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 Wall Street Journal [2/19/2025 2:20 PM, José de Córdoba] reports the U.S. has formally placed eight Latin American gangs on a list of terrorist organizations, ratcheting up pressure on powerful transnational criminal groups involved in U.S.-bound drug trafficking and human smuggling. Six Mexican drug cartels were formally designated as foreign terrorist organizations, along with Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua and the nearly extinct Mara Salvatrucha from El Salvador. They join a group of about 60 Islamic militant groups such as al Qaeda and Hamas that mainly operate in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. President Trump on Inauguration Day issued an executive order announcing the designations without naming the specific groups. The list of Latin American organizations will be published in Thursday’s edition of the Federal Register. The designation will allow U.S. prosecutors to stiffen sanctions against people convicted of being members of the organizations or providing them with material support. It also can open the door for U.S. armed forces to take potential military action against some groups, analysts said. During his campaign, and since taking office, Trump indicated that the U.S. would take action against Mexican cartels, which are the top smugglers of the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has opposed the designations. She has called for increasing cooperation with the U.S. in battling fentanyl smuggling and illegal migration to the U.S. A range of businesses on both sides of the U.S. southern border worry that they could be affected by the designations, given the integration between the U.S. and Mexican economies and the presence of organized crime in all levels of Mexican society. The concerned businesses include banks and financial services firms that process remittances, transportation outfits and companies that grow crops such as tomatoes and avocados in areas dominated by organized crime. The Sinaloa Cartel, Mexico’s oldest and most powerful drug-trafficking organization, is at the top of the Mexican groups named to the list. The cartel is considered to be the largest producer and smuggler of fentanyl, which causes tens of thousands of overdose deaths a year. U.S. officials say the cartel operates across six continents. The list includes the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which operates in western Jalisco state. It is led by Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera, a former Mexican police officer who spent time in prison in the U.S. and has a $15 million bounty on his head. The organization is known for its paramilitary tactics. Reuters [2/19/2025 9:34 AM, Ted Hesson, 48128K] reports Trump issued an executive order after taking office on January 20 that called on officials to evaluate whether any criminal cartels or transnational gangs should be designated as terrorism groups. Trump earlier this month delayed a move to impose steep tariffs on Mexico and Canada over what he said was insufficient cooperation to thwart illegal immigration and trafficking of illicit fentanyl. CNN reported this week that the CIA was using drones to carry out surveillance in Mexico. The covert operations had not been previously disclosed and Reuters was unable to verify the report. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Wednesday that U.S. drone flights over Mexican territory were part of a collaboration with the U.S., adding that there was nothing illegal about it.

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AP [2/19/2025 10:26 PM, Elliot Spagat, 581K] reports President Donald Trump has signed an order aimed at ending federal benefits for people in the country illegally, the White House said Wednesday, his latest in a blizzard of moves to crack down on immigration. The White House said the order seeks to end “all taxpayer-funded benefits for illegal aliens,” but it was not clear which benefits will be targeted. People in the country illegally generally do not qualify except for emergency medical care. Children are entitled to a free K-12 public education regardless of immigration status under a 1982 Supreme Court ruling. The order notes that a 1996 welfare overhaul denies most public benefits to people in the country illegally but says that law has been gradually undermined. “Over the last 4 years, in particular, the prior administration repeatedly undercut the goals of that law, resulting in the improper expenditure of significant taxpayer resources.” Trump’s words appear directed at former President Joe Biden’s extensive use of parole authority to allow people in the country temporarily, including more than 900,000 through an online appointment app called CBP One used at border crossings with Mexico and more than 500,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who flew to the U.S. at their own expense with a financial sponsor. Trump immediately ended both programs. Biden also granted parole to nearly 300,000 people from Ukraine and Afghanistan. People granted parole for at least a year are considered “qualified non-citizens,” making them eligible for some income-based benefits, but only after five years. They include Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides coverage to children in families that earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid, according to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Some states have shortened the five-year wait. Trump’s order appears to have other targets, some already subjects of earlier edicts and Justice Department lawsuits. It directs all departments and agencies to identify federal benefit spending that is inconsistent with the 1996 welfare law. It also seeks to ensure that state and local governments are not using federal funds for policies that support “sanctuary” policies or encourage illegal immigration.

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New York Times [2/20/2025 12:12 AM, Qasim Nauman, 161405K]
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Reuters [2/20/2025 4:59 AM, Nate Raymond, 48128K] reports a U.S. appeals court on Wednesday let stand an order blocking President Donald Trump from curtailing automatic birthright citizenship nationwide as part of the Republican’s hardline crackdown on immigration and illegal border crossings. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Trump administration’s request for an emergency order putting on hold a nationwide injunction issued by a federal judge in Seattle blocking the president’s executive order. It was the first time an appellate court had weighed in on Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship, whose fate may ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Judges in Maryland, Massachusetts and New Hampshire have likewise blocked it, and appeals are underway already in two of those cases. Trump’s order, signed on his first day back in the White House on January 20, directed U.S. agencies to refuse to recognize the citizenship of children born in the United States after Wednesday if neither their mother nor father was a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident. Trump’s U.S. Justice Department had asked the 9th Circuit to by Thursday largely stay a ruling by Seattle-based U.S. District Judge John Coughenour declaring the policy unconstitutional, saying he went too far by issuing a nationwide injunction at the behest of four Democratic-led states. But a three-judge panel declined to do so and instead set the case down for arguments in June. U.S. Circuit Judge Danielle Forrest, who Trump appointed during his first term, in a concurring opinion said a rapid ruling would risk eroding public confidence in judges who must "reach their decisions apart from ideology or political preference." "Nor do the circumstances themselves demonstrate an obvious emergency where it appears that the exception to birthright citizenship urged by the Government has never been recognized by the judiciary," she wrote. The other judges on the panel included U.S. Circuit Judge William Canby, an appointee of Democratic former President Jimmy Carter, and U.S. Circuit Judge Milan Smith, an appointee of Republican former President George W. Bush. The White House and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Democratic state attorneys general, immigrant rights advocates and others have filed a series of lawsuits alleging that Trump’s executive order violates the citizenship clause of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which has long been understood to recognize that virtually anyone born in the United States is a citizen. Bloomberg [2/19/2025 10:28 PM, Zoe Tillman, 21617K] reports Judge Danielle Forrest, appointed during Trump’s first term, wrote separately to say that she was denying the request for a different reason: she didn’t think the government proved it would face “serious risk of irreparable harm” if it couldn’t immediately enforce the new policy. The circumstances didn’t “demonstrate an obvious emergency where it appears that the exception to birthright citizenship urged by the government has never been recognized by the judiciary” and where there were “contrary” executive branch interpretations of the issue in the past, she wrote. For more than a century, the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution had been interpreted by courts to mean that citizenship applies to nearly every baby born in the country. Trump’s executive action would deny it to children born to parents who are illegally in the US or on non-permanent visas to work, study or visit. A Justice Department spokesperson and representative of the Washington State attorney general’s office, which is leading the Seattle case, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The case is Washington v. Trump, 25-807, US Circuit Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit. FOX News [2/19/2025 1:46 PM, Peter Pinedo, 49889K] reports President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to say that the Founding Fathers are "spinning in their graves" and that the 14th Amendment was for former slaves, not illegals. "Our lawyers and Judges have to be tough, and protect America!" the president chided. "The 14th Amendment Right of American Citizenship never had anything to do with modern-day ‘gate crashers,’ illegal immigrants who break the Law by being in our Country, it had everything to do with giving Citizenship to former slaves," he wrote. "Our Founding Fathers are ‘spinning in their graves"‘ at the idea that our Country can be taken away from us," he added. "No Nation in the World has anything like this.”

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VOA News [2/19/2025 9:38 PM, Aline Barros, 2717K] reports the Trump administration is putting on hold some immigration requests from migrants paroled into the United States under specific programs. This means U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has halted processing applications from those seeking to adjust their immigration status to a more permanent one. The pause affects those who entered the U.S. through parole programs, including Uniting for Ukraine (U4U); Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans (CHNV); and family reunification parole (FRP). A U.S. official told VOA via email that the reason for the suspension was a security review. "This is pending the completion of additional vetting to identify any fraud, public safety or national security concerns," the U.S. Department of Homeland Security official told VOA on background — a method often used by U.S. officials to share information with reporters without being identified. These humanitarian parole programs were launched under the Biden administration as part of an effort to curb irregular migration by providing legal pathways for certain groups. The executive branch was granted parole authority by Congress in 1952, allowing the president to admit individuals on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons. About 530,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela were allowed to enter the U.S. under CHNV. Additionally, about 350,000 Americans sponsored nearly 240,000 Ukrainians through the U4U program, according to CBS News. Beneficiaries of any humanitarian parole program had to meet all the requirements of each program. These included establishing U.S.-based financial sponsors, undergoing security vetting and completing vaccine demands. They also had to pay their own travel expenses if they received travel authorization from the U.S. government. The humanitarian parole authority allowed the approved applicants to live and work legally in the U.S. temporarily, but it did not lead to permanent residence. The Trump administration is now calling for additional vetting to safeguard national security and ensure the integrity of the immigration system, according to the DHS official. The Trump administration has not provided details of what specifically triggered the review or how long it might last.

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FOX News [2/19/2025 11:23 PM, Sarah Alegre, 57114K] reports U.S. Border Patrol agents encountered nearly 220 people on Monday, a sharp decline from more than 1,800 on the same day last year. As part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown, the Coast Guard has ramped up its operations along the Rio Grande. The U.S. Coast Guard is increasing its presence alongside Border Patrol, bolstering operations with additional boats and personnel. United States and U.S. Coast Guard flags are displayed on a Coast Guard vessel. "We are augmenting our Border Patrol partners in key areas along the Rio Grande," said Capt. Torrey Bertheau, sector commander for Corpus Christi. "Our mission is to detect, deter, and interdict illegal migration, drug smuggling—really any kind of illicit activity.” We embedded alongside the Coast Guard for a look at operations and activity along the Rio Grande, when the crew encountered a suspected cartel spotter along the riverbank, a common tactic used by smugglers to monitor law enforcement movements. U.S. Coast Guard Captain Torrey Burtheau points to debris belonging to suspected smugglers along the Rio Grande. Since Trump took office last month, border crossings have dropped significantly. According to new data from Customs and Border Protection, 61,465 people were apprehended at the southern border during the month of January for illegal crossings. That’s a 36% decline from the previous month and illegal crossings along the southwest border have fallen to their lowest levels in decades. Despite the decline, Bertheau emphasized that smuggling operations continue. "This is still a high-threat area," he said. "The augmentation mission here is really to assist the Border Patrol in the areas that they need it.” A boat is filled with U.S. Coast Guard crew members assisting Border Patrol agents along the Rio Grande. Beyond the river, the Coast Guard is also stepping up patrols along all Texas maritime boundaries. Last week in Port Isabel, guardsmen detained two individuals aboard a fishing boat—one was in the country illegally, and the other was wanted on felony weapons charges. "Whether the surge is happening or not, our goal is to ensure the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the United States is protected," Bertheau said. Original article source: US Coast Guard expands border patrol efforts to combat illegal immigration.

CNN [2/19/2025 11:51 AM, Priscilla Alvarez, 987K] reports that the Trump administration is expected to issue a public health order as soon as this week labeling migrants at the US southern border as risks for spreading diseases, marking an escalation in the president’s effort to severely restrict immigration, according to three sources familiar with the discussions. The public health order, which hasn’t yet been finalized, is a call back to one put in place in 2020 during Donald Trump’s first administration based on the coronavirus pandemic. That order sealed off the border to asylum seekers, drawing fierce criticism from immigrant advocates, and fueled repeat crossings that prompted pushback from some Homeland Security officials. Discussions for the new order have referenced measles and tuberculosis, according to multiple sources. It would be the latest in a string of moves to toughen the administration’s posture on the US-Mexico border even as crossings continue to plummet. CNN reached out for comment to the Department of Homeland Security, which deferred to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Washington Examiner [2/19/2025 4:45 PM, Anna Giaritelli and Marisa Schultz, 2365K] reports Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has deputized State Department employees to carry out immigration enforcement duties, further expanding the pool of federal workers eligible to assist with President Donald Trump’s mass deportation effort. The Washington Examiner learned late Tuesday that Noem had signed a memorandum to deputize up to 600 State Department special agents at field offices nationwide to assist DHS agency U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers with arresting and deporting illegal immigrants inside the United States. The memo, obtained first by the Washington Examiner, authorized special agents within the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service to perform the functions of an immigration officer, including “investigating, determining the location of, and apprehending, any alien who is in the United States in violation of the Title 8, Chapter 12 or regulations issued thereunder” and “enforcing any requirements of such statutes or regulations.” Whether employees will be given special training on how to carry out immigration enforcement as immigration officers will depend on the State Department, according to DHS.

FOX News [2/19/2025 10:18 PM, Staff, 49889K] reports Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem breaks down operations to secure the southern border, specifically targeting ‘the worst of the worst’ with criminal records who entered the United States illegally, on ‘Hannity.’[Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Bloomberg [2/19/2025 9:18 PM, Hadriana Lowenkron and Stephanie Lai, 21617K] reports President Donald Trump signed an executive action aimed at insuring that US taxpayer money is not spent to support undocumented migrants or encourage illegal immigration. The order directs federal departments and agencies to identify federally funded programs providing financial benefits to migrants in the country illegally. It also seeks to prohibit cities and states from using federal money for programs that could assist migrants and calls for improvements in verifying eligibility for benefits to “to prevent taxpayer resources from acting as a magnet and fueling illegal immigration to the United States.” Undocumented individuals are already broadly ineligible for most government programs, including federal food assistance payments and welfare benefits. Still, the directive highlights Trump’s focus on cracking down on illegal immigration and securing the US southern border — a defining issue for the president. Trump campaigned on a pledge to carry out the largest deportation in US history, seizing on voter anxiety over a border surge that taxed communities and stoked fears about crime.

The Hill [2/19/2025 6:03 PM, Rebecca Beitsch, 16346K] reports the Department of Homeland Security has fired approximately 400 probationary employees across the department, pledging to remove more. The firings came after the Office of Personnel Management directed agencies to fire probationary employees, typically those who have been on the job for up to one year. "Under President Trump’s leadership, we are making sweeping cuts and reform across the federal government to eliminate egregious waste and incompetence that has been happening for decades at the expense of the American taxpayer. Today’s Department of Homeland Security personnel action will result in roughly $50 million in savings for American taxpayers and incalculable value toward accountability and cutting red tape," a DHS spokesperson said in a statement. "DHS component leads identified non-mission critical personnel in probationary status. We are actively identifying other wasteful positions and offices that do not fulfill DHS’ mission." Among the cuts were more than 130 employees at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which plays a role in helping the private sector prepare for cyberattacks, as well as physical risks. Ten employees at DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate were fired, as well as roughly 50 employees at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which oversees asylum and refugee processing as well as other moves by migrants to adjust their immigration status or seek citizenship. The biggest cuts were seen at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), where DHS said more than 200 employees on probation were terminated. ABC News [2/19/2025 2:28 PM, Julia Reinstein, 33392K] reports that the mass culling stems in large part from efforts by Elon Musk and the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, which has sought to dismantle large swaths of the federal government. More than 400 employees at the Department of Homeland Security have had their positions eliminated, officials said. About half of the cuts were in the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which saw over 200 dismissed. The firings at FEMA came after Musk slammed federal spending on what he misleadingly called "luxury hotels" for undocumented immigrants. In addition to the cuts at FEMA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) lost 130 staffers, and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and DHS Science and Technology had smaller degrees of cuts. Roughly 2,000 people have been fired from the Department of Energy, including at the National Nuclear Security Administration. At least 405 employees have been cut from the Department of Homeland Security, a DHS official told ABC News. The bulk of the cuts were at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which saw over 200 people cut, and then the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which saw 130 people cut. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services saw under 50 people cut, and DHS Science and Technology Directorate saw 10 people cut. Additionally, 12 Coast Guard members who work on diversity, equity and inclusion were affected by the reduction in force, with an offer to support border security efforts at the southwestern border.

