the death penalty for both Carrillo Fuentes and Caro Quintero, who is also facing charges in the death of DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena.

FOX News [4/23/2025 9:36 AM, Greg Norman, 46189K] reports that a woman dining with her family recently had her purse stolen in downtown Washington, D.C., just a few blocks away from the restaurant where Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s handbag was swiped, according to a report. The victim told NBC News that she was eating at a restaurant inside the Westin Hotel last Thursday and noticed that her purse was missing around the time her family received the check. A police report cited that the suspect snatched her bag "from the chair it was hanging on," the network added. Three days later, Noem’s purse, which contained $3,000 in cash as well as personal documents, including her passport, keys, driver’s license and a DHS badge, was stolen at The Capital Burger, a restaurant located less than a quarter mile away. In both incidents, the suspect was identified as a White male wearing dark clothing, a dark baseball hat and a N95 mask, NBC News reported, citing the victim of the Westin theft and two sources familiar with surveillance footage viewed by law enforcement in the Noem case. "I’m shocked at the similarity of the crime," the victim of the Westin incident told NBC News. It’s unclear if the two incidents are connected, but the victim also said police contacted her Tuesday, mentioned the Noem case and asked if she herself was involved in politics – she is not.

(B) CNN News Central [4/23/2025 9:52 AM, Staff] reports that there are new details about the suspect who the Secret Service says stole the purse of the Secretary of Homeland Security while she was in a Washington, DC, restaurant. investigators say it all happened on Easter Sunday while Secretary Kristi Noem was dining with her family. Along with stealing the bag, they took $3,000 in cash and other items inside the bag.

Telemundo Washington DC [4/23/2025 1:59 PM, Ted Oberg, 38K] reports that the U.S. Secret Service showed authorities a photo of the man suspected of stealing Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS) Kristi Noem’s purse from a Washington, D.C., restaurant over Passover. However, they have not released the image. Noem was dining at Capital Burger in the Mount Vernon Square area with her children and grandchildren when, News4 reported, a man wearing an N95 mask stole her purse from under the table. In the bag, she had nearly $3,000 in cash, credit cards, keys, her DHS identification card, and more. Her Secret Service team was also inside the restaurant, less than 20 feet away. According to sources, investigators have reviewed surveillance footage from inside and outside the restaurant, including nearby traffic cameras. The Secret Service sent a photo of the suspect to all law enforcement agencies in the Washington, D.C., area Monday night. While they try to find the suspect, they are also working to determine if the robbery was random or if Nome was a target. DHS did not respond to our sister station News4’s request for a copy of the suspect’s photo. Yahoo News [4/23/2025 6:59 AM, Janna Brancolini, 430301K] reports surveillance footage shows a man dressed in dark clothing and a surgical mask zeroing in on the bag, which was resting by her feet, and then sitting down at the next table over, a law enforcement source told CNN. He sat with his back facing hers and then, minutes later, used his left foot to slide the bag towards him. Then he surveyed the restaurant, picked up the bag, covered it with his jacket, and left, according to CNN. At least two on-duty plainclothes Secret Service members were sitting nearby at the restaurant’s bar when the theft took place, NBC News reported. They were seated between Noem’s table and the door, a source told NBC. Noem only realized her bag was missing when she got up from the table. It wasn’t immediately clear if the thief knew who she was or if he was just targeting her luxury handbag, according to CNN. Police investigating Noem’s case contacted the woman and asked if she was also involved in politics, which she isn’t. As of Tuesday, no arrests had been made in either case.

Reported similarly:
Yahoo News [4/23/2025 12:12 PM, Oliver O’Connell, 430301K]

Latin Times [4/23/2025 11:41 PM, Carola Guerrero De León, 817K] reports Jennifer Vasquez Sura, the wife of Kilmar Abrego García, a Maryland man wrongfully deported to El Salvador, was moved to a safe house with her children due to safety concerns after the Department of Homeland Security posted a court document online that exposed her family’s home address to its 2.4 million followers. "I don’t feel safe when the government posts my address, the house where my family lives, for everyone to see, especially when this case has gone viral and people have all sorts of opinions," Vasquez Sura told the Washington Post. "So, this is definitely a bit terrifying. I’m scared for my kids." The couple’s three children, including two with autism, now live in hiding with their mother as the case surrounding Abrego García has become a politically charged symbol of the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Public attacks by the Trump administration and taunts by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele have stirred strong opinions in the public conversation, with some accusing the Trump administration of violating Abrego García’s right to "due process" and others suggesting he should stay imprisoned in El Salvador over the government’s claim that he is a gang member. Abrego García was deported to a Salvadoran prison having legal protections in place after a judge deemed his fear of persecution in that same country credible. His deportation stems from a gang affiliation report from the Maryland police database, which his lawyers argue is flawed. The situation escalated further when DHS posted a past domestic violence petition online—one that Vasquez Sura had filed and abandoned. While acknowledging the relationship’s past struggles, she emphasized Abrego García’s dedication to their family and his transformation since prior hardships, including a severe depression following detention by ICE. Most recently, the Trump administration accused Abrego García of human trafficking. In a DHS statement, spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Garcia "is a MS-13 gang member, illegal alien from El Salvador, and suspected human trafficker." McLaughlin cited a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee where Garcia was found driving eight passengers from Texas to Maryland without luggage and with all occupants claiming the same home address. "The facts speak for themselves, and they reek of human trafficking," McLaughlin said in the statement, adding that "the media’s sympathetic narrative about this criminal illegal gang member has completely fallen apart. We hear far too much about the gang members and criminals’ false sob stories and not enough about their victims."

Miami Herald [4/23/2025 6:36 PM, Ana Ceballos and Syra Ortiz Blanes, 3973K] reports federal authorities launched a large-scale operation in Florida this week to find and detain some 800 undocumented immigrants, in the first coordinated immigration enforcement effort with state police since the Trump administration came into power. The Department of Homeland Security-led effort — nicknamed Operation Tidal Wave — started on Monday and will continue through Saturday, according to a copy of the plans reviewed by the Miami Herald. The individuals targeted are located in Miami-Dade and Broward counties and the cities of Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, Stuart, Tallahassee and Fort Myers, the records show. It is unclear how many have been detained by immigration authorities as of Wednesday. The records do not explain in detail how the federal government chose its targets, but do say that authorities are trying to detain “criminal individuals or immigration violators” that have final deportation orders. The operation is a multi-county collaboration on immigration enforcement between the Trump administration and public safety agencies in Florida, a state where roughly one-fifth of the population is foreign-born. While federal authorities are leading the effort, the collaborative approach to immigration enforcement is a glimpse into the type of policing partnerships that could soon start to pick up in Florida as Gov. Ron DeSantis pushes local and state law enforcement agencies into the fold of Trump’s efforts.

Washington Examiner [4/23/2025 11:40 AM, Jenny Goldsberry, 2296K] reports that Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier assured that his office will continue to litigate in favor of a state law making it illegal to reside there as an undocumented immigrant. All of Florida’s 67 county sheriff’s departments agreed to be delegated duties by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The local officers were arresting illegal immigrants under a Florida law until Uthmeier was forced to order them to stand down as the law is under litigation. Uthmeier explained that even though these law enforcement departments aren’t parties to the case, he was ordered to do so by a judge. "There are some cases up at the appellate level that contradict this law, that claim the federal government preempts us. We disagree with that and we’re very eager to litigate it. The judge did not like that law enforcement was continuing these arrests, which I was okay with, certainly supported," Uthmeier said on Fox News’s Fox & Friends. "We’re gonna litigate this ferociously. We believe we’re right. We need to defend state sovereignty," Uthmeier said. "You can’t be a state and have law and order if illegals are allowed to just run over the border and commit crimes and tax the state in many ways." Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), who will finish out his second term in 2026, also headed up an effort to transport illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities.

Washington Examiner [4/23/2025 12:49 PM, Ross O’Keefe, 2296K] reports that the New Mexico Supreme Court banned a state judge from holding or seeking office after an alleged Tren de Aragua member was arrested in his home. The judge, Joel Cano, resigned in March after serving in the Dona Ana County Magistrate Court in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The court said Cano "can never hold a judicial office again, be a candidate for a judicial office, and cannot exercise any judicial authority in the state, including officiating at weddings." An oral argument scheduled on disciplinary cases related to Cano was vacated following the ruling. A Homeland Security investigation of Venezuelan illegal immigrant Cristhian Ortega-Lopez revealed he was "residing with other illegal aliens" and "in possession of firearms." Pictures from his court case show him dining with the Cano family and posing with them in a Christmas photo. In his resignation letter, Joel Cano said his final day was March 21. "All the best to every one of you," he said in the letter. "I wish all of you a happy retirement once you are ready yourself," he said. The Democratic judge had served in Dona Ana County since 2011.

Reported similarly:
FOX News [4/23/2025 7:37 AM, Pilar Arias, 46189K]

WGHP [4/23/2025 3:17 PM, Dolan Reynolds] reports a high-ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel was arrested on Tuesday in Nogales, Arizona, after being indicted for allegedly helping lead a drug trafficking and money laundering conspiracy with North Carolina ties. Emmanuel Martimiano Leon-Soto, 42, of Naco, Mexico, is the last person arrested of 38 total charged in November 2024 by a federal grand jury seated in the Middle District of North Carolina with conspiracy to distribute fentanyl, methamphetamine and cocaine hydrochloride, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office MDNC. If convicted, Leon-Soto faces a maximum penalty of life in prison for the drug conspiracy and a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for the money laundering conspiracy.

San Francisco Chronicle [4/23/2025 7:49 PM, Bob Egelko, 5046K] reports a federal judge said Wednesday he expects to issue an order prohibiting the Trump administration from withholding billions of dollars in funding to San Francisco and other local governments with "sanctuary" policies that bar their law enforcement officers from cooperating with federal immigration agents. U.S. District Judge William Orrick III of San Francisco issued a similar ruling in 2017, upheld on appeal, after President Donald Trump ordered federal officials to withhold funds from San Francisco and the state of California because of their sanctuary policies. He said during Wednesday’s hearing that he was "inclined" to follow the same course in the current lawsuit by 16 cities and counties. The appeals court that upheld his 2017 order, Orrick said, found that "there is no congressional authorization for broad withholding of funds from sanctuary jurisdictions.” Trump issued an executive order on Jan. 21, shortly after taking office, directing his administration "to ensure that so-called ‘sanctuary’ jurisdictions, which seek to interfere with the lawful exercise of Federal law enforcement operations, do not receive access to Federal funds.” In an April 10 posting on his Truth Social network, the president said he was "working on papers to withhold all Federal Funding for any City or State that allows these Death Traps to exist.” The U.S. Supreme Court, however, rejected Trump’s challenge in 2020 to California’s sanctuary law, the first by any state. It prohibits state and local law enforcement officers from notifying federal agents of the release dates of undocumented immigrants in their custody and from holding them beyond those dates so they can be picked up for deportation. The restrictions do not apply to inmates convicted of violent crimes.

Yahoo News [4/23/2025 8:41 PM, Zara Barker, 430301K] reports Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Lee Zeldin has spent the last three days in San Diego visiting the South Bay to see — and smell — the Tijuana River sewage crisis. After touring the area on foot and by helicopter, conferring with elected officials at a roundtable and meeting U.S. Navy SEALs who train in the water, Zeldin sat down with FOX 5 to discuss what he had seen in his visit and the Trump administration’s plans to do to fix the problem. "I’m extremely motivated to do everything in my power to assist," the EPA administrator said during the FOX 5 Morning News Wednesday, adding one of his key takeaways from the visit was that there is more that needs to be done to hasten work on the Mexico side of the border. "This has to get fixed," he continued. "I understand the frustration, the desperation, the anger that’s out there with local residents — I felt it while I was here and it only motivates me more to help.” Now, Zeldin says he and his team are compiling a list of what projects need to be done to stop the flow of sewage, with the hopes of bringing it to Mexico to figure out what they will commit to addressing and where the U.S. can help. "If they’re agreeing to 100% of it, that’s great, we want to work closely with them to get that implemented as quickly as humanly possible," Zeldin said. He noted Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has conveyed in talks with President Trump her intent to "do her part to end this crisis.” Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre was there when Zeldin toured the wastewater treatment facility, and said his visit went really well. Now she wants to see action. "It’s absolutely pivotal that we get this done as fast as possible," Aguirre said during the tour Tuesday morning, "this plan needs to be expedited as fast as possible.” "We’ve already heard him say, in no unclear terms yesterday, that whatever it takes, by whatever means necessary, and that’s the type of attitude that I appreciate," she said in an interview with FOX 5/KUSI Wednesday afternoon. Aguirre said she has hope this visit from a federal official will be different. "The Biden administration failed us," she said. "We had, under the first Trump administration, the administrator of the EPA come and tour the area as well, and we are still here. We need immediate action on our side and the Mexican side.” "My hope is that Mexico will put skin in the game and we can create that collaboration and cooperation to finally end this, because otherwise we’re going to be in this situation for another decade," the mayor continued. Zeldin’s intent? The administrator said he to speed it up to the point there is "no physical way to possibly get it done any quicker.”

Yahoo News [4/23/2025 6:21 PM, Nicole Lafond, 430301K] reports Illinois’ Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker has asked officials in his state to take steps to implement a boycott against El Salvador in response to President Nayib Bukele’s cooperation with the Trump administration in denying a Maryland resident, deported and detained in one of his infamously hellish detention camps, his due process rights. Pritzker has asked Illinois’ pension funds and procurement agencies to look into whether the state has any investments in El Salvador or contracts with El Salvadorian businesses that have headquarters in the country. The idea is to identify if any relationships exist so that the state of Illinois can divest from El Salvador to place some punishing pressure on Bukele for his decision (if we can call it that) to cooperate with the Trump administration as his executive branch throws down the gauntlet on the judiciary. "The United States Constitution guarantees due process. We are witnessing Donald Trump erode our fundamental Constitutional rights in real time, and we must fight to restore the balance of power," Pritzker said. "The State of Illinois will stand up for the Rule of Law and do everything in our power stop the Trump Administration from ripping apart our most basic rights.” Illinois’ procurement agency will also reportedly look into any trade that might be taking place between the state and El Salvador so that those supply chains can, potentially, be shutdown as Illinois moves forward with the threatened boycott. A source close to Pritzker’s office told HuffPost that the governor is hoping other Democratic governors in the U.S. will follow his lead and join Illinois "in pushing Trump and El Salvador to follow the law.”

Los Angeles Times [4/23/2025 1:24 PM, Anita Chabria, 13342K] reports that hello and happy Wednesday. I’m back and it feels like I never left because we’re still talking about Trumpian chaos. Rep. Robert Garcia traveled to El Salvador with three of his House colleagues this week in an attempt to see Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man whom the government acknowledged it mistakenly deported, but also the guy it refuses to help despite a Supreme Court ruling to do so. It is beyond belief, literally, to imagine that a phone call from the White House couldn’t have Abrego Garcia on an airplane within hours. The United States is paying El Salvador millions of dollars to imprison these deportees, so from a simple business perspective it stands to reason that we have leverage, never mind being a superpower. Garcia, the Long Beach Democrat, and his colleagues (Democratic Reps. Yassamin Ansari of Arizona, Maxine Dexter of Oregon and Maxwell Frost of Florida) weren’t allowed to see Abrego Garcia. But they did deliver a small bit of hope for the family and lawyers of another man stuck in the Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT — the promise from the U.S. ambassador in El Salvador to look into the case of Andry José Hernández Romero, another deportee who has vanished into the black hole of this foreign prison. "His family have no idea if he’s still alive. There’s been no wellness check, no access to legal counsel. No one has heard from him," Garcia told me Tuesday.

Reuters [4/23/2025 7:09 PM, Alvaro Murillo, 41523K] reports Costa Rica granted 85 migrants, who were deported in February by the Trump administration, a special status that will allow them to freely move within the country, the country’s immigration director, Omar Badilla, said on Wednesday. President Rodrigo Chaves’ government agreed with the Trump administration at the start of the year that it would receive up to 200 people originating from Africa, Asia, and Europe with a goal to repatriate them within weeks. However, two months later Costa Rican authorities confirmed that not all of the migrants had accepted repatriation, to which the government responded by issuing a resolution on Monday with a special migratory category valid for 90 days, with an option to extend. "These people have freedom of movement anywhere within the country ... the point of this resolution is to not force anybody to return to their country of origin," said Badilla in a video shared with the press. Since February, when they were set up in a shelter near the Panamanian border, the migrants have been restricted from leaving and were not given access to passports. Most accepted repatriation, Reuters confirmed with immigration authorities. Still, 85 migrants of 14 different nationalities, and including 31 minors, remain on Costa Rican soil. All of them may now recover their passports, Badilla said.

Breitbart [4/24/2025 12:20 AM, Elizabeth Weibel, 2923K] reports the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) says Venezuelan government officials may be using Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang members, according to a Fox News report. A "senior" Trump administration official shared with Fox News, "unclassified portions" of an FBI assessment, which found that officials within Venezuelan Dictator Nicolas Maduro’s regime, were using TdA gang members "as proxies for the Maduro regime in an effort to destabilize" countries such as the U.S., Chile, Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia, according to the outlet: Fox News Digital has learned that the FBI assesses that some Venezuelan government officials are likely using Tren de Aragua members as proxies for the Maduro regime in an effort to destabilize Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and the United States. The official said the FBI assesses that this demonstrates Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s willingness to violate the territorial sovereignty of Venezuela’s neighbors to advance his regime’s policies. FBI officials have reportedly assessed that within "six to 18 months," Venezuelan government officials will try to "leverage" TdA gang members in the U.S. to act as "proxy actors to threaten, abduct and kill members of the Venezuelan diaspora" who have been "vocal critics of Maduro," according to the outlet. The report comes as President Donald Trump and his administration have faced legal challenges from several judges in response to the deportations of Venezuelan migrants who are suspected of being TdA members under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. Federal judges in states such as Colorado and New York "questioned the legality of the administration’s use of wartime measures to speed deportations of" suspected TdA gang members, according to the Wall Street Journal. U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein stated during a "hearing in New York," that the Trump administration has "gotta tell a person what he’s done," while U.S. District Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney in Colorado "all but said Trump’s invocation of wartime authority for the gang deportations was unlawful," according to the outlet: In one of those cases, U.S. District Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney in Colorado expressed serious doubt Tuesday about the government’s claims that current events constitute "irregular warfare" in which gang members are immigrating to the U.S. to commit murders, kidnappings, drug trafficking and other offenses. Sweeney all but said Trump’s invocation of wartime authority for the gang deportations was unlawful. To use the Alien Enemies Act, Trump would have to establish the U.S. is in a state of war, the judge said. Breitbart News’s Christian K. Caruzo reported in March that Maduro stated his regime would "not rest" until it had rescued Venezuelan migrants who were deported from the U.S. and "sent to jail in El Salvador.” "We will not rest until the Venezuelans who have been kidnapped and sent to jail in El Salvador, violated and subjected without due process or the right to defense, return to their homeland," Maduro said. Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act in March, as part of an effort to speed up the removal of Venezuelan migrants who are suspected and accused of being TdA gang members. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court previously lifted a block from U.S. District Judge James Boasberg that prevented the Trump administration from deporting illegal migrants suspected of being TdA gang members.

