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 [5/24/2025 4:03 AM, Stephanie Saul, 330K] reports a federal judge halted on Friday the Trump administration’s attempts to block international students from attending Harvard University, the nation’s oldest university and one of its most prestigious. Harvard had sued the Trump administration earlier in the day and less than 24 hours after the Department of Homeland Security moved to bar international students. Later Friday morning, at the university’s request, the Boston judge, Allison D. Burroughs, issued a temporary restraining order against the federal edict, agreeing that Harvard had shown that its implementation would cause “immediate and irreparable injury” to the university. The administration action, and Harvard’s response, signified a dramatic escalation of the battle between the administration and Harvard. And the university’s forceful and almost immediate response served as evidence that stopping the flow of international students to Harvard, which draws some of the world’s top scholars, would destabilize the school. In a letter to the Harvard community delivered Friday morning, Dr. Alan M. Garber, Harvard’s president, wrote, “We condemn this unlawful and unwarranted action,” adding that it “imperils the futures of thousands of students and scholars across Harvard and serves as a warning to countless others at colleges and universities throughout the country who have come to America to pursue their education and fulfill their dreams.” The lawsuit, which accused the Trump administration of a “campaign of retribution” against the university, followed an announcement on Thursday that Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification had been revoked, halting the university’s ability to enroll international students. The lawsuit was the second time in a matter of weeks the university had sued the federal government. In the new lawsuit, the university accused the Trump administration of exerting “clear retaliation for Harvard exercising its First Amendment rights to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum and the ‘ideology’ of its faculty and students.” The Washington Post [5/23/2025 6:56 PM, Susan Svrluga, 32099K] reports that the government said Thursday that foreign students must transfer from the university or risk losing their visa status, escalating President Donald Trump’s pitched battle with the Ivy League school. “Today’s ruling delays justice and seeks to kneecap the President’s constitutionally vested powers under Article II,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in an email. “It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments; that fact hasn’t changed.” She said the Trump administration is committed to “restoring common sense to our student visa system, and we expect a higher court to vindicate us in this. The DHS action, if allowed to move forward, would put about 7,000 students at immediate risk of losing their visa status if they do not transfer to another school. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem on Thursday had ordered the agency to terminate Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, which allows U.S. universities to admit international students. Noem said the university has allowed “anti-American, pro-terrorist” foreigners “to harass and physically assault individuals … and obstruct its once-venerable learning environment,” and she accused the university of hosting and training members of the Chinese Communist Party’s paramilitary group. Noem gave the school three days to turn over records on international students to regain its certification before the upcoming academic year. She asked for disciplinary and electronic records, as well as video and audio recordings of international students who engaged in illegal activity, violence, threats to staff members or students, or protest activity during the past five years. In an interview Thursday on Fox News, Noem said the decision “is specifically applied to that university, not to the individual students. So [Harvard] will no longer be able to participate in this program. They will not be allowed to have foreign students.” The Wall Street Journal [5/23/2025 2:06 PM, Douglas Belkin, 646K] reports that the revocation came after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem last month ordered Harvard to turn over records of foreign student visa holders’ “illegal and violent activities” by April 30. In its lawsuit, Harvard said it produced the information on April 30, and on May 14 produced more information in response to a follow-up request. Noem said Harvard’s response was insufficient, and she revoked the school’s certification in the student visa program. Harvard said in its lawsuit Friday that the revocation is illegal.

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The Hill [5/23/2025 8:47 AM, Ian Swanson, 18649K] reports Harvard University is suing the Trump administration a day after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revoked its certification to admit foreign students, an escalation of its fight with the institution and an effort to hit its wallet. Harvard President Alan Gerber announced the suit in a letter to the Harvard community. "Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard," the complaint reads. The suit, filed in federal court in Massachusetts, claims the administration’s actions violate the First Amendment, constitutional due process and DHS’s own regulations. It landed just hours after DHS Secretary Kristi Noem ordered Harvard to be taken off the Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification. Gerber characterized the government’s actions as an effort to lash out at Harvard over its "refusal to surrender our academic independence and to submit to the federal government’s illegal assertion of control over our curriculum, our faculty and our student body." "We condemn this unlawful and unwarranted action," he wrote. The Washington Examiner [5/23/2025 12:30 PM, Jack Birle, 2296K] reports Dr. Alan Garber, the university’s president, announced Friday morning that Harvard would sue DHS to block the revocation of its ability to enroll international students and would seek a temporary restraining order in the interim. The DHS is blocked from revoking the SEVP certification while the court order is in effect. DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to the Washington Examiner that the Trump administration has “the law, the facts, and common sense on our side” in response to the midday order Friday. The Daily Wire [5/23/2025 12:09 PM, Hank Berrien, 3816K] reports that the lawsuit from Harvard claimed Noem’s revocation was a "blatant violation of the First Amendment, the Due Process Clause, and the Administrative Procedure Act. It is the latest act by the government in clear retaliation for Harvard exercising its First Amendment rights to reject the government’s demands to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum, and the ‘ideology’ of its faculty and students." On Thursday, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem alerted the public of the revocation, writing on X: This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus. It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments. Harvard had plenty of opportunity to do the right thing. It refused. They have lost their Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification as a result of their failure to adhere to the law. Let this serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions across the country. In her letter to Harvard, Noem noted: As I explained to you in my April letter, it is a privilege to enroll foreign students, and it is also a privilege to employ aliens on campus. All universities must comply with Department of Homeland Security requirements, including reporting requirements under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program regulations, to maintain this privilege. As a result of your refusal to comply with multiple requests to provide the Department of Homeland Security pertinent information while perpetuating an unsafe campus environment that is hostile to Jewish students, promotes pro-Hamas sympathies, and employs racist “diversity, equity, and inclusion” policies, you have lost this privilege.

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The Hill [5/23/2025 7:36 AM, Filip Timotija, 18649K] reports Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem emphasized that the Trump administration’s recent ban on Harvard University enrolling international students should serve as a "warning" to other universities around the country. Noem, who ordered DHS to take Harvard off the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification on Thursday, was asked on Fox News if she can "foresee" or is "considering" taking similar action against other institutions where Jewish students have experienced antisemitism. "Absolutely. We are absolutely — this should be a warning to every other university to get your act together," Noem told host Gillian Turner on Thursday. "Get your act together, because we are coming to make sure that these programs, that you are facilitating an environment where students can learn, where they’re safe, and that they’re not discriminated against based on their race or their religion," the DHS chief added. With Harvard having been taken off SEVP, current international students will need to transfer to other colleges or "lose their legal status." "This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus," Noem said in a statement on Thursday. "It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments. The Ivy League school has pushed back, saying DHS’ order was "unlawful.".

DailySignal [5/23/2025 4:14 PM, Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell, 558K] reports President Donald Trump hinted of revoking other universities’ certification to host international students in response to a question about his move against Harvard. Harvard University filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Friday in response to the Department of Homeland Security revoking the school’s certification to host international students. The Trump administration had stripped Harvard of its ability to enroll foreign students earlier Friday, accusing the school of failing to heed the law with respect to his anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion executive orders. The Daily Signal asked the president whether he was considering similar action against other schools that fail to comply with his executive orders. A federal judge on Friday issued an injunction temporarily blocking the Trump administration’s latest action against Harvard, meaning that for now, foreign students can continue attending the university. Currently, there are more than 6,700 international students studying at Harvard, making up about 27% of the Ivy League school’s student body, according to the university. Harvard is losing its "Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification as a result of their failure to adhere to the law," according to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. "Let this serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions across the country."

New York Times [5/23/2025 9:33 PM, Michael C. Bender, 138952K] reports the latest confrontation between Harvard University and the Trump administration began last month with a far-reaching demand for data on international students. Kristi Noem, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, sent a letter to Harvard requesting, among other things, coursework for every international student and information on any student visa holder involved in misconduct or illegal activity. Harvard rebuffed parts of the request, and the Trump administration retaliated on Thursday. In one of its most aggressive moves so far against the university, the government said Harvard could no longer enroll any international students, who account for about one-fourth of its total enrollment. It also expanded its request for records to include any videos of international students, on campus or off, involved in protests or illegal or dangerous activity. The conflict has only further raised the stakes over the future of America’s oldest and most powerful university. The administration’s attempt to vacuum up vast amounts of private student data opens a new front in Mr. Trump’s crackdown on dissent from his political agenda. The strategy is aimed at realigning a higher education system the president sees as hostile to conservatives by stamping out what it says is antisemitism on campus and the transgender and diversity policies it says are rooted in “woke” ideology. Harvard counters that it has provided all the data that is legally required and that the administration’s unrelenting pressure campaign — including the termination of billions in federal research grants — amounts to an attempted takeover of the institution, bullying the university into changing what it can teach and whom it can hire. Harvard said the government’s latest action “is the culmination of an unprecedented and retaliatory attack” on the school’s freedom of speech. The university sued on Friday, arguing that the government had violated its First Amendment rights and had used unfairly broad data requests to justify illegal interference into foundational principles of the university.

Washington Post [5/23/2025 4:24 PM, Angie Orellana Hernandez and Tobi Raji, 32099K] reports Harvard University has sued the Trump administration for the second time in less than a month after the Department of Homeland Security revoked the Ivy League school’s certification to admit foreign students — a significant escalation in their ongoing battle. The Massachusetts institution is the most prominent, and vocally resistant, of the 10 universities visited by the Trump administration’s antisemitism task force in recent months. The administration has demanded Harvard make extensive changes to its governance, admissions and hiring practices, which federal authorities say are necessary to fight antisemitism on college campuses. Harvard President Alan Garber on Friday condemned the White House’s "unlawful and unwarranted action" to prevent the enrollment of international students, who make up a quarter of the student body and could be forced to either transfer schools or lose their legal status. The same day, a federal judge temporarily blocked the ban on Harvard’s ability to enroll international students.

New York Times [5/24/2025 5:01 AM, Laurel Rosenhall, Isabelle Taft, Steven Rich and Stephanie Saul, 138952K] reports that, if it happened to Harvard University, could it happen anywhere? The Trump administration’s surprising bid to end Harvard’s international enrollment put the higher education world on edge this week, looming as a larger threat against academic autonomy. Well beyond the halls of Harvard this week, college leaders were shocked that one swift move by the federal government could eliminate their ability to serve students from abroad, a growing population that has infused their campuses with cachet and wealth. “This is a grave moment,” Sally Kornbluth, the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote in a message to her campus. More than 5,000 miles away, Wendy Hensel, the president of the University of Hawaii, said that it was “reverberating across higher education.” President Trump has already unnerved universities this year by launching investigations, freezing grants, demanding changes in campus practices and attempting to deport international students. He has justified his punitive approach as a means to combat what he considers antisemitism. But he and his allies also have long resented a perceived liberal bias and racial diversity efforts at prestigious colleges. The Trump administration said Thursday that it revoked Harvard’s international student certification because the university had failed to meet its demands, including a request for records of student protest activity dating back five years. To many academics, that was a clear signal that Mr. Trump was prepared to use any federal mechanism as leverage if he did not get what he wants. “While Harvard is the victim of the moment, it’s a warning and unprecedented attempt of a hostile federal government to erode the autonomy of all major universities in the U.S.,” said John Aubrey Douglass, a senior research fellow at the Center for Studies in Higher Education at the University of California, Berkeley. Mr. Trump may not get his way in the end; a federal judge temporarily blocked his maneuver on Friday, setting up another legal battle that Harvard is willing to fight.

Bloomberg [5/24/2025 2:30 AM, Dimitra Kessenides, 19320K] reports leaders of business schools worldwide chose their words carefully as they responded to the Trump administration’s attempt to block Harvard University from enrolling international students. But even as Harvard’s legal challenge has temporarily halted the administration’s action, fears about long-term and widespread damage are running high. The move, announced Thursday afternoon by the Department of Homeland Security, threatens to undermine not just Harvard, but higher education across the US, said David Bach, dean of IMD business school in Lausanne, Switzerland. “The history is really clear—you can’t build a world-class academic institution by drawing only on one country. You build a world-class academic institution by attracting the best and brightest from all around the world and by benefiting from the diversity of perspectives, of insights, of backgrounds that makes that possible,” he told Bloomberg. US colleges and universities are the envy of the world, he said, because “they have, better than any others around the world, really succeeded in attracting such students.” It’s what attracted Bach, who was born and raised in Hanau, Germany, to study in the US starting in the late 1990s. He obtained an F-1 visa to attend Yale University for his undergraduate degree and the University of California at Berkeley for a Ph.D., then gained a J-1 visa to join the faculty at the Yale School of Management, where he taught from 2012 to 2020. Bach has led master’s programs specifically for international students. On LinkedIn on Thursday, he wrote, “My immediate thoughts are with the thousands of undergraduates, graduate students, and post-docs whose admission to Harvard University represents winning the jackpot in the lottery of life and who now—for no fault of their own—are having their dreams shattered.” In recent years, a great majority of student demand at top US business schools came from overseas. But while top institutions enrolled more students in their full-time MBA programs last fall, fewer of them come from other countries. Twenty of the top 30 US schools as ranked by Bloomberg Businessweek reduced the number of foreign students in the class of 2026, as we reported, according to an analysis of class profiles and figures provided directly by schools. Emmanuel Metais, dean of EDHEC business school in Nice, France, predicted the consequences of President Donald Trump’s action would extend beyond America’s borders. “Blocking the movement of students, scholars, and researchers undermines the foundation of global scholarship and intellectual collaboration,” he wrote in an e-mail. “It threatens academic partnerships, weakens academic exchange, and sends the wrong message about the value of openness in education and business.”

Newsweek [5/23/2025 2:52 PM, Billal Rahman and Dan Gooding, 52220K] reports a Harvard University undergraduate student told Newsweek that eight of his future roommates will be forced to leave the college if the Trump administration’s executive order regarding international students is allowed to go ahead. "Like any other college student in America, those people have become lifelong friends and the center of my college experience, yet the Trump administration is using them as political pawns to force Harvard to sacrifice its institutional freedom," said William Gottemoller, a sophomore majoring in astrophysics and physics. His conversation with Newsweek on Friday afternoon came after a U.S. District Judge issued a temporary restraining order on the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) decision to revoke Harvard’s ability to enroll international students. Gottemoller told Newsweek that he had lost job opportunities and faced "significant career uncertainty" over the Trump administration’s "attacks on higher education" in recent months. Before Thursday’s announcement, the administration had already canceled $60 million in grants to Harvard, in addition to some $3 billion worth of frozen or canceled grants and contracts. Trump is also trying to strip the university of its tax-exempt status. "But this attack is one on the very basis of my college life: The friendships I have made," Gottemoller said. "That is to say, our country must rise up against the attacks and recognize that an attack on one university—and an attack on one cohort of Americans—is an attack on all universities and all Americans." Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on Thursday that Harvard should be held accountable for "fostering violence, antisemitism and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party" on its campus. That message is one the administration has repeated for other colleges across the U.S., including the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University in New York, which saw significant student protests in the wake of Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and Israel’s ongoing armed response. The Trump administration’s actions, including the revocation of thousands of student visas, have caused concern among free speech advocates across the political spectrum, while others have celebrated the move, seeing the federal government as finally taking action on the growing issue of antisemitism. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin earlier told Newsweek in an emailed statement: "The ruling delays justice and seeks to kneecap the President’s constitutionally vested powers under Article II. It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments; that fact hasn’t changed. The Trump administration is committed to restoring common sense to our student visa system, and we expect a higher court to vindicate us in this. We have the law, the facts, and common sense on our side."

Breitbart [5/23/2025 6:46 AM, Staff, 3077K] reports dismayed Chinese students feared for their international futures on Friday after US President Donald Trump revoked Harvard University’s right to enroll foreign nationals. The sharp escalation in Trump’s longstanding feud with the elite Cambridge, Massachusetts-based college came as tensions simmer between Washington and Beijing over trade and other issues. Around 1,300 Chinese students are currently enrolled at Harvard, according to official figures, and hundreds of thousands more attend other universities in a country long viewed by many in China as a beacon of academic freedom and rigour. Admissions consultant Xiaofeng Wan, who advises overseas students on getting into top US universities, told AFP he had been on the phone with panicked clients all evening. "I’ve got questions not only from families but also from school-based college counsellors in China as well, including principals of high schools," Wan said, speaking by phone from Massachusetts. "They were all shocked by the news. They could not believe that this actually happened." Trump has blasted Harvard for refusing to submit to government oversight on admissions and hiring, and has repeatedly claimed it is rife with anti-Semitism and "woke" liberal ideology. US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote on X that Thursday’s move would also hold Harvard "accountable for… coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus", without giving details. In a swift response, Harvard slammed the revocation as "unlawful".

