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.

ABC News [10/7/2025 9:32 PM, Meredith Deliso, 30493K] reports Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem made a high-profile visit to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Portland on Tuesday amid a legal battle over sending federal troops to the Oregon city. Noem made a brief appearance on the roof of the facility, which has been the site of nightly demonstrations over the administration’s immigration crackdown for several months. During her visit to the facility, she met with local law enforcement officials, including Portland Police Chief Bob Day, Oregon State Police Superintendent Casey Codding and Multnomah County Sheriff Nicole Morrisey O’Donnell, according to the Portland Police Bureau. Day thanked Noem for the time, saying during a press briefing Tuesday evening, "I believe that communication is the first step to resolving our differences.” He said Noem is "obviously and understandably" concerned for the safety of her staff, the building and "the ability for it to function.” "We really tried to look for ways and solutions that might allow us to reduce some of the conflict and the dissidents down there in a way that’s primarily for the safety of all," he said. Day said he would like to potentially see more of a police presence at the location. "We’ve been trying to coordinate that with the federal response, because we have differing policies and differing expectations around procedures, so we have to work more closely with them," he said. President Donald Trump last month directed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to provide "all necessary troops" to Portland amid protests at the facility, claiming the city is a "war zone.” Over the weekend, a U.S. district judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deploying the National Guard to Portland, finding that conditions in the city were "not significantly violent or disruptive" to justify a federal takeover of the National Guard, and that the president’s claims about the city were "simply untethered to the facts.” Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said she reached out to Noem upon learning about a possible visit and met with the secretary at the airport upon her arrival Tuesday. "I was clear that I have confidence in local law enforcement to meet the moment," Kotek said in a statement. "I requested that Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents obey Oregon laws when they engage in federal operations. I reiterated that I continue to be focused on doing whatever I can to protect Oregonians from military intervention or harmful federal law enforcement tactics. Oregon is united against military policing in our communities," Kotek said. Breitbart [10/8/2025 2:10 AM, Staff, 2416K] reports that Noem’s visit comes days after a federal judge issued two separate rulings blocking the Trump administration from sending federal troops to Portland, stating that nightly protests outside the facility did not amount to a rebellion. Accompanying Noem were conservative social media influencers who posted videos documenting her trip. Those videos included Noem confronting undocumented immigrants, who had been taken into custody by immigration authorities; blessing a meal from local chain Burgerville; and standing on top of the roof of the ICE facility, which President Donald Trump has likened to a "war zone.” The video, posted by conservative media personality Benny Johnson, shows dozens of protesters gathered by the fence with some jeering as the Benny Hill theme song plays in the background. When Noem is asked about the protesters, particularly one wearing a chicken costume, she said her goal is for people to peacefully protest while the law is enforced. "It’s too bad they are uneducated and ill informed," she said. Homeland Security’s X account has posted videos of overnight clashes between protesters and federal agents. Portland City Attorney Robert Taylor has accused federal agents of using excessive force against protesters. Oregon’s state and local officials have pushed back against the Trump administration’s plans to send federal troops to the city, calling it an overreach that will inflame the situation. Gov. Tina Kotek said in a statement that she met with Noem at the Portland airport shortly after her arrival and reiterated "that there is no insurrection in Oregon.” "I requested that Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents obey Oregon laws when they engage in federal operations," Kotek said. "I reiterated that I continue to be focused on doing whatever I can to protect Oregonians from military intervention or harmful federal law enforcement tactics. Oregon is united against military policing in our communities.” Later that evening, Noem said in a Fox News interview that she "was extremely disappointed" after meeting with Portland Mayor Keith Wilson. She said that if Wilson did not protect federal officers they would send four times the number of federal officers to the city.

Reported similarly:
(B) NBC News Daily [10/7/2025 3:05 PM, Staff]

Reuters [10/7/2025 9:46 PM, Staff, 36480K] reports Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem arrived in Portland, Oregon, on Tuesday (October 7), visiting a local ICE facility while a federal lawsuit over National Guard deployment continues to unfold. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Reported similarly:
CNN [10/8/2025 4:31 AM, Staff, 23245K]

Washington Examiner [10/7/2025 10:33 PM, Ross O’Keefe, 1394K] reports Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem warned she would send "four times" the number of federal officers to Portland, Oregon, if they don’t receive more security assistance. Noem made the comments in an interview on Fox News on Tuesday night. "What I told him is that if he did not follow through on some of these security measures for our officers, we were going to cover him up with more federal resources and that we were going to send four times the amount of federal officers here so that the people of Portland could have some safety, they could have some security," she said, referencing her meeting with Portland Mayor Keith Wilson. She said her meeting with Wilson went poorly, and he did not commit to providing any of her security demands. According to Noem, Wilson said he would get back to her on Wednesday. Noem said she requested more security at Portland’s ICE facility, a larger buffer zone between officers and protesters, and for them to open up the streets so the "anarchists" don’t "run this city anymore.” Noem visited a Portland ICE facility on Tuesday, watching protesters shout to her from below. The facility has seen law enforcement deploy tear gas and smoke to disperse large crowds of protesters. The Trump administration has sought a crackdown on Portland crime, ordering the National Guard to be deployed to the city. For now, a court has blocked the deployment twice, and it is currently in legal limbo. Trump said on Sunday that Portland is "burning down to the ground.” Oregon has resisted the administration’s demands for the National Guard. Gov. Tina Kotek (D-OR) said there is no insurrection in the state. "I requested that Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents obey Oregon laws when they engage in federal operations," the governor added. "I reiterated that I continue to be focused on doing whatever I can to protect Oregonians from military intervention or harmful federal law enforcement tactics. Oregon is united against military policing in our communities.” The administration is confident that it will succeed in court and deploy the National Guard to patrol Portland’s streets. "The President," White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told Politico, "will continue to be vindicated by higher courts when liberal activist judges attempt to intervene.”

FOX News [10/7/2025 6:16 PM, Alexandra Koch Fox, 40621K] reports Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem on Tuesday visited the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Portland, where protests continue amid the administration’s immigration crackdown. Videos shared inside the facility showed Noem meeting with local officials and taking the first few minutes to pray over officers. Her visit followed a heated meeting with Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek at the Portland airport, the governor’s office confirmed. Kotek said she personally requested the meeting after hearing "through unofficial channels," Noem may be visiting the city. "Today, in my meeting with Secretary Noem, I reiterated again that there is no insurrection in Oregon," Kotek wrote in a statement. "Twice now, a federal judge has affirmed that there is no legal basis for military deployment in Portland. I was clear that I have confidence in local law enforcement to meet the moment.". The governor added that she requested DHS and ICE "obey Oregon laws when they engage in federal operations.". "I reiterated that I continue to be focused on doing whatever I can to protect Oregonians from military intervention or harmful federal law enforcement tacticsm" Kotek wrote. "Oregon is united against military policing in our communities.". Minutes later, the governor’s office released a separate statement, confirming Kotek directed the U.S. Northern Command to take "immediate action" to demobilize Oregon’s 200 National Guard members and California’s 200 National Guard members, who were deployed to Portland to protect federal property and personnel near the facility.

The Daily Caller [10/7/2025 8:55 AM, Jason Hopkins, 835K] reports an illegal migrant gangbanger allegedly offered thousands of dollars to kill one of the top enforcers of the Trump administration’s immigration agenda. Federal law enforcement agents arrested Juan Espinoza Martinez, a criminal illegal migrant and member of the ruthless Latin Kings gang, on Monday, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Martinez is accused of offering at least $10,000 to take down Commander at Large of the Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino. "Depraved individuals like Juan Espinoza Martinez – who do not value human life and threaten law enforcement– do NOT belong in this country," Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a public statement. "We will not allow criminal gangs to put hits on U.S. government officials and our law enforcement officers." "Thanks to ICE and our federal law enforcement partners, this thug is off our streets and behind bars," McLaughlin continued. A confidential source provided information to law enforcement on Friday that a "hit" had been placed on Bovino, according to DHS. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) received a screenshot of a Snapchat conversation from a user named "Juan" who appeared to place a $2,000 reward for information on catching Bovino and a $10,000 bounty "if you take him down.". ICE identified the user as Martinez and arrested him shortly afterward in Burr Ridge, Illinois, according to DHS. The Justice Department is prosecuting him for soliciting the murder of a senior law enforcement official. "These attacks on our brave law enforcement officers must END. Secretary Noem has been crystal clear: If you threaten or lay a hand on law enforcement, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," McLaughlin said. Blaze [10/7/2025 12:30 PM, Cooper Williamson, 1442K] reports that Martinez, 37, allegedly sent Snapchat messages that read, "2k on information when you get him," and, "10k if you take him down.". "Putting a price on the life of a law enforcement officer is an attack on the rule of law," U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros said in a statement to Fox News. "The defendant’s actions in this case demonstrate a profound contempt for human life and public safety. Under my leadership, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago will hold defendants accountable for their grave criminal actions and ensure that no federal officer has to fear for their life for doing their job." The Department of Homeland Security identified the targeted official as the commander at large of the U.S. Border Patrol, Chief Gregory Bovino. Bovino was instrumental in the eye-catching operation in Chicago’s South Shore at the beginning of the month, during which agents rappelled down from Black Hawk helicopters to secure an apartment complex. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem previously warned on Sunday about these plots, saying, "These people are organized. They’re getting more and more people on their team as far as attacking officers, and they’re making plans to ambush them and to kill them. We have specific officers and agents that have bounties that have been put out on their heads. It’s been $2,000 to kidnap them, $10,000 to kill them. They’ve released their pictures."

Reported similarly:
Breitbart [10/7/2025 3:27 PM, John Binder, 2416K]
FOX News [10/7/2025 8:47 AM, Staff, 40621K]
NewsMax [10/7/2025 10:28 AM, Staff, 4109K]
Daily Wire [10/7/2025 8:20 AM, Jennie Taer, 2494K]
(B) NBC 5 News at 6am [10/7/2025 7:33 AM, Staff]

AP [10/7/2025 10:02 PM, Erin Hooley and Christine Fernando, 4K]
National Guard members from Texas were getting settled at an Army Reserve center in Illinois on Tuesday, the most visible sign yet of the Trump administration’s plan to send troops to the Chicago area despite a lawsuit and vigorous opposition from Democratic elected leaders. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who has accused President Donald Trump of using troops as “political props” and “pawns,” said he didn’t get a heads-up from Washington. The Associated Press saw military personnel in uniforms with the Texas National Guard patch at the U.S. Army Reserve Center in Elwood, 55 miles (89 kilometers) southwest of Chicago. Trucks marked Emergency Disaster Services pulled in and out, dropping off portable toilets and other supplies. Trailers were set up in rows. Extra fencing was spread across the perimeter. The Guard’s exact mission was not immediately clear, though the Trump administration has an aggressive immigration enforcement operation in the nation’s third-largest city, and protesters have frequently rallied at an immigration building outside Chicago in Broadview. The president repeatedly has described Chicago in hostile terms, calling it a “hell hole” of crime, although police statistics show significant drops in most crimes, including homicides. Trump’s bid to deploy the military on U.S. soil over local opposition has triggered a conflict with blue state governors. Illinois and Chicago are urging a federal judge to intervene and stop “Trump’s long-declared ‘War’” on the state. A court hearing on their lawsuit is scheduled for Thursday. In Oregon, a judge over the weekend blocked the Guard’s deployment to Portland, Oregon. Pritzker had predicted Monday that Illinois National Guard troops would be activated, along with 400 from Texas. Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott posted a picture on social media showing troops boarding a plane and declared, “ever ready.” Pritzker said he “literally canceled everything” Saturday in anticipation of a call from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. “They have not picked up the phone and called me. Not once,” Pritzker said Tuesday at a gathering of business, cultural and political leaders in Minneapolis. In Portland, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility has been the site of nightly protests for months, peaking in June when local police declared a riot, with smaller clashes occurring since then. Over the weekend, larger crowds gathered outside the facility, and federal agents fired tear gas. An appeals court has scheduled arguments for Thursday in the government’s bid to overcome a lower court’s rulings and deploy the Guard in Portland. Oregon Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek said she met Tuesday with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and told her there’s “no insurrection” in the state. “Oregon is united against military policing in our communities,” Kotek said. Noem told Fox News on Tuesday that she told Portland Mayor Keith Wilson that if the city did not boost security at the ICE building, get backup from local law enforcement, and take other safety measures then “we were going to send four-times the amount of federal officers here.”