Blaze [4/23/2025 8:00 PM, Auron MacIntyre, 1668K] reports that, in a late-night order, the Supreme Court on Saturday blocked the Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport illegal aliens. The administration had relied on the law to expedite removals of some of the most dangerous individuals in the country, including alleged MS-13 gang members. This wasn’t a final ruling on the statute, but it froze current deportation efforts and signaled a likely loss for the White House. Once again, Donald Trump faces betrayal from the very justices he appointed — only Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented. The president now finds himself at odds with a politically driven judiciary that seems to believe unelected lawyers, not the commander in chief, should run the executive branch. Mass deportations remain essential if the United States hopes to remain a functioning nation. But the legal system isn’t the only obstacle. Mass democracy — often hailed as a bulwark against tyranny — turns out to be remarkably easy to rig. When the ruling classes can’t depend on the current electorate to keep them in power, they simply replace it. Democrats understand that new immigrants overwhelmingly support the party that promises wealth redistribution — from the established population to the newly arrived. Illegal immigrants may not vote immediately, but many will gain amnesty or eventually naturalize. Their children will all receive birthright citizenship. That’s the plan: long-term voter replacement to eliminate serious opposition in national elections. The crisis at the southern border never threatened Democrats. They designed it. It wasn’t a policy failure. It was an electoral strategy. And the Supreme Court saw no urgency in stopping a border policy designed to rig American elections for generations. The Biden administration ran a cell phone app that fast-tracked illegal entry. It didn’t just leave the southern border wide open — it flew planeloads of Haitian migrants directly into the United States and dumped them in small Midwestern towns, where they overwhelmed local infrastructure. At no point did Chief Justice John Roberts step in, despite the administration’s blatant disregard for federal law and its constitutional duty to protect citizens.

The Hill [4/23/2025 8:00 AM, Derek Hunter, 12829K] reports political parties need votes from people, and voters do not like being murdered or seeing their countrymen killed. So you would expect all politicians to take their side on least on this. But when it comes to Democrats, you’d be wrong about that. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the country was fairly united, mostly due to the shock and horror at what had just happened. But within a couple of weeks, that unity was gone. What manifested itself on that horrible day as Democrats and Republicans spontaneously singing "God Bless America" on the steps of the Capitol, quickly became for the left a public discussion of what we did to make them hate us so much and how we were all "little Eichmanns." It took less than a week after 9/11 for Barack Obama’s friend and pastor to deliver his famous "God damn America" sermon on how "America’s chickens are coming home to roost.” I remember encountering this attitude in a friend at the time. "We deserved this," she chatted me on AOL Instant Messenger, "because of what our country does in foreign policy." At first, I thought she was joking. She was not. It was the last time I had communication with her. I simply could not respect someone with such demented ideals. Democrats have long been wandering down this path, but now they seem to be running down it. And when you watch the latest chapter of this saga — the love affair between Democratic politicians and MS-13 gangsters — you almost can’t avoid asking what the political left has against our country, and why it is so fond of its enemies. They have embraced an alleged MS-13 gang member, an illegal alien from El Salvador who had been living in Maryland. The man’s wife called the police on multiple occasions and accused him of domestic violence. Yet they are now working tirelessly to reverse his deportation, even though voters in heavily Democratic Prince George County are not on their side. They feel safer after the deportation. Why would any elected official create such a spectacle around something so unpopular? The answer is simple: President Trump. If Trump is on one side of an issue, Democrats can be counted on to take the other, no matter how insane it is. And they will trample each other to get there, even if there is a trove of video of them proclaiming the righteousness of Trump’s position from some time not long ago. Nothing else matters but opposing Trump. So intense is the Democrats’ hatred of Trump that they don’t even seem to notice they are supporting an alleged domestic abuser and implying that his wife, who unambiguously accused him of terrorizing and abusing her, filed false police reports. And it’s not just Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the so-called "Maryland man" in question — it’s every gangster, no matter how violent or how long they’ve been terrorizing communities in this country. They travel to visit them. They rush to get them returned. Their non-profits rush to pay for their defense. They compare these face-tattooed gangsters’ imprisonment to the mass murder of innocent Jews in the Holocaust. Trump Derangement Syndrome can explain only so much of this psychosis. The other part of it is that you and your community simply don’t rate as priorities for Democrats.

Washington Post [4/23/2025 8:00 AM, Paul Butler, 31735K] reports President Donald Trump’s notion of exporting people he doesn’t like is not a new idea. That doesn’t make it a good one. The Trump administration has already deported more than 100,000 immigrants, including Kilmar Abrego García, who was lawfully in the United States when federal agents detained him in Baltimore and deported him to a prison for terrorists in El Salvador. But Trump, in an April 15 interview on Fox Noticias, said he is "all for" exiling to prisons overseas American citizens who commit violent crimes because it would be a secure and cost-effective way of dealing with America’s "huge prison population." Added Trump, "I would love to do it.” That sort of thinking — out of sight, out of mind — is what prompted England, in the 17th century, to export many of its citizens with criminal records to America, and, later, to Australia. In its heyday, banishment was considered a progressive alternative to the normal punishment for serious offenders: execution. In England, from the Middle Ages to the early 19th century, the death penalty was commonplace for those found guilty of a felony. Hanging was the most common method; those found guilty of witchcraft and heresy were burned at the stake. England reserved drawing and quartering for the crime of treason. The Age of Reason, which unfolded around the start of the 18th century, disrupted the state-sanctioned bloodlust. Philosophers, including Jeremy Bentham of England and Cesare Beccaria, of Italy, promoted proportionate and rehabilitative responses to crime. The U.S. would later become a leader of this early reform movement. In 1829, the Eastern State Penitentiary, the world’s first prison dedicated to rehabilitation, was built in Philadelphia. The idea was that solitude and hard labor would cure lawbreakers of their evil ways. European intellectuals like Charles Dickens came to marvel. Things didn’t work out as planned. Solitary confinement turned out to be another form of torture, and rehabilitation requires more from prison officials than forcing inmates to work. And it’s important to note that these supposed reforms didn’t extend to everyone. Enslaved Blacks existed in a vacuum outside of citizenship with "no rights that the White man was bound to respect," as Justice Roger Taney put it so infamously in the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sanford case.

FOX News [4/24/2025 5:00 AM, Robert C. O’Brien, 46189K] reports President Trump has proved time and again that strength and smart diplomacy can work hand in hand. Nowhere is that more needed today than in Venezuela, a country that sits just 1,300 miles from Miami, rich in oil, yet controlled by an illegitimate narco-socialist regime. For years, Venezuela has been both a humanitarian tragedy and a national security threat. Nicolás Maduro’s regime has flooded American streets with narcotics, unleashed waves of illegal migrants across our southern border, and opened Venezuela’s doors to Communist China, Vladimir Putin’s Russia, and the mullahs in Tehran. The result? American cities buckle under the weight of mass illegal migration, American families pay more at the pump, and Beijing gets stronger while our backyard becomes less secure. Make no mistake: the Chinese Communist Party is watching Venezuela closely. They’ve spent years offering the Maduro regime lifelines via loans, military hardware, and surveillance technology in exchange for backdoor control over Venezuela’s oil and infrastructure. Their mission is simple: squeeze American companies out and use Venezuela as yet another lever of power against the United States in our own hemisphere. This situation cannot be ignored any longer. And only one leader has both the strength and the acumen to break this deadlock: President Donald J. Trump.

NPR [4/23/2025 5:13 PM, Jasmine Garsd, 29983K] Audio: HERE reports a little over a week ago Mohsen Mahdawi, a Columbia University student, showed up for a immigration appointment in Vermont. He instead was arrested, detained and placed in deportation proceedings.

CBS News [4/23/2025 6:27 PM, Layla Ferris, 51661K] reports President Trump has repeatedly shared an image of Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s finger tattoos in an effort to link the Maryland man, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador on March 15, to the notorious MS-13 gang. On Monday, Mr. Trump again shared a photo of Abrego Garcia’s left hand on social media, alleging he "had ‘MS-13’ tattooed onto his knuckles." The image shows the characters "M," "S," "1" and "3" digitally added above Abrego Garcia’s existing tattoos — a leaf, a smiley face, a cross and a skull — along with labels describing each symbol beneath.
Many people online recognized the labels as digitally added, but some alleged they were designed to appear as part of Abrego Garcia’s actual tattoos and accused the Trump administration of trying to mislead the public. The White House has not responded to multiple requests for comment about the image and who added the labels. The experts and researchers we spoke with acknowledged the tattoos could carry gang-related symbolism, but they said the markings alone are not reliable indicators of membership. They also cast doubt on Trump’s claims that the marijuana leaf represents an "M," the smiley face "S," the cross "1" and the skull "3.” Abrego Garcia has no criminal record and his family says he was never involved with a gang. He was deported and sent to El Salvador’s notorious mega-prison, designed to hold the most dangerous gang members, before being moved to another facility as his case attracted widespread attention. As legal efforts to bring him back to the U.S. continue, the Trump administration has cited Abrego Garcia’s finger tattoos as evidence of alleged MS-13 affiliation. Roberto Lovato, an assistant professor at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, whose memoir chronicled growing up in California during MS-13’s early years, said although symbols are "notoriously difficult to interpret," he does not believe Abrego Garcia’s tattoos are suggestive of MS-13 membership. Lovato also said current gang members he has spoken to do not believe Abrego Garcia’s tattoos represent MS-13.

CBS Boston [4/23/2025 6:30 PM, Staff, 51661K] Video: HERE reports three Massachusetts lawmakers have returned from Louisiana, where they met with a Tufts student being detained by ICE at a detention center, and said they will continue to fight for her release from prison. Sen. Ed Markey, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, and Rep. Jim McGovern visited a Louisiana ICE detention facility this week to advocate for the release of Rumeysa Ozturk. The international student, was taken into custody in Somerville by ICE last month. The federal government alleges that she supports Hamas. Her supporters and her attorneys, however, said her detention stems from an op-ed she co-authored in the Tufts student newspaper, which was critical of the university’s response to pro-Palestinian protests on campus. "Rumeysa has not committed any crime". "Rumeysa has not committed any crime," said Pressley. "She was abducted, kidnapped in broad daylight, simply for authoring an op-ed that this White House didn’t like.” Lawmakers met with Oztruk, who described the conditions inside the detention center. In one instance, she said she waited three days for toilet paper. "We let her know that along with many others, we have her back, we will have her back, and we’ll continue to fight for her release from prison," said Markey.

NPR [4/24/2025 4:22 AM, A Martínez, 29983K] reports a Russian biology researcher at Harvard Medical School tried returning to the U.S. from France two months. She’s been in a detention facility since and is fighting possible deportation. [Editorial note: consult audio at source link]

(B) Newsline [4/23/2025 1:39 PM, Staff] reports that a Russian scientist working at Harvard University is in ICE custody after federal authorities say that she knowingly smuggled illicit items into the US. She is currently in an ICE facility in Louisiana. ICE took Kseniia Petrova into custody back in February, detaining her at Logan International Airport after a trip to Paris. She awaits an immigration court hearing in the coming weeks. The Department of Homeland Security says agents identified messages on her phone exposing an alleged plot.

Yahoo News [4/23/2025 9:21 AM, Mark Reynolds, 430301K] reports that the case involved three men whom Cranston police referred to as Venezuelan nationals wanted on immigration detainers. They were accused of riding into Rhode Island from Connecticut to carry out brazen shoplifting schemes. The high-profile capture set up a local test of the government’s ability, under President Donald Trump, to follow through on the administration’s promises to detain and deport foreigners accused of committing crimes after entering the country illegally. In 2023, under President Joe Biden, the release of a Guatemalan man accused of child molestation and wanted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement drew some attention to levels of cooperation between Rhode Island entities and ICE. Each of the three men wanted by Cranston in the shoplifting case remained in detention by Monday, the 21st. Also in custody is a fourth man, who was accused of joining the trio in a felony-level retail theft at Providence Place, and who was arrested with them near the mall on April 7. Many of the accused shoplifters are in ICE custody after being arrested in Rhode Island. It appears three of the four men are now in the custody of ICE.

New York Times [4/24/2025 3:00 AM, Luis Ferré-Sadurní, 145325K] reports Nascimento Blair returned home in shackles. He landed in Jamaica in February, 21 years after he had abandoned the island, seated next to dozens of his countrymen who were also handcuffed. As he stepped off the plane at the seaside airport in Kingston and felt the scorching Caribbean sun of his youth, Mr. Blair, 46, was greeted with suspicion. Still dazed, he looked out of place. He had on the same winter clothes — a peacoat, turtleneck, gray suit and Chelsea boots — he had been wearing when U.S. immigration authorities had abruptly detained him on a frigid morning in New York City weeks earlier. He noticed his slightly Americanized accent as he sat through hours of interrogation by Jamaican authorities at the airport. And he felt like an outcast as Jamaican officials snapped his mug shot, took his fingerprints and asked about his past. “They don’t look at you like a Jamaican,” Mr. Blair said. “They look at you like a criminal.” Mr. Blair did not give them details about his past, an odyssey that began with a side hustle dealing marijuana in the New York suburbs as a 24-year-old Jamaican transplant, which led to a kidnapping conviction he disputed and a 15-year prison sentence he fulfilled. It was his criminal past that had gotten him deported from the United States, where he had been rebuilding his life and seeking redemption. He had earned two college degrees, started a trucking business, mentored people released from prison, cared for a fiancée with breast cancer, taken classes at Columbia University. None of it would stave off deportation: He was among the first few thousand immigrants scattered across the globe during the early days of President Trump’s deportation campaign. On paper, Mr. Blair fit the profile of the people Mr. Trump says he wants to deport: those with criminal backgrounds. In a statement, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security blamed the Biden administration for not deporting Mr. Blair sooner. But to Mr. Blair and his supporters, his life story was one of rehabilitation, nuanced and filled with qualities that they believe Mr. Trump’s deportation machine disregards as it flies out immigrants en masse.

FOX News [4/23/2025 9:53 AM, Adam Sabes, 46189K] reports that an illegal immigrant in Maryland was charged with murdering his girlfriend after her body was found in a forest outside of Washington, D.C. The Charles County Sheriff’s Office in Maryland announced Monday that 24-year-old Keycy Robinson Alexi Barrera-Rosa was charged with murder in the killing of his girlfriend, Lesbia Mileth Ramirez Guerra, 23, who was reported missing on March 31. Rosa’s uncle, Rolvin Eduardo Barrera-Barrera, 37, was charged as an accessory. Deputies said Guerra’s body was found on April 17 in a "heavily wooded area" of the forest just outside of Cedarville State Forest in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Her body was found buried, the officials added. Guerra was the mother to two young children, officials said. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said its agents arrested Barrera-Rosa on April 5 in La Plata, Maryland, saying he entered the country illegally and is originally from Guatemala. According to immigration officials, Barrera-Rosa and Barrera-Barrera were apprehended on April 10, 2019, near El Paso, Texas. They were served notices to appear before a Department of Justice immigration judge at the time. ICE placed an immigration detainer on Barrera-Barrera with the Charles County Detention Center after he was arrested. ICE said Barrera-Rosa is being held by the agency at its Farmville Detention Center in Farmville, Virginia, while he awaits extradition to the Charles County Detention Center for the murder charge.

Reported similarly:
New York Post [4/23/2025 10:37 AM, Emily Crane, 54903K]
Breitbart [4/23/2025 3:15 PM, John Binder, 2923K]
FOX News [4/23/2025 1:21 PM, Charles Critz, 46189K]

Washington Examiner [4/23/2025 11:46 AM, Luke Gentile, 2296K] reports that Border Czar Tom Homan said Wednesday that Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) should work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement if the senator wants greater safety for his state. Van Hollen, who has been fighting against the deportation of alleged MS-13 member Kilmar Abrego Garcia, released a statement regarding the murder of a Maryland mother at the suspected hands of an illegal immigrant from Guatemala. "I cannot imagine the grief and pain that the family of Ms. Guerra is feeling right now," Van Hollen said in a statement, according to Fox News’s America’s Newsroom. "My heart goes to them during this incredibly difficult time." @RealTomHoman has advice for @ChrisVanHollen after an illegal criminal was charged with killing a mother of two in Maryland: "If he wants more safety for the citizens of Maryland, then stop being a sanctuary state, work with ICE!" Homan ripped Van Hollen’s statement as "ridiculous." "If he wants more safety for the citizens of Maryland, then stop being a sanctuary state," Homan added. "Work with ICE. When you arrest a public safety threat that’s in the country illegally, work with ICE." "Let us in that jail so we can get them in a [safe and secure] jail rather than release them back in the public, which creates a public threat.” According to Homan, district court judges across the country who are trying to shut down ICE operations must also be addressed. "There’s a reason they’re district court judges. They’re not national judges," he said. "You got a district court in Colorado putting a national ban on our activities." "We got to get this to the Supreme Court as quick as possible. District court judges can’t overrule the president’s executive orders."

NewsMax [4/23/2025 3:32 PM, Michael Katz, 5000K] reports a Guatemalan in the U.S. illegally has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Ohio on charges he smuggled a teenage girl into the country and filed a false sponsorship application. Prosecutors accuse Juan Tiul Xi, 26, a Cleveland resident who entered the country illegally in 2023, of inducing a 14-year-old Guatemalan girl to enter the U.S. without legal permission and to use the identity of his sister as her alias, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Tuesday in a news release. The girl was placed with the Office of Refugee Resettlement because she was a minor at the border without a parent or guardian, and Tiul Xi allegedly applied to sponsor and gain custody of her. In September 2023, the office released the girl into Tiul Xi’s custody, believing she was his sister. Tiul Xi was charged Friday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio with encouraging or inducing illegal entry for financial gain, making a false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement, and aggravated identity theft. If convicted, he faces a maximum of 10 years in prison on the first count, five years in prison on the second count, and mandatory consecutive sentences of two years in prison on the third count. ‘‘The prior administration’s border policies created an environment that enabled human trafficking and allowed bad actors to take advantage of at-risk children,’’ Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. ‘‘We are committed to protecting children from the scourge of human trafficking and will not rest until we deliver justice for those who suffered during the border crisis.’’ Tiul Xi’s arrest was the result of an operation conducted by Joint Task Force Alpha, a partnership between the departments of Justice and Homeland Security, according to ICE.

Telemundo [4/23/2025 5:50 PM, Staff, 2454K] reports a Colombian man in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at a local jail in central Missouri died in early April, the agency reported. The man, Brayan Rayo-Garzón, died on April 8 after being found unconscious in the Phelps County Jail in Rolla, about 100 miles west of St. Louis. Rayo-Garzón was in ICE custody after an immigration judge ordered him deported to Colombia in June 2024, the agency said. ICE said he was previously arrested for shoplifting in 2024. The agency arrested him in March after another arrest for credit card fraud by the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, it said.

Yahoo News [4/23/2025 12:48 PM, Frank Witsil, 430301K] reports that a 32-year-old Venezuelan immigrant, Ricardo Prada Vásquez, reportedly went the wrong way while delivering a food order in January in Detroit, ended up crossing the Canadian border, was taken into custody by U.S. authorities, and deported. He was sent to El Salvador. "What we’re seeing is one wrong turn at the Detroit bridge — the Ambassador Bridge — can result in your loved one disappearing," Christine Sauve, the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center’s communications coordinator told the Free Press. "And that shouldn’t be the case.” There now appears to be scant official information about Prada, prompting an investigation by the New York Times, which first published details of his case on Tuesday under the headline "An Immigrant Held in U.S. Custody ‘Simply Disappeared.’ The Detroit case also suggests, the Times wrote, "a new level of disarray in the immigration system" and poses the question whether others are facing similar situations, forced to leave without much recourse. The reason for the information "black hole," the Immigrant Rights Center said, is that immigrants are being held at detention centers for days at a time, something that the system wasn’t set up to do, with limited tracking and oversight. What’s more, for immigrants seeking asylum through the CBP One — Customs and Border Protection — mobile app that allowed individuals to enter the United States before their claims were vetted, it appears to be a warning to avoid any mishaps.

