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.

New York Times [3/3/2026 10:05 PM, Eric Schmitt and Luis Ferré-Sadurní, 148038K] reports the United States and Ecuador have launched joint military operations against “designated terrorist organizations” in the South American country, the Pentagon said on Tuesday night, in what appeared to be a major expansion of the U.S. military’s unilateral strikes against boats in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific that the Trump administration has accused of carrying drugs. U.S. Special Forces soldiers are advising and supporting Ecuadorian commandos on raids across the country against suspected drug shipment facilities and other drug-related sites, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters. The Americans are not believed to be participating in the actual raids, but are helping the Ecuadorian troops plan their operations, and are providing intelligence and logistics support, the official said. In a 30-second video released by the military’s Southern Command, a helicopter is seen taking off in early morning or dusk, flying over an area, then picking up soldiers. The U.S. official said the video depicted the first in what was expected to be a series of raids across the country, some with U.S. advisers assisting nearby, some with Ecuadorian forces only. In this instance, involving mostly Ecuadorian forces, the official said, it was unclear what the mission’s objective was or whether it was successful. “The operations are a powerful example of the commitment of partners in Latin America and the Caribbean to combat the scourge of narco-terrorism,” the United States Southern Command said in a statement, which did not provide other details about the operations. The White House did not immediately comment on the military activity. In a visit to Ecuador last September, Secretary of State Marco Rubio strongly implied that the United States and Ecuador might conduct joint strikes. Across Latin America, cartels have battled each other and authorities to produce cocaine and smuggle it to the United States. Ecuador, the world’s largest exporter of the drug, does not produce it, but serves as a trafficking route for criminal groups operating in Colombia and Peru. On Monday, Southern Command posted footage of a visit by Gen. Francis L. Donovan, the head of the command, with President Daniel Noboa and senior Ecuadorian officials in Quito, the capital, “to discuss security cooperation and reaffirm the United States’ strong commitment to supporting the nation’s efforts to confront narco-terrorism and strengthen regional security.” General Donovan, whose command overseas operations in Latin America, said in a statement Tuesday that “we commend the men and women of the Ecuadorian armed forces for their unwavering commitment to this fight, demonstrating courage and resolve through continued actions against narco-terrorists in their country.” Ecuador has emerged as a key South American ally of the United States since Mr. Trump returned to power in 2025 and kicked off a contentious campaign against supposed drug trafficking boats in Latin America.

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New York Post [3/4/2026 12:57 AM, Michael Sinkewicz, 40934K]
Reuters [3/3/2026 9:08 PM, Ismail Shakil and Alexandra Valencia, 38315K]
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Breitbart [3/3/2026 1:36 PM, Staff, 2238K] reports that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday to testify on the Trump administration’s immigration raids in Minneapolis. The department is under an ongoing partial shutdown due to a funding lapse from Congress failing to agree on a stopgap funding plan last month. Noem is expected to face questions about operating during the shutdown in light of the United States launching joint strikes with Israel against Iran. Tuesday’s testimony is Noem’s first since December when the Minneapolis raids began. Since then, immigration officers killed two civilians, U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the chairman of the committee, said immigration agents made "mistakes" but added that "officers should never be threatened or harmed while enforcing our laws." "There is a clear difference between conduct protected by the First Amendment and unlawful obstruction," Grassley said in his opening statement. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., chided Noem for taking so long to appear before the committee. "Madam secretary, under your leadership, the Homeland Security Department has been devoid of any moral compass or respect for the rule of law," Durbin said. "Without hesitation or remorse, DHS agents have wreaked havoc on our cities." Durbin continued, saying the department’s actions, including in Chicago, have harmed public trust. He said family members of people who have been detained or deported were in attendance for Tuesday’s hearing. Breitbart [3/3/2026 12:06 PM, Staff, 2238K] reports Noem, making her first appearance before Congress since the shootings, expressed her condolences to the families over the "tragic" deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis and said she did not call them domestic terrorists. "I said it appeared to be an incident of (domestic terrorism)," she said. Noem defended the department’s actions, saying US-Mexico border crossings have plummeted to historic lows and "nearly three million illegal aliens" have been removed from the United States during the past year. "Our department has delivered historic results and has made our community safer since the start of President Trump’s second term," she said. Axios [3/3/2026 3:47 PM, April Rubin, 17364K] reports that the hearing is the latest instance where Noem has been criticized for her ability to manage the agency, and follows several members of Congress calling for her to leave office, including from her own party. Noem’s testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee lasted over four hours and occurred as DHS undergoes a shutdown due to a lapse in government funding, which happened in part due to disagreements over Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). CNN [3/3/2026 4:28 PM, Holmes Lybrand, Priscilla Alvarez, Michael Williams, 19874K] reports Noem and several GOP senators criticized Democrats for the ongoing partial shutdown of DHS in a time of heightened security, but while the secretary said the department has started to re-vet some migrants in the wake of the US attacks on Iran over the weekend, she offered no specifics about possible threats as a result.

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ABC News [3/3/2026 11:15 AM, Staff, 34146K]
CBS News [3/3/2026 6:27 PM, Staff, 51110K] Video: HERE
(B) NBC News Daily [3/3/2026 2:47 PM, Staff]

CBS News [3/3/2026 11:46 AM, Staff, 51110K] reports Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem blasted the current funding lapse affecting her department during her opening statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Noem also touted the operations at DHS under the Trump administration despite mounting scrutiny over her handling of the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

CNN [3/3/2026 3:09 PM, Holmes Lybrand, Priscilla Alvarez, Michael Williams, 612K] reports Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem faced tough questions from Democrats and some Republicans during a hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. Senators grilled Noem about her early descriptions of two US citizens who were killed by federal officers in Minneapolis, her agency’s use of administrative warrants to search homes and private property, her use of executive jets and whether immigration officers will be deployed to polling places ahead of November’s midterm elections. Noem and several GOP senators criticized Democrats for the ongoing partial shutdown of DHS in a time of heightened security, but while the secretary said the department has started to re-vet some migrants in the wake of the US attacks on Iran over the weekend, she offered no specifics about possible threats as a result. Noem tried to split hairs during the hearing by claiming she never called Alex Pretti, the man shot and killed by DHS officers in Minnesota earlier this year, a domestic terrorist, but rather said his actions were an act of domestic terrorism. Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar asked Noem if she had anything to say to Pretti’s parents after calling their son a domestic terrorist. “I can’t even imagine what they have gone through in the loss of their son,” Noem said, declining for the second time Tuesday when asked to apologize to Pretti’s family. Noem then defended her comments, saying, “I did not call him a domestic terrorist. I said it appeared to be an instance of” domestic terrorism. “I think the parents saw what it was,” Klobuchar responded. In the initial aftermath of the killing of Pretti, Noem was asked at a press conference whether she agreed with White House officials calling Pretti a domestic terrorist and, if so, what evidence she had to support such a claim. “When you perpetuate violence against a government because of ideological reasons and for reasons to resist and perpetuate violence, that is the definition of domestic terrorism,” Noem said at the time. Some of the fiercest exchanges with Noem came from Republican Sens. Tillis and John Kennedy of Louisiana. Kennedy confronted Noem about her agency’s advertising campaign, which, as the senator pointed out, often prominently showcase Noem. ProPublica reported last year the recipient of a lucrative subcontract was Ben Yoho, the husband of a former DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin. While Noem argued that bids for the advertisements were properly submitted, Kennedy said his research “shows that you did not bid them out” and, in one instance, chose a company that was formed “11 days before you picked them.” “Look, we all have friends who are qualified. I’m not quibbling with that,” Kennedy said. The Republican senator added that the $220 million price tag “troubles me” especially when, Kennedy said, Congress “is scratching for every penny.” “I just can’t agree,” Kennedy said of the spending. Noem said she had nothing “to do with picking those contractors” and said the president had “tasked me with getting the message out to the country” on the department’s deportation efforts.

Wall Street Journal [3/3/2026 5:45 PM, Jack Morphet and Mariah Timms, 646K] reports Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, where she fielded questions about deportation quotas, her spending on TV ads and the Trump administration’s immigration operations in Minneapolis. North Carolina Republican Thom Tillis said Homeland Security had been “a disaster” under Noem’s leadership, characterized by imprecise immigration enforcement in the pursuit of arbitrary deportation targets. Tillis held up a letter from the DHS Office of Inspector General outlining 10 instances in which investigators said they were misled or blocked from pursuing investigations under Noem’s leadership. “That is stonewalling, that’s a failure of leadership and that is why I’ve called for your resignation,” he said. Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy accused Noem of putting President Trump in a “terribly awkward spot” when Homeland Security spent $220 million on a TV-ad campaign that featured her prominently warning immigrants in the U.S. illegally—in English—to “leave now.” Noem argued Homeland Security had delivered “historic results” since the start of Trump’s second term that made the country safer, saying the agency arrested of 1,500 known and suspected terrorists and more than 7,700 known gang members. Noem said there was a 96% decline in daily encounters with migrants along the southwest border compared with the daily average during the Biden administration, and she touted sharp reductions of fentanyl and cocaine trafficking over the southern border. ICE agents fear local police in Democrat-run states and cities leak their identities and whereabouts, Noem told Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.). Whitehouse urged ICE to work more closely with local law enforcement, saying better communication could have prevented agents from pulling a high-school intern from a judge’s car outside the Rhode Island Superior Court last year after mistaking the teen for a migrant in his 30s. Noem was questioned by lawmakers from both parties about the immigration enforcement push known as Operation Metro Surge in the Twin Cities that led to the fatal shootings of two Minnesota residents. Noem said the conflict in Iran had raised the threat level from Islamic terrorism, prompting Homeland Security to review and rescreen migrants about whom it has security concerns. Asked by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) how the agency was protecting against potential Iranian sleeper cells in the U.S., Noem said “many dangerous individuals” entered the country under the Biden administration, whom the agency is trying to find in a bid to “make sure that we’re preventing the next attack.”

FOX News [3/3/2026 7:16 PM, Breanne Deppisch, 37576K] reports Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem sparred with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday over the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown, a long-awaited hearing after the agency has come under scrutiny in recent months for its hard-line immigration enforcement effort and the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in January. The department’s handling of the Minnesota unrest has placed Noem and ICE officers squarely in Democrats’ crosshairs in recent weeks and has prompted Democrats — and two Senate Republicans — to call for Noem to resign. The hours-long hearing comes as the Senate remains deadlocked on a plan to fully fund DHS through September. Democrats in the chamber previously outlined a list of 10 demands they said immigration officers must meet before they would agree to pass the short-term funding measures. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and others have criticized Noem for asking them to fully fund DHS despite the weeks that passed between the two ICE shootings in Minnesota and Noem’s testimony. She "expects us to rubber stamp her record-breaking budget in the meantime," Durbin said previously. Republicans and Noem used the hearing Tuesday to warn of the knockdown effects the partial shutdown has had on the myriad federal departments and agencies housed under DHS’s sprawling umbrella, including the Secret Service, Transportation Security Administration, FEMA and the U.S. Coast Guard, among others. Noem focused her ire during Tuesday’s hearing on Senate Democrats, whom she blamed for failing to keep DHS funded through September even after the House passed a bipartisan, full-year funding bill. "Despite the House passing a bipartisan, bicameral, full-year DHS funding bill, it is Senate Democrats who have chosen not to fund the department and have held this department hostage," Noem said Tuesday, mentioning critical national security efforts that could be hampered as the result of a protracted shutdown, including, but not limited to, issues of border security, immigration enforcement, aviation security, disaster response, cybersecurity and the protection of critical infrastructure. She also cited the effect the agency-wide shutdown has on DHS employees in about 22 federal departments and agencies within DHS. "More than 100,000 dedicated DHS employees are once again being asked to work without pay for the third time in just five months at a time when we produced the most secure border in history and removed nearly 3 million illegal aliens from our country," she said. "Disrupting the department responsible for those gains is indefensible."

FOX News [3/3/2026 1:48 PM, Stephen Sorace, 37576K] Video: HERE reports that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Tuesday said the department is reviewing interviews with some individuals who crossed the border under former President Joe Biden to identify potential threats following the conflict with Iran. Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, questioned Noem during a DHS oversight hearing, asking about the "millions of people" who entered the U.S. under Biden’s "open border policy" and what steps Homeland Security has taken to protect against potential Iranian sleeper cells and related terrorism. Noem replied that DHS works with intelligence agencies and law enforcement to investigate and find any threats on U.S. soil. "Not only that, we go back and we are getting some of the individuals in some of the programs that we may have concerns about looking at social media, also going through those interviews that are necessary for some of our programs that the Biden administration abused and perverted under their time there as well," Noem said. "We know that we have many dangerous individuals that came in unvetted, and we are working every single day to find them and to make sure that we’re preventing the next attack and preventing the next crime they may perpetuate against the American people," the secretary continued. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Blaze [3/3/2026 3:30 PM, Candace Hathaway, 1556K] reports Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem testified on Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Biden administration paid child traffickers to sponsor unaccompanied minors. Moments after Noem was sworn in to testify, a masked protester against immigration enforcement interrupted the hearing by shouting for the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The hearing was interrupted a second time by another protester, who yelled out claims that ICE had killed Americans, shouting, "Black lives matter!" During Noem’s opening statement, she accused Democrats of holding the DHS hostage by leading a government shutdown of the agency, which she called "reckless" and "unnecessary." She noted that over 100,000 DHS employees are "again being asked to work without pay for the third time in just five months." Noem explained that during the Biden administration’s open-border crisis, unaccompanied minors were "lost" and "not tracked." She said that it has been "challenging" because the Department of Health and Human Services, under the Biden administration’s leadership, paid sponsors to host the unaccompanied minors. She declared that under the Trump administration, these practices have ended, and federal law enforcement agents have found many of these children and attempted to reunite them with their families. Noem reported that the current administration has located 145,000 of the 450,000 children whom the previous White House was not tracking. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) addressed the rise in child abuse material online, noting that in 2023, there were an estimated 104 million images and videos of suspected child sexual abuse reported in the United States. Hawley pledged to introduce legislation to provide the DHS with additional funding to rescue children from trafficking.

Bloomberg [3/3/2026 1:35 PM, Myles Miller, 18082K] reports that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem faced bipartisan criticism Tuesday over federal immigration operations that left two American citizens dead in Minneapolis, as a Republican senator threatened to block Trump administration nominees and Democrats pressed her to acknowledge making mistakes. The Senate hearing was Noem’s first appearance on Capitol Hill since federal agents fatally shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti during immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis. The January shootings remain under review. The incidents prompted a pullback in aggressive street-level immigration enforcement operations and sparked a broader Congressional standoff over funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which remains stalled. “The latest Democrat-led shutdown of DHS is reckless,” Noem said. “It’s unnecessary, and it undermines the American national security, and it harms the men and women who work at DHS and their families.” Noem denied interfering with any investigations. Asked by Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island whether she halted a civil rights probe into the shootings, she said, “I did not stop any investigations whatsoever.”

New York Times [3/4/2026 3:52 AM, Michael Gold and Madeleine Ngo, 330K] reports Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, repeatedly declined to apologize on Tuesday for suggesting that two U.S. citizens killed by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were domestic terrorists. Asked by Democratic and Republican senators about comments she made in the immediate aftermath of both shootings — that Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti had appeared to commit acts of domestic terrorism — Ms. Noem did not retract her remarks. She said repeatedly that her characterizations came from immigration officers in Minneapolis. “I was getting reports from the ground, from agents at the scene,” Ms. Noem said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. “And I would say that it was a chaotic scene.” Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the panel, scoffed in apparent disbelief. “You believe calling the victims of violence ‘domestic terrorists’ is a way to calm the scene?” he asked. It was the first time Ms. Noem was pressed by lawmakers about her description of Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti as domestic terrorists. She faced sharp criticism from senators in both parties over the fatal shootings and her department’s handling of high-profile immigration enforcement operations across the country. As Ms. Noem testified, there were at least three people in the hearing room who have said they were unlawfully arrested by federal agents, including Marimar Martinez, a U.S. citizen who was shot five times by a Border Patrol agent in Chicago last year. At one point, Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, urged Ms. Noem to answer questions about Ms. Martinez’s shooting, including whether it was “wrong.” Ms. Noem declined to answer specific questions, saying she did not know the details of Ms. Martinez’s case. The four-hour hearing reflected the partisan divide in Congress over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Democrats denounced immigration agents’ aggressive tactics and enforcement operations that have swept up U.S. citizens. Although some Republicans scrutinized Ms. Noem, they largely focused on condemning the Biden administration’s border policies, and on defending the Trump administration’s deportation drive. Ms. Noem’s testimony came at a turbulent time for her department, which is in the third week of a partial shutdown. Its funding lapsed after Democrats blocked a spending bill that they said did not go far enough to rein in immigration agents, particularly after the shooting of Mr. Pretti. Some Republicans urged Democrats to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security in the wake of the U.S. assault on Iran, which has heightened the risk of terrorist threats domestically. But the topic of terrorism was largely overshadowed by the issue of immigration. Ms. Noem’s account of the shootings of Mr. Pretti and Ms. Good appeared to contradict testimony from the heads of two federal immigration agencies, who told senators last month that their agencies did not provide Ms. Noem with an assessment that Ms. Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, and Mr. Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse, were domestic terrorists. The acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Todd Lyons, said that he had seen no evidence to suggest the claims were true.

