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 AP [12/20/2025 9:07 PM, Konstantin Toropin and Aamer Madhani, 31753K] reports U.S. forces on Saturday stopped an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela for the second time in less than two weeks as President Donald Trump continues to ramp up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The pre-dawn operation comes days after Trump announced a "blockade" of all sanctioned oil tankers coming in and out of the South American country and follows the Dec. 10 seizure by American forces of an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed that the U.S. Coast Guard with help from the Defense Department stopped the oil tanker that was last docked in Venezuela. She also posted on social media an unclassified video of a U.S helicopter landing personnel on a vessel called Centuries. A crude oil tanker flying under the flag of Panama operates under the name and was recently spotted near the Venezuelan coast, according to MarineTraffic, a project that tracks the movement of vessels around the globe using publicly available data. It was not immediately clear if the vessel was under U.S. sanctions. "The United States will continue to pursue the illicit movement of sanctioned oil that is used to fund narco terrorism in the region," Noem wrote on X. "We will find you, and we will stop you.” The action was a "consented boarding," with the tanker stopping voluntarily and allowing U.S. forces to board it, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The reasoning for the seizure of the Centuries is far less clear than it was with the first tanker, the Skipper, which was known to be part of a shadow fleet of tankers that operates on the fringes of the law to move sanctioned cargo and was not even flying a nation’s flag when it was seized by the U.S. Coast Guard. White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly claimed in an online post Saturday that the Centuries was a similarly "falsely flagged vessel operating as part of the Venezuelan shadow fleet to traffic stolen oil" and that the oil it was carrying was sanctioned. However, Dr. Salvatore Mercogliano, a maritime historian and merchant shipping expert at Campbell University, said that according to several shipping industry databases, the Centuries appeared to be operating legally. "Everything indicates that she is a properly registered vessel," Mercogliano said, though he did note that it’s almost certain that the Centuries took on a load of sanctioned oil. FOX News [12/20/2025 3:20 PM, Jasmine Baehr and Lucas Y. Tomlinson, 40621K] Video: HERE reports that the operation involved a U.S. Coast Guard Maritime Special Reaction Team assisted by the U.S. Navy, marking the latest enforcement action tied to President Donald Trump’s announced blockade of sanctioned oil tankers. [Editorial note: consult video at source link The Wall Street Journal [12/20/2025 7:29 PM, Shelby Holliday, Costas Paris, and Lara Seligman, 646K] reports other U.S. officials said the Navy assisted in the operation. A video released along with Noem’s statement showed a person descending by rope from a helicopter onto the deck of a tanker named the Centuries. The ship is a Panama-flagged vessel, according to Marine Traffic, a vessel tracker. “The United States will continue to pursue the illicit movement of sanctioned oil that is used to fund narco terrorism in the region,” Noem said. “We will find you and we will stop you.” A senior U.S. official said the administration’s strategy is to seize more tankers, with the exception of those chartered by Chevron, which has a U.S. license to operate in Venezuela. He said the Navy and the Coast Guard have identified other suspicious ships. Venezuela’s government condemned what it called the theft of the ship and accused the U.S. military of kidnapping the vessel’s crew, deeming it a “serious act of piracy” and a violation of international maritime laws. “Venezuela reaffirms that these acts will not go unpunished,” Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, who doubles as the country’s oil minister, said in a statement. She added that Venezuela will file a complaint at the United Nations Security Council. “The colonialist model that the government of the United States is trying to impose with these kinds of practices will fail and will be defeated by the Venezuelan people,” the statement said.

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NBC News [12/20/2025 2:04 PM, Courtney Kube and Julie Tsirkin, 34509K]
CNN [12/20/2025 1:57 PM, Kevin Liptak]
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The Hill [12/20/2025 6:49 PM, Ian Swanson, 12595K] reports Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth on Saturday evening hailed the seizure by the U.S. Coast Guard of a second oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. The U.S. Navy assisted in the seizure, which took place on international waters, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem announced. Hegseth made clear that the Trump administration intended to put the squeeze on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s regime with its actions. “President Trump has been clear: the blockade of sanctioned oil tankers departing from, or bound for, Venezuela will remain in full force until Maduro’s criminal enterprise returns every stolen American asset,” Hegseth. “The @DeptofWar, with our partners at @USCG, will unflinchingly conduct maritime interdiction operations — through OPERATION SOUTHERN SPEAR — to dismantle illicit criminal networks. Violence, drugs, and chaos will not control the Western Hemisphere.” Trump earlier this week announced a blockade on all sanctioned oil tankers sailing in and out of Venezuela. The ship seized on Saturday had been docked in Venezuela. Earlier this month, the Coast Guard seized a massive oil tanker, called “Skipper,” near the coast of Venezuela. The ship was carrying about 1.8 million barrels of crude oil and was falsely flying Guyana’s flag when the seizure took place. The Trump administration has been targeting the Maduro regime in seizing the oil tankers, curbing the regime’s ability to import food and buy weapons. The U.S. military also has been targeting alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific since early September in another effort to go after Venezuela. The attacks on the boats has courted controversy involving Hegseth, particularly after lawmakers saw reports of a second strike in one September attack that killed two suvivors of a previous strike. The U.S. also has established a massive military presence in the U.S. Southern Command area, dispatching warships, fighter jets, Marines and spy planes to the region.

Washington Post [12/21/2025 5:01 AM, Karen DeYoung, 24149K] reports the day after President Donald Trump declared he had ended 94 percent of all seaborne drug trafficking to the United States and reduced illegal migrant border crossings to “zero,” he announced an entirely new rationale for his escalating campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Venezuela had stolen “Oil, Land and other Assets” from the United States to finance those criminal activities, Trump said Tuesday in a social media post, an apparent reference to decades-old expropriations and the breaking of contracts with U.S. oil companies when Caracas began nationalizing the industry. Unless what he alleged was U.S. property was returned “IMMEDIATELY,” Trump said, the military juggernaut he has assembled in the Caribbean to blow up alleged traffickers and seize tankers transporting Venezuelan oil “will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before.” As Trump continues the boat strikes — now numbering 28, with at least 104 killed — and with the declaration of a “blockade” of all sanctioned vessels transporting Venezuelan oil, he has all but abandoned the public pretense that his goal is simply stopping migrants and drugs, rather than Maduro’s removal. His “days are numbered,” Trump told Politico in an interview published Dec. 9. Asked Thursday whether he was leaving open the possibility of war with Venezuela, Trump told NBC: “I don’t rule it out, no.” Maduro is the “indicted head of a cartel, now designated as a foreign terrorist organization,” said a person familiar with administration thinking, one of several individuals and former U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk about internal deliberations. The administration named Maduro, already facing a 2020 U.S. indictment for drug trafficking, as the head of the designated Cartel de los Soles, a network of senior Venezuelan political and security officials it says is involved in human and drug trafficking to finance terrorist attacks in the United States. “At the end of the day, that person is either going to stand trial or be given a chance to negotiate exile … in a third country,” the person said of the Venezuelan leader. But with Maduro still sitting tight, Trump’s options seem to be narrowing rapidly.

