Prepared for the Office of Public Affairs (OPA)
U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Editorial Note: The DHS Daily Briefing is a collection of news articles related to Department’s mission. The inclusion of particular stories is not intended to reflect their importance, nor is it intended to endorse the political viewpoints or affiliations included in news coverage.

The New York Times [9/3/2025 3:34 AM, John Yoon and Francesca Regalado, 143795K] reports a federal appeals court late Tuesday blocked President Trump from using an 18th-century wartime law to quickly deport a group of Venezuelans, rejecting the administration’s argument that the migrants were part of an “invasion” of the United States. The Trump administration has said the migrants are members of Tren de Aragua, a violent gang with roots in Venezuela. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said in a 2-1 ruling on Tuesday that it did not find that the law, the Alien Enemies Act, applied to the migrants’ case. The court said that it found no “invasion or predatory incursion” by a foreign power. The case appears set to return to the Supreme Court in what is shaping up to be a decisive battle over Mr. Trump’s ability to use the Alien Enemies Act. Lee Gelernt, a lawyer who argued the case for the American Civil Liberties Union, praised the court’s ruling. “This is an enormous victory for the rule of law, making clear that the President cannot simply declare a military emergency and then invoke whatever powers he wants,” he said. In April, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deporting the Venezuelan migrants while suits challenging Mr. Trump’s use of wartime powers proceeded through the lower courts, including the case ruled on by the Fifth Circuit on Tuesday. The Venezuelans, who had received notices of imminent removal and were loaded onto buses, were returned to a detention facility in Texas after the Supreme Court order. In May, the Supreme Court maintained the freeze on deportations and sent the matter back to the Fifth Circuit. The court instructed the appellate judges to consider whether Mr. Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act was legal and what kind of warning should be given before someone is expelled under the law. On Tuesday, the judges of the Fifth Circuit, considered one of the country’s most conservative appeals courts, said that their injunction applied only to the use of the Alien Enemies Act, and would not prevent the government from using other lawful means to remove foreign terrorists from the United States. “A country’s encouraging its residents and citizens to enter this country illegally is not the modern-day equivalent of sending an armed, organized force to occupy, to disrupt, or to otherwise harm the United States,” the court said. “There is no finding that this mass immigration was an armed, organized force or forces.” Mr. Trump invoked the act in March, saying he was targeting Tren de Aragua, which had been designated as a terrorist organization in February. The next day, the A.C.L.U. filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to block the president from using the law. For months, courts across the country have struggled to answer the question of whether Mr. Trump is stretching the limits of the law by using the Alien Enemies Act. That law had been invoked just three times before, all in times of war. It was enacted in 1798 as the young United States came to the brink of war with France, giving the president expansive powers to detain and expel members of a hostile foreign nation. The AP [9/3/2025 12:30 AM, Nicholas Riccardi, 2608K] reports that a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, one of the most conservative federal appeals courts in the country, agreed with immigrant rights lawyers and lower court judges who argued the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 was not intended to be used against gangs like Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan group Trump targeted in his March invocation. Lee Gelernt, who argued the case for the ACLU, said Tuesday: "The Trump administration’s use of a wartime statute during peacetime to regulate immigration was rightly shut down by the court. This is a critically important decision reining in the administration’s view that it can simply declare an emergency without any oversight by the courts.” The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The administration deported people designated as Tren de Aragua members to a notorious prison in El Salvador where, it argued, U.S. courts could not order them freed. In a deal announced in July, more than 250 of the deported migrants returned to Venezuela. The Alien Enemies Act was only used three times before in U.S. history, all during declared wars — in the War of 1812 and the two World Wars. The Trump administration unsuccessfully argued that courts cannot second-guess the president’s determination that Tren de Aragua was connected to Venezuela’s government and represented a danger to the United States, meriting use of the act. In a 2-1 ruling, the judges said they granted the preliminary injunction sought by the plaintiffs because they "found no invasion or predatory incursion" in this case. The decision bars deportations from Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. In the majority were U.S. Circuit Judges Leslie Southwick, a George W. Bush appointee, and Irma Carrillo Ramirez, a Joe Biden appointee. Andrew Oldham, a Trump appointee, dissented. The majority opinion said Trump’s allegations about Tren de Aragua do not meet the historical levels of national conflict that Congress intended for the act. "A country’s encouraging its residents and citizens to enter this country illegally is not the modern-day equivalent of sending an armed, organized force to occupy, to disrupt, or to otherwise harm the United States," the judges wrote. Politico [9/2/2025 12:16 AM, Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein, 14810K] reports that the decision follows a series of other rulings from federal district judges around the country who have similarly rejected Trump’s declaration that there is an invasion or incursion. “TdA was not the kind of organized force or engaged in the kind of actions necessary to constitute an invasion or predatory incursion,” Judge Leslie Southwick wrote for the 5th Circuit panel’s majority. Southwick emphasized that many other laws would give Trump the power to seek deportation of the alleged gang members. “It may well be that these and other peacetime tools are not so quickly utilized as the Alien Enemies Act, but the Government has substantial authority to remove TdA members independent of [the Alien Enemies Act],” Southwick wrote. Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act in March, alleging that the regime of Nicolas Maduro had deployed members of Tren de Aragua to the United States to destabilize the country. Within hours, federal immigration authorities deported 130 people the administration claimed were members of Tren de Aragua to a prison in El Salvador. Lawyers for some of those men — as well as other men targeted but not yet deported — sued, claiming they had been wrongly identified and deprived of a chance to contest their deportation, triggering legal battles in federal courts across the country.

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Reuters [9/2/2025 8:10 PM, Phil Stewart, Idrees Ali and Steve Holland, 45746K] reports the U.S. military killed 11 people on Tuesday in a strike on a vessel from Venezuela allegedly carrying illegal narcotics, President Donald Trump said, in the first known operation since his administration’s recent deployment of warships to the southern Caribbean. Trump told reporters at the White House: "We just, over the last few minutes, literally shot out a boat, a drug-carrying boat, a lot of drugs in that boat.". "And there’s more where that came from. We have a lot of drugs pouring into our country, coming in for a long time ... These came out of Venezuela," Trump said. He later shared a video on his Truth Social platform that appeared to show footage from overhead drones of a speedboat at sea exploding and then on fire. "The strike resulted in 11 terrorists killed in action. No U.S. Forces were harmed in this strike," Trump said. He added that the U.S. military had identified the crew as members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which the U.S. designated a terrorist group in February. He repeated allegations that Tren de Aragua is being controlled by Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, accusations that Caracas denies. The Venezuelan Communications Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Pentagon has not released specifics about the attack, including what kind of drugs were on board, the quantity, or how the strike was carried out. The decision to blow up a suspected drug vessel passing through the Caribbean, instead of seizing the vessel and apprehending its crew, is highly unusual and evokes memories of the U.S. fight against militant groups like al Qaeda. The AP [9/2/2025 8:56 PM, Aamer Madhani, Konstantin Toropin and Regina Garcia Cano, 37974K] reports that the president said in a social media posting that 11 people were killed in the rare U.S. military operation in the Americas, a dramatic escalation in the Republican administration’s effort to stem the flow of narcotics from Latin America. Trump also posted a short video clip of a small vessel appearing to explode in flames. The video appears to show a long, multi-engine speedboat traveling at sea when a bright flash of light bursts over the craft. The boat is then briefly seen covered in flames. The video, which is largely in black and white, is not clear enough to see if the craft is carrying as many as 11 people. The video also did not show any large or clear stashes of drugs inside the boat. Tren de Aragua originated more than a decade ago at an infamously lawless prison with hardened criminals in Venezuela’s central state of Aragua. The gang has expanded in recent years as more than 7.7 million Venezuelans fled economic turmoil and migrated to other Latin American countries or the U.S. Trump and administration officials have repeatedly blamed the gang for being at the root of the violence and illicit drug dealing that plague some cities. And the president on Tuesday repeated his claim — contradicted by a declassified U.S. intelligence assessment — that Tren de Aragua is operating under Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s control. The White House did not immediately explain how the military determined that those aboard the vessel were Tren de Aragua members. The size of the gang is unclear, as is the extent to which its actions are coordinated across state lines and national borders. After Trump announced the strike, Venezuelan state television showed Maduro and first lady Cilia Flores walking the streets of his childhood neighborhood. A television presenter said Maduro was “bathing in patriotic love” as he interacted with supporters. “In the face of imperialist threats, God (is) with us,” Maduro told supporters. Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio first announced the strike earlier Tuesday, shortly before Rubio left on a trip to Mexico and Ecuador for talks on drug cartels, security, tariffs and more. In a brief exchange with reporters before departing Miami for Mexico City, Rubio deferred questions about the specifics of the strike to the Pentagon. He said the drugs on the vessel were likely headed to Trinidad or elsewhere in the Caribbean.

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Reuters [9/2/2025 5:57 PM, Idrees Ali, Phil Stewart and Nandita Bose, 45746K] reports President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he would deploy National Guard troops to fight crime in Chicago, an extraordinary effort to militarize the country’s third-largest city that was likely to trigger a legal battle with local officials. "We’re going in. I didn’t say when, but we’re going in," Trump told reporters at the White House. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson swiftly condemned the action. Hours earlier a federal judge blocked Trump’s administration from using the military to fight crime in California, a ruling that does not apply to other states. But the judge said that Trump’s stated desire to send troops to Chicago and other cities provided support for his ruling. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said after Trump spoke that he had learned from reporters that the Trump administration has "gathered ICE agents and military vehicles, and that there are more ICE agents that are on the way." He said the Trump administration was staging Texas National Guard for deployment in Illinois, along with federal agents from ICE, Customs and Border Control, the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies. He said Trump would position armed federal agents and stage military vehicles on federal property such as the Great Lakes Naval Base, including individuals relocated from Los Angeles. Johnson, also a Democrat, said over the weekend that Chicago police will not collaborate with any National Guard troops or federal agents if Trump deployed them to the city as threatened. CBS News [9/2/2025 5:41 PM, Joe Walsh, Kaia Hubbard, 45245K] reports P Mr. Trump said he hopes Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker — a vociferous Trump critic — will call him and request that troops be sent to Chicago. But the president said: "We’re going to do it anyway. We have the right to do it because I have an obligation to protect this country." In a press conference Tuesday, Pritzker called Mr. Trump’s comments "unhinged." Pritzker said he expects federal agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agencies to surge in Chicago in the coming days. The governor said his administration is "ready to fight troop deployments in court. The AP [9/2/2025 6:39 PM, Will Weissert and Sophia Tareen] reports Trump also said Tuesday that he has an "obligation to protect this country, and that includes Baltimore." Local officials there have joined Democratic Maryland Gov. Wes Moore in similarly opposing federal law enforcement intervention. ABC News [9/2/2025 12:06 PM, Alexandra Hutzler, 27036K] reports President Donald Trump on Tuesday again took aim at Chicago as he suggested federal intervention is needed to combat crime. Trump pointed to gun violence in the city over Labor Day weekend, as eight people were killed and more than 50 injured. "Chicago is the worst and most dangerous city in the World, by far," Trump wrote on his social media platform. "Pritzker needs help badly, he just doesn’t know it yet. I will solve the crime problem fast, just like I did in DC. Chicago will be safe again, and soon.". Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, is set to hold a news conference at 4 p.m. ET on Tuesday afternoon to address residents amid reports of federal deployments to Chicago. Pritzker and local Chicago officials have rejected Trump’s desire to send National Guard troops to the city. Pritzker, during an appearance on CBS News’ "Face the Nation" on Sunday, said such a move would be "un-American.". "National Guard troops, any kind of troops on the streets of an American city don’t belong, unless there is an insurrection, unless there is truly an emergency. There is not," Pritzker said. He said if troops are sent to the city, it would amount to an "invasion.". On Monday, Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson led a chant of "no troops in Chicago" at a Labor Day march. "No federal troops in the city of Chicago, no militarized force in the city of Chicago," he said in fiery remarks. "We’re going to defend our democracy in the city of Chicago. We’re going to protect the humanity of every single person in the city of Chicago.". Violent crime in Chicago dropped significantly in the first half of the year, according to official data released by the city. Shootings were down 37% and homicides have dropped by 32% compared to the first half of 2024, while total violence crime dropped by over 22%, according to the crime statistics. Meanwhile, the administration is preparing for a surge in increased immigration enforcement operations in Chicago as soon as this week, sources told ABC News. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the intention was for more resources to be sent to Chicago but did not divulge details. "I won’t disclose the details because they are law enforcement and investigative folks that are on the ground there, and I want to make sure we keep their security our number one priority," Noem said on "Face the Nation" on Sunday. "But we will continue to go after the worst of the worst across the country, like President Trump has told us to do, focusing on those that are perpetuating murder and rape and trafficking of drugs and humans across our country, knowing that every single citizen deserves to be safe.".

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New York Times [9/2/2025 8:20 PM, Julie Bosman, 143795K] reports officials in Illinois condemned the Trump administration on Tuesday for a planned immigration crackdown and influx of federal agents into the city, calling it a political stunt that will terrify residents and inflame tensions in Latino neighborhoods. “There is no emergency that warrants deployment of troops,” said Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois, standing alongside other elected officials, including Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago and State Attorney General Kwame Raoul. “He is insulting the people of Chicago by calling our home a hellhole, and anyone who takes his word at face value is insulting Chicagoans, too.” In the Oval Office on Tuesday, Mr. Trump was asked if he had made a decision on sending National Guard troops to Chicago, and he said he intended to do it over Mr. Pritzker’s objections. “We’re going in,” he said. Mr. Pritzker, a Democrat, cited statistics showing that crime, including murder, shootings and robberies, has plummeted in Chicago in recent years. He added that he believed President Trump has timed planned immigration enforcement actions to coincide with Mexican Independence Day festivities in Chicago, which begins on Saturday with a parade in Pilsen, a heavily Latino neighborhood. The Trump administration has been making plans for an immigration crackdown in Chicago involving 200 homeland security officials and the use of a naval base near the city as a staging area. If Mr. Trump chooses to deploy National Guard troops into Chicago, Mr. Pritzker said, the state is ready to fight the effort in court. Unlike in Washington, D.C., where the president used his power to deploy the district’s Guard as part of his security takeover there, governors normally have control of their state militias. The president could separately deploy active-duty military. But on Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that Mr. Trump’s use of federal troops in Los Angeles was illegal, a ruling that could limit his ability to use the operation there as a precedent to justify deploying soldiers into other cities to fight crime.

FOX News [9/2/2025 5:49 PM, Cameron Arcand, 40019K] reports the Department of Homeland Security is keeping the pressure on Illinois leaders amid a looming National Guard and federal immigration enforcement surge in Chicago, as Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker says it would be a possible "invasion." President Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested that he’ll send the feds into Chicago after the federal takeover of Washington, D.C. Numerous reports have suggested that immigration authorities could be stationed in the region as part of the operation. "He can talk about what a great job he’s doing as governor, but he’s failing those families who will no longer have their child with them, their mother or their father, or their cousin, aunt and uncle, that are gone forever because of the violence that’s happening in Chicago," DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said on CBS’ "Face the Nation" of Pritzker, saying that leaders need to be working with the administration on crime.

USA Today [9/2/2025 6:03 PM, Michael Loria, 64151K] reports local and state leaders are quickly responding on Sep. 2 to President Donald Trump’s declaration that he will send the National Guard to Chicago after the city had a violent Labor Day weekend, warning residents that there will be immigration raids and troop stagings similar to those in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. The president announced he would send the National Guard to the city after at least eight people were killed and 50 people were injured in shootings across the city over the weekend, according Chicago Police Department data. Trump referenced the deadly holiday weekend, calling Chicago "the worst and most dangerous city in the World, by far," in a post on Truth Social. Local leaders have acknowledged the city has a crime problem but have also insisted that crime is down significantly, according to Chicago Police Department data. There is no emergency in the city, Pritzker and other leaders declared. Pritzker said that Chicagoans should expect what residents of Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., have experienced during National Guard deployments, including aggressive immigration enforcement raids and military checkpoints. Immigration enforcement agents have already begun arriving at a naval base of the city that will be used as a staging ground for federal operations, Pritzker said.

