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 [2/8/2026 5:13 PM, Kaia Hubbard, 51110K] reports Republicans and Democrats in Congress are locked in a standoff over reforming the nation’s immigration enforcement operation as a deadline to reach a resolution and fund the Department of Homeland Security approaches. Last week, Congress passed a package of funding measures to reopen the government and fund the bulk of agencies through September after a four-day partial shutdown. The stalemate came amid a dispute over funds for DHS, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. Lawmakers ultimately approved a stopgap measure to keep the department funded — but only through Feb. 13. The short-term funding patch was designed to give lawmakers more time to negotiate how to rein in the administration’s immigration’s enforcement operation, which came under scrutiny after two deadly shootings by federal agents in Minneapolis last month. But so far, the two sides appear far from an agreement. Senate Democrats submitted draft legislation of the DHS funding measure to Republicans, multiple sources confirmed CBS News. The legislative language reflects Democrats’ proposals to reform ICE as outlined in a letter last week from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Schumer and Jeffries released a list of demands last week to impose "guardrails" on DHS, including by restricting immigration agents from wearing masks and requiring them to display an ID and use body cameras. They also demanded agents be banned from entering private property without judicial warrants, along with requiring agents to verify that someone is not a U.S. citizen before holding them in immigration detention, among other things. Republicans were quick to criticize the demands as "unrealistic and unserious.” Rep. Tony Gonzales, a Texas Republican who appeared on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on Sunday, said "there are some things that make sense, there’s a lot of things that don’t.” "Just a few days ago, this was a bipartisan vote, and all of a sudden, now the Democrats are trying to hold the country hostage," Gonzales added. Gonzales said any deal on DHS funding will not include "amnesty for illegal aliens" or "stripping away protections for law enforcement officers that are trying to protect themselves." He said "if rioters get to wear masks, then law enforcement gets to wear masks as well.”

FOX News [2/8/2026 10:52 AM, Staff, 37576K] reports a ‘Fox News Sunday’ panel discusses the looming Department of Homeland Security funding deadline as Democrats push for reforms following unrest in Minneapolis.

New York Times [2/8/2026 12:05 PM, Michael Gold, 148038K] reports as a Friday deadline to fund the Department of Homeland Security approaches, Democrats and Republicans appeared no closer on Sunday to a deal to keep the department running. “If I had to say now, I probably would expect there is a shutdown,” said Senator John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo.” In the wake of federal immigration officers’ killings of two American citizens in Minnesota last month, Democrats have demanded a host of new restrictions on immigration enforcement operations as a condition for a new spending bill. They include barring immigration officers from wearing masks, requiring them to show visible identification and mandating the use of judicial warrants when they enter private property to make arrests. “Dramatic changes are necessary to the manner in which the Department of Homeland Security officers are conducting themselves before any funding bill should move forward,” said Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Republican leaders have rejected those proposals as an unrealistic wish list, calling the new restrictions overly burdensome to an immigration crackdown that they generally support. “They are threatening the safety and security of our agents so that they can’t do their job,” Senator Bill Hagerty, Republican of Tennessee, said on “Fox News Sunday.” “This is something we need to look at carefully. The request that we should put ICE agents in harm’s way is absolutely intolerable.” Mr. Jeffries said Democrats had not heard a response to their proposals from the White House or Republican leaders in Congress. “The ball is in the court right now of the Republicans,” he said. A spokesman for Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, said on Saturday that the party had not received any legislative text.

The Hill [2/8/2026 5:04 PM, Max Rego, 18170K] reports Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.) acknowledged Sunday that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may lose funding later this week, amid a stall in negotiations on immigration enforcement. “We may well have a shutdown. I’m not sure how it’s going to play out,” Ivey told host Chris Stirewalt on NewsNation’s “The Hill Sunday.” Funding for DHS is set to lapse on Saturday upon the expiration of a two-week continuing resolution (CR) Congress passed last week. The short-term funding measure was part of a larger spending package that also included funds for five other agencies through September. Democrats, who are reluctant to back another short-term CR to keep DHS open, have proposed a number of reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), housed within DHS, in the wake of the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis last month. Among those guardrails are requirements that federal immigration officers obtain a judicial warrant before entering private property, expanded training requirements, an adoption of a standardized use of force policy and a ban on officers wearing masks. “These are common sense solutions that protect constitutional rights and ensure responsible law enforcement,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) wrote in a Feb. 4 letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).

Daily Caller [2/8/2026 12:16 PM, Mark Tanos, 803K] reports Democrats pushed for body cameras on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. Now they want to restrict how the footage is used. Congressional Democrats made body cameras a top demand after federal agents fatally shot two American citizens in Minneapolis, according to Politico. But privacy groups raised alarms that the recordings could become surveillance tools, pushing the party to call for limits on how ICE handles the footage. The shift came after 29 tech and social justice organizations sent a letter to Congress Jan. 28 calling for lawmakers to reject all future ICE funding entirely. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sent a letter to Republican leadership Wednesday night requesting new guardrails, Politico reported. The letter asked lawmakers to "prohibit tracking, creating or maintaining databases of individuals participating in First Amendment activities.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt pushed back Thursday. "I know Senator Schumer and Leader Jeffries sent over a very long list of demands, some of which the administration is willing to discuss. Others don’t seem like they are grounded in any common sense, and they are non-starters for this administration," Leavitt said at a press conference, as reported by Politico. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) criticized the proposal in a statement to Politico. The agency said "sanctuary politicians attempting to ban our federal law enforcement from using tools and technology to track down criminals" would make cities less safe. DHS also stated its body cameras do not have facial recognition capabilities.

Washington Times [2/8/2026 10:54 AM, Lindsey McPherson, 1323K] reports House and Senate Democrats have a long list of demands to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded past Friday, but some include an extra caveat. Several Democrats told The Washington Times that they cannot support any funding deal if Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem remains in charge of the department. “She has completely abandoned and violated all of her duties and obligations,” said Rep. Daniel Goldman, New York Democrat. “It’s a completely lawless agency right now with no accountability. And she is just outright lying to the American people repeatedly, and has demonstrated herself to be completely unqualified and incompetent.” Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida suggested that the majority of the House Democratic Caucus would have trouble supporting a funding deal with Ms. Noem remaining in charge. Stopgap funding for the department expires Friday. “One of the points that are on our list of things that we want and we need for our votes is for Kristi Noem to go,” he said. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, both New York Democrats, recently sent a joint letter to Republican leaders outlining 10 immigration enforcement “guardrails” they want applied to funding for the Department of Homeland Security. Although replacing Ms. Noem was not on the 10-point list, they did mention her in the letter. “Furthermore, there are steps that the Trump administration has the power to take right now to show good faith, including fully ramping down the surge in Minnesota and removing Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem from her position,” Mr. Jeffries and Mr. Schumer said.

