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

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

The Wall Street Journal [3/15/2026 2:02 PM, Nicole Friedman, 646K] reports top executives of major carriers, including Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines, are urging Congress to restore funding to the Department of Homeland Security and pass bills guaranteeing that air-traffic controllers and airport security officers get paid during government shutdowns. “Once again, air travel is the political football amid another government shutdown,” the executives wrote in an open letter to Congress published Sunday online and in the Washington Post. The ongoing partial government shutdown is causing long wait times at airports at the start of the busy spring travel season. U.S. airlines are expecting a record 171 million passengers this spring, according to the letter. Funding for DHS lapsed in February. Thousands of federal workers are working without pay, including Transportation Security Administration officers, who missed their first paychecks Friday. “That is simply unacceptable,” the CEOs wrote. “It’s difficult, if not impossible, to put food on the table, put gas in the car and pay rent when you are not getting paid.” Unexpectedly long security checkpoint lines at some airports have caused some passengers to miss their flights, and airports are warning travelers to prepare for hourslong waits. More than 300 TSA agents have quit since the start of the shutdown, DHS posted on X last week. The funding for DHS has been held up by demands from Democratic lawmakers that new restrictions be placed on Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations. Democrats blocked a measure to fund DHS last week, after Republicans blocked a proposal to fund some parts of DHS, including TSA, but not ICE. The letter was signed by top executives at six major U.S. airlines and three cargo companies. The Hill [3/15/2026 7:52 PM, Ashleigh Fields, 18170K] reports TSA workers missed their first full paycheck last week as a result of the partial government shutdown affecting the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Air traffic controllers are currently being paid, as they fall under the Department of Transportation. “With spring break travel in full swing, FIFA World Cup 2026 right around the corner and celebrations for America’s 250th birthday throughout the year, the stakes are especially high. U.S. airlines expect 171 million passengers this spring season, a new record,” the airline CEOs wrote. “But too many travelers are having to wait in extraordinarily long—and painfully slow—lines at checkpoints. Wait times of 2, 3 and even 4 hours have been reported. Airlines are doing everything we can to mitigate disruption by holding flights for late passengers and rebooking others. It’s past time for the government to make sure that TSA officers, U.S. Customs clearance officers at airports and air traffic controllers are paid for the job they do,” they added. The partial government shutdown has impacted operations at DHS and subagencies, as Democrats refuse to fund the department over a lack of reforms to immigration enforcement measures. Legislation to fund the department has failed four times since Feb. 12. CEOs from FedEx, UPS, Southwest, United, American, JetBlue, Delta, Alaska Air, Atlas Air and Airlines for America signed on to the letter. FOX News [3/15/2026 11:49 AM, Amanda Macias, 37576K] reports that the group called on lawmakers to pass several pending measures, including the Aviation Funding Solvency Act, the Aviation Funding Stability Act and the Keep America Flying Act, which would ensure that air traffic controllers and TSA officers continue to be paid regardless of the government’s funding status. They pointed to the immediate toll on frontline workers, noting that TSA officers "just received $0 paychecks" and arguing that it is "simply unacceptable" for employees responsible for national travel security to go without pay.

Reported similarly:
Breitbart [3/15/2026 9:52 PM, Staff, 2238K]
AP [3/15/2026 5:45 PM, Anne D’Innocenzio, 2238K]
CBS News [3/15/2026 6:59 PM, Staff, 51110K] Video: HERE
NBC News [3/15/2026 6:59 PM, Staff, 42967K]
Univision [3/15/2026 11:21 PM, Staff, 4937K]

USA Today [3/15/2026 8:48 PM, Kate Perez, 70643K] reports President Donald Trump expressed appreciation for Transportation Security Administration agents and urged them to "go to work" amid the partial government shutdown that has left TSA employees working without pay. Trump thanked working TSA agents on social media March 15, calling them "great" while also blaming "Radical Left Democrats" for the lack of pay. "Keep fighting for the USA. GO TO WORK!" Trump wrote in the March 15 post on Truth Social. "I promise that I will never forget you!!!". Trump’s message comes as airports across the United States see long security lines and TSA agents continue working without pay, with Friday, March 13 marking the first time workers missed their full paychecks. The wait times and pay changes are a result of a partial shutdown that began in mid-February after Congress failed to pass funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees TSA. Around 50,000 TSA officers are continuing to work but without regular pay during the funding lapse, raising concerns about staffing shortages and absenteeism as spring break travel ramps up throughout the month of March. Johnny Jones, Secretary-Treasurer of AFGE TSA Council 100 and a Dallas-based TSA worker, previously told USA TODAY that several airport security workers are already running out of money to cover their bills, with some employees reporting their bank accounts are at zero or negative. Trump named TSA worker Jones in his social media post from March 15, thanking him along with other agents who are "going to work but not being paid.” Agents like Jones are not the only ones calling for the shutdown to end. Most recently, CEOs from Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Atlas Air Worldwide, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue Airways, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, Airlines for America, FedEx and UPS called on Congress to immediately fund DHS to alleviate the lack of pay and long wait times people are experiencing.

Daily Wire [3/15/2026 1:36 PM, Virginia Kruta, 2314K] reports Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy asked on Sunday whether Democrats were waiting for Americans to die before they would be willing to take action to ensure national security. Duffy joined host Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures” on Fox News, and he specifically questioned the recent flip-flop from Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) — who repeatedly voted against funding the Department of Homeland Security only to demand that Congress fund DHS when a terror attack rocked her home state. “Look at Senator Slotkin from Michigan, where there was a synagogue attack,” Duffy began. “She voted every time against funding DHS, and once the threat to her community was real, from radicals, now she says let’s open up DHS.” “I think that begs the question, are Democrats to get hurt, to get killed before they actually put your security before those who have come to this country unlawfully and illegally?” Duffy asked. “I hope that’s not their position, but we can get to a better place if they would just come to their senses and negotiate after they open it up.” Slotkin called for DHS to be funded in the wake of the attack on Temple Israel, during which armed security guards were able to thwart an attacker who crashed his vehicle into the building, armed with a rifle. She had voted with her party against fully funding the Department of Homeland Security, prolonging the partial government shutdown. The partial shutdown, largely driven by Democrat criticisms of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), does not actually impact the funding already carved out for ICE but has cut off pay for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the United States Coast Guard, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), among others.

CNN [3/15/2026 11:03 AM, Jake Tapper, 19874K] reports that, with no signs of progress on a deal to fund DHS, Democratic Sen. Cory Booker tells Jake Tapper, "I will not approve another dollar for ICE, given all that they’re doing, but we should be funding those TSA agents that keep us safe, CISA, Coast guard." [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

NewsMax [3/15/2026 3:32 PM, Jim Thomas, 3760K] reports Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., said Sunday that Democrats should back U.S. strikes on Iran if they believe Tehran cannot be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon, invoking former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 statement calling Iran the nation’s "greatest adversary" as he widened his break with his party. In an interview with John Catsimatidis on WABC, Fetterman said, "I became the only Democrat, certainly in the Senate, to support the mission of Epic Fury," and pressed fellow Democrats to support what he described as an operation that damaged Iran’s nuclear program. "When Kamala Harris ran for president ... she identified Iran as her top international concern," Fetterman said. "And now, here we have a situation where the Trump administration through Epic Fury has effectively broken the Iranian nuclear apparatus. Why can’t we agree that that’s a good thing for international security?". Fetterman argued that any rise in oil prices would be worth it if Iran’s nuclear threat were reduced. "If the administration creates the kind of outcome that we all agree and wanted ... why can’t we support that?" he said. Fetterman also used the interview to fault Democrats over the Department of Homeland Security funding fight. "The Coast Guard people ... and the TSA agents ... they all deserve to be paid," he said. "This shutdown has had zero impact on ICE. So, why should we punish all of these workers ... who are keeping our nation more secure?" [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Daily Signal [3/15/2026 1:30 PM, Harold Hutchison, 474K] reports Democrat Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman criticized his party Saturday over the ongoing partial government shutdown and its impacts on federal employees and operations. Multiple agencies, including the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), are being subjected to "emergency measures" due to the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), according to a release by DHS. Fetterman said he spoke with TSA agents during his frequent travels about the effects of the shutdown. The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now. "I am the only Democrat that has refused to vote in shutting down DHS, literally the only one," Fetterman said during Saturday’s episode of "The Big Weekend Show." "And now all agree that this would not have any impact on ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]. They already have their funding, and it doesn’t push or force ICE to do any of those kinds of reforms that people think are necessary now, too.” "Why would you want to punish all of these workers that are under DHS? The only thing that it can do is just make us less safe, and that also makes people have to go without getting paid," Fetterman continued. "I’m at the airport virtually every week of the year, and I ask all those TSA agents, and I said, ‘Hey, do you like not to get paid for your work?’ I haven’t met one saying, ‘No, it’s no problem.’". Democrats are demanding new restrictions on ICE after federal law enforcement officers were involved in the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good in January during Operation Metro Surge. The separate incidents occurred amid the deployment of hundreds of federal agents to Minnesota in response to reports about welfare fraud involving Somali migrants. Fetterman also criticized Democrats over their efforts to block the funding. "It’s not a big deal, you know," Fetterman said. "I truly don’t understand that, other than it’s just toxic for a Democrat to agree with something that maybe that the Republican side might agree with that. And now I know that, but it’s very easy: more of a country over party, or ‘I’m going to put those union workers over it,’ or America’s security over what the base might demand.”

