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 Washington Post [11/29/2025 2:02 AM, Frances Vinall and David Nakamura, 24149K] reports the United States on Friday halted all decisions relating to asylum claims and paused visa issuances for Afghan nationals, a day after President Donald Trump posted an anti-immigration screed in which he vowed to “permanently pause” migration from nations he described as “Third World Countries.” U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services “has halted all asylum decisions until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible,” USCIS Director Joseph B. Edlow said in a social media post. In a separate post shortly afterward, the State Department said it has “IMMEDIATELY paused visa issuance for individuals traveling on Afghan passports.” The decisions come in the wake of Trump’s lengthy social media posts Thursday night in which he railed at migrants, took aim at elected Democratic officials and threatened a wide variety of immigration policy changes, without providing specifics. The president did not mention Wednesday’s attack on two National Guard members near the White House, but the posts followed days of heightened rhetoric around immigration and refugees from the Trump administration in the wake of the shootings. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, an Army specialist, died of her injuries after the attack, which officials described as targeted. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, was critically wounded and remains in hospital. The suspected shooter is an Afghan national who underwent thorough vetting by counterterrorism authorities before entering the U.S., according to people with direct knowledge of the case, Washington Post reported. Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, first entered the U.S. in 2021 as part of Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden-era program that helped resettle Afghan nationals following the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan. Shawn VanDiver, president of #AfghanEvac, a coalition that helps resettle Afghans who assisted the U.S. during the two-decade war, said in a statement that the State Department’s order Friday appeared to be an attempt to shut down the Special Immigrant Visa program for Afghan nationals who were employed by or on behalf of the U.S. government in Afghanistan. VanDiver said the decision was “in direct violation of federal law and standing court orders” and called it “a deliberate abandonment of our wartime allies and a breach of America’s word.” “Our hearts are absolutely broken for our Afghan allies, who have already endured more trauma, loss, and sacrifice than most Americans can imagine,” he said. In the wake of the shootings, the Trump administration had said it would halt processing immigration requests from Afghan nationals indefinitely and would review Afghan nationals who were admitted to the U.S. under the Biden administration. On Thursday, Trump ordered USCIS to reexamine the statuses of green-card holders from 19 countries. David Bier, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said USCIS’s effort to pause affirmative asylum cases would not have a material effect for most people in the pipeline given a huge backlog of cases and long wait times for decisions. USCIS was reviewing more than 1.4 million pending affirmative asylum claims at the end of 2024, according to federal data, pushing wait times for decisions for many of them to more than a year. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem previously described Lakanwal as “one of the many unvetted, mass paroled into the United States” under the Biden administration after the Taliban resumed rule of Afghanistan. The New York Times [11/28/2025 7:10 PM, Hamed Aleaziz and Edward Wong, 153395K] reports the United States on Friday paused all asylum decisions and stopped issuing visas to people from Afghanistan as President Trump launched a major review of the country’s immigration system after the shooting of two National Guard members. Joseph Edlow, the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said in a statement that his agency had “halted all asylum decisions until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible.” Mr. Trump cut the number of asylum claims dramatically by moving to seal the southern border when he took office. Friday’s decision affects people who already are in the United States and believe they would face persecution if they returned to their home country. The State Department formally instructed its diplomats to stop processing all immigrant and nonimmigrant visas for Afghan passport holders, according to a copy of a cable obtained by The New York Times. Diplomats are supposed to conduct any scheduled visa interviews, but not grant the visas. If visas have been approved and printed but not handed to the applicant, diplomats should destroy the printed visas, the cable says. The order by Secretary of State Marco Rubio freezes the Special Immigrant Visa program for Afghans, which had been set up for people who had helped out the U.S. military and government in the war. All applicants had undergone official vetting. FOX News [11/29/2025 1:14 AM, Landon Mion, 40621K] reports "I have directed a full scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern," he wrote. The Department of Homeland Security also said it had already halted all immigration requests from Afghanistan and was in the process of reviewing all asylum cases approved under the Biden administration. Additionally, the Department of State has paused all visas for people traveling on Afghan passports in response to the attack against the National Guard members. "The Department of State has IMMEDIATELY paused visa issuance for individuals traveling on Afghan passports," the agency wrote. "The Department is taking all necessary steps to protect U.S. national security and public safety.” National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom, 20, of West Virginia, died after the shooting on Wednesday in the nation’s capital, while the second service member wounded in the attack, Andrew Wolfe, 24, is still in critical condition. The alleged gunman, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, faces multiple charges, including one count of first-degree murder and two counts of assault with intent to kill while armed. Attorney General Pam Bondi said that the Justice Department would pursue the death penalty against the suspect. [Editorial note: consult video at source link] The New York Post [11/28/2025 7:44 PM, Steven Nelson, 42219K] reports that the announcement follows the Trump administration launching a review of more than 720,000 current green-card holders from 19 "countries of concern" — after Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, fatally gunned down Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and critically injured Andrew Wolfe, 24, near the White House. Lakanwal, evacuated from Afghanistan in 2001 after working with the CIA as part of a "Zero Unit," was granted asylum in April — which would have made him eligible for a green card 12 months later. The State Department on Friday also paused visa issuance for individuals traveling on Afghan passports "in the wake of a horrific terror attack against the National Guard.” "The Trump administration has no higher priority than ensuring the safety of Americans and has launched a whole-of-government effort to defend America’s national security," Tommy Pigott, principal deputy spokesperson, said. US Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow said on X that his agency "has halted all asylum decisions until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible. The safety of the American people always comes first.” It was not immediately clear how the pronouncement would impact people arriving at ports of entry claiming persecution in their homelands, or people with pending court dates before immigration judges, who make decisions on their claims.

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Breitbart [11/28/2025 10:44 AM, Hannah Knudsen, 2416K] reports there will be a "rigorous reexamination" of every Green Card for every alien hailing from countries of concern, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Joseph Edlow announced. Edlow made the announcement following the tragic shooting of two National Guardsmen in Washington, DC, on Wednesday. One of the victims tragically succumbed to her injuries. The suspect has been identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national who worked with the CIA as a member of a partner force in Kandahar, Afghanistan, entering the country under former President Joe Biden’s Operation Allies Welcome program. He resided in Washington State and reportedly drove across the country to carry out his attack. In a post on Thanksgiving Day, Edlow announced, "At the direction of @POTUS, I have directed a full scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern.” "The protection of this country and of the American people remains paramount, and the American people will not bear the cost of the prior administration’s reckless resettlement policies. American safety is non-negotiable," he continued. The day prior, USCIS also announced, "Effective immediately, processing of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals is stopped indefinitely pending further review of security and vetting protocols.” "The protections and safety of our homeland and of the American people remains our singular focus and mission," he added. This comes as President Donald Trump formally announced that only "reverse migration" can solve the current immigration issue. In a Truth Social post, Trump pointed out that "the official United States Foreign population stands at 53 million people (Census), most of which are on welfare, from failed nations, or from prisons, mental institutions, gangs, or drug cartels."

The New York Times [11/28/2025 1:15 PM, Jonathan Wolfe, 153395K] reports President Trump said Thursday night that he would “permanently pause” migration from some countries and remove many migrants already in the United States, the latest announcement tightening immigration policy in response to the shooting of two National Guard soldiers in Washington. In two Truth Social posts, he wrote that he would stop migration from “all Third World Countries” to enable “the U.S. system to fully recover.” He did not elaborate on which countries he meant or how he would achieve his aim. Since the attack, which killed one of the soldiers, the Trump administration has issued a series of announcements tightening the immigration system, including pausing immigration from Afghanistan specifically. Thursday night’s posts also seemed to target migrants who had become citizens. Mr. Trump said he would “denaturalize” migrants “who undermine domestic tranquillity” and remove people from the country who were “non-compatible with Western Civilization,” without detailing whom it would apply to or how. Breitbart [11/28/2025 11:09 AM, Bob Price, 2416K] reports that the president said he will "terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden’s Autopen.” The move by Trump follows the assassination of West Virginia National Guardsman Sarah Beckstrom and the violent assault on fellow Guardsman Andrew Wolfe. The suspect, 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, was admitted to the U.S. following the Biden administration’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan under Operation Allies Welcome. "This heinous assault was an act of evil, and an act of hatred, and an act of terror," Trump said in a video on Thanksgiving night. "It was an act against our entire nation; it was a crime against humanity." "This attack underscores the single-greatest national security threat facing our nation," the president continued. We must now reexamine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan under Biden and we must take all necessary action to remove any alien from any country who does not belong here or add benefit to our country." "We’re not going to put up with these kinds of assaults on law and order by people who shouldn’t even be in our country," Trump added. Senator Tommy Tuberville echoed the president’s thoughts, adding in a post on social media, "We must IMMEDIATELY BAN all ISLAM immigration and DEPORT every single Islamist who is living among us just waiting to attack." Reuters [11/28/2025 6:44 PM, Jasper Ward, Bhargav Acharya and Ted Hesson, 36480K] reports that formal charges were not immediately filed against Lakanwal, who had been in the U.S. since 2021 under a program of then-President Joe Biden’s administration to resettle Afghans who helped the U.S. during the war in their homeland. He was granted asylum under Trump. In a call on Thursday’s Thanksgiving holiday with U.S. military service members, Trump said the shootings were a "terrorist attack." Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died of her wounds on Thursday. Her National Guard colleague, 24-year-old Andrew Wolfe, was in critical condition, Pirro said on Friday. The two were in Washington as part of Trump’s deployment of the military in recent months to help the police fight crime in the city. On Friday morning, following the national holiday, notably fewer National Guard members were seen patrolling the capital.

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FOX News [11/28/2025 8:35 PM, Alexandra Koch Fox, 40621K] reports the Department of State has paused all visas for individuals traveling on Afghan passports after an attack in Washington, D.C., Wednesday targeting National Guard members. Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, an Afghan national, was charged with first-degree murder among other counts related to the ambush, which has since claimed the life of West Virginia National Guard Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom and critically wounded U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24. Lakanwal was vetted by the CIA in Afghanistan and granted final asylum approval under President Donald Trump’s administration earlier this year, multiple sources told Fox News Digital. "The Department of State has IMMEDIATELY paused visa issuance for individuals traveling on Afghan passports," the agency wrote in an announcement on social media. "The Department is taking all necessary steps to protect U.S. national security and public safety.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio also took to X to share the news. "President Trump’s State Department has paused visa issuance for ALL individuals traveling on Afghan passports," Rubio wrote in a post. "The United States has no higher priority than protecting our nation and our people.” U.S.-based Afghanistan allies relocation and resettlement nonprofit AfghanEvac denounced Friday’s decision, calling the administration’s move a "violation of federal law.” "It appears Secretary Rubio is attempting to shut down the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa program in direct violation of federal law and standing court orders. He is seemingly acting at the direction of President Trump and Stephen Miller, and there is no doubt this is the outcome they have been driving toward for months," AfghanEvac President Shawn VanDiver said in a statement. "They are using a single violent individual as cover for a policy they have long planned, turning their own intelligence failures into an excuse to punish an entire community and the veterans who served alongside them.” The new policy comes less than a day after the media questioned Trump about how the attack could have taken place after successful vetting. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Joseph B. Edlow also announced Thursday that, at Trump’s direction, there would be a "full-scale, rigorous reexamination" of every green card issued to immigrants from "every country of concern.”

NPR [11/28/2025 4:06 PM, Vanessa Romo, 28013K] Audio: HERE reports Trump administration zeroes in on immigration as shooting investigation continues The investigation continues into the shooting of National Guard members in the nation’s capital as the Trump administration turns blame more broadly to immigrants in the U.S.

Wall Street Journal [11/28/0255 11:44 PM, Louise Radnofsky and Michelle Hackman, 646K] reports President Trump is pushing for an intensified “reverse migration” agenda across his administration, seeking to broaden a crackdown on millions of immigrants from poorer countries following the killing of a 20-year-old member of the West Virginia National Guard. Trump and top aides have made clear in recent days they are seeking to remove many legal immigrants who were born in countries the White House deems “high risk,” in addition to those who are in the country illegally. “Even as we have progressed technologically, Immigration Policy has eroded those gains and living conditions for many. I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, hours after he had announced the death Thursday of U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom in a Thanksgiving call to members of the military. Beckstrom and another member of the West Virginia National Guard were shot Wednesday in Washington, D.C. Federal prosecutors said they plan to charge Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who came to the U.S. in 2021 following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, with first-degree murder. “Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation,” Trump wrote on social media. Top administration officials were quick to echo his call. “The stakes have never been higher, and the goal has never been more clear: Remigration now,” the Department of Homeland Security posted on social media Friday morning. The Department of Homeland Security said it had immediately and indefinitely stopped processing all immigration requests relating to people from Afghanistan, “pending further review of security and vetting protocols.” U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director Joe Edlow said the administration will also expand existing sweeping restrictions around 19 countries it deems “high risk,” meaning that anyone in the U.S. from those countries who applies for a green card will now most likely be denied. Late Friday, Edlow said USCIS had halted all asylum decisions until every applicant was “vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible.” Days before the shooting, DHS had internally launched a similar review of all refugee cases approved during the Biden administration, according to a person familiar with the matter. On Thursday, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said the review would also include all asylum cases approved under President Joe Biden. While refugees are hand-selected and vetted by the U.S. government while they are still overseas, asylum cases involve reviewing claims of people already in the U.S. that claim they face persecution in their home country.

