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

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

The New York Times [8/12/2025 6:45 PM, Jack Nicas, Paulina Villegas, Maria Abi-Habib and Alan Feuer, 138952K] reports Mexico on Tuesday sent 26 captured cartel operatives to the United States, Mexican officials announced, in an apparent bid to alleviate the intense pressure the country faces from President Trump to do more to combat the powerful cartels that smuggle fentanyl across the border. The transfer is the second such move by Mexican officials, who sent 29 cartel leaders to the United States in February — a decision that sparked debate in Mexico over the legal grounds and political sense of such a gambit. For months, Mexico has been under intense pressure from Mr. Trump, who has threatened high tariffs over issues like immigration and combating drug cartels. Although the Mexican government has worked hard to curb migration and launched an aggressive campaign against the Sinaloa Cartel, U.S. officials have consistently asked for more action. On Friday, The New York Times reported that Mr. Trump had secretly ordered the Pentagon to use military force against Latin American cartels that his administration had deemed terrorist organizations. There have been conversations between Mexican and U.S. officials over the transfer in recent days, according to four people with knowledge of the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private negotiations. The Mexican government said on Tuesday that the 26 people being extradited were “wanted for their links to criminal organizations for drug trafficking, among other crimes, and represented a permanent risk to public security.” It said that the U.S. Justice Department committed to not requesting the death penalty for the inmates. The Wall Street Journal [8/12/2025 5:30 PM, Steve Fisher, Santiago Pérez, and José de Córdoba, 646K] reports that the group of alleged drug bosses sent to the U.S. on Tuesday was similar in size to a group of 29 inmates transferred to the U.S. in February. The group sent Tuesday included members of top criminal organizations facing drug charges in the U.S. who are being sent to locations including Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia, San Diego and New York, a person familiar with the move said. Mexico’s government said the inmates represented a risk to national security, allowing the government to cut through protracted extradition proceedings. Some of the prisoners taken to the U.S. in February had delayed extradition proceedings for years through legal maneuvers such as injunctions. The government didn’t identify the prisoners. It said the U.S. agreed not to seek the death penalty against the prisoners, all of whom were being sought for extradition. Mexico has been in talks with the U.S. on a comprehensive security agreement, which both countries say is close to being signed. Sheinbaum has said her priority is to stop any unilateral U.S. military action in Mexican territory, while bolstering bilateral cooperation on security and intelligence gathering. “We would never permit, never, that the U.S. Army or any other U.S. institution step on Mexican territory, never,” she said at a press conference Monday. She reiterated Mexico’s willingness to cooperate with the U.S. in battling drug trafficking. The transfers could help law-enforcement efforts in both countries, said Eduardo Guerrero, a Mexican security analyst. Mexico lacks the ability to control prisons where wealthy drug bosses hold sway, he said. In the U.S., accused drug bosses might provide information and cooperation for lighter sentences. The New York Post [8/12/2025 10:48 PM, Caitlin McCormack, 49956K] reports "Today is the latest example of the Trump administration’s historic efforts to dismantle cartels and foreign terrorist organizations. These 26 men have all played a role in bringing violence and drugs to American shores — under this Department of Justice, they will face severe consequences for their crimes against this country. We are grateful to Mexico’s National Security team for their collaboration in this matter," Attorney General Pamela Bondi said. US Ambassador to Mexico Ronald Johnson added: "These fugitives will now face justice in U.S. courts, and the citizens of both of our nations will be safer from these common enemies.”

Reported similarly:
Bloomberg [8/12/2025 8:38 PM, Carolina Millan, 19320K]
AP [8/12/2025 8:59 PM, Alanna Durkin Richer and María Verza, 3077K]
Reuters [8/12/2025 7:15 PM, Emily Green and Diego Oré, 51390K]

NewsMax [8/12/2025 8:48 PM, Jim Thomas, 4622K] reports the National Guard began deploying in Washington, D.C., Tuesday night as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping federal initiative to combat crime, following his order to place the city’s police under direct federal control. Military vehicles and uniformed National Guard members gathered near the Washington Monument on Tuesday, marking the start of an intensified law enforcement push in the nation’s capital. "HAPPENING NOW | Just steps away from the Washington Monument - members of the National Guard are gathered with several parked military vehicles," reporter Nana-Séntuo Bonsu posted on X. FBI Director Kash Patel announced that 10 people were arrested in Washington as part of the first major operation supporting Trump’s "Make DC Safe Again" initiative. "On the first big push of [the] FBI supporting @POTUS @realDonaldTrump initiative to make DC safe again, [the] FBI reported 10 arrests with partners," Patel said on X. The arrests included one on a prior murder charge, multiple unlawful firearm possession cases, several outstanding DUI warrants and a violation of a restraining order. "These are just a few examples — we are just getting started," Patel added, noting that federal partners and local police made 23 arrests in total. "When you let good cops be cops they can clean up our streets and do it fast. More to come. Your nation’s Capital WILL be safe again.” According to the White House, about 800 National Guard members are expected to participate in the mission, with a small number mobilized by Tuesday afternoon and more joining in coming days. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said roughly 850 officers and agents surged into Washington on Monday night after Trump federalized the D.C. police department, Washington Post reported. Breitbart [8/13/2025 1:02 AM, Paul Bois, 3077K] reports that according to Fox News, National Guard troops were seen "leaving the D.C. Armory on Tuesday morning," with footage showing "military vehicles stationed on a street as pedestrians walked by.” The number of troops in the city remains unclear. Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser confirmed with reporters on Tuesday that she has been meeting with federal officials on coordinating with the increased law enforcement presence. "What I’m focused on is the federal surge and how to make the most of the additional officer support that we have," she told reporters. "We have the best in the business in MPD Chief Pamela Smith to lead that effort and to make sure that the men and women who are coming from federal law enforcement are being well-used and that if there’s National Guard here, they’re being well-used.” As Breitbart News reported last week, President Trump ordered federal law enforcement officers to patrol the streets of Washington, DC, for the next seven days to crack down on violent crime. The federal presence will be led by the U.S. Park Police and will reportedly "include officers and agents from the FBI, DEA, ATF, divisions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other agencies," per the Hill. "The order came after a March executive order establishing the Making D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force, ‘To ensure effective federal participation’ in the enforcement of immigration laws and redirecting resources to apprehend and deport migrants in Washington, as well as monitoring its sanctuary city status to comply with federal immigration laws," noted the outlet. The federal presence will be in marked units. On Monday, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser called the president’s order "unsettling and unprecedented.” "And while this action today is unsettling and unprecedented, I can’t say that — given some of the rhetoric of the past — that we’re totally surprised," she said, adding that she will be "making sure that we have the judges that we need, including making sure that all federal parks are supported, not just with law enforcement, but with other clean and safe activities, and including making sure that our economy is supported by rational federal actions as it relates to the federal workforce.” The D.C. police union publicly backed the president’s order. "We stand with the President in recognizing that Washington, DC, cannot continue on this trajectory. Crime is out of control, and our officers are stretched beyond their limits," said Gregg Pemberton, the chairman of the union, according to a statement shared by WUSA’s Spencer Allen.

ABC News [8/12/2025 7:11 PM, Luis Martinez, Anne Flaherty, and Emily Chang, 31733K] reports as the first of 800 Washington, D.C., National Guard members activated by President Donald Trump to assist with law enforcement in the nation’s capital began to arrive Tuesday, they were still waiting to hear from law enforcement what their mission would be. The Guard has not yet deployed to the city’s streets as Guard officials continue to plan logistics for how they’ll support law enforcement efforts. As of Tuesday evening, the Army has not been given a mission by federal law enforcement, an Army spokesman said. Their mission will likely determine the type of weapons they might carry, if any. "What we’ve been told clearly and distinctly is that we will be in a support role to law enforcement," the spokesman said. About 100 Guard members arrived at the D.C. Armory Tuesday morning to fill out paperwork as part of their in-processing. When asked if they had received any marching orders or instruction, one Guard member told ABC News, "Not really," and clarified they just were told to gather at the armory. The number of National Guard who will be in-processed -- counting personnel, organizing them and ensuring records are up to date -- is expected to grow over the coming week, eventually rising to the 800 that will be activated for this mission, Defense officials said. An Army spokesperson said the Guard will work in shifts of 100 to 200 personnel at a time, and they can return home when their shift is done. Earlier on Tuesday, Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll and Gen. James Mingus, the Army’s vice chief of staff, visited the armory to meet with Guard members and their leaders. An Army spokesperson told ABC News that Driscoll and Mingus gave the troops somewhat of a pep talk, letting them know they are appreciated. Activated Guard members have access to their weapons, but whether they will be armed for their specific missions is a decision that will be made by the commander of what is now known as Joint Task Force D.C. Like all service members serving in the U.S., the Guard will fall under the Standing Rules for the Use of Force, similar to what was used during the deployment of federalized Guard members to Los Angeles following protests against immigration raids. Under those rules, military personnel have the right of self-defense to protect themselves and others, but use de-escalation techniques to minimize the use of force to accomplish their mission. Appearing on Fox News on Monday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the activated Guard troops will have "broad latitude" under existing authorities, but "they’re not going to be involved in law enforcement functions.”

Wall Street Journal [8/12/2025 9:13 PM, Staff, 646K] reports President Trump has deployed roughly 800 members of the National Guard to the nation’s capital and taken the city’s police department under federal control. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

FOX News [8/12/2025 2:40 PM, Breanne Deppisch, Jake Gibson, and David Spunt, 46878K] reports that Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser and the city’s police chief traveled to Justice Department headquarters on Tuesday to meet with Attorney General Pam Bondi and other senior administration officials to discuss the temporary National Guard takeover in the nation’s capital. The meeting came hours after President Donald Trump announced plans Monday to temporarily federalize law enforcement in the nation’s capital, both through deploying hundreds of D.C. National Guard troops, and taking control in the near-term of the city’s local police force. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Bowser said the sit-down was focused on coordination and strategy with the federal government. "What I’m focused on is the federal surge and how to make the most of the additional officer support that we have," Bowser said. "We have the best in the business with [Metropolitan Police Chief] Pamela Smith to lead that effort, and to make sure that the men and women who are coming from federal law enforcement are being well-used, and that if there’s National Guard here they’re being well-used." The meeting with Bondi and other senior Trump officials, including FBI Director Kash Patel and U.S. Marshals Service Director Gady Serralta, came after Trump on Monday announced plans to use a 1973 D.C. Home Rule Act provision to send National Guard troops to D.C., as part of an effort to "reestablish law order and public safety" and temporarily federalize the city. D.C. officials, for their part, also urged calm on Tuesday, with Chief Smith stressing to reporters that they regularly work alongside federal law enforcement officials. "I think this is going to be a good effort," she said Tuesday.

Reported similarly:
Breitbart [8/12/2025 5:18 PM, Hannah Knudsen, 3077K]

New York Post [8/12/2025 1:03 PM, Steven Nelson, 49956K] reports that DC Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith said Tuesday that she wants to "work together" to implement President Trump’s directive federalizing her 3,400-officer force — hours after 850 federal agents patrolled the streets of the capital Monday night. Smith and DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, an elected Democrat, visited the Justice Department Tuesday morning for meetings with their new law enforcement supervisors, including Drug Enforcement Administration chief Terry Cole, who will oversee the MPD. Bowser told reporters she too wanted to see "how to make the most of the additional officer support" — as the White House supplements MPD officers with a surge in personnel from federal agencies including the Border Patrol, the FBI, the DEA and US Park Police. National Guard members will also have a presence on the streets of the capital, despite not being empowered to make arrests. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday afternoon that "last night, approximately 850 officers and agents were surged across the city," adding that "they made a total of 23 arrests." "These arrests consisted of homicide, firearms offenses, possession with intent to distribute narcotics, fare evasion, lewd acts, stalking, possession of a high-capacity magazine, fleeing to elude in a vehicle, no permits, driving under the influence, reckless driving and a bench warrant." Leavitt also noted that six "illegal handguns" were confiscated and promised that "this is only the beginning."

AP [8/12/2025 7:59 PM, Olga R. Rodriguez, 56000K] reports National Guard troops repeatedly rehearsed their role in an operation at a Los Angeles park intended as a show of force against undocumented people and those protesting the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, a deputy commanding general testified Tuesday. Maj. Gen. Scott Sherman, who commanded Guard troops in Los Angeles, was testifying at a trial to determine whether the Trump administration violated federal law when it deployed the soldiers and U.S. Marines to Southern California this summer. Sherman said the deployment of federal agents on horseback and on foot to MacArthur Park in the heart of a neighborhood with a large immigrant population was initially planned for Father’s Day, June 15. But the operation was moved to July 7 after he raised concerns the park could be crowded, he said. "We assessed that there could be a large amount of people in the park (on Father’s Day), which could quickly overwhelm Border Patrol," Sherman testified. Sherman said the decision to shift the timing of the operation came after discussion among the National Guard, the U.S. Northern Command, the Border Patrol, Department of Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth and Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. The Guard troops were deployed to protect the perimeter and were instructed only to exit their vehicles if there was a direct threat to federal agents, he said. All troops remained in their vehicles during the brief but mighty show of force. Sherman said the operation took just 20 minutes because it had been rehearsed multiple times. The Department of Homeland Security hasn’t said if anyone was arrested. Sherman testified during the second day of a three-day trial on whether President Donald Trump’s deployment of armed forces to Los Angeles following protests over immigration raids this summer violated the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act. The law generally prohibits a president from using the military to police domestic affairs. All but about 300 Guard troops have since left Los Angeles.

CBS News [8/12/2025 5:16 PM, Kathryn Watson, Eleanor Watson, 51860K] reports President Trump announced this week the deployment of 800 members of the D.C. National Guard to the District of Columbia, as part of a push to crack down on crime in the nation’s capital. The president is also temporarily taking control of the District’s Metropolitan Police Department. Hundreds of additional federal law enforcement officers have also joined the effort recently, from a variety of agencies fanning out across the city. The Army has activated the D.C. National Guard to "assist law enforcement in the nation’s capital," it said in a statement and added that of the approximately 800 soldiers activated, 100 to 200 would be supporting law enforcement at any given time on an "array of tasks from administrative, logistics and physical presence." Axios [8/12/2025 4:13 PM, Herb Scribner, 13599K] reports President Trump’s takeover of the D.C. police began this week, and it’s unclear what that control will mean for district residents or how long it will last. Trump’s decision to upend the status quo in D.C. isn’t without legal merit, as the Home Rule Act gives him the power to do so for roughly a month. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a press briefing Tuesday that about 850 officers and agents were sent across Washington, D.C., last night and 23 arrests were made during the first night of the federal takeover. Photos showed U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents patrolling the city and U.S. Border Patrol units are stationed there, too. There were also snapshots of the Metropolitan Police Department officers investigating a shooting and federal law enforcement officers gathering at the U.S. Park Police office. Trump first announced plans to federalize the D.C. police force on Monday, saying the city is "totally out of control" (despite a drop in violent crime) and "one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the world." Section 740 of the act specifically gives the president power to control the D.C. Police in response to "special conditions of an emergency nature" for up to 30 days. However, Congress can vote to end the emergency status. It’s unlikely this will happen now, since Republicans control both chambers. Congress can also vote to extend the emergency powers in a joint resolution.

Reported similarly:
The Hill [8/12/2025 5:58 PM, Julia Manchester, 18649K]

Daily Wire [8/12/2025 8:24 AM, Zach Jewell, 3816K] reports that Washington, D.C., police recorded the 100th homicide of 2025 in the nation’s capital Monday evening, just hours after President Donald Trump announced that the federal government would take control of law enforcement to crack down on violent crime in D.C. Tymark Wells, 33, was shot multiple times in D.C.’s Logan Circle neighborhood just before 7:00 p.m., Fox 5 reported. The victim was taken to the hospital after police arrived on the scene and was later pronounced dead. Police are searching for a man wearing a black shirt and carrying a rifle, according to NBC 4 Washington. Logan Circle is just one mile from the White House and is described as one of D.C.’s more popular neighborhoods, attracting young crowds to its restaurants and bars. After the shooting, the Secret Service closed the Ellipse park near the White House, along with the north and south fence lines around the White House. The D.C. Police Union, which backed Trump’s decision to federalize the police department, said in a statement, "Last night, DC suffered the grave milestone of its 100th homicide for 2025. Let’s hope this federal intervention leads to real change to the laws in DC that allow this to happen year after year."

ABC News [8/12/2025 1:20 PM, Staff, 31733K] reports approximately 850 officers and agents were "surged" across D.C. Monday night after President Donald Trump declared a crime emergency in the capital, during which they made 23 arrests, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. The arrests included homicide, firearms offenses, possession with intent to distribute narcotics, lewd acts, stalking, possession of a high-capacity magazine, driving under the influence and reckless driving, she said. Six illegal handguns were also seized, she said. "This is only the beginning," Leavitt said during a press briefing Tuesday. "Over the course of the next month, the Trump administration will relentlessly pursue and arrest every violent criminal in the District who breaks the law, undermines public safety and endangers law-abiding Americans."