FOX News [12/20/2025 5:06 PM, Charles Creitz, 40621K] Video: HERE reports Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy offered an update on his agency’s work alongside the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in cracking down on an influx of illegal immigrants given a non-domiciled commercial driver’s license (CDL) without proper vetting, which has led to several deaths on America’s highways. Duffy was set to speak this weekend at AmericaFest and also touched on his special friendship with Turning Point USA (TPUSA) founder Charlie Kirk, who was murdered Sept. 10 during an event in Utah. "First off, President [Donald] Trump has been a remarkable leader. What he cares about is making government work better, making sure he’s implementing the right policies for the American people. Not the rich, not the powerful, but average, everyday Americans," Duffy said when asked about the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) crackdown on the trucking crisis. Duffy sprang into action earlier this year after an Indian national who authorities said was issued a CDL by California allegedly killed a carload of people after he attempted an illegal U-turn on Florida’s Turnpike. Duffy expanded his efforts, warning Pennsylvania’s PennDOT and other agencies after illegal immigrants captured out of state were found to have non-domiciled CDLs issued by blue state agencies. In PennDOT’s case, an agency official told Fox News Digital a Philadelphia resident named in the sweep had not drawn any red flags in a federal database it used to verify him. "As you’ve seen, Homeland Security focused on the border and illegal migrants in the country. What we found at DOT is a different set of problems," Duffy said, adding that too many states have offered licenses to ineligible foreigners. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

New York Post [12/20/2025 1:36 PM, Geoff Earle, 43962K] reports just one of a trio of Afghan migrants arrested in recent high-profile cases was on the government’s classified terror watchlist of 18,000 people, an intelligence source tells The Post – suggesting two of them were radicalized here in the US as the nation’s spies race to identify potential threats. National Counterterrorism Center director Joe Kent jolted House lawmakers at a Dec. 11 hearing when he revealed his agency had identified “around 18,000 known and suspected terrorists that the Biden administration let come into our country” over a four-year period. Since then, US officials alarmed by last month’s shooting of National Guard troops in DC have been combing through the list to identify potential threats, while analyzing how people recently charged with serious crimes made it into the country in the first place. Among those who got through was Jaan Shah Safi, who came to the US in 2021 under the Biden Administration’s Operation Allies Welcome and who is accused of shipping guns to ISIS forces in his home country. He is one of “nearly 2,000 Afghans that have ties to known or suspected terrorists,” according to an official in Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s office. “Safi is an illegal alien terrorist who entered the U.S. on September 8, 2021, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, under the Biden administration’s Operation Allies Welcome. He applied for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) but his application was terminated once Secretary Noem ended TPS for Afghans. He remains in ICE custody pending removal proceedings,” DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told The Post. Gabbard told Fox News “Saturday in America” on Dec. 13 that whistleblowers have come forward with claims officials cut corners of the vetting process during the press to evacuate Afghan allies. More than 100,000 came here during the operation. “They [whistleblowers] were told, ‘Hurry up, don’t do the thorough vetting that you normally do because we have to hurry up and get these people into the United States,’” Gabbard said. “I am for more scrutiny on the people who came at the time,” Senate Homeland Security Chairman Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told The Post. “And really many of these people would have been better off staying in Afghanistan and founding their country,” he said, reaching for a US historical analogy. “It’s always tough when a country gets started. Just to say, ‘It’s tough, I’m going to leave and give up my country and go somewhere else.’ In 1812, the British were still attacking us. We didn’t go to France. We stuck it out and fought for our country,” he said.

Just the News [12/20/2025 7:51 AM, Nicholas Ballasy, 844K] reports Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced that the Trump administration has located more than 129,000 "unaccompanied children" that the Biden Administration had lost track of after they arrived at the border. "Under @POTUS Trump, @DHSgov and @HHSGov have located more than 129,143 unaccompanied children that the Biden Administration lost," Noem wrote on X. "Too many of these children were exploited, trafficked and abused. We will continue to ramp up efforts and will not stop until every last child is found," she added.

New York Post [12/20/2025 6:48 PM, Joe Marino, Tina Moore, and Gabrielle Fahmy, 42219K] reports the Brown University shooter took at least four trips to Boston in the months ahead of the mass shooting — as it emerged he drove luxe vehicles back home in Miami, sources told The Post. Each visit Claudio Neves Valente made up north was longer than the last as he engaged in an extensive amount of pre-planning and surveillance, a law enforcement source said. Neves Valente made his first trip of the year from Miami to Boston from Feb. 12 to Feb. 15, the sources said. That spring, he stayed in the area for 17 days, between April 8 and 25, and in the fall, he went north for 21 days, between Oct. 26 and Nov. 16. He quickly returned for a nine day trip, staying between Nov. 17 and Nov. 26. The shooter is also believed to have rented cars each time he traveled to the city, the sources said.

Daily Caller [12/20/2025 11:42 AM, Melissa O’Rourke, 835K] reports the suspected gunman behind both the deadly shooting spree at Brown University and the killing of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor was already dead for two days before authorities found his body inside a New Hampshire storage facility, officials said Friday. Claudio Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national and former Brown University graduate student, died Tuesday from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, according to the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office. Police discovered his body Thursday night inside a storage unit in Salem following a nearly weeklong manhunt. Authorities identified Valente as the suspect who opened fire inside a Brown University lecture hall Saturday, killing two students and wounding nine others. The victims were Ella Cook, a 19-year-old sophomore from Alabama, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, an 18-year-old Uzbek American freshman. Valente had attended Brown more than 20 years earlier as a doctoral student but dropped out in 2003 after completing three semesters, according to an affidavit. Two days after the Brown shooting, Valente traveled roughly 50 miles and fatally shot MIT professor Nuno Loureiro inside his Brookline, Massachusetts townhouse, authorities said. Valente and Loureiro previously studied together at the Instituto Superior Técnico in Portugal, though authorities have not publicly identified any motive connecting the killings. Valente initially arrived in August 2000 on an F-1 student to attend Brown University. He subsequently obtained U.S. lawful permanent residency in April 2017 through the Diversity Immigrant Lottery, according to the affidavit. The Trump administration moved Thursday to suspend the green card lottery program Valente used to obtain residency. The investigation into the killings remains ongoing.