Reported similarly:
New York Post [10/7/2025 6:12 PM, Steven Vago and Chris Nesi, 42219K]

Daily Wire [10/7/2025 7:40 AM, Jennie Taer, 2494K] reports a federal judge declined to block President Donald Trump’s deployment of Texas troops to Chicago Monday. While the case is ongoing, the latest decision will allow the feds to send 200 Texas National Guard soldiers to quell anti-ICE violence across the sanctuary city. The next hearing in the case is set for Thursday, according to the New York Times. Troops are expected to arrive in the Windy City Tuesday or Wednesday, according to the report. After announcing the state’s lawsuit against the deployment Monday, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker indicated that he wouldn’t back down. "The state of Illinois is going to use every lever at our disposal to resist this power grab and get [Kristi] Noem’s thugs the hell out of Chicago," Pritzker said in an afternoon press conference. The decision to send troops to Chicago comes after Border Patrol agents were ambushed Saturday when two agitators allegedly rammed the agents’ vehicle in a convoy of cars.

Wall Street Journal [10/7/2025 7:12 PM, Victoria Albert, John McCormick, and Mariah Timms, 646K] reports local and state politicians railed Tuesday against the Trump administration’s federalization of the National Guard in Illinois as hundreds of guardsmen gathered and protesters vowed to continue to challenge their presence. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, speaking in Minneapolis, suggested that President Trump’s actions are a precursor to trying to intimidate Democratic voters ahead of next year’s midterm elections. “He wants us all, in big cities, to get used to the idea that it’s OK to have military on the streets,” he said at the Minnesota Star Tribune’s North Star Summit. “You are going to see soldiers outside your polling place. That’s going to intimidate a lot of people. And especially it’s going to intimidate people who are not Republicans.” In response, Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said Trump won’t turn a blind eye to “the lawlessness plaguing American cities like Pritzker is willing to do.” She said the president has exercised his lawful authority to protect federal officers and assets. Roughly 500 soldiers—300 from the Illinois National Guard and 200 from Texas—are present in the greater Chicago area, according to U.S. Northern Command. The Illinois National Guard is still being “spun up” because the Texas National Guard had been federalized earlier, Pritzker said.

Washington Examiner [10/8/2025 3:14 AM, Christopher Tremoglie, 1394K] reports the Department of Homeland Security rejected Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s claims about Immigration and Customs Enforcement efforts in his state, specifically in Chicago, categorizing his statements as "harmful lies.” Citing an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union and a press conference Pritzker held on Monday, DHS issued a press release condemning the governor’s comments, claiming that he "repeatedly lied about federal law enforcement operations in Chicago." He referred to ICE agents as "Noem’s thugs," in reference to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. "The state of Illinois is going to use every lever at our disposal to resist this power grab and get Noem’s thugs the hell out of Chicago," Pritzker said on Monday at a press conference announcing his lawsuit against the Trump administration for its order to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago. "I’m not afraid. I am not afraid and I won’t back down.” DHS took umbrage with Pritzker’s words. The federal agency said it was "setting the record straight about Pritzker’s lies and defending the brave men and women of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection from his smears and slander.” "Our message to JB Pritzker: Get out of your mansion and see Chicago," said Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at DHS. "If J.B. Pritzker actually walked the streets of his own city, he would see domestic terrorists and violent rioters attacking police officers and the scourge of violent crime as a direct result of his own policies.” Among Pritzker’s claims that DHS rebutted were: calling ICE’s efforts "an invasion," saying that ICE was racial profiling, "picking up people who are brown and black and then checking their credentials," and stating elderly people and children were "zip-tied" and detained for hours. "For weeks now, Donald Trump, Kristi Noem, and Gregory Bovino have brought their militarized CBP and ICE agents to the streets of Chicago to cause violence and chaos in this city," Pritzker claimed. He called the acts an "unconstitutional invasion by the federal government.” DHS denied such a categorization, rebuking the classification of ICE’s activities as "unconstitutional" or an "invasion." The agency explained that President Donald Trump has the constitutional power to "deploy troops, wherever they’re stationed, to defend federal facilities from attacks.” "Whether it’s the ICE facility in Broadview or the courthouse in Portland, we will defend federal property wherever they are under siege," DHS said in a release. Pritzker also said that DHS was "raiding neighborhoods" and "picking up people who are brown and black" and asking questions afterward. The implication here is that ICE was rounding up non-white people in some sort of racial profiling activity without any cause or justification. DHS emphatically rejected such a claim, calling it "categorically false.” "Allegations that DHS law enforcement officers engage in ‘racial profiling’ are disgusting, reckless, and categorically false," DHS said. " What makes someone a target for immigration enforcement is if they are illegally in the U.S.— not their skin color, race, or ethnicity.” "There are no ‘indiscriminate stops being made,’" noted the release. "The Supreme Court recently vindicated us on this question. DHS enforces federal immigration law without fear, favor, or prejudice.” DHS also claimed its efforts were constitutional, with the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution granting ICE the power to make its arrests in illegal immigration enforcement crackdowns.

Blaze [10/7/2025 2:35 PM, Andrew Chapados, 1442K] reports that tensions are escalating between Chicago’s Mayor Brandon Johnson (D), Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D), and the Trump administration. With Trump’s White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller delivering strong remarks as of late and promising to rid American streets of crime, liberal cities have been put on notice that the federal government finally wants to put an end to the dangers of gang activity and criminality. Chicago has been known as a dangerous city for decades, but now that the feds are stepping in, Democrats are getting in the way. Chicago has a detailed history of supporting illegal immigrants on the municipal level. Here’s how: Chicago’s sanctuary city status dates all the way back to 1985, when Mayor Harold Washington (D) signed an executive order that stated city workers could not ask people about their immigration status. The city joined other liberal strongholds like Cambridge, Massachusetts; St. Paul, Minnesota; as well as California cities Los Angeles, Hollywood, San Francisco, and Berkeley. That year, an estimated 80,000 people from Guatemala and El Salvador lived in San Francisco. The ordinance is still promoted today, with Chicago boasting that it prohibits city employees from assisting in the investigation of a person’s immigration status, absent a federal or court order. President Trump, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth were all named as defendants. In remarks to Blaze News, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said that Mayor Johnson’s demonization of ICE agents has increased assaults against them by "1,000%." She added, "Mayor Johnson has shown time and time again he does not care about the safety of our federal law enforcement officers or Chicagoans... His reckless policies not only endanger our law enforcement, but public safety."

Breitbart [10/7/2025 10:36 AM, Pam Key, 2416K] reports that on Monday, during an appearance on MSNBC’s "The Rachel Maddow Show," Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL) said that the Trump administration was normalizing the presence of the military in cities, allowing them to use these forces to confiscate ballot boxes and recount votes to alter unfavorable results of the 2026 midterm elections. Pritzker said, "The broader goal, I believe, is the militarization of major American cities before the 2026 elections. Let me be clear about what’s going on on the streets of Chicago. They have dressed ICE and CBP in fatigues, put them in military gear, including with automatic weapons, and had them marching up and down major streets in downtown Chicago. It’s a signal that they’re trying to send that it’s okay to have troops on your street, that this would be a welcome thing for people who live in Chicago. Nobody here welcomes it, by the way. I mean, literally as they’re walking down the street, people are yelling at them, but they think they can get people used to the idea." He added, "Next year, I fear that what they’re going to do is deploy these folks eventually to polling places and say they’re protecting the vote. Donald Trump knows that without shenanigans and without this, these breaches of the Constitution, that he’s going to lose the Congress. And if he loses, he’s going to immediately in the aftermath of the election, do what he said he might do in 2020, which is use the military to confiscate the ballot boxes and count the votes, claiming that there’s fraud."

FOX News [10/7/2025 1:01 PM, Greg Norman, 40621K] reports that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) accused Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker of serving the American public a "smorgasbord of lies" as it released a list that it says "debunks" his claims about federal law enforcement operations in Chicago. The federal pushback comes as the Democratic governor and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson filed a lawsuit Monday to block the Trump administration from deploying hundreds of National Guard troops from Illinois and Texas in Chicago and surrounding cities. "Our message to JB Pritzker: Get out of your mansion and see Chicago," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. "If JB Pritzker actually walked the streets of his own city, he would see domestic terrorists and violent rioters attacking police officers and the scourge of violent crime as a direct result of his own policies." The DHS added that it "is setting the record straight about Pritzker’s lies and defending the brave men and women of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) from his smears and slander." During a press conference Monday, Pritzker said there has been an "unconstitutional invasion of Illinois by the federal government," and, "For weeks now, Donald Trump, Kristi Noem, and [Commander at Large of the U.S. Border Patrol] Gregory Bovino have brought their militarized CBP and ICE agents to the streets of Chicago to cause violence and chaos in this city.". However, the DHS said the "reality" is that, "this is neither unconstitutional nor an invasion."

Breitbart [10/7/2025 7:49 PM, Warner Todd Huston, 2416K] reports Chicago’s Democrat Mayor Brandon Johnson suggested on Tuesday that the Chicago Police should arrest ICE agents and other federal officers who he claims are breaking his new executive order aimed at hampering immigration enforcement. On Monday, Johnson signed a dubious executive order creating "ICE-Free Zones" to ban federal agents from using city-owned properties as staging areas for immigration enforcement. Johnson’s proclamation comes as President Donald Trump suggested that the anti-ICE actions by Chicago’s leaders are akin to an insurrection against the federal government. Now, the mayor is claiming that violations of his orders are a "crime" and those who break those rules "should be charged.". "It’s a crime. Here’s the thing, anyone who commits a crime should be charged," Johnson said on Tuesday, according to the Chicago Tribune. "I mean, isn’t that the basic rule of what they ostensibly refer to as ‘law and order?’" Despite Johnson’s bellicosity, Chicago police Supt. Larry Snelling was less willing to support arresting federal officers and noted that he can’t really expect CPD officers to arrest federal law enforcement "because someone deems what they are doing is illegal.".

Chicago Tribune [10/7/2025 2L42 PM, Steve Sadin, 4829K] reports U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested a Waukegan woman for allegedly impeding a federal investigation outside City Hall Monday afternoon as Mayor Sam Cunningham tried to intervene on her behalf and de-escalate the situation as a crowd gathered. Dariana Fajardo, 23, was charged with impeding a federal investigation by a group of eight uniformed men whose patches read "Border Patrol" as she failed to move her car with two of the agents standing in front of her. Early in the afternoon, Cunningham said he was leaving City Hall and heard a commotion on West Street. Someone said ICE was there. He went to investigate and saw a crowd forming, along with the Border Patrol agents and Fajardo. "The young lady called out to me by name," he said. "I know her parents. I told her to calm down, and do what they tell you. I said don’t worry about your vehicle, we’ll get it secured for you. I spoke to one of the agents, and let him know who I am." Earlier in the day, Cunningham was at the College of Lake County’s Lakeshore Campus in downtown Waukegan. He said federal agents apprehended someone there. He did not have any additional details. The arrest was made outside the building. In both situations, he said he had a primary purpose. "My goal was discretion," Cummingham said. "I want to keep people calm and make sure our residents are safe."

FOX News [10/7/2025 12:16 PM, Morgan Phillips, 40621K] reports that President Donald Trump said he would consider invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy federal troops in U.S. cities after a federal judge blocked his administration from sending National Guard units to Portland. "I’d do it if it was necessary. So far it hasn’t been necessary. But we have an Insurrection Act for a reason," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday. The 1807 law has not been invoked since the 1992 Los Angeles riots. "If I had to enact it, I’d do that. If people were being killed and courts were holding us up or governors or mayors were holding us up, sure, I’d do that. I mean, I want to make sure that people aren’t killed. We have to make sure that our cities are safe," he added. The order allows the president to deploy the military to suppress rebellions and enforce federal laws. If invoked, it would grant Trump the authority to federalize the Guard and deploy active duty forces to restore order. It would temporarily override the Posse Comitatus Act, which normally restricts the use of the military for domestic law enforcement. "If we don’t have to use it, I wouldn’t use it," Trump later said on Newsmax, before adding, "If you take a look at what’s been going on in Portland, it’s been going on for a long time, and that’s insurrection. I mean, that’s pure insurrection." The comments came after a federal judge on Sunday blocked the Trump administration from deploying California and Texas National Guard troops to Portland’s streets amid protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The same court earlier had denied Trump from deploying Oregon’s own Guard to the city.