New York Post [3/15/2026 1:25 PM, Carl Campanile, 40934K] reports Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman ripped fellow Democrats for opposing US attacks on Iran pm Sunday — and reminded them that their 2024 presidential candidate called the country America’s "greatest adversary.” Fetterman — who is now at odds with his party over the Trump administration’s Iran stance — cited former Vice President Kamala Harris’ statements about the regime while she ran unsuccessfully for president in 2024. "I became the only Democrat, certainly in the Senate, to support the mission of Epic Fury," Fetterman said during an interview on 77 WABC radio’s "Cats Roundtable" on Sunday. All Democrats agree Iran shouldn’t have a nuclear weapon, he said. "When Kamala Harris ran for president … she identified Iran as her top international concern," he added. "And now here we have a situation where the Trump administration through Epic Fury has effectively broken the Iranian nuclear apparatus. Why can’t we agree that that’s a good thing for international security?" He said a spike in oil prices because of the conflict should be expected, but said he believed the short-term pain at the pump is worth defanging Iran as a nemesis. "If the administration creates the kind of outcome that we all agree and wanted … why can’t we support that?" the senator said. Fetterman also tore into fellow party members for supporting the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security — accusing them of turning against union workers. "I [was] the only Democrat to vote against that DHS shutdown," he told radio host John Catsimatidis. "The Coast Guard people … and the TSA [Transportation Security Administration] agents … they all deserve to be paid," Fetterman said, adding that he thinks it’s foolish for Democrats to refuse to fund the department because of criticisms of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "This shutdown has had zero impact on ICE. So, why should we punish all of these workers … who are keeping our nation more secure? That’s part of being … a common-sense Democrat.”

FOX News [3/15/2026 5:13 PM, Staff, 37576K] reports Rep. Erin Houchin, R-Ind., addresses the DHS funding stalemate and introduces a gambling addiction reform bill on ‘Fox Report.’[Editorial note: consult video at source link]

FOX News [3/15/2026 9:28 AM, Staff, 37576K] reports Texas congressional candidate Dr. Kristin Hook discusses her candidacy and stance on immigration amid the DHS shutdown[Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Washington Times [3/15/2026 10:53 AM, Seth McLaughlin, 1323K] reports Rep. Michael McCaul said Sunday that Democrats will have “blood on their hands” if they continue blocking funding for the Department of Homeland Security, warning that shutting down the agency during a heightened terror threat is “political malpractice.” Mr. McCaul, who served on the House Homeland Security Committee, said the funding lapse — sparked by Democratic opposition to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s tactics — is leaving the country exposed at one of its most vulnerable moments, with more than 100,000 DHS employees going without paychecks. “The idea of shutting down the Department of Homeland Security at such a high terror threat level is unconscionable,” the Texas Republican said on “Fox News Sunday.” “It is political malpractice. It is criminal.” The Senate failed last week to break the impasse. The 51-46 vote to fund the department fell along partisan lines, with the sole exception of Sen. John Fetterman, Pennsylvania Democrat. The partial DHS shutdown began Feb. 14 after lawmakers failed to reach a deal over changes to ICE following the shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. Republicans are warning that Democrats are playing with fire and leaving the nation vulnerable to retaliatory attacks from terrorists following the U.S.-Israel joint military strike on Iran. An antisemitic attacker drove a car packed with explosives into a Michigan synagogue on Thursday, just hours after an ISIS‑linked gunman carried out a deadly shooting at a Virginia college — part of a rise in domestic terror since the Iran war began. Democrats aren’t budging. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer said talks about changes to ICE are still “far apart” and dismissed GOP attempts to use the Iran war as leverage to break the stalemate. “It’s very easy for them to get all of this funded, simply to agree to our commonsense proposals on ICE and Border Patrol,” the New York Democrat recently told reporters. Drawing on his experience in investigating domestic terror attacks, Mr. McCaul pointed to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, as well as recent shootings in Austin and Virginia, and attacks on synagogues as evidence of the threat facing the country. “If they continue this, they will have blood on their hands,” he said.

FOX News [3/15/2026 5:00 PM, Hanna Panreck, 37576K] Video: HERE reports Sens. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., deflected blame when pressed whether their party should vote to end the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown on Sunday, which has left workers without paychecks for weeks. "We saw terror attacks in West Bloomfield, Michigan, in Norfolk, Virginia. This morning, the CEOs of the nation’s major airlines and cargo carriers have written a letter to Congress calling for them to end the shutdown, talking about the importance of American security in the airways," NBC’s Kristen Welker asked Schiff during "Meet the Press" on Sunday. "Is it responsible for Democrats to hold up DHS funding with the threat of terror attacks looming during this conflict?". Schiff said the Democrats wanted to separate ICE from the rest of the funding, and offered to do so multiple times to fund the other agencies affected by the shutdown. "We offered vote after vote, resolution after resolution—even as recently as this week—to reopen those agencies, to fund them, and the Republicans voted it down. We said, ‘Let’s wall off ICE funding, let’s fund these other agencies that protect the country,’ and the Republicans, one after another, voted them down. Voted down funding TSA, voted down funding the Coast Guard, voted down funding FEMA. So, Republicans are controlling both houses and the presidency; they can’t very well blame the minority party for their own inability to govern, particularly when they’re voting down Democratic motions to reopen these agencies," Schiff responded. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

FOX News [3/15/2026 2:41 PM, Eric Mack, 37576K] reports the United States is left vulnerable even by its own naturalized U.S. citizens from hostile foreign lands, proving a free country can be exposed to security risks by the very freedoms the Constitution endows, an expert warned on Fox News. "That’s partially because of legal reasons: They can’t just monitor constitutionally protected free speech and opinions after they become a naturalized citizen, indefinitely, just to keep tabs on them," Mauro Institute president Ryan Mauro told Fox News on Saturday. "They legally can’t do it, and they also don’t have the resources to do it." Just this month alone, the U.S. has experienced four attacks with ties to naturalized citizenship. "There’s a bit of a jihad olympics going on, which is where you have the Sunni radicals like ISIS competing with the Shiite radicals of the Iranian regime because they need attention in order to survive and in order settle the argument of who has Allah’s blessing so that they can trigger the apocalypse," Mauro said. Fox News Digital reached out to the State Department, the FBI and multiple agencies within the Department of Homeland Security for comment on this story. The State Department redirected us to the latter two federal departments.

Daily Signal [3/15/2026 1:00 PM, Tyler O’Neil, 474K] reports lawyers representing alleged Antifa members who set off fireworks outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Texas and who later shot a police officer tried to discredit an anti-Antifa witness by citing a group that carries water for Antifa. Federal prosecutors have charged nine defendants with various crimes for their July 4, 2025, riot outside the Prairieland ICE detention facility in Alvarado, Texas. A federal grand jury convicted eight of them on the charge of riot and providing material support to terrorists on Friday. While most charges did not rely on the claim that rioters were part of Antifa, the indictment describes the defendants as an "Antifa Cell.” During the trial, prosecutors brought in Kyle Shideler, director and senior analyst for homeland security and counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy, as an expert witness on Antifa. Defense lawyers objected, citing the Southern Poverty Law Center, a far-left activist group that has carried water for Antifa, to delegitimize his testimony. The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now. Patrick McLain, the defense attorney representing Zachary Evetts, confirmed to The Daily Signal that he objected to Shideler’s testimony, and he referenced a lengthy report written by Anne Speckhard, a retired adjunct associate professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University Medical Center. "I objected, on behalf of my client, to Mr. Shideler rendering opinions on matters at issue which only a court-recognized expert could do," McLain told The Daily Signal. "The court overruled most of my objections," he admitted. (Per his request, the entirety of McLain’s comment to The Daily Signal appears at the bottom of this article.). He referenced Speckhard’s report, which, among other things, notes the SPLC’s accusation that the Center for Security Policy is an "anti-Muslim hate group," and claims the organization "engaged in fear-based advocacy, not objective science.” Defense attorneys also cited the SPLC while objecting during the trial. "An attorney for another defendant, in his cross-examination of Mr. Shideler, brought up that Mr. Shideler’s employer, the Center for Security Policy, had been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center," McLain added. "That evidence came in without objection.” Shideler contested the accusation in court, however. "Yes sir, the Southern Poverty Law Center has mislabeled many people as a hate group," Shideler said in response to a question from defense lawyer Phillip Hayes, The Intercept reported.

AP [3/15/2026 8:14 AM, Rebecca Santana, 34146K] reports the Trump administration likes to promote its immigration enforcement agenda through numbers, with ambitious goals to deport 1 million people, report zero releases at the U.S.-Mexico border and arrest thousands of alleged gang members. For all the boasting, the administration has been releasing less reliable, carefully vetted data than its predecessors on a signature policy that has become one of the most contentious of Trump’s second term. The gap in information and a loss of figures from an office that has tracked immigration data back to the 1800s have left researchers, advocates, lawyers and journalists without important statistics to hold the Republican administration to account. "They aren’t publishing the data," said Mike Howell, who heads the conservative Oversight Project, an advocacy group pushing for more deportations. Instead, Howell said, the Department of Homeland Security has put out numbers in news releases "that purport to be statistics with no statistical backup and the numbers have jumped all over the place.” With mass deportations a priority, new restrictions and increased enforcement have led to a surge in immigration arrests, detentions and deportations. But finding the metrics that once measured those changes can be hard. It is an extension of earlier administration moves to limit the flow of government information by scrubbing or removing federal datasets or by the firing last year of the top official overseeing jobs data. The Office of Homeland Security Statistics is responsible for publishing figures from Homeland Security agencies, including removals and the nationalities of those deported, to provide a comprehensive picture of immigration trends at the border and inside the United States. Originally known as the Office of Immigration Statistics, it tracked such data since 1872. In its current form, created under the Biden administration, it also started publishing monthly reports that allowed researchers to track developments almost in real time. But key enforcement metrics on its website have not been updated since early last year. A note on the page where the monthly reports were says it "is delayed while it is under review.” "It’s the most timely data. It’s the most reliable data," Austin Kocher, research professor at Syracuse University who closely follows immigration data trends, said about the monthly reports. "It has the most omniscient view of immigration enforcement across the entire agency.”