Reuters [5/23/2025 12:21 PM, Laurie Chen and Larissa Liao, 51390K] reports Chinese students at Harvard were cancelling flights home on Friday and seeking legal advice on staying in the United States after President Donald Trump’s administration blocked the famed university from enrolling foreign students. The order, which said the university coordinated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), among other accusations, will force current foreign students to transfer to other schools or lose their legal status and could be widened to other colleges. Harvard called the government’s action "unlawful" and said it was "fully committed" to educating foreign students, of which Chinese nationals form the largest group at the elite Ivy League university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. On Friday, a U.S. district judge issued a temporary restraining order freezing the Trump administration’s policy for two weeks.

Breitbart [5/23/2025 4:03 AM, John Hayward, 3077K] reports the Chinese Communist government on Friday condemned the United States for ending Harvard University’s much-abused international student program. "China-U.S. education cooperation benefits both sides. China opposes politicizing education cooperation," insisted Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning. Mao was very reluctant to discuss China’s politicization of the Harvard student program, cited by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as the reason for shutting the program down. "This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus," DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said when she ordered the university to terminate its Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) on Thursday.

Reuters [5/24/2025 12:03 AM, Michael Martina, 51390K] reports Harvard University’s links to China, long an asset to the school, have become a liability as the Trump administration levels accusations that its campus is plagued by Beijing-backed influence operations. On Thursday the administration moved to revoke Harvard’s ability to enroll foreign students, saying it fostered antisemitism and coordinated with the Chinese Communist Party. Among them are Chinese nationals who made up about a fifth of Harvard’s foreign student intake in 2024, the university said. A U.S. judge on Friday temporarily blocked the administration’s order after the Cambridge, Massachusetts, university sued. The concerns about Chinese government influence at Harvard are not new. Some U.S. lawmakers, many of them Republicans, have expressed worries that China is manipulating Harvard to gain access to U.S. advanced technology, to circumvent U.S. security laws and to stifle criticism of it in the United States. "For too long, Harvard has let the Chinese Communist Party exploit it," a White House official told Reuters on Friday, adding the school had "turned a blind eye to vigilante CCP-directed harassment on-campus.” Harvard did not respond immediately to requests for comment. The school has said the revocation was a punishment for Harvard’s "perceived viewpoint," which it called a violation of the right to free speech as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. Harvard’s links to China, which include research partnerships and China-focused academic centers, are longstanding. The ties have yielded major financial gifts, influence in international affairs and global prestige for the school. In a statement, the Chinese embassy in Washington said: "Educational exchanges and cooperation between China and the United States are mutually beneficial and should not be stigmatized.” The presence of Chinese students at Harvard and the school’s links to the country are not evidence of wrongdoing. But the complexity and overlapping nature of the connections have been opaque enough to attract attention and criticism. The China-related issues cited by the Trump administration echo the work of the Republican-led House of Representatives’ Select Committee on China. For example, Harvard provided public health-related training to Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) officials after 2020. That year the U.S. imposed sanctions on the Chinese paramilitary organization for its role in alleged human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic groups in Xinjiang. The Department of Homeland Security said those engagements with XPCC continued "as recently as 2024.”

CBS News [5/23/2025 8:45 AM, Staff, 51860K] Video HERE reports the Chinese government said Friday that the Trump administration’s move to ban international students from Harvard would harm America’s international standing, and one university in Hong Kong looked to capitalize on the uncertainty by promising to take them in. Chinese students make up a large part of Harvard University’s international student population. The university enrolled 6,703 international students across all of its schools in 2024, according to the school’s data, or about a quarter of the overall student body, with 1,203 of those coming from China. The Trump administration’s move, announced Thursday, was a hot topic on Chinese social media. State broadcaster CCTV questioned whether the U.S. would remain a top destination for foreign students, noting that Harvard was already suing the U.S. government in court. "But with the long litigation period, thousands of international students may have trouble waiting," the CCTV commentary said. It went on to say that it becomes necessary for international students to consider other options "when policy uncertainty becomes the norm.". U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem accused Harvard this week of "fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus.". She said the administration’s action against the renowned university would "serve as a warning" to other colleges. Last month, CBS Boston reported that Noem had demanded detailed records on the purported "illegal and violent activities" of Harvard’s foreign student visa holders. "It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments," Noem said in a statement. "Harvard had plenty of opportunity to do the right thing. It refused." [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

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Axios [5/23/2025 7:19 AM, Dan Primack, 13599K] reports President Trump’s decision to prevent international students from studying at Harvard University could hurt America’s economy by reducing the number of startup founders. Trump is aiming at Harvard, but buckshot may hit the innovation engine that America needs to stay ahead of China. Around 44% of U.S. unicorn companies — startups valued at $1 billion or more — are founded or cofounded by immigrants from such countries as India, Canada, and Israel. Some of them moved to the U.S. as children, but many came to the U.S. for school and then stayed to build their businesses. Harvard ranks as one of America’s top schools for educating startup founders, ranking third for undergrads, second for grad students, and first for MBAs, according to PitchBook. Trump’s move could discourage other foreign students from coming here at all, particularly after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told Fox News that the Harvard halt "should be a warning to every other university." For the more than 6,000 current Harvard students, some may seek to transfer — although it could be quite onerous, particularly for those in the midst of scientific graduate degrees that are tied to specific professors. Trump wants to encourage investment in America — but someone has to educate the people who attract that investment.

Politico [5/23/2025 12:35 PM, Seb Starcevic, 656K] reports Belgium’s heir to the throne could be forced to leave Harvard University after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a ban on foreign students at the prestigious institution. Princess Elisabeth, who will be the next queen of Belgium, is enrolled in a two-year master’s degree in public policy at Harvard, one of the world’s most elite universities. But the Trump administration revoked Harvard’s ability to enroll international students on Thursday, accusing the university of promoting violence and antisemitism and failing to comply with a request to hand over foreign students’ information that could lead to their deportation. The move affects more than 7,000 currently enrolled students, around a quarter of the student body, Harvard said in a lawsuit to overturn the restrictions, adding that it would have a "devastating effect for Harvard and more than 7,000 visa holders.". U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in her letter announcing the ban that foreign students must transfer out of the university to maintain their visa statuses. The 23-year-old princess, who is the eldest child of Belgium’s King Philippe and Queen Mathilde, has completed the first year of grad school but will not finish for another year. She graduated from the U.K.’s Oxford University last year. She’s first in line to inherit the throne, after Belgium’s constitution was changed in 1991 to abolish male-only succession. "The impact (if any) of this decision of the U.S .administration is unclear at this stage," a spokesperson for the Belgian monarchy told POLITICO. "We’re investigating it now. It will become clearer in the coming days/weeks.". The royal palace’s communications director told Reuters they were "analyzing" the situation "and will let things settle.".

Federalist [5/23/2025 7:24 AM, M.D. Kittle, 1142K] reports Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim were a young couple "in the prime of their lives" and planning to get married, according to the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. "Instead of walking you down the aisle, we are walking with you to your graves," wrote embassy spokeswoman Tal Naim in an X post after Thursday after a suspected Jew-hating terrorist shot and killed the embassy employees as they exited the Capital Jewish Museum in Northwest D.C. The accused killer, 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez of Chicago, shouted, "I did it for Gaza," and then chanted "free Palestine" as he stormed out of the museum, according to Washington Post. Rodriguez reportedly has been involved in numerous leftist causes, including Marxist-Leninist groups and the anti-Israel movement. Authorities are investigating terrorist ties. They need only look to the death cult of the far left, spreading antisemitism messages across U.S. college campuses, Democrat-led cities, even in the halls of Congress for such murderous inspiration. The "Free Palestine" crowd of "From the River to the Sea" chanters are the progeny of a radical left bent on burning down America and the rest of the Western World. And the hands of the modern-day Democrat Party that has been commandeered by these Marxists are covered in blood — dripping from its clenched fist. On Thursday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ordered her agency to terminate Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, putting an end to the university’s ability to enroll foreign students. Existing foreign students will have to transfer or risk their legal status in the U.S., DHS warned. In a release, Homeland Security asserts Harvard’s leadership has created "an unsafe campus environment by permitting anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators to harass and physically assault individuals, including many Jewish students, and otherwise obstruct its once-venerable learning environment. Many of these agitators are foreign students." "It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments," Noem said. "Harvard had plenty of opportunity to do the right thing. It refused.".

AP [5/23/2025 8:16 AM, Jake Offenhartz, 48304K] reports the Trump administration is accusing Columbia University of violating the civil rights of Jewish students by "acting with deliberate indifference" toward what it describes as rampant antisemitism on campus. The finding was announced late Thursday by the Health and Human Services Department, marking the latest blow for an Ivy League school already shaken by federal cutbacks and sustained government pressure to crack down on student speech. It comes hours after the Department of Homeland Security said it would revoke Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students, a major escalation in the administration’s monthslong attack on higher education. The civil rights division of HHS said it had found Columbia in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which blocks federal funding recipients from discrimination based on race, color or national origin. That final category, the press release notes, includes "discrimination against individuals that is based on their actual or perceived Israeli or Jewish identity or ancestry." The announcement did not include new sanctions against Columbia, which is already facing $400 million in federal cuts by the Trump administration over its response to pro-Palestinian campus protests. A spokesperson for Columbia said the university is currently in negotiations with the government about resolving its claims of antisemitism. "We understand this finding is part of our ongoing discussions with the government," the spokesperson said in an email. "Columbia is deeply committed to combatting antisemitism and all forms of harassment and discrimination on our campus.".

Reported similarly:
ABC News [5/23/2025 7:02 AM, Jon Haworth, 31733K]

Breitbart [5/23/2025 11:54 AM, John Binder, 3077K] reports the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released detailed rap sheets on eight illegal alien convicts deported to South Sudan this week, but whose deportations have been halted by a federal judge appointed by former President Joe Biden. The eight illegal aliens were sent to South Sudan because their home countries refused to take them back. (One of the eight illegal aliens is South Sudanese.) Following their deportation, Judge Brian Murphy, appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts by Biden, ruled that DHS violated a prior preliminary injunction and is now ordering the agency to facilitate "credible fear interviews" for each of the illegal aliens. The illegal aliens’ rap sheets are extensive and include some of the most heinous violent crimes, such as murder, rape, and child sex crimes. "Today, DHS released the rap sheets for eight of these uniquely monstrous, criminal illegal aliens who have final deportation orders that the U.S. government is actively trying to deport," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement: The American public should know the heinous crimes of these murderers, rapists, and pedophiles that this activist district court judge is trying to bring back to American soil. As he spits in the face of victims, this Massachusetts district court judge is stalling the final removal of these barbaric individuals from the country and wants taxpayers to continue to foot the bill to keep these criminals in DHS custody overseas. It is deranged. [Emphasis added].

Reuters [5/23/2025 3:33 PM, Marisa Taylor, Ted Hesson, Alexandra Alper, and Helen Coster, 51390K] reports when reports surfaced in the media that the federal government’s personnel office was planning to hire a driver to ferry around agency directors, officials quickly launched an investigation to find out who was leaking to the press, according to three people familiar with the matter. Hiring a driver at the Office of Personnel Management hardly qualified as classified or top secret information: one official at the agency quipped to a colleague in a message seen by Reuters that the information would have needed to be made public eventually to advertise the position. But the plans to hire a driver - first reported by Reuters - proved awkward for OPM and the White House at a time when the agency was spearheading efforts by the Department of Government Efficiency to slash the federal workforce, cutting hundreds of its own employees. The incident underscores President Donald Trump’s determination to crack down on leaks to the press, even those involving unclassified information or the everyday workings of the government. "President Trump has made it clear he will not tolerate federal government employees leaking to the fake news media. This is common sense," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to Reuters. "Government employees who spend their time leaking to the media instead of doing the job American taxpayers expect should be held accountable." In several government agencies - including the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense - managers told employees they would have to undergo lie detector tests, or polygraphs, after unclassified information was reported in the media, six of the government workers told Reuters. After details of a DHS meeting in March involving Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and the then acting FEMA Administrator Cameron Hamilton leaked to the press, DHS managers ordered polygraph tests on at least four meeting attendees, according to an additional two former Federal Emergency Management Agency officials. FEMA is part of DHS. The attendees, including Hamilton, sat for polygraphs at the Transportation Security Administration headquarters in Virginia.

The Hill [5/23/2025 10:21 AM, Filip Timotija, 18649K] reports Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem welcomed the dismissal of a lawsuit against the department for sending migrants to Guantánamo Bay. "Suck it," Noem wrote Thursday night in a post on the social platform X. She attached a copy of the court filing confirming the 10 migrants who brought the lawsuit have dismissed it. The suit, which was backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, was filed in early March, contesting the Trump administration’s intention of transferring 10 migrants to the U.S. detention center in Cuba, amid President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration. "Never before has the federal government moved noncitizens apprehended and detained in the United States on civil immigration charges to Guantánamo. Nor is there any legitimate reason to do so now," the plaintiffs said in a March 1 court filing. "The government has ample detention capacity inside the United States, which is far less costly and poses none of the logistical hurdles attendant to detaining people on Guantánamo," the document reads. The DHS has accused Maiker Espinoza Escalona, one of the plaintiffs in the suit, of being a part of the transnational gang Tren de Aragua (TdA), which is designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. His family has denied the claims.

Reported similarly:
Blaze [5/23/2025 10:15 AM, Joseph MacKinnon, 1805K]
Washington Times [5/23/2025 8:02 PM, Staff, 2106K]

Washington Times [5/23/2025 9:25 AM, Stephen Dinan, 2106K] reports a federal judge has ruled that being deported does not constitute "cruel and unusual punishment" under the Constitution, rejecting an illegal immigrant mother’s request that her potential removal be rescinded. Judge Edmund A. Sargus Jr., a Clinton appointee to the court in Ohio, declined to step in and block the possible deportation of Carmen Graciela Guerrero Sandoval, a pregnant woman who already has one 9-year-old U.S. citizen son. She had argued that being forced to go back to her home in El Salvador and leave her boy, who has autism, and miss out on her unborn child becoming a U.S. citizen by birth, is too much. "The removal of the plaintiffs’ mother constitutes a form of cruel and unusual punishment for the plaintiffs," George A. Katchmer, the woman’s lawyer, argued to the court. He also argued that the deportation violated the 9-year-old’s rights because deportation of his mother means he would be treated differently than other children, violating the Equal Protection Clause. Judge Sargus said the case raised a "sad set of facts," and said the situation "no doubt brings stress and potential harm" to Ms. Guerrero Sandoval’s family. But he said the law is clear that a citizen child doesn’t grant an automatic stay of deportation. Ms. Guerrero Sandoval says she has been ordered deported by an immigration judge, which is a separate system from the regular courts. She said she has appealed that ruling to the Board of Immigration Appeals, but the judge said it’s unclear where things stand. She says she’s been ordered to show up at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices on June 3, where she expects ICE will try to deport her. From her legal argument, it sounds like she would intend to leave her son in the U.S.

NPR [5/23/2025 5:28 PM, Staff, 37958K] Audio: HERE reports Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem got a pop quiz at a senate hearing this week. The question came from Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan, of New Hampshire. Hassan asked Noem to explain habeas corpus. For the record, habeas corpus is the legal principle, enshrined in the Constitution, that protects people from illegal detention. This core constitutional protection has been an obstacle to the President’s mass deportation plan. What would it mean if the President suspended it? And could he, under the Constitution?

Reuters [5/23/2025 4:29 PM, Brendan O’Brien, 51390K] reports the Trump administration announced on Friday that it had filed a lawsuit against four New Jersey cities, accusing them of being so-called sanctuary jurisdictions and obstructing federal immigration agents, according to court documents. The suit, filed in federal court in New Jersey on Thursday, said Newark, Hoboken, Jersey City and Paterson along with the municipalities’ city councils and mayors are breaking federal immigration law. The local policies in the cities deny federal immigration agents access to undocumented immigrants in local custody, restrict local officers from handing over those in custody to federal agents and bar otherwise willing local officers from providing information to federal immigration authorities, the suit said. The New York Post [5/23/2025 1:51 PM, Josh Christenson and Jennie Taer, 49956K] reports the Department of Justice sued four New Jersey cities Thursday for allegedly obstructing federal immigration authorities with their sanctuary policies, The Post can exclusively reveal. The lawsuit claims officials in Newark, Jersey City, Paterson and Hoboken have been unconstitutionally blocking the feds from coordinating with local authorities to apprehend and deport illegal immigrants. Acting Assistant Attorney General Yaakov Roth wrote in the complaint that the local policies amounted to "a frontal assault on the federal immigration laws and the federal authorities that administer them.". "The express purpose and clear effect of these policies … is to thwart federal immigration enforcement," Roth said. "[E]ven where local law enforcement wants to help the United States deal with the nation’s immigration crisis, the Challenged Policies impede them from doing so.". "This not only puts the safety of officers at risk, but also endangers the broader communities they are sworn to protect," he added, claiming the policies violate the US Constitution’s supremacy clause. The suit comes on the heels of a high-profile clash May 9 involving state and federal Democratic politicians at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Newark, which ended in the arrest of the city’s mayor Ras Baraka and led to federal charges against Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ). "Recent events have proven that these New Jersey officials care more about political showmanship than the safety of their communities," Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.