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Los Angeles Times [3/3/2026 6:18 PM, Gavin J. Quinton, 12718K] reports Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem arrived at a Senate oversight hearing Tuesday ready to spar with Democrats in her first Capitol Hill appearance since federal agents fatally shot U.S. citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis. But some of the sharpest comments from the Judiciary Committee came from fellow Republicans, who questioned her leadership, criticized her spending practices and called on her to admit that she was wrong to call Pretti and Good "domestic terrorists." Tillis hardly questioned Noem on specifics, choosing instead to deliver a blistering, high-volume "performance evaluation," of the Homeland Security secretary. He accused Noem and Trump advisor Stephen Miller of prioritizing deportation quotas instead of investigating the "vicious" ICE agents involved in the Minnesota shootings. Noem used the hearing to defend a series of decisions now under bipartisan scrutiny. She said Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers face "serious and escalating threats" due to what she called "deliberate mischaracterizations" of their work. She called the Minneapolis deaths "tragic situations," and said the phrase "domestic terrorists" was based on early information she received from the agents from the city. "It was a chaotic scene," Noem said. She did not apologize for using the phrase or say it was inaccurate. Noem stood behind President Trump’s mass deportation agenda and said ICE is focusing on the "worst of the worst." Recent reporting by the Cato Institute found that just 5% of ICE detainees have been convicted of violent offenses, and three-fourths have no criminal convictions at all. The hearing came amid a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, triggered last month when Senate Democrats blocked funding in a standoff over immigration enforcement practices. As tensions mount in Iran, lawmakers are increasingly concerned about the security risks of leaving the department unfunded. In her opening statement, Noem decried the shutdown as "reckless" and "unnecessary," and accused Democrats of putting U.S. security posture at risk.

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CBS News [3/3/2026 6:33 PM, Staff, 51110K] Video: HERE reports at a Senate hearing on Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem faced tough questions from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle about ICE tactics and TV commercials prominently featuring her. Political strategists Hannah Muldavin and Matt Gorman join with analysis.

Bloomberg [3/3/2026 1:50 PM, Lillianna Byington, 111K] reports that Sen. Thom Tillis said he’ll hold up key Senate business until he gets answers from the Department of Homeland Security about the scope of its operations in his state. Tillis (R-N.C.) said Tuesday he’ll block President Donald Trump’s nominees from being considered in groups on the floor until he gets response from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem over information he’s sought on Operation Charlotte’s Web, an immigration operation conducted in Charlotte, N.C. He threatened additional tactics to further stall Senate business in the coming weeks if the response delay drags on. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Washington Times [3/3/2026 10:08 AM, Stephen Dinan, 1323K] reports Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Tuesday that her officers have used administrative warrants — those that aren’t approved by a judge — to enter homes to make arrests 28 times so far. She said that was out of 400,000 cases where administrative warrants have been used so far. Ms. Noem, testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee, defended the use of administrative warrants, saying that’s what Congress decided should be used in the immigration context. “It’s the process in immigration law you’ve given us to ensure someone is returned back to their home country,” she said. “It’s the legal process we have that we follow.” She was pushing back on complaints that her agents and officers make immigration arrests without obtaining a “judicial warrant,” or one signed by an independent court. That’s become a refrain for state and local Democrats who resist cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They say they’ll cooperate if ICE gets a judicial warrant, but won’t cooperate when ICE seeks to make an immigration arrest from their prisons and jails using just an administrative warrant. Ms. Noem, though, said that’s a misunderstanding of immigration law.

The Hill [3/3/2026 11:46 AM, Rebecca Beitsch, 18170K] reports Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Tuesday was met with skepticism from Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), who argued during a hearing that a more than $200 million ad campaign was primarily “effective in your name recognition.” The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) last February announced the ad campaign, which features Noem telling migrants to go home or face deportation. A firm with ties to Noem and her former spokeswoman received the contract, which was awarded after skirting the competitive bidding process. The exchange Tuesday marked unusual pushback from a member of the president’s party against the spending of a Cabinet official, with Kennedy suggesting the video was done to promote Noem rather than the Trump agenda and put the president “in a terribly awkward spot.” “The president approved ahead of time you spending $220 million running TV ads across the country in which you are featured prominently?” Kennedy asked. Noem told the audience at last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference that President Trump had asked her to craft the ad to thank him for his work at the border. FOX News [3/3/2026 5:52 PM, Alexandra Koch, 37576K] reports that during a hearing Tuesday, Sens. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Peter Welch, D-Vt., along with Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., quizzed DHS Secretary Kristi Noem about the lucrative contract for an ad campaign she was featured in, which was awarded to a company where the husband of her former spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, works. However, Bis said the campaign, filmed in October at Mount Rushmore, was well worth the cost and resulted in millions of self-deportations and billions of taxpayer dollars saved. Bis added that on average, an arrest and removal by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) costs U.S. taxpayers $18,000. DHS clarified that not all self-deportees took the exit bonus when they fled the country. Welch also questioned Noem during the hearing about accusations the ad contracts were awarded under a declared border "emergency," allowing DHS to bypass normal competitive bidding rules. Welch fired back, alleging DHS awarded $143 million to Safe America Media, which was incorporated seven days before receiving the contract. Safe America Media then subcontracted to McLaughlin’s husband’s firm, the Strategy Group, according to Welch. Noem’s advisor, Corey Lewandowski, also allegedly worked with the Strategy Group, according to a report from ProPublica. However, it is unclear if Lewandowski received any money from the deal with Safe America or the Strategy Group. Noem pledged to look into the matter. The New York Post [3/3/2026 4:13 PM, Ryan King, 40934K] reports Yoho has previously done work for Noem as well as special government employee Corey Lewandowski, a close confidant of the secretary. She insisted that DHS abided by its rules for such contracts and denied being involved with the award process.

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Washington Times [3/3/2026 10:43 AM, Stephen Dinan, 1323K] reports Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told senators on Tuesday that she personally ran her plans by President Trump to spend more than $200 million on pro-deportation ads that have boosted her own profile. Ms. Noem also defended her department’s purchase of new airplanes, including one with a luxurious bedroom, saying she was following directions from Congress, which ordered her to have an executive aircraft for national security reasons. She said the airplane is being “refurbished” to remove the bedroom. She said she’s been on the plane only once, adding that other department officials have used it. More broadly, she said, the department’s purchase of a fleet of planes will cut flight costs by 40% by reducing the need for contract flights. “We have 737s that are being purchased by the department to replace contracts we have on ICE deportations,” she told the Senate Judiciary Committee. Ms. Noem’s management of the department’s spending has come under scrutiny, with photos of the plane going viral and administration officials privately complaining about her purchases. Sen. John Kennedy, Louisiana Republican, also prodded Ms. Noem over the $220 million ad campaign the department has launched featuring video with the secretary urging illegal immigrants to self-deport. “Did the president know you were going to do this?” Mr. Kennedy demanded. Ms. Noem said he was aware. “We had that conversation, yes, before I was put in this position,” she said. Mr. Kennedy was incredulous. “To me, it puts the president in a terribly awkward spot. I’m not saying you’re not telling the truth, it’s just hard for me to believe,” he said. He said his research showed DHS did not put the ad contracts out for bid and that much of the work went to a firm run by the husband of Ms. Noem’s former spokeswoman. “It troubles me. A fifth to a quarter of a billion dollars in taxpayer money when we’re scratching for every penny, I just can’t agree with, madam secretary,” the senator said. “I did not have anything to do with picking those contractors,” Ms. Noem countered. She said the ads are still running but are due to end later this month.

Chicago Tribune [3/3/2026 3:41 PM, Jason Meisner, 5209K] reports with Marimar Martinez standing a few rows behind her, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington on Tuesday that she was not “familiar with the details” of Martinez’s shooting by an immigration agent in Chicago last fall and unaware whether the agent who shot her was still on duty. Noem’s claimed lack of knowledge about a shooting case that garnered national headlines during Operation Midway Blitz came under testy questioning by Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, of Connecticut, who had Martinez and two other U.S. citizens allegedly abused by immigration officers stand up in the gallery as he asked Noem a series of questions. Blumenthal described how Martinez was “on her way to donate clothing at her church” when she was involved in a traffic crash with Border Patrol agents, leading one of them to storm out and fire at her moving vehicle, “hitting her five times.” “She almost bled to death,” Blumenthal said. “Wouldn’t you agree that shooting Miramar Martinez on her way to donate clothing at her church, a United States citizen from Chicago, is wrong?” “Sir, I don’t know that situation or the case,” Noem answered, as Martinez stood about five rows back in the gallery, behind her dressed in a white blouse. “I’ll look into it to ensure that all procedures were followed properly –” Blumenthal cut Noem off, saying, “Well I’m glad you’ll look into it,” before recounting how Martinez was charged with assaulting officers, only to have the case dismissed in court “as being trumped up.” The senator then put up poster boards with images of the now-infamous text messages the agent who shot Martinez sent to colleagues and relatives, including one saying, “I fired five rounds and she had seven holes. Put that in your book boys,” and another where he bragged about being “up for another round of f— around and find out.” “Will you join me in condemning that agent?” Blumenthal asked Noem. “Sir, that situation I don’t know the details of, but I will look into that,” Noem replied. “I don’t know why you can’t join me to say it was wrong to shoot Miramar, almost cause her death, and then brag about it. Wouldn’t you agree with me that it was wrong?” Blumenthal pressed. “Sir, the way that you have portrayed it, it appears to be, but let me look into the case so I can speak to the specifics of it,” Noem said.

The Hill [3/3/2026 12:42 PM, Rebecca Beitsch, 18170K] reports that Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) tore into Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in a 10-minute tirade criticizing her from everything to her handling of the deaths of two Minnesotans to killing her own dog in a monologue that garnered applause from the audience of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “I’m giving you a performance evaluation here – I’m not looking for a response,” said Tillis, adding that “time after time after time, I’ve been disappointed.” Tillis, who is retiring at the end of his term next year, accused Noem of holding up federal emergency funding, violating U.S. citizens rights in carrying out immigration enforcement and quashing independent oversight of her department in a move he said would prompt him to renew his hold on DHS nominees. He faulted her for indiscriminate immigration enforcement. “We just want numbers. We want a thousand a day, 6,000 a day, 9,000 a day, because numbers matter, right? No, they don’t matter. Quality Matters, not quantity, quality. And what we’ve seen is a disaster under your leadership, Ms. Noem, a disaster,” Tillis said. “What we’ve seen is innocent people getting detained that, turns out, are American citizens.” The DailySignal [3/3/2026 3:50 PM, Virginia Allen, 474K] reports that critics have highlighted Noem’s characterization of two fatal shootings of protesters by immigration enforcement agents in Minneapolis. Noem and her agency justified the shootings by calling protesters’ actions "domestic terrorism," a characterization that drew widespread backlash. The homeland security agency says it has "arrested 43,305 potential national security risks" since President Donald Trump returned to the White House. "[Immigration and Customs Enforcement] has arrested 1,416 known or suspected terrorists and has removed 1,392 [known or suspected terrorists], and more than 7,000 gang arrests," the agency claims. The Washington Times [3/3/2026 12:40 PM, Stephen Dinan, 1323K] reports that the North Carolina Republican said he will refuse to let some nominations go through the Senate floor and will try to block quorums to conduct committee business until Ms. Noem provides the breakdown of criminals among the arrests during an immigration enforcement surge last year in Charlotte. Mr. Tillis said Ms. Noem has shown a “failure of leadership” in her handling of the deaths of two Americans in Minneapolis at the hands of her officers and agents — and he starkly tied that back to the secretary’s revelation in her book that she killed a 14-month-old dog, Cricket, and an unruly goat. Mr. Tillis said both animal slayings were uncalled for and reflected Ms. Noem’s poor animal husbandry and her inability to anticipate situations. “Those are bad decisions made in the heat of the moment — not unlike what happened up in Minnesota,” he said at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. The senator, who didn’t give Ms. Noem a chance to respond and cut her off the one time she started in, said Ms. Noem’s refusal to admit mistakes in the Minnesota shootings is hurting her own personnel. “You’ve cast a pall on them by acting like we should investigate things differently,” he said. He denounced White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller’s call for DHS to hit certain deportation targets, saying the drive to hit numbers also fueled problems. NBC News [3/3/2026 2:53 PM, Scott Wong and Frank Thorp V, 42967K] reports that during a tense public hearing Tuesday, Republican Sen. Thom Tillis called on Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign over her handling of the deadly Minneapolis immigration operation. And he blasted her for killing her dog that she had described in her memoir as "untrainable," as well as a goat. Tillis argued that the killing of the animals was reflective of bad judgment and compared it to DHS’s fatal shootings of two American citizens, Renée Good and Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis. Then the North Carolina senator threatened to block many of President Donald Trump’s nominees until he gets answers to questions he’s posed to the administration about ICE operations in Charlotte. Tillis, who has clashed with Trump and his administration over numerous issues and nominees, is not seeking re-election this fall. His comments reflect high tensions between members of Congress and Noem, particularly over immigration operations in the U.S., and his nomination threats could significantly impede business in the Senate. As Noem testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Tillis pointed to a letter from the DHS’s Office of Inspector General that stated there were at least 10 incidents where Noem had stonewalled internal investigations. "That’s a failure of leadership and that is why I’ve called for your resignation," Tillis told Noem. "If I don’t get an answer to these questions, if I don’t get an answer that you’ve had a month to respond to, and the remaining ones, as of today, I’ll be informing leadership that I’m putting a hold on any en bloc nominations until I get a response."

FOX News [3/3/2026 11:41 AM, Breanne Deppisch, 37576K] Video: HERE reports a protester was escorted out of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing after she interrupted Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s opening remarks on Tuesday, shouting "Abolish ICE" and "Kristi Noem, you should be ashamed of yourself!" before being forcibly removed from the room. "I’m a former FEMA employee," the heckler said as Noem was slated to begin addressing the panel, adding: "You have disgraced our agency.". "FEMA employees… should be responding to disasters, not ICE agents," she said. The heckler appeared to trip or fall to the ground as she was being escorted from the hearing, as could be seen in video footage of the exchange. The exchange occurred during a Senate Judiciary Committee DHS oversight hearing — a long-awaited hearing that comes after the fatal January shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by immigration officials. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Daily Caller [3/3/2026 12:09 PM, Nicole Silverio, 803K] reports Republican Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy confronted Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem during a Tuesday hearing on blaming White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller for accusing Alex Pretti of "domestic terrorism.". Noem received backlash for stating that Pretti, an anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protester fatally shot by a Border Patrol agent, committed "an act of domestic terrorism" and sought to "massacre" agents. During the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Noem denied ever having blamed Miller for her words. "What got my attention was that you blamed those statements on Mr. Stephen Miller at the White House. Did you not?" Kennedy said. "No, sir, I did not. And in fact, where you’re seeing that is in a news article of anonymous sources and anonymous sources say a lot of things. But I’ve never said that at all," Noem said. Kennedy cited an Axios report which quoted Noem saying, "Everything I’ve done, I’ve done at the direction of the president and Stephen." The quote was cited by anonymous sources who allegedly "relayed her remarks" to the outlet. "I enjoy working with the president and with Stephen Miller. And that day we were working to get as much information to the American people as possible," Noem replied. "That is what we’ll continue to do." "Do you think it was fair to blame Mr. Miller?" Kennedy asked. Noem continued to deny ever blaming Miller for her response to the incident. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

NBC News [3/3/2026 11:53 AM, Staff, 42967K] reports Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said there are no plans for immigration agents to be stationed at polling site in the fall during the midterm elections after being questioned by Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

NBC News [3/3/2026 9:44 AM, Staff, 42967K] reports Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem touted the Trump administration’s immigration agenda during her opening statement at a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing. Noem also called the latest government shutdown, which has prevented funding to the department, as "reckless." [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

FOX News [3/3/2026 4:36 PM, Charles Creitz, 37576K] reports the Department of Homeland Security fired back at the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee following a dispute over the proportion of DACA recipients being picked up by the agency amid President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda. Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin, who is the longtime sponsor of the related DREAM Act in successive Congresses, lambasted Secretary Kristi Noem earlier Tuesday, demanding to know why so many beneficiaries of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program were being deported. DHS also responded to an exchange Noem had with Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., over his concern that ICE or CBP agents would be dispatched to polling places in November. She responded by asking him whether Democrats have plans to facilitate illegal immigrant voting. Noem replied that DHS enforces the laws as passed by Congress and that if an individual has a final order of removal, that is the proper procedure. DHS followed up by providing Fox News Digital with an exclusive list of dangerous illegal immigrants arrested in the past day, implying that Democrats are not concerned with their rap sheets or victims.