Politico [3/15/2026 4:00 AM, Myah Ward, Jessica Piper and Erin Doherty, 21784K] reports the Trump administration quietly shifted its immigration messaging in the weeks after its violent operation in Minneapolis that included the fatal shooting of two Americans, largely dropping mentions of “mass deportations” as public sentiment shifted against the aggressive tactics. A POLITICO review of social media posts from major official administration accounts shows only one mention of the term in the past month, compared to more than a dozen in the four weeks prior. The analysis examined the social media accounts of top Trump officials and White House-run pages the administration has leveraged to push support for its immigration agenda. The findings suggest an administration recalibrating its message in the wake of wavering poll numbers on what had been one of President Donald Trump’s signature issues. It comes as Republicans have grown worried about the 2026 midterms, with calls for large-scale deportations — a hallmark of Trump’s campaign — now seen by some in the party as a vulnerability, particularly with Hispanic voters who had shifted toward the president just two years ago. “Deportations have a different look after Minneapolis, and we need to reclaim immigration as an issue,” said Michigan-based GOP strategist Jason Roe. “Deporting criminals remains popular, and the fact that the Democrats reflexively take the opposite side of Trump puts them, once again, on the side of criminals.” For months, calls for “mass deportation” were a frequent feature of the Trump administration’s aggressive social media strategy. On X, the White House’s prolific Rapid Response account spent days in mid-January linking “mass deportations” to lower crime, more jobs and lower housing costs. But that account hasn’t used the phrase “mass deportation” since Feb. 12, when it shared clips from a press conference during which border czar Tom Homan, who was dispatched to Minneapolis to deescalate tensions, said mass deportations were still on but emphasized more targeted enforcement. “The message focus is a reflection on where the administration’s strongest arguments have always been, which is an emphasis on border security policies that draw a contrast with the Biden-Harris administration, and a more prioritized and precise focus on illegal immigrants with criminal offenses,” said Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist who has worked for House GOP leadership and on presidential campaigns. Last week, Trump picked Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) to be the next Homeland Security secretary, moving current DHS chief Kristi Noem to a special envoy role in the face of growing frustrations with her tenure.

Washington Post [3/15/2026 10:00 AM, Samantha Schmidt, Karen DeYoung and David Nakamura, 24826K] reports Brandon Sigaran Cruz was only 9 when his parents brought him and his brother to the United States, far away from the gangs recruiting young boys in the elementary schools of El Salvador. The next time he set foot in his native country was more than a decade later, on March 15 of last year, when the Trump administration deported the 21-year-old alongside more than 260 migrants to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, an infamous megaprison known for human rights abuses that is completely cut off from the outside world. Sigaran has no known criminal record in El Salvador. But for an entire year, he has remained imprisoned with no access to a lawyer, no contact with his family and no prospect of a trial before a judge, according to human rights lawyer Kelvi Zambrano. He was deported under an agreement with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele that became one of President Donald Trump’s most aggressive and attention-drawing immigration enforcement initiatives in his early months in office. Little is known about the exact whereabouts of the deported Salvadorans who are imprisoned. Relatives and lawyers of some of the men told Washington Post that they have had no contact with their detained loved ones and have been unable to confirm where they are being held. The majority of the migrants sent to CECOT were Venezuelans who the Trump administration said were members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuela-based gang — often without presenting evidence or offering a chance to contest the claim. After being held for four months, the Venezuelans were released to their home country as part of a prisoner swap. The U.S. also deported 23 Salvadorans that same day a year ago, including Kilmar Abrego García, an undocumented immigrant living in Maryland whose removal the Trump administration admitted was a mistake because an immigration judge had barred his return to El Salvador over concerns he would be persecuted. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ordered the Trump administration to bring Abrego back to the U.S., where he now faces human smuggling charges. He has pleaded not guilty. The Department of Homeland Security had classified the Salvadorans as gang members and criminals in deciding whom to put on the planes, according to a person familiar with U.S. decision-making, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions. Bukele had insisted that all of those deported on March 15 be criminals. U.S. officials — who paid the Bukele government $4.76 million under the arrangement, according to a recent report from Senate Democrats — left it up to the Salvadoran government to make its own determination about its citizens, and they did not specifically ask Bukele’s authorities to detain the men in CECOT, the person said. But Kristi L. Noem, then the homeland security secretary, toured the prison not long after the deportees arrived, using it as a backdrop to deliver on social media the administration’s message to “criminal illegal aliens.” “If you do not leave,” her post on X read, “... you could end up in this El Salvadorian prison.” In a response to questions from The Post, DHS said Saturday that the men deported to CECOT were “human rights abusers, gang members … or suspected terrorists.” “They may not have criminal records in the U.S., beyond breaking our laws to enter the country illegally, but many of these illegal aliens are far from innocent,” DHS said in a statement. “If you come to our country illegally, you could end up in CECOT, GITMO, or another third country.”

Breitbart [3/15/2026 5:24 PM, Sean Moran, 2238K] reports Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD) told Breitbart News Saturday that passing the SAVE America Act through the Senate comes down to "math," and if enough Senate Republicans would back a "talking filibuster.” Johnson spoke to Breitbart News Saturday host Matthew Boyle as President Donald Trump, conservatives, and the MAGA base have urged the Senate to pass the House-passed SAVE America Act, with Trump calling it his "No. 1 priority." The SAVE America Act, among other things, would require proof of identification to register to vote and to vote at a polling station. The House sent the bill to the Senate as a "message," meaning that the legislation could be passed by the Senate with only 51 votes. However, Senate Republicans would still need 60 votes to end debate on the legislation, which is more formally known as enacting cloture. In the absence of 60 votes to enact cloture, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) has urged his Senate GOP colleagues to embrace the "talking filibuster," a longstanding feature of Senate parliamentary procedure that would debate on legislation by physically exhausting those opposed to the legislation. Those opposed to ending debate on the legislation would be forced to continually talk on the Senate floor. Johnson said the problem is that it appears there are not enough Senate Republicans to embrace the talking filibuster. He said on Breitbart News Saturday, "Math is king in Washington, DC. We can do almost anything we want in the House if we got 218 votes and we can’t really do anything if we don’t have 218 votes. I know people are focused on the 60-vote threshold but there’s also another vote threshold that matters and that’s 51. If you don’t have 51 votes you can’t do anything in the Senate regardless of the filibuster, and my sense is… that they don’t have 51 votes to blow up the filibuster.” Former White House Chief of Staff and former Rep. Mark Meadows, now a senior partner at the Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI), on March 11 compiled a list of Senate Republicans that have embraced the use of the talking filibuster to pass the SAVE America Act.

Breitbart [3/15/2026 6:03 PM, Sean Moran, 2238K] reports Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) told Breitbart News that the planned vote on the SAVE America Act will reveal who is fighting for secure elections and who fears them. "The battle for the SAVE America Act comes to the Senate floor next week. While I believe forcing Democrats into a standing filibuster is our best chance of success, we now have an opportunity to show the country who is fighting for secure elections and who fears them. Americans should keep up the pressure on Democrats and stay tuned," Lee told Breitbart News in a written statement. The Utah senator spoke to Breitbart News as Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has said he would bring the House-passed SAVE America Act to the Senate floor this upcoming week. WATCH — Senate Majority Leader Thune Says He Will Bring the "Save America Act" to the Floor Next Week: The legislation would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and photo ID to cast a ballot. Lee, who introduced the SAVE America Act, has led the campaign to use a "standing filibuster," which would require those opposed to the legislation to actively hold the Senate floor to prevent the ending of debate on the bill. If pro-SAVE America Act senators were to exhaust Democrats from holding the floor, debate would end on the legislation and the Senate could move to pass the legislation with a simple majority, or 51 votes. WATCH — "You Have to Be a Leader!" Trump Says Thune Needs to Pass SAVE America Act: Former White House Chief of Staff and former Rep. Mark Meadows, now a senior partner at the Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI), on March 11 compiled a list of Senate Republicans that have embraced the use of the talking filibuster to pass the SAVE America Act. This includes: Thune has rejected calls to use the standing filibuster; however, he said that bringing the legislation to the floor would still put Democrats on the record about their opposition to the legislation. "I can’t guarantee an outcome on this legislation, but I can guarantee that we are going to put Democrats on the record," Thune said on the Senate floor Thursday. "That they will be forced to defend their outrageous positions on these issues – and explain to the American people why common sense and the Democratic Party have parted ways," he said.

