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.

CBS News [2/18/2026 10:59 PM, Camilo Montoya-Galvez, 51110K] reports the Trump administration has given Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers broader powers to detain lawful refugees who have yet to secure permanent U.S. residency, in its latest effort to more heavily scrutinize immigrants, illegal and legal alike, according to a government memo issued Wednesday and obtained by CBS News. The directive, dated Feb. 18 and submitted by government lawyers in a federal court filing on Wednesday, instructs ICE to detain refugees who entered the U.S. lawfully but who have not formally obtained permanent residency — also known as green card — a year after their admission. Refugees are immigrants granted a safe haven in the U.S. after proving they are fleeing persecution in their home countries due to their race, religion, nationality, political views or membership in a social group. Historically, the U.S. has resettled tens of thousands of refugees annually, most of whom undergo a years-long vetting process in refugee camps overseas before reaching American soil. But the Trump administration has virtually shut down the U.S. refugee program, making limited exemptions for some groups, including Afrikaners whom officials have claimed are escaping racial oppression in South Africa because they are White. The latest policy targets refugees already brought to the U.S. Under federal law, refugees are required to apply for a green card within a year of their arrival. Through the new memo, the Trump administration is arguing that those refugees who have not become permanent U.S. residents a year after coming to the country must return to government custody to have their cases reviewed and re-screened. The directive was issued by acting ICE Director Todd Lyons and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow, who, among other things, oversees the green card process. The memo says these refugees can return to government custody voluntarily by appearing for an interview at an immigration office. But if they don’t, the memo says, ICE must find, arrest and detain them. "[The Department of Homeland Security] must treat the one-year mark as a mandatory re-vetting point for all refugees who have not adjusted to [Lawful Permanent Resident] status, ensuring either that they are scheduled to ‘return’ to custody for inspection or, if they do not comply, that they be ‘returned’ to custody through enforcement action," the memo reads. The Washington Post [2/18/2026 11:18 PM, Arelis R. Hernández and Teo Armus, 24826K] reports that the new policy rescinds a 2010 memo that said failing to apply for status as a lawful permanent resident within a year of living in the United States is not a basis for detaining refugees who entered the country legally. Two Trump administration officials wrote in the new directive that the previous guidance was incomplete and that the law requires DHS to detain and subject those refugees to a new set of interviews while in detention. The memo appeared in a court filing one day before a scheduled hearing in Minnesota federal court, where a judge temporarily blocked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in late January from detaining 5,600 refugees in the state after several organizations sued. Immigration officers arrested dozens of resettled people from countries including Somalia, Ecuador and Venezuela for further questioning as part of an enforcement surge dubbed Operation PARRIS that the Trump administration has said was aimed at combating fraud. Immigration lawyers say many were quickly transported to Texas detention centers and later released without their identity documents. The International Refugee Assistance Project, one of the lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit, is asking a judge to declare the new refugee detention policy unlawful to prevent more refugees in Minnesota from being arrested. “I am concerned that the Feb. 18 memo and the indiscriminate detention of refugees in Minnesota are the opening salvos in an attack on refugees resettled all over the United States,” said Laurie Ball Cooper, the organization’s vice president for U.S. legal programs. Refugee resettlement groups across the country see the Minnesota operation as a precursor to an expected shift in refugee policy that could undermine the nation’s half-century-old promise to offer safe harbor to the world’s most persecuted. “This memo, drafted in secret and without coordination with agencies working directly with refugees, represents an unprecedented and unnecessary breach of trust,” said Beth Oppenheim, chief executive of HIAS, one of the oldest refugee agencies in the country and the world. “We have both a moral and a legal obligation to demand that DHS immediately rescind this action.” DHS did not respond to a request for comment on the memo and concerns from refugee resettlement organizations.

Reported similarly:
Reuters [2/19/2026 1:23 AM, Ted Hesson and Devika Madhusudhanan Nair, 38315K]

AP [2/19/2026 12:05 AM, Steve Karnowski, 31753K] reports a federal judge will hear arguments Thursday on whether he should extend an order that protects Minnesota refugees who are lawfully in the U.S. from being arrested and deported. U.S. District Judge John Tunheim blocked the government from targeting these refugees last month, saying the plaintiffs in the case were likely to prevail on their claims "that their arrest and detention, and the policy that purports to justify them, are unlawful." His Jan. 28 temporary restraining order will expire Feb. 25 unless he grants a more permanent preliminary injunction. Refugee rights groups sued the federal government in January after the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in mid-December launched Operation PARRIS, an acronym for Post-Admission Refugee Reverification and Integrity Strengthening. It was billed as a "sweeping initiative" to reexamine the cases of 5,600 Minnesota refugees who had not yet been granted permanent resident status, also known as green cards. The agencies cited fraud in public programs in Minnesota as justification. Operation PARRIS was part of the Trump administration’s broader immigration crackdown that targeted Minnesota, including the surge of thousands of federal officers into the state. Homeland Security said it was its largest immigration enforcement operation ever. It also sparked mass protests after the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. White House border czar Tom Homan announced last week the surge was ending, though a small federal presence would remain.

The Washington Post [2/18/2026 3:12 PM, Brianna Sacks, 24826K] reports that the Department of Homeland Security has halted almost all travel amid the ongoing standoff over its funding, restricting the ability of hundreds of Federal Emergency Management Agency staff members to move in and out of disaster-affected areas, according to emails and documents obtained by The Washington Post. Much of the department ran out of money over the weekend after negotiations stalled between the White House and Democratic lawmakers over restrictions on federal immigration enforcement. It is normal for the department to stop employees from traveling across the country for various assignments, such as trainings, during a funding lapse, 10 current and former FEMA officials said. But it is unusual for a government shutdown to impede ongoing disaster recovery efforts, the officials explained, saying it further reflects sweeping policies instituted under Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem. Typically, FEMA staffers who work on disasters are able to travel to and from ongoing recovery projects regardless of DHS funding issues. “During a funding lapse, FEMA prioritizes life safety and property protection. FEMA continues mission-essential operations for active disasters, including immediate response and critical survivor assistance,” FEMA spokesperson Daniel Llargués said in the statement. “While some non-essential activities will be paused or scaled back, FEMA remains committed to supporting communities and responding to incidents like Hurricane Helene.” The New York Times [2/18/2026 6:36 PM, Scott Dance, 148038K] reports that in response to questions about the order, FEMA officials said travel related to “active disasters” was not canceled. In an unsigned statement, FEMA said that Homeland Security officials were restricting travel to comply with federal law, while continuing any work to save lives or protect property. But that statement has confused many staff members, who received emails Tuesday and Wednesday showing that the travel restrictions affected some FEMA workers who were deployed to areas that were recovering from a disaster. For example, workers currently on routine two-week rotations away from their disaster assignments are not allowed to return to work. The agency told those who were set to travel to such areas to cancel their plans. The edict was Homeland Security’s latest move to constrict FEMA’s spending. Since June, Kristi Noem, the department’s secretary, has required that she approve all FEMA expenditures of $100,000 or more, a process that created a bottleneck that at one point reached $17 billion in disaster aid spending, The Times reported. CNN [2/18/2026 2:00 PM, Gabe Cohen, 612K] reports that more than 300 FEMA disaster responders were preparing for upcoming assignments but told to stand down, including some who are currently at a training facility, according to the agency messages. FEMA staffers already working on major recovery efforts — like the one that’s still happening in southern states hit by Hurricane Helene two years ago — will stay in the field and can’t return home unless their assignment is ending, according to the messages. For now, no new personnel can join or relieve them without explicit approval from DHS.

Reported similarly:
Reuters [2/19/2026 12:07 AM, Ted Hesson and Kanishka Singh, 38315K]

The Hill [2/18/2026 6:00 AM, Sudiksha Kochi, 18170K] reports House Democrats are plotting a range of moves to broadcast their defiance of President Trump during his State of the Union address to Congress next week. Trump’s speech marks a significant flash point amid a Department of Homeland Security shutdown, with the White House and Democrats locked in an impasse over reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection after immigration agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens in Minnesota. While some Democrats are making a quieter stand by skipping the high-profile event, others are prepared to walk out midspeech and bring guests to underscore their arguments about the real-world impact of Trump’s policies. “The only question for me is which of his disgusting lines prompts me to get up and leave, because at some point I will,” Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) told Axios. Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) told The Hill via text message that he’s “thinking” about protesting during Trump’s speech, though he didn’t share specifics on what exactly he’ll do. “I don’t have details to share but this President is not above [the] law, his massive corruption, unconstitutional actions, his insults to our allies and despicable acts at Epstein’s island must be protested,” he said. Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) said in an emailed statement she will be bringing one of her constituents, “who is a small business owner of a nonprofit daycare and advocate for the Affordable Care Act,” as her guest. “With the address likely to be divisive, I believe it’s important to have a guest in the room who has the pulse of what the American people really care about: affordable childcare and healthcare for all,” she said.

Reported similarly:
NewsMax [2/18/2026 10:24 AM, Charlie McCarthy, 3760K]
Washington Examiner [2/18/2026 6:00 AM, David Sivak, 1147K]

The Hill [2/18/2026 12:00 PM, Staff, 18170K] reports that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt will speak with reporters Wednesday afternoon as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown persists. The funding fight comes as Democrats push for reforms in how the DHS implements President Trump’s deportation agenda, from agents wearing masks to the use of force. While the department oversees several immigration enforcement agencies, it is also the parent department of the Transportation Security Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The White House and Senate Democrats have been engaged in a back-and-forth over how to move forward. Democrats offered yet another counterproposal to the White House on Tuesday, but negotiators said the two sides are still “far apart” on demands. The briefing also comes as Trump administration officials continue discussions with Russia and Ukraine to negotiate terms for a peace deal in the nearly four-year war and indirect talks with Iran over its nuclear program. The event is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. EST. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

The Hill [2/18/2026 2:53 PM, Julia Manchester, 18170K] reports that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called a counterproposal sent by Democrats on Tuesday to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) “unserious” during the White House press briefing Wednesday. “Last night, they sent over a counterproposal that frankly was very unserious, and we hope they get serious very soon because Americans are going to be impacted.” Senate Democrats sent the White House a counterproposal this week to fund the department, which has been shut down for nearly a week. Public details of the negotiations have been minimal, but both sides have traded barbs over the impasse. “Democrats are the reason that the Department of Homeland Security is currently shut down,” Leavitt said, speaking from the briefing room. “They have chosen to act against the American people for political reasons and now we have FEMA workers, the men and women of the United States Coast Guard, the men and women of TSA, who keep our airports moving, who will be working without paychecks for no good reason other than the Democrats wanting to pick a fight with Donald Trump, and the president thinks that is irresponsible and despicable.” “He wants the government to be open. We’ve been engaged in good-faith negotiations with Democrats,” she added.

Washington Examiner [2/18/2026 3:12 PM, Christian Datoc, 1147K] reports White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that President Donald Trump has yet to engage with Democratic leadership on the Department of Homeland Security shutdown, despite the president’s comments last week that he would personally be involved in the talks. Before departing the White House last Friday, Trump told reporters that he had not yet personally taken part in the DHS funding negotiations, but that he "will" soon. The department shut down after lawmakers failed to pass a stand-alone funding package, with major Democratic reservations about the Trump administration’s immigration policies. However, Leavitt said at Wednesday’s White House press briefing that the president "hasn’t had any direct conversations or correspondence with Democrat lawmakers recently." "It doesn’t mean he’s not willing to. I’m just not aware of any conversations that have taken place," she added. "I do know the White House and the president’s representatives have been in direct conversations with both Democrats and Republicans."

ABC News [2/18/2026 4:47 PM, Alexandra Hutzler, Lalee Ibssa, and Michelle Stoddart, 34146K] reports the standoff between Democrats and the White House over Department of Homeland Security funding and immigration enforcement continued on Wednesday, with both sides digging in as the partial government shutdown hit its fifth day. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the counteroffer made by Democrats "very unserious," while House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries remained firm that Democrats would not back away from their demands for reform. President Donald Trump, who had said he would be personally involved in negotiations, hasn’t yet spoken with Democrats, according to Leavitt. "He hasn’t had any direct conversation or correspondence with Democrat lawmakers recently. It doesn’t mean he’s not willing to. I’m just not aware of any conversations that have taken place," she told reporters at Wednesday’s press briefing. FEMA has paused almost all travel related to the agency’s work, according to multiple sources familiar with the decision, though travel related to disaster relief will continue.

The Hill [2/18/2026 2:21 PM, Mike Lillis, 18170K] reports that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) warned Wednesday that Democrats are “steadfast” in their demands for specific reforms to President Trump’s immigration enforcement policies. Those reforms are at the heart of the partisan impasse that’s halted funding to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for the last five days, setting the stage for what could be a lengthy agency shutdown as the sides battle over the scope and tactics of Trump’s deportation agenda. “It is our view that immigration enforcement in this country should be fair, it should be just, and it should be humane,” Jeffries told reporters in the Capitol. “That’s not what’s happening right now in the United States of America, and that’s why ICE needs to be reformed in a dramatic, bold, meaningful and transformational manner. “And if that doesn’t happen, the DHS funding bill will not move forward.” Heading into the partial shutdown, Democrats had demanded a series of reforms governing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and other federal law enforcers conducting Trump’s deportation surge in blue regions around the country. A White House official told The Hill the Democrats’ latest proposal shows “the parties are still pretty far apart.”

