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 New York Times [6/6/2025 12:38 AM, Karoun Demirjian and Julian E. Barnes, 330K] reports Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, announced on Thursday that the Trump administration was ending a counterterrorism program used to conduct surveillance on air travelers, contending that the program had been exploited to target conservatives while failing to stop any attacks. Known as Quiet Skies, the program was a Transportation Security Administration operation that sought to increase airplane security. It allowed federal marshals to follow U.S. citizens on domestic and certain outbound international flights, if those individuals had previously come into contact with people considered “known or suspected terrorists.” Under the program, people could be followed even if they were not themselves on a terrorism watch list or suspected of any crime. According to Ms. Noem, who made the announcement on social media, the program “failed to stop a SINGLE terrorist attack while costing US taxpayers roughly $200 million a year.” “The program, under the guise of ‘national security,’ was used to target political opponents and benefit political allies of the Biden Administration,” she said, citing what she said were “documents, correspondence, and timelines that clearly highlight the inconsistent application of Quiet Skies.” It is not clear whether the program ever prevented an attack on an airplane, or how many people tracked by the program represented any sort of threat. The Quiet Skies program has documented shortcomings. In 2020, the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security released a report concluding that it lacked sufficient oversight, including measures to ensure that passenger data was managed responsibly. Quiet Skies was established during the Obama administration. More recently, it has attracted the ire of conservatives, who have accused former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. of using it to target political enemies, including Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii who is now the director of national intelligence. In the summer of 2024, while Ms. Gabbard was campaigning for President Trump, the T.S.A. briefly placed her and her husband, Abraham Williams, in the Quiet Skies program. Ms. Gabbard was added because of an event she attended at the Vatican earlier that year organized by a European businessman who, at least at that time, was on an F.B.I. watch list. It was not clear why the businessman was placed on the watch list or whether he was on it by mistake. Ms. Gabbard emerged as a prominent detractor of the program, contending that she had been placed on what she called a “domestic terror watch list” as a result of her criticism of the Biden administration and Vice President Kamala Harris, who replaced Mr. Biden as the Democratic nominee. The New York Post [6/5/2025 9:05 PM, Victor Nava, 49956K] reports “[The Department of Homeland Security] and TSA have uncovered documents, correspondence, and timelines that clearly highlight the inconsistent application of Quiet Skies,” Noem wrote on X. “The program, under the guise of ‘national security,’ was used to target political opponents and benefit political allies of the Biden Administration.” “In addition to conducting our own internal investigation, I am calling for a full and thorough Congressional investigation to uncover further corruption through this program.” DHS cited several examples of what it believes were instances in which the program was politicized. Despite traveling with a “known or suspected terrorist three times,” William Shaheen, the husband of Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), was given “blanket exemptions” from being put on surveillance by former President Joe Biden’s TSA Administrator David Pekoske, DHS discovered. In contrast, “non-politically aligned members,” including former Democratic Hawaii congresswoman and current Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, were ensnared in the program. “Gabbard, and many other Americans, were placed on the Silent Partners’ Quiet Skies list with little to no visibility, awareness, explanation, or oversight,” DHS said in a statement. Gabbard told Fox News host Laura Ingraham last month that she believes her placement on the watchlist was “politically motivated,” and the result of critical comments she made about then-Vice President Kamala Harris. CNN [6/5/2025 3:54 PM, Holmes Lybrand, 21433K] reports Gabbard was quickly removed from the list after going public last year with claims she had been added to a "secret terror watchlist" – saying she was placed on the list for criticizing then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris. US officials told CNN that to have a nominee for a top position — much less the director of national intelligence — placed on a government watchlist of any kind was highly unusual, if not unprecedented. It remains unclear why Gabbard was placed on the list and subsequently removed. The Quiet Skies algorithm looks at travel patterns, foreign connections and other data in a variety of government holdings, and if triggered, leads to additional security screening at the airport by Air Marshals. But it is not associated with the FBI’s terrorist watch list. Security officials from multiple agencies previously told CNN that the program is known inside the government for having far laxer standards for inclusion. The program was only one part of airport security and other screening lists still exist inside of the department. In a press release Thursday, DHS said the program "was used to target political opponents and benefit political allies.” "TSA will continue performing important vetting functions tied to legitimate commercial aviation security threats to both ensure the safety of the American traveler and uphold its statutory obligations," the department said. FOX News [6/5/2025 2:18 PM, Cameron Arcand, 46878K] reports DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement. DHS says that the list of exemptions of people who avoid "security policies" included "foreign royal families, political elites, professional athletes, and favored journalists." "TSA’s critical aviation and security vetting functions will be maintained, and the Trump Administration will return TSA to its true mission of being laser-focused on the safety and security of traveling public. This includes restoring the integrity, privacy, and equal application of the law for all Americans," Noem continued.

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USA Today [6/5/2025 6:24 PM, Karen Dandurant, 75552K] reports a New England lawyer says she’s been marked as a possible terrorist amid a fight between the Homeland Security Department and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., over a TSA watchlist. Immigration attorney Celine Atallah says she is the unnamed suspicious "co-traveler" mentioned in a June 4 DHS press release attacking the senator − but insisted she’s been unfairly tarred. DHS accused Shaheen’s husband, lawyer William "Billy" Shaheen, of having traveled with a "known or suspected terrorist" − and said the senator used her influence to have him removed from a TSA watchlist. Shaheen denied getting her husband pulled from a watch list, as Atallah − a close family friend − blasted DHS for trying to "score political points by smearing innocent people." DHS asserts that the TSA watch list program, "Silent Partners Quiet Skies," was politicized by the Biden administration, leading to the harassment of political opponents like Tulsi Gabbard, the former congresswoman and President Donald Trump’s current director of National Intelligence − while letting political allies like the Shaheens off the hook. The Biden administration "weaponized" the program "against its political foes and to benefit their well-heeled friends," DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in the press release. DHS announced June 5 it was ending the Quiet Skies Program, saying it had "failed to stop a single terrorist attack while costing US taxpayers $200 million a year."

The New York Post [6/5/2025 11:48 AM, Jennie Taer, 49956K] reports that a Venezuelan illegal migrant is on the run after allegedly smashing into a tourist in Nashville and fleeing last month — leaving the badly injured victim in the hospital, authorities says. Tony Gebian Lopez Infante, 32, who already had a deportation order, hit Zach Carach as he was crossing the street May 18, the Department of Homeland Security said. Florida native Carach was in Nashville to celebrate his 21st birthday. Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said Lopez Infante "should never have been in the US," blaming the Biden administration for allowing him to stay. "The Biden Administration released this illegal alien into our country in 2023," said McLaughlin. "This crime was preventable and is the direct result of open border policies that prioritized illegal aliens over the safety of American citizens. Secretary [Kristi] Noem is praying for Zachary Carach’s quick recovery." Lopez Infante entered the US on Aug. 1, 2023, and was released into the country two weeks later, according to DHS. He was ordered deported by an immigration judge on Sept. 25, 2024, but was never arrested. He is also wanted in Williamson County for an outstanding probation violation warrant related to a previous theft, according to WKRN. The Daily Wire [6/5/2025 12:54 PM, Staff, 3816K] reports that after his apprehension at the border on August 1, 2023, Lopez Infante was released on August 14, 2023, to await removal proceedings. Over a year later, he was ordered to be deported on September 25, 2024, by an immigration judge, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Carach spent five days in a Nashville hospital before he was transported to a hospital in Florida to continue treatment. His legs and arms were seriously injured, requiring surgery to put screws into his left leg. His mother told a local Florida news station that he is expected to be in a wheelchair for at least two to three months. Metro Nashville Police said that Lopez Infante will be charged with leaving the scene of a personal injury accident, failure to render aid/file an accident report, attempted evidence tampering, and driving without a license/insurance once he is apprehended. He also faces another charge related to an arrest over theft in Williamson County, a wealthy area south of Nashville. Local Nashville officials, including Democratic Mayor Freddie O’Connell, have bashed the Trump administration’s efforts to remove illegal aliens from the streets. O’Connell pledged to support the creation of the "Belonging Fund," intended to provide financial support to illegal aliens after Immigration and Customs Enforcement partnered with the Tennessee Highway Patrol to conduct traffic stops where they apprehended nearly one hundred illegal aliens with criminal convictions or pending charges. These protests by Music City Democrats have prompted Border Czar Tom Homan to threaten a visit to implement a broader crackdown on illegal aliens.

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Bloomberg [6/5/2025 1:51 PM, Zoe Tillman and David Voreacos, 1707K] reports that a US judge ruled that the Trump administration violated the due-process rights of more than 100 Venezuelans deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador, and they must now get a chance to challenge their removal. US District Judge James Boasberg in Washington found that the purported gang members never got a chance to challenge their designation as "alien enemies" before they were sent on March 15 and 16 to the mega-prison in El Salvador known as CECOT. The judge said in his Wednesday decision he would decide later how exactly the administration now must provide that notice and opportunity to the Venezuelans. White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said "fortunately for the American people, Judge Boasberg does not have the last word." "Judge Boasberg has no authority to intervene with immigration or national security — authority that rests squarely with President Trump and the executive branch," Jackson said. "His current and previous attempts to prevent President Trump from deporting criminal illegal aliens poses a direct threat to the safety of the American people." "The Trump administration is restoring the rule of law to our immigration system, and a lone, unelected activist judge cannot stop the will of the American people for a safe and secure homeland," Assistant Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, said in a statement. "We will fight this all the way up to the Supreme Court, if necessary. We have the law, the facts, the Constitution, and common sense on our side." The case is J.G.G. v. Trump, 25-cv-766, US District Court, District of Columbia.

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AP [6/5/2025 11:00 AM, Collin Binkley, 4622K] reports that President Donald Trump is moving to block nearly all foreign students from entering the country to attend Harvard University, his latest attempt to choke the Ivy League school from an international pipeline that accounts for a quarter of the student body. In an executive order signed Wednesday, Trump declared that it would jeopardize national security to allow Harvard to continue hosting foreign students on its campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “I have determined that the entry of the class of foreign nationals described above is detrimental to the interests of the United States because, in my judgment, Harvard’s conduct has rendered it an unsuitable destination for foreign students and researchers,” Trump wrote in the order. It’s a further escalation in the White House’s fight with the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university. A federal court in Boston blocked the Department of Homeland Security from barring international students at Harvard last week. Trump’s order invokes a different legal authority. Trump invoked a broad federal law that gives the president authority to block foreigners whose entry would be “detrimental to the interests of the United States.” On Wednesday, he cited the same authority when announcing that citizens of 12 countries would be banned from visiting the U.S. and those from seven others would face restrictions. Trump’s Harvard order cites several other laws, too, including one barring foreigners associated with terrorist organizations. In a statement Wednesday night, Harvard said it will “continue to protect its international students.”

New York Times [6/5/2025 12:00 AM, Stephanie Saul and Andrés R. Martínez, 138952K] reports a federal judge late Thursday temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s latest effort to prevent Harvard from enrolling international students, stalling President Trump’s first bid to directly use the power of the presidency against the university. Judge Allison D. Burroughs of the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts also extended for about two weeks her previous order from May that prevented the Trump administration from blocking Harvard from issuing certain types of student visas. The orders from Judge Burroughs were victories, if perhaps temporary ones, in Harvard’s battle with Mr. Trump, for whom the university has become a focal point in the administration’s effort to make higher education conform to his political agenda. The White House proclamation blocked on Thursday had been issued just the day before. It was the third time in the past month that the Trump administration has tried to use its power to ban international enrollment at Harvard in what the university has said is a violation of its First Amendment rights. But it was the first to rely directly on Mr. Trump’s executive power rather than agency rules and actions, a sign of how personal the effort to inflict distress on the Ivy League university has become for him. Judge Burroughs acted hours after Harvard asked her to block the order on Thursday evening. In its request, part of an ongoing lawsuit, the university also filed a new claim against the administration. In court papers, Harvard accused the White House of trying to circumvent an earlier court order that had blocked the Department of Homeland Security from banning international enrollment at Harvard. The university said Mr. Trump had violated the law again by invoking the executive power of the presidency against the school when the agency’s efforts had failed. Alan M. Garber, Harvard’s president, issued a statement shortly after the court filing saying that Harvard’s international office was reaching out to students and scholars who might be affected by the White House action. Harvard had yet to comment on the late Thursday ruling. He added that the university was developing “contingency plans” to ensure that international students and scholars could continue to pursue their work at Harvard this summer and through the coming academic year. A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The latest filing, an amended complaint, followed a string of court actions by the university against the administration, part of a battle that began in April, when Harvard refused to comply with a list of federal demands.

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AP [6/5/2025 9:50 PM, Colleen Slevin and Jesse Bedayn, 56000K] reports a man accused of yelling “Free Palestine” and throwing Molotov cocktails at demonstrators calling for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza was charged with 118 counts including attempted murder in a Colorado court Thursday. Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, who has been jailed since his arrest following Sunday’s attack, was advised of the charges during a hearing in Boulder, where he appeared in person. Investigators say Soliman, who posed as a gardener, planned it for a year. The 118 counts include attempt to commit murder, assault in the first and third degrees, use of explosive or incendiary devices and animal cruelty. He has also been charged with a hate crime in federal court and is jailed on a $10 million cash bond. Soliman’s attorney, Kathryn Herold, waived a formal reading of the charges Thursday. A preliminary hearing has been set for July 15 to determine whether the state has enough evidence to move forward. Soliman is accused of trying to kill 14 people and faces two attempted murder charges for each. Soliman had intended to kill all of the roughly 20 participants the weekly demonstration at the popular Pearl Street pedestrian mall, but he threw just two of his 18 Molotov cocktails while yelling “Free Palestine,” police said. Soliman told authorities he acted alone and did not inform his wife and five children, who have not been charged in the attack but were taken into custody Tuesday by immigration officials. The following day a judge granted a request to block their deportation. Attorneys for the family had sued over their detention, writing in their complaint that “It is patently unlawful to punish individuals for the crimes of their relatives.” Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin called the plaintiff’s claims “absurd” and “an attempt to delay justice.” She said the entire family was living in the U.S. illegally. Soliman’s wife, Hayam El Gamal, a 17-year-old daughter, two minor sons and two minor daughters were being held at an immigration detention center in Texas, said Eric Lee, an attorney representing the family. El Gamal said she was “shocked” to learn of his arrest, according to the lawsuit.

Blaze [6/5/2025 6:07 PM, Carlos Garcia, 1805K] reports the suspect arrested in the horrific firebombing attack on pro-Israel demonstrators reportedly recorded a video before the incident praising jihad and making other extremist statements. The video was unearthed by the Middle East Media Research Institute and shows Mohamed Sabry Soliman, a 45-year-old man from Egypt, talking about his love of Islam and saying that he loved jihad more than his mother and his children. ‘Allah, his messenger, and jihad for Allah’s sake are more beloved to me than you and the whole world are.’. "Allah is greater than anything. Allah is greater than the Zionists. Allah is greater than America and its weapons. Allah is greater than the F-35 planes. Allah is greater than everything else," he said, according to an English translation from MEMRI. "So why do we fear those who are inferior to Allah rather than fear Allah himself?". The use of the word "Zionists" fit with a statement that Soliman allegedly made to investigators after he was arrested. "If I told my wife and son every day to do something, but they didn’t do it, I would be angry. Maybe I would divorce my wife. Maybe I would kick my son out of home. Then what about Allah, who says to us every day dozens of times: ‘Allahu Akbar’? Do not forget: Allahu Akbar," he continued. RELATED: Boulder illegal alien terror suspect plotted for year: Cops say he stalked Israel group, posed as gardener, has ‘no regret’. "Do not forget that Allah is greater than everything," Soliman continued. "Not the Zionists, America, Britain, France, or Germany — only Allah has the right to be feared. I say to my mother, my wife, my children, my brothers, my people: I attest before Allah and before you that Allah, his messenger, and jihad for Allah’s sake are more beloved to me than you and the whole world are.” Soliman was arrested after he allegedly firebombed pro-Israel demonstrators with Molotov cocktails after plotting the attack for a year. Officials said 15 people were injured, as well as one dog. Department of Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem said that Soliman’s wife and his five children were detained on Tuesday and fast-tracked for deportation. "We are investigating to what extent his family knew about this heinous attack, if they had knowledge of it, or if they provided support to it," she added.

Breitbart [6/5/2025 1:32 PM, John Binder, 3077K] reports that a United States District Court judge appointed by former President Joe Biden has blocked President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from deporting the Egyptian family members of 45-year-old illegal alien Mohamed Sabry Soliman, accused of carrying out an antisemitic terrorist attack in Boulder, Colorado. This week, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced that Soliman, as well as his wife and five children, all of whom are Egyptian nationals, had been taken into federal custody. The family, Noem said, was pending deportation from the U.S. Late Wednesday evening, though, Judge Gordon Gallagher — appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado by Biden — temporarily prevented DHS from deporting Soliman’s family back to Egypt. "Moreover, the court finds that deportation without process could work irreparable harm and an order must issue without notice due to the urgency this situation presents," Gallagher wrote. DHS continues to hold Soliman’s family, which includes his 41-year-old wife Hayam Salah Alsaid Ahmed Elgamal, 18-year-old daughter Habiba Mohamed Sabry Farag Soliman, two minor sons, and two minor daughters, in federal detention in Dilley, Texas. "DHS and ICE have taken the family of suspected Boulder, Colorado terrorist, and illegal alien, Mohamed Soliman, into ICE custody," Noem.

Federalist [6/5/2025 11:27 AM, Beth Brelje, 1142K] reports Susanna Dvortsin, the attorney trying to prevent the family of Mohamed Soliman — the illegal alien charged with setting Jewish demonstrators on fire in Boulder, CO — from being deported, has an integrity problem. In 2019, Dvortsin was suspended from practicing law for "misconduct concerning an immigration matter." The suspension, lasting 115 days, was requested by the Supreme Court of South Dakota and approved by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review. An order, dated March 5, 2019, specified Dvortsin was suspended from practice before the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Board of Immigration Appeals, immigration courts, and the state of South Dakota. She was ordered to notify in writing any clients with cases pending before these bodies about her suspension. It was not her first misstep.

Houston Chronicle [6/5/2025 9:02 AM, Sondra Hernandez, 1982K] reports President Donald Trump Wednesday evening announced he was imposing a travel ban in the U.S., restricting travelers from 12 countries and limiting travelers from another seven countries. The ban goes into effect Monday at 12:01 a.m. and mirrors a policy from his first term where he also banned citizens from countries thought to be a threat to the U.S. "As President, I must act to protect the national security and national interest of the United States and its people," he said in a Wednesday proclamation. The banned countries include Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. These restrictions distinguish between, but apply to both, the entry of immigrants and nonimmigrants, according to the proclamation. Heightened restrictions will also be placed on visitors from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela, the Associated Press reports. The restrictions also apply to the entry of immigrants and nonimmigrants. Trump said he directed the Secretary of State, in coordination with the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Director of National Intelligence, to identify countries throughout the world for which vetting and screening information is deficient as to warrant a full or partial suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries. In the proclamation, he said he would also be willing to work with the restricted countries to "improve information-sharing and identity-management procedures" to address public safety and terror threats.

