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.

Reuters [11/8/2025 5:17 PM, Carlos Barria and Phil Stewart, 36480K] reports a man in Chicago fired shots at U.S. Border Patrol agents during an immigration enforcement operation on Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security said, but the Chicago Police Department said it did not find anyone injured. DHS said the suspect, who was driving a black Jeep, remained at large. Chicago’s Police Department said officers responded to a call about shots being fired and secured the area. "There are no reports of anyone struck by gunfire," the Chicago Police said in a statement. The incident took place during protests on Saturday in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago following immigration raids by federal agents. A Reuters witness saw police detaining a man during an argument with residents after an immigration raid. DHS said "agitators" threw a paint can and bricks at Border Patrol vehicles on Saturday during operations. "Over the past two months, we’ve seen an increase in assaults and obstruction targeting federal law enforcement," DHS said in a statement, which was posted on X. Raids across Chicago and the surrounding suburbs, including one at a daycare center this week, have led to protests and violent arrests. More than a dozen suburban Chicago mothers were arrested on Friday outside an immigration detention facility in Broadview, a suburb west of Chicago which has been a flashpoint for anger around Trump’s "Operation Midway Blitz.” The immigration crackdown in Chicago began in September, with the stated purpose of pursuing dangerous criminals without the legal right to reside in the U.S. It has resulted in more than 3,000 arrests, according to the DHS. Those arrests have included U.S. citizens and people with no criminal history. FOX News [11/8/2025 3:17 PM, Alexandra Koch Fox, 40621K] reports that following the shooting, a group of people threw a paint can and bricks at border patrol vehicles, DHS said. Local affiliate FOX 32 Chicago reported a flash bang was deployed, as crowds surrounded federal agents for multiple blocks. At least one person was detained, according to the outlet. City Alderman Michael Rodriguez, of the 22nd Ward, posted a video to Facebook accusing the agents of "causing all sorts of mayhem.” "They’re doing things that are unconstitutional, that are illegal," Rodriguez said. "They are causing fear and mayhem in our communities and that’s unacceptable.” Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez, of the 25th Ward, was also livestreaming the chaos on social media. Sigcho-Lopez appeared to confront immigration agents, questioning them about why they were in the neighborhood—which is known as a largely Mexican-American community. The Chicago Police Department (CPD) was called for assistance and cleared the scene. The shooter and vehicle remain at large, DHS officials said. Breitbart [11/8/2025 8:04 PM, Staff, 2416K] reports that the number of shots fired was not announced. "This incident is not isolated and reflects a growing and dangerous trend of violence and obstruction," the Department of Homeland Security said in a post on X. The Chicago Police Department arrived on the scene to clear it and restore order. No arrests have been made, but federal law enforcement is continuing to search for the driver of the black Jeep. Chicago Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez said the CBP agents "came out of their vehicles pointing their weapons" and "used tear gas on people," WLS-TV reported. After Chicago police arrived, one police officer was struck by a vehicle and taken to a local hospital for treatment. His condition was not reported. The Chicago Police Department said there were no reports of anyone being struck by gunfire. CBP agents continued their law enforcement activities near 26th and Pulaski and deployed tear gas to fend off protesters as they detained another person. Many protesters used whistles and car horns to warn others of the CBP activities during an afternoon attempt to detain a man and his niece near 25th and Sawyers. The incident also required the attention of the Chicago Police Department after someone used a vehicle to ram a CBP vehicle. The New York Post [11/8/2025 4:29 PM, Tina Moore, 42219K] reports that last month, Border Patrol agents shot a woman in Chicago after an angry mob tried to attack the officers. Marimar Martinez was arrested on Oct. 4, and accused of driving within inches of a Border Patrol vehicle — running red lights and driving erratically, the FBI claimed. The agents opened fire. Martinez pleaded not guilty, and the case is pending. On Oct. 14, two illegal immigrants used their vehicle to ram into a border patrol convoy that sparked a dangerous car chase and riot in the Windy City, officials there confirmed. Venezuelan nationals Yonder Enrique Tenefe-Perez and Luis Gerardo Pirela-Ramirez were arrested for allegedly ramming into a Border Patrol SUV on Oct. 14. They were arrested shortly after the attack, but not before it caused a mob of protesters to hurl objects at agents. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

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Los Angeles Times [11/8/2025 10:14 PM, Sarah Raza, 14862K]
The Hill [11/8/2025 9:09 PM, Ethan Illers, 12595K]
ABC News [11/8/2025 5:19 PM, Staff, 30493K]
NewsMax [11/8/2025 6:13 PM, Staff, 4109K]
Daily Wire [11/8/2025 10:54 AM, Amanda Prestigiacomo, 2494K]
Telemundo [11/8/2025 3:33 PM, Staff, 2218K]
Univision [11/8/2025 4:46 PM, Staff, 5004K]
Daily Caller [11/8/2025 4:35 PM, Mark Tanos, 835K]
CBS Chicago [11/8/2025 3:41 PM, Elyssa Kaufman, 39474K]

Chicago Tribune [11/8/2025 1:47 PM, Laura Rodríguez Presa and Caroline Kubzansky, 4829K] reports the Department of Homeland Security said someone fired at federal agents Saturday morning in Little Village, touching off a chaotic series of confrontations between agents and neighborhood residents armed with whistles and bent on disrupting their operation. Both Chicago police and federal officials were seen making multiple arrests over the morning as agents, including Cmdr. Gregory Bovino, circled the neighborhood, deploying chemical crowd controls in several locations. In a written statement Saturday, DHS officials said Border Patrol officers were fired on by an unknown man in a Black Jeep, who fled the scene. No one was reported injured and few details were offered. The statement also stated that “agitators threw a paint can and bricks at Border Patrol’s vehicles,” adding that Chicago police helped clear the scene. In their own statement, Chicago police said they responded to calls of shots fired at federal agents, but found no signs of anyone struck by gunfire and secured the area where the alleged shooting took place. Police reported one officer was in good condition after being struck by a vehicle during the chaos, and the driver was cited. The agents, dressed in full camouflage and heavily armed, appeared in Little Village for the second time this week in what residents described as a “show of force” and a possible act of retaliation following a recent court order restricting the agency’s use of force against protesters. For nearly two hours, residents trailed the convoy, documenting its movements as it wound erratically through residential streets. According to local organizers, agents detained at least six people, including U.S. citizens who were protesting the operation. Near the iconic Little Village arch, Bovino—flanked by agents carrying firearms and tear gas—stepped out of his vehicle to face a crowd of outraged community members demanding that the agents leave their neighborhood. “They come in like thugs and expect us to give them a hug and a kiss?” said community leader Baltazar Enriquez, addressing Bovino directly. “They’re doing it on purpose—to put on a show for their supporters and to test us. They want to provoke the community. Don’t fall for the bait.” In a written statement Saturday, DHS officials said Border Patrol officers were fired on by an unknown man in a Black Jeep near 26th Street and Kedzie Avenue. The confrontation marks the latest flashpoint in a growing tension between local residents and federal immigration authorities, with many accusing Border Patrol of intimidation and harassment rather than legitimate enforcement. As agents drove away from the heart of Little Village, protesters followed, while others were caught up in the morning’s events. Agents ventured into Little Village multiple times during the morning, departing and returning as crowds grew. The standoff appeared to begin just before 9:30 a.m., near 26th and Kedzie. Kari Lopez was at work in a pharmacy located at the intersection when she heard car horns honking and people whistling. “I ran out there and they started whistling,” said Lopez, 24. “The agents started getting out of their cars. We were telling them that they were on private property. They kept telling us to back up. One guy didn’t back up.” Video footage shared with the Tribune shows federal agents outside Aguascalientes, a Mexican restaurant at 3132 W. 26th St. at 9:25 a.m., gesturing to move backward and then firing pepper balls at the ground as onlookers said, “We’re not doing anything violent!” The footage also shows Bovino, who earlier this week was admonished in court for lying about his use of force against civilians and media, pacing back and forth holding a can of tear gas and pointing at it in front of screaming neighbors before a group of Chicago police officers approached him. Residents followed the agents down 26th Street, hanging out of car windows, blaring whistles and laying on their horns as dozens of vehicles made their way through the neighborhood. One man was seen throwing fireworks out of a car sunroof as a group of agents moved eastward on 26th Street around 11 a.m. Agents pointed guns out of their car windows at civilians and members of the media, including two Tribune photographers, as they roamed around the neighborhood. Near the intersection of 26th Street and Ogden Avenue, a woman sat in the passenger seat of a car, bouncing an infant girl. The girl was silent, her eyes damp and bloodshot. Next to the car, a man screamed and stripped off his shirt. Another woman spoke to him in Spanish, telling him to let her put water on his head. The man and the baby had both been hit by pepper spray. The man, the woman, and a few others conferred frantically to figure out who had a driver’s license before they got into a New Life Centers van to go to the hospital. Dozens of cars carrying federal agents rolled out of the Home Depot seconds later. Angry residents followed, nd traffic snarled briefly as agents got out of their cars and faced the civilians. Bovino could be seen shouting at people to move back on a grassy hill off Ogden Avenue as some agents held handguns close to their bulletproof vests.