FOX News [12/20/2025 8:00 AM, Michael Ruiz, 40621K] reports two deadly shootings at elite American universities within 50 miles of each other earlier this week have been linked to a single suspect with loose ties to both targets, according to authorities. Had he been stopped after killing two Brown University students and injuring nine more, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor prosecutors say he killed two days later would still be alive. Critics have blasted Brown over an apparent lack of surveillance video from the Barus and Holley building, where the mass shooting claimed the lives of Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov. The gunman skipped town before police identified him, walking right by campus cops in the minutes after the shooting, home security video taken from the other end of the block reveals. But many major universities have similar security flaws, experts tell Fox News Digital. After evading capture outside the Brown massacre on Saturday, Neves-Valente drove 50 miles away to Brookline, Massachusetts, and gunned down renowned nuclear physicist Nuno Loureiro in his apartment Monday evening, according to authorities. The motive remains unclear, but Neves-Valente briefly attended Brown back in 2000 and 2001 and, before that, also studied at the same Portuguese university where Loureiro earned his undergraduate degree.

CNN [12/20/2025 7:00 AM, Emma Tucker] reports police lights flashed for hours as law enforcement officers surrounded a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, Thursday night, finally closing in on a suspect who unleashed deadly attacks on two communities and had managed to evade them for six days. Outside was an abandoned car linked to both the Brown University mass shooting on Saturday and the killing of an MIT professor at his home on Monday. Inside a rented storage unit, the 48-year-old suspect, Claudio Neves Valente, was dead, leaving behind a satchel, two 9 mm firearms and high-capacity magazines matching ballistics at both crime scenes, along with even more questions about a motive as investigators begin peeling back the layers of his life to fill the gaps in his known past. Authorities have said the suspect’s intent was to cause harm in targeting the Ivy League university and esteemed MIT professor Nuno Loureiro. Without the ability to interview or prosecute the suspect, the motive remains the hardest question, Wackrow said, and there’s a chance investigators will not find the answers even after doing exhaustive searches of digital history and physical evidence. Investigators have mapped some of the suspect’s movements in the years before his attacks, but much of his past remains a mystery.

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USA Today [12/20/2025 12:00 PM, Eryn Dion, Antonia Noori Farzan, Eduardo Cuevas, 67103K] r

AP [12/20/2025 8:48 AM, Matt O’Brien, 31753K] reports more than a decade ago, a frenzied 5-day search for the Boston Marathon bombers left some lessons in its aftermath. One was that increasingly pervasive surveillance technology could help catch the culprits. Another was that amateur online sleuths on Reddit could not. But the intense search this week for a suspect in a Brown University shooting that killed two students and wounded nine other people turned the tables on those expectations. Sweeping surveillance, now found in doorbells, cars and a vast network of vehicle-tracking cameras, did eventually help track down the whereabouts of Claudio Neves Valente, the 48-year-old former Brown graduate student investigators believe was responsible for the Dec. 13 shooting and another killing two days later of an MIT professor in Brookline, Massachusetts. But the latest artificial intelligence-powered surveillance was of little use in the early search for a gunman who walked away from the Brown campus after the shooting and slipped unnoticed into the surrounding neighborhoods of Providence, Rhode Island. He evaded detection for days, using a hard-to-trace phone, avoiding facial recognition software by obscuring his face with a medical-type mask and switching the license plates on his rental cars. It wasn’t until a local Reddit user “blew this case right open” with an old-fashioned tip first posted on the social media platform that police were able to connect a car to Neves Valente, said Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha. They finally found the suspect dead Thursday in Salem, New Hampshire, days after he likely killed himself. The Reddit tipster known only as John is “no less than a hero,” Providence Mayor Brett Smiley wrote Friday to FBI Director Kash Patel, asking for John to get the entirety of the FBI’s $50,000 reward for information leading investigators to the suspect.

FOX News [12/20/2025 5:54 PM, Staff, 40621K] reports State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott discusses the pausing of the green card lottery program following the Brown University shooting and says visas are being evaluated on a ‘case-by-case basis’ on ‘Fox Report.’ [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Wall Street Journal [12/20/2025 10:00 AM, Paul Kiernan, 646K] reports every Friday for the past two months, nonprofit workers armed with iPads and clipboards have fanned out in South Los Angeles looking for immigrants living in the U.S. unlawfully. Their goal: Sign them up for the state’s Medicaid program before the end of the year. The program, called Medi-Cal, will stop accepting adults with what the government calls “unsatisfactory” immigration status. Medi-Cal will require such immigrants who already are in the program to pay a $30 monthly premium to keep their health coverage starting in mid-2027. It is a striking policy U-turn for Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who championed extending government-supported healthcare to all low-income Californians—regardless of their immigration status—as core to the state’s economic and moral identity. “We are implementing our ideals,” Newsom said in a 2022 speech, adding that expanding access to preventive care would save money by diverting people from costly emergency- room visits. People rushed into the program, and costs soared. Medi-Cal has played a role in deepening California’s budget hole. The state is now trying to wind down a multiyear policy experiment that has outraged many conservatives by extending comprehensive health coverage to an estimated 1.7 million people living in the country unlawfully. “The Governor and Legislature made a fiscally necessary decision that ultimately helps preserve the long-term viability of Medi-Cal,” said Marissa Saldivar, a spokeswoman for Newsom.

USA Today [12/21/2025 4:01 AM, Chris Brennan, 67103K] reports President Donald Trump built his "America first" brand of populist politics largely on criticism of efforts at regime change in other countries, with a special focus on the war in Iraq. Fundamental to Trump’s "Make America Great Again" ethos was his promise to end "forever wars," which was embraced by his supporters who still adhere to that call to isolationism a decade later. So I have to wonder what his MAGA base thinks now, as Trump pushes America closer and closer to war with Venezuela, and his growing fixation on regime change – and oil – in that South American country. Trump, on Dec. 18, told NBC News that a war between America and Venezuela is possible while not-so-slyly hinting that his focus on that country’s oil was linked to the potential for regime change there. He sounded more like a venture capitalist plotting a corporate takeover than an American president looking out for his country. Consider how far we’ve come since early September, when the U.S. military launched a series of strikes on boats traveling from Venezuela. Trump initially tried – unsuccessfully – to camouflage his desire to attack Venezuela as an interdiction of illegal drugs. But last week, he made it clear: This is really about Venezuela’s oil, with a naval blockade of oil tankers there. In a Dec. 16 social media post, Trump demanded that Venezuela "return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.” A day later, Trump complained about Venezuela this way: "They took our oil rights. We had a lot of oil there. ... They threw our companies out. And we want it back.” That’s a reference to Venezuela’s nationalization of its oil industry, which started in 1976 and expanded in 2007, impacting U.S. companies that had operated there. Susie Wiles, Trump’s White House chief of staff, got ahead of her boss in a series of interviews with Vanity Fair published last week, in which she made clear that bombing Venezuelan boats was about regime change. It was not at all comforting that Wiles seemed confused about whether Trump needed congressional approval for acts of war against Venezuela at sea or on land. Quick check-in with the U.S. Constitution: He needs approval from Congress for both, even if he denies it. American military adventurism is exactly the kind of thing Trump has long lambasted former President George W. Bush for, after he set off America’s nearly decade-long misadventure in Iraq in 2003. Trump, in his first presidential campaign in 2016, argued that the invasion of Iraq was the "worst decision" in presidential history and accused Bush of lying to Americans about why that war started. But, Trump being Trump, his aversion to war wavered plenty. He initially supported the idea of invading Iraq when it was being discussed in 2002. And by 2011, he seemed hyperfocused on one aspect of America’s involvement in Iraq: It was all about the oil. Trump made clear he coveted Iraq’s oil and feared some other country would get it if America didn’t.