Reported similarly:
NewsMax [2/18/2026 4:29 PM, Sam Barron, 3760K]

CBS News [2/18/2026 11:42 AM, Staff, 51110K] reports that Democrats and Republicans are still clashing over funding for the Department of Homeland Security amid a partial government shutdown. CBS News congressional correspondent Nikole Killion has more. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

FOX News [2/18/2026 11:40 AM, Elizabeth Elkind, 37576K] reports that the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) internal watchdog has been forced to pause a significant chunk of its oversight of immigration enforcement as Democrats continue to withhold support for funding the Cabinet-level agency. A spokesperson for the DHS office of the inspector general (OIG) told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that most of its audits and inspections have had to be paused during the partial government shutdown, including many dealing with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Democrats have called for stricter oversight of ICE since President Donald Trump surged federal law enforcement agents to blue cities across the country in a bid to crack down on illegal immigration. But at least seven of the internal DHS probes into ICE conduct have been suspended after Democrats walked away from a bipartisan deal to fund the department, plunging it into a shutdown. "Most of OIG’s audits, inspections, and similar reviews… are paused during the lapse in appropriations. A small number of OIG audits related to disaster relief continue because they are supported by an extant appropriation," the spokesperson said. "OIG’s Criminal Investigators are excepted from furlough and are continuing their work during the lapse. OIG does not publicly confirm or deny the existence of any particular criminal investigation." In addition to affecting ICE oversight, a lengthy DHS shutdown also threatens funding for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), among other offices within DHS.

NewsMax [2/18/2026 11:32 AM, Brian Freeman, 3760K] reports that Democrats are "playing political football" with the American people as the government shutdown continues, Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, said on Newsmax Wednesday, warning that federal operations — such as TSA, the Coast Guard, FEMA, and the Secret Service — are being caught in the crossfire. Hunt, who is running for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas, told "National Report" that the standoff in Washington is putting unnecessary strain on front-line personnel tasked with protecting the American public. "Democrats are playing political football with the safety of the American people, and it has to come to an end," Hunt said. "Our number one mission is to make sure that we keep our citizens safe, and that is exactly what President Donald Trump is trying to do." Hunt, a House Judiciary Committee member, framed the impasse as a direct consequence of Democrat opposition to stepped-up immigration enforcement efforts supported by Trump. "The president was given a mandate, period," Hunt said, citing Trump’s victories in the popular vote, Electoral College, and swing states. "The reason why was literally because of immigration." Hunt argued that federal enforcement actions, including those carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, fall squarely within the federal government’s authority. He invoked the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause in defending those actions against resistance from Democrat-led states.

DailySignal [2/18/2026 2:35 PM, George Caldwell, 474K] reports that a group of House Republicans, accustomed to pressuring their own chamber’s leadership, is now publicly calling for the Senate to use a "talking filibuster" in order to pass voter identification legislation. "I don’t think the votes are there [in the Senate] to eliminate the filibuster, but they might be there to actually force the Democrats to do what’s called the ‘talking filibuster,’ which is the way it was up until the 1980s" House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., said in a recent Fox News appearance as he called for the Senate to pass the SAVE America Act. The bill would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and photo identification to vote in federal elections. It has passed in the House but has not received a vote in the Senate. A faction of Washington conservatives is calling for Senate Republicans to enforce rule 19 of the Standing Rules of the Senate, under which senators are limited to two speeches per legislative question. Under that strategy, Republicans would put the SAVE America Act on the floor, refuse to adjourn, and force Democrats to use up all their speeches. At the end of the process, Republicans could then vote on the bill and pass it with a simple majority. It would be an alternative to the norm of overcoming the filibuster by seeking 60 votes to end debate and bring the bill to a final vote. That would be unlikely due to Democrats’ general opposition to the bill.

FOX News [2/18/2026 12:10 PM, Alex Miller, 37576K] reports that Senate Republicans are hoping to move full steam ahead on Trump-backed voter ID legislation, but there’s one problem — the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is still shut down. Though negotiations between Senate Democrats and the White House are still ongoing, albeit at a molasses-like pace, there is no clear sign that a deal will be struck before lawmakers return to Washington, D.C., next week. Reopening the agency will be front and center in the Senate, meaning other priorities, like the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, will be sidelined. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who has led the charge in the Senate to build support around the SAVE America Act, hoped the bill would be on the floor as soon as the day after President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address next week. But he acknowledged that ending the partial shutdown would likely take precedence. "That’s the problem with taking a weeklong recess when they’ve shut down not just a department, but an entire department — and a particularly big department," Lee said. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., guaranteed that the voter ID legislation would get a vote. It’s just a matter of when, given the uncertainty surrounding DHS.

NewsMax [2/18/2026 10:36 AM, Staff, 3760K] reports requiring voter identification and proof of citizenship is "very common," Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks told Newsmax on Wednesday while backing the SAVE America Act. "Let’s be honest, you have to have an ID card to buy a beer to board a plane," the Iowa Republican said on Newsmax’s "Wake Up America." "I had to show proof of citizenship when I ... was appointed as director of the Department of Public Health in Iowa.” She also pushed back against Democrats labeling voter ID as "Jim Crow 2.0," pointing to past comments by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who spoke out about supporting proof of identity to prevent fraud. Miller-Meeks cited polling support for voter ID and said states that adopted election integrity measures did not see turnout decline. "The vast majority of Americans — 83%, including over 70% of Democrats — agree with voter ID," she said, noting that 36 states already require identification to vote. "When we passed election integrity laws in Iowa, and I did two rounds of that when I was a state senator, we didn’t have any reduction in the number of people who voted," said Miller-Meeks. "In fact, we had more people vote because they’re confident their vote counts.” She also pointed to close elections as evidence that even small numbers of improper ballots can matter. The SAVE America Act would require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, with supporters saying it targets illegal voting and critics warning it could block eligible voters who lack documents. Miller-Meeks also weighed in on the ongoing partial shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security, saying a Democrat counteroffer "was rejected by the White House" and criticizing the impact on workers and disaster response.

Washington Examiner [2/18/2026 10:29 AM, Adisa Hargett-Robinson, 1147K] reports Washington Examiner senior columnist Guy Benson criticized Democrats for their continued opposition to voter ID laws, questioning why Democrats "fight tooth and nail" against ID requirements. "Why is it that one political party in this country fights tooth and nail [against] any measure that even approaches a voter ID law and calls it suppression and racist?" Benson said on Fox News’s Varney and Co. on Monday. Benson suggested Democrats oppose such measures for political reasons, claiming they believe stricter election safeguards could hurt them electorally. "It’s a cynical view," he said. "The Democrats believe that some degree of voter fraud works in their favor, and so they want to protect it.” The debate comes as lawmakers consider the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, which would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote. Supporters say the legislation ensures only eligible citizens vote, while critics argue it could create obstacles for lawful voters who lack ready access to documentation. Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, have compared the proposal to "Jim Crow 2.0," framing it as a modern form of voter suppression. However, Washington Examiner Executive Editor Bob Cusack said many Democrats privately recognize the issue is politically difficult for them.

New York Times [2/18/2026 3:20 PM, Glenn Thrush, Devlin Barrett, Alan Feuer, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, and Hamed Aleaziz, 148038K] reports Homeland security officials, at the direction of the White House, are intensifying efforts to investigate voting by noncitizens in pursuit of President Trump’s baseless claims that illegal voting by undocumented immigrants is a rampant and insidious threat. Homeland Security Investigations, an arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, recently issued a two-page memo requiring its employees to “review all open and closed voter fraud cases” involving immigrants who registered to vote, or actually voted, before they became naturalized U.S. citizens. The memo, obtained by The New York Times, is part of an extraordinary all-fronts effort to insert federal law enforcement into the machinery of American elections ahead of the midterms. It is consistent with instructions the administration has issued to some U.S. attorneys’ offices around the country in recent weeks. The initiative “reflects the administration’s commitment to safeguarding democratic processes and maintaining public confidence in the electoral system,” the memo stated. The nationwide effort to find and charge criminal voting cases is meant to target all noncitizen voters, but could have a particularly negative effect on current and former green card holders. While in the country legally, green card holders are not U.S. citizens and therefore may not vote legally in federal, state and most local elections — but might be unaware of these distinctions. Such confusion is hardly unheard-of: It appeared to have been the cause of a small town mayor’s recent arrest on charges of voting illegally by the state authorities in Kansas. The push comes as an analysis of immigrant voting, commissioned by the Trump administration, has provided no evidence of widespread or even significant voter fraud, according to interviews with government officials and documents reviewed by The New York Times. Officials referred about 10,000 of 49.5 million voter registrations to Homeland Security Investigations for further investigation. That was roughly 0.02 percent of the names processed. The Justice Department and Homeland Security Department declined to comment.

Politico [2/18/2023 12:01 PM, Chris Marquette, 21784K] reports the Trump administration is pushing a legal change that could block states, cities and towns from offering free transportation to unauthorized immigrants, according to a proposal obtained by POLITICO — the latest in a series of Trump administration moves that seek to encroach on local transportation decisions. The draft law from the Department of Transportation would prohibit state and local governments from using federal transit money to help migrants elude federal immigration enforcement. But the proposed language could encompass a much broader range of activity, such as any free transportation to migrants, said a person familiar with the plan who was granted anonymity to discuss an internal matter. Such services have typically arisen in Democratic-run cities and states. The proposal would ensure that “systems that receive Federal funds are not using them to circumvent or break Federal immigration law,” the text reads. It would cover all federal programs the Federal Transit Administration administers, including buses, subways, light rail and ferries. The plan is part of a package of measures — including prohibiting speed cameras in Washington and restricting funding for free buses — that DOT and the White House are considering for inclusion in the surface transportation reauthorization bill that Congress is supposed to approve this year. The current law expires Sept. 30.

USA Today [2/18/2026 6:01 AM, Amani Bayo, 70643K] reports a federal judge reported receiving death threats after blocking the termination of Temporary Protected Status for Haitians. Judge Ana Reyes denied the government’s request to pause her order, allowing Haitian immigrants to remain in the U.S. as the case proceeds. The judge read excerpts of violent and misogynistic messages sent to her chambers during a court hearing. A federal judge who denied the federal government’s motion to stay her ruling blocking the termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians said she has received death threats in the days following her decision. U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, who in early February stayed the Department of Homeland Security’s termination of Haiti’s TPS designation, last week denied the government’s request to pause that order while an appeal moves forward. That means Haitian immigrants here on TPS will be allowed to stay in the country for the time being. Reyes announced that ruling at a Feb. 12 hearing, during which she also addressed backlash and violent messages sent to her chambers in response to her decision. According to the motions hearing transcript, Reyes read excerpts of messages she said were sent directly to her chambers, including emails telling her to "eat a bullet" and expressing hopes that she would die. She also referenced social media posts calling for the lynching of judges and violence against her family. "After issuing the opinion to stay DHS termination of Haiti’s TPS designation last week, it became very clear that many people have very strong opinions of me. Suffice it to say, those opinions are not uniformly positive," Reyes said.

The Hill [2/18/2026 10:32 AM, Lexi Lonas Cochran, 18170K] reports an immigration judge on Tuesday blocked the deportation of Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian activist who helped lead protests at Columbia University, after a procedural error by the Trump administration. Immigration judge Nina Froes said the administration failed to certify a document by Secretary of State Marco Rubio it wanted to use as evidence in the case. The memo by Rubio said a noncitizen can be deported if he deems them a threat to the country’s foreign policy. Due to the error, Froes terminated the removal proceedings, although the Trump administration can appeal the decision. “I am grateful to the court for honoring the rule of law and holding the line against the government’s attempts to trample on due process,” said Mahdawi in a statement released by his lawyers. “This decision is an important step towards upholding what fear tried to destroy: the right to speak for peace and justice.” Mahdawi was arrested a year ago during a citizenship interview but was released soon after by a judge. The Trump administration has continued to fight to remove him and several other pro-Palestinian campus leaders from the country. “It is a privilege to be granted a visa or green card to live and study in the United States of America. When you advocate for violence, glorify and support terrorists that relish the killing of Americans, and harass Jews, that privilege should be revoked, and you should not be in this country. No activist judge, not this one or any other, is going to stop us from doing that,” a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.

Reported similarly:
NBC News [2/18/2026 12:56 PM, Chloe Atkins, 42967K]

Politico [2/18/26 11"02 AM, Kyle Cheney, 21784K] reports the Trump administration acknowledged violating court orders issued by New Jersey’s federal judges more than 50 times over the past 10 weeks in cases stemming from the Trump administration’s mass deportation push. Associate Deputy Attorney General Jordan Fox, who was tapped in December to help lead the Justice Department’s New Jersey office after temporary pick Alina Habba was forced out, said those violations were spread across more than 547 immigration cases that have flooded the courts since early December, straining both prosecutors and judges. The violations include a deportation to Peru that occurred in violation of a judge’s injunction, as well as three missed deadlines to release ICE detainees. There were also six missed deadlines to respond to court orders, 12 missed deadlines to provide bond hearings to ICE detainees, 17 out-of-state transfers after judges had issued no-transfer orders, three instances of imposing release conditions in violation of court prohibitions and 10 instances of failing to produce evidence demanded by courts. “We regret deeply all violations for which our Office is responsible. Those violations were unintentional and immediately rectified once we learned of them,” Fox wrote in a letter accompanying the report. “We believe that [the Department of Homeland Security’s] violations were also unintentional.” Fox’s conciliatory approach stood in stark contrast with previous statements from the Justice Department and ICE that have blamed “rogue judges” for the administration’s noncompliance. DOJ produced the catalog of violations in response to an order by U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz. Farbiarz’s concerns mirror similar alarms raised by judges across the country who have described increasingly frequent violations of their edicts by administration officials carrying out the Trump administration’s mass deportation surge. Judges in Minnesota recently assessed that the administration violated 94 court orders in January. And judges across the country have described “rampant” and “purposeful” violations of their orders. Farbiarz praised the thoroughness of Fox’s report but said its conclusions were alarming, especially upon a closer inspection of the math.

