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

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

The AP [7/28/2025 5:12 PM, Isabel Debre and Joshua Goodman, 3987K] reports the United States and Argentina on Monday announced that they are working on a plan to allow Argentine tourists to again travel to the U.S. without a visa. It will likely take two to three years before visa-free travel becomes a reality for Argentine passport holders, but the Trump administration’s move to kickstart the process marked a show of support for President Javier Milei, its staunchest ally in South America and a darling of conservatives around the world. The gesture coincided with a visit by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to Buenos Aires, the Argentine capital, for closed-door meetings with Milei and his officials. Noem signed the statement of intent alongside Security Minister Patricia Bullrich in Milei’s office. Noem, on horseback at the country’s sprawling Campo De Mayo army base and donning a cowboy hat and jeans, told reporters that the Trump administration would put Argentina on an “expedited path” to enrollment in the Visa Waiver Program. Still, she cautioned that securing approval within the next year “would be very difficult,” according to a White House pool report. The Department of Homeland Security praised Milei for reshaping Argentina’s foreign policy in line with the U.S. “Under President Javier Milei’s leadership, Argentina is becoming an even stronger friend to the United States — more committed than ever to border security for both of our nations,” the statement said. This first step toward waiving visa requirements for Argentines, it added, “highlights our strong partnership with Argentina and our mutual desire to promote lawful travel while deterring threats.” The department cited Argentina as having the lowest visa overstay rate in the U.S. of any Latin American country. The removal of rigorous U.S. visa requirements — particularly at a time when U.S. President Donald Trump is tightening restrictions for foreign nationals — would offer a symbolic victory to Milei, a self-described “anarcho-capitalist” who rose to power as a far-right outsider mimicking Trump’s war-on-woke rhetoric and skillful use of social media. When he became the first world leader to visit Trump after the U.S. election, Milei pranced around Mar-a-Lago like an excited school boy. At the Conservative Political Action Committee convention in Washington last February, he gifted billionaire Elon Musk a bureaucracy-slashing chainsaw to support his DOGE campaign to eliminate government waste. When not riding the far-right, pro-Trump speaking circuit, Milei is focused on straightening out South America’s second-largest economy after years of turmoil under left-wing populist rule. Through tough budget cuts and mass layoffs, Milei has succeeded in driving down Argentina’s notorious double-digit inflation. The last time Argentines didn’t require a visa to enter the U.S. was in the 1990s under another free-market devotee, the late former President Carlos Menem. Menem’s neo-liberal reforms and pegging of the peso 1-to-1 to the U.S. dollar destroyed Argentina’s industry, exacerbating poverty in what a century ago was one of the world’s wealthiest countries. The Washington Examiner [7/28/2025 7:07 PM, David Zimmermann, 1934K] reports that the U.S. removed Argentina from its visa waiver program in 2002 when Argentinians began entering the nation illegally after fleeing their native country, which faced an economic crisis at the time. The change was made because Argentina has the lowest visa overstay rate in the U.S. among Latin American countries, according to the DHS chief. "Argentina now has the lowest visa overstay rate in all of Latin America, and 25% more Argentines traveled to the U.S. in the first four months of this year compared to last year — the biggest jump of any of the top 20 international arrivals," she said in a statement. "That is why we are now taking steps to allow Argentina back into the Visa Waiver Program." Noem announced the news during a trip to Buenos Aires, where he met with Argentine President Javier Milei and his officials. "This statement of intent I signed alongside Minister Werthein and Minister Bullrich highlights our strong partnership with Argentina and our mutual desire to promote lawful travel while deterring threats," she added. "This kind of diplomatic leadership, spearheaded by President Trump, will help increase the safety of both countries.” While it will likely take years before Argentinian visitors can travel to the U.S. without a visa, DHS is committed to beginning the designation process.

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New York Post [7/28/2025 5:21 PM, Diana Nerozzi, 49956K]
Reuters [7/28/2025 12:28 PM, Leila Miller, 51390K]
Reuters [7/28/2025 11:37 AM, Staff, 51390K]

DailySignal [7/28/2025 4:40 PM, Virginia Allen, 558K] reports violent crime is on the decline in the U.S. following the arrest and removal of criminal illegal aliens, the Department of Homeland Security announced Monday. “Under President [Donald] Trump and [DHS Secretary Kristi] Noem, our law enforcement is working at lightning speed to remove violent criminal illegal aliens from the U.S.,” Tricia McLaughlin, DHS assistant secretary, said in a press release given first to The Daily Signal. “Every single day we are arresting gang members, murderers, pedophiles, and violent predators,” McLaughlin said, adding, “70% of [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] arrests are of illegal aliens who have been convicted or charged with a crime. These arrests and deportations of criminal illegal aliens are having real impact on public safety.” Since Trump returned to office on Jan. 20, the Trump administration has arrested nearly 300,000 illegal aliens and deported more than 239,000, according to DHS. Border czar Tom Homan pledged last week to “flood the zone” of sanctuary cities across the U.S. in order to continue arresting and deporting illegal aliens, especially criminal illegal aliens, residing in cities where officials refuse to corporate with ICE. “Sanctuary cities are now our priority,” Homan said during a press conference in New York City on July 21, adding that “sanctuary cities are sanctuaries for criminals. President Trump is not going to tolerate it, and I’ll work every day with Secretary Noem to make sure we get as many bad guys, illegal aliens, out of this country that we can.”

Bloomberg [7/28/2025 10:00 AM, Andrew Kreighbaum, 1707K] reports the Trump administration’s abrupt termination of temporary deportation protections for Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan migrants will get its first appellate test as the government fights an ongoing legal battle over its broad agenda to curtail humanitarian immigrant relief. The Boston-based US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit will hear oral arguments Tuesday over the Department of Homeland Security’s revocation of parole grants for roughly half a million immigrants from those countries. They were admitted to the US through a Biden-era "CHNV" program aimed at addressing an influx of arrivals at the southern border. Presidents have used parole authority for decades to temporarily admit individuals without another lawful status when it serves a humanitarian need or the public interest. Although a Massachusetts federal judge blocked DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s blanket termination of CHNV parole grants as likely unlawful, the US Supreme Court later allowed the cancellations to move forward in a one-paragraph order without addressing the merits of the case. The government claims the justices’ decision suggests the lower court should be overturned. It argued elsewhere that its high court wins on emergency requests should sway subsequent lower court rulings. But those "shadow docket" decisions offer no analysis that can be relied on by lower courts, said Esther Sung, legal director at the Justice Action Center and counsel for plaintiffs challenging the termination. "These types of decisions from the Supreme Court have no precedential value whatsoever," she said. "They just don’t.” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that ending CHNV parole is "a necessary return to common-sense policies, a return to public safety, and a return to America First.” The government has argued that actions terminating that relief are inherently shielded from judicial review—a claim it has advanced in multiple cases involving temporary humanitarian programs. The district court adopted an "untenably narrow reading of the jurisdictional bar" on discretionary immigration decisions, it said in a court filing. Plaintiffs say, however, that they’re not challenging terminations of individual cases but the process used to cancel protections en masse. The government’s claims that the Biden administration used "categorical reasons" to decide parole was warranted don’t hold water, and were never part of its original justification for terminating protections, plaintiffs’ attorneys said. The case will be heard by Circuit Court Judges Gustavo Gelpí Jr., a Biden appointee, William Kayatta Jr., an Obama appointee, and Lara E. Montecalvo, a Biden appointee.

CBS Baltimore [7/28/2025 11:06 PM, Dennis Valera and Christian Olaniran, 51860K] reports that several Maryland leaders were denied a tour of the George H Fallon federal building in Baltimore on Monday following allegations of inhumane conditions for detainees being held there by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The group of lawmakers included Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks, and U.S. Reps. Glenn Ivey, Johnny Olzewski Jr., Sarah Elfreth and Kweisi Mfume. ICE has previously denied the allegations of inhumane conditions, saying it "remains committed to enforcing immigration laws fairly, safely and humanely." The agency said it complies with federal law and agency policies, and it upholds the "well-being and dignity" of those in custody. In a press conference following the visit, Mfume said that while the group was able to enter the Federal Building, they were denied a tour of the ICE detention facility by a director. "We were not allowed entry, so we had to stand outside, bang on the door, and ultimately sit in front of the door.," Mfume said. "Finally, a director came out and explained to us that she had been given direction not to allow anyone, member of the House, Senate, or anyone, into the facility." Mfume alleged that being denied a tour contradicts a public law that gives members of the United States Congress, including the House and Senate, jurisdictional oversight of all ICE facilities. He added that he is a senior member of the oversight committee. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Daily Caller [7/28/2025 5:28 PM, Adam Pack, 1010K] reports members of Maryland’s Democratic congressional delegation staged a sit-in at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building used to temporarily hold individuals facing deportation Monday afternoon after being denied a tour of the facility. The Maryland Democrats, including Democratic Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks, attempted to inspect the facility after accusing ICE of maintaining inadequate conditions for the illegal immigrants under detention there — a claim that ICE denies. One of the Democratic lawmakers said she and her colleagues were there to protest on behalf of their "constituents" in ICE custody despite those under detention being migrants without legal status who broke the law by living in their districts. Democratic Maryland Rep. Kweisi Mfume, a senior member of the House Oversight Committee, told reporters at a press conference following the sit-in that the delegation chose to stage a protest after being denied entry to the facility to allegedly conduct oversight. The ICE official said the lawmakers did not have the right to enter the facility because the building functioned as a holding area and not a long-term detention facility. "How much publicity can sanctuary politicians squeeze out of one terrorist and suspected human trafficker?" Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. "These Members of Congress could have just scheduled a TOUR. As ICE law enforcement have seen a surge in assaults, disruptions and obstructions to enforcement, including by politicians themselves, any requests to tour processing centers and field offices must be approved by the Secretary of Homeland Security," she added. "These requests must be part of legitimate congressional oversight activities." "As for visits to detention facilities, requests should be made with sufficient time to prevent interference with the President’s Article II authority to oversee executive department functions—a week is sufficient to ensure no intrusion on the President’s constitutional authority," McLaughlin continued. "To protect the President’s Article II authority, any request to shorten that time must be approved by the Secretary."

FOX News [7/28/2025 5:59 PM, Peter Pinedo, 46878K] reports the Department of Homeland Security is bashing Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and other Democrats for attempting to "squeeze" out headlines by demanding to enter and staging a sit-in at an ICE facility in Baltimore on Monday. Van Hollen and several other House and Senate Democrats from Maryland showed up in Baltimore at the Fallon Federal Building on Monday but were denied entry into an ICE detainment facility in the building. The group of lawmakers also included Sen. Angela Alsobrooks and four members of Maryland’s House delegation: Reps. Glenn Ivey, Johnny Olszewski, Sarah Elfreth and Kweisi Mfume. After being denied access to the facility, the group held a press conference outside the building in which Mfume said, "We had to stand outside, bang on the door, and ultimately sit in front of the door." In response, DHS released a statement saying, "Congressman, if you need a photo op with the violent criminal illegal aliens you are protecting—schedule a TOUR." The agency said that requests to visit detention facilities "should be made with sufficient time to prevent interference with the President’s Article II authority to oversee executive department functions." The statement said that a week "is sufficient to ensure no intrusion on the President’s constitutional authority" and that "any request to shorten that time must be approved" by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.

FOX News [7/28/2025 6:49 PM, Louis Casiano, 46878K] reports Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem criticized U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., on Monday, after he and other lawmakers tried to inspect a migrant detention facility, accusing the lawmaker of prioritizing the rights of criminal illegal immigrants over Americans. Van Hollen, a vocal critic of the Trump administration’s illegal immigration raids, was part of a Maryland congressional delegation that was denied entry to inspect a Baltimore U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility. The lawmakers, which included Van Hollen and Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, and U.S. Reps. Glenn Ivey, Johnny Olzewski Jr., Sarah Elfreth and Kweisi Mfume, staged a sit-in upon being denied entry. "President Trump lied to the American people when he said the Trump administration was simply going to focus on the worst of the worst," Van Hollen said outside the facility. In response to the sit-in, Noem posted the image of four unidentified illegal immigrants arrested for various crimes, including rape, possession of child pornography, sexual abuse of a minor and murder. "These are the monsters that @ChrisVanHollen is protecting over American victims," she wrote on X.

AP [7/28/2025 2:48 PM, Mike Schneider, 44540K] reports that Civil rights lawyers seeking a temporary restraining order against an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades say that “Alligator Alcatraz” detainees have been barred from meeting attorneys, are being held without any charges and that a federal immigration court has canceled bond hearings. The immigration attorneys argued Monday during a virtual hearing that the detainees’ constitutional rights were being violated and that 100 detainees already had been deported from “Alligator Alcatraz.” Lawyers who have shown up for bond hearings for “Alligator Alcatraz” detainees have been told that the immigration court doesn’t have jurisdiction over their clients, and the civil rights attorneys demanded that federal and state officials identify an immigration court that has jurisdiction over the detainees so it can start accepting petitions for bond. "This is an emergency situation," Eunice Cho, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, said during the hearing in federal court in Miami. "Officers at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ are going around trying to force people to sign deportation orders without the ability to speak to counsel." But Nicholas Meros, an attorney representing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, said the situation had evolved since the civil rights groups’ lawsuit was filed July 16. Video-conference rooms had been set up so detainees can talk to attorneys, and in-person meetings between detainees and attorneys had started.

FOX News [7/28/2025 4:00 PM, Rachel del Guidice, 46878K] reports a Florida state senator is lamenting his recent visit to Alligator Alcatraz, a holding facility for illegal immigrants in Florida. Jones told Reid that he recently visited the migrant detention facility that opened at the beginning of July in the Florida Everglades. On July 1, President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited Florida for a tour of "Alligator Alcatraz." But Jones said the conditions were inhumane.

Breitbart [7/28/2025 9:20 AM, Hannah Knudsen, 3077K] reports at least 100 detainees processed at Alligator Alcatraz have been "fully deported," according to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. DeSantis has continued to champion the quick work of the Florida Division of Emergency Management which transformed the existing Miami-Dade Collier Training Facility in the Florida Everglades into a deportation hub to house and process migrants illegally residing in the country. The governor previously said that deportations were already underway, noting that most of the individuals housed at the facility are military-aged males. "These are folks — and a lot of them have of criminal records. But that’s what’s happening here, and I think it’s been very effective now," he said. DeSantis has since confirmed that 100 individuals who were processed and housed at the facility "have fully been deported," noting that the Department of Homeland Security is largely handling the departures for deportation. "There’s an aggressive… deportation schedule," DeSantis said. "That’s what you’re seeing is starting to occur here down at Alligator Alcatraz.” Garrett Ripa, the Miami field director for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said those flown out of the country were "illegally present in the state of Florida." The officials spoke from the Florida detention center, with the protected Everglades wetlands as a backdrop. The outlet added that the facility is housing somewhere from 750 to 900 detainees. Florida Attorney General James Uthemeier’s office described some of the detainees at Alligator Alcatraz, including an MS-13 member with the nickname "Satan" and a Cuban migrant accused of slitting an elderly woman’s throat and lighting her house on fire. As Breitbart News detailed: For example, one inmate at Alligator Alcatraz is an MS-13 member named Oscar "Satan" Sanchez. His rap sheet includes assault and conspiracy to commit murder in New York. A Guatemalan migrant by the name of Luis Donaldo Corado is also at the facility and has a criminal history that includes "burglary of an occupied dwelling, forced entry, and voyeurism.” Eddy Lopez Jemot, hailing from Cuba, has a criminal history that includes the following: "Arson, assault — arrested for cutting the throat of an elderly woman in Key Largo, FL and lighting her home on fire to conceal the evidence.”

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NewsMax [7/28/2025 4:30 PM, Jim Thomas, 4622K]

Los Angeles Times [7/28/2025 9:45 PM, Carlos De Loera, 14672K] reports brothers Carlos Martín and Oscar Alejandro Gonzalez — both of whom are Mexican nationals — were released from the Florida detention center in the Everglades known as "Alligator Alcatraz" after being detained earlier this month. The 26-year-old Carlos Martín was pulled over by Florida Highway Patrol officers in Orlando on July 7 because the car he was driving had overly tinted windows and a Mexican license plate, according to the Orlando Sentinel. The state trooper ran the vehicle’s plates and said it had no valid registration. Carlos Martín explained that it belonged to this older brother; but when Oscar Alejandro arrived to prove ownership, neither his name nor his brother’s was registered on the title. Carlos Martín was subsequently booked for driving an unregistered car and taken to a county jail. The circumstances regarding Oscar Alejandro’s detention are unclear, as there was no arrest record released. The younger Gonzalez brother had been visiting his sibling in Orlando on a tourist visa. Oscar Alejandro, who is married to a U.S. citizen, has an expired residence permit, according to El País. In an interview with the Orlando Sentinel, the brothers’ father, Martin Gonzalez, said his sons were transferred to the Everglades immigration detention center after spending three days in a county jail. After flying from Mexico to Orlando, Martin Gonzalez was able to get into contact over the phone with his sons and the Mexican Consulate. "[My sons] tell me they are scared and desperate to get back to their home country," Martin Gonzalez said. "They say it’s a closed place with artificial lights on 24 hours a day, and they don’t know what time it is, or if it’s day or night.” But after several weeks of detention, Roberto Velasco Álvarez — the head of the North American unit at the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs — confirmed on Sunday that the brothers had returned to Mexico without charges. "Regarding the case of the two brothers detained in ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’ [Consul of Mexico in Orlando Juan Sabines Guerrero] informs us that both are now in our country without charges and with their valid documents," Álvarez said in a post from his official X account. "The dialogue with local and federal authorities enabled the voluntary departure of the young people this weekend.” Tricia McLaughlin, Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary, has denied that any Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities violated any safety or human rights standards. "Any claim that there are subprime conditions at ICE detention centers are FALSE. All detainees are provided with proper meals, medical treatment and have opportunities to communicate with their family members and lawyers," McLaughlin has said. "Ensuring the safety, security and well-being of individuals in our custody is a top priority at ICE. ICE has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens.”

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Telemundo [7/28/2025 12:39 PM, Staff, 3352K]

AP [7/28/2025 4:11 PM, Mike Schneider, 1611K] reports that Civil rights lawyers seeking a temporary restraining order against an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades say that “Alligator Alcatraz” detainees have been barred from meeting attorneys, are being held without any charges and that a federal immigration court has canceled bond hearings. The immigration attorneys argued Monday during a virtual hearing that the detainees’ constitutional rights were being violated and that 100 detainees already had been deported from “Alligator Alcatraz.” Lawyers who have shown up for bond hearings for “Alligator Alcatraz” detainees have been told that the immigration court doesn’t have jurisdiction over their clients, and the civil rights attorneys demanded that federal and state officials identify an immigration court that has jurisdiction over the detainees so it can start accepting petitions for bond. “This is an emergency situation,” Eunice Cho, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, said during the hearing in federal court in Miami. “Officers at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ are going around trying to force people to sign deportation orders without the ability to speak to counsel.” But Nicholas Meros, an attorney representing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, said the situation had evolved since the civil rights groups’ lawsuit was filed July 16. Videoconference rooms had been set up so detainees can talk to attorneys, and in-person meetings between detainees and attorneys had started.

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NewsMax [7/28/2025 1:57 PM, Mike Schneider, 4622K]

NPR [7/28/2025 11:06 PM, Tovia Smith, 37958K] reports a class action lawsuit has been filed challenging the Trump administration’s new policy requiring immigrants illegally in the U.S. who are arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to remain in detention while fighting their deportation. It’s an abrupt reversal of long-standing practice of allowing individuals who are deemed not a flight risk or a public safety threat to be released on bail while their cases move through the immigration court system. The new policy was outlined in an email to all ICE employees on July 8. The agency said it was using its "extraordinarily broad" authority to change its interpretation of existing law. As a result, even individuals who have been living and working in the U.S. for decades – with deep community ties – fall under the same law as those just recently caught entering illegally, and must remain locked up. ICE officials say the policy aims to keep America safe by closing "loopholes" that allowed "millions of unvetted illegal aliens" to be released into communities, according to Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin. But advocates for migrants are asking a federal court in California to block it. "It’s a misinterpretation of the law," says Matt Adams, legal director for the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, one of several groups bringing the class-action lawsuit against the Trump administration. "The statute makes clear that they are entitled to a bond hearing [but] now the agencies are attempting to rewrite the law … and they’re adopting this draconian interpretation." The lawsuit will be filed against top Trump administration officials including DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi. It also targets the immigration court in Adelanto, Cal., where the administration’s policy has been implemented and bond hearings are routinely being denied. Adams calls the policy change "arbitrary and capricious" and a violation of immigrants’ due process rights. He says it is already causing "catastrophic" and "irreparable harm" to as many as tens of thousands of noncitizens and their families, as they could end up spending months or years in detention before their cases are resolved.

