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 Chicago Tribune [10/30/2025 6:33 PM, Maya Wilkins, 4917K] reports U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced Thursday that through the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s 287(g) program, more than 223 undocumented immigrants have been arrested on Indiana highways. Of these arrests, Noem said 146 were truck drivers, including 46 semi truck drivers and 82 box truck drivers. “With state partners like Gov. (Mike) Braun and like the state of Indiana, people will be safer,” Noem said. “People will be protected and our laws will matter.” The actions are part of Operation Midway Blitz, the mass deportation mission in the Chicago area that also includes Lake County, Indiana, and other states supervised by the ICE Chicago field office — Wisconsin, Missouri, Kentucky and Kansas. Through Operation Midway Blitz, Noem said ICE has arrested about 3,000 people. Noem told media on Thursday that no American citizens have been arrested or detained, despite various news reports that say otherwise. Noem claimed “anything different is simply a false report.” During Thursday’s news conference, Noem called both California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker “reckless” for issuing commercial driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants. Acting U.S. ICE Director Todd Lyons doubled down on Noem’s claim on Thursday. “It’s unconscionable that illegal aliens have CDLs in driving 18-wheelers across our nation, just because sanctuary cities want to gamble with motorists’ lives,” Lyons said. Gov. Mike Braun, ICE Deputy Director Madison Sheahan and Indiana State Police Superintendent Anthony Scott also participated Thursday. NBC 13 Indianapolis [10/30/2025 7:12 PM, Emily Longnecker, 43603K] reports that the arrests were all part of something DHS calls "Operation Midway Blitz," which started in September and DHS says is ongoing. Many of the 3,000 arrests happened in the Chicago area, but more than 200 involved Indiana State Police in partnership with ICE, along Indiana’s highways. At weigh stations across the state, Indiana state troopers with ISP’s Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Division oversee the more than one million semi-trucks that come through the Crossroads of America every year. Now, with a partnership between ISP and ICE giving trained state troopers immigration enforcement powers, their work here includes making sure the drivers behind the wheels of those semis are in the United States lawfully. Along with Braun, Noem was joined by the heads of ICE and Indiana State Police to discuss the number of recent arrests through ISP and ICE working together. According to Noem, ISP and ICE have arrested more than 200 people unlawfully in Indiana, with close to 50 of those people behind the wheel of a semi.

NewsMax [10/30/2025 2:20 PM, Sandy Fitzgerald, 4109K] reports that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Thursday praised her agency’s ongoing immigration enforcement actions during a press conference in Gary, Indiana, where she announced new arrests under "Operation Midway Blitz." She also criticized Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker for asking federal agents to pause immigration arrests over the Halloween weekend. "Many of these individuals that come into our country illegally may commit criminal acts as well, beyond that, but then go to a state and get licensed and receive a commercial driver’s license," she said during the appearance. She was joined by Indiana Gov. Mike Braun and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Todd Lyons, acting ICE director, and Madison Sheahan, deputy director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement were also on the program. Noem said Operation Midway Blitz, a nationwide enforcement effort targeting such cases, has resulted in nearly 150 arrests across more than a dozen states, including 46 semi-truck drivers who illegally obtained their licenses and are now being detained. Such drivers are challenged because often, "they don’t speak English, they can’t read our road signs, and when they have enforcement activities with law enforcement officers, they can’t communicate with them, and it presents a danger many times over," Noem told reporters.

FOX News [10/30/2025 7:30 PM, Madison Colombo, 40621K] reports Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is calling out sanctuary states for purportedly allowing illegal immigrants to get commercial driver’s licenses, warning that untrained drivers are turning 18-wheelers into "weapons.” Noem singled out California Gov. Gavin Newsom after three people were killed on Oct. 21 in a crash involving an illegal immigrant truck driver. "He is handing out driver’s licenses to people with no documentation. Some of these individuals aren’t even giving a name," Noem said Thursday on "America Reports.” The secretary said they’ve uncovered driver’s licenses that read "no name given" that were used to get commercial driver’s licenses. "Gov. Newsom needs to understand that saving lives is the number-one priority," she said. Both Noem and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy have accused Newsom of enabling immigrants in the country illegally to obtain commercial licenses. Their renewed scrutiny of the issue comes after the Oct. 21 crash on a Southern California freeway, where 21-year-old Indian national Jashanpreet Singh allegedly drove a semi-truck while under the influence, triggering a multi-car pileup that resulted in three fatalities. "We’re really seeing and peeling back the onion on who is allowing these dangerous individuals to get on our roads and get behind 18-wheelers that turn into weapons when they don’t know how to use them, they don’t know how to operate them, and they can’t speak our language or interpret our laws," she added. Newsom’s office blamed the federal government for the crash, arguing its policies ultimately allowed the suspect to receive a license, saying California’s commercial driver’s licensing laws comply with federal regulations. "Lost in the immigrant-bashing is the fact that drivers holding a California-issued CDL are involved in fatal crashes at a rate far lower than the national average," a Newsom spokesperson previously told Fox News Digital. "If the focus were on safety, California should be a poster child, not a scapegoat.” Noem added that DHS’s immigration enforcement efforts have already led to the arrests of dozens of illegal immigrant truck drivers. "Operation Midway Blitz has already removed over 140 illegal alien truck drivers in Indiana. The brave men and women of @ICEgov and the Indiana State Police are working nonstop to get criminal illegal aliens out of our communities and off our roads," Noem wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Axios [10/30/2025 10:20 AM, Carrie Shepherd, 12972K] reports Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem denied Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s (D) request to suspend all federal immigration operations across the Chicago area over Halloween weekend. Pritzker’s request came after Chicago residents reported last weekend that federal immigration officers conducted a raid right before a children’s Halloween parade. At a press conference Thursday at a Gary, Indiana, airport, Noem said she would not grant the governor’s request to pause ICE and CBP raids beginning Friday. According to a letter sent Wednesday and obtained by Axios, Pritzker asked Noem to call off immigration raids so families could celebrate in peace. The letter is addressed to Noem, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) head Todd Lyons and Border Patrol leader Rodney S. Scott. "We’re absolutely not willing to put on pause any work that we will do to keep communities safe," Noem said. "The fact that Gov. Pritzker is asking for that is shameful and, I think, unfortunate that he doesn’t recognize how important the work is that we do to make sure we’re bringing criminals to justice and getting them off our streets." DHS, ICE, CBP did not respond to Axios’ request for comment on Thursday morning. "No child should be forced to inhale tear gas or other chemical agents while trick or treating in their own neighborhood," Pritzker wrote. "I would appreciate your cooperation and confirmation that federal agents will stand down from any actions that could endanger or harm perfectly innocent children in our communities during this Halloween weekend. We have heard from teachers, parents, and other caregivers that children are anxious." "Let them enjoy a time-honored American tradition safely and peacefully. Please let children be children for one holiday, free from intimidation and fear." The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino does not have to report daily to Judge Sara Ellis’ courtroom with updates on operations, one day after Ellis ruled Bovino did. Ellis also referenced last weekend’s reported disruptions of a Halloween celebration, saying kids’ "sense of safety was shattered Saturday and it’s gonna take a long time for that to come back, if ever." NewsMax [10/30/2025 9:15 PM, Mark Swanson, 4109K] reports Pritzker made a similar request to Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino during a press conference. "If you are unwilling to cease operations and leave our city, can we at least agree that our children should not be victims, especially on Halloween? Can we agree that there is no imminent threat that should disrupt their holiday?" he said. In a statement to The Hill, the Department of Homeland Security accused Pritzker of smearing law enforcement. "He is pushing a false narrative that DHS is targeting schools, hospitals, and churches. This is false, he knows this, but he continues to push these lies," DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin wrote. "Our officers are facing mass assaults, vehicles used as weapons, violence and only use crowd control methods as a last resort when repeated warnings have been given.” NewsNation [10/30/2025 2:45 PM, Steph Whiteside, 8017K] reports that while the Trump administration has repeatedly said its immigration crackdown is targeting the “worst of the worst” criminal offenders, Pritzker said those targets have included families, burrito vendors, landscapers and people without a criminal record. “We cannot let this become normalized,” Pritzker said. The governor pointed to an incident in the Chicago neighborhood of Old Irving Park, where a Halloween parade was canceled after federal agents came in armed with tear gas and automatic weapons, and detained three people. Two of those arrested were U.S. citizens, Pritzker said. “Armed, masked agents terrorizing people, especially children, is unsconsionable, “ Pritzker said. “Don’t believe it when they tell you they’re going after the ‘worst of the worst’ gangs. They’re terrorizing innocent neighborhoods and kids at Halloween parades.” Pritzker highlighted an Illinois family whose parents are being held in detention, leaving two older children who are awaiting temporary status caring for the two younger children, who are U.S. citizens. Pritzker has been at odds with President Donald Trump over federal immigration enforcement in the Chicago area. The state and the Trump administration have been in court over the actions of federal officers, with a judge ruling agents must wear bodycams and ordering them not to deploy tear gas during trick-or-treating on Halloween. Trump has also attempted to deploy the National Guard in Illinois, but that plan is currently held up in the courts.

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Breitbart [10/30/2025 12:05 PM, Amy Furr, 2416K] reports Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) wants federal officials to halt immigration operations in Chicago over the Halloween weekend, even as residents welcome their presence after enduring years of illegal alien crime. In a letter on Tuesday, Pritzker asked U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Todd Lyons, and Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Rodney Scott to pause operations from Friday until Sunday in places where celebrations are planned, NBC Chicago reported Thursday. "No child should be forced to inhale tear gas or other chemical agents while trick-or-treating in their own neighborhood," he said in reference to an incident in which federal agents reportedly used tear gas in Irving Park prior to a recent Halloween parade, as Fox 32 reported on Saturday. The outlet said federal agents deployed tear gas against protesters after authorities took an illegal immigrant into custody. Neighbors reportedly joined with protesters in confronting ICE during their enforcement action, escalating the conflict. The federal agents reportedly used tear gas a few minutes before the parade began. Video footage shows people screaming obscenities and getting close to the agents: In his recent letter, Pritzker said, "Illinois children should not be robbed of their innocence. Let them enjoy a time-honored American tradition safely and peacefully. Please let children be children for one holiday, free from intimidation and fear.” However, former Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy mocked Pritzker for a video in which he claimed to feel safe in a specific Chicago neighborhood, but it was after President Donald Trump moved the criminals out of the area, Breitbart News reported October 13. He said, "JB Pritzker today put out another video in Little Village talking about how safe he feels. Well, Little Village is primarily a Hispanic neighborhood here in Chicago. That district is down about 55% so far this year in murder. Well, where do you think ICE has been working in Chicago since January?". Indeed, many Chicago residents apparently welcomed U.S. Border Patrol agents sent to help ICE round up criminal illegals, even as anti-ICE radicals protested the federal agents’ presence, Breitbart News reported October 10. Leftist activists in Chicago have been ramping up their harassment, obstruction, and attacks on law enforcement officers as they carefully work to extract illegals for required deportations, per the outlet. "Along with the use of rocks and bottles as weapons, violent activists are also increasingly using professional grade fireworks against ICE agents in Chicago, causing the risk of hearing loss, eye damage, and burns," the Breitbart News article said. The outlet reported October 1 that ICE had arrested over 800 illegal aliens across Illinois as part of Operation Midway Blitz. The operation was "in honor of 20-year-old Katie Abraham, who was killed with her friend Chloe Polzin in a hit-and-run drunk driving crash caused by an illegal alien in the sanctuary state," the Breitbart News report stated.

(B) NBC News Daily [10/30/2025 1:54 PM, Staff] reports Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was in northwest Indiana today addressing Operation Midway Blitz. Governor Pritzker asked Noem to suspend enforcement this Halloween weekend so kids can celebrate safety without fear of immigration agents. DHS Secretary Noem was joined by acting ICE Director Todd Lyons and Indiana Governor Mike Braun. They held a press conference at the Gary Chicago Airport touting the number of people arrested so far. They say more than 200 who have entered the country illegally and obtained their CDLs from states like California and Illinois. Noem also praised the partnership with Indiana State Police and defended the actions of federal agents.

Chicago Tribune [10/30/2025 6:09 PM, Olivia Olander, 4829K] reports amid increased public calls for Illinois elected officials to more strongly push back against the Trump administration’s sometimes-violent crackdown on undocumented people in the Chicago region, state lawmakers on Thursday proposed trying to formally ban federal agents from arresting people near courthouses and allowing lawsuits if individuals’ rights have been violated in civil immigration arrests. Even the measure’s key sponsor, Senate President Don Harmon, called the bill "imperfect," but he said Democratic lawmakers in Springfield felt the need to act, as state and local officials have often felt hamstrung in countering the federal government’s often-aggressive tactics. Under the bill discussed in committee, individuals could sue officers for knowingly violating the state or U.S. Constitution during civil immigration enforcement. The bill would also codify a 1,000-foot "safe zone" around courthouses, free from civil arrests, in an attempt to limit potential disruptions to court activities. The bill, as of Thursday afternoon, still needed to pass out of both chambers of the General Assembly, which is on its last day of the fall legislative session.

FOX News [10/30/2025 9:05 AM, Pilar Arias, 40621K] reports the Department of Homeland Security is celebrating a victory after an "act of judicial overreach has been paused." On Wednesday, an appeals court blocked an order issued on Tuesday that required a senior Border Patrol official to give unprecedented daily briefings to a judge about immigration sweeps in Chicago. U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis had ordered the meetings after weeks of tense encounters and increasingly aggressive tactics by government agents working on Operation Midway Blitz, which has resulted in more than 1,800 arrests and complaints of excessive force. While Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino told Fox News earlier Wednesday that he was eager to talk to Ellis, government lawyers were appealing her decision at the same time, calling it "extraordinarily disruptive." "The order significantly interferes with the quintessentially executive function of ensuring the Nation’s immigration laws are properly enforced by waylaying a senior executive official critical to that mission on a daily basis," the Justice Department argued. "We are thrilled this act of judicial overreach has been paused," the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement to The Associated Press. The Daily Caller [10/30/2025 9:44 AM, Jason Hopkins, 835K] reports "IT IS ORDERED that the government’s request for an administrative stay is GRANTED," stated a one-page decision by the appeals court. "Pending a decision on the petition for a writ of mandamus, the district court’s October 28, 2025 order is temporarily STAYED only to the extent it required Gregory Bovino to appear in court, in person, each weekday at 5:45 PM.” The ongoing court battle is being waged as the Trump administration forges ahead with Operation Midway Blitz, an immigration enforcement operation first launched in September that is targeting illegal migrant criminals in Chicago and throughout Illinois. The sweeping deportation raids have been met with pushback from local Democrats and others opposed to the Trump administration’s immigration agenda. A group of protesters and media organizations filed a lawsuit earlier this month alleging aggressive actions from federal agents. Ellis not only ordered on Tuesday that Bovino be equipped with a body camera and requested the administration turn over all incident reports, but also demanded Bovino personally report to her daily about the deportation operations, a move that legal experts framed as unprecedented. "I’ve been a lawyer for almost 50 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this," Phillip Turner, a former federal prosecutor in Chicago, told the Associated Press about Ellis’ order. "Over three decades, I’ve had the opportunity to interact with many judges," Bovino said Wednesday in a Fox News interview. "If she wants to meet with me every day, then she is going to see, she is going to have a very good first-hand look at just how bad things really are on the streets of Chicago.” The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocked the order shortly after Bovino gave that media appearance, but kept in place Ellis’ demand that Bovino be equipped with a body camera and receive training on how to use it.

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CBS Chicago [10/30/2025 12:13 PM, Darius Johnson, 39474K] reports U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino was set to face tough questions in court Thursday, in part of an ongoing fight over how federal agents are handling immigration enforcement in Chicago. At 10 a.m. Thursday, Bovino will sit for a deposition that is expected to last about five hours. He will be questioned about how his agents carried out arrests that turned chaotic earlier this month. Court filings show Bovino and two other federal officials — Russell Holt and Daniel Parra — will sit for depositions that will be recorded on video Thursday morning. Attorneys for protesters and press say federal agents fired chemical agents and used crowd control devices during immigration operations in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood and west suburban Cicero. They also accuse the U.S. Department of Homeland Security of posting edited body camera and drone video online while refusing to turn over unedited versions. This comes after a federal appeals court eased some restrictions against Bovino. On Wednesday, a federal appeals court granted a request from the U.S. Department of Justice for an administrative stay pausing an order that requires Bovino to meet in person with U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis each day. In their filing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, lawyers for the government argue the order "far exceeds the recognized bounds of discovery" and "significantly interferes" with Bovino’s function, which the government argues is "ensuring the Nation’s immigration laws are properly enforced." They also argue the meetings are "untethered to the plaintiffs’ underlying claims" and go beyond reasonable necessity to comply with the court orders already in place.