New York Times [8/12/2025 8:47 PM, Linda Qiu, 138952K] reports President Trump cast the nation’s capital as overwhelmed by record-breaking levels of violent crime as he announced a federal takeover of the city. On Monday, Mr. Trump and his newly confirmed federal prosecutor for Washington cited an array of inaccurate statistics about murders in the city and crimes committed by children. It was part of a broader bid by his administration to rail against crime in urban, largely liberal cities, often turning to exaggerated and inaccurate figures to portray soaring violence and lawlessness.

NBC News [8/12/2025 5:32 PM, Curtis Bunn, 44540K] reports black civil rights leaders and the mayors of several cities on Tuesday denounced the deployment of the National Guard to the nation’s capital to combat crime, calling it "fundamentally grandstanding" and "a federal coup." And by suggesting that other cities, also run by Black mayors, may be next, President Donald Trump was "playing the worst game of racially divisive politics," one rights leader said. Trump announced Monday that he would deploy 800 guard members to Washington, D.C., suggesting that the same could happen in New York City, Baltimore, Chicago and Oakland, California. Trump federalized the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department over the weekend and called the nation’s capital "one of the most dangerous cities in the world." It followed the fatal shooting of a congressional intern in July and the carjacking of a former Department of Government Efficiency staffer in D.C. last week, resulting in the arrest of two teenagers. Even with these violent acts, crime in D.C., has been declining for years and is currently at a 30-year low, according to the Justice Department. Nationwide, violent crime has declined, specifically murders, rape, aggravated assault and robbery, according to data released last week by the FBI. NewsMax [8/12/2025 5:07 PM, Michael Katz, 4622K] reports New York Mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday he welcomes any federal law enforcement assistance, especially regarding tighter gun restrictions, but that a federal takeover similar to Washington, D.C’s is not needed. Trump announced Monday that D.C.’s police department would be put under federal control, and National Guard troops have been deployed after a public safety emergency. Using temporary powers from the Home Rule Act of 1973, the president can oversee the police for up to 30 days, but any extension would need congressional approval or a legal amendment. Trump mentioned New York several times in his announcement, as well as Chicago, Baltimore, Los Angeles and Oakland, California. However, the Constitution and the Posse Comitatus Act generally prohibit direct federal control over local police. Outside of Washington, D.C., federal involvement in local law enforcement usually requires special constitutional or statutory authority — such as under the Home Rule Act — or cooperative arrangements with local authorities. No president has attempted to federalize a city’s police department outside of Washington, D.C., because no such authority exists. Reuters [8/12/2025 6:14 PM, Andrew Goudsward and Julia Harte, 51390K] reports a steady stream of uniformed soldiers arrived at the National Guard headquarters in Washington on Tuesday to begin the deployment of troops called up to fight crime in the nation’s capital, as Democrats raised concerns about which city might be next. President Donald Trump’s deployment of the 800-strong force has been described by Democrats as political theater. With Trump threatening to replicate the move in other big cities, Democrats point to statistics showing that violent crime in Washington has dropped to historic lows in the past two years. Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser sought to put a positive spin on the deployment on Tuesday, saying she wanted to use the extra personnel to drive down crime, despite earlier calling the move "unsettling and unprecedented." She said the National Guard would not have power to arrest people. Troops will carry no weapons but will have their standard issue firearms, usually rifles, close at hand, an official said. In addition, Trump will send about 500 federal law enforcement agents to supplement the city’s police force during the 30-day emergency deployment.

The Hill [8/12/2025 3:08 PM, Ellen Mitchell, 18649K] reports the Trump administration is looking at plans to set up a 600-person National Guard "quick reaction force" to quickly deploy to U.S. cities to quell protests or other unrest, The Washington Post reported Tuesday. Internal Pentagon documents reviewed by the Post lay out the parameters for a "Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force," calling for hundreds of guard members outfitted with weapons and riot gear to be on constant standby and deployable in as little as one hour. The proposal, if enacted, would be another expansion of President Trump’s use of U.S. troops on American soil. The commander in chief on Monday declared he was deploying 800 National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., to combat what he claimed was a scourge of violent crime and drug use, even as D.C. police data shows violent incidents in the city have fallen off sharply since 2023. As part of that effort, guard members on Tuesday morning began reporting to the D.C. Armory. The documents reported by the Post — compiled by National Guard officials as recently as late July and early August — lay out a plan in which troops would be split into two groups of 300 and stationed at military bases in Alabama and Arizona. The proposal also contains discussions about the potential societal implications in setting up such a program, as well as budget projections, which show the effort could cost hundreds of millions of dollars if military aircraft are needed to be ready at all times. The program could be created and funded at the earliest in fiscal 2027 if using the Pentagon’s annual budgetary process, with an open question as to whether it could begin sooner through other means of funding, according to the Post.

AP [8/12/2025 6:57 PM, Safiyah Riddle, 56000K] reports as President Donald Trump pushes the bounds of military activity on domestic soil, a debate has emerged over a nearly 150-year old law that regulates when federal troops can intervene in state issues. About 800 National Guard troops filed into Washington, D.C., on Tuesday after President Donald Trump said — without substantiation — that they were needed to reduce crime in the "lawless" national capital. Thousands of miles away, a judge in California is hearing arguments about whether the president’s recent decision to federalize Guard personnel in Los Angeles during protests against immigration raids violated federal law. Trump has also created militarized zones along the U.S.-Mexico border as part of a major shift that has thrust the army into immigration enforcement like never before. The cases in both California and Washington mainly hinge on Posse Comitatus Act, which passed in 1878 and largely prevents the military from enforcing domestic laws. Experts say that in both cases there are clear limitations to the law’s enforcement. Posse Comitatus Act stops military from enforcing US law. The Posse Comitatus Act is a criminal statute that prevents the military from enforcing domestic law. It also prevents the military from investigating local crimes, overriding local law enforcement or compelling certain behavior. Posse Comitatus can be bypassed by a congressional vote or in order to defend the Constitution. The Insurrection Act of 1807 can also trigger the suspension of the Posse Comitatus Act and allows the president to deploy the military domestically in cases of invasion or rebellion. There is an exception for the U.S. Coast Guard, which has some law enforcement responsibility. The military is also allowed to share intelligence and certain resources if there is an overlap with civilian law enforcement jurisdiction, according to the Library of Congress.

San Diego Union Tribune [8/12/2025 3:03 PM, Karen Kucher, 1611K] reports San Diego police are investigating the details of an incident in which three federal agents shot a 59-year-old man who allegedly sped through a secondary inspection at the Otay Mesa border crossing Monday night, nearly colliding with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents, authorities said. The driver stopped after being shot and surrendered. The man was not hit by gunfire, but suffered minor injuries after the windshield was struck by a bullet and glass fragments hit him in the face, said Police Lt. Arturo Swadener. The incident began around 9:00 p.m. when the man attempted to enter the United States through the Otay Mesa port of entry and was referred for secondary inspection, Swadener said. The driver attempted to flee, but was unable to get through the north end of the parking lot because it was blocked, Swadener added. He then drove south through the parking lot at a high rate of speed and nearly ran over several CBP agents who were there, Swadener added. In response, three CBP officers fired at the man. No CBP officers were injured in the incident. The officers who fired their weapons had been with the agency for 22, 6 and 2 years, police said. San Diego Police responded to the shooting following a countywide protocol that states officer-involved shootings are investigated by an outside agency. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents are investigating the suspect’s actions, Swadener said. HSI officials will also conduct an administrative investigation into the officers’ use of weapons.

Reported similarly:
San Diego Union Tribune [8/12/2025 2:00 PM, Karen Kucher, 1611K]
(B) NBC News Daily [8/12/2025 3:25 PM, Staff]

Reuters [8/12/2025 12:35 PM, Daniel Wiessner, 51390K] reports a U.S. appeals court on Tuesday rejected a bid by a group of unions to block the Trump administration government downsizing team known as the Department of Government Efficiency from accessing sensitive data on Americans. The Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 decision said the unions were unlikely to prevail on claims that DOGE would violate federal privacy laws by accessing data at the U.S. Department of Education, Treasury Department, and Office of Personnel Management. The court refused to block DOGE’s access to the agencies’ computer systems and data such as Social Security numbers and individuals’ citizenship status pending the outcome of the case. The decision reverses a temporary injunction issued by a federal judge in Maryland, which had been paused by the appeals court in April. The agencies involved in the case and the unions that sued, which include the American Federation of Teachers and the National Federation of Federal Employees, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. President Donald Trump after taking office in January launched DOGE, then headed by billionaire Elon Musk, to dramatically shrink government bureaucracy and federal spending.

Reported similarly:
FOX News [8/12/2025 2:16 PM, y Breanne Deppisch, Danielle Wallace, and Bill Mears, 46878K]

Federal News Network [8/12/2025 1:52 PM, Drew Friedman, 2346K] reports that federal employees in two components of the Department of Homeland Security have lost their collective bargaining rights, according to federal union officials and internal agency documents obtained by Federal News Network. Both the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Friday told federal union representatives that the agencies would be canceling all collective bargaining agreements, effective immediately. USCIS and FEMA are ending the use of office space and resources for union activities, revoking official time, and halting grievance and arbitration processes, according to emails viewed by Federal News Network. The two agencies said federal union representatives are expected to return to other work duties full-time. Neither USCIS nor FEMA responded to Federal News Network’s requests for comment on their decisions to terminate the union contracts. The cancellations at USCIS impact union contracts with both the American Federation of Government Employees and the National Citizenship and Immigration Services Council. AFGE Local 4060, which represents FEMA employees, said it would continue to fight the Trump administration in court. "This is an unprecedented attack on the rights of federal workers," AFGE Local 4060 officials wrote in an email to bargaining unit members, obtained by Federal News Network. "AFGE will continue to litigate the case in district court, confident in our legal position. We remain committed to opposing the government’s appeal and will fight for both preliminary and permanent relief for all AFGE members."

Reported similarly:
Bloomberg Law [8/12/2025 3:36 PM, Ellen M. Gilmer and Andrew Kreighbaum, 1707K]

Federal News Network [8/12/2025 6:34 PM, Jason Miller, 2346K] reports the impact of the Homeland Security Department’s requirement for all contract awards and modifications worth more than $100,000 to get approval from the secretary’s office is having real world consequences. Vendors are laying employees off and at least one is considering closing down altogether. DHS components are in danger of having services turned off because approval is taking too long. The entire review effort, kicked off in June, is causing a level of uncertainty rarely seen in the Homeland Security Department in the last 20 years. "A very common story from members, both in terms of large companies, mid- tier companies and small companies is that they’re confronting a level of uncertainty that for many of my veterans who’ve been in the business 20-30, years, claim they’ve never seen anything like this," said Rafael Borras, the president and CEO of the Homeland Security Defense and Business Council, a non-profit, non-partisan corporate membership organization of companies that support the homeland security enterprise with technology, product and service solutions. "What does uncertainty mean? What it means is uncertainty in respect to whether contract vehicles will remain in place, whether existing contract vehicles will actually be awarded, and if recent contract awards will be rescinded. If they sit with a contract, will they actually be issued any task orders, and will the task orders be at the level that they had originally, originally negotiated with the government? All of this is part of the uncertainty that’s being felt, and our members, much like the federal government employees, have to now make some business decisions about how many people they can keep on the bench, so we’re losing valuable employees from government contractors as a result.” DHS said in June it would require Secretary Kristi Noem’s approval for all contract actions over $100,000. Based on the last three fiscal years’ data, Noem’s office will have to approve more than 5,100 contract actions that are worth over $100,000 in the federal fourth quarter alone. For some vendors, especially small businesses, this uncertainty has turned into languishing and pain. One small business executive whose company worked with DHS for the last two decades, and requested anonymity for fear of retribution, said they have already laid off more than 10 people out of a staff of 55 because of the agency’s delays and lack of communication about its plans. The executive said if things don’t turn around soon, they may be shutting their doors and laying everyone off by the end of 2025. "We are under $10 million in revenue, so where mid-sized and large businesses can fare better, small businesses like us in the DHS space, it’s literally killing us," the executive said. "It would be better if they just said we will scrap 50% of the expected procurements and told us to go away. But they aren’t saying anything, and I don’t know where to focus.” The executive, whose company does business with FEMA and the Transportation Security Administration, said it’s not just the lack of awards, but the entire acquisition process, including requests for information or sources sought notices, have all but stopped. "We’ve seen maybe one RFI from FEMA where we expected to see about 30. At TSA, we’ve seen maybe two RFIs where we expected to see about 15," the executive said. "The bigger issue is the unknown. The DHS acquisition forecast, which is normally the most reliable, is unpredictable and unreliable. What we see there we can’t trust, and the procurement folks aren’t talking, so the unknown is killing us because we don’t know where to put our attention. This is supposed to be the busiest time of the year. I was thinking given the flux in the spring, I figured the summer would be extra crazy, but it’s not.” A DHS spokesperson offered only this response, which was nearly identical to what the agency said in June. "Under Secretary Noem’s leadership, DHS is rooting out waste, fraud, abuse, and is reprioritizing appropriated dollars. Secretary Noem is delivering accountability to the U.S. taxpayer, which Washington bureaucrats have ignored for decades at the expense of American citizens," the spokesperson wrote in an email to Federal News Network.

AP [8/13/2025 12:05 AM, David Fischer, 3077K] reports a federal judge is set to hear closing arguments Wednesday over whether to stop construction indefinitely at an immigrant detention center in the Florida Everglades dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz" as she considers whether it violates environmental laws. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams ordered a two-week halt on new construction last Thursday as witnesses continued to testify in a hearing to determine whether construction should end until the ultimate resolution of the case. The temporary order doesn’t include any restrictions on law enforcement or immigration enforcement activity at the center, which is currently holding hundreds of detainees. The center, which was quickly built two months ago at a lightly used, single-runway training airport, is designed to eventually hold up to 3,000 detainees in temporary tent structures. The order temporarily barred the installation of any new industrial-style lighting, as well as any paving, filling, excavating, fencing or erecting additional buildings, tents, dormitories or other residential or administrative facilities. Environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe want Williams to issue a preliminary injunction to halt operations and further construction, which they say threatens environmentally sensitive wetlands that are home to protected plants and animals and would reverse billions of dollars’ worth of environmental restoration. Plaintiffs presented witnesses Wednesday and Thursday who testified that the facility violates the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires federal agencies to assess the environmental effects of major construction projects. Attorneys for the state and federal government have said that although the detention center would be holding federal detainees, the construction and operation of the facility is entirely under the state of Florida, meaning the federal environmental review wouldn’t apply. Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles executive director David Kerner testified that the 1,800 state troopers under his command are authorized to detain undocumented migrants under an agreement with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He said the federal government doesn’t tell the state where to detain immigrants, and that the Everglades facility was built to alleviate overcrowding at federal immigration detention facilities, as well as state and county facilities with agreements to hold federal immigration detainees.

FOX News [8/12/2025 3:44 PM, Ashley Oliver, Breanne Deppisch, 46878K] reports Gov. Glenn Youngkin laid out his plans to address human trafficking during an annual conference Tuesday, saying the Trump administration has been a shot in the arm to state law enforcement as it attempts to tackle the elusive issue. Youngkin, joined by Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares and other state attorneys general, compared human trafficking enforcement to addressing transnational gangs. The Trump administration has been a boon to human trafficking enforcement efforts, Youngkin said, noting he met with top Justice Department officials at the White House after the inauguration to discuss the matter and found them receptive. Virginia law enforcement has since been coordinating with the federal government to take down foreign gang operations, which Youngkin said overlaps with the human trafficking space. Youngkin used the example of gang crime inside correctional centers, which he said was the first "thread" his team pulled. In March, the U.S. attorney for Eastern Virginia announced the task force had made 342 arrests, "many of them with illegal status," and that 81 had "gang or transnational crime affiliation."

Daily Caller [8/12/2025 9:43 AM, Jason Hopkins, 1010K] reports the illegal migrant who brutally raped and murdered Rachel Morin will spend the rest of his life in prison, a Maryland judge decreed Monday. Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, a 24-year-old Salvadoran national living unlawfully in the U.S., was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, in addition to another life sentence and 40 years, according to the Harford County, Maryland, District Attorney’s Office. The sentencing puts to rest a murder case that captivated the country and ignited a national debate over illegal migrant crime. "Arguably, Harford County has never seen a case or a Defendant more deserving of every single day of the maximum sentence this Court imposed today," Harford County State’s Attorney Alison Healey said in a public statement. "This has been a long and grueling process for Rachel’s family, and it is our hope that this sentence provides some sense of justice as they close this chapter and move forward in their grief and toward healing," Healey continued. "Today, Rachel Morin’s killer was sentenced to life without parole for her brutal murder," Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a public statement. "This criminal illegal alien should have never been in our country in the first place." "Rachel should still be here watching her 5 children grow up," Noem continued. "We hear far too much in the mainstream media about sob stories of gang members and criminal illegals and not enough about their victims. God bless Rachel and her family."

