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

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

The New York Times [3/27/2026 5:29 AM, John Yoon, 51110K] reports the Senate voted early Friday to fund the Department of Homeland Security except for its immigration enforcement and deportation operations, raising the prospect that a shutdown that has frozen funds for the agency for more than a month could soon end. The package will next be considered by the House, which was scheduled to convene on Friday morning. The measure, which passed the Senate by a voice vote at around 2:20 a.m., does not include funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the Border Patrol, Senator Patty Murray of Washington, a Democrat and vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a statement. Democrats had insisted that any deal to fund the Homeland Security Department include meaningful changes to ICE tactics. The legislation that the Senate approved would fund much of the department, including the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Coast Guard, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York said on the chamber’s floor early Friday. John Thune, a Republican of South Dakota and the Senate majority leader, criticized what he called the “piecemeal” approach, saying that it was necessitated by a lack of time and Democrats’ insistence on changes to ICE policies. “It’s not the way to fund the department,” he said on the Senate floor. The funding lapse for the department, which began in mid-February and is the longest partial shutdown on record, has forced T.S.A. employees to show up for work without pay. Hundreds of them have quit or stopped appearing for work since the shutdown began, resulting in hourslong security lines for travelers at airports. President Trump on Thursday said Thursday that he would sign an emergency order to pay T.S.A. agents who have gone without compensation for weeks. CNN [3/27/2026 2:44 AM, Ted Barrett, Morgan Rimmer, 612K] reports Thune said that he spoke with President Donald Trump earlier Thursday evening, before Trump announced he would direct DHS to pay TSA agents even if the department remained unfunded. "I talked to him earlier today, right before he made his announcement. So yeah, I mean he anticipates what we’re attempting to do here," he told reporters. However, asked whether he believes the House will adopt the same measure to fund most of the department, Thune said, "I don’t know what the House will do.” "I mean, the House is aware of what we’re contemplating, I think, and I — think they’re probably anxious to take this up any more than, you know, this time of the day, on a Friday, but hopefully they’ll be around and we can get at least a lot of the government opened up again, and then we’ll, we’ll go from there," he continued. Thune argued that, while Democrats had initially said they would fund everything but ICE and CBP, Democrats have now lost the opportunity to leverage changes to ICE protocols and tactics. "I still think it’s unfortunate," he said. "The Dems wanted reforms. We tried to work with them on reforms. They ended up getting no reforms. But, you know, we’re going to have to fight some of those battles another day.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer declared he was "very proud" of his caucus that "stood united" amid the ongoing DHS shutdown. NPR [3/27/2026 3:19 AM, Sam Gringlas, 28764K] reports that the latest package allowed Democrats to fund operations like the Transportation Safety Administration, or TSA, and emergency response divisions, without backing down from those demands. But some Democrats have warned that any agreement diminishes their leverage. The department has been operating without regular appropriations for more than a month. But some divisions, like Immigration and Customs Enforcement, have continued to function thanks to about $75 billion provided by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Others, including TSA, have relied workers who are going without pay. Ha Nguyen McNeil, the TSA acting administrator, told lawmakers at a hearing on Wednesday that absences are as high as 40 percent in some airports and more than 480 TSA officers have quit during the shutdown. "We are really concerned about our security posture and what the long term impacts of this shutdown is going to have on the workforce and our ability to carry out this mission," McNeil said. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters earlier in the day on Thursday that House Republicans have not been in favor of breaking up the funding, calling it "shameful" to fail to fund the agency. It is unclear how the House will respond to the agreement. The Wall Street Journal [3/26/2026 3:34 AM, Siobhan Hughes, Terell Wright, and Olivia Beavers, 646K] reports that the Senate action to end a more-than-monthlong spending lapse came hours after President Trump said he would sign an executive order to free up money to pay TSA workers. Trump said he was instructing Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin to pay TSA agents to address what he called an “emergency situation.” Many unpaid security workers have been calling in sick while others have quit, driving delays for airline passengers headed on spring break. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) offered the unanimous consent resolution to pass most of the DHS funding after both parties agreed to move forward. No senator objected and the bill passed. He said Democrats wanted an issue to run on in the midterms, rather than a true deal, leading to the anticlimactic resolution. “We could be standing here now passing a funding bill with a list of reforms, if Democrats had made the smallest effort to actually reach an agreement,” he said. “But they didn’t.” The New York Times [3/26/2026 7:04 PM, Ashley Wu, 148038K] reports that if the shutdown continues after this weekend, it will be longer than any previous shutdown, partial or full. While a full shutdown affects the entire federal government, a partial shutdown — like the one currently paralyzing the D.H.S. — affects only specific agencies caught up in a funding dispute.

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The Wall Street Journal [3/26/2026 11:33 PM, Natalie Andrews, Siobhan Hughes, and Terell Wright, 646K] reports President Trump said he would sign an executive order to free up money to pay Transportation Security Administration workers, moving to break a deadlock in Congress centered on a dispute over immigration-enforcement policies and funding. Trump said he was signing an order to instruct Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to pay TSA agents to address what he called an “emergency situation.” Tens of millions of Americans are preparing to travel for spring break and face long airport-security lines because many unpaid security workers are calling in sick. In a social-media post Thursday night announcing his move, Trump didn’t specify what powers he was using to get TSA workers paid. The AP [3/26/2026 10:54 PM, Lisa Mascaro and Mary Clare Jalonick, 12718K] reports Trump announced his decision in a social media post saying he wanted to quickly stop the “Chaos at the Airports.” With pressure mounting, the White House and senators, who have been engaged in on-again, off-again talks to resolve the stalemate over Department of Homeland Security funding, appeared to be narrowing in on a endgame in the final hours before TSA workers miss another paycheck Friday. Trump’s order will pay TSA agents using money from his 2025 tax bill, according to a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss it publicly. They compared the move to actions Trump took during a past shutdown to pay troops. The rationale is that Democrats have created an emergency by declining to approve funding, the official said. The White House had floated the extraordinary move of invoking a national emergency to pay the TSA agents, a politically and legally fraught approach. Senators, ready to leave town for their own spring break recess, stayed late trying to resolve the remaining issues. GOP leaders were preparing a package to fund as much as possible of the rest of the department, which includes the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Coast Guard as well as the immigration enforcement agencies central to the standoff. Democrats have demanded restraints on Trump’s immigration enforcement and mass deportation operations as part of any deal to fund Homeland Security. They are particularly refusing to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection divisions, though they had repeatedly offered proposals to pay TSA and the rest of DHS. “The president is doing absolutely the right thing,” said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., the GOP whip. “The TSA agents are going to be paid.” The funding shutdown has resulted in travel delays and even warnings of airport closures as TSA workers missing paychecks stop coming to work. Multiple airports are experiencing greater than 40% callout rates of TSA workers and nearly 500 of its nearly 50,000 transportation security officers have now quit during the shutdown. Nationwide on Wednesday, more than 11% of the TSA employees on the schedule missed work, according to DHS. That is more than 3,120 callouts. At George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Melissa Gates said she would not make her flight to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, after waiting more than 2½ hours and still not reaching the security checkpoint. She said no other flights were available until Friday. “I should have just driven, right?” Gates said. “Five hours would have been hilarious next to this.” The acting TSA administrator, Ha Nguyen McNeill, described the multiple hardships facing unpaid TSA workers — piling up bills and eviction notices, even plasma donations to make ends meet — and warned of potential airport closures if more employees refuse to come to work. “At this point, we have to look at all options on the table,” she testified at a House hearing this week.

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The Hill [3/26/2026 10:48 AM, Max Rego, 18170K] reports some Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers have started checking travelers’ identification documents after receiving standard training from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), officials from the latter agency said. Acting TSA Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill told the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday that ICE officers deployed to select airports throughout the country were trained in nonspecialized screening, which includes guarding entry and exits to security lanes, controlling crowds and checking IDs. Acting DHS Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis wrote in a statement, “After receiving standard TSA training curriculum, ICE officers are guarding entrances and exits, assisting with logistics, doing crowd control, and verifying identification using TSA equipment and standard operating procedures.” “The more support we have available, the more efficiently TSA can focus on their highly specialized screening roles to efficiently get airport security lines moving faster,” Bis added. Bloomberg [3/26/2026 1:41 PM, Myles Miller, 18082K] reports that the shift is a departure from ICE’s usual role in immigration enforcement as the shutdown — tied to a congressional standoff over immigration-enforcement policy — drives record wait time at airports. At several major hubs, security lines have stretched beyond four hours and officials are advising passengers to arrive much earlier than usual. “The more support we have available, the more efficiently TSA can focus on their highly specialized screening roles to efficiently get airport security lines moving faster,” said Bis. Security agents have gone weeks without pay, and the agency has lost more than 480 officers during the more than month-long shutdown, Acting Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill told lawmakers this week. The move comes as ICE has faced sustained criticism from Democrats and civil liberties groups over its role in the Trump administration’s intensified immigration crackdown. The Houston Chronicle [3/26/2026 3:44 PM, Caroline Wilburn, 2493K] reports ICE agents on Monday were sent to several U.S. airports, including Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental and William P. Hobby airports, after nearly 500 TSA agents quit because they had not been paid during the shutdown. “TSA is extremely grateful to the patriotic men and women of ICE who have deployed to airports that are facing a high number of callouts because of the Democrats’ shutdown," Lauren Bis, acting assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement. "After receiving standard TSA training curriculum, ICE officers are guarding entrances and exits, assisting with logistics, doing crowd control, and verifying identification using TSA equipment and standard operating procedures. The more support we have available, the more efficiently TSA can focus on their highly specialized screening roles to efficiently get airport security lines moving faster.”

USA Today [3/26/2026 11:07 AM, Natalie Neysa Alund, 70643K] reports as the partial government shutdown pushed through its fifth week on Thursday, March 26, President Donald Trump praised Immigration and Customs Enforcement workers he deployed to major airports across the United States where wait times have reached record highs. "Thank you to our great ICE Patriots for helping. It makes a big difference. I may call up the National Guard for more help," Trump posted on Truth Social one day earlier. Earlier this week, Trump started sending ICE workers to major airports in an effort to ease long lines as Transportation Security Administration staffing shortages grow due to a lapse in Department of Homeland Security funding. The onging shutdown is causing significant airport disruptions across the country as TSA worker absences soar and employees work without pay, forcing travelers to wait hours in lines for security screening. Some have criticized the president’s move to deploy ICE workers to airports saying those agents lack the specialized aviation security training required for TSA screening roles. During a House Homeland Security Committee hearing Wednesday, in which lawmakers addressed the impacts of the shutdown, TSA Deputy Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill said air travelers in the US are experiencing the longest wait times in the agency’s history. McNeil testified ICE workers are assisting with queue management, exit lane staffing and other tasks as airports are experiencing days where 40-50 percent of their staff are calling off "because they simply cannot afford to report to work. This has led to the highest wait times in TSA history, with some wait times greater than 4.5 hours.”

Newsweek [3/26/2026 5:14 PM, Dan Gooding, 52220K] reports new Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin said Thursday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents working at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport saved a 1-year-old’s life this week. The incident happened on Wednesday as the agents worked the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) line, with the infant unable to breathe for almost two minutes. In a video shared on X, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the agents could be seen springing into action upon becoming aware of the issue. “The ICE agent sprang into action and saved this one-year-old child’s life. If our agent had not been there and stepped up, this would have been a tragic outcome,” Mullin said in a press release. According to Mullin and DHS, the officer became aware that the child was unresponsive in the arms of his father, with CCTV images showing the man carrying the boy and panicking before the agent arrived. The father handed the child to the officer, who performed the Heimlich maneuver, DHS said, and after a few seconds, the child started breathing again. EMS personnel checked the child over, and he was deemed healthy enough to fly. DHS said this was the second child that ICE officers had saved in recent weeks, pointing to a February 20 incident in Plymouth, Minnesota, where a 4-year-old boy who had fallen into a hotel pool was helped. The boy was unresponsive, and agents performed CPR while waiting for local emergency services. The boy later regained consciousness. Mullin said the two incidents highlighted a side of ICE agents rarely portrayed in the media. Public perception of their presence at airports has been mixed, with some criticizing the move when ICE agents are funded under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

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Daily Wire [3/26/2026 9:33 AM, Zach Jewell, 2314K] Video: HERE

New York Post [3/26/2026 9:53 PM, Victor Nava, Steven Vago and Estrella McDaniel, 40934K] reports Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers were spotted scanning passenger IDs at the end of a long security line at New York’s LaGuardia Airport on Thursday. Two of the three ICE officers The Post observed working the Transportation and Security Administration (TSA) checkpoint in Terminal B were sporting "Enforcement and Removal Operations" patches, signifying they are part of the agency’s deportation unit. "ICE is running the security!" one incredulous traveler was heard remarking after making it through the two-hour-long line. President Trump deployed ICE to airports on Monday in an effort to assist beleaguered TSA screeners and ease crowded lines. The agency has been suffering from staff shortages – resulting in hours-long lines – as many employees have refused to work without pay amid the 40-day-long Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown. Ahead of the ICE deployment, border czar Tom Homan explained that the federal law enforcement officers would not be doing jobs they aren’t trained for, like screening bags, but rather relieving TSA workers of more menial duties, like monitoring doors and hallways. ICE agents have been spotted checking IDs at other airports, including Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, according to New York Times. Fliers at New York’s JFK Airport on Thursday complained about seeing ICE officers. "I don’t want the ICE in here," Kerri Michael, 54, told The Post that she arrived four hours before her flight because she heard "lines are ridiculous.” Michael added: "They’re not trained for this job, and they shouldn’t be doing it, so I don’t want them anywhere around me.” A DHS spokeswoman confirmed that ICE agents who received "standard TSA training curriculum" were "verifying identification using TSA. equipment and standard operating procedures.” "The more support we have available, the more efficiently TSA can focus on their highly specialized screening roles to efficiently get airport security lines moving faster," DHS acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis told the outlet. President Trump announced Thursday that he was planning to sign an executive order forcing DHS to pay TSA employees during the shutdown. "Because the Democrats have recklessly created a true National Crisis, I am using my authorities under the Law to protect our Great Country, as I always will do!" the president wrote on Truth Social. "Therefore, I am going to sign an Order instructing the Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, to immediately pay our TSA Agents in order to address this Emergency Situation, and to quickly stop the Democrat Chaos at the Airports," Trump continued. "It is not an easy thing to do, but I am going to do it!".