Bloomberg [2/18/2026 11:06 AM, Erik Wasson, 18082K] reports that for the third time in President Donald Trump’s second term, at least part of the US government has entered a funding lapse after lawmakers failed to approve support for the Department of Homeland Security before a Feb. 13 deadline. This shutdown could last for some time: Both houses of Congress, which must pass a spending bill to restore the department’s funding, are on recess until Feb. 23. In the meantime, according to the department, most employees are continuing to work, allowing immigration enforcement and other operations to largely continue. Republicans, who hold a narrow majority in the 100-seat Senate, needed 60 votes to advance an appropriations bill to finance the Department of Homeland Security for the year. The chamber’s Democrats withheld their support after the White House turned down their demands for new limits on immigration enforcement. They also blocked a two-week stopgap bill for the department. Democrats are calling for new restrictions on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), including banning agents from wearing masks, requiring the use of body cameras, mandating judicial warrants for certain actions, ending roving street patrols and expanding the public’s ability to sue agents for alleged misconduct. Senate Democrats took that stance after two US citizens, Renée Good and Alex Pretti, were fatally shot by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis.

Federalist [2/18/2026 8:23 AM, Chris Bray, 540K] reports that rhetoric versus reality, plainly illustrated. If you read or watch the news, you see constant marches and riots over the enforcement of immigration laws. Activists chase ICE and Border Patrol personnel in the streets, screaming insults and blowing whistles to alert others to the presence of Trump’s mean immigration cops. High school students storm out of their classes (behind their activist teachers, following authority as they protest against government) to "march against hate," attacking people who disagree with them. If you believe what you see, the enforcement of immigration laws is becoming less popular by the day, as Americans rally to protect the people leftists call "our undocumented neighbors." They seem to be winning. The streets say that America wants a large and permanent population of illegal immigrants, consuming a growing set of public resources and driving the explosive growth of both government and government-funded NGOs. We want the Biden years back. We’re for this, passionately, and we want as much as we can get: But a remarkable story from the Spanish news site El Pais reports this week — the link is to the English-language version — on a development that will only be surprising if you believe what you see on CNN. "Local police agreements with ICE are skyrocketing in the United States, reigniting debate over public trust," the headline says. According to data published by ICE itself, as of February 13, 2026, the agency had signed 1,415 memoranda of understanding under section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, covering 40 states. In the first few weeks of 2026 alone, nearly 150 new local agencies joined the program.

AP [2/19/2026 12:08 AM, Ryan J. Foley and Jim Mustian, 35287K] reports the federal prosecutor’s office in Minnesota has been gutted by a wave of career officials resigning or retiring over objections to Trump administration directives. Because of the turmoil, 12-time convicted felon Cory Allen McKay caught a break. With a three-decade record of violent crime that includes strangling a pregnant woman and firing a shotgun under a person’s chin, McKay was scheduled to stand trial next month on methamphetamine trafficking charges that could have locked him up for 25 years. Instead, he walked free after the prosecutor on his case retired. The Trump administration says its aggressive immigration enforcement in Minnesota has improved public safety. Left in its wake, though, is a greatly weakened U.S. Attorney’s Office, where many prosecutors resented the way Trump’s political appointees at the Justice Department managed them. Offices in other states, from New York to Virginia, have also been hit by resignations as prosecutors object to what they see as the politicization of decision-making under Trump. But Minnesota has been hit especially hard. A growing number of defendants like McKay are beginning to escape accountability, as the remaining prosecutors are forced to dismiss some cases, kill others before charges are filed and seek plea agreements and delays. Local officials worry the office will be unable, at least temporarily, to bring charges against some of the state’s most serious offenders. “The result will be a diminished ability to target dangerous fraudsters, sexual predators, violent gangs and drug traffickers,” said John Marti, a Minneapolis lawyer who was a longtime fraud prosecutor in the office until 2015.

The Hill [2/18/2026 5:31 PM, Ryan Mancini, 18170K] reports the Hennepin County, Minn., Attorney’s office on Wednesday demanded that the federal government hand over records and evidence related to the killing of U.S. citizen Alex Pretti by federal officers during a federal immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis last month. The office of Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty accused the Trump administration of hiding evidence after sending a representative to oversee discussions between the FBI and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) regarding Pretti’s death and the shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, who was shot in the leg by federal officers in Minneapolis last month. Moriarty’s office said the “final decision” conveyed by the FBI to the BCA last week was “that there would be no cooperation.”

New York Times [2/18/2026 6:07 PM, Pranav Baskar, 148038K] reports four journalists investigating a secretive Trump administration effort to deport migrants to the African nation of Cameroon were detained on Tuesday, according to two of the people detained. The journalists, along with a lawyer representing most of 15 detained migrants, were seized by the police at a state-run compound in Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon, where they were interviewing the deportees. The New York Times reported on Saturday that the compound was a detention center for African migrants who were recently deported from the United States by the Department of Homeland Security. None of the deportees are Cameroonian citizens. And almost all had received protection from American courts, which banned the government from sending them back to their home countries, where they would most likely face persecution, according to government documents obtained by The Times and interviews with their lawyers. All of the five were later freed. Before the journalists were released, the police confiscated their phones, cameras and laptops, saying the journalists had captured sensitive government information, according to Mr. Fru and Mr. Sa’ah. It was unclear if any had been charged.

Axios [2/18/2026 1:43 PM, Josephine Walker, 17364K] reports that federal agents are usually immune from lawsuits in ways local and state officials aren’t, but the Trump administration’s immigration policies are prompting states to test the gap with novel strategies to hold them accountable. Why it matters: The Trump administration has suggested federal agents possess "absolute immunity" from state-led prosecutions, which sparked outrage following the deaths of two Minneapolis residents. "For most of American history, there were already paths to suing federal officials," Harrison Stark, of the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School, tells Axios, particularly torts that compensate for constitutional violations. Plus, a 1971 Supreme Court decision expanded individuals’ ability to sue federal agents, but the court has sharply scaled that pathway back in recent years. Instead, the court has suggested that Congress should be the body to create new remedies, although it has not done so. "The result is that you have federal agents who are behaving as if they know it is extremely unlikely that they will face any penalty for violating constitutional rights," Stark said. Between the lines: Legal precedent may favor the federal government. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Houston Chronicle [2/18/2026 7:00 AM, Lisa Falkenberg, 2493K] reports the morning porridge has worms – not all the time but enough that the kids remember. Food is often moldy, expired, repetitive and lacking in adequate nutrition. Water has a putrid smell, and moms say it’s making their kids sick. “The kids are literally begging for slices of oranges,” Michigan attorney Eric Lee told me. “It’s hard to even describe.” That’s not the worst of what parents and kids have reported to lawyers, legal aid groups, journalists and visiting Congress members about the conditions at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Dilley, Texas. Lee, who represents a mother and her five children confined at Dilley for eight months, said the 5-year-old twins are hardly eating and the 9-year-old is verbalizing suicidal thoughts. Schooling is virtually non-existent, he said, and even urgent medical care has been denied. When one of the twins had appendicitis, the child was initially given only Tylenol, Lee said, and later was forced to “writhe in pain” for hours at urgent care before finally being taken to San Antonio for surgery. These are the children still jailed at Dilley – the ones who weren’t photographed with a blue bunny cap or Spiderman backpack, but who deserve our outrage just the same. In January, the plight of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos drew national headlines and widespread condemnation. His fearful eyes in a photo taken after federal agents snatched him up on the way home from preschool helped us see the absurdity of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, which was supposed to target violent criminals. The image of Liam days later at Dilley – sprawled limply across his father’s lap, tiny mouth open, eyes shut to the world – helped us see the cruelty.

The Hill [2/18/2026 10:41 AM, Max Rego, 18170K] reports Katie Zacharia, a conservative lawyer and commentator, is joining the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as a spokesperson and deputy assistant secretary after Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said Tuesday she is leaving the department. Zacharia will work under Lauren Bis, who is being promoted to the assistant secretary role. McLaughlin, a sharp defender of the Trump administration’s immigration policies on social media and TV, is expected to leave her post next week. In a post on social platform X confirming her resignation, McLaughlin called Zacharia “a dynamic and effective voice in media.” Zacharia has been a commentator for Newsmax since 2024 and has also appeared as a guest on Fox News. Zacharia said she was “honored and proud to serve” President Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “as the new Spokesperson and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs.” “I will continue to work tirelessly to Make America Great Again!” she added.

Blaze [2/18/2026 11:15 AM, Joseph MacKinnon, 1556K] reports that Tricia McLaughlin, an unflappable 31-year-old defender of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration, announced on Tuesday that she is stepping down as Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary. One DHS official told the New York Times that McLaughlin — a former top communications aide to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) and ABC News contributor — had made plans to leave the agency in December but, feeling duty-bound, stuck it out for several more months to lend her support amid backlash over the fatal shootings of anti-U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement radicals Alex Pretti and Renee Good. McLaughlin told the Cincinnati Enquirer last month that she wanted to return to Cincinnati with her husband, Republican political strategist Benjamin Yoho, to start their family. Yoho and McLaughlin tied the knot in August. She noted further that with regard to running for office or getting involved in local politics, she "wouldn’t rule anything out.” In a statement on Tuesday, McLaughlin expressed gratitude to President Donald Trump, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, and the American people, claiming that it has been an "honor and privilege to serve this great nation." "I am immensely proud of the team we built and the historic accomplishments achieved by this Administration and the Department of Homeland Security," added McLaughlin. McLaughlin noted further that Lauren Bis, who has been working as deputy assistant secretary for media relations, will take over as assistant secretary for public affairs and that Katie Zacharia — a commentator on Fox News and Newsmax — will step into the role of both DHS spokeswoman and deputy assistant secretary.

Bloomberg [2/18/2026 2:17 PM, Erin Schilling, 763K] reports that tax enforcement has entered a new age. The decades-old Justice Department Tax Division is now split between the broader civil and criminal divisions. Critics say the reorganization sends a signal that tax enforcement won’t be a priority. While the reorganization may mean tax attorneys are pulled into different DOJ priorities, it also could mean more investigations will include tax charges, said Karen Kelly, who was the top official at the DOJ Tax Division before she joined Kostelanetz as a partner in August. DOJ tax attorneys are prioritizing immigration, fraud, and investigations into tax-exempt organizations that may have ties to "Antifa," Kelly said. The latter refers to an informal collection of people with left-leaning views that was a focus of a recent directive from Attorney General Pam Bondi. The Department of Justice’s tax division is no more. A Trump administration reorganization last year ended the nearly 80-year-old division and split its functions into the civil and criminal divisions of the department. Today on the podcast, we’re going to hear from someone who has firsthand knowledge of how and why this went down, Karen Kelly, who was the top official at the tax division before she ended her 28-year career at DOJ in August. Now Kelly is a partner at the law firm Kostelanetz, and she spoke with Bloomberg Tax reporter Erin Schilling about the breakup of her former division. She also talked about a December memo from Attorney General Pam Bondi that instructs DOJ lawyers to investigate tax-exempt organizations linked to far-left political causes and what those organizations should be doing about this right now.

Daily Caller [2/18/2026 2:12 PM, Jason Hopkins, 803K] reports that a group of conservative organizations is launching a coalition to push the Trump administration to take its deportation agenda to the next level. The Mass Deportation Coalition, to be officially unveiled on Wednesday, calls on President Donald Trump to fulfill his campaign promise of executing the largest deportation operation in history by focusing on the removal of most illegal migrants from the country. The group is pledging to release a comprehensive plan on how to achieve at least one million deportations throughout 2026. "In order for the President to fully achieve his signature campaign promise of the largest deportation operation in American history, enforcement must now shift from the limited subset of criminal illegal aliens, towards a much larger population of those illegally present in the United States," Mark Morgan, who formerly led both Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told the Daily Caller News Foundation. "That is the only path to put integrity back into the immigration system and to push back against selective enforcement demands coming from Congress," Morgan continued. "This coalition stands to support those efforts, even as special interests viciously oppose them."

New York Times [2/18/2026 7:06 PM, Mattathias Schwartz, Zach Montague, and Luis Ferré-Sadurní, 148038K] reports the Trump administration has violated more than 50 orders from federal judges in the District of New Jersey, all in cases involving immigrants’ challenging the legality of their detention, according to a court-ordered review conducted by a senior Justice Department official. The admission comes as federal judges around the country grapple with how best to address an emerging pattern of government noncompliance in immigration cases. Judges have castigated what they have described as the administration’s lawless approach in their rulings, summoned senior officials to their courtrooms to account for their lapses, and threatened to hold officials in contempt of court. In the New Jersey case, Judge Michael E. Farbiarz, who was appointed by President Joseph R. Biden Jr., ordered the administration to detail every instance in which it had failed to comply with a judicial order in the district since Dec. 5. In a response last week, Jordan Fox, the chief of staff to the deputy attorney general, filed an 11-page declaration describing 52 separate violations across 547 cases, describing them as accidental.

New York Times [2/19/2026 5:02 AM, Elizabeth Whidden, Robin Canada, and D. Daphne Owen, 148038K] reports our patient had done everything right. After years of suffering from advanced liver disease, she had recovered and was caring for herself and her family. She had community support and regular medical care, and the last time we saw her in clinic, she expressed a cautious but real sense of optimism. Then everything collapsed. Her husband and teenage son were taken off the street by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Within hours of their arrest, they were pressured into signing self-deportation papers; within days, they were deported. Amid this terrifying situation, our patient stopped taking her medication and her health rapidly deteriorated. In November, just a few weeks after the deportations, a life-threatening bleed left her unconscious at home. She died in the intensive care unit, without her family. In June, another patient, still recovering from a recent stroke, was taken by ICE outside his home, seized in front of his wife and toddler. His stroke left him physically incapable of fleeing, yet two plainclothes officers manhandled him into an unmarked van and took him into custody. After several weeks in Moshannon Valley Processing Center in central Pennsylvania, he was released, thanks to the efforts of family, legal advocates and his medical providers. When he came back to clinic, he was soft-spoken and visibly shaken. In detention he had missed weeks of medication, and he continues to deal with the undertreated effects of his stroke, which make walking difficult and returning to work impossible. He told us he struggles to sleep through the night and often feels exhausted and depressed. What happened to our patients are the inevitable consequences of ICE treating people and families as targets rather than as human beings, carrying out enforcement without any consideration of medical risk or family circumstances. Detention, deportation and family separation don’t merely cause social and legal harm; they also create profound medical stress that exacerbates chronic disease, worsens mental health and induces medical crises. Between the three of us, we have worked with undocumented patients for years across many administrations. Our patients have always dealt with fear of deportation, limited access to care and a paltry safety net. But the past year has brought a shift: Immigration enforcement has moved from a largely targeted system to a highly visible, indiscriminate one. The paramilitary-style raids in city streets, racialized targeting of people perceived as nonwhite, expanded data sharing between health and immigration authorities, and removal of sanctuary protections that previously prevented ICE activity in health care settings have fundamentally altered risk calculations for immigrant communities.