Reported similarly:
New York Times [5/23/2025 9:16 PM, Christopher Maag, 138952K]
FOX News [5/23/2025 3:50 PM, Louis Casiano, 46878K]
Telemundo [5/23/2025 10:33 PM, Mike Catalini, 145K]

FOX News [5/23/2025 6:55 PM, David Spunt, Jake Gibson, 46878K] reports that, in a motion filed in federal court in Los Angeles, the Trump DOJ is moving to dissolve the ‘Flores Consent Decree.’ Attorney General Pam Bondi maintains the decree is incentivizing illegal immigration at the southern border. The Flores decree has governed the detention and release of migrant children since 1997. The motion, filed by the DOJ and jointed by HHS and the Department of Homeland Security, asks a federal court in southern California to dissolve the decree. However, the motion to terminate the Flores decree will be heard at a July 18 hearing before US District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles. Judge Gee has presided over the case for years, and it is unlikely she will agree to get rid of the Flores decree, setting up a possible battle before the federal appeals court, and ultimately the Supreme Court. "The outdated Flores consent decree was implemented as a stopgap measure almost 30 years ago but in recent years has directly incentivized illegal immigration at our southern border. Congress and various federal agencies have already solved the problems that Flores was designed to fix, and this consent decree is now an unacceptable restriction on our America-first immigration agenda," said Attorney General Pam Bondi in a statement to Fox News. DOJ officials also tell Fox News the idea is to put the power back into the hands of elected officials in Washington, rather than a single federal judge in California. In the filing the DOJ says the government is moving, "to terminate the FSA completely and with respect to all Defendants, and to dissolve the Court’s injunction of DHS’s regulations for apprehension, processing, care, and custody of alien minors…After 40 years of litigation and 28 years of judicial control over a critical element of U.S. immigration policy by one district court located more than 100 miles from any international border, it is time for this case to end.” In light of the significant changes in circumstances since this Court entered the FSA 28 years ago, including the promulgation of regulations incorporating the goals of the FSA, and Supreme Court precedent that is inconsistent with continuing such a long-term decree, further continuation of the FSA is no longer equitable or in the public interest. This Court entered the FSA as a consent decree in 1997 and amended it in December 2001. The FSA has governed the care and custody of unaccompanied alien children (UACs) ever since, notwithstanding intervening legislation by the U.S. Congress and agency regulations. In 2015, this Court expanded the FSA to accompanied children, see Flores v. Lynch, 828 F.3d 898, 906, 909 (9th Cir. 2016), even though it is obvious from the FSA’s terms that the parties did not contemplate their inclusion. Thus, as to accompanied children, the national policy has long been set by a district court (and not the President or Congress), notwithstanding that the consent decree providing the basis for district-court supervision does not claim to regulate this class of aliens. That simply cannot be.

The New York Times [5/24/2025 2:20 AM, Mattathias Schwartz, 330K] reports a federal judge ordered the Trump administration late Friday night to facilitate the return of a Guatemalan man who had been deported to Mexico, despite fearing persecution and having told U.S. authorities about the violence he had experienced there. The man, known by the initials O.C.G., is gay and is now living in hiding in Guatemala, “in constant panic and constant fear,” according to a sworn declaration. “I can’t be gay here, which means I cannot be myself.” The ruling, by Judge Brian E. Murphy of the U.S. District Court in Boston, criticized the government for first claiming that O.C.G. had said he was not afraid of being sent to Mexico, where he said he was raped and held captive, but later admitting that it was “unable to identify” the officials to whom he had supposedly made that statement. Judge Murphy also found that O.C.G. was likely to “succeed in showing that his removal lacked any semblance of due process.” The decision added another flashpoint to the high-stakes battle over President Trump’s deportation policies playing out across the federal courts. A string of judges has faulted the administration for a lack of adequate due process or otherwise carrying out deportations in ways that exceed the president’s authority. Mr. Trump and his aides, in turn, have questioned the authority of courts to hear such cases and even called for the impeachment of judges who rule against them. Perhaps the case closest to O.C.G.’s is that of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a mistakenly deported Maryland man. It raises questions about the likelihood of O.C.G.’s return to the United States, despite Judge Murphy’s order. In both cases, a federal judge has instructed the Trump administration to correct its own admitted mistake and seek the men’s return. Mr. Abrego Garcia remains in a prison in El Salvador. In Mr. Abrego Garcia’s case, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s order for the government to “facilitate” his return but stopped short of endorsing the judge’s call to “effectuate” it. The government has seized on that distinction, saying it lacks the authority to return Mr. Abrego Garcia because El Salvador maintains custody over him. Mr. Trump himself has said he “could” arrange his release with a phone call. Judge Murphy took pains to acknowledge this distinction and the constitutional limitations on the judiciary’s ability to direct the conduct of the executive branch overseas. But the word “facilitate,” he wrote, “should carry less baggage” in O.C.G.’s case because he “is not held by any foreign government.” CNN [5/24/2025 4:27 AM, Karina Tsui, 875K] reports the Trump administration has been ordered to facilitate the return of a Guatemalan man who was wrongly deported to Mexico in February, after he told authorities about his fears of violence and torture across the border. This case marks at least the third time the administration has been ordered to return a migrant it wrongfully deported. During his immigration proceedings, O.C.G. said he feared being sent to Mexico, but the judge told him that since Mexico isn’t his native country, he can’t be sent there without additional steps in the process, the ruling said. "Those necessary steps, and O.C.G.’s pleas for help, were ignored. As a result, O.C.G. was given up to Mexico, which then sent him back to Guatemala, where he remains in hiding today," Murphy said. "No one has ever suggested that O.C.G poses any sort of security threat," Murphy noted. "In general, this case presents no special facts or legal circumstances, only the banal horror of a man being wrongfully loaded onto a bus and sent back to a county where he was allegedly just raped and kidnapped.” Murphy’s ruling came days after an appeals court denied the Trump administration’s request to put on hold an order requiring it to facilitate the return of a 20-year-old Venezuelan migrant wrongly deported to El Salvador earlier this year. "Cristian," as he was identified in court documents, was among a group of migrants who were deported in mid-March under the Alien Enemies Act, a sweeping 18th Century wartime authority Trump invoked to speed up removals of individuals it claims are members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

Reported similarly:
New York Post [5/24/2025 3:42 AM, Staff, 49956K]
Reuters [5/24/2025 12:13 AM, Nate Raymond, 51390K]

Washington Post [5/24/2025 6:00 AM, Samantha Schmidt, 32099K] reports the gang name was scrawled onto classroom desks and written on bathroom walls. At the school where Kilmar Abrego García spent most of his adolescence, the students all knew who was in charge of the neighborhood: MS-13. It was a prime age for gang recruitment. A Salvadoran boy who was old enough to speak into a cellphone was old enough to work for a gang. Before their voices had even changed, the students knew who among them had joined. Abrego García was not one of them, his teachers and a classmate said. During his years at the school — between about 2003 and 2011 — Abrego García consistently demonstrated "very good conduct," according to official school records provided to Washington Post. But toward the end of his time at the school, his friends began to worry he might be having problems at home. "He seemed sad, like his mind was on something else," said a former classmate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of security concerns. There were gang threats to him and his family, Abrego García would later say in court. Fearing for his safety, at 16 years old, he fled to the United States. Fourteen years later, Abrego García has found himself back in his home country, less than two hours from his former school, deported to a Salvadoran prison because of a self-described "administrative error" by the Trump administration. He was one of about 260 migrants deported to El Salvador in March and put in a maximum-security mega prison. His case is now at the center of one of the Trump administration’s biggest court fights. Neither government has shown any willingness to return him to the United States, despite the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the Trump administration must facilitate Abrego García’s return. A Maryland federal judge repeatedly expressed frustration over a lack of information on any steps the U.S. government has taken to comply with those court orders. A separate federal judge in Washington last week gave the Trump administration until Friday to identify its efforts to return Abrego García and the other migrants who were deported with him. This weekend, Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Maryland) plans to travel to El Salvador to ask for information about Abrego García’s case and the others deported to the country’s prison system.

FOX News [5/23/2025 6:13 PM, Peter Pinedo, 46878K] reports the Trump Treasury Department’s new sanctions are a "full-frontal assault" on one of the deadliest southern border cartels, a local border official told Fox News Digital. The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned two high-ranking Cartel del Noreste (CDN) members, Mexican nationals Miguel Angel de Anda Ledezma and Ricardo Gonzalez Sauceda, Wednesday. CDN was one of eight cartels and transnational criminal groups labeled "foreign terrorist organizations" by the Department of State Feb. 20. Under new sanctions announced this week, all property and interest in properties belonging to De Anda and Gonzalez that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked. While announcing the sanctions, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the department is "working toward the total elimination of cartels to make America safe again" and that the Trump administration "will hold these terrorists accountable for their criminal activities and abhorrent acts of violence.” "CDN and its leaders have carried out a violent campaign of intimidation, kidnapping and terrorism, threatening communities on both sides of our southern border," said Bessent. "We will continue to cut off the cartels’ ability to obtain the drugs, money and guns that enable their violent activities.” Paul Perez, who leads the National Border Patrol Council chapter in the South Texas Rio Grande Valley, told Fox News Digital even though the Trump administration’s border crackdown has dramatically reduced illegal crossings, the cartels, including CDN, continue to present a threat to the lives and safety of American citizens living on the border. "The threat of cartels is still there," Perez said in an interview with Fox News Digital. He noted that "the thing about the cartels is that they’re very sophisticated," explaining they have begun using advanced technology like drones to carry out their operations. "They’re not the street gang-level managers," he said. "They’ve got a lot of people on their side that have been in this industry for a long time. They know how to get their products moving. They know how to get their product across.” In Mexico, Perez said, the cartels control the border and "act with impunity all along the border," while the Mexican police and military are unable to stop them. He said cartel gunfights along the border often lead to cartel members fleeing north into the U.S., where "they’re going to do everything they can to get away and get back. And if that means harming American citizens, then they’re going to do that." [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

New York Times [5/23/2025 7:37 AM AM, Amanda Taub, 153395K] reports it can be difficult to keep track of the Trump administration’s deportation policies, and the many legal challenges against them. But a dramatic showdown in a federal courtroom this week is worth a closer look. Lawyers were challenging a contentious Trump administration tactic: Sending deportees to countries they are not from, with little or no opportunity to raise objections. In April, Judge Brian E. Murphy of the Federal District Court in Boston ordered the government to give deportees at least 15 days notice before sending them to a third country, and to provide them a chance to tell a court whether they feared persecution or torture at their destinations. On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security ignored that order, and deported a group of men to a third country with only a day’s notice. Which country? It’s not entirely clear. The eight men — from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Burma, Vietnam and other countries — were first told they were heading for the war-torn nation of South Sudan; their plane landed instead in Djibouti, in eastern Africa. The government has not said where it intends to take them next. Judge Murphy was irate. “The department’s actions in this case are unquestionably violative of this court’s order,” he wrote, warning that the administration officials who enabled the deportations could potentially face criminal penalties.

Univision [5/23/2025 6:58 AM, Staff, 4992K] reports Alabama joined in recent days the list of conservative states that have passed strict immigration laws to support Donald Trump’s strategy against foreigners in the United States. The new rules effectively increase restrictions on illegal migration and on voter identification through controversial measures. The one that has probably caused the most controversy is the collection of DNA samples from undocumented immigrants in custody. In addition, there is the penalty for transporting an undocumented immigrant to Alabama, as is already the case in other parts of the country. State authorities defend the regulations by assuring that they will serve to close existing loopholes and improve the identification of undocumented persons. “Alabama is taking steps to protect our communities from impacts to public safety and the integrity of our elections,” its governor, Republican Kay Ivey, said last week.

CBS News [5/23/2025 3:13 PM, Jennifer Jacobs, Nicole Sganga, 51860K] reports security for Trump administration border czar Tom Homan costs more than $500,000 a month, multiple sources within the administration told CBS News, an amount that has drawn attention from allies of President Trump who have been seeking to shrink government spending. The total cost of Homan’s security — with roughly $500,000 in salaries for agents plus airfare, hotel bills and other travel expenses for his protective bubble — adds up to around $1 million per month for the Trump appointee, another administration official said. "DHS ensures our leaders are safe and protected," Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin told CBS News Friday, citing "dangerous rhetoric" from politicians and activists surrounding the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts that result in an increase in assaults and doxxing, exposing someone’s identifying information online. "We will continue to take measures to ensure Mr. Homan and his family are safe," McLaughlin added. The Department of Homeland Security declined to confirm the cost. Homan is trailed by a rotating detail of special agents from DHS’s investigative arm, known as Homeland Security Investigations or HSI, according to one of the sources, who added that roughly 30 agents trade off to provide round-the-clock protection to Homan. That would add up to about $12 million by year’s end. The protection for Homan — which includes a security detail at his home, when he drives to his offices in the White House West Wing and at Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s D.C. headquarters, or when he is out in public — is paid for by DHS. Homan, one of the faces of Mr. Trump’s pledge to conduct the largest deportation operation in U.S. history, has drawn threats from those who want to cause him harm, two of the sources familiar with his situation said.

Bloomberg [5/23/2025 10:49 AM, Ellen M. Gilmer, 1707K] reports that Department of Homeland Security civil rights and oversight offices that were shuttered in March will be rebuilt with teams a fraction of their original size. The Trump administration outlined the plans Thursday in a filing to the US District Court for the District of Columbia, where several immigrants’ rights groups are challenging the dismantling of the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, and the Office of the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

The Hill [5/23/2025 7:00 AM, Nathan Miller, 18649K] reports on Thursday evening, a terrorist gunned down two staff members from Israel’s Embassy in Washington, D.C., as they were leaving an American Jewish Committee event focused on promoting unity and understanding among young diplomats. According to early reports, the shooter, a 30-year-old associated with radical leftist organizations in Chicago, had an online footprint filled with vile antisemitic ranting and support for terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, including a manifesto posted on Thursday evening explicitly calling for the murder of American Jews in response to Israel’s war in Gaza. The short video of the police hauling the killer away in handcuffs sharply captured the dystopian world we now live in. Newly minted as the coldblooded murderer of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, a beautiful young couple about to be engaged, he proudly chanted "Free Palestine!" in a cadence eerily familiar to any college student who has walked by an encampment in the last year. Indeed, what’s most shocking and horrifying about Thursday’s events to anyone who has been paying attention is just how unsurprising they are.

NewsMax [5/23/2025 8:58 AM, Josh Hammer, 4622K] reports actions, we know, have consequences. And a committed Marxist’s cold-blooded murder of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C., Wednesday night was the natural and inevitable consequence of a conscientious, yearslong campaign to dehumanize Jews and otherize all supporters of the world’s only Jewish state. Seriously, what did you think was going to happen? Some of President Donald Trump’s more colorful all-caps and exclamation mark-filled social media posts evince an impending jackboot, we’re sometimes told. Hold aside, for now, columnist Salena Zito’s apt 2016 quip about taking Trump seriously but not literally. Words either have meaning or they don’t. And many left-wing Americans have, for a long time now, argued that they have tremendous meaning. How often, as the concept of the "microaggression" and its campus "safe space" corollary took off last decade, were we told that "words are violence"? (I’ll answer: a lot!). So are we really not supposed to take seriously the clear calls for Jewish genocide that have erupted on American campuses and throughout American streets since the Hamas pogrom of Oct. 7, 2023? Are we really supposed to believe that chants such as "globalize the intifada," "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," and "there is only one solution, intifada revolution" are vague and open to competing interpretations — devoid of any discernible meaning? That doesn’t even pass the laugh test. Or perhaps more accurately, if morbidly, it doesn’t even pass the murder test.

Washington Post [5/23/2025 7:41 AM, Dana Milbank, 32099K] reports “Turn the lights down and just put this on,” President Donald Trump commanded his aides. It was time for another Oval Office ambush of a foreign leader, this time South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. He then narrated a video, which, at one point, showed white crosses lining a roadside, which Trump portrayed as a mass grave for White South African farmers, murdered in what Trump has errantly described as a “genocide.” “Now, this is very bad. These are the — these are burial sites right here. Burial sites,” Trump said. “Each one of those white things you see is a cross, and there’s approximately a thousand of them. They are all White farmers. … And it’s a terrible sight. I’ve never seen anything like it. Both sides of the road, you have crosses. Those people were all killed.” Ramaphosa looked baffled. “I’d like to know where that is,” he said, “because this I’ve never seen.” And there’s a good reason for that: It doesn’t exist. Trump seemed genuinely to believe that the phony graves were evidence of an actual atrocity — much like when he presented as genuine an obviously Photoshopped image purporting to show the characters “MS-13” tattooed on the knuckles of the wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego García. If all this weren’t awkward enough, Trump, prompted by a reporter, explained why the United States, the wealthiest country in the world, needed to rely on charity from Qatar in the form of that donated 747 (which, it turns out, Trump had solicited): Qatar’s royals needed to “help us out because we need an Air Force One.” This is just embarrassing — maybe not for our president, who seems incapable of such a sentiment, but for the rest of us. Everywhere I looked this week, I cringed for my country.

