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.

CBS News [7/21/2025 6:47 PM, Renee Anderson and Allen Devlin, 51860K] Video: HERE reports Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says she met with a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer who was shot and wounded while off duty late Saturday night in New York City. The shooting happened in Fort Washington Park, near the historic Little Red Lighthouse under the George Washington Bridge in Manhattan. Police said the 42-year-old off-duty officer was sitting on the rocks with a female companion when two suspects pulled up on a moped and tried to rob them. Miguel Francisco Mora Nunez and Christhian Aybar-Berroa are to be federally charged in the shooting, and police say both are in the U.S. illegally and have extensive rap sheets. "They were attacked by two individuals that were set on robbing them and, thankfully, he had his service weapon with him and was able to defend himself and his friend and injured one of those individuals that was trying to do them harm," Noem said Monday. "His quick action speaks to his tenacity and his excellence in training and skill, and because of that, one of the perpetrators was wounded in this interaction and was incarcerated when he came in to get treatment.” Noem said Monday the wounded officer and his family were doing well and appreciate the outpouring of support. On Sunday, police said he was recovering and communicating through hand gestures. "But they also recognize, when I asked them if there’s anything they needed, they said go after these criminals. One of the things that he would have appreciated the most is if you doubled down on these bad guys that perpetuate crimes like these," she said, adding, "So we’re lifting that family up in prayer, we’re going to walk alongside them, but also we’re going to double down and make sure that these criminal illegal aliens are not only off our streets but they’re out of our country.” Noem was joined by President Trump’s border czar Tom Homan, who said he also met with the wounded officer Sunday night. "These are the finest men and women in this country. They put their lives on the line every day for this country. I buried border patrol agents. I buried ICE agents. Luckily, thank God, we’re not burying one today," Homan said. Noem called out Adams and the City Council for so-called sanctuary policies that she blamed for putting Nunez back on the street. Noem also mentioned the mayors of Boston, Los Angeles and Chicago. "I’m calling on every single mayor and sanctuary city and sanctuary governor to change their policies and to change their tactics right now. Their job is to take an oath to protect the public, to protect families that are out there every single day trying to provide for each other and trying to live the American Dream, and they want to do so safely in their own communities," she continued. "How many more lives will it take, how many more people have to be hurt and victimized before we have public safety be a number one priority in some of our largest cities?".

Bloomberg [7/21/2025 3:06 PM, Myles Miller, 19320K] reports the Trump administration will send additional immigration agents to New York, blaming the city’s sanctuary policies for a shooting by an undocumented migrant that left an off-duty federal customs officer seriously wounded. The announcement, delivered by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem from One World Trade Center on Monday, marked an escalation in the administration’s efforts to assert federal control in Democratic-led cities that limit cooperation with immigration authorities. The shooting occurred Saturday night near the George Washington Bridge, where an off-duty US Customs and Border Protection officer was sitting with a friend along the Hudson River. Police said that two men approached on a scooter and one opened fire. The officer returned fire but was shot in the face and arm. A suspect, 21-year-old Miguel Mora, was also wounded and taken to a hospital. Noem said Mora, a Dominican national, entered the US illegally in 2023 and was under a deportation order issued in November. He had been arrested four times on charges including assault, grand larceny and armed robbery, and was wanted in cases in New York and Massachusetts. “This didn’t have to happen. It was because of sanctuary city policies and failed leadership,” Noem said. Tom Homan, the administration’s border czar, said the city’s refusal to let federal officers to make jail-based arrests has forced US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to conduct higher-risk operations in neighborhoods.

Breitbart [7/21/2025 11:53 AM, Hannah Knudsen, 3077K] reports an illegal migrant with a "mile long" rap sheet was involved in an ambush of an off-duty border patrol agent in New York City, the latter of whom is now recovering from the attack, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a press conference on Monday, explaining that it is a direct result of sanctuary city policies and the policies of the Biden administration. The ambush occurred July 19 at the Fort Washington Park under the George Washington Bridge. The officer at the time was off-duty. DHS notes that the suspect is a "criminal illegal alien from the Dominican Republic" who was "apprehended at the southern border and released into the country under the Biden Administration.” A witness of the attack—believed to be an attempted robbery—states that she and the victim were sitting on the rocks by the water when 2 subjects on a scooter drove up to them and the passenger got off the back and approached them with a firearm drawn. The off-duty CBP officer responded by withdrawing his own firearm in self-defense. The off-duty officer was shot in his right arm and left cheek and is recovering. Speaking about the attack publicly, Noem told the public that this attack was the direct result of "sanctuary city policies and the policies of the Biden administration.” "I just want you all to know that we have our hearts and our prayers going out with our officer and with his family and his friends, and will be lifting him up in prayer for his quick recovery and his healing from this terrible tragedy that has befallen him," she said, walking through the attack. "Listen, our officer was off duty on Saturday evening, when him and his friend were attacked. They were attacked by two individuals that were set on robbing them, and thankfully, he had his service weapon with him and was able to defend himself and his friend and injured one of those individuals that was trying to do them harm," she said, adding that the off-duty officer’s "quick action speaks to his tenacity and his excellence in training and skill, and because of that, one of the perpetuators [sic] was wounded in this interaction and was incarcerated when he came in to get medical treatment.” "One of the suspected attackers, the one that was injured — his name is Miguel Francisco Mora, known as a Dominican national that was entering into this country illegally back in 2023," she said, noting that he was released into the U.S by none other than the Biden administration. The Blaze [7/21/2025 11:30 AM, Candace Hathaway, 1805K] reports that a video of the incident showed one of the suspects approaching the two by the riverside. After a brief scuffle and an exchange of gunfire, the suspects fled the scene on their moped. One of the alleged culprits shot the officer in his face and left forearm. The off-duty officer responded by drawing his firearm and shooting the suspect multiple times. The wounded suspect was identified as Miguel Francisco Mora Nunez, a 21-year-old Dominican national, after he walked into a hospital to receive care for the gunshot wounds and was subsequently arrested. The Department of Homeland Security stated that the off-duty CBP agent is in stable condition after undergoing surgery on Sunday. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem visited the wounded officer in the hospital on Monday.

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New York Post [7/21/2025 7:12 AM, Staff, 49956K]
FOX News [7/21/2025 6:09 AM, Staff, 46878K]

FOX News [7/21/2025 7:08 PM, Peter D’Abrosca, 46878K] reports the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Monday released a video showing an illegal alien suspected of shooting an off-duty Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer being dumped outside a Bronx hospital by another suspect. The video shows a man in a red shirt riding a black moped into what appears to be a hospital bay, and subsequently pushing a passenger in a white shirt onto the ground. The passenger slinks off the moped before the driver flees the scene. DHS said in a post on X that the video shows the suspects on the same moped that was also captured on video at the scene of the shooting. "These individuals will face the full weight of the U.S. Justice System," DHS added in the post. Miguel Francisco Mora Nunez is accused of shooting the CBP officer during an attempted robbery in Fort Washington Park late Saturday night. The CBP officer was hanging out in the park with a companion when police say Nunez and another suspect pulled up on the moped and tried to rob the officer at gunpoint. The officer pulled out his own service weapon to defend himself. Both Nunez and the officer were shot multiple times. The officer, who has not been named, was shot in the face and arm. He is expected to recover. Nunez entered the U.S. illegally at the Arizona border in 2023. He was released into the country under the Biden administration. At the time of his arrest for the shooting, he had an active warrant for kidnapping in Massachusetts and multiple prior felony arrests, according to DHS. On Monday, the second person was arrested in connection with the shooting. Cristian Aybar Berroa of the Dominican Republic, who "illegally entered the United States on June 19, 2022, and was released into the country on interim parole pending his immigration hearing," was taken into custody, DHS said Monday upon his arrest.

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New York Post [7/21/2025 6:12 PM, Staff, 49956K]

NewsNation [7/21/2025 12:33 PM, Anna Kutz, 5801K] reports two people who were in the U.S. illegally have been taken into custody after the attempted robbery and shooting of an off-duty Customs and Border Protection officer in New York, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said. Noem on Monday provided an update on the officer and slammed local politicians and their policies for the violence, referencing the immigration status and previous crimes of those suspected. "When you take a dangerous individual and you allow them to never face any consequences for the acts that they’re perpetuating against the public, then you end up in a situation that could have been prevented," Noem said. Officials said Monday they expect to bring federal charges against the two detainees. CBP officer shooting suspects in US illegally: Noem. Noem identified Miguel Francisco Mora Nunez, a 21-year-old immigrant from the Dominican Republic with what she called an extensive criminal past, as a suspect in the shooting. Mora was taken into custody after arriving at a Bronx hospital with gunshot wounds to the groin and leg, New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. ICE arrested the second suspect, Christhian Aybar-Berroa, on Monday. Noem said he entered the U.S. illegally from the Dominican Republic in 2022 and has a criminal record in New York City. Breitbart [7/21/2025 12:20 PM, Hannah Knudsen, 3077K] reports that footage shows two assailants approaching the off-duty officer and his friend in what the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has described as an attempted robbery. The officer happened to have his weapon on him and was able to retaliate, injuring one of the suspects, who has been identified as Miguel Francisco Mora Nunez. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested the second suspect on Monday morning, confirming he is also an illegal immigrant. "Christhian Aybar-Berroa is an illegal from the Dominican Republic. He entered the country illegally in 2022 under the Biden Administration and was ordered for final removed in 2023 by an immigration judge," Noem revealed, sharing an image of his mugshot. "He has a criminal record in New York City and detainers were IGNORED thanks to @ericadamsfornyc sanctuary city policies," she continued. "He was arrested for reckless endangerment and larceny and was released before ICE could get him off the streets.” According to Noem, the wounded suspect, Mora Nunez, who was apprehended after seeking medical care, was a Dominican national "entering into this country illegally back in 2023" and ultimately released into the U.S. interior by the Biden administration. That particular suspect, she continued, has a "rap sheet that is a mile long.”

Reported similarly:
The Hill [7/21/2025 7:45 AM, Sarah Fortinsky, 18649K]
Daily Caller [7/21/2025 10:16 AM, Harold Hutchison, 1010K]

FOX News [7/21/2025 10:51 AM, Staff, 46878K] reports DHS Secretary Kristi Noem briefs the press alongside border czar Tom Homan after an off-duty CBP agent was shot during an ambush-style attack in New York City over the weekend. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

The New York Times [7/21/2025 5:30 PM, Ana Ley and Luis Ferré-Sadurní, 153395K] reports Trump administration officials on Monday blamed Mayor Eric Adams and New York City’s pro-immigrant laws for the shooting of an off-duty customs officer during an attempted robbery, and they warned that federal agents will flood the city in search of people who entered the United States illegally. The 42-year-old officer was sitting with a friend in a Manhattan park late Saturday night when two men rode up on a scooter, police officials said. One of the men approached the officer and revealed a firearm, and when the officer realized he was being robbed, he drew his service weapon and the two men exchanged gunfire. Later that night, the police detained Miguel Francisco Mora Nunez, 21, who had come from the Dominican Republic in 2023, as a person of interest in the shooting. On Monday, Kristi Noem, the U.S. homeland security secretary, said during a news conference in New York that a second person, Cristian Aybar Berroa, had been detained in connection with the attack. Ms. Noem said that both men were undocumented immigrants from the Dominican Republic, and police officials had said that Mr. Mora Nunez was wanted in connection with other violent crimes. “When I look at what Mayor Adams has done to New York City, it breaks my heart to see the families that have suffered because of his policies,” Ms. Noem said. She accused Mr. Adams and mayors from other Democratic cities of “protecting criminals who go out and murder, rape, rob.” Thomas Homan, President Trump’s top border adviser, said that federal officials planned to ramp up immigrant detentions in New York and cities with so-called sanctuary policies, which usually prevent local law enforcement officers from cooperating with federal immigration authorities. Mr. Homan had made the threat before, but it has since been buttressed by an infusion of billions of dollars for immigration enforcement efforts as part of Mr. Trump’s recently passed domestic policy law. “Sanctuary cities are now our priority,” Mr. Homan said, adding that federal agents would “flood the zone.” The New York Post [7/21/2025 12:01 PM, Emily Crane, Jennie Taer, David DeTurris, and Matt Troutman, 49956K] reports Christhian Aybar-Berroa was taken into custody following the arrest of Miguel Francisco Mora Nunez, 21, both Dominican Republican nationals with rap sheets in New York, after they allegedly ambushed the agent and his female companion in Fort Washington Park late Saturday, Noem said. "There’s absolutely zero reason that someone who is scum of the earth like this should be running loose on the streets of New York City," Noem said after visiting the injured agent at Harlem Hospital, joined by President Trump’s border czar Tom Homan. "Make no mistake, this officer is in the hospital today, fighting for his life, because of the policies of the mayor of the city and the City Council and the people that were in charge of keeping the public safe refused to do so." Noem said families have "suffered" as a result of sanctuary city policies. "When I look at what Mayor Adams has done to New York City, it breaks my heart to see the families that have suffered because of his policies," she said. CNN [7/21/2025 1:30 PM, Lauren Mascarenhas, 875K] reports Noem blamed "sanctuary city policies" for the shooting, citing a list of previous arrests and warrants against Mora. "He was arrested four different times in New York City, and because of the mayor’s policies and sanctuary city policies, was released back to do harm to people and to individuals living in this city," she said. Noem called on leaders of sanctuary cities nationwide to change their policies. When asked what policies would have prevented the shooting, Noem did not provide specifics. "This individual should have been deported and never been in this country," she said. President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, echoed Noem’s statements. FOX News [7/21/2025 9:30 AM, Greg Norman, 46878K] reports "We should not be here today. The reason these two assailants are inside the United States today is because of failed border policies by the Biden administration," CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott said Monday. "I visited the officer last night, of course, he was heavily sedated, so I didn’t have words with him," added White House border czar Tom Homan. "But I did talk to his family. They’re devastated. It’s just -- it’s just a shock to the soul when you walk in and see that young man laying there." "Sanctuary cities are sanctuaries for criminals. President Trump is not going to tolerate it," Homan warned.

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The Hill [7/21/2025 2:59 PM, Sarah Fortinsky, 18649K]
Washington Examiner [7/21/2025 12:21 PM, Anna Giaritelli, 1934K]
NewsMax [7/21/2025 11:26 AM, Eric Mack, 4622K]
NewsMax [7/21/2025 9:25 PM, Philip Marcelo, 4622K]

Washington Examiner [7/21/2025 11:27 AM, Chris Wade, 1934K] reports New York City Mayor Eric Adams is calling for violent migrants in the city to be dealt with "quickly and swiftly" following Saturday’s shooting of an off-duty border patrol agent by an "illegal alien" with a lengthy criminal record. Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Adams commended the U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer who was shot during a botched robbery in a Manhattan park and blasted the nation’s asylum system for allowing "violent migrants and asylum seekers" into the country. Adams said the suspect, 21 year-old Miguel Francisco Mora Nunez of the Dominican Republic, had entered the country illegally in 2023 through Arizona. Homeland Security, in a release Sunday, said the agent was hospitalized in stable condition. "We have to be quick and swift to deal with those who believe they want to inflict violence," Adams, a Democrat, told reporters at a briefing. "The perpetrator – who entered the country illegally and at the time of the shooting had an outstanding bench warrant and was wanted for robbery, felony assault, kidnapping, and weapons possession across multiple states – should have never been on our streets." Adams said the suspect in the attack "is exactly who we are talking about when we say we need to work with our federal law enforcement partners to go after violent criminals.”

ABC News [7/21/2025 11:00 AM, Staff, 31733K] Video: HERE reports ABC News’ Ike Ejiochi reports on the shooting of an off-duty United States Border Patrol agent just before midnight on Saturday in a New York City park under the George Washington Bridge.

FOX News [7/21/2025 4:55 PM, Staff, 46878K] reports DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin discusses an attack on an off-duty CBP officer and more on ‘The Story.’ [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

FOX News [7/21/2025 4:00 PM, Greg Norman, 46878K] reports the second illegal immigrant suspect arrested Monday in the shooting of an off-duty U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officer in New York City over the weekend has a lengthy criminal background, officials said. Cristian Aybar Berroa of the Dominican Republic "illegally entered the United States on June 19, 2022, and was released into the country on interim parole pending his immigration hearing," according to the Department of Homeland Security. He then allegedly committed a litany of crimes in New York City, including arrests for 2nd degree reckless endangerment in May 2023 and 4th degree felony grand larceny and petit larceny in March and April 2024, officials said. Following the April 2024 arrest, "Despite an active ICE detainer, the New York City Department of Corrections released Berroa back onto NYC streets," Homeland Security said. Berroa was then arrested by the New York City Police Department in February 2025 for 2nd degree reckless endangerment, reckless driving and for driving without a license, the DHS continued. He and Miguel Francisco Mora Nunez are now expected to face federal charges in connection to the shooting at New York City’s Fort Washington Park late Saturday, Interim U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton announced Monday. Officials believe the shooting happened during an attempted robbery. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Monday that Berroa was the scooter driver in the incident. Multiple sources within U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told Fox News that the men involved in the shooting are believed to be the same men caught on video in an armed robbery of a business in Leominster, Massachusetts, in February.

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New York Post [7/21/2025 6:12 PM, Joe Marino, Jennie Taer and Matt Troutman, 49956K]
FOX News [7/21/2025 10:01 AM, Staff, 46878K]

FOX News [7/21/2025 1:22 PM, Danielle Wallace, 46878K] Video: HERE reports President Donald Trump demanded cashless bail end immediately on Monday, citing crime in U.S. cities, as well as increased attacks on law enforcement. "Crime in American Cities started to significantly rise when they went to CASHLESS BAIL. The WORST criminals are flooding our streets and endangering even our great law enforcement officers," Trump wrote on TRUTH Social. "It is a complete disaster, and must be ended, IMMEDIATELY!" Trump wrote. The post was published as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem held a press conference in New York City after visiting a Customs and Border Protection officer who was shot while off-duty on Saturday night. The suspect is a previously deported Dominical national, who Noem said has a "rap sheet that is a mile long," has an active warrant against him in Massachusetts for armed robbery with a firearm, and who has been arrested in New York City four separate times. Noem criticized the open border policies under former President Joe Biden, as well as sanctuary polices in New York City, Boston, Los Angeles and Chicago in particular in the wake of the shooting. "When I look at what Mayor Adams has done to New York City, it breaks my heart to see the families that have suffered because of his policies," Noem said. "We can look across this country at other mayors. We look at Mayor Wu in Boston and what has happened there under her watch, what’s happened in LA with the riots and the violence and the protests that have gone on because of Mayor Bass and what she has perpetuated. When you look at Mayor Johnson in Chicago and how devastating it is to live in that city in some of those poorest communities, how they suffer every single day with the violence that’s in front of them." [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

FOX News [7/21/2025 4:25 PM, Cameron Arcand and Peter Pinedo, 46878K] reports the head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is blasting leading New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani for his "deafening" silence in the wake of Saturday night’s shooting of a Customs and Border Protection officer in a city park. In a statement to Fox News Digital, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said, "The silence from Zohran Mamdani is not just deafening, it’s deliberate, disturbing, and sadly predictable.” Lyons went on to say that Mamdani’s "reckless anti-law enforcement policy positions would endanger legal, law-abiding New Yorkers.” "His silence in the face of this brutal attack speaks volumes about where his priorities lie, and it’s not with public safety and the American people," said Lyons. This comes after an alleged attempted robbery by two criminal illegal immigrants, Dominican nationals Cristian Aybar Berroa and Miguel Francisco Mora Nunez, led to a shootout in which an off-duty CBP officer was struck in the face and forearm. He has been hospitalized and is in stable condition. Nunez was shot in the leg and groin during the shootout, police said. He was dropped off at a hospital in the Bronx, according to authorities. Both suspects have been apprehended. In response to the shooting, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said New York City sanctuary policies are responsible. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News Digital that "sanctuary politicians must condemn this violence and put the safety and security of our citizens first.” "Make no mistake: these criminal illegal aliens pulled the trigger, but Zohran Mamdani, and other sanctuary politicians in this country have blood on their hands," said McLaughlin, adding, "Secretary Noem is calling on every politician at every level of government to abandon these reckless, lawless policies and stop playing Russian roulette with American lives.” She added that DHS "will continue to flood the zone in sanctuary cities and remove these criminals one by one.”