New York Times [3/15/2026 1:25 PM, Christopher Flavelle, Madeleine Ngo, and Georgia Gee, 148038K] reports a few days after Christmas, Senator Markwayne Mullin’s expansive stock portfolio got significantly bigger. Mr. Mullin reported buying shares in Chevron, the only major U.S. oil company producing in Venezuela. Five days after the purchase, President Trump attacked Venezuela, demanding that its leadership give better terms to U.S. oil companies. Chevron’s stock price has since jumped, even as the market as a whole has slipped. The Chevron transaction, which Mr. Mullin reported in January, was among as much as $2.8 million he invested in 31 companies on Dec. 29 — and part of a pattern of large and frequent trades that has made him one of the most prolific stock buyers in Congress. There is no indication that Mr. Mullin, an Oklahoma Republican and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who has said he speaks with Mr. Trump “all the time,” had inside knowledge of the administration’s plans before those stock transactions. Federal law doesn’t prohibit members of Congress from trading stock, even in industries overseen by committees on which they serve. But Mr. Mullin’s financial dealings take on new importance this week as the Senate is set to consider his nomination to lead the Homeland Security Department, which is issuing billions of dollars in new contracts as part of the administration’s immigration crackdown. Many prominent leaders, including Mr. Trump, have called for new limits on stock trading by lawmakers and their families, arguing that unfettered trading creates the potential for government officials to make decisions that benefit their private interests rather than those of the public. The previous secretary, Kristi Noem, was ousted by Mr. Trump amid questions about conflicts of interest at D.H.S. A spokeswoman for Mr. Mullin said the senator does not personally direct or inform his family’s stock purchases and complies with all laws and ethics rules. “Senator Mullin uses an independent, third-party operator firm that manages all stock investments on his behalf,” she said in a statement. Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, added that, if confirmed as D.H.S. secretary, Mr. Mullin “will comply with all ethics and conflict of interest rules, just as every cabinet secretary does.”

The Hill [3/15/2026 2:37 PM, Staff, 18170K] reports the Hill’s Bill Sammon and Chris Stirewalt dive into resurfaced remarks by Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin at a recent event where he criticized Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and appeared to support the 2017 assault of Paul by one of his neighbors. With Mullin vying for the Homeland Security Secretary position, could his comments hurt his chances for confirmation given Paul’s power in the senate? [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Wall Street Journal [3/15/2026 11:47 AM, Kevin Cohen, 646K] reports western counterterrorism operated for decades on a simple premise: Threats came from somewhere else. They crossed borders. They arrived with suspicious travel histories, fraudulent documents or known affiliations. Stop them there and the interior remains secure. That premise is no longer holding. The days since the Iran war began have seen at least four apparent terrorist attacks in the U.S., two of them last Thursday: Late Thursday morning Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, a Lebanese-American immigrant, rammed a truck into the Temple Israel synagogue complex in West Bloomfield, Mich., while armed with a rifle. Hours earlier, Mohamed Bailor Jalloh—a naturalized citizen born in Sierra Leone and a former Army National Guardsman with a prior conviction in a terrorism case involving support for Islamic State—opened fire in a class attended by ROTC cadets at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va. On March 7, Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19—the sons of immigrants from Turkey and Afghanistan, respectively—allegedly traveled from Pennsylvania to New York City carrying homemade explosive devices packed with shrapnel and the volatile compound triacetone triperoxide. Shortly before 2 a.m. on March 1, gunfire ripped through the crowds along the West Sixth Street nightlife district of Austin, Texas. Outside Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden, Ndiaga Diagne, a Senegalese-American immigrant, opened fire into the street. The violence that unsettled Western societies throughout 2025 looked nothing like the earlier era of clandestine crossings and centrally directed terrorist cells. Increasingly the danger emerges inside societies that still treat admission as the end of a security process rather than the beginning of one. The shift isn’t simply about the number of attacks. It is about where the failure occurs. Federal agencies now warn that lone-actor violence may be among the hardest threats to detect, precisely because people who are radicalized domestically often remain invisible to investigators until they act. Seen one by one, these incidents look like separate crimes. But they share several threads: lawful presence, few warning signals, online radicalization, and attacks carried out without the fingerprints of an organized network.

New York Post [3/15/2026 4:20 PM, James A. Gagliano, 40934K] reports that, after four separate terrorist attacks in the last two weeks on US soil, Americans are on edge. It’s taken me back to 2003 and a barren outpost in Khost, Afghanistan, where I interrogated a high-value target while serving with the FBI’s elite Hostage Rescue Team. "You’ll go back to your country. But this struggle will follow you there," the detainee pronounced, through an interpreter. "We can be patient. You Americans certainly are not. We will wait you out. And the fight will continue.” On March 1, a radical Islamist and naturalized citizen from Senegal shot up a bar in Austin, Texas, murdering three. On March 7, two teenaged jihadi wannabes from Pennsylvania — children of naturalized citizens from Afghanistan and Turkey — tossed homemade bombs at cops and protesters outside Gracie Mansion in New York City. On Thursday, radical Islamists in Virginia and Michigan carried out two independent attacks: In one, a convicted ISIS-inspired terrorist from Sierra Leone killed a decorated ROTC instructor; in the other, an armed gunman — a naturalized citizen from Lebanon — attempted to smash his explosives-laden vehicle into a Jewish preschool. Note the common thread: All these attackers were either naturalized citizens or their offspring. And in each instance, the attack was predictable and preventable. This is no criticism of law enforcement; they must get it right every single time — an attacker, but once. And a nation predicated on civil liberties and Fourth Amendment privacy provisions must endure the risks of such freedoms along with their benefits. Nonetheless, we have assuredly brought this plague upon ourselves. We steadfastly refuse to acknowledge that the terror threat within our borders is stoked from the outside, inspired by those who hate us and wish us dead. Make no mistake — this is asymmetric warfare, and Iran is not its only driver. The sooner we recognize that radical Islam has been at war with the West for far longer than anyone reading this has been alive, the sooner we can begin to better confront this threat.

New York Post [3/15/2026 9:49 PM, Miranda Devine, 40934K] reports the day Operation Epic Fury began in Iran, FBI Director Kash Patel announced he was putting the bureau’s counterterrorism and intelligence teams on "high alert" for threats to the homeland over concerns about terror attacks from Tehran or its proxies. "While the military handles force protection overseas, the FBI remains at the forefront of deterring attacks here at home," Patel tweeted. The same day, the Department of Homeland Security issued a law enforcement bulletin warning of potential lone-wolf attacks on home soil by "US-based violent extremists or hate crime perpetrators." A few hours later, Senegalese migrant and naturalized US citizen Ndiaga Diagne, 53, opened fire on a crowded bar in Austin, Texas, killing three people and injuring 13 while wearing a "Property of Allah" hoodie and an undershirt with an Iranian flag design. After he was shot dead by police, a Quran was found in Diagne’s car and photographs of Iranian regime leaders at his home, leading the FBI to conclude that the attack was "potentially an act of terrorism" and the Texas Tribune immediately to report an alleged surge in "Islamophobia" and "anti-Muslim backlash.” Obviously, it’s not Islamophobia that is the problem. Since Austin, there have been three more Islamist terrorist attacks on home soil. The cascading recent attacks point to a failure of the FBI, the primary agency for "deterring attacks here at home," as Director Patel boasted. It is an outcome insiders have warned about, even before Patel gutted the elite FBI counterintelligence team that investigated Iranian threats in America, according to the New York Sun and CNN.

New York Times [3/15/2026 8:22 AM, Thomas L. Friedman, 148038K] reports the last year has been one of the most depressing of my nearly 50 years as a journalist. It’s not just that I’ve had to watch the Trump administration destroy cherished alliances, like ours with Western Europe and Canada, that have upheld freedom, democracy and global trade since World War II. It’s also been the stunning cowardice and boundless greed with which leaders of big law firms and Big Tech have bent their knees to King Donald and indulged a cabinet of clowns — not one of whom they’d hire in their own businesses. But then I spent time in my native state, Minnesota, after something else that I’d never seen in nearly 50 years: a spontaneous uprising of civic activism propelled by a single idea — I am my neighbor’s keeper, whoever he or she is and however he or she got here. It was one of the most courageous battles ever fought by American men and women not in uniform. It was led by moms ready to donate their breast milk to strangers and dads ready to drive someone else’s kids to school because the parents, terrified of ICE agents, were too afraid to go out outdoors. It was neighbors ready to hit A.T.M.s to help out neighborhood restaurants and businesses deciding not to open — thus forgoing their income — for fear that masked ICE agents might drag away their cooks or dishwashers or desk clerks. And the best part was this: At a time when we have a president so shameless that he insists on putting his name on every public building he can, these good Samaritans of all colors and creeds acted without fanfare. “There were hundreds of leaders of this movement,” Bill George, a longtime Twin Cities business executive, said to me, “and I don’t know a single one of their names.” Many surely got to know one another, though, because they were all propelled by a verb I’d never heard before: “neighboring,” as in, Today I will be neighboring — going out to protect the good people next door or down the block. Not because I favor illegal immigration, but because I oppose the fundamental indecency of President Trump and Stephen Miller and the blessedly now departed Kristi Noem trying to fulfill their daily quota for evicting illegal immigrants by arresting my neighbors, most of whom work hard, pay taxes, go to church or mosque and help me dig out my car from the snow in winter. Here’s some free advice for Trump and Miller: Minnesotans are winter people. Don’t come for winter people in winter. They’re not afraid of the cold. Just the opposite. The weather has forged a unique Minnesota neighborliness — not everywhere, not always, but in a lot of places on a lot of days. Its power is rooted in its ordinariness — just a basic human impulse to look out for your neighbors and, yes, dig their cars out of the snow on Monday because you know they will do the same for you on Wednesday.

FOX News Sunday [3/15/2026 10:53 AM, Staff, 10695K] reports Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy joins ‘Sunday Morning Futures’ to sound the alarm on the 30-day Department of Homeland Security shutdown, warning that the funding stalemate is crippling TSA operations and leaving the country vulnerable.