Washington Post [12/20/2025 12:09 PM, Marianne LeVine and Douglas MacMillan, 24149K] reports four people in immigration detention have died over a four-day period this month, increasing concern among advocates and some members of Congress over detention conditions. One death took place Dec. 12, another two took place on Dec. 14 and the fourth on Dec. 15, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement news releases. The recent deaths bring total detainee deaths to 30 in 2025, the highest number since 2004, when 32 people died in ICE custody. This year’s total includes two detainees who were killed after a shooting at a Dallas ICE facility. At least two others died this year, according to ICE, but not in immigration detention. Nearly 66,000 people are in detention, according to ICE data, a record high, and the Trump administration is seeking to spend $45 billion to expand immigration detention after receiving an infusion of cash from Congress. The rise in detention deaths also coincides with more limited oversight measures. The Trump administration said in March that it would close two watchdog agencies that oversaw detention centers and investigated detainee complaints. DHS later reversed course, but lawyers for immigrants and nonprofit advocacy groups assert that deteriorating conditions at some locations are festering unchecked.

FOX News [12/20/2025 7:36 PM, Sophia Compton, 40621K] reports the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is pushing back against claims from Senate Democrats that 2025 has become the deadliest year in decades for immigrants held in federal custody. In a post to X Saturday, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin slammed allegations made by the Senate Judiciary Democrats’ account, claiming "30 immigrants have died in ICE custody since Donald Trump took office, making 2025 the deadliest year in ICE detention since the early 2000s.” McLaughlin swiftly fired back, accusing Senate Democrats of "trying to twist data to smear ICE law enforcement.” "There has been NO spike in deaths. Consistent with data over the past decade, death rates in custody are 0.00007%," she said. McLaughlin also argued that those held in ICE custody receive appropriate medical care and a "higher standard of care" than most U.S. prisons. "As bed space has rapidly expanded, we have maintained a higher standard of care than most prisons that hold U.S. citizens, including providing access to proper medical care," she said. "For many illegal aliens this is the best healthcare they have received their entire lives.” The response came just one day after DHS touted that ICE’s "Christmas gift to Americans" came early as agents pulled more illegal immigrants with criminal records off the streets. "This holiday season, ICE is working around the clock to ensure silent nights and safer streets," DHS said in its announcement. On Friday, DHS said that ICE had arrested illegal immigrants across the country whose criminal records include burglary, robbery and aggravated kidnapping. Homeland Security declared the latest defendants to be some of the "worst of the worst.” A spokesperson for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

FOX News [12/20/2025 12:02 PM, Rachel Wolf, 40621K] reports the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)’s "Christmas gift to Americans" came early as agents pulled more illegal immigrants with criminal records off the streets. On Friday, DHS announced that ICE arrested illegal immigrants across the country whose criminal records include burglary, robbery and aggravated kidnapping. Homeland Security declared the latest arrestees to be some of the "worst of the worst." "Violent criminal illegal aliens who break our laws have absolutely no business remaining in the United States," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. "Yesterday’s arrests include criminal illegal aliens convicted for burglary, bank robbery, and kidnapping. We are thankful for our law enforcement who delivered the best Christmas gift for American families this holiday season: safer communities." The arrests that took place on Thursday included illegal immigrants from Chile, Colombia, Mexico, El Salvador and Honduras. All had past criminal convictions.

USA Today [12/21/2025 6:03 AM, Lauren Villagran, 67103K] reports it was a Trump-era international love story: Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl gets detained by ICE. But the detention of the Lithuania-born Tatjana Vesiolko is an unusual one, even in an era of increasingly strict immigration enforcement. She is entering her 11th month in an immigration lock-up. Al Dallasta, her American fiancé, can’t understand why. "She’s essentially lost a year of her life for what?" Dallasta said of his partner – a billiards champ, slender with a chestnut bob who friends call "Tia" for short. "She’s falling apart in there." The day President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20, he signed seven executive orders that set the stage for a surge in immigration enforcement across the country. Vesiolko was among the first to be swept up in the administration’s mass deportation campaign. The Trump administration is now detaining more immigrants than at any time since World War II. As of Nov. 30, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported a record 65,735 people in immigration detention. Deportation flights have become more frequent. But the proportion and number of people like Vesiolko, detained longer than six months, is climbing. Two years ago, according to ICE data, about 1,300 people or 4% of the detained population, had been held for more than 180 days. That number rose to 6,500 people, or 10% of the detained population, in November ‒ Vesiolko among them. She entered on a visa waiver in 2009 and stayed, without permission. She has no criminal record, holds a valid Lithuanian passport and comes from a country that accepts its nationals. Immigration attorneys say there are no obvious barriers to her removal. Provided with the details of her case, the Department of Homeland Security sent a statement: "The delay of her removal was because of the illegal alien’s potential inclusion as a member of a class action lawsuit." DHS didn’t name the lawsuit or respond to USA TODAY’s questions for clarification. Dallasta said Vesiolko was never told she might part of a lawsuit, nor was she given a chance to opt out. In response to a request about Vesiolko’s extended detention, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told USA TODAY immigrants have the option to "self-deport." The administration’s self-deportation campaign, featuring $1,000 bonuses to immigrants who leave willingly, began in early March, after Vesiolko was detained.

New York Post [12/20/2025 7:57 AM, Shane Galvin and Marie Pohl, 42219K] reports the man who allegedly confessed to strangling a cabbie in a fare dispute and then dumping his body in a city reservoir upstate is an illegal migrant from Guatemala, The Post has learned. Santos Paulino Vasquez-Ramirez illegally crossed the border in 2013 at Hidalgo, Texas, under President Obama, and later ignored a final removal order issued in 2016 under the first Trump administration, according to sources and US Department of Homeland Security officials. He "should’ve never been in our country in the first place and provided the opportunity to gruesomely take the life of Aurelio Zhunio-Orbez," Assistant Secretary of DHS Tricia McLaughlin told The Post. "Open border policies have deadly consequences. ICE lodged a detainer with local authorities to ensure this criminal illegal alien is never allowed back into American neighborhoods. Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, ICE is targeting the worst of the worst," she added.