Breitbart [11/8/2025 6:20 PM, Bob Price, 2416K] reports shots rang out in broad daylight Friday as a black Jeep driver opened fire on Border Patrol agents near 26th and Kedzie in Chicago. Agitators hurled bricks and paint cans at federal vehicles while the shooter fled the scene. The attack comes just days after Chicago and Illinois officials falsely claimed agents "stormed" a daycare—an outright lie debunked by surveillance footage. As violence against law enforcement surges, Democrat leaders continue to gaslight the public and shield lawlessness. The shooter remains at large. Department of Homeland Security officials announced an investigation into an incident in Chicago near 26th Street and Kedzie Avenue. While Border Patrol agents were carrying out a targeted enforcement operation an unknown male driving a black Jeep fired shots at agents and fled the scene. Officials say bystanders threw a paint can and bricks at patrol vehicles to keep them from pursuing the shooter. The shooter remains at large on Saturday. Commander Op at Large Gregory K. Bovino posted, "Agents shot at, vehicular assaults, physical assaults, impeding, violent mobs, vehicular blockades, illegal aliens – this was what agents were up against FOR HOURS today as they once again successfully conducted Title 8 immigration enforcement in Chicago. More to come.” Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials said U.S. Representative Mike Quigley (D-IL) "deliberately misrepresented the facts" surrounding the arrest of a Colombian illegal alien arrested at a Chicago-area preschool, Breitbart Texas reported on Wednesday. The illegal alien and her male friend driver fled from ICE officers and ran into the daycare. Rep. Quigley falsely claimed that ICE "took a preschool teacher without a warrant IN FRONT OF CHILDREN" at a daycare center in his Cook County district. ICE officials responded, calling out Quigley for deliberately spreading false information about the arrest. It turns out the woman was an illegal alien from Colombia who had been given a work permit by the Biden administration in 2023, Fox News Bill Melugin reported. DHS officials report that in October 19, the Colombian illegal alien paid cartel-connected human smugglers to bring her two children across the border into El Paso, Texas. The children (age 16 and 17) were apprehended as Unaccompanied Alien Children and transferred to the Chicago-area shelter. -DHS emphasized that facilitating human smuggling is a crime, and this conduct adds to the legal jeopardy Santillana Galeano faces. DHS officials offered the following fact check regarding the false claims in this indicent: "ICE law enforcement did NOT target a Daycare. Officers attempted to conduct a targeted traffic stop of this female illegal alien from Colombia. Officers attempted to pull over this vehicle, which was registered to a female illegal alien, with sirens and emergency lights, but the male driver refused to pull the vehicle over. Law enforcement pursued the vehicle before the assailant sped into a shopping plaza where he and the female passenger fled the vehicle. They ran into a daycare and attempted to barricade themselves inside the daycare—recklessly endangering the children inside. The illegal alien female was arrested inside a vestibule, not in the school," said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. "Upon arrest, she lied about her identity. The vehicle is registered in her name, though she claims that she didn’t know the man who was driving her car and just picked him up from a bus stop. Facts including criminality and information on the male assailant are forthcoming and we will update the public with more information as soon as it becomes available.”

ABC News [11/8/2025 10:25 AM, Laura Romero, 30493K] reports the Trump administration has moved to dissolve the ban on Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s removal so that it can proceed with his deportation to Liberia. In a series of filings overnight, government attorneys said that the Salvadoran native’s claim of fear of torture or persecution in the African nation was denied after he was interviewed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services last week. The attorneys for the Department of Justice argued that the preliminary injunction blocking Abrego Garcia’s removal to Liberia should be dissolved because the government received assurances from the government of the West African country that he will not be persecuted or tortured. The government also said that Abrego Garcia’s lawsuit to stop his removal is improper because he is a member of a separate class action lawsuit in Massachusetts regarding third-country removals. In that case, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to proceed with third-country removals. On Friday, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys asked U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis to block his removal to Liberia until an immigration judge reviews the denial of his reasonable fear claim by USCIS. CBS News [11/8/2025 8:48 AM, Camilo Montoya-Galvez, 39474K] reports Abrego Garcia’s case has been at the center of the national debate over President Trump’s immigration crackdown ever since he was deported to El Salvador in March, in violation of a federal immigration judge’s order that barred his deportation to his native country. After being held in detention facilities in El Salvador for months, including a notorious mega-prison known as CECOT, Abrego Garcia was returned to the U.S. in June, only to face federal criminal charges of human smuggling. He has denied those charges. While a trial on those criminal charges has yet to commence, the Trump administration has mounted an aggressive effort to deport Abrego Garcia from the U.S. a second time, proposing to send him to several far-flung African countries, including Uganda, Eswatini and most recently, Liberia. The Justice Department filed a motion on Friday asking U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis to scrap a ruling she issued this summer barring the government from deporting Abrego Garcia, arguing all legal avenues to contest his deportation have been exhausted. Any additional due process steps for Abrego Garcia are unwarranted, the Justice Department argued.

