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 Hill [3/19/2025 12:53 PM, Zach Schonfeld, 12829K] reports that U.S. District Judge James Boasberg gave the Trump administration a one-day extension to turn over information about deportation flights that left the country Saturday, as the government suggests it may invoke a state secrets privilege. Boasberg issued the extension minutes before the Wednesday noon EDT deadline the Justice Department faced to provide the information. "Although their grounds for such request at first blush are not persuasive, the Court will extend the deadline for one more day," Boasberg, an appointee of former President Obama, wrote in a brief order. Boasberg drew Trump’s ire when he issued a Saturday ruling blocking the president from invoking the Alien Enemies Act to swiftly deport Venezuelan migrants the administration says are suspected gang members. The judge is demanding information about several deportation flights that left U.S. soil Saturday and whether they violated his order. The Justice Department insists it complied because the flights had left U.S. territory by the time the judge’s written order issued. The administration has asked Boasberg to wipe his information requests, insisting in a sharply worded filing earlier Monday that the judge was turning the case into a "picayune dispute" and that providing the information would cause national security concerns. The judge’s latest order gives the administration until Thursday at noon EDT to either hand over the information or formally invoke the state secrets privilege. Though the extension is short, it provides an appeals court a window to intervene beforehand. The District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals is weighing the Trump administration’s request to block Boasberg’s decisions and could rule anytime after the final brief is submitted late Wednesday afternoon. The New York Times [3/19/2025 3:24 PM, Alan Feuer, 145325K] reports that the judge is trying to determine whether the Trump administration violated his order not to deport the immigrants on the flights, which the administration has denied. (A third plane also flew to El Salvador on Saturday but it has not figured in the dispute between the judge and the administration because officials say that the immigrants on board were removed under traditional immigration practices, not under the wartime law known as the Alien Enemies Act.) The Justice Department’s request for the stay was not the only step officials have taken in recent days to try to avoid handing over information about the flights. Earlier this week, department lawyers sought to cancel a hearing where they were supposed to talk about the flights in open court and then, in a highly unusual move, tried to have Judge Boasberg removed from the case altogether. NPR [3/19/2025 3:57 PM, Joel Rose] reports Boasberg has demanded answers from the Justice Department about whether it followed his orders, seeking details about exactly when the planes carrying alleged Venezuelan gang members departed from the U.S., and when they landed, and who was on those planes. The judge ordered the administration to respond under seal, so that the information would be shielded from the public, by noon ET on Wednesday. The Justice Department is evaluating "whether to invoke the state secrets privilege" with regard to the flight details the court is seeking, they said. In an order later on Wednesday, Boasberg questioned how the court’s inquiry could jeopardize state secrets, since the Trump administration itself had already revealed many operational details of the flights. Nevertheless, Boasberg agreed to grant an additional 24 hours for the Justice Department to consider whether it would invoke the state-secrets privilege, and to explain its reasoning.

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Wall Street Journal [3/19/2025 9:09 PM, Jan Wolfe, 52868K]
Washington Examiner [3/19/2025 1:53 PM, Annabella Rosciglione, 2296K]

USA Today [3/19/2025 5:38 PM, Bart Jansen, 75858K] reports Justice Department lawyers urged an appeals court Wednesday to overturn a judge’s block on President Donald Trump’s deportation of Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act. The filing is the latest volley in an escalating legal battle over Trump’s priority of strengthening immigration enforcement. Trump has called for Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s impeachment for temporarily blocking the deportations. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts rebuked Trump over the impeachment threat. Attorney General Pam Bondi led the argument at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn Boasberg’s order as an "extraordinary intrusion" on the president’s authority. The government lawyers argued the president has the authority under the 1798 law to deport alleged members of the Venezuelan crime gang Tren de Aragua, which Trump designated as engaging in an "invasion" or "predatory incursion" into the U.S. Government lawyers also argued that Trump has sole discretion over foreign affairs, while revealing details about the deportations would be "catastrophic" to foreign relations. Republican officials from 26 states support Trump use of Alien Enemies Act.

CBS News [3/19/2025 2:56 PM, Jacob Rosen and Scott MacFarlane, 51661K] reports that Attorney General Pam Bondi and top Justice Department officials said the government may invoke states secret privilege to block a federal judge from viewing specific information about two deportation flights of alleged Tren de Aragua gang members, court filings Wednesday show. In a filing excoriating D.C. District Chief Judge James Boasberg for demanding detailed information about the flights, the Justice Department said, "Continuing to beat a dead horse solely for the sake of prying from the Government legally immaterial facts and wholly within a sphere of core functions of the Executive Branch is both purposeless and frustrating to the consideration of the actual legal issues at stake in this case." The filing was signed by Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, as well as top Justice Department officials Emil Bove and Chad Mizelle. The government argued that Boasberg’s demands for detailed information about the two flights from the U.S. to El Salvador Saturday "represent grave usurpations of the President’s powers under the Alien Enemies Act and his inherent Article II powers." The 1798 Alien Enemies Act allows foreigners to be summarily arrested, detained and deported, without the due process protections outlined in U.S. immigration law, including opportunities to see a judge and request asylum. Instead, they may be treated as enemy aliens and processed under America’s wartime laws. President Trump invoked the act Saturday and used it to send the two planes to El Salvador. On Saturday, Boasberg blocked the flights and ordered them to be turned around if they were already in the air. But the government said that the flights were already in international airspace when he issued his order and argued the judge lacked jurisdiction to order their redirection. The planes landed in El Salvador Saturday night, the Trump administration said.In its filing Wednesday, the Justice Department claimed that disclosing some of the operational information to the court "could implicate the affairs of United States allies and their cooperation with the United States Government in fighting terrorist organizations."

The Hill [3/19/2025 1:58 PM, Brett Samuels, 12829K] reports that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday stepped up attacks on a federal judge that ordered flights carrying alleged Venezuelan gang members to be turned around, decrying him as a "Democrat activist" despite originally being nominated by a Republican president. Leavitt told reporters at a press briefing that the administration does not have any additional flights to El Salvador carrying alleged gang members planned after U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg tried to intervene with a verbal order as flights were in the air on Saturday. The press secretary then teed off on Boasberg, who has drawn the ire of Republicans and President Trump in recent days."I would just like to point out that the judge in this case is essentially trying to say that the president doesn’t have the executive authority to deport foreign terrorists from our American soil," Leavitt said. "That is an egregious abuse of the bench. The judge does not have that authority. It is the opinion of this White House and this administration, and that’s why we’re fighting this in court. "And it’s very, very clear that this [is] an activist judge who is trying to usurp the president’s authority," Leavitt continued. "Under the Alien Enemies Act, the president has this power, and that’s why this deportation campaign has continued. And this judge, Judge Boasberg, is a Democrat activist." Leavitt cited political donations from Boasberg’s wife, his nomination to the District Court by former President Obama, and his "disdain" for Trump’s policies.

Dallas Morning News [3/19/2025 3:53 PM, Aarón Torres, 2778K] reports Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton joined 25 states urging a federal appeals court to allow President Donald Trump’s administration to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members using a war powers act. The filing, led by the South Carolina Attorney General, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, asks the appeals court to overturn a nationwide injunction issued Saturday by James Boasberg, the chief judge for the U.S. District Court in D.C. On Friday, Trump signed a proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to target and deport alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang. In the 18-page filing, the states argue that Boasberg’s injunction undermines the security of the people of the states. The attorneys general also argued that Boasberg’s ruling undermined Trump’s constitutional authority when it comes to foreign affairs and national security.

The Hill [3/19/2025 4:45 PM, Rebecca Beitsch, 12829K] reports House Democrats on the Homeland Security Committee are asking the Government Accountability Office (GAO) for an accounting of the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) impact at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The lawmakers seek to ascertain the total number of DHS employees who departed as a result of DOGE, whether through a buyout ignited by DOGE leader Musk or a separate demand from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to fire probationary employees hired within the last year or two. The letter asks the GAO to "assess the legality of any guidance provided to DHS by DOGE" on which probationary employees to fire. It also asks for a breakdown of the data on terminations for each agency within DHS and "the resulting impact on the Department’s ability to conduct its mission.” Homeland Security previously fired at least 400 people across the agency.

Government Executive [3/19/2025 4:35 PM, Edward Graham, 819K] reports Senate Democrats are sounding the alarm about the future of the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force in the wake of the Trump administration’s moves to curtail or disband other federal election security initiatives. In a March 17 letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, 31 senators — led by Sens. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill. — called for the DOJ to continue the work of the task force, which was launched following the 2020 presidential election to investigate threats of violence made against election officials and workers. Since its creation, the group has probed thousands of extremist messages and acts targeting officials and has successfully taken enforcement actions against individuals who sought to harm election administrators. The letter’s signatories warned that "these threats have not only continued but escalated" since the task force’s establishment.

Politico [3/19/2025 7:27 PM, Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein, 145325K] reports A Georgetown University researcher, who was studying and teaching on a student visa, has been detained by federal immigration authorities amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on student activists whom the government accuses of opposing American foreign policy, according to court papers. Masked agents arrested Badar Khan Suri, an Indian national and postdoctoral fellow, outside his home in the Rosslyn neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia, on Monday night, his lawyer said in a lawsuit fighting for his immediate release. The agents identified themselves as being with the Department of Homeland Security and told him the government had revoked his visa, the lawsuit says. According to Suri’s petition for release, he was put in deportation proceedings under the same rarely used provision of immigration law that the government has invoked to try to deport Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate student and green card holder who led pro-Palestinian protests on campus. That provision gives the secretary of State the power to deport noncitizens if the secretary determines that their continued presence in the U.S. would threaten foreign policy. Suri has no criminal record and has not been charged with a crime, his petition says. His detention and petition have not been previously reported. Suri’s lawyer, Hassan Ahmad, argued in his petition that Suri is being punished because of the Palestinian heritage of his wife — who is a U.S. citizen — and because the government suspects that he and his wife oppose U.S. foreign policy toward Israel. The petition says the couple has “long been doxxed and smeared” on anonymously run, far-right websites due to their support for Palestinian rights. The petition also says that Suri’s wife, Mapheze Saleh, has been alleged to have “ties with Hamas” and once worked for Al Jazeera. A 2018 article about the couple published in the Hindustan Times, an Indian newspaper, said Saleh’s father, Ahmed Yousef, served as a “senior political adviser to the Hamas leadership.” Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin confirmed that Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a determination on Saturday that Suri’s visa should be canceled for foreign policy reasons. “Suri was a foreign exchange student at Georgetown University actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media,” McLaughlin wrote on X. “Suri has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas.” Ahmad said in an interview that he had not been able to contact Suri as of Wednesday evening. “We’re trying to speak with him. That hasn’t happened yet,” Ahmad said. “This is just another example of our government abducting people the same way they abducted Khalil.” Suri’s detention is the latest in a string of immigration-related arrests that Trump says are just beginning to ramp up. The arrests, Trump says, target “terrorist sympathizers” or people who have “engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.” But advocates for these detainees say Trump is violating the First Amendment by retaliating against noncitizens — including people in the country legally — based on their political views and free speech. Suri’s lawsuit was filed in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, on Tuesday. As is typical for petitions seeking “habeas corpus,” or release from unlawful detention, the court papers were not available on the court’s online docket. POLITICO obtained a paper copy of Suri’s petition from the court. As of Wednesday evening, no judge had been assigned to Suri’s case, and the court had not taken any action on it. Suri’s petition said he was taken to a facility in Virginia and expected to be transferred soon to a detention center in Texas. On Wednesday evening, an online locator for immigration detainees showed him at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement “staging” center at the Alexandria, Louisiana, airport. NBC News [3/20/2025 1:06 AM, Gary Grumbach, 44742K] reports Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said on X in response to the Politico story that Suri was “actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media.” She also alleged that “Suri has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas.”

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New York Times [3/20/2025 12:34 AM, Hank Sanders and Zolan Kanno-Youngs, 145325K]
Washington Post [3/19/2025 12:00 AM, Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff and Teo Armus, 31735K]

New York Times [3/20/2025 3:21 AM, Jonah E. Bromwich, 330K] reports a New York federal judge on Wednesday transferred the case of a Columbia University graduate detained by the Trump administration this month to New Jersey, where his lawyers will continue their efforts to seek his release. The order will not have any immediate effect on the detention status of the Columbia graduate, Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of pro-Palestinian demonstrations on the university’s campus, who after his arrest was swiftly transferred from Manhattan to New Jersey and then to Louisiana. The Trump administration has sought to deport him, though he is a legal permanent resident who has not been accused of a crime. He is expected to remain in Louisiana until a New Jersey judge, Michael Farbiarz, weighs in. The White House has said that Mr. Khalil spread antisemitism and promoted literature associated with Hamas terrorists. Mr. Khalil’s lawyers deny that he has done so and say he is being retaliated against for promoting Palestinian rights and criticizing Israel, views that the Trump administration disagrees with. Mr. Khalil’s legal team had been trying to move his case out of Louisiana since he was transferred there. Had his case been heard there, a conservative appeals court in New Orleans could have set a broad precedent for deportations. The New York judge, Jesse Furman, ordered federal authorities not to remove Mr. Khalil from the country. On Wednesday, in moving the case to New Jersey, he left that order in place. And after he was assigned the case, Judge Farbiarz issued his own version of the order, again telling the government not to remove Mr. Khalil. Judge Farbiarz, a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan, has yet to address the case more substantively. But before transferring it, Judge Furman noted that Mr. Khalil’s lawyers had accused the government of punishing him for participation in the pro-Palestinian demonstrations, and that his First and Fifth Amendment rights had been violated. “These are serious allegations and arguments that, no doubt, warrant careful review by a court of law,” he wrote. “The fundamental constitutional principle that all persons in the United States are entitled to due process of law demands no less.”