CBS News [2/8/2026 4:57 PM, Ibrahim Aksoy, 51110K] reports Rep. Tony Gonzales said Sunday that the Texas immigration detention center in which 5-year-old Liam Ramos was detained is "nicer than some elementary schools" amid reports of a measles outbreak and criticism of the conditions from immigration activists. "The facility in Dilley, I’ve visited there many times," Gonzales, a Republican from Texas, said Sunday on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan." "I’ve visited dozens of facilities. It is a nice facility. It’s a detention facility for people that are in the country illegally that are about to be deported but it is a nice facility. Nicer than some elementary schools.” Gonzales did not elaborate on the conditions of the detention center, which is located in Dilley, Texas, but called it "nice." The Dilley facility is the only immigration detention center in the country that holds children and families, and immigration activists have described the conditions as unsafe, according to the Texas Tribune. CBS News has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment on this. In February, DHS announced that it had halted "all movement" at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center after two inmates had had "active measles infections.” Gonzales argued that Ramos, who along with his parents entered the United States using the now-defunct CBP One app, would not "qualify for asylum.” As funding for the Department of Homeland Security is set to expire on Friday, Democrats in Congress are demanding several revisions to the agency and how ICE and CBP administer immigration operations. Among them are judicial warrant requirements to enter homes, mandatory body cameras, and displaying IDs. Gonzales said Congress needs to "work it through." He said that he thinks body cameras "make a lot of sense," but requiring a judicial warrant by judges who "all over the country go beyond their level of authority" to "roadblock" immigration enforcement operations and not keep communities safe.

NewsMax [2/8/2026 3:21 PM, Staff, 3760K] reports Rep. Tony Gonzales on Sunday strongly defended the use of administrative warrants in immigration enforcement, saying requiring judicial warrants before ICE agents can enter private property would slow operations and, in his view, make communities less safe. Speaking on CBS’ "Face the Nation," the Texas Republican said he supports constitutional protections but warned against what he described as a growing role for judges in blocking law enforcement action. "Of course, I believe in the Fourth Amendment," Gonzales said. "But what worries me is a judge should not hold up everything. We’re seeing judges all over the country go beyond their level of authority.” He said that if an officer witnesses a crime or has what he called "due cause," agents should be able to act without a judge becoming what he described as a roadblock. "So, if a law enforcement officer, let’s just say, for example, sees a crime that’s being committed or has due cause, then why can’t they go in there?" Gonzales said. Meanwhile, Gonzales said allowing judges to slow operations could prevent ICE from removing offenders.

CBS News [2/8/2026 1:03 PM, Staff, 51110K] Video: HERE reports Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas told "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" that "administrative warrants work," amid controversy over immigration officials using them instead of warrants issued by a judge. He added that a judge "should not hold up everything we’re seeing."

Daily Caller [2/8/2026 4:31 PM, Hailey Gomez, 803K] reports CBS host Margaret Brennan exhibited shock during Sunday’s "Face the Nation" after Republican Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales said the U.S. should enforce its laws, before questioning the lawmaker how he could support the deportation of a family. A photo of five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos being detained by federal law enforcement agents widely circulated in January 2026 and prompted discussions online and in the media. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) subsequently released a statement noting the boy’s father, Adrian Conejo Arias, was the target of an illegal immigrant arrest operation. Ramos, according to the agency, had been caught up in his father’s arrest after his mother declined to take him, leading to the father requesting the child stay with him while in detention. "So, Trump was not the first president of the United States to detain children. You have this facility, though, in your district, Dilley, and that is for family detentions. That’s where little five-year-old Liam Ramos from Minnesota was held before a judge — that’s the picture of him there — ordered him released," Brennan said showing multiple pictures. "He was ordered released because his family has a pending asylum claim. A legal process. He had entered with U.S. government permission through a process that the Biden administration had deemed legal, the current administration does not, the CBP One app.” Brennan went on to state Arias gave an interview to Telemundo in which he argued how his son is "not okay" as he wakes up crying at night and is allegedly "worried he’s going to be taken again." "Well, the front door was via an app that Biden knew exactly what he was doing, and he created this huge mess and now President Trump is there to clean up. And immigration— " Gonzales responded before Brennan jumped in. Cutting off the Republican lawmaker, Brennan argued Arias and Ramos had come into the United States through the "front door.” Since the arrest of Arias in Minneapolis, he and his five-year-old son were sent to a detention facility in Texas, but were released Jan. 31 by a federal judge’s ruling. The two were then returned to Minnesota on Feb. 1, with the family being granted a continuance after DHS filed a motion to expedite deportation proceedings. Following the father and son’s release, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin released a statement noting the facts of the case remain the same as the father had fled agents on foot, abandoning his child. "For the child’s safety, one of our ICE officers remained with the child while the other officers apprehended Conejo Arias. Our officers made multiple attempts to get the alleged mother who was inside the house to take custody of her child. Officers even assured her she would NOT be taken her into custody. The alleged mother refused to accept custody of the child," McLaughlin wrote. "The father told officers he wanted the child to remain with him.”

Breitbart [2/8/2026 12:14 PM, Pam Key, 2238K] reports Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) said it was “not realistic” to remove over 25 million people in this country who are undocumented.’ Host Jon Karl said, “You had an interesting op ed in the New York Times, about immigration, saying that, you know, not only do we need security on the border, we need, and reforms to, to to the way ICE is operating. We need a legal pathway forward for the people who are here illegally. Tell me why this is important and if you’ve gotten any traction on this.” Lawler said, “Look, this is an issue that I’ve been focused on for years. You know, for 40 years, we have not solved our immigration crisis. The American people were rightly outraged by what happened under the Biden administration, where you had over 10.5 million migrants cross our border, most of them illegally. You know, porous Southern border needed to be shut down. President Trump did that. The fact is, we have had nine straight months of net-zero illegal border crossings. You’ve had 675,000 people deported, 1.9 million people. Self-deport. Many of those folks are criminal aliens or people who have been involved in the criminal justice system. The American people overwhelmingly support that. But what they do believe, if you’ve been in this country, right or wrong, for five, ten, 15, 20 years, your children and your grandchildren are American citizens. People don’t want to see families broken apart. And so there’s got to be a legal path forward, not a path to citizenship, but a legal path forward for people to come out of the shadows so that they can work legally, that they can pay their taxes, pay any back taxes owed, pay a fine, not collect government benefits, and not commit a crime.”

Washington Times [2/8/2026 10:05 AM, Seth McLaughlin, 1323K] reports House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries says he’s not confident Congress will strike a deal to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded and it’s up to Republicans to break the stalemate. Mr. Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, both New York Democrats, have insisted that President Trump and Republicans agree to a 10‑point list of demands before Democrats will support DHS funding. The department oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol. “We know that ICE is completely and totally out of control,” Mr. Jeffries said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “They’ve gone way too far, and the American people want them reined in, because immigration enforcement should be fair, it should be just and it should be humane.” “So dramatic changes are necessary to the manner in which the Department of Homeland Security officers are conducting themselves before any funding bill should move forward,” he said. Democrats have been pushing for changes to immigration enforcement following the shooting deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. Their demands include banning masks that hide federal officers’ identities, ending “indiscriminate” arrests, and prohibiting arrests near “sensitive” locations such as clinics, churches, courts, day cares, and schools. The bill for funding Homeland Security covers a wide range of agencies, including the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Coast Guard, the Secret Service and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

Bloomberg Government [2/8/2026 11:34 AM, Staff, 111K] reports House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Democrats are insisting on their full list of demands to reform Immigration and Customs Enforcement before agreeing to pass the remaining government funding for the Department of Homeland Security before the Friday deadline. "We need to press forward aggressively and ensure that there are legislative changes enacted as part of any DHS spending bill because that’s the way that you change behavior," Jeffries said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union.