The Hill [3/3/2026 6:25 PM, Sudiksha Kochi, 18170K] reports top Democrats are whipping against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding bill expected to come to the floor this week, even as Republicans press them to support it in the wake of the U.S. attacks on Iran. The White House and Democrats have been locked in an impasse over a deal to reopen DHS, as the minority party calls for the administration to overhaul Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) following the killings of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota by federal agents. But Democrats argue President Trump’s decision to strike Iran does not absolve the administration from addressing concerns over its immigration policies. “Donald Trump launches an unauthorized war in the Middle East. He characterizes it as endless. He decides that he wants to spend billions of dollars to bomb Iran, rather than spend taxpayer dollars to lower the grocery bills that are crushing the American people,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said during a press conference on Tuesday. “And then wants to use his unauthorized war as an excuse to continue spending taxpayer dollars to brutalize or kill American citizens by continuing to unleash ICE without restrictions on the American people. The whole thing is insane. Make it make sense, because it does not,” Jeffries added. “LET THE RECORD SHOW: Democrats are INSTRUCTING their members to keep the Department of Homeland Security CLOSED, and to prolong the Democrat DHS shutdown,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) wrote on the social platform X, referencing the whip notice. “At a moment when America faces increasing threats at home and abroad, Democrats are voting to keep Americans dangerously exposed to domestic terrorism — all so they can make a crazy political point in defense of criminal illegal aliens. That is a shameful abandonment of duty and a stunning failure of leadership,” Johnson said. But Democrats appear unmoved by the GOP calls. “Donald Trump and Kristi Noem have undermined, mismanaged, and weaponized the Department of Homeland Security for more than a year, pulling the Department from its mission to defend the homeland and turning it against the American people,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said in a statement. “Now, with Trump recklessly launching an unnecessary war, Americans face increased threats from both foreign actors and their own government. Congressional Republicans should be prioritizing national security and the rights of Americans over covering for the President’s lawless immigration operations and out-of-control DHS.” NBC News [3/3/2026 1:53 PM, Sahil Kapur and Frank Thorp V, 42967K] reports DHS funding expired Feb. 13, forcing a partial shutdown of the department that affects the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Coast Guard and cybersecurity. Democrats have been negotiating with the White House over changes to immigration enforcement to secure their votes to reopen the agency in full. If Republicans are worried about protecting the U.S. from terrorist attacks, "we should fund everything at DHS but ICE," King said. "That would be an easy way to solve any problems that may be present," he added.

NewsMax [3/3/2026 9:04 PM, Jim Thomas, 3760K] reports Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, said on Newsmax Tuesday that ongoing Democrat efforts to eliminate funding for the Department of Homeland Security may increase vulnerabilities in the United States to foreign threats. He also criticized certain reactions within the country regarding the death of Iran’s ayatollah. In the interview on "Finnerty," Gill framed the DHS funding dispute as a security issue. He said, "You never want your Department of Homeland Security to be defunded, but certainly not whenever we’re in a conflict with Iran." He added that there are "realistic and very real concerns about sleeper cells of foreign agents right here in the United States." Asked about Democrat efforts related to DHS funding amid those concerns, Gill said, "The reality is that Democrats would rather play politics ... they prefer open borders over keeping our nation secure. "That’s why DHS isn’t funded right now." He pointed to the problem of "four years of open borders," saying "millions of people from all over the globe came into our country, settled down in our communities," adding that some "could be associated with hostile foreign governments, hostile regimes." Gill said the stakes were immediate, calling it "a serious national security threat." "We’ve got to get this done because this is a real issue for the security and the safety of the American people," he said. Battle lines on DHS funding have hardened around immigration enforcement and oversight. Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee say Senate Democrats are demanding limits on interior enforcement, warning that brinkmanship could shut down DHS and disrupt security missions. According to Reuters, Democrats say they will not support full-year DHS funding without changes to tighten controls and oversight of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, including reforms they argue are needed after recent enforcement-related controversies. While in the House, Appropriations Committee Democrats have pushed funding that backs what they call "law-abiding" DHS agencies, such as FEMA, TSA, and CISA, while excluding ICE, CBP, and the office of the secretary, arguing that Republicans are blocking that approach.

NewsMax [3/3/2026 8:10 PM, Jim Thomas, 3760K] reports Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., told Newsmax on Tuesday that Democrats should stop holding up funding for the Department of Homeland Security, saying the impasse is affecting agencies within the department such as the Transportation Security Administration, the Coast Guard, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In an appearance on "Ed Henry: The Big Take," Hoeven was asked about broader public safety concerns tied to immigration enforcement. "How can we have national security if we don’t have border security?" he replied. The senator framed border enforcement as an across-the-board safety issue, saying it is "fundamental to security in our country, in our communities, in our homes." "We have to make sure we secure the border. We enforce the law," Hoeven said. He added that the government should locate and deport individuals such as cartel members and others who have entered the country illegally, saying that doing so is critical for national security. From there, Hoeven pivoted to the funding fight itself, saying Democrats "need to stop holding out on us in terms of funding DHS." "We have ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] funded. Now they’re blocking us for funding TSA, the Coast Guard, and FEMA," Hoeven said. "It makes no sense." DHS experienced a partial shutdown after its annual funding expired on Feb. 13. The lapse also affected agencies like FEMA and the Coast Guard. The shutdown has affected TSA pay, with officers receiving only a fraction of their regular pay as the shutdown has continued. Hoeven described the legislative options as already on the table. "We have offered a continuing resolution. We have offered a bill that they agreed to," he said. "They need to stop holding out here and blocking the funding of the Department of Homeland Security." Democrats have been in talks with the White House seeking changes to immigration enforcement as a condition for their votes to restore the agency’s funding in full. "We need to keep making that case to the American public to put pressure on them to join us in funding DHS," Hoeven said.

Breitbart [3/3/2026 7:40 AM, Jasmyn Jordan, 2238K] reports more than a dozen Republican Study Committee members are urging Senate Democrats to end the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding lapse, warning it is disrupting key security and operational functions as U.S. combat operations in Iran continue and investigators in Austin examine evidence the suspect may have had a ‘potential nexus to terrorism.’ The shutdown began on February 14. According to Fox News, "DHS was the only department left without federal funding after Democrats walked away from a bipartisan plan released last month in response to the deaths of two U.S. citizens at the hands of federal law enforcement agents in Minneapolis during anti-ICE demonstrations." The shutdown has led to the suspension of TSA PreCheck and Global Entry programs and halted pay for more than 63,000 Transportation Security Administration employees, according to DHS officials. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem previously said the shutdown marks the third time during the 119th Congress that Democrats have shut down the department and warned of national security consequences.

FOX News [3/3/2026 4:14 PM, Marc Tamasco, 37576K] reports Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., was asked Tuesday whether it’s time for Democrats to agree to "fully fund" the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to "protect the homeland" amid threats from Iran. DHS issued a memo over the weekend warning of potential cyber and lone wolf terror attacks following U.S. and Israeli military strikes against Iran. The congressman was referring to the shooting deaths of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents during anti-ICE protests in Minnesota in January. The Trump administration submitted to Senate Democrats what it called a "serious" offer to reopen the government last week. It’s the second offer from the White House in an ongoing back-and-forth that has left DHS without funding for two weeks.

Daily Signal [3/3/2026 10:17 AM, Pedro Rodriguez, 474K] reports Republican lawmakers are demanding Democrats end the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security in the wake of a mass shooting perpetrated by a suspected terrorist in Austin, Texas. In the early hours of Sunday morning, 53-year-old Ndiaga Diagne, who investigators believe could be an Islamic terrorist, killed two people and injured 14 others in Austin, Texas. DHS has been shut down since appropriations lapsed on Feb. 14. Democrats have prevented multiple efforts to fund the department with homeland security responsibilities that range from immigration to disaster relief, and have made Immigration and Customs Enforcement reforms a precondition to more funding. Democrat demands include limiting immigration enforcement near voting locations and allowing states to sue the agency. "Democrats are putting Americans at risk by keeping the Department of Homeland Security shut down," Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., told The Daily Signal. Diagne—a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Senegal and lived in Pflugerville, Texas—allegedly opened fire at an Austin-area bar while wearing a hoodie that read "Property of Allah." He was shot and killed by responding officers. Investigators believe the motivation for the shooting could be tied to the ongoing U.S. military operation against Iran, dubbed Operation Epic Fury.

NewsMax [3/3/2026 5:46 PM, Theodore Bunker, 3760K] reports House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., on Tuesday dismissed Republican efforts to use the Trump administration’s military strikes against Iran as leverage in a stalemated fight over Department of Homeland Security funding and immigration enforcement reforms. Republicans have argued that heightened threats at home and abroad make it urgent to pass a DHS funding bill and end a shutdown that has stretched into its third week as lawmakers remain deadlocked over immigration enforcement policy. Jeffries said the conflict in the Middle East has no connection to the dispute over DHS funding and demanded changes that Democrats say are necessary after clashes between federal agents and civilians during immigration operations. House Republicans have scheduled another vote this week on a DHS appropriations bill as they seek to reopen the agency and pressure Democrats to back a measure they say would maintain operations and address security threats during the Iran conflict. With DHS unfunded, employees are working without pay and the department is managing essential operations under shutdown conditions. Democrats have tied their demands to a push for new guardrails on immigration enforcement, including steps they say would bring ICE operations in line with standard law enforcement practices, and they have argued that changes are needed to prevent future violence during federal actions. Republicans have rejected those conditions as unrelated to appropriations and have accused Democrats of exploiting the shutdown to weaken immigration enforcement amid Trump’s crackdown. The impasse is unfolding as Congress also confronts the question of whether Trump can continue military operations against Iran without explicit authorization from lawmakers.

Reported similarly:
The Hill [3/3/2026 3:32 PM, Mike Lillis, 18170K]
Washington Examiner [3/3/2026 6:02 PM, Ramsey Touchberry, 1147K]

Wall Street Journal [3/3/2026 6:04 PM, Tarini Parti and Josh Dawsey, 646K] reports the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security said the agency’s leaders had “systematically obstructed” its work, including in a federal criminal investigation, according to a copy of a letter viewed by The Wall Street Journal. In the letter to lawmakers dated Monday, the inspector general outlines 11 instances that he says the department had blocked his office from accessing records and information it needed to pursue its inquiries. He said DHS’s refusal to cooperate in the criminal investigation, which he said had national security implications, was “particularly egregious.” The inspector general’s letter briefly came up as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem testified before a Senate panel on Tuesday. North Carolina GOP Sen. Thom Tillis held it up as an example of the secretary’s failures in managing the department. “Does anybody have any idea how bad it has to be for the OIG in this agency to come out and do this publicly?,” Tillis said, referring to the office of the inspector general. “That is stonewalling, that’s a failure of leadership, and that is why I’ve called for your resignation.” The inspector general, Joseph Cuffari, was appointed in the first Trump administration, and the letter was sent to a swath of congressional committees. In a response attached to the letter, DHS general counsel James Percival disputed the allegations. He said that Cuffari hadn’t provided the department with information it needed in order to provide access to specific databases. Percival also warned that alerting lawmakers would be seen as “in bad faith and bordering on material misrepresentation to Congress.” A spokeswoman for DHS said the inspector general hadn’t detailed the scope of its inquiry, which the spokeswoman said was a requirement to grant access to the relevant classified databases. “We have told him this repeatedly in every meeting, the ball rests fully in the OIG’s court,” the spokeswoman said.

The Hill [3/3/2026 9:58 AM, Ashleigh Fields, 18170K] reports that a Minnesota prosecutor launched an investigation Monday into tactics used by the Trump administration’s federal agents during immigration enforcement operations. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said she is looking into 17 cases where federal officers potentially acted in an "unlawful" way. "One is when [U.S. Border Patrol] Commander Greg Bovino threw gas at residents near Mueller Park in January. The other is where federal agents interacted with staff and students at Roosevelt High School, also in January," Moriarty said in a video posted to social platform X. Both incidents reportedly occurred in January. Her office unveiled the Transparency and Accountability Project (TAP) following "Operation Metro Surge" to collect and assess evidence submitted by the public of potentially unlawful behavior by federal agents. Residents have been encouraged to turn over evidence via a form to document their treatment from immigration officers with Moriarty noting that some have already shared videos that have raised concern among local authorities. As she seeks to hold federal immigration officers accountable in Minneapolis and the surrounding area, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said she doesn’t have legal grounds to launch an investigation.

New York Times [3/3/2026 1:54 PM, Ernesto Londoño and Hamed Aleaziz, 148038K] reports that the Department of Homeland Security has opened an internal investigation into a report that Gregory Bovino, a senior Border Patrol commander, made disparaging remarks about the Jewish faith of the top federal prosecutor in Minnesota during an immigration operation in the state. Mr. Bovino, who was the most visible figure in the government’s crackdown in Minnesota, complained in a phone call to federal prosecutors in January that the U.S. attorney in Minnesota, Daniel N. Rosen, was hard to reach over the weekend because he observes Shabbat, according to several people with knowledge of the call. Shabbat is a 25-hour period of rest that starts Friday at sundown and often includes refraining from using electronic devices. Mr. Bovino used the term “chosen people” in voicing his frustration about Mr. Rosen, an Orthodox Jew, and asked sarcastically whether Orthodox Jewish criminals refrained from breaking the law during the weekend, the people with knowledge of the call said. The New York Times reported on the call in late January, based on the accounts of people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive conversation. CBS News later reported that it confirmed key details of the conversation. John Breckenridge, an investigator with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s office of professional responsibility, told The Times in an email that he had opened an “official inquiry into the allegation” that Mr. Bovino had made “unprofessional comments.” Customs and Border Protection is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

Blaze [3/3/2026 4:35 PM, Carlos Garcia, 1556K] reports a Minneapolis county attorney said her office is investigating 17 incidents involving federal agents, including Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino, for possible criminal charges. Bovino headed the immigration enforcement mission in Minnesota dubbed Operation Metro Surge but left the area after the deaths of anti-ICE protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti in January. On Monday, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office said it was investigating the incidents and opened an online portal to collect tips from the public about "potentially unlawful behavior" committed by agents of Operation Metro Surge. The statement said that portals created for the cases involving Pretti and Good had been closed after collecting public information.

Univision [3/3/2026 7:25 AM, Staff, 4937K] reports in Minnesota, two legal fronts have been opened against the government of President Donald Trump: a criminal investigation that could lead to charges against federal agents for their actions in immigration raids and a lawsuit to prevent the withholding of millions of dollars in Medicaid funds intended for medical care for low-income people. On one hand, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty announced that her office is reviewing 17 cases related to federal operations conducted in January in the Minneapolis and St. Paul area. These include an incident in which Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino threw a tear gas canister at protesters on January 21, as well as an arrest made on January 7 outside a high school where chemical irritants were used while students and staff were present. Meanwhile, the state filed a lawsuit in federal court in Minneapolis to block the withholding of $243 million in Medicaid spending , after Vice President JD Vance announced the “temporary suspension” of some of the funding due to fraud concerns. The federal government announced the withholding of funds corresponding to the fourth quarter of 2025 in what it described as an action against alleged fraud in public programs amid the massive operation against immigrants that the White House launched in Minnesota and which resulted in numerous protests against ICE and the Border Patrol, as well as the shooting deaths of two US citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti , by federal agents.

New York Post [3/3/2026 6:02 PM, Anthony Blair, 40934K] reports California Gold Country cops uncovered almost 3,000 pounds of crystal meth — one of the largest seizures in US history — after a five-month multiagency operation into drug trafficking. The astonishing bust came after police responded to a tip off about illegal dumping in Calaveras County in October 2025, the sheriff’s office said in a statement. "Operation Trash Panda," involved more than 100 officers from at least eight agencies — including the FBI, the DEA, and the DHS. The operation culminated in the Feb. 27 bust at properties in Modesto, Turlock, and Valley Springs. Authorities seized 1,443 pounds of suspected bulk methamphetamine and 1,270 pounds of partially processed meth with a street value of $4 million, according to the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office, which led the operation. Cops also recovered 1,900 marijuana plants, about 107 pounds of processed marijuana, and 12 firearms, making eight arrests, including one individual on the National Terrorist Watch List. Officials said the bust is one of the largest domestic meth seizures in US history, and the biggest ever in Calaveras County. The alleged drug trafficking network was operating across multiple counties, according to investigators. "Operation Trash Panda" is part of the Homeland Security Task Force initiative "Protecting the American People Against Invasion." The investigation remains "active and ongoing," and additional arrests and charges "may be forthcoming," the Calaveras County Sheriff’s Office said.