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FOX News [7/21/2025 10:17 AM, Andrew Mark Miller, Deirdre Heavey, and Cameron Arcand, 46878K]

FOX Business [7/21/2025 9:03 AM, Staff, 9940K] reports Texas Department of Public Safety Lt. Christopher Olivarez discusses the shooting of an off-duty border agent in NYC by an illegal migrant on ‘Mornings with Maria.’ [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Daily Caller [7/21/2025 11:31 AM, Jason Cohen, 1010K] reports Border czar Tom Homan criticized the New York City Council on Monday for preventing immigration authorities from entering Rikers Island. An off-duty Border Patrol agent was ambushed and shot on Saturday in New York City in an apparent robbery attempt by an illegal migrant and a co-conspirator. Homan, during a press conference in the city, said President Donald Trump’s administration would be ramping up enforcement in response to the incident and the city’s refusal to let ICE into the prison. "[S]anctuary cities are sanctuaries for criminals — hard stop. I’ve been doing this since 1984. I’ve never seen a situation where I see it today. New York City, how many times do you want to see the NYPD attacked by illegal alien criminals in this city? Now a federal officer," Homan said. "How many citizens in this city been attacked by illegal aliens in this city? You see the polls — everybody agrees we should be arresting public safety threat illegal aliens. But you got a city council here that locked us out of Rikers Island. Are you kidding me?". A New York judge in April blocked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from entering Rikers Island after the New York City Council filed a lawsuit to stop Mayor Eric Adams’ executive order allowing ICE agents onto Rikers Island from being implemented. "So an illegal alien in Rikers Island, we can’t talk to, we don’t have access to. That makes the city unsafe. Every sanctuary city is unsafe. I’ll say it again: sanctuary cities are sanctuaries for criminals. And I want to work very hard with [Homeland Security] Secretary Noem to keep President Trump’s commitment from several weeks ago that sanctuary cities are now our priority," Homan said. "We are going to flood the zone. You don’t want to let us into the jail to arrest the bad guy in the safety and security of a jail, you want to release him into the streets, which makes it unsafe for the community, makes it unsafe for the officer, makes it unsafe for the alien. Anything can happen on a street arrest.” The agent was attacked while with a female companion by two men on a moped in Fort Washington Park in Manhattan, according to a Sunday post on X by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Noem also announced at the presser that the second suspect — also an illegal immigrant — had been taken into custody. Noem identified the second suspect as Christhian Aybar-Berroa, an illegal immigrant from the Dominican Republic, in a Monday X post. "He entered the country illegally in 2022 under the Biden Administration and was ordered for final removed in 2023 by an immigration judge," she wrote. "He has a criminal record in New York City and detainers were IGNORED thanks to @ericadamsfornyc sanctuary city policies. He was arrested for reckless endangerment and larceny and was released before ICE could get him off the streets.”

FOX News [7/21/2025 3:04 PM, Peter Pinedo, 46878K] reports after border czar Tom Homan vowed to "flood the zone" with ICE agents in response to the shooting of an off-duty U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer in New York City, Mayor Eric Adams answered whether he will cooperate with the Trump administration’s crackdown. Adams said he would support any efforts to "go after dangerous people like this individual who shot an innocent Customs and Border Patrol agent." Adams, who is running for re-election as an independent, addressed the shooting during a press conference on Monday. He said he has visited the injured officer and that he is "extremely angry that we have a Customs and Border Patrol officer that is in the hospital because a person that should have not been on our street was on our street." The CBP officer is currently hospitalized in stable condition. In response to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem singling him out as being responsible for the shooting because of New York City’s sanctuary laws, Adams said, "I have nothing to do with the rules that are put in place. I just carry out the rules."

FOX News [7/21/2025 11:21 PM, Staff, 46878K] reports Trump ‘border czar’ Tom Homan outlines why the crime rate is so high in New York and promises to ‘flood the zone’ on sanctuary cities on ‘Hannity.’

Breitbart [7/22/2025 2:37 AM, Ian Hanchett, 3077K] reports that on Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s "The Story," NYPD Chief of Department John Chell stated that it’s a good thing that the off-duty Border Patrol agent shot in New York City during a robbery over the weekend was armed and that his training kicked in and he was able to stop the threat because there are repeat offenders who commit tons of robberies, and these two robbers were an example of that. Chell stated, "[W]hen you think about it, he was a Border Patrol officer, but he was a New Yorker enjoying the park, and he got preyed upon in a robbery. And thank God his tactics kicked in, he was armed, and he stopped this threat.” He continued, "Because we know, in the city — and you said it earlier — we’ve seen this show over and over and over again the last couple of years, and these crews here — this two[-man] crew here, they did a robbery five minutes earlier in the same park, and they were going to do more that night. So, this officer did his job and did it well.” Chell added that the quick response from the NYPD saved the officer’s life.

Breitbart [7/21/2025 11:44 PM, Ian Hanchett, 3077K] reports that on Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s "The Story," NYPD Chief of Department John Chell placed the blame on sanctuary city policies for the shooting of an off-duty Border Patrol agent in the city over the weekend. Host Martha MacCallum asked, "I want to start with what the DHS secretary said there, and she pointed the finger pretty squarely at Mayor Adams for the fact that this person’s been arrested so many times and was still out on the street, what do you say to that, Chief?". Chell responded, "Well, first of all, sanctuary city laws have been in place for years before the Mayor got into office, he inherited this. That’s number one. Number two, he doesn’t have the power to change the law, that’s the City Council and he can’t wave a magic executive order circumventing the law, he cannot do that. He has been steadfast in the last couple of years advocating for the Council to change some of these laws as it relates to situations like this. He’s also had his Deputy Mayor, Randy Mastro, try to open up federal units in Rikers, all federal units to help out in this endeavor, and, immediately, they did that, they served a lawsuit on us. So, he’s trying to fix all that, and he’s not like any other mayor in this country, and we know this, he’s a crime-fighting mayor. He’s doing everything in his power in this situation, overall crime, safety to help. He’s dedicated more detectives to our federal task forces for criminal investigations than ever before. So, a little bit of an unfair criticism, but those are the facts.” Later, Chell added that a judge could not detain one of the suspects due to the sanctuary law, and if he was detained, "this federal officer is not shot." But "bail could have been set at a small amount" but was not.

Blaze [7/21/2025 12:35 PM, Julio Rosas, 1805K] reports White House border czar Tom Homan laid into the mainstream media for pushing a narrative about the type of people being arrested by federal immigration officers. Homan was part of the Department of Homeland Security’s press conference in New York City after one of the agency’s officers was shot, allegedly by an illegal alien. While the officer survived, he was shot in the face and arm. He was able to return fire and wound one of the suspects. Homan said the recent shooting in the Big Apple proves the immigration enforcement operations are necessary and that it is shameful that sanctuary cities are not doing more to help remove criminal illegal aliens from the country. "One more thing. I’m sick and tired of reading in the media how ICE is not doing what the Trump administration has promised, that we’re not arresting criminals, that most of the people we arrest are not criminals. I look at the numbers every day. The numbers I looked at the other day — 130,000 arrests and 90,000 criminals. Do the math. That’s 70 percent," Homan said. Homan continued that other people who do not have criminal records but have been arrested are those who have final orders for removal. In other words, these individuals "had due process at great taxpayer expense," and "a federal judge ordered them removed, so ICE’s job is to remove them.” He further pointed to recent stories that just 1% of ICE arrestees have been convicted of murder. "Are you kidding me? Being in the country illegally is not illegal anymore, and you gotta commit a murder to be deported?" Homan said.

Daily Signal [7/21/2025 6:21 PM, Jacob Adams, 558K] reports an immigration expert is sounding the alarm about the rise in violence against Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. There has been an astonishing 830% increase in assaults against ICE officers, according to congressional testimony from Mike Howell, president of the Oversight Project. He said that number is likely a conservative estimate. "It’s probably five to 10 times that because they’re not arresting people at the rates they should be. You know, all the rock-throwers, the spitters, everything else, it’s more likely than not that they just don’t get arrested," Howell told The Daily Signal. The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now. The Oversight Project began in 2022 as an arm of The Heritage Foundation and has since become an independent group dedicated to bringing greater transparency to government. Howell testified before the House Committee on Homeland Security last week. Howell attributed the astounding rise in violence to Democrats’ messaging excusing the physical abuse of federal officials. "Democrats are mainstreaming political violence against ICE and Border Patrol. In some instances, they are participating in the violence to show the rest of their insane and mentally ill base that it’s OK to be violent. Examples include [California Sen. Alex] Padilla acting like a thug. [New Jersey Rep. LaMonica] McIver acting like a thug," Howell said. He was referring specifically to two members of Congress who drew media attention for what critics describe as political stunts related to immigration enforcement. That includes Padilla’s storming of a press conference featuring Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. The California lawmaker was arrested for interrupting the event and pushing back against the security officers protecting Noem. McIver was indicted in June on charges of assaulting and obstructing immigration officers outside a detention facility used by ICE in Newark, New Jersey. Howell expressed to The Daily Signal what he sees as the need for public officials to show zero tolerance toward political violence against federal law enforcement officials. "Republicans need to pony up and stop treating this like a political disagreement or a messaging exercise. This is black and white. This is [the] rule of law. Illegal Immigration is illegal. Assaulting ICE is illegal," he said. "I think the House would be well within its right to stand up a January 6-equivalent committee to really show the linkages between what national Democrat politicians are doing and how that’s impacting violence on the streets, the funding, etc," said Howell, who has led several national security investigations while on Capitol Hill.

ABC 9 Cincinnati [7/21/2025 5:05 PM, Molly Schramm] reports a Cincinnati man has been charged with threatening to kidnap and murder multiple federal officials, including Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, on social media. Anthony Kelly, an Oakley resident, has been charged with threatening to assault, kidnap or murder a United States official, as well as threatening interstate communications, after making threats on Bluesky. According to court documents, Kelly posted several threats on his public Bluesky account, @slabhogg1.bsky.social, between June 26 and July 17. The Texas Fusion Center, which works with federal, state and regional law enforcement for homeland security reporting, observed on July 15 the multiple threats made by Kelly "via proactive monitoring," per court documents. In one post from July 11, Kelly allegedly thanked Tom Homan, the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, for giving "We The People permission to shoot your #Gestapedos." A federal judge ordered Monday that Kelly will remain detained, according to court documents. Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, posted to X on July 19, thanking law enforcement for arresting Kelly. "These threats will not be tolerated," McLaughlin wrote. "You will be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

The New York Times [7/21/2025 4:04 PM, Shawn Hubler and Eric Schmitt, 138952K] reports pentagon officials will begin withdrawing 700 active-duty Marines who were sent to Los Angeles last month, the latest scaling back of the Trump administration’s contentious military deployment in Southern California. The withdrawal of the Marines follows the departure of nearly 2,000 California National Guard soldiers and a smaller contingent of about 150 specialized Guard firefighters. The troops had been dispatched to Los Angeles by President Trump starting on June 7, after protests erupted there over immigration raids. More than half will now have been ordered back to base; an 1,892-member brigade of military police remains. The Pentagon’s chief spokesman, Sean Parnell, framed the pullout as the natural closure of a successful military response that was needed to quell civil unrest in the nation’s second-largest city. A Defense Department official said the Marines were expected to complete their withdrawal by as soon as Tuesday. “With stability returning to Los Angeles, the secretary has directed the redeployment of the 700 Marines whose presence sent a clear message: Lawlessness will not be tolerated,” Mr. Parnell said Monday in a statement, referring to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. “Their rapid response, unwavering discipline, and unmistakable presence were instrumental in restoring order and upholding the rule of law. We’re deeply grateful for their service, and for the strength and professionalism they brought to this mission.” Democratic leaders in California have accused the Trump administration of provoking the protests by sending masked federal agents to carwashes and other sites to detain immigrants, and then using the subsequent public outrage over the raids as a pretext for military action. Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles has compared the deployment to an “armed occupation,” and Gov. Gavin Newsom has condemned it as “a solution right now in search of a problem.” Both have called for the removal of all the deployed troops. On Monday, Mayor Bass called the withdrawal “another sign of progress" in a unified and sustained push by Southern Californians. The Marines “had nothing to do here,” she said. “They’ve just been standing in front of federal buildings when there are no protests and nothing is going on. It’s an inappropriate use of our men and women who choose to serve.” Governor Newsom called the deployment “a joke from Day 1,” and demanded that President Trump and Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff who has led the administration’s crackdown on immigration, “end their dangerous militarization — and bring every soldier home for good.” Since June, the troops have stood guard outside federal office buildings and have accompanied agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Border Patrol and other agencies during immigration raids. Pentagon officials estimated that the cost of deploying the Marines and National Guard soldiers would run to about $134 million. California officials say the deployment violates federal law prohibiting the use of federal troops for domestic law enforcement, but an early attempt to halt the deployment through a court order was blocked by a federal appeals court. That appellate court ruled in June that the president had broad, though not “unreviewable,” authority to send the U.S. military into American cities. A federal trial to determine whether the National Guard and Marines were used illegally in California is scheduled for next month. Federal authorities have called the deployment a response to the so-called sanctuary law in California, enacted during the first Trump administration. The law limits the role of local sheriffs’ deputies and police officers in immigration enforcement, so that fear of deportation would not deter immigrants from reporting crimes. The AP [7/21/2025 5:28 PM, Jaimie Ding] reports that the 700 Marines were deployed June 9 on the fourth day of protests in downtown LA over the administration’s crackdown on immigration. Four thousand National Guard soldiers were also deployed. Their presence in the city had been limited to two locations with federal buildings in Los Angeles, including the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office and detention facility downtown. During their deployment outside a federal complex in west LA, the Marines temporarily detained a man who said he was rushing to get to a Veterans Affairs appointment. The decision to pull back the Marines comes after half of the National Guard troops were ordered to leave the city last week. The rest remain. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the military presence "sent a clear message: lawlessness will not be tolerated."

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The Hill [7/21/2025 10:53 PM, Emily Brooks, 18649K] reports Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) is slated to be the next chair of the House Homeland Security Committee after winning the nod from a panel of leaders in the House GOP on Monday night. Garbarino beat out four other contenders for the chairmanship in a vote by the House Steering Committee — a panel that includes members of Republican leadership and other elected regional representatives from across the conference. His nomination is set to be referred to the full House GOP Conference, which typically green-lights the Steering Committee’s picks without issue. The position was opened up due to the departure of former Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.), who had led the panel since 2023. Green’s resignation for an "opportunity in the private sector" — which he explicitly delayed until after passage of President Trump’s "One Big Beautiful Bill" of tax cut and spending priorities — became official on Monday. Rep. Michael Guest (R-Miss.), Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.), and Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) had also sought the position. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) had said the group had created "quite a horse race," and later said every candidate was "highly qualified.” Garbarino, who is well-liked among members of the Steering Committee, won the nod on the second ballot after Guest had fallen off the first ballot, according to a source. The panel is tasked with oversight of the Department of Homeland Security — a major department that is not only carrying out Trump’s aggressive immigration agenda, but combating terrorism and ensuring cybersecurity. Speaking to The Hill last week, Garbarino talked about the committee’s role in addressing terrorism as well as many other nonimmigration policy issues like disaster response. The Daily Caller [7/21/2025 10:55 PM, Staff, 1010K] reports that the election was held to replace Republican Tennessee Rep. Mark Green, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, who announced his resignation from Congress in early July. Garbarino, a moderate, was chosen to lead the committee over fellow GOP Reps. Michael Guest of Mississippi, Carlos Gimenez of Florida and Clay Higgins of Louisiana. Garbarino, at the time of his election, chaired the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection subcommittee. His knowledge surrounding cybersecurity platformed his push for chairman. The moderate New York Republican also had an immigration win earlier this year after the original language from his Protect Our Law Enforcement with Immigration Control and Enforcement (POLICE) Act was included in the Laken Riley Act. Garbarino first introduced his POLICE Act in 2021, and reintroduced it once the 119th Congress convened in January. In the weeks leading up to the Homeland Security vote, Garbarino has showed public support for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), taking to the House floor to blast attempts by Democrats to ban immigration enforcement agents from wearing face masks.

Daily Caller [7/21/2025 10:55 PM, Staff, 1010K] reports that the House Republican Steering Committee on Monday night selected Republican New York Rep. Andrew Garbarino to chair the lower chamber’s Homeland Security Committee and spearhead much of House Republicans’ border security and immigration agenda. The election was held to replace Republican Tennessee Rep. Mark Green, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, who announced his resignation from Congress in early July. Garbarino, a moderate, was chosen to lead the committee over fellow GOP Reps. Michael Guest of Mississippi, Carlos Gimenez of Florida and Clay Higgins of Louisiana. Garbarino, at the time of his election, chaired the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection subcommittee. His knowledge surrounding cybersecurity platformed his push for chairman. The moderate New York Republican also had an immigration win earlier this year after the original language from his Protect Our Law Enforcement with Immigration Control and Enforcement (POLICE) Act was included in the Laken Riley Act. Garbarino first introduced his POLICE Act in 2021, and reintroduced it once the 119th Congress convened in January. In the weeks leading up to the Homeland Security vote, Garbarino has showed public support for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), taking to the House floor to blast attempts by Democrats to ban immigration enforcement agents from wearing face masks.

FOX News [7/21/2025 8:54 PM, Staff, 46878K] reports Thomas Fugate, a 22-year-old Trump appointee, spoke with Fox News Digital after being cast into the spotlight and criticized over his young age, inexperience and role in President Donald Trump’s administration. Fugate’s official title at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is Special Assistant. However, several outlets reported that Fugate was the head of DHS’s Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships (CP3). CP3 is DHS’ lead office for terrorism and targeted violence prevention. The young appointee and DHS denied those claims to Fox News Digital. "All decisions came down from policy leadership, [the] undersecretary, deputy secretary, and chief of staff," Fugate emphasized. Fugate went on to say that CP3, a program which was gutted by an $18.5 million cut last week, has a heavily reduced role compared to previous administrations as Trump’s DHS has downsized the division. "Before I got there, [CP3] was already flagged for waste, fraud, and abuse," Fugate explained. "We’re not talking about a massive office of 80 people with a wide range of functions. We’re talking about a very niche and small, specialized office.” Fugate said the office is mainly focused on administering a grant program. "It’s only when you take it out of context and blow it out of proportion that it then becomes a massive problem where people think I’m practically running the FBI," Fugate continued. DHS also told Fox News Digital that Fugate was never in a position of leadership within the program, and even referred to him as a "low-level" staffer. "This entire smear campaign around Thomas Fugate is a smokescreen to bury the rampant grift and waste festering in the CP3 program under the Biden Administration’s watch," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Fox. "Fugate never held the director role at CP3, and to imply that he had operational control or exercised leadership over CP3 is simply untrue, as we have consistently told them.” "The fact a low-level 22-year-old staffer was able to identify the misappropriated spending and the subsequent violent reaction to defend this woke, partisan spending by those on the left tells you exactly what this program was really being used for," McLaughlin said. As for his young age and experience, Fugate noted that he started out with DHS at Border and Immigration when the Undersecretary of Policy asked him to temporarily assist at CP3. Prior to that, he interned at the Heritage Foundation before graduating from the University of Texas at San Antonio with a degree in Politics and Law last May.