CNN [2/8/2026 10:47 AM, Dana Bash, 19874K] Video: HERE reports House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries joins Dana Bash ahead of a deadline to fund the Department of Homeland Security. Jeffries also responds to President Trump posting a racist video of the Obamas and his recent calls for Republicans to "take over" elections.

New York Post [2/8/2026 3:32 PM, Ryan King, 40934K] reports House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries poured cold water on the idea of Democrats accepting anything less than their full 10 demands of Republicans to prevent the Department of Homeland Security from shutting down in five days. "Not at this point," Jeffries (D-NY) told CNN’s "State of the Union" on Sunday. "Dramatic changes are necessary to the manner in which the Department of Homeland Security officers are conducting themselves before any funding bill should move forward.” GOP leadership had publicly accused Democrats of declining to negotiate on their 10-point demands rolled out last week and faulted them for only granting about 10 days to cut a deal. Some of the demands include red lines for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), such as a bar on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers from wearing masks and tighter restrictions on judicial warrants for immigration-related activities. "Our team, our folks have tried to get with them, to sit down at the table and with the White House to reach an agreement," Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) lamented on the Senate floor Thursday. Jeffries claimed Sunday that it’s the Democrats who "haven’t heard back" from GOP leadership in "terms of the demands that we put on the table.” While Republicans have already prefunded ICE and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, other DHS programs, such as the Coast Guard, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and more, are in jeopardy.

Breitbart [2/8/2026 9:54 AM, Pam Key, 2238K] reports Sunday on CNN’s "State of the Union," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) claimed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act is another attempt by Republicans and President Donald Trump to steal elections. Host Dana Bash said, "The president said this week that this past week that he wanted to nationalize elections at the White House and on Capitol Hill. They say that what they mean legislatively is pushing what they call the SAVE Act, which would mandate Americans show proof of citizenship like a birth certificate. And, also potentially more information about the registration to vote. Now, I understand you don’t support things like a passport, for example, but requiring basic ID in order to vote is really popular. A Pew poll from a few months ago showed 83% of Americans, including 71% of your fellow Democrats, support requiring an ID to vote. Why are they wrong?". Jeffries said, "I haven’t said that they’re wrong. We know that states are the ones who are empowered to conduct elections in every state should be allowed to decide the best way to proceed to ensure that there’s a free and fair election here in New York. There are, in fact, voter identification requirements. The question is that what Republicans are trying to do is to engage in clear and blatant voter suppression. They know that if there’s a free and fair election in November, they’re going to lose.”

Axios [2/8/2026 3:57 PM, Avery Lotz, 17364K] reports with high-stakes midterms approaching, President Trump has called for Republicans to "nationalize" elections, end mail-in ballots and pass the SAVE America Act. But that legislation doesn’t provide all of Trump’s desired changes. Voting rights groups warn the legislation, which requires proof of citizenship to vote, could erect barriers despite noncitizen voting being illegal and rare. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Trump was referencing the legislation when he called last week for Republicans to take over voting. "President Trump cares deeply about the safety and security of America’s elections, that’s why he has urged Congress to pass the SAVE Act and other legislative proposals," spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said. Trump didn’t name the law when he told ex-FBI deputy director Dan Bongino the GOP should "nationalize" elections in 15 places. Later, he doubled down, saying states are "agents of the federal government to count the votes. If they can’t count the votes legally and honestly, then somebody else should take over." On Thursday and Sunday, Trump claimed without evidence that elections are "Rigged" and called for the SAVE America Act’s passage. He demanded all voters show ID and proof of citizenship, writing, "NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS (EXCEPT FOR ILLNESS, DISABILITY, MILITARY, OR TRAVEL!)." The SAVE America Act doesn’t end mail-in voting, which Trump himself has used, nor does it change who counts votes. Trump’s legislative push comes as federal actions, including Attorney General Pam Bondi’s demands for voter rolls and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s election-related probes, alarm Democrats and voting rights advocates.

FOX News [2/8/2026 1:37 PM, Madison Colombo, 37576K] reports Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., said he expects the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to shut down over a partisan funding feud as lawmakers remain deadlocked on key reforms. He broke with Democratic Party leaders on the issue, backing border enforcement and tougher voter ID laws. "I absolutely would expect that it’s going to shut down," Fetterman said on "Sunday Morning Futures.” Without intervention, DHS funding will expire on Friday after being carved out of a larger government funding package. A shutdown would impact TSA workers, FEMA operations and border security enforcement. While Fetterman said he does not support shutting down the government, he acknowledged he expects Democrats and Republicans to remain divided past the deadline. Democratic lawmakers have pushed for changes to DHS amid nationwide protests and heightened scrutiny. In January, DHS immigration enforcement actions in Minnesota left two Americans dead, and both deaths are under investigation. Democrats sent Republicans a list of proposed reforms that GOP lawmakers have rejected. Their demands included a requirement for agents to unmask, mandatory body cameras and judicial warrants for arrests. While some Democrats have called for the disbandment of DHS, Fetterman said he supports securing the border and deporting illegal immigrants who commit crimes. He urged his colleagues to focus on those shared priorities. "Secure our border… deport all the criminals," he said.

Reported similarly:
The Hill [2/8/2026 11:48 AM, Tara Suter, 18170K]
NewsMax [2/8/2026 3:16 PM, Jim Thomas, 3760K]

NBC News [2/9/2026 5:00 AM, Jane C. Timm, 43603K] reports state election officials got an unusual invitation from the Trump administration last week: a late February call about midterm preparations organized by the FBI. The surprise email came at a tense moment. The Justice Department has sued dozens of states for unredacted voter rolls, the FBI raided an Atlanta-area elections office, and President Donald Trump has called for nationalizing at least some elections. Some state election chiefs said the invitation was also the first time they have heard from anyone in this Trump administration about election security in months — or ever. Seven Trump officials — including as many as three Cabinet secretaries — were expected to appear at a National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) conference in Washington, D.C., last month, but ultimately just one White House aide showed up. “Given what has happened over the last two weeks, the drama that occurred at NASS, and then to arbitrarily just send out an email with a predetermined date and time with everybody’s emails exposed, saying get on this call,” said Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, a Democrat, “my response was — [I] wrote back to them immediately, like, is this real?” Nine secretaries of state at the annual NASS conference, which took place before the FBI’s briefing invitation, said in interviews that they’d had little contact with the second Trump administration, which gutted the federal agency charged with helping states secure their elections last year. The first Trump administration designated elections as critical infrastructure and established the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which worked with states to help secure their elections both physically and digitally, under the Department of Homeland Security. The agency offered money, manpower and expertise and funded information-sharing between states until last year, when it was devastated by major cuts. Funding for threat monitoring through the Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a DHS-funded nonprofit agency, was cut because it “no longer supports Department priorities,” according to a letter DHS sent to the center last year, which was obtained by NBC News. “The fact that they’ve actually dismantled and defunded the very real, tried and true infrastructure that was in place in 2020 to protect our elections against foreign interference, that speaks for itself about where their focus really is,” said Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat who is running for governor. “State officials are all we have left in terms of guardrails over all these processes.”