Blaze [9/2/2025 10:45 AM, Julio Rosas, 1559K] reports the crowd of protesters were packed tightly around the Haymarket Memorial to participate in a Labor Day march that shifted focus on the potential deployment of National Guardsmen to the city. President Donald Trump has said repeatedly he would like to have the same crime crackdown in Washington, D.C., to be done in the Windy City. Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) joined the protesters to continue expressing his disapproval of the Trump administration’s public safety plans for Chicago, which also include surging federal law enforcement agents. "Are you prepared to defend this land? This land that [was] built by slaves. The land that was built by indigenous people. The land that was built by workers. Are you prepared to defend this land?" Johnson asked the cheering crowd. "I need you all to stand firm, to stand strong, if this president decides to continue to break this Constitution.". Johnson then led a "No troops in Chicago!" chant. The protesting crowd featured many Mexican flags and flags from other Latin American countries as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed on Sunday extra immigration agents will be sent to the sanctuary city. While the crowd marched in neighborhoods close to the Loop, they did not march in the high-crime areas such as Humboldt Park or Englewood.

The Hill [9/2/2025 8:14 AM, Filip Timotija, 12414K] reports Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) rebuked President Trump’s potential deployment of the National Guard to the Windy City, telling the crowd on Monday that the city’s leaders will "protect" the "humanity" of its residents. "No federal troops in the city of Chicago. No militarized force in the city of Chicago," Johnson said during the "Workers Over Billionaires" protest. "We’re going to defend our democracy in the city of Chicago. We’re going to protect the humanity of every single person in the city of Chicago." "There are some people [who] believe that we don’t have the power to beat authoritarianism," he continued. "But I am also a history teacher as well. We have stood up for the interests of workers before and we will do it again." Johnson’s clash with the administration comes just days after the mayor signed a sweeping executive order outlining how the city would respond in the case the president deploys the National Guard in hopes of lowering the crime rate in the country’s third-largest city. The order reaffirmed that the Chicago Police Department (CPD) will "remain a locally controlled law enforcement agency" and urged Trump to "stand down" from sending in the National Guard troops. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem said on Sunday that immigration enforcement operations in Chicago will soon expand. "We’ve already had ongoing operations with ICE in Chicago…but we do intend to add more resources to those operations," DHS chief said while on CBS News’ Face the Nation." The administration is also considering using the Naval Station Great Lakes near Chicago as a staging area for immigration agents.

The Hill [9/2/2025 7:55 PM, Sarah Polus, 12414K] reports Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) suggested the Trump administration is preparing the Texas National Guard for deployment to Chicago amid the president’s threats to federalize law enforcement in the Windy City. "We have reason to believe that the Trump administration has already begun staging the Texas National Guard for deployment in Illinois," Pritzker said during a Tuesday press conference. President Trump had warned Pritzker in recent weeks about getting crime under control in Chicago before saying on Tuesday he would be sending the National Guard into the city in a matter of time. "Well, we’re going in. I didn’t say when. We’re going in," Trump said Tuesday. "Look, I have an obligation. This isn’t a political thing. I have an obligation.” The Illinois governor has made his distaste for the idea well known, warning Chicago residents not to "take the bait" when the National Guard does get deployed. "I want to be very clear on this point … that the Trump plan is to use any excuse to deploy armed military personnel to Chicago. If someone flings a sandwich at an ICE agent, Trump will try and go on TV and declare an emergency in Chicago," Pritzker said, appearing to reference an incident in Washington, D.C., during which a man threw a sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection agent at the beginning of Trump’s crime crackdown. "I’m imploring everyone, if, and when, that happens, do not take the bait," he added. The White House has hailed the success of Trump’s federal crime crackdown in D.C. since he brought in the National Guard last month, including by touting comments from D.C.’s Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser. "The Mayor’s fellow Democrats should take note, working with President Trump means safer communities and less crime — no one in their right mind could seriously oppose that," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

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NewsNation [9/2/2025 6:11 PM, Mills Hayes, Alex Caprariello, Anna Kutz, and Jeff Arnold, 6811K] reports Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Tuesday refused to request federal troops for Chicago, denouncing President Donald Trump’s planned deployment of federal agents as political theater while federal officers staged operations at a military base north of the city. Speaking at a Tuesday news conference with Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, Pritzker said he would not ask Trump to send National Guard troops despite the president’s suggestion that governors should request federal assistance. “Chicago does not want troops on our streets,” Pritzker said. “I refuse to play a reality gameshow with Donald Trump again.” The governor said federal agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security began staging at Naval Station Great Lakes, about 35 miles north of Chicago. Federal officers are scheduled to remain at the base through Sept. 30, according to internal emails obtained by news outlets. The military installation will provide “limited support in the form of facilities, infrastructure and other logistical needs,” a spokesperson said.

Washington Examiner [9/2/2025 11:03 AM, Asher Notheis, 1563K] reports the Washington Examiner’s Salena Zito condemned Gov. JB Pritzker’s (D-IL) pushback against the federal government’s aim to address crime in Chicago, calling the governor’s resistance "insulting" on Monday. Pritzker said on Aug. 25 that there is "no emergency" in Chicago requiring "armed military intervention" and suggested President Donald Trump is a "wannabe dictator" for seeking to turn the Windy City into "a war zone." Trump has hinted that Chicago could receive a sweeping crime crackdown similar to what Washington, D.C., experienced last month. Zito said there are "two sides" to Chicago: one part for tourists that is "very, very safe" and the other where crime is "a really big problem." "For Pritzker to make that sort of blanket statement, ‘Look at the pretty riverwalk, there’s no problem here,’ is almost insulting. Well, I’m not even going to say almost. It’s very insulting for the parents that worry about their children every day and every night as they just go about doing very common routines," Zito said on Fox News’s Fox News LIVE. Trump said Monday that District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser has "become very popular" after she worked with the president on his crime cleanup in the district. Zito said Bowser approached the federal takeover of Washington "in the appropriate way" but that Pritzker is likely to say he will "work with the feds" instead of saying he’ll work with the president. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Sunday there "absolutely" are plans to deploy troops to cities with Republican leadership, saying "every city is being evaluated.".

Axios [9/2/2025 2:33 PM, Josephine Walker, 14595K] reports that the Justice Department sued Illinois and Gov. JB Pritzker on Tuesday in a bid to force the state to end a policy that allows undocumented students to pay in-state tuition at public colleges. Why it matters: The lawsuit escalates the long-running feud between Pritzker and Trump, which has gotten worse in recent weeks as the president continuously threatens to deploy federal troops to the state to combat crime and expand immigration raids. What’s inside: The complaint, filed in the Southern District of Illinois, claims that Illinois is discriminating against citizens by offering tuition and scholarship benefits to undocumented students but not all U.S. citizens. The lawsuit says that Illinois’ laws conflict with federal regulations and therefore violate the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which says federal laws take precedence over state laws when they conflict. What they’re saying: "President Trump was elected on his platform to put America First and he’s keeping his promise by filing lawsuits like these to ensure taxpayer funds go directly to the education of American citizens," White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told Axios in a statement. Pritzker’s office and the Illinois Attorney General office did not immediately respond to Axios’ request for comment.

AP [9/2/2025 6:29 PM, Staff, 12715K] reports eight people were killed and 50 others were wounded over the Labor Day weekend in dozens of shootings in Chicago, where President Trump has seized on crime to try to justify a greater federal role on the city’s streets. The toll highlights Chicago’s persistent struggle with gun violence and reveals a grim reality: spikes in shootings during summer holiday weekends, particularly on the South and West sides. The violence this time was deadlier than the last Labor Day, when seven people were killed and more than 20 were wounded. Asked by reporters about sending National Guard troops to Chicago, Trump said, "We’re going in," but added, "I didn’t say when.” "We have the right to do it," he said. Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, both Democrats, have repeatedly said there’s no reason for Trump to send the National Guard, which is on the ground in the District of Columbia, targeting crime, immigration and homelessness. "We’ve got crime on the streets," Pritzker acknowledged last week. "Any person that gets killed or hurt is a victim of crime, is somebody that we ought to be addressing the challenges for. And we’re doing that every day. But the way to do it is with police officers, not with troops.” Between Friday night and Monday night, 58 people were shot in 37 separate shootings in the nation’s third-largest city, according to preliminary information from police. Most survivors were in good or fair condition, but several were listed in serious or critical condition, including a 17-year-old boy. In most cases, no suspect was in custody. Separately, the Trump administration is expected to expand immigration operations in Chicago. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed plans for a greater presence of federal agents. Johnson over the weekend signed an order declaring that Chicago police will not collaborate with military personnel on police patrols or civil immigration enforcement. Police will not be "deputized to do traffic stops and checkpoints for the president," said the mayor, adding that the Trump administration is "out of control.” Violent crime has dropped in recent years in Chicago, population 2.7 million, but it remains a persistent problem in some neighborhoods. Some with the highest homicide rates have 68 times more homicides than those with the lowest rates, according to the University of Chicago Crime Lab. Chicago police post weekly crime stats online. The department says there were 278 murders so far this year, through August, a 31% drop compared with the same eight-month period in 2024.

Bloomberg [9/2/2025 1:32 PM, Madlin Mekelburg, 75K] reports President Donald Trump violated federal law by deploying National Guard troops and US Marines to carry out local law enforcement in Los Angeles over the summer as protests raged against his immigration crackdown, a judge ruled. The decision Tuesday in San Francisco blocks the Trump administration from using federal troops for law enforcement activities anywhere in California. The ruling comes as Trump continues to say he will use the military in other major American cities where he claims crime is out of control. While the ruling is limited to California, it demonstrates how courts may respond if Trump follows through on suggestions that he’ll deploy troops to other cities. The president has already activated the National Guard in Washington to crack down on what he called “out of control” crime and has threatened to do the same in Chicago and Baltimore, among other Democratic-led cities. “I will solve the crime problem fast, just like I did in DC,” Trump said Tuesday in a post on Truth Social. “Chicago will be safe again.” Tuesday’s ruling, which following a three-day trial last month, rejected Trump’s argument that the protests, which were sometimes violent, created an exception to a more-than century old federal statute called the Posse Comitatus Act, which forbids members of the military from enforcing civilian laws except during limited circumstances such as an insurrection. “There were indeed protests in Los Angeles, and some individuals engaged in violence,” US District Judge Charles Breyer wrote in the decision. “Yet there was no rebellion, nor was civilian law enforcement unable to respond to the protests and enforce the law.” The White House, however, said Trump had “saved Los Angeles, which was overrun by deranged leftist lunatics sowing mass chaos.” “While far-left courts try to stop President Trump from carrying out his mandate to Make America Safe Again, the President is committed to protecting law-abiding citizens, and this will not be the final say on the issue,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement.

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USA Today [9/2/2025 4:16 PM, Bart Jansen, 64151K]
Daily Caller [9/2/2025 10:20 AM, Jason Hopkins, 985K]

Los Angeles Times [9/2/2025 4:56 PM, Kevin Rector, 12715K] reports California’s two Democratic senators wrote that the deployments were unnecessary and potentially illegal, and that more information is needed given similar deployments elsewhere in the country. The Trump administration has defended the deployments as legal and necessary in the face of mass protests over immigration enforcement efforts. U.S. Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff have sent a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth requesting a detailed breakdown of military deployments to Los Angeles amid recent immigration enforcement protests in the city. The two California Democrats wrote Monday that they wanted to know how thousands of National Guard troops and U.S. Marines were specifically used, whether and how they engaged in any law enforcement activity and how much the deployments have cost taxpayers to date. Padilla and Schiff requested that the Department of Defense provide the information by Sept. 12.

Washington Post [9/2/2025 7:07 PM, Tara Copp and Dan Lamothe, 29079K] reports Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has tasked the branches of the armed services with finding up to 600 military lawyers to serve as temporary immigration judges in response to a request for assistance from the Department of Homeland Security, two people familiar with the request told The Washington Post. The Pentagon is looking to identify military lawyers, known as judge advocates general, or JAGs, across active-duty services, the National Guard and the reserves to step in as judges to support immigration or law enforcement court proceedings. The Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration is already filling some court dockets, and both the military and the Department of Homeland Security are looking for ways to support expanded operations in Chicago and other major American cities. "At the request of the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense is identifying qualified Judge Advocates and civilian attorneys for details to serve as Temporary Immigration Judges. These DOD attorneys will augment existing resources to help further combat a backlog of cases by presiding over immigration hearings," chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement. But the use of military lawyers has raised concern, another person familiar with the planning said — speaking like the others on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation — that those officers may not have experience with immigration court proceedings or may receive insufficient training for complicated and potentially life-altering deportation hearings. Each service branch has military lawyers whose primary roles are to provide service members legal advice and to represent or prosecute service members alleged to have violated the Uniform Military Code of Justice. The cases can range from lesser infractions, such as disrespect toward a senior officer, to more serious crimes including desertion, assault and espionage. There are several thousand lawyers serving on a part-time basis in the military reserves. It was not immediately clear how many JAGs there are in the active-duty forces. The Trump administration is increasingly targeting unauthorized immigrants with no criminal record as it ramps up arrests, a Washington Post analysis of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement data shows.

Reported similarly:
Bloomberg [9/2/2025 5:46 PM, Nick Wadhams, 19085K]
Breitbart [9/2/2025 4:05 PM, John Binder, 2608K]
NPR [9/2/2025 4:33 PM, Ximena Bustillo, 34837K]
AP [9/2/2025 1:49 PM, Staff, 37974K]

The Hill [9/2/2025 11:50 AM, Filip Timotija, 12414K] reports Venezuela is at "maximum preparedness" in light of the U.S. military bolstering its maritime force in the Caribbean to combat threats from Latin American drug cartels, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said. "In the face of this maximum military pressure, we have declared maximum preparedness for the defense of Venezuela," Maduro said during a press conference Monday, The Associated Press reported. Maduro described the deployment of several U.S. ships, a submarine and Marines as "an extravagant, unjustifiable, immoral and absolutely criminal and bloody threat." President Trump’s administration has seven warships, a nuclear-powered submarine, more than 4,500 Marines and sailors near Venezuela or are about to be, a U.S. Defense official confirmed to The Hill’s sister network NewsNation over the weekend. "He’s prepared to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into our country and to bring those responsible to justice," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt previously said of Trump. The U.S. has not indicated it is preparing a land invasion into Venezuela. Caracas has ordered 15,000 troops to the nation’s border. The Trump administration has characterized the buildup of Coast Guard and Navy ships as an anti-drug trafficking operation, one that has received backing from Venezuela’s neighbor, Guyana.

Reported similarly:
AP [9/2/2025 4:20 AM, Regina Garcia Cano and Juan Arraez, 37974K]
Daily Caller [9/2/2025 6:17 PM, Wallace White, 985K]

Breitbart [9/2/2025 11:26 AM, Christian K. Caruzo, 2608K] reports socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro on Monday threatened Venezuela will "enter a period of armed struggle" if the United States "invades," which he has repeatedly claimed to be an imminent danger. Maduro issued the threat during an international press conference hosted in the capital city of Caracas, in which he accused the United States of allegedly creating "a narrative that is absurd, to say the least" through its ongoing efforts to combat drug cartels in Caribbean international waters. "They [the United States] have wanted to move toward what they call maximum pressure, in this case military pressure, and in the face of maximum military pressure, we have declared maximum preparedness for the defense of Venezuela," he said. Maduro added that "if Venezuela were attacked, it would immediately enter a period of armed struggle in defense of the national territory and the history and people of Venezuela.". The Venezuelan dictator and numerous members of his authoritarian regime have repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that the United States’ ongoing actions in the Caribbean are part of a plan to "invade" Venezuela and oust him from power. He has thus ordered Venezuela to be under a "maximum preparation" special period. Maduro claimed to reporters on Monday that the United States’ actions are "the greatest threat our continent has seen in the last 100 years," further condemning it as an "extravagant, unjustifiable, immoral, and absolutely criminal threat" allegedly comparable to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Maduro is actively wanted by U.S. authorities on multiple narco-terrorism charges. He is believed to be a top figure of the Cartel of the Suns, an international cocaine trafficking organization run by the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and the Venezuelan military long accused of attempting to "flood" the United States with cocaine to harm its people. In July, the United States included the Cartel of the Suns in its list of Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) entities. Several days later, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that the United States had doubled its bounty on information that can lead to Maduro’s arrest from $25 million to $50 million. "The Maduro regime is not the legitimate government of Venezuela.

