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.

FOX News [9/22/2025 8:21 PM, Alexandra Koch, Sophia Compton, 40019K] reports President Donald Trump has formally designated antifa as a "domestic terrorist organization," asserting that the left-wing activist group poses a direct threat to the U.S. government, law enforcement and rule of law. In an executive order signed Monday, Trump instructed federal agencies to "investigate, disrupt and dismantle" any illegal operations linked to antifa. "Antifa is a militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law," the order states. "It uses illegal means to organize and execute a campaign of violence and terrorism nationwide to accomplish these goals.” The executive order also accuses antifa of deliberately targeting and recruiting young Americans, and then radicalizing them to engage in violent acts and the suppression of political activity. "Individuals associated with and acting on behalf of antifa further coordinate with other organizations and entities for the purpose of spreading, fomenting, and advancing political violence and suppressing lawful political speech," the executive order notes. "This organized effort designed to achieve policy objectives by coercion and intimidation is domestic terrorism.” Last week, Trump first announced he would designate antifa as a terrorist organization, describing the group as "A SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER." That announcement followed just days after the President said he would "100%" consider the designation. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Sept. 15, Trump accused antifa participants of being "professional agitators" in response to the administration’s recent crackdown on illegal immigration. "Antifa is terrible," the president said at the time. "These aren’t protests, these are crimes that they’re doing. They’re throwing bricks at cars of the ICE and Border Patrol. … They’re professional agitators. … They should be put in jail. What they’re doing to this country is really subversive.” Antifa, which is short for "anti-fascist," is a decentralized movement that does not have a designated leader, membership or structure. The movement claims to oppose fascism, white supremacy and far-right extremism. However, those who identify as part of antifa — often wearing all black clothing and masks — have come under fire for their use of doxxing, violence and intimidation. In response to the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10, Trump linked alleged killer Tyler Robinson to "radical" far-left activism. According to authorities, bullet casings found near the suspected murder weapon were engraved with "Hey fascist! Catch!" and "Bella ciao bella ciao ciao," which stems from an anti-fascist song popularized by the Italian resistance during World War II. "We have a radical left group of lunatics out there, just absolute lunatics, and we’re going to get that problem solved," Trump told reporters before boarding Marine One on Sept. 11. Trump added he wanted people to respond to Kirk’s death in a non-violent manner, something Kirk advocated for throughout his career. [Editorial note: consult video at source link] The New York Times [9/22/2025 9:06 PM, Chris Cameron, 143795K] reports that federal law empowers the government to label overseas groups “foreign terrorist organizations,” a status that allows the U.S. to freeze their assets and makes it a crime to provide material support to them. But there is no equivalent domestic terrorism law, and legal experts downplayed the legal effect of Mr. Trump asserting his authority to label domestic groups as terrorists. The antifa order does not attempt to use those powers, instead directing agencies to “investigate, disrupt, and dismantle any and all illegal operations” by the movement — something they already have the authority to do. Even if a domestic terrorist organization designation did exist, using it against antifa would face practical difficulties. The Washington Examiner [9/22/2025 8:38 PM, Hailey Bullis, 1563K] reports White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday during a White House press briefing before the executive order was signed that the move would be coming soon and was "something the president campaigned on, because we have seen a rise in violence perpetuated by antifa, radical people across this country who subscribe to this group.” Leavitt continued, "We will also be, most importantly, looking at who is funding Antifa and who is funding these other violent left-wing groups that we’ve seen perpetuate so much crime and mayhem across our country.”

Reported similarly:
Breitbart [9/22/2025 10:53 PM, Jasmyn Jordan, 2608K]
Reuters [9/22/2025 4:15 PM, Trevor Hunnicutt and Jana Winter, 45746K]
NewsMax [9/22/2025 1:51 PM, Mark Swanson, 4779K]
CNN [9/22/2025 3:24 PM, Alejandra Jaramillo]
Blaze [9/22/2025 10:50 AM, Joseph MacKinnon, 1559K]

AP [9/22/2025 8:30 PM, Darlene Superville, 20690K] reports President Donald Trump on Monday signed an order designating a decentralized movement known as antifa as a domestic terrorist organization, though whether he can actually do that remained unclear. Trump blames antifa for political violence. The Republican president said on social media last week during a state visit to the United Kingdom that he would be making such a designation. He called antifa a “SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER” and said he will be “strongly recommending” that its funders be investigated. The White House released Trump’s executive order shortly after he departed for New York, where he was addressing the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday. Short for “anti-fascists,” antifa is not a single organization but rather an umbrella term for far-left-leaning militant groups that confront or resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations. Antifa is a domestic entity and, as such, is not a candidate for inclusion on the State Department’s list of foreign terror organizations. Dozens of groups, including extremist organizations like the Islamic State and al-Qaida, are included on that list. The designation matters in part because it enables the Justice Department to prosecute those who give material support to entities on that list even if that support does not result in violence. But there is no domestic equivalent to that list in part because of broad First Amendment protections enjoyed by organizations operating within the United States. And despite periodic calls, particularly after mass shootings by white supremacists, to establish a domestic terrorism law, no singular statute now exists. The executive order did not specify how Trump he would go about designating antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. Literature from the antifa movement encourages followers to pursue lawful protest activity as well as more confrontational acts, according to a 2018 Congressional Research Service report. The literature suggests that followers monitor the activities of white supremacist groups, publicize online the personal information of perceived enemies, develop self-defense training regimens and compel outside organizations to cancel any speakers or events with “a fascist bent,” the report said. People associated with antifa have been present for significant demonstrations and counter-demonstrations in recent years, including mobilizing against a white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017. They were also present during clashes with far-right groups in Portland, Oregon. He says it’s a very bad and “sick” group. The executive order says antifa “uses illegal means to organize and execute a campaign of violence and terrorism nationwide” to accomplish its goal of overthrowing the U.S. government. The order calls on relevant government departments and agencies to use every authority to investigate, disrupt and dismantle any and all illegal operations, including terrorist actions conducted by antifa or anyone claiming to act on its behalf.

New York Times [9/23/2025 3:21 AM, Yan Zhuang, 330K] reports the authorities in the Dominican Republic said on Sunday that they had recovered cocaine from a speedboat that was recently destroyed in a U.S. military airstrike, part of the Trump administration’s campaign targeting Latin American criminal gangs and drug cartels. It was the first time the Dominican Republic and the United States had carried out a joint operation in the Caribbean Sea against “narco-terrorism,” the Dominican Republic’s National Directorate for Drug Control said in a statement posted on social media Sunday. The U.S. military conducted airstrikes this month on three boats in the Caribbean in what the Trump administration has characterized as a counternarcotics and counterterrorism mission in the region. The speedboat had been carrying about 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds) of “suspected cocaine,” the Dominican Republic’s drug control agency said in its statement. President Trump has claimed the power to shift maritime counterdrug efforts from being governed by law enforcement rules to wartime rules, which he says give him the authority to order the military to summarily kill drug-running suspects as if they were combatants on a battlefield. The strikes have been condemned by legal experts and Democrats, who say they violate international law. It was not clear if the Dominican Republic’s announcement was connected to the recent strike in the Caribbean, announced by Mr. Trump on social media on Friday. That strike killed three people, whom the president described as “narco-terrorists” without offering more details. He also posted a one-minute video showing a speedboat being blown up. The Dominican Republic’s drug control agency said in its statement that officials working with the U.S. Southern Command and the Joint Interagency Task Force South had detected a speedboat that, according to intelligence reports, was carrying narcotics. The Dominican Republic’s drug control agency said the boat was heading toward Dominican territory and intended to transport its narcotics to the United States. Teams from the Dominican Republic’s navy and the drug directorate recovered 377 packages, wrapped in adhesive tape and with different logos, from the remnants of the boat. Sixty packages were destroyed in the explosion, the statement said. The packages were recovered about 80 nautical miles south of Beata Island, off the southern coast of the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic did not provide any details about when the operation had occurred or about the people who had been on board.

Reported similarly:
FOX News [9/22/2025 10:10 AM, Alex Nitzberg, 40019K] Video: HERE
Washington Examiner [9/22/2025 11:01 AM, Molly Parks, 1563K]

FOX News [9/23/2025 1:21 AM, Staff, 40019K] reports Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem addresses California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s ‘disturbing’ X post about her as she faces threats from the left and ICE agents are barred from wearing masks in California on ‘Hannity.’ [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

FOX News [9/22/2025 12:16 PM, Taylor Penley, 40019K] reports a cryptic X post from California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office remained under criticism Monday, with the acting U.S. attorney in California calling out the rhetoric as "reckless" on the heels of the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The post, which read, "Kristi Noem is going to have a bad day today. You’re welcome, America," prompted Bill Essayli to make a Secret Service threat assessment referral over the weekend. "I was shocked when I saw that," he said Monday on "Fox & Friends." "That’s the exact same rhetoric we saw leading up to the assassination of Charlie Kirk just a little over a week ago, and for the governor to do that and send that out was completely reckless, and we don’t know the intent, and we don’t know how that’s gonna be received by left-wing extremists, so I made the referral to the Secret Service out here in California. "They’re gonna do a full-threat assessment, and they’re going to see if there’s any danger to the secretary. They’re charged with keeping her protected.". Newsom’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s prior request for comment.

Daily Caller [9/22/2025 2:31 PM, Jason Hopkins, 985K] reports that the Trump administration doesn’t plan to adhere to California’s new law demanding that federal immigration agents remove face masks during enforcement operations. California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation on Saturday that largely bans face coverings for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and other law enforcement authorities operating in the state, igniting another fight between the Trump administration and California’s pro-sanctuary leaders. However, California residents should not expect face masks for federal agents to disappear any time soon. "Governor Gavin Newsom is fanning the flames of division, hatred and dehumanization of our law enforcement," Assistant Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said Monday in a statement exclusively shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation. "At a time that ICE law enforcement faces a 1,000% increase in assaults and their family members are being doxxed and targeted, the sitting Governor of California signs unconstitutional legislation that strips law enforcement of protections in a disgusting, diabolical fundraising and PR stunt," McLaughlin continued. "To be crystal clear: we will not abide by Newsom’s unconstitutional ban." "Kristi Noem is going to have a bad day today. You’re welcome, America," Newsom’s press office posted on X shortly before he signed the bill into law. The public statement drew outrage from the Trump administration, with acting U.S. attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli declaring that he has "zero tolerance" for direct or implicit threats against government officials and would be referring the comment to the Secret Service. "He signed this piece of legislation the same day his team made a menacing threat against Secretary Kristi Noem online," McLaughlin stated to the DCNF. "The violent rhetoric and demonization must stop."

Reported similarly:
The Hill [9/22/2025 4:40 PM, Sarah Fortinsky, 12414K]
NewsMax [9/22/2025 7:39 PM, Solange Reyner, 4779K]
Washington Examiner [9/22/2025 5:46 PM, Molly Parks, 1563K]

FOX News [9/22/2025 2:16 PM, Ashley Oliver, 40019K] reports that California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s attempt to block authorities from wearing masks during immigration enforcement operations is facing legal scrutiny as critics push back on the governor’s effort to assert power over federal officers. Newsom, a Democrat, signed a bill over the weekend that bans state and federal law enforcement from wearing masks on the job, a move that Trump administration officials decried as illegal and vowed to ignore. The bill is set to take effect in January. "We don’t need to abide by this garbage," a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said on social media. Acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli of the Central District of California said on Fox & Friends on Monday he did not think Newsom’s bill was enforceable. Essayli, who has been in lockstep with the Trump administration on its aggressive immigration enforcement tactics in California, predicted Newsom would sue. "I think what the governor might do is he might file a lawsuit," Essayli said. "He might run to a judge to try to get some sort of order, but we’re very confident. The State of California does not and cannot have jurisdiction." Newsom’s measure was part of a string of bills the governor signed to counteract the Trump administration, which has, since the summer, been carrying out controversial immigration raids across California. The Supreme Court recently temporarily cleared the way for ICE authorities to continue conducting immigration stops at farms, car washes and other places where they suspect illegal immigrants might be. But the high court did not weigh in on the authorities’ garb, which at times has included identity-concealing masks and neck gaiters, according to videos. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

CBS Los Angeles [9/22/2025 5:04 PM, Austin Turner and Jeff Nguyen, 45245K] reports federal agents, including those conducting immigration enforcement operations, will not comply with California’s "extreme" mask ban for on-duty law enforcement officers when it goes into effect in January, according to Acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli. Essayli, who was appointed to the position for the Central District of California by President Trump earlier this year, told CBS News Los Angeles’ Jeff Nguyen on Monday that he has instructed agents to ignore the law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday. "We’re not going to follow it," Essayli said. "The law has no force or effect on federal agencies. The State of California has no jurisdiction to regulate anything that we do in the federal government and I’ve instructed our agents to disregard it.". During Saturday’s signing, Newsom said that law enforcement, especially agencies conducting immigration operations like Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, should identify themselves while detaining people in California. "To ICE, [which is] unmasked. What are you afraid of," Newsom said on Saturday. "You’re gonna do enforcement? Provide an ID.". Newsom described ICE and CBP agents as "secret police" roaming the streets in unmarked vehicles and with face coverings, comparing the situation to a "dystopian Sci-Fi movie.". The new law comes after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration can continue immigration enforcement in Los Angeles, allowing officers to question and detain people based on their skin color, accents and languages spoken. On Monday, Essayli justified the need for face coverings by claiming that federal law enforcement agents have faced a 1000% increase in assaults over the last year. "The reason our agents wear face masks is because you have radical people, left-wing extremists who are trying to dox and intimidate and harass and follow and stalk our agents from doing their job, which is immigration enforcement," he said. Approximately 80 people have been arrested on suspicion of interfering with or assaulting immigration enforcement officers in recent months, Essayli claimed. In a statement on Monday, the Department of Homeland Security criticized the law, claiming that it "demonizes" law enforcement. "The [DHS] vehemently condemns California Governor Gavin Newsom for signing the ‘No Secret Police Act,’ which further demonizes law enforcement and attempts to ban law enforcement from being able to protect their identities to keep them from being targeted by cartels, criminal rings, terrorists, and doxxed online," the statement reads.