Newsweek [2/19/2025 12:10 PM, Billal Rahman, 56005K] reports that President Donald Trump’s decision to halt legal support in immigration court for children who enter the United States alone has sparked fury from human rights advocates. "The Trump administration is abandoning children for the sake of politics and leaving kids to fend for themselves against our complex immigration system," said Lindsay Toczylowski, the president and CEO of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef). Newsweek has contacted the Interior Department for further comment. The Department of the Interior issued a stop-work order on Tuesday, immediately halting legal services for immigrant children supported by the Acacia Center for Justice’s Unaccompanied Children Program. The nonprofit assists almost 26,000 children currently in or recently released from the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which operates under the Department of Health and Human Services. ORR is responsible for the care of unaccompanied migrant children, and the order has raised concerns about due process, exploitation and the fairness of the immigration system. The Interior Department did not provide a reason for the stop-work order, telling the group that the move was due to "causes outside of your control" and not a reflection of poor performance.

FOX News [2/19/2025 5:53 AM, Elizabeth Pritchett, 49889K] reports the Department of Homeland Security is responding to reports that Secretary Kristi Noem allegedly warned employees that polygraph tests will be used to combat potential leaks from agency officials about the location of upcoming immigration raids. Noem issued an internal directive last week stating polygraphs administered by DHS must include a question about unauthorized communication with media outlets and nonprofits, according to a report by Bloomberg Government. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin shared Bloomberg’s story on X and wrote in a caption that the department is a national security agency and it "can, should and will polygraph personnel." The DHS main account reposted McLaughlin’s post. The social media posts come after someone leaked information about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids last week before they took place, derailing attempts at removing illegal aliens in Aurora, Colorado, and Los Angeles. President Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan previously said the leak is believed to have come from someone on the inside. "We think it’s coming from inside. And we know the first leak in Aurora is under current investigation. We think we’ve identified that person," Homan said last week on "Hannity.” The leaked information reportedly allowed members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to evade capture as federal agents encountered mostly empty apartments and buildings during the raid. Though the operation still resulted in the detainment of about 30 people. Noem, on the other hand, accused the FBI of leaking information about the ICE operation in LA. ICE sources previously told Fox News they do not know where Noem got the information or what she based her accusation on.

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CBS News [2/19/2025 7:41 AM, Camilo Montoya-Galvez, 52225K] reports legal services groups that offer representation and guidance to thousands of migrant children facing deportation said on Tuesday that they were abruptly directed by the Trump administration to halt their government-funded work. Affected organizations across the U.S. said the move would prevent them from offering critical legal services, including "know your rights" sessions, to migrant children who crossed the U.S. southern border without their parents or legal guardians. Under U.S. law, the Department of Health and Human Services is responsible for housing unaccompanied migrant minors who enter the U.S. without legal authorization, until they turn 18 or can be placed with a sponsor, who is typically a relative in the U.S. The government has long funded efforts by nonprofits to provide these children legal counsel — both in custody and after they are released from government care — while immigration judges decide whether they can remain in the U.S. The Acacia Center for Justice, an organization that oversees the main federal contract funding legal services for migrant children, received an order on Friday that directed the group to immediately "stop all work" under that contract, according to a copy of the notice obtained by CBS News. Shaina Aber, the executive director of the Acacia Center for Justice, said her organization has nearly 100 subcontractors providing legal services to roughly 26,000 migrant children across the country who are or were at some point in the custody of HHS, which oversees a network of child shelters. Aber said the stop work order would immediately halt funding for know your rights presentations and legal screenings that lawyers conduct soon after migrant children arrive in the U.S. to determine whether they qualify for a benefit that would allow them to stay in the country legally. Those benefits could include asylum, for those fleeing persecution, and visas for abused, neglected or abandoned youth. But Aber said the contract pause would also force non-profits to use their own funds to continue representing migrant children in immigration court, noting that attorneys have ethical obligations to their clients and can’t simply abandon their cases. She said it’s unclear how long organizations could do this without federal support, since migrant youth typically don’t have the financial means to pay for lawyers. "I think the due process rights of children will reach a new low," Aber said in an interview. The stop work order to Aber’s group was issued by the Department of Interior, who she said administers the federal contract for her organization, even though the funding comes from HHS. Both departments did not respond to requests for comment.

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Border Report [2/19/2025 6:45 PM, Julian Resendiz, 153K] reports an El Paso nonprofit plans to sue the federal government for halting their ability to provide legal services to migrant minors in federal custody. The federal stop-work order involves know-your-rights presentations and immigration court services provided by Estrella del Paso, formerly Diocesan Migrant and Refugee Services. "If we are not able to provide legal representation, we expect the number of children receiving deportation orders will go up," said Melissa M. Lopez, executive director of Estrella de El Paso. "The expectation that a child of any age can go into a courtroom to represent themselves to apply for (an immigration) benefit without an adult to help is ludicrous.” The organization last year provided rights presentations to approximately 5,000 unaccompanied minors at various federal facilities and represents about 2,000 in court – some of whom arrived in the United States years ago and still have pending immigration cases. The contract being paused by the Trump administration affects explicitly 1,273 unaccompanied children (UACs) being represented by Estrella del Paso attorneys.

FOX News [2/19/2025 3:56 PM, Michael Lee, 49889K] reports an immigration judge appointed by former President Joe Biden is lashing out after being fired by President Donald Trump. Doyle, who worked in Massachusetts, was one of more than 20 immigration judges fired in recent days without explanation, with Doyle saying she received an email from the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) last week that read the agency had "determined that retaining" her was "not in the best interest of the agency." But the firings have raised concerns that the already large backlog of immigration cases will now take even longer to clear, with International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers President Matthew Biggs pointing out that a single judge can rule on 500 to 700 cases per year.

Washington Examiner [2/19/2025 11:32 AM, Elaine Mallon, 2365K] reports that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Tuesday evening for withholding millions of dollars of funding approved by Congress that assist in USCCB’s mission of providing relief and relocation to asylum refugees. For fiscal 2025, the federal government has allocated $65 million to the USCCB "for the immediate physical needs and integration of refugees into their new communities," but on Jan. 24 the Trump administration halted its payments to the USCCB. The conference now faces $13 million of unpaid reimbursements and owes $11.6 million to its "subrecipients that it is unable to reimburse." There are currently more than 6,700 asylum-seekers in their 90-day transitional period delegated to USCCB’s care. "After refugees have already arrived and been placed in USCCB’s care, the government is attempting to pull the rug out from under USCCB’s programs by halting funding," the lawsuit stated, according to a copy obtained by the Washington Post. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, named the State Department, the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, and the Department of Health and Human Services as defendants. The financial assistance was revoked following a Jan. 24 State Department letter that immediately suspended funding for foreign-aid programs until a review was completed. However, USCCB provides domestic assistance to asylum-seekers.

New York Times [2/19/2025 9:14 PM, Luke Broadwater, 161405K] reports President Trump on Wednesday endorsed House Republicans’ proposal to move forward with one all-encompassing policy and tax cut plan, dismissing Senate Republicans’ efforts to break up his agenda into smaller pieces more easily moved through the chamber. On his website Truth Social, Mr. Trump said he favored the House approach and “one big beautiful bill” because it “implements my FULL America First Agenda, EVERYTHING, not just parts of it!” He continued: “We need both Chambers to pass the House Budget.” The president’s comments did little to end the monthslong debate on Capitol Hill about how best to roll out his sweeping legislative agenda, which includes enhanced border enforcement and a range of tax cuts. Senate Republicans said they planned to continue with their tactic of advancing Mr. Trump’s agenda in pieces — by first moving a border-enforcement bill — and expressed skepticism that House Republicans, who have been riven by bitter infighting, would be able to reconcile their differences to produce a final product. “He’s made it clear for a long time that he would prefer one big, beautiful bill, and we’re fine with that too,” Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the majority leader, said after Mr. Trump’s post. “If the House can produce one big, beautiful bill, we’re prepared to work with them to get that across the finish line. But we believe that the president also likes optionality.” Mr. Trump’s announcement came just hours after he gave conflicting directions to congressional Republicans on how they should proceed with regards to cuts to social safety net programs. In an appearance Tuesday evening on Fox News, Mr. Trump was adamant that there should be no cuts to Medicaid, the health care program for America’s poor, or other entitlement programs. “Social Security won’t be touched, other than this fraud or something we’re going to find,” he said. “It’s going to be strengthened, but won’t be touched. Medicare, Medicaid, none of that stuff is going to be touched.” But by the next morning Mr. Trump was endorsing House Republicans’ budget bill, which has deep cuts to Medicaid on the table. The apparent contradiction made one thing clear: The budget process is about to get increasingly messy. “You have a lot of people who’ve been talking about fiscal responsibility and cutting spending forever, and then can’t point to anything they’re really comfortable doing,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which argues Congress needs to get serious about addressing the nation’s $36 trillion debt. “Reducing spending and raising taxes isn’t popular,” she said. “Neither is exercise and eating healthy. We’re making some really shortsighted decisions in terms of continuing to run up the debt.”

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NBC News [2/19/2025 3:02 PM, Scott Wong, Sahil Kapur, Melanie Zanona, Ryan Nobles, and Kate Santaliz, 50804K]

Reuters [2/19/2025 10:05 PM, David Morgan, 2717K] reports U.S. Senate Republicans will push ahead on Thursday with a measure to kickstart President Donald Trump’s agenda on immigration, energy and defense, Majority Leader John Thune said on Wednesday, after Trump called on them to drop the plan in favor of a sweeping resolution prepared by House Republicans. Trump came down firmly in favor of the House of Representatives’ plan for one sweeping bill that would also include trillions of dollars in tax cuts. House Republicans fear that the Senate’s "skinny" plan could diminish their chances of extending Trump’s tax cuts later in their own chamber, where the party holds a narrow and fractious 218-215 majority. "We need both Chambers to pass the House Budget to ‘kickstart’ the Reconciliation process, and move all of our priorities to the concept of, ‘ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL’," the president wrote on social media on Wednesday morning. After a lunch meeting with Vice President JD Vance and his own Senate Republicans, Thune told reporters that he would still go ahead with the smaller bill. "In the end, we’ll be able to, whether it’s one bill or two bills, to get all the things that the president’s outlined -- his objectives -- across the finish line," said Thune, adding that he expected the Senate to vote on its own blueprint on Thursday. Some Republicans said they were confused about the plan to proceed after Trump’s message. "It seems a little strange to me," Senator Josh Hawley said. "If the president supports it and ... I have some assurance of that, I’ll support it," the Missouri Republican added. "But it just seems a little bizarre to me. I can’t quite figure out what we’re doing.”

NBC News [2/19/2025 1:35 PM, Kevin Collier, 50804K] reports that as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has promoted cuts across the federal government, it has remained quiet about a central tenet of its work: access to personal, sensitive data on millions of Americans. But among critics and legal challengers, the issue of DOGE’s data access has become paramount. Musk, the world’s wealthiest man and President Donald Trump’s largest campaign donor, has framed DOGE as a tech-forward attempt to reduce the federal deficit. Key to his effort is a small army of acolytes, most prominently young men with backgrounds in tech, being dispatched across government agencies and demanding access to databases that are usually only available to a small number of regulated and trained employees at each agency. The issue has spurred at least 11 lawsuits that claim DOGE has illegally accessed significant swaths of Americans’ personal information. All claim that DOGE has violated the Privacy Act of 1974, passed in the wake of the Watergate scandal and President Richard Nixon’s resignation, which heavily regulates what information about American citizens federal agencies can store and who can access that information. The lawsuits and the privacy claims have quickly become substantive challenges to DOGE and its ability to fully operate and represent attempts by critics to slow DOGE’s actions in certain cases, at least temporarily.

Washington Post [2/19/2025 7:09 PM, Shayna Jacobs and Jeremy Roebuck, 40736K] reports that a top Justice Department official on Wednesday defended his controversial decision to end the corruption case against Mayor Eric Adams, describing the choice to a federal judge as “a standard exercise of prosecutorial discretion” that did not warrant extensive vetting. Acting deputy attorney general Emil Bove said in court that his instructions to withdraw the charges, delivered in a memo last week to federal prosecutors in Manhattan, were issued in line with an executive order from President Donald Trump to end the “weaponization” of the justice system. He suggested the case against Adams was tainted from the beginning. Appearing alone on behalf of the government, Bove told U.S. District Judge Dale E. Ho during a roughly 90-minute hearing: “I don’t think there’s anything particularly exotic about” seeking to drop the charges. The judge did not immediately rule on the matter. The fact that Bove, the Justice Department’s acting second-in-command, was standing before Ho at all in the packed Manhattan courtroom Wednesday spoke to the extraordinary nature of the issue and the backlash it has generated for more than a week. Ho acknowledged at the start of Wednesday’s proceedings that he had little legal latitude to deny the government’s motion to withdraw its case against Adams.

USA Today [2/19/2025 8:01 PM, John Bacon, Eduardo Cuevas, and Jorge L. Ortiz, 89965K] reports that embattled New York City Mayor Eric Adams proclaimed his innocence Wednesday before a federal judge considering a Justice Department motion to dismiss corruption charges against him. U.S. District Judge Dale Ho, who did not issue a ruling, said at the hearing Wednesday he had questions about the prosecutors’ unusual request to drop the charges without prejudice, meaning the case could be brought again. Several New York leaders have called on Adams to resign, alleging he is too beholden to the Trump administration and its immigration crackdown, a claim Adams has repeatedly denied. Under questioning from Ho, Adams said he’s not concerned about the charges being refiled because he had not committed a crime. "I’m not afraid of that," Adams told the judge, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden. Ho said early in the hearing he was aware of his limited discretion in the matter, considering courts have found prosecutors are the best judges of whether a case should continue. Afterward, Ho said he would mull over his decision. “I’m not going to shoot from the hip right here on the bench,” said Ho, who indicated a desire not to delay the case.

Yahoo! News [2/19/2025 1:07 PM, Josephine Stratman, 57114K] reports that amid growing outrage over the Department of Justice’s plan to dismiss Mayor Eric Adams’ corruption case, the mayor and his lawyers have insisted there was no quid pro quo agreement with the Trump administration. But in a letter released Tuesday, Adams’ lawyer laid out in great detail the different ways the indictment hanging over Adams’ head made it harder for him to assist with the Donald Trump’s hardline immigration efforts. "As his trial grows near, it will be untenable for the Mayor to be the ever-present partner that [the Department of Homeland Security] needs to make New York City as safe as possible," Alex Spiro wrote in the Feb. 3 letter. "It will be untenable for him to stay on top of city agencies and officials to ensure that his agenda on issues like immigration is being respected. And it will be untenable for him to unify the city around a much-needed rollback of certain sanctuary city policies.” The letter, made public on Tuesday, provides a look into the unprecedented talks between Trump’s Department of Justice and the mayor’s legal team as Adams pushed for his case to be dismissed. That process hits a critical step Wednesday afternoon in federal court as a judge has demanded the government explain its position in a court hearing.

Reported similarly:
Yahoo! News [2/19/2025 11:04 AM, Josephine Stratman, 57114K]

USA Today [2/19/2025 6:46 PM, Trevor Hughes, 89965K] reports that the arrests of three people in Maryland has helped shed new light on a series of connected deaths across the country that experts say are tied to a group called the "Zizians." Named after their purported leader, Jack "Ziz" Lasota, 34, the group is connected to at least six deaths nationwide, according to police, interviews with people who know group members, the FBI and court records. Lasota was one of three armed people arrested Monday after trespassing in a rural area and then asking a landowner if they could live there in two box trucks. Lasota and one of the other people arrested Monday have been on the run for months, according to police. The unfolding details have drawn international attention and flashy headlines as authorities, court records and interviews have revealed a tangled web of relationships and shocking violence linked to a small group of highly educated vegan computer experts. "They’re not all necessarily all connected in one overarching plan. It’s not necessarily like a Manson Family type of plan," said Mark Pitcavage, a senior research fellow and policy adviser at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. "When you look at his writings, it’s all about the mind and consciousness. He doesn’t really seem interested in left-wing political issues the way most people would understand it."

