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

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

The New York Times [5/17/2025 3:18 AM, Abbie VanSickle, 330K] reports the Trump administration will not be allowed to deport a group of Venezuelan detainees accused of being members of a violent gang under a rarely invoked wartime law while the matter is litigated in the courts, the Supreme Court said on Friday. The justices sent the case back to a federal appeals court, directing it to examine claims by the migrants that they could not be legally deported under the Alien Enemies Act, the centuries-old wartime law invoked by the Trump administration. The justices said the appeals court should also examine what kind of notice the government should be required to provide that would allow migrants the opportunity to challenge their deportations. The court said its order would remain in place until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled and the Supreme Court considered any appeal from that ruling. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote a dissent, arguing that the justices had no authority to hear the dispute at this stage. He was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas. The ruling deals a sharp blow to the Trump administration’s efforts to deploy the wartime law to pursue swift, sweeping deportations of Venezuelan migrants accused of being members of the gang, Tren de Aragua. It also suggests that a majority of the justices may be skeptical of whether the migrants have been afforded enough due process protections by the administration before being deported, potentially to a prison for terrorists in El Salvador. In their order, the justices said that the stakes facing the detainees are “particularly weighty,” citing the case of a Maryland man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who was “deported in error” to the El Salvador prison in March. So far, the Trump administration has said it is unable to bring him back, despite an order from the justices to “facilitate” his return. Under such circumstances, the justices wrote, “notice roughly 24 hours before removal, devoid of information about how to exercise due process rights to contest that removal, surely does not pass muster.” President Trump reacted with fury to the ruling. “THE SUPREME COURT WON’T ALLOW US TO GET CRIMINALS OUT OF OUR COUNTRY!” he said on social media. In a subsequent post, he wrote, “The Supreme Court of the United States is not allowing me to do what I was elected to do,” and called it “a bad and dangerous day for America.” The Wall Street Journal [5/16/2025 6:57 PM, Jess Bravin and C. Ryan Barber, 646K] reports that while the court usually says little when ruling on emergency matters, Friday’s unsigned opinion made clear the justices’ growing frustration with White House efforts to expedite deportations by bypassing migrants’ constitutional rights to a hearing before they can be removed. The opinion cited the government’s resistance to the court’s ruling in a separate deportation case, in which the justices ordered the administration to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a migrant mistakenly sent to the El Salvador prison, known as Cecot. “The Government has represented elsewhere that it is unable to provide for the return of an individual deported in error to a prison in El Salvador, where it is alleged that detainees face indefinite detention,” the opinion said. Facing a similar fate, the Venezuelan “detainees’ interests at stake are accordingly particularly weighty,” the justices said. Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, dissented. He argued that the Supreme Court lacked authority to intervene in lower-court proceedings at this stage. Last month, the justices temporarily blocked the removals so lower courts could consider the migrants’ arguments, including that Trump improperly invoked the Alien Enemies Act. Friday’s opinion said the administration’s response to the court’s earlier order regarding the Alien Enemies Act “surely does not pass muster.” Detainees were given notices “roughly 24 hours before removal, devoid of information about how to exercise due process rights to contest that removal,” the court said. The administration remained free to deport the migrants through normal immigration procedures, the order added. Trump in a social-media post said that process could take “many years for each person, and one that will allow these people to commit many crimes before they even see the inside of a Courthouse.” Politico [5/16/2025 6:23 PM, Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney, 16523K] reports that the justices faulted the administration for its attempt last month to carry out swift deportations just one day after providing a bare-bones deportation notice to the detainees. The Supreme Court intervened at the time to stop those deportations, and in Friday’s decision, the court elaborated on its decision and extended its order blocking them. Two justices — Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito — dissented from the ruling Friday. Shortly after the ruling, Trump repeatedly blasted the court on Truth Social. “The Supreme Court has just ruled that the worst murderers, drug dealers, gang members, and even those who are mentally insane, who came into our Country illegally, are not allowed to be forced out without going through a long, protracted, and expensive Legal Process,” the president wrote. Although the ruling Friday technically applies only to the men detained in northern Texas, other lawsuits have cropped up across the country raising similar challenges, including in New York, Colorado, Pennsylvania and separate districts in Texas. Several federal judges have barred the administration from rapidly deporting detainees in their districts. The Washington Times [5/16/2025 4:26 PM, Stephen Dinan, 2106K] reports that the Trump administration says the Venezuelans in question are members of Tren de Aragua, a gang that has now been designated a foreign terrorist organization and which Mr. Trump has proclaimed to be engaged in an "invasion" of the U.S. That triggers the AEA, the 1798 law that allows for faster deportations than can be done under the regular immigration law. Lawyers for the Venezuelans dispute the claims of TDA membership, saying some of those who have been deported actually fled Venezuela to get away from the gang. Mr. Trump’s push to use the AEA has been met with stiff resistance in the courts. The Supreme Court had already ruled that the administration needed to give reasonable notice to deportation targets.

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Breitbart [5/16/2025 6:22 PM, Staff, 3077K] reports US President Donald Trump lashed out Friday at the Supreme Court after it blocked his bid to resume deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members, saying the justices are "not allowing me to do what I was elected to do.” Trump’s berating of the high court, in a post on Truth Social, came after it dealt another setback to his attempt to swiftly expel alleged Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang members using an obscure wartime law, the 1798 Alien Enemies Act (AEA). Trump has been at loggerheads with the judiciary ever since he returned to the White House, venting his fury at numerous court rulings at various levels that have frozen his executive orders on multiple issues. In a 7-2 decision, the conservative-majority Supreme Court, which includes three justices nominated by Trump, blocked his bid to use the AEA to carry out further deportations of TdA members, saying they were not being given enough time to legally contest their removal. Trump, who campaigned for the White House on a pledge to deport millions of undocumented migrants, said the Supreme Court decision means the government will have to go through a "long, protracted, and expensive Legal Process" to expel "murderers, drug dealers (and) gang members.” "The Supreme Court of the United States is not allowing me to do what I was elected to do," he said. "This is a bad and dangerous day for America!". Trump invoked the AEA, which was last used to round up Japanese-Americans during World War II, in March to deport a first group of alleged TdA members to a notorious prison in El Salvador without due process. Attorneys for several of the deported Venezuelans have said their clients were not gang members, had committed no crimes and were targeted largely on the basis of their tattoos. The Supreme Court intervened on April 19 to temporarily block further deportations of undocumented Venezuelan migrants, saying they must be afforded due process. In Friday’s unsigned order, the court paused plans to deport another group of detainees held in Texas, saying they were not being given enough time to mount a meaningful legal challenge to their expulsion. USA Today [5/16/2025 7:03 PM, Lauren Villagran, 75552K] reports that the president invoked the Alien Enemies Act in March when he designated a Venezuelan gang known as Tren de Aragua as a "foreign terrorist organization." Alleged gang members have since been deported to a mega-prison in El Salvador. In an unsigned opinion, the court said the migrants haven’t had enough time or information to protect their rights. That’s important, the court said, because the administration has previously said it can’t bring back a man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador. "The result of this decision will let more CRIMINALS pour into our Country, doing great harm to our cherished American public," Trump said in his post. "The Supreme Court of the United States is not allowing me to do what I was elected to do.”

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New York Times [5/16/2025 6:19 PM, Julian E. Barnes, Maggie Haberman and Charlie Savage, 138952K] reports a top adviser to the director of national intelligence ordered a senior analyst to redo an assessment of the relationship between Venezuela’s government and a gang after intelligence findings undercut the White House’s justification for deporting migrants, according to officials. President Trump’s use of a wartime law to send Venezuelan migrants to a brutal prison in El Salvador without due process relies on a claim that U.S. intelligence agencies think is wrong. But behind the scenes, a political appointee told a career official to rework the assessment, a direction that allies of the intelligence analyst said amounted to pressure to change the findings. Mr. Trump on March 15 invoked the law, the Alien Enemies Act, to summarily remove people accused of being members of the gang, Tren de Aragua. The rarely used act appears to require a link to a foreign state, and he claimed that Venezuela’s government had directed the gang to commit crimes inside the United States. On March 20, The New York Times reported that an intelligence assessment in late February contradicted that claim. It detailed many reasons that the intelligence community as a whole concluded that the gang was not acting under the Venezuelan government’s control. The F.B.I. partly dissented, maintaining that the gang had some links to Venezuela’s government based on information all the other agencies did not find credible. The administration was alarmed by the disclosure. The next day, a Friday, the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, announced a criminal leak investigation, characterizing The Times’s detailed description of the intelligence assessment as “inaccurate” and “false” while insisting that Mr. Trump’s proclamation was “supported by fact, law, and common sense.” The following Monday, Joe Kent, the acting chief of staff for Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, told a senior intelligence analyst to do a new assessment of the relationship between Venezuela’s government and the gang, the officials said. The analyst, Michael Collins, was serving as the acting chair of the National Intelligence Council at the time. An official who has reviewed messages about the assessment said Mr. Kent made the request to Mr. Collins in an email, asking him to “rethink” the earlier analysis. The official said Mr. Kent was not politicizing the process, but giving his assessment and asking the intelligence officials to take into account the flows of migrants across the border during the Biden administration.

CNN [5/16/2025 1:09 PM, Natasha Bertrand, 875K] reports the Department of Homeland Security has requested 20,000 National Guard members to help with immigration enforcement across the US, a department spokesperson told CNN on Friday. "The Department of Homeland Security will use every tool and resource available to get criminal illegal aliens including gang members, murderers, pedophiles, and other violent criminals out of our country. The safety of American citizens comes first," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. The request, which is under review by the Pentagon, is part of a renewed push by the Trump administration to ramp up arrests of undocumented migrants and fulfill President Donald Trump’s mass-deportation campaign promise, sources told CNN this week. The effort will include tapping Border Patrol agents to fan out nationwide and comes as the Justice Department has begun intensifying its crackdown on immigration-related crime in cities across the country. Trump officials have been frustrated with the slower pace of interior arrests of undocumented immigrants across the country, CNN has reported, and there have been some tense calls about it between the White House and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, multiple sources said. But interior arrests often require significant manpower and resources — more than are needed when detaining migrants as they cross the border, which is why the administration is now trying to recruit additional personnel, including thousands of extra Guardsmen, for the task. Under the plan, states would deputize their National Guard under appropriate authorities, similarly to what Texas Governor Greg Abbott did in 2021 when he began deploying thousands of state troopers and Texas National Guard members to the border to help with immigration enforcement. The AP [5/16/2025 6:22 PM, Tara Copp and Rebecca Santana] reports DHS asked for the troops to help carry out President Donald Trump’s "mandate from the American people to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens," department spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said. She said DHS will "use every tool and resource available" to do so because the "safety of American citizens comes first." Unlike the troops deployed at the southern border, these National Guard units would come from the states and be used to assist in deportation operations in the interior of the country. How the troops would be used may depend on whether they remain under state governors’ control. It was unclear why the request was made to the Defense Department and not to the states.

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(B) Houston’s Morning Show 7AM [5/16/2025 8:12 AM, Staff] reports 20,000 National Guard troops could get sent to the southern border. That is a request from the Department of Homeland Security. It is unclear for what the troops will be used. The move comes a week after President Trump ordered DHS to increase its force. The Pentagon is reviewing this request.

The New York Times [5/17/2025 3:18 AM, Hamed Aleaziz, 330K] reports the Department of Homeland Security is considering taking part in a television show that would have immigrants go through a series of challenges to get American citizenship, officials said on Friday. The challenges would be based on various American traditions and customs, said Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the agency. She said the department was still reviewing the idea, which was pitched by a producer named Rob Worsoff. “The pitch generally was a celebration of being an American and what a privilege it is to be able to be a citizen of the United States of America,” Ms. McLaughlin said. “It’s important to revive civic duty.” She said the agency was happy to review “out-of-the-box pitches,” particularly those that celebrate “what it means to be an American.” The project was reported earlier by The Daily Mail. Mr. Worsoff, a 49-year-old Canadian American, said he first thought of the idea during his own naturalization process. He said that immigrants in the show would compete in challenges in various states. He said one challenge could be highlighting NASA in Texas or Florida and seeing which immigrant could assemble and launch a rocket first. There would also be trivia or civic challenges. The show would end with someone being sworn in as a U.S. citizen, Mr. Worsoff said. “We need a national conversation of what it means to be American,” he said. “We need to be reminded of how proud and how much of an honor it is to be American.” Mr. Worsoff said no one would be penalized in their immigration process or deported as a result. “I think it’s nonsense because what’s going to happen is we’re going to get to know these people and their stories and their journeys, and we’re celebrating them as humans,” he said. “We’re putting a face to these people, to their journey.” Mr. Worsoff said the actual details of what would happen in the show would depend on what TV networks wanted and what the Department of Homeland Security could do. He said he had pitched the idea to the agency before, including in 2012. The Washington Post [5/16/2025 5:10 PM, Amy B. Wang, 31735K] reports that the proposed reality show, first reported by the Daily Mail, “is in the very beginning stages of that vetting process and has not received approval or denial by staff,” DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told The Washington Post in an email. McLaughlin added that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem has not reviewed the proposal. The reality competition series was pitched by Rob Worsoff, a Canadian-born writer and producer who was behind A&E’s “Duck Dynasty” and Bravo’s “Millionaire Matchmaker.” Worsoff, who could not be reached for comment Friday, told the Wall Street Journal that he has not had direct contact with Noem but has had positive feedback from the federal agency and is in preliminary discussions with networks. “This isn’t ‘The Hunger Games’ for immigrants,” Worsoff told the newspaper, referring to the dystopian fictional novel by Suzanne Collins, in which contestants fight to the death for survival. “This is not, ‘Hey, if you lose, we are shipping you out on a boat out of the country.’” Instead, according to a pitch deck obtained by the Daily Mail, each episode of the proposed show would feature a “heritage challenge,” an “elimination challenge,” a “town hall meeting” and a “final vote.” Twelve immigrant contestants would arrive on a boat at Ellis Island and travel around the United States in a train called “The American” — also the proposed name of the show — to learn about the nation’s history.

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(B) Good Day Seattle at 7am [5/16/2025 10:57 AM, Staff]

USA Today [5/16/2025 6:44 PM, Staff, 75552K] reports the Department of Homeland Security is considering collaborating on a TV show with the producer of the popular reality show "Duck Dynasty" that would pit immigrants against each other in a contest to get their U.S. citizenship applications fast-tracked. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Daily Caller [5/16/2025 3:57 PM, Robert McGreevy, 1082K] reports the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) blasted a report claiming Secretary Kristi Noem backs an immigrant citizenship reality show as “fake news” in a press release Friday. “[DHS] Secretary Kristi Noem is pushing for an actual reality show pitting immigrants against each other ‘for the honor of fast-tracking their way to U.S. citizenship,’” The Daily Mail reported Thursday. The outlet claimed it confirmed that Noem supports the proposed show. However, Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin slammed the report as “fake news” and called it “an affront to journalism.” “Secretary Noem has not ‘backed’ nor is even aware of the pitch of any scripted or reality show,” she wrote in a statement. “DHS receives hundreds of television show pitches a year, ranging from documentaries surrounding ICE and CBP border operations to white collar investigations by HSI,” McLaughlin continued. “Each proposal undergoes a thorough vetting process prior to denial or approval. We need to revive patriotism and civic duty in this country, and we’re happy to review out-of-the-box pitches. This pitch has not received approval or rejection by staff,” she concluded. McLaughlin said she spoke to the producer of the potential show, according to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). The pitch is “in the very beginning stages of that vetting process,” she reportedly stated.

Washington Examiner [5/16/2025 12:17 PM, Ross O’Keefe, 2296K] reports the Department of Homeland Security has denied a report that Secretary Kristi Noem is collaborating with a reality TV show producer on a show featuring immigrants. The Daily Mail reported that Noem, whom Democrats have criticized for her publicized participation in raids and other DHS activities, supported the television show and wanted to proceed with its production. "The reporting by the Daily Mail is completely false, and an affront to respectable journalism," DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told the Washington Examiner. "Secretary Noem has not ‘backed’ or even reviewed the pitch of any scripted or reality show," she said. "The Department of Homeland Security receives hundreds of television show pitches a year, ranging from documentaries surrounding [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and [Customs and Border Protection] border operation to white collar investigations by [Homeland Security Investigations]. Each proposal undergoes a thorough vetting process prior to denial or approval. If the excuse for a reporter at the Daily Mail had even thought to ask, he would have learned the show in question is in the very beginning stages of that vetting process and has not received approval or denial by staff.” McLaughlin told the outlet that the agency was reviewing the pitch and had a call with the producer, Canadian-born Rob Worsoff, who also produced the popular show Duck Dynasty. She added that she thinks "it’s a good idea.” The outlet reported that the agency and Noem "have been working for weeks to get such a project greenlit from Netflix or another streaming or cable service.” The show, called The American, would feature immigrants to the United States who are working on obtaining citizenship. They would compete in various competitions across the country in hopes of winning fast-tracked U.S. citizenship.

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Washington Post [5/16/2025 7:32 PM, Steve Thompson, 32099K] reports separately on Friday, a federal judge in Maryland overseeing the case of Abrego García expressed skepticism of claims by Trump administration lawyers that it has tried in good faith to follow orders from three courts, including the Supreme Court, to bring about the release of the wrongly deported Maryland resident. The case of Abrego García, a Salvadoran migrant, along with those of the Venezuelan migrants deported to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, have become high-profile examples of the Trump administration’s willingness to skirt due process protections and other legal constraints on its power to remove people from the country. The cases have tested whether federal judges, appeals courts and the Supreme Court can prod the executive branch into doing what the law and Constitution requires. Abrego García was among 23 Salvadorans — along with 238 Venezuelans — forced onto three planes on March 15 and sent to El Salvador despite a judge’s order that those flights turn around or stay on the ground in the United States. On Friday, that judge, U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg in D.C., issued his order for more information concerning efforts to bring back Abrego García and the 137 Venezuelan migrants under the Alien Enemies Act. The information would help determine whether lawyers for the migrants can file suit in Washington to uphold their right to have their cases reviewed by a judge — the core legal principle known as habeas corpus. The Supreme Court ruled last month that, before removal, alleged members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang whom the Trump administration is seeking to deport to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act had to bring claims through habeas corpus petitions in federal courts near where they are being detained in the United States. But that ruling left unanswered the fate of the Venezuelan migrants already sent to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, a prison known for its harsh conditions. To sue before Boasberg, petitioners represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward Foundation must first establish that the migrants are held under the control of the U.S. government, and not that of El Salvador, as the Justice Department argued. To answer that question, Boasberg ordered the Trump administration to turn over all "documents memorializing, documenting, or describing the arrangements between the United States and El Salvador" concerning the detention of the alleged Venezuelan gang members, and all communications regarding certain undisclosed material under court seal.

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FOX News [5/16/2025 5:31 PM, Breanne Deppisch, 46878K] reports U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis excoriated Trump administration lawyers Friday in a remarkable status hearing centered on Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Salvadorian migrant and alleged MS-13 member who was deported from Maryland to El Salvador in March in what administration officials have acknowledged was an administrative error. The heated back-and-forth was full of eye-popping exchanges between the judge and the Justice Department, as she took umbrage with their attempts to invoke the state secrets privilege to shield details concerning Abrego Garcia from the court. The judge said she would issue an order later Friday outlining next steps, after the two sides huddled for a closed portion of the case. Xinis told the government lawyers they had not presented her with a sufficient affidavit to invoke the state secrets privilege – which the Trump administration has asserted is necessary in this case to protect sensitive diplomatic and foreign policy matters from being made public in court. Ultimately, she said, the government will likely have extra time to file additional declarations to allow it to seek the state secrets privilege.

Politico [5/16/2025 6:42 PM, Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein, 16523K] reports a federal judge upbraided the Trump administration Friday for what she described as “bad faith” delay tactics in the face of court orders requiring the government to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador by U.S. immigration authorities. “I’m like the cat with the ball of string and I’m trying to keep up with the ball of string,” U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said of the administration’s efforts to withhold key details about what it has done to comply with her order to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release from a notorious high-security prison in El Salvador. Xinis, an Obama appointee, described court-ordered depositions provided by key administration officials as a “goose egg.” Those officials repeatedly claimed, under oath, to be unaware of key details about the Trump administration’s effort to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release and return, the judge said. “What we got was a bunch of ‘I don’t knows,’” she said, emphasizing that she had ordered the administration to produce witnesses with “firsthand knowledge” of efforts related to Abrego Garcia. “You haven’t complied, and you haven’t in bad faith,” Xinis said to Justice Department lawyers handling the case. Friday’s hearing focused on various legal confidentiality claims the Trump administration is making to withhold records related to Abrego Garcia’s case, including a claim that some of the information constitutes “state secrets.” The judge did not immediately rule on those claims, but the court session reignited deeper questions about the Trump administration’s willingness to defy court orders and violate constitutional due process to carry out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign. The departments of Justice, Homeland Security and State have acknowledged that Abrego Garcia was improperly deported to El Salvador in March, in violation of a 2019 court order that found he could be violently persecuted by a local gang there. The Supreme Court declared the deportation “illegal” and upheld Xinis’ command to facilitate his release. But the administration has sharply resisted.