Reported similarly:
Telemundo20 [9/22/2025 3:02 PM, MG Perez, 51K]

FOX News [9/22/2025 4:46 PM, Preston Mizell, 40019K] reports the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) responded to the New York Magazine cover story today, which claims that Corey Lewandowski, rather than Secretary Kristi Noem, is the one calling the shots at the agency. DHS punched back at New York Magazine’s reporting in an exclusive statement to Fox News Digital, saying that the story is simply "peddling anonymous gossip." "All decisions are made by Secretary Noem," McLaughlin told Fox. "Multiple staff have the ability to provide recommendations and input for her consideration. Mr. Lewandowski serves as an advisor." "The Secretary, like all previous Secretaries, has various senior advisors," McLaughlin continued. Despite the threats against Noem, NY Magazine published that the secretary is living in the U.S. Coast Guard military housing in Washington D.C., which DHS told Fox is due to the security threats she regularly faces. NY Magazine’s cover story later goes on to describe the Department of Homeland Security’s increase in deportations as one of the roots of "Trump’s police state," saying that DHS is "endangering the constitutional rights of citizens and noncitizens alike."

FOX News [9/22/2025 8:23 PM, Peter Pinedo, 40019K] reports the Department of Homeland Security is criticizing Illinois Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker for failing to assist in responding to a chaotic anti-ICE riot in a Chicago suburb that forced federal authorities to deploy tear gas and other non-lethal measures. In a Monday statement, the department claimed that police "under JB Pritzker’s sanctuary jurisdiction refused to answer multiple calls for assistance.” Fox News Digital reported last Friday that federal officials clashed with a group of protesters who were blocking ICE vehicles from entering and exiting a processing facility in Broadview, Illinois. DHS labeled the protesters "rioters" and said that so far, federal law enforcement has arrested 16 rioters. The agency said that the "rioters and sanctuary politicians obstructed law enforcement, threw tear gas cans, rocks, bottles, and fireworks, slashed tires of cars, blocked the entrance of the building, and trespassed on private property." DHS said that rioters also assaulted law enforcement officials. Matt Hill, a spokesperson for Pritzker, responded by telling Fox News Digital that "it’s completely false to suggest the state or local municipalities have been obstructing federal officials.” "The state has not received multiple calls for assistance from the federal government and would remind them of the importance of coordinating with local law enforcement to protect public safety," said Hill. He added, "Governor Pritzker has been clear that violence is unacceptable and everyone needs to follow the law, which includes federal agents respecting constitutional rights to peaceful protest.” "The media needs to use extreme caution before reporting what the Trump administration is saying given their record of lies, lack of transparency, and failure to coordinate with the state and local law enforcement," said Hill. The DHS statement said the protest disrupted an operation targeting "some of the worst of the worst—including criminals convicted of drug trafficking, domestic abuse, drinking and driving, and assault," who were being processed at the facility. The agency highlighted some of the criminal illegals who were being processed when the protest broke out. "These heinous criminals, including domestic abusers, drug traffickers, violent offenders, and drunk drivers are some of the illegal aliens being held in the ICE Broadview Processing Center," said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. "These rioters in Illinois are fighting to keep rapists, murderers, and other violent criminals loose on Illinois streets," said McLaughlin. "Instead of rioting, they should be thanking ICE officers who every single day wake up and make our communities safer.” This comes as DHS says that ICE officials are facing a more than 1,000 percent increase in assaults as they conduct operations across Illinois. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

New York Post [9/22/2025 3:03 PM, Chris Nesi, 43962K] reports that the Justice Department has shut down its probe into allegations Trump border czar Tom Homan accepted a Cava restaurant bag containing a $50,000 cash bribe last year. The alleged payment to Homan was made as part of a sting by undercover FBI agents during the Biden administration in September, with the G-men presenting themselves as businessmen seeking border security contracts with the federal government. A source familiar with the investigation told the New York Times that the alleged transaction, which was audio-recorded, was allowed to play out and eventually led to the unsuspecting Homan being investigated for bribery, although he was not serving in the federal government at the time. Once the new Trump administration was in place, the DOJ closed down the investigation, citing doubts about whether prosecutors could prove Homan promised specific actions in exchange for the cash, and the fact that he was not a federal employee at the time. "This matter originated under the previous administration and was subjected to a full review by FBI agents and Justice Department prosecutors," said FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in a recent joint statement. "They found no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing. The Department’s resources must remain focused on real threats to the American people, not baseless investigations. As a result, the investigation has been closed." The White House also spoke out in Homan’s defense, dismissing the case as a political vendetta by the previous administration.

AP [9/22/2025 8:52 PM, Alanna Durkin Richer and Eric Tucker, 37974K] reports the White House stood behind “border czar” Tom Homan on Monday following reports that he had accepted $50,000 from undercover agents posing as businesspeople during an undercover FBI operation last year, leading to a bribery investigation that was shut down by the Trump administration Justice Department. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt characterized Homan’s encounter with the undercover agents as an effort by the Biden administration to “entrap one of the president’s top allies and supporters, someone who they knew very well would be taking a government position.” “The White House and the president stand by Tom Homan 100% because he did absolutely nothing wrong, and he is a brave public servant who has done a phenomenal job in helping the president shut down the border,” she said. MSNBC first reported Saturday that Homan had accepted the cash during a 2024 encounter with undercover agents who were posing as businesspeople seeking government contracts that Homan suggested he could help them get in a second Trump term. Two people familiar with the investigation, who were not authorized to discuss a sensitive law enforcement inquiry by name, confirmed the existence of the investigation to The Associated Press on Monday as well as details from it. The Trump administration Justice Department, which shut down the probe, said the matter was “subjected to a full review,” but authorities found “no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing.” Without providing evidence, the White House criticized the Biden administration investigation as politically motivated. “The Department’s resources must remain focused on real threats to the American people, not baseless investigations,” FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement. “As a result, the investigation has been closed.” Leavitt insisted to reporters during a briefing Monday that Homan “never took the $50,000 you’re referring to,” though she did not elaborate what she meant. An MSNBC spokesperson said the network stood by its reporting. The New York Times [9/22/2025 7:49 PM, Devlin Barrett, 143795K] reports F.B.I. agents working under cover made an audio recording of the September 2024 meeting in which Mr. Homan accepted the money in a bag from the fast-food chain Cava, The New York Times reported on Saturday. On the tape, he appeared to agree to try to help the agents posing as businessmen get lucrative federal contracts related to border security in a possible second Trump administration, according to people who requested anonymity to describe details of the case. The investigation was closed by the Trump Justice Department this year, frustrating some of the people who worked on it, these people said. Asked by reporters what happened to the money that Mr. Homan received, the White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt on Monday rejected the published accounts and said President Trump remained fully supportive of his border czar. “Mr. Homan never took the $50,000 that you’re referring to,” Ms. Leavitt said. “This was another example of the weaponization of the Biden Department of Justice against one of President Trump’s strongest and most vocal supporters in the midst of a presidential campaign.” She said the F.B.I. agents had gone under cover to “entrap one of the president’s top allies and supporters, someone who they knew very well would be taking a government position months later.” The Times reported on Saturday that senior Justice Department officials, including Emil Bove III, had expressed skepticism about the case as early as February. One person familiar with the case said the evidence gathered had not met all the necessary elements of relevant federal crimes, such as bribery or conspiracy, while another contended that the case was prematurely ended, before such evidence could be gathered.

Reported similarly:
The Hill [9/22/2025 2:15 PM, Alex Gangitano, 12414K]
Reuters [9/22/2025 8:54 PM, Staff, 45746K]
CNN [9/22/2025 8:07 PM, Adam Cancryn, 23245K]
FOX News [9/22/2025 5:15 PM, Diana Stancy and Brooke Singman, 40019K]
(B) NBC News Daily [9/22/2025 2:10 PM, Staff]

The Hill [9/22/2025 2:00 PM, Tara Suter, 12414K] reports Democrats are expressing outrage over a reported probe involving White House border czar Tom Homan and an undercover operation last year in which he was recorded taking $50,000. "Did Trump’s DOJ shut down this bribery investigation? Was it Attorney General Bondi or FBI Director Patel? The act was caught on camera. The administration must turn over the tapes to Congress," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said Sunday in a post on the social platform X. "Every decision made by Homan must be scrutinized for possible corruption," she added. On Saturday, Homan used profanity when denying reports alleging he got $50,000 for contract awards in September 2024. When responding to a question on the allegations from NewsNation’s Libbey Dean, the border czar said it was "bulls‑‑‑.". "Border Czar Tom Homan was caught by the FBI accepting bribes – on camera – to deliver government contracts in exchange for $50,000 in cash. Pam Bondi knew. Kash Patel knew. Emil Bove knew," Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Saturday in an X post. "And they made the investigation go away. A corrupt attempt to conceal brazen graft," the Golden State senator added. Citing internal documents and several people who took part in the probe, MSNBC said Homan — as part of a 2024 undercover operation — was recorded taking $50,000 from agents pretending to be business people. According to the outlet, Homan took such action after signaling he could assist the agents win government contracts in a second Trump administration. Six sources close to the matter told MSNBC the FBI and Justice Department planned to see if the border czar would commit to his promise, but that the case halted when President Trump secured the White House again. MSNBC reported that Trump appointees eventually closed the case.

AP [9/22/2025 5:49 PM, Nokukhanya Musi and Gerald Imray, 20690K] reports a Jamaican man who was among five migrants deported by the United States to Eswatini in Africa has been repatriated to his home country, Eswatini authorities said Monday. Orville Etoria was held in a maximum-security prison in Eswatini for more than two months without charges or access to legal counsel, his lawyers have said, accusing the U.S. of deporting him there unlawfully in mid-July. The lawyers had said the U.S. sent him to the southern African nation under the Trump administration’s third-country deportation program even though Jamaica was willing to take him back. They alleged Etoria and the four other men were then repeatedly denied visits by a lawyer while they were held at the prison. The lawyers didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment Monday about Etoria’s arrival in Jamaica. The U.S. has said it wants to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Eswatini, a tiny kingdom bordering South Africa where the king holds absolute power and has been accused of clamping down on pro-democracy movements. Etoria was repatriated on Sunday with the assistance of the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration, Thabile Mdluli, the Eswatini government’s acting spokesperson, said in a statement. She said there were "engagements" with the other four men from Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and Yemen to have them sent home. The five men were described as dangerous criminals by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. It said they had been sent to Eswatini because their home countries refused to take them back. Eswatini, in an apparent contradiction of that, said they were only there in transit and would be sent home. The five men had been convicted of serious crimes including murder and child rape, and all were in the U.S. illegally and had deportation orders, DHS said. Their lawyers said they had all completed their criminal sentences but were sent overseas to be held in another prison without charges or due process.

Reported similarly:
Reuters [9/23/2025 5:06 AM, Lunga Masuku, 45746K]

AP [9/22/2025 12:38 PM, Matias Delacroix and Megan Janetsky, 2608K] reports that as the boat bounced across choppy Pacific waters, Mariela Gómez and her two children huddled for 17 hours on top of sloshing gas tanks, uncertain of what lay ahead in the dense jungle. The 36-year-old Venezuelan mother was among a million migrants to journey across the continent in recent years in the hopes of reaching the United States. But with legal pathways slashed under U.S. President Donald Trump, she and thousands of other Venezuelans are now trying to make their way back in a "reverse migration." Over 14,000 migrants, mostly from Venezuela, have returned to South America since Trump’s immigration crackdown began, according to figures from Colombia, Panama and Costa Rica. Struggling to buy even food after failed attempts to stay in the U.S., Gómez can’t afford the $280-per-person charge for the more frequented Caribbean route to Colombia. So a growing number of migrants like her are boarding boats that ferry cargo between Panama’s capital and Colombia’s jungle-clad Pacific coast. The new route is half the price and twice as dangerous. "We lost hope," she said. "We’re trying to return, but we don’t have the money to go back.". In recent years, migrants fleeing the crisis in Venezuela once crossed the perilous jungles of the Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama and waited months in Mexico for an asylum appointment in the U.S. But when Trump took office, many of those people were left stranded in Mexico. Without other options, they turned back, winding down through Central America on buses.

Breitbart [9/22/2025 3:53 PM, John Binder, 2608K] reports some of the illegal aliens detained at the Broadview Processing Center in the sanctuary state of Illinois, where left-wing activists recently rioted, have been convicted of domestic violence, drunk driving, and dealing fentanyl. Last week, left-wing activists carried out a riot outside the detention center, throwing tear gas cans, hurling bottles, rocks, and fireworks, and blocking the entrance of the facility. The riot was done on behalf of the illegal aliens detained at the detention center. On Monday, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials revealed the criminal records of several of the illegal aliens at the detention center at the time of the riot. "These heinous criminals, including domestic abusers, drug traffickers, violent offenders, and drunk drivers, are some of the illegal aliens being held in the ICE Broadview Processing Center," DHS’s Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

Reuters [9/22/2025 3:15 PM, Sarah N. Lynch, 45746K] reports that Donald Trump’s choice of his former personal lawyer to lead investigations of New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey has sparked concern among former federal prosecutors, who say it shows that the U.S. president is using federal power to target his political foes. The Republican president tapped Lindsey Halligan, who has spent much of her 11-year legal career on local insurance cases in Florida state court, to lead the U.S. Attorney’s office in eastern Virginia after pushing out Erik Siebert on Friday, following Trump’s complaints that the department hadn’t moved quickly enough to charge James with mortgage fraud. Trump’s Justice Department has targeted some of his foes, including Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook and Democratic U.S. Senator Adam Schiff, over alleged fraud on mortgage documents, a crime a Reuters review showed that the federal government rarely prosecutes. Federal prosecutors in Virginia are also investigating Comey over the FBI’s probe into Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Former federal prosecutors called Trump’s decision to oust a U.S. Attorney for failing to indict his enemies disturbing. The White House defended the choice of Halligan, who was sworn in as Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia on Monday, according to a Justice Department spokesman. "Lindsey Halligan is exceptionally qualified to serve as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. She has a proven track record of success and will serve the country with honor and distinction," said Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman. Halligan did not respond to a request for comment.