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AP [11/28/2025 10:43 PM, Joey Cappelletti and Farnoush Amiri, 31753K] reports the Trump administration is promising an even tougher anti-immigration agenda after an Afghan national was being charged in the shooting this week of two National Guard members, with new restrictions targeting the tens of thousands of Afghans resettled in the U.S. and those seeking to come, many of whom served alongside American soldiers in the two-decade war. But those still waiting to come were already facing stricter measures as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping crackdown on legal and illegal migration that began when he started his second term in January. And the Afghan immigrants living in the U.S. and now in the administration’s crosshairs were among the most extensively vetted, often undergoing years of security screening, experts and advocates say. The suspected shooter, who worked with the CIA during the Afghanistan War, “was vetted both before he landed, probably once he landed, once he applied for asylum,” said Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute. “But more importantly, he was almost certainly vetted extensively and much more by the CIA.” Haris Tarin, a former U.S. official who worked on the Biden-era program that resettled Afghans, predicted that “as the investigation unfolds, you will see that this is not a failure of screening. This is a failure of us not being able to integrate — not just foreign intelligence and military personnel — but our own veterans, over the past 25 years.” The program Operations Allies Welcome initially brought roughly 76,000 Afghans to the United States, many of whom had worked alongside American troops and diplomats as interpreters and translators. The initiative was in place for around one year before shifting to a longer-term program called Operation Enduring Welcome. Almost 200,000 Afghans have been resettled in the U.S. under both programs. Among those brought to the U.S. under the program was the alleged shooter, 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who now faces a first-degree murder charge in the death of 20-year-old Specialist Sarah Beckstrom. The other National Guard member who was shot, 24-year-old Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, remains in critical condition. Those resettlements are now on hold. The State Department has temporarily stopped issuing visas for all people traveling on Afghan passports, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced late Friday on X. Trump and his allies have seized on the shooting to criticize gaps in the U.S. vetting process and the speed of admissions, even though some Republicans spent the months and years after the 2021 withdrawal criticizing the Biden administration for not moving fast enough to approve some applications from Afghan allies. CIA Director John Ratcliffe said Lakanwal “should have never been allowed to come here,” Trump called lax migration policies “the single greatest national security threat facing our nation,” and Vice President JD Vance said Biden’s policy was “opening the floodgate to unvetted Afghan refugees.” That rhetoric quickly turned into policy announcements, with Trump saying he would “permanently pause all migration” from a list of nearly 20 countries, “terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions,” and “remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States.” Many of these changes had already been set in motion through a series of executive orders over the past 10 months, including most recently in June.

Washington Post [11/28/2025 4:12 PM, Jenny Gathright, Emily Davies, and Olivia George, 24149K] reports National Guard troops patrolling in D.C. will be paired with local law enforcement personnel, at least temporarily, in the wake of the Wednesday attack that killed one troop and critically injured another, according to an email obtained by The Washington Post and two D.C. police officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss planning that is still in progress. “Officers will conduct high-visibility patrols with the National Guard and provide assistance as needed,” said the email, which was sent to D.C. police leadership Wednesday evening. The email said the situation was “fluid,” and adjustments to the staffing plan could be made in the coming days. If enacted on a long-term basis, the change would significantly shift the way National Guard troops have worked with local and federal law enforcement in the District since their arrival in August. Trump administration officials have credited the troops for helping reduce crime in the city — in part, they argued, because the troops’ presence at Metro stations and on National Park Service lands frees up law enforcement to police other areas of the city. Diverting local police to accompany Guard members would do essentially the opposite by siphoning them from other tasks in D.C. neighborhoods. The email said the new pairing would start Thursday and Friday. A D.C. police official said some officers had been temporarily detailed to accompany the troops, and a more long-term policy change was under discussion. The official, who stressed that the discussions were still preliminary, said D.C. police, Metro Transit Police, U.S. Park Police and several other law enforcement agencies were having conversations with the National Guard task force in D.C. about pairing the troops with police officers while they are on city streets. Since their deployment to D.C., groups of National Guard troops have largely operated unaccompanied by police, the official said. The policy change would bolster protection for the approximately 2,000 National Guard members deployed to the District as part of President Donald Trump’s “Safe and Beautiful Task Force,” who are not required to have the same law enforcement training as city police officers. A D.C. police spokesperson did not confirm the shift in policy but said in a statement that “law enforcement agencies across Washington, DC, including the Metropolitan Police Department, are working in close coordination with the National Guard to ensure the safety of our community.”

Wall Street Journal [11/28/2025 5:21 PM, Gareth Vipers, Harriet Torry, and Alyssa Lukpat, 646K] reports prosecutors were set to charge Rahmanullah Lakanwal with first-degree murder over the death of National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom, who was gunned down while on duty on a corner in Washington, D.C. “There are certainly many more charges to come but we are upgrading the initial charges of assault to murder in the first degree,” D.C.’s U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said during a Fox News interview Friday. Lakanwal, an Afghan national who came to the U.S. in 2021 following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, was arrested at the scene after two National Guard members were shot near the White House Wednesday. Law-enforcement officers were executing warrants at several locations across the country to gather more information on the attack, Pirro said. “To be gunned down on the streets on the nation’s holiday is an outrage and the individual who did this will pay the ultimate price.” A day earlier, Attorney General Pam Bondi said the administration could pursue terrorism charges and possibly the death penalty against the suspect. Lakanwal, 29 years old, also faces charges for the shooting of a second guard member, Andrew Wolfe. He remains in very critical condition, West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey said Friday. Authorities are searching for clues as to why Lakanwal may have shot the two West Virginia National Guard members serving in the capital on Wednesday.

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Wall Street Journal [11/28/2025 9:46 AM, Jack Morphet, 646K] reports authorities are searching for clues to why a man shot two West Virginia National Guard members serving in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, killing one and grievously wounding the other. The suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, will be charged with first-degree murder, said Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Friday on Fox News following the death of U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom. Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News that the U.S. government also planned to level terrorism charges against Lakanwal. It wasn’t clear if he had a lawyer or had been assigned a public defender.

CNN [11/28/2025 8:14 PM, Zachary Cohen, Evan Perez, Kristen Holmes, 18595K] reports President Donald Trump is blaming the Biden administration for this week’s shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, DC, in part by insisting that the suspect, a 29-year-old Afghan, was among millions of foreigners Biden allowed into the US without proper vetting. Details about the alleged shooter’s background, including his previous work for the CIA in Afghanistan, and conversations with sources familiar with the vetting process, paint a far more complicated picture. While investigators have yet to establish a clear motive for the shooting, the incident is likely to rekindle concerns over the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the haste with which thousands of evacuees were brought to the US. Trump officials have suggested a breakdown in vetting is likely tied to the attack, while the president is already using it as a reason to further his crack down on immigrants in the US, including reevaluating the green card status of foreign nationals from a variety of countries. In a video address from his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida late Wednesday, Trump argued the attack carried out by a lone gunman "underscores the single greatest national security threat facing our nation.” "We must take all necessary measures to ensure the removal of any alien from any country who does not belong here or add benefit to our country," Trump said. The suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, was among more than 190,000 Afghans admitted into the US following its withdrawal from Afghanistan, under programs designed to resettle those who helped the US during its 20-year war in the country. Over the course of more than a decade, sources told CNN, Lakanwal underwent numerous rounds of vetting — starting around 2011 by the CIA when he began working with the US military and intelligence agencies — and ending earlier this year when he was approved for permanent asylum in the US by the Trump administration. In 2021, Lakanwal was part of a prioritized group evacuated from Kabul after the Afghan capital fell to the Taliban. Due to his work for the US, including serving in an elite Afghan counterterrorism unit, Lakahwal was considered to be at risk of retribution once the Taliban took control of Afghanistan. Once evacuated, Lakanwal went through what sources told CNN were multiple layers of vetting by multiple US government agencies — first in a Middle Eastern country, according to one source familiar with the matter — and then regularly over the past few years while he was residing in the US. In April, Lakanwal, who lived in Washington state, was granted permanent asylum by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security. Asked for additional details, including which countries are considered to be "of concern," USCIS pointed CNN to 19 countries listed in a June presidential proclamation. The 19 countries include Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees USCIS, said Thursday the administration is also reviewing all asylum cases that were approved under former President Joe Biden. "Effective immediately, processing of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals is stopped indefinitely pending further review of security and vetting protocols," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to CNN, adding, "The Trump Administration is also reviewing all asylum cases approved under the Biden Administration.”

Washington Post [11/28/2025 6:21 PM, Mariana Alfaro, Karen DeYoung, Arelis R. Hernández, Jeremy Roebuck, and Warren P. Strobel, 32099K] reports the Afghan national accused of shooting two National Guard members near the White House this week underwent thorough vetting by counterterrorism authorities before entering the United States, according to people with direct knowledge of the case. Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, arrived in the U.S. through Operation Allies Welcome (OAW), a Biden-era program that helped resettle Afghan nationals after the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. The shooting has brought immediate scrutiny to that and other programs, with President Donald Trump announcing plans for a full review of those admitted and immigration officials halting the processing of requests from anyone from Afghanistan. In addition, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem and other senior Trump officials claimed, without evidence, that Lakanwal was never vetted and laid blame for his presence in the U.S. on former president Joe Biden. The security of Afghan resettlement programs under the Biden administration has been a politically fraught issue for several years, stemming in part from the hasty and chaotic U.S. evacuation effort after the fall of the Afghan government to the Taliban. A key question from critics has been whether any evacuees managed to enter the U.S. without proper vetting. Lakanwal, however, would not have been among them, according to the individuals, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation. One of the individuals said Lakanwal was vetted years ago, before working with the CIA in Afghanistan, and then again before he arrived in the U.S. in 2021. Those examinations involved both the National Counterterrorism Center as well as the CIA, the person said.

FOX News [11/28/2025 8:35 AM, Alex Nitzberg, 40621K] reports Gary Beckstrom, the father of West Virginia National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom, noted in a heartbreaking Facebook post on Thursday that his daughter had died. "My baby girl has passed to glory. If I don’t talk to you don’t be offend [sic] this has been a horrible tragedy," he wrote. Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal is a suspect in the shooting that killed Beckstrom and injured fellow Guard member Andrew Wolfe in Washingon, D.C. on Wednesday. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem noted Wednesday in a post on X, "The suspect who shot our brave National Guardsmen is an Afghan national who was one of the many unvetted, mass paroled into the United States under Operation Allies Welcome on September 8, 2021, under the Biden Administration."

FOX News [11/28/2025 9:36 AM, Gabriel Hays, 40621K] Video: HERE reports President Donald Trump asked a White House reporter if she was a "stupid person" on Thursday when she pressed him about the suspected murderer of U.S. National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom. CBS News White House correspondent Nancy Cordes confronted Trump with reports that the suspect in the shooting of Beckstrom and Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe on Wednesday was vetted by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security before being allowed into the country from Afghanistan. She then asked why Trump accused former President Joe Biden of letting the suspect in with no vetting. "Your DOJ IG just reported this year that there was thorough vetting by DHS and by the FBI of these Afghans who were brought into the U.S., so why do you blame the Biden administration?" she asked. "Because they let him in. Are you stupid? Are you a stupid person?" Trump fired back. "Because they came in on a plane along with thousands of other people that shouldn’t be here. And you’re just asking questions, because you’re a stupid person." Trump accused the previous administration of allowing Lakanwal and other Afghan refugees into the country without proper vetting during the U.S. withdrawal. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Blaze [11/28/2025 11:30 AM, Joseph MacKinnon, 1442K] reports two West Virginia National Guardsmen patrolling the national capital were shot the day before Thanksgiving, allegedly by a 29-year-old Afghan national who Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem indicated "was one of the many unvetted, mass paroled into the United States under Operation Allies Welcome on September 8, 2021, under the Biden Administration.” While 24-year-old U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe is reportedly still fighting for his life, Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom succumbed to her wounds on Thursday evening. "My baby girl has passed to glory," the fallen guardsman’s father, Gary Beckstrom, noted in a Facebook post on Thursday. "... This has been a horrible tragedy." Amid the general outpouring of prayers and support for the victims and their families, the New Yorker magazine’s chief Washington correspondent, Jane Mayer, decided to publicly trivialize the military members’ sacrifice. "This is so tragic, so unnecessary, these poor guardsmen should never have been deployed," wrote Mayer. "I live in DC and watched as they had virtually nothing to do but pick up trash. It was a political show and at what a cost.” Mayer’s apparent suggestion that the National Guardsman who died and others overseeing a historic and transformative decrease in violent crime in Washington, D.C., were glorified garbage pickers did not go over well with the American people and their White House. White House communications director Steven Cheung, responding on X from his official account, wrote, "Jane, respectfully, shut the f**k up for trying to politicize this tragedy. "They were protecting DC and trying to make the nation’s capital safer," continued Cheung. "People like you who engage in ghoulish behavior lose all credibility. Not like you had any to begin with." The official White House rapid response account similarly castigated the liberal journalist, writing, "You sick, disgusting ghoul. Two of these heroes were just SHOT IN BROAD DAYLIGHT. The Guard has saved countless lives — backed up by evidence (which you’re clearly too stupid to notice). They are American patriots."