Politico [2/8/2026 1:54 PM, Jacob Wendler, 21784K] reports Democratic senators warned that the Trump administration could deploy ICE officers at or near polling places in November, raising concern about recent comments from President Donald Trump and his allies. The response comes after Trump said in a Tuesday podcast interview that “the Republicans ought to nationalize the voting,” repeating debunked conspiracy theories about widespread voter fraud in the 2020 elections. He said the GOP “should take over the voting in at least 15 places,” but did not specify which states he was referring to, nor did he acknowledge that the Constitution grants states explicit authority over election administration. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said in a Sunday interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation” that “this is uncharted territory,” pointing to Trump’s Tuesday comments and the administration’s nationwide immigration crackdown. “There is a very real threat, without reforms at ICE, that you could have ICE patrols around polling stations,” Warner told host Margaret Brennan. “And people would say, ‘Well, why would that matter if you’re all American citizens?’ We’ve seen ICE discriminate against Latino families. We’ve seen, as well, mixed families where someone may be legal and others not. And candidly, you don’t need to do a lot to discourage people from voting.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt attempted to walk Trump’s comments back Tuesday, insisting that “the president believes in the United States Constitution.” But hours later, Trump doubled down, telling reporters in the Oval Office that “the federal government should get involved” in elections in certain places. He added that “a state is an agent for the federal government in elections” — a claim the president made last summer when he vowed to sign an executive order bringing “honesty” to the midterm elections. In response, critics have noted that Section 4 of Article 1 of the Constitution states: “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.”

FOX News [2/8/2026 11:26 AM, Staff, 37576K] Video: HERE reports A crowd of anti-ICE agitators flee from outside the Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis after receiving a warning to disperse.

FOX News [2/8/2026 8:12 PM, Asra Q. Nomani, 37576K] reports late last month, after the killing of local Minneapolis resident Alex Pretti by federal agents working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, MS NOW interviewed a protester identified as "Andrew" who said he flew in from Colorado to help drive the feds out of the city. Hours later, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) framed the killing as a "murder," identified "Andrew" as "DSA National Political Committee member Andrew, @andrewized who "joined community members in Minneapolis today, to protest the murder of Alex Pretti. ‘We are going to beat the Trump administration.’" Soon after, in a rhetorical stab at law enforcement officials, the local chapter organized a training on personal protective equipment to use against what "the pigs are using." A week later, media outlets reported that "demonstrators" were protesting at a Target store in the Dinkytown neighborhood of Minneapolis, demanding the company stop supporting the alleged "campaign of terror that ICE is waging" against area residents and workers. Soon enough, the official Instagram account of the local DSA chapter published a post, boasting about how its members "hosted an ICE Out of MN action that shut down the Target in Dinkytown!" On camera, Minneapolis City Council member Robin Wonsley proudly described herself as "minority leader of the Democratic Socialists caucus" and said openly she was "joining tons of socialists" to blast Target and ICE. In Boston, as agitators compared ICE to Hitler’s Gestapo, a demonstrator wearing a Democratic Socialists of America hat carried a sign depicting an eagle similar to the logo of the Nazis, only with "ICE" written on it. Then, this weekend, as students skipped school in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the Los Angeles DSA chapter lauded how its adult members "stood in solidarity with" the students to "demand an end to ICE raids." The messaging campaign against U.S. federal authorities isn’t coincidental, according to a scathing new report by the Network Contagion Research Institute, a research nonprofit based in Princeton, N.J. The report found the DSA’s rhetoric matches the anti-U.S. propaganda of foreign adversaries. The finding is important as the organization amasses more political power in the U.S., with wins like longtime member Zohran Mamdani’s election as mayor of New York City.

Daily Signal [2/8/2026 10:00 AM, Tim Graham, 474K] reports the unrest in Minneapolis has died down, and the Trump administration is pulling 700 immigration enforcement officers out of the area. But all of the national media scrutiny has obsessed over Team Trump. It has rarely acted to "hold government accountable" when the governing comes from Democrats, like Gov. Tim Walz or Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. NPR was eagerly touting its new NPR/PBS Marist Poll to underline the effectiveness of their advocacy: 65% of Americans, up from 54% in June of 2025, think the actions of [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] have "gone too far" in enforcing immigration laws, and 62% say the actions of ICE are making Americans "somewhat less safe, or much less safe.” The New Republic underlined what NPR and PBS were cooking: "Brutal New Poll Wrecks Trump’s Main Claim on ICE.” Now ask yourself this question: Did PBS and NPR ever ask the public for their evaluation of ICE under President Joe Biden, when there was a mass importation of illegal aliens? Pollsters may have asked about their approval of Biden on the immigration issue. But this polling is specific and suggestive, intended to punish ICE deportation efforts. Pollsters don’t ask if the actions of ICE protesters have "gone too far." The media have soft-pedaled violent extremists in the streets, who are painted as passionate heroes, just as Black Lives Matters were boosted for their "racial reckoning" in the George Floyd riots of 2020. James Freeman at The Wall Street Journal asked the rhetorical question: "Who Watches the ‘ICE Watchers’?". National media outlets have implied that these protesters—including Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who were shot by federal agents as they interfered and threatened law-enforcement activities—were somehow not radical activists, when their tactics were clearly radical.

FOX News [2/8/2026 9:37 PM, Sophia Compton, 37576K] reports President Donald Trump is defending federal law enforcement efforts in Minneapolis, saying crime has fallen sharply after what he described as the removal of "thousands of criminals" from the city. In an interview with NBC News’ Tom Llamas that aired Sunday, Trump said crime in Minneapolis is down as much as 30%, attributing the decline to tougher enforcement. "The crime numbers in Minnesota, in Minneapolis in particular, are down 25, 30% because we’ve removed thousands of criminals from the area," Trump said. "These are hardened criminals… Most of them came in through an open border, and we’ve done a great job." Operation Metro Surge has sent thousands of immigration agents to Minneapolis and St. Paul, leading to thousands of arrests while also sparking resident resistance and public outrage. Trump pointed to other major cities where he said his administration has delivered dramatic results when it comes to crime. "Look at Washington, D.C.," Trump said. "It’s like a safe city. You can walk to the White House. You don’t have to take an armored vehicle.” The president also cited New Orleans, and Memphis, Tennessee, as examples. Trump also told NBC News that he made the decision to pull hundreds of federal law enforcement agents from Minneapolis following the fatal shootings of two city residents last month, saying the Department of Homeland Security could "use a little bit of a softer touch." On Wednesday, White House border czar Tom Homan announced that roughly 700 federal agents would be leaving the Twin Cities, with the goal of a "complete drawdown."