Reuters [3/3/2026 1:14 PM, Nate Raymond, 38315K] reports that a surge of immigration‑related lawsuits and prosecutions tied to President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda contributed to a 6% increase in new federal criminal and civil cases in fiscal 2025, according to new data from the U.S. federal judiciary. By far the fastest‑growing category was litigation brought by immigration detainees, which soared 434% to 2,305 as people arrested during Trump’s efforts to ramp up deportations flooded courts with lawsuits alleging they were unlawfully detained. Those lawsuits contributed to civil case filings overall rising 4% to 303,563 during the fiscal year that ended on September 30. Lawsuits with the United States as a defendant jumped 9% ⁠to 46,426, according to the annual report, which the judiciary quietly posted on its website ahead of the U.S. Judicial Conference’s March 10 meeting. The report singled out Massachusetts, where immigration-related habeas filings jumped 3,514% to 253, compared to just seven a year earlier. The report’s analysis was limited to the 2025 fiscal year and did not capture cases filed after September, when the Trump administration launched immigration enforcement surges in places like Minnesota that spurred a flood of additional cases. Since the fiscal year ended, immigration detainees have filed another 23,000 such lawsuits, a Reuters review of court filings found.

Washington Examiner [3/3/2026 6:12 PM, Emily Hallas, 1147K] reports the District of Columbia Council passed a pair of bills on Tuesday, boosting efforts to make law enforcement body camera footage more accessible to the public. Council members unanimously passed an emergency version of Brooke Pinto’s Body-Worn Camera Transparency for Use of Force Amendment Act of 2026, defying Mayor Muriel Bowser’s request to leave changes to Congress. The legislation requires the district’s Metropolitan Police Department to release body-camera footage from local officers accompanying federal agents on patrols that involve the “serious use of force” or deaths. The footage must be released within five days, given the family consents, according to Pinto’s legislation, which also requires the MPD’s public database of body-worn camera recordings to include the names of all federal law enforcement officers directly involved in deadly incidents that have occurred since Jan. 1. Pinto said that the bill would provide “transparency and accountability to what is happening in our streets by federal agents.” The legislation comes as President Donald Trump has deployed the National Guard to Washington for months to aid the district’s police force in an anti-crime initiative, sparking some opposition from local Democrats. The bill could spark further tensions regarding federal control over the district and revive debate over the role Congress should hold in the matter. “When a federal officer engages in a serious use of force, the public has a right to see that footage,” Pinto said.

Washington Post [3/3/2026 6:23 PM, Jenny Gathright and Meagan Flynn, 24826K] reports body-camera footage from at least two federal law-enforcement shootings in D.C. last fall could soon become public under legislation approved Tuesday, part of an effort to boost transparency as an elevated federal presence continues to transform city policing. The emergency legislation approved by the D.C. Council requires the city’s police department to release available footage in cases where a local officer wearing a body camera witnesses federal officers shooting someone. A separate measure requires the city’s police to document all federal law enforcement officers present during an arrest, along with any use of force. The bills come nearly seven months after federal police officers began patrolling D.C. streets in escalating numbers following President Donald Trump’s declaration of a “crime emergency” in the city. While that surge has quieted, a federal task force still patrols jointly with D.C. police. The council does not have authority over federal law enforcement agencies, which, unlike D.C. police, are not required to release body-camera footage and do so only at their discretion. But the city does have power over its own force, leaving lawmakers a narrow lane to mandate more transparency in cases where local and federal police are at the same scene. “This is one window of insight we have,” said council member Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2), who chairs the public safety committee and introduced one of the bills. “Especially in the hopefully limited events of serious use of force, the public deserves the right to see that when it’s happening in our streets.” Yet while there was broad support for the legislation on the D.C. Council, political tension animated the debate. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) opposed the measures, writing in a letter to the council that they should leave the matter to Congress. The measures could also draw the scrutiny of Congress, where GOP lawmakers have attacked the city’s public safety policies in recent years.

FOX News [3/3/2026 2:14 PM, Andrew Mark Miller, 37576K] reports that Democratic Rep. Angie Craig, running for a Senate seat in Minnesota, penned an article this week explaining her "regret" for voting for the Laken Riley Act, sparking criticism from conservatives online and from her Republican opponents. "I never thought the Laken Riley Act was a perfect bill, as it allowed for detention of certain violent as well as nonviolent offenses," Craig wrote in the Minnesota Star Tribune this week about the legislation, named after a nursing student who was murdered during a jog on the University of Georgia’s campus by an illegal immigrant. "The text of the bill did not include the word deportation. I made the difficult decision to vote for it. Democrats like Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff — leaders I deeply respect — all came to the same conclusion. But as I stood side by side with protesters on the streets of Minneapolis and opposite dozens of armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at the Whipple Federal Building after Renee Good’s killing — and again after the killing of Alex Pretti — I couldn’t help but question whether I made the right call last year." Craig went on to explain that it has "become clear that supporting any bill that gives ICE new authority in this administration was the wrong decision "and I regret my vote."

AP [3/3/2026 6:47 PM, Steve Karnowski and Tim Sullivan] reports a federal judge clashed Tuesday with Minnesota’s top federal prosecutor during an unusual contempt hearing that highlighted growing confrontations between increasingly frustrated judges and Department of Justice officials. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Bryan called Tuesday’s hearing to decide whether U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota Daniel N. Rosen and others should be held in contempt for not heeding orders to return the personal property of 28 of immigrants who had been detained and then ordered freed. The property ranges from cash to identity documents to clothing. Bryan, who said in calling for the hearing that there had been "numerous unlawful violations of court orders," started Tuesday by saying it would be a "historic low point" for the U.S. attorney’s office if he held anyone in contempt. There has been a surge in recent weeks of judges issuing critical and sometimes scathing statements and rulings over fallout from the administration’s attempts at mass immigrant deportations, with the Department of Justice sometimes appearing unable to keep up with the flood of cases from the crackdown.

Reuters [3/3/2026 8:58 PM, Daniel Trotta, 16072K] reports Cuban prosecutors formally charged six people with "crimes of terrorism" and ordered them held in pretrial detention on Tuesday in connection with an incident last week in which Cuban forces killed four Cuban nationals and wounded six others aboard a speedboat that entered Cuban waters. Cuba’s Interior Ministry announced the gunbattle at sea last Wednesday, accusing the Cuban exiles of opening fire on a border guard vessel, saying they came from the United States with the intent to sow chaos and attack military units on the Communist-ruled island.

Daily Wire [3/3/2026 12:57 PM, Matt Walsh, 2314K] reports when Donald Trump announced that he was running for President in 2016, he opened his announcement speech by insulting his opponents because they "sweat like dogs," which was great. Then he moved on to the central thesis of his entire campaign and subsequent presidency: foreign countries are "laughing at us at our stupidity" and "the United States has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems.". Just a few minutes later he recalled his opposition to the war on Iraq, which he opposed because he believed it would "totally destabilize the Middle East." He then went on to promise that he would "stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons.". Six months later, after two radicalized Muslims committed a mass shooting in California, Trump announced a new policy: he called for "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.". At a debate in Greenville, South Carolina in February 2016, a moderator asked Trump if he stood by his opposition to the War in Iraq. …obviously the war in Iraq was a big fat mistake all right … they lied they said there were weapons of mass destruction there were none and they knew there were none there were no weapons of mass destruction. …if you listen to him and you listen listen to some of the folks that I’ve been listening to that’s why we’ve been in the Middle East for 15 years and we haven’t won anything we’ve spent 5 trillion dollars in the Middle East because of thinking like that. We’ve spent five… Lindsay Graham. Graham who backs him who had zero on his polls let me just tell you something we’ve spent we’ve spent we’ve spent I only tell the truth lobbyists we’ve spent $5 trillion all over the middle… we have to rebuild our country we have to rebuild our infrastructure you listen to that you’re going to be there for another 15.
Now, with the advent of war in Iran, many of us are asking an obvious question: why are we doing this? Does this benefit our own country first and foremost?

Washington Examiner [3/3/2026 11:00 AM, layal Bou Harfouch, 1147K] reports that the Trump administration is framing the killing of cartel leader "El Mencho" as a major victory in the war on drugs. Decades of drug enforcement tells another story. Within hours of El Mencho’s death, affiliates set fires to banks and storefronts and blocked major highways across roughly 20 Mexican states, demonstrating continued operational reach as authorities struggled to maintain peace. This rapid adaptation within the cartel reflects a familiar dynamic. When Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán was arrested, the Sinaloa Cartel reorganized and continued trafficking. When the Milenio Cartel’s leadership was dismantled, its remnants evolved into the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. Each major enforcement "success" — marked by the elimination of cartel leadership — has been followed by organizational restructuring rather than collapse, with research linking leadership disruptions to an average 80% increase in homicides in the affected municipality over the next year. These enforcement strategies have also failed to meaningfully restrict drug availability. Despite more than $40 billion in annual federal drug control spending, illicit substances remain widely accessible across the United States.

Washington Times [3/3/2026 6:44 PM, Stephen Dinan, 1323K] reports Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem decried the use of deportation quotas, told Congress she has no plans to deploy ICE officers to the polls for this year’s elections, and took a conciliatory approach to angry lawmakers Tuesday by tacitly acknowledging her overzealous denunciations of Americans killed by her agents in Minneapolis. In her first testimony since the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, Ms. Noem declined repeated invitations to apologize directly to their families for labeling their protests domestic terrorism, but extended her condolences. She offered an explanation for her initial reactions. She said she was going by what her officers were telling her from the “chaotic scene.” Several Republicans joined Democrats in criticizing Ms. Noem’s tenure as head of the Department of Homeland Security. The ads and the department’s purchase of airplanes have added to Ms. Noem’s woes, particularly after photos of the interior of one plane showed a plush bedroom and lounge. She said a law enacted by Congress required her to have a plane for command-and-control activities during emergencies and that she has flown on the jet only once. She said the plane is being refurbished so it can be used for deportations. More broadly, she said the Homeland Security Department’s planned fleet of deportation planes would replace the costlier network of contract aircraft now used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She said flight costs would be cut by 40%. Senators on both sides of the aisle questioned why a portion of the $220 million in ad contracts ended up with a firm run by the husband of Tricia McLaughlin, who until last week was the secretary’s chief spokeswoman and before that assisted Ms. Noem with work when she was a candidate and governor in South Dakota. Amid the questions, Ms. Noem celebrated the stunning turnaround at the border since Mr. Trump returned to the White House. Several senators confronted Ms. Noem with the comments of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who said he wanted 1 million deportations a year. Ms. Noem responded that her agency isn’t pursuing numbers.

NewsMax [3/3/2026 8:49 PM, Staff, 3760K] reports a federal judge in the District of Columbia has temporarily blocked a Department of Homeland Security policy requiring members of Congress to give seven days’ advance notice before visiting immigration detention facilities. The judge ruled that lawmakers challenging the policy are likely to succeed in their case. U.S. District Judge Jia M. Cobb issued the ruling Monday, granting a request by 13 House members who sued DHS and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement over limits placed on congressional oversight visits. The judge ordered a stay of the policy pending further review of the case. The dispute centers on a DHS directive reinstated Jan. 8 by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem requiring members of Congress to provide a week’s notice before entering immigration detention facilities. Lawmakers argued the requirement violates a long-standing congressional appropriations provision that bars the department from using federal funds to block lawmakers from conducting oversight visits. Cobb agreed the policy likely conflicts with that provision, known as Section 527, which states that no funds appropriated to DHS may be used to prevent members of Congress from entering detention facilities for oversight purposes and explicitly says lawmakers do not need to provide prior notice. The administration argued the renewed policy was lawful because it was funded through a separate 2025 spending measure known as the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," which provided tens of billions of dollars for immigration enforcement and detention operations. But the court found DHS likely used funds from its regular annual appropriations, which are subject to Section 527, to create and implement the notice requirement. The judge also concluded the department could not simply shift those costs to the newer funding source because the law limits how the reconciliation funds may be spent. "The power of the purse rests with Congress," Cobb wrote, adding that agencies must follow the restrictions lawmakers place on appropriated funds. The lawsuit was first filed in 2025 after Immigration and Customs Enforcement began requiring advance notice and restricting access to certain facilities.

Reported similarly:
Daily Signal [3/3/2026 12:20 AM, Fred Lucas, 474K]

Washington Post [3/3/2026 6:00 AM, Sarah Blaskey, 24826K] reports Immigration and Customs Enforcement dramatically cut its basic training program amid a hiring spree meant to speed up the Trump administration’s deportation efforts, records obtained by The Washington Post show, corroborating a whistleblower’s claim. After former ICE instructor Ryan Schwank testified during a congressional hearing last week, the Department of Homeland Security denied any reduction in the amount or quality of training provided to ICE recruits. The previously undisclosed records obtained by The Post show that, as the whistleblower said, ICE last year removed about 240 hours from its basic training program, or more than 40 percent of instructional time. The documents also offer new insight into how and when the training program was reduced. The vast majority of the cuts occurred in August, the records show, as the Trump administration pushed ICE to double the number of officers in the field by the end of 2025. The initial cuts eliminated more than 100 hours dedicated to hands-on instruction and practice scenarios, including half the 56 hours once spent on firearms training, the records show. Fitness training time was almost entirely cut. Also eliminated were dozens of hours of classroom learning on such topics as case processing and deportation officers’ legal authority. With further cuts later that fall, the records show, ICE had eliminated three-quarters of the hours once dedicated to evaluating recruits’ practical skills, including firearms handling. The agency eliminated time for driving tests and cut all 26 hours previously allotted for evaluating recruits’ grasp of skills specific to immigration enforcement and deportation operations.

NPR [3/4/2026 4:45 AM, Kat Lonsdorf and A Martínez, 34837K] reports the Department of Homeland Security has spun a massive surveillance web under the Trump administration. NPR collected dozens of firsthand accounts to understand how those tools are being used. [Editorial note: consult audio at source link]

New York Times [3/3/2026 3:49 PM, Miriam Jordan and Maddie McGarvey, 148038K] reports that the upstairs room was ready. Three teddy bears and a smiling cloth doll were propped on a neatly made bed. A bassinet was nearby. On the dresser was a sanctuary of care: baby shampoo, lotion and talcum powder. Night was falling in Springfield, Ohio, when the Haitian mother and her 1-month-old baby arrived. Lee, in her 70s, had never met the woman on her doorstep. Still, they embraced. After cooing over the infant, Lee led her guests on a tour of the house, ending with the bedroom that would serve as their redoubt from a feared immigration sweep. Across Springfield that evening, anxiety was mounting. Haitians and their American supporters were awaiting a federal court ruling, expected by midnight Feb. 2, about the fate of Temporary Protected Status, or T.P.S., for Haiti, the program that has allowed beneficiaries to live and work legally in the United States. The Trump administration had moved to terminate the status effective Feb. 3. Without court intervention, thousands of Haitians in Springfield would have become deportable overnight, and federal agents could descend on the city the very next day. And even after the court blocked the termination, that prospect remains. The government has asked an appeals court to overrule that lower court decision, and in a lawsuit about Syrians, the government asked the Supreme Court last week to take emergency action that could give the administration far more power to limit or end T.P.S. across the board.

Breitbart [3/3/2026 2:29 PM, Amy Furr, 2238K] reports that acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Todd Lyons is criticizing the Boston Police Department for ignoring immigration detainer requests after ICE arrested large numbers of illegal aliens in Massachusetts. Lyons said police ignored nearly 170 of those requests in 2025, not 57 as the city’s police commissioner said, the Boston Herald reported Tuesday. He told the Herald in a statement: ICE lodged 167 immigration detainers against criminal illegal aliens in Boston police custody during 2025 — far more than the Boston Police Department is admitting to. Ironically, Commissioner Michael Cox says the police won’t honor our detainers because they’re committed to building and strengthening relationships and trust with the community. But how does releasing criminal illegal aliens back into the communities they victimized build trust? It doesn’t. It shows Bostonians that local police leaders are so politically motivated that they would rather release criminals than work with ICE, which completely undermines public safety. "In a historic year of record-breaking achievements under the leadership of President Trump and Secretary Noem, DHS law enforcement arrested more than 700,000 illegal aliens—nearly 70% of ICE arrests have been charged or convicted of a crime in the U.S.," the post reads.