Daily Wire [9/2/2025 3:06 AM, Zach Jewell, 3184K] reports Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro said on Monday that the United States is seeking to oust him after President Donald Trump deployed the military to the Southern Caribbean to take on Latin American drug cartels. Speaking to journalists, Maduro said that Venezuela must confront "the biggest threat that has been seen on our continent in the last 100 years," adding, "They are seeking a regime change through military threat," Fox News reported. The Venezuelan leader said that his country is "super prepared" to address any threats to its sovereignty. "A situation like this has never been seen," he added.

FOX News [9/2/2025 5:56 AM, Staff, 40019K] reports former deputy assistant DHS secretary Jonathan Fahey joins ‘Fox & Friends First’ to discuss the Trump administration’s crackdown on drug cartels and activists’ use of AI to unmask ICE agents. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

FOX News [9/2/2025 11:15 AM, Staff, 40019K] Video: HERE reports Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons joins ‘America’s Newsroom’ to address protests against immigration enforcement and respond to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s claims that her CBS interview was cut down.

FOX News [9/2/2025 6:05 PM, Lindsay Kornick, 40019K] reports acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director Todd Lyons said Tuesday it was a "shame" that CBS News allegedly edited Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem’s comments on "Face the Nation." Noem claimed on X that CBS cut half her answer about Kilmar Abrego Garcia and "the threat he poses to American public safety" to "whitewash the truth" about him. CBS responded that the edit was made for time and that the full response was available in the show’s online transcript and on its YouTube page. Lyons backed Noem during an appearance on "America’s Newsroom," rejecting CBS’ explanation. Noem posted her full response on X. "This individual was a known human smuggler, an MS-13 gang member, and an individual who is a wife beater, and someone who is so perverted that he solicited nude photos from minors and even his fellow human traffickers told him to knock it off. He was so sick in what he was doing and how he was treating small children. So, he needs to never be in the United States of America, and our administration is making sure we’re doing all that we can," Noem said in the longer clip. CBS insisted the process met the network’s standards.

FOX News [9/1/2025 8:00 PM, John Toldi, 40019K] Audio: HERE reports Howie Kurtz on Secretary Noem going after CBS news for editing one of her interview answers, former CDC bosses saying RFK Jr. is putting Americans’ health in danger and postwar Gaza plans including voluntary relocation of all Palestinians.

AP [9/2/2025 3:15 PM, Gerald Imray, 37974K] reports five men deported by the United States to Eswatini in July have been held in a maximum-security prison in the African nation for seven weeks without charge or explanation and with no access to legal counsel, their lawyers said Tuesday. They accused the Trump administration’s third-country deportation program of denying their clients due process. The New York-based Legal Aid Society said that it was representing one of the men, Jamaican national Orville Etoria, and that he had been "inexplicably and illegally" sent to Eswatini when his home country was willing to accept him back. That contradicted the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which said when it deported the five men with criminal records that they were being sent to Eswatini because their home countries refused to take them. Jamaica’s foreign minister has also said that the Caribbean country didn’t refuse to take back deportees. Etoria was the first of at least 20 deportees sent by the U.S. to various African nations in the last two months to be identified publicly. The deportations are part of the Trump administration’s expanding third-country program to send migrants to countries in Africa that they have no ties with to get them off U.S. soil. Since July, the U.S. has deported migrants to South Sudan, Eswatini and Rwanda, while a fourth African nation, Uganda, says it has agreed to a deal in principle with the U.S. to accept deportees. Washington has said it wants to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose case has been a flashpoint over U.S. President Donald Trump’s hard-line immigration policies, to Uganda after he was wrongly deported to his native El Salvador in March. Etoria served a 25-year prison sentence and was granted parole in 2021, the Legal Aid Society said, but was now being held in Eswatini’s main maximum-security prison for an undetermined period of time despite completing that sentence. The U.S. Homeland Security Department said that he was convicted of murder. The agency posted on X in reference to a New York Times report on Estoria, saying that it "will continue enforcing the law at full speed — without apology.". The Legal Aid Society said that an Eswatini lawyer acting on behalf of all five men being held in prison there has been repeatedly denied access to them by prison officials since they arrived in the tiny southern African nation bordering South Africa in mid-July. The other four men are citizens of Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and Yemen.

Blaze [9/2/2025 1:15 PM, Andrew Chapados, 1805K] reports a federal judge appointed by President Biden said conflicting stories have given her no choice but to block a round of deportation orders. A lawsuit was filed after 1 a.m. on Sunday by the legal activist group National Immigration Law Center. U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan said she received notice of the complaint at 2 a.m. and subsequently called the U.S. attorney’s office and left a voice message at 3:43 a.m. The judge left word with federal authorities asking for a hearing before she issued an emergency motion that halted the deportation of a group of 76 illegal immigrants. She even moved the hearing up by three hours when she discovered the deportations were already under way. The issue, however, was that these illegal immigrants were minors who were set to be reunified with their families in Guatemala. "The Court ORDERS that [Homeland Security] cease any ongoing efforts to transfer, repatriate, remove, or otherwise facilitate the transport of any Plaintiff or member of the putative class from the United States," Sooknanan wrote, per ABC News. Sooknanan also called it "surprising" that the government was "attempting to remove minor children from the country in the wee hours of the morning on a holiday weekend." Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign claimed the illegal minors are actually undergoing a repatriation process and that "all of these children have parents or guardians in Guatemala who have requested their return," according to Fox News. However, the judge claimed that she has been receiving conflicting stories that have forced her hand. "I have conflicting narratives from both sides here on whether what is happening here is an attempt to reunite these children with their parents or just return these children to Guatemala where they face harm," the judge stated. In a post on X, Dept. of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin called the judge’s order "disgusting and immoral," while oppositely, the NILC’s Efrén Olivares called it a "dark and dangerous moment when our government chooses to target orphaned 10-year-olds." After some of the children had already boarded planes or had arrived to the planes on buses in Harlingen and El Paso, Texas — ready for deportation — they are now in custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. In total, the judge’s order blocks the deportation of about 700 Guatemalan minors. Homeland Security did not respond to Blaze News’ request for comment.

Federalist [9/2/2025 5:06 PM, Beth Brelje, 982K] reports activist attorneys trying to prevent the U.S. government from sending around 600 Guatemalan children back home to Guatemala to be with their Guatemalan parents got greenhorn Judge Sparkle Sooknanan to side with them over the Labor Day holiday weekend. Sooknanan, a Joe "Autopen" Biden appointee, has only been on the bench for eight months. An immigrant herself, Sooknanan was born in Trinidad and Tobago and has been a U.S. citizen since 2009. The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights and the National Immigration Law Center rushed to U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia Sunday with an emergency complaint seeking class status for the children and requesting a temporary restraining order, asking the court to block the Department of Homeland (DHS) from sending detained children to their home country — a move they expected to happen over the weekend. Sooknanan allowed the class action status (the case, which started with 10 specific children, will now cover the 600) and issued a temporary restraining order preventing DHS from removing children in the class of this case from the U.S. for 14 days while the parties argue the matter in court. The DHS Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) had apparently already loaded 76 children on an airplane Sunday when it learned of the order. The children were deplaned and returned to ORR custody. The activist attorneys would rather keep children in U.S. detention, separated from their families and home country, than reunite them with all that is familiar. They oppose removing the children because they "will lose the opportunity to seek permanent status in the United States in immigration court," the complaint reads, adding the children "fear persecution in Guatemala," and if they are removed before they have a chance to make a case in court, "they are at risk of persecution, torture, or death.". Yet White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller has noted that children are returning to their parents, and it is totally implausible that the parents and family members of some 600 children are waiting to kill their kids when they come home. Let us not forget, not long ago, these same leftist activists were screaming about "kids in cages." Members of Congress visited the border and staged photo opportunities, complete with crocodile tears over illegally present children. After years of propaganda claiming children in detention were mistreated, the court papers admit the conditions children live in while in U.S. custody meet their needs. If the children are sent back to Guatemala, they "are at risk of not receiving care and access to basic needs such as shelter, food, and education they would otherwise be legally required to provide in [Office of Refugee Resettlement] custody," the complaint asserts.

Federal News Network [9/2/2025 9:05 AM, Michele Sandiford, 1147K] reports the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security are teaming up to enforce compliance with trade laws. DHS and DoJ have launched a Trade Fraud Task Force to pursue enforcement actions against those who try to evade tariffs and other duties. The cross-agency group will rely on the Tariff Act of 19-30, the False Claims Act, and Title 18’s trade fraud and conspiracy provisions. The task force is asking for tips from any domestic industries that are harmed by unfair trade practices and trade fraud.

Daily Caller [9/2/2025 6:46 PM, Hailey Gomez, 985K] reports Democrat Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser issued an order Tuesday continuing President Donald Trump’s executive order of federal officers in the nation’s capital, which local law enforcement will cooperate with. Trump deployed the National Guard to Washington, D.C., Aug. 11 and invoked Section 40 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act to crack down on crime in the city. In a press release issued Tuesday, Bowser announced the continuance of the Safe and Beautiful Emergency Operations Center (SBEOC) to manage Washington, D.C.’s Safe and Beautiful Task Force, which had been established by Trump through a declaration of emergency. "During and after the Presidential emergency, the SBEOC will manage the District’s response, coordinate centralized communications, and ensure coordination with federal law enforcement to the maximum extent allowable by law within the District," the press release states. "Post-emergency planning will include the coordination of continued enhanced federal law enforcement efforts with the following agencies, which the District regularly works with: the United States Marshals Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States Park Police, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the United States Capitol Police, and the United States Secret Service," the press release continued. Along with the SBEOC’s continuance, Bowser requested that federal officers "adhere to established policing practices that maintain community confidence in law enforcement," which includes not wearing masks, identifying their agencies and providing identification during arrests. In response to Bowser’s update, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt applauded Bowser’s efforts in "partnering" with the administration, telling other Democrat mayors to "take note.". "President Trump’s efforts to crack down on crime in DC have yielded tremendous results in such a short time — violent crime has plummeted and dangerous criminals are being removed from the streets every single night," Leavitt said. "The Trump Administration is grateful to continue partnering with Mayor Bowser to make DC the safest city in the country. The Mayor’s fellow Democrats should take note, working with President Trump means safer communities and less crime – no one in their right mind could seriously oppose that.".

Reported similarly:
Washington Post [9/2/2025 6:48 PM, Emily Davies, Natalie Allison and Meagan Flynn, 29079K]
AP [9/2/2025 5:52 PM, Gary Fields]

San Francisco Chronicle [9/2/2025 6:50 PM, Sara DiNatale, 3790K] reports the San Francisco Department of Elections won’t give up sensitive voter information to the Trump administration, its lawyers wrote in a letter to the Department of Justice on Friday. The administration is seeking a trove of personal information — including the last four digits of Social Security numbers — for voters whose registration was canceled because they didn’t meet citizenship requirements. "Your letter requests voter registration records that, pursuant to California law, are not public information accessible to all members of the public," City Attorney David Chiu and Deputy City Attorney Kathleen Vermazen Radez wrote in a letter dated Aug. 29, the deadline the DOJ set to respond. San Francisco’s attorneys wrote there may be some voter information the Election Board could legally share with federal officials — but only if the DOJ agrees to keep it confidential. The last California county that responded that way got sued. Maureen Riordan, the DOJ’s senior counsel, demanded in a letter last month five years of records for voters whose registration was canceled because they didn’t satisfy citizenship requirements. In addition to partial Social Security numbers, the department asked for copies of the voters’ registration applications, voting history, dates of births and driver’s license numbers. Riordan cited federal voter registration laws in her initial demand, which she said exist to "protect the integrity of federal elections." She argued that because those laws — the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act — include voter roll "maintenance provisions," the attorney general had the enforcement authority to demand the records. Riordan had requested the same information from Orange County Registrar Bob Page in June. When Page refused to disclose what he said was personal information protected by state laws, the DOJ sued him.

Daily Caller [9/2/2025 10:06 AM, Reagan Reese, 985K] reports President Donald Trump told the Daily Caller that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo is "scared" to bring in U.S. troops. The Daily Caller sat down with Trump for an hour long interview in the Oval Office. The president talked about his administration’s work on the border crisis, his work with Mexico and upcoming policy on illegal farmers and restaurant workers. [Editorial note: consult interview at source link]

Wall Street Journal [9/2/2025 6:03 PM, Staff, 646K] reports President Trump suggests Chicago is next for his political clash with Democrats on crime, but Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker promise to resist, and it could be an ugly showdown. The Chicago crime problem is real: 58 people were shot over Labor Day weekend. But the limits on federal power are real, too: On Tuesday a judge ruled Mr. Trump’s use of the National Guard in Los Angeles broke the law. “Congress spoke clearly in 1878 when it passed the Posse Comitatus Act, prohibiting the use of the U.S. military to execute domestic law,” Judge Charles Breyer writes. Amid unrest over Mr. Trump’s deportation efforts, the President called in the National Guard to protect federal assets. But the judge says troops actively assisted law enforcement, such as doing traffic control for a raid on a cannabis farm 80 miles from downtown L.A. Judge Breyer orders the executive branch to cease and desist, while saying that the 300 National Guard still in L.A. can stay there, and they can “continue to protect federal property in a manner consistent with the Posse Comitatus Act.” He stayed his ruling until next week, giving Mr. Trump a chance to appeal, but it’s a moment for the White House to reflect before it moves on Chicago, or anywhere else.

USA Today [9/2/2025 4:05 PM, Rex Huppke, 64151K] reports we here in this "City of Big Shoulders," this diverse, beautiful, complicated Midwestern metropolis, are preparing for a likely Donald Trump-ordered invasion of federal immigration agents, and possibly federal troops. Yes, I used the word "invasion," as it seems accurate. Nobody here wants them, not Chicago’s mayor, not the governor, not the people, not the advocacy groups that help immigrants or work to stop violence. If the feds or the soldiers come, they’ll be uninvited and unwelcome, and the pointlessness of their mission will be clear as a sunny late-summer day on the shore of Lake Michigan. Folks in my adopted city don’t suffer fools lightly, and Trump is a fool who thinks he can flex his authoritarian muscles by sending troops onto the streets of Democratic-led cities. He is itching for chaos.