CBS News [7/21/2025 10:55 AM, Melissa Quinn, 51860K] reports lawyers for Kilmar Abrego Garcia asked a federal judge overseeing his criminal case to put off his release from custody for 30 days if the judge rejects a Justice Department bid to keep him in confinement while awaiting a trial. Abrego Garcica’s lawyers said in a filing that the 30-day pause in issuing a release order would give him time to evaluate his legal options in response to likely efforts by the Department of Homeland Security to deport him. "We have been advised by the government that if the court denies the government’s motion for revocation, the defendant would be transferred to the custody of the Department of Homeland Security (‘DHS’), and DHS would begin removal proceedings," they wrote. The Justice Department does not object to the request, and Abrego Garcia’s legal team said that the delay would not affect their ability to come up with a proposed schedule leading up to his criminal trial. A federal grand jury in Tennessee indicted Abrego Garcia in late May on two counts of human smuggling. He has pleaded not guilty to both counts. A trial in his case is set to begin in January. Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador in March as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign, but his removal gained headlines after a federal immigration official acknowledged it was an administrative error. An immigration judge had granted Abrego Garcia a withholding of removal in 2019, which prevented DHS from deporting him to his home country of El Salvador because he was likely to face persecution by local gangs. Abrego Garcia, who has lived in Maryland after coming to the U.S. illegally in 2011, and his wife filed a civil lawsuit against the Trump administration in March challenging his removal, and a federal judge in Maryland ordered the government to facilitate his return to the U.S. After weeks of back-and-forth — and his case reaching the Supreme Court — Attorney General Pam Bondi announced in early June that Abrego Garcia had been released from Salvadoran custody and brought back to the U.S. to face criminal charges stemming from his alleged participation in a scheme to smuggle undocumented migrants into the country. A federal magistrate judge last month ordered Abrego Garcia’s release from federal law enforcement custody while he awaits a trial, but that raised concerns that he would be swiftly detained by immigration agents and possibly deported. The Justice Department appealed that decision and asked a U.S. district judge to revoke the release order.

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AP [7/21/2025 3:44 PM, Ben Finley, 56000K]
NBC News [7/21/2025 11:28 AM, Gary Grumbach and Marlene Lenthang, 44540K]

FOX News [7/21/2025 11:17 AM, Alex Miller, 46878K] reports a Senate Republican wants to slash federal funding to "anarchist jurisdictions" that run afoul of President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda in the wake of the anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles. Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., plans to introduce the Stop Anarchists from Endangering (SAFE) Cities Act, which would put cities that push back against the Trump administration’s immigration plan in danger of losing federal funding. Sheehy’s bill would direct Attorney General Pam Bondi to identify and publish a list of anarchist jurisdictions. If a city is on the list, their funding would be put in jeopardy. From there, Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought Office would issue guidance to the heads of various federal agencies to restrict anarchist jurisdictions’ eligibility to receive federal grants, according to the bill text.

Daily Caller [7/21/2025 11:02 AM, Adam Pack, 1010K] reports Republican South Dakota Rep. Dusty Johnson will introduce legislation Monday to codify one of President Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting sanctuary cities. Johnson’s No DOT [Department of Transportation] Funds for Sanctuary Cities Act would prevent the DOT secretary from issuing any federal funding to cities that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities, such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The legislation would build on an executive order the president signed in April, which directed federal agencies to identify grants and awards issued to sanctuary jurisdictions for possible termination, according to a release from Johnson’s office exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. Johnson previously signaled he would introduce legislation cracking down on sanctuary cities during a House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing on July 16. DOT Secretary Sean Duffy, who testified during the hearing on the agency’s fiscal year 2026 budget request, voiced support for the measure. "It’s absurd that we have sanctuary cities who ignore federal law, allow anti-ICE rioters to destroy transportation infrastructure, and then those same local governments will turn around and ask the federal government to foot the bill for the repairs," Johnson said during the hearing. "I couldn’t agree with you more. If you allow your city to be burned or even in LA where we’re allowing rioters to destroy our streets, the federal taxpayer should not come back and then rebuild what they allowed to be destroyed," Duffy replied to the congressman. Duffy threatened to pull federal transportation funding to sanctuary cities, such as Los Angeles, in June following a torrent of anti-ICE riots engulfing the city. The Trump administration sued Los Angeles over its sanctuary city policies on June 30, citing the city’s refusal to share data with and limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

FOX News [7/21/2025 4:43 PM, Diana Stancy, 46878K] reports former President Joe Biden’s use of the autopen allowed "the sadistic criminal underclass" to enter the U.S. under his administration’s border policies, according to White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller. Biden has come under scrutiny for his alleged use of the autopen while in office, and President Donald Trump has said thousands of pardons Biden signed were void and that the former president did not know what documents he was signing through the automated device. When asked which specific orders Miller was referring to, the White House did not specify, but said Biden employed the autopen to all aspects of the presidency.

NewsMax [7/21/2025 11:03 AM, Brian Freeman, 4622K] reports a proposed Republican spending bill includes a number of provisions impacting District of Columbia laws and programs, according to a post on Monday by reporter Martin Austermuhle. The bill would repeal Washington, D.C.’s assisted suicide law, do away with noncitizen voting in the district, and prohibit D.C. from using traffic cameras or ban right turns on red lights. In addition, the legislation would require that D.C. recognize concealed carry permits from every other state, repeal a police discipline reform bill passed in 2020, and would forbid D.C. from enforcing consumer protection laws against oil and gas companies for environmental claims. The House Appropriations Committee, which prepared the legislation for consideration in its subcommittee on Monday, added in a press release that the bill "enforces constitutional oversight of D.C. by maintaining pro-life safeguards on the use of government funds, retaining the conscience clause on any D.C. contraceptive requirement, and banning D.C.’s harmful and addiction enabling needle exchange program."

Daily Caller [7/21/2025 3:20 PM, Jason Hopkins, 1010K] reports a Biden-appointed judge ordered the Trump administration to restore a program that provides taxpayer-funded attorneys for detained illegal migrants who’ve been deemed mentally incompetent. U.S. District Judge Amir Ali, appointed to the bench in 2024, blocked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday from terminating the National Qualified Representative Program (NQRP), according to court documents. The ruling effectively forces the Trump administration to keep funding a program that doles out millions of dollars, allowing illegal migrants to fight off deportation orders in immigration court. Ali handed these immigration groups a major win on Monday, granting their motion for a preliminary injunction. The Biden-appointed judge prevented DOJ and DHS officials "from taking any action" to terminate or pause the NQRP and to reimplement the program consistent with his order.

Washington Times [7/21/2025 5:46 PM, Stephen Dinan, 2106K] reports federal judges in Maryland complained Monday that the Trump administration’s lawsuit against their short-term deportation amnesty policy violates the Constitution and insisted they must have wide-ranging powers to stop a president from acting. The case stems from the judges’ standing order that blocks deportations, for two business days, for any unauthorized immigrant who files a habeas petition in Maryland’s federal court. The Justice Department sued, saying the court, almost entirely composed of Democratic appointees, was treading on President Trump’s executive powers to carry out deportations. But the judges, led by Chief Judge George Russell III, said it’s Mr. Trump who needs to be reined in. “Immigration officers sometimes violate the law. And when they do, the consequences can be stark,” Andrew Lawrence, the lawyer for the judges, said in their first defense lodged in court on Monday. He said the court’s policy envisions only a “brief pause” on deportations. The goal, he said, is to make sure the government doesn’t speed deportations before a judge has a chance to issue a substantive ruling. But the government said the result is automatically blocking the president without any consideration of the specifics of a claim. Indeed, government lawyers say some unauthorized immigrants who aren’t even in Maryland have already used the process to delay their deportations.

New York Times [7/21/2025 5:17 AM, Alan Blinder, 153395K] reports a federal judge grilled a Trump administration lawyer on Monday during a crucial hearing on a lawsuit brought by Harvard University over the government’s decision to cancel billions of dollars in federal funds for the school. The hearing was likely to be a milestone in a lawsuit that hinges in part on what the government’s role in higher education should be. Harvard and the government are each asking Judge Allison D. Burroughs for an outright victory — a summary judgment in their favor that would decide the lawsuit, at least in Judge Burroughs’s court, without a trial. The judge did not rule from the bench at the hearing. A central question in the case is whether the Trump administration ignored rules and procedures when it canceled billions of dollars in funds to Harvard. The school is also arguing that the Trump administration is trying to curb its First Amendment rights. Judge Burroughs sided with the university in another significant case, when she ruled on several interim matters related to the government’s effort to block the school from enrolling international students. Monday’s hearing was the judge’s first substantive opportunity to signal her thinking on Harvard’s signature lawsuit against the federal government.

Daily Wire [7/21/2025 11:00 AM, Zach Jewell, 3816K] reports the court battle between the Trump administration and Harvard University went before a federal judge in Boston on Monday as both parties seek a final ruling on the Ivy League school’s lawsuit over federal funding cuts. Judge Allison D. Burroughs, who sided with Harvard in another case over the Trump administration’s attempt to block the university from enrolling foreign students, will likely signal on Monday where she stands on Harvard’s lawsuit against the Trump administration, The New York Times reported. Harvard sued the federal government in April after the Trump administration announced it would strip more than $2 billion in federal funding from the school, citing anti-Israel sentiment on the campus and its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. President Donald Trump has called Harvard "Anti-Semitic," "Far-Left," and "a threat to Democracy.” "The place is a Liberal mess, allowing a certain group of crazed lunatics to enter and exit the classroom and spew fake ANGER AND HATE. It is truly horrific!" Trump added in April. The federal antisemitism task force, established by the Trump Department of Justice earlier this year, demanded that Harvard submit to federal oversight and reform certain aspects of its admissions, hiring, and student discipline practices. Harvard refused to comply with the task force’s demands. In its lawsuit, Harvard argues that the Trump administration is violating its First Amendment rights. Harvard also states that the funding freeze will harm essential scientific and medical research more than anything else. "No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue," said Harvard’s President Alan M. Garber. The court hearing comes as President Donald Trump continues to negotiate with the university. One month ago, Trump teased a "mindbogglingly HISTORIC" deal with Harvard that he said would be announced "over the next week or so.”

Breitbart [7/21/2025 6:11 PM, Nick Gilbertson, 3077K] reports President Donald Trump blasted the Obama-appointed U.S. District Court judge overseeing Harvard’s legal challenge to the administration’s freezing of $2.2 billion in federal grants to the university. Harvard is challenging the Trump administration’s freeze, which stems from the elite university’s refusal to comply with demands, including implementing merit-based hiring practices and reforming screening and admissions practices for international students to prevent admissions of students "hostile to the American values," including students who support "terrorism or anti-Semitism.” After oral arguments on Monday, Trump ripped U.S. District Judge for the District of Massachusetts Allison Burroughs, who is overseeing the case. "The Harvard case was just tried in Massachusetts before an Obama-appointed Judge. She is a TOTAL DISASTER, which I say even before hearing her Ruling," Trump wrote in a post on X. "She has systematically taken over the various Harvard cases, and is an automatic ‘loss’ for the People of our Country! Harvard has $52 Billion Dollars sitting in the Bank, and yet they are anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, and anti-America," Trump added. He then contended that much of Harvard’s funding comes to the detriment of other colleges and universities across the country. "Much of this money comes from the U.S.A., all to the detriment of other Schools, Colleges, and Institutions, and we are not going to allow this unfair situation to happen any longer," Trump wrote. He predicted that Burroughs would side with Harvard in the challenge and vowed that the federal government would appeal the decision. "How did this Trump-hating Judge get these cases? When she rules against us, we will IMMEDIATELY appeal, and WIN. Also, the Government will stop the practice of giving many Billions of Dollars to Harvard, much of which had been given without explanation," he wrote. "It is a longtime commitment to Fairness in Funding Education, and the Trump Administration will not stop until there is VICTORY. Thank you for your attention to this matter!" he concluded.

Reported similarly:
NewsMax [7/21/2025 6:35 PM, Jim Thomas, 4622K]

Reuters [7/21/2025 9:08 AM, Doyinsola Oladipo, 24051K] reports U.S. hotel hiring managers ordered more background checks in the first half of 2025 compared with the same period in 2024 amid growing scrutiny of foreign-born workers in the hospitality industry, according to a leading human resources and recruitment management company. In June, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it was reversing guidance issued that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were not to conduct immigration raids at farms, hotels and restaurants. President Donald Trump has sought to end temporary legal status for hundreds of thousands of migrants in the United States and vowed to deport millions of undocumented people in the country. Hotel hiring managers requested 36% more background checks from January to June 2025 compared with the same period in 2024, according to Hireology, which tracks hiring and employment trends across a thousand U.S. hotel properties. "Companies are certainly far more cognizant of that than they’ve ever been, and they don’t want to be caught up in or be accused of lax hiring practices when it comes to verification of immigration status," said Patrick Scholes, Truist hotel equity analyst. At least one-third of workers employed or supported by the U.S. travel industry are immigrants, according to the U.S. Travel Association. In 2024, hotels directly employed more than 2.15 million people, according to the American Hotel and Lodging Association.

Washington Examiner [7/21/2025 7:00 AM, Naomi Lim, 1934K] reports President Donald Trump’s second administration is proud of its crackdown on leaks, as civil rights groups contend it is not good for the government. Leaks undermined Trump’s first administration, as aides competed for political influence or disagreed with the president’s policy agenda. But the most politically damaging leak of Trump’s second administration so far has been inadvertent: former national security adviser Mike Waltz’s addition of an editor to a Signal groupchat regarding plans to attack Houthis in Yemen. When there has been a leak — for example, regarding prospective illegal immigration enforcement raids or an intelligence report concerning last month’s strikes against Iran — the Trump administration has been strident in its response, from using polygraph tests to identify sources to personally criticizing reporters who write stories about them. "President Trump and the entire administration take operational security seriously – and that commitment was crucial to the success of operations like Midnight Hammer, which totally obliterated Iran’s nuclear facilities," White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told the Washington Examiner. "The mainstream media hates that their leakers no longer have information to leak, but this president and the entire administration will continue to prioritize protecting our national security.” The White House also underscored the importance of operational security, citing its significance to the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and Operation Midnight Hammer against Iran. To that end, the Trump administration has increasingly relied on polygraph tests at the Department of Defense, DHS, the FBI, and even FEMA, after details regarding a meeting attended by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem became public. "Under Secretary Noem’s leadership, DHS is unapologetic about its efforts to root out leakers that undermine national security," a DHS spokesperson told the Washington Examiner. "We are agnostic about your standing, tenure, political appointment, or status as a career civil servant; we will track down leakers and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law." A Pentagon spokesman did not comment to the Washington Examiner when asked about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s reliance on lie detector tests after reports of a second Signal chat with his wife, brother, and lawyer, as well as allegations from former political appointees regarding mismanagement, including his wife accompanying him to meetings with foreign dignitaries.

AP [7/21/2025 4:56 PM, Dave Collins] reports the head of a violent Ecuadorian gang accused of smuggling cocaine and firearms between South America and the U.S. pleaded not guilty to drug and gun charges Monday in New York. José Adolfo Macías Villamar, whose nickname is "Fito," appeared in federal court in Brooklyn a day after Ecuador extradited him to the U.S. A judge ordered him detained until trial and set his next court date for Sept. 19. U.S. prosecutors accuse Macías of leading the vicious Los Choneros gang that used hitmen, bribes and military weapons, including machine guns and grenades. The hitmen, or sicarios, murdered, tortured and kidnapped people in Ecuador as the gang committed violence against law enforcement, politicians, attorneys, prosecutors and civilians, authorities said. Los Choneros also worked with Mexican drug cartels to ship cocaine from Colombian suppliers through Ecuador and Central America to the U.S., and shipped firearms from the U.S. to South America, prosecutors said. Macías told the judge he was not guilty and understood his legal rights. Magistrate Judge Vera Scanlon also ordered that Macías’ health problems, including high blood pressure, gastritis and bullet fragments in his body from a years-old shooting, be treated appropriately while he is detained. A federal grand jury in New York City indicted him on seven charges in April and returned an updated indictment in late June. The charges include international cocaine distribution conspiracy, use of firearms in furtherance of drug trafficking and straw purchasing of firearms conspiracy. If convicted, he could face 20 years to life in prison.

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New York Post [7/21/2025 4:28 PM, Jorge Fitz-Gibbon, 49956K]

Houston Chronicle [7/21/2025 4:38 PM, Sam González Kelly, 1982K] reports a Venezuelan man who was arrested in Houston last year after getting approval to come to the United States as a refugee was sent back to Venezuela last weekend after spending more than four months in an El Salvadoran megaprison. Widmer Josneyder Agelviz Sanguino, 24, was returned to Venezuela on Friday as part of a prisoner swap involving over 250 Venezuelan men who were deported in March by the Trump administration to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT). Ten Americans being held in Venezuela were released back to the U.S. as part of the deal. Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union, who are leading a class-action lawsuit in which Agelviz Sanguino is a plaintiff, have asked a federal judge to request a status update from the government on whether the Venezuelan men may be brought back to the United States to see out the rest of their court case. But whether Agelviz Sanguino will even want to return to the country, where his mother and two brothers now live in San Antonio, is another matter.

CNN [7/21/2025 6:53 PM, Michael Rios, Ivonne Valdés and Marlon Sorto, 21433K] reports Venezuela says it is opening a formal investigation into several Salvadoran officials, including President Nayib Bukele, over the alleged abuse of Venezuelan migrants deported from the US. Some 252 Venezuelans, who had been imprisoned at the notorious Cecot prison in March following their deportation, were released and returned to their home country on Friday in exchange for 10 US nationals and dozens of Venezuelan political prisoners, US officials said. Venezuela has previously accused El Salvador of kidnapping the detainees after it agreed with the US to take them into custody. El Salvador claimed the detainees had ties to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, though immigration attorneys, advocates and family members have pushed back on that, claiming in many cases that the detainees had no criminal record. Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab held a press conference Monday to address the alleged mistreatment, showing edited footage of some of the detainees talking about their experience at the prison. Saab said officials have gathered 123 complaints of abuse, including reports of sexual assault, torture and beatings by Salvadoran prison guards. In one of the videos, a man says he was sexually abused. In another, several detainees who claim to have been beaten and shot at with pellets and pepper spray show what appear to be bruises and scars all over their bodies. CNN cannot independently verify the extent of the injuries, when they were sustained, or whether the men were speaking under duress. It has reached out to the Salvadoran presidency for comment.