Wall Street Journal [5/23/2025 5:35 PM, Staff, 646K] reports the Trump Administration has frozen billions in federal grants to Harvard University, threatened its tax-exempt status, and sought to dictate its curriculum and hiring. Now the government seems bent on destroying the school for the offense of fighting back. And for what purpose? That’s how we read the Department of Homeland Security’s move Thursday to bar foreign students from attending the world-renowned institution. That’s 6,800 students, or a quarter of Harvard’s student body, whose futures are suddenly in disarray. It’s also a short-sighted attack on one of America’s great competitive strengths: Its ability to attract the world’s best and brightest. The latest assault began when DHS demanded that Harvard turn over sundry records on its foreign students, including whether any had participated in illegal activity or left the university owing to “dangerous or violent activity or deprivation of rights.” Some of its record requests are reasonable, but some overreached by requiring private student information. DHS also gave Harvard all of two weeks to respond. If it failed to do so, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said she would “automatically withdraw” the school’s certification in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program. “The withdrawal will not be subject to appeal.” Ms. Noem deemed Harvard’s response unsatisfactory and kicked the school from the program. This means foreign students will have to leave the country in short order or find another U.S. college that will take them. Harvard sued on Friday, and a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order against the student ban. The university rightly says the Administration’s actions are “clear retaliation for Harvard exercising its First Amendment rights to reject the government’s demands to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum, and the ‘ideology’ of its faculty and students.”

New York Times [5/23/2025 5:02 AM, Steven Pinker, 153395K] reports in my 22 years as a Harvard professor, I have not been afraid to bite the hand that feeds me. My 2014 essay “The Trouble With Harvard” called for a transparent, meritocratic admissions policy to replace the current “eye-of-newt-wing-of-bat mysticism” which “conceals unknown mischief.” My 2023 “five-point plan to save Harvard from itself” urged the university to commit itself to free speech, institutional neutrality, nonviolence, viewpoint diversity and disempowering D.E.I. Last fall, on the anniversary of Oct. 7, 2023, I explained “how I wish Harvard taught students to talk about Israel,” calling on the university to teach our students to grapple with moral and historical complexity. Two years ago I co-founded the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard, which has since regularly challenged university policies and pressed for changes. So I’m hardly an apologist for my employer when I say that the invective now being aimed at Harvard has become unhinged. According to its critics, Harvard is a “national disgrace,” a “woke madrasa,” a “Maoist indoctrination camp,” a “ship of fools,” a “bastion of rampant anti-Jewish hatred and harassment,” a “cesspool of extremist riots” and an “Islamist outpost” in which the “dominant view on campus” is “destroy the Jews, and you’ve destroyed the root of Western civilization.” And that’s before we get to President Trump’s opinion that Harvard is “an Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institution,” a “Liberal mess” and a “threat to Democracy,” which has been “hiring almost all woke, Radical Left, idiots and ‘birdbrains’ who are only capable of teaching FAILURE to students and so-called future leaders.” This is not just trash talk. On top of its savage slashing of research funding across the board, the Trump administration has singled out Harvard to receive no federal grants at all. Not satisfied with these punishments, the administration just moved to stop Harvard from enrolling foreign students and has threatened to multiply the tax on its endowment as much as fifteenfold, as well as to remove its tax-free nonprofit status. Call it Harvard Derangement Syndrome.

CBS News [5/23/2025 9:53 AM, Camilo Montoya-Galvez and Nidia Cavazos, 51860K] reports the Trump administration has launched an operation to terminate the immigration court cases of certain migrants, in order to arrest them and place them in a fast-tracked deportation process instead, government officials and attorneys told CBS News. Lawyers and advocates this week reported arrests of migrants outside of immigration courthouses across the U.S., saying teams of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers had detained individuals whose cases in front of immigration judges had just been terminated at the request of the government. Two Department of Homeland Security officials told CBS News that ICE is conducting an operation to expedite the deportation of migrants with court hearings scheduled in the near future. It’s the latest step taken by the Trump administration to dramatically ramp up immigration arrests across the country and fulfill what the president has promised will be the largest deportation campaign in American history. The operation involves ICE prosecutors asking immigration judges to terminate the court cases of certain migrants, so agents at the agency can instead arrest those individuals and place them in a more rapid deportation process known as "expedited removal," the officials said. In a statement, Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin faulted the Biden administration for releasing many migrants with notices to appear in immigration court, instead of trying to deport them quickly through expedited removal. "ICE is now following the law and placing these illegal aliens in expedited removal, as they always should have been," McLaughlin said.

Breitbart [5/23/2025 12:37 PM, John Binder, 3077K] reports President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has deported an illegal alien, accused of raping a child and filming the sexual assault, that had been released into the United States by former President Joe Biden’s DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. On May 16, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents deported illegal alien fugitive Felipe Nery Casco Murillo to his native Honduras, turning him over to Honduran authorities, on May 16. Murillo first crossed the U.S.-Mexico border near Hidalgo, Texas on May 13, 2023, and applied for admission. Despite being wanted in Honduras for child rape and production of child pornography, Mayorkas’s DHS gave Murillo parole and released him into the U.S. interior on the same day he arrived at the border. Under the Biden-Mayorkas parole pipeline, nearly a million and a half migrants were released into American communities, often without DHS knowing the full extent of their criminal histories and backgrounds. This week, Trump accused Biden officials like Mayorkas of "treason at the highest level" over such policies like the parole pipeline.

AP [5/23/2025 3:42 PM, Valerie Gonzales and Elliot Spagat, 48304K] reports the Trump administration has continued releasing people charged with being in the country illegally to nongovernmental shelters along the U.S.-Mexico border after telling those organizations that providing migrants with temporary housing and other aid may violate a law used to prosecute smugglers. Border shelters, which have long provided lodging, meals and transportation to the nearest bus station or airport, were rattled by a letter from the Federal Emergency Management Agency that raised “significant concerns” about potentially illegal activity and demanded detailed information in a wide-ranging investigation. FEMA suggested shelters may have committed felony offenses against bringing people across the border illegally or transporting them within the United States. “It was pretty scary. I’m not going to lie,” said Rebecca Solloa, executive director of Catholic Charities Diocese of Laredo. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement continued to ask shelters in Texas and Arizona to house people even after the March 11 letter, putting them in the awkward position of doing something that FEMA appeared to say might be illegal. Both agencies are part of the Department of Homeland Security. Tricia McLaughlin, spokeswoman for the Homeland Security Department, drew a distinction with large-scale releases under Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden. The Biden administration worked closely with shelters but, during its busiest times, released migrants at bus stops or other public locations. “Under the Biden administration, when ICE has aliens in its custody who are ordered released, ICE does not simply release them onto the streets of a community — ICE works to verify a sponsor for the illegal alien, typically family members or friends but occasionally a non-governmental-organization,” McLaughlin said.

Washington Post [5/23/2025 8:00 PM, Arelis R. Hernández and Maria Sacchetti, 32099K] reports the Trump administration is planning to then place immigrants whose cases are dismissed and who have been in the country less than two years into a fast-track removal process that does not involve a hearing before a judge. The coordinated operation is the government’s latest attempt to quickly remove people from the country — even if officials have to bypass the courts — as concern grows in the White House that President Donald Trump won’t be able to fulfill his campaign promise to remove millions of undocumented immigrants from the United States. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem "is reversing Biden’s catch and release policy that allowed millions of unvetted illegal aliens to be let loose on American streets," department spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said. "ICE is now following the law and placing these illegal aliens in expedited removal, as they always should have been.” In January, Trump signed an executive order to expand a process known as expedited removal to speed up deportations. The measure was created in a 1996 law that sought to crack down on illegal immigration. Migrants can request asylum from immigration officers if they fear persecution if returned home. But if they are denied, their only recourse is a cursory review by an immigration judge, not a full hearing. Historically, expedited removals have been more commonly used at the border, but the Trump administration is expanding their use throughout the nation’s interior. The president made a similar attempt during his first term in 2019 but was stopped by a federal judge. The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups filed a federal lawsuit in January in the District of Columbia seeking to block the latest expansion, saying it violates immigrants’ constitutional rights as well as other U.S. laws. They said asylum seekers "would get less due process contesting their deportation than they would contesting a traffic ticket.” But as the case remains ongoing in court, Trump officials are moving forward with pushing through his effort to quickly arrest and deport immigrants. Department of Homeland Security attorneys in cities and states across the country this week moved to dismiss scores of deportation cases, saying people were free to go. But as soon as the immigrants left the courtrooms, a phalanx of federal law enforcement officers were waiting to handcuff them and take them to immigration detention. In Phoenix, nearly two dozen masked federal law enforcement officers assembled in the parking garage of a U.S. office building and arrested men and women coming out of court as family members and others protested. Seattle attorneys were stunned when government lawyers filed motions to dismiss. In Chicago, plainclothes federal officers popped into courtrooms with lists of names, searching for their targets. More than 30 immigration attorneys around the country said they witnessed their clients being apprehended in the mass dragnet, a process they said was unfair to people who were complying with the law by attending their court hearings and seeking legal immigration options. San Diego immigration attorney Michael Hirman, who described himself as a Republican who voted for Trump, was in immigration court this week representing a client who said he had been a military commander in Venezuela. The man fled because he didn’t want to "gun down fellow Venezuelans in the street" and enforce draconian laws handed down by the authoritarian government of Nicolás Maduro, Hirman said. The man entered the United States three days before Trump’s inauguration and immediately applied for asylum.

Univision [5/23/2025 2:33 PM, Patricia Clarembaux, 4992K] reports that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stated in an email that people being detained after their immigration court dates in different cities across the country are being placed in expedited removal proceedings. This is part of the strategy to increase the pace of expulsions to the scale requested by President Donald Trump. "If they have a valid credible fear, they will continue in their immigration proceedings. But if they are found to have no valid claims, the foreign nationals will be subject to rapid deportation," a DHS spokesperson explained to Univision News. In January, the DHS expanded the use of expedited deportations with an order: it established that they could be carried out anywhere in the country and for anyone who cannot demonstrate they have been in the United States continuously for two years. This measure repealed the previous limit on their application, limiting them to only 100 miles from the border and during the first 14 days of the immigrant’s arrival in the country. By then, lawyers were already warning that this change would lead to due process violations. Organizations such as the Immigration Legal Center warned of an increased risk for the immigrant community of being placed in rapid deportation proceedings without the right to appear before a judge or defend their case.

Reuters [5/23/2025 4:35 PM, Ted Hesson and Kristina Cooke, 51390K] reports federal immigration officials arrested dozens of immigrants following their immigration court hearings in multiple U.S. cities this week, in operations that advocates said appeared to target people who had been in the country for less than two years. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained migrants at courthouses in New York City, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Seattle, according to family members, attorneys and news reports. In at least some of the arrests, immigration judges had just dropped active cases against migrants, family members and advocates said. The move could potentially allow U.S. authorities to put them in a fast-track deportation process known as expedited removal. ICE guidance issued earlier this year directed officers to consider all immigrants previously released for expedited removal if they had not affirmatively applied for asylum. A senior U.S. Department of Homeland Security official said the effort aimed to deport immigrants allowed to enter the U.S. under former President Joe Biden, a Democrat.

Breitbart [5/23/2025 11:52 AM, John Binder, 3077K] reports President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is pressuring illegal aliens to self-deport from the United States by fining them to the tune of billions of dollars. DHS revealed the figures to New York Times, highlighting another critical tool used by the Trump administration to have illegal aliens self-deport: The Trump administration has found a new way to pressure undocumented immigrants to leave the country. It is penalizing some of them with fines of nearly $1,000 a day for every day they stay in the country illegally. [Emphasis added]. So far, the administration has imposed $2 billion in fines on nearly 7,000 people who have failed to leave the country after either being ordered to do so or saying they would voluntarily go, according to Tricia McLaughlin, a homeland security spokeswoman. [Emphasis added]. In addition to the fines, Trump has promised illegal aliens a "beautiful flight" out of the U.S. so long as they voluntarily self-deport, which would make them eligible for a $1,000 check after they have proven that they are back in their home country.

NewsMax [5/23/2025 3:34 PM, Solange Reyner, 4622K] reports the House Republicans’ massive tax and spending bill includes about $150 billion in new funding to beef up border security and carry out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation plans, reports the Washington Post. The funding includes more than $51 billion to construct and upgrade border barriers and facilities at the U.S.-Mexico border and $59 billion for immigration detention and transportation. Additionally, there’s $4 billion to hire 3,000 new Border Patrol agents as well as 5,000 new customs officers, and $2.1 billion for signing and retention bonuses. There’s also funds for 10,000 more Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and investigators. The bill also includes major changes to immigration policy, imposing a $1,000 fee on migrants seeking asylum — something the nation has never done, putting it on par with few others, including Australia and Iran. Overall, the plan is to remove 1 million immigrants annually and house 100,000 people in detention centers. The House approved the bill, 215-214, on Thursday. The bill will next go to the Senate, which has made clear that it plans to make changes.

(B) NBC News Daily [5/23/2025 1:24 PM, Staff] reports that dozens of people are being held at the Cumberland County Jail right now but they are not charged with local crimes. The sheriff there says 67 people in his jail are being held on behalf of ICE. One of those people being held is Xing Bi Dong from China. According to the law office representing Dong, he is under a deportation order. No specifics were shared about why except to say he is considered out of status.

Breitbart [5/23/2025 11:26 AM, Warner Todd Huston, 3077K] reports New Hampshire’s Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed a pair of bills into law Thursday that place bans on sanctuary city polices in the Granite State. "There will be no sanctuary cities in New Hampshire," Ayotte said during the bill signing, according to New Hampshire Bulletin. "Period. End of story.". The two bills that are now law — House Bill 511 and Senate Bill 62 — ban municipalities and counties in the state from putting in place policies that prevent local officials and police from cooperating with federal immigration officials such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Among other requirements, House Bill 511 requires local governments to comply with ICE detainers and bans cities from making policies that would refuse to recognize immigration directives. For its part, Senate Bill 62 prohibits cities from passing rules preventing police departments from entering into resource agreements with ICE. At the signing, Ayotte again took aim at Massachusetts, New Hampshire’s left-wing neighboring state, as her imputes for pursuing anti-sanctuary policies. "This is something we ran on to make sure that New Hampshire would not go the way of Massachusetts," the governor said, "and their billion-dollar illegal immigration crisis.". When she was elected last year, Ayotte pledged to put an end to sanctuary policies and charged the legislature with moving quickly on the issue. Ayotte also said she would not "MASS up" New Hampshire after seeing how badly Massachusetts was mired in illegal migrants and illegal drug trafficking.

Blaze [5/23/2025 4:05 PM, Candace Hathaway, 1805K] reports sanctuary jurisdictions have sprouted up in many areas around the nation and, in many cases, created an undesired spillover effect for neighboring communities that reject such policies. New Hampshire has grappled with this issue due to Democratic leaders in Massachusetts implementing measures to shield illegal aliens, including criminals, from federal immigration authorities. On Thursday, New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte (R) drew a line in the sand by signing into law House Bill 511 and Senate Bill 62, which place a ban on sanctuary cities and support cooperation between local authorities and federal immigration enforcement. Thursday’s action made New Hampshire the first state in New England to ban sanctuary jurisdictions.

Daily Caller [5/23/2025 9:57 AM, Jason Hopkins, 1010K] reports a federal Grand Jury indicted a Colombian national Thursday on allegations of living in the U.S. unlawfully for years under a stolen identity, receiving hundreds of thousands in government benefits and voting in the last presidential election. Lina Maria Orovio-Hernandez, a 59-year-old Colombian woman residing in Boston, lived in the U.S. more than 20 years under a stolen identity and improperly received roughly $400,000 in rental assistance, Social Security and food stamp benefits, according to a press release by the Department of Justice (DOJ). Prosecutors say she not only voted in the 2024 presidential election, but has been registered to vote since January 2023. "For more than 20 years, this defendant is alleged to have built an entire life on the foundation of a stolen identity – including illegally voting in our presidential election and collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in government benefits intended for Americans in need," U.S. Attorney Leah B. Foley said in a prepared statement. Orovio-Hernandez allegedly used her stolen identity to obtain a Massachusetts Real ID, eight other state IDs and apply for a U.S. passport, according to prosecutors. She is accused of unlawfully collecting $259,589 in Section 8 rental assistance benefits between October 2011 and January 2025, $101,257 in Social Security disability benefits between July 2014 and January 2025 and $43,348 in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits between April 2005 and January 2025. Altogether, the Colombia national is charged with one count of fraudulent voter registration, one count of fraudulent voting, one count of false representation of a Social Security number, one count of aggravated identity theft, one count of making a false statement in an application for a U.S. passport and three counts of receiving stolen government money or property, according to the DOJ.
Orovio-Hernandez allegedly used her stolen identity to obtain a Massachusetts Real ID, eight other state IDs and apply for a U.S. passport, according to prosecutors.