Breitbart [9/3/2025 2:12 AM, Neil Munro, 2608K] reports ICE officers have slashed the cross-border smuggling of migrant children and youths by arresting the U.S.-based illegal migrants who fund the smuggling, often with wages from U.S. jobs. The Associated Press (AP) reported on September 2 that the illegal migrant parents of smuggled children have been arrested when they try to pick up children from government shelters: Neha Desai, managing director of human rights at the National Center for Youth Law, said the change provides U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement a "built-in opportunity" to arrest parents — something she said has already happened. The arrests are deterring migrants from using the government-run "Unaccompanied Alien Children" (UAC) smuggling route, which ferried more than 500,000 migrant youth and children northwards during President Joe Biden’s term. Mary Miller Flowers, director of policy and legislative affairs for the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, said she knew of a case in which immigration officers arrested the father of a child under the age of 12 who had shown up for an identification check. "As a result, mom is terrified of coming forward. And so, this child is stuck," Miller Flowers said. In July 2025, border officials picked up just 515 children and youths at the border, down from 7,501 in July 2024. The arrival numbers show a 93 percent drop in the inflow. The decline will help children in schools, many of which are still overcrowded by the massive smuggling levels encouraged by Joe Biden and his pro-migration border chief, Alejandro Mayorkas. The pro-migration policies pushed by Mayorkas may have killed thousands of migrants and damaged many poor countries. The child-smuggling shutdown came after President Donald Trump’s deputies adopted a series of anti-smuggling measures that clearly identify the people who choose to sponsor the children as they are being settled in the United States. The government now requires sponsors to provide fingerprints, DNA tests, and income-related submissions. Trump’s deputies are also trying to prevent the youths from getting green cards after they turn 18, via the "Special Immigrant Juvenile" court hearings. The "Unaccompanied Alien Children" smuggling route was created in 2008 by a unanimous vote in the Senate and a voice vote in the House. It was sold to legislators as a way to protect kids and teens who were being smuggled for prostitution, but it was quickly converted into a lucrative smuggling scam by coyotes who moved more than 500,000 young people into the United States by early 2025. Under President Joe Biden, officials helped to triple the northward flow of children to labor traffickers and to families in the United States.

NewsMax [9/2/2025 2:18 PM, James Morley III, 4779K] reports that over the weekend, multiple protests were held in major cities across America to push back against the Trump administration and its efforts to curb illegal immigration. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson spoke at a rally in his city and declared, "No federal troops in the city of Chicago!" Immigration and Customs Enforcement Deputy Director Madison Sheahan told Newsmax on Tuesday that the rhetoric from Democratic leadership "is not going to stop" ICE. "And I think everyone needs to remember that ICE officers go out and enforce immigration laws. It’s written – it is our job to remove gang members, murderers, rapists, and traffickers from the streets of these cities. And we will continue to go into these major metropolitan areas and enforce immigration laws as written. Now, we would love for those cities to join us in a 287(g) agreement. But given the rhetoric from their leadership, we don’t think that’s going to happen," Sheahan said during an appearance on "Newsline." According to the ICE website, Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act allows "U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to delegate to state and local law enforcement officers the authority to perform specified immigration officer functions under the agency’s direction and oversight." Sheahan noted that while some left-wing politicians might be opposed to ICE, the officers in the trenches are pleased they are finally getting support from Washington.

Bloomberg [9/2/2025 11:38 AM, Ryan Gallagher, 19085K] reports US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is on track to gain access to controversial spyware designed to hack phones and read private messages after the Trump administration jettisoned a Biden-era order. The Trump administration reactivated an ICE contract for spyware from Tel Aviv-based Paragon on Saturday that had previously been blocked due to a stop order, according to procurement records posted on a government website. The immigration agency signed a $2 million deal last September for the Paragon software, which has allegedly been used to target activists and journalists in Europe, but the contract was hit with a stop work order soon after. The development gives ICE a powerful new spying tool in its nationwide crackdown on undocumented immigrants as it attempts to deliver on President Donald Trump’s promise to carry out the largest mass deportation in US history. Details about the renewed contract were earlier reported by the newsletter All Source Intelligence. Representatives for ICE and Paragon didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. John Fleming, executive chairman of Paragon’s US division, previously told Bloomberg News the company was “deeply committed to following all US laws and regulations.” John Scott-Railton, senior researcher at Citizen Lab, a University of Toronto-based watchdog group, warned that US government agencies adopting Paragon’s spyware could pose risks to Americans’ civil liberties. “While some see tactical value, these tools were designed for dictatorships, not democracies built on liberty and protection of individual rights,” he said. “When you use tools engineered for oppression, you play constitutional Russian roulette.” Paragon’s technology is designed to hack into mobile phones and secretly record messages sent using encrypted apps such as Signal and WhatsApp.

Breitbart [9/2/2025 11:11 AM, Lucas Nolan, 2608K] reports a European activist’s use of AI to identify Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers beneath their masks has ignited a heated debate over the ethical implications of AI-powered surveillance and its potential impact on law enforcement. Politico reports that Dutch immigration activist Dominick Skinner claims to have used AI to unmask at least 20 ICE officers who were recorded wearing masks during arrests. Skinner, who is part of a broader online campaign called the ICE List, says his team of experts can reveal an officer’s face using AI if 35 percent or more of the face is visible in a video or image. This development has sparked strong reactions from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), who chairs the Senate Homeland Security subcommittee on border management and the federal workforce, argued that ICE agents "don’t deserve to be hunted online by activists using AI." On the other hand, some Democrats, like Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, who co-sponsored the VISIBLE Act to require clear identification of ICE officials, expressed concerns about the reliability and privacy implications of facial recognition tools, whether used by law enforcement or outside groups. ICE spokesperson Tanya Roman defended the use of masks, stating that they are "for safety, not secrecy" and that campaigns like Skinner’s threaten officers’ lives. The Department of Homeland Security has also criticized the ICE List project, claiming it appears to be responsible for doxing federal officers. In response to efforts to identify ICE agents, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) introduced the Protecting Law Enforcement from Doxxing Act in June, which would criminalize publishing a federal officer’s name with the intent to obstruct a criminal investigation. Blackburn, who chairs the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on privacy and technology, believes Skinner’s project reinforces the need for her bill, warning that those opposing the rule of law are weaponizing generative AI against ICE agents. However, under current U.S. law, Skinner’s project is legal, highlighting the need for lawmakers to address the lack of comprehensive surveillance and privacy laws. Privacy experts suggest that stronger data protections would be more effective in safeguarding officers from doxing than wearing masks or outlawing the posting of officers’ names.

Washington Post [9/2/2025 5:16 PM, Joseph Menn, 29079K] reports U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has resumed doing business with a controversial hacking company that had been dropped for running afoul of a Biden-era executive order against dealings with unethical spyware vendors. A public notice on a government contracting site dated Aug. 29 said that a previous $2 million contract with Paragon Solutions had been modified “to lift the stop work order” that was issued last year. ICE spokespeople did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. The reversal alarmed critics of the increasingly harsh U.S. crackdown on immigrants, which has included incarceration before trial and deportations to third countries. “ICE is already shredding due process and ruining lives in its rush to lock up kids, cooks and firefighters who pose no threat to anyone,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) wrote in an email, adding that he had asked ICE for a briefing. “I’m extremely concerned about how ICE will use Paragon’s spyware to further trample on the rights of Americans and anyone who Donald Trump labels as an enemy.” Although it has held itself out as a more ethical version of NSO Group, the U.S.-banned maker of Pegasus phone spyware, Paragon drew criticism this year after traces of its powerful Graphite tool were found on the devices of Italian journalists, advocates for migrants, and associates of Pope Francis. During a government inquiry that followed, Italian officials acknowledged responsibility for some but not all of the breaches. Paragon then said it had stopped working with Italian government agencies. Paragon had previously won U.S. government contracts, including the 2024 contract with ICE, the frontline agency for deporting unauthorized immigrants and those who have had their humanitarian parole voided by the administration. After public reporting, that work was stopped pending a White House review of whether the deal violated a 2023 executive order against the U.S. using spyware that was being deployed irresponsibly elsewhere. It is not clear why that pause has been ended in Paragon’s favor. The reactivation was first reported by newsletter All-Source Intelligence.

Bloomberg [9/2/2025 3:48 PM, Alicia A. Caldwell, 19085K] reports the Trump administration is rolling out quarterly bonuses of as much as $1,000 for state and local police officers who meet immigration-arrest targets, escalating its enforcement crackdown. Officers deputized to arrest migrants under a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement partnership are eligible for the payments, the Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday. DHS said there are about 8,500 officers in 40 states in the task-force model of the 287(g) program, which allows state and local authorities to enforce US immigration laws during routine police work — a job normally reserved for federal agents. The bonuses add to the rewards available for law-enforcement officials who help implement President Donald Trump’s goal of mass deportations. The “monetary performance awards” are part of a broader initiative for the US government to pay the salaries, benefits and some overtime costs for officers enrolled in the 287(g) program. ICE is also dangling hiring bonuses of as much as $50,000 as it seeks to bring on up to 10,000 new officers and agents. Bonuses will range from $500 to $1,000 for each officer, depending on what percentage of ICE-directed arrests are reached each quarter, the agency said. An additional 2,000 officers are in training for the 287(g) program. ABC News [9/2/2025 1:51 PM, Luke Barr, 27036K] reports that starting on Oct. 1, law enforcement agencies participating in the 287(g) program are able to receive "monetary performance awards based on the successful location of illegal aliens provided by ICE and overall assistance to further ICE’s mission to Defend the Homeland." Each officer on the participating task force could receive up to $1,000. There are 40 states participating in the 287(g) program with 8,501 Trained Task Force Officers and over 2,000 additional officers in-training, according to Homeland Security. Trump’s spending bill supercharged ICE’s capacity to hire and train their own officers but also get more engaged with state and local partners.

Reported similarly:
Axios [9/2/2025 1:38 PM, April Rubin, 14595K]

Washington Examiner [9/2/2025 10:42 AM, Christopher Tremoglie, 1563K] reports when President Donald Trump said he wanted to make America safe again, he meant it. A new program being implemented by the Department of Homeland Security is just the latest example of the administration’s commitment to safeguarding Americans. DHS is taking an innovative approach to enhancing its illegal immigration enforcement efforts. This strategy could revolutionize the efficiency with which criminal illegal aliens are apprehended by law enforcement agencies throughout the country. Through utilizing a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act known as 287(g), DHS announced on Tuesday new reimbursement opportunities for the nation’s law enforcement agencies that aid Immigration and Customs Enforcement in arresting criminal illegal immigrants. The program enables state and local law enforcement agencies to sign agreements with ICE to assist with illegal immigration enforcement, including deportations. "287(g) is critical to having the enforcement we need to arrest criminal illegal aliens across the country," a DHS spokesperson told the Washington Examiner’s Anna Giaritelli. "DHS has secured 896 signed agreements with state and local partnerships under this program, and we will continue to build on that number." However, with the new reimbursement opportunity announced on Tuesday, the 287(g) Program Task Force Model will allow ICE to "fully reimburse" any agency with participating officers, including the "annual salary and benefits of each eligible trained 287(g) officer, including overtime coverage up to 25% of the officer’s annual salary." It’s an incentive program that is common sense and, most importantly, will help make the country safer.

Reported similarly:
Washington Examiner [9/2/2025 5:00 AM, Anna Giaritelli, 1563K]

Reuters [9/2/2025 5:54 PM, Ted Hesson, 45746K] reports the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said on Tuesday that it would pay state and local law-enforcement officers’ salaries and benefits in places where governments join a program to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. The offer, which begins October 1, would also provide up to 25% of an officer’s salary in overtime costs and bonuses to agencies based on performance, DHS said. President Donald Trump’s administration aims to deport record numbers of immigrants in the U.S. illegally and has intensified enforcement across the country.

FOX News [9/2/2025 4:02 PM, Gabriel Hays, 40019K] reports the Washington Post spoke to some Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) applicants last week, providing first-hand accounts of why many Americans are seeking to join President Donald Trump’s second-term deportation push. Since July, when the Trump administration announced an initiative to hire 10,000 additional ICE agents, more than 100,000 Americans have applied. The administration has offered incentives to candidates, including a $50,000 signing bonus for select applicants. In a report published Tuesday, the Post shared the perspectives of men attending a recent ICE career expo in Texas, many of whom said that joining the law enforcement agency was an opportunity for them to defend their country. The Post reported that about 3,000 applicants attended the ICE recruitment expo in Arlington, Texas. The turnout reflected a nationwide surge in interest in joining the federal law enforcement agency.

AP [9/2/2025 5:22 PM, Valerie Gonzalez, 37974K] reports President Donald Trump’s administration has started requiring parents looking to reunite with their children who crossed into the U.S. alone to show up for interviews where immigration officers may question them, according to a policy memo obtained by The Associated Press. Legal advocacy groups say the shift has led to the arrest of some parents, while their children remain in U.S. custody. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not confirm that or answer questions about the July 9 directive, instead referring in a statement to the Biden administration’s struggles to properly vet and monitor homes where children were placed.

NewsNation [9/2/2025 1:37 PM, Jeff Arnold, 6811K] reports that the Office of Refugee Resettlement has changed its policy on how sponsors or family members for children who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border unaccompanied by an adult guardian or parent verify their identification, which some groups fear places them at risk with federal immigration enforcement officers and agents. Until recently, family members and sponsors were permitted to provide identification electronically. But under the policy change, those adults must now show up in person for interviews, where they could be interviewed by immigration enforcement officers, The Associated Press reported. An ORR spokesperson told NewsNation on Tuesday that agency staff members require that sponsors provide a valid ID in person at the time of a child being released into their custody. The office, which is part of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, is responsible for taking custody of children who enter the United States without a parent or guardian. NewsNation previously reported that more than 13,000 migrant children who arrived at the southern border without supervision have been located, an HHS spokesperson confirmed. Under the Biden administration, 320,000 unaccompanied children crossed the border, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General has previously said. In March, a report issued by the office said that ICE has been unable to effectively monitor more than 600,000 unaccompanied children who crossed the southern border since 2019. The HHS spokesperson said that as part of the communication process between the office and sponsors, sponsors are "clearly and proactively" informed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations or other law enforcement may be present at the time that the identification verification takes place. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Darien Times [9/2/2025 6:35 PM, Richard Chumney] reports an 18-year-old Wilbur Cross student whose detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement sparked local protests was freed from federal custody Tuesday after a judge ordered his release, an immigration advocacy group says. The group Connecticut Students for a Dream said Esdrás Zabaleta-Ramirez left a detention center in Plymouth, Mass., after posting a $1,500 bond more than a month after he was arrested at his workplace. “I am happy to be free,” Zabaleta-Ramirez said in a statement. “I can’t believe it. Thank you to everyone who helped support me.” Tina Colón, Zabaleta-Ramirez’s attorney, has previously said the Department of Homeland Security did not plan to appeal a federal judge’s decision to release the student from ICE custody. More than 100 people attended a rally protesting his detainment outside Wilbur Cross on July 30. His deportation later was paused and his ticket on a deportation flight to Guatemala was cancelled. Esdrás was first held at the detention center in Plymouth, officials said. He later was transferred to a facility in New Hampshire and then was taken to the Alexandria Staging Facility in Louisiana before being brought back to Plymouth in mid-August. Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, has said Esdrás entered the country as an unaccompanied minor under the Biden administration and was released into the country.

Breitbart [9/2/2025 12:09 PM, Randy Clark, 2608K] reports the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) minced no words when criticizing a recent New York Times story about the deportation of a convicted Jamaican murderer by the Trump administration in July. The New York Times headline omitted the crime of murder and instead simply read "Man Who’d Served His Time in U.S. Is Deported to an African Prison". The article focuses on Orville Etoria’s accomplishments in prison after his conviction for fatally shooting a man in the head in Brooklyn in 1996, and not the horrific act of murder that resulted in his incarceration. Etoria, sentenced to 25 years to life for the crime, was a legal permanent resident alien when he committed the murder. As is common under U.S. immigration law for legal residents facing conviction for an aggravated felony, Etoria was ordered removed from the United States by an Obama-era immigration judge in 2009 while serving his sentence. In 2021, Etoria was released after serving more than 25 years in prison. Rather than executing the existing removal order upon his release, Etoria was allowed to remain in the country by the Biden administration’s immigration officials, provided he completes annual reporting requirements, according to the New York Times report. Rather than focusing any portion of the news report on the harm and loss suffered by Etoria’s victim and family, the report highlights the Jamaican illegal alien’s completion of a bachelor’s degree while incarcerated and his employment at a men’s shelter while pursuing a master’s degree in divinity. A social media post by Secretary Kristi Noem’s Department of Homeland Security on Monday described the story as the "peddling of another disgusting sob story" by the "failing @NYTimes." The post goes on to describe DHS’s displeasure with the article, saying, "It is absolutely revolting that the New York Times is actively defending convicted murderers over American citizens. DHS will continue enforcing the law at full speed-without apology.". In July, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin highlighted the removal of Etoria in an X post (formerly Twitter) saying, "NEW: a safe third country deportation flight to Eswatini in Southern Africa has landed-This flight took individuals so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back. These depraved monsters have been terrorizing American Communities but thanks to @POTUS Trump, @SecNoem, they are off American Soil.".