Miami Herald [2/19/2025 1:06 PM, David Goodhue, 6595K] reports that another migrant smuggling boat was stopped approaching South Florida last week with people from various nations on board, according to a federal criminal complaint filed Wednesday. The interception is part of a recent trend in which human smugglers are choosing Coral Gables, Key Biscayne and Brickell as their drop-off points. Many of the migrants are coming from China and making their way to The Bahamas, where smugglers take them in boats that moor in the mangroves along South Florida’s waterways before waiting vans pick them up. This time, the people on board were from China, Haiti and Bangladesh, according to the Homeland Security Investigations complaint and a statement from the U.S. Coast Guard. And, the man authorities said drove the boat, Earlin Karlan Cargill, said he was provided a phone by smuggling organizers in Bimini with an app installed on it that already had coordinates to Key Biscayne plotted in, according to the complaint. The events unfolded around 8:30 p.m. Feb. 11 when Customs Air and Marine Operations agents were monitoring a Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office radar station and observed a boat heading from the Bahamas to Bear Cut in Key Biscayne, the complaint states. A Miami-Dade Fire Rescue boat crew took one woman to Mercy Hospital in Coconut Grove to be checked out for a medical condition not specified in the report. The rest of the people, including Cargill, were taken to the Coast Guard cutter Vigorous. Homeland Security Investigations took Cargill to shore for questioning two days later, according to the complaint.

CBS Miami [2/19/2025 9:59 PM, Staff, 52225K] reports Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Wednesday that additional state agencies have signed agreements to participate in federal immigration-enforcement efforts. This move follows the recent approval of an immigration enforcement plan by DeSantis and the Legislature. The new agreements involve the Florida State Guard, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement working alongside the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has also joined, following a similar deal last week with the Florida Highway Patrol. State Board of Immigration Enforcement takes action. Larry Keefe, the newly appointed executive director of the State Board of Immigration Enforcement, emphasized the board’s mission to detain and deport undocumented immigrants. The board, led by DeSantis and state Cabinet members, was established through special-session legislation that also includes stricter penalties for crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. The Washington Examiner [2/19/2025 6:09 PM, Asher Notheis, 2365K] reports Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) announced Wednesday that Florida is going to revive a program to assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement with deportations, citing how this program had been laid "dormant" during the Biden administration. The program, 287(g), allows ICE to delegate authority to both state and local law enforcement to perform immigration officer functions under ICE’s direction. In announcing that Florida would be reviving this program, DeSantis knocked the Biden administration for "actively" working to subvert under President Joe Biden’s watch in the White House. "So now the 287(g) is being revived, we have the ability to receive delegation for our state and local law enforcement officers to perform specified immigration officer functions under the agency’s direction and oversight," DeSantis stated on Wednesday. "It also allows ICE enforcement and removal operations to partner with state and local enforcement agencies to identify and remove already incarcerated criminal aliens who are eligible for removal before they are rereleased into the community, and we had problems with that under the Biden administration where people would just be simply released rather than have ICE pick them up.” The Florida governor added that this program grants the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and several other state agencies "expanded power" to interrogate anyone who is suspected of being an illegal alien. DeSantis then warned that any illegal found breaking a Florida state law will face consequences for their actions, citing how local, state, and federal law enforcement are on "the same page" regarding illegal immigration. The Florida Phoenix [2/19/2025 3:28 PM, Jackie Llanos] reports that the governor on Wednesday signed three additional memos with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, deputizing state agents to interrogate people about their immigration status and detain them if they lack proper documentation. The Florida State Guard, Department of Law Enforcement, and Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services are the latest agencies to become part of such an agreement after DeSantis signed one for Highway Patrol on Feb. 7. However, he said, the state wouldn’t release people taken into custody for lacking legal status. Forty-five sheriff’s offices across the state have had similar agreements, under the 287 (g) program, to turn people already in jail or correctional facilities over to ICE since 2019, according to the federal agencies’ website listing the participating entities. The Florida Department of Corrections signed an agreement with ICE in 2020. Commissioner of Agriculture Wilton Simpson has signed an agreement for the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services law enforcement, DeSantis said. Telemundo [2/19/2025 6:43 PM, Eduardo "Yusnaby" Rodriguez, 283K] reports that “Our state law enforcement officials will now be able to cooperate fully with the U.S. National Security authorities through this program," Ron DeSantis said. Florida has implemented new immigration measures that allow for greater cooperation between state agents and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE). The legislation expands the ability of agents, including agricultural inspectors, to question people about their immigration status. "If they are found to violate the appropriate immigration status, we will make sure they are held accountable," said DeSantis, who added: "We have the capacity to receive delegation for our state and local law enforcement officials to perform specific functions of immigration agent under the direction and supervision of the agency." The State Immigration Control Board, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the Florida Department of Agriculture and the Florida State Guard will now have more authority to detain immigrants who are not authorized to be in the country. DeSantis said ICE will train these agencies and that the funds to pay for these new functions will come from grants.

Yahoo! News [2/19/2025 5:39 PM, Ashley Hamilton, 57114K] reports that, while locals and tourists get ready for Mardi Gras parades, local law enforcement will once again receive additional resources from federal agencies. "Plans we executed for the Super Bowl and the level of communication and collaboration we had amongst the federal, state and local partners was amazing. We are building on that momentum. We’ve been talking and planning and communicating for weeks and weeks ahead of this Mardi Gras event," said Eric Delaune with the Department of Homeland Security. Federal Mardi Gras security will be led by Delaune. A Louisiana native, he has reassured the krewes that the department has their best interests at heart when it comes to safety. "I wanted to let them know that there was not going to be an effort on behalf of our federal coordination to affect the historical and cultural context of Mardi Gras. We just wanted to help the city and help the state make it more safe and more secure so that people could go out and enjoy it," said Delaune. With Mardi Gras upgraded to a level one special event assessment rating (SEAR 1) barriers, bomb dogs and more will be along parade routes. Deluane says the goal is to still maintain the event’s festive atmosphere. However, as the good times roll to Mardi Gras day, he ensures safety measures will be at an all-time high. "You’re going to see a lot of uniformed personnel out and about. You’re going to see helicopters and other aircraft overhead. There’s a bunch of intelligence analysis going on in the background. There are also going to be a lot of plainclothes assets, a lot of plainclothes special agents and law enforcement in and around those crowds," said Delaune. Delaune also told WGNO that it’s very likely we will see Mardi Gras be a SEAR 1 event again next year.

CBS Detroit [2/19/2025 10:16 AM, Paula Wethington, 52225K] reports that the Monroe Police Department reported that an investigation into the theft of cash from an ATM in Monroe expanded beyond Michigan to include federal authorities, resulting in an arrest in Illinois. "Thanks to the efforts of our Road Patrol and Detectives, combined with evidence gathered from the scene, Flock Camera systems, and surveillance footage from nearby businesses, investigators were able to identify the suspect," the police department said. "We are still working to identify other suspect(s) in the theft." The case involves a theft during the overnight hours of Jan. 18 from a machine at 715 N. Telegraph Road, which is the main campus of the Monroe Community Credit Union. An undisclosed amount of cash was taken, Monroe Police Department reported at the time. The department’s road patrol and detectives gathered evidence that included surveillance video from nearby businesses and Flock Camera systems. Their efforts in identifying and locating the suspect included working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the Oak Lawn (Illinois) Police Department, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the South/East MI – Cyber Fraud Task Force and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. "Our Detectives worked diligently on this case, and with the invaluable support of federal agencies, crucial information was uncovered, confirming the suspect is an undocumented immigrant," the report said. The suspect was apprehended near Chicago last week; and is now at the Monroe County Jail, facing charges of safe cracking, a life offense.

Houston Chronicle [2/19/2025 12:10 PM, John Wayne Ferguson, 2315K] reports that seven years after nearly two dozen Gulfton area gang members were arrested and accused by federal authorities of enslaving immigrant women and forcing them into sex work in southwest Houston, one of the conspirators has been sentenced to prison. U.S. District Judge Charles Eskridge on Feb. 7 sentenced Victor Javiel Gonzalez to 50 months in prison, as well as three years supervised release. Gonzalez was one of 23 people named in a 2017 indictment that accused a gang, the Southwest Cholos, of running a brothel out of the Carriage Way apartments, a two-story complex on Dashwood Drive. The gang was alleged to have lured women into the United States with promises of jobs, and then forcing them into prostitution. The gang operated from 2009 to 2017, and was accused of trafficking women and girls as young as 14. The gang’s enforcers threatened, beat and drugged its victims; forced them to get tattoos and breast implants; and chased down victims who tried to escape, according to charging documents. Gang members were also accused of drug, firearm and immigration offenses as part of the sprawling indictment. Gonzalez pleaded guilty to illegal dealing in firearms and illegal possession of a firearm, according to court records.

AP [2/19/2025 2:38 PM, Staff, 30936K] reports that Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum said Wednesday that surveillance drone flights by the U.S. government over Mexico are occurring in collaboration with and at the request of her government. They come as U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has increased pressure on Mexico to do more to stop the production of the synthetic opioid fentanyl that is smuggled north to the United States. Earlier this month, Trump threatened, then postponed 25% tariffs on Mexican imports that he said were meant to push Mexico to take more action against its drug cartels. Trump also ordered on his first day in office the designation of some of Mexico’s drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Those designations will be published in Thursday’s edition of the Federal Register, according to a notice Wednesday. Mexico responded to the tariff threat by sending 10,000 National Guard troops to the northern border. The drone flights were reported Tuesday by the New York Times as a Central Intelligence Agency program aimed at locating fentanyl labs in northwestern Mexico. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

NPR [2/19/2025 9:51 PM, Ximena Bustillo, 42K] reports military medical units, including surgeons and OB-GYN specialists in the U.S. Air Force and Army, are preparing for deployment to Guantánamo Bay this weekend as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to expand detention there for those without legal status in the U.S. An order obtained by NPR on Wednesday that was sent to service members showed that they were instructed about a deployment for more than 180 days, to a location that was redacted. The doctors and others who are getting deployed were told the site would be at the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo and would last six months, according to internal communications reviewed by NPR and two sources familiar with the planning who were not authorized to talk publicly. The order was sent to personnel including from the Travis Air Force Base’s David Grant Medical Center in California, and the medical unit at the Fort Belvoir Army installation in northern Virginia. The Homeland Security and Defense departments did not immediately respond to requests for comment. So far, over a dozen planes have taken more than 100 people to Guantánamo Bay, following an order from President Trump to use the naval base to detain migrants suspected of being in the country without legal status. Immigration lawyers have sued the administration over the detentions there, arguing that the location limits access to their clients. DHS has said those on the base have access to phones to call their lawyers. The military medical personnel were told they would be taking care of detainees in Guantánamo, as well as of civilians. Earlier this month, 150 service members were deployed to assist DHS with operations on the base.

NBC News [2/19/2025 7:06 PM, Ronny Rojas and Kimmy Yam, 50804K] reports a deportation flight leaving the U.S. Thursday carrying 135 mostly Asian undocumented migrants is expected to land in Costa Rica in the afternoon. Almost half of the migrants will be children. The migrants, heading from San Diego to San Jose, hail from China, Afghanistan, India and Pakistan, among other countries. Sixty five minors and at least two pregnant women are among the deportees, Omer Badilla, Costa Rica’s deputy minister of the interior and police, told Noticias Telemundo on Wednesday. Some of the migrants’ home countries have not easily accepted to repatriate them. In the meantime, Costa Rica serves as a "bridge" for them, the U.S. government has said. The deportation flight is the latest headed to Central America, as some 300 people — also from mostly Asian countries — are being held in a Panama hotel. Badilla said Costa Rica agreed to accept the migrants "because of our history and our customs as human rights protectors," and that the agreement with the Trump administration isn’t based on any special conditions. "We responded to the United States’ government’s request and we raised our hand to help them," Badilla said. Costa Rica’s President Rodrigo Chaves said during a press conference Wednesday that the country is helping its "economically powerful brother from the north.” The flight to Costa Rica is also carrying migrants from Tajikistan, Vietnam, Georgia and Azerbaijan, Badilla said. None of the migrants have criminal records but are undocumented, he said. The Thursday flight marks the first in which Costa Rica will serve as a stopover for deportees. The U.S. is footing the bill for the flights, including the flights that will eventually transport these migrants to their home countries. And the International Organization for Migration, a United Nations agency, will provide humanitarian support. "IOM’s role in assisting people deported from the United States focuses on providing humanitarian support and facilitating return when it is safe to do so," a spokesperson for the IOM said in a statement. "While we are not directly involved in the detention or restriction of movement of people, we are committed to ensuring that all migrants are treated with dignity and in accordance with international standards.”

AP [2/19/2025 10:01 PM, Juan Zamorano, 57114K] reports Panama transferred about one-third of the deportees from various nations it had received from the United States to a camp in its Darien province Wednesday, an area that became the main thoroughfare for migrants traveling from South America to the U.S. border in recent years, security officials said late Wednesday. The migrants sent to Darien had refused to voluntarily be repatriated to their countries and will be held there until third countries can be found to take them, said a Panamanian official familiar with the situation who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter. They were part of a larger group of 299 migrants to Panama by the U.S. government as the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump tries to accelerate deportations. Panama’s Security Ministry said in a statement later Wednesday that 97 migrants had been sent to the camp in Darien province and eight more would be sent there in the coming hours. It said 13 migrants had already been voluntarily returned to their countries. The others remained under police guard in a Panama City hotel awaiting travel arrangements to their countries. The Panamanian government has denied that they are detained, but they are under police guard and not allowed to leave the hotel. Panama’s National Immigration Service had announced earlier Wednesday that one migrant, a Chinese woman, had escaped the hotel, but later authorities reported her recapture. Security Minister Frank Abrego wrote on a post on social platform X that she was found abandoned near a migrant processing facility along the northern Panama-Costa Rica border, a high-transit point for migrants headed toward the U.S. While it was not clear if she was found in Panama or in Costa Rica, he blamed her brief escape on “human traffickers.” The deportees, primarily from Asian countries, are in a sort of limbo in Panama after the Central American nation agreed to serve as a transit point for migrants who are hard for the Trump administration to deport directly to their countries.

Reported similarly:
Reuters [2/19/2025 2:25 PM, Elida Moreno, 48128K]

Reuters [2/19/2025 4:14 PM, Elida Moreno] reports a senior U.S. military commander who oversees operations over much of Latin America will visit Panama this week to discuss security cooperation as well as the Panama Canal and migration, the U.S. embassy in the Central American nation said on Wednesday. Admiral Alvin Holsey, the head of the U.S. military’s Southern Command, is scheduled to meet on Wednesday and Thursday with Panamanian officials as the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has argued that China holds undue influence over the country’s namesake canal, one of the world’s busiest maritime trade passages.

Wall Street Journal [2/19/2025 4:50 PM, Jason M. Blazakis] reports President Trump promises to designate Mexican drug cartels and gangs such as El Salvador’s MS-13 and Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua as foreign terrorist organizations. There’s nothing in the law preventing the administration from doing so. Although we usually think of terrorist organizations as ideologically motivated, the Immigration and Nationality Act, which governs FTO listings, doesn’t cite that as a requirement. Still, it’s a dangerous move. The result of conflating criminal groups with terrorist organizations will be an FTO list so diluted that it loses its meaning. The Trump administration must be assuming that significant benefits will come from the terrorist designation. I worked on the FTO list for more than a decade, and I can attest that any marginal benefit of adding criminal organizations to the list of terrorist organizations is outweighed by the costs. The three legal consequences of an FTO listing are an asset freeze, prosecutions for those who support the listed group, and immigration consequences. These consequences could already be applied to MS-13, Tren de Aragua and the Mexican drug cartels because they are already subject to sanctions by the U.S. government. The FTO listing does provide some prosecutorial leverage by adding extra consequences for those who materially support a designated FTO. With that prosecutorial leverage, however, comes a Pandora’s box of unknowns. If the cartels and gangs are listed as FTOs, then will Americans hooked on the cartels’ drug products be treated as terrorists for buying fentanyl? As I testified before Congress in 2023, this is a real possibility. Additionally, the Mexican drug cartels are primarily armed with U.S.-manufactured firearms. Could U.S. gun manufacturers and dealers become targets of terrorism-support charges? The Mexican government opposes the designation of the cartels as FTOs. Once the listing occurs, there is a chance of a diplomatic breakdown in an already tenuous U.S.-Mexican relationship. Mexico is less likely to share intelligence and cooperate with U.S. law-enforcement investigations if it believes Washington will trample on its sovereignty. The president and his allies are reported to have suggested that the FTO designation will allow the U.S. to use the military to take out cartel leaders in Mexico.