Telemundo [8/12/2025 4:05 PM, Staff, 177K] reports the Venezuelan Association of Massachusetts (VAM) and three individuals from Venezuela, Cuba, and Haiti filed a lawsuit Monday against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) over the elimination of humanitarian parole. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts by Democracy Forward and the Massachusetts Institute for Legal Reform, "challenges the Trump-Vance administration’s sudden and unlawful termination of their parole status, which allowed them to legally live and work in the United States," according to the plaintiffs. Beginning in 2023, non-citizens seeking asylum or other immigration relief in the United States were required to use the CBP One mobile app to schedule appointments at ports of entry. After inspection by immigration officials, some were granted humanitarian parole, a temporary permit to legally reside in the United States. The plaintiffs recall that in April 2025, via a mass email stating, "It’s time for you to leave the United States," DHS notified hundreds of thousands of noncitizens that their parole status had been terminated, and as a result, their work authorizations and eligibility for certain benefits were also revoked. The email, sent to non-citizens legally eligible to remain in the U.S. and, in some cases, to the U.S. citizens representing them, threatened sanctions to encourage self-deportation, according to a press release from Democracy Forward. The plaintiffs say the Trump administration’s policy violates federal law, which requires a case-by-case determination that the parole’s purpose has been fulfilled before it can be terminated, and "ignores the legal rights of noncitizens and disrupts their lives, costing them jobs, homes, access to health care, and putting them at risk of deportation," the press release states.

CNN [8/12/2025 8:00 AM, Diego Mendoza, 21433K] reports within seconds of realizing her Texas home was filling with water early on the morning of July 4, Rosalinda began waking her children, grandchildren and mother, yelling to them, "Let’s go!" But in the chaos – and after weeks of hearing rumors of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids across Texas – her family didn’t immediately realize they were escaping life-threatening floods. "At first, the kids thought we were running from immigration," the undocumented mother who has lived in the US for 12 years, told CNN. "We didn’t think twice. The good thing is the children are very obedient." The family of 12 – four generations that lived in three neighboring mobile homes perched on the banks of the Guadalupe River in Kerr County – linked arms and began wading through ankle-deep water that quickly became waist-deep as they struggled to reach a neighbor’s RV that would carry them to safety. "There wasn’t even a chance to put on shoes. We were all barefoot," said Rosalina, who CNN is identifying only by her first name due to her immigration status. Everyone in the family survived, but their homes were swept away, along with all their belongings. More than a month after the devastating flooding in Texas’ Hill Country that killed at least 135 people and displaced others, survivors are struggling to find adequate financial aid because of complex insurance claims, government red tape and financial strain. But families like Rosalinda’s and community activists told CNN undocumented people are facing additional burdens – from lacking proper identification to receive aid to the fear that asking for help will risk exposing their residency status. Kerr County, where Hispanic and Latino people make up more than 25% of the nearly 52,600 residents, was the hardest hit by the disaster. While the toll on the undocumented community is hard to calculate, many lived on ranches, camps, and in mobile homes along the river. Families and activists also told CNN undocumented flood survivors are worried about working directly with government agencies like FEMA in case they are obligated to report suspected migrants to immigration authorities. "FEMA is focused on providing aid and assistance to American citizens following emergencies and natural disasters," said an agency spokesperson. "FEMA will follow all applicable law in regard to illegal aliens requesting assistance." The agency added that the Department of Homeland Security "urges all illegal aliens present in the United States to self-deport home."

Ap [8/12/2025 6:13 PM, Matthew Lee, 56000K] reports the Trump administration on Tuesday released human rights reports for countries worldwide, which eliminate mentions of discrimination faced by LGBTQ people, reduce a previous focus on reproductive rights and criticize restrictions on political speech by U.S. allies in Europe that American officials believe target right-wing politicians. The reports, which cover 2024 before President Donald Trump took office, reflect his administration’s focus on free speech and protecting the lives of the unborn. However, the reports also offer a glimpse into the administration’s view of dire human rights conditions in some countries that have agreed to accept migrants deported from the United States under Trump’s immigration crackdown. "This year’s reports were streamlined for better utility and accessibility in the field and by partners," the State Department said. The congressionally mandated reports in the past have been frequently used for reference and cited by lawmakers, policymakers, academic researchers and others investigating potential asylum claims or looking into conditions in specific countries. The reports were delayed by the Trump administration’s changes. The reports had been due to be released in March. The State Department said in an overview that the delay occurred because the Trump administration decided in March to "adjust" the reports, which had been compiled during the Biden administration. Among other deletions, the reports do not include accounts from individual abuse survivors or witnesses. "Frequently, eyewitnesses are intimidated or prevented from reporting what they know," the overview said. "On the other hand, individuals and groups opposed to a government may have incentive to exaggerate or fabricate abuses. In similar fashion, some governments may distort or exaggerate abuses attributed to opposition groups.” Human rights groups decried the changes in focus and omissions of certain categories of discrimination and potential abuse. "With the release of the U.S. State Department’s human rights report, it is clear that the Trump Administration has engaged in a very selective documentation of human rights abuses in certain countries," Amnesty International said in a statement.

NPR [8/13/2025 5:00 AM, Ximena Bustillo, 37958K] reports Attorney Stephen Born’s calendar is supposed to be full of immigration court appointments. His small law office in New England currently handles 5,000 immigration cases, many of them assigned to the Chelmsford Immigration Court, just outside Boston. But on a recent Wednesday afternoon, seven of nine appointments were rescheduled. The next day, two out of three were pushed. And the following day, four out of six got delayed. "The court is not functioning," Born said. He said some of his clients have waited more than a decade for their court hearings. "Now that’s being taken away. So the little light at the end of the tunnel for these people who have been following the American dream and playing by all the rules is increasingly being snuffed." The Chelmsford Immigration Court opened last year as a way to reduce the backlog on the overloaded Boston court, which used to process immigration cases for much of New England. Chelmsford and Boston are now the only courts located in New England, two of about 70 immigration courts and adjudication centers nationwide. Eight months into the Trump administration, there are only seven judges listed on the court’s website, down from the 21 intended to serve. One of those seven is set to retire in the coming days, NPR has learned. Another has been detailed to review cases in Indianapolis. NPR spoke with nearly a dozen of the judges assigned to work at the Chelmsford Immigration Court who are no longer there. All attest to a clear pattern: judges vacating their benches, increased political pressure and a growing dread of not knowing if their jobs are safe.

Reuters [8/12/2025 2:33 PM, Staff, 875K] reports that the Trump administration said on Tuesday it found George Washington University had violated federal civil rights law regarding Jewish, American Israeli, and Israeli students and faculty and will seek "immediate remediation" from the school. The U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement that Washington, D.C.-based GWU had acted "deliberately indifferent to the hostile educational environment for Jewish, American-Israeli, and Israeli students and faculty" during pro-Palestinian protests in April and May 2024. In a letter sent to university President Ellen Granberg on Tuesday, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said the Justice Department found members of the university community engaged in "antisemitic, disruptive protests," including by establishing an encampment at University Yard. Dhillon said these efforts were meant to "frighten, intimidate, and deny" Jewish, Israeli, and American Israeli students access to the university environment. "The Department finds that despite actual notice of the abuses occurring on its campus, GWU was deliberately indifferent to the complaints it received, the misconduct that occurred, and the harms that were suffered," Dhillon’s letter said. Shannon McClendon, a spokesperson for GWU, said the university is reviewing the letter, adding that antisemitism has "absolutely no place on our campuses or in a civil and humane society."

The Hill [8/12/2025 8:30 AM, Daniel Allott, 18649K] reports a month after President Trump took office, Brad Bartell’s wife, Camila Muñoz, was arrested by ICE. A Peruvian immigrant, she had overstayed a work-study visa years earlier. But after marrying Bartell, she applied for legal status, and her case was under review when they flew to Puerto Rico for their honeymoon. They thought it was safe to travel within U.S. territory while her application was pending. They were wrong. You may have read their story. As they returned, Muñoz was detained under the newly inaugurated Trump’s new executive order, which empowered federal agents to arrest and remove anyone lacking documentation, regardless of circumstances. She spent 49 days in a Louisiana detention center while Bartell, back in Wisconsin, scrambled to work with lawyers and prove her ties to the community. And yet, Bartell doesn’t regret his vote for Trump and still supports the president. That may seem baffling. Why keep supporting a politician whose policies disrupted your own marriage? But that kind of critique assumes there’s only one "right" reason to vote for someone — and it’s usually not the one people like Bartell have in mind.

FOX News [8/12/2025 6:04 AM, Anders Hagstrom and Preston Mizell, 46878K] reports more than 100,000 Americans have applied for roles with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) since the organization began a recruiting drive at the end of last month, the Department of Homeland Security told Fox News Digital on Tuesday. President Donald Trump’s administration launched a drive to hire 10,000 additional ICE agents at the end of July, offering incentives to candidates and removing certain limits on who can apply. The total number of applicants has now eclipsed 100,000 in barely two weeks. The agency had received 80,000 applicants as of August 6. "Our country is calling you to serve at ICE. In the wake of the Biden administration’s failed immigration policies, your country needs dedicated men and women of ICE to get the worst of the worst criminals out of our country," DHS Secretary Kristi Noem told Fox News Digital in a statement. "This is a defining moment in our nation’s history. Your skills, your experience, and your courage have never been more essential. Together, we must defend the homeland." All ICE law enforcement recruits will be required to go through medical screening, drug screening, and complete a physical fitness test, the agency clarified. "Your country is calling on you to serve at ICE and defend the Homeland," Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said in a statement. "In the wake of the Biden administration’s open border policies, the dedicated men and women of ICE now face unprecedented challenges in removing millions of criminal illegal aliens from our country. Thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill, we now have funding to recruit and hire Americans who want to patriotically serve their country and protect American communities."

Reported similarly:
NewsMax [8/12/2025 1:49 PM, Sam Barron, 4622K]
Washington Examiner [8/12/2025 12:21 PM, Anna Giaritelli, 1934K]

The Hill [8/12/2025 12:28 PM, Elizabeth Crisp, 18649K] reports House Democrats have called on the Trump administration to require Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to be clearly identified when conducting arrests. The Democratic Women’s Caucus (DWC) wrote in a letter to ICE and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) leaders on Monday that the change is necessary to protect women from assaults and kidnappings by imposters. "All our lives, we are taught to fear masked men in unmarked vehicles. We learn we should run from such men to avoid being kidnapped, sexually assaulted, or killed," the female lawmakers wrote in their letter. "Yet, ICE is increasingly conducting raids and arrests in masks, plain-clothes, without visible identification or badges, using unmarked vehicles – tactics that cause confusion, terror, and mistrust among the public." "These tactics invited perpetrators of violence against women to take advantage of the chaos by impersonating masked ICE agents in order to target and sexually assault women," they added. The Trump administration has been carrying out a sweeping immigration crackdown, with arrests of people suspected of being in the country illegally and mass deportations. The Democratic lawmakers cited in their letter reports of men posing as ICE agents as a means to assault women, as ICE doesn’t require clear identification for its agents and allows them to wear face coverings. ICE and DHS didn’t immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment on the DWC’s letter. ICE acting Director Todd Lyons recently defended policies that allow agents to wear masks and unassuming attire to protect their identities and facilitate arrests, though. "I’ve said it publicly before, I’m not a proponent of the masks. However, if that’s a tool that the men and women of ICE to keep themselves and their family safe, then I will allow it," Lyons said on CBS’s "Face the Nation" last month.

Reported similarly:
NewsMax [8/12/2025 2:11 PM, James Morley III, 4622K]

NewsNation [8/12/2025 6:15 PM, Jeff Arnold, 5801K] reports with an all-time record number of migrants being held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers, Trump administration officials are aggressively pushing to add more bedspace across the country. About 60,000 migrants are being held in ICE facilities as of this week, which exceeds the peak migrant detainee population of 55,654 from 2019 during President Donald Trump’s first White House term, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed Tuesday. And with so many migrants in federal custody, ICE is looking for more detention space — like a central Indiana prison dubbed "The Speedway Slammer" by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem — as federal officials work to get closer to a goal of putting 100,000 beds at its disposal. "ICE’s goal is to detain illegals and remove them from the country as quickly as possible," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told NewsNation, adding the agency is "working rapidly to remove these aliens from detention centers to their final destinations — home." Noem has defended opening new federal detention centers, including "Alligator Alcatraz" in Florida. She said she is specifically working with Republican governors including Indiana’s Mike Braun and Texas’ Greg Abbott to partner with the Trump administration in immigration enforcement efforts. The New York Times, citing internal ICE data, reported that more than 1,100 people have been detained since Friday, an average of 380 per day. Homan said he would like to see more facilities capable of holding 4,000 to 5,000 migrants added. Doing so would allow for more efficiency and for ICE to continue to arrest more migrants, he added.

Breitbart [8/12/2025 3:56 PM, John Binder, 3077K] reports President Donald Trump’s administration has reduced the nation’s illegal alien population by 1.6 million in the last six months, likely through intense interior immigration enforcement, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) reveals. In an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data, CIS researchers Steven Camarota and Karen Zeigler found that between January and July, Trump has overseen an "unprecedented" 2.2 million-person decline in the nation’s total foreign-born population — 1.6 million of whom are illegal aliens. The analysis comes as recent jobs data showed that all employment gains in recent months are going to native-born Americans rather than foreign-born workers.

NewsMax [8/12/2025 5:38 PM, Jim Mishler, 4622K] reports White House border czar Tom Homan told Newsmax on Tuesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are focusing on taking criminal public safety threats off our streets. Homan told "The Chris Salcedo Show" that "70% of everybody we arrest is a criminal, a public safety threat. The other 30% could be national security threats who don’t have criminal histories, gang members that don’t have criminal histories." Homan said there can be no question that ICE agents are targeting the most dangerous illegal aliens for arrest. The result, Homan said, is a significantly safer nation.

ABC News [8/12/2025 6:12 PM, Laura Romero, 31733K] reports the country’s largest private prison companies are reporting significant profits amid an aggressive push by the Trump administration to increase immigration arrests and detentions. During earnings calls last week, executives with the firms Geo Group and CoreCivic announced an increase in revenue from new and current contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and discussed their plans to expand their businesses to meet the administration’s demands. CoreCivic reported a total revenue of $538.2 million during their second quarter, a 9.8% increase from the same quarter in 2024. Hininger said that while ICE has recently been using "soft-sided solutions" like the tent facilities at Guantanamo Bay and at Florida’s "Alligator Alcatraz" detention center, he believes the agency "does not see soft-sided facilities as long-term solutions." Geo Group, ICE’s largest contractor, reported total second-quarter revenue of $636.2 million, a 5% increase from the second quarter of 2024. During their earnings call last week, Geo Group Chairman George Zoley said the utilization of their current ICE contracts increased from 15,000 beds to 20,000 beds, which Zoley said is the highest level of ICE utilization in the company’s history.

Breitbart [8/12/2025 4:01 PM, John Binder, 3077K] reports more than 100,000 Americans have applied to join the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in helping locate, arrest, and deport illegal aliens from the United States, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials say. On Tuesday, DHS officials said ICE had received over 100,000 applications to join the agency following a huge recruitment effort by President Donald Trump’s administration, which includes an ad campaign and a $50,000 signing bonus. "Our country is calling you to serve at ICE. In the wake of the Biden administration’s failed immigration policies, your country needs dedicated men and women of ICE to get the worst of the worst criminals out of our country," DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement. In addition to the signing bonus, new ICE recruits will be offered student loan repayment and forgiveness options, a 25 percent Law Enforcement Availability Pay (LEAP) for HSI Special Agents, premium overtime payments for ERO deportation officers, and enhanced retirement benefits, among other incentives. The recruitment effort is mainly thanks to Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.