Reuters [10/8/2025 2:34 AM, Gabe Singer, 36480K] reports hundreds of Texas National Guard soldiers gathered on Tuesday at an Army facility outside Chicago, as Donald Trump’s threat to invoke an anti-insurrection law and deploy troops to more U.S. cities intensified the battle over the limits to his authority. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Reported similarly:
(B) NBC News Daily [10/7/2025 2:18 PM, Staff]

CNN [10/8/2025 5:02 AM, Priscilla Alvarez and Michael Williams, 23245K] reports the heavily armed agents carrying out President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement push in Chicago are often masked. The man leading them is not. Nearly three decades into his career with the US Border Patrol, Gregory Bovino has become the on-the-ground face of Trump’s effort to surge federal law enforcement into blue states and cities regardless of whether local officials want them there — first in Los Angeles, now in Chicago, with other possible cities on deck. But if he and his officers are an unwelcome presence or face interference from protesters, Bovino said he is not dissuaded. “We’re going to carry out that mission,” Bovino said in an interview with CNN in Chicago on Tuesday. “And that’s paramount, or else we shouldn’t be here. We’re going to carry that mission out.” He added that if “someone steps in the way, then … that may not work out well for them, and if we need to effect an arrest of a US citizen or anyone else, then we’ll do that.” Local officials have described Bovino as leading a branch of law enforcement which deploys tactics that are frighteningly authoritarian and which has been styled into Trump’s own personal police force, used by the president as a cudgel against Democrat-led localities and the people — citizens and noncitizens alike — who live in them. “I refuse to let Trump, Noem and Bovino continue on this march toward autocracy,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said Monday. “Their plan all along has been to cause chaos, and then they can use that chaos to consolidate Trump’s power.”

Federalist [10/7/2025 7:34 AM, Beth Brelje, 785K] reports fully embracing anarchy, Democrat leaders in Chicago, a sanctuary city; and in Illinois, a sanctuary state, are using every possible method to thwart federal immigration authorities from removing illegal aliens and curtailing rampant crime there. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson issued an executive order Monday creating an ICE Free Zone, preventing ICE from using city property, such as parking lots, as staging areas, or for enforcement actions. City agencies are directed to use physical barriers like locked gates to limit access to city property, and report to the mayor any attempted use of city property for immigration enforcement. Chicago taxpayers will fund a city-wide distribution of "Know Your Rights" materials for employees, tenants, and security staff, training them to deal with federal agents wishing to use city property. Gov. JB Pritzker announced the state filed a lawsuit Monday seeking a temporary restraining order to block President Donald Trump from using Illinois and Texas National Guard troops to manage crime in Chicago. "Illinois is going to use every lever at our disposal to resist this power grab and get (DHS Sec. Kristi) Noem’s thugs hell out of Chicago," Pritzker said in a Monday afternoon press conference. He also said several times that Texas troops should, "stay the hell out of Illinois."

Chicago Tribune [10/7/2025 5:19 PM, Bob Skolnik, 4829K] reports a host of local government officials from Oak Park spoke out passionately this week against the temporary detainment of Oak Park Township Trustee Juan Munoz on Oct. 3 at the Broadview Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and the actions of ICE. Munoz and a host of other Oak Park elected officials were protesting at the Broadview ICE facility on the morning of Oct. 3. According to published reports Munoz was taking video at the Broadview facility Friday morning when he was pulled to the ground by Greg Bovino, the chief patrol agent for the United States Border Patrol’s El Central Section. Munoz was detained for a few hours and then released without being arrested or charged with any crime.

The Hill [10/7/2025 5:17 PM, Ryan Mancini, 12595K] reports the Chicago News Guild on Monday joined other news organizations that have sued the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in connection with allegations of excessive force used on journalists at recent protests in the area. The union joined journalists with the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians (NABET) Local 41, the Chicago Headline Club and Block Club Chicago. The lawsuit describes violent incidents and rhetoric used by the Trump administration as it attempts to send the National Guard into Chicago, with federal officials citing "ongoing violent riots and lawlessness." State and local officials have filed separate lawsuits and slammed the administration’s actions. Mentioned in the lawsuit is a CBS News Chicago reporter who was burned inside a car after a masked ICE agent shot a pepper ball at her vehicle. The complaint also describes an incident where a Presbyterian minister offered prayers to a crowd of demonstrators before being sprayed with tear gas and struck by pepper balls.

The Hill [10/7/2025 3:59 PM, Ashleigh Fields, 12595K] reports a suburb outside Chicago has sued the Trump administration for erecting an 8-foot fence around an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) processing facility, alleging that the barrier blocks emergency services and patrons from accessing the site and surrounding businesses. The Village of Broadview asked Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials to remove the fence in the lawsuit, filed Friday, and cited a lack of medical staff present at the facility as another reason for concern, according to the nonprofit news organization Block Club Chicago. The outlet also has joined a separate lawsuit against ICE for what is being alleged as the unlawful treatment of journalists. Local fire department officials have also complained about the fence. Prior to the fence’s installment, protesters attempted to block the barrier from being put in place. Demonstrators have alleged those being processed at the facility are being forced to use toilets outside and sleep in rooms without beds before being sent to other federal sites, WBEZ Chicago reported. Broadview Mayor Katrina R. Thompson attempted to meet with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Friday to discuss the "danger created by the fence and to again ask for its removal," Block Club Chicago reported, citing the lawsuit. Noem, however, reportedly was unable to meet. The plaintiffs have requested a temporary restraining order in order to have the fence removed. They also asked a judge to declare the action unlawful under the Administrative Procedures Act and urged constituting the fence as a continuing trespass and public nuisance under state and local law, per Block Club Chicago.

Chicago Tribune [10/7/2025 1:23 PM, Jason Meisner, 4829K] reports that a federal judge said Tuesday she’ll rule within a day or two on whether a controversial security fence constructed around the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Broadview is violating the west suburbs right to access its own land. The village of Broadview is seeking a restraining order requiring the removal of the 8-foot-tall fence, which was constructed around the temporary holding facility on Beach Street that has seen daily protests and federal agents using tear gas and other weapons on crowds. During arguments in the lawsuit Tuesday, U.S. District Judge LaShonda Hunt began by warning both sides she didn’t want to get caught up in the politics of the moment. "It is very charged, it is very challenging," Hunt said. "There are so many words we could use here, but it is volatile. But those issues are not before me." Attorneys for Broadview argue that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, constructed the fence "in the middle of the night without notice," and that it not only physically deprives the village of its right to control its own land, but constitutes a public safety hazard by blocking emergency service personnel and vehicles from reaching several commercial and industrial properties located on the other side. Lawyers for the government, meanwhile, said the village still has access to the area through a key-card gate on another street, and that complaints that the gate was too small for fire trucks did not hold water. In response, ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons wrote that rioters were "laying siege and interfering with legitimate law enforcement operations" and that the agency had no intention to change its "operational posture."

Politico [10/7/2025 2:43 PM, Faith Wardwell, 2100K] reports a group of Chicago press associations, journalists, nonprofits and unions sued the Trump administration and its top officials Monday, saying federal agents had used “extreme brutality” at local protests to silence both the press and civilians. The organizations — who were also joined in the suit by individual protesters — allege in the 52-page suit that federal agents acted to “intimidate and silence” civilians and members of the media who did not pose an imminent threat to law enforcement at protests outside a local Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing facility — posing a violation to protesters’ and journalists’ First Amendment rights. “Never in modern times has the federal government undermined bedrock constitutional protections on this scale or usurped states’ police power by directing federal agents to carry out an illegal mission against the people for the government’s own benefit,” the suit states. The litigation is the most recent push against the Trump administration’s use of force in Chicago, as federal agents continue to clash with protesters and Trump moves to send National Guard troops into the city. The plaintiffs are urging the court to protect the First Amendment rights of protesters to peacefully demonstrate around the facility and of journalists to “observe, record, and report on the federal agents’ activities and the public’s demonstrations against them.”

Blaze [10/7/2025 11:55 AM, Rebeka Zeljko, 1442K] reports Attorney General Pam Bondi sparred with Democrats during her congressional hearing on Tuesday, and she did not back down. Bondi testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where the attorney general ripped into Ranking Member Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) over the legality of deploying the National Guard. Durbin challenged Bondi about President Donald Trump’s legal authority to deploy the Texas National Guard to Chicago, the crime-ridden city in the Democratic senator’s jurisdiction. Over the weekend, protesters and agitators clashed with law enforcement in Chicago, with some apparently ramming their vehicles into federal cruisers. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem even said that cartels have placed bounties on Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Despite this dramatic uptick in violence, Durbin questioned the rationale for deploying additional resources. "I wish you loved Chicago as much as you hate President Trump," Bondi said in response. "And currently, the National Guard are on the way to Chicago." "If you’re not going to protect your citizens, President Trump will," Bondi added.

The Hill [10/7/2025 10:23 AM, Alexander Bolton, 12595K] reports Attorney General Pam Bondi declined on Tuesday to answer a question about whether she’s had any discussions with President Trump about the legal justification for deploying National Guard troops from California and Texas to Portland, Oregon, and Chicago, despite the objections of Democratic governors. "I am not going to discuss any internal conversations with the White House," Bondi said when Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), in response to a question from the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. That prompted a surprised response from Durbin. "What’s the secret? Why do you want to keep this secret to the American people [who] don’t know the rationale behind the deployment of National Guard troops in my state," Durbin said. Bondi responded hotly by pointing out that Durbin "voted to shut down the government." She said that means federal law enforcement officers aren’t being paid while they’re working to protect Democratic lawmakers and Democratic cities, such as Chicago. "I wish you love Chicago as much as you hate President Trump and currently the National Guard are on the way to Chicago. If you’re not going to protect your citizens, President Trump will," Bondi said, her voice rising.

CNN [10/7/2025 1:24 PM, Zane Heinlein, 18595K] reports that during an oversight hearing, Attorney General Pam Bondi got visibly angry with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) after he asked her about any conversations she had about a merger lawsuit. In an interview with Jake Tapper, Gov. JB Pritzker (D) responds to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem who claimed Chicago residents are applauding the work of federal law enforcement conducting immigration operations in Illinois. Chicago Alderperson Jessie Fuentes claims she was handcuffed by two Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents while attempting to visit a man detained by ICE at a hospital emergency room. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on "The Benny Show" she requested the Department of War be deployed to Chicago. Her comments come as DHS released a stylized video of an ICE raid in Chicago and during her visit to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Illinois. [Editorial note consult video at source link]

The Hill [10/7/2025 1:22 PM, Alexander Bolton, 12595K] reports that Attorney General Pam Bondi got into several heated exchanges with Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla (Calif.) during which Bondi accused the senator of not caring about his home state and having "stormed" Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at a press conference earlier this year. Bondi ripped Padilla for delivering a long statement criticizing her leadership of the Department of Justice before asking his first question. "First, Sen. Padilla you’ve gone on for over five minutes and I wish that you loved your state of California as much as you hate President Trump. We’d be in really good shape then because violent crime in California is currently 35 percent higher than the national average," Bondi retorted. Padilla tried to cut her off and ask his next question, but Bondi refused to yield the mic. "No, you can’t go on for five minutes and criticize my agents who are out working without pay right now," she said, waving her index finger at him. That proceeded to loud crosstalk and confusion in the room until Padilla called on 92-year-old Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the committee’s chairman, to restore order. Padilla then asked Bondi what he called a "simple question," specifically who made the decision to end the investigation of Trump border czar Tom Homan for accepting $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents. Bondi appeared frustrated by the question and scolded the senator for missing earlier parts of the hearing.

Reported similarly:
CBS News [10/7/2025 1:31 PM, Staff, 39474K]

Politico [10/7/2025 9:15 AM, Blake Jones and Shia Kapos, 2100K] reports Donald Trump’s continued deployment of National Guard troops to major cities over the objections of their Democratic state leaders is shattering a decades-long norm of cooperation between presidents and governors. What began this year as a one-off deployment to Los Angeles has spread to Washington, Portland, Oregon and Illinois, spurring furious pushback from local and state officials. Governors, including potential 2028 presidential contenders Gavin Newsom in California and JB Pritzker in Illinois, have said they were notified at the last minute that Guard troops were being dispatched to American streets. The precedent-skirting lack of communication is prompting high-profile Democrats — who have already sued the administration — to escalate their rhetoric and press for Republican condemnations. Newsom and Pritzker both threatened to withdraw their states from the National Governors Association on Monday, accusing the bipartisan group of silence in wake of Trump’s test of states’ rights. “There is no invasion here, there is no insurrection here, and local and state law enforcement are on the job and managing what they need to,” Pritzker said at a news conference Monday, while calling for people to stand up to the Trump administration. “I refuse to let Donald Trump, Kristi Noem and Gregory Bovino continue on this march toward autocracy.” The call-ups, the first against sitting governors’ wishes since the racial integration of American schools in 1965, have infused uncommon partisanship into the use of the military branch. While Republican Gov. Greg Abbott enthusiastically approved of Trump sending Texas troops to Portland, Oregon’s Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek called the overtaking of her state’s Guard members, which a federal judge blocked over the weekend, “not American.”