Daily Wire [9/23/2025 12:22 AM, Leif Le Mahieu, 3184K] reports as the Biden administration locked up elderly grandparents and devout Christians over peaceful pro-life protests, it partnered with a radical pro-abortion organization to prosecute pro-lifers, previously unreleased emails show. President Joe Biden’s Justice Department and FBI partnered with the National Abortion Federation for multiple investigations into pro-life protests and developed an “amazing relationship,” according to emails shared with The Daily Wire by the Functional Government Initiative. The watchdog group told The Daily Wire that the emails show a “disturbing picture of DOJ’s eagerness to meet with pro-abortion lobbyists and activists and punish pro-life Americans” in the aftermath of the overturning of Roe v. Wade. The revelation of the apparent partnership came in a message sent by National Abortion Federation Security Manager Robert Ledogar on January 9, 2023, to the Justice Department requesting a meeting with Kristen Clarke, then the Justice Department’s Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. The National Abortion Federation is the professional association for abortionists. In the email, Ledogar wrote that both the Justice Department and the FBI had partnered with the DOJ on multiple Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE) cases. Biden’s crackdown on peaceful pro-life protests landed elderly grandparents, devout Christians, and other pro-life activists in federal prison. “Over the past two (2) years that I have been with NAF Security, I have witnessed an amazing relationship with the [National Abortion Federation] Security Director Michelle Davidson and members of the DOJ Civil Rights Division AUSA Sanjay Patel, AUSA Katelyn Smith, AUSA Laura Cowall, and Supervisor AUSA Paige Fitzgerald,” Ledogar wrote. It is unclear which specific FACE Act investigations the National Abortion Federation was involved in, but at least two of the states referenced by Ledogar had major FACE Act prosecutions.

Daily Caller [9/22/2025 5:58 PM, Staff, 985K] reports several politically motivated attacks have flown under the radar, from disruptions at vigils for Charlie Kirk to a shooting at a local ABC News station after the firing of Jimmy Kimmel. Two people were arrested Thursday after allegedly disrupting a Massachusetts vigil held for Kirk, Boston.com reported. The protesters included individuals affiliated with Antifa, which President Donald Trump recently declared a terrorist organization. One of the instigators was a minor who was arrested on suspicion of assault and battery, according to the outlet. Police said the suspect allegedly punched someone wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat, Fox Digital reported. Law enforcement said he was carrying a knife and will charged with possession of a dangerous weapon. Another assault took place during a Sunday vigil at a Florida retirement community when a 56-year-old protester allegedly shoved a 73-year-old after a brief confrontation, according to Fox Orlando. "I walked towards her and I said, ‘You’re not coming up here, you need to get out of here,’ and she just pushed me like that and I fell back, head hit the concrete," co-founder of the community’s MAGA Club, Valerie Jamieson, told Fox. "I was so angry," she said. A gunman shot and killed a man at a New Hampshire country club Saturday, and a witness claimed the alleged shooter shouted "Free Palestine.". New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella said in a Sunday press conference there is no evidence the alleged shooter — a former employee at the facility — was acting with "a hate-based motivation.". The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a statement Wednesday calling for the media and the far-left to stop the demonization of law enforcement. The statement listed several instances of violence directed at DHS in recent months, in addition to examples of "hateful rhetoric" that "is inspiring political violence in our country.". "Following the evil act of political violence in the country this week and two brutal assaults on our brave ICE law enforcement last week, we are once again calling on the media and the far left to stop the hateful rhetoric directed at President Trump, those who support him and our brave DHS law enforcement," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin stated in the press release. "This demonization is inspiring violence across the country. Our ICE officers are facing a more than 1000% increase in assaults against them. We have to turn down the temperature before someone else is killed. This violence must end," she continued.

Los Angeles Times [9/22/2025 11:59 PM, Rachel Uranga, 14672K] reports denouncing federal immigration raids as a form of “ethnic cleansing,” Rep. Maxine Waters and a group of U.S. citizens announced Monday that they were petitioning the United Nations to investigate the Trump administration sweeps for potential human rights violations. Sitting beside famed civil rights activist Dolories Huerta, Waters told reporters that the crackdown was untenable and would tear the country apart if left unchecked. “When people are targeted because of how they look or the language they speak, the government is absolutely failing,” Waters said. “We cannot rely upon the administration to police itself.” Filed partly on behalf of four U.S. citizens, including a pregnant woman who was shackled and detained during one raid, the petition accuses federal agents of waging a campaign of ‘‘ethnic cleansing against Latino minorities in the United States,” and calls on the U.N. Human Rights Council to appoint independent investigators to scrutinize “kidnapping arrests, prolonged detentions without due process of law and the brutal excessive use of force.” The petition, which was filed by civil rights attorney Luis Carrillo, states that “the actions of the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, Border Patrol, F.B.I. and others have caused countless human rights violations that can only be remedied by this Council.” Petitioners argue that domestic efforts to stop “roundups” of immigrants have failed, because the Supreme Court lifted a federal judge’s ban on “roving patrols” and found that agents can stop individuals based on their appearance, the language they speak, where they are located or their vocation.

Bloomberg [9/22/2025 10:27 AM, Staff, 19085K] Video: HERE reports Trump’s new immigration restrictions are just part of the escalating trade war with India. Bloomberg Opinion columnist Andy Mukherjee explains what’s at stake for Modi.

Washington Examiner [9/23/2025 1:39 AM, Staff, 1563K] reports White House border czar Tom Homan revealed that nearly two million illegal aliens have exited the U.S. since President Donald Trump began his second term. Homan claimed that efforts by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection had led to over 400,000 deportations, in an interview on Fox News’s "The Ingraham Angle." He also revealed that approximately 1.6 million illegal immigrants left on their own accord. "We’re at over 400,000 deportations between CBP and ICE, and that’s just since the president took office," Homan said. "The first four months of the fiscal year, we can’t count them because Joe Biden wasn’t doing anything. But here’s what people need to understand … two things. Number one, over 1.5 million illegal aliens, close to 1.6 illegal aliens already left the country on their own. Why? Because they see what ICE is doing out there every day.” Homan stressed that ICE getting results and doing the work to show that illegal aliens will be held accountable for their actions will act as a form of deterrence. He said he knew that once ICE started arresting illegal aliens, it would result in a decrease, with many opting to leave on their own or decide not to try entering the country at all. "One of the reasons we have the most secure border in the history of this nation is because, the great work of the men and women of the border patrol, the great work of President Trump and his leadership, but also because ICE is out there, over a thousand teams, all across the country arresting people," Homan said. "A lot of people have left, a lot of people aren’t coming, which helps us secure that border. And that was part of the strategy from the beginning. We said that if we show consequences, if we show we’re actually out there looking for them, many will leave. So, we knew a large population would leave, and over 1.5 million have.” Homan also mentioned the reinforcements ICE would be getting with the recent hiring of 10,000 new agents. He said this would make the organization even more productive in achieving its goals. "But, what’s to come? ICE is getting 10,000 more agents," Homan said. "Right now, we got 5,000 deportation officers. We’re tripling the size of the workforce.” "The numbers are going to explode this next coming year," Homan added.

DailySignal [9/22/2025 10:00 AM, Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell, 668K] reports the Trump administration has chosen a new provider to run its human trafficking hotline after complaints that the Biden administration’s provider failed to answer calls from victims, The Daily Signal can first report. The Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families announced a five-year, projected $35 million grant to Compass Connections to run the National Human Trafficking Hotline. HHS received complaints from victims and state attorneys general that with the previous provider under the Biden administration, wait times were too long, calls were dropped, and victims could not rely on the hotline to deliver the necessary quality of service. "State attorneys general were telling us that third-party tips were not getting delivered to law enforcement, so their investigations into human trafficking were hindered," acting ACF Assistant Secretary Andrew Gradison told The Daily Signal, "and they had a much harder time getting criminals off the streets of human trafficking, to get information where It needs to go on time in an accurate way, so that law enforcement can make arrests and end human trafficking.". The award includes an increase of $1 million annually and will bring annual funding to $7 million, showing President Donald Trump’s commitment to protecting survivors of human trafficking, according to Gradison. "Combating human trafficking is an enormous priority of this administration, and we’re putting money behind it, and we’re making policy changes that are informed by feedback that we’ve heard from victims, from survivors, and from law enforcement," he said, "and we are committed to combating human trafficking through all our available tools, including fixing this hotline so that victims get the services they need.".

Breitbart [9/22/2025 2:58 PM, Warner Todd Huston, 2608K] reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has made more arrests of some of the "worst of the worst," taking into custody illegal aliens convicted of sex crimes, robbery, murder, and human trafficking over the past few days, the agency said in a press release. ICE pointed out that the agency has increased its efforts to make the nation safe from these dangerous criminals even as Democrats and their allies have increased their assaults on federal officers. "ICE law enforcement officers continue to arrest and remove violent predators from American communities despite the more than 1000% increase in assaults against them," ICE wrote in it’s September 22 statement. The agency has taken even more dangerous criminals off the streets including those with convictions for sexual activity with a minor, aggravated criminal sexual assault of a family member, burglary, alien trafficking, and robbery. "While Americans were enjoying their weekends, ICE law enforcement was busy arresting sexual predators, human traffickers, robbers, and gang members — the worst of the worst from across the nation," Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said. "Instead of thanking our brave ICE law enforcement, sanctuary politicians and rioters continue to demonize them — comparing them to slave patrols, the Gestapo, and the Secret Police. This dangerous rhetoric is contributing to ICE law enforcement officers facing a more than 1000% increase in assaults against them as they carry out enforcement operations.".

(B) Good Day Oklahoma at 11am [9/22/2025 12:25 PM, Staff] reports that the Trump administration is again criticizing sanctuary cities and states for refusing to work with federal immigration authorities. The White House is threatening lawsuits and funding cuts if they do not comply and hand over people who have already been arrested and have ICE detainers logged against them. A new directive from the Department of Homeland Security is demanding action from California, New York, and Illinois, which top officials say have dangerous sanctuary policies and are refusing to cooperate with ICE. DHS shared photos of people they describe as criminal illegal aliens who were released back onto the streets because of sanctuary policies. DHS says, so far, more than 400,000 illegal immigrants have been arrested and of those, 70% have criminal charges or convictions.

NPR [9/22/2025 6:26 PM, Staff, 34837K] Audio: HERE reports the Trump administration is moving fast on a plan to create several holding centers around the country for people detained in a nationwide immigration crackdown. One facility in particular has been rife with problems.

(B) CBS 13 News at Noon [9/22/2025 12:03 PM, Staff] reports Maine Congresswoman Chellie Pingree raised concerns about the way ICE is operating in Maine. She wrote a letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem about reports that attorneys in Maine are not being allowed to accompany their clients at ICE facilities during check-ins. Pingree requested a tour of the Scarborough ICE facility with a response within 30 days. Pingree said she will be doing a press event at 2 pm on ICE issues.

Breitbart [9/22/2025 4:09 PM, John Binder, 2608K] reports a twice-deported illegal alien is accused of raping a female jogger in New Haven, Connecticut, a sanctuary state, while holding a box cutter to her throat. Illegal alien Ludvi Carias-Interiano is accused of raping a female jogger in a New Haven park on August 9, all while holding a box cutter to her throat. Carias-Interiano has been charged with aggravated sexual assault and unlawful restraint. About a month later, on September 11, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents lodged a detainer against Carias-Interiano, hoping to take custody of him before the sanctuary state of Connecticut releases him to the streets. According to local police, Carias-Interiano is also involved with assaulting an underage boy and sexually assaulting an underage girl in Plano, Texas, in 2016. "This criminal illegal alien should have never been in our country in the first place to commit this heinous rape of a young women jogging in the park," the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. Carias-Interiano has an extensive criminal record, including having been convicted for assault and illegal re-entry. He had been deported twice, previously under President Donald Trump’s first term, but seemingly crossed the southern border again.

New York Times [9/22/2025 12:06 PM, Grace Ashford, 153395K] reports sitting across a table from the Schmidt family in Cato, N.Y., Gov. Kathy Hochul found herself in an unfamiliar, and not altogether comfortable, position. Nearly two weeks earlier, immigration officials had raided the family’s company, Nutrition Bar Confectioners, which manufactures snack bars, and arrested 57 people. The raid — one of the largest in the state since President Trump’s immigration crackdown began — had hobbled the company’s operations. News of the raid prompted an outcry from immigrant advocates and from Ms. Hochul, the state’s Democratic governor, who last week flew to Cato — a small town in rural Cayuga County, where voters chose Mr. Trump by a 39-point margin in last year’s election — to hear the Schmidt family’s stories, and offer what support she could. It was not as much as she would have liked. Ms. Hochul offered to direct the state’s Department of Labor to help find workers to get the company’s lines back up and running, but that would be of little help to the former workers or their families. And while New York had allotted $20 million this year on top of the $30 million already budgeted to help connect immigrants with legal services to fight deportation proceedings, that money wouldn’t protect people from being rounded up in the first place. In fact, the state itself was left out of the loop: Despite coordinating frequently with federal authorities on gun, drug and human trafficking investigations, Jackie Bray, Ms. Hochul’s commissioner of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, said she learned of the raids after the fact, from advocates and local law enforcement.

NBC News [9/22/2025 10:56 PM, Phil Helsel, 43603K] reports Pennsylvania authorities have charged a man with bringing two teenage girls into the United States from Mexico and Guatemala and forcing them to work on a farm for little or no pay, the state attorney general said Monday. Ramiro Caal Jolomna used the threat of deportation to coerce the girls, ages 14 and 17, to work on the mushroom farm in Chester County, Attorney General Dave Sunday said. The girls were forced to work seven days a week and "were charged ‘debts’ for Jolomna having them brought into the country," the attorney general’s office and Pennsylvania State Police said in a statement. Sunday said in a statement, "This is a disturbing set of facts involving a man preying on vulnerable girls who wanted to make an honest living and help their families back home.” The girls were kept out of school to work on the farm, authorities said. How the 14-year-old came to America was not clear from the statement; she is alleged to have been brought in from Mexico. Authorities said that Jolomna brought the 17-year-old to the country under a sponsorship and that she wanted to provide for a sick father and family members back in Guatemala. Jolomna had the younger girl’s paychecks signed over to him and kept most of the older girl’s wages, the attorney general’s office alleged. Jolomna is charged trafficking in individuals and involuntary servitude, as well as other counts, the attorney general’s office said. Online court records did not appear to show his case Monday night, and it was not clear whether he had an attorney who could speak on his behalf. The attorney general’s office said Monday that Jolomna was arraigned and that bail was set at $1 million.