USA Today [8/12/2025 12:49 PM, Anna Kaufman, 75552K] reports that forget Lex Luther, "Superman" star Dean Cain has a new foe: John Oliver. After the political satirist used part of his Sunday show to blast Cain’s recent decision to join the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, the actor hit back, accusing the comedian of plagiarizing his jokes. Responding to a clip from Oliver’s show, Cain wrote in an Aug. 11 post to X: "He stole that mask joke from the internet – and he also laughed hysterically when Trump said he was going to run for President. Case closed." Oliver didn’t stop his career criticism there. He went on to argue that Cain’s decision to join ICE should raise alarm bells for the agency. Cain, who announced his decision to join ICE earlier this month, pushed back on criticism of the canine franchise, adding in his post: "and those movies were sweet, by the way!". Cain, who played Superman in the 1990s series "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman," revealed to fans that he enlisted as an ICE in an Aug. 5 video shared to his social media channels. "For those who don’t know, I am a sworn law enforcement officer, as well as being a filmmaker, and I felt it was important to join with our first responders to help secure the safety of all Americans, not just talk about it," he said. "So, I joined up." In a statement to USA TODAY on Aug. 7, ICE Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin confirmed that Cain will be sworn in as an honorary officer "in the coming month.” "Superman is encouraging Americans to become real-life superheroes by answering their country’s call to join the brave men and women of ICE to help protect our communities to arrest the worst of the worst," McLaughlin said.

Breitbart [8/12/2025 4:19 PM, John Binder, 3077K] reports a Democrat congresswoman is accusing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of being a "terrorist organization" as agents face a massive surge in assaults while trying to enforce the nation’s immigration laws passed by Congress. Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL), who says she is a beneficiary of birthright citizenship as her parents came to the United States from Guatemala, and whose husband was an illegal alien, gave the keynote address at the left-wing Netroots Nation conference this week in New Orleans, Louisiana. During her speech, Ramirez went after border czar Thomas Homan and declared ICE a "terrorist organization" that is terrorizing American communities by merely enforcing federal law.

Washington Examiner [8/12/2025 4:58 PM, David Zimmermann and Keely Bastow, 1934K] reports a Texas Democrat who recently fled the state in protest of Republicans’ mid-decade redistricting efforts is speaking out against law enforcement staking out the absent lawmakers’ homes. Democratic Texas state Rep. Josey Garcia said plainclothes officers in unmarked vehicles visited her house in the San Antonio area over the weekend. While she did not confirm which of her family members were home when the officers visited, Garcia claimed her family was nonetheless affected. The lawmaker intends to report the matter to the authorities. Garcia said she would file the report with "everyone that I need to," declining to disclose whether she would go to Texas police or the FBI with her complaint. She is currently consulting with her lawyers to determine the best course of action.

CBS New York [8/12/2025 6:43 PM, Camilo Montoya-Galvez and Katie Houlis, 51860K] Video: HERE reports a federal judge on Tuesday said he would block the Trump administration from using a federal building in New York City to hold immigrants facing deportation unless it reduces the number of detainees and improves conditions at the site, including by providing sleeping mats and hygiene products. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan issued the temporary restraining order after holding a hearing earlier Tuesday. A government lawyer conceded in court that those detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, at the Manhattan facility did not have access to certain services, including sleeping mats, in-person legal visits, medication and more than two meals per day. The holding facility in question, located inside the 26 Federal Plaza building in downtown Manhattan, has been at the center of widespread criticism from pro-immigrant advocates, who have denounced conditions faced by detainees there as "inhumane." Video released last month showed detainees at the facility lying on the ground, without mats or beds. ICE has said the site has fewer services because it is not designed for long-term detention, though government data indicates some detainees have been held for days there. Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union and other advocates filed a lawsuit against ICE over the 26 Federal Plaza holding facility, alleging that detainees there were being held in unsafe and unsanitary conditions, without access to basic necessities, including hygiene products. The advocates said detainees only received two "inedible" meals daily and were denied access to unrestricted calls with lawyers. On Tuesday morning, Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Oestericher said the government did not dispute that detainees at the facility only received blankets, not beds or sleeping mats. He confirmed detainees get two meals each day — not three — and that the toilets for detainees are inside the same area where they sleep. Oestericher said the facility does not permit in-person visitations due to its "layout" and noted the government did not dispute claims that detainees lack access to medication. In his order later Tuesday, Kaplan placed restrictions on how many people ICE can hold at the Manhattan site, prohibiting the agency from using holding rooms with a floor area that is less than 50 square feet per detainee. Kaplan said ICE could only hold people at the facility if it offered them regular calls with lawyers, clean bedding mats, know-your-rights notices, access to medication, soap, towels, toilet paper, toothpaste and feminine hygiene products. He also ordered ICE to ensure the holding areas are cleaned three times each day. Representatives for ICE did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday’s temporary restraining order, which is set to last for 14 days. The Trump administration has repeatedly denied allegations of subpar conditions at ICE detention centers. "Today’s order sends a clear message: ICE cannot hold people in abusive conditions and deny them their Constitutional rights to due process and legal representation," said Eunice Cho, a senior attorney at the ACLU. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander called the ruling "a much-needed rebuke of Trump’s cruel immigration policies" in a statement Tuesday. FOX News [8/12/2025 9:55 PM, Landon Mion, 46878K] reports that at a hearing Tuesday, the plaintiffs’ attorney, Heather Gregorio, described the facility as having "inhumane and horrifying conditions.” DOJ attorney Jeffrey Oestericher acknowledged that detainees were receiving only two meals per day and were not provided medication or sleeping mats. However, he pushed back on the overcrowding claims, according to reports by The Hill. "Present conditions are relevant," Oestericher told the judge at the hearing. "To the extent they are talking about overcrowding, it does not appear presently that there is overcrowding.” "I think we all agree that conditions at 26 Federal Plaza need to be humane, and we obviously share that belief," he added. "I think there is some factual disagreement.” In Tuesday’s order, Kaplan ordered immigration officials to provide 50 square feet per person. This means the largest hold room’s capacity will be brought down to about 15 people after detainees said there had been at least 40, according to The Associated Press. The cells must also be thoroughly cleaned three times a day. Officials are additionally required to provide clean bedding mats and an adequate supply of soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste and other hygiene products. The judge also ordered officials to ensure detainees have confidential telephone calls with lawyers, including interpreters for those who do not speak English. ABC News [8/12/2025 7:57 PM, Armando Garcia, 31733K] reports that videos shared by a detainee with a local civic group appeared to show over a dozen people inside the room, with several detainees lying on the cement floor on thermal blankets. It also showed two toilets that were separated from the rest of the men by only a waist-high wall. Attorneys representing one of the migrants detained there submitted nearly two dozen declarations that claimed individuals were held in crowded conditions and were not given the opportunity to shower, change clothes or brush their teeth despite being held for a week or longer. "They have access to only one or two toilets shared among 40 to 90 people, and the toilets are in open view of the room, so some have resorted to try to wrap their aluminum sleeping blanket around themselves for privacy," attorney Heather Gregorio said at a court hearing earlier Tuesday. In addition, detainees have claimed they were detained for several days or even weeks in the facility. The Department of Homeland Security has said claims of overcrowding and unhygienic conditions at the facility are "categorically false" and that migrants are only being "briefly processed" there before being transferred elsewhere. In a statement last month in response to the videos reviewed by ABC News, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said: "26 Federal Plaza is not a detention center. It is a processing center where illegal aliens are briefly processed to be transferred to an ICE detention facility.”

Reported similarly:
New York Times [8/12/2025 5:48 PM, Luis Ferré-Sadurní, 138952K]
The Hill [8/12/2025 5:49 PM, Zach Schonfeld, 18649K]
FOX News [8/12/2025 9:55 PM, Landon Mion, 46878K]
NewsMax [8/12/2025 6:50 PM, Michael Katz, 4622K]

New York Post [8/12/2025 6:47 PM, Jennie Taer, Brandon Cruz and Chris Nesi, 49956K] reports three MS-13 migrants who allegedly terrorized Nassau County were busted in a joint operation between ICE, local police and the FBI — and charged last week with a spate of violent crimes including 14 counts of attempted murder and 49 counts of assault, The Post has learned. The arrests of the baby-faced gangbangers — two of whom sources say crossed into the US illegally during the Biden administration — was confirmed by Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who vowed to keep supporting the feds in their immigration crackdown. "As a result of a joint operation between the Nassau County Police Department and ICE, three alleged dangerous gang members charged with murder and other serious crimes were apprehended and are now incarcerated pending trial or deportation, making us an even safer county and region," Blakeman told The Post in a statement. "We will continue work with our federal and local partners to ensure we remain the safest county in America.” Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has lodged immigration detainers against all three gang members, sources said. None of the migrants taken into police custody are older than 21, and between the three of them, they face the attempted murder and assault raps — along with 7 weapon possession charges, according to the sources. Two of the three gang members entered the US illegally during the Biden administration. In a departure from the Big Apple’s sanctuary city policies — which tie the hands of federal immigration authorities seeking to detain and deport illegal immigrants who commit crimes — Nassau County has pledged to work with ICE to get violent criminal migrants off the streets.

AP [8/13/2025 3:43 AM, Adrian Sainz, 31733K] reports officials in a rural Tennessee town voted Tuesday to approve agreements to turn a former state prison into an immigration detention facility operated by a private company, despite loud objections from upset residents and activists during a contentious public meeting. The five-member Board of Alderman in Mason, plus Mayor Eddie Noeman and Vice Mayor Reynaldo Givhan, met in a fire station garage to discuss converting the closed West Tennessee Detention Facility into a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center run by CoreCivic Inc. Also present were a few dozen vocal, angry members of the public who oppose allowing ICE to house immigrants in Mason who have been taken into custody as President Donald Trump pushes for mass deportations. Trump has touted a Florida detention facility where allegations of mistreatment of detainees have drawn lawsuits from civil rights advocates and environmental groups. The first vote of the meeting resulted in approval for a contract with CoreCivic to resume operating the facility, which was closed in 2021 after President Joe Biden ordered the Department of Justice to stop renewing contracts with private detention facilities. Trump reversed that order in January. The second vote, to approve an agreement with ICE, also passed. It is not immediately known when the facility will reopen. Noeman said he wanted to reopen the shuttered prison to bring jobs and economic development to the town, which has struggled with financial problems and needs infrastructure improvements. With a population of about 1,300, Mason is located about 40 miles (60 kilometers) northeast of Memphis. When it was open, the prison was the town’s largest employer and an important economic engine.

Axios [8/12/2025 7:22 AM, Chelsea Brasted, 13599K] reports Angola Prison could soon be part of the Trump administration’s massive immigration enforcement system. The move would enlarge Louisiana’s already massive role in federal immigration enforcement. Citing unnamed sources, multiple news outlets, including the Wall Street Journal and the Times-Picayune, say state officials are in talks with the Trump administration to house detained immigrants at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. The facility, more commonly known as Angola, is the state’s largest maximum-security prison. Gov. Jeff Landry quietly signed an executive order July 25 to expedite repairs to one of its defunct cell blocks, Camp J, which has been closed since 2018. In the order, Landry cited overcrowding as an issue and referenced maximum-security offenders who "will be transferred to its facilities." Louisiana is already a linchpin in how Immigration and Customs Enforcement moves people through the judicial system and out of the country, with the nation’s second-largest population of detained immigrants. Most are detained in the central part of the state, split among eight prisons and a staging facility in Alexandria. All but one are privately operated, according to an ACLU report. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told reporters last month that she saw Florida’s "Alligator Alcatraz" facility as a model for other states to follow. Though Angola wasn’t mentioned, Noem told CBS News last week that Louisiana was among states under consideration for that kind of enforcement expansion.

Miami Herald [8/12/2025 3:16 PM, Julia Marnin] reports a 4-year-old boy’s ongoing care for Stage 4 kidney cancer was interrupted when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers illegally deported him, his sister and mother "without even a semblance of due process," attorneys for the family say. Though they are U.S. citizens and were born Louisiana, the boy and his 7-year-old sister were deported to Honduras along with their 25-year-old mother, who is a Honduran citizen, on April 25, according to a federal lawsuit filed in the Middle District of Louisiana on July 31. The filing uses pseudonyms for the family, referring to the brother and sister as Romeo and Ruby and their mother as Rosario. Before their deportations, Romeo, now 5, was receiving "life-saving" treatment at a New Orleans children’s hospital for his "rare and aggressive form" of cancer, following his diagnosis at age 2, a complaint says. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Romeo and his family, as well as a second family also wrongly deported by ICE under similar circumstances on April 25, according to the National Immigration Project, Gibson Dunn, Most & Associates, and Ware Immigration, groups representing the case. The second family includes Julia, 30, a mother from Honduras. She has two daughters, Jade, 2, a U.S. citizen born in Baton Rouge, and Janelle, 11, also a Honduran citizen. Those names are also pseudonyms. According to the lawsuit, ICE did not let Rosario or Julia decide whether they wanted their children to come with them to Honduras or to make arrangements for them to stay in the U.S. with other loved ones. In response to McClatchy News’ request for comment for DHS and ICE on Aug. 11, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that "the media and Democrat politicians are force-feeding the public false information that U.S. citizen children are being deported. This is false and irresponsible. Rather than separate their families, ICE asked the mothers if they wanted to be removed with their children or if they wanted ICE to place the children with someone safe the parent designates," McLaughlin added. "The parents in this instance made the determination to take their children with them back to Honduras." The lawsuit has been brought against Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Department of Homeland Security, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, ICE and ICE Director Todd Lyons, as well as New Orleans ICE Field Office Director Brian Acuna, the office’s Assistant Field Office Director Scott Ladwig and the office’s former director, Mellissa Harper.

Federal Newswire [8/12/2025 12:50 PM, Staff] reports U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has placed an arrest detainer on Roberto Romero-Hernandez, a Mexican national described as a criminal illegal alien, following his arrest by Louisiana State Police in connection with the death of Rickey G. Maddox of Alexandria, Louisiana. Authorities report that on August 3, 2025, Romero-Hernandez was driving under the influence and without a license when he struck Maddox, who was operating a lawn mower along Highway 1. Maddox sustained life-threatening injuries and later died at a local hospital. Romero-Hernandez faces charges of vehicular homicide and driving while intoxicated. ICE lodged the detainer to prevent his release into the community after any local legal proceedings. Officials stated that Romero-Hernandez entered the United States at an unknown time and location. “This criminal illegal alien’s reckless decision to drink and drive killed an innocent man. The senseless tragedy should have never happened because Romero-Hernandez should have never been in our country,” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “Illegal aliens drinking and driving and killing American citizens happens far more often than the media wants you to know about. Just over the past two weeks, an illegal alien driving under the influence killed a mother and her 11-year-old daughter in New Jersey and two high school sweethearts in Wisconsin. Every death caused by an illegal alien is preventable.”

FOX News [8/12/2025 9:57 AM, Michael Dorgan and Brooke Taylor, 46878K] reports during the first six months of President Donald Trump’s second term in office, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Houston has arrested more than 350 illegal migrants who are members of more than 40 different gangs – including the violent street MS-13 and Tren de Aragua street crews who have been wreaking havoc on American streets. The arrests were a result of the administration’s focus on targeting the "worst of the worst" criminal migrants for arrest and deportation in order to bolster public safety and restore integrity to the nation’s immigration system, according to the Department of Homeland Security. One migrant had re-entered the U.S. 40 times. In total, 356 gang members were arrested in the sweeps, of which they were collectively convicted of 1,685 criminal offenses, including heinous acts like murder, child sex crimes, sex trafficking, as well as arson and theft. To put these figures into perspective, in the first six months of the Biden administration, 75 gang members were arrested in the Houston area. That’s a 375% increase in arrests of gang members under the Trump administration in this area. Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin credited the surge in arrests to aggressive enforcement under the Trump administration and said the results are a major blow to transnational criminal gangs operating in the U.S. "Thanks to President Trump and [Homeland Security] Secretary Noem, these illegal alien gang members are off America’s streets," McLaughlin said. "Across the country, ICE law enforcement is targeting these vicious gangs that rape, maim, and murder Americans for sport." "President Trump and Secretary Noem unleashed ICE to dismantle transnational criminal terrorist gangs," McLaughlin added. "The days of unchecked gang violence are OVER."

Reported similarly:
NewsMax [8/12/2025 2:06 PM, Nicole Weatherholtz, 4622K]

New York Post [8/12/2025 3:44 PM, Jennie Taer, 49956K] reports two illegal-migrant sibling "monsters" sought in a murderous rampage at a patron-saint festival in Mexico were recently nabbed by ICE agents in Texas — with one appearing to smirk in his mug shot. The feds collared accused killer Mexican brothers Pedro Luis Ortiz Mendez, 30, and Jose Vicente Ortiz Mendez, 29, in Arlington, Texas, on July 31, according to the Department of Homeland Security. "From foreign fugitives, gang members, and terrorists, ICE is getting the worst of the worst off our street and out of country," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told The Post. The brothers are suspected of killing two people at a patron-saint festival in San Luis Potosi in central Mexico, north of Guanajuato, on May 24, 2024. One of the slain victims was shot, and the other was attacked with a machete, according to DHS. The brothers snuck across the border undetected after the killings, DHS said. It is not clear if the brothers were tied to the cartels.