Washington Post [3/16/2026 5:00 AM, Haley Parsley, 24826K] reports during the Trump administration’s law enforcement surge in D.C., U.S. Park Police tailed a Guatemalan man along Rock Creek Parkway, following him to a market in the Petworth neighborhood that September day because, they said, he had been driving with a ladder on his van. When he stopped, according to court documents, federal immigration agents showed up and took him away. In December, a pool maintenance worker driving his employer’s van approached a road barricade just outside the city and was instructed by Park Police to stop. But it was Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who scanned his driver’s license and arrested him on the spot, said the worker, whose identity was withheld in court documents. And in another December arrest that started with Park Police, ICE agents handcuffed a mechanical repair worker from Nicaragua who was in the United States on humanitarian parole and sent him to a detention center to be deported. All of those incidents showed up in a review of court records filed between September and February that are part of a class-action lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security alleging the agency violated federal law by making immigration arrests in D.C. without a warrant or probable cause. At least 10 arrests of immigrants by ICE involved the Park Police in the D.C. area, those records show. At least three involved arrests of workers traveling in commercial vehicles, according to the review by Capital News Service and the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism, both based at the University of Maryland. Advocates say that this tranche of documents reveals only a fraction of the arrests they are witnessing on the parkways and streets patrolled by Park Police.

FOX News [3/15/2026 4:00 PM, Taylor Penley, 37576K] reports an illegal immigrant released during the Biden administration has been charged with multiple counts of assault and battery after allegedly groping female classmates in the hallways of a Virginia high school, according to parents and school officials. "I think this entire horrifying situation is the direct consequence of policy with really dysfunctional priorities, and that’s to shield adult illegal immigrants at the expense of children’s safety, even in their public schools," Stephanie Lundquist-Arora, the mother of 3 students in the Fairfax County School System, told Fox News. Lundquist-Arora joined "Fox & Friends Weekend" to discuss the arrest of an 18-year-old student accused of touching several female classmates inappropriately while they were walking through the halls of Fairfax High School. The student, identified as 18-year-old Israel Flores Ortiz, was arrested and charged with nine counts of assault and battery after allegedly touching female students while they were walking through the hallways between classes, according to a letter sent to parents by Fairfax High School officials. Lundquist-Arora claims officials at the high school waited two weeks to inform parents and the move only came after parental pressure. Fox News reached out to both Fairfax High School and the school district (FCPS) and did not receive a comment. Neither entity immediately returned Fox News Digital’s requests for comment. FCPS provided local outlet 7News with the following statement, however: "While Fairfax County Public Schools is unable to comment on specifics due to federal and state privacy laws, we prioritize student and staff safety. We fully investigate. Anytime someone shares. That an incident has occurred at school or that they do not feel safe at school.” [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Breitbart [3/15/2026 5:48 PM, Amy Furr, 2238K] reports an illegal alien truck driver has been accused of causing a crash that left a U.S. citizen in critical condition in Indianapolis, Indiana. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested 25-year-old Sukhdev Singh and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the illegal alien had a commercial driver’s license (CDL) that was issued by the state of New York. The crash happened on the evening of March 6 when Singh allegedly hit a pedestrian at E Raymond Street and I-65. The Indiana State Police responded to the scene, took the suspect into custody, and contacted ICE officials. "ICE arrived at the scene and arrested Singh that evening. He will remain in ICE custody pending the outcome of his immigration proceedings. His victim was transported to a local hospital where he remains in critical condition as of this publication," the DHS announcement said. In December, U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Sean Duffy warned that Democrat-run New York could lose $73 million in federal highway funds after an audit found over half of the state’s immigrant CDL’s were issued illegally, Breitbart News reported: Federal investigators found that New York’s DMV systems defaulted to issuing eight‑year CDLs even when immigration documents expired in months, creating what Duffy called a "dereliction of duty" that endangered families on America’s highways. "When more than half of the licenses reviewed were issued illegally, it isn’t just a mistake — it is a dereliction of duty by state leadership," Duffy said during a briefing at the Department of Transportation on Friday. Secretary Duffy’s briefing followed a fatal bus crash in Tennessee, where a Chinese national with a New York-issued non-domiciled CDL allegedly killed another truck driver while watching a video on his cell phone, Breitbart Texas reported. ICE officials have yet to disclose any information about the immigration status of the Chinese man, identified as Huang Yisong, age 54. In February, DOT announced an updated regulation to stop dangerous migrant truckers from getting CDLs and causing horrific crashes on America’s roadways, per Breitbart News. "These reforms will address safety concerns by preventing foreign drivers who have not been subject to consular and interagency screening from receiving a commercial driver’s license (CDL). While U.S. drivers are subject to strict checks through national databases for past violations — such as DUIs, reckless driving, or crash involvement — states lack the ability to access the driving records of foreigners and illegal immigrants," DOT said. "This loophole allowed individuals with dangerous driving histories to obtain a trucking license simply by presenting an Employment Authorization Document (EAD), which does not screen for transportation safety," the agency continued.

Reuters [3/15/2026 2:41 PM, Joey Roulette, 16072K] reports an Afghan immigrant who previously worked with the U.S. military in Afghanistan and later sought asylum in the United States died this weekend in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody less than 24 hours after being detained in Texas, a U.S. veteran-led advocacy group said on Sunday. Mohommad Nazeer Paktyawal, who was living in a Dallas suburb with his wife and six children while his asylum case remained pending, was arrested by federal agents outside his apartment on Friday morning while taking his children to school, AfghanEvac president Shawn VanDiver said in a statement. Paktyawal died of unknown causes ⁠on Saturday, VanDiver said. Paktyawal, 41, is at least the 12th person to die in ICE detention this year under U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. Last year, 31 people died after being detained by ICE, a two-decade high. ICE has played a central role in Trump’s policy of mass deportations. In a statement on Sunday, ICE said Paktyawal was eating breakfast when medical staff noted that his tongue had become swollen, prompting a medical response. He was declared dead only after multiple attempts at resuscitation, the agency said. The agency said it "is committed to ensuring that all those in custody reside in safe, secure, and humane environments." According to VanDiver, Paktyawal’s family was told that he was taken to a hospital in Dallas on the night of his arrest and was still alive the following ⁠morning, but died shortly after. AfghanEvac called for an immediate investigation. "It is highly unusual for an otherwise healthy 41-year-old man to die less than a day after being taken into government custody," VanDiver said. Paktyawal, a former Afghan special forces soldier who had worked alongside U.S. Army Special Forces since 2005, was evacuated from Afghanistan with his family in 2021 when the United States withdrew its forces after a war lasting two ⁠decades, VanDiver said. Paktyawal had worked in the Dallas area at an Afghan halal market and was the primary provider for his family, including an 18-month-old infant, VanDiver said. He had been living in Richardson, Texas, VanDiver said. The number of people detained by ICE has risen to record ⁠levels during Trump’s immigration crackdown. ICE had some 68,000 people in custody as of early February. More than 70,000 Afghans entered the United States under Democratic former President Joe Biden’s Operation Allies Welcome initiative following the Taliban takeover of Kabul in 2021, according ⁠to the Department of Homeland Security. U.S. agencies under Trump have moved to terminate temporary protected status previously granted by the U.S. government for humanitarian reasons to some 14,600 Afghans, opening them up to deportation.

Washington Post [3/16/2026 5:01 AM, Lauren Kaori Gurley, 24826K] reports some 200,000 immigrant truck drivers will begin to lose their commercial driver’s licenses as they expire under a new Trump administration rule that takes effect Monday. The Transportation Department’s rule will weigh on the beleaguered trucking industry, which is critical to transporting goods across America at a time when energy costs are surging due to the war in Iran. The rule bars immigrants who are asylum seekers, refugees or recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, from obtaining commercial driver’s licenses. And it’s part of the Trump administration’s widening campaign against immigrant truck drivers following several high-profile accidents last summer. Those with valid commercial driver’s licenses will lose their driving privileges as their licenses expire, not immediately. Aleksei Semenovskii, 41, of Pennsylvania, has driven long-haul trucks since 2020 and will lose his license in September. “I have a completely clean moving record. No accidents. No violations. I pay taxes,” said Semenovskii, an asylum seeker from Russia and a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the Trump administration aiming to invalidate the rule. “They’re roasting me under open fire for not having anything done illegal.” About 200,000 immigrants in the United States hold about 5 percent of all commercial driver’s licenses, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Opponents of the rule say that the Trump administration is discriminating against immigrants without evidence that they cause more accidents. To obtain commercial driver’s licenses, immigrants and nonimmigrants alike have to go to driving schools and pass tests.