Axios [6/5/2025 2:05 PM, April Rubin, 13599K] reports that President Trump is again prioritizing travel bans, furthering his administration’s crackdown on unauthorized immigration. The big picture: Trump’s first term travel bans caused immediate confusion, humanitarian concern and were slammed as discriminatory. The bans, announced Wednesday, go into effect on Monday, contrasting with his first administration when they started with minimal notice. What they’re saying: "The restrictions in this proclamation are country specific and include places that lack proper vetting, exhibit high visa overstay rates, or fail to share identity and threat information," Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement. The recent attack in Boulder, Colorado, underscored "dangers" of immigrants who overstay visas, Jackson added. Egypt, where suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman is from, was not on the travel ban list. State of play: Trump fully restricted and limited entry from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. He also partially restricted and limited entry from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela. "Today’s proclamation weaponizes and distorts immigration laws to target people that the president dislikes and disagrees with – and it does so based primarily on racial and religious animus," Stephanie Gee, senior director of U.S. legal services at the International Refugee Assistance Project, said in a statement.

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Newsweek [6/5/2025 2:05 PM, Jesus Mesa, 54790K] reports that President Donald Trump worked hard to secure the 2026 FIFA World Cup for the United States during his first term — and he made sure the world knew it. From campaign rallies to handwritten letters on White House stationery, he celebrated it as a defining global achievement. "I am confident," he wrote to FIFA in 2018, "that all eligible athletes, officials and fans... would be able to enter the United States without discrimination." At the time, the bet was simple: Trump would be long gone by the time the tournament kicked off. But in one of the most improbable comebacks in modern American politics, Trump is not only back in the White House — he’s now rewriting the rules for who can attend the event he once helped sell to the world. In a move reminiscent of his first term, a new executive order bans entry from 12 nations — including Iran, Libya, Somalia, and Haiti — and restricts travel from seven more. The order includes exemptions for athletes and staff attending "major sporting events," such as the 2026 World Cup and 2028 Olympics. But for ordinary fans from those countries planning to make a pilgrimage to America for either global sporting event, that door has been just shut. But the administration’s messaging remains mixed. At a meeting of the White House’s World Cup task force last month, Vice President J.D. Vance said: "Of course everyone is welcome to come and see this wonderful event. We want them to come, we want them to celebrate, we want them to watch the games. But when the time is up, we want them to go home — otherwise they will have to talk to Secretary Noem," he said, referring to Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security.

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USA Today [6/5/2025 2:16 PM, Francesca Chambers, 75552K] reports that President Donald Trump says he did not include Egypt in a travel ban, which he tied to a terror attack allegedly carried out by an Egyptian national, because the United States works closely with the Arab nation. "Egypt has been a country that we deal with very closely. They have things under control. The countries that we have don’t have things under control," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on June 5. In introducing the partial or complete ban on travel from citizens of 19 nations on June 4, Trump cited the Boulder, Colorado, attack that took place at an event raising awareness about Israeli hostages. The suspect in the case, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, is an Egyptian man who entered the U.S. on a tourist visit that he overstayed after applying for asylum, federal officials say. Yet, the travel ban that Trump unveiled days later did not include Egypt, raising questions about the timing and purpose of the ban, which the president’s critics say unfairly targets African and Muslim-majority nations. Trump requested that the State Department and other national security officials put together a list of countries for potential visa restrictions in an executive order just after taking office. But nothing came of it for months, until the Boulder attack, which he blamed on the previous administration. "We want to keep bad people out of our country. The Biden administration allowed some horrendous people," Trump said in the Oval Office, as he touted his deportation policies.

Breitbart [6/5/2025 12:06 PM, Christian K. Caruzo, 3077K] reports President Donald Trump’s proclamation imposing U.S. travel restrictions on Cuban and Venezuelan nationals comes after years of repeated abuse of the American immigration system and visa overstays by individuals linked to the two nations’ respective authoritarian regimes. President Trump signed a proclamation on Wednesday evening imposing travel restrictions on immigrants and nonimmigrant nationals from 12 listed countries. The proclamation also imposes specific U.S. visa restrictions on Cubans, Venezuelans, and nationals of five other countries, suspending entry to U.S. territory to individuals from the listed countries on B-1, B‑2, B-1/B-2, F, M, and J visas. For years prior to this order, a growing list of individuals linked to Cuba’s communist Castro regime and Venezuela’s socialist Maduro regime availed themselves of U.S. nonimmigrant visas, overstaying in U.S. territory and then abusing America’s immigration system to live and work in the country. In some cases, known repressors have set up businesses in the U.S. The situation poses a clear threat to legitimate political refugees who fled those regimes to the United States, seeking a better life away from socialism. These abuses were significantly worsened by the lax open borders policies and "legal" immigration programs enacted by the administration of the former U.S. President Joe Biden, such as the now-defunct "humanitarian parole" program. In August, the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba (FHRC), a nongovernmental organization, warned that more than 115 members of Cuba’s communist regime had moved to the United States since February 2023. Rep. Carlos Giménez (R-FL) forwarded the list to (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem in March, urging DHS to investigate and deport the communist repressors. The extensive list of known repressors includes judges, state security, military, and other communist officials. Among those named were individuals such as Luis Raúl González-Pardo Rodríguez, a Cuban pilot linked to the killing of four Americans in international waters in 1996, and Tomas Emilio Hernandez Cruz, a former Castro regime intelligence agent arrested in March for fraudulently obtaining a U.S. green card and hiding his links to the Cuban regime.

NBC News [6/5/2025 5:25 PM, Astha Rajvanshi, 44540K] reports that Countries across the world were in shock Thursday after President Donald Trump announced a travel ban on nationals from a dozen countries and the cancellation of visa programs for seven more. For many, the move seemed like a return to 2017 and one of the most controversial policies of Trump’s first term. Trump cited national security and terrorism concerns Wednesday as motivating factors behind the ban on nationals largely from Africa and Asia, triggering reactions from representatives of those countries from weary diplomacy to downright anger. Chad, a country in Central Africa that is among the countries hit with a travel ban, quickly issued a reciprocal restriction on issuing visas to U.S. citizens. “Chad has no planes to offer, no billions of dollars to give but Chad has its dignity and pride,” President Idriss Deby wrote Thursday on Facebook. Trump’s new order affects a patchwork of 19 countries — some of them banned for the first time, for reasons that the administration said include high rates of visa overstays, lack of "appropriate screening and vetting measures" and allegedly being sponsors of terrorism. Nationals of 12 countries will be barred from entering the U.S.: Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Partial bans have also been placed on nationals from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.

NBC News [6/5/2025 5:10 PM, Suzanne Gamboa, Carmen Sesin, Nicole Acevedo and Orlando Matos, 44540K] reports anger and condemnation broke out as families, attorneys and immigrant advocates absorbed the blast from the latest bombshell delivered by the Trump immigration — a travel ban that stops or restricts people from 19 mostly African, Asian and Caribbean countries from entering the U.S. While the Trump administration said the travel ban is meant to keep Americans safe, critics lobbed accusations of discrimination, cruelty, racism, inhumanity and more in response. Meanwhile, the news also elicited confusion over what will happen once the ban goes into effect on Monday. There are some exceptions, including for people with lawful permanent residency, spouses and children of U.S. citizens, those who are adopted and others. Trump’s proclamation issued Wednesday night bans people from 12 countries from traveling to the U.S. The countries are: Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. In seven more countries, travel to the U.S. was suspended but not banned. They are Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela. Challenging the ban could be ‘an uphill battle’.

Washington Post [6/5/2025 6:13 PM, Joanna Slater, Susan Svrluga and Shayna Jacobs, 32099K] reports a federal judge issued a new order Thursday preventing the Trump administration from arresting a Columbia University student who it is seeking to detain and deport because of her participation in a pro-Palestinian demonstration earlier this year. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is attempting to send Yunseo Chung, 21, back to South Korea, a country where she has not lived since she was 7. U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald’s preliminary injunction blocks ICE from taking Chung into custody. Her ruling marks the latest legal setback for the Trump administration’s crackdown on noncitizen students who have engaged in pro-Palestinian activism. On Thursday, Buchwald issued an injunction preventing ICE from arresting, detaining or transferring Chung. ICE has not yet issued a Notice to Appear in the case, the government said. In her order, the judge also said that if the government attempts to detain Chung for reasons unrelated to her potential deportation, it must provide 72 hours advance notice to her lawyers so the court can determine if the move is a "pretext for First Amendment retaliation."

Reuters [6/5/2025 9:45 PM, Nate Raymond, 49956K] reports that a Guatemalan man who was deported to Mexico despite stating that he feared being persecuted there was flown back to the United States on Wednesday after a judge ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return. Judges have directed President Trump’s administration to help return several migrants to the country because they were wrongly deported, and the man’s arrival appeared to mark the first time one of those migrants has been able to come back. US District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston on May 23 ordered the Guatemalan man’s return after the Justice Department notified him that its claim that the man had expressly stated he was not afraid of being sent to Mexico was based on erroneous information. That ruling was the latest instance of a judge ordering the Trump administration to facilitate the return of a migrant swept up in the Republican president’s efforts to carry out mass deportations as part of his hardline immigration agenda, following a mistake in an individual’s case. The government likewise made an error with Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was deported to El Salvador in March despite an order protecting him from removal. He remains there despite a judge ordering the administration to facilitate his return. By contrast, the Guatemalan man, identified in court papers only as O.C.G., was able to return on Wednesday on a commercial flight, said Trina Realmuto, a lawyer at the National Immigration Litigation Alliance who represents him. Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, in a statement called the judge an "activist" whose ruling gave O.C.G. "an opportunity to prove why he should be granted asylum to a country that he has had no past connection to." The Washington Examiner [6/5/2025 8:20 AM, Brady Knox, 1934K] reports that the Department of Homeland Security criticized Murphy in a statement, portraying the case as one in which the U.S. asylum system was being abused. "America’s asylum system was never intended to be used as a de facto amnesty program or a catch-all, get-out-of-deportation-free card," DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

Reported similarly:
Washington Post [6/5/2025 9:43 AM, Maria Sacchetti, 32099K]
ABC News [6/5/2025 11:58 AM, Laura Romero, 31733K]
FOX News [6/5/2025 10:46 AM, Breanne Deppisch, 46878K]

New York Times [6/5/2025 4:27 PM, Alan Feuer, 138952K] reports for the past few months, immigrants around the country have been suing the Trump administration at a furious pace, seeking to stop it from deporting them to a prison in El Salvador under an agreement reached this year between the White House and Nayib Bukele, the Salvadoran president. The cases, which have been filed in at least six states, have largely focused on the legal tool that Trump officials have been using to expel them from the country: an 18th century wartime law called the Alien Enemies Act. But on Thursday, a group of immigrant rights organizations and criminal defense lawyers took a different approach to stopping the deportations to El Salvador. They filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to invalidate the underlying agreement between the U.S. and Salvadoran governments by declaring it unlawful. The suit, filed in Federal District Court in Washington, makes several arguments that the agreement between the White House and the Bukele administration is illegal. The lawyers say it has resulted in violations of constitutional due process protections, the right to a public trial and the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The suit also claims that the agreement bypasses traditional immigration law and violates the United Nations Convention Against Torture because the prison to which scores of migrants have been sent, the so-called Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, is a notoriously brutal facility known for human rights abuses.

Telemundo51.com [6/5/2025 3:53 PM, Alejandro Isturiz, 177K] reports the appointment Rosmeri Medina, a Guatemalan woman from Apopka, north of Orlando, was scheduled for this Thursday was postponed for a week. This doesn’t represent a substantial change in the case, but it is a small step toward gaining time. Rosmeri’s last appointment, here at ICE Orlando, was traumatic, but she says this time was different. Rosmeri’s husband, Esvin, is still being held in the El Paso, Texas, detention center. Esvin and Rosmerie applied for a U visa, which would allow them to remain in the country. Their application was accepted, and correspondence USCIS sent to ICE confirmed its validity. Another development in the Juárez family’s case is that after four days, the documentation that could halt the deportation traveled from Florida to Texas and back, and ICE refused to accept the file, according to the lawyer, but in the last few hours they accepted it at the Miramar office in Broward County.

(B) Good Morning America [6/5/2025 8:56 AM, Staff] reports that there are new developments this morning in the case of a man who admitted to writing a letter threatening to kill President Donald Trump to frame an undocumented immigrant and get him deported. Prosecutors filed a motion to combine Demetric Scott’s new witness intimidation and identity theft charges with his existing armed robbery case. Yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security cleared Morales Reyes as a suspect in the case even after local investigators had cleared him. Morales Reyes remains in federal custody and still faces deportation.

FOX News [6/5/2025 11:16 AM, Brooke Singman, 46878K] reports Laken Riley’s sister said she and her family have "hope" due to the immigration policies President Donald Trump has put in place, telling Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview that, while there is "still a lot to be done," continuing in the direction of the new administration "will be very beneficial to our country." Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student at Augusta University, was brutally assaulted and murdered by an illegal migrant while on a morning run in February 2024. Her sister, Lauren Phillips, told Fox News Digital that she will always speak out in honor and remembrance of her older sister, and will continue to advocate for "securing our borders." "I think it’s important that we keep reminding people of the importance of securing our borders and what can happen when it’s not secure," Phillips told Fox News Digital. "We definitely feel hope – we just need to keep talking about it and keep everyone aware of what happens when nothing is done," she continued. "And I think a lot has been done so far, and I am grateful for that, but there is still a lot to be done." She added: "I think that continuing in the direction that the new administration is going will be very beneficial to our country." Meanwhile, Trump signed the Laken Riley Act into law just days after taking office. It was the first piece of legislation he signed in his second administration. The measure directs Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain illegal immigrants arrested or charged with theft-related crimes, or those accused of assaulting a police officer. The law also allows states to sue the Department of Homeland Security for harm caused to their citizens because of illegal immigration. But Phillips told Fox News Digital that despite changes to federal law, it is "terrifying to have to walk around the same city where such a tragic thing happened to my sister."

DailySignal [6/5/2025 10:00 AM, Joe Thomas, 558K] reports you may not know the word "truthiness" but you have, without question, experienced it. It first appeared on the opening graphics of the "Colbert Report" on Comedy Central when the now-CBS late show host’s career was just branching out. It was most often used to mock conservatives and imply that they didn’t rely on facts but rather just made wild assertions. Like with so many on the Left, these snide comments are often indicative of what they do rather than a rebuke of conservatives. Take, for example, the brouhaha over "the list" that the Department of Homeland Security published of 500 illegal immigrant sanctuary municipalities across the U.S. The list has been taken down since our first report about it on Friday. Republican and Democrat lawmakers railed when they found areas in their districts on the list. In Virginia, counties that had voted heavily for Donald Trump in 2024 called their GOP representatives in Congress to complain, and county supervisors told local media that they had "no sanctuary law" on their books, so how could they possibly be "on the list.” Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, even mused, "They must have used A.I. to generate the list," referring to artificial intelligence, which has frequently been connected to erroneous information when used for data searches. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem told FOX News on Sunday, "Some of the cities have pushed back. They think because they don’t have one law or another on the books that they don’t qualify [to be on the list], but they do qualify. They are giving sanctuary to criminals." Friday afternoon, as Virginia municipalities began issuing statements on their inclusion on the list, they all seemed to be quoting from the same legal template.

CNN [6/5/2025 4:09 PM, Alisha Ebrahimji] reports while Mohamed Soliman occupies a cell in Boulder County Jail in Colorado, hundreds of miles away, his wife and five children are also in detention, at the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Soliman, the man charged with attempted murder following an antisemitic firebombing attack Sunday, told detectives that "no one" knew about his attack plans and "he never talked to his wife or family about it," according to the affidavit for his arrest. But despite that admission from the Egyptian national, his family is now facing expedited removal from the United States. Soliman, 45, was born in Egypt but lived in Kuwait for 17 years. He first tried to come to the US in 2005 but was denied a visa, law enforcement sources told CNN. In 2022, he, his wife and their five children, entered the US as non-immigrant visitors and filed for asylum a month later in September 2022. His wife, a network engineer with a pending EB-2 visa, which is available to professionals with advanced degrees, and children were listed as dependents on the application filed in Denver, the Department of Homeland Security and court documents said. In 2023, Soliman received a two-year work authorization that expired in March, according to DHS. Soliman and his wife have two minor sons and three minor daughters ages 4, 4, 8, 15 and 17, family attorney Eric Lee told CNN. Soliman was booked into the Boulder County Jail after his arrest. His family was initially held in Florence, Colorado, about an hour away from their home in Colorado Springs, before they were transferred to a detention facility in Texas. Soliman’s family was held "incommunicado" and didn’t have access to legal representation after they were in ICE custody on Tuesday, their lawyers said in court documents. At the time of their detention, their asylum application was still pending, and as a result, the Trump administration can’t legally expedite their removal, the documents say. Soliman’s family members have not been charged in the attack and on Wednesday evening, a federal judge ordered a halt to the deportation plans made for the family.

Breitbart.com [6/5/2025 4:24 PM, Randy Clark, 3077K] reports actions taken to shut down illegal crossings of the U.S.-Mexico border, mass deportation operations across the country, and an unprecedented increase in ICE worksite enforcement operations are the likely cause of a more than $250 million drop in money sent to Mexico in April. The amount sent by Mexican citizens to their home country is the most significant drop in twelve years, according to Banco de México. The April report published by Banxico.org, which tracks and analyzes remittances, shows a sharp reduction in electronic wire transfers and money orders when compared to the previous month. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum addressed the drop in remittances during a Tuesday morning press conference where she urged citizens to remain calm as officials analyze why the remittances to her country have dropped precipitously. During the daily press conference, Sheinbaum announced a delegation of officials would travel to the United States to address a proposed 3.5 percent tax on remittances to Mexico found in the "Big Beautiful Bill" budget reconciliation legislation. The tax contained within the legislation could result in revenue to the U.S. of more than $2 billion annually, based on more than $60 billion in remittances sent to Mexico in 2024. The total remittances to Mexico, however, may continue to fall based on the increased immigration enforcement operations taking place nationwide. As reported by Breitbart Texas, ICE is conducting worksite enforcement operations across the country in multiple industries.

AP [6/5/2025 10:15 AM, Lindsay Whitehurst, 56000K] reports the Supreme Court on Thursday tossed out a $10 billion lawsuit Mexico filed against top firearm manufacturers in the U.S. that claimed the companies’ business practices were helping fuel cartel violence plaguing the country. In a victory for the firearm industry, the unanimous ruling tossed out the case under a U.S. law that largely shields gunmakers from liability when their firearms are used in crime. Congress passed the law two decades ago to halt a flurry of lawsuits against gunmakers that were similar to the case Mexico filed, Justice Elena Kagan wrote. Her opinion overturned a lower court order that let the suit go forward because the companies themselves were accused of violating the law. Kagan wrote that Mexico’s lawsuit made no plausible argument that the companies had knowingly helped gun trafficking into the country. “It does not pinpoint, as most aiding-and-abetting claims do, any specific criminal transactions that the defendants (allegedly) assisted,” Kagan wrote. Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it strongly disagreed with the decision and would continue its fight against firearm trafficking. “Mexico has presented solid arguments demonstrating the harm that arms manufacturing companies cause to our country,” it said in a statement. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum pointed to a second suit the country filed in 2022 against five gun shops and distributors in Arizona. “We’re going to see what the result is, and we’ll let you know,” she said. Mexico has strict gun laws and has just one store where people can legally buy firearms. But thousands of guns are smuggled in by the country’s powerful drug cartels every year. The Mexican government says at least 70% of those weapons come from the United States. The lawsuit claimed that companies knew weapons were being sold to traffickers who smuggled them into Mexico and decided to cash in on that market.