Los Angeles Times [9/22/2025 6:16 PM, Carlos De Loera, 12715K] reports journalist Mario Guevara from El Salvador is facing the possibility of imminent deportation after the Board of Immigration Appeals on Friday reopened his 13-year-old immigration case and declined to let him out on bond. Additionally, the board denied a motion to give back the removal proceedings to a previous judge who was covering Guevara’s green-card case. Guevera, who left his homeland over 20 years ago and founded the Spanish-language news outlet MG News, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as he was reporting on a "No Kings" protest on June 14 in the Atlanta area. The 47-year-old reporter’s arrest was captured on video because he was livestreaming his news report as the incident occurred. On June 24, the Department of Homeland Security posted on X about Guevara’s situation. "Mario Guevara, a Salvadoran national, is in ICE custody because he is in our country ILLEGALLY. Guevara was arrested by Dekalb County, Georgia police for willful OBSTRUCTION after he REFUSED to comply with local police orders to move out of the middle of the street," the post claimed. "Following his arrest by local authorities, ICE placed a detainer on him. Following his release, he was turned over to ICE custody and has been placed in removal proceedings.". The journalist was granted bond in July, but ICE challenged Guevara’s release to the Board of Immigration Appeals and requested that his bond be put on hold while the appeal is under review, Guevara’s lawyer claimed. Regarding Guevara’s residence status, his lawyer has noted that Guevara has a work permit and has a pathway to citizenship through the sponsorship of his adult son, who is a U.S. citizen.

Reported similarly:
Axios [9/22/2025 5:12 PM, Kristal Dixon, 14595K

Univision [9/22/2025 2:13 PM, Staff, 4932K] reports journalist Mario Guevara sent a handwritten letter after learning that a federal court had ordered his deportation, which could happen at any moment. Guevara marked his 100th day in detention this Monday, September 22. Since June 14, he has been held in four prisons and an ICE detention center in Georgia. During this time, his lawyers and journalist advocacy organizations in the United States, led by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), filed various legal challenges demanding Guevara’s release. At the time of his arrest, Guevara had a valid work permit and was in the process of adjusting his immigration status through a family petition for his son, a U.S. citizen. Guevara was arrested while covering a No Kings Day protest in metro Atlanta on June 14. He was charged with three misdemeanor counts in DeKalb County, which were later dismissed. Three days later, he was charged with three new charges in Gwinnett County related to traffic violations allegedly occurring in May. Those charges were also dismissed.

Chicago Tribune [9/22/2025 3:24 PM, Olivia Stevens, 5352K] reports federal immigration enforcement officers detained two people in University Park on Saturday, village police said. University Park police said in a news release officers were alerted of Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity and made contact with ICE officers "to ascertain their intentions." "Two subjects had been taken into custody without incident. The ICE agents then left the area without incident," police said.

CBS Chicago [9/22/2025 7:23 PM, Sabrina Franza, 45245K] Video: HERE reports at least three people were arrested while protesting at the ICE facility in Broadview on Friday, accused of assaulting federal officers, but prosecutors have no criminal charges on file. One protester who was taken into custody outside the facility on Saturday was given a written citation, but has yet to receive a court date. "I kind of tapped on the window, and that’s when I detained, and I ended up getting severely bruised," Rogelio Huerta said. "We were just continuing the protest that happened since Friday, but it got a little ugly.". Huerta found himself behind the fence around the ICE facility parking lot, where those detained are brought in on vans and buses. "They refused me a phone call, they refused food, they refused any kind of essentials that I needed. So if I needed a cover, a blanket, they didn’t even have anything for me," he said. Huerta said, six hours after he was detained, he walked out with a citation for assaulting a federal officer. U.S. Customs and Border Protection chief patrol agent Gregory Bovino announced three arrests from Friday’s protest, but the U.S. Attorney’s office said they have no record of anyone charged with that same statute. CBS News Chicago legal analyst Irv Miller said the statute cited by Bovino makes it illegal to assault a federal officer. "It carries up to one year in jail. It doesn’t necessarily mean there’s jail time, and it’s a case that’s not decided by a federal district judge, which is a judge … nominated by the president and approved by the Senate. This is a judge that’s basically put on the bench because the other federal judges here in the Northern District selected that particular judge," he said.

NPR [9/22/2025 5:32 PM, Ari Shapiro, Jeffrey Pierre and John Ketchum, 34837K] Audio: HERE reports the Washington Post obtained a report that found over 60 violations at an ICE detention facility. NPR’s Ari Shapiro talks to Doug MacMillan, who obtained the report, about what it found.

CBS News [9/22/2025 6:29 PM, Staff, 45245K] Video: HERE reports Monday was the first day in federal court for six women who are charged in connection with a shooting at an ICE facility in Johnson County.

Breitbart [9/22/2025 2:34 PM, John Binder, 2608K] reports that the United States Marshals Service is searching for an illegal alien accused of raping, impregnating, and labor trafficking a migrant child whom he sponsored through the federal government’s Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) program. U.S. Marshals are offering a reward of up to $5,000 to anyone with information that leads to the arrest of illegal alien Juan Ralios-Batz of Guatemala — accused of horrific child sex crimes and labor trafficking. Ralios-Batz is wanted on three counts of child rape, one count of aggravated kidnapping, one count of human trafficking, and one count of abuse of a child. According to the allegations, Ralios-Batz and his sister sponsored a 13-year-old migrant child through the federal government’s UAC program. After securing custody of the child, police allege that over a two-year period, Ralios-Batz raped the girl, impregnated and fathered a child with her, and forced the girl into indentured servitude. Officials with the U.S. Marshals say Ralios-Batz fled to Fremont, Nebraska, after being made aware of the charges against him. Ralios-Batz uses several aliases, including Juan Ralios, Juan Batz, Randy Guerro, Juan Ramos-Batz, Juan Ramos, and Omar Gonzalez. Earlier this year, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called the Biden administration’s massive ramp-up of the UAC program "the biggest facilitator for child abuse" in American history.

Washington Examiner [9/22/2025 3:26 PM, Barnini Chakraborty, 1563K] reports Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials aren’t having the same amount of luck signing up new recruits in California as they are in other parts of the country due to the state’s competitive salaries, job security, and other perks, a new analysis found. Local law enforcement unions are also pushing back on ICE, claiming the Trump administration is trying to poach their recruits and promote negative stereotypes about law enforcement duties. To meet its hiring goal of 10,000 new officers by the end of 2026, the Trump administration has placed flashy ads during NFL games, offered hefty $50,000 signing bonuses, student loan forgiveness, and six-figure salaries to future deportation officers. ICE has also dropped age requirements, eliminated its Spanish-language proficiency requirement, and cut back on training for new hires with law enforcement experience. Despite its attractive compensation packages, ICE is still struggling to find recruits where it claims it needs them the most, like California. Even though ICE has been trying to double its headcount under President Donald Trump, the administration has also been rewriting rules that would make it much easier to fire federal workers in the future. That could put job security and pensions on the line and hurt recruits under other administrations. California law enforcement agencies, unions, and veterans of the multiple police forces have also been pushing back on ICE poaching their recruits.

FOX 2 San Francisco [9/22/2025 9:33 AM, Lisa Fernandez, 1500K] reports a team of immigrant rights lawyers, including the ACLU, sued the federal government on Thursday in a class action suit, alleging that the conditions of the ICE facility in San Francisco are "squalid" and inhumane, where immigrants have been held for up to six days, made to go to the bathroom in front of each other, and forced to sleep on the floor under bright lights, which is essentially a form of torture. The suit was filed in the San Jose branch of the U.S. District Court in Northern California and names the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and two of the dozen defendants. The attorneys are representing four immigrants: Carmen Aracely Pablo Sequen, 30, an asylum seeker from Guatemala with no criminal record anywhere in the world; Yulisa Alvarado Ambrocio, 24, a breast-feeding mother and asylum seeker from Guatelmala with no criminal record anywhere in the world; Ligia Garcia, an asylum seeker from Colombia, who has no criminal record and was arrested Thursday following her immigration court hearing, and Martin Hernandez-Torres, a noncitizen who has lived in the United States for 30 years and has cancer, who was arrested Wednesday during a "reasonable fear" interview. A spokesman for ICE on Friday said the agency doesn’t comment on pending litigation and referred questions to the Department of Homeland Security, which provided a four-paragraph statement on Sunday from Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. "Nothing in the constitution prohibits arresting a lawbreaker where you find them," McLaughlin said. "The ability of law enforcement to make arrests of criminal illegal aliens in courthouses is common sense." McLaughlin said that arresting people at courthouses "conserves valuable law enforcement resources because they already know where a target will be" and that these immigrants have gone through security and been screened to not have any weapons. In terms of the "squalid" conditions, McLaughlin emphatically said that these claims of "subprime conditions" at ICE detention centers are false. "In fact, ICE has higher detention standards than most US prisons that hold actual US citizens," McLaughlin said. Everyone is provided with proper meals, medical treatment, and can communicate with lawyers and their family members. McLaughlin also said that they provide "comprehensive medical care" inside a detention center, which is "the best healthcare many aliens have received in their entire lives." "The ACLU should just change its name," McLaughlin said. "It’s clear they only care about illegal aliens—not Americans."

Daily Caller [9/22/2025 12:22 PM, Melissa O’Rourke, 985K] reports foreign student arrivals to the U.S. fell to the lowest level recorded in four years amid the Trump administration’s visa crackdown, Bloomberg News reported Monday. Just over 313,000 international students entered the U.S. in August, a 19% drop year-over-year, a Bloomberg News analysis of International Trade Administration data found. The drop marked five consecutive months of declines, leaving overall student arrivals down nearly 12% so far this year through August. Arrivals from Asia, which account for most foreign students, fell by 24% in August as Indian student arrivals dropped 45% and those from China fell 12%, according to Bloomberg. Africa saw the largest percentage fall of any region, down 33%, while Western Europe remained largely flat, with a decrease of less than 1%, according to the outlet. The downturn coincides with the Trump administration’s rollout of stricter immigration measures, including new restrictions targeting foreign students. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a new rule in late August, capping the length of time foreign students can remain in the country, closing a loophole that officials say has allowed some foreign nationals to become "forever students." The rule limits the length of stay for international students to the duration of the academic program, but not beyond four years. After that, students would have to reapply to remain in the country, allowing DHS to review their cases regularly.

AP [9/22/2025 6:28 PM, Mauricio Savarese, 11503K] reports the U.S. government Monday sanctioned the wife of the Brazilian Supreme Court justice who led the investigation into former President Jair Bolsonaro, who was sentenced this month to 27 years in prison for attempting a coup in the South American nation. The Trump administration also revoked the U.S. visa of another Brazilian official, Solicitor-General Jorge Messias, who criticized the decision on his social media channels. The wife of Justice Alexandre de Moraes, Viviane Barci de Moraes, was sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Act used by the United States against human rights abusers. Her husband was targeted by the same measure as he oversaw the case against Bolsonaro. This is the latest chapter in a unilateral wave of attacks from the Trump administration against Brazil, which includes sanctions against other authorities and tariffs of 50% on many of the country’s exports to the U.S. Local media also reported that other judges who worked with de Moraes at the Supreme Court had also lost their U.S. visas, which they did not individually confirm. A holding company of the de Moraes family was also sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act. De Moraes said in a statement that Brazilian institutions "are strong and sound" and will not be affected by the attacks from the Trump administration. He added the measures against his wife "attack international law, Brazil’s sovereignty and the judiciary’s independence.". The U.S. State Department said de Moraes "has used his position to weaponize courts, authorize arbitrary pretrial detentions, and suppress freedom of expression.". "These sanctions build on a series of actions taken by the Trump administration to hold Moraes accountable for abusing his authority, creating a censorship complex, blatantly targeting political opponents, and committing serious human rights abuse," the statement said.

Reported similarly:
Reuters [9/22/2025 11:50 AM, Gram Slattery, 45746K]

FOX News [9/22/2025 4:20 PM, Charles Creitz, 40019K] reports the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate joined with a high-profile member of the Republican caucus, among others, to launch a bill protecting more than a quarter of a million people who arrived in the U.S. as children of visa-holding foreign nationals. Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., who co-authored the original, ultimately unsuccessful DREAM Act with the late Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, announced Monday that he and several lawmakers would lead the America’s CHILDREN Act to protect so-called Dreamers from deportation by the Trump administration. Durbin was joined by Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., in the upper chamber, to support the newest iteration of legislation offering a "pathway to citizenship" for long-term U.S. residents who were dependents of migrant parents.

Bloomberg [9/22/2025 8:11 AM, Anto Antony, Saikat Das, and Siddhi Nayak, 19085K] reports Wall Street banks are set to rely more on their Indian business support centers following President Donald Trump’s shock move to impose $100,000 fees on new applications to the widely used H-1B visa program. US lenders including Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. are among the biggest employers of India’s so-called global capability centers, which handle operations from trading support and risk management to tech assistance. Staffed with software engineers, quants and accounting specialists, the centers offer low-cost services while giving firms access to skilled talent not readily available in their home markets. Although Trump is seeking to protect US jobs by curbing immigration, the new rules could spur banks to deepen their presence in Indian tech hubs such as Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, which already employ more than 1.9 million people, analysts said. “Unless new restrictions are placed on offshoring, foreign banks will lean even more on their Indian capability centers,” said Umesh Chhazzed, founder of recruitment firm Anlage Infotech, who has worked with US lenders for more than two decades. The H-1B visa program is used heavily by the Indian and US tech sectors to bring in skilled workers from abroad, while finance companies and consulting firms are also big users. Indian-born workers accounted for 72.3% of all H-1B beneficiaries in the US fiscal year to September 2023, which includes initial and continuing employment. JPMorgan is relieved the new fee doesn’t apply to existing H-1B visa holders, Sjoerd Leenart, the bank’s top executive for Asia-Pacific told Bloomberg Television in an interview on Monday in Mumbai. He said it was too early to assess the full impact of the proposed changes. As recently as July, Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal had said immigration rules — including those relating to H-1B visas — had not come up in US trade talks. Parvathy Tharamel, a partner at law firm Trilegal, said India is already emerging as the backbone of global capability centers for international banks, driving critical business, compliance, technology, and innovation functions. “The new H-1B restrictions will only accelerate this trend, pushing more cross-border technology and high-value roles into India hubs,” she said.