DailySignal [11/8/2025 10:00 AM, Virginia Allen, 549K] reports while Customs and Border Protection saw a year-over-year decline in the seizure of many drugs in fiscal year 2025, the amount of khat seized more than doubled. In fiscal year 2025, which ended on Sept. 30, CBP seized more than 46,000 pounds of khat, up from 17,600 pounds in 2024. The street value of a pound of khat is about $125, according to CBP. While CBP also saw an increase in marijuana, cocaine, and heroin seizures in 2025, the spike in khat represented the largest year-over-year percentage change. Still, the apprehensions of khat in 2025 remain below 2023 apprehension levels of 70,000 pounds, and 2022 seizures of 175,000 pounds. In addition to CBP, the U.S. Coast Guard also plays a critical role in drug seizures. On Thursday, the Coast Guard announced it had seized over 500,000 pounds of cocaine in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean in fiscal year 2025—a record.

Chicago Tribune [11/8/2025 3:21 PM, Claire Rush and Gene Johnson, 4829K] reports a federal judge in Oregon ruled Friday that President Donald Trump’s administration failed to meet the legal requirements for deploying the National Guard to Portland after the city and state sued in September to block the deployment. The ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, followed a three-day trial last week in which both sides argued over whether protests at the city’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building met the conditions for using the military domestically under federal law. The administration said the troops were needed to protect federal personnel and property in a city that Trump described as “war ravaged” with “fires all over the place.” In a 106-page opinion, Immergut found that even though the president is entitled to “great deference” in his decision on whether to call up the Guard, he did not have a legal basis for doing so because he did not establish that there was a rebellion or danger of rebellion, or that he was unable to enforce the law with regular forces. “The trial record showed that although protests outside the Portland ICE building occurred nightly between June and October 2025, ever since a few particularly disruptive days in mid-June, protests have remained peaceful with only isolated and sporadic instances of violence,” Immergut wrote. “The occasional interference to federal officers has been minimal, and there is no evidence that these small-scale protests have significantly impeded the execution of any immigration laws.” The Trump administration criticized the judge’s ruling. “The facts haven’t changed. Amidst ongoing violent riots and lawlessness, that local leaders have refused to step in to quell, President Trump has exercised his lawful authority to protect federal officers and assets. President Trump will not turn a blind eye to the lawlessness plaguing American cities and we expect to be vindicated by a higher court,” said Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman. “The courts are holding this administration accountable to the truth and the rule of law,” Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield said in an e-mailed statement. “From the beginning, this case has been about making sure that facts, not political whims, guide how the law is applied. Today’s decision protects that principle.” Democratic cities targeted by Trump for military involvement — including Chicago, which has filed a separate lawsuit on the issue — have been pushing back. They argue the president has not satisfied the legal threshold for deploying troops and that doing so would violate states’ sovereignty. Immergut issued two orders in early October that had blocked the deployment of the troops leading up to the trial. The first order blocked Trump from deploying 200 members of the Oregon National Guard; the second, issued a day later, blocked him from deploying members of any state’s National Guard to Oregon, after he tried to evade the first order by sending California troops instead. Immergut has called Trump’s apocalyptic descriptions of Portland “simply untethered to the facts.” The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has already ordered that the troops not be deployed pending further action by the appeals court. The trial Immergut held further developed the factual record in the case, which could serve as the basis for further appellate rulings. Witnesses including local police and federal officials were questioned about the law enforcement response to the nightly protests at the city’s ICE building. The demonstrations peaked in June, when Portland police declared one a riot. The demonstrations typically drew a couple dozen people in the weeks leading up to Trump’s National Guard announcement. The Trump administration said it has had to shuffle federal agents from elsewhere around the country to respond to the Portland protests, which it has characterized as a “rebellion” or “danger of rebellion.”

Bloomberg Law News [11/8/2025 10:37 AM, Erik Larson, Madlin Mekelburg, 91K] reports President Donald Trump’s plan to deploy the National Guard to Portland, Oregon, to quell protests against his immigration crackdown was permanently blocked by a US judge, handing him a major loss in his bid to send troops to Democratic-led cities. A judge who oversaw a trial last month agreed with city and state officials on Friday that the protests have been largely peaceful since a spate of violence in early June and didn’t require the intervention of troops. The suit was filed in September to block Trump’s planned deployment of 200 Oregon National Guard troops over the objection of the governor. US District Judge Karin Immergut, who was appointed by Trump in his first term, said the troops can remain under federal control during the government’s likely appeal, but they cannot be deployed. The decision permanently blocks Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem from implementing Hegseth’s Sept. 28 deployment orders for 200 Oregon or his orders in October that could have been used to send troops to Portland from California and Texas. The ruling only applies to the National Guard deployment in Portland, but marks a significant development in the wide-ranging legal fight over the president’s use of military forces in response to civilian activity. Breitbart [11/8/2025 3:47 PM, Lowell Cauffiel, 2416K] reports that the permanent ruling stems from a lawsuit brought by the Sates of Oregon and California and the City of Portland. Government lawyers for the Trump administration had argued that the often-violent protests at the ICE building disrupted officers who were trying to carry out immigration enforcement and represented a rebellion against the United States of America. New York Times reported: “In her final 106-page ruling, Judge Immergut rejected arguments from government lawyers that protests at the ICE building made it impossible for federal officers to carry out immigration enforcement, represented a rebellion or raised the threat of rebellion. The evidence demonstrates that these deployments, which were objected to by Oregon’s governor and not requested by the federal officials in charge of protection of the ICE building, exceeded the president’s authority," she wrote.” The judge also disputed the president’s claim that Antifa, at least in Portland, is an organized group working against the U.S. government, also stating that testimony from ICE’s regional director about damage to the building and how disruptive the protests were was not believable. Just how disruptive or violent the protests are often depends on which news outlets are covering the nightly demonstrations, which began in early June after the administration’s crackdown on and rounding up of criminal illegal aliens. As Breitbart News reported late last month, unruly crowds and brawls can very much be in play at the site, especially when counter-demonstrators show up. Other confrontations have resulted in the use of tear gas, rubber bullets, and pepper spray balls. In late September, President Trump announced the need for guard troops in Portland, but Oregon’s Democrat Gov. Tina Kotek declined to activate the requested 200 troops. The Trump administration responded by federalizing the soldiers.

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Breitbart [11/8/2025 2:58 PM, Staff, 2416K] r

Los Angeles Times [11/9/2025 6:00 AM, Gustavo Arellano, 14672K] reports the moment I got out of my Uber ride in this West Side Chicago neighborhood, the noise was everywhere. Honks. Cursing. Screeching tires. Revving engines. Whistles. So many whistles. Immigration authorities were sweeping through — again. And people weren’t having it. Old, young, Latino, Black and white, folks shouted warnings from cars and from businesses like a game of Telephone across 26th Street, the heart of this historic Latino community. One of them was Eric Vandeford, who glanced in every direction for any sign of la migra. “We all surrounded them earlier trying to get someone and they just left,” the 32-year-old said. He looked down 26th. “I gotta go,” he snapped and jogged off. I arrived at 9:30 in the morning hoping to grab breakfast before interviewing Baltazar Enriquez. He’s president of the Little Village Community Council, a long-standing nonprofit that has added to its mission of organizing food drives and fighting against environmental racism to face off against Trump’s deportation machine. Instead, I found myself in a chase to keep up with immigration agents. Immigration agents have staged operations in the parking lots of local schools before grabbing undocumented immigrants and citizens alike. When Border Patrol commander-at-large Gregory Bovino swung by in late October, he tossed a tear gas canister toward a group of protesters filming him, a move so reprehensible that a federal judge issued an injunction banning such force the morning I was in Little Village. Now, the rumor was that Bovino was cruising around with a caravan.