Reported similarly:
Washington Post [6/5/2025 1:48 PM, Ann E. Marimow, 32099K]
CBS News [6/5/2025 12:30 PM, Melissa Quinn, 51860K]

Federalist [6/5/2025 11:31 AM, Brianna Lyman, 1142K] reports on Wednesday, the Trump administration announced it was processing the family of Mohamed Soliman — the radical Islamist who allegedly set Jewish demonstrators ablaze in Boulder on Sunday — for removal from the country. Then came the order from a rogue judge blocking the administration. Judge Gordon Gallagher’s two-page order halting the removal of Soliman’s wife and five children — all illegal aliens, according to Stephen Miller — isn’t merely a misapplication of justice. It is a direct assault on the executive branch’s constitutional authority. And if President Donald Trump continues to treat these rogue judicial decrees as legitimate, he not only cedes national security to ideological partisans in black robes — he permits a full-blown constitutional crisis to fester unchecked. On Wednesday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced that DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) "have taken the family of suspected Boulder, Colorado terrorist, and illegal alien, Mohamed Soliman, into ICE custody.” But within hours, Gallagher issued an order stating the Trump administration "SHALL NOT REMOVE Hayem El Gamal and her five children from the District of Colorado or the United States unless or until this Court or the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit vacates this Order.” But if a president cannot remove from the country illegal aliens with direct familial ties to a suspected terrorist charged with a federal hate crime and attempted murder on U.S. soil, then he is merely administering policies subject to veto by any unelected judge who decides to intervene.

SFGate [6/5/2025 5:01 PM, Charles Kurzman, 11859K] reports the Trump administration on June 4, 2025, announced travel restrictions targeting 19 countries in Africa and Asia, including many of the world’s poorest nations. All travel is banned from 12 of these countries, with partial restrictions on travel from the rest. The presidential proclamation, entitled "Restricting the Entry of Foreign Nationals to Protect the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats," is aimed at "countries throughout the world for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a full or partial suspension on the entry or admission of nationals from those countries.” In a video that accompanied the proclamation, President Donald Trump said: "The recent terror attack in Boulder, Colorado, has underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted.” The latest travel ban reimposes restrictions on many of the countries that were included on travel bans in Trump’s first term, along with several new countries. But this travel ban, like the earlier ones, will not significantly improve national security and public safety in the United States. That’s because migrants account for a minuscule portion of violence in the U.S. And migrants from the latest travel ban countries account for an even smaller portion, according to data that I have collected. The suspect in Colorado, for example, is from Egypt, which is not on the travel ban list. As a scholar of political sociology, I don’t believe Trump’s latest travel ban is about national security. Rather, I’d argue, it’s primarily about using national security as an excuse to deny visas to nonwhite applicants. In the past five years, the U.S. has witnessed more than 100,000 homicides. Political violence by militias and other ideological movements accounted for 354 fatalities, according to an initiative known as the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, which tracks armed conflict around the world. That’s less than 1% of the country’s homicide victims. And foreign terrorism accounted for less than 1% of this 1%, according to my data. The Trump administration says the U.S. cannot appropriately vet visa applicants in countries with uncooperative governments or underdeveloped security systems. That claim is false. The State Department and other government agencies do a thorough job of vetting visa applicants, even in countries where there is no U.S. embassy, according to an analysis by the CATO Institute. The U.S. government has sophisticated methods for identifying potential threats. They include detailed documentation requirements, interviews with consular officers and clearance by national security agencies. And it rejects more than 1 in 6 visa applications, with ever-increasing procedures for detecting fraud.

Blaze [6/5/2025 11:35 AM, Daniel Horowitz, 1805K] reports "We will not let what happened in Europe happen in America," President Trump declared Wednesday, unveiling a new travel ban targeting 12 nations — mostly Islamic-majority countries from the Middle East and Africa. It’s a strong first step toward fulfilling the original 2015 promise of a full moratorium on immigration from regions plagued by jihadist ideology. But let’s not pretend Europe’s crisis stemmed from poor vetting of criminal records. The real problem was mass migration from cultures openly hostile to Western values — especially toward Jews and, by extension, Christians. And the new list leaves troubling gaps. Trump’s call for "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" was the defining issue that launched his political movement. Nine years later, the rationale is even stronger — and now, the president has the power to make it happen. Consider the context: Egyptian national Mohamed Sabry Soliman, the alleged Boulder attacker who shouted he wanted to "end all Zionists," entered the United States in 2022 with a wife and five children — admitted from Kuwait.

CBS News [6/5/2025 5:00 PM, Staff, 51860K] reports arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement during President Trump’s second term topped 100,000 this week, as federal agents intensified efforts to detain unauthorized immigrants in courthouses, worksites and communities across the U.S., internal government data obtained by CBS News shows. On Tuesday and Wednesday, ICE recorded more than 2,000 arrests each day, a dramatic increase from the daily average of 660 arrests reported by the agency during Mr. Trump’s first 100 days back at the White House, the federal statistics show. During President Biden’s last year in office, ICE averaged roughly 300 daily arrests, according to agency data. The latest numbers show ICE is getting closer to meeting the far-reaching demands of top administration officials like White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, an immigration hardliner who has forcefully pushed the agency to conduct "a minimum" of 3,000 arrests each day. On Thursday morning, ICE was holding around 54,000 immigrant detainees in detention facilities across the country, according to the data. The Trump administration is asking Congress to give ICE billions of dollars in extra funds to hire thousands of additional deportation officers and expand detention capacity to hold 100,000 individuals at any given point. Officials are also looking at converting facilities inside military bases into immigration detention centers. The marked increase in ICE arrests across the country — especially in major Democratic-led cities that do not cooperate with federal immigration officials — comes after the Trump administration replaced two of the agency’s top leaders amid internal frustrations that arrest numbers were not high enough. CBS News reached out to the representatives for ICE and the Department of Homeland Security for comment. Trump administration officials have framed the aggressive expansion of immigration operations as necessary to fulfill the president’s signature campaign promises of cracking down on illegal immigration, expelling immigrants with criminal histories and overseeing the largest mass deportation effort in U.S. history. But to boost arrest numbers, ICE has resorted to more aggressive — and controversial — tactics that have triggered outrage and even confrontations in some communities. Those efforts include arrests of migrants and asylum-seekers showing up to court hearings or check-in appointments that the government instructed them to attend. Immigration lawyers have strongly denounced those arrests, saying they deter migrants from complying with the legal process. Immigration roundups at some worksites have also been reported recently. Videos of some ICE arrests have depicted sobbing women and children being escorted into vehicles outside of immigration courts. Footage has also captured community members confronting federal agents — some of them masked — as they take migrants into custody. One video showed construction workers suspected of being in the U.S. illegally lined up after an ICE-led operation on their worksite in Florida. And while ICE has been arresting many immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally and also have criminal records, the agency is simultaneously detaining non-criminal migrants living in the U.S. without proper documents — including longstanding residents — amid the Trump administration’s pressure to increase arrest levels. Among them is Marcelo Gomes, an 18-year-old Brazilian-born high school student in Milford, Massachusetts, who was arrested by ICE last week on his way to volleyball practice. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

FOX News [6/5/2025 2:50 PM, Cameron Arcand, Bill Melugin, 46878K] reports Immigration and Customs Enforcement made a record-setting 2,368 arrests of illegal aliens in a single day on Wednesday, a senior ICE official told Fox News. This broke the record from just one day prior, as there were 2,267 ICE arrests on Tuesday. The increase comes after an average of roughly 1,600 arrests last week, as the White House pursues a goal of 3,000 arrests daily. "Under President Trump’s leadership, we are looking to set a goal of a minimum of 3,000 arrests for ICE every day," White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller told "Hannity" on at the end of May, indicting that the goal could go even higher. Homan also previously said "The numbers are good, but I’m not satisfied. I haven’t been satisfied all year long," in an "America’s Newsroom" interview in May. The uptick in arrests can be attributed to a surge in worksite enforcement and immigration court arrests. In addition, ICE is using collateral, like arresting individuals who are not initial targets but are with a target at the time of an arrest. ICE sources tell Fox News if the reconciliation bill passes with funding for 10,000 additional ICE personnel and tens of thousands more ICE beds, numbers will be "supercharged and shoot through the roof.” As a debate about the bill continues in the Senate, the White House reaffirmed the bill’s border and immigration-related provisions on Thursday. "Did you know The Big Beautiful Bill doubles ICE detention capacity, increases ICE personnel by 50%, finishes the border wall, and taxes money illegals send to their home country?" Deputy Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy Communications Director Alex Pfeiffer posted to X. "It’s a once-in-a generation opportunity to crack down on illegal immigration," he continued. The ICE arrests come amid widespread policy changes by the Trump administration from the Biden-era. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem approved more waivers for border wall construction in Arizona and New Mexico this week, and the president instituted a travel ban on several countries following the anti-Semitic Boulder terrorist attack, in which the suspect overstayed his visa. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

FOX News [6/5/2025 7:03 PM, Cameron Arcand, 46878K] reports the White House is backing legislation to expedite the timeline for executing removal orders for illegal immigrants. The Rapid Expulsion of Migrant Offenders who Violate and Evade (REMOVE) Act, led by senators Marsha Blackburn, Ted Budd and Ted Cruz would give the Department of Justice a quick 15-day timeframe to finish "removal proceedings" after the process has "commenced.” "Under Joe Biden’s failed leadership, we saw the largest wave of illegal immigration in our nation’s history, forcing communities across Tennessee and America to bear the consequences," Blackburn said in a statement Thursday, when the bill was introduced. "With a record number of illegal aliens now living in the United States, President Trump must have every tool necessary to remove them quickly from our country. Our REMOVE Act would require these illegal aliens to begin removal proceedings within 15 days of a Notice to Appear being served," she added. Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff for policy, said the bill will help with the administration’s deportation goals, adding the administration is aiming for 3,000 arrests daily. Immigration and Customs Enforcement broke single-day arrest records Tuesday and Wednesday with well over 2,000 arrests. "Under the Biden Administration, the American people witnessed a full-scale invasion of our country that directly threatened our national security and sovereignty. With untold millions of illegal aliens in the U.S. due to Democrats’ open-border policies, we must take strong, decisive measures to remove those who have been ordered to be removed from the United States," Miller, who’s also a Homeland Security advisor for the White House, said in a statement. "The REMOVE Act is critical legislation that will help us fulfill our mass deportation operation and get gang members, cartels, and violent criminals off the streets. Passing this legislation, in conjunction with the largest mass deportation investment in American history provided by our One Big Beautiful Bill, will ensure we permanently secure the border. Thank you to Senator Blackburn for her leadership.” Millions of people were estimated to have entered the country illegally during the Biden administration, including through the southern border.

FOX News [6/5/2025 1:25 PM, Alex Nitzberg, 46878K] reports that Acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Todd Lyons demands that politicians "stop putting my people in danger." In a video, Lyons called out Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., suggesting that they are fomenting "outrage" about ICE’s work, accusing them of "hurting" people with "ridiculous rhetoric and inflammatory comments." During remarks last week, Wu said, "People are terrified for their lives, and for their neighbors, folks getting snatched off the street by secret police, who are wearing masks … who can offer no justification for why certain people are being taken and then … detained." U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Leah Foley explained the mask issue in a video shared online this week. "Federal agents in marked jackets and vests are masking their faces because people like Mayor Wu have created false narratives about their mission. Federal agents and their children are being threatened, doxxed and assaulted — that it why they must hide their faces," Foley declared. Wu has even earned a direct rebuke from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) X account. "I don’t know of any police department that routinely wears masks," Wu said on Wednesday. "NSC-131 routinely wears masks." When someone asked Wu whether she was comparing ICE to a neo-Nazi group, the mayor replied, "What I said is that Boston police, and no police department that I know of at the local level routinely wears masks."

NewsMax [6/5/2025 11:58 AM, James Morley III, 4622K] reports that Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., introduced legislation this week to protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from doxxing in light of recent threats made by several high-ranking Democrat leaders. "Today, I’m introducing the Protecting Law Enforcement from Doxxing Act, which will make it illegal to dox federal law enforcement officials. Violence against ICE agents is up 413%, making this bill more necessary than ever before," Blackburn announced on X. "Doxxing a federal law enforcement agent should be a crime. At a time when violence against these men and women is higher than ever, we cannot let radical, left-wing politicians get away with releasing this information for criminal gangs to see," she added. In May, Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell publicly condemned the efforts of ICE agents when they arrested more than 200 illegal immigrants during traffic stops in coordination with the state’s highway patrol. "This type of federal enforcement action is not focused on making us safer and leaves people in our community fearing any interaction with law enforcement when there is a crime occurring. We will be seeking the names of those detained," O’Connell’s office said in response to the arrests. On Thursday, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons defended the use of masks worn by his agents while conducting raids, saying, "People are out there taking photos of the [officers’] names, their faces, and posting them online with death threats to their family and themselves." Lyons added, "So I’m sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks, but I’m not going to let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line, their family on the line because people don’t like what immigration enforcement is."

NPR [6/5/2025 1:32 PM, Jasmine Garsd, 37958K] reports that the text message, sent to NPR, came in early May: It was accompanied by a screenshot of a photo of a man with swollen red eyes, with another screenshot of his full detainee information. "Please help me. I’m desperate." The woman who sent it, Maria, was texting about her brother at the Krome Detention Center in Miami. She requested their last name be withheld, for fear of retaliation against her brother who has been held in detention for more than two months. She told NPR, he had a fever, a serious eye infection for almost two weeks, and says he was denied medication for both. "There are a lot of sick people there, and they aren’t getting medical attention," she told NPR over the phone. "They are sleeping on the floor, and sometimes don’t get meals." Florida has pledged to be a national model for state cooperation with President Trump’s immigration crackdown. As detention centers here and across the country fill up, NPR has received an outpouring of messages about severe overcrowding and inhumane conditions in immigration facilities across the state. More than a dozen detainees, family members and lawyers described similar issues as Maria, including detainees underfed and in ill health. Krome is a storied detention center, dogged for years by allegations of inhumane conditions and investigated by the Department of Justice in 2000 on accusations of sexual abuse. This year alone, there have been two deaths at the facility: Ukrainian immigrant Maksym Chernayak and Genry Ruiz Guillen of Honduras. On the morning of May 5th, a group of Krome detainees assembled in the patio to form a human "SOS" sign.

New York Post [6/5/2025 12:45 PM, Jennie Taer, 49956K] reports that federal immigration detention centers are filled to the brim, holding roughly 53,000 illegal migrants as the Trump administration pushes to expand its mass deportation effort — but ICE is desperate for more cash to do so, sources told The Post. The current number of illegal migrants in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody is beyond what is funded by Congress, and sources say more facilities are going to be opening to continue to expand the number of available detention beds. In fiscal year 2024, Congress funded roughly 41,500 ICE detention beds at a cost of roughly $3.4 billion, according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association. The feds did not reveal the total number of beds they have in the system. But the agency is continuing to search for additional facilities through private prison contractors and the Department of Defense to make more room for immigrants collared by ICE, sources said. If Republicans’ "Big Beautiful Bill" passes the Senate, ICE will have $45 billion to expand its detention capacity, according to the Economic Policy Institute. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem expressed their frustrations with the pace of arrests to ICE leadership at a May 21 meeting, pushing agents to make a "minimum" of 3,000 arrests per day, according to Axios. The Trump administration gave ICE a quota of 1,800 arrests per day in January. As a result, daily arrests jumped from the 1,600 last week to 2,200 this week, sources told The Post. But the pace of arrests is "unsustainable," said an agency source.

ABC News [6/5/2025 1:04 PM, Armando Garcia, 31733K] reports outside a nondescript building in downtown Manhattan, Ambar was pleading to God and immigration authorities that her husband Jaen would not walk out the doors of the Elk Street facility in handcuffs. "It’s the only thing I ask of God and them, to have mercy for his family. I don’t have anyone else. I’m alone with my daughter, I don’t want to be separated from him," Ambar told ABC News with tears welling up as her daughter Aranza kept herself distracted on an iPad. But her prayers were not answered. That afternoon, Jaen and two other men were brought outside by masked agents in plainclothes and quickly ushered into unmarked vehicles, with Ambar wailing and making a last plea. Aranza, 12, tried to push past the agents to prevent them from leading him toward the vehicles, tears streaming down her face. ABC News observed the emotional moments as an uncontrollably distraught Ambar threw herself on the ground pleading for her husband to be released. The masked individuals did not respond to multiple questions asked by ABC News regarding what agency they belonged to, why they were covering their faces, and which authority was being invoked to detain the men. But Jaen’s lawyer, Margaret Cargioli, says his detention follows a growing pattern of migrants being detained during check-ins with the Department of Homeland Security and being quickly deported under expedited removal. DHS did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

Breitbart.com [6/5/2025 3:47 PM, John Binder, 3077K] reports President Donald Trump’s Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director, Todd Lyons, is hitting back at Democrats for "ridiculous rhetoric and inflammatory comments" regarding ICE agents who are tasked with enforcing federal immigration laws. This week, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu (D) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) both attacked ICE agents, with Wu referring to the law enforcement officers as Trump’s "secret police" while Jeffries seemingly threatened to expose their identities.

Washington Times [6/5/2025 4:07 PM, Stephen Dinan, 2106K] reports the Biden administration placed some illegal immigrant children with sponsors who got them pregnant, the Homeland Security Department said Thursday. In other cases, minors who showed up at the border without parents were sent to live with adults who possessed child pornography, had serious criminal records or forced the children into labor. Hundreds of thousands of these unaccompanied alien children surged into the U.S. as part of the Biden border breakdown. The administration struggled to process them. Facing overcrowded and dangerous conditions, it cut corners to push the children out of detention as quickly as possible, leaving some in unsafe placements, the government now says. "Children’s safety and security is nonnegotiable," said Laszlo Baksay, a spokesperson at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "The previous administration’s failure to implement meaningful safeguards has allowed vulnerable kids to fall into the hands of criminals.” Homeland Security Investigations, a division of ICE, has spent the past few months trying to check up on the children. Thursday’s findings grew out of that effort. Some of the children were living in what ICE described as "neglect." Others were with sponsors who had criminal records that included assault, drug trafficking, prostitution and attempted murder. In what the agency called the "most disturbing cases," girls were pregnant with children fathered by their "alleged sponsors.” Unaccompanied alien children have long been among the toughest immigration cases, creating difficulties for all involved. The children face horrific dangers en route to the U.S. Once in custody, they are supposed to be placed with sponsors who can look after them while they fight for permanent legal status. Because of the sheer number of sponsors during the Biden administration, which in some early months topped 18,000, the government couldn’t vet sponsors properly under the rules inherited from the previous Trump administration. The Health and Human Services Department loosened the requirements, but analysts said the result was more dangerous placements. Federal watchdogs previously said the government had lost track of tens of thousands of children and failed to keep tabs on hundreds of thousands more. The Trump administration vowed to track down the children it could, but welfare checks have been tricky. Jarrod Sadulski, a child trafficking expert who has testified to Congress on these issues, said investigators made 100,000 attempts but located only about 5,000 children, or a rate of just 5%. They identified more than two dozen cases that showed signs of trafficking. Mr. Sadulski said HHS also ignored more than 65,000 calls to its UAC abuse hotline. Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, said last week that 7,300 of those calls involved accusations of trafficking and nearly 1,700 alleged fraud. Mr. Sadulski said people could sign up as sponsors by identifying themselves with as little as a texted photo of a driver’s license.