New York Times [11/28/2025 2:51 PM, Shawn McCreesh, 330K] reports the shooting of two National Guard members by a gunman identified by the authorities as an Afghan national has set off an especially intense level of fury in President Trump and a new push to step up his anti-immigration policies. In a series of statements in the two days since the shooting on a Washington street corner just blocks from the White House, Mr. Trump has cast the attack as exactly what he has warned about and made clear that he intended to use it to pursue an even more maximalist version of his agenda. In social media posts near midnight on Thanksgiving, he vowed to “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries” and threatened to strip U.S. citizenship from naturalized migrants “who undermine domestic tranquillity.” He threatened to “end all Federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our Country” and deport foreigners deemed to be “non-compatible with Western Civilization.” On Friday, the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said in a statement that his agency had “halted all asylum decisions until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible.” On the same day, the State Department announced that it was halting visas for Afghans, including those who had helped the United States during the war in their country. Mr. Trump used remarkably derogatory and personal terms in his Thursday night posts to portray Somali refugees as preying in gangs on innocent Americans, and Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, who emigrated to the United States from Somalia and became a citizen 25 years ago, as someone who “probably came into the U.S.A. illegally.” He described her as “always wrapped in her swaddling hijab.” Those statements came after he had ordered the administration to review the status of green card holders from 19 nations that he has subjected to a travel ban. It is not clear what authority Mr. Trump has to follow through on his demands or how he will seek to have them carried out. Under federal law, for example, U.S. citizens can generally be denaturalized only if they are found to have concealed material facts about their background in gaining citizenship or to have misrepresented themselves in the process. But the ferocity of his response was in keeping with his longstanding views on immigration, race and national identity and what he sees as a direct link from those factors to crime, national security threats and economic distress — even though those links, where they exist, are often tenuous and more complex than he makes out. The killing of one of the National Guard members and the critical wounding of another is also sure to fuel further debate over the costs and benefits of using the military on the streets of American cities. Mr. Trump has already ordered another 500 National Guardsmen to Washington on top of the roughly 2,000 there already, although a federal judge ruled last week that the initial deployment was illegal. Since the shooting, Mr. Trump has seemed to fixate on Somalian refugees in Minnesota in particular. “We’re not taking their people anymore,” Mr. Trump said on Thursday. He later wrote on social media that Tim Walz, the Democratic governor of that state, was “seriously retarded” for welcoming immigrants from Somalia.

AP [11/28/2025 4:53 PM, Staff, 31753K] Video: HERE reports Andrew Selee, President of the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank, analyzed President Donald Trump’s latest social media post Thursday saying. He said there isn’t really a correlation between low-income immigrants and crime.

Washington Post [11/28/2025 6:21 PM, Mariana Alfaro, 24149K] reports the Afghan national accused of shooting two National Guard members near the White House this week underwent thorough vetting by counterterrorism authorities before entering the United States, according to people with direct knowledge of the case. Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, arrived in the U.S. through Operation Allies Welcome (OAW), a Biden-era program that helped resettle Afghan nationals after the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. The shooting has brought immediate scrutiny to that and other programs, with President Donald Trump announcing plans for a full review of those admitted and immigration officials halting the processing of requests from anyone from Afghanistan. In addition, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem and other senior Trump officials claimed, without evidence, that Lakanwal was never vetted and laid blame for his presence in the U.S. on former president Joe Biden. The security of Afghan resettlement programs under the Biden administration has been a politically fraught issue for several years, stemming in part from the hasty and chaotic U.S. evacuation effort after the fall of the Afghan government to the Taliban. A key question from critics has been whether any evacuees managed to enter the U.S. without proper vetting. Lakanwal, however, would not have been among them, according to the individuals, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation. One of the individuals said Lakanwal was vetted years ago, before working with the CIA in Afghanistan, and then again before he arrived in the U.S. in 2021. Those examinations involved both the National Counterterrorism Center as well as the CIA, the person said. Lakanwal was also granted asylum earlier this year, a process that would have brought its own scrutiny, according to #AfghanEvac, a coalition that supported the relocation effort — an assertion the White House did not dispute. Homeland Security officials have said that Lakanwal arrived in the U.S. in September 2021 as part of a Biden administration initiative to resettle vulnerable Afghans, particularly those who worked along U.S. forces in Afghanistan and faced potential persecution from the Taliban. Before being admitted, all OAW applicants underwent “rigorous screening and vetting” to ensure that they were not a national security risk, officials said at the time. According to the Department of Homeland Security, most Afghans who arrived in the U.S. under OAW were given parole for two years following mandatory screening and vetting processes that involved biometric and biographic screenings. The parole is conditional, meaning the Afghan nationals were required to receive medical screenings, critical vaccinations and other reporting requirements. Still, in the wake of the Wednesday shooting, Trump said his administration will conduct a full review of all Afghan nationals who were admitted to the U.S. under the Biden administration. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service on Wednesday also immediately stopped processing all immigration requests related to Afghan nationals “indefinitely pending further review of security and vetting protocols.” A DHS spokesperson said USCIS processed Lakanwal’s asylum claim on an expedited basis under the terms of a 2023 settlement agreement with Afghan evacuees who had complained of lengthy delays in the process. “Regardless of asylum status, this monster would not have been removed due to his parole status, granted by Joe Biden,” said a White House official, who requested anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

FOX News [11/28/2025 5:03 PM, Staff, 40621K] Video: HERE reports National Security Institute founder Jamil Jaffer and former state Sen. David Carlucci, D-N.Y., comment on the vetting process of the suspected shooter of two National Guard members and potential motives on ‘The Story.’

Breitbart [11/28/2025 6:42 PM, Olivia Rondeau, 2416K] reports Bronze Star recipient Mark Lucas detailed how the U.S. military’s Afghan allies were "untrustworthy" and perpetuated a barbaric culture of pedophilia and abusing women in an interview after it was revealed that the suspect in the Washington, DC, shooting of two members of the National Guard is an Afghan national who previously worked with the CIA. Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, arrived in the United States in 2021 under the Biden administration’s Operation Allies Welcome project in the aftermath of the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Washington state resident and father of five worked in "a special CIA-backed Afghan Army unit" before leaving his home country, the Associated Press reported. Lakanwal also reportedly worked for #AfghanEvac, a nonprofit organization that helps resettle Afghans who aided the U.S. in the war. During the Wednesday attack that left 20-year-old Spc. Sarah Beckstrom dead and 24-year-old Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe fighting for his life, Lakanwal allegedly yelled "Allahu Akbar.” Lucas, founder of the organization Veteran Action, joined InfoWars’ Breanna Morello on Friday to share his experience as a decorated combat veteran who served during the decades-long war in Afghanistan: As a platoon leader meeting with local Afghan elders in 2010, Lucas said he learned of the pederastic phenomenon known as "bacha bazi," where enslaved children called "chai boys" were horrifically abused.

New York Post [11/28/2025 5:28 PM, Josh Christenson, 42219K] reports a Marine Force Reconnaissance soldier who served eight tours in Afghanistan told The Post Friday that some locals who fought the Taliban were "disloyal" to the US forces they partnered with — and that it "happens a lot more than people suspect.” Chad Robichaux, 50, in an exclusive interview noted that said he’s been sounding the alarm about the risk of Afghan evacuees ever since the Biden administration’s botched bugout from the Middle East nation in 2021 — and how the US faces an elevated threat of terrorism as a result of poor refugee vetting. Issues related to the August 2021 withdrawal of US forces and refugees have resurfaced this week as an Afghan national is facing charges for shooting two National Guard members — and killing one of them — in Washington, DC, on Thanksgiving eve as part of a suspected terror attack. The alleged shooter, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, served for at least a decade alongside US forces fighting the Taliban, al-Qaeda and ISIS as part of an elite, CIA-backed paramilitary group known as the Kandahar Strike Force, according to US officials. "When you talk about someone that’s, like, worked with the CIA or worked with special operations, just works through our troops," Robichaux said, "you have to understand, like, when you go work in another country with local nationals, there’s an inherent risk to that. You have to depend on these people.” As many as 85,000 Afghans came into the country that year as part of "Operation Allies Welcome," and of those, 10,000 who were part of the same CIA-backed "death squads" that Lakanwal fought with settled near Seattle. Lakanwal applied for a special immigration visa but was never granted lawful permanent residence. He also applied for asylum in December 2024 and was granted it the following April by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which is part of Department of Homeland Security. The department’s Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin has blamed the Biden administration’s "humanitarian parole" program for letting the Afghan evacuee remain in the US. "Biden signed into law that parole program, and then entered into the 2023 Ahmed Court Settlement, which bound USCIS to adjudicate his asylum claim on an expedited basis," McLaughlin said in a statement. The Trump administration has since "stopped indefinitely pending further review of security and vetting protocols" any immigration requests "relating to Afghan nationals," she added.

FOX News [11/28/2025 4:57 PM, Charles Creitz, 40621K] reports the tragic Wednesday shooting of two West Virginia National Guardsmen in Washington, and President Donald Trump’s call to reexamine green card holders from "countries of concern" including Afghanistan, was predated by a warning from Fox News host Laura Ingraham about the Biden administration’s announcement amid the withdrawal that they were vetting evacuees on the "back end." The identification of a suspect has raised concerns again about the chaotic 2021 Kabul evacuation and previous reports of misconduct by evacuees on U.S. military bases. Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, originally of Afghanistan and once part of a CIA-linked team fighting the Taliban, was identified as the main suspect in the shooting, which has since claimed the life of West Virginia National Guard Spc. Sarah Beckstrom of Nicholas County, West Virginia.

Breitbart [11/28/2025 5:33 PM, Nick Gilbertson, 2416K] reports President Donald Trump said Thursday night that Afghans brought into the United States after then-President Joe Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan were not vetted. Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the suspected shooter who killed National Guardswoman Sarah Beckstrom and critically wounded National Guardsman Andrew Wolfe in Wednesday’s shooting near Farragut West Metro Station in Washington, DC, entered the United States through the Biden administration’s Operation Allies Welcome in the aftermath of the botched Afghanistan withdrawal in September 2021, according to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Trump announced Wednesday his administration would "reexamine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan" in the aftermath of the horrific shooting, which he dubbed an "act of terror." Trump announced on Thanksgiving that he will "permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries."

Breitbart [11/28/2025 11:41 AM, Lowell Cauffiel, 2416K] reports following the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington this week, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) not only wants to deport potentially dangerous "Islamists" — he wants an immediate ban on all "Islam immigrants.” The call was posted on Tuberville’s X account Wednesday, hours before it was announced that one of the Guard victims, 20-year-old Sara Beckstrom, had died despite valiant efforts by doctors to save her life following the shooting. Still hospitalized and in critical condition is 24-year-old Andrew Wolfe, who with Beckstrom was was shot multiple times while on duty near the Farragut West Metro station. "The Afghan terrorist who shot 2 National Guard heroes in D.C. was welcomed into this country with open arms by Joe Biden," Tuberville wrote Wednesday evening. "We must IMMEDIATELY BAN all ISLAM immigrants and DEPORT every single Islamist who is living among us just waiting to attack." Authorities have identified their attacker as 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakamal, an Afghan national who came to the United States under a program to accept people who had allied themselves with the United States during its war on terrorism in that country.