NPR [3/26/2026 3:28 PM, Alana Wise, 28764K] reports President Trump has deployed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to major airports across the country amid staffing shortages caused by the partial government shutdown. After funding for the Department of Homeland Security lapsed in mid-February, Transportation Security Administration employees have been left to work without pay. Since then, more than 480 agents have quit, according to TSA’s deputy administrator, Ha Nguyen McNeill, and thousands more have called out of work each day. Meanwhile, ICE has been unaffected, because Congress allocated a separate $75 billion in funds to the agency last summer. When NPR asked DHS on Thursday whether ICE is operating under more aggressive rules, Lauren Bis, an acting assistant secretary, did not address the question and sent a statement saying that ICE agents were working to support the TSA by "guarding entrances and exits, assisting with logistics, doing crowd control, and verifying identification using TSA equipment and standard operating procedures. The more support we have available, the more efficiently TSA can focus on their highly specialized screening roles to efficiently get airport security lines moving faster," she said. White House border czar Tom Homan is in charge of the new program, prompting questions about whether the agents’ primary goal will be to help TSA more efficiently ferry through passengers, or continue Trump’s aggressive crackdown on suspected undocumented immigrants. In comments made Monday on Fox News’ Hannity, Homan made it clear that targeting criminal activity was indeed a core component of ICE’s airport presence. He also said that long wait times had dropped, though as of Wednesday, travelers were still facing the longest TSA wait times in history.

Los Angeles Times [3/26/2026 5:43 PM, Gavin J. Quinton, 12718K] reports when President Trump ordered immigration raids in Los Angeles last June, only a handful of those arrested were violent criminals. The sweeps split families, cost businesses millions of dollars and drove many undocumented residents into hiding. Activists protested the Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions, prompting the president to deploy thousands of federal troops in what he called a security operation. A federal judge called it unlawful and said the deployment caused "greater harm" to the city. At a Cabinet meeting Thursday, he called on the mayors and governors of several blue cities and states to allow troops to "come in and stop the crime," pointing to purported successes in Washington, Memphis and New Orleans. The president framed the deployments as both a crime-fighting and immigration enforcement tool, saying that federal authorities can remove people from cities in ways local officials cannot. Trump also said this week that he would consider deploying the National Guard at airports to assist with mounting security delays amid a 40-day partial government shutdown.

Bloomberg [3/26/2026 11:19 AM, Staff, 18082K] Video: HERE reports speaking at a Cabinet meeting in the White House, President Donald Trump says he might have to take "drastic measures" to end the lengthy shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security.

The Hill [3/26/2026 3:45 PM, Sudiksha Kochi, 18170K] reports the House passed a GOP-backed bill Thursday to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for a third time, as lawmakers struggle to find a deal to end the 41-day partial government shutdown. The lower chamber approved the bill in a 218-206 vote, with four Democrats crossing the aisle to support the measure. The same lawmakers backed a similar bill in March: Reps. Henry Cuellar (Texas), Don Davis (N.C.), Jared Golden (Maine) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.). Democrats have remained steadfast in their calls for reforms to immigration enforcement practices following the killings of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota by federal immigration authorities. The White House and Democrats have exchanged counterproposals for weeks but remain at an impasse over a final deal. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters on Thursday that Democrats “are now in possession of what I think is our last and final offer,” without going into the specifics of what was included in the proposal. Lawmakers in both parties are feeling increased pressure to find a resolution as travelers around the country are being forced to wait for hours in airport security lines as Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers go without pay and increasingly call out. Lawmakers are set to leave for a two-week recess beginning March 30, which means they only have a short window to get a DHS deal across the finish line.

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Washington Examiner [3/26/2026 12:45 PM, Hailey Bullis, 1147K] reports that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin attended his first Cabinet meeting Thursday, a gathering that comes at a crucial time as negotiations on Capitol Hill to fund his department are teetering on the edge of collapse. President Donald Trump did not call on Mullin to deliver his own report during the meeting. Trump opened the meeting, however, by praising Mullin before addressing the prolonged DHS shutdown, which he described as the "disgraceful Democrat shutdown." "Congratulations," Trump said to Mullin as the room erupted into laughter. "You came into a department that’s shut down. Shut down by the radical Democrats." Trump called on Democrats to end the shutdown, or else the administration would "have to take some very drastic measures." Negotiations in the Senate have hit a make-or-break moment after Democrats rejected a GOP proposal that would carve out funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s deportation operation while funding the rest of the department, including the Transportation Security Administration. Acting TSA administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill testified during a House hearing on Wednesday that the agency may have to shut down some airports if they did not receive funding soon, calling the prolonged budget lapse a "dire situation." "At this point, we have to look at all options on the table," McNeill told lawmakers. "And that does require us to, at some point, make very difficult choices as to which airports we might try to keep open and which ones we might have to shut down as our callout rates increase."

National Review [3/26/2026 3:17 PM, Audrey Fahlberg, 109K] reports President Trump is expected to tap former senior Office of Management and Budget official Brian Cavanaugh to serve as Under Secretary of Management at the Department of Homeland Security, according to two sources familiar with the matter. If selected for the influential role, Cavanaugh would serve under newly-confirmed DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin and the department’s deputy secretary in overseeing the department’s vast workforce, multi-billion-dollar budget, security programs, and procurement protocols. National Review reported last weekend that Troy Edgar, whom Trump recently named U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador and who served as deputy secretary under Noem, is Mullin’s preferred pick for deputy secretary. Like Mullin and other senior immigration enforcement officials, DHS’s new under secretary of management will face high expectations on the management front following former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s scandal-plagued tenure. The role is a Senate-confirmed position. Pressed on Cavanaugh’s prospective nomination, a White House official said: “We have no DHS personnel announcements to share at this time.”

The Hill [3/26/2026 6:00 PM, Sarah Davis, 18170K] reports President Trump’s border czar Tom Homan on Thursday applauded the appointment of former Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) during a question-and-answer session at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Homan called Trump’s pick the “right guy, right time, right job.” “DHS is the most grueling, controversial, hardest job in United States government, because no matter what you do, people hate you,” Homan said. “And I think he’s like me. I don’t care if people hate me, I don’t give a s— what they think about me.” The border czar said Mullin is “digging in deep” to the responsibilities of his new role after taking the helm this week amid a precarious time for the agency.

Newsweek [3/26/2026 12:36 PM, Peter Aitken, 52220K] reports the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Thursday filed a new Environmental Policy Act that would allow the agency to carry out a wider range of projects with less environmental review. Newsweek contacted DHS for comment by email on Thursday morning. The use of exclusions reduces unnecessary paperwork and delays, and it is a form of compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), not exemption, according to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. Exclusions are taken when the actions associated with them are expected to have little or no significant environmental impact, thus allowing the agency to act without the need for review: A review of NEPA practices between 2010 to 2024 found that environmental impact studies completed across all federal agencies averaged about 36.5 months, or over three years.

Daily Wire [3/26/2026 9:46 AM, Hank Berrien, 2314K] reports late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, the quintessential avatar of Hollywood’s detached elite, recently took to the airwaves to demonstrate exactly why "flyover country" has tuned him out. In a segment dripping with the kind of coastal condescension that has become his trademark, Kimmel mocked President Donald Trump’s selection of Markwayne Mullin to lead the Department of Homeland Security, sneering at Mullin’s background as a business owner and tradesman. Kimmel, whose primary life skill involves reading teleprompters in a climate-controlled studio, took aim at Mullin’s blue-collar roots. "Before he was elected to the Senate, Markwayne Mullin was a low-level MMA fighter and a plumber," Kimmel smirked, before launching into a hackneyed Super Mario joke. "We have a plumber protecting us from terrorism now.” The irony is apparently lost on Kimmel: while he spent his youth chasing laughs in the entertainment industry, Mullin was overcoming actual adversity. Born with a clubfoot that required multiple surgeries, Mullin eventually earned a wrestling scholarship and, at just 20 years old, took over his father’s struggling plumbing business. He didn’t just "fix pipes"; he built one of the largest service companies in the region, illustrating the exact kind of American grit and managerial competence that is foreign to the halls of ABC.

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FOX News [3/25/2026 7:24 PM, Staff, 37576K]

FOX News [3/26/2026 10:03 AM, Staff, 37576K] reports ‘Fox & Friends’ hosts fired back at late-night host Jimmy Kimmel for mocking new Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s past as a plumber and MMA fighter. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Reuters [3/26/2026 11:17 AM, Nate Raymond, 38315K] reports the U.S. Supreme Court is asking Congress to provide an additional $25.4 million to further boost physical and cyber security for the court, including by expanding protective services for the nine justices’ residences and their families. The proposal was included as part of an overall $9.7 billion budget request released on Wednesday by the federal judiciary that would provide funding for the Supreme Court and the rest of the federal court system for the fiscal year that begins on October 1.

Washington Examiner [3/26/2026 1:42 PM, David Sivak, 1147K] reports that Senate Democrats voted in lockstep against a GOP proposal to require photo ID at the polls, the latest turn in a dayslong debate over President Donald Trump’s signature election bill. Republicans scheduled the Thursday vote as a "moment of truth" for Democrats who have previously expressed support for voter ID laws but oppose the SAVE America Act, which goes beyond an ID requirement and would impose restrictions Democrats claim amount to voter suppression. In a 53-47 vote, all Senate Democrats blocked the legislation, including centrist Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA). Fetterman previously indicated he would vote "yes" if the SAVE America Act was stripped down to a voter ID proposal. Isolating the voter ID provision reflected an attempt by Republicans to focus on the bill’s most popular provision, as upward of 80% of voters support the requirement in recent surveys. But Democrats in the lead-up to the vote argued that election laws should be left to the states or otherwise accused Republicans of a disingenuous attempt to "cover up" the real intent behind the bill. Republicans framed the outcome as evidence that Democrats do not support secure elections. The vote is part of a weekslong messaging campaign on the SAVE America Act, a bill that Trump has called his top legislative priority. In addition to voter ID, it requires proof of citizenship when registering to vote and would restrict most types of voting by mail.

DailySignal [3/26/2026 5:45 PM, Virginia Grace McKinnon, 474K] reports Republicans are turning to budget reconciliation to pass the SAVE America Act into law, but some doubt the process will result in the election integrity measures offered in the current version of the bill. The GOP strategy to pass the SAVE America Act has changed rapidly this week. Over the weekend, Trump was pushing the Senate to pass the SAVE America Act using the talking filibuster, which would circumvent the Senate’s 60 vote cloture rule, before reopening the Department of Homeland Security. After a meeting with Republican Senators at the White House on Monday afternoon, however, Republicans have shifted to attempting to pass the SAVE America Act in a second reconciliation bill. But budget reconciliation has rules that could prevent the SAVE America Act from being included in the legislation. The House Freedom Caucus also doubts that the SAVE America Act will survive reconciliation.

Breitbart.com [3/26/2026 12:02 PM, Nick Gilbertson, 2238K] reports President Donald Trump has had "enough" of Democrats and Republicans negotiating Department of Homeland Security funding and the SAVE America Act as he calls for the termination of the filibuster. Trump took to Truth Social on Thursday morning to call for the GOP to end the filibuster, stressing that Democrats will nuke it as soon as they have the opportunity. "When is ‘enough, enough’ for our Republican Senators," the president asked. "There comes a time when you must do what should have been done a long time ago, and something which the Lunatic Democrats will do on day one, if they ever get the chance.” "TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER, and get our airports, and everything else, moving again. Also, add the complete, all five items, SAVE AMERICA ACT items. Go for the Gold!!!" he added. In a post that followed shortly after, Trump said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) would be inclined to make a deal if he believed Republicans would lift the filibuster if he did not negotiate: The SAVE America Act would require proof of citizenship to register to vote, voter ID, do away with universal mail-in ballots with exceptions for disability, illness, travel, or military reasons, and codify protections on women’s sports and a ban on transgender surgeries for children. Meanwhile, negotiations on DHS funding continue as wait times at Transportation Security Administration (TSA) lines have spiked sharply amid the DHS’s ongoing funding shortfall. The latest Republican offer to fund DHS except for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) removal operations has failed to draw the support of staunch conservatives and Democrats alike, while Democrats’ latest offer, which includes ICE restrictions, has been rejected by Republicans.

CBS News [3/26/2026 12:42 PM, Sarah N. Lynch and Camilo Montoya-Galvez, 51110K] reports that the Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office has received a grand jury subpoena ordering it to turn over certain individual voter records, as part of a federal investigation into whether non-citizens are registered or have unlawfully cast ballots, sources with direct knowledge told CBS News. The investigation, which is being run by the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security, appears to represent an escalation in an ongoing dispute between states and the federal government over efforts to review states’ voter rolls. Federal prosecutors and investigators are seeking records pertaining to more than 125 individuals, one of the sources said. The records the department is seeking do not include the ballots themselves. To date, no one has been criminally charged. The criminal investigation is separate from civil litigation that is currently pending against Minnesota by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, which is trying to convince a federal judge to force the state to hand over a complete unredacted voter registration list. The DOJ is suing dozens of other states and the District of Columbia over the same issue. A spokesperson for the Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

New York Times [3/26/2026 11:34 AM, Mitch Smith, 148038K] reports new voters in South Dakota will have to prove that they are United States citizens in order to cast a ballot in state and local races under a bill signed on Thursday by Gov. Larry Rhoden. The new law, which does not apply to South Dakotans already on the voter rolls, comes amid a national push by Republicans to tighten voting rules and root out voting by noncitizens, which is already illegal and believed to be rare. “This bill ensures only citizens vote in state elections, keeping our elections safe and secure,” said Mr. Rhoden, who is seeking election to a full term this year and is facing a crowded Republican primary field. He replaced Kristi Noem, who left the governor’s office last year to become homeland security secretary under President Trump. South Dakota is one of a handful of Republican-led states to advance its own proof of citizenship measures this year as President Trump pushes Congress to pass the SAVE America Act. The federal legislation — which would establish strict new national requirements on voter registration, voter identification and mail-in balloting — has stalled in the Senate because of Democratic opposition. Critics describe proof of citizenship bills as solutions in search of a problem, with far greater potential to disenfranchise eligible voters than to prevent ineligible ones from casting a ballot. “Noncitizens cannot vote in South Dakota — this bill is wholly unnecessary,” State Representative Erik Muckey, a Democrat, said during the floor debate. He was one of three members of his chamber to vote against the bill.