AP [6/5/2025 8:20 PM, Leah Willingham, 56000K] reports a Massachusetts high school student who was arrested by immigration agents on his way to volleyball practice has been released from custody after a judge granted him bond Thursday. Marcelo Gomes da Silva, 18, who came to the U.S. from Brazil at age 7, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents Saturday. Authorities have said the agents were looking for the Milford High School teenager’s father, who owns the car Gomes da Silva was driving at the time and had parked in a friend’s driveway. Speaking with members of the media outside the detention center shortly after his release on $2,000 bond, Gomes da Silva described “humiliating” conditions and said his faith helped him through his six days of detention. On his wrist, he wore a bracelet made from the thin sheet of metallic blanket he was given to sleep on the cement floor. “I’ll always remember this place,” he said. “I’ll always remember how it was.” His lawyer, Robin Nice, told reporters after the hearing in Chelmsford that his arrest “shouldn’t have happened in the first place. This is all a waste.” U.S. immigration officials took them into custody Tuesday, but they have not been charged in the attack. U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said Wednesday that the family was being processed for removal. U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said earlier this week ICE officers were targeting a “known public safety threat” and Gomes da Silva’s father “has a habit of reckless driving at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour through residential areas.” “While ICE officers never intended to apprehend Gomes da Silva, he was found to be in the United States illegally and subject to removal proceedings, so officers made the arrest,” she said in a statement.

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(B) GMA3: What You Need to Know [6/5/2025 1:10 PM, Staff]

Breitbart [6/5/2025 1:41 PM, Hannah Knudsen, 3077K] reports that U.S. Attorney in Massachusetts Leah Foley issued a sharp criticism of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu after the Democrat criticized recent actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, deeming her remarks "reckless and inflammatory." Wu has come under fire for referring to ICE as "secret police" as she has continually spoken out against the actions of immigration enforcement. "People are terrified for their lives and for their neighbors, folks getting snatched off the street by secret police who are wearing masks, who can offer no justification for why certain people are being taken and then detained," she claimed during an interview. Foley categorized those remarks as "reckless and inflammatory." "Referring to federal agents as quote ‘secret police’ is offensive. There are no secret police," Foley said in a video statement posted by the Massachusetts Attorney General Office. "ICE agents, along with other federal law enforcement partners, are making immigration arrests. That is no secret. They are arresting individuals who are here illegally, which is a violation of federal law." Foley explained that every enforcement action is "conducted within the bounds of the Constitution and our laws with oversight, legal justification, and accountability."

Washington Examiner [6/5/2025 2:40 PM, Jenny Goldsberry, 1934K] reports that Boston Mayor Michelle Wu drew the ire of the Department of Homeland Security after she criticized U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for wearing masks. Wu told local outlet WCVB on Wednesday that she didn’t know of "any police department that routinely wears masks" like ICE agents do. Instead she pointed out that the neo-Nazi group "NSC-131 routinely wears masks." As the video of her comments circulated online, it drew a response from DHS, which houses ICE. "Mayor Wu comparing ICE agents to neo-Nazis is SICKENING," DHS wrote on X Thursday. "When our heroic law enforcement officers conduct operations, they clearly identify themselves as law enforcement while wearing masks to protect themselves from being targeted by known and suspected gang members, murders, and rapists. Attacks and demonization of our brave law enforcement is WRONG." According to the agency, "our ICE officers are facing a 413% increase in assaults while carrying out arrests." The White House also circulated the video online and pointed to the efforts of ICE in Boston despite the city’s status as a sanctuary city and lack of cooperation. "ICE just conducted its largest ever immigration enforcement operation across Massachusetts and Mayor Wu’s city of Boston, where they arrested nearly 800 illegals with criminal records," the White House rapid response account wrote on X.

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New York Post [6/5/2025 8:54 AM, Emily Crane, 49956K]
NewsMax [6/5/2025 1:59 PM, Theodore Bunker, 4622K]

FOX News [6/5/2025 2:01 PM, Greg Norman, 46878K] reports that the Department of Homeland Security says Boston’s Democrat mayor comparing ICE agents to neo-Nazis is "sickening." The reaction Thursday came in response to a video posted by an account affiliated with the White House, during which Michelle Wu said, "I don’t know of any police department that routinely wears masks. "We know that there are other groups that routinely wear masks. NSC-131 routinely wears masks," Wu added, in reference to a New England-based neo-Nazi group. "Mayor Wu comparing ICE agents to neo-Nazis is SICKENING," Homeland Security wrote on X. "When our heroic law enforcement officers conduct operations, they clearly identify themselves as law enforcement while wearing masks to protect themselves from being targeted by known and suspected gang members, murders, and rapists." "Attacks and demonization of our brave law enforcement is WRONG. ICE officers are now facing a 413% increase in assaults," Homeland Security added. The Anti-Defamation League said members of NSC-131 "consider themselves soldiers at war with a hostile, Jewish-controlled system that is deliberately plotting the extinction of the White race." ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons, in a message to Wu on Wednesday, said "these are real people with real families you’re hurting with your ridiculous rhetoric and inflammatory comments and it’s time to remember that."

New York Post [6/5/2025 6:37 PM, Kyle Schnitzer and Matt Troutman, 49956K] reports a Venezuelan migrant who made the unusual move of voluntarily asking for bail to avoid being arrested by ICE could be locked up on Rikers Island for weeks or longer — regardless of if he posts the $100. Nolveiro Vera Ordonez, 30, likely will end up in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody no matter the outcome of his petty theft case in Manhattan court. A judge’s quick decision to hold Ordonez on a federal criminal warrant will ensure he’ll be rounded up by ICE once his state case wraps up, confirmed Al Baker, spokesman for the state Office of Court Administration, on Thursday. One immigration lawyer who spoke to The Post laughed at Ordonez’s brazen attempt to wait out ICE in jail, while noting Rikers is probably not the best place to cool his heels. "I’ll give them points for thinking out of the box," quipped attorney Edward Cuccia, though he added, "As an immigration strategy, it’s maybe not the best.” Ordonez’s pathway to the questionable legal gambit began Monday, when he was allegedly spotted cutting a lock and stealing a bicycle in Harlem, court papers show. An NYPD cop arrested Ordonez, leading to his Manhattan Criminal Court arraignment Wednesday on charges of petit larceny, criminal possession of stolen property and criminal mischief. The problem for the Venezuelan migrant is that he faced a criminal arrest warrant from a Texas federal court for allegedly illegally crossing the US-Mexico border in 2022, records show. A cadre of ICE agents were ready to nab Ordonez after the arraignment, so his lawyer, Elizabeth Fischer of the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, made an unusual request: set his bail at $100, even though the offenses are usually bail-ineligible. Fischer cited an obscure New York law in which defendants can request bail at any time. Judge Rachel Pauley, noting the request was "highly unusual," agreed to the set the bail — and effectively blocked the federal arrest. But Pauley also remanded Ordonez on the federal warrant, ensuring he’ll stay behind bars. "It is an indefinite hold," Pauley said.

Breitbart [6/5/2025 3:57 AM, Paul Bois, 3077K] reports U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested a Russian national accused of working with Al Qaeda. The arrested occurred on May 23 in Philadelphia and the 39-year-old man, originally born in Tajikistan, was a fugitive overseas, per Fox News. "Arresting individuals linked to terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda reaffirms our unwavering commitment to safeguard the homeland," ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Philadelphia Field Office Director Brian McShane said in a statement. "Through close collaboration with our outstanding partners at the FBI, we have taken decisive action to make our communities safer and prevent potential threats to the American people." The man was originally detained at the the San Ysidro Pedestrian West point of entry in March 2023 and "charged as an inadmissible alien under the Immigration and Nationality Act because he didn’t have an immigrant visa," according to ICE agents. "He was served a notice to appear before an immigration judge and paroled into the United States," the agents said. "It is alleged that he is or was a member of Al-Qaeda," they added. "After his arrest, this individual was detained in ICE custody, where he will remain pending removal from the U.S."

Axios [6/5/2025 7:59 AM, Sabrina Moreno, Russell Contreras, and Brittany Gibson, 13599K] reports Virginia is one of five states where efforts to arrest and remove unauthorized immigrants appear most aggressive, according to an Axios analysis. Over 2,000 Virginians received removal orders in March, the fifth-highest number nationwide, per data from the nonpartisan Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). Of the 42,000 removals of immigrants ordered in March, over 300 were from the Richmond area, according to an analysis of TRAC data. Richmond had 126, followed by Chesterfield (116) and Henrico (81).

And Fairfax County was in the top 10 U.S. localities for most immigrants ordered removed (504). Our review of removal orders and agreements between immigration officials and local law enforcement agencies shows where the Trump administration is dispatching resources for mass deportations. Local law enforcement agencies in Virginia, Texas, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina have been most cooperative with immigration enforcement in rounding up immigrants through deals known as 287(g) agreements, per our analysis. Virginia has a fraction (over 3%) of the 629 agreements in place nationwide, but it has the fifth-highest number signed or pending.

Telemundo Amarillo [6/5/2025 4:17 PM, Staff, 4K] reports a dozen nail salon workers in Marietta, Georgia, were arrested during an operation by agents from the Department of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Atlanta confirmed to Telemundo Atlanta on Thursday. ICE spokesperson in Atlanta, Lindsay Williams, told this outlet that these types of operations will continue in Georgia. The arrests took place at the Luxx Nail Lounge in Marietta. These operations are part of the national offensive launched by President Donald Trump’s administration against illegal immigration, which—according to ICE sources—seeks to arrest 3,000 people daily. In an interview with this outlet, Schrank also warned that they plan to increase their immigration enforcement operations in the state. Arrests were also reported Thursday morning in operations reportedly being carried out by ICE agents and the Georgia State Patrol. ICE did confirm this Thursday the arrest of an undocumented Mexican who it claims posed a risk to national security. The 48-year-old immigrant has a criminal record for sexual exploitation of minors and will remain in ICE custody pending deportation, the agency said.

Axios [6/5/2025 6:15 AM, Russell Contreras, Brittany Gibson, and Thomas Wheatley, 13599K] reports efforts to arrest and remove unauthorized immigrants appear most aggressive in Georgia and other southern states with Democratic-leaning cities, while deeply red, rural states are seeing less activity, according to an Axios analysis. Our review of removal orders, pending deportation cases and agreements between immigration officials and local law enforcement agencies sheds light on where the Trump administration is dispatching resources to support its mass deportation plan. The analysis shows local law enforcement agencies here and in Texas, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia have been most cooperative with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in rounding up immigrants through deals known as 287 (g) agreements. There are 629 such agreements now in place across the country. About 43% of them are in Florida, followed by 14% in Texas and 5% in Georgia. The death of Laken Riley, a nursing student who was killed in Athens by an undocumented immigrant, spurred Gov. Brian Kemp and Republican state lawmakers to push local governments to partner with federal immigration efforts. In March, Kemp directed Georgia Department of Public Safety Commissioner Billy Hitchens to ask ICE to train the force’s 1,100 sworn officers under the 287 (g) program.

Axios [6/5/2025 6:20 AM, Yacob Reyes, Russell Contreras, and Brittany Gibson, 13599K] reports efforts to arrest and remove unauthorized immigrants appear most aggressive in Florida and other southern states with Democratic-leaning cities, according to an Axios analysis. Our review of removal orders, pending deportation cases and agreements between immigration officials and local law enforcement agencies sheds light on where the Trump administration is dispatching resources to support its mass deportation plan. The analysis shows local law enforcement agencies in Texas and Florida have been most cooperative with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in rounding up immigrants through deals known as 287 (g) agreements. There are 629 such agreements now in place across the country. About 43% of them are in Florida. Earlier this year, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed off on the state’s harshest immigration reform yet. The sweeping law directs local governments to partner with federal immigration efforts while broadening the reasons cops can detain immigrants and narrowing protections for undocumented crime victims and witnesses. Policies that impede immigration enforcement are now barred in Florida, and sheriffs must also share inmates’ immigration status with ICE. Noncompliance can result in fines and suspension. Recent raids in Florida by a coalition of agencies led to 1,120 arrests in an effort dubbed Operation Tidal Wave.

KCUR 89.3 Kansas City [6/6/2025 3:00 AM, Peggy Lowe, 563K] reports U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is ramping up arrests nationwide and, for the first time, picking up noncitizens at federal immigration courts. Kansas City isn’t seeing as many arrests as other cities, but attorneys say “the chaos is the point and the cruelty is the point.”
Reports of an aggressive new Trump administration initiative that is ramping up deportations by arresting noncitizens at courthouses are sparking fear in Kansas City’s migrant communities and confusion at the federal immigration court. Some migrants are showing up for court appearances only to learn that their cases are being dismissed — which was a good sign in the past because it meant they were free to go. But now, their status then triggers an arrest for “expedited removal,” part of a new tactic by Immigration and Customs Enforcement being used across the country that, for the first time, means arrests at federal immigration courts. Immigration attorneys say some noncitizens with court appointments are skipping their hearings out of fear — a rock-and-a-hard-place choice that brings the same risk: deportation. “You’ve got people who are basically thinking, ‘Damned if you do, damned if you don’t,’” said Genevra Alberti, an attorney with Martinez Immigration Law in Kansas City. Immigration attorneys have been monitoring the courts, located in a Crown Center high-rise at 23rd Street and Grand Avenue, for two weeks. That’s created another tension: agents and building security officers who are unhappy that the attorneys are handing out flyers titled “Know Your Rights,” printed in both English and Spanish. Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin has said the Trump administration is reinstating the rule of law to protect the border. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem recently confirmed that arrest quotas for immigration agents have doubled, NPR reported, from 1,800 to 3,000 a day. More than 48,000 people are currently being held in immigration detention, about a 20% increase since January, according to ICE.

CBS News [6/5/2025 12:33 PM, Charlie De Mar and Darius Johnson, 51860K] reports it was a chaotic scene in Chicago’s South Loop on Wednesday, as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and other officers took several people into custody. Community activists and city leaders clashed with the federal immigration agents at the scene. Agents spent several hours, starting around noon, at the BI Incorporated building at 2245 S. Michigan Ave. The company operates the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program for immigrants, a program that allows ICE to monitor migrants facing immigration proceedings without placing them in custody — sometimes through electronic monitoring. Migrants are called to the facility on a regular basis to ensure they are complying with the condition of their release from custody, and to make sure they appear in court when required. CBS News Chicago spoke to a number of people impacted by the detentions, and was provided screen shots of messages sent to immigrants asking them to come to the office for a routine appointment about their immigration status. Instead, they left in handcuffs in ICE custody. "People under this program has also received a similar text message, either yesterday or Monday, being told to come in and check in for an unexpected or unscheduled check-in," said Antonio Gutierrez, strategic coordinator and co-founder of Organized Communities Against Deportations. The heavily masked federal immigration enforcement agents showed up unannounced. CBS News Chicago’s cameras were there as agents detained several people. Some ICE agents carried non-lethal ammunition commonly used to disperse crowds. Witnesses said at least 10 people were loaded into vans. It was unclear why they were detained. ICE did not immediately respond to a request for information on how many people were taken into custody, and who was arrested. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem earlier Wednesday directed ICE agents to ramp up activity targeting immigrants who have overstayed their visas in the U.S.

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NewsNation [6/5/2025 11:05 AM, Alonzo Small, Jenna Barnes, and Erik Runge, 5801K]

CBS Chicago [6/5/2025 6:07 PM, Sara Tenenbaum, 51860K] reports the governor of Illinois is responding to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in Chicago’s South Loop Wednesday that drew protesters and resulted in at least 10 people being detained. Sources said migrants and asylum-seekers were called to an immigration supervision program site in the South Loop for what they thought were routine check-ins by immigration authorities. "People under this program has also received a similar text message, either yesterday or Monday, being told to come in and check in for an unexpected or unscheduled check-in," said Antonio Gutierrez, strategic coordinator and co-founder of Organized Communities Against Deportations. Instead, they were put into vans and taken away by heavily masked and armed ICE agents who showed up unannounced. "What we saw today is Gestapo-style abductions happening in front of all of us," said Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th). Chicago police were also at the scene and have faced sharp criticism since. The City of Chicago has a welcoming city ordinance that largely prohibits police from cooperating with ICE agents and investigations in most cases. Chicago police said they were at the scene only to help with crowd control and did not assist ICE in the operation. "Let’s be clear, the Chicago police followed the law," Gov. JB Pritzker said Thursday. "When ICE is engaged in raids like this, if there is a situation where there is a court ordered warrant for someone’s arrest, then it is absolutely appropriate for police to be engaged.” Immigration attorneys said the migrants were compliant and some had work permits. "Certainly inappropriate, and I think anyone can see that," Pritzker said, "and I have to say they overstep constantly, one time after another at the federal level — and they need to make sure they’re following the law just like we do.” A group of aldermen is now calling for an investigation into ICE’s strategy, which they say undermines trust and sets a dangerous precedent. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Univision Chicago WGBO [6/5/2025 3:34 PM, Staff, 4992K] reports it wasn’t 11:00 a.m. Wednesday when more than a dozen immigrants were detained for an appointment at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Processing Office. Relatives, lawyers and activists say the people summoned to the office in Chicago’s South Loop did not expect to be arrested. Tensions grew when it was confirmed that some of the individuals cited would be transferred to detention centers. In response to Univision Chicago, an ICE spokesperson stated, “Those arrested had final removal orders issued by an immigration judge and had not complied with that order.” The agency also explained that the individuals were part of the Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program, designed to monitor non-detained immigrants while they face immigration proceedings or prepare to leave the country.

Chicago Tribune [6/5/2025 2:15 PM, Alice Yin, Laura Rodríguez Presa, and Nell Salzman 3987K] reports that members of the City Council’s Latino Caucus are calling for an investigation into how Chicago police responded to the Wednesday demonstration outside a U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement office in the South Loop, where federal agents detained immigrants and clashed with aldermen. Twelve of the 14 aldermen in the caucus signed a letter condemning the high-profile showdown at 2245 S. Michigan Ave. The council’s Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights — which Latino Caucus Chair Ald. Andre Vasquez leads — will hold a hearing "to examine the extent of ICE’s misconduct and determine whether the Chicago Police Department played any role in (Wednesday’s) actions," according to the letter. In a Wednesday evening statement, the Police Department denied that officers aided the federal agents. "We condemn in the strongest terms ICE’s unlawful detainment practices," the statement from Latino Caucus members read. "We stand united in calling for a full investigation into the conduct of ICE agents involved in this operation and for the immediate release of all individuals detained under these unlawful circumstances.” Vasquez told the Tribune the committee later this month hopes to call Chicago police Supt. Larry Snelling and Mayor Brandon Johnson’s deputy mayors Garien Gatewood and Beatriz Ponce de Leon, who oversee community safety and immigration rights, respectively.