Reported similarly:
Washington Times [5/23/2025 9:57 AM, Stephen Dinan, 2106K]

NPR [5/24/2025 5:00 AM, Adrian Florido, 37958K] reports the immigration judge was looking out over her courtroom. Mahmoud Khalil was sitting at a table next to his lawyers as they tried to convince her not to order him deported to the Middle East. "His life is at stake, your honor," one of them, Marc Van Der Hout, told the judge. Khalil was focused and stern. But he kept getting distracted. His wife was sitting in the public gallery a few feet away, cradling their tiny newborn son, Deen. The baby was cooing. Everyone could hear. And each time, Khalil couldn’t resist a smile. It was a touch of levity in a courtroom otherwise heavy with the gravity of what was being discussed: Khalil’s fear that if he’s deported, the state of Israel might try to kill him. Last month, Judge Jamee Comans ruled that Khalil could be deported because as an immigration judge she had no authority to question Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s determination that his pro-Palestinian activism at Columbia University was antisemitic and threatened U.S. foreign policy goals. Unless his lawyers believed he qualified for special protection like asylum, the judge said, she would order him expelled either to Syria, where he was born and raised in a camp for Palestinian refugees, or to Algeria, which gave him a passport because of his mother’s ancestry. On Thursday, over 10 grueling hours behind the barbed wire of the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center, where Khalil is being held, his lawyers called on experts via videoconference to convince the judge to grant him asylum and set him free. Here’s the heart of their argument: The Trump administration’s false, they say, and public accusations that Khalil is an anti-Semite and terrorist sympathizer have turned him into a high profile critic of Israel known around the world. Because of that, he said he fears that if he is deported to the Middle East, Israel could come after him. "It could range from assassination, kidnapping, torture," Khalil said during more than three hours of testimony that recalled key moments in his life, from his earliest memory in a Palestinian refugee camp near Damascus, Syria, to missing the birth of his son last month because he was locked up at the detention center 1,400 miles from his home in New York. President Trump, Secretary of State Rubio, and other government officials "mislabeled me a terrorist, a terrorist sympathizer or a Hamas supporter, which couldn’t be further from the truth. I advocate for human rights. I never engaged in antisemitic activities," Khalil said. He challenged the government lawyers sitting a few feet from him to offer any evidence to the contrary. "I became, not by choice, a celebrity – someone who has a target on his back by these mislabels. This means wherever I go in the world, I will have that target.” Judge Comans said it would be several weeks before she makes a decision on Khalil’s asylum claim. But whatever she decides will not be the final word on his fate. A federal judge in the Northeast has temporarily blocked the government from deporting him while he considers whether it violated Khalil’s constitutional right to free speech. Khalil’s lawyers are pursuing every legal option to stop his deportation and restore his green card, and have said they’ll go all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary. During Thursday’s asylum hearing, his lawyers questioned several experts on the Middle East about why they thought Khalil would be at risk if he’s sent back there. "The U.S. has called him a pro-Hamas agent," said Muriam Haleh Davis, a professor of the Middle East at U.C. Santa Cruz. She said Israel has historically targeted Hamas collaborators for assassination.

The Hill [5/23/2025 3:40 PM, Ashleigh Fields, 18649K] reports a Georgetown University scholar detained in March by the Trump administration said his detainment served as a "mockery" of the rule of law. Badar Khan Suri, 41, was released on bond last week after a federal judge determined he should not be removed from the country until the court can consider his legal challenge. The postdoctoral student described his first week detained in Louisiana in an interview with The Associated Press. The Department of Homeland Security accused Khan Suri of having ties to Hamas through his father-in-law, Ahmed Yousef, who worked for the Hamas-backed government in Gaza in the early 2000s. However, Khan Suri’s attorneys said he barely has contact with the relative, adding that their client has not spoken out in support of the terrorist group.

CBS Austin [5/23/2025 8:27 AM, Mary-Beth Mangrum, Ray Collado, 558K] reports a Dalton college student has reunited with her family after being released from ICE custody late Thursday night. Despite bonding out, she continues to face deportation. 19-year-old Ximena Arias-Cristobal was arrested by Dalton Police in early May for driving without a valid license. Right now, her family is waiting on her to return back to Dalton. But she is still facing deportation from the U.S. once her case makes it back to court. Her attorneys don’t expect her next hearing to happen until mid-2026. Ximena is expected to return home sometime after midnight, with the Stewart Detention Center not releasing her until about 9:30 p.m. Ximena’s arrest comes from a Georgia state law, which makes driving without a valid license an offense that requires an arrest. Dalton police later admitted that their officer pulled over the wrong vehicle and dropped Ximena’s charges. But she was still driving without a legal license. Her family told us she has an international license, but one of her attorneys says that doesn’t meet the legal requirement under Georgia law. The family says they came to the country when Ximena was four. Her two younger sisters were born here, which makes her siblings US citizens. Ximena’s attorney told us there was no clear path to citizenship for her because her parents were here illegally, and DACA ended when they came to the US.

NBC News [5/23/2025 6:27 PM, Suzanne Gamboa, 44540K] reports a U.S.-born citizen who was wrestled into the dirt, handcuffed and detained in a vehicle as part of an immigration raid had a REAL ID on him that was dismissed as fake, the man’s cousin said Friday. Video of the arrest, aired by Noticias Telemundo, showed authorities grabbing Leonardo Garcia Venegas, 25, while at a job site in Foley, Alabama, on Wednesday and bending his arms behind him. Someone off-camera can be heard yelling, "He’s a citizen." Garcia told Noticias Telemundo that authorities took his ID from his wallet and told him it was fake before handcuffing him. Garcia said he was released from the vehicle where he was held after he gave the arresting officials his Social Security number, which showed he is a U.S. citizen. The arrest has left Garcia, who was born in Florida, shaken, particularly because the officers also arrested and detained his brother, who is not in the country legally, Venegas said. She added that Garcia lived with his brother. Their parents are from Mexico. The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement to NBC News that Garcia interfered with an arrest during a targeted worksite operation. "He physically got in between agents and the subject they were attempting to arrest and refused to comply with numerous verbal commands," said Tricia McLaughlin, DHS assistant secretary. "Anyone who actively obstructs law enforcement in the performance of their sworn duties, including U.S. citizens, will of course face consequences which include arrest." The response did not address the dismissal of Garcia’s identification. Garcia denied that he interrupted an arrest. He told NBC News that he was trying to take out his phone when an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent took it and threw it to the ground and then an agent began grabbing him.

New York Times [5/23/2025 4:35 PM, Maya C. Miller, 138952K] reports since President Trump began a widespread crackdown on immigration, few Republicans in Congress have criticized his efforts to facilitate mass deportations, including of migrants authorized to live or work in the United States. But a small group of Republican lawmakers from South Florida has begun gently pushing back against the administration’s move to strip hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans of deportation protections under a program known as Temporary Protected Status, or T.P.S. The objections from Representatives María Elvira Salazar, Carlos Gimenez and Mario Díaz-Balart — whose families fled Cuba after Fidel Castro gained power — were an unusual instance of dissent by congressional Republicans, who have rarely deviated from Mr. Trump’s policies, especially when it comes to his hard-line immigration agenda. The disagreements escalated this week after the Supreme Court on Monday upheld the Trump administration’s cancellation of the deportation protections. The criticism has been fairly muted and carefully worded, reflecting the line that Republicans must walk when criticizing Mr. Trump. But all three cautioned the White House against deporting people who may be fleeing an oppressive socialist government.

DailySignal [5/23/2025 1:20 PM, Fred Lucas, 558K] reports that state and local officials will be able to cross-check the citizenship status of individuals using a Social Security number as a means to prevent illegal voting and voter registration. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced it updated the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) to coordinate with the Social Security Administration. President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14248, "Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections" included a provision making the SAVE system accessible to state and local governments. The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now. "For years, states have pleaded for tools to help identify and stop aliens from hijacking our elections," USCIS spokesman Matthew Tragesser said in a statement. The SAVE system is used for verifying lawful U.S. citizenship and immigration status. It is operated by USCIS, and provides federal, state, territorial, tribal, and local agencies with U.S. citizenship and immigration status information about individuals’ eligibility for certain public benefits and licenses, including voter eligibility verification. "Under the leadership of President Trump and Secretary [Kristi] Noem, USCIS is moving quickly to eliminate voter fraud. We expect further improvements soon and remain committed to restoring trust in American elections," Tragesser added.

Federalist [5/23/2025 12:38 PM, Jordan Boyd, 1142K] reports that there is a judicial coup underway in the U.S., and the Supreme Court is refusing to stop it. Yet another unpunished hit to the Constitution happened this week when a federal judge in Texas ordered President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security to hand over sensitive communications with the El Salvadoran government about one of its Alien Enemies Act deportees. In his initial order, Judge Keith P. Ellison of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas ordered the Trump administration to confirm the "current location and health status" of Venezuelan Widmer Josneyder Agelviz-Sanguino, who was allegedly one of the 238 deportees flown to the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador, within 24 hours. The Clinton appointee also demanded that the Trump administration disclose "the legal basis for his continued detention," ensure Agelviz-Sanguino can establish contact with his lawyers, and detail "any logistical arrangements made with El Salvadoran authorities.". After multiple extensions, the Trump administration handed over information to the judge under seal, according to legal news outlet Law & Crime. Ellison, however, deemed the documents insufficient and issued a subsequent order demanding that the U.S. government file a "declaration describing all actions taken by Defendants and the U.S. Embassy since May 19, 2025."

FOX News [5/23/2025 12:44 PM, Staff, 9940K] reports that Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., reacts to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s red-hot message to Harvard students in response to ongoing protests.

[Editorial note: consult video at source link]

FOX News [5/23/2025 1:02 PM, Alexandra Koch, 46878K] reports that two Venezuelans living in the U.S. illegally were recently charged in a December mass shooting that killed three people and wounded five others in Chicago, leading to the arrests of more than a dozen suspected Tren de Aragua gang members. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced on Tuesday that suspected shooters Ricardo Granadillo Padilla, 25, and Edward Martinez Cermeno, 24, are being charged in the Dec. 2 house party massacre. Eight people were shot, including five men and three women between the ages of 20 and 35, according to a report from affiliate FOX 32 Chicago. Victims suffered gunshot wounds to the head, abdomen and extremities, according to the report. Three men were pronounced dead, including a 26-year-old and a 28-year-old. Gang-related graffiti was found at the scene, and officials confirmed prior calls for service at the address, FOX 32 reported. Padilla was arrested in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Feb. 8 in a multi-agency effort, and was sentenced in March for illegally entering the country in 2022 near El Paso, Texas, according to ICE. ICE did not immediately respond to further inquiries from Fox News Digital.

FOX News [5/23/2025 11:11 AM, Audrey Conklin, 46878K] Video: HERE reports newly released video footage appears to show Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan speaking with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in the Milwaukee County Courthouse before she allegedly directed an illegal immigrant defendant to leave through a private exit. Dugan, 65, was indicted last month on federal charges of obstruction of proceedings before a U.S. agency and unlawful concealment of an individual subject to arrest. Federal prosecutors allege that the Milwaukee Circuit Court judge personally escorted Mexican illegal immigrant and domestic battery suspect Eduardo Flores-Ruiz out of the courthouse in April while ICE agents were attempting to serve a warrant. The surveillance footage, released by Milwaukee County in response to an open records request, appears to show Dugan, wearing her black robe, confronting ICE agents in the courthouse hallway. Federal prosecutors say members of ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), along with federal partners from the FBI, DEA, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, were preparing to serve Flores-Ruiz with a warrant in a public courthouse hallway on April 18 before his scheduled court appearance with Dugan. After becoming aware of what federal officials described as a valid immigration arrest warrant for Flores-Ruiz, Dugan allegedly told agents that they needed a judicial warrant and told them to go to the chief judge’s office. The agents then left their place in the hallway, at which point Dugan allegedly chose not to hold a hearing for Flores-Ruiz and "personally escorted" the suspect and his attorney through a private exit while the victims of his alleged crimes were in the courthouse at the time, the Justice Department said in a press release.

CBS News [5/23/2025 6:11 PM, Ken Molestina, Lexi Salazar, 51860K] reports U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested several immigrants who showed up for their scheduled hearings at the Dallas federal courthouse on Friday. The detentions come on the heels of similar arrests earlier this week in immigration courts across the country. According to attorneys, this is part of a new tactic by the Trump administration to fast-track the removal of migrants who arrived in the U.S. in the past two years. With millions caught in the backlog, it can normally take years for those seeking relief to go through the immigration court process. Under the direction of the Department of Homeland Security, ICE attorneys are dropping cases against some migrants, removing their temporary protected status, and making them immediately eligible for arrest and deportation. This is happening during what’s called a master calendar docket, a check-in early in the immigration case process. Dallas immigration attorney Haim Vasquez said the Board of Immigration Appeals recently greenlit this effort under a provision that refers to the arrest and deportation of those classified as "arriving aliens.” Friday afternoon, a CBS News Texas crew saw two immigrants arrested by plainclothes ICE agents. Witnesses said several others were arrested that morning. In an emailed statement to CBS News Texas Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security wrote: "Secretary Noem is reversing Biden’s catch-and-release policy that allowed millions of unvetted illegal aliens to be let loose on American streets. This administration is once again implementing the rule of law. "Most aliens who illegally entered the United States within the past two years are subject to expedited removals. Biden ignored this legal fact and chose to release millions of illegal aliens, including violent criminals, into the country with a notice to appear before an immigration judge. ICE is now following the law and placing these illegal aliens in expedited removal, as they always should have been. "If they have a valid credible fear claim, they will continue in immigration proceedings, but if no valid claim is found, aliens will be subject to a swift deportation.” Legal expert calls policy "aggressive". Immigration attorney Paul Hunker, who formerly served as chief counsel for ICE in Dallas, called this new development an "aggressive" use of DHS’s arrest and removal authority. In a written statement, Hunker said: "The Department of Homeland Security is taking people out of removal proceedings, many of whom have pending relief applications, and expeditiously removing them. It is unprecedented for them to programmatically work with ICE attorneys and immigration judges to dismiss cases and remove people under expedited proceedings." [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Breitbart [5/23/2025 8:22 AM, Bob Price, 3077K] reports U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and other federal and state law enforcement agencies arrested 275 illegal aliens during a recently ended seven-day operation. At least 178 of the illegal aliens had criminal records, officials stated. "Criminal aliens have taken advantage of our immigration laws for long enough. We will continue to prioritize public safety," ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations San Antonio acting Field Office Director Sylvester M. Ortega said in a written statement. "These joint operations show the public what can be done when agencies work together toward a common goal of public safety." ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations officers joined Texas Department of Public Safety troopers, and agents from the FBI, ATF, DEA, Border Patrol, and U.S. Marshals Service deputies to arrest 275 illegal aliens during seven days ending on May 11, officials stated. Officials report that 178 of these illegal aliens had criminal histories that include: Others arrested had criminal histories that included charges of domestic violence, cocaine possession, larceny, DWI, drug trafficking, weapons offenses, and assault.

Houston Chronicle [5/23/2025 4:26 PM, Benjamin Wermund, 1982K] reports a bill requiring Texas sheriffs to help with federal immigration enforcement would cost Harris County "well over $1 million," and duplicate an initiative the agency already has in place, according to Sheriff Ed Gonzalez. The additional cost would come as Harris County is facing a $270 million budget deficit that Judge Lina Hidalgo has said means officials will have to either cut back on spending or raise taxes in fiscal year 2026. The legislation, a priority for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, would require counties with at least 100,000 residents to sign agreements with Immigration and Customs Enforcement under which deputies can investigate their jail population to identify immigrants in the country illegally. The bill, which passed the Republican-controlled Senate and is up for a vote in the GOP-led House Saturday, includes $20 million in state-funded grants to help smaller counties cover the costs of the agreements. But the money is not available to counties with more than 1 million residents, including Harris, Bexar and Travis, meaning they will have to pick up the tab on their own.