CNN [3/26/2026 5:47 PM, Priscilla Alvarez, Gabe Cohen, Michael Williams, 19874K] reports the Department of Homeland Security inspector general has launched a sprawling investigation into how contracts have been solicited and handled, including the involvement of former Secretary Kristi Noem and her de facto chief of staff Corey Lewandowski, according to two sources familiar with the probe. Noem’s handling of contracts within DHS was one of the main catalysts for her ouster by President Donald Trump earlier this month. Lewandowski’s micromanagement of the department, including his involvement in contracts, was a persistent source of tension with White House officials, CNN has reported. The Office of the Inspector General previously announced an audit into DHS grants and contracts awarded "by any means other than full and open competition during fiscal year 2025," according to its website. The inspector general, Joseph Cuffari, complained to Congress in early March that DHS leadership had been obstructing some of his work. One of the sources familiar with the issue said the IG investigation that includes Noem and Lewandowski is separate from the previously announced audit. The source said investigators had ordered dozens of DHS officials to preserve records as part of the new probe.

Reported similarly:
Reuters [3/26/2026 6:36 PM, Christian Martinez ​and Ismail Shakil, 38315K]

Daily Signal [3/26/2026 6:30 PM, Cully Stimson and John Osorio, 474K] reports earlier this week, a federal appeals court held that the Department of Homeland Security could detain an illegal alien without bond pending his removal proceedings after he was arrested in Minneapolis in 2025. In journeyman fashion, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals interpreted the applicable immigration laws as written and applied common sense to reach its decision. That law, 8 U.S.C. § 1225, a nearly three-decade-old statute, requires detention without bond for "an alien who is an applicant for admission if … an alien seeking admission is not clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to be admitted." This case could be a game-changer in the administration’s efforts to hold illegal aliens pending their removal hearings. Joaquin Herrera Avila is a Mexican national. He was arrested last August in Minneapolis and admitted he was in the country illegally. Avila had illegally entered the U.S. twice; once in 2006 and again in 2016. When he was caught in 2025, Avila was held without bond, and DHS initiated removal proceedings for lacking valid entry documentation. Avila requested a bond redetermination before the immigration judge, who denied his request. Avila’s attorney then filed a habeas petition in federal district court seeking his immediate release or a bond hearing. Avila argued that since he was not "seeking admission" while in the U.S., the statute simply didn’t apply to him. Avila’s argument goes like this: As long as an illegal alien in the U.S. just sits back and does nothing to adjust his status in the country, such as seek asylum, 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A) did not apply to him. The district court ruled in favor of Avila, claiming the statute did not apply because he had lived in the country for years without "seeking admission" to the U.S.

AP [3/27/2026 12:18 AM, Steve Karnowski, 34146K] reports Minnesota will be the flagship of the “No Kings” protest movement Saturday when Bruce Springsteen performs “Streets of Minneapolis” in a state where emotions are still raw over President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and the deaths of two residents shot by federal officers. More than 3,100 events are being organized in communities large and small across all 50 states, with more than 9 million people expected to participate. A growing number of them will be in suburbs, which are increasingly on the front lines of resistance against Trump. Organizers have designated the Minnesota rally, at the State Capitol in St. Paul, as Saturday’s flagship event. They’ve told a state oversight agency that 100,000 people could converge on the Capitol complex, where last June’s event drew an estimated 80,000 people. The movement is spreading around the world, said Ezra Levin, a cofounder of Indivisible, the activist group spearheading the events. Rallies are also planned in more than a dozen other countries, he said in an interview, including Canada, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Ireland, Sweden, Mexico and Australia. In counties with constitutional monarchies, he said, they call the protests “No Tyrants.” Besides Springsteen, the St. Paul rally will also feature singer Joan Baez and actor Jane Fonda, who’ve been noted for their activism since the Vietnam War era, and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a hero of the progressive movement, along with a long list of other national and local activists, labor leaders and elected officials. Levin said the national organizers chose Minnesota because it was subject to “some of the most horrific, sadistic behavior you can imagine” from the Trump administration. “At the same time, in the Twin Cities earlier this year, we saw some of the most inspiring, neighborly, brave organizing that we’ve seen anywhere in the country, and it serves as an inspiration to all of us,” Levin added. This will be the third round of “No Kings” protests, which often have a street festival vibe. They’re organized by a broad coalition of groups opposed to what they call authoritarianism under Trump, and his attempts to consolidate and expand his power. Organizers say more than 5 million people took to the streets at more than 2,100 events last June, followed by more than 7 million people at more than 2,700 events last October. Organizers announced Saturday’s protests in January, shortly after the killings in Minneapolis of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Plans had already been in the works, but their deaths during the surge of around 3,000 federal officers into Minnesota provided a new focus. Opposition to the war in Iran, which the U.S. and Israel launched with airstrikes on Feb. 28, is expected to draw even more people to the protests, Levin said. Trump reacted to previous “No Kings” rallies by insisting “I’m not a king” and saying attendees were “not representative of the people of our country.” Springsteen came to Minnesota soon after composing “Streets of Minneapolis” to honor Good, Pretti and other residents for their courage in standing up against the federal crackdown. He first performed it live at a fundraiser at the iconic First Avenue nightclub. He’s sure to sing it at the Capitol on Saturday, and again Tuesday night at the city’s Target Center when he and the E Street kick off their Land of Hope & Dreams American Tour. Springsteen has long feuded with Trump, who has called the New Jersey rock icon “overrated.”

The Hill [3/26/2026 10:28 PM, Sarah Davis, 18170K] reports Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) said on Thursday that he will attend a “No Kings” rally in Minneapolis this weekend after the Trump administration’s massive immigration enforcement operation in the city earlier this year. “We will never forget what happened here and we’re taking action against it,” Walz told MS NOW’s Chris Hayes on Thursday. “And I think you’ll see it very visibly in the No Kings rallies, and grateful to folks across the country, but an understanding that I think Minneapolis and Minnesota provided the template here for pushing back on this guy, and there’s work to be done,” the governor continued. Over 3,000 events across the country affiliated with the “No Kings” movement are planned for Saturday. The movement organized over 2,000 events last June on President Trump’s birthday to protest his administration’s “authoritarian power grabs,” according to the organization’s website. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) deployed thousands of federal agents to Minnesota as part of its largest enforcement operation in history, Operation Metro Surge. Trump border czar Tom Homan announced an end to the operation in early February, after federal agents shot and killed two Minnesota residents during the immigration crackdown effort. Walz told MS NOW on Thursday that the operations “caused generational trauma.” “The good news is that nobody here is forgetting,” the governor said, citing the state’s ongoing lawsuits against the Trump administration.

Newsweek [3/27/2026 4:22 AM, Jasmine Laws, 52220K] reports protesters will be taking to the streets of cities nationwide this weekend for the "No Kings" demonstration against President Donald Trump’s administration and its policies. On March 28, over 3,100 events will be taking place across the U.S. as part of the third "No Kings" protest. The "No Kings" group said on its website that the American people are "ready to stand in solidarity against the Trump administration’s overreach and heinous acts against working families and immigrants." Trump has previously called similar protests "a joke" run by "radical left lunatics." "The only people who care about these Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions are the reporters who are paid to cover them," White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told Newsweek.

Wall Street Journal [3/26/2026 10:12 PM, Staff, 646K] reports about six weeks have passed since Democrats decided not to fund the Department of Homeland Security, and some airport security lines have exceeded four and a half hours. “Major airports are experiencing days where 40% to 50% of their staff are calling out,” Ha Nguyen McNeill, acting head of TSA, testified Wednesday. “They simply cannot afford to report to work.” This week the Transportation Security Administration is bracing to miss a second full paycheck. “Many in our workforce have missed bill payments, received eviction notices, had their cars repossessed and utilities shut off,” Ms. McNeill told the House. “Some are sleeping in their cars, selling their blood and plasma.” More than 480 have quit. If the shutdown goes on, she said, TSA “may have to close smaller airports if we do not have enough officers.” Imagine that conversation, in a thousand versions: Sorry, sir, but your flight is canceled. In fact, all the flights are canceled, and the entire airport is going offline. Maybe there are some rental cars left. Hope you don’t miss your dad’s funeral. Sen. Chuck Schumer and his fellow Democrats chose this. They have refused to do the basic job of paying the security personnel who are required to show up at airports nationwide to keep the public safe from another 9/11. They are inflicting pain on the flying public as a way to extract a set of concessions on immigration enforcement that lack majority support in either chamber of Congress. In a letter last week signed by border czar Tom Homan, the White House said it is open to enforcing “visible officer identification” for immigration agents, expanding the use of body cameras, and codifying limits on enforcement at certain “sensitive” locations, such as hospitals and schools.

The Hill [3/26/2026 7:30 AM, Lora Ries, 18170K] reports the Department of Homeland Security published a proposed rule last month that would increase the time asylum-seeking aliens must wait before applying for work authorization. Media reports have treated it like a harsh, draconian change. But if anything, the final rule should go even further to prevent asylum fraud. An alien in the U.S. cannot obtain an employment authorization document as a stand-alone immigration benefit. Rather, this document can only be granted in conjunction with another immigration benefit, such as asylum or Temporary Protected Status. What should surprise Americans is that aliens can receive work authorization while the application for that benefit is merely pending instead of having to wait until that application is granted. In the case of asylum, a decades-long policy has allowed asylum applicants to apply for permission to work as soon as five months after applying for asylum, so that they can receive the employment authorization document after six months. This policy has been a significant enticement for asylum fraud. The proposed rule would increase asylum applicants’ wait for employment authorization to a minimum of one year. It would also pause acceptance of asylum-related applications for employment authorization whenever the processing time exceeds 180 days for 90 consecutive days. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services would then resume accepting applications for employment authorization whenever the average asylum application processing time is less than or equal to 180 days over a period of 90 consecutive days. This is an overly complicated half-measure to discourage asylum fraud. The final rule should be simpler and more far-reaching, simply requiring asylum applications be granted before aliens can obtain work authorization.

FOX News [3/26/2026 9:00 AM, Andrew Giuliani, 37576K] reports in less than three months, the United States will welcome the world for the largest sporting event in the history of mankind: the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Our nation will be hosting 78 matches across 11 U.S. host cities in a 40-day period during America’s 250th birthday. This showcase of American exceptionalism is projected to bring in more than 5 million visitors and produce $30 billion in economic output. And yet, President Donald Trump’s White House Task Force on the FIFA World Cup 2026 is being stifled in ensuring the safety and security of the event because a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown is limiting DHS’s ability to prepare for this unprecedented global tournament. When Congress failed to fund DHS more than a month ago, critical agencies such as the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the United States Coast Guard (USCG) were forced to operate with limited resources, unpaid staff and suspend certain operations. Each of these agencies, as well as all of the 23 components housed within DHS, are vitally important to the White House FIFA Task Force’s whole-of-government approach to protect U.S. citizens and international visitors alike. Right now, the DHS shutdown is hampering the department’s ability to prepare for the largest influx of visitors in American history. This shutdown is not merely a matter of bureaucratic inconvenience; it is a direct threat to our national security. The first kick-off is less than 80 days away. The longer this shutdown continues, the more gaps there may be in our security and operational planning, preparedness, and coordination. Our ability to deliver a safe World Cup suffers every day that Congress refuses to fund us.

Washington Post [3/26/2026 11:43 AM, Andy Beshear, 24826K] reports American citizens who thought they were immune from reckoning with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been rudely awakened by the newest travel nightmare: ICE is in the airport. As if the prospect of playing high-altitude roulette weren’t stressful enough, now some of the nation’s busiest airports are staffed by ICE agents, purportedly to fill gaps left by more than 450 Transportation Security Administration officers who, largely unpaid since mid-February, have called it quits and gone home. As of Monday, more than 3,200 TSA officers, or nearly 11 percent of the force, didn’t show up for work. Those still at their jobs are working without pay — and we thank you for your service. It’s hard to fathom the genius “thinking” behind the decision to deploy ICE, possibly the most despised federal agency, to the combustible environment of overcrowded airports, long lines and irate travelers coping with the partial government shutdown that began earlier this year. Adding to the travel anxiety, a Canadian aircraft crashed Sunday into an emergency vehicle upon landing at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, killing two pilots and injuring dozens of passengers. Two air traffic controllers were in the tower at the time and at least one was doing several jobs, said National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy. To paraphrase President Donald Trump, I’m sure there are fine people in ICE, but they’ve done little to earn the confidence of the American public. After two citizens — Renée Good and Alex Pretti — were shot and killed by impulse-challenged federal agents, one ICE and the others Border Patrol, one wonders what provocation might prompt a lethal response in the overwrought environment of exhausted, frustrated crowds trapped in soulless airports. Indeed, assaults on TSA agents have increased 500 percent since the shutdown began, TSA Deputy Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill said Wednesday during a House committee hearing. At some airports, wait times exceed four hours. Instead of doing the jobs of TSA agents, for which they’re untrained, ICE agents in Atlanta and elsewhere reportedly are mostly standing and watching lines. This might be a baby step forward in behavior modification. Those hurt most by Washington’s near-perennial budget war are the TSA agents. While a traveler’s struggle to stay sane in a crowded airport is not for the weak-willed, it doesn’t compare to the hardships facing agents trying to pay bills and feed a family without a regular paycheck for six weeks and counting. Some have been sleeping in their cars at the airport to save on gas. Others have lost child care. Some face eviction. And to think, ICE is partly the cause of it all. Deadly violence in Minnesota, combined with other unacceptable spectacles, led Democrats to demand reforms as part of their budget negotiations. Both sides are digging in their heels as airport lines grow longer, while the most vexing question is whether their standoff is putting security at risk. The answer, according to McNeill, is yes.

New York Post [3/26/2026 6:45 AM, Pete Sepp, 40934K] reports for weeks now, frustrated travelers trying to catch flights all over the United States have been caught in hours-long security-check lines as overwhelmed Transportation Security Administration agents were forced to work without pay. It’s not the first time that federal funding for TSA — a highly visible service that impacts millions of Americans daily — has been caught up in a political brawl in Congress, this time over immigration enforcement. It doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, it never should have happened, not even once. That’s because taxpayers and travelers already pay for transportation security, not through their taxes but through their plane tickets. The federally mandated Passenger Security Fee, first levied after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to help fund TSA screening activities, has more than doubled since its inception. Today, it adds an $11.20 charge to every round-trip ticket purchase — more than $4.5 billion in 2025 alone. The fee is one of multiple government-mandated add-on charges, including a ticket excise tax, flight segment fees and passenger facility charges, that add taxes of 15% to 30% on every airline ticket you buy. And while the lion’s share of Passenger Security Fee revenue was supposed to stay with TSA, Congress has chosen to divert much of it to feed an already fattened hyena. Bipartisan Budget Acts passed in 2013 and 2018 funneled huge chunks of Passenger Security Fee proceeds away from TSA and into the Treasury’s general fund, where it can be spent in any way government officials want. Congress deceptively portrayed that decision as a matter of "deficit reduction," but we can see how well that’s worked. If these resources had remained with TSA where they belonged, the agency could have built up an emergency fund to help tide these essential workers over during government shutdowns.