Bloomberg [9/22/2025 5:39 PM, Rachel Cohrs Zhang, John Tozzi, and Jessica Nix, 19085K] reports Doctors could qualify for exemptions from the Trump administration’s new $100,000 fee for high-skilled H-1B visa applications, the White House said Monday, after some of the biggest medical bodies called out the risk to rural America where there’s already a dearth of providers. The executive order released Friday said that the application fees can be waived if the Secretary of Homeland Security determines that the hiring of these workers on an individual basis, or to work for a specific company or industry is “in the national interest.” “The Proclamation allows for potential exemptions, which can include physicians and medical residents,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in an email Monday to Bloomberg News. “Ultimately, the Trump Administration defers to the language in the proclamation.” The Department of Homeland Security didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. For hospitals, the H-1B visa program is crucial to recruiting doctors in remote parts of the country where there are in some cases severe shortages of health care workers. Shares of HCA Healthcare Inc., a major hospital operator, rose as much as 1.4% after news of potential doctor waivers. Tenet Healthcare Corp. rose as much as 3.1%. Health care employers often sponsor medical residents and other physicians through the H-1B program. American Medical Association President Bobby Mukkamala, a Michigan head and neck surgeon, called international medical graduates “a critical part of our physician workforce,” before the Trump administration said doctors and those in training may qualify for exemptions.

Bloomberg [9/22/2025 3:31 PM, Staff, 19085K] reports the Trump administration’s plan to raise the H-1B application fee to $100,000 isn’t unsustainable for US businesses, according to Hiba Anver, partner at Erickson Immigration Group. Anver discusses the impact this change would have on workers and employers with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow on “Bloomberg Tech.” [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Reuters [9/22/2025 3:37 PM, Johann M Cherian and Kanchana Chakravarty, 45746K] reports U.S. President Donald Trump imposed new fees on H-1B visas on Friday as part of his wide-ranging crackdown on immigration. Trump’s executive order, which took effect at 12:01 a.m. EDT on Sunday (0401 GMT), hikes the fee for H-1B visa applicants to $100,000. It is a one-time fee applied only to new applicants and not holders of existing visas or those seeking renewals. Established under the Immigration Act of 1990, the H-1B program enables U.S. employers to temporarily hire highly skilled foreign professionals in specialized occupations, primarily in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. It requires a bachelor’s degree or higher in the specialty, or its equivalent, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). A prospective employer has to submit a petition to USCIS on behalf of the beneficiary. This program caps new visas at 65,000 every fiscal year, excluding 20,000 petitions from those who have earned a master’s or higher degree in the U.S., or those employed at an American institution of higher education or some non-profit organizations. India was the largest beneficiary of H-1B visas last year, accounting for 71% of the approved beneficiaries, while China was a distant second at 11.7%, according to government data. NBC News [9/22/2025 6:48 PM, Nicole Acevedo, 43603K] reports that the H-1B visa is a legal immigration program that allows U.S. employers to temporarily hire skilled foreign workers in "specialty occupations" across health care, tech and finance industries, among other STEM-related fields. For the purposes of the visa program, a "specialty occupation" is defined as a job that requires at least a bachelor’s degree or higher and the "theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge.". The visa program, created by the Immigration Act of 1990, was originally designed to address critical workforce needs, making it easier for employers to bring in workers with specialized skills that were harder to find in the United States. According to the Labor Department, there are legal standards to protect U.S. workers with similar jobs from being adversely affected by the employment of foreign workers. But in recent years, some Democratic and Republican lawmakers have pushed for reform and increased oversight of the program, saying it has displaced American workers and suppressed wages. Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, told NBC News that Trump "promised to put American workers first, and this commonsense action does just that by discouraging companies from spamming the system and driving down wages.". On Friday, Trump signed a proclamation requiring a $100,000 payment to accompany new H-1B visa applications submitted after Sept. 21, a steep rise from current fees, which are usually $2,000 to about $5,000. But the new policy, which took effect Sunday, didn’t clarify whether the new, steep charge applied only to new applications or to those of people currently holding H1-B visas or seeking renewals. That led to a flurry of confusion over the weekend as workers and companies tried to figure out who would be affected. According to guidelines the State Department and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services issued this week, the $100,000 fee on H1-B visas is a one-time fee and applies only to new applications.

Reported similarly:
Wall Street Journal [9/22/2025 6:04 PM, Michelle Hackman and Victoria Albert, 646K]
AP [9/22/2025 6:34 PM, Paul Wiseman, Barbara Ortutay, and Piyush Nagpal, 20690K]

Reuters [9/22/2025 9:42 AM, Staff, 45746K] reports the Trump administration’s proposed $100,000 fee for new H-1B visas widely used by tech firms to hire foreign talent could deal a blow to the sector that relies heavily on skilled workers from India and China. The announcement prompted some big tech companies and banks to warn employees to stay in the U.S. or quickly return. India was by far the largest beneficiary of H-1B visas last year, accounting for 71% of approved beneficiaries. Benjamin Jang, Portfolio Manager At Nicola Wealth Management says, “The tech companies have high exposure to foreign skilled labor and the concern is on margin compression and operational disruption going forward. This may impact the number of talented individuals globally that enter into the U.S. market so there could be a really tight bottleneck situation that leads to upward wage pressures.". "The long-term focus obviously what President Trump wants is to have the acceleration of local hiring which may occur, but that is a long-dated item.". "In the medium term, there’s potential for U.S. tech to kind of lose their pole position in terms of being global innovators. Obviously countries with more favorable immigration may benefit from that.".

CBS News [9/22/2025 6:15 PM, Aimee Picchi and Mary Cunningham, 45245K] Video: HERE reports the Trump administration’s new $100,000 fee for H-1B visa applications is sowing confusion among some immigrant workers and their employers, including whether it’s safe for current holders of the visa to travel outside the U.S. The new fee, which President Trump announced in a proclamation on Friday, represents a major change to a 35-year-old program that has enabled millions of immigrants to work legally in the U.S. The visa has become a mainstay in the technology industry, including among bellwethers such as Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft, and is also widely used in the financial sector. Over the weekend, the White House sought to clarify the new policy, stating that the fee doesn’t apply to current H-1B holders and that it is a one-time cost required only when initially applying for the visa. White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said the addition of a $100,000 charge for H-1B visas on top of the existing fees reflects President Trump’s promise "to put American workers first, and this commonsense action does just that by discouraging companies from spamming the system and driving down American wages.". She added, "The text of the proclamation is very clear, and it is unfortunate that uninformed reporters and corporate lawyers attempt to sow chaos and confusion. Americans have another reason to celebrate unprecedented action by President Trump to protect Americans from cheap foreign labor.". After the White House outlined the new policy on Friday, some tech companies including Google and Microsoft this weekend instructed H-1B employees who were traveling outside the U.S. to return immediately, expressing concern they might not be allowed to re-enter without the $100,000 payment, according to workers and immigration lawyers. Despite the White House’s clarification that the new fee applies only to new visa applications, not existing H-1B holders, there remains "a great degree of uncertainty on the ground," Parul Koul, president of the union that represents employees at Google owner Alphabet, said during a press conference on Monday to address the new policy.

CBS News [9/22/2025 6:26 PM, Staff, 45245K] Video: HERE reports President Trump’s new fee on H-1B visas led to a host of questions this weekend, forcing the White House to clarify that the new fee won’t apply to existing holders and will only be levied once. CBS News national security contributor Sam Vinograd joins "The Takeout" with analysis.

Los Angeles Times [9/22/2025 6:36 PM, Queenie Wong and Nilesh Christopher, 12715K] reports President Trump’s new sky-high visa fees have shaken Silicon Valley’s tech giants as they contemplate a surge in the cost of hiring global talent and a new tactic the White House can use to keep Silicon Valley in line. The tech industry was already navigating an economy with higher and unpredictable tariffs, when last week the Trump administration threw another curveball aimed directly at its bottom line: a $100,000 fee for the visas used to hire certain skilled foreign workers. The industry relies heavily on the H-1B visa program to bring in a wide range of engineers, coders, and other top talent to the United States. The rollout has sparked confusion among businesses, immigration lawyers and current H-1B visa holders. Over the weekend, the Trump administration clarified that the new fee will apply to new visas, isn’t annual and doesn’t prevent current H-1B visa holders from traveling in and outside of the country. Companies would have to pay the fee with any new H-1B visa petitions submitted after a specific time on Sept. 21, the White House said. On Monday, the Trump administration also clarified that certain professions, such as doctors, may be exempt from the fee. Some observers are concerned that a selective application of the fee could be a way the White House can reward its friends and punish its detractors. Meta, Apple, Google, Amazon and Microsoft have been strengthening their ties with the Trump administration by committing to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the United States. Still, immigration has long been a contentious issue between the Trump administration and tech executives, some of whom were on a H-1B visa before they co-founded or led some of the world’s largest tech companies.

Axios [9/22/2025 12:12 PM, Neil Irwin, 14595K] reports President Trump is aiming for blockbuster economic growth and a boom in America’s manufacturing and AI industries. That might all be undercut by a dearth of workers needed to bring those investments to life. White House crackdowns on legal and illegal immigration are accelerating the nation’s long-running demographic challenges, which could stunt economic growth in the years ahead. The latest sign that the Trump administration will make it more burdensome for corporations to rely on foreign workers came Friday. Corporations will have to pay a $100,000 fee to apply for H-1B visas, a pathway for skilled foreigners to join U.S. employment ranks, the president announced — up from $2,500. Trump also directed the Labor Department to revise pay requirements for these workers who, in some cases, are underpaid relative to U.S. workers. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said it won’t be "economic anymore" for companies to rely on H-1B visa — incentivizing them to lean on American workers instead. "If you are going to train people, you’re going to train Americans," Lutnick told reporters.

Reuters [9/22/2025 5:52 PM, Staff, 45746K] reports Physicians may be exempted from new H-1B visa fees, according to a report on Monday, days after the White House announced a new $100,000 fee for such visas that include "case-by-case exemptions if in the national interest. Doctors may be among those exempted, a Bloomberg news reporter said in a post on X, citing White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers.

Blaze [9/22/2025 11:55 AM, Cooper Williamson, 1559K] reports on Friday, President Trump signed a proclamation entitled "Restriction of Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers," to many people’s excitement. However, the White House subsequently issued a clarification that appears to frustrate many people’s expectations about the order, leading to outcries of confusion over the weekend. The order detailed the White House’s plan to impose a $100,000 fee on H-1B visa applications — a much heavier financial burden on the employer than the previous total of roughly $10,000 in fees, as Blaze News previously reported. It was expected that this new fee would shift hiring incentives back toward American workers rather than imported foreign labor, primarily from India, through visa programs. However, confusion over the announcement spread when a clip emerged of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, standing next to President Trump in the Oval Office, repeatedly saying that the new $100,000 fee would apply annually to H-1B visa holders. "$100,000 per year," Lutnick emphasized. According to the White House’s clarification, the $100,000 fee is a one-time fee that applies only to new H-1B visa applications. It also does not prevent any current visa holder from traveling in or out of the United States. The White House’s clarification described this proclamation as "an important, initial, and incremental step to reform the H-1B visa program to curb abuses and protect American workers.".

Reported similarly:
Bloomberg Law [9/22/2025 11:21 AM, Staff, 790K]

New York Times [9/22/2025 3:54 PM, Alex Travelli, 143795K] reports some of the biggest companies in the United States have been run by someone who grew up in India, immigrated with a specialized visa and proved their worth by rising to a top job in the Fortune 500. Satya Nadella of Microsoft and Sundar Pichai of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, moved to the United States on the H-1B visa program, as did Indra Nooyi, who ran PepsiCo from 2006 to 2018. On Friday, President Trump announced that every new H-1B application would come with a $100,000 price tag, a huge rise from the few thousands of dollars it cost before, sowing distress and confusion among workers and employers. The fee, which took effect on Sunday, has upended the system’s long-term prospects, not least for workers in India, who have long accounted for a majority of H-1B holders. Any non-American who meets certain criteria is eligible for the visa — provided they bring “a body of highly specialized knowledge” needed by a U.S. employer — but Indians are in a league of their own. They won 71 percent of H-1B visas in the 2024 lottery, and a similar proportion since the program started in 1990. Applicants from China are a distant second, accounting for about 12 percent of the visas. There were more than 300,000 Indians working in the United States on an H-1B visa as of 2024. They, along with their spouses and children, made up about a tenth of all Indian-origin people who reside in the country legally. Possibly millions of Indian Americans, including many living in India, owe their U.S. citizenship to their own or their parents’ use of the program. No one can yet gauge the full effects of the fee. An initial panic among current visa holders subsided after the Trump administration clarified that the new rules would apply only to new applicants. But there is no doubt that by making it 20 to 30 times more expensive for U.S. companies to hire workers from India that Mr. Trump has scrambled a popular path between the two countries. The move could dent India’s economy by reducing how many H1-B holders send money home and, longer term, by weakened ties between Indian and American companies. “These visas give Indians substantial exposure to the U.S., its professional culture and its soft power,” said Alexander Slater, managing director at Capstone, a global forecasting and business strategy firm in Washington. “If the outcome of the policy change is that fewer Indians are working with Americans, it will weaken a significant bond between the two countries.”

Reported similarly:
Daily Caller [9/22/2025 1:29 PM, Jason Hopkins, 985K]

Federal News Network [9/22/2025 1:04 PM, Terry Gerton, 1147K] reports that guest: Ryan Flanagan. Title: Director of Alternative Funding Programs, Office of Field Operations at U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Summary: U.S. Customs and Border Protection has announced 33 new reimbursable services agreements, allowing private and public entities to pay for expanded inspection and processing support at ports of entry. The program doesn’t replace core services — it supplements them where demand exceeds CBP’s funded capacity. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

USA Today [9/22/2025 11:26 AM, Michelle Del Rey, 75552K] reports U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents at Tampa International Airport were stunned when they discovered a human skull during a routine bag search. "What started as a passenger declaring just 10 cigars at Tampa International Airport turned bizarre," wrote Carlos C Martel, U.S. Customs and Border Protection director of field operations for Miami and Tampa, on X Thursday, Sept. 18. CBP agriculture specialists uncovered prohibited plants, undeclared cigars and a foil-wrapped duffel bag containing human remains, including the skull, Martel wrote. Though the traveler claimed the items were for rituals, Martel said they were seized and destroyed "due to serious health risks.". He added: "We never know what baggage may hold, but smugglers should know we’ll always have a bone to pick."

