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.

Politico [2/20/2025 6:06 PM, Myah Ward] reports the Trump administration on Thursday slashed temporary legal protections for Haitian migrants living in the United States, laying the groundwork for them to be targeted for deportation in less than six months. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem rescinded a June 2024 Biden administration extension of temporary legal status for hundreds of thousands of Haitians already in the United States. The Biden administration had cited dangerous conditions in Haiti that made it unsafe for them to return, granting them protections until February 2026. Noem will have to decide in August whether to revoke protections for the group altogether — a prospect that appears likely. In January, Noem similarly revoked a Biden administration extension for Venezuelans, which would have allowed them to remain in the United States until fall 2026. They may now face deportation in April. That move has already spurred legal challenges, and Noem’s latest rescission will likely face the same — reminiscent of the legal battles Trump officials faced during his first administration as they tried to cut the program. The Wall Street Journal [2/20/2025 2:00 PM, Michelle Hackman, 129344K] reports that the memo, which is signed by Joseph Mazzara, acting general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, says the Department is re-evaluating the need to continue the program past August and will make a final decision this spring. TPS is meant to be used in situations where a population’s home country is in such crisis, because of war or other instability, that it would be dangerous to deport people there. President Trump foreshadowed the decision before taking office, when he promised to target the Haitian population living in Springfield, Ohio, after repeating baseless claims that they had been stealing and eating neighbors’ pets. Republican Gov. Mike DeWine has said that roughly 15,000 Haitians immigrated to Springfield over the past several years, the Journal previously reported. Asked in an interview on News Nation in October if he would end protections for the migrants in Springfield, Trump replied: “Absolutely. I’d revoke it, and I’d bring them back to their country.” It is likely the decision will be challenged in court, as it is unclear whether revoking a TPS extension is legal. Already, an advocacy organization called the National TPS alliance is challenging Trump’s Venezuela decision, saying the move to terminate those protections was done without adequate consideration and was motivated by racial bias. The Washington Post [2/20/2025 5:33 PM, Marianne LeVine and Sabrina Rodriguez, 40736K] reports Haiti received temporary protected status designation in 2010, after a powerful earthquake killed thousands of people. “Biden and Mayorkas attempted to tie the hands of the Trump Administration by extending Haiti’s Temporary Protected Status by 18 months — far longer than justified or necessary,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “We are returning integrity to the TPS system, which has been abused and exploited by illegal aliens for decades.”

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The Hill [2/20/2025 5:16 PM, Rebecca Beitsch, 16346K]
Reuters [2/20/2025 5:00 PM, Ted Hesson, 48128K]
AP [2/20/2025 6:00 PM, Rebecca Santana]
CBS News [2/20/2025 5:47 PM, Staff, 52225K]
NBC News [2/20/2025 6:16 PM, Doha Madani and Daniella Silva, 50804K]
USA Today [2/20/2025 7:18 PM, Trevor Hughes, 89965K]
Newsweek [2/20/2025 6:23 PM, Gabe Whisnant, Dan Gooding, 56005K]
Miami Herald [2/20/2025 6:09 PM, Syra Ortiz Blanes and Jacqueline Charles, 6595K]
Telemundo [2/20/2025 4:45 PM, Staff, 2623K]

Reuters [2/20/2025 12:55 PM, Nate Raymond, 48128K] reports that several Venezuelans and three immigrant rights groups have sued President Donald Trump’s administration over its decision to end temporary protections against deportation for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants living in the United States. The first of two U.S. federal lawsuits was filed in San Francisco on Wednesday by the National TPS Alliance, a group that advocates for immigrants who have been granted temporary protected status, and seven Venezuelans living in the U.S. A second lawsuit was filed on Thursday in Greenbelt, Maryland, by rights groups CASA and Make the Road New York. Both lawsuits challenge the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s February 3 decision to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for about 348,000 Venezuelan immigrants, more than half of all Venezuelans in the program. The decision means they could face deportation and the loss of work permits in April. The rest of the roughly 600,000 Venezuelans in the program could lose the legal status and associated benefits in September. The move to end TPS for Venezuelans was part of the Republican president’s broader campaign to crack down on immigration and humanitarian programs he says go beyond the intent of U.S. law. DHS did not respond to requests for comment. CBS Miami [2/20/2025 8:13 PM, Ivan Taylor, 52225K] reports that the lawsuit, filed Wednesday in San Francisco, seeks to restore an 18-month extension granted by the Biden administration in January, which had protected Venezuelans from deportation until October 2026. Under the Trump administration’s new policy, half of those affected could face removal as soon as April 2. "I feel hopeful," said Daniela Basanini, a South Florida resident and TPS recipient. She called the lawsuit a "ray of hope" for Venezuelans living in the U.S. The legal action names Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as the defendant, alleging that her refusal to extend TPS for Venezuelans who applied in 2023 leaves more than 300,000 in legal limbo. The lawsuit further claims that Noem’s decision was influenced by racial bias, citing remarks made when announcing the policy change. "The secretary’s decision also was motivated at least in part by racial animus, in contravention of the Fifth Amendment," the lawsuit states. Another excerpt highlights statements from Noem allegedly labeling Venezuelan TPS holders as "dirtbags," which the lawsuit argues is evidence of discriminatory intent. Basanini, who works as a legal assistant and is studying to become a lawyer, applied for TPS in 2021 and remains protected from deportation until September. "Even though I’m not affected by the termination of the April TPS, we’re all in this together," she said.

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Los Angeles Times [2/20/2025 12:34 PM, Andrea Castillo, 6595K]
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Telemundo [2/20/2025 4:01 PM, Marina E. Franco, 2623K]
Univision [2/20/2025 3:38 PM, Patricia Clarembaux, 7281K]
San Francisco Chronicle [2/20/2025 4:50 PM, Bob Egelko, 4368K]

NBC News [2/20/2025 5:54 PM, Julia Ainsley and Courtney Kube, 50804K] reports the Trump administration has flown all or almost all of the migrants it had held in Guantanamo Bay out of the facility there and to Honduras, NBC News has learned from three sources familiar with the operation and flight data. In a declaration in response to a lawsuit on Thursday, the Trump administration said there were 178 immigrants, all from Venezuela, housed at Guantanamo Bay as of early Thursday. Also Thursday, Honduras’ foreign ministry announced that the country had accepted a flight of what it said was 174 Venezuelan immigrants from the U.S., who would immediately be removed from Honduras to Venezuela. A senior Department of Homeland Security official said 177 migrants were deported from Guantanamo Bay on Thursday. A picture of the plane on which the immigrants were flown to Honduras was tweeted out by Honduras’ foreign minister. More immigrants may be sent to Guantanamo at some point. But two sources familiar with the matter said that DHS has asked the Department of Defense to look for alternative locations, and that DoD is considering other places like Fort Bliss. The New York Times [2/20/2025 5:56 PM, Hamed Aleaziz, Annie Correal, Carol Rosenberg and Charlie Savage, 161405K] reports that two passenger planes operated by Global X, a charter aircraft company, flew to the naval base on Thursday morning and shuttled most of the migrants to an airfield in Honduras. They were to then be put aboard a Venezuelan plane for repatriation. Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Homeland Security Department, said 177 migrants had been transferred to Venezuelan custody, and one had been brought back to an immigration facility in the United States. In a declaration filed in court earlier on Thursday, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official had said 178 Venezuelans were at the base. It was unclear whether the administration intended to send additional migrants to the base. The transfers cleared out the migrants at a time when the operation has raised numerous questions about whether the government had legitimate legal authority to take people from ICE facilities in the United States to the base in Cuba for continued detention. The Washington Post [2/20/2025 5:26 PM, Silvia Foster-Frau, 40736K] reports more than three weeks have passed since the first flight of migrants from the United States to Guantánamo on Feb. 4. The unprecedented move to send migrants to the naval base by the Trump administration began as U.S.-based immigration detention facilities were filling up and the administration attempted to fulfill its promise to launch the largest deportation operation in U.S. history. A Post investigation into six migrants found that only one of them had a criminal record. None of those six appeared to have connections to the Venezuelan-based Tren de Aragua gang, based on a search of records and interviews with migrants’ family members. Enrique Reina, the secretary of foreign relations for Honduras, characterized the effort as a joint operation among the United States, Venezuela and Honduras, showing photos of two planes that were transporting the migrants on X. Reina did not make clear in his statement that the migrants were coming from Guantánamo.

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Univision [2/20/2025 6:14 PM, Patricia Clarembaux, 7281K]

The AP [2/21/2025 1:06 AM, Staff, 47097K] reports nearly 200 Venezuelan migrants to the U.S. were returned to their home country after being detained at Guantanamo Bay, in a flurry of flights that forged an unprecedented pathway for U.S. deportations. [Editorial note: consult video at source link] Bloomberg [2/20/2025 10:15 PM, Andreina Itriago and Alicia A. Caldwell, 57114K] reports Venezuela said it received a flight of its nationals that it says were “unfairly” taken to the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after being deported from the US. “The US government decided to send a group of Venezuelans there,” said Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello as the plane was landing. “Today, fortunately, they are returning to our country.” In a statement released earlier, Venezuela said it rejected “any attempt to criminalize the nation and its citizens,” and that if any of the repatriated had committed a crime “they would act accordingly with Venezuelan law and in respect for human rights.” The flight, that landed late Thursday carrying around 180 people, is the third repatriation flight between the US and Venezuela since President Donald Trump’s special envoy and Nicolás Maduro agreed to a fresh start and the release of six American prisoners earlier this month. The first two flights arrived on Feb. 10. The Department of Justice had previously said in a federal court filing that about 180 Venezuelan men had been held at the Caribbean island military base, after being flown from the US. All had final deportation orders, according to the filing.

AP [2/20/2025 4:51 PM, Morgan Lee] reports U.S. immigration and military authorities say they are holding exclusively Venezuelan immigrants subject to final deportation orders at the U.S. naval station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where nearly 180 people are being held in tents and high-security facilities, according to court documents published Thursday. The court filing by U.S. Justice Department attorneys provides the most thorough official accounting to date about who is being held at the remote military complex and why. President Donald Trump in January said he wanted to expand immigrant detention facilities at Guantanamo to hold as many as 30,000 people, although current capacity at Guantanamo’s low-security migrant operations center is roughly 2,500. Authorities initiated on Feb. 4 near-daily flights from a U.S. Army base in West Texas to Guantanamo. Fifty-one of the newly arrived immigrants are being held in low-security tent facilities, while 127 more are confined to a high-security area. The Departments of Homeland Security and Defense argued in Thursday’s court filing that the detainees do not have a right to legal counsel because they all are subject to final orders of removal to Venezuela, affording them "very limited due process rights." U.S. authorities have not publicly confirmed the individual identities of immigrants recently transported to Guantanamo Bay.

ABC News [2/20/2025 7:59 PM, Laura Romero, 33392K] reports migrants being held at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay are now being permitted to speak to their attorneys by phone, an official for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a court filing. According to a series of court filings released on Thursday that are part of a lawsuit filed by advocacy groups against the Department of Homeland Security, an ICE official said migrant detainees at Guantanamo are now able to speak with their lawyers, and that DHS is evaluating the "feasibility and necessity" for in-person counsel visits. The Trump administration, as part of its crackdown on illegal immigration, has been sending to Guantanamo what officials call the most violent "worst of the worst" migrants apprehended on American soil -- although ABC News reported earlier this week that the families of two detainees say their relatives being held there have no criminal record, despite DHC claims. Juan Agudelo, an Acting Field Office Director for ICE, said in a court filing that there are currently 178 migrant detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay -- all of whom are from Venezuela and have final orders of removal. Of those detainees, 127 are being held at the facility’s "Camp VI" prison complex, while 51 detainees are being housed at the Migrant Operations Center. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., earlier this month, was filed on behalf of three family members of current detainees and four organizations demanding access to them to provide legal representation.

AP [2/21/2025 2:08 AM, Megan Janetsky and Javier Córdoba, 2717K] reports a group of families and children hailing from Uzbekistan, China, Afghanistan, Russia and more countries climbed down the stairs of an airplane in Costa Rica’s capital Thursday, the first flight of deportees from other nations Costa Rica agreed to hold in detention facilities for the Trump administration while it organized the return back to their countries. The flight of 135 deportees, half of them minors, added Costa Rica to a growing list of Latin American nations to serve as a stopover for migrants as U.S. President Donald Trump ‘s administration seeks to step up deportations. While Costa Rica joins Panama in holding deportees from mostly Asian origin until their repatriation can be arranged or they can seek protection somewhere, Honduras on Thursday also facilitated a handoff of deportees between the U.S. and Venezuela from a flight coming from Guantanamo Bay. The migrants arriving in Costa Rica will be bused to a rural holding facility near the Panama border, where they will be detained up to six weeks and be flown back to their countries of origin, said Omer Badilla, Costa Rica’s deputy minister of the interior and police. The U.S. government will cover the costs. The arrangement is part of a deal the Trump administration struck with Costa Rica during U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit earlier this month. It comes as Trump has pressured countries across the region to help facilitate deportations at times under the threat of steep tariffs or sanctions. Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves told reporters Wednesday that his country is helping its “economically powerful brother from the north.” Similar agreements have been reached with other Latin American nations, but the concept of using third countries as deportation layovers has drawn strong criticism from human rights advocates. Beyond the conditions of their detention in Costa Rica, concerns revolve around international protections for asylum seekers and whether these deportees will be appropriately screened before being returned to their countries or sent to yet another country. Panama this week became the first such country to accept 299 deportees from other nations, with the government holding them in hotel rooms guarded by police. About one-third of those who refused to voluntarily return to their countries were sent to a remote camp in Darien province bordering Colombia on Wednesday. The rest were awaiting commercial flights back home.

Washington Post [2/21/2025 5:00 AM, Andrea Salcedo and Samantha Schmidt, 40736K] reports that, in recent years, hundreds of thousands of migrants from around the world crossed the treacherous Darién Gap jungle, many of them stopping in temporary shelters in Panama and Costa Rica on their way to the United States. Now, the Trump administration has deported more than 400 migrants — from as far as China and Vietnam — back to some of these shelters, leaving them in legal limbo. U.S. officials have struggled to deport them to their countries of origin, which also include Afghanistan, Iran and Russia. Costa Rica and Panama have agreed to serve as “bridge” countries holding the migrants. At least three flights have arrived in Panama so far, and one flight landed in Costa Rica on Thursday. The question, from many immigration lawyers and human rights advocates, is how long the migrants will stay — and under what conditions. “This is reverse migration,” said Susana Sabalza, a lawyer representing a Vietnamese couple and a young child deported last week to Panama. The family was detained alongside other deportees in a hotel in Panama City, where they were given limited access to a lawyer or their passports, Sabalza said. She said she was prohibited from entering the hotel. Panamanian authorities have declined to give her any information about her clients, who said they were deported from the United States before their asylum application was processed. As concerns grow over the treatment of these migrants, Panamanian officials have pushed back on allegations of mistreatment. President José Raúl Mulino said it is “false” that the Panamanian government is mistreating the migrants. He said Panamanian authorities are trying to provide for the migrants in coordination with international organizations, which are “respectful of their human rights.” “You have to be very perverse to think that we Panamanians are going to mistreat those poor victims of a reality that hopefully no Panamanian will find themselves in,” Mulino said. The family had recently migrated to the United States to join other relatives after fleeing Vietnam due to political persecution, Sabalza said. What comes next for them and others like them is not yet known.