FOX News [10/30/2025 11:35 AM, Michael Ruiz, Julia Bonavita, 40621K] reports an Illinois Democratic congressional candidate posted video to social media that appears to depict events described in a federal indictment accusing her of impeding Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The 26-year-old Kat Abughazaleh, a self-styled "Gen Z influencer," has called the charges a "political prosecution" and said she was exercising her First Amendment rights, not breaking the law. "I have been charged in a federal indictment sought by the Department of Justice," she wrote on X. "This political prosecution is an attack on all of our First Amendment rights. I’m not backing down, and we’re going to win.” During a protest outside ICE’s Broadview Service Staging Area in suburban Chicago on Sept. 26, federal prosecutors allege that she joined a mob that swarmed a law enforcement vehicle, blocking it with their bodies before someone etched the word "PIG" into the vehicle and others ripped off a mirror and windshield wiper. According to the indictment, Abughazaleh is accused of taking part in the blockade at around 7:45 a.m. that same day. "ABUGHAZALEH joined the crowd at the front of the Government Vehicle, and with her hands on the hood braced her body and hands against the vehicle while remaining directly in the path of the vehicle, hindering and impeding Agent A and the vehicle from proceeding to the [staging area]," the indictment reads. The video appears to show just that, with Abughazaleh at the head of the crowd, leaning into the front of the unmarked vehicle, a black SUV with flashing lights. Abughazaleh bills herself as a radical progressive Democrat whose platform includes a wealth tax on rich Americans, a $25 minimum wage and "an immediate pathway to citizenship for DREAMers and other undocumented immigrants." Her hobbies include knitting and playing video games, according to her website. She has also vehemently opposed the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigrants. In a televised interview earlier this month, she told former White House press secretary Jen Psaki that she thinks Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem "should be tried at the Hague" — a reference to the Netherlands-based International Criminal Court. Abughazaleh faces two counts under a federal indictment unsealed Wednesday: conspiracy to prevent a law enforcement officer from discharging his duties and forcibly impeding, intimidating and interfering with a federal officer. Five other people at the protest were also charged. Two of them are also involved in local politics: Michael Rabbitt, a Democratic committee person in Chicago’s 45th Ward, and Catherine Sharp, a candidate for the Cook County Board of Commissioners. The Gen Z candidate is running for Illinois’ 9th Congressional District seat to replace outgoing 81-year-old Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who is retiring after holding the office since 1999. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Chicago Tribune [10/30/2025 3:41 PM, Molly Morrow, 4829K] reports Aurora resident Elizabeth Pineda said she has been patrolling for federal immigration agents for a few months now, often amid her daily activities — dropping her children off at school, going to the store. On Wednesday morning, Pineda, 33, said she dropped her three older children off at school and was checking for sightings of federal agents with her younger two children, 3 and 1. Later that morning, she said, she drove by El Paso Grande, a grocery store on the city’s East Side, and heard whistles, a popular tactic used to alert an area of possible federal immigration enforcement activity. Pineda pulled into the parking lot behind a car believed to be a federal agent’s, and was warned to get out of the way, she said. Soon after, her car was hit with pepper-spray projectiles, she said. Perez’s video shows Pineda being held by a man outside of the car but ultimately being let go. Pineda said that her window was down at the time of the incident, and that she began coughing as she pulled away. She took herself and her children to the emergency room later that day, but said that the family was OK following the incident.

Axios [10/30/2025 3:46 PM, Mimi Montgomery, 12972K] reports several top figures in the Trump administration have opted to live in military housing in the Washington area instead of private homes due to safety fears, The Atlantic reports. It’s a result of the growing political polarization and violence toward politicians within our country, per The Atlantic. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem now lives in the home meant for the Coast Guard commandant on Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling after the Daily Mail revealed she was living in a Navy Yard apartment. It’s not unusual for some top brass — especially those concerned with the military or national security — to live in military housing, but it’s unprecedented to see so many doing it at once. The New York Times [10/30/2025 6:18 PM, John Ismay and Hamed Aleaziz, 135475K] reports quarters 8 at Fort McNair in Washington, situated along the Anacostia River, has traditionally been the home of the Army’s vice chief of staff. But at the beginning of President Trump’s second term, it was vacant. The general promoted to the vice chief’s position had opted to remain on a different base nearby, across the Potomac. That provided an opening for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to claim it. As Mr. Hegseth settled into the home, which an Army history notes is guarded by two Revolutionary War-era cannons, other Trump officials also took up residence at housing built and designed for senior admirals and generals in the Washington area. A handful of White House officials have lived in military housing in the past, but it appears to be unusual for several cabinet members and other officials to move into military quarters in such a short amount of time. Three former residents of Quarters 8 expressed frustration that a senior officer was not living at the home, which they said would cause a ripple effect and make it more difficult for admirals and generals posted in the area to find affordable housing. “It’s a great place,” said retired Army Gen. Dennis J. Reimer, who lived in Quarters 8 when he served as the Army’s vice chief of staff in the early 1990s. “It’s like one out of the movies — you have that spiral staircase and you’re right over a riverbank.” The trend of Trump administration officials taking over military residences in the region was reported earlier by The Atlantic. Soon after he was sworn in as secretary of state, Marco Rubio moved in a couple doors down from his Pentagon counterpart. Mr. Rubio lives there mostly alone; his family has opted to stay in Florida, according to a State Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, lives in “a government representation facility” owned by the Coast Guard and is “paying fair market rent,” according to Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman. Daniel P. Driscoll, the Army secretary, has also moved into military housing, as has the Navy secretary, John Phelan, whose home in Washington was damaged in a fire in May, according to a congressional staff member who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity. It is unclear why so many Trump administration officials have sought to live on military bases, but Mr. Panetta and his successor, Chuck Hagel, said that they faced the same kinds of security threats that any defense secretary routinely receives, and felt secure in their homes with Defense Department bodyguards posted outside.

New York Post [10/30/2025 1:14 PM, Anthony Blair, 42219K] reports US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers are facing a dramatic and disturbing surge in death threats and violent attacks, new statistics from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) show. Death threats targeting ICE officers have skyrocketed an unsettling 8,000% in fiscal year 2025 — with sick thugs even putting bounties on their heads as they look to disrupt the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement shared with The Post Wednesday. ICE officers “risk their lives every single day to remove the worst of the worst,” she said. “From bounties placed on their heads for their murders, threats to their families, stalking, and doxxing online, our officers are experiencing an unprecedented level of violence,” McLaughlin added. The DHS spox cited Eduardo Aguilar, an illegal Mexican immigrant living in Dallas Texas, arrested earlier this month for allegedly soliciting the murder of ICE agents in a TikTok post. The post in Spanish allegedly offered $10,000 for the murder of an ICE agent, and called for “10 dudes in Dallas with determination who aren’t afraid to [two skull emojis],” the DHS said. Another Texas ICE officer’s spouse was threatened over the phone by an anonymous caller who compared her family to Nazis. “I don’t know how you let your husband work for ICE, and you sleep at night. F–k you, f–k your family. I hope your kids get deported by accident,” the sick troll said. “How do you sleep? F–k you. Did you hear what happened to the Nazis after World War II? Because it’s what’s going to happen to your family,” the caller said, according to the DHS. A separate ICE employee was left an explicit and threatening voicemail, according to the DHS. “I hope every one of those lawless c—s you call ICE officers gets doxxed one by one,” the cowardly caller says. Last week, a man named James Warren allegedly posted threats about an ICE office in Ferndale, Washington, describing officers as “Nazis” and “The Gestapo,” according to the DHS.”Join me, let’s make life hard for ICE here in Whatcom County,” Warren said, according to a screengrab of the Facebook post shared by the DHS. “They [ICE agents] need to be told they are Nazis every day they come to work,” he added. In the comments below the post, another Facebook user fantasized about the deaths of ICE agents. “We used to hang traitors in this country. I hope we get back to that soon,” the user, Miljen Aljinovic, wrote, according to grabs shared by the DHS.”Me too, my friend, me too,” Warren replied. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem insisted the threats would “not stop us or slow us down.” “ICE and our federal law enforcement partners will continue to enforce the law. And if you lay a hand on a law enforcement officer, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Secretary Noem said in a statement.

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AP [10/30/2025 6:06 PM, Konstantin Toropin, 19051K] reports Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the military to provide dozens of lawyers to the Justice Department for temporary assignments in Memphis and near the U.S.-Mexico border that could run through next fall, according to a memo released this week and reviewed by The Associated Press. "I am directing you to collectively identify 48 attorneys and 4 paralegals from within your Military Department who may be suitable for detail" to the Justice Department to act as special assistant U.S. attorneys, Hegseth wrote in a memo dated Monday that was sent to all four services and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The memo appears to be the latest effort to send military and civilian attorneys working for the Pentagon to the Justice Department, this time to staff offices based along the U.S. southern border or where federal immigration enforcement operations are taking place. Last month, the Pentagon also approved sending up to 600 military lawyers to the Justice Department to serve as temporary immigration judges in a separate effort. The Trump administration increasingly has tapped the military to bolster its immigration crackdown, from deploying to the southern border and a series of American cities. This week’s memo says the Justice Department asked for 20 lawyers to help support its offices in Memphis, where the National Guard has been deployed by President Donald Trump; 12 for West Texas — specifically for the cities of El Paso, Del Rio, and Midland — and three lawyers and two paralegals for Las Cruces, New Mexico. The memo does not specify what kind of litigation the volunteers would be asked to do, but it says that, ideally, attorneys would have "significant experience" in immigration and administrative law in addition to general prosecution and litigation experience. The Pentagon said in a statement that it was "proud to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our law enforcement partners, bringing the skill and dedication of America’s service members to deliver justice, restore order, and protect the American people.” The Justice Department also confirmed the memo’s authenticity but did not provide additional details on the reason for its request or what the attorneys would be doing.

CBS News [10/30/2025 10:44 AM, Nicole Sganga, 39474K] reports the U.S. Treasury Department has imposed sweeping sanctions on members of an alleged Mexico-based human smuggling network that it says trafficked people from four continents using yachts, hotels and cartel connections, a move officials say underscores the Trump administration’s intensifying strategy to treat migrant trafficking schemes as a direct threat to national security. The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) targeted the Bhardwaj Human Smuggling Organization, its alleged ringleader Vikrant Bhardwaj plus three accomplices and 16 affiliated entities on Thursday. The sanctions will freeze any U.S. property or interests tied to the sprawling group and bar U.S. persons from conducting financial transactions with the alleged criminal organization. According to Treasury officials, the Bhardwaj HSO constructed a "sophisticated" smuggling pipeline that tapped its own collection of yachts and marinas, as well as hostels, hotels and other front operations across Mexico, India and the United Arab Emirates. Thousands of migrants from Europe, the Middle East, South America, and Asia — including some from countries deemed national security risks — were allegedly flown or sailed into Mexico, then routed north toward the U.S. border over land, a dangerous passage dubbed the "Tapachula-Cancun-Mexicali corridor." Officials allege the group’s services cost migrants thousands of dollars apiece, and the group solicited operational support from individuals employed by the notorious Sinaloa Cartel. Investigators identified a web of corporate fronts allegedly controlled or used by the group, spanning so-called tourism companies in Mexico to real estate and hospitality firms in India and the UAE, as well as a Mexican supermarket to hide illicit revenue streams. The Treasury sanctioned three other associates: Jose German Valadez Flores and Jorge Alejandro Mendoza Villegas are accused of facilitating the trafficking ring by bribing officials at airports and ports of entry, while a third, Indu Rani, is identified as Bhardwaj’s wife and the lead on logistical operations. "Today’s action, in collaboration with our law enforcement partners, disrupts this network’s ability to smuggle dangerous illegal aliens into the United States," Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence John K. Hurley said in a statement to CBS News. "The Trump administration will continue to target and dismantle human smuggling organizations that value profit over human life."

Reported similarly:
NewsMax [10/30/2025 12:02 PM, Staff, 4109K]

The Washington Post [10/30/2025 11:29 AM, Alex Horton and David Ovalle, 24149K] reports the Pentagon has ordered thousands of specialized National Guard personnel to complete civil unrest mission training over the next several months, an indication that the Trump administration’s effort to send uniformed military forces into urban centers — once reserved for extraordinary emergencies — could become the norm. The Defense Department’s newly established “quick reaction force” within the National Guard must be trained, equipped with riot-control gear and ready for deployment by Jan. 1, according to internal documents reviewed by The Washington Post. The 200 troops will be drawn from National Guard personnel whose primary focus is responding to disasters like nuclear accidents and terrorist attacks, the documents said. An existing separate but similar structure, the National Guard Reaction Force, is expected to complete civil unrest training and be fully operational by April 1. The total size of the force will be 23,500 troops across all 50 states and three territories, excluding the District of Columbia, the documents say. Most states will supply 500 personnel for the reaction force, with the rest falling between 250 and 450. Those forces are typically used for emergencies like disaster relief, not as on-call troops for civil unrest. The mandate, along with the growing presence of federal and immigration enforcement officers, suggests further military deployments within the United States could grow in size and scope. The deployments, which President Donald Trump has described as a bid to quell violence and crime, have infuriated Democratic governors in multiple states, who have fought the president’s deployments through litigation. The Defense Department did not respond to a request for comment. A defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe military planning, said the Pentagon is “revising plans for the employment of [the National Guard Reaction Force] to guarantee their ability to assist federal, state and local law enforcement in quelling civil disturbances.” The Guardian earlier reported details of the documents. The Hill [10/30/2025 6:30 AM, Ellen Mitchell, 12595K] reports that the Oct. 8 memo, signed by National Guard Bureau Director of Operations Maj. Gen. Ronald Burkett, orders the Guard from nearly every U.S. state, Puerto Rico and Guam to train 500 service members. States with smaller populations like Delaware will have 250 troops in its force, while Alaska will have 350 and Guam will have 100, Task & Purpose reported. A previous Pentagon memo issued in September, and revealed by The Guardian, had mandated that the Washington, D.C., National Guard create a "specialized military police battalion" within it "dedicated to ensuring safety and public order in the Nation’s capital as the circumstances may necessitate." The latest document also stipulates that the Pentagon will send military trainers to the states and territories so the QRFs will be operational by Jan. 1, 2026. Each state also will be given "100 sets of crowd control equipment to be used to support this requirement," such as Tasers, pepper spray, batons, and body shields.

Reported similarly:
CNN [10/30/2025 4:53 PM, Haley Britzky, 18595K]

FOX News [10/30/2025 10:58 AM, Adam Sabes, 40621K] Video: HERE reports a police group says that law enforcement in Democratic-run cities and states across the country are "tired" of seeing local politicians supporting illegal immigrants rather than attempting to address key issues they’re dealing with, such as being understaffed and underfunded. New York City alone was projected to spend more than $8.9 billion on illegal immigrants in 2024 and 2025, according to the Fiscal Policy Institute. According to the report, that funding went toward housing and support for illegal immigrants. The Illinois Policy Institute estimated that the state has spent over $2.5 billion on care for illegal immigrants since 2021. Most of the costs came from healthcare, and costs vastly exceeded initial estimates, the institute claimed. In 2022 and 2023 alone, Chicago spent around $255 million on costs for illegal immigrants such as housing, food, clothing and other care, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. National Police Association spokeswoman Sgt. Betsy Brantner Smith told Fox News Digital that law enforcement officers view the funding as unnecessary when their agencies are already understaffed, using Chicago as one example. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

FOX News [10/30/2025 6:01 PM, Breanne Deppisch, 40621K] reports lawyers for Kilmar Abrego Garcia have asked a federal judge in Nashville to dismiss his criminal case entirely, arguing in a new filing Thursday that the Trump administration failed to provide the necessary discovery or to allow key witness testimony during a two-day evidentiary hearing next week. U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw scheduled the upcoming hearing to weigh Abrego Garcia’s request that his criminal case be dismissed on the grounds of "vindictive" and selective prosecution by the government. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers noted in Thursday’s filing that after a judge finds a "realistic likelihood" of vindictiveness in a case — as Crenshaw did earlier this month — a rebuttable presumption arises for the government, which then bears the burden of providing "objective, on-the-record explanations" to show the case was not brought for retaliatory purposes. If the government fails to do so, the indictment should be dismissed completely, his lawyers said, arguing that the Trump administration had stonewalled them by refusing to allow witnesses to testify or hand over relevant discovery information. It is unclear how, or when, Crenshaw will rule on the motion to dismiss or whether he would opt to cancel next week’s hearing in light of the allegedly unclear submissions by the Trump administration. More information could be revealed Friday afternoon, after lawyers for all parties participate in a counsel-only conference set by the judge.

Washington Examiner [10/30/2025 6:45 PM, Kaelan Deese, 1394K] reports lawyers for Salvadoran national Kilmar Abrego Garcia are urging a federal judge in Tennessee to cancel an evidentiary hearing on alleged vindictive prosecution and instead dismiss his criminal human smuggling case, arguing the Department of Justice is "stonewalling" efforts to examine who authorized the charges and why. In a court filing Thursday, defense attorneys said the DOJ has refused to make ranking department officials available to testify about the government’s decision to pursue immigrant-smuggling charges against Abrego Garcia, 30, whose case has become an anomaly among the Trump administration’s more broadly successful immigration enforcement strategy. Defense attorneys argued that without that testimony, prosecutors cannot adequately rebut that the prosecution was pursued for improper motives. "The government cannot meet its burden," defense attorneys wrote, urging U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw to dismiss the case outright rather than proceed with the two-day hearing set for next Tuesday and Wednesday. They accused prosecutors of withholding key documents and blocking access to senior officials, including Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, whom the defense has subpoenaed. Blanche notably participated in a televised press conference with Attorney General Pam Bondi on June 6, the day Abrego Garcia was returned from El Salvador following his deportation in March, to announce human smuggling charges against him stemming from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee. Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told the Washington Examiner that motions to dismiss for selective or vindictive prosecution are "rarely, if ever, granted" and suggested the defense’s latest request may likewise struggle to gain traction before the court. "To argue that the deputy attorney general has to testify or the case must be dismissed — I don’t think any judge, even a liberal judge, is going to go with that," Rahmani said, noting the "very high bar" for probing top DOJ decision-making.

Washington Post [10/30/2025 5:00 AM, John Woodrow Cox, 32099K] reports the U.S. government asked a judge this month to deport a father of two to Afghanistan, where he expects the Taliban to kill him. To make its case, the Department of Homeland Security did not accuse him of any crime or disloyalty or act of terrorism. Instead, attorneys argued that Afghanistan — a country U.S. forces rescued him from in 2021 — is safe for his return. The man, whom The Washington Post is identifying as H because of concern for his safety, has sought asylum because he so publicly supported the United States’ cause in Afghanistan. Before fleeing, he worked for a U.S.-based nonprofit and attended an American university in Kabul. To undermine his claim, government attorneys argued that the Taliban have allowed those institutions to continue to operate — clear signs, they suggested, that his past would not endanger him if he was deported. Both institutions, however, have fundamentally transformed since H left them, The Post has found. The nonprofit’s U.S. headquarters closed years before the country collapsed, and its former office in Afghanistan is now under strict Taliban supervision. The university, meanwhile, no longer provides in-person classes, and its campus was seized by the regime, which installed its own school. The stakes of the case, which will soon resume in a Virginia courtroom, extend to tens of thousands of asylum seekers from Afghanistan whom President Donald Trump’s administration may seek to purge. If Attorney General Pam Bondi or an immigration appellate board dominated by Trump appointees ultimately sides with Homeland Security, legal experts say the case could set a precedent with sweeping consequences for Afghans the U.S. rescued and promised to support. “It’s worrying,” said Anam Petit, a former immigration judge who was also a Georgetown Law professor. “The broader ramification is that many asylum seekers from Afghanistan who have similar or comparable facts will have a much harder, if not impossible, time being granted asylum.” In a statement to The Post, Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin called H “illegal” and an “unvetted alien from a high threat country,” though she later acknowledged describing him as “illegal” only because her department revoked his parole when it arrested him.