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NewsMax [7/21/2025 11:00 PM, Staff, 4622K]

Breitbart [7/22/2025 4:15 AM, Staff, 3077K] reports the Trump administration has said it will deport Haitian nationals with permanent resident status in the United States who are accused of supporting or collaborating with gangs the White House has labeled foreign terrorist organizations. Secretary of State Marco Rubio made the announcement in a statement Monday, saying the actions of these Haitian individuals and their presence in the United States have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” Neither the identities of the Haitian nationals to be deported nor the number to be expelled from the country were made public, though U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Monday announced the arrest of Haitian national Pierre Reginald Boulos. The Miami Herald reported that Boulos, 69, is an American-born entrepreneur, physician and influential political powerbroker in Haiti. ICE said Boulos was arrested Thursday for violating the Immigration and Nationality Act for contributing to the destabilization of Haiti. “Specifically, officials determined that he engaged in a campaign of violence and gang support that contributed to Haiti’s destabilization,” ICE said in the statement. Rubio’s statement, which was made public following the announcement of Boulos’ arrest, says they have determined some Haitians with permanent resident status have supported or worked with Haitian gang leaders connected to Viv Ansanm, an organization that the State Department declared a Foreign Terrorist Organization in May, calling it “a primary source of instability and violence in Haiti.”

FOX News [7/21/2025 9:45 PM, Staff, 46878K] reports Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed to Fox News that it has arrested a lawful permanent U.S. resident for alleged crimes related to Haitian gang activity and immigration fraud. "On July 17, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations arrested Pierre Reginald Boulos, a lawful permanent resident of the U.S. and citizen of Haiti, for violating the Immigration and Nationality Act contributing to the destabilization of Haiti," ICE told Fox. Boulos is accused of contributing to violence and gang support in Haiti, which ICE says destabilized the country and could have "serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.” "The Department of State has determined that certain individuals with U.S. lawful permanent resident status have supported and collaborated with Haitian gang leaders connected to Viv Ansanm, a Haitian foreign terrorist organization," a release from ICE stated. "The United States will not allow individuals to enjoy the benefits of legal status in our country while they are facilitating the actions of violent organizations or supporting criminal terrorist organizations abroad.” The federal agency also said that Boulos failed to mention his involvement in founding a political party in Haiti called Mouvement pour la Transformation et la Valorisation d’Haiti (MTVAyiti), and that he was referred by the Haitian government’s Unit for the Fight Against Corruption for allegedly misusing loans. Those omissions, according to ICE, can constitute immigration fraud and justify his deportation. "These new actions demonstrate the Trump administration’s firm commitment to protecting the American people, advancing our national security interests, and promoting regional security and stability," said ICE. Boulos is being held by ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations detention in Miami. The case was investigated by the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service’s Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate. "MTVAyiti is a political movement inspired by the Desalinian ideals of National Unity, Social Justice, National Sovereignty and the rebuilding of the Economy. The movement has its roots in the values of Pride, Greatness, Efficiency and Rationality of King Christophe," according to the website of the party founded by Boulos. Jean-Jacques Dessalines, referenced in the party’s ideals, was a Haitian revolutionary and founding father of the nation after its independence in 1804.

New York Times [7/21/2025 8:45 PM, Santul Nerkar, 138952K] reports that a pro-Palestinian activist who has clashed with police officers at demonstrations has been arrested and charged with arson after federal authorities said he sneaked onto a Brooklyn parking lot last month and set fire to 10 police vehicles. The man, Jakhi McCray, 21, was arrested Monday morning and appeared before Magistrate Judge Vera M. Scanlon in Federal District Court in Brooklyn. He pleaded not guilty and was released on bail worth $300,000. After he was granted bail, Mr. McCray was brought by police officers to Manhattan Criminal Court to be arraigned on state charges related to a protest he had attended, according to Ron Kuby, a lawyer for Mr. McCray. The details of that arrest were unclear to Mr. McCray’s lawyers late Monday. Mr. Kuby said he expected his client to spend a night in police custody before returning to his family’s home in Maplewood, N.J. “It sounds like the police are just really angry at him for messing up their cars,” Mr. Kuby said. Mr. McCray, who is also a staunch critic of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, was backed by his mother and more than two dozen supporters in the courtroom, most of whom donned kaffiyehs, a symbol of Palestinian resistance. Several dozen more gathered in an overflow room. In a two-page statement released before his appearance, Mr. McCray railed against “the brutality of state repression” and the “kidnapping of migrants.” He claimed that police officers and media outlets had lied about him, and cited other people who had been arrested in connection with their presence at pro-Palestinian demonstrations. In a news release, Joseph Nocella Jr., the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said: “Setting police vehicles ablaze is not a form of protest. It is a federal crime.” Mr. McCray was arrested at a protest in Queens in May 2024 and at another demonstration in Manhattan in May of this year. He was charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct at each protest, according to court documents. Those cases are continuing. He was also arrested on a separate occasion last year after the police said he set fire to Israeli and American flags outside the Israeli consulate in New York.

FOX News [7/21/2025 5:00 AM, Tom Walker, 46878K] reports drones have rapidly evolved from backyard novelties into critical components of today’s infrastructure and now, into one of the fastest-growing threats to our national security. As the CEO of one of the nation’s largest drone technology companies and a former naval officer, I’ve seen firsthand how powerful these tools can be. I’ve also seen how dangerous they are when left unregulated; they become liabilities, capable of disruption, destruction and danger. Just days ago, amid deadly flash floods in Texas, a private drone collided with a rescue helicopter during an active life-saving mission. The crash forced the crew to land, grounding a critical asset in the middle of an unfolding emergency. In the chaos of unspeakable tragedy, a single uncoordinated drone put lives at risk and halted the very efforts meant to save them. Incidents like this are entirely preventable with proper airspace coordination. In the first quarter of this year, the FAA reported over 400 illegal drone incursions near U.S. airports, which is a 25% increase from the same period in 2024. Drone incursions into U.S. military airspace have reached unprecedented levels, and the trend is only accelerating. At military bases across the country, 350 unauthorized drone flights were recorded last year alone. These aren’t harmless mistakes. They are persistent, coordinated, and, in some cases, hostile. These incidents are not isolated; they’re escalating. Drones have been used to smuggle contraband into prisons, surveil energy facilities and ports, and even collide with manned aircraft, narrowly avoiding catastrophe. As drones become faster, cheaper and easier to operate, our systems for detecting, coordinating, and responding remain fractured, outdated, and dangerously inadequate.

New York Post [7/21/2025 6:22 PM, Staff, 49956K] reports Saturday night’s shooting of a border agent by an illegal immigrant sums up nearly everything wrong with progressive policies — on the border, crime, New York’s sanctuary-city status and more. The 42-year old off-duty Customs and Border Protection officer was sitting in a park with a friend when two armed thugs rolled up on a moped aiming to mug the unsuspecting pair. One shot the agent in the face, yet the hero agent somehow managed to fire back. No surprise: Both suspects turned out to be illegal immigrants who slunk in during the Biden border rush. Alleged triggerman Miguel Mora, 21, has a lengthy record of arrests for violent crimes in The Bronx and Massachusetts, and a deportation order back to the Dominican Republic, to boot. Christhian Aybar-Berroa also has violent-crime rap sheet with an order of removal to the DR. Aybar-Berroa and Mora were each stopped at the border and then ushered into the country. That was the norm for four long years: Joe Biden opened the doors wide and invited any miscreant or predator who made his way to the Mexican border to come in and make himself at home. That was the start of a cascade of policy failures pushed by progressives. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem got it wrong when she blamed Mayor Eric Adams for the city’s sanctuary-city rules. He’s actually fought to roll them back and has tried to cooperate with ICE officials when legally allowed to. But she was 1,000% right in fuming that there’s "zero reason" someone "who is scum of the earth like this should be running loose on the streets of New York City.”

CBS San Francisco [7/21/2025 11:23 AM, Camilo Montoya-Galvez, 51860K] reports that, in an exclusive interview with CBS News, the head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said his agents will arrest anyone they find in the country illegally, even if they lack a criminal record, while also cracking down on companies hiring unauthorized workers. Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE, said his agency will prioritize its "limited resources" on arresting and deporting "the worst of the worst," such as those in the U.S. unlawfully who also have serious criminal histories. But Lyons said non-criminals living in the U.S. without authorization will also be taken into custody during arrest operations, arguing that states and cities with "sanctuary" policies that limit cooperation between ICE and local law enforcement are forcing his agents to go into communities by not turning over noncitizen inmates. "What’s, again, frustrating for me is the fact that we would love to focus on these criminal aliens that are inside a jail facility," Lyons said during his first sit-down network interview on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan." "A local law enforcement agency, state agency already deemed that person a public safety threat and arrested them and they’re in detention.” "I’d much rather focus all of our limited resources on that to take them into custody, but we do have to go out into the community and make those arrests, and that’s where you are seeing (that) increase" in so-called "collateral" arrests, Lyons added, referring to individuals who are not the original targets of operations but are nonetheless found to be in the U.S. unlawfully. If ICE encounters someone "that is here in the country illegally, we will take them into custody," Lyons said. "We have opened up the whole aperture". Collateral arrests by ICE were effectively banned under the Biden administration, which issued rules instructing deportation officers to largely focus on arresting serious criminal offenders, national security threats and migrants who recently entered the U.S. illegally. That policy was reversed immediately after President Trump took office for a second time in January. As part of Mr. Trump’s promise to crack down on illegal immigration, his administration has given ICE a broad mandate, with White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller pushing the agency to conduct 3,000 daily arrests. While ICE has so far not gotten close to that number, the agency just received tens of billions of dollars in additional funds from Congress to turbo-charge its deportation campaign. Lyons said "it’s possible" to meet the administration’s target of 1 million deportations in a year with the new infusion of funds. ICE has recorded nearly 150,000 deportations in Mr. Trump’s first six months in office, according to internal government data obtained by CBS News. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

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Daily Caller [7/21/2025 4:48 PM, Melissa O’Rourke, 1010K]
Washington Examiner [7/21/2025 10:30 AM, Emily Hallas, 1934K]

Breitbart [7/22/2025 2:37 AM, Ian Hanchett, 3077K] reports that on Monday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “Cuomo,” acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said that many of the agency’s worksite enforcement actions have been going to locations with potential human trafficking, child exploitation or other crimes and “We want to go ahead and exploit those American businesses that are illegally taking credit off the men and women that they have working for them. We are going after the businesses as well.” Lyons said, “We hear all the time, from the left and the right, hey, we’ll support you if you have a criminal warrant, search warrant signed by a judge. And when you see a lot of the worksite that we’ve done, like the marijuana grow farm or the events on June 6 that led to the riots and the protesting of us in L.A., they were actual federal criminal warrants that ICE was going to a location that either had possible human trafficking, child exploitation, or some type of criminal event. That’s what ICE is focused on right now.” He added, “We’re not just focused on the illegal migrants or the people working illegally. We want to go ahead and exploit those American businesses that are illegally taking credit off the men and women that they have working for them. We are going after the businesses as well.”

NPR [7/21/2025 6:11 PM, Ximena Bustillo, Tom Bowman, 37958K] reports the Department of Homeland Security is preparing to use military bases in New Jersey and Indiana to detain immigrants who entered the country illegally, as well as to increase the number of immigrants detained at the U.S. Naval Base on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to correspondence between DHS and the Pentagon obtained by NPR. According to the letter, dated July 15, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth approved the moves, which were requested by DHS the previous month. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is part of DHS, had sought immediate access to Camp Atterbury, a National Guard base in Indiana and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, a base in New Jersey, from the Defense Department. ICE is also seeking to detain more immigrants without legal status atGuantanamo Bay prior to their final removal from the United States. "DoD approves this support through September 30, 2025, subject to ICE maintaining a 24/7 oversight presence at each site to maintain custody and provide overall supervision of each site," stated the letter from Executive Secretary Anthony Fuscellaro to DHS Acting Executive Secretary Andrew Whitaker. ICE staff and contractors will be responsible for all care and handling of the migrants, including meals, medical screening, transportation and medical services, according to the correspondence obtained by NPR. Neither DHS nor the Defense Department have yet responded to questions about the letter. On his first day in office, President Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border, enabling DHS to gain access to DoD’s military resources. During congressional testimony, Todd Lyons, ICE’s acting director, told lawmakers he did not expect DHS to repay the Pentagon for their costs. The approval letter notes that DHS will pay DoD for any costs associated with migrant detention at McGuire Field, the Air Force base in New Jersey. The request for the use of additional military bases, and expansion at Guantanamo, comes as the Trump administration has pushed to arrest and detain more people in the country without legal status. DHS has nearly 57,000 people in immigration detention, though it only has about 41,000 beds. The department has sought out contracts with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, local jurisdictions, and the use of military bases to detain migrants.

NewsNation [7/21/2025 9:52 PM, Damita Menezes, 5801K] reports Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons defended the agency’s arrest of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally without criminal convictions, saying 70% of those classified as “noncriminal” face pending serious criminal charges and that early intervention prevents future crimes. In an interview with NewsNation’s “CUOMO,” Lyons pushed back against criticism that immigration enforcement has shifted toward targeting workers and families rather than focusing solely on violent criminals. “We do have those individuals that have been charged of some pretty serious crimes, yet, either because of bail reform or no cash bond, they’ve been released,” Lyons said. “What I can point to is that 70% of the individuals that are listed as noncriminal, well, they do have pending serious criminal charges.” The ICE director cited the case of two Dominican nationals who allegedly shot an off-duty CBP officer, noting they had multiple previous arrests but had been released. He said ICE aims to “head off these crimes ahead of time” by detaining individuals that local law enforcement considered dangerous enough to arrest. Lyons emphasized that recent high-profile enforcement actions, including raids at marijuana grow operations, were conducted under federal criminal warrants for cases involving possible human trafficking, child exploitation or other criminal activity.

The Hill [7/21/2025 9:33 PM, Tara Suter, 18649K] reports Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) acting director Todd Lyons on Wednesday slammed Hunter Biden, the son of former President Biden, over recent comments he made about immigration. "That’s just idiotic. It’s dumb. You know, to make comments like that is crazy, because under the last administration, those are the problems we have right now. Under these former administrations, President Obama, President Biden, it’s made illegal immigration common, in the commonplace, and that’s just not the case," Lyons told Fox News’s John Roberts on "America Reports.” In an interview released Monday, the younger Biden told YouTube creator Andrew Callaghan that "all these Democrats say, you have to talk about and realize that people are really upset about illegal immigration.”

Breitbart [7/22/2025 2:50 AM, Ian Hanchett, 3077K] reports on Monday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “Cuomo,” acting ICE Director Todd Lyons argued that statistics on what percentage of the people arrested by ICE have criminal records aren’t entirely accurate because they omit pending charges from people who have been released due to lax bail laws and people who have pending convictions, which he stated that the agency is also focused on. After host Chris Cuomo showed a graph of the criminal status of people arrested by ICE and what percentage have a conviction, what percentage have a charge, and what percentage have neither and said the ratio of criminals to non-criminals is “totally out of whack,” Lyons said, “I think one thing that you don’t see on that graph is pending criminal charges, right? So, we do have those individuals that have been charged of some pretty serious crimes, yet, either because of bail reform or no cash bond, they’ve been released.” He continued, “And what I can point to is that 70% of the individuals that are listed as non-criminal, well, they do have pending serious criminal charges, right? … So, while they don’t have a criminal conviction, they do have pending criminal convictions. And that’s what we’re focused on as well.”

Washington Examiner [7/21/2025 2:55 PM, Annabella Rosciglione, 1934K] reports an increasing number of cities and states are considering measures to ban Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers from wearing face coverings while conducting their operations. Many have grown alarmed by videos of masked ICE officers from unmarked cars grabbing people off the street for detainment. The outrage has put pressure on local lawmakers to respond. State legislatures in California, Massachusetts, and New York are considering legislation that would ban masks and require federal immigration officers to wear IDs, which local law enforcement is required to do. In California, the legislation would require local, state, and federal officers to make their identities open through name tags, ID badge numbers, and other markers. It would also ban face coverings. In New York, a proposed bill would ban local, state, and federal officers from using masks or disguises and require them to display their name or badge on their uniforms. In Massachusetts, one Democratic state lawmaker introduced a bill that would prevent any law enforcement officers in the Commonwealth from wearing "any mask or personal disguise while interacting with the public in the performance of their duties," and would require them to have their name or badge number visible on them. "For a police officer to detain somebody, they have not just their face visible, but they have a badge number visible, probably their name visible, and they have a warrant signed by a judge. The ICE officers have none of that," Democratic state Rep. Jim Hawkins (MA) said. The Democratic-led cities of Chicago and Albuquerque are also considering similar measures. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and 18 aldermen proposed a resolution to state lawmakers asking them to take up measures that would ban masks for federal immigration agents. Additionally, a group of 21 Democratic attorneys general wrote a letter to Congress asking it to consider legislation at the federal level to ban agents from wearing masks or plain clothes while conducting immigration enforcement. Department of Homeland Security officials have mostly downplayed concerns about masked, unnamed law enforcement officers conducting operations. Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons addressed the imposters using masks and said, "That’s one of our biggest concerns, and I’ve said it publicly before, I’m not a proponent of the masks.” "However, if that’s a tool that the men and women of ICE to keep themselves and their family safe, then I will allow it. I do kind of push back on the criticism that they don’t identify themselves," Lyons said Sunday on CBS News. DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin has said ICE officers cover their faces to protect themselves from doxxing. ICE’s power is only set to increase in upcoming years. President Donald Trump’s "big, beautiful bill" increases the ICE budget from $8 billion per year to $28 billion per year, making it the most funded law enforcement body in the federal government. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

The Hill [7/21/2025 10:49 AM, Rebecca Beitsch, 18649K] reports U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) acting Director Todd Lyons said agents can continue to use masks in the field, even as the agency has increasingly come under fire for moves that limit identification of its personnel. In an interview on CBS’s "Face the Nation" on Sunday, Lyons defended the practice despite some misgivings, citing rising threats against ICE agents. "I’ve said it publicly before, I’m not a proponent of the masks. However, if that’s a tool that the men and women of ICE to keep themselves and their family safe, then I will allow it," he said. Lyons said some ICE agents have been "severely doxed," while there has also been a sharp uptick in assaults on officers. ICE has faced significant criticism for wearing masks, as well as carrying out more operations with plainclothes officers. Lyons disputed that agents are not identifiable, saying they should be wearing clothing with some kind of ICE insignia. But he also said he wants more backing from critical lawmakers as ICE agents have faced doxing.

USA Today [7/21/2025 6:12 PM, Trevor Hughes, 75552K] reports White House border czar Tom Homan is promising to "flood" cities run by Democrats with immigration agents, as the Trump administration ramps up border enforcement. "We’re going to flood the zone," Homan said at a July 21 press conference. "Sanctuary cities get exactly what they don’t want: more agents in the community and more agents in the work site. When we arrest (a suspected illegal immigrant) in the community, if he’s with others that are in the country illegally, they’re coming too." The White House has repeatedly singled out cities from Los Angeles to Denver to Boston for their refusal to assist ICE agents making detentions, and Homan has threatened to arrest elected officials who stymie the president.