AP [10/7/2025 3:46 PM, Geoff Mulvihill and David A. Lieb, 2416K] reports that the Democratic governors of California and Illinois are threatening to leave the National Governors Association because of its silence on President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops across state lines despite objections from the receiving states’ leaders. “If we cannot come together, on a bipartisan basis, on this basic principle of state sovereignty, what purpose does the National Governors Association serve?” California Gov. Gavin Newsom asked in a letter to the nation’s other governors. The bipartisan governors’ group, founded in 1908, advocates for issues on which governors find common ground and hosts meetings where they can exchange ideas. Separate Democratic and Republican governors’ associations take more partisan positions and help finance campaigns. Newsom and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, both potential 2028 presidential candidates, contend Trump’s troop deployments should be a matter of concern for all governors. But some Republican governors have supported Trump’s actions, and the national governors’ group has not taken a position. “I’m not sure the policy issue of whether the Constitution allows for federal involvement in the state and the National Guard is something that the NGA would want to tackle,” said Republican Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe, who co-chairs the organization’s task force on emergency management and public health. The Democratic governors of Kansas, Michigan and Minnesota already have left the NGA this year. Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly said she didn’t think the roughly $100,000 annual dues paid by the state were a good investment and encouraged the group to push back against canceled federal grants.

FOX News [10/7/2025 3:28 PM, Alexandra Koch, 40621K] reports a federal grand jury in Georgia has charged two out-of-state men with knowingly making threats to injure a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation officer and his wife. Frank Andrew Waszut, 41, of Knoxville, Tennessee, is accused of posting a video on Instagram that identified and showed photos of an ICE deportation officer who lives and works in the Northern District of Georgia, according to court documents. Waszut is in Texas law enforcement custody, where he is charged with making separate terroristic threats against Republican lawmakers. Noto was taken into federal custody and arraigned on the indictment. Both men were indicted by a federal grand jury on Sept. 23. The case is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Washington Examiner [10/7/2025 6:01 PM, Mabinty Quarshie, 1394K] reports President Donald Trump’s administration sent notice to Congress on Tuesday opposing a joint resolution introduced by Senate Democrats to stop U.S. military strikes on drug cartel boats in the Caribbean Sea without congressional approval. The Washington Examiner obtained a copy of the Office of Management and Budget’s statement of administration policy, which called for the joint resolution to "be rejected" as it would interfere with the president’s ability to address national security threats from cartels. Senate Democrats will likely force a War Powers Act vote as soon as this week on the resolution that was spearheaded by Sens. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Tim Kaine (D-VA). The resolution is privileged, meaning it will come up for a vote on the Senate floor. However, it faces no chance of passing in the Republican-controlled Senate or House, although Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) could vote for the resolution, given his opposition to Trump’s attacks on the cartels. The measure would require Congress to authorize military action against cartels in the aftermath of U.S. strikes against boats from Venezuela that Trump said are carrying fentanyl. So far, at least four known strikes on vessels in international waters have occurred.

New York Post [10/8/2025 1:40 AM, Nicholas McEntyre, 42219K] reports Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem went scorched earth on country music superstar Zach Bryan over his controversial new song targeting ICE raids — as the singer said the tune is about "how much I love this country.” Noem said she was "disappointed and disheartened" after she listened to the short demo of Bryan’s song "Bad News," which was released on Oct. 3. "I hope he understands how completely disrespectful that song is, not just to law enforcement but to this country," Noem told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson on Tuesday. "To every single individual that has stood up and fought for our freedoms. He just compromised it all by putting out a product such as that, that attacks individuals who are just trying to make our streets safe.” Bryan, 29, shared the short snippet on social media, captioning the post "the fading of the red white and blue.” The song follows the protagonist struggling in life, but not "dead or in jail," with only a group of degenerate friends. Cocky motherf–kers, ain’t they? Bryan claims kids are scared, houses aren’t being built, but everyone has a telephone, even as bars stopped being the social spot of the town. "The middlе fingers rising, and it won’t stop showing. Noem spoke out against the song during a short media briefing in Portland after federal agents arrested several illegal immigrants, including an accused child rapist, earlier in the day, according to Johnson. The former South Dakota governor was elated to share that she was never a fan of Bryan — who served in the US Navy — before he released the clip of the song. "Zach, I didn’t listen to your music. I’m happy about that today," Noem said. That makes me very happy that I never gave you a single penny to enrich your lifestyle, if you truly believe what that song stands for.” The former South Dakota governor threw her support behind other country singers, such as Jason Aldean, John Rich, Jon Pardi and Kid Rock. "Those guys know what it means to stand up to freedom," she said. "Glad I didn’t waste any money on Zach.” Noem called out Bryan’s apparent hypocrisy for releasing the anti-law enforcement song while having police protect him at his concerts. "That’s what’s so special about law enforcement, is that they don’t pick and choose who they defend when they do their jobs. They will even defend and protect people that don’t respect them or stand up for them so that’s who I’ll point to when I tell my grandkids to grow up like someone.”

Axios [10/7/2025 1:03 PM, Herb Scribner, 12972K] reports that Country music star Zach Bryan is facing backlash from fans and MAGA listeners over a new song snippet that criticizes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Why it matters: Bryan joins a chorus of artists and celebrities speaking out against President Trump’s agenda and immigration policy. Singers such as Bad Bunny, Shakira and Doechii have specifically called out Trump’s immigration policies. Bad Bunny, picked by the NFL to headline next year’s Super Bowl LX halftime show, fell under scrutiny from MAGA over his comments on immigration enforcement. ICE has faced widespread scrutiny for raids within the United States, leading to widespread protests and legal challenges nationwide. The White House has been highly critical of anti-ICE backlash, saying it leads to violence against law enforcement. Driving the news: Three days ago, Bryan shared the song clip on Instagram captioned: "the fading of the red, white and blue." In the preview, he sings: "My friends are all degenerates, but they’re all I got. The generational story of dropping the plot. I heard the cops came. Cocky mother-----ers, ain’t they?" Another line: "ICE is gonna come bust down your door. Try to build a house, no one builds no more, well I got a telephone. Kids are all scared and all alone." The song, seemingly titled "Bad News," comes days after Bryan reportedly shattered the record for the largest ticketed concert in U.S. history. The White House responded to the controversy with puns of Bryan’s songs: "While Zach Bryan wants to Open The Gates to criminal illegal aliens and has Condemned heroic ICE officers, Something in the Orange tells me a majority of Americans disagree with him and support President Trump’s great American Revival. Godspeed, Zach!" said spokeswoman Abigail Jackson in a statement.

Bloomberg [10/7/2025 1:15 PM, Eric Martin, 18207K] reports that President Donald Trump has called off US diplomatic engagement with Venezuela, people familiar with the move said, a decision that favors Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s more hardline approach and may lead to further military escalation. Trump told Richard Grenell, a long-time aide who had been leading diplomacy with Venezuela, that he should stop pursuing a deal with Nicolas Maduro’s administration, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. Grenell had been speaking to Venezuelan officials every few days. The decision was reported earlier by the New York Times. It marks a victory for Rubio, who had waged a turf war with Grenell and favors a more hardline approach to the Maduro government. The White House and State Department didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Trump has already ordered multiple strikes on drug trafficking vessels at sea and has recently suggested he could order the US military to escalate those attacks by hitting cartel infrastructure on land — a move that may also involve risky strikes on Venezuelan military targets. Last week, the White House declared that the US was in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels flooding the country with illegal drugs like fentanyl.

Reuters [10/7/2025 12:56 PM, Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali, 36480K] reports how many suspected drug boats has the U.S. military destroyed in the waters off Venezuela? It might be as high as six or as low as four, depending on who you ask. The latest confusion arose on Sunday when U.S. President Donald Trump announced the United States carried out yet another strike on a boat allegedly transporting drugs off the coast of Venezuela on Saturday. "We did another one last night," Trump told reporters during a speech at Naval Station Norfolk, next to the Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier. The Pentagon has yet to confirm that strike, however, and the White House did not respond to a request for clarification. Two U.S. officials told Reuters they are unaware of any such operation on Saturday. The fuzzy accounting adds to the mystery surrounding the attacks, which have alarmed Democratic lawmakers and some experts, who see Trump testing the limits of the law as he expands the scope of presidential power. It was unclear whether Trump might have mistaken the Saturday strike for one announced by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday in the waters off Venezuela that killed four suspected drug traffickers.

Chicago Tribune [10/7/2025 6:00 AM, Staff, 4829K] reports the provocateurs on both the right and the left over the weekend defined the narrative around the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement surge into Chicago and its suburbs. On the right, we had Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers "patrolling" Latino neighborhoods in Chicago and tear-gassing scenes that arguably didn’t call for such heavy-handed tactics. We had the Department of Homeland Security making Hollywood-style videos of a wee-hours South Shore apartment building raid that looks more over-the-top with each passing day. On the left, we had activists who were attempting - with cars or otherwise - to physically impede ICE and Customs Border Patrol agents from doing the work they’re legally allowed to do. With those tactics, these militant activists are imperiling the far greater number of peaceful protesters striving mightily to make their voices heard without breaking the law. In the middle is everyone else. The Chicagoans who are aghast at the chaos the ICE incursion is creating in our city. The public officials who are trying to remain cool in the face of such pressure, some more successfully than others. And even Chicago police officers who are catching intense heat from the right in following state and local laws that don’t allow them to cooperate with ICE in enforcing federal immigration laws in the absence of a warrant signed by a judge - even after more than two dozen of them were exposed to ICE-sprayed chemical agents while responding to a scene involving the federal agents. The entire spectacle leaves all of us distraught.

Chicago Tribune [10/7/2025 6:00 AM, Staff, 4829K] reports this past Friday, I attended a protest at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center in Broadview to exercise my First Amendment rights and practice my faith. As a pastor, I believe that what is happening at that facility and others like it across the country is a moral and spiritual emergency. When I show up to a protest, I am 100% committed to nonviolence. I wear a clerical collar, and my behavior is completely nonthreatening. In tense situations, I have found a pastoral presence can help bring down the temperature in helpful ways. I attended Friday’s protest in part due to concern that someone could eventually be killed by ICE due to the agency’s escalation of violence against protesters. I assumed that was the same concern that caused the Illinois State Police to be deployed to the ICE facility. When I heard state police would be present, I thought that their actions would match Gov. JB Pritzker’s tough anti-ICE rhetoric. I hoped they might even protect protesters’ First Amendment rights. I was gravely mistaken. At that protest, Illinois State Police hit me with their hands and pushed me and others with truncheons. This violent escalation took place when I was praying at the front line of the protest, on the curb and not in the street, which we were told was off-limits. While protesters were arbitrarily and forcibly moved by state police, a right-wing influencer was allowed access to shoot footage from the roadway we were not allowed on. When U.S. Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino arrived, we were pushed back by the Illinois State Police and federal agents, even though we were not on federal property. In response to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s visit to the ICE facility in Broadview, Pritzker said, "Illinois is not a photo opportunity." I wish that were the case. From what I saw on Friday, not only was our state made into a photo-op, but also, our state police rolled out the red carpet for Bovino and Noem. Instead of talking a big game, the governor should make sure that the state police are there to protect Illinoisans exercising their First Amendment rights.

New York Post [10/7/2025 11:25 AM, Rich Lowry, 42219K] reports President Trump wanted an excuse to send National Guard troops to Chicago, and now he’s got one. The Windy City in recent days has done its best imitation of Los Angeles, where resistance to Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations created the justification for a Guard deployment a couple months ago. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson hate the notion of the National Guard in the streets of the city, but have failed to rally Chicago residents to do the one thing necessary to avoid the deployment — let federal officers do their job. The word should have gone out long ago: Don’t riot outside ICE facilities. Don’t ram cars into ICE vehicles. Don’t keep ICE officers from making arrests. Don’t follow ICE vehicles in an attempt to disrupt operations. Don’t act as though the Gestapo has descended on your city and civil disobedience, or violence, is the only answer. None of this should be a big ask. Instead, Pritzker and Johnson consider ICE operations inherently out of bounds and have played into the belief that something terrible is being done to Chicago. According to Johnson, "The president of the United States has declared war on the people of Chicago" — as if detaining people who have no right to live or work here is a hostile act against US citizens. The resistance to ICE shows that we have created enclaves that, as far as their political leaders and a significant element of the population are concerned, are supposed to be no-go zones for federal immigration enforcement.