New York Times [5/17/2025 3:18 AM, Alan Feuer and Aishvarya Kavi, 330K] reports that, for nearly two months, the Trump administration has taken an aggressive stance in the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was wrongfully deported to a prison in El Salvador in March. Several administration officials — including a former Justice Department lawyer assigned to the case — have openly acknowledged that Mr. Abrego Garcia was flown to El Salvador despite a court order forbidding him from being sent there. But President Trump and some of his top aides have repeatedly insisted that he will not be coming back to the United States. On Friday, a lawyer for the Justice Department made a new assertion, telling the judge overseeing the case that while Mr. Abrego Garcia’s expulsion was in fact an error, it was neither illegal nor an example of government misconduct. “Not to split hairs with your honor, but he was removed lawfully,” the lawyer, Jonathan Guynn, said at a hearing in Federal District Court in Maryland. While Mr. Guynn may have been splitting hairs, it is true that Mr. Abrego Garcia’s legal status was complicated when he was placed on one of three charter planes on March 15 and flown to El Salvador with scores of other immigrants. In 2019, an immigration judge had found that he was in the United States illegally and could be deported to anywhere except El Salvador, his homeland. That was because the judge had determined that Mr. Abrego Garcia was likely to face persecution there from street gangs if he was sent back. It has been more than a month since the Supreme Court ordered the White House to work toward securing Mr. Abrego Garcia’s release. And the recalcitrant public statements by Mr. Trump and members of his cabinet have raised questions about whether his administration is openly defying the Supreme Court’s instructions — and what, if anything, might be done about that. But even as those weighty issues have simmered in the background, the White House has been confronting a more immediate concern: whether it has abided by a separate court order to answer questions about the way it has been handling the case. Judge Paula Xinis, who is overseeing the proceeding, pressed Mr. Guynn at the hearing on Friday about the administration’s latest efforts to avoid disclosing details about several key aspects of the case. Those include the diplomatic steps that Trump officials have taken in the past several weeks toward releasing Mr. Abrego Garcia, as well as the nature of the deal between the White House and the Salvadoran government to house deported immigrants in its jails.

Washington Times [5/16/2025 3:45 PM, Stephen Dinan, 2106K] reports the federal judge working to un-deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia unloaded on the Trump administration Friday, saying statements that the MS-13 gang suspect won’t "return" to the U.S. suggest the government is defying the court’s orders. Judge Paula Xinis said the administration has been ducking answers on Mr. Abrego Garcia’s condition and the steps the government has taken to "facilitate" his return, as the Supreme Court has ordered. And she said top officials, including President Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, have said they could bring him back but will not. The judge said she’s been disappointed by how little the government has shared. She said the government invoked the state secrets privilege 246 times to shield information, and cited the deliberative process protection some 1,400 more times.

CBS News [5/16/2025 3:38 PM, Staff, 51661K] Video HERE reports a federal judge grew frustrated with the Trump administration Friday as it pushed to withhold details on what it has done to reverse the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was sent to a prison in El Salvador as the result of an "administrative error." U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the government to "facilitate" Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. last month — and has sparred with the administration since then, ordering government lawyers to produce details on their efforts and accusing them of failing to adequately comply. Attorney Andrew Rossman said he and the rest of the legal team seeking to return Abrego Garcia have hit a "roadblock" in discovery efforts, as the Justice Department has invoked the state secrets privilege and other privileges to withhold information in the case.

CNN [5/16/2025 9:10 PM, Devan Cole and Angélica Franganillo Díaz, 21433K] reports the federal judge overseeing the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia appeared extremely frustrated Friday by the Trump administration’s efforts to thwart a search for answers on what officials are doing to facilitate his return from El Salvador. The lengthy hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland, unfolded a month after US District Judge Paula Xinis allowed for expedited fact-finding to help determine what officials are doing to comply with her directive that the government work to bring Abrego Garcia back to the US. But since then, repeated stonewalling from the Justice Department and officials in the administration have complicated those efforts. Part of that resistance has been the invocation of several privileges, including state secrets, to avoid turning over written discovery and to keep officials from answering under oath questions from Abrego Garcia’s attorneys. But Xinis appeared highly skeptical that a declaration from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that apparently explained why the state secrets claim was being made was sufficient enough to support the invocation. "Where I am right now is this affidavit is sufficiently unclear," Xinis told a DOJ attorney at one point. "This is basically ‘take my word for it.’ And I’m not saying at the end of the day you won’t be able to make the privilege. What I’m saying is there’s not enough there there.” "I’m asking – really, in good faith – for the Executive Branch to do a little more to show its work for why the privilege works," the judge said. Justice Department attorneys have said in court papers that Rubio’s declaration explained that providing the information sought by Abrego Garcia’s attorneys "would harm the United States’ foreign relations and national security because it would be viewed as a breach of trust and discourage El Salvador and other foreign states from working cooperatively with the United States in the future.” Xinis, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, was also frustrated that the Justice Department had only produced the declaration from Rubio in the state secrets bid given the fact that the three officials who have been deposed work for the Department of Homeland Security, not his department. She firmly rejected an argument from Guynn that the Rubio declaration covered the DHS officials and that a declaration from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem in a separate immigration case pending in Washington, DC, could be counted on in her court. "I’m really quite stunned," she said at one point. "Get an affidavit or not. Right now, you have no (state secrets) privilege" over the three officials. The judge said she would likely allow the Justice Department to get a separate declaration for the DHS officials that she would similarly scrutinize. And she made clear that if she would allow for such additional submissions, they must be made without delay.

Reported similarly:
The Hill [5/16/2025 4:26 PM, Zach Schonfeld, 18649K]
AP [5/16/2025 6:10 PM, Ben Finley and Michael Kunzelman, 49956K]
USA Today [5/16/2025 2:47 PM, Eduardo Cuevas and Michael Collins, 75858K]

Washington Examiner [5/16/2025 6:23 PM, Kaelan Deese, 1934K] reports a federal judge on Friday sharply rebuked the Trump administration for its push to withhold details on what it has done to reverse the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the suspected MS-13 gang member deported to El Salvador as a result of an “administrative error.” U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said during a tense hearing that the administration had not provided sufficient information, from either senior officials or credible documents, to explain how it is facilitating the return of Salvadoran national Abrego Garcia, who was removed from the United States on March 15 despite an immigration judge’s order barring removal to his country of origin. “You have not given me anything that I can really say, ‘OK, I understand what of the plaintiffs’ requests or the court’s order, in the government’s view, poses a reasonable danger to diplomatic relations,’” Xinis said. She called the government’s resistance to explaining their position publicly “an exercise in utter frustration.” The Trump administration has invoked the state secrets privilege in the case, saying disclosure of internal deliberations could harm U.S. foreign policy. But Xinis pushed back, suggesting that an affidavit from Secretary of State Marco Rubio defending the administration’s position lacked specificity and failed to justify the sweeping secrecy claims. “How do I assess that? It’s so very general,” she said. At issue Friday was whether the government has a reasonable basis to invoke state secrets privileges to withhold information about what steps it has taken to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. after the Supreme Court upheld part of her ruling last month on April 4, finding that the government must help “facilitate” his return. “It is a fact beyond change that Mr. Abrego Garcia was removed without lawful authority,” she said, warning that any attempt by the administration to suggest otherwise would face stiff legal resistance. DOJ lawyer Jonathan Guynn responded sternly, saying, “With respect, your honor, he was removed lawfully.” The government has also disputed what efforts it must take to see Abrego Garcia returned to the U.S., suggesting that it cannot compel Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to send him back. Guynn acknowledged an administrative error occurred when Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, rather than another country, but Guynn contended Friday that his removal in general from the U.S. was not unlawful. “His removal from the United States was lawful,” Guynn said, adding Abrego Garcia will “never walk freely in the U.S.” Additionally, the Department of Homeland Security has consistently maintained that Abrego Garcia was involved in numerous incidents linking him to MS-13, a terrorist gang network, such as a suspected human trafficking incident on Dec. 1, 2022, when he was stopped by the Tennessee Highway Patrol.

NBC News [5/16/2025 5:58 PM, Gary Grumbach and Daniella Silva, 44540K] reports in a contentious court hearing on Friday, Trump administration attorneys argued before a federal judge in Maryland that they should be allowed to withhold information regarding efforts to facilitate the return of a Salvadoran man to the United States. Kilmar Abrego Garcia remains in the Salvadoran prison system despite orders from a federal judge and the Supreme Court calling for the government to facilitate his return to the United States. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said the government’s refusal to provide certain information in the case has been "an exercise in utter frustration." In a back-and-forth that has continued for weeks, Xinis has ordered the administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release and provide documentation on what steps it has taken, if any, to comply with that order. Government lawyers said the administration has not been able to answer questions about Abrego Garcia’s case because that information would be considered protected under "state secrets" or "deliberative process" privileges that should not be shared with the public. On Friday, Xinis said the administration has not made a good-faith effort to comply with the court order. She repeatedly called on the administration to show how turning over evidence of actions it has taken or will take to return Abrego Garcia would pose a reasonable danger to foreign affairs. Xinis has asked the government for the legal and factual reasons for invoking those privileges. She also took issue with the number of documents being sealed in this case. The court hearing continued behind closed doors on Friday. Xinis indicated she would soon issue an order on the matter.

New York Times [5/16/2025 5:47 PM, Laurel Rosenhall and Jenna Russell, 138952K] reports in California, an undocumented child can see a pediatrician, pay in-state tuition at public universities and receive state-funded scholarships. Immigrant farmworkers can likewise receive state-funded medical and dental care. California leaders have gradually expanded the services available to undocumented immigrants, expressing a sense of obligation to workers who toiled in fields and factories and contributed to the state’s prosperity. Other Democratic-led states have done the same, with growing confidence that they were free from federal interference as long as they paid for the benefits themselves. But President Trump and congressional Republicans are now using various levers to upend those efforts from Washington.

Los Angeles Times [5/16/2025 10:59 AM, Tim Sullivan, 13342K] reports they arrive at the U.S. border from around the world: Eritrea, Guatemala, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Ghana, Uzbekistan and so many other countries. They come for asylum, insisting they face persecution for their religion, or sexuality or for supporting the wrong politicians. For generations, they had been given the chance to make their case to U.S. authorities. "They didn’t give us an ICE officer to talk to. They didn’t give us an interview. No one asked me what happened," said a Russian election worker who sought asylum in the U.S. after he said he was caught with video recordings he made of vote rigging. On Feb. 26, he was deported to Costa Rica with his wife and young son. On Jan. 20, just after being sworn in for a second term, President Trump suspended the asylum system as part of his wide-ranging crackdown on illegal immigration, issuing a series of executive orders designed to stop what he called the "invasion" of the United States. What asylum seekers now find, according to lawyers, activists and immigrants, is a murky, ever-changing situation with few obvious rules, where people can be deported to countries they know nothing about after fleeting conversations with immigration officials while others languish in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. Attorneys who work frequently with asylum seekers at the border say their phones have gone quiet since Trump took office. They suspect many who cross are immediately expelled without a chance at asylum or are detained to wait for screening under the U.N.’s convention against torture, which is harder to qualify for than asylum. "I don’t think it’s completely clear to anyone what happens when people show up and ask for asylum," said Bella Mosselmans, director of the Global Strategic Litigation Council.

New York Times [5/16/2025 6:00 AM, Michael Barbaro, 153395K] reports on Thursday, the Trump administration’s effort to limit birthright citizenship ended up in front of the Supreme Court. Adam Liptak, who covers the Supreme Court for The New York Times, discusses the White House’s unusual legal strategy for defending its plan, and what it might mean for the future of presidential power. [Editorial note: consult audio at source link]

The Hill [5/16/2025 8:11 AM, Filip Timotija, 12829K] reports President Trump in an overnight social media post targeted "sleazebag" Democrats whom he accused of "playing the ref" with the Supreme Court on birthright citizenship hours after the nation’s highest court weighed arguments regarding judges’ ability to issue nationwide injunctions on the matter. "The Radical Left SleazeBags, which has no cards remaining in its illegal bag of tricks, is, in a very coordinated manner, PLAYING THE REF with regard to the United States Supreme Court. They lost the Election in a landslide, and with it, have totally lost their confidence and reason," Trump wrote on Truth Social during his trip to the Middle East. The president added that Democrats are "stone cold CRAZY!". "I hope the Supreme Court doesn’t fall for the games they play. The people are with us in bigger numbers than ever before. They want to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!". On Thursday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the Trump administration’s effort to end birthright citizenship. Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 20 that would bar children born in the United States from becoming citizens if their parents are not citizens or permanent residents.

Blaze [5/16/2025 11:45 AM, Joseph Mackinnon, 1668K] reports that the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Thursday in the case Trump v. CASA Inc., along with the related cases Trump v. Washington and Trump v. New Jersey, concerning President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens. The court was focused on procedural questions — particularly with regard to federal judges’ apparent efforts to direct U.S. policy through the imposition of nationwide injunctions — rather than the constitutionality of the order, although its legality came up on occasion. The court, which is expected to render its decision by late June or early July, may end up blocking the order but possibly also reining in meddlesome federal judges. Trump issued the executive order ending birthright citizenship on Jan. 20. Days later, a Seattle-based U.S. district judge, responding to a lawsuit brought by four Democrat-led states, deemed the order "blatantly unconstitutional," and slapped it with a nationwide injunction — one among the 40 issued in recent months that have prompted accusations of a "judicial coup." A Biden judge and an Obama judge similarly blocked the order before courts ruled on the legal merits. Denied additional sets of eyes on the matter by federal appeals courts, the Trump administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court in March for a partial stay but also drew the high court’s attention to the efforts of district judges to "govern ... the whole Nation from their courtrooms."

Politico [5/16/2025 10:30am, Hailey Fuchs, 16523K] reports Republicans have brandished the chaos during the incident to attack the House Democrats in attendance — New Jersey Reps. Rob Menendez, LaMonica McIver and Bonnie Watson Coleman — and cast the incident as a unlawful political stunt during which they accused the Democrats of attempting to storm a federal facility. A DHS spokesperson has threatened that the administration could arrest those lawmakers, and Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) has advocated for stripping the Democrats of their committee assignments. The Democrats, however, have argued they were at the facility to conduct their regular oversight duties of federal immigration operations. The administration has also already started to penalize other Democratic officials in attendance. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, a Democratic candidate for governor, was arrested at the protest and charged with trespassing. Republicans have brandished the chaos during the incident to attack the House Democrats in attendance — New Jersey Reps. Rob Menendez, LaMonica McIver and Bonnie Watson Coleman — and cast the incident as a unlawful political stunt during which they accused the Democrats of attempting to storm a federal facility. A DHS spokesperson has threatened that the administration could arrest those lawmakers, and Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) has advocated for stripping the Democrats of their committee assignments. The Democrats, however, have argued they were at the facility to conduct their regular oversight duties of federal immigration operations. The administration has also already started to penalize other Democratic officials in attendance. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, a Democratic candidate for governor, was arrested at the protest and charged with trespassing.

NewsMax.com [5/16/2025 4:07 PM, Theodore Bunker, 4622K] reports the Justice Department will pursue charges against Rep. LaMonica McIver, D-N.J., after an altercation with immigration agents outside a detention center in Newark last week, the New Jersey Globe reported. McIver, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, and New Jersey Democrat Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman and Rob Menendez traveled to Delaney Hall in Newark on May 9, where Baraka was arrested after federal authorities claimed he was trespassing. Baraka claims he was following agents’ instructions and leaving the area when he was arrested. His arrest led to a physical altercation between Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, the three legislators, and a crowd of protesters in which both sides claim the other was the aggressor. Footage of the incident shows McIver "forcefully attempted to protect Baraka both physically and verbally as he was led away," but does not show her striking or "body-slamming" an ICE officer as some Republicans have claimed, according to the Globe and a spokesperson for Watson County, where the incident took place.

FOX News [5/16/2025 9:24 PM, Chad Pergram, 46878K] reports what’s dicier these days? Flying into Newark Liberty Airport? Or finding yourself near the front gate of an ICE detention center in Newark? To the mind of famous bandleader Raymond Scott – you’re in for "Bumpy Weather Over Newark" either way. That’s one of Scott’s most famous compositions. It ranks right up there with "Powerhouse" and the scores to 120 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons. A trio of House Democrats scuffled with federal law enforcement officers last week at Delaney Hall in Newark. It’s possible they could face discipline from the House for the fracas. Or worse. Fox is told that arrests could be in the offing for Reps. LaMonica McIver, D-N.J., Robert Menendez Jr., D-N.J., and Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J. "What happened on May 9th was not oversight. It was a political stunt that put the safety of our law enforcement officers, our agents, our staff, and our detainees at risk," said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to a House hearing Wednesday. "The behavior was lawlessness. And it was beneath this body." Noem should know something about that. She served in the House for eight years. On her way into the hearing, Noem said that an investigation is underway. "I think that arrests are still on the table for this," said Homeland Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin on Fox. "If it was a typical U.S. citizen and they tried to storm into a detention facility that’s housing dangerous criminals or any person at all, they would be arrested. Just because you are a Member of Congress or just because you’re a public official does not mean you are above the law."

NewsMax [5/16/2025 12:17 PM, Sandy Fitzgerald, 4998K] reports a federal grand jury has returned superseding charges against two men charged in the theft of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s handbag and other purses from diners in Washington, D.C. The two men, Mario Bustamante-Leiva, 49, and Cristian Rodrigo Montecino-Sanzana, 51, both Chilean natives, have been indicted on charges of wire theft, aggravated identity theft, and robbery in connection with the purse snatching in April, according to documentation filed from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Thursday. Both men are reportedly in the United States illegally, the Department of Justice reported shortly after they were caught in connection with the theft of Noem’s purse while she was dining with her family at a D.C. restaurant on Easter Sunday. Noem had several sensitive personal items in her purse, including her DHS access badge, driver’s license, passports, checks, credit cards, and about $3,000 in cash, according to law enforcement officials. Her cell phone was not in the bag. Bustamante-Leiva was caught on camera minutes later at the nearby Angolo Ristorante Italiano restaurant, allegedly running up a bill for food and alcohol on Noem’s American Express card, reports The New York Post. Montecino-Sanzana was arrested at a Walgreens in Miami Beach, the Secret Service has confirmed. According to the indictments, the two men had allegedly devised a scheme to steal purses and then to make "fraudulent purchases" using the diners’ credit cards, including for pre-paid gift cards that were then used to buy merchandise and services. The indictments list the theft of Noem’s purse, as well as other victims’ handbags. In Noem’s case, her credit card was not used in any other purchases beyond the purchases made at the nearby restaurant, the indictment indicates. According to court filings, Leiva said he was an alcoholic and admitted to stealing Noem’s purse, reports CNN.

NBC News [5/16/2025 4:26 PM, Minyvonne Burke and John Filippelli, 44742K] reports that three of ten inmates who escaped from a New Orleans jail were apprehended by Friday night, while authorities continued to search for seven others in the jailbreak that may have had inside help, officials said. The escape from the Orleans Parish Justice Center was discovered during a routine head count around 8:30 a.m. Friday, and there are signs that it was done with the help of people “inside of our department,” Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson said. Three employees have been placed on leave without pay and an investigation is underway, the sheriff’s office said. Hutson called it a "very serious and unacceptable situation.” The inmates broke out by breaching a wall, Hutson said. Video shows several inmates jarring open a cell door at 12:22 a.m., then inmates enter that cell, and at 1 a.m. video shows them leaving a loading dock door, the sheriff’s office said. At 1:19 a.m., video shows them scaling a fence with blankets, it said. “They were able to break open a door,” Hutson said. “They were still able to exit the jail about 1:01 a.m. after breaching a wall behind a toilet in the jail.” Their clothes were later found discarded, the sheriff’s office said. Hutson earlier told reporters that an employee had been in the pod module at the time, but the sheriff’s office later said that a civilian corrections technician monitor had stepped away for food. By the time the person returned to their post, the men had already broken into the cell and had fled, so the employee did not know an escape had occurred, officials said. Photos released by the sheriff’s office show the inside of a cell where the escape is believed to have happened. A large hole was cut behind a toilet with phrases such as "We Innocent" and "To Easy LoL" written above it.

Axios [5/16/2025 5:20 PM, Sareen Habeshian, 13599K] reports the Wisconsin judge arrested by the FBI last month for allegedly helping an undocumented defendant avoid arrest has assembled a high powered legal team to fight President Trump’s "extraordinary attack" on the judicial branch. Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan launched a fundraising site for her defense, painting her case as a broader defense of the judiciary’s independence from the Trump administration. The administration has said Dugan’s case is meant to send a message to other judges not to interfere with its immigration crackdown. The Hannah Dugan Legal Defense Fund wants to raise resources to "mount a vigorous defense against the unprecedented attack on the independent judiciary by the federal government," according to its website.

AP [5/16/2025 11:19 AM, Todd Richmond, 48304K] reports a Wisconsin judge charged with helping a man illegally evade immigration agents is seeking donations to fund her court defense. Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan announced Friday that she’s set up a fund to cover the costs of her defense. The fund issued a statement saying that the case against her is an “unprecedented attack on the independent judiciary by the federal government.” Dugan has hired a group of high-powered lawyers led by former U.S. Attorney Steve Biskupic. She’s looking to tap into anger on the left over the case to help pay them. Dozens of people demonstrated outside Dugan’s arraignment Thursday at the federal courthouse in Milwaukee, demanding she be set free and accusing the Trump administration of going too far. Federal prosecutors allege Eduardo Flores-Ruiz was in Dugan’s courtroom on April 18 for a hearing in a domestic violence case when Dugan learned immigration agents were in the courthouse looking to arrest him. According to court documents, Flores-Ruiz illegally returned to the U.S. after he was deported in 2013. Angry that agents were in the courthouse and calling the situation “absurd,” Dugan led Flores-Ruiz out a back door in her courtroom, according to an FBI affidavit. Agents eventually captured him following a foot chase outside the building. FBI agents arrested Dugan at the county courthouse on April 25. A grand jury on Tuesday indicted her on one count of obstruction and one count of concealing a person to prevent arrest. The charges carry a total maximum sentence of six years in federal prison. Dugan pleaded not guilty during her arraignment. Her attorneys have filed a motion seeking to dismiss the case, arguing that she was controlling movement in her courtroom in her official capacity as a judge and therefore is immune from prosecution.

(B) CBS Mornings [5/16/2025 8:56 AM, Staff] reports that a federal judge is stepping in to protect four international students at the University of Iowa from being deported, saying she has little confidence the Department of Homeland Security will follow their own rules. Those students are suing, saying that their status was revoked for no reason and their ability to study, work, and stay in the country is being impacted. That injunction will stop any deportations from happening while the case plays out in court.