Wall Street Journal [2/18/2023 3:22 PM, Sol Trujillo, 646K] reports the U.S. economy has long been the world’s most powerful. America’s strength rests on sustained capital investment—but also on a growing supply of labor. More workers means more production, consumers and demand. The Trump administration’s mass deportations threaten to break that virtuous circle. The U.S. was already slowly approaching zero labor-force growth as fertility fell and the population aged. What kept the country from a demographic disaster was immigration. The 3,000-person-a-day arrest quota for immigration enforcement looks like an act of economic self-sabotage. No one wants to harbor violent criminals. But the Cato Institute obtained internal Department of Homeland Security data showing that 73% of those detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement between Oct. 1 and Nov. 15 had no criminal conviction and only 5% had a violent-crime conviction. Research from the Center for Migration Studies finds that the undocumented workforce in the U.S. is large and overwhelmingly employed across key sectors of the economy. Many of the 675,000 immigrants deported last year were working to build data centers, manufacturing plants, energy infrastructure and housing. Who will take their place when the U.S. has six million unfilled jobs? Deportations impose costs on citizens too. The Peterson Institute for International Economics projected in 2024 that deporting 1.3 million workers could raise consumer prices by 1.5% within three years as labor shortages worsen. Deportations lead to the loss of jobs for citizens, according to the Hamilton Project. As the lack of workforce tamps down business growth, fewer U.S.-born workers are hired as a result. Consumption also declines: The Brookings Institute estimates that the U.S. lost between $40 billion and $60 billion in consumer spending in 2025 because of deportations. That, too, slows economic growth. The cost also shows up in your tax bill. The ICE budget has risen from $9.99 billion in 2024 to a proposed $11.3 billion this year, and last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act gives ICE access to a $75 billion fund on top of discretionary funding available through 2029. Add to this lost tax revenue from immigrants themselves. A 2024 American Immigration Council report found undocumented-immigrant households paid more than $70 billion in federal, state and local taxes in 2022. As a businessman, a taxpayer and an American with roots in this country that go back more than 400 years, I want to see us keep growing as we have for the past 250 years. I believe the vast majority of Americans feel the same way. The question we need to ask: What is the ROI on our investment in ICE?

USA Today [2/18/2026 11:28 AM, Staff, 70643K] reports during my 25 years as a federal prosecutor with the Justice Department, I worked with all the big federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Secret Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. One of my best experiences was working with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. Before President Donald Trump siphoned ICE into a vortex of Home Depot parking lot raids, its agents handled more than just immigration enforcement. The ICE agent I worked with caught a U.S. citizen with hundreds of child pornography videos, as he came through Los Angeles International Airport upon returning from a trip to the Philippines. This American had gamed the state system for years, receiving slaps on the wrist for a series of indecent exposures and related crimes that led us to believe he had sexually assaulted children. We worked for more than a year to get this suspected pedophile to trial. My ICE agent was tireless in his dedication. When I could not stomach the idea of watching 600 videos of adults making children do unspeakable things, I assigned him to watch them all and pick out the worst 20 – which I narrowed down to a handful that we presented to the jury. We convicted the defendant and in 2010 secured a record prison sentence of 35 years. Based on my experience with ICE, I was perplexed when a segment of the public launched an "Abolish ICE" campaign early in Trump’s second term. Despite firmly believing that part of what makes America great is its diverse people and cultures, I’ve always maintained that every sovereign nation has the right to decide who it lets into its borders. Trump’s promise to deport undocumented "killers," "rapists," "gang members" and those "eating" people’s pets led many to believe he was going to target "the worst of the worst." But it quickly became clear that Trump and Department of Homeland Security adviser Stephen Miller were directing DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to arrest and deport as many undocumented people as possible, regardless of whether they have a criminal record ‒ or whether they are 5. Even if I could get past the waste of resources and damage to this country’s economy that comes with deporting thousands of undocumented people who do the back-breaking agricultural work that Americans snub their noses at, I can never get past the lawlessness, cruelty and incompetence in the execution of Trump’s immigration policy.

New York Times [2/18/2026 7:23 PM, Madeleine Ngo, Hamed Aleaziz and Allison McCann, 148038K] reports Stacy Bradley voted for President Trump because of his border policies, and she likes that he has restored “law and order.” But she is unsettled by one aspect of his immigration agenda. Last month, the federal government bought a warehouse next to her cheerleading gym in Surprise, Ariz., which the administration plans to convert into a detention center for up to 1,500 immigrants. Ms. Bradley, the co-owner of Woodlands Elite Cheer, said she worried that a detainee could escape, or that protests could break out. The children who train at her gym are as young as 3 and could see “people in shackles” next door, she said. “That’s a scary thing for a little kid to process,” Ms. Bradley said. Across the country, the Department of Homeland Security’s plans to buy industrial warehouses and turn them into detention centers for immigrants are running into local resistance, including in communities like Surprise that voted for Mr. Trump in the last presidential election. The pushback is complicating efforts to expand detention capacity to accommodate the tens of thousands of additional immigrants the administration expects to confine, to deliver on its mass deportation drive.Local officials and residents in at least a dozen areas have voiced opposition to the facilities, packing town hall meetings and expressing fears that the protests that recently shook Minneapolis could be unleashed in their backyards. Those who object to the facilities say that the sites would diminish property tax revenue, harm local businesses and strain water and sewer infrastructure. They have also expressed humanitarian concerns over converting industrial warehouses into detention centers that could hold people for an average of 60 days. Nevertheless, the Trump administration is pressing forward in pursuit of its goal to expand its detention footprint to at least 100,000 beds, which will help it arrest, detain and deport more people. A D.H.S. official with knowledge of the plans, speaking anonymously to share internal information, said the expansion would allow the agency to avoid overcrowding. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has already faced complaints of crowded and unsafe conditions at many current facilities, including in hold rooms and processing centers that were not intended for long-term detention.Of the roughly 20 warehouses being eyed for purchase, at least eight have already been bought in states including Maryland, Georgia, Texas and Pennsylvania, according to internal Department of Homeland Security documents obtained by The New York Times. Some purchases collapsed in recent weeks in other areas as potential sellers faced mounting public backlash and canceled sales. The warehouses will be renovated to meet detention standards and provide food, medical and laundry services, according to ICE.

NPR [2/18/2026 6:26 PM, Meg Anderson, 28764K] reports like many people in the Twin Cities, Jess has been observing ICE officers: following them in her car and documenting their actions. Earlier this month, she was in North Minneapolis, when immigration agents told her and another observer they were impeding a federal investigation. "We followed at a distance. We never got in front of them. We never honked our horns. We never made any sort of noise. We were just keeping an eye on them," said Jess, who requested NPR only use her first name because she fears retaliation from the federal government. She says she kept tracking the officers at a distance. But then the three vehicles she was following turned around and drove toward her. Federal agents hopped out. "They all had their guns drawn. I kept saying, ‘What you’re doing is illegal. You have no right to do this,’" she said. "At that point, they started breaking my window. All I could think about was not being shot.” One officer shattered her driver’s side window with a baton. At that, she opened the door. The agents pulled her out and handcuffed her. She was detained for about eight hours. Now, Jess is waiting to see whether the federal government is going to charge her with a crime for observing its actions. She is not the only person in that position. NPR spoke with several other observers in Minnesota who said immigration officers told them they were impeding federal investigations. Increasingly, the Trump administration is attempting to criminalize the actions of people tracking and observing its immigration officers, using one particular federal statute: A law that makes it illegal to forcibly impede or interfere with a federal officer. "While the Trump administration supports everyone’s First Amendment right to freedom of speech and assembly and to petition, it has to be done lawfully and peacefully, because we will not tolerate unlawful actions committed by agitators who are just causing havoc," White House border czar Tom Homan said in a Feb. 12 press conference announcing plans to end the enforcement surge in Minnesota. Homan pointed out, accurately, that "forcibly assaulting, resisting, opposing, impeding, intimidating or interfering with a federal law enforcement officer is a crime." But legal experts say that’s not what observers are doing. "A lot of the activities that the government is claiming are interfering or obstructing, in the vast majority of those examples, they’re engaged in perfectly lawful conduct," says Scarlet Kim, a senior staff attorney with the Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project at the ACLU, which is suing the administration for violating the First Amendment rights of protesters and observers in Minnesota.

Los Angeles Times [2/18/2026 5:36 PM, Gavin J. Quinton, 12718K] reports at Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities across the country, detainees go without medicine for serious health conditions, endure miscarriages while shackled and are dying in record numbers, a group of U.S. senators said. In a letter sent Friday to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and ICE senior official Todd Lyons, 22 Democratic lawmakers alleged that a "dramatic" surge in deaths in federal immigration custody is a "clear byproduct" of the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda and rapid expansion of detention. At least 32 people died in ICE custody in 2025, they asserted. That’s triple the previous year’s total and more deaths than were recorded during the entire Biden administration. ICE has reported seven deaths so far this year, as well as seven in December alone. In the letter, the senators demanded detailed information about the agency’s death investigations, medical standards and oversight procedures.

Breitbart [2/18/2026 4:12 PM, John Binder, 2238K] reports Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested illegal aliens convicted of some of the most heinous crimes, including manslaughter, child abuse, and sex crimes, Breitbart News has learned. "While the media and sanctuary politicians continue to ignore American victims of illegal alien crime, our officers were arresting criminal illegal aliens," the Department of Homeland Security’s Tricia McLaughlin said.

NPR [2/19/2026 3:05 AM, Ramtin Arablouei, Julie Caine, Casey Miner, Lawrence Wu, Cristina Kim, Anya Steinberg, Devin Katayama, and Thomas Coltrain, 28764K] Audio: HERE reports the U.S. immigration detention system is spread out across federal facilities, private prisons, state prisons, and county jails. It’s grown under both Democratic and Republican presidents. And it’s been offered up as a source of revenue for over a century, beginning with the first contracts between the federal government and sheriffs along the Canadian border. This episode originally published in September 2025. [Editorial note: consult audio at source link]

Breitbart [2/18/2026 9:15 PM, Ian Hanchett, 2238K] reports on Wednesday’s broadcast of MS NOW’s “Morning Joe,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) said that for people of faith “it is unacceptable to have a body count from ICE’s actions or to see these people injured” and that “If you’re a person of faith, you don’t want to see people chained at the ankles.” Beshear said, “Yes, border security is national security. And, yes, we have to enforce our immigration laws, but how we do it shows our humanity or lack of it.” He continued, “If you’re a person of faith, you don’t want to see people chained at the ankles. If you’re a person of faith, it is unacceptable to have a body count from ICE’s actions or to see these people injured or to see ICE agents lying, the aggressive tactics, the way that they are treating people is just not right. Because, again, even if somebody is in this country illegally, and, thus, needs to be deported, they are still a child of God, and how we treat them is incredibly important. We can enforce our laws in a humane way, and also one that recognizes and protects the rights of American citizens and everybody else.” [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Reuters [2/18/2026 11:19 PM, Kanishka Singh, 38315K] reports Microsoft (MSFT.O) said on Wednesday it did not think the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency was using its technology for mass surveillance of civilians but added that it provided cloud-based productivity and collaboration tools to ICE. The statement from the technology company came in response to a report by The Guardian that said ICE deepened its reliance on Microsoft’s cloud technology last year as the agency ramped up arrest and deportation operations. The newspaper cited leaked documents. ICE more than tripled the amount of data it stored in Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform in the six months leading up to January 2026, a period in which the agency’s budget swelled and its workforce rapidly expanded, The Guardian reported, adding ICE appeared to be using a range of Microsoft’s productivity tools, as well as AI-driven products, to search and analyze the data it holds in Azure. "As we’ve previously said, Microsoft provides cloud-based productivity and collaboration tools to DHS (Department of Homeland Security, of which ICE is a part) and ICE, delivered through our key partners," a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement. "Microsoft policies and terms of service do not allow our technology to be used for the mass surveillance of civilians, and we do not believe ICE is engaged in such activity.” The company said the U.S. Congress, the executive branch and the courts should draw "clear legal lines" regarding the permissible use of emerging technologies by law enforcement.

CNN [2/19/2025 5:01 AM, Lauren Mascarenhas, 19874K] reports as the Trump administration continues its immigration crackdown across the US, health care providers warn the impact of federal agents in health care settings – and the looming threat of immigration enforcement they’ve instilled nationwide – is presenting a barrier to care that could have a lasting impact on the health of communities. With many people unable or afraid to access care, some providers say they are seeing a decline in patient numbers they haven’t seen since the Covid-19 pandemic – this time providing care while potentially dealing with federal agents in tactical gear. Doctors are already seeing the impact on appointments, vaccination numbers and even basic nutrition, and they’re worried the long-term health consequences could be serious. In the Twin Cities, which saw a huge influx of federal immigration agents this year that sent the region into a state of chaos and resistance, armed ICE agents have been seen lining the hallways, accompanying patients in their custody, a senior physician at a large hospital in the Twin Cities told CNN. The doctor asked to remain anonymous out of concern that he or his hospital would be targeted. “As doctors, I think our job is to take care of the patient in front of us, and we’re not involved in immigration enforcement,” the doctor said. “Until last month, that had never been a part of my job description.” But then, patients began entering his hospital under the custody of federal immigration agents. In January, the Trump administration rescinded a Biden-era policy that banned immigration enforcement actions in “sensitive areas,” like schools, places of worship and hospitals. “The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in a statement at the time. Generally, federal immigration agents are allowed in health care settings where other members of the public are permitted, like waiting rooms, but need a warrant to access private patient areas. “ICE does not conduct enforcement at hospitals—period. We would only go into a hospital if there were an active danger to public safety,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told CNN in a statement. “Of course, if we have a detainee we need to take to the hospital for medical care, we have officers accompany them for their monitoring, safety of the staff, and the public. This is standard procedure for all law enforcement agencies.” But doctors say that the presence of these agents in health care settings can be disruptive and intimidating.