FOX News [12/20/2025 9:14 PM, Michael Sinkewicz, 40621K] reports the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced Saturday that federal agents issued an arrest detainer for a criminal illegal immigrant charged with homicide and robbery after allegedly strangling a New York taxi driver to death earlier this month. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lodged the detainer for Santos Paulino Vasquez-Ramirez, an illegal migrant from Guatemala accused of brutally murdering a cab operator during a fare dispute Dec. 1 in Brewster, New York. The body of the victim, Aurelio Zhunio-Orbez, was found floating in a local reservoir Dec. 7, according to DHS. "Santos Vasquez Ramirez should’ve never been in our country in the first place and provided the opportunity to gruesomely take the life of Aurelio Zhunio-Orbez," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. Vasquez-Ramirez illegally entered the country in 2013, DHS said, and was later released into the country under the Obama administration. An immigration judge issued him a final order of removal in early 2016. "Open border policies have deadly consequences," McLaughlin said, adding that Santos Vasquez Ramirez will be transferred to federal custody. "ICE lodged an arrest detainer with local authorities to ensure this criminal illegal alien is never allowed back into American neighborhoods.” McLaughlin added that, under the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, "ICE is targeting the worst of the worst.” In a year-end report released Friday, the DHS said more than 2.5 million illegal immigrants have left the U.S. since President Donald Trump returned to office this year, leading to the "most secure border in American history.” An estimated 1.9 million migrants have been self-deported, and more than 622,000 have been forced out since Trump took office Jan. 20, according to DHS. DHS did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Washington Examiner [12/20/2025 11:35 AM, Brady Knox, 1394K] reports New Jersey Democrats suggested "neglect, abuse, and cruelty" was to blame for the death of a criminal, illegal Haitian immigrant who died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. Jean Wilson Brutus, 41, died on Dec. 12 after a medical emergency at New Jersey’s Delaney Hall Detention Facility. While ICE said the death was a result of "suspected natural causes," New Jersey Democrats alleged abuse and foul play could be behind his demise. Rep. Rob Menendez (D-NJ) also suggested foul play took part in Brutus’s death, saying he and others "have warned of the terrible conditions at this private immigration detention facility." The Department of Homeland Security hit back at the allegations, saying that "sanctuary politicians need to stop with the smears," and that the agency provides "comprehensive medical care from the moment an alien enters ICE custody," Politico reported. "This is the best healthcare that many aliens have received in their entire lives," Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. According to ICE, Brutus entered the U.S. illegally on June 20, 2023, and was then released into the U.S. by the Biden administration on parole. He was arrested another four times before his death, with the most recent being for criminal mischief — damage to property. After entering ICE custody on Dec. 11, he had a "medical emergency," then was pronounced dead in the hospital the following day.

Univision [12/20/2025 7:09 PM, Staff, 5004K] reports immigration agents arrested a young woman born in the United States in Maryland during what appeared to be a traffic stop. Her family and lawyers maintain that she is a U.S. citizen and claim that ICE has no jurisdiction to detain her. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Daily Signal [12/20/2025 3:00 PM, Tim Graham, 549K] reports as a leftist Muslim immigrant from Somalia, radical Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., is wonderfully blessed with a diversity, equity, and inclusion press. She is perennially assumed to be a victim of racism, sexism, and xenophobia whenever she is criticized, and especially when she’s verbally targeted by President Donald Trump. At the end of a typically syrupy interview with Esme Murphy from the local CBS station WCCO in Minneapolis on Sunday, Omar claimed her 19-year-old son Adnan Hirsi was pulled over by Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel. "Yesterday, after he made a stop at Target, he did get pulled over by ICE agents, and once he was able to produce his passport ID, they did let him go," Omar asserted. She said her son "always carries" his passport with him, because she tells him ICE agents "are racially profiling, they are looking for young men who look Somali that they think are undocumented." The CBS anchor didn’t question any of this. The station later reported that ICE’s acting Director Todd Lyons said the agency has ‘absolutely zero record of its officers or agents pulling over Congresswoman Omar’s son" and accused her of trying to "unfairly demonize our law enforcement officers." On Wednesday, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer oozed all over Omar on "The Situation Room." Blitzer turned to her accusations against ICE. "I know that the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has become very personal for you, even though you’re a member of Congress. You have said that federal immigration agents actually pulled over your son on Saturday and asked him to prove his citizenship. He is, of course, a U.S. citizen, as are you.". But at least Blitzer made one soft offering of a rebuttal: "The Department of Homeland Security says—and I’m quoting them—’ICE has absolutely zero record of its officers or agents pulling over Congresswoman Omar’s son’ and have accused you of seeking to—quote—’demonize ICE as part of a P.R. stunt,’ their words. What do you say to that?" Omar presented "zero record" of her son’s supposed stop, just some word-salad demonization of ICE. "Well, if ICE is saying that they have documentation of every single person that they have pulled over in Minneapolis, we would love to see that record … they have not been able to provide a single information." Blitzer just moved on. She didn’t have to give CNN "a single information" to back up her claims. The burden of proof is entirely on ICE. They’re guilty until they prove their innocence.

Yahoo! News [12/20/2025 3:19 PM, Jeff Abbott, 49624K] reports immigrants held at the Camp East Montana detention center in El Paso regularly face injury, life-threatening illnesses and acute mental health crises, according to a review of 911 emergency calls placed at the nation’s largest ICE immigration lockup. The most common medical emergencies at Camp East Montana involved chest pain, seizures, suicidal attempts, abdominal pain, breathing problems and fainting episodes, according to 911 records obtained by the El Paso Times through a freedom of information request to the city of El Paso. A handful of calls involve employees at the sprawling, soft-sided tent facility located on land owned by Fort Bliss. U.S. Rep Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, immigrant rights advocates and civil rights groups have raised red flags about the physical and emotional treatment of immigrants and inhumane conditions at the detention center. A Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary called the claims of abuse at the detention center "categorically false" in a statement. The official did not comment on the death. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin described claims of inhumane conditions and abuses as "fear-mongering clickbait." McLaughlin also said that immigrants are allowed to meet with lawyers and family members and are receiving dietitian-approved food. "No lawbreakers in the history of human civilization have been treated better than illegal aliens in the United States," McLaughlin said. "Get a grip."