Washington Post [2/20/2025 8:59 AM, Leo Sands, 40736K] reports a federal appeals court panel denied a Justice Department bid to reinstate President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at curbing birthright citizenship, edging the battle over the order’s constitutionality closer to a potential Supreme Court showdown. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit declined on Wednesday the administration’s emergency request to immediately lift a nationwide block on Trump’s executive order, rejecting its claim that the preliminary injunction was overly broad. It is the first time an appellate panel has weighed in on one of the several lawsuits challenging Trump’s birthright citizenship order. Justice Department lawyers had argued that the court’s injunction — which blocked Trump’s order nationwide after a lawsuit from four Democratic-led states — was harmful because it stymied Trump’s effort to “address the ongoing crisis at the southern border” and implement an immigration policy designed to combat “significant threats to national security and public safety.” The three-judge panel unanimously rejected the request, with Judges William C. Canby Jr. and Milan D. Smith Jr. writing in their order that the administration had not made a “strong showing” that it would succeed on the merits of its appeal. In a six-page concurring opinion, Judge Danielle Forrest wrote that setting aside a court order on an emergency basis should be the exception rather than the rule, and that the injunction did not meet the bar. “A controversy, yes. Even an important controversy, yes. An emergency, not necessarily,” wrote Forrest, who was nominated to her seat by Trump in 2019. In rejecting the emergency plea, the panel upheld a nationwide injunction ordered Feb. 6 by U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour in Seattle, who called Trump’s executive order “blatantly unconstitutional,” while paving the way for the case to be brought before the Supreme Court.

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Newsweek [2/20/2025 5:41 AM, Billal Rahman, 56005K]

AP [2/20/2025 6:08 PM, Michael Kunzelman and Peter Smith] reports a federal judge on Thursday refused to immediately block the Trump administration’s abrupt halt to funding of the nation’s largest private refugee resettlement program in a setback to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Judge Trevor McFadden denied the bishops’ request for a temporary restraining order that would have restored the funding, but called his ruling "very tentative." McFadden also ordered the two sides to have a mediation session with a federal magistrate judge next week. The bishops are asking him to prohibit the U.S. State Department from enforcing a Jan. 24 suspension of millions of dollars in aid, saying it has affected nearly 7,000 newly arrived refugees. The bishops say that withholding millions in resettlement costs violates various laws as well as the constitutional provision giving the power of the purse to Congress, which already approved the funding. The administration has said the country cannot welcome additional refugees and the spending halt will allow it to align funding with the president’s priorities. President Donald Trump suspended new refugee admissions upon taking office in January, but there were thousands of recent arrivals still within the 90-day period for which they’re eligible for resettlement aid. The State Department also argued against the bishops’ petition by saying the administration shouldn’t be subject to overlapping court orders. It noted that another federal judge has already ordered it to lift a funding freeze on foreign humanitarian aid. The bishops conference said it spends millions on resettlement, beyond the federal reimbursements, but it can’t sustain the program without federal help.

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The Hill [2/20/2025 5:42 PM, Ella Lee, 16346K]

NPR [2/20/2025 11:13 AM, Jasmine Garsd, 35747K] reports that President Trump issued an order Thursday aimed at preventing taxpayer money from supporting immigrants without legal status. The order says it will end "all taxpayer-funded benefits for illegal aliens." It does not clarify exactly which benefits will be targeted, but directs agencies to identify federally funded programs that do so. Immigrants without legal status generally do not qualify for federal benefits, although there are some exceptions for emergency situations. All children are entitled to free K-12 education, regardless of immigration status, following a landmark Supreme Court decision in 1982. However, immigrants who have been granted parole into the U.S. are eligible for certain benefits for a limited period of time, such as Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Under the Biden administration, over a million people were paroled into the U.S., meaning they were admitted legally into the U.S. under temporary programs. A White House fact sheet cited figures from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which advocates for lower levels of immigration. FAIR calculates that "American taxpayers spend at least $182 billion annually to cover the costs incurred by the presence of 20 million illegal aliens and their children." Research from other organizations paints a more complex picture.

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FOX News [2/20/2025 6:24 PM, Maria Lencki, 49889K] reports President Trump’s ‘border czar’ Tom Homan says the billions of dollars the country has used to help illegal migrants can instead be used to help Americans, like homeless veterans. Several American presidents, including some Democrats like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, have spoken in the past about curbing illegal immigration. Now, President Trump is taking action to make this happen by reinstituting a congressional law prohibiting spending federal dollars on different programs for illegal migrants. "Clinton and Obama said the right things. They talked the talk, but they didn’t walk the walk because the agencies didn’t really get into the misuse of these social services and social funding," Homan told "The Story" on Thursday. "President Biden fell off the face of the earth with it. We’re in the multi-billions of dollars….” Homan explained that illegal migrants are incentivized to come to the U.S. while they are reaping more in benefits than most Americans make in their salaries. Homan says there are a lot of ways the money can be used to help American citizens in need, including homeless veterans and the victims of natural disasters. "Thank God for DOGE because these billions of dollars we’re going to save, that illegal aliens shouldn’t be getting, can help rebuild North Carolina," he said. "They can help rebuild California where they’re devastated by these fires (and) in Kentucky.” The ‘border czar’ also vowed there will be "lots of investigations" on the funding of NGOs and other groups that support the illegal immigration crisis. "There’s a lot to uncover, and I thank God DOGE is on top of it," he said.

Washington Examiner [2/20/2025 7:15 PM, Naomi Lim, 2365K] reports President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, embraced the legal challenges to Trump’s executive order rescinding birthright citizenship after a decision by an appeals court increased the likelihood of a Supreme Court showdown. In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Homan reiterated his opinion that birthright citizenship is “the driver of illegal immigration.” “I hope it’s settled by the courts because it’s been a question that hasn’t been answered in decades,” Homan said Thursday outside the White House’s West Wing. “I don’t believe the Constitution is clear … so I’m glad the courts are considering it. It’s long overdue.” On the first day of his second administration, Trump signed an executive order repealing birthright citizenship, or the legal right to citizenship for a person born in the United States, regardless of their parents, under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Trump’s order says the 14th Amendment has “never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born” in the U.S. Nevertheless, a panel of federal appellate judges, one of whom was appointed by Trump, rejected the administration’s emergency request to enforce his birthright citizenship executive order on Wednesday, contending the Justice Department had not demonstrated a “strong showing that they are likely to succeed on the merits of this appeal.” “Deciding important substantive issues on one week’s notice turns our usual decision-making process on its head,” Judge Danielle Forrest, the Trump appointee, wrote. “We should not undertake this task unless the circumstances dictate that we must. They do not here.” The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will now hear arguments regarding the order in June after the San Francisco-based appeals court became the first to hear challenges to it at the appellate level.

AZ Central [2/20/2025 1:36 PM, EJ Montini, 6018K] reports that you’d think there was a line. You’d think that in President Donald Trump’s ongoing efforts to wage war on undocumented immigrants living in the country, and to satisfy the cruelly prurient desires of his MAGA minions, there would be some limits to what he is willing to do, some measure of restraint and basic humanity shown to the weakest and most vulnerable of us. Trump’s U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a stop work order to all lawyers and legal aid organizations funded through the Unaccompanied Children Program, which helps migrant children receive legal services and representation in court. What that means is that unaccompanied minors will now be forced to act as their own attorneys. In court. Roxana Avila-Cimpeanu, deputy director of Florence Immigrant & Refugee Project, said, "With this move, the U.S. government is officially abandoning thousands of children here in Arizona and across the country to fight their immigration cases alone." Is that really who we want to be? Is that really who we are?

AP [2/20/2025 2:17 PM, Rebecca Santana, 47097K] reports that Drug Enforcement Administration agents touting immigration arrests, IRS agents poring over documents, the military escorting deportation flights. As the Trump administration works on the president’s pledge to crack down on illegal immigration and carry out mass deportations, the flurry of activity has stretched across the federal government - well beyond the Department of Homeland Security, the traditional home to most immigration and border security functions. President Donald Trump’s sweeping promises have translated into a whole-of-government approach for immigration enforcement. In other words, nearly every major Cabinet agency is an immigration agency in Trump’s government. The departments of State, Defense and Justice have made immigration a clear priority in their work and public messaging. Parts of the departments of Treasury and Health and Human Services have been involved. And the reach and focus on immigration are only expected to grow, with the Republican president late Wednesday signing an executive order aimed at ending federal benefits for people in the U.S. illegally. "The breadth of what is happening in these first couple of weeks is much wider than we saw during the first Trump administration," said Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, associate policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute.

Reuters [2/20/2025 9:04 AM, Kanishka Singh, 48128K] reports anti-Asian online hate in the U.S. has seen an "alarming surge" since the 2024 U.S. elections won by Donald Trump, data released by Stop AAPI Hate showed, citing what the nonprofit group called the U.S. president’s anti-immigration agenda and an intense debate surrounding H-1B visas. "Since Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, there has been an alarming surge in anti-Asian hate online - including slurs and threats of violence," the nonprofit group, which documents discrimination against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the U.S., said on Thursday. Rights advocates have been critical of Trump’s immigration crackdown which they say fuels anti-immigrant rhetoric. They have also criticized Trump’s attempts to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion programs, saying DEI policies help ensure equal opportunities for marginalized groups facing historical inequities. Trump says his policies target immigrants who came into the U.S. illegally. He calls DEI discriminatory and "anti-merit.” Indians account for the bulk of H-1B U.S. visas, which Trump has backed despite vocal opposition by some of his supporters. January 2025 marked the highest number of online anti-Asian slurs by month since monitoring began in August 2022, Stop AAPI Hate said, with a total of 87,945 slurs. Since the election, observed slurs have increased 66%, the data showed. The surge was mostly driven by anti-South Asian slurs, which increased by 75% in January, versus November. Similarly, threats of violence against Asians online rose by over 50% in both December and January, compared to November, the data showed. Some online rhetoric centered around Indians "stealing jobs" and threatening "white livelihood," the nonprofit group said. Online hate against Americans of Asian, especially South Asian, ancestry had risen steadily in 2023 and 2024 with the rise to prominence of politicians from that community, Stop AAPI Hate said in the build-up to the November elections.

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NBC News [2/20/2025 1:32 PM, Staff, 50804K]

FOX News [2/20/2025 12:38 PM, peter Pinedo, 49889K] reports that speaking at the opening session of the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) on Thursday morning, Vice President JD Vance touted the Trump administration’s success in its first month of restoring "safety and prosperity" to the American people, which he said is the president’s "fundamental goal." A week after his fiery speech to European political leaders in Munich, Vance spoke before a packed house at National Harbor, Maryland, in a conversation-style address with a CPAC organizer. He said Trump recognizes that "we have a historical mandate on a few issues," which he said were cracking down on illegal immigration, restoring American energy dominance and cutting the rampant waste of taxpayer dollars through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). He quipped that in his first 30 days in office, President Donald Trump signed "more executive orders than CNN has viewers." Addressing the migrant crisis, Vance said: "We have to secure the southern border and thanks to [Trump’s] actions, border crossings are down well over 90%, and we’re just getting started." On the heels of the administration designating several migrant criminal groups — including Tren de Aragua and MS-13 — as foreign terrorist organizations, Vance said Trump’s message to migrant criminals is "get the hell out of our country because your free ride is over… you’re not welcome." Regarding American energy and the economy, Vance said Trump "recognizes that we have to really unlock the engine of American growth."

New York Times [2/20/2025 10:53 PM, Qasim Nauman, 161405K] reports the U.S. Justice Department said Thursday that it would dismiss a case against Elon Musk’s SpaceX, in which the rocket company had been accused of discriminating against people based on their citizenship status. In an unopposed motion filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, the Justice Department said it intended to file a notice of dismissal with prejudice, which means prosecutors would not be able to file these charges again. The motion did not say why the case was being dropped. The Justice Department had filed the case against SpaceX on Aug. 23, 2023, accusing the company of violating federal law in its hiring practices. SpaceX did not fairly consider job applications from refugees and people who have been granted asylum in the United States, the department said. SpaceX also discouraged refugees and asylees from applying for jobs, refused to hire them even when they were qualified, and rejected them repeatedly because of their citizenship status, the department said. Mr. Musk had said at the time that SpaceX was told it could not hire anyone who was not a citizen or permanent resident of the United States because of export control laws. “This is yet another case of weaponization of the DOJ for political purposes,” he had posted on X. The Justice Department had rejected that position, saying that export control laws posed no such restrictions.

Reported similarly:
Reuters [2/20/2025 8:38 PM, Luc Cohen, 48128K]

Telemundo [2/20/2025 6:58 PM, Tania Luviano, 34K] reports because of her illegal status in the country, we’ll call this immigrant Jesse, who a few weeks ago hired an immigration lawyer she saw in TikTok, but it turned out she was actually a con man who stole thousands of dollars. "With the new president, we’re not safe anywhere," Jesse said. Jesse is the mother of two young children and has a deportation order for more than 10 years, so images of immigrants detained by federal authorities have been living in fear and hidden. "Before I leave my house, I look through my windows to see if there are suspicious cars and I run towards the car," Jesse said. The desperation to be able to take to the streets without fear is what motivated Jesse to send a message via TikTok to someone who thought he was an immigration lawyer. "He told me, ‘If you have a deportation order, we can help you and stop it,’" he said. Through WhatsApp, the alleged lawyer told him he could help stop the deportation process for $3,500. He asked for half the amount to start the process. Jesse sent him $1,750 through Zelle. Minutes later, Jesse saw the first sign that the person he was talking to was not a lawyer, but a con man. "I asked him for the contract, but he didn’t send it to me," Jesse said. "Many immigrants because they’re scared, and they’re deportable, they’re responding to the social media of lawyers or people posing as lawyers, saying, ‘We can cancel their deportation’ when it’s actually very difficult," said Esther Valdez-Clayton, an immigration attorney. Scammers are taking advantage of the desperation and hope of undocumented immigrants like Jesse.

Yahoo! News [2/20/2025 7:00 AM, Chris Sommerfeldt, Josephine Stratman, 57114K] reports that, since being stripped of his federal security clearance last fall due to his corruption indictment, Mayor Adams has been barred from receiving information on a range of sensitive issues, including “terroristic threats” to New York, his lawyer said in court Wednesday. Alex Spiro, Adams’ defense attorney, made the revelation during a hearing called by Manhattan Federal Court Judge Dale Ho to grill prosecutors from President Trump’s Department of Justice on the highly unusual motion they’ve filed to try to dismiss the mayor’s indictment. The motion, which asks the judge to toss the case with the understanding that it could be brought back as early November, argues Adams’ indictment has prevented him from working with the feds on both “national security” and “immigration” matters, specifically Trump’s efforts to target undocumented New Yorkers for deportation. Elaborating on those points, Spiro said in Wednesday’s hearing the federal government pulled back Adams’ clearance “because of this case,” filed in September. “I was there,” he said. “It was revoked after and because of the indictment.” Specifically, Spiro said the clearance revocation resulted in Adams being sidelined from taking part in meetings “at certain levels” convened by the Joint Terrorism Task Force, an FBI entity that works with the NYPD. The task force is the city’s “front line of defense against terrorism, both international and domestic,” according to the FBI’s website. “He is not getting access to … terroristic threats and other things like that from the federal government because of the pendency of this case,” Spiro said. Spiro didn’t return emails asking for specifics. Spiro’s acknowledgements came after he wrote in a Feb. 3 letter to Trump’s DOJ that Adams’ indictment has proven a major obstacle to carrying out his duties as mayor, including on the political side, impairing his reelection effort. Were the case to go to trial, Spiro wrote in the letter it would occupy 75% of Adams’ “waking hours.” Spiro’s assessment sharply contrasts with Adams’ insistence that his ability to perform his job hasn’t taken a hit from his criminal case. Adams often says he deserves credit for being able to “stay focused” amid his legal troubles. In the hearing, Spiro said the return of Adams’ clearance “hinges upon” his case being dropped.

AP [2/20/2025 5:52 PM, Anthony Izaguirre, Jake Offenhartz, and Jennifer Peltz, 47097K] reports that Gov. Kathy Hochul won’t immediately remove New York City Mayor Eric Adams from office, but will instead push for increased oversight of City Hall as he faces intense scrutiny over his relationship with the Trump administration. Hochul will announce Thursday that she has, for now, decided against removing Adams from office, according to three people familiar with the governor’s plan who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to disclose its details. The decision came after she solicited opinions this week from a roster of New York political figures over questions about whether Adams could independently govern following the Justice Department’s move to drop his corruption case so he could help with Republican President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda. Rather than remove Adams, Hochul plans to propose legislation that would require City Hall to operate within new guardrails. Two of the sources familiar with the strategy said the proposals include establishing a new deputy inspector general focused on New York City; a fund for the city’s comptroller, public advocate and council speaker to launch lawsuits against the federal government; and more money for the state comptroller to investigate the city’s finances.