Federalist [5/16/2025 7:25 AM, M.D. Kittle, 1033K] reports earlier this month, the accomplice media breathlessly reported on the plight of illegal immigrants suspected of being members of a transnational criminal organization held at ICE’s Bluebonnet Detention Center and facing deportation. Some of the detainees positioned themselves in the detention facility’s yard to spell out SOS for the lusty accomplice media cameras to suck up. "The Bluebonnet Detention Center houses detainees, including migrants accused of being gang members and facing deportations under the 1798 Enemies Alien Enemies Act before the Supreme Court issued a temporary block in April," a CNN reporter narrated over the strains of a lachrymose score. "In a statement, the Trump administration criticized reporting around the footage and doubled down on their aggressive immigration policies.” It was more of the same, a full-throated defense of the poor, violent illegal immigrants whose "due process rights" are being trampled under foot by "dictator" Donald Trump. Now the Department of Homeland Security is sending out an SOS to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking for relief to move out the Tren de Aragua-affiliated gang members wreaking havoc on the Bluebonnet Detention Center. DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said 23 members of the Venezuelan gang of terrorists recently "barricaded themselves in the Bluebonnet Detention Facility, threatened to take hostages, and endangered officers.” "Keeping these foreign terrorists in ICE facilities poses a serious threat to ICE officers, staff, and other detainees," McLaughlin said in a statement to The Federalist. "The media repeated these TdA gang members’ false sob stories, but the truth is these are members of a foreign terrorist organization that rape, maim, and murder for sport.”

Telemundo 48 El Paso [5/16/2025 4:11 PM, Staff, 9K] reports the Western District of Texas has charged Maria del Rosario Navarro-Sanchez, 39, a Mexican national, with providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization known as the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). The collaboration included charges of providing grenades to the cartel and participating in trafficking of immigrants, firearms, narcotics, and cash smuggling. According to court documents, the Mexican woman conspired with others to provide weapons to the aforementioned foreign terrorist organization. Additionally, Navarro-Sanchez is charged with conspiracy to smuggle and transport aliens into the United States, as well as smuggling large amounts of cash and possessing a controlled substance with intent to distribute. Co-defendant Luis Carlos Davalos-Lopez, 27, also Mexican, is charged with conspiracy to smuggle and transport illegal aliens into the United States.

New York Times [5/17/2025 5:01 AM, Edgar Sandoval and Gabriel V. Cárdenas, 138952K] reports that, most mornings, Leonardo Baez, a father of seven, wakes up hours before sunrise to mix bread dough in the border city of Los Fresnos, Texas. Punishing and laborious work, yes, but owning a beloved bakery has been a lifelong dream of his, he said. It is now in jeopardy. In February, federal agents swooped down on his shop, Abby’s Bakery, detained workers they said were in the country illegally and pressed charges against the owners, Mr. Baez and his wife, Nora Alicia Avila. As their July trial nears, many in this Latino-majority community of 8,500 close to Brownsville, Texas, are learning what life will be like under President Trump and his immigration crackdown. More than 52 percent of Los Fresnos’s once-bright-blue Cameron County voted for Mr. Trump in November, but his aggressive policies are dividing families and rattling local business where undocumented residents are indistinguishable from the larger border population. If found guilty of the most serious charge, conspiring to transport and harbor undocumented migrants, both Mr. Baez, 56, and Ms. Avila, 46, face sentences of up to 10 years in prison. The Justice Department has framed the case as open-and-shut: Law enforcement officers found a room in the shopping plaza that includes the bakery with six mattresses on the floor housing employees unauthorized to work in the country. The raid, the government said, found two migrants “unlawfully present in the United States” and six visa holders “who did not have the right to work.” The Baez family agreed to discuss their lives, but at the suggestion of their lawyers, they would not talk about the case. But one of those lawyers, Jaime Diez, did speak on the case and said the federal indictment is a break from how “harboring” charges are typically used. “Harboring charges used to be saved for cases where criminal groups would help smuggle undocumented people into the U.S. illegally,” he said. Migrants would “then be stashed in houses until they could be picked in cars where they would be hidden so that they could be taken up north,” he added.

Los Angeles Times [5/16/2025 5:41 PM, Matthew Ormseth, 14672K] reports Herlyn Barrientos wasn’t happy to run into a fellow member of his gang in the produce section of his local grocery store. A burly man with tattoos inked on his head and face, Barrientos was from MS-13, a group notorious for savage killings. Federal prosecutors alleged the Honduran national, nicknamed "Doctorazo," supplied methamphetamine to MS-13 members across Los Angeles, who sold the drug and kicked up a cut to the gang’s imprisoned leader. Charged with drug trafficking in 2023, Barrientos decided to turn on his gang and cooperate with the FBI. A judge signed off on his release from jail, and Barrientos, 47, returned to South Los Angeles. Federal prosecutors on Friday announced three reputed MS-13 members are charged with killing Barrientos on the orders of gang leaders. Barrientos’ deal was supposed to remain secret, but the FBI now says Barrientos’ status as an informant was "widely" known, calling into question why he was still living in his old neighborhood when he was killed on Feb. 18. An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment. Just before his death, Barrientos called an FBI agent to report seeing a man with a gun, the handler wrote in an affidavit. The agent said he was on the phone with Barrientos as he was shot to death. "It’s a terrible thing what happened to him," said Michael Crain, an attorney who represented Barrientos in his drug trafficking case. Crain declined to comment further. The affidavit said evidence made clear Barrientos was killed because he was cooperating.

CBS News [5/16/2025 2:32 PM, Richard Escobedo and Caitlin Huey-Burns, 51661K] reports the House Republican bill to enact President Trump’s domestic policy agenda contains a provision that has prompted opposition from the Mexican government — a tax on cash payments sent by non-U.S. citizens to family members in their home countries. The payments, known as remittances, would be subject to a 5% excise tax that would encompass more than 40 million people, including green card holders and nonimmigrant visa holders, such as people on H-1B, H-2A and H-2B visas. U.S. citizens would be exempt. In a May 13 letter to the leaders of the House Ways and Means Committee, Esteban Moctezuma Barragán, Mexico’s ambassador to the U.S., urged Chairman Jason Smith and Ranking Member Richard Neal to reconsider the proposal. "We respectfully urge you to reconsider this section of the legislative proposal, and we remain available to continue dialogue on the matter," wrote Barragán and Robert Velasco Alvarez, Mexico’s chief officer for North America. A representative for Chairman Smith did not comment. A representative for Neal has not responded to CBS News’ request for comment. In April, President Trump hinted at a crackdown on remittances, announcing in a Truth Social Post that the administration was "finalizing a presidential memorandum to shut down remittances sent by illegal aliens outside of the United States." But details on the presidential proposal were unclear. The remittance tax provisions in the bill have become an international flashpoint. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has also criticized the plan and urged Republican lawmakers to reconsider it.

USA Today [5/16/2025 12:00 PM, Ingrid Jacques, 75858K] reports that I hear almost daily from disgruntled liberals who wish President Donald Trump would die or face some other horrific misfortune (they wish the same for me, too). It’s easy to become numb to this inflammatory – and hysterical – rhetoric. Yet, when a former top U.S. law enforcement official enters the fray of such discourse, that’s another matter altogether. On May 15, former FBI Director James Comey posted a photo on Instagram that depicted the number "8647" fashioned with seashells. "Cool shell formation on my beach walk," Comey quipped. Not surprisingly, the now-deleted post created an immediate firestorm among conservatives and Trump administration officials. The number "86" is synonymous with getting rid of something or tossing it out – or worse. It also means "to kill." And "47" of course refers to Trump, the 47th president. Comey, fired by Trump in 2017, has claimed he "didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence" and that it "never occurred" to him that may be the case. He thought it merely was a "political message.” Trump faced near assassination – twice. Comey knew better. That kind of alleged naiveté from someone who once led the FBI and purportedly helped to defend the country from all kinds of threats is hard to fathom. I think Comey knows exactly what "8647" means. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, for instance, wrote on X that the Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service were "investigating this threat and will respond appropriately" and that Comey "just called for the assassination" of Trump.

Houston Chronicle [5/16/2025 7:00 AM, Bill King and Charles Foster, 1769K] reports she was four when her parents brought her to the United States, seeking a better life for their family. They settled in Georgia, where she attended public school, played sports and graduated from high school. After graduating, she began attending a local college. According to people in her community, she was also an active member in her church. A neighbor told reporters, "She has babysat for my kids for years. We adore her." In family photos, Ximena Arias-Cristobal, known to friends as "Mena," has bright eyes and a youthful smile. She is indistinguishable from millions of other American teenagers. We suspect hers would be the last image that would come to mind when Americans imagine the deportation of illegal immigrants. However, last week, a police officer in her hometown pulled her over for turning right during a red light. He discovered that she did not have a driver’s license and deduced she was most likely not in the United States legally. He arrested her. Later, she was transferred to ICE with chains around her hands and ankles despite the fact that she has no previous criminal record. She is scheduled to appear before an immigration judge next week in a deportation hearing. The police department later determined, by reviewing the dashboard video, that Mena had, in fact, not turned right on red. After observing a similar model and color vehicle run a red light, the police officer, who was momentarily blocked by traffic, mistook Mena’s vehicle for the offending one. The prosecutor dropped the traffic charges against her but she remains in ICE custody. In a post, DHS said that Mena admitted to entering the country illegally and had "no pending application with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services," implying that was an option for her. That is about as disingenuous as it gets. Yes, she entered the country illegally when she was four years old, holding her parents’ hands. The notion that somehow our legal system should hold a person responsible for a decision their parents made when they were four is revolting.

Breitbart [5/16/2025 6:26 PM, Warner Todd Huston, 3077K] reports FBI leadership has ordered the bureau’s field offices to begin shifting agents to immigration enforcement and to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The orders were released in a series of memos across the country this week, as the bureau begins de-prioritizing investigations of white collar and corporate crimes, according to NBC News. The memo reveals that bureau leadership wants to assign 45 percent of all agents to full time immigration duties, and they hope that upwards to 2,000 agents will be engaged in immigration enforcement. "As you know, we have been actively engaged in immigration enforcement efforts in coordination with our DOJ and DHS partners," one such memo said. "Starting this week, we will need to see an increase in operational tempo in your immigration efforts. DOJ expects a significant increase in the number of agents participating in immigration enforcement operations.” "The FBI has been committed to supporting our partners in immigration enforcement and will remain so," said FBI spokesman Ben Williamson. The Trump administration has shifted other agencies to help fulfill the president’s immigration policies. In February, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said she planned to seek the assistance of the IRS in immigration enforcement. And this month, a judge ruled that the Trump administration could order the IRS to help locate illegals using tax data. Other agencies that have been helping ICE in immigration enforcement include the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of State (DOS), and the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Politico [5/16/2025 1:08 PM, Kyle Cheney, 16523K] reports that, when a Guatemalan man sued the Trump administration in March for deporting him to Mexico despite a fear of persecution, immigration officials had a response: The man told them himself he was not afraid to be sent there. But in a late Friday court filing, the administration acknowledged that this claim — a key plank of the government’s response to a high-stakes class action lawsuit — was based on erroneous information. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials now say they have no record of anyone being told by the man, identified only by the initials O.C.G. in court papers, that he was unafraid of going to Mexico. The error, they say, was attributable to a “software tool” known as ICE’s “ENFORCE alien removal module” that tracks individual deportation cases and allows staff to insert comments. “Upon further investigation … ICE was unable to identify an officer or officers who asked O.C.G. if he feared a return to Mexico,” said Brian Ortega, assistant field office director for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, in a sworn statement to the federal judge overseeing the lawsuit. The mistake may have been costly: The judge overseeing the lawsuit said last month he did not order the administration to facilitate O.C.G.’s immediate return from Mexico in part because of the dispute. Instead, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, a Biden appointee based in Massachusetts, ordered expedited fact-finding, which helped unearth the mistake. ICE’s acknowledgment is the latest in a string of errors that have led judges to fault the administration for attempting to carry out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign at a breakneck pace — often at the expense of due process. It occurred in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man — accused of gang ties by the administration — who was hurriedly deported to his home country in violation of a court order that found he could be a target for violence by a local gang. It also occurred in the case of Daniel Lozano-Camargo, a Venezuelan man deported to El Salvador in March despite a court-approved settlement requiring the administration to adjudicate his asylum claim first.

NBC News [5/16/2025 1:29 PM, Laura Strickler and Julia Ainsley, 44742K] reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are issuing contracts so quickly to carry out President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigrants that the speed appears to be causing some of those contracts to be revoked, experts and contractors tell NBC News. At least one of the contracts was no-bid and went to a firm run by people who served in Trump’s first administration. ICE recently terminated a $73 million no-bid contract to provide staffing support for its offices days after a competitor filed an objection accusing the company that won the contract of exerting "improper influence" in securing it and accusing the agency of "unethical contracting." It was at least the second contract recently awarded to rapidly implement Trump’s plan for mass deportations that was quickly terminated. And it was one of several contracts that government contracting experts say raise questions about the speed with which ICE is sending money out the door. Three sources inside the government contracting industry said the recent terminations have fueled chaos and financial losses in companies that started hiring to fulfill contracts that were unexpectedly terminated. DHS published a notice that Universal Strategic Advisors was awarded the $73 million contract on staffing on April 13. But six days before the award was made public, a competing company that had heard of the no-bid contract filed an objection known as a "bid protest" with the Government Accountability Office. The protest effectively paused the contract, which is standard practice while a protest is pending. DHS did not respond as to why the size of this contract was reduced.

NBC News [5/16/2025 2:16 PM, Suzanne Gamboa and Carmen Sesin, 44742K] reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Denisse Parra Vargas’ three children — two of them American citizens and one born in Mexico — in Texas last week and, because authorities deported their mother, sent them out of the United States too. The administration has responded to blowback from the children’s expulsions and those of other U.S. citizen minors, including a child with cancer and one recovering from a rare brain tumor, by saying the mothers were in the U.S. illegally and chose to take their children with them. The families and their attorneys vehemently disagree that the mothers had a choice. Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested in an interview April 27 on "Meet the Press" that the children’s situations are easily fixed. "If those children are U.S. citizens," he said, "they can come back into the United States if there’s their father or someone here who wants to assume them." While attorneys, advocates and researchers agree that U.S. citizens generally have the right to return, they said suggestions that the children can just easily come back to the U.S. gloss over the barriers and difficulties of what that would entail. In response to questions from NBC News, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin stated via email that if an immigrant in the country illegally is subject to detention, they "will almost assuredly be detained." DHS had previously stated that Parra Vargas had a deportation order after she failed to appear at a 2019 immigration hearing. McLaughlin repeated DHS’ previous statements that parents illegally in the country can "take control of their departure" and leave using an app created by the administration and that the administration is offering those who leave $1,000 and a free flight.

New York Post [5/16/2025 5:15 PM, Kyle Schnitzer and Priscilla DeGregory, 49956K] reports Special Agent Yasin Binda — with the Department of Homeland Security — testified about how the feds found baby oil and lubricant stashed all over the hotel room where Sean "Diddy" Combs had been arrested. The agents raided room 2115 at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Manhattan on Sept. 16, 2024 after Combs’ arrest that day, finding bags of Astroglide lubricant and baby oil inside the entryway closet of the room.

Breitbart [5/16/2025 9:41 AM, John Binder, 2923K] reports the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) carried out a sting operation across the sanctuary state of Massachusetts, arresting several illegal alien gang members and other violent offenders, Breitbart News has exclusively learned. This week, United States Attorney Leah Foley issued a warning to sanctuary politicians in Massachusetts that those seeking to interfere with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations would be prosecuted. “The interference with ICE operations around Massachusetts has been disturbing, to say the least,” Foley said in a statement: This conduct poses significant public and officer safety risks. It is conduct that should be vilified rather than glorified. I will not stand idly by if any public official, public safety officer, organization or private citizen acts in a manner that criminally obstructs or impedes ICE operations. The United States Attorney’s Office, along with our federal partners, will investigate any violations of federal law and pursue charges that are warranted by such activity. ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons said the agency was “immensely grateful” to have Foley’s support as they sought to arrest illegal aliens with criminal records and documented gang histories. FOX News [5/16/2025 4:29 PM, Brooke Taylor, 46878K] reports that "Despite sanctuary politicians and activists trying to disrupt ICE operations, our brave law enforcement removed gang members, drug traffickers, and other violent criminals from Massachusetts’ streets. Some of these arrests included criminal aliens who were released by local authorities because of radical sanctuary policies," said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. "These sanctuary politicians are playing Russian roulette with American lives. While Massachusetts leaders release criminal aliens onto America’s streets, President Trump and Secretary Noem are arresting them and getting them out of our country." One of the arrests includes an illegal migrant convicted for soliciting to commit murder. On May 5, 2025, ICE arrested Kleber Lasso an illegal alien from Ecuador. On July 24, 2018, Lasso was convicted of soliciting to commit murder and sentenced to only 1 year in jail. Brockton District Court failed to honor ICE’s detainer and released this criminal back onto Massachusetts’ streets, according to DHS. The Brockton court had no comment for Fox News Friday.

AP [5/16/2025 5:11 PM, Leah Willingham] reports a man living in Massachusetts who U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained in April after smashing his car window with a hammer has been released, his lawyer said Friday. Juan Francisco Mendez was released Thursday on a $1,500 bond after a month of being held at Strafford County Corrections in Dover, New Hampshire. He will also be required to wear a GPS ankle monitor while the U.S. government continues to pursue his deportation, said one of Mendez’s attorneys, Ryan Sullivan. Mendez, 29, was taken into custody by agents on April 14 in New Bedford, Massachusetts, as he drove to a dental appointment. The agents claimed they were looking for another man with a different name who lived in the same neighborhood before they dragged him and his wife out of the car. The lawyers for Mendez, who is from Guatemala, said he was detained while in the process of applying for asylum status — something he is still pursuing. He has no criminal record, and the government held him for weeks without initiating deportation proceedings against him, leading to his case being dismissed by an immigration judge on May 8. After that hearing, the U.S. government charged Mendez with being in the country illegally before a judge ordered his release on a minimum bond Thursday.

FOX News [5/16/2025 4:44 PM, Brie Stimson and Griff Jenkins, 46878K] reports U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement this week arrested a documented MS-13 gang member with an extensive arrest record, including assault and burglary, ICE told Fox News on Friday. Mykol Santos-Santos, 25, a Guatemalan national who is in the country illegally, was taken into custody by ICE Washington, D.C. in Fairfax, Virginia, on Monday. An ICE officer was injured during the arrest when Santos-Santos resisted. Santos-Santos’ charges and convictions include assault and battery, burglary, credit card fraud, trespassing, drug crimes, property damage, obstruction of justice, attempting to flee police, failure to appear and violating court orders. ICE made the arrest after the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center refused to honor ICE’s 16th immigration detainer lodged against him. ICE said Santos-Santos’ criminal history in its database is more than 15 pages long, and he has been arrested more than 30 times by Fairfax County police. He’s also had 16 immigration detainers lodged against him in the last three years. "Mykol Santos-Santos is a habitual offender. He is a documented member of a violent criminal gang with a lengthy criminal history and represents an egregious danger to our Virginia communities," ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Washington, D.C. Field Office Director Russell Hott said. "While we are happy to have arrested him, we find it inexcusable that local law enforcement refused to honor 16 separate immigration detainers against Santos-Santos, forcing ICE officers to make an at large arrest where one of our officers was injured.”

Breitbart.com [5/16/2025 5:41 PM, Lowell Cauffiel, 3077K] reports with polls showing widespread public support for deporting criminal illegal immigrants, Republican gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earl-Sears isn’t going to let Democratic opponent Abigail Spanberger off the hook for disparaging comments she made about raids at a Virginia courthouse last month. The raid by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents netted two illegal aliens with substantial rap sheets, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reported. The assistant DHS secretary also dismissed Spanberger’s suggestion that the ICE agents did not properly identify themselves. She said that arresting defendants at courthouses is "common sense" because illegal aliens there are unarmed after being screened for weapons.

FOX News [5/16/2025 4:26 PM, Griff Jenkins, Greg Norman, 46878K] reports the County Board of Arlington, Virginia, voted this week to further restrict police cooperation with ICE in a move the state’s attorney general said only benefits "illegal immigrants that have committed some of the most heinous acts, whether it’s human trafficking or even acts of terrorism." Sections of the Arlington County Trust Policy were removed to eliminate "instances in which ACPD can initiate contact with ICE regarding immigration enforcement," the county said on its website. When asked by Fox News Digital Friday for a reaction to the vote, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said, "These sanctuary politicians are playing Russian roulette with American lives. The agency has made 17 arrests in Arlington County so far this fiscal year, and three of those arrested were confirmed MS-13 gang members.

Reported similarly:
DailySignal [5/16/2025 4:32 PM, Erin Poff, 558K]

FOX News [5/16/2025 8:00 AM, Andrew Mark Miller, 46189K] reports Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger is facing pushback from both her opponent and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) after condemning the "shocking" execution of an ICE raid at a Virginia courthouse earlier this month that netted two criminal illegal immigrants. "I think what we’ve seen most shocking, including here in Charlottesville, has been cases where people haven’t provided identification and have been in some cases masked and in plain clothes," Spanberger, a former Democratic congresswoman and former intelligence officer, told the Daily Progress last month after an ICE raid at Albemarle County Courthouse led to the arrest of two illegal immigrants. The raid that Spanberger took issue with resulted in the arrest of two illegal immigrants who DHS told Fox News Digital had criminal records. In a statement to Fox News Digital, Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin defended raids at courthouses, saying it is "common sense." "It conserves valuable law enforcement resources because they already know where a target will be. It is also safer for our officers and the community. These illegal aliens have gone through security and been screened to not have any weapons. Secretary Noem is empowering law enforcement to use common sense to remove criminal illegal aliens from American communities." McLaughlin also pushed back on Spanberger’s suggestion that the ICE agents did not properly identify themselves. "When our heroic law enforcement officers conduct operations, they clearly identify themselves as police while wearing masks to protect themselves from being targeted by known and suspected terrorist sympathizers," McLaughlin said. "It is interesting that the media who are so concerned with our law enforcement officers wearing masks to protect themselves don’t say a word about the terrorist sympathizers on U.S. college campuses who cowardly wear masks as they do the bidding of terrorist organizations that relish the killing of Americans and Jews."