Los Angeles Times [12/20/2025 8:00 AM, Brittny Mejia and Clara Harter, 14862K] reports a federal jury has acquitted a South L.A. man who was charged with stealing government property by towing an immigration agent’s vehicle during the arrest of a TikTok influencer in downtown Los Angeles earlier this year. Bobby Nunez was arrested Sept. 2 after he was accused of interfering with the detainment of Tatiana Mafla-Martinez while she live-streamed her Aug. 15 arrest. Video of the incident showed an SUV being towed away from the parking garage of the Da Vinci Apartments, where Martinez is being pinned to the ground by agents. The SUV was one of two vehicles being used to box in Martinez’s car and prevent her from escaping the luxury apartment complex, according to an affidavit filed with the complaint. Nunez was 33 at the time of the incident, and Martinez was 23. After a four-day trial and more than three hours of deliberation, the jury found Nunez not guilty of one count of theft of government property Friday, according to the U.S. attorney’s office, which declined to comment on the verdict. He had faced up to 10 years in prison, if convicted.

Reported similarly:
Breitbart [12/20/2025 1:22 PM, Lowell Cauffiel, 2416K]

Univision [12/20/2025 3:31 PM, Staff, 5004K] reports community coalitions in the Inland Empire launched a campaign to remind people that behind every ICE arrest are separated families and businesses affected by fear. “ICE took someone from here,” say the signs located in different parts of the area, which seek to draw attention to the operations of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service. The campaign covers San Bernardino, Riverside, Coachella Valley, and Pomona . “This part of Pomona and Montclair has been hit very hard. What happens here is that in the morning ICE or Border Patrol agents come and prepare here, because there is nobody here, it is very calm, and this is where they come out,” said Javier Hernandez, from the organization Justice for Immigrants. More than 100 signs have been placed in public spaces, each representing a person arrested and an affected family. “We have some (signs) here in Pomona, all the way to Mecca in Coachella Valley,” said Andrea Galvan, of the organization Citizens of Ontario. And for some families in the area, even going out to buy Christmas gifts has not been an easy task. “It’s a little difficult, since there’s a kind of fear, a dread of running into a patrol car,” said Alexis, a resident of the area. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Univision [12/20/2025 11:17 AM, Staff, 5004K] reports News 23 spoke with relatives of a group of 22 Cuban migrants who were sent from the United States to the Guantanamo naval base, who say they do not know what will happen to their loved ones or where they will be transferred. The relatives said they were desperate, claiming that at least seven of these migrants have no criminal record in the United States and only lost their asylum cases or requested voluntary departure. According to The New York Times, of the 22 Cubans sent to Guantanamo, five were classified as high risk. Regarding the other 17, Noticias 23 learned that at least seven lost their asylum applications in court or requested voluntary departure.

NPR [12/20/2025 7:03 PM, Bobby Allyn, 28013K] reports Apple and Google are warning some U.S-based employees on visas against traveling outside of the country to avoid the risk of getting stuck coming back, as the Trump administration toughens vetting of visa applicants, according to recent internal memos from the tech companies that were reviewed by NPR. U.S. consulates and embassies have been reporting lengthy, sometimes months-long delays, for visa appointments following new rules from the Department of Homeland Security requiring travelers to undergo a screening of up to five years’ of their social media history — a move criticized by free speech advocates as a privacy invasion. For Apple and Google, which together employ more than 300,000 employees and rely heavily on highly-skilled foreign workers, the increased vetting and reports of extended delays were enough for the companies to tell some of their staff to stay in the U.S. if they are able to avoid foreign travel. "We recommend avoiding international travel at this time as you risk an extended stay outside of the U.S.," Berry Appleman & Leiden, a law firm that works with Google, wrote to employees. The law firm Fragomen, which works with Apple, wrote a similar message: "Given the recent updates and the possibility of unpredictable, extended delays when returning to the U.S., we strongly recommend that employees without a valid H-1B visa stamp avoid international travel for now," the memo read. "If travel cannot be postponed, employees should connect with Apple Immigration and Fragomen in advance to discuss the risks.” Apple and Google declined to comment on the advisories, which were first reported by Business Insider.

Reported similarly:
San Francisco Chronicle [12/21/2025 12:43 AM, Brooke Park, 4722K] r

AP [12/21/2025 1:32 AM, Staff, 14862K] reports the Trump administration has restricted visas for two leftist Honduran election officials, alleging interference in the Central American country’s special vote count. The U.S. State Department said in a statement it had revoked the visa of Mario Morazán, a magistrate of the Electoral Justice Tribunal, and denied a visa application from Marlon Ochoa, a member of the National Electoral Council. Both belong to the ruling party Libre, or Liberty and Refoundation. "The United States will not tolerate actions that undermine our national security and our region’s stability," the Friday statement said. "We will consider all appropriate measures to deter those impeding the vote count in Honduras.” Nearly three weeks after the Nov. 30 presidential election, Hondurans still do not know the results. Because of the narrow margin between the two leading candidates, electoral officials have carried out a special revision of 2,792 ballot boxes alleged to show inconsistencies or errors. Officials began the special vote count Thursday after more than a week of paralysis in tallying the vote. With 99.85% of the vote counted, conservative candidate Nasry Asfura of the National Party — whom President Trump had openly supported in the lead-up to the election, fueling accusations of election intervention — is narrowly leading with 40.24% of the vote. Fellow conservative Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party follows with 39.64%. In a distant third place is the ruling party’s candidate, Rixi Moncada, with 19.12%. Moncada has not recognized the results. This is the latest example of Trump weighing in on Honduran affairs throughout the election. Since his return to office in January, his administration has wielded influence in Latin America more aggressively than most U.S. governments in recent history. Trump has openly offered support and funds to right-wing allies, while applying punishing pressure to adversaries, often on the left. Just before the election, Trump pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, sentenced last year in a U.S. court to 45 years in prison for trafficking cocaine to the United States. He also threatened to withhold U.S. funding from Honduras if Asfura did not win.

Breitbart [12/20/2025 12:52 PM, Bob Price, 2416K] reports federal prosecutors say the Biden‑era border crisis produced one of the most brazen cybercrime cases in years. The Department of Justice charged 54 alleged members of the Venezuelan terror gang Tren de Aragua with using sophisticated malware to loot millions from U.S. ATMs and funnel the cash back to their criminal network. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Nebraska unsealed two sweeping indictments charging 54 individuals for their alleged roles in a nationwide ATM "jackpotting" conspiracy tied to the violent Venezuelan criminal organization Tren de Aragua (TdA). Prosecutors say the group deployed sophisticated malware to force ATMs across the United States to dispense cash, stealing millions of dollars and funneling the proceeds back to TdA leadership. If convicted, the defendants face a maximum term of imprisonment ranging between 20 and 335 years, prosecutors noted.

CBS News [12/21/2025 12:05 AM, Staff, 39474K] Video: HERE reports U.S. Border Patrol agents in Washington state used a tractor to rescue a truck driver trapped in rising floodwaters, pulling him to higher ground as dangerous currents surged around the vehicle. He’s expected to be okay.