Daily Wire [3/26/2026 10:33 AM, Chloe Trapanotto, 2314K] reports if you were told that in the year 2026, elected Democrats in Congress would get away with prolonging the longest partial shutdown in history — all to protect illegal aliens — would you believe it? You should, because it’s happening. Forty days in, and Democrats are holding the entire Department of Homeland Security hostage over a tiny fraction, 8.5 percent, of the agency. Not the TSA. Not FEMA. Not the Coast Guard. Just ICE — and apparently, that’s worth burning the whole thing down. Following the Minnesota shootings, Democrats have entered another frenzy to abolish, this time targeting ICE officers instead of police. Because "abolish cops" and demonizing a whole group of people whose job is to protect us went so well the first time. They want masks off —despite forcing them on everyone and their grandmother during Covid. Identification shown — despite their open hostility to requiring ID at the ballot box. And operations paused, unless ICE can navigate numerous legal hurdles to get judicial warrants. All nonstarters for Republicans. So the shutdown drags on. Democrats are standing ten toes down on defunding ICE — and by extension, all of DHS — while Republicans and the American people plead with them to at least vote to fund TSA, FEMA, the Coast Guard, and Cyber Security Intelligence. One would think these are reasonable requests, given that we are at war with the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. But common sense left the building a long time ago. The consequences are not abstract. Yesterday on Capitol Hill, the directors of FEMA, TSA, and CISA testified about the devastating impacts this shutdown is having on their institutions. TSA: "We are really concerned about our security." Think about that — the people responsible for keeping bombs off planes are telling Congress they’re scared. CISA: "The threat environment is too dynamic to allow this shutdown to continue." And FEMA: "We are crippling our disaster response." Acting TSA Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill put a number to it: over 480 Transportation Security Officers already gone, with airports running at 40-50% staff capacity, because officers simply cannot afford to show up. Democrats did that. They own every single minute of it.

FOX News [3/26/2026 9:28 PM, Michael Sinkewicz, 37576K] reports the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Thursday announced the arrests of five illegal immigrants convicted of violent crimes, including manslaughter, child sexual assault and carjacking. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) carried out the arrests, which involved individuals from Honduras, Mexico, Guatemala and Vietnam who had prior convictions for violent offenses, DHS said. "Yesterday, ICE arrested criminal illegal aliens convicted for manslaughter, sexually assaulting a child, and carjacking," DHS Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said in a statement. "These types of depraved criminals should never have been in the U.S. in the first place.” Bis said that ICE officers "are patriots who put their lives on the line to remove heinous criminals from our communities.” "Next time you see an ICE officer, thank them for their service to our nation," she added. Among those arrested was Angel Rodriguez-Padilla, a criminal illegal immigrant from Honduras who was convicted of manslaughter in Dallas County, Texas, according to DHS. DHS said that Henri Oliva-Marroquin, a criminal illegal immigrant from Honduras, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. The third individual identified by DHS was Pedro Bahena-Mendoza, a criminal illegal immigrant from Mexico, convicted of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child in Cook County, Illinois. According to DHS, Nehimias Isaac Aguilar-Velasquez, a criminal illegal immigrant from Guatemala, was convicted of aggravated assault, domestic violence and attempted sexual assault in Phoenix, Arizona. Hung Thanh Dinh, the fifth individual identified by DHS, is a criminal illegal immigrant from Vietnam who was convicted of carjacking with use of a firearm in Malibu, California.

CBS News [3/26/2026 11:55 AM, Camilo Montoya-Galvez and Jake Rosen, 51110K] reports the Justice Department this week conceded to a federal judge in New York it had been incorrectly citing an Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo to partially justify arrests at immigration courthouses, calling the oversight a "material mistaken statement of fact.” Justice Department lawyers disclosed in a letter on Tuesday that a May 2025 ICE memo applies to most courthouses, but not federal immigration courts, where agents have been seen over the past year making arrests of those attending their hearings. The government attorneys told U.S. District Court Judge Kevin Castel that they erroneously cited the memo in monthslong litigation challenging the courthouse arrests because of a "regrettable error" by an "agency attorney," presumably at ICE. "We deeply regret that this error has come to light at this late stage, after the parties have expended significant resources and time to litigate this case and this Court has carefully considered Plaintiffs’ challenge to the 2025 ICE Guidance," the Justice Department lawyers said in their letter. The letter was submitted in a federal court case stemming from a lawsuit by advocacy groups challenging ICE’s practice of carrying out arrests inside immigration courts, which are run by the Justice Department. The arrests, part of President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration, have elicited criticism from advocates who say they punish those attempting to comply with the immigration process by attending their hearings. In September, Castel largely denied a motion from the groups challenging the courthouse arrests. While they acknowledged that Castel relied in part on the May 2025 ICE memo in his ruling last year, the Justice Department lawyers said in their letter that the error does not affect their other arguments in support of the legality of the immigration court arrests. In a statement Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said, "There is no change in policy.” "We will continue to arrest illegal aliens at immigration courts following their proceedings," the department added. "It is common sense to take them into custody following the completion of their removal proceedings. Nothing prohibits arresting a lawbreaker where you find them.” On Thursday, Castel ordered the Justice Department to preserve all records related to the case and the May 2025 memo, including communications between department lawyers and ICE.

Reported similarly:
ABC News [3/26/2026 3:36 PM, Laura Romero, 34146K]

Breitbart [3/26/2026 10:32 PM, Ian Hanchett, 2238K] reports that, on Thursday’s “CNN News Central,” Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-RI) said that the DHS shutdown is “because the Trump administration sent an army of masked ICE agents into American neighborhoods, terrorizing people, banging down people’s doors without warrants, shooting American citizens in the street, deporting children, deporting the elderly. And there need to be real reforms.” Co-host Erica Hill asked, “I also want to talk to you about DHS funding. A deal seems somewhat elusive at this point, as we look at where things stand. And it is really difficult, as you know, especially for TSA workers. This is very real. Punchbowl was reporting that some of your moderate Democratic colleagues in the House were meeting with Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL), apparently initiated by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ). Do you think the House may actually be the key here to breaking this impasse?” Magaziner answered, “We are in this situation because the Trump administration sent an army of masked ICE agents into American neighborhoods, terrorizing people, banging down people’s doors without warrants, shooting American citizens in the street, deporting children, deporting the elderly. And there need to be real reforms. Now, the administration, as I understand it, has been willing to have conversations, willing to negotiate to a degree. But when they’ve agreed to make changes to the way that ICE has been operating, they’ve not agreed to put those changes into law. They’ve said, oh, basically, trust us to change the way that we’re managing ICE, and we’re good for it. Well, that’s not good enough, right? We can’t trust them just on faith that they’re going to institute these much-needed reforms. Meanwhile, to your point, TSA workers and other civil servants aren’t getting paid. That’s why I support Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s (D-CT) bill in the House to fund the rest of DHS, fund TSA, fund the Coast Guard, because those workers had nothing to do with any of this, and it’s not their fault that they’re in this terrible situation. But if the administration thinks that we’re just going to continue to throw billions of dollars at ICE without any guardrails, without any accountability, then they’re wrong. We cannot do that, because we all know that, as soon as the funding is restored, that the administration is going to go back to the same brutal tactics that they were using before without accountability, and that’s why we need guardrails in law.

The Hill [3/26/2026 1:56 PM, Ashleigh Fields, 18170K] reports that White House border czar Tom Homan said Wednesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers will continue wearing masks despite Democrats’ push to see face coverings removed during immigration operations. “You want us to give up masks, well, you know what? No we’re not,” Homan said during a Wednesday conversation on the “Cats & Cosby” show on WABC 770 AM. “I’m not putting one ICE officer at risk,” he added. Homan and former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have shared concerns about officers being doxed and exposed to retaliation for their role in immigration operations. President Trump also said he was a proponent of masks in a Monday Truth Social post, defending face coverings for the ICE officers who are “forced to deal with hardened criminals.” However, Democrats have argued officers’ concealed identity prevents them from being held accountable by the public. Democrats have refused to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) without reforms to ICE operations including the removal of face masks, use of judicial warrants and body-worn cameras. That’s led to a long shutdown of the DHS, which also houses the Coast Guard and Transportation Security Administration (TSA), among other agencies. TSA lines have made trips to airports around the country miserable in recent days.

Washington Examiner [3/26/2026 8:15 AM, Claire Carter, 1147K] reports the Department of Homeland Security said on Wednesday that it will deploy 500 Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to airports in New York on Thursday to assist Transportation Security Administration officers, as the partial government shutdown has reached 40 days. ICE officers had already been deployed to at least 13 major airports, including New York’s LaGuardia Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport, earlier this week, but the New York travel hubs will be getting additional support as thousands of TSA officers have called out sick due to the shutdown, according to NewsNation. The DHS shutdown has caused TSA officers to work without pay, leading many to call out or quit, resulting in hourslong wait times at airport security lines. Due to the strain on TSA workers, President Donald Trump directed ICE officers to be deployed to airports, where they will focus on maintaining "more of a presence" at airport security checkpoints, acting more as background support due to their lack of training to carry out TSA responsibilities. Roughly 150 officers are already deployed. Lauren Bis, the acting assistant secretary for public affairs at the DHS, told the Washington Examiner that 481 TSA workers have quit their jobs and "thousands more" are calling out because they "can’t afford basic necessities.” New York’s JFK International Airport has seen the highest call-out rates in the country, with 36.8% of TSA officers calling out this week, Bis said. LaGuardia Airport saw 17.1% of TSA officers call out.

Washington Times [3/26/2026 3:12 PM, Stephen Dinan, 1323K] reports an ICE officer deployed to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to help TSA move the lines along helped save a 1-year-old boy who had stopped breathing on Thursday. The boy’s father was waiting in a precheck line when the child went limp. The father called for help, and a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer sprinted over, Homeland Security said. The officer performed the Heimlich maneuver, and the tot began to breathe again. Medical personnel then arrived and checked out the child, who had recovered enough to get on the plane. “If our agent had not been there and stepped up, this would have been a tragic outcome,” new DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said. “Despite the endless smears and lies told about them by sanctuary politicians and the media, our ICE officers show up every day to protect the homeland and their fellow Americans.” President Trump has sent ICE officers into airports to help the Transportation Security Administration, which is facing resignations and sick call-outs as TSA agents are being forced to work without pay during the DHS shutdown.

The AP [3/26/2026 3:48 PM, Staff] reports an elderly man shoved onto the subway tracks in Manhattan last weekend has died from his injuries and his alleged assailant is now facing charges, authorities in New York City said Thursday. Richard Williams, 83, of Manhattan, died days after the Sunday incident, according to police. They said Richard had been standing on the Lexington Avenue-63 Street subway platform when a man he didn’t know shoved him from behind onto the tracks. The assailant also shoved a 30-year-old man onto the tracks before fleeing on foot. Both victims were taken to the hospital with injuries. Police arrested Bairon Hernandez on March 10 after seeking the public’s help in identifying the attacker, who was captured on video after the incident. The 34-year-old Brooklyn resident was initially charged with attempted murder, assault and other charges, but in light of Williams’ death, those charges have been upgraded to murder, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office said. Hernandez is a Honduran national who has been deported four times since first entering the country illegally in 2008, according to the Department of Homeland Security. He entered the country illegally a fifth time at an unknown date and location and has a lengthy criminal history, including 15 prior charges of simple assault, domestic violence, obstruction of police, possession of a weapon, drug possession and aggravated assault, the agency said. FOX News [3/26/2026 4:14 PM, Louis Casiano, 37576K] reports that the alleged attacker, Honduran national Bairon Posada-Hernandez, 34, was arrested March 10 and faces a murder charge. John Pena, 30, the other man allegedly pushed onto the tracks, helped pull Williams back onto the platform moments before a train rolled into the station, the New York Post reported. After the attack, Williams was taken to a hospital, where doctors said he suffered a brain bleed and underwent surgery. He had no brain activity after the procedure, doctors said. Williams’ death has been ruled a homicide. Posada-Hernandez, whom the Department of Homeland Security called a "serial criminal," has been deported from the United States four times, the agency said. Federal authorities are asking New York not to release Posada-Hernandez back onto the streets. New York has adopted sanctuary policies limiting cooperation between local and federal authorities. U.S. Immigration and Custioms Enforcement has lodged a detainer for Posada-Hernandez. Posada-Hernandez’s criminal history includes 15 prior charges, including simple assault, domestic violence, obstruction of police, possession of a weapon, drug possession and aggravated assault.

Reported similarly:
New York Post [3/26/2026 1:42 PM, Joe Marino, Kyle Schnitzer, Georgett Roberts, and Patrick Reilly, 40934K]

The Hill [3/26/2026 7:20 PM, Sarah Davis, 18170K] reports New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D) signed several laws into effect Wednesday that limit the scope of federal immigration enforcement operations in the state. The three bills include a mask ban for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers operating in the state, reducing cooperation between New Jersey and federal officials on immigration enforcement operations and preventing state officials from sharing the immigration statuses of New Jersey residents with federal officials. “Donald Trump’s untrained, unaccountable, masked ICE agents are putting people in danger,” Sherrill wrote on the social platform X on Wednesday afternoon. “That’s why I just signed a package of legislation to keep our communities safe – strengthening trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve, banning ICE agents from wearing masks, and protecting residents’ privacy from federal overreach,” the governor continued. “In New Jersey, we still follow the Constitution and uphold the rule of law.” Department of Homeland Security (DHS) acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis called the mask ban a “despicable and a flagrant attempt to endanger our officers” in a Thursday statement to The Hill. “To be crystal clear: we will not abide by this unconstitutional ban,” Bis wrote. “The Supremacy Clause makes it clear that New Jersey’s sanctuary politicians do not control federal law enforcement.” The Supremacy Clause in the U.S. Constitution asserts the federal government’s power over state and local jurisdictions when there are conflicting laws. The Trump administration has defended federal officers’ right to mask during enforcement operations, saying it prevents agents and their families from being doxed. “This law from sanctuary politicians in New Jersey is irresponsible, reckless, and dangerous,” Bis said. “ICE officers wear face coverings for one reason: to protect themselves and their families from real-world threats including agitators.”