New York Post [5/16/2025 10:49 PM, David Propper and Anna Young, 54903K] reports a bare-chested illegal immigrant was busted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement after launching headfirst into a North Carolina duck pond and leading agents on a wild, caught-on-camera pursuit. Christian Valladares-Sierra, a Honduran native, took off after officers confronted him outside the Mecklenburg County Courthouse in Charlotte Thursday afternoon, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The chaotic chase ended in a nearby park, where Valladares-Sierra, who was shirtless, jumped into the waist-deep pond and was quickly surrounded by three agents, according to footage captured by WBTV. “Officers attempted to make the arrest outside the Mecklenburg County Courthouse, but after officers identified themselves Valladares-Sierra fled and jumped headfirst into a duck pond,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told The Post. It wasn’t immediately clear when he re-entered the US or was initially charged. McLaughlin noted that targeting illegals at local courthouses is a safe and “common sense” approach. “It conserves valuable law enforcement resources because they already know where a target will be,” she said. “It is also safer for our officers and the community. These illegal aliens have gone through security and been screened to not have any weapons. Secretary (Kristi) Noem is empowering law enforcement to use common sense to remove criminal illegal aliens from American communities.” Valladares-Sierra was transported to ICE’s Charlotte office for processing.

Axios [5/16/2025 2:04 PM, Nate Rau, 13163K] reports that Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell has faced a barrage of criticism from Tennessee Republicans for his response to the intense immigration enforcement operation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents earlier this month. Why it matters: The situation threatens to fray relationships between O’Connell and top Republicans. Catch up quick: According to the Department of Homeland Security, ICE arrested 196 people in Nashville during its recent operation, including 95 people with prior criminal records. As part of the operation, ICE partnered with the Tennessee Highway Patrol, which conducted late-night and early-morning traffic stops on South Nashville streets home to large immigrant populations. Driving the news: In the wake of the ICE arrests, O’Connell said at a press conference, "Their approach is not our understanding of what a ‘Nashville for all of us’ looks like." He also announced the creation of a new Belonging Fund, managed by the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee. Metro hasn’t committed money to the fund, which had raised $240,000 as of Thursday. O’Connell also updated a preexisting executive order requiring Metro agencies to report communications with federal immigration officials. His update moved up the required reporting time from three days to 24 hours. He says the purpose of that order is for Metro officials to be informed, not to tip people off that ICE could be coming. Finally, O’Connell’s office pushed for details on the people detained and their charges. So far, the federal government has only released a few names and specific charges.

FOX News [5/16/2025 9:00 AM, Staff, 46189K] reports another Democrat is being brought under scrutiny over their handling of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations. Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., wrote a letter this week urging two top House committees to investigate Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell, who the Trump administration accused of supporting "pro-illegal policies." Ogles said O’Connell’s "recent actions raise serious questions about whether a municipal official is now obstructing federal law enforcement and possibly even actively aiding and abetting illegal aliens." It comes amid continued fallout from three House Democrats accused of "storming" an ICE facility in Newark, New Jersey. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who was also among those who ran through the gates of the detention center following a bus full of detainees, was arrested. ICE agents working with the Tennessee Highway Patrol arrested nearly 200 people who the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said were illegal immigrants – many of them criminals with gang affiliations or other sordid pasts. The DHS news release targeted O’Connell by name over comments he made in early May. "What’s clear today is that people who do not share our values of safety and community have the authority to cause deep community harm." After the arrests, O’Connell signed an executive order aimed at tracking peoples’ interactions with federal immigration authorities, according to WSMV4. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Los Angeles Times [5/16/2025 4:24 PM, Fidel Martinez, 14672K] reports last Saturday, Nashville SC’s section, the Backline Supporters Collective, was awfully quiet during the club’s home match at Geodis Park against Charlotte FC. On Friday, la Brigada de Oro, the group’s Latino faction, announced on social media that it would be canceling its pre-match tailgate due to ongoing immigration enforcement activity in the area. Many of the group’s members skipped the game altogether. It was not an unfounded fear. The previous weekend, the Tennessee Highway Patrol conducted a joint operation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which resulted in 588 stops and 103 people taken into custody.

Telemundo [5/16/2025 7:43 PM, Ana Cuervo, 177K]
The administration of Governor Ron DeSantis has drawn a new line in the arena of immigration debate: an unprecedented state plan that seeks to intensify deportations of undocumented immigrants, even if it involves acting without direct intervention by the federal government. The proposal, recently presented in a 37-page document to the Department of Homeland Security, details how Florida prepares to be not only a Washington collaborator, but in some respects - an independent actor.

Univision [5/16/2025 9:18 PM, Staff, 4992K] reports that, Margarita Avila Mis, a gardener who was arrested after an altercation with a postal worker, will remain in ICE custody even though she has no charges in Harris County, an agency spokesman said. "She has a documented history of evading her immigration proceedings and has repeatedly undermined U.S. immigration laws," according to the ICE spokesman. "The dismissal of criminal charges against Avila Mis in Harris County does not prevent ICE from continuing to detain her. ICE’s detention authority is based on the furtherance of an alien’s immigration proceedings and, if so, removal from the country." Ms. Margarita is originally from Belize and is 49 years old. These statements from ICE come after a request for information from Univision 45, as the immigrant’s family is asking them to release her. But the federal agency detailed in a statement her history with authorities in the United States. They say she has entered the U.S. as undocumented at least three times: in 1999, in 2001 and in 2012. After being detained following her 2001 arrest, she allegedly failed to show up for her court date and "absconded," so they ordered her deported for her absence from the proceedings, an ICE spokesman said. However, Margarita has asked a judge to reopen an asylum case she had pending since 2012. Margarita has nine children and had been charged with assault and battery after she was cutting grass near mailboxes in the Houston-area city of Spring on March 12. A postal employee allegedly asked Margarita to move away because the grass she was cutting was falling on her, according to a statement from Harris County Precinct 4. The gardener did not remove herself and the woman from the post office again asked her to remove herself, touching the man, but a confrontation began and according to authorities Margarita allegedly attacked her with the lawn mower. Margarita’s lawyer has said that this case was based on a false accusation. She was taken away in handcuffs, but part of the altercation was videotaped by Margarita’s family. She was taken to the Harris County Jail, but was later taken away by ICE officers. Harris County dismissed her charges. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Breitbart [5/16/2025 11:40 AM, John Binder, 2923K] reports an illegal alien accused of murdering his 6-year-old son last week had been shielded from federal immigration enforcement thanks to California’s sanctuary state policy backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and elected state Democrats. Briant Reyes Estrada, a 27-year-old illegal alien, has been arrested by the Paso Robles Police Department and charged with second-degree murder and willful harm to a child in connection with the death of his 6-year-old son. According to police, on May 10, Reyes Estrada allegedly left his young son in his vehicle in the Paso Robles Inn parking lot for several hours. Reyes Estrada found his son, who sustained life-threatening heat-related injuries, and took him to Twin Cities Hospital where he died. San Luis Obispo County District Attorney Dan Dow has since revealed that Reyes Estrada should never have been in the United States and, even more, would have been turned over to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency weeks ago if not for California’s sanctuary state policy. "I’m angry that this boy died and I am even more incensed to learn that this child’s death could have been prevented," Dow said in a video post to X: Briant Reyes Estrada is now charged with second-degree murder … we will prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law. Here’s what has me so angry: The defendant had been arrested and booked into the San Luis Obispo Jail on April 29 on an unrelated charge. Turns out, he was in this country in violation of our immigration laws. [Emphasis added].

Univision [5/16/2025 6:48 AM, Staff, 5325K] reports a father was driving to work when he saw a car following him. Minutes later, Jesús Ascencio, 46, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. “They were driving and my dad saw a car following him and he went a little faster (...) They just flashed their lights... and my dad thought it was a police car,” his daughter, María Isabel Ascencio, told Univision 34. The Hispanic man pulled into a parking lot, and behind him, the agents. One of them got out of the vehicle and approached Jesus’ vehicle. “Tell your dad to get out of the car, I just want to ask him a few questions,” said an agent to the Hispanic’s 17-year-old son, who was traveling with him at the time. “The officer asked my dad if he knew who he was and he answered, ‘well, no, I don’t know’, and that’s when he said, ‘do you have documents’, and he said he didn’t, and then they put him in the car,” María Isabel told Univision 34. After that few-minute interaction, the agents detained Ascencio, and he was sent to the Adelanto detention center. According to his daughter, the Hispanic has one or two DUI’s on his criminal record. So now, his attorney is looking for a way to prove that he is not a danger to society, and thus, be eligible for a bond before the judge. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

NBC News [5/16/2025 6:33 PM, Greg Cergol, 44540K] reports two Long Island brothers were left shocked and confused after federal agents had them deported to El Salvador, as their lawyer called it unfair they had been removed from "the only home they have ever known" despite having done nothing wrong. He and brother Josue, 19, spoke from El Salvador to reporters via an internet link set up at their lawyer’s East Islip office on Thursday. The brothers from Central Islip were detained by federal immigration agents in March, their lawyer Ala Amoachi said. It occurred during what the brothers believed was a routine visit to Federal Plaza in Manhattan. The young men were later moved first to a facility in upstate New York, then to Louisiana. On May 7, they were placed on a plane for El Salvador.

Bloomberg [5/16/2025 1:05 PM, Andrew Kreighbaum, 1085K] reports that businesses sponsoring foreign workers for the H-1B program have begun receiving surprise requests for biometric data like fingerprints from US Citizenship and Immigration Services. The requests have sought further documentation of a job or degree to prove eligibility for a visa program. Employers are notified if the agency has identified "adverse information" about a beneficiary, but USCIS hasn’t shared what specific factors may trigger the requests. Only a small percentage of cases are being met with the requests for evidence, said Kevin Miner, a partner at Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy, LLP. It’s unclear what the government intends to do with data collected, he said. "Those are unusual," he said. "We’ve not seen anything like that before.” The USCIS in March completed the annual H-1B visa lottery, which received fewer entries this spring but still showed demand far greater than the number of visas available. The biometric requirements aren’t just being applied to new petitions for specialty occupation workers. Applications to renew H-1B status as well as I-140 petitions to initiate green card sponsorship have been hit with the requests. Requests for evidence on H-1B petitions surged during the early months of the first Trump term as part of enhanced vetting of visa applicants and foreign workers across the board. Many attorneys expected tougher scrutiny of new employment-based visa petitions to mirror Trump’s first term.

FOX News [5/16/2025 11:45 AM, Morgan Phillips, 46189K] reports a group that once campaigned to put Donald Trump in the White House now says they feel abandoned by his administration’s decision to revoke legal protections for thousands of Afghan refugees living in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Zoubair Sangi, the leader of the "Afghans for Trump" movement, formed after the chaotic 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, said his community turned to Trump after the Biden administration’s exit left their homeland in turmoil. Now, he is urging the president to reconsider. "The reality is that Afghanistan is not safe," Sangi told Fox News. "Over the last three years, since the return of the Taliban, the country has been as dangerous as ever.” He said the Department of Homeland Security’s claim of an "improved security situation" fails to reflect the reality on the ground. "The Taliban, at the end of the day, are a terrorist group," he said. "They target anyone who disagrees with them – anyone who worked with the U.S. government or allied forces. Their lives are in grave danger.” Sangi added that women face especially grim conditions in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, where they are banned from education and public life without a male escort. On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security officially ended TPS for Afghan nationals, potentially forcing more than 9,000 individuals to return to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem cited an "improved security situation" and a stabilizing economy as justification. "This administration is returning TPS to its original, temporary intent," Noem said. "We’ve reviewed the conditions in Afghanistan with our interagency partners, and they do not meet the requirements for a TPS designation.” Afghans’ protected status is set to expire on May 20, with the program formally ending on July 12. Noem added that terminating the designation aligns with the administration’s broader goal of rooting out fraud and national security threats in the immigration system. While many Afghans who assisted the U.S. military during the two-decade war arrived under the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program, others – including former Afghan government workers and those tied to U.S. missions – entered under TPS amid the post-withdrawal chaos. These individuals now face potential deportation.

USA Today [5/17/2025 6:01 AM, Chris Kenning, 75552K] reports Yasmin Aguilar resettled in Boise, Idaho as a refugee from Afghanistan years ago, but the dangers for her relatives worsened over time. Late last year, after years of waiting, her brother and sister were finally on the cusp of joining her. Then President Donald Trump took office for his second term. Trump in January suspended the decades-old refugee program. It left their approvals in limbo and their families stuck in Pakistan, unable to work and increasingly fearing deportation to Afghanistan. This week, her family’s struggles contrasted sharply with the fast-tracked arrival of 59 Afrikaners, members of a White ethnic minority in South Africa that Trump says suffers from racial discrimination. At least nine are now resettling in Idaho. Aguilar, 54, said people at risk should be able to seek safety, including the South African families moving to Twin Falls, an agricultural town about 120 miles from Boise. But she said other refugees, including Afghans who supported the U.S. war efforts, deserve similar consideration. Now she’s among the refugee advocates, sponsors and relatives hoping the controversial arrival of Afrikaners brings renewed attention to the plight of tens of thousands of refugees like her siblings who went through years of waiting, vetting and approvals but remain stuck – some in camps and third countries – despite the admission of the Afrikaners. On May 15, those hopes faced a setback when a federal judge pulled back his order that would have required the Trump administration to admit 12,000 refugees who had arranged travel. Instead he is requiring 160 admissions for those who had travel set for within two weeks of Jan. 20 when Trump took office, with the rest decided on a case-by-case basis. Aguilar, who bought a larger home with her husband to house her relatives years ago, enduring delays from the pandemic and Trump’s first term refugee restrictions, said she’s ‘trying to be hopeful.” "I’m glad that people are searching for safety. I don’t have any issue about that," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. "We have to have a fair system for everyone.”

New York Times [5/16/2025 6:00 AM, Luis Ferré-Sadurní, 153395K] reports at the height of the migrant crisis in 2023, Mayor Eric Adams launched an initiative to offer limited but potentially crucial legal help to the thousands of migrants overwhelming New York City shelters. The taxpayer-funded effort transformed the headquarters of the American Red Cross, near Times Square, into a go-to destination for migrants to file paperwork for asylum and temporary work permits, with hundreds of staffers helping migrants complete more than 100,000 applications. On Friday, the city announced that the center, the Asylum Application Help Center, would close by the end of June, blaming “gaps in state funding” for migrant-related costs. “We are disappointed to have to make the difficult decision” to close the center, Liz Garcia, a spokeswoman for the mayor, said in a statement, pointing out that it had provided assistance on over 109,000 applications for asylum, work authorization and temporary protected status, a federal program that allows migrants from certain countries to live and work in the United States. The imminent shutdown marks the latest shrinking of the city’s response to the migrant influx, which has abated because of stricter immigration policies that have sharply halted border crossings, leading City Hall to close dozens of shelters during the past year.

AP [5/16/2025 7:03 AM, Tiffany Stanley, 48304K] reports Kat Renfroe was at Mass when she saw a volunteer opportunity in the bulletin. Her Catholic parish was looking for tutors for Afghan youth, newly arrived in the United States. There was a personal connection for Renfroe. Her husband, now retired from the Marine Corps, had deployed to Afghanistan four times. "He just never talked about any other region the way he did about the people there," she said. She signed up to volunteer. "It changed my life," she said. That was seven years ago. She and her husband are still close to the young man she tutored, along with his family. And Renfroe has made a career of working with refugees. She now supervises the Fredericksburg migration and refugee services office, part of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Arlington. That faith-based work is now in peril. As part of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, his administration banned most incoming refugees in January and froze federal funds for the programs. Across the country, local resettlement agencies like hers have been forced to lay off staff or close their doors. Refugees and other legal migrants have been left in limbo, including Afghans who supported the U.S. in their native country. The upheaval is particularly poignant in this part of Virginia, which boasts both strong ties to the military and to resettled Afghans, along with faith communities that support both groups.

Telemundo [5/16/2025 7:31 PM, Maylin Legañoa, 177K] reports for Liadys Madrazo, the dream of reuniting his family in the United States has become a bitter experience. Despite having followed all the steps of the family reunification process legally, his case ended with a taste of injustice. The reason: his father worked for a state company in Cuba. "We complied and did it legally... and we are the ones who are being punished," Liadys laments. Her mother, a housewife, received immediate approval of her visa. But his father, 60, underwent further review. He was asked to complete a form to clarify whether he had been a member of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC). Fourteen months after that bureaucratic step, the answer was devastating: a denied visa. The Madrazo family’s case is not isolated. Immigration lawyer Joana Soler, of Willy Allen’s firm in Miami, says at least seven Cuban families have received similar responses in recent months. All of them share a common denominator: one or more family members worked in Cuban State institutions, such as the Ministry of Health or Education, in roles such as doctors, nurses, teachers or technicians. Are we talking about people who were simply practising their profession in Cuba. They weren’t political cadres, they didn’t make propaganda... they were employees, Soler explained. The argument used to deny visas has been the same: past ties with the Communist Party or with the Cuban state apparatus. Counsel explains that, in most cases, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service. (USCIS) has suggested that applicants submit an I-601 form, known as inadmissibility forgiveness. But this, far from being a clear solution, puts families in a delicate position.

FOX News [5/16/2025 11:20 AM, Michael Dorgan Fox, 46189K] reports dozens of immigrants who illegally crossed into the U.S. via a newly established military-controlled zone along the U.S.-Mexico border have had their trespassing charges dismissed. Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Gregory Wormuth began filing the dismissals late on Wednesday, ruling the immigrants did not know they were entering the military zone – known as the New Mexico National Defense Area (NMNDA) – and therefore could not be charged, according to court documents. Wormuth ruled that the federal government failed to demonstrate probable cause that the immigrants knew they were entering the zone. The government had argued in a criminal complaint that the military had posted signs in the zones stating in both English and Spanish that it was a restricted area and that unauthorized entry is prohibited. Despite signs indicating restricted access, the judge noted that the challenging terrain made it unlikely that the defendants saw the warnings. The decision marks a setback for the Trump administration’s border crackdown as the trespassing charges were central to enforcing the NMNDA. The NMNDA was established in April and spans approximately 180 miles along the southern New Mexico border. U.S. Army personnel now patrol the area and are authorized to detain unauthorized entrants. "Beyond the reference to signage, the United States provides no facts from which one could reasonably conclude that the Defendant knew he was entering the NMNDA (New Mexico National Defense Area)," wrote Wormuth in a 16-page ruling. Wormuth has served as a U.S. magistrate judge since 2009. Magistrate judges are appointed by district court judges and not by the president. The judge dismissed two charges faced by the 98 arrested immigrants: violation of a security regulation and entering military property for an unlawful purpose, both misdemeanors. A third misdemeanor charge of entering the U.S. illegally remains.

Reported similarly:
Breitbart [5/16/2025 9:28 AM, Randy Clark, 2923K]

Washington Examiner [5/16/2025 11:17 AM, Staff, 2296K] reports I’ve walked our southwest border, seen the chaos that’s unfolded over the last four years, and heard directly from Customs and Border Protection personnel who were stretched thin, worn down, and under-resourced. They told me that walls work, technology works, and when we combine both, America is safer. President Donald Trump understands this. That’s why he built hundreds of miles of new border wall in his first term and gave our agents the tools they requested. But on Day One of the Biden administration, former President Joe Biden halted construction, leaving piles of paid-for materials to rot in the desert while cartels ran wild. Taxpayers got stuck with a $72 million bill to guard unused materials. Then the Biden administration quietly auctioned off the parts for pennies on the dollar. Fortunately, Trump has already taken major steps to reverse the Biden administration’s failed policies, but it will take years to undo the damage caused by the Biden border crisis and secure our borders for good. This effort starts with a barrier that’s physical and digital. A border barrier system isn’t just steel and concrete; it’s a full toolbox for Border Patrol agents, including access roads, lighting, sensors, cameras, and cutting-edge surveillance systems. This is a modern security mission. In Texas, we’ve seen the fallout of the Biden border crisis firsthand. Cartels turned border crossings into a billion-dollar smuggling operation. They flooded one sector with illegal aliens just to distract law enforcement while they moved fentanyl and other deadly drugs through another sector. It’s organized evil. That’s why the House Homeland Security Committee recently passed $69 billion legislation, over half of which will fund the completion and modernization of the border wall system. That means finishing over 700 miles of primary barrier and building river and secondary barriers where our Border Patrol agents need them most. Our plan invests in cutting-edge border technology, something I’ve fought for since coming to Congress. As a former special operator in the military, I understand how technology is a force multiplier. Artificial intelligence-powered sensors, autonomous surveillance towers, and drone detection systems are the future of border security, and Republicans are bringing them to the front lines.

AP [5/16/2025 12:15 PM, Kathy McCormack and Patrick Whititle, 48304K] reports that a woman charged in the January killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent during a Vermont traffic stop fired the bullet that struck him in the neck, authorities say in a new report. Another agent fired back during the Jan. 20 stop, wounding Teresa Youngblut and killing her companion, Felix Bauckholt, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement Wednesday. Youngblut and Bauckholt were affiliated with the Zizians, a cultlike group that has also been linked to killings in Pennsylvania and California, authorities allege. The shootout happened after an agent pulled them over on Interstate 91 a few miles (kilometers) from the Canadian border. About 30 minutes into the stop, the agents asked Youngblut and Bauckholt to get out of their car to be questioned, the border agency said in its report, which doesn’t name anyone involved. They reported that Youngblut “suddenly drew a firearm and opened fire,” killing the agent David Maland, it said. One of four agents on the scene returned fire, striking Youngblut once in the arm and once in the leg. The same agent reported that Bauckholt began drawing a firearm from his side and that he ordered him to stop. The agent said the man “failed to comply” and that he fired twice on the man, striking Bauckholt twice in the chest. Youngblut is charged with intentionally using a deadly weapon towards federal law enforcement, and using and discharging a firearm during an assault with a deadly weapon. She pleaded not guilty.