Los Angeles Times [9/22/2025 6:00 AM, Steve Fisher, 12715K] reports when MQ-9 Predator drones flew over anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles this summer, it was the first time they had been dispatched to monitor demonstrations on U.S. soil since 2020, and their use reflects a change in how the government is choosing to deploy the aircraft once reserved for surveilling the border and war zones. Previous news reports said the drones sent by the Department of Homeland Security conducted surveillance on the weekend of June 7 over thousands of protesters demonstrating against raids conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Predators flew over Los Angeles for at least four more days, according to tracking experts who identified the flights through air traffic control tower communications and images of a Predator in flight. Those amateur sleuths, who monitor flight traffic and identified the first flight, which was confirmed by Customs and Border Protection, shared their findings on social media. Defenders of using drones to monitor protests say the aircraft, with their high-tech capabilities, can provide authorities useful and detailed information in real time. Human rights advocates fear the new policy will impinge on civil rights. The drones, which fly at around 20,000 feet to conduct surveillance, can beam a live video feed to various government agencies — ICE, the military and more . The MQ designation refers to the drone’s abilities and function. In military parlance, M means multi-use and Q indicates it’s an unmanned aerial vehicle. When asked about the additional days of flights over Los Angeles, Homeland Security did not directly address the questions but said the flights were meant to protect police and military.

USA Today [9/22/2025 6:02 PM, Natalie Neysa Alund, 64151K] reports new details released by a Washington sheriff show how authorities used drones and canine teams to find ribs, feet and other skeletal remains presumably belonging to Travis Decker, the father suspected of killing his three daughters. While authorities await DNA confirmation the bones are indeed Decker’s, Chelan County Sheriff Mike Morrison on Sept. 22 told USA TODAY authorities found other evidence near the remains that links the discovery to the suspect. Morrison said crews found remains including ribs, feet and a femur on Thursday, Sept. 18, south of Leavenworth, a village in the Cascade Mountains of central Washington state. Officials also found clothing and other items belonging to Decker, including a green T-shirt he was last seen wearing when he disappeared, Morrison said. The discoveries came after a more than three-month search for Decker, who vanished after the late May kidnapping and deaths of his daughters, Paityn Decker, 9; Evelyn Decker, 8; and Olivia Decker, 5, according to the Wenatchee Police Department. Not long after, Border Patrol agents "spotted a green object" across a ravine, the sheriff said, and troopers deployed a drone to take photographs of the object. Border Patrol search dogs visited the scene and alerted teams to a body decomposing there. Agents walked across the ravine and located clothing and skeletal remains including a finger, femur, ribs, feet and other bones, Morrison said. Morrison told USA TODAY on Monday, Sept. 22, his office was still waiting for Decker’s DNA comparison results.

San Diego Union Tribune [9/22/2025 2:52 PM, Ryanne Mena, 1648K] reports the Department of Homeland Security is targeting several social media accounts that posted a video of a Border Patrol agent — with an activist behind one of the accounts questioning if the federal government is trying to suppress free speech. Sherman Austin, who lives in Long Beach, California, and is the creator and programmer of the Stop ICE Raids Alert Network, received a message from Meta on Sept. 5 that said a law enforcement agency was seeking information about his Instagram account. Back in February, Austin created Stop ICE, a website that relies on crowd-sourced information to alert users to immigration activity in their communities across the country. After obtaining a copy of the subpoena, Austin learned that the Department of Homeland Security requested information about several Instagram accounts for a criminal investigation, including his. Austin said he thinks this is an attempt by the government to chill his and other activists’ efforts of documenting and publicly sharing photos, videos, and information about federal immigration agents and their activities. "They want to use it as an example to like set a precedent and start going after activists and organizations that are speaking up about, you know, ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids going on in the community," Austin said. "This is not going to deter me in any way, any shape or form," he said. "I’m not doing anything illegal.". The redacted subpoena, which Austin shared with the Southern California News Group, says it is about "Officer Safety/Doxing: (and names the agent).". On Sept. 2, six Instagram accounts, including Stop ICE’s, collaborated on a post dedicated to the Border Patrol agent. The reel includes photos and videos of the unmasked uniformed agent involved in various federal immigration operations across Southern California and information about the agent’s previous employment at a police department, his hometown, his city of residence, and his name. Representatives of only one of the five other accounts contacted by a reporter answered, saying that account did not receive the subpoena. "When I saw (the subpoena), I kind of laughed ‘cause it was like, first of all, everything in that post was already publicly available," Austin said. "It was publicly on Border Patrol videos like flaunting about how they go about and they arrest people. … In previous public statements, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told the Center for Media and Democracy, "Videotaping ICE law enforcement and posting photos and videos of them online is doxing our agents. … We will prosecute those who illegally harass ICE agents to the fullest extent of the law.". DHS officials have repeatedly stated that their agents have experienced a drastic increase in assaults and harassment. DHS did not respond to questions about those purported assaults. Previously, an ICE spokesman said: "U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement fully respects the constitutional rights of all people to peacefully express their opinions. That being said, ICE remains committed to performing its immigration-enforcement mission consistent with federal law and agency policy.".

Reuters [9/22/2025 4:03 PM, Cassandra Garrison, 45746K] reports a confirmed case of an animal infected with the flesh-eating screwworm parasite in Mexico’s northern Nuevo Leon state near the U.S. border was immediately treated to prevent a further outbreak, the Mexican government said Monday. The country’s agriculture ministry said there was no risk of adult screwworm fly emergence due to the early detection of the infected bovine, which was confirmed on Sunday. Fly traps in northern Mexico have not detected a single screwworm fly, the statement added. The screwworm parasite has moved northward through Central America and Mexico, rattling the U.S. cattle industry and prompting the U.S. government to keep its border mostly closed to Mexican cattle imports since May, adding to trade tensions between the two countries. The U.S. Department of Agriculture first confirmed the case detected less than 70 miles (113 km) from the U.S.-Mexico border in a statement late Sunday, saying it was analyzing the information and "will pursue all options to release sterile flies in this region as necessary." The infected animal was in a shipment of 100 animals originating from the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz, Mexico said.

New York Times [9/23/2025 3:21 AM, Sachi Kitajima Mulkey and Harry Stevens, 330K] reports that, if the planet continues to warm at its current rate, exposure to wildfire smoke will kill an estimated 70,000 Americans each year by 2050, according to new research. The results are some of the strongest evidence yet that climate change endangers people in the United States, said Marshall Burke, an environmental economist at Stanford University who contributed to the study. For Americans, “the impacts are much larger than anything else that has been measured,” Dr. Burke said. Wildfire smoke, intensified by rising temperatures, is on track to become one of America’s deadliest climate disasters, causing as many as two million deaths over the next three decades, the analysis found. Published Thursday in the journal Nature, it is the most robust estimate yet of how deadly wildfire smoke could become as the planet warms. The researchers used roughly two decades of death records and satellite and ground data on wildfire smoke pollution to measure how exposure affects mortality. “This paper is a wake-up call for people,” said Kai Chen, an associate professor at the Yale School of Public Health, who was not involved in the study. “It shows this is a nationwide problem, and it’s tied to climate change.” At the end of July, the Trump administration proposed repealing the endangerment finding. That measure, an Obama-era scientific determination that greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health, has been used as the legal basis for strict limits on industrial sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide and methane, are produced when fossil fuels are burned and trap heat in Earth’s atmosphere. Since the industrial revolution, the planet has warmed about 1.3 degrees Celsius. Other researchers have found that the most extreme wildfires have doubled in frequency and intensity over the past two decades. The trend has persisted this year, with record-breaking blazes sweeping across parts of Canada, California and Hawaii. Even under a more moderate climate scenario, in which humans curb greenhouse gas emissions to lessen future warming, the study found the death toll from wildfire smoke would remain similarly high, reaching some 67,000 annual deaths by 2050. Even the mildest scenario, in which emissions are nearly eliminated, results in about 66,000 deaths each year. Scientists track air quality by measuring tiny airborne particles that measure 2.5 microns across, or less than half the size of a red blood cell. This pollution is known as PM 2.5 and is regulated by the Clean Air Act and monitored by the Environmental Protection Agency. The Trump administration has proposed loosening national air quality standards, which would result in more of this kind of pollution. These tiny particles are small enough to lodge deep in the lungs and enter the bloodstream, where they can cause inflammation and a cascade of health problems. The PM 2.5 found in wildfire smoke can be more hazardous than other kinds of air pollution, like dust.

Telemundo Amarillo [9/22/2025 6:35 PM, Staff, 2K] reports people living in the Azores archipelago must be on the lookout for the progress of Hurricane Gabrielle, which is now a Category 4 cyclone in the Atlantic Ocean, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) recommended Monday. Gabrielle had maximum sustained winds of 220 km/h (140 mph) on Monday afternoon as she moved east-southeast of Bermuda, according to an NHC notice. Its vortex was located 290 kilometers (180 miles) away from Bermuda and moved north-northeast to 19 km/h (12 mph). The hurricane was still more than 2,000 kilometers (2,000 miles) west of the Azores; however, forecasters project the system to continue north and east over the next few days. The hurricane could approach the islands by the weekend. Forecasters said in the warning that little change in Gabrielle’s wind strength is expected on Monday night, and that the system could gradually weaken on Tuesday and Wednesday. The system was also expected to increase its forward speed over the next two days. Gabrielle had become a Category 1 hurricane on Sunday before experiencing rapid intensification in the warm Atlantic waters. The storm’s trajectory was taking it east of Bermuda. Stormstorm surges arrived in Bermuda on Sunday, and were affecting the east coast of the United States, from North Carolina northward to Canada’s Atlantic coast. Forecasters said the tides were likely to cause severe waves and dangerous rip currents. This year’s Atlantic hurricane season has been relatively quiet, and before Gabrielle there was only one named hurricane in that ocean. Experts say there are some reasons for that, but it doesn’t mean that dangerous systems will not be formed later on. The Atlantic hurricane season ends on November 30.

Reported similarly:
Reuters [9/22/2025 5:10 PM, Staff, 45746K]

NPR [9/22/2025 4:10 PM, Ryan Heinsius, 34837K] Audio: HERE reports the Grand Canyon’s remote North Rim seems like a world away from its more famous South Rim, only a sliver of the nearly five million people who visit the national park each year make it here. At 8,000 feet above sea level, the North Rim’s broad plateaus that drop into the canyon are thickly forested with pine trees. Businesses of any kind are few and far between, making places like the Jacob Lake Inn a sort of beacon in the wilderness. It offers the only fresh cookies for at least 25 miles in any direction, and on a recent bustling Sunday morning visitors lined up at the counter for these famous delicacies. One couple eagerly ordered a chocolate chip and a chocolate parfait, and for good measure, an apple turnover for breakfast. But two months ago, it was very different scene at Jacob Lake. Employees, guests and residents were forced to hastily evacuate as a wildfire bore down. Melinda Rich Marshall’s great-grandparents opened the inn more than 100 years ago. The business, which also includes a restaurant and a gift shop filled with Native American jewelry and other curios, largely depends on visitors to the national park. Over the years it has seen its share of wildfires. "In my lifetime, I can think of, like, six that have created economic problems for our family and for Jacob Lake," says Rich Marshall. Days after they evacuated, a second blaze, the Dragon Bravo Fire, exploded in size, closing the North Rim indefinitely. Rich Marshall says she’s had to refund about $350,000 in reservations. "We don’t even know how to imagine what the winter’s going to be like because we don’t know how we’re going to actually make it through financially," she says. "Right now, we’re just really trying to be creative just like our ancestors were.". Scores of local businesses in northern Arizona’s national park gateway communities like Jacob Lake have felt the pinch after a particularly damaging wildfire season. More than 200,000 acres burned on the north side of the Grand Canyon alone in July and August. Rich Marshall and others are pressing officials to reopen some North Rim viewpoints in hopes for a return of tourists this fall. But the ecological affects of the Dragon Bravo Fire may be less dire than initially feared. "When we came into this, we were expecting to look at devastation," says TJ Clifford, who led a crew of federal specialists known as a Burned Area Emergency Response Team. "So, I was more buoyant as soon as I flew over it and said, ‘Okay, we can do this.’".

New York Times [9/22/2025 3:26 PM, Soumya Karlamangla and Coral Murphy Marcos, 143795K] reports for many Bay Area residents, Monday morning began with a rude jolt. A 4.3 magnitude earthquake centered beneath Berkeley, Calif., rattled windows and woke up thousands of people across the densely populated Northern California region at 2:56 a.m., according to reports from the U.S. Geological Survey. The earthquake along the Hayward Fault, which runs beneath much of the Bay Area, didn’t cause significant damage, based on initial reports. According to the intensity scale that earthquake scientists use, the shaking from Monday morning’s temblor was considered light. That scale describes such an earthquake as causing almost no damage, though it might have felt to many like a “heavy truck striking a building,” said Angela Lux, a scientist at the Berkeley Seismology Lab. “People don’t like to hear that, because they feel like they were going to die,” Ms. Lux said. “It’s a great reminder to people that this is what ‘light shaking’ feels like. The Hayward fault is capable of a really big earthquake.” The Hayward fault, which runs directly beneath the University of California, Berkeley campus, last experienced a major earthquake in 1868 — a 6.8 magnitude quake that killed 30 people and is considered one of the most destructive in California history. Scientists say the fault is overdue for another violent rupture. A 6.8 earthquake would be more than 5,600 times stronger than Monday morning’s quake, according to U.S.G.S. The temblor on Monday was felt across the bay in San Francisco, and as far away as Sacramento, about 75 miles northeast, according to U.S.G.S. reports.

Reported similarly:
The Hill [9/22/2025 11:28 AM, Alex Baker, 12414K]

Breitbart [9/22/2025 2:05 PM, Frances Martel, 2608K] reports that the president of Brazil, hardline socialist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was greeted by a boisterous crowd of protesters in front of his hotel in New York City on Sunday, hurling insults at the head of state and calling for his arrest. Lula is in New York to open the United Nations General Assembly’s "high-level debate," an annual event in which the leaders of the world’s countries gather to address each other on the issues they each consider of most importance. As per post-World War II tradition, Brazil is the first country to speak at the event, followed by the host, the United States. The socialist, who is currently serving his third term in office, has imposed domestic and foreign policies on his country that have led to Brazil’s worst-ever bilateral relationship with the United States. The administration of President Donald Trump has been vocally critical of Lula’s government and, in particular, the nation’s top court, the Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF), for its persecution of prominent conservatives in the country. Trump has especially condemned Lula for the spurious legal cases opened against former President Jair Bolsonaro, who has faced charges of allegedly staging a coup, undermining democracy, allegedly violating coronavirus protocol, allegedly selling Saudi jewels, and, most recently, "recreational racism." Brazilian media reported that Lula did not interact with journalists, protesters, or the small band of his supporters, instead offering only a small waving gesture. The outlet Poder 360 reported that the group of protesters was initially larger, containing about 20 people, but U.S. Secret Service ordered them to step back for security reasons.