Los Angeles Times [6/5/2025 6:09 PM, Nathan Solis and Ruben Vives, 14672K] reports earlier this week, residents in Torrance were scrambling to find out what happened to 9-year-old Martir Garcia Lara, a fourth-grader at Torrance Elementary School. One day, he simply didn’t show up for school. Teachers and PTA officials believed he was being held at a federal immigration facility with his father but could not get firm answers. Federal officials confirmed Thursday that the boy and his father were taken into custody May 29 after checking in with federal officials in downtown Los Angeles. The two were transferred to an immigration facility in Texas the following day, and officials plan to deport them to Honduras. The detention is the latest in a string of high-profile immigration enforcement actions over the last week, part of President Trump’s promised deportation crackdown. The boy accompanied his father, Martir Garcia-Benegas, 50, to an immigration court facility in downtown Los Angeles on May 29, according to a statement from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Garcia-Benegas arrived in the United States on July 10, 2021, with his son. But an immigration judge ordered both the father and son to be deported to Honduras on Sept. 1, 2022. The father appealed the decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals on Aug. 11, 2023, but the appeal was dismissed. The two did not leave the country as ordered by the immigration judge, according to an ICE spokesperson. After they were detained by officials in Los Angeles, the father and son were transferred to the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Dilley, Texas.

FOX News [6/5/2025 8:00 AM, Peter Pinedo, 46878K] reports child predators, gang members and human traffickers were among the 142 criminal illegals deported to Mexico by ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officials in the Houston area in just the last two weeks. According to an ICE statement on Tuesday, the criminal immigrants were deported between May 19 and May 30. Those deported had been convicted of a total of 473 criminal offenses and had illegally entered the country a combined 480 times. The statement said that among those deported, 11 of the illegals were convicted child predators, eight were "documented gang members" and one had illegally entered the country 21 times. Additionally, among the deported illegals were 43 aggravated assault and domestic violence-related convictions, 48 drug trafficking or drug possession convictions, 22 human trafficking or human smuggling convictions and one conviction for making terroristic threats. One of the illegals, Alejandro Aguilar Vazquez, a 45-year-old Mexican national, had been convicted three times of cruelty towards a child, according to ICE. Another, Luis Angel Garcia-Contreras, a 40-year-old criminal immigrant from Mexico and documented member of the Surenos 13 gang, has illegally entered the U.S. 21 times and has been convicted of illegal entry four times. Benito Charqueno Zavala, a 60-year-old Mexican national, was convicted of continuous sexual abuse of a child. In the statement, Bret Bradford, ICE ERO Houston Field Office director, said, "Unfortunately, this is not an anomaly." [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Univision Austin [6/5/2025 3:41 PM, Staff, 4992K] reports at least nine undocumented immigrants, including two minors, were arrested Thursday by ICE agents as they attended their immigration court dates. Their cases were all dismissed by the judge, so ICE agents were already waiting for them outside the courthouse, located on Dolorosa Street in San Antonio. Their families had to watch as they were handcuffed and put on a bus that would take them to one of the detention centers in Texas.

Houston Chronicle [6/5/2025 12:33 PM, Matt deGrood, 1982K] reports that after months of releasing arrest and deportation numbers without any names or identifying information of those arrested, federal immigration authorities in the Houston region this week said they deported 142 people, while including names and information for about 10 of them. A spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the decision to release names was in keeping with their longstanding policy of balancing privacy concerns with the public’s right to know. But officials said they decided to release the names to combat concerns from journalists and the public about the validity of the data. “This is just a small snapshot of those efforts as it only focuses on deportations to one country over the course of a two-week period, but it gives you an idea of how big this problem really is,” said Bret Bradford, field office operator for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations. While detailing some specifics for 10 of the 142 people deported, the latest release still leaves many specifics unanswered. It’s not clear where the people were arrested or where the criminal charges stem from. The numbers came during a two-week period in May and include all those deported to Mexico, officials said. ICE’s Houston field office covers 54 counties across a large swath of southeast Texas.

Axios [6/5/2025 6:50 PM, Alayna Alvarez, 13599K] reports the whistleblower lawsuit — filed Wednesday by Scott Moss, one of the governor’s top labor officials — alleges that Polis ordered state employees to hand over personal information on residents sponsoring unaccompanied migrant children, despite laws the governor signed explicitly prohibiting such cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. According to the lawsuit, Polis’ contested directive ordered staff to comply with a Department of Homeland Security subpoena or risk termination. The governor now stands further at odds not only with the legislature and local leaders who have long resisted federal immigration enforcement, but with his own record. Just weeks ago, Polis increased protections for immigrants. Now he is accused of undercutting them. On April 24, Homeland Security Investigations subpoenaed the state of Colorado for wage data, leave filings, home addresses and more on 35 sponsors of unaccompanied minors. Polis’ office initially resisted. Weeks later, however, the governor allegedly reversed course and ordered compliance, despite a 2025 law barring such disclosures without a court order. "Colorado is not a sanctuary state," Polis spokesperson Eric Maruyama told Axios Denver in a statement. "Helping our federal law enforcement partners locate and, if necessary, rescue children being abused and trafficked is not only in line with the law but also a moral imperative." Polis’ office told The Lever, which first reported the lawsuit, the subpoena falls under a narrow legal exception for criminal investigations, and the law allows cooperation in such cases. In January, Polis told reporters that Colorado’s role was to assist with federal criminal investigations, not act as an "extension of the (U.S.) government" on immigration enforcement. In a statement to Axios Denver, Moss’ attorney Laura Wolf countered claims made by the governor’s office. "ICE never claimed nor showed evidence of crimes against children," Wolf said. "ICE admits it wants the state’s help finding children" it already apprehended "to make sure they’re ‘cared for’ and not ‘exploited,’" but that "does not turn civil immigration proceedings into criminal investigations," she said.

The Hill [6/5/2025 1:14 PM, Amy Larson, 18649K] reports that a newlywed California woman said her husband was handcuffed and hauled away by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents moments after he attended an asylum hearing at San Francisco Immigration Court. Shaylyn Ordaz and her husband, Anyelo, went to the courthouse together on May 23. "Imagine this: you’re one month away from celebrating 6 months of marriage to the love of your life. You’re in the honeymoon phase. You’re planning your life together. Thinking that you’re doing everything right, you walk out of an immigration hearing just to have your spouse immediately detained without any explanation," Ordaz wrote on a verified GoFundMe page. "That’s what happened," she added. Anyelo reportedly arrived in the U.S. in early 2024 seeking asylum from Colombia. He does not have a criminal history in the U.S. nor in his home country, Ordaz said, and he moved to the U.S. seeking a better life. "My husband attended all of his check-ins and asylum hearings as required by law. Then, thinking we were almost through with the asylum process, the government lawyer in the courtroom asked for the case to be dismissed," Ordaz wrote. Ordaz said officers transported her husband to an immigration detention center that was a five-hour drive away. "My husband is being treated like a criminal," she wrote. She is raising donations through GoFundMe to hire immigration attorneys for Anyelo’s case. A senior spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security previously told KRON, "Most aliens who illegally entered the United States within the past two years are subject to expedited removals. ICE is now following the law and placing these illegal aliens in expedited removal, as they always should have been."

San Francisco Chronicle [6/5/2025 11:38 AM, Jessica Flores, 4120K] reports that at least 15 people, including a 3-year-old, were detained Wednesday during their scheduled check-ins at the U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement office in San Francisco, according to immigration-rights advocates. ICE officers detained families and children at the ICE field office, at 630 Sansome St., said Sanika Mahajan of the San Francisco Rapid Response Network and Mission Action. The detainees were apparently residents of San Francisco and Contra Costa and San Mateo counties, Mahajan said. A spokesperson for ICE did not immediately respond to a request for more information. People with pending immigration cases typically have to check in with ICE officials at least once a year as they make their way through a backlogged court system. There have been reports of arrests at routine check-ins throughout the country. The arrests at the ICE field office occurred on the same day that ICE reportedly detained an unknown number of people outside a supermarket in South San Jose. Last week, ICE arrested four men following their appearances in San Francisco Immigration Court last Tuesday, according to advocates. Immigrants were arrested at Concord Immigration Court as well, the advocates said. San Francisco Supervisor Jackie Fielder, who represents the Mission District, called the detentions on Wednesday "unconscionable, unlawful and authoritarian" in a social media post.

Los Angeles Times [6/5/2025 6:00 AM, Rachel Uranga, 14672K] reports immigrants detained by federal agents in Southern California are being housed at the Glendale City Jail, making the Los Angeles suburb one of the few, if not the only, known jurisdiction in the "sanctuary" state to sidestep rules prohibiting local law enforcement from assisting in federal immigration enforcement. It’s unclear how many detainees are being held at the 96-bed facility, but The Times confirmed at least two individuals were placed there over the last week by immigration officials. The facility is one of the busiest jails in the state and is staffed by the Glendale Police Department. Glendale City Council members defended the detentions this week, saying that the city had an 18-year-old contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to temporarily house noncriminal detainees. They said the agreement is in compliance with state Senate Bill 54, a landmark law that made California the first in the nation to create a sanctuary state. "Glendale has a contract with ICE, and yes, on occasion, ICE detainees will be given bed space at our facility," said Annette Ghazarian, a spokesperson for Glendale. Shortly before President Trump took office, Glendale Police Chief Manuel Cid told the council that the jails hadn’t been used frequently for immigrant detainees since the Obama administration. He said that the mass sweeps would be logistically difficult given the capacity of the federal detention centers and that he didn’t expect local agencies to fill the gap given state law.

SFGate [6/5/2025 7:12 PM, Olivia Hebert, 11859K] reports that, moments after an immigration judge extended his asylum deadline, a Bay Area man was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents outside a San Francisco courtroom, his wife said — leaving her stunned and scrambling for answers. The newlyweds, just weeks away from their six-month anniversary, had believed they were nearing the end of a long legal process, according to a GoFundMe page. Shaylyn Ordaz said she and her husband, Anyelo, had just left the courtroom on May 23 when immigration officers arrested him. "As I was taken away from him around the corner, I heard the handcuffs," she wrote on the GoFundMe page. Anyelo came to the United States seeking asylum. After meeting in the Bay Area, Ordaz said, they got married and filed an 1-130 Petition for Alien Relative — the first step in helping a non-U.S. citizen spouse apply for a green card. According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the I-130 is used to prove that not only is the couple legally married, but the relationship between the U.S. citizen and the person they’re sponsoring is a real one — not just for immigration purposes. Although Ordaz said her husband attended every required check-in and court hearing, a government attorney moved to dismiss his asylum case at the May 23 hearing. The judge presiding over the case initially gave him 10 days to respond, but extended the deadline to June 9 due to the holiday weekend, she said. Despite that ruling, ICE agents detained him immediately outside the courtroom, she said. He was briefly released by authorities with an ankle monitor, but then detained once more later that day for unclear reasons. "All they told me was ‘circumstances changed’ and that he could be released on bond," Ordaz wrote. "They didn’t tell me how much, or how to pay it.” An officer handed her "a Google search printout of the detention center he was taken to, more than 5 hours away ... My husband is being treated like a criminal, and ICE has given me no information," she wrote. That marked the beginning of a disorienting and costly ordeal. Despite San Francisco’s sanctuary city status, federal agents are still permitted to conduct immigration arrests within city limits. Sanctuary policies restrict local law enforcement from assisting with immigration enforcement, but they do not prevent federal agents from carrying out arrests in public spaces, including courtrooms.

New York Times [6/5/2025 2:21 PM, Patricia Mazzei, 138952K] reports that Immigration raids have been so rare in Puerto Rico that its only detention facility, in an office building next to a mall, can hold only about 20 detainees. Yet federal authorities in the U.S. territory have detained more than 500 people since President Trump took office in January. The escalation has upset many Puerto Ricans, who are American citizens, and has underscored their uneasy relationship with Washington. Nearly three-quarters of the detainees have hailed from one country, the Dominican Republic, which lies 80 miles west of Puerto Rico by boat. Many Dominicans share the same ethnic background, language and culture as Puerto Ricans, and the detentions of Dominicans have felt to many Puerto Ricans like an affront. “It’s a historical aberration,” said Néstor Duprey, an associate professor of social sciences at the Inter American University of Puerto Rico. Generations of Dominicans, as well as some Haitians, have migrated to the Puerto Rico archipelago on rickety boats from Hispaniola island, starting families and filling critical jobs in housekeeping, home health care and construction. Other than interdictions at sea and occasional raids in the capital, San Juan, federal authorities largely avoided mass immigration enforcement on the island before now. Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic “have stronger cultural and linguistic links than, I think, most countries in the world,” said Jorge Duany, an expert on Caribbean migration, citing their accents, Catholicism and shared love of baseball.

New York Post [6/5/2025 11:24 AM, Josh Christenson, 49956K] reports that three Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers have been marooned in Djibouti with eight criminal migrants under "outrageous" living conditions and the threat of rocket attacks from Yemen after a federal judge barred the convicts’ deportation to South Sudan, The Post has learned. The eight migrants — who have been convicted of murder, sexually assaulting minors, robbery and arson, among other crimes — are being housed in a Conex shipping container on a US naval base in the African country and are watched around the clock by the team of ICE officers. Pentagon officials warned ICE after the team’s arrival that Camp Lemonnier is at risk of rocket strikes from Houthi terrorists across the Red Sea in Yemen, while the officers have also been exposed to toxic smog from nearby burn pits where locals dispose of trash and human waste. Following a late May order by US District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston, the officers had to land the flight carrying the migrants in East Africa without taking any anti-malaria medication — which was not provided until more than two days after they arrived. Some "began to feel ill within 72 hours of landing in Djibouti," a Department of Homeland Security source told The Post. A flight nurse was able to later find some anti-malaria medication, though the supply has been limited. In addition, the officers are the only federal personnel authorized to escort the migrants to the bathroom and pat them down for weapons and contraband, and the grueling ordeal has required them to be relieved by fill-in teams periodically.

CBS News [6/5/2025 2:03 PM, Camilo Montoya-Galvez, Eleanor Watson, and Jacob Rosen, 51860K] reports that a top Immigration and Customs Enforcement official on Thursday detailed what she said were deplorable and unsafe conditions faced by ICE staff and a group of migrants with criminal records who were transferred to a U.S. military base in the African country of Djibouti after a federal judge blocked officials from deporting them to South Sudan. Melissa Harper, the No. 2 official in the ICE division responsible for deportations, revealed in a sworn declaration in federal court in Massachusetts that the detainees are being held in a shipping container repurposed as a conference room inside Camp Lemonnier, a U.S. Navy installation. Harper outlined a series of concerns about the arrangement, describing inadequate security equipment, illness among government employees and 100-degree outdoor temperatures. She detailed risks from exposure to malaria, nearby burn pits and potential attacks from terrorists in Yemen, presumably the Houthis. Officials have said the men currently detained in Djibouti — who hail from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, South Sudan and Vietnam — were convicted of murder, sexual offenses and other serious crimes and had been ordered deported from the U.S. In a statement, Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin faulted the Massachusetts federal judge who blocked the deportations to South Sudan for the conditions in Camp Lemonnier, accusing him of "putting the lives of our ICE law enforcement in danger by stranding them in Djibouti without proper resources, lack of medical care, and terrorists who hate Americans running rampant."

Washington Post [6/5/2025 6:50 PM, Maria Sacchetti, 32099K] reports nearly a dozen immigration officers and eight deportees are sick and stranded in a metal shipping container in the searing-hot East African nation of Djibouti, where they face the constant threat of malaria and rocket attacks from nearby Yemen, according to a federal court filing issued Thursday. A federal judge in Boston interrupted an Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation flight taking immigrants from Cuba, Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos and Mexico to South Sudan more than two weeks ago. U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy said the flight violated his order prohibiting officials from sending immigrants to countries where they aren’t citizens without a chance to ask for humanitarian protection. He instructed officials to arrange screenings. Trump officials could have flown the immigrants back to the United States. Instead, they were taken to Djibouti, where in late May officers turned a Conex container into a makeshift detention facility on U.S. Naval Base Camp Lemonnier, according to Mellissa Harper, a top ICE official, who detailed the conditions Thursday in a required status update to the judge. Three officers and eight detainees arrived at the only U.S. military base in Africa unprepared for what awaited them. Defense officials warned them of "imminent danger of rocket attacks from terrorist groups in Yemen," but the ICE officers did not pack body armor or other gear to protect themselves. Temperatures soar past 100 degrees during the day. At night, she wrote, a "smog cloud" forms in the windless sky, filled with rancid smoke from nearby burning pits where residents incinerate trash and human waste. The Trump administration has urged the Supreme Court to stay Murphy’s April order requiring screenings under the Convention Against Torture, which Congress ratified in 1994 to bar the U.S. government from sending people to countries where they might face torture. In a filing in that case Thursday, officials told the Supreme Court that Murphy’s order violates their authority to deport immigrants to third countries if their homelands refuse to take them back, particularly if they are serious offenders who might otherwise be released in the United States. Officials said the conditions in Djibouti highlight the dangers of Murphy’s order. "A small number of ICE personnel are currently guarding dangerous criminals around-the-clock in a converted conference room, under threat of rocket attacks and other security and health hazards — disrupting the base’s operations, consuming critical resources intended for service members, and harming national security," Solicitor General D. John Sauer said in the filing. In her declaration, Harper said officers and detainees began to suffer symptoms of a bacterial upper respiratory infection soon after deplaning, including "coughing, difficulty breathing, fever, and achy joints.” Medication wasn’t immediately available. She wrote that the flight nurse has since obtained treatments such as inhalers, Tylenol, eye drops and nasal spray, but they cannot get tested for the illness to properly treat it. "It is unknown how long the medical supply will last," Harper wrote. "This Massachusetts District judge is putting the lives of our ICE law enforcement in danger by stranding them in [Djibouti] without proper resources, lack of medical care, and terrorists who hate Americans running rampant," said DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin on X. "Our @ICEgov officers were only supposed to transport for removal 8 *convicted criminals* with *final deportation orders* who were so monstrous and barbaric that no other country would take them. This is reprehensible and, quite frankly, pathological.” But a lawyer for the detainees said they are also worried about their health, whether they are shackled and the circumstances that DHS has created for them. "We’re increasingly concerned about the conditions of the detainees," said Trina Realmuto, an attorney for the deportees.