Reuters [7/28/2025 6:22 AM, Kirsty Needham, 51390K] reports the national congress of Palau has said it "cannot accept" a United States proposal for the Pacific Islands nation to accept asylum seekers from third countries, as its president holds annual funding talks in Washington. Palau’s national congress wrote to President Surangel Whipps Jr. earlier this month urging him to reject the request by the Trump Administration. A letter signed by Senate President Hokkon Boules and House of Delegates speaker Gibson Kanai, viewed by Reuters, said the congress strongly supports Palau’s partnership with the United States, but "cannot accept this specific proposal". Palau, with a population of 17,000, has a compact of free association with the United States providing economic assistance in return for allowing the U.S. military access to its territory. "We advise against proceeding further on this matter only because of the practical issues that the introduction of refugees would raise in our society," said the letter, dated July 21. Whipps Jr. briefed Palau’s national congress and council of chiefs about the request on July 18, the Palau president’s office said in a statement at the time. The proposed agreement gave Palau the right to accept or decline each individual referred by the U.S., the office said.

CBS Los Angeles [7/29/2025 1:36 AM, Tom Wait, 51860K] reports the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday heard the Trump administration’s case to overturn a temporary order halting Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in California. During the hearing, the Trump administration’s attorneys argued that the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the original federal lawsuit, did not have legal standing to present the case. "All the court had, really, was a series of declarations from individuals who say they were stopped, or questioned, or arrested, but that does not tell us if the Fourth Amendment was violated in connection with those stops," Trump administration attorney Yaakov Roth. They also denied allegations of racial profiling and told judges they were not aware of deportation quotas. "They are the ones who are doing categorical determinations," ACLU attorney Mohammad Tajsar said. "They are the ones who are making stops and arrests without any case-by-case analysis of reasonable suspicion. On July 11, a judge sided with the ACLU, Los Angeles and immigrant rights groups who argued that federal agents had targeted people based on skin color, performed raids without warrants and denied legal counsel to detainees. In a statement following the ruling, White House Spokesperson Abigail Jackson called the order a "gross overstep of judicial authority to be corrected on appeal." "No federal judge has the authority to dictate immigration policy – that authority rests with Congress and the President," Jackson said. "Enforcement operations require careful planning and execution; skills far beyond the purview or jurisdiction of any judge." Two of the judges on the appeals panel were appointed by former President Bill Clinton. Former President Joe Biden appointed the third. The Trump administration asked for a swift decision. It’s unclear when the panel will issue a ruling. The Washington Examiner [7/28/2025 7:42 PM, Jack Birle, 1934K] reports that a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, made up of Judges Ronald Gould, Marsha Berzon, and Jennifer Sung — two appointees of former President Bill Clinton and one appointee of former President Joe Biden — expressed skepticism over the DOJ’s arguments for a stay pending appeal of the lower court’s order. The Justice Department asked the appeals court panel to stay an injunction from the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, which blocked federal immigration officers from relying on apparent race, language spoken, location, or job as sole reasons to inquire about a person’s immigration status. DOJ lawyer Jacob Roth faced intense scrutiny from the panel during the nearly 90-minute hearing. The questioning largely stemmed from Judges Berzon and Sung about how the scope of the lower court’s injunction limits immigration enforcement and what the Justice Department alleges was unlawful about the lower court’s ruling. The DOJ lawyer argued that suspicion for conducting immigration enforcement using one of the four factors restricted by the injunction always comes with additional context, and that cases should not be restricted with a blanket formula for Fourth Amendment concerns.

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Telemundo52 [7/28/2025 11:20 AM, Staff, 103K]

New York Times [7/28/2025 11:20 PM, Benjamin Weiser and Zach Montague, 153395K] reports a coalition of 21 states and Washington, D.C., sued the Trump administration on Monday, seeking to block a Department of Agriculture demand that states surrender sensitive personal information about millions of food stamp recipients. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, argues that the federal government’s demand violates federal privacy laws and the U.S. Constitution. It appears to be part of a coordinated effort to collect information that can be used to “advance the president’s agenda on fronts that are wholly unrelated to SNAP program administration,” including immigration enforcement, the lawsuit says. “We will not allow this lifesaving program to be illegally used to hunt down immigrants and their families,” Attorney General Letitia James of New York said at a news conference on Monday announcing the lawsuit, appearing with the attorneys general of California and Michigan. All three are Democrats. “This administration cannot intimidate vulnerable families and prevent them from putting food on the table,” Ms. James added. The Agriculture Department said in May that it planned to create a database of Americans who receive nutrition benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which serves about 42 million people. The federal government pays for the benefits and shares the administrative costs with the states. But after a coalition of public interest groups and people receiving SNAP benefits sued in May in Washington to block the government from collecting the information on recipients, largely on privacy grounds, the Agriculture Department said it would pause the plan until it could “ensure that data received would be appropriately safeguarded” and would satisfy legal requirements. That lawsuit is still pending. The lawsuit filed Monday asks the court to find the department’s demand for the data unlawful and to prevent the administration from conditioning receipt of SNAP funding on compliance by states.

AP [7/28/2025 9:19 PM, Mark Sherman, 56000K] reports the Justice Department on Monday filed a misconduct complaint against the federal judge who has clashed with President Donald Trump ‘s administration over deportations to a notorious prison in El Salvador. Escalating the administration’s conflict with U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg, Attorney General Pam Bondi said on social media that she directed the filing of the complaint against Boasberg “for making improper public comments about President Trump and his administration.” The complaint stems from remarks Boasberg allegedly made in March to Chief Justice John Roberts and other federal judges saying the administration would trigger a constitutional crisis by disregarding federal court rulings, according to a copy of the complaint obtained by The Associated Press. The comments “have undermined the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary,” the complaint says, adding that the administration has “always complied with all court orders.” Boasberg is among several judges who have questioned whether the administration has complied with their orders. The meeting took place days before Boasberg issued an order blocking deportation flights that Trump was carrying out by invoking wartime authorities from an 18th century law. The judge’s verbal order to turn around planes that were on the way to El Salvador was ignored. Boasberg has since found probable cause that the administration committed contempt of court. The comments were supposedly made during a meeting of the Judicial Conference, the federal judiciary’s governing body. The remarks were first reported by the conservative website The Federalist, which said it obtained a memo summarizing the meeting. Boasberg, the chief judge in the district court in the nation’s capital, is a member of the Judicial Conference. Its meetings are not public. The complaint calls for an investigation, the reassignment of the deportations case to another judge while the inquiry is ongoing and sanctions, including the possible recommendation of impeachment, if the investigation substantiates the allegations.

Washington Examiner [7/28/2025 6:00 AM, Kaelan Deese, 1934K] reports President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda is moving forward at a rapid pace, even as dozens of lawsuits brought by liberal legal groups aim to forestall his efforts to achieve 1 million annual deportations of illegal migrants. With third-country removals greenlit by the Supreme Court, the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) tied up in appellate litigation, and the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement facing resistance in liberal jurisdictions, the administration is testing the outer bounds of its immigration enforcement authority and its ability to fulfill Trump’s campaign promises to carry out record-setting deportation numbers. A tally of lawsuits against the Trump administration compiled by Just Security revealed at least 50 to 60 deportation-related lawsuits against the Trump administration, and that the number of immigration-related suits overall exceeds 100. Yet despite courtroom delays, the numbers show Trump’s deportation agenda is working. According to recent ICE data reported by CBS, the administration has already carried out nearly 150,000 deportations since Inauguration Day, averaging more than 800 per day. At that pace, the Trump administration is on track to exceed 300,000 removals in its first year back, although that would still fall short of its stated annual goal of 1 million. The administration’s efforts have been bolstered by support from the Justice Department. FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said Friday that the bureau has assisted in more than 21,900 immigration-related arrests since January. The FBI’s surge also includes over 12,400 violent crime and gang-related arrests and the seizure of more than 1,400 kilograms of fentanyl, all part of what Bongino described as an "unprecedented joint operation" to reclaim control at the southern border and beyond. "We’re right around the 6-month mark, and thanks to the leadership of this administration and the work of our men and women of law enforcement, there is no doubt our country is safer today than it was in January," Bongino wrote in a post on X. After the Supreme Court lifted a lower court’s block last month, ICE resumed third-country deportations — the practice of sending individuals to nations that aren’t their countries of origin. Following the high court’s approval, ICE acting Director Todd Lyons issued a memorandum telling immigration officers to remove migrants to third countries with as little as six hours’ notice in "exigent" circumstances. The first such deportation flight under the new policy landed on July 16 in Eswatini, where five migrants from Cuba, Jamaica, Laos, Vietnam, and Yemen were removed. Trump border czar Tom Homan praised the move as necessary. "When you’ve got countries that won’t take their nationals back, and they can’t stay here, we find another country willing to accept them," Homan told Politico earlier this month. Before the deportations to Eswatini, the administration finally achieved success in its hard-fought effort to deport eight illegal alien criminals to South Sudan after lower courts stalled the removals for weeks. Critics, however, allege that the policy could lead to life-threatening outcomes. Litigation against third-country removals continues in Massachusetts, where immigrant advocacy groups such as the National Immigration Litigation Alliance argue the rapid removals deprive migrants of a meaningful legal process.

Los Angeles Times [7/28/2025 6:00 AM, Patrick J. McDonnell and Cecilia Sánchez Vidal, 14672K] reports the cortege wound its way up a dirt path, past well-appointed homes providing a contrast to the rock-strewn lane leading to the hilltop cemetery. This community in the central Mexican state of Michoacán is home to about 1,500 people, many of whom make a living planting corn, plums, peaches and other crops that cut symmetrical rows through the verdant hillsides — now glistening an emerald green, the bounty of recent rains. But the stolid brick-and-concrete residences along the rocky road are the legacy of a generation of immigrants — men such as Jaime Alanis García, who left to toil in the fields, factories and other workplaces of California, dutifully sending money back to their village to build homes and other projects. Among the works financed via immigrant remittances is the chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe, where a funeral Mass was held Saturday, for Alanis García. He is the first known fatality tied to the Trump administration’s work-site enforcement raids — in this case a pair of sweeps on July 10 through Glass House Farms cannabis facilities in California. Alanis García, 56, was fatally injured when he fell 30 feet from atop a greenhouse while fleeing immigration agents at the Glass House site in Camarillo, relatives say. Mexican consular officials arranged for his body to be shipped back from California. “He was like so many of us, a hardworking person who went to California to earn a living, to help his family,” said Rosa María Zamora, 70, a native of Huajúmbaro de Guadalupe, who was visiting from her home in Houston. “For us, California represented an opportunity, a chance to improve our horizons.” A quarter of a century ago, Zamora said, she left to join her husband, a field worker in California. The pair later found employment in slaughterhouses in Nebraska, where she suffered a severe leg injury from a cutting blade. “It’s so sad that Señor Jaime came back in this way,” Zamora said. She was among about 200 mourners accompanying Alanis García on his doleful final journey through his hometown. “Look how many people there are here today,” said Manuel Durán, a brother-in-law of Alanis García. He traveled here with other relatives from Oxnard, where Alanis García lived. “He was very beloved.” Durán donned a T-shirt emblazoned on the front with stylized angel wings soaring from a photo of Alanis García. “In Loving Memory,” read the text. The rear of the shirt featured the hashtag #justiceforJaime, in English and Spanish, reflecting relatives’ assertion that the July 10 operation was reckless. “We want justice, please,” Janet Alanis, 32, his daughter, said. “Tell everyone that all we ask for is justice.” The U.S. Department of Homeland Security defended the raid, which authorities say resulted in the arrests of more 300 people. Authorities say that agents called in medical assistance for Alanis García, who, according to an autopsy, suffered head and neck injuries.

The New York Times [7/28/2025 9:15 PM, Adeel Hassan and Livia Albeck-Ripka, 153395K] reports a Delta Air Lines pilot was arrested on child sex abuse charges and removed from a plane’s cockpit immediately after landing in San Francisco on Saturday night, the authorities said. The pilot, Rustom Bhagwagar, 34, was arrested just after 9:30 p.m. on five counts of oral copulation with a child under 10 years of age, the Department of Homeland Security said on Monday night. Detectives with the Contra Costa Sheriff’s Office had been investigating Mr. Bhagwagar since April, the department said. The Homeland Security Department had said earlier on Monday that the pilot was facing charges involving child sex abuse materials. It was not immediately clear why the charging details had changed; the department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday night. In an emailed statement, Delta said it was “appalled by reports of the charges related to the arrest” and added that the pilot had been suspended pending an investigation. The company directed questions to law enforcement agencies. “Anyone who commits depraved crimes against a child, including U.S. citizens, will face consequences,” Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the department, said in a statement. The AP [7/28/2025 3:59 PM, Staff, 31733K] reports that passengers aboard the flight from Minneapolis to San Francisco on Saturday posted video online showing federal agents walking through the aisle of the plane. In an emailed statement, Delta said that it would cooperate with law enforcement and the pilot has been suspended, pending an investigation. “Delta has zero tolerance for unlawful conduct and will fully cooperate with law enforcement, " the company said. Daily Caller [7/28/2025 11:48 AM, Hudson Crozier, 1010K] reports that the DHS confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation that its Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) branch made the arrest. Agents "stormed the cockpit, cuffed the co-pilot, arrested him, walked him down the aisle, and ushered him off the plane through the cabin doors located between first and coach," a witness told The San Francisco Chronicle. Delta and the FBI did not respond to requests for comment.

Reported similarly:
NewsNation [7/28/2025 2:28 PM, Josh DuBose, 5801K]
San Francisco Chronicle [7/28/2025 1:03 PM, Aidin Vaziri, 4120K]
Univision [7/28/2025 12:32 PM, Staff, 4992K]
Washington Examiner [7/28/2025 12:59 PM, Emily Hallas, 1934K]

Federal News Network [7/28/2025 6:02 PM, Justin Doubleday, 2346K] reports that Sean Plankey, the nominee to lead the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, glided through a relatively uncontroversial nomination hearing last week, but his path to confirmation in the Senate remains murky due to one senator’s hold. Plankey testified alongside several other nominees before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last week. Plankey is currently serving as a senior adviser at the Coast Guard while he awaits Senate confirmation. Committee Ranking Member Gary Peters (D-Mich.) pressed Plankey on how he would ensure CISA fulfills its mission while facing steep workforce losses and budget cuts under the Trump administration. Plankey responded that he would "allow the operators to operate." "CISA has a number of the most capable cybersecurity people in the world," he said. If confirmed, Plankey said he would focus particularly on protecting critical infrastructure, "mom and pop small businesses" and the federal civilian executive branch from cyberattacks. "If that means we have to reorganize in some form or fashion, that’s what we’ll do. I’ll lead that charge," Plankey said. "And if that means that we need a different level of funding than we currently have now, then I will approach the secretary, ask for that funding, ask for that support." Plankey pointed to his experience working with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and President Donald Trump to increase funding for the Coast Guard amid major reforms. But unlike the Coast Guard, Peters pointed out that there aren’t any "cyber protection reserves" to back up CISA.

FOX News [7/28/2025 4:30 PM, Peter Pinedo, 46878K] reports hispanics living in Democratic-run jurisdictions are frustrated with sanctuary policies, which they feel are allowing criminal illegal aliens to prey on their communities, according to a Latino congressman from Colorado. While some Democrats and media outlets attempt to portray Hispanics as universally opposed to President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration, Rep. Gabe Evans, R-Colo., said the reality in his district is very different. Both Colorado and Denver have sanctuary policies in place that limit local law enforcement’s ability to cooperate with ICE and other federal immigration enforcement agencies. Evans said that this has led to a marked increase in crime and violence in his community.

FOX News [7/28/2025 5:29 PM, Stepheny Price, 46878K] reports city officials in Kerrville were largely unprepared for the devastating floods that struck the Hill Country on July 4, according to newly released city communications, including emails and text messages obtained by KSAT through public records requests. The documents include a text exchange involving Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice, in which he appeared to mock U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. The nickname, and similar terms like "ICE Barbie," have circulated online to satirize Noem since her appointment as DHS Secretary earlier this year. The exchange has raised eyebrows given the gravity of the disaster response and growing criticism of how it was handled. Noem defended the federal response in an interview on Fox News Sunday, earlier this month, pushing back on allegations of delay. Despite her defense, concerns persist at both the state and local levels.

Bloomberg [7/28/2025 7:10 PM, Natalie Lung, 19320K] reports that Uber Technologies Inc. is pushing back on a new NYC proposal requiring delivery app workers to display company-issued identification numbers on reflective vests, saying it “singles out” immigrant workers for “heightened surveillance and control.” The new rules, proposed Monday by Mayor Eric Adams in the name of worker safety, would mandate that companies like Uber and DoorDash Inc. issue identification cards containing a unique number alongside the name and photo of each courier. They would be required to produce it upon demand of a police officer or others “authorized by law.” The companies will also be required to maintain a roster of the aforementioned information of the couriers — who are independent contractors and not employees — and make it available upon request by the NYPD or Department of Transportation staff. The new requirements would expose its delivery couriers, which includes 35,000 immigrant workers, “to police scrutiny — even in the absence of any violation,” said Josh Gold, an Uber spokesperson, who added that the administration did not engage with the company on the proposal. The company will engage on the rules moving forward, he said. Representatives for DoorDash and Grubhub didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on the rules. The city’s Department of Transportation will hold an online public hearing on the rules on Sept. 2.