Newsweek [2/19/2025 12:26 PM, Yvette D. Clarke and Michael Shank, 56005K] reports that with President Donald Trump’s administration removing climate change language from federal government websites, withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate agreement, ending climate disaster response within the Department of Homeland Security, and discussing plans to get rid of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Americans who are being displaced by global warming’s extreme weather may be out of luck when it comes to federal support. This comes at a precarious moment for Americans. Last year registered as the hottest in recorded history, breaching the 1.5 degree Celsius globally-agreed-upon safety threshold for warming above pre-industrial temperatures. And with each additional degree of warming, we will witness more dangerous, irreversible, and catastrophic impacts from climate change. The U.S. government’s Annual Climate Report from 2024 highlights that more powerful tropical cyclones and floods are headed our way, as warmer ocean waters combine with rising sea levels to fuel more frequent and devastating storms. That means we will see more Americans displaced due to climate change, not fewer, and a world without FEMA means more Americans will be on their own. The extreme weather in Los Angeles this year is just the latest to generate climate displacement, with tens of thousands left without homes. Unfortunately, it won’t be the last.

Washington Examiner [2/19/2025 6:00 AM, Barry Angeline and Dan McCabe, 2365K] reports FEMA’s response to natural disasters is meant to provide relief and recovery. Yet, its handling of Puerto Rico’s post-Hurricane Maria recovery only worsened the crisis. Systemic mismanagement, poor hiring practices, and a culture of avoiding accountability plagued the process. Those who attempted to expose these failures faced retaliation. Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico in September 2017, causing catastrophic damage and leaving millions without power, water, or essential services. With the island already weakened by economic decline, damages exceeded $90 billion. Despite Congress allocating tens of billions in aid, FEMA’s mismanagement led to widespread delays. Reports surfaced of misallocated funds, unqualified personnel overseeing major infrastructure projects, and political interference stalling recovery efforts. Years later, many communities remained in disrepair due to FEMA’s failure to meet its commitments. From the start, FEMA’s response was hindered by a lack of experienced personnel. Prior disasters already pulled away its most capable staff, leaving less qualified employees in charge of Puerto Rico’s recovery. The island’s remote location and FEMA’s restrictive "50-week rule" further complicated logistics. Additionally, FEMA was tasked with integrating disaster mitigation and resiliency into the entire reconstruction, adding another layer of complexity. A flawed IT system rollout and an ineffective sector-based damage assessment approach further slowed progress. With nearly 50,000 sites requiring inspections and Puerto Rico’s infrastructure in ruins, the response quickly became unmanageable. A critical but overlooked factor in FEMA’s failures was its DEI-driven hiring policies. The agency mandated that at least 80% of its 2,000–3,000 employees in Puerto Rico be local hires, despite a limited pool of qualified candidates. While local employment is commendable, many lacked experience in disaster response, engineering, or project management, yet were placed in key roles. Some were rapidly promoted to management positions, bypassing years of necessary experience. This resulted in an unprepared workforce, exacerbating inefficiencies and delays. Puerto Rico’s high unemployment rate, coupled with FEMA’s well-paying, stable jobs, disincentivized rapid recovery. By FEMA’s original October 2019 deadline to complete all work, only 5–8% of the work was completed.

Washington Examiner [2/19/2025 9:54 AM, Christopher Tremoglie, 2365K] reports that President Donald Trump is helping make America great again, and one way he is doing this is by making it safe again. Legacy media and agenda-driven liberals and Democrats have been hypercritical about the president’s deportation policies. It’s the latest sketch in their doomsday productions of how the sky is falling, and Trump is the antichrist — or Nazi, or Hitler, or racist, or whatever other fake outrage terms they decided to use on any given day. Little, if any, of it is accurate, and it’s just hyperpartisan hysteria that only appeals to their base, especially in 2025. Look no further than the results of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement since Trump started his second term on Jan. 20. There’s a stark contrast in the agency’s productivity from a year ago when Joe Biden was president. Inexplicably, that administration seemed to have a policy of letting criminal illegal immigrants remain in the country under some misguided and dangerous allegiance to a rogue and radical political philosophy. According to a Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary, ICE arrests since Trump assumed the presidency have made the country considerably safer. Compared to the same time in 2024, ICE has arrested 99% more illegal immigrants with criminal histories and 156% more fugitive illegal immigrants at large. Additionally, interior arrests have increased 137% compared to this time a year ago, and there have been 59% more illegal immigrants in local jails arrested by the agency.

Newsweek [2/19/2025 6:00 AM, Mike Ishii, 56005K] reports today marks the 83rd anniversary of Executive Order 9066, which authorized the removal of more than 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast to inland concentration camps in 1942. My mother was a child survivor of imprisonment at the hands of the federal government in a World War II U.S. concentration camp. As her son, I am extremely alarmed at what I see unfolding today. In its first two weeks, the Trump administration announced plans to open detention sites in Texas and Colorado, and began utilizing Fort Bliss, a former Japanese American internment camp, to transport immigrants on military planes to Guantanamo Bay (GITMO). In addition to more than 200 existing detention sites across the country, ICE is now soliciting contracts for additional large concentration camps including for family detention to be run by private for-profit corporations and local law enforcement agencies. This means that children will once again be incarcerated, like my mother was. History is repeating itself. My mother was so traumatized from her childhood incarceration that she refused to speak about it, but Tatsuo Ryusei Inouye, in his diary, recounted his torture inside the Tule Lake Segregation Center in California, a high security concentration camp for Japanese Americans who protested their incarceration. He documented how resisters were imprisoned inside a stockade within the concentration camp where they were shackled, beaten with baseball bats, tortured and fed one spoon of rice per day. During World War II, the government also ran extrajudicial black sites to isolate and torture Japanese Americans who resisted their detention in the larger concentration camps. At the time, even the staff running them described these places as "an un-American institution, [that] corresponds to and is premised on Gestapo methods." These sites provided the precedent for GITMO, that the government purports to exist in a law-free zone, but advocates who have been litigating about Gitmo and torture would argue that it is, in fact, within the jurisdiction of U.S. courts and international law. The expansion of detention at GITMO establishes an emerging partnership between ICE and the Department of Defense, two agencies with countless documented harms and rights violations. GITMO itself has a history of crimes against humanity, with no oversight or outside accountability. This is a recipe for an impending human tragedy on a monumental scale. Both agencies have routinely perpetrated physical, sexual, and medical abuses and torture upon those in their custody, including children.

CBS Austin [2/19/2025 4:44 PM, Kristine Frazao, 581K] reports since returning to the White House, President Donald Trump has been focused on two sets of numbers when it comes to immigration policy in this country: the number of migrants showing up at the southern border and the number of those arrested inside the United States. In an interview with White House Border Czar Tom Homan Wednesday, he was asked if he was satisfied with the numbers. Homan said he’s directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement to focus on the "worst first" but many of those arrested do not have criminal convictions, including recent examples of migrants showing up for court appointments, in states like Tennessee, Florida, and New York, and being detained by ICE agents.

Newsweek [2/19/2025 3:32 PM, Dan Gooding and Billal Rahman, 56005K] reports that the White House is facing backlash after sharing a video on social media captioned as an ASMR clip, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents chaining undocumented migrants before a deportation flight. The clip, shared Tuesday, prompted a mixed response from social media users, lawmakers and those advocating for immigration reform, with many saying that while they supported efforts to remove illegal immigrants, the issue was not a joke and immigrants should not be dehumanized. "Putting people in chains and making memes out of this cruel treatment is particularly inhumane and imposes additional psychological trauma," Amy Fischer, director of the Refugee and Migrant Rights Program at Amnesty International USA, told Newsweek. Newsweek contacted the White House and ICE for comment via email Wednesday morning. The video opened with ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) agents standing on the airport tarmac while others retrieve chains and handcuffs from a plastic crate, slowly placing them on the ground with the clear sound of metal hitting asphalt. Footage, edited for the White House post, showed several undocumented immigrants being chained together and handcuffed before boarding a plane. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Telemundo52 [2/19/2025 11:19 PM, Raymond Mesa, 124K] reports forty-one percent of people recently detained in February by immigration are people who do not have a criminal record. While President Donald Trump indicated that ICE detainers and deportations would be primarily of people with criminal records, the numbers show something very different. According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) figures obtained by NBC News, detainers of undocumented people at the beginning of February were 39,238 and by the middle of the month totaled 41,169. The president had indicated that the detentions would focus on criminals, but according to figures in the last weeks of February, of the 4,422 new ICE detainees, approximately 41% or 1,800 of them were not guilty of a crime. "I really don’t think it’s fair, I know there are people without papers who are bad people, but the thing is, President Trump is taking down people who are innocent," said San Fernando resident Ernesto Calderon. So-called border czar Tom Homan said earlier that agents were looking for criminals, but if there were other undocumented people present they would also be detained, and that’s apparently what is happening. "Although they said they were looking for people who were criminals, the reality is that they are going to try to grab people who are easier to detain, so we are talking about people who already have deportation orders that can be used against them," said Gustavo Mora, an immigration attorney. "It makes me very sad for families, for friends, for acquaintances and even for those I don’t know, because they came here looking for something better," Los Angeles resident Eddy Gomez. And that’s why for those who are questioned or detained by agents and have no criminal record, the recommendation is the one we’ve heard many times. "If they want to talk to an immigration attorney, that they don’t want a voluntary departure or deportation," Mora said. According to ICE, only 13% of those detained so far are in expedited or fast-track deportation proceedings, and will leave the country without having a court proceeding. The remaining 87% will have a legal process that could take months or possibly years. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Yahoo! News [2/19/2025 11:08 AM, Emma McCorkindale, 57114K] reports that the Massachusetts State Police, the FBI and Homeland Security partnered for a joint operation and arrested 22 Trinitarios gang members. The charges are for the gang’s alleged involvement in multiple murders, shootings, violent assaults and narcotics trafficking. The Department of Justice states a multijurisdictional investigation resulted in charges, including the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), against 22 Trinitarios gang leaders, members, associates in connection with six murders and 11 attempted murders. Yahoo! News [2/19/2025 12:12 PM, Maria Papadopoulos, 57114K] reports that two people, who were juveniles at the time of the alleged criminal offenses, have been charged by the Essex County District Attorney’s Office with murder. "For all well over a decade, Trinitarios gang members have engaged in brazen acts of murder, assault, and narcotics distribution, instilling fear in the communities across this Commonwealth, particularly in Lynn and in Lawrence," Foley said. "Today’s law enforcement operation has struck a significant blow against the Trinitarios in Massachusetts, virtually dismantling an organization responsible for years of bloodshed, drug trafficking, and lawlessness," Foley said. "This enforcement action ends the Trinitarios reign of terror in Massachusetts," Foley said. Michael Krol, Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in New England, said that Wednesday’s announcement comes with a stern warning for violent criminals in the Bay State. "Today the message should be loud and clear: transnational criminal organizations and their associates who commit violent acts and who peddle in poison in our communities will never have refuge in the United States," Krol told reporters.

Reuters [2/19/2025 5:17 AM, Staff, 48128K] reports that a video showing a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) van burning in Philadelphia has been described online without evidence as the result of arson by “left-wing” actors or “Democrats,” however a Philadelphia Fire Department spokesperson said the fire was the result of an accident and no foul play was suspected. One of the social media posts sharing the 30-second clip states: “Democrats have been calling for violence against ICE and so today they got what they’ve been begging for. A minivan being used for deportation efforts by ICE has been SET ON FIRE in Philadelphia. This is literal terrorısm. And Democrats are inciting this.” Other posts sharing the same clip, which shows smoke billowing from a burning vehicle, blamed the fire on “left-wing extremists.” But Rachel Cunningham, communications director at the Philadelphia Fire Department, said in an email, “Upon speaking with the driver of the vehicle, the Fire Marshal determined that this fire was accidental. Thankfully, no one was injured, and our Fire Marshal found no indication of foul play or suspicious circumstances.” Cunningham said the blaze was reported on February 18 morning near the Delaware River in South Philadelphia, and the burning vehicle belonged to ICE. An ICE spokesperson ruled out foul play in an emailed statement, adding that the van, which belonged to ICE, caught fire due to mechanical issues.

Telemundo Amarillo [2/19/2025 7:49 AM, Staff, 1K] reports Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents arrested an alleged member of the Tren de Aragua (TdA) criminal gang in Georgia. The FBI published on Tuesday on the social network X several photographs of the operation in which the alleged gang member was captured. In the release, the federal agency said it continues to "provide support" to Immigration officials. "The joint effort shows our commitment to arresting dangerous criminals as part of our mission to keep Georgia safe," it added. The authorities did not disclose the identity of the detainee or when the operation took place. The arrests of undocumented immigrants with criminal records are part of an offensive launched nationwide by the Donald Trump administration against illegal migration.

CBS 7 [2/19/2025 8:27 AM, Aspen Andrews and Amanda Alvarado, 11K] reports that two men were arrested after attempting to use a cannon to sneak meth and tobacco into a federal prison. According to authorities, 18-year-old Jose Francisco Herrera Munoz and 19-year-old Angel Gonzales Gutierrez are facing charges of attempting to introduce contraband into a penal institution and attempting to distribute methamphetamine. The Grant Parish Sheriff’s Office said an investigation led deputies to learn the suspects planned to use a cannon to launch $112,000 worth of tobacco and $89,500 worth of meth into a federal prison. Deputies said the cannon, which could shoot items 350 feet into the air, would launch the items over the federal prison’s security fence and onto prison grounds. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also assisted in the investigation and detained Munoz who was reportedly in the U.S. illegally. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Univision [2/20/2025 12:15 AM, Staff, 7281K] reports a man accused by ICE of entering the United States without documents on at least three occasions was arrested and deported. The man was identified as William Alexander Diaz Reyes, who ICE claims was wanted in El Salvador for being a member of the Calle 18 gang, under the charge of aggravated terrorist organizations. The 32-year-old man was deported on February 14, and agents took him on a flight from Louisiana to El Salvador, where he was handed over to Salvadoran authorities, the statement said. ICE notes that William Alexander Diaz Reyes has entered the U.S. three times without documents. The first two times were in May and June 2021, but he was removed under Title 42, a measure that allowed removals on the grounds of Covid-19. It is unknown where and when he re-entered after these dates, but ICE detained him again in April 2024. In September 2024, an immigration judge ordered him deported, the authorities’ statement said. This January 2025, the Board of Immigration Appeals ruled that he should be deported. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Reuters [2/19/2025 1:32 PM, Alexander Cornwell, 48128K] reports that a Jewish American organization, long supported by the U.S. government to assist those escaping conflict and oppressive regimes, is set to scale back significantly its operations after U.S. President Donald Trump’s order to stop refugee admissions and almost all development assistance spending. HIAS President Mark Hetfield described the aftermath of Trump’s orders, part of a broader "America First" realignment of the government, as "complete chaos," saying that there had been limited engagement by U.S. officials. "We’re asking a lot of questions, not getting any real information back," Hetfield said in an interview in Jerusalem, during a visit with other Jewish American organizations. Trump’s January 20 executive orders paused nearly all foreign aid spending for 90 days, hitting humanitarian groups hard, and indefinitely suspended the intake of refugees. Many faith-based groups like HIAS have for decades relied on U.S. funding to provide lifesaving assistance. HIAS, established in 1903 as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, says it helps some 1.4 million refugees and displaced people annually, including providing meals, mental health services and legal protection. The U.S.-based group assists people around the world and helps resettle several thousand refugees each year, mostly to the United States. "Everything’s been shut down that’s U.S. government-funded, which is the majority of what we do," Hetfield said.