FOX News [2/8/2026 10:20 AM, Max Bacall, 37576K] reports a Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) whistleblower said she has been raising red flags about fraud in the state since 2019, but has faced only unyielding retaliation in response, calling Gov. Tim Walz’s assertion that he was unaware of the problem "absolutely false.” Faye Bernstein, who has worked for Minnesota’s DHS for two decades in contract management and compliance, said she was subjected to a "smear campaign" for trying to make leadership aware of illegal contracting practices. She said she was called "racist" and that her work responsibilities were diminished. "There is just a continuous effort to stifle you, to shut you up. And it is impossible to overcome," Bernstein said on "Saturday in America.” Federal prosecutors estimate that up to $9 billion was stolen through a network of fraudulent fronts posing as daycare centers, food programs and health clinics. The majority of those charged, so far, in the ongoing investigation are part of Minnesota’s Somali population. Rather than receiving thanks for speaking out about irregularities within the contracting process, Bernstein wrote in a letter obtained exclusively by "Saturday in America" that the "nearly unbearable retaliation" she faced also included being "trespassed from all DHS-owned or leased property" and investigated "at a great cost to the state.” Bernstein said she consistently raised concerns internally and escalated them "to the Governor’s Office and external oversight bodies," but the response was always the same.

AP [2/9/2026 12:06 AM, Gisela Salomon, 31753K] reports Felipe Hernandez Espinosa spent 45 days at " Alligator Alcatraz," an immigration holding center in Florida where detainees have reported worms in their food, toilets that don’t flush and overflowing sewage. Mosquitoes and other insects are everywhere. For the past five months, the 34-year-old asylum-seeker has been at an immigration detention camp at the Fort Bliss Army base in El Paso, Texas, where two migrants died in January and which has many of the same conditions, according to human rights groups. Hernandez said he asked to be returned to Nicaragua but was told he has to see a judge. After nearly seven months in detention, his hearing was scheduled for Feb. 26. Prolonged detention has become more common in President Donald Trump’s second term, at least partly because a new policy generally prohibits immigration judges from releasing detainees while their deportation cases wind through backlogged courts. Many, like Hernandez, are prepared to give up any efforts to stay in the United States. "I came to this country thinking they would help me, and I’ve been detained for six months without having committed a crime," he said in a phone interview from Fort Bliss. "It is been too long. I am desperate.”

Univision [2/9/2026 12:39 AM, Staff, 4937K] reports a pro-immigrant organization reported recovering a small plastic bottle with a note outside the Otay Mesa Detention Center (OMCD). According to the report, it contained a complaint. “Good afternoon. My name is (…) and my wife and I have been at the OMDC since April 15, 2025 (…). It is cold here all the time and the food is bad,” reads the recovered note, which was handwritten. The author noted that they had gone about 290 days without eating any fruit and even wrote about the "cages" where they must remain during their detention. “We are in a huge room with no doors or windows. We can’t see grass or trees. We are constantly sick,” he wrote. According to the organization, the note was thrown from inside the center and recovered by attendees of a vigil, which has been meeting once a week outside the place for several months in order to bring hope to the detainees, said Jeane Wong of San Diego Bike Brigade. “We were tortured in our country and now we are in prison indefinitely without the opportunity to properly prepare for a trial,” said the Hispanic man, who also asked for help regarding the living conditions at the detention center. According to Wong, this was not the first note and bottle that they recovered outside the Otay Mesa Detention Center. At least 14 bottles with notes have been collected , which include everything from names to A numbers of the detainees. This has helped to give a voice to those detained from the outside.

Washington Examiner [2/9/2026 5:00 AM, Kaelan Deese, 1394K] reports the Trump administration will confront a federal judge on Monday who is poised to press government attorneys on whether and how it can provide due process to more than 100 illegal Venezuelan immigrants deported under an 18th-century wartime law and later transferred beyond U.S. custody. Chief Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is scheduled to hold a 10 a.m. ET hearing in J.G.G. v. Trump, a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to remove Venezuelan nationals accused of gang ties. The case centers on 137 Venezuelan men who were unlawfully in the United States and flown overnight on March 15 to El Salvador’s terrorism confinement center, CECOT, without advance notice or court hearings. The men were later transferred from El Salvador to Venezuela as part of a July prisoner swap involving more than 200 migrants. In a December 2025 ruling, Boasberg found the removals violated due process and ordered the administration to either facilitate the men’s return to the U.S. or provide constitutionally adequate hearings abroad. He said the migrants were expelled “with virtually no notice and no opportunity to contest the bases of their removal.”

New York Times [2/9/2026 1:00 AM, Giuliano Beniamino Fleri, 148038K] reports many residents of Lampedusa, a small, rocky island in the center of the Mediterranean, have told me that they’re used to getting phone calls from people across the sea. Mothers, fathers, siblings and friends call searching for someone who left to try to reach Europe but has not been heard from since. Was a son among the rescued? Did a daughter’s name appear on a list? Does any trace remain? The answer is often no. A decade or so after the peak of Europe’s migrant crisis, one of the busiest and deadliest entry points to the continent has devolved from crisis to something more chronic. European migration policy hardened in the ensuing years. Some arrivals are now automatically excluded from refugee status. There are plans to return those whose applications fail more quickly, and the European Union has paid other countries to prevent boats carrying migrants departing in the first place. The policy is as advantageous to Europe as it is exploitative. It permits migration at great personal risk, strips migrants of rights upon entry and turns them into instruments for reproducing a racialized and exploitative economic order. The phone calls reveal a final cruelty: The border doesn’t only take lives; it also erases them. Sometimes even death is undocumented.

USA Today [2/9/2026 4:31 AM, Sara Pequeño, 67103K] reports President Donald Trump ascended to office by promising to save the U.S. economy, saying that his business sensibilities were going to solve the national debt and put more money in people’s pockets. This turned out to be laughably, demonstrably false. All it seems his administration has done is fail when it comes to fiscal matters. And unlike delicious, cost-effective avocado toast that allegedly drains millennials of their finances, it seems the Trump administration’s frivolous spending ultimately hurts more people than it helps. When Congress ended a government shutdown on Feb. 3 after Democrats objected to actions by immigration enforcement agencies, House Speaker Mike Johnson noted that the resistance from the opposition party was moot. That’s because Republican lawmakers had already given the Department of Homeland Security $190 billion over four years in 2025’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act – including a $75 billion supplemental budget just for Immigration and Customs Enforcement – enough to hold ICE over while legislators argued over containing it. That doesn’t signal controlled spending. In fact, Trump’s agenda seems to be making the national debt worse. In October, The Associated Press reported that the country was now $38 trillion in debt after the fastest accumulation of $1 trillion since the COVID-19 pandemic. This recent funding news got me thinking about Trump’s decades-long promise to “drain the swamp” and fix government bloat. Between an influx of funding for agencies that serve the president’s interests and cuts to departments that will ultimately cost taxpayers later on, it’s clear Republicans have no interest in curbing spending.

CBS News [2/9/2026 4:00 AM, Camilo Montoya-Galvez, 51110K] reports less than 14% of nearly 400,000 immigrants arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in President Trump’s first year back in the White House had charges or convictions for violent criminal offenses, according to an internal Department of Homeland Security document obtained by CBS News. The official statistics contained in the DHS document, which had not been previously reported publicly, provide the most detailed look yet into who ICE has arrested during the Trump administration’s far-reaching deportation operations across the U.S. The internal DHS figures undermine frequent assertions by the Trump administration that its crackdown on illegal immigration is primarily targeting dangerous and violent criminals living in the U.S. illegally, people Mr. Trump and his lieutenants have regularly called the "worst of the worst." The statistics show ICE has dramatically increased arrests since Mr. Trump’s return to office. Nearly 60% of ICE arrestees over the past year had criminal charges or convictions, the document indicates. But among that population, the majority of the criminal charges or convictions are not for violent crimes.