New York Post [8/12/2025 3:44 PM, Jennie Taer, 49956K] reports two illegal-migrant sibling “monsters” sought in a murderous rampage at a patron-saint festival in Mexico were recently nabbed by ICE agents in Texas — with one appearing to smirk in his mug shot. The feds collared accused killer Mexican brothers Pedro Luis Ortiz Mendez, 30, and Jose Vicente Ortiz Mendez, 29, in Arlington, Texas, on July 31, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Their mugshots featured them wearing ratty white t-shirts covered in paint splatters — and Pedro flashed an apparent slight smirk. “From foreign fugitives, gang members, and terrorists, ICE is getting the worst of the worst off our street and out of country,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told The Post. The brothers are suspected of killing two people at a patron-saint festival in San Luis Potosi in central Mexico, north of Guanajuato, on May 24, 2024. One of the slain victims was shot, and the other was attacked with a machete, according to DHS.

Breitbart [8/12/2025 3:17 PM, Warner Todd Huston, 3077K] reports police in Friendswood, Texas, have arrested a migrant Uber driver for "aggravated kidnapping" of a female passenger who was later rescued by relatives monitoring her location. Sameh Chami, 49, had picked the woman up outside Buckshot’s Saloon in Galveston in the early morning hours of June 28 and was hired to drive her to her home in Friendswood, about 40 minutes away. Chami "was arrested on August 6 by Friendswood police and charged with aggravated kidnapping," the Houston Chronicle reported. Police say Chami intentionally ended the ride at the woman’s home, but drove off without allowing her to leave the car. Officials also reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) requested Chami be held due to his immigration status, though what that status is was not explained.

Washington Examiner [8/12/2025 7:00 AM, Anna Giaritelli, 1934K] reports Oklahoma is undertaking a first-in-the-nation initiative emptying jails and prisons of criminal illegal immigrants by sending them directly to federal immigration authorities at the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Over the past nine months, the state has developed a plan for turning over more than 500 locked-up criminals to ICE for deportation. It sounds like a simple task, but Gov. Kevin Stitt (R-OK) has said he wants to cut through the red tape — and in some cases, sentences — to save taxpayers money and get what President Donald Trump’s administration has referred to as the "worst of the worst" out of the state and country. "Oklahoma is a law and order state, and we were the first to implement an effort to remove criminal illegal immigrants from our jails and prisons," Stitt said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. "Operation Guardian continues to be a success. We are signaling to the world that Oklahoma will not be a sanctuary for criminal activity." Oklahoma’s efforts coincide with Trump’s campaign promise to carry out widespread deportations. Oklahoma’s pilot program, Operation Guardian, is led by Public Safety Commissioner Tim Tipton. Tipton said planning the deportation of illegal immigrants already in custody rather than those on the street would allow the state and federal government to nab the "low-hanging fruit." At Stitt’s direction, Oklahoma began planning to work with the Trump administration before President Donald Trump took office.

Axios [8/12/2025 8:18 AM, Esteban L. Hernandez, 13599K] reports members of Colorado’s Democratic congressional delegation say a visit to Aurora’s ICE detention facility on Monday left them with more questions than answers. U.S. Reps. Jason Crow, Diana DeGette, Joe Neguse and Brittany Pettersen say the Trump administration continues to obstruct their ability to conduct oversight. The members gave seven days’ notice before their Monday visit — a trip that drew heightened scrutiny due to an ongoing lawsuit filed by Crow and Neguse, who allege the administration unlawfully blocked previous congressional visits. Crow, whose 6th Congressional District includes Aurora, says the delegation’s most pressing question is what percentage of people detained have criminal backgrounds, a figure he says the facility staff did not provide. Arrests of noncriminals are rising sharply under Trump’s deportation surge, which started after he took office in January. The facility has about 1,200 detainees, Crow says, which is close to its average, though staff did not provide an exact number. During intake, people are classified by colors to designate their security risk, Crow tells us — suggesting ICE knows how many detainees do and do not have criminal backgrounds. ICE is now requiring members of Congress to sign a privacy release before speaking with a detainee, which DeGette characterized as another way the administration is "stopping" lawmakers from visiting detainees.

CBS Colorado [8/12/2025 9:03 PM, Shaun Boyd, 51860K] reports Democratic Rep. Jason Crow says he was first denied access to the immigration detention facility in Aurora, and now, Crow says he’s being denied basic information about who is being held there. Crow and Colorado’s three other Democratic U.S. House members -- Reps. Diana DeGette, Joe Neguse, and Brittany Pettersen -- visited the ICE facility Monday after giving seven days’ notice under a federal policy they are suing to overturn. Crow says he was unable to get an exact head count at the facility, let alone information on who’s being detained and whether they have criminal records. He was also unable to truly assess the conditions at the facility, he says, because the whole place was on lockdown for the entire visit. Crow says he’s visited the Aurora facility 10 times in six years, but he says this visit was unlike any other. "This has been the most difficult visit in terms of getting information, getting answers out of the facility and employees," he said. He says ICE is now requiring members of Congress to submit any questions they have through the agency’s headquarters in D.C., and anyone wanting to talk to a detainee must have a signed privacy release in advance. "So, if I want to visit my constituents in this facility, then somehow, I have to get a privacy release to them through the mail or other means," said DeGette. She says she was able to see immigration rights activist Jeanette Vizguerra, but the rest of the delegation was allowed to visit only one other detainee. The representatives say they have a duty to conduct oversight of federal operations, and ICE is making their job increasingly difficult. Last month, they were told they needed to give seven days’ notice before any visit, so they sued.

Daily Wire [8/12/2025 9:04 AM, Sam Korkus, 3816K] reports that an illegal alien in South Dakota was arrested while allegedly transporting roughly $12 million in methamphetamine, which is the largest single seizure of the illicit drug in the state’s history, the New York Post reported. South Dakota Republican Governor Larry Rhoden announced the seizure in a press release Monday, which he said was part of the state’s Operation: Prairie Thunder – an expansive campaign announced late July aimed at interdicting drugs, investigating gang activity, holding parole absconders accountable, and deterring lawlessness. The unidentified foreign national, 42, was pulled over by South Dakota Highway Patrol Officers during a traffic stop when a service dog alerted the officers to possible narcotics. His vehicle was searched by officers before he was subsequently arrested and charged with two felonies and a misdemeanor related to the manufacturing, possession, and distribution of narcotics and drug paraphernalia. Governor Rhoden issued a statement about the massive drug bust, which totaled roughly 207 pounds of crystal meth. Rhoden boasted about the performance of his administration and of state law enforcement officers. Operation: Prairie Thunder is particularly focused on apprehending illegal aliens in compliance with federal law enforcement officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and is in direct opposition to sanctuary city policies prevalent in blue cities.

Federalist [8/12/2025 8:38 AM, M.D. Kittle, 1142K] reports last week, Arizona State Sen. Analise Ortiz, vulgarly defended her actions after she admitted to alerting illegal immigrants to ICE presence in her district. The Glendale leftist, who also is accused of doxxing Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, shook her fist at "fascists and white supremacists in power in Arizona," and claimed she had a right to interfere in federal immigration law enforcement activities. "Yep. When ICE is around, I will alert my community to stay out of the area, and I’m not f***king scared of you nor Trump’s masked goons," the lawmaker wrote in response to the conservative social media site Libs of TikTok outing Ortiz for "actively impeding and doxxing" ICE. But "alerting" her community could very well tip off some very dangerous people who represent a clear and present danger to the community at large. In a statement, Arizona State Senate President Warren Petersen said he has referred the matter to U.S. Attorney, Arizona District for investigation. And Petersen told The Federalist last week that an ethics complaint has been filed in the Senate against Ortiz "and will be investigated through the course of the normal complaint process at the legislature." Ortiz has since doubled down on her defiant rhetoric, asserting her speech is protected under the First Amendment. "I am not intimidated by this because what I did was simply alert my community to stay away from an area where ICE could be to keep themselves safe," she told ABC15 Arizona in an interview. That’s a good way to get law enforcement agents and civilians hurt or killed, the Department of Homeland Security has said, as attacks on ICE agents soar by more than 800 percent. "Notifying the public about ICE law enforcement operations endangers law enforcement and weakens American national security. This certainly looks like obstruction of justice," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to the news outlet.

AP [8/12/2025 5:02 PM, Staff, 56000K] Video: HERE reports King County, Washington, has set up cameras that allow the public to watch the airport arrivals and departures of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement flights carrying detained people to and from a local processing center.

Washington Examiner [8/12/2025 2:09 PM, Barnini Chakraborty, 1934K] reports that Democratic members of Congress on Monday left a Los Angeles processing center run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement fuming, accusing the federal government of clearing out almost all of the detainees and sanitizing the center ahead of their arrival. The lawmakers had been trying for months to get a look inside the facility known as B-18. Their efforts even led to a federal lawsuit and widespread complaints that they were purposely being given the runaround. They finally were allowed entry into the basement facility, only to leave with more questions than answers, the Los Angeles Times reported. Migrants, as well as some U.S. citizens who were rounded up during ICE raids at Home Depot parking lots, car washes, and farms by heavily armed agents in masks, were taken to B-18. Detainees complained about being held for days and about overcrowding. The Associated Press and other media outlets have taken photos and done interviews with visitors to B-18 that have depicted crowded conditions and long wait times to get inside, with tales of people sleeping on concrete and inmates so thirsty that they were drinking from toilets. The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which sued the federal government over mass sweeps without first establishing reasonable suspicion that the people targeted were in the United States illegally, described B-18 as "dungeon-like." The group also accused the Trump administration of failing to "provide basic necessities like food, water, adequate hygiene facilities, and medical care." It was a very different view from the one the lawmakers were given on Monday. DHS did not respond to a request from the Washington Examiner for comment about the facility or the claim by Democratic lawmakers that it had been "sanitized" ahead of their arrival.

Los Angeles Times [8/12/2025 6:00 AM, Dakota Smith, 14672K] reports for two months, several Democratic members of Congress have been unable to enter a downtown L.A. processing center run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, prompting widespread complaints and a federal lawsuit. On Monday, the Congress members got their first look at the basement facility known as B-18. But Reps. Brad Sherman, Judy Chu and Jimmy Gomez said that they were left with more questions than answers — and accused the government of sanitizing the center. "They wanted to show us nothing," said Gomez, whose district includes downtown L.A. "It was nothing, it was like no one was there. It was deliberate so members of Congress cannot conduct oversight."‘ Scores of migrants, as well as some U.S. citizens, have been taken from Home Depot parking lots, car washes, and other locations by masked and heavily armed agents and brought to B-18 since early June. Some detainees have complained of overcrowding and being held for multiple days. The facility can hold up to 335 migrants, but there were just two people in one of the holding rooms on Monday, the members said at a news conference in downtown L.A. after their visit. The group’s previously scheduled visit was canceled by ICE. Monday’s visit took days of planning and advance notice, according to the politicians. A representative for the Department of Homeland Security didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the politicians’ complaints. "It’s alarming that it’s taken so long for congressional members to gain access to this site," said Sergio Perez, executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, a nonprofit that seeks to protect the rights of immigrants. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin has said that claims of poor conditions at ICE detention centers are "false" and that the agency "has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens."

NewsMax [8/12/2025 7:43 PM, Jim Mishler, 4622K] reports border czar Tom Homan told Newsmax on Tuesday that California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom won’t be able to stop President Donald Trump’s border enforcement policies. Homan told "The Chris Salcedo Show" that "Gov. Newsom is not going to stop President Trump and the men and women of ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and the men and women of the Border Patrol from doing their job.” Newsom has been critical of Trump and his border management policies. After Trump deployed of the military to help state and local police with enforcement, the state of California sued. The case is being heard this week in federal court. Homan said Newsom should be thanking the president, not trying to hamper his enforcement of federal immigration law. "Bottom line is Gov. Newsom should be thanking ICE agents for taking thousands of public safety threats off the streets of California," he said. Homan said it raises the question of who Newsom is protecting. "He’s the governor of that state. His number one responsibility is the safety and security of his communities. So he should be shoulder to shoulder with us on this," he said. Homan said the immigration enforcement protest riots around Los Angeles in June prompted Trump to order the National Guard into action. Estimates put damage from the riots at nearly $20 million.

NBC News [8/12/2025 10:12 AM, Minyvonne Burke, 44540K] Video: HERE reports a U.S. citizen who was detained by immigration agents and accused of obstructing an arrest before her case was ultimately dismissed said she is still traumatized by what happened. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained Andrea Velez in downtown Los Angeles on June 24. She was charged with assaulting a federal officer while he was attempting to arrest a suspect. The Justice Department dismissed her case without prejudice. It did not immediately reply to a request for comment Tuesday. Velez, a production coordinator for a shoe company, recalled seeing federal agents when her mother and sister dropped her off at work. "It was like a scene," she told NBC Los Angeles. "They were just ready to attack and chase.” Velez said someone grabbed her and slammed her to the ground. She said that she tried to tell the agent, who was in plainclothes, that she was a citizen but that he told her she "was interfering with what he was doing, so he was going to arrest me.” "That’s when I asked him to show me his ID, his badge number," she said. "I asked him if he had a warrant, and he said I didn’t need to know any of that.” A federal criminal complaint alleged that an agent was chasing a man and that Velez stepped into the agent’s path and extended her arm "in an apparent effort to prevent him from apprehending the male subject he was chasing.” The complaint said Velez’s arm hit the agent in the face. Velez said she denied any wrongdoing and insisted she was a U.S. citizen. She was taken to a detention center in downtown Los Angeles, where she gave officers her driver’s license and her health insurance card, but she was still booked into jail, she said. She said she spent two days in the detention center, where she had nothing to drink for 24 hours. Velez said that the ordeal traumatized her and that she has not been able to physically return to work. "I’m taking things day by day," she told NBC Los Angeles. Her attorneys told the station that they are exploring legal options against the federal government. Her story echoes those of others who have said they were wrongfully detained by immigration agents under President Donald Trump’s push for mass deportations. Job Garcia, a Ph.D. student and photographer, said he was immigration agents tackled him and threw him to the ground for recording a raid at a Home Depot in Los Angeles. He was held for more than 24 hours before his release. In July, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund said it was seeking $1 million in damages, alleging that Garcia was assaulted and falsely imprisoned. In June, a deputy U.S. marshal was briefly detained in the lobby of a federal building in Tucson, Arizona, because he "fit the general description of a subject being sought by ICE," the U.S. Marshals Service said in a statement. And in May, Georgia college student Ximena Arias-Cristobal was granted bond after she was detained by immigration agents after local police pulled over the wrong car during a traffic stop.

Los Angeles Times [8/12/2025 7:11 PM, Suhauna Hussain, 14672K] reports several hundred workers, organizers and immigrant advocates gathered in palm-tree-dotted MacArthur Park on Tuesday to denounce the Trump administration and immigration raids it has carried out in the city and in other parts of California. Rows of parked cars clogged a stretch of Park View Street in the morning, blocking traffic. Scrawled on windshields and bumpers in chalky white and printed on taped signs were slogans “ICE out of LA” and “Stop the Trump terror.” From atop a truck, Service Employees International Union California President David Huerta addressed the crowd. “Our fight is for working people. ... It’s a fight against authoritarianism. It’s a fight to restore democracy in this country,” said Huerta, who was injured and detained by law enforcement in early June while documenting the first major immigration enforcement raids in Los Angeles this summer. “Everybody wants to know, how is Los Angeles? And I tell them Los Angeles is ready to fight.” Raids since early June in Los Angeles have swept up hundreds. The ongoing threat to the many immigrant workers that local labor groups count among their members, as well as criminal charges of conspiracy to impede an officer brought against Huerta, have ignited protests in recent months. Labor groups said they are pushing for an end to the raids and to the presence of federal agents in Los Angeles, as well as the release of immigrants detained and a stop to the expansion of private detention centers. On Tuesday, speakers urged people not to purchase from major companies including Home Depot, Walmart, Target and fast-food restaurants that they contend are not doing enough to protect their employees. “We aren’t notified that these activities are going to happen, and we aren’t involved in the operations. We’re required to follow all federal and local rules and regulations in every market where we operate,” said Home Depot spokesperson George Lane in an email.