NBC News [2/19/2025 7:06 PM, Dan De Luce, Jennifer Jett and Tavleen Tarrant, 50804K] reports the Trump administration has told the office overseeing the resettlement of Afghans to the United States to draw up plans to shut down by April. The move could strand more than 250,000 Afghans and their families who face persecution from the Taliban for their ties to America, according to a refugee advocate and two sources with knowledge of the matter. "This is a national disgrace, a betrayal of our Afghan allies, of the veterans who fought for them and of America’s word," Shawn Van Diver, president of #AfghanEvac, a coalition of U.S. veterans and advocacy groups, told NBC News. No final decision has been made about the future of the Enduring Welcome program managed by the State Department’s Office of the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts, known as CARE. But office staff members were instructed to prepare plans to wind down operations by the end of March, Van Diver and the two sources said. Created after the chaotic withdrawal of U.S.-led forces from Afghanistan in 2021, CARE oversees efforts across U.S. government agencies to evacuate at-risk Afghans, process them in third countries and resettle them in the United States under a program called "Enduring Welcome.” It also works to address the challenges women and girls face under the Taliban, who have rolled back their rights and protections. Among the over 250,000 Afghans who could be stranded if the office is closed are 128,000 people in Afghanistan who worked for the United States and have applied for special immigrant visas along with their families, as well as several thousand Afghans who were fully vetted and are waiting in Albania, Qatar and other countries to travel to the United States, according to U.S.-based refugee advocates working with the Afghans. The discussions around closing the State Department CARE office are separate from the freeze on refugee resettlement and foreign aid that President Donald Trump ordered on his first day back in office.

The Texas Tribune [2/19/2025 4:15 PM, Lomi Kriel, 1609K] reports they escaped Afghanistan in 2021 when the Taliban seized control of the country. One brother is now an elite U.S. Army paratrooper at Fort Liberty in North Carolina. The other serves in the Army Reserve in Houston. Their eldest sister and her husband, however, were stranded in Afghanistan, forced into hiding as they waited for the U.S. government to green-light their refugee applications. Finally, after three years, they received those approvals in December and, according to the family, were slated to reunite with their brothers this month. But weeks before the couple was due to arrive, President Donald Trump issued an executive order indefinitely suspending the admission of refugees. The order was the first in a series of sweeping actions that blocked the arrival of more than 10,000 refugees who already had flights booked for the U.S. and that froze funding for national and international resettlement organizations. A top former government official who worked on refugee issues told ProPublica and The Texas Tribune that another 100,000 refugees who had already been vetted by the Department of Homeland Security have also been blocked from entering the country. Taken together, Trump’s actions are effectively dismantling the U.S. refugee system and eroding the country’s historic commitment to legal immigration, according to refugee resettlement and U.S. military experts, who say the most egregious examples include denying entrance to thousands of Afghans who worked with the U.S. military and their relatives. Yahoo! News [2/19/2025 12:00 PM, Riley Ceder, 57114K] reports Mojo is from Afghanistan and began working as an interpreter for the U.S. military in 2019 before eventually immigrating to the U.S. and joining the Army. The rest of his family — his mother, father, younger sister and two brothers, both of whom helped the U.S. military during the war in Afghanistan, Mojo said — had already safely moved to the United States. Mojo’s sister was supposed to be the last one to make the pilgrimage, and she and her husband had completed the extensive security vetting and medical screening necessary to evacuate Afghanistan and enter the United States. On Jan. 20, 2025, those plans collapsed with the stroke of a pen. Within 90 days, per the order, the secretary of Homeland Security will submit a report on whether the program should resume. After that, a new report will be submitted every 90 days thereafter, until Trump deems the program fit to begin again.

New York Times [2/19/2025 2:41 PM, Apoorva Mandavilli and Emily Anthes, 161405K] reports at the nation’s borders, federal workers keep the country safe in many ways: Some investigate sick passengers. Some examine animals for dangerous pathogens. And some inspect plants for infestations that could spread in this country. Late last week, the Trump administration dispatched hundreds of those federal employees with the same message that colleagues at other agencies received: Their services were no longer needed. The absence of these federal officers at the borders leaves Americans vulnerable to pathogens carried by plants, animals and people, experts warned. The firings come even as the Trump administration is said to be readying plans to turn back migrants on the grounds that they might bring diseases like tuberculosis and measles into the country. “Screening for communicable diseases at ports of entry is an important role of public health in order to prevent communicable diseases from entering our country,” said Dr. Carlos del Rio, an infectious disease physician at Emory University. “Not having public health employees to do this job is concerning and makes us less safe,” he added. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that every day, nearly 30,000 planes travel in and out of the country. In 2019, more than 400 million travelers arrived via more than 300 ports of entry. About half of those people crossed the border between the United States and Mexico. Border posts are manned by workers from multiple agencies. Employees from the C.D.C.’s Division of Global Migration Health screen people, animals and animal products for diseases, respond to reports of ill travelers and distribute medications as needed. The Trump administration last week dismissed an unknown number of people from the C.D.C.’s 20 port health stations, leaving some entirely unattended, according to three officials with knowledge of the situation. Calls to the port station in San Juan, P.R., on Wednesday, for example, were rerouted to the station in Miami, where a C.D.C. employee who declined to be identified said that no one would be at the San Juan post “for a very long time.”

Yahoo! News [2/19/2025 7:56 PM, Allen Cone, 57114K] reports U.S. Customs and Border Protection made major confiscations of narcotics and cocaine in vehicles at the border with Mexico last week, including $1 million worth of in cocaine each in California and Texas. The three seizures in California included 1,500 pounds of narcotics and cocaine. In Texas, two seizures in one day totaled 75 pounds of cocaine worth $1,009,600. CBP officers inspected vehicles coming from Mexico in the two incidents on Saturday at the Hidalgo/Pharr/Anzalduas Port of Entry in Texas and three within a week at the Tecate Port of Entry in California,. Inspections included utilizing non-intrusive inspection equipment and screening by a canine team. The narcotics and vehicles were seized. Thirty-seven packages tested positive for methamphetamine weighing 697 pounds and 28 packages tested positive for cocaine weighing a total of 73 pounds in California. Homeland Security Investigations arrested the drivers and began criminal investigations.’. Packages weighed in at 437 pounds and tested positive for methamphetamine in a tractor-trailer at the U.S.-Mexican border. "All CBP components are vital assets to our counternarcotics operations and provide proficient layers of enforcement," Rosa E. Hernandez, port director of the Otay Mesa and Tecate Ports of Entry, said in a news release. "Our staff is dedicated to the mission and will continue to protect our communities and stop the growth of transnational criminal organizations by applying officer’s skills and tools in our layered enforcement approach.” The first incident occurred on Feb. 11 at the Tecate Port of Entry when CBP officers encountered a 72-year-old male driving a red SUV. Packages containing 46 pounds of cocaine were seized by CBP officers at Anzalduas International Bridge in Texas. Photo courtesy U.S. Customs and Border Protection. CBP officers extracted 100 packages concealed within the vehicle’s doors, fenders and spare tire. The contents of the packages were tested and identified as methamphetamine that weighed 302 pounds. The second incident was Feb. 13, at the Tecate Cargo Facility when CBP officers encountered a 30-year-old man driving a black tractor-trailer seeking entry into the United States from Mexico. A total of 770 pounds of narcotics were extracted. Thirty-seven packages weighing 697 pounds tested positive for methamphetamine weighing 697 pounds and 28 packages weighing 73 pounds tested positive for cocaine.

FOX News [2/19/2025 10:01 PM, Andrea Margolis, 57114K] reports the Pentagon announced coordinated patrols with the Mexican military on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border on Wednesday, as the Trump administration continues to implement a robust border security policy. The announcement, which was published by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) on Wednesday, noted that U.S. Northern Command General Gregory M. Guillot and Mexican General Ricardo Trevilla Trejo recently met "to discuss cooperation on security along the Mexico and U.S. border.” "The engagement resulted in the formulation and signing of a Joint Statement of Understanding regarding cooperative activities along the border," the statement continued. "General Trevilla and General Guillot agreed to conduct coordinated patrols on their respective side of the border, increase information sharing, and establish methods for immediate communications," the Pentagon added. The DoD also noted that the deal "emphasizes that each country will respect the sovereignty of the other.” "Both leaders expect their agreement will serve to enable further conversations and coordination in greater detail at varied levels to ensure the mutual security of the border," the statement concluded. The agreement comes roughly one month after President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20 and began an overhaul of the U.S.’s border security policies, drastically decreasing the number of apprehensions at the border. A senior official told Fox News Digital that the average number of gotaways at the southern border plummeted to just 132 per day in February, down 93% from the highest numbers when former President Joe Biden was in office. Increased law enforcement at the border has also invited unwanted interactions with Mexican cartel members. This month, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) helicopter was targeted by a laser from the Mexican side of the border. In January, suspected cartel members fired at Border Patrol agents near the border, just days after Trump took office.

Washington Examiner [2/19/2025 12:50 PM, Mike Brest, 2365K] reports that the Department of Defense expects more troops to head to the southern border to assist the Department of Homeland Security as early signs show a significant reduction in arrests since the Trump administration came into power. There are roughly 5,000 U.S. troops at the southern border operating under the United States Northern Command in support of the Department of Homeland Security. That total is "expected to rise," a USNORTHCOM spokesperson told the Washington Examiner. From President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 21 through the rest of the month, "the number of U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions along the southwest border dropped 85% from the same period in 2024," U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a press release this week. In total, federal Border Patrol agents stationed at the southern border intercepted 29,116 migrants trying to cross last month, down from more than 47,000 in December 2024 and upwards of 124,000 in January 2024. The last time CBP arrested fewer migrants trying to illegally enter the United States in a month was in May 2020.

Washington Examiner [2/19/2025 6:00 AM, Anna Giaritelli, 2365K] reports Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) has partnered with Sens. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and John Cornyn (R-TX) to reintroduce legislation that would require U.S. Customs and Border Protection to temporarily hire and train image technicians for the sole purpose of conducting and reviewing the images of vehicles scanned at land, air, and sea ports of entry. "Adding more personnel at ports of entry will immediately provide our country with another layer of security to prevent traffickers from smuggling weapons or drugs across the border," Lankford said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. "Border law enforcement has repeatedly asked for more support to analyze cargo images in real time, so this bill also gives them tools they need to catch criminals and secure our border.” At present, CBP officers are responsible for deciding if a vehicle is suspicious and ought to be sent for review and pushed through large, nonintrusive X-ray and Gamma-ray systems. Those officers also look over the X-ray images to determine if anything on board looks suspicious and if it is, the contents will be offloaded for inspection. As of now, CBP scans roughly 20% of the 7.6 million commercial trucks and rail containers and fewer than 5% of the 80 million passenger vehicles, former acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller told NBC News last year. CBP was not able to provide an updated figure. The lack of scanning is of particular concern given that 90% of fentanyl seized at the nation’s borders in 2023 occurred at points of entry, according to CBP data. The remaining 10% of fentanyl seized was intercepted between ports of entry. The agency is optimistic that it will reach a 40% scan rate of passenger cars and 70% of trucks by late 2025, which may stand a greater chance if Lankford’s bill passes. Lankford’s bill, the Border Enforcement, Security, and Trade Facilitation Act of 2025, would commence a five-year pilot program that sets up five command centers nationwide where specialized government employees would remotely review the contents of what is being scanned at ports of entry across the country in real time. Lankford previously introduced the bill in 2023 and it made it through the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee before the legislative session closed out. Now, with slight tweaks to the bill and broad support for keeping fentanyl out of the country, his office views this as the right time to strike again. The BEST Act dictates that two types of image technicians be hired. They may be existing CBP employees, but the position itself would not be a law enforcement role and could not go to a government contractor.

CBS Austin [2/19/2025 3:30 PM, Austin Denean, 581K] reports border crossings continued to plummet during the opening weeks of the second Trump administration in a trend that started after former President Joe Biden signed a restrictive executive order limiting asylum claims and an acceleration in enforcement actions once President Donald Trump got back into the White House. Arrests for illegal crossings fell sharply in January compared to December with 21,593 arrests, a 39% decline from Biden’s last full month in office. It was the lowest number of arrests since May 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic shut down the world. Encounters also steeply declined last month with 61,4465 from more than 96,000 in December along the southwestern border, the busiest section for crossings, according to data released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection on Tuesday.

FOX News [2/19/2025 9:18 AM, Peter Pinedo, 49889K] reports that less than a month into the new Trump administration, a migrant shelter along the pathway to the U.S. in Northern Mexico is reporting that the flow of immigrants has "enormously decreased." Commenting on the development, White House deputy press secretary Kush Desai told Fox News Digital that Trump’s immigration policies are working and "put Americans first." The Mexican news outlet Milenio reported on Wednesday that the migratory flow running through the Mexican city of Torreón has "decreased enormously." Since returning to the Oval Office, President Donald Trump has made good on his campaign promise to crack down on illegal immigration and prioritize border security. Among his many actions, he ordered the resumption of border wall construction, deployed active-duty U.S. service members to the border, significantly increased enforcement and removal operations by Immigration and Customs and Enforcement (ICE) and moved to designate several migrant gangs as foreign terrorist organizations. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) apprehended just 29,116 illegal immigrants along the southern border during the month of January, down from 47,000 in December and hitting a low mark not seen since May 2020, when 32,349 arrests were made at ports of entry, according to a White House press release. This week, Trump’s border czar Tom Homan touted the administration’s quick success in cracking down on illegal immigration, saying that, in the last 24 hours, Border Patrol agents had only encountered 229 aliens across the entire southwest border. This is down from the over 11,000 a day during the worst period under the Biden administration. "I started as a Border Patrol Agent in 1984 and I don’t remember the numbers ever being that low," Homan said on X. "President Trump promised a secure border and he is delivering."

AZCentral [2/19/2025 8:03 AM, Raphael Romero Ruiz, 6018K] reports U.S. Customs and Border Protection made 35% fewer apprehensions at the nation’s southern border last month compared to December 2024, according to new figures the agency released Tuesday. Across the Southwest, CBP reported 61,465 encounters with migrants, a significant drop since October. Roughly 8,000 happened in Arizona, with Border Patrol agents in the Tucson Sector reporting almost half of the activity. "The men and women of U.S. Customs and Border Protection are aggressively implementing the President’s Executive Orders to secure our borders. These actions have already resulted in dramatic improvements in border security," Pete Flores, CBP’s acting commissioner, said in a written statement. Last month, the Department of Homeland Security made a series of moves in response to executive orders issued by new President Donald Trump. On day one of his new administration, Trump declared a state of emergency at the southern border and authorized active-duty military and National Guard troops to support CBP’s law enforcement activities. About 5,000 active-duty soldiers have been deployed along the country’s border with Mexico, including members of the Army’s 10th Mountain Division, an infantry unit stationed in Fort Huachuca in southeastern Arizona. At a recent hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gen. Gregory Guillot, the head of U.S. Northern Command, which covers North America, told lawmakers he expected the number of active-duty troops to increase. The troops have helped reinforce the border wall system, adding temporary barriers and concertina wire in El Paso and San Diego. Border Patrol agents have installed concertina wire in both the Tucson and Yuma sectors near dense urban areas near the ports of entry. The White House in a written statement described the decline as the "Trump effect," noting that 29,116 migrants were apprehended along the border between ports of entry, "the lowest since May 2020.”