FOX News [2/20/2025 7:08 AM, Michael Dorgan, CB Cotton, 49889K] reports two suspected members of the violent Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang who live at New York City migrant shelters were busted in a gun and drug raid earlier this month – and have since been cut loose on lesser charges that may end without prosecution, according to police, court documents and the New York Post. Police tell Fox News Digital that Jose Tamaronis-Caldera, 27, and Richard Garcia, 33, were arrested in the Feb. 5 raid on a Big Apple auto repair shop where a Glock handgun, two imitation pistols, and a large quantity of drugs were found. Both are reputed members of the Venezuelan migrant TdA gang, which has been terrorizing cities across the nation, the New York Post reports, citing sources. The NYPD was unable to confirm their purported gang membership to Fox News Digital. Rafael Nieves, 54, who prosecutors said is the auto shop’s owner, was also arrested. Police said the raid took place at V&R Auto and Collision in Woodside, Queens. All three were hit with felony drug and gun charges, but documents reveal that Tamaronis-Caldera and Garcia faced lesser charges when the case went to court. Tamaronis-Caldera and Garcia are currently each charged with two misdemeanors; possession of an air pistol or air rifle and possession of an imitation firearm which let them walk without bail, prosecutors said. Furthermore, the charges against Tamaronis-Caldera and Garcia will be dismissed after Aug. 5 if they do not commit further crimes as part of an adjournment in contemplation of compliance (ACD) issued by the judge, prosecutors said. Nieves, who faced the most serious charges, had his drug and gun possession charges knocked down as well, with the new counts not eligible for bail. His new charges included criminal possession of a firearm and imitation handgun as well as criminal possession of a controlled substance in the seventh degree. The Queens DA’s office said the charges are not bail-eligible because the gun was unloaded and there was no ammo nearby. The DA’s office added that the drugs found on the premises were in an office area and consisted of cocaine and oxycodone pills. "The DA’s office reviews all evidence and charges as warranted," the Queens DA’s Office said in a statement. "In this case, the weapon charge against defendant Nieves is for an unloaded firearm and is not bail-eligible. Our office asked for supervised release and the judge granted supervised release.” "The charges against the other two defendants, Garcia and Tamaronis-Caldera, are for possession of an air pistol and are not bail eligible.”

AP [2/20/2025 1:50 PM, Mike Schneider, 14282K] reports that Florida officials are holding off updating the state’s population projections because of uncertainties about how the immigration policies of President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis are going to impact growth. Members of Florida’s Demographic Estimating Conference met earlier this month to adopt a new population forecast. But they decided not to make any updates to their model because of "emerging and evolving changes" to federal and state immigration policies. Conference members expect that both federal and state immigration policies will "exert downward pressure" on the population projections for Florida, the third most-populous state in the United States, the conference said in an executive summary. Florida has a current population of more than 23 million residents. More than a fifth of Florida residents were born outside the United States. Last week, DeSantis signed a sweeping package of immigration laws aimed at carrying out Trump’s mass deportation agenda. The new legislation signed by the Republican governor mandates the death penalty for immigrants in the U.S. without legal authorization who commit capital offenses and sets aside nearly $300 million for immigration enforcement.

Northeast Indiana Public Radio [2/20/2025 2:15 PM, Brandon Smith, 19K] reports that
House Republicans approved a bill Thursday to enhance Indiana’s role in enforcing federal immigration law. Rep. J.D. Prescott’s (R-Union City) bill would give the attorney general’s office more authority to investigate businesses that might be employing undocumented immigrants — and creates penalties for those that do. "Penalties start with a warning and suspensions and then work their way up to a revocation of license," Prescott said. HB 1531 also provides more specificity in state law to force local governments and law enforcement agencies to cooperate with federal immigration officials. Indiana law already requires law enforcement to cooperate with federal authorities. The attorney general’s office said the bill would provide more specificity and make it easier for it to win ongoing lawsuits against two county sheriffs’ offices. And it gives the governor the power to withhold any state funding from locals that don’t, for up to a year. Rep. Maureen Bauer (D-South Bend) said that’s not the only funding crisis the bill creates. "We’re forcing agencies to divert their funds from violent crime prevention and community outreach — critical functions that keep our communities safe currently," Bauer said. In a statement, Attorney General Todd Rokita said the measure takes several steps to "stop the magnet" that’s pulling undocumented immigrants to Indiana — something he said drives up crime and overwhelms health care services and schools. The House advanced the bill to the Senate along party lines.

Houston Chronicle [2/20/2025 11:55 AM, Benjamin Wermund, 2315K] reports that the state’s largest immigrant legal aid group is cutting dozens of employees, the latest in a wave of layoffs across Texas after President Donald Trump suspended refugee resettlement programs and halted federal funding for groups helping refugees. RAICES, an acronym for the San Antonio-based Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, notified 63 employees this week that their employment will end at the end of the month. The group blamed the layoffs on Trump’s suspension of the U.S Refugee Admissions Program and his freeze on federal grants. RAICES is involved in multiple legal challenges over other Trump immigration policies, including his detention of migrants at Guantanamo Bay and his move to shut down asylum at the border. "The stop-work orders and funding obstruction at the hands of the callous Trump administration decimated the refugee resettlement programs operated by RAICES and other agencies nationwide," said Faisal Al-Juburi, a spokesman for the group. The refugee pause, which is expected to last 90 days, came after Trump signed an executive order soon after taking office that halted all entries through the nation’s Refugee Admissions Program. "The United States lacks the ability to absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees, into its communities in a manner that does not compromise the availability of resources for Americans," the order said.

AZCentral [2/20/2025 8:03 AM, Stacey Barchenger, 6018K] Video: HERE reports a Republican Arizona state senator wants to create a $2,500 bounty for the arrest of each undocumented immigrant who is eventually deported. That financial reward would be paid to local and state law enforcement agencies in Arizona and funded by a new "illegal alien remittance fee" charged on international wire transfers, according to the proposal from Sen. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek. Hoffman told The Arizona Republic his bill would help local law enforcement support federal deportation efforts while drawing on the dollars migrants send to other countries. But his Democratic colleagues — and a spokesperson for Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs — pushed back, saying it would create a system that rewards law enforcement for targeting undocumented immigrants. "The reality is that millions of dollars get sent back to foreign nations," Hoffman said. "That’s money that would otherwise be contributing to our GDP as a state and as a country. And so the illegal alien remittance fee is designed to essentially recover some of those funds and then put it towards something that is widely popular, not just in Arizona but across the country, which is assisting the federal government in apprehending criminal illegal aliens." "This is ensuring that our officers are doing everything within their power to support the federal government’s efforts," Hoffman added. The proposed fee would be $25 for any foreign wire transfer of less than $500, and $25 plus 5% of the amount over $500 for transfers over $500. A taxpayer who pays the fee would be able to claim that amount as a credit on their taxes, the bill says. Money transfer companies, which are licensed by the state, would be required to charge the fees and put them into a new state bank account called the "Arizona deportations fund." The money would fund grants to Arizona law enforcement agencies that have "direct involvement in apprehending an illegal alien," according to Hoffman’s proposal. It would be paid after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or other federal agency confirmed that the person had been deported.

Reported similarly:
Newsweek [2/20/2025 1:41 PM, Billal Rahman, 56005K]

ABC News [2/20/2025 7:06 PM, Jim Morris, 33392K] reports Canada is designating seven Latin American criminal organizations as terrorist entities under the country’s Criminal Code, giving Canadian law enforcement another tool in the fight against fentanyl trafficking, Public Safety Minister David McGuinty said Thursday. The list includes Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, Jalisco New Generation Cartel and La Nueva Familia Michoacana, and was announced a day after the U.S. government formally designated eight Latin American organized crime groups as "foreign terrorist organizations.” "The measures will help keep fentanyl off Canadian streets and from entering the United States," McGuinty told a news conference. The announcement was Canada’s latest response to U.S. President Donald Trump ‘s claim that the flow of fentanyl and illegal immigration into the U.S. were behind his threats of imposing a 25% tariff on all Canadian goods – with the exception of 10% on energy. Trump has paused the implementation of those tariffs until at least March 4. U.S. border patrol statistics show that less than 1% of all fentanyl seized is found at the northern border. But Canadian officials have expressed a willingness to do more to combat the deadly synthetic opioid. The other organizations designated as terrorist groups are Cartel del Golfo and Carteles Unidos, also from Mexico; Tren de Aragua, in Venezuela, and the Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, which started in California but became a dominant criminal force in El Salvador.

Reported similarly:
Bloomberg [2/20/2025 5:20 PM, Randy Thanthong-Knight]
EFE [2/20/2025 6:16 PM, Staff, 1532K]

Washington Examiner [2/20/2025 1:20 PM, Anna Giaritelli, 2365K] reports that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has declared eight primarily Latin-based cartels and transnational criminal organizations as terrorist organizations, following through on President Donald Trump’s promise to change the classification. The State Department announced Thursday morning that eight primarily Mexican-based crime rings, as well as Venezuelan and Salvadoran groups, would be identified as foreign terrorist organizations or specially designated global terrorists. "As President Trump said in Executive Order 14157, cartels and other transnational organizations ‘threaten the safety of the American people, the security of the United States, and the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere,’" Rubio said in a statement. "The Department of State announces the designation of Tren de Aragua, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), Cártel de Sinaloa, Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, Cártel del Noreste (formerly Los Zetas), La Nueva Familia Michoacana, Cártel de Golfo (Gulf Cartel), and Cárteles Unidos as FTOs and SDGTs," Rubio said. The six other gangs are all based in various parts of Mexico and are heavily involved in the smuggling and trafficking of people across the border, as well as moving drugs, guns, and money over the border.

Washington Post [2/21/2025 3:45 AM, Frances Vinall, 40736K] reports Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said her party has proposed reforms to the country’s constitution to better protect its sovereignty in response to the United States designating six Mexican organized-crime groups as foreign terrorist organizations. The U.S. State Department on Thursday upgraded the designation of cartels including Mexico’s Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generación, which together dominate fentanyl manufacturing and importation into the United States, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. “This cannot be an opportunity for the United States to invade our sovereignty,” Sheinbaum said at a news conference Thursday, adding that Mexico would collaborate on combating organized crime but would not accept “subordination.” A “foreign terrorist organization” designation allows the State Department to deploy special sanctions and expands the U.S. government’s ability to prosecute people who provide support to the groups and to collect “military action intelligence,” according to a Wilson Center analysis. Branding cartels with the designation has been raised several times by U.S. lawmakers, but Mexico has staunchly opposed the idea because of fears it could lead to U.S. military intervention and negatively affect Mexico’s global reputation, analysts say. Constitutional changes are more common in Mexico than in the United States — Sheinbaum had shepherded through at least 12 constitutional reforms by Jan. 30, after being sworn in on Oct. 1 — and they are especially straightforward given her leftist Morena party and its allies hold majorities in both chambers of the National Congress and control three-quarters of state legislatures. The first reform proposed by Sheinbaum on Thursday would state that Mexico will not accept any “act from abroad that is harmful to the integrity, independence and sovereignty of the Nation,” including coups, election interference and unauthorized foreign interventions in investigations and prosecutions.

NPR [2/20/2025 2:42 PM, Eyder Peralta, 35747K] reports Mexico’s president is warning the United States against any violation of its territory. The warning comes after the U.S. classified six of Mexico’s biggest organized crime groups as foreign terrorist organizations. During her morning press briefing Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said the U.S. made the decision to designate the cartels as terrorist groups unilaterally, without consulting Mexico. She said Mexico, like the U.S., is committed to fighting drug cartels, but through cooperation not coercion. Sheinbaum said Mexico is committed to working with the United States to stop the flow of fentanyl, but Mexico, she said, will not tolerate any American interference. To that end, she sent a proposed constitutional amendment to Congress that explicitly says the Mexican people reject foreign interventions. CBS Detroit [2/20/2025 11:23 AM, Staff, 52225K] reports "This cannot be an opportunity for the U.S. to invade our sovereignty," she said. "With Mexico it is collaboration and coordination, never subordination or interventionism, and even less invasion." On Wednesday, the Trump administration formally labeled eight cartels as terrorist groups. They include Mexico’s two main drug trafficking organizations, the Jalisco New Generation and Sinaloa cartels. Mr. Trump signed an executive order on his first day back in the White House saying that the cartels "constitute a national-security threat beyond that posed by traditional organized crime.” The move has raised speculation about possible military action. Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has been given a prominent role in the Trump administration, said on social media the designation "means they’re eligible for drone strikes." Experts, however, said that bombing Mexican cartels or sending troops over the border still appeared unlikely, although Mr. Trump’s unpredictability makes it impossible to completely rule out. CNN [2/20/2025 4:02 PM, Abel Alvarado and Gerardo Lemos] reports Sheinbaum and other senior Mexican officials have previously emphasized concerns over sovereignty following revelations that US spy plane flights are also occurring near the border, albeit in international airspace and over US territory. Defense Minister Ricardo Trevilla said last week that he had not been given a heads up on the spy plane flights. Sheinbaum is now proposing reforms to constitutional articles 39 and 40, which focus on Mexico’s independence and sovereignty. The proposed reforms include Mexico prohibiting any "intervention for investigations and prosecutions without the express authorization and collaboration of the Mexican state within the framework of the applicable laws." Sheinbaum also said that the US decision to designate certain criminal groups in Mexico as terrorist organizations was not undertaken in consultation with her government. Separately, Sheinbaum said she is also proposing another reform to target "any national or foreigner involved in the illicit manufacture, distribution, disposal, transfer and internment of weapons into the national territory." FOX News [2/20/2025 1:56 PM, Stephen Sorace, 49889K] reports that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Thursday that she will propose constitutional reforms aimed at protecting the country’s sovereignty over concerns the U.S. military could cross the border to pursue Mexican drug cartels.

The Hill [2/20/2025 4:31 PM, Ashleigh Fields, 16346K] reports Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum reacted strongly to a U.S. State Department order declaring that several of Mexico’s drug cartels were terrorist organizations, which led Elon Musk to say they were "eligible for drone strikes." Tren de Aragua, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), Cartel de Sinaloa, Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, Carteles Unidos, Cartel del Noreste, Cartel del Golfo, and La Nueva Familia Michoacana were all listed as terrorist groups in a Wednesday State Department release. Mexican authorities claim the label is unwarranted as cartels are motivated by profit not politics, unlike other organizations listed. Sheinbaum, Mexico’s first female president, said she will not allow attacks of any kind to take place within Mexico’s sovereign borders although she approved U.S. requests for drone surveillance. She said this was done in a collaborative effort to curb the flow of cross border drug sales in lieu of President Trump’s postponed 25 percent tariffs on Mexican imports. Mexico’s president has also pledged to impose harsher policies against criminals who engage in arms trafficking through constitutional reform while cracking down on gun manufacturers in the U.S. for their hand in the illegal sale of weapons.