Blaze [10/7/2025 8:00 AM, Ammon Blair, 1442K] reports President Donald Trump has finally named the enemy: Mexican drug cartels. Declaring them unlawful combatants and recognizing a "non-international armed conflict" marks one of the most consequential national security shifts in modern history. For decades, Washington treated cartel violence as a crime — a problem for prosecutors, not generals. Indictments were filed, assets seized, and sanctions imposed. But the cartels fought a different kind of war, one that combined terror, intelligence, and territorial control. Calling it "crime" guaranteed defeat. According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, Mexico ranks among the world’s most violent conflict zones — behind only Palestine, Myanmar, and Syria. It is also the second-most dangerous country for civilians. Those numbers are not from a failed state overseas. They come from our southern border, where cartel wars spill into American communities daily. For decades, federal authorities insisted on using a law-enforcement lens. Agencies operated under Title 21, Title 50, and limited "detect and monitor" authorities. They punished crimes but never broke campaigns. The narrow scope bred strategic blindness. While U.S. prosecutors filed indictments and built cases, cartels corrupted institutions, coerced populations, and built empires. As the Marine Corps teaches: How you define the environment determines how you operate in it. We refused to define the cartels as belligerents — and fought the wrong fight.

Washington Post [10/7/2025 11:00 AM, Douglas MacMillan, 24149K] reports the Trump administration has said immigration enforcement will “remain unchanged” through the government shutdown. Officers continue to arrest migrants; detention centers remain fully operational; and the government issued new contracts for additional migrant holding facilities just last week. But at least one team at Immigration and Customs Enforcement isn’t going into work: the Office of Detention Oversight, which inspects detention centers to ensure they meet federal standards for the safe and humane treatment of immigrants. Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, confirmed in an email Monday that the entire Office of Detention Oversight has been furloughed, saying, “We hope Democrats will open up the government swiftly so that this office can resume its work.” The contrast between that office’s temporary closure and the ongoing immigration crackdown at ICE highlights how the administration’s priorities have steered the agency’s operations during the funding impasse. During a budget shutdown, department leaders must determine which roles are “nonessential,” because only essential employees are allowed to stay on the job when federal funding has expired.

New York Post [10/7/2025 4:41 PM, Chris Nesi, 42219K] reports President Trump’s deportation effort is on track to kick 600,000 illegal migrants out of the country in the first year of his sweeping nationwide crackdown, new data released to The Post says. But the impact of the mass deportation push has been even larger — with more than 2 million illegal migrants leaving the US since January, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said. ICE agents and other feds have also arrested more than 457,000 illegal immigrants, which officials pledge is “just the beginning” of things to come. Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “jumpstarted an agency that was vilified and barred from doings its job for the last four years,” said DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin. DHS has deported more than 493,000 illegal aliens since the start of Trump’s second term, and 1.6 million more have voluntarily “self-deported.”

Federalist [10/7/2025 5:43 PM, M.D. Kittle, 785K] reports much of the federal government may be closed for business, but the men and women of ICE continue to remove the "worst of the worst" criminal illegal aliens from communities large and small. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are keeping up the pace even as leftist city mayors, blue state governors, and woke law enforcement officials do all they can to undermine their mission and put their lives at risk. The latest in-custody list of dangerous criminal aliens includes pedophiles, domestic abusers, and drug traffickers, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s latest tally, exclusively provided to The Federalist. "Our officers continue to risk their lives every day to arrest criminal illegal aliens despite not getting paid and the more than 1000% increase in assaults against them," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to The Federalist. "Just yesterday, DHS arrested criminal illegal aliens convicted of child sex crimes, assault, domestic abuse, manslaughter, drug trafficking, and burglary," she added, reiterating that "under President Trump and Secretary Noem, criminals are not welcome in the United States.". Jose Alberto Hernandez-Alvarado. The criminal illegal alien from Mexico was convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child in Texas, according to Homeland Security. Kemar Hamilton, a Jamaican foreign national, was convicted of manslaughter and assault in the Bronx, DHS reported.

Axios [10/7/2025 6:20 AM, Steph Solis and Isaac Avilucea, 12972K] reports a Pennsylvania immigrant detention center that’s come under scrutiny in recent months has held a high number of people in solitary confinement in 2025, according to new data obtained by Axios. Immigrant detention centers nationwide are reporting placing more people in solitary confinement this year, sometimes for weeks at a time, per a report from Harvard University researchers and Physicians for Human Rights. The researchers found that U.S. solitary confinement placements increasingly drag on for 15 days or longer, which the United Nations considers to be psychological torture. They focused on immigrant detention centers, which experts say are primarily used to hold immigrants and ensure they make their court hearings and check-ins — not to punish them for immigration violations. Nearly 14,000 people were placed in solitary confinement in immigrant detention centers nationwide between April 2024 and August 2025, per the data. More than 1,900 people were isolated at Philipsburg’s Moshannon Valley Processing Center between April 2024 and this past May — the highest number among the detention centers evaluated in the report.

Breitbart [10/7/2025 2:24 PM, Alana Mastrangelo, 2416K] reports that Jon Stewart smeared the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) a "well-funded paramilitary group" that is attacking grandmothers and "zip-tying American children" during a recent episode of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show. "ICE went from deporting the worst of the worst to throwing grandmothers onto linoleum and zip-tying American children," Stewart declared during Monday’s episode of The Daily Show. "And everyone’s just supposed to be cool with the new, masked, incredibly well-funded paramilitary group," Stewart continued in his rant smearing U.S. law enforcement, adding that "Democrats are just reduced to petty gestures of restroom resistance." The Daily Show host then played a clip of CNN reporting U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem recently revealing "that she was blocked from entering a city building in Illinois." "Victory is ours!" Stewart sarcastically exclaimed, poking fun at Democrats for apparently thinking that locking Noem out of a building is some sort of win. "Look, I’ve given Democrats an enormous amount of shit for their poor leadership: lack of specific and actionable plans, terrible messaging, abysmal wordplay. Did I mention poor leadership?" Stewart said. "But standing up for 75 million Americans in this moment to defend the rights of people to go into a little less medical debt seems like the least they can fucking do," the television host continued.

Axios [10/7/2025 6:15 AM, Thomas Wheatley, 12972K] reports people accused of immigration violations say they’ve been detained for days in poor conditions in ICE’s Downtown Atlanta field office. Lawyers for detainees told the AJC their clients stayed overnight without easy access to showers or legal help in the field office’s holding center blocks away from the Georgia Capitol and City Hall. Since Jan. 20, more than 1,200 people have been detained in the Ted Turner Drive building for more than 24 hours, which also houses the Atlanta U.S. Immigration Court, according to the Deportation Data Project. According to the database compiled by lawyers and academics using ICE records, only eight people spent longer than 24 hours in the holding room from September 2023 until President Trump began his second term in office. The holding centers are meant to house detainees for short periods of time as their cases are processed. One lawyer interviewed by the AJC said her clients included a mother of two who slept on the facility’s floor for more than a week and a man who spent several nights sleeping next to an open toilet. In a statement, DHS assistant secretary of public affairs Tricia McLaughlin said ICE follows agency standards "to ensure the safety, security, and humane treatment of individuals in custody." McLaughlin said "detainees are receiving three meals a day, have access to phones, showers, legal representation, blankets, and medical care." "When will the media stop covering sob stories of illegal alien processing and detention centers and start focusing on the victims of illegal alien crime?" she said.

Univision [10/7/2025 9:13 PM, Staff, 5004K] reports two men were indicted last weekend under a state immigration law that is suspended by court order, according to a report released Monday by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier’s office. Both cases occurred in Bradenton and add to a series of improper arrests made at different points in the state since a federal court blocked enforcement of the rule. According to the court filing, the men were arrested in separate incidents and faced charges of “illegal entry” to the state, a figure established in the immigration law promoted by Governor Ron DeSantis. However, a federal judge in Miami, Kathleen Williams, ruled in April that the legislation could not be enforced while her court challenge continues. Attorney General Uthmeier was forced to deliver periodic reports on the enforcement of that court order after being declared in civil contempt. In April, Williams sanctioned him for instructing state and local agents who could continue to enforce the law, even though she had issued an injunction temporarily suspending her. As part of the punishment, the judge ordered the attorney general to report twice a month on any police action or arrest linked to the immigration rule. In the first case, an agent stopped a driver after observing loose branches and unsecured equipment in the back of his truck. The man acknowledged that his driver’s license was expired. Following a call to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sergeant, his irregular immigration status was confirmed and a federal arrest warrant was issued. In the second case, another agent responded to a traffic block caused by the fall of an engine block in the middle of the road. The driver, who also had no driver’s license, admitted by phone to an ICE agent who was illegally in the United States. Both were charged under state illegal entry law, but local prosecutors announced that the charges would be dropped as a currently suspended rule.

Breitbart [10/7/2025 3:22 PM, John Binder, 2416K] reports Democrats on the House Homeland Security and House Judiciary committees are demanding a federal investigation into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after agents arrested dozens of illegal aliens in the South Shore of Chicago, Illinois. Late last month, ICE agents arrested almost 40 illegal aliens during the raid, some of whom may be linked to the Tren de Aragua gang. On Tuesday, Democrats on both committees urged Attorney General Pam Bondi and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem to open an investigation into the ICE raid, answering a series of detailed questions regarding the enforcement action.

Univision [10/7/2025 11:12 PM, Staff, 5004K] reports Univision News obtained exclusive footage showing for the first time how prisoners live at the East Montana immigration detention center in Texas. For its part, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement that allegations of inhumane conditions at the facility are false. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Breitbart [10/7/2025 3:54 PM, Warner Todd Huston, 2416K] reports the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced the arrests of 91 illegal aliens driving semi-trucks on fraudulent licenses in Oklahoma as the feds continue a crackdown on migrants driving commercial trucks. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol made the arrests during a three-day operation along Oklahoma’s I-40. Along with the 91 illegal drivers, ICE took an additional 29 illegal aliens into custody during the operation, DHS said in an October 6 press release. The criminal activity committed by those taken into custody includes driving on multiple DUIs, illegal re-entry into the U.S., money laundering, human smuggling, assault, conspiracy to distribute cocaine, and possession of a controlled substance.

Blaze [10/7/2025 3:50 PM, Julio Rosas, 1442K] reports the ongoing violent protests at the facility in the southern portion of the city in response to President Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts have become a months-long problem. The focus on Portland was renewed after Trump said he wanted to deploy the National Guard there to help protect federal assets and personnel. The day of my visit came after a federal judge put a temporary halt on the deployment of Oregon National Guardsmen. The facility had been prepared to receive the reinforcements, but now it was business as usual. The previous day saw a large number of protesters attempt to block the movement of federal vehicles from the building, resulting in clashes with federal agents and officers who went outside to clear the roadway.

New York Post [10/7/2025 4:18 PM, Jared Downing, 42219K] reports an undocumented immigrant had been arrested and deported multiple times before allegedly killing six people in a drunk driving crash in California, ICE said. A man going by Norberto Celerino, 53, faces six murder counts after he drunkenly crashed his packed car into a tree last month, Napa County prosecutors say. But US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Celerino — who has gone by many aliases — is actually 49-year-old Beto Cerillo-Bialva, who has been arrested and deported multiple times. The crash left Cerillo-Bialva and one other passenger critically injured, authorities said. ICE blamed the tragedy on California’s longstanding sanctuary laws that block local law enforcement from cooperating with federal authorities and help even repeat deportees fly under the radar. Cerillo-Bialva also faces six counts of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated in addition to the murder raps.

Los Angeles Times [10/7/2025 6:15 PM, Brittny Mejia, 14862K] reports for more than a month, federal immigration officials surveilled Bayron Rovidio Marin in a hospital bed at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, where he lay recuperating from serious injuries to his leg after an encounter with agents at a Carson car wash they raided. He was never charged and his lawyers say he was shackled to his bed for several days and couldn’t speak privately with doctors or legal counsel. Over the weekend, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order requiring immigration officials to remove the guards watching over Bayron Rovidio Marin, take off the handcuffs and leave him unrestrained. "He is presently detained under restrictions that limit his access to counsel, medical providers, and family," U.S. District Judge Cynthia Valenzuela wrote in her Oct. 4 order. "He has been questioned by government officials while in pain and under the influence of medication. He cannot place phone calls and remains handcuffed to a hospital bed despite a broken leg that prevents him from walking. He has received no more than a vague explanation for his detention, and Respondents’ proffered excuses for delaying a formal notice are unsupported by facts.". Despite Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s insistence on holding the man, Valenzuela said the government failed to provide any proof that he had "violated any law or regulation" or show that he was a "flight risk.". To date, ICE has not placed Rovidio Marin in removal proceedings, charged him with violating immigration law, set bond, issued a Notice to Appear or otherwise processed him, according to the order. The government told the court that they would determine the immigration status of Rovidio Marin once he was released from the hospital. His attorneys argued being indefinitely held without any charges is a clear constitutional violation. The Department of Homeland Security and the medical center did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Telemundo20 [10/7/2025 3:14 PM, Staff, 57K] reports in a statement released last Friday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), it reported that an immigrant from China died at El Centro Regional Medical Center on September 29. The victim is Huabing Xie, 18, who, according to the center’s staff, suffered a seizure and underwent pulmonary resuscitation maneuvers. Emergency services transported the victim to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. According to information reported by ICE, Border Patrol agents arrested Xie on several occasions, the first time in Tecate on December 31, 2023. After being released on bail, he was arrested again on September 12 in Indio, California, and transferred to ICE custody. In addition to this death, on September 22, Ismael Ayala-Uribe, 39, also died in the hospital after being transferred from the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, the agency reported. Ayala-Uribe was originally from Mexico and a DACA recipient from 2012 to 2016, NBCLA reported. His immigration status was denied after two DUI charges. He was arrested during an immigration raid in Orange County and held at the Los Angeles-area detention center for about a month before his death. ICE has reported 13 deaths in custody this year through August 31. The two latest reports bring the number to 15, although they are not yet listed on ICE’s reporting website.