AP [10/30/2025 9:18 PM, Sophie Bates, 852K] reports federal authorities on Thursday announced indictments against 20 people, including 14 current or former Mississippi Delta law enforcement officers, that allege the officers took bribes to provide safe passage to people they believed were drug traffickers. The yearslong investigation swept across multiple counties in the Mississippi Delta region of Mississippi and Tennessee. Two Mississippi sheriffs, Washington County Sheriff Milton Gaston and Humphreys County Sheriff Bruce Williams, were among those arrested. Some bribes were as large as $20,000 and $37,000, authorities said at a news conference. “It’s just a monumental betrayal of public trust,” U.S. Attorney Clay Joyner said. The indictments say law enforcement officers provided armed escort services on multiple occasions to an FBI agent posing as a member of a Mexican drug cartel. The indictments allege the officers understood they were helping to transport 25 kilograms (55 pounds) of cocaine through Mississippi Delta counties and into Memphis. Some of the officers also provided escort services to protect the transportation of drug proceeds. Gaston and Williams are alleged to have received bribes in exchange for giving the operations their “blessing,” one indictment said. It also alleged that Gaston attempted to disguise the payments as campaign contributions, but did not report them as required by law. Federal officials said the investigation began when people who had been arrested complained about having to pay bribes to various individuals. “Law enforcement is only effective when the community they protect can trust the law enforcement officers are honestly serving the community’s interests,” said Robert Eikhoff, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Jackson Field Office. “This type of corruption strikes at the heart of the community.” Nineteen of the 20 people indicted are also charged with violating federal gun laws.

CyberScoop [10/30/2025 3:08 PM, Derek B. Johnson, 122K] reports that a nonprofit government watchdog group is suing the Department of Homeland Security, alleging that department officials have delayed and denied legitimate public information requests regarding the hiring of Heather Honey. Honey was hired by DHS earlier this year and given the title “Deputy Assistant Secretary for Elections Integrity,” a change from past administrations, which have traditionally managed election security and integrity work through the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The nonprofit, American Oversight, has a history of successfully compelling governments to turn over public records through Freedom of Information Act requests and lawsuits. In September, the group initially sought federal records from DHS and the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services related to Honey’s hiring process, including basic information about the job description and specific hiring and application materials like interview notes, resumes, and cover letters. They also sought Honey’s calendar, email communications, and text messages or chat app records, like those from Slack, that pertain to her hiring. According to American Oversight, those and other public records requests related to Honey’s hiring were acknowledged by DHS, but the department has been otherwise unresponsive over the past two months. On Thursday, the group filed a lawsuit. They allege the government has violated FOIA laws by failing to promptly respond to the requests, including information about “the scope of responsive records Defendants intend to produce or withhold and the reasons for any withholdings.”

NewsMax [10/30/2025 1:09 PM, Staff, 4109K] reports that the U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday imposed sweeping sanctions on a sprawling Mexico-based crime ring accused of smuggling thousands of illegal aliens into the United States and laundering millions in illicit profits. The Bhardwaj Human Smuggling Organization, based in Cancun, was designated a transnational criminal organization under an executive order targeting global trafficking networks. According to the Treasury Department, the group’s leader, Vikrant Bhardwaj, and his wife, Indu Rani, are dual Indian-Mexican nationals who ran a sophisticated network moving illegal migrants from Europe, the Middle East, South America, and Asia through Mexico and across the U.S. border. The operation allegedly relied on yachts, private marinas, and hotels to transport and house migrants before moving them north, often in coordination with associates linked to the Sinaloa cartel. "The Treasury Department, under the direction of Secretary [Scott] Bessent and President [Donald] Trump, is cracking down on human smugglers," said Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence John K. Hurley. "This action disrupts a network that has profited from illegal migration and endangered countless lives." Bhardwaj, described as the self-identified founder and CEO of several companies in Mexico, India, and the United Arab Emirates, allegedly used those businesses to conceal proceeds from human smuggling, drug trafficking, and bribery.

FOX News [10/30/2025 11:26 PM, Staff, 40621K] reports Fox News Digital spoke with victim’s mom Anne Fundner about President Donald Trump’s recent military strikes targeting suspected fentanyl trafficking boats and the growing movement of parents demanding action against the opioid crisis. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

New York Post [10/30/2025 7:25 PM, Staff, 42219K] reports if the Trump administration is really dumping the entire grace period for legal immigrants to renew work permits, the Department of Homeland Security needs to rethink a move that means utter, needless chaos. US Citizenship and Immigration Services only lets you start to renew a work permit six months before it expires — but routinely takes much longer than six months to finish its processing. It’s one thing if DHS were simply tossing out a Biden-era rule that extended the grace period from 180 days to 540 day: That would still give you six months after expiration for USCIS to get its job done. But DHS is tossing any grace period, and so guaranteeing that many completely legal immigrants who’ve done their best to keep playing by the rules will be in a serious jam. The current renewal backlog is estimated at 165,000: Absent a clear DHS plan for getting caught up fast, this move looks like outright malpractice. Instead, Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Noem vows that every renewal application will now receive a "robust" screening and vetting (for fraud and national-security threats), which sounds like it’ll make the backlog worse. Adding insult to apparent injury, DHS announced the change just the day before took effect. Within weeks, many completely law-abiding immigrants will face a dire crisis, as will their employers and their families. It’s one thing to crack down on immigration fraud, another thing to make it effectively impossible for the law-abiding to work legally simply because federal bureaucrats can’t do their jobs fast enough. Experts believe businesses in the media, health care and manufacturing sectors will get especially hard-hit. Someone at the White House needs to rescind this rule, replace it with something sane and get DHS’s bureaucrats focused on clearing that six-month backlog. President Donald Trump has always said he’s all for legal immigration; his minions need to get with the program.

Bloomberg [10/30/2025 7:30 AM, Kathryn Anne Edwards, 18207K] reports whatever their views on America’s immigration laws, most Americans probably have no idea how much the US is spending to enforce them. That’s in part because congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump slipped an additional $170 billion for enforcement — a five-fold increase — into the $3.4 trillion budget bill that became law last summer. Were it given the scrutiny it deserved, this investment in immigration enforcement would surely be opposed by many Americans, whose support for legal immigration has reached record levels. Consider as an exercise how that $170 billion compares to the investment the federal government makes, or could make, in children.

Wall Street Journal [10/30/2025 4:47 PM, Rebeccah L. Heinrichs, 646K] reports President Trump ordered the Pentagon Thursday to “start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis.” He may mean conducting flight tests of delivery systems. Or he could mean explosive yield-producing tests, which the U.S. hasn’t conducted since 1992, when Washington and Moscow agreed to a moratorium. In 2019, Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the Hudson Institute that “Russia probably is not adhering to the nuclear-testing moratorium in a manner consistent with the zero-yield standard.” China and Russia are investing heavily in their nuclear programs and also behaving aggressively toward their neighbors. China is dramatically expanding a sophisticated, diverse missile force. Russia is especially belligerent in its nuclear flight testing and brinkmanship. For the first time, the U.S. faces two major nuclear adversaries simultaneously. The president’s refusal to be cowed by threatening Russian nuclear behavior is welcome. Whatever Mr. Trump means by “testing,” the U.S. should work urgently to improve and adapt its nuclear deterrent. To do this, Mr. Trump should let the last arms-control treaty between the U.S. and Russia—the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New Start—expire in February.

Washington Post [10/30/2025 8:11 AM, Marc A. Thiessen, 24149K] reports President Donald Trump says he is returning home from Asia with commitments for trillions in new investment in the United States. Let’s hope he is leaving behind his plan to take in hundreds of thousands of Chinese students at U.S. universities. This summer, the Trump administration wisely announced plans to “aggressively revoke” visas of Chinese students in the United States “including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.” But then Trump reversed course, announcing in August that he would increase the number of Chinese students attending American universities to 600,000. This would more than double the approximately 275,000 Chinese students in the United States and allow China to surpass India as the country with largest enrollment in the U.S. That is a terrible idea. The FBI reports that China is engaged in a systematic effort to target U.S. universities, using Chinese students and researchers to conduct espionage and steal “technologies needed to advance China’s national, military, and economic goals.”

Axios [10/30/2025 2:01 PM, Julianna Bragg, 12972K] reports that a group of 15 Democratic representatives alleged Wednesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement discreetly furloughed the majority of its congressional relations team during the shutdown, making it difficult for lawmakers to get answers about agency operations. The big picture: Lawmakers said in a letter sent to ICE director Todd Lyons that with the team’s absence, they have been unable to determine the location and status of detainees, and cannot answer "time-sensitive" questions from constituents about ICE. What they’re saying: "Reporting indicates that detention centers continue to be overcrowded, with increasingly inhumane conditions – yet ICE is ignoring Member requests to visit the facilities to check on the health and safety of detainees," the letter, led by Rep. Julie Johnson (D-Texas), who is also a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said. The lawmakers requested clarification by Oct. 31, specifically asking how many congressional relations staff are still working during the shutdown and who representatives can contact with questions about detainees or ICE’s actions. ICE did not immediately respond to Axios’ request for comment. State of play: Democrats have faced pushback for questioning the Trump administration’s policies amid the immigration crackdown.

Politico [10/30/2025 4:22 PM, Danny Nguyen, 2100K] reports federal immigration enforcement officials sought a wide range of sensitive information about suspected undocumented immigrants from the IRS, including the names of relatives, before narrowing the request amid pushback from agency officials, according to a new court filing. The disclosure late Wednesday offered the most detailed account yet of how Immigration and Customs Enforcement acquired taxpayer data to track down undocumented immigrants as part of a controversial information-sharing agreement between the IRS and ICE. The records were released as part of a lawsuit filed by the Center for Taxpayer Rights and several other organizations against the IRS and Treasury Department seeking to halt the data sharing. They include hundreds of pages of email exchanges and attached documents that illustrate the Trump administration’s struggles to comply with taxpayer privacy laws as ICE looked to the IRS to obtain taxpayer records for undocumented immigrants. During the first weeks of the second Trump administration, ICE launched the effort — called a “lead targeting cell” — to enhance its existing database with last-known addresses on file at the IRS and refine its deportation efforts. But a section in the Internal Revenue Code, known as 6103, heavily limits taxpayer data sharing, except in specific circumstances. The exceptions include when the information is necessary for a non-tax federal criminal investigation or proceeding in which the United States or a federal agency is a party, and the agency has obtained approval from a court or a federal agency head. And the IRS generally bars agencies from accessing individual taxpayer return information Douglas O’Donnell, the IRS’s then-acting commissioner, and other agency officials questioned the legality of ICE’s effort under 6103 during the project’s infancy in late February, following a legal analysis from the IRS’s Office of the Chief Counsel and Treasury’s Office of the General Counsel, the emails show. “Our current understanding,” the analysis reads, “is that ICE’s request does not relate to a criminal investigation, because removal proceedings are generally civil in nature.” “We cannot provide information responsive to the request made,” O’Donnell wrote in an email to another Treasury official. Weeks later, Caleb Vitello, the acting director of ICE, asked the IRS to provide “all possible information” on “700 thousand criminal illegal aliens who have standing deportation orders.” The request included known home addresses, employers’ information, relatives, bank names, IP information, and Social Security or taxpayer identification numbers. ICE spent weeks asking for this data, even as IRS staffers mulled over the legality and practicality of the information exchange, the records show.

Wall Street Journal [10/30/2025 6:39 PM, Richard Rubin, 646K] reports newly disclosed documents show how immigration officials pressed the Internal Revenue Service earlier this year for quick, expansive disclosures of sensitive taxpayer information such as bank names and employers as the government pursued mass deportations—and how the IRS pushed back. The requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement triggered months of angst, executive departures and legal debates inside the IRS. The ICE efforts to obtain taxpayer information were reported earlier this year and spurred objections from taxpayer-privacy advocates and Democrats. The documents filed in federal court this week shed new light on months of back-and-forth talks among government officials. The tax agency moved from flat rejection of February’s broad requests to a much narrower August disclosure. The IRS found more than 47,000 matches of name-and-address information from a list of 1.3 million provided by ICE. Immigration authorities haven’t said whether or how they are using that information, but up-to-date tax records could help them more easily locate people who have stayed in the country despite deportation orders. Federal courts are reviewing the IRS actions to determine whether the agency complied with taxpayer privacy laws and other requirements. Partially redacted documents released in one case in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia show the tension within the government as the Trump administration tried to break down the typical barriers between agencies and legal restrictions on data sharing.

AP [10/30/2025 8:45 PM, Jim Mustian and Jason Dearen, 4829K] reports a “near-total secrecy” surrounding deportation flights and the use of full-body restraints onboard is raising “serious human rights concerns,” a group of 11 Democratic U.S. senators wrote in a letter Thursday to top immigration officials. U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland called upon U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to provide a full accounting of its air operations and to stop using the black and yellow restraints known as the WRAP until the agency explains its policies for the device and resolves other questions about its use on immigration detainees. “I think it’s very problematic,” Van Hollen told The Associated Press. “They want to keep the public in the dark.” The senators’ letter cites an AP investigation this month that revealed several examples of ICE using the device on people — sometimes for hours — on deportation flights dating to 2020. Van Hollen was joined by U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Alex Padilla of California, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, and six others. The WRAP is the subject of several federal lawsuits likening incorrect usage of the device to punishment and even torture. Advocates have expressed concern that ICE is not tracking the WRAP’s use as required by federal law when officers use force, making it difficult to discern exactly how many people are being subjected to the restraints. “When an organization like DHS doesn’t want transparency, it’s because they don’t want people to know what they’re doing,” Van Hollen said, referring to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency. In addition to the letter, U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., told AP in a statement that she is working on a bill to rein in the agency’s use of the WRAP. “ICE’s use of full-body restraints to immobilize detained individuals raises serious concerns about the safety, dignity, and human rights of those under their jurisdiction,” Ramirez said. DHS has not answered detailed questions from the AP about the use of the WRAP and did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin previously said that ICE’s practices “align with those followed by other relevant authorities and is fully in line with established legal standards.” The manufacturer of the WRAP, Safe Restraints Inc., said in a statement to AP that the device “was specifically designed to prevent pain and injury.” “Our priority is preserving life and preventing harm,” the company said. “We strongly oppose any misuse or untrained use of this equipment.”

Daily Wire [10/30/2025 12:00 AM, Jennie Taer, 2494K] reports just a few years after waltzing across the border illegally, Indian national Harjinder Singh allegedly killed three people while making an illegal U-turn on a Florida turnpike as he sat behind the wheel of an 18-wheeler in August. Singh came into the country in 2018 and was handed a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) in Washington in 2023, according to the Department of Transportation. He received his license despite having "failed his written exam 10 times, and he took his behind-the-wheel training course at a private CDL school in Washington," Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier recently revealed as part of his ongoing investigation into California’s issuance of trucking licenses to illegal immigrants. Singh also failed an English language proficiency test in the aftermath of the fatal collision, "providing correct responses to just 2 of 12 verbal questions and only accurately identifying 1 of 4 highway traffic signs," according to the Department of Transportation. The incident brought national attention to a string of crashes involving illegal immigrant drivers, some of whom barely speak English. The Trump administration has pledged to crack down on these drivers, but Americans have been left wondering: how does this keep happening? Trucking industry experts told The Daily Wire that while federal law requires that the road testing needed to obtain a CDL has to be done in English, the regulation is often not enforced. The written portion of the testing is offered in many languages in some states. "There’s no good checks and balances to be perfectly honest with you," Lewie Pugh, Executive Vice President of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, said. "A lot of states allow third party testing to do the CDLs and I would say that’s how most of these people get through," he said. "These people should’ve never gotten a license in the first place," Pugh said. The Trump administration has already taken steps to ensure the pattern of crashes stops.

Breitbart [10/30/2025 12:18 PM, John Binder, 2416K] reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is continuing to arrest illegal aliens convicted of the most heinous crimes, such as child sexual abuse and fentanyl trafficking. "The Democrats’ government shutdown will not stop DHS law enforcement from arresting and removing the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens from American communities," the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement: Just yesterday, ICE arrested pedophiles, abusers, violent assailants and drug traffickers from America’s streets. Nothing will slow us down from making America safe again—not even a government shutdown. [Emphasis added]. Among those illegal aliens arrested are Elroy Smith of Jamaica, who has been convicted of unlawful contact with a minor, including sexual offenses and indecent assault with a person less than 13 years old in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Similarly, ICE agents arrested Joel Ocampo-Martinez of Mexico, who has been convicted of attempted forcible sexual abuse in Vernal, Utah, as well as Luis Mario Martinez-Gonzalez of Mexico, who has been convicted of assault on a public servant in El Paso County, Texas. Osiris Alexander Rodriguez-Guzman of the Dominican Republic was also arrested by ICE agents after having been convicted in Essex Superior Court, Massachusetts, for trafficking 200 grams or more of fentanyl.

Daily Wire [10/30/2025 8:16 AM, Derek Benner, 2494K] reports that the Daily Wire is releasing an important new documentary today. In association with Our Rescue, "Hiding in Plain Sight" takes you inside the shocking world of digital predators who use everyday apps to hunt, groom, and traffic children from their own bedrooms — at a scale law enforcement has never seen before. Few people know that better than Derek Benner, CEO of Our Rescue. Benner helped lead the creation of the DHS Center for Countering Human Trafficking, the nation’s first unified task force dedicated to ending modern slavery. As Benner points out, the crisis is closer than we think. One of the most common questions I get as the CEO of Our Rescue is: "Does child exploitation and sex trafficking really happen here?" I often reply, if you ask any law enforcement officer working sex trafficking and child exploitation cases, they’ll tell you the same thing: "The biggest mistake people make is thinking this crime doesn’t happen at home, in our communities, in the United States. It does. And it’s everywhere." Worldwide, there are nearly 50 million people trapped in modern slavery, according to the International Labor Organization. In 2024, the Global Tips Report showed that the number of children being trafficked had increased 31% in 2022 compared to 2019, with a 38% rise recorded for girls. Before I joined Our Rescue, I spent my career at Homeland Security Investigations — leading complex efforts to combat human trafficking and child exploitation and spearheading the creation of the DHS Center for Countering Human Trafficking, the first unified, inter-agency coordination center dedicated to combating trafficking in all forms.