Telemundo [2/20/2025 7:05 PM, Staff, 34K] reports a month after the beginning of Donald Trump’s administration and the end of the CBP One application, with it, the hope of thousands of migrants seeking political asylum in the United States has also disappeared, and today, they still remain at the border without a defined course. "It is very difficult, more than anything else, one loses hope of being able to enter the territory," said Maria, originally from Nicaragua, who for security reasons hides her identity. She has been in Tijuana for five months, she says that she arrived alone and pregnant. Here she gave birth and remains in a shelter in the city, keeping alive the hope of crossing into the U.S. "The hope I have is that the application will be reopened so I can legally enter the United States," she told Telemundo 20. She says that her journey has been a sea of emotions: "Very difficult, because on the way from Mexico to here, there are many assaults, plus me with my pregnancy and all that was very complicated when I got here," she added. Since the beginning of Donald Trump’s administration on January 20, the security policies at the border that have sought to curb the crossing of migrants, as well as the elimination of the CBP program have led to a decrease of just over 50% in the number of people who are in shelters such as Youth 2000 in Tijuana. On the other hand, there are those who have come up with the idea of a plan B on this side of the wall, "They are finally here waiting to see what can happen, however, several of them, from when we talked about there being more of them, little by little they have been settling in the city, they have been renting to stay here since they cannot return to their place of origin, just talking about Mexicans", said Jose Maria Lara, Coordinator of the Migrant Alliance of Tijuana. Mexicans like Cesar, originally from Puebla, arrived in Tijuana a little more than a month ago, but he had to face the hardening of immigration policies, so he will look for another alternative: "If right now we want to go back, it is not going to be possible to cross to the other side, we better go back. The truth is that we lost that hope and in the end they took it away, and now we have been hoping that maybe we will be able to cross or that those opportunities will return", mentioned Cesar. Opportunities that in the immediate future are not foreseen, but they do not lose faith. We have the hope that they can start a new aid program for these communities, with a more restrictive policy of how the communities will enter under these programs, maybe they can be implemented, we do not lose faith", concluded Jose Maria Lara. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

New York Times [2/21/2025 3:20 AM,Charlie Savage, 740K] reports the Trump administration has started sending migrants from the United States to the American military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, raising a series of legal questions over the government’s authority to do so and the basic rights of detainees. The government brought 178 Venezuelan migrants to the base this month — then abruptly cleared them out on Thursday. A Homeland Security spokeswoman said 177 had been transferred to Venezuelan custody and one had been brought back to an ICE facility in the United States. It is not clear if the administration still intends to transfer others there. Already at least three lawsuits have been filed related to aspects of the policy, and rights groups are expected to mount a broader challenge. It is unclear whether the government has legal authority to transfer migrants from the United States to Guantánamo, which is an odd and ambiguous place for legal purposes. The base sits on Cuba’s sovereign territory, but the United States has exclusive jurisdiction and control over what happens there because of a perpetual lease and the rupture in relations between the United States and Cuba’s Communist government. Normally, transfer authority comes from the Immigration and Nationality Act, which empowers the government to detain migrants who have final removal orders and are awaiting deportation. There is no dispute that Immigration and Customs Enforcement can transfer them among its different holding facilities inside the United States while they await their removal from the country. But the act defines the geographic territory of the United States as the 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands. It does not include Guantánamo. The act also empowers the government to transfer migrants to other countries — with a key limit: Migrants may only be moved to countries with which they have no personal connections if the receiving country’s government accepts them. But Cuba has not granted the United States permission to bring the Venezuelans to its soil.

Bloomberg [2/20/2025 7:00 AM, Mark Gongloff, 21617K] reports imagine you’re the ruler of a realm that is routinely attacked by dragons, but only in certain neighborhoods whose matchstick buildings get razed to the ground. After every attack, you could tell the people in those neighborhoods to either build stronger, more dragon-resistant buildings or move to a place that’s somehow less infuriating to dragons. What you probably wouldn’t do is tell those people to just rebuild those matchstick buildings while also demanding that everybody in the kingdom pretend dragons don’t exist and ending all dragon-related research. Unless, that is, you are President Donald Trump. The Trump administration has suspended a Federal Emergency Management Agency requirement that public structures damaged or destroyed by floods be rebuilt to resist future ones to receive FEMA relief, New York Times reported last week. That means any town wanting to rebuild a school or a firehouse after a disaster can now get FEMA money to do so, even if the rebuilt structure is just as vulnerable as the damaged one. In other words, the same administration that has loosed Elon Musk’s brigade of teenage coders in the guts of the federal bureaucracy looking for wasted government money is also giving state and local officials a blank check to … waste government money. And that money is already scarce. A few days before the Times report, FEMA said it had to borrow $2 billion from the Treasury Department to help cover an estimated $10 billion in National Flood Insurance Program claims from Hurricanes Helene and Milton. “The NFIP is not designed to pay for multiple catastrophic events in a single year without additional financial assistance,” FEMA said in a release.

Yahoo! News [2/20/2025 5:30 AM, Addie Angelov, 57114K] reports that, in 2021-22, Indiana hit a record high number of Hoosier deaths due to drug overdoses, 2,755. According to last Friday’s publicly available probable cause affidavit, one of those deaths was Trinity Shockley’s mother. Shockley was a senior in Mooresville Schools until Feb. 20 when her plans for a Valentine’s Day mass shooting in the cafeteria were discovered. This is the same school my daughter attends, the same cafeteria my daughter would have been sitting in with her friends during the planned attack. More than 320,000 children lost a parent to drug overdoses during the opioid crisis, according to the most recent data. Shockley’s case is a stark reminder that efforts to combat the opioid crisis have entered a new phase. While the first two years of support have focused on supporting addicts directly, a better understanding of and support for the children of addicts deserves attention. More than 57,500 Hoosier children were affected by the opioid crisis, with the highest concentration in rural areas. This is more than the number of children affected by autism and childhood diabetes combined. According to the most recent estimates, children with a parent that’s an addict cost our state $37,000 in health care, $44,000 in child welfare and social programs, and $186,000 in special education costs. Pediatricians, schools, therapists, and social services are increasingly seeing more high-need cases at greater frequencies than ever before. This means state agencies are overwhelmed by providing services and supporting kids displaying high acuity behaviors. These trends are not set to slow anytime soon. By 2030, the innocent victims of the opioid crisis are set to have cost the state $10.5 billion. Indiana received $980 million in opioid settlement dollars to be doled out over 18 years. If there is one thing we have learned from this crisis, it’s that only treating the addict is ineffective because it leaves family members like Shockley untreated.

AZCentral [2/20/2025 4:34 PM, Elvia Díaz, 6018K] reports Arizona lawmakers are proposing legislation that would financially reward law enforcement for the arrest and deportation of undocumented immigrants. Another proposed bill would legalize the use of lethal force against individuals crossing private property. Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs has expressed opposition to the ‘bounty bill’ but has not clarified her stance on other anti-immigration bills. The chairman of the Arizona Freedom Caucus wants to put a $2,500 bounty on migrants’ heads. It’s unclear how Hoffman came up with that amount, but his Senate Bill 1111 would impose a fee on migrants’ international wire transfers. Taxpayers could, if they want, also claim the fees paid as tax credit. That’s how Hoffman is selling his head-hunting pitch to MAGA Arizonans, who are itching to use migrants as human targets.

USA Today [2/20/2025 8:29 AM, Rick Jervis, 89965K] reports the young woman in the video sounds desperate. Sitting on a bed in a hotel room surrounded by eight other people, including several children, she explains to the camera that they’re all Iranian Christians who journeyed to the U.S.-Mexico border near Tijuana to seek asylum – then were shackled and flown six hours in a military plane to Panama. “All of our cases are legitimate,” she says, her eyes burrowing with worry. “I’m a protester in Iran with a record. I can’t go back.” The woman – later identified as 27-year-old Artemis Ghasemzadeh – was part of a group of Iranian Christians, as well as migrants from Afghanistan, Nepal, China and other countries, who were recently flown from the U.S. to Panama and Costa Rica. The flights are part of President Donald Trump and his administration’s strategy of outsourcing some of its most challenging deportations and removing as many people as possible who are in the U.S. without permission. On Thursday, the administration took another step designating eight gangs from Latin America as "foreign terrorist organizations," increasing the reach of U.S. law enforcement as they race to deport record number of migrants and deliver on one of Trump’s biggest campaign promises. But these deportation flights trample migrant’s rights and could return some asylum-seekers to dangerous situations, immigrant advocates and attorneys say. “This is unprecedented,” Hillary Walsh, an immigration attorney in Phoenix whose office has been in touch with the Iranians in Panama, said of the new flights. “It’s not making asylum law hard – it’s eliminating asylum law.” Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which oversees the deportations, did not respond to a request for comment. Ghasemzadeh and the other Iranians traveled through several countries, including Mexico, to reach the U.S.-Mexico border at Tijuana, Walsh said. After they crossed the border, U.S. officials took their passports and other documents and gave them immigration detention wristbands. They were never given “credible fear” interviews, Walsh said, often the first step to determining whether migrants could apply for asylum.

Yahoo! News [2/20/2025 10:05 AM, Daniel Patrick, 57114K] reports that after minivan operated by ICE has reportedly been set ablaze during operations in Philadelphia. If found to be intentional, which it appears to be, this is literal leftwing terrorism to make sure our country continues to be invaded," says a February 18, 2025 X post from Charlie Kirk, a Christian nationalist influencer who has previously shared misinformation. The same claim has circulated elsewhere on X, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, TikTok, YouTube, Rumble and Gettr -- including in Spanish, Portuguese and French. Several protests in US cities, including Philadelphia, have broken out against the deportation measures. However, there is no evidence anyone deliberately set the ICE van ablaze. ICE also confirmed investigators did not suspect the fire was intentional and that no agency personnel were injured. "A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicle experienced mechanical issues and caught on fire in South Philadelphia, today. The Philadelphia Fire Department extinguished the flames after arriving on scene. There were no injuries due to the fast response from the fire department and the vehicle’s occupants," ICE spokesperson Tanya Roman said in a February 19 email. "The cause of the fire is unknown, but no foul play is suspected at this time."

Yahoo! News [2/20/2025 8:30 AM, Justin Muszynski, 57114K] reports a Jamaican citizen wanted in a shooting in his home country has been deported after immigration officials said he illegally entered the country and was sentenced to prison in connection with a threatening incident in New Haven. Leroy Neville White, 30, was removed from the country on Jan. 30 and turned over to authorities in Jamaica, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE officials said Jamaican authorities issued a warrant for White’s arrest on Dec. 31, 2018, on a charge of shooting with intent. White was arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol on July 11, 2022, after he illegally entered the country near San Ysidro, California, according to ICE officials. The next day he was served with a notice to appear before a Department of Justice immigration judge and released on an order of recognizance. ICE officials said an immigration judge with the DOJ’s Executive Office for Immigration Review in Atlanta, Georgia made an order on April 12, 2023, for White to be removed from the country and taken to Jamaica. White was arrested by officers with the New Haven Police Department on Dec. 26, 2023, and charged with first-degree threatening with hazard to terrorize, according to ICE. The next day, immigration officials filed a detainer against White while he was being held at the New Haven Correctional Center. White was convicted of the felony threatening charge on April 17, 2024, and was sentenced to five years in prison, suspended after service of one year, and three years of probation. The Connecticut Department of Correction honored the ICE detainer on Dec. 26, 2024, and White was turned over to immigration officials once his sentence was complete, according to ICE. "Leroy Neville White attempted to flee justice in his home country and take refuge in the United States," ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Boston acting Field Office Director Patricia H. Hyde said in a statement. "He then continued to break the law in Connecticut.” "White is a violent criminal and presented a significant threat to the residents of our neighborhoods," Hyde said. "ICE will not tolerate such a threat. We will continue to arrest and remove egregious alien offenders from New England.” ICE officials encourage anyone looking to report criminal or suspicious activity to call their agency at 866-DHS-2-ICE (866-347-2423) or visit its website and complete an online tip form.

Yahoo! News [2/21/2025 12:01 AM, Vivian Chow, 57114K] reports authorities are searching for a fugitive who is wanted for a deadly shooting at a Long Beach restaurant in 2008. The FBI is offering up to $25,000 for information leading to the arrest of Jose Manuel Flores, 47. Flores has used aliases including “Willie” and “Malo.” He has used the suffix “Jr.” at the end of his formal name. He cites November 25, 1977, as his date of birth and he was born in Florida. On Oct. 18, 2008, Flores was allegedly involved in the deadly shooting of a person inside the Brite Spot Restaurant in Long Beach. He fled the scene and has remained on the run since. Authorities said Flores had a criminal history and was considered a felon at the time of the alleged crime. On March 9, 2010, he was charged with murder and possession of a firearm by a felon. Investigators believe Flores fled California and headed south of the U.S. border. On June 24, 2010, a federal arrest warrant was issued after he was charged with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. Detectives said he previously resided in Long Beach and is believed to currently be living in Mexico. He has ties to or may visit Southern California and Mexico. He is known to have ties to the Los Zetas cartel in Mexico, according to court documents. “Flores should be considered armed and dangerous with violent tendencies,” FBI officials said. Flores is described as an American citizen of Hispanic descent. He stands 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighed around 160 pounds in 2010. He has brown eyes, brown hair, and tattoos on his right arm, back, chest, head and neck. Anyone who knows the suspect’s whereabouts or has information on the case is asked to call the FBI’s L.A. Field Office at 310-477-6565 or the Long Beach Police Department’s Homicide Detail at 562-570-7244.

CBS Miami [2/20/2025 10:24 AM, John MacLauchlan and Steve Maugeri, 52225K] reports that a man was taken into custody by police after he walked into a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Miramar Thursday morning carrying a package with a "suspicious" substance, prompting the building’s partial evacuation, authorities said. According to Miramar police, a person walked into the building with the package and security reported feeling ill after touching it. The said package had some sort of powdery substance, authorities said. Crews from Miramar Fire Rescue were called to the scene along with Broward Sheriff Fire Rescue and specialized hazardous materials teams. The facility, which is east of I-75 and north of Miramar Parkway, was partially evacuated. The person who brought the package in remained in the building and was taken into custody. Miramar police said federal authorities will handle the investigation. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

CBS Miami [2/20/2025 12:21 PM, Staff, 52225K] reports that Ivan Taylor reports the agency said it was part of an ongoing criminal investigation. [Editorial note: consult source link for video]

Yahoo! News [2/20/2025 6:58 PM, Nick Ferraro, 57114K] reports eight of nine co-defendants have now admitted to being a part of a drug smuggling ring that mailed a record number of fentanyl pills from Arizona to the Twin Cities hidden in stuffed animals. On Thursday, Amaya Tiffany-Nicole Mims, 24, became the latest to plead guilty in U.S. District Court in St. Paul to conspiracy to distribute the drug from August 2022 to February 2023. Mims, of St. Paul, entered a straight plea to the charge, meaning there is no agreement between the defense and the prosecution on the terms of her sentence. A sentencing date has not been scheduled. The others, all from either St. Paul or Minneapolis, also were indicted on the same count following the seizure of 280,000 fentanyl pills that were sent in packages through the U.S. Postal Service from Phoenix to the Twin Cities metro area. Authorities called the fentanyl seizure, which amounted to 66 pounds with an estimated value of more than $2.2 million, the largest ever in Minnesota. Just 2 milligrams of fentanyl can kill a person, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Court documents say several of the co-defendants traveled to Phoenix to obtain fentanyl from suppliers, hid the pills inside stuffed animals and mailed them to addresses in and around the Twin Cities. The drug ring disguised the stuffed animals as birthday presents and lined them with dog treats in an attempt to prevent drug-sniffing dogs from alerting them. The investigation involved law enforcement from Washington, Dakota and Ramsey counties, along with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and Homeland Security Investigations.

Newsweek [2/20/2025 9:01 AM, Billal Rahman, 56005K] reports the mayor of Gainesville has said the local community is "deeply shaken" after the tragic death of 11-year-old Jocelynn Rojo Carranza, who took her own life after being bullied with threats of deportation. "The City of Gainesville expresses its profound sorrow and deepest condolences to the family, friends, and classmates of Jocelynn Rojo Carranza, whose tragic passing has deeply shaken our community. "Our hearts are broken over the loss of Jocelynn," Mayor Tommy Moore told Newsweek. The incident is under investigation by school police. Jocelynn reportedly faced months of bullying from her sixth grade classmates, who targeted her over her family’s immigration status and threatened to call U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to have her deported. ICE, the agency responsible for enforcing immigration laws, including the detention and deportation of immigrants who have no permission to live in the U.S, has become a central focus in the ongoing debate over immigration enforcement. The death of the sixth-grader comes amid the Trump administration’s election-mandated efforts to remove individuals living in the U.S. without legal status. Jocelynn passed away on February 8, five days after her mother found her unresponsive at their home in Gainesville, Texas. She was taken to an intensive care unit in Dallas, where she remained until her passing. According to reports, some students had allegedly threatened to report her family to immigration authorities, telling her she would be left alone. However, the Carranza family’s immigration status remains unknown. Gainesville Intermediate School was aware that Jocelynn was experiencing persistent bullying, with classmates taunting her about her parents’ possible deportation. She met with a school counselor several times a week, but her family says they were never informed about the severity of the harassment. Her mother, Marbella Carranza, only learned about the extent of the bullying after her daughter’s death. She is now working with investigators and school officials to understand what happened and why the school never alerted them.