Reuters [8/12/2025 10:33 PM, Lizbeth Diaz, 51390K] reports Yahir remembers growing up in Mexico without a bed or a stove. He didn’t own a pair of shoes until he was 10, and in the mid-1990s — when he was 13 — he crossed with a group illegally into the U.S. in search of work. He settled in California and worked on farms across the state. He met his wife and had six children, the eldest of whom is now 15. Then, on July 10, Yahir, 43, was apprehended while working at a marijuana farm in southern California, in one of the largest immigration raids since U.S. President Donald Trump took office. "It was like a nightmare, but I was awake," said Yahir, his skin dotted by sun stains from working in the fields, just hours after being deported to Tijuana. Yahir asked to withhold his last name to protect his family in the U.S.. As Trump ramps up his deportation efforts targeting immigrants in the country illegally, Mexicans - with the largest population of immigrants in the U.S. without status - are living in fear. They are being arrested at restaurants, farms, Home Depot outlets and 7-Eleven convenience stores. A remarkable 42% of Hispanic adults are worried they or someone close to them might be deported, according to a Pew Research Center survey from earlier this year. Last week, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to halt a court order restricting immigration stops on the basis of what language they speak or where they work. Yahir said he knew of other immigrants being deported. "But I never thought it would happen to me," he said, adding that he didn’t have a criminal record. Reuters couldn’t independently confirm his account. More than 360 alleged immigration offenders were apprehended during the July 10 marijuana farm raids in southern California. One immigrant worker died after he fell 30 feet from a greenhouse roof. The president of the United Farm Workers union criticized the raids, saying they "terrorize American communities, disrupt the American food supply chain, threaten lives and separate families.” In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said, "The allegations about the Adelanto detention center are FALSE. All detainees are provided with proper meals, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with their family members and lawyers.” The DHS added 185,000 people have been deported from the U.S. during the second Trump administration.

San Diego Union Tribune [8/12/2025 12:01 PM, Gladys B. Vargas, 1611K] reports aggressive immigration practices, including detention, deportation, and workplace raids are causing widespread emotional trauma among children. So says a study by a team of mental health professionals at UC Riverside’s School of Medicine. The report, published July 25 in Psychiatric News, suggests that "acute psychological risks" — among both immigrant and U.S.-born children living in mixed-status households — develop from forced family separations, particularly those resulting from immigration enforcement actions, such as detention and deportation. The researchers propose that immigration enforcement in the United States is a public health emergency for millions of children. Citing clinical case studies and community-based data, researches said trauma is transmitted across generations and shaped by conditions such as poverty, discrimination, and fear of enforcement. "We are witnessing the effects of chronic fear, disrupted attachment, and intergenerational trauma on a massive scale," Dr. Lisa Fortuna, professor and chair of psychiatry and neuroscience at the UCR School of Medicine and the lead psychiatrist behind the report, said in statement accompanying the report. "The threat or reality of separation from a caregiver fundamentally reshapes a child’s development and mental health." Immigration raids have amplified due to the Trump administration’s pledge to target drug cartels and hardened criminals, the "worst of the worst" in the U.S. They point to decreased border crossings as evidence the raids are working. As Department of Homeland Security officials noted on Thursday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers have arrested several criminal illegal aliens "convicted of heinous crimes including assault, child sex offenses, larceny, and burglary." "Just yesterday, ICE arrested rapists, thieves, and other violent offenders. These are the scumbags our law enforcement are arresting and getting out of our country every single day," said DHS Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin. In an email response to questions about children impacted by ICE enforcement, an agency spokesperson this week pointed to a policy of non-separation. But they did not address the emotional impact on children. "U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not separate families or deport U.S. citizens, but removable parents — absent indications of abuse or neglect — can choose to take their children with them, regardless of the children’s immigration statuses," the statement said. "Parents who choose to leave their children in the U.S. have the option to designate a third-party caregiver. This has always been the case.”

Telemundo52 [8/12/2025 1:43 PM, Hetty Chang, 103K] reports that an Los Angeles woman arrested by federal agents during an immigration raid earlier this summer recounted the experience she said left a lasting impact on her. Andrea Vélez said she was traumatized after agents threw her to the ground and she endured harsh conditions in custody. She shared that she still remembers that day and has been working from home since her release due to her trauma. Vélez, a U.S. citizen, works in downtown Los Angeles as a production coordinator for a shoe company. She said that on June 24, her mother and sister had just dropped her off at work. Nearby, federal agents were present. "It was like a scene," she said. "They were ready to attack and chase." At one point, Vélez said she felt a man grab her and throw her to the ground. She tried to tell the plainclothes officer that she was a U.S. citizen. "He said I was interfering with his activities and that he was going to arrest me," she said. "That’s when I asked for his ID and badge number. I asked if he had a warrant, and he said I didn’t need to know any of that." Vélez said that as officers processed her into a detention center in downtown Los Angeles, she tried again to tell them that she was a U.S. citizen and had done nothing wrong. "They didn’t believe me, so I gave them my real ID, my driver’s license, and even my Kaiser health insurance card," she said. The Montecito Heights resident spent two days in the detention center. She said she was not given water for 24 hours. After her release, the Department of Justice dismissed her case with prejudice, meaning her case is temporarily closed. A spokesperson for the department declined to comment.

AP [8/12/2025 7:22 PM, Fabiola Sánchez, 56000K] reports a legal battle is playing out in Mexico over a well-known immigration activist and lawyer who was arrested earlier this month for alleged human trafficking and then ordered released by a judge in a case that underscored the conflicted stands on protecting migrants among Mexican officials. On Tuesday, Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office announced it will appeal the decision from the previous day to release Luis García Villagrán, who has helped organize migrant caravans that travel north from southern Mexico. When García Villagrán was released from detention on Monday, Judge Jonathan Izquierdo in Tapachula, a city in the state of Chiapas on Mexico’s border with Guatemala, said authorities did not have enough evidence to prosecute him for human trafficking. “I had never seen anything like it,” Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero said during the president’s news briefing Tuesday. The judge ignored a multitude of presented evidence and claiming that because “he was dedicated to protecting migrant groups, he was releasing” the suspect. Gertz Manero added that his office would appeal but did not elaborate. After his release, García Villagrán told reporters the “judge ordered my release because he said that we do not belong to organized crime” but rather to the activist group Centro de Dignificación Humana AC, dedicated to protecting the rights of migrants and recognized by the Ministry of the Interior. The activist-lawyer, who often accompanies migrant caravans, claimed that his arrest amounted to persecution by Mexican federal authorities for his activism. Such caravans have been criticized by authorities, and are regularly blocked by law enforcement, but have been used as a mechanism for migrants to travel safely through an area that has largely been considered the most dangerous stretch of the journey to the United States.

Breitbart [8/12/2025 1:30 PM, John Binder, 3077K] reports that United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Joseph Edlow told Breitbart News that former President Joe Biden prioritized illegal aliens so much that the nation’s legal immigration system was left "a complete and utter mess." In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, Edlow detailed how the Biden administration, with former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and former USCIS Director Ur Jaddou at the helm, gave priority to illegal aliens to enter the U.S. over legal immigrants already in the country looking to secure green cards after decades of waiting. "What is the impact and the ramifications of the last four years of Biden administration? It’s left the legal immigration system as a complete and utter mess," Edlow told Breitbart News. "There are far too many cases pending, there are far too many people who have legitimate claims and legitimate applicants that have been waiting forever, and these are people that we want," Edlow continued. "These are the people that America needs in this country that are waiting to get their status whereby we have prioritized the parole, the illegal parole programs that were set up by the Biden administration, that were conducted with such a degree of lack of care, for fraud and for integrity."

San Diego Union Tribune [8/12/2025 12:02 PM, Ethan Baron, 1611K] reports that amid furious debate among supporters of President Donald Trump over the H-1B visa for foreign workers, federal authorities are making in-person interviews mandatory for renewals in visa holders’ home countries. Technology companies say the visas — intended for workers with specialized skills, and requiring renewal every three years — are key to maintaining competitiveness, but critics charge they are used to suppress wages and replace U.S. workers. Currently, H-1B holders with no visa changes can drop off renewal applications at consulates in their home countries or foreign countries, or renew remotely through federal field offices in the U.S. Under the new rule, in-person interviews are required for overseas applications, and the option to renew in countries other than the applicants’ own appears to have been taken away. It was not immediately clear if an interview requirement would be imposed for renewals at field offices in the U.S. Immigration lawyers expect the change, taking effect Sept. 2, will cause delays at overseas consulates and also in U.S. field offices. "It was a really great process — if everything was the same there’s really no point in asking them all of those questions and having them coming in for an interview," said Kelli Duehning, a partner in the BAL immigration law firm’s San Francisco office, who spent 17 years as a lawyer for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

CBS News [8/12/2025 10:29 PM, Lilia Luciano, 51860K] reports that, when federal officials announced the opening of a new detention center in Florida for undocumented immigrants dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," they said its focus would be on rounding up individuals with a criminal record – people that President Trump and border czar Tom Homan have called "the worst of the worst." However, many people who have been locked up at the Florida Everglades detention center do not have criminal records, CBS News has learned. Some of Alligator Alcatraz’s detainees are "dreamers," like Edgar, who is among more than half a million beneficiaries of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, or DACA, the federal program that allowed undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to live and work in the country without fear of deportation. Edgar arrived in the U.S. in 2001 when he was 13 years old, and today is the father of three U.S. citizens. In June, he was detained following a traffic stop and became one of the first detainees sent to "Alligator Alcatraz.” "When he got arrested and he was taken there, I was actually worried for his life," Edgar’s brother told CBS News. As the Trump administration continues its immigration crackdown, the number of illegal crossings along the southern border last month reached a record low of about 4,600. At the same time, in June, there was a record-high number of migrants who were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — about 59,000. Federal statistics obtained by CBS News in June showed nearly half — or 47% — of those detained by ICE lacked a criminal record, and fewer than 30% had been convicted of any crime. ICE Deputy Director Madison Sheahan told CBS News on Tuesday that none of the people who have been detained at Alligator Alcatraz are there by accident. "These are people who have committed a crime against the United States by entering this country illegally," Sheahan said in an interview in Washington. Being undocumented is a civil violation of immigration law, not a criminal offense. Immigration attorney Rachel Einbund told CBS News she is concerned about the precedent, asking, "Does this mean that every single dreamer is subject to deportation because [Department of Homeland Security] changed their mind?". Edgar has since been transferred to another facility in Florida, and his family says they feel helpless. "The fact that he’s being deprived of his freedom ... that makes me feel like my hands are tied," his mother said in Spanish. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told CBS News that undocumented immigrants who say they’re beneficiaries of DACA are not automatically protected from deportation. "DACA does not confer any form of legal status in this country," McLaughlin said. "Any illegal alien who is a DACA recipient may be subject to arrest and deportation for a number of reasons including if they’ve committed a crime.” CBS News reviewed Edgar’s record and found he is not facing criminal charges.

Axios [8/12/2025 2:13 PM, Kale Williams, 13599K] reports foreign-born noncitizens fill critical jobs in Portland’s agriculture, construction and manufacturing sectors, per new census data. President Trump acknowledged this summer that his immigration crackdown is pulling long-term laborers from these industries — and promised to address it. Yet there’s still no major policy decision from the White House, which must balance economic realities with MAGA demands to deport as many people as possible. Foreign-born noncitizens — including those who are legal residents or have work visas — make up 7.2% of Portland’s civilian workforce age 16 and older, based on a 2019-2023 average of U.S. Census Bureau estimates. They account for nearly a quarter of agriculture/mining workers; almost 12% of construction workers; and 11.4% of those in manufacturing. Last week, federal immigration agents detained four Guatemalan workers on their way to a blueberry farm in Canby, OPB reported. The incident, which included the arrest of one person who is seeking asylum, appeared to be the largest action to date in Oregon.

Axios [8/13/2025 4:50 AM, Russell Contreras, 13599K] reports on the U.S. side of the southern border, local law enforcement officials have begun using AI-programmed drones to locate drug traffickers and migrants. On the Mexico side, drug cartels are using their own drones to stake out desert areas in the U.S. to smuggle their products. The U.S. government — whose own patrol drones help create what it calls a "virtual wall" — has long fueled the tech war along the border. But now even small local agencies are stepping into this arms race against cartels and illegal immigration. The drone wars are unfolding even as migrant traffic has dropped to its lowest levels in decades. They’re being driven in part by staffing shortages in police and sheriff’s departments, as well as cuts in federal aid that have limited traditional patrols. Local agencies in Arizona, for example, have begun using drones to investigate a range of headaches: illegal dumping, methamphetamine labs operating off isolated, rural roads, and rescuing migrants or hikers in the scorching desert. The number of U.S. law enforcement agencies using drones has jumped 150% since 2018, according to a report released this year. Most use them as "first responders" to emergencies to assess scenes. The sheriff’s office in Arizona’s Cochise County — which shares 84 miles of its border with Mexico — recently announced it’s launching a drone pilot program powered by Canadian drone-maker Draganfly, whose UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) are used by groups in Ukraine to detect landmines. In the border city of Laredo, Texas, police said earlier this month they’ll deploy BRINC Drones to help them respond to emergencies within seconds. Sunland Park, N.M., near El Paso, is already using drones to help its fire and police departments rescue stranded migrants and hikers on Mount Cristo Rey, and those struggling to cross the Rio Grande. The Texas National Guard and New Mexico State Police also are using drones.

Blaze [8/12/2025 8:15 AM, Candace Hathaway, 1805K] reports President Donald Trump’s administration may have secured another border victory, this time concerning wall materials purchased by American taxpayers during his first term. The materials, which were put up for auction by former President Joe Biden, will reportedly soon be returned to Trump following a fierce legal battle. In December, a federal judge blocked Biden from selling off any more of the materials after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) accused the former administration of undermining Trump by selling the material "for pennies on the dollar." The material, valued between $260 million and $350 million, was auctioned on GovPlanet, an online government surplus marketplace, in 2023 after Biden halted Trump’s border construction in January 2021. Trump previously accused Biden of "deliberately selling off border-wall materials at a major financial loss" to undermine "pro-wall policy." He claimed that the former administration’s conduct "likely constitutes a criminal act, such as a conspiracy to defraud the United States." GovPlanet has previously stated that most of the border wall materials were provided to "authorized recipients, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the states of Texas and California." It noted that the remaining roughly 40% of materials were listed for auction on the online marketplace.

New York Post [8/12/2025 2:11 PM, Lisa Fickenscher, 49956K] reports that travel to the US tumbled 3.1% in July — the latest in a slew of monthly declines as the Trump administration imposes strict curbs on travel and pursues tough negotiations on trade. The most recent drop was fueled by a steep pullback from Germany, China and Switzerland, which were down 14.7%, 13.8% and 12.7% respectively, according to the National Travel and Tourism Office, a government agency that works with the Department of Homeland Security and US Customs and Border Protection. The latest data does not include travel from Canada and Mexico, the two largest feeder markets to the US, but lately both have seen steep drops. Canadians in particular have been canceling trips to the US, offended by President Trump’s suggestion that they be annexed to the US as the 51st state. In June, flights from Canada were down 22% and car crossings were down 33%, according to a report by travel trade publication Skift. April represents the only exception to the downward trend, possibly because Easter fell in April instead of March. Overseas visitors increased 0.4% in April, but have been down since then. Among the top 20 countries, six increased their travel to the US in July, including Japan by 9.1%, Dominican Republic, by 7.3%, Spain by 6.7% Italy, by 6.3%, Israel by 6.1% and Ireland up by 2.9%, according to NTTO. Spending on promoting the US as a destination was decimated after the the "Big Beautiful Bill" was passed in April. Brand USA, a public-private partnership that promotes travel here, saw its federal funds cut by 80% this year.

USA Today [8/12/2025 11:41 AM, Saman Shafiq, 75552K] reports a New York man pleaded guilty to smuggling turtles worth approximately $1.4 million to Hong Kong, along with venomous snakes and other reptiles. Wei Qiang Lin of Brooklyn pleaded guilty to "falsely labeling live turtles as fake toys" and "exporting them in delivery boxes on a weeks-long journey to Hong Kong," the Department of Justice said in an Aug. 11 news release. Lin exported approximately 222 parcels containing around 850 turtles valued at $1.4 million between August 2023 and November 2024, according to court records. He labeled the boxes as containing "plastic animal toys," among other objects, the news release said. Lin is also accused of exporting "11 other parcels filled with reptiles including venomous snakes." Law enforcement found the turtles "bound and taped inside knotted socks" in the shipping boxes during a border inspection. Packing them this way restricts their movement, so they can pass undetected. "Wildlife trafficking is the fourth largest organized crime in the world, after drug trafficking, counterfeiting, and human trafficking," according to the Department of Homeland Security.

(B) NBC News Daily [8/12/2025 2:24 PM, Staff] reports that there has been a growing concern surrounding a federal immigration processing center in Clearfield County in the wake of the suspected suicide of a detainee in the facility. One congressman is pushing back against the controversy and calls for closure. The facility operates under a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the GEO Group, and Clearfield County. The ACLU of Pennsylvania filed a federal complaint last year, arguing that the facility subjects detainees to unconstitutional and dangerous conditions.

(B) NBC News Daily [8/12/2025 2:24 PM, Staff] reports that a small town in west Tennessee will decide whether to move forward with the state’s third immigration facility. CoreCivic is partnering with the Town of Mason and the Department of Homeland Security to reopen the ICE center. According to previous contracts, the facility would house federal inmates for ICE. The facility closed less than a decade ago.