FOX News [10/30/2025 6:44 PM, Emma Bussey and Brooke Taylor, 40621K] reports U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested two illegal immigrants wanted for murder in Texas and Georgia on the same day, with one allegedly confessing to a killing after his arrest, officials said. In Texas, on Oct. 22, agents took William Machado, a Honduran national, into custody. Machado had been wanted by local law enforcement since 2022 for murder. ICE officials said in a statement that it was during an interview following his capture that Machado confessed to the homicide. In a separate operation in Georgia, ICE agents arrested Salvador Rodriguez-Mendoza, a Mexican national, who is wanted by the Clayton County Sheriff’s Office, also for murder, as well as two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Authorities said Rodriguez-Mendoza has a lengthy criminal record, including multiple arrests on charges of drunk driving, drug possession charges, and driving without a license. ICE confirmed Rodriguez-Mendoza had previously been removed from the U.S. in 2000 and 2018, but illegally re-entered the country for a third time at an unknown date and location. "These two criminal illegal alien MURDERERS will now face justice thanks to the brave men and women of ICE law enforcement," said DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin in a statement to Fox News Digital "Machado and Rodriguez-Mendoza have zero regard for human life, and we have NO PLACE for animals like them in our country," she added. "These are the exact type of heinous criminals ICE is arresting and removing from American communities every single day. 70% of ICE arrests have been charged with or convicted of crimes in the U.S. Thanks to President Trump and [DHS] Secretary [Kristi] Noem’s leadership, these two dangerous criminals are no longer a threat to Americans," McLaughlin added.

Blaze [10/30/2025 7:00 AM, Zach Laidlaw, 1442K] reports a bombshell report came out over the weekend accusing Immigration and Customs Enforcement of surveying millions of Americans’ social media accounts. In what left-wing groups call an "assault on democracy and free speech," this looks to be a major violation of American rights and freedoms. Or .. . maybe their journalistic machine isn’t telling the whole truth. In the report, the Verge alleges that ICE has partnered with an AI-powered social media monitoring group Zignal Labs to survey the social media posts of everyday Americans as part of an online surveillance system. The platform can scan posts in 100 different languages, analyze photos and videos to pinpoint the precise location they were taken, and even review weather data thanks to a new partnership with NOAA. With the power to process up to 8 billion posts per day, the Verge raises serious concerns over Americans’ privacy and free speech, as if the Constitution had suddenly become precious again. And for what? According to Will Owen, the communications director at the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, the goal is to "terrorize immigrant families" and "target activists fighting back against their abuses.” That sounds terrible, if it were true. Unfortunately for Owen, he’s missing some details.

Breitbart [10/30/2025 2:40 PM, Warner Todd Huston, 2416K] reports that the FBI has begun arresting many violent protesters for interfering in federal immigration enforcement operations, including a progressive candidate for Congress in Chicago. The feds have charged Kat Abughazaleh, a 9th Congressional District Democrat candidate for Congress, and five other Chicagoans with conspiracy to impede or injure federal law enforcement officers, according to reports. “No one is above the law and no one has the right to obstruct it," Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a public statement. "Federal agents perform dangerous, essential work every single day to enforce our immigration laws and keep our communities safe. When individuals resort to force or intimidation to interfere with that mission, they attack not only the agents themselves but the rule of law they represent. The Department of Justice will never tolerate such conduct and will continue to hold accountable anyone who seeks to impede lawful federal operations." "The FBI has zero tolerance for forcible criminal conduct against law enforcement officers engaged in their lawful functions," added FBI SAC DePodesta. "Impeding federal officers performing their duties or conspiring to do so are criminal offenses. The people of Chicagoland deserve safe communities and peaceful streets and the FBI and our partners will continue to investigate and hold accountable those who undermine the rule of law through criminal activity."

ABC News [10/30/2025 5:06 AM, Laura Romero and Rebecca Gelpi-Ufret, 30493K] reports last week, Joel Camas, a 16-year-old living in the Bronx, New York, showed up for a routine immigration check-in at a federal building in the city, hoping he would be able to return to class at his high school later that morning. But when Camas appeared at the immigration office accompanied by his lawyers, his attorneys say he was immediately detained and taken into custody, despite telling officials that he has Special Immigrant Juvenile Status -- a federal pathway to legal residency for undocumented minors who have allegedly been abused, neglected, or abandoned. The detention of the 16-year-old, who was granted SIJS status due to the conditions in Ecuador and because his father abandoned him, occurred one month after his mother, who was issued an order of removal in 2024, self-deported to Ecuador, the country they both fled almost three years ago due to gang violence. Camas’ detention has raised alarm among immigration attorneys about the Trump administration’s rollback of protections for SIJS recipients and their risk for deportation to their home countries. Similarly, Carlos Guerra Leon, an 18-year-old from Spring Valley, New York, was stopped and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in August while on his way to work. According to Guerra Leon’s attorney, Sarah Decker, he was detained without a warrant by officers and told he had a final order of removal, despite having SIJS status and being granted deferred action through 2026. In a statement to ABC News, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said that Guerra Leon chose to remain in the U.S. despite a removal order "in violation of the [country’s] immigration laws."

Yahoo! News [10/30/2025 10:38 PM, Mike Bedigan, 49624K] reports a former employee of one of Donald Trump’s golf clubs was forced to walk back across the U.S.-Mexico border after being put on the wrong plane and mistakenly deported by ICE. Alejandro Juarez, 39, pleaded with officials, and told them he had not been given the opportunity to contest his deportation in front of an immigration judge – a legal entitlement for such detainees – as he was forced back to his home country earlier this month. Juarez, a father of two, had been in the U.S. since the early 2000s and worked as a server and food runner for more than a decade at the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester, New York, according to New York Times. He was reportedly fired from the job during Trump’s first presidency, along with other undocumented immigrants employed at the president’s various clubs. Juarez was arrested on September 15, after showing up to a check-in appointment at the ICE offices in Manhattan, despite having attended multiple similar appointments previously. It comes as the Trump administration continues to become embroiled in sprawling legal battles in federal courtrooms across the country, with immigrants and their advocates alleging they were illegally removed by authorities tasked with rapidly removing millions of people from the U.S. Instead of being allowed an immigration hearing following his arrest, Juarez was held for four days before being taken by bus to Newark Liberty International Airport, where he was put on a plane with other ICE detainees. Documents obtained by The NYT show that Juarez was meant to be flown to a detention center in Arizona, but instead was sent to Texas, near to the border. Once there he and his fellow detainees were handed bags of their belongings and told to walk back into Mexico. Alejandro Juarez, 39, was not given the opportunity to contest his deportation in front of an immigration judge – a legal entitlement for such detainees (AFP/Getty). Accounts of similar mishaps or unintentional deportations have occurred on multiple occasions, including the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported to his home country of El Salvador in March – sparking a fierce and ongoing legal battle with the Trump administration. After the "illegal" decision was reversed by judges, Garcia was returned to the U.S., only to be accused of human trafficking by the administration. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Kilmar Abrego Garcia was also mistakenly deported to his home country of El Salvador in March – sparking a fierce and ongoing legal battle with the Trump administration. In the case of Juarez, the DHS appeared to acknowledge its mistake. Department spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told The NYT that ICE had recently contacted Juarez’s lawyer and that arrangements for his return to the U.S. were being made. Juarez will be kept in ICE detention until the case is resolved, she said.

Reported similarly:
Yahoo! News [10/30/2025 9:07 PM, Staff, 49624K]

FOX News [10/30/2025 9:08 PM, Bonny Chu, 40621K] reports federal authorities said Thursday at least 46 undocumented workers were arrested during a sweeping Department of Homeland Security (DHS) operation at a freight warehouse in Avenel, New Jersey, Wednesday. Law enforcement personnel carried out the inspection at a federally authorized container freight station as part of an ongoing campaign to ensure compliance with immigration regulations. At the warehouse, agents discovered 46 undocumented laborers, roughly 22% of the onsite workforce, officials said. All 46 suspected illegal aliens were escorted into federal custody, where they now await immigration proceedings, according to the DHS. Surveillance footage captured the tense moments as federal officers escorted groups of workers into what appeared to be numerous waiting vans while the warehouse was surrounded by a heavy law enforcement presence during the operation. The agency said the inspection was part of ongoing efforts to "safeguard the integrity of the supply chain and verify that warehouse operators are adhering to all applicable security requirements.” "DHS is committed to maintaining the highest levels of security and accountability within bonded facilities to protect both U.S. commerce and the public," a DHS spokesperson said. Officials did not name the company operating the warehouse or indicate whether the employer could face penalties. The raid comes nearly two months after federal agents executed a similar operation at a Hyundai-LG battery factory in Georgia, where 475 individuals, primarily South Korean nationals, were detained on suspicion of being in the country illegally, signaling what appears to be a nationwide push on workplace immigration enforcement. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

FOX News [10/30/2025 1:37 PM, Greg Norman, 40621K] reports that a suspect facing a DUI manslaughter charge in connection with the tragic death of a 16-year-old in Mobile, Alabama, is in the United States illegally, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). ICE announced that an immigration detainer has been placed on Franklin Oriel Fajardo-Arana. The agency described him as "an illegal alien from Honduras" following his arrest by the Mobile Police Department on Monday. "ICE remains committed to prioritizing the arrest and removal of criminal illegal aliens who pose threats to public safety," acting ICE New Orleans Field Officer Director Scott Ladwig said in a statement. "This case underscores the critical importance of ICE’s partnerships with local law enforcement agencies to identify and remove individuals who have violated our nation’s immigration laws and endangered our communities." ICE said police in Mobile responded to a traffic accident Sunday involving a Toyota Corolla and a Toyota 4Runner. "The 4Runner had flipped on its side, and the teen boy — a passenger — was pronounced deceased at the scene. On the same day, ERO New Orleans issued an immigration detainer to the Mobile County Metro Jail, ensuring that Fajardo-Arana will be transferred to ICE custody upon his release," ICE said. "An investigation revealed that the Fairfield Police Department in Kentucky has an active in-state warrant for Fajardo-Arana for a separate DUI offense," the agency added.

Breitbart [10/30/2025 5:36 PM, John Binder, 2416K] reports Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in coordination with the Indiana State Police, arrested more than 145 illegal aliens driving semi-trucks — over 40 of which had been issued Commercial Driver’s Licenses. On Thursday, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem announced that, thanks to ICE’s 287(g) agreement with the Indiana State Police, more than 220 illegal aliens were arrested on the Hoosier State’s highways in recent weeks. Of those arrests, 146 illegal aliens were driving semi-trucks and more than 40 had been issued Commercial Driver’s Licenses. The states that issued the most Commercial Driver’s Licenses were Illinois, California, and New York — all sanctuary states. ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons said Operation Midway Blitz is specifically geared at targeting illegal aliens with heinous criminal backgrounds in the sanctuary state of Illinois.

ABC News [10/30/2025 4:17 PM, Armando Garcia, Briana Stewart, Lauren Lantry, and Stephanie Ramos, 30493K] reports Chicago immigration judge Eva Saltzman on Thursday set a $2,000 bond for Ruben Torres-Maldonado, whose 16-year-old daughter Ofelia Torres is battling stage 4 cancer. Torres-Maldonado will be released from immigration detention as early as Thursday. During the hearing, the judge not only ruled for him to be released, but also said he is now eligible to apply for a cancellation of removal based on the hardship his family would endure if he’s forced to leave the country. If his application is denied, he could still face deportation. Despite the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) earlier claiming Torres-Maldonado was a "criminal illegal alien" who has a history of driving offenses, Saltzman said she had no reason to believe that he posed a risk to the public. Torres-Maldonado also noted during the hearing that he has a valid license and insurance. In a statement sent to ABC News before the hearing, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin alleged that Torres-Maldonado backed into a government vehicle while attempting to flee.

Reported similarly:
AP [10/30/2025 5:17 PM, Christine Fernando]

The Hill [10/30/2025 6:29 PM, Ella Lee, 12595K] reports more than 100 Illinois officials on Thursday condemned the federal indictment of a progressive congressional candidate in the state and five others tied to protests outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in a suburb near Chicago. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D), Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) and six U.S. representatives for the state were among those who signed on to the open letter that said the charges against several political candidates and officials were meant to "scare all of us into staying quiet.” "The politicization of our justice system crosses a fundamental line that should alarm anyone who cares about democracy and the rule of law," the letter reads. "This is not what democracy looks like, and we cannot accept it as normal.” The indictment, unsealed Wednesday, charged 26-year-old Kat Abughazaleh, a social media influencer and congressional candidate in Illinois’s 9th District, with conspiring to impede or injure an ICE officer and an assault count. She’s charged alongside Michael Rabbitt, a Democratic committeeperson in Chicago’s 45th Ward; Catherine Sharp, who is running to sit on the Cook County Board of Commissioners; Brian Straw, a member of the village board in suburban Oak Park; Andre Martin, Abughazaleh ‘s campaign field director; and Joselyn Walsh. The defendants — dubbed in the letter as the "Broadview 6," after the suburb where the ICE facility is located — are accused of having "surrounded" an ICE officer’s vehicle on Sept. 26 as he attempted to reach the facility. The facility has become the focus of protests in the area. The group allegedly "banged aggressively" on the government vehicle and pushed against it to impede its movement. They etched the message "PIG" into the body of the car and broke both a mirror and a windshield wiper, the indictment says.

Univision [10/30/2025 4:07 PM, Staff, 5004K] reports Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested Marlon Odir Gomez Hernandez on October 27. He is a 29-year-old Salvadoran citizen and alleged member of the MS-13 gang who got trapped in a business sign while trying to escape from federal agents. According to authorities, Gomez Hernandez was detected during an operation led by ICE’s Enforcement and Removal office in Houston. Upon noticing the agents’ presence, the suspect entered a laundromat in the area, climbed up the ceiling panels and tried to escape across the roof. His escape attempt ended when he became immobilized on the business’s illuminated sign, where he was eventually captured without incident. The director of the local ICE office, Bret Bradford, emphasized that situations like this have become frequent in the city. According to records reviewed by Univision 45, Gomez Hernandez allegedly entered the United States illegally after being arrested in El Salvador along with six other suspected members of MS-13, accused of aggravated extortion in January 2022. After his capture in Texas, he was transferred to the Montgomery Processing Center in Conroe, where he remains in custody awaiting a resolution in his immigration case.

Univision [10/31/2025 2:52 AM, Fernando Rentería Pérez, 5004K] reports State Representative Jolanda Jones harshly criticized the actions of ICE agents who arrived at a construction site in Acres Home, north of Houston. The congresswoman pointed out that the workers at the site "are honest and are there for their families," and called on federal officials to "go after real criminals." [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Daily Wire [10/30/2025 8:04 AM, Jennie Taer, 2494K] reports that an elementary school in the sanctuary state of Colorado employed an illegal immigrant to teach fifth grade before she was ultimately arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Marina Ortiz-Abollaneda left Peru and crossed the border illegally in 2022. She was ultimately released into the country as the Biden administration waved in thousands of migrants each month, the Department of Homeland Security told The Daily Wire. She began teaching at the Global Village Academy in the Denver suburb of Parker, Colorado, after she received a work permit, according to a letter Principal Stacy Bush recently sent to parents. ICE nabbed Ortiz-Abollaneda alongside her family members on Friday while she was reporting for a routine check-in with ICE as part of her ongoing immigration case. "The previous administration’s open border policies allowed Ortiz-Abollaneda and millions of other illegal aliens — including violent criminals — to be released into this country," Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told The Daily Wire. "We encourage all illegal aliens to take control of their departure with the CBP Home App. The United States is offering illegal aliens $1,000 and a free flight to self-deport now. We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right legal way to live the American dream. If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return," said McLaughlin.

FOX News [10/30/2025 12:38 PM, Stephen Sorace, 40621K] reports that a Portland police commander testified Wednesday that federal forces deployed by President Donald Trump escalated tensions during protests outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building, intensifying violence rather than curbing it. Portland Police Bureau Cmdr. Franz Schoening delivered the testimony during a federal bench trial examining whether Trump had legal grounds to deploy the National Guard to Portland — an action city officials argue was unnecessary and inflammatory. Schoening described instances in which federal agents fired tear gas at who he called nonviolent demonstrators, saying the actions were "startling." The ICE facility had been a focal point of protests since June. He said that state and federal law prohibit police agencies from using the tactics that federal officers have taken, including the deployment of tear gas and other munitions. Portland police officers, he added, were themselves hit by tear gas and forced to retreat. Schoening recounted a larger Oct. 18 protest where a federal agent allegedly launched a munition — either smoke or tear gas — that bounced off the facility’s driveway and landed on the roof, where other agents were stationed. Those agents responded by firing additional rounds into the crowd. Portland attorney Caroline Turco said the evidence would show that the protests were largely peaceful and did not justify National Guard intervention.

Blaze [10/30/2025 5:30 PM, Carlos Garcia, 1442K] reports a driver tried to run over an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who was involved in a vehicle stop in California, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The Ontario Police Department said it provided aid to the agents after receiving a call Thursday morning about a shooting. One of the officers fired ‘defensive shots’ at the vehicle out of fear for his life. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said the agents performed the traffic stop at about 6:30 a.m. on Vineyard Avenue when another car pulled up in front of them, according to the Los Angeles Times. The officers ordered the other driver to leave, McLaughlin said, and he seemed about to comply when "the car stopped and attempted to run officers over by reversing directly at them without stopping." The FBI is also investigating the incident, according to Ontario police. Telemundo [10/30/2025 6:29 PM, Staff, 2218K] reports Tricia McLaughlin, Under Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, explained in a statement that the incident occurred around 6 a.m. local time during a traffic stop in Ontario when another vehicle, "not the intended target," pulled up in front of the officers. The officers ordered the vehicle to move, and "as the driver began to back away, the car stopped and attempted to run over the officers by reversing directly toward them without stopping." "An ICE agent, fearing for his life, fired at the vehicle in self-defense. The suspect fled the scene and abandoned his vehicle," the statement added. Federal authorities reported that they are already investigating the incident.