Texas Tribune [2/20/2025 6:02 PM, Berenice Garcia, 1609K] The owners of a South Texas bakery were arrested and charged with harboring undocumented workers, a relatively rare incidence of federal agents pursuing business owners for allegedly employing undocumented immigrants. Homeland Security Investigations conducted a "worksite enforcement action" at Abby’s Bakery in Los Fresnos on Feb. 12 and said they arrested eight undocumented workers. The agency said the owners, Leonardo Baez and Nora Alicia Avila-Guel were charged with "bringing in and harboring aliens and aiding and abetting the harboring of aliens.” A criminal complaint filed by a Homeland Security special agent said the owners admitted they knew the employees were undocumented. Prosecuting businesses that employ undocumented workers is rare. Even during President Donald Trump’s first term, Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not often exercise that authority. In the year between April 2018 and March 2019, ICE filed seven criminal cases against 11 people for employing workers in the country illegally. No companies were charged during that period, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a data-gathering nonprofit at Syracuse University. The arrests prompted alarm in Los Fresnos, a border town of fewer than 10,000 people in Cameron County. Los Fresnos Mayor Alejandro Flores called the situation "frustrating" in a statement posted on Facebook. "As this is an ongoing issue, we are unable to speculate at this time," Flores said. "I do agree that this doesn’t look good and since ICE is not putting out any statements, we are left to speculate. My prayers are with Mr. Leonardo Baez and his family during this difficult time.”

Border Report [2/20/2025 6:21 PM, Julian Resendiz, 153K] reports the vice chairman of the Senate Indian Affair committee and several Democratic colleagues are concerned Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are conducting unlawful searches and interrogations of tribal members. Some of those trespasses that have allegedly taken place in southern New Mexico have sown "fear and panic" among tribal citizens on and off reservation lands, the lawmakers believe. Part of that is because of the current administration’s stance on doing away with birthright citizenship – an initiative currently paused by the courts. "Whether it is simple ignorance or worse — outright disrespect for and harassment of tribal citizens — ICE’s law enforcement tactics reflect an abdication of U.S. trust and treaty responsibility with tribal nations and their citizens, and cannot stand," the lawmakers headed by vice chair and U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-New Mexico, wrote in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. The letter states tribal members allegedly had run-ins with ICE agents during traffic stops, at immigration checkpoints, in public places and homes, resulting in the "detainment" of at least one U.S.-born tribal member. The senators urged DHS to reach out to the tribes and issue clear guidance to federal agents on what forms of identification can be accepted as proof of U.S. citizenship when operating on tribal lands or dealing with tribal members. The senators sent a lengthy query to Noem regarding the training ICE agents receive and to clarify whether the administration intends to honor tribal identification.

Politico [2/20/2025 11:31 AM, Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein, 57114K] reports that a federal judge has barred the Trump administration from quickly deporting eight foreign nationals who say they are likely to be persecuted or killed if they’re returned to their home countries — including a family of four fleeing the Taliban. However, the Justice Department indicated Thursday that one of the prospective asylum seekers, identified only as N.S. in public court filings, may already be en route back to Ecuador, where she says her husband — a police officer who she says has raped her, beat her and held her at gun point — might kill her. Lawyers for the asylum seekers say the Trump administration has flagrantly ignored federal laws that require people who have "credible fear" of persecution and violence in their home countries be given a chance to legally seek shelter in the United States. U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss, an appointee of President Barack Obama, agreed to block deportation of the eight through noon on Monday by issuing an "administrative stay" freezing the status quo until the court can receive more information on the situation. "We are all a little bit in the dark," Moss said, as he set another hearing on the issue for 9 a.m. Monday. The judge said he believes the threat that the asylum seekers may be immediately deported warranted his emergency block, since they have a "substantial likelihood" of succeeding in their claims.

Reported similarly:
FOX News [2/20/2025 1:31 PM, Staff, 49889K]
Washington Examiner [2/20/2025 1:35 PM, Kaelan Deese, 2365K]

Yahoo! News [2/20/2025 10:32 PM, Gina Silva, 57114K] reports a viral TikTok video is serving as a warning for green card holders about what not to do at the airport, after a woman claims her niece had her green card taken away at LAX. Now, advocates are offering tips to help green card holders know their rights, and what not to do if you’re traveling abroad. In a now-viral TikTok video that has more than 2.5 million views, a woman claims her niece, a nursing student and green card holder, was deported when she returned to LAX from Laos. "Customs stopped her, took away her green card, cut the corner off, put her in a room with three other people, and told one of them that if you’ve been a green card holder for less than two years and leave the U.S. they won’t let you back," the woman claims. "They take away your green card." Immigration attorney Jose Osorio, who is not involved in the woman’s case, explains that green card holders can typically travel abroad for up to 180 days without issue. However, he warns that some travelers have been pressured upon reentry into the U.S. to sign documents like the I-407. Form I-407 is issued by the Department of Homeland Security. It’s called a "Record of Abandonment of Lawful Permanent Resident Status “Filling out the I-407 voluntarily surrenders your lawful status as a permanent resident of the U.S. "They can be interrogated alone, without legal counsel, and sometimes, due to misinformation or desperation, they unknowingly sign away their rights," Osorio said. Many on social media are warning against signing the form. "If they ask you to sign an I-407, don’t do it," one man advises. "You have the right to request to see an immigration judge." Another person adds, "So many people sign documents without reading them. That’s why I’m putting this out today—make sure you don’t sign anything." Osorio stresses that many travelers have unknowingly forfeited their rights. He says that customs officials are only authorized to ask three types of questions: Identity. Proof of permanent resident status. Standard customs-related questions, such as whether a traveler is bringing foreign food into the country or carrying more than $10,000 in currency. "Bottom line—know your rights," Osorio said. "Don’t sign anything waiving them. If you don’t understand it, don’t sign it." Only an immigration judge has the authority to revoke a person’s resident status. However, if someone signs away their rights at the airport, there is little that can be done to reverse it. FOX 11 has reached out to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for comment, but they have not responded.

AP [2/21/2025 12:02 AM, Tara Copp, 47097K] reports Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is visiting troops along the U.S.-Mexico border Friday to assess the military’s progress in fortifying sections of the wall, coming as the Pentagon rapidly expands its border mission in line with President Donald Trump’s efforts to combat illegal immigration. The military in the past month has quickly surged troops and equipment to the border, is seeking expanded authority for cooperation with Mexican forces, has conducted scores of deportation flights and is readying the detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to possibly house as many as 30,000 migrants. About 9,200 U.S. troops total are at the southern border, including 4,200 deployed under federal orders and about 5,000 National Guard troops under the control of governors. The military has conducted 26 deportation flights to return migrants to their home countries, including military air flights to Guatemala, El Salvador, Ecuador, India, Honduras, Peru and Panama. It also has carried out 13 flights to transport migrants to Guantánamo. U.S. Northern Command has increased manned surveillance flights along the U.S.-Mexico border to monitor drug cartels and the movement of fentanyl and is increasing its intelligence sharing with Mexico from those flights, Gen. Gregory Guillot told senators last week. There are also unmanned U.S. drones conducting surveillance over Mexico’s airspace, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters Wednesday. Guillot also told senators that Northern Command would seek expanded authority from Congress to conduct "more advise-and-assist types of operations between our forces and the tier one Mexican forces," which are that country’s special forces units.

CBS News [2/20/2025 9:39 PM, Camilo Montoya-Galvez, 52225K] reports unlawful crossings at the U.S. southern border are down 94% from the same period last year, Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks told CBS News in his first sit-down interview, crediting the Trump administration’s government-wide crackdown on illegal immigration. Over the past seven days, Banks said, Border Patrol agents have apprehended an average of 285 migrants per day along the entire southern border, compared to roughly 4,800 during the same time last year. Banks attributed the dramatic drop in illegal immigration to a slew of executive actions taken by President Trump. They include an order that has effectively closed the U.S. asylum system and allowed for summary deportations, as well as the cancellation of Biden administration policies that allowed some migrants to enter the country with the government’s permission. Formerly Texas’ border czar, Banks also cited the Trump administration’s deployment of additional troops to the southern border and a decision to deputize Texas National Guard soldiers as immigration officers, to help Border Patrol agents in the field. Taken together, Banks said, the actions have virtually halted releases of migrants into the U.S. interior and sent a strong warning to those thinking about traveling to the American border that they will most likely be deported if they enter the country without permission. "The greater the punishment, the larger the deterrent," Banks said during an interview at Customs and Border Protection’s headquarters in Washington. Since Mr. Trump took office, Banks added, only two migrants have been released from Border Patrol custody after crossing the southern border unlawfully. He said they were released to assist with criminal prosecutions as witnesses. "I can tell you this: anyone that has crossed the border between the ports of entry since this administration has taken office has not been released," Banks noted. One of the Biden-era policies the Trump administration rescinded allowed prospective asylum-seekers in Mexico to use a phone app, known as CBP One, to request a time to enter the U.S. at a legal border entry point.

Miami Herald [2/21/2025 12:16 AM, Mark Moran, 6595K] reports Customs and Border Protection agents in Cincinnati seized 4,000 pieces of counterfeit sports merchandise and memorabilia in 85 shipments that would have been worth more than $1.43 million if it were genuine. Much of the fake merchandise came from China and Hong Kong, the CBP said in a release. Much of it was related to Super Bowl LIX and was seized mostly in the weeks leading up to the February 9th game, but there were fakes of other sports items, as well. "These packages contained merchandise that infringed on the protected trademarks of professional sports teams such as Detroit Lions, Baltimore Ravens, Kansas City Chiefs, Al-Nassr FC, Atlanta Braves, and Seattle Mariners to name a few," CPB said in the release. One of the shipments contained 156 Baltimore Ravens NFL jerseys and was headed to a residence in Jensen Beach, Florida. Agents determined that they were fake based on a number of factors, including a lack of fine detail in the logos and numbering, poor packaging and the use of cheap fabric. Had they been genuine, the jerseys would be worth more than $27,000. CPB also intercepted a shipment that contained 80 Las Vegas Raiders collector coins that would have been worth $3,200 had they been authentic. The CPB makes information available to consumers on a webpage describing how to tell if an item is counterfeit and what to do about it if they purchase one.

Telemundo 48 El Paso [2/20/2025 4:23 PM, Staff, 14K] reports bail has been denied for CBP Officer Manuel Perez Jr., 32, who is accused of smuggling migrants across the El Paso border and allegedly working as a member of a Mexican drug cartel. The federal judge found the testimony credible and the information presented at the hearing established clear and convincing evidence that there is no condition of release that would ensure the defendant’s presence as required due to the seriousness of the allegations, i.e. to prevent his escape. Importantly, the evidence showed that the defendant was an associate of criminal organizations in Mexico while working as a U.S. law enforcement officer and also spent time and had a significant portion of his life in Mexico.

CBS Austin [2/20/2025 1:13 PM, Jamel Valencia, 581K] reports that new images of the wall being built along the U.S.-Mexico border show that President Donald Trump’s measures to secure the southern border are underway. The White House’s Rapid Response X account posted a video showing construction at the wall. The post read," POV [point of view] Illegals are no longer going to be able to flood your country." Construction on the border wall resumed recently in California, New Mexico and Texas last month. KFOX reported Wednesday that new razor wire was being added to the border wall already in place in El Paso as U.S. Border Patrol works to deter illegal crossings. Border Patrol officials in the southwest said they "remain committed to enhancing border security through strategic infrastructure improvements." These enhancements play a critical role in deterring illegal crossings, disrupting criminal activity, and ensuring a more secure and resilient border for the communities we serve, the statement released by Border Patrol read in part. [Editorial note: consult source link for video]

Border Report [2/20/2025 7:17 PM, Staff, 153K] reports the driver of a semi tractor-trailer was apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol Wednesday after thousands of dollars worth of drugs were uncovered during an immigration checkpoint on State Route 86. According to El Centro Sector Border Patrol, the driver approached the checkpoint around 10:45 a.m. and was referred for a secondary inspection. A K-9 detection team, trained to detect concealed persons and narcotics, then performed an "open-air sniff" and alerted authorities to the vehicle. After further examination, Border Patrol said agents noticed "fresh tool marks on the axle head." They then found 14 packages wrapped in plastic cellophane. After testing, it was determined that the contents of the packages included cocaine and methamphetamine. The narcotics combined, 17.5 pounds of cocaine and 8 pounds of meth, were estimated to be worth $213,000 collectively. "My heart is filled with warmth at both the thought that these dangerous drugs won’t make it to ma and pa America and the fact that a black-hearted drug smuggler hopefully is headed to prison," said El Centro Sector Chief Patrol Agent Gregory K. Bovino.

Border Report [2/20/2025 7:06 PM, Sandra Sanchez, 153K] reports U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported three large amounts of cocaine seized at the South Texas border with Mexico. On Thursday, CBP officers seized almost 50 pounds of cocaine at the Progreso Port of Entry, which leads from Nuevo Progreso, Mexico, into Progreso, Texas. The drugs were found in a vehicle driven by a 21-year-old woman from McAllen. During a secondary inspection, they found 20 packages of cocaine worth over $638,000, CBP says. "Our frontline officers continue to exercise great vigilance and dedication to keeping dangerous narcotics off of the streets of our communities. This seizure illustrates CBP’s commitment to advancing and prioritizing CBP’s border security mission," Progreso/Donna Port Director Jorge Galvan said. On Feb. 15, CBP officers say they confiscated over 46 pounds of cocaine concealed within a vehicle at the Anzalduas International Bridge in Mission, Texas. The 20 packages of cocaine were found after the vehicle was flagged by a canine team, CBP officers say. Hours later, officers at the nearby McAllen-Hidalgo International Bridge found almost 30 pounds of cocaine within a passenger vehicle that had also been flagged for secondary inspection by a canine team. The drugs have a combined street value of over $1 million, CBP says. "Our CBP officers used teamwork and all available resources to thwart these back-to-back narcotic smuggling attempts," said Port Director Carlos Rodriguez, Hidalgo/Pharr/Anzalduas Port of Entry.

Yahoo! News [2/20/2025 5:21 PM, Steve Beynon, 57114K] reports in a sharp escalation of border security efforts, U.S. and Mexican forces will soon begin synchronized patrols along their respective sides of the southern border, the Pentagon announced Wednesday. The joint effort underscores the Trump administration’s push to have an aggressive posture on the border, a part of a key campaign promise President Donald Trump made to dramatically curtail illegal immigration. One of Trump’s first moves after taking office in January was surging some 3,600 American troops across the U.S.-Mexico border, with the Army’s 10th Mountain Division serving as the headquarters element overseeing much of the mission. The surge in active-duty troops is in addition to some 2,500 National Guard members who had already been deployed there before Trump took office. Following a meeting between Gen. Gregory Guillot, head of U.S. Northern Command and the top American official overseeing troops in the region, and Gen. Ricardo Trevilla Trejo, the top officer of Mexico’s military, a Pentagon statement said that the pair agreed to "increase information sharing and establish methods for immediate communications.” "Border security is national security; we’re going to get 100% operational control of our southern border," Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said during an address to Pentagon staff earlier this month. "That will be a focus of this department.” Yet, as the troop presence grows, the Pentagon has provided scant details on the exact scope of the mission. Media access remains restricted -- a sharp contrast to the often open coverage granted during previous military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

FOX News [2/20/2025 6:42 AM, Staff, 49889K] reports Fox News contributor Brett Velicovich on the CIA flying drones over Mexico to target cartels and fentanyl labs and coordinated border patrols with Mexico. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

NBC News [2/20/2025 7:03 PM, Staff, 50804K] Video: HERE reports Mexico boosted troop levels at the border after President Trump threatened a tariff on all Mexican goods coming into the U.S. NBC News’ Gabe Gutierrez got exclusive access, and takes a look at whether or not the uptick in troops will impact the flow of illegal immigration and fentanyl into the U.S.