FOX News [12/20/2025 4:00 PM, Julia Bonavita, 40621K] Video: HERE reports while cruise ships have long served as a favorite of Americans looking for a vacation, headlines highlighting violent crimes have marred the industry for decades. Over the years, stories of lawlessness on cruises have both captivated and horrified travelers, with experts often pointing out how the unique environment often serves as a hotbed for bad actors and troublesome events. "Just like subways invite crime because criminals have a ‘captive audience,’ cruise passengers are ‘captive’ for an even longer time, as jumping off into the ocean is not really an option," Dr. Carole Lieberman, a forensic psychiatrist, told Fox News Digital. "A cruise ship feels like a world unto its own. It feels like you’re on another planet or at least another country, so it seems like there are fewer consequences." The sense of fewer consequences is echoed by Chicago-based attorney Andrew Stoltmann, who added that cruise ship passengers are subjected to the local laws wherever the ship is docked. "Maritime law is extremely complex, and it shifts depending on location," Stoltmann said. "Whatever flag the ship flies, that law is what is applicable while the ship is sailing. But while the ship is docked, it is that country’s law that applies. This makes it extremely complex, and many times it’s hard to figure out." "There’s obviously a perception by the public that these cruise ships are very safe, and they have their own police force or security force," Stoltmann said. "Unfortunately, this usually simply isn’t true. And because these ships are often in international waters, many of the same legal protections we enjoy here in the United States simply aren’t applicable on the high seas." [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

New York Post [12/21/2025 3:50 AM, Rachel Wolf, Sophia Compton, 42219K] reports the search for two missing fishermen identified as 57-year-old Randall Spivey and 33-year-old Brandon Billmaier is underway after their boat was found without them on board. Spivey and Billmaier went fishing off the coast of Fort Meyers, Florida, on Friday. Billmaier’s wife wrote in a social media post shared by Semafor White House correspondent Shelby Talcott that her husband and his uncle, Spivey, left early Friday morning and were expected to return in the afternoon. As of 7:30 p.m. Friday, the two had not returned, and their family had not heard from them. Billmaier’s wife said at approximately 11 p.m. the US Coast Guard deployed a helicopter. At 1:30 a.m. Saturday, the family received a call that Spivey and Billmaier’s vessel was found 70 miles off the coast, but the men were not aboard. Riley Perkofski, a public affairs specialist for the US Coast Guard Southeast District, confirmed to Fox News Digital that the boat was still running when it was located. "The boat was in gear," Perkofski said. "We deployed a swimmer, and then the swimmer deployed the vessel’s anchor so that it wouldn’t keep moving.” The family is hoping that more people will be able to join the rescue effort and is asking for those who are willing and able to reach out. Spivey and Billmaier’s family asks those who cannot aid in the rescue to keep the men in their prayers. "We’ve gotta find them. Please. Please, please find them," Tricia Spivey, Randall’s wife, said, according to WBBH-TV. "They’re amazing people. I mean, I, I don’t know, I just — I just need him back. He needs to come back to us.” On Saturday, the US Coast Guard said it was leading the search and asked for anyone with information to call US Coast Guard Sector St. Petersburg at 866-881-1392. By Saturday afternoon, the US Coast Guard said crews were conducting search and rescue operations across a wide area — about 35 miles in all directions — from the ocean’s surface up to roughly 5,000 feet in the air. Officials also warned aircraft in the area to "maintain situational awareness" and avoid interfering with search and rescue crews. Spivey is a 6-foot-1 man with brown hair and brown eyes, according to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office. He was last seen wearing khaki pants and a dark-colored shirt. Billmaier is 6-foot-2 and has strawberry hair and brown eyes. The Lee County Sheriff’s Office did not describe what the 33-year-old was last seen wearing. The Lee County Sheriff’s Office directed Fox News Digital to the US Coast Guard for additional updates.

Reported similarly:
FOX News [12/20/2025 12:27 PM, Rachel Wolf, 40621K]

FOX News [12/20/2025 1:53 PM, Kurt Knutsson, 40621K] reports a major data breach tied to U.S. fintech firm Marquis is rippling through banks, credit unions and their customers. Hackers broke into Marquis systems by exploiting a known but unpatched vulnerability in a SonicWall firewall, gaining access to deeply sensitive consumer data. At least 400,000 people are confirmed to be affected so far across multiple states. Texas has been hit the hardest with more than 354,000 residents affected. That number is expected to rise as additional breach notifications are filed. Marquis operates as a marketing and compliance provider for financial institutions. The company says it serves more than 700 banks and credit unions nationwide. That role gives Marquis access to centralized pools of customer data, which also makes it a high-value target. According to legally required disclosures filed in Texas, Maine, Iowa, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, hackers accessed a wide range of personal and financial data. Stolen information includes customer names, dates of birth, postal addresses, Social Security numbers and bank account, debit and credit card numbers. The breach dates back to Aug. 14, when attackers gained access through the SonicWall firewall vulnerability. Marquis later confirmed the incident was a ransomware attack.