Breitbart [9/2/2025 4:10 PM, John Binder, 2608K] reports an illegal alien, who entered the United States by disembarking from a cruise ship in Miami, Florida, is now accused of searching for young boys to sexually abuse in Alabama. Indonesian national I Made Gitayana, a 31-year-old illegal alien, has been arrested by the Limestone County Sheriff’s Office in Alabama and charged with electronic solicitation of a child. According to police, Gitayana illegally entered the U.S. after disembarking from a Miami-docked cruise ship in July of this year. After leaving the cruise ship, for which he was an employee, Gitayana traveled to Alabama. While in Alabama, police allege that Gitayana contacted an underage boy whom he solicited for sexual acts. The underage boy was actually a decoy operated by law enforcement. Gitayana remains in police custody at the Limestone County Detention Facility, where he potentially faces additional charges.

Telemundo 51 [9/2/2025 12:58 PM, Staff, 144K] reports that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he would soon announce the opening of the new detention center in Baker County. "We don’t actually carry out the deportations; DHS (Department of Homeland Security) is in charge of taking them away. Because we had the ‘Alcatraz of the alligators,’ we’ve had thousands and thousands of deportations that perhaps wouldn’t have happened because there wasn’t room for them before," DeSantis said. In July, the DeSantis administration opened the "Alligator Alcatraz" immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades. However, "Alligator Alcatraz" is being dismantled and emptied of detainees after a judge ruled that the center violates federal environmental law. In early August, DeSantis announced he would be opening a new detention center in Baker County, which he dubbed "Deportation Depot." The new facility will be located at the Baker Correctional Institution, a state prison about 43 miles west of Jacksonville. It is expected to have 1,300 beds for immigration detention, although that capacity could be expanded to 2,000, according to state officials. After opening the Everglades facility last month, DeSantis justified the opening of the second detention center, saying the Trump administration needs the additional capacity to detain and deport more immigrants. "There’s a demand for this... I’m sure it will be filled," he said at the time.

Chicago Tribune [9/2/2025 5:38 PM, Meredith Colias-Pete, 5352K] reports a former Mid-America Reformed Seminary vice president was charged last month with child pornography, federal court filings show. Michael Deckinga, 41, of Dyer, was indicted Aug. 14 with one count of distribution of child pornography. It allegedly happened between November 2024 and May 2025, records indicate. The complaint appears to still be sealed in the U.S. District Court in Hammond, Indiana. Court filings show the U.S. Department of Homeland Security arrested him in Dyer on Aug. 13. Deckinga is currently jailed. A pretrial conference is scheduled for Oct. 17 with a trial date on Nov. 3. His lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday. In a video message posted online Aug. 25, without naming Deckinga, Mid-America Reformed Seminary President Alan Strange, a longtime faculty member, said that a vice president of advancement had been terminated. The seminary school began a search for a replacement, he said in the video, adding he could not comment on the legal case. The school had informed faculty, staff, students, alumni, supporters and its board. We "abhor these sorts of sins and crimes and stand with all its victims, praying and working for justice and peace in cooperation with legal authorities," he said.

AP [9/2/2025 8:30 PM, Colleen Slevin, 37974K] reports a Colorado sheriff’s deputy who was disciplined for helping federal immigration agents make an arrest of a college student from Brazil has resigned. Alexander Zwinck no longer works for the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office, department spokesperson Heather Benjamin said Tuesday. Zwinck’s departure prompted the state’s attorney general to drop a lawsuit against him over accusations that the deputy illegally shared information with immigration agents. After Zwinck said in court filings that he planned to resign, a judge agreed to dismiss Attorney General Phil Weiser’s lawsuit against Zwinck on Thursday at the request of both Weiser and Zwinck. Weiser sued to get a judge to order Zwinck to follow a new state law after he was accused of helping immigration agents arrest the student in June. It bars local government employees including law enforcement from sharing identifying information about people with federal immigration officials. It’s one of a series of laws limiting the state’s involvement in immigration enforcement passed over the years that has drawn criticism and a lawsuit from the federal government. A lawyer for Zwinck, Michael Lowe, did not return a telephone call or email seeking comment on the allegations against Zwinck. In a response to the lawsuit filed in court, Zwinck denied intentionally violating the state law, which was signed by Colorado Gov. Jared Polis about two weeks before he stopped the 19-year-old nursing student. The lawsuit alleged Zwinck shared the woman’s driver’s license, vehicle registration and insurance information in a Signal chat used by members of a drug task force that included immigration authorities.

FOX News [9/2/2025 11:06 AM, Staff, 40019K] reports anti-ICE protesters were captured on video rolling out a guillotine and clashing with police outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland, Oregon. Footage that emerged overnight purportedly showed demonstrators burning a flag before law enforcement fired munitions to disperse a crowd that gathered outside the ICE field office. "Everyone must leave this restricted area, or may be subject to detention, arrest or exposure to chemical munitions for failure to depart the restricted area," a voice was heard warning the protesters. Video then showed police clearing out the area, with the protesters yelling through loudspeakers "You are sad excuses for human beings!" and "You guys are violent, cowardly pigs!". ICE did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. The Portland Police Bureau, when asked by Fox News Digital about the protests on Tuesday, deferred comment to the federal government. It is unclear if there were any arrests made during the incident. At least two protesters were seen wielding riot shields to protect against the munitions being fired at them. "We are seeing historic threats against ICE officers, but that is not going to deter us," ICE Deputy Director Madison Sheahan told "Fox & Friends" this morning when asked about the clashes. "The men and women of ICE are some of most highly trained law enforcement officers in the country. The director and I, Secretary Noem and President Trump will continue to support them every single day that they are out working and removing the worst of the worst from this country," Sheahan also said.

Los Angeles Times [9/2/2025 5:26 PM, Ruben Vives and David Zahniser, 12715K] reports the Department of Justice filed criminal charges Tuesday against a man they say was behind the wheel of a tow truck that drove off with a federal agent’s vehicle as the agent was arresting a popular TikTok influencer in Los Angeles last month. Bobby Nunez, 33, of South Los Angeles is accused of theft of government property and is due in federal court Tuesday. Nunez allegedly interfered with federal law enforcement officers on Aug. 15 in downtown Los Angeles as they were trying to arrest Tatiana Mafla-Martinez, 23, who is suspected of living in the country illegally, according to an affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaint. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said that Martinez had been convicted for driving under the influence in Los Angeles and had entered the country illegally in 2022, but was released. Jurado told ABC7 that Martinez arrived from Colombia. "During her arrest, Martinez claimed to experience shortness of breath," McLaughlin said in a written statement to The Times. "She was given proper medical treatment and will be held in ICE custody pending removal proceedings." She said a tow truck driver had also towed a government vehicle that was involved in Martinez’s arrest. "He mocked and videotaped ICE officers chasing after him," she said in the statement. "Secretary Noem has been clear: Anyone who seeks to impede law enforcement will be found and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

FOX News [9/2/2025 3:06 PM, Cameron Arcand, 40019K] reports a tow truck driver in Los Angeles is facing a federal charge for towing an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) vehicle on August 15, and he could be behind bars for a decade if he’s found guilty. Bobby Nunez was allegedly laughing and filming as he towed a vehicle belonging to ICE agents, according to a federal criminal complaint obtained by Fox News Digital. The agents were in the middle of an operation to arrest an illegal immigrant and had their emergency lights flashing as they boxed in the target’s vehicle with their own to prevent her escape. Nunez also allegedly used the car door of the illegal immigrant’s vehicle to hit an officer with the passenger side door. A now-viral video posted by Essayli shows a chaotic scene as the illegal immigrant was arrested at the same time an officer was seen trying to chase down the tow truck on foot. However, videos posted to TikTok helped Homeland Security Investigations track Nunez down.

Reported similarly:
Blaze [9/2/2025 4:30 PM, Carlos Garcia, 1559K]

NBC News [9/2/2025 12:52 PM, Annette Arreola, 43603K] reports that Hooshang Aghdassi, a business owner in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Studio City, says he is overwhelmed with anguish since his wife was detained by ICE nearly a month ago. Sharereh Moghadam was taken into custody after attending an in-person immigration meeting, which she thought was a step closer to citizenship, according to Aghdassi. Instead, she was transferred to a detention center in Phoenix. "She had green card and passed exam for citizenship and was waiting for the ceremony," said Aghdassi. "She is not a bank robber or thief or criminal." Aghdassi says Sharareh was born in Iran and entered the country legally with her documents in order. He believes a recent trip to Iran is the reason behind her detention. ICE has since rejected Aghdassi’s claims that Moghaddam had no criminal history. "Reports that Sharareh Moghaddam has no criminal history are completely FALSE and are only being used to try garner support for a thief. Sharareh Moghaddam is neither a citizen nor a national of the United States. She is an Iranian native and citizen with a documented criminal history dating back to 2015. Moghaddam entered the United States at an unknown time and location in 2014 and obtained lawful status in 2016. Despite being granted the opportunity to remain in the country, between August 2015 and May 9, 2019, Moghaddam was convicted of two separate theft offenses, demonstrating a clear disregard for U.S. laws and rendering her subject to removal under U.S. immigration law," wrote an ICE spokesperson in a statement to NBC4. According to DHS, at least 5,000 people have been arrested in Los Angeles alone.

NBC News [9/2/2025 12:16 PM, Staff, 43603K] reports that members of a California community are signing a petition asking for lawmakers to take action in the case of Sharereh Moghadam. Moghadam was taken into custody after a meeting with immigration officials. According to her husband, Moghadam has a green card and is close to obtaining full legal citizenship. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Washington Examiner [9/2/2025 10:35 PM, David Zimmermann, 1563K] reports California schools would be required to notify parents when federal immigration officers are present on school grounds under a new bill passed by the state legislature on Tuesday. The legislation, titled the Sending Alerts to Families in Education Act, requires K-12 schools, colleges, and universities to issue alerts in the event that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is present. The measure is intended to oppose the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration. "With students returning to school, this legislation is more important than ever," Democratic state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, who led the bill, said in a statement. "The SAFE Act will inform and protect immigrant students and their families on school campuses. In the face of mass deportations, raids, and immigration enforcement authorities showing up at schools, the SAFE Act can help inform and empower school communities to make the best decisions about their safety and their family’s safety," she said. The bill now heads to Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) for approval. If enacted by Oct. 12, it will take effect immediately and remain in effect until 2031. "I urge Governor Newsom to sign the SAFE Act," Pérez added. "Students and their families have been living in fear. California must ensure our schools and colleges remain places where students can learn, teachers can teach, and classrooms can be safe places for young Californians.” The California Senate passed the bill, while the California Assembly passed a similar measure prohibiting ICE officers from entering nonpublic areas of schools without a valid warrant, subpoena, or court order. Both were co-sponsored by California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, who voiced support for the family notification bill at a press conference in Sacramento earlier Tuesday.

NBC News [9/2/2025 8:44 AM, Kate Rogers, 43603K] reports from citrus farms in the Central Valley to construction sites where homes and businesses are being rebuilt after devastating wildfires in Pacific Palisades, California relies heavily on immigrant workers and entrepreneurs. As the Trump administration continues to ramp up immigration enforcement, industries key to the state’s $4 trillion economy like agriculture, construction and hospitality could be among those hardest hit by the loss of California’s immigrant workforce, according to new research. At stake are billions of dollars that fuel businesses large and small across the state, whose standalone economy is the fourth largest in the world after the United States, China and Germany. Approximately one-fifth of the state’s 10.6 million immigrants are undocumented, according to a June study from the nonpartisan Bay Area Economic Institute and the University of California, Merced. If mass deportations were to be combined with the end of temporary protected status for thousands of immigrants and stricter border policies, the joint study estimated that California would be at risk of losing as much as $278 billion from its gross domestic product. Immigrant workers have been essential in bolstering the state’s economy given declining birthrates and an aging population, said Abby Raisz, research director at the Bay Area Economic Institute. "These are the workers that are keeping our economy afloat. They’re keeping businesses open," Raisz told CNBC.

Reuters [9/2/2025 6:00 AM, Julia Harte, 45746K] reports Juan Rivera voted for President Donald Trump, hoping that the president’s efforts to rid the United States of illegal immigration would improve safety in the Southern California city where the 25-year-old content creator lives. Neighborhoods near Rivera’s home in San Marcos that used to be frequented by migrants with "violent tendencies" do feel much safer now, he said. But he also said he’ll "never forget" seeing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pull over a truck of Latino workers and haul the men into their cars without asking for identification, leaving the empty truck behind. Some of Rivera’s family members work for U.S. Border Patrol. Other relatives who are in the process of establishing legal residency in the United States "are scared of going to work because they fear that they’re going to get pulled over by immigration," he said. Overall, however, Rivera gave the Trump administration very high marks on its handling of immigration because "there’s a lot more public safety.".

CNN [9/2/2025 1:26 PM, Patrick Oppmann, 23245K] reports that a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement flight returned 161 Cuban deportees to the communist-run island last week, the first time many of the men and women aboard had touched Cuban soil in years. Upon arrival, the deportees had shackles removed from their wrists and ankles and one at a time descended the stairway of the chartered 767 aircraft to be reprocessed by waiting Cuban immigration and health officials. Some seemed visibly dazed to suddenly be back in their homeland. According to Cuban officials, the flight had the largest number of deportees received to date – a further sign of the Trump administration’s determination to radically alter what until recently had been preferential immigration status afforded to Cubans. Shortly after Fidel Castro took power and aligned his revolution with the Soviet Union, Cubans, for the most part, were treated by both Democrat and Republican administrations alike as political refugees – not immigrants – with a unique fast track to US residency. Tens of thousands of Cubans who traveled to the US during the Biden administration expecting to be able to stay – as Cubans had for a generation – could now face possible deportation. But many of the returning Cubans complained about their treatment by ICE officials –showing marks from the tight handcuffs on their wrists and told of dehumanizing lost weeks in an archipelago of detention centers.

AP [9/2/2025 11:07 AM, Matthew Lee, 37974K] reports that President Donald Trump’s administration is piling new restrictions on Palestinian visa applicants, making it nearly impossible for anyone holding a Palestinian Authority passport from receiving travel documents to visit the U.S. for business, work, pleasure or educational purposes. Palestinian applicants who hold non-Palestinian Authority passports may also face difficulties should they need a U.S. visa. Since early August, the State Department has tightened what it says are temporary policies to boost its vetting procedures for Palestinians seeking to travel to the United States, meaning that virtually all applications will either be denied or not accepted for processing. The moves targeting the Palestinians are part of the administration’s global effort to reform how U.S. visas are issued and crack down on illegal immigration — it has already resulted in several thousand student visas revoked, many of them for pro-Palestinian or anti-Israeli activity. As part of that effort, the State Department said last week that it is reviewing all of the more than 55 million current U.S. visa holders to ensure they are properly vetted. However, the steps taken against the Palestinians appear more far-reaching than those directed at other nationalities, many of which include exemptions for official travel to the U.S. On Aug. 1, the department instructed consular officers to deny visa applications from anyone suspected of having past or present employment or ties to the Palestine Liberation Organization or the Palestinian Authority regardless of their position or purpose of travel. On Aug. 16, the department suspended a program that had allowed war-wounded Palestinian children from Gaza to come to the U.S. for medical treatment, following an outcry from conservative pundits. Two days later, on Aug. 18, the department sent a worldwide cable to all U.S. diplomatic posts instructing them to reject all non-immigrant visa request from Palestinian Authority passport holders.