Reported similarly:
NewsMax [3/26/2026 4:49 PM, Jim Thomas, 3760K]

Washington Examiner [3/26/2026 11:42 AM, Christopher Tremoglie, 1147K] reports the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" has long been recognized by the Supreme Court as a fundamental legal right of Americans, but don’t tell that to radical, left-wing Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner. As much as Krasner touts the importance of constitutionality, one would think he knows this. But that hasn’t stopped him from playing judge and jury when mentioning confrontations in January between political agitators and protesters in Minneapolis and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, falsely stating this week that their actions were the "criminal homicide of unarmed innocent people.” "This is how it works," Krasner said on Tuesday during a press conference at Philadelphia International Airport. "You commit crimes within the jurisdiction that is the city and county of Philadelphia, I prosecute you. That is how it works. No, I don’t take a phone call from the president, saying, ‘Let him go.’ No, the president cannot pardon you. I’ll say it again: the president cannot pardon you.” It was a baffling display of anger, resentment, vindictiveness, and arguably, evil, as it marked the second time Krasner held an impromptu press conference and disparaged ICE officers. In February, while attending a partisan "ICE Out" press conference in Philadelphia, Krasner threatened to "hunt down" ICE officers like "they hunted down Nazis." Filled with left-wing rage that more resembled prosecutors of the show trials in the 1930s Soviet Union than a U.S. district attorney, Krasner created a legal controversy that didn’t exist, as there have not been any known physical confrontations between Philadelphians and ICE officers. "And yes, I will put you in handcuffs, I will put you in a courtroom, and if necessary, I will put you in a jail cell if you decide to make the terrazzo floor of this airport, anything like what you did in the streets of Minneapolis, which involved criminal homicide of unarmed innocent people," Krasner asserted — for absolutely no reason whatsoever as it is physically impossible to use an automobile in an airport building and then drive it at ICE officers. His demonization of the American citizens who are federal officers of ICE is abhorrent, inflammatory, and unethical. Moreover, it is a verbal denigration of those who risk their personal welfare to protect innocent Americans from violent illegal immigrants. This is in addition to the incendiary agenda-driven illegal immigrant rabble-rousers throwing Molotov cocktails and bricks at them, encountering snipers, and using automobiles as weapons to cause physical harm. "To most Americans ICE officers are heroes as they put their lives on the line to arrest murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members, and terrorists," acting DHS Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis told me. "Attacks and demonization of ICE law enforcement are wrong," Bis said. "Because of smears like this our ICE officers are now facing a more than 1,300% increase in assaults against them as they put their lives on the line to arrest murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members, and terrorists.”

CBS News [3/26/2026 3:52 PM, Zachary Bynum, 51110K] reports a group of Georgia lawmakers, immigration advocates and family members gathered outside an Atlanta ICE office Thursday morning, urging federal officials to stop the deportation of Rodney Taylor, a detained father of seven who supporters say is facing worsening health conditions behind bars. The demonstration centered on a letter signed by state legislators and a petition with more than 7,500 signatures, both hand-delivered to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, calling for Taylor’s immediate release and a halt to his deportation proceedings. Taylor, a Black double amputee, is currently being held at Stewart Detention Center in southwest Georgia. Advocates say immigration officials have issued travel documents to deport him to Liberia — a country they note he has not lived in since he was a toddler. Sanchez and others described conditions inside Stewart Detention Center as deeply concerning, pointing to allegations of inadequate medical care and poor living conditions. While CBS News Atlanta has not independently verified those claims, they reflect broader concerns long raised by immigrant rights groups about detention facilities across Georgia. Immigration attorneys and advocacy groups say Taylor’s case highlights systemic concerns about medical care inside detention facilities statewide.

CBS Chicago [3/26/2026 10:16 AM, Adam Harrington and Dylan Olsen, 51110K] Video: HERE reports a bill making its way through the Illinois General Assembly would stop immigration detention centers in certain areas. The bill would ban any centers from being operated within 1,500 feet of most places —including schools, daycare centers, and forest preserves. It is sponsored by Illinois House Speaker Emanuel "Chris" Welch (D-Westchester), who represents west suburban Broadview, where a detention center is currently in operation. The facility has been the site of many protests, particularly during Operation Midway Blitz lats fall. In a statement, Welch said in part: "This is not an abstract policy proposal for me — this is personal, and is deeply local. The Broadview detention facility sits in the heart of the district I represent. And during Operation Midway Blitz, the people who live in and around that community did not just witness aggressive federal activity — they lived through trauma.”

AP [3/26/2026 7:49 PM, Steve Karnowski, 35287K] reports a federal judge on Thursday extended her order requiring that federal authorities give immigrants detained in Minnesota access to attorneys immediately after they are arrested and before they are transferred out of state. U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel issued a preliminary injunction requiring that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement must ensure that people detained at a holding facility in Minneapolis are entitled to reach lawyers quickly and to communicate with them privately while their cases proceed. “Due process is not a game of keep-away,” the judge wrote. “ICE recognizes detainees’ right to access counsel in theory and written policy, but not in practice. Instead, it has placed obstacle after obstacle in front of detainees and their attorneys, blocking communication between clients and counsel.” Brasel’s decision followed a temporary restraining order she issued Feb. 12, when she said it appeared the federal agency had failed to plan for how to protect the constitutional rights of people detained during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown known as Operation Metro Surge. “The Constitution does not permit the government to arrest thousands of individuals and then disregard their constitutional rights because it would be too challenging to honor those rights,” Brasel wrote in February. The judge on Thursday extended her original order mandating that the government ensure that every noncitizen held at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building be given the opportunity to contact an attorney within one hour of their detention.

Telemundo [3/26/2026 6:51 PM, Staff, 56K] reports a study by the University of California, San Diego, revealed Thursday that most of the residents of the Minnesota Twin Cities, made up Minneapolis and St. Louis. Not only did Paul feel not safer during the increased presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) this winter, but the presence of ICE had major negative repercussions. The UC San Diego Immigration Policy Center conducted two surveys of hundreds of Minneapolis and St. Louis residents. Paul after Operation Metro Surge, which involved the deployment of between 3000 and 4000 federal immigration agents across the state. A high percentage of respondents reported racial discrimination and physical abuse during their encounters with federal immigration agents. The surveys also revealed impacts on the educational and health fields, including loss of income, absenteeism and delayed health care, according to those responsible for the study. "These surveys show how far Operation Metro Surge hit Minneapolis and St. Louis. Paul," said Tom Wong, director of the Migration Policy Center. "The data point to worrying patterns that raise serious concerns, such as the use of force, as well as broader harm to families, schools, workplaces and access to health care."

AP [3/26/2026 10:20 PM, Steve Karnowski, 1257K] reports a Minneapolis woman who confronted federal immigration officers alongside Alex Pretti in January was among a group of potential litigants who spoke out Thursday about alleged excessive force against people protesting or monitoring the enforcement surge in Minnesota. Georgia Savageford, who introduced herself as Wynnie at a news conference, said she was inside an officer’s vehicle when she saw federal agents shoot Pretti. “That day has changed me forever,” she said. “The trauma will haunt me for the rest of my life, and I will never be the same.” Savageford said she had been legally observing the actions of federal officers in Minneapolis ever since the shooting death of Renee Good by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer on Jan. 7. She said she was doing so again on the morning of Jan. 24 when an agent pushed her twice and caused her to fall. “As I was going down, three agents proceeded to tackle me and drag me face-down into the middle of the street. They knelt on my back, twisted my arms and my legs to the ground, and handcuffed me. The cuffs were so tight I lost feeling in my hands, which resulted in temporary nerve damage,” she recounted. Officials with the Department of Homeland Security and ICE did not immediately respond Thursday to emails seeking comment. Minnesota officials sued the Trump administration on Tuesday for access to evidence they say they need to independently investigate the killings. Savageford said Pretti recorded video of her arrest and yelled at agents to leave her alone. She said the officers put her in the back of a vehicle, from which she saw agents shoot and kill Pretti on the other side of the street. “At that moment, I thought I was going to die too. I pleaded with the agents to understand why another life was taken, and to not take mine,” she said.

AP [3/26/2026 3:05 PM, Martha Bellisle and Mark Vancleave] reports airport security video shows another way federal agents are taking immigrants to detention centers — in some cases they’re using commercial flights, with escorts dressed like any other passenger. Video obtained through a public records request shows the 5-year-old boy, who became a face of the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis when he was detained while wearing a bunny hat, being flown with his father to Texas on a Delta Air Lines flight, just a day after they were taken into custody. Adrian Conejo Arias and his son Liam Conejo Ramos seemed calm in these recordings as they were being escorted through the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport by a man and two women dressed in plain clothes. Since the father and boy didn’t appear to be in custody, their trip to San Antonio likely went unnoticed by fellow passengers. The Trump administration, like its predecessors, is mostly using ICE Air Operations charter flights as it detains hundreds of thousands of people for deportation. Human rights monitors are trying to keep track as detainees are loaded onto planes in shackles in parts of airports the public can’t easily see.

Axios [3/26/2026 5:39 PM, Abbey Higginbotham, 17364K] reports Leavenworth’s ICE detention facility is already holding about 20 detainees as the city is finalizing an oversight committee meant to monitor conditions at the site. The Leavenworth City Commission approved reopening the former prison earlier this month with a plan for local oversight, but that system is still being put in place. ICE confirmed this week that the CoreCivic-run facility was housing about 20 detainees as of March 19. It is unclear where they were transferred from. The city expects the committee to be fully set up by the end of this week, per Bauder. The city began forming the oversight committee only after the permit was approved, Bauder told Axios. The committee will include people with backgrounds in social work, religious leadership and corrections. It’s expected to monitor conditions at the facility, though the city has not shared full details on its structuring plan. Bauder said the city can pull the permit if CoreCivic blocks access to the city or fails to meet requirements, including providing detainees access to attorneys, family contact and religious practice. Immigration attorney Michael Sharma-Crawford questioned whether detainees will have meaningful access to legal support and due process, noting the oversight committee only sets guidelines. CoreCivic told Axios it is following federal detention standards and does not control who is detained or what happens in immigration cases. The company said ICE oversees operations and conducts regular inspections. It’s unclear how quickly the facility will grow beyond the initial group of detainees.

AP [3/27/2026 4:55 PM, Claire Rush, 34146K] reports an appeals court has paused lower court rulings in Oregon that restricted federal officers’ use of tear gas during protests at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland. A three-judge panel at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the Trump administration’s request for temporary administrative stays in two cases on Wednesday. The 2-1 decision came from two judges appointed by President Donald Trump, with the dissenting judge appointed by former President Joe Biden. The building has been the site of persistent protests over the administration’s aggressive deportation practices since last June, including months of nightly demonstrations and repeated efforts by federal authorities to disperse even small crowds with chemical munitions. At a large-scale demonstration in late January, they fired tear gas at hundreds of people, including children, during a daytime march. The federal responses prompted one lawsuit by the ACLU of Oregon on behalf of protesters and freelance journalists, and another by residents of an affordable housing complex across from the Portland ICE building. The lawsuits argue that federal officers’ use of chemical and projectile munitions has violated the rights of protesters and residents. The Department of Homeland Security, a defendant in both cases, has said it is authorized to do what is appropriate and necessary to defuse violence against officers. Earlier this month, the federal judges in Portland overseeing the separate cases both issuedpreliminary injunctions limiting federal agents from using chemical munitions unless someone poses an imminent threat. The Trump administration appealed the rulings. In its order, the 9th Circuit panel said oral arguments in the two cases will be consolidated and scheduled for April 7.

Breitbart [3/26/2026 8:05 PM, Pam Key, 2238K] reports that, Thursday on CNN’s "The Arena," Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) said Californians fear Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) might kidnap them off the streets. Host Kasie Hunt said, "At what point do Democrats need to look at the compromises that have been put on the table and say, okay, we need to do something?". Swalwell said, "Well, then he has an opportunity to do what is most reasonable and pays TSA agents immediately, which is to fund TSA and every other component of Homeland Security other than ICE and Border Patrol. But I’ll just tell you, talking to Californians all over the state, that right now they fear that you have an ICE that is out of control. You could be walking down Sunset Boulevard. Someone could pull up in an unmarked car wearing a mask and put you into that van, and you don’t know if they’re ICE, and if you resist, you might be arrested for resisting arrest, or you might be kidnapped. That’s the uncertainty and chaos that they have put into our communities. That’s why I’m not voting for another penny for ICE. And that’s why most Democrats are united in the same.” He added, "What I’m hearing from constituents is what I’m seeing is that they’re dragging women by their hair, throwing them into unmarked vans, chasing people through the fields and factories where they work. They’ve committed public executions, two of them and cosigning off on this. It’s just not who we are as Americans." [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

AP [3/26/2026 4:40 PM, Wendy Fry and Nigel Duara, 35287K] reports San Diego County Sheriff’s officials failed to investigate at least seven reported sexual assaults at the privately run Otay Mesa immigration detention center in 2025, and records show the agency has ceded control of the cases to civilian administrators employed by the nation’s largest for-profit prison contractor. Under a 2020 memorandum of understanding between the sheriff’s department and CoreCivic, detention center Warden Christopher LaRose has authority to decide whether to investigate rape allegations at the facility, which currently houses just under 1,500 federal immigration detainees, most of whom are in custody awaiting hearings and have not been convicted of a crime. CalMatters obtained the memorandum after seeking additional information about the alleged rapes and four attempted sexual assaults through a California Public Records Act request. While a sheriff’s spokesperson said the agency was not investigating those cases, he said he was unable to turn over additional records because they were part of "a law enforcement investigation." CoreCivic in a written statement after this story first published said Otay Mesa staff conduct an administrative investigation of each sex assault allegation, though a spokesperson said the company does not conduct criminal investigations of sexual abuse allegations because it’s not a law enforcement agency.