Federal News Network [7/21/2025 9:19 AM, Michele Sandiford, 2346K] reports Immigration and Customs Enforcement is offering retired ICE employees as much as a $50,000 signing bonus to return to the job. The agency is recruiting both deportation officers and special agents. ICE received $8 billion under the Big Beautiful Bill to hire 10,000 new officers over the next four years. ICE said it has a Dual Compensation Waiver to hire retired annuitants on a term-limited basis. Re-employed annuitants will receive both their full basic annuity and full salary. But annuity supplements and Social Security benefits may be reduced depending on an individual’s salary.

Washington Examiner [7/21/2025 8:58 AM, Mackenzie Thomas, 1934K] reports President Donald Trump deported five people to Eswatini last week, part of his administration’s policy of third-country deportations. “Third country,” a term used to describe Eswatini, refers to a country that agrees to accept immigrants who are refused entry to their native countries. The immigrants remain in the “third country” until their return to their native countries can be negotiated. The news comes after a July 9 memo issued by Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s acting director, Todd Lyons, to other ICE employees on how to handle third-country deportations. The memo, according to Washington Post, notes that federal officers can initiate the deportations with as little as six hours’ notice, even if there’s a risk the arrival country will persecute or torture the migrant sent there. The African kingdom is taking criminal immigrants whose native countries have refused to take them back because the crimes they committed were "so uniquely barbaric," Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said on X. They are cooperating with the United States by allowing the deportation of the immigrants to their country with the goal of eventually returning them to their countries of origin. "Government has assured Eswatini that the arrival of five third-country deportees from the United States of America poses no security threat to the Nation," the Eswatini government said in a post on X. The criminals are being held in isolation in correctional facilities "where similar offenders are kept."

Breitbart [7/21/2025 1:59 PM, John Binder, 3077K] reports that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested illegal aliens convicted of murder, child sex crimes, sexual assault, and drug crimes, among other crimes, over the weekend. "Over the weekend, our brave ICE agents arrested more depraved criminal illegal aliens including murderers, rapists, and three child pedophiles," the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement: These are the types of barbaric criminals our ICE law enforcement is arresting and removing from American communities every day. Despite an 830 percent surge in assaults against our ICE law enforcement officers, they continue to put their lives on the line to make American communities safer every day. In Texas, ICE agents arrested 58-year-old illegal alien Jose Arinaga-Ramirez of Mexico, who has been convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child as well as 37-year-old illegal alien Gilmer Vertiz-Bustemante of Mexico, who has been convicted of murder. In sanctuary state California, ICE agents arrested 37-year-old illegal alien Chue Vue of Laos who has been convicted of attempted murder and seven counts of assault with a deadly weapon, and 55-year-old illegal alien Henry Jose Marquez of Venezuela who has been convicted of smuggling cocaine. In Pennsylvania, ICE agents arrested 35-year-old Gil Salinas-Anaclo of Peru, who has been convicted of larceny, and 27-year-old illegal alien Juan Ramirez-Velasquez of Guatemala, who has been convicted of rape of a child under 12 years old.

ABC News [7/21/2025 8:38 PM, Staff, 31733K] reports U.S. immigration authorities on Monday denied reports that they detained or deported a Chilean man living in the country on a green card. The Morning Call of Allentown, Pennsylvania, reported that Luis Leon, 82, ended up in Guatemala after being handcuffed in a Philadelphia immigration office, where he went to replace his lost green card June 20. The report, which said he won asylum in 1987, relied on family accounts. The Morning Call reported Sunday that Leon was recovering from pneumonia in Guatemala and did not plan to return to the United States, according to his granddaughter. A phone message left Monday at a number linked to the granddaughter was not returned. The Department of Homeland Security said it had no record of Leon appearing for an appointment in or near Philadelphia June 20 and said he legally entered the U.S. in 2015 as a visitor. A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman, Jason Koontz, said the agency didn’t deport Leon anywhere. The Guatemalan Migration Institute said in a statement Sunday that it coordinates with ICE on all deportations from the United States and that no one matched Leon’s name, age or citizenship.

Axios [7/21/2025 6:20 AM, Karri Peifer and Kavya Beheraj, 13599K] reports Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests of people without criminal charges or convictions jumped in Virginia and D.C. in June, newly obtained data shows. The numbers illustrate a major shift that came soon after the Trump administration tripled ICE’s arrest quota. In Virginia and D.C., people without criminal charges or convictions made up an average of 60% of daily ICE arrests in early June, up from about 50% in early May, before the quota increase. In January, arrested people without criminal charges or convictions constituted an average of 29% of daily ICE arrests in the state. Nationwide, an average of 47% of daily ICE arrests in early June were of people without criminal records, up from about 21% in early May.

Los Angeles Times [7/21/2025 5:47 PM, Carlos De Loera, 14672K] reports journalist Mario Guevara from El Salvador is speaking out about being detained in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center in southern Georgia. Guevera, who left his homeland over 20 years ago and founded the Spanish-language news outlet MG News, was detained by ICE agents as he was reporting on a "No Kings" protest on June 14 in the Atlanta area. The 47-year-old reporter’s arrest was captured on video because he was live-streaming his news report as the incident occurred. After spending a month in ICE custody, Guevara has described himself as being "emotionally destroyed" by his ongoing detention. He believes that he is being made an example of by the government to dissuade people from monitoring ICE activities.

CNN [7/21/2025 6:15 PM, Barbie Latza Nadeau, 875K] reports two Italian nationals living in the United States are among the inmates currently being held at the ICE detention center known as "Alligator Alcatraz" in Florida, according to Italy’s foreign ministry. Fernando Eduardo Artese, 63, and Gaetano Cateno Mirabella Costa, 45, were both sent to the facility, said to be surrounded by alligators, on immigration violations. Italy’s foreign ministry confirmed to CNN that the two men were being detained in the US, but would not give any further details, citing privacy reasons. The Italian government, led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, has not publicly commented on the case or the conditions people are being kept in at the controversial facility. In 2024, Italy built migrant deportation centers in Albania, which were ultimately blocked by the courts because of questions over human rights issues. Italian opposition politician and former speaker of the house Laura Boldrini has been leading calls for intervention by Meloni and her Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani. "Is all this normal and acceptable for Giorgia Meloni? What does she intend to do to get the two Italians out of that hell? If they don’t have the right to remain in the US, they will be repatriated, but subjecting them to these brutal conditions is Unacceptable," Boldrini posted on X Monday. Questions during a parliamentary session regarding potential intervention also went unanswered. The US Department of Homeland Security confirmed both men were detained in the makeshift facility in the Florida Everglades. "Both of these criminal illegal aliens are being detained in Alligator Alcatraz. Under President (Donald) Trump and Secretary (Kristi) Noem, if you break the law, you will face the consequences. Criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the US," DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in the statement. Artese was stopped on June 25 while driving with his family in a camper van. He had the intention of leaving the US and driving to Argentina. The family had planned to document the journey on a YouTube channel called "Argentinomades" according to Carla Artese, who is planning to start university in Spain, where she was born, in the fall. But her father was stopped during a routine traffic stop and officers found an outstanding warrant for failing to appear in court for a driving violation, Carla Artese said. He was then detained and sent to "Alligator Alcatraz" a week later. DHS said Artese overstayed his visa by 10 years. "He entered the US (on) the Visa Waiver Program on February 8, 2015, and was authorized to remain in the country until May 7, 2015. On June 26, 2025, Martin County Sheriff’s Office arrested Artese for having an outstanding warrant relating for failure to appear in court for a criminal offense," McLaughlin said in the statement.

Breitbart [7/21/2025 6:50 PM, Staff, 3077K] reports immigrants held at US detention centers have experienced abusive and degrading treatment, a Human Rights Watch report said Monday, in a sharp rebuke of President Donald Trump’s migrant crackdown. The 92-page report alleges medical neglect, overcrowding and "inhuman" cell conditions at a time when the Trump administration is ramping up immigration enforcement with the promise of deporting millions. "People in immigration detention are being treated as less than human," Belkis Wille, associate crisis and conflict director at HRW, said in a statement. In one alleged instance, shackled detainees being prepared for a transfer had to kneel and eat food from styrofoam plates with their hands behind their backs. "We had to put the plates on chairs and then bend down and eat with our mouths, like dogs," one man was quoted as saying. The report, which focuses on three facilities in Florida, cites migrants sleeping on concrete floors and using their shoes as pillows. One man said he was denied access to soap or water to wash his hands for 20 consecutive days. Another complained that he was not allowed his medications, including insulin and an asthma inhaler. Some women reported being held in a cell with exposed toilets that were visible to men in nearby rooms. HRW, a New York-based nonprofit, documented the experiences of 17 immigrants for the report. Advocacy groups Americans for Immigrant Justice and Sanctuary of the South also contributed to the research. The average daily migrant detention population in the United States has surged more than 40 percent since last June, according to the HRW report. It added that nearly 72 percent of individuals held as of mid-June had no criminal history. "The US government is detaining many people who pose no threat to public safety in conditions that violate basic human rights and dignity," Wille said in a statement.

NewsNation [721/25 7:54 PM, Jeff Arnold, 5801K] reports three Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers in Florida have been accused of keeping migrants in conditions that violate human rights standards, according to a report released Monday. The report, entitled “You Feel Like Your Life Is Over,” focused on the Krome North Service Processing Center, the Broward Transitional Center and the Federal Detention Center, all in Florida. The report, published by Human Rights Watch, makes several allegations, including that detainees were shackled for long periods on buses, migrants were forced to sleep on concrete floors under fluorescent lighting and that many migrants were denied access to basic hygiene and medical care. Human Rights Watch said that by March, the number of detainees being held at Krome had increased by 249% since President Donald Trump’s inauguration. At times, reports said that the facility detained more than three times its operational capacity and that by June 20, the number of migrants being held at the three facilities had jumped 111% from population levels before Jan. 20. “People in immigration detention are being treated as less than human,” Belkis Wille, the report’s author and associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “These are not isolated incidents, but the result of a fundamentally broken detention system that is rife with serious abuses.” A Bureau of Prisons spokesman told NewsNation’s partner The Hill that it cannot comment on the specific allegations in the report but that it was the agency’s mission to “to operate facilities that are safe, secure, and humane.”

CBS Miami [7/21/2025 5:30 PM, Mauricio Maldonado, 51860K] Video: HERE reports Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski rode his Harley-Davidson on Sunday, leading a group of 25 members of the Archdiocese of Miami’s Knights on Bikes ministry to the gates of the Alligator Alcatraz detention facility, where he led a Rosary and offered prayers for the men and women held inside. Wenski parked his Harley alongside the others at the facility’s entrance in a public demonstration of what he called "prayerful solidarity.” "Decency requires that we remember the individuals being detained are fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters of distressed relatives," Wenski said. "We wish to ensure that chaplains and pastoral ministers can serve those in custody, to their benefit and that of the staff.” In a statement, the Archdiocese of Miami said the visit reflects its ongoing commitment to ministering to incarcerated and marginalized populations. While the archdiocese has not yet received formal approval to enter the facility and celebrate Mass, officials said Wenski’s visit underscores the Church’s mission of mercy and accompaniment.

Daily Caller [7/21/2025 10:48 AM, Jason Hopkins, 1010K] reports immigration agents arrested an illegal migrant accused of storing an Illinois woman’s corpse on his property months after she died from a drug overdose. On Saturday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) took custody of Luis Mendoza-Gonzalez, a 52-year-old Mexican national living unlawfully in the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed in a press release. Mendoza-Gonzalez was charged in April with concealing Megan Bos’ dead body in a storage container on his yard for roughly two months, abusing her corpse and obstruction of justice. "Everyday ICE is arresting sickos like criminal illegal alien, Luis Mendoza-Gonzalez, and stopping them from terrorizing Americans," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a public statement. "This depraved alien was charged with concealing the body of a missing woman in a storage container for months and abusing her corpse.” The Antioch Police Department launched a search for Bos in March after her family reported her missing. Local law enforcement in April arrested Mendoza-Gonzalez, who admitted to keeping her body after she died inside his home. Mendoza-Gonzalez told police that Bos snorted an unknown drug and asked to hang out in his basement on Feb. 19, which he agreed to let her do, according to the Lake & McHenry County Scanner. He then claims he went upstairs to fix a leak in his house, and upon returning to the basement, he found her dead from an apparent overdose. Scared of getting into trouble, the illegal migrant told police he left her body in his basement for a few days before wrapping it in a blanket and throwing it in his garbage can, according to the LMCS. Bos’ body remained there for roughly two months before police retrieved it. Law enforcement officials found Bos’ body decapitated in a bleach storage container, according to DHS. However, Bos’ mother and the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office denied she was ever decapitated. An autopsy revealed that she likely passed away from a fentanyl overdose. Despite calling the crimes "very serious," Lake County Judge Randie Bruno released the illegal migrant from custody after his court appearance, according to DHS. While all of the crimes against Mendoza-Gonzalez are Class 4 felonies, none of them were retainable offenses under Illinois’ SAFE-T Act. The Trump administration ripped the Illinois judge for allowing Mendoza-Gonzalez to walk free shortly after his arrest in April. "It is absolutely repulsive that a judge freed this monster and allowed him to walk free on Illinois’s streets after allegedly committing such a heinous crime," McLaughlin said in her public statement. "Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, Megan Bos and her family will have justice.”

Reported similarly:
CBS Chicago [7/21/2025 11:18 AM, Sara Machi, 51860K]

Chicago Tribune [7/21/2025 10:14 AM, Joe Mahr, 3987K] reports with the Trump administration pushing far more aggressive immigration enforcement across the country and in Chicago, a Tribune analysis of newly released data shows a significant increase in the number of immigrants detained in the Chicago area — particularly those with no known criminal background. The findings come from a Tribune analysis of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement data obtained and shared by the research group Deportation Data Project. The analysis shows that, as President Donald Trump’s administration has pushed enforcement in sanctuary cities such as Chicago, ICE saw notable spikes in the number of people initially detained at two ICE processing centers in the area. The figures peaked at 88 bookings on an early June day that, at the time, drew attention for clashes between Chicago community members and federal immigration agents. Of the 88 booked that day, the latest analysis found, three-fourths had no criminal record logged by ICE. Local ICE officials have not released such detailed data on their enforcement efforts. When told about the Tribune’s analysis and asked about its findings, a spokesman for ICE’s local office did not immediately respond. The data used by the Tribune in its analysis was obtained by the law school of the University of California at Los Angeles, as part of a December 2024 lawsuit it filed to force ICE to release the data under the Freedom of Information Act. Court records show that ICE produced the raw data in batches this summer, and the law school shared the data with the Deportation Data Project, which posted the latest batch online Tuesday to share with reporters and researchers. (ICE refused earlier this year to directly provide the Tribune with similar raw data the newspaper had requested under the open records law.). The data, however, does log when people were booked into ICE’s facilities in Broadview and Chicago, offering a proxy to gauge the number of people detained in the Chicago region, and the type of person being detained in a second Trump administration in a city that Trump’s "border czar," Tom Homan, called "ground zero" for enforcement.

Axios [7/21/2025 11:45 AM, Jay R. Jordan, Alex Fitzpatrick and Kavya Beheraj, 13599K] reports ICE arrests of people without criminal charges or convictions in Houston soared in June, per data compiled by the Deportation Data Project. The surge follows a national trend that coincides with the Trump administration’s decision on May 21 to triple ICE’s arrest quota. In January, ICE agents arrested 1,077 total people in the Houston Field Office region, which includes all of Southeast Texas and areas close to Waco. As of June 26 — the most recent data available — the monthly arrest figure increased 73% to 1,868. The monthly share of Greater Houston ICE detainees who had no criminal charges or convictions nearly quintupled. Nationwide, people without criminal charges or convictions made up an average of 47% of daily ICE arrests in early June, up from about 21% in early May, before the quota increase. "The media continues to peddle this FALSE narrative that ICE is not targeting criminal illegal aliens," Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to Axios. McLaughlin added that 70% of ICE arrests were for immigrants with criminal convictions or pending charges, but did not elaborate on that figure.

AP [7/21/2025 12:17 PM, Amanda Seitz and Jacquelyn Martin, 56000K] reports these days, Juanita says a prayer every time she steps off the driveway of her modest rural home. The 41-year-old mother, who crossed into the United States from Mexico more than two decades ago and married an American carpenter, fears federal agents may be on the hunt for her. As she was about to leave for the pharmacy late last month, her husband called with a frantic warning: Immigration enforcement officers were swarming the store’s parking lot. Juanita, who is prediabetic, skipped filling medications that treat her nutrient deficiencies. She also couldn’t risk being detained because she has to care for her 17-year-old daughter, who has Down syndrome. “If I am caught, who’s going to help my daughter?” Juanita asks in Spanish, through an interpreter. Some people quoted in this story insisted that The Associated Press publish only their first names because of concerns over their immigration status. As the Trump administration intensifies deportation activity around the country, some immigrants — including many who have lived in Texas’s southern tip for decades — are unwilling to leave their homes, even for necessary medical care. Tucked behind the freeway strip malls, roadside taquerias and vast citrus groves that span this 160-mile stretch of the Rio Grande Valley are people like Juanita, who need critical medical care in one of the nation’s poorest and unhealthiest regions. For generations, Mexican families have harmoniously settled — some legally, some not — in this predominately Latino community where immigration status was once hardly top of mind. White House officials have directed federal agents to leave no location unchecked, including hospitals and churches, in their drive to remove 1 million immigrants by year’s end. Those agents are even combing through the federal government’s largest medical record databases to search for immigrants who may be in the United States illegally. Deportations and tougher restrictions will come with consequences, says Mark Krikorian, the director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that favors restrictive immigration policies. “We shouldn’t have let it get out of hand the way we did,” Krikorian says of the previous administration’s immigration policies. “Some businesses are going to have difficulties. Some communities are going to face difficulties.” Immigrants are staying shut inside their mobiles homes and shacks that make up the “colonias,” zoning-free neighborhoods that sometimes don’t have access to running water or electricity, says Sandra de la Cruz-Yarrison, who runs the Holy Family Services, Inc. clinic in Weslaco, Texas. “People are not going to risk it,” de la Cruz-Yarrison says. “People are being stripped from their families.” Yet people here are among the most medically needy in the country. Nearly half the population is obese. Women are more likely to be diagnosed with cervical cancer and elderly people are more likely to develop dementia. Bladder cancers can be more aggressive. One out of every four people lives with diabetes. Now, many in this region are on a path to develop worse health outcomes as they skip doctor appointments out of fear, says Dr. Stanley Fisch, a pediatrician who helped open Driscoll Children’s Hospital in the region last year.