New York Post [2/19/2026 3:23 AM, Nicholas McEntyre, 40934K] reports Irish rock band U2 invoked Renee Nicole Good – the anti-ICE agitator gunned down by federal agents in Minnesota last month – in their new song "American Obituary," while calling for a "rise against the people of the lie.” The Grammy award-winning band’s controversial jam is the first track on their EP "Days of Ash," published Wednesday, honoring the Minneapolis mother of three who was killed while impeding immigration officials. The song states the time, 9:30 a.m., as the approximate time Good was shot three times on a Minneapolis street. Trump administration officials, including Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, described Good as a "domestic terrorist" after the shooting.

FOX News [2/18/2026 4:10 PM, Louis Casiano, 37576K] reports a former Maine city councilman gave an impassioned speech during a meeting Tuesday in opposition to an emergency ordinance prohibiting city workers from cooperating with federal immigration authorities, which passed anyway. Former Lewiston City Councilor Tim Gallant spoke during a public comment period on the measure, which passed in a 5-2 vote. The City Council heard from both supporters and opponents of the ordinance, which blocks city employees, including police, from working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The emergency ordinance is similar to a recently passed state law that also limits cooperation with federal immigration officials, but that law won’t take effect until the summer. The Lewiston ordinance will fill that gap in the meantime. Once passed, the emergency ordinance took effect immediately. However, it expires in 60 days. Lawmakers will vote whether to make the ordinance permanent at the next city council meeting.

Politico [2/18/2026 5:00 AM, Kyle Cheney, 21784K] reports a Myanmar refugee, with a nursing five-month-old at home, whisked abruptly to Texas by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A Massachusetts woman in her third trimester, held under ICE’s guard at a hospital after experiencing medical distress in ICE detention. An Indian national who is three months pregnant and whose weight dropped to 90 pounds while in an ICE facility. Federal judges are sounding alarms about the Trump administration’s treatment of pregnant and nursing detainees in ICE custody — and the administration has given the courts conflicting, unclear answers about whether it is following its own policies that sharply restrict those detentions. Against that uncertainty, courts are being confronted with harrowing stories about women being separated from their nursing infants or housed in cramped and ill-equipped ICE facilities while pregnant, in conditions that threaten their health and have, in some cases, been followed by miscarriages. That crystallized over the weekend in Massachusetts, when Djeniffer Benvinda Semedo, a Cape Verdean national who is six months pregnant, was rushed to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center for emergency care. The woman claimed that ICE held her in a temporary holding facility for three days, exacerbating her medical distress. On Tuesday, ICE released Benvinda Semedo ahead of an emergency effort by her attorneys to ask a judge for her release, though she remains hospitalized. For months, ICE has declined to say whether that Biden-era policy, which allows for detention only in “exceptional circumstances” such as threats to national security, remains in force. A Justice Department attorney told a federal judge in August that the policy had been effectively revoked by President Donald Trump’s Day One executive order requiring the administration to maximize its deportation and detention operations. “Pregnancy in ICE detention is exceedingly rare — making up 0.133% of all illegal aliens in custody,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “Pregnant women receive regular prenatal visits, mental health services, nutritional support, and accommodations aligned with community standards of care. This includes medical, dental, and mental health intake screening within 12 hours of arriving at each detention facility, a full health assessment within 14 days of entering ICE custody or arrival at a facility, and access to necessary medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care.”

FOX News [2/18/2026 12:45 PM, Louis Casiano, 37576K]an illegal immigrant from Ecuador charged with sexual abuse of a child was arrested last week by federal authorities after he was previously released back onto the street because of Connecticut sanctuary policies, officials said. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers took Christian Espinosa-Sarango into custody on Feb. 13 in North Haven. Espinosa-Sarango was charged on Dec. 19, 2025 with sexual assault, illegal sexual contact with a child, and enticing minors with a computer in North Haven, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said. "These are the types of monsters Connecticut sanctuary politicians are releasing from their jails and onto the streets to perpetuate more crimes against children," said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. Breitbart [2/18/2026 4:49 PM, John Binder, 2238K] reports that according to police, Espinosa-Sarango allegedly contacted an undercover law enforcement agent posing as the aunt of a 13-year-old girl, asking the undercover agent for photos of the girl and seeking to have sex with her. Espinosa-Sarango made arrangements to meet up with the girl at a hotel room, but when he arrived, the police arrested and charged him with child sex crimes. On December 23, 2025, ICE agents lodged a detainer against Espinosa-Sarango, seeking custody of him so that he would not be released back into the community. Thanks to Connecticut’s sanctuary state policy, Espinosa-Sarango was released from jail rather than being turned over to ICE. On February 13, ICE agents located and arrested Espinosa-Sarango, who attempted to flee and refused to roll down his vehicle window in an effort to evade arrest.

Reported similarly:
Daily Wire [2/18/2026 9:58 AM, Jennie Taer, 2314K]

Univision [2/18/2026 3:13 PM, Staff, 4937K] reports the family of Victor Tarazona, a Peruvian day laborer who worked in Irvington, New Jersey, has been living through weeks of anguish after his detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in December 2025, without them being able to officially confirm his whereabouts until now. When the family tried to locate him through the official ICE system, they discovered that his name was not listed as having been transferred out of New Jersey. According to Gabriela, the record still lists Newark as his location, which contradicts the information he provided before they lost contact. Gabriela maintains that her brother has no criminal record, has a U visa, an immigration status granted to victims of certain crimes who cooperate with the authorities, and also suffers from schizophrenia, a condition that requires treatment and constant medical monitoring. The family’s main concern is that, due to his diagnosis, Víctor may be facing difficulties without adequate access to medication or specialized care.

NewsMax [2/18/2026 8:28 AM, Charlie McCarthy, 3760K] reports lawmakers in a Maryland county on Tuesday night voted to ban the establishment or operation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers. The Baltimore County Council approved the emergency measure in a unanimous 6-0 vote, effectively prohibiting any current or future ICE detention facilities in the county. The legislation took effect immediately after being declared an emergency, despite officials acknowledging there are no confirmed plans for such a center. According to WMAR, restrictions on ICE went one step further in Baltimore County, with the council banning detention centers following reports that the U.S. General Services Administration leased a 50,000-square-foot office space in Hunt Valley. Though the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) declined to confirm the purpose of the lease, speculation spread that it could house ICE enforcement operations. For some residents, that possibility sparked concern. "I live in a community where there are many people of color. And to think that they would be here in Baltimore County, plan their activities, and then come do raids in my community with outstanding immigrants — it just makes me sick," resident Susan Radke told WMAR. In a statement, County Executive Kathy Klausmeier said the legislation responds to "a troubling national pattern" of detention facilities opening without community input. Maryland Democrat Rep. Johnny Olszewski also praised the action, citing constituent concerns about fear and instability. However, a DHS spokesperson pushed back, telling WBAL that ICE will not confirm office locations because officers face an "8,000% increase in death threats" and a "1,300% increase in assaults."

FOX News [2/18/2026 4:06 PM, Charles Creitz, 37576K] reports the Washington, D.C., office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced the arrest of an illegal immigrant and Iranian national who had a criminal history that included multiple charges relating to sodomy. The arrest comes weeks after Gov. Abigail Spanberger reversed by executive order her predecessor Glenn Youngkin’s 287(g) agreement with DHS that allowed the commonwealth’s law enforcement agencies and federal immigration authorities to share resources and information to help apprehend illegal immigrants and criminals. Virginia State Sen. Saddam Salim, D-Dunn Loring, also crafted a bill to bar Virginia law enforcement agencies from cooperating with ICE in most instances. The Democratic-controlled chamber passed the measure 21-19. Shayan Kahhal, whose sex offender registry information provided a residential address near the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, was captured by ICE this week, according to an alert from the agency. Kahhal has a criminal history that includes charges of strong-armed rape, strong-armed sodomy of a woman, strong-arm sodomy of a boy and strong-arm sodomy of a girl. Spanberger has said that Virginia law enforcement will continue honoring valid judicial warrants, promising to abide by Virginia law in those matters.

FOX News [2/18/2026 9:26 PM, Bonny Chu, 37576K] reports authorities in North Carolina announced Wednesday the arrest of a third suspect in a brutal overnight home invasion where multiple illegal immigrants allegedly terrorized at least one victim with kidnapping, burglary and forced sexual acts, equivalent to rape. The Pitt County Sheriff said detectives detained 22-year-old John Carlos Calderon Monday in the Feb. 11 Greenville incident that sent the victim to the hospital. The suspect, also from Greenville, joins two illegal immigrants already in custody, including 20-year-old homeless man Jonathan David Garcia-Lario and 21-year-old Chapel Hill resident Zaid Mayen. Officials noted that Calderon’s immigration status remains under investigation. He is being held without bond at the Pitt County Detention Center. All three suspects face the same first-degree felony charges, including forcible sexual assault, kidnapping, burglary, and the use of a deadly weapon with intent to kill causing serious injury. Evidence was also found at an apartment in Chapel Hill, the city where Mayen resides roughly two hours from the crime scene, police said. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was notified, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) placed detainers on both illegal immigrants, instructing local authorities to extend their custody, allowing federal agents to assume control.

FOX News [2/18/2026 6:04 PM, Alexandra Koch, 37576K] reports a man accused of shooting a South Carolina deputy in the chest during an early-morning traffic stop has been identified as a criminal illegal immigrant with a prior deportation and felony illegal re-entry conviction, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). DHS officials told Fox News Digital that Charleston County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) deputies responded to a call for shots fired shortly after 9 p.m. on Feb. 10 on Johns Island. They were unable to find the suspect, later identified as Floriberto Perez-Nieto, a criminal illegal immigrant from Mexico. At about 3 a.m. the next day, deputies received another call from the same person, who reported Perez-Nieto had returned to the area. Deputies spotted Perez-Nieto’s car and attempted to pull him over, but he tried to evade arrest and shot one of the deputies in the chest, according to authorities. Other deputies returned fire and Perez-Nieto was later pronounced dead at the hospital. DHS officials said the deputy who was shot in the chest was wearing body armor. "This criminal illegal alien illegally obtained a firearm and nearly killed a law enforcement officer," DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News Digital. "Thankfully, the officer’s body armor saved his life. There could have been quite a different tragic outcome for this officer and his family."

FOX News [2/18/2026 8:28 AM, Staff, 37576K] reports that Senate candidate Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., blasts Democratic anti-ICE rhetoric after the death of a Georgia teacher in a car crash allegedly caused by an illegal migrant fleeing ICE. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

NPR [2/19/2026 3:00 AM, Sergio Martínez- Beltrán, Wailin Wong, Julia Ritchey, Kate Concannon, 28764K] Audio: HERE reports the Trump administration is planning to pour more than $38 billion into warehouses for mass immigrant detention. While some communities are starting to push back, one rural town has agreed to expand its detention facility. On today’s show, we visit a small town in Georgia to learn about the trade-offs of becoming a detention town. [Editorial note: consult audio at source link]

Reuters [2/18/2026 5:48 PM, Kanishka Singh, 38315K] reports a detainee died in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Indiana on Monday, with the cause of death under investigation, ICE said on Wednesday, marking at least the seventh death in 2026 in federal immigration custody. Lorth Sim, a 59-year-old Cambodian national, was being held at the Miami Correctional Facility. Staff found him unresponsive in his cell, ICE said in a statement. Sim came to the U.S. as a refugee in 1983 and became a permanent resident in 1986, according to ICE. He was arrested and detained in December in Boston, ICE said, adding that an immigration judge had ordered his removal to Cambodia in 2006. ICE said Sim had been arrested previously for disorderly conduct, indecent exposure and larceny and received a suspended sentence and probation.

Univision [2/18/2026 2:14 PM, Staff, 4937K] reports that the detention of a young immigrant in the Pilsen neighborhood has sparked community mobilizations and public calls for his release. On N+ Univision, we share the story of Federico Alexis Alcántar, who was arrested in Pilsen. Family members, activists, and local officials are calling for a review of the case of 22-year-old Federico Alexis Alcántar, who remains in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Last Saturday, February 7, dozens of people gathered at St. Pius Catholic Church in Pilsen to demand his release. Community activists, religious leaders, and elected officials attended the demonstration, expressing concern about the family separation. During the event, representatives from local organizations emphasized that the young man is the sole provider for his younger siblings and asked immigration authorities to consider the humanitarian impact of the case. Federico Alcántar is the older brother and primary caregiver of two minor children, whom he reunited with in the United States after the death of their parents in Mexico. He has been held in a detention center in Missouri since then, under the custody of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). His asylum hearing is scheduled for February 19. Groups and family members have also launched a public campaign to request that Federico be allowed to continue his legal proceedings while free and reunite with his siblings while his immigration status is resolved.