San Diego Union Tribune [3/26/2026 3:26 PM, Phillip Molnarand Noelle Harff, 1257K] reports Robert Mack has been burning through his savings for 41 days and, like many airport security officers, wonders what it will take to get paid. Mack, 46, has worked for the Transportation Security Administration at San Diego International Airport for 23 years. He and his coworkers have been caught up in a partial government shutdown for more than a month that has seen roughly 50,000 TSA agents go without pay. Workers across the nation have called out sick, partially out of protest and also to come up with other ways to make money, that have resulted in long security lines and frustrated passengers. Mack, a lead transportation officer, estimated that around 13% of San Diego TSA agents were calling out daily. Long lines continued Thursday morning at San Diego International Airport. Chances are lines will continue to be long throughout the weekend, said airport spokesperson Nicole Hall. She said Thursday is when weekend travel begins and 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. is typically the busiest. TSA workers and their union have asked passengers to remember its workers are real people who are struggling financially. He said many of his coworkers are also trying to think of extra ways to make money but some just quit all together. Roughly 500 TSA workers across the nation have quit, say the latest estimates, but Mack said it was under 10 workers in San Diego. Several food drives have been organized for TSA workers, including one Thursday afternoon in San Diego. Meanwhile, the workers’ union has provided a letter for members to give to debtors and utilities explaining the situation. As of Thursday afternoon, no ICE agents had come to San Diego.

Telemundo 48 [3/26/2026 1:19 PM, Staff, 26K] reports that a coalition of local organizations filed a complaint on Wednesday against the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD), accusing officers of illegally assisting federal immigration authorities during the detention of two migrants at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) last weekend. On Sunday night, federal immigration authorities detained a mother and her daughter, originally from Guatemala, at SFO. They were identified as Angelina López-Jiménez and Wendy Godínez-López, and they had been subject to a final order of removal issued by an immigration judge since 2019, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. "What happened at SFO last Sunday night was, quite simply, chilling," declared Angela Chan, Chief Deputy Public Defender for the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, during a speech delivered at a rally held on Wednesday. "What transformed this event from something chilling into something outrageous and infuriating was the context surrounding it," Chan asserted. "A wall of SFPD officers shielding ICE, as if their job were to safeguard federal agents rather than to protect the people of San Francisco." The scene, which was captured on video by bystanders, showed SFPD officers forming a circle around the federal agents as the latter attempted to detain the mother.

USA Today [3/26/2026 1:15 PM, Jeanine Santucci, 70643K] reports a Venezuelan man who was deported from the United States and sent to El Salvador’s notorious prison CECOT has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration with claims of false imprisonment and negligence, among others. Neiyerver Adrián Leon Rengel, 28, filed the suit March 24 in federal court seeking $1.3 million in damages. Rengel was arrested March 13, 2025, his birthday, after entering the United States using the Biden-era CBP One app to seek asylum in 2023. Rengel was living in Texas and working as a barber until his arrest, according to the lawsuit. He was one of more than 250 Venezuelans deported to the Salvadoran prison in 2025 in violation of a U.S. court order.

CNN [3/27/2026 12:01 AM, Ivana Kottasová, Daria Tarasova-Markina, 19874K] reports Volodymyr Dudnyk was picked up by Ukrainian military draft officers almost immediately after crossing the border into Ukraine following his deportation from the United States. He was sent straight to a training center. "When I was on the plane to Ukraine, I knew what was coming. But I hoped that perhaps they’d at least let me go home first. Everything happened even faster than I’d thought. I never made it home; I haven’t seen my parents yet," the 28-year-old told CNN. Dudnyk spent 51 days in boot camp, then a few weeks training as a drone operator. He is now fighting on the frontline in eastern Ukraine, where his fellow soldiers gave him a new military callsign: "America.” In President Donald Trump’s second term, the United States has cracked down on every form of immigration and embarked on a mass deportation campaign. While the Trump administration says it is focused primarily on major criminals that it calls "the worst of the worst," many of those detained have committed only minor offenses or have no criminal records. This has brought deep uncertainty to the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who are now at risk of being removed from the US. But for Ukrainian men of fighting age, there is an added risk. Deportation could lead straight to the front lines. More than four years of war have left Ukraine’s military struggling with serious manpower shortages. Under Ukrainian law, all men between the ages of 25 and 60 are subject to mobilization. According to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, some 2 million are currently "wanted" for avoiding the draft and about 200,000 soldiers are absent without official leave. Many of those men have either fled the country or are trying to hide from draft officers who are constantly looking for evaders. CNN has witnessed firsthand draft officers conducting random document checks and taking anyone without a valid exemption straight to military training grounds. A planeload of military-age men being deported from the US is low-hanging fruit for the draft officers. Dudnyk, a tattoo artist, was one of 45 Ukrainian men who were deported from the US by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on November 17, alongside five women. The group was flown to Poland and transported to the Ukrainian border by US officials who then handed them over to Polish officials who escorted them across the border. One of the people on the flight said they were handcuffed until after crossing the border. The State Border Service of Ukraine told CNN that of the 45 men, 24 were "wanted" for the draft and were handed to police officers who then took them to the military draft office. In Ukraine, "wanted" status applies to those who have failed to update their data or who have violated mobilization rules. "A man who was on the plane with me had two or three children, and he was deported too. Another was a 36-year-old who came to America as a child 20 years ago. He hardly speaks any Ukrainian. He was deported too," Dudnyk said.

AP [3/26/2026 2:05 PM, Javier Cordoba and Megan Janetsky, 3833K] reports that Costa Rica said Thursday that it would accept 25 migrants deported from the United States per week as part of an agreement to help the Trump administration’s latest policy of deporting immigrants to “third countries.” The Central American nation joins a growing number of countries across Africa and the Americas that have signed contentious, often secretive agreements with the U.S. to accept deportees from other countries as U.S. President Donald Trump pressures governments to help him advance his agenda. In many cases, migrants who previously hoped to seek asylum in the U.S. are left in a legal “black hole” in foreign countries where they don’t speak the language. Countries who have agreed to receive third-party migrants include South Sudan, Honduras, Rwanda, Guyana, and several Caribbean islands like Dominica and St. Kitts and Nevis. “Costa Rica is prepared to see this flow of people,” said Costa Rican Public Security Minister Mario Zamora Cordero in a video statement on Thursday. Costa Rica’s government signed the pact on Monday during a visit by U.S. special envoy for the so-called “Shield of the Americas” Kristi Noem to Costa Rica. Noem, who was fired earlier this month from her role as secretary of Homeland Security, has been traveling through Latin America, with recent stops in Guyana and Ecuador. “We are very proud to have partners like President (Rodrigo Chaves) and Costa Rica, who are working to ensure that people who are in our country illegally have the opportunity to return to their countries of origin,” Noem said on Monday.

Washington Examiner [3/26/2026 11:02 AM, Kaelan Deese, 1147K] reports the Justice Department under the Trump administration escalated its efforts this week to strip citizenship from individuals in the United States who obtained it through fraud, securing two denaturalizations this week and filing a third case tied to alleged marriage fraud. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the actions reflect a broader push by the Trump administration to target migrants who concealed criminal conduct during the naturalization process. "American citizenship is a sacred privilege — not a cheap status that can be obtained dishonestly," Bondi said. The latest court-secured denaturalization came on March 23, when a judge revoked the citizenship of Vladimir Volgaev, a Ukrainian national convicted of smuggling firearm components and committing housing benefits fraud. Prosecutors said Volgaev engaged in a yearslong scheme beginning in 2011 to export gun parts to foreign buyers while also defrauding federal housing programs. He became a U.S. citizen in 2016 but failed to disclose his criminal activity, which the court found disqualified him from demonstrating the "good moral character" required for naturalization. "This case sends a clear message," said Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate of the Justice Department’s Civil Division. "The United States provided Volgaev with safety, housing, and citizenship, and he returned those gains with malice, including by defrauding one of the federal agencies that provided him benefits. We will not reward this kind of behavior by allowing such an individual to retain U.S. citizenship that should not have been granted in the first place.”

New York Times [3/26/2026 12:01 PM, Adam Liptak, 148038K] reports the Supreme Court will hear arguments next week over President Trump’s plan to limit birthright citizenship. The case involves a big constitutional question: What is the meaning of the 14th Amendment, which has long been understood to grant citizenship to just about every baby born in the United States? But the case, Trump v. Barbara, also poses a bunch of additional questions, all of them land mines that the administration will have to avoid if it is to prevail.

Bloomberg Law [3/26/2026 4:19 PM, Andrew Kreighbaum, 763K] reports the Trump administration is seeking to prevent companies from undercutting salaries for Americans with new rules requiring significantly higher wages for foreign workers in the US. Prevailing wage levels for white-collar workers on H-1Bs and certain green card categories would be adjusted based on specific occupation and geographic market under the proposal released Thursday by the Labor Department. The H-1B program, the main visa for professional jobs, has become a prime target for opponents of foreign hiring in the US who say it’s exploited by companies that hire inexpensive foreign talent to avoid paying higher wages for citizens. Top employers of new H-1B hires in fiscal year 2025 included Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp., Meta Platforms Inc., Google, and IT services provider Tata Consultancy Services. Businesses say H-1B workers are essential to meet specialized hiring needs and that they pay competitive wages. But the program has been attacked for allowing IT and staffing firms to hire inexpensive workers for lower-level tech jobs. The first Trump administration attempted to dramatically increase prevailing wage levels, but regulatory efforts were hamstrung by court challenges and ultimately abandoned by the Biden administration. “This proposed rule will help ensure that employers pay foreign workers wages that reflect the real market value of their labor, in addition to protecting the wages and job opportunities of American workers,” said Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer in a statement. “The continued abuse of the H-1B program by certain bad actors will no longer be tolerated.” The Labor Department classifies positions in four “wage levels” that account for job duties and required experience levels. It sets pay ranges for those four tiers based on Bureau of Labor Statistics survey data. Employers must agree to pay the designated prevailing wage level for an occupation in a given labor market to get DOL approval before submitting an H-1B petition. Raising those prevailing wages to a higher percentile of the BLS wage data sets higher pay mandates for those skilled foreign workers to match compensation for similar Americans.

Washington Post [3/26/2026 12:38 PM, Marianne LeVine, 24826K] reports that the number of new immigrants settling in metropolitan areas in the United States has declined steeply, according to a Brookings Institution analysis of recently released U.S. Census Bureau data, a shift that comes as the Trump administration restricts arrivals from other nations. New York, Los Angeles and Chicago were among the large metro areas that saw a significant percentage decline compared with the previous year in net immigration — defined as the percentage gain or loss in immigrant arrivals. That factors in immigrants who arrived from other nations and those who left. All three areas saw net immigration declines of 62 percent or higher. The Washington region saw a 44 percent drop, according to the analysis from William Frey, a demographer at Brookings. Frey examined recently released census data for July 2024 to June 2025. The nation’s three most populous metro regions all saw their total population growth — from international immigration as well as domestic migration, births and deaths — decline after they had begun to gain residents following declines during the pandemic. For the New York area, Frey found a population growth of 32,000 from July 2024 through the end of June 2025, a dip from 291,000 the previous year, which he said came in large part from a drop in how many immigrants live in the region. He found a similar trend in Los Angeles, an area that had experienced growth the previous year but has since seen a contraction.

FOX News [3/26/2026 1:20 PM, Eric Mack, 37576K] reports population growth in U.S. cities has slowed and some of the steepest drops are in communities along the southern border as immigration fell during the opening months of President Donald Trump’s second term, according to new Census Bureau estimates. The bureau said the average growth rate for metro areas fell to 0.6% in 2025 from 1.1% a year earlier, reflecting a broad slowdown in international migration after immigrants had helped fuel urban rebounds in 2024, the last year of President Joe Biden’s open border policies. "That pattern suggests a sharper rise-and-fall effect in border regions, where international migration plays a more central role in year-to-year population change," Texas Demographic Center interim director Helen You told The Associated Press. Metro areas along the U.S.-Mexico border saw the steepest declines as the number of immigrants fell, including in Laredo, Texas; Yuma, Arizona; and El Centro, California. Big immigration hubs also saw significant drops. Miami-Dade County, Harris County in Texas and Los Angeles County all took in far fewer immigrants last year. Laredo, Texas, saw its growth rate tumble from 3.2% to 0.2%. Yuma, Arizona, dropped from 3.3% to 1.4%, while El Centro, California, fell from 1.2% growth into a 0.7% decline. The slowdown extended beyond the border. Major immigrant destinations, including Miami-Dade County, Harris County, Texas, and Los Angeles County, all recorded much lower levels of immigration in 2025. The Census Bureau said nine out of 10 U.S. counties took in fewer immigrants than a year earlier.

AP [3/26/2026 7:26 PM, Wyatte Grantham-Philips and Josh Funk, 16072K] reports problems at U.S. airports could worsen beyond hours-long security lines and missed flights if Congress does not agree on a way to pay Transportation Security Administration officers. Federal officials have warned that staffing shortages may close some smaller airports to passengers and commercial flights. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and the TSA’s acting leaders said they expected more airport screeners to quit or call out of work after Friday, when TSA personnel were set to miss their second full paychecks since mid-February. Johnny Jones, the leader of the labor union that represents TSA officers, said Thursday that the agency created a list of about 75 airports that could be closed to free up officers to send to major hubs with long security wait times. Jones suggested that could mean that flights at decent-sized airports surrounding large hubs could be grounded if the security officers are reassigned. Previously most of the speculation had focused on tiny airports with only a few officers operating a single checkpoint. Jones said he hasn’t seen the list, and the airports on it haven’t been made public. But President Donald Trump said Thursday that he will sign an emergency order to pay TSA officers as Congress struggles to reach a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security. The officers have been required to work without pay since funding for DHS, which the TSA falls under, lapsed on Feb. 14. If Trump succeeds in finding a way to pay them, that may bring an end to the recent extreme security delays at airports. “This level of disruption is unprecedented,” Ha Nguyen McNeill, the agency’s acting administrator, said of the financial strain on TSA workers leading to high absentee rates. “We are being forced to consolidate lanes, and may have to close smaller airports if we do not have enough officers.” McNeill, who spoke during a House committee hearing on Wednesday, did not specify at what point closures might occur. She said the TSA officer staffing shortages were “a fluid, challenging and unpredictable situation.” “The agency has to look at it as, ‘Wow man, at the end of the day, we still have to do essential work and protect the American people.’ It becomes very difficult to do when you have this going on,” said Jones, the secretary and treasurer for Council 100 of the American Federation of Government Employees. Jones added that officers who fear they could be reassigned are worrying about how they would adjust. It could mean spending more money on longer commutes, or temporarily upending their lives to stay in a faraway city.