Los Angeles Times [10/30/2025 6:02 PM, Rachel Uranga and Brittny Mejia, 14862K] reports that federal authorities are investigating an ICE shooting in Ontario, the second in a week following a similar incident in South Los Angeles. An officer fired defensive shots as a driver reversed his vehicle directly at ICE agents, though the driver was not the arrest target. The incidents reflect an escalating pattern of aggressive confrontations between federal immigration officers and suspects across California and other states in recent weeks. Federal authorities are investigating a shooting involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Ontario, the second one in a little more than a week as enforcement operations unfold across the state. ICE officers were conducting a vehicle stop around 6:30 a.m. at the 2800 block of Vineyard Ave in Ontario, according to Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security. During the stop, an unknown person who was not the target pulled a vehicle in front of the officers, she said. Officers ordered the driver to leave, McLaughlin said, but as the driver began to pull away "the car stopped and attempted to run officers over by reversing directly at them without stopping." "An ICE officer, fearing for his life, fired defensive shots at the vehicle," McLaughlin said. "The subject fled the scene and abandoned his vehicle." McLaughlin called it "another example of the threats our ICE officers are facing day-in and day-out as they risk their lives to enforce the law and arrest criminals." DHS and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are investigating the incident, police said.

CBS News [10/30/2025 8:39 PM, Julie Sharp, 45245K] reports Ontario Police Department officers were called to assist Department of Homeland Security officers early Thursday morning regarding a shooting. According to Ontario police, the department was called at 6:33 a.m. to the 2800 block of South Vineyard Avenue. "Ontario Police officers were not involved in the initial incident," the department wrote in a press release. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a written statement that as ICE officers conducted a vehicle stop on Vineyard Avenue, "an unknown individual, not the target, in a vehicle pulled in front of the officers." As officers ordered the driver to leave the scene, the car stopped and "attempted to run officers over by reversing directly at them without stopping." "An ICE officer, fearing for his life, fired defensive shots at the vehicle. The subject fled the scene and abandoned his vehicle," McLaughlin said in a statement. Ontario police officers provided traffic control and security while DHS and the FBI conducted investigations, according to the Ontario Police Department. McLaughlin noted that anyone who assaults, impedes, or threatens the lives of federal officers will be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Bloomberg [10/30/2025 1:51 PM, Michael Smith, Alicia A. Caldwell and Myles Miller, 1538K] reports that the federal government is supercharging its use of local cops to hunt down immigrants suspected of being in the U.S. illegally as part of an unprecedented effort to fulfill President Donald Trump’s campaign pledge to deport millions of people. Some 10,500 local police, county sheriffs, state troopers, university law enforcement and even lottery investigators have been signed up to stop, arrest and detain undocumented immigrants. Nationwide data reviewed by Bloomberg show these officers, across 40 states, nabbed almost 3,000 people since Trump took office through the end of July. Florida keeps its own tally under the same program, and its deputized cops have arrested another 2,500 people since then. Combined, that’s a small fraction of the total number of immigration arrests this year, but almost double the amount that deputized cops made in 2024 under President Joe Biden’s watch. Local law enforcement usually doesn’t have the authority to enforce immigration rules, but a nearly 30-year-old program called 287(g) allows the federal government to grant immigration arrest power to agencies that sign on. Trump has overseen a dramatic expansion at the start of his second term, with the number of accords surging seven-fold to almost 1,100 by September. It’s "a force multiplier," Immigration and Customs Enforcement Deputy Director Madison Sheahan said in an interview.

San Diego Union Tribune [10/30/2025 5:00 PM, Kate Morrissey, 1538K] reports after Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested a woman from Venezuela following her immigration court hearing, her friends visited her at Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego to help lift her spirits. The woman, who is in her early 20s, didn’t know that she would have to strip completely naked in front of a facility guard afterward before returning to her housing unit. It brought back bad memories. She fled Venezuela after police there persecuted her, including by gang raping her repeatedly, she said. She asked her friends not to come back. Generally, ICE detention standards require facility officials to have a "reasonable suspicion" of contraband before performing a strip search. The section about visitation allows a facility to conduct strip searches after contact visits without reasonable suspicion only if the facility offers a noncontact option for visits and informs detainees about the policy in a language they understand. But according to people held at Otay Mesa, and volunteers who visit detainees there regularly, most don’t find out about the searches until after their first visit, when they’re told to strip, squat and cough.

Daily Wire [10/30/2025 4:06 AM, Jennie Taer, 2494K] reports federal authorities have arrested 10 anti-ICE rioters accused of committing a violent attack on officers raiding a California marijuana farm over the summer. ICE descended upon Glass House Farms and other pot grows in Camarillo, California, in July when they were met by a group of rioters, some of whom are tied to "VC Defensa," a radical group that works to impede federal immigration authorities, the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Central District of California said Wednesday. The group allegedly constructed a roadblock out of farm equipment that obstructed both the exit and entrance of Glass House Farms, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. As a result of the blockade, officers were forced to leave on a dirt road that led them to a violent ambush, where a group of agitators began hurling large rocks in their direction. The situation grew even more tense when demonstrators as demonstrators ambushed the exiting officers by boxing in the government vehicles. At least one federal contract employee was injured and at least four of the vehicles were damaged as a result of the attack. "There is zero tolerance for violence against law enforcement officers," Acting United States Attorney Bill Essayli said in a statement Wednesday of the arrests. "During the summer we warned the public that anyone who engages in any violence will eventually be brought to justice. Today we are delivering on that promise and will continue to hold those who violated the law accountable.” ICE arrested 361 illegal immigrants, some of whom had convictions for rape, serial burglary, hit-and-runs, and DUIs, as it swept the cannabis grows in the area, the Department of Homeland Security said at the time. The feds also rescued 14 migrant children who were working in the fields, according to DHS. Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the conditions on the farms appeared "like exploitation, forced child labor, and potentially human trafficking or smuggling."

New York Times [10/30/2025 12:36 PM, Orlando Mayorquín, 135475K] reports one mother worried about being forced to return to Mexico, and urgently sought dual citizenship for her American children. A man wondered if he could self-deport with his family but bring his work tools, too. A woman fought back tears as she pulled up the leg of her jeans to reveal the device strapped to her ankle — evidence of her recent ICE detention. They each wound up at a little-known meeting in a drab building near downtown Los Angeles. It was a small forum for big problems, where a trickle of people appear before a man whose job it is to listen and, when he can, help. Every Monday morning, Mexico’s top diplomat in Los Angeles, Carlos González Gutiérrez, holds public forums that have become a kind of help desk for Mexican nationals whose lives have been upended by the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. The meetings, known as “audencias publicas,” or public hearings in Spanish, have drawn dozens of people to the Mexican consulate since the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids began in the Los Angeles region in June. In this tech-savvy age, when many get their questions answered online by swiping a phone or clicking a mouse, the consulate sessions are a throwback to another era, when problems were addressed face to face. “I have had very angry people yelling at me in those public hearings,” said Mr. González Gutiérrez, who has served as the head of the consulate since last year. “I have had very concerned, anxious people crying as a way of catharsis in front of me.” People grumble about difficulties nabbing an appointment for a Mexican passport or dual citizenship, or complain about the security guards who screen visitors at the consulate entrance. There are desperate pleas from people facing removal from the country, and there are other, odder inquiries. A man at one meeting claimed he could prove that the homeland of the Aztecs was in the United States and that he just needed the consulate’s help getting his research in front of President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico. The meetings unfold in what feels like a colorful D.M.V. lobby. Mr. González Gutiérrez and his deputy, Gustavo Martínez Cianca, sit at a table draped in green cloth in the consulate’s lobby, with a Mexican flag and the seal of Mexico behind them. The attendees fill a few rows of metal chairs in front of the table, as Mexican historical figures look on from a mural on a wall. The chatter from people waiting in line at the surrounding service windows makes it hard to hear those speaking. The meetings began in the spring to fulfill a mandate from President Sheinbaum requiring the country’s consulates in the United States to do more to engage with constituents. The focus of the sessions shifted after the federal raids started on June 6. Yet Mr. González Gutiérrez said that as foreign guests of the American government, there is a limit to how much he and his office can do for the Angelenos who show up on Monday mornings. The consulate often helps people get legal advice or provides financial assistance. A network of immigration lawyers that works with the consulate offers free consultations, and in some cases, the office helps pay for legal fees. But Mr. González Gutiérrez stops short of speaking out against the Trump administration’s hard line on immigration at the meetings, even though Mexican nationals living in Los Angeles said they wished he would. “We are not activists,” Mr. González Gutiérrez said. “We don’t go to demonstrations. I don’t opine about the president of this country or the politics of this country.”

Bloomberg [10/30/2025 12:28 PM, Andrew Kreighbaum, 91K] reports that a federal judge in Baltimore blocked the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security from retroactively imposing asylum fees that have put some immigrants at risk of losing deportation protections. Temporarily staying policies at US Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Executive Office for Immigration Review will prevent irreparable harm to immigrant applicants while allowing the agencies to resolve policy inconsistencies, Judge Stephanie Gallagher of the US District Court for the District of Maryland found in an order Thursday. Gallagher said she’ll consider a motion to lift her stay on the fees once USCIS and EOIR have enacted uniform policies giving asylum applicants fair notice of fee deadlines, instructions for payment, and explanations of consequences for nonpayment. Immigrant advocates had asked Gallagher to enter a temporary restraining order blocking collection of fees for some immigrants. First-time applicants are required to pay $100 to submit a claim and $100 for every year an application is pending thereafter. DHS and DOJ didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Plaintiffs are represented by the ASAP and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP. USCIS and EOIR are represented by the DOJ. The case is Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project v. USCIS, D. Md., No. 1:25-cv-03299, order issued 10/30/25.

ABC News [10/30/2025 5:19 PM, Mariam Khan, 30493K] reports the Trump administration is slashing refugee admissions down to 7,500 -- a record low level -- in the upcoming year, reserving the bulk of the slots for white Afrikaners from South Africa and other victims of what it says is "illegal or unjust discrimination.” The new ceiling of 7,500 refugees is a drastic decrease from the cap of 125,000 set by the Biden administration last year. The new limit halts thousands of people from around the world from entering the U.S. as a means to escape war, famine, poverty, and violence, and refocuses the refugee program to support mostly white South Africans. The Trump administration published its presidential memo in the Federal Register on Thursday and said the move to slash refugee admittance for fiscal year 2026 is "justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in National Interest.” "The admissions numbers shall primarily be allocated among Afrikaners from South Africa pursuant to Executive Order 14204, and other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands," the memo states. On his first day in office this year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order effectively killing the refugee resettlement program, leaving thousands of refugees who had already undergone rigorous security vetting by the U.S. government stranded abroad. Many had sold their belongings, vacated housing, and quit jobs in anticipation of travel just days or weeks away that was abruptly halted. Elon Musk, a South African native, had been vocal about the plight of South African landowners when serving as a top adviser to the president earlier this year, amplifying claims of "white genocide." The South African government, including President Cyril Ramaphosa, vehemently denied any persecution, including at a contentious Oval Office meeting with Trump in May. A flight carrying 59 refugees from South Africa landed in the U.S. in May, with the Republican administration acknowledging that the expedited process for white South Africans to seek refuge in the United States had to do with "racial persecution.” Global Refuge, one of the nation’s largest refugee resettlement organizations, expressed grave concern over the new limit, and said the cuts are a "profound break from decades of bipartisan policy guided by humanitarian need, not ideology or identity.”

Reported similarly:
New York Times [10/30/2025 5:03 PM, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Hamed Aleaziz, 135475K]
NPR [10/30/2025 2:49 PM, Ximena Bustillo, 28013K]
USA Today [10/30/2025 4:01 PM, Chris Kenning, 67103K]
Daily Caller [10/30/2025 3:24 PM, Melissa O’Rourke, 835K]

New York Post [10/30/2025 3:34 PM, Josh Christenson, 42219K] reports the Trump administration is reversing a Biden-era policy that automatically extended work permits for migrants by roughly a year and a half, citing national security concerns. Department of Homeland Security officials announced Wednesday an interim final rule that will eliminate the 540-day grace period for immigrants renewing the employment authorization documents (EADs). The millions of migrants who entered the US under former President Biden had caused massive backlogs in the process, making it difficult to complete the renewals in the six-month timeframe previously in place. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in the interim final rule argued that "robust vetting" had been hampered as a result. The Trump Cabinet official wrote that in part the "need to conduct complete and thorough vetting of applicants for renewal EADs to mitigate potential risks to public safety and national security became abundantly clear on June 1, 2025, when an alien firebombed and assaulted demonstrators at a peaceful Jewish event to support hostages in Gaza.” "The alien threw Molotov cocktails that burned multiple victims, and his attack injured 15 people. The alien had entered the United States in August 2022 and remained in the United States beyond the expiration of his nonimmigrant status," she explained. "He applied for asylum in September 2022, and that application was still pending at the time of the attack. He also obtained an EAD based on a pending asylum application which was then automatically extended for a period of up to 540 days," she added. "This attack by an alien against peaceful demonstrators highlights the critical need and urgency to ensure that aliens are not provided immigration benefits in the United States without thorough vetting and more frequent determinations of continued eligibility and, when applicable, determinations that the alien continues to merit a favorable exercise of discretion.” Mohamed Sabry Soliman, the Egyptian national whom Noem referenced, was later charged with 118 criminal counts by state prosecutors for hurling Molotov cocktails at peaceful marchers during an event to honor Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colo. Other cases of migrants present in the US on work permits committing crimes were also cited in the interim rule. At least 1.3 million non-citizens had work permits renewed in fiscal year 2024, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services. The rule will start on Oct. 30 with exceptions, including some foreigners using work permits under Temporary Protected Status (TPS). "USCIS is placing a renewed emphasis on robust alien screening and vetting, eliminating policies the former administration implemented that prioritized aliens’ convenience ahead of Americans’ safety and security," said its director Joseph Edlow in a statement. "It’s a commonsense measure to ensure appropriate vetting and screening has been completed before an alien’s employment authorization or documentation is extended. All aliens must remember that working in the United States is a privilege, not a right.” The Biden administration extended the grace period from 180 days to 540 days in December 2024, while at the same time opening up employment authorization to a wider swathe of immigrants such as asylum seekers, refugees, green card holders and alien spouses of H-1B visa holders, among others. Both those grace periods have now been scrapped with the rule taking effect and employers will have to begin firings of some foreign workers no longer shielded by the policy.

ABC News [10/30/2025 6:04 AM, Renuka Rayasam, 30493K] Video: HERE reports after fleeing the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo, Antoinette landed in the Atlanta area last November and began to find her footing with federal help. Separated from her adult children and grieving her husband’s death in the war, she started a job packing boxes in a warehouse, making just enough to cover rent for her own apartment and bills. Antoinette has been relying on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, for her weekly grocery trips. But now, just as life is starting to stabilize, she will have to deal with a new setback. President Donald Trump’s massive budget law, which Republicans call the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, slashes $187 billion -- or nearly 20% -- from the federal budget for SNAP through 2034. And separate from any temporary SNAP stoppages due to the federal shutdown, the law cuts off access completely for refugees and other immigrant groups in the country lawfully. The change was slated to take effect immediately when the law was signed in July, but states are still awaiting federal guidance on when to stop or phase it out. For Antoinette, 51, who did not want her last name used for fear of deportation and likely persecution in her native country, the loss of food aid is dire. Throughout its history, the U.S. has admitted into the country refugees like Antoinette, people who have been persecuted, or fear persecution, in their homelands due to race, religion, nationality, political opinions or membership in a particular social group. These legal immigrants typically face an in-depth vetting process that can start years before they set foot on U.S. soil. Once they arrive -- often with little or no means -- the federal government provides resources such as financial assistance, Medicaid and SNAP, outreach that has typically garnered bipartisan support. Now the Trump administration has pulled back the country’s decades-long support for refugee communities. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Federalist [10/30/2025 3:37 PM, M.D. Kittle, 785K] reports the day before the start of the latest shutdown drama, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries declared that Republicans were "lying" about the Democrats’ hostage demands to turn the lights back on. No, the left’s spending plan would not pay for health care for illegal immigrants, the New York Democrat said. Doing so would require a change in federal law that bars such a thing, echoed Jeffries’ pals in corporate media. "Nowhere have Democrats suggested that we’re interested in changing federal law," he told NBC News for a story under the misleading headline, "GOP misleads with claim that Democrats shut down to give health care to ‘illegal immigrants.’" The story, like a lot of reporting from the corporate media, hasn’t aged well. Hakeem and his team are lying to the American people. The truth is, hundreds of millions of dollars in direct and indirect spending is going to pick up the tab for the explosion of illegal aliens in this country. An investigation by the nonprofit government watchdog Open The Books finds illegal immigrants have benefited from nearly $200 million in direct federal health care-related grants since fiscal year 2021. That total doesn’t include indirect taxpayer funding for illegal aliens via Medicaid, estimated by the Congressional Budget Office to be around $27 billion from FY 2017-2023, according to a new Open The Books report exclusively provided to The Federalist. And then there’s the "estimated $70 billion annually in education spending for "undocumented migrants" and their children. "When elected officials argue that taxpayer dollars aren’t going to illegal immigrants that just isn’t true," Open The Books CEO John Hart told The Federalist in an email. "Taxpayers have a right to know that billions of their dollars are flowing to illegal immigrants in direct and indirect benefits for health care, education and more, sometimes in the form of gratuitous earmarks.”

FOX News [10/30/2025 7:35 PM, Alec Schemmel, 40621K] reports the Trump administration is planning to claw back over $1 billion in federal Medicaid dollars it says are being spent by blue states on healthcare for illegal immigrants, including some with violent criminal records for murder and rape. A preliminary audit by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services found that, over the last few years, mostly during 2024 and 2025, California; Washington, D.C.; Illinois; Washington; Colorado; and Oregon improperly spent a combined $1,351,204,127 in federal Medicaid funds to help pay for healthcare for illegal immigrants. While federal Medicaid dollars are supposed to be prohibited broadly from being used to cover healthcare for illegal immigrants, they can be used by states for emergency treatment regardless of a patient’s citizenship or immigration status. States can also legally cover health insurance for illegal immigrants as long as it is only done with state tax dollars. But, according to some experts, Democrats are utilizing loopholes in the federal laws that allow them to provide comprehensive health benefits to illegal immigrants. "Protecting Medicaid from waste, fraud and abuse isn’t optional. It’s the law. Every dollar misspent on illegal healthcare spending is a dollar taken from vulnerable Americans," CMS spokesperson Emily Hilliard told Fox News Digital. "Federal law forbids using Medicaid funds for illegal immigrants, yet several Democrat-led states did it anyway. The Trump administration won’t tolerate it. CMS is auditing aggressively, recovering every dollar and holding states accountable.” California was far and away the biggest culprit, spending over $1 billion in federal Medicaid dollars on healthcare for illegal immigrants, according to CMS. The next largest violator was Illinois, which CMS said has improperly spent nearly $30 million, followed by Oregon, which the audit found improperly spent approximately $5.5 million. California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office has denied claims his state is improperly using federal funds to pay for illegal immigrant healthcare, telling the Los Angeles Times claims from Republicans are "false.” But Steve Hilton, a former Fox News anchor and current Republican candidate running to be the next governor of California with Newsom term limited, has argued that California has been using a complex Medicaid provision known as a "provider tax" to obtain matching federal dollars, which then gets pooled into the money used by the state to pay for its healthcare offered to undocumented immigrants. Chris Pope, a public health policy expert at the Manhattan Institute, has argued California is abusing federal provisions that allow states to use federal Medicaid dollars for emergency care for undocumented aliens.