AP [5/16/2025 1:39 PM, Staff, 5046K] reports that a federal judge has ordered the transfer of a Russian-born scientist and Harvard University researcher facing deportation from Louisiana, where she was detained by immigration authorities, to Massachusetts, where she has been charged with trying to smuggle frog embryos. Kseniia Petrova, 30, has been detained since February and filed a petition seeking her release. She was charged Wednesday with one count of smuggling goods into the United States, shortly after another federal judge had set a hearing date on her petition. Petrova’s transfer was ordered Thursday. Her lawyer, Gregory Romanovsky, had said he expected that to happen in the next few weeks. If convicted, Petrova faces a sentence of up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. Petrova had been vacationing in France, where she stopped at a lab specializing in splicing superfine sections of frog embryos and obtained a package of samples to be used for research. As she passed through a U.S. Customs and Border Protection checkpoint in Boston Logan International Airport, Petrova was questioned about the samples. Petrova told The Associated Press in an interview last month that she did not realize the items needed to be declared and was not trying to sneak in anything. After an interrogation, Petrova was told her visa was being canceled. Romanovsky said Customs and Border Protection officials had no legal basis for canceling Kseniia’s visa and detaining her. The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement on the social platform X that Petrova was detained after "lying to federal officers about carrying substances into the country." They allege messages on her phone "revealed she planned to smuggle the materials through customs without declaring them."

Washington Post [5/17/2025 3:51 AM, Martin Weil, 32099K] reports the recent seizure in Baltimore of 200 pounds of marijuana in air cargo appeared to be an example of how the economic law of supply and demand may sometimes conflict with the laws adopted and enforced by the U.S. government, according to a statement from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The alleged stash of hash, bound for Belgium and seized April 29, was in 155 vacuum-sealed packages “manifested as ‘brace overalls for men / heavy duty workwear bib,’” the agency said. Some states have decriminalized marijuana for medical and recreational use, CBP noted. However, "bulk smuggling remains illegal," it said, adding that "federal law prohibits transporting marijuana across state lines or exporting it from the United States.” CBP indicated that the seizure may have stemmed from a possible effort to benefit from a stronger market for marijuana overseas than in the United States. "Smugglers, including transnational criminal organizations, based in oversaturated marijuana markets attempt to generate revenue by illegally exporting bulk shipments to markets across the globe," said Jason Kropiewnicki, CBP’s acting area port director for the Area Port of Baltimore. Customs officers are still seeing "a continuing trend of transnational criminal organizations attempting to ship United States-based marijuana to Europe and Africa where high-quality weed can fetch huge profits," the agency said in its statement. The quantity of marijuana involved had a U.S. street value of about $875,000, but depending on potency, it "could have fetched two to three times more" elsewhere, CBP added. No information was provided about who was shipping the seized material overseas or for what purpose. It was not clear whether any overalls or any other kinds of workwear were actually found in the sealed bags, or why the contents were designated as overalls. It was not clear what led CBP to the sealed bags.

(B) NBC News Daily [5/16/2025 1:25 PM, Staff] reports Coral Gables, Florida, is one of the latest targets for human smugglers. Police say Chinese nationals are being smuggled into the US through Coral Gables. The Coral Gables Police chief says smuggling is not new here. The chief says it was residents who tipped police off to the suspicious activity. His department is working with agencies including Border Patrol and the US Coast Guard. This route is more desirable now that the Trump administration has cracked down on crossings at the southwest border. Since incidents in January, Coral Gables Police say they have ramped up water patrols.

Washington Examiner [5/16/2025 1:17 PM, Staff, 2296K] reports that Texas Republicans in the U.S. Senate and House have filed a bill to establish funds for the federal government to reimburse Texas and other states for border security operations. U.S. Sen. John Cornyn filed the State Border Security Assistance Act on Thursday; Sen. Ted Cruz is a cosponsor. U.S. Rep. Chip Roy filed companion legislation in the House. "For four years, Governor Abbott and Texas taxpayers were forced to bear the brunt of the Biden-Harris border crisis," Cornyn said. His bill will "reimburse Texas for its historic efforts to secure the southern border" when "the Biden-Harris administration abdicated its federal duty." The Texas legislature allocated more than $11.6 billion to fund Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security mission, Operation Lone Star, which he created in 2021 in response to Biden administration policies that opened a floodgate of illegal border crossers into Texas and the U.S. Through OLS, Abbott constructed Texas’ first border wall and marine barrier system, surged National Guard and other resources to the Texas-Mexico border. He also created task forces to target cartel and gang violence stemming from the border crisis. Texas’ OLS budget totals more than multiple state fiscal year budgets and more than what the first Trump administration allocated to federal border security efforts in Texas, The Center Square first reported. Federal appropriations for border security in Texas during the first Trump administration totaled $1.6 billion, state Rep. Greg Bonnen, R-Friendswood, who helped craft Texas’ budget to fund OLS, said.

(B) CBS Mornings [5/16/2025 8:57 AM, Staff] reports Senator John Cornyn is introducing legislation to reimburse the Texas government for border security spending. The legislation seeks more than $11 billion to reimburse costs of Governor Abbott’s Operation Lone Star initiative. That initiative deployed the Texas National Guard and Texas DPS to the border for enforcement during the Biden administration. Cornyn says he hopes Texas will see the reimbursement by the end of July.

Breitbart [5/16/2025 10:57 AM, Bob Price, 2923K] reports U.S. Border Patrol agents and Mexican state police teamed up to destroy a cartel smuggling observation post near Nogales, Arizona. Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks posted a report on social media showing the incineration of a smuggler’s surveillance site. The site was located on a mountain near Nogales. "ANOTHER CARTEL LOOKOUT SITE INCINERATED!," Banks wrote. "This is another blow to transnational criminal organizations attempting to monitor and evade border security efforts.” Banks said the post was equipped with equipment to spy on Border Patrol and other law enforcement activity in the area. Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles Project reported this week that cartels are increasingly utilizing drones to carry out border surveillance activities. Cartel Chronicles journalist "Diego Cervantes" wrote: Walkie-talkie radios, cell phones, and binoculars, once a critical tool for low-level cartel lookouts stationed in strategic locations to spy on Military, Law Enforcement, and rival cartel movements, are being replaced by drones. The drones, which the cartels can purchase inexpensively online, have evolved to be the preferred method to inform and guide cartel movements after many of the lookouts have been identified, located, and picked up by rival cartels who could easily spot the delinquents. Rival cartel members are now hunting down suspected lookouts loitering on street corners and park benches, sending texts through their phones. It is an automatic indictment on the unsuspecting youths if they are unfortunate enough to be caught holding a walkie-talkie radio.

San Diego Union Tribune [5/16/2025 3:44 PM, Christian Martinez, 1611K] reports Cal Fire personnel rescued three people Friday who were trapped in a drainage pipe underneath the U.S.-Mexico border wall near Otay Mesa, agency officials said. The fire agency received a report of people trapped around 7:45 a.m. near an area known as Tin Can Canyon, said Cal Fire Capt. Mike Cornette. The three people had become trapped due to razor wire blocking one of the pipe’s outlets, Cornette said. Fire personnel cut through the wire to extricate the three people from the pipe by 9 a.m. The people were then handed over to Border Patrol agents. No major injuries were reported.

Axios [5/16/2025 2:29 PM, Esteban L. Hernandez, 13163K] reports that Denver joined Chicago and Pima County, Arizona, in a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its move to revoke FEMA funding, the city announced Friday. Why it matters: It’s the latest way Denver is challenging President Trump’s policies, which are targeting cities like Denver that aren’t complying with the administration’s immigration plans. Denver bars its policing department from working with federal immigration authorities in most cases. Context: The city claims the administration’s move is unconstitutional and overrides Congressional constitutional authority. The administration rescinded $24 million in federal grants for the city’s migrant response, which city officials confirmed in April, Catch up quick: Congress has appropriated money for reimbursing cities and states for costs to support migrants since Trump’s first administration. Their arrival in Denver — roughly 43,000 since 2022 — left the city scrambling to gather resources for people, and the city relied on federal money to provide them with services, including sheltering. The federal program, called the Shelter and Services Program, pays back cities for the services "necessitated by the federal government’s immigration policies," per a statement from the city. Between the lines: The lawsuit names U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Acting Administrator of the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency David Richardson.

The Hill [5/16/2025 3:37 PM, Rachel Frazin, 18649K] reports the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is "not ready" for hurricane season, which starts June 1, an internal document warns as President Trump eyes eliminating the department entirely. Internal slides obtained by The Hill state that, "As FEMA transforms to a smaller footprint, the intent for this hurricane season is not well understood, thus FEMA is not ready." The slides also state that per a hurricane season 2025 assessment, "resources are reduced" and the "quality of people lost cannot be replaced right away." And it says the routine readiness process "has been derailed this year due to other activities like staffing and contracts." The agency has become a major target of the Trump administration, with the president and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem expressing interest in axing it. NewsNation [5/16/2025 1:25 PM, Rich McHugh and Sean Noone, 6866K] reports that the loss of key staff and low morale at the Federal Emergency Management Agency have derailed the agency’s planning or the June 1 start of hurricane season, according to an internal document obtained by Reuters. The agency chief said on Thursday that FEMA is well prepared. The agency has lost 2,000 full-time staffers, or roughly one-third of its total, to terminations and voluntary incentives as part of an effort by President Donald Trump to slash the size and cost of the federal bureaucracy. The internal document underscores potential challenges facing the agency, including possible issues with morale, a lack of coordination with states and resource constraints as it prepares for the start of hurricane season. Trump and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have called for the disaster relief agency to turn over much of its work to states while also floating the idea of abolishing it. FEMA is part of DHS. The concerns about morale and staffing were included in a 19-page slide deck titled "Hurricane Readiness Complex Problem Solving" and were prepared for acting FEMA Administrator David Richardson to use in a meeting with agency leaders, according to a person with knowledge of the matter and a statement from a DHS official. Some Senate Republicans are unsettled by the Trump administration’s decision to fire Cameron Hamilton, acting director of FEMA, for speaking out against Trump’s plan to shutter the agency.

(B) Good Day Alabama 7a [5/16/2025 8:39 AM, Staff] reports that an internal review of FEMA shows that it is not prepared to respond to hurricane season. On the call between FEMA’s acting director and staff, he said FEMA’s readiness process for hurricane season has been derailed this year due to other activities like staffing and contracts. This has slowed efforts to get a well-coordinated response and could slow response to emergencies.

The Hill [5/16/2025 6:00 AM, Alexander Bolton, 12829K] reports Senate Republicans are unsettled by the Trump administration’s decision to fire Cameron Hamilton, the acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), for speaking out against Trump’s plan to shutter the agency. Hamilton testified to lawmakers on the House Appropriations Committee earlier this month that closing FEMA would not be in the best interest of the American people. The next day he was escorted out of FEMA’s headquarters after losing his job. The swift retaliation against an administration official over testimony before a congressional panel is jarring to Republican lawmakers, who worry that it could chill the willingness of officials to answer questions candidly at future hearings. And the move signals that the president is serious about eliminating FEMA, something that many Republican senators strongly oppose. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), whose home state was hit hard by Hurricane Helene in September, said it was a mistake to fire Hamilton over his testimony. "I think so," he said. "I think he was giving his honest opinion and in some respects he had an obligation to do that because he was under oath.” CBS News reported last week that Department of Homeland Security senior advisor Corey Lewandowski and Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Troy Edgar fired Hamilton after an in-person meeting at department headquarters. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that her understanding of the matter was that Hamilton "testified saying something that was contrary to what the president believes." Some Republican lawmakers were surprised by the harshness of the punishment.

The AP [5/16/2025 1:36 PM, Corey Williams, 48304K] reports storms accompanied by deep, booming thunder, lightning displays and powerful winds swept through parts of Wisconsin, Illinois, northern Indiana and Michigan overnight — leaving scores of trees down and thousands of homes without power. The National Weather Service issued tornado warnings and watches across the region Thursday night into early Friday morning. Two tornadoes reportedly touched down in central Wisconsin. No injuries have been reported. Surveys were underway Friday of damage in Michigan to determine if any tornadoes touched down there, according to Steven Freitag, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in White Lake Township, northwest of Detroit. The storms were fueled by temperatures in the lower 80s that stretched from Illinois into Michigan and were activated by a cold front that pushed through, Freitag said. A wind gust of 76 mph (122 kph) was reported Thursday night in Battle Creek, Michigan, while Grand Haven, Michigan, recorded a gust of 68 mph (109 kph). The storms lost their intensity as they moved further east, Freitag added. Indiana Michigan Power, which services parts of northern Indiana and southwestern Michigan, reported Friday morning that more than 31,000 homes and businesses were without electricity. That includes about 90% of the utility’s southwestern Michigan customers. The storms initially knocked out power to 35,000 customers. Damage included downed trees and power lines, and broken utility poles. About 216,000 Consumers Energy customers in Michigan also lost power. ABC News [5/16/2025 1:25 PM, Nadine El-Bawab and Kenton Gewecke, 34586K] reports that strong supercell storms that slammed Missouri on Friday are spreading east into Illinois and Kentucky, bringing the risk of a severe weather outbreak through the night. A tornado watch covers Indianapolis; Louisville, Kentucky; and Carbondale, Illinois, among other cities through 10 p.m. Central Time. Several tornadoes are possible, including some high-end, long-track twisters. There is also a risk of huge hail -- up to 2.5 inches -- and widespread damaging wind gusts up to 80 mph. In addition, there are severe thunderstorm watches and warnings in Mid-Atlantic area, including Virginia, the D.C. area and up to Pittsburgh, with some strong storms bringing powerful gusts up to 80 mph in some cases. Overall, 90 million people are at risk for severe weather. More than 400,000 customers are without power on Friday afternoon, including over 200,000 in Michigan and 100,000 in Missouri, with severe weather moving through the Midwest. Severe storms and a possible tornado blew through St. Louis on Friday afternoon and dumped large hail on Missouri’s St. Charles County. There was a moderate risk -- level 4 of 5 -- for significantly severe storms Friday, from southeast Missouri through southern Illinois, western and central Kentucky and southern Indiana. Storms are expected to reach Indianapolis around 7 p.m. The storms are then expected to hit Cincinnati; Louisville, Kentucky; and Jonesboro, Arkansas, at 8 p.m. CT before hitting Memphis, Tennessee, at 9 p.m. They will reach Nashville, Tennessee, from 10 to 11 p.m. [Editorial note: consult video at source link] The Washington Post [5/16/2025 10:54 AM, Matthew Cappucci and Ian Livingston, 31735K] reports that the thunderstorms are shifting southeast Friday. Cities that may see serious tornadoes and wind include St. Louis; Paducah, Kentucky; Louisville; Evansville, Indiana; Indianapolis; and Nashville. An overlapping flood concern could also develop. Portions of the same region are under a slight (Level 2 of 4 risk) for flooding, including much of Kentucky and parts of Tennessee.

AP [5/17/2025 7:40 AM, Corey Williams, Michael Phillis and John Hanna, 3077K] reports storm systems sweeping across the Midwest have left at least 16 dead, including nine people killed after a tornado sparked a mass casualty event in southeastern Kentucky. Kentucky authorities said there were also severe injuries when a twister tore across Laurel County late Friday. “The search is continuing in the damaged area for survivors,” the office of Sheriff John Root said in a statement posted on social media. In Missouri, meanwhile, at least seven people died and authorities were searching from building to building for people who were trapped or hurt after severe storms including at least one possible tornado. The storms were part of a severe weather system Friday that also spawned tornadoes in Wisconsin, left several hundred thousand customers without power in the Great Lakes region and brought a punishing heat wave to Texas. In Missouri, the storms Friday afternoon tore roofs off buildings, blew out windows, ripped bricks off siding and yanked up trees and power lines. St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer confirmed five deaths in her city and said more than 5,000 homes were affected. “This is truly, truly devastating,” Spencer said, adding that the city was in the process of declaring an emergency and an overnight curfew Friday had been put into place in the neighborhoods with the most damage. The number of people injured was not immediately known. Barnes-Jewish Hospital received 20 to 30 patients from the storm with some in serious condition and most expected to be discharged by Friday night, according to hospital spokesperson Laura High. St. Louis Children’s Hospital received 15 patients with two of them expected to remain in the hospital into the weekend, she said. National Weather Service radar indicated a tornado touched down between 2:30 p.m. and 2:50 p.m. in Clayton, Missouri, in the St. Louis area. The apparent tornado touched down in the area of Forest Park, home to the St. Louis Zoo and the site of the 1904 World’s Fair and Olympic Games the same year. At Centennial Christian Church, City of St. Louis Fire Department Battalion Chief William Pollihan told The Associated Press that three people had to be rescued after part of the church crumbled. One of those people died. Downed trees and stop lights also caused traffic gridlock during the Friday afternoon commute and officials urged people to stay home. The upper stories of the Harlem Taproom’s brick building were demolished when the storm came through, leaving piles of bricks around the outside. About 20 people were inside, but they huddled in the back of the building and none were hurt, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. John Randle, a 19-year-old University of Missouri-St. Louis student, said he and his girlfriend were at the St. Louis Art Museum during the storm and were hustled into the basement with about 150 other people. They could hear tree branches and hail hitting the building’s windows and Randle went up a flight of stairs to the main entrance for about 10 seconds, he said. “You could see the doors flying open, tree branches flying by and people running,” he said. “A lot of people were caught outside.”

NBC News [5/16/2025 10:40 PM, Dennis Romero, 44540K] reports at least four people were killed when severe weather, including two possible tornadoes, swept through St. Louis, Missouri, on Friday afternoon, authorities said. Mayor Cara Spencer announced the fatalities during a news conference. She said two of the dead were killed in North City, were a vortex was reported. Fire Chief Dennis Jenkerson said severe weather hit about 20 square blocks of the city. St. Louis police spokesperson Mitch McCoy said search-and-rescue operations were still underway Friday night with the help of the Missouri State Highway Patrol and surrounding county first responders. "It’s all hands on deck to rescue as many people as we can and save lives," he told NBC affiliate KSDK of St. Louis. The tornado was reported after 2:30 p.m. in the city near Forest Park and moving east toward Granite City, Illinois, said National Weather Service meteorologist Marshall Pfahler. Its force level is unlikely to be known until Saturday when weather service spotters are able to get to the scene and measure damage, tracks and other elements of the vortex, he said. KSDK reported that it may have been one of two tornadoes to touch down in the region on Friday. The National Weather Service confirmed that it was working to confirm a second reported tornado in the region. A spokesperson for St. Louis Children’s Hospital said it has received 10 patients with weather-related injuries, one of whom is in critical condition. The others were reported in fair condition. Parents were reuniting with at least some of the patients late Friday afternoon, the spokesperson said. KSDK reported a man was rescued from the rubble of a home after an hourslong operation. The residence was most likely smashed by one of the two possible tornadoes or the severe weather’s associated potent winds in the area Friday, the station said. "Considering the building collapsed on him, he’s doing great," a fire official said after the man was pulled out.

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Los Angeles Times [5/17/2025 12:03 AM, Michael Phillis, Corey Williams and John Hanna, 14672K]
Telemundo [5/17/2025 1:01 AM, Dennis Romero, 37K]

Reuters [5/16/2025 535 PM, Staff, 51390K] reports the United States has issued emergency orders to address "critical grid security issues and improve grid resiliency" in Puerto Rico, the Energy Department said in a statement on Friday. The DOE also said it would review $365 million in funding from the Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund to make sure all assistance "is used to support practical fixes to the grid and benefits all residents of Puerto Rico." The orders will unlock emergency protocols to address immediate programs, according to the statement.