Daily Caller [2/18/2026 4:38 PM, Harold Hutchison, 803K] reports members of the Minneapolis City Council discussed denying the renewal of liquor licenses to two hotels that housed agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Tuesday. Border czar Tom Homan announced an end to Operation Metro Surge, a crackdown on illegal immigration, during a Thursday press conference, stating that over 12,000 illegal immigrants had been taken into custody. Some council members claimed that by housing DHS personnel, the Canopy, a hotel affiliated with the Hilton hotel conglomerate, and the Depot, which is affiliated with Marriot, placed public safety at risk, WMSP Fox 9, a Minneapolis-area TV station, reported. The City Council declined to delay a planned Thursday vote on the liquor licenses, instead electing to carry out a one-day investigation by staff, at which point the council will decide whether to allow the licenses to be renewed, according to WMSP and WCCO.

New York Post [2/18/2026 1:05 PM, Josh Christenson, 40934K] reports that a Minnesota middle school taught eighth-graders that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers are using "tricky & violent tactics" to harass and arrest thousands of "legal immigrants," according to documents released this week by a conservative education group. Defending Education published excerpts from a PowerPoint slideshow that revealed students at Hermantown Middle School outside Duluth were lectured about ICE during a geography lesson and given a primer on why "people think the Ice [sic] agents have ‘gone too far’." The response on the same slide stated: "Some use tricky & violent tactics. 22 people died in ICE custody so far in 2025. Not filing paperwork to track arrests. Wearing masks to hide identities." "ICE has Arrested &/or harassed thousands of LEGAL immigrants and 170 US citizens — including being dragged, tackled, beaten, tased and shot," another slide read. The class teacher encouraged students to watch videos of "inhumane" migrant detention centers and other footage of ICE operations in order to receive extra credit. A concerned parent shared the materials with the conservative organization, but Hermantown’s principal pushed back in a now-public email, arguing that the lesson plan aligns with Minnesota education standards. It’s unclear whether the PowerPoint also covered the arrests of thousands of convicted criminals who had been illegally residing in Minnesota.

AP [2/18/2026 11:02 PM, Audrey McAvoy, 31753K] reports U.S. immigration authorities deported a 2-month-old baby with bronchitis to Mexico along with his family, a U.S. representative from Texas said. The child was so sick he had been unresponsive "in the last several hours" but was discharged from the hospital anyway, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro said Tuesday in an X post. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported the baby along with his 16-month-old sister, his mother and his father, Castro said. The Democratic lawmaker said he confirmed this with the family’s attorney. "To unnecessarily deport a sick baby and his entire family is heinous," Castro said. He vowed to "hold ICE accountable for this monstrous action.” A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, said Wednesday that the child was in "stable condition and medically cleared for removal" and that pediatricians gave the parents a nasal saline spray with a nasal bulb syringe to continue care. McLaughlin said Border Patrol apprehended the child’s mother, Mireya Stefani Lopez-Sanchez, crossing the border illegally near Eagle Pass, Texas, on Jan. 21. Lopez-Sanchez chose to take her child with her when Border Patrol transferred her to ICE custody, McLaughlin said. "All of her claims were heard by a judge and found not to be valid," McLaughlin said. A judge issued Lopez-Sanchez a final order of removal on Feb. 8, and she was removed from the U.S. with her child on Tuesday, McLaughlin said. "She received full due process," McLaughlin said.

NewsMax [2/18/2026 5:58 PM, Staff, 3760K] reports U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Wednesday announced the arrest of an Indian national and his spouse at its Houston office. "An alien from India ran a large human smuggling operation in Texas," the agency posted. "He and his spouse were apprehended at our Houston office by @ICEgov on charges of human smuggling, document fraud, and overstaying their visa. "Human traffickers will be caught and held accountable," said the post. The brief announcement highlights continued enforcement actions by ICE, which has markedly stepped up interior immigration operations under the Trump administration. Nationwide arrest figures and field operations have surged since President Donald Trump returned to the White House in 2025, with ICE reporting thousands of arrests of individuals with criminal convictions or charges as part of broader efforts to enforce immigration law and public safety. In Houston alone, previous operations have netted hundreds to thousands of criminal illegal aliens, including gang members, child predators, and other serious offenders, reflecting the agency’s intensified focus on interior enforcement.

The Hill [2/18/2026 6:04 PM, Max Rego, 18170K] reports Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) slammed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for deporting a 2-month-old and his family. On Tuesday afternoon, Castro wrote on the social platform X that 2-month-old Juan Nicolás and his mother were detained at Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas. Castro wrote on X later Tuesday that Nicolás was deported by ICE along with his mother. The congressman also said the two were abandoned across the border in Mexico. Castro later wrote on X on Tuesday night that Nicolás’s 16-month-old sister and his dad were also deported. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told The Hill on Wednesday that U.S. Border Patrol apprehended the boy’s mother, Mireya Stefani Lopez-Sanchez, after she illegally crossed the southern border on Jan. 21 near Eagle Pass, Texas. Lopez-Sanchez “chose to take her child with her when she was transferred to ICE custody for removal proceedings,” McLaughlin said. “The child was in stable condition and medically cleared for removal,” she noted. “Pediatricians gave the parents a nasal saline spray with a nasal bulb syringe to continue care upon their removal.”

Reported similarly:
Blaze [2/18/2026 4:50 PM, Cooper Williamson, 1556K]

San Francisco Chronicle [2/18/2026 2:33 PM, Alexei Koseff, 3833K] reports that California’s top congressional representatives are urging the Trump administration not to convert a shuttered federal prison in the Bay Area into an immigration detention center. The Federal Correctional Institution Dublin closed in 2024 following a sexual abuse scandal, but rumors have swirled since U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reportedly visited last February that the facility could reopen to serve President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign. Democratic Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, and Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, the Antioch Democrat who represents Dublin, wrote Tuesday to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to express “deep concern with and strong opposition to” the move. “In light of the facility’s state of disrepair and the inexcusable systemic failures highlighted by its history, we are concerned and alarmed that ICE officials are reportedly considering the use of this facility for immigration detention,” they wrote in the letter, which they shared publicly on Wednesday. The Trump administration has not announced plans to make use of FCI Dublin. The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to questions about the letter.

New York Post [2/18/2026 6:41 PM, Ben Chapman, 40934K] reports Los Angeles’ top cop issued an important message for city students after droves of youths cut class for wild anti-ICE demonstrations. Los Angeles Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell urged students to stay in school and avoid dangerous protests, following three weeks of anti-ICE demonstrations in which officers and protesters were hurt. The chief’s words for the city’s youngsters came after the LAPD on Monday issued a public warning to students and parents that school attendance is mandatory, and there could be legal fallout for cutting class. "We want to support everybody exercising their First Amendment rights, but we want to make sure everybody remains safe," said McDonnell during his Wednesday morning appearance on Fox 11’s Good Day LA. "When you get young people out there, sometimes they’ll get involved in something inadvertently and end up in a place where potentially they could get hurt or get in trouble," the chief added. McDonnell’s warning came after a series of raucous anti-ICE protests on three consecutive Fridays in downtown LA where teens were spotted burning flags, vandalizing buildings and throwing objects at cops Two federal agents were involved in a violent clash at one such protest last week, and authorities are still hunting the rioters believed responsible. Another teen was caught on video swinging a pole at police. Now, police are warning kids to stay in class. "School attendance is mandatory in the City of Los Angeles and there may be legal consequences for parents and students," the LAPD said in its news release on Monday. "It is unlawful for any minors under 18 to be in public places, streets, or amusement spots during school hours (typically 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.).” U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli has vowed to "criminally prosecute" two teens suspected of attacking ICE agents in last Friday’s protest. LA’s public schools superintendent Alberto Carvalho is facing controversy for his anti-ICE comments, as students across the city exit classrooms to protest immigration crackdowns. One LA teacher was fired for opening a gate to let kids leave class for an anti-ICE demonstration. An LA Unified spokeswoman on Tuesday said that the city’s school district is "concerned for student safety at off-campus demonstrations.” Instead of attending dangerous protests, LA’s public schools are encouraging students to stay on in class, "with opportunities on campus for student expression" and "resources and guidance for students to engage in meaningful, age-appropriate discussions," the spokeswoman said.

Univision [2/18/2026 8:06 PM, Staff, 4937K] reports ICE announced this Wednesday that 170 Cubans were deported to the island on February 9. In a message posted on its social media, ICE stated that these were people accused of murder, kidnapping, rape, drug trafficking, and other crimes. The flight is the first of 2026, according to ICE.

CNN [2/18/2026 2:25 PM, Aaron Blake, 612K] reports that as Republicans’ fortunes have dimmed ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, they’ve increasingly turned a panicked eye toward voting restrictions. And to many GOP lawmakers, nothing is as urgent as passing the SAVE Act. It’s a bill that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote, among other provisions. The bill recently got its 50th Republican co-sponsor in the Senate — after already passing in the House — and some want party leaders to gut the filibuster to force it through. It’s a push that makes logical and political sense for the GOP. Polls from 2024 showed support for requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote ranged from 67% to 83% of respondents. Some Republicans have argued that, even though it’s already illegal for noncitizens to vote and there’s scant evidence of undocumented immigrants voting, it’s a worthwhile safeguard. But recent data and history suggest there could be real danger that such restrictions will create bigger problems than they solve. Specifically, the risk is that they disenfranchise people who are legally allowed to vote but either can’t satisfy the restrictions (due to a lack of documentation) or decline to go to the trouble of doing so. (Critics of the legislation have raised particular concerns about disenfranchising people who lack documents, including voters of color and young people, and women whose married names don’t appear on their birth certificates or passports). And given the lack of evidence that noncitizen voting amounts to a significant problem, the risk of doing more harm than good is pretty high.

FOX News [2/18/2026 7:21 PM, Louis Casiano, 37576K] reports a Liberian man in Minnesota who tried "every trick in the book" to remain in the United States worked as a corrections officer and was once AWOL from the Pennsylvania National Guard when he was detained in January, authorities said Wednesday. Morris Brown, 45, was arrested Jan. 15 for multiple immigration violations, including overstaying his student visa and falsely claiming to be a U.S. citizen, the Department of Homeland Security said. He was identified during Operation Twin Shield, a Trump administration initiative targeting suspected immigration fraudsters. "Operation Twin Shield continues to deliver results as the Department of Homeland Security relentlessly pursues those who seek to cheat our immigration system," said U.S. Citizenship and Immigrations Services (USCIS) Director Joseph Edlow. "This alien tried every trick in the book to remain in the United States after losing legal status," he added. "We will use every tool at our disposal to ensure he faces justice for his many violations of the law.” While masquerading as a U.S. citizen, Brown worked for the Minnesota Department of Corrections as a prison guard at the time of his arrest, DHS said. Investigators began looking at Brown’s citizenship application and found evidence of marriage fraud and prior instances where he falsely claimed to be a U.S. citizen in official documents, DHS said.

Reported similarly:
Daily Caller [2/18/2026 7:50 PM, Mariane Angela, 803K] r

Houston Chronicle [2/18/2026 7:00 AM, Yvette Orozco, 2493K] reports that a Pasadena woman who came forward after paying $12,000 in hopes of fast tracking her family’s immigration process led police to uncover at least four other victims in an alleged scam based out of a South Houston taco truck, police said Tuesday. Pasadena police on Feb. 6 arrested Webster resident Irma Aidde Hernandez, 46, on felony theft charges and identified her as the primary subject behind a scam which authorities say left families out thousands of dollars and in fear of retaliation. Hernandez, 46, is accused of claiming to be an immigration official, agent or someone with a connection to immigration authorities and preying on vulnerable families who were legally seeking U.S. citizenship, police said. Now investigators are urging other possible victims to come forward regardless of their immigration status, even amid increased fears of deportation by federal authorities.

“We are trying to make the point that we understand that because of the way things are right now, people are scared, but we’re in the business of helping citizens, legal or otherwise, if they’re victims of crime,” said Pasadena Police Det. Jon Jernigan. “Your immigration status doesn’t matter to us; we’re here to help.”

Bloomberg [2/18/2026 2:16 PM, Iain Marlow, 18082K] reports that the US announced visa restrictions on Iranian officials and executives for repressing recent anti-regime protests and cutting off internet access, as the Trump administration ratchets up pressure on Tehran amid ongoing nuclear talks. The State Department said on Wednesday it is targeting 18 Iranian officials and telecommunications industry leaders and their immediate family members for the crackdown and communications blackout, blaming them for “inhibiting the right of Iranians to free expression and peaceful assembly.” “Even today, the regime continues to restrict the ability of Iranians to exercise their basic freedoms,” State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said in a statement. “We will continue to use all tools available to expose and promote accountability for the abuses by Iranian regime officials and other individuals.” The visa restrictions come as US President Donald Trump has threatened Iran with airstrikes over the crackdown and demanded that the country’s leadership negotiate over its nuclear program — and potentially other issues, including its ballistic missiles. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Wednesday that both sides made a “little bit of progress” in the talks, but that the Trump administration was not imposing any hard deadline for negotiations to produce an agreement.