Univision [11/8/2025 11:57 AM, Staff, 5004K] reports several undocumented immigrants in our coverage area have reported receiving letters with fines exceeding $200,000 from the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection. The notices, called ‘Notice of Violation of Order’, are allegedly for failing to comply with a deportation order or for failing to appear for an appointment to leave the country, which generates a penalty under the Immigration Law. The letters warn that if the fines are not paid or appealed within 15 days, they may increase with interest and affect future immigration procedures. This poses a major dilemma: by showing up, ICE could initiate or reactivate a deportation process and issue a summons. The only way to reduce the amount or appeal the fine is through direct negotiation with ICE, which involves a significant legal risk for the immigrant.

Daily Caller [11/8/2025 3:05 PM, Jason Hopkins, 835K] reports thieves are stealing millions in cargo from American trucking companies every year, beleaguering an industry already reeling from a string of horrific highway crashes. A pair of highway truck crashes, caused by Indian nationals who entered the country unlawfully, sparked national outrage over trucking regulations and prompted the Trump administration to issue sweeping restrictions on commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) for illegal migrants. Trucking experts point to a combination of mass illegal immigration and lax vetting procedures as the recipe that not only attracted unqualified migrant truckers, but also a significant uptick in freight thefts. (RELATED: GOP Lawmakers To Permanently Lock In Trump’s Crackdown On Illegal Migrant Truckers). "The unprecedented influx of unvetted foreign individuals into our trucking industry has precipitated a national security crisis," Shannon Everett, spokesperson for American Truckers United, said to the Daily Caller News Foundation. "This surge in fraud and freight theft directly correlates with the introduction of non-domicile commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) issued to non-citizens.” More than $16 million in cargo value was stolen in 2023 alone by motor carriers surveyed by the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI). Thefts exploded from 1,850 in 2022 to just under 3,000 in 2023. Other industry observers have also confirmed the rise in cargo theft, with the American Trucking Associations reporting in June that strategic theft has mushroomed 1,500% since the first quarter of 2021. The rise in cargo thefts coincides with the unprecedented illegal immigration crisis experienced under President Joe Biden, in which roughly 11 million border encounters took place from February 2021, Biden’s first full month in office, until December 2024, his last full month. "The Biden-Harris Trucking Action Plan of 2021 unleashed a torrent of unvetted drivers from across the developing world," Everett continued. "Consequently, when individuals enter the country illegally, obtain commercial driver’s licenses through illicit means, and operate from centralized hubs in sanctuary states, the nation becomes exposed to a wide array of national security risks — one of the most pressing being the ongoing escalation in cargo theft.” The Trump administration has sought to arrest illegal migrant CDL holders, with immigration agents catching dozens of illegal foreign national truckers during a two-day operation off an Oklahoma highway in October. Deportation officers caught nearly 100 other illegal migrant truck drivers a month prior along the very same highway. In several high-profile theft cases, cargo was allegedly stolen by the very truckers hired to move it. The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department (SBSD) announced the arrest of 12 individuals earlier in October, which law enforcement dubbed the "Singh Organization," presumably due to nearly every member carrying a Singh surname. The men are accused of running a years-long scheme in which they used trucking companies to bid on contracts and then stole the merchandise they were hired to move, ripping off millions in stolen goods. "Between March 2021 and June 2025, members of the Singh Organization acquired or fraudulently used legitimate trucking companies to bid on authentic shipping contracts," the SBSD said in a public statement. "Once they took possession of [the merchandise] they diverted and stole the shipments instead of delivering them.” The SBSD — which operates under California’s strict sanctuary policies — confirmed it did not work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on the investigation, but the agency did not necessarily rule out illegal immigration as a factor, telling the DCNF that it "did not have any information" on the Singh Organization.

CNN [11/9/2025 7:01 AM, Andy Rose, 18595K] reports President Donald Trump’s vow to wage the biggest domestic deportation program in American history – expelling a million people a year – is one of his signature goals. His administration has enlisted multiple federal agencies to bolster immigration enforcement operations nationwide. Camo-clad officers are flexing their presence in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, Memphis, Washington, DC and New York, often clashing with protesters along the way. Some officers work for agencies such as US Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the US Coast Guard – all reporting up to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Other personnel are troops with the National Guard, the reserve arm of the Army and Air Force.

Breitbart [11/8/2025 7:56 PM, Rep. Brad Knott, 2416K] reports that, in between dealing with his numerous scandals, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson recently found time for historical musings. "The extreme Right in this country refuse to accept the results of the Civil War," he stated, and "[t]hey have repeatedly called for a rematch.” These inflammatory words are both alarming and predictable, coming from a discredited radical with a six percent approval rating. (Mayor Johnson seems to have found a novel cure for our nation’s polarization; opposition to him.) But what fascinates me about his statement is his completely backwards understanding of the current political situation. For Mayor Johnson’s sake, I will put it as clearly as I can: the Trump administration is on the side of the law, the precedent, and the Constitution, whereas leaders like Mayor Johnson are flirting with the side previously filled by past Democrat insurrectionists. Since the subject interests Mayor Johnson so much, let’s take a look at the history. In 1861, as southern Democrat leaders agitated for war against the Union, President Lincoln sent supplies to the federal Fort Sumter. South Carolinians, roused by Democrat leaders who called for violent resistance against this legitimate federal action, attacked the fort and started the Civil War. Later in the war, the prominent "Copperhead" faction of northern Democrats accused Lincoln of being a power-mad dictator (sound familiar?) and organized violent resistance to the raising of troops. The Democrats who attacked Fort Sumter in 1861, the Democrats who stoked the New York Draft Riots in 1863, and the Democrats who are besieging federal law enforcement facilities in 2025 all have the same underlying belief: the powers delegated to the federal government by the Constitution can be ignored to suit their political purposes. We see these parallels again a century later, when southern Democrats resisted federal desegregation efforts. Take 1957, when Arkansas’s Democrat Governor Orval Faubus refused to follow a federal order requiring the admission of black students to Little Rock’s Central High School. President Eisenhower responded by federalizing the Arkansas National Guard and sending an additional 1,000 troops to Little Rock, who maintained order in the city and protected the students as they attended Central High. Or look at 1963, when Alabama’s Democrat Governor George Wallace infamously "stood in the schoolhouse door" to prevent two black students from enrolling in the University of Alabama. President Kennedy responded by federalizing the National Guard and sending additional federal troops to Alabama, overcoming Wallace’s illegal resistance to federal law. In both cases, southern Democrat politicians cried foul, accusing Eisenhower and Kennedy of trampling on state and local rights. And in both cases, Eisenhower and Kennedy were legally and morally in the right. That brings us to the present day. President Donald Trump, like Lincoln, Eisenhower, and Kennedy before him, is in the moral and legal right when it comes to federal authority. Radical far-left mobs have forced the president to defend federal property and federal law enforcement through appropriate legal means, like deploying the National Guard. Some of these mobs have been inspired by the rhetoric of Democrat politicians like Mayor Johnson and Governors J.B. Pritzker, Gavin Newsom, or Kathy Hochul, who call for resistance against legitimate federal authority in the same manner as the Confederates and segregationists before them. Mayor Johnson should know better. He can see the rising threat to law enforcement without leaving his backyard. Juan Espinoza Martinez, an illegal alien and alleged member of the Latin Kings gang, was recently arrested for soliciting the murder of United States Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino. He allegedly offered to pay $10,000 for anyone who would "take [Bovino] down." He was arrested in Chicago, where both Mayor Johnson and Governor Pritzker have been demonizing federal immigration officers and helping illegal aliens evade ICE for months.