New York Times [3/3/2026 5:07 PM, Tracey Tully, 148038K] reports a federal judge in New Jersey will now require immigration officials to formally declare that they are aware of court orders that bar migrants from being transferred out of state, after the government repeatedly flouted those directives. The judge, Michael E. Farbiarz, introduced the new process in an order on Monday. It is the second time in a week that U.S. District Court judges in New Jersey have suggested that federal officials were intentionally violating the law and proposed new checks aimed at preventing more violations. Judge Farbiarz, who was appointed by President Joseph R. Biden Jr., warned that he might move to hold the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency or its leaders in criminal contempt if they continued to sidestep his orders. At least 17 detainees have been moved out of New Jersey in violation of a judge’s order since Dec. 5, Judge Farbiarz said last month in a separate court filing. In his order on Monday, the judge wrote that he would encourage compliance with the law by requiring ICE officials to sign affidavits relating to each individual case. Judge Farbiarz instructed leaders in the U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey to sign similar declarations. But he stressed that prosecutors in the office appeared to be conscientiously trying to comply with judicial orders, despite confronting an overwhelming number of immigration cases. Judge Farbiarz is one of several federal judges grappling with how to address a pattern of government noncompliance in immigration cases.

Daily Signal [3/3/2026 6:30 PM, Tyler O’Neil, 474K] reports New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill faces an ethics complaint after she asked Garden State residents to report on Immigration and Customs Enforcement to the state government. "In a seemingly unprecedented move, Governor Sherrill is using official state resources to coordinate the potential obstruction of federal immigration enforcement activities," Curtis Schube, director of research and policy at the Center to Advance Security in America, told The Daily Signal in a statement on the complaint Tuesday. "Her administration created an official portal for members of the public to upload personal videos of ICE officials conducting their official duties.". "This outrageous conduct is not in accordance with the rules of the New York Bar, nor is it appropriate for any legal professional or government official," Schube added. "CASA is filing a bar complaint today and is hopeful that an investigation into this matter will be initiated immediately.". CASA filed a complaint Tuesday with the Attorney Grievance Committee of the New York Supreme Court, which investigates potential breaches in the Rules of Professional Conduct. According to the New York State Unified Court System’s registration, Sherrill first registered in May 2009 with the number 4719522 and has no disciplinary history. The complaint, exclusively obtained by The Daily Signal, cites portions of the Rules of Professional Conduct, which state that a lawyer may face discipline for "illegal conduct that adversely reflects on the lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer," or for "conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation.". The letter cites 8 U.S.C. Section 1324, which imposes up to a 10-year prison sentence or a fine on anyone who "conceals, harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection," an alien who "has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law.". Sherrill went on "The Daily Show" in January, outlining her plan to launch a portal for Garden State residents to report ICE activity. "If you see an ICE agent in the street, get your phone out," she told the host and her audience. She announced that the state government would create a "portal" to allow people to "upload all their cell phone videos" to "alert people" to ICE’s presence. Sherrill has labeled ICE a "Stasi-type force," referring to the East German secret police force. Opposition to ICE ratcheted up a notch after the Department of Homeland Security ordered a surge of immigration enforcement agents to Minneapolis. Anti-ICE agitators organized to monitor immigration enforcement, with some training to directly interfere with ICE operations.

National Review [3/3/2026 10:08 AM, Kamden Mulder, 109K] reports Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger is demanding that Immigration and Customs Enforcement provide warrants before violent illegal criminals are turned over to federal authorities, following the stabbing of a Virginia woman by an illegal immigrant with a long and violent criminal history. Abdul Jalloh was charged with second-degree murder after Stephanie Minter was brutally stabbed in the neck at a Virginia bus stop. Jalloh had previously been charged more than 40 times, including for egregious crimes such as aggravated assault, malicious wounding, and rape. Prosecutors dropped 20 of the 43 charges against Jalloh. The Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office said the charges were dropped because Jalloh often chose victims who did not have permanent addresses, making the proceedings more difficult. The Department of Homeland Security said Jalloh is an illegal immigrant from Sierra Leone. He entered the United States in 2012. “ICE previously lodged a detainer against Jalloh in 2020, and he was granted a final order of removal by a judge who found he could be removed to any country other than Sierra Leone,” DHS said in a statement. “This case illustrated the importance of third country removals to get criminal illegal aliens out of the U.S.” Spanberger insists that in order for Virginia to work with federal authorities, ICE must provide a signed judicial warrant, regardless of the alien’s criminal history. DHS requested cooperation with Virginia and Spanberger to deport Jalloh following his alleged involvement in the fatal stabbing. In response to DHS’s request, Spanberger’s office agreed that he should be deported but demanded that ICE first secure a judicial warrant. In response, DHS accused Spanberger of “fighting to protect a MURDERER over American citizens” and reiterated that “ICE does NOT need judicial warrants to make arrests.”

FOX News [3/3/2026 1:27 PM, Preston Mizell, 37576K] reports that the Department of Homeland Security blasted Democratic Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger after a criminal illegal migrant with over 30 arrests was accused of stabbing a mother in the Washington, D.C.-area and now could be released from custody. Abdul Jalloh, 32, was recently arrested for allegedly stabbing a 41-year-old woman to death at a bus stop in Fairfax County, Virginia, in late February. He was charged with murder, but Spanberger’s office reportedly indicated she would not honor a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer. A governor’s spokesperson told WJLA that DHS would need to take an extra step and seek a signed judicial warrant from a local judge instead in order to ensure that Jalloh is deported. "Sanctuary [Gov. Abigail Spanberger] is fighting to protect a MURDERER over American citizens," DHS posted to X. "This monster is responsible for fatally stabbing Stephanie Minter." "ICE does NOT need judicial warrants to make arrests," the post continued. "The heroes of ICE will continue to arrest and remove criminal illegal aliens across the Commonwealth while Governor Spanberger RELEASES them from jails into Virginia communities to commit more crimes and create more victims." Jalloh, an illegal immigrant from Sierra Leone in West Africa, was arrested at a liquor store the day after allegedly murdering Stephanie Minter at a bus stop. An employee of the store called 911 accusing Jalloh of shoplifting.

Univision [3/3/2026 3:10 PM, Staff, 4937K] reports local governments in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, Maryland, are moving forward with initiatives to limit the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and strengthen the protection of immigrant communities, amid tensions between state and federal authorities over the enforcement of immigration laws. The proposals seek to restrict the use of public facilities for immigration operations, prevent private detention centers, and establish greater transparency requirements when federal agents operate in local jurisdictions. Maryland had already sought ways to shield itself from the federal immigration offensive and protect immigrants living in the state, although not all sheriffs have accepted the end of collaboration with ICE, arguing that there would be more presence of federal agents and insecurity. In Montgomery, the Council introduced the ICE Out Act, which would prohibit privately owned immigrant detention centers in the county and establish a formal definition of a detention facility. Councilman Evan Glass said the initiative is intended to prevent ICE from using third parties to operate in the jurisdiction. According to its proponents, the measure seeks to anticipate possible legal disputes with federal authorities.

Breitbart [3/3/2026 6:14 PM, John Binder, 2238K] reports Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) is suggesting that she will not support Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents taking custody of an illegal alien accused of murdering 41-year-old Stephanie Minter in Fairfax County unless such agents secure a signed judicial warrant from a criminal court judge. As Breitbart News reported, 32-year-old illegal alien Abdul Jalloh of Sierra Leone was arrested by the Fairfax County Police Department and charged with stabbing Stephanie Minter, a mother, to death at a Fredericksburg, Virginia, bus stop in a random attack. Jalloh had more than 30 prior arrests before Minter’s murder, but Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney, Steve Descano, repeatedly dropped charges against him. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials have called on Spanberger to ensure that Jalloh will not be released from Fairfax County custody at any time by honoring an immigration detainer that the agency has lodged against the illegal alien. In response, Spanberger’s office suggested to WJLA’s Nick Minock that the governor will continue to oppose ICE detainers lodged against illegal aliens, even in the case of Jalloh.

Daily Caller [3/3/2026 12:32 PM, Mark Tanos, 803K] reports a 41-year-old mother is dead after a serial criminal illegal alien with more than 30 arrests allegedly killed her at a Virginia bus stop, and prosecutors say they couldn’t keep him behind bars because his victims kept refusing to show up in court. Fairfax County police found Stephanie Minter of Fredericksburg suffering from multiple stab wounds inside a bus stop shelter on Richmond Highway on Feb. 23, according to a Fairfax County Police Department (FCPD) press release. Officers attempted life-saving measures, but Minter died at the scene. Detectives reviewed surveillance footage and identified Abdul Jalloh, 32, as the last person seen with Minter after the two exited a bus together. An employee at a nearby business recognized Jalloh the following day and contacted police, leading to his arrest on a petit larceny charge before detectives connected him to the killing and secured a second-degree murder warrant. Laura Birnbaum, chief of staff for the Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney, told the New York Post (NYP) that Jalloh repeatedly targeted homeless individuals who would not participate in prosecution efforts. "Unfortunately, the defendant in this case also had a history of selecting victims with no fixed address – some of the most vulnerable members of our community," Birnbaum alleged. She added that the office convicted Jalloh on a 2023 malicious wounding charge. A separate rape arrest from 2018 ended without prosecution. Jalloh’s record includes the forcible rape accusation that former Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh declined to prosecute, a felony shooting charge that was reduced to a lesser offense and an aggravated malicious wounding arrest that resulted in a reduced sentence of two years with only seven months served, FOX 5 DC reported. Sean Kennedy of Virginians for Safe Communities told the outlet the decision was baffling. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed Jalloh entered the country illegally in 2012 from Sierra Leone. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) placed a detainer on him in 2020 and obtained a removal order, yet he remained in the community through dozens of subsequent arrests and jail stays. DHS Deputy Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis called on Democratic Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. "We are calling on Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger and Virginia’s sanctuary politicians to commit to not releasing this murderer and violent career criminal from their jail without notifying ICE," Bis said.

NPR [3/3/2026 5:14 PM, Mark Betancourt, 28764K] Audio: HERE reports the Trump administration is sending all pregnant unaccompanied minors apprehended by immigration enforcement to a single group shelter in South Texas. The decision was made over urgent objections from some of the administration’s own health and child welfare officials, who say both the facility and the region lack the specialized care the girls need. That’s according to seven officials who work at the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which takes custody of children who cross the border without a parent or legal guardian, or are separated from family by immigration authorities. The children remain in ORR’s care until they can be released to an adult or deported, or turn 18. Since late July, more than a dozen pregnant minors have been placed at the Texas facility, which is in the small border city of San Benito. Some were as young as 13, and at least half of those taken in so far became pregnant as a result of rape, the officials said. Their pregnancies are considered high risk by definition, particularly for the youngest girls. The move marks a sharp departure from longstanding federal practice, which placed pregnant, unaccompanied migrant children in ORR shelters or foster homes around the country that are equipped to handle high-risk pregnancies. The ORR officials said they were never told why the girls are being concentrated in a single location, let alone in this particular shelter in Texas. But they — along with more than a dozen former government officials, health care professionals, migrant advocates and civil rights attorneys — worry the Trump administration is knowingly putting the children at risk to advance an ideological goal: denying them access to abortion by placing them in a state where it’s virtually banned. Asked if the administration is sending pregnant children to San Benito to restrict their access to abortion, HHS said in a statement that the allegation was "completely inaccurate."

AP [3/3/2026 6:54 PM, Staff, 35287K] reports a large immigration detention camp in Texas has been closed to visitors and attorneys due to a measles outbreak, a lawmaker said Tuesday. There are 14 active measles cases at the detention center on the Fort Bliss Army base and 112 people are being isolated, said U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, an El Paso Democrat whose district includes the facility, known as Camp East Montana. It will remain closed to visitors and attorneys until March 19 or March 20. “While on one hand, it is a good thing that the measles outbreak is being taken seriously, on the other hand, I am alarmed that a preventable crisis has created conditions where detainees can only access their lawyers virtually,” Escobar said in a statement.

Reported similarly:
Univision [3/3/2026 6:47 PM, Staff, 4937K]

Univision [3/3/2026 2:32 PM, Staff, 4937K] reports the family of Alberto Gutierrez Reyes, a 48-year-old Mexican immigrant, is demanding answers after his death in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Adelanto Detention Center in California. So far, his loved ones say they have not been able to see the body nor have they received any official information about the cause of death. They also do not know where the remains are. According to his family, Alberto, originally from Veracruz, Mexico, and a resident of the United States since 2001, was detained by federal immigration agents in the Echo Park neighborhood last January and transferred to the Adelanto center. There, according to the family, he began reporting health problems, including fever, chest pain, and nights of intense cold. They claim he requested medical attention on several occasions, but it was denied to him. The last time Patricia spoke with him was on February 24, after a judge granted him bail following an immigration hearing. However, 24 hours later, she received a call from the Mexican consulate informing her of his death. The family is demanding a thorough investigation into the circumstances of his death and the release of his body for a proper burial. The Mexican Consulate in San Bernardino reported that it is already involved in the case and has requested a thorough investigation into what happened at the detention center. So far, federal authorities have not issued a public statement detailing the cause of death nor have they confirmed the location of the body.

FOX News [3/3/2026 2:23 PM, Louis Casiano, 37576K] reports that two women accused of following a federal immigration agent to his home and broadcasting it live online have been convicted of stalking by a federal jury in California. Cynthia Raygoza of Riverside and Ashleigh Brown of Colorado, both 38, were found guilty last week of stalking a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer. The pair followed the unidentified officer from a federal building in downtown Los Angeles on Aug. 28, 2025, to his home. They livestreamed their pursuit on Instagram and provided directions to the house to viewers, federal prosecutors said. They further encouraged their followers to share the livestream. Upon arriving at the house, the pair shouted at bystanders that their "neighbor is ICE," "la migra lives here," and "ICE lives on your street and you should know.". They also shouted racial slurs at the ICE officer’s wife, authorities said. The ICE officer’s children witnessed the harassment, prosecutors said. The increased traffic from onlookers in the ensuing weeks caused the victim and his family to relocate to a different county, the Justice Department said. The move disrupted the education of the officer’s children. Raygoza and Brown were found guilty of one count of stalking, for which they face up to five years in prison. The jury found the pair not guilty, however, of one count of conspiracy to publicly disclose the personal information of a federal agent. The jury also acquitted Samane Sandra Carmona, 25, of Panorama City, of both charges she faced: conspiracy and stalking. Raygoza and Brown are scheduled to be sentenced on June 8.

Los Angeles Times [3/3/2026 6:00 AM, Andrea Castillo, 12718K] reports a year into the Trump administration’s ratcheted-up mass deportation effort, approval rates for asylum seekers have plummeted as immigrants are too afraid to show up for court hearings. Fewer than 3% of asylum cases decided in January were approved — a record low, according to Mobile Pathways, a San Francisco nonprofit that analyzes federal immigration data. That’s compared with an 18% approval rate in January 2025. Nationally, 20% of immigrants seeking asylum missed their hearings in January, compared with half that rate a year earlier. Asylum seekers with pending applications are in the country legally, but under federal law, failing to appear for a hearing can result in a deportation order. In Los Angeles County immigration courts — among the largest in the country — the trend is substantially starker: no-shows made up 56% of the asylum hearings in January, compared with 14% a year earlier. "That’s not fluctuation," said Bartlomiej Skorupa, chief operating officer of Mobile Pathways. "That’s collapse." A Justice Department spokesperson said the Trump administration is restoring integrity to immigration courts.

Washington Times [3/3/2026 5:28 PM, Staff, 1323K] reports a man born in Senegal walked into an Austin bar late Sunday night and opened fire. Reportedly, Ndiaga Diagne wore a “Property of Allah” hoodie over an Iranian flag T-shirt as he gunned down three patrons and wounded 14 others before he was killed by police. Texas may seem like an unlikely place for someone to shout “Allahu akbar” before going on a killing spree, but when the border is wide-open, anyone can stroll in. Diagne entered on a tourist visa in 2000 and illegally overstayed his welcome. He married into a green card in 2006, obtained citizenship and divorced his wife in 2022. His story isn’t unique, as 1.2 million sub-Saharan Africans have entered the country since 2010. Many of an extreme Islamist bent flocked to the Lone Star State, where jihad-friendly enclaves operate under the radar. The state has 650 Islamic nonprofits, at least a quarter of which embrace radical influences, according to a report published last month by the Middle East Forum. The most famous of these was the Dallas-based Holy Land Foundation. This was the largest “charity” of its kind until federal investigators exposed it as a front funneling millions of dollars into overseas terrorist groups such as Hamas. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals summarized the facts as it upheld convictions for the group’s leaders. “The Government produced voluminous evidence obtained from covert surveillance, searches, and testimony showing a web of complex relationships connecting the defendants to Hamas and its various sub-groups. The financial link between the Holy Land Foundation and Hamas was established at the Foundation’s genesis and continued until it was severed by the Government’s intervention in 2001,” the judges wrote. The foundation didn’t go to much effort to conceal its activities. The beneficiary of the “charitable” donations had the code name “Sister Samah” — Hamas spelled backward. Multiple mosques helped raise funds, revealing how jihadi ideology is being pushed under the cover of religion inside the United States.