FOX News [10/31/2025 3:51 AM, Landon Mion, 40621K] reports the Department of Homeland Security has issued new guidance requiring foreign nationals – including green card holders and other non-U.S. citizens living legally in the country, to be photographed when they enter or leave the United States. CBP currently employs facial recognition at airport checkpoints, but the updated rule will broaden its use to cover every U.S. entry and exit point — by air, land, and sea. The change will broaden CBP’s biometric screening program to include more comprehensive image and data collection aimed at tightening verification procedures and preventing document fraud. "This final rule amends Department of Homeland Security (DHS) regulations to provide that DHS may require all aliens to be photographed when entering or exiting the United States, and may require non-exempt aliens to provide other biometrics," a summary of the new policy in the Federal Register reads. "The final rule also amends the regulations to remove the references to pilot programs and the port limitation to permit collection of biometrics from aliens departing from airports, land ports, seaports, or any other authorized point of departure. In addition, DHS is requesting comments on the specific collection process as well as costs and benefits for new transportation modalities," it continued. The rule also lifts previous age exemptions, authorizing facial recognition scans for travelers younger than 14 and older than 79. "The exemptions in the current regulations for biometric collection based on the age of the individual (i.e., under 14 and over 79) were based on technological limitations on collecting fingerprints from children and elderly persons, as well as traditional law enforcement policies and other policies, such as not running criminal history background checks on children," the policy stated. "These exemptions are not applicable to CBP’s facial comparison-based biometric entry-exit program, as the use of biometrics has expanded beyond criminal history background checks and now plays a vital role in identity verification and management, and combatting the trafficking of children," it added. "Furthermore, internal CBP studies of biometric facial match accuracy, historical matching data, examination of biometric matching of ages under 14 and over 79, and CBP standard operating procedures associated with these ages no longer support exempting facial biometric collection from these populations. Exemptions based on age will continue to apply to biometrics other than facial images."

Chicago Tribune [10/30/2025 3:42 PM, Steve Sadin, 4829K] reports U.S. Border Patrol agents went onto the O’Plaine campus of Warren Township High School and into the Gurnee school Thursday morning following two men after a high-speed chase through Waukegan and Gurnee. The agents were chasing the suspects in a vehicle when it stopped near the school, according to a news release from the Gurnee Police Department. One of the men entered the building and was arrested by the agents. The other man was arrested outside on the campus. Daniel Woestman, the superintendent of Warren Township High School District 121, said in an email to the community that the agents and the unknown individual entered the school through a door normally open at that time. Woestman said the altercation between the agents and the men occurred in front of students and staff. Support is available for students who "may need assistance processing the incident," he said. Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Border Patrol, said in an email that the two men arrested were Josafat Garcia-Roa and Samuel Suarez-Cuevas. McLaughlin said Garcia-Roa and Suarez-Cuevas were previously deported from the United States for a variety of offenses, including drug charges. This was a targeted operation to find them, she said. The chase started on Dugdale Road in Waukegan. McLaughlin speculated the suspects went to the school to avoid arrest because it is an area considered off-limits in Illinois. They do not normally go to schools for operations, but this was an exception, she said.

Breitbart [10/30/2025 9:47 AM, Bob Price, 2416K] reports a federal multi-agency task force raided a Home Depot parking lot in Southeast Houston, where they discovered an armed Salvadoran illegal alien. Breitbart Texas has observed the unvetted illegal aliens who frequent Home Depot parking lots for more than a decade as they look for people to take them to their homes for day labor work. Breitbart Texas rode with ICE agents and CBP officers over the weekend as they worked the same area where this takedown occurred on Wednesday. Real American Voice’s Ben Bergquam rode with the task force for this operation, where approximately 120 illegal aliens were taken into custody. At the 2:15 mark in Bergquam’s video, he walks up on an arrest where agents and officers discover a small pistol in the pocket of a Salvadoran illegal alien. The weapon was easily concealable. It is a violation of federal law for an illegal alien to be in possession of a firearm or ammunition. Bergquam noted that they observed a U.S. citizen in the parking lot looking for work. "Now he doesn’t have to compete against illegals," he explained. "The reality is illegal aliens compete for just about every job in our country, but they disproportionately affect the low-income communities. If you actually care about low-income Americans, then you will support the deportation of illegals.” The presence of U.S. State Department Diplomatic Security Service special agents is illustrative of the whole-of-government approach being utilized by the Trump administration in carrying out its mass deportation operations. The agents are seen chasing down and arresting the illegal aliens who are unlawfully taking work that American citizens could otherwise obtain. ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) operations lead to the arrest of hundreds of illegal aliens per day in the Houston area. Houston Acting Deputy Director Larry Adams told Breitbart Saturday night that about 80 percent of those arrested have criminal histories. These include arrests and convictions for serious felonies like child sex assault, murder, aggravated assault, drug dealing, possession of illegal weapons, and more. Using sophisticated software that accesses multiple federal and state databases, the officers and agents are able to target high-crime areas such as the Northeast Houston area, where Breitbart rode along with the team. In that part of the city, Adams said, We’ve identified approximately 800 potential targets within just a one-mile radius.” Adams said the "Elite" software shows hot areas, highly populated, high crime." He explained that the software allows officers to drill down to the country of origin, the criminality, and even its severity. "So what we’ll do is we’ll find an area," Adams explained. "Then we’ll choose (categories) like aggravated felons or crimes of violence, things like that, all the way down to sexual predators." He explained this is how they develop the targeted enforcement operations that have landed thousands of dangerous criminal aliens in custody, resulting in their permanent removal from the country.

CBS News [10/30/2025 9:51 AM, Stephen Smith, 39474K] reports federal agents in Texas recently discovered some unusual cargo inside a Toyota truck at the southern border, finding more than 160 species of reptiles, spiders and centipedes hidden in the vehicle. On Oct. 22, border patrol agents at the Anzalduas International Bridge in Texas inspected a silver Toyota truck that was en route to Mexico, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement. The search led to the discovery of 163 various species of reptiles, spiders and centipedes concealed inside the vehicle. More than a dozen types of pythons and over 30 other snakes, including a ghost Aztec jungle boa, were found packed in the truck. Officers also discovered a variety of other creatures, including tarantulas, salamanders, frogs and bearded dragons. Officers seized the vehicle, and Homeland Security Investigations special agents arrested the driver, officials said. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took custody of the reptiles and spiders, and a criminal investigation has been launched. "The smuggling of exotic pets has been on the rise in our area, and we work closely with our partners of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect and preserve these creatures and ensure that importations and exportations of wildlife adhere to all applicable federal requirements," Carlos Rodriguez, port director at the Hidalgo/Pharr/Anzalduas Port of Entry, said in a statement. Exotic primates have also been smuggled at the border recently. In April, border officers at the Anzalduas International Bridge said two Americans tried to smuggle a spider monkey hidden in a backpack into Texas, the Houston Chronicle reported. Jim Stinebaugh, a special agent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, told CBS News that nearly 90 baby spider monkeys have been confiscated at the Texas-Mexico border in the last 18 months — and that’s believed to be just a fraction of the spider monkeys illegally brought into the United States. In 2023, officials said U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested a migrant carrying a backpack filled with seven spider monkeys. Spider monkeys are considered critically endangered and are among the 25 most threatened primates in the world, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society.

NewsNation [10/30/2025 5:21 PM, Staff, 8017K] reports Tijuana’s 14 cemeteries are expecting anywhere from 200,000 to 300,000 visitors for Día de los Muertos festivities this weekend. "Every year, we petition the Secretary of Public Safety and Protection to coordinate with Tijuana police to intensify patrols around these dates at all our graveyards," said Josué Márquez, the city’s public services director. For those who might be crossing the border to partake in Día de los Muertos celebrations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection is reminding travelers that certain agricultural items commonly used in holiday decorations and traditional offerings are prohibited from entering the United States. These are items that may carry harmful pests and diseases that threaten American agriculture and natural resources. CBP has issued a list of materials that are prohibited at ports of entry for people headed into the U.S. According to CBP, failure to declare prohibited agricultural items can result in significant fines. Penalties for undeclared, prohibited personal importations typically start at $300 and can escalate, while commercial importations can face fines up to $250,000.

The New York Post [10/30/2025 4:23 PM, Josh Christenson, 42219K] reports Vice President JD Vance and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Thursday predicted air traffic "disaster" if the government shutdown stretches into November, as overworked and unpaid workers are pushed to the brink and more flights are delayed. The dire warnings came after Vance and Duffy huddled at the White House with the CEO of United Airlines, Teamsters’ boss Sean O’Brien and former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who now reps the largest trade association for cargo and passenger airlines, to talk over the troubling travel forecast for the Thanksgiving holiday. Kirby thanked Duffy, air traffic controllers, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Transportation Security Administration for "working hard" — without pay — amid the shutdown. But even some senators have now been affected by the flight delays as they prepare to leave town for the weekend, with the FAA attributing the snarls at DCA Reagan airport to staffing shortages. The Hill [10/30/2025 3:33 PM, Julia Manchester, 12595K] reports Vice President Vance predicted Thursday that holiday air travel will be a "disaster" if the government shutdown does not end. "At that point, you’re talking about people having missed three paychecks. They’ve missed four paychecks. How many of them are not going to show up for work?" he continued. "You take the TSA [Transportation Security Administration] lines that are already too long, even right now, and say half of those people don’t show up for work. Not because they’re not hard workers or good people but because they’ve got to find a different job to feed their families." Vance was speaking at the White House on Thursday alongside Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Airlines for America CEO and former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R), and Teamsters President Sean O’Brien. Major airports are already seeing flight delays amid growing staffing issues due to the shutdown preventing government workers from getting paid. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a temporary ground stop Sunday because of a staffing shortage at a Southern California air traffic facility.

Reuters [10/30/2025 4:04 PM, David Shepardson, 36480K] reports the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is delaying flights at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and Dallas Fort Worth International Airport due to air traffic control staffing issues as a government shutdown hits its 30th day. The FAA said flight delays were averaging 91 minutes at Reagan and 21 minutes at Dallas and it expected to delay flights at Orlando later due to staffing issues. Tens of thousands of flights have been delayed or canceled as staffing outages have increased dramatically during the government shutdown. Earlier on Thursday, the FAA had issued a ground stop for Reagan Airport, citing issues with air traffic controller staffing. Bad weather is also delaying flights throughout the U.S. northeast. More than 13,000 air traffic controllers and 50,000 Transportation Security Administration officers are working without pay. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said this week that 44% of delays on Sunday and 24% on Monday were caused by air traffic controller absences, compared to 5% on average before the shutdown. The FAA is about 3,500 air traffic controllers short of targeted staffing levels and many had been working mandatory overtime and six-day weeks even before the shutdown.

USA Today [10/30/2025 6:25 PM, Joey Garrison, 67103K] reports one month into the federal government shutdown, United, Delta, American and Southwest airlines are each calling on Congress to approve a Republican-backed "clean" funding bill to reopen the government. The Oct. 30 statements from the nation’s four largest airlines came on the same day as a White House meeting between leaders in the aviation industry and Vice President JD Vance and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. "It has been 30 days – I also think it is time to pass a clean CR," United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said to reporters after the meeting, adding that Congress should negotiate other policy items such as health care after the shutdown is over. The airlines’ endorsements could ramp up pressure on Senate Democrats, who have voted 13 times to block a Republican-backed continuing resolution to fund the government as they push for policy changes to health care. Vance and Duffy warned the situation at airports could be a "disaster" if the government remains closed ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday due to potential staffing shortages during a period when travel typically spikes across the nation. "What happens when the security lines are not an hour long, but they’re four hours long?" Vance said to reporters following the meeting. "What happens when pilots start not showing up to work?". Delta Airlines, in its statement, said the company "implores Congress to immediately pass a clean continuing resolution to reopen the government" so that air traffic controllers, Transportation Security Administration workers and other federal employees who work in aviation are paid. About 64,000 TSA employees and 13,000 air traffic controllers ‒ considered "essential" workers ‒ are working without pay during the shutdown. TSA employees missed their first full paycheck on Oct. 24, while air traffic controllers missed their first full paychecks on Tuesday. They would miss a second paycheck in November if the shutdown is still going on.

NewsMax [10/30/2025 6:52 PM, Nicole Wells, 4109K] reports Atlanta-based Delta Airlines called on Congress on Thursday to "immediately pass a clean continuing resolution" to fund the federal government and pay air traffic controllers. U.S. air traffic controllers missed their first full paychecks on Tuesday amid the continuing government shutdown that has dragged on for a month now amid partisan gridlock on Capitol Hill. "Missed paychecks only increases the stress on these essential workers, many of whom are already working mandatory overtime to keep our skies safe and secure," Delta said in a Thursday statement obtained by CNBC. As essential employees, air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers are required to work through the shutdown despite not receiving regular paychecks. In a release on Thursday, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) slammed Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., for continuing to vote to keep the government closed even as Georgia-based companies like Delta implore senators to pass a stopgap funding bill. "It’s past time for Jon Ossoff to stop pandering to his far-left base in California and vote to reopen the federal government," NRSC Regional press secretary Nick Puglia said. "Ossoff has had 13 opportunities to end the chaos, but he cares more about giving free healthcare to illegals and opposing President [Donald] Trump.” Delta is the Peach State’s largest employer and the largest employer in Atlanta.

NBC News [10/30/2025 9:28 PM, Marlene Lenthang, 34509K] reports that, as the government shutdown drags on, so do woes at airports — this time at Orlando International Airport in Florida. A ground delay was issued Thursday evening for Orlando MCO — the state’s busiest airport — with departures to the airport delayed an average of 2.7 hours because of staffing issues. The delay is in effect from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. ET, according to a Federal Aviation Administration advisory. Earlier in the evening, the FAA said the airport would be unable to land arriving flights for a period because no certified air traffic controllers were available at the hub. That was later remedied, with the FAA saying there has been an "increase in staffing" for the F11 Central Florida Tracon, which is staffed by controllers. A MCO spokesperson said the ground delay is over staffing issues, and the delay program "has reduced the rate of arrivals at the airport and passengers may experience delays on average of 2 ½ hours.” Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, was also experiencing ground delays averaging 90 minutes, also because of staffing issues. The delay was from 1:30 p.m. Thursday to 1 a.m. Friday, according to the FAA. It’s the latest setback to hit beleaguered American airports grappling with staffing shortages, delays and cancellations as air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration workers go without pay. Flights departing for Los Angeles International Airport were halted Sunday morning because of a staffing shortage. A temporary ground stop was issued, with planes headed for Los Angeles held at originating airports and delayed averaging an hour and 40 minutes. Tuesday marked the first time federal employees — including air traffic controllers — received their zero-dollar paychecks as the shutdown has dragged into the 30-day mark. The turmoil affecting air travel prompted Delta Air Lines on Thursday to demand that Congress reopen the government immediately. The airline warned that missing paychecks "only increases the stress on these essential workers, many of whom are already working mandatory overtime to keep our skies safe and secure.” The crisis has only added salt to wounds that predated the shutdown for controllers: staffing shortages and long, grueling schedules. This week, air traffic controllers with the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, a labor union and aviation safety organization, demanded the end of the shutdown and handed out leaflets. The group said air traffic controllers and other aviation safety professionals often work grueling schedules of six days a week and 10-hour days. Since the shutdown and in anticipation of missed paychecks, some have taken on second jobs to feed their families and pay bills.

Reuters [10/30/2025 6:37 PM, Dave Sherwood, Zahra Burton, and Steven Aristil, 36480K] reports Hurricane Melissa picked up speed as it churned across open ocean in the direction of Bermuda on Thursday, after wreaking destruction across much of the northern Caribbean, where local authorities have reported a total of nearly 30 deaths. At 5 p.m. (2100 GMT), Melissa was a Category 1 storm 526 km (327 miles) south-west of the North Atlantic British island territory, where hurricane conditions were expected by nightfall even as Melissa’s eye skirts north-west. Melissa was packing maximum sustained winds of 105 mph (169 kph). Residents remained calm as the storm was expected to give the island a relatively wide berth. Authorities said they would close its causeway Thursday night and shut schools and ferries on Friday "out of an abundance of caution." In the Bahamas, which Melissa cut through overnight, authorities lifted storm warnings but did not give the "all clear". An official said authorities expected to decide by Saturday whether it was safe for the hundreds of people who evacuated off affected islands to return to their homes. Melissa did not directly hit Haiti, but caused at least 25 deaths there, authorities said, mostly in the southern town of Petit-Goave when a river burst its banks after days of torrential rain. A river also caved in and carried off part of a national highway, local newspaper Le Nouvelliste reported. The road, which had been weakened by last year’s Hurricane Beryl, connected to the nearby city of Jacmel.

CBS News [10/30/2025 5:09 PM, Staff, 39474K] Video: HERE reports people across the northern Caribbean are beginning to dig out from the destruction of Hurricane Melissa, as deaths from the catastrophic storm climbed to at least 28 across Haiti, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic, with Haiti reporting most of those fatalities. On Thursday, Melissa was moving away from the Bahamas and had turned toward Bermuda, where weather conditions were expected to "rapidly deteriorate" later in the day, according to the National Hurricane Center.