FOX News [4/23/2025 9:36 PM, Louis Casiano, 430301K] reports Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker ordered the state to review any investments and business with El Salvador, a move that could lead to a boycott over the Central American nation’s assistance with the Trump administration in the deportation of criminal illegal migrants. In a statement, the Democratic governor said the move was in response to the administration’s defiance of court orders and the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a suspected MS-13 gang member with connections to human trafficking, who is being detained in El Salvador. "The United States Constitution guarantees due process. We are witnessing Donald Trump erode our fundamental Constitutional rights in real time, and we must fight to restore the balance of power," Pritzker said in a statement. "The State of Illinois will stand up for the Rule of Law and do everything in our power (to) stop the Trump Administration from ripping apart our most basic rights.” Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker announced several moves Wednesday aimed at a possible boycott of El Salvador. Pritzker said he was requesting the Illinois State Board of Investment, the State Universities Retirement System and the Teachers’ Retirement System to "identify any fund investments" that are wholly or partially managed, owned or controlled by the Salvadoran government or have ties to businesses in El Salvador. He also directed the Illinois Department of Central Management Services (CMS) to identify any state contracts awarded to companies with ties to the Latin American country. The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) Office of Trade and Investment has also been ordered to analyze trade between Illinois and El Salvador, including the scale and nature of imports and the extent to which goods produced in El Salvador are in the supply chain of products manufactured in Illinois. Pritzker’s order came as at least five Democrats have traveled to El Salvador with the intention of meeting with Abrego Garcia. Four of them were denied a meeting by the Salvadoran government.

WTVO [4/23/2025 6:14 PM, John Clark] reports the U.S. Department of Justice says Illinois released several noncitizen migrants who were later arrested for subsequent crimes, including homicide and sexual assault of children, as it makes the case for how the state’s laws obstruct federal immigration authorities. The DOJ filed a statement of material facts for its motion for summary judgment against Illinois’s sanctuary laws, arguing that the federal government has authority over immigration law and enforcement. In its filing, the DOJ said Illinois obstructs efforts by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to remove criminal aliens from the country. Illinois prevents local authorities from cooperating with U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) by way of the TRUST Act, the Way Forward Act, the Welcoming City Act, and a Cook County ordinance. The lawsuit claims those laws violate the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Yahoo News [4/23/2025 9:51 AM, Eva Wen, 430301K] reports that sgents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have arrested at least three people inside county courthouses in Milwaukee and Ozaukee County in recent weeks. The arrests — part of a broader national crackdown ordered by President Donald Trump — have alarmed immigration advocates and concerned many local officials, who say that clarification is needed around the extent of federal authority in local courtrooms. Since March, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have arrested at least two people at the Milwaukee County Courthouse. A third person was arrested by ICE agents at the Ozaukee County Courthouse. The arrests at the Milwaukee County Courthouse took place on March 20 and April 3. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel identified the two people arrested as Mexican citizen Marco Cruz-Garcia, 24, and Nicaraguan citizen Edwin Bustamante-Sierra, 27. Cruz-Garcia was charged in a misdemeanor domestic abuse incident. Bustamante-Sierra was facing felony charges of recklessly endangering safety and reckless use of a firearm, as well as a misdemeanor cocaine possession charge. Neither had been convicted yet. The arrest at the Ozaukee County Courthouse took place on April 17. The identity of the person who was arrested is unknown.

Yahoo News [4/23/2025 11:14 AM, Marissa Brunkhorst, 430301K] reports that former South Dakota governor and now DHS Secretary Kristi Noem will be a commencement speaker at Dakota State University’s graduation ceremony on May 10. A news release from the school said Dakota State extended an invitation to Noem while she was serving as governor of South Dakota. "She was asked to share remarks with DSU’s graduates based on her distinguished and ground-breaking career in public service, and her many efforts to support the citizens of the state of South Dakota and the nation," the release said. Noem championed the development of DSU’s cyber-security programs and facilities, signing SB 45 that funded a multimillion dollar Center for Quantum Information Science and Technology, to be built at DSU during her second term as governor. Tickets are required for general admission bleacher seating in the Fieldhouse; overflow seating will be available in Dakota Prairie Playhouse.

Telemundo52 [4/23/2025 4:47 PM, Balbino Avilés and Clara Ramirez, 101K] reports ten day laborers were arrested Tuesday during an operation in Pomona, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed to Telemundo 52 Los Angeles. According to the statement, DHS agents "conducted an operation in Pomona targeting an undocumented immigrant with an outstanding arrest warrant." However, upon finding other undocumented immigrants in the Home Depot parking lot, they proceeded to arrest them. "During the operation, nine more undocumented immigrants were found and detained," they reported. The DHS spokesperson also stated that "several of those arrested had criminal records, including child abuse, assault with a deadly weapon, immigration violations, and driving under the influence." The identities of those detained have not yet been revealed; however, some of their relatives and activists spoke about the tense moment they experienced on Tuesday and that they still do not know where they are.

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Univision [4/23/2025 3:43 PM, Staff, 5325K] r

CBS News [4/23/2025 6:52 PM, Tim Fang, 51661K] reports a federal judge on Wednesday heard a challenge brought by the city of San Francisco and other local jurisdictions to President Trump’s crackdown on "sanctuary city" policies. District Judge William Orrick of the Northern District of California heard arguments at a hearing that took place Wednesday afternoon in San Francisco. The city and nearly a dozen other local governments from across the country are suing the administration. The plaintiffs are seeking a preliminary injunction blocking Mr. Trump from enforcing executive orders that seek to stop federal funding to cities that limit local cooperation with federal immigration agents — commonly known as "sanctuary cities.” Officials in San Francisco and Santa Clara County, California, initially filed the lawsuit on Feb. 7. Since then, several other California cities, along with Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, joined the complaint. "They want to commandeer local police officers as federal ICE agents, while strong-arming local officials with threats of withholding federal funds that support our police department, our efforts to address homelessness, and our public health system," San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu said in a statement ahead of Wednesday’s hearing. "As we have seen, the Trump Administration has now deported someone by error, and ICE agents have unlawfully arrested United States citizens.”

FOX News [4/23/2025 3:21 PM, Peter Pinedo, 46189K] reports ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) partnered with a special law enforcement unit of the government of Mexico to arrest a criminal boss affiliated with the Sinaloa Cartel known simply as "440." The man arrested by Mexican authorities, Ivan Fernando Zepeda Leyva, is an associate of the Sinaloa Cartel, a member of the "Los Demonios" criminal group and the leader of the drug plazas in Nogales and Imuris in the Mexican state of Sonora, which spans the entire U.S.-Mexico border with Arizona. According to a statement posted on social media by ICE, Zepeda Leyva was arrested by a specially vetted team with the Mexican Secretariat of Security and Civilian Protection and Secretariat of the Navy in collaboration with HSI on April 19. ICE said Zepeda Leyva’s arrest marked a "major milestone in combating illegal drug trafficking and racketeering through U.S.-Mexican law enforcement cooperation."

San Francisco Chronicle [4/23/2025 7:00 AM, Ko Lyn Cheang, 5046K] reports federal immigration authorities have started issuing notices to some H-1B visa applicants alleging that they have found "potentially adverse information" about them and requiring them to submit biometric data to process their applications, two immigration attorneys told the Chronicle. This extra layer of vetting was previously unheard of in most employment-based visa petitions, immigration attorneys said. These notices have caused delays in visa processing and worried attorneys who question whether proper procedure is being followed. Biometrics data, which involves fingerprinting and a facial photo capture, is typically collected in-person at a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office. Sharvari Dalal-Dheini, the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s senior director of government relations, said several attorneys have reached out to say their clients received these notices in the past couple of days. The association is conducting a survey to understand how widespread it is. She said it’s unusual for such notices — called requests for evidence — to be issued without any details about what that "adverse information" is or offering applicants a chance to defend themselves, as is required under U.S. immigration regulations. Adverse information can be the basis for denying a visa application. It’s unclear if any of the notices have targeted Bay Area H-1B applicants but companies in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley, including Google and Meta, employ H-1B visa holders in large numbers, most commonly as software engineers, a recent Chronicle analysis found. The Bay Area has the second-most approved applications of any metro area, after New York, another Chronicle analysis showed. Until recently, such notices in employment-based visa cases were infrequent and to her knowledge, not typically accompanied by a request for an address or biometrics data collection, Dalal-Dheini said. "A lot of this doesn’t add up," she added. She said there’s concern that H-1B visa holders applying for renewal or to change employers may be subject to the same treatment that international students have experienced in recent weeks, with at least 1,400 international students facing termination of their immigration status without being given a specific reason or chance to defend themselves. A spokesperson for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which adjudicates visa petitions and issued these notices, told the Chronicle in an email that the agency is "increasing the screening and vetting of all aliens filing for immigration benefits and reserves the right to request additional information and conduct additional security checks at any point in the immigration lifecycle" as part of "the Trump Administration’s commitment to restoring integrity to our immigration system.” The spokesperson added that collecting biometric data is a necessary part of national security, public safety and mitigating fraud. The agency did not respond to specific questions about what kind of adverse information is considered and whether applicants will receive a chance to defend themselves before a decision is rendered.

NewsNation [4/23/2025 9:19 AM, Brooke Shafer, 6866K] reports that some Republican-led states are taking their immigration crackdowns to the streets as lawmakers attempt to put the brakes on issuing driver’s licenses to noncitizens. In more than a dozen states and the District of Columbia, an individual can obtain a driver’s license no matter their immigration status. While citizenship documentation will soon be required to obtain a REAL ID for domestic flights, hitting the highway with an out-of-state driver’s license doesn’t require those documents in 19 territories. Which states are trying to ban noncitizens from driver’s licenses? Some states with Republican governors are choosing not to recognize driver’s licenses issued to undocumented immigrants, with legislation in place or in progress in at least nine states. They include New Hampshire, Tennessee, Montana, Alabama, Wyoming, Oklahoma, North Dakota, South Carolina and Florida. Some Republican lawmakers, like Alabama Sen. Chris Elliott, see these moves as a message. Elliott has suggested his state erect an unwelcome sign that suggests immigrants "turn around and go somewhere else."

Minnesota Star Tribune [4/23/2025 6:57 PM, Jp Lawrence and Sarah Nelson] reports a federal judge has ordered the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to temporarily restore the visas for five international graduates from Concordia University in St. Paul after the group filed a lawsuit challenging the termination of their student statuses. The decision on Tuesday marks the latest small victory for the growing number of international students enrolled in Minnesota universities who are fighting their deportations in the courts. In the past week, two judges issued separate orders requiring the federal government to temporarily reinstate student statuses for two international students after the men, from Metropolitan State University in St. Paul and the University of Minnesota, filed separate lawsuits. Also, on Tuesday, a federal judge issued a temporary order preventing a detained Minnesota State University, Mankato student from being transferred out of the state. Nationwide, international students have filed lawsuits and won small victories in Wisconsin, Oregon and Ohio. In one of the larger cases, a restraining order from a judge in Georgia on Friday halted the deportation of 133 students, after a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union. “The American Civil Liberties Union appears far more interested in protecting foreign students than the civil liberties and safety of Americans. They should consider changing their name,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement Wednesday. “It is a privilege to be granted a visa to live & study in the United States of America,” the emailed statement said. “When you break our laws and advocate for violence and terrorism that privilege should be revoked and you should not be in this country.”

CBS Miami [4/23/2025 6:41 PM, Briauna Brown, 51661K] Video: HERE reports a 49-year-old man was arrested for falsely portraying himself as an immigration lawyer following an undercover sting operation in Hialeah, police said. According to the arrest affidavit, the investigation into Rafael Moreno began after he had a meeting with a victim in March 2025, which she said left her questioning his status as a professional practicing lawyer. On March 9, a woman traveled from Alabama, where she lives, to meet with Moreno in South Florida after a man in a grocery store sold her Moreno’s business card, claiming Moreno was a licensed immigration lawyer and would help her and her husband with asylum applications, the arrest affidavit said. When the woman arrived at Moreno’s office in the 1600 block of Palm Avenue, in Hialeah, Moreno allegedly represented himself as an attorney and offered her legal services for a fee of $170. The woman told authorities that Moreno also prepared and notarized her husband’s immigration documents without her husband being there, which made her suspicious of Moreno. After preparing the documents for the victim and her husband, Moreno allegedly told her to return in September 2025 with an additional $450 to continue the process of asylum, the affidavit stated.

Yahoo News [4/23/2025 12:24 PM, Rachel Van Gilder, 430301K] reports that a judge has told the federal government to put three Western Michigan University international students back into a database that tracks their enrollment status. U.S. District Court Judge Jane Beckering issued a temporary restraining order dated Wednesday telling Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to put the students’ information back in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System and keep it there "absent a valid ground for termination of nonimmigrant status" as set forth by law. The order also told the federal government it may not arrest, detain or move the students out of the jurisdictions they are already in without telling the court first. The judge said the students may not be deported based on their SEVIS status. The three WMU students are among 10 at various universities in Michigan and elsewhere that filed the federal lawsuit, saying the government unlawfully terminated their status in SEVIS. According to a redacted complaint sent to News 8, the reason government officials stated for terminating that status in an email was "OTHERWISE FAILING TO MAINTAIN STATUS: Individual identified in criminal records check and/or has had their VISA revoked." Last week, WMU leaders shared that six students so far had their SEVIS status terminated, with one student’s visa revoked that the university is aware of.

New York Times [4/23/2025 6:31 PM, Ernesto Londoño, 145325K] reports recent videos on social media showing immigration agents taking people into custody unnerved Aditya Harsono, who had himself come to this country from Indonesia on a student visa. But he said he presumed that the media was probably exaggerating the extent of the Trump administration’s actions. His understanding shifted in late March, though, when a supervisor at the hospital where he was working in western Minnesota summoned him downstairs, and two federal agents put him in handcuffs. The Trump administration’s decision to revoke more than 1,500 student visas in recent weeks has raised concern at college campuses across the country. Few of the students being held have spoken publicly about their situations. But Mr. Harsono, 34, described in phone interviews from the jail where he has been held for weeks the shock of his arrest and the way that his visa revocation has upended his family. And his wife, Peyton Harsono, told of difficulties she now faces taking care of their 8-month-old daughter, Adalet, while working as a social worker at a drug-treatment center. The State Department revoked Mr. Harsono’s visa at the request of officials at the Department of Homeland Security, according to a memo from March 23 signed by John Armstrong, a career diplomat. The 2022 property damage arrest, the memo said, showed that Mr. Harsono “now poses a threat to U.S. public safety.”

Iowa City Press-Citizen [4/23/2025 11:05 AM, Ryan Hansen, 4K] reports four international University of Iowa students are suing the federal government for using the country’s non-resident student information system as a "weapon" of immigration enforcement, claiming that it cancelled their student visas without explanation. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa on April 21 against the Department of Homeland Security, the department’s Secretary Kristi Noem, and Todd Lyons, the Acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The lawsuit filed by four unnamed students and backed by the University of Iowa’s Federal Impact Litigation Clinic, accuses the government of "unlawful" use of SEVIS, the federal government’s Student and Exchange Visitor Information System. The lawsuit says the SEVIS system is meant to monitor and provide "oversight and compliance of international student visas," not as a "discretionary enforcement tool or weapon of immigration policy." By ridding the individuals of their student status, the government has "created (a) pretext for future adverse immigration actions against them," including deportation, the lawsuit noted. The four individuals "are now experiencing intense mental and financial suffering because they cannot continue with their studies and fear being detained and removed if they do so," according to the lawsuit.

Axios [4/23/2025 7:20 AM, Jason Clayworth, 13163K] reports Afghan refugees in Iowa are receiving emails that appear to come from the federal government ordering them to leave the country immediately, a local advocacy group tells Axios. The notices have sown fear and confusion among Iowa’s Afghan community, many of whom believe that returning to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan would result in their torture and death, Shir Agha Safi, executive director of Afghan Partners in Iowa, tells Axios. Afghan refugees began receiving emails from the Department of Homeland Security this month notifying them that their immigration status had been terminated and they must leave the U.S. immediately, Safi said. "It is time for you to leave the United States," the notice’s first sentence says. It later warns of detention, loss of work authorization, and possible prosecution if they remain in the U.S. "Do not attempt to remain in the United States — the federal government will find you," an April 6 email obtained by Axios that was sent to an Afghan refugee living in DSM concluded. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2023 extended deportation protections for Afghan refugees who fled their homes after the U.S. withdrew its forces from Afghanistan in 2021. More than 900 resettled in Iowa, with local organizations teaming up to help them navigate a confusing and arduous process to gain permanent residency. Many of the roughly 200 people in Iowa who have received notices are not just Afghan refugees but former soldiers who fought alongside U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Safi said. Safi believes the notices were likely sent to email addresses provided to a government app that was used to help process refugee applications several years ago. Karen Everling, executive director of the World Grace Project in Waterloo, tells Axios she’s also aware of several Venezuelan and Haitian refugees who have received similar notices to email addresses provided in the app. Similar DHS notices have been reported in other parts of the country, including North Carolina and Utah, as the federal government moves to close the chapter on temporary Afghan parole.

Yahoo News [4/23/2025 6:15 PM, John Hult, 430301K] reports at least 10 international students at South Dakota’s public universities have reported their visas canceled this year, according to the South Dakota Board of Regents. Two other reported cancellations were for former students in a program that allows student visa holders to work temporarily in jobs directly related to their field of study. A visa is a document showing a foreigner’s permission to visit, work or study in the country. Board of Regents spokeswoman Shuree Mortenson did not identify which of the state’s six public institutions the students attended. A Dakota State University spokeswoman told South Dakota Searchlight, however, that no visa cancellations have been reported by any of the Madison school’s 198 international students. The public has been privy to the details in just one of the cases, that of Indian doctoral candidate Priya Saxena. She sued Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem to prevent any action that would block Saxena from collecting her Ph.D. in chemical and biological engineering on May 10 from South Dakota Mines. Last week, U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier ordered DHS to reinstate Saxena’s student status and leave her be, at least until the judge makes a call on whether to issue a further-reaching preliminary injunction in the case. On the day Saxena would collect her degree at Mines, Noem will deliver the commencement speech at DSU. A news release from the school, sent Wednesday morning, notes that Noem was extended the invitation to speak while she was still governor of South Dakota, a position she vacated to lead DHS. Saxena’s plight was one of the motivations for about 25 people who demonstrated Wednesday outside City Hall in Rapid City, as part of a protest led by Indivisible Rapid City to "call attention to the increasing disregard for basic constitutional protections — especially the right to due process, which applies to all people, not just U.S. citizens.” Demonstrator Pat Braun held a sign referencing student visa holders and said she is upset that Saxena was targeted. "It’s so ill-informed, so mean-spirited, so ugly," Braun said. The cancellations in South Dakota are among a crush of visa-policing actions taken by the Trump administration as part of a wider push to tighten immigration enforcement, including an uptick in arrests and deportations of undocumented immigrants.