FOX News [7/28/2025 11:59 AM, Danielle Wallace, 46878K] reports that President Donald Trump praised British Prime Minister Keir Starmer for curbing boats of illegal immigrants crossing the English Channel, telling the United Kingdom’s leader he’s doing a "fantastic thing." Trump stopped for questions with Starmer and his wife, Victoria Starmer, ahead of their meeting at Trump Turnberry golf club in Scotland on Monday. "Immigration is a big, a big factor. And I think, frankly, if they’re coming from other countries, and you don’t know who they are, and, are they coming from prisons? We have them where they came in from prisons who are moving them all out," Trump began. "Last month, we had zero people come into the country, zero other than coming through legal means." "You’re doing not a good thing, you’re doing a fantastic thing," Trump added. So I know nothing about the boats. But if the boats are loaded up with bad people, and they usually are, because, you know, other countries don’t send their best, they send people that they don’t want, they’re not stupid people. And they send the people that they don’t want. And I’ve heard that you’ve taken a much stronger stance on." In June, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported the lowest monthly total of illegal border encounters in the agency’s history. Border Patrol made 6,072 apprehensions along the southwest border, reflecting a 93% decrease in illegal encounters recorded during the same month last year under former President Joe Biden’s administration. The Trump administration released zero illegal aliens for parole into the U.S. interior – compared to 27,766 released in June 2024 under Biden. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

FOX News [7/28/2025 5:00 AM, Brett L. Tolman , Ja’Ron K. Smith, 46878K] reports a new report from the Council on Criminal Justice brought welcome news: crime is down across much of America. But what the report doesn’t say out loud is that the timing is no coincidence. President Donald Trump is simply enforcing immigration laws already on the books — proof that we don’t need more laws; we just need leaders with the backbone to enforce the laws we have. The results are undeniable: communities nationwide are seeing tangible improvements in public safety. According to the report, homicides dropped 17% in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period last year. Gun assaults are down 21%. Robberies fell 20% and carjackings plummeted by 24%. Even property crimes — like burglary and larceny — saw double-digit declines. These aren’t just statistics. They reflect real communities seeing real results. While violent crime fell, ICE arrests surged — more than doubling in places like Sacramento and climbing over 500% in California overall. Nationwide, immigration arrests have already topped 300,000 in 2025 alone. That’s not political theater. That’s law enforcement doing its job. The fact that these historic drops occurred in the absence of passing new laws gives strong evidence to the power of simply letting law enforcement do their jobs. Conservative Americans have always known that lawlessness — whether from violent repeat offenders or criminal illegal aliens — makes our cities less safe. Under Trump’s unwavering leadership, the pendulum is finally swinging back toward sanity. He is proving what we’ve long known: you can’t have public safety without border security. Thanks to the "UPLIFT Act" (H.R. 1680), sanctuary jurisdictions are being forced to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. Cities shouldn’t be safe havens for known criminals simply because their mayors want to make headlines on cable news. Critics claim the administration’s immigration agenda is harsh. But what’s truly harsh is letting gang members, human traffickers and drug smugglers remain on American soil out of fear of being labeled "xenophobic." That’s not compassion, that’s cowardice. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Chicago Tribune [7/28/2025 11:20 AM, Charles Selle, 3987K] reports it was Winston Churchill who pointed out decades ago: "A lie gets halfway around the world before truth gets its pants on." A Lake County judge last week unfortunately found the British statesman’s thoughts to be true. This after she followed the guidelines of the Illinois SAFE-T Act, which was signed into law by Gov. JB Pritzker on Jan. 22, 2021. Associate Circuit Court Judge Randie Bruno was condemned in national media reports last week for releasing a Waukegan man charged with letting the corpse of an Antioch woman rot in his garbage bin for several weeks. "Significant threats and harassment", authorities said, were forthcoming from morons who either don’t know Illinois law, believed incorrect reporting or casually decided to ignore what are considered to be jailable offenses here. Authorities are investigating the threats for the judge’s lawful actions in the first-appearance hearing of Jose Luis Mendoza-Gonzalez, 52, who has been charged with concealing the death, among other charges, of Megan Bos, 37. Yet, the damage was done after a U.S. Department of Homeland Security official said, "It is absolutely repulsive this monster walked free on Illinois’ streets after allegedly committing such a heinous crime." This came after federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents picked up Mendoza-Gonzalez, an immigrant from Mexico, for being a "criminal illegal alien." He’s scheduled to be deported, although the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office is seeking to keep him in the U.S. to prosecute him for the Bos charges. While the alleged crimes are indeed gruesome and would seem to be enough to put an individual in jail until trial, they surprisingly don’t fall under the guidelines of the SAFE-T Act. In this instance, the act required the judge to release the defendant until trial. Five years old, the law’s effectiveness is still being debated, especially in the case of Megan Bos, whose cause of death remains under investigation. We need to remember the SAFE-T Act, pushed by the Democratic-controlled Illinois legislature, ended cash bail in the state, undercutting judicial discretion and stripping judges of the authority to determine either to jail alleged criminals before trial or set bond to allow them to roam free until their days in court. The law prohibits Illinois judges from independently initiating detention proceedings, regardless of the case or circumstances before them. That’s an important consideration, obviously overlooked by detractors of Judge Bruno. In Lake County, State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart campaigned heartily in favor of the act. It has seemed to work here until it doesn’t due to quirks in the law. A statement issued July 22 from the office of Lake County Circuit Court Chief Judge Daniel Shanes spelled out the foibles in the SAFE-T Act. It notes that the charges in the death of Bos, which include abuse of a corpse and obstructing justice, are excluded in the law. As such, it "forbids the court from holding an individual charged with the offenses against this defendant in jail prior to trial."

Breitbart [7/28/2025 2:36 PM, John Binder, 3077K] reports Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is continuing to arrest what Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials describe as the "worst of the worst" illegal aliens across the United States. In the latest string of arrests, shared exclusively with Breitbart News, ICE agents nabbed illegal aliens with convictions for crimes like child sexual abuse, rape, drug trafficking, drunk driving, and assault, among other crimes. The illegal aliens were arrested in sanctuary states California and New Jersey, as well as states such as North Carolina, Texas, Alabama, and Georgia. "While many Americans enjoyed their weekend, ICE law enforcement was working around the clock to arrest even more pedophiles, drug traffickers, and other illegal aliens convicted of heinous crimes," DHS’s Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. Some of the illegal alien convicts arrested in the sting include: Hector Adrian Gonzalez-Sanchez of Mexico, convicted of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 in Pico Rivera, California. Tadeo Solano of Mexico, convicted of first-degree rape in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Aleiado Cruz-Cruz of Mexico, convicted of criminal sexual contact in Cumberland County, New Jersey. Jose Ortiz of Mexico, convicted of assault causing bodily injury to a family member in Austin, Texas. Julio Guzman-Zuniga of Mexico, convicted of cocaine trafficking in Robeson County, North Carolina. Mario Velasquez-Velasquez of Mexico, convicted across California of possession of a controlled substance, sexual battery, drunk driving involving alcohol or drugs, obstructing or resisting an officer, and possession of a deceptive government ID. Eduardo Luis Manchin-Pozo of Cuba, convicted of drug trafficking, marijuana possession, and dangerous drugs in Russellville, Alabama. Gilberto Zuniga-Sanchez of Mexico, convicted of drug trafficking in San Diego, California. Jose Luis Sappia-Rodriguez of Uruguay, convicted of breaking and entering, larceny, and possession of burglary tools in Gwinnett County, Georgia, among other convictions. Richard Salas-Romero of Colombia, convicted of smuggling illegal aliens in Carrizo Springs, Texas. "Our brave ICE law enforcement are removing violent criminal illegal aliens from American streets so they cannot terrorize more American victims, including innocent children," McLaughlin said. "We are firing up the deportation planes and getting these criminal illegal aliens off our streets and out of the country.”

Washington Examiner [7/28/2025 5:00 AM, Mia Cathell, 1934K] reports fictitious reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents randomly snatching immigrants off the streets are spreading like wildfire, fueling disinformation and undermining trust in immigration authorities already at increased risk of political violence during deportation operations. Some of the unsubstantiated claims against ICE are far-fetched, such as a viral TikTok video claiming that the Trump administration is tossing deportees out of planes and into the open ocean. “A family in Italy saw five shackled bodies wash up on the shore,” the TikTok user told millions of viewers. Other more-organized hoaxes making headlines have fooled many in recent weeks, including friendly media. On July 18, The Morning Call, a local Pennsylvania newspaper, published an article reporting that 82-year-old Luis Leon, a green-card holder from Chile residing in Allentown, was allegedly taken by ICE officers and "secretly deported" to Guatemala. The story in question relied heavily on accounts from family members who said the ordeal started on June 20 when ICE agents handcuffed Leon and "led him away without explanation" while trying to replace his lost green card at a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Philadelphia. His wife, who speaks little English, was held in the immigration-processing building for 10 hours until she was released to her granddaughter, the family told The Morning Call, an Allentown-based outlet and the Keystone State’s third-largest newspaper. Leon’s family did not know his whereabouts for approximately a month, saying he "disappeared without a trace into the American immigration system.” At one point, relatives were reportedly informed by a dubious source that he had died in ICE custody. Days after Leon’s alleged arrest, a woman claiming to be an immigration lawyer called his wife, insisting she could help bail him out, but didn’t disclose where he was or her connection to the case. That same suspicious caller dialed again weeks later and said he’s dead. The family’s communications with the mysterious woman eventually ceased. Then, they learned Leon was alive and had supposedly turned up in a Guatemalan hospital. "It is unclear whether Leon ended up in that Central American country deliberately or by mistake," Morning Call reporters wrote, citing a Supreme Court ruling paving the way for federal immigration authorities to deport criminally convicted illegal aliens to a country other than their native nation. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has since issued a press release to "set the record straight" on the widely shared story, which was subsequently picked up by legacy media such as The Daily Beast, The Guardian, and The Independent, all of which ran with the "secretly deported" narrative. "ICE has not deported Luis Leon — a Chilean national — to Guatemala, as his family members have said," DHS disputed. Addressing the apparent arrest, the Department of Homeland Security said, "This claim is completely false," about Leon’s purported detention during a green card replacement appointment. "There is no record of the man appearing at any green card appointment in or around the area of Philadelphia on June 20, 2025.” In a statement, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin called the case "a hoax" and its surrounding news coverage "journalistic malpractice" for failing to corroborate facts with federal officials first. "ICE never arrested or deported Luis Leon to Guatemala. Nor does ICE ‘disappear’ people — this is a categorical lie being peddled to demonize ICE agents who are already facing an 830% increase in assaults against them," McLaughlin said. "This was a hoax peddled by the media, who rushed to press without pausing to corroborate the facts with DHS. This was journalistic malpractice.”

Breitbart [7/28/2025 12:13 PM, Hannah Knudsen, 3077K] reports a majority favor deporting migrants who are residing in the country illegally — another sign voters back President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda — a Marquette survey reveals. Trump long ran on securing the southern border and deporting illegal aliens, and as he has continued to make good on that promise, he continues to have the public’s backing. According to the survey, 57 percent across the board favor deporting immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally, compared to 43 percent who oppose. However, opinions vary on party lines. An overwhelming majority of Republicans favor deporting illegal migrants — 93 percent. However, support among independents has fallen, as 41 percent now support deporting illegal migrants, compared to 59 percent who now oppose. This represents a significant shift from the results in May, which showed 61 percent of independents supporting deporting illegal immigrants. Predictably, the vast majority of Democrats, 78 percent, oppose deporting illegal migrants, while just 22 percent support. The all-time high for support in this poll for deporting illegal immigrants came in March, when 41 percent of Democrats supported deportation. However, 59 percent still opposed at the time. Notably, support for deporting illegal immigrants "who are long-time residents, with jobs and no criminal record" has remained lower, with only 38 percent across the board in favor and 62 percent opposing. Nevertheless, the survey also found that a majority, 55 percent, believe that the majority of illegal immigrants being deported have criminal records, but 45 percent do not believe that. Seventy-eight percent of Republicans say the administration is mostly deporting illegal immigrants with criminal records, but 59 percent of independents and 87 percent of Democrats believe they are mostly deporting illegal immigrants who have no criminal records. The survey was taken July 7-16, 2025. The Trump administration has long maintained that the vast majority of deportees are criminals illegal immigrants who either have convictions or pending charges. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has also repeated this point as it frequently shares some the recent arrests, featuring illegal immigrants with criminal histories including homicide, rape, willful cruelty to a child, first-degree rape and first-degree sex offense on child, meth trafficking, and much more. In a July 9 press release detailing the criminal histories of illegal aliens arrested as part of ICE raids in Minneapolis, DHS explained that "70% of ICE arrests are of criminal illegal aliens with convictions or pending charges.” "Additionally, many illegal aliens categorized as ‘non-criminals’ are actually terrorists, human rights abusers, gang members and more—they just don’t have a rap sheet in the U.S.," DHS said, adding, "This deceptive ‘non-criminal’ categorization is devoid of reality and misleads the American public.” This survey coincides with the recent Harvard-Harris poll, which found a majority backing the idea of deporting criminal illegal aliens.

Wall Street Journal [7/28/2025 7:00 AM, Sabrina Siddiqui, 646K] reports a majority of Americans remain supportive of President Trump’s goal of cracking down on illegal immigration—but they say his approach has gone too far, according to a new Wall Street Journal poll. The poll found just over half of voters approve of Trump’s handling of illegal immigration, a centerpiece of his agenda, and that 62% of respondents favor deporting people who came to the country illegally. But the Trump administration’s mechanisms and levers for doing so are proving unpopular. Specifically, two steps under Trump’s mass-deportation push were opposed by 58% of voters. The first is detaining and deporting people believed to be in the U.S. illegally without them seeing a judge or getting a hearing. The second is deporting immigrants to prisons in other countries, such as El Salvador and South Sudan, where they have no personal connections. Under Trump’s watch, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has also stepped up aggressive arrest tactics that have caught public attention, including making masked arrests, smashing in car windows and detaining people at court hearings. Just over one-third of respondents said the Trump administration is mostly deporting immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally and have criminal records, compared with 62% who say the government is simply deporting as many people as possible regardless of whether they have criminal records. A slim majority of Americans hold an unfavorable view of ICE, while 45% hold a favorable view of the agency. The Wall Street Journal poll of 1,500 registered voters was conducted July 16-20. Respondents were reached on landline phone and cellphone, with some respondents contacted by text and invited to take the survey online. The margin of error for the full sample is plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

New York Post [7/28/2025 12:48 PM, Josh Christenson, 49956K] reports that President Trump’s immigration policies remain broadly popular with Americans, though a majority now oppose efforts to deport migrants to nations other than their own or without court hearings, a new poll shows. The Wall Street Journal survey released Monday found that 58% of US registered voters don’t support the administration’s so-called "third country" removals to prisons. The same percentage of voters also disapprove of deportations occurring without a US immigration hearing or an appearance before a judge, the poll found. Still, 62% back Trump’s larger push to remove migrants who entered the US illegally, it said. "President Trump was elected based on his promise to close the border and deport criminal illegal aliens," White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement about the survey. "Just over six months into his administration, the border is the most secure it’s ever been in history and deportations are ramping up — it’s no surprise that Americans overwhelmingly approve of the President’s successful efforts. "And despite lies from the fake news, every single illegal alien receives due process prior to deportation," she said. "The Trump Administration will continue carrying out the largest mass deportation operation in history, and communicating our wins directly to the American people so they don’t have to sift through the mainstream media lies about our efforts."

FOX News [7/28/2025 6:39 PM, Stepheny Price and Bill Melugin, 46878K] reports that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers arrested a Jamaican national for allegedly attempting to purchase a firearm illegally while employed as a reserve police officer in Old Orchard Beach. According to ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) in Boston, Jon Luke Evans was taken into custody with assistance from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) after his firearm purchase attempt raised concerns tied to his immigration status on July 25 in Biddeford. Federal authorities say Evans legally entered the United States through Miami International Airport on Sept. 24, 2023, under a visa that required his departure by Oct. 1, 2023. He failed to leave as required and has remained in the country unlawfully since. During the investigation, Evans reportedly claimed he was seeking to purchase the firearm for use in his role with the Old Orchard Beach Police Department. ICE officials are now questioning how an individual without lawful immigration status was hired by a local police agency and possibly issued a department-issued weapon. "This case raises serious concerns," said Patricia H. Hyde, acting field office director for ERO Boston. "We will continue working to ensure that individuals who violate immigration laws and pose potential threats to public safety are held accountable."

New York Times [7/28/2025 5:01 AM, David Goodman, 138952K] reports the rituals start early in Wells, a popular tourist destination on the southern coast of Maine. At 6:30 on a recent morning, a gaggle of dog walkers on Wells Beach strolled vigorously behind their canines as a blanket of fog lifted off the ocean. At 7 a.m., a line of bleary-eyed customers was already snaking out the door at Congdon’s Doughnuts, the town’s 70-year-old doughnut shop. Around 8 o’clock, yet another ritual, new this year, began as a small group of protesters gathered in front of the Wells police department, waving signs at cars on Route 1, Maine’s coastal artery. Wells recently became the only town in Maine whose police department agreed to a collaboration with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, and the protesters’ objections to the partnership were clear. “No ICE in our community,” read a cardboard sign held by a resident, Daria Cullen. “Fight ignorance, not immigrants,” read another. Many drivers honked and waved approvingly. A smaller number of drivers seemed to feel otherwise, flipping the finger at the protesters. One Wells resident, Jim Loring, was walking past and shook his head. He confessed ignorance about the agreement with ICE, but said that the police “are supposed to be cooperating with ICE. I mean, that’s protecting the citizens of this town. Everyone should be cooperating with ICE, not fighting with them.” The protests, which began in April, have become a weekly event in Wells, which relies on foreign workers to staff its hotels, restaurants and other businesses. Police leaders, in turn, are now taking a cautious approach and have yet to participate in ICE enforcement actions — but that hasn’t quieted the furor or the concerns about how Wells, and Maine broadly, will be seen by tourists and foreign workers. Six months into Donald Trump’s presidency, national politics have crashed into this small New England resort town like a rogue wave. Wells, along with many U.S. tourist areas, is in the tightening grip of President Trump’s immigration crackdown. Nationally, one-third of workers in hospitality and tourism are immigrants. When ICE arrested about 40 immigrants on Martha’s Vineyard in May, it forced some local businesses to temporarily close. Maine, too, is feeling pressure. Last year the state’s work force included 4,375 workers on temporary H-2B nonagricultural visas and 3,382 J-1 student visas, according to The Maine Monitor, an investigative news organization. Businesses around the state also rely on seasonal employees — who work as hotel housekeepers, restaurant cooks, dishwashers and in other essential roles — to return year after year. Some 5,800 undocumented workers fill other jobs in the state, including home care and farming, according to the American Immigration Council.

Breitbart [7/28/2025 12:05 PM, John Binder, 3077K] reports an illegal alien released into the United States by former President Joe Biden’s administration is now charged with attempting to stab Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents as well as other federal detainees. On Thursday, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced federal charges against Bass Ndiaye, an illegal alien from Senegal, for allegedly assaulting an ICE agent and other detainees with a deadly weapon. On July 17, ICE agents arrested Ndiaye and took him to an immigration processing center in New York City, New York. The following day, while awaiting processing, Ndiaye allegedly grabbed a pair of scissors and tried to stab an ICE agent. With the scissors, Ndiaye also allegedly tried to stab other immigration detainees. ICE agents stepped in and grabbed the scissors, saving the other detainees from being wounded. "ICE arrested Bass Ndiaye, an illegal alien from Senegal, who attempted to stab law enforcement officers and more than a dozen other detainees," the Department of Homeland Security’s Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement: This criminal illegal alien who was released into the country under President Biden will face justice for his violent crimes. Our ICE law enforcement is facing an 830% increase in assaults against them. Secretary Noem stands with the brave men and women of law enforcement as they risk their lives to remove criminal illegal aliens and protect Americans. [Emphasis added]. In October 2023, Ndiaye was arrested by Border Patrol agents at the United States-Mexico border and subsequently released into the U.S. interior under former DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s leadership. For the alleged assault, Ndiaye faces up to 20 years in federal prison.

Breitbart [7/28/2025 2:46 PM, John Binder, 3077K] reports a transgender illegal alien who is biologically male but presents as a woman appeared in court late last week on child rape charges in the sanctuary city of New York City, New York. Nicol Suarez, a 30-year-old illegal alien from Colombia, was in New York City criminal court on charges that he allegedly raped a 14-year-old boy in the bathroom of a bodega near Thomas Jefferson Park in East Harlem in February. The judge in the case set a pre-trial hearing for September before Suarez was ushered into a holding cell and sent back to Rikers Island, where he remains on a quarter of a million dollar bond. As Breitbart News reported at the time, Suarez allegedly stalked the young boy in the bodega and followed behind him as he entered the bathroom. Following the alleged sexual assault, the boy went running to tell nearby witnesses, and police were called. Suarez was arrested the following day and charged with first-degree rape. At the time of the alleged sexual assault, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had a detainer on Suarez, and he was wanted in New Jersey as well as in Manhattan on other charges. Police sources at the time told local media that Suarez had been protected by New York City’s sanctuary policy that shields illegal aliens from federal immigration enforcement.

CBS New York [7/28/2025 7:00 AM, Zinnia Maldonado, 51860K] reports protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New York City are being planned following the release of video showing conditions inside the facility at Manhattan’s federal immigration building. Organizers said they plan to protest twice on Monday, first at noon outside ICE detention centers, immigration courts and federal buildings, like Federal Plaza, before another round of protests in the evening. Last week, the New York Immigration Coalition provided video showing what looks like the inside of an ICE processing center at 26 Federal Plaza. Members of Congress have been trying to access the area for weeks after hearing complaints alleging detained immigrants have been held there for days in deplorable conditions. ICE has maintained that the facility is not a detention center and is only used for temporary processing. Organizers of the protests, which are planned in New York and other major U.S. cities, stressed they do not want any violence during the demonstrations. Monday’s rallies are also being planned as Mayor Eric Adams seeks changes to the city’s sanctuary laws amid a Justice Department lawsuit filed last week aiming to strike them down. Adams said he supports the sanctuary laws protecting undocumented immigrants, but he believes modifications are needed to go after people who commit crimes. The mayor is facing stiff resistance from the City Council though, as members seek to stop him from expanding the role of federal immigration agents in the city. Federal officials have been particularly upset that the City Council went to court to stop an executive order issued by Adams to allow ICE agents work on Rikers Island, where they could identify undocumented immigrants who may be in the country illegally and have have committed crimes. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

NewsNation [7/28/2025 11:58 AM, Jeff Arnold, 5801K] reports that four migrants who have previously been convicted of crimes involving the exploitation of children have been arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in New Jersey this month as part of an ongoing targeted enforcement operation, the agency announced. ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations and Enforcement and Removal Operations-Newark units have arrested Gerson Jose Saenz Umana, 27, of El Salvador; Javier Garcia Nicolasa, 42, of Mexico; Juan Villatoro Valle, 45, of El Salvador; and Reyes Peralta-Salazar, 38, of Mexico. Garcia Nicolasa was convicted of endangering sexual conduct with a child by a caretaker on Dec. 1, 2023, ICE said in a news release. He was sentenced to three years in prison. Officials said he entered the U.S. illegally at an unknown time and location. Saenz Umana is a registered sex offender who officials said has a sealed criminal history that involves the exploitation of a child. Villatoro Valle was convicted of sexual assault involving a victim under the age of 13 in 2019, as well as aggravated criminal sexual assault and endangering with sexual conduct, ICE said. He was sentenced to five years in prison. He reportedly entered the U.S. without inspection sometime before 2000 and was granted Temporary Protected Status in 2006, but his application for permanent residency was denied in 2009. Peralta-Salazar was arrested in 2023 and was later convicted of criminal sexual conduct and endangering sexual conduct with a child, and was sentenced to six months in jail, federal officials said. The operation, dubbed Operation Apex Predator, is a Department of Homeland Security Cyber Crimes Center Child Exploitation Investigations Unit initiative aimed at proactively targeting convicted criminal sex offenders in the United States. All four migrants were required to be registered as sex offenders in New Jersey and are now being held in ICE custody pending court hearings.