AP [11/29/2025 12:01 AM, Sudhin Thanawala, 30493K] reports two planes carrying Venezuelan migrants out of the U.S. were midair on March 15 when a federal judge in Washington ordered the Trump administration to turn them around. Instead, the planes landed in El Salvador hours later, touching off an extraordinary power struggle between the judicial and executive branches of the U.S. government over what happened and why the judge’s order went unexecuted. That fight entered a critical phase on Friday when U.S. District Judge James Boasberg relaunched an investigation to determine whether the Republican administration deliberately ignored his instruction, letting the planes continue onto El Salvador. The judge previously concluded it did and threatened to have the responsible official or officials prosecuted on a contempt charge. The administration has denied any violation. But an appeals court threw Boasberg’s decision out. The contempt probe appeared dead until in yet another twist, a larger panel of judges on the same appeals court ruled on November 14 that the investigation could proceed. Here’s a look at what makes this case unusual and what could happen now: They are a last resort, former federal judges Jeremy Fogel and Liam O’Grady told The Associated Press in an interview Monday conducted on Zoom. “The judge has to believe that some line may have been crossed that you can’t ignore,” said Fogel, who spent 20 years on the bench in Northern California before retiring in 2018. Fogel said the issues raised by Boasberg’s contempt probe — whether the migrants were deprived of their due process rights and whether the court’s authority was flouted — meet that standard. “Whatever actually happened, I think it would be very hard for him to just let it go,” the judge said. O’Grady, who served in Alexandria, Virginia, just outside Washington, for 16 years, credited Boasberg for his efforts to determine the facts. “He’s making sure that his record is absolutely clear,” O’Grady said. On Friday, Boasberg ordered the administration to submit declarations by December 5 from all officials involved in the decision not to return the flights to the U.S. He said he will then decide whether to seek testimony from witnesses. The declarations should detail the officials’ roles in the decision, the judge said in the brief order. Justice Department attorneys had urged him to abandon the probe, but Boasberg said he must determine whether Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem or anyone else “should be referred for potential contempt prosecution.” “In other words, the Court must decide if: (1) the court order was ‘clear and reasonably specific’; (2) ‘the defendant violated the order’; and (3) ‘the violation was willful,’” he wrote.

Bloomberg [11/28/2025 12:00 AM, Simon Marks and Jinshan Hong, 18207K] reports every two months, Claudia Ncutinamagara, a 39-year-old Burundian living in one of the world’s largest refugee camps, receives four kilograms of cereals, a kilogram of lentils and just over a liter of vegetable oil to feed her family of four. The rations are so meager that she struggles to breastfeed her youngest, an infant boy. Ncutinamagara is among the 240,000 refugees at the UN’s Kakuma camp in remote northern Kenya who’ve seen the aid they rely on to survive slashed this year — leaving tens of thousands of children out of school, plunging as many or more into malnutrition and depriving hospitals of life-saving medicine. Ten months after US President Donald Trump began dismantling the US foreign aid system — and other Western countries including the UK, Germany and the Netherlands slashed their giving – more than 100 million refugees and forcibly displaced people around the world are starting to feel the effects. The Trump administration’s decision to shutter the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which had led the global fight against infectious disease, has already resulted in more than 600,000 deaths, most of them children, according to modeling done by epidemiologist Brooke Nichols at Boston University. It’s likely to get worse — US foreign assistance commitments fell by more than half in the fiscal year ending September compared to the same period in 2024, to $14.7 billion from $31.6 billion — according to a Bloomberg analysis of spending on global health, food aid, international disaster assistance, refugees and development. “We feel like we’ve been abandoned,” said Ncutinamagara, who arrived in Kenya in 2017 after fleeing violence in her home country. “We exist but that’s it — it’s hopeless.” With aid eliminated for pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, Kakuma has seen a 50% rise this year in instances of severe malnutrition among infants under six months, according to the United Nations. Staffing levels in US-funded schools have fallen by 40%, leaving many classrooms overcrowded and forcing an estimated 20,000 children to drop out. Rates of child marriage, survival sex — when women resort to sex work in order to feed their families — and domestic violence are soaring across the camp, according to an international consortium of NGOs.

Washington Post [11/28/2025 4:36 PM Alex Horton and Ellen Nakashima, 24149K] reports the longer the U.S. surveillance aircraft followed the boat, the more confident intelligence analysts watching from command centers became that the 11 people on board were ferrying drugs. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a spoken directive, according to two people with direct knowledge of the operation. “The order was to kill everybody,” one of them said. A missile screamed off the Trinidad coast, striking the vessel and igniting a blaze from bow to stern. For minutes, commanders watched the boat burning on a live drone feed. As the smoke cleared, they got a jolt: Two survivors were clinging to the smoldering wreck. The Special Operations commander overseeing the Sept. 2 attack — the opening salvo in the Trump administration’s war on suspected drug traffickers in the Western Hemisphere — ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions, two people familiar with the matter said. The two men were blown apart in the water. Hegseth’s order, which has not been previously reported, adds another dimension to the campaign against suspected drug traffickers. Some current and former U.S. officials and law-of-war experts have said that the Pentagon’s lethal campaign — which has killed more than 80 people to date — is unlawful and may expose those most directly involved to future prosecution.

CNN [11/28/2025 1:19 PM, Natasha Bertrand, 18595K] reports that the US military carried out a follow-up strike on a suspected drug vessel operating in the Caribbean on September 2 after an initial attack did not kill everyone on board, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. That September strike was the first in what became a regular series of attacks on alleged drug boats. While the first strike appeared to disable the boat and cause deaths, the military assessed there were survivors, according to the sources. The second attack killed the remaining crew on board, bringing the total death toll to 11, and sunk the ship. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had ordered the military prior to the operation to ensure the strike killed everyone on board, but it’s not clear if he knew there were survivors prior to the second strike, one of the sources said. The strike and deaths were announced by President Donald Trump on the day of the attacks, but the administration has never publicly acknowledged killing survivors. Trump said on Thursday that action on land to stop suspected drug trafficking networks in Venezuela could "start very soon," amid ongoing questions about the legality of the US military’s campaign around Latin America. Officials have acknowledged not knowing the identities of everyone on board the boats before they are struck, CNN has reported.

USA Today [11/28/2025 2:15 PM, Zac Anderson, 67103K] reports that amid a buildup of U.S. military forces near Venezuela and strikes on alleged drug boats, President Donald Trump told U.S. troops on Thanksgiving that the military operation will soon include strikes on land. "In recent weeks, you’ve been working to deter Venezuelan drug traffickers," Trump said during a call with military service members that alluded to the boat strikes, adding: "We’ll be starting to stop them by land also. The land is easier, but that’s going to start very soon." Since early September, the Trump administration has attacked at least 21 boats traversing the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific in international waters, killing 83 people − many of them Venezuelans. Administration officials have said, without providing evidence, that those boats were attempting to carry narcotics to the United States. The military campaign that has drawn criticism from legal experts, who question the legality of using deadly military force rather than trying to apprehend suspected trafficking vessels and their cargo. This week Senate Democrats escalated their demands that the Trump administration publicly disclose the legal justification for conducting the attacks. "Few decisions are more consequential for a democracy than the use of lethal force," the 13 senators, all members of the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, wrote in a Nov. 24 letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The Daily Caller [11/28/2025 10:32 AM, Adam Pack, 835K] reports that the military has executed nearly two dozen strikes on alleged drug boats since early September, resulting in the deaths of more than 80 people. "In recent weeks, you’ve been working to deter Venezuelan drug traffickers, of which there are many," Trump said during a call thanking the Air Force’s 7th Bomb Wing for their efforts supporting the newly-named Operation Southern Spear. "Of course, there aren’t too many coming in by sea anymore." "You probably noticed that people aren’t wanting to be delivering by sea, and we’ll be starting to stop them by land also," Trump continued. "Also, the land is easier, but that’s going to start very soon … We warn them: Stop sending poison to our country." Trump’s Thanksgiving Day remarks come as he is evaluating whether to pursue military action against Venezuela. The White House has repeatedly referred to Venezuelan socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro as an illegitimate leader and taken a variety of steps to ramp up pressure against his socialist regime.

Washington Post [11/29/2025 6:00 AM, Ana Vanessa Herrero and Matthew Hay Brown, 32099K] reports U.S. fighter jets escorted a strategic bomber near the coast one day this week, and state-controlled media showed video of Venezuelan soldiers firing into the sky. A supermarket in east Caracas filled with people raiding the shelves to lay in supplies. The next day, the sky was quiet — and the capital returned to normal. Caught between the threat of a U.S. attack and a government they don’t trust to provide accurate information, Venezuelans are living moment to moment, unsure of what to expect next — a disrupting, exhausting existence that’s leading some to wish that whatever is going to happen would just happen already. “On Monday every street was empty,” said one woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of persecution. “On Wednesday, it was a normal country again. [The government of President Nicolás Maduro] are experts in playing with our emotions and downplaying any credible threat that could mean their end.” The Trump administration began building up naval forces off Venezuela in August and started launching strikes against boats it claims are carrying drugs to the United States in September. Maduro responded by mobilizing troops, calling on citizens to join militias to defend the country and declaring Christmas. Initially, Venezuelans were more focused on day-to-day survival. The population of this oil-rich nation has been battered by years of economic mismanagement and political repression by the authoritarian socialist government. Inflation and unemployment are high, supplies of water, food, medicine and energy are unreliable and political persecution is widespread. But in recent weeks, events have accelerated. The Trump administration on Monday declared the Cartel de los Soles, an alleged drug trafficking group that officials say is led by Maduro and other senior officials, a foreign terrorist organization.

Reuters [11/29/2025 3:13 PM, Jasper Ward, Gram Slattery, Jeff Mason and Julia Symmes Cobb, 42219K] reports U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro last week and discussed a possible meeting between them in the United States, New York Times reported on Friday, citing multiple people with knowledge of the matter. The newspaper added that there were no plans at the moment for such a meeting, which - if it occurred - would be the first-ever encounter between the authoritarian Venezuelan leader and a U.S. president. The revelation of the phone call comes as Trump continues to use bellicose rhetoric toward Venezuela, while also entertaining the possibility of diplomacy. Trump had previously indicated he would be open to speaking with Maduro, though the Times report indicates that such a conversation has already happened. The Trump administration has described Maduro as an illegitimate leader, who leads a drug trafficking organization known as Cartel de los Soles, an allegation Caracas denies. Many independent experts say that while narco-corruption in the Venezuelan government is a major issue, there is little proof of an organized grouping of officials that could be traditionally called a cartel. Since early September, the U.S. government has been bombing alleged drug boats originating in Venezuela and other Latin American nations, a practice that Democrats, scholars and human rights experts have described as extrajudicial executions. On Thursday, Trump repeated his previous threats to begin bombing land-based targets. "The land is easier, but that’s going to start very soon," Trump told reporters. Neither the White House nor the Venezuelan communications ministry, which handles all press requests for the government, responded to requests for comments. White House officials have said that Trump does not see pursuing military and diplomatic tracks as mutually exclusive in Venezuela. A major military buildup in the Caribbean has been underway for months, and Trump has authorized covert CIA operations in the South American nation. On Sunday, Reuters reported that the U.S. was about to enter a new phase of Venezuela-related operations, which could include the deployment of covert options. Two U.S. officials told Reuters the options under consideration included attempting to overthrow Maduro. Earlier on Friday, Washington Post reported that the U.S. government deliberately killed survivors after bombing a drug boat near Trinidad in a so-called "double tap" strike after Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth gave a directive to "kill everybody." The Pentagon called the article misleading, but it could nevertheless intensify concerns about the legality of U.S. operations in the area.

FOX News [11/28/2025 4:12 PM, Staff, 40621K] Video: HERE reports Fox News correspondent Alexandria Hoff reports that President Donald Trump plans to combat drug trafficking on land after success on the sea on ‘The Story.’

New York Post [11/28/2025 6:50 PM, Victor Nava, 42219K] reports the Trump administration is working toward cutting illegal migrants off from federal tax benefits and money transfer services, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Friday. "At [President Trump’s] direction, we are working to cut off federal benefits to illegal aliens and preserve them for U.S. citizens," Bessent wrote on X. As part of the effort, the Treasury Department will propose new regulations "clarifying that the refunded portions of certain individual income tax benefits are no longer available to illegal and other non-qualified aliens, covering the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Additional Child Tax Credit, the American Opportunity Tax Credit, and the Saver’s Match Credit," according to the Trump administration official. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) ostensibly prohibits illegal immigrants from obtaining most taxpayer-funded benefits. However, in a February executive order barring illegal immigrants from access to federally funded benefits, Trump argued that in the decades since PRWORA’s passage, "numerous administrations have acted to undermine the principles and limitations directed by the Congress.” Treasury aims to classify federal tax benefits as "federal public benefits" within the meaning of PRWORA in its proposed rule.