NBC News [2/20/2025 4:51 PM, Gabe Gutierrez and Erika Angulo, 50804K] reports more than 2,500 Mexican troops, from the states of Tlaxcala, Durango, Yucatán and Mexico City, have fanned out along this historically violent border city in a show of force. The troops are part of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s attempt to stave off President Donald Trump’s executive order announcing tariffs on Mexican, Canadian and Chinese goods coming to the U.S., a move aimed at pressuring the three countries into stopping the flow of fentanyl and immigrants into the U.S. In total, Sheinbaum is deploying 10,000 troops across Mexico’s border with the U.S. The White House has touted Mexico’s troop deployment as a victory. The debate over the troops’ deterrent effect is ramping up. One human smuggler who spoke to NBC News said the troops would not make a difference, but conceded Trump’s stricter border policies had significantly cut into his business. During an interview along the fence across the border from New Mexico, Mexican National Guard Maj. Alexander Vásquez Hernández attributed the drop in illegal border crossings to the amount of new personnel in the area.

USA Today [2/20/2025 12:07 PM, Joey Garrison, 89965K] reports that more than 200 employees of the Transportation Security Administration were fired this week as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping layoffs across the federal workforce. The TSA on Thursday confirmed the terminations of 243 probationary workers who had been either hired or promoted within the year, citing "performance and conduct issues" with the employees during their trial period. The TSA, which operates under the Department of Homeland Security, has about 65,000 employees and is charged with protecting the nation’s transportation’s systems. That includes screening passengers and baggage at 450 airports across the country for security purposes. "Under President Trump’s leadership, TSA terminated personnel due to performance and conduct issues during their probationary period, a TSA spokesperson said in a statement. "The agency is actively working to implement the administration’s priorities in full cooperation with DHS to identify waste and to staff the mission essential positions that best fulfill DHS’ mission." The spokesperson said the terminated jobs span the entire agency and include front-line security officers, management, administrative and professional employees.

New York Times [2/21/2025 3:20 AM, Yan Zhuang, 740K] reports Delta Air Lines said on Wednesday that it was offering $30,000 to each passenger who was aboard the flight from Minneapolis that crashed and flipped upside down this week while trying to land in Toronto. All 80 people — 76 passengers and four crew members — who were on Delta Flight 4819 survived after the jet made a rough landing and rolled over, ending belly-up with its right wing sheared off at Toronto Pearson International Airport on Monday. Of the 21 passengers who were taken to hospitals, all but one had been released by Wednesday morning, Delta said. None of the passengers had life-threatening injuries. Delta confirmed on Wednesday that it had made the $30,000 offer to passengers. Its representatives were telling the passengers that the offer came with “no strings attached and does not affect rights,” a company spokesman said via email. Three days after the crash, officials have released few details about the investigation. On Wednesday, Ed Bastian, Delta’s chief executive, said in an interview on CBS that the flight had been staffed by an “experienced crew” but provided little further information. But it appears that passengers are already considering how to seek compensation from Delta. Rochon Genova, a Canadian law firm, said it had been retained by some of the passengers. According to international treaties, when an international aviation accident causes injury or death, airlines in the United States are required to make advance payments to passengers if the airline determines that the money is necessary to cover their immediate economic needs. If a passenger dies, the initial payment must be more than about $20,000, according to the Delta Air Lines website, which cites the Warsaw and Montreal Conventions which govern airplane liability. If the passenger is injured, the amount of the payment is determined by the airline.

CBS News [2/20/2025 4:12 PM, Staff, 52225K] reports Dallas Love Field was evacuated Thursday after a fire alarm was activated, prompting passengers to go back through Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screening. Terminal and airfield operations have since resumed. Dallas Fire-Rescue responded and determined there was no fire. Crews are investigating the cause of the alarm.

NPR [2/20/2025 5:05 PM, Lauren Sommer, 35747K] reports for the past 25 years, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has helped develop building codes, the construction standards that help houses survive hurricanes, wildfires and earthquakes. Now, the Trump Administration has ordered that to stop, according to people involved with the work. NPR has learned that FEMA is dropping out of the latest effort to improve building codes, taking its name off recommendations that its experts have already developed and submitted, according to several people with knowledge of the changes. The recommendations FEMA submitted were filed with the International Code Council, an independent association that develops building codes used by states and local governments, since the U.S. does not have a national set of codes. The proposals FEMA is retracting its involvement from focus on helping homes survive strong winds, seismic shaking and rising floodwaters. The building code developments are part of a broader upheaval at the agency. FEMA, which has more than 20,000 employees, fired more than 200 employees last week, according to a spokesperson from the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA. FEMA already faces chronic understaffing during major floods and wildfires and is thousands of people short of its recruiting goals, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office.

NPR [2/21/2025 4:11 AM, Lauren Sommer, 35747K] reports that, as wildfires and floods happen more often, experts are concerned about the more than 200 layoffs at FEMA. NPR also found that FEMA is backtracking on work to make buildings safer during disasters. [Editorial note: consult audio at source link]

New York Times [2/20/2025 10:17 AM, Christopher Flavelle, 161405K] reports that Trump administration plans to all but eliminate the office that oversees America’s recovery from the largest disasters, raising questions about how the United States will rebuild from hurricanes, wildfires and other calamities made worse by climate change. The Office of Community Planning and Development, part of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, pays to rebuild homes and other recovery efforts after the country’s worst disasters, such as Hurricane Helene in North Carolina and Hurricane Milton in Florida. The administration plans to cut the staff in that office by 84 percent, according to a document obtained by The New York Times. The number of workers would be cut to 150, from 936 when Mr. Trump took office last month. Those cuts could slow the distribution of recovery money to North Carolina and other recent disasters, depending how quickly they happen. “HUD is carrying out President Trump’s broader efforts to restructure and streamline the federal government to serve the American people at the highest standard,” a spokeswoman for the department, Kasey Lovett, said in an initial statement.

San Diego Union Tribune [2/20/2025 1:28 PM, Alex Brown, 2212K] reports that President Donald Trump’s moves to slash the federal workforce have gutted the ranks of wildland firefighters and support personnel, fire professionals warn, leaving communities to face deadly consequences when big blazes arrive this summer. "There’s going to be firefighters that die because of this, there will be communities that burn," said Steve Gutierrez, a union official who served 15 years as a firefighter with the U.S. Forest Service. Gutierrez now serves as a labor relations representative with the National Federation of Federal Employees, which represents government workers. He said thousands of wildland firefighters have had their jobs thrown into limbo by Trump’s government-wide hiring freeze. Brian Fennessy, chief of the Orange County Fire Authority and president of the California Fire Chiefs Association, echoed that concern. "The public needs to know they’re at risk," Fennessy said. "If the public knew all of this, they would lose their minds." In Arizona, officials say they plan to lean on an interstate compact that allows them to share resources with Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Jones, the Colorado official, said such agreements could be essential this year.

Yahoo! News [2/20/2025 5:45 AM, Tina Deines, 57114K] reports that, from more intense hurricanes to sweltering heat waves, the effects of rising global temperatures are taking their toll on people. However, senior citizens are set to bear the brunt of this impact, experts say. Older adults across the United States face a heightened threat when it comes to climate-driven catastrophes, according to a Caring.com assessment, which used data from the National Weather Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the U.S. Census. For instance, the organization reported that older adults are more burdened by extreme heat than younger populations. Plus, certain disasters impact the senior community more severely — out of the 120 fatalities caused by Hurricane Ian in 2022, two in three were in people 60 or older, according to FEMA data. Caring.com pointed out that older Americans face unique vulnerabilities when it comes to extreme weather. For instance, they’re more likely to rely on specialized equipment like oxygen machines, which could stop working during power outages. Add to that the fact that many face challenges like limited mobility, impaired hearing, and poor vision, which can make it difficult to evacuate quickly. Plus, many older adults live in high-risk areas. For instance, Florida is among the states with the largest 65-plus population, according to the Administration for Community Living. However, it’s also one of the most at-risk states for extreme weather, with nearly every county there ranking "very high," "relatively high," or "relatively moderate" in danger, per FEMA data. In fact, nine of the 10 riskiest counties based on FEMA scores are located in Florida, Caring.com reports, which adds that the over-65 population accounts for at least a third of the population in five of those. "With extreme weather forecasts to worsen, now is the time to put an action plan into place," the organization stated. The number of Americans 65 and older is projected to increase from 58 million in 2022 to 82 million by 2050, according to the Population Reference Bureau. Meanwhile, climate risks are also expected to increase in frequency and intensity.

Yahoo! News [2/20/2025 12:32 PM, Brian Lada, 57114K] reports that hundreds of accidents on snow-filled roads caused travel chaos this week as a snowstorm stretched from the central United States to the Eastern Seaboard, with one city receiving its biggest snowfall in over a decade. More than a dozen states were blanketed by snow from the multiday storm, with the heaviest accumulations falling in the Plains and along the immediate Atlantic coast. At least four people died in snowy car crashes across the central and eastern United States this week, including one each in a 53-vehicle pileup in North Carolina and a collision in Tennessee and two on Nebraska highways. One of the fatalities in Nebraska was a state trooper who was responding to an accident on Monday involving a snowplow. Over a foot of snow piled up in southeastern Virginia, which is more snow than what typically falls in an entire winter. Norfolk, Virginia, measured 10.2 inches on Wednesday, making it the eighth snowiest day since records began in 1890 and the biggest single-day snowstorm since 13.4 inches fell on Dec. 26, 2010. The historical average snowfall for an entire winter is 8 inches in the city. Areas of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee devastated by Hurricane Helene in September were also covered by a fresh coating of snow coupled with sub-freezing temperatures.

Yahoo! News [2/20/2025 2:10 PM, Marina Johnson and Leo Bertucci, 57114K] reports that the death toll from the widespread flooding still impacting Kentucky has risen to 15, Gov. Andy Beshear confirmed Thursday. Following a news briefing where he said the count could increase Thursday morning, Beshear announced an unidentified person from Livingston County had been confirmed among the dead. "We’ve now lost 15 people, each one a child of God who will be missed by their loved ones," Beshear said in a post to X, formerly Twitter. "Let’s show those mourning they’re not alone and we love them." Rescue teams from Kentucky and other states are "winding down" their emergency missions in areas impacted by severe flooding, Beshear said during the briefing. Officials plan to shift toward a "stabilization phase." "The good news with the weather is that we can see the light at the end of the tunnel," Beshear said. "The tunnel might be a couple days long, but better temperatures are coming." Kentucky has a pending request for individual assistance funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Beshear said he plans to attend a conference for state governors Friday in Washington, where he will speak to White House officials about securing funds for disaster relief.

Yahoo! News [2/20/2025 12:11 PM, Dan Ladden-Hall, 57114K] reports that the Secret Service became concerned about a devoted female Trump aide to the point where they considered her a "potential danger to herself as well as to the president," according to a report. An excerpt from Michael Wolff’s forthcoming book chronicling Donald Trump’s return to power published by Vanity Fair includes alleged details of the president’s relationship with Natalie Harp—a former One America News Network anchor who joined Trump’s campaign in 2022. The New York Times reported in November that Harp—who was referred to by colleagues as the "human printer" because she followed Trump around with a portable printer to give him printouts of information to spare him from looking at screens—penned adoring letters to Trump in 2023 that "unnerved" people in his orbit. She allegedly wrote: "You are all that matters to me," "I don’t ever want to let you down," and "I want to bring you joy" in the notes. A spokesperson for Trump at the time said Harp, 34, was "trusted and valued" and praised her "work ethic and dedication" in supporting Trump’s election campaign. According to Wolff, Harp’s "fixation" was an "open secret" among Trump’s staff, who found it "discomfiting," and the alleged "aggressiveness of her attention" also became a security concern. Trump was nevertheless dismissive about there being an issue, Wolff writes in All or Nothing: How Trump Recaptured America, out Feb. 25.

WNCT [2/20/2025 4:03 PM, Jordan Honeycutt] reports a woman was arrested in Nash County on Feb. 18, 2025 after the Beulaville Police Department responded to Dollar General for a report of counterfeit money being used on Feb. 13th. The total loss was in excess of $2,100. Warrants were taken out for Natesha Lashay Cheeks who had previously been arrested in Nash County on similar charges. Two counts of possessing five or more counterfeit instruments. Cheeks was served the warrants by the Nash County Sheriff’s Office and given a $300,000 secured bond in addition to her previous $320,000 secured bond.

Yahoo! News [2/20/2025 4:43 PM, Jordan Unger, 57114K] reports the U.S. Coast Guard and local firefighters are warning residents after multiple fishermen fell through the Lake Erie ice on Thursday. The U.S. Coast Guard Marblehead Station responded to a call at about 9:50 a.m. after two people fell through the ice with their ATV, the agency stated in an afternoon Facebook post. Crews found the fishermen about a half-nautical mile off Catawba Island. According to officials, they were able to pull themselves from the water and were seeking shelter in an ice shanty. The U.S. Coast Guard led them from the ice to EMS crews who were waiting on land. “Remember to know before you go! Check weather conditions, water temperature and the thickness of the ice for your own safety!” the Coast Guard said in the Facebook post. The Catawba Volunteer Fire Department also issued a reminder, stating that first responders had responded to two separate calls Thursday morning for fishermen falling through the ice. “Soft spots in the ice have been reported and are snow covered, making them impossible to see,” the department said on Facebook. “Please play it safe! No ice is safe!”

Border Report [2/20/2025 10:54 AM, Amber Coakley, 153K] reports that the U.S. Coast Guard interdicted a group of 20 migrants aboard a 30-foot panga-style vessel about 21 miles west of Point Loma on Tuesday, military officials confirmed in a press release. A U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Air and Marine Operations patrol aircraft spotted the vessel and alerted watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector San Diego. The Coast Guard Cutter Haddock was then dispatched to intercept the vessel. Once on scene, the Cutter Haddock launched its small boat crew, who boarded the vessel and detained all 20 individuals on board. The group, consisting of 17 males and three females, claimed Mexican and Chinese nationalities, military officials explained. Following the interception, the Coast Guard transported the detainees to Sector San Diego. They were later transferred to Imperial Beach Border Patrol Station personnel for further processing. The interdiction follows several others in recent weeks, with the U.S. Coast Guard and partner agencies working together to prevent illegal immigration and human trafficking. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Yahoo! News [2/20/2025 10:45 AM, Amber Coakley, 57114K] reports that the U.S. Coast Guard interdicted a group of 20 migrants aboard a 30-foot panga-style vessel about 21 miles west of Point Loma on Tuesday, military officials confirmed in a press release. A U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Air and Marine Operations patrol aircraft spotted the vessel and alerted watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector San Diego. The Coast Guard Cutter Haddock was then dispatched to intercept the vessel. Once on scene, the Cutter Haddock launched its small boat crew, who boarded the vessel and detained all 20 individuals on board. The group, consisting of 17 males and three females, claimed Mexican and Chinese nationalities, military officials explained. Following the interception, the Coast Guard transported the detainees to Sector San Diego. They were later transferred to Imperial Beach Border Patrol Station personnel for further processing. The interdiction follows several others in recent weeks, with the U.S. Coast Guard and partner agencies working together to prevent illegal immigration and human trafficking.

CyberScoop [2/21/2025 3:10 AM, Matt Kapko] reports Salt Typhoon gained initial access to Cisco devices as part of the Chinese nation-state threat group’s sweeping attacks on U.S. telecom networks, the company confirmed Thursday in a threat intelligence report. Cisco Talos, the networking vendor’s threat intelligence unit, said it observed one instance where Salt Typhoon likely exploited a seven-year-old critical vulnerability in Cisco IOS XE (CVE-2018-0171). Yet, researchers asserted Salt Typhoon gained initial access to Cisco devices with legitimate login credentials in all other incidents it’s investigated to date. The report marks the first time Cisco acknowledged the role its equipment played in Salt Typhoon’s attack spree on telecom networks. Recorded Future last week said five additional telecom networks were hit by Salt Typhoon via a pair of other vulnerabilities in Cisco IOS XE (CVE-2023-20198 and CVE-2023-20273) between early December and late January. Cisco Talos said it hasn’t identified any evidence to confirm Salt Typhoon’s exploitation of other known Cisco vulnerabilities. The company declined to answer questions. “Cisco Talos published a blog about the threat actor Salt Typhoon’s campaign, based on Cisco’s investigation while assisting law enforcement and victims of the attacks,” a company spokesperson said via email. “Our findings do not cover the entirety of the Salt Typhoon campaign or all affected infrastructure, as these go beyond the scope of Cisco’s engagement and technology. As always, we strongly advise customers to patch known vulnerabilities and follow industry best practices for securing management protocols.” Salt Typhoon’s primary initial access point for attacks on telecom networks hasn’t been identified by authorities, but U.S. and global officials advised network defenders to address the risk of Cisco device exploitation in guidance released in December. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency declined to comment on Cisco’s report. Cisco Talos reaffirmed other previously shared threat intelligence, particularly Salt Typhoon’s ability to gain persistent access to telecom networks’ infrastructure with living-off-the-land techniques, describing it as a hallmark of the campaign. The threat group maintained access to one target environment for more than three years, according to Cisco Talos. Researchers said it’s unknown how Salt Typhoon obtained valid credentials to Cisco devices, but noted the threat group actively attempted to acquire additional credentials through network device configurations and local accounts with weak passwords. Salt Typhoon also captured network protocol traffic, including secret keys used between network devices to likely obtain additional credentials, the report said.