AP [11/8/2025 1:35 PM, Staff, 30493K] reports a Massachusetts man seen on video having an apparent seizure during a struggle with immigration agents as he holds his wife and crying toddler says he lost consciousness after agents pushed and hit him and pressed on his neck. Department of Homeland Security officials accused him of faking the medical emergency to keep agents from arresting his wife, who was wanted for allegedly stabbing a co-worker with scissors. “I wasn’t letting go of my wife because they wanted to take her away,” Carlos Zapata, 24, told The Boston Globe in Spanish. He spoke to the newspaper on Friday, a day after his wife was detained in a chaotic traffic stop. Bystanders shouted and recorded the confrontation as Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers surrounded the family’s car Thursday morning in Fitchburg, a city about 40 miles (65 kilometers) northwest of Boston. Agents were seeking Juliana Milena Ojeda-Montoya, who was inside the vehicle with her husband and 1 ½-year-old daughter, according to a Homeland Security news release. Widely circulated video shows Zapata behind the wheel, his body shaking and the whites of his eyes visible as masked agents reach into the car. “He’s having a seizure!” bystanders can be heard shouting. Zapata told the newspaper that agents were pushing him and his wife together with the child between them, and that he blacked out after agents pressed on his neck. “I had convulsions or something. I don’t know what they did to me,” he said. When he regained consciousness, he said, agents were handcuffing him. Zapata said he and his wife are from Ecuador and entered the country unlawfully several years ago. They have since applied for asylum in a case that is pending and are authorized to work, he said. He was driving his wife to her job at Burger King when they were stopped, he said. Homeland Security responded to the video Friday, saying: “Imagine FAKING a seizure to help a criminal escape justice,” in a post on social media. “Medical personnel found there was no legitimate medical emergency,” Tricia McLaughlin, the department’s assistant secretary, said in a news release. “He was even caught on video on his feet and coherent moments later.” The department said officers were conducting a targeted operation to arrest Ojeda-Montoya for the alleged scissor stabbing and for throwing a trash can at her coworker in August. She was charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, the Globe reported. Ojeda-Montoya was in custody pending removal proceedings, according to Homeland Security.

New Bedford Guide [11/8/2025 7:59 AM, Staff] reports on Oct. 28, ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations Boston arrested Osiris Alexander Rodriguez-Guzman, a 31-year-old illegal alien from the Dominican Republic, following his five-year sentence for drug trafficking. Rodriguez’s criminal history includes a conviction for trafficking 200 grams or more of fentanyl and possession of weapon. “Rodriguez presented a significant threat to public safety and is subject to a final order of removal issued by an immigration judge,” said acting ICE Director Todd M. Lyons. “Through the effective collaboration enabled by ICE’s 287(g) Program partnership with the Massachusetts Department of Corrections, we were able to safely take him into custody. This arrest delivers a clear and unequivocal message to illegal aliens engaging in criminal activity within the United States: Sanctuary cities will not provide protection from U.S. laws. If you violate our laws, ICE will locate you and ensure you are brought to justice.”

NPR [11/8/2025 7:43 AM, Adora Namigadde, Aleja Hertzler-McCain, 28013K] Audio: HERE
reports since increased immigration enforcement actions began in Chicago, some Latino migrants there say they’ve been avoiding church out of fear of ICE arrests. But others say they’re willing to take the risk to practice their faith.

Blaze [11/8/2025 12:30 PM, Candace Hathaway, 1442K] reports an immigration enforcement operation in Oklahoma resulted in dozens of arrests, including 34 illegal alien truck drivers, according to ICE. Operation Guardian, a two-day sweep along the I-40 eastern corridor in late October, led to the arrests of 70 illegal aliens. Among those detained were 26 individuals with CDLs and eight others who were operating commercial vehicles without valid licenses, ICE stated. The operation involved ICE and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, as part of a 287(g) partnership. The agreement allows OHP troopers to enforce immigration violations. Many of those arrested who were operating commercial vehicles were not in compliance with English proficiency requirements, according to Charles. Of the 70 illegal aliens nabbed by immigration officials, 36 reportedly had a prior criminal history with offenses that included assault and battery, soliciting prostitution, and DUI. Two illegal aliens were wanted overseas for fraud and burglary.

San Francisco Chronicle [11/8/2025 9:36 PM, Brooke Park, 4722K] reports federal agents swept across Fremont in unmarked vehicles Saturday morning to conduct an immigration enforcement operation that advocates say may have involved knocking on the doors of homes. As of Saturday evening, there were no confirmed detentions tied to the immigration sweep, which had mobilized advocates to take to the streets searching for an unknown number of federal agents. News of the enforcement action came around 7 a.m., and the federal deployment concluded by about 9:49 a.m., the Fremont Police Department said in a statement. It is unclear whether Immigration and Customs Enforcement was the agency involved in Saturday’s operation. "It’s not very common," Fremont police spokesperson Amy Gee said of the federal immigration enforcement. "I want to say this is pretty much like the first time that there’s actually action happening.” Fremont police were given scant information on the operation beyond its existence, and Gee could not confirm reports that agents conducted what the Alameda County Immigration Legal Education Partnership said was a "knock and talk" operation involving ICE agents making home visits in the Sundale area. The ACILP dispatched staff to canvass the Sundale area and speak with residents. The organization said in a social media statement that though there were reports of possible home visits by officers around 7:30 a.m., the area "appears to be clear.” Fremont’s immigration operation comes just weeks after President Donald Trump sent more than 100 federal agents to conduct a sweeping immigration crackdown in the Bay Area. At the eleventh hour, however, Trump called off the immigration "surge," persuaded by billionaires such as Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and political leaders including San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie to pause what was expected to be a chaotic and possibly violent immigrant detention effort. In the event an immigration agent visits a home, the ACILP encourages community members to keep the door closed, ask to speak with an attorney and otherwise remain silent.

Washington Post [11/8/2025 8:00 AM, Todd Wallack, 24149K] reports the number of foreign students in the U.S. decreased by less than 1 percent this fall, according to new federal data, despite predictions that their enrollment would plummet this year due to a crackdown by the Trump administration. While international enrollment has slipped at some schools with high percentages of foreign students, recruitment has remained surprisingly steady this semester at others around the country, school officials said. Overall, there were 1.3 million students with active visas in the U.S. in October, down a fraction of a percent from a year ago, the Department of Homeland Security reported. Still, several schools reported larger declines. The State Department said it provides data as soon as it is available but did not explain the delay. Researchers are now turning to other numbers for clues to enrollment trends.