CBS Austin [5/23/2025 12:11 PM, Ryan Simms, 558K] reports one of Snohomish County’s most anticipated trials is set to begin Friday, involving an undocumented immigrant accused of driving impaired and causing the death of a Washington State Patrol trooper. Raul Benitez-Santana, 33, faces charges of driving drunk and crashing into the back of a state patrol cruiser on Interstate 5 near Marysville on March 2, 2024. The collision resulted in the death of Trooper Christopher Gadd, 27, who was seated in the driver’s seat of the patrol car at the time. Investigators allege that Benitez-Santana was traveling at speeds exceeding 100 mph when the crash occurred. Benitez-Santana is a citizen of Mexico and was in the U.S. illegally at the time he was arrested for Trooper Gadd’s death. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) placed an immigration detainer on him within a week of when he was booked into the Snohomish County jail for charges of vehicular homicide. As a result, defense attorneys alleged pretrial publicity of the immigration status tainted the potential jury pool. They argued prosecutors violated the state’s sanctuary laws by ‘colluding’ with ICE in the weeks after charges were filed. The accusation against Mr. Benitez-Santana includes the charged question of whether a Latino man, who has been maligned by the media, the public, and elected officials, as an undocumented Mexican criminal, unlawfully caused the death of a police officer," the defense argued. "The state reasonably should have known that including information about the client’s immigration status in a publicly filed court document would result in its dissemination to the public and could materially prejudice the adjudicative process. In response, a judge denied the defense’s motion to halt a trial, noting that the correspondence between prosecutors and ICE happened after the detainer was already in place. "I don’t see any information in the record for the court to conclude that the state actively pursued or contacted ICE to obtain the initial detainer," Judge Karen Moore said.

Univision [5/23/2025 10:35 PM, Staff, 4992K] reports immigrant rights groups denounced and condemned the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Northern California courthouses. According to a witness, this is how they operated to arrest him. "On Wednesday... I came out of the courtroom, out of the room and I met two people who asked me my name and I asked them, ‘who are you’ and he said, ‘nothing’ and he pulled out his ICE badge and I answered, ‘I am Sergio, but I don’t have a court’, and he asked me for ID and I told him, ‘I am not required by law to show my ID’ and that was when he stopped asking me questions," Sergio López, a member of the organization Contra Costa Immigrants Rights Alliance, told Univision 14. However, Lopez says, the next person the agents approached at the courthouse was not as fortunate. "The second person who left the immigration court was a man, he was detained by ICE agents and they did not allow us to talk to them," shares the Hispanic. The fear that this causes is not just a perception, say pro-immigrant organizations, it is a reality, which leads the community to not show up for their hearings, and that can play against them. "If the person doesn’t show up in court, they are subject to being arrested anywhere and removed from the country, with nothing else...because they didn’t show up for the hearing," attorney Francisco Barra told Univision 14. In recent days, the presence of ICE agents in Texas and Arizona courts has been denounced and made visible.

San Francisco Chronicle [5/23/2025 10:01 AM, Sean Campbell, 4120K] reports a gunsmith from a rural town, a former Marine, and half a dozen others were under investigation in San Antonio, Texas, starting in the summer of 2018 for trafficking more than half a million dollars worth of guns and ammunition to the Cartel del Noreste, a drug cartel prominent in northeast Mexico with connections to former Mexican soldiers. Jose J. Soto Jr. was in the U.S. Armed Forces from 2004 to 2015, including a stint with the elite Army Rangers. He came on Homeland Security Investigations’ radar around 2017 for working with a human trafficker and gunrunner for the cartel. Through 2018, Soto and gunsmith Brian Morris purchased hundreds of rifles, including .50-caliber Barretts. Morris often purchased the rifles or their parts, built them out into unserialized "ghost" machine guns and sold them to Soto. Soto flipped the weapons to Cartel del Noreste, also commonly referred to as the Northeast cartel. The gun dealer Zeroed In Armory sold more than 170 firearms to Morris over eight months. Two were later recovered at Mexican crime scenes. A federal agent reviewed invoices totaling US$122,225 in weapons sales to Morris, but Zeroed In continued business unencumbered. And Zeroed In wasn’t the traffickers’ biggest supplier. CDNN Sports Inc., a firearm dealer currently based out of Abilene in central Texas, sold $280,000 worth of magazines, high-powered ammunition and assault rifles to Soto. Soto flipped the weapons to the cartel. Independent firearm businesses like Zeroed In Armory are the largest suppliers of crime guns bought in the U.S. and trafficked to Mexico.

Telemundo [5/23/2025 12:38 PM, Anagilmara Vílchez, 3352K] reports "I handle with God’s license," Alfredo replies about whether he has any documents that allow him to drive in the United States. I don’t have papers, I have nothing, says this 25-year-old Guatemalan who crossed the border from Mexico in 2022 and has remained "invisible" ever for the federal government. The Department of Homeland Security announced in late February the creation of a record that all undocumented immigrants in the United States over 14 would have to sign up, completing a form and providing their fingerprints and home. This is a requirement included in the Immigration and Nationality Act, which has been in force for decades, but which has not been enforced so far. Since 11 April, when the new regulations, already endorsed by a judge, entered into force, it may not be punished by a fine and/or imprisonment. More than 57,000 immigrants have so far complied with the Requirement for the Register of Foreigners, the Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) told News Telemundo. Some 11 million people live without documents in the United States, according to a 2022 estimate by the Pew Research Center. "For the first time in years, the Immigration and Nationality Act is being implemented, which obliges all foreigners who remain in the United States for more than 30 days to register with the federal government," spokesman Matthew Tragesser explained via email. The registration implemented by the president’s government, Donald Trump, has left immigrants like Alfredo at a crossroads. I would like to make my life here, says the Guatemalan who recognizes that not registering could harm any chance of fixing his immigration status in the future. Several acquaintances of his, also undocumented, have already decided not to give the Government their data and fingerprints, he says. "For the security of the homeland and all Americans, we must know who is in our country," said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, in a message in April urging all affected people to meet the requirement. Is it mandatory to register. And the problem is that, of course, it has consequences, says Veronica Thronson, director of the Immigration Law Clinic at Michigan State University, which serves low-income people. But as lawyers we can’t tell people to break the law, he says. Do most of our customers say: What would you do? You advise me? So that’s what breaks my heart, because I say to them, "It’s going to be your decision," he explains. Since April, it has assisted a dozen immigrants in the process that each person must complete individually online after creating an account on the USCIS portal. And you have insisted: If you do not register and stop it and have no evidence that was recorded, you can fine you, you can put you in jail.

The Hill [5/23/2025 7:37 AM, Jeff Arnold, 18649K] reports enrollment numbers at American colleges and universities will drop by 5 million by 2037 if international and immigrant students are not factored into the equation, which will dramatically affect the bottom line of institutions of higher education, a new study suggests. The study, released by the National Foundation for American Policy, determined that the number of undergraduates would be about two-thirds of its current size if its calculations involving international students are correct. Meanwhile, the number of graduate students would also plummet by 1.1 million students, which, coupled with undergraduate decreases, would be "catastrophic" for many universities, an economist who researched the study determined. The administration has announced cuts of federal grant funding from institutions like Harvard and Columbia. On Thursday, President Trump blocked Harvard’s ability to enroll international students for alleged violent and antisemitic practices. Meanwhile, international students at several universities have had their student visas revoked and have been taken into custody by federal immigration agents for a variety of allegations and earmarked for deportation.

Newsmax [5/23/2025 3:56 PM, Theodore Bunker, 4622K] reports President Donald Trump on Friday suggested that his administration may soon announce a "road towards citizenship" for immigrants but declined to give details, The Hill reports. A group of reporters joined Trump in the Oval Office as he signed executive orders concerning nuclear energy when he was asked about the administration’s attempt to block Harvard University from admitting international students. "We’re actually going to be doing something in the near future that’s going to make it possible for people to come into this country and come in and, you know, have a road toward citizenship, and I think it will be very exciting, but it’s too soon to speak of," Trump said.

DailySignal [5/23/2025 1:20 PM, Fred Lucas, 558K] reports that state and local officials will be able to cross-check the citizenship status of individuals using a Social Security number as a means to prevent illegal voting and voter registration. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced it updated the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) to coordinate with the Social Security Administration. President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14248, "Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections" included a provision making the SAVE system accessible to state and local governments. The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now. "For years, states have pleaded for tools to help identify and stop aliens from hijacking our elections," USCIS spokesman Matthew Tragesser said in a statement. The SAVE system is used for verifying lawful U.S. citizenship and immigration status. It is operated by USCIS, and provides federal, state, territorial, tribal, and local agencies with U.S. citizenship and immigration status information about individuals’ eligibility for certain public benefits and licenses, including voter eligibility verification. "Under the leadership of President Trump and Secretary [Kristi] Noem, USCIS is moving quickly to eliminate voter fraud. We expect further improvements soon and remain committed to restoring trust in American elections," Tragesser added.

CBS News [5/23/2025 5:45 PM, Doug Myers, 51860K] reports two Texas residents, a law firm, and a business entity have been indicted for allegedly orchestrating a visa fraud scheme, submitting false applications to help non-citizens unlawfully enter and remain in the U.S., according to federal prosecutors. Abdul Hadi Murshid, 39, and Muhammad Salman Nasir, 35, both originally from Pakistan, were indicted along with the Law Offices of D. Robert Jones PLLC and Reliable Ventures, Inc., as part of an alleged multi-year immigration fraud operation, prosecutors said. Prosecutors allege that Murshid and Nasir, along with the law firm and business entity, orchestrated the scheme for financial gain. The indictment alleges the defendants exploited the EB-2, EB-3, and H-1B visa programs by placing classified ads for fake jobs to satisfy Department of Labor requirements. After fraudulently obtaining labor certifications, they filed petitions with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to secure visas and green cards for visa seekers. To make the non-existent jobs appear legitimate, they received payments from visa seekers and returned portions as fabricated payroll, according to the indictment. Charges include conspiracy to defraud the U.S., visa fraud, money laundering conspiracy, and RICO conspiracy, prosecutors said. In addition to visa fraud, Murshid and Nasir were charged with unlawfully obtaining and attempting to obtain U.S. citizenship. While the FBI led the investigation, the Department of Homeland Security - Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Department of State Diplomatic Security Service, and the Department of Labor Office of Inspector General also assisted.

CNN [5/24/2025 12:28 AM, Erick Beltrán, Mauricio Torres and Kathleen Magramo, 21433K] reports a popular Mexican singer, Julión Álvarez, says he and his band have had to cancel a show in Texas on Saturday night after the singer’s visa to enter the United States had been allegedly revoked. The band, called Julión Álvarez y Su Norteño Banda, was due to play at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, around 30 miles west of Dallas, for a sold-out concert with nearly 50,000 tickets sold, the artist’s team said in a statement Friday. The artist, show promoter CMN and management company Copar Music said that the show had been cancelled "due to unforeseen circumstances," and that Álvarez was "unable to enter the United States in time for the event.” Álvarez also announced the news on his Instagram account, saying in a video that he and his team were notified that his work visa had been revoked by US authorities earlier Friday. "It is not possible for us to go to the United States and fulfill our show promise with all of you. It’s a situation that is out of our hands. That’s the information I have and what I can share," he said in the video. Álvarez said the stage had already been built and that his production team was already in Texas preparing for the show. "I apologize to all of you, and if God permits, we will be in touch to provide more information," he said. The show’s promoter and Copar Music said they were working with Álvarez’s team to reschedule the performance. All previously purchased tickets will be honored for the new date and refund details will be provided for those who cannot attend, it said. A US State Department spokesperson declined to comment on Álvarez’s case, telling CNN that visa records are confidential and that, by law, they cannot comment on individual cases. Álvarez and his band are the latest Mexican artists to allegedly have their US visas revoked amid Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown.

New York Times [5/24/2025 4:02 AM, Lizzie Dearden, 330K] reports a record number of Americans applied for British citizenship in the first three months of this year, and for the right to live and work in Britain indefinitely, according to official data. In the year to March, 6,618 Americans applied for British citizenship, the highest annual figure since records began in 2004, according to statistics released by Britain’s Home Office on Thursday. More than 1,900 of those applications were made between January and March — the highest number for any quarter on record. Immigration lawyers said they had received an increased number of inquiries from people in the United States about possibly relocating to Britain in the wake of President Trump’s re-election in November. Muhunthan Paramesvaran, a senior immigration lawyer at Wilsons Solicitors in London, said that inquiries from Americans looking to settle in Britain had risen “in the immediate aftermath of the election and the various pronouncements that were made.” “There’s definitely been an uptick in inquiries from U.S. nationals,” he said. “People who were already here may have been thinking, ‘I want the option of dual citizenship in the event that I don’t want to go back to the U.S.’” The rise in British citizenship applications from Americans took place against a backdrop of similar increases from across the world, but the global rate — 9.5 percent year-on-year — was far outpaced by the 30 percent jump from the United States. Zeena Luchowa, a partner at Laura Devine Immigration, a law firm that specializes in American migration to Britain, said she expected further increases in the coming months because of the “political landscape” in America. “We’ve seen increases in inquiries and applications not just for U.S. nationals, but for U.S. residents of other nationalities who are currently in the U.S. but looking at plans to settle in the U.K.,” she added. “The queries we’re seeing are not necessarily about British citizenship — it’s more about seeking to relocate.” Separate data published by the Home Office this week showed that a record number of Americans were given the right to settle in Britain in 2024, allowing them to live and work indefinitely in the country as a necessary precursor to citizenship. Of the 5,521 settlement applications granted for U.S. citizens last year, most were for people who are eligible because of their spouses, parents and other family links, while a substantial portion were for people who had originally arrived in Britain on temporary visas for “skilled workers” and want to remain.

Reported similarly:
CNN [5/23/2025 10:03 AM, Olesya Dmitracova, 21433K]

FOX News [5/23/2025 12:25 PM, Danielle Wallace, 46878K] Video: HERE reports Republican attorneys general from 11 states visited the U.S.-Mexico border wall in remote Yuma, Arizona, this week, touting a more than 90% decrease in illegal crossings since President Donald Trump began his second term. Their visit came a day before the House narrowly passed Trump’s "big, beautiful bill," which in part allocates $46.5 billion to revive construction of the wall, which at its current stage covers just a quarter of the approximately 1,900-mile-long stretch separating the United States from Mexico. In Yuma, a city of just 110,000 people, local officials briefed the Republican attorneys general of Kansas, Mississippi, Kentucky, South Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Alabama, Montana, Iowa and Indiana on how an average of 1,500 people were illegally crossing the border a day during the first six months of the Biden administration. That’s dropped to about four daily illegal crossings since Trump took office. In addition to the border wall itself, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach -- chairman of the Republican Attorneys General Association – told Fox News Digital the administration needs other "force multipliers," especially with the task of carrying out the "largest interior removal since the Eisenhower administration." He announced an additional three GOP states entered into 287(G) agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which means local and state deputies and officers are trained to exercise federal law enforcement powers, including making immigration-related arrests, initiating removal processes, conducting investigations and tapping into ICE databases. "The thing the Trump administration needs the most right now is force multipliers," Kobach said. "Even if we doubled the number of Border Patrol agents at ICE stations, we still wouldn’t have enough. This border wall, which I’m looking at, is one force multiplier at the border. The other big force multiplier is state and local law enforcement signing 287(g) agreements and then helping ICE in the interior. And that’s where the red states are leading the way.".

USA Today [5/23/2025 7:25 PM, Lauren Villagran, Riley Beggin, 75552K] reports the Trump administration’s claim to the "most secure border in history" has some Senate Republicans asking why DHS needs billions for a border wall. The Department of Homeland Security has asked Congress for $45.6 billion to build hundreds more miles of fencing at the southern border as part of a sweeping tax and spending bill that passed the House and is being debated in the Senate. "The border is the most secure border we’ve had in the history of the United States of America," DHS Secretary Kristi Noem told the Senate Homeland Security Committee on May 20. "But what we need to do is address the areas that are still vulnerable.” President Donald Trump faces challenges as he looks to push his policy agenda in the Senate, where Republicans have a narrow majority and GOP senators are working to balance their support for border security with concerns about rising national debt. The House version of the funding bill is predicted to add an estimated $3.8 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, said during the committee hearing that at an estimated $14 million a mile, DHS could build more than 3,000 miles of border fence. The U.S.-Mexico border only runs 1,950 miles from California to Texas; roughly 700 miles of the border is already fenced off. "I’m asking you and the department to sharpen your pencil on that wall request," he told Noem. "It’s more than you need.”

FedScoop [5/23/2025 1:03 PM, Matt Bracken, 56K] reports a congressional push to utilize AI and other emerging technologies at the border got a boost this week with the introduction of a bipartisan Senate bill aimed at strengthening the Department of Homeland Security’s tech resources. The Emerging Innovative Border Technologies Act from Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., would make permanent an innovation team created at Customs and Border Protection in 2018 to quickly deploy new capabilities to fight human and drug trafficking. “Technology continues to improve our everyday lives, and it’s just common sense that we look for ways innovative technologies can help keep our border communities secure,” Cortez Masto said in a press release. “I am committed to helping CBP continue developing the tools they need to improve border security operations.” Added Cassidy: “Let’s secure the border forever by using new technology. Let’s stop fentanyl from flowing into our country.” The Senate proposal comes after a bill with the same name passed the House in March. The legislation from Reps. Lou Correa, D-Calif., and Morgan Luttrell, R-Texas, targets purchasing and acquisition roadblocks so that DHS can access the best and most cost-effective technology for border security as quickly as possible. “It’s unconventional warfare,” Luttrell told FedScoop in February. “It’s really guerrilla warfare tactics at the border. [DHS needs] every asset they can have.”