Reuters [9/2/2025 7:59 AM, Staff, 45746K] reports Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said the United States should urgently revise its decision to revoke the visas of Palestinian officials and bar them from attending a gathering of world leaders at the United Nations this month in New York. Washington said last week it would not allow Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and others to travel to New York, where several U.S. allies are set to recognise Palestine as a state. The move "does not fit the United Nations’ raison d’etre," Erdogan told reporters on a flight home from China, according to a readout from his office on Tuesday. "The decision needs to be urgently revised. The United Nations General Assembly exists for the issues of the world to be discussed and for solutions to be found." "The Palestinian delegation not being at the General Assembly would only please Israel," he added. "What is expected from the United States is to say ‘stop’ to Israel’s massacres, cruelty". The State Department justified its decision on barring Abbas and others by reiterating longstanding U.S. and Israeli allegations that the Palestinian Authority and the umbrella Palestine Liberation Organisation had failed to repudiate extremism while pushing for "unilateral recognition" of a Palestinian state.

Reuters [9/2/2025 3:23 PM, Staff, 45746K] reports French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday the United States’ decision not to grant visas to Palestinian officials for the upcoming United Nations General Assembly in New York was "unacceptable" and should be reversed. "We call for this measure to be reversed and for Palestinian representation to be ensured in accordance with the Host Country Agreement," Macron said on social platform X. Washington said last week it would not allow Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and others to travel to New York, where several U.S. allies are set to recognise Palestine as a state. Macron made the comments after speaking with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia with whom he will co-chair the Conference on the Two-State Solution in New York on Sept. 22. "Our objective is clear: to rally the broadest possible international support for the Two-State Solution—the only way to meet the legitimate aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians," he added.

Telemundo Washington DC [9/2/2025 4:05 PM, Eduardo Orbea, 46K] reports U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has implemented a new way to pay fees using direct debit payments from a U.S. bank account. You can now transact directly with USCIS by completing and signing Form G-1650 and submitting it with your applications or petitions. The decision aims to reduce the time and personnel required to process checks and money orders, as well as to reduce the risks of fraud, lost payments, and theft. This new bank debit payment option adds to the existing credit card payment options using Form G-1450, giving individuals multiple options for paying required fees. USCIS will continue to accept paper checks and money orders, as well as credit and debit card payments, until October 28, 2025. After October 28, USCIS will only accept ACH debit transactions using Form G-1650 or credit card payments using Form G-1450. Those without a U.S. bank account cannot use Form G-1650, but they can file Form G-1450 for credit card transactions.

Blaze [9/3/2025 4:25 AM, Daniel Horowitz, 1805K] reports Donald Trump’s base has reached a clear conclusion: The entire importation of white-collar workers from India was a scam. It replaced American workers, fueled outsourcing to India, and boosted its economy at the expense of our own. The labor market is so weak that even legal visa programs should be suspended under Trump’s 212(f) authority. Yet the H-1B and L visa pipelines remain open, and worse, the Trump Justice Department is defending one of Obama’s most lawless expansions: the H-4 spousal work program. Save Jobs USA, representing American workers, has sued the government for continuing Obama’s program that grants work permits to H-1B spouses on H-4 visas. Congress authorized the H-4 visa, but it never authorized work permits. Obama simply created them in 2015 by executive fiat. Because the program is untethered from statutory limits, it has no cap. While the U.S. still issues around 120,000 H-1B visas each year — including under Trump — hundreds of thousands of spouses now work illegally in the same industries, displacing Americans. Most are funneled into the tech sector, overwhelmingly from India. This lawsuit has been winding through the courts for nearly a decade. It began after Southern California Edison fired American workers and replaced them with H-1B visa holders. Both district and appellate courts in D.C. sided with the government. Now, as the case reaches the Supreme Court, Trump’s Justice Department filed a brief — signed off by Pam Bondi — arguing that plaintiffs lack standing to sue.

Breitbart [9/2/2025 3:12 PM, John Binder, 2608K] reports an illegal alien, shielded from deportation by former President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, has been extradited to the United States to face murder charges in connection with the death of a 22-year-old woman in Las Vegas, Nevada. Erick Rangel-Ibarra, a 30-year-old DACA illegal alien whose parents crossed the southern border when he was 8 months old, is back in the United States after spending four years on the run in Mexico. On Aug. 29, 2020, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department alleges that Rangel-Ibarra murdered 22-year-old Lesly Palacio at his residence before getting his father, Jose Rangel, to help him move the woman’s body into the bed of a truck. Palacio’s remains were found two weeks later in the Valley of Fire State Park. Police have long believed that Rangel-Ibarra fled to Mexico within 48 hours of allegedly murdering Palacio, as he has family ties to the country. Rangel-Ibarra’s father spent just nine months in prison after having been convicted of helping his son move Palacio’s body. Mexican law enforcement arrested Rangel-Ibarra in July 2024, and the U.S. Marshals Service coordinated his extradition to the United States, taking him into custody and returning him to the U.S. in late August 2025. Rangel-Ibarra could have been nabbed by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in 2018 after he was arrested in Las Vegas for carrying a concealed weapon. For that charge, he was released from jail by a judge. Rangel-Ibarra is now in custody at the Las Vegas jail. His next court appearance in the murder case is scheduled for Sept. 3.

Axios [9/3/2025 5:00 AM, Marc Caputo, 13599K] reports the Department of Homeland Security blindsided Argentina last week by unexpectedly pausing a visa-waiver agreement as officials from Buenos Aires were already en route to Washington to sign the deal. The diplomatic snub was the result of a lack of communication and organization by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, two sources with knowledge of the situation tell Axios. In July, Noem signed a statement of intent with Argentinian officials for the visa-waiver agreement. But Noem didn’t first tell Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio of the major international decision, Axios first reported. Rubio and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles then penned a memo reminding all officials that they needed prior authorization to execute such agreements. When Pazo and others arrived in Miami en route to D.C., however, DHS told the delegation not to continue its trip because the agreement was "missing a signature," according to the source. The Argentinian officials also were told about the U.S. concerns over the corruption issue. "Let’s just say this was not a great look from us," a senior Trump administration official told Axios. "It’s embarrassing." DHS declined to comment on the miscommunication or whose signature was missing on the relevant document. "There is no new or additional VWP-related document pending signature with Argentina," a senior DHS official told Axios in a written statement that used the initials for the visa-waiver program. "We look forward to working with them going forward."

FOX News [9/2/2025 12:27 PM, Michael Dorgan Fox, 40019K] reports a new report reveals that more than 14,000 migrants who had hoped to cross into the United States have turned back and reversed course due to the Trump administration’s hardline border enforcement policies. The new phenomenon, referred to as "reverse flow" migration, has mainly impacted migrants fleeing the economic and political turmoil in Venezuela and who had been moving north through Central America toward the U.S. Since 2017, around 8 million people have fled the political crisis in Venezuela. The report, published by the governments of Colombia, Panama and Costa Rica with the support of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that northward migration had plummeted by 97% this year. "It’s time to go back — the American dream wasn’t like this," one migrant said, per the report. The report links the reversal to President Donald Trump’s border policies, with 46% of migrants citing policy changes and 49% saying they could not enter the U.S. Another 34% ran out of resources and 17% feared detention or deportation. Migration through the treacherous Darién Gap on the border of Colombia and Panama peaked in 2023 when more than half a million migrants crossed. The report also blames U.S. financial reductions for drying up humanitarian aid. As a result, NGOs and U.N. agencies that were filling protection gaps in places like the Darién Gap and along return routes had to shut down or scale back operations. Additionally, tougher transit restrictions in Panama mean the traditional pipeline toward the U.S. is nearly shut.

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DailySignal [9/2/2025 5:40 PM, Virginia Allen, 668K]

New York Post [9/2/2025 11:09 PM, Zoe Hussain, 43962K] reports a shipment of over $500,000 worth of Labubu knockoffs was confiscated by US Customs and Border Protection officers at a Seattle airport, according to reports and authorities. CBP officers assigned to inspect cargo at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport seized 11,134 fake Labubu dolls with a hefty retail price of $513,937.76, a CBP spokesperson told NBC News. The dolls, known as "Lafufus," were seized last Monday after officers inspected the shipment labeled "LED Bulb" from South Korea. Officials determined the shipment violated federal laws barring unlawful imports and those that profit from others’ intellectual holdings, the spokesperson told the outlet. The army of knockoff dolls will be destroyed, authorities said. No arrests have been made yet, officials added. "Excellent work by our diligent and meticulous CBPOs! P.S. we’re still on the lookout for the one and only 24K GOLD Labubu," Brian Humphrey, the Director of Field Operations for the CBP Seattle Field Office, wrote on X. "Fake Labubus are not welcome in America. Thanks for the good catch Seattle!" the CBP wrote in a reply. The fakes often have overly bright colors or the wrong number of teeth. Authentic Labubus — made by China’s Pop Mart — have exactly nine teeth. Knockoffs of the popular and pricey plush dolls can pose "a serious risk of choking and death to young children," the Consumer Product Safety Commission previously said. Some Lafufu buyers have complained that heads of the fake dolls have popped off. Labubu dolls typically feature a holographic Pop Mart sticker, and some of the newer ones come with a subtle UV stamp on one foot. The fuzzy, pointy-toothed Labubu dolls have sold out in stores around the world. Resales of the dolls, which originally retailed for around $40, have fetched hundreds and even thousands of dollars on sites like eBay, sending Labubu fanatics on the hunt for cheap fakes. Instances of theft of Labubu dolls have been reported since the craze emerged. Earlier this month, 14 boxes of wildly popular Labubu dolls worth a staggering $30,000 were recovered by California police after they were stolen from a warehouse, authorities said. A CBP spokesperson did not respond to the Post’s request for comment at the time of publication.

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NewsNation [9/2/2025 6:08 AM, Jordan Unger, 6811K]

Bloomberg Government [9/2/2025 11:07 AM, Ellen M. Gilmer, 84K] reports President Donald Trump’s cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency have compromised the agency’s ability to respond to disasters, especially if multiple catastrophes hit at once, a government watchdog says. "With above normal hurricane and wildfire seasons expected this year, recent reductions in the federal workforce, including the loss of experienced emergency managers, may exacerbate existing challenges and impact the federal government’s readiness to respond to future disasters," the Government Accountability Office reported Tuesday.

Federal News Network [9/2/2025 1:21 PM, Justin Doubleday, 1147K] reports that the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on Wednesday will consider legislation that would move the Federal Emergency Management Agency out from under the Department of Homeland Security and make other major FEMA reforms. The committee is scheduled to mark up the "Fixing Emergency Management for Americans (FEMA) Act of 2025" during a Wednesday morning meeting. The bill is sponsored by Chairman Sam Graves (R-Mo.) and Ranking Member Rick Larsen (D-Wash.). The legislation would make FEMA an independent agency that reports directly to the president. It would also overhaul FEMA’s disaster assistance processes, with the goal of delivering aid faster to both states and individual survivors. The bill additionally takes aim at reforming FEMA’s mitigation framework and programs to help better protect communities from disasters. "FEMA is in need of serious reform, and the goal of the FEMA Act of 2025 is to fix it," Graves said when introducing the bill in July. "This bill does more than any recent reforms to cut through the bureaucracy, streamline programs, provide flexibility, and return FEMA to its core purpose of empowering the states to lead and coordinating the federal response when it’s needed." The House mark up comes after a turbulent final week of August at FEMA.

New York Post [9/2/2025 5:24 PM, Josh Christenson, 43962K] reports two FEMA workers tasked with helping to keep the country safe from terrorism and nuclear meltdowns were booted Tuesday — for watching "racially charged" and other sick porn on the job, The Post has learned. The lewd-loving employees were canned after an internal investigation by the Department of Homeland Security’s Insider Threat Operations Center, which flagged at least one of them for consuming "deviant pornography" — including bestiality, said DHS officials, whose department oversees the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "These individuals had access to critical information and intelligence and were entrusted to safeguard Americans from emergencies—and instead they were consuming pornography," Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem seethed in a statement. "And in at least one case the pornography consumed was racially charged and involved bestiality," Noem said. Both rogue workers were stationed at FEMA’s isolated, sparsely populated Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center near Bluemont, Va., which is supposed to safeguard the homeland against national emergencies, terror attacks, and even nuclear disasters. They used their FEMA-issued devices, including at least one computer, during the work day for their seamy antics, officials said. The ITOC investigation also found that as many as 47% of FEMA workers are regularly on social media platforms that also contain easily accessible pornographic content. "Under President Trump’s leadership, we are cleaning house at FEMA to make this dysfunctional agency work for the American people the way that it was intended," Noem said.

Washington Times [9/2/2025 6:22 PM, Stephen Dinan, 964K] reports nearly half of employees at FEMA used their social media accounts while on the job, according to the results of a government investigation that found some even consumed what Homeland Security called “racially charged porn.” Secretary Kristi Noem announced the findings Tuesday, saying she had fired the porn-peepers. “These individuals had access to critical information and intelligence and were entrusted to safeguard Americans from emergencies—and instead they were consuming pornography,” she said. She said one of the cases involved someone looking at “bestiality” as well as the race-tinged materials. One contract employee at the Federal Emergency Management Agency viewed Reddit, a popular social media platform, 578 times during a 30-day period. He viewed explicit sexual materials from his work-issued devices and engaged in explicit chats on his government computer. Another employee, at the department’s Insider Threat Operations Center, used a chatbot to enter “sexually charged phrases” and have them read back in an accent.

Washington Post [9/2/2025 7:49 PM, Brianna Sacks, 29079K] reports legal and whistleblower experts say the Department of Homeland Security violated federal law when it put more than 30 Federal Emergency Management Agency employees on leave last week after they signed an open letter of dissent about agency leadership. In a new letter obtained by Washington Post, the Government Accountability Project is calling on federal lawmakers and oversight agencies to investigate what it calls “illegal retaliation.” The nonprofit group sent a letter on Tuesday to members of the House and Senate subcommittees on homeland security, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, and DHS’s Office of Inspector General, arguing the department’s actions “blatantly violate the federal laws protecting whistleblowers.” The group asked federal lawmakers to fully reinstate each person to allow them to get back to their jobs — work that in some cases includes helping disaster survivors. “Retaliation against them is not just illegal, it’s a direct assault on the democratic principles that protect public servants who expose threats to public safety,” Traci Feit Love, founder and executive director of Lawyers for Good Government, said in a statement. Officials from DHS and FEMA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter. Last week, more than 190 current and former employees signed what is being called the Katrina Declaration, an open letter starkly describing how they believe their current leaders’ inexperience and approach have harmed FEMA’s mission and could result in a disaster on the level of Hurricane Katrina. About 36 hours later, the Trump administration put many of the employees who had signed their real names on the letter on indefinite administrative leave. But that action was illegal, according to the Government Accountability Project, because it has “significantly and adversely changed” the workers’ duties, responsibilities and working conditions by barring them from doing their jobs. In one of the notices reviewed by The Post that informed employees of the decision, a top official under FEMA’s acting administrator stated that the administrative leave is “not a disciplinary action” and “is not intended to be punitive.” The legal experts strongly disagree, arguing that DHS put these workers on leave for signing a document containing disclosures that are protected under federal law because they blew the whistle on abuses of authority and mismanagement that led to dangers to public safety. In the letter led by the Government Accountability Project and signed by nonprofits Lawyers for Good Government and Stand Up for Science, the groups said the actions against the FEMA workers “occurred within a period of time such that a reasonable person could conclude that the disclosure or protected activity was a contributing factor in the personnel action.” Stand Up for Science has helped advise federal workers, including at FEMA, on such declarations. The open letter from FEMA employees was just the latest example of workers speaking out against the Trump administration’s actions and policies. The administration put nearly 140 EPA employees on leave after their letter of dissent earlier this summer. On Friday, Trump officials fired some of them. There is no clear evidence that DHS would have put the FEMA employees on leave for any other reason than signing the letter, the experts said. Federal law states that DHS must show that it would “have taken the same personnel action in the absence of such disclosure.” “DHS will fail that assessment,” David Z. Seide, senior counsel at Government Accountability Project, wrote in the letter.