Reported similarly:
FOX Business [11/28/2025 4:09 PM, Eric Revell, 10085K]

New York Times [11/28/2025 12:32 AM, Annie Correal, Jeff Ernst, Shawn McCreesh and David C. Adams, 135475K] reports President Trump announced on Friday afternoon that he would grant “a Full and Complete Pardon” to a former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who, as the center of a sweeping drug case, was found guilty by an American jury last year of conspiring to import cocaine into the United States. The news came as a shock not only to Hondurans, but also to the authorities in the United States who had built a major case and won a conviction against Mr. Hernández. They had accused him of taking bribes during his campaign from Joaquín Guzmán, the notorious former leader of the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico known as “El Chapo,” and of running his Central American country like a narco state. The judge in his case, P. Kevin Castel, had called Mr. Hernández “a two-faced politician hungry for power” who masqueraded as an antidrug crusader while partnering with traffickers. And prosecutors had asked the judge to make sure Mr. Hernández would die behind bars, citing his abuse of power, connections to violent traffickers and “the unfathomable destruction” caused by cocaine. The prosecution stretched across Mr. Trump’s first term and concluded during Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s time as president. In the end, Mr. Hernández was sentenced to 45 years in prison in Federal District Court in Manhattan, capping what prosecutors had presented as a sprawling conspiracy. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, where Mr. Hernández was tried, declined to comment. A Drug Enforcement Administration agent, who worked on the investigation into Mr. Hernández and spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter, called the pardon “lunacy.” Mike Vigil, a former chief of international operations at the same agency, also reacted with disbelief to the news of the pardon. Mr. Vigil said the move imperiled the reputation of the United States and its international investigations into drug trafficking. “This action would be nothing short of catastrophic and would destroy the credibility of the U.S. in the international community,” Mr. Vigil said on Friday. Mr. Trump’s vow to pardon such a high-profile convicted drug trafficker appeared to contradict the president’s campaign to unleash the might of the American military on small boats in the Caribbean and Pacific that his administration says, without evidence, are involved in drug trafficking. That campaign has so far killed more than 80 people since it began in September. The president has also put intense pressure on Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, deploying troops and warships to the region. Mr. Trump has accused him of being the boss of a drug organization called Cartel de los Soles, though specialists in Latin American criminal and narcotics issues say it is not a literal organization. Mr. Trump has also authorized covert C.I.A. action in Venezuela. The end goal, American officials say privately, is to drive Mr. Maduro from power. The pardon announcement came in a social media post on Friday evening by Mr. Trump. “CONGRATULATIONS TO JUAN ORLANDO HERNANDEZ ON YOUR UPCOMING PARDON,” he wrote, minutes after he returned to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where he is spending the holiday weekend and took time out to visit his nearby golf club. “MAKE HONDURAS GREAT AGAIN!”

Reported similarly:
Reuters [11/28/2025 5:20 PM, Kanishka Singh, 36480K]
AP [11/28/2025 6:25 PM, Josh Boak and Christopher Sherman, 2218K]
FOX News [11/28/2025 8:18 PM, Sophia Compton, 40621K]
USA Today [11/28/2025 6:08 PM, Zac Anderson, 67103K]

Politico [11/28/2025 7:00 AM, Kyle Cheney, 2100K] reports the Trump administration’s bid to systematically lock up nearly all immigrants facing deportation proceedings has led to a fierce — and mounting — rejection by courts across the country. That effort, which began with an abrupt policy change by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on July 8, has led to a tidal wave of emergency lawsuits after ICE’s targets were arrested at workplaces, courthouses or check-ins with immigration officers. Many have lived in the U.S. for years, and sometimes decades, without incident and have been pursuing asylum or other forms of legal status. At least 225 judges have ruled in more than 700 cases that the administration’s new policy, which also deprives people of an opportunity to seek release from an immigration court, is a likely violation of law and the right to due process. Those judges were appointed by all modern presidents — including 23 by Trump himself — and hail from at least 35 states, according to a POLITICO analysis of thousands of recent cases. The number of judges opposing the administration’s position has more than doubled in less than a month. In contrast, only eight judges nationwide, including six appointed by Trump, have sided with the administration’s new mass detention policy.

Telemundo [11/28/2025 5:28 PM, Staff, 2218K] reports Joaquín Guzmán López, son of Mexican drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, will attend a plea change hearing in Chicago on Monday, December 1, according to court documents from the Northern District Court of Illinois reported by several Mexican media outlets, which add that he plans to plead guilty to criminal charges against him. His brother Ovidio Guzmán, also in federal custody in the United States, changed his plea in July after reaching an agreement with the prosecution and pleaded guilty to drug trafficking. Federal prosecutors say the brothers, nicknamed Los Chapitos, were the leaders of a powerful faction of the Sinaloa Cartel. According to the Department of Homeland Security, on April 2, 2018, they were indicted by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia for conspiracy to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine and one ton of marijuana. According to Mexican media, the document sent to Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman regarding Joaquín Guzmán López details that it was supposed to be an "in-person review hearing" but was changed to a "change of plea hearing." He had initially pleaded not guilty. Federal prosecutors indicated at the time that they would not seek the death penalty. Guzmán López, known as El Güero and Güero Moreno, is 39 years old and faces five drug trafficking charges, including organized crime and possession of firearms.

Chicago Tribune [11/28/2025 6:00 AM, Richard Requena and Jonathan Bullington, 4829K] reports the Evanston police officers stepped out of their squad cars and into a pressure cooker. By the time they arrived at the normally subdued south Evanston intersection that Halloween afternoon, a car crash involving a red sedan and an SUV full of U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents had devolved into violence and chaos. The sedan’s driver and two other people — all U.S. citizens — already had been detained. One of them, a young Chicago man, was captured on witness video being wrestled to the pavement and punched in the head while handcuffed. With their body-worn cameras rolling, Evanston officers encountered armed federal agents surrounded by an angry crowd shouting for the three citizens to be released. Some chastised agents for being in their neighborhood. Some pleaded with cops to do something about the agent seen hitting the young Chicago man and a second agent, also caught on cellphone footage, who repeatedly pointed his handgun at protesters. Others ignored officers’ attempts to clear the street. Among them was Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, a candidate for Congress, who admonished police for allowing agents to leave the area. "The EPD was apparently facilitating the departure of ICE with Evanston residents who were kidnapped," Biss told a police commander in one body-worn camera recording. "It’s unacceptable." That recording is among the roughly seven hours of police body-worn camera footage and 911 call audio released by the Evanston Police Department last week in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Taken together, the footage offers a new look into one of the more troubling clashes between federal agents and community members that broke out across Chicago’s Northwest Side and nearby suburbs on Oct. 31 — clashes that have become a hallmark of the Trump administration’s Operation Midway Blitz.

Chicago Tribune [11/28/2025 6:00 AM, Jason Meisner, Madeline Buckley, Jonathan Bullingtonm, and Adriana Pérez, 4829K] reports footage from nearly four dozen body cameras worn by immigration agents during Operation Midway Blitz was released to the public on Wednesday, capturing in shaky, first-person style the abject chaos on the streets as residents and protesters were tear-gassed, hit with pepper balls and arrested during protests of immigration enforcement actions. The group of videos made public through the Loevy & Loevy law firm includes footage from agents who responded to controversial arrest operations in the Little Village and Irving Park neighborhoods. The videos show agents lobbing flash grenades at protesters outside the Broadview immigration detention center and interrogating Chicago residents on city sidewalks. In one clip, Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino tells agents to force an angry crowd back from a perimeter fence outside the Broadview immigration detention center and arrest anyone who doesn’t comply. Another depicts agents in a lengthy high-speed vehicle pursuit through Chicago’s East Side neighborhood that ended in a crash and one agent chasing the vehicle’s suspected passenger into a nearby Walgreens. U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis ordered the 43 videos released after she relied heavily on them in issuing a preliminary injunction last week restricting the use of tear gas and other chemical munitions by agents on the public and media. In her 233-page opinion, Ellis wrote that, over and over, body-worn camera footage from the agents undermined what was eventually put in their use-of-force reports, rendering their statements unreliable.

Yahoo News [11/28/2025 11:00 AM, Carlos Turcios, 59943K] reports four California House Democrats are facing scrutiny after visiting an ICE detention facility in San Diego and meeting with a Honduran national recently arrested on kidnapping and domestic abuse charges, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) press release. DHS said the lawmakers — Reps. Juan Vargas, Mike Levin, Sara Jacobs, and Scott Peters — “requested to speak with” Dennis Mauricio Rojas-Molina during their November 24 oversight visit to the ICE San Diego Field Office. Rojas-Molina, a previously removed Honduran national, was arrested by the San Diego Sheriff’s Office on May 3, 2025, for kidnapping and battery of a spouse. According to DHS, Rojas-Molina was first arrested by U.S. Border Patrol near Lukeville, Arizona, on June 16, 2015, before being released into the United States “by the Obama administration.” An immigration judge issued a final removal order on October 2, 2015, and he was deported on October 14, 2015. DHS said he later reentered the country illegally at an unknown date and time. DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin sharply criticized the lawmakers’ visit. “Democrats once again chose to stand with a criminal illegal alien over American citizens,” McLaughlin said in the DHS release. “This criminal illegal alien these Democrat lawmakers met with has been charged with kidnapping and domestic abuse. It begs the question: have they met with his victim? These sanctuary politicians continue to smear law enforcement and falsely claim ICE is not targeting the worst of the worst. It’s disgusting that these sanctuary politicians continue to do the bidding of criminal illegal aliens.”

Washington Times [11/28/2025 8:58 AM, Mary McCue Bell, 852K] reports that Republicans have proposed new legislation that would make hiring illegal immigrants an unfair labor practice, giving the federal government a new avenue to punish businesses that recruit them and labor unions that seek to get them to unionize. Led by Sens. Jim Banks of Indiana and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, the bill would give the National Labor Relations Board jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute cases. “Hiring illegal aliens drives down American wages and pushes our workers out of good jobs,” Mr. Banks said in a statement. “If employers won’t follow the law, we’ll use every tool we have to make sure they face consequences.” The NLRB investigates unfair labor practices by employers or unions. Jobs have long been seen as a key magnet drawing illegal immigrants to the United States. Conservatives argue that shutting off that magnet could reduce the flow of migrants. Under current law, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement takes the lead on probing businesses that hire unauthorized workers. That can include civil audits of businesses’ practices or criminal arrest of employers and administrative arrest of workers who are not authorized. The new proposal, titled the Putting American Workers First Act, would create another avenue for investigation and prosecution by letting the NLRB police businesses. The bill would shield employers from unfair labor practice charges for firing illegal immigrants.

Wall Street Journal [11/28/2025 9:13 AM, Staff, 646K] reports the ambush of two West Virginia National Guard members near the White House Wednesday afternoon is horrifying on its own. But it arouses a particular anger because the alleged shooter is an Afghan man who was granted refuge in the U.S. after the Taliban takeover in 2021. The motive of 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal isn’t known at this writing. But U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said he drove from his home in Bellingham, Wash., with a goal of staging an attack in Washington, D.C. The two young National Guard members were grievously wounded, and Specialist Sarah Beckstrom died of her injuries on Thursday. Ms. Pirro said the shooter was initially charged with three counts of assault with intent to kill, and possession of a firearm during a crime of violence. But a first-degree murder charge will be added. Officials are calling it a terror attack, yet the CIA said the man had been part of a CIA-backed Afghan “partner force” in Kandahar province, one of the most dangerous places during the war. As such he was a Taliban target and thus he and his family were candidates for evacuation after the chaotic U.S. retreat from Afghanistan in 2021. The reason for his alleged turn from partner to terrorist, especially as a husband and father of five in the U.S., is an important question to answer. The FBI will be looking for links to a domestic terror cell or international contacts, though he might simply have been disgruntled on his own about his adopted country. President Trump immediately linked the shooting to Joe Biden’s Afghan debacle, and officials were quick to denounce the lack of adequate vetting in the evacuation rush of 2021. When and how the shooter was approved for entry will become clearer, and no doubt an orderly withdrawal would have allowed more careful investigation. This is one more cost of the Biden Administration’s Afghan failure. But even careful vetting is imperfect, and Rahmanullah Lakanwal may have become radicalized in the U.S.