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Politico [3/19/2025 10:59 AM, Erica Orden, 52868K]
CNN [3/19/2025 2:41 PM, Gloria Pazmino, 908K]

Reuters [3/19/2025 8:59 AM, Luc Cohen, 41523K] reports a U.S. judge on Wednesday denied a bid by President Donald Trump’s administration to dismiss detained Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil’s challenge to the legality of his arrest by immigration agents over his participation in pro-Palestinian protests but moved the case to New Jersey. Manhattan-based U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman agreed with the Justice Department that he did not have jurisdiction over the case. Furman ordered the case moved to federal court in the state of New Jersey, where Khalil was held at the time his lawyers first challenged his arrest in New York. Furman did not rule on Khalil’s bid to be released on bail from detention. Neither Khalil’s lawyers nor the Justice Department immediately responded to requests for comment. Khalil, 30, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on March 8 outside his university residence in Manhattan. His lawyers have said he was targeted in retaliation for his role advocating for Palestinian rights, meaning the arrest violated free speech protections under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. The case has become a flashpoint for the Republican president’s pledge to deport some non-U.S. citizens who took part in the protests against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza that swept American college campuses including Columbia after the October 2023 attack against Israelis by Palestinian militant group Hamas. Trump’s administration has said these protests included support for Hamas and antisemitic harassment of Jewish students. Student protest organizers have said criticism of Israel is being wrongly conflated with antisemitism. Khalil, who is of Palestinian descent, entered the United States on a student visa in 2022, married his American citizen wife in 2023, and secured lawful permanent residency - known as a green card - last year. Khalil became one of the most visible leaders of Columbia’s pro-Palestinian protest movement while completing coursework for a master’s degree in public administration. He is due to graduate in May. In ordering his removal, the administration has cited a little-used provision of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act allowing the deportation of any lawful permanent resident whose presence in the country the secretary of state has "reasonable grounds to believe" could harm U.S. foreign policy.

NBC News [3/19/2025 9:14 AM, Marlene Lenthang and Chloe Atkins, 44742K] reports Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil says he was "targeted" for advocating for the Palestinian cause in a new letter from a detention facility, as a judge ruled his legal challenge to his arrest should proceed in New Jersey court. "I wake to cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices underway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law," Khalil said in the letter dictated over the phone to his family Monday. The 30-year-old legal U.S. resident, who played a major role in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University last spring, was arrested by federal immigration agents in New York on March 8. He was briefly detained in New Jersey and transferred to a facility in Jena, Louisiana, where he remains. He is an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent and is married to a U.S. citizen. Khalil had filed a challenge to his detention in a Manhattan federal court. On Wednesday morning, a judge denied the Trump administration’s motion to dismiss his challenge — but allowed the case to move to New Jersey. The judge said that the allegations Khalil made are “serious” and “warrant careful review.” The judge noted that when Khalil’s lawyer filed the petition, he was detained in New Jersey, not New York. The judge’s order barring the government from removing Khalil remains in effect and it will be up to the New Jersey federal court to consider Khalil’s claims. In the letter, Khalil described himself as a "political prisoner," detailed the facility’s sordid conditions, and decried Israel’s renewed offensive in the Gaza Strip. "Who has the right to have rights? It is certainly not the humans crowded into the cells here. It isn’t the Senegalese man I met who has been deprived of his liberty for a year, his legal situation in limbo, and his family an ocean away. It isn’t the 21-year-old detainee I met, who stepped foot in this country at age nine, only to be deported without so much as a hearing,” he said. "Justice escapes the contours of this nation’s immigration facilities."

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FOX News [3/19/2025 2:45 PM, Alec Schemmel, 46189K]
Newsweek [3/19/2025 6:04 AM, Amira El-Fekki, 52220K]

Texas Tribune [3/19/2025 12:49 PM, Uriel J. García, 1487K] reports that the Trump administration late Tuesday moved to drop the federal government’s legal challenge to the Texas immigration law that allows local police to arrest people they suspect crossed the Texas-Mexico border illegally. The law, known as Senate Bill 4, will continue to be challenged by El Paso County two immigrant rights groups — Austin-based American Gateways and El Paso-based Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center — who are represented by Texas Civil Rights Project lawyers. In a court filing, the U.S. Department of Justice told U.S. District Judge David Ezra that it is voluntarily dropping its legal challenge. The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors. Become one. The Texas Legislature approved the law in 2023, then the Biden administration filed a lawsuit against it. Ezra had blocked the law from going into effect, but Texas appealed. The appeals court sent the case back to Ezra’s court, where it remains pending. The law would make it a state crime to cross the Texas-Mexico border between ports of entry. If a police officer believes they have evidence that a person illegally crossed the Rio Grande, that person could be charged with a Class B misdemeanor, which carries a punishment of up to six months in jail. For subsequent offenses, the person could be charged with a second-degree felony and face up to 20 years in prison. If the migrant is convicted and has served their sentence, a judge must order police to transport them to a port of entry for removal from the country. A judge could drop the charges if a migrant agrees to return to Mexico, and police could turn over migrant families to Border Patrol agents to avoid separating children from their parents instead of arresting them. Immigration advocacy organizations say the law encroaches on the federal government’s sole authority over immigration and will lead to racial profiling by police. When Texas lawmakers proposed the legislation, they argued the state needed to step in because the federal government under President Biden wasn’t doing enough to stop illegal immigration. We can’t wait to welcome you to the 15th annual Texas Tribune Festival, Texas’ breakout ideas and politics event happening Nov. 13–15 in downtown Austin. Step inside the conversations shaping the future of education, the economy, health care, energy, technology, public safety, culture, the arts and so much more.

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AP [3/19/2025 3:23 PM, Nadia Lathan]

FOX News [3/19/2025 2:11 PM, Pilar Arias and Brooke Taylo, 46189K] reports that two Mexican nationals have been found guilty of their roles in the deadliest human smuggling event in U.S. history. Felipe Orduna-Torres and Armando Gonzales-Ortega now face life in prison. Their sentencing will be on June 27, the three-year anniversary of the crime, FOX 29 reports. The two were charged after 53 immigrants died in the back of a sweltering tractor trailer with no air conditioning in San Antonio back in 2022. Sixty-seven illegal immigrants, including children, were found trapped in the semitrailer that had been abandoned on the side of the road after being smuggled across the border. Jurors in federal court in San Antonio took only about an hour to convict Orduna-Torres and Gonzales-Ortega, finding that they were part of a human smuggling conspiracy that resulted in death and injury. The trial lasted two weeks. "It’s the same day 53 persons died," the judge presiding over the trial said about the sentencing date, according to FOX 29. "Your liberty, if any, will be determined on that same date." The migrants included 27 from Mexico, 14 from Honduras, seven from Guatemala and two from El Salvador. The dead included six children and a pregnant woman, according to The Associated Press. They had paid between $12,000 and $15,000 each to be smuggled into the United States, according to an indictment in the case obtained by the AP. Orduna-Torres was described as one of the leaders of the smuggling operation and Gonzales-Ortega as the coordinator.A jury found both guilty of all charges: conspiracy to transport aliens resulting in death, causing serious bodily injury and placing lives in jeopardy; transportation of illegal aliens resulting in death; and transportation of illegal aliens causing serious bodily injury and placing lives in jeopardy. Five men previously pleaded guilty to felony charges in the smuggling case, including the truck driver Homero Zamorano Jr., who was found hiding near the trailer in some bushes. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. Also pleading guilty are Christian Martinez, Luis Alberto Rivera-Leal, Riley Covarrubias-Ponce and Juan Francisco D’Luna Bilbao. All five will be sentenced later this year. Another person charged in the U.S. remains a fugitive, Leachman said. Several others have been charged in Mexico and Guatemala. "This case exemplifies why we all must pay attention. Human smuggling is dehumanizing. It’s dangerous and it can be deadly. Smuggling victims are often subject to rape, kidnapping, extortion, exploitation and more. It will not stand. Our resolve in tackling these crimes will not waver," Matthew Gagliotti, Acting Head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, said, according to FOX 29. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

San Francisco Chronicle [3/19/2025 6:25 PM, Ko Lyn Cheang, 5046K] reports Oakland resident Lisa Hix was driving to the city’s Fruitvale neighborhood to run errands Monday, when she heard a woman’s voice on her radio praising President Donald Trump before vowing to "hunt" down people in the country illegally. She later learned it was Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. "Let me deliver a message from President Trump to the world: If you are considering entering America illegally, don’t even think about it," Noem said in the television version of the ad. "Let me be clear, if you come to our country and you break our laws, we will hunt you down. Criminals are not welcome in the United States.” "It was just such a dystopian moment to hear an authoritarian message coming from the radio," Hix said. "Even if people are documented, they could still feel scared or threatened. Immigrants are such a vital part of Oakland’s community and I don’t want them to feel unwelcome here.” Bay Area residents have in the past few days been inundated by versions of this advertisement on mainstream and Spanish-language media. It’s played on televisions in businesses and in people’s homes. The ads are part of an international $200 million campaign by the Department of Homeland Security that’s pushing its message on radio, television and the internet in multiple countries and languages, according to the department. The spending comes as the Trump administration is slashing services and has fired thousands of government employees. "Ads will be hyper-targeted, including through social media, text message and digital to reach illegal immigrants in the interior of the United States, as well as internationally," a Department of Homeland Security statement announcing the campaign on Feb. 17 stated.

AP [3/19/2025 6:57 PM, Lolita C. Baldor, 10355K] reports military officials are reviewing plans that would cut the number of U.S. troops deployed to the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba to handle detained migrants by as much as half, because there are no detainees there now and the program has stumbled during legal challenges, The Associated Press has learned. U.S. officials said the military’s Southern Command was asked to give Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth a plan that would outline how many troops are actually needed and what additional space may be required if more detainees are sent there. That plan, said officials, is expected to recommend that a number of the troops be sent home — and one official said the decision could chop the 900 troops there now in half. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the decisions are not yet finalized. Southern Command is preparing options that would address the fact that there have been no migrants transferred to the base since early March, but the administration has warned that future "high-threat" detainees may be sent to the base. U.S. authorities have transferred at least 290 detainees to Guantanamo since February. But on March 11, the 40 people still housed there were flown off the base to Louisiana.

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CNN [3/20/2025 12:35 AM, Mauricio Torres and Lex Harvey, 22131K] reports Venezuela’s leader has described the deportation of more than 200 mostly Venezuelan migrants sent by the United States to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador as a “kidnapping,” and denied they are criminals while backing calls for their return. “Nayib Bukele should not be an accomplice to this kidnapping, because our boys did not commit any crime in the United States, none,” Nicolas Maduro told supporters Wednesday, referencing El Salvador’s leader, who has struck a deal with US President Donald Trump. “They were not brought to trial, they were not given the right to a defense, the right to due process, they were deceived, handcuffed, put on a plane, kidnapped, and sent to a concentration camp in El Salvador,” Maduro added. The Venezuelan leader, who has ruled with an iron fist since 2013, said his government will deliver El Salvador an “official document” to request the return of the Venezuelan deportees, which will have the support of “millions” of signatures of Venezuelan citizens. Over the weekend, Trump invoked an 18th-century wartime law to deport 238 Venezuelans it claims are part of the Tren de Aragua gang despite a court ruling halting the move, deepening tensions between the US and Venezuela. He defended the move arguing the US faced an “invasion” of migrants and described those deported as “a bad group of, as I say, hombres.” The Venezuelans, along with 23 Salvadorans also deported, were sent to the Counter-Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in Tecoluca, El Salvador, as part of an agreement between the US and El Salvador. The prison is notorious for the ruthless way it treats prisoners, which human rights organizations say is inhumane and violates human rights.

USA Today [3/20/2025 4:05 AM, Ingrid Jacques, 75858K] reports President Donald Trump is 100% right to take a tough stand on illegal immigration. It’s one of the major reasons he won in November. Former President Joe Biden’s open-border policies created havoc for southern states and for cities all over the country. And some truly loathsome people have made their way into our country and deserve to be escorted out ASAP. Polls show this is a winning issue for Trump, with 56% in a recent NBC News poll saying the president is bringing the right kind of change on immigration. Other surveys have shown similar support among voters, which is Trump’s most popular issue at the moment. In fact, a poll this month from Echelon Insights found that immigration has dropped to the fourth most pressing issue for voters – down from the top issue a year ago. That is almost certainly because of Trump’s fast action on curbing illegal immigration and securing the border. However, Trump must not take his mandate from voters too far. He has to stay within the bounds of the law. A recent dustup with a federal judge on deportations makes it seem like Trump is all too willing to blow off the courts if they get in his way.

Newsweek [3/19/2025 4:50 PM, Dan Gooding, 52220K] reports U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said Wednesday that just over 28,000 deportations were carried out in the first seven weeks of the Trump administration, after several weeks without official data updates. The agency told Newsweek that it had removed 28,319 people from the U.S. interior between January 20 and March 11, averaging to around 3,887 per week, or 555 a day. When the figure is taken as just those immigrants detained by ICE agents, Trump would be outpacing Biden’s removal numbers. However, ICE has generally been responsible for removing those detained at the border, also. If the latest numbers include border removals, then the new administration is falling behind a weekly average of about 5,000 last year. Until January 20, immigration data on government websites was updated frequently. That practice appears to have ended under the Trump administration. As have the monthly updates posted on the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) statistics website. ICE’s own dashboard on arrests, detentions, and removals does not appear to have changed since November. An ICE official told Newsweek Tuesday that the agency was still compiling and validating data to give more accurate monthly updates.

CNN [3/19/2025 6:07 PM, Michael Williams] reports the Trump administration has deported hundreds of migrants while refusing to reveal their identities or the evidence against them, prompting complaints from the migrants’ families and from critics who say the administration is trampling on civil liberties. The administration says its invocation of a rarely used wartime authority to speed up deportations serves to protect Americans from the "extraordinary threat" posed by suspected gang members who the president has designated as foreign terrorists. But administration officials have provided little information that could allow outsiders to independently assess its claims that scores of immigrants who were deported from the country last weekend are affiliated with violent gangs or have extensive criminal records. Some relatives of the presumed deported migrants, meanwhile, have described a murky and ham-fisted process that disappeared people they say have no ties to organized crime, leaving them isolated from loved ones and legal advocates. In a declaration filed in federal court earlier this week, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said agents "carefully vetted" the gang affiliations of each of the 261 deportees and provided broad descriptions of crimes that several of them have been arrested for or convicted of in the United States and abroad. But in that same declaration, ICE Acting Field Office Director Robert L. Cerna acknowledged that many of the deportees "do not have criminal records in the United States."