CyberScoop [2/21/2025 3:10 AM, Matt Kapko] reports that, in this episode, you will hear Cynthia Kaiser, deputy assistant director in the bureau’s cyber division talk about the implications of the Salt Typhoon breach, which she spoke about during CyberScoop’s Zero Trust Summit. Kaiser characterized the breach as “a different level of insidiousness” from Beijing, one that reflects its “ambition and reckless aggression in cyberspace.” In our reporter chat, Greg talks with CyberScoop’s new cybercrime reporter Matt Kapko about a slew of reports around Russian nation-state cyber actors. [Editorial note: consult audio at source link]

Los Angeles Times [2/20/2025 2:26 PM, James Queally, 17996K] reports that a 14-year-old faces attempted murder charges in the stabbing of another teenager during protests earlier this month in downtown L.A. against President Trump’s planned mass deportation efforts, prosecutors said Thursday. The defendant, who was not identified, pleaded not guilty at a Tuesday arraignment and is due back in court next month, according to a statement issued by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. Authorities said the stabbing happened after a fight broke out in the 200 block of Spring Street around 1:30 p.m. on Feb. 7, during the sixth straight day of protests throughout downtown L.A. in opposition to Trump’s plan to deport millions of people in the U.S. illegally. Police previously said the victim, identified only as a 17-year-old boy, was in critical condition. A Los Angeles police spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for an update on the victim’s condition or a question about what started the fight. "Violence has no place in our public spaces." Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said in a statement. "We understand that people have the right to express their views, but this right must be exercised with respect for others’ safety and well-being. Our support is with the victim and their family as they navigate this difficult time and begin the recovery process."

New York Times [2/21/2025 3:20 AM, Adam Goldman and Devlin Barrett, 740K] reports the Senate on Thursday narrowly confirmed Kash Patel as the next director of the F.B.I., installing a hard-line critic of the bureau whose unwavering loyalty to President Trump has raised questions over the independence of the nation’s most powerful law enforcement agency. The 51-to-49 vote, with two Republican defections, means that Mr. Patel will now oversee the vast surveillance and investigative powers of the F.B.I., whose mission is seeking out the truth even if it angers the president. As its director, Mr. Patel will take over as the bureau has entered a particularly turbulent period, with the forced departures of some of its top officials. Democrats in the Senate had hoped to slow his nomination, citing Mr. Patel’s repeated promises to enact a campaign of revenge on Mr. Trump’s behalf, his pledge to reshape the agency and his refusal to say that Mr. Trump lost the 2020 election. But they had little success swaying their colleagues across the aisle, who are wary of eliciting the political wrath of Mr. Trump or his powerful allies like Elon Musk. This month, Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, accused Mr. Patel of improperly directing a slew of forced departures at the bureau without having been confirmed as its leader. Mr. Durbin added on Thursday that Mr. Patel’s apparent involvement stood at odds with his claim during his hearing that he was unaware of any political retribution at the F.B.I. that was unfolding as he testified. Mr. Patel’s financial disclosures also raised eyebrows, but none of those concerns substantially shifted his support, allowing him to essentially glide through the confirmation process. In the end, two Republicans opposed Mr. Patel’s nomination, Senator Lisa Murkowski, a centrist from Alaska, and Senator Susan Collins of Maine. Ms. Collins pointed to the recent upheaval across the Justice Department, including the F.B.I. “There is a compelling need for an F.B.I. director who is decidedly apolitical,” she said in a statement released before the vote. “While Mr. Patel has had 16 years of dedicated public service, his time over the past four years has been characterized by high-profile and aggressive political activity.”

Government Executive [2/20/2025 10:24 AM, Meghann Myers, 342K] reports that Constructing an American version of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system will require much better missile-detection technology, the head of U.S. Northern Command said Thursday. The Trump administration’s renewed focus on air defense dovetails with warnings that leaders of NORTHCOM, and sister command North American Aerospace Defense, have sounded about U.S. detection capabilities in recent years, Air Force Gen. Gregory Guillot said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. “You can’t defeat what you can’t see, and the adversaries have an increasing capability of reaching us and threatening us from ranges beyond what some of our current systems can detect and track,” Giullot told lawmakers. Donald Trump’s Jan. 27 “Iron Dome for America” executive order instructs the Pentagon to speed up the development of the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor layer and network it with other missile-detection systems reaching down to the bottom of the ocean. The order also called for new interceptors, including ones based in space, to augment today’s round-Based Interceptor. With new funding, the Pentagon would need less than a year to network undersea, ground, and space sensors into a single grid, which is “the first capability that we think will reliably and accurately track hypersonic missiles” and is needed “immediately,” Guillot said.

FOX News [2/20/2025 7:31 AM, Stephen Sorace, 49889K] reports Russian military aircraft were spotted flying in the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) on Tuesday and Wednesday, activity that North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said "occurs regularly and is not seen as a threat.” In both instances, NORAD said the Russian aircraft were detected and tracked. The Russian aircraft remained in international airspace and didn’t enter American or Canadian sovereign airspace. NORAD said "an ADIZ begins where sovereign airspace ends and is a defined stretch of international airspace that requires the ready identification of all aircraft in the interest of national security.” The activity comes as President Donald Trump is working to begin negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. The latest detections of Russian aircraft flying in the ADIZ come less than a month after NORAD, which comprises U.S. and Canadian forces under a joint command, said it monitored multiple Russian military aircraft activity in the Arctic. While the Russian aircraft in that instance also remained in international airspace and was not seen as a threat, NORAD said it launched a combat air patrol from its Canadian NORAD Region to the northern region of Canada, and an air patrol from its Alaskan NORAD Region off the coast of the Alaska/Yukon border, to further track the activity. NORAD in September addressed a tense moment between Russian and NORAD forces depicted on video, in which a Russian Su-35 whipped directly in front of a NORAD F-16, apparently taking it by surprise, over the ADIZ. NORAD said at the time that the "unprofessional air maneuver directed at our NORAD F-16" occurred while it "was conducting a routine professional intercept of a Russian Tu-95 aircraft" on Sept. 23. Gen. Gregory Guillot, Commander of the North American Defense Command and the U.S. Northern Command, condemned the dangerous behavior in a statement at the time. "NORAD aircraft flew a safe and disciplined intercept of Russian Military Aircraft in the Alaska ADIZ. The conduct of one Russian Su-35 was unsafe, unprofessional, and endangered all – not what you’d see in a professional air force," Guillot said.

AP [2/20/2025 12:12 PM, ALMA Solis, 47097K] reports that Panama’s president said Thursday that he had instructed the country’s foreign minister to not discuss the U.S. government’s allegations of Chinese interference in the operations of the Panama Canal with the visiting head of U.S. Southern Command. The comments followed a dustup the day before when the U.S. embassy in Panama said one of the agenda items for Adm. Alvin Holsey’s visit would be discussing "efforts to protect the canal area from Chinese Communist Party influence & control." The Chinese Embassy in Panama quickly shot back with a statement saying the country has "never participated in the management nor operation of the Panama Canal." It called allegations by the Trump administration that China controls the canal "pure lies." It accused the U.S. government of trying to "sabotage" relations between China and Panama, but said its efforts will fail. Mulino waded into the dispute Thursday morning at his weekly press briefing, expressing exasperation over the persistence of the issue since before Trump took office threatening to take back control of the Panama Canal. "We are not going to speak of lies," Mulino said. "That would be to expand on the fascination created over the issue of China in Panama and the control of the Communist Party of the canal. For the love of God."

Bloomberg [2/21/2025 4:04 AM, Christopher Jungstedt and Jonas Ekblom, 21617K] reports another subsea cable was ruptured offshore the Swedish island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea. The suspected breakage is located in Swedish economic zone on a cable between Finland and Germany, the Coast Guard told SVT on Friday. “We can confirm that we on Thursday received information about a cable break east of Gotland,” Mattias Lindholm, press officer at Swedish Coast Guard, said by phone. It’s unclear when the incident took place, he said. The Coast Guard is on the way to the site, he added. The Swedish Prosecution Authority has opened an investigation following the discovery, the Coast Guard told TT News Agency and the Armed Forces are aware of the incident, TV4 reported. A spokesman for Cinia Oy, which operates the high speed C-Lion1 Finland-Germany link, was not immediately able to confirm its cable was broken. The breakage is the latest in a series of incidents in which undersea data links, power cables and even gas pipelines have sustained damage. Many of the incidents have involved ships dragging their anchors on the seabed, but authorities have not publicly disclosed findings of whether the events are sabotage or negligence. Commenting on the reports, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said his government is continuously informed by authorities of such events and taking all intelligence “very seriously.” Earlier this month, Sweden released a vessel suspected of damaging a communications cable between the Nordic country and Latvia, after an investigation concluded no act of sabotage was committed.

New York Times [2/21/2025 3:20 AM, Constant Méheut, 740K] reports President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine met with President Trump’s special envoy in Kyiv on Thursday — a day after a public feud between the Ukrainian and American leaders threatened to derail diplomatic efforts toward peace talks. The meeting with Keith Kellogg, the special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, was meant to discuss paths to ending the war that would safeguard Ukraine’s interests. There was also hope that it might help defuse tensions between Washington and Kyiv after Mr. Trump labeled Mr. Zelensky a “dictator” and the Ukrainian president accused him of echoing Russian propaganda. Whether any progress was made remains unclear: a news conference scheduled for after the meeting was canceled at the request of the United States, according to Mr. Zelensky’s office, although Mr. Kellogg and the Ukrainian leader appeared together for photos. Reporters who had gathered for the news conference were told to go home. The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv did not immediately comment. “It is a bad signal,” Solomiia Bobrovska, a member of the defense and intelligence committee of Parliament, said in a phone interview, referring to the canceled news conference. Mr. Zelensky later wrote on social media that he had a “productive meeting” with Mr. Kellogg, in which they discussed the situation on the battlefield, the return of prisoners of war and security guarantees for Ukraine as part of a peace deal. “Strong Ukraine-U.S. relations benefit the entire world,” Mr. Zelensky said. Ukraine, wary of straining ties with Washington, its biggest ally, had suggested that the meeting would aim to stop the feud from escalating into an out-of-control dispute. “It is crucial for us that the meeting and our overall cooperation with America be constructive,” Mr. Zelensky said in his nightly address on Wednesday. But there have been concerns in Ukraine that Mr. Kellogg, a retired U.S. general and longtime adviser to Mr. Trump on security matters, has been sidelined from the administration’s negotiating team, since he was not part of the U.S. delegation that met with Russian officials this week to initiate what the White House said were peace talks.

Newsweek [2/20/2025 7:42 AM, Maya Mehrara, 56005K] reports President Donald Trump issued Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky an ultimatum regarding his "resurrection" of the rare earths deal, according to Forbes Breaking News. Newsweek reached out to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine for comment via email. Trump’s statement about resurrecting the rare earths deal comes as tensions between himself and Zelensky have risen, as the U.S. and Russia held peace talks without Ukraine in Saudi Arabia, and the president called Zelensky a "dictator without elections.” Pushing for a deal that Ukraine may not agree to could delay the progression of peace negotiations, drawing out the war. Speaking to journalists about the potential rare earth materials deal with Ukraine, Trump said on board Air Force One on Wednesday, "I think I’m gonna resurrect it. You know, we’ll see what happens, but I’m gonna resurrect it or things are gonna not make him too happy. And look, it’s time for elections, haven’t had an election in a long time.” He added that the U.S. is "doing very well with Russia" and that the U.S. is "going to do something with Russia," adding that a deal can be made with Moscow to "stop the killing of potentially additional millions of people. Soldiers are being just wiped out on both sides.” The president also alleged that U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who presented the agreement to Ukraine during a visit to Kyiv, was treated "rather rudely" as Zelensky was not available to see him, and that he "went there to get a document signed, and when he got there, he came back empty. They wouldn’t sign the document.” This statement comes after Zelensky rejected the agreement, which sought to give American companies 50 percent ownership of Ukraine’s rare earth mineral deposits. Trump had recently been pushing the deal and previously stated that he wants "the equivalent of $500 billion of rare earth" in return for the continued provision of aid by the U.S. The Ukrainian president rejected the deal because he argued that it "is not ready to protect us, our interest," providing no security guarantees. Zelensky has since instructed his team to work on crafting a counterproposal to Trump’s rare earths deal that includes explicit security guarantees, while still allowing the U.S. access to its mineral deposits.

FOX News [2/20/2025 6:55 PM, Diana Stancy, 49889K] reports the Trump administration is increasing pressure on Ukraine to broker a peace deal ending the conflict with Russia as President Donald Trump grows increasingly irritated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, according to the White House. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz on Thursday admitted that Trump’s patience with Zelenskyy is running thin, and said that discussions Wednesday between U.S. Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg and Ukrainian officials focused on assisting Kyiv "understand" the war must come to a halt. "President Trump is obviously very frustrated right now with President Zelenskyy, the fact that he hasn’t come to the table, that he hasn’t been willing to take this opportunity that we have offered," Waltz told reporters Thursday in a White House press briefing. "I think he eventually will get to that point, and I hope so very quickly.” "It certainly isn’t in Russia’s interest or in the American people’s interest for this war to grind on forever and ever and ever," Waltz said. "So a key part of his conversation was helping President Zelenskyy understand this war needs to come to an end.” Vice President JD Vance on Thursday also defended the Trump administration’s decision to meet with Russian officials in Saudi Arabia, despite frustration from Ukraine that it was absent from those meetings. Vance stressed that communicating with Russia is key to advancing a deal, and said he believes Europe is on the "cusp of peace" for the first time in three years.

CBS Austin [2/20/2025 1:43 PM, Ray Lewis, 581K] reports that U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said Thursday Ukraine needs to "tone it down" after its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, claimed U.S. President Donald Trump is living in a "disinformation space." Waltz, referring to what he called "bad-mouthing" and "pushback" from Ukraine, said during an interview with Fox News that the behavior is unacceptable. He expressed the need for the country’s government to agree to a potential deal to end the war with Russia. "Why we’re getting this pushback and certainly this kind of, as the vice president said, badmouthing in the press – for all the administration has done in his first term as well, and all the United States has done for Ukraine is just, it’s unacceptable," Waltz explained, referring to Trump’s first term as president. "They need to tone it down, and take a hard look and sign that deal." Trump fired back at Zelenskyy’s remarks Wednesday, calling the Ukrainian president a "dictator without elections" via Truth Social. He argued Zelenskyy "better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left [sic]."

Reported similarly:
FOX News [2/20/2025 1:02 PM, Greg Norman, 49889K]

ABC News [2/20/2025 9:11 AM, David Brennan, 33392K] reports Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 14 missiles and 161 drones into the country in a massive overnight bombardment, as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned against Russian deception in revived peace talks. Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 80 of the drones launched in the latest Russian barrage, with another 78 lost in flight without causing any damage. The 14 missiles targeted energy infrastructure, the air force said, adding it would not reveal how many were intercepted. Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko wrote on Facebook that Russia conducted a "massive" missile and drone attack on "gas infrastructure." The aim of the "criminal attacks" was to "stop the production of gas, which is necessary to provide citizens’ household needs and centralized heating," he said. "While Russia continues to blatantly lie about not attacking civilian critical infrastructure, we are witnessing multiple missiles targeting Ukrainian gas mining facilities at once," Galushchenko wrote. "Such actions of the enemy prove only once again that Russia is trying to hurt ordinary Ukrainians, plunged into the cold in the middle of winter," he added. "This is outright terrorism." Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said its strike targeted "gas and energy infrastructure facilities that ensure the operation of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine." "The strike’s objective has been achieved," the ministry said. "All facilities have been hit."