Los Angeles Times [10/7/2025 10:26 AM, Rachel Uranga, 14862K] reports Jose Mario Rodriguez Grimaldi was weak and unable to eat in his final days after contracting COVID. He died peacefully in his daughter’s Winnetka home two years ago, at age 88. Years after his death, he was facing deportation proceedings. In August, his daughter received a notice addressed to him from the Department of Homeland Security: "It is charged that you are subject to removal from the United States.". Homeland Security ordered Rodriguez Grimaldi to appear before a judge in December. Then a few weeks later came another notice to appear for a hearing in September. If the feeble man were still alive, his fate might have been clear. The department has been aggressively seeking to deport unauthorized immigrants, scanning records for expired visas and reviving cases once administratively closed for deportation, sometimes a decade ago. But in the case of Rodriguez Grimaldi and several others confirmed by The Times, they died before officials could go after them. Some of the immigrants were in their late 80s. Some had legal status. But the intense push to ramp up deportations is dragging in even the dead, unnerveing immigrant households, cramming court calendars and sapping stretched immigration attorneys’ time.

Daily Caller [10/7/2025 12:41 PM, Media Madness, 835K] reports while reacting Monday on “The View” to Homeland Security Department (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem warning that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will be present at the Super Bowl, Whoopi Goldberg suggested people should put cocoa butter on their skin and peak with a Latin accent to throw agents off the scent. People in attendance chuckled and clapped in response. The Daily Caller’s Natalie Sandoval breaks down the situation for Media Madness.

Roll Call [10/7/2025 4:42 PM, Chris Johnson, 548K] reports a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s new $100,000 fee on H-1B visas describes the kinds of harms it could have on health care, education and religious groups that seek to employ foreign talent to complement their workforce. The complaint, filed by a mix of employers and unions Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, details the economic fallout as a central part of its lawsuit that argues the Trump administration overstepped congressional authority. Trump’s Sept. 19 proclamation says the new $100,000 fee on companies for every new H-1B visa application is necessary to reverse "systemic abuse of the program has undermined both our economic and national security." But the proclamation focuses on information technology and software, along with science, technology, engineering and math fields. The plaintiffs, represented by attorneys with Justice Action Center, Democracy Forward Foundation and other groups, say the proclamation’s harms will be more widespread.

Blaze [10/7/2025 11:00 AM, Matt O’Brien, 1442K] reports last month, Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) introduced the American Tech Workforce Act — legislation aimed at curbing abuses in the H-1B visa program and protecting American workers. One key provision would restrict remote work by foreign nationals employed in the United States under H-1B visas. Yes, you read that right. Foreign workers can enter the country and "work remotely," often from locations nowhere near the companies that hired them. A foreign national can take a tech job with a firm in San Francisco or Dallas, then live and work from Peoria or Plattsburgh. The arrangement makes little sense — unless your goal is to undercut American wages. The H-1B program was sold to Americans as a way to fill gaps in "specialty occupations" that supposedly lacked qualified domestic talent. In practice, it became a pipeline for cheap, compliant foreign labor. Vague definitions of "specialty occupation" and toothless wage protections made it easy for corporations to game the system and drive down costs. Workers from India, China, and the Philippines accept lower pay for two simple reasons. First, they see the H-1B as a path to permanent residence and eventual citizenship. Many arrive and immediately ask their employers to petition for green cards. They believe that if they keep quiet and work long hours for less money, they’ll earn the right to stay. Second, even when underpaid by American standards, they make far more than they could at home. A senior computer engineer in India earns roughly $16,000 to $28,000 per year. In the United States, even a low-paid engineer makes about $58,000. The math works for them — but not for American graduates struggling to enter the same field.

Reuters [10/7/2025 1:22 PM, Staff, 36480K] reports that chipmaker Nvidia’s (NVDA.O) CEO Jensen Huang said that the company will continue to sponsor H-1B visas and cover all associated costs following U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order last month that imposed a $100,000 fee on each new application, Business Insider reported on Tuesday. Huang’s reported message, aimed at reassuring employees, comes after panic and confusion had ensued among tech workers on H-1B visas, a large chunk of whom are from India and China. Akin to the wider chip and tech industry, Nvidia has a significant number of employees from overseas. Huang has repeatedly asserted that about half the AI researchers in the world are Chinese. "As one of many immigrants at Nvidia, I know that the opportunities we’ve found in America have profoundly shaped our lives," Huang wrote in a message to staff, cited by Business Insider. "And the miracle of Nvidia — built by all of you, and by brilliant colleagues around the world — would not be possible without immigration," Huang added, according to the report. Nvidia declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.

Breitbart [10/7/2025 3:11 PM, John Binder, 2416K] reports for the fifth consecutive month this year, President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released zero migrants into the United States interior. "September marked the fifth consecutive month with ZERO releases by the Border Patrol along the southwest border, compared to 9,144 releases in September 2024," DHS officials boasted in a news release. The elimination of the federal government’s Catch and Release policy is a massive victory for the Trump administration — particularly after former President Joe Biden blew the pipeline wide open with a network. Under Biden, it is estimated that millions of migrants were released into the U.S. interior in just four years. Also under Trump, DHS officials note, Fiscal Year 2025 ended with the fewest southern border crossings in 55 years, with less than 238,000 migrants crossing in the last 12 months.

New York Post [10/7/2025 7:56 PM, Victor Nava, 42219K] reports illegal crossings along the US-Mexico border plummeted to a 55-year low in fiscal year 2025 – with the vast majority of unlawful attempts to enter the country taking place during the final months of the Biden administration. Federal authorities apprehended a total of 237,565 migrants along the southwest border during the period between Oct. 1, 2024 and Sept. 30, 2025, according to data released Tuesday by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The figure is the lowest fiscal year total for apprehensions since 1970, when authorities caught 201,780 migrants attempting to cross the US-Mexico border. It is also 87% less than the average number of apprehensions over the last four fiscal years, which was about 1.86 million, according to DHS. "We have had the most secure border in American history and our end of year numbers prove it," DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement. "We have shattered multiple records this year and once again we have broken a new record with the lowest number of Southwest border apprehensions in 55 years.". "Under President Trump, we have empowered and supported our law enforcement to do their job and they have delivered."

Reported similarly:
The Hill [10/7/2025 8:57 PM, Tara Suter, 12595K]
NewsMax [10/7/2025 11:49 AM, Charlie McCarthy, 4109K]
Washington Examiner [10/7/2025 2:00 PM, Anna Giaritelli, 1394K]

FOX News [10/7/2025 2:23 PM, Staff, 40621K] reports that Customs and Border Protection chief patrol agent Greg Bovino addresses the bounty put on his head by a gang leader and Illinois fighting President Donald Trump’s intensifying crackdown on ‘America Reports.’ [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Arab Times [10/8/2025 4:25 AM, Staff] reports Kuwait and the United States signed an agreement Tuesday in Washington, D.C. to strengthen cooperation in customs operations, border security, and the exchange of technical expertise, as part of broader efforts to modernize and secure cross-border activities between the two nations. The agreement was inked during a meeting between Kuwait’s First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, Sheikh Fahad Yousef Saud Al-Sabah, and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Rodney Scott, at the agency’s headquarters in the US capital. According to a statement issued by Kuwait’s Ministry of Interior, the two sides explored avenues for enhancing customs procedures and port safety, while discussing mechanisms for exchanging operational expertise to improve the movement of passengers and cargo between Kuwait and the United States.

Chicago Tribune [10/7/2025 3:26 PM, Steve Sadin, 4829K] reports slightly more than an hour after she was released Monday from federal custody for allegedly impeding a federal investigation, Dariana Fajardo arrived at Waukegan City Hall to say thank you to supporters, and before she left, she received four standing ovations. Arriving during a City Council meeting, she quietly took a seat and initially went unnoticed. As she sat there, she heard speaker after speaker talk about what happened to her earlier in the afternoon, when U.S. Border Patrol agents pulled her from her car and took her into custody. More than 30 people spoke collectively for more than an hour during the time allotted for audience participation. Many talked about the impact of President Donald Trump’s pursuit of undocumented people in the country, others about Fajardo’s treatment and a few about different subjects. Fajardo received a hero’s welcome when she identified herself at the meeting in front of the standing-room-only crowd of more than 150 people. Assuring the crowd she was "okay," Fajardo said she came to thank Mayor Sam Cunningham for intervening with federal agents on her behalf earlier in the day to secure her car, as well as Dulce Ortiz, the executive director of Mano a Mano Family Resource Center, for finding her a lawyer. "I want you to take the attention off me and focus on something that really matters because I’m okay," Fajardo said. "Stand up for what you believe in. Go out there. There’s power in numbers. "They can’t arrest everybody," she added, prompting her third standing ovation. Speaking early in the meeting, Cunningham said he was saddened by the fear gripping Waukegan as federal agents, including those from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), look for people not legally in the country. "There is a real sense of fear spread throughout our city," he said. "Businesses are seeing fewer customers. Children are going to school worrying about what’s happening around them. Quite frankly, it hurts."

ABC News [10/7/2025 1:48 PM, Josh Margolin, 30493K] reports that one of the two senior police officers charged in connection with the failures on the day of the Uvalde, Texas, elementary school mass shooting will go on trial Jan. 5, the judge overseeing the case told ABC News. Judge Sid Harle said there has been an agreement to move the case of former school officer Adrian Gonzales from Uvalde to Corpus Christi for trial on 29 counts of abandoning and endangering a child. A pretrial hearing in the case, scheduled for Oct. 14, has been canceled now that trial arrangements are under way. Nineteen children and two teachers were killed in the May 2022 rampage at Robb Elementary School. Law enforcement waited some 77 minutes at the scene before breaching a classroom and killing the gunman. Also charged is former Uvalde school police chief Pete Arredondo, who was the on-site commander on the day of the shooting. Arredondo faces 10 counts of child endangerment and abandonment on behalf of the injured and surviving children in classroom 112. The judge said Arredondo’s case remains on hold pending the outcome of ongoing litigation between the Uvalde District Attorney’s Office and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which has refused to allow its personnel to cooperate with the investigation into the shooting, according to the litigation. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Reuters [10/7/2025 6:18 PM, David Shepardson, 36480K] reports air traffic control staffing issues are delaying flights for a second straight day at numerous U.S. airports as the government shutdown reaches its seventh day, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a notice on Tuesday. The FAA said many flights were being delayed at Nashville and Newark airports, among others. The FAA is reducing the number of arriving flights per hour at Chicago O’Hare, citing staffing, with average delays of 41 minutes. The FAA also reported staffing issues at Atlanta Air Route Traffic Control Center. Severe weather is also impacting flights across the country. Some 13,000 air traffic controllers and about 50,000 Transportation Security Administration officers must still turn up for work during the government shutdown, but they are not being paid. Controllers are set to receive a partial paycheck on October 14 for work performed before the shutdown. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on Monday the FAA had seen a slight increase in controllers taking sick leave and air traffic staffing has been cut by 50% in some areas since the shutdown started last week. The Washington Post [10/7/2025 12:04 PM, Victoria Bisset and Lori Aratani, 24149K] reports that according to the flight-tracking website FlightAware, more than 6,000 U.S. flights were delayed Monday — although it was unclear how many of those were related to staffing issues, because weather and traffic volume also can cause delays. The Thursday before the government shutdown, nearly 7,000 flights were delayed, according to the site. In a statement, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) said it is not unusual for people to call in sick, and it emphasized that the vast majority of controllers remain on the job, even though they are not being paid during the shutdown. However, the union added that the shutdown underscores the fragility of the system. “NATCA has consistently warned that the controller staffing shortage leaves the system vulnerable, and [Monday’s] events underscore the urgent need to accelerate training and hiring,” the union said. According to NATCA’s estimates, the system is roughly 3,800 short of the number of qualified controllers it needs. Essential workers such as air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration officers are expected to continue working without pay during the shutdown, which began Wednesday, and receive back pay once the government reopens.