Newsweek [3/19/2025 3:22 PM, Billal Rahman, 52220K] reports that Brown University issued a travel warning to international students and faculty after a staff member was deported to Lebanon by the Trump administration. Newsweek reached out to Brown University for comment. President Donald Trump, who pledged to deport millions of migrants without legal status, has granted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) expanded powers to operate at or near sensitive locations such as schools, hospitals and churches. Claims have emerged that the Trump administration is ignoring court orders on deportations and conducting arrests with little transparency. The sharp rise in detentions and deportations has fueled debates over civil liberties and due process. The Trump administration claims that Professor Rasha Alawieh, a Lebanese physician at Brown Medicine in Rhode Island, had "openly admitted" to supporting a Hezbollah leader and attending his funeral. Alawieh, 34, was detained at Boston Logan International Airport on March 13 after returning from a two-week family trip to Lebanon. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents said they uncovered photos of Iran’s supreme leader and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Alawieh’s phone. On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that during her detainment, Alawieh told customs agents she had traveled to Beirut to attend Nasrallah’s funeral.

Yahoo! News [3/19/2025 12:20 PM, Maria Papadopoulos, 52868K] reports that a 29-year-old Brazilian national convicted in his native country for manslaughter has been arrested while driving in Waltham, federal immigration officials said Wednesday. The Brazilian fugitive, who was not named, was arrested on Jan. 25, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement. He remains in federal custody. Officials on Wednesday also released a photograph of the fugitive, and blurred his face and the faces of two arresting officers. The fugitive failed to appear for his prison sentence following the manslaughter conviction in Brazil, officials said. "This Brazilian fugitive attempted to flee justice in his home country by hiding out in Massachusetts," ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Boston acting Field Office Director Patricia Hyde said in a statement. "He presented a threat to the residents of our communities that we will not tolerate," Hyde said. "ICE will not allow our New England communities to become a safe haven for the world’s bad actors. We will continue to arrest and remove them from our streets.” A Brazilian court convicted the fugitive on Dec. 11, 2018 for manslaughter while driving a motor vehicle and sentenced him to serve a prison term of four years, eight months, and 21 days, Hyde said. U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested the Brazilian fugitive on Nov. 22, 2018, after he illegally entered the U.S. near Hildalgo, Texas. Immigration Officials issued the fugitive an order of expedited removal and released him on his own recognizance. It was unclear Wednesday when the fugitive came to Massachusetts or for how long he has been in the Bay State.

AP [3/19/2025 5:42 PM, Staff] reports two brothers of the Venezuelan man who killed Georgia nursing student Laken Riley will be deported along with their former roommate after they pleaded guilty to possessing fake green cards, federal authorities say. Jose Ibarra, 27, was convicted in November of murder and other crimes in Riley’s killing and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in a case that became a flashpoint over immigration. His brother Diego Ibarra, 29, was taken into custody after he gave a counterfeit green card to a police officer investigating the February 2024 killing, the Justice Department said. Another brother, Argenis Ibarra, 25, and their former roommate, Rosbeli Flores-Bello, 29, admitted to having fake green cards, and agents found counterfeit Social Security cards for them in the apartment they shared with Diego and Jose Ibarra, the department added in a news release. Diego Ibarra was sentenced Wednesday to four years in federal prison after pleading guilty in July to two counts of possessing a fraudulent document. He is to be transferred to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, for deportation after he completes his sentence, the department said. Argenis and Flores-Bello each were sentenced Wednesday to time served after pleading guilty in December to one count of possessing a fraudulent document. They were to be immediately turned over to ICE for deportation, according to the news release. The statement did not elaborate on those deportation plans.

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Yahoo! News [3/19/2025 4:37 PM, Karlton Clay, 52868K]

CBS Miami [3/20/2025 12:09 AM, Ivan Taylor, 51661K] reports a South Florida attorney is pushing back against the deportation of his client, a Venezuelan asylum seeker sent to El Salvador under accusations of gang affiliation, despite having no criminal record in the U.S. or Venezuela. Immigration Attorney Martin Rosenow said 26-year-old José Franco Caraballo was wrongfully identified as a member of Tren de Aragua, a notorious Venezuelan gang and deported over the weekend along with more than 200 other men. Rosenow argues that Caraballo, a barber from Venezuela, was misidentified based on his tattoos rather than any actual gang ties. "He has been identified with no facts, no explanation," Rosenow told CBS News Miami. "They focused on a pocket watch tattoo that simply marks the time of birth of his eldest daughter." Caraballo also has his daughter’s name, Shalome, tattooed on his chest, along with other ink on his arms. Rosenow insists his client was targeted unfairly. "He does not have a criminal record, never been arrested in Venezuela or the United States," he said. Robert Serna, a senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official, acknowledged in a sworn statement Monday night that some of the deported individuals lack U.S. criminal records. "While it is true that many Tren de Aragua members removed under the Alien Enemy Act do not have criminal records in the U.S., that is because they have only been in the country for a short period of time," Serna said. "The lack of a criminal record does not indicate they pose a limited threat." Caraballo entered the U.S. in October 2023 and had been complying with scheduled immigration check-ins, according to Rosenow. However, he was detained at his February 3 appointment and deported weeks later. ICE did not charge him with illegal entry but argued he lacked legal admission or a visa to remain in the U.S.

Yahoo! News [3/19/2025 7:45 PM, Anthony Mocklin, 52868K] reports a man has been arrested for allegedly possessing pornography involving juveniles. Alec Paul Pascal was arrested for child porn. (Credit: Louisiana Bureau of Investigation). According to a press release, agents with the Louisiana Bureau of Investigation arrested 21-year-old Alec Paul Pascal on 18 counts of pornography involving juveniles under the age of 13. Agents say they received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The LBI worked with the Bossier Parish Sheriff’s Office, Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office, and Homeland Security Investigations to arrest Pascal. The investigation is ongoing, and no further details are available at this time.

Chicago Tribune [3/19/2025 2:23 PM, Nell Salzman, 5269K] reports that the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration has led to a string of concerned reports from principals and parents to Chicago Public Schools officials, according to a review of internal communication from district security personnel. On Jan. 24, a mistaken CPS report of two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers at Hamline Elementary School on the South Side spurred nationwide panic. The two officers were later confirmed to be Secret Service, not ICE — both agencies are part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. A security video showed the agents approached the school in a relatively benign manner, despite high levels of fear that day. A look at emails from district officials in the weeks since the mistaken ICE report demonstrates that both panic and misinformation around ICE in schools has continued since the Hamline incident. The emails were mostly sent by officials at the CPS’ Student Safety Center, the district’s 24/7 command center for safety communications, and were obtained by the Tribune through a Freedom of Information Act request. They show there were multiple other sightings of ICE vehicles outside schools, some confirmed and some dismissed. And though not always found true, reports of ICE activity can have serious effects at the classroom level, experts say.

Yahoo! News [3/19/2025 4:53 PM, Wil Day, 52868K] reports a federal grand jury has indicted a Kansas man, accusing him of producing child pornography. Charles Wayne Franke, 21, of Wellington, has been indicted on two counts of sexual exploitation of a child, production of child pornography, four counts of distribution of child pornography, and one count of possession of child pornography. According to the federal indictment, the sexual exploitation charges involve two victims, with the crimes taking place in November and December 2024. The distribution charges stem from incidents between August and November 2024. The case is under investigation by Homeland Security Investigations.

Axios [3/19/2025 5:49 PM, Alayna Alvarez, Brittany Gibson, Astrid Galván, 13163K] reports the arrest of a longtime immigrant rights activist — who made national headlines when she took sanctuary in a Denver church during President Trump’s first term — has rattled advocates and immigrants across the country. Despite the Trump administration’s pledge to focus on the "worst of the worst," Jeanette Vizguerra joins a growing list of nonviolent figures targeted in the immigration crackdown. Immigrant rights groups worry a string of arrests signals a new phase in immigration enforcement and an effort to silence critics. Vizguerra’s case follows other high-profile detentions of nonviolent people by federal immigration agents. About 50% of people in ICE custody have no prior criminal conviction or pending charges, according to agency data updated through March 7. Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem also said fewer than half of the department’s 33,000 arrests in the first 50 days since the start of Trump’s second term were of people with criminal records. Vizguerra’s lawyers have filed a challenge in federal court. She remains detained at an ICE facility in the Denver suburb of Aurora.

FOX News [3/20/2025 3:20 AM, Christina Shaw, 46189K] reports authorities in Aurora, Colorado, are allegedly declining to help U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) locate two illegal immigrants who escaped from the Denver Contract Detention Facility on Tuesday, the agency said. Illegal immigrants Joel Jose Gonzalez-Gonzalez, 32, and Geilond Vido-Romero, 24, escaped from the facility at some point on Tuesday after they were accounted for during a 2 p.m. facility-wide count. The Aurora Police Department shared a document with Fox News Digital that said staff at the facility became aware of the escapees at approximately 12:35 a.m. on Wednesday. It also said that an Aurora police officer responded to an "outside agency assist" at 5:13 a.m. on Wednesday. Aurora Police Public Information Officer Joe Moylan said the department did not receive a report about the escaped detainees until approximately 2:30 a.m., two hours after the men were confirmed missing and five hours after the facility’s power went out. The document showed that Assistant Facility Director Mohamed Bennani told Aurora police that the power at the detention center went out at around 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday and the back doors of the facility opened up to the soccer field. Bennani believes that is when both inmates escaped through the back door. The facility staff started an emergency count around midnight and realized both men were missing. As of late Wednesday, the power is still out at the facility, but authorities said they should be able to review camera footage once it is restored. ICE said when agents contacted local authorities, they declined to assist in the search for the two escapees, who were still on the run as of early Thursday morning. They also said they informed state and federal law enforcement partners of the search.

Yahoo! News [3/19/2025 5:54 PM, Puneet Bsanti, 52868K] reports an investigation is underway in Fife after suspected U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement impersonators targeted a local Ukrainian store on Sunday. The impersonators staked out Emish Market on 70th Avenue East at about 5 p.m. while they were inside a Ford SUV, decorated with false "ICE" decals and symbols to reference the department, according to the Fife Police Department in a news release. Police say the emblems appeared to have "distortion and misspellings.” "The vehicle also had ‘1775’ on the top rear area, and ‘911’ displayed on the rear of the vehicle, but had no license plates," the release said. The release said the SUV circled the market’s parking lot. When it was parked, the SUV took up two parking spaces in front of the store. "There were reports that the driver was honking the horn, and subject(s) inside were video recording the event," the release said. The driveway of the market was blocked until a security guard confronted them. The SUV then drove away. Newman said they have been getting information on social media that the vehicle possibly was seen in the South Sound area before. Investigators are working to get information about whether other law enforcement agencies have taken official reports on the SUV. He said this is the first time the Fife Police Department has encountered people impersonating ICE agents. "U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and agents are highly trained and dedicated professionals who are sworn to uphold the law, protect the American people and support U.S. national security interests. ICE strongly condemns the impersonation of its officers or agents," according to an ICE spokesperson in a statement. "This action is not only dangerous, but illegal. Imposters can be charged with various criminal offenses both at the state/local level, as well as federally.” No arrests had been made as of Wednesday. The release said the Police Department is working with the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI Seattle Field Office for the investigation.

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Yahoo! News [3/19/2025 6:47 PM, Samantha Lomibao, 52868K]

San Diego Union Tribune [3/19/2025 6:03 PM, Caleb Lunetta, 1682K] reports a San Diego State University police officer whose arrest was announced this week is suspected of downloading multiple videos depicting child sexual abuse of girls as young as 6 years old, according to a federal complaint. Sgt. Paul Aurelio McClain was arrested last Thursday on suspicion of possessing child pornography after an investigator determined that at least seven videos that showed underage girls being raped and sexually assaulted had been downloaded to his personal computer at his Menifee home, according to court records. Aurelio is being held in lieu of bond and set to be arraigned April 1 in Riverside, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The criminal complaint filed Friday came after a cyber-crime unit with Homeland Security Investigations began tracking downloads made by a specific user on an anonymous file-sharing website between July 27 and Feb. 3, the court document reads.

AP [3/20/2025 12:08 AM, Dánica Coto, 48304K] reports Pastor Nilka Marrero will slam her hand on the table, raise her voice and, if needed, shake her parishioners while playing the role of a federal agent. Many of her parishioners are undocumented immigrants, and she believes that role-playing with them can help prepare them for the threat of arrest as authorities step up immigration raids to a scale never before seen in Puerto Rico. “They appear and snatch people,” Marrero said. For decades, undocumented immigrants have lived in the U.S. territory without fear of arrest. They’re allowed to open bank accounts and obtain a special driver’s license. Many have felt safe enough to open their own businesses. Then, on Jan. 26, large-scale arrests began. U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents raided a well-known Dominican community in a nod to a new policy of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has pledged to deport millions of people who have entered the United States illegally. The arrests have angered Puerto Rican officials and civil leaders who have created programs to help the island’s undocumented immigrants, many of whom are from the Dominican Republic. An estimated 55,000 Dominicans live in Puerto Rico, although some experts believe the number could be even higher. It’s unclear how many are undocumented, although some 20,000 have the special driver’s license. More than 200 people have been arrested since Jan. 26, nearly all men. Of those arrested, 149 are Dominican, according to data ICE provided The Associated Press. Sandra Colón, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in Puerto Rico, said the agency is focusing on those with a criminal record or who have received a final court ruling that they must leave the country. But she said she did not immediately have available how many of those arrested have criminal records. Annette Martínez, Puerto Rico’s ACLU director, said it’s unknown where those arrested have been taken or if they have been deported. “We’re concerned about the different methods ICE is using for detainment,” she said.

Miami Herald [3/19/2025 8:55 PM, Staff, 3973K] reports amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and ensuing detention of multiple tourists at various borders, multiple countries are now warning their citizens to be careful when traveling to the U.S. The German Ministry issued a warning reminding citizens that neither a U.S. visa nor an Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) designation can guarantee admission into the country or the absence of problems at the border. An ESTA is obtained by tourists who are coming into the U.S. for short stays. "The final decision on whether a person can enter the U.S. lies with the U.S. border authorities," a German spokesperson said on March 19. The warning came as German national Fabian Schmidt is currently being held at a Rhode Island detention center since being stopped at Boston Logan International Airport on March 7 while tattoo artist Jessica Brösche has spent over a month awaiting deportation at the Otay Mesa Detention Facility in San Diego. While Brösche was suspected of planning to work illegally when crossing the border from Mexico, Schmidt had a valid green card and has been living in the U.S. since 2008. Family who had been in contact with Schmidt during his detention said that he was "violently interrogated" for hours, stripped naked and put in a cold shower by two officials questioning his intentions upon entering the U.S. While the German Ministry stopped short of calling the new guidance an official travel warning, it reminded citizens to be mindful of the uncertainty and rapidly shifting nature of Trump’s immigration policies. "A criminal conviction in the United States, false information regarding the purpose of stay, or even a slight overstay of the visa upon entry or exit can lead to arrest, detention, and deportation upon entry or exit," the ministry’s page for travel to the U.S. now explicitly states. Amid Trump’s repeated references to Canada as "the 51st state" and new requirements that Canadians driving in register in an online portal that is yet to launch, Global Affairs Canada also warned Canadians traveling to the U.S. to familiarize themselves with any updates to immigration rules before travel. Mexico is one of several nations to issue new guidance for citizens traveling to the U.S. in the coming weeks.Image source: Shutterstock.