NewsMax [11/8/2025 6:23 PM, Solange Reyner, 4109K] reports many Venezuelans are readying to leave the United States after Temporary Protected Status ended for more than 300,000 Venezuelans in the United States, reports Washington Post. The Supreme Court last month allowed President Donald Trump’s administration to strip legal protections from Venezuelan migrants. The justices issued an emergency order, putting on hold a lower court ruling by U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco that found the administration had wrongly ended temporary protected status for the Venezuelans. The three liberal justices dissented. Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, is a U.S. immigration designation allowing people from certain countries experiencing conflict or disaster to live and work in the U.S. temporarily. The Post said many Venezuelans are shuttering businesses, selling homes, and boarding flights to leave the U.S. following the order. "These are people who did everything by the book, paid taxes, had no criminal records, opened businesses, and contributed to their communities," Venezuelan American activist Adelys Ferro told the Post. "Now from one day to the other they’re subject to deportation and have become collateral damage in this cruel, unjust, and inhumane political game.” Congress created TPS in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters, civil strife, or other dangerous conditions. The designation can be granted by the Homeland Security secretary. A 56-year-old Venezuelan journalist told the Post the U.S. government was "essentially sending us back into the hands of our jailer.” "There’s just no winning: You can stay here and risk ending up in a detention center or go back to Venezuela and end up in El Helicoide," he said, referring to a notorious torture center in the South American nation. Trump has made cracking down on immigration — legal and illegal — a central plank of his second term as president and has moved to strip certain migrants of temporary legal protections, expanding the pool of possible deportees. The U.S. government under Biden designated Venezuelans as eligible for TPS in 2021 and 2023. Just days before Trump returned to office in January, Biden’s administration extended the program to October 2026.

Univision [11/8/2025 7:25 AM, Patricia Clarembaux, 5004K] reports this Saturday, more than 250,000 Venezuelans who had Temporary Protected Status (TPS) under the 2021 designation woke up without that immigration benefit. With them, the number of Venezuelan citizens who have lost this protection since the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Trump administration and allowed it to be terminated "immediately" rises to over 600,000. Thousands of Venezuelans are now joining the estimated 13 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. Ferro believes that many of the 600,000 will remain in the United States "with or without documents, because their lives are here." However, he noted that with time running out, many Venezuelan TPS holders—those who could—closed their homes and returned to Venezuela or left for countries like Spain and Colombia.

New York Post [11/8/2025 4:54 PM, Geoff Earle, 42219K] reports the next drug vessel ferrying illegal narcotics to New York or South Florida isn’t a high-speed cigarette boat with twin engines — it might be a massive cruise ship with 19 decks and a water slide. Because they sometimes make port in destinations with lax drug enforcement and carry thousands of passengers, cruise ships may unwittingly ferry legions of potential drug mules. But US Customs and Border agents are only conducting "minimal" security inspections, according to a troubling new Inspector General’s report. "Overall, CBP conducted minimal secondary inspections during our site visits" to four Florida seaports, the IG investigators found. Although Customs did check a passenger manifest to vet certain passengers, "we observed CBP using other methods to select passengers and crew disembarking cruise ships for secondary inspection less frequently," probers found. CBP wrongly "perceives the cruise ship environment to be low risk for trafficking illicit drugs and other contraband" into the US because of its own low record of seizures," the investigators found. The Sept. 29 audit, conducted in 2023 and 2024, obscures the precise number of returning passengers getting screened. But the report language makes clear it is not up to par. It found that CBP’s own data was "incomplete, inaccurate, and unreliable," calling into question its conclusions about smuggling risk. One CBP official even said the risk was low because cruises are round trip. "Why document something that does not have a risk?" one official told auditors. Investigators "could not determine the targeting method that resulted in identifying a passenger or crewmember for secondary inspection" at the ports it studied: Jacksonville, Miami, and Port Everglades in Florida, along with Seattle, Washington, and Ketchikan, Alaska. People who didn’t get an unusual hit on their passport due to something in their record mostly walked on through customs without a detailed look. "They should have always been doing it. It shouldn’t be something new. Cruise ships have been around for decades," said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD). "If they’re not doing that, it’s something that should be done, and I’m surprised that they’re not. Any time you’re coming back into the United States from another country there’s always a possibility" of smuggling, he said. More than 1.5 million passengers flowed through the New York and New Jersey region in 2023, with 700,000 arriving at the Manhattan Cruise Terminal, 575,000 at Cape Liberty in Bayonne, and 259,999 at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in Red Hook, according to the report.

New York Post [11/8/2025 9:49 AM, Geoff Earle, 42219K] reports no illegal immigrants were released into the US in the past six months, as the Trump administration cracked down heavily on the influx of migrants unlawfully living in the country and crossing the southern border, President Trump declared on Truth Social Saturday. On Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security released preliminary data for October showing "record-low encounters, sustained control across all sectors, and the sixth straight month of zero releases by the U.S. Border Patrol." Total encounters of would-be border crossers were 29% lower than the previous low of 43,010 in 2012, and a 79% drop from October 2024, according to the agency.

USA Today [11/9/2025 6:04 AM, Daniel Gonzalez, 75552K] reports a man in a white T-shirt and surf trunks stood on a small pier calling out names from a list. Rows of men, women and children, sweat trickling down their faces in the sweltering tropical heat, stepped forward one by one. Each received a wristband and a life preserver, then climbed into an open-air fishing boat until the boat was jammed with passengers seated shoulder to shoulder, their belongings stuffed into black plastic bags. The 40-plus passengers were from Venezuela, migrants who originally fled economic and political turmoil in the South American country to seek a new life in the United States. But they were no longer en route to America. They were headed back home. Their journey was part of a new and growing phenomenon of reverse migration taking shape in Latin America in response to the Trump administration’s punishing border and immigration crackdowns. The same scene has played out at 9 a.m. daily for months from the palm-shaded pier of this quiet fishing village off the eastern coast of Panama, a two-hour drive from the shiny high rises of Panama City, the country’s pulsing capital. After traveling hundreds of miles on foot through country after country, including a multiday trek through the deadly Darién Gap jungle, thousands of northbound migrants in recent months have given up midstream. Astonishingly, they have turned around and headed south, abandoning their American dream for an uncertain future.