Reuters [3/3/2026 5:27 PM, Jasper Ward, 38315K] reports Florida’s public universities will temporarily halt hiring foreign faculty members using the H-1B visa program, which allows employers to recruit highly skilled professionals in specialized occupations. The move comes after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis directed schools last October to crack down on what he described as "visa abuse" in higher education. The Florida Board of Governors, which oversees the state’s public universities, voted for a temporary ban ⁠that will stay in effect until January 5, 2027, according to the regulation posted on the board’s website. The move will only affect new employees at the 12 universities in the State University System of Florida.

Reported similarly:
CBS Miami [3/3/2026 4:42 PM, Staff, 51110K]

San Diego Union Tribune [3/3/2026 7:37 PM, Caleb Lunetta, 1257K] reports nearly half a ton of liquid methamphetamine was found inside the fuel tank of a commercial tractor-trailer crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in Otay Mesa on Monday, federal investigators said. The drugs were discovered when a Customs and Border Protection officer observed a white, crystalline substance on top of the fuel tank of the big rig at the port of entry’s import cargo facility around 11:20 a.m, federal prosecutors said. Officers drained the vehicle’s passenger-side tank and found about 944 pounds of liquid meth inside, prosecutors said. The fluid filled 29 buckets when drained from the tank, investigators said. The 26-year-old driver, a Mexican national, was arrested on suspicion of importation of a controlled substance.

Reuters [3/3/2026 4:37 PM, Daniel Wiessner, 38315K] reports a federal judge in California on Tuesday said she would likely deny an early bid by unions representing government workers to block President ​Donald Trump’s administration from cutting thousands of disaster-response jobs at the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston ‌during a hearing in San Francisco said a group of unions had not shown that the job cuts that began on a rolling basis in January were clearly unlawful and should be blocked pending further litigation. Illston did not rule during the two-hour hearing and did not say when she could issue a decision. FEMA, part of the U.S. Department of Homeland ​Security, plans not to extend the temporary contracts of thousands of workers and on-call reservists who respond to disasters, the unions claim. ​About 65 workers were notified on December 31 that their contracts would not be extended and hundreds more will follow ⁠each month, the unions said. Funding for DHS lapsed on February 13 after Congress failed to reach a deal on immigration enforcement reforms demanded by Democrats. ​That halted funding, at least partially, for the operation of several government agencies including FEMA and the Transportation Security Administration. The unions argue the cuts are unlawful ​because they would undermine FEMA’s core disaster‑response mission, were not approved by Congress and were ordered by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem rather than initiated within the agency. But ​Illston said it was not clear whether DHS improperly directed the cuts or whether disaster-response workers’ contracts were previously typically always renewed.

Roll Call [3/3/2026 8:00 PM, Ryan Tarinelli, 673K] reports attorneys argued Tuesday over whether a federal judge should block the Trump administration from potentially shrinking the number of disaster relief workers at the Federal Emergency Management Agency by the thousands. A group of unions and local governments is asking the court to stop the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA, which is part of DHS, from separating those workers from federal employment and prohibit the agencies from carrying out “any further reduction of any FEMA employee positions.” Judge Susan Illston of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California opened the hearing by saying her “preliminary view” was to deny the request for a preliminary injunction. She said there was not enough evidence about whether DHS ordered FEMA to make staffing cuts and whether those types of disaster relief workers were historically renewed on supervisor recommendations. Illston also added that the unions and governments were looking for “extraordinary relief.” She ended the hearing without making a ruling from the bench. At issue is a category of disaster relief employee at FEMA known as CORE, the Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery Employees. Those types of employees — which make up about 40 percent of FEMA workers, according to one former official — are intended “to work across disasters” instead of being brought on for a specific one, according to the filing. CORE workers are full-time and brought on for terms of two to four years, with the agency able to renew the workers according to its needs, according to a court filing from the unions and local governments. Their employment had historically been “routinely renewed,” the plaintiffs say, with CORE employee renewals being greenlit by FEMA supervisors and without DHS involvement. But the plaintiffs argue that precedent has been thrown out, arguing DHS has asserted control over FEMA’s ability to renew CORE workers. The plaintiffs have accused Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem of defying a now-lapsed congressional layoff moratorium and disregarding FEMA’s statutory mandate by ordering the rolling separations of FEMA workers, with the aim of cutting the agency’s staff in half this year. In court Tuesday, Danielle Leonard, an attorney for the union plaintiffs, accused the Trump administration of violating a 2006 law enacted in the wake of Hurricane Katrina (PL 109-295). The plaintiffs say that law bolstered FEMA independence from DHS decision-making and banned the head of DHS from substantially reducing the authorities of FEMA. Leonard told the judge they think there’s enough evidence that DHS is “calling the shots,” something she argued violates the 2006 law. She also pointed to a declaration in which Karen Evans, who is serving as the senior official performing the duties of administrator for FEMA, said that DHS “has final authority over non-renewal decisions.” Leonard said the plan to cut further CORE employees is “imminent and real,” and “very concerning.”

NPR [3/3/2026 4:50 PM, Rafael Nam, 28764K] reports with only 100 days to go before the FIFA World Cup, what should have been a period of celebration is turning instead into one of turmoil. The U.S. and Israel attacks on Iran have raised major questions about whether the Persian country will withdraw from the 48-squad tournament — a step no other country has taken after qualifying since 1950 when Scotland, as well as others such as India and Turkey, decided not to participate in part tied to travel costs to the games in Brazil. But Iran’s participation is not the only uncertainty. Violence in Mexico following the killing of a cartel boss sparked questions about the country’s ability to attract fans, while concerns about funding for U.S. host cities have also flared up in recent weeks. And then there is the outrage over the ticket prices, and controversy surrounding President Trump and his administration’s policies, including military actions and immigration enforcement. The 11 American host cities still have not received $625 million in federal funding for security costs that are critical to staging the tournament, including in Foxborough, Mass. The funding was supposed to be provided by the Department of Homeland Security through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA. A FEMA spokesperson directed NPR to a recent posting on X from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem noting that "FEMA was in the final stages of reviewing applications to ensure proper oversight" but that the partial shutdown affecting the agency — for which she blamed Democrats — had put "significant portions of the FEMA staff on administrative leave." For some host cities, the matter is becoming urgent.

San Diego Union Tribune [3/3/2026 9:32 PM, Alexandra Mendoza, 1257K] reports that, holding rosaries, a group of parishioners from Christ the King church in south San Diego prayed outside the Edward J. Schwartz Federal Building on Tuesday while one of their own appeared before an immigration judge inside. Part of the group would have ordinarily done so from the hallway outside the courtroom. But after learning that volunteers had been cited in the building by federal police on Thursday and Friday, they decided to avoid any trouble. For much of the past year, groups of volunteers have accompanied immigrants to their scheduled court hearings and check-in appointments with Immigration and Customs Enforcement inside the federal building in downtown San Diego amid the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. But last week, volunteers said something changed. Some of them waiting in the hallway outside the ICE check-in office were told by federal officers that they were not allowed to loiter, said Patrick Corrigan, a volunteer with the Faithful Accompaniment in Trust and Hope, or FAITH, program, which faith organizations launched last summer. On Thursday, he was one of four volunteers cited by Federal Protective Service officers, who protect federal government facilities, for failing to comply with posted signs or the directions of security personnel. Corrigan said the scene that day looked no different than usual. He said he was one of about seven people standing in the hallway when a federal officer asked them to leave the area. Some complied, but Corrigan went to talk to the others in his group about the incident. When he returned to the same hallway, he said he was detained and cited. Corrigan said he was aware of four more citations Friday, but he hasn’t heard anything so far this week. Under federal regulations, “any person on Federal property must at all times comply with official signs of a prohibitory, regulatory, or directive nature and with the lawful direction of security personnel.” A spokesperson for FPS, a Department of Homeland Security agency, said such regulations “are not new” and have been in place since November. “Obstructing access in federal buildings is a crime,” the spokesperson said. “It is against federal law to obstruct the use, enjoyment, or access to federal property, including foyers, lobbies, and corridors. Noncompliance with lawful commands from federal law enforcement is a crime.” Corrigan and others, however, disputed there was any sort of obstruction. FAITH volunteers undergo a training program. Generally, their role is to accompany those who request it, pray with them and bear witness. Corrigan said volunteers are instructed not to stand in doorways, crowd hallways or be a fire hazard, among other things. He returned to the federal building this week. He was still able to accompany people, but he avoided staying in the hallways.

AP [3/3/2026 3:53 PM, Becky Bohrer, Mark Thiessen] reports a deckhand on the reality television show “Deadliest Catch,” which documents the lives of crab fishermen working in one of the world’s harshest environments, died after he was reported to have fallen overboard, the U.S. Coast Guard said Tuesday. The Coast Guard received a notification shortly after 5 p.m. Feb. 25 from the Aleutian Lady that crew member Todd Meadows had fallen overboard about 170 miles (274 kilometers) north of Dutch Harbor, Alaska, Chief Petty Officer Travis Magee, a spokesperson with the Coast Guard’s Arctic District, said by email Tuesday. The Coast Guard is investigating.

CyberScoop [3/3/2026 4:15 PM, Tim Starks, 122K] reports the chief information officer at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency announced his departure Tuesday, ending his nearly five-year run at CISA. Robert Costello, an 18-year veteran of the Department of Homeland Security, posted about the move on LinkedIn. “Serving as CIO at CISA has been one of the greatest privileges of my career,” he said. “Together, we strengthened our cybersecurity posture, modernized critical systems, and built capabilities that will endure. I am incredibly proud of what we accomplished as a team.” Costello’s tenure had recently grown turbulent, with conflicting accounts of whether the since-departed acting director of CISA, Madhu Gottumukkala, had tried to force him out. Costello last week received transfer orders for possible reassignment to another agency. “Throughout my career at CISA, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and in the United States Air Force, I have been guided by a commitment to protecting our nation and advancing the greater good,” Costello said. “It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve alongside public servants whose integrity and professionalism set the standard.” Costello did not indicate his future plans beyond leaving the federal government and a “commitment to service and to this nation.”

Reported similarly:
MeriTalk [3/3/2026 3:31 PM, Weslan Hansen, 27K]

CyberScoop [3/3/2026 5:15 PM, Tim Starks, 122K] reports an exploit kit that may have originated from a leaked U.S. government framework is behind what researchers are calling the first mass-scale attack on iOS, the operating system for Apple’s iPhones. Traces of the exploits, found in the work of Chinese cybercriminals, also have been spotted in Russian attacks on Ukraine and used by a customer of a spyware vendor. Those conclusions come from two pieces of research that Google Threat Intelligence Group and iVerify released separately Tuesday. Rocky Cole, co-founder of iVerify, said it represented a potential “EternalBlue moment,” with echoes of that exploit software escaping the National Security Agency to fuel the global WannaCry ransomware and NotPetya attacks in 2017. Google said that the so-called Coruna exploit kit that’s the subject of Tuesday’s research “provides another example of how sophisticated capabilities proliferate,” as it wrote in a blog post about the zero-day — or previously undisclosed and unpatched — exploits. “How this proliferation occurred is unclear, but suggests an active market for ‘second hand’ zero-day exploits,” Google wrote. “Beyond these identified exploits, multiple threat actors have now acquired advanced exploitation techniques that can be re-used and modified with newly identified vulnerabilities.” Said iVerify: “While iVerify has some evidence that this tool is a leaked U.S. government framework, that shouldn’t overshadow the knowledge that these tools will find their way into the wild and will be used unscrupulously by bad actors.”

StateScoop [3/3/2026 6:15 AM, Colin Wood, 37K] reports in recognition of the many creative — and sometimes offline — modes of influence employed by the nation’s adversaries, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul last week promoted Colin Ahern, formerly the state’s chief cyber officer, to serve as its first director of security and intelligence. Ahern’s new role, according to the governor’s press materials, will “provide strategic direction and further unify the State’s security assets.” Hochul noted that “the threats we face are more complex and interconnected than ever before” and enjoined the state to be “aggressive, innovative and adaptive” as New York’s new intelligence director operates across all levels of government, the region’s critical infrastructure providers, academia and the private sector, addressing attacks online, but also taking on malign foreign influence campaigns, “hybrid warfare and other national security issues.” “The emerging doctrine of our adversaries” — China, Iran, North Korea and Russia, — is an “all of the above, all the time approach to either holding specific targets at risk, i.e. obtaining access to them via cyber means, or the ability to conduct attacks on the space, for example via drones,” Ahern said in an interview. He explained that recent instances around the globe of hybrid warfare — a combination of tactics that can be as technical as a ransomware attack or as analog as political skullduggery — have illustrated the “blurring of the lines between cyber and physical attacks, and physical impact of cyberattacks.”

Reuters [3/3/2026 2:55 PM, Pete Schroeder and Michelle Price, 38315K] reports that the U.S. financial services industry is on heightened alert for potential cyberattacks amid the unfolding U.S. war in Iran, with firms stepping up monitoring for threats that often rise during periods of geopolitical conflict, said executives and analysts. The killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei last weekend in an air strike has sparked a conflagration in the Middle East that has roiled markets globally and stoked concerns over the potential for Iran-linked cyberattacks on U.S. financial services operations. Cybersecurity has long been a top priority for the financial services industry, which operates critical U.S. infrastructure, including payments, clearing and settlement systems, as well as trading platforms ⁠and Treasury markets, making it a top target of cyberattacks, according to industry data. "The industry remains vigilant and ready to respond to cyber threats at all times, and especially when global cybersecurity risks are heightened," said Todd Klessman, managing director for financial services cyber and technology at industry group SIFMA which runs an annual exercise to ensure financial firms can operate through significant cyber emergencies. "We continue to monitor the current situation with a focus on operational resilience, which is foundational to the integrity and stability of the U.S. capital markets," Klessman said. Another top banking industry official said lenders are very concerned about the risk of cyberattacks, which they see as likely.

Detroit Free Press [3/3/2026 1:09 PM, Frank Witsil, 4749K] reports that a gunman in Texas may have been inspired by the situation overseas, raising terrorism concerns. U.S. Northern Command orders tighter security as Selfridge Air National Guard Base. In the face of public terrorism concerns and at least one deadly shooting in Texas that may have been connected to the air strikes overseas, government agencies are heightening security — but seem to be doing so very quietly. "Terrorism, absolutely, may be on the table now," Javed Ali, a University of Michigan associate professor who has worked in national security and the FBI, told the Free Press on Tuesday, March 3. "But the lack of a nationwide alert is intriguing." As of Tuesday afternoon, the Department of Homeland Security, which is under strain because Congress cut off funding, listed "no current advisories" on its National Terrorism Advisory System website, which is designed to update Americans about terrorist threats, but there have been reports that it sent at least one bulletin to some police departments. The Free Press left a message on Monday, March 2, with Homeland Security. And while the military is taking additional precautions, including tighter security at military installations such as Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Harrison Township, it did not raise the threat level. A spokeswoman for the Northern Command would not discuss what the additional measures were, but said they could be, as an example, more random vehicle checks at security gates. If the Texas shooting was connected to the strikes, the DHS warning proves prescient.

The Hill [3/3/2026 11:59 AM, Ella Lee, 4464K] reports that the man accused of killing two Israeli Embassy staffers outside a Jewish museum in Washington, D.C. last year has pleaded not guilty to new terrorism-related charges. Elias Rodriguez appeared in federal court Tuesday to be arraigned on four counts alleging acts of terrorism while armed. The new charges added to hate crime and other federal counts. Rodriguez’s federal public defender Diane Shrewsbury, entered the not guilty plea on his behalf. He is accused of gunning down a young couple who worked for the embassy — Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26 — in May outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington. He allegedly then returned to the museum to identify himself as the shooter and was apprehended, saying "I did it for Palestine. I did it for Gaza." The couple’s killing roiled the nation’s capital and sparked global outrage, as leaders rebuked the act as motivated by antisemitism. Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, has said the terrorism charges reflect "the reality that this act was in fact an act of terror." They also carry a mandatory life sentence if convicted. The Justice Department has signaled it intends to seek the death penalty for Rodriguez but has not yet decided. Rodriguez faces counts of murdering a foreign official, carrying out a hate crime resulting in death and other firearms-related charges. He pleaded not guilty to the initial indictment. His next court appearance was scheduled for May 5.