FOX News [3/19/2025 9:45 PM, Ashley Carnahan, 52868K] reports President Donald Trump said his administration would properly vet anyone who buys one of his proposed $5 million "gold card" visas as he looks to replace the EB-5 immigrant investor visa program, noting there is still potential for a refund and deportation after the fact should problems arise. Trump floated the idea late in February at the Oval Office as a way for immigrants to obtain green card privileges. It’s now being pitched as a route to U.S. citizenship and as a way to pay down the national debt. Fox News host Laura Ingraham asked the president in an interview on "The Ingraham Angle" that aired Wednesday why American citizenship should be available for purchase at any price. "Because I’m America First," he responded. "Because at $5 million, you’re getting a lot of things." Trump suggested the United States could sell 1 million of the gold cards to wealthy immigrants at a price of $5 million each. The $5 trillion revenue, he said, would go entirely toward paying down the roughly $36 trillion in national debt. Ingraham pressed Trump on whether such an incentive would allow "unsavory" people to come into the country. The 47th president said he was worried about who could enter under the new gold card program but vowed to have strict vetting procedures. "If somebody is wrong — we actually are very nice because it makes it a lot easier legally — we give them their money back, and we send them out," he said. The EB-5 immigrant investor program was created by Congress in 1990 to "stimulate the U.S. economy through job creation and capital investment by foreign investors," according to a description on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ website.

Axios [3/19/2025 6:20 AM, Sabrina Moreno, 13163K] reports a major refugee resettlement program serving Richmond has indefinitely shut down after President Trump froze funding for a federal refugee program. Thousands of refugees across Virginia, including over 900 kids, rely on that program for help with housing and food. The uncertainty began when Trump suspended a decades-old federal refugee resettlement program in late January and barred new refugees from entering the U.S. Shortly after, the federal funding nonprofits used to financially aid refugees who are already here stopped too. The money was typically used to provide at least 90 days of support with learning English, enrolling kids in school and finding work. There are six refugee resettlement agencies in Virginia. Two — Commonwealth Catholic Charities and the International Rescue Committee — specifically operate in Richmond. CCC has $750,000 worth of expenses, from refugee rental assistance to medical support, that now won’t be reimbursed because of funding cuts, spokesperson Katie Dillon told Axios. The faith-based nonprofit, which additionally provides housing and foster care services across Virginia, also laid off 26 staff members, including nine in Richmond, Dillon said. That’s more than half of the refugee resettlement team, reports The Virginian-Pilot. CCC has resettled nearly 1,500 people in the Richmond area between 2019 and 2025, according to Dillon. Since October, IRC and CCC have resettled nearly 300 refugees in the Richmond area, per data from the Virginia Department of Social Services. Most are from Afghanistan, but Sudan, Venezuela and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are other common countries among Richmond’s newest refugees. "There is often a misconception that refugees have somehow tricked the system or entered the country illegally," Dillon told Axios. "Refugees go through a long and arduous vetting process that often takes years."

Reuters [3/19/2025 8:39 AM, Miranda Murray, 41523K] reports Germany updated its travel advisory for the United States to emphasise that a visa or entry waiver does not guarantee entry for its citizens after several Germans were detained at the border recently, a foreign ministry spokesperson said. The ministry updated its travel advice website for the U.S. on Tuesday to clarify that neither approval through the U.S. ESTA system nor a U.S. visa entitles entry in every case. "The final decision on whether a person can enter the U.S. lies with the U.S. border authorities," said the spokesperson on Wednesday. However, the spokesperson emphasised that the change did not constitute a travel warning. Since taking office on January 20, President Donald Trump has announced a number of immigration-related executive orders that focus on stricter border policy, tighter visa vetting procedures and a crackdown on undocumented migrants in the United States. Germany’s foreign ministry said earlier this week that it was monitoring whether there had been a change in U.S. immigration policy after three nationals had been detained. Two of the three cases have been resolved, with the affected nationals returning to Germany, while the remaining case was being handled with the help of the consulate general in Boston. According to Boston-based public broadcaster WGBH, a German man with a green card residency permit was detained by immigration authorities this month at Boston airport and was being held in a detention facility. The German foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for information about the man’s current whereabouts.

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Axios [3/19/2025 4:17 PM, Sareen Habeshian, 13163K]

Washington Post [3/19/2025 5:10 PM, Dan Lamothe, 31735K] reports the Trump administration is evaluating plans for the Pentagon to take control of a buffer zone along a sprawling stretch of the southern border and empower active-duty U.S. troops to temporarily hold migrants who cross into the United States illegally, according to five U.S. officials familiar with the deliberations. Those discussions have been underway for weeks, and they center, in part, on a section of border in New Mexico, officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to disclose details of the plan. In effect, the move would turn the buffer zone into an expansive satellite military installation, potentially allowing a greater portion of the Defense Department’s mammoth budget to pay for President Donald Trump’s border crackdown while creating new legal jeopardy for those caught trying to slip into the country from Mexico, these people said. If the plan is approved, and administration officials deem it successful, the military-controlled buffer zone, measuring 60 feet deep, eventually could stretch west to California, officials said.

FOX News [3/19/2025 3:12 PM, Michael Lee, 46189K] reports the El Paso sector of the southwest border has become the busiest in the country as overall encounters at the border continue to freefall. The El Paso sector, which extends from Hudspeth County, Texas, to the New Mexico-Arizona state line, became the busiest sector on the southwest border in February, with the latest U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data showing it recorded 2,110 encounters last month. Overall, CBP data shows 8,347 encounters at the southwest border in February, a stunning 94.1% drop from the same month last year, when 124,215 encounters were recorded. While the El Paso sector took the crown for the busiest, the just over 2,000 encounters for the area still represented a significant year-over-year drop from the numbers recorded during February of last year, when the sector had 23,919 encounters. The February numbers in El Paso also represented a drop from last month, with the sector recording 4,870 encounters in January 2025.

CBS News [3/19/2025 3:18 PM, Li Cohen, 51661K] reports as the bird flu continues to wreak havoc on the U.S. egg supply, U.S. Customs and Border Protection data show there have been significantly more egg products seized at U.S. borders than the number of seizures of the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl so far in fiscal year 2025. According to the CBP data, there have been 413 drug seizure events involving fentanyl in fiscal year 2025, with December, January and February all having fewer fentanyl seizures than in those months the year before. Meanwhile, there have been 5,572 egg product interceptions so far this fiscal year, the data show. There were nearly 16,000 such interceptions in all of fiscal year 2024. CBP has said most of the egg product interceptions that have occurred were because people were unaware that they couldn’t bring those products across the border.

New York Times [3/19/2025 2:48 PM, Ana Swanson and James Wagner, 145325K] reports that the Trump administration on Monday quietly rescinded an order that had blocked a major Dominican sugar producer with political ties to President Trump from shipping sugar to the United States because of allegations of forced labor at the company. U.S. Customs and Border Protection modified a “withhold release order” that had been issued in 2022 for raw sugar and sugar products made by the Central Romana Corporation, blocking exports to the United States from the company. The Customs website now lists the order as “inactive.” Labor right groups expressed frustration at the change, saying that Central Romana, whose sugar had been sold in the United States under the Domino brand, had not significantly improved its labor practices. “We haven’t seen a significant enough change to warrant modification,” said Allie Brudney, a senior staff attorney at Corporate Accountability Lab, which has been monitoring working conditions on Dominican sugar farms. “This is a disappointing outcome, but we will continue to support workers in their fight for better conditions.” A U.S. official, who declined to be named because the person was not authorized to speak publicly, said that the decision to rescind the rule and allow the company to begin exporting had not followed established processes. The official cited Central Romana’s powerful ownership, and said that the decision was most likely made at the top levels of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Hilton Beckham, an assistant commissioner of public affairs for Customs and Border Protection, confirmed that the order had been modified, saying that the decision followed “documented improvements to labor standards, verified by independent sources.”

Yahoo! News [3/19/2025 4:22 PM, Hafiz Rashid, 52868K] reports a French scientist on his way to a conference in the United States was allegedly denied entry by Customs and Border Patrol over messages found on his phone that criticized President Trump’s science cuts. The French newspaper Le Monde reports that on March 9, a space researcher was randomly selected upon arrival in Houston for a search, and CBP found messages criticizing the Trump administration’s treatment of scientists, which, according to the agency, "conveyed hatred of Trump & could be qualified as terrorism.” The researcher’s phone and computer were allegedly confiscated, and he was sent back to Europe the next day. The news prompted the attention of the French government, which expressed alarm. "I was told with concern that a French researcher, on a mission for the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), who was going to a conference near Houston, was banned from entering the US before being expelled," said France’s Minister of Higher Education and Research Philippe Baptiste, in a statement Wednesday. "This would have been taken by the US authorities because the researcher’s phone contained exchanges with colleagues and friendly relations in which he expressed a personal opinion on the Trump administration’s research policy.” According to one source cited by Agence France-Presse, CBP said that the French researcher expressed "hate and conspiracy messages," prompting an FBI investigation, only for the charges to be dropped later. Another source said the scientist was banned due to messages "that can be described as terrorism.”

Yahoo! News [3/19/2025 6:47 PM, Chris Benson, 52868K] reports U.S. border officials in Indiana recently seized a handful of counterfeit Botox products with a street value of nearly $10,000. "These drugs can be expensive and hard to acquire in many locations, but cheap prices are not always the safest, especially when it comes to your health and well-being," LaFonda D. Sutton-Burke, director of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s field office in Chicago, said Wednesday in a release. Officials revealed that four boxes of counterfeit Botox vials were confiscated at an express consignment shop in Indianapolis. They added that, had the products been real, they would have fetched at least $8,500 on the market. These seizures of counterfeit Botox are one example of our collaborative efforts to ensure the American public is protected from illegal and harmful products entering the United States. CBP urges consumers to only purchase these medications from reputable sources," Sutton-Burke added. In total officers seized 14 glass Botox vials at about 100 units of the drug supposedly intended to boost self-esteem by way of physical looks, one glass Botox vial with 200 units in it and 1 glass Dysport vial equaling to about 500 units of the illicit substance. Botox, or botulinum toxin, is restricted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It cannot be imported into the United States without proper documentation due to scores of health risks. "Unapproved products that you inject could seriously hurt you," stated Melvin Dennis, CBP’s acting port director in Indianapolis. "They are manufactured in unregulated and unsanitary facilities with ingredients that you cannot be sure are authentic," he added.

FOX News [3/19/2025 6:30 AM, Rachel del Guidice, 46189K] reports Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says illegal border crossings that were in the thousands under former President Joe Biden have now dropped to the single digits in some areas under President Donald Trump. "I was with some officials from El Paso last night, and they said that where there had been 3,000 people crossing the border, sometimes a day, just in El Paso, there were now nine — nine people a day," Abbott said Tuesday in an interview with CNBC’s Joe Kernen on "Squawk Box." Trump launched a crackdown on illegal immigration on his first day back in office after running on fixing Biden’s border crisis. He has resumed construction of the border wall, is asking illegal immigrants to "self-deport" by using his administration’s CBP Home app to facilitate their removal from the country, and has invoked the Alien Enemies Act, which allows the president to imprison or deport persons who are not citizens. Abbott said the reception illegal immigrants receive once crossing into the country is very different from what it was under Biden. Under Trump, he said, the law is being enforced. "The people who do make it across the border now, they are immediately arrested and then deported, and as a result, discouraging people from entering the border again," the governor said. "We’ve never seen a change as much as we saw four years ago, and now this year, with regard to what’s happening on the border," Abbott said. "What began happening four years ago, of course, was a complete failure to enforce the immigration laws of the United States of America," he added. "And as a result, we saw an all-time record number of people crossing the border illegally, more than 11 million people, including people who are known murderers, rapists and gang members and cartel members. And as a result, the crime across the country skyrocketed."

Yahoo! News [3/19/2025 11:09 AM, Melissa Luna, 52868K] reports that a 50-year-old man was recently arrested by Border Patrol agents in Las Cruces for illegal re-entry into the U.S. and for having an outstanding warrant for a sex offense against a child which was filed in Maryland, according to U.S. Border Patrol. Border Patrol says at around 2:30 a.m. on Saturday, March 15, agents assigned to the Las Cruces station on I-10 arrested a Salvadoran national, who was later identified through jail records as Ricardo Rosales Reyes, with an outstanding warrant from the state of Maryland. Records indicated that Reyes had an active and fully extraditable warrant for arrest for a sex offense against a child issued by the Prince George’s County Sheriff’s Office in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, Border Patrol said. Reyes was removed from the U.S. in 2008, according to Border Patrol. Reyes was booked into the Doña Ana County Detention Center and is facing a felony charge for illegal re-entry after removal.

USA Today [3/19/2025 6:31 PM, Ray Stern, Marc Ramirez, 75858K] reports Border Patrol agents found Edgar Armanda Vargas-de la Rocha dressed in camouflage and wielding binoculars when they took him into custody in the mountains south of metropolitan Phoenix. Before long, he’d told them he was a scout for a Mexican cartel. In the past year alone, Vargas-de la Rocha said he’d helped smuggle about 1,000 undocumented immigrants into the country, according to court records. Vargas-de la Rocha signed a plea agreement on a federal felony conspiracy-for-financial-gain charge last week and faces up to 10 years in prison. His change of plea hearing is scheduled Thursday at Phoenix’s federal courthouse. According to the Border Patrol, Vargas-de la Rocha was among three additional suspected scouts and a foot guide arrested within a two-day period last month, all thought to be linked to the Los Memos cartel. In addition to being charged with illegal entry into the U.S., three of the five will face criminal charges for human smuggling and conspiracy, the agency said.