AP [9/22/2025 5:24 PM, Michael Kunzelman] reports a man accused of shining a laser pointer at Marine One with President Donald Trump aboard the helicopter has been arrested on a federal criminal charge, according to a court filing on Monday. Jacob Samuel Winkler, 33, of Washington, D.C., is charged with aiming the beam of a laser pointer at an aircraft, a felony punishable by a maximum prison sentence of five years. Online court records don’t list an attorney representing him. Marine One was airborne on Saturday near the White House when a U.S. Secret Service patrol officer spotted Winkler walking on a sidewalk, shirtless and loudly talking to himself, the officer wrote in an affidavit. The officer said he shone a flashlight at Winkler, who apparently retaliated by flashing a red laser beam at the officer’s face. As Marine One flew over their heads, Winkler looked up and shined the laser pointer at the helicopter, according to the officer. After the officer handcuffed him, Winkler repeatedly talked about apologizing to Trump, the affidavit says. The court filing doesn’t say if anybody aboard the helicopter noticed the laser. But the officer said Winkler’s conduct could have temporarily blinded or disoriented a pilot, placing Marine One at risk of an airborne collision with other helicopters in the area. Investigators also found a small knife in his possession, according to the officer.

Reported similarly:
New York Times [9/22/2025 6:57 PM, Neil Vigdor, 143795K]
The Hill [9/22/2025 4:25 PM, Max Rego, 12414K]
NBC News [9/22/2025 4:15 PM, Gary Grumbach and Dareh Gregorian, 43603K]
FOX News [9/22/2025 5:18 PM, Sophia Compton, 40019K]
NewsMax [9/22/2025 3:43 PM, Jim Mishler, 4779K]
USA Today [9/22/2025 6:10 PM, Terry Collins, 64151K]

NewsMax [9/22/2025 3:14 PM, Caleb Parke, 4779K] reports Ryan Routh rested his case Monday morning without taking the stand, ending months of speculation about whether he would testify in his federal trial for the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump at his West Palm Beach, Florida, golf course on Sept. 15, 2024. Judge Aileen Cannon cautioned Routh that calling character witnesses could expose him to damaging evidence from prosecutors. Routh called three witnesses in an effort to portray himself as "gentle, peaceful, and nonviolent." Prosecutors pressed the witnesses with damaging questions, asking one whether he knew Routh had allegedly offered a $150,000 bounty for the killing of Trump. Another was asked if he was with Routh during attempts to purchase a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and when Routh allegedly pointed a rifle at a Secret Service agent. The gun expert’s testimony appeared to hurt Routh’s case. Under cross-examination, he acknowledged that Routh’s actions suggested intent to fire the SKS rifle and that the Secret Service agent who shot Routh from 5 feet away acted correctly. The expert also conceded, under questioning, that Routh could have struck Trump from his sniper position. The jury is expected to receive instructions Tuesday, with prosecutors still weighing rebuttal testimony before closing arguments.

Repoted similarly:
AP [9/22/2025 4:59 PM, David Fischer, 37974K]

USA Today [9/22/2025 2:04 PM, Christopher Cann, Julius Whigham II, and Hannah Phillips, 75552K] reports the man accused of plotting to assassinate President Donald Trump in Florida last year as he was running for reelection rested his case on Monday, Sept. 22, paving the way for closing arguments and jury deliberations. Ryan Routh, 59, called three witnesses to the stand – a firearms expert and two acquaintances – as he sought to distance himself from allegations that he planned to fatally shoot Trump, as the then-Republican presidential nominee was golfing on Sept. 15, 2024. Routh has suggested that he wasn’t capable of killing Trump, partly because of what he described as his faulty equipment, but mostly because of his "gentle, nonviolent nature." "I wouldn’t expect you to harm anyone, Ryan," said Marshall Hinshaw, who told jurors he’s known Routh for about 20 years. Prosecutors allege Routh methodically planned his attack before he perched himself with a rifle in the tree line of Trump International Golf Club. Before Trump entered his sightline, a U.S. Secret Service agent spotted Routh and opened fire, thwarting the assassination plot, prosecutors say. The government rested its case on Friday, Sept. 19. Over more than a week, jurors heard testimony from forensic experts, law enforcement agents and acquaintances of Routh who detailed the writings, cellular communications and behavior of the alleged gunman before the alleged assassination attempt. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Daily Caller [9/22/2025 10:41 AM, Harold Hutchison, 985K] reports George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said Monday that the "only hope" an alleged would-be assassin of President Donald Trump has in his trial could be to take the stand. A Secret Service agent thwarted the assassination attempt on Trump by firing shots at Ryan Wesley Routh, who was allegedly lurking near Trump International Golf Club on Sept. 15, 2024. Turley said that Routh needed to connect with at least one juror to hope for a mistrial after "Fox and Friends" co-host Lawrence Jones worried about appeals. "What I’m worried about in this situation is, of course, he has a legal right to defend himself, but it hasn’t been a quality trial, and he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Could this be overturned when it comes to appeal, based on the representation?" Jones asked Turley, who responded, "No, I think the judge has done an excellent job trying to get him through this, trying in many ways to teach him to be a lawyer and trying to keep him between those navigational beacons." "You have a right to self-representation, but it doesn’t mean you have a right to good self-representation," Turley continued. "This case is bizarre. I mean, his defense has all the substance and support of a dating app profile. I mean, he is talking about himself as I’m a peacekeeper, I’m a man who’s trying to bring peace around the world. Writing a note that you are going to kill the president doesn’t exactly make you Gandhi."

(B) CBS 13 News at Noon [9/22/2025 12:02 PM, Staff] reports that the US Coast Guard is looking for public input on their plan to take out buoys from the New England coast. Initial plan released earlier this year would remove more than 350 buoys from New England waters. This received significant backlash from the boating community. The Coast Guard has made adjustments to the plan after receiving nearly 3000 comments. The agency says it will remove about 230 buoys but they will make some changes to some nearby buoys that are not being removed to help with navigation. They are opening public comments again for their new proposal. The Coast Guard has argued the changes will encourage boaters to adopt more modern navigational tools.

NewsMax [9/22/2025 12:11 PM, Jim Mishler, 4779K] reports the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) announced a new initiative on Monday with Meta that supports government-wide use of Llama, its open-source Artificial Intelligence (AI) models, making them more accessible to all federal departments and agencies. A streamlined access approach eliminates individual agency negotiations, designed to save time and duplicate efforts across government agencies. The GSA describes the new deal as a "landmark arrangement" that is anticipated to accelerate federal agency access to open source AI models and tools from Meta, the parent company of Facebook. This aligns with several White House directives on integrating AI into the daily operations of federal agencies and departments. The GSA release did not specifically mention military applications, which had been a sticking point until last fall, when Meta posted a blog entry outlining significant changes to military access to its AI models. "We are pleased to confirm that we’re making Llama available to U.S. government agencies, including those that are working on defense and national security applications, and private sector partners supporting their work," Meta wrote in the post.

CyberScoop [9/22/2025 5:20 PM, Tim Starks] reports hackers are increasingly adopting the techniques of the Chinese group that successfully infiltrated major telecommunications providers in attacks that made headlines last year by looking for unconventional weak spots, an AT&T executive said Monday. AT&T was one of the major providers to fall victim to the sweeping campaign from the group, known as Salt Typhoon, but the company has since said it evicted the hackers from its networks. “We’re seeing adversaries really change the way they’re doing things, very similar to what Salt Typhoon did,” Rich Baich, chief information security officer at AT&T, said at the Google Cloud Cyber Defense Summit. There were three things that stood out about the way Salt Typhoon approached its campaign, he said. One was hunting for weak points in the company’s ability to find and track malicious activity on physical devices like phones or laptops, known as endpoint detection and response (EDR). “Traditionally as practitioners, we focused on putting endpoint detection on our devices to help us provide a certain level of protection” Baich said. “Salt Typhoon’s approach was a little bit different. They said, ‘Well, what about all the other platforms that traditionally don’t have an EDR?’ And those platforms then can be utilized in many fashions, carrying out different types of actions.” “What we need to think about is this: Do we need to have endpoint protection elsewhere, in different platforms?” Baich added. “So that’s one: They’re going to the areas of least resistance and not spending time trying to combat traditional security controls.”

New York Times [9/23/2025 4:19 AM, Mark Walker, 153395K] reports Jaguar Land Rover, Britain’s largest carmaker, said its operations and production would remain halted until at least Oct. 1 after a cyberattack that hit the company earlier this month. The attack, which targeted Jaguar Land Rover’s retail and production operations, was among a series of cyber and ransomware attacks that disrupted industries across the world recently, including some that disrupted travel at European airports. Marks & Spencer, one of Britain’s largest retailers, said a cyberattack that hit its systems this year would cost the company about $400 million in lost profits. “Our teams continue to work around the clock alongside cybersecurity specialists, the NCSC and law enforcement to ensure we restart in a safe and secure manner,” the Jaguar Land Rover said in a statement posted on its website Tuesday. Previously, the company had told employees, suppliers and partners that the pause in production would remain in place until Sept. 24.

CyberScoop [9/22/2025 3:19 PM, Matt Kapko] reports a teenage boy suspected of participating in cyberattacks on multiple Las Vegas casinos in late 2023 was arrested last week. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said the minor turned himself in Wednesday at the Clark County Juvenile Detention Center, where he was booked on multiple charges. The suspect, who is unnamed because he’s a minor, is charged with extortion, conspiracy to commit extortion, unlawful acts regarding computers and three counts of obtaining and using personally identifiable information to harm or impersonate another person. Authorities did not describe the teenager’s alleged involvement in the cyberattacks, but they specifically linked the boy to the high-profile casino attacks attributed to Scattered Spider, which included devastating attacks on MGM Resorts International and Caesars Entertainment between August and October 2023. The attacks brought multiple casino properties owned by MGM Resorts International to a standstill, resulting in $100 million in lost revenue and $10 million in one-time expenses related to response and recovery, the company said in a regulatory filing. Caesars reportedly paid a $15 million extortion demand at the time, which it alluded to in a regulatory filing. The minor suspected of participating in these attacks surrendered himself to authorities one day after two teenagers — Thalha Jubair, 19, of London, and Owen Flowers, 18, of Walsall, England — were arrested in the United Kingdom for their alleged involvement in many attacks attributed to Scattered Spider.

Daily Caller [9/22/2025 2:45 PM, Nicole Silverio, 985K] reports that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday that President Donald Trump’s administration will take the threat of transgender violence "seriously" following a slew of killings involving trans-identifying individuals and supporters. Incidents of violence committed by transgender people and their sympathizers have appeared to become more prominent in recent years, despite the fact that trans-identifying adults make up less than 1% of the U.S. population. The press secretary said that the uptick in trans violence is "worth looking into" and that it is being "taken seriously" by the administration. "It’s definitely something worth looking into and I think anyone who denies that at this point is being willfully ignorant," Leavitt said. "And the administration is taking it seriously, all causes of violence and why people would be driven to such evil and such hatred. And there’s probably many answers to that question, but the administration is really focused on all of them. For individual investigations and cases, of course, the FBI and the Department of Justice are leading those. But as for this overall violence and domestic terrorism that we’re seeing, the White House and the president’s policy team will be leading the charge and that really begins with designating Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization and I can assure there will be additional actions to come."

The Hill [9/22/2025 11:11 AM, Rachel Tucker, 12414K] reports Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced a new tool for “combating violent extremism” in a news conference in Orlando on Monday. Uthmeier was joined by Statewide Prosecutor Brad McVay, Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas and Valencia College Board Member Michael Sasso for the announcement. Uthmeier said the portal will be used by Floridians to “report anything they observe or hear that is a call for violence, or a threat of violence against other individuals.” They can remain anonymous and submit screenshots, videos and “other evidence of threats of violent extremism.” “The idea of someone being assassinated for peacefully opposing such radical ideals is vile and anti-American,” Uthmeier said in a statement, referring to the shooting death of conservative political commentator Charlie Kirk earlier this month. “Threats of political violence will not be tolerated in Florida.” The attorney general’s office emphasized that the portal is not to be used for emergencies and anyone facing an immediate threat should call 911.

AP [9/22/2025 1:53 PM, Staff, 2356K] reports that Utah Valley University is launching an independent, external review of the fatal shooting of prominent conservative activist Charlie Kirk on its campus earlier this month. The university announced the move Monday in an effort to improve safety practices amid fallout over security lapses and the shattering of the serene image the institution had cultivated. "We believe the findings of the comprehensive, third-party independent review of this targeted act of violence will offer valuable insights on how college campuses improve response and preparedness moving forward," Astrid S. Tuminez, the school’s president, said in an emailed statement. "We will integrate the findings into our efforts to strengthen and improve safety practices for UVU and all of Utah higher education." The university did not immediately respond to questions about who would conduct the review or when it would be completed. The university also said it is planning a memorial for Kirk to be developed by a committee of campus officials, students and political leaders. "As a committee, we will listen to community voices and carefully consider the many perspectives surrounding this memorial," said Amanda Covington, Utah Board of Higher Education chair, who co-chairs the committee. "This is an important process, and we are committed to approaching it with thoughtfulness and respect."

ABC News [9/22/2025 5:43 PM, Mark Guarino, 27036K] reports police in Northern California say a possible school shooting was prevented due to a tip line that led to the detainment of a student who shared questionable material online. Police in Menlo-Atherton received a tip from its "Say Something" tip line on Sept. 10 that indicated a former student at an area high school had posted concerning content to Instagram referencing the high school. Police locked down the Menlo-Atherton High School campus in addition to a nearby middle school for an hour until the student was located and weapons were recovered from the home. The investigation is ongoing, police say.