Univision [2/8/2026 6:04 PM, Staff, 4937K] reports Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed a new executive order aimed at protecting immigrant communities from what he called the “abusive enforcement of immigration laws” by President Donald Trump’s administration. The order was announced and signed Friday morning during an Interfaith Breakfast held at the New York Public Library in Bryant Park, in front of religious leaders from all five boroughs. “If faith offers us the moral guidance to support foreigners, the government can provide the resources,” Mamdani stated. “Let us create a new expectation for the City Hall, where power is exercised to love, welcome, and protect.” Executive Order No. 13 prohibits municipal agencies from sharing information collected for local purposes with federal immigration authorities, except where there is an explicit legal obligation. “No New Yorker should be afraid to apply for city services like childcare because they are an immigrant,” the mayor stressed.

New York Post [2/8/2026 3:36 PM, Vaughn Golden, 40934K] reports New York Democrats signed onto a measure denouncing ICE and supporting legislation to make New York a sanctuary state as they hope fury against the agency will be a winning electoral issue come November’s midterm election. In a unanimous vote at the state convention in Syracuse Friday, the state Democratic party backed a symbolic resolution supporting the New York for All Act – a sweeping measure that would prohibit local governments from cooperating with ICE. "ICE has become an agency that operates with violence, impunity and total disregard for human and civilian life," the resolution reads, in part. "This legislation would prohibit state and local resources from being used to aid most non-criminal federal immigration and ensure New York is not complicit in ICE’s violence," it added of the New York for All legislation. A Siena University poll released this week showed a whopping 61% of New York voters disagree with ICE’s tactics, including the same number in suburban counties. The vote of party bigwigs, including both Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) and state Sen. Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Westchester), shows Democrats ready to take on immigration as a campaign issue. Assemblyman Brian Cunningham (D-Brooklyn), who seconded Hochul’s formal nomination, bashed Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, Hochul’s likely GOP foe, for working with ICE.

CBS News [2/8/2026 6:48 PM, Zachary Bynum, 51110K] reports a proposed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) holding center for detainees in Social Circle, Georgia, could open as early as April, even as city officials voice strong concerns and frustration over the process. The City of Social Circle recently learned that 1365 E. Hightower Trail, a property previously owned by PNK and considered as an alternative location, has now been purchased by ICE, making it the preferred site for the planned facility. City leaders say they were not involved in key stages of the process, including an engineering evaluation of city utilities conducted by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and they worry that the center could overwhelm Social Circle’s resources—potentially tripling the city’s population overnight. The planned facility, which could house up to 10,000 detainees, is less than a mile from Social Circle Elementary School. City Manager Eric Taylor and other officials have expressed frustration over a lack of transparency, pointing out the city’s limited police presence and insufficient water and sewer infrastructure.

Univision [2/8/2026 6:20 PM, Staff, 4937K] reports the City of Social Circle confirmed this Sunday, February 8, that the sale of the property located at 1365 E. Hightower Trail has been finalized , so the company PNK is no longer the owner and the property now belongs to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Local authorities indicated that they will continue to monitor the project’s development and will share confirmed information with the public as it becomes available. The announcement comes as federal plans move forward to convert an empty warehouse in Social Circle into an immigration detention center with a capacity of up to 10,000 people. This information was previously revealed by Georgia Congressman Mike Collins after a call with officials from the Department of Homeland Security and ICE. The legislator indicated that the federal government plans to move forward with the warehouse conversion, although he acknowledged concerns about whether the city has the necessary resources for a facility of this size.

Univision [2/8/2026 8:05 PM, Staff, 4937K] reports the Government of Mexico, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE), is providing consular assistance and protection to Alberto Castañeda Mondragón , an immigrant of Mexican origin who was seriously injured after being beaten during his detention by agents of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) in Saint Paul, Minnesota. In a statement, the Mexican Foreign Ministry reported that the Mexican Consulate in Saint Paul established contact with the victim and her family, in addition to providing medical and legal follow-up, as part of the protection actions of the Mexican State. He reported that the Mexican man received emergency treatment at a local hospital due to the severity of his injuries, which included eight skull fractures and internal bleeding. Consular staff visited him and remained in constant communication with medical authorities to monitor his progress. The Foreign Ministry also stated that legal support was provided and information was requested from US authorities regarding the circumstances of Castañeda Mondragón’s arrest, with the aim of clarifying the facts and verifying that the human rights of the national were respected.

Univision [2/8/2026 9:43 PM, Staff, 4937K] reports the constant presence of ICE agents and raids in Minneapolis generated fear among undocumented immigrants, leading some to self-deport. Zenaida, originally from Guanajuato, decided to return to Mexico despite suffering from cancer, after losing her partner and avoiding even going out for her treatments for fear of being detained. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Breitbart [2/8/2026 10:49 PM, Elizabeth Weibel, 2238K] reports leftist protesters gathered outside Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, where the NFL’s Super Bowl LX was being played, to protest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Video footage posted to X by TMZ showed a huge crowd of protesters with signs that said, "ICE Out Of Our Communities," "Stop Violence, Deport ICE," and "California is 27% Foreign-born. ICE – STOP the Cleansing." Protesters were also seen "waving ‘Anti-ICE’ and ‘Anti-Trump’ flags," according to TMZ: Waving "Anti-ICE" and "Anti-Trump" flags, people marched along the street accompanied by officers on horseback. While NFL chief security officer Cathy Lanier has previously stated that there were "no planned ICE enforcement activities," for Super Bowl LX, the outlet noted that "sources" said "ICE may be present at the Super Bowl but only in a security role."

Univision [2/8/2026 7:06 PM, Staff, 4937K] reports a group of activists distributed thousands of towels to attendees of Super Bowl LX outside Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, bearing the phrase "ICE OUT" and a reference to Bad Bunny as a protest against the immigration policies of the Donald Trump administration. The initiative was part of the "flags in the stands" cultural action , so that fans of the Seattle Seahawks vs. New England Patriots game could join in rejecting the actions of agents of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). According to the Los Angeles Times, 15,000 towels were distributed by 80 volunteers gathered near Levi’s Stadium. The group that led this activity was an organization that supports migrants and identifies as "anti-ICE."

Los Angeles Times [2/8/2026 8:22 PM, Katie King, 12718K] reports U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna stood outside of Levi’s Stadium on Sunday as thousands of football fans streamed inside the Santa Clara venue. The congressman wasn’t there to cheer on his favorite team. He had stopped by to send a message: Federal immigration agents were not welcome at the Super Bowl. "This is my district and this is a time for elected leaders to be outside with people," said Khanna (D-Fremont). "I’ve communicated to the NFL and to the administration to keep ICE out, but I think physically being here in the community makes a big difference." At a news conference earlier this month, NFL chief security officer Cathy Lanier said she was confident that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents would not conduct operations at the Super Bowl. But Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem previously confirmed that ICE would be present. "We’ll be all over that place," she told Benny Johnson, a right-wing podcaster, in October. "We’re going to enforce the law."