CBS News [6/5/2025 7:46 PM, Cara Tabachnick, 51860K] reports six accused drug traffickers allegedly using boats and "narco subs" to traffic cocaine were hit with U.S. sanctions, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said Thursday. Four Guyanese nationals — Paul Daby Jr., Randolph Duncan, Mark Cromwell, Himnauth Sawh — and two Colombians — Yeison Andres Sanchez Vallejo and Manuel Salazar Gutierrez — were sanctioned for allegedly trafficking tons of cocaine from South America to the United States, Europe and the Caribbean, officials said. Daby Jr. and Duncan operate the largest drug trafficking operation in Guayana, according to U.S. officials, using "narco subs" — a semi-submersible vessel that can’t fully go underwater — airstrips and various individuals in their smuggling efforts. Daby Jr. also transports illegal gold from Guyana, while Duncan traffics cocaine from Guyana to Africa and the Caribbean to Europe and the United States, the Treasury said. The Treasury Department said Cromwell, a former Guyana police officer, is wanted for his alleged role in the abduction of another Guyana police officer in 2024. Sawh, a Guyana police officer, is accused of facilitating safe passage for Mexican and Venezuelan drug traffickers sending cocaine through Guyana. Colombians Sanchez and Salazar are accused of overseeing airstrips used by aircraft smuggling cocaine from Colombia to Guyana, the Treasury said. "As a result of today’s action, all property and interests in property of the designated or blocked persons described above that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked and must be reported to OFAC," the Treasure Department said. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Bloomberg Law News [6/5/2025 10:03 AM, Andrew Kreighbaum, 88K] reports the Trump administration is eliminating deportation protections for more than 12,000 immigrants from Nepal, the Department of Homeland Security announced Thursday. A Temporary Protected Status designation for the country will terminate effective Aug. 5, according to a Federal Register notice released by the agency. TPS allows immigrants from designated countries without another legal status to stay in the US for up to 18 months and get legal work authorization when circumstances like armed conflict prevent a safe return. In a review of conditions in Nepal, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem found notable improvements in environmental disaster preparedness and substantial reconstruction from a 2015 earthquake that killed nearly 9,000 people, according to the agency. The Trump administration has targeted temporary immigrant relief programs for rollbacks, previously terminating designations for Venezuela, Afghanistan, and Cameroon.

The Hill [6/5/2025 12:26 PM, Brooke Migdon, 18649K] reports that Phyll Opoku-Gyimah, a British political and LGBTQ rights activist, said she was denied entry to the U.S. over a recent trip to Cuba. Opoku-Gyimah, also known as Lady Phyll, had been scheduled to deliver opening remarks at WorldPride’s human rights conference, which runs June 4-6 in Washington. Speaking over a livestream Wednesday afternoon, Opoku-Gyimah said U.S. officials revoked her visa waiver under the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA), an automated system determining whether visitors from participating countries may enter the U.S. without a visa. Travel to Cuba, which the U.S. designated a state sponsor of terrorism in 2021, is grounds for having an ESTA revoked, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) website. The Caribbean nation’s terror designation was briefly rescinded under former President Biden and reinstated by President Trump in January. Opoku-Gyimah said she was notified of the revocation of her travel authorization days before she was set to fly to the U.S. for WorldPride. She applied for a temporary visa, she said, but was told the earliest she could enter the country was September. "I’ve called. I’ve written. I’ve pleaded," said Opoku-Gyimah, the co-founder and CEO of UK Black Pride. "And the answer was a cold, bureaucratic ‘No.’" The DHS did not immediately return a request for comment.

Reuters [6/5/2025 1:07 PM, Ryan Patrick Jones, 51390K] reports that the Trump administration has moved to end deportation protections the United States granted to thousands of Nepalese people after a 2015 earthquake devastated the country, according to a government notice posted on Thursday. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in the notice that the administration is terminating temporary protected status for Nepal after a review found the country has largely recovered from the disaster. "There are notable improvements in environmental disaster preparedness and response capacity, as well as substantial reconstruction from the earthquake’s destruction such that there is no longer a disruption of living conditions and Nepal is able to handle adequately the return of its nationals," the notice said. The department estimates there are around 12,700 Nepalese with the status, which provides deportation relief and work permits to people already in the U.S. if their home countries experience a natural disaster, armed conflict or other extraordinary event. Of those, approximately 5,500 have lawful permanent residence in the U.S. The notice said the revocation will take effect 60 days from Friday, giving the approximately 7,000 Nepalese migrants with temporary protected status who aren’t permanent residents until August 5, 2025, to leave the country or change their immigration status. After that date, they could face deportation. The Department of Homeland Security and the Nepalese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

NPR [6/5/2025 4:24 PM, Greg Myre, Megan Pratz, 37958K] reports President Trump enacted a travel ban on citizens from a dozen countries Wednesday, including Afghanistan, where U.S. troops were stationed for nearly two decades. Even though the president’s travel ban applies to Afghanistan, it does include an exception. Afghans who served with the U.S. during the war can still pursue what’s known as a Special Immigrant Visa. Since the chaotic military withdrawal of U.S. troops in August of 2021, around 200,000 Afghans have resettled in the U.S., many under that visa program. In addition, more than 200,000 Afghans remain outside the U.S. while awaiting various stages of the application process, including many who worked with the Americans. The president’s proclamation also carves out exceptions for individuals already in the U.S. seeking asylum. While it does not address refugee resettlement, the U.S. has paused almost all refugee programs under another executive order. The administration also cited visa overstay statistics in its reasoning for Afghanistan’s inclusion.

Reuters [6/5/2025 11:04 AM, Charlotte Greenfield and Mohammad Yunus Yawar, 51390K] reports that Fatima, a 57-year-old Afghan women’s rights defender waiting in limbo in Pakistan for her U.S. visa to be processed, had her dreams shattered overnight after President Donald Trump included Afghans among those banned from entering the U.S.

She worked for decades for U.S.-funded projects in Central Afghanistan and now risks being pushed back to her home country, where she fears for her safety and her teenage daughter is unable to attend school. "Unfortunately, the decisions made by President Trump turned all the hopes and beliefs of us into ashes," she told Reuters, asking that only her first name be published for security reasons. Trump signed a proclamation on Wednesday banning nationals of 12 countries, including Afghanistan, from entering the United States, saying the move was needed to protect against "foreign terrorists" and other security threats. "We are not al-Qaeda, we are the ones who fought back, we are the ones who gave our youth, our strength, our physical energy, our voices, everything we had, for the dream of a peaceful nation, for a country where we could simply breathe, we stood beside NATO forces," said Fatima. "And today, to be abandoned by America is not only tragic, it is devastating, It is a source of deep despair," she added.

The Hill [6/5/2025 6:37 PM, Filip Timotija, 18649K] reports the majority of international students from Equatorial Guinea have overstayed their visas in the United States, according to David Gilmour, the U.S. ambassador to Equatorial Guinea. "Unfortunately, many Equatoguineans travel to the United States to study and for tourism and they remain in the country beyond the validity of their visa. Seventy percent of Equatoguinean students have overstayed their visas. Some 22 percent of tourists and business travelers have not respected the limit of their permission to stay," Gilmour said in a Thursday morning statement on the social media platform X. "Those Equatoguineans who have not respected U.S. immigration law are causing a problem that has restricted the travel of their fellow citizens," Gilmour said, adding that if "you know someone who is presently in the United States without a valid visa, tell them to return to Equatorial Guinea immediately.” Gilmour’s statement came less than 24 hours after President Trump signed a proclamation that fully bans nationals of a dozen countries from entering the U.S., including Equatorial Guinea. The other countries included in the Wednesday order are Afghanistan, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. The order also partially restricts entry for nationals from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela. Trump penned an executive order on his first day in the Oval Office in January that advocated for bolstered screening and vetting of migrants who are coming into the U.S., pointing to national security concerns. The president has also forcefully cracked down on illegal immigration since taking office and curbed the flow of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump’s Wednesday proclamation included exceptions for nationals mentioned on the list who are lawful permanent residents of the U.S., current visa holders and people "whose entry serves U.S. national interests.” Gilmour referenced those exceptions Thursday morning. "The order does not affect Equatorial Guinea government officials traveling to the United States on government business, or lawful permanent residents of the United States," the ambassador said. He added that the U.S., "like Equatorial Guinea and other countries, takes decisive measures to protects its borders and to prevent the illegal presence of foreigners on its territory.”

Washington Examiner [6/5/2025 11:59 AM, Anna Giaritelli, 1934K] reports that the Trump administration gave Customs and Border Protection the green light to move forward with border wall projects across Arizona and New Mexico. The Department of Homeland Security instructed CBP to ignore environmental regulations and immediately begin building 36 miles of barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border, CBP announced Thursday. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem issued a waiver, including against the National Environmental Policy Act, for the federal government to begin construction of 18- to 30-foot slatted walls and roads without having to wait for normal administrative approvals. The largest part of the 36-mile project, 24 miles called the Tucson Sonoita Project, will go up in the Nogales, Arizona, region, and another two miles of the project will be constructed in the Tucson region of the border. In western Arizona’s Yuma region, wall projects, ranging from 40 to 240 feet in length, will fill in seven gaps in the Barry M. Goldwater Range. Further east in New Mexico, 8.3 miles of wall will go up as part of the Santa Teresa Wall Project, the Wall Project Anapra, and near an unspecified port of entry. The projects have been funded through unused money that Congress appropriated in fiscal 2020 and 2021.

Daily Caller [6/5/2025 12:32 PM, Jason Hopkins, 1010K] reports President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” will bolster the security apparatus established along the U.S.-Mexico border, GOP supporters and law enforcement officials say. While the Trump administration has succeeded in cutting illegal immigration to historical levels in the past several months, border hawks contend that more resources can be deployed to double down on these gains and provide frontline support to Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The budget reconciliation bill, recently passed by House Republicans, would supercharge border security by the tune of billions of dollars. “Just being able to respond to areas that we’ve detected incursions, that right there would make a significant impact,” Detective Cody Essary of the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office — whose jurisdiction that spreads across Arizona’s southeast border with Mexico — said during a visit by Kansas GOP Sen. Roger Marshall. The detective suggested the added manpower and border technology from the legislation would be a game changer. “Whether it’s people just being smuggled across or people that are smuggling drugs across, being able to make those apprehensions is what changes the formula in this area,” Essary continued. Under the Biden administration, border agents were slammed with the chaotic levels of illegal immigration, with fiscal years 2023 and 2024 being the highest and second highest, respectively, of recorded migrant encounters, according to CBP data. However, circumstances changed drastically with the change of administrations. Following a slate of executive orders and other administrative actions from the Trump White House, the southern border went from crisis-level encounters down to historically low migrant crossings. Touting the progress made within the administration’s first 100 days, the White House in April stated that daily border encounters fell 93% and migrant crossings dropped by 99.99%. While much success has already been realized, GOP supporters say a boost in spending would likely amplify gains.

AP [6/5/2025 6:44 PM, Staff, 4120K] reports a Peruvian woman who crossed the U.S. border illegally was acquitted Thursday of unauthorized access to a newly designated militarized zone in the first trial under the Trump administration’s efforts to prosecute immigrants who cross in certain parts of New Mexico and western Texas. Adely Vanessa De La Cruz-Alvarez, 21, was arrested last month near the West Texas town of Tornillo after she entered the U.S. from Mexico by walking across the riverbed of the Rio Grande, court documents show. In addition to being charged with entering the country illegally, she was charged with accessing a military zone. She is among several other immigrants who have been charged under the law since President Donald Trump’s administration transferred oversight of a strip of land along the border to the military. It is as part of a new approach the Department of Justice is taking to crack down on illegal immigration. The Associated Press left messages Thursday with De La Cruz-Alvarez’s attorney, Veronica Teresa Lerma. The lawyer told The Texas Tribune the acquittal is significant. "Hopefully, this sets the tone for the federal government," Lerma said, "so they know what the El Paso community will do with these charges.” Even before the woman’s case went to trial, federal magistrate judges in neighboring New Mexico had dismissed similar cases, finding little evidence that immigrants knew about the zones. Lerma was convicted of entering the country illegally and was already facing deportation, but could have faced up to 18 months in prison for entering the militarized zone. Despite the verdict, U.S. Attorney Justin Simmons of the Western District of Texas said his office will continue to aggressively prosecute National Defense Area violations. "At the end of the day, another illegal alien has been found guilty of illegally entering the country in violation of the improper entry statute and will be removed from the United States," Simmons said in a statement. "That’s a win for America.” The administration wants to sharply increase the removal of immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally as Trump seeks to make good on his pledge of mass deportations. The administration has deployed thousands of troops to the border, while arrests have plunged to the lowest levels since the mid-1960s.

FOX News [6/5/2025 2:33 PM, Danielle Wallace, 46878K] reports that in response to the Department of Justice charging two Chinese nationals – including a University of Michigan research fellow – with allegedly smuggling a potential "agroterrorism" weapon into the U.S., national security experts tell Fox News Digital that the Trump administration must continue to take action to prevent American colleges and companies from "essentially educating and arming our chief adversary in the world." "In some cases, it seems like we learned nothing from COVID," Christian Whiton, a former senior foreign policy advisor in the Bush and Trump administrations, told Fox News Digital. "We allow direct flights now from China to the U.S. mainland. Again, that is crazy. And the whole fact that we are allowing researchers, even in the realm of dealing with pathogens to have access anywhere in the United States, much less the universities, is pretty insane. It seems like a pre-COVID mindset." The two Chinese nationals were charged Tuesday with smuggling Fusarium graminearum fungus, a dangerous biological pathogen and "known agroterrorism agent" responsible for billions of dollars in economic losses worldwide each year, through Detroit’s airport. The noxious substance causes "head blight," a disease of wheat, barley, maize, and rice, according to federal prosecutors. In humans and livestock, exposure to its toxins causes vomiting, liver damage, and reproductive defects. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

ABC News [6/5/2025 6:04 AM, Julia Jacobo, 31733K] Video HERE reports the biological pathogen federal authorities accuse two Chinese nationals of smuggling into the U.S. can be concerning for farming communities but was not likely an act of "agroterrorism," according to plant pathology experts. Two citizens of the People’s Republic of China -- Yunqing Jian, 33, and Zunyong Liu, 34 -- were arrested for allegedly bringing a fungus called Fusarium graminearum, a plant pathogen, into the U.S. through the Detroit Metropolitan Airport, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Jian received Chinese government funding for her work on this pathogen in China and apparently intended to bring it to a laboratory at the University of Michigan, according to a criminal complaint filed in the Eastern District of Michigan. Liu, Jian’s boyfriend, works at a Chinese university where he conducts research on the same pathogen, according to the Justice Department. Federal prosecutors claim that "scientific literature classifies [the pathogen] as a potential agroterrorism weapon," emphasizing that it is the "of the gravest national security concern." But the pathogen, while a concern for the agricultural industry, is not necessarily among the most significant threats the industry faces, plant pathology experts told ABC News. Breakouts of Fusarium graminearum infections already naturally occur in dozens of U.S. states -- basically any state that produces wheat and barley -- and has been established in the U.S. for at least 125 years, Caitlyn Allen, a professor emeritus of plant pathology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told ABC News. In addition, the U.S. Department of Agriculture keeps a list of potential agroterrorism agents, and Fusarium graminearum is not on that list, Allen said. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Telemundo [6/5/2025 8:21 AM, Christian Del Río, 4K] reports a man was arrested on charges of human trafficking north of Laredo, Texas. It happened on Monday, June 2, at mile marker 21, northbound on Interstate 35, where state officials arrested Jonathan Harriel Johnson Lee, 35. In the images shared by the Department of Public Safety (DPS), it can be seen how some undercover officers lower 5 people from the cab of the tractor-trailer where they were hiding. Authorities later said they were of Mexican origin. DPS authorities say that the detained driver allowed the search of the box trailer after a traffic stop was made, however, Johnson did not allow the authorities to search the cab of the truck. Also, the state agency comments that these individuals came from a safe house in Laredo. While the driver faces human smuggling charges, the people found were referred to the Border Patrol for processing. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

CBS Austin [6/5/2025 2:54 PM, Natali Castillo, 558K] reports more than $4.8 million in cocaine was seized by border agents on Tuesday at Colombia-Solidarity Bridge. According to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) release, agents seized the narcotics after they inspected an empty 2013 Fontaine trailer. Following a canine and nonintrusive inspection, CBP officers discovered a total of 149 packages containing 363 pounds of alleged cocaine in the trailer. "This cocaine seizure at the Colombia-Solidarity Bridge highlights CBP’s commitment and the vital role of advanced technology in our daily operations," said Port Director Alberto Flores, Laredo Port of Entry. "By utilizing nonintrusive inspection systems and intelligence-driven targeting, our Laredo team continues to disrupt the flow of dangerous narcotics, in turn protecting our communities.” CBP agents seized the narcotics, with an estimated street value of $4,851,052. Homeland Security Investigations special agents are investigating the seizure.

Telemundo Amarillo [6/5/2025 5:16 PM, Staff, 4K] reports images shared by the Laredo Sector Border Patrol in Texas show a pickup truck in the Rio Grande, as the end of a chase. It all began when agents observed several allegedly undocumented individuals aboard a white pickup truck near the Rio Grande, apparently having just crossed the river into the United States. Officers in the area later attempted to stop the truck, but it fled and a chase ensued. To evade arrest, the driver decided to drive the vehicle toward the river. Thirteen people jumped out of the truck and decided to swim back to Mexico.

FOX News [6/5/2025 8:16 PM, Alec Schemmel, 46878K] reports Mexican drug cartels are getting help from the Chinese to build their drug empire that feeds off American consumers. Border patrol officials intercepted 50,000 kilos of precursor chemicals this week used in the process of manufacturing methamphetamines, sent from China and intended for members of the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico. In addition to providing the cartels with the chemicals needed to make illicit drugs, Chinese entities are also one of the foremost actors in helping them launder their proceeds, according to the Treasury Department. "For far too long, the Mexican drug cartels have raked in billions of dollars at the expense of our local communities leaving nothing but addiction, death and despair in their wake," said Chad Plantz, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in Charge in Houston. "This initiative provides HSI with a game-changing method to stay one step ahead of the cartels by disrupting the flow of chemicals that they depend on to produce illicit narcotics.” The seizure was part of an ongoing initiative launched in 2019 to identify suspicious shipments of precursor chemicals from China, India and other countries that are destined for Mexican drug cartels. Since the initiative was established, officials have interdicted more than 1,700,000 kilograms of chemicals used to manufacture methamphetamines and fentanyl, including a seizure this past March of 44,000 kilograms of precursor chemicals at the Port of Houston, destined for the Sinaloa Cartel. Immigration officials’ bust comes amid news of a spate of other incidents involving Chinese nationals or individuals working for China who have engaged in espionage efforts, ranging from agroterroism and selling military secrets, to infiltrating U.S. universities and utilizing American-based products to sow political divisions online. In the latest incident, two Chinese nationals were charged with allegedly smuggling a "dangerous biological pathogen" into the U.S. to study at a University of Michigan laboratory. This happened amid controversy over the Trump administration’s effort to intensify visa scrutiny for Chinese nationals trying to enter the United States.