Yahoo News [4/23/2025 8:03 PM, Vicente Arenas, 430301K] reports that, on any given day, even before sunrise, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents say they are on the streets preparing to make arrests in Denver. FOX31 had asked ICE for a ride-along so our crew could witness how agents make arrests. The agency granted that request and allowed FOX31 reporter Vicente Arenas and photographer Eugene Bergman to travel with them as they made arrests on Tuesday morning. Our crew first went to a pre-dawn briefing and a stakeout in Westminster. A short while later, agents were arresting a 50-year-old year old man, an ICE Spokesman said had a criminal history and 6 previous removals to Mexico. "A lot of man-hours go into this. You can see the number of agents it takes to make one arrest," ICE Field Office Director Robert Guadian said. Our crews saw about 20 agents at one location. Other federal agencies were also present. Most of the officers were working undercover. We then moved on to an apartment complex in Aurora. One undocumented immigrant with what ICE says is a criminal history was caught, but another person got away. "This is a great example of why we need to conduct transfers of these prisoners in a safe, secure setting like a jail," Guadian said. Our crew then went to the ICE Field office in Centennial, where undocumented immigrants are taken shortly after being arrested. A handcuffed 31-year-old man from Mexico was brought in by agents. An ICE spokesperson said the man had a final order of removal along with state criminal convictions. FOX31 is then allowed to see where the undocumented immigrants are processed. Denver’s Field Office Director Robert Guadian says ICE agents have already arrested more immigrants this fiscal year than the previous year. Agents, he said, go after the worst first, referring to a number of men being held in a secure section at ICE’s Field Office. "Everyone in this holding room were targets, targeted law enforcement operations that ICE was undertaking. These people were known to us. Their addresses were known to us. Their crimes were known to us. They were targeted law enforcement operations," Guadian said. Guadian says there are now plans to establish another ICE holding facility in Hudson by the end of the year to help handle the increase in arrests. FOX31 is told the new facility will have at least as many beds as the more than 1,500 beds in the existing Aurora ICE Facility. Agents expect to continue making a large number of arrests of immigrants they say are a threat to public safety.

Yahoo News [4/23/2025 11:05 PM, Noah Alcala Bach, 430301K] reports a New Mexico Tech student from Ghana has sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement after having his student visa revoked. The 38-year-old Ph.D. student, who appears to be the only student at New Mexico Tech to have their visa revoked, was not made available for an interview and was not named in court documents by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, which is representing the student in the lawsuit filed Wednesday. He instead is listed under the alias K.O.D. The lawsuit seeks to reinstate his student visa and allow him to continue his studies at New Mexico Tech. Nine students at New Mexico State University have had their visas revoked, and several University of New Mexico students have also had their visas terminated, though the university has declined multiple requests to specify a number. New Mexico Tech confirmed one student had their visa revoked earlier in the month but did not respond to an inquiry Wednesday on whether that number has grown. The suit comes during a month in which the Trump administration revoked thousands of student visas at universities across the country as it aims to fulfill a long-standing campaign promise to tighten up the nation’s immigration policies. Other ACLU chapters across the country are filing lawsuits on behalf of the students who’ve had visas pulled. While it appeared initially that many of the international students had their visas revoked for reasons ranging from minor crimes to participation in campus protests against the war in Gaza, K.O.D maintains a spotless record on both fronts, according to his attorney, Shayne Huffman. "He’s never been convicted of a crime, he’s never even had a traffic citation since he’s lived in the United States," Huffman told the Journal on Wednesday. "As far as I can tell, he doesn’t really have strong opinions about anything the government is doing, at least with respect to the Israel-Gaza situation. We’re at a loss truly about how or why our client was targeted.” The lawsuit states K.O.D’s visa was revoked for "unknown and unspecified reasons" and that his chances of finishing his research are in "severe jeopardy" because of the decision to "abruptly terminate" his visa. K.O.D is studying and working as a research assistant at New Mexico Tech’s main campus in Socorro to get his Ph.D. in petroleum engineering, and Huffman hopes he can keep his client working and in good spirits. "He’s co-authored academic research papers, he’s presented at professional conferences in the field of energy," Huffman said. "That has a direct impact on New Mexico, has a direct impact on the country, and he’s advancing research in the sciences in an area that actually does impact us.”

Univision [4/23/2025 1:01 PM, Staff, 5325K] reports that Hialeah police reported the arrest of Rafael Moreno, 49, who is accused of posing as an immigration attorney and defrauding a person who had traveled from Alabama to obtain his services. According to the arrest report, on or about Sunday, March 9, 2025, the victim traveled by car from Alabama, where he currently resides, to the defendant’s office, located at 1625 Palm Avenue in Hialeah, Florida. The victim traveled to Moreno’s office after an unidentified man approached him at a grocery store in Hialeah and sold his business card to a relative of the victim for $500. The unidentified man informed the victim’s relative that the defendant was a licensed immigration attorney who would provide legal assistance with asylum applications. The victim then traveled to the office of the defendant, Rafael Moreno. Once the victim arrived at the office, the defendant represented himself as an attorney and offered her legal services related to an asylum application (Form I-589) in exchange for a fee. The victim paid the defendant $170, believing him to be a licensed attorney. She further stated that the defendant prepared and notarized all of her husband’s immigration documents without him being present, which made her suspicious as to whether the defendant was a real attorney. On April 7, 2025, the victim filed a complaint with the Hialeah Police Department, concerned about Moreno’s legal status. During the investigation, authorities contacted the Florida Bar and determined that the defendant does not hold an active license in the state of Florida to practice law. Furthermore, the Florida Supreme Court had issued a permanent injunction on December 16, 2024, prohibiting the defendant from practicing law without a license.

New Mexico Political Report [4/23/2025 4:55 PM, Kevin Hendricks] reports less than a month after students at least three universities in New Mexico had their student visas revoked by the U.S. Department of State, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico announced one of those students has filed a lawsuit challenging the termination of his F-1 student status. According to the ACLU, a Ghanaian doctoral student at New Mexico Tech, identified as “K.O.D.,” has filed an emergency lawsuit in U.S. District Court. The suit names Kristi Noem, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and Todd Lyons, Acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as defendants. The ACLU of New Mexico and Huffman Wallace & Monagle LLC are representing K.O.D., who discovered on April 9 that his immigration status had been terminated without notice or explanation. “The law is clear that this man is entitled to the same basic dignity and due process that any of us in this country would expect for ourselves or our loved ones,” Shayne Huffman of Huffman Wallace & Monagle LLC said. “When the government yanks away someone’s future without warning or explanation, that’s not just unfair—it’s un-American. International students like K.O.D. aren’t just names on a visa form—they’re our neighbors, our researchers, our community members.” The lawsuit challenges DHS’ actions that have affected not only K.O.D. but hundreds of international students nationwide, including many at New Mexico’s universities.

Yahoo News [4/23/2025 10:27 PM, Trevor Myers, 430301K] reports that was the opening line of an email sent to Carlos Trujillo — a naturalized U.S. citizen working as an immigration lawyer in Salt Lake City — on April 11, ordering him to self-deport within seven days. "I know the laws of this country," Trujillo told ABC4.com. "I am not leaving. I am not deportable. But I do want everybody to know that these kinds of things are happening.” Trujillo said the "threatening language" of the email bothered him. Trujillo encouraged the immigrant community to be aware of the changes in the laws and to know their rights. He said many people who received the email are in the country under legal circumstances. Trujillo isn’t the only one across the nation receiving letters from the Department of Homeland Security saying it’s time for them to leave — a similar email was sent to hundreds of thousands of people across the United States. The Associated Press reported it was "an apparent glitch" in the Trump Administration’s move to end a Biden-era policy that allowed people to live and work in the country temporarily. However, Trujillo came to the U.S. about 24 years ago, and has been a naturalized U.S. citizen for roughly a decade. "I have gone through all the processes that I needed to go through to become a naturalized citizen," Trujillo said. "And I have been around my community and the needs that they have, and that’s kind of why I decided to be there for them and help them out in this journey.” Trujillo told ABC4.com that he has been an attorney for about 13 years, and has been specializing in immigration law with Trujillo Acosta Law for about 11 years. "I don’t want to believe or draw conclusions that this is something personal against me or because of the work that I do with the community," Trujillo said. "It’s just simply a mistake.” Trujillo said Utah has "very respectful" judges and officers involved with immigration cases, but much of the recent guidance over immigration status has come from the national level. "We’re seeing all these uniform characterizations that make no sense because our communities are diverse," Trujillo said. "Our communities are… respectful of the law. Our communities are hardworking people.” "The laws do not require a person to self-report, or to self-deport. You don’t have to buy a plane ticket," immigration attorney Christopher Vizcardo said. "You have to have a deportation order from a judge for you to leave the United States. And 98% of the people that were in this program are not in that boat.” Vizcardo works at Trujillo Acosta Law and said the emails are being sent as a "fear tactic." He advised those who get similar emails not to panic and talk about what legal options they may have. "The government promises that people that would be deported would be those that would be a danger to our society," Vizcardo said. "And instead, they seem to be deporting anyone and everyone.”

FOX News [4/23/2025 10:45 AM, Anders Hagstrom, 46189K] reports that Colombian President Gustavo Petro claims President Donald Trump’s administration has revoked his travel visa to the U.S. this week. Petro made the announcement at a cabinet meeting, responding to questions about whether he would attend meetings with international organizations in Washington, D.C. later this year. "I can no longer go because I believe they took away my visa," Petro told reporters. "I didn’t need to have one, but anyway, I’ve already seen Donald Duck several times, so I’ll go see other things," Petro added. The State Department has refused to comment on the topic due to the confidentiality of visa records, according to the New York Post. Petro’s claim comes months after he caved to Trump after initially refusing to accept deportation flights from the U.S. military. Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem also traveled to Colombia in late March to meet with her counterpart there, Foreign Minister Laura Sarabia. Noem said that she had a "candid" conversation with Sarabia, and the pair later jointly announced a data-sharing agreement that would help U.S. authorities identify illegal immigrants. "We’re going to strengthen our regional security systems and make sure that we’re disrupting the movement of threatening actors that perpetuate illegal activity and also facilitate illegal trafficking of migrants across the Western Hemisphere," Noem said at the time. "Through this expansion of sharing of biometric data, it will be much more efficient, effective, accurate, and it will also build cooperation that will open doors to new ways that we can continue to work together," she added.

Los Angeles Times [4/23/2025 6:00 AM, Andrea Castillo, 13342K] reports that, one night this month, Los Angeles immigration attorney Harriet Steele opened her email to a notice from the Department of Homeland Security. “It is time for you to leave the United States,” it read. Steele was confused — and concerned. She is a U.S. citizen born in Los Angeles, but worried the email was meant for a client. The email, which she received at 9:41 p.m. Pacific time April 10, was a notice of termination of parole, a humanitarian form of legal entry that was significantly expanded under the Biden administration. Under President Trump’s mass deportation agenda, his administration has targeted people who entered the country legally, in addition to those who entered illegally. This month, the Trump administration revoked the legal status and work authorization of migrants who entered the U.S. using the Biden-era border appointment app. More than 900,000 people were paroled into the country under that program, though with asylum and other legal pathways, it’s unclear how many parole beneficiaries are affected by the Trump administration’s action. The administration also revoked another form of parole, for more than 500,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who flew to the U.S. at their own expense. But a federal judge halted those terminations last week. As for emails telling people to leave the country, the Department of Homeland Security said in an emailed statement that U.S. Customs and Border Protection used each immigrant’s known email address to send such notifications. “If a non-personal email — such as an American citizen contact — was provided by the alien, notices may have been sent to unintended recipients,” the statement reads. “CBP is monitoring communications and will address any issues on a case-by-case basis.”

Reported similarly:
NewsMax [4/23/2025 8:31 AM, Charlie McCarthy, 4998K]

Washington Post [4/23/2025 6:02 PM, Maria Sacchetti, 31735K] reports Wyden said in the letter that Scott is accused in international human rights proceedings of having signed an administrative subpoena for Hernandez’s medical records, which internal watchdogs said was a possibly illegal intrusion into an active investigation into his agency. In addition, the letter said, a CBP investigative unit "took full control of the crime scene" after Hernandez was taken to the hospital, waited 12 hours to alert the FBI, and did not immediately report the incident to the local police. When police asked for video footage, the field office sent the wrong recording and allowed the incident to be taped over, he wrote. Wyden, the ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee that will consider his nomination at a hearing on April 30, called the accusations "deeply troubling." CBP is the nation’s largest law-enforcement agency, with more than 60,000 personnel, including sworn officers and agents, responsible for safeguarding the nation’s ports and borders while facilitating travel and trade. In the letter, Wyden asked Noem to provide by April 28 several unpublished reports into the death, including by the DHS inspector general and the CBP team that took control of the crime scene, and to detail Scott’s actions during the internal investigation, including his role and why he issued an administrative subpoena to obtain Hernandez’s medical records. Hernandez, 42, a father of five who spent most of his life in the United States, had been deported for allegedly trying to shoplift groceries, according to a PBS documentary. He was apprehended after attempting to reenter the country illegally to return to his family. Federal officials said he became agitated and fought with agents when they tried to return him to Mexico via a port of entry in San Diego County.

Breitbart [4/23/2025 1:08 PM, Lucas Nolan, 2923K] reports that a letter signed by 29 Republican state attorneys general urges the Trump administration to crack down on the flood of illegal Chinese vaping products in the United States. The state AGs believe only a "coordinated national effort" can combat the plague of Chinese vapes aimed at American teenagers. The Washington Reporter reports that the letter is addressed to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Homeland Security Adviser Stephen Miller, Homeland Security head Kristi Noem, FBI director Kash Patel, Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and others. "Illegal, flavored Chinese e-cigarettes are flooding the U.S. market in flagrant disregard of State and federal laws. The products have never been approved by the FDA and target America’s youth," say the state attorneys general. "While we are doing our best to fight the problem in the States, its nature and scope are international. President Trump can secure our borders against this influx of dangerous products and hold China accountable for preying on American youth. " The Republican attorneys general say that only a "coordinated national effort," including the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Food and Drug Administration among others can stem the tide of black market Chinese vapes. The remedies recommended by the state attorneys general include giving Customs and Border Protection (CBP) independent seizure power over illegal tobacco products, and permitting DHS to seize, block, and destroy illicit tobacco products like e-cigarettes at the border.

New York Post [4/23/2025 4:47 PM, Jennie Taer, 5100K] reports an alleged gangbanger deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador’s hellhole megaprison was previously booted from the US before the Biden regime ultimately let him in using the CBP One phone application, sources told The Post. Venezuelan migrant Andry Hernandez Romero, 31, was hauled off to El Salvador in March with a group of 260 other reputed gangbangers after President Trump invoked the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act to deport them without a hearing. He first made his way into the US by crossing the southern border into Texas in July 2024, but was quickly expelled before he showed up again the next month, according to sources. By August that year, Romero found his way to California, where he entered the US using the since-shuttered CBP One phone application program. The Trump administration shut down the CBP One entry function for migrants on Inauguration Day and later created the CBP Home app to give illegal migrants the option to self-deport from the US. The Venezuelan citizen fled his home country after he was targeted for being gay and having certain political views, his attorneys said. He worked in Venezuela at the state-run TV station as a makeup artist for on-air talent, according to CBS News. “And the government had found that his threats against him were credible and that he had a real probability of winning an asylum claim,” Lindsay Toczylowski, Hernandez Romero’s lawyer, said. Immigration agents tagged Hernandez Romero as an alleged Tren de Aragua gangbanger based on his two crown tattoos. But Toczylowski claimed that the tattoos honored his parents. However, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin claimed that the agency’s “intelligence assessments go well beyond just gang affiliate tattoos.” “This man’s own social media indicates he is a member of Tren de Aragua.

Yahoo News [4/23/2025 7:24 AM, Staff, 430301K] reports that U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents detained eight workers from a Vermont dairy farm, Migrant Justice reports. The organization says that this group was detained by armed agents in Franklin County Monday afternoon. They are currently being held at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in Swanton. ABC22/FOX44 later confirmed that this incident occurred at Pleasant Valley Farms, which is owned by the family of Jamie St. Pierre, husband to local Olympic athlete Ellie St. Pierre. In an email to ABC22/FOX44, Pleasant Valley owner Amanda St. Pierre said the business does not know "the details or reasons at this time.” "On April 21, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents detained several of our employees. We do not know the details or reasons at this time. We have cooperated fully with their instructions. Our employees were hired following the federal and state employment requirements. We remain supportive of our employees and appreciative of the valuable role they play in our community performing essential work on our farm. We hope this matter is resolved quickly.” Vermont Governor Phil Scott released a statement Tuesday, and noted that his team is working to learn the "circumstances and facts". He also noted that President Donald Trump and Congress need to pass comprehensive immigration reform.

Latin Times [4/23/2025 1:54 PM, Pedro Camacho, 817K] reports U.S. troops have been authorized to temporarily detain and search migrants within a designated area of New Mexico, marking a new phase in the military’s involvement at the U.S.-Mexico border. According to the U.S. Northern Command (Northcom), this is the first time that service members "have been delegated the authority" to conduct security support operations in the New Mexico National Defense Area, a zone that runs along the southern border. "Through these enhanced authorities, U.S. Northern Command will ensure those who illegally trespass in the New Mexico National Defense Area are handed over to Customs and Border Protection or our other law enforcement partners," Northcom Commander Gen. Gregory Guillot said in a statement, The Hill reported. The decision follows President Donald Trump’s April 11 order transferring control of the Roosevelt Reservation, a federally owned strip of land running along the border in New Mexico, from the Department of the Interior to the Department of Defense for a period of three years. The land is now part of an Army installation associated with Fort Huachuca in Arizona, allowing military personnel to conduct security operations typically reserved for law enforcement.

CBS News [4/23/2025 10:24 AM, Nidia Cavazos, 52225K] reports a 19-year-old U.S. citizen arrested by Customs and Border Protection agents earlier this month in Arizona and briefly prosecuted for illegal entry into the U.S. has intellectual disabilities, his family told CBS News. Jose Hermosillo was arrested on April 8 by CBP in Tucson and detained for 10 days. His family provided documentation proving his American citizenship, days after being taken into custody, according to court records and Department of Homeland Security assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security argued his arrest, which has attracted national attention, was a "direct result of his own actions and statements." A DHS spokesperson said Hermosillo approached a Border Patrol agent, said he had entered the U.S. illegally and identified himself as a Mexican citizen. The department also posted a copy of Hermosillo’s sworn statement on X in which Hermosillo responded "yes" when asked if he had entered the U.S. illegally. The document shows a child-like signature that reads "Jose." In a phone interview Tuesday, Hermosillo’s parents told CBS News their son suffers from intellectual disabilities, cannot read or write and has trouble speaking. They said he could not have possibly known what he was signing when he was detained. "He’s never been able to read and was always in special education classes in school," Guadalupe Hermosillo, Hermosillo’s mother, said in Spanish. According to his family, Hermosillo lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but was in Tucson earlier this month visiting his girlfriend’s family. He left his girlfriend’s relative’s home and wandered away during the night, and it was during this walk that Hermosillo was detained by CBP, his parents said. Details of the arrest remain unclear. The initial April 9 criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in Arizona by a Border Patrol agent says Hermosillo was found "at or near Nogales, Arizona without the proper immigration documents." The document referred to Hermosillo as an "alien" and charged him with "improper entry," a misdemeanor offense.