Univision [12/20/2025 4:08 PM, Staff, 5004K] reports US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spent three hours on Friday speaking with reporters covering the State Department. During the conversation, the senior Trump administration official occasionally answered questions in Spanish about issues of interest to the South Florida community. Among Rubio’s statements was what he said about the tension in Venezuela and that the government of Nicolás Maduro is "intolerable" for the United States. When Rubio was asked about comments from White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who suggested that the Trump administration’s true objective in targeting alleged drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean is to overthrow Maduro, Rubio responded, "You can interpret it however you want." “The case of Venezuela is very simple: it is an illegitimate regime that openly cooperates with Iran, Hezbollah, and drug trafficking groups, including the ELN and the FARC , which operate openly within Venezuelan territory, on top of everything else. So, the threat that the United States faces is precisely that: we have an illegitimate regime that openly cooperates with terrorist elements ,” Rubio said. For the first time, a Secretary of State speaks in Spanish in the State Department press room. But Rubio didn’t just refer to Venezuela, he also referred to the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro. “The stance that he (President Petro) has taken against the United States has affected our relationship, there is no doubt about that. We are trying to limit that as much as possible, but we also have interests that we have to protect, and we are not going to pretend that when you have a president telling the security forces not to cooperate with the United States, we cannot ignore that ,” Rubio said. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Washington Post [12/20/2025 6:13 PM, Tobi Raji and Leo Sands, 24149K] reports that, in 1976, the government of oil-rich Venezuela assumed control of the country’s petroleum industry, nationalizing hundreds of private businesses and foreign-owned assets, including projects operated by the American giant ExxonMobil. In 2007, Hugo Chávez, the founder of Venezuela’s socialist state, assumed control of the last privately run oil operations in the Orinoco Belt, home to the country’s largest oil deposits. President Donald Trump said this week that the expropriation of American oil company assets justified a “total and complete blockade” of oil tankers arriving and leaving Venezuela in defiance of U.S. sanctions. The blockade will remain, he wrote on Truth Social, until the South American nation returns “to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.” “They’re not going to do that again,” Trump told reporters. “We had a lot of oil there. As you know they threw our companies out, and we want it back.” But U.S. companies never owned oil or land in Venezuela, home to the world’s largest proven reserves of crude, and officials didn’t kick them out of the country. “Trump’s claim that Venezuela has stolen oil and land from the U.S. is baseless,” said Francisco Rodríguez, a Venezuelan economist at the University of Denver. Nationalization was the culmination of a decades-long effort by administrations of both the right and the left to bring under government control an industry that an earlier leader had largely given away. The right-wing strongman Juan Vicente Gómez, the military dictator who ruled Venezuela from 1908 until his death in 1935, granted concessions that left three foreign oil companies in control of 98 percent of the Venezuelan market. The country became the world’s second-largest oil producer and largest exporter; oil accounted for over 90 percent of the country’s total exports. Gómez’s successors tried to seize greater control over the country’s economy. Under President Isaías Medina Angarita, authorities approved a law in 1943 that required foreign oil companies to relinquish half their profits to the government. A 1958 pact signed by Democratic Action, the Democratic Republican Union and the Independent Political Electoral Organization Committee ensured the country’s major political parties had access to oil profits. By the time Venezuelan lawmakers began debating nationalization legislation in 1975, Rodríguez said, the “writing was on the wall.” “Nobody was going to resist Venezuela carrying this nationalization to its end, and the U.S. was much more interested in having Venezuela be a provider of oil — relatively cheap oil — than to have a production collapse in Venezuela,” Rodríguez said. The change, consequently, was “relatively uncontroversial.” President Carlos Andrés Pérez, a democratic socialist, signed the bill into law that August. In January 1976, Venezuelan state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. took over the exploration, production, refining and export of oil. The country followed Mexico, Brazil and Saudi Arabia in a wave of resource nationalism aimed at trying to wrest control of energy resources, primarily from the United States, to achieve economic sovereignty.

Washington Examiner [12/20/2025 11:22 PM, Zach LaChance, 1394K] reports Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard denied U.S. intelligence that reportedly warned Russian President Vladimir Putin is aiming to capture all of Ukraine and parts of Europe that were formerly under Soviet control. Reuters reported on Saturday that intelligence shows not only is Putin still looking to take all of Ukraine, but his war goals extend to Europe, citing six anonymous sources. One of the sources said the most recent intelligence report from that batch was from September, months before President Donald Trump unveiled a sweeping peace plan to end the Russia-Ukraine war. That peace plan includes only some land concessions with Ukraine, while Putin also recently dismissed claims of potential Russian attacks on Europe as "nonsense.” In a statement responding to the report, Gabbard rejected the intelligence as sourced from "Deep State warmongers" who are trying to "undermine" the U.S. peace efforts. "Deep State warmongers and their Propaganda Media are again trying to undermine President Trump’s efforts to bring peace to Ukraine — and indeed Europe — by falsely claiming that the ‘U.S. intelligence community’ agrees to and supports EU/NATO viewpoint that Russia’s aim is to invade/conquer Europe (in order to gin up support for their pro-war policies)," Gabbard posted on X. "The truth is that ‘US intelligence’ assesses that Russia does not even have the capability to conquer and occupy Ukraine, what to speak of ‘invading and occupying’ Europe.” Her rebuttal was met with praise from Putin envoy Kirill Dmitriev, who leveled similar attacks against the intelligence. "[Gabbard] is great not only for documenting the Obama/Biden origins of the Russia hoax, but now for exposing the deep-state warmonger machinery trying to incite WW3 by fueling anti-Russian paranoia across the UK & EU. Voices of reason matter — restore sanity, peace, and security," Dmitriev posted on X. The fierce denial of any expansionary goals of Putin’s comes as the Trump administration is desperate to get its 28-point peace plan over the line after months of negotiations. Talks have resumed this weekend in Miami, with Dmitriev meeting with Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner on Saturday. Dmitriev had told reporters those discussions were "proceeding constructively," but that the two sides will continue to hash out key sticking points on Sunday.

Reuters [12/20/2025 6:36 PM, Steve Holland, Simon Lewis, and Gleb Bryanski, 36480K] reports U.S. negotiators met Russian officials in Florida on Saturday for the latest talks aimed at ending Russia’s war in Ukraine, as President Donald Trump’s administration tries to coax an agreement out of both sides to end the conflict. The Miami meeting followed U.S. talks on Friday with Ukrainian and European officials, the latest discussions of a peace plan that has sparked some hope of a resolution to the conflict that began when Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev told reporters after meeting U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner that the talks were constructive and would continue on Sunday. A White House official said the talks had concluded for the day. "The discussions are proceeding constructively. They began earlier and will continue today, and will also continue tomorrow," Dmitriev said. Marco Rubio, Trump’s top diplomat and national security advisor, had said he might also join the talks. U.S., Ukrainian and European officials earlier this week reported progress on security guarantees for Kyiv as part of the talks to end the war, but it remains unclear if those terms will be acceptable to Moscow. A Russian source told Reuters that any meeting between Dmitriev and the Ukrainian negotiators had been ruled out. In Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday that Ukraine would back a U.S. proposal for three-sided talks with the United States and Russia if it facilitated more exchanges of prisoners and paved the way for meetings of national leaders. "America is now proposing a trilateral meeting with national security advisers — America Ukraine, Russia," Zelenskiy told local journalists in Kyiv.

Wall Street Journal [12/20/2025 8:01 AM, Omar Abdel-Baqui, 646K] reports the heavy U.S. strikes against Islamic State positions highlight the difficulty in fully suppressing a foe that was declared militarily defeated half a decade ago. U.S. forces carried out attacks on more than 70 targets in Syria on Friday, as the Trump administration retaliated for an ambush that killed three Americans last week. Jordanian forces joined in the strikes, which targeted Islamic State infrastructure and weapons sites. The wide-scale attack followed more than 80 operations the U.S. military says it has conducted along with its Kurdish-led militia partners in Syria in the last six months, including airstrikes as well as raids that have killed Islamic State leaders. Despite extensive targeting of the group following the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria a year ago, its cells continue to carry out ambushes and increased the pace of their attacks early this year. The U.S. strikes were mostly symbolic, said Sam Heller, a Beirut-based security analyst with Century International, a policy institute. “It seems mostly geared toward retribution than anything that might really impact ISIS as it presently is,” he said, referring to Islamic State by a commonly used acronym. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called the attacks an act of revenge.

Reuters [12/20/2025 5:55 PM, Lauren Anthony, 36480K] reports the U.S. military launched large-scale strikes against dozens of Islamic State targets in Syria on Friday (December 19) in retaliation for an attack on American personnel, U.S. officials said. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

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