Reported similarly:
Washington Examiner [3/3/2026 1:03 PM, Kaelan Deese, 1147K]

CNN [3/3/2026 10:53 AM, Eric Levenson and Maxime Tamsett, 19874K] reports that Colin Gray, the father of Georgia school shooter Colt Gray, was found guilty of murder and manslaughter charges Tuesday in a case testing the limits of who is responsible for a mass shooting. The jury deliberated for less than two hours before convicting him on all 27 charges: Two counts of second-degree murder, two counts of involuntary manslaughter, 18 counts of cruelty to children and five counts of reckless conduct. At the defense table, Colin Gray did not visibly react to the verdict. He was taken from the courtroom in handcuffs. He faces 10 to 30 years in prison on each murder charge and 1 to 10 years on each manslaughter charge. Prosecutors accused Gray of buying his son an AR-15-style rifle as a Christmas present and allowing him access to that weapon and ammunition despite warnings that his son was a danger to others. Colt Gray, then 14, used that rifle to carry out a mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, on September 4, 2024, killing two teachers and two students and wounding nine others. "That man and his son are both responsible for the immense suffering that occurred on September 4," prosecutor Patricia Brooks said in closing arguments. "The blood is on their hands."

Reported similarly:
New York Post [3/3/2026 1:32 PM, David Propper, 40934K]
FOX News [3/3/2026 11:25 AM, Michael Dorgan, 37576K]

New York Times [3/4/2026 3:52 AM, Rick Rojas and Johnny Kauffman, 330K] reports that, over the past two weeks in a Georgia courtroom, prosecutors portrayed Colin Gray as ignoring obvious warning signs as his son Colt careened toward catastrophe. The teenager had bursts of anger and nursed an obsession with school shooters. Instead of getting help, the father gave him an assault-style rifle as a Christmas gift and let him keep it in his room. On Tuesday, a jury deliberated for less than two hours before finding the elder Mr. Gray guilty of murder and manslaughter. The son, now 16, has been charged with opening fire at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga., in 2024, killing two students and two teachers. But before his trial has even been scheduled, jurors decided that the father bore criminal responsibility for the attack. The prosecutors’ strategy — trying to hold parents accountable when their child is accused of a mass shooting — has gained traction across the country in recent years. But this time, the accountability for the father came before the son’s guilt had been determined. And the punishment may be far more severe than that in previous such cases: The father could be sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison before his son’s trial is scheduled. The elder Mr. Gray looked ahead blankly, pursing his lips, as the verdict was read on Tuesday. Afterward, the lead prosecutor in the case said the outcome not only secured a measure of justice for victims, but sent a powerful message to other parents about the consequences of failing to act decisively if they see their child struggling. “This was multiple warnings over a lengthy period of time,” Brad Smith, the district attorney for Barrow County, Ga., told reporters outside the county courthouse. “You just had to do one thing, take that rifle away, and this would have been prevented.” The first parents convicted in such a case were those of Ethan Crumbley, a teenager sentenced to life in prison for fatally shooting four people at his Michigan high school in 2021. His father and mother were both found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison. In Georgia, prosecutors sought to persuade jurors that the case was not as complicated as it might seem: They emphasized that the elder Mr. Gray had given his son the powerful rifle and that he did not take it away despite ample evidence of his son’s mental health problems. But defense lawyers argued that it was unfair to say with the clarity of hindsight that the father should have been more cautious. The elder Mr. Gray testified in his own defense, describing his struggles to connect with his son and help him as he struggled with panic attacks, intense anger and other behavioral issues. He had bought the gun to draw his son away from video games and the internet.

Reported similarly:
AP [3/3/2026 2:47 PM, Jeff Martin, 1323K]

AP [3/3/2026 3:47 PM, Patrick Aftoora-Orsagos, 31753K] reports two men arrested Monday in connection with a weekend shooting that wounded nine people inside a Cincinnati nightclub now face federal charges, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the southern district of Ohio said Tuesday. Franeek Cobb, 24, and Derrick Long, 29, each face federal charges for illegally possessing a firearm or ammunition as an individual convicted of a felony. Prosecutors said in a news release that surveillance footage from Riverfront Live, where the shooting took place, shows both men firing weapons early Sunday morning. Cobb observed Long inside the venue, pulled out a firearm and began firing at him, according to an affidavit the statement said. Long fell to the ground, then allegedly began firing at Cobb. The attorney’s office said ballistic evidence collected from the scene showed only two firearms were discharged during the shooting. “Our top priority is protecting our communities and holding accountable those who threaten them,” U.S. Attorney Dominick S. Gerace II said in the statement. “If you pull a trigger in an illegal act of violence or otherwise illegally possess a firearm or ammunition, rest assured we will do everything we can to send you to federal prison.”

CBS Chicago [3/3/2026 1:06 PM, Staff, 51110K] reports that an alleged Sinaloa cartel boss has been indicted in Chicago on drug, firearm and material support of terrorism charges. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Norther District of Illinois announce the charges Tuesday morning. Prosecutors say Jesus Omar Ibarra Felix led a group called La Fuerzas Especials de Chuta (FECH) that provided armed security for the cartel under the leadership of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and his four sons, known as the "Chapitos," who took over cartel operations after El Chapo’s arrest in 2016. Prosecutors allege that between 2016 and 2026, Ibarra Felix, also known as "El Chuta," supplied the Chapitos with machine guns, and helped them import methamphetamine and fentanyl into the U.S. from Mexico. He also allegedly oversaw drug trafficking operations from his assigned region near Ahome, Mexico, between 2016 and 2025. A grand jury in Chicago indicted Ibarra Felix on terrorism, drug and firearm charges Tuesday. He is not currently in custody, and an arrest warrant has been issued, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Wall Street Journal [3/3/26 411:07 AM, Jack Morphet, 646K] reports the shooter accused of killing three people and injuring 13 others early Sunday outside a bar in Austin, Texas, had “Property of Allah” and what appeared to be an Iranian flag on his clothing, according to law enforcement. Suspect Ndiaga Diagne, 53 years old, wasn’t previously known to the Federal Bureau of Investigation or Austin police, authorities said. The FBI, working with state police, is pursuing “every last detail” about the shooter’s possible connection to terrorism, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Monday. Alex Doran, the acting special agent-in-charge of the FBI in San Antonio, said investigators hadn’t determined a motive. Asked if Diagne was previously identified as a threat, Doran said, “He was not previously on our radar.” Texas law enforcement has stepped-up surveillance of its critical infrastructure in response to the conflict in Iran, including more patrols and drones at energy facilities, ports and the border, according to Abbott. Police have accused Diagne of driving up to a crowded bar in an SUV just before 2 a.m., and firing at patrons with a pistol. He then drove a short distance, got out with a rifle and shot passersby, police said. Police fatally shot Diagne. The guns were bought legally in San Antonio in 2017, Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis told reporters Monday. Diagne was originally from Senegal and police found an Iranian flag at his home, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. Ryder Harrington, 19, and Savitha Shan, 21, died in the attack, Austin police said. A third victim, 30-year-old Jorge Pederson, died on Monday, police said. Diagne entered the U.S. on a B-2 tourist visa in March 2000, federal officials said. In 2006, he became a lawful permanent resident through marriage to an American citizen. He was naturalized as a U.S. citizen on April 5, 2013.

FOX News [3/3/2026 9:45 PM, Bonny Chu Fox, 37576K] reports the shooter responsible for Sunday’s mass shooting in Austin reportedly ran an X account where he unleashed numerous anti-Christian, antisemitic and other highly inflammatory comments, including slurs such as "fake jewish wh—" and "monkey looking b—-.". Ndiaga Diagne, a 53-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen born in Senegal, opened fire just before 2 a.m. at a crowded bar, killing three people and wounding 13 others. Authorities say they are investigating the incident as a "potential nexus to terrorism" after he appeared to wear a "Property of Allah" sweatshirt and an undershirt depicting the Iranian flag. A Quran was also later recovered from his vehicle, officials added. According to an X account believed to belong to Diagne, under @NdiagaDiag88249, the suspect reportedly hurled numerous hateful comments that were flagged as "potentially sensitive content" that may violate X’s rules against hateful conduct. He joined in October 2024 and began posting derogatory comments almost immediately. "THE ISLAMIC REVOLUTION IS ETERNAL AND HERE TO STAY UNTIL THE END OF TIME, you Zionist and islamophobes can be angry all you want but you can’t do a d--- thing about it, no matter what," one post from August 2025 said. The comment was a reply to Islamic Republic of Iran’s Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi, who criticized President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "So funny Islam is considered an enemy to America? Because Jesus who came out of a vagina can never be GOD, just read Mark 12:29, John 17:3, your lies, propaganda, insults and smear will not stop ISLAM, ISLAM is here to save you in this world and the hereafter," he said in a post from November. Separately, Diagne criticized Trump and Netanyahu on multiple occasions, at one point calling Trump "a shameless clown" and Netanyahu "evil.". Several posts were direct replies to Trump supporters and right-wing influencers, including one that said, "you and your Israel first acolytes fake Jews know it, so melt down all you want you ugly b----.". Last October, he also said, "Shut the f--- up, you f---ing Israel-first wh---. Move to Israel, you f---ing b----.". Beyond religion and politics, the account frequently shared misogynistic content. "No one wants you that’s why you were single for 4 years, look at you, nobody in their own mind would date, what do you have going, you fat and ugly like a pig, women belong to the kitchen and bedroom," he said in November 2024. Authorities are investigating whether Sunday’s shooting may have been influenced by recent U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who reportedly died one day before Diagne opened fire in downtown Austin. No official motive has yet been confirmed.

FOX News [3/3/2026 6:53 PM, Staff, 37576K] reports doorbell video shows Austin mass shooting suspect Ndiaga Diagne leaving an apartment shortly before the deadly rampage. Separate video captures FBI agents covering the camera moments before raiding the unit tied to him. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Daily Wire [3/3/2026 9:00 AM, Mary Margaret Olohan, 2314K] reports President Donald Trump said Americans should not worry about a rise in terrorist threats following the outbreak of hostilities in Iran, calling the Texas shooter who fatally shot two people while wearing an Iranian flag shirt "just a whack job." "I hope you don’t worry too much," the president told The Daily Wire in a Monday evening phone call. The gunman, 53-year-old Ndiaga Diagne, opened fire around 2 a.m. Sunday morning on West Sixth Street in Austin, wearing a sweatshirt that read "Property of Allah" over a T-shirt with the Iranian flag on it. The FBI is currently investigating whether Diagne was motivated by the conflict in Iran. But President Trump is confident the incidents were unrelated. "I think it’s probably just a whack job, a total whack job," Trump told The Daily Wire. "But you know, like so many others … probably staged." CBS News reports that authorities found an Iranian flag and images of Iranian leaders in Diagne’s house and a Quran in his car. While authorities have not yet confirmed a motive, the attack has led to speculation that the incident was a lone-wolf domestic terror attack. The shooter is from Senegal and had first entered the United States in 2000 on a B-2 tourist visa, according to the Department of Homeland Security. He became a permanent resident six years after he entered the country by marrying a United States citizen, and was naturalized in 2013. The White House confirmed on Sunday that the president was briefed about the shooting in Austin, but he does not appear to have publicly commented on it otherwise. FBI Director Kash Patel promised on Saturday that “FBI personnel are fully engaged on the situation overseas.”

The Hill [3/3/2026 9:17 AM, Sophie Brams, 18170K] reports a third person has died after a 53-year-old gunman opened fire at a popular bar on West Sixth Street in Austin early Sunday morning, killing two others and leaving more than a dozen people injured, according to local police. The Austin Police Department said in a Monday post on the social platform X that 30-year-old Jorge Pederson had died as a result of the shooting. Ryder Harrington, 19, and Savitha Shan, 21, were also killed, according to police. Authorities have not yet confirmed a motive for the gunman, identified as Ndiaga Diagne; however, the FBI said during a press conference Sunday that there were “indicators” of terrorism. “Obviously, it’s still way too early in the process to determine an exact motivation, but there were indicators on the subject and in his vehicle that indicate potential nexus to terrorism,” said Alex Doran, the acting special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Antonio Field Office. Law enforcement sources told The Associated Press that Diagne, who was shot and killed by police, was wearing clothes with an Iranian flag design and “Property of Allah” written on it during the attack.

FOX News [3/3/2026 3:06 PM, Julia Bonavita, 37576K] reports authorities have revealed the identities of the three victims who were killed in a suspected terrorist shooting at a Texas bar over the weekend. Savitha Shan, 21, Jorge Pederson, 30, and Ryder Harrington, 19, were identified as the three people who were gunned down at Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden in Austin on Sunday morning, according to the Austin Police Department (APD). Initial reports indicated that two civilians and the gunman were killed and 14 injured in the overnight shooting at a popular nightlife venue near the University of Texas in Austin. However, Pederson was subsequently taken off of life support on Monday, APD said. Pederson, Shan and Harrington were shot when Ndiaga Diagne, a 53-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen born in Senegal who lived in Pflugerville, Texas, opened fire on the popular nightlife hub near the University of Texas at Austin just after 2 a.m. Sunday. The gunman was then shot and killed by police at the scene. The FBI has since revealed the shooting was a possible act of terrorism. The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force has also been deployed to aid in the ongoing investigation. At least two additional victims remain in critical condition, according to authorities.

FOX News [3/3/2026 6:00 AM, Adam Sabes, Bill Melugin, and Brooke Taylor, 37576K] reports the gunman in Sunday morning’s shooting outside a bar in Austin, Texas, had pictures of Iranian leaders inside his apartment as investigators are reviewing evidence that indicates a "potential nexus to terrorism," according to a report. Ndiaga Diagne, 53, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Senegal, was identified as the suspect in Sunday’s shooting outside Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden shortly before 2 a.m., law enforcement sources told Fox News. According to CBS News, Diagne had pictures of Iranian leaders at his home as well as an Iranian flag. Three people, including the suspect, were killed in the shooting that left an additional 14 people injured, officials said. Law enforcement sources also told Fox News that the shooter was wearing a sweatshirt that read "Property of Allah" as well as an undershirt with an Iranian flag. The sources said a Quran was also found in Diagne’s car. FBI Acting Special Agent in Charge Alex Doran said during a press conference on Sunday that investigators are looking into a motive. "Obviously, it’s still way too early in the process to determine an exact motivation," Doran said. "But there were indicators that on the subject and in his vehicle that indicate potential nexus to terrorism.". Retired FBI Supervisory Agent James Gagliano, who was once on the agency’s counterterror unit, told Fox News Digital the shooting "seems to have all the earmarks of a terrorist attack."

New York Post [3/3/2026 9:27 AM, Emily Crane, 40934K] reports the Islamic radical who shot up an Austin bar had a history of spewing hateful messages online — including calling conservative women "wh–es" and praising the Islamic revolution as "eternal.". The unhinged social media posts apparently tied to Ndiaga Diagne surfaced after the 53-year-old Senegalese national was killed by cops on Sunday after he embarked on a murderous rampage that left three people dead and wounded more than a dozen at a packed Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden. Diagne was wearing a "Property of Allah" sweatshirt at the time over a shirt bearing the Iranian flag. The killer, who authorities believe may have been motivated by the US and Israeli missile strikes on Iran, hurled woman-hating, antisemitic and racist remarks on X — that were routinely flagged as "hateful conduct.".

CNN [3/3/2026 8:26 AM, Hannah Rabinowitz, 19874K] reports just days before the United States launched a major military operation in Iran, FBI Director Kash Patel fired a dozen agents and staff members from a counterintelligence unit tasked with monitoring threats from Iran, according to two sources familiar with the matter. They were ousted for a simple reason: Each was involved in the investigation of President Donald Trump’s alleged retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. As a result, Patel hamstrung the Washington, DC-based FBI counterintelligence unit, known as CI-12, which handles cases ranging from mishandling of classified documents to tracking foreign spies operating on US soil. The dismissals have added to concern inside the Justice Department and FBI that counterterrorism and intelligence investigations in the wake of the military operation in Iran could be hampered by a mass exodus of national security experts, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. And like the CI-12 unit, several senior officials were ousted or reassigned because of their involvement in Trump-related investigations, sources say. The removals have cost the Justice Department and FBI decades of combined experience in identifying the types of threats that sources say could appear in the wake of Operation Epic Fury. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The FBI declined to comment on personnel matters but told CNN in a statement the bureau "maintains a robust counterintelligence operation, with personnel all over the country." "Our teams remain fully engaged across the country and [are] prepared to mobilize any security assets needed to assist federal partners – as well as state and local law enforcement," an FBI spokesperson said.