FOX News [6/5/2025 11:18 AM, Danielle Wallace, 46878K] reports the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday sounded the alarm on alleged Transportation Security Administration (TSA) "corruption," accusing a longtime Democratic senator of lobbying the Biden administration to have her husband removed from a watchlist despite him allegedly flying with a "known or suspected terrorist.” New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s husband, William "Billy" Shaheen, "traveled with a known or suspected terrorist three times in a single year," DHS said in a statement. The Trump administration on Wednesday cited evidence "detailing the politicization of TSA’s watchlisting program under the Biden administration." DHS says that evidence includes discovered documents, correspondence and timelines clearly highlighting "the Biden’s inconsistent application of Silent Partners Quiet Skies and watchlisting programs, circumventing security policies to benefit politically aligned friends and family at the expense of the American people." DHS claims Sen. Shaheen "directly lobbied" former TSA administrator David Pekoske. Pekoske afterward allegedly "gave repeated, explicit direction" to exclude the senator’s husband from the Silent Partner Quiet Skies list. Fox News Digital reached out to Sen. Shaheen’s office, but they did not immediately provide a response to the allegations. "It is clear that this program was used as a political rolodex of the Biden Administration – weaponized against its political foes and to benefit their well-heeled friends," DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement. "This program should have been about the equal application of security, instead it was corrupted to be about political targeting. The Trump Administration will restore the integrity, privacy, and equal application of the law for all Americans, including aviation screening." DHS said the program has for far too long "yielded little to no measurable security impact and lay at the expense of the American traveler." [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

CBS Pittsburgh [6/5/2025 5:18 PM, Madeline Bartos, Lauren Linder, 51860K] reports a Transportation Security Administration officer at the Pittsburgh International Airport is facing charges for allegedly stealing money from a passenger during the screening process. Allegheny County police said 39-year-old Richard Bruce was charged with theft by unlawful taking and receiving stolen property after investigators received a report from a passenger about missing money on Wednesday afternoon. A spokesperson for the TSA said it’s aware of the charges and Bruce has been placed on administrative leave. The TSA said it’s cooperating with law enforcement but the spokesperson didn’t share any other details, citing an ongoing investigation. "TSA holds its employees to the highest standards of professionalism and integrity, and we do not tolerate behavior that violates these standards or the public’s trust," the TSA spokesperson said in a statement. A spokesperson for the Pittsburgh International Airport said that while Bruce isn’t employed by the airport, Bruce’s airport badge has been deactivated. "Safety and security are always the top priority at Pittsburgh International Airport. We take any allegations of theft at the airport seriously and are working with our partner agencies to assist in the investigation," the airport said in a statement. Brian Hucik of Youngwood never worries about going through TSA when flying. "Always just put my wallet and items in my bags and let it go through the security checkpoint," Hucik said. He believes as federal employees, agents know they have an oath to follow. "Making sure everything is secure, making sure the passengers are secure," Hucik said. Shandon Baker of Idaho frequently flies for work and would like to know that TSA is weeding out the bad apples. "Just like they have to check us for security, hopefully you know they’re getting checked as well and that we can fly with peace of mind," Baker said. "You assume, based on what this job entails that that wouldn’t ever happen, like you’re trusting these people with your personal belongings," Baker added. As for Baker and Hucik, they’re going to be a little more guarded with their belongings when they fly from now on. "Hope, you know, everyone can travel safely and not have to worry about things like this," Hucik said. The incident remains under investigation. If you have any information about it, you’re asked to call county police at 1-833-ALL-TIPS. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Detroit Free Press [6/5/2025 6:52 PM, Darcie Moran, 4241K] reports a bomb threat forced passengers to evacuate a Spirit Airlines plane headed to Los Angeles from Detroit Metro Airport on Thursday, June 5. The incident was first reported about 7 a.m., said Matt Morawski, Wayne County Airport Authority communications director, in an email. Law enforcement was asked to meet the LAX-bound flight ahead of its departure for "a potential security issue," Spirit Airlines officials said in a statement. It was a bomb threat, and the Wayne County Airport Authority and the Transportation Security Administration responded, the authority confirmed in a statement. "As a precaution, all passengers were safely deplaned and transported by bus to the Evans Terminal," the authority stated. The aircraft was taxied to a remote location, inspected and cleared by law enforcement, Spirit Airlines officials stated. The passengers were also rescreened. "The safety of our Guests and Team Members is our top priority, and we are working to get our Guests to their destination as soon as possible," the airline stated. The incident is under investigation, and further information was not immediately available.

New York Times [6/5/2025 2:23 PM, Claire Brown, 138952K] reports that Atlantic Hurricane season officially began this week and it comes at an uneasy time for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Last month, the head of FEMA was dismissed, and several senior officials have left. This has come after threats from the Trump administration to dismantle the agency and cuts across multiple federal agencies that are key to storm prediction and response. FEMA has lost about a quarter of its full-time staff in recent months. As several of my colleagues reported, all of that has left cities and states uncertain about how much federal support they’ll have when a disaster or storm strikes. The Trump administration has argued that states should bear more responsibility for disaster recovery. For years, emergency managers across the political spectrum have agreed that states could do more before calling for federal help. In 2017, the FEMA director floated a “disaster deductible,” which would have required states to commit to spending a certain amount of their own money. I spoke to former FEMA officials to understand some of the worries about the agency. Some of them said the administration’s actions leading up to this year’s hurricane season had wasted crucial planning time, left states without time to prepare and had potentially put people in danger. The changes have pushed some high-level officials to leave the agency. “Everyone has a line, and I have reached mine,” said MaryAnn Tierney, who until last month was the second-in-command at FEMA, in a recent message to agency staff that was shared with The New York Times.

Washington Post [6/5/2025 10:33 AM, Ian Livingston, 32099K] reports Chicagoland woke up to code red unhealthy air quality Thursday as wildfire smoke from Canada continues to plague the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes region. For a time early in the day, it had the second-worst air quality among the world’s major cities. Air quality alerts covered all of Michigan and portions of Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Nebraska. Detroit had the fourth-worst air among major cities worldwide as of Thursday morning. Other cities under the alerts included Flint and Grand Rapids in Michigan, Milwaukee and Green Bay in Wisconsin, and Fort Wayne, Indiana. Officials in Michigan are recommending that residents avoid strenuous outdoor activities, keep windows closed (even overnight), run the air conditioner and/or use other smoke-rated filtration devices. According to the air quality tracking site IQAir, Chicago’s Air Quality Index (AQI) reading of 160 — down from a peak of 166 earlier in the morning — was worse than any major world city except Dakar, Senegal. Detroit’s AQI of 142 — a value that was still increasing — ranked it in fourth place after Santiago, Chile, and tied with Jakarta, Indonesia. That reading places Detroit in code orange territory, with air unhealthy for sensitive groups. Other cities not large enough to be included on the IQAir list had code red air quality as well Thursday morning, including: Lansing, Michigan, with an AQU of 169. Grand Rapids, Michigan, at 161. Sarnia, Ontario, at 160. Gary, Indiana, at 153. A slow-moving frontal zone in the northern United States, and a series of low-pressure areas passing through Canada, are teaming up to help keep smoke somewhat trapped. Although the smoke is slowly diminishing, surface smoke concentrations tend to increase at night as the atmosphere cools, winds calm and particulates are able to sink. Higher humidity can help the process along. Some dense fog was observed in parts of Illinois near the smoke, as well.

Washington Examiner [6/5/2025 12:24 PM, Alan Wooten, 1934K] reports that areas of western North Carolina declared federal disaster areas following Hurricane Helene are included in a $1.45 billion grant program from the U.S. Economic Development Administration. The announcement was made Wednesday by Commerce Department Secretary Howard Lutnick and second-term Republican President Donald Trump. The Fiscal Year 2025 Disaster Supplemental Grant Program will, says the agency, help six different sectors: state, local and Tribal governments; economic development districts; institutions of higher education; economic development organizations; public and private nonprofits working with local governments; and public-private partnerships for public infrastructure. The projects must be in or primarily serve or demonstrably benefit the communities in areas that received a major disaster declaration in calendar years 2023 or 2024. The Economic Development Administration funds up to 80% of projects in most cases and may go to 100% for Tribal applicants. This weekend commences the 37th week of recovery from the storm that claimed the lives of 107 in North Carolina, 236 across seven states, and did an estimated $60 billion in damage in the Tarheel State. It is arguably the worst natural disaster in state history. North Carolina lawmakers are considering a $450 million spending package for Hurricane Helene recovery that would push General Assembly appropriations to $1.85 billion.

CBS News [6/5/2025 6:13 PM, Megan Cerullo, 51860K] reports Reagan National Airport is warning that a military parade scheduled for June 14 in Washington, D.C., could disrupt commercial passengers’ travel plans. The Federal Aviation Administration is expected to suspend airline operations at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) to accommodate military aircraft that will fly over the parade route and to allow for a fireworks show, according to a statement on the airport’s website. The airport is urging travelers who are scheduled to fly the evening of June 14 to check their flight’s status directly with the airline. "In partnership with the Department of Homeland Security, the FAA will issue Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFRs) for the Washington, D.C., area to ensure safety and security during the celebration," the FAA said Thursday in a statement to CBS News. The FAA added that during "the peak" of the event, all arrivals and departures at the airport will be suspended.

Washington Examiner [6/5/2025 9:00 AM, Mike Brest, 1934K] reports the Department of Homeland Security announced on Wednesday that it cancelled the ongoing but delayed production of a legend-class National Security Cutter, saving more than $260 million. Shipbuilding company Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) began production on the cutter in May 2021 and it was scheduled to be delivered to the Coast Guard by November 2024 at the latest. In August 2024, however, HII informed the service that the earliest possible delivery would be spring 2029 after a series of delays and setbacks. Coast Guard leaders decided to cancel the contract and end the production of the cutter in March 2025, and they completed the modification to cancel construction at the end of May.The ill-fated project will ultimately cost the Coast Guard more than $300 million, though it includes roughly $135 million in parts delivered for the national security cutter fleet, which currently consists of ten operational vessels. Adm. Kevin Lunday, the current acting Coast Guard commandant, and Noem announced in April a new effort called Force Design 2028, a new plan for bringing about "transformational change to renew the Coast Guard," Lunday said at the time.

CNN [6/5/2025 6:20 AM, Hanna Park, 21433K] reports emergency crews from a host of government agencies were working through the night to clean up a 2,000-gallon diesel spill along part of Baltimore’s waterfront that started Wednesday morning. The spill is near the East Harbor Marina in the Patapsco River and originated from a Johns Hopkins Hospital facility in East Baltimore, authorities said. A spokesperson for Johns Hopkins told CNN the spill was caused by two diesel tanks being overfilled and that it notified the Maryland Department of Environment immediately. "On Wednesday, during routine fuel delivery by a third-party vendor, two diesel tanks which supply power for backup generators for our patient care facilities at Johns Hopkins in East Baltimore were accidentally overfilled causing overflow," the spokesperson said. Johns Hopkins is "actively working with local, state, and federal authorities to support the response in the Baltimore Inner Harbor," the spokesperson told CNN early Thursday. Moore said on social media that he was at the scene of the spill near Fells Point, a historic waterfront in Baltimore and a popular tourist destination. The US Coast Guard is leading the clean-up effort, which involves nearly a dozen state and city agencies. The Coast Guard is working with crews using oil absorbent materials and skimmers to remove fuel from the water. "Containment and cleanup efforts will continue through the night," officials said. "Responders have deployed pollution response equipment, including containment boom, and are actively working to remove all recoverable product from the waterway," the Coast Guard said in a statement.

Reported similarly:
Washington Post [6/5/2025 9:09 AM, Dana Hedgpeth, 32099K]
The Hill [6/5/2025 11:05 AM, Odyssey Fields, 18649K]
ABC News [6/5/2025 6:19 AM, Jon Haworth, 31733K]
(B) NBC News Daily [6/5/2025 3:31 PM, Staff]

CBS Baltimore [6/5/2025 9:10 AM, Staff, 51860K] reports a 2,000-gallon oil spill in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor is not impacting drinking water, city leaders said Thursday. The oil spill in Fells Point turned the water red due to the dye in the diesel fuel. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

FOX News [6/5/2025 11:00 AM, Julia Bonavita, 46878K] reports authorities have filed misdemeanor charges against two Florida men in connection with the boating hit-and-run death of a 15-year-old high school freshman while she was wakeboarding with friends last year. Carlos "Bill" Alonso, 79, is charged with violating two U.S. Coast Guard navigational rules, and Edmund Hartley, 31, is charged with violating four Coast Guard rules, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC). In May 2024, Ella Adler, 15, and a friend were wakeboarding in Key Biscayne’s Nixon Beach, located south of Miami. The girls were being towed by a boat driven by Hartley and carrying a dozen people when they fell into the water in different locations, according to officials. While in the water, Adler was struck by a second boat that subsequently sped off, officials said. Witnesses reported seeing a center console boat with blue bottom paint and multiple outboard engines at the time of the incident. The description led investigators to Alonso’s Boston whaler docked outside his Coral Gables home, with Alonso previously telling authorities he was unaware he had struck someone, according to his attorneys. "What happened last year was an absolute tragedy, but it was not Bill’s fault," Lauren Krasnoff, the attorney representing Alonso, said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "Bill is an experienced and cautious boater and that is how he acted that day. FWC explicitly told us that they did not find Bill’s actions caused the accident. Because of that, we were very surprised to learn about the citations.”

AP [6/5/2025 4:25 PM, Staff] reports a salvage team is expected to arrive early next week at the scene of a cargo ship that was carrying about 3,000 vehicles to Mexico when it caught fire in waters off Alaska’s Aleutian island chain. A tug carrying salvage specialists and special equipment is expected to arrive at the location of the Morning Midas around Monday, the ship’s management company, London-based Zodiac Maritime, said Thursday. The crew will assess the ship’s condition, and a separate tug with firefighting and ocean towage capabilities is being arranged, the company said in its statement. In the meantime, officials are using the ship’s onboard satellite-connected systems to monitor it. The vessel remained afloat as of Thursday morning, and images gathered by the U.S. Coast Guard showed it was still "alight with smoke emanating" from it, the statement said. The Coast Guard has said it received a distress alert around 3:15 p.m. Tuesday about a fire aboard the Morning Midas, which was roughly 300 miles (490 kilometers) southwest of Adak Island. The ship was carrying about 70 fully electric and about 680 hybrid vehicles, the Coast Guard said, noting that the information was preliminary. All 22 Morning Midas crew members were uninjured. They were evacuated onto a lifeboat and a nearby merchant vessel rescued them. They remained onboard the rescue vessel Thursday, according to Zodiac Maritime.

Washington Times [6/5/2025 1:47 PM, Mike Glenn, 2106K] reports that the cutter Storis, the first polar icebreaker acquired by the Coast Guard in more than 25 years, departed a shipyard in Mississippi this week for its maiden voyage on the way to a temporary home in Seattle. The ship, formerly known as the Aiviq when it worked in the oil industry, was acquired by the Coast Guard in December to expand operations in the Arctic region. The Coast Guard runs the U.S. fleet of government icebreakers, with the service saying it needs eight to nine polar icebreakers to carry out its mission. Right now, the Coast Guard has only two operational polar icebreakers: the Polar Star and Healy. The Storis will support Coast Guard missions in the high-latitude regions until the delivery of the Polar Security Cutter program of future polar icebreakers. The Storis underwent modifications while in the shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, to enhance its communications and self-defense capabilities. "The Coast Guard will continue evaluating the [Storis’] condition and requirements to achieve full operational capability," the Coast Guard said in a statement. The ship will eventually be permanently based in Juneau, Alaska. "Until the necessary shore infrastructure improvements are completed in Juneau, Storis will be temporarily berthed in Seattle, Washington, with the service’s two other polar icebreakers," the Coast Guard said.

CyberScoop [6/5/2025 9:40 AM, Tim Starks] reports the chairman of the House Homeland Security subcommittee on cybersecurity is apprehensive about the Department of Homeland Security’s plans to end a program that vets mobile apps for federal agencies. Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., sent a letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem on Thursday saying that especially in light of the massive Salt Typhoon telecommunications hacking campaign that was first spotted in the networks of federal civilian executive branch (FCEB) agencies, now is the wrong time to cut the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency-managed Mobile App Vetting (MAV) program. “The termination of mobile device security programs would not only create a void in the ability to assess vulnerabilities on mobile devices, but also send the wrong signal to FCEB agencies, which are currently on heightened alert about the cybersecurity posture of their mobile devices due to Salt Typhoon,” Garbarino said in his letter. CyberScoop is first to report on the letter. Relatedly, Garbarino is also asking Noem in the letter to prioritize a review of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s role as the lead agency for coordinating on security with the communications sector, known as a sector risk management agency (SRMA). Some have raised doubts about whether CISA has a close enough relationship with telecoms in the aftermath of the attacks by Salt Typhoon, a Chinese government-linked hacking group, and whether it has too many SRMA responsibilities for too many critical infrastructure sectors.

CyberScoop [6/5/2025 1:38 PM, Tim Starks] reports Sean Cairncross laid out his vision to senators Thursday for the Office of the National Cyber Director if he is confirmed to lead it. “A goal of mine is to make sure this office sits at the place that this committee and I believe Congress intended in the statute, and that is to lead cyber policy coordination across the federal government,” he told the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee at his confirmation hearing. “In doing that, working with our interagency partners is vital,” he said. “We’ve been empowered to work with [the Office of Management and Budget] to ensure that budget alignment among the interagency aligns with administration policy, and I think those tools have to be leveraged, and relationships between us and the interagency — it’s making sure that it is monitored and enforced.” Cairncross, a former White House and Republican National Committee official and the former head of the federal Millennium Challenge Corporation who has run his own consultancy, also touted his credentials to serve as national cyber director. Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the top Democrat on the panel, asked about his lack of cyber experience compared to his predecessors in the office. “It’s true I don’t have a technical background in cyber, but in my roles running private organizations and national party committees, I’ve been on the user side of this,” he said. “I’ve had to deal with foreign nation attacks on our systems. We’ve worked with the FBI and the intelligence community to learn about them, to stop them and to monitor those attacks. On the management side, I’ve run thousands of people and billions of dollars in funds, and in doing those jobs, I surround myself with smart people.” He didn’t directly answer questions from Sens. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., and Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., about cuts to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, instead saying his “first management principle” is “form follows function” and that the administration would be focused on taking offensive steps against foreign attackers. “These attacks are increasing, they’re becoming more sophisticated and they’re scaling up,” he said.

NBC News [6/5/2025 10:16 AM, Kevin Collier, 44540K] reports that one of the few companies to specialize in iPhone cybersecurity said in a report Thursday that it has uncovered evidence in a handful of mobile phones of a potential hacking campaign targeting five high-profile Americans in media, artificial intelligence and politics, including former members of Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign. The preliminary research, conducted by the cybersecurity firm iVerify, includes a "significant amount of circumstantial evidence," iVerify CEO Rocky Cole said. Apple, the maker of the iPhone, pushed back on the findings. But Cole said the report was worth publishing for use by the cybersecurity research community. Apple’s reputation is sterling among security professionals, and if it is confirmed a hack occurred, it would be a significant development in the cybersecurity industry. IVerify has not identified who may be behind the potential hacking operation, but believes the targets and technical sophistication suggest a capable spy agency may have been involved. Two people familiar with the investigation told NBC News that former members of the Harris-Walz campaign were some of the people iVerify believes were targeted. It’s not clear what initially set off the investigation. IVerify said that in addition to the Americans who were targeted, a European government official’s iPhone had indications of remote tampering. Apple is "not currently aware of any credible indication that the bug points to an exploitation attempt or active attack," Krstić said.