AZCentral [2/19/2025 8:03 AM, Raphael Romero Ruiz, 6018K] reports the U.S. Border Patrol is reinforcing sections of the border wall with concertina wire in urban areas near ports of entry in Nogales and San Luis. Security along the U.S.-Mexico border has tightened since President Donald Trump took office in January, including the deployment of active-duty military personnel to strengthen the border across the Southwest, even as migrant encounters between ports of entry continue to decline. Last month, Border Patrol agents in Arizona reported 5,620 encounters with people crossing between ports of entry: 10 times fewer than the same month a year earlier, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Still, federal immigration enforcement officials have been busy putting up additional miles of concertina wire, a type of barbed wire meant to be a "deterrence" to illicit drugs and individuals crossing the border illegally, according to Justin De La Torre, the chief patrol agent of the Border Patrol’s Yuma Sector. "The way we prevent that from happening in the first place is to ensure that there’s a very high likelihood that people who try to do that are not successful," De La Torre said. An additional 14 miles of concertina wire have been installed on top of both primary and secondary fencing along the Arizona-Mexico border. Last week, agents of the Nogales Border Patrol station put up 11 miles of barbed wire both east and west of the port of entry. Strands of the wire dressed the tops of the 18-foot, bollard-style fencing around Arizona’s largest port of entry. The remaining three miles of concertina wire went up along a stretch of the border wall extending east from the San Luis port of entry. Agents have focused on sections of the fence in proximity to dense urban areas, such as a truck depot a few hundred feet from the border wall in Nogales. "We have seconds to minutes to make that apprehension as soon as they come across," Jose Luis Maheda, the patrol agent in charge at the Nogales station, said. "If we don’t make that apprehension in this area here, they go into the semi-trucks, go into a waiting car, and off they go into traffic.” The agents’ aim is to discourage people looking to cross the border illegally from doing so in areas where apprehensions are less likely. The Border Patrol routinely drives through that area just west of the commercial truck port at the Mariposa Port of Entry and is aided by active-duty military personnel serving as additional sets of eyes.

FOX News [2/19/2025 8:00 AM, Cameron Arcand, 49889K] reports an Arizona state bill would allow local and state authorities to shoot down drones used by drug cartels. House Bill 2733, sponsored by Republican state Rep. David Marshall, would provide qualified immunity to authorities for injuries that may be caused by taking out an "unmanned" drone within 30 miles of the southern border. Cartels regularly use drones as a tool to monitor law enforcement activity around the border in hopes of evading them in their own smuggling operations, even using the technology to send their drugs into the country. Although the situation at the border is calming down, there are still plenty of issues to tackle when it comes to crime, according to one sheriff. "As the border gets more secure under President Trump’s new administration, we didn’t think for a second that drug cartels were just gonna go away," Yavapai County Sheriff David Rhodes, who is the president of the Arizona Sheriffs’ Association, told Fox News Digital in an interview. "They’re getting more creative now – drone technology for smuggling drones over the border and dropping them, you know, external loads out in the desert to be picked up. They’ve been doing that for a while, but it’s increasing in frequency. And so local law enforcement can literally see these things fly through the air, but you don’t know where they’re going," he continued. The use of small aircraft is becoming a key concern for not only local and state authorities, but also federal border agents, as an expert recently told Fox News Digital that the cartels are trying to find ways to keep the cash flowing in despite the recent border crackdown.

Telemundo [2/19/2025 10:14 PM, Lizzet Lopez, 34K] reports according to Governor Gavin Newsom’s office, this 2025 has an improved approach to combating the scourge of illegal fentanyl trafficking. The state has now managed to seize nearly 22,000 pounds and more than 37 million pills containing fentanyl, worth almost $300 million. "I am proud of the work we are doing across the state to educate Californians about the dangers of fentanyl, eliminate this addictive drug from our streets and provide treatment - like naloxone - to save lives," Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. I welcome the fact that the governor of the most powerful state in the United States, has a policy on this, I would like the four governors of the border states of the United States to have a similar policy, I do not feel it a repressive policy, if there is to say his part of fighting trafficking, but clearly there is a health policy, said Rafael Fernández de Castro, director of the Center for Mexico-US Studies at the University of California in San Diego. State authorities say members of the California National Guard working group have deployed strategically across the state, including at ports of entry, to combat transnational criminal organizations and illegal narcotics trafficking. It is a very important issue in the Mexico-U.S. relationship because, just as Mexico loses about 30,000 people for intentional homicides every year, in the United States they are being lost like 100,000 people, he said.

Newsweek [2/19/2025 12:43 PM, Theo Burman, 56005K] reports that the Real ID Act is set to take effect on May 7, marking a major change for domestic air travelers across the United States. Travelers without a Real ID-compliant driver’s license will need to present another TSA-approved form of identification, such as a passport, military ID or DHS-trusted traveler card, to board a domestic flight. Additionally, Real ID will be required for entry into federal buildings and some military bases. Under the new regulations, standard driver’s licenses will no longer be sufficient for boarding domestic flights or accessing federal facilities. Instead, travelers aged 18 and older will need a Real ID-compliant license or another form of federally approved identification, such as a passport. The Real ID Act, which was passed by Congress in 2005, aims to enhance security measures by establishing a standardized form of identification across all 50 states. The law was initially set to take effect in 2007 but faced multiple delays. The Department of Homeland Security said that May 2025 will be the firm enforcement date, though a proposal to extend the deadline to 2027 is under discussion. The Department of Homeland Security, in a statement on its website: "Beginning May 7, 2025, every state and territory resident will need to present a REAL ID compliant license/ID, or another acceptable form of identification, for accessing federal facilities, entering nuclear power plants, and boarding commercial aircraft.

Los Angeles Times [2/19/2025 5:41 PM, Jasmine Mendez] reports a 25-year-old Australian woman is facing multiple felony charges after authorities say she tried to fly back home with 44 pounds of methamphetamine she was paid to carry from an acquaintance in Los Angeles. Last week, Yasmin Vantongeren was arrested at San Francisco International Airport on suspicion of possessing meth with the intent to sell, according to court documents. Vantongeren was allegedly promised up to $10,000 for completing the delivery — which included 20 sealed bags of meth and 40 vacuum-sealed packing bags, SF Gate reported. Her bags were searched at SFO at random by Transportation Security Administration agents as Vantongeren attempted to board a flight. Vantongeren pleaded not guilty last week and is tentatively due back in court next week for a preliminary hearing. She faces several years in prison if convicted on all charges.

Bloomberg [2/19/2025 2:13 PM, Ari Natter, 21617K] reports that the jobs of Federal Emergency Management Agency employees tied to climate change and related hazards are next on the chopping block after hundreds of probationary workers were fired earlier this week, according to people familiar with the matter and an internal FEMA email seen by Bloomberg News. Managers at the disaster relief agency have been directed to compile lists of workers substantially tied to the programs. Also targeted are people linked to diversity, equity and inclusion programs, among others not in line with President Donald Trump’s policy objectives, according to the people, who weren’t authorized to discuss the matter because the discussions are not public. “We’re being asked to come up with employee reductions far beyond the probationary list,” said the email, adding employees would be divided into groups of “significant involvement” and “insignificant involvement” in climate and equity programs. “I understand this will impact the majority of our staff.”

FEMA’s key purpose is to respond to major disasters and help states recover. Trump has questioned the agency’s role and performance, suggesting much of its work be done by states instead. The agency currently is responding to nearly 100 major events, including the recent historic wildfires in Los Angeles and last year’s hurricanes Helene and Milton that devastated Florida’s west coast. The potential terminations, following those of workers on probationary status who typically have been on the job for less than a year, are part of a directive from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to cull the federal workforce. Some employees were notified of their terminations Tuesday, according to the people.

Politico [2/19/2025 7:07 PM, Thomas Frank] reports the Trump administration is laying the groundwork to fire Federal Emergency Management Agency staff who have worked on addressing climate change or promoting equity and diversity, according to interviews and emails obtained by POLITICO’s E&E News — on top of the hundreds of probationary employees it removed during Presidents Day weekend. The already-strapped disaster agency is being directed to "come up with employee reductions far beyond the probationary list," a top FEMA official wrote in an internal email sent recently to senior agency staff. "Direction is to make a list of anyone who worked on or works on climate, environmental justice, equity, DEIA," the email reads, referring to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. The email obtained by E&E News was cropped to not include the name of the sender. Another internal email, sent on Wednesday, told rank-and-file employees to "scrub" terms from agency records that Trump highlighted in his executive orders on climate change and diversity. Any document with taboo phrases will be put into an archive folder that will be deleted in three years. Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, said in a statement that "FEMA was actually short-staffed before Elon and his minions went to FEMA headquarters, and now the agency will be further hampered.” FEMA confirmed to E&E News that it had fired more than 200 employees and that other agencies in the Department of Homeland Security had fired another 200. "Under President Trump’s leadership, we are making sweeping cuts and reform across the federal government to eliminate egregious waste and incompetence that has been happening for decades at the expense of the American taxpayer," a DHS spokesperson said in a statement. They said the firings will cut roughly $50 million in personnel costs. The department said it fired "non-mission critical personnel in probationary status" and is "actively identifying other wasteful positions and offices that do not fulfill DHS’ mission.”

NPR [2/19/2025 5:01 PM, April Ehrlich, 35747K] Audio: HERE reports firings at the U.S. Forest Service will interrupt land management work that will leave the U.S. more exposed to damaging wildfires, among other impacts, according to employees at the agency.

FOX 56 [2/19/2025 3:27 PM, Corey Elam] reports less than three years after providing eight tons of urgently needed medications and supplies when floods ravaged eastern Kentucky, rapid response team members from Americares were dispatched by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help Kentuckians after flooding, followed by arctic cold. In a press conference on Wednesday, Gov. Beshear said the death toll from flooding over the weekend and severe winter weather Tuesday night into Wednesday remains at 14 people. On Sunday, President Trump approved Gov. Beshear’s disaster declaration for Kentucky. On Tuesday, Beshear announced that he had sent a request for individual assistance, which would provide additional funding and support long-term recovery from the weekend’s flooding.

Washington Post [2/19/2025 7:09 AM, Ben Noll, 40736K] reports the last in a long train of storms will bring snow and ice to the Mid-Atlantic and Carolinas on Wednesday. While Washington will be near the northern edge of the storm starting late in the morning — with a dusting to a half-inch of snow possible in the District and areas to the south by the evening — impacts will be moderate to major farther south. Interstate 95 in Virginia and North Carolina is set to be covered with snow and/or ice later Wednesday. The wintry weather is moving eastward from the Plains and Midwest, where 8.8 inches of snow fell in Great Bend, Kansas; 11 inches in Oates, Missouri; and 7.5 inches in Grandview, Arkansas. Thundersnow was observed near Memphis on Tuesday night. But the storm will intensify as it reaches the Eastern Seaboard. Freezing rain and sleet will affect eastern North Carolina and northern South Carolina, turning roads and sidewalks slick like skating rinks. A narrow swath of heavy snow is expected from northeastern North Carolina into southeastern Virginia and Maryland through Wednesday night. In Norfolk, it could be the biggest single-day snowfall in 15 years — since Dec. 26, 2010, when 13.6 inches fell. From there, the storm will push offshore on Thursday while grazing Cape Cod and Nantucket, Massachusetts, with light snow. The worst of Wednesday’s weather will be found from central Virginia and southern Maryland through North Carolina, where snow, sleet and freezing rain will fall.

Washington Post [2/19/2025 6:00 AM, Brady Dennis, 40736K] reports that, at one 20-acre plot off Fruitland Road, which had just become accessible four months after the storm, she found her 42-year-old husband, Adam, rumbling through the field on a bulldozer, beginning to clear fallen trees, boulders, chunks of concrete and other debris. A gully had to be filled and soil leveled and tested. So much work remained, with the spring planting season fast approaching. "We are running out of time," said Linda, 40. She estimated their farm already had sustained losses of as much as $1 million from the storm. Like farmers across this region, the couple was wrestling with how much to spend — how much they even could spend — to begin again. And also, dealing with the scars from Helene that aren’t so visible. "It’s easy to see the physical side of it; but it really shakes you," she said. "It shook the whole community.” Helene doled out all manner of suffering across hard-hit areas of western North Carolina. People lost their homes and possessions, and in many cases their lives. Restaurants, hotels and other tourism-dependent businesses face ongoing struggles. But one of the aftershocks only now coming into clearer focus is Helene’s profound impact on farms and farmers across the region — and the uncertainty that pervades all that lies ahead. In a December assessment of Helene’s economic toll, North Carolina’s budget office estimated that the storm had a $4.9 billion impact on agriculture. Western North Carolina is home to thousands of farms, growing everything from the Fraser firs that supply many of the nation’s Christmas trees, to the fruits and vegetables that fuel Asheville’s once-thriving restaurant scene, to apple orchards that ship their goods around the country. Vegetable and nursery farms, many of which are in low-lying areas along rivers, were ravaged by floodwaters that stripped away topsoil down to bedrock, deposited silt and debris, and obliterated crops. The storm ruined fields of hay essential to feeding livestock, leveled valuable swaths of timber, wrecked barns, and swallowed tractors and other equipment. It knocked out refrigeration for meat and dairy products, and brought the bustling agritourism industry to a halt during its busiest season. Henderson County, where the Pryors live, suffered an estimated $150 million hit — including as many as 100,000 destroyed apple trees and 500,000 nursery plants — the largest single loss in its history.

Yahoo! News [2/19/2025 5:09 AM, Will Hofmann, 57114K] reports only 513 households remain in the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Transitional Sheltering Assistance program, meaning that almost 250 have left hotels paid for by the agency since early February, according to data presented to the Buncombe County Commissioners Feb. 18. Over 5,000 households have left the program since early January. Around 5,700 were housed in hotels paid for by FEMA at the beginning of the year and the rapid dispersal of those in the program has led to confusion, frustration and the agency frequently backtracking on previously reported policies regarding TSA. On Feb. 12, FEMA had to amend check out times for residents after a "system error" moved check out dates from March 7 to Feb. 20, leaving some residents with little time to find housing, the Citizen Times reported. The program will continue until May 26. Bags from those who are transitioning out of the Transitional Sheltering Assistance program were scattered across the front walls of the Rodeway Inn off of Wedgefield Drive in Asheville on Jan. 16, 2025. In Buncombe County, 403 households are in the TSA program, around 80% of the remaining households, according to data provided to Buncombe County by FEMA. Outside of the county, 110 households remain in the program. As the TSA program has wound down, rental assistance through FEMA has increased. Those receiving rental assistance from the agency increased from 263 households on Jan. 1 to 994 on Feb. 18. "What we are seeing over time is those moves from the more temporary response — emergency shelter, TSA — into a rental assistance or direct housing provision," Buncombe County Community Development Division Manager Matthew Cable said. Cable had also alluded to the hiccup in FEMA’s TSA program, stating that there had been "some issues within the TSA notification system" that make it difficult to know how many households will leave in March. He said that the "the bulk" of households in the TSA program are expected to leave on March 7. The county’s community navigators have served 3,671 households, including 2,440 interactions with households in the TSA program, Buncombe County Health and Human Services Director David Sweat said. Navigators have visited 23 hotels.

Yahoo! News [2/19/2025 5:09 AM, Jacob Biba, 57114K] reports that, more than 11,000 homes were damaged in Buncombe County when Tropical Storm Helene tore through the region Sept. 27, according to Federal Emergency Management Agency data provided to the county. The figures, which were presented to the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners during its Feb. 18 briefing, show that of the 11,065 units impacted by Helene, 353 were destroyed, 686 sustained major damage, and more than 10,000 require repairs to make them habitable again. Meanwhile, the county has received nearly 300 applications to FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program. The state-managed program provides financial assistance to property owners impacted by natural disasters. The view of Wanda Robison’s home in Swannanoa on Feb. 8, 2025 during a visit from U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. The home was heavily damaged by Tropical Storm Helene on Sept. 27, 2024. Grants can be used to raise homes by rebuilding foundations or placing structures on piers or columns so floodwaters flow beneath them, and for building reinforcement or retrofitting so the structure can withstand natural disasters. The program also provides funding for local governments to purchase impacted properties from owners, returning the land to open green space. When deadly floods hit Eastern Kentucky in July 2022, the state of Kentucky, in partnership with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, purchased hundreds of homes across five counties, according to the agency, which approved $84 million for the acquisitions. In North Carolina, the program is managed by the state’s emergency management agency. The state is expecting to receive nearly $1.5 billion in funding from FEMA for the program, the Citizen Times previously reported. So far, 202 acquisition applications have been received in Buncombe County, which includes properties in the city of Asheville, and the towns of Black Mountain, Weaverville and Woodfin, according to county data. More than 60 property owners have applied for grants to elevate their homes, while 30 have applied for funding for reconstruction and other projects like landslide mitigation. The program is voluntary, and property owners can apply and later withdraw applications.