FOX News [4/23/2025 8:00 AM, Breanne Deppisch, 46189K] reports the Department of Homeland Security in May will begin implementing REAL ID requirements for U.S. travelers for the first time, a move that comes as the administration looks to act on some of President Donald Trump’s top policy priorities, including its crackdown on illegal immigration and border security. The enhanced ID requirements are slated to take effect May 7 and will apply to all U.S. travelers over the age of 18. The law establishing REAL IDs isn’t new: Congress first passed the REAL ID Act in 2005 in an effort to crack down on identity verification in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and set "minimum security standards" for state-issued driver’s licenses and identification cards. But after 20 years of slow-walking the law’s enforcement, the abrupt timing of the May 7 enforcement is likely to catch many Americans flat-footed. Just how necessary is obtaining a "REAL ID"? We broke down the changes coming next month and what’s at stake for those who don’t comply. Here’s what you need to know in the final weeks before the new rules take force. Beginning May 7, all federal agencies, including DHS and TSA, are required to accept only state-issued driver’s licenses and state identification cards that comply with the updated identity verification standards. The goal of the REAL ID Act is "to make state driver’s licenses and ID cards (which are identification cards that states issue to non-drivers) more secure, less susceptible to fraud, and more reliable as a form of identification," Magdalena Krajewska, an associate political science professor, wrote in a 2020 article for the Oxford Academic. (The government has for years tried to stand up the REAL ID requirements, most recently in the months before the COVID-19 pandemic.). The law seeks to add another layer of security to various forms of identification and to make it harder to counterfeit state IDs.

New York Post [4/24/2025 1:43 AM, Nicholas McEntyre, 54903K] reports the unhinged Russian stowaway who snuck onto a Paris-bound flight at JFK Airport last year gained access to the plane by blending in with a group of passengers and sneaking past two distracted gate agents, new video captured. Svetlana Dali, 57, was spotted on surveillance footage as she navigated past several security checkpoints before boarding the Delta jet at the Queens airport on Nov. 26, 2024. Dali was waved through a security screening checkpoint before a female TSA agent conducted a quick body pat-down before allowing the woman through to the terminal, according to video from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and obtained by the Associated Press. She had allegedly been turned away at one security checkpoint for not having a boarding pass, but took advantage of the Thanksgiving holiday traveling chaos and snuck through a screening area for airport employees. "The individual bypassed two identity verification and boarding status stations and boarded the aircraft," a TSA spokesperson told The Post in November. The Russian citizen, who held a US green card, carried her bags to the Delta gate, where she waited to board Flight 264 bound for Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport. Dressed in a coat and gray hood, Dali blended in with a group of five travelers who were being checked in by the two gate agents and walked onto the jetway unnoticed. After boarding the plane, the stowaway hid inside one of the lavatories during takeoff. A flight attendant spotted her inside one of the bathrooms towards the end of the seven-hour flight. She was restrained in a seat and was detained by French police upon landing at the airport. Dali was booted off two return flights after she caused a disruptive outburst on the first attempt and was barred by the airline for the second trip. She was eventually extradited back to New York, where law enforcement officials waited for her. A federal grand jury indicted her in January for one count of stowaway on an aircraft. She pleaded not guilty to the charge. Dali was initially released from jail under conditions of wearing an ankle monitor, which she ditched during her attempt to cross the border into Canada on a Greyhound bus from Buffalo. The brazen attempt to flee the country came only 10 days after she was released by a judge and ordered to wear the GPS tracker. She had been staying at a friend’s home in Philadelphia at the time. Border officials arrested her after she failed to provide a passport and they discovered an active warrant out for her because she breached her release agreements. After her latest arrest, she was ordered to be held in a Brooklyn federal lockup. A trial is set for May, but lawyers are reportedly working on a plea deal before the court date.

Reported similarly:
AP [4/23/2025 3:41 PM, Staff, 48304K]
USA Today [4/23/2025 5:11 PM, Jonathan Limehouse, 75858K]

(B) WAVE News at 3:00PM [4/23/2025 3:01 PM, Staff] reports that a group of Kentucky lawmakers are calling for a delay in the Real ID May 7 deadline. Senator Jimmy Higdon and 27 members of the Senate Majority Caucus sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem requesting a delay of the Real ID enforcement date. Lawmakers say they are requesting the delay because of Kentuckians who have been unable to schedule an appointment and had to wait in long lines for walk-ins.

Kentucky Lantern [4/23/2025 4:07 PM, Liam Niemeyer] reports Republicans in the Kentucky Senate are calling on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to extend a federal deadline set for next month for travelers to have a REAL ID to board domestic flights and access other federal facilities. Sen. Jimmy Higdon, R-Lebonan, in a letter co-signed by other Republican state senators called on Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to extend the deadline because Kentuckians need more time to obtain REAL IDs. Higdon also asked for "more time to help Kentuckians understand that they may not need a REAL ID."

CNN [4/23/2025 6:36 PM, Gabe Cohen, 22131K] reports the agency tasked with delivering billions of dollars in assistance to communities devastated by natural disasters is about to lose a huge portion of its workforce, including some of its most experienced and knowledgeable leaders who manage disaster response. With hurricane season just weeks away, about 20% of FEMA’s permanent full-time staff – roughly 1,000 workers – are expected to take a voluntary buyout as part of the latest staff reduction effort from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, according to several sources briefed on the looming departures. FEMA leaders responsible for response plans, operations and disaster recovery are among a long list of top brass exiting the agency, multiple sources told CNN. CNN has reached out to FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security about the departures. "Whether or not the positions are frozen, it’s likely to be a significant brain drain, which impedes our ability to respond," a FEMA official, speaking anonymously out of fear of retribution, told CNN. The 1,000 or so workers have accepted recent DOGE-led offers for deferred resignation or early retirement, sources told CNN, amid mounting tension and turmoil at the disaster relief agency. More than 800 FEMA personnel accepted similar offers during the initial Deferred Resignation Program earlier this year, New York Times reported, though many more workers at the agency were eligible for that round. President Donald Trump and his allies have criticized FEMA for months as partisan, ineffective and unnecessary. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has promised to "eliminate" the agency altogether, potentially in the coming months.

Rolling Stone [4/23/2025 1:27 PM, Nikki McCann Ramirez, 12895K] reports that Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is begging President Donald Trump to reconsider the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) denial of an emergency disaster declaration to aid in the recovery from a series of destructive tornadoes and storms that ravaged the red state in March. Sanders, a former White House press secretary to Trump, wrote a lengthy letter last week to her ex-boss detailing the damage caused by the storms and begging him reconsider FEMA’s denial. "The severe storms and tornadoes that occurred on March 14 and 15, 2025, produced catastrophic impacts across the state. The sheer magnitude of this event resulted in overwhelming amounts of debris, widespread destruction to homes and businesses, the tragic loss of three lives and injuries to many others. Less than three weeks later, Arkansas was once again devastated by a second wave of severe storms, tornadoes, and a generational flooding event," Sanders wrote in her appeal. "Without the support of a Major Disaster Declaration, Arkansas will face significant challenges in assuming full responsibility and achieving an effective recovery from this event. I have determined that the severity and magnitude of these storms exceed the capabilities of the State and affected local governments to respond adequately. As such, supplemental Federal assistance is crucial." It’s unsurprising that states are already struggling to get disaster-recovery aid under the second Trump administration. In January, Trump floated eliminating the agency entirely. Last month, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem promised to "eliminate FEMA," on the heels of a series of so-called Department of Government Efficiency-fueled layoffs at the agency.

Yahoo News [4/23/2025 11:48 AM, Alex Sosnowski, 430301K] reports that severe thunderstorms will be on the prowl over portions of the central United States nearly every day through at least Tuesday of next week, AccuWeather meteorologists warn. The Great Plains will bear the brunt of the stormy wrath. A series of storm systems will roll out of the Rockies and track across the central U.S., tapping into rich Gulf moisture along the way-fueling rounds of thunderstorms as the week unfolds. During Wednesday afternoon, thunderstorms will bubble up along the U.S. Route 385 corridor of the High Plains from West Texas to part of western Nebraska. The storms will be capable of producing hail to the size of golf balls and baseballs, powerful wind gusts of 60-70 mph with an AccuWeather StormMax of 80 mph and a few tornadoes. Following possible severe thunderstorms Friday night over parts of Oklahoma and northeastern Texas, the risk of violent weather shifts back to the west on Saturday afternoon. Areas from west-central and northwestern Texas to western Oklahoma may be the prime zones for a complex of severe thunderstorms from Saturday to Saturday night. If storms remain more scattered, parts of western Kansas and eastern Colorado could also see activity. Storms are expected to fire up across the Dakotas, eastern Wyoming, Nebraska and Minnesota bringing threats of hail, high wind gusts and flash flooding. The storms are likely to organize along an advancing cold front from the eastern part of the Dakotas, Minnesota and western Wisconsin to west-central Texas on Monday. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Washington Examiner [4/23/2025 2:05 PM, Ross O’Keefe, 2296K] reports that Acting New Jersey Gov. Tahesha Way (D-NJ) has declared a state of emergency in Ocean County while a wildfire blazes through thousands of acres there. The Jones Road Wildfire began Tuesday morning and has spanned 12,000 acres so far, prompting 5,000 people to evacuate. The fire is 35% contained as of Wednesday afternoon. One commercial building and several vehicles have been destroyed, and 20 structures are still at risk. "Yesterday, our State Forest Fire Service informed us of a wildfire in Ocean Township, Ocean County," Way said. "Due to its accelerated growth, with an estimated burn of 8,500 acres, threatening more than 1,000 structures, requiring the evacuation of residents in the area, and the loss of power to over 25,000 residents, I am declaring a State of Emergency for Ocean County. I encourage all residents in the County to continue to monitor the proper channels, and to use caution and follow all safety protocols.” New Jersey’s forest fire chief said the state has "averted a major disaster." "Thanks to the incredible, heroic work of the good men and women of our New Jersey Forest Fire Service, folks’ homes and lives have been saved, and we’ve truly averted a major disaster," New Jersey Forest Fire Service Commissioner Shawn LaTourette said Wednesday morning. "This wildfire is not under full and complete control. We still have a lot of work to do to achieve complete containment of the wildfire, but there were 1,300 homes that were threatened during the course of fighting this fire." However, he added that "this could very well end up being the largest wildfire in New Jersey in 20 years."

CBS News [4/23/2025 11:38 PM, Christina Fan, 51661K] reports that the Jones Road Wildfire in Ocean County, New Jersey is approximately 50% contained after burning through 13,250 acres, according to the latest update from the New Jersey Forest Fire Service. "We continue to work using our air fleet with bucket drops, using the helicopter. That will continue until darkness occurs this evening," said John Cecil, assistant commissioner for state parks, forests and historic sites at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Cecil said investigators continue to look into the cause of the fire. Evacuations have been lifted for some 5,000 residents in Ocean and Lacey Townships. Lacey Township Mayor Peter Curatolo said a business called Liberty Garage Door & Awning was destroyed in an industrial area, but so far no injuries have been reported. Several outbuildings and vehicles were also destroyed, authorities said. "This has been a big fire," Cecil said. "It’s impressive to see the intensity of those fire runs that made their way last night, burned out that 12,500 acres, but we still’ve got a pretty big box to work this in and still some work to do to clean up around the edges." "Thanks to the incredible, heroic work of the good men and women of our New Jersey Forest Fire Service, folks’ homes and lives have been saved, and we’ve truly averted a major disaster," New Jersey Forest Fire Service Commissioner Shawn LaTourette said Wednesday morning. "This wildfire is not under full and complete control, we still have a lot of work to do to achieve complete containment of the wildfire. But there were 1,300 homes that were threatened during the course of fighting this fire." "Not one single-family home was damaged, not one person was injured, there has not been one loss of life," said Curatolo, who thanked fellow officials and first responders. The fire service commissioner said he expects the acreage to grow as they work toward containment, saying, "This could very well end up being the largest wildfire in New Jersey in 20 years." "As we continue to get this under full control, the expectation is that that number of acres will grow -- and grow in a place that is unpopulated, that is more open wilderness. But in order to fully contain the fire, more burnout operations are necessary, and that will likely increase the overall acreage," LaTourette said. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Reported similarly:
NewsMax [4/23/2025 2:49 PM, Jim Mishler, 4998K] r

Bloomberg [4/23/2025 4:53 PM, Lauren Rosenthal and Mary Hui, 16228K] reports a forest fire in New Jersey threatened to become the state’s largest in nearly two decades as dry conditions gripped the region and crews from surrounding areas joined in to fight the blaze. The fire grew to 12,000 acres (4,856 hectares) in Ocean County, about 90 miles south of New York City, by Wednesday afternoon, according to state officials. The blaze was 35% contained along its perimeter, which officials said is expected to expand over the next few days. Though one commercial structure has been destroyed, officials said at a press conference Wednesday morning that fire crews have prevented any homes from burning. There have also been no reports of injuries or deaths. New York City officials warned that residents there may see or smell smoke late Wednesday as a result of the blaze, and that the air quality index on Thursday could reach levels unhealthy for sensitive groups. New Jersey typically experiences increased fire risk in the spring, with the danger peaking in late April. But the state has also seen below-average rain and snowfall stretching back months, leaving the landscape especially dry and primed to burn. “It’s pretty extreme conditions now,” state forest fire warden Trevor Raynor said at the press conference. “It doesn’t get any worse than this.” Officials said they expected the blaze to continue to grow until rains move in late Friday night and early Saturday morning, affecting air quality near the fire line. The cause of the fire is under investigation. Despite the ongoing response, Lacey Township Police Department said Route 9 and the Garden State Parkway were cleared to reopen in both directions Wednesday. Reuters [4/23/2025 1:50 PM, Rich McKay and Doyinsola Oladipo, 24727K] reports that the Jones Road Wildfire had spread to 11,500 acres in less than 24 hours as of 10 a.m. on Wednesday and was 30% contained, the New Jersey Fire Service said in a post on X. It was no longer threatening populated areas. The blaze could become the largest in New Jersey in about 20 years, said Shawn LaTourette, the state’s commissioner of environmental protection, at a press conference. A fire in May 2007 in the same area consumed 17,000 acres. Lieutenant Governor Tahesha Way declared a state of emergency beginning at 7 a.m. on Wednesday; Governor Phil Murphy is on an overseas trip. "At this time, we have no loss of life and no homes have been harmed," Way said on X on Wednesday morning. So far in 2025, New Jersey has experienced nearly twice as many wildfires as usual, with 662 wildfires burning 16,572 acres. That compares with about 310 wildfires burning 315 acres last year, state Forest Fire Service Chief Bill Donnelly said at the briefing. On average, 1,500 wildfires damage or destroy 7,000 acres of the state’s forests each year, the New Jersey Forest Fire Service said on its website.

CBS Austin [4/23/2025 10:17 AM, Alexx Altman-Devilbiss, 602K] reports thousands of New Jersey residents were allowed to return home Wednesday after a fast-moving wildfire scorched over 11,500 acres and closed one of the state’s busiest highways. The Jones Road Fire in Ocean County, New Jersey, began in the Greenwood Forest Wildlife Management Area near Barnegat Township and was only 30% contained as of Wednesday afternoon, according to the New Jersey Fire Service. Around 3,000 residents were evacuated, and more than 1,300 structures were threatened, the fire service said. Multiple shelters were open at high schools, with one allowing evacuees with pets. Power was cut to about 25,000 Jersey Central Power and Light Company customers at the request of the Forest Fire Service for the "safety of the crews battling the fire.” "Safety is our top priority and all restoration timing will be determined by the safety of firefighters, our crews and the public. We appreciate your patience and understanding during this time," the company wrote on X.

AP [4/23/2025 7:37 PM, Bruce Shipkowski, 48304K] reports a fast-moving wildfire engulfing part of New Jersey’s Pine Barrens has not resulted in any injuries, officials said Wednesday, though it’s expected to grow before forecast rain later this week. The fire in southern New Jersey’s Lacey and Ocean townships has grown to more than 20 square miles (52 square kilometers) and could continue to burn for days, officials said. No one has been injured so far in the blaze, and 5,000 residents were evacuated but have been permitted to return home. A single commercial building and some vehicles were destroyed in the fire, while 12 structures remained threatened Wednesday evening. "This is still a very active fire," said Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Shawn LaTourette. "As we continue to get this under full control the expectation is that the number of acres will grow and will grow in a place that is unpopulated.” Officials said the fire is believed to be the second-worst in the last two decades, smaller only than a 2007 blaze that burned 26 square miles (67 square kilometers). The Garden State Parkway, one of New Jersey’s busiest highways, reopened Wednesday morning after officials closed a roughly 7-mile (12-kilometer) stretch in the southern part of the state. Acting Gov. Tahesha Way declared a state of emergency early Wednesday as officials said they’ve contained about 50% of the wildfire.

Yahoo News [4/23/2025 12:31 PM, Hayley Vawter, 430301K] reports that smoke from a wildfire burning in New Jersey is anticipated to reach New York City this week, affecting air quality. The Jones Road Fire erupted Tuesday afternoon in Ocean County, New Jersey. In just a few hours, it tripled in size, forcing thousands of people to flee their homes. On Wednesday, northerly winds were pushing wildfire smoke south into Atlantic City and surrounding areas, prompting an air quality alert. But on Thursday, winds will switch direction, pushing smoke north and likely affecting New York City and Long Island. Forecast models show the smoke shifting north overnight Wednesday into Thursday, before pushing into New York City. Models show smoke moving north on Thursday, impacting New York City and Long Island. New York City Emergency Management said it’s monitoring weather conditions and coordinating with the National Weather Service office to help guide their decision making. Smoke from the Jones Road fire will likely impact parts of Pennsylvania and Connecticut as well.

USA Today [4/23/2025 10:34 PM, Jeanine Santucci, 75858K] reports firefighters have made progress containing a massive wildfire burning in central New Jersey that damaged multiple buildings and prompted evacuations for thousands of residents. The fire, named the Jones Road wildfire, erupted the morning of April 22 in southern Ocean County. As of 8 p.m. on April 23, it has consumed some 13,500 acres, and firefighters had achieved 50% containment, according to the New Jersey Forest Fire Service. The wildfire has previously threatened 1,320 homes and buildings, officials said. At 7 p.m. local time on April 23, that number stood at 12. All evacuation orders were lifted for the about 5,000 residents who fled the fire in Ocean and Lacey townships, the fire service said on April 23. The Garden State Parkway and Route 9, parts of which were previously closed, have since reopened. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

Axios [4/23/2025 6:22 AM, Sabrina Moreno, 13163K] reports that, as Virginia stares down another Atlantic hurricane season expected to have "above-normal" activity, it’s still struggling to recover from Helene. Delays in infrastructure repairs and disaster aid could leave already vulnerable areas at greater risk. Helene, which slammed the southwestern part of the state nearly half a year ago, showed that a hurricane doesn’t need to hit Virginia head-on to cause widespread devastation. The storm last year killed two people, left over 300,000 Virginians without power, affected nearly 3,700 farms, and closed almost 500 roads. The severe flooding in Southwest Virginia resulted in over 100 water rescues, hundreds of homes damaged and dozens of others destroyed, per a report from the National Hurricane Center released last month. Gov. Youngkin last year estimated it’d be $4.4 billion in indirect and direct damages. Now, an undisclosed amount of FEMA funding for Helene-related response and recovery is delayed due to a new federal review process, reports Cardinal News. In a memo from the Virginia Department of Emergency Management, the agency said they don’t know when or if these funds will be available. The money on hold includes "preparedness funds to local governments to be ready for the next disaster," per the memo obtained by the nonprofit outlet. Multiple localities in SW Virginia told Cardinal News they’ve yet to be reimbursed for work already done, which is creating financial strains. Meanwhile, the Virginia Department of Transportation is waiting to be reimbursed up to $260 million in federal dollars for Helene, winter flooding and pre-Helene disasters, per a Transportation Board meeting last week. The cost of clearing and repairing roads damaged from Helene and winter storms has already cost VDOT $506 million. That’s well over VDOT’s emergency response budget of $220 million — and they still have over $140 million remaining in estimated costs. The agency now plans to pull from future construction advances and leftover funds to help pay for the gap, as first reported by RTD. "The alternative would be that we would make significant reductions inside our construction programs and slow down projects," said Laura Farmer, VDOT’s chief financial officer. Those projects include improving highway safety, easing traffic congestion and replacing bridges in poor condition. Hurricane season starts June 1.