NewsMax [6/5/2025 1:18 PM, Nicole Weatherholtz, 4622K] reports that Cybersecurity firm iVerify said Thursday that it has discovered evidence of a potential hacking campaign targeting a handful of iPhones belonging to five high-profile Americans, including former members of the Kamala Harris-Tim Walz presidential campaign. One of the few companies to specialize in iPhone cybersecurity, iVerify’s report contains a "significant amount of circumstantial evidence" indicating a breach, iVerify CEO Rocky Cole told NBC News. Apple, the iPhone’s manufacturer and a tech company known for its strong cybersecurity protections, has denied the firm’s findings. According to iVerify, the targets and level of technical sophistication suggest that a skilled spy agency may have been involved in the potential hacking operation. It is unclear what triggered the investigation, but two people familiar with the matter told NBC that former members of the Harris-Walz campaign were believed to have been targeted. The evidence points to a hacker remotely installing spyware — a type of invasive, malicious computer program — on the devices of targeted users last year in order to snoop through their data without their knowledge or permission, iVerify said. In addition to the targeted Americans, the company found that a European government official’s iPhone also appeared to have been exploited.

NewsMax [6/5/2025 11:56 AM, Sam Barron, 4622K] reports that Chinese hackers were able to break into an American telecommunications company in summer 2023, Bloomberg News reported. Malware used by Chinese state-backed hacking groups was on the company’s system for seven months. The company that was hacked has not been identified, Bloomberg said. It is unknown if the 2023 hack is related to any foreign espionage. As part of the breach, the hackers were able to access the computers of IT administrators at the company, two sources told Bloomberg. The malware was in the system until late winter 2024. The company is "known for providing services to the defense, travel and logistics industries," according to a report about the hack shared with Bloomberg. A representative for the Chinese Embassy told Bloomberg the U.S. and its allies have been responsible for cyberattacks in China. "The relevant party needs to stop using cybersecurity to smear and slander China and stop spreading all kinds of disinformation about the so-called Chinese hacking threats," Liu Pengyu, the spokesman, said to Bloomberg. Chinese hackers have previously breached AT&T, Verizon and seven other telecommunication companies.

Axios [6/5/2025 11:26 AM, Sam Sabin, 13599K] reports a group of Democratic lawmakers are pressing the Trump administration to clarify who is leading the government’s efforts to eradicate China-backed hackers from U.S. critical infrastructure and telecom networks. Roughly 1,000 people have already left the nation’s top cyber agency this year through voluntary buyouts and other workforce cuts. Those cuts could create dangerous weaknesses in the nation’s cyber defenses, the lawmakers argue in a letter exclusively shared with Axios. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) sent a letter today to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard demanding more clarity on who is leading the response against two major China-backed cyberattacks uncovered during the Biden administration. Democratic Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi, Kathy Castor, Ro Khanna, Haley Stevens, Shontel Brown and Jill Tokuda joined Torres as signatories. The lawmakers are also requesting Noem and Gabbard provide an update on any ongoing investigations into both the Volt Typhoon attacks on U.S. critical infrastructure and the Salt Typhoon campaign to surveil high-profile individuals’ cell phones. The group is also asking for an update on how proposed budget cuts and the recent workforce reductions at CISA will impact those investigations.

Politico [6/5/2025 4:54 PM, Maggie Miller, 2100K] reports more than 1,000 cybersecurity professionals have either left or are set to walk off their jobs in the federal government in the coming months, as the Department of Government Efficiency initiative drives layoffs and buyouts across agencies. The timing could not be worse: staff numbers are plummeting just as China is ramping up its cyberattacks — and these efforts have soared in recent years. These operations include hacking group Volt Typhoon, found to have burrowed widely into critical infrastructure since at least 2022, with experts warning U.S. water systems and transportation networks have been compromised. And they also include Salt Typhoon, discovered to be in U.S. telecom networks last year. Together, these ramped up hacks from government-backed Chinese groups amount to advance work for sophisticated war, said retired Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery, current senior director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “As a military planner, this is what I called operational preparation of the battlefield,” Montgomery said. “China has continued to accelerate their efforts to gain access into U.S. and allied critical infrastructures and we are still playing a defensive game of trying to identify and remove [them].” Lawmakers from both parties are sounding the alarm. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said during a Senate hearing Thursday that Salt Typhoon hackers still “have unlimited access to our voice messages, to our telephone calls,” describing it as “astounding.” A group of House Democrats led by Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) sent a letter Thursday to both Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem asking about what has been done to respond to Salt Typhoon. The lawmakers wrote that agency personnel cuts showed that “instead of rising to meet the moment, the Trump administration seems intent on dismantling the core institutions responsible for cyber defense.” The ODNI and DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Noem told cyber experts at the RSA Conference in San Francisco in April to “just wait until you see what we are able to do” on cyber, noting that “there are reforms going on” around the topic.

Politico [6/5/2025 4:54 PM, Maggie Miller, 2100K] reports more than 1,000 cybersecurity professionals have either left or are set to walk off their jobs in the federal government in the coming months, as the Department of Government Efficiency initiative drives layoffs and buyouts across agencies. The timing could not be worse: staff numbers are plummeting just as China is ramping up its cyberattacks — and these efforts have soared in recent years. These operations include hacking group Volt Typhoon, found to have burrowed widely into critical infrastructure since at least 2022, with experts warning U.S. water systems and transportation networks have been compromised. And they also include Salt Typhoon, discovered to be in U.S. telecom networks last year. Together, these ramped up hacks from government-backed Chinese groups amount to advance work for sophisticated war, said retired Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery, current senior director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “As a military planner, this is what I called operational preparation of the battlefield,” Montgomery said. “China has continued to accelerate their efforts to gain access into U.S. and allied critical infrastructures and we are still playing a defensive game of trying to identify and remove [them].” Lawmakers from both parties are sounding the alarm. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said during a Senate hearing Thursday that Salt Typhoon hackers still “have unlimited access to our voice messages, to our telephone calls,” describing it as “astounding.” A group of House Democrats led by Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) sent a letter Thursday to both Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem asking about what has been done to respond to Salt Typhoon. The lawmakers wrote that agency personnel cuts showed that “instead of rising to meet the moment, the Trump administration seems intent on dismantling the core institutions responsible for cyber defense.” The ODNI and DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Noem told cyber experts at the RSA Conference in San Francisco in April to “just wait until you see what we are able to do” on cyber, noting that “there are reforms going on” around the topic.

FOX News [6/5/2025 9:22 PM, Greg Wehner, 46878K] reports the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a joint public service announcement Thursday, warning the public to be aware of an "elevated threat" to Israeli and Jewish communities across the U.S. The announcement highlights potential public safety concerns regarding ongoing threats during the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. In the most recent incident on Sunday, an Egyptian national, 45-year-old Mohamed Sabry Soliman, allegedly created 18 Molotov cocktails before driving to Boulder, Colorado, where peaceful pro-Israel demonstrators prepared for the Run for Their Lives in support of the Israeli hostages. As participants assembled in Boulder’s Pearl Street area, Soliman allegedly yelled "Free Palestine" and launched two lit Molotov cocktails into the throngs of people. He was arrested shortly after. The incident, which the FBI described as a "targeted terror attack," left over a dozen people, ages 52 to 88, with injuries, including one in critical condition. Soliman, whose visa granted during the Biden administration expired in March 2025, told federal authorities the violence was a long time in the making. Soliman later told investigators he specifically targeted what he called a "Zionist group" and wished they were all dead. In a separate incident May 21, a pro-Palestinian man allegedly killed two Israeli embassy staff members who were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim were about to become engaged the following week, but their lives and dreams were cut short. Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith said 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez of Chicago was taken into custody and was believed to have acted alone.

NBC News [6/5/2025 9:51 AM, Matt Lavietes, 44540K] reports that Luigi Mangione wrote about plans to kill UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in his diary months before the healthcare executive was gunned down in New York City last year, state prosecutors alleged in a Wednesday court filing. Mangione, a 27-year-old who has pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges in connection with the December murder, allegedly used a red notebook as a diary to document his plans to kill Thompson, the court filing states. The notebook was confiscated by authorities during Mangione’s arrest in Pennsylvania after a five-day manhunt for Thompson’s killer. "So say you want to rebel against the deadly, greed fueled health insurance cartel. Do you bomb the HQ? No. Bombs=terrorism," Mangione allegedly wrote in August 2024, the state court filing states. "Such actions appear the unjustified anger of someone who simply got sick/had bad luck and took their frustration out on the insurance industry, while recklessly endangering countless employees.” Instead of carrying out a bombing, prosecutors allege, Mangione wrote in an entry last October that someone should "wack [sic] the CEO at the annual parasitic bean-counter convention." "It’s targeted, precise, and doesn’t risk innocents. Most importantly, the point is self-evident," the diary entry reads, according to the filing. "The point is made in the news headline ‘Insurance CEO killed at annual investors conference.’" Mangione will next appear in court for his state charges on June 26.

Blaze [6/5/2025 1:10 PM, Joseph MacKinnon, 1805K] reports that police caught up with Luigi Mangione, 27, at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, five days after he allegedly gunned down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel last December. In addition to allegedly finding a 9mm handgun, a homemade silencer, multiple cartridges, a fake New Jersey ID, a passport, approximately $7,800 in cash, and a written admission of guilt on his person, police reportedly found a notebook detailing plans for the shooting. Mangione’s defense attorney asked the court overseeing the case to rule the notebook inadmissible, claiming the search of Mangione’s backpack where it was located violated his Fourth Amendment rights. The defense also asked the court to dismiss his indictment altogether. Prosecutors responded with a damning court filing on Wednesday containing entries from Mangione’s alleged notebook, which they claim reveals "in unambiguous terms [the] defendant’s intent and motive in deliberately assassinating the CEO of the country’s largest health company." In an Aug. 15, 2024, entry, Mangione allegedly wrote, "I finally feel confident about what I will do. The details are coming together. And I don’t feel any doubt about whether it’s right/justified. I’m glad — in a way — that I’ve procrastinated bc it allowed me to learn more about UHC. KMD [the initials of another apparent target considered] would’ve been an unjustified catastrophe that would be perceived mostly as sick, but more importantly unhelpful."

Blaze [6/5/2025 9:23 AM, Joseph MacKinnon, 1805K] reports Guy Edward Bartkus, the 25-year-old suspected terrorist killed in the May 17 bombing of a fertility clinic in Palm Springs, California, allegedly left behind a nihilistic manifesto acknowledged by the FBI that equated human life to a disease gripping the planet, condemned religion, championed Satan over God, and called for a "war against pro-lifers." "Basically, I’m anti-life," Bartkus allegedly said in a 30-minute audio recording explaining why he apparently decided to bomb a fertility clinic. "And IVF is like kind of the epitome of pro-life ideology." The suspect appears to have been neither alone in his hatred for life nor alone in his plot to bomb the American Reproductive Centers in Palm Springs. The FBI arrested Daniel Jongyon Park on Tuesday night at the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York in connection with the bombing. Park, a 32-year-old from Washington state, fled the country two days after the bombing. He was arrested by Polish authorities on May 30, despite an alleged attempt to "harm himself." Attorney General Pam Bondi reportedly helped ensure that he was deported to the United States on June 2, where he was charged with providing and attempting to provide material support to terrorists. "This defendant is charged with facilitating the horrific attack on a fertility center in California," Bondi said in a statement. "Bringing chaos and violence to a facility that exists to help women and mothers is a particularly cruel, disgusting crime that strikes at the very heart of our shared humanity." Bondi expressed gratitude to America’s "partners in Poland who helped get this man back to America.”

NPR [6/5/2025 1:00 PM, Rachel Treisman, 37958K] reports that President Trump has ordered an investigation into whether President Joe Biden used an autopen to sign documents in office, a routine presidential practice that Trump alleges was part of a conspiracy by Biden aides to cover up his cognitive decline. On Wednesday, Trump signed a presidential memorandum tasking White House Counsel David Warrington, in consultation with Attorney General Pam Bondi, with investigating "whether certain individuals conspired to deceive the public about Biden’s mental state and unconstitutionally exercise the authorities and responsibilities of the President." In a statement shared with NPR, Biden stressed that he made the decisions about pardons, executive orders, legislation and proclamations during his presidency. "Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false," Biden said. "This is nothing more than a distraction by Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans who are working to push disastrous legislation that would cut essential programs like Medicaid and raise costs on American families, all to pay for tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and big corporations." Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday that he had not uncovered any evidence that the documents were signed without Biden’s approval, but said he thought the former president’s dismal debate performance showed he wasn’t in control. "But I’ve uncovered, you know, the human mind," Trump said. "I was in a debate with the human mind, and I didn’t think he knew what the hell he was doing."

Washington Post [6/5/2025 6:26 PM, Ellen Francis, 32099K] reports that NATO leaders appear to be on track for an agreement to more than double their target for defense spending — to 5 percent of annual economic output — by using some creative number-crunching to please President Donald Trump, who has demanded the increase. The question of how, and when, to meet the 5 percent benchmark, which would raise total NATO military spending to a staggering $2.4 trillion a year, was the focus of a meeting between Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and his European counterparts on Thursday. Hegseth and allied defense ministers expressed confidence that they would clinch a deal in time for a summit of NATO leaders in the Netherlands this month. "What I saw in there were countries prepared to step up, to push the limits of what they can do," Hegseth told reporters at NATO headquarters Thursday. To hit Trump’s goal, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has proposed a bit of magical math by which each allied country would raise hard military spending to 3.5 percent of annual gross domestic product and spend an additional 1.5 percent on "defense-related" initiatives. Permitted expenditures would extend beyond such traditional materiel as tanks and missiles and could include cybersecurity or infrastructure, such as ensuring highways can handle the heavy load of tanks and other military equipment, officials said. A few months ago, many European officials dismissed Trump’s demand for 5 percent — which is more than any ally, including the United States, currently spends — as a negotiating tactic.

AP [6/5/2025 8:11 PM, Staff, 56000K] reports President Donald Trump has banned citizens of 12 countries from entering the United States and restricted access for those from seven others, citing national security concerns in resurrecting and expanding a hallmark policy from his first term. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Reuters [6/5/2025 12:21 PM, Vivian Sequera, 51390K] reports Venezuela’s government on Thursday rejected new U.S. visa measures targeting its citizens, saying they were part of a political "campaign of stigmatization and criminalization". U.S. President Donald Trump signed a proclamation on Wednesday banning citizens of 12 countries from the United States and partially restricting entry of people from seven other places, including Venezuela. The Venezuelan government has repeatedly warned its citizens against travel to the United States, saying in the Thursday statement there are no minimum guarantees of respect or fair treatment for its citizens there.

USA Today [6/5/2025 10:00 AM, Kim Hjelmgaard, 75552K] reports that the Pentagon is planning to put its military oversight of Greenland under U.S. Northern Command, according to a report, a largely symbolic gesture that comes as President Donald Trump continues to press for the world’s largest island to break from Denmark. Greenland is currently the purview of U.S. European Command, which is headquartered in Germany. U.S. Northern Command is in charge of defending the U.S. homeland and the shift more closely aligns with Trump’s pledge to take control of the Danish territory. Politico first reported the planned redrawing of the Pentagon’s command map. Trump talked about acquiring Greenland during his first term. But since winning reelection he has repeatedly riffed on the strategic importance of Greenland for U.S. national security including, missile defense programs and keeping tabs on Russian and Chinese naval activity in the Arctic. The Pentagon’s move is sure to anger Denmark, which has repeatedly stressed that Greenland is not for sale and Trump’s stated position does not amount to serious discussion. The Danish Embassy in Washington, D.C. did not return a request for comment. Nor did the Joint Arctic Command, Denmark’s Greenland-based Arctic security mission that consists of units such as inspection ships, patrol vessels, aircraft, helicopters and the Sirius Dog Sled Patrol. A U.S. Department of Defense spokesperson said there were no announcements to make and deferred all questions about the move to the White House, which declined comment.

AP [6/5/2025 4:42 PM, Staff, 56000K] reports Chad’s President Mahamat Idriss Deby on Thursday announced that his country will suspend the issuance of visas to U.S. citizens in response to the Trump administration’s decision to ban Chadians from visiting the U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday resurrected a hallmark policy of his first term when he announced the visa ban on 12 countries including Chad, accusing them of having “deficient” screening and vetting, and historically refusing to take back their own citizens who overstay in the United States. The new ban targets Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. There will also be heightened restrictions on visitors from seven others in the new travel policy which takes effect Monday at 12:01 a.m. In a Facebook post, Chad’s president said he is directing his government to suspend visas to U.S. citizens “in accordance with the principles of reciprocity.” “Chad has no planes to offer, no billions of dollars to give but Chad has his dignity and pride,” Deby said, referring to the $400 million luxury plane offered to his administration as a gift by the ruling family of Qatar. The new travel policy has triggered varied reactions from Africa, whose countries make up seven of the 12 countries affected by Trump’s outright visa ban with some exemptions. In the Republic of Congo, government spokesperson Thierry Moungalla said he believes the country was among those affected because of a “misunderstanding” over an armed attack in the U.S. with the perpetrators “mistaken” to be from the Republic of Congo. “Obviously, Congo is not a terrorist country, is not home to any terrorist, is not known to have a terrorist vocation. So we think that this is a misunderstanding and I believe that in the coming hours, the competent diplomatic services of the government will contact the American authorities here,” he said in the capital of Brazzaville. In Sierra Leone, among countries with heightened travel restrictions, Information Minister Chernor Bah said the country is committed to addressing the concerns that prompted the ban. “We will work with U.S. authorities to ensure progress,” he added.

NPR [6/5/2025 7:00 AM, Daniel Estrin, 37958K] reports the Israeli military said it retrieved the bodies of two U.S.-Israeli hostages in an operation by the country’s special military forces. The bodies of Judi Weinstein Haggai, 70, an Israeli who held U.S. and Canadian citizenship, and her husband, Gad Haggai, 72, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, were recovered and returned to Israel, the country’s military said. The military said the remains were recovered in an area near the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. The two were killed in southern Israel during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, the military added, and their bodies were taken to Gaza by the Mujahideen Brigades, a small militant group in Gaza. The recovery operation was based on intelligence gathered by Israel, said an Israeli military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with military protocol. Israel and the U.S. want a temporary ceasefire with Hamas and the release of half of the living and dead hostages. Hamas has agreed but demands talks for a permanent end of the war.

Reported similarly:
Breitbart [6/5/2025 9:05 AM, Staff, 3077K]

FOX News [6/5/2025 10:58 AM, Diana Stancy, 46878K] reports that President Donald Trump spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday in a lengthy call amid economic and national security friction regarding trade between Washington and Beijing. "I just concluded a very good phone call with President Xi, of China, discussing some of the intricacies of our recently made, and agreed to, Trade Deal," Trump said Thursday in a Truth Social post. "The call lasted approximately one and a half hours, and resulted in a very positive conclusion for both Countries." Trump said the conversation focused "almost entirely" on trade, and that Xi invited the U.S. president and first lady Melania Trump to visit China. Trump also said he extended an invitation to Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan. Chinese media first reported the call between the two leaders on Thursday, and claimed that the call occurred per Trump’s request. White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told ABC News on Sunday that Trump was expected to talk with the Chinese president this week. The call comes nearly a week after Trump condemned China for violating an initial trade agreement that the U.S. and China hashed out in May, and a day after Trump said Xi was "extremely hard to make a deal with" in a Truth Social post. The negotiations led both countries to agree that the U.S. would ramp down its tariffs against Chinese imports from 145% to 30%, and China would cut its tariffs against U.S. imports from 125% to 10%. But Trump accused China on Friday of not holding up its end of the bargain, although he refrained from disclosing specifics.

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