New York Times [11/28/2025 5:00 AM, Michelle Goldberg, 153395K] reports for my giving column this year, I chose two groups that inspired me with their resistance to Donald Trump’s attacks on undocumented immigrants. Both are doing heroic work, but they’re squeezed between an expanding need for their services and a political climate that threatens their resources. I first encountered Lindsay Toczylowski, president and chief executive of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, in April, when I was writing about her client Andry Hernández Romero. A gay makeup artist from Venezuela, he was sent by the administration to rot in a hellish mega-prison in El Salvador, all because someone identified his tattoos, tributes to his parents, as gang-related. After his release as part of a prisoner swap in July, he described some of the horrific abuse Trump’s rendition policy enabled, including sexual assault by guards. Unlike criminal defendants, most immigrants held in ICE detention centers aren’t entitled to legal counsel. Immigrant Defenders, based in Southern California, steps in to help people who might otherwise disappear into the system. It operates a legal assistance hotline for those caught up in ICE’s dragnet, as well as one of the country’s largest legal programs for deported veterans. Toczylowski said the group had brought back dozens over the last four years. Many of Immigrant Defenders’ clients are children who crossed the border without their parents, and who, by law, are supposed to be given legal services. This year, Trump tried to cut off government funding for their legal representation, forcing Immigrant Defenders to lay off attorneys. A court ordered the money restored, but Toczylowski said there’s “grave uncertainty” about the future.

Daily Signal [11/28/2025 4:30 PM, Bethany Blankley, 549K] reports assaults against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are up 1,153% in 11 months, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. As ICE officers continue to arrest the most violent criminals nationwide, U.S. citizens have increasingly obstructed their efforts, including physically attacking them and threatening to kill them, according to multiple reports nationwide. The most recent death-threat-related arrests were of a Virginia high school assistant principal and his brother. Earlier this month, DHS and the Virginia Beach Police Department launched an investigation into brothers John Wilson Bennett and Mark Booth Bennett, after an off-duty Norfolk Virginia Police Department officer overheard them discussing plans to "kill police officers and ICE agents," DHS said. The officer claims he overheard Mark Bennett tell his brother that he was "planning to meet with likeminded individuals in Las Vegas to purchase firearms with explosive rounds to carry out the attacks," DHS said. "It’s chilling that a human being, much less a child educator, would plot to ambush and kill ICE law enforcement officers—offering such specifics as to getting a high caliber rifle that would pierce the law enforcements’ bullet proof vests. Thanks to Homeland Security Investigations and our partners, these men are behind bars," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said.

Univision [11/28/2025 1:26 PM, Julio César Ortiz, 5004K] reports the Democratic House Oversight Committee launched a digital platform that aims to create a database documenting how, when, and where people were assaulted or witnessed abuse by Immigration agents. This is the first digital portal in the committee’s history to generate the aforementioned database that compiles alleged abuses by ICE or the Border Patrol. The platform appears as a form on a sheet within a digital portal, but it carries the power of the Federal Congress by submitting the information it contains to its database. This congressional portal database leaves the door open for migrants who do not want to sue ICE or CBP agencies at this time, to do so when the Trump administration has ended.

CNN [11/28/2025 4:35 PM, Luis Yordan, 18595K] reports every weekday, people go to 26 Federal Plaza in New York to meet with judges handling their immigration cases. But now, federal agents are also roaming the hallways, detaining some men and women without explanation as they exit routine court hearings. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Univision [11/28/2025 6:57 PM, Staff, 5004K] reports a Tampa photojournalist was arrested Saturday while documenting a Sunrise movement protest outside the Krome immigration detention center in Miami-Dade, where a group of activists blocked the main entrance to demand the closure of the facility and the release of people who, according to the organization, are being held unlawfully. According to a statement from the group, 30 protesters were arrested by Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office deputies after they ignored warnings to clear the road. Among those arrested was 52-year-old David Decker, who was covering the demonstration for Zuma Press , News2Share , and Creative Loafing . The photojournalist told the Tampa Bay Times that he had his press credentials visible and informed officers that he was not part of the protest. Even so, Decker was arrested on charges of trespassing after warning and resisting without violence , both misdemeanors, according to court records. He was released early Monday morning after posting $500 bail . The photojournalist said he spent several hours in handcuffs while officers processed protesters and that his vehicle was towed. Hours earlier, Decker had covered another protest by the same group outside the facility known as Alligator Alcatraz in South Florida. He has also documented demonstrations outside ICE facilities in other cities , including Chicago, where he claims to have been hit by pepper spray during a police operation. In videos recorded on Saturday, protesters can be seen marching toward the entrance of the Krome Center while chanting slogans inspired by the Poor People’s Campaign and holding signs against ICE. In the footage, Decker can also be heard telling an officer, “I ain’t one of them, bro,” before an agent responds, “You are here. Anyone who’s here.” Detective Argemis Colome, a spokesperson for the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office, told the Tampa Bay Times that the activists were ordered to disperse and were arrested for failing to comply. Regarding Decker’s arrest, he noted that the photojournalist will be able to present his arguments in court: "If he disagrees, everyone has their day in court." Scott McKiernan, founder of Zuma Press , described Decker as a professional and dedicated photographer. In addition to his freelance work, Decker runs a multipurpose photography studio in Tampa. Speaking to the Times , he said he was surprised by the lack of distinction between press and protesters during the operation. A GoFundMe campaign has raised over $21,000 to help him cover legal expenses, recover his vehicle, and replace equipment. “I believe in shining a light on these situations,” Decker stated. “Our job is to tell the truth.” [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

FOX News [11/28/2025 4:31 PM, Staff, 40621K] Video: HERE reports New Orleans Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said her agency will not enforce "civil law" on immigration.

New York Post [11/29/2025 2:25 AM, Alexandra Koch, 42219K] reports an Ohio sheriff slammed fellow law enforcement agencies for previously releasing an illegal immigrant with an extensive criminal history, after he allegedly crashed into an Ohio nurse while driving drunk, leaving her seriously injured. Johen Perez-Ventura, 27, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala, is charged with aggravated vehicular assault, driving without a license and obstruction of justice, according to Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones. Courtney Steinmetz, a nurse and volunteer cheerleading coach, was driving along Route 747 on Nov. 20, when she was allegedly hit head-on by Perez-Ventura in Liberty Township, Ohio. Perez-Ventura was first captured crossing the Texas border in 2019, and deported back to Guatemala, according to Jones. He returned to the US at some point, and in 2023, was charged with assault in Cincinnati. That same year, he was arrested and charged with drunk driving in Westchester, Jones said. Perez-Ventura was released after both arrests. However, Perez-Ventura’s criminal history didn’t end there. In 2024, he was arrested twice for drunk driving, and released again. "This low-life piece of s— named Johen, who has been arrested [four times] for DUIs … he had alcohol in the car, had to be cut out of the car, [went] to the hospital," Jones said in a video post to the Butler County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page. "You know who pays for that. We do. … It’s not his first time. … He’s used to this. He was just going to be in the wind. … Not this time. We waited and then [Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)] made the apprehension.” Jones said Perez-Ventura did not have a driver’s license, speculating he may have shown fake IDs to officers at other agencies, and they let him go anyway. "That’s appalling in itself," the sheriff said. "They probably didn’t want to send him to my jail because he would be deported. He [had] already been incarcerated at that point for DUI, assault, and he’d come across the border twice.” Perez-Ventura, using an interpreter, claimed he was not the driver because he was on probation for one of his prior offenses. After the crash, Jones visited Steinmetz in the hospital and said he could tell she was in "serious pain," having suffered a spine injury, broken wrist and broken ankle. "She’s 27, living her dream, working at the hospital as an RN, saving people’s lives. Now today, she’s lying in the hospital," he said. "She’s not even out of the bed yet. She’s going to be out of work for quite some time. She’ll probably have issues the rest of her life with her spine.” A GoFundMe was set up for Steinmetz, to help with medical bills, lost wages and her insurance deductible — since Perez-Ventura did not have insurance.

Chicago Tribune [11/29/2025 7:00 AM, Meredith Colias-Pete, 4829K] reports when Martha Ruiz returned to her Gary home on Nov. 13 after a couple of weeks in ICE custody in El Paso, she was ecstatic to see her children. “When I left them back at the jail, I didn’t know if I was going to see them again,” said Ruiz, 57. Her husband, Rosario Carrillo Lopez, who built fences, managed to escape U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The family alleges the agents rammed Carrillo’s vehicle on Oct. 13 on the way back from taking his son Eli Carrillo, then 14, to school at Gary Lighthouse. Days later, immigration agents raided their Gary home near the Gary airport at around 6 a.m. Oct. 23. Ruiz said she was sleeping on the sofa when agents with flashlights started banging on the front door. “I got up, but they didn’t give us time to answer the door,” she said. Agents rammed the door in. Her younger son, Eli, now 15, took his diabetic mother downstairs to hide. She hid near their furnace and heard a police dog. “I’m afraid of dogs,” she said in a Spanish language interview. “When they saw where I was, I just raised my hands.” Despite telling them she had a hurt arm, agents forced it behind her back. Handcuffed on the ground, she asked for help up to use the bathroom. They refused to assist, she said. “You get up,” she recalled them saying. Then, a dog bit her back. “They were like, ‘Our dog doesn’t bite’,” she recalled, retorting, “Yes, your dog is biting me.” An U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman was not in the office Wednesday for comment.

Chicago Tribune [11/29/2025 6:00 AM, Robert McCoppin, 4829K] reports while activists have been fighting arrests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the streets of Chicago, another unlikely party has been facing off against the agency in court. McHenry County has filed suit against ICE, trying to get the federal government to pay for potential liability for allegedly making immigrant detainees do forced labor. The court battle pits conservative McHenry County, which once fought in court for the ability to hold accused immigrants in the U.S. without legal permission in its jail, against the agency that once paid it millions of dollars every year to do so. Both county and federal officials have denied liability. The case comes as the U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether private prisons can immediately appeal their claim of immunity against a rash of similar lawsuits across the nation. Northwestern University professor Jacqueline Stevens, founding director of the Deportation Research Clinic at the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, said the Supreme Court seemed skeptical of Geo Group’s claims regarding a prison it runs in Colorado. That might not bode well for a public jail like McHenry County as well. But McHenry County Assistant State’s Attorney Troy Owens, who manages civil litigation for the county, said the lawsuit against the county should be dismissed. “This is an absurd lawsuit,” Owens said. “The Trafficking Victims Protection Act is being grotesquely misused.”

Breitbart [11/28/2025 4:19 PM, Warner Todd Huston, 2416K] reports Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rolled out a campaign to arrest illegal migrants in Dearborn, Michigan, weeks after an Islamic terror plot was busted in the city. Bystanders have seen rows of ICE vehicles standing beside the roads outside Dearborn this week. The actions come after the FBI announced it had busted a major terror plot in Dearborn in October. At the end of October, the FBI arrested several people in connection with what prosecutors say was a Halloween plot to commit an act of terrorism in Dearborn.

NBC News [11/28/2025 6:00 AM, Suzanne Gamboa, 34509K] reports when Immigration and Customs Enforcement came calling on Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux months ago to ask his officers to assist in supporting President Donald Trump’s sweeping immigration enforcement operations, the chief of police in the third-largest city in this very red state said no. On the other hand, in Texas’ largest city, Houston Mayor John Whitmire, a Democrat, has been under fire from residents and officials since he was quoted in the Houston Chronicle acknowledging some cooperation with ICE. The police department there has no formal agreement with the agency, but calls from the city’s police force to ICE, mostly as result of traffic stops, have risen 1000% since President Donald Trump was re-elected, the Houston Chronicle reported based on public records. The approaches in Dallas and Houston show the quandary some police departments face as they weigh their cities’ public safety priorities against the Trump administration’s pressures to multiply its enforcement forces. Texas’ largest cities, where the majority of its Black and Hispanic populations are concentrated, face a tough choice: partner with ICE and risk blowback from their own communities or take a pass and risk seeing the administration send ICE, Border Patrol or National Guard troops to their cities. Chicago, Los Angeles and Charlotte, North Carolina, chose the latter option, only to see federal immigration enforcement arrive on their streets.

AP [11/28/2025 6:04 PM, Holly Ramer, 4K] reports a college freshman trying to fly from Boston to Texas to surprise her family for Thanksgiving was instead deported to Honduras in violation of a court order, according to her attorney. Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, 19, had already passed through security at Boston Logan International Airport on Nov. 20 when she was told there was an issue with her boarding pass, said attorney Todd Pomerleau. The Babson College student was then detained by immigration officials and within two days, sent to Texas and then Honduras, the country she left at age 7. “She’s absolutely heartbroken,” Pomerleau said. “Her college dream has just been shattered.” According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an immigration judge ordered Lopez Belloza deported in 2015. Pomerleau said she wasn’t aware of any removal order, however, and the only record he’s found indicates her case was closed in 2017. “They’re holding her responsible for something they claim happened a decade ago that she’s completely unaware of and not showing any of the proof,” the lawyer said. The day after Lopez Belloza was arrested, a federal judge issued an emergency order prohibiting the government from moving her out of Massachusetts or the United States for at least 72 hours. ICE did not respond to an email Friday from The Associated Press seeking comment about violating that order. Babson College also did not respond to an email seeking comment. Lopez Belloza, who is staying with her grandparents in Honduras, told The Boston Globe she had been looking forward to telling her parents and younger sisters about her first semester studying business. “That was my dream,” she said. “I’m losing everything.”