Louisville Courier Journal [4/23/2025 5:30 PM, Killian Baarlaer] reports the Federal Emergency Management Agency has denied individual and public assistance for some Kentucky counties impacted by the deadly and destructive flooding that pummeled Kentucky in February. In an April 22 letter, FEMA officials said individual assistance would not be provided for residents in Butler, Franklin, Knox, Laurel, Lawrence and Whitley counties. Simpson and Woodford counties were also denied public assistance. FEMA officials said the denials are based on damage assessments finding that the flooding impacts did not rise to the "severity and magnitude" needed to justify the assistance. The commonwealth has 30 days from the date of the rejection to appeal FEMA’s decision, according to the letter. Beshear also asked President Donald Trump for a major disaster declaration April 11 following another major flooding event, requesting individual assistance for 13 counties and public assistance for 33 counties, according to the news release. Beshear said intends to request assistance for additional counties if the initial request is approved.

Yahoo News [4/23/2025 9:12 PM, Dustin Massengill, 430301K] reports eight Kentucky counties affected by the flooding in February were denied FEMA assistance. On Wednesday, Gov. Andy Beshear said Butler, Franklin, Knox, Laurel, Lawrence, and Whitley counties were denied individual assistance. Public assistance was also denied for infrastructure damage in Simpson and Woodford counties. FEMA said the denials were because the damages were not severe enough. The governor called the decision disappointing and said the state plans to appeal. "While we are grateful to have gotten an Expedited Major Disaster Declaration for the February flooding, which has authorized at least some level of public assistance for local governments in 68 counties and individual assistance for Kentuckians in 16 counties, we are disappointed to receive this latest news," Beshear said. "We are actively comparing the damage assessments, and we plan to appeal this decision.” He’ll provide an update on Thursday about both the February and April flood responses.

Yahoo News [4/23/2025 10:41 PM, Marilyn Parker, 430301K] reports the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) ended a program the city of St. Petersburg was depending on to help improve resiliency against future storms. The city was expecting millions of dollars from FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Community (BRIC) program. "The city has long used these funds to make key resiliency improvements across our city and elevate homes to reduce flood risk," said a city representative. FEMA said it is ending the BRIC program to help ensure that grant funding aligns with the president’s executive orders, and to support states and local communities in disaster planning, response and recovery. "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," said a FEMA spokesperson on their website. The City of St. Pete had plans to improve several lift stations. One of them was on BJ Phillips’ street in Coquina Key. "Our street was blocked off because there was so much water," Phillips said. "We had water, like up to, probably up to like the window on a vehicle.” She said she’s had problems with FEMA trying to get her home back to together after the hurricanes. So she said she is not surprised to hear about the cuts. "That’s crazy because we need the assistance," Phillips said. "Let it happen to you and then call it waste.” There are areas in the city that were not included in the list of lift stations, where residents said they need help even without a hurricane. "My biggest concern is 1st and 58th continues to be a water pool," said Pamela Strong. "Every single time we have a torrential downpour it is a nightmare in that area.” She said she and her neighbors have struggled with FEMA. And she said she would like to see the state take over the agency. "I appreciate hearing the governor say he wants to take FEMA over, heck yeah. FEMA has been nothing but a nightmare," Strong said. "I kind of understand that they have incurred so much debt, but if it’s not FEMA where is it we pay for taxes for this? We pay for our city, state; we pay for help, and if we can’t get help where do we go?".

New York Times [4/23/2025 11:08 AM, Nazaneen Ghaffar, 145325K] reports a series of severe thunderstorms brought widespread flooding to New Orleans on Monday, overwhelming roads and prompting flash flood warnings. Drivers struggled as heavy rain poured across the city for hours, particularly in eastern areas. “It’s an absolute mess out there across portions of Gretna, New Orleans, the Lower 9th and Arabi,” the National Weather Service in New Orleans said on X, referencing areas in and around the city. “Do not drive around. It’s near impossible to see where some roads end and canals begin.” The storms were fueled by a persistent flow of warm, moisture-laden air from the Gulf of Mexico interacting with a front across the Southeast. This setup resulted in an unstable atmosphere that allowed storms to linger over the city and pound it with heavy rain. “Thunderstorms sat over New Orleans for a few hours on Monday afternoon,” said Marc Chenard, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center. “The east side of the downtown seemed to get hit the hardest.” Rain gauges recorded between four and seven inches of rain, with the highest totals on the east side. The average rainfall in New Orleans for the month of April is 5.22 inches. “Had it occurred 20 miles farther south or east or west, it likely wouldn’t have had the same amount of impact,” Mr. Chenard said. “The storms just persisted long enough, for a couple of hours, to get some of those high totals.”

CNN [4/23/2025 3:28 PM, Ella Nilsen, 22131K] reports disaster survivors in Arkansas left homeless by recent tornadoes have been blocked from receiving federal recovery aid after President Donald Trump rejected the state’s request to declare a major disaster in March. The Trump administration denied Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ request for individual and public assistance following an outbreak of severe storms and tornadoes that also affected neighboring Mississippi and Missouri and left more than 40 people dead. The denial follows executive orders signed by Trump seeking to shift the burden of disaster response and recovery from the federal government onto states, as extreme weather becomes increasingly destructive and costly in a warming world. It is unclear how states will fill the financial void, which for decades has been viewed as a federal responsibility given the wide-reaching, multi-state nature of disasters. The denial of the request, dated April 11, said the Trump administration had "determined that the damage from this event was not of such severity and magnitude as to be beyond the capabilities of the state, affected local governments, and voluntary agencies. Accordingly, we have determined that supplemental federal assistance is not necessary." It’s so far unclear whether Missouri and Mississippi will face similar denials. Sanders has appealed the denial, writing in her letter to Trump "the state and its citizens are in dire need of assistance to recover, rebuild, and mitigate further loss."

USA Today [4/23/2025 9:01 AM, Christopher Cann, 75858K] reports that meteorologists issued flash flood warnings across north-central Texas as much of the central U.S. braces for a series of thunderstorms that threaten to spin up tornadoes, trigger flash flooding, and drop damaging, baseball-sized hail. A flash flood warning was issued for Dallas County and surrounding areas, with forecasters expecting rain to fall at a rate of 2 inches per hour. An estimated 2 inches had already inundated the metropolitan area as of early April 23, according to the National Weather Service. "Flash flooding is ongoing or expected to begin shortly," the weather service said in an advisory. Through the rest of the week, rounds of shows and thunderstorms are expected to drench much of the Plains region from northern Texas and Oklahoma to Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois, according to the Weather Prediction Center. More than 10,000 homes and businesses were without power April 23 as storms began to sweep across parts of northern Texas, according to PowerOutage.us. Much of the Plains region is experiencing moderate to severe drought conditions, with some areas, such as southwestern Texas, suffering "extreme" and "exceptional" drought conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. The earlier storm system dumped up to 16 inches of rain across parts of the Ohio, Tennessee and Mississippi valleys, triggering historic flooding across the central U.S. While the runoff and significant river flooding has largely abated in Ohio and Kentucky, areas downshore, including Baton Rouge, Louisiana, will see rivers crest near the end of the month. Dozens of flood warnings and advisories remain active due to the high rivers, including the Mississippi River in Memphis, Tennessee, and the Atchafalaya River in Morgan City, Louisiana. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

(B) NBC News Daily [4/23/2025 3:24 PM, Staff] reports that the City of Ashland is looking to obtain multiple grants after the Federal Emergency Management Agency cut funding for the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program. The program would have contributed roughly $50 million to the City of Ashland’s new water treatment facility. Ashland Mayor Tonya Graham says residents will see an increase to their water bill if multiple grants cannot be secured.

AP [4/23/2025 3:25 PM, Chad Blair, 48304K] reports it’s not often that applause breaks out in the audience after a vote at the Hawaiʻi Legislature, but that happened Tuesday afternoon. The measure was House Bill 1001, and the subject was settling claims related to the August 2023 Maui wildfires. "This is a very important measure, and I appreciate the support of the Finance Committee to approve this, and the Senate and your Ways and Means Committee to approve this as well," Rep. David Tarnas said to Sen. Karl Rhoads, his counterpart in negotiating passage of HB 1001 in conference committee. If approved by the full House and Senate and signed into law by Gov. Josh Green, as is widely expected — HB 1001 was part of the administration’s package of legislation this session — the state of Hawaiʻi will deposit $807 million into the Maui Wildfires Settlement Trust Fund over the next four years. That is the state’s share of a $4.04 billion global settlement that includes $1.99 billion from Hawaiian Electric Co. and $872.5 million from landowner Kamehameha Schools. The rest of the monies are expected to come from West Maui landowners and telecommunications companies, including Hawaiian Telcom and Spectrum. The trust fund will be used to settle lawsuits from more than 1,000 homeowners, businesses and others harmed by the fires, which took 102 lives. It will be used to compensate individuals or representatives of the dead who suffered real and personal property damage, personal injury, wrongful death, emotional distress and inconvenience, or economic loss as a result of the wildfires, according to the legislation. The bill says the settlement "will offer a timely and compassionate resolution to those affected by the Maui wildfires while relieving the burden on the judicial system and contributing to the rebuilding of lives and community.”

Yahoo News [4/23/2025 10:47 PM, Gina Mangieri, 430301K] reports that at the start of the week, nearly 200 out of around 1,000 households on FEMA’s temporary housing program had not paid rent. Now, it’s down 100 — or one in 10. For a year and a half after the deadly August 2023 Lahaina fire, thousands of people relied on FEMA for recovery resources, including federally funded rentals. Those units were no longer free as of this spring, with the first payments due April 1. "I know a lot of people are having a challenging time doing that, but we are in a new phase, and it’s disaster recovery, not disaster response, which means the federal government no longer is going to cover everybody’s rent," said Senator Brian Schatz (D), Hawaii. "About 91% of our FEMA direct housing population were renters prior to the fire. So we assume that they’re used to paying rent, and we need to bring back some of that normalcy, because the ultimate goal is to transition households to their permanent housing plans, as FEMA’s program is really only to provide temporary housing," said Ali Slous, FEMA. Out of nearly 1,000 households on the temporary rental program, just over 100 have not paid March rent, and even more were late as of just a few days ago. FEMA said they’ve done extensive outreach to those households to make sure they understand possible consequences, including having to move out. "So it will take some time to reconcile, you know, with our finance department after May 1, who still has not paid their rent, and then that will essentially trigger what we call a revocation process.” The process starts with a 15-day warning, a notice of revocation, and then a notice to surrender the property. And the unpaid bill doesn’t go away. "It goes up to the Treasury level, and then the US Treasury will follow up. And there are different ways that the federal government can recoup those funds, including garnishing wages and or having it be taken out of Social Security.” Philanthropic partners are still offering assistance to help people get back on their feet. "That assistance is not necessarily for them to pay rent, but it may help offset other bills that are that are coming up for them right now, and we understand the financial stress of this recovery.”

Blaze [4/23/2025 5:31 PM, Cortney Weil, 1668K] reports Trump Tower in New York City had to be closed to visitors on Wednesday after a man who is believed to be a member of a climate extremist group vandalized part of the lobby. Shortly after noon, a young man walked into the public lobby of the building, strode over to the seal of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States, and proceeded to tag it with the letters "USA" in green spray paint, video from Freedom News TV showed. The young man then knelt down beneath his apparent act of vandalism, eyes closed, soaking in the attention from the crowd gathered around with their cell phones in hand. He then pulled out a small banner with the message "Game Over" emblazoned on it and held it up for all to see. Security agents quickly descended upon the individual, placing him in handcuffs and ordering him to leave. James Byrne, a U.S. Secret Service spokesperson, confirmed the incident in a statement. "The U.S. Secret Service is aware of an incident involving a person spray-painting graffiti inside the public lobby of Trump Tower in New York City," Byrne said. "There are no disruptions to protective operations. We thank the NYPD for their immediate response and unwavering partnership." Trump is not believed to have been at Trump Tower at the time.

New York Daily News [4/23/2025 5:35 PM, David Matthews] reports a climate protester was arrested Wednesday for spray-painting a sign inside Trump Tower. The suspect was identified as Crown Heights resident Nathaniel Smith, 36. He was charged with making graffiti, possession of graffiti instrument and criminal tampering. "The U.S. Secret Service is aware of an incident involving a person spray painting graffiti inside the public lobby of Trump Tower in New York City," U.S. Secret Service spokesperson told the Daily News." There are no disruptions to protective operations. We thank the NYPD for their immediate response and unwavering partnership."

Washington Examiner [4/23/2025 12:20 PM, Christian Datoc, 2296K] reports that President Donald Trump is planning to install two 100-foot flagpoles on the White House grounds. The president announced the plans for the flagpoles, which he said he would pay for out of his own pocket, after he emerged from the White House residence just before 11 a.m. Wednesday with a coterie of aides and Secret Service agents. Trump said the White House would be installing "two beautiful poles" on the grounds that would be "top of the line." "It was something I’ve often said, you know, they don’t have a flagpole per se," he said of his design proposals. "So we’re putting one right where you saw us, and we’re putting another one on the other side, on top of the mounds. It’s going to be two beautiful poles.” Prior to his announcement, Trump went on a roughly 10-minute walk across the White House grounds, where he appeared to discuss the potential changes to the North Lawn. "Every country wants to partake, even countries that have ripped us off for many, many years, China, as an example," Trump said. "But it’s not just China, European Union. They ripped us off for many, many years. And those days are over. Everybody wants to be a part of what we’re doing. They know that they can’t get away with it any longer, but they’re still going to do fine, and we’re going to have a country that you can be proud of."

myRGV.com [4/23/2025 5:20 PM, Staff, 206K] reports the U.S. Coast Guard on Monday detained 12 Mexican fishermen and seized approximately 1,400 pounds of illegally caught red snapper and shark. In a news release, the Coast Guard said the fishermen were found fishing illegally north of the Maritime Boundary Line in the Gulf of Mexico. “After interdicting three lanchas, Coast Guard crews took the fishermen into custody, brought them ashore, and transferred them to U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel for processing,” the release stated. “Coast Guard personnel also seized approximately 550 pounds of red snapper, 850 pounds of shark, along with fishing gear and equipment found on board the vessels.” In March, the Coast Guard seized 2,500 pounds of illegally caught red snapper and 150 pounds in two separate interdictions. In February, the agency reported a seizure of 1,595 pounds of illegally caught fish and another 200 pounds in January. On April 17, the Coast Guard seized 771 pounds of illegally caught fish and turned over four Mexican fishermen to federal authorities who charged them with illegally exporting wildlife.

ABC 13 Hampton [4/23/2025 2:17 PM, Patriceia Beckford] reports North Carolina representative Don Davis introduced a bill Wednesday to protect U.S. Coast Guard veterans’ benefits. The Coast Guard Combat-Injured Tax Fairness Act, House Bill 2973, will guarantee that veterans receive their full benefits. “It is essential that we prioritize the well-being of our U.S. Coast Guard combat-injured veterans, closing this loophole and ensuring they receive full benefits,” said Davis. “We must not stop advocating passionately for our U.S. Coast Guard veterans, who have devoted their lives to serving our country. Together, we must work to ensure no veteran is left behind.” Without this bill, veterans won’t receive the same tax refund on disability severance payments. Many veterans who received disability severance payments had taxes wrongly taken out of those payouts. In 2016, Congress passed the Combat-Injured Veterans Tax Fairness Act to fix that issue. The law required the Department of Defense to track down any disability severance payments going back to January 17, 1991, and make sure those who were taxed unfairly could get their money back. Former Coast Guard members were left out of that fix due to a loophole. This new bill allows ex-U.S. Coast Guard servicemembers to be eligible for the same tax benefit.

Reported similarly:
CBS 9 Greenville [4/23/2025 12:59 PM, Staff, 186K]

NBC 32 Myrtle Beach [4/23/2025 6:03 PM, Staff, 329K] reports a boat was hit by lightning on Wednesday during a bout of storms rolling through the county. The Georgetown Police Department confirmed that the U.S. Coast Guard responded to the call for the lightning strike. GPD Capt. Nelson Brown said the USCG made contact with the boat, and no one on board was injured. Georgetown County Fire and EMS sent a crew to Wood Street in case of injuries during the call.

FOX 7 Miami [4/23/2025 7:15 PM, Jack Royer and Kevin Boulandier, 864K] reports members of the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard are opening up their biggest and best known ships to the South Florida public for a week-long event. With the massive warships docked at Port Everglades, visitors can enjoy tours and see the ships up close and personal. “Fleet Week is a celebration of the sea services. It’s where the seas services bring the Navy, the Marine Corps and the Coast Guard to the community, and it bridges the gap between the community and America’s Navy,” said U.S. Navy Ensign Henry Streeter. Visitors can check out what life at sea aboard a warship is like, with the ships offering floating museums and memorials to service members who’ve passed away. “We have three ships. The USS New York, the USS New Hampshire and the USS Cole,” said Streeter. Visitors may also learn about the history of hundreds of sailors aboard the working ships during a mission. Others came to see the ships’ history.

Michigan Live [4/23/2025 3:44 PM, Justine Lofton, 6000K] reports there could be new regulations on a popular Northern Michigan waterway after three summers of near collisions between a car ferry and fishing boats. The U.S. Coast Guard has proposed a new rule that would require smaller boats to give a wide berth to the S.S. Badger and other large vessels during times of “congestion” on Ludington’s relatively narrow waterways. “Of particular concern, large commercial vessels were forced to take emergent action on several occasions to avoid imminent collision,” the USCG said in the proposal. Dangerous conditions of congestion have arose primarily during popular fishing seasons, the proposal says. During summer 2024, the Ludington Harbormaster briefly issued an order prohibiting fishing during times when the 410-foot Badger is coming and going since it is too big to make quick evasive maneuvers. The order was later rescinded. If approved, the USCG proposal would create a regulated navigational area on certain waters of Lake Michigan, the Ludington Harbor Channel, and Pere Marquette Lake in Ludington. During times of “congestion,” smaller vessels would be required to maintain a distance of 440 yards from the bow, 100 yards from the stern and 35 yards from the port and starboard sides of any commercial or recreational vessels greater than 100 feet in length transiting into or out of the Ludington Harbor Channel, starting at 1,000 yards outside the Ludington Harbor entrance and plus the Ludington Harbor Channel and Pere Marquette Lake. Vessels would still be allowed to navigate the area, and restrictions would be for short periods of time, the proposal says.

ABC 10 San Diego [4/23/2025 11:59 AM, Staff] reports the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted a cabin cruiser involved in an apparent human-smuggling attempt gone awry off the coast of Oceanside Tuesday, taking 19 suspected undocumented immigrants into custody. Crew members of the USCG cutter David Duren boarded the 25-foot private boat about 25 miles offshore from northern San Diego County at about 2:15 a.m., the federal maritime agency reported. All of the occupants of the boat -- 18 men and a woman -- claimed Mexican nationality, according to USCG public affairs. Though they reported that they had not had food or water for two days, preliminary medical evaluations uncovered no "major medical concerns" among members of the traveling group, Coast Guard officials stated. The crew of the cutter brought the detainees to Oceanside, where they were transferred to the custody of the U.S. Border Patrol.