USA Today [11/9/2025 6:01 AM, Daniel Gonzalez, 75552K] reports ferrying migrants across the murky waters of the Suchiate River was a lucrative job for Alexis Vargas. Vargas floated groups of migrants across the informal border crossing between Guatemala and Mexico on a makeshift raft made from wooden boards lashed to fat inner tubes. He raked in more than $100 a day, good money in this impoverished region. As soon as Vargas dropped off one group, another group of migrants waited on the other side to cross, Vargas recalled. From long before dawn until well past dark, similar rafts choked the river, packed with as many as 20 migrants per raft. Hundreds crossed daily from the Guatemalan side to the Mexican side. Their destination: the United States. But on a recent afternoon, as the sun began to set, the 28-year-old raft pilot sat on a cement landing with nothing to do but scroll on his phone. His empty raft was parked in the water nearby, alongside other empty ones. The flow of migrants that kept Vargas and other raft pilots here busy for years, surging during the Biden administration, has vanished under President Donald Trump. "I’m telling you, after the president closed the doors, hardly anyone crosses anymore," Vargas said, dressed in soccer shorts, T-shirt and flip-flops in the sweltering tropical heat. Vargas nodded at the nearly deserted river. Only a handful of rafts floated lazily in the water. Instead of large groups of migrants, the rafts carried only small groups of locals going back and forth to shop or to work. The dramatic decrease in migrants on the Guatemala-Mexico border is the direct result of the Trump administration’s border crackdown and mass deportation campaign taking place some 2,000 miles away from this city on the southern tip of Mexico. The criminal arrests of asylum-seekers who enter the United States illegally, the shutdown of the CBP One app, the deployment of armed military troops to assist the Border Patrol, and scenes of heavily armed masked federal immigration authorities storming worksites and conducting military-style arrests in immigrant neighborhoods in Los Angeles, Chicago and other U.S. cities has stoked fear in migrants, effectively staunching the flow. Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala mirrors the newfound stillness along the U.S. southern border with Mexico, where illegal crossings have plunged from record highs during the Biden administration to the lowest levels in decades under the Trump administration. What’s more, a new phenomenon is taking shape. Migrants discouraged by the Trump administration’s tough policies are giving up. Instead of heading north, they are turning around and heading south, according to interviews with migrants and migration experts.

FOX News [11/8/2025 11:32 AM, Staff, 40621K] reports DHS assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin joins ‘Saturday in America’ to discuss the economic impact of the government shutdown on TSA workers as they continue to work without pay and growing anti-ICE protests around the country. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

USA Today [11/9/2025 6:03 AM, Dinah Voyles Pulver, 75552K] reports scientists working to learn why some tropical storms suddenly intensify to become devastating major hurricanes say it’s important to learn all they can about each one because opportunities to study them are so rare. So when Melissa became one of the most powerful hurricanes on record during the federal government shutdown, the scientists were beyond frustrated because the extent of their "hurricane hunter" research missions into the turbulent center of the storm were restricted in scope. Federal flight engineers, pilots and scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration flew multiple harrowing missions into Melissa, along with their research partners, but the federal employees did so without pay. Their paychecks are on hold, but their work – providing crucial data for hurricane forecasting – is considered essential. However, the crews were not allowed to fly extra flight paths through the hurricane or drop extra research instruments not considered necessary for forecasts. So Melissa – with some of the most violent winds ever recorded in an Atlantic hurricane – became a critical missed opportunity to learn more about why it behaved differently than other storms, said James Franklin, a retired former branch chief for the hurricane specialists unit at the National Hurricane Center.

FOX News [11/8/2025 8:14 PM, Staff, 40621K] reports federal prosecutors say the FBI has broken up an ISIS-linked network stretching from Michigan to New Jersey, charging several young men in a coordinated investigation that allegedly involved plans for a Halloween mass shooting and efforts to join the Islamic State abroad. Tomas Jimenez-Guzel, 19, of Montclair, New Jersey, and Saed Mirreh, 19, of Kent, Washington, were arrested this week in a New Jersey case tied to others already charged in Michigan. The Justice Department announced the new charges Wednesday, calling the probe a "sprawling federal investigation" into extremists who used encrypted messaging to communicate. U.S. Attorney Alina Habba said the New Jersey defendants "had pledged themselves to ISIS" and were in "frequent communication with the Michigan cell.” "We will continue to move swiftly and decisively whenever terrorism or hate threatens our communities," Habba said Friday. "The threat of terrorism is real when Americans are threatened. We respond fast, focused and together.” A 93-page complaint filed Nov. 5 in the Eastern District of Michigan charges Ayob Asamil Nasser and brothers Mohmed Ali and Majed Mahmoud with conspiring to provide material support to ISIS. Prosecutors say the trio stockpiled AR-15-style rifles, shotguns, handguns and about 1,680 rounds of ammunition, referring to their plan as "pumpkin," code for a Halloween day attack. Also charged is Milo Sedarat, 21, of New Jersey. Agents say they trained at Detroit-area ranges, shared ISIS propaganda and discussed targeting LGBTQ bars in Ferndale and a Jewish center. During the Oct. 31 raids, the FBI seized tactical vests, GoPro cameras and magazines from homes and a U-Haul storage unit. In Newark, Jimenez-Guzel and Mirreh face charges of conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, The Associated Press reported. Jimenez-Guzel also faces an attempt count after agents arrested him Tuesday at Newark Liberty International Airport as he allegedly tried to fly to Turkey on his way to Syria. Court filings cited by the AP say their travel plans "picked up speed after the Oct. 31 arrests" of several Michigan suspects "with whom they had been communicating.” "We will not stop. We will follow the tentacles where they lead," U.S. Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon Jr. said in Detroit. FBI Detroit Special Agent Jennifer Runyan said her team will "continue to investigate, arrest and disrupt all attempts or plots to do harm … to defend the homeland." Habba praised cooperation between the Michigan and New Jersey offices as "a model of coordination against extremist threats." [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Axios [11/9/2025 7:00 AM, Stef W. Kight, 13599K] reports more than $5 billion worth of U.S. weapon exports to support NATO allies and Ukraine have been delayed by the government shutdown, according to a State Department estimate shared with Axios. It’s another example of the repercussions from furloughs, program pauses and slowed activity across federal branches as the shutdown drags into day 40. "This is actually really harming both our allies and partners and US industry to actually deliver a lot of these critical capabilities overseas," a senior State Department official told Axios. The delivery of weapons — including AMRAAM missiles, Aegis combat systems and HIMARS — for allies such as Denmark, Croatia and Poland have been affected, according to the official. The ultimate destination of the exports is not clear, but arms sales to NATO allies are often transferred to assist Ukraine. The Arms Export Control Act requires Congress to review weapon sale proposals. Many State Department staffers whose job is to brief congressional committee staff — and ensure the process is completed — have been furloughed, causing the slowdown. "Democrats are holding up critical weapons sales, including to our NATO allies, which harms the U.S. industrial base and puts our and our partners’ security at risk," State spokesperson Tommy Pigott told Axios in a statement. "China and Russia aren’t shut down, their efforts to undermine the U.S. and our partners and allies get easier, while our industrial base suffers and our allies’ needs go unmet," Senate Foreign Relations Chair James Risch (R-Idaho) told Axios in a statement.