Roll Call [3/3/2026 6:45 AM, Aris Folley and Jacob Fulton, 673K] reports top lawmakers began weighing the potential need for an emergency defense spending package as they returned to Washington on Monday for a briefing on the U.S. and Israeli military offensive against Iran. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters that the need for supplemental funding for munitions was "brought up in discussion" following a "Gang of Eight" briefing with Trump officials, as well as top lawmakers on the Armed Services, Foreign Relations and Appropriations committees. "There are more details to be determined, of course, how long the operation goes and what the need is," he said after the closed-door meeting. While Congress will focus this week on war powers resolutions in both chambers that would bar additional military action in Iran without congressional authorization, the odds of enacting a binding measure of that sort appear scant. But an appropriations bill for additional military weaponry would give Democrats leverage that could affect the scope of future combat in Iran. Bipartisan support would be needed in the Senate to pass supplemental funding, and many Democrats have decried the war as illegal and unnecessary. It’s not yet clear whether enough Republicans are prepared to pursue a supplemental bill for what could be a prolonged war.

Reuters [3/3/2026 6:29 PM, Lisa Baertlein, 38315K] reports MSC, the world’s largest carrier of ocean container cargo, said on Tuesday all cargo bound for ports in the Gulf ​will be offloaded at the nearest safe seaport due to ongoing ‌hostilities in the Middle East following U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran. The move, known as an "End of Voyage" declaration, also applies to empty containers that have been released for loading with ​cargo and are intended for export to the ports in the Gulf, ​Geneva-based MSC said in a customer advisory. A mandatory surcharge of $800 per ⁠container will apply to all affected shipments, without exception, to cover deviation ​costs, MSC said. "MSC sincerely regrets the necessity of this decision, which arises from exceptional ​circumstances beyond its control," the company said. Customers will assume responsibility for the container at the discharge port, said Lars Jensen, CEO of container shipping-focused consultancy Vespucci Maritime, on LinkedIn. That means ​shippers are responsible for finding alternate transportation and paying local port fees, he ​said. The hostilities have caused vessels including oil tankers and container ships to back up at the ‌critical ⁠Strait of Hormuz chokepoint, sparking worries that global fuel prices could soar. As of Sunday, 158 container ships were present in the Middle East, including the Gulf of Oman, the Arabian Sea and the Gulf, representing just 2.1% of the current ​active container ship ​fleet, according to ⁠data from Drewry, a London-based maritime consultancy.

Los Angeles Times [3/3/2026 6:39 PM, Michael Wilner, 12718K] reports U.S. and Israeli officials are privately casting doubt on projections from the Trump administration that the war with Iran could end within a matter of weeks — instead warning that a months-long campaign may be required to destroy the country’s ballistic missile capabilities and install a pliant government, multiple sources told The Times. The prospect of extended combat creates new political risks and uncertainties for President Trump, whose penchant for dramatic, short-term military operations has suddenly given way to a full-scale assault on the Islamic Republic, shocking a MAGA base that for years supported his calls to end forever wars in the Middle East. One Israeli official told The Times — despite internal guidance among Israeli officials to adhere to the U.S. president’s stated time frame — that the war "definitely could be longer" than the four-week window that Trump repeatedly offered to reporters. A U.S. official said that in private conversations, top administration officials presume the campaign will require a longer runway now that remnants of Iran’s government have chosen to resist rather than acquiesce to Washington. Protracted war was always a possibility. Trump was presented with U.S. intelligence assessments gaming out the potential conflict that emphasized how highly unpredictable the results of an attack would be — an analysis the intelligence community believes has borne out on the ground in the chaotic early days of the conflict. A longer conflict could create diplomatic space between Trump and Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has advocated for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic for over 30 years. The Israeli leader has succeeded in convincing Trump to take military actions in Iran that American presidents have rejected for decades, from bombing its nuclear facilities to assassinating its leadership, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an opening strike over the weekend.

Reuters [3/3/2026 6:33 PM, Enas ​Alashray and Ahmed Tolba, 38315K] reports Saudi Arabia will take all ​necessary measures to ‌defend its security and protect ​its territory, citizens ​and residents, the ⁠state news agency ​reported early on ​Wednesday, citing a cabinet statement. An Iranian attack ​targeted the ​U.S. embassy in Riyadh on ‌Tuesday ⁠amid ongoing Iranian missile and drone strikes on ​Gulf ​states ⁠that host U.S. bases, ​following U.S. ​and ⁠Israeli strikes on Iran on Saturday.

Wall Street Journal [3/3/2026 10:17 AM, Jared Malsin and Omar Abdel-Baqui, 646K] reports the U.S. is facing increasing risks to its military forces and diplomatic presence in the Middle East as Iran is launching waves of missile and drone attacks across the region that are testing its ability to defend a swath of territory. U.S. Central Command said that six servicemembers had been killed in the three-day-old campaign on Monday. The six died in a drone strike on a base in Kuwait, The Wall Street Journal reported. Separately, three American F-15 jets were downed by apparent friendly fire over Kuwait on Monday, in one of the most significant losses of equipment for the U.S. in the operation. Bases that house U.S. forces have also come under attack in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. The challenge for U.S. forces is handling Iranian attacks across a huge swath of the Middle East while trying to coordinate air defense with local allies. In addition to defending tens of thousands of American troops stationed in the region, the U.S. must also defend dozens of its embassies and other government installations. In the early hours of Tuesday, the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh was struck by drones, sustaining minor damage. Iran’s stockpiles of short- and medium-range missiles, as well as swarms of explosive Shahed drones and cyber and electronic-warfare capabilities, pose a formidable threat to U.S. military bases in the region, said Ravi Chaudhary, a former assistant secretary of the Air Force in charge of installations. “U.S. installations are going to be tested like never before in this particular conflict,” he said. “Our adversaries have demonstrated the intent and capability to go after our critical infrastructure to disrupt the ability of the United States to project air power.” That challenge is mounting as Iran is widening its campaign of missile and drone strikes to include infrastructure that pumps much of the world’s oil and gas supply. An Iranian drone attack set fire to an important Saudi oil hub while Iranian strikes forced a halt to production of liquefied natural gas in Qatar, one of the world’s largest exporters.

AP [3/3/2026 4:25 PM, Jennifer Peltz] reports while the U.S. fights a widening war in Iran, American prosecutors are airing claims that Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard was entangled in a foiled 2024 assassination plot that eyed then-candidate Donald Trump as a possible target. The alleged scheme is at the center of a criminal trial that started in a federal court in New York last week, days before the Mideast combat that now looms in the background. An FBI agent testified Tuesday that Merchant told her he had a Revolutionary Guard “handler” and believed the handler would help bankroll the plan. Merchant’s lawyer suggested the purported statements might not be accurate. Merchant, 47, has pleaded not guilty to attempted terrorism and other charges. His attorneys say prosecutors are trying to wedge evidence into a narrative that doesn’t fit.

NewsMax [3/3/2026 7:20 AM, Charlie McCarthy, 3760K] reports Iranian officials last month said their country possessed enough enriched fuel to build 11 nuclear bombs, according to special envoy Steve Witkoff. Witkoff revealed in a televised interview that during indirect talks, Iranian negotiators openly acknowledged they controlled roughly 460 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60% purity — enough, if further refined, to produce 11 nukes. According to Witkoff, the admission came "with no shame" and was presented as part of Tehran’s opening negotiating position. The discussions, which began Feb. 6 in Oman and concluded Thursday in Geneva, were described as a last-ditch effort by President Donald Trump to reach a diplomatic solution before taking military action. Witkoff and Jared Kushner represented the U.S. in the talks. "In that first meeting, both the Iranian negotiators said to us directly … that they controlled 460 kilograms of 60% [enriched uranium] and that they’re aware that could make 11 nuclear bombs," Witkoff said on Fox News. He added that Iranian officials also claimed an "inalienable right" to enrich uranium. Witkoff said the U.S. delegation pushed back forcefully, responding that Trump believes America has the "inalienable right to stop you dead in your tracks." He described Tehran’s posture as defiant and said it quickly became clear a meaningful agreement would be difficult, if not impossible. According to Witkoff, Iran has roughly 10,000 kilograms of fissionable material, including both 60% and 20% enriched uranium.

FOX News [3/3/2026 8:00 AM, Taylor Penley, 37576K] Video: HERE reports President Trump’s top Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, revealed that Iran had amassed enough highly enriched uranium for 11 nuclear bombs and could have upgraded some of it to weapons-grade within days — a realization he said underscored the urgency of Operation Epic Fury. "They have 10,000, roughly, kilograms of fissionable material. That’s broken up into roughly 460 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium, another thousand kilograms of 20% enriched uranium, and the balance is at 3.67," Witkoff said Monday on "Hannity." "They manufacture their own centrifuges to enrich this material, so there’s almost no stopping them. They have an endless supply of it.". Witkoff said the 60% enriched uranium posed the most immediate threat, warning that it could be brought to weapons-grade, 90% enrichment, in roughly "one week, maybe 10 days at the outside." "The 20% can be brought to weapons-grade inside of three to four weeks," he added. According to Witkoff, Iranian negotiators did not dispute the figures during talks and instead viewed their nuclear capability as leverage. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

New York Times [3/3/2026 4:52 PM, Robert Jimison, 148038K] reports a day after offering conflicting justifications for the decision to take military action against Iran, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sought to walk back his earlier assertion that the operation was precipitated by Israel’s plans to strike Iran. On Monday, Mr. Rubio told reporters on Capitol Hill that the United States struck Iran “proactively in a defensive way” under the assumption that Iran would target U.S. forces after Israel began its own attack on the country. But on Tuesday, ahead of a pair of classified briefings on the war for members of the Senate and House, Mr. Rubio sought to play down Israel’s role in prompting the strikes. “The bottom line is this: The president determined we were not going to get hit first. It’s that simple, guys,” Mr. Rubio said. “We are not going put American troops in harm’s way. If you tell the president of the United States that if we don’t go first, we’re going to have more people killed and more people injured, the president’s going to go first. That’s what he did. That’s what the president will always do.” He argued that the long-planned campaign to strike Iran and an effort by Israel to lobby President Trump to join the effort was not what ultimately influenced Mr. Trump to decide to take military action. Instead, Mr. Rubio said, it was the threat of Iran’s increasing military capability and growing arsenal of weapons. “The president of the United States made a decision: This is intolerable. Iran cannot have these missiles, cannot have these drones, cannot threaten the world,” Mr. Rubio said. “The president said this is the weakest they’ve ever been. If we don’t hit them now, a year from now, a year and a half from now, no one will be able to touch them and they’ll be able to do whatever they want and he made a decision to go.”

Politico [3/3/2026 8:00 AM, By Calen Razor, 21784K] reports the White House is trying to stave off a revolt on Capitol Hill against its military actions in Iran, as both chambers are set to vote on resolutions this week that would put guardrails on President Donald Trump’s unilateral use of military force. Their first order of business: Bring administration heavies to Capitol Hill to discuss the rationale for strikes. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was on the Hill on Monday to brief congressional leaders. He’ll be back Tuesday with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and they plan to meet first with members of the Senate, then the House. At this point, lawmakers on both sides are decrying a lack of details from the administration — including evidence that Iran posed an imminent threat to the U.S. that would necessitate military action. But so far, it’s looking like Republican leaders will be able to avoid mass GOP defections on the war power votes being forced in both chambers. When the Senate votes as soon as Wednesday on Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) bipartisan resolution that would prevent further attacks without congressional buy-in, Democrats will need to pick up at least five Republicans to secure adoption — given Democratic Sen. John Fetterman’s (D-Pa.) expected opposition. Watch GOP Sens. Todd Young (Ind.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Susan Collins (Maine), who helped advance a Venezuela war powers effort last month and were noncommittal Monday when asked how they’d vote on Iran. Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Monday he believes he has the votes to block Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna’s (D-Calif.) Iran war powers resolution in the House, which will hit the floor Thursday. “The idea that we would take the ability of our commander in chief … to finish this job, is a frightening prospect to me,” he said. Republicans have another job this week — build pressure on Democrats to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, citing a need to fully fund the agency amid heightened security risks following the strikes in Iran. The House Rules Committee convenes at 4 p.m. Tuesday afternoon to tee up another vote Thursday on a DHS funding bill similar to what the chamber passed last month, with Republicans daring Democrats to vote against defending the homeland. But there are no signs of Democratic surrender as the DHS shutdown enters Day 18 amid a stalemate over the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement agenda. Democratic leaders in the House are whipping against the vote, telling members there is “no new language to end the chaos caused by ICE in communities across the country.” Expect more debate when Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem testifies in front of members of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively. These will be her first congressional hearings since the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents, which sparked the DHS impasse in Congress.

New York Times [3/3/2026 2:59 PM, Erika Solomon and Sanjana Varghese, 148038K] reports the United States and Israel have been striking Iran’s police stations, detention centers and intelligence offices in addition to typical military targets, in an apparent effort to weaken the country’s labyrinthine and entrenched security agencies. The attacks may be part of a strategy to encourage Iranians to rise up and fight against the state from within, experts say. “This clearly is one of the main objectives of this operation — to dismantle the operative machine of a regime,” said Farzin Nadimi, a defense analyst focused on Iran at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel have cast their attack as a “historic opportunity” for Iranians to bring down their government. They have offered little in the way of public explanation as to how an unarmed civilian population could do that against a heavily armed array of security forces. It remains unclear whether the strikes will encourage Iranians to attempt to overthrow the government. Analysts say that targeting local police stations and detention centers — places where tens of thousands protesters and dissenters were held throughout waves of anti-government unrest in Iran — will be symbolic for many Iranians. “A lot of people have a lot of bad memories of being held, beaten up, and persecuted in those buildings,” Mr. Nadimi said. “Seeing them go up in the smoke is part of the process of dismantling this oppressive police state.” Israel’s military has given conflicting indications about its intentions.

ABC News [3/4/2026 4:57 AM, Staff, 34146K] reports Americans stuck overseas reveal how they are finding ways out of the Middle East even as missiles rain down over the region. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Wall Street Journal [3/3/2026 5:37 PM, Liz Webber] reports a drone hit the parking lot of the American consulate in Dubai, while two struck the U.S. Embassy in the capital of Saudi Arabia, causing part of its roof to collapse. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said President Trump had independently decided to attack Iran unrelated to Israel’s own plans to do so, reversing his statements from yesterday. Trump said Iran’s military has been largely neutralized, including its navy.

CBS News [3/3/2026 7:09 PM, Melissa Gaffney, 51110K] reports the Pentagon has released the names of four U.S. Army Reserve soldiers killed during the ongoing war with Iran. They were among six service members who died when an Iranian strike hit a tactical operations center in Kuwait. Capt. Cody A. Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Florida. Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Nebraska. Sgt. 1st Class Nicole M. Amor, 39, of White Bear Lake, Minnesota. Sgt. Declan J. Coady, 20, of West Des Moines, lowa. They died Sunday in Port Shuaiba during an unmanned aircraft system attack, the Defense Department said Tuesday in a statement. "We honor our fallen Heroes, who served fearlessly and selflessly in defense of our nation. Their sacrifice, and the sacrifices of their families, will never be forgotten," Lt. Gen. Robert Harter, chief of the U.S. Army Reserve and commanding general of the U.S. Army Reserve Command, said in a news release. The four soldiers were all assigned to the 103rd Sustainment Command based in Des Moines. "To the families and teammates of these Cactus Nation Soldiers: you have my deepest sympathy and my respect," said Maj. Gen. Todd Erskine, commanding general of the 79th Theater Sustainment Command. "Our nation is kept safe by folks like these brave men and women who put it all on the line every single day. They represent the heart of America. We will remember their names, their service, and their sacrifice.". The names of the two other U.S. service members who have been killed are being withheld until next of kin are notified. U.S. Central Command initially announced Sunday that three service members were killed in Kuwait, then said Monday that another had died of their injuries. Later, they said remains of two previously unaccounted-for service members were also recovered from a facility that was hit during Iran’s initial attacks.

Los Angeles Times [3/3/2026 12:28 PM, Mackenzie Hawkins and Ian King, 12718K] reports U.S. officials are considering caps on the number of AI accelerators Nvidia Corp. can export to any one Chinese company, which would further constrain the chipmaker’s reentry into a crucial market. The Trump administration has talked about limiting Chinese firms to buying 75,000 of Nvidia’s H200 chips each, according to people familiar with the matter. Shipments of Advanced Micro Devices Inc.’s MI325 chips, which have similar capabilities, would also count toward a customer’s cap, the people said. These accelerators — a prized commodity in the tech world — are used to develop and run artificial intelligence models. Total shipments to China could still reach as many as a million units, the people said, citing an upper bound Trump’s team set earlier in the regulatory process. But the lion’s share of current applications come from a small number of Chinese tech giants, which under per-customer caps could collectively receive hundreds of thousands at most. The 75,000 limit is less than half of what firms like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and ByteDance Ltd. privately told Nvidia they’d like to purchase. AMD and the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which oversees chip export licenses, declined to comment. Nvidia didn’t respond to a request, while Alibaba and ByteDance didn’t respond outside of normal business hours.

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