NewsNation [7/28/2025 12:18 PM, Jeff Arnold, 5801K] reports that a man who’s lived in suburban Chicago for 30 years and owns a tree-cutting business has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for nearly six months, despite his lawyer stating he has no criminal record. Abel Orozco, 47, was arrested by ICE in late January as he was driving back to his home from picking up tamales for his family. Orosco, who, according to his attorney, the government has conceded has no criminal record, was apprehended by federal officers, who were searching for Orozco’s oldest son, also an immigrant with an order for removal, who shares the same name. Orozco arrived in the U.S. in the late 1990s under a petition that gave him the right to work and live legally in the United States. He was given an order of removal in 2003 after going to visit his father after he suffered a stroke in Mexico. His lawyer, Mark Fleming, says his client is part of a collection of undocumented migrants considered "collateral arrests" facing deportation under the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. ICE did not have a warrant at the time of the encounter, Fleming said. Orozco is in ICE custody in Kentucky, where he now faces expedited deportation. When asked for comment surrounding the details of Orozco’s January arrest, an ICE spokesperson told NewsNation that ICE arrested Orozco, "an illegally present resident of Mexico," on Jan. 26. "He is in ICE custody pending immigration proceedings."

Reuters [7/28/2025 9:09 AM, Tim Reid, 51390K] reports that, under a broiling Alabama sky a frustrated Robby Robertson, a construction site superintendent, surveys an 84,000 square foot, mostly built recreation center close to the Gulf coast port city of Mobile. The site is eerily quiet. Last month, the $20 million project was on track for on-time completion by November 1. Now Robertson says he is looking at a three-week delay after about half of his workers - scared by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid on a job site in Florida 230 miles (370 kilometers) away - have stayed away. Immigration raids on building sites - part of an expanding crackdown by Donald Trump on work sites across the country - are causing major disruptions to the construction industry, according to Reuters interviews. "The threats and the reporting of raids have caused workers to not show up at job sites, just whole crews for fear of a raid," said Jim Tobin, the CEO of the National Association of Home Builders, which has 140,000 members. While immigration enforcement agents have stepped up their raids on other work sites in recent weeks, detaining farmworkers, restaurant staff, meat packers, and day laborers, the construction industry is especially vulnerable to disruptions in the labor supply, according to Reuters interviews and government data. Reuters interviewed 14 people in construction - CEOs, trade association officials and site supervisors - who said the raids are causing project delays and cost overruns and exacerbating existent shortages of skilled labor. They said it was too early to quantify the scale of the damage in terms of lost labor and revenues. Some of the people Reuters spoke to were in Texas and Florida, where there have been several raids. ICE has also been active in California, Illinois, Washington, Louisiana and Massachusetts, construction association officials said. Of the roughly 11 million people in the U.S. illegally, about 1.4 million work in construction, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank - more than any other industry. Construction spending hit a record high in May 2024 but then slid 3.5% through this past May, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, an annual drop rarely seen outside of recessions. The deportation push is beginning to affect public opinion. Trump’s public approval rating on immigration fell to 41% in a Reuters/Ipsos poll this month, the lowest since his return to the White House. Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman at the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said such raids helped combat dangerous activities such as labor trafficking and exploitation. "Worksite enforcement remains a cornerstone of our efforts to protect public safety, national security, and economic stability," she said.

FOX News [7/28/2025 8:09 AM, Staff, 46878K] reports former Acting ICE Director Jonathan Fahey reacts to news of an illegal migrant facing deportation after killing two teens in a drunk driving incident and the need to hold sanctuary cities accountable.

(B) The National News Desk [7/28/2025 10:16 AM, Staff] reports that an illegal alien with a history of drunk driving has been charged with causing a deadly car crash. Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin says the teens she killed would still be alive if not for sanctuary city policies. Honduran national Noelia Saray Martinez-Avila faces multiple charges for the crash that killed 18-year-old Hallie Helgeson and 19-year-old Brady Heiling. Martinez-Avila is currently behind bars in Wisconsin with an ICE arrest detainer. Martinez-Avila was previously convicted of drunk driving in 2020 but not deported.

FOX News [7/28/2025 5:10 PM, Staff, 46878K] reports that I.C.E. deputy director Madison Sheahan ties sanctuary city policies with a fatal drunk driving incident in Wisconsin on ‘The Will Cain Show.’ [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Breitbart [7/28/2025 1:18 PM, Amy Furr, 3077K] reports community members in Dane County, Wisconsin, are mourning the loss of two teenagers killed in a car crash involving an illegal alien from Honduras. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Sunday announced an arrest detainer had been lodged against a criminal dllegal alien identified as Noelia Saray Martinez-Avila. The suspect is accused of driving while intoxicated on July 20 and causing the wreck that killed 18-year-old Hallie Helgeson. The other victim, 19-year-old Brady Heiling, died on Friday from injuries he suffered during the crash. In a statement regarding the case, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the deaths happened in a sanctuary jurisdiction: Hallie Helgeson and Brady Heiling had their whole lives ahead of them — and they would still be alive today if it weren’t for Noelia Saray Martinez-Avila — a criminal illegal alien from Honduras. Martinez-Avila recklessly drove the wrong way on a highway while intoxicated and killed these two teens. ICE has lodged an arrest detainer to remove this public safety threat from the U.S. Unfortunately, this sanctuary jurisdiction has a history of not honoring ICE arrest detainers often leading to the release of murderers and other heinous criminals. Under Secretary Noem, these precious victims will not be forgotten, and we will fight for justice. Martinez-Avila has a history of drunk driving. First responders who arrived at the scene found open beer cans in the suspect’s Chevy Suburban; law enforcement claimed they smelled alcohol on her, and she also failed a field sobriety test, per Breitbart News. "At the time of the crash, Martinez had a blood-alcohol level of 0.208% — more than double the legal limit of 0.08%," the article said. The report also noted, "At the time of the crash, Martinez was supposed to have a device in her vehicle that prevented her from starting her car if she had been drinking. Additionally, her license had been revoked before the crash.” In a social media post on Monday, DHS shared photos of the victims and said, "How many more innocent Americans must die because sanctuary politicians prioritize criminal illegal aliens over American citizens?". The recent DHS announcement said Wisconsin law enforcement charged Martinez-Avila with two counts of felony vehicular homicide and impaired driving, while Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lodged the arrest detainer for her arrest and removal from the United States. News of the teens’ tragic deaths comes as President Donald Trump’s administration works aggressively to find and arrest criminal illegal aliens who spread out across the country under former President Joe Biden’s (D) open borders policies. In March, three illegal migrants were accused in a deadly drunk driving crash in Arlington, Texas, that resulted in the death of a 22-year-old man, Breitbart News reported at the time. On June 27, the outlet reported that "The House on Thursday passed a bill that would make it legal to deport non-citizens who are convicted of driving drunk.”

New York Post [7/28/2025 7:19 AM, Greg Wehner, 49956K] reports an illegal alien from Honduras faces deportation after allegedly driving while intoxicated and crashing, killing two teenagers in Dane County, Wisconsin. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has lodged a detainer against 30-year-old Noelia Saray Martinez-Avila, who was charged in the deaths of 18-year-old Hallie Helgeson and 19-year-old Brady Heiling. "Hallie Helgeson and Brady Heiling had their whole lives ahead of them—and they would still be alive today if it weren’t for Noelia Saray Martinez-Avila—a criminal illegal alien from Honduras," Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said. "Martinez-Avila recklessly drove the wrong way on a highway while intoxicated and killed these two teens. "ICE has lodged an arrest detainer to remove this public safety threat from the U.S.," she continued. "Unfortunately, this sanctuary jurisdiction has a history of not honoring ICE arrest detainers often leading to the release of murderers and other heinous criminals. Under Secretary Noem, these precious victims will not be forgotten, and we will fight for justice.” Martinez-Avila faces charges of homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle, homicide by the use of a vehicle, operating a vehicle while intoxicated and causing injury, knowingly operating a vehicle with a revoked license while causing death, knowingly operating a vehicle with a revoked license while causing bodily harm, failing to install an ignition interlock device and violating a court order, among other charges. The West Central Tribune reported that on July 20, Martinez-Avila was allegedly driving a Chevrolet Suburban the wrong way on I-90 when she collided with a Volkswagen Tiguan with Helgeson and Heiling inside. Helgeson, of Montevideo, died a short time after the crash, while Heiling was airlifted to an area hospital and treated for his injuries. Heiling ultimately died of his injuries. The publication also reported that Martinez-Avila was convicted of drunk driving in 2020 and was required to have an interlock device installed in her vehicle, preventing the vehicle from starting if she had been drinking. The Wisconsin State Journal of Madison reported that the interlock device was not installed at the time of the crash last week. Court records show that bond was set in the amount of $250,000 per case, and should Martinez-Avila post bond, she can only be released once pretrial services can outfit her with any necessary equipment. Martinez-Avila is also not permitted to consume or possess alcohol, operate a vehicle, or have contact with family members of the victims, among other things if released. DHS said ICE lodged a detainer for Martinez-Avila’s arrest and removal from the U.S., noting that Dane County has historically not honored ICE detainers because of sanctuary jurisdiction policies.

New York Post [7/28/2025 5:40 PM, Jennie Taer, 49956K] reports a heartbreaking video shows the final moments of a Wisconsin teen’s life that was allegedly taken by an illegal immigrant drunk driver as his family gave their final goodbye before his organs were donated. Tearful family and friends surrounded the lifeless body of 19-year-old Brady Heiling as doctors wheeled him on a stretcher through a hospital hallway, according to a video posted by his mother, Jen Heiling. Heiling, along with his "love" Hallie Helgeson, 18, tragically died after an illegal immigrant drunk driver hit them while driving the wrong way on an interstate outside Madison, officials said. Honduran national Noelia Saray Martinez-Avila, 30, was drunk and driving her SUV the wrong direction on a highway outside Madison when she allegedly struck a vehicle and killed the two teens on July 20, according to police. Helgeson, who was a passenger in the vehicle, died at the scene, while Heiling, who was behind the wheel, clung to life for five days after he was airlifted from the wreck. He fought through multiple unsuccessful surgeries before succumbing to his injuries. "Hallie Helgeson and Brady Heiling had their whole lives ahead of them—and they would still be alive today if it weren’t for Noelia Saray Martinez-Avila—a criminal illegal alien from Honduras," DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. The devastating crash wasn’t Martinez-Avila’s first time getting in trouble behind the wheel. DHS railed against the sanctuary policies in Dane County, where Madison is located. Martinez-Avila has been charged with two counts of felony vehicular homicide and impaired driving. ICE has since lodged a detainer to take the alleged killer into federal custody and pursue her deportation.

FOX News [7/28/2025 11:46 AM, Pilar Arias, 46878K] reports that more than 200 child sex offenders have been arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the Houston area in the last six months. The 214 illegal immigrants arrested for immigration offenses by ICE "have been charged or convicted of a sex offense involving a minor," according to a media release. The number tops the 211 arrested "during the entire 2024 fiscal year." ICE says the rise in arrests "is a direct result of a whole-of-government approach implemented under the current administration that led to the establishment of multiagency targeting teams in each area of responsibility." "Bringing together the resources and expertise of the entire federal law enforcement community to confront the overwhelming surge of illegal immigration that we saw over the past four years has resulted in the arrest and removal of historic numbers of violent criminal aliens, transnational gang members and child sex offenders," ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Houston acting Field Office Director Paul McBride said in a statement. "While we still have a long way to go to truly get this crisis under control, the strides we have made in just six months to make our local communities safer are substantial, and our officers continue to work tirelessly every day to get the worst of the worst criminal aliens out of Southeast Texas to return our communities to places we can all enjoy," McBride said. Breitbart [7/28/2025 2:18 PM, Bob Price, 3077K] reports that on President Trump’s first day in office, he ordered a whole-of-government approach to rounding up criminal aliens who were released into the United States during the Biden border crisis of the previous four years. Officials report that this multi-agency approach allowed officers and federal agents to "conduct daily enhanced immigration enforcement operations targeting the ‘worst of the worst’ criminal aliens for arrest and removal.” Examples of these arrests include: Jesus Gutierrez Mireles, a 67-year-old, three-time deported criminal alien from Mexico, who was arrested March 28 and has been convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child and driving while intoxicated. ICE removed Gutierrez Mireles to Mexico April 4. Jorge Zebra, a 48-year-old criminal alien from Mexico, who was arrested March 21 and has been convicted of two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a minor and sexual indecency with a minor. ICE removed Zebra to Mexico March 24. Manuel Antonio Castro-Juarez, a 37-year-old, twice-deported criminal alien from El Salvador who was arrested July 18 and has been convicted of sexual assault of a minor and twice for illegal reentry. Castro-Juarez remains in ICE custody pending his third removal to El Salvador. Jose Guadalupe Meza, a 40-year-old, four-time deported criminal alien from Mexico who was arrested June 24 and has been convicted of theft and sexual assault of a child. ICE removed Guadalupe Meza to Mexico June 25. Sergio Rolando Galvan Guerrero, a 45-year-old, three-time deported criminal alien from Mexico who was arrested July 12 and has been convicted of DWI and aggravated sexual assault of a child. ICE removed Galvan Guerrero to Mexico July 14. Earlier this month, Breitbart Texas first reported that ICE officers in the Houston area arrested 1,361 criminal aliens in June. The arrests included 32 child predators, nine murderers, one illegal alien convicted of hijacking an airplane, and 16 cartel or gang members. A few days later, ICE officials in Houston announced the creation of a Homeland Security Task Force to attack organized criminal activity in the Houston area, Breitbart Texas reported. "As transnational criminal organizations, foreign terrorist organizations, drug cartels, foreign gangs and other bad actors continue to evolve and become more sophisticated, it’s vital that we work together as a law enforcement community to find transformative ways to confront emerging threats," said HSI Houston Special Agent in Charge Chad Plantz. "This is especially true in Southeast Texas, where we face a myriad of unique border-related challenges and threats from transnational criminal organizations.”

Reported similarly:
Washington Examiner [7/28/2025 12:06 PM, Anna Giaritelli, 1934K]
Houston Chronicle [7/28/2025 6:15 PM, Julián Aguilar, 1982K]
Univision [7/28/2025 2:44 PM, Staff, 4992K]

Washington Examiner [7/28/2025 11:48 AM, Bethany Blankley, 1934K] reports that Fort Bliss Army Base in El Paso will be housing a 5,000-bed detention facility to support U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation efforts. The Department of Defense announced that it had awarded nearly $232 million to Virginia-based Acquisition Logistics LLC "to establish and operate a 5,000 capacity, single adult, short-term detention facility" for ICE deportation efforts to support a Jan. 29 executive order issued by President Donald Trump. The order declared an invasion at the southwest border and directed federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, to take a series of actions. "Fiscal 2025 operation and maintenance, Army funds in the amount of $231,878,229 were obligated at the time of the award. Army Field Directorate Office, Fort Sam Houston, Texas, is the contracting activity," it states in an announcement listing a series of awarded contracts. An estimated completion date is set for Sept. 30, 2027. The facility would be the largest in the country with a total contract exceeding $1.26 billion, Bloomberg News reported. The facility’s construction is a reversal of Biden administration construction of "soft-sided facilities" (SSFs) to house and process millions of illegal border crossers into the country. Under the Trump administration, as border security efforts were implemented, these facilities were closed and U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Border Patrol officers were returned to the field to perform their statutory duties of border security.

Los Angeles Times [7/28/2025 7:29 PM, Sonja Sharp, 14672K] reports that an appellate court appears poised to side with the federal judge who blocked immigration agents from conducting "roving patrols" and snatching people off the streets of Southern California, likely setting up another Supreme Court showdown. Arguments in the case were held Monday before a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, with the judges at times fiercely questioning the lawyer for the Trump administration about the constitutionality of seemingly indiscriminate sweeps by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. "I’m just trying to understand what would motivate the officers ... to grab such a large number of people so quickly and without marshaling reasonable suspicion to detain," said Judge Ronald M. Gould of Seattle. Earlier this month, a lower court judge issued a temporary restraining order that has all but halted the aggressive operations by masked federal agents, saying they violate the 4th Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. The Justice Department called the block that was ordered by U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong "the first step" in a "wholesale judicial usurpation" of federal authority. "It’s a very serious thing to say that multiple federal government agencies have a policy of violating the Constitution," Deputy Assistant Atty. Gen. Yaakov M. Roth argued Monday. "We don’t think that happened, and we don’t think it’s fair we were hit with this sweeping injunction on an unfair and incomplete record."

Telemundo 48 [7/28/2025 9:55 AM, Alicia Victoria Lozano, 57K] reports that since May, immigration officials have been repeatedly seen outside a homeless shelter in Hollywood, prompting staff to escort residents from war-torn countries to work, run errands, and attend court appearances. An executive at the shelter, which serves people between the ages of 18 and 24, said she saw two Venezuelan men handcuffed and arrested by ICE agents after returning from work. "There was no conversation," said employee Lailanie, who asked not to use her last name for fear of retaliation from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). She added that about half a dozen immigration agents approached the residents "and immediately put their hands behind their backs." Homeless shelters appear to be another target of the Trump administration’s ongoing immigration crackdown, which has resulted in nearly 3,000 arrests in the Los Angeles area. They now join Home Depots, 7-Elevens, and cannabis farms as locations where the federal government is carrying out its mass deportation campaign. In addition to the Hollywood shelter, service providers have reported seeing immigration agents at shelters in North Hollywood and San Diego, according to local media. Immigration officials did not respond to an email asking if homeless shelters are being targeted as part of the enforcement measures.

FOX News [7/28/2025 10:54 AM, Diana Stancy, 46878K] reports that California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass could have used their efforts to safeguard illegal immigrants to rebuild areas of Los Angeles that were devastated by wildfires earlier this year, according to White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller. "For the amount of effort Bass and Newscum have put into sheltering criminal illegal aliens they could have fully rebuilt the Palisades by now with time and money to spare," Miller said in a post on X on Sunday. Bass and Newsom attracted the ire of President Donald Trump in January after massive wildfires ravaged Los Angeles in January. Specifically, Trump accused Bass of "gross incompetence" and said Newsom should resign due to his state’s response to the natural disaster. Altogether, Los Angeles suffered roughly $28.0 billion and $53.8 billion in property damage due to the fires, according to the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation’s Institute for Applied Economics. Meanwhile, Trump and the California leaders have continued to spar – particularly after Trump chose to deploy and federalize thousands of National Guard troops along with hundreds of Marines in response to riots in LA that broke out in June, following Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests in the city. In response, Newsom blasted the Trump administration for federalizing the National Guard, labeling the move an "unmistakable step toward authoritarianism."

NPR [7/28/2025 4:30 PM, Sergio Martínez-Beltrán, 37958K] Audio: HERE reports Carlos Daniel Terán, a 19 year old Venezuelan who was picked up by ICE in Texas and sent to CECOT prison, says he was beaten and abused by guards at the maximum security prison in El Salvador.