New York Times [10/30/2025 4:30 PM, Farnaz Fassihi, et al., 135475K] reports a United Nations official said on Thursday that preliminary reports showed about two million people in Cuba who faced great need — including shelter, food, water and health care — after Hurricane Melissa blew through the island. The official, Francisco Pichon, the U.N.’s resident coordinator for Cuba, said Melissa had caused extensive damages to housing, infrastructure, farming, schools and power lines. At least 240 communities had been cut off because of landslides and power cuts, he added. Cuba needs broad international support, he said, but has been excluded from the international financial institutions because of a blockade and U.S. sanctions. “This makes it very difficult for the country to finance disaster response,” Mr. Pichon said. Earlier, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the U.S. State Department had issued a formal Declaration of Humanitarian Assistance for Cuba in response to Hurricane Melissa. He said the United States was prepared to provide aid to the island “directly and via local partners who can most effectively deliver it to those in need.” Mr. Rubio noted that U.S. law, which forbids nearly all commerce with Cuba, includes “exemptions and authorizations relating to private donations of food, medicine, and other humanitarian goods to Cuba, as well as disaster response.” Mr. Rubio has long been one of the fiercest critics of Cuba’s government and a supporter of strict economic sanctions on the island. Cuba rarely accepts handouts from the U.S. government and has historically claimed it can meet the essential needs of its citizens. But a deepening economic crisis on the island has severely undermined its institutional capacity. Cuba’s deputy minister of foreign affairs suggested on social media Thursday, however, that the government might be willing to receive disaster assistance from the United States in the wake of Hurricane Melissa, which flooded towns and cities in eastern Cuba. The minister, Carlos Fernández de Cossio, wrote, “We have contacted the State Department and we are waiting for clarification on how and in what manner they are willing to help.” The Cuban authorities had evacuated more than 700,000 people from eastern Cuba before Melissa struck, but the capacity of the state to aid those stricken in the aftermath of hurricanes has declined in recent years.

CBS New York [10/30/2025 4:27 PM, Matthew Villafane, 39474K] reports rain and wind are causing damage after the storm rolled into the New York City area, bringing with it gusty winds and a chance of coastal flooding. A flash flood warning is in effect for New York City and Westchester County until 5:30 p.m. The Jersey Shore is under a wind advisory until 5 p.m. Thursday for gusts up to 50 mph. Much of the coastline is also under a coastal flood advisory for up to 2 feet of inundation. There were already reports of trees down in parts of New Jersey and beyond. NJ Transit said service along the Long Branch line was briefly suspended due to a downed tree, but has since resumed with delays.

NewsMax [10/30/2025 5:21 PM, Solange Reyner, 4109K] reports Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, on Thursday introduced legislation to fast-track the sale of vacant federal buildings that she said cost taxpayers billions of dollars. "My DISPOSAL Act immediately lists six prime pieces of D.C. real estate on the auction block and slashes through pointless regulations to fast-track the sale of the government’s graveyard of lifeless real estate to generate hundreds of millions of dollars and save taxpayers billions." The Disposing of Inactive Structures and Properties by Offering for Sale and Lease Act "immediately lists six prime pieces of D.C. real estate on the auction block and slashes through pointless regulations to fast-track the sale of the government’s graveyard of lifeless real estate to generate hundreds of millions of dollars and save taxpayers billions," according to the release. Ernst’s press release said there were an estimated 7,700 vacant federal buildings nationwide and nearly 2,300 more that are mostly empty.

Reported similarly:
Breitbart [10/30/2025 12:07 PM, Sean Moran, 2416K]

NewsMax [10/30/2025 3:59 PM, James Morley III, 4109K] reports the man found guilty of plotting to kill President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago golf course last fall has asked a federal judge to move him to a state that permits assisted suicide, The Hill reported Thursday. Ryan Routh is being held in a Miami federal prison after being convicted in the failed attempt on Trump’s life that was stopped by a Secret Service agent. Routh was found guilty in September on charges of attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer, and several gun violations. Routh, no stranger to making bizarre requests, has written a letter to Judge Aileen Cannon that he is a "constant failure" and has asked to be moved to a state where medical aid in dying is legal. In his latest letter, Routh said he "still hold(s) out hope" that his life may be traded for American prisoners being held by a foreign adversary.

Reported similarly:
The Hill [10/30/2025 1:52 PM, Ella Lee, 12595K]
Daily Caller [10/30/2025 1:08 PM, Katelynn Richardson, 835K]

Daily Caller [10/30/2025 11:54 AM, Christine Sellers, 835K] reports that a former teaching assistant fired after viral footage showed him flipping over a Turning Point USA table was charged with making threats against President Donald Trump in a separate incident. Derek Lopez, 27, was arrested on Oct. 28 and charged Wednesday with making threats against Trump, according to a U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of Illinois press release. Multiple law enforcement agencies assisted in the investigation, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the El Paso Police Department (EPPD). EPPD and FBI law enforcement officials conducted a traffic stop on Oct. 28 at around 7:38 p.m., according to an EPPD statement. Lopez was identified as the driver and was apprehended without incident. Authorities wanted him on a federal warrant for making the alleged threats against Trump at the time of his arrest, police said. Lopez made online threats against Trump, a federal affidavit obtained by the Daily Caller alleged. "I’m gonna kill Donald Trump, idgaf," one of the alleged posts read. "[T]his is the perfect time to kill the president! The Secret Service is down!," Lopez commented on one of the U.S. Secret Service’s Instagram posts, according to the affidavit. Lopez also allegedly posted a video of a man pointing a gun at a graphic of Trump with what appeared to be a target on his head. An EPPD spokesperson confirmed EPPD officers participated in Lopez’s arrest when contacted for comment.

Reported similarly:
New York Post [10/30/2025 7:27 AM, Emily Crane, 42219K]

CBS Miami [10/30/2025 4:28 PM, Sergio Candido, 39474K] reports the U.S. Coast Guard announced Thursday it has referred its investigation into a July sailboat crash near Miami Beach that killed three girls to the Department of Justice for potential criminal prosecution, citing possible violations of federal seaman’s manslaughter laws. On July 28, a barge being pushed by a towing vessel and a small sailing vessel carrying children from a summer camp crashed near Hibiscus Island in Miami Beach. The incident killed 7-year-old Mila Yankelevich, 13-year-old Erin Ko Han, and 10-year-old Ari Buchman, and injured two others. The Coast Guard said it referred the case under 18 U.S. Code § 1115, known as the federal seaman’s manslaughter statute, against parties connected to the towing company. The uninspected towing vessel is called Wood Chuck, the Coast Guard said. "After conducting a thorough marine casualty investigation, we’ve referred this case to [the] Department of Justice for criminal investigation to ensure full accountability and help deter similar cases in the future," said Coast Guard Sector Miami Commander Capt. Frank J. Florio in a statement. "As the process moves into this new phase, our thoughts and prayers are with those impacted by this tragic incident.”

CyberScoop [10/30/2025 6:05 PM, Matt Kapko, 122K] reports Cybersecurity experts from multiple federal agencies released guidance to help organizations bolster their defenses against attacks on on-premises Microsoft Exchange Servers, resurfacing and building upon previously shared advice that generally applies to most technology. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said the security blueprint for Microsoft Exchange Server is a follow-up effort to an emergency directive the agency released in August for CVE-2025-53786, a high-severity defect affecting on-premises Microsoft Exchange servers. CISA jointly issued the guide Thursday with the National Security Agency and cyber agencies in Australia and Canada. Nick Andersen, executive assistant director for cybersecurity at CISA, said the guidance isn’t in response to any specific vulnerability or attack, but rather reflects that organizations are under constant threat. “Many organizations depend on Microsoft Exchange to perform these critical communication functions, and that necessitates a strong degree of protection from malicious actors,” he said during a media briefing Thursday. The recommendations aren’t particularly new and should come as no surprise to security and IT professionals. The guide synthesizes security advice shared by Microsoft, security experts and the industry at large. The majority of works cited in the guide, more than 60, link back to blogs and advice scattered around Microsoft sites.

MeriTalk [10/30/2025 3:16 PM, Grace Dille, 30K] reports the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), in partnership with the National Security Agency and international cybersecurity partners, issued guidance on Thursday to help cyber defenders better defend on-premises Microsoft Exchange servers against exploitation. The Microsoft Exchange Server Security Best Practices guide recommends proactive prevention techniques to address cyber threats and protect sensitive information within on-premises Exchange Servers as part of hybrid Exchange environments. The guidance builds upon CISA’s emergency directive issued in August that directed federal agencies to take mitigation steps to deal with a “high-severity vulnerability” in Microsoft Exchange. “With the threat to Exchange servers remaining persistent, enforcing a prevention posture and adhering to these best practices is crucial for safeguarding our critical communication systems,” Nick Andersen, executive assistant director for the Cybersecurity Division at CISA, said in a press release. “This guidance empowers organizations to proactively mitigate threats, protect enterprise assets, and ensure the resilience of their operations.” “Furthermore, CISA recommends that organizations evaluate the use of cloud-based email services instead of managing the complexities associated with hosting their own communication services,” Andersen added. “CISA provides secure baselines for these [cloud-based services] through our Secure Cloud Business Applications (SCuBA) program.”

ABC News [10/30/2025 6:11 PM, Mike Levine, 30493K] reports the Justice Department has filed terrorism charges against an Arizona man for his alleged role in the growing network of online predators known as "764," whose worldwide followers use social media platforms to target, groom and push young teens into harming themselves and others. An indictment unsealed Thursday in Arizona charged 21-year-old Baron Martin of Tucson with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, marking the first time that the Justice Department has leveled such charges against an alleged member of 764. The move does not mean that the U.S. government has formally designated 764 as a terrorist organization like ISIS or Al-Qaeda, but it does signify that the government believes members of 764 engage in "terrorist activity" under U.S. law. Martin was first arrested in December and indicted on three counts of cyberstalking and producing sexually explicit material of children. He pleaded not guilty to those charges. The indictment unsealed Thursday adds 26 more charges, including the terrorism offense, taking part in a child exploitation, exploitation enterprise, conspiracy to kidnap or maim persons in a foreign country, commission of murder for hire, child pornography related charges, cyber stalking, and animal abuse related charges. FBI officials say they are growing increasingly concerned about violent online predators who befriend teenagers through popular online platforms and then coerce them into escalating sexual and violent behavior, pushing victims to create graphic pornography, harm family pets, cut themselves with sharp objects, or even die by suicide. The online predators will often demand victims send them photos and videos of their behavior so the content can be shared with fellow 764 followers or used to extort victims for more, according to authorities.

Reuters [10/30/2025 2:41 PM, Patricia Zengerle, 36480K] reports that President Donald Trump’s administration held a Republicans-only briefing about U.S. strikes on alleged drug vessels near Venezuela, in what one senior Democrat on Thursday called a dangerous trend of increasing partisanship in national security. "This is not how the system is supposed to work," Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, ranking member and former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told a news conference about the briefing, which took place on Wednesday. "When you politicize decision-making about putting our servicemembers in harm’s way, you make them less safe," he said. The administration laid out its legal justification for the strikes in the briefing, Warner said, questioning why such information should be classified. Members of Congress, especially Democrats, have been demanding more information about the deadly strikes on boats off the South American coast, which have killed nearly 60 people in recent weeks amid rising tensions with Venezuela and Colombia. Traditionally, presidential administrations from both parties have briefed members of the "Gang of Eight" - intelligence committee and Senate and House of Representatives leaders from both parties - on major national security actions. They also often hold classified sessions for every member of Congress. Asked for comment, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly did not specifically address the exclusion of Democrats from Wednesday’s briefing, but accused Democrats of "running cover for foreign drug smugglers." The Hill [10/30/2025 7:58 AM, Sarah Fortinsky, 12595K] reports that in a forceful statement, Warner condemned the reported partisan briefing as "indefensible," expressing concern about the "troubling precedent" that such a move sets. "Shutting Democrats out of a briefing on U.S. military strikes and withholding the legal justification for those strikes from half the Senate is indefensible and dangerous," Warner wrote in his statement. "Decisions about the use of American military force are not campaign strategy sessions, and they are not the private property of one political party," he continued. "For any administration to treat them that way erodes our national security and flies in the face of Congress’ constitutional obligation to oversee matters of war and peace.” The Virginia Democrat added, "This partisan stunt is a slap in the face to Congress’ war powers responsibilities and to the men and women who serve this country. It also sets a reckless and deeply troubling precedent.”

Reported similarly:
The Hill [10/30/2025 1:44 PM, Rebecca Beitsch, 12595K]
NBC News [10/30/2025 5:38 PM, Melanie Zanona, Brennan Leach and Gabrielle Khoriaty, 34509K]

The AP [10/30/2025 4:05 PM, Michelle L. Price and Chris Megerian, 31753K] reports President Donald Trump appeared to suggest the U.S. will resume testing nuclear weapons for the first time in three decades, saying it would be on an “equal basis” with Russia and China. The Kremlin pointed out that a global ban on nuclear tests has remained in place, but warned that if any country resumes nuclear testing, Russia would follow suit. There was no indication the U.S. would start detonating warheads, but Trump offered few details about what seemed to be a significant shift in U.S. policy. He made the announcement on social media minutes before he met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday in South Korea to discuss trade. He offered little clarity when he spoke to reporters later aboard Air Force One as he flew back to Washington. The U.S. military already regularly tests its missiles that are capable of delivering a nuclear warhead, but it has not detonated the weapons since 1992. The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which the U.S. signed but did not ratify, has been observed since its adoption by all countries possessing nuclear weapons, North Korea being the only exception. Trump suggested, however, that changes were necessary because other countries were testing weapons. It was unclear what he was referring to, but it evoked Cold War-era escalations. Breitbart [10/30/2025 8:22 AM, Staff, 2416K] reports that the move came after Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Moscow had successfully tested a nuclear-capable, nuclear-powered underwater drone, in defiance of Washington’s warnings. "Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis," Trump wrote in a social media post. Following that announcement, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday that the weapon tests announced by Putin did not constitute a direct test of an atomic weapon. Both countries observe a de facto moratorium on testing nuclear warheads, though Russia regularly runs military drills involving systems that are capable of carrying such weapons.

Reported similarly:
FOX News [10/30/2025 6:27 PM, Staff, 40621K] Video: HERE

Reuters [10/30/2025 5:09 PM, Staff, 36480K] Video: HERE reports testing the U.S. nuclear arsenal is important to ensuring national security, Vice President JD Vance said on Thursday after President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. military to resume testing nuclear weapons after a gap of 33 years. "It’s an important part of American national security to make sure that this nuclear arsenal we have actually functions properly," Vance told reporters outside the White House. "To be clear, we know that it does work properly, but you got to keep on top of it over time, and the president just wants to make sure that we do that."

New York Times [10/30/2025 6:55 PM, William J. Broad, 135475K] reports President Trump’s threat on Wednesday to restart the testing of nuclear weapons has raised numerous knotty questions about national and global security. The United States spends tens of billions of dollars every year on its large arsenal of the world’s deadliest weapons and the infrastructure that supports it. Here’s what you need to know about American atomic bombs and the issues involved in whether or not to test them explosively. The American arsenal includes roughly 3,700 warheads, with about 1,700 of them currently deployed, according to the Federation of American Scientists. The group, which has long scrutinized the highly classified topic, recently updated its estimates. Nuclear weapons can be carried on warplanes like the B-2 or B-52, launched from missiles in silos on U.S. territory, or heaved from rockets on submarines. The United States does not have the most nuclear bombs in the world, as Mr. Trump incorrectly stated on Wednesday night. That distinction belongs to the Russian Federation. Washington is deep into a modernization program that seeks to replace every warhead with an updated version and to upgrade their carriers. The overall cost of the sprawling program over three decades is estimated at $1.7 trillion. The same logic that applies to cars — lots of maintenance and testing, even for old models — suggests that the world’s nuclear powers have much confidence that their weapons will work, if needed. The weapons are seen as igniting at the flip of a switch. Currently, the United States spends roughly $25 billion a year on nuclear weapons upkeep, a program it calls stockpile stewardship. Washington’s program of weapon upkeep does not rely on explosive tests. Instead, it includes hundreds of machines and devices and many thousands of workers and scientists. The devices include room-size supercomputers, the world’s most powerful X-ray machine and a laser system the size of a sports stadium. No other nation possesses such an extensive array of tools for the nonnuclear testing of nuclear weapons. Currently, the complex of facilities employs 65,500 people at eight main sites from coast to coast. Just at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the birthplace of the atomic bomb, the total work force has grown by 50 percent since 2018, to nearly 18,000. The last underground explosive blast at the Nevada Test Site occurred on Sept. 23, 1992. Its power was reportedly quite small — a third of the Hiroshima bomb’s — and no public information seems to exist on the test’s purpose.

Reuters [10/31/2025 4:19 AM, Danial Azhar, 36480K] reports U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spoke on Friday with counterparts from China and India, beginning a series of face-to-face meetings at an ASEAN defence summit in Malaysia, as Washington seeks to boost regional security ties. Hegseth said on X he told China’s Dong Jun the United States would "stoutly defend its interests" and maintain the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, while voicing concern about Chinese activities in the disputed South China Sea and around Taiwan. He also hailed as "a cornerstone for regional stability and deterrence" a new 10-year defence cooperation framework signed with Indian defence minister Rajnath Singh. "It’s a significant step for our two militaries, a roadmap for deeper and even more meaningful collaboration ahead," Hegseth told reporters after the signing. Hegseth and Singh were meeting for the first time since the United States imposed tariffs of 50% on Indian goods in August as punishment for New Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil. The tariffs prompted India to pause purchases of U.S. defence equipment, with the two sides expected to discuss on Friday a review of India’s plans to buy the military hardware. As Washington looks to tackle China’s growing assertiveness in the region, Hegseth is expected to meet the defence ministers of Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, among others, said an official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Delegations from Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and Russia are attending the meeting of defence ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Hegseth met Malaysia’s defence minister on Thursday and both leaders committed to maritime security in the South China Sea. The busy waterway is claimed almost entirely by China, although it overlaps the exclusive economic zones of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. Beijing has deployed a coast guard armada that has clashed repeatedly with Philippine vessels and been accused of disrupting the energy activities of Malaysia and Vietnam. "Grey-zone tactics, such as hydrographic research conducted under the protection of foreign coast guard vessels, threaten sovereignty and are a clear provocation and threat," Malaysian minister Mohamed Khaled Nordin said in a joint statement. Unresolved disputes have festered for years over the sovereignty of islands and features in the South China Sea. Beijing says its coastguard has operated professionally in defending Chinese territory from incursions. The United States has sought to shore up its presence in Southeast Asia to counter China’s growing influence. On Sunday, President Donald Trump told ASEAN leaders the United States was "with you 100% and we intend to be a strong partner for many generations".