Breitbart.com [7/21/2025 9:52 AM, Bob Price, 3077K] reports a home security camera captured the disturbing image of a woman being carried kicking and screaming back to a home in east Harris County, Texas, last week. Police say the woman, a Chinese national, had been kidnapped and held against her will by a Honduran illegal alien. Harris County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested 22-year-old Jose Carcamo, a Honduran national illegally present in the United States, on July 14 after a neighbor’s home security camera captured video showing him carrying a woman back to his trailer. Police say the woman is a Chinese national who may be a victim of a large sex trafficking ring, according to a report on KHOU CBS11 in Houston. Carcamo is charged with kidnapping and sexually assaulting a Chinese woman. Investigators say Carcamo held the woman hostage without food or water for at least five days. The woman told detectives the Honduran illegal alien sexually assaulted her several times and kept her locked in a closet, KHOU revealed. She reportedly managed to escape when the large sliding gate was accidentally left open. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials told KPRC NBC2 Houston’s Bryce Newberry that Carcamo entered the U.S. illegally in 2020. He was released with a notice to appear during the first Trump administration. In 2023, during the Biden administration, the government dismissed the case, saying, "The government exercised prosecutorial discretion under … priorities at the time," Newberry posted on Facebook. Harris County Sheriff’s Office Lt. John Klafka told KPRC that deputies received a 911 call from an east Harris County man about a woman screaming for help. The witness said the woman had been running down the street before Carcamo grabbed her and carried her back to the trailer she escaped. Deputies arrived and interviewed Carcamo, who denied any knowledge of the incident. "She said she was a masseuse up in New York. She was offered a position down here in Houston that paid more money. So she was given transportation down here. Someone drove her. Said she spent about four or five days or so in a car driving down here," Klafka explained. The woman told investigators that when she arrived, someone seized her passport and took her to the trailer home. Kafka told KPRC they believe there are more people involved and the woman may be the victim of a larger human trafficking organization.

Axios [7/21/2025 1:20 PM, Madalyn Mendoza, Alex Fitzpatrick, and Kavya Beheraj, 13599K] reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests of people without criminal charges or convictions in San Antonio soared in June, per data compiled by the Deportation Data Project. Why it matters: The surge follows a national trend that coincides with the Trump administration’s decision on May 21 to triple ICE’s arrest quota. By the numbers: In January, ICE agents arrested 626 people in the San Antonio Field Office region, which encompasses Austin and Waco and extends to the southern tip of Texas. As of June 26 — the most recent data available — the monthly arrest figure had nearly tripled to 1,804. Zoom in: The monthly share of ICE detainees in the San Antonio region without criminal charges or convictions increased more than tenfold, from 83 in January (13% of all arrests) to 916 in June (51%). The big picture: Nationwide, people without criminal charges or convictions made up an average of 47% of daily ICE arrests in early June, up from about 21% in early May, before the quota increase. The other side: "The media continues to peddle this FALSE narrative that ICE is not targeting criminal illegal aliens," Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to Axios. McLaughlin added that 70% of ICE arrests were for immigrants with criminal convictions or pending charges, but did not elaborate on that figure.

NewsNation [7/21/2025 7:53 AM, Spencer Kristensen, 5801K] reports Democratic Rep. Jason Crow was denied entry to an immigration detention facility in Colorado, according to a news release from his office on Sunday evening. The office said that not allowing Crow access to the facility had violated federal law, which grants members of Congress the right to provide oversight of such federal detention facilities. According to the news release, Crow’s office regularly conducts oversight at that same facility, which includes public reports about the conditions of the facility on his website. Crow offered a statement on the incident, saying, "Today, I attempted to visit the federal detention facility in Aurora in order to conduct critical oversight as a Member of Congress. I was unlawfully denied access by ICE and the Trump Administration. The office said that following the visit, he then led the push for Members of Congress to be able to conduct unannounced, in-person oversight visits of Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, regarding concerns related to public health, and the humane treatment of the individuals detained at the location.

(B) NBC News Daily [7/21/2025 3:25 PM, Staff] reports Colorado Congressman Jason Crow says he was unlawfully denied entry to the Aurora ICE detention center on Sunday. He says he was trying to make an unannounced visit but was not let in which he claims violates federal law. Crow’s office says he regularly conducts visits to the facility and publishes reports on the conditions on his website. Crow claims that since President Trump was elected, the administration has tried to intimidate members of Congress and prevent them from doing their jobs.

FOX News [7/21/2025 3:45 PM, Danielle Wallace, 46878K] reports Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass repeatedly dodged answering directly on whether all illegal immigrants in the sanctuary city should be allowed to stay. In an interview with ABC’s "This Week," Bass further criticized President Donald Trump’s decision to federalize 4,000 National Guard troops and deploy about 700 Marines to Los Angeles amid anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) riots and protests. The Democratic mayor was questioned by ABC host Martha Raddatz on who she thinks should be deported – whether that should be just people convicted of crimes – given Los Angeles has about a million "undocumented workers." "What should happen to those people?" Raddatz asked. "Let me just say that, because we are a city of immigrants, we have entire sectors of our economy that are dependent on immigrant labor. We have to get the fire areas rebuilt. We’re not going to get our city rebuilt without immigrant labor," Bass claimed. "And it’s not just the deportations, it’s the fear that sets in when raids occur, when people are snatched off the street. And I know you are aware that even people who are here legally, even people who are U.S. citizens, have been detained." "So they should not be deported?" Raddatz pressed. Bass responded, "I don’t think so. I think they should stay." The ABC host interjected, noting that the mayor was discussing "a million undocumented people." "No, let me just tell you, what I think we need is comprehensive immigration reform. I served in Congress for 12 years," Bass said.

Reuters [7/21/2025 5:29 PM, Daphne Psaledakis and Ted Hesson, 51390K] reports U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday paved the way for the United States to deport certain lawful permanent residents, saying Washington determined some had supported Haitian gang leaders connected to a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. Rubio in a statement said certain U.S. lawful permanent residents had supported and collaborated with gang leaders tied to Viv Ansanm, the armed alliance that controls most of Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince, which President Donald Trump’s administration labeled a Foreign Terrorist Organization in May. Following the determination, the Department of Homeland Security can pursue the deportation of the lawful permanent residents, Rubio added. It was unclear how many people could be targeted for deportation and no individuals were named in the statement.

CBS News [7/21/2025 9:22 PM, Staff, 51860K] reports that an appellate court has allowed the Trump administration to end a program that grants temporary deportation protections and work permits to more than 10,000 people from Afghanistan and Cameroon. In a brief order Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit wrote that the plaintiff — an immigration advocacy group called CASA — has a plausible case against the administration for choosing to end temporary protected status, or TPS, for Afghans and Cameroonians. But the court said "there is insufficient evidence to warrant the extraordinary remedy" of blocking the government from phasing out TPS while the lawsuit works its way through the courts. One week ago, the appeals court temporarily blocked the Trump administration from ending TPS for Afghanistan for one week, while it considered the merits of CASA’s case. The administration had planned to end the program for Afghans last week. The program is set to end for Cameroonians in two weeks, on Aug. 4. The appellate court on Monday directed a lower court to "move expeditiously" to hear the case. Around 11,700 Afghans and 5,200 Cameroonians are enrolled in TPS, the government estimates. But roughly 3,600 of the Afghans and 200 of the Cameroonians have green cards, so they will not be affected. Those who lose their TPS protections can apply for asylum or some other form of legal status, but otherwise, they will be at risk of deportation. AfghanEvac, a group that has helped relocate Afghans, said in a statement it is "deeply alarmed" by Monday’s ruling. "Lives will be upended. Families will be separated. Allies will be detained, deported, or forced into hiding—while their legal rights remain unsettled," AfghanEvac President Shawn VanDiver said in a statement Monday night. CBS News has reached out to the White House, the Department of Homeland Security and CASA for comment. The Trump administration has sought for months to roll back TPS, a program that allows the government to grant relief from deportation and work permits for people whose home countries are deemed unsafe due to natural disasters or war. The government argues that the TPS program is intended to be temporary, and Cameroon and Afghanistan are now safe enough for TPS recipients to return. Earlier this year, the Trump administration said Afghanistan’s security situation and economy have improved despite the Taliban’s 2021 takeover of the country following the U.S. military’s withdrawal. And the government said a pair of armed conflicts in Cameroon — including a separatist conflict and an insurgency by the extremist group Boko Haram, which the U.S. designated a foreign terrorist organization in 2013 — are "contained in limited regions" and don’t imperil people’s personal safety in most of the country. "This administration is returning TPS to its original temporary intent," Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said in a May statement announcing the Afghanistan decision. The State Department has placed a "Do Not Travel" advisory on Afghanistan, warning of the risk of "civil unrest, crime, terrorism, risk of wrongful detention, kidnapping, and limited health facilities." The department advises travelers to Cameroon to exercise caution, and not to travel to certain parts of the country due to armed violence, crime and terrorism. CASA has argued in court papers that both countries are unsafe, and TPS recipients could be endangered if they’re forced to return to their home countries. The group says the conflict in Cameroon — which involves English-speaking separatists in a mostly French-speaking country — has created a humanitarian crisis and wrecked the African country’s economy. And people from Afghanistan, the group notes, were made eligible for TPS because of repression by the Taliban and conflict between the group and ISIS-K insurgents. CASA also argues the administration hasn’t followed the correct legal processes to end TPS, and contends the decision was "preordained" and based partly on "racial animus.”

Reported similarly:
Reuters [7/21/2025 7:56 PM, Jasper Ward, 51390K]

ABC News [7/21/2025 4:43 PM, Kelly McCarthy, 31733K] reports travelers planning to visit the United States and apply for a tourist visa may experience some sticker shock after a new "visa integrity fee" goes into effect. Although it has yet to be implemented, President Donald Trump’s megabill -- which encompasses tax cuts, spending packages and immigration policy and was signed into law earlier this month -- includes a provision that gives the Department of Homeland Security authority to charge fees on foreign visitors. The new $250 "visa integrity fee," as defined in the legislation, applies to travelers who are applying for non-immigrant visas to enter the U.S. and cannot be waived. The $250 fee applies for fiscal year 2025, which began Oct. 1, 2024, and ends Sept. 30, 2025. It may subsequently be adjusted for inflation. Citizens visiting from the more than 40 countries included in the Visa Waiver Program may be exempt from the new fee. Travelers who don’t overstay their time or participate in unauthorized work may be eligible for reimbursement once the visa expires. CNN [7/21/2025 3:45 PM, Marnie Hunter, 21433K] reports that the fee will apply to all visitors who are required to obtain nonimmigrant visas to enter the United States. This includes many leisure and business travelers, international students and other temporary visitors. In fiscal year 2024, the US issued nearly 11 million nonimmigrant visas, according to State Department figures. Tourists and business travelers from countries that are part of the Visa Waiver Program, including Australia and many European countries, aren’t required to obtain visas for stays of 90 days or less. Payment will be required at the time visas are issued, and there will be no fee waivers. Travelers who comply with their visa conditions can have their fees reimbursed after the trip is over, according to the provision. Immigration attorney Steven A. Brown, a partner at Houston-based Reddy Neumann Brown PC, characterized the fee as a "refundable security deposit," in a recent post about the new policy. The mechanism for obtaining a refund is still unclear, Brown pointed out. "In terms of the purpose of the fee, it’s hard to say," Brown said in an email to CNN. "Generally, immigration fees are to cover the expense of adjudication or issuance," but he noted that the reimbursement provision could mean refunding all of the fees gained. "In a perfect world, there would be no overstays or visa violations.” The Department of Homeland Security, the agency instituting the new fee, has not yet offered specifics about the refund process or any other aspects of the policy’s rollout. "The visa integrity fee requires cross-agency coordination before implementation," a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in a statement to CNN. A State Department spokesperson said the fee was established "to support the administration’s priorities of strengthening immigration enforcement, deterring visa overstays, and funding border security."

Reported similarly:
ABC News [7/21/2025 4:43 PM, Kelly McCarthy, 31733K]

Reuters [7/21/2025 3:54 PM, Diana Novak Jones, 24051K] reports more than 20 Democratic attorneys general on Monday sued to block a Trump administration policy that bars migrants living in the U.S. illegally from accessing federally-funded programs for low-income families that provide early childhood education, food and healthcare, saying it could force the programs to shutter altogether. The attorneys general from states, including New York, California and Illinois, filed the lawsuit in federal court in Providence, Rhode Island, asking the court to block policies announced by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Justice and several other agencies outlined in memos released earlier this month. They argue the policies, which implement an immigration-focused executive order from Republican President Donald Trump are unconstitutional and were issued without following the required federal rulemaking process. The directives require programs to check participants’ immigration status before providing services, or risk losing critical federal funding, the lawsuit said. The requirements went into effect almost immediately after the directives were issued, leaving the programs scrambling to find ways to comply so they can stay open, it said. Immigrants in the country illegally have generally been ineligible for most federal benefits, but until the memos were issued, some programs providing healthcare, food and early childcare education were not treated as restricted federal benefits. Additionally, the policy also applies to some people who are in the country legally, like those with student visas, and could harm U.S. citizens without government identification, they said.

USA Today [7/21/2025 4:58 PM, BrieAnna J. Frank, 75552K] reports do visa and green card holders have First Amendment rights to express views on controversial foreign policy issues, particularly on college campuses? That question was at the heart of a two-week trial that concluded July 21 between the Trump administration and the State Department and a group of university professors from across the nation − including at Harvard University. It is a major First Amendment case with implications across higher education and beyond. It took place one courtroom over from another involving the administration and its federal research funding cuts aimed at Harvard, a case where lawyers also raised key First Amendment issues. The administration has argued that it can deport visa and green card holders under the Immigration and Nationality Act, which has a provision granting the secretary of state the authority to remove people from the country if they undermine its foreign policy interests. But the trial in American Association of University Professors v. Rubio, which began on July 7, raised questions about whether the administration was violating the First Amendment by retaliating against people for their political speech.

CBS Miami [7/21/2025 5:31 PM, Joan Murray, 51860K] Video: HERE reports thousands of Haitians in South Florida are feeling a mix of relief and uncertainty after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security extended Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians until February 2026. The extension follows a federal judge’s ruling that the Trump administration overstepped its authority when it attempted to end TPS in September. "It’s difficult, heartbreaking," one woman told CBS News Miami. She has lived in South Florida for 10 years under TPS. Her father was killed in Haiti, and her mother, now deceased, helped bring her to the United States. She said she had been dreading the expected end of TPS in September. "It’s been hell. Can I drive? Can I go to work?" she said. Now, with the extension, she has time to formulate a plan to remain in Florida and is working with an attorney. "Starting over won’t be easy," she added. Community advocates say the threat of deportation looms even for naturalized citizens, and the economic toll is already being felt. Rising unemployment, layoffs among TPS workers and business closures have put additional strain on Haitian families. Leonie Hermantin of the Haitian Neighborhood Center said some families have already relocated to countries like Canada and Brazil. "Returning to Haiti is not an option because we know the situation is worsening. It’s not a place for those with children to return," she said.

Los Angeles Times [7/21/2025 6:08 PM, Kevin Rector, 14672K] reports the Trump administration has defended the restrictions as necessary to protect services for American citizens and reduce incentives for illegal immigration into the U.S. California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said the changes target women and children in ‘cruel’ ways, and were implemented illegally. California and a coalition of other liberal-led states sued the Trump administration Monday over new rules barring undocumented immigrants from accessing more than a dozen federally funded "public benefit" programs, arguing the restrictions target working mothers and their children in violation of federal law. President Trump and others in his administration have defended the restrictions as necessary to protect services for American citizens — including veterans — and reduce incentives for illegal immigration into the country. The lawsuit — which California filed along with 19 other states and the District of Columbia — contends the new restrictions were not only initiated in an "arbitrary and capricious" manner and without proper notice to the states, but will end up costing the states hundreds of millions of dollars annually. The states’ claims run counter to arguments from Trump, his administration and other anti-immigration advocates that extending benefits to undocumented immigrants encourages illegal immigration into the country, costs American taxpayers money and makes it harder for U.S. citizens to receive services.

The Hill [7/21/2025 12:30 PM, Elizabeth Crisp, 18649K] reports the Guatemalan government says it has no records that an 82-year-old Chilean man was deported to the Central American country, contrary to claims from his family in Pennsylvania. The Morning Call of Allentown, Pa., reported that Luis Leon, who is a legal permanent resident of the U.S., told his family that he was hospitalized with pneumonia in Guatemala after he was arrested at a Philadelphia immigration office while trying to replace his green card. "He’s really traumatized right now," the man’s granddaughter, Nataly, told the Pennsylvania outlet after the family reportedly tracked him down at a Guatemala City hospital over the weekend. Nataly, whose surname was not reported, said the family had not heard from Leon since June 20, when he went to replace his lost green card in Philadelphia. His wife, who was with him at the immigration office, was detained for several hours before she was released, but Leon’s whereabouts had been a mystery, Nataly told the outlet. But the Guatemalan Migration Institute, which works with U.S. Immigrations and Custom Enforcement (ICE) on deportations to the country, told The Associated Press in a statement that it had no record of anyone matching Leon’s name, age or citizenship among the U.S. deportees sent there. The Institute didn’t respond to The Hill’s request for comment. ICE and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not respond to The Hill’s requests for an update on Leon’s situation, but ICE told the Morning Call that it was looking into the circumstances and the family’s claims.

Breitbart [7/21/2025 1:44 PM, Christian K. Caruzo, 3077K] reports U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio imposed U.S. visa restrictions over the weekend on Brazil Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) Justice Alexandre de Moraes in response to his role in the censorship of Americans and the political "witch hunt" against former President Jair Bolsonaro. The restrictions, the State Department explained, also targeted de Moraes’ court allies and their immediate family members. According to Brazil’s Attorney General Jorge Messias, other STF justices and Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet, who recently called for Bolsonaro’s conviction, had their U.S. visas revoked. "President Donald Trump made clear that his administration will hold accountable foreign nationals who are responsible for censorship of protected expression in the United States," Sec. Rubio announced in a statement on Friday. "Brazilian Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes’s political witch hunt against Jair Bolsonaro created a persecution and censorship complex so sweeping that it not only violates basic rights of Brazilians, but also extends beyond Brazil’s shores to target Americans.” "I have therefore ordered visa revocations for Moraes and his allies on the court, as well as their immediate family members effective immediately," Rubio stated: De Moraes has not publicly commented on the U.S. Visa restrictions at press time. The visa restrictions were issued hours after the STF judge ordered a "precautionary" police raid on Bolsonaro’s home on Friday morning, leading to his brief arrest and the imposition of a mandatory electronic ankle monitor, curfew, and other strict restrictions on Bolsonaro that Brazilian police officials reportedly told local outlets are comparable to that of a "semi-open" house arrest situation. In addition to the anklet, de Moraes prohibited Bolsonaro from using any social media and forbade him from speaking to his son, lawmaker Eduardo Bolsonaro, who requested political asylum in the United States in March. Jair Bolsonaro is also prohibited from being within 200 meters (0.12 miles) of any foreign embassy, speaking to any foreign diplomat, and he cannot leave the capital city of Brasília, where he resides.

Daily Wire [7/21/2025 1:39 PM, Spencer Lindquist, 3816K] reports tens of thousands of illegal aliens have self-deported since the Trump administration began encouraging illegal aliens to return to their nations of origin and repurposed an app used by the Biden administration to streamline mass migration into the United States, a new report says. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials, Breitbart News reports, say that there have been tens of thousands of illegal alien self-deportations since the Trump administration overhauled the Customs and Border Patrol One app. The platform was originally used by migrants to remotely schedule asylum application interviews before the Trump administration revamped it, now allowing illegal aliens to submit their intent to depart from the United States, giving officials an estimate on the number of illegal aliens leaving the country by their own accord. Encouraging self-deportations, immigration experts tell The Daily Wire, is an essential part of any campaign to crack down on illegal immigration and decrease the number of illegal aliens in the United States, which the Federation for American Immigration Reform estimated at 18.6 million as of early 2025. "As of 2025, American population growth comes almost entirely from unsustainably high levels of immigration, both legal and illegal," the organization charged. The CBP Home app is part of a broader effort to get illegal aliens to voluntarily leave the United States, with the administration now offering illegal aliens $1,000 to self-deport and threatening to fine them nearly $1,000 per day they refuse to leave the country. The DHS also launched an advertising campaign encouraging illegal aliens to leave the country. The ad, which showcased violent criminal illegals captured by ICE like a previously deported MS-13 murder suspect caught at Colony Ridge, featured DHS Secretary Kristi Noem as she told illegal aliens to "do what’s right: leave now.”