ABC7NY [7/28/2025 12:47 PM, Armando Garcia, 3042K] reports that, on Wednesday, more than a dozen children in lime green soccer uniform surrounded Jerce Reyes Barrios, hugging and jumping on their former coach as onlookers cheered. Earlier in the week, hundreds of residents of the Venezuelan town of Machiques de Perija lined the street and cheered as a Venezuelan National Guard truck pulled into town to drop Reyes Barrios off at his home. The crowd threw confetti, jumped up and down, and joyfully roared as he exited the vehicle. The exuberant homecoming was in stark contrast to the welcome he received in March at El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison, where he says he and over 200 other Venezuelan nationals, accused by the Trump administration of being members of the gang Tren de Aragua, were violently ushered into the facility. "Welcome to hell on earth, where you will be condemned and spend the rest of your life, where I will make sure you never eat chicken or meat again," Reyes Barrios recalled one prison guard allegedly telling the men. "That was when I shed my first tear and thought, wow -- my first time being psychologically abused," he told ABC News in an interview Friday, speaking in Spanish from his home in Venezuela, after being released from CECOT in a prisoner swap last week. Reyes Barrios and his fellow detainees were deported from the U.S. when the Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act -- an 18th century wartime authority used to remove noncitizens with little-to-no due process -- by arguing that Tren de Aragua is a "hybrid criminal state" that is invading the United States. An official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement acknowledged shortly afterward that "many" of the men deported on March 15 lacked criminal records in the United States -- but said that "the lack of specific information about each individual" actually "demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile." In March, ABC News reported about Reyes Barrios’ imprisonment after his attorney, Linette Tobin, submitted a sworn declaration and documents in court she said backed up her claim that her client had no criminal record in Venezuela or the United States, was employed as a professional soccer player and youth coach, and was falsely accused of being a gang member because of his tattoo which showed a crown on top of a soccer ball with a rosary and the word "Dios," meaning "God." Reyes Barrios’ family echoed what his attorney said in court filings, and told ABC News that his tattoo was modeled after the Real Madrid soccer team logo. "I got the tattoo because my favorite team is Real Madrid, which has a crown on top of a circle symbolizing the ball, that’s why I got it," Reyes Barrios told ABC News. "For me, soccer is the king of sports so it correlates with the soccer ball with the crown." Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, in a statement to ABC News, said, "DHS intelligence assessments go beyond tattoos, and we are confident in our findings. We aren’t going to share intelligence reports and undermine national security every time a gang member denies he is one. That would be insane."

NPR [7/29/2025 5:00 AM, Ximena Bustillo, 37958K] reports the Trump administration is shifting its tone on how it handles immigrants brought to the U.S. as children under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Also known as DACA, the program was created in 2012 to protect children who arrived in the country illegally prior to 2007 from deportation. In recent months, the administration has tried to strip 525,000 DACA recipients, also known as Dreamers, of benefits, although no regulatory changes have been made to end the program. For example, the Health and Human Services Department said it would make DACA recipients ineligible for the federal healthcare marketplace in June. Then last week, the Education Department said it was looking into five universities that offer financial help for DACA recipients. Also, immigration enforcement officers have arrested and detained DACA recipients throughout the country, which immigrant advocates said weakens protections of this group. "Illegal aliens who claim to be recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) are not automatically protected from deportations," DHS assistant press secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to NPR. "DACA does not confer any form of legal status in this country." McLaughlin added that any DACA recipient may be subject to arrest and deportation for a number of reasons, including if they’ve committed a crime. McLaughlin then urged recipients to self-deport. "We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right legal way," McLaughlin said.

Politico [7/28/2025 10:00 AM, Katelyn Cordero and Maya Kaufman, 2100K] reports health care providers are calling on the Trump administration to reverse changes to immigration policy that have compounded New York’s workforce shortages in long-term care, according to the state Association of Health Care Providers. The association is urging the Department of Homeland Security to roll back the termination of categorical parole programs for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, as well as the partial rollback of temporary protected status or TPS extension and the termination of TPS status for Venezuelans. “The home care sector is already struggling with a workforce shortage, and the removal of potentially tens of thousands of legally authorized workers will only deepen the crisis and put essential services out of reach for those who need them most,” Laura Ehrich, HCP’s vice president of public policy, said in a statement. In a survey conducted among HCP’s membership, licensed home care agencies across the state reported that more than 75 percent of their workforce consists of immigrants who are authorized to work. Nearly half of the agencies that responded to the survey said they have lost staff due to the changes in immigration policy. In addition, more than half of the respondents said they are struggling to fill shifts, and 25 percent said they are having trouble recruiting new staff.

Washington Post [7/29/2025 5:00 AM, Kim Bellware, 32099K] reports a Korean-born researcher and longtime U.S. legal permanent resident has spent the past week detained by immigration officials at the San Francisco International Airport without explanation and has been denied access to an attorney, according to his lawyer. Tae Heung “Will” Kim has lived in the United States since he was 5 and is a green card holder pursuing his PhD at Texas A&M University, where he is researching a vaccine for Lyme disease, said his attorney, Eric Lee. Kim, 40, was detained by immigration officials on July 21 at a secondary screening point after returning from a two-week visit to South Korea for his younger brother’s wedding. The government has not said why it detained him, Lee said, and immigration officials have refused to let Kim speak to an attorney or communicate with his family members directly except for a brief call to his mother on Friday. In 2011, Kim faced a minor marijuana possession charge in Texas, Lee said, but he fulfilled a community service requirement and successfully petitioned for nondisclosure to seal the offense from the public record. Representatives for Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions about whether Kim was detained because of the drug charge.

Roll Call [7/28/2025 12:18 PM, Chris Johnson, 692K] reports that even as the Trump administration pursues a hardline approach to enforcing immigration law, some congressional Republicans acknowledge the need to expand immigration opportunities for workers in specialized sectors such as agriculture. As industries that depend on temporary workers like agriculture and tourism say they need greater latitude to hire immigrant workers to address labor shortages, some GOP lawmakers have sought to qualify their party’s tough-on-immigration approach with an exception to employ noncitizens in those sectors legally. That became apparent last month during the House Appropriations Committee’s markup of the fiscal 2026 Homeland Security spending bill. Republicans adopted an en banc amendment that would expand opportunities for employers to hire immigrants for certain temporary work, including the agricultural, tourism and circus industries. The amendment, adopted by voice vote, was jointly introduced by Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., with bipartisan support from Reps. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., and Henry Cuellar, D-Texas. Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., chair of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, acknowledged the need to hire immigrants in some sectors as a component of immigration reform.

Bloomberg [7/28/2025 10:19 AM, Andrew Kreighbaum, 1707K] reports the agency that administers immigration benefits is making plans to carry out President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship, even though its currently blocked by the courts. US Citizenship and Immigration Services released July 25 an implementation plan for the executive order defining which classes of immigrant children would be affected. The order would limit automatic birthright citizenship, which was guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, to children with at least one parent who is a citizen or lawful permanent resident. It would exclude children whose parents are unlawfully present or in the US on a temporary status. Immigrants whose presence is lawful but temporary would include parolees, Temporary Protected Status holders, and deferred action recipients, USCIS said in the plan posted to its website. However, asylees, conditional permanent residents, and refugees wouldn’t fall under the lawful but temporary category, the agency determined. The Department of Homeland Security and USCIS “will propose appropriate action to ensure that birth in the United States to individuals who possess lawful immigration status does not result in any negative immigration consequence for the child,” the plan said. The executive order was blocked nationwide for the third time in less than a month last week. US District Court for the District of Massachusetts Judge Leo Sorokin said the government hadn’t showed it fully grasped “the potentially sweeping and disruptive effects of any misstep in implementation.”

CNN [7/28/2025 5:55 PM, Devan Cole, John Fritze, Priscilla Alvarez, 21433K] reports after months of avoiding details about a divisive plan to end birthright citizenship, President Donald Trump’s administration is rolling out a series of new documents that offer a stark glimpse into how it would implement an executive order that upends the century-old understanding about the benefits of being born in the United States. The trove of documents from half a dozen federal agencies in recent days are a direct result of a blockbuster Supreme Court decision last month that allowed the administration to develop plans for ending birthright citizenship – even though the effort has once again been placed on hold. Under those guidance documents, parents of newborns – including US citizens – might be required to jump through additional hoops to verify their own immigration status to obtain a passport or Social Security number for their children. Among the documents made public in recent days is one from the State Department that explains how officials would be required to “request original proof of parental citizenship or immigration status” to proceed with processing a passport application. “This information will be necessary to determine if those applying for a passport are U.S. citizens,” the three-page document reads. The Social Security Administration issued similar guidance as well. Other guidance documents from the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the Department of Agriculture lay out how those agencies would go about verifying the citizenship of children for various social services. The agencies appear to be leaning on a four-page document issued by the Department of Homeland Security’s US Citizenship and Immigration Services, which says it’s meant to “address legal questions relevant to the implementation” of Trump’s order. That memo mostly contains definitions, including ones on who would be covered by the policy and who would be exempted.

Breitbart [7/28/2025 7:40 PM, John Binder, 3077K] reports that President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship for the United States-born children of illegal aliens would be in effect if not for federal judges. Immediately after taking office, Trump signed an executive order ending birthright citizenship for the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens, often referred to as "anchor babies." Annually, about 250,000 anchor babies are born in the U.S. every year, anchoring their illegal alien parents in the country. Trump’s order was supposed to take effect at the start of this week and would have if not for the decisions of two federal judges. Judge Leo Sorokin, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts and appointed by former President Barack Obama, ruled that a prior nationwide injunction blocking Trump’s order can stand following a Supreme Court decision that greatly limited such injunctions. Likewise, earlier this month, Judge Joseph LaPlante, of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire and appointed by former President George W. Bush, granted a class-wide preliminary injunction to illegal aliens who have sued the Trump administration over the order. Similarly, judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit — known for its left-wing judicial approach — ruled last week that Trump’s order is unconstitutional and blocked it from taking effect.

CNN [7/28/2025 6:00 AM, Nicquel Terry Ellis and Eva McKend, 21433K] reports that, at eight months pregnant, 28-year-old Haitian immigrant Titi is terrified of being deported to her native country. Titi, who asked to be identified only by a pseudonym out of fear of being targeted by immigration authorities, came to the United States with her younger sister in 2024 after fleeing widespread gang violence in Haiti that made even routine activities, such as walking to a supermarket, dangerous. The sisters entered the US using the CBP One app — a system launched in 2020 designed primarily for commercial truck drivers and other industry users and expanded in 2023 to allow asylum seekers to schedule appointments at the southern border before entering the country. In November 2024, Titi and her sister applied for additional relief under Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which has allowed Haitian immigrants to live and work in the US since a massive earthquake struck Haiti in 2010. Titi said they are still awaiting a decision. President Donald Trump’s administration has since revoked the legal status of migrants who entered the country through CBP One, The Associated Press reported in April. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has sought to terminate TPS for Haitians on August 3, with an effective date of September 2. "This decision restores integrity in our immigration system and ensures that Temporary Protected Status is actually temporary," a DHS spokesperson said in June. "The environmental situation in Haiti has improved enough that it is safe for Haitian citizens to return home.” The Trump administration’s efforts to end TPS for Haitian immigrants have left Titi and hundreds of thousands of others worried they may be forced to return to a country that isn’t safe. "There is no safety and security in Haiti right now," Titi told CNN in her native Creole through a translator. "Instead, I would say that the situation has gotten worse since I left.” Earlier this month, a federal judge in Brooklyn blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to rescind former President Joe Biden’s 18-month extension of Haiti’s TPS designation, which is set to end on February 3, 2026. The federal judge ruled Noem "does not have statutory or inherent authority to partially vacate a country’s TPS designation.” The legal fight over TPS comes as the Trump administration intensifies its crackdown on undocumented immigrants, conducting mass deportations and Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids across the country, including in farming fields and courthouses. The administration has also moved to restrict other protections. CNN reported last month that Trump planned to dismiss asylum claims for hundreds of thousands of immigrants, making them deportable. The Justice Department has also called for the denaturalization of legal immigrants who commit violent crimes or "pose a potential danger to national security.” Haitian immigrant advocates welcomed the judge’s ruling blocking the early end to TPS, but say they expect the administration to appeal. "We are not out of the woods," said Guerline Jozef, executive director of the nonprofit Haitian Bridge Alliance. "We are not comfortable because we know of that possibility.”

The AP [7/28/2025 4:00 PM, Staff] reports two Customs and Border Protection officers pleaded guilty this month to allowing vehicles filled with illegal drugs to enter the U.S. from Mexico, federal prosecutors said Monday. The pair texted "a secret emoji-based code" to let Mexican traffickers know which inspection lanes they were manning at the Tecate and Otay Mesa border crossings, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement. Prosecutors said when the drug-laden vehicles arrived, the officers would wave them through. Officers Jesse Clark Garcia, 37, and Diego Bonillo, 30, each pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including conspiracy to import controlled substances such as cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin, the statement says. As part of his plea deal, Bonillo admitted that he allowed at least 165 pounds (75 kilograms) of fentanyl to enter the country, prosecutors said. Garcia’s sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 26, and Bonillo will be sentenced Nov. 7. They could each face a maximum sentence of life in prison, prosecutors said. The San Diego Union Tribune [7/28/2025 5:16 PM, Staff, 1611K] reports Diego Bonillo, 30, pleaded guilty to importing fentanyl, methamphetamine and heroin, as well as conspiring to import drugs, just as he was set to go to trial for letting drivers pass through the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in drug-loaded vehicles. Bonillo’s plea agreement states that as part of his role in the scheme, Bonillo "worked with a Mexican-based drug trafficking organization." Bonillo’s plea comes a few weeks after another San Diego-based CBP Officer, Jesse Clark Garcia, also pleaded guilty to multiple related charges. The U.S. Attorney’s Office said both men exchanged secretive, coded messages with members of the drug-trafficking organization in order to let them know what times they were working and which lanes they were assigned to. Prosecutors said the payments the officers received as part of the drug trafficking scheme allowed them to live well above their means. Both men are slated to be sentenced later this year.

CBS News [7/28/2025 9:06 PM, Cristian Benavides, 51860K] reports video of an 18-year-old U.S. citizen being violently arrested in Florida by immigration agents back in May has drawn heavy scrutiny, with advocates saying the expansion of state and local law enforcement’s role in illegal immigrant crackdowns contributed to the incident. Border Patrol and the Florida Highway Patrol were conducting immigration enforcement on May 2 when they detained Kenny Laynez, a high school senior who was on his way to work as a landscaper with two other co-workers and his mother, who was driving. Video Laynez recorded of the arrest shows an officer telling him, a U.S. citizen who was born and raised in the country, "You got no rights here. You’re an amigo, brother." "It hurts me, hearing them saying that I have no rights here because I look like, um, you know, Hispanic, I’m Hispanic," Laynez told CBS News. The car was pulled over for having too many people sitting in the front seat. Two passengers were undocumented, according to Laynez, and officers are seen on the video using a Taser. The teens’ two co-workers were both detained, and Laynez says he has been unable to contact them. "We’re not resisting. We’re not committing any crime to, you know, run away," Laynez said, recalling the arrest. Laynez’s phone continued recording after he was detained, capturing an exchange in which an officer tells another, "They’re starting to resist more. We’re gonna end up shooting some of them." Another officer replies, "Just remember, you can smell that too with a $30,000 bonus." Florida Highway Patrol did not comment. U.S. Customs and Border Protection told CBS News in a statement that the individuals "resisted arrest" and said immigration agents are facing a surge in assaults while doing their job. The statement made no mention that a U.S. citizen had been detained. The video comes as Florida is set to deputize more than 1,800 additional law enforcement officers to conduct immigration operations as part of a statewide crackdown. "Laws are just, you know, they’re no longer being respected. They’re no longer being upheld," said Mariana Blanco, director at the Guatemala Maya Center, an advocacy group that opposes Florida’s new crackdown. "Deputizing these agents so quickly, it is going to bring severe consequences."

ABC News [7/29/2025 3:09 AM, Jon Haworth, 31733K] reports U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized 77 pounds of cocaine worth more than $1 million at a port of entry in Texas, officials said. Officers at Hidalgo Port of Entry in Texas referred a vehicle, a 2020 Renault Oroch, for a secondary inspection on Saturday, according to a CBP statement on Monday. "A canine inspection resulted in an alert and a nonintrusive imaging system scan revealed anomalies within the vehicle," officials said. "Upon closer physical examination, CBP officers discovered 30 packages containing a total of 34.90 kilograms (76.94 lbs.) of alleged cocaine hidden within the vehicle.” Authorities said the narcotics had an estimated street value of $1,027,316. "This substantial cocaine seizure reflects the strong dedication of our officers to safeguarding the border, as well as their skillful use of experience and technology," Port Director Carlos Rodriguez said. The narcotics and the vehicle were both seized, and Homeland Security Investigations special agents initiated a criminal investigation.

Reuters [7/28/2025 5:30 PM, David Shepardson, 51390K] reports groups representing major U.S. airlines, travel companies and airports on Monday urged the Senate to reject a bill that would limit the ability of the Transportation Security Administration to use facial recognition software at security checkpoints. The Senate Commerce Committee is set on Wednesday to consider bipartisan legislation to protect Americans’ ability to opt out of TSA facial recognition screenings at airports and prevent abuse of passenger data. Airlines for America, which represents American Airlines (AAL.O), United Airlines (UAL.O), Delta Air Lines (DAL.N), Southwest Airlines (LUV.N), and others, along with U.S. Travel and two airport groups, opposed the bill in a letter seen by Reuters saying it could "increase wait times considerably by slowing down identity verification at every airport security checkpoint." The bill would restrict TSA’s current authority to use biometrics and facial recognition technology. TSA would be required to provide passengers with the option to have their identity verified without use of facial recognition and prohibit TSA from subjecting travelers choosing not having their faces scanned to discriminatory treatment or less favorable screening conditions. The airlines also said it could obstruct innovation in the aviation system like automated e-gates and TSA PreCheck Touchless ID and "create an overwhelming and chaotic environment at every airport security check."

Washington Times [7/28/2025 1:22 PM, Lindsey McPherson, 2106K] reports that the leaders of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee want to overhaul the Federal Emergency Management Agency and streamline federal aid to states and individuals impacted by natural disasters. They recently introduced a bill, the Fixing Emergency Management for Americans Act, that would redesignate FEMA as a Cabinet-level agency that reports directly to the president and make it easier for disaster victims to apply for and receive federal assistance. The legislation would implement a faster, project-based grant system to give state and local governments money for rebuilding in advance, rather than making them pay the upfront costs and submit for reimbursement. Individuals would be able to apply for FEMA assistance with a single form and could qualify for more housing assistance under changes in the bill. President Trump has flirted with eliminating FEMA and said, at a minimum, the federal agency’s role in disaster response should be reduced to give states more power. House Transportation Chairman Sam Graves, Missouri Republican, and ranking member Rick Larsen, Washington Democrat, teamed up on the bill, along with committee members Daniel Webster, Florida Republican, and Greg Stanton, Arizona Democrat. “The purpose of the FEMA Act is to reform FEMA based on the real-life experiences of people in the country and what members of Congress are hearing from them,” Mr. Larsen said in an interview. “No one on the committee has expressed any interest at all in eliminating FEMA.”

Washington Post [7/28/2025 11:33 AM, Matthew Cappucci, 32099K] reports that a derecho — a destructive thunderstorm squall line with hurricane-force winds — may hit the northern Plains and Upper Midwest on Monday. The National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center says part of that region is at a Level 4 out of 5 risk of severe weather, and the day started with potent storms. Wind gusts of 76 and 75 mph were reported in Billings and Dunn counties in North Dakota, respectively, by 9 a.m. local time, marking what may be the start of an intensifying squall line set to race across the northern United States. High-resolution weather models suggest a mix of rotating supercell storms and the maturing derecho, posing dual threats of significant tornadoes and strong straight-line winds. Residents in the Upper Midwest and northern Plains should prepare for a storm: Charge devices in case of power outages, and discuss severe weather plans with families. “Review your severe weather safety procedures for the possibility of dangerous weather today,” the Storm Prediction Center wrote. “Stay tuned to NOAA Weather Radio, weather.gov, or other media for watches and warnings.” The severe weather is part of a larger “ring of fire” pattern gripping much of the central United States. A heat dome, or ridge of high pressure, is baking the Mississippi Valley with hot, humid air. That makes for extreme instability, or thunderstorm fuel. The same heat dome is pushing the jet stream north into Canada and the Upper Midwest. That means thunderstorms can feed off the humidity and tap into jet-stream winds. The result: powerful thunderstorms with exceptionally strong gusts. For a storm complex to be classified as a derecho, it must travel a long distance. According to the National Weather Service, the criterion is a damage swath of 240 miles. Per the American Meteorological Society, however, that threshold is 400 miles.