Reuters [3/26/2026 10:12 AM, David Shepardson, 38315K] reports nearly 500 airport security officers have quit since the start of a partial government shutdown in February and long lines continued to snarl airport traffic around the country, the Homeland Security Department said on Thursday. The dispute that has forced 50,000 Transportation Security Administration officers to work without pay since mid-February is leading to major strains and the longest lines in the agency’s history, topping four hours in some locations. TSA reiterated on Wednesday that the agency could be forced to close smaller airports if staffing issues worsened. More than 11% of TSA officers, or 3,120 agents, did ⁠not show up for work on Wednesday. About 30% or more of TSA agents did not show up for work on Wednesday at New York’s JFK, Houston’s two airports, and airports in Baltimore, New Orleans and Atlanta. Airlines for America CEO Chris Sununu on Thursday again urged Congress to quickly resolve the issue. He warned that even if the U.S. Senate reaches a deal by Friday "you’re still probably looking at a very tough weekend, because it’s not going to get finalized" immediately. President Donald Trump said he could deploy National Guard troops to airports to address security needs.

NBC News [3/26/2026 7:21 PM, Staff, 42967K] Video: HERE reports President Trump posted on Truth Social that he is signing an order to pay TSA workers. They have been working without pay for 41 days during the partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. Roughly 11% of officers are calling out daily, leading to long TSA lines at airports. NBC News’ Tom Costello reports.

The Hill [3/26/2026 11:12 AM, Sophie Brams, 18170K] reports a senior Transportation Security Administration (TSA) official warned late Wednesday that the ripple effects of the partial government shutdown could cause headaches at airports for weeks or potentially months to come, even if lawmakers strike a deal to end it soon. Deputy TSA Administrator Adam Stahl said during an appearance on NewsNation’s “The Hill” that “knock on ramifications of attrition” and ongoing recruitment challenges meant travel disruptions could linger well after the shutdown ends. “Folks that are possibly in the pipeline or they’re considering going and joining the workforce will be dissuaded because of the lack of job security,” Stahl told host Blake Burman, pointing to a 25-percent uptick in attrition following the shutdown last fall. More than 1,100 TSA officers left the force during the 2025 shutdown, and more than 480 have quit since funding lapsed for the Department of Homeland Security on Feb. 14, according to senior TSA officials. A growing number of employees have also started calling out sick because they cannot afford to work without pay. TSA workers have already missed one paycheck and are set to miss another Friday as the shutdown stretches past the 40-day mark.

FOX News [3/26/2026 7:31 AM, Preston Mizell, 37576K] reports Transportation Security Administration (TSA) leadership said airports and the agency will suffer from "long-standing" negative impacts as a result of the current partial government shutdown, even after a spending bill is passed. TSA Deputy Administrator Adam Stahl sat down with Fox News Digital to detail how the agency will recover from what has been weeks of forgone pay for TSA officers, leading to what TSA says are the highest security wait times in the history of the agency. "I can tell you right now that the reverberations that will be felt from this will be long-standing. They will continue for days after we get a re-appropriation and funding, particularly for the department for TSA," Stahl told Fox News Digital on Wednesday. "We are already taking proactive measures to make sure that we’re going to get our people paid as quickly as possible." The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) remains unfunded after more than 40 days, leaving TSA screeners and agents missing a full month’s pay. Callouts have increased to dramatic levels, and DHS says more than 480 people have outright quit the TSA workforce. Even after Congress funds the agency, Stahl says it is "going to take time to pay" agents who have been working without pay.

CBS News [3/26/2026 9:40 AM, Nicole Sganga, 51110K] Video: HERE reports the TSA’s top official says the situation at U.S. airports could get even worse if the partial government shutdown that has frozen officers’ paychecks continues. "We are being forced to consolidate lanes and may have to close smaller airports if we do not have enough officers," acting TSA administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill said Wednesday at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing. Republicans and Democrats have traded proposals in recent days to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the TSA. But there has been no deal so far. The Democrats’ latest rejected counteroffer included requirements that federal immigration agents wear body cameras and identification in the field, a source told CBS News. "We have differences of opinion when it comes to ICE," said Sen. Dick Durbin. George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston is one of the epicenters of the TSA headache. As few as a third of the security lanes there are operational at any given time, and wait times have regularly exceeded four hours. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

NPR [3/26/2026 4:46 PM, Joel Rose, 28764K] Audio: HERE reports at 20 airports around the U.S., security screeners are getting paid as usual despite the ongoing DHS shutdown — because they’re private contractors. Will more airports look at privatizing security?

NPR [3/27/2026 4:26 AM, A Martínez, 34837K] reports Maggie Sabatino, a union representative for TSA officers at Philadelphia International Airport, talks with NPR’s A Martinez about the DHS shutdown. [Editorial note: consult audio at source link]

USA Today [3/26/2026 3:26 PM, N’dea Yancey-Bragg, 70643K] reports airport security wait times eased slightly as Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers began assisting with screening at major airports amid the ongoing partial government shutdown, but some cities are bracing for another influx of weekend travelers. Travel at airports across the country got off to a chaotic start to the week as wait times hit the highest level in history. Estimated wait times for TSA security lines appeared to shrink midweek in cities, including Atlanta, New Orleans and Houston. But Fridays, Mondays and the weekend see more travelers than midweek days, and some airports are expecting longer lines. ICE officers were deployed to more than a dozen airports to ease disruptions as Transportation Security Administration worker absences soared due to a lapse in Department of Homeland Security funding. Lauren Bis, the Department of Homeland Security’s acting assistant secretary for public affairs, confirmed late on March 25 that "after receiving standard TSA training curriculum, ICE officers are guarding entrances and exits, assisting with logistics, doing crowd control, and verifying identification using TSA equipment and standard operating procedures." Travelers and officials have questioned how much ICE is helping ease the long lines. But President Donald Trump said ICE "makes a big difference," and he is considering sending the National Guard to airports as well. Ahead of their Easter recess, the House and Senate were set to vote March 26 on whether to advance a DHS funding measure to end the shutdown, which has gone on for nearly six weeks. Momentum to end the shutdown from earlier in the week appeared to have slowed as the Senate once again voted against moving forward with a proposal to fund DHS on March 25.

Politico [3/26/2026 7:16 PM, Riley Rogerson, 21784K] reports the six-week-old Department of Homeland Security shutdown is hinging not only on what lawmakers do in the Capitol, but on how they get there. Members of Congress are some of America’s most frequent fliers, giving them an up-close look at the shutdown’s most dramatic impacts on Americans — the long airport security lines caused by TSA staffing shortages. The juxtaposition of the elected jet-setters, who can take advantage of some unusual perks as they travel, with growing disruptions for everyday travelers has emerged as the most potent point of pressure as the standoff wears on. “Generally, when elected officials have to suffer the consequences of their own inaction, it tends to provide a motive for action,” Rep. Kevin Kiley, a California independent, said Thursday. President Donald Trump announced Thursday evening he would sign an executive order to pay TSA agents, but as prospects for a shutdown-ending deal ebbed and flowed in recent weeks, airports became politically fraught spaces for members. Many have made clear they are waiting in lines alongside everyone else, some have proposed legislation to enshrine that principle and at least one partisan confrontation has taken place on airport property.

New York Times [3/26/2026 3:05 PM, Gabe Castro-Root, 148038K] reports that wait times of four, even five, hours have become the norm at many U.S. airport security checkpoints as the partial government shutdown drags on with no end in sight. Not so at San Francisco International Airport, or Kansas City International Airport, or Sarasota Bradenton International Airport in Florida. Travelers there are still breezing through security. Those airports, along with 17 smaller ones from Montana to Mississippi, are part of the Screening Partnership Program, a federal initiative that lets airports operate security checkpoints using private contractors rather than Transportation Security Administration employees. That distinction would normally matter little, if at all, to most travelers. But as unpaid T.S.A. agents call out by the thousands during this shutdown, causing security lines to wrap around and extend outside terminals, the program has become an unexpected boon at the handful of U.S. airports where it’s in place. At San Francisco International, contracted security officers have screened more than two million fliers in the last 30 days while keeping average peak wait times under 10 minutes, said Doug Yakel, an airport spokesman. Kansas City International has also generally kept wait times below 10 minutes, with peaks of no more than 30 minutes, said Jackson Overstreet, a spokesman for the city’s aviation department.

CBS News [3/26/2026 4:08 PM, Matthew Ablon, 51110K] reports that Transportation Security Administration officers based at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport are now being sent to Houston to help with operations as impacts continue to be felt at airports across the country from the DHS shutdown, a federal union leader said. CBS News Texas was able to confirm the information on Thursday from Johnny Jones, secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Government Employees’ Local 100 chapter, which represents TSA officers. It wasn’t immediately clear which Houston airport the officers will be sent to, or if officers from Dallas Love Field would also be sent. The news that DFW officers would be sent to Houston comes as agents face issues without pay, and as some agents across the U.S. have resigned. Jones, who is also a TSA officer, previously told CBS News Texas the DHS shutdown has left workers facing a financial crunch. "They missed their paycheck this weekend. It was a big fat zero in a bank account," he said. "And two weeks before that, most officers received anywhere between 25 and zero percent.” TSA officers, or TSOs, according to salary updates on TSA Career, start with a base salary range from $34,454 to $55,486. ICE wouldn’t comment on the role its agents are playing at airports, but in a video recorded by news photographers, ICE agents weren’t screening passengers.

San Diego Union Tribune [3/26/2026 7:45 PM, Roxana Popescu, 1257K] reports the mother of two teenagers is on the go “nonstop” from 1 a.m. until 7 or 8 p.m. In that span she works the early shift at the San Diego International Airport as an agent with the Transportation Security Administration, then picks up her children from school and drives them to their after-school sports practices, then takes care of the rest of the adulting as a single mother of two. The worker, who didn’t want her name used because she was not authorized to speak with reporters, has been doing this all without a paycheck, because a partial federal shutdown has halted funding to the agency that employs her, the Department of Homeland Security. Her last paycheck of around $500, which she said was half of what she usually takes home due to insurance and other deductions, landed Feb. 14. “I have teenagers. And they eat a lot,” she said. She has made it work, for now. “But to be honest, the next couple of weeks, it’s going to be a stretch.” The worker stopped by the airport’s employee parking lot on Thursday to pick up food at a distribution hosted by Feeding San Diego, a food rescue nonprofit that gives San Diegans nutritious pantry items and fresh produce, in partnership with the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority. The nonprofit is handing out food to federal workers who have been unpaid for weeks due to the partial government shutdown that began Feb. 14 after Democrats and Republicans in Congress failed to agree on reforms in the wake of immigration enforcement actions in Minneapolis that resulted in the deaths of two U.S. citizens in January, Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

SFGate [3/26/2026 4:57 PM, Julie Taylor, 10094K] reports FEMA has announced that it’s approved a six-month extension of direct temporary housing assistance for survivors of Hurricanes Helene and Milton who remain in FEMA-provided housing. Since Hurricanes Helene and Milton, FEMA says it’s provided 649 families with mobile homes, travel trailers, and other ready-to-occupy units. The extension gives eligible residents without a scheduled move-out date the ability to remain in FEMA-provided temporary housing on a month-to-month basis, with coverage running through Oct. 11, 2026. FEMA representatives will continue meeting with residents each month to check on their progress toward permanent housing, as required by the program. The original 18-month housing period was set to end on April 11, 2026. With this extension, residents occupying FEMA units will have additional time to secure permanent housing. In accordance with FEMA housing program rules and regulations, residents occupying FEMA units after April 11, 2026, will be required to pay monthly rent. They hadn’t been required to pay rent up to this point.

CBS News [3/26/2026 10:29 PM, Caitlin Yilek, 51110K] reports In a rare public hearing on Thursday, the House Ethics Committee denied Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick’s request to delay the panel’s proceedings against her, which could lead to her expulsion from Congress, until her criminal case is resolved. The Florida Democrat is accused of stealing $5 million in federal pandemic funds and using some of the money to boost her congressional campaign. She was indicted in November on federal charges and has pleaded not guilty. Republicans are already trying to expel Cherfilus-McCormick from Congress over the allegations. Based on the outcome of the hearing, the Ethics Committee could recommend expulsion, which could prompt Democrats to support removing her. In January, the bipartisan committee released the findings of its lengthy investigation into the alleged campaign finance scheme. The report shed new light on Cherfilus-McCormick’s efforts to bolster her congressional campaign after two unsuccessful bids in 2018 and 2020. Cherfilus-McCormick was elected to Congress in 2022 in a special election in South Florida’s 20th Congressional District, replacing Democratic Rep. Alcee Hastings, who died the previous year. Thursday’s hearing, which was conducted by an adjudicatory panel composed of a bipartisan group of eight House lawmakers, stretched into the night after Cherfilus-McCormick’s lawyer, William Barzee, unsuccessfully urged the committee to pause its action until the end of the congresswoman’s criminal trial. Barzee argued it would jeopardize her right to a fair trial. "How can she possibly go into court and have a fair trial if her jurors have already heard that she was found guilty by the House of Representatives? It’s an impossibility," Barzee said. Barzee acknowledged that Cherfilus-McCormick knew of the $5 million deposit to her family-owned company, but did not handle the finances. When the "big check came in," he said, she was focused on running her campaign. "She was aware that money came in," he said. "She wasn’t aware that the money that came in had come in because of a mistake from the state of Florida until much, much later." In a statement to CBS News, Cherfilus-McCormick said she was "deeply disappointed" the committee moved forward with the hearing. Cherfilus-McCormick said she was innocent and was "limited" in what she could address because of the federal case. "I welcome the opportunity to set the record straight and challenge these inaccuracies, when I am legally able to do so," she said. The federal charges against Cherfilus-McCormick are related to a massive overpayment to a company, Trinity Healthcare Services, owned by the congresswoman’s family. The company had a FEMA-funded contract to register people for COVID vaccines. In July 2021, a Florida state agency mistakenly deposited the $5 million overpayment in the company’s bank account, according to the indictment. But instead of returning the overpayment, Cherfilus-McCormick and her brother moved the funds to several other bank accounts "to disguise its source," the Justice Department said. In the subsequent months, more than $1.1 million was transferred to accounts connected to her congressional campaign, the indictment said. Cherfilus-McCormick and a campaign staffer allegedly funneled some of the funds to friends and relatives, who donated it back to her campaign disguised as their own personal contributions. Such contributions, known as straw donations, are illegal. Prosecutors alleged the congresswoman bought herself a 3.14-carat yellow diamond ring. She is also accused of falsely inflating business expenses and charitable contributions to reduce her tax liability. Cherfilus-McCormick is charged with 15 counts, including theft of government funds, money laundering, making and receiving straw donor contributions, and aiding and assisting the preparation of a false and fraudulent statement on a tax return. She faces a maximum of 53 years in prison if convicted of all the charges. "This is an unjust, baseless, sham indictment — and I am innocent," Cherfilus-McCormick said in a Nov. 20 statement. In a 59-page report released in January, the House Ethics Committee concluded there was "substantial reason to believe" Cherfilus-McCormick violated multiple federal laws and House rules. The committee said it reviewed more than 33,000 documents, interviewed 28 witnesses and issued 59 subpoenas as part of its lengthy investigation into the congresswoman’s alleged misconduct. The investigation found "substantial evidence of conduct consistent with the allegations in the indictment, as well as more extensive misconduct," according to the report. The report says Cherfilus-McCormick’s company received nearly $5.8 million in overpaid funds throughout 2021. The largest was the $5 million overpayment in July 2021 referenced in the indictment. Investigators laid out a pattern of inaccurate and incomplete campaign finance reports across several election cycles, including improper contributions falsely reported as personal loans, acceptance of improper contributions and inflated cash-on-hand numbers. The report alleged the timing of "nearly every substantial transaction" to the campaign closely aligned with transfers from Cherfilus-McCormick’s health care company. Investigators said that at least $3.6 million of the FEMA-linked funds made its way to Cherfilus-McCormick’s campaign "for at least some period of time." They also said they provided Trinity and Cherfilus-McCormick "with numerous chances to explain whether those were funds respondent had a legal right to, but neither party provided any such explanation."