Washington Post [7/22/2025 5:00 AM, Marianne LeVine and Derek Hawkins, 32099K] reports the Trump administration is increasingly relying on Border Patrol agents to help carry out the president’s mass deportation plan and arrest immigrants in cities far from the nation’s southern border — a departure from the agency’s traditional role that some lawyers and advocates consider alarming. In the past month, Border Patrol agents have swarmed a Los Angeles park on foot and horseback; taken immigrants into custody at a New York City courthouse; raided a cannabis farm in California’s Ventura County; and detained day laborers at Home Depot parking lots as far north as Sacramento. The Border Patrol has typically deployed most of its agents to the roughly 2,000-mile stretch of southwest border spanning Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. Their primary mission involves guarding borders between ports of entry, where they are tasked with intercepting drugs and weapons, preventing human trafficking, and stopping people from trying to enter the country illegally. Now as border crossings plummet to historic lows, Border Patrol agents are arresting immigrants hundreds of miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. “Better get used to us now, because this is going to be normal very soon,” Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino told Fox News after his agents descended on MacArthur Park. “We will go anywhere, anytime we want in Los Angeles.”

Telemundo 48 El Paso [7/21/2025 6:00 PM, Claudia Moreno, 9K] reports U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers seized 42 pounds of cocaine at the Ysleta International Port of Entry after discovering the drugs concealed in a vehicle driven by a 21-year-old U.S. woman. The seizure occurred shortly before 4:00 p.m., when a 2001 Ford Explorer with a single occupant arrived from Mexico. The vehicle was selected for secondary inspection after anomalies were detected using a low-energy scanner. A narcotics-detection dog alerted officers to the possible presence of drugs. During the inspection, officers located a hidden compartment under the rear seat, where they found 10 packages that tested positive for cocaine. The driver was arrested and turned over to Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) to face charges related to the failed smuggling attempt.

NewsNation [7/21/2025 5:49 PM, Dave Burge, 5801K] reports U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers working at the Bridge of the Americas international port of entry seized more than 132 grams of fentanyl when a man tried to conceal the drugs in a body cavity, CBP said in a news release. CBP officers seized 132.4 grams of fentanyl in the early morning hours of Friday, July 18. The seizure was made shortly before 4 a.m. on July 18 when a 56-year-old man presented himself for inspection at the BOTA pedestrian area. A CBP canine officer received a positive alert for the presence of narcotics when his dog searched the man. An initial exam showed that the man could be concealing drugs internally, CBP said. The man was transported to a local medical facility for an exam, which confirmed the presence of foreign objects in a body cavity, CBP added. About 90 minutes after the confirmation, the man passed two condom-wrapped bundles, CBP said. One contained a white powder which tested positive for fentanyl. The weight was 81.6 grams. A second bundle contained blue pills which also tested positive for fentanyl. The weight was 50.8 grams. CBP officers arrested the man, according to CBP. He was turned over to Homeland Security Investigations to face charges associated with the failed smuggling attempt.

Reported similarly:
Telemundo 48 El Paso [7/21/2025 5:15 PM, Claudia Moreno, 9K]

San Diego Union Tribune [7/21/2025 11:18 AM, Teri Figueroa, 1611K] reports the mother of a passenger killed in a car crash that occurred while the driver was fleeing from a Border Patrol agent in Otay Mesa is suing the federal government, alleging the agent acted recklessly in pursuing the vehicle on a busy highway. Jesús Atenco Pérez, 23, was a backseat passenger when the sedan crashed into a parked Caltrans vehicle on the side of State Route 905 and overturned around 2:20 p.m. on October 22. He and a second passenger were killed. The driver, Sergio Josué Palomera of Chula Vista, was sentenced earlier this month to 71 months in prison for smuggling undocumented immigrants resulting in death. The lawsuit, filed Thursday in federal court in San Diego, alleges wrongful death and negligence against Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Border Patrol’s parent agency, and civil rights violations by the agent who pursued the vehicle. The agent’s full name is not included in the federal lawsuit, filed by Yanett Pérez Pérez, Atenco Pérez’s mother. The federal agency declined to comment Friday, stating that it "does not make public statements on matters before U.S. courts. Official positions and arguments will be part of the court record." Court documents, in both the civil and criminal cases, alleged that the accident was the second encounter Border Patrol agents had with the distinctive vehicle that day.

San Diego Union Tribune [7/21/2025 8:00 AM, Alexandra Mendoza, 1611K] reports after a two-year hiatus, a small group of U.S. Border Patrol agents is once again patrolling the border on horseback — from the beach to East County’s wilder terrain. Horses date back to the federal agency’s origins a century ago and are still used along the U.S.-Mexico border in part for their ability to move through challenging environments. Border enforcement with horses has also made headlines in recent years, including agents on horseback confronting a group of Haitian migrants on the Rio Grande in Texas, as well as earlier this month as part of a recent attempted immigration sweep at Los Angeles’ MacArthur Park. The return of the mounted unit comes as border apprehensions have dipped to historic lows along the U.S.-Mexico border. Ironically, it’s the low numbers that allowed the unit to come back. For decades, the mounted unit operated along the San Diego border. In 2023, however, it was reassigned to other sectors. At the time, local Border Patrol personnel had to focus their resources on addressing the growing number of migrants arriving at the border, many of whom were seeking asylum, officials said. "We were kind of just overrun with people crossing the border, and the priority was just processing," recalled Victor Roldan, the unit’s lead instructor in the San Diego sector. "Now things have slowed down," he added. "We have more manpower to get … these guys back on horses." Pedro Ríos, the director of the American Friends Service Committee’s U.S.-Mexico Border Program, said he does not recall encountering the horse unit before. But he expressed concern over the ability of independent federal watchdog monitors to provide accountability for the horse program if needed, as the Department of Homeland Security has continued to shrink its watchdog office.

(B) CBS Mornings [7/21/2025 9:27 AM, Staff] reports TSA may soon change the rules for liquids in carry-on bags. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says the Transportation Security Administration is reviewing its longstanding liquid restrictions. This potential change follows the TSA’s recent decisions to end requirements for passengers to remove their shoes during screening and enforcing REAL ID requirements at airport checkpoints.

CNN [7/21/2025 6:03 PM, Gabe Cohen, 21433K] reports the head of FEMA’s Urban Search and Rescue branch, which runs a network of teams stationed across the country that can swiftly respond to natural disasters, resigned on Monday. Ken Pagurek’s departure comes less than three weeks after a delayed FEMA response to catastrophic flooding in central Texas caused by bureaucratic hurdles put in place by the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the disaster response agency. Pagurek told colleagues at FEMA that the delay was the tipping point that led to his voluntary departure after months of frustration with the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the agency, according to two sources familiar with his thinking. It took more than 72 hours after the flooding for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to authorize the deployment of FEMA’s search and rescue network. After spending more than a decade with FEMA’s urban search and rescue system, including about a year as its chief, Pagurek said in his resignation letter, obtained by CNN, that he was returning to the Philadelphia Fire Department and did not mention the Texas flooding. The Department of Homeland Security has defended its response to the Texas floods. A department spokesperson stressed that Noem initially tapped into other DHS assets, including rescue teams from the US Coast Guard and Border Patrol, and over time, as a need for FEMA resources arose, those requests received the secretary’s approval.

Reuters [7/21/2025 10:43 AM, Andrew Hay, 51390K] reports the U.S. Forest Service faced criticism from current and former employees who say federal workforce reductions under the Trump administration have left fire teams understaffed, as the country grapples with decade-high U.S. wildfire numbers this year. The agency, which oversees the nation’s largest wildland firefighting force, rejected those claims, saying it has sufficient resources. However, more than a dozen active and retired U.S. Forest Service employees told Reuters that the agency is struggling to fill critical roles after approximately 5,000 employees - roughly 15% of its workforce - quit in the past five months. Accounts from firefighters in Oregon and New Mexico, as well as a fire chief recruiting support staff in the Pacific Northwest, said the vacancies have led to personnel held back from supporting frontline firefighting because of administrative duties.

Axios [7/21/2025 7:19 AM, Alex Fitzpatrick, 13599K] reports last week’s flooding across the Midwest and East continues a record-setting trend of flash flood warnings issued by the National Weather Service. The numbers reflect an especially rainy season, including in Kansas City, where four to six weeks’ worth of typical rainfall descended within 12 hours, KSHB reported. NWS offices issued 3,160 flash flood warnings nationwide this year through July 16, according to a tracker at Iowa State University’s Iowa Environmental Mesonet. That’s the most for that period in any year since records began in 1986. Flash flood warnings are issued when such an event is imminent or already occurring. Kansas City has had 21 warnings in 2025 so far — a little below average — but that doesn’t speak to the volume of rain during these events.

ABC News [7/21/2025 6:07 AM, Kevin Shalvey, 31733K] reports Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called a special session for the state legislature on Monday to discuss emergency procedures and early warning systems in the wake of the deadly flooding earlier this month. "We must ensure better preparation in the future," Abbott said in a statement posted on social media. The session is scheduled to begin at noon local time, according to a press release from his office. Abbott on Sunday said the special session would address preparedness and recovery in the event of future flooding. The agenda for Monday’s sessions is expected to include discussions on flood warning systems, flood emergency communications, relief funding and natural disaster preparations and recovery, Abbott said.

Washington Examiner [7/21/2025 4:38 PM, Annabella Rosciglione, 1934K] reports Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) will travel to Washington, D.C., next week following devastating fires in the Grand Canyon. She is expected to meet with U.S. Forest Service leaders and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. The Dragon Bravo fire started on July 4 from a lightning strike, and federal fire management allowed for a controlled burn approach to contain the fire. The governor went on an aerial tour of the devastation Sunday. Hobbs previously called for an independent investigation into the decision-making at the federal level that resulted in devastation. The fire has so far claimed the historic Grand Canyon Lodge, which was the only lodging inside the park at the North Rim, and dozens of other buildings. The North Rim is closed for the remainder of the season.

Axios [7/21/2025 2:22 PM, Kale Williams, 13599K] reports the Cram Fire burning in central Oregon is the largest wildfire in the nation as the Pacific Northwest sees an active start to the fire season. Thousands of acres have already been scorched and dozens of homes destroyed. Last week, Gov. Tina Kotek declared a statewide emergency for the remainder of the year due to the threat of wildfire. The Cram Fire, which started July 13, had blackened more than 95,000 acres off Highway 97 east of Madras, as of Monday morning. At least two homes and 14 other structures have been destroyed. The nearly 900 firefighters working the blaze had achieved roughly 73% containment as of Monday afternoon. The Burdoin Fire, burning on the Washington side of the Columbia River Gorge east of Hood River, started Friday and had burned more than 10,000 acres as of Monday. More than a dozen homes have been destroyed with hundreds more under threat. Level 3 "Go Now" evacuations were in effect for some areas. Visit the Klickitat County Emergency Management’s website for the latest updates. The Burdoin Fire was burning near where the Rowena Fire destroyed more than 50 homes in a small community between Hood River and The Dalles last month. The system that brought rain to Portland on Sunday will provide some limited relief to firefighters in the short term, but temperatures are expected to tick up with stronger winds in the coming days, officials said.

USA Today [7/21/2025 12:15 PM, Christopher Cann, 75552K] reports firefighters in central Oregon made significant progress in their battle against a colossal blaze that triggered evacuations and a state of emergency as it tore across swaths of rugged land, destroying four homes and threatening hundreds of other buildings. The Cram Fire, which has become the nation’s largest wildfire this year, has charred 150 square miles of land, an area larger than the size of Las Vegas. The blaze broke out on July 13 and burned for several days before undergoing explosive growth fueled by strong winds, high temperatures and low humidity. It was at 73% containment as of late Sunday, July 20. The fire ignited near Willowdale, a sparsely populated area about 133 miles southeast of Portland, and swept through grasslands and rangeland in the region, fire officials said. The cause of the blaze is unclear and remains under investigation, officials said. If the Cram Fire grows by more than 4,200 acres, it will reach what’s known as megafire status, meaning it will have burned more than 100,000 acres of land. Evacuation orders and warnings remain in place across at least three counties, including Jefferson, Wasco and Crook County, according to Central Oregon Fire Information. In a statement on July 20, fire officials said they anticipate cooler weather, possible rain and higher humidity to "moderate fire behavior.”

Blaze [7/21/2025 4:15 PM, Carlos Garcia, 1805K] reports after histrionic accusations from Democratic lawmakers in California about the "militarization" of Los Angeles by the Trump administration, the Pentagon said all of the troops were being pulled. President Donald Trump had ordered the troops into L.A. after protests against immigration enforcement efforts turned into violent rioting in the days after June 7. On Monday, military officials said 700 active-duty Marines were leaving Los Angeles after ordering 2,000 federalized California National Guardsmen the week prior to leave the city. However, 2,000 guardsmen will stay in Los Angeles to defend federal buildings.

Washington Post [7/21/2025 4:50 PM, Keith L. Alexander, 32099K] reports despite his conviction for simple assault, a former Secret Service agent still believes he was defending himself when he grabbed and shoved a man who was playing hip-hop music and dancing on a Metro train last year, his defense attorney said Monday. When D.C. Superior Court Judge Robert I. Richter sentenced 58-year-old Harold Christy on Monday to six months of probation and 30 hours of community service, Richter said he doesn’t doubt that Christy thinks his actions on the train, which were captured on security video, were justified. However, the judge said from the bench, "No reasonable person would look at those videos and think you did not assault that young man. It was foolish and unreasonable." Yet in sparing Christy a jail term, Richter said he does not consider him a danger to the community. Christy, found guilty at a one-day trial in April, declined to address the court at his sentencing hearing. His attorney, Jonathan Fahey, said Christy planned to appeal. He added that Christy’s prior work as a Secret Service agent illustrates his dedication to helping people, as does the Bronze Star Medal he received as an Army soldier in the Gulf War.

(B) NBC News Daily [7/21/2025 1:24 PM, Staff] reports that a man and his dog are safe now after their boat caught fire off the southern end of Eagle Island in Harpswell. Harpswell Neck Fire and Rescue say this was a commercial fishing vessel that caught fire Saturday after noon. Officials say Good Samaritans in another boat took the man and his dog back to shore. The Coast Guard reports that the man refused medical attention but asked for care for the dog. It is unclear how that fire started on the boat.

Breitbart [7/21/2025 11:56 AM, Lucas Nolan, 3077K] reports a significant zero-day attack targeting a previously unknown vulnerability in Microsoft’s widely used SharePoint software has hit government agencies, universities, energy companies, and businesses around the world. The Washington Post reports that in a worrying development for global cybersecurity, unknown hackers have exploited a critical flaw in Microsoft’s SharePoint collaboration software, launching a far-reaching attack that has breached U.S. federal and state agencies, universities, energy companies, and an Asian telecommunications company. The attack, which began in the past few days, is being investigated by the U.S. government in partnership with Canada and Australia. SharePoint, a platform used by organizations worldwide to manage and share documents, has tens of thousands of servers at risk. Microsoft has yet to issue a patch for the vulnerability, leaving victims scrambling to mitigate the breach. The company has suggested that users modify their SharePoint server programs or disconnect them from the internet as a temporary solution. Disconnecting SharePoint from the internet makes it practically useless, as its main purpose is to share and collaboration on files. Cybersecurity experts have expressed grave concerns over the scale and potential impact of the attack. Adam Meyers, a senior vice president at CrowdStrike, stated, "Anybody who’s got a hosted SharePoint server has got a problem. It’s a significant vulnerability." Pete Renals from Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 added, "We are seeing attempts to exploit thousands of SharePoint servers globally before a patch is available. We have identified dozens of compromised organizations spanning both commercial and government sectors.” The breach has far-reaching implications, as SharePoint servers often connect to other core services like Outlook email and Teams. Hackers gaining access to these servers can lead to the theft of sensitive data and password harvesting. Researchers have also noted that the attackers have obtained keys that may allow them to regain entry even after systems are patched, further complicating the response to the incident. The identity and ultimate goal of the hackers remain unclear at this stage. Private research companies have observed the attackers targeting servers in China, a state legislature in the eastern United States, and more than 50 other breaches, including those at European government agencies and an energy company in a large U.S. state. The breaches occurred after Microsoft fixed a security flaw earlier this month, with the attackers exploiting a similar vulnerability. The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) was alerted to the issue on Friday and immediately contacted Microsoft.

Reported similarly:
AP [7/21/2025 11:38 AM, Shawn Chen, 1982K]

Reuters [7/21/2025 2:06 PM, James Pearson and Raphael Satter, 51390K] reports a sweeping cyber espionage operation targeting Microsoft (MSFT.O) server software compromised about 100 different organizations as of the weekend, two of the organizations that helped uncover the campaign said on Monday. Microsoft on Saturday issued an alert about "active attacks" on self-hosted SharePoint servers, which are widely used by organizations to share documents and collaborate within organisations. SharePoint instances run off of Microsoft servers were unaffected. Dubbed a "zero-day" because it leverages a previously undisclosed digital weakness, the hacks allow spies to penetrate vulnerable servers and potentially drop a backdoor to secure continuous access to victim organizations. Vaisha Bernard, the chief hacker at Eye Security, a Netherlands-based cybersecurity firm, which discovered the hacking campaign targeting one of its clients on Friday, said that an internet scan carried out with the Shadowserver Foundation had uncovered nearly 100 victims altogether - and that was before the technique behind the hack was widely known. "It’s unambiguous," Bernard said. "Who knows what other adversaries have done since to place other backdoors." NewsMax [7/21/2025 7:36 AM, Brian Freeman, 4622K] reports that the U.S. government, along with partners in Canada and Australia, are probing the compromise of SharePoint servers, which provide a platform for sharing and managing documents. This attack is only the latest cybersecurity embarrassment for Microsoft. Last year, the company was criticized by a panel of U.S. government and industry experts for lapses that allowed a 2023 targeted Chinese hack of U.S. government emails, including those of then-Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. This most recent attack compromises only those servers housed within an organization – not those in the cloud, such as Microsoft 365, officials told the Post. Microsoft has suggested that users make modifications to SharePoint server programs or unplug them from the internet in order to halt the breach. Such a breach can lead to theft of sensitive data as well as password harvesting, Netherlands-based research company Eye Security pointed out. Another problem is it was not immediately clear who is behind the hacking or what its ultimate goal is. Eye Security said it has tracked more than 50 breaches, including at an energy firm in a large state and several European government agencies. At least two U.S. federal agencies have seen their servers breached, according to researchers, who said victim confidentiality agreements prevent them from naming the targets. The breaches took place after Microsoft repaired a security flaw earlier this month, but the attackers realized they could use a similar vulnerability, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. CISA spokeswoman Marci McCarthy said the agency was alerted to the issue Friday by a cyber research firm and immediately informed Microsoft.