Houston Chronicle [7/28/2025 9:51 AM, Jarrod Wardwell, 1982K] reports that the Texas Legislature’s special session will journey west to Kerrville this week, sending lawmakers to the seat of the most devastated county of the July 4 floods. The two special committees weighing the legislative response to one of the deadliest flooding events in state history are expected to travel to the Hill Country this week and allow local residents to testify in Kerrville Thursday, the Chronicle previously reported. Their visit from Austin would come during the second week of the legislature’s special session, which kicked off last Monday and will last until Aug. 19. Two people were still missing and 108 people were confirmed dead as of Monday morning in Kerr County as a result of the early-morning July 4 floods. The statewide death toll stood at 136. The July 4 floods are one of the major subjects of the session, alongside a THC ban and a congressional redistricting plan. Gov. Greg Abbott has asked lawmakers to consider flooding-related legislation under four categories — flood warning systems, flood emergency communications, relief funding and disaster preparedness and recovery. So far during the special session, Texas’ emergency management chief has said Texas needed better coordination between state and local authorities during the July 4 flooding, and lawmakers have blasted Kerr County’s river authority for cutting property taxes instead of modernizing its flood warning system.

Houston Chronicle [7/28/2025 6:03 PM, Keri Blakinger, Neena Satija, 1982K] reports weeks after a July 4 flash flood devastated Hill Country communities along the Guadalupe River, a new trove of texts and emails is finally beginning to paint a clearer picture of how top leaders in one city handled the disaster. Provided by Kerrville officials in response to a series of public records requests, the communications also hint at the city’s apparent frustration with the response from Kerr County, where floodwaters had already swamped Camp Mystic more than an hour before the National Weather Service warned of a "large and deadly flood wave" headed downstream toward Kerrville.

AP [7/28/2025 4:12 PM, Staff, 24051K] reports that President Donald Trump has approved a federal disaster declaration for New Mexico after flash floods tore through a mountain village that had not yet recovered from a deadly flood that killed three people and damaged hundreds of homes three weeks prior. The declaration allows Lincoln County residents to apply for several forms of Federal Emergency Management Agency aid, including home repair assistance, lodging reimbursement and medical coverage for injuries or illnesses caused by the disaster. Severe storms last Wednesday brought flooding and landslides to an already damaged Ruidoso. At least five people who were trapped by the rushing water had to be rescued last Thursday. The southern New Mexico community and its surrounding towns have been reeling this summer, with afternoon thunderstorms bringing more rain than the mountainsides can handle. Past wildfires have stripped the hills of trees and vegetation, leaving the Ruidoso area vulnerable to repeated flooding.

AP [7/28/2025 4:50 PM, Brittany Lyte, Honolulu Civil Beat, 56000K] reports nearly two years after the devastating Maui wildfires, the county’s only food bank is better equipped to feed people at risk of hunger on the Valley Isle, Molokaʻi and Lānaʻi even as the need expands from fire survivors to include a growing number of middle-income families. That’s thanks to an outpouring of disaster relief that boosted the Maui Food Bank’s revenues to $77.6 million in fiscal year 2024, an eightfold increase from the year before the Aug. 8, 2023, fires that killed 102 people and left more than 12,000 homeless and struggling to obtain basic necessities. Roughly $65 million of that revenue is donations for wildfire recovery. The agency knows the windfall is likely temporary; it expects to retain only about 10% of the new donors that have poured money into its coffers from around the world. Anticipating this funding cliff, the nonprofit is holding onto a large chunk of funds as it makes plans to build a 35,000-square-foot home base more than twice the combined size of the three warehouses it currently operates in Kahului, Wailuku and Lahaina. It took many federal and state disaster relief agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, five days to turn up after the fires, Miles said.

FOX News [7/28/2025 5:01 PM, Morgan Phillips, 46878K] reports the vehicle specifically designed for ballistic protection, dubbed "Golf Force One," seemingly made its public debut during a round of golf between President Donald Trump and his son, Eric, at the Trump golf course in Turnberry, Scotland, over the weekend. The White House confirmed "Golf Force One" is "part of the presidential fleet of specialty vehicles," but did not share any further details. It comes 10 months after an assassination attempt on Trump while he was playing golf at his Florida course. According to the General Services Administration, a Polaris UTV can be outfitted by Chicago company Scaletta Armor with an "add-on armor kit to Polaris XP 1000 Ranger UTV with protection scalable to mission." The kit costs around $190,000. During the golf outing, Trump was seen cruising around in a regular golf cart, with the armored vehicle following a fleet of carts carrying Secret Service agents. The president is known to enjoy driving his own cart, but the UTV was likely on hand in case of an emergency requiring additional protection in such a wide-open space.

NewsMax [7/28/2025 2:33 PM, Sam Barron, 4622K] reports that the Secret Service is investigating after an agent tried to smuggle his wife onto a support plane accompanying President Donald Trump on his trip to Scotland, a reporter for RealClearPolitics said. The agent, based in Dallas, is a new trainee, Susan Crabtree wrote on social media. The agent had been written up multiple times for misconduct at the D.C. area’s Rowley Training Center, Crabtree said. The agent flew his wife to Maryland, and she received the official Secret Service briefing at the hotel and rode the bus to the distinguished visitor lounge at Joint Base Andrews before she was discovered and told to leave, five Secret Service sources told Crabtree. The agent "can wash out if held to proper standards, according to two sources in the Secret Service community," Crabtree wrote. In a statement, the Secret Service said it was investigating. "The U.S. Secret Service is conducting a personnel investigation after an employee attempted to invite his spouse — a member of the United States Air Force — aboard a mission support flight," the Secret Service said. "The aircraft, operated by the U.S. Air Force, was being used by the Secret Service to transport personnel and equipment. Prior to the overseas departure, the employee was advised by supervisors that such action was prohibited, and the spouse was subsequently prevented from taking the flight. No Secret Service protectees were aboard and there was no impact to our overseas protective operations."

Blaze [7/28/2025 9:30 AM, Staff, 1805K] reports that, over four years after January 6, new evidence is still being uncovered — and a new House Oversight Committee has been assembled to investigate it. "As of yesterday morning, we’re already looking at never-before-seen video," BlazeTV contributor Steve Baker tells BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales on "Sara Gonzales Unfiltered." "It’s another long-range street camera. It’s not one of the United States Capitol Police CCTV cameras.” "And from long range at about 8:17 in the morning, we’ve counted eight Secret Service members combing that area. In other words, they’re doing their morning sweep because Kamala Harris," he says, "was going to be in the building.” "So they were doing their preliminary security sweep, and this is something we had not seen before," he continues. "It’s another situation where either they were really bad at their job, because if there’s 10 of them, we can see in a camera frame in the exact area where the DNC pipe bomb was placed and they didn’t find it, then it probably wasn’t there, right?". Baker explains that this means the pipe bomb was "placed later.” "And that’s the reason why the FBI has never given us an unedited version of the alleged pipe bomber on the evening of January 5," he says. "Why not just give us the 24-hour view from the DNC camera?". "I can now say this," he continues. "With the formation of the new committee, we may actually get the DNC’s cameras. So the answer to your question is we may solve this. Doesn’t mean that we’ll know who the pipe bomber is or was.” "And it also doesn’t mean that we’re going to find a conspiracy just from that video.”

NewsMax [7/28/2025 11:29 AM, Nicole Weatherholtz, 4622K] reports that a man who allegedly said he wanted to send a message to President Donald Trump and claimed he had a bomb onboard an EasyJet flight to Scotland has been charged, according to The Scottish Sun. The outlet reported that the 41-year-old suspect was charged on Monday after being arrested the day before. Scottish authorities took the man into custody around 8:20 a.m. Sunday after the plane was forced to make an emergency landing at Glasgow International Airport. According to the Sun, the incident occurred the day before Trump was expected to meet with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the president’s Turnberry golf resort in Ayrshire. "We believe the incident to be contained and that nobody else was involved," a spokesperson for Police Scotland told the outlet. "We are aware of videos circulating online, and these are being assessed by counter terrorism officers.” Video reportedly filmed during the flight from London Luton Airport and obtained by Glasgow Live showed the man standing in the aircraft’s center aisle shouting, "I’m going to bomb the plane. Death to America, death to Trump." Seconds later, a man tackled the suspect to the ground while another man jumped up to help restrain him and said, "Don’t move." In footage obtained by the Sun, the man says, "I want to send a message to Donald Trump" when being questioned by other passengers about his behavior.

New York Post [7/28/2025 6:07 PM, Nicole Rosenthal, 49956K] reports the busy season is just ramping up for the US Coast Guard’s Air Station Atlantic City crew, which patrols the skies and conducts search-and-rescue operations from the Long Island Sound to the Chesapeake Bay, crew members told The Post in an exclusive interview Monday. He said the colder spring months staved off droves of recreational boaters until after Memorial Day weekend — then all heck broke loose. It’s not uncommon for training crews to be diverted to rescue missions while in the air, either.

The New York Times [7/28/2025 6:38 PM, Johnny Diaz, Aimee Ortiz and Michael Levenson, 138952K] reports two children who were participating in a summer sailing program were killed on Monday when a barge hit the sailboat they were in with three other children and a camp counselor, throwing them into the water off Miami Beach, the authorities said. The children were participating in a sailing camp that is run by the Miami Youth Sailing Foundation, according to the Miami Yacht Club. Divers and rescue boats from several agencies responded and pulled all six people from the water, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said. A 7-year-old girl and a 13-year-old girl were taken to the Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, where they died, according to Petty Officer Third Class Nicholas Strasburg, a Coast Guard spokesman. Two other children, an 8-year-old girl and an 11-year-old girl, were brought to the hospital in critical condition, he said. A fifth child was evaluated on the scene but did not go to the hospital, Lt. Pete Sanchez, a spokesman for the Miami Department of Fire-Rescue, said in an interview. In a statement later on Monday, the U.S. Coast Guard identified that victim as a 12-year-old girl. An adult woman who was working as a camp counselor on the boat was in stable condition and did not go to the hospital, Lieutenant Sanchez said. “She was obviously very shaken up about what happened,” he said. In its statement, the Coast Guard identified the adult victim as a 19-year-old woman. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said it was investigating the accident, along with the Coast Guard. On Monday afternoon, the Coast Guard said the sailboat remained submerged under the barge. ABC News [7/28/2025 5:50 PM, Meredith Deliso, 31733K] reports that the sailboat capsized in Biscayne Bay, between Monument Island and Hibiscus Island, according to the Miami Beach Police Department. All six people on the sailboat -- an adult and five children -- were recovered from the water and transported to a local hospital for treatment, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which is leading the investigation into the accident. Two people were pronounced dead at the hospital and one is "currently unresponsive," the U.S. Coast Guard in Miami said. It did not release further details, including ages, on the victims. A counselor and children between the ages of 8 and 12 were on the sailboat, authorities said. The Miami Yacht Club confirmed the incident involved members of its youth sailing program. The two-vessel collision prompted a large emergency response involving multiple law enforcement agencies. The incident remains under investigation.

Reported similarly:
AP [7/28/2025 6:43 PM, Jesse Bedayn and David Fischer]
CNN [7/28/2025 5:21 PM, Meridith Edwards, Shawn Nottingham, 875K]
FOX News [7/28/2025 2:10 PM, Pilar Arias and Greg Wehner, 46878K]
(B) NBC News Daily [7/28/2025 3:05 PM, Staff]

FOX News [7/28/2025 10:20 AM, Greg Norman, 46878K] reports that the FBI is investigating a death onboard the Carnival Dream cruise ship. A spokesperson for the FBI’s Houston Office told Fox News Digital that an incident happened around Wednesday, July 23, on board the ship. At the time, the Dream was in the area of Belize City during a 6-day Western Caribbean voyage. It returned to Galveston, Texas, on Saturday. "An FBI maritime liaison agent, based out of the Texas City resident agency, is coordinating with the U.S. Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection, and the cruise line regarding this incident," the spokesperson added, stating that they could not provide more information because of "the ongoing nature of the investigation." A Carnival spokesperson confirmed to Fox News Digital on Monday that a death had occurred, noting that "It is standard practice for the FBI to review deaths that occur on cruise ships.” "This routine protocol ensures transparency. It does not automatically imply suspicious circumstances, and the facts of this matter do not suggest any such activity. We extend our heartfelt sympathy to our guest’s family and loved ones in this difficult time," the spokesperson added. The FBI spokesperson also said "the FBI is the primary federal agency authorized to investigate potential crimes on the high seas." [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Reported similarly:
USA Today [7/28/2025 5:35 PM, Nathan Diller, 75552K]

FOX News [7/28/2025 8:09 AM, Stephen Sorace, 46878K] reports three people aboard a small airplane were killed over the weekend when the aircraft crashed in the Pacific Ocean off the central California coast, authorities said. Emergency crews responded just before 11 p.m. Saturday to reports of a twin-engine Beechcraft carrying three people that went down about 300 yards off Point Pinos in Monterey County, the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) said. The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office Coroner Unit identified the occupants as Steve Eugene Clatterbuck, 60, of Salinas, James Vincent, 36, of Monterey, and Jamie Lee Tabscott, 44, of Monterey. The Beechcraft B-95-B55 aircraft had taken off from the San Carlos airport at 10:11 p.m. and was last seen at 10:36 p.m. near Monterey, according to flight tracking data from FlightAware.com. A witness told AIO Filmz that he heard the plane circling at a low altitude for about 30 seconds before hearing a "thump." Video footage from the scene shows debris from the aircraft scattered along the shoreline. Coast Guard boat and helicopter crews, local law enforcement and fire agencies launched a search for the victims. The operation lasted for a combined 13 hours, covering 346 miles of trackline over an area of approximately 100 square miles, USCG said. A fire boat crew recovered the first body just after 3 a.m. Sunday. Divers found the two other victims inside the fuselage of the aircraft between 6:30 a.m. and 9:10 a.m. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the crash. The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office said the victims’ families have asked for privacy during this time. "The family and friends of the deceased have expressed that they wish to extend their gratitude for the outpouring of support from the community," the sheriff’s office said.

Reported similarly:
AP [7/28/2025 8:23 AM, Staff, 1982K]

CBS News [7/28/2025 6:22 PM, Megan Cerullo, 51860K] reports that a previously disclosed hack affecting Tea, a women-only dating advice app, was more extensive than previously thought, the company said Monday. Tea’s investigation of the incident found that app users’ direct messages had been breached, along with some of their photos. "Out of an abundance of caution, we have taken the affected system offline," Tea said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch. The app, which has become one of Apple’s most downloaded free apps, was compromised in a cyberattack that exposed members’ personal information, including selfies, Tea said Friday. The hackers accessed a data storage system containing information that members had uploaded prior to February 2024, the company said. An additional 59,000 images and direct messages were also accessed without authorization, according to Tea. Tea lets women share information about their dates and run background checks on potential matches, among other things. Ted Miracco, CEO at mobile security maker Approov, urged users to exhibit caution in sharing personal information on widely downloaded apps. "A lot of people presume that if an app is available through Apple or Google, that it’s safe. That’s the first mistake consumers make," he told CBS MoneyWatch. Miracco also said Tea lacked adequate security protections.

CyberScoop [7/28/2025 3:25 AM, Ryan Triplette] reports news of two major Microsoft security events in as many weeks should concern every federal agency, not just because of the breaches themselves, but because of what they reveal about how the company does business. First, ProPublica uncovered that Microsoft allowed Chinese engineers to work on sensitive U.S. military cloud projects under the supervision of underqualified subcontractors. Then came a global cyberattack exploiting a critical flaw in Microsoft SharePoint, breaching U.S. agencies, universities, and energy firms. These aren’t isolated incidents. They’re symptoms of a business model built around restrictive and anticompetitive software licensing practices. Time and again, Microsoft’s security failures turn into federal growth opportunities. After cyberattacks in 2021, Microsoft promised the Biden administration $150 million in free cybersecurity upgrades. What wasn’t said upfront? These freebies locked agencies into Microsoft tools, making it costly and complex to switch. Once agencies were locked in, Microsoft raised prices. This wasn’t charity or goodwill on Microsoft’s behalf: It was a calculated move to crowd out competitors, win long-term contracts, and deepen federal dependence on Microsoft’s ecosystem. Microsoft’s largest customer — the U.S. government — needs to wake up to this threat. When customers license Microsoft software, they aren’t just buying tools — they’re buying into a system where exit is difficult, choice is limited, and security is too often an exposure. The question isn’t whether Microsoft will respond to its latest failures. The company’s decades-long playbook — blaming the government for not doing more, then offering free upgrades post-breach only to raise prices and deepen lock-in — suggests they will deflect with a “nothing to see here” approach while capitalizing on vulnerabilities. The real question is whether the government will continue to accept a model that turns licensing restrictions into national dependence and vulnerabilities into profit, and repeatedly exposes our nation’s most critical information to those who wish to harm us.

CyberScoop [7/28/2025 10:22 AM, Matt Kapko] reports the FBI released a trove of research on The Com last week, warning that the sprawling cybercriminal network of minors and young adults is growing rapidly and splintering into three primary subsets described by officials as Hacker Com, In Real Life Com and Extortion Com. The warnings lay out how The Com’s thousands of members, typically between 11 and 25 years old, pose a rising threat, especially to youth online, the FBI said. Criminal acts committed by these multiple, interconnected networks include swatting, extortion and sextortion of minors, production and distribution of child sexual abuse material, violent crime and various other cybercrimes, the bureau said. “The motivations behind the criminal activity vary, but often fall within one of the following: financial gain, retaliation, ideology, sexual gratification and notoriety,” the FBI said in a public service announcement. Crimes attributed to members of The Com have grown increasingly complex, with perpetrators going to great lengths to mask identities, hide financial transactions and launder money. The Com generally targets young and impressionable people for recruitment on gaming sites and social media platforms to indoctrinate them into their ideology, officials said.

AP [7/28/2025 7:17 AM, David Klepper, 56000K] reports the phone rings. It’s the secretary of state calling. Or is it? For Washington insiders, seeing and hearing is no longer believing, thanks to a spate of recent incidents involving deepfakes impersonating top officials in President Donald Trump’s administration. Digital fakes are coming for corporate America, too, as criminal gangs and hackers associated with adversaries including North Korea use synthetic video and audio to impersonate CEOs and low-level job candidates to gain access to critical systems or business secrets. Thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, creating realistic deepfakes is easier than ever, causing security problems for governments, businesses and private individuals and making trust the most valuable currency of the digital age. Responding to the challenge will require laws, better digital literacy and technical solutions that fight AI with more AI. “As humans, we are remarkably susceptible to deception,” said Vijay Balasubramaniyan, CEO and founder of the tech firm Pindrop Security. But he believes solutions to the challenge of deepfakes may be within reach: “We are going to fight back.” This summer, someone used AI to create a deepfake of Secretary of State Marco Rubio in an attempt to reach out to foreign ministers, a U.S. senator and a governor over text, voice mail and the Signal messaging app. In May someone impersonated Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles. Another phony Rubio had popped up in a deepfake earlier this year, saying he wanted to cut off Ukraine’s access to Elon Musk’s Starlink internet service. Ukraine’s government later rebutted the false claim. The national security implications are huge: People who think they’re chatting with Rubio or Wiles, for instance, might discuss sensitive information about diplomatic negotiations or military strategy. “You’re either trying to extract sensitive secrets or competitive information or you’re going after access, to an email server or other sensitive network,” Kinny Chan, CEO of the cybersecurity firm QiD, said of the possible motivations. Synthetic media can also aim to alter behavior. Last year, Democratic voters in New Hampshire received a robocall urging them not to vote in the state’s upcoming primary. The voice on the call sounded suspiciously like then-President Joe Biden but was actually created using AI. Their ability to deceive makes AI deepfakes a potent weapon for foreign actors. Both Russia and China have used disinformation and propaganda directed at Americans as a way of undermining trust in democratic alliances and institutions. Steven Kramer, the political consultant who admitted sending the fake Biden robocalls, said he wanted to send a message of the dangers deepfakes pose to the American political system. Kramer was acquitted last month of charges of voter suppression and impersonating a candidate. “I did what I did for $500,” Kramer said. “Can you imagine what would happen if the Chinese government decided to do this?”