FOX News [3/16/2026 12:01 AM, Morgan Phillips , Andrea Scott, 37576K] reports Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Joseph Edlow has been wasting no time shaking up the path to American citizenship. And two terrorist attacks in the United States this past week have renewed scrutiny of immigration vetting and national security safeguards. A gunman rammed a vehicle into Temple Israel Thursday, a synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan, Thursday. One security guard was injured in what officials described as a targeted act of violence against the Jewish community. In a separate Thursday incident, authorities say a terrorist attack by a military veteran and ISIS supporter at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, left two people injured and two dead, including the shooter, after the suspect allegedly opened fire inside an ROTC classroom. Just weeks into the job in August 2025, Edlow called for a major overhaul of the U.S. naturalization test — blasting the current version as too soft and out of step with what Congress envisioned. In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Edlow said the civics and English exam, which forms the backbone of the naturalization process, fails to reflect the knowledge and assimilation he believes should be required to become an American. "The test needs to reflect the letter and the spirit of what Congress intended," Edlow said. "It’s important for people to understand English, our history, our government ... and the way the test is written and executed right now doesn’t meet that bar.” Under the current format, naturalization applicants must correctly answer six out of 10 civics questions randomly selected from a list of 100, covering topics like the Constitution, U.S. history, geography and civic responsibilities. They must also read one sentence aloud and write one simple sentence correctly in English. Edlow says that’s not enough. He wants the test to probe deeper — presenting a broader cross-section of U.S. principles — and for English skills to be evaluated throughout the entire naturalization interview, not just in isolated reading and writing exercises. "I want adjudicators to really be listening and talking throughout the interview," he said. "Switch up some of the wording ... and see if the individuals are still able to comprehend the questions. That’s a better gauge of readiness.” Edlow said the test must preserve the integrity of the process and reflect assimilation expectations. He also pointed to a recent executive order declaring English the national language, calling language fluency "an imperative part" of the American dream. The director also took aim at long-standing flaws in the H-1B visa system, which permits U.S. companies to hire high-skilled foreign workers in specialty fields. "Companies are going for the highest-skilled workers but paying them at the lowest wage level," he said. "That’s undercutting U.S. graduates, especially in STEM fields." [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

New York Times [3/15/2026 8:45 AM, Linda Qiu, 148038K] reports for years, the agricultural sector has faced a tight labor market as farmworkers age and fewer new immigrants and younger Americans are willing to toil in the fields. Top Trump administration officials vowed that mass deportations would help, leading to “higher wages with better benefits” and a “100 percent American work force.” But the administration has quietly acknowledged in recent months that its immigration raids and crackdown on the border have aggravated the issue. So it has instead turned to an alternative source, making it cheaper for farmers to hire immigrant farmworkers on temporary visas. Many farmers have celebrated those changes, made to an increasingly popular visa program known as H-2A, noting the difficulty in hiring American workers and tough economic conditions for the industry. But immigration hawks and labor unions alike are opposed, arguing the move will only increase the share of foreign workers and hurt native workers and suppress their wages. The simmering debate underscores how some of the administration’s top goals of reducing immigration, keeping food prices low and helping American workers may inevitably conflict. The competing interests at play also show the spillover effects of Mr. Trump’s hard-line approach to legal and illegal immigration.

Univision [3/15/2026 7:50 PM, Staff, 4937K] reports the labor shortage in the U.S. agricultural sector led the federal government to modify the H-2A temporary visa program . Pressure from farmers and agricultural businesses increased due to difficulties in hiring workers, amid the impact of recent immigration policies. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

New York Times [3/15/2026 12:20 PM, Ali Watkins, 148038K] reports the State Department is drastically reducing the cost of renouncing American citizenship, ending a yearslong legal battle over the price of relinquishing a blue passport. In an update published in the Federal Register on Friday, the State Department said it was reducing the consular fees of renouncing U.S. citizenship to $450 from $2,350, a more than 80 percent reduction in cost for the clunky, bureaucratic process. The policy change, which is effective April 13, was proposed in October 2023. The change announced on Friday returns the fee to what it was in 2010, when the State Department first instituted a charge for Americans renouncing their U.S. citizenship. The process, which is arduous and costly, requires extensive work from consular officials, including confirming that anyone seeking to give up their citizenship fully understands the implications of doing so.

NewsMax [3/15/2026 9:14 PM, Brian Freeman, 3760K] reports Marine Corps veteran Paul Canton will likely be deported soon to his native New Zealand, despite serving in the U.S. military for seven years and building a life in Florida for more than 25 years, Military.com reported Sunday. His long fight to gain U.S. citizenship appears to be ending. Six years ago his application for citizenship was rejected by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, but his family kept working on his case. However, his hopes appeared dashed last month when a federal judge rejected his appeal, bringing him one step closer to leaving the place he has called home for over 35 years. Both Democrat and Republican politicians, especially in Florida, have voiced concerns about his case, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Left with few options, Canton is planning to uproot his life in the U.S. and return to New Zealand, Military.com reported.

Univision [3/15/2026 7:36 PM, Staff, 4937K] reports a former U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for his involvement in a drug trafficking, migrant smuggling, and corruption ring, a federal court in El Paso, Texas, reported. According to documents from the federal court of the Western District of Texas, the former officer identified as Manuel Perez Jr. pleaded guilty on October 9, 2025, to three charges: conspiracy to possess and distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine , conspiracy to smuggle undocumented migrants into the United States for profit, and bribery of a public official.

NBC News [3/15/2026 4:45 PM, Aaron Gilchrist, Dan Gallo and Doha Madani, 42967K] reports long security lines snaked through the domestic terminal at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Sunday, frustrating some weary travelers as they waited to reach their checkpoints. The crowds formed just days after TSA agents missed their first full paycheck as the Department of Homeland Security continues to go without funding. At Atlanta’s airport, travelers formed parallel lines as they moved through security at the domestic terminal. A digital sign showed wait times ranging from four minutes for TSA PreCheck passengers to more than an hour at the main checkpoint. Despite the long lines and exhausted faces of those waiting in them, most appeared calm. Hartsfield-Jackson serves as one of Delta Air Lines’ travel hubs and is among the busiest airports in the country. Laronda Monteiro, who lives in Atlanta, arrived three hours early for her flight to New Orleans, telling NBC News that it paid off as she stood in line. "I know we have to be secure, and I just appreciate those who are still with TSA, remaining on the job," Monteiro said. "I can wait for the safety and security.” Morgan Young, who was traveling back to Washington, said she "doesn’t love" the travel disruptions as she waited in the TSA line. Young normally flies using CLEAR, a private security program that costs about $200 a person, but that option wasn’t available on Sunday. "It’s stressful, honestly," Young said. "I feel like Atlanta airport runs as smooth as possible, but it is stressful for sure. And more stressful for the people who aren’t getting paid and are at work." Democratic lawmakers have delayed Republican efforts to pass a new bill to fund DHS after expressing serious concerns over how the embattled agency has handled immigration enforcement. Funding for DHS expired on Feb. 13, and Democrats insist on reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection before they approve a new appropriation bill. TSA workers are considered essential employees who must continue working without pay. They received partial paychecks following the shutdown and missed their first full paycheck on Friday. More than 300 TSA employees have quit since February, according to the agency. Similar scenes to those in Atlanta were captured at airports in Fort Lauderdale, Philadelphia, Austin and Chicago. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

New York Post [3/15/2026 3:20 PM, Alex Oliveira, 40934K] reports hundreds of TSA officers have quit over the federal budget battle that left them working without pay –fueling hours-long flight delays and Department of Homeland Security videos blaming Dems for the travel nightmare. More than 300 TSA officers have tossed in the towel since the shutdown began Feb. 14, while a slew of other workers have been taking unscheduled absences, CBS News reported, citing internal TSA statistics. Hobby Airport in Houston saw 53% of its TSA officers call out March 8 and 47% the next day, while other airports have seen double-digit call-out averages since the shutdown started. John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City also has seen 21% of its TSA staff calling in sick in the past month, Atlanta International battled a 19% rate, and Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport was slammed with 14% calling out, CBS reported. Those troubling rates were logged even before TSA officers missed their first paycheck Friday — with some airports seeing travelers standing in security lines for hours as their drastically depleted staff struggled to keep up with business. Photos of Chicago’s O’Hare Airport on Sunday morning showed massive lines, with one traveler warning not to brave the wait "unless your life depends on it.” Florida’s Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport had similar scenes Sunday morning, though both airports had cleared up by the afternoon. Last weekend had similar chaos — with some airports across the country advising travelers to arrive upwards of five hours before their flights. DHS has spent the shutdown blaming Democrats for the delays.

CNN [3/16/2026 5:02 AM, Tami Luhby and Amanda Musa, 19874K] reports one month into the partial government shutdown, hundreds of Transportation Security Administration workers going without full pay have quit, while others have taken unscheduled time off, prompting more travel headaches as a winter storm slams the Midwest and spring break travelers try to fly. More than 300 TSA agents have quit, the Department of Homeland Security said in an X post Friday. This weekend, TSA workers missed their first full paycheck since the partial shutdown began in mid-February after funding for DHS, which oversees TSA, lapsed amid a standoff between Republicans and Democrats over federal immigration reform. In a letter Sunday, the CEOs of major airlines, including American, Delta, Southwest and JetBlue urged Congress to restore DHS funding and embrace a bipartisan solution to ensure federal aviation workers are paid during shutdowns. "It’s difficult, if not impossible, to put food on the table, put gas in the car and pay rent when you are not getting paid," the letter said. Late last year, the longest government shutdown on record came to an end after an increasing number of air traffic controllers and TSA screeners did not show up to work. Air traffic controllers are not affected by the ongoing partial shutdown. It’s "no surprise" that hundreds of TSA employees have quit this time around, Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in a statement to CNN on Sunday. The union represents more than 46,000 uniformed TSA workers. "Most Americans would quit their jobs if they didn’t get a paycheck on payday," Kelley said. Still, many officers continue to work with "care and professionalism," he added.

NBC News [3/16/2026 5:00 AM, Emily Lorsch, 43603K] reports major airlines and millions of travelers across the United States face a rare convergence of challenges this spring that together are making it both costlier and less convenient to fly. The Department of Homeland Security’s partial shutdown has created staffing shortages at domestic airport security checkpoints. Meanwhile, the Iran war has driven up jet fuel costs and forced many global carriers to reroute or suspend flights over the Middle East. On Friday, the spot price of a gallon of jet fuel was $3.99, roughly double the price at this time last year, according to the Argus U.S. Jet Fuel Index. A Boeing 747 burns about 60 gallons of fuel per minute, or roughly 10,000 gallons for a three-hour flight, according to the aviation news site Simple Flying. The fuel price spike is testing the ability of airlines around the world to absorb financial shock and respond quickly to rapidly evolving situations. “Airlines can accept lower profits or raise their fares, and I expect that they would do a bit of both. So consumers will feel the Iran war’s oil price hike not only at the gas pump, but also in the airfares they pay,” said Jan Brueckner, economics professor emeritus at the University of California, Irvine.