NewsMax [5/23/2025 1:37 PM, Jim Mishler, 4622K] reports that Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., wants to gather up all the information possible on drug cartels and potential foreign nations deploying drones along the U.S. southern border. The Daily Caller reported Lankford is introducing legislation to require a complete government review of the threat posed by drones that are regularly spotted by U.S. military units and law enforcement officers along the U.S. border with Mexico. U.S. military commanders were preparing to deploy counter-drone technology at the border in response to a growing number of drone encounters, Defense Scoop reported. According to Defense Scoop, Rear Adm. Paul Spedero Jr. told a congressional committee, "We know that cartels have used [uncrewed aerial systems, or UAS,] for unauthorized surveillance to assess our troop size, our movements, to solicit and enable attacks from other vectors," adding, "We know that they have used drones for kinetic attacks." Lankford posted comments from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, noting that even Navy ships and Coast Guard cutters need better anti-drone technology. Lankford said, "For years, I’ve emphasized the importance of Counter-Unmanned Aircraft System (C-UAS) technology in protecting against threats to the United States.". Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., is co-sponsoring the Lankford initiative. Kelly told the Caller, "Drone technology is rapidly evolving, and in the wrong hands, it can pose risks to our national security."

Washington Examiner [5/23/2025 6:15 AM, Christopher Tremoglie, 1934K] reports a joint operation conducted by the Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Customs and Border Protection resulted in the seizure of nearly two million illegal e-cigarettes, most of which came from China. The seizures occurred in Chicago, Illinois, in February but were announced by the FDA in a press release on Thursday. The devices taken in the joint operation were valued at $33.8 million. The initiative was part of an effort by the federal agencies to prevent illegal e-cigarettes from being smuggled into the country. The FDA said in its statement that the packages’ product descriptions were vague and inaccurate to disguise the contents and avoid searches and discovery. Once inspected, the contraband, containing illegal e-cigarette brands such as "Snoopy Smoke" and "Raz," was seized. "The FDA, working with our federal partners, can and will do more to stop the illegal importation and distribution of e-cigarette products in the United States," said FDA Commissioner Marty Makary. "Seizures of illegal e-cigarettes keep products that haven’t been authorized by the FDA out of the United States and out of the hands of our nation’s youth."

Blaze [5/23/2025 9:45 AM, David Krayden, 1805K] reports it’s long been an open secret in Canadian law enforcement circles: Chinese Triads have been moving people, weapons, and drugs over the the border and into the United States with impunity for decades. And yet the government in Ottawa has largely failed to act on repeated warnings by a number of Canadian security officials over the years. ‘He has stopped all the border crossings. So where’s all the fentanyl coming from still? Where’s the trafficking coming from still?’. President Donald Trump has brought renewed attention to lax border security, using tariffs as a stick to prompt action. Now Trump-appointed FBI Director Kash Patel is amplifying his boss’ message: Forget Mexico. America’s most pressing border security concern is to the north. During an interview with Fox News host Maria Bartrimono last weekend, Patel brushed aside concerns about Trump’s "51st state" rhetoric and urged Canada to "step up" and take responsibility for its border security. Of the 300 known or suspected terrorists to illegally enter the U.S. in 2024, 85% came via Canada, Patel claimed. Noting that Trump has effectively "sealed" the Mexican border, the FBI boss also contended that Canada must be the source of the fentanyl that continues to be smuggled into the U.S.

NPR [5/23/2025 10:01 AM, Rachel Treisman, 37958K] reports Memorial Day is reliably one of the busiest travel weekends in the U.S. — and experts predict this year will set a new bar. AAA projects 45.1 million people will travel at least 50 miles from home between Thursday and Monday, breaking a domestic travel record set in 2005. Most are expected to drive or fly, though others will travel by train, bus or cruise. "While some travelers embark on dream vacations and fly hundreds of miles across the country, many families just pack up the car and drive to the beach or take a road trip to visit friends," Stacey Barber, vice president of AAA Travel, said in a statement. AAA projects the majority of people — some 39.4 million — will travel by car, an increase of 1 million from last year. While drivers should expect crowded roads, there is at least one silver lining: National average gas prices are the lowest they’ve been over Memorial Day Weekend since 2021. AAA expects 3.61 million people to travel by plane, an increase of 2% over last year. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) anticipates screening about 18 million passengers and crew between Thursday and Wednesday. "TSA is ready for the additional passenger volume, and we look forward to welcoming families traveling during this peak period," said TSA acting Administrator Ha McNeill. "As a friendly reminder, to ensure a smooth screening experience, bring acceptable forms of ID like your REAL ID.".

(B) NBC News Daily [5/23/2025 1:25 PM, Staff] reports that across the country, 3.5 million fliers are expected to take off into the long weekend. According to the TSA, there were more than 54,000 flights planned for yesterday alone. According to AAA, domestic flights are 2% more expensive compared to this time last year.

Washington Post [5/23/2025 2:00 PM, Daniel Wu, 31735K] reports the Federal Emergency Management Agency faces a backlog of unprocessed emergency aid requests as hurricane season approaches — a sign of how the White House’s insistence that states shoulder more of the burden for disaster response is playing out at the agency, current and former FEMA officials say. Early Thursday, the agency’s daily operations briefing listed 19 pending declaration requests, the oldest from January. By Friday morning, amid pressure from governors and members of Congress, FEMA had processed 10 requests, denying two and approving eight. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri), who had publicly complained about the pace of FEMA’s decision-making, posted Friday on X: “Following our discussion Wednesday, President Trump has approved multiple disaster declarations for Missouri.” Eleven requests, the earliest filed April 1, are still pending, according to FEMA’s operations briefing Friday — a backlog that experts still consider unusual. Those pending requests include Missouri’s application, filed Monday, for an emergency declaration to aid its recovery from deadly storms last week. President Donald Trump is closely monitoring the situation in Missouri and the administration is in contact with local officials, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said Thursday. “The Trump administration remains committed to empowering and working with state and local governments to invest in their own resilience before disaster strikes,” she said. A FEMA spokesperson said that the agency is working with state and local officials to conduct damage assessments in storm-affected areas and that decisions on emergency declaration requests are “based on policy, not politics.” But emergency management experts said the backlog of unprocessed requests is abnormal and could signal that FEMA is dragging its feet. Applications for disaster declarations are made by governors to the president and, if granted, unlock a wide array of federal assistance — which can include help both responding to the initial emergency and making permanent repairs.

AP [5/23/2025 6:22 PM, Sophie Bates, 1611K] reports President Donald Trump green-lit disaster relief for eight states on Friday, assistance that some of the communities rocked by natural disasters have been waiting on for months. The major disaster declaration approvals allow Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas access to financial support through the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Several states requested the aid in response to damage from a massive storm system in mid-March. “This support will go a long way in helping Mississippi to rebuild and recover. Our entire state is grateful for his approval,” said Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, whose state experienced 18 tornados between March 14 and 15. Mississippi residents in the hard-hit Walthall County expressed frustration earlier this month over how long they had been waiting for federal help. The county’s emergency manager said debris removal operations stalled in early May when the county ran out of money while awaiting federal assistance. Earlier this week Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem vowed to expedite Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe’s request for disaster assistance, after being pressed on the issue by U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican. “That is one of the failures that FEMA has had in the past is that people who incur this kind of damage and lose everything sit there for months and sometimes years and never get the promised critical response that they think or that they believe they should be getting from the federal government,” Noem said. Trump has pointed to wait times as one reason he’s looking to make major changes to the agency. FEMA’s newly-appointed acting chief has said he plans to push more responsibility for disaster response and recovery onto states. FEMA did not immediately respond to questions about what prompted the flurry of approvals.

Washington Examiner [5/23/2025 11:48 AM, Morgan Kromer, 1934K] reports the commissioner of the St. Louis City Emergency Management Agency, Sarah Russell, has been placed on paid administrative leave after failing to sound the warning siren during the tornadoes last Friday that killed five people. Mayor Cara Spencer reported that there is now an active external investigation regarding the team’s failure to press the city’s alarm. Capt. John Walk was named by Spencer as interim director of CEMA in the wake of Russell’s absence. The siren activation protocol was immediately changed, so the fire department is in charge of sounding the alarm now, according to the mayor’s office. The initial internal investigation proved there were "not just one serious issue, but multiple," within CEMA, according to the statement. "Within minutes, a massive weather hit the ground and was decimating our neighborhoods," Spencer said at a press conference on Saturday. "In those minutes, between the warning and the time we were experiencing a massive weather event, there was a failure.". The statement said that while the department knew about the storms ahead, the staff were all at a training and not at the location of the alarm-sounding button. After Russell contacted the fire department for assistance in sounding the alarm, Spencer said there was a "breakdown in communication," mentioning that St. Louisans’ safety depended on the speedy notification about impending danger. In the released audio of the phone call between the fire department and Russell, they can be heard debating the time the warning would be over, Russell relenting that she could be wrong about the severity of the situation. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) called for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to assist the affected community after he visited the area Monday. Hawley, who previously has voted against FEMA aid provisions for Hurricanes Milton and Helene, made his requests several times on the internet and during a Senate hearing. It is estimated by the St. Louis city assessor’s office that the over 5,000 buildings that sustained damage reached at least $1 billion in property damage, to which Hawley expressed the need for insurers to pay "in full.". According to a fact sheet released by Spencer, St. Louis CEMA is to sound the sirens in cases of tornado warning for the city of St. Louis, a tier three "destructive" thunderstorm warning, for any portion of the city, or by order of the CEMA commissioner for other imminent threats. The day before the storm, CEMA had announced they would be replacing the siren system, which was last replaced in 1999, with an allocated budget of $3.9 million.

CBS Austin [5/23/2025 10:16 AM, Abigail Quinn, 558K] Video: HERE reports a new video released by the U.S. Coast Guard Thursday shows the moment that the team above the Titan submersible lost communication with the vessel. The video shows the tracking team aboard the support vessel "Polar Prince", as they heard a sound that has been determined to coincide with the moment the Polar Prince lost communication and could no longer track the Titan sub. In the video, viewers can hear Wendy Rush, part of the communications and tracking team, say that the Titan sub should be about 500 meters down. She then stops mid-sentence after hearing a sound. Rush can be seen turning to Gary Floss, who was another member of the team, and asking what that noise was. The Coast Guard Determined that the sound happened at the same time as the Titan lost contact and is believed to be the sound of the Titan’s implosion reaching the surface of the ocean.

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NewsNation [5/23/2025 1:24 PM, Jeff Arnold, 5801K]
USA Today [5/23/2025 12:37 PM, Phaedra Trethan, 75552K]

Cyberscoop [5/23/2025 10:01 AM, Greg Otto] reports law enforcement agencies from Europe and North America have dismantled key infrastructure behind several leading malware strains used in ransomware attacks, the latest action in a yearslong effort to combat cybercriminals. The operation, conducted as part of Operation Endgame, targeted the early stages of the cybercrime chain, focusing on initial access malware. The coordinated effort resulted in the takedown of approximately 300 servers and the neutralization of 650 domains worldwide. The crackdown is part of a sustained campaign against groups and individuals who provide access to compromised networks, enabling ransomware attacks against an array of professional organizations. Authorities issued international arrest warrants for 20 suspects. Among the malware tools disrupted were Bumblebee, Lactrodectus, Qakbot, Hijackloader, DanaBot, Trickbot, and Warmcookie. These malicious software programs are typically offered as a “cybercrime-as-a-service” model, allowing other criminal actors to purchase access into victim networks. Their removal is expected to make it harder for organized groups to launch further ransomware attacks.Details of the takedowns have trickled out over the course of the week. U.S. officials unsealed a grand jury indictment and criminal complaint Thursday charging 16 individuals for their alleged involvement in the development and deployment of DanaBot. The DOJ on Thursday also unsealed a federal indictment charging Rustam Rafailevich Gallyamov, 48, of Moscow, Russia, with allegedly leading the cybercrime group responsible for the development and deployment of the Qakbot malware operation, which was disrupted by international law enforcement in 2023.

Washington Post [5/23/2025 6:05 AM, Joseph Menn, 32099K] reports as senior Trump administration officials say they want to amp up cyberattacks against China and other geopolitical rivals, some government veterans warn that such an approach would set the United States up for retaliation that it is increasingly unprepared to counter. Alexei Bulazel, senior director for cyber at the National Security Council, said earlier this month that he wanted to fight back against China’s aggressive pre-positioning of hacking capabilities within U.S. critical infrastructure and “destigmatize” offensive operations, making their use an open part of U.S. strategy for the first time. U.S. security personnel revealed more than 18 months ago that Chinese military hackers had burrowed into the computer systems linked to infrastructure such as water and electrical utilities, ports and pipelines. That initiative, which the U.S. called Volt Typhoon, was soon supplemented by another, Salt Typhoon, that targets telecommunications networks. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Virginia) called it the “worst telecom hack in our nation’s history — by far.” The covert offensive is far from over. Volt Typhoon is showing up in a wider variety of utilities, according to specialists at the cybersecurity firm Dragos, and an FBI official said Salt Typhoon might be able to reinfect carriers after they have been cleaned up. But CISA’s parent, the Department of Homeland Security, has now disbanded advisory panels, including the Cyber Safety Review Board, which was investigating Salt Typhoon. “We need CISA, we need these operations, we need these people and partnerships,” Dave DeWalt, a security industry investor and longtime CISA adviser, told The Washington Post, alluding to the unsettled state of international alliances. “We’ve got to go fast, because we are vulnerable — especially if we’re doing what we are doing around the world, geopolitically.” Aside from Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon, DeWalt said a still-unfolding onslaught of Chinese attacks on water and power utilities and hundreds of other targets using a flaw in SAP business software shows that malicious activity is surging amid trade tensions between Washington and Beijing. Under Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem, 130 probationary CISA employees have been dismissed, along with a small team dedicated to election security that had come under criticism from Republicans for its reports of misinformation about voting procedures. Many of the agency’s numerous contractors have seen their contracts canceled. “CISA was in disastrous shape when President Trump and Secretary Noem took office,” said a senior official with the Department of Homeland Security who spoke on the condition of anonymity under departmental policy. “Under the Biden administration, despite a ballooning budget, CISA’s mission was focused on becoming a hub of self-promotion, censorship, misinformation and electioneering.”

StateScoop [5/23/2025 2:04 PM, Keely Quinnlan, 40K] reports since January, Chinese-speaking hackers have launched malware attacks targeting enterprise networks of local governments by remotely exploiting a vulnerability in Trimble’s asset management software Cityworks, according to a report published Thursday by Cisco Talos. The hackers, who have executed a collection of actions that are being tracked under the identifier UAT-6382, exploited a vulnerability in the Cityworks software that is now patched to execute “intrusions in enterprise networks of local governing bodies in the United States,” the report said. Back in February, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued an advisory about the security vulnerability in Cityworks — which is being tracked as CVE-2025-0994 — stating that bad actors could gain administrative access through a customer’s Internet Information Services, or IIS, a Microsoft web server often used for hosting websites, applications and services on Windows. The Environmental Protection Agency also issued an alert in February to inform water and wastewater system owners and operators of cyber incidents involving Cityworks software, urging them to install patches and updates to their systems that run on the software immediately.

NewsMax [5/23/2025 10:32 AM, Bryan E. Leib, 4622K] reports the Wednesday night assassinations of an Israeli citizen, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, an American, weren’t a protest, resistance, "liberation," or about freeing "Palestine.". Federal law enforcement rightfully charged, Elias Rodriguez, 31, with a targeted act of terrorism. The assassination was of two Israeli diplomats on American soil. They were murdered because they were Israelis. What happened occurred in the name of a radical, hate-fueled movement operating under the false banner of "Free Palestine.". Firsthand, we are witnessing nothing short of a war against the Jewish people, carried out on our streets, on our campuses, and now against diplomats of a close American ally. It’s time to declare a national emergency on antisemitism in the United States and treat this for what it is: an organized, ideological domestic threat, one which must be dismantled with the full force and effect of federal law. President Trump has always been there for the Jewish people when it mattered most. And we trust that he will continue to lead with the strength and moral conviction he is known for. Now is the moment to go further. The Department of Justice (DOJ), the FBI, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have the tools. They have the intelligence. All they need is the green light to act. And with President Trump’s proven record of moral clarity, we’re confident that action is not only coming it’s inevitable.