Reuters [2/20/2025 6:33 AM, Yuliia Dysa, 48128K] reports the head of Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence agency, Kyrylo Budanov, believes a ceasefire in the war with Russia could happen this year. "I think it is going to happen. There are most of the components for it to happen," Budanov said in a YouTube interview with journalist Eynulla Fatullayev. He gave no details. Ukrainian officials largely dismiss the idea of a ceasefire, warning it will only give Russia time to rearm and prepare for further aggression. "How long it will be, how effective it will be - is another question," Budanov added. Discussions about a possible ceasefire intensified after Donald Trump, who promised a quick end to the war, returned to the White House for his second presidential term. Fast-moving diplomacy on Ukraine, beginning with a Trump call with Russian President Vladimir Putin a week ago, has triggered alarm in Kyiv and other European capitals. They fear the two leaders could cut a quick deal that ignores Europe’s security interests, rewards Moscow for its invasion and leaves Putin free to threaten Ukraine or other countries in the future.

AP [2/20/2025 9:22 PM, Wafaa Shurafa, Josef Federman and Melanie Lidman, 57114K] reports the Israeli military said Friday it had positively identified the remains of two young hostages, but a third body released by Hamas under a ceasefire deal was not the boys’ mother as the militant group had promised. The revelation was a shocking twist in the saga surrounding the Bibas family, who have become global symbols of the plight of Israeli hostages held by Hamas, and threw the future of the fragile ceasefire into question. “This is a violation of utmost severity by the Hamas terrorist organization,” the army said in a statement. During the monthlong ceasefire, Hamas has been releasing living hostages in exchange hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Thursday’s release marked the first time the group has returned the remains of dead hostages. Early in the day, Hamas had turned over four bodies to the Red Cross. Israel quickly confirmed one body was that of Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 when he was abducted during the Hamas attack that started the war on Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas had said the other remains belonged to Shiri Bibas, and her two young boys, Ariel and Kfir. In an overnight announcement, the army said Israel’s National Institute of Forensic Medicine had identified the boys, but the final set of remains did not belong to their mother. It said the remains did not match any other hostage either. “This is an anonymous, unidentified body,” it said. “We demand that Hamas return Shiri home along with all our hostages.” It said the army had notified their family, including Yarden Bibas, Shiri’s husband and father of the two boys, who was released early this month as part of the ceasefire deal. Hamas has claimed all four of the hostages returned Thursday were killed in Israeli airstrikes. But Israel said the testing had found the two boys and Lifshitz were killed by their captors. Hamas did not immediately respond to Israel’s announcement that the body was not of the boys’ mother.

New York Times [2/20/2025 8:31 PM, Ephrat Livni, 161405K] reports three buses exploded in Tel Aviv area parking lots on Thursday night, raising suspicions of an attempted, coordinated terrorist attack and prompting the Israeli authorities to halt all buses and trains nationwide. There were no injuries reported. After the explosions, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that he had instructed the military to carry out “a massive operation” in the West Bank targeting militant hubs and had ordered the police and intelligence forces to step up preventive measures in Israeli cities to thwart any subsequent attempted attacks. The three buses were parked at different depots in Bat Yam, a city south of Tel Aviv, Tzvika Brot, the city’s mayor, said in a statement. Unexploded bombs were also found in parking lots in the nearby city of Holon, the mayor noted. Mr. Brot said he had ordered additional security patrols throughout Bat Yam. “The city will remain on high alert throughout the weekend,” he added. “However, the city’s routine continues as usual. There is no change to school tomorrow or any other activities.” Ofir Karni, director of the Dan bus company, told Israeli news media that the last passenger on one of the buses that exploded had noticed a suspicious bag on a back seat and had alerted the driver. They drove into the depot, got off the bus and it exploded after they exited, he added. Four coffins said to contain the remains of hostages, including two children, who were captured from a community near the Gaza border in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack, were released and repatriated for burial on Thursday. But the Israeli military said in a statement early on Friday that only three of the bodies belonged to the hostages slated to be handed over.

Reported similarly:
UPI [2/20/2025 7:14 PM, Mark Moran, 1890K]

Newsweek [2/20/2025 7:44 PM, Tom O’Connor, 56005K] reports a senior Hamas leader has told Newsweek that there was no proof linking the group to the series of bus bombings that targeted Israel hours after the group handed over four bodies purported to be those of slain Israeli hostages as part of their ceasefire agreement. Israeli security officials said late Thursday that explosions tore through at least three buses on parking lot in the central Israeli city of Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv. No injuries were reported, but transportation nationwide was shut down as Israeli authorities descended on the scene, discovering what police said were three burned-out explosive devices as well as two additional undetonated devices all identical and equipped with timers. As the search for suspects and further potential bombs was underway, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement shared with Newsweek that it was also investigating the incident in conjunction with the Israel Police and Israeli Security Agency, also known as Shin Bet. Israeli Defense Israel Katz has blamed the attack on "Palestinian terrorist organizations," without specifying any particular group. Israeli media, citing security sources, reported that at least one of the devices bore the phrase "Revenge from Tulkarem," the name of a Palestinian city in the West Bank, where unrest has risen dramatically amid the 16-month war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Shortly after the blasts, a Telegram group purporting to represent the "Tulkarem Brigade" of Hamas’ military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades issued an ominous message, reading "the martyrs’ souls will not be forgotten as long as the occupier is present on our land...It is a jihad of victory or martyrdom." The senior Hamas leader pointed out to Newsweek, however, that "this statement does not clearly mention anything related to the bombings.” The Hamas official also expressed "surprise" that the potential responsibility of the group was being discussed "without any evidence of that." The Hamas official alleged that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s own government may have had a role in the operation as means of "escaping their obligations in the ceasefire agreement and creating an external enemy to relieve the increasing internal pressure.”

Newsweek [2/21/2025 5:01 AM, Amir Daftari, 56005K] reports U.S. bombers have carried out their second flyover in the Middle East within 48 hours at a time of growing tensions over Iran’s nuclear program. The B-52s, deployed from Royal Air Force Base Fairford in the United Kingdom, flew over six U.S.-aligned countries in the region, accompanied by a fighter escort from one regional nation, according to a statement from U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). Newsweek has reached out to CENTCOM for comment via email. The bomber flights come as U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration seeks to halt Iran’s uranium enrichment although Trump has said he would prefer diplomatic negotiations rather than military intervention. The increased military presence in the region could signal Washington’s intent to pressure Tehran. CENTCOM announced the Middle East flyover on their X account as well. On Tuesday, another pair of B-52s took off from Fairford and flew over the airspace of nine Middle Eastern countries, escorted by fighter aircraft from four nations in the region. CENTCOM officials declined to disclose which countries participated, citing diplomatic sensitivities. Tensions between Iran and U.S. ally Israel are also high. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the weekend that, with Trump’s support, his government would "finish the job" against Iran though without specifying exactly what that meant. Iran has steadily increased its uranium enrichment since Trump withdrew from a deal known as known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018. The JCPOA had previously limited Iran’s uranium purity levels, but Tehran has since built up its enriched stockpile, significantly reducing the time required to produce a nuclear weapon should its leadership decide to proceed. The head of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, said this week that Tehran is expected to amass approximately 250 kilograms of enriched uranium by next month. CENTCOM said on X: "For the second time within 48 hours, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) conducted another Bomber Task Force Mission in the Middle East, Feb. 20, demonstrating force projection capabilities and partner nation integration in the region.”

Newsweek [2/20/2025 6:08 AM, Amir Daftari, 56005K] reports Iran’s top military commander has said that any threat to its national security would have dire consequences for the entire region, according to state media. The warning comes after the U.S. staged a major regional show of force this week, deploying B-52 bombers over nine countries in the Middle East in a strategic display of military strength. Newsweek has reached out to the U.S. Air Force for comment via email. The flyover, a key element of the U.S. deterrence strategy, underscores Washington’s military resolve amid rising tensions. With growing instability and threats from Iran and its proxies, including Hamas and Hezbollah, the U.S. seeks to reinforce its dominance and demonstrate its readiness. The bomber task force mission featured midair refueling and live munitions drops at designated target ranges "in several partner nations," according to CENTCOM. U.S. F-15s, along with fighter jets from four regional allies, escorted the B-52s throughout the operation. On Wednesday, Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Bagheri warned that, "our armed forces are at the peak of their readiness." "In the case of any mistake by the enemy, the security of the Zionist regime and those who participated in its equipment and operational planning will be put in danger." He added. Over the past year, Iran twice fired massive barrages of missiles and drones at Israel, in a spillover from the its war in the Gaza Strip and the fighting with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Tensions between Iran and U.S. ally Israel are high. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the weekend that, with U.S. President Donald Trump’s support, his government would "finish the job" against Iran. Trump has toughened sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, but said he would rather a deal that stops Tehran acquiring nuclear weapons. Iran has formally rejected nuclear weapons. However, it has continued to advance its nuclear program, accelerating the enrichment of uranium to up to 60 percent purity. Israel is widely believed to have nuclear weapons. General Erik Kurilla, head of CENTCOM: "Bomber Task Force missions demonstrate US power projection capability, commitment to regional security, and ability to respond to any state or non-state actor seeking to broaden or escalate conflict in the CENTCOM region." Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Iran Armed Forces: "If Iran’s security is threatened, the security of the entire Southwest Asian region, the creators of insecurity, and their regional allies will be threatened," he cautioned.

AZCentral.com [2/20/2025 8:01 AM, Daniel Gonzalez, 6018K] reports that, among the groups President Donald Trump has targeted for mass deportations are what he and supporters label "military-age men" from countries identified as "foreign adversaries." During the presidential campaign, Trump characterized the tens of thousands of migrants from China that arrived during the Biden administration as a coordinated effort by the Chinese communist government to "build a little army in our country." The term "military-age men" also has gained traction in recent years on social media and on television among supporters of Trump’s hardline immigration stance to portray single adult migrants as an invading force coming to destabilize the U.S. instead of fighting to improve conditions in their own countries. "This is a huge national security threat to us," Tom Homan, Trump’s appointed "border czar," said on a Dec. 10, 2024, podcast with Phil "Dr. Phil" McGraw. "Sixty-thousand Chinese males, mostly military age, do not leave China without the coordination and approval of the Chinese government. That just don’t happen. So this is a coordinated national security vulnerability that the Chinese government is involved in. That is my true belief." But several experts say there is no evidence the Chinese government is involved in a coordinated plan to send Chinese operatives posing as migrants to the U.S. Instead, many of the migrants from China arriving in the U.S. are fleeing political and religious persecution under the People’s Republic of China, they say. Experts say the phrase is also applied to Black migrants from countries in Africa and to migrants from countries in Latin America with leftist regimes in ways that have xenophobic and racist undertones. In fiscal year 2024, U.S. Customs and Border Protection encounters of migrants from China arriving as "single adults" soared to more than 65,000, up from about 26,000 in fiscal year 2022. Of the 65,000, about 32,000 encounters of single adults from China took place at the southern border, according to CBP data. The data includes males and females.

Newsweek [2/20/2025 6:15 AM, Micah McCartney, 56005K] reports the U.S. nuclear triad is ready to meet a North Korean atomic attack with "overwhelming" force, a senior U.S. military official said Wednesday, amid concerns over Kim Jong Un’s increasingly lethal arsenal. The "triad" refers to the combination of missiles that can be fired from land, air and sea. Newsweek has reached out to the North Korean Embassy in China by email with a request for comment. Major General Jason Armagost, commander of the 8th Air Force and Joint-Global Strike Operations Center, was speaking at a talk hosted by the nonprofit Korea Society. His command oversees strategic bombers, including B-1s, B-2s, and B-52s, as well as airborne nuclear strike capabilities. The remark came as Kim Jong Un’s regime continues to advance its United Nations-sanctioned nuclear weapons program. Last week, U.S. Northern Command chief General Gregory Guillot warned that Pyongyang is now likely capable of striking targets across North America with its latest intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the Hwasong-19. Asked whether North Korea’s potential ability to strike North America with ICBMs might prompt the U.S. to prioritize the defense of the homeland over its South Korean ally, Armagost emphasized the strength of the U.S. nuclear triad. "Intercontinental missiles on alert, submarine-launched ballistic missiles for an assured second-strike capability, and bombers to be a forward and visible presence with regards to what the triad does for a spectrum of capability for strategic deterrence," he said. The general said that while Kim’s regime having an ICBM is "problematic," it would be "extremely difficult" for it to attack "that system of systems," referring to the nuclear triad. "And so, what that system allows us to do is to say: ‘That use of an ICBM would not result in the benefit that you are seeking because we can respond in a way that is overwhelming—in the time, place, and manner of our choosing." He stressed that this is why the number of U.S. land-, submarine-, and bomber-based ICBMs is critical.

Reuters [2/20/2025 11:01 PM, Liz Lee and Mikhail Flores, 2717K] reports China’s military said it warned and drove away three Philippine aircraft that "illegally intruded" into the airspace near the Spratly Islands on Thursday. There was no immediate comment from the Philippine embassy in Beijing on the Chinese military’s statement issued on Friday. China’s Southern Theatre Command accused the Philippine side of attempting to "peddle its illegal claims" through provocation, and warned that the "clumsy manoeuvre is doomed to failure".China claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea, a vital waterway for more than $3 trillion of annual ship-borne commerce, putting it at odds with Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. A 2016 arbitration ruling invalidated China’s expansive claim but Beijing does not recognise the decision. On Thursday, the Philippines said its coast guard and fisheries bureau had jointly carried out a maritime domain awareness flight over the Kalayaan Islands, the Philippine name for Spratly Islands. The mission was to assert the Philippines’ sovereignty, sovereign rights, and maritime jurisdiction in the West Philippine Sea, it said. More than 50 Chinese maritime militia vessels and a Chinese coast guard ship were spotted during the exercise. It was not immediately clear if that mission, which deployed two aircraft, was the one Chinese military said it responded to. The latest confrontation comes after Philippine coast guard accused the Chinese navy of performing dangerous flight manoeuvres earlier this week when it flew close to a government aircraft patrolling the contested Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. Beijing disputed that account.

New York Times [2/20/2025 9:30 AM, Victoria Kim, 161405K] reports a group of Chinese navy vessels, including a formidable warship, sailing legally in the Tasman Sea have raised alarm in Australia and New Zealand because they were in unusually southern waters and on an undeclared mission. Australian officials said Thursday that they were closely monitoring the ships — a cruiser, a frigate and a supply vessel. They have been tracking them since last week, when they were detected off Australia’s northeast coast. This week, the three ships were traveling within about 150 nautical miles of Sydney, outside Australia’s territorial waters but within its exclusive economic zone, according to an Australian government official speaking on condition of anonymity. Their presence near Sydney was first reported by The Financial Times. China’s military has not publicly commented on the naval vessels, and the Chinese Embassy in Australia did not respond to a request for comment. Richard Marles, Australia’s defense minister and deputy prime minister, said that the ships were operating in accordance with international law, and that the Australian military was closely observing their activities from the sea and from the air. He said in a television interview that the presence of the Chinese navy in the area was “not unprecedented,” but “unusual.” “We are keeping close watch on them, and we will be making sure that we watch every move,” he said. Chinese warships docked at Sydney Harbor in 2019, in what the prime minister at the time called a “reciprocal visit” after Australian navy ships had visited Chinese ports. This time, Australian officials said they were in the dark about where the ships were headed and what their objective was. But Australia had good reason to be concerned by the proximity of the Chinese warships to its coastline, according to Bec Strating, an expert on maritime disputes, given China’s recent history of exerting force in disputed waters like the South China Sea, and flouting maritime rules.

Reported similarly:
FOX News [2/20/2025 11:53 AM, Alex Nitzberg, 49889K]

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