The AP [9/2/2025 7:15 PM, Staff, 37974K] reports two tropical cyclones in the eastern Pacific Ocean gained strength Tuesday as they churned at sea, with one expected to bring heavy rain to Baja California, forecasters said. Tropical Storm Lorena was expected to be a hurricane by Wednesday off the western coast of Mexico, said the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Lorena was centered Tuesday about 310 miles (495 kilometers) west of Manzanillo, Mexico. The tropical storm was moving northwest at 15 mph (24 kph), forecasters said. Interests in southwestern Mexico and the Baja California peninsula were urged to monitor the progress of the storm. A tropical storm watch was issued for Cabo San Lucas northward to Cabo San Lázaro. The forecast called for strong wind and rainfall totals up to 12 inches (30 centimeters) across parts of Baja California Sur and southwestern Sonora state through Friday. The weather service warned rain totals could fluctuate depending on the track of the storm, and flash flooding was possible. USA Today [9/2/2025 9:02 AM, Gabe Hauari, 64151K] reports that the National Hurricane Center said late Monday night, Sept. 1 (Hawaii time), Hurricane Kiko was located about 1,840 miles east of Hilo, Hawaii with maximum sustained winds near 75 mph with higher gusts. Kiko was moving slowly west at about 7 mph, a motion that was expected to continue over the next couple of days. Steady strengthening was also forecast over the next couple of days, hurricane center forecasters said. There were no hazards affecting land due to Kiko, as of Tuesday morning, Sept. 2. Elsewhere in the Pacific, Tropical Depression Twelve-E was located about 190 miles west-southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico, with maximum sustained winds near 35 mph with higher gusts. Forecasters said strengthening was expected and the system was likely to become a tropical storm on Sept. 2. The hurricane center said interests in southwestern Mexico and Baja California should monitor the progress of this system, as a tropical storm watch could be required for portions of Baja California Sur later Sept. 2 or on Sept. 3.

Washington Post [9/3/2025 2:25 AM, Diana Leonard, 29079K] reports numerous wildfires erupted in the central and northern regions of California on Tuesday during an outbreak of thunderstorms and dry lightning that some meteorologists had warned would spark new fires and intensify existing blazes. The blazes spread quickly on Tuesday, while several large, intense forest fires have been burning in Northern California and in the Sierra Nevada over the past week. The hazardous weather arrives after a hot Labor Day weekend that has further dried out a parched landscape during what is typically the peak of fire season in the state. Dozens of fires ignited on Tuesday — so many that most were not initially given formal names but instead were identified by numbers. Many of the new blazes are in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada range in Tuolumne and Calaveras counties, which Cal Fire has dubbed the TCU September Lightning Complex. The most threatening of these are the 6-5 Fire and the 2-7 Fire, both of which have forced evacuation orders. With thunderstorms forecast Tuesday evening through Thursday, more blazes are likely, particularly in the mountains of Northern California. Several parts of Tuolumne County, including the town of Chinese Camp, were ordered to evacuate on Tuesday. Video footage shared by KCRA 3 News, a Sacramento broadcaster, showed destroyed homes and downed power lines in the town, a historic mining settlement once home to thousands of Chinese immigrants during the Gold Rush. The National Park Service also warned visitors about smoky conditions in and around Yosemite National Park, a part of which is located in Tuolumne County. The popular park experienced unhealthy air quality levels for several hours Tuesday. Earlier Tuesday, Cal Fire warned that lightning had already sparked dozens of new fires across the far Northern California region, urging residents to brace for critical fire weather from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. “Scattered lightning on extremely dry fuels is likely to spark new fires that can spread rapidly with gusty, erratic winds,” authorities said. The sheer number of new fires, combined with gusty thunderstorm winds, makes it difficult for firefighters and firefighting aircraft to tackle every blaze, increasing the chances that any fire could rapidly grow out of control. In addition to the new blazes, another major fire in California is the Garnet Fire, which sparked on Aug. 24 and has been burning intensely in the Southern Sierra, an area of high tree mortality and limited fire history. It is now over 28,000 acres in size. The Dillon Fire in the Six Rivers National Forest in northwestern California stretches more than 8,000 acres. Meteorologists at the National Interagency Fire Center’s Predictive Services issued “high risk” designations for Northern California, warning of a new round of fires and “significant large fire growth” on both new and existing blazes. They also warned of a “critical fire environment” with gusty winds, low humidity and hot, unstable conditions.

AP [9/3/2025 1:39 AM, Noah Berger, 37974K] reports a wildfire in California burned thousands of acres Tuesday, damaging homes and prompting evacuations in Chinese Camp, a historic gold-mining town. This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors. [Editorial note: consult photos at source link]

NewsNation [9/2/2025 7:25 PM, Safia Samee Ali, 6811K] reports a report conducted in the aftermath of an assassination attempt on President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally last year found that the Secret Service countersniper team is grossly understaffed, falling 73% below the agents it requires. The report is the first of five reviewing the assassination attempt on Trump while he was a candidate in the 2024 election. The Secret Service does not have an “effective process to hire countersnipers to meet its operational needs,” the report by the Homeland Security Department inspector general found. The report stated that the demand for protection has increased by 151% from 2020 to 2024, and the agency has had to rely on “DHS components” to cover the shortfalls during the 2024 campaign season and 2025 presidential inauguration. During that same time, countersnipers worked a total of 247,887 hours in overtime, which is approximately the equivalent of an additional 24 full-time employees per year, the report states. The total number of Secret Service snipers and the number the agency requires was redacted in the report. “Failure to appropriately staff CS could limit the Secret Service’s ability to properly protect our Nation’s most senior leaders, risking injury or assassination, and subsequent national-level harm to the country’s sense of safety and security,” a report stated. The inspector general found the Secret Service used countersnipers who missed mandatory weapons requalification sessions 47 times in 2024. These included events attended by former President Joe Biden, including the wake for Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson in Dallas in Jan. 2024, campaign receptions in New York in February 2024 and when he delivered remarks in New Hampshire in March 2024, according to the report. It takes a uniformed Secret Service officer about three years before they can join the countersniper team, according to the report. The report noted that the Secret Service doesn’t have an effective process to hire countersnipers. The current approach does not allow for “timely hiring, training, and deployment of a countersniper to CS,” the report states. The “chronic understaffing” came to light after the July 13, 2024, attack on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, while he was speaking to a large crowd on the campaign trail. Bloomberg [9/2/2025 5:58 PM, Myles Miller, 19085K] reports that the inspector general’s office didn’t examine the actions of the counter sniper who fired that day because those circumstances are the subject of a separate investigation. Instead, it found systemic shortfalls in staffing and training that, the office warned, left protectees vulnerable during a period of rising political violence. Between 2020 and 2024, the sniper team was “staffed 73 percent below the level necessary to meet mission requirements.” To cover events, the agency leaned on nearly 248,000 hours of overtime — the equivalent of 24 full-time employees each year — and borrowed shooters from other Homeland Security components. One agent worked 1,403 overtime hours in 2024 alone. The auditors also found that some snipers failed mandatory firearms re-qualification tests but were still deployed. Training records showed none of the unit’s shooters re-qualified with daytime rifles in the second quarter of 2024, even as they worked 47 protective assignments for leaders including then-President Joe Biden. The inspector general attributed part of the shortage to Secret Service policy that required candidates to serve at least two years in the uniformed division before applying, slowing recruitment even as demand more than doubled. The agency reduced the requirement to 18 months last year and has begun offering targeted postings and retention bonuses. Officials project the team could reach authorized levels by 2026. The watchdog urged the Secret Service to broaden recruiting to military and law enforcement personnel, craft a formal staffing plan and ensure only qualified shooters are deployed.

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NewsMax [9/2/2025 11:27 AM, Mark Swanson, 4779K]

FOX News [9/2/2025 11:48 PM, Emma Bussey, 40019K] reports grand juries in Washington, D.C. refused to indict two people accused of threatening the life of President Donald Trump, prosecutors confirmed to Fox News Digital Tuesday. Officials from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington said both cases involved threats against the president while jurors rejected charges, preventing the cases from moving forward to trial. One case involved Nathalie Rose Jones, who is accused of posting online threats to assassinate Trump and later repeating those threats directly to Secret Service agents during an interview. U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., Jeanine Pirro, whose office pushed for the indictment, blasted the jury’s refusal on Tuesday. "A Washington D.C. grand jury refused to indict someone who threatened to kill the President of the United States. Her intent was clear, traveling through five states to do so," Pirro told Fox News in an exclusive statement. "She even confirmed the same to the U.S. Secret Service. This is the essence of a politicized jury. The system here is broken on many levels. Instead of the outrage that should be engendered by a specific threat to kill the president, the grand jury in D.C. refuses to even let the judicial process begin. Justice should not depend on politics," Pirro added. In a second case, another grand jury declined to indict Edward Alexander Dana, who allegedly threatened to kill Trump while being arrested last month on unrelated charges of vandalism in Northwest D.C. According to charging documents, Dana told police he was intoxicated, admitted making the threat and described himself as a descendant of the Huguenots, French Protestants who waged rebellions in the 1600s. Then, magistrate Judge G. Michael Harvey denied a request by prosecutors to keep the jury’s decision sealed, ordering the disclosure of the "no true" bill to Dana’s attorney. Dana’s defense attorney, Elizabeth Mullin, told Fox News Digital she had "never seen anything like it" in over 20 years of practice. "This is the result of them taking weak cases and trying to shoehorn them into federal district court," Mullin said. Meanwhile, Pirro said grand juries in D.C. are politically motivated and unwilling to hold violent or threatening defendants accountable. Last week, she told Fox News that residents were "so used to crime" that they’re increasingly unwilling to indict. On Tuesday, she called the decisions not to indict Jones and Dana "a sign the system is collapsing from within." [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Daily Caller [9/2/2025 4:59 PM, Fiona McLoughlin, 985K] reports a 50-year-old woman arrested for making social media posts threatening to kill President Donald Trump was released by a judge Wednesday and ordered to see a psychiatrist, court documents show. Nathalie Rose Jones, a 50-year-old Indiana native, was arrested in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 16 after allegedly issuing a series of threats on social media "in which she threatened to kill President Trump," the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Columbia said in a press release. On Aug. 15, the Secret Service conducted a voluntary interview with the 50-year-old in which she allegedly said if she had the opportunity to, she would "take the President’s life." She also allegedly said she possessed a "bladed object" that she would use to "carry out her mission of killing" Trump. In an interview the next day, she allegedly admitted to making threats targeted at Trump during the initial Secret Service interview but denied any "present desire to harm" the president. She was arrested that day after participating in a demonstration near the White House. Court documents filed Wednesday and shared by the New York Post on Monday reveal Jones’ appeal of a detention order. Court documents signed by Chief Judge James Boasberg ordered that she be released no later than 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday. Jones was also ordered to get a GPS monitor and to drive directly to New York City where she was meant to meet with her psychiatrist before 5 p.m. on the day of her release. Jones is a New York City resident, according to the Post. On Tuesday, a federal grand jury opted not to indict her based on evidence brought against her by the Justice Department prosecutors, the Associated Press reported, citing Jones’ attorney, Mary Manning Petras. FOX News [9/2/2025 10:00 AM, Michael Dorgan Fox, 40019K] reports Jones took part in a "dignified arrest ceremony" for Trump at a protest in Washington, D.C., which circumnavigated the White House complex and was arrested following an investigation into her series of concerning Instagram and Facebook posts. In early August, Jones labeled Trump a terrorist, referred to his administration as a dictatorship, and stated that Trump had caused extreme and unnecessary loss of life in relation to the coronavirus. "I am willing to sacrificially kill this POTUS by disemboweling him and cutting out his trachea with Liz Cheney and all The Affirmation present," an Aug. 6 post directed at the FBI states. In an Aug. 14 post directed to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Jones allegedly wrote, "Please arrange the arrest and removal ceremony of POTUS Trump as a terrorist on the American People from 10-2pm at the White House on Saturday, August 16th, 2025.". The next day, Jones voluntarily agreed to an interview with the Secret Service, during which she called Trump a "terrorist" and a "nazi," authorities said. She said that if she had the opportunity, she would kill Trump at "the compound" if she had to and that she had a "bladed object," which she said was the weapon she would use to "carry out her mission of killing" the president.

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NewsNation [9/2/2025 12:56 PM, Jordan Perkins, 6811K]

The Hill [9/2/2025 6:09 PM, Ella Lee, 12414K] reports a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., has for the second time this week decided against indicting a defendant accused of threatening President Trump. Public defender Elizabeth Mullin confirmed to The Hill on Tuesday that a grand jury returned a "no bill" against her client, Edward Dana, meaning the panel of District residents decided that the evidence against him was not sufficient to indict. Dana was arrested after he was seen damaging a light fixture by pulling it off the exterior wall of a restaurant in northwest D.C., according to an FBI affidavit. When approached by Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officers, he allegedly described himself as a person with "intellectual disabilities" and expressed he did not know why he was being arrested. Once in an MPD vehicle, Dana said he was intoxicated and began making escalating threats, from additional property destruction to threats against the officer and the president, according to the affidavit. The MPD officer then told his station that Secret Service should be notified Dana had threatened to kill Trump, according to the affidavit. Dana faces one count of threats against the president. WUSA9 first reported that federal prosecutors failed to secure an indictment.

New York Post [9/2/2025 6:52 AM, Patrick Reilly, 43962K] reports an 8-year-old boy was airlifted to a hospital with "severe" injuries after he was attacked by a shark while spearfishing off the Florida Keys, officials said. The shark bit the unidentified child above the knee while he was fishing with his father and another sibling four miles off Key Largo at Horseshoe Reef around 3:30 p.m. Monday , according to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office. The boy’s dad immediately alerted a scuba diving boat in the area operated by Horizon Divers, whose crew applied two tourniquets to the wound to stop the bleeding and helped guide the family back to Garden Cove Marina. The boy’s condition was described as "severe," according to WSVN. He underwent surgery on Monday night, Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay told the Miami Herald. Additional details about the boy’s condition have not been released. The U.S. Coast Guard and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission were both notified about the attack, the sheriff’s office said.

CyberScoop [9/2/2025 4:30 PM, Tim Starks] reports Nicholas Andersen is taking over a top leadership role at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, CISA announced Tuesday. He will become executive assistant director of cybersecurity at the agency in a role that’s seen swift turnover in the past year. It’s a position that has, in the past, led CISA efforts on protecting federal civilian agency networks and protecting critical infrastructure against cyber threats. Andersen is a veteran of the first Trump administration, where from 2019 to 2021 he served in the Department of Energy’s Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response division as both the principal deputy assistant secretary and performed the duties of assistant secretary. Andersen most recently worked as president and chief operating officer at Invictus International Consulting, a firm that bills itself as “a full-spectrum cyber company that fuses data science and intelligence to deliver advanced technological and analytical solutions required for our national defense.”