Los Angeles Times [2/19/2025 6:00 AM, Tony Briscoe, 57114K] reports that, in the face of mounting backlash from wildfire survivors and California elected officials, federal disaster agencies are defending their decision to forgo soil testing after cleanup crews remove debris from properties that burned in the Los Angeles County fires. The Federal Emergency Management Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have said that federal cleanup workers will remove toxic wildfire ash and rubble, along with a 6-inch layer of topsoil from properties. But, this week, federal officials told The Times they won’t order soil testing to confirm that properties aren’t still contaminated after the removal. Follow-up soil testing — conducted after every major wildfire in California since 2007 — is intended to ensure that properties are remediated to state standards and don’t still contain dangerous levels of toxic substances. But now FEMA, the agency responsible for allocating funding and outlining cleanup procedures in the aftermath of wildfires, says that scraping 6 inches of topsoil from each property is sufficient to protect public health. Brandi Richard Thompson, a spokesperson for FEMA Region 9, which oversees disaster response in the southwestern U.S. and Pacific islands, said the agency’s cleanup strategy is “based on scientific best practices and FEMA’s longstanding policies.” She said any contamination deeper than 3 to 6 inches “is unlikely to be attributable to the fire itself and does not pose an immediate threat to public health and safety.” “While FEMA is committed to supporting communities in their recovery, decisions regarding additional soil testing and over-excavation are left to local and state authorities,” Richard Thompson said in a statement to The Times. “These measures are not required under existing public health or rebuilding regulations, and FEMA is unable to fund activities that are not directly linked to fire-related contamination. However, local governments are free to conduct additional testing if they wish to do so.”

FOX News [2/19/2025 9:03 PM, Louis Casiano, 49889K] reports a Coast Guard crew on Tuesday found 20 illegal migrants in the waters off the Southern California shores. The crew of the Cutter Haddock intercepted a 30-foot panga-style vessel 21 miles off Point Loma, the Coast Guard said. The boat was spotted by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations patrol aircraft and notified the Coast Guard. A small boat crew on the Haddock rushed to the boat and found the migrants. Video footage released by the Coast Guard shows the crew heading toward the boat under the cover of darkness. Aboard the boat were 17 men and three women, who claimed Mexican and Chinese nationalities. The migrants were handed off to the U.S. Border Patrol. As the southern land border remains secure following the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration, some migrants have sought to skirt authorities by entering the United States via the ocean via beaches along the California coast, some local officials have said. "In the last month or so, we’ve had a large increase in the number of pangas that have come up on our beach," San Clemente Mayor Steve Knoblock previously told Fox News Digital. "It happens, and nobody seems to notice. No one seems to capture it. There’s no interdiction, and we’ve been having them with much greater frequency." San Clemente is located on the border of Orange and San Diego counties. The city is considering working with border authorities to install and monitor cameras to focus on the waters off the coastal enclave to spot boats carrying illegal migrants.

Air Force Times [2/19/2025 5:50 PM, Hope Hodge Seck] reports wreckage recovery operations entered a fourth day Wednesday, and the Navy is calling on the public to report debris, as Navy explosive ordnance disposal and diving teams trawl San Diego Bay for what remains of an EA-18 Growler that went down in the water Feb. 12. The first pieces of the plane were pulled up Feb. 16, the first day of salvage ops, according to officials with U.S. Third Fleet, which has purview over naval assets and personnel in the eastern Pacific. Officials did not immediately respond to questions about how many pieces of wreckage have been recovered to date or how many personnel were involved with the effort, but the command estimates salvage and recovery operations will take some two weeks to complete. Prior to the start of recovery, the U.S. Coast Guard established a safety zone between Naval Base Point Loma and Shelter Island, limiting entry to the area only to personnel and vessels specifically authorized by Port San Diego.

Yahoo! News [2/19/2025 6:30 AM, Leslie Sattler, 57114K] reports two men will serve prison sentences after illegally taking thousands of young American eels from Puerto Rico, reported National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries. The arrest happened because of successful teamwork between NOAA Fisheries and other agencies. U.S. Coast Guard officers caught Simon De la Cruz Paredes and Saul Enrique José De la Cruz in February aboard a speedboat in waters north of Puerto Rico. When they refused to stop, officers forcibly shut down their boat engines. The search revealed bags of live eels, aerators, a firearm, and ammunition. The two men received 24-month sentences each, with De la Cruz facing an additional two years of supervised release. They had spent months collecting young eels, known as glass eels, from a creek in Puerto Rico and planned to transport them to the Dominican Republic for sale in Asian markets. When sold legally, glass eels are worth $2,200 per kilogram. The Coast Guard found more than 100,000 eels worth about $132,000. In Asian markets, that same catch could fetch over $1 million. "Our joint enforcement partnerships expand our ability to enforce marine resource laws more efficiently," said Paige Casey, acting assistant director of NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement Southeast Division. "In this case, we saw how effective our partnerships are with the successful arrest and prosecution of two individuals who illegally harvested eels. Our collaboration is vital in ensuring that individuals who violate marine resource laws are held fully accountable.”

CyberScoop [2/19/2025 12:00 PM, Matt Kapko] reports edge devices harboring zero-day and n-day vulnerabilities were linked to the most consequential attack campaigns last year, Darktrace said in an annual threat report released Wednesday. Darktrace’s threat researchers found the most frequent vulnerability exploits in customers’ instances of Ivanti Connect Secure and Ivanti Policy Secure appliances, along with firewall products from Fortinet and Palo Alto Networks. Cybersecurity vendors shipped products that ultimately accounted for and became the initial access vector for the majority of the most significant attack campaigns last year, the report shows. Vendors that supply security hardware and services were responsible for four of the six mostly commonly exploited vulnerabilities observed by Darktrace: a pair of vulnerabilities affecting Ivanti products (CVE-2023-46805 and CVE-2024-21887); a trio impacting Palo Alto Networks firewalls running PAN-OS (CVE-2024-3400, CVE-2024-0012 and CVE-2024-9474); and a vulnerability affecting Fortinet’s network management tool FortiManager (CVE-2024-47575). “These devices sit on the edge of your network, and that’s your last sight of visibility and therefore the door to your house,” Nathaniel Jones, VP of threat research at Darktrace, told CyberScoop. “If they can get through cybersecurity companies then they’re bypassing the exact detection that companies have provided customers,” Jones said. “You’re kind of getting underneath the specific thing that’s supposed to be detecting you, and getting access that way.” Threat groups are increasingly investing more resources to study and reverse engineer network edge devices that are widespread. This shows up in Darktrace’s research, which complements the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s known exploited vulnerabilities catalog, particularly as it relates to repeat offenders — vendors that commonly appear on the agency’s continuously updated resource of vulnerabilities that threat groups have exploited in the wild. Nation-state threat groups are most likely responsible for zero-day attacks on network edge devices because they have the resources, but these vulnerabilities have a long shelf life and are routinely targeted by financially motivated threat groups as proof of concepts emerge, Jones said.

CyberScoop [2/19/2025 12:00 PM, Tim Starks] reports one of the most notable elements of the monumental hack of major telecommunications companies is just how “indiscriminate” it was in its pursuit of data, a top FBI official said Wednesday. The FBI has been investigating the breach, which it has blamed on Chinese government hackers commonly known as Salt Typhoon. “What we found particularly remarkable in our investigation is the gigantic and seemingly indiscriminate collection of call records and data about American people, like your friends, your family, people in your community,” Cynthia Kaiser, deputy assistant director in the bureau’s cyber division, said at the 2025 Zero Trust Summit, presented by CyberScoop. Kaiser characterized the breach as “a different level of insidiousness” from Beijing, one that reflects its “ambition and reckless aggression in cyberspace.” The hack compromised a whole range of data, from law enforcement information to call records. And the scope of it left no kind of target out, not even children, Kaiser said. It’s data China will be able to hold on to forever, she said. “Can any of you imagine a world in which China would have been stealing information about you as a 13-year-old?” she asked the audience. “That’s precisely what American children are facing in this new era of big data, cyber espionage, and that’s going to follow them no matter which careers or risks they choose in the future.” The Salt Typhoon hack is one of a number of recent notable incidents that has prompted Trump administration officials and some lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to say the United States needs to return fire at adversaries in cyberspace with its own offensive operations. Salt Typhoon’s campaign remains active in and has hit multiple additional networks worldwide since being outed last year. The U.S. government sanctioned a Chinese national and a cybersecurity company based in Sichuan, China, for taking part in the hacking campaign.

Yahoo! News [2/19/2025 4:29 PM, Rebecca Parsons, 57114K] reports a Salix man has been charged after he allegedly said he wanted to commit a mass shooting at a grocery store in Cambria County while speaking in an Xbox chat. Dylan Shaffer, 25, has been charged after an online friend from Minnesota reached out to police about a mass shooting threat that he allegedly made, according to a criminal complaint. The Minnesota man contacted the Adams Township Police Department on Feb. 18 to report the threat that he claimed Shaffer made on the gaming platform. Officers went to Shaffer’s address and spoke with him about the alleged incident. Shaffer denied making any threats and said he did not have a firearm. However, officers were given an audio clip from the Minnesota man that was recorded on the Xbox chat room. According to the affidavit, in the audio Shaffer can be heard saying that he’s mad at the customers who come to the grocery store where he works. The online friend can be heard asking, "Why would you bring a gun to your grocery store and shoot people when they did nothing wrong." Shaffer goes on to allegedly say that they are always doing something wrong and that he wanted to hurt people. Police asked Shaffer again if he had made any threats or wanted to harm anyone and he again denied it, which police noted was "contradictive" to what they heard in the audio. Police also noted that Shaffer then said he just wanted to shoot fruit and was going to use a gun that he was going to get from a relative. Officers then contacted the Richland Township Police Department due to the threat as they are the department in charge of the area where the store was located. The grocery store was closed for the day due to the alleged threats Shaffer made.

ABC News [2/20/2025 2:37 AM, Jack Date and Pierre Thomas, 33392K] reports the FBI became aware on Tuesday of threats that were communicated involving two teenage girls, ages 15 and 16, plotting what the FBI called a “mass casualty attack” using pipe bombs and guns targeting Memorial High School in Harris County, Texas, according to law enforcement sources. The threats were specific and deemed concerning enough that the FBI threat mitigation team moved quickly. At around 2:45 p.m. (CST) the FBI called local law enforcement partners in Montgomery County, Harris County and Spring Branch Independent School District, who simultaneously worked to locate the girls. By 3:15 p.m., just 30 minutes after the FBI call, both girls were located and in custody, law enforcement sources said. “I got the call from the FBI agent that we worked very closely with, provided me with the information that they deemed credible, as did I, immediately located the student, found exactly where she was and went to the school, and that’s when we detained her and began our interview process,” Spring Branch ISDF Chief Larry Baimbridge told ABC News. Baimbridge said in this case, the system worked. “This is a perfect example of state and federal law enforcement working together. This is exactly how this information, I think, should be handled and I’m grateful to the FBI that got us information right away and we were able to act on it very quickly,” Baimbridge told ABC News. “This planned attack wouldn’t have been stopped without exceptionally close partnerships between FBI Houston, Spring Branch ISD Police Department, Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, and Houston Police Department,” FBI Houston spokesman Connor Hagan said in a statement. “We were able to take troubling information we received, conduct a rapid investigation, turn our results over to trusted local law enforcement partners, and ultimately save lives of innocent students,” Hagan said. "This type of situation is exactly why the FBI exists.” The 16-year-old girl who is a student at Memorial High School is being held on a charge of making a terroristic threat, Baimbridge said. The other student, a 15-year-old, is in custody in Montgomery County on an unrelated charge, according to a Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office statement. No firearms, bombs or bomb making materials were immediately recovered in Harris County, though the investigation is ongoing in both Harris and Montgomery Counties.

Washington Examiner [2/19/2025 10:43 AM, Annabella Rosciglione, 2365K] reports that a federal judge temporarily halted the firing of nearly a dozen Central Intelligence Agency officers who were working on diversity, equity, inclusion, and access programs at the spy agency. The order from U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga gives President Donald Trump’s administration until Thursday to file a response to a request from the intelligence officers for a temporary restraining order on their firing. The intelligence officers are among the 51 employees at the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence who were told to report to work Wednesday with their badges and without a lawyer, an order that indicated their imminent termination, according to NBC News. According to the lawsuit filed on Monday by former CIA officer Kevin Carroll, the officers are "nonpartisan" career intelligence professionals who were temporarily assigned to work on DEI programs. The lawsuit called their firing "arbitrary" and "capricious" and "unsupported by any evidentiary record whatsoever." The lawsuit additionally said Trump’s executive order to remove all DEI positions in the federal government did not go as far as to call for the termination of employees temporarily assigned to these types of programs. The plaintiffs are arguing that while the CIA does have the authority to fire officers deemed a national security risk, the officers who were fired were not seen as such. These intelligence officers will continue to receive full pay and benefits while on administrative leave.

CBS News [2/20/2025 12:28 AM, Eleanor Watson, 52225K] reports Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has directed the Pentagon to come up with plans to cut 8% from the defense budget in each of the next five years, according to sources familiar with his plans. The Defense Departmen expects to redirect those fund to other programs in the department that would be prioritized by President Trump. Robert Salesses, who is performing the duties of deputy secretary of defense, said in a statement Wednesday evening that the department intends to produce budgets "that revive the warrior ethos, rebuild our military, and reestablish deterrence.” Some of the Trump priorities Salesses mentioned include border security, building an Iron Dome defense system for the U.S. and ending government diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Iron Dome is envisioned as an extensive, multilayered air defense system for the U.S. that Trump has said should include the ability to shoot down incoming missiles from space. He said that the secretary has ordered a review of spending plans in the Biden administration’s budget budget to offset the costs of Trump priorities for the 2026 fiscal year, which begins on Oct. 1. Salesses confirmed in the statement that the department seeks cuts of 8% from the Biden defense budget that would add up to about $50 billion. He mentioned "so-called ‘climate change’ and other woke programs, as well as excessive bureaucracy," as line items that would be excised. It was not clear which parts of the Pentagon’s spending on diversity and equity programs or its spending to address climate change — such as buying alternate fuels for aircraft, or making bases more resistant to the effects of extreme weather, such as the 2018 hurricane that caused significant damage to Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida — would be targeted or could add up to $50 billion in savings. The spending cuts mandate comes as the military is quickly trying to write its fiscal year 2026 request, a congressional process that often starts late during transitions between new presidential administrations. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

CBS News [2/19/2025 6:15 AM, Stephen Smith, 57114K] reports Russian warplanes were spotted flying off the coast of Alaska, the North American Aerospace Defense Command said Tuesday, marking the latest incident involving Russian military activity being tracked by the U.S. military near the state. The Russian planes did not enter American or Canadian sovereign airspace, NORAD said, adding that the planes were "not seen as a threat." NORAD did not identify the type of Russian aircraft that were detected nor the number of planes. Although the Russian aircraft remained in international air space, they entered a region beyond U.S. and Canadian sovereign air space called the Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), where aircraft are expected to identify themselves, according to NORAD. The ADIZ is a stretch of international air space bordering the sovereign space around the U.S. and Canada, which both countries monitor in order to detect all aircraft passing through. Surveillance in the zone is maintained for national security reasons. The incident comes less than three weeks after American and Canadian fighter jets were scrambled to shadow multiple Russian warplanes that were spotted in the Arctic. Several hours later, NORAD said it dispatched two F-16 fighter jets from Alaska to Greenland in order to "forward posture NORAD presence in the Arctic.” The U.S. military has reported Russian military activity near Alaska several times in recent months. In December, NORAD said four Russian military aircraft were detected flying close to the state, and the U.S. military said Russian warplanes were detected near Alaska last September when more than 100 U.S. soldiers were deployed temporarily to Alaska’s remote Shemya Island. That deployment coincided with eight Russian aircraft and four navy vessels, including two submarines, traveling close to Alaska while Russia and China conducted joint military drills. Last September, NORAD posted a dramatic video of a Russian fighter jet flying close to a NORAD aircraft off the coast of Alaska. At the time, a U.S. general said "the conduct of one Russian Su-35 was unsafe, unprofessional, and endangered all.” Last July, the U.S. military said it intercepted four Russian and Chinese bombers in international airspace near the coast of Alaska. NORAD says it uses a "network of satellites, ground-based and airborne radars and fighter aircraft to detect and track aircraft and inform appropriate actions" and "remains ready to employ a number of response options in defense of North America.” [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

The Hill [2/19/2025 1:51 PM, Brett Samuels, 16346K] reports that President Trump is set to meet next week with two key European leaders amid tensions over Trump’s approach to negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine. National security adviser Mike Waltz confirmed on Fox News that French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will visit Washington, D.C., next week to meet with Trump. "I just got off the phone with my counterparts from the United Kingdom, from France, from Germany and said, ‘Look, we welcome Europe stepping in and offering security guarantees. We welcome Europe. We’ve been asking for years for Europe to step up and contribute more to not only their own defense but Ukraine’s defense,’" Waltz said on "America Reports" on Fox. The meetings come as European leaders have raised alarms about Trump’s handling of the war in Ukraine. Trump dispatched top administration officials, including Waltz, to meet with Russian officials in Saudi Arabia this week to discuss ending the war, sidelining Ukrainian and European officials. Trump has since lashed out at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, blaming him for starting the conflict.