The Hill [11/28/2025 10:53 AM, Max Rego, 12595K] reports that Elaine Miles, an Indigenous actor, alleged Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers said her Oregon tribal identification "looked fake" during a recent encounter, according to The Seattle Times. Miles, best known for her role as Marilyn Whirlwind in "Northern Exposure," reportedly was stopped by four masked men while she was walking to a bus stop in Redmond, Wash. After they asked for her ID, Miles, a native of Pendleton, Ore., gave them her card from the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon. One officer said the identification "looked fake," while another said, "anyone can make that," the Times reported. Miles told the men to call the Umatilla tribal enrollment office number, listed on the back of her card. They refused, leading Miles to call the office herself. Upon that, an officer attempted to take her phone, before the men departed. Miles, who also appeared in "Smoke Signals," "The Business of Fancydancing" and "Skins," added that her son and uncle were previously detained by ICE officers who did not initially accept their tribal IDs. The two were later released. When reached for comment, ICE directed The Hill to DHS. As of 2023, roughly 375,000 migrants lacking legal status lived in Washington state, according to the Pew Research Center. That marked an increase of about 75,000 from 2021.

NewsMax [11/28/2025 8:04 PM, Michael Katz, 4109K] reports Oregon’s Democratic attorney general, along with district attorneys from the state’s three biggest counties, warned the Trump administration that they plan to investigate any federal officers who engage in "unlawful and reckless" conduct during President Donald Trump’s illegal-immigration crackdown. Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield and the top prosecutors from Multnomah, Washington, and Clackamas counties — Nathan Vasquez, Kevin Barton, and John Wentworth — sent a letter this week to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem voicing alarm over recent federal immigration arrests and the way officers have handled protests outside an ICE facility in South Portland. "Each time law enforcement acts unlawfully, in violation of our Constitution, or with unwarranted force, it undermines public trust and confidence in our government and weakens the very principles our nation stands for," the prosecutors wrote. "Keeping communities safe and holding those who commit violent crimes accountable can only happen when the public has trust in all our law enforcement institutions. "The public does not often differentiate between abuses by one agency or another — they just view it as abuse by ‘law enforcement.’". The ICE facility in South Portland has been the site of constant protests since June 7. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for Oregon on Monday said it has charged 40 defendants with federal crimes for offenses near ICE facilities since June 13, including assaulting federal officers, failure to comply, and depredation of government property. The letter cited two recent incidents. In October, an unmarked van containing federal agents stopped a group of teenagers at gunpoint at a Dutch Bros Coffee drive-thru in Hillsboro "creating a volatile situation as community members called 911.” Last week, federal agents arrested a 17-year-old high school student and U.S. citizen in McMinnville after stopping his car and "breaking through his window during his lunch break from school.” Newsmax reached out to DHS for comment. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to Newsweek that Border Patrol agents in Yamhill County were boxed in by a Chevy Tahoe and a Ford F-150 on Nov. 21, prompting the agents to call ICE "for urgent help.” She said ICE and Border Patrol officers arrested the Tahoe’s driver, 20-year-old U.S. citizen Isaias Eduardo Soto Elias, and later arrested the 17-year-old U.S. citizen driving the F-150, with both facing federal charges for impeding law enforcement. The prosecutors’ demands include halting unlawful actions, improving training, coordinating with local agencies at the South Portland ICE facility, investigating excessive-force complaints, and cooperating fully with state investigations. However, Oregon’s sanctuary-state law prohibits state and local law enforcement from assisting federal immigration enforcement, creating a contradiction in the prosecutors’ request for federal–local coordination. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, responding to a post on X about Rayfield’s letter, wrote: "LOL No.”

Los Angeles Times [11/28/2025 6:00 AM, Claudia Boyd-Barrett, 14862K] reports in July, federal immigration agents took Milagro Solis-Portillo to Glendale Memorial Hospital just outside Los Angeles after she suffered a medical emergency while being detained. They didn’t leave. For two weeks, Immigration and Customs Enforcement contractors sat guard in the hospital lobby 24 hours a day, working in shifts to monitor her movements, her attorney Ming Tanigawa-Lau said. ICE later transferred the Salvadoran woman to Anaheim Global Medical Center, against her doctor’s orders and without explanation, her attorney said. There, Tanigawa-Lau said, ICE agents were allowed to stay in Solis-Portillo’s hospital room around the clock, listening to what should have been private conversations with providers. Solis-Portillo told her attorney that agents pressured her to say she was well enough to leave the hospital, telling her she wouldn’t be able to speak to her family or her attorney until she complied. "She described it to me as feeling like she was being tortured," Tanigawa-Lau said. Concern about this incident and similar ones led the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors this month to approve more protections for detainees at county-operated health facilities. The county proposal — approved Nov. 18 with three supervisors in favor, one abstention and one absence — includes allowing patients to consent to the release of information to family members and legal counsel. It also directs staff to insist immigration agents leave the room at times to protect patient privacy. Legal experts say ICE agents can be in public areas of a hospital, such as a lobby, and can accompany already-detained patients as they receive care, illustrating the scope of federal authority. Detained patients, however, have rights and can try to advocate for themselves or seek legal recourse.

USA Today [11/28/2025 4:48 PM, Eduardo Cuevas, Carlie Procell, 67103K] reports federal immigration officials are reexamining green cards issued to people from 19 countries considered "high-risk" at President Donald Trump’s direction. The decision, announced Nov. 27 by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, comes in light of the deadly shooting of two National Guard members by a suspected gunman who is an Afghan national. USCIS said it issued new guidance for "negative, country specific factors" to be considered when vetting people from 19 countries. In other words, the government could try to remove legal status of people with green cards from those countries for reasons related to their country of origin rather than anything they personally have done. Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute, said the agency guidance appears ambiguous on how it will make those determinations other than that USCIS officials is getting more discretion. USCIS says the change will allow its officers to better determine whether a person is a "threat to public safety and national security."

CBS News [11/28/2025 9:45 AM, Nancy Cordes, 39474K] reports the Department of Homeland Security says the agency is reviewing all asylum cases approved under the Biden administration in wake of Wednesday’s attack on National Guard members in Washington, D.C. A DHS official tells CBS News the shooting suspect’s asylum case was granted earlier this year when President Trump was in office. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Reuters [11/28/2025 7:53 PM, Ismail Shakil, 36480K] reports U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has halted all asylum decisions, the agency’s director, Joseph Edlow, said on Friday. "USCIS has halted all asylum decisions until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible," Edlow said on X.

Washington Times [11/28/2025 4:52 PM, Stephen Dinan, 852K] reports House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer said Friday that his committee will take up a bill to add a citizenship question to the 2030 census. The legislation would also limit the population count used for doling out seats in the U.S. House only to citizens. Mr. Comer said his committee will debate the legislation Tuesday, as part of a broader package of bills altering government operations. Other measures include new reporting on union members doing union business on taxpayers’ dime, sunsetting spending that isn’t officially authorized by Congress and expanding the use of a mandatory probationary period for new federal hires. “The House Oversight Committee is dedicated to ensuring that Americans’ voices are not diluted and that they can be employed in the federal workforce without undue burdens and other hindrances,” Mr. Comer said. The citizenship measure would be a massive change, shifting some seats from immigrant-heavy states. A report by the Congressional Research Service estimated that if only citizens had been counted for apportioning seats after the 2000 census, it would have subtracted six seats from California and one seat each from Florida, Texas and New York. Those nine seats would have been spread one each among nine states. If only citizens were counted for apportioning seats after the 2010 census, California would have lost four seats and Texas, Florida and New York one apiece. Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma and Virginia would have each gained one seat.

AP [11/28/2025 7:47 PM, Staff, 31753K] reports that Iran has decided to boycott the 2026 World Cup draw in Washington next week because the U.S. denied visas to members of its delegation, the state-run IRNA news agency reported on Friday. The agency quoted Iranian soccer federation spokesman Amir-Mahdi Alavi as saying that officials faced visa obstacles that go beyond sports considerations. There was no immediate comment from the White House. Alavi said the federation had reached out to FIFA and hoped it could help resolve the issue. Soccer’s ruling body didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment. President Donald Trump’s administration announced in June a travel ban on citizens from 12 countries including Iran. The list also included Haiti, which last week qualified for the World Cup. Exemptions, however, were promised for "any athlete or member of an athletic team, including coaches, persons performing a necessary support role, and immediate relatives, traveling for the World Cup, Olympics, or other major sporting event as determined by the secretary of state." It is unclear whether the exemptions also apply to the World Cup draw, which takes place on Dec. 5 at the Kennedy Center. The Iranian delegation would have been expected to be led by its soccer federation president Mehdi Taj, one of the most senior officials in Asian soccer and a member of two FIFA committees that have oversight of the World Cup.

Reported similarly:
Reuters [11/28/2025 5:27 PM, Staff, 36480K]

New York Times [11/29/2025 1:06 AM, John Yoon, 135475K] reports the State Department said on Friday that it had ramped up its capacity at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul to process more business visas for South Koreans, as the Trump administration tries to repair the damage from an immigration raid on a large South Korean-run factory in Georgia. That operation in September was once lauded by immigration officials as the largest workplace raid in U.S. history. But the images of people in handcuffs and shackles set off anger in South Korea, where officials said that it was a violation of the workers’ rights and that the raid would discourage companies from investing in the United States. The Trump administration has offered the 317 South Korean workers who were detained in the raid the chance to return to the plant in Ellabell, Ga. They flew home in September but some later returned to the factory, a battery plant owned jointly by Hyundai Motor Group, one of the world’s biggest carmakers, and LG Energy Solution, after the State Department reissued their visas. Many of the former detainees have applied for new visas. The State Department has encouraged those who were previously in Georgia on a visa waiver program to apply for B-1 short-term business visas and has issued new guidance on the activities allowed under them. The State Department said on Friday that it had added the capacity last month to conduct more than 5,000 interviews above normal levels. It said it was implementing President Trump’s “commitment to U.S. reindustrialization by facilitating legitimate business travel, including additional consular resources for visas supporting South Korean investments in the United States, while maintaining the highest standards of national security.” The State Department did not specify the period over which those extra interviews would be conducted or how many interviews it typically conducts. It also did not say how many additional staff were tasked with processing business visa applications from South Koreans. The Trump administration’s moves to encourage the return of South Korean workers to the United States contrasts with its wider crackdown on immigration and foreign labor, including encouraging companies to hire American workers. It recently imposed a $100,000 fee for new H-1B visas, which confer temporary status in the United States for skilled workers. Mr. Trump, who once defended the raid in Georgia, later spoke in support of letting in foreigners with skills that he said few Americans had. His position has prompted criticism from some sections of his conservative base but he has pushed back. “Batteries are very dangerous to make,” Mr. Trump said at an investment forum in Washington this month, referring to the Georgia operation. “They’re complex — much more complex than people understand.” He added that South Korean companies had made huge investments to build the factory. “They were told to get out,” he said, “and I said, ‘Stop it, don’t be stupid.’ And we worked it out, and now they’re teaching our people how to do it.”

Univision [11/28/2025 7:02 PM, Staff, 5004K] reports starting Dec. 26, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will begin taking new biometric data to those entering and leaving the United States. Claudia Galán, an immigration attorney, explains what the measure entails, what changes and who it affects. Also, talk about what would happen if a person could not provide this information.

San Diego Union Tribune [11/28/2025 4:17 PM, Alexandra Mendoza, 1538K] reports Dozens of trucks drive daily into a 120-acre construction site in eastern Otay Mesa, each loaded with rubble taken from several demolition projects throughout the region — including the old Terminal 1 at San Diego International Airport. Concrete and other materials are being crushed on-site to build the base for the Otay Mesa East border crossing facility. The long-awaited port of entry is expected to process thousands of passenger vehicles and commercial trucks a day when it opens. The use of recycled materials is expected to save the project about $500,000, according to María Rodríguez Molina, director of mega projects, border and goods movement with the San Diego Association of Governments, or SANDAG. The agency is sponsoring the project alongside Caltrans. "We’re always looking at ways to save cost and time, and it’s always good to recycle material that you’re already demolishing in other sites and bringing it here," she said. Rodríguez Molina said it was "great timing" that the demolition at Terminal 1 is happening around the same time when the materials are needed. The demolition of the old terminal started shortly after the new Terminal 1 opened in late September, while the construction of the port of entry facility kicked off on Nov. 3. "That worked perfectly for us," she said.