Reported similarly:
Oceanside-Camp Pendleton Patch [4/23/2025 12:48 PM, Kristina Houck, 10700K]

Reuters [4/23/2025 5:53 PM, A.J. Vicens, 41523K] reports that Ransomware was the most pervasive cyber threat to critical infrastructure in 2024 as complaints regarding such attacks jumped 9% over 2023, the FBI said on Wednesday. Ransomware attacks on critical infrastructure accounted for almost half of all ransomware complaints received in 2024 by the agency’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), a top FBI cyber official said ahead of the release of the agency’s annual Internet Crime Report, which details scam and cyber-enabled fraud impacts across sectors and to various demographic groups. Critical manufacturing, healthcare, government facilities, financial services and information technology were the top critical infrastructure sectors targeted, Cynthia Kaiser, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division, told reporters on a call. The increase in ransomware complaints was concerning, the agency said, given several high-profile international law enforcement operations targeting ransomware operators and cybercrime forums last year. In March, the FBI and the CISA published a joint advisory warning of the Medusa ransomware variant, which had been linked to attacks on more than 300 victims across a variety of critical infrastructure sectors between June 2021 and February 2025. A record $16.6 billion in cyber and scam-related losses overall were reported in 2024 to the IC3, a 33% increase over 2023, according to the report.

CyberScoop [4/23/2025 4:54 PM, Matt Kapko] reports attackers are having a field day with software defects in security devices, according to a new report released Wednesday by Mandiant Exploits were the most common initial infection vector, representing 1 of every 3 attacks in 2024, and the four most frequently exploited vulnerabilities were all contained in edge devices, such as VPNs, firewalls and routers, Mandiant said in its M-Trends report released Wednesday. “Exploitation of these vulnerabilities represented slightly less than half of all observed vulnerability exploitation,” said Kirstie Failey, principal threat analyst at Google Threat Intelligence Group, under which the Mandiant brand operates. Threat researchers and federal cyber authorities have been sounding the alarm about attacks targeting network edge devices for more than a year. Since 2024, security device exploits have resulted in attacks on government agencies and some of the most valuable publicly-traded companies in the world. These lightweight devices and services are designed to improve defenses and prevent intrusions. Yet, because they don’t typically support third-party software, including endpoint detection and response capabilities, organizations are often caught off-guard when attackers gain access to their networks through a highly-privileged system. “Three of the four vulnerabilities were first exploited as zero-days,” Mandiant said in the report. “While a broad selection of threat actors have recently targeted edge devices, Mandiant also specifically noted an increase in targeting from Russian and Chinese cyber espionage actors.”

USA Today [4/24/2025 12:19 AM, Thao Nguyen, 75858K] reports scammers and cybercriminals stole a record total of $16.6 billion from Americans in 2024, marking a 33% increase in losses from 2023, the FBI said in a new report on April 23. The report released by the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) revealed that the "staggering" new record is likely an undercount of the total loss from cyber-enabled fraud and scams, according to Cynthia Kaiser, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division. The figure is only representative of information and complaints submitted by victims to the IC3, FBI officials confirmed. In 2024, the IC3 received 859,532 complaints regarding scams, fraud, and other suspected internet crimes, according to the report. The majority of reported losses — nearly 83%— were due to cyber-enabled fraud, which often involved the theft of money, data, or identity; or the creation of counterfeit goods or services, the IC3 found. Victims ages 60 and older were the most impacted demographic group, the report added. Over $4.8 billion in losses were reported across more than 147,000 complaints for that group in 2024, with both figures increasing by more than 40% from 2023. The report also noted that ransomware remained the largest threat to U.S. critical infrastructure in 2024, with complaints rising 9% from 2023. High-profile cyberattacks have prompted federal authorities to push for companies and organizations to beef up their security. "As nearly all aspects of our lives have become digitally connected, the attack surface for cyber actors has grown exponentially," the FBI’s Operations Director for Criminal and Cyber B. Chad Yarbrough wrote in the report. "Scammers are increasingly using the Internet to steal Americans’ hard-earned savings," Yarbrough added. "And with today’s technology, it can take mere taps on a keyboard to hijack networks, cripple water systems, or even rob virtual exchanges.” Ransomware ‘most pervasive threat’ to critical infrastructure in U.S. Federal authorities have underscored that cybercrime is a "significant and growing threat" to the country’s national and economic security. And ransomware was "again the most pervasive threat to critical infrastructure," according to the IC3 report. "The most reported cyber threats among critical infrastructure organizations were ransomware and data breaches," the report added.

Bloomberg [4/23/2025 6:00 PM, Aya Wagatsuma, Ryo Horiuchi, and Takashi Nakamichi, 16228K] reports criminals are hijacking online brokerage accounts in Japan and using them to drive up penny stocks around the world. The wave of fraudulent trading has reached ¥100 billion ($710 million) since it started in February and shows no signs of cresting. The scams typically use the hacked accounts to buy thinly traded stocks both domestically and overseas, allowing anyone who has built up a position earlier to cash out at inflated values. In response, some Japanese securities firms have stopped processing buy orders for certain Chinese, US and Japanese stocks. Eight of the country’s biggest brokers including Rakuten Securities Inc. and SBI Securities Co. have reported unauthorized trading on their platforms. The breaches have exposed Japan as a potential weak point in efforts to safeguard markets from hackers. They also threaten to undermine the government’s push to get more people to invest for their retirement, particularly since some victims say they are baffled as to how their accounts were broken into and the securities companies have so far largely refrained from covering the losses. Mai Mori, a 41-year-old part-time worker, said her Rakuten Securities retirement account was hacked and used to buy Chinese stocks in a transaction that cost her ¥639,777, or about 12% of her holdings. When she noticed, she contacted Rakuten, which told her to file a police report. However, the police in Aichi prefecture wouldn’t accept a criminal complaint because they said she wasn’t the victim — Rakuten Securities was. Rakuten then told her that it wasn’t at fault and therefore could not help her, according to Mori.

Federalist [4/23/2025 7:28 AM, Ben Weingarten, 1033K] reports that, in personnel and policy, the Trump administration has demonstrated a dogged devotion to dismantling and destroying the federal government-led censorship-industrial complex. One recent illustration is the State Department’s announcement that it has eliminated the Global Engagement Center (GEC), which censored The Federalist. One week prior, the White House revealed another vital effort to disarm the speech police — targeting an arguably more pernicious actor than the GEC. In an April 9 memorandum, the president called on relevant officials to revoke any active security clearance held by former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) chief Chris Krebs and to consider suspending security clearances of those at his cybersecurity firm, SentinelOne. Corporate media pounced on this development as part of a running feud between a president seeking vengeance and his virtuous insubordinate ex-subordinate, but there was far more significance to the memo. President Donald Trump’s sanctions came in response to the former CISA director’s having "weaponized and abused his government authority" via his involvement in the censorship-industrial complex. Now he will be held to account by losing his access to America’s secrets. But the president’s memo went still further. After detailing Krebs’ alleged malfeasance, Trump also tasked the attorney general and secretary of homeland security with investigating not only the ex-director for his activities as then-CISA chief, but CISA itself — going back six years and with a focus on "any instances where CISA’s conduct appears to have been contrary to the purposes and policies identified in Executive Order 14149," which prohibits the federal government from engaging in censorship efforts. At the conclusion of that probe, the agency heads are to submit a report to the president "with recommendations for appropriate remedial or preventative actions to be taken to fulfill the purposes and policies of Executive Order 14149.” What makes this effort so significant? As the plaintiffs in the landmark Murthy v. Missouri case found, CISA was the "nerve center" of fed-led speech policing. In congressional testimony in part building on discovery in that case, I detailed how CISA had coordinated fed-led censorship efforts with Big Tech, flagged offending content for suppression, and helped cultivate consortia of private-sector entities to serve as force-multiplying cutouts for laundering government censorship efforts. Krebs was integral to these efforts. As the presidential memo details, he was involved in "the censorship of disfavored speech implicating the 2020 election and COVID-19 pandemic" and helping suppress conservative viewpoints "under… guise of combatting supposed disinformation," including through pressuring social media platforms to do so. He also assisted domestic political interference through his sub-agencies’ "blind[ing of] the American public to the controversy surrounding Hunter Biden’s laptop" and downplaying or "promot[ing] the censorship of election information" around "risks associated with certain voting practices" and "election malfeasance and serious vulnerabilities with voting machines.”

Yahoo.com [4/23/2025 12:57 PM, Todd Karpovich, 430301K] reports that Baltimore City Public Schools have begun increasing cybersecurity measures after a data breach might have exposed personal information of students and workers, including by hiring a company to do a cybersecurity analysis. A district investigation found "certain documents may have been compromised by criminal actors, which contained information belonging to some current and former employees, volunteers, and contractors, as well as files related to less than 1.5% of our student population," which translates to about 1,000 students, according to district CEO Sonja Santelises. The hack, which was first detected in February and announced Tuesday to the public, was an attempted ransomware attack, a BCPS spokesperson confirmed, which typically block access to a computer system or files until money is paid. City Schools did not pay a ransom. There were no new updates to the investigation Wednesday, but the school system has already taken steps to boost its cybersecurity system. City Schools hired CrowdStrike Inc., a renowned technology company based in Austin, Texas, to provide a cybersecurity forensic analysis and assessment for $160,000. "Since the incident, we have implemented a series of additional cybersecurity enhancements, including the installation of endpoint detection and response software and the resetting of all passwords," City Schools spokesperson Sherry Christian said in an email to The Baltimore Sun. "We will continue to assess our procedures already in place and the results of the forensic audit for ways to defend against evolving threats."

ABC News [4/23/2025 5:52 PM, Megan Forrester and Emily Shapiro, 34586K] reports Robert Crimo III, the gunman who killed seven people and injured dozens in a mass shooting in Highland Park, Illinois, on July 4, 2022, is set to be sentenced on Thursday after pleading guilty in March. The sentencing hearing, which began Wednesday, has been continued until Thursday morning after the court heard from multiple survivors and relatives of those killed in the shooting at the Independence Day parade. Crimo decided to not appear in court on Wednesday. The shooter’s parents, who have attended most court proceedings, were also not present. The victims, who expected to address Crimo at the sentencing hearing, still shared the impact Crimo’s attack had on their lives. Leah Sundheim, daughter of victim Jacqueline Sundheim, said Crimo "threw the balance of this world off" by killing her mother. "I hope you wake in the middle of the night, gasping air you don’t deserve," Sundheim said in court on Wednesday. Sundheim also read a statement on behalf of her father, Bruce Sundheim, who said their family’s lives have been destroyed by Crimo’s "violent tantrum." Marcia Moran, whose husband was shot by Crimo, said she has been in therapy for over two years due to the emotional trauma. Her family has since moved out of Highland Park and is now living in Tennessee. "The shooter doesn’t get to take anything more from me," Moran said in court via Zoom. In March, Crimo pleaded guilty to 21 counts of first-degree murder, three counts for each person killed, and dozens of attempted murder charges. Survivor Ashbey Beasley, who fled the parade with her son when the gunfire broke out, said in March the plea brought an "immense amount of relief." [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

New York Times [4/23/2025 6:11 PM, Julie Bosman, 145325K] reports in a small courtroom in Lake County, Ill., they recalled the details of the day nearly three years ago with quiet clarity: the high school marching band strolling through downtown Highland Park, the families gathered in their usual spots along the parade route, the police officers directing traffic. There will be no trial for the shooter, Robert Crimo III, who pleaded guilty in March to 69 criminal counts, including murder and attempted murder, in the deaths of the seven people on July 4, 2022. The authorities said that Mr. Crimo, then 21, had climbed onto a rooftop in Highland Park, a suburb north of Chicago, and fired into the crowd below with a high-powered rifle. He fled in the aftermath but was arrested in a nearby town hours later. Instead, Wednesday was the start of Mr. Crimo’s sentencing hearing, one that could stretch for two or more days so that witnesses and victims can tell their stories. No sentence has been decided yet. Using photos, videos and drone footage, prosecutors established how Mr. Crimo committed the crime, how law enforcement officers responded and how the Highland Park residents who witnessed the shootings still feel the anguish.

The Hill [4/23/2025 1:58 PM, Lauren Irwin, 12829K] reports that families of the Robb Elementary School shooting victims reached a settlement with the city of Uvalde, Texas, an attorney representing the families said. Josh Koskoff, an attorney representing 19 families who had family injured or killed in the 2022 school shooting, shared that the city approved the settlement in a unanimous vote. "The road to healing is long and painful, but we are hopeful that this agreement enables families who lost so much and the city they call home to continue that process," Koskoff said in a statement. The Texas mass shooting left 19 students and two teachers dead. Last year, the Department of Justice released a scathing report that found there was a lack of preparation, communication and urgency from law enforcement. Nearly 400 members of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies stood outside the elementary school for 77 minutes while the gunman was inside, and parents pleaded with them to intervene. Students inside the school called 911 and officers eventually went in and killed the 18-year-old shooter. Several top law enforcement officers lost their jobs, and former police Chief Pete Arredondo was indicted last year in response to law enforcement’s lack of action, which received sharp criticism. Luevano said the city will work with the families for a permanent memorial.

Reported similarly:
Washington Examiner [4/23/2025 1:30 PM, Annabella Rosciglione, 2296K]

Wall Street Journal [4/23/2025 8:23 PM, Douglas Belkin and Sara Randazzo, 646K] reports President Trump signed an executive order Wednesday cracking down on foreign funding at universities, which has become a key point of contention in the administration’s battle with Harvard. The order aims to reinforce and strengthen rules requiring colleges and universities to report the receipt of foreign gifts or contracts worth $250,000 or more. The Trump administration has said it thinks reporting is spotty and oversight inadequate. The order intends to make clear the U.S. government can revoke federal funding from universities that fail to meet transparency requirements around money flowing to American campuses from outside the country. Last week, the administration pressed Harvard to turn over records on the money it receives from foreign sources going back a decade. The demand was part of Trump’s escalating pressure campaign against the university. In the Oval Office on Wednesday, before Trump signed the new executive order, White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf said that while there are laws around disclosing foreign gifts, “we believe that certain universities, including for example Harvard, have routinely violated this law, and this law has not been effectively enforced.” The administration hasn’t provided evidence Harvard violated the law. A Harvard spokesman said the university has filed the appropriate reports “for decades as part of its ongoing compliance with the law.” The university has previously said gifts and contracts from foreign sources include ones that provide executive education, other training and academic publications.

FOX News [4/23/2025 10:39 AM, Breanne Deppisch, 10702K] reports that in a win for the Trump administration, the U.S. Court of International Trade rejected a request from a group of small businesses to immediately halt President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs from taking force. Judges on the three-member panel for the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) ruled that the plaintiffs failed to show a likelihood that they would suffer "immediate and irreparable harm" as a result of the tariffs – the standard courts require to grant a temporary restraining order. The decision from the U.S. trade court leaves in place Trump’s sweeping tariff plan while plaintiffs’ broader request for injunctive relief continues to play out in court. Judges on Tuesday also ordered both plaintiffs and government lawyers to submit to the court new filings by early May, and set a planned hearing date to consider the merits of the case. The lawsuit was brought earlier this month by the Texas-based Liberty Justice Center, on behalf of four small businesses in New York, Pennsylvania, Utah and Vermont. Plaintiffs asked the federal trade court to grant a temporary restraining order that would block the tariffs from taking force, arguing that Trump inappropriately used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) as the basis for implementing the sweeping new taxes on imported goods. The brief decision from the federal trade court noted only that plaintiffs failed to prove that they had suffered immediate and irreparable harm needed to grant a request for the temporary restraining order.

USA Today [4/23/2025 7:22 PM, Trevor Hughes, 75858K] reports a coalition of Democrat-governed states is suing to halt President Donald Trump’s international trade tariffs, arguing only Congress has the power to levy them. The lawsuit filed in the U.S. Court of International Trade says Trump’s tariffs ‒ many of which have not yet come into force ‒ have injected massive uncertainty into the nation’s economy. Trump argues tariffs will make the United States rich enough to reduce its reliance on income taxes. In general, tariffs are passed along to consumers when companies increase selling prices to cover their costs. The April 23 suit was brought by Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Vermont. California filed a separate lawsuit over the tariffs earlier this month. Many of those same states have also sued Trump over other executive actions, from international student visa cancellations to federal funding halts. "Today, Colorado is standing up against President Trump’s recessionary tariff tax increase, which has been disastrous and is jeopardizing both U.S. leadership and the world economy," Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement. "We will do everything we can legally to prevent tariffs that are bad for businesses and all Americans." NBC News [4/23/2025 8:37 PM, Sydney Carruth, 44742K] reports that the legal challenge, led by Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes and Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, seeks to halt the enforcement of the global tariffs Trump levied that invoked a wartime law granting presidents the power to oversee trade if the United States is in a state of emergency. "By claiming the authority to impose immense and ever-changing tariffs on whatever goods entering the United States he chooses, for whatever reason he finds convenient to declare an emergency, the President has upended the constitutional order and brought chaos to the American economy," said the complaint Democratic attorneys general filed in the U.S. Court of International Trade. Mayes said in a statement announcing the lawsuit, "Trump’s insane tariff scheme is not only economically reckless — it is illegal.” New York Attorney General Letitia James, a frequent target of Trump’s attacks, argued that the tariffs "will lead to more inflation, unemployment, and economic damage" and that U.S. consumers will be forced to foot the bill for what amount to high import taxes. In response to a request for comment, White House spokesman Kush Desai said: "Once again, Democrats like Letitia James are prioritizing a witch hunt against President Trump over protecting the safety and wellbeing of their constituents.” "The Trump Administration remains committed to using its full legal authority to confront the distinct national emergencies our country is currently facing—both the scourge of illegal migration and fentanyl flows across our border and the exploding annual U.S. goods trade deficit," Desai added. The Hill [4/23/2025 5:34 PM, Ashleigh Fields, 12829K] reports New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) filed a Wednesday lawsuit against the Trump administration with 11 other states alleging the president violated the law by imposing tariffs on global trading partners. "The president does not have the power to raise taxes on a whim, but that’s exactly what President Trump has been doing with these tariffs," James said in a statement. "Donald Trump promised that he would lower prices and ease the cost of living, but these illegal tariffs will have the exact opposite effect on American families. His tariffs are unlawful and if not stopped, they will lead to more inflation, unemployment, and economic damage.” Trump said the White House has the authority to implement tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act which permits the executive branch to investigate, block, prohibit or regulate any imports and exports with foreign countries in the case of an "unusual or extraordinary threat.” The White House has cited the fentanyl opioid crisis as a qualifying "national emergency.” However, the Wednesday lawsuit alleges the president would need the approval of Congress to increase taxes on imports and exports, referencing a claim originally flagged by The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board. Connecticut, Arizona, Oregon, Vermont, Colorado, Maine, Illinois, Delaware, Minnesota, Nevada and New Mexico have all joined the lawsuit alleging the uptick in levies is illegal. FOX News [4/23/2025 9:20 PM, Jasmine Baehr, 430301K] reports that filed in the U.S. Court of International Trade, the lawsuit challenges Trump’s use of emergency powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose broad tariffs on imports from countries worldwide. "Once again, Democrats like Letitia James are prioritizing a witch hunt against President Trump over protecting the safety and wellbeing of their constituents," White House spokesman Kush Desai wrote exclusively to Fox News Digital. "The Trump Administration remains committed to using its full legal authority to confront the distinct national emergencies our country is currently facing—both the scourge of illegal migration and fentanyl flows across our border and the exploding annual U.S. goods trade deficit.” The 12 states, however, argue that the Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to impose taxes and tariffs, and that IEEPA was never intended to authorize trade policy on this scale. Twelve states are suing the Trump administration over tariffs. "President Trump’s reckless tariffs have skyrocketed costs for consumers and unleashed economic chaos across the country," said Gov. Kathy Hochul. "New York is standing up to fight back against the largest federal tax hike in American history. Attorney General James and I are partnering on this litigation on behalf of New York consumers, because we can’t let President Trump push our country into a recession.” "The president does not have the power to raise taxes on a whim," said New York Attorney General Letitia James. "His tariffs are unlawful and, if not stopped, they will lead to more inflation, unemployment, and economic damage.”