Breitbart [2/8/2026 7:50 AM, Simon Kent, 2238K] reports Green Day front man Billie Joe Armstrong used a pre-Super Bowl party to publicly excoriate ICE agents and advise them to "quit your shitty jobs" before President Donald Trump and his administration "drop you like a bad habit.” His words of advice came as the band took center stage at an elite, invitation-only Spotify-sponsored Super Bowl party Friday night where he implored ICE agents to just walk away from the administration. He said: I have a message for ICE agents, wherever you are… Quit that sh—y job you have because when this is over — and it will be over at some point in time — Kristi Noem, Stephen Miller, J.D. Vance, Donald Trump, they’re going to drop you like a bad f—g habit. Variety reports Armstrong also changed some of the band’s lyrics in a nod to contemporary issues during the show at San Francisco’s Pier 29. Singing "Holiday," the 53-year-old switched the words from "the representative from California has the floor" to "the representative from Epstein Island has the floor.” He offered a dedication prior to that same song, saying, "This goes out to Minneapolis." Additionally, as he has for years now, the Variety report notes Armstrong sang "I’m not part of the MAGA agenda" instead of "…part of a redneck agenda" in "American Idiot.” Armstrong and his Oakland act have never sought to disclose the contempt it holds for Trump.

FOX News [2/8/2026 7:40 PM, Ryan Gaydos, 37576K] reports Green Day rocked Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, ahead of Super Bowl LX as the NFL honors Super Bowl MVPs of the past. The punk rock band played "Holiday" and "American Idiot" – two of their most political songs – for fans who were trickling in before kickoff. However, the band refrained from taking jabs at President Donald Trump and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during their performance. NFL and Green Day fans who tuned into the performance were hoping that the group would have more criticism for Trump and his administration with millions watching around the world. One X user wrote that it was "b---h move" to avoid any politics. "Green Day skipping the entire middle of ‘American Idiot’ with the ‘anti maga’ lyrics when they had the chance to sing it in front of millions during the current political state of our country is such a bitch move sorry," the X user wrote.

San Diego Union Tribune [2/8/2026 9:00 AM, Lisa Deaderick, 1257K] reports with the late-night court ruling last week blocking the Trump administration from ending protections for Haitian immigrants, there’s been a sigh of relief from advocates and people in the Haitian community. It’s a small sigh of relief, as the fight for those protections continues. "We know that the fight is not over, so I have not found any strength to celebrate because I have to really pay attention to the response from the government, while at the same time trying to find other ways to protect the community. So that’s where we are right now," Guerline Jozef, executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, said during a call while in Springfield, Ohio last week. The Haitian Bridge Alliance, headquartered in San Diego, is a community organization advocating for immigration policy and addressing issues specific to Black migrant communities, providing services and resources, as well as partnering with other organizations in service of similar work. For Jozef, the daughter of Haitian parents who were activists in their community and who brought their family to the United States when she was a child, the organization started with a phone call in 2014. There were a few Haitians stranded at the U.S.-Mexico border at the time, and someone called her to see whether she could help them. She figured it would be a one-time thing, but an increase in Haitian immigrants, and other Black immigrants, were arriving at the border in 2016 and she says their needs weren’t being met. "That’s when we started receiving a lot of people in San Diego, and the lack of cultural understanding, structure, in any organization to really address the realities and understanding and the care of Black folks. That’s how we decided to create and put in place a foundation, a home to welcome those people who normally would not be able to get the support that they need," she said. "We want people to understand that we have a large community in San Diego that continues to live in fear, and we are asking for support. We are asking for people to come alongside the Haitian and Somali communities, and others in San Diego. We welcome them to please join the Haitian Bridge Alliance in the fight for dignity, protection for immigrants right now, with a lens on human rights and racial justice.” [Editorial note: consult interview at source link]

NBC News [2/9/2026 5:00 AM, Julia Ainsley, 43603K] reports long before border czar Tom Homan took over in Minneapolis, he warned that a targeted approach to immigration enforcement would be needed to “keep the faith of the American people.” Any immigrant in the U.S. illegally can be arrested and deported, but Homan, who has served as a Homeland Security official under the Obama and both Trump administrations, has long said immigrants who have committed additional crimes should be prioritized for arrest and deportation. In an exclusive interview in June for the forthcoming book “Undue Process: The Inside Story of Trump’s Mass Deportation Program,” Homan warned that a failure to prioritize those arrests could cost the Trump administration support with the public. “I think the vast majority of the American people think criminal illegal aliens need to leave. And if we stick to that prioritization, I think we keep the faith of the American people,” Homan said on June 16, as Border Patrol agents, under the direction of commander Greg Bovino, were conducting their first large-scale raids in Los Angeles. “And I think the more we do that, the more the American people will support what President Trump’s doing. We got to do it and we’ve got to do it in a humane manner.” At the time, Bovino had been brought up from relative obscurity as Border Patrol sector chief in El Centro, California, to run the agency’s Los Angeles operations. Unlike Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who set out to arrest a set of targets, Border Patrol began conducting sweeping arrests targeting immigrants based on where they lived and worked, according to court filings in a lawsuit. Those broad enforcement actions, which began in the Los Angeles Fashion District on June 6, sparked five weeks of protests and led Trump to call in the National Guard and the Marines. In one incident, dubbed Operation Trojan Horse, Bovino instructed his agents to pop out of a rental truck in a Home Depot parking lot to arrest day laborers awaiting work there. Since then, Homeland Security’s enforcement tactics have come under increased scrutiny as deportation operations spread to Chicago, Charlotte, New Orleans and beyond. Public outcry reached a crescendo last month when two U.S. citizens were shot to death by immigration authorities in Minneapolis.

NewsNation [2/8/2026 11:06 AM, Dave Hendricks, 4464K] reports a police officer placed a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer in handcuffs Monday during a “misunderstanding” at the Progreso bridge at the southwest border. The Progreso Police Department dispatched an officer to the bridge on Monday afternoon, when CBP stopped a suspicious car. “A vehicle that had no license plates,” said Progreso police Chief Al Perez. “No nothing. Was not registered to the individual.” When the driver refused to be photographed, a CBP officer grabbed the driver by the shoulder. The police officer concluded the CBP officer had assaulted the driver — and placed the CBP officer in handcuffs. “It was more of a misunderstanding,” Perez said. “There wasn’t an arrest made. There were no charges filed.” The incident happened at roughly 6 p.m. Monday, when Progreso dispatched Officer David Bernal Jr. to assist CBP. Bernal started his career at the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office in 1990, according to Texas Commission on Law Enforcement records. During the past three decades, he worked for police departments in Elsa, La Villa and other small towns. Progreso hired Bernal in 2015. He was “relieved of duty” in 2017, according to documents Progreso released under the Texas Public Information Act, which don’t explain what happened.