Yahoo! News [3/19/2025 5:56 PM, Staff, 52868K] reports a federal court in Spokane found a man from India guilty of possession with intent to distribute over 170 pounds of MDMA, according to a release from the Department of Justice (DOJ). The DOJ in the Eastern District of Washington said that 31-year-old Jaskaran Singh trafficked the MDMA, otherwise known as ‘molly’ or ‘ecstasy,’ across the U.S.-Canada border on April 29, 2023. Border patrol agents arrested Singh who was driving a minivan close to the Canadian border with backpacks and a suitcase with the drugs inside, the release said. Authorities say Singh and two other men smuggled the bags across the border from Canada into the U.S. and tripped a motion sensor which led border patrol agents to start tracking the group. The DOJ approximates the MDMA seized had a street value of $7.8 million. Singh faces a maximum of 20 years in prison and removal from the U.S.

Miami Herald [3/19/2025 4:31 PM, Sara Schilling, 3973K] reports federal officers found 16 bullets in a carry-on bag at a New Jersey airport, officials said. The bullets "were artfully concealed inside an aluminum foil box" within the bag, the Transportation Security Administration said in a March 19 news release. The bag set off an alarm March 18 as it passed through an X-ray unit at Newark Liberty International Airport, officials said. A TSA officer took the foil box out of the bag, and the bullets were found in the cardboard tube inside, each wrapped individually in aluminum, officials said. "Port Authority Police were notified and questioned the traveler along with their traveling companion," according to the release. "The pair were ticketed to fly to the Dominican Republic, but they missed their flight and were permitted to leave the airport — minus the ammunition, which was confiscated by the police."

CBS 7 [3/19/2025 6:10 PM, Staff, 4K] Video: HERE reports the Federal Aviation Administration is investigating an incident that occurred at Los Angeles International Airport. On Monday, an unruly passenger on a Delta Air Lines flight had to be detained by others onboard. The flight was coming from Atlanta and had just landed in Los Angeles. “My passenger next to me said there was an incident in the back of the plane or halfway down the plane, so I kind of turned around. I was in the aisle seat, and basically I could see people scuffling on the ground,” fellow passenger Ash Gurney described. “And someone looked up the aisle and said, ‘Help.’ So, I kind of took my seat belt off and ran down to help.” According to Lo Angeles Fire and the Transportation Security Administration, the man was restrained after biting a passenger and hitting others. “The first two restraints broke, but we got the third one on, and as I put the third one on, I had him in a bear hug and that’s when he bit me,” Gurney added. Officials said he was taken to the hospital for a psychological evaluation. An airline spokeswoman said it’s unclear what happened to the man after the incident.

MeriTalk [3/19/2025 3:28 PM, Weslan Hansen, 45K] reports President Donald Trump signed an executive order (EO) on March 18 that seeks to shift some responsibilities for risk management from the Federal government to state and local governments through the creation of a new "National Resilience Strategy" and a review of government’s critical infrastructure and preparedness policies. The National Resilience Strategy is set to be published within the next 90 days, according to Trump’s EO issued on Tuesday evening, and would outline priorities and methods to improve the United States’ resilience to disasters – including those caused by cyberattacks. Following its debut, the strategy will be reviewed and updated at least every four years, according to the EO. The new strategy will be launched in tandem with shifting the responsibility of disaster response and preparedness from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to state and local governments. That move builds on vows Trump made in January to "begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA, or maybe getting rid of them." The policy review aims to shift national critical infrastructure policy from an "all-hazards" approach to a "risk-informed" approach. A "National Risk Register" will be also deployed to help identify, describe, and measure risks to critical infrastructure and their related systems and uses, according to the EO. The register will be developed within the next 240 days by Michael Waltz, assistant to the president for national security affairs, and Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and other agency heads.

Yahoo! News [3/19/2025 4:31 PM, Jessica Phillips, 52868K] reports a second FEMA Disaster Recovery Center is set to open in McDowell County, and more than $10 million in FEMA assistance was approved in West Virginia. According to a press release from FEMA, at 8:00 a.m. on Thursday, March 20, 2025, a second FEMA Disaster Recovery Center (DRC) will open in the Welch area of McDowell County. The DRC will be located at the Board of Education Building at 900 Mount View High School Road in Welch. In addition to the second DRC opening in McDowell County, more than $10 million in FEMA assistance was approved in West Virginia. FEMA advised people who live in areas affected by flooding to register for assistance.

AP [3/19/2025 5:21 PM, Gary D. Robertson, 48304K] reports North Carolina lawmakers agreed Wednesday to spend another $528 million on still-pressing needs from Hurricane Helene’s historic flooding nearly six months ago, with an emphasis on home and private road repairs, agriculture and infrastructure to aid businesses. House and Senate Republicans worked out their differences from competing versions of a bill and voted overwhelmingly this week for the compromise, which includes an additional $327 million to address the recovery from previous storms — some several years ago — and disasters not named Helene. The measure heads to Democratic Gov. Josh Stein, who scheduled a bill-signing ceremony for Wednesday night. He told lawmakers last week during his State of the State address he was ready to sign a relief measure into law.

Yahoo! News [3/19/2025 5:54 PM, Staff, 52868K] reports a homeowner says FEMA sent a team to treat their well water Wednesday. This was after the family told Channel 9 that water quality concerns kept them from moving into a mobile home FEMA put on their property after Helene. On Tuesday, the family showed reporter Dave Faherty the tape over the door to the trailer in Yancey County. It’s been there since January but they say FEMA won’t let them move in. The family said Wednesday that FEMA will return to their property in 48 hours to test the water after the treatment. The family must wait 10 days to get the results, which is when they hope to move in.

WJTV [3/19/2025 5:17 PM, Kaitlin Howell] reports the National Weather Service (NWS) has confirmed that 18 tornadoes touched down in Mississippi March 14-15, 2025. Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) teams are in the field validating damage numbers as counties work to continue damage assessments. MEMA has received reports of 831 homes, 37 businesses, and 20 farms damaged statewide. Of the 831 homes damaged, 131 were destroyed and 166 received major damage. Power restoration continues with only 581 outages reported statewide as of 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, March 19. The MSU Extension service has deployed Agriculture Damage Assessment Teams. Mississippi Highway Patrol Troopers are deployed to Jefferson Davis and Walthall Counties to patrol and help prevent looting.

Yahoo! News [3/19/2025 11:38 PM, Daesha Gear, 52868K] reports evacuations have been ordered in Reynolds County due to multiple fires reported in the area. The Reynolds County Emergency Management Agency issued evacuation orders just before 9 p.m. following reports of a brush fire earlier in the afternoon. Residents on County Roads 500, 510, 514, 202 and 203 are advised to evacuate immediately. The emergency management agency has opened a shelter at the FEMA building located at Ellington High School for those needing immediate shelter. Residents are urged to follow evacuation orders to ensure their safety as emergency personnel work to contain the fires. The Reynolds County Emergency Management Agency calls for those to stay informed through official channels for updates on the fires and evacuation orders.

Yahoo! News [3/19/2025 9:42 PM, Staff, 52868K] reports the Florida Forest Service is working to contain a wildfire north of Chumuckla in Santa Rosa County, according to the FFS Blackwater Forestry Center. The blaze, dubbed the Willow Point Lane Fire, was initially estimated at around 200 acres and at its peak threatened six structures. However, the FFS estimated that as of about 8 p.m., the fire was about 60% contained and reduced to 160 acres. No home or infrastructure have been damaged. Several roads were closed temporarily while firefighters responded to the wildfire – including portions of Chumuckla Springs Road, Mineral Springs Road and Sid Hayes Road, as well as all of Watson Road – and area residents were evacuated as a precaution, but the roads were reopened and the evacuation order was lifted late Wednesday evening. The Jay and Allentown fire departments and the Pace Fire Rescue District assisted with the fire, but were released once the fire was deemed to be under control. Florida Forest Service crews planned to remain for several hours to strengthen the perimeter lines, the Blackwater Forestry Center posted on social media shortly after 8 p.m. "All forward progress of the fire has been stopped and there is a line around the entire fire perimeter," the post said. Once released, Forest Service firefighters plan to return at first light, seek out any remaining hot spots and continue to strengthen lines.

Houston Chronicle [3/19/2025 6:52 PM, John Lomax V, 1769K] reports an estimated 1,200-acre wildfire at the Sam Houston National Forest prompted calls for evacuations Wednesday near Cleveland, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service. The Montgomery County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management said residents who live near Lee Turner Road, west of Cleveland, should "evacuate immediately." "If you live off Lee Turner Road or any road attached please evacuate immediately," the office said in a post on Facebook. "Wildfire threat imminent." The stretch of the fire grew by an estimated 1,000 acres since around 5:30 p.m., when the forest service reported the fire to be 200 acres. Just after 7 p.m., the forest service that the fire was 10% contained. The Cleveland Fire Department, which was not immediately available for comment, said in a post on Facebook that a fire was reported along FM 1725 near Alsobrooks Road. The department shared an image of a large plume of smoke seen from Cleveland and said the forestry service was assisting firefighters.

Yahoo! News [3/19/2025 11:51 AM, Richard Mize, 52868K] reports that Oklahoma County commissioners declared a disaster emergency to get assistance in fighting out-of-control wildfires that would have kicked up again Wednesday morning if not for a 47-degree-point increase in humidity in less than three hours. Even with that temporary reprieve, "The anticipation is for this week to remain a little bit ugly, and potentially up to the next four weeks, according to long-range forecasts," said David Barnes, county emergency management director. However, despite the wind and fire danger, the county cannot order a burn ban because it "doesn’t meet (new) statutory standards," and has asked Gov. Kevin Stitt to order a statewide ban, said Myles Davidson, chairman of the Board of County Commissioners, who represents District 3, which includes Deer Creek. Firefighters and county crews "have been out there battling these things since Friday, cutting fire lines ... last night until about 2 o’clock in the morning in Deer Creek," Davidson said. The Federal Emergency Management Agency and other authorities plan to set up a "type one incident command team" in Oklahoma City, "along with a great deal of forestry resources," Barnes told the Board of County Commissioners at Wednesday’s meeting. "We’re working with some folks to try to secure an area out at the fairgrounds in order to handle the equipment staging, those kinds of things," he said. Through Wednesday morning, Barnes said, the Hickory Hills Road fire northeast of Arcadia had destroyed 22 occupied structures, two unoccupied, and 17 barns and outbuildings. He had information for Oklahoma County only. Firefighting continued in remote southeast Logan County, he said. Reports early Wednesday on KWTV Channel 9 that an evacuation had been ordered between Seward Road and Coffee Creek Road in the Indian Meridian area were incorrect, Barnes said. Oklahoma County has had no evacuations since Friday, he said. "We’re looking for the spring green-up. that’s going to be a big issue for us," Barnes said.

ABC News [3/19/2025 12:21 PM, Bill Hutchinson, 34586K] reports that Winds of up to 75 mph were fanning multiple fast-moving Oklahoma wildfires on Wednesday morning, prompting evacuation orders for towns in the path of the flames, officials said. Firefighters are battling blazes in Logan, Pawnee, Beckham and Roger Mills counties, including one about seven miles northwest of Sweetwater, near the Oklahoma-Texas border, officials said. Residents of Meridian were ordered to evacuate early Wednesday as a fire came within two miles of the Logan County town. Officials rescinded the order after several hours as a cold front developed and raised humidity in the area, officials said. In Roger Mills County, residents of Durham and Dead Warrior Lake were also told to evacuate around 4 a.m. local time Wednesday, as a fire nearby was spreading rapidly, officials said. The fires erupted amid red flag warnings for extreme fire danger that were issued by the National Weather Service. At one point over the weekend, there were 130 fires reported in 44 counties across Oklahoma that killed four people, destroyed more than 400 homes and burned a total of 170,000 acres, officials said. The Oklahoma fires erupted amid severe weather across the South and Midwest, which included several deadly tornadoes and dust storms. At least 42 people were killed, including two young brothers in North Carolina when an uprooted tree fell on their mobile home.

The Hill [3/19/2025 3:59 PM, Lauren Irwin, 12829K] reports a bill introduced in the House would allow the Secret Service to reimburse local law enforcement agencies for the costs of protecting President Trump. Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-N.J.) reintroduced a bill from last Congress that, if passed, would provide assistance to groups in Florida, New Jersey and New York as they have bolstered security at his residences after his assassination attempt last July. The president had since been staffed with more law enforcement, and various precautions were taken while he was still campaigning. Kean said he was introducing the bill because the local agencies where Trump has property, including his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Trump Tower in New York and the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster, which is in the congressman’s district, need support. Palm Beach County predicted its presidential security bill will be more than $45 million this year and could be even higher if Trump continues to visit Mar-a-Lago most weekends, which he has done since returning to the White House, The Palm Beach Post reported.

New York Times [3/19/2025 3:31 PM, Eileen Sullivan, 145325K] reports that former Vice President Kamala Harris has Secret Service protection, at least for a few more months. Chelsea Clinton does not have a Secret Service detail anymore, though her parents, former President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary Clinton, do. All of President Trump’s family members currently have protection, including his grandchildren. And while former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his wife, Jill Biden, are by law allowed to have protection for the rest of their lives, their adult children had it only for a few months. Before leaving office, Mr. Biden issued an executive order that extended the protection to them, but Mr. Trump revoked their detail in a pique on Monday. The controversies and Mr. Trump’s announcement have thrust the subject of security for public figures into the headlines. But they also raise questions: Who gets Secret Service protection? For how long? Who makes those decisions? How much is it costing the taxpayers? Here are the ins and outs of government protection. Who is the Secret Service required to protect?