Reported similarly:
Axios [4/23/2025 4:58 PM, April Rubin, 13163K]

Bloomberg [4/23/2025 5:01 PM, Gregory Korte, 16228K] reports revenue from customs duties spiked more than 60% in April as the first of President Donald Trump’s fresh tariffs took effect, bringing in at least $15 billion, according to Treasury data released Wednesday. The data from the Daily Treasury Statement reflects customs duties that larger importers and brokers paid in April on imports arriving in US ports in March. About two-thirds of importers pay tariffs monthly, on the 15th working day of the following month. Daily collections — those paid at the time of importing — have also risen by about 40% in April compared with the comparable period in March. Included in those collections are the 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum tariffs that Trump imposed as of March 12. But the numbers largely do not account for the 10% universal tariff that Trump announced on April 2 — meaning that collections in May could surge even further. With monthly collections for March now accounted for, the Treasury will bring in at least $15.4 billion in customs duties and other excise taxes, the data show. Measured in dollar terms rather than as a share of GDP, that would be a monthly record, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The Hill [4/23/2025 7:40 PM, Sarah Fortinsky, 12829K] reports Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said she made two criminal referrals on Wednesday related to alleged leaks in the intelligence community and said a third referral is "on its way.” In a post on the social platform X, Gabbard said the third criminal referral "includes the recent illegal leak to Washington Post," without elaborating on details. "Politicization of our intelligence and leaking classified information puts our nation’s security at risk and must end," Gabbard said in her statement. "Those who leak classified information will be found and held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.” Gabbard said she looks forward to working with federal law enforcement to prosecute the "deep-state criminals" allegedly involved. "These deep-state criminals leaked classified information for partisan political purposes to undermine POTUS’ agenda. I look forward to working with @TheJusticeDept and @FBI to investigate, terminate and prosecute these criminals," she wrote. The statement comes as Trump administration officials have sought to clamp down on leaks to journalists. Last month, Gabbard announced the Trump administration would be "aggressively pursuing" leakers, accusing them of being politically motivated. "Unfortunately, such leaks have become commonplace with no investigation or accountability. That ends now. We know of and are aggressively pursuing recent leakers from within the Intelligence Community and will hold them accountable," Gabbard wrote in a post last month.

FOX News [4/23/2025 10:06 AM, Diana Stancy, 46189K] reports that the White House is steadfast in its support for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth amid media reports regarding his imminent ouster. Hegseth has attracted scrutiny once more in recent weeks after the New York Times reported Sunday that he disclosed details about a March military airstrike in Yemen against the Houthis in a Signal messaging app group chat that included his wife, brother and lawyer – about a dozen people in total – on a personal phone before his confirmation. Hegseth maintains that no classified information was disclosed over Signal. The incident follows a similar episode in March, where the Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was included on a Signal group chat with other high-ranking Trump administration officials, including Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance, discussing the same attack on the Houthis. National security advisor Mike Waltz later took "full responsibility" for that chat blunder. But the White House says it supports Hegseth, and argued he’s faced a "smear campaign" since Trump tapped him for the post in December 2024. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Politico [4/23/2025 8:36 PM, Rachael Bade, Daniel Lippman, Jack Detsch and Paul McLeary, 11599K] reports that, when President Donald Trump chose Pete Hegseth for Defense secretary, incoming officials knew they’d need to surround the inexperienced Fox News host with accomplished staff who could handle the nation’s largest bureaucracy. Hegseth would be the show horse, they figured, and others at the top would keep the Pentagon on track. What happened was the opposite. Hegseth surrounded himself with advisers who quickly turned into vicious rivals for power — whose bitter brawl has now unraveled into revenge power plays, surprise firings, accusations of leaking and embarrassing headlines that are blowing up the Pentagon, distracting from Trump’s agenda and possibly jeopardizing Hegseth’s job. Many administration feuds are driven by ideological or factional differences, splitting old-school conservatives from MAGA headliners and “America First” activists. That does not appear to be the case here: This one is all about personality conflict, according to interviews with nine current and former Defense Department officials as well as others close to the feud, granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive political issue. Hegseth’s closest advisers privately jockeyed for influence, creating festering distrust and gamesmanship that has rocked the world’s premier defense agency. The extent of the feud, which has been previously unreported, helps explain the chaos that has eclipsed the Defense Department in recent weeks. And it affirms skeptics’ concerns that Hegseth lacked the management experience to run a large organization. “There’s just a lot of tension, there’s a lot of bad blood,” said a person with knowledge of the feud. “And there’s a lot of people trying to assert dominance in an area where it’s very hard to do without cutting somebody else.” The infighting became so ugly that Hegseth suspected the recent leaks to the media were an orchestrated attempt by his senior staff to make their rivals look bad, according to someone close to him, efforts that cast the secretary and his department in a negative light. At the center was Joe Kasper, Hegseth’s departing chief of staff, who people familiar with the matter said created a toxic workplace culture and played an instrumental role last week in pushing out three top Pentagon officials. Those firings, they said, were an attempt to consolidate power. Kasper denied inappropriate behavior or having anything to do with the dismissals. On the other side were the fired employees, trusted Hegseth allies. Those staffers — senior adviser Dan Caldwell, deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick and Colin Carroll, chief of staff to the deputy Defense secretary — were considered Hegseth’s closest advisers and maintain their innocence. “We had people who had personal vendettas against us,” Caldwell told Tucker Carlson in an interview Monday night. “They weaponized the investigation against us.”

New York Post [4/24/2025 3:05 AM, Alexandra Koch, 54903K] reports a former US Army intelligence analyst was sentenced to seven years in prison on Wednesday for giving sensitive military information to a person he believed was affiliated with the Chinese government. Korbein Schultz, 25, of Wills Point, Texas, pleaded guilty in August 2024 to conspiring to collect and transmit national defense information, unlawfully exporting controlled information to China, and accepting bribes in exchange for sensitive, non-public US government information. From May 2022 until his arrest in March 2024, Schultz engaged in an ongoing conspiracy to provide dozens of sensitive US military documents — many of which contained export-controlled tactical and technical information — directly to a foreign national living in the People’s Republic of China, according to court documents. Despite "clear indications" the person he was giving the information to was likely connected to the Chinese government, Schultz continued the relationship in exchange for about $42,000, according to officials. Schultz pleaded guilty to giving the person in China his Army unit’s operational order before it was deployed to Eastern Europe in support of NATO operations; lessons learned by the US Army from the Ukraine and Russia conflict, applicable to Taiwan’s defense; technical manuals for the HH-60 helicopter, F-22A fighter aircraft, and Intercontinental Ballistic Missile systems; information on Chinese military tactics and the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force; and details on US military exercises in the Republic of Korea and the Philippines. He also provided documents concerning US military satellites and missile defense systems like the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, and tactics for countering unmanned aerial systems in large-scale combat operations. The person Schultz gave information to in China first contacted him through a freelance web-based work platform shortly after Schultz received his Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information clearance, according to court documents. They allegedly posed as a client from a geopolitical consulting firm, soliciting Schultz to provide detailed analyses on US military capabilities and planning, particularly in relation to Taiwan and the Russia-Ukraine conflict. As the relationship progressed, the Chinese national’s demands grew increasingly specific and sensitive — requesting technical manuals, operational procedures and intelligence assessments. The conspirator made it clear that he was interested in receiving materials that were not publicly available and encouraged Schultz to seek out higher levels of classification, emphasizing "exclusiveness" and "CUI and better," according to court documents. Schultz agreed to send higher levels of classified information to the Chinese man in exchange for money. Fully aware of the national security implications, Schultz accessed restricted databases, including closed US government computer networks, to download and transmit at least 92 sensitive US military documents, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ). He also attempted to recruit his friend, a fellow Army intelligence analyst, into the conspiracy.

AP [4/24/2025 12:15 AM, Illia Novikov, Aamer Madhani and Jill Lawless, 430301K] reports President Donald Trump on Wednesday lashed out at Ukraine’s president, saying Volodymyr Zelenskyy is prolonging the “killing field” after pushing back on ceding Crimea to Russia as part of a potential peace plan. Zelenskyy on Tuesday ruled out ceding territory to Russia in any deal before talks set for Wednesday in London among U.S., European and Ukrainian officials. “There is nothing to talk about. It is our land, the land of the Ukrainian people,” Zelenskyy said. During similar talks last week in Paris, U.S. officials presented a proposal that included allowing Russia to keep control of occupied Ukrainian territory as part of a deal, according to a European official familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Trump called Zelenkyy’s pushback “very harmful” to talks. “Nobody is asking Zelenskyy to recognize Crimea as Russian Territory but, if he wants Crimea, why didn’t they fight for it eleven years ago when it was handed over to Russia without a shot being fired?” he wrote on social media. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 after sending troops to overrun it. Weeks later, Moscow-backed separatists launched an uprising in eastern Ukraine, battling Kyiv’s forces. Trump also asserted they were close to a deal and that Ukraine’s leader can have peace or “he can fight for another three years before losing the whole Country,” adding that Zelenskyy’s statement “will do nothing but prolong the ‘killing field,’ and nobody wants that!” Wednesday’s meeting was pared back at the last minute, while Vice President JD Vance said negotiations are reaching a moment of truth. “We’ve issued a very explicit proposal to both the Russians and the Ukrainians, and it’s time for them to either say ‘yes’ or for the United States to walk away from this process,” Vance told reporters during a visit to India. He said it was “a very fair proposal” that would “freeze the territorial lines at some level close to where they are today,” with both sides having to give up some territory they currently hold. He did not provide details. Trump, who is set to travel to Rome for Pope Francis’s funeral on Saturday, told reporters later on Wednesday that he did not know if he would meet with Zelenskyy or other European leaders to discuss the war while in Italy. He also said that has found dealing with Zelenskyy harder than dealing with the Russians. Trump who is set to travel to the Middle East next month said it was “possible” that he could meet with Putin while in Saudi Arabia, but that it is more likely he will meet with the Russian leader soon after that trip.

NewsMax [4/23/2025 5:50 PM, Hamid Enayat, 4998K] reports recently, Oman’s foreign minister announced that the Islamic Republic may be permitted to continue uranium enrichment at 3.67%. Meanwhile, New York Times reports that Iran has offered to allow the United States and other nations to monitor its nuclear enrichment. On the surface, this may seem like a breakthrough. But is this truly a step toward peace — or simply a familiar trap in a dangerous game? The world must ask itself: can a regime that has already violated past agreements be trusted now? Under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, or Iran Nuclear Deal), Iran pledged to limit enrichment to 3.67%. In practice, the regime shattered that promise, enriching uranium up to 60% — a level dangerously close to weapons-grade. This nuclear progress became a tool of blackmail, enabling Iran to extract concessions from the global community while continuing its destabilizing activities. Following the July 14, 2015, deal, Iran regained access to $150 billion in frozen assets. But those funds didn’t reach the Iranian people. Instead of easing widespread poverty, the regime used the windfall to fuel regional proxy wars. By 2017, economic frustration boiled over into mass protests. Iranians, robbed of hope, took to the streets in a movement driven by poverty and injustice.

Reuters [4/23/2025 6:06 AM, Michael Martina, 41523K] reports talks continue between the U.S. and China on tackling the fentanyl epidemic amid the bitter trade war between the world’s two largest economies, four U.S. officials familiar with the discussions told Reuters, even as American negotiators claim the Chinese are failing to negotiate in good faith. The two sides are exchanging intelligence about traffickers and communicate frequently. But Beijing’s proposals to help resolve the crisis thus far are inadequate, the people said, testing the patience of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has pursued a more confrontational stance with China on drugs than did his predecessor Joe Biden. Washington says Chinese chemical manufacturers and exporters provide the majority of precursor chemicals used by drug cartels to produce synthetic opioids, the cause of nearly 450,000 U.S. overdose deaths. China has long defended its tough drug laws and record of cracking down on smugglers, and says America must get a handle on its own addiction woes. "The abuse of fentanyl in the United States is a problem that must be confronted and resolved by the United States itself," Liu Pengyu, spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, told Reuters. In recent weeks, the Trump administration has engaged in direct talks with Chinese counterparts, mostly between the top staff at the Chinese embassy in Washington and the U.S. National Security Council, the four U.S. officials said. Staff at the U.S. embassy in Beijing have also been involved. Trump negotiators have conveyed his desire for swift action by Chinese authorities to prosecute and convict China-based producers and sellers of precursors feeding the fentanyl trade, the U.S. officials said. China, in turn, has offered to regulate additional fentanyl precursor chemicals beyond those it already controls, a proposal the Americans say falls well short of what they’re looking for. "Talk is cheap," one of the U.S. officials said, adding the two sides were largely "at an impasse.” In response to questions from Reuters about the counternarcotics talks, an administration official said the U.S. might consider additional punitive measures to compel China to take meaningful action on fentanyl precursors, including sanctions on Chinese banks. "Nothing is off the table," the person said.

Reuters [4/23/2025 12:18 PM, Trevor Hunnicutt, 41523K] reports the Trump administration would look at lowering tariffs on imported Chinese goods pending talks with Beijing, a source familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, adding that any action would not be made unilaterally. The source’s comments followed a Wall Street Journal report that the White House is considering cutting its tariffs on Chinese imports in a bid to de-escalate tensions. China tariffs could come down from their current level of 145% to between 50% and 65%, the paper said, citing a White House official. "We are going to have a fair deal with China," Trump told reporters on Wednesday, but did not address the specifics of the Journal report. His remarks followed optimistic comments he made on Tuesday that a deal to lower tariffs was possible. White House spokesperson Kush Desai said any reports on tariffs were "pure speculation" unless they come directly from Trump. The tariff levels outlined in the Journal report would likely still be high enough to deter a significant chunk of trade between the world’s two largest economies. German shipper Hapag-Lloyd said Wednesday that 30% of its U.S.-bound shipments from China have been cancelled. China has retaliated with 125% tariffs on U.S. imports, along with other measures. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said both countries see the current rates as unsustainable, but said he does not know when any negotiations might start. Separate talks between the two countries over tackling the fentanyl epidemic have not yielded results so far, sources say. U.S. stocks extended their early session gains after the report. The market had opened sharply higher on relief among investors after Trump backed away from threats to fire the head of the Federal Reserve and said a deal with China was possible. The benchmark S&P 500 index was up roughly 3% in mid-morning trading.

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New York Post [4/23/2025 12:50 PM, Taylor Herzlich, 54903K]
Bloomberg [4/23/2025 6:09 PM, Shelly Banjo, 16228K]
The Hill [4/23/2025 7:09 PM, Alex Gangitano, 12829K]
FOX Business [4/23/2025 11:35 AM, Bonny Chu and Stephen Sorace, 10702K]

Washington Post [4/23/2025 5:38 PM, David J. Lynch, 31735K] reports President Donald Trump, stung by a mounting backlash to his historic tariff plans, signaled on Wednesday that he is aiming for an end to the most intense period of global trade conflict in several decades. The president talked for weeks about the need for Americans to endure short-term pain before enjoying his promised “Golden Age” of manufacturing-heavy prosperity. But with financial markets rocking and business leaders warning of product shortages, Trump now is highlighting his expectations for reaching a “fair deal” with China — and his aides are touting prospects for other early agreements. Coupled with conciliatory remarks about Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell, Trump’s upbeat trade talk was enough to spur a Wall Street rally. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s public endorsement of a continued U.S. role in the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, though conditioned on institutional changes, added to the improved mood. On Wall Street, investors welcomed the apparent change of heart, sending the S&P 500 index up nearly 3.5 percent in early trading before it closed with a 1.7 percent gain. So far this year, stocks are down more than 8 percent, as Trump’s promised revolution in global economics has clouded estimates of future earnings. “This change of plans is good for him and good for the country. It was headed in a bad, bad direction,” said Timothy Keeler, co-leader of the trade practice for the law firm Mayer Brown. Meeting with reporters, Bessent said negotiations with India were moving quickly, with the two sides “very close” to an agreement. But he also lowered the bar for success, noting that any early accord would not be equivalent to a traditional trade deal. The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement signed during Trump’s first term, for example, extends for hundreds of pages. “A satisfactory arrangement does not necessarily mean the actual trade document. It means that we have reached agreement in principle and then we will start implementing those,” Bessent said. Even as the president and his team accentuate the positive, the highest tariffs in more than a century weigh on the economic outlook. On Tuesday, the IMF cut its estimate for global growth to 2.8 percent this year, down half a percentage point from its January forecast. Trump’s extensive tariffs and the pervasive uncertainty around his policymaking were responsible for a “significant slowdown,” fund economists said.

CBS Austin [4/23/2025 4:34 PM, Ahtra Elnashar, 602K] reports after President Donald Trump started to strike a softer tone when speaking about his trade war with China, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt threw cold water on the idea that the United States would lower its triple-digit tariffs that have led to a freeze of the largest trade partnership in the world. Let me be clear: There will be no unilateral reduction in tariffs against China. The president has made it clear China needs to make a deal with the United States of America and we are optimistic that will happen and when that continues, it’ll be up to the president what the tariff rate on China will be," Leavitt said Wednesday afternoon. Speculation about Trump lowering tariffs began Tuesday afternoon when he responded to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s earlier comment that the current 145% tariffs on Chinese goods were not sustainable. "It’ll come down substantially, but it won’t be zero," Trump said. The president also said he would not "play hardball" with Chinese President Xi Jinping. No, no. We’re gonna be very nice," Trump said. Exactly a week prior, Trump issued a statement via his press secretary stating, "China needs to make a deal with us. We don’t have to make a deal with them.” On Wednesday, when Trump was asked by a reporter if he was actively talking to China, he said, "Actively. Everything’s active. Everybody wants to be a part of what we’re doing. They know that they can’t get away with it any longer, but they’re still gonna do fine.” China did not seem to put much stock in Trump’s change of tone. "If a negotiated solution is truly what the U.S. wants, it should stop threatening and blackmailing China and seek dialogue based on equality, respect and mutual benefit. To keep asking for a deal while exerting extreme pressure is not the right way to deal with China and simply will not work," Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Guo Jiakun said.

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Bloomberg [4/23/2025 11:35 AM, Daniel Flatley, 16228K]

Reuters [4/23/2025 9:47 AM, Phuong Nguyen and Francesco Guarascio, 41523K] reports Vietnam’s trade minister spoke to U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer by phone on Wednesday, state-run media reported, kicking off trade talks as whopping 46% U.S. tariffs loom, threatening growth in Southeast Asia’s industrial hub. The U.S. has paused imposing the 46% reciprocal tariffs on Vietnam until July. If applied, it could undermine growth in Vietnam, which relies on exports to its top market, the United States, and large investments by foreign manufacturers. "Vietnam is ready to deal with existing issues on the basis of mutual interests," broadcaster Vietnam Television reported, citing the trade minister, Nguyen Hong Dien, who heads the Vietnamese negotiation team. "The U.S. side hopes to reach mutual agreement towards a stable and sustainable trade relationship," VTV reported.

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