CBS News [2/9/2026 5:00 AM, Brett Kelman, 39474K] reports a small Tennessee hospital that was destroyed by a surging river during Hurricane Helene will soon be rebuilt on low-lying farmland that could face several feet of flooding in a much smaller storm, risking another disaster if the new facility is not built to withstand extreme weather, according to a KFF Health News analysis. Ballad Health announced in January that it would spend about $44 million to rebuild the 10-bed Unicoi County Hospital in a field behind a Walmart in Unicoi, Tennessee, about 7 miles from the shuttered hospital that was the site of catastrophic flooding and a daring helicopter rescue on Sept. 27, 2024. But the new location also faces significant flood risk, according to a KFF Health News review of information from Fathom and First Street, two climate data companies whose flood modeling is considered more sophisticated than outdated flood maps published by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Both Fathom and First Street estimate that a 100-year flood — a weather event more common and less intense than Helene — could cover much of the hospital site with more than 2 feet of water. "The proposed site is so obviously a flood plain geomorphologically," said Oliver Wing, chief scientific officer at Fathom. "You don’t need a model to see that." Wing said the new hospital site was actually more likely to flood than the old site and "very risky" for development due to a nearby creek and potential storm runoff from mountains to the west. But the flooding would be less powerful than at the old site, Wing said, and its impact could be lessened by elevating the hospital or building earthen embankments. Ballad Health confirmed the new hospital location but did not respond to questions about flood risk or defenses planned for the site. In a brief written statement, spokesperson Molly Luton said Ballad was working with geotechnical professionals, Zurich Insurance Group, and a high-profile architecture firm in Nashville, Earl Swensson Associates, to "plan and build a safe hospital for the Unicoi County community." Luton said Ballad is also working with FEMA, which is providing about $7.4 million for the rebuild.

FOX News [2/8/2026 9:01 AM, Kurt Knutsson, 37576K] reports hackers have exposed personal and contact information tied to SoundCloud accounts, with data breach notification service Have I Been Pwned reporting impacts to approximately 29.8 million users. The breach hit one of the world’s largest audio platforms and left many users locked out with error messages before the company confirmed the incident. Founded in 2007, SoundCloud grew into an artist-first service hosting more than 400 million tracks from over 40 million creators. That scale made this incident especially concerning. SoundCloud said it detected unauthorized activity tied to an internal service dashboard and launched its incident response process. At the time, users reported 403 Forbidden errors, especially when connecting through VPNs. SoundCloud initially said attackers accessed limited data and did not touch passwords or financial information. The company said the exposed information matched what users already show publicly on profiles. Later disclosures painted a much bigger picture. According to Have I Been Pwned, attackers harvested data from approximately 29.8 million accounts. That data included: While no passwords were taken, linking emails to public profiles creates real risk. That combination fuels phishing, impersonation and targeted scams.

AP [2/9/2026 12:02 AM, Kate Brumback, 31753K] reports jury selection is set to begin Monday in the trial of a man whose teenage son is accused of killing two students and two teachers at a Georgia high school in September 2024. Colin Gray faces 29 counts, including two counts of second-degree murder, two counts of involuntary manslaughter and numerous counts of second-degree cruelty to children related to the shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder. He is one of a handful of parents around the country charged with crimes after their children are accused of committing acts of violence. An indictment says Gray committed cruelty to children by giving his son, Colt, access to a gun and ammunition "after receiving sufficient warning that Colt Gray would harm and endanger the bodily safety of another." Second-degree murder, an unusual charge under Georgia law, is defined as causing the death of a child by committing the crime of cruelty to children. Killed in the shooting were teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53, and two 14-year-old students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo. Another teacher and eight other students were wounded. Investigators have said Colt Gray, who was 14 at the time, carefully planned the Sept. 4, 2024, shooting at the school northeast of Atlanta that is attended by 1,900 students. He wrote step-by-step plans for the assault in a notebook, including diagrams and potential body counts, a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent testified at a hearing the month after the shooting.

FOX News [2/8/2026 10:43 AM, Efrat Lachter, 37576K] reports Chinese-funded infrastructure projects across the Pacific Islands may appear civilian on the surface but could provide future military access for Beijing, senior members of a bipartisan congressional advisory commission warned in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital. Senior members of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said runways, ports and other facilities financed by the People’s Republic of China are often "dual use" and part of a broader strategic pattern that blends economic investment with long-term security objectives. "When you see a broader trend of militarization of the region… you see a lot of activities that suggest there are at least some security and military-related interests involved," commission chair Randall Schriver said. "Even if it’s declared for civilian use… it is by its very character dual-use and could be used for military purposes.” Schriver warned that China’s investments in the Pacific should not be viewed in isolation. "We know that China is very ambitious. We know that even civilian infrastructure projects often have strings attached," he said. "In many instances, those involve access for the Chinese military.” Commission Vice Chair Michael Kuiken said Beijing frequently pairs infrastructure financing with financial leverage. "There’s a cycle of debt diplomacy here," Kuiken said. "China loads these islands up with debt and then uses their position of weakness to gain access… to build runways, to do things with respect to ports.” "It’s a cycle that we see over and over again," he added, calling it "a flywheel of debt diplomacy. There’s a vicious rinse-and-repeat cycle here. And whether it’s Taiwan, Palau, Micronesia or the Solomon Islands, it is a playbook that the Chinese go back to every time.” Schriver acknowledged Washington was slow to recognize the security implications of China’s expansion in the region.

Telemundo [2/8/2026 8:08 PM, Staff, 162K] reports the Cuban government warned international airlines operating on the island that, starting this Monday, the country will run out of aviation fuel due to the US oil blockade, EFE was able to confirm with two sources. At the moment, the affected airlines —mainly American, Spanish, Panamanian and Mexican— have not publicly communicated how they will deal with this situation, which could generate alterations in routes, frequencies and schedules, at least in the short term. However, this is not a new phenomenon in Cuba. In similar situations before—both during the Special Period in the 1990s and during temporary bottlenecks in recent months—airlines managed to overcome the problem by rearranging their routes, with additional refueling stops in Mexico or the Dominican Republic.

AP [2/9/2026 12:42 AM, Megan Janetsky, 31753K] reports Nicaragua’s government on Sunday blocked Cuban citizens from entering the country without a visa, effectively cutting off a key route for Cuban migration to the United States at a time when the Trump administration has put the Caribbean island in an economic chokehold. Nicaragua’s government confirmed to The Associated Press that it suspended an exemption that allows Cubans to enter the Central American nation without a visa. The move would effectively cut off Cubans from a country that has long acted as a bridge for Caribbean migrants traveling to the U.S. For years, Cuban migrants would fly to Nicaragua and meet up with smugglers, who would then help them migrate north through Central America and Mexico to get to the U.S. border. Experts say Nicaragua kept its doors open to people from countries like Cuba and Haiti in a move to weaponize migrants fleeing turmoil against its longtime adversary, the U.S.

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Univision [2/8/2026 7:03 PM, Staff, 4937K]

Reuters [2/9/2026 4:36 AM, Sarah Marsh, 36480K] reports U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will lead "a sizeable delegation" of U.S. officials to the Munich Security Conference this weekend, the head of the annual gathering of security experts and policymakers said on Monday. More than 50 members of the U.S. Congress are also expected, alongside the governors of Michigan and California, former diplomat and conference chairman Wolfgang Ischinger told a news conference in Berlin. "At the moment, transatlantic relations are, in my view, in a considerable crisis of trust and credibility," he said. "That is why it is particularly gratifying that the American side is showing such strong interest in Munich."

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