Los Angeles Times [9/22/2025 2:22 PM, Jennifer McDermott, 12715K] reports that the Trump administration can’t continue to keep work paused on a major offshore wind farm for Rhode Island and Connecticut while it reviews its national security concerns, a federal judge ruled Monday. Work on the nearly completed Revolution Wind project has been paused since Aug. 22 when the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued a stop work order for what it said were national security concerns. It did not specify those concerns at the time. Both the developer and the two states sued in federal courts. Danish energy company Orsted and its joint venture partner Skyborn Renewables sought a preliminary injunction in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., that would allow them to move forward with the project. Judge Royce Lamberth held a hearing on that request Monday. Lamberth said he considered how Revolution Wind has relied on its federal approval, the delays are costing $2.3 million a day and if the project can’t meet deadlines, the entire enterprise could collapse. After December, the specialized ship needed to complete the project won’t be available until at least 2028, he said. More than 1,000 people have been working on the wind farm, which is 80% complete. "There is no question in my mind of irreparable harm to the plaintiffs," Lamberth said, as he granted the motion for the preliminary injunction. The Interior Department has said that the department doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

AP [9/22/2025 1:36 PM, Marc Levy, 37974K] reports that the White House said Monday that it intervened under the terms of a three-month-old national security agreement with Japan-based Nippon Steel to block a decision to stop processing raw steel at U.S. Steel’s Granite City Works plant in Illinois. In a statement, the White House said Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick delivered the message that President Donald Trump would exercise his so-called "golden share" power that was a key element in the Trump administration’s decision to allow Nippon Steel to buy out U.S. Steel. That provision helped resolve the Trump administration’s national security concerns in Nippon Steel’s proposed buyout of the iconic American steelmaker and gives the federal government a say in certain company decisions involving domestic steel production, including over closing or idling U.S. Steel’s plants. "The administration did intervene to block U.S. Steel’s decision to idle the Granite City Works plant, with the threat of the president invoking his golden share authority," the White House said. Earlier this month, Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel said it would stop processing steel slabs at its Granite City Works plant in southern Illinois, just outside St. Louis, and "optimize" its operations by focusing on processing at its Mon Valley Works in Pennsylvania and Gary Works in Indiana. That decision was viewed as just a matter of time after U.S. Steel stopped producing steel at Granite City Works in 2023 when it idled the last operating blast furnace there. It had idled the other blast furnace there in 2019. It did say that it wouldn’t lay off any of the roughly 800 workers there or reduce their pay. On Friday, U.S. Steel reversed course and said it would continue to supply raw steel slabs to Granite City "indefinitely" and that it had "found a solution to continue slab consumption at Granite City." It did not say what that solution was. It also declined to discuss the White House’s assertion that it had blocked the move.

Reuters [9/23/2025 3:00 AM, Tom Balmforth, 45746K] reports Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will seek more support from allies when he addresses the UN and meets Donald Trump this week, but behind the scenes Kyiv is quietly preparing for a new phase of the war in which it relies more on itself. Kyiv’s hopes of winning tough new U.S. sanctions on Russia are fading, and a new pragmatism in Ukraine makes Zelenskiy’s trip less fraught than some earlier visits to the United States, with lessons learnt from February’s White House bust-up. Frenetic European diplomacy and a Ukrainian expression of regret after February’s disastrous meeting paved the way for a resumption of crucial U.S. intelligence sharing and weapons supplies authorised by the U.S. president’s predecessor. Yet intense lobbying has failed to persuade Trump to impose sanctions that would hurt Russia’s war economy sufficiently to bring President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table, and Ukrainians are sceptical that the war will soon end. Only 18% of Ukrainians think hostilities can end this year, and a feeling of uncertainty for the future is pervasive in Ukraine, said Anton Grushetskyi, head of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology. Putin has secured some recent diplomatic wins, including getting a red-carpet welcome at a summit with Trump in Alaska, and there are signs that Ukraine has been switching gears for a new stage of the war in which foreign support is diminished. A Ukrainian think-tank that used to study Russia to find targets for government sanctions now does analytics to help the military select targets for drone strikes, said a senior staff member. The source said Ukraine not only faced setbacks on sanctions and reduced U.S. assistance, but could also lose some other allied support in Europe. In a sign how Kyiv is trying to turn the screw on Russia itself, Ukrainian long-range drones have hit ports and refineries, prompting a Russian warning of looming output cuts for its oil producers. Zelenskiy is likely to ask Trump for new U.S. sanctions on Russia on Tuesday, a day before addressing the UN General Assembly. Kyiv has also been promoting plans for a summit dedicated to Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Crimea peninsula, an event that appears designed to push back against discussion of any peace deal involving Crimea being recognised as Russian territory.

Reuters [9/22/2025 12:17 PM, John Irish and Tom Balmforth, 45746K] reports NATO allies accused Russia at the United Nations on Monday of violating the alliance’s air space in Estonia and Poland -- actions that Britain said risked triggering an armed conflict. Confronting Russia at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said: "Your reckless actions risk direct armed confrontation between NATO and Russia. Our alliance is defensive but be under no illusion we stand ready to defend NATO’s skies and NATO’s territory." "If we need to confront planes operating in NATO space without permission then we will do so," she said. Estonia said on Friday that three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets had entered Estonian airspace without permission and stayed for a total of 12 minutes before they were forced to withdraw in an episode that Western officials said was designed to test NATO’s readiness and resolve. The Security Council convened on Monday to discuss the issue. NATO consultations were due to take place on Tuesday. The incident occurred just over a week after more than 20 Russian drones entered Polish airspace, prompting NATO jets to shoot some of them down. Cooper’s comments were echoed by other Western ministers in the Security Council, including EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, who suggested the multiple incidents could not be considered an accident. Ukraine’s foreign minister said such actions by Moscow should be met robustly and renewed an offer by Kyiv to integrate its air defenses into those of neighbouring Western countries to counter the Russian front.

New York Post [9/22/2025 2:28 PM, Caitlin Doornbos, 43962K] reports that newly confirmed US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz called on Moscow to "urgently stop" expanding its war into NATO nations after the Kremlin launched drones into Poland and jets into Estonian airspace in less than two weeks. "At a time when President Trump and the United States has been focused, and spent an enormous amount of time and effort to end this horrific war between Russia and Ukraine, we expect Russia to seek ways to de-escalate — not risk expansion," Waltz told the UN National Security Council on Monday. Waltz’s words came at a UNSC briefing on Russia’s Friday escalation, during which Moscow sent "three armed military aircraft 10 nautical miles into Estonian airspace, coming within 15 miles of the Estonian Parliament," according to the US ambassador. "This event, following on the heels of the Russian drone incursion into Polish airspace, creates the impression that Russia either wants to escalate and pull more countries into this conflict with Ukraine, or doesn’t have full control of those who operate its fighter planes and drones," Waltz said. "Either scenario is very disconcerting, given that Russia is obviously a nuclear power with global reach." The Senate confirmed Waltz to his new position on Friday, nearly four months after leaving his prior role as Trump’s national security adviser. That came after his accidental inclusion of a journalist on a Signal chat group in which top officials — including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth — discussed top-secret plans to bomb Houthi terrorists in Yemen.

The Hill [9/22/2025 1:42 PM, Sarah Fortinsky, 12414K] reports that Mike Waltz, the newly confirmed U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, on Monday called on Russia to "urgently stop" violating NATO countries’ airspaces and pushed for de-escalation in the region. In remarks at his first U.N. Security Council briefing, Waltz condemned the Russian fighter jets’ intrusion into Estonian airspace on Friday, just more than a week after Russian drones breached Polish airspace. "As we said nine days ago, the United States stands by our NATO allies in the face of these airspace violations. And I want to take this first opportunity to repeat, and to emphasize, the United States and our allies will defend every inch of NATO territory," Waltz said in his remarks. "Russia must urgently stop such dangerous behavior," he continued. The incursions come as the Trump administration has sought to negotiate a diplomatic end to Russia’s war with Ukraine. President Trump has encouraged Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but progress has stalled since Trump huddled separately in back-to-back meetings with the leaders last month. Waltz, who previously served as Trump’s national security adviser, highlighted Trump’s diplomatic efforts in his remarks on Monday, saying the U.S. expects Russia to try to de-escalate. "At a time when President Trump and the United States has been focused, and spent an enormous amount of time and effort to end this horrific war between Russia and Ukraine, we expect Russia to seek ways to de-escalate — not risk expansion," Waltz said.

Washington Post [9/22/2025 12:20 PM, Alon Rom, Claire Parker, and Gerry Shih, 29079K] reports as Israel braced Monday for a new wave of announcements from countries recognizing Palestinian statehood, several allies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged him to immediately annex the occupied West Bank, which could set off a cycle of diplomatic tit-for-tat retaliation between Israel and Western and Arab countries. Several European countries — led by France and including Belgium and Luxembourg, Malta and San Marino — are scheduled to announce their formal recognition of Palestine at a summit in New York on Monday afternoon, a day after Britain, Canada, Australia and Portugal said they would do the same. The high-level meeting is being co-hosted by France and Saudi Arabia on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. Netanyahu, who has spent his decades-long political career working to stymie a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, angrily vowed Sunday that a Palestinian state would never be established. And far-right ministers in his coalition, who are key to the survival of his government and hold vast influence over Israeli policy, urged the prime minister to brush aside the diplomatic pressure, formally absorb the West Bank and squash any hope of a sovereign Palestinian state. “The days are over when Britain and other countries determine our future … the only response to an anti-Israeli move is sovereignty over the homeland territories of the Jewish people in Judea and Samaria, and removing the folly of the Palestinian state idea from the agenda forever,” Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a statement Sunday, referring to the West Bank by its biblical names. “Mr. Prime Minister, this is the time, and it is in your hands.” But Western and Arab capitals — including countries considered Israel’s partners — have warned Netanyahu not to retaliate against their Palestinian recognition. Israeli officials have said in recent weeks they are weighing options that range from expelling French diplomats from their consulate in West Jerusalem to outright annexing parts or all of the West Bank.

AP [9/22/2025 10:46 AM, Staff, 37974K] reports Tech giant Oracle will spearhead U.S. oversight of the algorithm and security underlying TikTok’s video popular platform under the terms of a deal laid out Monday by President Donald Trump’s administration. All the final details still need to be nailed down among several joint venture partners that will include Oracle, investment firm Silver Lake Partners and possibly two billionaires — media mogul Rupert Murdoch and personal computer pioneer Michael Dell. The U.S. administration would not have a stake in the joint venture nor be part of its board, according to a senior White House official. President Trump is expected to issue an executive order later this week that declares that the terms of the deal meet the security concerns laid out by the law, the senior White House official said. China still needs to sign off on the framework proposal, and any final deal would still require regulatory approval. The proposal is aimed at resolving a long-running effort to wrest TikTok’s U.S. operations from its Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, because of national security concerns. TikTok has become a high-profile topic during conversations between Trump and China President Xi Jinping as they continue to spar in a trade war that’s roiled the global economy for much of the year. For now, the two sides are progressing on a framework deal that calls for a consortium of investors, including Oracle and Silver Lake, to take over the U.S. operations of TikTok in a process that might not be completed until early next year under a timeline laid out Monday by the Trump administration. That could mean TikTok’s divestment might not be completed until a year after it was supposed to be banned under a law that had bipartisan support but was repeatedly bypassed by Trump. Under the current terms of the proposal, the new U.S. joint venture would receive a licensed copy of the recommendation algorithm that keeps TikTok users endlessly scrolling through clips on their smartphones. Oracle would review, monitor and secure U.S. data flowing through the service. American officials have previously warned that ByteDance’s algorithm is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who can use it to shape content on the platform in a way that’s difficult to detect. "It wouldn’t be in compliance if the algorithm is Chinese. There can’t be any shared algorithm with ByteDance," said a spokesperson for the House Select Committee on China.

Reported similarly:
New York Post [9/22/2025 11:25 AM, Diana Nerozzi and Taylor Herzlich, 43962K]
AP [9/22/2025 5:59 PM, Michael Liedtke and Chris Megerian, 37974K]
CNN [9/22/2025 10:22 AM, Clare Duffy, 23245K]

Blaze [9/22/2025 2:50 PM, Candace Hathaway, 1559K] reports that the Trump administration revealed additional details on Monday regarding the deal to save TikTok, ensuring the app’s safety and security for over 170 million American users. A senior White House official explained that the administration and China had reached an agreement to transfer TikTok’s U.S. operations into a new joint venture based in the U.S., with Americans comprising the majority of the app’s investors, owners, and board of directors. The U.S. government will not take equity in the joint venture. President Donald Trump would like the app’s investors to be patriotic, the official remarked, adding that the administration hopes those appointed to the board will have a background in cybersecurity and national security. As required by law, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, will not hold more than 20% of the app’s stock. With this deal, Oracle will serve as TikTok’s security provider, managing how the app is updated and how data is stored. The official noted that all American data is currently stored, and will continue to be stored, in the U.S. on Oracle’s system. China will provide a copy of the app’s content recommendation algorithm to the U.S. joint venture system for inspection, operation, and monitoring. Trump is expected to sign an executive order later this week that will declare the terms of the agreement. The White House official highlighted the importance of the administration’s efforts to save TikTok, noting that doing so would protect jobs and enable American businesses to continue using the app for promotional purposes.

Reuters [9/23/2025 3:54 AM, Martin Petty, 45746K] reports the U.S. house committee on China has urged Washington to ensure funding for the Philippines to counter Beijing’s "aggressive and destabilising actions" in the South China Sea, according to a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, which warns cuts could threaten U.S. security interests. In the letter seen by Reuters on Tuesday, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party sought clarity on funding for the Philippine coast guard, noting the State Department had sought a dramatically reduced 2026 budget for International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement that would "devastate" programmes to help its ally stand up to China. The select committee’s letter follows moves by China to further tighten its grip on the strategically located Scarborough Shoal, one of Asia most contested maritime features, where Philippine and Chinese vessels have clashed repeatedly. "Beijing has significantly escalated its aggressive activities in the South China Sea, including its efforts to unlawfully assert control over much of the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. (China’s) coast guard and maritime militia regularly attack or physically coerce Philippine vessels," the letter said. "Beijing’s actions have only grown more threatening over the last several months, reflecting the immediacy of this threat." The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside of office hours. The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter. The United States has stressed its alliance with the Philippines is "ironclad". The Philippines was among countries whose security funding was exempted in February from U.S. aid freezes. It was not immediately clear how much of the $336 million Washington allocated for Philippine defence modernisation is for maritime security.

{End of Report} RETURN TO TOP