Washington Post [5/24/2025 6:00 AM, Meagan Flynn and Ellie Silverman, 32099K] reports that, when Rabbi Sarah Krinsky pulled up to the Adas Israel Congregation’s preschool in Northwest Washington on Thursday morning to drop off her 2-year-old son, she could see something was different. More police cars were parked outside, more guards dotted the premises. It was the morning after an assailant fatally shot a couple working for the Israeli Embassy outside the Capital Jewish Museum in downtown D.C., and shouted pro-Palestinian slogans before police took him into custody. How could she explain it to her son? "I think anyone who walked through Jewish doors this morning, walked through with a familiar feeling of, I’m going to need to steel myself a little stronger," Krinsky, an associate rabbi at Adas Israel, one of D.C.’s oldest synagogues, said in an interview. The attack, which is being investigated as a hate crime, has sent shock waves through D.C.’s Jewish community and beyond, reigniting concerns about rising antisemitism and the need for security at synagogues and Jewish organizations. D.C. Police Chief Pamela A. Smith said Thursday that she was in close contact with faith leaders and that law enforcement would be ramping up its security posture for the foreseeable future. At the same time, various Jewish organizations and synagogues said they were reviewing protocols and had activated existing plans for enhanced security, such as having more private security personnel visible on their properties. "Around D.C., you will see an increased presence of law enforcement officers around the community," Smith said. "You will find us around our faith-based organizations. You will see an increased presence around our schools, and at places like the D.C. Jewish Community Center. We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our Jewish community.”

Daily Wire [5/23/2025 6:15 AM, Kassy Akiva, 3816K] reports a group of over 50 House Republicans on Friday introduced a resolution condemning the murder of Israeli embassy staffers Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky. "This wasn’t just a tragedy, it was a targeted act of antisemitic terrorism carried out by a radical leftist," Rep. Addison McDowell, who introduced the resolution, told The Daily Wire. "Yaron and Sarah were murdered for being Jewish and for believing in peace. When a movement sympathizes with terrorists, we shouldn’t be surprised when that same movement produces actual terrorists.". Elias Rodriguez, 30, of Chicago, was detained by police on suspicion of murdering Lischinsky, 30, and Milgrim, 26, on Wednesday night in Washington, D.C. The couple was shot at close range, and Milgrim was shot multiple times while crawling away, according to court documents. According to police, the terrorist told officers he "did it for Palestine.". No Democrats signed on to the resolution. Cosponsors of the bill include heavy hitters like Reps. Lisa McClain (R-MI), Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA), and Max Miller (R-OH), who is Jewish. McDowell said he introduced the resolution to condemn growing antisemitism and to honor the lives of the slain couple. "I want Congress to be on the record that it’s not just that antisemitism is evil, but also that the killer was part of an evil movement that seems to be growing in our country," he said. "We can’t paper over that. We need to address it head on.".

USA Today [5/23/2025 11:48 AM, Jeanine Santucci, 75552K] reports the suspect in the fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy workers outside a Jewish museum in the nation’s capital faces charges of murder from both the federal government and D.C. accusing him of firing at close range even as one tried to get away. The May 21 shooting of Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and his girlfriend Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26, outside the Capital Jewish Museum has drawn universal condemnation from politicians and civil rights leaders, with Attorney General Pam Bondi calling it an antisemitic act of violence. Elias Rodriguez, 30, of Chicago, was arrested after the shooting and on May 22 charged in D.C. with two counts of first-degree murder, and with federal counts of murdering foreign officials and firearm offenses. Upon arrest, Rodriguez allegedly said he "did it for Palestine." "We are going to continue to investigate this as a hate crime and as a crime of terrorism," U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro told reporters. In court on May 22 for his first appearance, Rodriguez waived his right to a detention hearing. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for June 18. It wasn’t clear if Rodriguez had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

Breitbart [5/23/2025 12:04 PM, Staff, 3077K] reports police beefed up security at schools and religious buildings across Washington Friday as the US capitol reeled from the fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers outside a Jewish museum. The 31-year-old Chicago man accused of Wednesday’s attack shouted "Free Palestine" as he was taken away by police — exacerbating fears over rising anti-Semitism since Israel’s invasion of Gaza following the unprecedented Hamas attack. "Around DC, you will see an increased presence of law enforcement officers around the community, you will find us around our faith-based organizations," Metropolitan Police (MPD) Chief Pamela A. Smith told reporters. "You will see an increased presence around our schools and places like the DC Jewish Community Center. We stand shoulder to shoulder with our Jewish community.". Authorities in Washington said they were investigating the shooting "as an act of terrorism and as a hate crime" ahead of a preliminary court hearing set for alleged killer Elias Rodriguez on June 18.

ABC News [5/23/2025 12:29 PM, Mike Levine and Aaron Katersky, 31733K] reports the alleged leader of a neo-Nazi cult based overseas has been extradited to the United States and accused of "multiple senseless killings" around the world, including the shooting at Antioch High School in Nashville earlier this year that left one student dead and another injured, according to the Justice Department. Michail Chkhikvishvili, a Georgian national arrested in Moldova last year, was arraigned Friday in U.S. federal court in Brooklyn, the DOJ said. His attorney entered a plea of not guilty to the charges and the judge ordered him detained. A status conference in the case was scheduled for June 11. Chkhikvishvili was indicted last year on several federal charges, including two counts of soliciting hate crimes and other violent attacks. According to the DOJ, he was a leader of the "Maniac Murder Cult," a Russian and Ukrainian-based extremist group also known as "MKY" that promotes violence against racial minorities, the Jewish community, and others it deems "undesirables.". In announcing his indictment last year, the DOJ said Chkhikvishvili – who allegedly also goes by the moniker "Commander Butcher" – distributed a self-authored "Hater’s Handbook" encouraging readers to commit school shootings and other mass "terror attacks," providing suggested methods and strategies. The DOJ also said he planned and solicited help for a mass casualty attack targeting Jews and other minorities in New York City on New Year’s Eve, but the person he solicited was actually an undercover FBI agent.

Los Angeles Times [5/23/2025 11:10 PM, Matthew Lee, Aamer Madhani and Seung Min Kim, 14672K] reports President Trump is ordering a major overhaul of the National Security Council that will shrink its size, lead to the ouster of some political appointees and return many career government employees back to their home agencies, according to two U.S. officials and another person familiar with the reorganization. The number of staff at the NSC is expected to be significantly reduced, according to the officials, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive personnel matter. The shake-up is just the latest shoe to drop at the NSC, which is being dramatically remade after the ouster early this month of Trump’s national security advisor, Mike Waltz, who had hewed to traditional Republican foreign policy on some issues. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been serving as national security advisor since the departure of Waltz, who was nominated to serve as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations. The move is expected to elevate the importance of the State Department and Pentagon in advising Trump on important foreign policy moves. The NSC, created during the Truman administration to counter the emerging Soviet threat after the end of World War II, is an arm of the White House tasked with advising and assisting the president on national security and foreign policy and coordinating among various government agencies. Trump was frustrated in his first term by political appointees and other advisors who he thought got in the way of his agenda. There were roughly 395 people working at the NSC, including about 180 support staff, according to one official. About 90 to 95 of those being ousted are policy or subject-matter experts seconded from other government agencies. They will be given an opportunity to return to their home agencies if they want. Many of the political appointees will also be given positions elsewhere in the administration, the official said. The NSC has been in a state of tumult during the early going of Trump’s second term in the White House. Waltz was ousted weeks after Trump fired several NSC officials, a day after the influential far-right activist Laura Loomer raised concerns to him about staff loyalty. Loomer has in the past spread 9/11 conspiracy theories and promoted QAnon, an apocalyptic and convoluted conspiracy theory, and took credit for the ouster of the NSC officials who she said were disloyal.

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NPR [5/23/2025 8:18 PM, Tom Bowman, Franco Ordoñez, 37958K]
FOX News [5/23/2025 7:25 PM, Diana Stancy, 46878K]
Washington Examiner [5/23/2025 9:12 PM, Ross O’Keefe and Naomi Lim, 1934K]

FOX News [5/24/2025 6:04 AM, Landon Mion, 46878K] reports Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued stricter orders on Friday for journalists accessing the Pentagon building, as the Trump administration places further restrictions on the press. The new rules ban credentialed reporters from most of the Department of Defense headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, without official approval and escort, Hegseth said in a memorandum. Hegseth described the protection of classified national intelligence information and sensitive unclassified information on operational security as "an unwavering imperative for the Department.” "While the Department remains committed to transparency, the Department is equally obligated to protect [Classified National Security Information] and sensitive information - the unauthorized disclosure of which could put the lives of U.S. Service members in danger," the secretary said. Hegseth’s order will also soon require members of the Pentagon press corps to sign a form acknowledging their responsibility to protect national intelligence and sensitive information. Journalists will also be issued new badges that clearly identify them as members of the press. "We also anticipate a forthcoming announcement of additional security measures and enhanced scrutiny on the issuance of [credentials]," the memo said. "Failure by any member of the resident or visiting press to comply with these control measures will result in further restrictions and possibly revocation of press credentials.”

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AP [5/23/2025 8:22 PM, David Bauder, 31733K]

Wall Street Journal [5/23/2025 5:27 PM, Jennifer Hiller and Scott Patterson, 646K] reports President Trump aims to accelerate the slow-moving nuclear power industry through a series of executive orders signed Friday. He outlined plans to overhaul the U.S. nuclear regulator, fast-track licenses for new projects, boost domestic fuel supplies and use federal lands for reactors for the military or large data centers for artificial intelligence. “It’s time for nuclear,” Trump said at a signing ceremony at the White House attended by energy executives including Constellation Energy Chief Executive Joseph Dominguez and Jacob DeWitte, who leads nuclear developer Oklo. The goal of the executive orders is to quadruple nuclear power generation in the next 25 years, a target that would require the industry to overcome a history of cost and timeline overruns. A White House official said Friday in a briefing to reporters that the administration expects nuclear reactors to be tested and deployed within Trump’s term. “America’s great innovators and entrepreneurs have run into brick walls when it comes to nuclear technologies,” Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said in the briefing. The executive orders will “ensure America’s energy dominance and provide affordable, reliable, safe and secure energy to the American people,” he said.

Reuters [5/23/2025 1:55 PM, Marisa Taylor and Alexandra Ulmer, 51390K /] reports billionaire Elon Musk’s DOGE team is expanding use of his artificial intelligence chatbot Grok in the U.S. federal government to analyze data, said three people familiar with the matter, potentially violating conflict-of-interest laws and putting at risk sensitive information on millions of Americans. Such use of Grok could reinforce concerns among privacy advocates and others that Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team appears to be casting aside long-established protections over the handling of sensitive data as President Donald Trump shakes up the U.S. bureaucracy. One of the three people familiar with the matter, who has knowledge of DOGE’s activities, said Musk’s team was using a customized version of the Grok chatbot. The apparent aim was for DOGE to sift through data more efficiently, this person said. “They ask questions, get it to prepare reports, give data analysis.” The second and third person said DOGE staff also told Department of Homeland Security officials to use it even though Grok had not been approved within the department. Reuters could not determine the specific data that had been fed into the generative AI tool or how the custom system was set up. Grok was developed by xAI, a tech operation that Musk launched in 2023 on his social media platform, X.

AP [5/23/2025 9:13 AM, Staff, 48304K] reports human rights organizations, politicians and experts have sharply criticized a law approved by El Salvador’s Congress as a censorship tool designed to silence and criminalize dissent in the Central American nation by targeting nongovernmental organizations that have long been critical of President Nayib Bukele. The law proposed by Bukele was passed Tuesday night by a Congress under firm control of his New Ideas party, and bypassed normal legislative procedures. Bukele first tried to introduce a similar law in 2021, but after strong international backlash it was never brought for a vote by the full Congress. Bukele said the law is intended to limit foreign influence and corruption. It comes after the government took a number of steps that have fueled concerns that the country may be entering a new wave of crackdowns. Critics warn that it falls in line with measures passed by autocratic governments in Nicaragua, Venezuela, Russia, Belarus and China.

Reuters [5/23/2025 4:51 AM Simon Lewis and Daphne Psaledakis, 51390K] reports the United States said on Thursday it would impose sanctions on Sudan after determining that its government used chemical weapons in 2024 during the army’s conflict with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, a charge the army denied. Measures against Sudan will include limits on US exports and US government lines of credit and will take effect around June 6, after Congress was notified on Thursday, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement. "The United States calls on the Government of Sudan to cease all chemical weapons use and uphold its obligations under the CWC," Bruce said, referring to the Chemical Weapons Convention treaty banning the use of such weapons. In a statement, Sudan rejected the move, and described the allegations as false. “This interference, which lacks any moral or legal basis, deprives Washington of what is left of its credibility and closes the door to any influence in Sudan," government spokesperson Khalid al-Eisir said on Friday. Bruce’s statement said the US had formally determined on April 24 under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991 that the government of Sudan used chemical weapons last year, but did not specify what weapons were used, precisely when or where. "The United States remains fully committed to hold to account those responsible for contributing to chemical weapons proliferation," Bruce said.

Reuters [5/23/2025 12:21 PM, Vladimir Soldatkin, Dmitry Antonov and Maxim Rodionov, 51390K] reports President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia needs to strengthen its position in the global arms market by increasing exports of weapons. In televised remarks, he also said the country’s military complex needs more state support to develop its potential. Since Moscow sent thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, the defence industry has been largely focused on domestic military production to support operations there. It has entailed a massive effort to build new missiles, drones and shells as well as recondition ageing Soviet-era tanks, vehicles and artillery. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Russian arms exports dropped to 7.8% of the global market in the 2020-24 period, compared with 21% in the previous four-year period, as a result of international sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine and increased domestic demand for weapons. India, China and Egypt are among the biggest buyers of Russian arms. "The portfolio of orders for Russian military products is now serious. It is tens of billions of dollars. And it is necessary to actively increase the volume of export deliveries," Putin said. He also singled out weapons that utilise Artificial Intelligence (AI). "The future of the global arms market lies with such technology. Strong competition will unfold here, and is already unfolding, for which we must be prepared," Putin said.

NewsMax [5/23/2025 8:11 AM, Staff, 4622K] reports Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, slammed forces in the U.N. Security Council for "facilitating terrorism." "While the blood of Israeli representatives is not yet dry on the sidewalk in Washington, the Security Council is meeting to condemn Israel," he stated. "This is a moral disgrace. Instead of condemning terrorism, it has become a tool serving those who carry it out.". Algeria published a draft of an anti-Israel resolution "less than 24 hours after the brutal terror attack, in which two employees of the Israeli embassy in Washington were murdered," Danon stated. The Security Council will put the resolution to a vote on May 28.

Wall Street Journal [5/23/2025 4:50 PM, Laurence Norman, Alexander Ward, and Benoit Faucon, 646K] reports Iran and the U.S. are aiming to set the parameters for a new deal on Tehran’s nuclear program while leaving important details to be negotiated later, people familiar with the talks said. Aiming for such a framework to guide progress toward a deal could raise concerns among some U.S. lawmakers, and in Israel, that Iran would use the time to continue its nuclear work without committing to a final agreement. It took 18 months of grueling negotiations to reach the 2015 nuclear deal, which set tight but temporary limits on Iran’s nuclear work. Seeking a shared understanding for further negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program would in some ways mirror a 2013 interim agreement that preceded the 2015 nuclear deal Iran reached with the Obama administration. The 2013 deal provided some sanctions relief for Iran and some steps to curb its nuclear program. There is no indication the two sides would attach similar confidence building steps to a framework deal this time. The goal would be to establish an understanding on the key points that would constitute a final agreement, a senior U.S. official familiar with the talks said. The sticking point to a framework agreement is whether Iran would be allowed to keep enriching uranium in a new deal. Without setting out an agreed approach to address the question, technical negotiations would likely bog down on the point that has haunted the negotiations thus far. Washington insists Tehran can’t continue to enrich uranium under a deal, warning that Iran’s ability to do so opens the way for it to attain a nuclear weapon, which President Trump has vowed to prevent. Trump withdrew the U.S. from the previous agreement with Iran in 2018 during his first term. Iranian officials pushed back this week, presenting a united front on their insistence that Iran won’t give up enrichment. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s decision maker on security matters, predicted on Tuesday that talks will fail—his most antagonistic comments on diplomacy since discussions began on April 12.

Bloomberg [5/23/2025 2:32 PM, Patrick Sykes and Golnar Motevalli, 19320K] reports the US and Iran sent positive messages about their negotiations over President Donald Trump’s push to put limits on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programs following another round of talks Friday. The discussions this week “were the most professional yet” and could lead to an agreement in the next couple of meetings, said Iranian Foreign Minister and lead negotiator Abbas Araghchi. A senior Trump administration official said the talks “continue to be constructive.” “We made further progress, but there is still work to be done,” the official said, adding that both sides agreed to meet again in the near future. “The fact that we’re on a reasonable path is progress in itself,” Araghchi said. “I’m hopeful that in the next one or two meetings, considering the improved view of Iran’s position, we’ll be able to reach solutions that can allow for progress in the talks.” The mildly optimistic tone is likely to offset any oil-market jitters stemming from a CNN report earlier this week that Israel was making plans to potentially attack Iran’s nuclear sites. The State Department declined to comment on Monday. Araghchi spoke after the two sides met in Rome on Friday for a fresh round of talks aimed at resolving their standoff over Iran’s nuclear program. Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, who mediated the discussions, offered solutions “in order to remove obstacles,” Araghchi told Iranian state TV.

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