(B) Today [8/12/2025 8:56 AM, Staff] reports that border security efforts continue across west Texas. Local and federal agencies are working together to stop illegal crossings in Terrell County. Border Patrol agents from the Sanderson Station detected a group of six undocumented migrants Sunday night. The Terrell County Sheriff’s Office responded, working with Border Patrol to monitor and contain the group. All six individuals were taken into custody.

NewsNation [8/12/2025 11:07 AM, Jorge Ventura and Jeff Arnold, 5801K] reports Mexican cartels are shifting direction in what they move across the U.S.-Mexico border, focusing on high-value contraband and other illicit drugs, while illegal border crossings are down by 95% in a once high-traffic area from this time in 2024. In Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, cartel smugglers continue to smuggle drugs like fentanyl into the United States. A year ago, the sector monitored by the U.S. Border Patrol was seeing up to 2,000 illegal border crossings by migrants per day. Cartels were largely responsible for smuggling large groups of migrants across the border. Yet with a drastic reduction in illegal crossings, cartels have shifted their business model to trafficking drugs into the U.S. as a way of making up for profits lost from moving people across the border, officials said. "Now, they go back to their original tactics," Christina Smallwood, a Border Patrol spokesperson covering the Rio Grande Valley, told NewsNation.

Washington Post [8/12/2025 1:04 PM, Natalie B. Compton, 32099K] reports that with TSA PreCheck lines rivaling those of the regular security, travelers had lamented that the premium program had gotten too popular and too slow. (Last year, the program reached a record 20 million members.) Then, this July, the Department of Homeland Security announced that travelers can keep their shoes on when going through airport security — a privilege that once set apart PreCheck members. If the lines are just as long and there’s no shoe perks, is PreCheck still worth it? Enter: TSA PreCheck Touchless ID, a separate lane from regular PreCheck that uses facial recognition to verify your identity at the airport. Instead of handing their IDs over to a Transportation Security Administration officer to verify their identity, travelers who opt in to the expedited security program instead pause to scan their face, then keep moving. Critics worry that the data may be misused. The TSA launched the first iteration of the program in partnership with Delta Air Lines at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport in 2021 and has been slowly rolling it out. It’s now available for four airlines across 15 airports. Eleven new airport locations are expected to launch soon. Critics say facial recognition technology raises privacy concerns. There’s been bipartisan effort to put more guardrails on its use at airports.

Federal News Network [8/12/2025 12:09 PM, Terry Gerton, 2346K] Video HERE reports a search-and-rescue platform developed by the Department of Homeland Security played a key role in coordinating emergency response efforts during July’s flooding across Texas, North Carolina, New Mexico, and Vermont — helping responders make faster, more informed decisions in rapidly changing conditions. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

NPR [8/12/2025 5:18 PM, Joe Hernandez, 37958K] reports a tropical storm churning in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa could become the first Atlantic hurricane of the 2025 season. Federal forecasters say Tropical Storm Erin, currently located around 950 miles west of Cape Verde, will start to strengthen beginning late Wednesday and likely become a hurricane by late Thursday. At least eight people were killed on the Cape Verdean island of São Vicente following severe storms, Reuters reported on Tuesday. Cape Verdean President Jose Maria Pereira Neves said in a Facebook post Monday that heavy rains had caused fatalities and property damage on the island. The National Hurricane Center said the storm will cross warm ocean water and grow in strength as it glides quickly westward toward the Caribbean, eventually slowing down and making a gradual west-northwest turn. Tropical Storm Erin currently has maximum sustained winds of 45 miles per hour, with tropical storm-force winds extending out from its center as far as 35 miles. The National Hurricane Center warned that the likelihood had increased for the storm to move closer to Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and the northern Leeward Islands, but forecasters say it’s still too early to know what the effects might be. Erin’s center is expected to track near or just north of the northern Leeward Islands this weekend. The storm may also impact parts of the U.S. East Coast, Bermuda, the Bahamas and the Greater Antilles next week, the National Hurricane Center added.

CBS News [8/12/2025 6:12 AM, Staff, 51860K] reports Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy issued a state disaster declaration Monday as a result of what he called the "imminent threat of catastrophic flooding from a glacier lake outburst flood (GLOF)" in the Juneau area. It would mark the third straight year of serious glacier-related flooding in Juneau, the state capital, in extreme southeastern Alaska. The flooding would be associated with Suicide Basin, a side basin of the Mendenhall Glacier, Dunleavy said. "Hydrologic monitoring by the National Weather Service (NWS) and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) confirms that the volume of water currently impounded in Suicide Basin has reached or exceeded levels observed during prior flood-of-record events," he warned in a statement. "A release is expected at any time. Flooding is likely to affect the Mendenhall River and surrounding neighborhoods in the Mendenhall Valley." The National Weather Service Juneau office said, "The Basin is full and continues to over-top. ... As of 10 p.m. Monday, the release has NOT begun, but could happen at any point this week." The declaration follows joint local disaster declarations and requests for assistance from the city and borough of Juneau and two local Indian tribes, Dunleavy noted.

NPR [8/12/2025 5:08 PM, Mary Louise Kelly, John Ketchum, Henry Larson, 37958K] Audio: HERE reports the president will meet with Putin on Friday in Alaska. A former secret service agent shares how the service plans last minute trips like this, especially one with major geopolitical implications.

Washington Examiner [8/12/2025 3:58 PM, Christian Datoc, 1934K] reports President Donald Trump is setting the gears in motion for a significant expansion of America’s polar fleet, marked by the Monday commissioning of the United States Coast Guard cutter Storis, its first new polar icebreaker in decades. In total, funding provided by Trump’s reconciliation bill, which he signed into law on July 4, and the Coast Guard’s Force Design 2028 will funnel more than $25 billion into expanding the polar fleet. The Coast Guard, according to the Department of Homeland Security, is also directing portions of the $25 billion joint polar fleet fund to build out Polar security cutters, Arctic security cutters, light and medium domestic icebreaking cutters, and Coast Guard port buildouts in Alaska. However, experts do not expect the security cutters, a next-generation icebreaker, to be operational until 2030. And though Monday’s announcement came just days before Trump is set to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, the polar fleet expansion is driven by both security concerns and, perhaps even more so, economic concerns, according to the White House.

Washington Times [8/12/2025 1:59 PM, Mike Glenn, 2106K] reports the U.S. Coast Guard is monitoring a fleet of Chinese icebreakers operating in the Arctic region near Alaska in an unprecedented move for a country long calling itself a “near Arctic state.” A Coast Guard C-130 Hercules plane last week spotted two Chinese vessels, identified as the Ji Di and the Zhong Shan Da Xue Ji Di, as they sailed northeast in the Bering Sea. The Coast Guard cutter Waesche later spotted the Zhong Shan Da Xue Ji Di heading north in the Chukchi Sea above the Arctic Circle. Officials at the Coast Guard Arctic District also sent a C-130 Hercules from Alaska’s Air Station Kodiak to investigate reports that another Chinese research ship, the Xue Long 2, was spotted 290 nautical miles north of Utgiagvik, the northernmost U.S. community. The Coast Guard missions were part of Operation Frontier Sentinel, designed to respond to adversaries operating around Alaska and U.S. Arctic waters. “The U.S. Coast Guard’s responses are intended to counter malign activities, defend sovereign interests, and promote maritime conduct consistent with international law and norms,” officials said in a statement. Coast Guard officials said the presence of the Chinese vessels is consistent with a three-year trend of increased activity from Beijing’s fast-growing fleet of so-called research vessels in the U.S. Arctic. “Last year, three Chinese research vessels conducted research operations north of the Bering Strait,” the officials said. The U.S. lags far behind the icebreaker fleets of Russia and China. Moscow has dozens of such vessels available for service, while Beijing has at least five. The Coast Guard operates only two such vessels, the Healy and the Polar Star, capable of operating in the high latitudes. On Sunday, a former polar-capable oilfield supply vessel was brought into Coast Guard service — the Storis, the first icebreaker bought by the Coast Guard in a quarter century. The Coast Guard picked up the nation’s icebreaker mission in 1965 when the Navy handed over its fleet of vessels. The USCG received a windfall last month from the One Big Beautiful Bill that will let it construct at least 17 polar and nonpolar capable icebreakers, service officials said. China sees the Arctic as a geopolitically important area that will only gain significance in the long term. Michael Paul, a senior fellow with the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said Beijing will use the region to test its global ambitions and see whether new norms will be accepted there. “Because the Arctic is not as regulated as the Antarctic, it provides a good testing ground,” Mr. Paul wrote in a recent essay for the European think tank. “China is striving to expand its position as an independent player without raising concerns in the Arctic states.” Tracking the Chinese icebreaker fleet in the Arctic region is occurring alongside the U.S. military’s annual Arctic Edge — a joint, multidomain drill at several locations in Alaska.

Breitbart [8/12/2025 2:46 PM, John Hayward, 3077K] reports that the latest dangerous incident involving Chinese ships in the South China Sea took place on Monday, when two Chinese ships collided while trying to chase a Philippine patrol boat away from the disputed Scarborough Shoal. A video released by Philippine officials, taken from the stern of the Filipino patrol boat BRP Suluan, showed a Chinese Coast Guard vessel aggressively and dangerously firing a water cannon while pursuing the smaller Filipino craft at high speed. The Chinese Coast Guard vessel then slammed into an even bigger People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) ship that was maneuvering behind the Suluan: Both of the Chinese ships were visibly damaged in the collision. The Filipino patrol boat, having observed Chinese personnel working on the deck of the Coast Guard ship before the collision, circled around to offer assistance, but the Chinese did not respond. The Philippine Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday the actions of the Chinese ships "not only posed a grave danger to Philippine personnel and vessels, but also resulted in the unfortunate collision between the two Chinese vessels." "Yesterday’s incident demonstrates the importance of adhering to international maritime rules," said the Philippine Foreign Ministry. Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., chairman of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), said the PLAN ship was clearly attempting to ram the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) ship during the incident. Philippine Navy spokesman Rear Adm. Roy Vincent Trinidad described it as a "pincer move," in which the PCG ship was supposed to be trapped in the middle. "It’s a good thing our Coast Guard was able to avoid the PLA Navy and the Chinese Coast Guard. The two Chinese vessels collided," Brawner said.

Reported similarly:
CBS News [8/12/2025 12:55 PM, Emily Mae Czachor, 51860K]

AP [8/12/2025 12:00 PM, Jim Gomez, 4622K] reports that the Philippine military on Tuesday blamed China for the collision of two Chinese navy and coast guard ships while trying to drive the Philippine coast guard and fishermen from a disputed shoal in the South China Sea. It said it would assess how to respond to Beijing’s use of military force against civilians. Philippine authorities said Monday’s accidental collision resulted in visibly heavy damages to the Chinese coast guard and navy ships and possible injuries. The confrontation near the Scarborough Shoal was the latest flare-up of the long-simmering territorial standoff in the contested waters, a long-feared flashpoint in Asia. The United States, a longtime treaty ally of the Philippines, on Tuesday condemned the "latest reckless action by China directed against a Philippine vessel." The Chinese coast guard on Monday blamed Philippine vessels for the confrontation and said it was forced to expel the vessels after they intruded into "China’s inherent territory," despite warnings. It did not mention the collision or possible casualties. The chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., told reporters in Manila that the video footage clearly showed that the Chinese navy ship maneuvered to ram the BRP Suluan, which had to move to avoid being hit. As a result, the Chinese navy ship instead hit the Chinese coast guard ship, which was also closely chasing the Philippine vessel, Brawner said. "China’s aggressive actions were very clear in this incident," Brawner said. "They were at fault because of their aggressive maneuvers. We were there to protect Filipino fishermen in the Scarborough Shoal. That was our only objective because that’s our traditional fishing ground."

Reported similarly:
New York Times [8/12/2025 10:53 AM, Jonathan Wolfe and Aie Balagtas See, 153395K]

Reuters [8/13/2025 4:27 AM, Staff, 51390K] reports China’s military said on Wednesday it monitored and "drove away" a U.S. destroyer that sailed near the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the busy waterway of the South China Sea, while the U.S. Navy said its action was in line with international law. The first known U.S. military operation in at least six years within the shoal’s waters came a day after the Philippines accused Chinese vessels of "dangerous manoeuvres and unlawful interference" during a supply mission around the atoll. In a statement, the Chinese military’s Southern Theatre Command said the USS Higgins had entered the waters "without approval of the Chinese government" on Wednesday. "The U.S. move seriously violated China’s sovereignty and security, severely undermined peace and stability in the South China Sea," it added, vowing to keep a "high alert at all times". The U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet said the Higgins had "asserted navigational rights and freedoms" near the Scarborough Shoal "consistent with international law". The operation reflected the U.S. commitment to uphold freedom of navigation and lawful uses of the sea, it told Reuters in an emailed statement. "The United States is defending its right to fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows, as USS Higgins did here. Nothing China says otherwise will deter us.” China claims almost the entire South China Sea, despite overlapping claims by Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. The U.S. regularly carries out "freedom of navigation" operations in the South China Sea, challenging what it says are curbs on innocent passage imposed by China and other claimants. The Scarborough Shoal has been a major source of tension in the strategic South China Sea, a conduit for more than $3 trillion of annual ship-borne commerce. The actions of Chinese vessels in the shoal this week also resulted in a collision of two of them, Manila said, the first such known in the area. China’s coast guard said it had taken "necessary measures" to expel Philippine vessels from the waters. In 2016, an international arbitral tribunal ruled there was no basis in international law for Beijing’s claims, based on its historic maps. China does not recognise that decision, however.

Axios [8/12/2025 2:21 PM, Sam Sabin, 13599K] reports that Federal law enforcement took down servers and web domains and seized roughly $1 million worth of cryptocurrency tied to the BlackSuit ransomware gang, authorities announced Monday. Why it matters: BlackSuit had quite the rap sheet, hitting more than 100 companies in the last year across industries including manufacturing, education, research, health care and construction. Driving the news: The Department of Justice and Homeland Security announced the takedown this week amid weeks of speculation after the gang’s data leak site went dark late last month. The U.S. worked with law enforcement partners in the U.K., Germany, Ireland, France, Canada, Ukraine and Lithuania. The big picture: The Homeland Security Investigations division inside U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement estimates that BlackSuit had compromised more than 450 victims in the United States since 2022. Those estimates also include victims of the Royal ransomware gang, which ultimately rebranded as BlackSuit in 2024. Bitdefender, which worked with law enforcement on the takedown, estimates in a blog post that BlackSuit had more than 150 entries on its data leak site.

CyberScoop [8/12/2025 4:18 PM, Matt Kapko] reports Microsoft’s monthly batch of patches includes a vulnerability affecting on-premises Microsoft Exchange servers that the company and federal authorities warned about in a series of alerts last week. In its latest security update Tuesday, Microsoft maintained the flaw hasn’t been exploited in the wild and designated the exploitability of the defect — CVE-2025-53786 — as “more likely.” Organizations have not applied the previously issued patch for the high-severity vulnerability en masse, despite the serious alarm raised by officials. More than 28,000 accessible Microsoft Exchange servers remained unpatched as of Monday, according to Shadowserver scans. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s deadline for all federal agencies to update eligible servers with a previously issued hotfix and disconnect outdated Exchange servers passed on Monday. Microsoft addressed 111 vulnerabilities affecting its various enterprise products, cloud services and foundational Windows systems in this month’s security update. The set of disclosures includes four additional defects affecting Microsoft Exchange Server.

CyberScoop [8/12/2025 1:48 PM, Derek B. Johnson] reports on Aug. 7, OpenAI released GPT-5, its newest frontier large language model, to the public. Shortly after, all hell broke loose. Billed as faster, smarter and more capable tools for enterprise organizations than previous models, GPT-5 has instead met an angry user base that has found its performance and reasoning skills wanting. And in the five days since its release, security researchers have also noticed something about GPT-5: it completely fails on core security and safety metrics. Since going public, OpenAI’s newest tool for businesses and organizations has been subjected to extensive tinkering by outside security researchers, many of whom identified vulnerabilities and weaknesses in GPT-5 that were already discovered and patched in older models. AI red-teaming company SPLX subjected it to over 1,000 different attack scenarios, including prompt injection, data and context poisoning, jailbreaking and data exfiltration, finding the default version of GPT-5 “nearly unusable for enterprises” out of the box. It scored just a 2.4% on an assessment for security, 13.6% for safety and 1.7% for “business alignment,” which SPLX describes as the model’s propensity for refusing tasks that are outside of its domain, leaking data or unwittingly promoting competing products. Ante Gojsalic, chief technology officer and co-founder of SPLX, told CyberScoop that his team was initially surprised at the level of poor security and lack of safety guardrails inherent in OpenAI’s newest model. Microsoft claimed that internal red-team testing on GPT-5 was done with “rigorous security protocols” and concluded it “exhibited one of the strongest AI safety profiles among prior OpenAI models against several modes of attack, including malware generation, fraud/scam automation and other harms.” “Our expectation was GPT-5 will be better like they presented on all the benchmarks,” Gojsalic said. “And this was the key surprising moment, when we [did] our scan, we saw … it’s terrible. It’s far behind for all models, like on par with some open-source models and worse.”