NewsMax [10/7/2025 8:19 PM, Staff, 4109K] reports staffing shortages led to more flight delays at airports across the U.S. on Tuesday as the federal government shutdown stretched into a seventh day, while union leaders for air traffic controllers and airport security screeners warned the situation was likely to get worse. The Federal Aviation Administration reported staffing issues at airports in Nashville, Tennessee; Boston; Chicago; and Philadelphia and at its air traffic control centers in Atlanta and the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The agency temporarily slowed takeoffs of planes headed to the first three cities. Major flight delays a day earlier also were tied to insufficient staffing during the shutdown, which began Oct. 1. The FAA reported delays on Monday at the airports in Burbank, California; Newark, New Jersey; and Denver. Travel industry analyst Henry Harteveldt said the risk of significant disruptions to the U.S. aviation system "is growing by the day" as federal workers whose jobs are deemed critical continue working without pay. The longer the shutdown drags on, the more likely it is to affect holiday travel plans in November, he said. "I’m gravely concerned that if the government remains shut down then, that it could disrupt, and possibly ruin, millions of Americans’ Thanksgiving holidays," Harteveldt said in a statement. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Monday that there has already been an uptick in air traffic controllers calling out sick in a few locations. When there aren’t enough controllers, the FAA must reduce the number of takeoffs and landings to maintain safety, which in turn causes flight delays and possible cancellations. That’s what happened Monday afternoon, when the control tower at Southern California’s Hollywood Burbank Airport shut down for several hours, leading to average delays of 2 1/2 hours. When a pilot preparing for takeoff radioed the tower, according to communications recorded by LiveATC.net, he was told: "The tower is closed due to staffing.” Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said the shutdown highlighted some of his union’s members already face on a regular basis due to a national airspace system that is critically understaffed and relies on outdated equipment that tends to fail. A couple of controllers missing work can have a big impact at a small airport already operating with limited tower staffing, he said. "It’s not like we have other controllers that can suddenly come to that facility and staff them. There’s not enough people there," Daniels said Tuesday. "There’s no overtime, and you have to be certified in that facility.” Johnny Jones, secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Government Employees chapter that represents TSA workers, said he was hearing questions like, "How are we going to handle paying our bills?" and "How are we going to pay our child support? How are you going to pay for child care? How are you going to pay your mortgage payments? If I have to miss work, am I going to get terminated?". "The employees are struggling. They’re assessing what they need to do and they’re assessing how this is all going to work out," said Jones, who has worked as a screener since the TSA was established.

Reported similarly:
CNN [10/7/2025 5:17 PM, Alexandra Skores, Pete Muntean, Aaron Cooper, 18595K]

Washington Examiner [10/7/2025 5:42 PM, Anna Giaritelli, 1394K] reports the airline industry is among the first to show signs of strain as a result of the government shutdown, just one week after funding lapsed on Oct. 1. Flight delays, an air traffic controller shortage, and long security lines have been reported this week across the United States — problems that President Donald Trump dubbed during remarks in the Oval Office on Tuesday as "Democrat delays" because Senate Democrats have declined to support the House Republican-passed spending bill. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said as many as 50% of employees at individual facilities have called out on some days since last week. The Federal Aviation Administration has roughly 13,000 air traffic controllers still working during the shutdown. About one-quarter of the agency’s total 45,000 employees were furloughed last week, while the remainder are on the job but will not receive pay for their work on their normal payday, according to the government’s shutdown contingency plan. As of Monday, a dozen FAA facilities reported staffing shortages, according to an advisory from the agency. There were delays in Chicago, Denver, Phoenix, Indianapolis, and Washington. In Newark, New Jersey, and Hollywood Burbank Airport near Los Angeles, ground delays were put into place, meaning that the control towers had to halt planes because they were short-staffed in their ability to monitor the activity. Duffy said a "slight increase" in sick leave at two air traffic control facilities contributed to delays at East Coast airports. Others fear that the worst is yet to come.

CBS Miami [10/7/2025 12:26 PM, Emily Mae Czachor, 39474K] reports that Tropical Storm Jerry formed Tuesday over tropical waters in the central Atlantic Ocean, the National Hurricane Center said. It is the 10th named storm of the 2025 hurricane season. The newly developed system was far from land when the hurricane center issued its first advisory for Jerry at 11 a.m. ET. Forecasters said the storm was more than 1,300 miles east-southeast of the northern Leeward Islands, the Caribbean chain east of Puerto Rico that starts with the Virgin Islands and extends down to Guadeloupe. Jerry had maximum sustained winds of 45 mph as it tracked westward at 24 mph across the open ocean, according to forecasters. It was expected to steadily strengthen in the coming days and eventually grow into a hurricane. No coastal watches or warnings were in effect, but forecasters said tropical storm watches could be required for the northern Leewards by the end of Tuesday night. On its forecast track, Jerry is expected to be near or north of the northern Leewards on Thursday or Friday, the hurricane center said. Although the storm isn’t currently expected to touch land, the swells it generates will likely reach the islands on Thursday, causing life-threatening surf and rip currents, according to the latest advisory. Jerry developed on the heels of several Atlantic storm systems, including Hurricane Humberto and Hurricane Imelda, which emerged at the end of September. Concerns that both could strike Bermuda briefly circulated, but only Imelda ultimately brushed the coast of the island as a Category 2 hurricane, before quickly weakening on its way out to the open ocean. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Reported similarly:
CNN [10/7/2025 10:51 AM, Briana Waxman and Chris Dolce, 18595K]

CBS San Francisco [10/7/2025 11:23 AM, Emily Mae Czachor, 39474K] reports that Hurricane Priscilla has intensified into a Category 2 storm off the west coast of Mexico and is expected to continue strengthening, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said Tuesday. Priscilla could become a Category 3 storm by day’s end, which would make it a major hurricane with minimum sustained winds of 111 mph, according to the hurricane center. The storm’s winds have already reached 110 mph, the center said. Priscilla’s outer bands were spreading over Baja California Sur on Tuesday afternoon. Forecasters anticipate that the storm will bring heavy rains and gusty winds to sections of the peninsula later Tuesday into Wednesday, with a tropical storm watch in effect from Cabo San Lucas to Cabo San Lazaro, Mexico. On the forecast track, Priscilla’s center will move parallel to the coast of west-central Mexico and Baja California Sur over the next several days, while remaining offshore. "Additional strengthening is expected, and Priscilla could be at or near major hurricane strength later today. Weakening is forecast to begin on Wednesday and continue through the rest of the week," the hurricane center said. According to the center’s latest update Tuesday, the storm was located about 320 miles west of Cabo Corrientes, Mexico, near the resort town of Puerto Vallarta, and about 210 miles south-southwest of Baja California’s southern tip. It was traveling northwest at about 10 mph, the center said. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Axios [10/7/2025 5:32 PM, Staff, 12972K] reports Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall declared a 30-day state of emergency Monday night after record-setting rainfall over the weekend caused significant flooding. More than two dozen homes and public property were impacted on the city’s westside near 2000 West and 800 North after a drainage canal overflowed into backyards and spilled into the street, KSL TV reported. The order grants city officials more flexibility to request aid, buy materials and partner with other government agencies to help residents affected by the flooding. It also allows the city and residents to seek federal relief. Salt Lake City tallied nearly 2.5 inches of rainfall Saturday — the city’s second-rainiest day recorded since 1901, per the National Weather Service.

Reuters [10/7/2025 5:59 PM, Jonathan Stempel, 36480K] reports the U.S. government sued Southern California Edison to help restore National Forest System lands burned in the Saddleridge wildfire near Los Angeles in 2019. Tuesday’s lawsuit seeks damages for fire suppression costs and rehabilitation stemming from the Edison International-owned (EIX.N) utility’s alleged negligence, trespass by fire and violations of California public safety laws. Southern California Edison spokesperson Gabriela Ornelas said in a statement the utility is reviewing the complaint and will respond through the legal process. The utility also expressed sympathy for fire victims. The Department of Justice said the Saddleridge Fire ignited at the base of a transmission tower near Sylmar, California, during high winds, after a power line attached to a nearby tower fell onto a steel arm and caused an electrical fault. According to the complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court, the October 10, 2019 fire burned about 800 acres (324 hectares) within Angeles National Forest, in addition to damaging neighboring communities and causing one death. The Saddleridge Fire burned 8,799 acres (3,561 hectares) overall, Cal Fire said. Southern California Edison "knew about the potential danger posed by high winds," and failed to properly maintain its power and transmission lines and equipment, the government said.

AP [10/7/2025 11:51 AM, Staff, 31753K] reports that today, Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida challenging the U.S. Coast Guard’s College Student Pre-Commissioning Initiative (CSPI), a scholarship-to-commissioning program that bars most students from applying solely because of the racial composition of their colleges. Under the CSPI program, students may apply only if they attend a federally designated Minority-Serving Institution (MSI) or a campus where fewer than half of students are white. This means that thousands of otherwise qualified young Americans—students with the grades, character, and desire to serve—are denied even the opportunity to apply if their university’s demographics do not meet the Coast Guard’s race-based cutoff. Edward Blum, president of SFFA said, "The Supreme Court has made clear that our nation’s institutions may not sort individuals by race. America asks much of the men and women who choose to wear a Coast Guard uniform. We ask for competence, courage, and character—not a particular skin color." Blum added, "Programs like CSPI are antithetical to the principles of equal treatment under law. Every American who is willing to serve should be given that opportunity, regardless of the racial makeup of their college." Blum concluded, "Excluding patriotic and qualified students because of where they attend school, or what their classmates look like, is both unconstitutional and unfair."

New York Times [10/7/2025 6:22 PM, Michael S. Schmidt, 135475K] reports Williams & Connolly, one of the country’s most prominent law firms, has told clients that Chinese hackers infiltrated some of its computer systems as part of a broader effort by the Chinese to target American law firms, according to two people briefed on the matter. The F.B.I.’s Washington field office is investigating the hack and similar ones executed by the same Chinese hackers, according to one of the people briefed on the matter. The hackers are suspected of breaching the networks of more than a dozen other law firms and technology companies in recent months. The people briefed on the hack and the F.B.I. investigation spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identified discussing a matter that was being investigated by federal authorities. Williams & Connolly, which has a reputation for aggressively fighting the government, represents high-profile American politicians including Bill and Hillary Clinton. It was the first firm to step up and represent one of the law firms that had been targeted by President Trump with a punitive executive order as part of Mr. Trump’s campaign against firms he felt had opposed him legally and politically. In recent days, the firm has sought to reassure clients by telling them that to the best of its knowledge the hackers are not looking to make the information they took public or sell it. It told clients that some of the email accounts for its lawyers had been breached and that the hackers may have gained access to some client emails. “During the incident, a small number of Williams & Connolly attorney email accounts were accessed by leveraging what is known as a zero-day attack,” the firm said in a statement to The New York Times in response to questions about the hack. “Importantly, there is no evidence that confidential client data was extracted from any other part of our I.T. system, including from databases where client files are stored.” The firm said, “We have taken steps to block the threat actor, and there is now no evidence of any unauthorized traffic on our network.”

CyberScoop [10/7/2025 4:25 PM, Matt Kapko] reports Microsoft Threat Intelligence said a cybercriminal group it tracks as Storm-1175 has exploited a maximum-severity vulnerability in GoAnywhere MFT to initiate multi-stage attacks including ransomware. Researchers observed the malicious activity Sept. 11, Microsoft said in a blog post Monday. Microsoft’s research adds another substantive chunk of evidence to a growing collection of intelligence confirming the defect in Fortra’s file-transfer service was exploited as a zero-day before the company disclosed and patched CVE-2025-10035 on Sept. 18. Despite this mounting pile of evidence, Fortra has yet to confirm the vulnerability is under active exploitation. The company has not answered questions or provided additional information since it updated its security advisory Sept. 18 to include indicators of compromise. Storm-1175, a financially motivated cybercrime group known for exploiting public vulnerabilities to gain access and deploy Medusa ransomware, exploited CVE-2025-10035 to achieve remote code execution, according to Microsoft. “They used this access to install remote monitoring tools such as SimpleHelp and MeshAgent, drop web shells, to move laterally across networks using built-in Windows utilities,” Sherrod DeGrippo, director of threat intelligence strategy at Microsoft, told CyberScoop in an email. “In at least one instance, the intrusion led to data theft via Rclone and a Medusa ransomware deployment.” Microsoft’s findings bolster research from other firms including watchTowr, which said it obtained credible evidence of active exploitation of the GoAnywhere vulnerability dating back to Sept. 10, a day before Fortra maintains the vulnerability was discovered.