Marine Link [3/19/2025 9:48 AM, Staff, 94K] reports the Trump Administration’s emphasis on border security is starting to pay dividents, as the U.S. Coast Guard reports that since January 21, 2025, it has interdicted more than 80,000 pounds of illicit drugs. The Coast Guard’s achievement comes as U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) deployed two U.S. Navy warships to the southern border to support Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Coast Guard operations. These U.S. Navy warships will operate in direct support of the Coast Guard and carry law enforcement teams that will enable them to shift to Coast Guard control during interdiction operations. As the Coast Guard hardens and sustains its operational posture, including the arrival of these U.S. Navy warships, it is fully integrated with DHS and the Department of Defense (DoD) through NORTHCOM and U.S. Southern Command. SeaPower Magazine [3/19/2025 3:44 PM, Staff, 23K] reports that the Coast Guard’s achievement comes as U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) deployed two U.S. Navy warships to the southern border to support Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Coast Guard operations. These U.S. Navy warships will operate in direct support of the Coast Guard and carry Coast Guard law enforcement teams that will enable them to shift to Coast Guard control during interdiction operations. As the Coast Guard hardens and sustains its operational posture, including the arrival of these U.S. Navy warships, it is fully integrated with DHS and the Department of Defense (DoD) through NORTHCOM and U.S. Southern Command. “The Coast Guard leads the U.S. government’s efforts to control, secure and defend the nation’s borders and maritime approaches, starting at the U.S. southern border where the president has declared a national emergency,” said Adm. Kevin Lunday, acting Coast Guard commandant. “We are now leveraging U.S. Navy capabilities with Coast Guard teams aboard to augment our forces off Southern California and Texas. We are grateful for this crucial support from our teammates at NORTHCOM and the U.S. Navy. These Navy ships provide unique capability to complement U.S. Coast Guard operations to achieve 100% operational control of the border.” Since Jan. 21, the Coast Guard has tripled its forces operating on the southern border.

Yahoo! News [3/19/2025 5:53 PM, Konstantin Toropin, 52868K] reports the Navy plans to send a second warship to patrol the waters off the U.S. by the end of this week after a destroyer was deployed on Saturday as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration and the border, a U.S. official confirmed to Military.com on Wednesday. The official, who was given anonymity to discuss military plans, told Military.com that a second destroyer will deploy from the West Coast, joining the USS Gravely, which left a naval base in Virginia over the weekend headed for the waters around the U.S.-Mexico border. U.S. Northern Command announced Saturday that the Gravely deployed with a Coast Guard law enforcement detachment aboard, allowing the vessel to conduct missions such as ship interdictions and drug seizures. The Trump administration has already deployed thousands of troops to the southern border and designated Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations amid promises to curb border crossings. The Coast Guard seemed to reveal the plan to deploy a second warship on Tuesday when it released a statement that touted its success in interdicting drug shipments at sea and repeatedly mentioned it was working with more than one Navy ship. "U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) deployed two U.S. Navy warships to the southern border to support Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Coast Guard operations," the statement said. Cmdr. Liza Dougherty, a spokeswoman for Northern Command, wouldn’t confirm or deny the plan for a second destroyer to join the Gravely. The Coast Guard’s statement said "these U.S. Navy warships" -- plural -- "will operate in direct support of the Coast Guard and carry Coast Guard law enforcement teams.” Adm. Kevin Lunday, the Coast Guard’s acting commandant, was also quoted in the news release as saying that "these Navy ships provide unique capability to complement U.S. Coast Guard operations to achieve 100% operational control of the border.” Unlike a Coast Guard cutter, a Navy destroyer is a far more heavily armed vessel -- the Gravely alone can carry 96 missiles, including Tomahawk Land Attack cruise missiles -- and it is moving into the area after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wouldn’t rule out conducting strikes into Mexico less than two months ago.

Military.com [3/19/2025 5:59 PM, Konstantin Toropin, 4243K] reports the Navy plans to send a second warship to patrol the waters off the U.S. by the end of this week after a destroyer was deployed on Saturday as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration and the border, a U.S. official confirmed to Military.com on Wednesday. The official, who was given anonymity to discuss military plans, told Military.com that a second destroyer will deploy from the West Coast, joining the USS Gravely, which left a naval base in Virginia over the weekend headed for the waters around the U.S.-Mexico border. U.S. Northern Command announced Saturday that the Gravely deployed with a Coast Guard law enforcement detachment aboard, allowing the vessel to conduct missions such as ship interdictions and drug seizures. The Trump administration has already deployed thousands of troops to the southern border and designated Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations amid promises to curb border crossings. The Coast Guard seemed to reveal the plan to deploy a second warship on Tuesday when it released a statement that touted its success in interdicting drug shipments at sea and repeatedly mentioned it was working with more than one Navy ship.

Spectrum News [3/19/2025 3:44 PM, Kelsey Leffingwell, 479K] reports the USS Gravely, a U.S. Navy ballistic missile defense destroyer, has been deployed to the southern border. Defense officials say the goal of deploying the Gravely is to secure the border and curb illegal immigration. On March 15, the warship departed from the Naval Weapons Station Yorktown in Virginia, having previously served in the Middle East, shooting down Houthi missiles over the Red Sea. “The deployment of Gravely marks a vital enhancement to our nation’s border security framework,” said Adm. Daryl Caudle, commander of the U.S. Naval Forces Northern Command. “In collaboration with our interagency partners, Gravely strengthens our maritime presence and exemplifies the Navy’s commitment to national security and safeguarding our territorial integrity with professionalism and resolve.” Defense officials didn’t specify the Gravely’s exact destination, only that it will operate in U.S. and foreign waters. A U.S. Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment team will be on board the Gravely.

FOX News [3/19/2025 8:00 AM, Michael Lee, 46189K] reports President Donald Trump’s decision to send a Navy warship to assist with security at the southern border sends a strong message of deterrence to those who might be thinking of crossing into the U.S. by sea, one expert says. "It’s unusual, normally you see land forces, but it’s still smart," Alfonso Aguilar, a former chief of the U.S. Office of Citizenship and the director of Hispanic engagement at the American Principles Project, told Fox News Digital. The comments come as the USS Gravely, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, is being deployed to assist in border security efforts under Trump’s executive order, the Navy said in a statement Saturday. "Gravely’s sea-going capacity improves our ability to protect the United States’ territorial integrity, sovereignty, and security," said Gen. Gregory Guillot of U.S. Northern Command, which has been in charge of military operations at the border. The primary mission of the USS Gravely, which has already departed Naval Weapons Station Yorktown, Virginia, for the border mission, will be to patrol the Gulf of America on the lookout for drug smugglers, military officials said. The USS Gravely deployment shows the Navy’s dedication to "combating maritime-related terrorism, weapons proliferation, transnational crime, piracy, environmental destruction, and illegal seaborne immigration," Navy officials said, adding that the warship will enhance "maritime efforts" and "fill critical capabilities gaps" for Department of Homeland Security operations on the border. Aguilar argued that the Navy’s deployment will help supplement operations already being carried out by the U.S. Coast Guard and will also enhance the Coast Guard’s capability, covering more sea and sending a strong message to those turning to the seas as an alternative to land crossings. "Like the forces on land that are providing a supportive balance role to the Border Patrol … the Navy will be doing the same thing, providing support to the Coast Guard in doing interdiction and enforcing … immigration activities on the high seas," Aguilar said.

ABC 12 New Bern [3/19/2025 12:18 PM, Alberto Cardoso, 10K] reports "TV shows and movies make these rescues look very exciting and impressive but until I was actually the person being rescued, I did not have a true appreciation for the skill, knowledge, and especially the courage required of the team when performing a rescue..."A statement from a survivor after a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter picked up two people in distress from a sailboat in the area of Corolla Beach. The boat was in rough seas when one of the people aboard had a medical emergency. Sector North Carolina’s Command Center coordinated with a Flight Surgeon, U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City as well as a lifeboat from Station Oregon Inlet. Once on scene, the helicopter deployed their Rescue Swimmer, who successfully evacuated the survivors and then released the boat’s anchor to prevent it from becoming a hazard to navigation.

ABC 4 Pittsburgh [3/19/2025 4:54 PM, Staff, 69K] reports the rescue of two missing teenagers off the coast of Florida. The U.S. Coast Guard, Florida Fish and Wildlife, police, and dozen of volunteer crews were all part of the search effort. It was a volunteer group that found Avery Bryan and Eva Aponte. [Editorial note: consult audio at source link]’?

Reported similarly:
NBC 4 Detroit [3/19/2025 5:26 PM, Staff, 149K]
News 7 Boston [3/19/2025 5:22 PM, Staff, 68K]

NBC 3 Eureka [3/19/2025 10:26 AM, Staff, 2672K] reports on Tuesday morning EPD detained jail escapee on Woodley Island. EPD called for backup from Sheriffs department and the U.S. Coast Guard. [Editorial note: consult audio at source link]’?

The New York Times [3/19/2025 5:34 PM, Adeel Hassan, 153395K] reports a small plane that crashed in Alaska last month, killing all 10 people on board, was a half-ton overweight for the icy weather conditions under which it was flying, federal investigators said in their initial report on Wednesday. The plane, which disappeared on Feb. 6 and was found the next day near the western coast of Alaska, was on a regularly scheduled afternoon flight between Unalakleet and Nome, a trip of about 150 miles. Bering Air Flight 445 vanished about 10 minutes before it was set to arrive in Nome, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. When its position was lost, the aircraft was 12 miles offshore, it said. After studying the baggage and cargo that was found, investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board determined that the weight of the plane at takeoff was about 1,000 pounds over the maximum takeoff weight for a flight heading into forecast or known icing conditions, according to guidelines. It was also about 800 pounds over the maximum takeoff weight for any flight operation, the investigators said in the nine-page report. The AP [3/19/2025 7:03 PM, Becky Bohrer and Mark Thiessen, 2600K] reports that the U.S. Coast Guard has said it was unaware of any distress signals from the plane. After an extensive search, the wreckage was found the following day on a drifting ice floe. The pilot and all nine passengers had been killed. Yahoo! News [3/19/2025 6:06 PM, Zaz Hollander, 52868K] reports U.S. Coast Guard confirmed the deaths of all 10 people aboard Flight 445. The NTSB report provides the first clues into what investigators think may have caused the plane to go down on the Norton Sound sea ice. The agency won’t issue a probable cause until at least next year.

The Tribune [3/19/2025 7:44 PM, Keile Campbell, 63K] reports the US Coast Guard rescued 166 people in Bahamian waters last year, officials revealed during a port visit to New Providence.The visit, conducted by the US Coast Guard Cutter Lawrence Lawson, underscored the long-standing maritime partnership between the United States and The Bahamas. US Charge´ d’Affaires Kimberly Furnish highlighted the critical role of search and rescue (SAR) operations, reaffirming the US Coast Guard’s commitment to saving lives and strengthening regional maritime security. She noted that, in addition to the rescues, the US Coast Guard intercepted more than 2,400 migrants attempting dangerous journeys on unseaworthy vessels. These interdictions, she said, were life-saving measures, ensuring that those in distress received necessary assistance. She also pointed to ongoing joint law enforcement efforts, emphasising the importance of intelligence sharing and coordinated maritime security operations in tackling illegal migration, drug trafficking, and other transnational crimes. She highlighted the SAR Ops search and rescue platform, a digital system provided to Bahamian authorities last year to enhance their ability to locate and assist people in distress at sea. A US team was in The Bahamas last week to update the system and conduct further training, ensuring that both nations remain at their best in responding to maritime emergencies. Beyond enforcement operations, the visit also served as an opportunity for bilateral training and professional development.

Reported similarly:
Nassau Guardian [3/19/2025 7:49 AM, Latonya Roberts, 24K]

CiberCuba [3/19/2025 6:49 PM, Staff, 770K] reports the U.S. government announced on Wednesday new restrictions for vessels arriving from Cuba, arguing that the island does not maintain effective measures against terrorism. The measure, established by the U.S. Coast Guard, will take effect on April 2, 2025, according to the official notice published on the Federal Register website. According to the Maritime Transportation Security Act and the recent National Defense Authorization Act 2024, any port under the jurisdiction of a State Sponsor of Terrorism is automatically deemed deficient in antiterrorism measures. The designation of Cuba as a State Sponsor of Terrorism, made by the U.S. Department of State, has been the main argument for the imposition of these new entry conditions. The Coast Guard updated its list of countries that do not comply with adequate port security measures, which also includes Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Sudan, Yemen, among others. According to the operating standards of the U.S. Coast Guard, the goal of its International Port Security Program (IPS) is "to mitigate the risk of importing terrorism through foreign trade by informing the U.S. port state control, warning the public, and enhancing the security of foreign ports through targeted technical assistance and capacity building." Among the measures that this force would apply to ships from countries designated as high risk are "security boardings" and "foreign port security assessments."

USA Today [3/19/2025 11:18 PM, Michael Loria, 33298K] reports a pair of former Colombian Navy employees have been extradited to the U.S. in connection with a plot to assist a narco intelligence operation foil drug interdiction ships from nabbing vessels loaded with cocaine, federal officials announced Monday. Colombian nationals Jair Alberto Alvarez Valenzuela, 54, and Luis Carlos Diaz Martinez, 32, both worked for the country’s Armada Nacional. The U.S. Department of Justice said the pair will stand trial on an indictment for conspiracy to distribute cocaine having reasonable cause to believe it would be unlawfully imported into the United States. The two men developed sources within the navy who betrayed the location of international law enforcement vessels to drug traffickers, according to federal authorities. Attorneys for the two did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Spokespeople for the Middle District of Florida also did not respond. Authorities involved in the case included the Coast Guard Investigative Service, Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Homeland Security Investigation.

CyberScoop [3/19/2025 12:00 PM, Greg Otto, 52868K] reports Department of Homeland Security officials in charge of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) have pushed the program to evolve from a compliance-focused initiative to a real-time threat detection and response platform. First launched in 2013, the program is now tracking approximately 6.5 million devices, which includes operational technology and internet-connected devices alongside traditional IT assets, and mobile devices. Matt House, DHS deputy associate director and CDM program manager, says the department has been putting an “emphasis on interoperability” to meet agency needs. “It’s about having the visibility when you need it to support ad hoc analysis, as well as routine analysis,” he said Wednesday at the 2025 Elastic Public Sector Summit, produced by FedScoop. “We can scale much more effectively that way.” The program’s most significant shift comes in response to critical cybersecurity challenges, particularly after the 2021 SolarWinds breach. New statutory authorities granted after the incident, particularly in that year’s National Defense Authorization Act, have enabled CISA to conduct comprehensive cross-agency threat hunting and incident response. The agency can now generate custom security dashboards within two to three days of identifying a vulnerability, allowing agencies to quickly prioritize and address potential security risks. House said the ability to have “operational visibility” has improved what’s possible with the program. “It’s really put us in the driver’s seat as a tool set, a weapon of first resort for operational counterparts,” he said. “It’s really fulfilling an extended vision of the full potential of what CDM can be, which is allowing CISA to be a complement to what some of the most mature agencies are already doing.” Operating on a federated model, the program works to complement existing agency capabilities rather than imposing a uniform solution. This approach allows for greater flexibility across diverse federal network environments, covering 94 active agencies with potential impact on thousands of systems and millions of endpoints.