Reuters [10/30/2025 6:23 AM, Jana Winter, 36480K] reports FBI investigations have been slowed or stalled by the second-longest U.S. government shutdown in history, leaving the bureau without funds to pay informants or make undercover drug or gun buys, gaps that an FBI spokesperson said are putting national security at risk. The FBI does not provide detailed public information about how its $10.7 billion budget is spent and it is not clear how much of the total has been held up due to the shutdown, according to five current and three former FBI employees. The shutdown, now in its 30th day, has frozen FBI funds used for operational travel, such as when an informant needs to travel to meet a drug supplier or boss or another investigative subject, the sources said. FBI employees are also without funds to travel outside their local areas. "In a shutdown, the FBI’s eyes and ears go dark," said retired FBI agent Tom Simon, who worked counterterrorism and criminal cases and at one point worked on a squad recruiting and paying informants. "Without funds to pay informants, the Bureau loses its most critical source of real-time intelligence," said Simon, who retired in 2021 after 26 years at the FBI and now works as a private investigator in Florida. In response to a Reuters inquiry about the shutdown’s effects on investigations, the FBI acknowledged its operations had been affected.

NBC News [10/30/2025 1:14 PM, Dan De Luce, 34509K] reports that the FBI says a proposal by House lawmakers to strip the bureau of its authority over counterintelligence efforts and hand it over to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard would create confusion and undermine national security. In a sharply worded letter to Congress, the FBI expressed its "strong objection" to the proposal, exposing a power struggle between Gabbard and the FBI’s director, Kash Patel, and other intelligence agencies. "The FBI has consistently articulated its strong objection to the proposal, and believes it would cause serious and long-lasting damage to the US national security," the unclassified letter said. "Furthermore, the FBI is aware of many other objections submitted by other members of the IC," it stated, referring to the intelligence community. The FBI argued that it has decades of experience in countering foreign espionage in the United States with a national network of 53 field offices, and that the proposal would create unnecessary bureaucracy and shift authority to officials without relevant expertise. "The cumulative effect would be putting decision-making with employees who aren’t actively involved in Cl operations, knowledgeable of the intricacies of Cl threats, or positioned to develop coherent and tailored mitigation strategies," it said, referring to counterintelligence.

New York Times [10/30/2025 11:56 AM, Nataliya Vasilyeva, 135475K] reports that, in response to President Trump’s threat to resume nuclear testing, the Kremlin said Thursday that Russia had not tested nuclear weapons recently but would if the United States did. On Wednesday, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said that the country had successfully tested a nuclear-powered drone, days after he announced the trial of a nuclear-capable missile. The tests did not involve a detonation, but the claims might have prompted Mr. Trump’s order. “Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” he wrote on social media. Dmitri S. Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, told Russian news agencies that he hoped Mr. Trump had been properly briefed on Russia’s most recent tests of nuclear-capable weapons because “they certainly cannot be viewed as nuclear testing at all.” Russia has not conducted a confirmed nuclear weapon test since 1990. But Russia would respond in kind if another country broke the global moratorium on nuclear testing, he added. It was not clear what Mr. Trump meant by “testing,” and the United States routinely tests unarmed missiles.

The New York Times [10/30/2025 9:11 AM, Lauren Jackson and Evan Gorelick, 153395K] reports this morning, as President Trump was arriving in Busan, South Korea, for a meeting with Xi Jinping, he made a threat on social media. He said the U.S. would begin testing nuclear weapons for the first time in more than 30 years. His post heightened the stakes of an already fraught conversation on trade, and the mood was tense when Trump arrived. The leaders shook hands, then Trump did all of the talking about striking a deal. Xi was silent. After an hour and a half of negotiations, though, the leaders emerged with an agreement: China, which has tightened its controls on rare earth minerals used to make cars, phones and fighter jets, would postpone those strict new rules for a year. Separately, Trump said he would halve the 20 percent tariffs he had imposed to pressure China to do more to fight fentanyl trafficking. Overall, this would bring tariffs on Chinese goods to around 47 percent, he said. (See our tariff tracker.) The deal wraps up Trump’s tour of Asia. Over the past six days, he has hopscotched the continent chasing trade pacts and peace agreements. “Trump came here seeking deals, plain and simple,” says Katie Rogers, a White House correspondent who is traveling with the president. He seemed to get what he wanted. As Trump boarded Air Force One to head back to Washington this morning, he waved and pumped his fist. Bloomberg [10/30/2025 6:53 AM, Jui Chakravorty, 18207K] reports China agreed to pause its sweeping rare-earths controls for a year and take steps to stem the flow of precursor chemicals used in fentanyl production. On a scale of zero to 10, "the meeting was at a 12," Trump said, in what looks like a fresh chapter in US-China relations as both sides seek to cool months of economic tension. Markets wobbled in the immediate aftermath: gold climbed 1.2% while US equity futures and Asian shares slipped slightly. Trump said they talked about Nvidia’s access to China in general, and that it was up to Beijing — which has discouraged domestic firms from using less-powerful AI chips that Washington has approved for sale — to continue conversations with the chipmaker. The meeting fell short of a comprehensive pact that addresses issues at the heart of the US-China economic competition and on thornier subjects including Taiwan. Still, the tariff rollback marks a win for Beijing, potentially boosting Chinese exporters’ competitiveness. Trump also hinted at reciprocal visits — he’ll travel to China in April, with Xi expected in the US later next year — and said both leaders pledged cooperation on Ukraine. For all the upbeat rhetoric, the truce stops short of a sweeping reset. It offers temporary calm in a long-simmering rivalry that has defined global trade for years. Xi struck a nautical metaphor, urging both nations to “stay the right course and ensure the steady sailing forward” of their relationship. Whether this marks genuine detente or just another pause in an ongoing tug-of-war will hinge on what happens once the leaders’ planes land back home.

Reported similarly:
Breitbart [10/30/2025 7:36 AM, Staff, 2416K]

The Washington Times [10/30/2025 7:56 AM, Tom Howell Jr., 852K] reports President Trump said Thursday the U.S. would lower its fentanyl-related tariffs on Chinese goods after Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to delay rare earth restrictions for at least a year. Mr. Trump’s decision to reduce tariffs by 10% leaves the overall rate on many Chinese goods at 47%. “It’s a one-year agreement, and we’ll extend it after a year,” Mr. Trump said aboard Air Force One. The president said Mr. Xi agreed to increase Chinese purchases of soybeans, sorghum and other U.S. farm products. Also, Mr. Xi is expected to crack down on fentanyl precursor chemicals that flow out of China. Mr. Trump said negotiations over American-made semiconductors remain under discussion. Critics had been worried that Mr. Trump would forfeit the U.S. edge in artificial intelligence by letting Nvidia sell advanced “Blackwell” chips to China. “They’re going to be discussing that with Nvidia,” Mr. Trump said. “We’re sort of the arbitrator or referee.” The Washington Examiner [10/30/2025 5:28 AM, Staff, 1394K] reports President Donald Trump commented on his "truly great meeting" with Chinese President Xi Jinping and announced several important revelations on Thursday aboard Air Force One. Trump said the rare earth element dispute between China and the United States has been resolved. According to reports, a Trump administration official said the U.S. and China had come to "an understanding" and that China was not going to "impose the rare earth controls that they proposed. ". "We have a deal. Now every year we’ll renegotiate the deal," Trump said on Air Force One. "All of the rare earth has been settled, and that’s for the world.” As a result, China will halt export controls on rare earth materials. The export controls initially went into effect on Oct. 9 but will now be delayed a year, after reaching an agreement at the summit. Rare earths are a vital part of U.S. manufacturing, necessary for products including turbines, electric vehicles, smartphones, medical imaging equipment, submarines, and satellites. A spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Commerce confirmed the progress between the two countries in a statement regarding the Trump-Xi summit.

NewsMax [10/30/2025 7:42 AM, Staff, 4109K] reports President Donald Trump said Thursday that his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping produced "enormous respect" between the two nations and a series of major agreements expected to benefit U.S. farmers, energy producers, and national security. In a statement on Truth Social following his trip to Asia, Trump said the two leaders reached several understandings on trade, minerals, and fentanyl control, marking what he described as a "historic" step forward in U.S.-China relations. "We agreed on many things, with others, even of high importance, being very close to resolved," Trump said. Among the key outcomes, Trump said Xi authorized China to begin purchasing "massive amounts" of soybeans, sorghum, and other farm products, a move Trump said would make "our Farmers very happy.” He encouraged American farmers to expand, echoing remarks from his first term: "Farmers should immediately go out and buy more land and larger tractors.” Trump also stated that China will continue to maintain the open flow of rare earth elements, critical minerals, and magnets, which are essential for technology and defense manufacturing. He added that Beijing has pledged to help stop the flow of fentanyl into the United States, a major step in addressing the nation’s drug crisis.

Washington Post [10/30/2025 6:00 AM, Joseph Menn, 24149K] reports more than a half-dozen federal departments and agencies backed a proposal to ban future sales of the most popular home routers in the United States on the grounds that the vendor’s ties to mainland China make them a national security risk, according to people briefed on the matter and a communication reviewed by The Washington Post. The proposal, which arose from a months-long risk assessment, calls for blocking sales of networking devices from TP-Link Systems of Irvine, California, which was spun off from a China-based company, TP-Link Technologies, but owns some of that company’s former assets in China. The ban was proposed by the Commerce Department and supported this summer by an interagency process that includes the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice and Defense, the people said. “TP-Link vigorously disputes any allegation that its products present national security risks to the United States,” Ricca Silverio, a spokeswoman for TP-Link Systems, said in a statement. “TP-Link is a U.S. company committed to supplying high-quality and secure products to the U.S. market and beyond.” If imposed, the ban would be among the largest in consumer history and a possible sign that the East-West divide over tech independence is still deepening amid reports of accelerated Chinese government-supported hacking. Only the legislated ban of Chinese-owned TikTok, which President Donald Trump has averted with executive orders and a pending sale, would impact more U.S. consumers.

New York Times [10/30/2025 9:03 PM, Ana Swanson, 135475K] reports rather than advancing the U.S.-China relationship, the concessions that President Trump and President Xi Jinping of China agreed to in their meeting in South Korea on Wednesday appear to have largely rolled back the clock, returning to the terms of an earlier truce. Mr. Trump agreed to reverse some of his tariffs and paused new fees on Chinese ships. China said it would suspend the rollout of rare earths restrictions introduced in October, and return to buying U.S. soybeans, in addition to a newer promise to crack down on shipments of chemicals used to make fentanyl. But one of the reversals from the United States was more notable in the precedent it set. The Trump administration agreed to pause for one year a rule that expanded the number of Chinese companies restricted from access to advanced technology. The rule, issued just four weeks ago, extended the reach of the “entity list,” a kind of trade blacklist for foreign companies that pose a national security threat. Former officials and analysts said Thursday that the move appeared to be one of the first concessions the United States had made on national security-related technology controls as part of a trade negotiation. They called it a potential breakthrough for the Chinese side, which has long pushed to negotiate with the United States over these types of measures, known as export controls. Christopher Padilla, who served as an export control official in the George W. Bush administration, said it was a significant shift for U.S. policy. Chinese officials have consistently asked in talks with many presidential administrations for export control measures to be rolled back, he said. “We all had the talking points,” Mr. Padilla said. “The first one is: ‘That’s a national security issue, and we’re not going to discuss it in a trade negotiation.’ “Export controls have now become a tradable item in the relationship,” Mr. Padilla added. “You’ve discarded decades of precedent.” Brett Fetterly, a principal at the Asia Group consultancy and the former national security adviser to Ben Sasse, the Republican former senator, said that Beijing had succeeded in this summit in its long-term goal of tying national security-focused export controls to broader trade negotiations. “Technology competition now defines the U.S.-China relationship, and on this point President Xi secured key U.S. concessions,” Mr. Fetterly said. A White House spokesman pushed back on the idea that the agreement was out of step with negotiations under prior administrations. “Any notion that President Trump is willing to make trade-offs between our national and economic security is flat-out false,” said Kush Desai, the deputy press secretary. “The administration made no reversals to America’s decades-old export control policies on any specific product or for any countries.” The administration appeared not to have made larger concessions on U.S. export controls that some critics had feared. As he flew to South Korea on Wednesday, Mr. Trump suggested that he would discuss the sale of Nvidia’s cutting-edge Blackwell with Mr. Xi, a proposal that drew swift rebukes from Republican and Democratic lawmakers. In remarks on his return flight, Mr. Trump said that he and Mr. Xi had discussed Chinese chip purchases, but “not the Blackwell.” Many business groups praised a return to greater stability in the U.S.-China relationship, which would help encourage trade and growth. But some analysts said the Trump administration may have had little choice but to roll back U.S. technology controls given China’s chokehold on critical minerals. Last December, Beijing introduced its first curbs on rare earth mineral exports, which it expanded in April and again in October in response to Mr. Trump’s trade war.

Politico [10/30/2025 2:11 PM, Megan Messerly and Phelim Kine, 13586K] reports President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping agreed to a one-year pause in their economic arms race Thursday in South Korea. But many of the details, including what exactly China and the U.S. have conceded to each other, remain murky. It’s also unclear whether the ever mercurial Trump and Xi, known for abandoning deals as soon as they no longer suit his purposes, will follow through on their commitments. “The real question in trade negotiations, even between the world’s two largest economies, is whether Mr. Trump, and now even Mr Xi, who is ‘on’ to his U.S. counterpart, will both make good on what each promised the other orally,” said Harry Broadman, a former assistant U.S. trade representative in the George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations. “Businesses and investors would be wise to not hold their breath.” One person close to the Trump administration, granted anonymity to discuss their analysis of the preliminary details of the countries’ agreement,” said that “on its face, the deal doesn’t necessarily make a lot of sense, in terms of the details that we already know.” That’s because China, according to Trump, has made significant concessions to the U.S., including substantial soybean purchases, a one-year suspension of its sweeping export controls on any products containing Chinese rare earths and a vague commitment to crack down on precursor chemicals used to manufacture illicit fentanyl that is sold in the U.S. In exchange, the U.S. has agreed to drop tariffs on China by 10 percentage points, suspend an investigation into Chinese shipbuilding practices and delay a new export restriction rule. That’s left some observers wondering if there are more details to come. Steve Bannon, former White House chief strategist to Trump, said that Trump and Bessent took Beijing’s “leverageable moment” to “flip the script” — though “the devil will be in the details.” “The three most important things are, when do the exports commence, what are the details of lifting the rare earths,” Bannon said. “Number two … what chips are we talking about? When the president says, lots of [Nvidia] chips [will be sold to China] but no Blackwells, what are the details of that? Because that keeps them competitive in AI. Otherwise, they’re not competitive.” “And number three is, it’s just kind of shocking — particularly given how the Chinese had played up Taiwan beforehand — that there was no discussion,” according to Trump. “Is there some framework that’s already been agreed to?” Bannon asked. Even when the details are out, observers say the agreement is unlikely to amount to the “really fair and really great trade deal together” Trump touted in the days leading up to the trip. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in an interview on Fox Business Thursday morning, said that the agreement he hashed out with Chinese vice premier He Lifeng in Kuala Lumpur in advance of the Trump-Xi meeting was “finished in the middle of the night last night” and that U.S. and Chinese officials “will exchange signatures, possibly as soon as next week.” Bessent, speaking on Fox business Thursday morning, said that China has agreed to buy 12 million metric tons of soybeans between now and January and 25 million metric tons each year for the next three years after that. The U.S. exported nearly 27 million metric tons of soybeans to China in 2024. Bessent also suggested China may commit to additional soybean purchases in the future.” “Our great soybean farmers, who the Chinese used as political pawns, that’s off the table, and they should prosper in the years to come,” said Bessent. China’s Ministry of Commerce confirmed Thursday that it will suspend for one year the implementation of its new, sweeping export control measures that threatened to essentially give the country veto power over vast swaths of exports. Chinese rare earths are used in everything from iPhones to military equipment.

AP [10/31/2025 5:12 AM, Eileen Ng, 31753K] reports the U.S. Secretary of Defense said Friday he told his Chinese counterpart during talks in Malaysia that Washington would “stoutly defend” its interests in the Indo-Pacific. He also signed a new agreement aimed at strengthening security ties with India. Pete Hegseth described as “good and constructive” his meeting with Chinese Admiral Dong Jun, held on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations defense ministers meeting in Kuala Lumpur. He said he raised U.S. concerns over Chinese activities in the South China Sea, around Taiwan and toward U.S. allies and partners in the region. “I highlighted the importance of maintaining a balance of power in the Indo-Pacific,” Hegseth wrote on social media platform X. “United States does not seek conflict (but) it will continue to stoutly defend its interests and ensure it has the capabilities in the region to do so.” China’s defense ministry issued a cautious response, emphasizing its longstanding positions. Dong Jun stressed the reunification of China and Taiwan is an “unstoppable historical trend” and urged the U.S. to be cautious in its words and actions on the Taiwan issue, the statement said. “We hope the U.S. will translate its statements of not containing China and not seeking conflict into action, and work with China to inject positive energy into regional and global peace and security,” according to the statement.

Washington Times [10/30/2025 6:57 AM, Bill Gertz, 852K] reports U.S. intelligence agencies are casting doubt on North Korea’s recent assertions of building ultra high-speed maneuvering missiles, a senior defense official said. North Korean state media said the military recently tested what was called a hypersonic glide vehicle — a boosted armed glider capable of maneuvering to avoid detection and attack by anti-missile systems. The announced hypersonic test followed the recent deployment by the U.S. military in South Korea of an advanced air defense system called the Indirect Fire Protection Capability system. The system is capable of attacking some North Korean missiles. “I don’t think there’s any evidence that they’ve mastered hypersonics yet,” the senior official said. “That is technically way different than what they have demonstrated with their previous missile launches.” However, the official said the North Korean military is “clearly working on hypersonics.” While claiming that hypersonic technology is incorporated into previous missile tests. “They’re working on it, but not there yet,” the official said.

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