CNN [10/8/2025 12:25 AM, Sean Lyngaas, 606K] reports suspected Chinese government-backed hackers have breached computer systems of US law firm Williams & Connolly, which has represented some of America’s most powerful politicians, as part of a larger spying campaign against multiple law firms, according to a letter the firm sent clients and a source familiar with the hack. The cyber intrusions have hit the email accounts of select attorneys at these law firms, as Beijing continues a broader effort to gather intelligence to support its multi-front competition with the US on issues ranging from national security to trade, multiple sources have told CNN. The hackers in this case used a previously unknown software flaw, coveted by spies because it allows for stealth, to access Williams & Connolly’s computer network, said the letter sent to clients this week and reviewed by CNN. The letter did not name the hackers responsible, but the source familiar with the hack told CNN that Beijing was the prime suspect. "Given the nature of the threat actor, we have no reason to believe that the data will be disclosed or used publicly," the letter said, in a hint that the intruder was focused on espionage rather than extortion. CNN has reached out to the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC for comment. Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the embassy, told CNN in response to a separate hacking allegation last month: "China firmly opposes and combats all forms of cyber attacks and cybercrime.” It was not immediately clear which Williams & Connolly attorneys or clients were affected by the hack. Williams & Connolly is known for its politically influential clientele and a storied bench of courtroom lawyers. The firm has represented Bill and Hillary Clinton; corporate clients, including tech, health care and media companies; and white-collar criminal defendants like Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. A Williams & Connolly spokesperson declined to answer questions on who was responsible for the hack. The hackers are "believed to be affiliated with a nation-state actor responsible for recent attacks on a number of law firms and companies," Williams & Connolly said in a statement to CNN. "We have taken steps to block the threat actor, and there is now no evidence of any unauthorized traffic on our network.” Another prominent US law firm hit by suspected Chinese hackers is Wiley Rein, CNN reported in July. With clients that span the Fortune 500, Wiley Rein is a powerful player in helping US companies and the government navigate the trade war with China. The suspected Chinese hackers have been rampant in recent weeks, also hitting the cloud-computing firms that numerous American companies rely on to store key data, experts at Google-owned cybersecurity firm Mandiant have told CNN. In a sign of how important China’s hacking army is in the race for tech supremacy, the hackers have also stolen US tech firms’ proprietary software and used it to find new vulnerabilities to burrow deeper into networks, according to Mandiant.

Washington Examiner [10/7/2025 9:00 AM, Robert Schmad, 1394K] reports opposition to land-based infrastructure that could serve as a backup for satellite GPS is being spearheaded by groups linked to Chinese corporations, potentially putting America’s national security at risk, according to a newly released report from the Bull Moose Project. The Bull Moose Project identified five industry groups representing a large number of Chinese corporations, many with government connections, that are working to kill a proposal before the Federal Communications Commission that would approve the use of terrestrial 5G technology to provide GPS services. Establishing a ground-based alternative to satellite GPS is a pressing national security concern, according to the Bull Moose Project, industry experts, and the Trump administration itself. "We rely on GPS for so many facets of modern life — from emergency response to military operations to simple driving directions," FCC Chairman Brendan Carr wrote in March. "While GPS may be indispensable, it is not infallible. Continuing to rely so heavily on one system leaves us exposed. Disruptions to GPS have the potential to undermine the nation’s economic and national security.". With this in mind, the FCC initiated a Notice of Inquiry in March to explore the development of alternatives to space-based GPS infrastructure. Standing athwart this effort, as uncovered by the Bull Moose Project, is a collection of trade associations and industry standards development organizations that represent corporations based in China. Chief among these groups is the Z-Wave Alliance, an organization that has submitted dozens of filings to the FCC opposing the ground-based backup to satellite GPS and which has met with commission staffers to advocate against it.

NPR [10/8/2025 3:00 AM, Wailin Wong, Adrian Ma, Cooper Katz McKim, Kate Concannon, 28013K] Audio: HERE reports the Sinaloa Cartel made the bulk of its money on cocaine. But cartels are diversifying into new operations including things like wildlife trafficking. Think sharks, jaguars, capybaras. The result is something called “narco-degradation.” On today’s show, we look at what’s driving cartels beyond drugs and how this is wreaking havoc on ecosystems in Central America.

The Hill [10/7/2025 2:26 PM, Ashleigh Fields, 12595K] reports that a man arrested outside the annual Red Mass ceremony held at St. Matthew’s Cathedral had over 200 explosive devices in a tent on the church’s stairs, according to police. Louis Geri, 41, touted homemade explosives when officers approached him on the step ahead of the service typically attended by Supreme Court justices to ring in a new term, according to court records reviewed by the Washington Post. Devices were found inside his front pocket and a backpack he was carrying on the scene, in addition to a tent encampment set up in close proximity to the cathedral, the records show. Authorities also found vials of nitromethane, a colorless, organic compound used in explosive devices, the court records showed. Geri said he had a background in explosives and told officers at the scene that the vials were intended to be used as grenades with rubber bands to secure the fuse, according to court records, per the Post. In addition to the nitromethane, he was found in possession of Molotov cocktails and modified bottle rockets covered with aluminum foil and treated in a pyrotechnic solution. Court documents said the devices appeared "fully functional," the Post reported. "You might want to stay back and call the federales, I have explosives," Geri told officers when he was asked to leave, according to court records. He later told officers, "several of your people are gonna die from one of these" and eventually handed over a nine-page document outlining his disdain for Catholicism, Judaism, Supreme Court justices and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Daily Caller [10/7/2025 2:28 PM, Melissa O’Rourke, 835K] reports that Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced the launch of "undercover investigations" into groups affiliated with left-wing political violence by announcing the operations publicly. The public unveiling of what was described as an undercover operation drew some light-hearted laughs Tuesday, but that didn’t detract from the deadly serious challenges facing law enforcement and federal officials in Texas and across the country. In a public statement released Tuesday, Paxton said the investigations aim to identify and disrupt "radical leftist organizations" involved in or supporting political violence in Texas, citing recent attacks on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and the Sept. 10 assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. "Leftist political terrorism is a clear and present danger. Corrupted ideologies like transgenderism and Antifa are a cancer on our culture and have unleashed their deranged and drugged-up foot soldiers on the American people," said Paxton, who is currently locked in a hotly contested Texas Senate race. "The martyrdom of Charlie Kirk marks a turning point in America. There can be no compromise with those who want us dead. To that end, I have directed my office to continue its efforts to identify, investigate, and infiltrate these leftist terror cells," Paxton added. "To those demented souls who seek to kill, steal, and destroy our country, know this: you cannot hide, you cannot escape, and justice is coming." Paxton’s office did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

AP [10/7/2025 9:18 PM, Staff, 19051K] reports Argentina’s top court on Tuesday approved the extradition of an Argentine businessman to face drug trafficking and money laundering charges in the United States, the latest development in a politically explosive case that has tainted a key ally of President Javier Milei. The Argentine Supreme Court ruled that the businessman, Fred Machado, should be handed over to American authorities in Texas, where a Justice Department indictment for drug trafficking, money laundering, wire fraud and other financial misdeeds stands against him. Machado denies the charges. Tuesday’s court order to extradite Machado must be signed within 10 days by Milei’s government, which is now negotiating a $20 billion lifeline with the Trump administration to stem a run on the peso before the country’s crucial midterm elections. Since Milei took office in 2023, he has imposed a sweeping austerity program aimed at balancing Argentina’s budget for the first time in decades, but recent political scandals have threatened his political agenda. Machado, who has been in custody in Argentina since 2021, is the center of the latest controversy. His long-running case sparked a media firestorm last week when documents surfaced showing that Machado had sent a $200,000 payment in 2020 to a member of Milei’s Libertad Avanza party, José Luis Espert. Espert, one of Milei’s top candidates for upcoming Oct. 26 midterm elections, admitted accepting the money in a social media video posted Thursday, claiming it was for consulting work to help a mining company linked to Machado. He denied knowledge of Machado’s allegedly illicit activities. The revelation piled pressure on the president, who has suffered a series of political setbacks in recent weeks including a landslide loss in a provincial vote, a separate bribery scandal engulfing his powerful sister and several votes in Congress that overturned presidential vetoes and boosted social spending that threatens his hard-won fiscal balance. Espert, a current lawmaker and economist, withdrew his candidacy Sunday for Milei’s libertarian party in Buenos Aires Province.

Washington Post [10/7/2025 2:44 PM, Hope Hodge Seck and Adam Taylor, 24149K] reports that a Palestinian woman whose son serves in the U.S. Navy was secretly evacuated from war-torn Gaza in recent weeks after an intervention by the Trump administration and the Israeli and Jordanian governments, according to people familiar with the matter and correspondence reviewed by The Washington Post. The operation, entailing a coordinated pause in Israeli military strikes to safeguard the woman’s movements, illustrates the extreme difficulty of orchestrating a legal exit from Gaza without resources and influence. The unusual operation occurred as the Trump administration has, at turns, been accused of turning a blind eye to the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza — even, in some cases, when they are U.S. citizens. For Ahlam Firwana, 59, the escape to safety required $10,000 in donated transportation costs, sophisticated software to monitor her movements amid the Israeli military’s ongoing assault, and the direct involvement of senior U.S. officials who helped secure agreements from the governments of Jordan and Israel to facilitate the woman’s departure from Gaza. Firwana’s son, Navy Petty Officer Younis Firwana, 32, joined the military in 2023 seeking a path to U.S. citizenship. After the Gaza war began that October, his mother and six siblings faced ever-increasing danger and privation, he recalled in an interview. In 2024, the family’s seven-story home was leveled in the bombardment. Food and medicine grew scarce. “They had a point,” he said, “where they were eating birdseed.” The evacuation of U.S. citizens from Gaza has been a contentious issue since the war began after Hamas militants staged a deadly, coordinated attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

The Hill [10/7/2025 6:39 PM, Filip Timotija, 12595K] reports the United States military killed a senior al Qaeda-affiliated attack planner last week in Syria, U.S. Central Command (Centcom) announced on Tuesday. Centcom said its forces conducted a strike on Oct. 2 that killed Muhammad Abd-al-Wahhab al-Ahmad, who the U.S. military says was a member of Ansar al-Islam, an al Qaeda affiliated terrorist group. "U.S. forces in the Middle East remain postured to disrupt and defeat efforts by terrorists to plan, organize and conduct attacks," Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of Centcom, said in a statement on Tuesday. "We will continue to defend our homeland, warfighters, allies and partners throughout the region and beyond," Cooper added. It is unclear in which part of Syria al-Ahmad was killed. The Hill has reached out to Centcom for additional information. A U.S. airstrike killed a senior al Qaeda-affiliated leader in Northwest Syria earlier this year. Centcom said its forces killed Muhammed Yusuf Ziya Talay, a senior military leader of the Hurras al-Din, in February. The U.S. military began withdrawing hundreds of service members from Syria in April, looking to bring the number to fewer than 1,000.

AP [10/7/2025 10:51 AM, Vladimir Isachenkov, 31753K] reports that Russia hosted a delegation of Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban government Tuesday and issued a strong warning against a foreign military presence in the country. Speaking at the start of an international meeting on Afghanistan in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov praised the Taliban government for efforts to combat the Islamic State and other extremist groups, as well as eradicate illegal drugs. Lavrov emphasized that “the deployment of military infrastructure of any third countries on the territory of Afghanistan, as well as on the territories of neighboring states, is categorically unacceptable under any pretext.” Last month, the Afghan government rejected a bid by U.S. President Donald Trump to retake Bagram Air Base, four years after the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from the country left the sprawling military facility in the Taliban’s hands. “The military presence of any extra-regional players could only lead to destabilization and new conflicts,” Lavrov said. “The history of Afghanistan has seen a lot of situations with foreign military presence. I believe everyone should have drawn the right conclusions long time ago.” The former Soviet Union fought a 10-year war in Afghanistan that ended with Moscow withdrawing its troops in 1989. Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August 2021 after the pullback of U.S. and NATO forces, they have sought international recognition while also enforcing their strict interpretation of Islamic law.

Reuters [10/7/2025 7:50 AM, Jaspreet Singh, 36480K] reports OpenAI said on Tuesday it has banned several ChatGPT accounts with suspected links to the Chinese government entities after the users asked for proposals to monitor social media conversations. In its latest public threat report, OpenAI said some individuals had asked its chatbot to outline social media "listening" tools and other monitoring concepts, violating the startup’s national security policy. The San Francisco-based firm’s report raises safety concerns over potential misuse of generative AI amid growing competition between the U.S. and China to shape the technology’s development and rules. OpenAI said it also banned several Chinese‑language accounts that used ChatGPT to assist phishing and malware campaigns and asked the model to research additional automation that could be achieved through China’s DeepSeek. The Chinese embassy in the U.S. did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.

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