The New York Times [5/16/2025 11:19 PM, Eileen Sullivan and Michael S. Schmidt, 138952K] reports the Secret Service questioned James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, on Friday about a social media post he made that Mr. Trump’s cabinet officials and allies claimed amounted to a call for Mr. Trump’s assassination, according to a law enforcement official. The Secret Service sought the interview after Mr. Comey posted a photo on Thursday of seashells on a beach forming the numbers “86 47,” a phrase used by Mr. Trump’s critics at protests, and on signs and clothing. “Eighty-six,” according to Merriam-Webster, is an old slang term meaning to dismiss or remove. Shortly after Mr. Comey made the post, Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, said the Secret Service, which falls under her department, was investigating it. Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, said on Fox News that Mr. Comey should be jailed. The interview is said to have taken place at a Secret Service office in Washington. Mr. Comey is said to have voluntarily consented to the interview, the official said, and was driven to the interview by Secret Service agents. Mr. Comey deleted the Instagram post after it generated heated criticism, saying, “I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.” Critics of Mr. Trump’s administration have said that his officials have blown Mr. Comey’s post out of proportion and are using it as an excuse to harass one of Mr. Trump’s perceived enemies. Mr. Comey returned home after the completion of the questioning on Friday night. The Service Service investigates multiple threats a day to people it protects, but it is uncommon for senior administration officials like Ms. Noem and Ms. Gabbard to comment publicly. In an interview with Bret Baier of Fox News that was broadcast on Friday, Mr. Trump — the target of two assassination attempts last year — said he believed that Mr. Comey was calling for him to be killed. “He knew exactly what that meant,” Mr. Trump said. “A child knows what that meant. If you’re the F.B.I. director and you don’t know what that meant, that meant assassination. And it says it loud and clear.” Asked what should happen to Mr. Comey, Mr. Trump replied that it should be up to Attorney General Pam Bondi. NBC News [5/16/2025 11:44 PM, Laura Strickler, Tom Winter, Sarah Fitzpatrick and Didi Martinez, 44540K] reports "Today, federal agents from @SecretService interviewed disgraced former FBI Director Comey regarding a social media post calling for the assassination of President Trump," DHS Secretary Kristi Noem posted on X Friday. "I will continue to take all measures necessary to ensure the protection of @POTUS Trump. This is an ongoing investigation.” A lawyer for Comey declined to comment. Comey, a longtime Trump critic, deleted the photo — which showed seashells arranged in the shape of "8647"— within hours. He said it was a political message, not a violent one. "I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence," Comey wrote on Instagram. "It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.” In an interview with Fox News on Friday, Trump said that he believes Comey "knew exactly what he meant.” "A child knows what that meant... that meant ‘assassination,’" Trump said. "And it says it loud and clear. He wasn’t very competent, but he was competent enough to know what that meant.” Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said on Thursday that Comey should be jailed. "I’m very concerned for the president’s life; we’ve already seen assassination attempts," Gabbard said on Fox News. "I’m very concerned for his life and James Comey, in my view, should be held accountable and put behind bars for this.” Trump survived two assassination attempts during the 2024 campaign. In July, he was wounded in the ear at a campaign rally in Butler, PA, after a gunman shot at him from a nearby rooftop before being killed by Secret Service snipers. Two months later, a man aimed a rifle at Trump’s security detail while he was golfing in Florida. The man fled, was arrested and charged with attempting to assassinate a presidential candidate. CNN [5/16/2025 7:13 PM, John Miller and Holmes Lybrand, 21433K] reports "The Secret Service vigorously investigates anything that can be taken as a potential threat against our protectees," Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement to CNN. "We are aware of the social media posts by the former FBI Director and we take rhetoric like this very seriously. Beyond that, we do not comment on protective intelligence matters.” Legally speaking, prosecuting Comey may be fruitless as any legal action would stand little chance, especially after a recent Supreme Court decision regarding threats and among a judiciary that has expanded free speech rights in recent years, legal experts say. A Secret Service source familiar with the investigation told CNN that under normal circumstances, such a post wouldn’t warrant a full-fledged investigation but under the current political climate will likely get more attention. Such an investigation, the source said, would serve as a distraction for agents in an organization already stretched thin.

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New York Post [5/16/2025 5:48 PM, Samuel Chamberlain, Josh Christenson and Joe Marino, 49956K]
Reuters [5/16/2025 8:32 PM, Daniel Trotta and Doina Chiacu, 41523K]
AP [5/16/2025 10:04 PM, Rebecca Santana and Eric Tucker, 56000K]
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CNN [5/16/2025 6:30 PM, John Branch, 21433K] Video: HERE reports former FBI Director James Comey was escorted by US Secret Service agents to their Washington Field Office on Friday afternoon for an interview, according to law enforcement sources. Comey will be interviewed by agents investigating a social media post he posted Thursday showing shells in the sand on a beach spelling out "86 47," which has become a popular social media code for removing Trump from the presidency, according to the law enforcement source.

NBC News [5/16/2025 7:09 PM, Staff, 44540K] Video: HERE reports a law enforcement official tells NBC News that former FBI Director James Comey will be interviewed in person by the Secret Service regarding his social media post about President Trump. Trump allies said the post called for the assassination of the president. Comey said, "I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down." NBC News’ Gabe Gutierrez reports.

Wall Street Journal [5/16/2025 6:43 PM, Sadie Gurman, 646K] reports James Comey’s active presence on social media has been unusual for a former FBI director. On Thursday, it landed him in a pickle. In an Instagram post, Comey wrote “cool shell formation on my beach walk,” under a photo of seashells arranged in the numbers “86 47.” Trump officials pounced, accusing Comey of calling for President Trump’s assassination, as “86” is old-time slang for “get rid of” and Trump is the 47th president. Comey later said he didn’t realize the numbers could be associated with violence and took the post down, but not before drawing the attention of the Secret Service and spurring Republican calls for his arrest. Secret Service agents were questioning Comey Friday night at their Washington office, a law-enforcement official said. Comey voluntarily submitted to the interview, the official said. “It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind,” said Comey, whose long career in law enforcement included investigations of organized crime and the Italian Mafia as a federal prosecutor in Manhattan. “He knew exactly what that meant,” Trump fired back Friday on Fox News, adding that he would leave it to Attorney General Pam Bondi to decide whether to pursue Comey, a case current and former prosecutors said would be difficult to bring and even harder to prove in court. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.

NPR [5/16/2025 1:54 PM, Rachel Treisman, 29983K] reports that the Trump administration is investigating former FBI Director James Comey over a social media post that some government officials and supporters of President Trump are interpreting as a threat to the president. On Thursday, Comey shared a picture on Instagram of seashells on a beach arranged into the numbers "8647." The caption read: "Cool shell formation on my beach walk." "Eighty-six" is a slang term that means "get rid of," and Trump is the 47th (and 45th) president of the United States. According to Merriam-Webster, the most common meaning of 86 — which has its roots in the service industry — is to "throw out" or "refuse service to" a customer. The dictionary notes that the term has also come to mean "to kill." But the dictionary says it does not include this meaning in the official entry "due to its relative recency and sparseness of use." The post sparked uproar among some Republicans, who suggested Comey was threatening the president. Donald Trump Jr. accused him of "calling for my dad to be murdered.” But Comey, who deleted the photo within hours, said he assumed the shells were a "political message," not a violent one. It’s unclear who created the shell formation. The New York Post [5/16/2025 10:14 AM, Diana Glebova, 54903K] reports “He knew exactly what that meant. A child knows what that meant … That meant ‘assassination,’” Trump said in an interview with Bret Baier on Friday. Comey had posted a picture Thursday of seashells formed in the shape of “86 47” — a message that could be interpreted as “eliminating” him, since he’s the 47th president. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem promptly said the “threat” was being investigated by DHS and the Secret Service. “He’s calling for the assassination of the president,” Trump said after the Comey photo drew major backlash from the president’s allies. “He’s a dirty cop,” Trump said of Comey — adding that Comey’s fate will be decided by Attorney General Pam Bondi, but that he thinks there should be no leniency. “This is deeply concerning to all of us and is being taken seriously,” Trump deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich wrote on X.

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DailySignal [5/16/2025 12:05 PM, Al Perotta, 495K]
Federalist [5/16/2025 11:59 AM, Brianna Lyman, 1033K]
(B) Today [5/16/2025 10:17 AM, Staff]

Washington Examiner [5/16/2025 10:30 AM, Byron York, 2296K] reports COMEY, TRUMP, AND "8647." There has been a certain escalatory logic in the resistance to Donald Trump’s rise to the presidency. In the very beginning, when few took him seriously, they laughed at him. Then they tried to defeat him in the 2016 election. Then, some frantically searched for a way to prevent him from taking office. Meanwhile, U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies spied on his campaign and opened an investigation into him. Then, they hoped the investigation would lead to impeachment, which would then lead to his removal. Then, when the Trump-Russia investigation conducted by former Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller went bust, they turned on a dime and impeached Trump for something else. Then, after Trump left office — he departed still awaiting trial on a second impeachment — a Democratic attorney general in New York filed a lawsuit to destroy his business empire. Then, a Democratic prosecutor in New York filed criminal charges over his businesses. Then, a Democratic prosecutor in Georgia indicted him over the 2020 election. Then, a prosecutor appointed by his successor’s administration indicted him twice, once over the 2020 election and once for his handling of classified information. Trump’s adversaries dearly hoped the legal attacks, known as lawfare, would work — and by "work," they meant prevent him from becoming president again. But they didn’t work, and Trump was elected again in 2024. That brings the story to James Comey. In early 2017, when he was head of the FBI and when Trump was president-elect, Comey ambushed Trump with the false story that Trump watched, and was recorded on videotape, as prostitutes performed a kinky sex act in 2013 in a hotel room in Moscow. Comey worried, with good reason, that Trump would think he was "pulling a J. Edgar Hoover" on him. Indeed, that is exactly what Trump thought, after getting over his initial surprise. The Trump-Comey relationship went downhill from there, and Trump fired Comey in May 2017. Since then, Comey has been a pretty open resistance sympathizer. On Thursday, Comey posted a picture on social media of shells arranged on a beach to make the number "8647." Comey wrote, "Cool shell formation on my beach walk.” The "8647" formulation is a resistance thing — the "86" being slang for dump, get rid of, or kill, and the "47" being Trump, the 47th president. In Trump’s first term, when he was the 45th president, resistance types liked "8645." Back then, you could buy stickers and other stuff printed with "8645" on Amazon. There is a picture on social media of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) with an "8645" sign on her desk. Now, people can do the same thing with "8647."

Breitbart [5/16/2025 10:35 AM, Simon Kent, 3077K] reports disgraced former FBI Director James Comey has disabled comments on his Instagram account after a post that called to "86 47," which some interpreted as a violent threat to "take out" President Donald Trump. As Breitbart News reported, Comey initially shared a photo of a shell formation on the beach appearing as "86 47" – 86 possibly meaning "eliminate" and 47 potentially meaning Trump. While the phrase "86" does not inherently mean violence – it allegedly originated as a restaurant term – people immediately criticized the post for tangentially implying violence, and Comey deleted it as a result. "I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message. I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down," he wrote in a later post “To be sure, while Comey may have professed ignorance over his comment, others were not. Step forward Donald Trump. He knew exactly what the "86 47" comment meant and signified. Now it is not only the post that is missing with only a (semi)-contrite admission of a mistake left for the world to see.

FOX News [5/16/2025 9:49 PM, Madison Colombo, 46878K] reports President Donald Trump is condemning a cryptic social media post from former FBI Director James Comey, which Trump and others interpreted as a veiled call for his assassination. In an exclusive interview with Fox News chief political anchor Bret Baier during a visit to Abu Dhabi, Trump said the now-deleted post, which showed seashells arranged to form the numbers "86 47," was deliberate. "He wasn’t very competent. But he was competent enough to know what that meant. And, he did it for a reason," Trump said in an interview that aired Friday on "Special Report." The post, shared on Instagram, featured the caption, "Cool shell formation on my beach walk." Some interpreted it as a coded message, with "86" being slang for "get rid of," and "47" referring to Trump, who is the 47th president of the United States. Comey later deleted the post and issued an apology, saying, "I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down." Trump, however, is not convinced. "He knew exactly what that meant. A child knows what that meant," he said. "If you’re the FBI director, and you don’t know what that meant – that meant assassination, and it says it loud and clear." When asked whether Comey should face consequences, Trump declined to give a definitive answer but said the Justice Department and U.S. Secret Service are investigating. "If he had a clean history – he doesn’t, he’s a dirty cop … I could understand if there was a leniency. But I’m going to let them make that decision," he said. Trump also used the interview to highlight recent foreign policy developments, claiming success in brokering peace and securing economic deals in the Middle East. "I’m using trade to settle scores and to make peace," Trump said. He pointed to a recent ceasefire agreement between India and Pakistan, calling it a major breakthrough that averted what he claimed was the potential for nuclear war. "That was going to be a nuclear war, I think, or close … And now everyone’s happy," Trump said. "In fact, I told my people, call them up, let’s start trading immediately."

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The Hill [5/16/2025 9:25 AM, Alex Gangitano, 12829K] Video HERE
NewsMax [5/16/2025 11:11 AM, Sandy Fitzgerald, 4998K]
Washington Examiner [5/16/2025 10:08 AM, Brady Knox, 2296K]

ABC News [5/16/2025 11:37 AM, Kelsey Walsh, Luke Barr, and Ivan Pereira, 34586K] Video HERE reports President Donald Trump lashed out Friday against ex-FBI Director James Comey over an Instagram post that contained an image that top Trump officials claimed was a threat. In a now-deleted Instagram post, Comey showed a photo of "8647" written in seashells in sand, with the caption "Cool shell formation on my beach walk." Some far-right allies of Trump, including Laura Loomer, have alleged that Comey is calling for violence against the president. Comey says he figured the message in the shells’ placement was political, but said he didn’t realize it called for violence against Trump. "It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind," Comey said in another post on Instagram. Trump, however, in an interview except aired Friday, told Fox News’ "Special Report with Bret Baier" that he doesn’t buy Comey’s explanation. "He knew exactly what that meant. A child knows what that meant. If you’re the FBI director and you don’t know what that meant, that meant assassination," the president said. The president did not take a position on whether Comey, whom he labeled a "dirty cop," should be investigated, saying he would defer to Attorney General Pam Bondi. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Thursday in an X post that the U.S. Secret Service is looking into Comey’s post. "Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey just called for the assassination of @POTUS Trump," she said. A spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service said the agency is aware of the posts and it takes "rhetoric like this very seriously." FBI Director Kash Patel also said he was aware of the post and was providing support to Noem’s efforts. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard called for Comey to be imprisoned. "Any other person with a position of influence that he has, people who take very seriously what a guy of his stature, his experience and what the propaganda media has built him up to be, I’m very concerned for the president’s life,” she told Fox News host Jesse Waters.

Blaze [5/16/2025 12:58 PM, Carlos Garcia, 1805K] reports that President Donald Trump said that former FBI Director James Comey "knew exactly what he was doing" when he posted a photo of seashells on the beach arranged to make a message many took as a threat. Comey posted on his Instagram account a photo of the message spelling "8647" but later deleted it and apologized after receiving massive backlash from critics online. He claimed that he did not intend to advocate for any violence. “Now, he wasn’t very competent, but he was competent enough to know what that meant, and he did it for a reason.” The president responded in an interview with Bret Baier on Fox News that will air in its entirety on Friday. "He knew exactly what that meant. A child knows what that meant. If you’re the FBI director and you don’t know what that meant? That meant assassination," said Trump. "And it says it loud and clear," Trump added. "Now, he wasn’t very competent, but he was competent enough to know what that meant, and he did it for a reason. And he was hit so hard because people like me, and they like what’s happening with our country. Our country’s become respected again. And he’s calling for the assassination of the president." Trump went on to say that any prosecution Comey might face would be up to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi. "I don’t want to take a position on it because it’s going to be up to Pam and all the great people," the president continued. "But I will say this: I think it’s a terrible thing. And when you add his history to that — if he had a clean history, he doesn’t. He’s a dirty cop. He’s a dirty cop. And if he had a clean history I could understand if there was a leniency, but I’m gonna let them make that decision."

FOX News [5/16/2025 10:30 AM, Staff, 46189K] reports President Trump fires back after a social media post by former FBI Director James Comey triggers a Secret Service investigation. Fox News’ Rich Edson and the ‘America’s Newsroom’ panel break down the fallout. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

CNN [5/16/2025 3:10 PM, Holmes Lybrand and John Fritze, 21433K] reports that the director of US intelligence voiced concern for President Donald Trump’s life after former FBI Director James Comey posted a picture of seashells writing out four numbers. The Secret Service is investigating. And the FBI is ready to provide support. But the end result could be little more than a stern warning for Comey, who infamously oversaw the agency during two separate and fruitless investigations into Trump and Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign. Legally speaking, prosecuting Comey may be fruitless as any legal action would stand little chance, especially after a recent Supreme Court decision regarding threats and among a judiciary that has expanded free speech rights in recent years, legal experts say. One source with knowledge of the Secret Service investigation told CNN that the investigation likely "ends" with Comey receiving a stern talking-to from law enforcement. On Thursday, the former FBI head posted a photo of the numbers "86 47" spelled out by shells on a beach he said he came across. Homeland Security Kristi Noem took to social media Thursday evening to announce the Secret Service would investigate Comey for what she said was a call "for the assassination" of Trump. Kash Patel, the head of the FBI, said the agency was standing by to assist. "The Secret Service vigorously investigates anything that can be taken as a potential threat against our protectees," Anthony Guglielmi, Chief of Communications for the U.S. Secret Service said in a statement Thursday. "We are aware of the social media posts by the former FBI director and we take rhetoric like this very seriously. Beyond that, we do not comment on protective intelligence matters."

DailySignal [5/16/2025 11:50 AM, Susan Crabtree, 495K] reports the Secret Service may try to force former FBI Director James Comey to answer pointed questions about a social media post he issued depicting an image of "8647," but a U.S. attorney whom President Donald Trump appointed will determine whether to prosecute Comey over the post. If Comey refuses to comply with their request for what’s known as a protective intelligence interview, the Secret Service leading the investigation into the Instagram post can apply for a subpoena through an assistant U.S. attorney. It’s that prosecutor who will determine whether the former FBI director is legally required to answer their questions and the full U.S. attorney in the office ultimately will decide whether to bring charges against him for threatening the president, Secret Service sources tell RealClearPolitics. As an attorney and former top law enforcement official in the nation, Comey is well aware that he can decline an interview without having an attorney present, so he may refuse to cooperate with Secret Service agents’ questioning until he can hire a lawyer to represent him. On the other hand, Comey could agree to demonstrate how open and transparent he is and immediately cooperate and sit down for an interview. Top law enforcement and intelligence officials on Thursday said they were investigating Comey’s viral social media post, which many Trump supporters viewed as a threat against the president. Just hours after Comey, who Trump fired in 2017, took down the post, claiming he was unaware the message has violent connotations, Homeland Security Department Secretary Kristi Noem announced that her agency and the Secret Service are investigating "this threat and will respond appropriately.” FBI Director Kash Patel and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard also weighed in, arguing that the FBI is ready to assist the Secret Service with "all necessary support," while Gabbard stressed that the administration and the Secret Service are taking the incident "very seriously.” "There has to be accountability for this," she told Fox News host Jesse Watters. "The Department of Homeland Security and Sean Curran, the current Secret Service director—a man who has been willing to lay down his life as the lead of President Trump’s Secret Service detail for years now—he takes this seriously and is leading the investigation into this threat.” The Secret Service, however, declined to disclose its exact activities. Asked if agents had already try to contact Comey or located him or had plans to do so, agency spokesman Anthony Guglielmi declined to specify.

New York Times [5/16/2025 7:15 PM, Karoun Demirjian and Pete Wells, 138952K] reports in promising to investigate James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, Trump administration officials pointed to his apparent reference to a slang term on Instagram, describing it as a call for the president’s assassination. Mr. Comey’s photo showed shells on a beach arranged to spell “86 47” with the caption: “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.” The “47” was presumed to refer to President Trump, the United States’ 47th president, and “86” is a term commonly used by restaurants to signify when they are out of a menu item, or by bars and in military and intelligence circles to throw something — or someone — out. But in some contexts, the term has evolved to mean something more sinister: to eliminate or kill. Still, Mr. Trump and his top advisers interpreted Mr. Comey’s post in that light, even though he subsequently asserted that he “didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence” and took down the initial photo. Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, wrote on social media that Mr. Comey had “just called for the assassination” of the president, and said that her department and the Secret Service had launched an investigation. In a separate post, Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, said his agency would “provide all necessary support.”

Reported similarly:
USA Today [5/16/2025 2:46, Melina Khan, 75858K]

The Hill [5/16/2025 7:41 AM, Filip Timotija, 12829K] Video HERE reports Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard accused former FBI Director James Comey of “issuing a hit” on President Trump late Thursday, arguing he should be “put behind bars” after posting a photo seen as threatening online. In his post on Instagram, which has since been deleted, Comey shared an image of seashells arranged to make up the numbers “8647.” “When we have two assassination attempts on the president’s life, when we have people who look to guys like Comey, [who have] been celebrated by MSNBC and the Democrat elite and CNN as the beacon of integrity, the law and order guy, the guy who would tell the truth no matter what the consequences, this is the guy who’s issuing a hit on President Trump, the president that the American people voted for,” Gabbard said Thursday on Fox News. “So, it’s guys like Comey and others who call the president the modern-day Nazi, people who are in positions of influence who are saying that President Trump poses an existential threat to our country,” she told host Jesse Watters. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accused him of calling for Trump’s “assassination” and added that federal law enforcement officials are probing the “threat.” Gabbard told Watters that Comey should be in jail and that she is “very concerned” for the president’s life. “We’ve already seen assassination attempts. I’m very concerned for his life,” she said. “And James Comey, in my view, should be held accountable and put behind bars for this.”

Breitbart [5/16/2025 6:16 PM, Olivia Rondeau, 3077K] reports Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton (R-AR) has formally asked FBI Director Kash Patel to investigate James Comey after the disgraced ex-FBI leader posted a cryptic message of "86 47" on social media, which some interpreted as a violent threat against President Donald Trump. Comey, who served as FBI director after being appointed by former President Barack Obama until he was fired by Trump in 2017, took to Instagram on Thursday to share a photo of seashells arranged to read "86 47": The number 86 is a common term used in the hospitality industry as well as in the military and intelligence communities, which can mean cancelling an order or to "kill, murder, or execute judicially," according to Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang. Comey deleted the post after receiving accusations that he was calling for the assassination of the president, and issued the following statement: "I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message. I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down," he wrote in another post. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed on X that DHS and the Secret Service are "investigating this threat and will respond appropriately."

The Hill [5/16/2025 6:21 PM, Elizabeth Crisp, 18649K] reports lawmakers on the House Republican Study Committee (RSC) have proposed a resolution that aims to block former FBI Director James Comey from ever taking a role in the federal government again because of a now-deleted social media post that read "8647.” Republicans, including President Trump, have interpreted Comey’s post of seashells on a beach on Thursday as a call to assassinate the 47th president. The proposed House GOP resolution "urges the relevant authorities to take every relevant action to ensure that [Comey] is never again permitted to serve as an employee of the federal government" and requests the Justice Department "conduct a full and comprehensive investigation … and release the findings of that investigation to the relevant House Committees and the public.” Comey, 64, has denied that the Instagram post was a call for Trump’s death and clarified in a follow-up statement that he "didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence.” "It never occurred to me, but I oppose violence of any kind so I took down the post," he wrote. But RSC Chair Rep. August Pfluger (Texas), one of the authors of the House resolution, called Comey’s social media post a "shocking betrayal of the trust once placed in him by the American people" and accused Comey of "the unthinkable: calling for violence against our Commander-in-Chief.” "That someone who once held one of our nation’s most sacred positions of law enforcement would incite such dangerous rhetoric is not just alarming — it’s disqualifying and un-American," Pfluger said in a statement. "This resolution demands the accountability and transparency the American people deserve, ensuring Comey never again holds a position of public trust.” A Secret Service spokesperson said in a statement that the agency will "vigorously investigate anything that can be taken as a potential threat against our protectees.” "We are aware of the social media posts by the former FBI Director and we take rhetoric like this very seriously. Beyond that, we do not comment on protective intelligence matters," the spokesperson said.