The Hill [3/19/2025 3:53 PM, Filip Timotija, 12829K] reports the FBI is warning users of popular email services such as Outlook and Gmail that they could be subject to cyberattacks by ransomware called Medusa, which has impacted more than 300 victims from a number of sectors, including technology, legal, medical and manufacturing. Medusa, a ransomware-as-a-service that was first identified in June, was spotted as recently last month, according to an advisory released last week by the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC). The FBI, CISA and MS-ISAC outlined some steps users can take to protect themselves from Medusa ransomware.

MeriTalk [3/19/2025 12:53 PM, Weslan Hansen, 45K] reports that House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., is pressing the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) for answers on the government’s efforts taken to address cyber threats emanating from China, and demanding proof of action as concerns mount over Beijing-linked hackers infiltrating U.S. infrastructure and networks. In a letter sent to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem on March 17, Rep. Green requested documentation by March 31 on efforts to counter Chinese cyber threats. He called the Biden administration’s transparency on the issue “unacceptable and disconcerting.” “Despite officials raising the alarm about Volt and Salt Typhoon, we still know very little about them – except that Volt Typhoon, in particular, continues to compromise our critical infrastructure,” wrote Rep. Green. The March 17 letter follows bipartisan concerns voiced over what has been called a comprehensive Chinese campaign to target U.S. critical infrastructure through cyber operations. In February 2024, CISA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other agencies issued an advisory warning that People’s Republic of China (PRC)-affiliated threat actor Volt Typhoon had compromised several U.S. critical infrastructure organizations. In October, a report from the Wall Street Journal revealed that Salt Typhoon – a People’s Republic of China (PRC)-affiliated threat actor – may have accessed the wiretapping systems that carriers AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen maintain for the benefit of law enforcement agencies. CISA later confirmed the hack, noting the intrusion had targeted political figures, including then-presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, and then-vice-presidential candidate JD Vance. Around the same time, a new PRC-affiliated cyber group known as Flax Typhon emerged. A report from a CISA subcommittee published late last year revealed that the U.S. Federal government is not equipped to withstand a cyber conflict with China. “As National Coordinator of Critical Infrastructure Security and Resiliency, CISA plays a pivotal role in the nation’s response to Volt and Salt Typhoon,” wrote Rep. Green. “CISA must be prepared and equipped to rapidly respond in times of crisis, as well as accountable to its stakeholders across the public and private sectors.” Along with requesting documentation from CISA, Rep. Green also asked for information on what roles other government entities must play to contribute to “ensuring the resilience of America’s cybersecurity posture.” “The extent of Volt Typhoon’s activities became public more than a year ago,” the representative wrote. “It is the Committee’s hope that the Trump Administration will provide the American people with confidence that their government is taking every step possible to mitigate the impact of Volt and Salt Typhoon on government entities and businesses.”

Axios [3/19/2025 8:55 AM, Avery Lotz, 13163K] reports Attorney General Pam Bondi on Tuesday characterized a recent string of vandalism at Tesla dealerships as acts of "domestic terrorism," and threatened "severe consequences" for anyone involved. President Trump and his allies are fuming about the #TeslaTakedown movement, which has targeted DOGE leader Elon Musk’s signature brand. Musk’s role in the Trump administration has seemingly hurt his EV company, with sales slumping in the first quarter of 2025 and Tesla’s post-election stock bump fading sharply. While organized protests have been largely peaceful, vandals across the country have damaged or defaced Tesla vehicles in recent weeks. Perpetrators have hit showrooms, lots, charging stations and privately owned cars. Gunshots were reported at a Tesla showroom in Oregon, and several vehicles have been set ablaze. No injuries have been reported, according to the Associated Press. Bondi’s statement echoes Trump’s remarks, who said earlier this month he’d label the attacks on dealerships as domestic terrorism. "We will continue investigations that impose severe consequences on those involved in these attacks, including those operating behind the scenes to coordinate and fund these crimes," Bondi’s statement read. She did not specify what those charges would be, but said the Justice Department has already charged several people, including in cases that "involve charges with five-year mandatory minimum sentences." Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and other GOP lawmakers called for a "domestic terrorism" investigation into the attacks earlier this month, urging Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel to look into the protests. The group of representatives claimed in a letter there had been reports "linking various Democrat-affiliated non-governmental organizations" to the attacks, though they provided no evidence of such connections. USA Today [3/19/2025 4:14 PM, Jonathan Limehouse, 75858K] reports that according to Bondi, the Department of Justice has charged "several perpetrators" for attacking Teslas, including in cases that carry charges with five-year mandatory minimum sentences. "We will continue investigations that impose severe consequences on those involved in these attacks, including those operating behind the scenes to coordinate and fund these crimes," the U.S. attorney general said. Activists have lately staged so-called "Tesla Takedown" protests to show displeasure over Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s role in sweeping cuts to the federal workforce since Trump took office on Jan. 20, according to Reuters. When Trump stood next to his senior advisor, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, on the White House’s South Lawn last week, he said he’s considering labeling anyone committing violence to Tesla owners and dealerships "domestic terrorists." "I’ll do it. I’m going to stop them … because they’re harming a great American company," Trump said. "When you hurt an American company, especially a company like this that supplies so many jobs that others are unable to do." House DOGE Subcommittee Chairwoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., also said last week that she and her committee colleagues sent a letter to Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel asking for an investigation into the "organized" attacks against Musk, Tesla and the DOGE effort. The Washington Examiner [3/19/2025 12:37 PM, Jenny Goldsberry, 2296K] reports President Donald Trump also agreed that the crimes looked like domestic terrorism in a Tuesday interview on Fox News’s The Ingraham Angle. "I think that you will find out they’re paid by people that are very highly political on the Left," Trump said of those convicted of vandalizing the vehicles. Tesla stock has decreased by 40% over the last year. It peaked before Trump’s inauguration in January at over $428 per share but is sitting at $235 as of Wednesday afternoon.

Reported similarly:
The Hill [3/19/2025 11:09 AM, Filip Timotija, 12829K]

Axios [3/19/2025 11:30 PM, Rebecca Falconer, 13163K] reports the FBI is investigating attacks targeting Tesla vehicles and dealerships of the EV company and related swatting incidents, Bureau deputy director Dan Bongino said Wednesday night. There’s been a spate of such incidents that President Trump and other administration officials have denounced as acts of "domestic terrorism" amid #TeslaTakedown protests at the role of Tesla CEO Elon Musk in the DOGE-driven cuts to the federal workforce and agencies. Attorney General Pam Bondi has threatened "severe consequences" for anyone involved in vandalizing Tesla vehicles. Meanwhile, Musk’s role as senior adviser to the president appears to have hit the company’s sales in the first quarter of this year and some Tesla owners have posted bumper stickers on their cars distancing themselves from the billionaire. "Our teams are actively working on the Tesla incidents and the swatting incidents, along with our other responsibilities to keep the Homeland safe," said the newly sworn-in Bongino on X. Swatting is a form of harassment that involves making a hoax call to emergency services in an attempt to have a large number of armed police officers dispatched to a particular address. Musk expressed "shock" on Fox News Tuesday over the attacks following multiple reports of Tesla vehicles being burned or dealerships being vandalized across the U.S. in recent weeks. The FBI is investigating as a potential act of terrorism the targeting of a Tesla Collision Center in Las Vegas on Tuesday that resulted in several vehicles set on fire and the word "Resist" spray-painted on the building. A person dressed in black "approached the business with incendiary devices," per a Las Vegas Police Department statement. "The individual used the devices to set multiple Tesla vehicles on fire. One incendiary device was recovered inside a vehicle un-detonated. It is also believed the individual fired at least three rounds from a firearm at vehicles." The FBI is also working with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Kansas City Missouri Police Department "to investigate an overnight incident in which Cyber Trucks at a Tesla Dealership in south Kansas City were damaged," per a Facebook post from the Bureau’s Kansas City field office Tuesday.

CBS New York [3/19/2025 8:40 PM, Allen Devlin, 51661K] reports a man is facing charges after allegedly breaking into several temples in New York City’s Chinatown and damaging religious statues this week. Police have charged Taihong Ouyang with a slew of hate crime and burglary charges for his rampage, seemingly targeting places of worship. Videos allegedly show Ouyang smashing through bulletproof glass, taking out security cameras and using a fire extinguisher to smash a Buddhist statue at different temples. In total, police say Ouyang is being charged with crimes in connection to six locations across Chinatown, four of which are temples. One of the other two targeted locations is next door to a temple. Surveillance video shows a man in a hoodie early Monday morning repeatedly smashing in the front windows of Grace Gratitude Buddhist Temple. "When we came down, we saw, you know, it’s smashed," senior monk Ben Kong said. "I thought it was terrorism. The way it looks, it looks like a bullet hole." The suspect left behind a shattered window and a shattered sense of security through Chinatown. "People were calling us and said their temples were also attacked," Kong said. Additional video allegedly shows Ouyang at another temple at 158 Henry St., smashing the security cameras. The cameras have seen been repaired with tape, but one is still missing all together. At Sung Tak Buddhist Temple on Pike Street, surveillance video caught the suspect smashing the hands of one statue, then shattering a smaller one next to it. "The Buddhist religion is for the whole community, so if he does that, he damages all who believe in Buddhism," Sung Tak Buddhist Temple Master Jie Tong said through a translator. Another temple managers said she was too afraid to go on camera, worried that the suspect could return one day. But the support from the religious community has powered them all through the week. Now, they’re offering prayers for the one responsible. "It’s very hard once you start bad karma to create good karma," Kong said. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

NPR [3/19/2025 3:57 PM, Brian Mann] reports the Trump administration is extending through mid-June an emergency declaration linked to the opioid overdose crisis that was set to expire on Friday. In a statement, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. acknowledged drug deaths in the U.S. "are starting to decline" but said the Trump administration will continue treating the opioid crisis as "the national security emergency that it is." In fact, drug overdose deaths have been declining rapidly in the U.S. since the summer of 2023, with fatalities linked specifically to fentanyl down roughly 30 percent. In all, roughly 30,000 fewer people are dying each year from street drugs compared to the peak of the crisis in June 2023. That’s according to the latest data from October 2024 gathered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to Kennedy, renewing the public health emergency declaration for 90 days will allow the federal government continued flexibility responding to the crisis. It’s unclear why drug deaths are declining so rapidly, though many experts credit public health measures implemented by the Biden administration.

CNN [3/19/2025 4:09 PM, Natasha Bertrand, 257K] reports that the Pentagon is considering making significant cuts to the top of the US military as the Trump administration seeks to shrink the federal government, according to a briefing document obtained by CNN and a US defense official. The plans under consideration include consolidating combatant commands, possibly eliminating a directorate that oversees development, training and education for the joint force, and halting the expansion of US Forces Japan. Among the eye-catching measures being considered are merging European Command and Africa Command into a single command based in Stuttgart, Germany, and combining US Northern and Southern commands into a single AMERICOM command, according to the document obtained by CNN. The document was prepared this month by US defense officials for senior leaders, as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has pushed the Pentagon and other federal agencies to make sweeping cuts to save money. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said in a video last month that DoD would be leaning on DOGE to help the department “find fraud, waste and abuse in the largest discretionary budget in the federal government.” The US military’s current annual budget is over $800 billion. “With DOGE, we are focusing as much as we can on headquarters and fat and top-line stuff that allows us to reinvest elsewhere,” Hegseth said at the time. Hegseth ordered the military in February to prepare plans to make drastic budget cuts over the next five years, with an exception for border security, according to a memo obtained by CNN.

New York Times [3/19/2025 7:10 PM, Santul Nerkar, 145325K] reports the script was familiar. For more than five years, a wealthy Queens businessman forcefully delivered the same message to a man wanted by China. Return to the homeland, or you — and your family — will face the consequences. On Wednesday, he was sentenced to prison for those threats. The businessman, An Quanzhong, will spend about 13 months behind bars for trying to harass a U.S. resident into leaving for China to face charges for purported crimes. Mr. An pleaded guilty last May to working as an unauthorized agent for a foreign country, while his daughter, An Guangyan, pleaded guilty to an additional charge of visa fraud conspiracy. Ms. An is yet to be sentenced. The government refers to Mr. An with his given name first, though Chinese naming conventions place his family name, An, first. Mr. An has also been ordered to pay $5 million in penalties, including more than $1 million in restitution to the person he targeted and to two other victims. Mr. An, 58, appeared before Judge Kiyo A. Matsumoto in Brooklyn federal court and listened to his sentencing through a Mandarin-speaking interpreter, with several relatives and supporters in attendance. He has been on home confinement since May 2023 after spending seven months at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. In deciding Mr. An’s sentence, Judge Matsumoto said she had considered Mr. An’s difficult upbringing, his prominent status in the Chinese American community in Queens and the wretched conditions he faced at the detention center after he was detained in 2022. His time at the troubled jail, Judge Matsumoto said, warranted “a discount off his sentence.” But she said a sentence was necessary to deter transnational repression by the Chinese government, which she described as widespread. She noted the harm he had caused the people he sought to repatriate, who remain in the United States. “Mr. An’s conduct presents a serious threat to national security,” Judge Matsumoto said.

New York Times [3/20/2025 3:00 AM, Santul Nerkar, 145325K] reports foreign defendants brought to the United States almost never face capital punishment, no matter how grave the allegations against them. But when a notorious drug lord arrived from Mexico in Brooklyn federal court last month on charges that included killing a federal agent, prosecutors for the Eastern District of New York said that he might face the death penalty. Prosecutors would still have to formally seek capital punishment for the drug lord, Rafael Caro Quintero, in advance of a trial that could be months or years away. But whatever becomes of Mr. Caro Quintero, the episode represents a sea change for both countries, reflecting how Mexico is responding to President Trump’s aggressive foreign policy in the Americas and beyond. Before this, Mexico had historically released criminals to the United States only on the condition that they not be executed, a provision of its extradition agreement with Washington. However, rather than going through the cumbersome extradition proceedings, Mexico simply expelled Mr. Caro Quintero and 28 other drug cartel figures, as allowed by a national security law. The measure gives the Mexican government flexibility to speed up removals and it means that Mr. Caro Quintero and at least four other prisoners sent north last month could also face the death penalty. For Mexico, the decision is a break from the country’s longstanding policy of protecting its citizens from capital punishment. For the United States, it enables Mr. Trump’s punitive vision of justice, of which the death penalty is an essential tool. Mexico has fought bitterly for decades to stop the U.S. government from executing its citizens. The extradition treaty, a form of which has been in place since the 1970s, stipulates that whichever country requests a defendant cannot impose the death penalty if it is not present in the defendant’s home country. Mexico has not used capital punishment since the 1960s, though it wasn’t officially abolished until 2005. The two countries’ differing views have strained relations. In 2002, Mexico’s president, Vicente Fox, canceled a trip to visit President George W. Bush in protest of the impending execution of a Mexican citizen. In 2003, Mexico appealed to the United Nations’ highest court over death sentences that the U.S. government had imposed on 51 Mexican citizens.