Reported similarly:
Reuters [2/18/2026 1:31 PM, Staff, 38315K]

SFGate [2/18/2026 7:00 AM, Amanda Heidt, 10094K] reports it was a cool, breezy morning in early December when Myles Traphagen, the borderlands program coordinator for the conservation nonprofit Wildlands Network, joined a handful of people atop Coronado Peak in Arizona. Less than a mile from the U.S.-Mexico border, the mountain lies within Coronado National Memorial, a 5,000-acre stub of public land marking the valley where Spanish conquistador Francisco Vásquez de Coronado first entered what is today the United States in 1540 seeking the mythical Seven Cities of Cíbola. Centuries later, Traphagen’s own expedition watched as a line of armored trucks wended its way along a dirt road far below. At 3 o’clock that afternoon, the dynamite those trucks had delivered detonated, blasting a trench deep into the mountain’s foothills — the beginnings of a new stretch of double border wall that, under the current administration, may one day expand to cover all 2,000 miles of border running from California to Texas. Traphagen and his companions were there to bear witness to what they say is an increasingly common, and extremely troubling, phenomenon: the co-opting and destruction of public lands along the southern border with little oversight. SFGATE could find no evidence of environmental impact reports, cultural or historical assessments or public comments prior to the blast. Instead, evidence shows that the Trump administration awarded lucrative contracts to individuals and businesses that donated heavily to the president’s reelection campaign. To the east and west, more public lands are facing similar upheavals. Shortly after his second inauguration, President Donald Trump issued a memorandum pulling tracts of land out of public hands to give to the Defense Department, which he has attempted to rename the Department of War. As a result, more than one-third of the southern border — including the southern termini of the world-famous Continental Divide and Pacific Crest trails and other areas once open to recreators — is now closed to members of the public, who can find themselves facing federal charges should they unwittingly trespass. All of this, and more, has occurred with little pushback, Traphagen said, largely because of how few people live along our country’s southern border, and because the region has been demonized as an area “overrun by cartels, criminal gangs, known terrorists, human traffickers, smugglers,” and “other criminal entities.” “The borderlands are a testing ground for a lot of things because there’s just not a lot of people to advocate for these spaces,” Traphagen told SFGATE. “We wanted to be present, even if it was just four of us watching while a national park site was being blown up.” The construction at Coronado National Memorial and other sites spanning states along the country’s northern and southern borders is legal based on a single section of the Real ID Act of 2005. Section 102 grants the Secretary of Homeland Security the power to waive nearly 50 laws — including the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water and Air acts and the Antiquities Act, among others — for activities “necessary for improvement of barriers at borders.” This provision gives the Department of Homeland Security secretary, a political appointee, unprecedented power to bypass foundational conservation laws in the name of border security.

Detroit Free Press [2/18/2026 8:56 AM, Christina Hall, 4749K] reports that a former U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent pleaded guilty to a child pornography charge, with federal prosecutors saying he was logged into a chat account that he used to communicate with an undercover officer posing as a minor while he was on the job in Gibraltar. Harry Marvelle Peless, III, 51, of Newport, in Monroe County, pleaded guilty Feb. 17 in U.S. District Court in Detroit to one count of receipt of child pornography. His sentencing is set for June 1. He could be sentenced to five to 20 years in prison and a fine up to $250,000, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The charge requires a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison, and at least five years of supervised release, according to the plea agreement. Messages were left for Peless’ attorney, who could not be reached for comment. Peless was employed as a marine border protection agent at the Gibraltar station. He was placed on unpaid administrative leave after he was charged, according to the release. It said that law enforcement began investigating Peless after he sent sexual messages to an undercover officer posing as a minor. He began communicating with the undercover officer in September 2024, with his contacts becoming a near daily occurrence, according to the release. According to the plea agreement, Peless received, via electronic mail, images of child pornography from others over the internet, including at least one image depicting a prepubescent minor.

FOX News [2/18/2026 10:56 PM, Greg Wehner, 37576K] reports Detroit’s police chief is moving to fire two officers who allegedly contacted U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) during routine traffic stops, which is a violation of department policy. Police Chief Todd Bettison said the officers’ actions led to detentions and ran counter to longstanding department rules prohibiting involvement in federal immigration enforcement, FOX 2 in Detroit reported. The two officers have not only been suspended, but Bettison has asked the city’s Board of Police Commissioners to approve their termination. Bettison said the Detroit Police Department does not participate in immigration enforcement activities and stressed that maintaining community trust is critical to public safety efforts. The station reported that Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., expressed support for the officers’ dismissal.

Blaze [2/18/2026 8:45 AM, Joseph MacKinnon, 1556K] reports that one of the thugs who attacked federal immigration agents last summer proved unable to outrun the whirlwind — and his time of reaping is at hand. Amid efforts by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (Calif.), and other Democrats to demonize and delegitimize U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, a mob of radicals swarmed a federal law enforcement command post in Paramount, California, on June 7. Agents attempting to leave the site near a Home Depot east of the 710 freeway were savagely attacked. Footage shows radicals pelting federal vehicles with various projectiles, including chunks of concrete. Another video taken inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection vehicle shows that on at least one occasion, one of the projectiles punched through the glass, injuring officers. Following the attack, the FBI put one of the more prominent rock-throwers on its Most Wanted list and offered a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the masked man’s "identification, arrest and conviction." Bill Essayli, first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, vowed, "We will find him. We will charge him. Justice is coming." Former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino announced on July 23 that Reyna was arrested at the U.S.-Mexico border. As poetic justice would have it, Reyna was taken into custody by a U.S. Border Patrol officer who was inside one of the vehicles damaged in the June attack. The DOJ indicated that in addition to injuring a CBP officer, Reyna lit objects on fire and impeded law enforcement activity on June 7. Reyna’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for Aug. 7.

Reported similarly:
Daily Wire [2/18/2026 3:38 AM, Leif Le Mahieu, 2314K]

Washington Examiner [2/18/2026 6:54 PM, Samantha-Jo Roth, 1147K] reports the travel industry is warning that airports could face growing strain and longer security lines as a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security stretches into the start of the busy spring break season. Airlines and travel trade groups say the funding lapse is raising concerns about staffing levels at security checkpoints and the risk of operational disruptions if the shutdown drags on, as roughly 50,000 Transportation Security Administration officers work without pay. Nearly all TSA officers are classified as essential employees, marking the second time in four months they have faced a missed paycheck during a shutdown despite working throughout. Travel experts say the operational risk may not surface immediately, but rather weeks into a prolonged funding lapse. "We don’t have a crystal ball," said Katy Nastro, a travel expert at Going, in an interview with the Washington Examiner. "But historically, once you hit that three- to four-week threshold without pay, that’s when absenteeism starts to occur, and the financial strain really weighs on essential workers.” TSA officers are expected to receive one more paycheck before mid-March. After that, Nastro said, the pressure typically intensifies as workers who live paycheck to paycheck begin feeling the strain. "That’s really the timeline we’ve seen in the past," she said. DHS entered a partial shutdown Saturday after negotiations collapsed between congressional Democrats and the Trump administration over oversight of federal immigration officers. Talks showed no movement over the holiday weekend, and lawmakers left Washington for recess, though congressional leaders say they are prepared to return if an agreement is reached. In a joint statement, U.S. Travel, Airlines for America, and the American Hotel & Lodging Association warned that unpaid TSA personnel increase the risk of staffing shortages and passenger delays. "Travelers and the U.S. economy cannot afford to have essential TSA personnel working without pay, which increases the risk of unscheduled absences and call outs, and ultimately can lead to higher wait times and missed or delayed flights," the groups wrote. They added that funding uncertainty damages the broader travel ecosystem and undermines recruitment, retention, and preparedness efforts across the industry. The organizations pointed to last year’s 43-day shutdown, which they said resulted in an estimated $6 billion economic impact and disrupted travel for more than 6 million passengers.

The Hill [2/18/2026 3:56 PM, Alix Martichoux, 18170K] reports the U.S. is five days into a partial government shutdown, but you may not have even noticed – at least not yet. If the shutdown drags on, as it seems likely to, you may start seeing issues at the airport. The partial shutdown, which began early Saturday, only impacts the Department of Homeland Security. That means air traffic controllers, who are employed by the Federal Aviation Administration, are still getting paid. Employees of the Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, on the other hand, are largely expected to keep working without pay. Democratic leaders submitted their latest offer to the White House late Monday. But the prospect of a deal this week, particularly as lawmakers are out of Washington, remains dim. The official said the White House is still interested in good-faith negotiations to end the shutdown of DHS, which affects agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency as well as TSA. Meanwhile, the president has stressed that any agreement has to protect law enforcement officials. Outside of DHS, the rest of the government is funded through Sept. 30.

FOX News [2/18/2026 11:03 PM, Landon Mion, 37576K] Video: HERE reports the partial government shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security could have a critical impact on local disaster response without assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a public safety expert warned. In an interview with Fox News Digital, Jeffrey Halstead, the director of strategic accounts at Genasys, a communications hardware and software provider to help communities during disasters, said the DHS shutdown could impact emergency response and recovery efforts now that FEMA support has been restricted. "Every time that the government enters into one of these shutdowns, there’s a distinctive part of the federal government that is impacted, both reviewing the grant program or distributing funds from pre-awarded grant programs. This is exactly the area of DHS as well as FEMA that affects emergency managers, emergency response and recovering different cities, counties, and regions should they face a weather and/or disaster-related event," Halstead said. Halstead, also a retired chief of police in Fort Worth, Texas, with more than 30 years in law enforcement, explained that government shutdowns delaying federal funds "drastically impacts" the local response to disasters. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

CBS News [2/18/2026 1:05 PM, Staff, 51110K] reports that a red flag warning is in effect as powerful winds fuel wildfires, burning thousands of acres in both Oklahoma and Texas. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

USA Today [2/18/2026 8:15 PM, Francesca Chambers, 70643K] reports Maryland Gov. Wes Moore has a message for President Donald Trump after a collapsed sewer pipe caused wastewater to spew into the Potomac River: "Please start doing your job.” Trump put the blame on Democrats such as Moore for the spill that’s polluted the river that cuts through Washington, D.C. and is near the White House. Trump, in a set of incendiary social media posts, has excluded Moore from a bipartisan event for the nation’s governors. In an interview with USA TODAY, the Maryland governor fired back, arguing that the break was in a DC pipe on federal land. "How Maryland gets caught up in this, I have no idea. That is just some very creative facts from the president of the United States," Moore said. The issue began with a Jan. 19 sewer line break in Montgomery County, Maryland, a suburb of Washington. It caused a leak in the Potomac Interceptor, which is managed by DC Water, and led to more than 200 million gallons of wastewater to spew into the 383-mile-long river. DC Water, the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority, provides wastewater treatment for the area. Trump said the sewer line breach was the result of incompetent wastewater management by state and local authorities in a Feb. 16 post on social media. He directed federal authorities to take over its cleanup. The following day Trump said that leaders of two impacted states, Virginia and Maryland, and the mayor of Washington D.C., should get to work. All are Democrats. "If they can’t do the job, they have to call me and ask, politely, to get it fixed. The Federal Government is not at all involved with what has taken place, but we can fix it," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "With all of their talk about carbon footprints and everything else, they’re allowing hundreds of tons of sewage to pour into the Mighty Potomac, making it much less mighty. ACT FAST. I am awaiting your call.” Moore said in an interview that Maryland’s government has been involved from the get-go and assisted Washington, D.C. with water testing.

AP [2/18/2026 9:12 PM, Gary Fields, 31753K] reports Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser declared an emergency on Wednesday and requested that President Donald Trump provide federal resources to help the city fight a sewage system leak that dumped 250 million gallons of raw sewage into the Potomac River in its early stages. "Our number one priority is the district, and that we’re going to utilize all resources, local, federal, and regional, or otherwise, to support operations of the district and what’s best for district residents," said DC Deputy Mayor Lindsey Appiah in a press call announcing the mayor’s action. The local declaration is asking the president to issue a Presidential Emergency Disaster Declaration. It seeks full reimbursement for the money the city and local utility DC Water are spending on repairs. Among actions, the declaration would "direct FEMA to establish a regular interagency coordination calls among federal agencies, affected states, and the District to maintain shared situational awareness and align federal assistance.”

FOX News [2/18/2026 4:00 PM, Leo Briceno, 37576K] reports Rep. Julia Letlow, R-La., is calling on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to assist northern Louisiana to recover from a recent ice storm while the partial government shutdown limits the agency’s operations. Letlow believes the agency can assist people in her district to clear fallen trees that have destroyed power lines, damaged homes and restricted mobility. Her calls for assistance follow a letter from Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, urging the Trump administration to declare a state of emergency. Like other agencies, FEMA has been restricted to operating only in situations in which there is risk to life, according to testimony from the agency’s associate administrator, Gregg Phillips, before Congress earlier this month. That creates an uncertain situation for states like Louisiana. While most Louisianans are out of immediate danger from the storm, Letlow said communities are still at risk of future danger if power, transportation and communications aren’t restored.

ABC News [2/18/2026 2:19 PM, Meredith Deliso, 34146K] reports that the Oklahoma governor declared a state of emergency on Wednesday due to multiple wildfires in the state’s panhandle region, as critical fire weather conditions persist in the region. A "series of destructive wildfires" is burning across northwest Oklahoma, the governor’s office said. The largest, the Ranger Road Fire, has burned 145,000 acres since igniting in Oklahoma’s Beaver County on Tuesday and crossing into Kansas, according to fire officials. It was 0% contained as of Wednesday morning, according to the Oklahoma Forestry Services. Additional local task forces are being deployed to Beaver County, the governor’s office said Wednesday. Three other "significant" wildfires in Oklahoma’s Texas and Woodward counties were 20% to 25% contained as of Wednesday morning, according to fire officials. Four firefighters were injured and several homes destroyed in the wildfire in Woodward County, according to Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt. The town of Tyrone in Texas County was also evacuated earlier Wednesday "as a precaution," Stitt said. The governor’s executive order stated that the state’s emergency operations plan has been activated and resources of all state departments and agencies are available "to meet this emergency." "As we head into today and tomorrow, conditions remain dangerous," Stitt said in a statement Wednesday. "We need every Oklahoman to stay alert and continue taking fire warnings seriously."

Reported similarly:
NBC News [2/18/2026 6:50 PM, Staff, 42967K] Video: HERE

CBS News [2/18/2026 6:25 AM, Staff, 51110K] reports that the U.S. military said Tuesday that it carried out strikes on three boats accused of smuggling drugs in Latin American waters, killing 11 people in one of the deadliest days of the Trump administration’s monthslong campaign against alleged traffickers. The series of strikes conducted Monday brought the death toll to at least 145 people since the administration began targeting those it calls "narcoterrorists" in small vessels since early September. Like most of the military’s statements on the 42 known strikes, U.S. Southern Command said it targeted alleged drug traffickers along known smuggling routes. It said two vessels carrying four people each were struck in the eastern Pacific Ocean, while a third boat with three people was hit in the Caribbean Sea. The military did not provide evidence that the vessels were ferrying drugs but posted videos on X that showed boats being destroyed. The videos posted by Southern Command show the boats either moving or bobbing in the water before the explosions engulf them in flames. People can be seen sitting in two of the small, open vessels before they’re destroyed. President Donald Trump has said the U.S. is in "armed conflict" with cartels in Latin America and has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs.