New York Times [2/20/2025 3:32 AM, Andrew E. Kramer, Constant Méheut and Anton Troianovski, 740K] reports the simmering feud between President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and President Trump escalated on Wednesday when Mr. Trump mocked his counterpart in a post filled with falsehoods, calling him a “dictator without elections.” His comments came hours after Mr. Zelensky said the American leader had been “caught in a web of disinformation” from Russia over the war in Ukraine. The pointed exchange was set off by a meeting of American and Russian officials to open talks on ending the war in Ukraine that excluded the Ukrainian government. After that meeting in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, Mr. Trump suggested that Ukraine had started the war, a comment that brought a strong rebuttal from Mr. Zelensky on Wednesday morning. “I would like to have more truth with the Trump team,” Mr. Zelensky said in some of the most overt criticism yet of Mr. Trump and his view of the war in Ukraine. Mr. Zelensky, summoning reporters to his presidential office in Kyiv, a building still fortified with sandbags, said that the U.S. president was living in a “web of disinformation.” In a post on his Truth Social account, Mr. Trump responded with a scathing attack on Mr. Zelensky. “Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and “TRUMP,” will never be able to settle,” Mr. Trump wrote. As he did in making his assertions a day earlier, he misrepresented verifiable facts. The United States, for instance, has allocated $119 billion for aid to Ukraine, according to a research organization in Germany, the Kiel Institute, not $350 billion. Mr. Trump also suggested that future security of Ukraine would not be an American problem. “This War is far more important to Europe than it is to us,” he wrote. “We have a big, beautiful Ocean as separation.”

Reported similarly:
Bloomberg [2/19/2025 12:15 PM, Kevin Whitelaw, 21617K]
Washington Examiner [2/19/2025 7:29 AM, Jamie McIntyre, 2365K]

CBS News [2/19/2025 9:24 AM, Tucker Reals, Imtiaz Tyab, 57114K] reports President Trump, speaking Tuesday afternoon from his home in Florida, appeared to shift three years — if not many decades — of U.S. foreign policy almost 180 degrees, issuing remarks that made his administration sound aligned more with Russian President Vladimir Putin than America’s European allies of the last eight decades. In rhetoric similar to claims Putin has used himself to justify his three-year war on Ukraine, Mr. Trump seemed to blame President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for Russia’s full-scale invasion after the Ukrainian leader took issue with being left out of initial conversations between the White House and Moscow, which began Tuesday in Saudi Arabia. "I think I have the power to end this war, and I think it’s going very well. Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it three years — you should have never started it," Mr. Trump chided Zelenskyy. "You could have made a deal. I could have made a deal for Ukraine that would have given them almost all of the land. Everything, almost all of the land. And no people would have been killed and no city would have been demolished, and not one dome would have been knocked down. But they chose not to do it that way." "This is, frankly, what Vladimir Putin would have said — that none of this needed to happen, when in fact, it happened because he wanted it to happen," Ravi Agrawal, the editor in chief of Foreign Policy magazine, told CBS News’ Major Garrett after hearing Mr. Trump’s remarks. Zelenskyy reacted Wednesday, saying Mr. Trump appeared to be operating in a "disinformation space" fostered by Russia. Putin, who first sent forces into Ukraine in 2014 and seized control of its Crimean Peninsula in a unilateral annexation never recognized by the U.S. or most of the world, has claimed he was forced to launch his full-scale attack on the neighboring nation due to a threat posed by the U.S.-led NATO alliance spreading its influence eastward toward Russia’s border. The U.S. and its European NATO allies have always dismissed that excuse, insisting that Putin’s real intention ahead of the February 2022 full-scale invasion was always to seize more of Ukraine’s sovereign territory and delegitimize Zelenskyy’s pro-Western government. "NATO consists of 32 countries and it’s NATO’s position that it [war in Ukraine] was unprovoked," Adm. Stuart B. Munsch, the commander of U.S. Naval Forces for Europe and Africa, said Wednesday in Romania when asked about Mr. Trump’s remarks. The American commander — one of the U.S. Navy’s longest-serving active duty officers — is in Romania for a NATO military exercise aimed at preparing the alliance for any further Russian aggression on Europe’s far eastern flank.

VOA News [2/20/2025 12:23 AM, Patsy Widakuswara, 2717K] reports U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday evening he has not seen the proposal being discussed by Arab leaders as an alternative to his plan to take over Gaza once the war between Hamas and Israel ends. "I haven’t seen it," Trump said in response to a reporter’s question on Air Force One. "Once I see it, I’ll let you know," he added. Trump said early this month he wants to forcibly relocate almost 2 million Palestinians from Gaza into neighboring Jordan and Egypt. He said the United States will "own" the territory and turn it into the "Riviera of the Middle East," which prompted rejection by Arab countries. It’s unclear whether Trump is serious or merely threatening to extract concessions from Arab states. During a meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh this week, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested that it could be the latter, urging regional leaders to make a counteroffer. Envoys of Egyptian, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates will meet Friday in Riyadh to discuss options, including an Egyptian plan to raise up to $20 billion over three years from Arab and Gulf states for Gaza’s reconstruction. Under this plan, Gazans would not be forced out and the strip would be governed by Palestinians. Trump spoke en route to Washington after delivering remarks at a conference in Miami, hosted by the Future Investment Initiative Institute, the nonprofit arm of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund – the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund led by the crown prince. His speech marked the first time a U.S. president addressed the annual gathering of global financiers and tech executives. It is a testament to how the Saudi crown prince, known by his initials MBS, has leveraged his connection to Trump, Laura Blumenfeld, senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, said.

NBC News [2/20/2025 3:16 AM, Astha Rajvanshi, 50804K] reports Hamas released the bodies of four deceased Israeli hostages on Thursday, parading four black caskets on a stage against a backdrop of propaganda slogans and behind white red-paint-spattered missiles that bore the phrase "they were killed by USA bombs.” In what is likely to be one of the defining images of the war in Gaza, the four caskets sat on a raised platform in front of smiling illustrations of three members of the Bibas family, who became a symbol of the cruelty of the Palestinian militant group’s Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel, and 84-year-old Oded Lifshitz. Among the bodies believed to be handed over by the Palestinian militant group were those of Kfir and Ariel Bibas, the two youngest captives seized in the attack that started the Israel-Hamas war. Each casket also carried a small photograph of one of the four hostages whose identities Israel has yet to confirm. The body of the Bibas children’s mother, Shiri Bibas, was also handed over, along with that of Lifshitz, according to the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents the families of those still in Hamas captivity. The handover took place in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, where large crowds gathered and armed Hamas militants in black and camouflage uniforms patrolled the area. The caskets were displayed in front of a large banner that showed an illustration replicating antisemitic tropes that showed Israeli Prime Minister with vampiric teeth and blood running down his face. After representatives from Hamas and the Red Cross signed paperwork on a table with a camouflage cover and two Palestinian flags, the caskets were carried into white Red Cross vehicles that then drove them away to be transferred to the Israel Defense Forces and Israel Security Agency. Israel says the bodies, the first to be returned under the current ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, will need to undergo forensic testing before authorities can confirm their identities.

Newsweek [2/19/2025 7:48 AM, Micah McCartney, 56005K] reports Taiwan is considering an arms deal worth up to $10 billion in a bid to curry favor with the Trump administration, according to a new report. Newsweek has reached out to Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry and the U.S. Department of Defense with emailed requests for comment. Mounting military pressure by Beijing, whose Chinese Communist Party government claims Taiwan as its territory, has driven the self-ruled island to invest more heavily in defense in recent years. Defense spending now comprises around 2.5 percent of Taiwan’s GDP. Though Washington doesn’t maintain official diplomatic ties with Taipei, the U.S. is Taiwan’s largest source of foreign weaponry. The first Trump administration began approving these sales on a more regular basis, including big-ticket items such as upgraded F-16 fighter jets. Taiwanese authorities are currently in talks with Washington about an additional purchase worth between $7 billion and $10 billion, Reuters has cited sources familiar with the matter as saying on condition of anonymity. One of the sources said the prospective package is aimed to signal Taiwan is committed to self-defense. "I would be very surprised if it was less than $8 billion. Somewhere between $7 billion to $10 billion," said a second source, who specified the deal would include High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) rockets and coastal defense cruise missiles. Taiwan’s defense ministry, which does not comment on specific arms purchases, told the news agency: "Any weaponry and equipment that can achieve those goals for building the military are listed as targets for tender." Recent comments by President Donald Trump have raised doubts in Taipei about whether the U.S.—Taiwan’s most important supporter—would back the island in the event of a Chinese offensive. Trump has suggested it should pay "protection" money and repeatedly accused Taiwan, which produces most of the world’s advanced semiconductors, of stealing the U.S.’s chip industry. Earlier this month he threatened tariffs of up to 100 percent to push Taiwan’s chipmakers to expand stateside operations. Analysts have anticipated Taiwan would move to step up arms purchases in a bid to maintain the president’s goodwill. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Reuters [2/20/2025 12:56 AM, Andrea Shalal and Kanishka Singh, 2717K] reports U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he expected Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit the United States without giving a timeline for his trip. Trump made the remarks to reporters on Air Force One and said "it’s possible" for the U.S. and China to have a new trade deal. A conversation or interaction between Xi and Trump is seen as crucial to a potential easing or delay of trade tariffs. "We’ll have, ultimately, President Xi, we will have everybody coming (to the U.S.)," Trump said while also speaking about others leaders visiting the United States. Xi last travelled to the U.S. in November 2023, in his fifth visit to the country as Chinese president, for a summit with then U.S. President Joe Biden, resulting in agreements to resume military-to-military communications and curb fentanyl production. Trump and Xi had spoken just before Trump took office on January 20 and discussed issues including TikTok, trade and Taiwan. Trump told reporters on Wednesday that he was talking to China about TikTok as the United States seeks to broker a sale of the popular app owned by Chinese parent firm ByteDance. Trump said last week he had spoken to Xi since taking office as well, but did not offer details on the topics of that conversation. China’s foreign ministry did not directly comment on Trump’s remarks that day and instead referred reporters to their "scheduled" call before Trump took office. Washington and Beijing have had tense relations for years over differences ranging from trade tariffs and cybersecurity to TikTok, Taiwan, Hong Kong, human rights and the origins of COVID-19. Trump also told reporters he could make a deal with Russia over the war in Ukraine. "We can make a deal with Russia to stop the killing," Trump said, adding he thought the Russians wanted to see the war end. "I think they have the cards a little bit because they’ve taken a lot of territory so they have the cards," Trump said.

NBC News [2/19/2025 6:46 AM, Jennifer Jett, 50804K] reports the United States condemned Wednesday what it called “dangerous maneuvers” by China after a Chinese navy helicopter flew within 10 feet of a Philippine patrol plane in a disputed area of the South China Sea. The incident took place Tuesday morning local time as a plane belonging to the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources was flying what Philippine officials said was a routine low-altitude patrol over the Scarborough Shoal, an atoll that is mostly underwater but is rich in fish stocks. Video shared by the Philippine coast guard showed the Chinese People’s Liberation Army navy helicopter hovering above and to the left of the Philippine plane before moving away again in an effort to push the plane out of what Beijing says is its airspace. “We condemn the dangerous maneuvers by a PLA Navy helicopter that endangered pilots and passengers on a Philippine air mission,” U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines MaryKay L. Carson said in a post on the social media platform X. “We call on China to refrain from coercive actions and settle its disputes peacefully in accordance with international law.” The Philippines, the oldest U.S. treaty ally in Asia, has been strengthening its security ties with the U.S., Japan, Australia and others as it increasingly clashes with China in the South China Sea, a strategically important shipping route that Beijing claims virtually in its entirety. There are a number of territorial disputes in the South China Sea involving China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei and Taiwan. But tensions between China and the Philippines have been especially high in the last two years as they spar over the Scarborough Shoal as well as the Second Thomas Shoal, where the Philippines intentionally grounded a navy ship in 1999 to establish a military outpost. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Reported similarly:
The Hill [2/19/2025 1:32 PM, Tara Suter, 16346K]

VOA News [2/19/2025 10:03 AM, William Yang, 2717K] reports that Philippine defense officials say they will hold a large, 10-day military training exercise next month, aiming to strengthen the country’s ability to respond to any crisis caused by an "external threat.” Although Manila did not name China explicitly when it announced the drills — the biggest in recent years — they come as Beijing has increased the frequency of its maritime patrols and coast guard maneuvers around several disputed reefs that lie within the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone, or EEZ. Several of those patrols have resulted in clashes and the use of aggressive maneuvers and accusations of vessel ramming. China, which claims almost all of the South China Sea as its own despite an international ruling to the contrary, insists that its actions have been in accordance with the law. The Combined Arms Training Exercise, or Catex, will take place March 3-12, involving approximately 6,000 soldiers and live-fire drills involving some of the Philippines’ most advanced artillery weapons. In the announcement on Monday, defense officials said that unlike past exercises, this year’s Catex will be conducted across the archipelago, including the northern island of Luzon, the island of Visayas in Central Philippines, and the southern island of Mindanao. The expanded drills will "strengthen our command-and-control capabilities, further enhancing our preparedness to respond to any challenge that may threaten our national security," Philippine Army Chief Lieutenant General Roy Galido told media during a news conference on Monday.

Newsweek [2/19/2025 1:28 PM, Ryan Chan, 56005K] reports that Australia dispatched warships to track a Chinese flotilla off the country’s east coast, according to a newspaper report. It comes as China expands its naval reach and presence in the Pacific Ocean. Newsweek has emailed both the Australian and Chinese defense ministries for comment. China has the largest navy in the world by hull count, according to the Pentagon, with over 370 ships and submarines in service. Last year, the Chinese military sent its ships to countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and the South Pacific Ocean. Beijing and Washington are currently jostling for influence in the vast Pacific, with the Chinese navy engaging in a show of force in the southern part of the ocean. It sent two destroyers to Vanuatu last October, challenging America’s naval dominance in the region. Citing people familiar with the situation, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday that a Chinese naval task group, composed of two warships and a supply ship, transited the waters 150 nautical miles east of Sydney, on Australia’s east coast. Newsweek was unable to independently verify the report. This is the furthest the Chinese navy has sailed down the Australian east coast, which was unprecedented for Beijing’s rapidly expanding fleet, one person told the newspaper. The Chinese flotilla is now shadowed by two Royal Australian Navy ships, the report added.

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