Reuters [7/28/2025 9:53 AM, Dmitry Antonov, Filipp Lebedev and Gleb Stolyarov, 51390K] reports Russian national flag carrier Aeroflot was forced to cancel dozens of flights on Monday, disrupting travel across the world’s biggest country, as two pro-Ukraine hacking groups claimed to have inflicted a crippling cyberattack. The Kremlin said the situation was worrying, and lawmakers called it a wake-up call for Russia. Prosecutors confirmed the disruption was caused by a hack and opened a criminal investigation. Senior lawmaker Anton Gorelkin said Russia was under digital attack. "We must not forget that the war against our country is being waged on all fronts, including the digital one. And I do not rule out that the ‘hacktivists’ who claimed responsibility for the incident are in the service of unfriendly states," Gorelkin said in a statement. Another member of parliament, Anton Nemkin, said investigators must identify not only the attackers but "those who allowed systemic failures in protection". Aeroflot did not say how long the problems would take to resolve, but departure boards at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport turned red as flights were cancelled at a time when many Russians take their holidays. The company’s shares were down by 3.9% by 1300 GMT, underperforming the wider market, which was 1.4% lower. A statement purporting to be from a hacking group called Silent Crow said it had carried out the operation together with Belarusian Cyberpartisans, a self-styled hacktivist group that opposes president Alexander Lukashenko and says it wants to liberate Belarus from dictatorship. "Glory to Ukraine! Long live Belarus!" said the statement in the name of Silent Crow. Belarusian Cyberpartisans said on its website: "We are helping Ukrainians in their fight with the occupier, carrying out a cyber strike on Aeroflot and paralysing the largest airline in Russia." There was no immediate comment from Ukraine. Silent Crow has previously claimed responsibility for attacks this year on a Russian real estate database, a state telecoms company, a large insurance firm, the Moscow government’s IT department and the Russian office of South Korean carmaker KIA. Some of those resulted in big data leaks.

Reported similarly:
New York Times [7/28/2025 2:56 PM, Ivan Nechepurenko, 38952K]

Reuters [7/29/2025 4:28 AM, Lananh Nguyen and Kanishka Singh, 51390K] reports a gunman armed with an assault-style rifle killed four people inside a Manhattan skyscraper that houses the headquarters of the NFL and offices of several major financial firms and then shot himself dead, New York City officials said on Monday. One of the four victims slain in the gun violence was a 36-year-old New York Police Department officer who immigrated to the U.S. from Bangladesh. Mayor Eric Adams described the officer, who had been on the force for about 3 1/2 years, as a "true blue" hero. Authorities offered few details about the three other victims killed by the suspect - two men and a woman. A third male was gravely wounded by the gunfire and was "fighting for his life" in a nearby hospital, the mayor said. New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the gunman, identified as Shane Tamura, 27-year-old Las Vegas resident with a history of mental illness, had driven cross-country to New York in recent days. The gunman was believed to have acted alone, and investigators had yet to determine a possible motive for the shooting, Tisch told reporters at a late-night news briefing. "Pure evil came to the heart of our city and struck innocent people and one of our police officers who were protecting those people," Patrick Hendry, president of the Police Benevolent Association, said at the press conference. The slain policeman, Didarul Islam, a father of two whose wife is pregnant with a third child, was working at the time as part of an NYPD program that allows its uniformed patrol officers to be assigned as security detail in commercial establishments. The shooting spree in the evening rush hour began in the lobby of the Park Avenue tower in Midtown Manhattan, then shifted to the upper-story offices of a management company as the suspect took the elevator to the 33rd floor. The bloodshed came to an end when the gunman fatally shot himself in the chest, Tisch told reporters. A photo of the suspect that CNN said was shared by police showing a gunman walking into the building carrying a rifle was published by a number of major news media outlets. Preliminary checks of the suspect’s background did not show a significant criminal history, the report added, citing officials. The skyscraper at 345 Park Avenue houses offices of a number of financial institutions, including Blackstone and KPMG, along with the headquarters of the National Football League.

Reported similarly:
FOX News [7/28/2025 7:33 PM, Louis Casiano and Alexis McAdam, 46878K]

CNN [7/29/2025 2:17 AM, Jessie Yeung, 21433K] reports Didarul Islam, a 36-year-old New York Police Department officer, was among four people killed Monday evening in Midtown Manhattan when a gunman stormed the lobby of the sprawling 345 Park Avenue office tower and opened fire. Islam, an immigrant from Bangladesh who New York officials have described as a hero, leaves behind two young sons and his wife – who is pregnant with their third child. NYPD Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch said Islam had been off-duty, but in uniform and working security in the building when he was shot and killed by 27-year-old Shane Devon Tamura. "He was doing the job that we asked him to do," said Tisch at a news conference Monday night. "He put himself in harm’s way, he made the ultimate sacrifice – shot in cold blood, wearing a uniform that stood for the promise that he made to this city. He died as he lived, a hero.” Didarul had served in the NYPD’s 47th precinct in the Bronx for three and a half years, Mayor Eric Adams said at the news conference. He was his father’s only son, said Adams. The mayor met with Islam’s family earlier Monday night and told them "he was a hero and we admire him for putting his life on the line," he said. "Everyone we spoke with stated he was a person of faith and a person that believed in God and believed in living out the life of a godly person," Adams said. "He was saving lives. He was protecting New Yorkers. He embodies what this city is all about. He’s a true-blue New Yorker, not only in a uniform he wore.” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and other police departments from as far away as Los Angeles have posted messages in honor of the fallen officer and expressing condolences to his family. "Police Officer Didarul Islam represented the very best of our department," the NYPD posted on X. "He was protecting New Yorkers from danger when his life was tragically cut short today. We join in prayer during this time of incomprehensible pain. We will forever honor his legacy.” Police say Tamura shot five people, including Islam, before fatally shooting himself in the chest. One person survived and is in critical, but stable condition, authorities said.

Reported similarly:
Reuters [7/29/2025 12:34 AM, Kanishka Singh, 51390K]

FOX News [7/29/2025 2:01 AM, Scott Thompson, 46878K] reports an employee of the NFL was reportedly "seriously injured" in the mass shooting that occurred at 345 Park Avenue in midtown Manhattan, home to the headquarters for the league. The office building, which sits on 52nd Street and Park Avenue, was the site of a tragic mass shooting that left five dead, including one police officer, when a gunman unleashed fire inside before taking his own life. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell sent a message, obtained by Fox News Digital, to all league employees announcing the traumatic event. "As has been widely reported, a gunman committed an unspeakable act of violence in our building at 345 Park Avenue. One of our employees was seriously injured in this attack," the message read. "He is currently in the hospital and in stable condition. NFL staff are at the hospital and we are supporting his family. "We believe that all of our employees are otherwise safe and accounted for, and the building has nearly been cleared.” Goodell added to pay attention to all notices with emergency information, as the situation remained fluid. An NYPD officer killed in the shooting has been identified as 36-year-old Didarul Islam, an immigrant from Bangladesh who left behind two sons and a pregnant wife, according to NYPD. He was one of the two uniformed officers at 345 Park Avenue when the shooting occurred, though he was off-duty on Monday working as security for Rudin Management Company inside the building. "We are deeply grateful to the law enforcement officers who responded to this threat quickly and decisively and to Officer Islam, who gave his life to protect others," Goodell wrote.

New York Times [7/29/2025 2:31 AM, Liam Stack, Joseph Goldstein and Amy Julia Harris, 138952K] reports the gunman who killed four people and then himself inside a Manhattan office building on Monday had arrived in the city just hours before, after driving cross country for days from his home in Nevada, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said on Monday night. Ms. Tisch identified the man as Shane Tamura, 27, and said it was unclear what had motivated him to drive from Las Vegas to unleash mayhem in the heart of Manhattan at the end of the work day. Speaking beside Mayor Eric Adams at a news conference, she said that law enforcement in Nevada had told the police department that Mr. Tamura had “a documented mental health history” but did not elaborate. She said he appeared to have acted alone. “We are still unraveling what took place,” the mayor said. The rampage took place at 345 Park Avenue, a skyscraper blocks from Rockefeller Center and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The workplace mass shooting was particularly shocking in the center of New York City, where such attacks are virtually unheard of. Ms. Tisch said that Mr. Tamura’s car was recorded passing through Colorado on Saturday, then Nebraska and Iowa on Sunday, before he arrived in New York City on Monday afternoon. He drove to Park Avenue, where he double parked his BMW just outside the skyscraper. He then marched inside with an AR-15-style rifle and began to spray the lobby with gunfire, peeking behind a security desk to shoot one of his victims and firing on another who tried to take cover behind a pillar. He then walked to the elevator bank, waited for an elevator to take him upstairs, letting a woman exit the car and walk safely past him before he got on and rode it to the 33rd floor. Once there, he went to the office of Rudin Management, a real estate firm, where he shot someone and then fatally shot himself in the chest. The police department said Mr. Tamura was from Las Vegas. On Monday night, police vehicles blocked the entrances to the gated community where he was believed to have lived, and a street elsewhere in the neighborhood was closed off with police tape and traffic cones. Public records indicate that Mr. Tamura spent at least part of his youth in California. Mason Thomas said he had played high school football with Mr. Tamura in Granada Hills, a neighborhood of Los Angeles. But he said they had lost contact with each other years ago. It was not clear why Mr. Tamura was in New York City or what had motivated him to open fire inside the building, which is home to the offices of several high-powered companies, including the investment giant Blackstone, the National Football League, and the accounting and financial advisory firm KPMG.

NBC News [7/29/2025 2:45 AM, Phil Helsel, Rich Schapiro and Erik Ortiz, 44540K] reports a Nevada man who recently drove across the country to New York and has a mental health history is accused of walking into a Manhattan building with a rifle and opening fire Monday evening, killing four people, police said. Shane Devon Tamura, 27, went into 345 Park Ave. in midtown just after the end of business Monday armed with an M4 rifle and opened fire in the lobby and again on the 33rd floor before he eventually killed himself, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. Authorities have said they are working to determine a motive. "According to our law enforcement partners in Las Vegas, Mr. Tamura has a documented mental health history," Tisch said. "His motives are still under investigation.” Officer Didarul Islam, 36, who was working a security job at the building, was one of the four people killed in the attack. The other victims have not been identified. Tamura has a Las Vegas address, and the BMW he got out of in Manhattan is registered to him in Nevada. Inside the vehicle, investigators found a rifle case with rounds, ammunition magazines and a loaded revolver, Tisch said. Also found was medication prescribed to him, Tisch said. She did not say what kind or what it was for. Tamura’s vehicle was very recently driven across the country, officials said. It went through Colorado on Saturday, then Nebraska and Iowa on Sunday, and it was in Columbia, New Jersey, as recently as 4:24 p.m. Monday, the day of the shooting — and it entered New York City shortly thereafter, Tisch said. Tisch said security video showed the shooter get out of a double-parked black BMW while carrying an M4 rifle. "The building security camera footage shows the shooter enter the lobby, turn right and immediately open fire on an NYPD officer," Tisch said. The gunman then shot a woman taking cover behind a pillar and fired at others before he took an elevator to the 33rd floor, where he opened fire again and killed another person, she said. "We are working to understand why he targeted this particular location," Tisch said. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

New York Post [7/29/2025 1:49 AM, Joe Marino and Kenneth Garger, 49956K] reports the gunman who killed an NYPD officer and three other people in a Midtown office building on Monday evening was carrying a note that offered clues into his possible motive, sources told The Post. Shane Tamura, 27, cited the NFL in the writings, which were found after he turned the gun on himself on the 33rd floor of 345 Park Ave. – a swanky skyscraper that houses the football league’s headquarters. In the note, which was several pages long, Tamura blamed football for his apparent struggle with the neurodegenerative disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), law enforcement sources said. Tamura, who fatally shot himself in the chest, also asked that his brain be studied in the note, according to the sources. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch provided a timeline of events leading up to Monday’s mass shooting: Reports of the shooting at 345 Park Avenue started coming in at around 6:28 p.m. The shooter, Shane Tamura, 27, was seen on surveillance footage getting out of a double parked black BMW between 51st and 52nd Street, with an M4 rifle. He then walks towards the skyscraper, enters the lobby and turns right, where he shot police officer Didarul Islam, 36, dead. Tamura then gunned down a woman cowering behind a pillar in the lobby, as he sprayed more bullets and walked toward the elevator bank — where he shot dead a security guard crouching at his desk. One more man reported being shot and injured in the lobby. He was in critical but stable condition. The gunman allowed a woman to walk out of the elevators unharmed, before heading up to the 33rd floor, where building owner Rudin Properties’ offices are located, "and begins to walk the floor, firing as he traveled.” One man was shot and killed on that floor. "He then proceeds down a hallway and shoots himself in the chest," ending his rampage. It’s unclear how long the mayhem lasted. Tisch posted on X at 7:52 p.m.: "the scene has been contained and the lone shooter has been neutralized.” The NFL has offices on floors five through eight of the Park Avenue high-rise, though Tamura wound up taking the elevator up to the 33rd floor, where he turned the gun on himself after the massacre. Tamura, who reportedly had a "documented mental health history," had shot a fifth victim in the lobby of the building who survived the attack, police said. The surviving victim appears to an NFL employee, as the league’s commissioner, Roger Goodell, told staffers in a letter that one of their own had been "seriously injured" in the shooting. Tamura was a security guard at a Las Vegas casino, but back in his high school days in California he was a described as a standout football player. "It looked like the sky was the limit, and then it wasn’t anymore," former classmate Caleb Clarke told NBC News. Tamura graduated from Golden Valley High in 2016. Ahead of his senior year, his coach told the Los Angeles Times that he expected "big things" from the running back and other star players on the team.

The AP [7/28/2025 4:32 PM, Ed White, 56000K] reports a Michigan prosecutor filed a terrorism charge Monday against a man accused of stabbing 11 people at a Walmart store. The charge has been rarely used in the state’s courts since it was adopted more than 20 years ago during the national outrage over 9/11. Grand Traverse County Prosecutor Noelle Moeggenberg said she believes the charge fits because the weekend attack was intended to “put fear in the entire community and to change how maybe we operate on a daily basis.” But proving that could be difficult. Bradford Gille, 42, has a history of mental health problems. A judge signed an order Friday, the day before the attack, telling police to find him and take him to a hospital because he was considered a risk to himself or others. Police said they were unable to find him. Moeggenberg also filed attempted murder charges, one for each Walmart stabbing victim. A not-guilty plea was entered for Gille, and bond was set at $100,000. CBS Chicago [7/28/2025 11:25 AM, Staff, 51860K] reports that according to the Grand Traverse County Sheriff Michael Shea, a 42-year-old man — identified as Bradford James Gille, of Afton, Michigan — used a folding knife with a 3.5-inch blade to stab five men and six women, including one Walmart employee, on Saturday afternoon. The ages of the people injured range from 21 to 84. Law enforcement was notified of the attack around 4:43 p.m., Shea said, and a sheriff’s deputy was at the store around two minutes later. "At the time of the deputy’s arrival, multiple citizens, including one who was armed with a pistol, were confronting the male suspect in the parking lot and preventing him from harming further people and leaving," the sheriff said. "The deputy took the suspect into custody without further incident." Gille is currently held at Grand Traverse County Jail, where he will remain pending formal charges and arraignment, which is expected to be Monday or Tuesday, officials said. Authorities are working to find out the motive behind the attack. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Reported similarly:
CBS News [7/28/2025 9:42 AM, Staff, 51860K] Video: HERE

The Hill [7/28/2025 7:15 AM, Addy Bink, 18649K] reports dramatic video shows the moment a group of bystanders confronted an armed man accused of stabbing 11 people at a Michigan Walmart on Saturday. Grand Traverse County Sheriff Michael Shea confirmed that Bradford Gille of Afton, Michigan, entered the Walmart in Traverse City and randomly stabbed 11 shoppers. A group of bystanders confronted Gille in the parking lot and were able to detain him until authorities arrived, Shea said. Witness Chris O’Brien captured the interaction between Gille and a group of at least three men in the parking lot. In the video, seen below, two men can be heard telling Gille to drop or throw the gun away. They can be seen continuing to walk toward him as he appears to back up. One man appears to be holding a gun while yelling at Gille. Shea confirmed during a Sunday press conference that one of the bystanders was armed with a pistol. Several seconds into the video, the men can be heard yelling at Gille to get on the ground. While difficult to hear in the video, Steven Carter, another witness, told The Associated Press that Gille could be heard responding to the crowd, "I don’t care, I don’t care.” The video then cuts to a man, whom appears to be Gille, standing outside a sheriff deputy’s vehicle in handcuffs. Carter said someone had been able to tackle and subdue the man. According to Shea, Gille was taken into custody without incident. Someone in the background can be heard saying, "there are several people stabbed." Through the rest of the video, several emergency responders can be seen and heard arriving at the scene. The video also appears to show people — first responders and apparent bystanders — tending to injured shoppers. Shea said the 11 victims were both men and women and they ranged in age from 29 to 84 and included one Walmart employee. Munson Medical Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Tom Schermerhorn said at a press conference Sunday that one patient was treated and released; two were in serious condition; and the rest are in fair condition. All were expected to survive. Shea said the "remarkable" efforts of the bystanders likely prevented others from being harmed. "I cannot commend everyone that was involved enough," Shea said at a press conference. "When you stop and look from the time of call to the time of actual custody, the individual was detained within one minute.” The motive behind Saturday’s attack remains unclear. According to Shea, Gille had "prior assaultive incidents as well as controlled substance violations" and said very little as he was arrested. He is expected to be charged with one count of terrorism and 11 counts of assault with intent to murder.

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USA Today [7/28/2025 1:59 PM, Saman Shafiq, 75552K]

FOX News [7/28/2025 11:17 AM, Stephen Sorace, 46878K] reports that an armed bystander was seen on video heroically stopping a knife-wielding man who authorities say stabbed 11 people at a Walmart in Michigan on Saturday. The man, identified by family as Derrick Perry, is seen in the video pointing a firearm at the suspect in the store’s parking lot in Traverse City as he and other bystanders shout "drop the knife!" Perry is a Marine veteran, the New York Post reported, citing his family. "What they did was amazing," Grand Traverse County Sheriff Michael Shea told reporters during a media briefing on Sunday. Perry and the other bystanders ended the suspect’s rampage without firing a shot and held him until authorities arrived to take the man into custody without injury. "First of all, I commend them. It’s not very often that we have citizens that are willing to step up and take action, and I ask that we grant them the privacy that they need right now," the sheriff said. "If they choose to make a public statement, they will. But I would ask that we all just give them a little space and say, attaboy." The suspect, identified as 42-year-old Bradford James Gille, of Afton, Mich., acted alone when he entered the store wielding a folding knife with a 3.5-inch blade, the sheriff said. He faces terrorism charges and 11 charges of assault with intent to murder. The 11 victims, ranging in age from 29 to 84-years-old, were all expected to survive, Munson Healthcare officials said. One patient has been released while five were listed in fair condition, two in good condition, one in serious condition and two others were treated and transferred as of Monday morning. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

AP [7/28/2025 9:11 PM, Michael Casey, 4120K] reports that Matthew Kolakowski was shopping for fishing gear and snacks with his daughter at a Michigan Walmart over the weekend when he heard an employee yelling "he’s got a knife" followed by sounds of screaming. Then he saw a man rushing toward the checkout counter. "All of a sudden I see him pop up and I swear we locked eyes for a minute and I yelled at my daughter, ‘Stay here.’ So I just took off running," Kolakowski said, recalling the moment he decided to confront the man accused of stabbing 11 people at the Traverse City store on Saturday. Bradford Gille was charged Monday with terrorism and 11 counts of attempted murder. Police said they had no apparent motive for the violent attack carried out with a 3 1/2 inch (nearly 9-centimeter) knife. The actions of Kolakowski and some other men drew effusive praise from Grand Traverse County Sheriff Michael Shea. Overnight, the strangers became online celebrities for their heroics as a video showing the confrontation spread swiftly on social media. Kolakowski said that as he followed the man out of the store, he saw him plunge his blade into an older woman outside. Having no weapon himself, Kolakowski grabbed a shopping cart, hoping to knock the man down as he gave chase. Kolakowski, a 39-year-old disabled veteran, was quickly joined by another man with a shopping cart, stopping the man later identified by authorities as Gille. A third man pointed a gun toward the man, repeatedly demanding he drop the knife. He eventually put the knife down and Kolakowski said he jumped on the man, restraining him until police quickly arrived.