NBC News [2/18/2026 9:34 AM, Staff, 42967K] Video: HERE reports decisions made by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have reportedly strained her relationship with U.S. Coast Guard officials throughout her first year leading the department, according to two U.S. officials, a Coast Guard official and a former Coast Guard official. NBC News’ Jonathan Allen reports on the controversy.

AP [2/18/2026 3:52 PM, Rodrique Ngowi and Patrick Whittle, 35287K] reports a coalition of authorities is deploying technology to try to locate the wreck of a fishing boat that sank last month off Massachusetts, killing all seven aboard. But winter weather and sea conditions have thus far slowed their efforts. The 72-foot (22-meter) vessel Lily Jean was returning to port early Jan. 30 to repair fishing gear when it sank in frigid Atlantic waters off the historic fishing port of Gloucester. Multiple agencies, including the U.S. Coast Guard, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Massachusetts Environmental Police, are cooperating to try to find the wreck of the ship and potentially recover the bodies of the deceased, officials said Wednesday. The Lily Jean sank in waters that were more than 300 feet deep and very inhospitable in winter. Environmental police have deployed side-scan sonar to try to gather data and detect anomalies on the ocean floor, officials said. They said they also hope to be able to send a remotely operated vehicle to the site to gather photos and video, but seas have thus far made that challenging. Officials will provide updates to the community that is still grieving the loss of the victims, said Massachusetts Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr, a Republican of Gloucester. The Coast Guard initially launched a search and rescue mission after receiving an alert from the vessel about 25 miles (40 kilometers) off Cape Ann. Searchers found a debris field near where the alert was sent along with a body in the water and an empty life raft, the Coast Guard said. The search was suspended the following day, and the community has rallied around the families of the victims since. Coast Guard officials identified the victims of the sinking of the Lily Jean as captain Accursio "Gus" Sanfilippo and crew members Paul Beal Sr., Paul Beal Jr., John Rousanidis, Freeman Short and Sean Therrien. Also aboard was Jada Samitt, a fisheries observer for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

CBS News [2/18/2026 1:55 PM, Kerry Breen, 51110K] reports that a long-lost shipwreck has been identified in Lake Erie, the National Museum of the Great Lakes and the Cleveland Underwater Explorers said Wednesday. The wreck is in the same area where the founder of the exploration organization died in June 2024. The wreck has been confirmed to be that of the Clough, a stone-hauling sailing vessel that was built in Ohio in 1867 and sank a year later, according to the museum. The ship was 125 feet long and 26.5 feet wide. It had three masts and was rigged with square sails. It was transporting stone when it sank on September 15, 1868, the museum said. Cleveland Underwater Explorers founder David VanZandt was working on the wreck’s identification when he died, the museum said. CBS News reported that VanZandt, 70, was "diving on a newly found shipwreck" when he "failed to return to the boat and suffered a fatal diving accident." The U.S. Coast Guard said its crews and state agencies helped search for VanZandt. Local divers were the ones to find his body, nearly four hours after he was reported missing. The museum said that while the wreck site is "associated with the tragic loss," it and the Cleveland Underwater Explorers were "committed to completing the identification process with care, accuracy, and respect."

Univision [2/18/2026 6:15 PM, Staff, 4937K] reports a joint operation between the U.S. Coast Guard and the Department of Homeland Security stopped a speedboat sailing north of Puerto Rico in the Atlantic Ocean, with 29 packages of cocaine worth $13.3 million. A statement from the Coast Guards said Wednesday that the seized merchandise weighed approximately 2,083 pounds, with the millionaire value. No arrests were made. The operation was developed last week during a night patrol of a Guard Coasts surveillance aircraft, which observed the vessel with multiple bales and fueled packaging about 100 nautical miles north of Camuy, in Puerto Rico. The San Juan Command Center immediately ordered the patrol ship Joseph Napier to intercept the vessel, in coordination the National Security Task Force, which includes the Caribbean Customs and Border Protection unit. "As the Joseph Napier approached, the alleged smugglers began performing evasive maneuvers before throwing their cargo overboard and fleeing. The crew of the Joseph Napier recovered 29 bales of water, which subsequently tested positive for cocaine, "the Coast Guards reported. U.S. Border Patrol agents subsequently located the abandoned fast boat on the ground near Arecibo, Puerto Rico. The seized drugs were transferred to the National Security Investigations agents in San Juan.

CBS News [2/19/2026 4:00 AM, Melissa Quinn amd Jacob Rosen, 39474K] reports the 15 comments came across a series of eight days in July, posted under pseudonyms alluding to the perpetrators of some of the most infamous mass shootings in U.S. history, including Sandy Hook Elementary School and Aurora, Colorado. "That POS Judge … MUST have her life ENDED Immediately! Get it done, Patriots!!" read one post, referring to a federal judge in California. Another named members of Congress: "This is GREAT! Now I can use a, high-powered firearm to take care of [four members of Congress], and the Squad members … for starters! Wish me Luck." The posts targeted a Supreme Court justice, seven federal judges and 11 lawmakers, and included what prosecutors said were "thinly veiled racial epithets." The comments, posted in response to news articles, were traced back to a Minnesota man, Jeffrey Petersen, who admitted to the FBI that he was behind some of the postings and acknowledged they "got out of hand," according to prosecutors’ filings. Petersen was first indicted last October on 20 counts and pleaded not guilty. His lawyer is seeking to have the charges dismissed, arguing that Petersen was engaging in speech protected by the First Amendment. While the comments may have expressed wishes of death, they didn’t indicate Petersen had any plans to kill the officials, his defense lawyer said. Petersen is one of 126 people charged last year for making threats to federal and top state officials, according to a CBS News analysis of court records from all 94 federal judicial districts. CBS News examined cases brought under federal statutes that make it a crime to threaten to kill or harm the president and successors to the presidency, and to transmit threatening communications. The National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and the Prosecution Project also contributed data. The threats that have resulted in charges do not discriminate in their targets. They were leveled against officials working in all three branches of government — from judges to members of Congress to law enforcement officers to President Trump and former President Joe Biden — and directed at those in the highest levels of state government.

AP [2/18/2026 7:42 PM, Staff, 3833K] reports the head of U.S. military operations in Latin America met with Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, and members of her cabinet during an hours long visit Wednesday to the South American country’s capital. Rodríguez’s government and U.S. Southern Command announced the visit separately on social media. Rodríguez’s press office said Marine Gen. Francis Donovan met with Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello. The meeting comes weeks after the U.S. military captured then-President Nicolás Maduro in a stunning raid in Caracas and brought him to the U.S. to face drug trafficking charges. “During this meeting, both countries agreed to work on developing a bilateral cooperation agenda to combat illicit drug trafficking in our region, terrorism, and migration,” according to a post on X from Rodríguez’s press office. “The meeting reaffirms that diplomacy should be the mechanism for resolving differences and addressing issues of binational and regional interest, of interest to all parties.” Donovan was joined by Laura Dogu, the top U.S. diplomat in Venezuela, and Joseph Humire, U.S. acting assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and the Americas.

AP [2/18/2026 3:05 PM, Staff, 1257K] reports Russian top officials hosted the Cuban foreign minister for talks in Moscow on Wednesday and spoke out in support of the island nation as it faces blackouts and severe fuel shortages worsened by a U.S oil embargo. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez met with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov and later in the day with President Vladimir Putin. Lavrov urged the U.S. to refrain from blockading Cuba, which has struggled to import oil for its power plants and refineries after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened any nation that sold oil to Cuba with tariffs. “Together with most members of the global community, we are calling on the U.S. to show common sense, take a responsible approach and refrain from its plans of sea blockade,” Lavrov said during the talks with Rodriguez. He promised that Moscow will “continue supporting Cuba and its people in protecting the country’s sovereignty and security.” In his meeting with Rodriguez, Putin said of the restrictions: “You know how we feel about this. We don’t accept anything of the sort.” “We have always been on Cuba’s side in its struggle for independence, for the right to chart its own path of development, and we have always supported the Cuban people,” Putin said. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier on Wednesday noted that “Russia, like many other countries, has consistently spoken against the blockade of the island.” “We have our relations with Cuba, and we value these relations very much,” Peskov told reporters. “And we intend to further develop them — of course, during difficult times, by providing appropriate assistance to our friends.” Asked whether sending fuel to Cuba could derail a recent warming of ties with Washington, Peskov responded that “we don’t think these issues are linked.”

FOX News [2/18/2026 8:34 PM, Efrat Lachter and Trey Yingst, 37576K] reports this was the kind of prison break officials say could have changed the region, and perhaps even the world, overnight. Nearly 6,000 ISIS detainees, described by a senior U.S. intelligence official as "the worst of the worst," were being held in northern Syria as clashes and instability threatened the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, the guards responsible for keeping the militants locked away and preventing a feared ISIS resurgence. U.S. officials believed that if the prisons collapsed in the chaos, the consequences would be immediate. "If these 6,000 or so got out and returned to the battlefield, that would basically be the instant reconstitution of ISIS," the senior intelligence official told Fox News Digital. In an exclusive interview, the official walked Fox News Digital step by step through the behind-the-scenes operation that moved thousands of ISIS detainees out of Syria and into Iraqi custody, describing a multi-agency scramble that unfolded over weeks, with intelligence warnings, rapid diplomacy and a swift military lift. The risk, the official explained, had been building for months. In late October, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard began to assess that Syria’s transition could tip into disorder and create the conditions for a catastrophic jailbreak.

CNN [2/18/2026 6:22 PM, Kristen Holmes and Kevin Liptak, 612K] reports the US military is prepared to strike Iran as early as this weekend, though President Donald Trump has yet to make a final decision on whether he’ll authorize such actions, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN. The White House has been briefed that the military could be ready for an attack by the weekend, after a significant buildup in recent days of air and naval assets in the Middle East, the sources said. But one source cautioned that Trump has privately argued both for and against military action and polled advisers and allies on what the best course of action is. It was not clear if he would make a decision by the weekend. "He is spending a lot of time thinking about this," one source said. The US’s readiness to strike by the weekend was first reported by CBS News. Iranian and US negotiators passed notes for three-and-a-half hours Tuesday during indirect talks in Geneva, though they departed with no clear resolution. Iran’s top negotiator said both sides had agreed upon a "set of guiding principles," though an American official said "there are still a lot of details to discuss.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that Iran was expected to provide more details on its negotiating position "in the next couple of weeks," but she wouldn’t say whether Trump would hold off on military action within that timespan. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to travel to Israel on February 28 to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and update him on the Iran talks, a State Department official told CNN Wednesday. "I’m not going to set deadlines on behalf of the president of the United States," Leavitt said. She added that while "diplomacy is always his first option," military action remains on the table. "There’s many reasons and arguments that one could make for a strike against Iran," she said, adding Trump was relying on counsel from his national security team "first and foremost.”

Reported similarly:
Wall Street Journal [2/18/2026 10:18 AM, Margherita Stancati, Laurence Norman, and Benoit Faucon, 646K]

NBC News [2/19/2026 2:38 AM, Gordon Lubold, Courtney Kube, Dan De Luce, Abigail Williams. and Monica Alba, 42967K] reports the Defense Department is sending a large array of additional weaponry to the Middle East, including more warships, air defenses and submarines, in preparation for a possible military strike on Iran if President Donald Trump makes that decision, according to U.S. officials and information from public tracking. The buildup of military hardware comes as the U.S. and Iran are still pursuing diplomatic talks that could help avert a conflict. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi noted "good progress" after indirect talks with Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law Jared Kushner in Geneva on Tuesday. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that "there was some progress made" in the talks but that "there are still a lot of details to discuss." The prospect of a breakthrough looked remote with the sides far apart on fundamental issues. The Trump administration has insisted that Iran agree to restrictions on its missile program, as well as its nuclear work, which Tehran so far has rejected as out of the question. Trump’s top national security advisers huddled in the Situation Room of the White House on Wednesday to discuss Iran, according to a senior administration official. No final decisions about potential military action have been made, the official said, as the U.S. awaits a written response from Iran that could address some of the outstanding areas of disagreement. Officials signaled in the meeting that all U.S. military forces required for possible action would be in place by mid-March, the official said.

AP [2/18/2026 11:02 PM, Matthew Lee and Konstantin Toropin, 31753K] reports Secretary of State Marco Rubio plans to travel to Israel next week to update Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the U.S.-Iran nuclear talks, two Trump administration officials said. Rubio is expected to meet with Netanyahu on Feb. 28, according to the officials, who spoke Wednesday on condition of anonymity to detail travel plans that have not yet been announced. The U.S. and Iran recently have held two rounds of indirect talks over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. Iran has agreed to draw up a written proposal to address U.S. concerns that were raised during this week’s Geneva talks, according to another senior U.S. official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity. That official said top national security officials gathered Wednesday in the White House Situation Room to discuss Iran, and were briefed that the “full forces” needed to carry out potential military action are expected to be in place by mid-March. The official did not provide a timeline for when Iran is expected to deliver its written response. Officials from both the U.S. and Iran had publicly offered some muted optimism about progress this week, with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi even saying that “a new window has opened” for reaching an agreement. “In some ways, it went well,” U.S. Vice President JD Vance said about the talks in an interview Tuesday with Fox News Channel. “But in other ways, it was very clear that the president has set some red lines that the Iranians are not yet willing to actually acknowledge and work through.”

{End of Report} RETURN TO TOP