Reported similarly:
NewsMax [5/16/2025 8:24 PM, James Morley III, 4622K]

Fortune [5/16/2025 11:28 AM, Chris Morris, 22039K] reports that after having to abandon plans for a military parade in his first administration because of cost, President Donald Trump will get one next month, but it won’t be cheap. The June 14 parade will come with a price tag that falls between $25 million and $45 million, according to reports from both the Washington Post and Reuters, quoting an Army spokesperson. That’s less than the $92 million estimate officials came up with in 2018, but comes at a time when the Trump administration is making controversial cuts in the Department of Veterans Affairs and other areas of the military. The parade will involve hundreds of Army vehicles, thousands of soldiers, and dozens of warplanes. Service members will sleep in government office buildings, including the Agriculture Department and General Services Administration, for days as part of the prep for the showcase. The parade, officially, is meant to commemorate the Army’s 250th anniversary. It also happens to fall on Trump’s 79th birthday. Trump has wanted a military parade for most of the past decade, however, envisioning soldiers marching through Washington and tanks rolling down the city streets. The idea started in 2018, following his attendance of Bastille Day in Paris. He told aides on Air Force One on the trip home that he wanted to create a similar show of military force in the U.S.

USA Today [5/16/2025 2:54 PM, Nathan Diller, 75552K] reports a Carnival Cruise Line ship rescued five people from a small boat in distress this week. Carnival Paradise conducted the rescue south of Cabo San Antonio, Cuba on May 14, the company told USA TODAY in an emailed statement. The ship departed from Tampa, Florida, on May 12 for a Western Caribbean cruise and was between stops in Key West and Jamaica’s Montego Bay at the time, according to CruiseMapper. The U.S. Coast Guard was alerted, and the cruise line said, "A transfer will be coordinated." Following the rescue, the ship continued on its way to Jamaica.

Maritime Executive [5/16/2025 10:11 PM, Staff, 456K] reports the U.S. Coast Guard is reporting a successful conclusion to an intensive search and rescue mission that had been underway for four days after a small boat was reported overdue. The 47-foot vessel named Lucky Harvest was finally located more than 100 miles west/southwest of Guam. Authorities in the Northern Mariana Islands declared the vessel missing on Tuesday, May 13, after it failed to arrive in Saipan late on Monday. The cutter USCG Myrtle Hazard, which was on a patrol in the area, was diverted to a location approximately 38 miles northwest of Rota, which they believed was the vessel’s last known position. Early reports said there might have been some intermittent communication, but when no sign of the vessel was found, the USCG intensified the search. The Coast Guard reported by Wednesday that a U.S. Navy Knighthawk helicopter had also joined the search efforts along with a P-8 Poseidon aircraft. It was in addition to the USCG aircraft and vessel, a Saipan-based Department of Public Safety vessel, and the missing boat’s sister vessel.

HSToday [5/16/2025 6:16 AM, Staff, 38K] U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem will deliver the keynote address during graduation ceremonies at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy on Wednesday, May 21. The Secretary will congratulate the cadets, the newest generation of Coast Guard leaders, on their hard work and dedication. The 144th Commencement Exercises are scheduled to begin at 11:00 a.m. on Cadet Memorial Field. This event is not open to the public. Inclement weather plans call for the ceremony to be held in Leamy Hall Auditorium, where seating will be limited. “It will be an honor to speak at the United States Coast Guard Academy’s graduation ceremony and celebrate the class of 2025,” said Secretary Noem. “We will be welcoming these new officers at a critical moment in the history of the branch and our country. The Coast Guard plays a distinctive and irreplaceable role in securing our homeland, and that’s why President Trump and I are committed to revitalizing and modernizing this service branch for the 21st Century. I look forward to the ceremony.”

Maritime Executive [5/16/2025 9:18 PM, Staff, 456K] reports the U.S. Coast Guard is preparing to reduce its ranks among flag officers as the latest step in the Force Design initiative announced last month. According to a memo seen by USNI News, Acting Commandant Kevin Lundy reported the decision from Homeland Security to reduce the senior ranks among the service’s force. The memo reportedly says that “the Department of Homeland Security has determined that there is redundant executive oversight in our force which hinders effective decision making.” It reports that they have been ordered to reduce flag officer positions by at least 25 percent by the end of 2025, a move that would be consistent with similar efforts within the Department of Defense. USNI reports that there are a total of 46 flag officers in the USCG, 43 of whom are active and three on reserve duty. As such, that would mean that the reduction is targeting at least 12 officers. The memo also reports that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem canceled the results of the 2025 one-star admiral promotion board that would have elevated six Coast Guard captains to flag officers. All of this comes after Secretary Noem told an audience of USCG senior leaders, “You are the finest fighting force,” adding that “funding the Coast Guard is one of my top priorities.” During her address, she praised the service’s specialized expertise in controlling, securing, and defending America’s borders and maritime approaches, including U.S. ports and waterways.

Yahoo News [5/16/2025 5:07 PM, Maddie Paul, 59943K] reports the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to spend $50 million to buy a new jet for Secretary Kristi Noem. The new, long-range Gulfstream jet would be used by Noem, as well as top Coast Guard and DHS officials, according to national reports, and would replace a 20-year-old aircraft. The funding request first came up during a House appropriations subcommittee hearing on May 14. The funds would come from the Coast Guard’s 2025 fiscal budget. DHS oversees the Coast Guard. During the hearing, Democratic Representative Lauren Underwood from Illinois said she was “horrified” to receive the last minute addition to the spending plan, and also noted that Noem has another Gulfstream to use. Admiral Kevin Lunday, the acting commandant, also spoke during the hearing. He said the jet they want to replace is old and nearing the end of its service life.

Yahoo News [5/16/2025 8:41 PM, Sierra Rains, 59943K] reports the U.S. Coast Guard offloaded an estimated $140.9 million worth of illegal drugs at Port Everglades Friday. The drugs, which officials suspect were bound for the United States, were seized from six suspicious vessels stopped between April 12 and May 7 in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea. Altogether, the contraband amounted to nearly 19,055 pounds of cocaine and marijuana — 10,000 pounds of which was seized from a single fishing vessel stopped 1,200 miles west of the Canary Islands. Authorities said the drug activity was linked to multiple transnational criminal organizations, including Tren de Aragua, a gang with roots in Venezuela. The Coast Guard’s Calhoun crew was involved in almost all of the interdictions. “I’m incredibly proud of Calhoun’s role in continuing to disrupt the flow of illicit narcotics,” said Capt. Matthew Hammond, Calhoun’s commanding officer. “The Coast Guard and our partners work tirelessly to deny drug trafficking organizations access to smuggling routes bound for the United States and dismantle transnational criminal activity abroad, which threaten Americans here at home.”

NewsNation [5/16/2025 10:35 AM, Andrew Foran, 6866K] reports the United States Coast Guard is searching for a ship that may have sunk off the Oregon coast Thursday night, authorities said. According to the USCG, four or five flares were spotted from the shore about two miles off the coast of Cannon Beach. Crews searching the area found apparent debris in the water, officials said. The Oregonian [5/16/2025 3:17 PM, Tatum Todd, 3861K] reports that someone on shore saw four or five flares apparently being shot from the bow of the boat, Coast Guard spokesperson Lt. Chris Butters told The Oregonian/OregonLive. He said rescue crews later found debris in the water that they believe came from the boat. The debris included fiberglass, a seat cushion and a ketchup bottle, he said. Butters said the Coast Guard hasn’t determined what type of boat it is or how many people were on board at the time it apparently sank. The Coast Guard is still searching as of Friday morning, with boats, a helicopter and a plane, he said. Butters added that anyone taking a boat out on the ocean should take sensible measures to better their odds of being rescued in the event of an emergency. "We encourage everyone that goes out on the water to file a float plan," he said. "To say, ‘Hey if we don’t come back by a certain time, call the Coast Guard.’"

Yahoo News [5/16/2025 3:16 PM, Chrysnel Banzouzi, 59943K] reports a Kill Devil Hill fisherman’s body was found after he was reported overdue on Wednesday. A man and his dog went out fishing at the Oregon Inlet Fishing Center on Wednesday morning between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. He did not return home that evening and was reported overdue to the United States Coast Guard. The following morning, a local fisherman reported to the marine fisheries that a body had been found two-and-a-half miles off Oregon Inlet. The body was identified as 49-year-old Carlson “BJ” Johnson. Johnson was in a 19-foot Maycraft boat, which is a recreational fishing boat. His dog nor the vessel has been found.

DefenseScoop [5/16/2025 10:11 AM, Mark Pomperlaeu, 260K] renewed calls for severing the so-called dual-hat relationship between the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command received cold water on Capitol Hill Friday. Since Cybercom was created a decade ago, it has been co-located with NSA at Fort Meade, Maryland, and shared a leader. At the time, this made sense to help the nascent command grow, relying on the personnel, expertise and infrastructure of the high-tech intelligence agency. The arrangement was initially expected to be temporary. Severing the dual-hat has been one of the most hotly contested issues in cyber policy. Proponents believe the military can benefit from the unique intelligence insights and resources of NSA, leading to faster decision-making and operational outcomes. Opponents argue the roles of NSA director and Cybercom commander are too powerful for one person to hold and relying on the intelligence community’s tools — which are meant to stay undetected — for military activities poses risks to such espionage activity. At the end of the first Trump administration, officials made a last ditch effort to sever the dual-hat, but it ultimately was not brought to fruition. Press reports prior to Trump’s inauguration for his second term indicated the administration wanted to end the dual-hat relationship. There “is renewed speculation about the separation of the ‘dual-hat’ relationship between Cybecom and NSA, a construct that proves its value to our national security every minute of every day. This issue has been studied exhaustively but somehow there are still those who believe they know better,” Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies and Information Systems, said in opening remarks during a hearing Friday. “I’ve spoken to my colleagues on this panel and our friends in the Senate, and on a bipartisan and bicameral basis, the Armed Services Committees are strongly opposed to ending the dual-hat relationship. I want to take this opportunity to make very clear to the Department’s leadership that if they believe they have allies on this issue who sit on the Pentagon’s congressional oversight panels, they do not.”

Bloomberg [5/16/2025 12:30 PM, Jeff Stone, 16228K] reports that Following cybersecurity best practices doesn’t always protect against human greed. Scammers again proved that to be true by bribing Coinbase Global Inc. representatives based in India to steal customer data from the cryptocurrency company and then demanding a $20 million ransom. The fraudsters offered cash to the Coinbase customer representatives in exchange for users’ names, addresses, government ID images and other data, the company said Thursday. They then intended to use that illicitly obtained information to pose as Coinbase and dupe customers into giving up their crypto. Coinbase said it detected multiple instances of customer support agents gathering information about users that they didn’t need for their jobs. Then, on May 11, an unknown attacker emailed Coinbase to demand an extortion payment in exchange for not going public with the information. That’s when it became clear that the representatives were operating as part of the same scheme. Coinbase now expects to pay up to $400 million to resolve the incident, the company said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

CyberScoop [5/16/2025 1:07 PM, Matt Kapko] reports Coinbase responded to a security incident with combative measures Thursday after the company said cybercriminals bribed some of the cryptocurrency exchange’s international support staff to steal data on customers. The unnamed threat group stole personally identifiable information and other sensitive data on less than 1% of Coinbase’s monthly users, the company said in a blog post. The cybercriminals contacted customers under the guise of an employee at Coinbase in an attempt to dupe people into relinquishing their cryptocurrency. “They then tried to extort Coinbase for $20 million to cover this up. We said no,” the company said. Coinbase flipped the script as part of its response. “Instead of paying this $20 million ransom, we’re turning it around and we’re putting out a $20 million award for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of these attackers,” Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said in a video posted on X. “For these would-be extortionists, or anyone seeking to harm Coinbase customers, know that we will prosecute you and bring you to justice,” he added. The move from the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States is rare, but not entirely unprecedented, especially in the crypto space.

FedScoop [5/16/2025 4:08 PM, Matt Bracken, 56K] reports a top Senate Intelligence Democrat is warning the Office of Personnel Management against cancelling identity protection services that have been provided to current and former federal employees since their data was exposed in the massive 2015 OPM data breach. In a letter sent Friday to OPM acting Director Charles Ezell, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., expressed concerns about Department of Government Efficiency-instituted cuts to the personnel agency and plans that it may have to “curtail identity theft monitoring for millions of public servants and their families whose information was compromised in 2015.” “I urge you to ensure that identity theft protection services for the impacted individuals from the 2015 OPM breach continue, as required by law,” wrote Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The breach of OPM servers by Chinese-backed hackers rocked Washington and the federal workforce a decade ago, as the Social Security numbers, birthdates, addresses and other personal information of more than 21 million individuals were exposed. At the time, Warner, his Virginia Senate colleague Tim Kaine and then-Sens. Ben Cardin and Barbara Mikulski of Maryland co-sponsored the RECOVER Act to provide identity protection services to those impacted by the OPM breach.

Blaze [5/16/2025 2:50 PM, Paul Sacca, 1805K] reports that a Texas mother provided her 13-year-old son with ammunition and tactical gear despite the fact that he was exhibiting violent tendencies, according to court documents. Officers with the San Antonio Police Department on Monday arrested 33-year-old Ashley Pardo. She was charged with aiding in the commission of terrorism after she allegedly provided ammunition and tactical gear to her son. The boy described a ‘fascination with past mass shooters’ and their ‘manifestos,’ according to the affidavit. Pardo was released Tuesday on a bond of $75,000, according to jail records. In January, officials at Rhodes Middle School in San Antonio became concerned over the boy’s "violent expressions and drawings," according to an affidavit obtained by CBS News. The boy allegedly drew a map of the school that he attended and labeled it "suicide route." He also wrote the name of the school beside a rifle, the affidavit stated. However, his mother reportedly defended her boy’s alleged violent expressions. "It has been expressed to the defendant the concerns of her child’s expression and desire to commit acts of mass violence," the affidavit said of Pardo. "The defendant expressed to the school her support of (her son’s) violent expressions and drawings and does not feel concerned for his behavior."

USA Today [5/16/2025 12:09 PM, Staff, 75858K] reports that the New Jersey man convicted of stabbing and nearly killing renowned author Salman Rushdie during a speaking engagement in 2022, was handed a maximum sentence Friday of 25 years, plus five years of post-release supervision, for a second-degree attempted murder charge. Hadi Matar, 27, also received a concurrent sentence of seven years plus three years of post-release supervision for a second-degree assault charge. Matar has been remanded to the New York State Department of Corrections. Mater was apprehended on Aug. 12, 2022, after authorities say he rushed the stage of the Chautauqua Institution’s amphitheater and repeatedly stabbed Rushdie, 77, and injured entrepreneur Henry Reese, 75, who was on stage with the author. Matar was found guilty of second-degree attempted murder and second-degree assault after a two-week trial in February in Chautauqua County Court. Matar is also facing federal charges of attempting to provide material support to Hezbollah, a designated foreign terrorist organization; engaging in an act of terrorism transcending national boundaries; and providing material support to terrorists, according to a U.S. Justice Department news release. Chautauqua County Public Defender Nathaniel Barone, who is representing Matar in federal court, said he anticipates the trial to begin later this year or next year.

Reported similarly:
Breitbart [5/16/2025 12:44 PM, Staff, 2923K]
AP [5/16/2025 2:30 PM, Carolyn Thompson, 48304K]
Reuters [5/16/2025 12:02 PM, Staff, 41523K]
CBS News [5/16/2025 11:06 AM, Staff, 51661K]
FOX News [5/16/2025 1:14 PM, Alexandra Koch, 46189K]

FOX News [5/16/2025 10:37 AM, Peter D’Abrosca, 46189K] reports that the 20-year-old man accused of killing two and injuring six others in an April 17 mass shooting on Florida State University’s campus has been indicted by a grand jury. Phoenix Ikner was indicted on two counts of first-degree murder charges and seven counts of attempted first-degree murder with a firearm, according to WTXL ABC 27. The members of the grand jury reportedly described the shooting as "our community’s worst nightmare." Further details about the mass shooting were released in the indictment, including information about an FSU police officer who drove directly toward the danger on his motorcycle. That officer was identified as Cody Poppell, and the indictment reportedly said that he confronted Ikner amid the shooting and fired several shots at him, including one that struck him in the face. The grand jury also said that Ikner used a shotgun and .45 caliber pistol stolen from his parents’ home to terrorize the college campus. The deceased victims have been identified as Robert Morales and Tiru Chabba. Chabba’s family reportedly released a statement through their attorney following the indictment. "Our hope is that, through the thorough and transparent investigation and prosecution of the events surrounding last month’s shooting, today’s court appearance will mark the first steps toward closure for a family that suffered so much," the statement said.

AP [5/16/2025 6:37 PM, Staff, 24051K] reports a Mexican citizen will face charges related to providing material support to a terrorist organization for the first time for allegedly conspiring to traffic guns, grenades, drugs and migrants for a drug cartel, U.S. prosecutors said Friday. The cartel was recently designated a foreign terrorist organization. An indictment alleging the crimes by Maria Del Rosario Navarro Sanchez, a 39-year-old Mexican, was unsealed Friday in the Western district of Texas. It was not immediately clear if Navarro Sanchez had a lawyer. It came just days after an indictment was unsealed in San Diego against two alleged Mexican drug cartel leaders on narco-terrorism charges. Navarro Sanchez was arrested by Mexican authorities on May 4, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney General’s Office. Among the things found with her was a golden AR-15-style assault rifle. Prosecutors said Navarro Sanchez was assisting the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of Mexico’s most powerful and violent organized crime groups. She is alleged to have conspired to give the cartel grenades, buy guns for them, smuggle cash across the border and move drugs. Two men were also charged in the indictment, though not with providing material support to a terrorist organization. In February, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel was among eight Latin American criminal groups designated as foreign terrorist organizations the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. He had called for the move in an executive order signed in January. The “foreign terrorist organization” label is unusual because it deploys a terrorist designation normally reserved for groups like al-Qaida or the Islamic State group that use violence for political ends — not for money-focused crime rings such as the Latin American cartels. The Trump administration argues that the international connections and operations of the groups — including drug trafficking, migrant smuggling and violent pushes to extend their territory — warrant the designation. The Jalisco cartel was one of six Mexican organized crime groups to receive the designation. “The arrest of Maria del Rosario Navarro Sanchez should send a clear message to people who wish to align themselves with terrorist groups that they will be sought out and held to the highest extent of the law,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in the statement.

CBS News [5/16/2025 6:44 PM, Cara Tabachnick, 51860K] reports the U.S. Department of Justice charged a Mexican cartel member Friday, using a new terrorism designation for the first time – providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. Federal prosecutors unsealed the indictment in the Western District of Texas, alleging Maria Del Rosario Navarro-Sanchez, 39, provided grenades to Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG). President Trump, in February, signed an executive order designating CJNG and seven other cartels: Tren de Aragua, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), Cártel de Sinaloa, Cártel del Noreste (formerly Los Zetas), La Nueva Familia Michoacana, Cártel de Golfo (Gulf Cartel), and Cárteles Unidos as foreign terrorist organizations. Mr. Trump said cartels and other transnational organizations "threaten the safety of the American people, the security of the United States, and the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere." House and Senate Democrats urged top Trump administration officials to unlock additional legal tools that would allow the administration to disrupt the cartels’ financial networks and impose harsher penalties on entities that provide material support to them. Federal law makes it a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison and other fines to provide material support to cartels. The indictment filed against Navarro-Sanchez alleges that the Mexican national, in addition to conspiring to provide grenades to the cartel she also trafficked firearms and humans, smuggled bulk cash, and trafficked drugs on its behalf. "U.S. law enforcement is turning up the pressure to crack down on unlawful immigration practices and to dismantle the smuggling of illicit drugs and firearms," said acting U.S. Attorney Margaret Leachman for the Western District of Texas in a statement.

The Hill [5/16/2025 12:41 PM, Alexander Bolton, 12829K] reports that the top-ranking Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations, Intelligence and Armed Services committees warned President Trump in a letter Thursday that his administration’s tariff policy is hurting American security interests by antagonizing allies in Europe and Asia. The senators argued that Trump’s tariff policy will not only cost the average American household approximately $2,800 per year in higher costs, but it "undermines longstanding U.S. alliances and partnerships and harms our national security interests." "We urge you to assess the long-term national security implications of your short-sighted, impulsive tariff agenda," they wrote. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, signed the Thursday letter to Trump. They argued that Trump’s sweeping reciprocal tariffs announced in early April on "Liberation Day" — which he later reduced to 10 percent for 90 days — on countries such as France, Germany, South Korea and Japan are having a destabilizing effect on U.S.-led Western alliances. "Some of our allies, arguably our most critical allies who have stood by us in our most challenging times, have announced economic countermeasures against the United States," they wrote.

Washington Times [5/16/2025 7:54 AM, Vaughn Cockayne, 1814K] reports the Pentagon has drafted an initial plan for President Trump’s "Golden Dome" missile defense system, just days after defense officials met with politicians on Capitol Hill to discuss concerns. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told Bloomberg Wednesday that the Department of Defense gathered the "brightest minds and best technical talent" to review a range of options for Golden Dome. He added that senior defense officials, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, are presenting options to the president for approval and that a more detailed plan will be announced in the coming days. News that officials are nearing a Golden Dome framework comes just days after Pentagon representatives met with the Senate Armed Services Committee. Officials from U.S. Northern Command, North American Aerospace Defense Command and the Missile Defense Agency stressed the need for commands to work together to form a layered missile defense. Still, the Pentagon has thus far offered no concrete timeline or budget for Golden Dome. Critics of the proposed system have argued that the Golden Dome would be too expensive and could potentially upset the global defense balance.