New York Times [8/12/2025 4:56 PM, Adam Goldman, Glenn Thrush and Matthew Cullen, 138952K] reports investigators have uncovered evidence that Russia is at least partly responsible for a recent hack of the computer system that manages federal court documents, including highly sensitive records with information that could reveal sources and people charged with national security crimes, according to several people briefed on the breach. It is not clear what entity is responsible, whether an arm of Russian intelligence might be behind the intrusion or if other countries were also involved, which some of the people familiar with the matter described as a yearslong effort to infiltrate the system. Some of the searches included midlevel criminal cases in the New York City area and several other jurisdictions, with some cases involving people with Russian and Eastern European surnames. The disclosure comes as President Trump is expected to meet with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir V. Putin, in Alaska on Friday, where Mr. Trump is planning to discuss his push to end the war in Ukraine. Administrators with the court system recently informed Justice Department officials, clerks and chief judges in federal courts that “persistent and sophisticated cyber threat actors have recently compromised sealed records,” according to an internal department memo reviewed by The New York Times. The administrators also advised those officials to quickly remove the most sensitive documents from the system.

Washington Times [8/12/2025 9:00 AM, Vaughn Cockayne, 2106K] reports the State Department on Monday officially designated the Pakistan-based Balochistan Liberation Army as a “foreign terrorist organization,” significantly ramping up pressure against the militant group. The BLA, also known as the Majeed Brigade, was previously categorized as a “specially designated global terrorist organization” back in 2019. Monday’s designation adds the Majeed Brigade as a known alias of BLA. An FTO label is a much harsher designation and provides the State Department with new tools to combat the group’s influence internationally. Specifically, U.S. citizens are barred from knowingly supporting FTO organizations financially or otherwise, and financial institutions in the U.S. must immediately freeze any assets belonging to people or groups tied to an FTO. “Today’s action taken by the Department of State demonstrates the Trump Administration’s commitment to countering terrorism.  Terrorist designations play a critical role in our fight against this scourge and are an effective way to curtail support for terrorist activities,” the State Department wrote in a statement. The BLA was first designated an SDGT after claiming responsibility for a number of terror attacks. In 2019, the group targeted Chinese nationals at the Zaver Pearl-Continental Hotel in the port city of Gwadar over their support for the Gwadar Port.

FOX News [8/12/2025 7:32 AM, Staff, 46878K] reports former Acting DEA Administrator Derek Maltz joins ‘Fox & Friends’ to warn of a new synthetic opioid from China and discuss President Donald Trump’s order to use military force against cartels allegedly trafficking fentanyl across the border. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

ABC News [8/13/2025 12:02 AM, Jim Vertuno, 31733K] reports anguished pleas from parents. Confused police officers. The horrifying scene that emergency crews found when they first got inside the classrooms at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Newly released records surrounding the May 2022 massacre, including hundreds of pages of files and hours of body camera video, show in greater detail the heartbreak and failures of one the worst school shootings in U.S. history. Nineteen children and two teachers were killed. The documents offer a deeper portrait of the teenage gunman and actions of hundreds of law enforcement officers who rushed to the rural South Texas campus. They’re the final batch of records local authorities had withheld during a yearslong legal battle over public access. Family members of the victims were among those pushing for their release. Although state and federal investigations over the past three years have extensively examined the shooting, the batches of records provide new glimpses of the panic and indecision by law enforcement officials as they waited more than an hour to confront the shooter. The official narrative that police quickly rushed to confront and kill 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos had been quickly dismissed by parents who stood outside the school begging for officers to go inside or let them get to their children. Audio released Tuesday detailed their desperation. "Whose class is he in?" one parent can be heard asking on a deputy’s body camera. Another comes up and yells, "Come on man, my daughter is in there!". After some children run from the school and officers report finding an AR-15 rifle, one officer can be heard saying, "We need to get in there, fast.” It would be another hour before law enforcement breached the classroom and killed Ramos. Law enforcement records showed sheriff’s deputies were called to a physical disturbance at the home of Ramos’ mother, Adriana Reyes, a few months before the attack. She told deputies that he became angry and kicked a wireless modem after she turned off the internet. She had to hold him down to calm him, according to an incident report. She told deputies Ramos never hit her, but they made a note in their report: "Ms Reyes stated she was scared of Salvador and wanted help." Ramos’ grandmother took him to her house and deputies took no further action. Ramos would end up shooting his grandmother before attacking the school. She survived. School records, meanwhile, showed a pattern of spiraling trouble that emerged at a young age.

New York Times [8/12/2025 8:05 PM, Edgar Sandoval, 138952K] reports that, in the more than three years since the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, a key question about the delayed police response has been why the incident commander tried to negotiate with the gunman rather than storm into the classroom where he was holed up with dozens of students. The commander, Pete Arredondo, determined that the gunman was no longer an active shooter but a barricaded subject, a decision that will be central to Mr. Arredondo’s trial scheduled for later this year. He has been charged with abandoning or endangering the children on his watch. Nineteen children and two teachers died in the attack at Robb Elementary School, and 17 other people were injured. Several new videos released on Tuesday make it clear that Mr. Arredondo, who was the head of the Uvalde School District police force and the first senior police officer on the scene that day in 2022, tried for more than 30 minutes to negotiate with the gunman, who was still inside two connected classrooms with two teachers and 28 students, at least some of whom were still alive. The video is part of a trove of law enforcement materials that were released on Tuesday, and provides one of the clearest views yet into Mr. Arredondo’s actions in the moments after the shooting. It shows him making urgent pleas to the gunman to give himself up, even as the gunman continued to fire sporadically. “Individual in room 111 and 112, this is Arredondo, can you please put your firearm down?” Mr. Arredondo is heard calling through the door at 11:59 a.m., about 30 minutes after the shooting had begun. He made similar requests in both English and Spanish, with the gunman making no response. “We don’t want anyone else hurt, sir,” he said and then, “These are innocent children, sir.” The new videos show officers from different agencies gathering and beginning to express frustration with how the operation was unfolding. “If we need to jump in, we’ll jump in,” an officer can be heard saying at 12:21 p.m., according to video from one officer’s body-worn camera that was also part of the release on Tuesday. Two minutes later, Mr. Arredondo’s voice filled the silence again. “Please don’t hurt anyone. These are innocent children.” At one point, an officer standing near him asked another, “Has he talked?” “No,” a third officer responds. Ultimately, it was not until 77 minutes after the first shots that officers with a Border Patrol tactical unit led a charge into the classrooms and confronted the gunman, killing him. Investigations by the U.S. Justice Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety found that Mr. Arredondo erred in not continuing to treat the suspect, Salvador Ramos, an 18-year-old former student of the school, as an active threat.

AP [8/12/2025 4:22 PM, Jim Vertuno and John Seewer, 31733K] reports that desperate parents begged law enforcement officers to storm an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, in the frantic minutes after a gunman opened fire in one of the deadliest classroom attacks in U.S. history, police body camera video released Tuesday shows. “Whose class is he in?” one parent can be heard asking. Another comes up and yells, “Come on man, my daughter is in there!” The heartbreaking videos show the agonizingly slow law enforcement response along with confusion and delays. Authorities failed to confront 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos for more than an hour after the attack at Robb Elementary School began on May 24, 2022. Nineteen students and two teachers were killed. The records released Tuesday are the final batch of documents that local authorities withheld during a yearslong legal battle over public access. Family members of the victims were among those pushing for the records to be released. The documents disclosed that deputies visited the gunman’s home three months before the shooting after his mother said she was scared of him, while nearly six hours of bodycam videos revealed missteps and frustration throughout the attack and its aftermath. Nearly 400 officers waited more than 70 minutes before confronting the gunman in a classroom filled with dead and wounded children and teachers. A Department of Justice review later cited “cascading failures” in the handling of the massacre while another report by Texas lawmakers faulted law enforcement at every level with failing “to prioritize saving innocent lives over their own safety.” Uvalde schools police chief Pete Arredondo and Adrian Gonzales, another former school district officer, are the only two officers who face criminal charges for their actions that day. They both have pleaded not guilty to child endangerment and abandonment and are scheduled for trial later this year. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

AP [8/12/2025 6:45 PM, Jamie Stengle and Jim Vertuno] reports a shooting outside a Target store in Texas that killed three people, including a 4-year-old girl and her grandfather, began with the gunman randomly firing on an employee collecting shopping carts and set in motion a terrifying sequence of stolen cars and crashes that ended with him arrested naked holding a Bible, police said Tuesday. Austin police said Ethan Nieneker, 32, killed the Target worker then opened fire on the grandfather and his granddaughter before stealing their sport utility vehicle. The violence sent store employees and shoppers fleeing for cover. Police Chief Lisa Davis said Nieneker had a history of mental health problems, but she was unaware of any specific diagnosis. Court records show he also had a history of arrests for domestic violence and assault. Police said Nieneker has been charged with two counts of capital murder and one count of murder. Online court records show he had a history of arrests for domestic violence and assault, and was arrested several times in recent years in both Travis County, which includes Austin, and neighboring Williamson County.

Daily Wire [8/12/2025 8:33 AM, Hank Berrien, 3816K] reports that speaking on Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sent a warning that the Trump administration would investigate who is buying land around U.S. military bases in the homeland. "Congressional Republicans have introduced companion bills to halt Chinese purchases outright, and the Pentagon is aligning with USDA and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to identify and shut down high-risk acquisitions," North Carolina journalist Sloan Rachmuth noted on Substack. "I want to know who owns the land around our bases and strategic bases, and getting an understanding of why foreign entities, foreign companies, foreign individuals, might be buying up land around those bases," Hegseth asserted. "That’s something I should be paying attention to on behalf of the American people, on behalf of my department and on behalf of the president. It’s common sense. And so, food security, just like energy resilience, just like where we get our water, that’s all national security, especially in a contingency." "So we would be asleep at the wheel if we were not fully a party to an effort like this to ensure that our nation had the food supply it needs, but specifically our troops have what they need on our basis so that in those moments, you can rely on us here in the United States to provide that security," he continued, warning, "So no longer can foreign adversaries assume we’re not watching and we’re not paying attention and we’re not doing something because we are."

Washington Post [8/12/2025 10:33 AM, Alex Horton and David Ovalle, 32099K] reports the Trump administration is evaluating plans that would establish a “Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force” composed of hundreds of National Guard troops tasked with rapidly deploying into American cities facing protests or other unrest, according to internal Pentagon documents reviewed by The Washington Post. The plan calls for 600 troops to be on standby at all times so they can deploy in as little as one hour, the documents say. They would be split into two groups of 300 and stationed at military bases in Alabama and Arizona, with purview of regions east and west of the Mississippi River, respectively. Cost projections outlined in the documents indicate that such a mission, if the proposal is adopted, could stretch into the hundreds of millions of dollars should military aircraft and aircrews also be required to be ready around-the-clock. Troop transport via commercial airlines would be less expensive, the documents say. The proposal, which has not been previously reported, represents another potential expansion of President Donald Trump’s willingness to employ the armed forces on American soil. It relies on a section of U.S. Code that allows the commander in chief to circumvent limitations on the military’s use within the United States. The documents, marked predecisional, are comprehensive and contain extensive discussion about the potential societal implications of establishing such a program. They were compiled by National Guard officials and bear time stamps as recent as late July and early August. Fiscal year 2027 is the earliest this program could be created and funded through the Pentagon’s traditional budgetary process, the documents say, leaving unclear whether the initiative could begin sooner through an alternative funding source. It is also unclear whether the proposal has been shared yet with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. “The Department of Defense is a planning organization and routinely reviews how the department would respond to a variety of contingencies across the globe,” Kingsley Wilson, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said in a statement. “We will not discuss these plans through leaked documents, pre-decisional or otherwise.”

Washington Post [8/12/2025 4:19 PM, Amanda Coletta and Salvador Rizzo, 32099K] reports a federal grand jury has indicted Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier, the leader of a powerful coalition of gangs that has paralyzed and terrorized Haiti, on charges of conspiring with Haitians and members of the Haitian diaspora in the United States to evade U.S. sanctions, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said Tuesday. The State Department, meanwhile, is offering a $5 million reward for information leading to Chérizier’s arrest or conviction. The self-styled revolutionary is believed to be in Port-au-Prince, where last week his gang coalition launched a new round of attacks as he threatened again to overthrow the country’s transitional government. A one-count indictment filed in D.C. federal court alleges that Chérizier, 48, and several others conspired to violate U.S. sanctions from 2020 to 2025, an offense that would be punishable by up to 20 years in prison — if Chérizier can be taken into custody, prosecuted and convicted.

CBS News [8/13/2025 4:35 AM, Staff, 51860K] Video HERE reports President Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and leaders of numerous NATO countries were set to hold a virtual meeting Wednesday ahead of Friday’s scheduled summit in Alaska between Mr. Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Mr. Trump is slated to be in the White House. Zelenskyy will join German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Berlin , the German government said. Merz is convening a series of virtual meetings Wednesday in an attempt to have the voice of European and Ukrainian leaders heard ahead of the summit, which they’ve been sidelined from. Zelenskyy is due to meet with European leaders first, in preparation for a virtual call with Mr. Trump and Vice President Vance about an hour later. A call among leaders of countries involved in the "coalition of the willing" - those who are prepared to help police any future peace agreement between Moscow and Kyiv - will be last. Zelensky said Wednesday that Ukraine and its allies must work together push Russia to end its invasion, French news agency AFP reported. "Pressure must be exerted on Russia for the sake of a fair peace. We must learn from the experience of Ukraine and our partners to prevent deception on the part of Russia. There are currently no signs that the Russians are preparing to end the war," Zelensky said in a social media statement. On Wednesday, Merz pledged to help Ukraine develop its own long-range missile systems that would be free of any Western-imposed limitations on their use and targets as the Kyiv government fights to repel Russia’s invasion. Mr. Trump has said he wants to see whether Russian President Vladimir Putin is serious about ending the war, now in its fourth year, describing Friday’s summit as "a feel-out meeting" where he can assess the Russian leader’s intentions. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

AP [8/12/2025 9:06 PM, Lorne Cook and Samya Kullab, 49956K] reports Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants Ukraine to withdraw from the remaining 30% of the Donetsk region that it controls as part of a ceasefire deal, a proposal the leader categorically rejected. Zelensky reiterated that Ukraine would not withdraw from territories it controls, saying that would be unconstitutional and would serve only as a springboard for a future Russian invasion. He said diplomatic discussions led by the US focusing on ending the war have not touched on security guarantees for Ukraine to prevent future Russian aggression and that meeting formats currently being discussed do not include Europe’s participation, both key demands of Kyiv. Meanwhile, Russian forces on the ground have been closing in on a key territorial grab around the city of Pokrovsk. Zelensky said the necessity of territorial concessions was conveyed to him by US officials ahead of a summit Friday between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, and in further meetings at the level of national security officials. It remained unclear whether Ukraine would take part in the Friday summit. European Union leaders also have been sidelined from the meeting, and they appealed to Trump on Tuesday to protect their interests. Zelensky says Ukraine will not withdraw from the Donbas. Zelensky said Putin wants the remaining 9,000 square kilometers (3,500 square miles) of Donetsk under Kyiv’s control, where the war’s toughest battles are grinding on, as part of a ceasefire plan, in a press briefing on Tuesday in Kyiv. Doing so would hand Russia almost the entirety of the Donbas, a region comprising Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland that Putin has long coveted.

Reuters [8/13/2025 4:28 AM, Fanny Potkin, Karen Freifeld, and Jun Yuan Yong, 51390K] reports U.S. authorities have secretly placed location tracking devices in targeted shipments of advanced chips they see as being at high risk of illegal diversion to China, according to two people with direct knowledge of the previously unreported law enforcement tactic. The measures aim to detect AI chips being diverted to destinations which are under U.S. export restrictions, and apply only to select shipments under investigation, the people said. They show the lengths to which the U.S. has gone to enforce its chip export restrictions on China, even as the Trump administration has sought to relax some curbs on Chinese access to advanced American semiconductors. The trackers can help build cases against people and companies who profit from violating U.S. export controls, said the people who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue. Location trackers are a decades-old investigative tool used by U.S. law enforcement agencies to track products subject to export restrictions, such as airplane parts. They have been used to combat the illegal diversion of semiconductors in recent years, one source said. Five other people actively involved in the AI server supply chain say they are aware of the use of the trackers in shipments of servers from manufacturers such as Dell and Super Micro, which include chips from Nvidia and AMD. Those people said the trackers are typically hidden in the packaging of the server shipments. They did not know which parties were involved in installing them and where along the shipping route they were put in.

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