AP [3/15/2026 11:01 PM, Sophia Tareen and Gary D. Robertson, 31753K] reports a broad and erratic patchwork of severe weather rumbled across much of the U.S. on Sunday, dumping heavy snow and making roads impassable in the Upper Midwest while damaging high winds swept across the Plains. Hawaii continued to be affected by severe flooding. And portions of the mid-South readied for late-day thunderstorms. Forecasters said the storms would spread eastward by Monday, with mid-Atlantic states and Washington, D.C., at greatest risk for high winds and tornadoes. Successive punches of snow, wind and severe weather were set to impact the eastern half of the United States, said AccuWeather senior meteorologist Tyler Roys. Beyond the threat to lives and property, “whether it’s wind gusts from a squall line, blizzard or snow, or just wind because of the storm, you’re looking at several major airports being impacted,” Roy said.

AP [3/16/2026 12:05 AM, Sophia Tareen, Gary D. Robertson, and Matthew Brown, 31753K] reports successive punches of snow and wind were set to impact the eastern half of the United States on Monday as severe weather swept across much of the nation and made roads impassable in the Upper Midwest. Forecasters said mid-Atlantic states and Washington, D.C., were at greatest risk for high winds and tornadoes. The cold front was expected to move off the East Coast by Tuesday, bringing sharply colder weather in its wake, forecasters said. The late winter blast comes as Hawaii continued to be affected by a separate storm system that caused severe flooding over the weekend.

Reuters [3/15/2026 10:40 PM, Kenrick Cai, 16072K] reports that, multiple wildfires, including the largest in Nebraska’s history, have burned through more than 600,000 acres of the state, local officials said Sunday. As of Saturday, the biggest wildfire, the Morrill Fire, had burned 460,000 acres and killed one person, Governor Jim Pillen said. It and three other major fires across central and western Nebraska remained entirely uncontained as of Saturday, state officials said. Bad weather related to a severe winter storm in the Midwest has hampered fire suppression efforts, according to an incident management team run by the federal National Interagency Fire ⁠Center, which said on Sunday that it had assumed management of the two largest fires, the Morrill Fire and the Cottonwood Fire. The Cottonwood blaze has burned more than 100,000 acres as of Saturday, according to a press release from the governor’s office, the Nebraska National Guard and the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency. The latest update on Sunday from the federal agency did not provide any information on containment or burn size estimates. The governor’s office, the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency and the National Interagency Fire Center incident team did not immediately respond to Reuters ⁠requests for comment. The governor declared an emergency on Friday, mobilizing National Guard soldiers and aircraft to respond to the fires. High winds, low humidity and dry conditions triggered the wildfires on Thursday and by the next day, they had exceeded the capacity of local fire responders, according to the ⁠emergency proclamation. Federal officials would work with local and state personnel from Nebraska, as well as neighboring Colorado, South Dakota and Wyoming, the center said. Nebraska’s two largest cities, Omaha and Lincoln, sent fire crews ⁠to help after an appeal from Pillen. High winds faster than 50 miles per hour (80.5 km per hour) on Sunday are expected to keep aircraft grounded, the federal fire center ⁠said. While the winter storm has brought snow to Nebraska, the heavy gusts may prevent that precipitation from affecting the fires, according to the release. The governor also ​issued a statewide burn ban through March 27.

Reported similarly:
ABC News [3/15/2026 2:00 PM, Bill Hutchinson, 34146K]

Wall Street Journal [3/15/2026 8:00 PM, Dustin Volz and Peter Loftus, 646K] reports Iran pulled off likely the most significant wartime cyberattack against the U.S. in history, leveraging its hacking powers to cause major disruptions at a global medical-equipment firm that struggled to bring itself back online in recent days. The attack brought a conflict that until now had been largely confined to the Gulf region to the American homeland and offered a preview of the potential for how Iran may broaden its response to the U.S. and Israeli military campaign. Stryker, the Michigan-based firm hit in the hack, said it experienced “global disruption” and quickly contained it. The company said it believed the incident had been limited to its internal Microsoft systems. The company added that some hospitals may be experiencing temporary pauses in transmissions of medical data, but that its connected products “are not impacted and are safe to use.” Microsoft hasn’t commented on the hack. For years, U.S. national-security officials have worried that Iran, lacking the ability to reach the American homeland with intercontinental ballistic missiles, would turn to other forms of asymmetric warfare in retaliation for military strikes against the regime. The two most alarming scenarios, officials often said, involved either inspiring individual acts of domestic terrorism or major disruptive cyberattacks on U.S. businesses or critical infrastructure. With the Stryker hack, Iran had fulfilled the latter promise and made the use of cyber weapons part of its wartime effort to diminish U.S. resolve for continuing with the war, former officials and security experts said. “This is the first extended conflict in which we have played a major role that really integrated cyber and kinetic operations together on both sides,” said Cynthia Kaiser, a former senior cyber official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and now a senior vice president at cyber firm Halcyon. U.S. officials have said publicly that offensive cyber operations were part of the initial wave of military strikes late last month.

CNN [3/15/2026 10:53 AM, Oren Liebermann, Oren Liebermann, 612K] reports the Israeli military said the brother of the man who drove a vehicle laden with explosives into a Michigan synagogue Thursday was a Hezbollah commander killed in a strike last week. In a statement Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces said the assailant’s brother, Ibrahim Muhammad Ghazali, was in charge of managing weapons operations in the Iranian proxy group’s Badr unit. IDF Arabic language spokesman Avichay Adraee said Ibrahim Ghazali was killed March 5 when the IDF struck a Hezbollah military building used to store weapons. The Department of Homeland Security said Ayman Ghazali, 41, drove a vehicle into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township near Detroit before exchanging fire with security officers and dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The attack on the synagogue was one of several recent incidents that authorities are investigating as acts of terrorism, as the US continues into its third week of war with Iran. A security guard was injured and dozens of first responders were treated for smoke inhalation, while the more than 100 children in the building were uninjured, authorities said. The FBI called the attack a "targeted act of violence against the Jewish community.” Ayman Ghazali, a naturalized US citizen from Lebanon, had previously been flagged in US government databases for connections to suspected Hezbollah members, though he was not believed to be a member himself, law enforcement officials briefed on the matter told CNN. The mayor of the Lebanese town of Mashghara previously told CNN that Ayman Ghazali’s brothers, including Ibrahim, were killed in an airstrike March 5. Ibrahim Ghazali’s children were also killed in the strike, the mayor said. The IDF made no mention of Ayman Ghazali’s other brother, Kassim, who was also killed in the strike. Last weekend, two suspects were accused of tossing makeshift bombs at a protest outside the New York City mayor’s home in what authorities described as an ISIS-inspired attack. Two weeks earlier in Austin, Texas, a shooter killed three people and injured more than a dozen others in the city’s bustling entertainment district. Underneath a hoodie, the shooter was wearing a T-shirt featuring an Iranian flag design, an official said. Though the motive has not been determined, authorities are investigating whether the shooter was inspired in part by US and Israeli strikes on Iran that weekend, law enforcement officials briefed on the case said. Also on Thursday, one person was killed and two others were injured in a shooting at Old Dominion University in Virginia carried out by Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, 36, a former member of the Virginia National Guard who previously served prison time for attempting to aid ISIS, according to authorities. Several national and state leaders, including New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, have ramped up security efforts amid what they’ve described as a heightened threat environment tied to the conflict overseas. The Chicago Tribune [3/15/2026 4:45 PM, Julia Frankel and Bassem Mroue, 5209K] reports that the FBI’s Detroit office, which is investigating the synagogue attack, declined to comment on the claims by Israel’s military about Ibrahim Ghazali. “Out of respect for the ongoing investigation, we will continue to refrain from commenting on its substance,” FBI spokesman Jordan Hall said in an email Sunday. Ghazali fatally shot himself after he got stuck in his vehicle and the engine caught fire, said Jennifer Runyan, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Detroit field office. No staffers or children inside the synagogue were hurt, likely due to beefed up security in recent months. The FBI, which is leading the investigation, described the attack on one of the nation’s largest Reform synagogues as an act of violence targeting the Jewish community. But the agency said it didn’t have enough evidence yet to call it an act of terror. Ghazali came to the U.S. in 2011 on an immediate relative visa as the spouse of a U.S. citizen and was granted U.S. citizenship in 2016, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Reported similarly:
AP [3/15/2026 5:17 PM, Julia Frankel and Bassem Mroue, 31753K]

FOX Business [3/15/2026 8:08 AM, Ashley Carnahan, 7946K] reports the Trump administration invoked the Defense Production Act to order an oil company to restart shuttered offshore operations in California, saying the move is necessary to address oil supply disruption risks and reduce reliance on foreign crude. Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Friday directed Sable Offshore Corp., an oil and gas company headquartered in Houston, to restore operations at the Santa Ynez Unit and the Santa Ynez Pipeline System off the coast of Santa Barbara, according to a statement from the Department of Energy (DOE). The order prioritizes restarting oil production and pipeline capacity to move crude through the Las Flores Pipeline System to Pentland Station, a key inland hub for transporting offshore oil to refineries, and into interstate pipelines. "California once supplied nearly 40 percent of U.S. oil production, but decades of radical state policies targeting reliable energy sources have driven a decline in domestic output while fuel demand remains among the highest in the nation," the DOE said. "Today, more than 60 percent of the oil refined in California comes from overseas, with a significant share traveling through the Strait of Hormuz—presenting serious national security threats.” The agency said Sable’s facility can produce about 50,000 barrels of oil per day, roughly a 15% increase in California’s in-state oil production, and could replace about 1.5 million barrels of foreign crude each month. "Today’s order will strengthen America’s oil supply and restore a pipeline system vital to our national security and defense, ensuring that West Coast military installations have the reliable energy critical to military readiness," Wright said in a statement. The directive, issued under authorities delegated through the Defense Production Act and related executive orders, also seeks to ensure that oil produced off California’s coast can more efficiently reach domestic refineries. California Gov. Gavin Newsom condemned the order Friday, calling the Trump administration’s use of the Defense Production Act "reckless and illegal" and pledging to fight the directive. His office argued that restarting the Sable Offshore pipeline would have little effect on global oil prices, citing estimates that its output would represent roughly 0.05% of total oil production. The governor also pointed to the pipeline’s history, noting that a 2015 spill near Refugio State Beach released more than 140,000 gallons of crude oil and caused widespread environmental and economic damage along the Santa Barbara coast. "California will not stand by while the Trump administration attempts to sacrifice our coastal communities, our environment, and our $51 billion coastal economy," Newsom said in a statement. "The Trump administration and Sable are defying multiple court orders, and we will see them back in court.”