ABC News [7/21/2025 5:33 AM, Jack Date, 31733K] reports the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has posted an alert saying it is aware of "active exploitation" of a new vulnerability to Microsoft SharePoint "enabling unauthorized access to on-premise SharePoint servers." The exploitation activity "provides unauthenticated access to systems and enables malicious actors to fully access SharePoint content, including file systems and internal configurations, and execute code over the network," the post stated. "The FBI is aware of the matter, and we are working closely with our federal government and private sector partners," the bureau said in a statement. According to a Microsoft customer guidance blog post issued Saturday, "Microsoft is aware of active attacks targeting on-premises SharePoint Server customers by exploiting vulnerabilities partially addressed by the July Security Update." A company spokesperson said the company has been "coordinating closely with CISA, DOD Cyber Defense Command, and key cybersecurity partners around the world throughout our response."

CyberScoop [7/21/2025 9:30 AM, Matt Kapko] reports attackers are actively exploiting a critical zero-day vulnerability affecting on-premises Microsoft SharePoint servers, prompting industry heavyweights to sound the alarm over the weekend. Researchers discovered the active, ongoing attack spree Friday afternoon and warnings were issued en masse by Saturday evening. Microsoft released urgent guidance Saturday, advising on-premises SharePoint customers to turn on and properly configure Antimalware Scan Interface in SharePoint or disconnect servers from the internet until an emergency patch is available. The company released patches for two of the three versions of SharePoint affected by the defect Sunday, but has not issued a patch for SharePoint Server 2016 as of Monday morning. Researchers warn that attackers have already used the exploit dubbed “ToolShell” to intrude hundreds of organizations globally, including private companies and government agencies. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued an alert about active attacks and added the defect to its known exploited vulnerabilities catalog Saturday. “This is a high-severity, high-urgency threat,” Michael Sikorski, chief technology officer and head of threat intelligence at Palo Alto Networks Unit 42, said in a statement. Ryan Dewhurst, head of proactive threat intelligence at watchTowr, said hundreds of organizations across government, education and critical infrastructure have been impacted across the United States, Germany, France and Australia. “This is going global, fast,” he said, adding that initial scans for the exploit started Wednesday, and exploitation was in full swing through Thursday and Friday.

Bloomberg [7/21/2025 5:52 PM, Jake Bleiberg, Jane Lanhee Lee and Ryan Gallagher, 19320K] reports hackers exploited a security flaw in common Microsoft Corp. software to breach governments, businesses and other organizations across the globe and steal sensitive information, according to officials and cybersecurity researchers. Microsoft over the weekend released a patch for the vulnerability in servers of the SharePoint document management software. The company said it was still working to roll out other fixes after warnings that hackers were targeting SharePoint clients, using the flaw to enter file systems and execute code. Multiple different hackers are launching attacks through the Microsoft vulnerability, according to representatives of two cybersecurity firms, CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. and Google’s Mandiant Consulting. Hackers have already used the flaw to break into the systems of national governments in Europe and the Middle East, according to a person familiar with the matter. In the US, they’ve accessed government systems, including ones belonging to the US Department of Education, Florida’s Department of Revenue and the Rhode Island General Assembly, said the person, who spoke on condition that they not be identified discussing the sensitive information. Representatives of the Department of Education and Rhode Island legislature didn’t respond to calls and emails seeking comment Monday. A Florida Department of Revenue spokesperson, Bethany Wester Cutillo, said in an email that the SharePoint vulnerability is being investigated “at multiple levels of government” but that the state agency “does not comment publicly on the software we use for operations.” The hackers also breached the systems of a US-based health-care provider and targeted a public university in Southeast Asia, according to a report from a cybersecurity firm reviewed by Bloomberg News. The report doesn’t identify either entity by name, but says the hackers have attempted to breach SharePoint servers in countries including Brazil, Canada, Indonesia, Spain, South Africa, Switzerland, the UK and the US. The firm asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the information. A Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment beyond an earlier statement.

Houston Chronicle [7/21/2025 5:16 PM, Anusha Fathepure, 1982K] reports Microsoft has issued two emergency updates after a vulnerability in Microsoft’s SharePoint server software was exploited by hackers over the weekend to carry out attacks on businesses and U.S. federal agencies. Microsoft announced it had released a security update for SharePoint Subscription Edition and SharePoint 2019 to protect users against active attacks, in a statement posted on X Sunday. The company is still working on an update to resolve issues for SharePoint 2016. SharePoint is a collaborative platform for Microsoft users to share and manage documents. The company wrote that the vulnerability only impacts companies using Microsoft’s software to host their servers. Customers who use Microsoft’s 365 cloud services have not been affected. The global attack breached federal and state agencies, universities, energy companies and an Asian telecommunications company, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

Washington Post [7/21/2025 8:31 PM, Joseph Menn and Ellen Nakashima] reports that hackers connected to the Chinese government were behind at least some of the widespread attacks in the past few days on organizations that use collaboration software from Microsoft, defenders working on the intrusions said in interviews. The breaches in the United States and other countries took advantage of a disastrous security flaw that drew attention this month, after Microsoft issued a patch that fixed only part of the problem in SharePoint, which is widely used to coordinate work on documents and projects. “We assess that at least one of the actors responsible for this early exploitation is a China-nexus threat actor,” said Charles Carmakal, chief technology officer of Google’s Mandiant Consulting. Another researcher, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because the inquiry is still underway, said federal investigators have evidence of U.S.-based servers linked to compromised SharePoint systems connecting to internet protocol addresses inside China on Friday and Saturday. The FBI, the White House, and the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency declined to comment Monday. Two other responders working with the U.S. government said they had identified early attacks from China as well. The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The attacks allowed hackers to extract cryptographic keys from servers run by Microsoft clients. Those keys, in turn, would let them install anything, including back doors that they could use to return. Federal and state agencies were affected, researchers previously told The Washington Post, but it remains unclear which of them were vulnerable to follow-up attacks. Only versions of SharePoint that are hosted by the customer, not those in the cloud, are vulnerable. Microsoft issued effective patches for the last of the exposed versions by Monday. While installing the patches should prevent new intrusions, customers also need to change the machine’s digital keys, apply anti-malware software and hunt for any breaches that have already occurred, Microsoft said. Some of the early targets of the attack were entities that would interest the Chinese government, two of the responders said. But a wide range of attackers were now trying similar grabs, others said, looking to steal corporate secrets or install ransomware that encrypts key files until payments are made. "It’s critical to understand that multiple actors are now actively exploiting this vulnerability. We fully anticipate that this trend will continue, as various other threat actors, driven by diverse motivations, will leverage this exploit as well," Carmakal said. Piet Kerkhofs, CTO and co-founder of Europe-based Eye Security, said the SharePoint breaches share characteristics with other compromises that security researchers have attributed to China-based hackers.

Breitbart [7/21/2025 11:40 AM, Lucas Nolan, 3077K] reports Microsoft claims it is changing practices to ensure that engineers based in China no longer provide support to U.S. defense clients using the company’s Azure cloud services. The Company was previously called out for using engineers based in the hostile communist nation to support Pentagon and other critical defense systems. CNBC reports that Microsoft has announced that it will bar engineers in China from providing support to U.S. defense clients using its cloud services, following an investigation that raised national security concerns. The report revealed that Chinese-based Microsoft engineers had been helping maintain Defense Department computer systems, potentially exposing sensitive military data to cybersecurity risks. As Breitbart News previously reported: A ProPublica investigation has uncovered that Microsoft is relying on engineers based in China to help maintain sensitive computer systems for the U.S. Department of Defense, with only minimal oversight from U.S. personnel. This arrangement, which Microsoft deems critical to winning the Pentagon’s cloud computing business, could potentially expose some of the country’s most sensitive data to espionage and hacking by China. The system relies on U.S. workers with security clearances, known as "digital escorts," to supervise the Chinese engineers and serve as a firewall against malicious activities. However, ProPublica found that these escorts often lack the advanced technical skills needed to effectively monitor the foreign workers, who possess far greater coding expertise. Some escorts are ex-military with little software engineering experience, earning barely above minimum wage. According to Frank Shaw, Microsoft’s chief communications officer, the company has "made changes to our support for US Government customers to assure that no China-based engineering teams are providing technical assistance for DoD Government cloud and related services." This change primarily affects Microsoft’s Azure cloud services division, which analysts estimate generates more than 25 percent of the company’s revenue, making it larger than Google Cloud but smaller than Amazon Web Services. The report revealed that Microsoft’s Chinese Azure engineers were overseen by "digital escorts" in the U.S., who typically had less technical expertise than the employees they managed overseas. This arrangement raised concerns about potential vulnerabilities to cyberattacks from China. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth described the architecture as "a legacy system created over a decade ago, during the Obama administration," and deemed it "obviously unacceptable, especially in today’s digital threat environment.”

CyberScoop [7/21/2025 9:30 AM, Dave Kennedy] reports the U.S. is stepping into a new cyber era, and it comes not a moment too soon. With the Trump administration’s sweeping $1 billion cyber initiative in the “Big Beautiful Bill” and growing congressional momentum under the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to strengthen cyber deterrence, we’re seeing a shift in posture that many in the security community have long anticipated, although often debated: a decisive pivot toward more robust offensive cyber operations. While many may disagree with the decision to “go on offense,” we need to recognize the changing threat landscape and the failure of our previous restrained approach. The U.S. has the most advanced cyber capabilities in the world. Yet for the past two decades, our posture has been dominated by defense, deterrence-by-denial, and diplomatic restraint. This strategy has not yielded peace or dissuaded our adversaries. On the contrary, it has only served to embolden them. With geopolitical tensions now at a boiling point and adversaries escalating both the scale and ambition of their cyber campaigns, it is time to remove the handcuffs. This doesn’t mean acting recklessly, but it does mean meeting our adversaries on the same battlefield so that we can use our unmatched capabilities to hold them at risk. The cyber threat environment in 2025 is fundamentally different from what it was even five years ago. Operations like China’s Volt Typhoon and Russia’s relentless campaigns against Ukraine’s infrastructure illustrate a broader shift: our adversaries are no longer limiting themselves to espionage or IP theft. They are actively preparing for conflict.

CyberScoop [7/21/2025 4:30 PM, Derek B. Johnson] reports Arizona election officials say a hack targeting a statewide online portal for political candidates resulted in the defacement and replacement of multiple candidate photos with the late Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. While officials say the threat is contained and the vulnerability has been fixed, they also blasted the lack of support they’ve received from the federal government, claiming the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is no longer a reliable partner in election security under the Trump administration. Michael Moore, the chief information security officer for Arizona’s Secretary of State, told CyberScoop that his office first became aware that something odd was happening on June 23, while many officials were at a conference. One user managing the candidate portal noticed that one of the candidate images uploaded to the site didn’t “make sense” because it appeared to be a picture of Khomeini. The next day they were notified that candidate profiles going back years had also been defaced with the same picture. “My first call was to Arizona’s [Department of] Homeland Security,” Moore said. “We started troubleshooting, locked down that portion of the site, and started doing preventative measures to reduce our attack surface.” Moore said other important systems, such as the statewide voter registration database and its confidentiality system for domestic abuse survivors, are hosted on servers that are segmented from other parts of the network. He said there is no evidence that the attackers “even attempted” to access state voter rolls.

NBC News [7/22/2025 5:00 AM, Dan De Luce, 44540K] reports President Donald Trump’s intelligence chiefs are conducting a systematic campaign to rewrite the history of the 2016 election, seeking to reverse an eight-year-old assessment that Russia waged an information war to boost Trump’s candidacy. National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe have cited declassified emails to allege in social media posts and television appearances that Obama administration officials manipulated intelligence and conspired to undermine the legitimacy of Trump’s electoral victory in 2016. But a bipartisan Senate investigation in 2020 and a recent CIA review both found that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, launching a disinformation campaign designed to damage Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. A three-year investigation by special counsel John Durham reported no criminal conspiracy by Obama administration officials to sabotage Trump, and Durham filed no charges against CIA officials. On Monday, Fox News reported that Gabbard’s office made a criminal referral to the Justice Department related to the 2017 intelligence assessment of Russia’s role in the 2016 election, without specifying the nature of the referral. In an apparent reference to the report, Trump posted a fake artificial intelligence-generated video online of former President Barack Obama being led out of the Oval Office by police. NBC News could not verify that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence had filed a criminal referral. The Justice Department and the National Intelligence Director’s Office did not respond to requests for comment.

New York Post [7/21/2025 12:48 PM, Ryan King and Josh Christenson, 49956K] reports the FBI barely glanced at potentially crucial evidence in its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state, according to a portion of a watchdog report made public Monday. A confidential source gave thumb drives to the FBI that contained State Department data acquired via cyber intrusions — including emails from President Barack Obama and others, according to a declassified appendix to a June 2018 Justice Department inspector general report. But the feds declined to "comprehensively" analyze those drives due to concerns about individual data caught up in the hack — despite an internal draft memo concluding it was necessary to "assess the national security risks" pertaining to Clinton’s private server use. "This document shows an extreme lack of effort and due diligence in the FBI’s investigation of former Secretary Clinton’s email usage and mishandling of highly classified information," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) of the appendix. The report was penned by then-DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who currently holds the same position at the Federal Reserve Board and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It is unclear whether the FBI has since carried out a more thorough probe of the hard drives since the 2018 watchdog report was released.

USA Today [7/21/2025 11:13 AM, Sudiksha Kochi, 75552K] reports Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called on the Trump administration to release all the files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, claiming that Epstein and his former partner Ghislaine Maxwell didn’t act alone. DeSantis’ remarks come as a range of critics, including progressive Democrats and conservative firebrands, have accused the Justice Department of botching a review of files on the disgraced financier. The calls for openness follow the news last week from The Wall Street Journal that Trump sent a lewd letter to Epstein on his 50th birthday in 2003. Trump has denied the report and sued the Journal over it. "What I would say is just release it, let people see. But I do think there’s a desire for justice because Jeffrey Epstein and (Ghislaine) Maxwell didn’t just do this amongst themselves. I mean, there were obviously other people involved, and yet no one’s been brought to justice," DeSantis told Fox News on July 20.

The Hill [7/21/2025 10:48 AM, Laura Kelly, 18649K] reports President Trump’s special envoy for Syria on Monday criticized Israeli strikes against the country last week as poorly timed and complicating efforts to stabilize the region, in an interview with The Associated Press. Tom Barrack, U.S. ambassador to Turkey and special envoy for Syria, is engaged in ceasefire efforts to halt sectarian violence in Syria that broke out last week and triggered an Israeli intervention on behalf of Syria’s minority Druze community. A ceasefire was announced July 18. Speaking in an interview with the AP from Beirut, Barrack said the U.S. was not consulted over Israel’s decision to strike Syria last week, "nor was it the United States’ responsibility in matters that Israel feels is for its own self-defense." But he added that Israel’s intervention "creates another very confusing chapter" and "came at a very bad time." Barrack’s criticism follows an Axios report that White House officials are branding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a "madman" who is undermining Trump’s wider ambitions in the Middle East. Trump has put his support behind the nascent, interim Syrian government, which took control of the country after ousting long-time dictator Bashar Assad in a lightning offensive at the end of 2024.

Washington Post [7/21/2025 6:03 AM, Kelly Kasulis Cho and Lyric Li, 32099K] reports a U.S.-based Wells Fargo executive who was recently blocked from leaving China is under criminal investigation, China’s Foreign Ministry announced Monday, offering no further details about the charges she faces or the expected duration of her exit ban. Mao Chenyue, who was born in Shanghai but works in Atlanta as a managing director at Wells Fargo Bank, has been barred from leaving China, foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun confirmed. The Wall Street Journal first reported the ban, citing people familiar with the matter. Wells Fargo said Friday that it was “working through the appropriate channels” to secure her return to the United States. It was not immediately clear whether Mao had an American passport, or if she remained a Chinese citizen. Reuters reported last week that Mao is a U.S. citizen. “Ms. Mao Chenyue is involved in a criminal case currently handled by Chinese law enforcement authorities and she is subject to exit restrictions in accordance with the law,” Guo said at a news briefing Monday. “Chinese and foreigners alike have to abide by Chinese laws. China will protect her lawful rights and interests throughout the investigation,” he said. Exit bans in China generally require a lower threshold from authorities than indictments and formal detentions, experts told Washington Post, and the county’s sweeping national security law has allowed for individuals to face travel bans for actions that would be considered legal in other countries. Beijing has added to the number of laws regarding exit bans since 2018, according to a 2023 report from the rights group Safeguard Defenders, expanding the ambiguity surrounding activities that could run afoul of the rules. While the reasons for the criminal investigation into Mao remain unclear, experts say that exit bans and criminal investigations can sometimes be used as a way create leverage to use against adversarial parties, such as particular businesses or the United States. “These are political, tit-for-tat measures that China sometimes can use,” said Simona Grano, a China expert at the University of Zurich. “It wouldn’t be the first time they actually use these kind of measures exactly at the right moment to send some political signaling or even to blackmail or coerce a country.”

NBC News [7/21/2025 11:13 PM, Staff, 44540K] reports that the U.S. State Department said Monday that the Chinese government had blocked a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office employee visiting the Asian country in a personal capacity from leaving. "We are tracking this case very closely and are engaged with Chinese officials to resolve the situation as quickly as possible," a State Department spokesperson said. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is part of the federal Department of Commerce. The individual’s name and whether the person was detained were not disclosed. The Chinese Embassy in Washington and the U.S. Commerce Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Washington Post reported Sunday that a U.S. citizen who works for the Commerce Department had traveled to China several months ago to visit family. The man was being prevented from leaving the country after he failed to disclose on his visa application that he worked for the U.S. government, the newspaper said, citing sources. Beijing has used exit bans on both Chinese and foreign nationals in connection with civil disputes, regulatory enforcement and criminal investigations. Analysts say the tactic is at times used to crack down on local dissent and also as diplomatic leverage in disputes with other nations. Washington and Beijing have had friction for years over issues ranging from tariffs to Taiwan and the origins of Covid-19. Chenyue Mao, a Wells Fargo banker, has also been blocked from leaving China. Beijing’s foreign ministry said Monday that she was involved in a criminal case and obliged to cooperate with an investigation. Mao is the latest of several executives from foreign corporations to be stopped as they tried to depart China. The U.S. bank suspended all employee travel to China after Mao’s exit ban, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters last week, saying Mao was a U.S. citizen.

AP [7/22/2025 12:03 AM, Didi Tang, 56000K] reports President Donald Trump plans to host Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Tuesday at the White House, as the two countries are seeking closer security and economic ties in the face of shifting geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific region. Marcos, who met Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday, is set to become the first Southeast Asian leader to hold talks with Trump in his second term. Marcos’ three-day visit shows the importance of the alliance between the treaty partners at a time when China is increasingly assertive in the South China Sea, where Manila and Beijing have clashed over the hotly contested Scarborough Shoal. Washington sees Beijing, the world’s No. 2 economy, as its biggest competitor, and consecutive presidential administrations have sought to shift U.S. military and economic focus to the Asia-Pacific in a bid to counter China. Trump, like others before him, has been distracted by efforts to broker peace in a range of conflicts, from Ukraine to Gaza. Tariffs also are expected to be on the agenda. Trump has threatened to impose 20% tariffs on Filipino goods on Aug. 1 unless the two sides can strike a deal.

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