FOX News [5/16/2025 11:14 AM, Rachel Wolf, 46189K] reports that President Donald Trump returned to Washington from the first major trip of his second term with significant agreements in place. The deals struck in the Middle East mark historic moments for both the U.S. and its partners in the region. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar have all committed to increasing their investments in the U.S., similar to deals Trump has pushed for with U.S. partners across the globe. Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Trump signed several agreements on energy, investments, defense, mining and more that totaled $600 billion. This included a commitment by Google, Uber, Salesforce, AMD and Saudi Arabia’s DataVolt to invest $80 billion toward the development of revolutionary technologies in both countries. American companies will also take on major projects in Saudi Arabia, including the King Salman International Airport, King Salman Park, The Vault and Qiddiya City, according to the White House. The administration predicts the projects will generate a total of $2 billion in U.S. service exports. Additionally, several U.S. government departments will begin coordinating with Saudi government ministries, including the U.S. Department of Energy and the Ministry of Energy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as well as NASA and the Saudi Space Agency.

New York Times [5/16/2025 11:53 AM, Qasim Nauman, 138952K] reports that President Trump on Friday concluded a three-nation Middle East tour marked by pomp, opulent receptions and announcements of business deals with wealthy Persian Gulf states. Mr. Trump met with business leaders in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, before boarding Air Force One for the flight back to the United States. Earlier this week, he visited Saudi Arabia and Qatar on the first major international visit of his second term. Mr. Trump spoke with Syria’s new president, Ahmed al-Shara, on Wednesday in an extraordinary meeting that reversed longstanding U.S. policies toward the country and Mr. al-Shara. A former militant who once led a branch of Al Qaeda, Mr. al-Shara came to power as the head of the rebel alliance that ousted the former dictator Bashar al-Assad in December. A day earlier, Mr. Trump had announced that he would lift U.S. sanctions on Syria, which would offer a significant economic lifeline to Mr. al-Shara as he tries to rebuild a country devastated by years of civil war. His unexpected announcement drew enthusiastic applause from a crowd of dignitaries in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Big deals were announced, but details were lacking. The White House has said Mr. Trump’s visit resulted in deals worth hundreds of billions of dollars for U.S. companies, including a large order from Qatar for Boeing passenger jets.

FOX News [5/16/2025 10:24 PM, Brie Stimson, 46878K] reports former President Joe Biden, in newly leaked audio of his interview with special counsel Robert Hur, admitted he likely kept a classified document related to Afghanistan after he left the vice presidency for "posterity’s sake.” Biden first said he didn’t recall why he had the document when asked about it by Hur, who told him it was found in the library of his lake house. "I don’t know that I knew," that he had the document, Biden answered, "but it wasn’t something I would have stopped to think about.” Hur noted that Bob Woodward and Jules Witcover both wrote about the document in their books about him, asking if he wanted to hang onto it because it might be the subject of reporting or "history.” "I guess I wanted to hang on to it for posterity’s sake. I mean, this was my position on Afghanistan. I’ve been of the view from a historical standpoint that there are certain points in history, world history, where fundamental things change using technology," he said. "So, there are a lot of things that I think are fundamentally changing how international societies function, and they relate a lot to technology.” After the 80-year-old continued on that subject for a while, Hur interrupted him to get back to the topic of the document. "No, I’m sorry, that’s why I wanted it," Biden answered. "It had nothing to with Afghanistan.” One of the former president’s lawyers then interrupted Hur to say, "For the purposes of a clean record," he wanted to avoid "getting into speculative areas," mentioning that Biden at first answered the question about the document by saying he didn’t recall why he had it. At that point, Hur answered, "I think we should take a break.” In other sections of the audio, Biden seems confused, asking what year his son, Beau Biden, died, and what year he left the vice presidency. The audio, related to an investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents while vice president, came out after more than a year of congressional lawmakers demanding its release amid questions about the former president’s memory lapses and mental acuity.

CBS News [5/16/2025 1:03 AM, Staff, 51661K] reports that President Trump said Friday that he’s moving to set up direct talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin as soon as he can, after Putin opted to skip peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in Turkey. "I think it’s time for us to just do it," Mr. Trump told reporters as he wrapped a four-day visit to the Middle East. Later, he told reporters on Air Force One, setting off on the journey back to Washington, that he might call Putin soon. "He and I will meet, and I think we’ll solve it or maybe not," Mr. Trump said. "At least we’ll know. And if we don’t solve it, it’ll be very interesting." The president reiterated that he wasn’t surprised by Putin’s decision to skip the talks taking place Friday in Turkey. Putin didn’t want to go because he’s not there, Mr. Trump said. Meetings between Ukrainian and Russian delegations did get underway in Istanbul Friday, though Putin sent a lower-level delegation. This prompted accusations from Ukraine and its European partners that Moscow wasn’t really interested in a negotiated resolution to the war. After the meetings concluded, Vladimir Medinsky, who led the Russian delegation, said in a statement that the two countries agreed that "in the coming days," they’ll hold a large-scale exchange of 1,000 prisoners of war for each side. He also said Russia has "taken notice" of Ukraine’s request for direct talks between the heads of state, and that each side "would present its vision of a possible future ceasefire." Once the detailed outlines are presented, negotiations will continue.

NBC News [5/16/2025 9:58 AM, Keir Simmons and Alexander Smith, 44742K] reports a diplomatic frenzy consumed Istanbul’s Dolmabahçe Palace on Friday, as Russia and Ukraine sat down to hold their first direct peace talks since the early months of this three-year war. Despite the flurry of activity from Russian, Ukrainian, American, British, French and German diplomats, the negotiations lasted barely two hours and did not appear to bring the sides closer together. There was one point of agreement — a deal to swap 1,000 prisoners each, the head of Russia’s delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, said. It would be the largest swap since the start of the war. With Russia still issuing demands that resemble an outright Ukrainian surrender, some observers see these talks as largely an attempt by both Moscow and Kyiv to persuade President Donald Trump they are not the obstacle to peace. Before they even began, President Donald Trump predicted there would be no progress unless he and Russian President Vladimir Putin were involved. “I don’t believe anything’s going to happen whether you like it or not, until he and I get together,” Trump said of his Russian counterpart while speaking with journalists late Thursday aboard Air Force One en route to Abu Dhabi. “But we’re going to have to get it solved because too many people are dying.” Trump said Thursday he wanted to meet with his Kremlin counterpart “as soon as we can set it up.” Asked what stood in the way, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday that “such a meeting is certainly necessary” but that first there must be “expert negotiations, consultations and long, intense preparation.” [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

The Hill [5/16/2025 6:52 PM, Ellen Mitchell, 18649K] reports the talks lasted roughly two hours, according to Turkey’s Foreign Ministry. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky traveled to Turkey for the talks, but Russian President Vladimir Putin did not make the trip, sending an adviser instead. The Associated Press reported Ukraine accused the Russians of putting forward "unacceptable demands" to withdraw Ukrainian forces from large swaths of territory, citing a senior Ukrainian official. President Trump for days teased the possibility that he may make the trip to Turkey if he thought the discussions could produce significant progress. Ultimately, he dispatched Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoys Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg skipped the meetings, arguing the Russian president had no reason to go if Trump was not there. "They all said Putin was going and Zelensky was going. And I said, ‘If I don’t go, I guarantee Putin is not going,’ and he didn’t go," Trump told reporters earlier Friday. "And I understand that, but we’re going to get it, we’re going to get it done," he said. "We’ve got to get it done.”

Washington Post [5/16/2025 3:56 PM, Mary Ilyushina, Serhiy Morgunov, Siobhán O’Grady, and Ellen Francis, 31735K] reports the first direct talks between Russia and Ukraine since the early weeks of the war lasted just two hours in Istanbul on Friday, with Russia taking a hard line and the two sides coming to a concrete agreement only on a prisoner swap — a sign the two sides remain very far apart on ending the conflict. Ukraine did see that agreement to exchange 1,000 prisoners of war from each side as a major achievement — one that Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi described as making the talks “worth it, because we will make a thousand Ukrainian families happy.” But the rest of the talks were clouded by a number of demands that Ukrainians found unacceptable, including that Ukraine withdraw from its own territory that Russia only partly controls. One official, who was briefed on the talks by a delegate present in the room and who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive political moment freely, said the head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, told the Ukrainians: “Perhaps someone at this table will lose even more of their loved ones. Russia is ready to wage war forever.” “Never try to deceive the Russians and steal something from them, because sooner or later Russians always come to claim what is theirs,” Medinsky said, attributing the quote to Otto von Bismarck, the legendary 19th-century German statesman, although its authenticity has been called into question by independent Russian news outlets. Despite the heated exchanges, especially when the talks began, Ukrainian delegates Vadym Skibitskyi, deputy director of Ukraine’s intelligence directorate, and Serhii Kyslytsia, deputy foreign minister, told The Washington Post the talks eventually became constructive. Attendees spoke in multiple languages, they said, including Russian, Ukrainian and Turkish.

Bloomberg [5/16/2025 1:54 PM, Daryna Krasnolutska, Natalia Drozdiak, and Selcan Hacaoglu, 16228K] reports the first direct talks between Russia and Ukraine in more than three years ended in Turkey with an agreement on an exchange of prisoners and discussions on a potential ceasefire, though no truce was announced. The negotiations in Istanbul’s Dolmabahce Palace lasted about two hours on Friday. Ukraine and Russia said they’d agreed to swap 1,000 prisoners each in coming days, in separate statements. The sides also discussed “all modalities” of a truce, said Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who led Kyiv’s delegation. “Now we need to exchange people, and soon we will inform you what is the next stage,” he said. Russia is “satisfied with the results, and we are ready to continue contacts,” Vladimir Medinsky, who led Moscow’s negotiators, told reporters in televised comments. “We agreed that each side will present its vision of a potential future ceasefire, in detail,” and then talks will resume, he said. Russia also took note of a request by the Ukrainian side for direct talks between the presidents of the two countries, Medinsky said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy held a phone call with US President Donald Trump together with French President Emmanuel Macron, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Zelenskiy’s spokesman said. Details of the discussion would be disclosed later, the spokesman said.

Reported similarly:
Breitbart [5/16/2025 8:10 AM, Staff, 2923K]

Breitbart [5/16/2025 8:48 PM, Joel B. Pollak, 3077K] reports the Trump administration is reportedly considering a plan to move one million Palestinians from Gaza — roughly half the current population — to Libya and resettle them there. Gaza has been a persistent source of regional instability, an incubator of Islamist extremism heavily dependent on international aid — at least for the majority of the population. (Terrorist leaders have become billionaires by siphoning off local taxes and global aid money.). The administration denied the NBC News report, but President Trump has spoken often about relocating Gaza’s residents — at least for several decades — while de-radicalizing them and rebuilding the territory. Trump has said that the U.S. intends to control Gaza, and to turn it into a beacon of freedom and prosperity, once Israel defeats Hamas. Israel launched "Operation Gideon’s Chariots" Friday to root out Hamas.

Wall Street Journal [5/16/2025 6:27 PM, Anat Peled and Saleh al-Batai, 646K] reports the Israeli military said it had begun launching strikes in the Gaza Strip as part of an expanded offensive and had bombed Houthi-controlled ports of Yemen, moves that came as President Trump wrapped up a trip to the Middle East. In Gaza, the military said that over the past day it had been conducting strikes and mobilizing troops to pursue its goals in the enclave. The military had earlier said its air force had struck more than 150 targets throughout the strip. Israeli strikes hit Beit Lahiya and the nearby Jabaliya camp, killing scores, according to Palestinian health authorities. The military didn’t respond to a request for comment on the Beit Lahiya strikes. Earlier this month, Israel’s security cabinet approved a new ground operation to occupy territory in Gaza, signaling a strategic shift in Israel’s approach to the fight against Hamas that began after the Oct. 7, 2023, militant-led attacks on Israel. That decision came after the end of a fragile cease-fire earlier this year. In Yemen, the Israeli military said it had struck the Hodeidah and Salif ports, which it said were used to transfer weapons. Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israel had severely damaged the ports and threatened to kill Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi if the militant group continued to launch attacks on Israel. “If the Houthis continue to fire rockets at the State of Israel they will be seriously harmed and we will also harm their leaders,” Katz said, citing the Houthi leader by name. The Houthis in turn promised to continue their attacks on Israel in support of Palestinians in Gaza. The Houthis have previously said they would stop firing on Israel if a cease-fire is reached in Gaza. “The Zionist enemy’s warplanes launched aggressive airstrikes on the ports of Hodeidah,” Nasr al-Din Amir, a Houthi spokesman, said in a message on Telegram. “These people will neither kneel nor retreat, and will not abandon Gaza—even if the entire world does,” he said.

New York Times [5/16/2025 1:44 PM, Luke Broadwater and Erika Solomon, 153395K] reports President Trump said on Friday that “a lot of people are starving” in the Gaza Strip under an Israeli blockade preventing aid deliveries, adding that the U.S. wanted to help alleviate the suffering. “We’re going to handle a couple of situations that you have here,” Mr. Trump said, speaking in the United Arab Emirates on the last leg of his visit to three Persian Gulf nations this week. “We’re looking at Gaza, and we got to get that taken care of. A lot of people are starving. A lot of people. There’s a lot of bad things going on.” Aid groups have warned for weeks that the population of Gaza is on the brink of famine, and some Israeli military officials have begun to privately express concerns over the risk of starvation in the territory, 19 months after the war there began. On top of the siege it has imposed on Gaza for more than two months, Israel has escalated its military campaign in recent days. Strikes on Friday killed more than 100 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry, a day after Israeli bombardment forced the closure of one of the enclave’s major hospitals. The Gaza authorities do not distinguish between civilians and militants when issuing death tolls. The Trump administration had remained largely silent on Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza, but Gulf Arab leaders who met with Mr. Trump during his trip to the region this week seized on the opportunity to address that issue, among others. They scored a remarkable turnaround in U.S. policy when the president announced on the first day of the visit that he would lift sanctions on Syria.

The Hill [5/16/2025 11:08 AM, Miranda Nazzaro, 12829K] reports the Trump administration and the United Arab Emirates are partnering to build a massive data center in Abu Dhabi that is expected to be the largest artificial intelligence (AI) campus outside the United States. The AI campus, unveiled during President Trump’s visit to the UAE, will have 5 gigawatts of capacity and will eventually stretch across 10 square miles, the Commerce Department announced Thursday. The data center at Qasr Al Watan will serve as a regional platform for U.S. hyperscalers, which are technology companies that provide cloud computing and data management services. These companies will be able to offer low-latency services to nearly half of the global population resigning within 2,000 miles of the UAE, the Commerce Department. "In the UAE, American companies will operate the data centers and offer American-managed cloud services throughout the region," Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in a statement Thursday. "By extending the world’s leading American tech stack to an important strategic partner in the region, this agreement is a major milestone in achieving President Trump’s vision for U.S. AI dominance.” It is one of a flurry of AI-related deals the Trump administration signed this week with the Gulf states. The Trump administration has made American AI dominance a key goal of its technology policy, though some have concerns these deals sidestepped national security concerns. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) slammed Trump’s support for deals to sell advanced U.S. chip technology to Saudi Arabia and the UAE on Thursday. Schumer said Trump would "greenlight the sale of the most sensitive U.S. chip technology in exchange for vague promises of more foreign investment.” "This deal could very well be dangerous because we have no clarity on how the Saudis and Emiratis will prevent the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese government, the Chinese manufacturing establishment from getting their hands on these chips," Schumer said on the Senate floor.

Reuters [5/16/2025 10:14 AM, John Irish, Humeyra Pamuk, and Parisa Hafezi, 41523K] reports diplomats from Iran and the three European parties remaining in a moribund 2015 nuclear deal met in Istanbul on Friday, Iranian and British officials said, their first round of talks since the U.S. began nuclear talks with Tehran in April. The talks between senior diplomats from Iran and Britain, France and Germany - known as the E3 - took place as U.S. President Donald Trump pushes for a deal to limit Iran’s nuclear programme. On Friday he called on Iran to move quickly after he said his administration had put forward a proposal to Iran. An Iranian source close to the negotiating team said Tehran has yet to receive the U.S. proposal, "but Oman has got it and will hand it over to Tehran soon". The European powers are not part of current negotiations between Iran and the United States, the fourth round of which ended in Oman on Sunday. A new round has not been scheduled yet. However, they have held repeated talks with the Iranians most recently in March where they discussed how they saw the parameters of a deal to replace the 2015 accord. The three powers have sought to coordinate with Washington notably on whether and when they should reimpose U.N. sanctions against Tehran - known in diplomatic circles as the "snapback mechanism" - if no agreement is reached. That coordination has not been easy with European diplomats bemoaning a lack of clarity in U.S. policy on its negotiations with Tehran.

AP [5/16/2025 12:26 PM, Zeke Miller and Jon Gambrell, 1682K] reports that U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday that Iran has an American proposal over its rapidly advancing nuclear program as negotiations between the two countries go on. Trump’s remarks represent the first time he’s acknowledged an American proposal is with Tehran after multiple rounds of negotiations between U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Negotiations have gotten into the "expert" level — meaning the two sides are trying to see if they can reach any agreement on the details of any possible deal. But one major sticking point remains Iran’s enrichment of uranium, which Tehran insists it must be allowed to do and the Trump administration increasingly insists the Islamic Republic must give up. Trump made the comment aboard Air Force One as he ended his trip to the United Arab Emirates, the last stop on his three-nation tour of the Middle East that also included Saudi Arabia and Qatar. At nearly every event he attended in the region, he insisted that Iran could not be allowed to obtain a nuclear bomb — something American intelligence agencies assess Tehran is not actively pursuing though its program is on the cusp of being able to weaponize.

Reported similarly:
Axios [5/16/2025 8:10 AM, Barak Ravid, 13163K] r

The Hill [5/16/2025 9:41 AM, Alex Gangitano, 12829K] reports that President Trump said Friday that Iran has to move quickly on a new nuclear deal proposal, after he teased that the U.S. and Iran are inching closer to an agreement. Trump confirmed to reporters on Air Force One on his way back to Washington from the Middle East that the U.S. has given Iran a formal proposal for a new nuclear agreement, adding, "more importantly, they know they have to move quickly." "Something bad’s going to happen," the president added. Trump also said in an interview on Fox News Channel’s "Special Report" that there is not a lot of time for negotiations to occur. "Iran wants to trade with us, okay, if you can believe that. And I’m OK with it," the president told host Bret Baier. "I’m using trade to settle scores and to make peace. But I’ve told Iran we make a deal.” He added, "There’s not plenty of time. They’s not plenty of time." The president on Thursday, while in Qatar, told reporters the U.S. and Iran were in "very serious negotiations" for "long-term peace." Reuters reported an Iranian source familiar with negotiations said there were still gaps between the two sides.

AP [5/17/2025 6:13 AM, Staff, 4622K] reports Iran’s president said his country will continue talks with the United States over its rapidly advancing nuclear program but will not withdraw from its rights because of U.S. threats. “We are negotiating, and we will negotiate , we are not after war but we do not fear any threat,” President Masoud Pezeshkian said during a speech to navy officials broadcast by state television Saturday. “It is not like that they think if they threaten us , we will give up our human right and definite right,” Pezeshkian said. “We will not withdraw, we will not easily loose honorable military, scientific, nuclear in all fields.” The negotiations have reached the “expert” level, meaning the sides are trying to reach agreement on the details of a possible deal. But a major sticking point remains Iran’s enrichment of uranium, which Tehran insists it must be allowed to do and the Trump administration increasingly insists the Islamic Republic must give up. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to unleash airstrikes targeting Iran’s program if a deal isn’t reached. Iranian officials increasingly warn they could pursue a nuclear weapon with their stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels. Earlier on Friday, Trump said Iran received a proposal during the talks, though he did not elaborate. During his trip to region this week, Trump at nearly every event insisted Iran could not be allowed to obtain a nuclear bomb, something U.S. intelligence agencies assess Tehran is not actively pursuing, though its program is on the cusp of being able to weaponize nuclear material. Mohammad Eslami, the head of Iran’s atomic organization, stressed the peaceful nature of the program, saying it is under “continuous” monitoring by the U.N. nuclear watchdog, state TV reported Saturday. “No country is monitored by the agency like us,” Eslami said, adding that the agency inspected the country’s nuclear facilities more than 450 time in 2024. “Something about 25% of all the agency inspections” in the year.

Bloomberg [5/16/2025 6:54 PM, Skylar Woodhouse and Josh Wingrove, 19320K] reports President Donald Trump said that India has offered to cut all its tariffs on US goods but downplayed any sense of urgency to reach a trade agreement with the world’s fourth-largest economy. Trump cited India as an example of a country where he’s seeking to slash barriers to US exports during an interview with Fox News host Bret Baier that aired Friday. “They make it almost impossible to do business. Do you know that they’re willing to cut 100% of their tariffs for the United States?” Trump said. But the president also sent mixed signals on how close a deal could be, saying “that’ll come soon. I’m in no rush. Look, everybody wants to make a deal with us.” He added that he’s not planning to “make deals with everybody.” The remarks are the latest signal from Trump that he while he plans to strike trade deals with some countries before a pause on higher import duties expires in July, that many nations will just see the US make unilateral decisions about the rates they will face. Earlier Friday, Trump said he is planning to set new import duty rates for trading partners over the “over the next two to three weeks.” The Trump administration is prioritizing trade talks with several nations, including India, but a lack of manpower and capacity makes it impossible to hold concurrent negotiations with all the countries caught up in the president’s so-called reciprocal tariffs plan. Trump said he also dangled the prospect of expanded trade with India’s rival Pakistan. He previously has said that was a factor in the US effort to broker a between the two countries earlier this month. “I’m using trade to settle scores and make peace,” Trump said.

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