FOX News [3/15/2026 12:14 PM, Staff, 37576K] reports the American flag was raised over the U.S. embassy in Caracas this weekend for the first time in seven years, signaling a ‘new era’ in diplomatic relations following the capture of former dictator Nicolás Maduro. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Bloomberg [3/16/2025 5:01 AM, Richard Frost, 18082K] reports Donald Trump is stepping up calls for other nations, especially European allies, to aid the US in reopening the Strait of Hormuz. He’s also threatened to delay his summit with Xi Jinping if China resists sending help. “It’s only appropriate that people who are the beneficiaries of the Strait will help to make sure that nothing bad happens there,” Trump said in an interview with the Financial Times. “If there’s no response or if it’s a negative response I think it will be very bad for the future of NATO.” Trump stressed China’s dependence on oil from the Middle East, adding that his trip to Beijing slated for the end of this month would be too late. He subsequently told reporters on Air Force One that it would be interesting “to see what country wouldn’t help with a very small endeavor” to get oil tankers flowing through the critical waterway. Trump also took direct aim at the UK prime minister, saying he told Keir Starmer that the US “will remember” if it gets support for the war or not. His threats come as the war continues with no obvious end in sight. Israel has expanded operations in Lebanon, while Iraqi militias have signaled a new phase of attacks on US and other foreign targets. Oil prices are climbing higher, with Brent crude trading above $105 a barrel. A top aide to Trump said the Pentagon estimates the Iran war would take between four and six weeks. The incentives for other countries to assist the US in forcing open the Strait of Hormuz are low, especially after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the coastal corridor was only shut to ships from “enemies.” Two tankers carrying liquefied petroleum gas to India sailed through the strait — a route that normally handles about a fifth of the world’s oil supplies. So far, signs are the US president will be rebuffed. Australia ruled out deploying naval vessels, while Japan’s defense minister said the nation currently has no plans to send warships. Chinese officials have so far condemned Trump’s war on Iran and would be unlikely to send ships, in part because some carriers bound for China still appear to be getting through. European allies will be wondering about Trump’s demands just months after he threatened to annex Greenland. How Trump will react if his calls aren’t answered remains to be seen.

FOX News [3/15/2026 1:01 PM, Staff, 37576K] reports President Donald Trump revealed in a phone interview with NBC that Iran is willing to make a deal but he will not accept the terms. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Reuters [3/15/2026 10:53 PM, Staff, 16072K] reports U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday accused Iran of using artificial intelligence as a “disinformation weapon” to misrepresent its wartime successes and support. “AI can be very dangerous, we have to be very careful with it,” Trump said to reporters on Air Force One shortly after he made a post on his Truth Social platform where he accused Western media outlets without evidence of “close coordination” with Iran to spread AI-generated “fake news.” The comments come amid renewed tensions between the Federal Communications Commission and broadcasters after Trump took aim at media coverage of the U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran. FCC ⁠Chairman Brendan Carr on Saturday threatened to pull licenses of broadcasters who did not “correct course” on their coverage. Trump has frequently accused news media outlets of lying when they run stories that he sees as critical of him, and he has previously called for removing the licenses of broadcast outlets he views as unfair. Between the social media post and his comments to journalists, Trump on Sunday cited three instances where he claimed Iran used AI to mislead the public. On Truth Social, he said that Iran had shown “kamikaze boats” that do not exist. He further stated that Iran used AI ⁠to falsely depict a successful attack on the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, adding publications that propagated the news should be charged with treason. Reuters has verified images filmed from the Iraqi port of Basra, which showed explosive-laden Iranian boats appearing to attack two fuel tankers, killing at least one crew member. Iranian state media did ⁠claim that Iran’s military struck the USS Abraham Lincoln, though the claim was not widely picked up by Western outlets. Trump also claimed that images showing "250,000" Iranians at a rally to support new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei ⁠were "totally AI generated" and that the event "never took place." Several pro-government demonstrations have occurred in Iran since the war began, but a brief search by Reuters did not find any Western reports ⁠that cite a figure of 250,000. Many media organizations, including Reuters, have run news photos showing crowds in Tehran after Khamenei was named leader. Trump did not clarify the specific news reports from Iran he was referencing.

AP [3/15/2026 10:07 PM, Sam Metz, Will Weissert, Julia Frankel and Cara Anna, 35287K] reports President Donald Trump said Sunday that he has demanded about seven countries send warships to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, but his appeals have brought no commitments as oil prices soar during the Iran war. The president declined to name the countries heavily reliant on Middle East crude that the administration is negotiating with to join a coalition to police the waterway where about one-fifth the world’s traded oil normally flows. "I’m demanding that these countries come in and protect their own territory, because it is their own territory," Trump said about the strait, claiming the shipping channel is not something the United States needs because of its own access to oil. Trump spoke while answering reporters’ questions as he flew back to Washington from Florida aboard Air Force One. Trump said China gets about 90% of its oil from the strait, while the U.S. gets a minimal amount. He declined to discuss whether China will join the coalition. "It would be nice to have other countries police that with us, and we’ll help. We’ll work with them," Trump said. Previously, he has appealed to China, France, Japan, South Korea and Britain. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi earlier told CBS that Tehran has been "approached by a number of countries" seeking safe passage for their vessels, "and this is up to our military to decide." He said a group of vessels from "different countries" had been allowed to pass, without providing details. Iran has said the strait is open to all except the United States and its allies. Araghchi added that "we don’t see any reason why we should talk with Americans" about finding a way to end the war, noting that Israel and the U.S. started the fighting with coordinated attacks on Feb. 28 during indirect U.S.-Iran talks on Iran’s nuclear program. He also said Tehran had "no plan to recover" the enriched uranium that is under rubble following U.S. and Israeli attacks last year. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told NBC earlier Sunday that he has been "in dialogue" with some of the countries Trump had mentioned previously, and said he expected China "will be a constructive partner" in reopening the strait. But countries made no promises. Britain said Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Sunday discussed with Trump the importance of reopening the strait "to end the disruption to global shipping," and spoke with Canada’s prime minister about it separately. Aboard Air Force One, Trump specifically named Starmer, who he said initially declined to put British aircraft carriers "into harm’s way.” "Whether we get support or not, but I can say this, and I said to them: We will remember," Trump said.

Reported similarly:
Washington Examiner [3/15/2026 9:38 PM, Zach LaChance, 1147K]

AP [3/16/2026 3:46 AM, Will Weissert, 16072K] reports President Donald Trump is suggesting he may delay his much-anticipated visit to China at the end of the month as he seeks to ramp up the pressure on Beijing to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz and calm oil prices that have soared during the Iran war. In an interview Sunday with the Financial Times, Trump said China’s reliance on oil from the Middle East means it ought to help with a new coalition he is trying to put together to get oil tanker traffic moving through the strait after Iran’s threats have throttled global flows of oil. Trump said “we’d like to know” before the trip whether Beijing will help. “We may delay,” Trump said in the interview. The uncertainty underscores just how much the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran have reshaped global politics in the past two weeks. Calling off the face-to-face visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping could have its own major economic consequences: Relations between Washington and Beijing have been fraught as both sides have threatened the other with steep tariffs over the past year. The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In Beijing, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said only that China and the U.S. have maintained communication on Trump’s visit. “Head-of-state diplomacy plays an irreplaceable strategic guiding role in China-U.S. relations,” Lin Jian said at a daily briefing. Trump’s new comments came as U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was meeting with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng on Monday in Paris for a new round of trade talks that were meant to pave the way for Trump’s Beijing trip. The U.S. and China have declared a truce that has prevented both sides from levying dueling tariffs, but the stakes remain high. In the early days of the Iran conflict, Trump had said U.S. navy vessels would escort oil tankers through the strait, and downplayed the threat posed by Iran. But as oil prices soared, he and his administration have been forced to consider new options — including the idea, broached this weekend, for other countries to join the push with their own warships. So far, none has yet formally heeded the call. Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he returned to Washington from a weekend in Florida that the U.S. had spoken to “about seven” nations about offering military support. He wouldn’t say which ones, though, and demurred when he was asked directly about China — though he subsequently suggested that he’d made such an offer to Beijing. “China’s an interesting case study,” he said, noting its reliance on Gulf oil. “So I said, ‘Would you like to come in’ and we’ll find out. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t.”

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