AP [7/28/2025 3:11 PM, Juan A. Lozano, 56000K] reports leaders of the county where 19 students and two teachers were killed in the 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, voted Monday to release records related to the massacre, ending a yearslong legal battle over disclosure of the information. Uvalde County commissioners voted 2-1 to release the records and to stop appealing a 2022 lawsuit that a group of media organizations, including The Associated Press, had filed seeking to make the information public. The decision by commissioners came a week after the Uvalde district’s school board voted to release its records related to the deadly rampage, one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history. The group of media organizations had sued both the county and the school district for the release of the records. County commissioners and the school district voted to release the records after a Texas appeals court on July 16 upheld a judge’s ruling that had ordered the information be made public. Both the county and the school district have not said when the records will be released. Family members of the victims had also pushed to make the records public.

San Francisco Chronicle [7/28/2025 2:00 PM, Aidin Vaziri, 4120K] reports that a gunman killed three people and injured three others early Monday morning in a shooting rampage outside the Grand Sierra Resort, one of Reno’s largest hotel-casino complexes, authorities said. The suspected shooter also fired at a resort security guard and Reno police officers, who shot him, authorities said. He was taken to a hospital, where he remained in critical condition Monday afternoon, officials said. His name was not released. A motive for the shooting remained unknown, police said, adding that there was no known relationship between the suspect and the victims. The shooting began around 7:25 a.m. in the resort’s northwest valet area, prompting a swift police response within 2 and a half minutes, Reno Police Chief Kathryn Nance said during a news conference. “The bravery and rapid response by our officers stopped the suspect’s rampage on innocent victims, which definitely saved lives” and prevented additional injuries, Nance said. The Sparks Police Department is leading the investigations into the incident, with assistance from the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office. Sparks Police Chief Chris Crawforth said the gunman walked through a parking lot to the valet area, where he pulled out a handgun and pointed it at a group of victims. The gunman’s gun malfunctioned, but he fixed it and fired multiple times. He struck five victims, one of whom died at the scene, Crawforth said. The four other victims were taken to a hospital, where two of them remained in critical condition Monday afternoon.

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FOX News [7/28/2025 12:46 PM, Stephen Sorace and Louis Casiano, 46878K]

Blaze [7/28/2025 1:45 PM, Joseph MacKinnon, 1805K] reports President Donald Trump acknowledged on Friday that former President Barack Obama is likely to dodge accountability for his role in the Russian collusion hoax on account of the U.S. Supreme Court’s July 1, 2024, immunity for official acts ruling in Trump v. United States. Trump suggested, however, that the high court’s ruling "doesn’t help the people around him at all" — an allusion to those Obama cabalists who hatched, then perpetuated the Russian collusion hoax on the American people. The FBI has, for instance, launched a criminal investigation into ex-CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey for perjury and potentially other crimes related to the Trump-Russia hoax. Former DNI James Clapper indicated he would "lawyer up" after Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard referred damning documents detailing the genesis of the hoax’s manufacture under Obama to the Department of Justice. CIA Director John Ratcliffe hinted Sunday that twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton might also face the music over her apparent hand in what Gabbard has referred to as an alleged "treasonous conspiracy.” Ratcliffe ordered a review in May of the "procedures and analytic tradecraft employed" when drafting the January 2017 intelligence Community Assessment, a document created at Obama’s urging that served as the cornerstone of the Russian collusion hoax and set the stage for arrests, impeachments, and years of politically expedient smears. Late last month, Ratcliffe released the findings of that review, noting that there were "multiple procedural anomalies" in the production of the January 2017 ICA, including "a highly compressed production timeline, stringent compartmentation, and excessive involvement of agency heads.” The memo noted further that the Obama administration sacrificed analytical soundness in the interest of "narrative consistency.” More has since been revealed about the genesis of the hoax thanks in part to Gabbard’s publication of a damning House Intelligence Committee majority staff report. The previously classified House report confirmed that: the ICA was a work of fiction drawn up by the Obama administration with the aim of kneecapping the democratically elected Republican president; credible evidence available in January 2017 contradicted the narrative advanced in the ICA; and that contrary to Brennan’s suggestion in public and sworn testimonies, the Steele dossier — a political opposition research report paid for in part by the Clinton campaign — was included in the ICA. Ratcliffe suggested on Sunday that additional documents link Clinton to the development of the Russian collusion hoax. "Part of what came out last week was about how John Brennan, Clapper, Comey, they all pushed the known-fake Steele dossier into intelligence community assessments and as the basis for Crossfire Hurricane and all that," he told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo. "But what hasn’t come out yet, and what’s going to come out, is the underlying intelligence that I have spent the last few months making recommendations about final declassification — and sent that to the Department of Justice. That will come out in the John Durham report classified annex.” ‘US intelligence intercepted Russian intelligence talking about a Hillary Clinton plan.’.

Axios [7/28/2025 11:41 AM, Marc Caputo, 13599K] reports Ghislaine Maxwell pressed ahead with an appeal to the Supreme Court on Monday, seeking to overturn her conviction on the grounds that she was unlawfully prosecuted for sex trafficking minors with Jeffrey Epstein. The filing by Maxwell, who was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison in 2022, comes just three days after she met with a top Justice Department official tapped to re-examine the Epstein case. The Trump administration has faced weeks of bipartisan backlash after reneging on promises to release all files related to the now-deceased sex trafficker. MAGA activists have suggested that Maxwell, a British former socialite, could be the key to exposing new information about the alleged elite pedophile ring at the heart of Epstein conspiracy theories. Maxwell’s appeal revolves around a highly controversial 2007 plea agreement Epstein negotiated with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Florida. "The United States," the plea agreement stated, "agrees that it will not institute any criminal charges against any potential co-conspirators of Epstein, including but not limited to" four other suspects. Maxwell was not listed as one of those suspects — but her lawyers argue she didn’t need to be. Maxwell’s attorneys, the husband-wife team of Mona and David Oscar Markus contends that a plain reading of the deal protects unnamed co-conspirators as well, since it explicitly says it’s "not limited to" those listed. Markus also argues that language in the deal — promising immunity from "the United States" — means Maxwell couldn’t be prosecuted for Epstein-related crimes anywhere in the country. "The government’s argument, across the board, is essentially an appeal to what it wishes the agreement had said, rather than what it actually says," Mona Markus wrote in the petition. The Justice Department says former U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta, who negotiated the deal, didn’t have authority to bind other federal districts — including the Southern District of New York, where Maxwell was ultimately tried and convicted. Federal appeals courts have split over the key question of whether a plea deal struck by one U.S. Attorney’s Office applies to the entire Justice Department. The Justice Department acknowledged that divide in its own brief, but has urged the Supreme Court to reject Maxwell’s appeal. "The government was not even aware of [Maxwell’s] role in Epstein’s scheme at that time," DOJ argued, calling her "at most, an incidental third-party beneficiary of the agreement."

Breitbart [7/28/2025 9:44 PM, Joshua Klein, 3077K] reports the Trump administration delivered a forceful rejection of international efforts to pressure Israel into accepting Palestinian statehood, with the State Department declaring it "will not participate in this insult" as over 100 countries gathered at the U.N. in New York to push the failed two-state solution. In a blistering statement condemning the French-Saudi co-hosted event, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce pulled no punches in her assessment of the diplomatic gathering. "This week, the UN will serve as host to an unproductive and ill-timed conference on the two-state solution in New York City," Bruce said in a statement. "This is a publicity stunt that comes in the middle of delicate diplomatic efforts to end the conflict.” "Far from promoting peace, the conference will prolong the war, embolden Hamas, and reward its obstruction and undermine real-world efforts to achieve peace," Bruce declared. Bruce continued: "As Secretary Rubio has made clear, this effort is a slap in the face to the victims of October 7th and a reward for terrorism. It keeps hostages trapped in tunnels. The United States will not participate in this insult but will continue to lead real-world efforts to end the fighting and deliver a permanent peace. Our focus remains on serious diplomacy: not stage-managed conferences designed to manufacture the appearance of relevance.” The State Department spokeswoman also addressed Macron’s Palestinian recognition announcement. "President Macron’s announcement about recognizing a Palestinian state was welcomed by Hamas," Bruce said. "This reflects a pattern of counterproductive gestures that only emboldens Hamas, encourages its obstruction of a ceasefire, and greatly undercuts our diplomatic efforts to end the suffering in Gaza, free the hostages, and move the whole Middle East towards a brighter and more prosperous future.” Both the United States and Israel boycotted the Monday conference, which brought together representatives from more than 100 countries at U.N. headquarters in New York. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot opened the conference with a firm declaration that there is "no alternative" to the two-state approach. "Only a political, two-state solution will help respond to the legitimate aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security. There is no alternative," Barrot said. The French position comes days after President Emmanuel Macron announced that France would formally recognize a Palestinian state in September. Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa used his opening remarks to demand immediate international action. "All states have a responsibility to act now," Mustafa said, calling for an international force to help establish Palestinian statehood. Hamas issued a statement praising Macron’s announcement last week, calling France’s planned recognition "a positive step in the right direction towards achieving justice for the Palestinian people and supporting their legitimate right to self-determination and the establishment of their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital over all the occupied lands.” The terrorist organization described Macron’s decision as "a political development that indicates the strengthening of international recognition regarding the justness of the Palestinian issue.”

Reported similarly:
NewsMax [7/28/2025 2:47 PM, Staff, 4622K]

Free Beacon [7/28/2025 1:40 PM, Matthew Xiao, 773K] reports that President Donald Trump warned Monday that the United States would destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment sites again if Tehran tries to restart its nuclear program. "We wiped out [Iran’s] nuclear possibilities," Trump told reporters during a meeting with U.K. prime minister Keir Starmer in Scotland. "They can start again. If they do, we’ll wipe it out faster than you can wave your finger at it." "For a country that just got wiped out, they’ve been sending very bad signals, very nasty signals," Trump added. The United States last month destroyed Iran’s underground nuclear facilities using heavy-duty "bunker-buster" bombs, according to reports. Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission assessed Iran’s Fordow nuclear site as "inoperable" and said the U.S. strike "set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years." A CIA report supported that view, with Director John Ratcliffe saying Iran’s nuclear program is "severely damaged." Iran, which denies seeking to develop a nuclear weapon, has insisted it will not give up uranium enrichment, Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said in a recent Fox News interview. Araghchi also downplayed Iranian chants of "Death to America" and denied any government-linked plots to assassinate Trump. The U.S. government has charged a reputed "Iranian asset" with planning to kill Trump on the behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The case made its way into federal court last month, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

Reuters [7/28/2025 2:58 PM, Staff, 51390K] reports that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy praised U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday for his "expressed determination" in calling for a shortened deadline in making progress for an end to Russia’s war with Ukraine. "Clear stance and expressed determination by @POTUS – right on time, when a lot can change through strength for real peace," Zelenskiy wrote on the X social media platform. "I thank President Trump for his focus on saving lives and stopping this horrible war." In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy again praised Trump’s "particularly significant" statement in the light Russia’s "constant attempts to inflict pain on Ukraine" through air strikes on its cities. Ukraine, he said, saw the imposition of tough sanctions on Russia as a "key element" in ending the war. "Russia pays attention to sanctions, pays attention to such losses," he said. "Ukraine is ready to work productively with the United States, to work with President Trump to end this war with dignity and a secure, lasting peace."

FOX News [7/28/2025 2:39 PM, Brooke Singman, 46878K] reports that U.S. intelligence had credible foreign sources indicating that the FBI would play a role in spreading the salacious Trump-Russia collusion narrative—before the bureau ever launched its controversial Crossfire Hurricane probe, sources familiar with the intel told Fox News Digital. CIA Director John Ratcliffe is expected to declassify the underlying intelligence, including a classified annex, related to former Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe. A source familiar with the contents of the classified annex told Fox News Digital that while it may not have been exactly clear in the moment what the intelligence collection meant, with the benefit of hindsight, it predicted the FBI’s next move "with alarming specificity." "Ultimately, the release of the classified annex will lend more credibility to the assertion that there was a coordinated plan inside the U.S. government to help the Clinton campaign stir up controversy connecting Trump to Russia," the source, who was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters that have not yet been made public, told Fox News Digital. "Mere days after this intelligence was collected, the FBI launched Crossfire Hurricane," the source said. "It’s really hard to see how Brennan, Clapper and Comey are going to be able to explain this away."

Reuters [7/27/2025 10:04 PM, David Lawder and Greta Rosen Fondahn, 51390K] reports that top U.S. and Chinese economic officials met in Stockholm on Monday for more than five hours of talks aimed at resolving longstanding economic disputes at the centre of a trade war between the world’s top two economies, seeking to extend a truce by three months. U.S. Treasury Chief Scott Bessent was part of a U.S. negotiating team that arrived at Rosenbad, the Swedish prime minister’s office in central Stockholm, in the early afternoon. China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng was also seen at the venue on video footage. China is facing an August 12 deadline to reach a durable tariff agreement with President Donald Trump’s administration, after Beijing and Washington reached preliminary deals in May and June to end weeks of escalating tit-for-tat tariffs and a cut-off of rare earth minerals. Negotiators from the two sides were seen exiting the office around 8 p.m. (1800 GMT) and did not stop to speak with reporters. The discussions are expected to resume on Tuesday. Trump touched on the talks during a wide-ranging press conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Scotland. "I’d love to see China open up their country," Trump said. Without an agreement, global supply chains could face renewed turmoil from U.S. duties snapping back to triple-digit levels that would amount to a bilateral trade embargo. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said he did not expect "some kind of enormous breakthrough today" at the talks in Stockholm that he was attending.

Reuters [7/29/2025 5:01 AM, Greta Rosen Fondahn and Maria Martinez, 51390K] reports U.S. and Chinese officials began a second day of talks in Stockholm on Tuesday to resolve longstanding economic disputes and step back from an escalating trade war between the world’s two biggest economies. The meetings may not yield immediate large breakthroughs but the two sides could agree to another 90-day extension of a tariff truce struck in mid-May. It may also pave the way for a potential meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping later in the year, though Trump on Tuesday denied going out of his way to seek one. The delegations met for more than five hours on Monday at Rosenbad, the Swedish prime minister’s office in central Stockholm. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was seen arriving at Rosenbad on Tuesday morning after a separate meeting with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson. China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng also arrived at the venue. Neither side made statements after the first day of talks.

Reuters [7/28/2025 9:47 AM, Patricia Zengerle, 51390K] reports U.S. senators from both major parties plan to introduce bills this week targeting China over its treatment of minority groups, dissidents and Taiwan, emphasizing security and human rights as President Donald Trump focuses on trade with Beijing. The three bills, seen by Reuters ahead of their introduction, have Democratic and Republican sponsors, a departure from the fierce partisanship dividing Washington. Trump’s push to reach economic agreements between the world’s two biggest economies has strong support in Congress, especially from his fellow Republicans, but has prompted some China hawks to worry that the U.S. government is de-emphasizing security issues. "It does appear that President Trump is keen to negotiate some kind of deal with China, and gaps are opening between his approach to China and the approaches of some members of his team, as well as with Congress, which overall has been quite hawkish on China," said Bonnie Glaser, an Asia expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. The desire for a hard line on China is one of the few truly bipartisan sentiments in the perennially divided Congress, even as many lawmakers support Trump’s efforts to rebalance the bilateral trade relationship. "The United States cannot afford to be weak in the face of the People’s Republic of China and its aggression around the world," said Democrat Jeff Merkley of Oregon, a lead sponsor of all three bills. "No matter who is in the White House, America’s values of freedom and human rights must remain at the heart of a clear and principled vision that guides our leadership on the global stage," Merkley said in a statement. White House officials have said that Trump remains fully committed to Asia-Pacific security issues as he pursues his trade agenda and a good personal relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters query about the bills. One bill, co-sponsored by Republican John Cornyn of Texas, would deny entry into the United States of current or former Chinese government officials who were deemed to have engaged in the forced repatriation of members of China’s Uyghur minority. Human rights groups accuse China of widespread abuses of Uyghurs, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority numbering about 10 million in its northwestern region of Xinjiang. Beijing denies any abuses. Another, co-sponsored by Republican John Curtis of Utah, aims to help Taiwan as the island faces increasing pressure from China. It would support countries in Latin America and the Caribbean that maintain official diplomatic relations with Taiwan and would take other steps to deepen coordination with Taipei. China claims the democratically governed island as its own and has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control. Beijing has stepped up military and political pressure against the island in recent years. A third bill, co-sponsored by Republican Dan Sullivan of Alaska, seeks to combat "transnational repression" - efforts by any foreign government to reach beyond its own borders to intimidate, harass or harm dissidents, journalists or activists.

CNN [7/28/2025 11:58 PM, Rebecca Cairns, 875K] reports China has proposed a global action plan to govern artificial intelligence, just days after the United States unveiled its own plan to promote US dominance of the rapidly growing field that’s become a key bargaining chip in trade talks between the economic powerhouses. Chinese Premier Li Qiang unveiled China’s vision for future AI oversight at the World AI Conference (WAIC), an annual gathering in Shanghai of tech titans from more than 40 countries. "Overall, global AI governance is still fragmented. Countries have great differences, particularly in terms of areas such as regulatory concepts, institutional rules," said Li in his speech on Saturday. "We should strengthen coordination to form a global AI governance framework that has broad consensus as soon as possible.” Li’s remarks came just days after the Trump administration unveiled its 28-page AI action plan, which aims to remove "bureaucratic red tape" and establish US dominance in the sector. While Li did not directly refer to the US in his speech, he alluded to the ongoing trade tensions between the two superpowers, which include American restrictions on advanced semiconductor exports — a component vital for powering and training AI, which is currently causing a shortage in China. "Key resources and capabilities are concentrated in a few countries and a few enterprises," said Li in his speech on Saturday. "If we engage in technological monopoly, controls and restrictions, AI will become an exclusive game for a small number of countries and enterprises.” AI chips have become a key bargaining tool between US and China in trade negotiations, which continued this week with a meeting in Stockholm. Before the latest round of talks, both countries appeared to make concessions, with Washington lifting its ban on sales of a key Nvidia AI chip to China, and Beijing suspending its antitrust investigation into American chemical firm DuPont. Speaking from Scotland on Sunday, Trump said the US is "very close to a deal with China," but offered no further details. The current deadline for a deal expires on August 12. China has not been shy about promoting its AI ambitions: with more than 5,000 AI companies, and a core AI industry valued at 600 billion yuan ($84 billion) in April 2025, the nation is all-in on its tech rivalry with the US. This surge is being fueled by enormous government and private sector spending. Between 2013 and 2023, state venture capital firms invested an estimated $209 billion into AI-related businesses, according to research published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private think tank based in Massachusetts, and this year alone, public sector spending on AI is expected to top 400 billion yuan ($56 billion).

Washington Post [7/29/2025 5:06 AM, Michael E. Miller, Lyric Li, and An Rong Xu, 32099K] reports the U.S. military will next year upgrade Palau’s main harbor, usually frequented by dive boats full of tourists heading to emerald lagoons, so that American warships can enter the Pacific island nation’s narrow channels and dock here. The wharf will be expanded and elevated. There will be a new logistics hub with a warehouse, enabling U.S. Navy ships to refuel, reload and rearm. This is all part of a broader effort to boost the U.S. military’s presence in the Western Pacific, allowing for the rapid mobilization of American forces in the event of a conflict involving China. Complicating that plan, however, is a Chinese-owned hotel overlooking Malakal Harbor that U.S. and Palauan officials worry could be used for surveillance. Across Palau, Chinese businesses and developers have leased land near a half-dozen strategic locations where the United States is beefing up efforts to detect and deter China’s growing reach into the region, according to intelligence and security documents and interviews with 20 American, Palauan and Taiwanese officials. A months-long Washington Post investigation found that Chinese businesses have leased land or built properties for tourism developments near the port, the airport, a U.S. coastal surveillance outpost and a U.S. “over the horizon” radar system. (Palauan law doesn’t allow foreigners to buy land, but they can lease it for up to 99 years.) These Chinese leases or buildings potentially provide Beijing with not only a bird’s-eye view of the increasing American footprint in Palau but also opportunities to disrupt U.S. military activities here, the officials said.

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