FOX News [3/19/2025 3:26 PM, Caitlin McFall, 46189K] reports that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President Donald Trump held a "very good" phone call on Wednesday, during which the pair discussed the preliminary agreement reached with Russian President Vladimir Putin one day prior. "Just completed a very good telephone call with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine," Trump announced on his social media platform Truth Social just moments after the hourlong call wrapped. "Much of the discussion was based on the call made yesterday with President Putin in order to align both Russia and Ukraine in terms of their requests and needs. "We are very much on track," Trump added. Zelenskyy said the call was "positive, very substantive, and frank" in a lengthy statement posted to social media Wednesday afternoon. "I thanked him for a good and productive start to the work of the Ukrainian and American teams in Jeddah on March 11—this meeting of the teams significantly helped in moving toward ending the war," the Ukranian president said. "We agreed that Ukraine and the United States should continue working together to achieve a real end to the war and lasting peace. We believe that together with America, with President Trump, and under American leadership, lasting peace can be achieved this year." Putin on Tuesday agreed to stop hitting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure for 30 days, though the ceasefire did not extend to the frontlines or civilian populations as the Trump administration had originally hoped. Despite skepticism from Ukraine and European leaders, special envoy Steve Witkoff on Wednesday said he believes a full ceasefire can be achieved in a couple of weeks. He also said an official meeting between Trump and Putin is "likely to happen," as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and national security advisor Mike Waltz plan to return to Saudi Arabia on Sunday to discuss the details of the Tuesday agreement. It is unclear at this time if a Ukrainian delegation will also be returning to Saudi Arabia to begin discussions with Russian counterparts. Putin also agreed to exchange 175 prisoners as well as the return of 23 "seriously wounded" Ukrainians as a "gesture of goodwill." Just moments after his call with Trump was intended to take place, Zelenskyy said in a post on X that "one of the largest POW exchanges" had taken place and showed a picture of men with Ukrainian flags draped over them returning from Russian captivity. Zelenskyy confirmed that 175 soldiers and 22 "defenders" had been released. "We are also grateful to all our partners, especially the United Arab Emirates, for making today’s exchange possible," he added, though he did not mention U.S. efforts in the negotiations. International leaders voiced frustration that the deal Ukraine agreed to last week was not accepted by Putin during Trump’s discussions with him, though Trump on Tuesday told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham on the "Ingraham Angle" that pushing Putin further into a ceasefire would have been tough. "Russia has the advantage." [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Newsweek [3/19/2025 2:44 PM, Gabe Whisnant, 52220K] reports that President Donald Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday that he wants the U.S. to help run the war-torn country’s power plants. "President Trump also discussed Ukraine’s electrical supply and nuclear power plants. He said that the United States could be very helpful in running those plants with its electricity and utility expertise," Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said in a statement after the Trump-Zelensky call. "American ownership of those plants would be the best protection for that infrastructure and support for Ukrainian energy infrastructure," the statement said. Trump and Zelensky’s phone call came one day after a high-stakes conversation between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. During the call, Putin agreed to a partial ceasefire on Ukrainian energy targets, but Russia launched overnight drone and missile strikes targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. The Kremlin, meanwhile, highlighted that a "key condition" to long-term peace between Russia and Ukraine was a "complete cessation" of foreign military and intelligence aid to Ukraine. Trump pushed back on that assertion, telling Fox News’ Laura Ingraham that foreign aid to Ukraine was never discussed during his call with Putin. The Kremlin said that Putin "demanded an immediate cessation of aid to Ukraine in order to get to this multistep deal," Ingraham said, referring to the Kremlin’s readout. "No, he didn’t," Trump said. "We didn’t talk about aid, actually, we didn’t talk about aid at all. We talked about a lot of things, but aid was never discussed."

Reported similarly:
Univision [3/19/2025 6:40 PM, Staff, 5325K]

New York Times [3/20/2025 3:21 AM, Shawn McCreesh, Michael Crowley and Maria Varenikova, 330K] reports President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine agreed in a Wednesday phone call with President Trump to accept Russia’s offer of a mutual pause in attacks on energy targets for 30 days as a step toward a broader cease-fire. It was not immediately clear how or when a pause in strikes on certain targets would take hold. “Everything will continue to fly,” Mr. Zelensky said in a later news conference from Finland, until “there is an appropriate document” negotiating terms. He added that Russian drones were in the air in Ukraine as he spoke. During the call between Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky, the American president floated the idea of the United States possibly taking control of Ukrainian power plants, according to an official U.S. statement; it was a new idea that Ukrainian energy experts said was probably unworkable. Mr. Zelensky later elaborated during his news conference that he felt he faced “no pressure” from Mr. Trump about that idea, saying it was limited to one plant. He added that the call with Mr. Trump was “the most substantive in recent times” and that the list of targets protected from strikes in a partial cease-fire could be expansive. But any agreement restricted to energy targets between Mr. Zelensky and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia would leave a wide chasm between their positions on how the war could end. And Mr. Zelensky has characterized some of the Russian leader’s proposals as stalling tactics as he maneuvers for military advantage and the best possible deal from the American president. A joint statement from Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Waltz, and the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said technical teams would meet in Saudi Arabia “in the coming days” to discuss broadening the cease-fire on energy sites to one covering activity in the Black Sea, “on the way to a full cease-fire.” Wednesday was the first time Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky had spoken since a dramatic confrontation in the Oval Office last month. During that meeting, Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated Mr. Zelensky for showing insufficient gratitude for American support — most of it delivered under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. The Trump administration temporarily suspended all military assistance and intelligence sharing with Ukraine in the aftermath of the meeting, and Mr. Zelensky has since sought to smooth over relations.

Yahoo! News [3/19/2025 11:34 PM, Volodymyr Ivanyshyn, Dmytro Basmat, 52868K] reports Ukrainian and U.S. officials are expected to meet in Saudi Arabia in the coming days for continued peace talks, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post to social media on March 19. Following a phone call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on March 18, a partial ceasefire on energy infrastructure strikes was agreed upon. Zelensky and Trump held a subsequent call on March 19 to discuss the U.S. president’s conversation with Putin the day prior, with Zelensky ultimately agreeing to stop strikes on Russian energy infrastructure. Zelensky’s announcement comes as U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said on March 19 on X that talks between Russian and American delegations to discuss a ceasefire in Ukraine will also take place in the coming days in Riyadh. It was not immediately clear as to when the meetings would take place or whether the Ukrainian delegation will meet face-to-face with their Russian counterparts. "Ukrainian and American teams are ready to meet in Saudi Arabia in the coming days to continue coordinating steps toward peace. We instructed our advisors and representatives to carry out this work as quickly as possible," Zelensky said following the call. Zelensky voiced that the U.S. and Ukrainian delegations will continue to work out "technical issues" regarding the partial ceasefire. During a joint press conference with Finnish President Alexander Stubb in Helsinki earlier in the day, Zelensky said that Kyiv will compile a list of energy, infrastructure, and civilian sites that Russia must cease attacking and present the document to international partners. "In further meetings, the teams can agree on all necessary aspects of advancing toward lasting peace and security guarantees," he said. Ukrainian and U.S. delegations last met in Saudi Arabia on March 11, where Ukraine agreed to a U.S. proposal for a complete ceasefire. Russia did not agree to a complete ceasefire.

New York Times [3/19/2025 12:49 PM, Aaron Boxerman, 145325K] reports Israeli ground forces pushed deeper into the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, taking over part of a major corridor that bisects the Palestinian enclave, in the most significant ground operation since the collapse of the cease-fire with Hamas. The operation followed wide-scale Israeli aerial bombardment in Gaza that began early on Tuesday morning, ending the fragile truce that had held since mid-January. More than 400 people were killed in the airstrikes, according to the Gaza health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. On Wednesday, the Israeli military said soldiers had begun “targeted ground activities” along the road — known as the Netzarim Corridor — to create a “partial buffer zone” between northern and southern Gaza. Israeli forces had widened their control “to the center of the Netzarim Corridor,” the military said. Israel has not returned to full-scale war in Gaza that matches the intensity of its 15-month military campaign against Hamas. The Palestinian armed group has also not responded militarily to the Tuesday attack, which it said killed at least five members of its Gaza leadership. It was unclear how many Israeli soldiers were now deployed along the part of the Netzarim Corridor or whether it marked the beginning of a sustained ground offensive. But Israeli leaders appeared to be gradually stepping up attacks, in an apparent effort to force Hamas to agree to more favorable terms for a settlement to free the dozens of hostages remaining in Gaza. And unless Hamas capitulated, Israel was ready to continue ramping up pressure on the group, officials said. Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, threatened Wednesday that Israel could again start ordering Palestinians to flee parts of Gaza that would become combat zones, as it frequently did before the cease-fire.

New York Times [3/19/2025 7:04 PM, Ephrat Livni, 145325K] reports President Trump said on Wednesday that the Iran-backed Houthi militant group in Yemen would be “completely annihilated” by U.S. military strikes and warned Tehran to “immediately” stop supplying it with military equipment and general support and “let the Houthis fight it out themselves.” His remarks, posted on social media, came as the U.S. military continued a wave of attacks on Houthi targets in Yemen as part of what American officials said was an effort to stop the militant group’s attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea. “Tremendous damage has been inflicted,” Mr. Trump said of the effects of the strikes, which began on Saturday. He added: “Watch how it will get progressively worse. It’s not even a fair fight, and never will be. They will be completely annihilated!” Earlier on Wednesday, the U.S. Central Command posted a video showing American fighter jets shooting down Houthi attack drones. The military has been striking the group’s training sites, command centers and weapons facilities since the weekend in what it says is an attempt to restore freedom of navigation in regional waters. The Houthis have been targeting Israel and attacking ships in the Red Sea in solidarity with the armed Palestinian group Hamas, which is also backed by Iran and led the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that set off the war in Gaza. After Israel and Hamas agreed to a temporary cease-fire in January, the Yemeni militants suspended their campaign. But they vowed to resume attacks as truce talks faltered and Israel blocked humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip this month. Mr. Trump said on Saturday that he had ordered the military to launch “decisive and powerful” actions against the militia, which controls most of northern Yemen. He said the Houthis “have waged an unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence and terrorism” against American ships and other vessels, attacks he said were funded by Iran. The strikes, he added, were intended also as a warning to Iran. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth echoed the president’s statement, writing on social media Saturday that “Houthi attacks on American ships & aircraft (and our troops!) will not be tolerated; and Iran, their benefactor, is on notice.” The Yemeni group, for its part, said Tuesday that it had targeted a U.S. aircraft carrier four times in the previous three days and had thwarted an air attack. In a briefing with reporters on Monday, however, Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich of the U.S. Air Force, who is also director for operations of the Joint Staff, dismissed the Houthis’ claims, saying, “They missed by a hundred miles.” He added that it was “hard to tell what they are doing, given their level of incompetence.”

FOX News [3/20/2025 4:00 AM, Caitlin McFall, 46189K] reports that, following a year of significant setbacks in the Middle East for Iran with its proxy forces flagging in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Syria, Tehran is leaning on its influence over the Houthi terrorist group in Yemen to carry out its offensive aims. According to findings obtained by sources embedded in Tehran who are affiliated with the Iranian resistance group called the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, not only are some of Iran’s most senior military officials in its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) involved in Houthi decision-making, but Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has his thumb on the deadly group. President Donald Trump’s recent threats against Tehran over its sponsorship of the Houthis are supported in the report, which claims well-placed sources have confirmed that one of the most senior commanders in the IRGC’s Quds Force – the elite branch of the Iranian military – is "directly commanding Houthi activities." Khamenei, according to the report compiled by the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and first obtained by Fox News Digital, personally supervises all Houthi "political and military affairs" that are first approved by his regime. "According to reports received from within the IRGC, Khamenei has personally emphasized the importance of Houthi attacks and the necessity of sending weapons and equipment for the Houthis to IRGC commanders and regime officials," the report said. The weakening of Iran’s "Axis of Resistance" amid the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria has increasingly pushed Tehran to lean on its proxies in Iraq and Yemen. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Newsweek [3/19/2025 10:31 AM, John Feng, 3973K] reports that North Korea said it wants the United States to stop its "indiscriminate use of force" as a new wave of U.S. airstrikes hit the Houthi militia group backed by Iran. Ma Tong Hui, who is concurrently the top North Korean envoy to Egypt and Yemen, said the U.S. military’s operations against Houthi positions in Yemen were "gravely violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other countries"; an intervention that pointed to Pyongyang’s growing alignment with Tehran-along with Moscow and Beijing-on global affairs. The U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East as well as in Central and South Asia, did not immediately respond to a written request for comment. Newsweek could not reach North Korea’s embassy in Beijing for comment. The Houthi rebels, who control Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, and large parts of the Red Sea coast, briefly paused their yearlong attacks on merchant vessels around the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait. However, this month, the Houthis resumed attempts to blockade shipments to Israel after the Gaza ceasefire broke down. Over the weekend, U.S. President Donald Trump launched the first major military offensive of his second presidency against the Houthis. He accused the rebels of waging "an unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence, and terrorism" against U.S. and allied ships that has cost the global economy billions of dollars. Pyongyang, which, like Tehran, is subject to heavy U.S. sanctions, said Washington’s decision would set back peace in the region, in an apparent nod to Trump’s campaign promise. "At present, the situation in the Middle East has plunged into an uncontrollable evil cycle and the prospect of political settlement of disputes in the region has become gloomier," said Ma, the North Korean ambassador. Footage released by CENTCOM late on Tuesday showed elements of the carrier strike group led by the USS Harry S. Truman firing Tomahawk cruise missiles and launching F/A-18E Super Hornet fighter jets from the Red Sea. This was part of a fourth straight night of airstrikes hitting Houthi-controlled areas.

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