Politico [9/2/2025 10:00 AM, Maggie Miller, 2100K] reports the August recess is over, and lawmakers are returning to Washington with a few must-pass cybersecurity issues burning holes in their legislative agenda. Top among these? Renewing the 2015 Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, a core law that enables cyber threat sharing between the private sector and government agencies and is set to expire on Sept. 30 without congressional action. Newly elected House Homeland Security Committee Chair Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) is planning to take quick action, telling Dana last month that his panel will mark up the proposed reauthorization for the CISA bill “shortly after Congress returns from recess.” The big question mark on passage of reauthorization lies on the other side of Capitol Hill, with Senate Homeland Security Committee Chair Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who pledged prior to the August recess to support reauthorizing the law only if a provision is included that bans CISA (the agency) from doing work to counter disinformation. A spokesperson for Paul did not respond to your host’s request for comment on his cyber priorities for September. Another key piece of legislation with a September expiration date? The State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program, which gave state and local governments $1 billion over multiple years to step up cybersecurity. It’s a program with widespread bipartisan support and should go through again — though the amount that will be appropriated is unclear.

CyberScoop [9/2/2025 4:40 PM, Matt Kapko] reports multiple security and technology companies have been swept up in a far-reaching attack spree originating at Salesloft Drift, including Cloudflare, PagerDuty, Palo Alto Networks, SpyCloud and Zscaler. Victim organizations continue to come forward as customers of the third-party AI chat agent hunt for evidence of compromise or receive notices from Salesloft and other companies involved in response, recovery and ongoing attack investigations. Salesloft initially claimed exposure was limited to customers integrated with Salesforce. Yet, Google Threat Intelligence Group and Mandiant Consulting — Google’s incident response firm which is now working with Salesloft — said any platform integrated with Drift is potentially compromised. The root cause of the attacks, specifically how the threat group that Google tracks as UNC6395 gained initial access to Salesloft Drift, remains unconfirmed. “There is no evidence of any unusual or malicious activity with the Salesloft platform,” Salesloft said in an update Saturday. On Monday, the company said “Drift will be taken offline in the very near future,” rendering the platform inaccessible and the Drift chatbot unavailable on customer websites. “This will provide the fastest path forward to comprehensively review the application and build additional resiliency and security in the system to return the application to full functionality,” the company added. Salesloft, which acquired Drift in February 2024, has not responded to requests for comment since news of the attacks first surfaced last week.

Axios [9/2/2025 1:07 PM, Sam Sabin, 14595K] reports that nearly 19,000 state and local government offices could lose access to vital cyber threat intelligence and affordable security tools by the end of the month. Why it matters: Adversarial hackers have increasingly targeted local governments, law enforcement, utilities and schools in recent years. But the Trump administration is pushing to cut funding for an organization that has been helping these entities detect and defend against cyberattacks for decades. Driving the news: Federal funding for the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) is set to expire on Sept. 30, and the Department of Homeland Security has no plans to request additional dollars. MS-ISAC, housed within the Center for Internet Security (CIS), has spent the last 20 years helping state, local and territorial governments share threat information and access tools to bolster their defenses. DHS has also not said whether it will renew its cooperative agreement with MS-ISAC. Declining to do so could jeopardize the program’s access to federal threat intel. Catch up quick: In March, DHS slashed $10 million from MS-ISAC’s budget, representing about half of its funding at the time. Now the program is at risk of losing all $27 million in federal support, the group’s leaders told Axios.

CyberScoop [9/2/2025 6:30 AM, Matt Kapko] reports authorities and threat intelligence analysts alike relish taking ransomware operators off the board. Holding cybercriminals accountable through arrest, imprisonment, or genuine reform creates a powerful deterrent and advances the ultimate goal of a safer internet for everyone. Getting to that point is a remarkably tough task for defenders. Ransomware attacks are often initiated by people living in countries that aren’t bound by extradition treaties with the United States or don’t cooperate with international law enforcement. When those obstructions aren’t in place, authorities can amass resources to hunt down those responsible for cyberattacks and bring them to justice. The fight against cybercrime is grueling, and wins don’t typically countervail the losses. For nearly a decade, police have often made high-profile announcements about arresting cybercriminals, keeping them in custody until their court dates and seizing their ill-gotten gains. These acts send a clear message to the public and potential offenders that cybercrime is a serious offense, and authorities are taking swift, visible measures to uphold the law. Ianis Aleksandrovich Antropenko exemplifies the profile of a modern cybercriminal, yet, unlike many others who have faced strict prosecution for similar offenses, the Justice Department has granted him liberties rarely extended to such suspects. The 36-year-old Russian national was arrested almost a year ago in California for his alleged involvement in multiple ransomware attacks from at least May 2018 to August 2022. Yet, he was released on bail the day of his arrest and continues to live with few restrictions in Southern California awaiting trial for multiple felonies. Antropenko is charged with conspiracy to commit computer fraud and abuse, computer fraud and abuse, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He is accused of using Zeppelin ransomware to attack multiple people, businesses and organizations globally, including victims based in the U.S.

NBC News [9/3/2025 4:03 AM, Erik Ortiz, 43603K] reports Families of the victims of a 2023 mass shooting in Maine and dozens of survivors intend to file a negligence lawsuit Wednesday against the U.S. government, alleging the military and others failed to respond to warning signs and a threat by the gunman, who was an Army reservist. Robert Card, 40, killed 18 people at a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston, setting off a two-day manhunt that ended when he died by suicide, authorities said. The approximately 100 plaintiffs are expected to name the Defense Department, the Army and Keller Army Community Hospital in West Point, New York, in the suit, which a team of four law firms is set to file in federal court in Maine. "The Army repeatedly broke its promise to protect the community that it pledges to defend and must be held responsible," Maine attorney Travis Brennan said in a statement. Benjamin Gideon, another lawyer in Maine representing plaintiffs, added that "it’s hard to imagine the Army ever accepting accountability without being forced to do so in court." The law firms served legal notices of their intention to sue in October. The lawyers said the Army had multiple opportunities to intervene in Card’s case but did not, including as early as May 2023, when his son reported that his father’s mental health appeared to be deteriorating and his behavior was erratic.

NewsNation [9/2/2025 12:05 PM, Safia Samee Ali, 6811K] reports federal prosecutors in the case against Luigi Mangione, accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last year, disputed allegations from defense attorneys that they have not provided enough evidence to support seeking the death penalty. In a filing last week, prosecutors responded to a motion from Mangione’s attorneys requesting an "informational outline" detailing the "aggravating factors" that are the basis for the death penalty case. Mangione’s attorneys claimed in a July filing they had only received "barebones, vague allegations, lacking any information about the facts upon which the government intends to rely" with regard to the death penalty. But prosecutors said they already provided sufficient evidence and that their "notice of intent" to seek the death penalty is the "only notice to which the defendant is entitled regarding aggravating factors."

The Hill [9/2/2025 9:42 PM, Alex Gangitano, 12414K] reports Vice President Vance will visit Minneapolis on Wednesday following the shooting last week at Annunciation Catholic School. Vance will be joined by second lady Usha Vance, and the couple will pay their respects to victims and "hold a series of private meetings to convey condolences to the families of those affected by the tragedy," his office announced on Tuesday. A shooter last week killed two students, aged 8 and 10, and injured 17 other people in an attack on a morning Mass at the Catholic school in southern Minneapolis. Police identified the suspect as 23-year-old Robin Westman, who they said barricaded the church door during the shooting, then died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The vice president’s office didn’t say if he would be meeting with local officials on the ground. President Trump called Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz following the shooting and ordered American flags to be flown at half-staff.

New York Times [9/2/2025 6:32 PM, Edward Wong, 143795K] reports Secretary of State Marco Rubio is flying to Mexico on Tuesday for talks with top officials on security, drugs and migration issues, as U.S.-Mexico tensions continue to rise following months of pressure from President Trump. President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico has been engaged in a delicate balancing act with Mr. Trump. She is trying to cooperate in areas where the two nations have mutual interests, but must also show Mexicans she is not bowing to what many people in her country consider to be bullying by an American leader. Mr. Rubio is making his third trip to Latin America as secretary of state, and he plans to travel to Ecuador after his stop in Mexico. During his 14 years as a senator representing Florida, he tried to shape policy in Latin America, taking a hard line on Cuba, where his parents are from, and on Venezuela. Mr. Trump has tried to project greater U.S. power and dominance across the Americas, and has threatened governments that have been traditional partners, including Canada, Greenland, Mexico and Panama. Mr. Trump and Mr. Rubio have insisted that Mexico crack down harder on drug cartels, even though law enforcement agencies under Ms. Sheinbaum have made many more arrests compared to recent years. Mr. Trump has blamed the cartels for manufacturing fentanyl and other highly addictive synthetic drugs in large quantities and moving them into the United States. Mr. Trump has secretly signed a directive ordering the Pentagon to take military action against certain Latin American drug cartels that the administration has labeled terrorist organizations, The New York Times reported last month. At the Pentagon on Tuesday, officials were scrambling to follow up on Mr. Trump’s abrupt announcement of a U.S. strike on a “drug-carrying boat” linked to Venezuela. Mr. Rubio wrote on social media that “today the U.S. military conducted a lethal strike in the southern Carribean against a drug vessel which had departed from Venezuela and was being operated by a designated narco-terrorist organization.” Several large Mexican cartels, including the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, are among the criminal groups in Latin America that the State Department in February designated foreign terrorist organizations. Mr. Trump has also said Mexico should do more to keep migrants from crossing into the United States, even though the number of crossings has plummeted in recent months. And citing what he called the Mexican government’s weak stance on cartels, Mr. Trump threatened to impose a tariff of 30 percent on goods shipped from Mexico, one of the main trading partners of the United States. American companies importing Mexican goods would pay the tariff and almost certainly pass on the costs to American consumers. Ms. Sheinbaum has said she is working on the terms of a new security arrangement with the United States. Officials from both countries have discussed a broad agreement that would encompass intelligence sharing and cooperation between security forces. But Ms. Sheinbaum and her aides have insisted that any arrangement guarantee that the United States respects Mexico’s sovereignty, meaning the U.S. military would not take unilateral action inside Mexico against people or cartels. Mr. Rubio is expected to discuss questions around such an arrangement in meetings on Wednesday in Mexico City.

AP [9/2/2025 5:15 PM, Matthew Lee, Megan Janetsky, 37974K] reports Security, sovereignty, tariffs, trade, drugs and migration — all hot-button issues for the Trump administration and its neighbors in the Western Hemisphere — will top Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s agenda this week on his third trip to Latin America since becoming chief U.S. diplomat. The visit comes as the Trump administration has dramatically stepped up operations against drug cartels in the Caribbean, including recent military deployments and what it said was a lethal strike on a suspected drug-carrying vessel. In talks with leaders in Mexico and Ecuador on Wednesday and Thursday, Rubio will make the case that broader, deeper cooperation with the U.S. on those issues is vitally important to improving health, safety and security in the Americas and the Caribbean. Yet, President Donald Trump has alienated many in the region — far beyond the usual array of U.S. antagonists like Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela — with persistent demands, coupled with threats of sweeping tariffs and massive sanctions for not complying with his desires. Shortly before Rubio left for Mexico, he and Trump announced the U.S. military had carried out a strike in the southern Caribbean against a vessel hauling drugs that departed from Venezuela. Rubio, speaking to reporters before boarding his plane to Mexico, said Trump “is going to be on offense against drug cartels and drug trafficking in the United States. It destabilizes not just the country but the entire Caribbean basin.” “The president has been very clear that he’s going to use the full power of America and the full might of the United States to take on and eradicate these drug cartels, no matter where they’re operating from and no matter how long they’ve been able to act with impunity,” he said. “Those days are over.”

The Hill [9/2/2025 7:06 PM, Filip Timotija, 12414K] reports two senior homeland security and cyber officials have left their roles at the Department of Defense (DOD) in another shake-up at the executive department. Ashley Manning, the principal deputy assistant secretary of Defense for cyber policy, and Jonathan Owen, the acting deputy assistant secretary of Defense for homeland defense integration and defense support to civil authorities, have "moved on from their positions" at the Pentagon, a U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Hill on Tuesday. It is unclear when Manning and Owen stepped down from their posts at the department or where they will land next. "We are grateful for their service," the defense official added. Manning, who has held other roles within the Pentagon, assumed the leadership post in the DOD’s cyber policy office last year. The office was formally established in 2024 and formed out of a directive in the 2023 defense authorization bill. Manning was responsible for "developing, coordinating, assessing and overseeing the implementation of DoD cyberspace policy and strategy and ensuring these efforts are aligned with overarching national security objectives.". Owen, who has served in the State Department and is a Marine Corps veteran, was previously working in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence "while detailed" from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

AP [9/2/2025 6:49 AM, Seung Min Kim and Kim Chandler, 37974K] reports that President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that U.S. Space Command will be located in Alabama, reversing a Biden-era decision to keep it at its temporary headquarters in Colorado. The long-expected decision from Trump caps a four-year tug of war between two states and opposing administrations about where to locate U.S. Space Command, an intense fight because the headquarters would be a significant boon to the local economy. Alabama and Colorado have long battled to claim Space Command, with elected officials from both states asserting their state is the better location. “The U.S. Space Command headquarters will move to the beautiful locale of a place called Huntsville, Alabama, forever to be known from this point forward as Rocket City,” said Trump, repeating a nickname the city has used for decades already because of its early role in NASA and the U.S. space program. “We had a lot of competition for this and Alabama’s getting it,” added the president, flanked in the Oval Office by Republican members of Alabama’s congressional delegation. Trump said Huntsville won the race for the Space Command headquarters, in part, because “they fought harder for it than anybody else.”

Breitbart [9/2/2025 6:57 PM, Joshua Klein, 2608K] reports Republican chairmen of two key House committees dedicated to confronting the Chinese Communist Party are urging the State Department to issue a separate travel advisory for Somaliland, arguing that distinguishing it from Somalia would recognize Somaliland’s stability and democracy, encourage U.S. investment, and strengthen Washington’s ability to counter Beijing’s growing influence in the Horn of Africa — with the lawmakers stressing, "Strengthening cooperation with Somaliland is a productive step in advancing America’s security and diplomatic objectives in the region.". In a letter addressed to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and provided exclusively to Breitbart News ahead of its release, Congressman John Moolenaar (R-MI), chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ), chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, called for a separate travel advisory for Somaliland, describing it as a "concrete and immediately actionable step" that would shape commerce, investment, and international perception while reinforcing U.S. support for a democratic partner. The letter stresses that the current blanket "Do Not Travel" advisory for Somalia acts as a "severe deterrent for visitors, commerce, and investment," effectively penalizing Somaliland for the instability in the wider Somali state. By contrast, the lawmakers note, Somaliland has maintained a consistent record of stability under successive, democratically elected governments, preventing terrorism, piracy, and smuggling within its borders, and creating a "safe and prosperous society." Its security and law enforcement authorities have also ensured the safety of surrounding waters, making it a viable partner for U.S. engagement. Moolenaar and Smith argue that distinguishing Somaliland from Somalia in U.S. travel advisories would not only reflect the realities on the ground but also incentivize American businesses and investors to pursue opportunities in Somaliland’s natural resources, including critical minerals such as lithium and copper. They note that region-specific travel guidance is already issued by the State Department in other African countries, including Kenya, Ethiopia, and Cameroon. The lawmakers frame the request as part of a broader effort to counter the Chinese Communist Party’s influence in the Horn of Africa. They highlight Beijing’s military base in Djibouti and its role in facilitating Iran-backed Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping using Chinese-made weapons and satellite imagery. "It is crucial the United States strengthen relationships with stable, democratic partners in the region to push back against malign Chinese influence," they wrote. The letter also details Somaliland’s growing partnerships with other democratic allies, including Taiwan — in health care, infrastructure, and maritime security — and Israel, through its support of the Abraham Accords. Moolenaar and Smith note that the U.S. Development Finance Corporation has signaled a willingness to cooperate with Taiwan on financing critical mineral projects in Somaliland, reinforcing the territory’s strategic value. "The Department should take this opportunity to demonstrate tangible support for Somaliland, whose democratic commitments and security cooperation align closely with U.S. interests," the lawmakers concluded.

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