Breitbart [11/8/2025 6:41 PM, Elizabeth Weibel, 2416K] reports that, during an interview on Breitbart News Saturday with Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle, Mullin explained as the government shutdown, which has reached 37 days, continues, it not only affects the nation financially, but it puts the U.S. "behind" on military projects, among other issues. "It’s becoming a huge financial burden that could put us in a financial strain. We have been having a four percent GDP growth for several months now underneath President Trump’s economy. Because of the government shutdown, we’re at a one percent growth. That is major. That hurts us dramatically," Mullin said. "And, those dollars, it’s not like those dollars just come back into the economy once the government comes back open. Those dollars are lost. You’re not going to see this spike, and you’re going to see an eight percent GDP in the next month. It’s going to actually take maybe two months for the economy to recover after being shut down this long. So, now it’s becoming a national security [risk] because of the financial risk.” "It’s becoming a national security [threat] because of the dangers we’re putting ourselves in getting behind on our military most important projects that we’re working on, I would say the most sensitive programs. And, because the air traffic control would be able to have mobility moving products from point A to point B.” "So, now the Democrats have put us in a national security issue, and they’re owning this," Mullin added, predicting that Democrats would cave "this weekend.” Mullin continued to comment on how people such as air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers have been working without being paid during the government shutdown, and noted that "almost no one" can go 30, or even 45 days without being paid. "Most of them — if they’re not living paycheck to paycheck, they don’t have 30 days in reserves. Almost no one has 30 days in reserves. They especially don’t have 45 days in reserve. And, so, now we’re asking them to still provide safety for the American people and us, and we’re not paying them? I mean, they’re going to get all their back-pay…….but come on, give me a break. That’s embarrassing.”

Breitbart [11/8/2025 7:35 PM, Staff, 2416K] reports Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the United States on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country’s state news agency reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday. It’s the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president’s regional tour in May. US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack said earlier this month that Sharaa would "hopefully" sign an agreement to join the international US-led alliance against the Islamic State (IS). The United States plans to establish a military base near Damascus "to coordinate humanitarian aid and observe developments between Syria and Israel", a diplomatic source in Syria told AFP. The State Department’s decision Friday to remove Sharaa from the blacklist was widely expected. State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said Sharaa’s government had been meeting US demands including on working to find missing Americans and on eliminating any remaining chemical weapons. "These actions are being taken in recognition of the progress demonstrated by the Syrian leadership after the departure of Bashar al-Assad and more than 50 years of repression under the Assad regime," Pigott said. The spokesman added that the US delisting would promote "regional security and stability as well as an inclusive, Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political process.” Sharaa’s Washington trip comes after his landmark visit to the United Nations in September — his first time on US soil — where the ex-jihadist became the first Syrian president in decades to address the UN General Assembly in New York. On Thursday, Washington led a vote by the Security Council to remove UN sanctions against him. Formerly affiliated with Al-Qaeda, Sharaa’s group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), was delisted as a terrorist group by Washington as recently as July. Since taking power, Syria’s new leaders have sought to break from their violent past and present a moderate image more tolerable to ordinary Syrians and foreign powers. The White House visit "is further testament to the US commitment to the new Syria and a hugely symbolic moment for the country’s new leader, who thus marks another step in his astonishing transformation from militant leader to global statesman," International Crisis Group US program director Michael Hanna said. Sharaa is expected to seek funds for Syria, which faces significant challenges in rebuilding after 13 years of brutal civil war. In October, the World Bank put a "conservative best estimate" of the cost of rebuilding Syria at $216 billion.

Reported similarly:
CBS News [11/8/2025 7:26 PM, Staff, 39474K]

New York Post [11/8/2025 3:13 PM, Shane Galvin, 42219K] reports the United States lifted sanctions on Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa ahead of a White House meeting with President Donald Trump. Al-Sharaa, 43, a former member of al Qaeda, was named transitional president after he led rebels against former President Bashar al-Assad in Dec. 2024. On Friday, he was no longer deemed a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the US State Department which also announced that Syrian Interior Minister Anas Khattab was being cleared of the same designation by the Department of Treasury. "These actions are being taken in recognition of the progress demonstrated by the Syrian leadership after the departure of Bashar al-Assad and more than 50 years of repression under the Assad regime," reads the State Department announcement. "This new Syrian government, led by President al-Sharaa, is working hard to locate missing Americans, fulfill its commitments on countering terrorism and narcotiscs, eliminating any remnants of chemical weapons, and promoting regional security and stability as well as an inclusive, Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political process," the agency concluded. The United Nations on Friday lifted their own sanctions against the upstart regime on Thursday. Al-Sharaa is expected to be at the White House on Monday, Nov. 10, where he will meet with President Trump and become the first ever Syrian president to see the Oval Office. The pair of world leaders met in May during the commander in chief’s visit to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with al-Sharaa making a favorable impression on Trump. "Tough guy. Strong past. Very strong past. Fighter," Trump said immediately after meeting the former al Qaeda leader. "He’s got a real shot at holding it together.” After that meeting, Trump lifted all US sanctions on the nation of Syria. Al-Sharaa set the internet ablaze last month, when he appeared to flirt with reporter Margaret Brennan during a "60 Minutes" interview. "When you met President Trump back in May, he described you as handsome, tough, and said you had a strong past," Brennan said. Al-Sharaa smirked and said in Arabic, "Have you any doubt about that?".

Reuters [11/9/2025 1:44 AM, Jonathan Spicer, 36480K] reports the United States seeks to take advantage of a "moment" in Lebanon in which it can cut Iranian funding to Hezbollah and press the group to disarm, the U.S. Treasury Department’s top sanctions official said. In a late Friday interview, John Hurley, the undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said Iran has managed to funnel about $1 billion to Hezbollah this year despite a raft of Western sanctions that have battered its economy. The U.S. has adopted a "maximum pressure" campaign on Tehran meant to curb its uranium enrichment and regional influence, including in Lebanon where Iran-backed Hezbollah is also weakened after Israel shattered its military power in a 2023-24 war. Late last week Washington sanctioned two individuals accused using money exchanges to help fund Hezbollah, which is deemed a terrorist group by several Western governments and Gulf states. "There’s a moment in Lebanon now. If we could get Hezbollah to disarm, the Lebanese people could get their country back," Hurley said. "The key to that is to drive out the Iranian influence and control that starts with all the money that they are pumping into Hezbollah," he told Reuters in Istanbul as part of a tour of Turkey, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates and Israel meant to raise pressure on Iran. Tehran has leaned on closer ties with China, Russia and regional states including the UAE since September, when talks to curb its disputed nuclear activity and missile programme broke down, prompting the reinstatement of United Nations sanctions. Western powers accuse Iran of secretly developing nuclear weapons capability. Tehran, whose economy now risks hyperinflation and a severe recession, says its nuclear program is wholly for civilian power purposes. U.S. ally Israel says Hezbollah is trying to rebuild its capabilities and on Thursday carried out heavy airstrikes in southern Lebanon despite a ceasefire deal agreed a year ago. Lebanon’s government has committed to disarming all non-state groups, including Hezbollah, which was founded in 1982 by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, spearheaded the Iran-backed "Axis of Resistance", and opened fire on Israel declaring solidarity with Palestinians when war began in Gaza in 2023. While the group, which is also a political force in Beirut, has not obstructed Lebanese troops confiscating its caches in the country’s south, it has rejected disarming in full. Hurley, in his first trip to the Middle East since taking office under President Donald Trump’s administration, has pressed the case against Iran in meetings with government officials, bankers and private sector executives. "Even with everything Iran has been through, even with the economy not in great shape, they’re still pumping a lot of money to their terrorist proxies," he said.

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