Reported similarly:
Washington Post [3/26/2026 5:00 AM, Kadia Goba and Marianna Sotomayor, 24826K]
New York Post [3/26/2026 6:10 PM, Josh Christenson, 40934K]
The Hill [3/26/2026 6:00 AM, Mike Lillis and Emily Brooks, 18170K]
Washington Examiner [3/26/2026 11:19 AM, Emily Hallas, 1147K]

Daily Caller [3/26/2026 10:55 PM, Anthony Iafrate, 803K] reports former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Joe Kent said Friday that the FBI stopped him from investigating the possibility that the attempt on President Donald Trump’s life in Butler, Pa. was linked to Iran. Kent said the Bureau concluded would-be-assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, acted alone without adequately probing whether the Butler attempt was connected to an Iran-linked Trump assassination plot foiled the day before — and he also said the Bureau stopped his own investigation into the matter. The former Trump administration official — who on March 17 abruptly resigned from his post over the Iran war — made the allegation during his Thursday interview with "The Young Turks" host Cenk Uygur. "Initially, we were just told, ‘Hey, Crooks, lone gunman, he was killed.’ And then Crooks was kind of an enigma, and we just didn’t hear much more about him, like there was literally nothing about the guy," Kent told Uygur regarding the little-known 20-year-old gunman, whom a Secret Service sniper killed immediately after Crooks fired shots at Trump. "Two days prior to Crooks taking the shot in Butler, there was a guy named Asif Merchant who was hired by the Iranians to come here and assassinate President Trump in retaliation for killing Qasem Soleimani," Kent said. "When Merchant came over here, obviously … the FBI, was all over him." Authorities arrested Merchant, who admitted to being an agent of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, on July 12, 2024, just one day before Crooks attempted to kill Trump. A federal grand jury convicted Merchant on March 6. "My basic question was, ‘Have we done our due diligence to make sure that there was no linkage between the two events?’" Kent told "The Young Turks" host. "Fast forward a couple months, and Tucker Carlson’s investigative journalist finds a lot of online presence from Thomas Crooks, digs up a lot more than it appears the FBI dug up," the former counterterrorism chief noted, referring to a documentary on the would-be assassin that Carlson released in November 2025. "And so I wanted to go back and make sure that we checked all that through intelligence channels and really researched into what we had learned through Tucker’s investigative journalism about Crooks’ online persona — again, just to check to see if there was foreign ties and to check to see if there’s any linkage between the Merchant plot — because maybe we didn’t wrap all of it up — and what took place there in Butler," he added. "The FBI did not tolerate this at all," Kent said. "They basically said, ‘Hey, there’s nothing else to see here’ and stopped us from investigating any of those potentials, to my knowledge.” "See, that is incredibly strange," Uygur chimed in. "Because Merchant is theoretically working with the Iranians. That would help the talking point about, ‘Oh my God, the Iranians tried to murder the president. You got to strike back.’". "So, why wouldn’t we want to investigate further if he’s [Crooks is] connected to Iran?" the host asked. "Joe, my sense of it from having read what I read that’s public, is that I’d be surprised if he [Crooks] was connected to Iran. It sounds like you’re saying that he definitely was.” "My argument was, ‘Hey, let’s make sure that this wasn’t a broader Iranian plot. Why wouldn’t we look into everything? And then we were stopped,’" Kent said.

Los Angeles Times [3/26/2026 6:00 AM, Ruben Vives, 12718K] reports two days after Mexican forces killed the leader of the Jalisco New Generation cartel last month, Gladdys Uribe was in her California home, anxiously tracking her parents’ movements in Mexico. The capture and death of the world’s most wanted drug trafficker — Nemesio Rubén "El Mencho" Oseguera Cervantes — triggered a violent retaliation that spread from Jalisco to other states, leaving highways blocked, businesses and vehicles burned, and 25 members of the Mexican national guard dead. The eruption of violence lasted little more than a day, but it rattled much of Los Angeles, where ties run deep to Jalisco, and many Jalisciences and their descendants are bracing for more chaos in their homeland as rivals in the fractured cartel vie for power. Tens of thousands of Angelenos worry about family in Jalisco, while those in the U.S. without documentation fear getting swept up in Trump’s immigration crackdown and sent back to a place where deportees are often targets of the cartels.

New York Post [3/27/2026 3:42 AM, Nicholas McEntyre, 40934K] reports at least three people were killed when a thrill-seeking tour helicopter crashed on the Hawaiian island of Kauaʻi on Thursday afternoon. The aircraft, carrying a pilot and four passengers, crashed into the ocean near Kalalau Beach on the northwest coast of the island at around 3:45 p.m. local time, the Kauaʻi Police Department announced. Officials received alerts regarding the crash from the department’s text-to-911 system. The helicopter, owned by island touring company Airborne Aviation, went down approximately 100 yards off the Na Pali shoreline, HawaiiNewsNow reported, citing the US Coast Guard. Kauaʻi is known for its breathtaking views of the mountains and cliffs and served as a filming location for Steven Spielberg’s 1993 blockbuster "Jurassic Park.” The two survivors of the crash were taken to Wilcox Medical Center in Lihue on the other side of the island, according to officials. Their conditions were not immediately revealed. "This is a situation that is continuing to evolve," Kauaʻi Mayor Derek Kawakami told KITV, cautioning residents to not speculate on the circumstances surrounding the crash. Officials have not released the identities of those killed, nor have they revealed the cause of the crash. Airborne Aviation markets itself as a "doors-off thrill seekers adventure tour" that offers optimal viewing and photography of Kauai’s shoreline, waterfalls, and canyons with flights lasting approximately 55 minutes, according to the company’s website. The company’s fleet is made of Hughes 500 Helicopter, a light weight aircraft known for its speed and agility.

CyberScoop [3/26/2026 7:20 PM, Tim Starks, 122K] reports a year-long effort to strengthen cybersecurity and modernize tech at U.S. intelligence agencies has led to policy standards for using AI to bolster cyber defenses, a shared repository of all apps that have undergone a cybersecurity review and more, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence announced Thursday. An unclassified summary of cyber and tech modernization work under the first year of DNI Tulsi Gabbard’s stewardship states that the office has expanded the automation of threat hunting across intelligence community networks. (The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency conducts threat hunting across federal civilian agencies.) The ODNI also has developed a zero-trust strategy that shifts “to a data-centric security model that protects information regardless of location or network,” according to the summary. “Over the past year, we have taken meaningful steps to begin fulfilling that responsibility through the largest IC-wide technology investment and modernization effort in history,” Gabbard said in a news release. “President Trump’s Intelligence Community is moving faster and more decisively on cybersecurity modernization and investments in IT than ever before, delivering stronger defenses, greater efficiency, and real cost savings for the American people.” It constitutes the first significant cybersecurity announcement out of the office under Gabbard and the second Trump administration.

AP [3/26/2026 12:04 PM, Staff, 35287K] reports Deepfakes are rapidly emerging as a new class of cyberattack that bypasses traditional security controls by exploiting human trust, exposing organizations to fraud, data theft, regulatory risk, and reputational damage. A newly published blueprint from Info-Tech Research Group shows that most organizations lack visibility into where they are vulnerable to AI-driven impersonation. The global research and advisory firm’s Defend Against Deepfake Cyberattacks blueprint equips CIOs and security leaders with a structured approach to assess exposure, prioritize risks, and embed verification practices across the organization. The firm’s findings show that deepfakes are effective because they target people rather than systems, exploiting trust, urgency, and authority cues to manipulate behavior. Info-Tech’s blueprint emphasizes that detection tools alone are insufficient and that effective defense requires a holistic, business-centric approach that combines verification processes, employee awareness, and supporting technologies. "Existing security frameworks acknowledge deepfakes but provide little practical direction," says Alexander Toti, research analyst at Info-Tech Research Group. "Detection tools are emerging, but they are inconsistent and cannot serve as a silver bullet. Organizations need to understand where they are most exposed, which processes, individuals, and transactions are vulnerable, and what the impact would be if a deepfake succeeds.”

EdScoop [3/26/2026 1:25 PM, Staff, 5400K] reports the PEAR (Pure Extraction and Ransom) cybercriminal group this month took credit for a ransomware attack against Monmouth University in New Jersey, claiming it made off with 16 terabytes the institution’s data. University President Patrick Leahy emailed students last week about the attack, noting that cybersecurity experts and law enforcement officials had been recruited to investigate. In a statement provided to the security website Comparitech, Leahy confirmed that an incident “resulted in unauthorized access to some information.” Rebecca Moody, Comparitech’s head of data research, said 16 TB was “extensive,” 28 times greater than the average amount of data exfiltrated in similar attacks. “It’s good to see that Monmouth has acted quickly and that people have already been warned of this potential breach,” Moody said in an emailed statement. “While we await further updates, students and employees should be on high alert for any potential phishing campaigns, especially those purporting to be from the university, and should monitor their accounts for any unauthorized activity.” The PEAR group has claimed credit for 64 ransomware attacks, 13 of which have been confirmed by their victims. Six of those attacks were against educational institutions, including two community colleges.

CBS News [3/26/2026 8:11 AM, Staff, 51110K] reports Ecuador has arrested a Syrian man identified as a terrorist threat by the United States for belonging to Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, authorities said Wednesday. The arrest came as the government of Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa, an ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, wages a crackdown on drug trafficking gangs, with Washington’s backing. Ecuadoran Interior Minister John Reimberg said on X the man had been arrested in a joint operation between immigration authorities and the national police intelligence service. "Deportation proceedings have been initiated" against the man, who was identified only as M.K. and entered Ecuador without proper documentation, said Reimberg.

New York Times [3/26/2026 12:12 PM, Maria Varenikova, 148038K] reports he Trump administration is pressuring Ukraine to surrender the part of the eastern Donbas region that the Ukrainian Army still controls, offering American security guarantees if Kyiv withdraws, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview published on Wednesday. The U.S. position aligns with a Russian demand that Ukraine hand over a roughly 50-mile-by-40-mile zone in the Donetsk region, part of the larger Donbas, as a condition for ending the war. Ukraine has refused, arguing that ceding the heavily fortified area would give Russia a staging ground for future attacks that would threaten not just Ukraine but also Europe. Simply handing over the land would allow Russia to escape the immense costs it would incur in trying to seize the territory militarily. Ukraine says such a push would take the Russian Army years and inflict hundreds of thousands of losses on it. Mr. Zelensky’s interview, with the news agency Reuters, offered a sign of how far apart Kyiv and Moscow remain in peace talks that have stalled during the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. Ukraine has long said that it cannot agree to a peace settlement before signing security guarantees with its Western partners. To do otherwise would leave Ukraine vulnerable to another Russian invasion, Ukrainian officials argue. “The Americans are prepared to finalize these guarantees at a high level once Ukraine is ready to withdraw from Donbas,” Mr. Zelensky said. He made clear how heavy a concession that would be.

Breitbart [3/26/2026 9:44 PM, Alana Mastrangelo, 2238K] reports that, while more than 90 percent of Iranian missiles and drones have been intercepted by the United States, Israel, and allied forces, experts are reportedly warning that the cost of defense is quietly draining allied stockpiles across the region. The vast majority of Iranian projectiles have been intercepted during the war, according to a report by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), obtained by Fox News. However, the analysis warns that beneath that success exists a growing imbalance that could affect the next phase of the conflict, citing Iran’s least expensive weapons as the most troublesome in the war, draining high-cost U.S. and Israeli interceptors. "More than 9,000 enemy targets have been struck to date," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a press briefing on Wednesday. "Iran’s ballistic missile attacks and drone attacks are down by roughly 90 percent.” Leavitt added that U.S. forces have also destroyed more than 140 Iranian naval vessels, including nearly 50 mine layers. While a surge of U.S. assets before the war helped absorb Iran’s opening artillery and continues executing high interception rates, Ari Cicurel, associate director of foreign policy at JINSA, told Fox News that focusing only on the percentage of interceptions fails to look at the bigger picture. By subscribing, you agree to our terms of use & privacy policy. You will receive email marketing messages from Breitbart News Network to the email you provide. You may unsubscribe at any time. "Overall high missile and drone interception rates have been important, but only tell part of the story," Cicurel said. "Iran came into this war with a deliberate plan to dismantle the architecture that makes those intercepts possible.” "It has struck energy infrastructure to upset markets and used cluster munitions to achieve higher hit rates," Cicurel, who is also the author of the JINSA report, added. Meanwhile, Danny Citrinowicz, a Middle East and national security expert at the Institute for National Security Studies, stressed that this disparity is at the heart of the problem. "There needs to be a change in the equation," Citrinowicz told Fox News. "The Iranians are launching drones that cost around $30,000, and we are using missiles that cost millions of dollars to intercept them. That gap is a very problematic one.” Citrinowicz, who also serves as a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council, added that "building a missile in Iran may cost a few hundred thousand dollars, while the interceptor costs millions, especially when we talk about systems like Arrow.” "It’s easier and quicker to produce missiles than it is to build interceptors," he said. "That’s not a secret.”

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