Telemundo [11/28/2025 6:08 PM, Staff, 57K] Video: HERE reports three people who, according to the Border Patrol, entered the country illegally Friday afternoon survived after falling from the 30-foot fence on the San Diego side of the U.S.-between border. The U.S. and Mexico, authorities said. The incident occurred at Otay Mesa, between Drucker Lane and La Media Road, according to Candace Hadley, a public information officer for the San Diego Fire and Rescue Department. The two men and the woman, all adults, were taken to local hospitals after sending emergency services around 12:15 p.m., a Border Patrol spokesman said in a statement sent to NBC 7. By the time the SkyRanger 7 arrived at the scene, only one of the victims remained, subject to a stretcher that paramedics moved to a Falck ambulance waiting. That person, who was sitting and seemed alert, seemed to have injured a foot or a leg.

New York Times [11/29/2025 6:00 AM, Matina Stevis-Gridneff, 153395K] reports this week I published an article, months in the works, that followed the dramatic efforts of a senior nurse and the mother of two who had been living as an unauthorized immigrant in the United States for 22 years, as she tried to legally join her Canadian brother here. The woman, Rahel Negassi, originally from Eritrea, had been working and living in the United States as a cardiac transplant nurse for major hospitals in Michigan and later Maryland. After President Trump’s re-election, she prepared, with the help of lawyers, to come to Canada by organizing her documents and obtaining DNA tests proving her relationship to her brother. She even applied to start the process of having her nursing credentials recognized in Ontario. But her meeting with the Canada Border Services Agency at Peace Bridge in Fort Erie, Ontario, in June went terribly wrong. After hours of interviews (I obtained the transcripts), the Canadian officer rejected her and handed her to back to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Then, the U.S. agency flew her to Texas and booked her for deportation. I conducted dozens of hours of interviews with Rahel, even while she was detained, as well as with her family members and her Canadian lawyer, Heather Neufeld. Rahel’s story, and the way it ends, is here. I want to share a few important things I learned through my reporting about the current enforcement of the “safe third country” agreement between the United States and Canada that did not make it into the article. This fresh reporting from the U.S.-Canadian border highlights that Canada is becoming stricter, too, as Mr. Trump cracks down on immigration in the United States, and that some practices may result in violations that cause harm to individuals and cast doubt on the viability of the “safe third country” agreement.

CBS News [11/28/2025 12:38 PM, Staff, 39474K] reports a lot of snow, rain and cold weather await travelers for the rest of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, with winter storm warnings posted Friday across the northern part of the country and more snow falling over the Great Lakes region. Storm warnings and advisories extended from Montana to New York, the National Weather Service said. "Anybody out shopping for Black Friday in these areas from Cleveland to upstate New York and even into New England are going to deal with some issues out on the roadways," CBS News Philadelphia meteorologist Andrew Kozak said. Up to 42 million people could be impacted by the storm, he said, as the system moves across the northern Plains. More than 81.8 million people were predicted to travel 50 miles or more during the Thanksgiving holiday period, AAA said. The Transportation Security Administration said the agency is planning to screen more than 3 million travelers on Sunday. Adam Stahl, the senior official performing the duties of the deputy TSA administrator, said in a statement, "We are projecting that the Sunday after Thanksgiving will be one of the busiest travel days in TSA history.” Snow was expected to start Friday and last well into the weekend in some areas with Iowa and Illinois getting the brunt of it. Six inches to a foot of snow is expected in much of west-central Illinois on Friday night through Saturday night.

Washington Examiner [11/28/2025 1:59 PM, Jenny Goldsberry, 1394K] reports that a winter storm will begin to coat Chicago, Illinois, and the neighboring area with one inch of snow per hour Friday night into Saturday. The northeastern part of Illinois is under a level four winter storm threat from the National Weather Service. According to the federal agency, this storm will result in reduced visibility, snow-covered roads and runways, and hazardous travel conditions. "Peak travel impacts are expected during daylight hours on Saturday," the Chicago NWS division wrote on X. "Consider altering any travel plans originally scheduled for Saturday." This level of winter storm threat is expected to result in "considerable disruptions to daily life," according to the NWS website. The agency recommends "avoid travel if possible" when any storm reaches this level. By Friday afternoon, over 100 flights were delayed in and out of Chicago O’Hare International Airport, according to flight tracker FlightAware. Another 27 flights were canceled on Friday. As of Friday afternoon, no flights have been canceled for Saturday. Thanksgiving is one of the busiest travel days of the year, according to the Transportation Security Administration. Last year, the Wednesdays and Fridays before the holiday saw more than 2.7 million passengers. Additionally, the Sunday following Thanksgiving in 2024 set a record with more than 3 million passengers. TSA has yet to release the number of passengers that traveled this year.

Washington Times [11/28/2025 12:20 PM, Mike Glenn, 852K] reports that the $17 billion Offshore Patrol Cutter program, one of the U.S. Coast Guard’s highest shipbuilding priorities, is at risk of delays and ballooning costs over a strategy to begin construction before the final design is complete, according to a recently released report from the Government Accountability Office. The cutters are intended to replace the service’s fleet of aging vessels that focus on critical law enforcement and search and rescue operations. The Coast Guard plans to acquire 25 OPCs, the congressional watchdog agency said. “Two shipbuilders have started building the ships before completing [the] design. Building ships with incomplete designs is risky,” the GAO said in its report released this week. The GAO stated that the first shipbuilder, Florida-based Eastern Shipbuilding Group, encountered repeated construction issues and delayed deliveries, resulting in the Coast Guard canceling half the ships under contract. The second shipbuilder, Alabama-based Austal USA, faces similar risks if it goes forward with more ships before the design is complete, the GAO said. The GAO said neither shipbuilder has yet to deliver any of the cutters to the military branch, adding, “The Coast Guard has employed a high-risk approach of acquiring OPCs that involves significant overlap in technology development, design and construction activities.” Natural disasters also plagued the effort. Hurricane Michael — a Category 5 storm — made landfall in the Panama City, Florida, area in October 2018, just as Eastern Shipbuilding Group was about to begin construction on the first OPC.

HS Today [11/28/2025 6:09 AM, Staff, 71K] reports the U.S. Coast Guard Academy (USCGA) recently took part in the 54th Secretaries’ Cup, which was held Saturday, Nov. 15, at Fenway Park, where cadet-athletes, alumni, families and supporters gathered for a day celebrating tradition, service and competition. Prior to kickoff, U.S Coast Guard and Merchant Marine leadership joined distinguished guests on the field, including Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, Senior Advisor to the Secretary for the Coast Guard Sean Plankey, Acting Vice Commandant of the Coast Guard Vice Adm. Tom Allan, USCGA Superintendent Rear Adm. Greg Rothrock, and Acting U.S. Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) Superintendent Capt. Anthony "Tony" Ceraolo, underscoring the partnership and significance of this long-standing rivalry. The game featured extraordinary effort and resilience from both teams, culminating in a hard-fought 39–38 finish. While the cup went to the USMMA this year, the photos capture the energy, sportsmanship and unforgettable atmosphere of hosting this historic matchup at Fenway Park.

SFGate [11/28/2025 8:57 AM, Staff, 13945K] reports a shooting involving a contracted security officer at U.S. Coast Guard housing in Novato prompted a shelter-in-place order there Thanksgiving night that has since been lifted, Coast Guard officials said Friday. Novato police initially issued an alert shortly after 8 p.m. Thursday about "an altercation between US Coast Guard Security and an unknown suspect" that led to residents sheltering in place in the Bolling, Marin Valley and Coast Guard housing areas of southern Novato. The Coast Guard housing site in Novato consists of 121 housing units at the former Hamilton Army Airfield. Police as of 10:30 p.m. Thursday said the shelter-in-place orders had been lifted. On Friday morning, Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Charlie Valor said the law enforcement activity was due to a shooting involving a contracted security officer at the Coast Guard housing site. The security officer was not injured, and authorities have not shared any other details about the shooting.

FOX News [11/28/2025 12:30 PM, Staff, 40621K] reports Pete Nicoletti, chief information security officer at Check Point, told Fox News Digital that those behind the Salt Typhoon cyberattack had "full reign access" to telecommunications data. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

FOX News [11/28/2025 11:57 PM, Jasmine Baehr, Michael Sinkewicz, 40621K] reports police reported that three victims with gunshot wounds have been transported to a local hospital after a shooting at Westfield Valley Fair Mall in San Jose, California appeared to take advantage of the Black Friday crowds. "Officers are still diligently clearing the mall," the San Jose Police Department wrote on X. "In total, 3 victims were transported to local hospitals with injuries that have been determined to be non-life threatening. Please continue to avoid the area." Police said the "shooting appears to be an isolated incident and NOT an active shooter." Officials added that officers are evacuating and clearing the area to ensure there is no ongoing threat to public safety. "Please continue to avoid the area," San Jose Police added. San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan posted on X that "there is no ongoing threat to the community." "This is not the news I wanted to share with you this holiday weekend," he wrote. "My prayers are with these victims and I know our officers are doing everything they can to find the person responsible and hold them accountable." Shoppers have shared photos and video across social media of themselves barricading in department stores and sharing real-time updates. "Potential active shooter situation at valley fair mall in the silicon valley area, shoutout to @Abercrombie for the comfy hiding spot," wrote @avgpearfarmer on X with photos showing Black Friday shoppers hiding behind store displays. It is unclear if there is a suspect in custody at this time. San Jose Police did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

FOX News [11/28/2025 12:52 PM, Paul Tilsley, 40621K] reports the number of U.S. airstrikes against jihadi terrorists in Somalia has increased more than tenfold under the Trump administration so far this year, compared to missions carried out under President Biden in 2024. U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) confirmed to Fox News Digital on Friday that it conducted 10 airstrikes in 2024, and that so far this year it has carried out more than 100 airstrikes in Somalia. In the latest military action Tuesday, AFRICOM personnel were involved in an airstrike and reportedly a gun battle lasting up to four hours with ISIS-Somalia jihadists in Puntland, in the north of this African country. The operation was conducted, AFRICOM said in a media statement, "in coordination with the Federal Government of Somalia." Multiple local sources reported high-value ISIS targets were hit, with reports that a high-level terror leader was either killed or captured, and up to 10 terrorists killed. There are no reports of U.S. casualties. This attack is the latest in a series of missions over Somalia against various jihadi groups, primarily ISIS, ISIS-Somalia and the al Qaeda-linked al-Shabab.

Daily Caller [11/28/2025 12:10 PM, Wallace White, 835K] reports Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, resigned Friday after his home was raided in an ongoing corruption probe that threatens to undermine Zelenskyy’s grip on power during wartime. Ukrainian authorities on Friday raided the home of Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff and right-hand man, as part of a sweeping corruption probe investigating Zelenskyy’s possible involvement in a $100 million scheme to defraud the nation’s atomic energy company. Yermak’s resignation comes at a time when Zelenskyy is under increasing pressure to accept a U.S.-brokered peace deal to end Ukraine’s war with Russia. The investigation has shaken Ukrainian confidence in Zelenskyy’s administration while Russian strikes continue to rock critical infrastructure. So far, Russia has not commented on the new proposed peace deal. Ukrainian opposition party European Solidarity called for a no-confidence vote to remove Zelenskyy from power, but so far attempts to remove him have failed. Zelenskyy has so far worked with the U.S. on the proposed peace agreement, but has also expressed major reservations about what it will mean for his country. In a public address on November 21, Zelenskyy said the plan puts Ukraine in the position of "either losing its dignity or the risk of losing a key partner."

Reuters [11/28/2025 3:26 PM, Gram Slattery and Humeyra Pamuk, 36480K] reports that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio plans to skip a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels next week, two U.S. officials said, in a highly unusual absence of the top U.S. diplomat from a key transatlantic gathering. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau will represent Washington instead, said one of the officials, who requested anonymity to discuss matters that have not yet been made public. It was unclear why exactly Rubio planned to skip the December 3 meeting, and his plans could change at the last second. But his likely no-show comes at a time when U.S. and Ukrainian officials have been scrambling to narrow gaps over President Donald Trump’s controversial plan to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with some European diplomats complaining they are being cut out of the process. There are usually two formal NATO meetings of foreign ministers per year, and it is exceedingly rare for a U.S. secretary of state to be absent. In 2017, during Trump’s first term, then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson initially planned to skip an April meeting, though the gathering was then rescheduled to accommodate his schedule. A State Department spokesperson declined to comment on Rubio’s potential absence, but said the NATO alliance had been "completely revitalized" during the Trump administration. "The historic foreign policy achievements in just 10 months of this Administration speak for themselves," the spokesperson said. A NATO official deferred to the United States regarding Rubio’s attendance, but said it was not unusual for some foreign ministers to skip the event.

Reuters [11/29/2025 2:21 AM, Staff, 36480K] reports China’s military and coast guard organised patrols around Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea on Saturday to "resolutely safeguard its sovereignty, maritime rights and interests", the official Xinhua news agency reported. The Philippine embassy in Beijing did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

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